seized me hip and thigh and hurled me into an emotional whirlpool, where
chills and thrills rapidly succeed each other. Because I am fifteen
years older than Philip the boy invests me with a halo and bathes me in
adoration. I am fifteen years older than he, I am bald, obscure, and far
from prosperous, and there is unmistakably nothing about me to dazzle
the youthful imagination. Yet the facts are as I have stated them.
Philip likes to be with me, copies me without apparently trying to, and
has chosen my profession--so he has often told me--for his own. I am
pretty sure that he has made up his mind when he is as old as I am to
smoke the same brand of rather mediocre tobacco which I have adopted for
practical reasons. I am sometimes tempted to think that Philip, at my
age, intends to be as bald as I am.
Hence the alternate thrills and chills. I am by nature restless under
worship. The sense of my own inconsequence grows positively painful in
the face of Philip's outspoken veneration. There are people to whom such
tribute is as incense and honey. But I am not one of them. I have tried
to be and have failed. I have argued with myself that, after all, it is
the outsider who is the best judge; that we are most often severest upon
ourselves; that if Philip finds certain high qualities in me, perhaps
there is in me something exceptional. I even go so far as to draw up a
little catalogue of my acts and achievements. I can recall men who have
said much sillier things than I have ever said, and published much worse
stuff than I have ever written. I repeat to myself the rather striking
epigram I made at Smith's house last week, and I go back to the old
gentleman from Andover who two years ago told me that there was
something about me that reminded him of Oliver Wendell Holmes. By dint
of much trying I work myself up into something of a glow; but it is all
artificial, cerebral, incubated. The exaltation is momentary, the cold
chill of fact overtakes me. There is no use in deceiving one's self.
Philip is mistaken. I am not worthy.
But that day Philip rallied nobly to the situation. My little remark on
strong language had hurt him, but he saw also that I was sorry to have
hurt him, and he was sorry for me in turn. "I don't in the least mind
your telling me what you think about the way we fellows talk," he said.
"That's the advantage of having a man for one's friend, he is not afraid
of telling you the truth even if it hurts. And then, if you wish to, you
can fight back. You can't do that with a woman."
"Have you found that out for yourself!" I asked him.
He looked at me to see if again I was resorting to irony. But this time
he found me sincere.
"Women!" Philip sniffed. "I have found it doesn't pay to talk seriously
to a woman. There is really only one way of getting on with them, and
that's jollying them. And the thicker you lay it on, the better." He put
away his pipe and proffered me a cigarette. "I like to change off now
and then. I have these made for me in a little Russian shop I discovered
some time ago. They draw better than any cigarette I have ever smoked.
Of course, there are women who are serious and all that. There are a lot
in the postgraduate department and some in the optional literature
courses. But you ought to see them! And such grinds. None of us fellows
stands a ghost of a chance with them. They take notes all the time and
read all the references and learn them by heart. You can't jolly
_them_. They wouldn't know a joke if you led them up to one and told
them what it meant. I think coeducation is all played out, don't you?
Home is the only place for women, anyhow. Do you like your cigarette?"
The Patient Observer, it may possibly have been gathered before this, is
somewhat of a sentimentalist. He liked his cigarette very well, but
through the blue haze he looked at Philip and could not help thinking of
the time--only two short years ago--when he, the Patient Observer, with
his own eyes saw Philip borrow a dollar from his mother before setting
out for an ice-cream parlour in the company of two girl cousins. The
Patient Observer has changed little in the last two years; his hair may
be a little thinner and his knowledge of doctors' bills a little more
complete. But in Philip of to-day he found it hard to recognise the
Philip of two years ago. And the marvels of the law of growth which he
thus saw exemplified moved the Patient Observer to throw open the gates
of pent-up eloquence. He lit his pipe and began to discourse to Philip
on the world, on life, and on a few things besides.
