still several reserve facts, classified in the Encyclopædia under the
heads, Geology, Administration, and Finance. I had established my
position as a superior person with an intuitive knowledge of Prince
Edward Island. If the Encyclopædia itself had walked into the kitchen
arm in arm with the Classical Dictionary, she could not have been more
impressed. At least, that is the way I like to think she felt. It is the
way I feel under similar circumstances.
One watches the Superior Person leading a conversation with the
admiration due to Browning's Hervé Riel, when,
As its inch of way were the wide sea's profound,
he steered the ship in the narrow channel. It is well, however, for one
who undertakes such feats to make sure that he really has an inch of
way; it is none too much.
In these days it is so easy for one to get a supply of ready-made
knowledge that it is hard to keep from applying it indiscriminately. We
make incursions into our neighbor's affairs and straighten them out with
a ruthless righteousness which is very disconcerting to him, especially
when he has never had the pleasure of our acquaintance till we came to
set him right. There is a certain modesty of conscience which would
perhaps be more becoming. It comes only with the realization of
practical difficulties. I like the remark of Sir Fulke Greville in his
account of his friend, Sir Philip Sydney. Speaking of his literary
labors he says: "Since my declining age it is true I had for some years
more leisure to discover their imperfections than care and industry to
mend them, finding in myself what all men complain of: that it is more
easy to find fault, excuse, or tolerate, than to examine or reform."
The idea that we know what a person ought to do, and especially what he
ought not to do, before we know the person or how he is situated, is one
dear to the mind of the Doctrinaire. If his mind did not naturally work
that way he would not be a Doctrinaire. He is always inclined to put
duty before the pleasure of finding out what it is all about. In this
way he becomes overstocked with a lot of unrelated duties, for which
there is no home consumption, and which he endeavors to dump on the
foreign market. This makes him unpopular.
I am not one of those who insist that everybody should mind his own
business; that is too harsh a doctrine. One of the rights and privileges
of a good neighbor is to give neighborly advice. But there is a
corresponding right on the part of the advisee, and that is to take no
more of the advice than he thinks is good for him. There is one thing
that a man knows about his own business better than any outsider, and
that is how hard it is for him to do it. The adviser is always telling
him how to do it in the finest possible way, while he, poor fellow,
knows that the paramount issue is whether he can do it at all. It
requires some grace on the part of a person who is doing the best he can
under extremely difficult circumstances to accept cheerfully the
remarks of the intelligent critic.
Persons who write about the wild animals they have known are likely to
be contradicted by persons who have been acquainted with other wild
animals, or with the same wild animals under other circumstances. How
much more difficult is it to give an exhaustive and correct account of
that wonderfully complex creature, man.
One whose business requires him to meet large numbers of persons who are
all in the same predicament, is in danger of generalizing from a too
narrow experience. The teacher, the charity-worker, the preacher, the
physician, the man of business, each has his method of professional
classification. Each is tempted to forget that he is not in a position
from which he can survey human nature in its entirety. He only sees one
phase endlessly repeated. The dentist, for example, has special
advantages for character study, but he should remember that the least
heroic of his patients has moments when he is more blithe and debonair
than he has ever seen him.
It takes an unusually philosophical mind to make the necessary
allowances for its own limitations. If you were to earn your daily bread
at the Brooklyn Bridge, and your sole duty was to exhort your fellow men
to "step lively," you would doubtless soon come to divide mankind into
three classes, namely: those who step lively, those who do not step
lively, and those who step too lively. If Aristotle himself were to
cross the bridge, you would see nothing in the Peripatetic Philosopher
but a reprehensible lack of agility.
At the railway terminus there is an office which bears the inscription,
"Lost Articles." In the midst of the busy traffic it stands as a
perpetual denial of the utilitarian theory that all men are governed by
enlightened self-interest. A very considerable proportion of the
traveling public can be trusted regularly to forget its portable
property.
