sorrowful wonder. Jack bears himself with great equanimity in his new
condition; but it is apparent, nevertheless, that he has changed from
what you knew him. In the first place, he has built up a comprehensive
system of domestic serfdom to which he cheerfully submits. He glories in
his enslavement; he rattles his chains. He actually boasts of the habit
he has acquired of dropping in at the grocer's every morning on his way
to the office. When it is the maid's day out, Jack insists on helping
with the dishes and he tells you with pride that, given plenty of hot
water, there is nothing in that line which he would hesitate to
undertake. He makes it a point to visit Washington Market at least twice
a week, and he comes home with cuts, joints, steaks, rounds, poultry,
fish, game, and fruits in dazzling variety. He carries these things
conspicuously in the Subway. And Jack's wife is appreciative of his kind
intentions, and lets him bring, from long distances, meats which she can
purchase at several cents a pound less from her butcher two blocks away.
The passion for acquiring food commodities is only one phase of Jack's
new character. You begin to see now that all these years you have never
suspected what capacities for home-building he had in him. In the
presence of any kind of article offered for sale his overmastering
passion is to buy the thing and take it home. Instinct apparently
impels him to store up quite useless supplies against a future
emergency. He haunts hardware stores, he rummages in antique furniture
shops, and you may see him any day during the lunch hour flattening his
nose against windowfuls of copper and brass ware. He buys patent hammers
by the quarter dozen, as well as nails, tacks, screws, bolts, casters,
brackets, and curtain poles. He brings home Japanese vases from the
auction rooms. One day he acquired a step-ladder; it came by wagon
because they refused to let him take it into the Subway.
And Jack's wife acquiesces in his self-imposed servitude. She does not
demand it; she is even a good deal incommoded by it. But her woman's
instinct tells her that the thing is a disease, which a man must catch,
like the measles. Until the husband's passion for home-building quiets
down, she is content to accept the unnatural situation; she is even
proud to have inspired it.
But as Jack prattles on, and Jack's wife smiles over her embroidery
frame, it comes over you that, despite all the kindly communion of the
evening, you are an outsider there. You ask yourself bitterly whether
there is such a thing as constancy in man, whether there is such a thing
as true comradeship or affection. For fifteen years, from your freshman
year at high school, you and Jack have been what the world calls
friends. What are you now? Jack still calls you friend; apparently that
is the reason why you have just dined with him and his wife. But in
reality you are not there as his friend. You are there as the guest of
this newly-constituted social unit, this new family. You are there not
as a person, but as part of an institution.
And just when you are ready to accept the new situation you are swept
away by the unreality of the entire arrangement. It is inconceivable
that Jack should have thrown you over for this alien person whom he
calls wife. Your habits and Jack's are so much alike; your tastes, your
outlook upon life. You used to play the same games at college, sing the
same songs, smoke the same tobacco, wear each other's clothes, and now
Jack has thrown you over for one with whom in the nature of things he
can have none of those habits in common. It is not merely puzzling; it
grows almost absurd. You shake your head over it some time after you
have said good-night, and the bride has told you that as a dear friend
of Jack's, they always will be pleased to have you call.
XXI
THE PERFECT UNION OF THE ARTS
I have never had the slightest reason to doubt Harding's truthfulness.
The following episode, I remember, was told with more than Harding's
usual gravity. I can do nothing better than to give it here in Harding's
own words so far as I can recall them:
On the third day after his arrival, my guest, Muhammad Abu Nozeyr, said
to me, "O Harding Effendi, I desire greatly to witness a presentation of
what you and the wife of your bosom, on whom both be peace, have often
referred to as Grand Opera."
I replied, with involuntary astonishment. "Son of a hundred sheiks,
forgive my seemingly derelict hospitality. But I should have asked you
before this to go to the opera with us, if I had not thought that the
principles of your faith were opposed thereto. For you must know, O
Father of the Defenceless, that our women go there unveiled even as the
women of the people that you see on our streets, and that on the stage,
singers of both sexes indulge in open exaltation of that thing called
love, which your prophet has confined within the walls of the
_haremlik_."
