simple duty of transporting passengers cheaply and comfortably. He wants
to exercise the functions of a lecturer in an ethical culture society.
While the transported victim is swaying precariously from the end of a
strap he reads a notice urging him to practice Christian courtesy and
not to push. While the poor wretch pores over this counsel of
perfection, he feels like answering as did Junius to the Duke of
Grafton, 'My Lord, injuries may be atoned for and forgiven, but insults
admit of no compensation.'
A man enters a barber's shop with the simple desire of being shaved. But
he meets with the more ambitious desires of the barber. The serious
barber is not content with any slight contribution to human welfare. He
insists that his client shall be shampooed, manicured, massaged, steamed
beneath boiling towels, cooled off by electric fans and, while all this
is going on, that he shall have his boots blacked.
Have you never marveled at the patience of people in having so many
things done to them that they don't want, just to avoid hurting the
feelings of professional people who want to do more than is expected of
them? You watch the stoical countenance of the passenger in a Pullman
car as he stands up to be brushed. The chances are that he doesn't want
to be brushed. He would prefer to leave the dust on his coat rather than
to be compelled to swallow it. But he knows what is expected of him. It
is a part of the solemn ritual of traveling. It precedes the offering.
The fact that every man desires to be somebody else explains many of the
aberrations of artists and literary men. The painters, dramatists,
musicians, poets, and novelists are just as human as housemaids and
railway managers and porters. They want to do 'all the good they can to
all the people they can in all the ways they can.' They get tired of the
ways they are used to and like to try new combinations. So they are
continually mixing things. The practitioner of one art tries to produce
effects that are proper to another art.
A musician wants to be a painter and use his violin as if it were a
brush. He would have us see the sunset glories that he is painting for
us. A painter wants to be a musician and paint symphonies, and he is
grieved because the uninstructed cannot hear his pictures, although the
colors do swear at each other. Another painter wants to be an architect
and build up his picture as if it were made of cubes of brick. It looks
like brick-work, but to the natural eye it doesn't look like a picture.
A prose-writer gets tired of writing prose, and wants to be a poet. So
he begins every line with a capital letter, and keeps on writing prose.
You go to the theatre with the simple-minded Shakespearean idea that the
play's the thing. But the playwright wants to be a pathologist. So you
discover that you have dropped into a grewsome clinic. You sought
innocent relaxation, but you are one of the non-elect and have gone to
the place prepared for you. You must see the thing through. The fact
that you have troubles of your own is not a sufficient claim for
exemption.
Or you take up a novel expecting it to be a work of fiction. But the
novelist has other views. He wants to be your spiritual adviser. He must
do something to your mind, he must rearrange your fundamental ideas, he
must massage your soul, and generally brush you off. All this in spite
of the fact that you don't want to be brushed off and set to rights. You
don't want him to do anything to your mind. It's the only mind you have
and you need it in your own business.
III
But if the desire of every man to be somebody else accounts for many
whimsicalities of human conduct and for many aberrations in the arts, it
cannot be lightly dismissed as belonging only to the realm of comedy. It
has its origin in the nature of things. The reason why every man wants
to be somebody else is that he can remember the time when he was
somebody else. What we call personal identity is a very changeable
thing, as all of us realize when we look over old photographs and read
old letters.
The oldest man now living is but a few years removed from the
undifferentiated germ-plasm, which might have developed into almost
anything. In the beginning he was a bundle of possibilities. Every
actuality that is developed means a decrease in the rich variety of
possibilities. In becoming one thing it becomes impossible to be
something else.
The delight in being a boy lies in the fact that the possibilities are
still manifold. The boy feels that he can be anything that he desires.
He is conscious that he has capacities that would make him a successful
banker. On the other hand, there are attractions in a life of adventure
in the South Seas. It would be pleasant to lie under a bread-fruit tree
and let the fruit drop into his mouth, to the admiration of the gentle
savages who would gather about him. Or he might be a saint--not a
commonplace modern saint who does chores and attends tiresome committee
meetings, but a saint such as one reads about, who gives away his rich
robes and his purse of gold to the first beggar he meets, and then goes
on his carefree way through the forest to convert interesting robbers.