The gentleman who presides over the lost articles has had long
experience as an alienist. He is skeptical as to the reality of what is
called mind. So far as his clients are concerned, it is notable for its
absence. To be confronted day after day by the absent-minded, and to
listen to their monotonous tale of woe, is disenchanting. It is
difficult to observe all the amenities of life when one is dealing with
the defective and delinquent classes.
When first I inquired at the Lost Article window, I was received as a
man and brother. There was even an attempt to show the respect due to
one who may have seen better days. I had the feeling that both myself
and my lost article were receiving individual attention. I left without
any sense of humiliation. But the third time I appeared I was conscious
of a change in the atmosphere. A single glance at the Restorer of Lost
Articles showed me that I was no longer in his eyes a citizen who was in
temporary misfortune. I was classified. He recognized me as a rounder.
"There he is again," he said to himself. "Last time it was at Rockingham
Junction, this time it is probably on the Saugus Branch; but it is the
same old story, and the same old umbrella."
What hurt my feelings was that nothing I could say would do any good. It
would not help matters to explain that losing articles was not my steady
occupation, and that I had other interests in life. He would only
wearily note the fact as another indication of my condition. "That's the
way they all talk. These defectives can never be made to see their
conduct in its true light. They always explain their misfortunes by
pretending that their thoughts were on higher things."
The Doctrinaire when he gets hold of a good thing never lets up on it.
His favorite idea is produced on all occasions. It may be excellent in
its way, but he sings its praises till we turn against it as we used to
do in the Fourth Reader Class, when we all with one accord turned
against "Teacher's Pet." Teacher's Pet might be dowered with all the
virtues, but we of the commonality would have none of them. We chose to
scoff at an excellence that insulted us.
The King in "Hamlet" remarked,
"There lives within the very flame of love
A kind of wick, or snuff, that will abate it;
And nothing is at a like goodness still;
For goodness, growing to a pleurisy,
Dies in his own too-much."
The Doctrinaire can never realize the fatal nature of the "too-much."
If a little does good, he is sure that more will do better. He will not
allow of any abatements or alleviations; we must, if we are to keep on
good terms with him, be doing the whole duty of man all the time. He
will take our own most cherished principles and turn them against us in
such an offensive manner that we forget that they are ours. He argues on
the right side with such uncompromising energy that we have to take the
wrong side to maintain our self-respect.
If there is one thing I believe in, it is fresh air. I like to keep my
window open at night, or better still to sleep under the stars. And I
was glad to learn from the doctors that this is good for us. But the
other day I started on a railway journey with premonitory signs of
catching cold. An icy blast blew upon me. I closed the car window. A
lady instantly opened it. I looked to see what manner of person she was.
Was she one who could be touched by an illogical appeal? or was she
wholly devoted to a cause?
It needed but a glance to assure me that she was a Doctrinaire, and
capable only of seeing the large public side of the question. What would
it avail for me to say, "Madam, I am catching cold, may I close the
window?"
"Apostate man!" she would reply, "did I not hear you on the platform of
the Anti-Tuberculosis Association plead for free and unlimited
ventilation without waiting for the consent of other nations? Did you
not appear as one who stood four-square 'gainst every wind that blows,
and asked for more? And now, just because you are personally
inconvenienced, you prove recreant to the Cause. Do you know how many
cubic feet of fresh air are necessary to this car?"
I could only answer feebly, "When it comes to cubic feet I am perfectly
sound. I wish there were more of them. What troubles me is only a
trifling matter of two linear inches on the back of my neck. Your
general principle, Madam, is admirable. I merely plead for a slight
relaxation of the rule. I ask only for a mere pittance of warmed-over
air."