And when it was time for both of us to go to bed, Philip stood up and
said, "I wish I came every day. You don't know what a bore it is,
listening to that drool the 'profs' hand you out up there." His fervent
young spirit would not be silent until, with one magnificent gesture, he
had swept the tobacco jar to the floor and shattered two electric lamps.
Then he went to his room and left me wondering at the vast mysteries
that underlie the rough surface of the sophomore's soul.
X
THE COMPLETE COLLECTOR--I
"I have given up books and pictures," said Cooper. "I now devote myself
entirely to collecting samples of the world's wisdom."
"Proverbs, do you mean?" I asked.
"No, but the facts on which proverbs are based. You see, I grew tired of
pictures when it got to be a question of bidding against millionaires
for the possession of spurious old masters. The break came when Downes
proved that my Velasquez was painted in 1896. His own, it turned out,
was done in 1820; but even then, you see, he had the advantage over me.
So I concentrated on books. But I could not resist the temptation of
glancing through my first editions now and then, and the pages began to
give way. Then I tried Chinese porcelains. There, again, I had to
compete against Downes, who ordered his agent to buy two hundred
thousand dollars' worth of Chinese antiquities for the Louis XIV. room
in his new Tudor palace. And, besides, this rather disconcerting thing
happened: I had as my guest a mandarin who was passing through New York
on his way to Europe, and I showed him my collection of jades. 'There
was only one collection like this in China some years ago,' I told him.
'Yes,' he replied, 'it was in my house when the foreign troops entered
Peking in 1900.' So I decided to sell my porcelains.
"But of course I had, as you say, to collect something, and for a long
time I could think of no field in which a cultivated taste and personal
effort could make way against the competition of mere brute millions.
And then, all at once, I hit upon proverbs. The suggestion came in a
rather peculiar fashion. It seems that there was an eccentric old poet
on Long Island who spent many years in collecting all sorts of inanimate
freaks, odds and ends, and rubbish. When he died they found among his
treasures a purse made out of a sow's ear and a whistle made from a
pig's tail. I saw my opportunity at once. The eccentric old man, by
acquiring two such extraordinary _objets d'art_ had indulged himself in
a sneer at the world's proverbial wisdom. I would come to the rescue of
our threatened stock of experience by gathering the facts that upheld
it. I would make it, besides, more than the selfish hobby of the private
collector who gives the world only a very little share of the pleasure
he tastes. I would make my collection a museum and a laboratory. Instead
of reading about the wise ant and the busy bee people should come and
see them in the life. It was the difference between reading about
animals in a book and seeing them in the life."
"And have you succeeded?" I asked.
"Beyond all expectations," he replied. "Come, I will take you through my
galleries," and he showed the way into the queerest garden I have ever
seen. It was as if a menagerie and a museum had been brought together in
the open air. Between enclosures and cages which harboured animals of
all species, ran long tables supporting glass cases like those used for
exhibiting coins or rare manuscripts.
"Now here," he said, stopping before a small chest with a glass top,
"here is my collection of straws."
"Straws?" I said.
"Yes. It is small but select. Here, for instance, is the last straw that
broke the camel's back. Some one suggests that it must have been a Merry
Widow hat, but that's jesting, of course. This again is the straw that
showed which way the wind blew and enabled a politician to change sides
and get a reputation as a reformer. We will see the politician further
on." I noticed then for the first time that the iron-barred cages
contained human beings as well as beasts. "Here is a handful of straws
which an entire conference of theologians spent three months in
splitting. This," pointing to a little mannikin about four inches high,
"is the man of straw whose defeat in debate gave one of our United
States Senators his brilliant reputation. And this, finally, is a
handful of straws out of the pile on which Jack Daw slept when he gave
up his bed to buy his wife a looking-glass, or, as some one has
suggested, an automobile.
