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NEW BROOMS
by
ROBERT J. SHORES
[Illustration]
Indianapolis
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
Publishers
Copyright 1913
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
Press of
Braunworth & Co.
Bookbinders and Printers
Brooklyn, N. Y.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I A PHILOSOPHICAL COOK 1
II A BACHELOR ON WOMEN 16
III ON PENSIONING WRITERS 20
IV A PURITAN IN BOHEMIA 27
V AN ARRAIGNMENT OF ORIGINALITY 42
VI A FLATTERING TRIBUTE 51
VII THE RIDDLE OF A DREAM 53
VIII BEDS FOR THE BAD 61
IX IS CHESTERTON A MAN ALIVE? 69
X FROM A HUNCHBACK 77
XI FROM A HOTEL SPONGE 89
XII FROM SARAH SHELFWORN 96
XIII FROM ANNA PEST 104
XIV FROM SETH SHIRTLESS 110
XV SARTOR-PSYCHOLOGY 118
XVI MR. BODY PROTESTS 126
XVII ON A CERTAIN CONDESCENSION IN FASHION WRITERS 138
XVIII OF LOOKING BACKWARD 146
XIX THE LITERARY LIFE 155
XX THE POETIC LICENSE 162
XXI THE NECESSITY FOR BEGGARS 168
XXII THE ABUSES OF ADVERSITY 173
XXIII THE SCIENCE OF MAKING ENEMIES 182
XXIV THE FATE OF FALSTAFF 192
XXV THE REWARD OF MERIT 202
XXVI THE BLESSINGS OF THE BLIND 212
XXVII A TALE OF A MAD POET’S WIFE 224
XXVIII THE LOCK-STEP 232
XXIX THE FRUIT OF FAME 250
NEW BROOMS
A PHILOSOPHICAL COOK
_To the Editor of The Idler._
DEAR SIR: Though I am not one of your subscribers I am, I believe,
one of your most faithful readers. I do not take your magazine, it is
true, but I am at present employed in a family some member of which is
evidently a subscriber, as the maid brings it out in the waste-paper
basket regularly, once a month, when, according to her custom, she
permits me to select from the month’s periodicals such journals as seem
to me to be worthy of my attention in my leisure hours. I shall not
conceal from you the fact that my fancy was first attracted to your
publication by the fact that I always found it fresh and clean, with
the leaves still uncut, and not soiled, bedraggled and often coverless
as are some of the others which suffer more usage before reaching me.
But having once cut the leaves with a convenient bread-knife and looked
through one of your numbers, I perceived at once that you are, in
your way, something of a philosopher, and I have ever been partial to
everything that smacked of philosophy. Could you step into my pantry at
the present moment you would find upon my shelves Plato and Aristotle
as well as the immortal Mrs. Rorer, for I am, in my humble fashion, a
philosopher as well as a cook. I do not at all agree with that learned
and talented French gentleman who declared that to study philosophy was
to learn to die; on the contrary, I hold that to study philosophy is
to learn to live, and I see no reason why the study of philosophy is
not as fitting an occupation for a cook as for a collegian. Therefore I
cook or philosophize according to my inclination, and if it seem to you
that I philosophize like a cook, my employer, I am proud to say, will
tell you that I cook like a philosopher.
In youth I had the advantage of a grammar school education, and that
education I have supplemented with reading and observation. If, as
Pope has said,
“The proper study of mankind is man,”
then I have entered the right school for the completion of my
education; for the kitchen is, it seems to me, a natural observatory
for the study of human nature. Working away at my chosen profession
in the seclusion of my kitchen, I can, without ever having laid eyes
upon him, give you a complete character of the head of the household. I
can not with certainty say whether he is a large or small man, because
the appetite is sometimes deceptive in this respect, and I have known
a small man to eat as much as would suffice for two stevedores, and
I have known an athlete to peck at a meal that would leave a child
hungry. It is not, then, by his physical character that I judge him,
but by his mental and psychological symptoms. I do not gage him by
how much he eats, but by what he eats. I can not tell you whether he
is large or small, but I can tell you whether he is voluptuous or
esthetic, good-natured or crabbed, rich or poor, wise or foolish.
It is really remarkable the knowledge I come to have of this person
whom I have never seen, or it would be if the method by which I reach
my conclusions were not so simple. If he keeps fast days and eats only
fish upon Fridays, I know, of course, that he is a churchman. If he
persistently eats food which is bad for any man’s digestion, I know
that he is both irritable and obstinate, for no man can continue to
eat what does not agree with him without becoming irritable, and no
man will continue such a course in the face of his better judgment
unless he is obstinate. If he eats only of rich food and shows a
constant preference for _taste_ over _nutrition_, I know that he is a
voluptuary; it is seldom that a man indulges himself in a passion for
over-eating who does not indulge himself in other passions as well,
and even though his one indulgence be eating, he is none the less a
voluptuary by nature. If he eats little and that in an abstracted
manner, sometimes overlooking a favorite dish or allowing his soup
to grow cold so that it is returned half-eaten, I know that he is
absent-minded and eats merely because he has to, not because he loves
eating for its own sake. If he insists upon having his toast an exact
shade of brown and his coffee at a given degree of temperature, I know
that he is exacting and particular as to details; that he thinks well
of himself and thinks of himself often.