Perhaps the most discouraging thing about the Doctrinaire is that while
he insists upon a high ideal, he is intolerant of the somewhat tedious
ways and means by which the ideal is to be reached. With his eye fixed
on the Perfect, he makes no allowance for the imperfectness of those who
are struggling toward it. There is a pleasant passage in Hooker's
"Ecclesiastical Polity" in which I find great comfort: "That which the
Gospel of Christ requireth is the perpetuity of virtuous duties, not the
perpetuity of exercise or action, but disposition perpetual, and
practise as often as times and opportunities require. Just, valiant,
liberal, temperate, and holy men, are they which _can_ whensoever they
will, and will whensoever they _ought_, execute whatever their several
perfections impart. If virtues did always cease when they cease to
work, there would be nothing more pernicious to virtue than sleep."
The judicious Hooker was never more judicious than in making this
observation. It is a great relief to be assured that in this world,
where there are such incessant calls upon the moral nature, it is
possible to be a just, valiant, liberal, temperate, and holy man, and
yet get a good night's sleep.
But your Doctrinaire will not have it so. His hero retains his position
only during good behavior, which means behaving all the time in an
obviously heroic manner. It is not enough that he should be to "true
occasion true," he must make occasions to show himself off.
Now it happens that in the actual world it is not possible for the best
of men to satisfy all the demands of their fidgety followers. In the
picture of the battle between St. George and the dragon, the attitude of
St. George is all that could be desired. There is an easy grace in the
way in which he deals with the dragon that is greatly to his credit.
There is a mingling of knightly pride and Christian resignation over his
own inevitable victory, that is charming.
St. George was fortunate in the moment when he had his picture taken. He
had the dragon just where he wanted him. But it is to be feared that if
some one had followed him with a kodak, some of the snap-shots might
have been less satisfactory. Let us suppose a moment when the dragon
Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail.
It is a way that dragons have when they are excited. And what if that
moment St. George dodged. Would you criticise him harshly for such an
action? Would it not be better to take into consideration the fact that
under such circumstances his first duty might not be to be statuesque?
When in the stern conflict we have found a champion, I think we owe him
some little encouragement. When he is doing the best he can in a very
difficult situation, we ought not to blame him because he does not act
as he would if there were no difficulties at all. "Life," said Marcus
Aurelius, "is more like wrestling than dancing." When we get that point
of view we may see that some attitudes that are not graceful may be
quite effective. It is a fine thing to say,--
"Dare to be a Daniel,
Dare to stand alone,
Dare to have a purpose true
And dare to make it known."
But if I had been a Daniel and as the result of my independent action
had been cast into the den of lions, I should feel as if I had done
enough in the way of heroism for one day, and I should let other people
take their turn. If I found the lions inclined to be amiable, I should
encourage them in it. I should say, "I beg your pardon. I do not mean to
intrude. If it's the time for your afternoon nap, don't pay any
attention to me. After the excitement that I've had where I came from,
I should like nothing better than to sit down by myself in the shade and
have a nice quiet day of it."
And if the lions were agreeable, I should be glad. I should hate to have
at this moment a bland Doctrinaire look down and say, "That was a great
thing you did up there, Daniel. People are wondering whether you can
keep it up. Your friends are getting a mite impatient. They expected to
hear by this time that there was something doing down there. Stir 'em
up, Daniel! Stir 'em up!"
Perhaps at this point some fair-minded reader may say, "Is there not
something to be said in favor of the Doctrinaire? Is he not, after all,
a very useful character? How could any great reform be pushed through
without his assistance?"
Yes, dear reader, a great deal may be said in his favor. He is often
very useful. So is a snow-plough, in midwinter, though I prefer a more
flexible implement when it comes to cultivating my early peas.
There is something worse than to be a Doctrinaire who pursues an ideal
without regard to practical consideration; it is worse to be a
Philistine so immersed in practical considerations that he doesn't know
an ideal when he sees it. If the choice were between these two I should
say, "Keep on being a Doctrinaire. You have chosen the better part."
