moment from the flowers. She nods towards a mass of dull-green affairs
piled on mats or being lifted from big vans. She is a Cockney and
displays surprise when she is told those things are bananas. She shrugs
and turns again to the musk-roses, and forgets. But to me, as the harsh,
penetrating odor of the green fruit cuts across the heavy perfume of the
flowers, comes a picture of the farms in distant Colombia or perhaps
Costa Rica. There is nothing like an odor to stir memories. I see the
timber pier and the long line of rackety open-slatted cars jangling into
the dark shed, pushed by a noisy, squealing locomotive. I see the boys
lying asleep between shifts, their enormous straw hats covering their
faces as they sprawl. In the distance rise the blue mountains; behind is
the motionless blue sea. I hear the whine of the elevators, the
monotonous click of the counters, the harsh cries of irresponsible and
argumentative natives. I feel the heat of the tropic day, and see the
gleam of the white waves breaking on yellow sands below tall palms. I
recall the mysterious impenetrable solitude of the jungle, a solitude
alive, if one is equipped with knowledge, with a ceaseless warfare of
winged and crawling hosts. And while my companion is busily engaged in
getting copy for a special article about the Market, I step nimbly out
of the way of a swarthy gentleman from Calabria, who with his
two-wheeled barrow is the last link in the immense chain of
transportation connecting the farmer in the distant tropics and the
cockney pedestrian who halts on the sidewalk and purchases a banana for
a couple of pennies.
HOLY IRELAND
_By_ JOYCE KILMER
This echo of the A.E.F. is probably the best thing Joyce Kilmer
ever wrote, and shows the vein of real tenderness and insight that
lay beneath his lively and versatile career on Grub Street. In him,
as in many idealists, the Irish theme had become legendary, it was
part of his religion and his dream-life, and he treated it with
real affection and humor. You will find it cropping out many times
in his verses. The Irish problem as it is reflected in this country
is not always clearly understood. Ireland, in the minds of our
poets, is a mystical land of green hills, saints and leprechauns,
and its political problems are easy.
Joyce Kilmer was born in New Brunswick in 1886; studied at Rutgers
College and Columbia University; taught school; worked on the staff
of the Standard Dictionary; passed through phases of socialism and
Anglicanism into the Catholic communion, and joined the Sunday
staff of the New York _Times_ in 1913. He was killed fighting in
France in 1918. This sketch is taken from the second of the three
volumes in which Robert Cortes Holliday, his friend and executor,
has collected Joyce Kilmer's work.
We had hiked seventeen miles that stormy December day--the third of a
four days' journey. The snow was piled high on our packs, our rifles
were crusted with ice, the leather of our hob-nailed boots was frozen
stiff over our lamed feet. The weary lieutenant led us to the door of a
little house in a side street.
"Next twelve men," he said. A dozen of us dropped out of the ranks and
dragged ourselves over the threshold. We tracked snow and mud over a
spotless stone floor. Before an open fire stood Madame and the three
children--a girl of eight years, a boy of five, a boy of three. They
stared with round frightened eyes at les soldats Americans, the first
they had ever seen. We were too tired to stare back. We at once climbed
to the chill attic, our billet, our lodging for the night. First we
lifted the packs from one another's aching shoulders: then, without
spreading our blankets, we lay down on the bare boards.
For ten minutes there was silence, broken by an occasional groan, an
oath, the striking of a match. Cigarettes glowed like fireflies in a
forest. Then a voice came from the corner:
"Where is Sergeant Reilly?" it said. We lazily searched. There was no
Sergeant Reilly to be found.
"I'll bet the old bum has gone out after a pint," said the voice. And
with the curiosity of the American and the enthusiasm of the Irish we
lumbered downstairs in quest of Sergeant Reilly.
He was sitting on a low bench by the fire. His shoes were off and his
bruised feet were in a pail of cold water. He was too good a soldier to
expose them to the heat at once. The little girl was on his lap and the
little boys stood by and envied him. And in a voice that twenty years of
soldiering and oceans of whisky had failed to rob of its Celtic
sweetness, he was softly singing: "Ireland Isn't Ireland Any More." We
listened respectfully.
"They cheer the King and then salute him," said Sergeant Reilly.
"A regular Irishman would shoot him," and we all joined in the chorus,
"Ireland Isn't Ireland Any More."
