WALKING-STICK PAPERS
BY
ROBERT CORTES HOLLIDAY
1918
AS A CAT MAY LOOK AT A KING
SO I DEDICATE THIS LITTLE DOINGS TO
THREE FINE MEN:
W. C. BROWNELL
HILAIRE BELLOC
ROYAL CORTISSOZ
BECAUSE THEY REPRESENT TO MY MIND
THE BEST THINGS GOING:
THE PURE MILK OF THE WORD
FOREWORD
These little records of some excursions made by what Mr. James called
"a visiting mind" first saw the light of public countenance in the
pages of various publications. "On Going to Art Exhibitions" has been
much expanded since its appearance in _Vanity Fair_. In _The Unpopular
Review_ the original title of "That Reviewer 'Cuss'" was brought into
harmony with the dignity of its setting by being changed to "The Hack
Reviewer." "A Clerk May Look at a Celebrity" was printed in the New
York _Times_ under the head "Glimpses of Celebrities." This paper has
been included in this collection at the request of several
distinguished gentlemen who have been so unfortunate as to lose their
newspaper clippings of the article. That several of the personages
figuring in this and one or two other of these papers have passed away
since these papers were written seems to be thought an additional
reason for reprinting these essays here. _The Bellman_ fell for
"Caun't Speak the Language"; the New York _Tribune_, "Humours of the
Bookshop"; _The Independent_, "Reading After Thirty," "You Are an
American" appeared in the New York _Sun_; where the head "An American
Reviewer in London" was substituted for the title of "Literary Levities
in London." The following papers were contributed to the New York
_Evening Post_: "The Fish Reporter," "On Going a Journey," "A
Roundabout Paper," "Henry James, Himself," "Memories of a Manuscript,"
"Why Men Can't Read Novels by Women," "The Dessert of Life," "Hunting
Lodgings," "My Friend, the Policeman," "Help Wanted," "Human Municipal
Documents," "As to People," "A Town Constitutional," and "On Wearing a
Hat." "On Carrying a Cane" appeared in _The Bookman_. I thank the
editors of the publications named for permission to reprint these
papers here. R. C. H.
New York, 1918.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE: ON CARRYING A CANE
I THE FISH REPORTER
II ON GOING A JOURNEY
III GOING TO ART EXHIBITIONS
IV A ROUNDABOUT PAPER
V THAT REVIEWER "CUSS"
VI LITERARY LEVITIES IN LONDON
VII HENRY JAMES, HIMSELF
VIII MEMORIES OF A MANUSCRIPT
IX "YOU ARE AN AMERICAN"
X WHY MEN CAN'T READ NOVELS BY WOMEN
XI THE DESSERT OF LIFE
XII A CLERK MAY LOOK AT A CELEBRITY
XIII CAUN'T SPEAK THE LANGUAGE
XIV HUNTING LODGINGS
XV MY FRIEND, THE POLICEMAN
XVI HELP WANTED--MALE, FEMALE
XVII HUMAN MUNICIPAL DOCUMENTS
XVIII AS TO PEOPLE
XIX HUMOURS OF THE BOOK SHOP
XX THE DECEASED
XXI A TOWN CONSTITUTIONAL
XXII READING AFTER THIRTY
EPILOGUE: ON WEARING A HAT
WALKING-STICK PAPERS
PROLOGUE
ON CARRYING A CANE
Some people, without doubt, are born with a deep instinct for carrying
a cane; some consciously acquire the habit of carrying a cane; and some
find themselves in a position where the matter of carrying a cane is
thrust upon them.
Canes are carried in all parts of the world, and have been carried--or
that which was the forefather of them has been carried--since human
history began. Indeed, a very fair account of mankind might be made by
writing the story, of its canes. And nothing that would readily occur
to mind would more eloquently express a civilisation than its evident
attitude toward canes. Perhaps nothing can more subtly convey the
psychology of a man than his feeling about a cane.
The prehistoric ape, we are justified in assuming, struggled upright
upon a cane. The cane, so to speak, with which primitive man wooed his
bride, defended his life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, and brought
down his food, was (like all canes which are in good taste) admirably
chosen for the occasion. The spear, the stave, the pilgrim's staff,
the sword, the sceptre--always has the cane-carrying animal borne
something in his hand. And, down the long vista of the past, the cane,
in its various manifestations, has ever been the mark of strength, and
so of dignity. Thus as a man originally became a gentleman, or a king,
by force of valour, the cane in its evolution has ever been the symbol
of a superior caste.
A man cannot do manual labour carrying a cane. And it would be a moral
impossibility for one of servile state--a butler, for instance, or a
ticket-chopper--to present himself in the role of his occupation
ornamented with a cane. One held in custody would not be permitted to
appear before a magistrate flaunting a cane. Until the stigma which
attaches to his position may be erased he would be shorn of this mark
of nobility, the cane.
Canes are now carried mostly by the very youthful and the very aged,
the powerful, the distinguished, the patrician, the self-important, and
those who fancy to exalt themselves. Some, to whom this privilege is
denied during the week by their fear of adverse public opinion, carry
canes only on Sundays and holidays. By this it is shown that on these
days they are their own masters.