Abu Nozeyr laughed. "Your knowledge of our customs, Harding Effendi, is
fifty years behind the times. True, I come from the desert, and have
never heard your singing women of the stage. But did not one of the
learned muftis at yesterday's evening repast declare that 'Aïda' was
written for the Khedewi Ismail Pasha, may his soul rest in peace?"
"Yes," I said; "but you will understand, Dispenser of a Thousand
Mercies, why at first blush Islam and the lyric stage should strike me
as somewhat incompatible."
"Not modern Islam," he replied. "Take us not too literally. I am told
that your people, like others of the Feringhi, have succeeded in
building battleships which are really instruments of peace; that you
have trust companies in which you place no confidence, and Open Doors
which you close against people from my part of the world; you have
legislators who speak but do not legislate, and a Speaker who legislates
but does not speak; you have had men in your White House who always saw
red, and you have red-emblazoned newspapers which are yellow; you call
your politicians public servants who are your masters, and you call your
women the masters, but will not let them vote. Why, then, should you be
so surprised at any seeming incongruity in others?"
"I am convinced, Abu Nozeyr," I said, "and to-morrow we will go to see
'Tristan und Isolde.' But shall I attempt to describe for you, in a few
words, just what Grand Opera is?"
"My ear is open to your words, Harding Effendi."
"Know, then, Protector of the Fatherless, that the music-drama is a
perfect blending of all the arts. It calls to its aid the resources of
sculpture, painting, dancing, together with numerous mechanical
agencies, and to a minor extent, music and the drama. For observe, O Abu
Nozeyr, that each art aims to awake its own specific emotion. Sculpture
appeals to our sense of form, painting to our delight in colour, dancing
to the pleasure of rhythmic motion, the mechanic arts to our liking for
sudden action, while music and the uttered word represent the union of
the clearest and vaguest modes of expressing thought. It follows
therefore that the highest phase of human emotion can only be expressed
by that art which gives us simultaneously the living form of a Venus de
Milo with the colouring of a Titian, the grace of a Nautch girl, the
miracle-working powers of a Hindu fakir, the elocution of a Demosthenes,
and the voice of a Malibran."
"By the beard of the Prophet," exclaimed Abu Nozeyr, "I thought such
bliss was to be had only in the Paradise of the Faithful; and that is
Grand Opera, Harding Effendi?"
"With certain modifications," I replied. "Nothing human is perfect, Abu
Nozeyr. It is a regrettable circumstance that the human voice attains
its perfect development many years after the human form. Hence our
heroes on the lyric stage are all middle-aged and our heroines somewhat
heavy in movement. I have seen a pair of starving lovers in an operatic
garret, who would surely not have passed the scrutiny of a United
Charities investigator. It is also to be regretted that adequate
voice-production leaves no breath for dancing or other forms of active
effort. Hence the dance with which Carmen fascinates poor Don José,
argues an intense readiness to be pleased on the part of the latter, and
Telramund's defeat at the hands of Lohengrin is never quite free from a
certain degree of contributory negligence."
"But tell me this, Harding Effendi, are there composers who have carried
the union of the arts to a higher point than others?"
"There are, O Grandson of the Wild Ass. There are operas in which at
certain moments the libretto speaks of a leaping fire, the music plays
leaping fire, and the fire actually leaps and blazes on the stage. But
unfortunately it always happens that the words cannot be heard because
of the orchestra, and the fire sinks when the orchestral swell rises,
and rises when the orchestral surge subsides. I have caught the
orchestral sound of hammer on anvil long before the two have come into
contact, and have heard Spring described as entering through a door
which persists in staying closed. I have seen boats being pushed by
human hands, Rhine maidens suspended on a wire, and harvest moons moving
in orbits unknown to Herschel and Pickering."
"And are there people who still persist in taking their sculpture,
painting, drama, and music separately, Harding Effendi?"
"There are; but that is because they fail to recognise that opera is a
perfect union of all the arts. To-morrow, Abu Nozeyr, we go to hear
'Tristan und Isolde.' It appeals to every one of our senses. To enjoy it
completely, however, it is often wise to close one's eyes and just hear
the singer sing."