So, as you see, there are hundreds of these moral symptoms which are
as familiar to me as physical symptoms are to a physician. Thus I
supplement my theoretical knowledge of philosophy by my observation of
life.
When I was casting about me for an occupation I had, being an orphan,
a perfectly free choice. Had I followed my first impulse, I think I
should have gone to live in a tub like Diogenes, and have resolved to
spend my life, like Schopenhauer, in thinking about it. But a little
observation soon convinced me that the man who lives in the fashion of
Diogenes is not held in high favor in these days and that philosophy,
as a profession, would be likely to prove unremunerative. Now I am not
one who desires riches or who can not be happy without wealth, but I
soon decided that I must be possessed of a certain amount of money in
order to indulge my taste for personal cleanliness. I soon gave over
the tub of Diogenes, but I was loath to forego all intercourse with the
ordinary domestic tub.
Having determined, therefore, to enter upon some profession in which
I could make a reasonable amount of money without requiring a great
preliminary outlay, I looked about me for a vocation which might supply
my physical needs, and at the same time, afford me some mental and
spiritual satisfaction. I dismissed the study of the law or medicine as
beyond my means, and I did not find myself sufficiently religious to
permit me to enter the ministry with a clear conscience. For trade I
had your true philosopher’s distaste, and I confess no sort of manual
labor, except as cooking may be so described, held any attraction for
me. I shuddered at the thought of becoming a barber, chiropodist or
hair-dresser, and my pride would not permit me to suffer the rebuffs
which fall to the lot of a pedler, book agent or commercial traveler.
It was then that I was struck with my happy inspiration. I would become
a member of an old and honorable profession--I would become a cook.
If I could not be a philosopher and nourish men’s minds, I would be a
cook and nourish their bodies. I would make dishes so delicious and
enticing that men upon the brink of suicide would turn back to life
with new hope in their hearts. I would impart energy to the weary,
peace to the troubled in mind and happiness to the discontented. I
would become such a cook as might have won the praise of Lucullus; I
would become an artist worthy to take the hand of Epicurus. Such were
the extravagant hopes I hugged to my breast when I matriculated at the
best cooking-school of my native state. It is true that my achievements
have fallen far short of my ambitions, but I have never swerved from my
allegiance to my ideal of the Perfect Dinner.
Upon finishing my course at cooking-school, I utilized my savings in
indulging myself in a post-graduate course abroad. I went to Paris, and
there I made the acquaintance of the immortal Frederick of the Tour
d’Argent, he of the famous pressed ducks, and of other masters of the
culinary art.
This, then, was my preparation for a life of cooking. Possibly you will
think that I took my profession too seriously; possibly you do not
hold the same high opinion of the art of cooking that I have always
held--there are many so minded. It is a never-failing source of wonder
to me that men are so quick to recognize the services of those who feed
their minds and so slow to acknowledge the debt they owe to those who
feed their bodies. I have never regarded cooking in the light of mere
manual labor. Labor, it seems to me, is work that is distasteful and
only performed from necessity; a “labor of love” seems to me to be a
paradox. Work, on the contrary, may be as keen a source of pleasure
as recreation. Work may be the striving of an artist to attain his
ideal. The very word “labor” suggests pain and exhaustion. We speak of
an author’s “works,” but who would think of referring to them as his
“labors”?
I do not believe, as many seem to believe, that any man or woman who
can juggle a skillet or wield an egg-beater is a cook. Merely to follow
a formula in a cookery book does not make one a cook any more than the
compounding of a prescription makes one a physician. Cooking is an art
as well as a science. The violinist can not express his personality
in the strains of his instrument more fully than can the cook in his
cooking. The favorite dishes of a race are characteristic of that
race. The Spaniard, like his _chili con carne_ and his tamale, is hot,
peppery and economical. The Frenchman, like his many concoctions, is
full of spice, imagination and extravagance. The Italian is indolent
and averse to exertion, as is evidenced by his macaroni and spaghetti.
The Englishman is red and hearty like his roast beef. The German is fat
and fair like his sausages. The Russian is odd and interesting like
his caviar. The American, like his diet, is cosmopolitan. And as the
cooking of a nation or race is characteristic of that nation or race,
so the cooking of an individual is characteristic of that individual.
Coarse people do not prepare dainty dishes. A cook may strike a discord
as surely as a musician.
To be a good cook, a cook worthy of one’s calling, one must have the
soul of an artist. One must be clean, self-respecting, industrious,
ambitious, earnest, quick to learn and trained to remember. Do other
professions require more?
The cook wields a tremendous influence for good or for evil. Over a
good dinner the most cynical or the most brutal man must relax into
something like human kindness. It is indeed true that
“All human history attests
That happiness for man,--the hungry sinner!--
Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner!”