Custom as to carrying canes varies widely in different parts of the
world; but it may be taken as a general maxim that the farther west you
go the less you see of canes. The instinct for carrying a cane is more
natural in old civilisations, where the tradition is of ancient growth,
than in newer ones, where frequently a cane is regarded as the sign of
an effete character. As we have been saying, canes, we all feel, have
an affinity with the idea of an aristocracy. If you do not admit that
the idea of an aristocracy is a good one, then doubtless you are down
on canes. It is interesting to observe that canes have flourished at
all especially chivalrous periods and in all especially chivalrous
communities. No illustrator would portray a young planter of the Old
South without his cane; and that fragrant old-school figure, a southern
"Colonel," without his cane is inconceivable. Canes connote more or
less leisure. They convey a subtle insinuation of some degree of
culture.
They always are a familiar article of a gentleman's dress in warm
climates. The cane, quite strictly speaking, in fact has its origin in
warm countries. For properly speaking, the word cane should be
restricted in its application to a peculiar class of palms, known as
ratans, included under the closely allied genera _Calamus_ and
_Daemonorops_, of which there are a large number of species. These
plants, the Encyclopedia tells us, are found widely extended throughout
the islands of the Indian Archipelago, the Malay Peninsula, China,
India and Ceylon; and examples have also been found in Australia and
Africa. The learned Rumphius describes them, under the name of
_Palmijunci_, as inhabitants of dense forests into which the rays of
the sun scarce can penetrate, where they form spiny bushes, obstructing
the passage through the jungle. They rise to the top of the tallest
trees and fall again so as to resemble a great length of cable,
adorned, however, with the most beautiful leaves, pinnated or
terminating in graceful tendrils. The plants creep or trail along to
an enormous length, sometimes, it is said, reaching five hundred feet.
Two examples of _Calamus verus_, measuring respectively two hundred and
seventy feet and two hundred and thirty feet, were exhibited in the
Paris exhibition of 1855.
The well-known Malacca canes are obtained from _Calamus Scipionum_, the
stems of which are much stouter than is the case with the average
species of _Calamus_. Doubtless to the vulgar a Malacca cane is merely
a Malacca cane. There are, however, in this interesting world choice
spirits who make a cult of Malacca canes, just as some dog fanciers are
devotees of the Airedale terrier. Such as these know that inferior
Malacca canes are, as the term in the cane trade is, "shaved"; that is,
not being of the circumference most coveted, but too thick, they have
been whittled down in bulk. A prime Malacca cane is, of course, a
natural stem, and it is a nice point to have a slight irregularity in
its symmetry as evidence of this. The delicious spotting of a Malacca
cane is due to the action of the sun upon it in drying. As the stems
are dried in sheaves, those most richly splotched are the ones that
have been at the outside of the bundle. What new strength to meet
life's troubles, what electric expansion of soul, come to the initiated
upon the feel of the vertebra of his Malacca cane!
The name of cane is also applied to many plants besides the _Calamus_,
which are possessed of long, slender, reed-like stalks or stems, as,
for instance, the sugar-cane, or the reed-cane. From the use as
walking-sticks to which many of these plants have been applied, the
name cane has been given generally to "sticks" irrespective of the
source from which they are derived.
Our distinguished grandfathers carried canes, frequently handsome
gold-headed ones, especially if they were ministers. Bishops, or
"Presiding Elders;" when, in those mellow times, it was the custom for
a congregation to present its minister with a gold-headed cane duly
inscribed. Our fathers of some consequence carried canes of a
gentlemanly pattern, often ones with ivory handles. Though in the days
when those of us now sometime grown were small one had to have arrived
at the dignity of at least middle-age before it was seemly for one to
carry a cane. In England, however, and particularly at Eton, it has
long been a common practice for small aristocrats to affect canes.
The dandies, fops, exquisites, and beaux of picturesque and courtly
ages were, of course, very partial to canes, and sometimes wore them
attached to the wrist by a thong. It has been the custom of the
Surgeon of the King of England to carry a "Gold Headed Cane." This
cane has been handed down to the various incumbents of this office
since the days of Dr. John Radcliffe, who was the first holder of the
cane. It has been used for two hundred years or more by the greatest
physicians and surgeons in the world, who succeeded to it. "The Gold
Headed Cane" was adorned by a cross-bar at the top instead of a knob.
The fact is explained by Munk, in that Radcliffe, the first owner, was
a rule unto himself and possibly preferred this device as a mark of
distinction beyond the knob used by physicians in general. Men of
genius now and then have found in their choice of a cane an opportunity
for the play of their eccentricity, such a celebrated cane being the
tall wand of Whistler. Among the relics of great men preserved in
museums for the inspiration of the people canes generally are to be
found. We have all looked upon the cane of George Washington at Mount
Vernon and the walking-stick of Carlyle in Cheyne Walk. And is each
not eloquent of the man who cherished it?
Freak canes are displayed here and there by persons of a pleasantly
bizarre turn of mind: canes encased in the hide of an elephant's tail,
canes that have been intricately carven by some Robinson Crusoe, or
canes of various other such species of curiosity. There is a veteran
New York journalist who will be glad to show any student of canes one
which he prizes highly that was made from the limb of a tree upon which
a friend of his was hanged. In our age of handy inventions a type of
cane is manufactured in combination with an umbrella.
Canes are among the useful properties of the theatre. He would be a
decidedly incomplete villain who did not carry a cane. Imaginative
literature is rich in canes. Who ever heard of a fairy godmother
without a cane? Who with any feeling for terror has not been startled
by the tap, tap of the cane of old Pew in "Treasure Island"? There is
an awe and a pathos in canes, too, for they are the light to blind men.
