restricted to ten per cent. of the total contents of such publication;
and no magazine fiction child under the age of twelve shall be
represented as possessing an amount of intelligence greater than the
combined wisdom of its parents.
"2. The married heroine of a society drama who has consistently
preferred yachting trips, bridge, and the opera to the company of her
children shall be precluded from calling upon them for aid to save
herself from the dangers of a mad infatuation.
"3. Children under the age of eighteen shall be employed in no form of
industry whatsoever. If there are not enough hands to produce piece
goods for the Congo and the Philippines, let them draft all adult
motor-car chauffeurs, diamond polishers, wine agents, amateur coach
drivers, settlement workers, preachers of the simple life, and writers
of musical comedy.
"4. In the public schools there shall be no talks or lessons dealing
with the duties of citizenship. The time now given to that subject shall
be devoted to the reading of dime novels and fairy tales, so that on
graduating, children shall not be confronted with so startling a
contrast between the realities of life and what they have learned at
school.
"5. Cooking and other branches of domestic science shall no longer be
taught in the schools. One-half of us expect to live in family hotels
and the other half will probably be in no position to afford the
expensive ingredients employed in scientific cookery.
"6. Mr. Francis Galton, who invented Eugenics, and Messrs. Karl Pearson
and Sidney Webb, who helped to popularise it, shall be executed. Mr.
Bernard Shaw shall be banished to a desert island."
And the mayor all the while kept thinking how like her mother Helen was:
her voice, her hair, her eyes, but especially her voice. It filled the
room with many-coloured vibrations of the consistency of building
concrete and hid completely from the mayor's sight the crowd of young
faces, O'Brien, the Board of Aldermen, and the three million presidents
of the Board of Education. Only Helen remained and she came close to him
and laid her cool fingers on his aching head.
The mayor started up to find his wife bending over him.
"Edward," she was saying, "you promised me you would go to bed early."
"My dear," he replied, "I would have if I had not fallen asleep in my
chair. Have you had a pleasant evening at the theatre?"
"It is dreadful weather," she said, "and I have a bit of cold. I suppose
I shouldn't have gone out to-night, but it was the last chance, and you
know the children _would_ see 'Peter Pan.'"
XVIII
THE MARTIANS
The saddest thing about the recent announcement that there are no canals
on Mars is that Robert and I will now have so little to talk about.
Robert is my favourite waiter, and when he found out that I am what the
newspapers call a literary worker, he made up his mind that the ordinary
topics of light conversation would not do at all for me. After prolonged
resistance on my part he has succeeded in reducing our common interests
to two: the canals on Mars and French depopulation. Now and then I
venture to bring up the weather or the higher cost of living. Once I
asked him what he thought about the need of football reform. Once I
tried to drag in Mme. Steinheil. But Robert listens patiently, and when
I have concluded he calls my attention to the fact that in 1908 the
number of deaths in France exceeded the number of births by 12,000. When
the French population fails to stir me, he wonders whether the
inhabitants of Mars are really as intelligent as they are supposed to
be.
And yet it must have been I that first suggested Mars to him. Let me
confess. I do not love the Martian canals with the devouring passion
they have aroused in susceptible souls like Robert. But in a quieter way
the canals have been very dear to me. Their threatened loss comes like
the loss of an old friend; a distant friend whose face one has almost
forgotten and never hopes to see again, from whom one never hopes to
borrow, and to whom one never expects to lend, but who all the more
lives in the mind a remote, impersonal, and gentle influence. I am not
ashamed to admit that I have learned to care more for the Martian
canals than for any canals much closer to us. The Panama Canal will
probably cut in two the distance to China, and give us a monopoly of the
cotton goods trade in the Pacific; but I think cotton goods are
unhealthful, and I don't want to go to China. The Suez Canal may be the
mainstay of the British Empire, but I have no doubt that it would make
just as satisfactory a mainstay for some other empire. My interest in
the Erie Canal is connected entirely with the fact that when it was
opened somebody said, "What hath God wrought!" or "There is no more
North and no more South"--I have forgotten which.