If there be even the feeblest spark of charity in a man’s breast, a
good dinner will fan it into flame. A bad dinner, on the other hand,
will bring to the surface all that is mean and ignoble in his nature.
Indigestion, I surmise, has been the cause of most of the cruelty of
men. Viewing history in this light, it is easier to understand the
apparently wanton slaughter among barbarians. Fed upon ill-conditioned
food, the barbarian is attacked in his most sensitive part--his
stomach. He is upset, distrait; his nerves are set upon edge and he
knows not what ails him. He grows irritable and quick to anger, and
he wrecks his unreasoning and unreasonable spleen upon the first
convenient victim. It is to be observed that the science of cookery and
the progress of civilization advance together. Well-fed men are slow to
wrath and easily appeased. At the height of the Roman civilization the
Romans became epicures and ceased to be warriors. War has no charms for
the man who is at peace with his own stomach.
It may be urged by some that cooking, in rendering a man unwarlike,
does him an ill service because it makes him effeminate. But the same
may be said of all the cardinal virtues except, perhaps, bravery.
Forbearance, loving kindness, gentleness, faith--all these and many
others are essentially feminine virtues. Nay, civilization itself is a
feminizing influence. Under our modern civilization, which as far as
we know is the highest the world has ever experienced, men are reduced
to the condition of dependents. Men no longer rely upon their personal
prowess and valor for redress for their injuries or the defense of
their natural rights. The law has become the protector of men, just as
men were once the protectors of women. And this feminizing influence
of civilization is, I take it, a wise provision of Providence for the
benefit of cookery. The less men are concerned with battle, murder and
sudden death, the more they are concerned with their dinners; and the
more solicitous they become for their dinners, the more they desire
the safety of the home, the peace of nations and the prosperity of
mankind--all things, in short, which help to make possible the Perfect
Dinner, perfectly chosen, perfectly cooked and perfectly eaten.
I say “perfectly eaten” because it seems to me that there is an art
of eating as well as an art of cooking. It is said that a musician
does his best when playing before an appreciative audience; and so
the cook is at his best when cooking for an appreciative diner. It
is a discouraging thing for an actor to peep out from behind the
drop-curtain and see the pit all but empty of spectators; but it is
a heart-breaking experience for a cook to peep through the swinging
doors of his sanctum sanctorum and to behold the diners distant and
indifferent, this one idly chattering and that one buried in a late
edition of a newspaper, while his delicious soups, his super-excellent
omelets, his heart-warming coffee, his inspiring steaks and his
magnificent pâtés grow cold and unpalatable upon the unregarded plates!
To see one’s chef-d’œuvres treated as hors-d’œuvres--that is a tragedy
of the soul!
To attain the Perfect Dinner we must attain the Perfect Civilization.
The diner must be as free to enjoy his dinner as the cook is to
prepare it; and, in like manner, the Perfect Dinner is the concomitant
of the Perfect Civilization. Man is civilized when he is well-fed and
uncivilized when he is ill-fed. This is a truth which you need not
accept upon my unsupported authority; any housewife will tell you as
much. If the earth were to be visited by a plague which attacked only
those who could cook and carried them off all at one time, I believe
that the world would relapse into anarchy in the space of thirty days.
It seems to me that the profession of cooking is not at all
incompatible with the study of philosophy. As I apply my philosophy
to my cooking, so I apply my cooking to my philosophy. Some of my
philosophers I take raw, some I boil down to the very juice and some I
season; for philosophy, I believe, is often more digestible when taken
_cum grano salis_.
I may be wrong, and it may seem egotistical in me to say it, but
really, Mr. _Idler_, I believe that if more people were of my mind
to mix their philosophy and their cooking, there would be many more
intelligent cooks and not a few more palatable philosophers.
I am, Sir, your humble servant,
BARTHOLOMEW BATTERCAKE.
A BACHELOR ON WOMEN
_To the Editor of The Idler._
DEAR SIR: I have lately been the subject of many animadversions upon
the part of literary critics because of a novel of mine, recently
published, which these critics have been pleased to term “a study in
feminine psychology.” My story has been criticized severely and my
observations upon the female character mercilessly condemned, and in
every one of these adverse criticisms which has been brought to my
attention, the reviewer has taken occasion to say, in substance, “This
book was evidently written by a bachelor.”
Now, the fact of my bachelorhood I have no wish to deny, nor could I if
I would, for it is well known to my many friends and acquaintances that
I am a single man. But is the fact that I am a bachelor conclusive,
or even _prima facie_, evidence of my incompetency to discourse upon
feminine psychology? I do not see why it should be so considered. It is
plain that a great many people are of the opinion that the man who has
married a woman must know more of women in general than the man who has
not. But, after all is said, Mr. _Idler_, why should the married man
know more of women than the bachelor knows? He is married only to one
woman--not to all womankind.
No man becomes an expert entomologist through the study of one insect.