And the romance of canes is further illustrated in this: they, with
rags and the wallet, have been among the traditional accoutrements of
beggars, the insignia of the "dignity springing from the very depth of
desolation; as, to be naked is to be so much nearer to the being a man,
than to go in livery." J. M. Barrie was so fond of an anecdote of a
cane that he employed it several times in his earlier fiction. This
was the story of a young man who had a cane with a loose knob, which in
society he would slyly shake so that it tumbled off, when he would
exclaim: "Yes, that cane is like myself; it always loses its head in
the presence of ladies."
Canes have figured prominently in humour. The Irishman's shillelagh
was for years a conspicuous feature of the comic press. And there will
instantly come to every one's mind that immortal passage in "Tristram
Shandy." Trim is discoursing upon life and death:
"Are we not here now, continued the Corporal (striking the end of his
stick perpendicularly upon the floor, so as to give an idea of health
and stability)--and are we not (dropping his hat upon the ground) gone!
in a moment!--'Twas infinitely striking! Susannah burst into a flood
of tears."
Canes are not absent from poetry. Into your ears already has come the
refrain of "The Last Leaf":
"And totters o'er the ground,
With his cane."
And, doubtless, floods of instances of canes that the world will not
willingly let die will occur to one upon a moment's reflection.
Canes are inseparable from art. All artists carry them; and the poorer
the artist the more attached is he to his cane. Canes are
indispensable to the simple vanity of the Bohemian. One of the most
memorable drawings of Steinlen depicts the quaint soul of a child of
the Latin Quarter: an elderly Bohemian, very much frayed, advances
wreathed in the sunshine of his boutonniere and cane. Canes are
invariably an accompaniment of learning. Sylvester Bonnard would of
course not be without his cane; nor would any other true book-worm, as
may be seen any day in the reading-room of the British Museum and of
the New York Public Library. It is, indeed, indisputable that canes,
more than any other article of dress, are peculiarly related to the
mind. There is an old book-seller on Fourth Avenue whose clothes when
he dies, like the boots of Michelangelo, probably will require to be
pried loose from him, so incessantly has he worn them within the memory
of man. None has ever looked upon him in the open air without his
cane. And is not that emblem of omniscience and authority, the
schoolmaster's ferule, directly of the cane family? So large has the
cane loomed in the matter of chastisement that the word cane has become
a verb, to cane.
There was (in the days before the war) a military man (friend of mine),
a military man of the old school, in whom could be seen, shining like a
flame, a man's great love of a cane. He had lived a portion of his
life in South America, and he used to promenade every pleasant
afternoon up and down the Avenue swinging a sharply pointed,
steel-ferruled swagger-stick. "What's the use of carrying that
ridiculous thing around town?" some one said to him one day.
"That!" he rumbled in reply (he was one of the roarers among men),
"why, that's to stab scorpions with."
They've buried him, I heard, in Flanders; on his breast (I hope), his
cane.
"When a Red Cross platoon," says a news despatch of the other day, "was
advancing to the aid of scores of wounded men. Surgeon William J.
McCracken of the British Medical Corps ordered all to take cover, and
himself advanced through the enemy's fire, bearing a Red Cross flag on
his walking-stick."
Indeed, the Great War is one of the most thrilling, momentous and
colourful chapters in the history of canes. "The officers picked up
their canes," says the newspaper, and so forth, and so forth. Captain
A. Radclyffe Dugmore, in a spirited drawing of the Battle of the Somme,
shows an officer leading a charge waving a light cane. As an emblem of
rank the cane among our Allies has apparently supplanted the sword.
Something of the dapper, cocky look of our brothers in arms on our
streets undoubtedly is due to their canes. One never sees a British,
French or Italian officer in the rotogravure sections without his cane.
We should be as startled to see General Haig or the Prince of Wales
without a cane as without a leg. With our own soldiers the cane does
not seem to be so much the thing, at least over here. I have a friend,
however, who went away a private with a rifle over his shoulder. The
other day came news from him that he had become a sergeant, and,
perhaps as proof of this, a photograph of himself wearing a tin hat and
with a cane in his hand. It is also to be observed now and then that a
lady in uniformed service appears to regard it as an added military
touch to swing a cane.
Women as well as men play their part in the colourful story of the
cane. The shepherdess's crook might be regarded as the precursor of
canes for ladies. In Merrie England in the age when the May-pole
flourished it was fashionable, we know from pictures, for comely misses
and grandes dames to sport tall canes mounted with silver or gold and
knotted with a bow of ribbon. The dowager duchess of romantic story
has always appeared leaning upon her cane. Do not we so see the rich
aunt of Hawden Crawley? And Mr. Walpole's Duchess of Wrexe, certainly,
was supported in her domination of the old order of things by a cane.
The historic old croons of our own early days smoked a clay or a
corn-cob pipe and went bent upon a cane.
In England to-day it is swagger for women to carry sticks--in the
country. And here the thoughtful spectator of the human scene notes a
nice point. It is not etiquette, according to English manners, for a
woman to carry a cane in town. Some American ladies who admire and
would emulate English customs have not been made acquainted with this
delicate nuance of taste, and so are very unfashionable when they would
be ultra-fashionable.