I have always had a softer spot in my heart for the inhabitants of Mars
than for any other alien people. They have always impressed me as more
unassuming than the English, fonder of outdoor exercise than the
Germans, and less addicted to garrulity than the French. They lead
simple, laborious lives, digging away at their canals every morning, and
filling them up every night, for reasons best known to themselves and
certain professors at Harvard. I am attracted by their quaint
appearance. Mr. H. G. Wells, for instance, has depicted them with
cylindrical bodies of sheet iron, long legs like a tripod, heads like an
enormous diver's helmet, and arms like the tentacles of an octopus--as
odd a sight in their way as the latest woman's fashions from Paris.
Others have described the Martians as pot-bellied and hairless, with
goggle eyes, powerful arms, and curly, gelatinous legs, the result of
millions of years of universal culture and Subway congestion. A race so
unattractive could not but be virtuous. One feels instinctively that
there is no graft bound up with the digging of the Martian canals.
No, anything but graft. One of the principal reasons why I am so fond of
the canals on Mars is that they are the most cheaply built system of
public works on record. A professor of astronomy in Italy or Arizona
finds a few dim lines on the plate of his camera, and immediately Mars
is equipped with a splendid network of artificial waterways. Am I wrong
in thinking of the Martian canals as one of the greatest triumphs of the
human mind? An African savage might find an elephant's skeleton and from
that reconstruct the animal in life. Only science can reconstruct an
elephant from a half-inch fragment of the bone of his hind leg. Only a
scientist could have reconstructed the Martian canals from a few
photographic scratches. Of such reconstructions our civilisation is
largely made up. We build up a statesman out of a bit of buncombe and a
frock coat; a genius out of two sonnets and half a dozen cocktails; a
dramatic "star" out of a lisp and a giggle; a two-column news story out
of the fragment of a fact; a multitude out of three men and a band; a
crusade out of one man and a press agent; a novel out of the trimmings
of earlier novels; a reputation out of an accident; a captain of
industry out of an itching palm; a philanthropist out of a beneficent
smile and a platitude; a critic out of a wise look and a fountain pen;
and a social prophet out of pretty small potatoes. I need not allude
here to the process of making mountains out of molehills, beams out of
motes, and entire summers out of single swallows.
But mind, I do not mean that I was ever sceptical about the canals.
Indeed, I have always admired the way in which their existence was
demonstrated. There have always been two ways of proving that something
is true. One way is to bring forward sixteen reasons why, let us say,
the moon is made of green cheese. The other way is to assume that the
moon is made of green cheese and to answer sixteen objections brought
forward against the theory. I have always preferred the second method,
because it throws the burden of proof on your opponent. There is no
argument under the sun that cannot be refuted. Obviously, then, it is an
advantage to let your opponents supply the argument while you supply the
refutation.
Neglect this precaution, and you are in difficulties from the start. You
contend, for instance, that the moon must be made of cheese because the
moon and cheese are both round, as a rule. True, says your opponent, but
so are doughnuts, women's arguments, and, occasionally, the wheels on a
trolley car. The moon and cheese, you go on, both come after dinner.
Yes, says your opponent, but so do unwelcome visitors, musical
comedies, and indigestion. Then, you say, there is the cow who jumped
over the moon. Would she have resorted to such extraordinary procedure
if she had not perceived that the moon was made of cheese from her own
milk? Well (says your opponent), the cow might merely have been trying
to gain a broader outlook upon life. And here you are thirteen reasons
from the end, and your hands hopelessly full.
Now compare the advantages of the other method. You adopt a resolute
bearing and declare: "The moon is made of green cheese." It is now for
your opponent to speak. He argues: "But that would make the moon's
ingredients different from those of the earth and other celestial
bodies." "Not at all," you say; "the earth is made up largely of chalk,
and what is the difference between chalk and cheese, except in the
price?" "But, if it's green cheese the moon is made of," asks your
opponent, "why does it look yellow?" "Only the natural effect of
atmospheric refraction," you reply calmly; "remember how a politician's
badly soiled reputation will shine out a brilliant white, through the
favourable atmosphere that surrounds a Congressional investigating
committee. Recall how a lady who is green with envy at her neighbour's
new hat will turn pink with delight when the two meet in the street and
kiss. Recall how the same lady's complexion of roses and milk will
assume its natural yellow under the candid dissection of her dearest
friends." Your opponent might go on marshalling his objections forever,
and you would have no difficulty in knocking them on the head.