XXII
AN EMINENT AMERICAN
After dinner I asked Herr Grundschnitt what headway he was making in his
studies of American life. The professor was in more than his usually
mellow mood. He had enjoyed his dinner. He liked his cigar. He confided
to me that he was hard at work on a volume of sketches dealing with the
career of representative successful Americans, and he offered to read me
one of his early chapters. If the following summary of Herr
Grundschnitt's account of the life of Wallabout Smith can even suggest
the extraordinary impression which the original produced upon me, I am
content.
Wallabout Smith did not attain recognition until late in life. I gather
that he must have been well over fifty when a former President of the
United States declared that Wallabout Smith, by raising a family of four
sons and two daughters, had done more for his country than all the laws
enacted by the Legislatures of all the New England and Middle Atlantic
States since the Spanish-American War. Fame came rapidly after this. The
college professors repeated what the former President said. The
newspapers repeated what the college professors said. The playwrights
repeated what the newspapers said. The pulpit repeated what the
playwrights said. Interviewers descended upon Wallabout Smith. They wore
out his front lawn, the hall carpet, and the maid-servant's temper; but
they always found Smith himself patient, affable, ready to say whatever
they wished him to say.
The reporters would usually begin by asking Wallabout Smith what were
his lighter interests in life. "I find my greatest pleasure," Smith
would reply, "in common things. For instance, I have never ceased to be
intensely interested in the cost of shoes and stockings. The subject is
fascinating and inexhaustible. One gets tired of most things, but there
has never been a time in which the cost of shoes and stockings has
failed to appeal with peculiar force to me. My odd moments on the train
have as a rule been taken up with that question. If you have ever
thought upon this subject, you must have been struck with the fact that,
putting food aside, shoes and stockings constitute the most permanent
and persistent human need. They begin with the first few weeks of our
life, and they continue to the end; the size alone changes. It is a
subject, too, that opens up such wide horizons. For while a man of
comparatively little leisure can confine himself to the simple topic of
shoes and stockings, he may, if he so desires, widen the field of his
interests so as to include the allied subjects of frocks, jackets,
blouses, caps, and collars, until he has covered the entire range of
children's apparel. Nor is that all. I have spent many an absorbing hour
figuring out the annual rate of increase in servants' wages and rent. Of
late years I have been in the habit of putting in part of my lunch hour
in a study of college fees and tailors' bills. In moments of extreme
physical lassitude, when nothing else appeals to me, I think about the
next quarterly premium on my insurance policy."
How well-known men do their work has always interested the public. Few
newspaper men omitted to question Wallabout Smith on this subject. From
the large number of interviews cited by Herr Grundschnitt we may build
up a very fair picture of Wallabout Smith's daily routine. It was his
habit to spend a good part of his day in New York City. He would rise
about six o'clock every week-day in the year, and, snatching a hasty
breakfast, would make his way to the railroad station, pausing now and
then in perplexity as he tried to recall what it was his wife had asked
him to bring home from town. Sometimes he would catch his train and
sometimes he would not. Arrived at his office, he would remove his coat,
and, putting on a black alpaca jacket to which he was greatly attached,
he would proceed to glance over, check, and transcribe the contents of a
large number of bills and vouchers representing the daily transactions
of a very prosperous commercial enterprise in which he had no
proprietary interest. The day's work would be pleasantly broken up by
frequent inquiries from the general manager's office. Every now and then
a fellow-worker would take a moment from his duties to ask Wallabout
Smith how his lawn was getting on. Sometimes he would be summoned to
the telephone, only to learn that Central had called the wrong number.
Lunch was a matter of a few minutes. At 5.30 every afternoon Wallabout
Smith exchanged his alpaca jacket for his street coat with a fine sense
of weariness, and the secure conviction that the next morning would find
the same task waiting for him on his table. "I have no hesitation in
stating," Smith would frequently say, "that some of the busiest hours of
my life have been spent at my office desk."