Anybody returning from the Alps should bring back an Alpine stock with
him; every one who has visited Ireland upon his return has presented
some close friend with a blackthorn stick; nobody has made a walking
tour of England without an ash stick. In London all adult males above
the rank of costers carry "sticks"; in New York sticks are customary
with many who would be ashamed to assume them did they live in the
Middle West, where the infrequent sticks to be seen upon the city
streets are in many cases the sign of transient mummers. And yet it is
a curious fact that in communities where the stick is conspicuously
absent from the streets it is commonly displayed in show-windows, in
company with cheap suits and decidedly loud gloves. Another odd
circumstance is this: trashy little canes hawked by sidewalk venders
generally appear with the advent of toy balloons for sale on days of
big parades.
In Jamaica, Long Island, the visitor would probably see canes in the
hands only of prosperous coloured gentlemen. And than this fact
probably nothing throws more light on the winning nature of the
coloured race, and on the character and function of canes. In San
Francisco--but the adequate story, the Sartor Resartus--the World as
Canes, remains to be written.
This, of course, is the merest essay into this vast and significant
subject.
I
THE FISH REPORTER
Men of genius, blown by the winds of chance, have been, now and then,
mariners, bar-keeps, schoolmasters, soldiers, politicians, clergymen,
and what not. And from these pursuits have they sucked the essence of
yarns and in the setting of these activities found a flavour to stir
and to charm hearts untold. Now, it is a thousand pities that no man
of genius has ever been a fish reporter. Thus has the world lost great
literary treasure, as it is highly probable that there is not under the
sun any prospect so filled with the scents and colours of story as that
presented by the commerce in fish.
Take whale oil. Take the funny old buildings on Front Street, out of
paintings, I declare, by Howard Pyle, where the large merchants in
whale oil are. Take salt fish. Do you know the oldest salt-fish house
in America, down by Coenties Slip? Ah! you should. The ghost of old
Long John Silver, I suspect, smokes an occasional pipe in that old
place. And many are the times I've seen the slim shade of young Jim
Hawkins come running out. Take Labrador cod for export to the
Mediterranean lands or to Porto Rico via New York. Take herrings
brought to this port from Iceland, from Holland, and from Scotland;
mackerel from Ireland, from the Magdalen Islands, and from Cape Breton;
crabmeat from Japan; fishballs from Scandinavia; sardines from Norway
and from France; caviar from Russia; shrimp which comes from Florida,
Mississippi, and Georgia, or salmon from Alaska, and Puget Sound, and
the Columbia River.
Take the obituaries of fishermen. "In his prime, it is said, there was
not a better skipper in the Gloucester fishing fleet." Take disasters
to schooners, smacks, and trawlers. "The crew were landed, but lost
all their belongings." New vessels, sales, etc. "The sealing schooner
_Tillie B._, whose career in the South Seas is well known, is reported
to have been sold to a moving-picture firm." Sponges from the
Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. "To most people, familiar only
with the sponges of the shops, the animal as it comes from the sea
would be rather unrecognisable." Why, take anything you please! It is
such stuff as stories are. And as you eat your fish from the store how
little do you reck of the glamour of what you are doing!
However, as it seems to me unlikely that a man of genius will be a fish
reporter shortly I will myself do the best I can to paint the tapestry
of the scenes of his calling. The advertisement in the newspaper read:
"Wanted--Reporter for weekly trade paper." Many called, but I was
chosen. Though, doubtless, no man living knew less about fish than I.
The news stands are each like a fair, so laden are they with magazines
in bright colours. It would seem almost as if there were a different
magazine for every few hundred and seven-tenth person, as the
statistics put these matters. And yet, it seems, there is a vast, a
very vast, periodical literature of which we, that is, magazine readers
in general, know nothing whatever. There is, for one, that fine, old,
standard publication, _Barrel and Box_, devoted to the subjects and the
interests of the coopering industry; there is, too, _The Dried Fruit
Packer and Western Canner_, as alert a magazine as one could wish--in
its kind; and from the home of classic American literature comes _The
New England Tradesman and Grocer_. And so on. At the place alone
where we went to press twenty-seven trade journals were printed every
week, from one for butchers to one for bankers.
_The Fish Industries Gazette_--Ah, yes! For some reason not clear
(though it is an engaging thing, I think) the word "gazette" is the
great word among the titles of trade journals. There are _The
Jewellers' Gazette_ and _The Women's Wear Gazette_ and _The Poulterers'
Gazette_ (of London), and _The Maritime Gazette_ (of Halifax), and
other gazettes quite without number. This word "gazette" makes its
appeal, too, curiously enough, to those who christen country papers;
and trade journals have much of the intimate charm of country papers.
The "trade" in each case is a kind of neighbourly community, separated
in its parts by space, but joined in unity of sympathy. "Personals"
are a vital feature of trade papers. "Walter Conner, who for some time
has conducted a bakery and fish market at Hudson, N.Y., has removed to
Fort Edward, leaving his brother Ed in charge at the Hudson place of
business."
_The Fish Industries Gazette_, as I say, was one of several in its
field, in friendly rivalry with _The Oyster Trade and Fisherman_ and
_The Pacific Fisheries_. It comprized two departments: the fresh fish
and oyster department, and myself. I was, as an editorial announcement
said at the beginning of my tenure of office, a "reorganisation of our
salt, smoked, and pickled fish department." The delectable, mellow
spirit of the country paper, so removed from the crash and whirr of
metropolitan journalism, rested in this, too, that upon the _Gazette_ I
did practically everything on the paper except the linotyping.
Reporter, editorial writer, exchange editor, make-up man, proof-reader,
correspondent, advertisement solicitor, was I.