So I used to believe. But if the method breaks down in the case of Mars
and its canals, it breaks down everywhere else. If there are no canals
on Mars, what about the blessings of the tariff, which are based on
exactly the same kind of reasoning? What about the efficacy of mental
healing? What about the advantages of giving up coffee? What about the
impending invasion of California by the Japanese? What about the
Kaiser's qualifications as an art critic? What about the restraining
influence of publicity on corporations? What about the connection
between easy divorce and the higher life? What about the divine right of
railroad presidents? What about the theatrical manager's passion for a
purified stage? What about the value of all anti-fat medicines? All of
these things have been shown to be true by assuming that they are true.
If the canals on Mars go, all these have to go. And that makes me almost
as sad as the fact that I shall have nothing to talk about with my
favourite waiter.
XIX
THE COMPLETE COLLECTOR--II
"The idea of this exquisite little collection of frauds and forgeries,"
said Cooper, "--and I don't believe I am boasting when I speak of my few
treasures as exquisite--came to me in a natural enough way. One of the
bitterest trials the connoisseur has to contend with, is the
consciousness that no amount of care and expense can guarantee him an
absolutely flawless collection. The suspicion of the experts has fallen
upon not a single picture, brass, marble or iron in his galleries; and
yet as he walks those galleries the unhappy owner groans under the moral
conviction that there are spurious pictures on his walls, spurious
marbles in his halls, spurious carvings and coins under his glass
cases, and that there they must stay until discovered and exposed.
"A perfect collection, therefore, in the sense of a collection in which
every object can be traced back with absolute certainty to its author
and its place of origin, is impossible. Unless, and that is how the
inspiration came," said Cooper, "unless one set to collecting objects of
art which have been proved to be fraudulent. Then and only then, could
one be sure that one's treasures were just what one believed them to be.
And that is just what I set out to do. I began buying objects of art,
which, after masquerading under a great name, had been exposed and given
up to scorn. I have kept at it for twenty years, and I can now point to
what no American multi-millionaire can ever boast of, a collection made
up _entirely_ of 'fakes.' When I stroll through _my_ little museum I am
obsessed by no doubts. I am as certain as I am of being alive that no
genuine Leonardo or Holbein or Manet or Cellini has found its way under
my roof.
"I must admit," Cooper went on, "that the question of economy has been
an important factor in the case. When we first set up housekeeping, a
year after our marriage, our means were not unlimited and our tastes
were of the very highest. Buying the best work or even the second-best
work of the best painters was out of the question. But buying cheap
copies of the masters, replicas, casts, photogravures, was equally
impossible. The idea of owning anything that some one else may own at
the same time is abhorrent to the true collector. On the other hand, if
we went in for spurious masterpieces, we were sure of securing unique
specimens at very small expense. And I will not deny that the bargain
element appealed very strongly to Mrs. Cooper. Most of our things we
got at really fabulous reductions. There was the crown of an Assyrian
princess of the twenty-fourth century B.C., for which one of the leading
European museums paid $75,000, and which, after it was shown that it had
been made by a Copenhagen jeweller in 1907, I purchased from the museum
for something like fifty-five dollars, plus the freight. This charming
little landscape with sheep and a shepherd boy brought $23,000 in a
Fifth Avenue auction room two years ago. Three months after it was sold,
a certain Mrs. Smith on Staten Island sued her husband for desertion and
non-support, and in the course of the proceedings it was brought out
that Smith made $10,000 a year painting Corots and Daubignys, and that
the $23,000 picture was one of his latest achievements. I got it for a
little over one hundred dollars. I am really proud of the picture,
because Smith has put into it enough of the Corot quality to deceive
many an expert observer. If I were not in possession of the documentary
proof that Smith painted the picture in 1908, I should myself be tempted
at times to believe that Smith and his wife lied in court and that the
picture is really a Corot.