Walking was his favourite form of exercise. When he lived in the city
during the first few years after his marriage, he used to walk the floor
with the baby. Later when the children began to grow up and he moved out
into the country, he walked to and from the station. His gait was a
free, manly stride, bordering close upon a run, in the morning, and a
more deliberate, sliding pace, somewhat suggestive of a shuffle, in the
evening. He was at his best when tramping the country roads with a
congenial companion or two on a Sunday afternoon. On such occasions he
would pour forth a continuous stream of light-hearted talk on everything
under the sun--the new board of village trustees, the shameful condition
of the village streets, the prospects of a new roof for the railway
station. Good-nature was the keynote of his character, but he would
frequently sum up a situation or a person with a sly touch of irony or a
trenchant word or two. He once described the village streets as being
paved chiefly with good intentions. Another time he characterised the
minister of a rival church as having the courage of his wife's
convictions. But such flashes of satire went and left no rancour behind
them. His high spirits were proof against everything but automobiles.
These he detested, not because they made walking unpleasant and even
dangerous, but because they were run by men who mortgaged their homes to
buy motor cars, and thus threatened the stability of business
conditions.
Wallabout Smith would often be asked to lay down a few rules for those
who wished to emulate his success. He would invariably reply that the
secret of bringing up children was the same double secret that underlay
success in every other field--enthusiasm and patience. "It has always
been my belief," he would say, "that the head of a family should spend
at least as much time with his children as he does at his barber's or
his lodge, and, if possible, a little more. Children undoubtedly stand
in need of supervision. In the beginning, it is a question largely of
keeping them away from the matches and the laudanum. Fortunately, we
live at some distance from a trolley-line and there is no well in our
back-yard. As my children grew up, I made it a point to know what books
they were reading out of school and whether the boys were addicted to
the filthy cigarette habit. On the subjects of breakfast foods and
corporal punishment, I have always kept an open mind."
The experiment of living upon a basis of comradeship with one's children
which we see so frequently recommended was not a success in the case of
Wallabout Smith. "Although my boys are fond of me," he once told a
reporter, "they usually regard my presence as a bore. When I find time
to go out walking with them, they do their best to lose me, and whenever
we divide off into teams for a game of ball, each side insists on my
going with the other side. I have made up my mind that there is a time
for being with one's children and a time for letting them alone, and
that the proper time for being with them is when they are in trouble
and want you, and the proper time for letting them alone is when they
are happy and wish to be let alone. This I admit is the reverse of the
common practice, and probably there is something to be said for parents
who grow fond of their children's society when they, the parents, have
nothing else to do. As a rule, I have never obtruded myself on my boys,
being confident that natural affection and the recurrent need of
pocket-money would constitute a sufficient bond between us."
There was, in conclusion, one factor in his success upon which Wallabout
Smith would never fail to lay the most emphatic stress, and to which
Herr Grundschnitt attached equal importance. "Such fame," he would say,
"as has fallen to my share must be attributed in the very largest
measure to my wife. Many is the time she gave up her meetings at the
Browning Club to watch with me beside the sick-bed of one of our little
ones. And she would do this so uncomplainingly, so cheerfully, that it
almost made one oblivious to the extent of her sacrifice. There must
have been occasions, I feel sure, when it cost her a pang to find her
photograph omitted from the local paper's account of a club meeting or a
church bazaar; but if she ever suffered on that score, she never let it
be known. I can truly say that, without her, my life work would have
spelt failure."
XXIII
BEHIND THE TIMES
I had scarcely exchanged a half-dozen sentences with Howard King before
we knew ourselves for kindred spirits. I was in a roomful of people who
were talking about new books I had not read, new plays I had not seen,
and new singers I had not heard, and I was exceedingly lonesome. There
was one youngish middle-aged lady in pink, who asked me what was the
best novel I had read of late, and when I said "Robert Elsmere," she
looked at me rather grimly and asked whether I lived in New York. When I
said yes, she turned away and began chatting with a young man on her
right, who looked like the advertisement for a new linen collar. It was
this reply of mine that attracted Howard King's attention. He had been
sitting in one corner of the room quite as disconsolate as I was. But
now he walked over and shook hands and told me that in his opinion
"Robert Elsmere" was not so good a book as "Trilby," which he was just
reading.
