"We do not say that," said Otto. "We do not know you as a poet, and so
we do not pass judgment. When one says because one or two, or even two
thousand, shoemakers are bad, all shoemakers are bad, one speaks
foolishness. So with the poets. Because Heinrich von Scribbhausen writes
bad stuff, you do not therefore write bad stuff. A poet should be
judged, not by his shoes, but by his poems. I, a shoemaker, must not be
judged by my poems, but by my shoes, which points a moral, and that
moral is, what is sauce for the goose is not always sauce for the
gander. The gander may be a person who makes fine clothes. The goose
should not be judged by his clothes, but the gander should; therefore,
never judge a man for what he ain't."
"Bravo!" cried Jurgurson. "I could not have spoken more wisely myself."
"Nor I," said Eisenberg. "Yet I could add somewhat. You do not print
your poems?"
"Of course," I replied, "and why not?"
"It is a great risk," sighed Eisenberg. "Particularly for poets, for, as
Otto has well said, the world cannot judge a man for what he is not; so
if a shoemaker print a bad book of poems, there is no risk. The poems
will be judged as the work of a shoemaker, and, though bad, may still be
good for a shoemaker to have written; but for a poet to print bad poems,
that is as risky as for a shoemaker to make bad shoes."
At this point my guide, Hans Pumpernickel, feeling perhaps that the
conversation was not exactly pleasant for me, in spite of the undoubted
wisdom of the sages' remarks, handed his tobacco-pouch to the keysmith,
having observed that Eisenberg's pipe was empty.
"Thank you, no," said Eisenberg, handing it back, "I do not smoke
tobacco. It is tobacco which makes of smoking an injurious pastime. To
me the pleasure of smoking is the caressing of a pipe, the holding of it
in one's hands, the occasional putting of it into one's mouth and
puffing. Therefore I keep my pipe to caress, to hold, to put into my
mouth, and to puff upon. The tobacco, which does not agree with me, I
never use."
Otto and Jurgurson beamed proudly upon their fellow-sage. It was evident
that in him they recognized the centre of all wisdom.
"But as for poets," said Eisenberg, turning to me, "I should like to
tell you about Gregory--the poet Gregory. Did you ever hear of him?"
"No," said I.
"Ah! See then!" cried Eisenberg. "It proves my point. He is unknown
already, and all for why? Because his poems were printed, for until
they were printed they were not unknown."
"Magnificently put!" cried the shoemaker.
"Logical as logic itself!" said the innkeeper.
"And what is the story of Gregory?" I asked, interested hugely and
almost as enthusiastic over the whimsical wisdom of the keysmith as his
fellow-wiseacres.
"Gregory," said Eisenberg, "was the first name. His last name I shall
not give you for two reasons. The first reason is that, if I gave it to
you, I should betray a confidence reposed in me by his family. The
second reason is that I have forgotten it. That is the sad part of it
all. When a name begins to be forgotten by one, or even two persons, its
trip to oblivion is rapid. Even I, who used to worship him as a poet,
have forgotten the name he made for himself."
The keysmith sighed sorrowfully as he spoke, and I began to believe with
him, though without knowing the reason therefor, that Gregory's cause
was indeed a lost one. There was silence for a full minute, during which
Eisenberg puffed thoughtfully upon his empty pipe, blowing imaginary
clouds of smoke out into the air, and then he spoke.
"Gregory was not of high birth, but early in life his parents saw that
he was not destined to follow successfully the career of a peasant. He
was of an inquiring mind. He was not content to know that grass was
green and water wet. He wished to know why grass was green and water
wet, and when, in response to questions of this nature, his father, a
practical person, would send him out to the stables to milk the cows, or
to the grindstone to sharpen the scythe, Gregory's soul revolted within
him. 'You will never make a peasant,' said his father. 'Not a peasant of
the fields,' the boy replied, 'but a peasant of learning, perhaps. I
would not mind milking the cow of knowledge, and filling the pail of my
mind with lactated information; nor should I mind sharpening my wits
upon the grindstone of thought.' And at these words his father would
stare at him and say that one who had such command of mysterious
language did not need Greek to conceal his thoughts from his hearers;
and he would add an invitation, which Gregory perforce always accepted,
to retire to the fagot-room with him and receive corporal punishment at
his hands. So it went for several years, during which Gregory read
everything that came within reach, until finally one morning he said to
his father: 'Why do you persist in making a peasant of me when I wish to
be a poet? What is the odds to you? Nay, more, father, do not the words
peasant and poet both begin with a P and end with a T? What difference
can it make if the ends be the same?'--which so enraged his father that
Gregory was disowned by him, and another boy adopted in his place.