He feels that he might practice that kind of unscientific charity, if
his father would furnish him with the money to give away.
But by and by he learns that making a success in the banking business is
not consistent with excursions to the South Seas or with the more
picturesque and unusual forms of saintliness. If he is to be in a bank
he must do as the bankers do.
Parents and teachers conspire together to make a man of him, which means
making a particular kind of man of him. All mental processes which are
not useful must be suppressed. The sum of their admonitions is that he
must pay attention. That is precisely what he is doing. He is paying
attention to a variety of things that escape the adult mind. As he
wriggles on the bench in the school-room, he pays attention to all that
is going on. He attends to what is going on out-of-doors; he sees the
weak points of his fellow pupils, against whom he is planning punitive
expeditions; and he is delightfully conscious of the idiosyncrasies of
the teacher. Moreover, he is a youthful artist and his sketches from
life give acute joy to his contemporaries when they are furtively passed
around.
But the schoolmaster says sternly, 'My boy, you must learn to pay
attention; that is to say, you must not pay attention to so many things,
but you must pay attention to one thing, namely, the second declension.'
Now, the second declension is the least interesting thing in the room,
but unless he confines his attention to it he will never learn it.
Education demands narrowing of attention in the interest of efficiency.
A man may, by dint of application to a particular subject, become a
successful merchant or real-estate man or chemist or overseer of the
poor. But he cannot be all these things at the same time. He must make
his choice. Having in the presence of witnesses taken himself for better
or worse, he must, forsaking all others, cleave to that alone. The
consequence is that, by the time he is forty, he has become one kind of
a man, and is able to do one kind of work. He has acquired a stock of
ideas true enough for his purposes, but not so transcendentally true as
to interfere with his business. His neighbors know where to find him,
and they do not need to take a spiritual elevator. He does business on
the ground floor. He has gained in practicality, but has lost in the
quality of interestingness.
The old prophet declared that the young men dream dreams and the old men
see visions, but he did not say anything about the middle-aged men.
_They_ have to look after the business end.
But has the man whose working hours are so full of responsibilities
changed so much as he seems to have done? When he is talking shop is he
'all there'? I think not. There are elusive personalities that are in
hiding. As the rambling mansions of the old Catholic families had secret
panels opening into the 'priest's hole,' to which the family resorted
for spiritual comfort, so in the mind of the most successful man there
are secret chambers where are hidden his unsuccessful ventures, his
romantic ambitions, his unfulfilled promises. All that he dreamed of as
possible is somewhere concealed in the man's heart. He would not for the
world have the public know how much he cares for the selves that have
not had a fair chance to come into the light of day. You do not know a
man until you know his lost Atlantis, and his Utopia for which he still
hopes to set sail.
When Dogberry asserted that he was 'as pretty a piece of flesh as any is
in Messina,' and 'one that hath two gowns and everything handsome about
him,' he was pointing out what he deemed to be quite obvious. It was in
a more intimate tone that he boasted, 'and a fellow that hath had
losses.'
When Julius Caesar rode through the streets of Rome in his chariot, his
laurel crown seemed to the populace a symbol of his present greatness.
But gossip has it that Caesar at that time desired to be younger than he
was, and that before appearing in public he carefully arranged his
laurel wreath so as to conceal the fact that he had had losses.
Much that passes for pride in the behavior of the great comes from the
fear of the betrayal of emotions that belong to a simpler manner of
life. When the sons of Jacob saw the great Egyptian officer to whom they
appealed turn away from them, they little knew what was going on. 'And
Joseph made haste, for his bowels did yearn upon his brother: and he
sought where to weep, and he entered into his chamber, and wept there.
And he washed his face, and went out, and refrained himself.' Joseph
didn't want to be a great man. He wanted to be human. It was hard to
refrain himself.