"But these are the chances," said Cooper, "that every art-lover must
take. I have said that at present I feel perfectly sure that not a
single genuine work has crept in to vitiate my collection. And that is
true. But only a few weeks ago I had a very bad quarter of an hour
indeed over this spurious Tanagra figurine. It had been bought for a
museum not one hundred miles from here by a patron who was a good friend
of mine, and who had paid several thousand dollars for the statuette. I
was in the room with Hawley when Stimson, our very greatest Greek
archæologist and art-expert, entered, and, catching sight of the little
figure, picked it up, studied it for a few moments, smelt it, licked it
with his tongue, pressed it to his cheek, and handed it back to my
friend with a single, blasting comment--'fake.' We two were incredulous,
but within fifteen minutes Stimson had convinced us that the thing was a
palpable fraud. Quite beside himself with vexation, Hawley lifted up the
statuette and was about to dash it into fragments on the ground, when I
caught his arm. 'Let me have it,' I said; and I carried it home in great
glee.
"Well, a few weeks later I was showing my collection to Dr. Friedheimer
of Berlin, who is a much greater man even than Stimson. The German
savant stopped in fascination before the Tanagra figurine. 'A pretty
good imitation,' I said. He seized the statuette with trembling fingers.
'Imidation!' he shouted. 'Chenuine, chenuine as de hairs on your het.
Himmel, wat a find!' And he proceeded to do what Stimson had done, and
he smelt it and licked it, and rubbed it against his beard, and I am not
sure but that he knocked it against his forehead to test its texture.
And then in his agitation he let the figure fall, and it broke in two on
the floor, and inside we found a bit of newspaper dated Naples, January
27, 1903. Dr. Friedheimer could only say, 'Unerhört!' but I was nearly
frantic with delight. I repaired the statuette, and it now holds, as you
see, the place of honour in my collection."
As we sat over our coffee and cigars, Cooper grew reflective. "After
all," he said, "is not the fabricator of frauds fully as great an artist
as the man whose work he imitates? Take the famous marble Aphrodite of a
few years ago, which was attributed by some critics to Praxiteles, and
by some critics to Scopas, until proof came that it had been made in
Hoboken. Consider the labour that went into the fraud. For years,
probably, the dishonest sculptor was engaged in preliminary studies for
the work. He spent months in libraries, museums, and the lecture-rooms
of learned professors. He impregnated himself with the spirit of Greek
art. He devoted months to searching for a suitable piece of antique
marble. How long he was in carving it, I can only guess. When it was
completed, he boiled it in oil; then he boiled it in milk; then he
boiled it in soap; then he boiled it in a concoction of molasses and
wine; then he buried it in moist soil, and let it age for three years.
"Now, suppose the statue had been really carved by Praxiteles. That
joyous master and genius might have put two weeks' work, three weeks'
work, a month's work, upon it, and there you were. What was the labour
of a lifetime to the other man was to Praxiteles just an easy bit of
routine. If art is a man's soul and hopes and brain and sweat and blood
put into concrete form, who produced the truer work of art, Praxiteles
or the unknown sculptor of Hoboken? I speak only of the comparative
expenditure of effort. So far as the artistic result is concerned, it is
evident, from the ease with which we were taken in, that there is no
great difference between the school of Hoboken and the school of
Praxiteles."
XX
WHEN A FRIEND MARRIES
Taking dinner with an old friend who has just been married is an
experience I regard with apprehension. In the first place, it is always
awkward to be introduced to a woman who begins by being jealous of you
because you knew her husband long before she did. She may be a nice
woman; in fact, from the air of almost imbecile happiness that invests
young Hobson, you are sure she is. But since it is natural to hate those
whom we have injured, it is natural for young wives to dislike their
husband's friends.