There is no one insect which can furnish him with a general knowledge
of entomology. Nor is there any one woman who can furnish us with a
general knowledge of women. There is no one woman so typical of her
sex that all other women may be judged by her. Yet the only advantage
which the married man enjoys over the unmarried man is his intimate
knowledge of one particular woman. The married man has not the same
liberty of observing women which is the perquisite of the bachelor. The
only time when a married man has an opportunity to observe women other
than his wife is when his wife is not with him, and then, for a short
time, he possesses the same degree of liberty which the bachelor enjoys
all of the time. The bachelor observes, not one woman, but many. It is
true that his knowledge of women differs from that of the married man
in one particular: if he has any intimate knowledge of woman at her
worst it is likely to be a knowledge of Judy O’Grady, rather than of
the colonel’s lady. The bachelor sees good women at their best and bad
women at their worst. The married man sees one good woman at her best
and at her worst.
The question, then, is, which sort of knowledge is more likely
to enable a man to form a just estimate of the female character?
Personally, I think the bachelor has all the best of it. And, Sir,
if none of these arguments has weight with you, there remains one
supreme argument which proves that the bachelor knows more of women
than the married man, and that, Sir, is the simple fact that he _is_ a
bachelor, as
I am, Sir,
FORTUNATAS FREEMAN.
N. B. The editor disclaims all responsibility for the sentiments
expressed in the above communication.
ON PENSIONING WRITERS
_To the Editor of The Idler._
DEAR SIR: I observe by the daily press that the English government
has just issued a list in full of such authors as have been selected
for the receipt of a pension. In this list I find the names of a
number of widows and orphans of authors as well as the names of living
authors, and this is no doubt as it should be. I have heard certain
hypercritical persons object to the late project of the “Dickens stamp”
upon the ground that no man is entitled to anything which he has not
earned and that literary heirs are entitled to no more consideration
than monetary heirs. Now, personally, I can not understand what is
so objectionable about the inheritance of money. It seems to me that
a man’s heirs are quite as much entitled to receive the benefits of
his fortune or the fruits of his industry after his death as they
are during his life; and no one has yet gone so far as to say that
a man may not, with perfect propriety, bestow upon his heirs and
relatives such pecuniary gifts and benefits as he may see fit during
his lifetime. It seems to me that the heirs of an author inherit as
great an interest in his work as the heirs of a banker or broker. But,
however this may be, there is one feature about this pensioning of
authors which convinces me that the British government has gone about
the matter in a very wrong fashion.
I find in looking over the list that pensions have been granted
because of writings upon ornithology, Elizabethan literature, poetry,
socialism, philosophy and so on. While I must confess that I am
unfamiliar with the majority of the names which appear upon the list,
I assume from the manner in which they have been selected that the
British government considers their work to have been of really great
value, although not popular. The British government, in fact, appears
to be offering encouragement, in the shape of pensions, to such writers
as can not hope to please the general public with their work. The
government is supplying a pension in lieu of popular appreciation.
Now, this is all very well if the government is merely going into the
business of being philanthropic and is willing to extend its system
of pensions to include worthy shoemakers who have been unable to
secure a sufficient custom to keep them in food and clothing because
of the inroads made upon the cobbler’s trade by the manufacturers
of machine-made shoes; lawyers who are learned in the law, but who
have been unable to secure the business of the great corporations;
doctors who are efficient, but who chance to live in unusually healthy
neighborhoods; ministers of the Gospel who are unfortunately assigned
to meager or irreligious parishes; music teachers who are excellent
instructors, but who find formidable foes to business in the automatic
piano and the phonograph. If the British government is bent upon making
up for public indifference to such authors as are willing to benefit
mankind, but who can not make mankind take note of their efforts in
that direction, then, I say, the British government shows a kindly and
courteous disposition, but it should not stop with authors; it should
carry on the good work in every walk of life.
But if, as I suspect to be the case, the British government is
establishing this system of pensions in the hope that the system will
result in more and better books, then I must say I think the system is
more likely to fail than to succeed.
One has but to glance back at the history of literature to be convinced
that poverty has never been an effective check upon literary genius.
Poets have starved and philosophers have gone about clad in shabby
raiment rather than forsake their chosen work. Herbert Spencer did not
go clad in rags, to be sure, but where mediocre writers were reaping
fortunes from their literary labors, he was expending fortunes in the
effort to bring his philosophy to the attention of the world. Doctor
Johnson never wrote so prolifically or so well as when he was starving
in a Grub Street garret.
An empty stomach does not mean an empty head where authors are
concerned. The fact of the matter is, it is easier for men to write
great poetry and to think deeply when they are poor than when they
are well-to-do. A wealthy and famous man has to suffer innumerable
distractions from the work he has in hand; his time and attention
are not his own to command. At every turn he is harassed by the
responsibilities of his position. In obscurity and poverty, on the
other hand, a man is not only brought more closely in touch with life,
but he is absolute master of his own time and effort. Providing he be
not married, and so responsible for others, the obscure and poor author
is absolutely his own master. Whether he drop his greater work for the
sake of earning a meal is a matter which is entirely optional. He does
not have to eat if he does not care to do so. The rich and successful
author, on the contrary, is expected to observe certain social duties
and to return courtesy for praise and patronage. If he treats his
public cavalierly and refuses to admit himself bound by the amenities
of ordinary life, he is in grave danger of losing both his popularity
and his eminence.