IV
What of the lost arts of childhood, the lost audacities and ambitions
and romantic admirations of adolescence? What becomes of the sympathies
which make us feel our kinship to all sorts of people? What becomes of
the early curiosity in regard to things which were none of our business?
We ask as Saint Paul asked of the Galatians, 'Ye began well; who did
hinder you?'
The answer is not wholly to our discredit. We do not develop all parts
of our nature because we are not allowed to do so. Walt Whitman might
exult over the Spontaneous Me. But nobody is paid for being spontaneous.
A spontaneous switchman on the railway would be a menace to the
traveling public. We prefer some one less temperamental.
As civilization advances and work becomes more specialized, it becomes
impossible for any one to find free and full development for all his
natural powers in any recognized occupation. What then becomes of the
other selves? The answer must be that playgrounds must be provided for
them outside the confines of daily business. As work becomes more
engrossing and narrowing, the need is more urgent for recognized and
carefully guarded periods of leisure.
The old Hebrew sage declared, 'Wisdom cometh from the opportunity of
leisure.' It does not mean that a wise man must belong to what we call
the leisure classes. It means that, if one has only a little free time
at his disposal, he must use that time for the refreshment of his hidden
selves. If he cannot have a sabbath rest of twenty-four hours, he must
learn to sanctify little sabbaths, it may be of ten minutes' length. In
them he shall do no manner of work. It is not enough that the self that
works and receives wages shall be recognized and protected; the world
must be made safe for our other selves. Does not the Declaration of
Independence say that every man has an inalienable right to the pursuit
of happiness?
The old-time minister, after he had exhorted the believers at
considerable length, used to turn to a personage who for homiletical
purposes was known as the Objector. To him he addressed his most labored
arguments. At this point I am conscious of the presence of the Objector.
'All you say,' he remarks, 'in praise of your favorite platitude is true
to a fault. But what has all this to do with the War? There is only one
thing in these days worth thinking about--at least, it is the only thing
we _can_ think about.'
'I agree with you, courteous Objector. No matter where we start, we all
come back to this point: Who was to blame for the War, and how is it
coming out? Our explanatory idea has a direct bearing on the question
before us. The Prussian militarists had a painstaking knowledge of
facts, but they had a contempt for human nature. Their tactlessness was
almost beyond belief. They treated persons as if they were things. They
treated facts with deadly seriousness, but had no regard for feelings.
They had spies all over the world to report all that could be seen, but
they took no account of what could not be seen. So, while they were
dealing scientifically with the obvious facts and forces, all the hidden
powers of the human soul were being turned against them. Prussianism
insists on highly specialized men who have no sympathies to interfere
with their efficiency. Having adopted a standard, all variation must be
suppressed. It is against this effort to suppress the human variations
that we are fighting. We don't want all men to be reduced to one
pattern.'
'But what about the Kaiser? Does your formula explain him? Does he want
to be somebody else?'
'I confess, dear Objector, that it is probably a new idea to him; but he
may come to it.'
[Illustration]
The Temple's Difficult Door
By Robert M. Gay
Do you remember the little old white church which, when we were boys, we
attended more or less unwillingly, according to the season, with its
stiff-backed pews in which we sat aching, counting the pipes in the
organ and the balusters in the altar-rail and the dentils in the
moulding of the pulpit? Of course you remember it, and the little old
lady who sat in a corner ejaculating her hallelujahs and amens with the
regularity of a cuckoo-clock, and the solemn precentor who sawed out the
time with his hand, and the preacher who took his texts from the Old
Testament and rolled the names of the Ten Tribes and their enemies as a
sweet morsel under his tongue. The little old lady, you recollect, was
valiant in prayer-meeting. She was not afraid to criticize the minister,
or to repeat week by week the story of her conversion in her ninth year.
Nor did she fail continually to impress upon us boys--facing us
sometimes, with uplifted finger--the immanence of him who goeth to and
fro in the earth and rageth like a lion, seeking whom he may devour. Ah,
those prayer-meetings! Shall we, shall we ever forget them? Or the
references to the sinners who sat on the back row (where we always sat)?
