“Oh, ’cause you seem just like people in books, not like real live
folks. Seems as if you oughter just sail round with peeple waitin’ on
you and never have any every-day thoughts and feelin’s.”
“I assure you we are very human,” I said drily, “and perhaps we feel
both joy and sorrow more keenly than you do. There is every reason why
we should.”
“But I’ll bet you never called your parents mommer and popper.”
Of course I laughed again. “No, because those musical endearments do
not happen to be customary in my country. I do not remember calling my
mother anything, for she died when I was two years old. But we both
called my father Dad.”
She gasped, “Naw, you didn’t. You never called a dook Dad.”
“Oh, but we did,” I exclaimed, glowing as certain memories rose; “and
when he used to come home from long tiring sessions in the Upper House,
or Cabinet meetings--he was a very conscientious legislator, and had
held more than one position of great responsibility--he loved to lie
down on the floor, and let us run all over him. It was my brother’s
delight to polish Dad’s boots with his toothbrush, and I used to barber
him with my doll’s scissors. When we got too big for all that he gave
us even more of his time, every hour he could spare; he even helped
tutor us, and he never went to the continent without us. While we were
studying he never went at all, and during our holidays--which were
usually his own--he either took us travelling or lived in the country
with us. He adored us and we adored him.”
“My! Well, I don’t know as I ever seen any farmer make such a fuss over
his kids as that, but farmers are terrible busy.”
“So was my father, but he knew the exact value of everything in life,
and that is the reason he made so much of love.”
This was beyond her, and she merely remarked: “I suppose you took on
terrible when he died.”
“I didn’t ‘take on,’ but no words ever can express my misery.”
“And do you have other kinds of trouble too? Do your fellers ever go
back on you? I don’t mean _you_; I guess you ain’t in any danger of
havin’ your heart broke; but I mean other grand ladies with titles? Do
they ever get left like us common folks.”
“I have known a good many to ‘get left,’” I replied, smiling at
certain reminiscences, “Human nature is pretty much the same in all
spheres--more so, perhaps in ours, where people have so much flung at
their feet that fickleness is a natural consequence.”
“I guess men is fickle everywhere. I know several that has gone back on
real nice girls just because they seen another girl they liked better.
I’d _hate_ to get left! My!”
“You speak for your sex,” I said. “I have known many who looked
indifferent, but I never knew one who was.”
“I guess I’d try to look as if I didn’t care, but I guess the louder I
laughed the more people’d suspicion I was all water inside. You look
real nice now. Your nose ain’t red any more; but your eyes’s got rings
under them. I don’t see why you need to set up nights when the Dook’s
got that there gentleman, Mr. Parker, to wait on him.”
“Well, I am his sister, you know,” I said lightly, and then, as I was
tired, rather, of Jemima, I went back to the house. Bertie seems much
better to-night, and is now asleep. I have hung branches of balsam all
over his room. They look so brilliantly green against the light-brown
varnished wood which defines every spike. And their fragrance! It ought
to fill Bertie’s poor lungs with new life. I am going for a row with
Mr. Rogers to-morrow morning, and if he says anything characteristic
I’ll write it out for your benefit. He has promised already to spend
our first autumn in Yorkshire with us, so you will be the more
interested when you meet him.
28th.
Our conversation was political and I must relate it to you. But first
the morning row. It was so beautiful. It was like drifting through
crystal. My distant peak was a monstrous turquoise. The thick woods
about us showed every shade of green. The honeysuckle is gone, but the
moss is richer than ever, and now and again one glimpses a purple lily.
In little bays there are water-lilies, and on the miniature islands
a wildness, a tangle of fern and young trees, that is indescribable.
In some places there is a good deal of pollen on the water, but the
greater part of the lake’s surface is golden-brown and bright. The
only blot on the lovely picture is the too frequent dead spruce. A
blight attacked them a year or two ago, and they still look like church
spires, but crumbling and gray.
We did not talk politics on the lake--Heaven forbid!--we drifted from
nature to art, of which he has a delightful knowledge; but I won’t
repeat all that as he did not say anything particularly illuminating.
It was at luncheon that the subject of politics came up; I forget
exactly how, although as I discuss our own with Bertie and Agatha
daily, and have lived in a political atmosphere all my life, I suppose
they never are far from the surface of my mind. Daddy always took a
certain interest in American politics, so I knew something of them
before I came, and heaven knows their newspapers would not leave one
long in ignorance.