"Then Gregory came here to Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, and at a
time when Rudolf von Pepperpotz, the solemn Baron of Humpfelhimmel,
happened to stand in need of a secretary and librarian. How it came
about that Gregory was so unfortunate as to obtain the position is
neither here nor there. Suffice it to say that he became the secretary
and librarian of the Baron, and from that time on he was happy. He lived
among books, and while at times he found his duties arduous, he was
nevertheless content, for he was a philosopher."
"I'd rather be content than eat," said the innkeeper.
"Indeed, yes," said Otto, "for entertainment is better than dyspepsia,
and poor eating comes more of the one than the other."
"By careful economy," continued Eisenberg, "Gregory soon managed to
amass a little fortune, and then he felt he might safely venture to
write a little himself, and he did so. He wrote poems about the moon,
odes to commonplace things, like scissors and dust-pans, but he was wise
enough not to publish any of his verse. Then he married, and
occasionally he would recite his verses to his wife, who said they were
magnificent. She in turn repeated them to her friends, and they said, as
she had, that they were unsurpassed. Still Gregory would not print them,
though it soon got noised about that he was a great poet. And so it
went. Finally, finding himself subjected to great temptation to print
his writings, he put everything he had written into a casket, and,
having a small closet constructed in the walls of his house, he placed
the casket in that closet, locked the iron door upon it and threw away
the key. Time went on, and people daily, their curiosity excited, talked
more and more of Gregory's poetry; they even sent delegations to him,
requesting him to have his rhymes printed, but he was faithful to his
resolution, and when he died he was looked upon as a great writer,
without having printed a line. Time passed and his reputation grew.
Three generations passed by. His children and their children and their
children's children came, lived, and died, and constantly his fame
increased, and people said, 'Ah, yes; so and so is a great poet, but the
poems of Gregory! You should have heard them. They were sublime.'
"But two years ago there came an unhappy day. Some one laughed at the
mention of Gregory's name and cast doubt upon the tradition that he had
written, and his great-grandson, foolishly, I thought, and recklessly,
as has since been proved, offered to prove the truth of the tradition by
opening the closet which for a century had remained closed, and
publishing the writings of his ancestor. I was sent for as keysmith to
open the door, and when it was opened there stood the casket, and in the
casket were found the poems.
"'Let that suffice,' said I to his great-grandson. 'You have proved your
point.'
"'I will prove it to the world,' said he. 'I will publish the poems.'"
Here Eisenberg sighed.
"He did so," he resumed mournfully, "and another idol was shattered. The
poems were the worst you ever read, and from that time on the name of
Gregory the poet began to sink into oblivion, where it now lies. Had his
descendants been less weak, his name would still have remained a
household word, such is the force of tradition. As it is, the printed
volume is the best testimony that the great poet Gregory was nothing but
a commonplace rhymester whose name was not worthy of remembrance.
"And that, sir," concluded Eisenberg, bowing politely to me, "is why I
say that a poet who does not publish runs less risk of failing as a poet
than he who does publish."
And I? Well, how could I deny that Eisenberg was right? He had proved
his point only too well, and even that night, on my return home, I went
to my little portfolio and utterly destroyed the dozen or more poems I
had written that day. If you will take my word for it, you will think
them greater than you might if you insisted upon reading them.
"What think you?" asked Hans, as we went home? "Are they not wise?"
"Wiser than the Three Men of Gotham who went to sea in a bowl," said I,
"for I do not believe that Otto, Eisenberg, or Jurgurson would go to sea
at all."
"True," was Hans's comment, "for as Otto well says in one of his maxims,
'For a sailor with his sea-legs on there is nothing like the sea, but
for a shoemaker who lives by shoes alone, dry land is by much the
solider foundation.'"