"And now observe the advantages of my method. The student, having been
shown the straw that broke the camel's back, will, if he is a cautious
student, well drilled in the methods of modern research, demand to see
the camel. Well, here it is," and Cooper turned toward a large enclosure
where several members of the family _Camelidæ_ were peacefully browsing,
with the exception of one that lay in a corner with drooping head and
closed eyes, apparently lifeless. "It's been hard work, of course, and
expensive, keeping a broken-backed camel alive, but, encouraged by such
examples of the remarkable vitality of animals as may be seen for
instance in the Democratic donkey, I have persisted and succeeded. This
rather thin-legged creature near the fence is the camel that tried to
pass through the needle's eye, and the one close beside him is the one
swallowed by the man who strained at a gnat. Harrington asserts that he
has never been able to see how either phenomenon is possible, but the
problem is only half as difficult as it appears. For it is evident that
if a camel were small enough to pass through the eye of a needle, there
would be comparatively little trouble in swallowing him. And, speaking
of needles, it has been a constant regret that my collection is still
without a needle found in a haystack."
I have not the space to enumerate one tithe of what Cooper showed me. As
we hurried past the cages containing numerous specimens of _Homo
Sapiens_, he contented himself with pointing out a physician who had
failed to cure himself by psycho-therapeutics; a shoemaker who by
sticking to his last failed to become a railroad president, though in
the course of time he could tell where every man's shoe pinched; an
importer who, in defiance of the Pure Food law, put new wine into old
bottles, and labelled them Bordeaux; and a harmless-looking man of
middle age, who continued to smile and smile, and had played Iago,
Macbeth, and Hamlet's uncle. Before a sturdy-looking man dressed in
working-clothes Cooper stopped for a moment and said, "Mr. C. W. Post
and Mr. James Farley assure me that this is the rarest item in my
collection."
"Who is he?" I asked.
"It is a union labourer who is worthy of his hire," Cooper said.
XI
THE EVERLASTING FEMININE
I am convinced that the easiest business in the world must be the
writing of epigrams on Woman. I have been reading, of late, in a new
volume of "Maxims and Fables." It came to me with the compliments of the
author, in lieu of a small debt which he has kept outstanding for
several years. Although the writer contradicts himself on every third or
fourth page, I am justified in calling the book a very able bit of work
for the reason that the ordinary book on this subject contradicts itself
on every other page. No one who glances through this volume will fail to
understand why the psychology of Woman should be a favourite subject
with very young and very light thinkers. It is the only form of
literature that calls for absolutely no equipment in the author. Writing
a play, for instance, presupposes some acquaintance with a few plays
already written. No one can succeed as a novelist without a fair
knowledge of the technique of millinery or a tolerable mastery of stock
exchange slang. The writer of scientific articles for the magazines must
have fancy, and the writer of advertisements must have poetry and wit.
But to produce a book of epigrams on Woman requires nothing but an
elementary knowledge of spelling and the courage necessary to put the
product on the market.
The secret of the thing is so simple that it would be a pity to keep it
from the comparatively few persons who have failed to discover it. It
consists entirely in the fact that whatever one says about Woman is
true. And not only that, but every statement that can possibly be made
on the subject is sure to ring true, which is much better even than
being true. On every other subject under the sun there is always one
opinion which sounds a little more convincing than every other opinion.
There are, for example, people who insist that birds of a feather do not
necessarily flock together more frequently than birds of a different
feather do; and they will assert that if you step on a worm with real
firmness the chances of his turning are much less than if you did not
step on him at all. Nevertheless, there is undeniably a truer ring about
the assertion that birds do flock together than about the assertion that
they do not, and we accept more readily the worm that turns than the
worm that remains peaceful under any provocation. But this is not the
case with aphorisms about the gentler sex. There, everything sounds as
plausible as everything else.