Oh, I remember how the conversation began. After expatiating upon the
beauty of the lake and the silence of these mountain-tops--positively
when we stopped talking there had not been a sound but the gurgle of
water against the boat--I repeated what I remember writing to you about
the climate of this country setting, a bad example to the people in the
matter of extremes. Mr. Rogers smiled quickly, and looked at me with
his steady, and--shall I write it?--_approving_--gaze.
“There is some food for reflection in that,” he said. “But--how much do
you know of this country?” he added gently--I mean his voice took all
sting out of the words.
I told him what I have just written. I added that I was anxious to
learn more, and that I had been saturating myself in its press and
literature. Here Bertie grunted, and I said something hastily about
the delicious speckled trout Mr. Rogers had sent us which we were then
eating.
“And you found the same extremes there,” said Mr. Rogers, quite
ignoring my diversion, which I am positive he understood.
“Nevertheless, we have a very large middle-class, and there
are certain sections of the country where the climate is very
temperate--California, for instance.”
“I thought that State had perpetual snow in the north and perpetual
summer in the south, and eight months of dry weather and four months
of rain. A cousin of mine has ranched there for ten years. Surely
that bears out the national predilection for violent or sharply drawn
contrasts.”
“Well, you rather have me there,” he admitted gracefully. “One gets so
in the habit of saying certain things about a country just as one goes
on commenting upon a man’s cleverness after one ought to appreciate the
fact that a little frank analysis would prick the bubble. Florida is
perpetual summer with an occasional blizzard; but even that bears out
your theory.”
“As to your middle-class,” I asked, “don’t they all intend to be
upper-class some day? Are any of them contented to be middle-class,
generation in and generation out?”
“I don’t know much about them,” he said carelessly, “but the American
instinct certainly is to progress. You might indeed call progress our
watch-word. That is the reason this Bryan hue and cry won’t wash. His
democracy is merely a fancy word for plebeianism. The sixteen to one
nonsense has not received any more attention from that faction of the
press that booms Bryan than his everlasting farmer poor man pose, and
his plain homely wife, who sweeps off the veranda as the newspaper
correspondents approach the unpretentious mansion. Do they suppose for
a moment that any typical American wants an unbarbered shirt-sleeved
episode in the White House, with a follower of Dolly Madison, Miss
Harriet Lane, or their own popular and irreproachable Mrs. Cleveland,
bustling about at six in the morning dusting the White House furniture
or making gingerbread in the kitchen? Not for a moment. It would
mean retrogression, and they know it. They have no desire to be the
laughing-stock of other countries, to have the President of the United
States ill at ease and vulgar in the presence of Ambassadors. Just as
every American is animated by the desire to better himself, to get
ahead of his neighbours, so is he equally ambitious for his country. I
should be willing to wager my last dollar that if Bryan did reach the
White House, with his malodorous tribe elbowing all decent people out
of it, every self-respecting man who had voted for him would read the
press reports with a snort of disgust. Backsliding will never work, for
we have not reached the summit of our civilisation yet.”
“I don’t think much of the man you’ve got in now,” said Bertie. “He
takes an imposing photograph, but I infer that he is a sort of human
mask for Mr. Hanna.”
“McKinley is, as yet, the great historical puzzle without a key,” said
Mr. Rogers, evasively; “but we do want, now and always, a gentleman
in the White House, and with the many men in the country of birth and
breeding, education and distinguished ability, it argues a terrible
disease in our body politic that we cannot put the right man in the
right place and keep him there.”
“Have you ever made the effort?” I asked pointedly, for I had heard
things. “You, and all those who think as you do?”
As I had expected, he shook his head. “No. I cannot face the filth of
American politics. I touched them once during a great reform spurt in
New York, several years ago, and I feel as if my hands are not clean
yet. I shall not offend your ears by a description of the people
by whom we were jostled at the polls, nor what we had to handle in
attempting to push any reform measure through.”
“Good gad!” exclaimed Bertie, “where would England be if we had funked
the business of reform fifty years ago? My father took off his coat and
waded into the filth--which was a long sight worse than yours--up to
his neck. He and others like him made the country what it is to-day.
Upon my word, Rogers, you make me sick.”
Mr. Rogers, who is used to Bertie’s plain speech, smiled and replied
politely.
“Would that we had a great force like your father, to push us into the
right path. But I am afraid the great majority of would-be reformers
feel as I do.”
“It’s your roast beef,” growled Bertie, scowling at his. “It’s only
about half the weight of ours and only gives a chap half the blood he
needs.”
“It is more delicate and easier to digest than yours.”
“For American stomachs--that’s the point.”
“Are there no gentlemen in politics?” I asked, hurriedly, for Bertie
can be rude in a way that Americans cannot understand.