"Ooh, la, la!" exclaimed Madame, and she and all the children began to
talk at the top of their voices. What they said Heaven knows, but the
tones were friendly, even admiring.
"Gentlemen," said Sergeant Reilly from his post of honor, "the lady who
runs this billet is a very nice lady indeed. She says yez can all take
off your shoes and dry your socks by the fire. But take turns and don't
crowd or I'll turn yez all upstairs."
Now Madame, a woman of some forty years, was a true bourgeoise, with all
the thrift of her class. And by the terms of her agreement with the
authorities she was required to let the soldiers have for one night the
attic of her house to sleep in--nothing more; no light, no heat. Also,
wood is very expensive in France--for reasons that are engraven in
letters of blood on the pages of history. Nevertheless--
"Asseyez-vous, s'il vous plait," said Madame. And she brought nearer to
the fire all the chairs the establishment possessed and some chests and
boxes to be used as seats. And she and the little girl, whose name was
Solange, went out into the snow and came back with heaping armfuls of
small logs. The fire blazed merrily--more merrily than it had blazed
since August, 1914, perhaps. We surrounded it, and soon the air was
thick with steam from our drying socks.
Meanwhile Madame and the Sergeant had generously admitted all eleven of
us into their conversation. A spirited conversation it was, too, in
spite of the fact that she knew no English and the extent of his French
was "du pain," "du vin," "cognac" and "bon jour." Those of us who knew a
little more of the language of the country acted as interpreters for the
others. We learned the names of the children and their ages. We learned
that our hostess was a widow. Her husband had fallen in battle just one
month before our arrival in her home. She showed us with simple pride
and affection and restrained grief his picture. Then she showed us those
of her two brothers--one now fighting at Salonica, the other a prisoner
of war--of her mother and father, of herself dressed for First
Communion.
This last picture she showed somewhat shyly, as if doubting that we
would understand it. But when one of us asked in halting French if
Solange, her little daughter, had yet made her First Communion, then
Madame's face cleared.
"Mais oui!" she exclaimed, "Et vous, ma foi, vous êtes Catholiques,
n'est-ce pas?"
At once rosary beads were flourished to prove our right to answer this
question affirmatively. Tattered prayer-books and somewhat dingy
scapulars were brought to light. Madame and the children chattered their
surprise and delight to each other, and every exhibit called for a new
outburst.
"Ah, le bon S. Benoit! Ah, voilà, le Conception Immacule! Ooh la la, le
Sacré Cœur!" (which last exclamation sounded in no wise as irreverent
as it looks in print).
Now other treasures, too, were shown--treasures chiefly photographic.
There were family groups, there were Coney Island snapshots. And Madame
and the children were a gratifyingly appreciative audience. They admired
and sympathized; they exclaimed appropriately at the beauty of every
girl's face, the tenderness of every pictured mother. We had become the
intimates of Madame. She had admitted us into her family and we her into
ours.
Soldiers--American soldiers of Irish descent--have souls and hearts.
These organs (if the soul may be so termed) had been satisfied. But our
stomachs remained--and that they yearned was evident to us. We had made
our hike on a meal of hardtack and "corned willy." Mess call would sound
soon. Should we force our wet shoes on again and plod through the snowy
streets to the temporary mess-shack? We knew our supply wagons had not
succeeded in climbing the last hill into town, and that therefore bread
and unsweetened coffee would be our portion. A great depression settled
upon us.
But Sergeant Reilly rose to the occasion.
"Boys," he said, "this here lady has got a good fire going, and I'll bet
she can cook. What do you say we get her to fix us up a meal?"
The proposal was received joyously at first. Then some one said:
"But I haven't got any money." "Neither have I--not a damn sou!" said
another. And again the spiritual temperature of the room fell.
Again Sergeant Reilly spoke:
"I haven't got any money to speak of, meself," he said. "But let's have
a show-down. I guess we've got enough to buy somethin' to eat."
It was long after pay-day, and we were not hopeful of the results of the
search. But the wealthy (that is, those who had two francs) made up for
the poor (that is, those who had two sous). And among the coins on the
table I noticed an American dime, an English half-crown and a Chinese
piece with a square hole in the center. In negotiable tender the money
came in all to eight francs.
It takes more money than that to feed twelve hungry soldiers these days
in France. But there was no harm in trying. So an ex-seminarian, an
ex-bookkeeper and an ex-street-car conductor aided Sergeant Reilly in
explaining in French that had both a brogue and a Yankee twang that we
were hungry, that this was all the money we had in the world, and that
we wanted her to cook us something to eat.