Let me be specific. Right at the beginning of the volume to which I have
alluded, I came across the following apothegm: "Long after Woman has
obtained the right to vote she will continue to face the wrong way when
she steps from a street-car." "How true," I said to myself. Well, a few
days later, while glancing through the pages at the end of the volume,
my eye fell on the following lines: "Now that Woman is learning to face
the right way when she steps from a street-car, she has demonstrated her
right to the ballot." "How true." But I had scarcely expressed my
approval when it occurred to me that I had read the same thing elsewhere
in the book. And when I searched out the earlier passage and compared
the two and found that they did not say the same thing, but quite the
opposite thing, it did not seem to make a very great difference after
all. They both sounded plausible. I recited one sentence aloud and then
the other, and they rang equally true; and the more I repeated them the
truer they rang.
Delighted with my chance discovery I proceeded to make a thorough study
of "Maxims and Fables" with the object of bringing together the author's
widely scattered observations on the same topic under their appropriate
heads. The work went slowly at first; but after a little while I found I
could pick out a maxim and turn almost instinctively to one that
directly contradicted it. The occupation is fascinating as well as
instructive. It sheds a new light on the conditions of human knowledge
and the workings of the human mind. Consider, if you will, the following
half-dozen sentences that I succeeded in compiling in less than ten
minutes. They all deal with the question of a woman's age:
"A woman is as old as she looks.
"A woman is as old as she says.
"A woman is as old as she would like to be.
"A woman is as old as the only man that counts would have her be.
"A woman is as old as any particular situation requires.
"A woman is as old as her dearest woman friends say she is."
Let any one read these maxims to himself quietly, and admit that not
only would each of them impress him as true if found standing by itself,
but that they all ring quite as true when taken together. But that is by
no means all. It may be shown that if all these propositions are true,
taken singly or together, the negative of each and all of these
propositions is also true. Thus:
"A woman is seldom as old as she looks.
"A woman is never as old as she says.
"No woman is just the age she would like to be.
"A woman is rarely as old or as young as the one man that counts would
have her be.
"Few women are ever of the age that a particular situation requires.
"No woman is as old as her dearest woman friends say she is."
How all these opposites can be equally true, I will not undertake to
explain. It is probably inherent in the very nature of the subject. The
French, a people wise in experience, knew what they were about when they
laid it down that if you have a mystery to solve, you must look for the
woman. What they meant was, that, having found a woman, you may make any
statements you please about her; the world will accept them
unquestioningly and your puzzle will consequently be solved.
Sometimes, however, it has seemed to me that a possible reason for this
very curious fact may be found in the established fashion of speaking
about men as individuals and about women as a class and a type. And that
class or type we saddle with all the faults and virtues of all its
individual members. When Smith tells me that his automobile cost him
three times as much as I know he has paid for it, I record my
impressions by telling Jones as soon as I meet him that the man Smith is
an incorrigible liar. But when Mrs. Smith tells me that her family is
one of the oldest in Massachusetts, which I have every reason to believe
is not so, I invariably say to myself or to some one else, "A woman's
appreciation of the truth is like her appreciation of music; she likes
it best when she closes her eyes to it."
Or Smith may be a very straightforward man, given to plain-speaking, and
when you ask him how he liked your last dinner he may say that in his
opinion the wine was better than the conversation. In that case you will
probably tell your wife that Smith has shown himself to be an
insufferable ass, and that you have decided to cut his acquaintance. But
when Mrs. Smith tells you that your expensive dinners are rather beyond
what a man of your modest income should go in for, you merely writhe and
smile; only on the train the next day you will say to Harrington, "Has
it ever occurred to you that a woman loves the truth, not because it is
the truth, but because it hurts? Take a cigarette."
For these reasons I would urge every one who can possibly find time, to
write a book of maxims about Woman, provided he has not done so already.
In the first place, as I have shown, it is an easy and delightful
occupation, which, for that very reason, is in danger of becoming
overcrowded. But there is another reason for losing no time in the
matter. Now and then I have the foreboding that some day in the near
future the world may suddenly lose its habit of believing that, where
women are concerned, two and two are four and are not four at the same
time. And then there will be no more writing of epigrams on Woman. For
it is evident that there can be no point to an epigram if its assertions
must be qualified. The situation will become impossible when students of
psychology, instead of writing, "Woman likes the truth for the same
reason that she likes olives--to satisfy a momentary craving," will be
compelled to write, "Some women tell the truth, and some women do not,"
"Some women mean yes when they say no, and some women mean no," "Some
women think with their hearts, and some think with their minds." That
little word "some" will settle the epigram writer's business, and an
interesting form of literature will disappear.