Howard King and I belong to the comparatively small class of men whom
nature, or fate, or whatever you please, has decreed to be always a
certain interval behind the times; it might be years or months or days,
according to the rate of speed at which a particular fashion happened to
be moving forward. King told me, for instance, that of late he has been
possessed with a passionate desire to learn the game of ping-pong. When
all the world was playing table-tennis eight or ten years ago, King
viewed the game with disgust. He thought it utterly childish,
uninteresting, and admirably illustrative of all the idiotic qualities
that go to make up a fad. But for the last six months, King said, he
frequently wakes at night and sits up in bed and yearns with all his
soul for a ping-pong set. He was, of course, ashamed to speak to others
about it. But if he could find some one who shared his feelings on the
subject, he had a large library with a square table in it. Would I come
to-morrow night? I said I should be very glad, indeed.
I told Howard King what my attitude is toward clothes. It is my fate
always to grow fond of a fashion just as it is passing out. I recalled
the exaggerated military styles for men that came in with the
Spanish-American and the South African wars. Those enormously padded
shoulders and tight-shaped waists and swelling trouser legs, and the
strut and the stoop that went with the whole ugly _ensemble_, roused my
anger. My feelings remained unchanged until some time after the
Russo-Japanese War, and then one day it came to me that I must have a
suit of military cut. It was like the sudden awakening of the
unregenerate to grace, it was as irresistible as first love. And when
the tailor said that only sloping shoulders were now being worn, that
what I wanted was hopelessly out of date, the sense of loss was
overpowering. I confessed to King that in my opinion nothing uglier in
men's apparel was conceivable than the green plush hats that are just
beginning to go out of style. And I told him that I was as certain as I
am certain of anything in this world that some day in the very near
future I shall be seized with an uncontrollable longing to wear a green
plush hat, and I shall enter a shop and ask for one, and the man behind
the counter will look at me quizzically, and, after a long search, bring
me the only plush hat in his shop, and I shall carry it home in shame,
and put it away in my closet, and mourn over the resolution that came
too late.
You must not imagine that Howard King and I are conservatives. We do not
hold fast to one thing, or even hold fast to the old. We move forward,
but at a pace so curiously regulated as to bring us to the front door
just when most people are leaving by the back. I have worn every shape
of linen collar that the best-dressed men have worn during the last
fifteen years; but I have worn them from three to six months late. I
became passionately fond of bicycling shortly after all the bicycle
factories began the exclusive production of automobiles. I am not very
fond of automobiles, but I shall be, I know, when aëroplanes come into
extensive use. It is only in the last few months that I have discovered
how amusing a toy the Teddy bear makes. And this is true of fashions in
games and of fashions in language. I have no fundamental objections to
slang, but I always pick up the bit of slang that most people are just
discarding.
I recall, for instance, how, up in the hills last summer, the woods and
glens were echoing to the sound, half a howl and half a screech, of "Oh,
you!" addressed at quarter-minute intervals to every object, animate or
inanimate, that came within the howler's vision or thought. This
particular bit of gutter-slang induced a peculiar irritation. It seemed
to me utter desecration that this quickening beauty of hill and sky and
river and green woods, which should have stirred young hearts to
madrigals and chorals, should resound to the blatant, shrieking
vulgarity of Lobster Square. I do not mind confessing that at times my
feelings towards the innocent young barbarians bordered close on murder.
Until--until, alas! one September morning, after all the guests were
gone and I alone remained; that morning I woke with the poison in my
soul, and I walked down to the river for my bath, and, coming across the
farmer's herd of cows halfway down the hillside, saluted them, before I
knew what I was doing, with that horrid, that unspeakable--I blush now
to think of it. When I told Howard King, he admitted humbly that after
holding out for years he has just begun to say, "It's me," and that he
feels morally convinced that within the next year or two he will be
saying "Between you and I."