But fortunately there is a still more excellent way. It is possible to
be a practical idealist pursuing the ideal with full regard for
practical considerations. There is something better than the conscience
that moves with undeviating rectitude through a moral vacuum. It is the
conscience that is related to realities. It is a moral force operating
continuously on the infinitely diversified materials of human life. It
feels its way onward. It takes advantage of every incident, with a noble
opportunism. It is the conscience that belongs to the patient,
keen-witted, open-minded, cheery "men of good will," who are doing the
hard work of the world.
III
Christmas and the Literature of Disillusion
[Illustration]
"What makes the book so cross?" asked the youngest listener, who had for
a few minutes, for lack of anything better to do, been paying some
slight attention to the reading that was intended for her elders.
It was a question which we had not been bright enough to ask. We had
been plodding on with the vague idea that it was a delightful book.
Certainly the subject was agreeable. The writer was taking us on a
ramble through the less frequented parts of Italy. He had a fine
descriptive power, and made us see the quiet hill towns, the old walls,
the simple peasants, the white Umbrian cattle in the fields. It was just
the sort of thing that should have brought peace to the soul; but it
didn't.
The author had the trick of rubbing his subject the wrong way.
Everything he saw seemed to suggest something just the opposite. When
every prospect pleased, he took offense at something that wasn't there.
He was himself a favored man of leisure, and could go where he pleased
and stay as long as he liked. Instead of being content with a short
Pharisaic prayer of thanksgiving that he was not as other men, he
turned to berate the other men, who in New York were, at that very
moment, rushing up and down the crowded streets in the frantic haste to
be rich. He treated their fault as his misfortune. Indeed, it was
unfortunate that the thought of their haste should spoil the serenity of
his contemplation. His fine sense for the precious in art led him to
seek the untrodden ways. He indulged in bitter gibes at the poor taste
of the crowd. In some far-away church, just as he was getting ready to
enjoy a beautifully faded picture on the wall, he caught sight of a
tourist. He was only a mild-mannered man with an apologetic air, as one
who would say, "Let me look, too. I mean no harm."
It was a meek effort at appreciation, but to the gentleman who wrote the
book it was an offense. Here was a spy from "the crowd," an emissary of
"the modern." By and by the whole pack would be in full cry and the
lovely solitude would be no more. Then the author wandered off through
the olives, where under the unclouded Italian sky he could see the long
line of the Apennines, and there he meditated on the insufferable smoke
of Sheffield and Pittsburg.
The young critic was right, the author was undoubtedly "cross." In early
childhood this sort of thing is well understood, and called by its right
name. When a small person starts the day in a contradictory mood and
insists on taking everything by the wrong handle,--he is not allowed to
flatter himself that he is a superior person with a "temperament," or a
fine thinker with a gift for righteous indignation. He is simply set
down as cross. It is presumed that he got up the wrong way, and he is
advised to try again and see if he cannot do better. If he is fortunate
enough to be thrown into the society of his contemporaries, he is
subjected to a course of salutary discipline. No mercy is shown to
"cross-patch." He cannot present his personal grievances to the judgment
of his peers, for his peers refuse to listen. After a while he becomes
conscious that his wrath defeats itself, as he hears the derisive
couplet:--
"Johnny's mad.
And I am glad."
What's the use of being unpleasant any longer if it only produces such
unnatural gayety in others. At last, as a matter of self-defense, he
puts on the armor of good humor, which alone is able to protect him from
the assaults of his adversaries.
But when a person has grown up and is able to express himself in
literary language, he is freed from these wholesome restraints. He may
indulge in peevishness to his heart's content, and it will be received
as a sort of esoteric wisdom. For we are simple-minded creatures, and
prone to superstition. It is only a few thousand years since the
alphabet was invented, and the printing-press is still more recent.
There is still a certain Delphic mystery about the printed page which
imposes upon the imagination. When we sit down with a book, it is hard
to realize that we are only conversing with a fellow being who may know
little more about the subject in hand than we do, and who is attempting
to convey to us not only his life-philosophy, but also his aches and
pains, his likes and dislikes, and the limitations of his own
experience. When doleful sounds come from the oracle, we take it for
granted that something is the matter with the universe, when all that
has happened is that one estimable gentleman, on a particular morning,
was out of sorts when he took pen in hand.