As exchange editor, did I read all the papers in the English language
in eager search of fish news. And while you are about the matter, just
find me a finer bit of literary style evoking the romance of the vast
wastes of the moving sea, in Stevenson, Defoe, anywhere you please,
than such a news item as this: "Capt. Ezra Pound, of the bark _Elnora_,
of Salem, Mass., spoke a lonely vessel in latitude this and longitude
that, September 8. She proved to be the whaler _Wanderer_, and her
captain said that she had been nine months at sea, that all on board
were well, and that he had stocked so many barrels of whale oil."
As exchange editor was it my business to peruse reports from Eastport,
Maine, to the effect that one of the worst storms in recent years had
destroyed large numbers of the sardine weirs there. To seek fish
recipes, of such savoury sound as those for "broiled redsnapper,"
"shrimps bordelaise," and "baked fish croquettes." To follow fishing
conditions in the North Sea occasioned by the Great War. To hunt down
jokes of piscatory humour. "The man who drinks like a fish does not
take kindly to water.--Exchange." To find other "fillers" in the
consular reports and elsewhere: "Fish culture in India," "1800 Miles in
a Dory," "Chinese Carp for the Philippines," "Americans as Fish
Eaters." And, to use a favourite term of trade papers, "etc., etc."
Then to "paste up" the winnowed fruits of this beguiling research.
As editorial writer, to discuss the report of the commission recently
sent by congress to the Pribilof Islands, Alaska, to report on the
condition of our national herd of fur seals; to discuss the official
interpretation here of the Government ruling on what constitutes
"boneless" codfish; to consider the campaign in Canada to promote there
a more popular consumption of fish, and to brightly remark apropos of
this that "a fish a day keeps the doctor away"; to review the current
issue of _The Journal of the Fisheries Society of Japan_, containing
leading articles on "Are Fishing Motor Boats Able to Encourage in Our
Country" and "Fisherman the Late Mr. H. Yamaguchi Well Known"; to
combat the prejudice against dogfish as food, a prejudice like that
against eels, in some quarters eyed askance as "calling cousins with
the great sea-serpent," as Juvenal says; to call attention to the doom
of one of the most picturesque monuments in the story of fish, the
passing of the pleasant and celebrated old Trafalgar Hotel at
Greenwich, near London, scene of the famous Ministerial white-bait
dinners of the days of Pitt; to make a jest on an exciting idea
suggested by some medical man that some of the features of a
Ritz-Carlton Hotel, that is, baths, be introduced into the fo'c's'les
of Grand Banks fishing vessels; to keep an eye on the activities of our
Bureau of Fisheries; to hymn a praise to the monumental new Fish Pier
at Boston; to glance at conditions at the premier fish market of the
world, Billingsgate; to herald the fish display at the Canadian
National Exhibition at Toronto, and, indeed, etc., and again etc.
As general editorial roustabout, to find each week a "leader," a
translation, say, from _In Allgemeine Fishcherei-Zeitwung_, or
_Economic Circular No. 10_, "Mussels in the Tributaries of the
Missouri," or the last biennial report of the Superintendent of
Fisheries of Wisconsin, or a scientific paper on "The Porpoise in
Captivity" reprinted by permission of _Zoologica_, of the New York
Zoological Society. To find each week for reprint a poem appropriate
in sentiment to the feeling of the paper. One of the "Salt Water
Ballads" would do, or John Masefield singing of "the whale's way," or
"Down to the white dipping sails;" or Rupert Brooke: "And in that
heaven of all their wish. There shall be no more land, say fish"; or a
"weather rhyme" about "mackerel skies," when "you're sure to get a
fishing day"; or something from the New York _Sun_ about "the lobster
pots of Maine"; or Oliver Herford, in the _Century_, "To a Goldfish";
or, best of all, an old song of fishing ways of other days.
And to compile from the New York _Journal of Commerce_ better poetry
than any of this, tables, beautiful tables of "imports into New York":
"Oct. 15.--From Bordeaux, 225 cs. cuttlefish bone; Copenhagen, 173
pkgs. fish; Liverpool, 969 bbls. herrings, 10 walrus hides, 2,000 bags
salt; La Guayra, 6 cs. fish sounds; Belize, 9 bbls. sponges; Rotterdam,
7 pkgs. seaweed, 9,000 kegs herrings; Barcelona, 235 cs. sardines;
Bocas Del Toro, 5 cs. turtle shells; Genoa, 3 boxes corals; Tampico, 2
pkgs. sponges; Halifax, 1 cs. seal skins, 35 bbls. cod liver oil, 215
cs. lobsters, 490 bbls. codfish; Akureyri, 4,150 bbls. salted
herrings," and much more. Beautiful tables of "exports from New York".
"To Australia" (cleared Sep. 1); "to Argentina;"--Haiti, Jamaica,
Guatemala, Scotland, Salvador, Santo Domingo, England, and to places
many more. And many other gorgeous tables, too, "Fishing vessels at
New York," for one, listing the "trips" brought into this port by the
_Stranger_, the _Sarah O'Neal_, the _Nourmahal_, a farrago of charming
sounds, and a valuable tale of facts.
As make-up man, of course, so to "dress" the paper that the "markets,"
Oporto, Trinidad, Porto Rico, Demerara, Havana, would be together; that
"Nova Scotia Notes"--"Weather conditions for curing have been more
favourable since October set in"--would follow "Halifax Fish
Market"--"Last week's arrivals were: Oct. 13, schr. _Hattie Loring_,
960 quintals," etc.--that "Pacific Coast Notes"--"The tug _Tatoosh_
will perform the service for the Seattle salmon packers of towing a
vessel from Seattle to this port via the Panama Canal"--would follow
"Canned Salmon"; that shellfish matter would be in one place; reports
of saltfish where such should be; that the weekly tale of the canned
fish trade politically embraced the canned fish advertising; and so on
and so on.