“O Poverty,” wrote Jean Jacques Rousseau, “thou art a severe teacher.
But at thy noble school I have received more precious lessons, I have
learned more great truths than I shall ever find in the spheres of
wealth.”
Had Louis the Little actually taken up François Villon from his squalor
and wretchedness, his stews and taverns, his thieves and slatterns, and
made him the Grand Marshal of France, as he is made to do in Justin
Huntley McCarthy’s romance, _If I Were King_, he would have spoiled a
good poet to make a poor courtier. When poor and writing for posterity,
the author is at his best; when rich and writing for more money, he
is usually so anxious to make hay while the sun shines that his work
suffers in proportion to his output. No, poverty has never spoiled a
good poet--even the youthful Chatterton might have lost his magic with
the disillusionment which follows on the heels of affluence.
And since the really great authors can not be kept from writing in any
case, it would seem to me that a much better scheme would be to pension
those who were better idle. Let the British government pension, not
the good authors, but the bad. Let the penny-a-liner be retired in
comfort where he will never need to write another poem, novel, play or
philosophic treatise. Since the inspiration which moves him to labor is
the desire for money, when he has the money he will no longer have any
temptation to write. But for the great authors, who will write whether
or no, let them be kept on their mettle, stung to action by “the slings
and arrows of outrageous fortune,” inspired by their faith in their
work and close to the hearts of humanity, so that they may continue to
pour out the riches of literature, philosophy and science, unimpeded
by the obligations and worries attendant upon the possession of a bank
account!
I am, Sir,
A LOVER OF LITERATURE.
A PURITAN IN BOHEMIA
_To the Editor of The Idler._
DEAR SIR: You will often hear it asserted by those who assume to speak
with authority, that there is no longer any such thing as Bohemia in
New York; that the Bohemians are scattered hither and thither and that
their haunts are given over to seekers after sensation, sight-seers and
the like. The seeming sophistication of those who speak thus is, more
often than not, entirely _sham_, and is assumed by pert reporters for
the daily press who wish, by appearing worldly, to divert attention
from their patent callowness and youth.
There _is_, Sir, such a thing as Bohemia, and there _are_ such people
as Bohemians, and this I know to my sorrow, and the way in which I
discovered this I shall presently relate. Bohemia, as I have found
it, is not a place, but a state of mind and a manner of life. The
Bohemians have a fixed abode no more than the Arabs of the desert or
the wild tribes of Tartary. If one of their citadels is wrested from
them by the invasion of the Philistines, they fall back upon another,
and being, for the most part, unencumbered with Lares and Penates,
they have no difficulty in finding another retreat in which they are
soon as happy and content as in the one which they formerly occupied.
They may be said to be a people without attachments (if we except
the writs so called by those of the legal profession), and if they
pay devotion to any god, I know not whom it may be, unless, indeed,
Bacchus, who was always a roving deity, as like to be found in one spot
as another, whose chief attributes are liberty and license, and whose
rites, therefore, may be celebrated wherever his devotees are given the
liberty of a place that has a license.
But do not let me, by the use of these terms, lead you to fall into the
vulgar error that these Bohemians are people without conventions and
who observe no rules of conduct, but act solely according to the whim
of the moment, for indeed the contrary is the case. The Bohemians,
Sir, are as jealous of their customs and conventions as any class of
people, and they even have certain ideas of caste to which they adhere
as rigidly as the most fanatical of the Hindus. To lose caste in
Bohemia is like losing one’s “face” among the Chinese and results in
ostracism quite as surely.
The customs and conventions of the Bohemians, as I shall presently
show, are, in truth, very different from the customs and the
conventions of what is known as “good society”; so that it is not
surprising that those who have only, so to speak, touched upon the
frontiers of this country of the imagination, should declare it to
be a land of absolute freedom and of individualistic philosophy.
Myself, when I first came among them, was as astonished and confused
as Gulliver among the Houyhnhnms, for here I found everything turned
about from the manner in which I was used to seeing it. That which I
had been accustomed to consider worthy, I found here to be unworthy,
and that which I had been taught to hold a fault I found here to be a
virtue. I had been taught to admire thrift, but here I found it held to
be the meanest of qualities. The Beau Ideal of a Bohemian I discovered
to be the young man who is free with his purse and careless of his
obligations. I found it a humorous thing to defraud one’s creditors but
a shameful thing to deny one’s purse to a fellow Bohemian. I had been
taught to be circumspect in my conversation with the ladies, but here
I found them conversing upon all subjects with utter freedom and an
entire lack of embarrassment. I had been used to admire innocence, but
here I found that innocence was considered as ignorance and a subject
for mirth or censure. Religion, patriotism, respect for established
customs, reverence for those in power--all those things, in short,
which had been so carefully impressed upon me at home, I found to be
nowhere admired among these people.