At Christmas time, when we naturally want to be on good terms with our
fellow men, and when our pursuit of happiness takes the unexpectedly
genial form of plotting for their happiness, the disposition of our
favorite writers becomes a matter of great importance to us. A surly,
sour-tempered person, taking advantage of our confidence, can turn us
against our best friends. If he has an acrid wit he may make us ashamed
of our highest enthusiasms. He may so picture human life as to make the
message "Peace on earth, good will to men" seem a mere mockery.
I have a friend who has in him the making of a popular scientist, having
an easy flow of extemporaneous theory, so that he is never closely
confined to his facts. One of his theories is that pessimism is purely
a literary disease, and that it can only be conveyed through the printed
page. In having a single means of infection it follows the analogy of
malaria, which in many respects it resembles. No mosquito, no malaria;
so no book, no pessimism. Of course you must have a particular kind of
mosquito, and he must have got the infection somewhere; but that is his
concern, not yours. The important thing for you is that he is the
middleman on whom you depend for the disease. In like manner, so my
friend asserts, the writer is the middleman through whom the public gets
its supply of pessimism.
I am not prepared to give an unqualified assent to this theory, for I
have known some people who were quite illiterate who held very gloomy
views. At the same time it seems to me there is something in it.
When an unbookish individual is in the dumps, he is conscious of his own
misery, but he does not attribute it to all the world. The evil is
narrowly localized. He sees the dark side of things because he is so
unluckily placed that that alone is visible, but he is quite ready to
believe that there is a bright side somewhere.
I remember several pleasant half-hours spent in front of a cabin on the
top of a far western mountain. The proprietor of the cabin, who was
known as "Pat," had dwelt there in solitary happiness until an intruder
came and settled near by. There was incompatibility of temper, and a
feud began. Henceforth Pat had a grievance, and when a sympathetic
traveler passed by, he would pour out the story of his woes; for like
the wretched man of old he meditated evil on his bed against his enemy.
And yet, as I have said, the half-hours spent in listening to these
tirades were not cheerless, and no bad effects followed. Pat never
impressed me as being inclined to misanthropy; in fact, I think he might
have been set down as one who loved his fellow men, always excepting the
unlucky individual who lived next to him. He never imputed the sins of
this particular person to Humanity. There was always a sunny margin of
good humor around the black object of his hate. In this respect Pat was
angry and sinned not. After listening to his vituperative eloquence I
would ride on in a hopeful frame of mind. I had seen the worst and was
prepared for something better. It was too bad that Pat and his neighbor
did not get on better together. But this was an incident which did not
shut out the fact that it was a fine day, and that some uncommonly nice
people might live on the other side of the range.
But if Pat had possessed a high degree of literary talent, and had
written a book, I am sure the impression would have been quite
different. Two loveless souls, living on top of a lonely mountain, with
the pitiless stars shining down on their futile hate! What theme could
be more dreary. After reading the first chapter I should be miserable.
"This," I should murmur, "is Life. There are two symbolic figures,--Pat
and the Other. The artist, with relentless sincerity, refuses to allow
our attention to be distracted by the introduction of any characters
unconnected with the sordid tragedy. Here is human nature stripped of
all its pleasant illusions. What a poor creature is man!"
Pat and his neighbor, having become characters in a book, are taken as
symbols of humanity, just as the scholastic theologians argued in many
learned volumes, that Adam and Eve, being all that there were at the
time, should be treated as "all mankind," at least for purposes of
reprobation.
The author who is saddest when he writes takes us at a disadvantage. He
may assert that he is only telling us the truth. If it is ugly, that is
not his fault. He pictures to us the thing he sees, and declares that if
we could free ourselves from our sentimental preference for what is
pleasing we should praise him for his fidelity.