Not that in some respects its disappearance will fail to arouse regret.
These books amused very many people in the writing, and they never did
very much harm. And it is something to have a universal topic that every
one can write on, just as it is stimulating to have a universal appetite
like eating, or a universal accomplishment like walking. How many other
subjects besides Woman have we on which the schoolboy and the sage can
write with equal confidence, fluency, and approach to the truth?
Possibly even women will regret that they are no longer the subject of
universal comment. Who knows? A woman will forgive injury, but never
indifference.
XII
THE FANTASTIC TOE
When we reach the year 1910 [Harding dreamt he was reading in the
_Weekly Review_ for 1952], we find the art of dancing well on its way
toward establishing itself as the predominant mode of expression. The
next few years marked a tremendous advance. The graceful _danseuses_ who
interpreted Mendelssohn's "Spring Song," Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony,
and Shakespeare's "Tempest" were the pioneers of a vast movement. We can
do nothing better than recall a few typical public performances given in
New York during the season of 1912-13.
In a splendid series of matinées extending over two months, Professor
William P. Jones danced the whole of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire." The first two volumes were danced in slow time, to the
accompaniment of two flutes and a lyre. The poses were statuesque rather
than graceful, and the gestures had in them a great deal of the antique.
But, beginning with the story of the barbarian invasions in the third
volume, Professor Jones's interpretation took on a fury that was almost
bacchantic. The sack of Rome by the Vandals in the year 451 was pictured
in a veritable tempest of gyrations, leaps, and somersaults. The subtle
and hidden meanings of the text called for all the resources of the
Professor's eloquent legs, arms, shoulders, lips, and eyes. A certain
obscure passage in the life of Attila the Hun, which had long been a
puzzle to students of Gibbon, was for the first time made clear to the
average man when Professor Jones, standing on one foot, whirled around
rapidly in one direction for five minutes, and then, instantly reversing
himself, spun around for ten minutes in the opposite direction.
In the ballroom of the Hotel Taftoftia, during Christmas week, William
K. Spriggs, Ph.D., held a number of fashionable audiences spellbound
with his marvellously lucid dances in Euclid and Algebra up to
Quadratics. Perhaps the very acme of the Terpsichorean art was attained
in the masterly fluency of body and limbs with which Mr. Spriggs
demonstrated that the sum of the angles in any triangle is equal
to two right angles. In Pittsburg Mr. Spriggs is said to have moved
an audience to tears when, by an original combination of the Virginia
reel, the two-step, and the Navajo snake dance, he showed that if
_x^{2}+y^{2}_ = 25 and _x^{2}-y^{2}_ = 25, _x_ equals 5 and _y_ equals
zero. All the pride and selfishness of _x_, all the despair of _y_, were
mirrored in the dancer's play of features. The spectators could not help
pondering over the seeming law of injustice that rules the world. Why
should _x_ be everything in the equations and _y_ nothing? Why should
_y_'s nonentity be used even to set off the all importance of _x_? But
they found no answer. On the other hand, a large number of college
freshmen who had failed on their entrance mathematics found no
difficulty in passing off their conditions after attending three
performances of Mr. Spriggs's dance.
We can give only the briefest mention to an entire school of experts and
scientists who helped to make the season of 1912-13 memorable in the
annals of the greatest of all arts. For a solitary illustration we may
take Mr. Boom, who, at the annual meeting of the American Zoölogical
Association, danced his monumental two-volume work entitled, "The
Variations of the Alimentary Canal in the Frogs and Toads." This dance
was subsequently repeated before several crowned heads of Europe.