Finest of all, as reporter, to go where the fish reporter goes. There
the sight-seeing cars never find their way; the hurried commuter has
not his path, nor knows of these things at all; and there that racy
character who, voicing a multitude, declares that he would rather be a
lamp post on Broadway than Mayor of St. Louis, goes not for to see. Up
lower Greenwich Street the fish reporter goes, along an eerie, dark,
and narrow way, beneath a strange, thundering roof, the "L" overhead.
He threads his way amid seemingly chaotic, architectural piles of
boxes, of barrels, crates, casks, kegs, and bulging bags; roundabout
many great fetlocked draught horses, frequently standing or plunging
upon the sidewalk, and attached to many huge trucks and wagons; and
much of the time in the street he is compelled to go, finding the side
walks too congested with the traffic of commerce to admit of his
passing there.
You probably eat butter, and eggs, and cheese. Then you would delight
in Greenwich Street. You could feast your highly creditable appetite
for these excellent things for very nearly a solid mile upon the signs
of "wholesale dealers and commission merchants" in them. The letter
press, as you might say, of the fish reporter's walk is a noble paean
to the earth's glorious yield for the joyous sustenance of man. For
these princely merchants' signs sing of opulent stores of olive oil, of
sausages, beans, soups, extracts, and spices, sugar, Spanish, Bermuda,
and Havana onions, "fine" apples, teas, coffee, rice, chocolates, dried
fruits and raisins, and of loaves and of fishes, and of "fish
products." Lo! dark and dirty and thundering Greenwich Street is
to-day's translation of the Garden of Eden.
Here is a great house whose sole vocation is the importation of caviar
for barter here. Caviar from over-seas now comes, when it comes at
all, mainly by the way of Archangel, recently put on the map, for most
of us, by the war. The fish reporter is told, however, if it be
summer, that there cannot be much doing in the way of caviar until
fall, "when the spoonbill start coming in." And on he goes to a great
saltfish house, where many men in salt-stained garments are running
about, their arms laden with large flat objects, of sharp and jagged
edge, which resemble dried and crackling hides of some animal curiously
like a huge fish; and numerous others of "the same" are trundling round
wheelbarrow-like trucks likewise so laden. Where stacks of these hides
stand on their tails against the walls, and goodness knows how many big
boxes are, containing, as those open show, beautifully soft, thick,
cream-coloured slabs, which is fish. And where still other men, in
overalls stained like a painter's palette, are knocking off the heads
of casks and dipping out of brine still other kinds of fish for
inspection.
Here it is said by the head of the house, by the stove (it is chill
weather) in his office like a ship-master's cabin: "Strong market on
foreign mackerel. Mines hinder Norway catch. Advices from abroad
report that German resources continue to purchase all available
supplies from the Norwegian fishermen. No Irish of any account.
Recent shipment sold on the deck at high prices. Fair demand from the
Middle West."
So, by stages, on up to turn into North Moore Street, looking down a
narrow lane between two long bristling rows of wagons pointed out from
the curbs, to the facades of the North River docks at the bottom, with
the tops of the buff funnels of ocean liners, and Whistleranean
silhouettes of derricks, rising beyond. Hereabout are more importers,
exporters, and "producers" of fish, famous in their calling beyond the
celebrities of popular publicity. And he that has official entree may
learn, by mounting dusky stairs, half-ladder and half-stair, and by
passing through low-ceilinged chambers freighted with many barrels, to
the sanctums of the fish lords, what's doing in the foreign herring
way, and get the current market quotations, at present sky-high, and
hear that the American shore mackerel catch is very fine stock.
Then roundabout, with a step into the broad vista of homely Washington
Street, and a turn through Franklin Street, where is the man decorated
by the Imperial Japanese Government with a gold medal, if he should
care to wear it, for having distinguished himself in the development of
commerce in the marine products of Japan, back to Hudson Street. An
authentic railroad is one of the spectacular features of Hudson Street.
Here down the middle of the way are endless trains, stopping, starting,
crashing, laden to their ears with freight, doubtless all to eat.
Tourists should come from very far to view Hudson Street. Here is a
spectacle as fascinating, as awe-inspiring, as extraordinary as any in
the world. From dawn until darkness falls, hour after hour, along
Hudson Street slowly, steadily moves a mighty procession of great
trucks. One would not suppose there were so many trucks on the face of
the earth. It is a glorious sight, and any man whose soul is not dead
should jump with joy to see it. And the thunder of them altogether as
they bang over the stones is like the music of the spheres.
There is on Hudson Street a tall handsome building where the fish
reporter goes, which should be enjoyed in this way: Up in the lift you
go to the top, and then you walk down, smacking your lips. For all the
doors in that building are brimming with poetry. And the tune of it
goes like this: "Toasted Corn-Flake Co.," "Seaboard Rice," "Chili
Products," "Red Bloom Grape Juice Sales Office," "Porto Rico and
Singapore Pineapple Co.," "Sunnyland Foodstuffs," "Importers of Fruit
Pulps, Pimentos," "Sole Agents U.S.A. Italian Salad Oil," "Raisin
Growers," "Log Cabin Syrups," "Jobbers in Beans, Peas," "Chocolate and
Cocoa Preparations," "Ohio Evaporated Milk Co.," "Bernese Alps and
Holland Condensed Milk Co.," "Brazilian Nuts Co.," "Brokers Pacific
Coast Salmon," "California Tuna Co.," and thus on and on.