Or the wailing hymns, or the dismal testimonies, or the waves of
dejection that swept over us during the cataloguing of our omissions and
commissions?
And there was always a boy! Do you remember him? A boy of our own age,
mind you, a boy who ostentatiously arose and, with the decorum of a
deacon, dwelt upon his former iniquities and present beatitude. We
expected this of an occasional girl, yet the girls never did it; a
mumbled text, a flurried word or two, were the extent of their temerity.
As for us, it was not our custom to discuss our souls, even among
ourselves. It is said that to forget the existence of a stomach is the
best symptom of health in that useful organ, and, if the analogy holds,
our souls must have been singularly robust. We were bashful about our
virtues and vices; we could not fathom the sentiments of _Take Time to
be Holy;_ we were in mortal fear that some day somebody might convict us
of sin and hale us forthwith into the fold of the elect. Yet here was a
boy who flaunted his goodness in our faces. It was evident that he was
not normal, that it lay with us as a duty to puncture the bubble of his
presumptuousness.
The time came, you remember, very opportunely. On a memorable evening it
was announced that this Infant Samuel, as the little old lady called
him, was to recite to the congregation the entire Book of Esther from
memory. For us, who found it beyond our power to remember a Golden Text
of ten words for ten minutes, such a performance was unbelievable. We
put our heads together and evolved a plot, dark, yet charming in its
simple effectiveness. We decided to make faces at him.
We were expert in the art of face-making, because we had practiced it
for weeks upon our sisters who sang in the choir. They had suffered, but
were now immune. The grimaces of a Grimaldi could not have ruffled the
calm of their scornful features.
We planted ourselves in the front row, and the boy began his recital. In
time his preoccupied and lack-lustre eye wandered in our direction and
rested upon us. He started, looked away, stammered, recovered, and went
bravely on. But we knew that he would look back. We dared not glance at
our neighbors, but had faith that each was doing his duty.
Of course he did look back, but why prolong the mournful tale? It is
sufficient to say that Esther and Ahasuerus remained unwedded and Haman
unhung; and that our victim retired amid the titterings of the judicious
and the commiserations of the pious, while we plumed ourselves upon a
difficult task laudably accomplished.
I have indulged in this long reminiscence, which probably can be matched
in the experience of most of my masculine readers, because it is
provocative of thoughts that deserve to be aired. An essay might be
written upon the pathos that lies in the spectacle of a boy who is
incited to a public display of his goodness; in the docility which is as
clay in the hands of deluded adults. That he suffered there can be no
doubt--not one half so much under the ordeal of our contriving, which, I
hope, cured him, as under the isolation which his dedication to goodness
made inevitable. He was a lonely boy, though he may not have realized
that he was. That he could ever understand his fellows, or be understood
by them, was impossible. He was the victim of the most perverse fate
that can afflict a boy: he had been born in the bosom of a family whose
piety contained not a grain of the salt of humor, not a particle of the
leaven of imagination, not--But I am forgetting. I wish to ask the
reader's consideration, not of the victim, but of the tormentors.
Why is it that boys are suspicious of that approximate moral perfection
called goodness? Girls find a deep satisfaction in being good--in being
neat, in being clean, in being decorous. If they are not these, we call
them tomboys, still casting the onus of sinfulness upon the other sex.
When we boys confided our exploit to the little girls, we found that
they openly defended the boy, though, it must be admitted, they
privately admired us, as is the way of their sex. Our fathers, informed
by our sisters, and instigated by our mothers, solemnly reproached us,
but with a twinkle that would not be hidden. Manifestly, the trail of
the serpent was over them, too. They were sorry that they had not sat in
the choir.
The meekest of men love to tell how bad they were as boys, hugging their
fiction of early depravity with an unregenerate glee. The more innocuous
they may be now, the more they love to boast--especially to their
wives--of these phantasmal wild oats. The ladies pretend to be shocked
at the stories, but are glad to believe them; and so it is not
surprising if some men, in their fear of being mistaken for saints,
remain boys all their lives.