Now Madame was what they call in New England a "capable" woman. In a
jiffy she had the money in Solange's hand and had that admirable child
cloaked and wooden-shod for the street, and fully informed as to what
she was to buy. What Madame and the children had intended to have for
supper I do not know, for there was nothing in the kitchen but the fire,
the stove, the table, some shelves of dishes and an enormous bed.
Nothing in the way of a food cupboard could be seen. And the only other
room of the house was the bare attic.
When Solange came back she carried in a basket bigger than herself these
articles: (1) two loaves of war-bread; (2) five bottles of red wine; (3)
three cheeses; (4) numerous potatoes; (5) a lump of fat; (6) a bag of
coffee. The whole represented, as was afterward demonstrated, exactly
the sum of ten francs, fifty centimes.
Well, we all set to work peeling potatoes. Then with a veritable French
trench-knife Madame cut the potatoes into long strips. Meanwhile Solange
had put the lump of fat into the big black pot that hung by a chain
over the fire. In the boiling grease the potatoes were placed, Madame
standing by with a big ladle punched full of holes (I regret that I do
not know the technical name for this instrument) and keeping the
potato-strips swimming, zealously frustrating any attempt on their part
to lie lazily at the bottom of the pot.
We forgot all about the hike as we sat at supper that evening. The only
absentees were the two little boys, Michael and Paul. And they were
really absent only from our board--they were in the room, in the great
built-in bed that was later to hold also Madame and Solange. Their
little bodies were covered by the three-foot thick mattress-like red
silk quilt, but their tousled heads protruded and they watched us
unblinkingly all the evening.
But just as we sat down, before Sergeant Reilly began his task of
dishing out the potatoes and starting the bottles on their way, Madame
stopped her chattering and looked at Solange. And Solange stopped her
chattering and looked at Madame. And they both looked rather searchingly
at us. We didn't know what was the matter, but we felt rather
embarrassed.
Then Madame began to talk, slowly and loudly, as one talks to make
foreigners understand. And the gist of her remarks was that she was
surprised to see that American Catholics did not say grace before
eating like French Catholics.
We sprang to our feet at once. But it was not Sergeant Reilly who saved
the situation. Instead, the ex-seminarian (he is only temporarily an
ex-seminarian; he'll be preaching missions and giving retreats yet if a
bit of shrapnel doesn't hasten his journey to Heaven) said, after we had
blessed ourselves: "Benedicite; nos et quae sumus sumpturi benedicat
Deus, Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus. Amen."
Madame and Solange, obviously relieved, joined us in the Amen, and we
sat down again to eat.
It was a memorable feast. There was not much conversation--except on the
part of Madame and Solange--but there was plenty of good cheer. Also
there was enough cheese and bread and wine and potatoes for all of
us--half starved as we were when we sat down. Even big Considine, who
drains a can of condensed milk at a gulp and has been known to eat an
apple pie without stopping to take breath, was satisfied. There were
toasts, also, all proposed by Sergeant Reilly--toasts to Madame, and to
the children, and to France, and to the United States, and to the Old
Gray Mare (this last toast having an esoteric significance apparent only
to illuminati of Sergeant Reilly's circle).
The table cleared and the "agimus tibi gratias" duly said, we sat
before the fire, most of us on the floor. We were warm and happy and
full of good food and good wine. I spied a slip of paper on the floor by
Solange's foot and unashamedly read it. It was an accounting for the
evening's expenditures--totaling exactly ten francs and fifty centimes.
Now when soldiers are unhappy--during a long, hard hike, for
instance--they sing to keep up their spirits. And when they are happy,
as on the evening now under consideration, they sing to express their
satisfaction with life. We sang "Sweet Rosie O'Grady." We shook the
kitchen-bedroom with the echoes of "Take Me Back to New York Town." We
informed Madame, Solange, Paul, Michael, in fact, the whole village,
that we had never been a wanderer and that we longed for our Indiana
home. We grew sentimental over "Mother Machree." And Sergeant Reilly
obliged with a reel--in his socks--to an accomplishment of whistling and
handclapping.
Now, it was our hostess's turn to entertain. We intimated as much. She
responded, first by much talk, much consultation with Solange, and
finally by going to one of the shelves that held the pans and taking
down some paper-covered books.