The fish reporter crosses the street to see the head of the Sardine
Trust, who has just thrown the market into excitement by a heavy cut in
prices of last year's pack. Thence, pausing to refresh himself by the
way at a sign "Agency for Reims Champagne and Moselle Wines--Bordeaux
Clarets and Sauternes," over to Broadway to interview the most august
persons of all, dealers in fertiliser, "fish scrap." These mighty
gentlemen live, when at business, in palatial suites of offices
constructed of marble and fine woods and laid with rich rugs. The
reporter is relayed into the innermost sanctum by a succession of
richly clothed attendants. And he learns, it may be, that fishing in
Chesapeake Bay is so poor that some of the "fish factories" may decide
to shut down. Acid phosphate, it is said, is ruling at $13 f.o.b.
Baltimore.
And so the fish reporter enters upon the last lap of his rounds.
Through, perhaps, the narrow, crooked lane of Pine Street he passes, to
come out at length upon a scene set for a sea tale. Here would a lad,
heir to vast estates in Virginia, be kidnapped and smuggled aboard to
be sold a slave in Africa. This is Front Street. A white ship lies at
the foot of it. Cranes rise at her side. Tugs, belching smoke, bob
beyond. All about are ancient warehouses, redolent of the Thames, with
steep roofs and sometimes stairs outside, and with tall shutters, a
crescent-shaped hole in each. There is a dealer in weather-vanes.
Other things dealt in hereabout are these: chronometers, "nautical
instruments," wax gums, cordage and twine, marine paints, cotton wool
and waste, turpentine, oils, greases, and rosin. Queer old taverns,
public houses, are here, too. Why do not their windows rattle with a
"Yo, ho, ho"?
There is an old, old house whose business has been fish oil within the
memory of men. And here is another. Next, through Water Street, one
comes in search of the last word on salt fish. Now the air is filled
with gorgeous smell of roasting coffee. Tea, coffee, sugar, rice,
spices, bags and bagging here have their home. And there are haughty
bonded warehouses filled with fine liquors. From his white cabin at
the top of a venerable structure comes the dean of the salt-fish
business. "Export trade fair," he says; "good demand from South
America."
II
ON GOING A JOURNEY
One of the pleasantest things in the world is "going a journey"--but
few know it now. It isn't every one that can go a journey. No doubt
one that owns an automobile cannot go. The spirit of the age has got
him fast. Begoggled and with awful squawks, feverish, exultant,
ignorant, he is condemned to hoot over the earth. Thus the wealthy
know nothing of journeys, for they must own motors. Vain people and
envious people and proud people cannot go, because the wealthy do not.
Silly people do not know enough to go. The lazy cannot, because of
their laziness. The busy hang themselves with business. The halt nor
the aged, alas! cannot go. In fine, only such as are whole anywise and
pure in heart can go a journey, and they are the blessed.
"We arrive at places now, but we" (most of us) "travel no more." The
way a journey is gone, to come to the point, is walking. Asking many
folks' pardon, to tear through the air in an open car, deafened,
hilariously muddled by the rush and roar of wind, is to drive
observation from the mind: it is to be, in a manner, complacently,
intellectually unconscious; is to drink an enjoyment akin to that of
the shooters of the chute, or that got on the very latest of this sort
of engine of human amusement called the "Hully-Gee-Whizz," a pleasure
of the ignorant, metaphorically, a kind of innocents' rot-gut whiskey.
The way a journey is gone, which is walking, is a wine, a mellow
claret, stimulating to observation, to thought, to speculation, to the
flow of talk, gradually, decently warming the blood. Rightly taken
(which manner this paper attempts to set forth), walking is among the
pleasures of the mind. It is a call-boy to wit, a hand-maiden to
cultivation. Sufficiently indulged in, it will make a man educated, a
wit, a poet, an ironist, a philosopher, a gentleman, a better Christian
(not to dwell upon improving his digestion and prolonging his life).
And, too, like true Shandyism "it opens the heart and the lungs."
Whoso hath ears, let him hear! Once and for all, if the mad world did
but know it, the best, the most exquisite automobile is a
walking-stick; and one of the finest things in life is going a journey
with it.
No one, though (this is the first article to be observed), should ever
go a journey with any other than him with whom one walks arm in arm, in
the evening, the twilight, and, talking (let us suppose) of men's given
names, agrees that if either should have a son he shall be named after
the other. Walking in the gathering dusk, two and two, since the world
began, there have always been young men who have time to one another
plighted their troth. If one is not still one of these, then, in the
sense here used, journeys are over for him. What is left to him of
life he may enjoy, but not journeys. Mention should be made in passing
that some have been found so ignorant of the nature of journeys as to
suppose that they might be taken in company with members, or a member,
of the other sex. Now, one who writes of journeys would cheerfully be
burned at the stake before he would knowingly underestimate women. But
it must be confessed that it is another season in the life of man that
they fill.
They are too personal for the high enjoyment of going a journey. They
must be forever thinking about you or about themselves; with them
everything in the world is somehow tangled up in these matters; and
when you are with them (you cannot help it, or if you could they would
not allow it), you must be forever thinking about them or yourself.
