CONCERNING THOSE "ATLANTIC LINERS" AND
AN OLD DESK
Of all battles in this complicated civil warfare of human life, none is
more painful than that being constantly waged from generation to
generation between young and old, and none, it would appear, more
inevitable, or indeed necessary. "The good gods sigh for the cost and
pain," and as, growing older ourselves, we become spectators of such a
conflict, with eyes able to see the real goodness and truth of both
combatants, how often must we exclaim: "Oh, just for a little touch of
sympathetic comprehension on either side!"
And yet, after all, it is from the older generation that we have a right
to expect that. If that vaunted "experience" with which they are
accustomed to extinguish the voice of the young means anything, it
should surely include some knowledge of the needs of expanding youth,
and be prepared to meet them, not in a spirit of despotic denial, but in
that of thoughtful provision. The young cannot afford to be generous,
even if they possess the necessary insight. It would mean their losing
their battle,--a battle very necessary for them to win.
Sometimes it would seem that a very little kindly explanation on the
part of the elder would set the younger at a point of view where greater
sympathy would be possible. The great demand of the young is for some
form of poetry in their lives and surroundings; and it is largely the
fault of the old if the poetry of one generation is almost invariably
the prose of the next.
Those "Atlantic liners" are an illustration of my meaning. To the young
Mesuriers they were hideous chromo-lithographs in vulgar gilt frames,
arbitrary defacements of home; but undoubtedly even they would have
found a tolerant tenderness for them, had they realised that they
represented the poetry--long since renounced and put behind him--of
James Mesurier's life. He had come of a race of sea-captains, two of his
brothers had been sailors, and deep down in his heart the spirit of
romance answered, with voice fresh and young as ever, to any breath or
association of the sea. But he seldom, if ever, spoke of it, and only in
an anecdote or two was it occasionally brought to mind. Sometimes his
wife would tease him with the vanity which, on holidays by the sea,
would send him forth on blustering tempestuous nights clad in a
greatcoat of blue pilot-cloth and a sealskin cap, and tell how proud he
was on one occasion, as he stood on the wharf, at being addressed as
"captain," and asked what ship he had brought into port. Even the hard
heart of youth must soften at such a reminiscence.
Then scattered about the house was many a prosaic bit of furniture which
was musical with memories for the parents,--memories of their first
little homes and their early struggles together. This side-board, now
relegated to the children's play-room, had once been their _pièce de
resistance_ in such and such a street, twelve years ago, before their
children had risen up and--not called them blessed.
A few years, and the light of poetry will be upon these things for their
children too; but, meanwhile, can we blame them that they cannot accept
the poetry of their elders in exchange for that of their own which they
are impatient to make? And when that poetry is made and resident in
similar concrete objects of home--how will it seem, one wonders, to
their children? This old desk which Esther has been allowed to
appropriate, and in a secret drawer of which are already accumulating
certain love-letters and lavender, will it ever, one wonders, turn to
lumber in younger hands? For a little while she leans her sweet young
bosom against it, and writes scented letters in a girlish hand to a
little red-headed boy who has these past weeks begun to love her. Can it
be possible that the desk on which Esther once wrote to her little Mike
will ever hear itself spoken of as "this ugly old thing"? Let us
hope not.