There was more consultation, whispered this time, and much turning of
pages. Then, after some preliminary coughing and humming, the music
began--the woman's rich alto blending with the child's shrill but sweet
notes. And what they sang was "Tantum ergo Sacramentum."
Why she should have thought that an appropriate song to offer this
company of rough soldiers from a distant land I do not know. And why we
found it appropriate it is harder still to say. But it did seem
appropriate to all of us--to Sergeant Reilly, to Jim (who used to drive
a truck), to Larry (who sold cigars), to Frank (who tended a bar on
Fourteenth Street). It seemed, for some reason, eminently fitting. Not
one of us then or later expressed any surprise that this hymn, familiar
to most of us since our mothers first led us to the Parish Church down
the pavements of New York or across the Irish hills, should be sung to
us in this strange land and in these strange circumstances.
Since the gracious Latin of the Church was in order and since the season
was appropriate, one of us suggested "Adeste Fideles" for the next item
on the evening's program. Madame and Solange and our ex-seminarian knew
all the words and the rest of us came in strong with "Venite, adoremus
Dominum."
Then, as if to show that piety and mirth may live together, the ladies
obliged with "Au Clair de la Lune" and other simple ballads of old
France. And after taps had sounded in the street outside our door, and
there was yawning, and wrist-watches were being scanned, the evening's
entertainment ended, by general consent, with patriotic selections. We
sang--as best we could--the "Star-Spangled Banner," Solange and her
mother humming the air and applauding at the conclusion. Then we
attempted "La Marseillaise." Of course, we did not know the words.
Solange came to our rescue with two little pamphlets containing the
song, so we looked over each other's shoulders and got to work in
earnest. Madame sang with us, and Solange. But during the final stanza
Madame did not sing. She leaned against the great family bedstead and
looked at us. She had taken one of the babies from under the red
comforter and held him to her breast. One of her red and toil-scarred
hands half covered his fat little back. There was a gentle dignity about
that plain, hard-working woman, that soldier's widow--we all felt it.
And some of us saw the tears in her eyes.
There are mists, faint and beautiful and unchanging, that hang over the
green slopes of some mountains I know. I have seen them on the Irish
hills and I have seen them on the hills of France. I think that they are
made of the tears of good brave women.
Before I went to sleep that night I exchanged a few words with Sergeant
Reilly. We lay side by side on the floor, now piled with straw.
Blankets, shelter-halves, slickers and overcoats insured warm sleep.
Sergeant Reilly's hard old face was wrapped round with his muffler. The
final cigarette of the day burned lazily in a corner of his mouth.
"That was a pretty good evening, Sarge," I said. "We sure were in luck
when we struck this billet."
He grunted affirmatively, then puffed in silence for a few minutes. Then
he deftly spat the cigarette into a strawless portion of the floor,
where it glowed for a few seconds before it went out.
"You said it," he remarked. "We were in luck is right. What do you know
about that lady, anyway?"
"Why," I answered, "I thought she treated us pretty white."
"Joe," said Sergeant Reilly, "do you realize how much trouble that woman
took to make this bunch of roughnecks comfortable? She didn't make a
damn cent on that feed, you know. The kid spent all the money we give
her. And she's out about six francs for firewood, too--I wish to God I
had the money to pay her. I bet she'll go cold for a week now, and
hungry, too.
"And that ain't all," he continued, after a pause broken only by an
occasional snore from our blissful neighbors. "Look at the way she
cooked them pomme de terres and fixed things up for us and let us sit
down there with her like we was her family. And look at the way she and
the little Sallie there sung for us.
"I tell you, Joe, it makes me think of old times to hear a woman sing
them church hymns to me that way. It's forty years since I heard a hymn
sung in a kitchen, and it was my mother, God rest her, that sang them. I
sort of realize what we're fighting for now, and I never did before.
It's for women like that and their kids.
"It gave me a turn to see her a-sitting there singing them hymns. I
remembered when I was a boy in Shangolden. I wonder if there's many
women like that in France now--telling their beads and singing the old
hymns and treating poor traveling men the way she's just after treating
us. There used to be lots of women like that in the Old Country. And I
think that's why it was called 'Holy Ireland.'"