“Unquestionably. There are quite a few in the Senate, but in them the
political passion is stronger than their fastidiousness. Even the
honours and the fame they may win cannot compensate for the dirt they
are obliged to come into contact with every week in the year.”
“Well, all I can say is, that you haven’t the true sporting instinct
in this country,” said Bertie. “Men of the same sort ought to stand by
each other. If a certain number of gentlemen are willing to hold their
noses and plunge in for the good of the country it’s your duty to close
up the ranks behind them and keep the stink as far in the background as
possible.”
Poor Mr. Rogers blushed and looked most distressed, for that word is
tabooed in this country, dear, and I doubt if the poor man ever heard
it before. He saw my eyes dance, and gave me a look of such pained
surprise that it was my turn to be distressed, for it is so cruel to
shatter a man’s ideals! Bertie pursued all unconsciously:
“Can’t you see it from my point of view, Rogers? Ain’t you in the habit
of standing by your friends in this country?”
“Certainly, Duke,” replied Mr. Rogers, suavely; he had quite recovered
himself. “I think you will find Americans as loyal as any men on earth.”
“Not unless they go the whole length and stand by their own class when
there is such a crying need for help as there is here. I suppose
there’s a respectable number of gentlemen in the country, ain’t there?”
“A very large number. A highly respectable proportion of the seventy
millions. I am constrained to make that admission, even though I hand
you another weapon.”
“It is a weapon, by gad. And I’d like jolly well to understand your
supineness. Perhaps you’ll wake up all in a moment and fling off your
coats and go to work.”
“I wish I could think so. What we lack most, I fancy, is a leader,
for unquestionably we have caste loyalty. But when all is said
the upper-class in this country is small--compared to the vast
sub-stratum--and the country is so huge that homogeneity is almost
impossible. So far, every man has made his fight alone; and there _is_
something pathetic in it--come to think of it.”
“I think those who have made the fight must be ripping fine men, and
I’d like to meet some of them. Will any of them come up here this
summer?”
Mr. Rogers shook his head. “I am sorry, but we do not happen to have
any politicians in the club. I thought it over carefully and concluded
that it was better not, for they cannot avoid knowing objectionable
people who might manage to get themselves invited here, too.”
Again, I interposed before Bertie could answer. “What becomes of your
law of progress? If it is as inborn and inevitable--unhinderable--as
you say, why does it not sweep your class in its current? Surely that
class is increased from year to year by ambitious recruits whose
offspring will be as cultivated as you are to-day--that is part of your
law of progress. It seems to me that a natural instinct should force
you and your sort to labour to keep yourselves high above the masses
and fill the great public offices of the country.”
As he turned to me the light in his eyes was almost warm and I felt as
if I had said something really clever. That is his little way.
“That was very well reasoned,” he said, “and your theory has certain
facts to substantiate it, inasmuch as public life does receive
recruits from the upper-class from year to year. Perhaps, some day,
under the stress of a great menace, the entire class will throw in its
weight. But just now--merely to give the country a stiffer man than
McKinley--I am afraid they will not. We are such optimists, our luck
has had such few facers, and just now we are so prosperous. It is only
a dream to imagine the best in both parties suddenly deserting and
uniting; for the best men seem to avoid leadership and notoriety; it is
only by doing so that they can find a comparatively clean path through
the political muck.”
Bertie shrugged his shoulders and pushed back his chair. “You look
well in that tweed outfit and those leggings, Rogers,” he said, “but
you’d look a jolly sight better in your shirt sleeves and with mud on
your boots. You and the rest of your dilettante class are living in a
Fool’s Paradise, and when you’re choking over your first nasty mess of
Bryanism you’ll wish you’d taken off your coat while you had a valet to
assist you. For my part I’m rather keen on Bryan getting in. I want
to see a real democracy. What you’ve got now is neither one thing nor
the other. Say what you like you have an enormously large aristocratic
class, a class which is always looking round for somebody to snub and
which holds itself immeasurably above the masses. You’ll be a monarchy
yet with every title that ever was heard of, and American inventions to
boot. The result of your Trust system will be two classes--the wealthy
and the helpless poor. The hour the wealthy class feels that it is
strong enough it will make for a court and a nobility. And a nice mess
you’ll make of it.”
“Well,” said Mr. Rogers, laughing, “it will be infinitely preferable to
Populism, and it certainly will be all in the law of progress. Every
American, even the Populist, wants to be rich, and as soon as he is
rich he wants to be cultivated beyond his original condition. After
that stage democracy is a retrogression and there is nothing to do but
go on and become an aristocrat. As you say, when there are enough of
them, monarchy is only a step further.”
And there the conversation ended.