To acquaint you briefly with the manner of my coming among these
citizens: I fell among them by design and not, as you may have
supposed, by accident. Possessed of some talent in a musical way and
having something of a turn for original composition, I had secured
a position in an orchestra in one of the local theaters. Though I
had been brought up in the most orthodox manner by my father, who
was a professor in a small New England college, I chafed under the
restrictions of social life in my native village, where intellectual
attainments were held in such high repute as to overshadow completely
all natural talent and genius, and where a man was more respected
for knowing Boethius than for knowing beans. I had neither taste
nor inclination for pedagogy, but yearned with all my heart for the
artistic life. I had, in short, a somewhat exaggerated attack of what
is known as the _artistic temperament_, and finding that my own people
considered music as a parlor accomplishment rather than a serious art,
I was more than ever impatient of their narrow-minded Puritanism and
more than ever determined to leave the little college town and all that
it stood for, and to go out into the world to seek companionship with
those who shared my own ideals and ambitions.
The final rupture with my people came when I announced to my father my
intention of becoming a professional violinist, and he replied that
if I were determined to disappoint his hopes of my future I might at
least have hit upon something respectable, and not brought upon him the
reproach of having a fiddler in the family. “I can only hope,” said he,
“that you will be a total and abject failure in your misguided efforts,
for if you were to succeed and I were to come upon your name flaunted
in shameless fashion from the boards of some play-house, I should
certainly die of mortification.” With these good wishes ringing in my
ears, I packed my meager belongings, tucked my violin case under my
arm and turned my back upon my native village and respectability, as I
thought, forever.
A few weeks of playing in the orchestra at a theater convinced me
that I had yet to seek the intellectual sympathy for which I left
home. My fellow players, with one exception, were all phlegmatic
Germans who played well enough, to be sure, but who appeared to be as
devoid of spiritual aspirations and artistic appreciation as so many
day-laborers. They worked at their music as a barber works at his
trade, and when the evening’s task was done, they retired to a corner
saloon where they drank beer, ate Limburger and talked politics like
so many grocers. There was, as I have said, one exception; a young man
like myself, who seemed to scorn the middle-class ideas and ideals
of our companions and who never joined in the beer-drinking or the
political discussions at the corner. This young man, said I to myself,
has been here for some time, and he, if any one, should be able to
direct me to the haunts of the true friends of art; he, of all these,
is the only one fitted to act as my guide, philosopher and friend.
Timidly I approached him upon the subject nearest to my heart, and
heartily he replied that not only could he introduce me into the
free-masonry of art, but that he would do so the very next night.
Accordingly, when the curtain fell the following evening, we set off at
once and arrived shortly at a restaurant and café, upon the East Side,
which was situated in a basement. A large wooden sign proclaimed it to
be “Weinstein’s Rathskeller,” but my companion assured me that it was
known to the _elect_ as the “Café of the Innocents,” because those who
came there were yet young and comparatively unknown in the world of art
and letters.
To describe my sensations upon that evening, Sir, would require the
pen of a Verlaine. My own poor efforts can never do them justice. I
can make shift to express emotion upon the strings of my instrument,
but when I exchange my bow for a pen my fingers become as thumbs and
my emotions defy expression, so that I am as helpless as a six weeks’
infant plagued by a pin, and can no more make clear my meaning than a
sign-painter could imitate Rubens.
Suffice it to say that I was overcome, charmed, enchanted! In stepping
through the portals of that dingy East Side resort, I seemed to have
stepped over the border-line that divides the world of the dull and the
practical from the world of romance and desire. I had entered the land
of dreams, the country of magnificent distances! I was as astonished
as William Guppy would have been had he stumbled unwittingly into the
rose garden of Hafiz. Here were men and women after my own heart; men
and women who saw the world as a whole, unbounded by the petty lines of
counties, states and nations. Here the names of the masters of art and
literature were bandied about as familiarly as the names of our local
professors were at home. Here were lights, here music, and here the
good glad laughter of youth! Here were women--not the slim spinsters
and prim matrons that I had known, but hearty healthy women who seemed
to be _alive_. Ah, that was it--they were all, all of them, so much
alive! Between their fingers they held, not knitting-needles, but
dainty cigarettes! Here was wine, wit and winsomeness--a dangerous, a
deadly combination for such as I!
Well, Sir, to be brief, I was enthralled. I grew so greedy of that
atmosphere that I began to begrudge my work the hours that it called
me away from such good company. Finally I exchanged my place at the
theater for a position in the orchestra at the café. And so I came to
live among the Bohemians and become one of them.
From the first I was enamored of the conversation of these stepchildren
of Genius, and I soon began descending from the platform and mingling
with the _habitués_ of the place; for at Weinstein’s the only snobbery
is of the Bohemian variety, and those who would blush to be seen dining
with a prosperous bourgeois, were not at all averse to drinking with
an humble member of the orchestra--for was not I, too, an artist? It
was not long before I began to care more for talking of my art than for
practising it, and all the time that I was playing I was impatient to
be down among the tables enjoying the praise which my performance, or,
as I am now inclined to suspect, the subsequent order for drinks, never
failed to secure. Thus I ceased to practise and played no more except
when I was at work.