People say that a woman begins to prepare for marriage at the age of
five. Judging from the absolutely spontaneous way in which the Hobsons
have taken to it, marriage is a career that calls for no preparation
whatever. I am not referring, of course, to the outward aspects of early
housekeeping. The little difficulties that beset the newly married are
there. I can see that my hostess is more anxious about the creamed
potatoes than she will be five years hence. Her attitude to the maid who
waits on us is by turns excessively severe and excessively timid. I
learn that the dining-room table has been sent back twice to the store,
and is still not the one originally ordered. But these are trifles. It
is with the Hobsons' souls I am concerned; and their souls are perfectly
at ease in their new estate.
The first few minutes, like all introductions, go stiffly. The bride
smiles and says that Jack has often spoken to her about you. Whereupon
you remember that there are not many secrets a young husband keeps from
his wife. Jack is no sieve, but he would be more than human if he has
failed to dissect your little weaknesses and humours for his new wife.
He has probably emphasized the two or three particular little failings
of character which have prevented you from realising the brilliant
promise you showed at college. At bottom, Jack thinks, you have the
capacity for being almost as happy as he, Jack, is. But then, again, if
Mrs. Hobson does know you thoroughly well, it strikes you that there is
that much trouble saved, and you sit down to chat with a fair sense of
intimacy.
Toward such conversation you and the man of the house are the principal
contributors. You speak of college days and contemporary politics, and
other things that the wife is not interested in, but she smiles
graciously, and now and then takes sides with you against her husband.
At one point in the conversation you look up and find her quietly
scrutinising you. And you recall what you have heard concerning the
match-making propensities of young wives, and you wonder uneasily if to
herself she is running over a list of girl friends and trying to decide
which one will suit you best. You even suspect that she inclined toward
a Marjorie or an Edith, who is plain, but clever, a good manager, and of
an affectionate disposition. Happily, at that moment the bride thanks
you for your handsome wedding gift.
At table the visitor begins to be more at ease. For one thing, there is
the traditional hazing process to which the bride must be subjected.
Jack takes the lead. Admitting that to-night's repast is an unqualified
success, he hints that there have been occasions when, if he only would,
there might be a different tale to tell. The visitor protests; yet in
the extravagant praise he resorts to there is a suggestion of mild
banter which is considered the proper thing. The wife professes to
enter into the joke; but in her heart she laughs to see the two men go
solemnly through the stupid and outworn ceremonial. Young wives nowadays
are excellent cooks. This one has secretly pursued a three months'
course in domestic science and has a diploma hidden away somewhere. But
she pretends to be properly outraged by our foolish satire, and insists
on both being helped a second time to the custard. Jack, in fact, eats
all that remains. It makes dish-washing easier, he says.
And as the visitor steers his way pleasantly through the meal, he makes
the acquaintance of an extraordinary number of relatives. The spoons, he
finds, are from Aunt Amy. Aunt Amy lives in Syracuse and at first
objected to the match. The salt cellar is from a male cousin who (you
learn this from Jack), it was thought at one time, would be the
fortunate man himself--that is, until Jack appeared on the scene. Poor
fellow, he sought consolation by marrying, only two months later, a nice
girl from Alexandria, Va. The cut-glass salad dish is from the bride's
dearest friend at boarding-school, a charming girl, who paints and sings
and is now studying music in Berlin.
When the coffee is brought in, Jack asks if you will smoke. This is, in
a way, the most dangerous situation of the entire evening. If you say
yes, Jack is apt to pass the cigars and and say, "Go right ahead. _I_
have given it up, you know, and I feel all the better for it." But if
you are expert in reading faces, and decide that the bride probably has
conscientious scruples against the habit, and you reply "No," Jack is
likely to say, "Sorry, but Alice allows _me_ one cigar a day after
dinner," and you are left to suffer the torments of the lost, and have
lied into the bargain. Nor is it possible to lay down any rule for
arriving at the correct reply under such circumstances. A hurried glance
about the house will not help one. A handsome bronze ash-tray may be
only a paperweight. Young wives are in the habit of buying their
husbands the most ornate smoking apparatus, with the understanding that
it shall never be used.