The pursuit of the ideal is complicated by man's suspicion of goodness,
and by woman's curious, but characteristic, indecision whether to
espouse perfection or imperfection. Gifted with a natural propensity
toward virtue and propriety and neatness and respectability and all the
other approximate perfections of life, attaining them with ease and
wearing them with grace, she of course values them little enough in man.
His foibles interest her more than his virtues. She admires even while
she condemns. He, because he is a man, prefers admiration to
commendation.
In education, man as a rule inculcates ideals of perfection without
pretending to practice them; but woman, with an iron logic which, man's
aspersions to the contrary notwithstanding, is characteristic of her,
not only points but leads the way. Hence it is that some teachers of
her sex have two manners, the human for social occasions, and the divine
for the class-room. In the privacy of their homes they have their
imperfections; in the class-room they are icily perfect. Their
perfectness extends to such details as facial expression and tone of
voice. Occasionally a man adopts the duplex character, but with
deplorable result. I remember such a one in high school. Those of us who
had the good fortune to meet him socially, found that he had his
peccadillos of character, manner, and language, but in the school he was
a pattern which we despaired of imitating. From his necktie to his
reading of Burke's 'Conciliation,' he was without spot or blemish. We
did not dare to love him; we gave up all hope of emulation. We nicknamed
him Mrs. Dawson, and let it go at that.
But women carry this dual character more successfully than men. Whether
because they are better actors or because we confuse saintliness with
femininity, even as boys we are more ready to forgive it in them. To the
little girls, it seems perfectly natural. They catch the idea readily
and practice their teachers' precisions and pruderies upon the family.
We must admit, too, that in the art of being a pattern, women show a
sterner conscientiousness than men. They are not constitutionally so
lazy. It requires hard and sustained effort to be a pattern, an
inveterate and dogged attention to detail. It is chiefly here that we
men fail. The male saints--witness Jerome--had a time of it with their
petty temptations, simply because sainthood is largely a matter of
detail. Most men are good enough in essentials, but fail in the little
things; the little things, of which woman is enamored,--too often, the
slave. To be perfect gives her a satisfaction that man will never
understand; and, prompted by the constitutional laziness aforesaid, he
takes refuge in calling goodness womanish.
His institutions, therefore, are good enough in essentials; his
political organizations and governments, his bureaus and offices and
federations and unions, all are nobly planned, but lack the feminine
touch that makes for perfection. His streets are dirty and so are his
politics; his laws need dusting; a little sweeping would not hurt his
governments; his various organizations would be none the worse for some
polishing and weeding and clipping of loose threads and sewing up of
rents and various other species of revamping. All these last subtleties
are beyond him, just as, be he never so neat, are all the tiny
sweetnesses and refinements and knots and bows and satisfying
knick-knacks of his wife's person. She is a creature of _soupcons_ and
_nuances_ and intuitive niceties. She can endure no compromise with
disorder or dirt or decay. Her motes are all beams until they are
demolished; she uses a mountain of faith to move a mustard-seed; she
cannot see the polished surface for the speck of dust that is on it. In
her extreme development she spends her life doing the million and one
trifles that man would leave undone.
The trouble is that, not satisfied with all this, she longs to make him
perfect, too. Never deterred by the stupendousness of the task, she goes
on, century by century, generation by generation, teaching him,
preaching to him, marrying him; gently leading him or tyrannously
compelling him toward the heaven of her ideal. And here again her gaze
is microscopic. In her attention to his foibles she is liable to
overlook his sins. She can seldom understand badness in boys, nor can
ever see that the boy who is most bad in small matters may be the most
good in large. She loves to keep her male offspring lamblike, and tries
his docility by making him wear long hair and wide collars and linen and
ruffles and lace, never learning but through hard experience that, like
the puppy, he takes naturally to mud and feels at ease only close to the
soil. When he at last rebels and privily snips off his hair and rends
his sashes and furbelows, she weeps, not because of the loss of
material, but because of the loss of an ideal.
And who can blame her? It is seldom enough in this world that we can
kiss and fondle an ideal, except in dreams.