Of course I did not come to realize all this in a moment.
It was some months before I woke from the daze into which I fell at
the first. It came to me gradually as I began to make unpleasant
discoveries. It was disconcerting to find that I had fled my own world
to escape conventions only to come upon others, or rather upon the same
lot, turned topsy-turvy. It annoyed me to find that to be accounted
a true Bohemian one must hold only certain views, and those always
opposed to the views of acknowledged authorities; that one must not
dress too well, eat too well or drink too well. Which was not at all
the same thing as saying _too much_. But this was by no means the most
shocking of my disillusions. I soon learned that while the Bohemians
are forever talking and thinking of success and wishing success for
their friends, the moment one of them really succeeds he is no longer a
member of the company; and for this reason it is said, with some truth,
that there are no successful Bohemians. When one of them who has made
a marked success intrudes himself into the old gathering place, he is
given such a cold shoulder that he never ventures there again. A small
triumph furnishes the occasion for a feast of congratulation, but a
real “arrival” excites the whole company to sneers and innuendoes, so
that such felicitations as are offered are bitter with envy. They have
a sort of optimism of their own, but it is all a personal optimism.
Each one hopes and believes that he will succeed, but each one believes
and secretly hopes that the others will not. A cynical smile and a
shrugging of shoulders is the tribute to the absent artist.
Well, Mr. _Idler_, the longer I remained among these people, the more I
came to be of the mind of _Alice in Wonderland_, that though some may
be marked off from the pack and may look like kings and queens, they
are nothing but playing-cards after all.
But there was one young woman who held my waning interest and who bound
me by sentimental ties to the life of which I now began to be somewhat
weary. If I had not made her acquaintance I believe that I should long
ago have left Bohemia and shaken the sawdust of Weinstein’s from my
feet. She was a demure young person, a newcomer from the West, who was
studying art. She seemed so different from the others, so fresh, so
ingenuous, that I could not but believe her to be genuine. She smoked
her cigarette and drank of the _table d’hôte_ wine, it is true (she
could do no less in the face of Bohemian convention), but she did
it all with such a pretty air of youth and innocence as touched me
greatly. For I was by now as strongly attracted by a quiet woman as I
had formerly been by a lively one.
To spare you a tedious recital of my passion, I determined to ask her
to marry me, thinking that she might arouse in me the old ambition to
become a great musician--the ambition which my long sojourn in the
Lotus land of Bohemia had all but killed. And so one night I put the
question gently over our cups of black coffee, asking her, “Would
you--could you--share with me my career?” Then, Sir, that happened
which you will scarce believe. Yes, she said, she would be glad to
share my career with me, but I must be under no misapprehension; she
could not marry me; she already had a husband in the West; but inasmuch
as she had not seen him in three years and had never found him very
congenial in any case, he need not in any way interfere with our plans.
As you may imagine, I was thunderstruck. I concealed my confusion as
best I might by pretending to choke upon a bit of cheese, and at the
first opportunity I made my escape and sought the seclusion of my
chamber where I faced my problem. I had striven to become a Bohemian,
but I had been born a Puritan and there was a limit to my acquired
unconventionality. I could not confess my prudery to the lady; could
not ignore the incident. Therefore I have determined to accept the one
course left open to me. I shall fly. I am now going out to pawn my
fiddle and with the money I get I shall buy me a ticket to that little
New England town where I first saw the light of day.
Others may seek for inspiration at the Café of the Innocents, but as
for me, I am going where a modest young man may live in the protection
of the old-fashioned conventions. I am going where I can be moral
without being queer. _I_ am going home. And so, Sir,
Farewell,
TIMOTHY TIMID.
AN ARRAIGNMENT OF ORIGINALITY
_To the Editor of The Idler._
DEAR SIR: I am, I doubt not, one of your most devoted readers, and
the reason of my devotion, if I may say so, is because you so seldom
say anything original. Nay, Sir, this is not said in jest, but in
very earnest, for in truth I am vastly wearied of originality in all
its forms. We are so beset upon all sides by “originals” of one sort
or another, that it is a positive relief to open a book or pick up a
magazine which is decently dull and warranted harmless. To sit down for
a quiet evening with one of our sensational monthlies is like lighting
one’s self to bed with a giant cracker--there is no peace or quiet to
be had with ’em.
From my earliest youth it has been my ambition to keep myself well
informed of the affairs of the day, and to this end I have made it a
practise to glance at least through the monthly numbers of our popular
magazines. I regret to say that I have been compelled to break off
this lifelong habit, as my physician has strongly advised me against
continuing it. The startling and alarming articles which make up the
bulk of the month’s offerings in these periodicals have a very bad
effect upon my heart and my imagination. More than once in the last two
or three years I have been troubled with evil dreams and nightmares
brought on by reading these publications shortly before going to bed.
More than this, I am by nature somewhat irritable and short of temper,
and I have been thrown into a very fury of indignation upon reading
the recital of my wrongs in these magazines; so much so, indeed, that
I have narrowly escaped apoplexy, a disease to which, my doctor says,
I am peculiarly liable. And since I had rather be swindled upon every
hand, as long as it is in happy ignorance, than to die of indignation,
I have left off reading them altogether.