Nothing on either side can be seen detached. They cannot rise to that
philosophic plane of mind which is the very marrow of going a journey.
One reason for this is that they can never escape from the idea of
society. You are in their society, they are in yours; and the
multitudinous personal ties which connect you all to that great order
called society that you have for a period got away from physically are
present. Like the business man who goes on a vacation from business
and takes his business habits along with him, so on a journey they
would bring society along, and all sort of etiquette.
He that goes a journey shakes off the trammels of the world; he has
fled all impediments and inconveniences; he belongs, for the moment, to
no time or place. He is neither rich nor poor, but in that which he
thinks and sees. There is not such another Arcadia for this on earth
as in going a journey. He that goes a journey escapes, for a breath of
air, from all conventions; without which, though, of course, society
would go to pot; and which are the very natural instinct of women.
The best time for going a journey (a connoisseur speaks it) is some
morning when it has rained well the day or night before, and the soil
of the road, where it is not evenly packed, is of about that substance
of which the fingers can make fine "tees" for golfing. This is the
precise composition of earth and dampness underfoot most sympathetic to
the spine, the knee sockets, the muscles, tendons, ligaments of limb,
back, neck, breast and abdomen, and the spirit of locomotion in the
ancient exercise of walking. On this day the protruding stones have
been washed bald in the road; the lines and marks of drainage are still
clearly, freshly defined in the soil; in the gutters light-coloured
sand has risen to the surface with the dark moist soil in a grained
effect not unlike marbled chocolate cake; and clean, sweet gravel is
laid bare here and there in the wagon ruts. This is the chosen time
for the nerves and senses. On such a day the whole world greets one
cleansed and having on a fresh bib-and-tucker. It is a conscious
pleasure to have eyes. It is as if one long near-sighted without
knowing it had suddenly been fitted with the proper spectacles. It is
sweet to have olfactories. Whoso hath lungs, let him breathe. Man was
made to rejoice!
How green, on such a day, are the greens; the distant purples how
purple! The stone walls are cool. The great canvas of the sky has
been but newly brushed in, as if by some modern landscape painter (the
tube colours seem yet hardly dry); the technique, the brush-marks, show
in the unutterably soft, warm-white clouds; or, like a puff of
beaten-egg white, wells above that orchard hill. Higher up, thinly
touched across the blue, a great sweep of downy, swan breast-breast
feathers spreads. But not one canvas is this sky; ceaselessly it
changes with the minutes. To observe is to walk through an endless
gallery of countless pictures. It is alone a life-study. Now the wind
has blown it clear as blue limpidness; now scattered flakes appear; now
it is deep blue; now pale; now it tinges darkly; now it is a layer of
cream. Again, it breaks into shapes--decorative shapes, odd shapes,
lovely shapes, shapes always fresh. Its innovations are unflagging,
inexhaustable. Always art, its genius is infinite.
One must go a journey to discover how vast the sky really is, and the
world. To mount, bending forward, up by a long, tree-walled ascent
from some valley, and come upon this spectacular sight--the fair globe
that man inhabits lying away before one like a gigantic physical map, a
map in relief, cunningly painted in the colours of nature, laid off by
woods and orchards and roads and stone walls into many decorative
shapes until it melts into purple, and fainter and fainter and still
fainter purple Japanese hills. The sight is some of the noble quarry,
the game; this is the anise-seed bag of him that goes a journey. Some
glimmering of the nobility of the plan of which he is a fell, erring
speck comes over one as he looks. This is the religious side of going
a journey.
It is best to go a journey on a road that you do not know; on a road
that lures you on to peep over the crest of yonder hill, that ever
flees before you in a game of hide-and-seek, disappearing behind great,
jutting rocks and turns and trees, to leap out again at your approach
and laughingly, elusively, continually slip before you; a road that
winds anon where some roaring brook pours near by; a road that may
deceive you and trick you into miles out of your way.
A high breeze rushes through the trees and fans the traveller's opened
pores. With a sudden, startling whir, mounting with their hearts, a
bird flushes from the tangled growth at the roadside.
The worst roads for walking are such as are commonly called the best;
that is, macadam. A macadam pavement is a piece of masonry, wholly
without elasticity, built for vehicles to roll over. To go a journey
without a walking-stick much would be lost; indeed it would be folly.
A stick is the fly-wheel of the engine. Something is needed to whack
things with, little stones, wormy apples, and so forth, in the road.
It can be changed from one hand to the other, which is a great help.
Then if one slips a trifle on a down-grade turn it is a lengthened arm
thrown out to steady one. It is the pilgrim's staff. On the up-grades
it assists climbing. It is a weapon of defence if such should ever be
needed. It is a badge of dignity, a dress sword. It is the sceptre of
walking.
Dipping the dales, riding the swells, the automobiles come, like
gigantic bugs coming after the wicked. With a sucking rush of wind and
dust and an odour of gasoline they are past. Stray pieces of paper at
the roadside arise and fly after them, then, further on, sink impotent,
exhausted.
"I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much
nearer to one another!" One who goes much a-journeying cannot
understand how Thoreau got it so completely turned around. But after
the first effervescence of going a journey (of speech a time of times)
has passed, and when, next, the fine novelty of open observation has
begun to pale, there are still copious resources left; one retires on
the way, metaphorically speaking, into one's closet for meditation, for
miles of silent thought--when one's stride is mechanical, and is like
an absent-minded drumming with the fingers; but that it is better, for
it pumps the blood for freer thought than in lethargic sitting.