A FAMILIAR PREFACE
_By_ JOSEPH CONRAD
This glorious expression of the credo of all artists, in whatever
form of creation, lastingly enriches the English tongue. It is from
the preface to _A Personal Record_, that fascinating
autobiographical volume in which Conrad tells the curious story of
a Polish boy who ran away to sea and began to write in English. As
a companion piece, those who have the honor of the writer's craft
at heart should read Conrad's preface to _The Nigger of the
Narcissus_.
"All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the
miseries or credulities of mankind." Is it permissible to wonder
what some newspaper owners--say Mr. Hearst--would reply to that?
Mr. Conrad's career is too well known to be annotated here. If by
any chance the reader is not acquainted with it, it will be to his
soul's advantage to go to a public library and look it up.
As a general rule we do not want much encouragement to talk about
ourselves; yet this little book[A] is the result of a friendly
suggestion, and even of a little friendly pressure. I defended myself
with some spirit; but, with characteristic tenacity, the friendly voice
insisted, "You know, you really must."
It was not an argument, but I submitted at once. If one must!...
You perceive the force of a word. He who wants to persuade should put
his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of
sound has always been greater than the power of sense. I don't say this
by way of disparagement. It is better for mankind to be impressionable
than reflective. Nothing humanely great--great, I mean, as affecting a
whole mass of lives--has come from reflection. On the other hand, you
cannot fail to see the power of mere words; such words as Glory, for
instance, or Pity. I won't mention any more. They are not far to seek.
Shouted with perseverance, with ardor, with conviction, these two by
their sound alone have set whole nations in motion and upheaved the dry,
hard ground on which rests our whole social fabric. There's "virtue" for
you if you like!... Of course, the accent must be attended to. The right
accent. That's very important. The capacious lung, the thundering or the
tender vocal chords. Don't talk to me of your Archimedes' lever. He was
an absent-minded person with a mathematical imagination. Mathematics
commands all my respect, but I have no use for engines. Give me the
right word and the right accent and I will move the world.
What a dream for a writer! Because written words have their accent, too.
Yes! Let me only find the right word! Surely it must be lying somewhere
among the wreckage of all the plaints and all the exultations poured out
aloud since the first day when hope, the undying, came down on earth. It
may be there, close by, disregarded, invisible, quite at hand. But it's
no good. I believe there are men who can lay hold of a needle in a
pottle of hay at the first try. For myself, I have never had such luck.
And then there is that accent. Another difficulty. For who is going to
tell whether the accent is right or wrong till the word is shouted, and
fails to be heard, perhaps, and goes down-wind, leaving the world
unmoved? Once upon a time there lived an emperor who was a sage and
something of a literary man. He jotted down on ivory tablets thoughts,
maxims, reflections which chance has preserved for the edification of
posterity. Among other sayings--I am quoting from memory--I remember
this solemn admonition: "Let all thy words have the accent of heroic
truth." The accent of heroic truth! This is very fine, but I am thinking
that it is an easy matter for an austere emperor to jot down grandiose
advice. Most of the working truths on this earth are humble, not heroic;
and there have been times in the history of mankind when the accents of
heroic truth have moved it to nothing but derision.
Nobody will expect to find between the covers of this little book words
of extraordinary potency or accents of irresistible heroism. However
humiliating for my self-esteem, I must confess that the counsels of
Marcus Aurelius are not for me. They are more fit for a moralist than
for an artist. Truth of a modest sort I can promise you, and also
sincerity. That complete, praiseworthy sincerity which, while it
delivers one into the hands of one's enemies, is as likely as not to
embroil one with one's friends.
"Embroil" is perhaps too strong an expression. I can't imagine among
either my enemies or my friends a being so hard up for something to do
as to quarrel with me. "To disappoint one's friends" would be nearer the
mark. Most, almost all, friendships of the writing period of my life
have come to me through my books; and I know that a novelist lives in
his work. He stands there, the only reality in an invented world, among
imaginary things, happenings, and people. Writing about them, he is only
writing about himself. But the disclosure is not complete. He remains,
to a certain extent, a figure behind the veil; a suspected rather than a
seen presence--a movement and a voice behind the draperies of fiction.
In these personal notes there is no such veil. And I cannot help
thinking of a passage in the "Imitation of Christ" where the ascetic
author, who knew life so profoundly, says that "there are persons
esteemed on their reputation who by showing themselves destroy the
opinion one had of them." This is the danger incurred by an author of
fiction who sets out to talk about himself without disguise.