I can say without dissimulation that I do not miss them greatly.
To say the truth, I have small fondness for the originality which
is everywhere urged upon us in these days. I have small patience
with the spirit which drives us on from one extravagance to another
until there is no telling to what base uses the human intellect may
eventually fall. Sir, I have taken it upon myself to raise my voice in
protest against the prevalent craze for originality and to say a word,
which needs to be said, in defense of imitation. If in so doing I am
unintentionally original, I can only crave your indulgence.
If I read the signs of the times aright, we are in imminent danger of
falling into the ways of the Greeks, “ever seeking some new thing”;
considering in our art, music and literature not the qualities of
beauty, sense and melody, but only the quality of _newness_, which is
to say, novelty. We do not ask of a musician, is his work harmonious?
But only, is it _different_? We do not ask of a painter, is he
artistic? But only, is he _clever_? We do not ask of an author, is he
sound? But only, is he _witty_? Is it not a sad commentary upon our
insane desire for change, Mr. _Idler_, that our artists, musicians and
authors should urge only these claims upon our consideration, that they
are different, clever and witty? Sir, the music of an Ojibway Indian
is different; a sign-painter may well be clever; and the most ignorant
street urchins are often witty. Are these, then, the only qualities we
should seek in those who presume to instruct and elevate the human mind
and soul? Are we to pass by sound sense for the sake of empty wit? Are
we to forsake harmony for the novelty of a mad jumble of absurd sounds?
Are we to value cartoons above masterpieces?
For a convenient example of the depths to which we have sunk, let me
cite you, Sir, the case of dancing. Dancing was, I believe, originally
a religious exercise. Like music, it was employed to express the nobler
emotions of the soul. I confess that it may have been sensuous, even
at a very early date, but the most sensuous dance of the ancients,
the bacchante, was, nevertheless, performed in honor of a god. In the
minuet of our grandfathers there was both dignity and grace. There,
Sir, was such a dance as might enhance the noble bearing, the beauty
and the gentility of those who danced it. There was a dance fit for
ladies and gentlemen, a dance which had in it nothing incompatible with
innocent womanliness or manly dignity. Who, let me ask you, can say as
much for the unspeakable modern _original_ dances, the kangaroo, the
grizzly bear, and the bunny hug? Sir, can you bring yourself for one
moment to think upon the spectacle of George Washington dancing the
kangaroo? Can you conceive of such an unthinkable thing as Henry Clay
performing the grizzly bear? Can you, by any force of imagination,
picture Abraham Lincoln lost in the mazes of the bunny hug? God forbid!
As it is with dancing, so it is with art. The poster insanity has
hardly passed away and we are already overwhelmed with a horde of
symbolists of one sort or another, who appear to agree upon one
point only--that pictures should not in any way resemble nature.
These ambitious daubers, Sir--I can not bring myself to call them
artists--have the impertinence to assume that they can express life
more fully and clearly upon their hideous canvases than the Author of
the Universe has expressed it in nature. As to the absurdity of their
pretensions, I need say nothing; it is apparent to all who can lay
claim to even the most ordinary degree of intelligence. But as to the
effect this nonsense has upon the weak, the easily impressed, I could
never say enough. This insanity has spread like a plague from painting
to poetry, and from poetry to all the arts that are known. Originality,
like charity, is made to cover a multitude of sins. The creative artist
who has not the strength or the patience to win distinction along
recognized lines produces something that is grotesque and defies us
to criticize his work, saying, “There is no standard by which you can
measure this, for it is absolutely new. Nobody ever did anything just
like this before.” The obvious retort to this would be that nobody ever
wanted to do anything like it before, but this would be lost upon the
artist, for the “original” of to-day is as impervious to ridicule as he
is to criticism.
That music is better for being original, I do not believe. Such an
assumption is without warrant in nature. There is no purer sweeter
melody than that of the birds. What says the poet?
“Hark! that’s the nightingale,
Telling the self-same tale
Her song told when this ancient earth was young:
So echoes answered when her song was sung
In the first wooded vale.”
Year after year, century after century, these natural musicians
continue to ravish and delight all mankind with those same songs they
warbled on creation morn. It is no care of theirs to mingle melody with
horrid sounds; to weld their notes into a dagger of discord wherewith
to stab men through the ear. They do not strive to produce those
damnable gratings, shriekings and rumblings which so often pass for
music in these days. Where, Sir, is the originality of the nightingale,
or of the mocking-bird? Sir, all music may be noise, but that all noise
is music I do deny with all my heart. That a noise is new does not
recommend it to my ear.
Sir, I lay it down as a proposition not to be refuted, that a good
imitation is better than a poor original, and while many men may create
passable imitations, very few can produce anything which is both
original and good. I do not hold it against an author that he is not
wholly original. On the contrary, if he imitate good models, I regard
his imitation as an evidence of sound sense. And, what is more, Sir, I
believe that most people are no more enamored of originality than I am.