visited this country with Mrs. Lucy, renewing old friendships and forming
new ones. The Lucys give delightful dinners at their home in Ashley
Gardens, Victoria Street, as I have often had occasion to know, and the
guests they gather about them would be welcomed by the cleverest men
and women anywhere. For special occasions the Lucys use a table-cloth
profusely ornamented with the autographs of many brilliant men who have
dined with them, for it is only as a guest that one may write his name
on this sacred bit of linen. Many of the names are household words in
America, one of which held my eye for an entire evening; it was that
of Charles Dickens. It was over the Lucy table that Burnand, editor of
_Punch_, and W. S. Gilbert had their oft-quoted encounter:
“I suppose you often have good things sent in by outsiders?” said Gilbert.
“Frequently,” Burnand replied.
“Then why don’t you print them?”
A question frequently asked of late is whether the marriages of American
girls to English husbands result happily. My own observation has
satisfied me that they generally do. English girls are educated to be
good housewives and mothers, but their childhood and early girlhood is
usually spent in the nursery, without much association with adults, so
when they are thrust into society they are likely to be shy, if not
awkward, and have little or nothing to say. But the American girl is
“one of the family” from her infancy; she is as much a companion of her
father as her brother is, and she knows her brother’s friends as well as
those of her elder sister. She acquires quickness of thought and speech,
vivacity and cleverness, and can be companionable without overstepping
the bounds of strict propriety.
If an English gentleman longs for a wife who will also be his “chum,” who
will enjoy his sports with him and be a jolly good fellow, which is only
another name for companion—who is competent to amuse and entertain, he
cannot easily find her in England except in a class which would preclude
his offering her his name, but if he is so lucky as to marry an American
girl he has not only a model wife and housekeeper but a companion as well.
[Illustration: Mill put the garment on his wife.]
Just one more mention of London, for the sake of that touch of nature
that makes the whole world kin. Down by the East India dock is a hospital
on the wall of which appears the following request, “Will drivers please
walk their horses?” Although heavy traffic passes the building, much
noise is avoided if horses are not urged beyond a walk. The drivers are
a rather rough lot, like drivers anywhere, but they carefully comply
with the request; their knowledge of what it means is more effective than
a platoon of police could be. The gratitude of the hospital authorities
and patients is expressed by an inscription at the other end of the
building—“Thank you, drivers.”
“We cannot chain the eagle;
And we dare not chain the dove;
But every gate that’s barred by hate
Is opened wide by love.”
IX
“LUCK” IN STORY-TELLING
The Real Difference Between Good Luck and Bad.—Good Luck with
Stories Presupposes a Well-stored Memory.—Men Who Always Have
the Right Story Ready.—Mr. Depew.—Bandmaster Sousa’s Darky
Stories.—John Wanamaker’s Sunday-school Stories.—Gen. Horace
Porter’s Tales That go to the Spot.—The Difference Between
Parliament and Congress.
The difference between good luck and bad luck amounts generally to the
difference between the men who are said to have the one or the other.
Some men are always waiting for something to turn up: others make sure of
it by taking something—anything—from a spade to their wits, and digging
it up. Anywhere in the country one may see holding down chairs in the
store, or in the city lounging at tables in bar-rooms, a knot of men who
were born with average brains, yet they will drone dismally of successful
men whom they know or have heard of:
“Smith became a preacher at twelve thousand a year.”
“Jones dropped into a Supreme Court Judgeship.”
“Brown stumbled on a business chance that made him a millionaire.”
“Well, there’s nothing like luck”—and they go on sitting still waiting
for it, and can’t imagine why it never comes their way. I once chanced to
mention Chauncey Depew’s name in the hearing of a crowd of this kind, and
a voice replied:
“There’s a lucky man for you! Why, whenever he hears of anything, it is
just his luck to have a story that goes to the spot as quick as a bullet
from a gun.”
This sort of “luck,” like the other instances referred to, is the
inevitable outcome of the man and his ways. There are jokes for every
situation, as there are keys for every lock; but the man who lets a good
joke go in one ear and out of the other is like him who puts his keys
into a pocket with a hole in it, and then grumbles that he can’t unlock
his doors. Jokes are like dollars: when you have some that are not needed
at the time, it is better to stow them away for future use than to drop
them where they can’t be found in case of need.
I can recall from my own experience but one case of sheer luck in
story-telling. While dining at an Englishman’s magnificent place one
summer, some peaches were served. As the English climate is too cool to
ripen peaches, these had been grown on the side of a wall and under
glass. They were superb in size and color yet they had small stones and
little flavor. When my host told me of the care that had been lavished on
them—they must have cost him a dollar each—my mind went back to the peach
season at home, so I said to him:
“Peaches that would make your mouth water and send tears of joy chasing
one another down your cheeks are to-day piled high on barges beside the
wharves of New York and selling at a dollar a basket, with from one to
two hundred peaches in each basket.”
I made this truthful statement in a matter-of-fact way, which was all it
called for; but my host looked at me in amazement, then laughed heartily
and said:
“Well, you Americans have always been remarkable for the stories you
tell.”
To revert to Mr. Depew, he can tell a new story every day of the year,
and add two or three by way of good measure; but their newness is
generally in the patness of their application. He is so able at this sort
of thing that he can turn a story against the man who tells it. But he
confesses gleefully to having been caught once in the same manner. He was
billed to make a speech somewhere up the state, and when he arrived the
editor of the local paper called at his hotel to argue politics with
him. The editor quoted newspaper statements frequently to support his
arguments, but Depew replied:
“Oh, you can’t believe everything the newspapers say.”
[Illustration: “The editor of the local paper called at his hotel.”]
After the speech-making ended, the editor and Mr. Depew met again, in the
centre of a crowd of listeners.
“Well, my friend,” the genial Chauncey asked, “what did you think of my
speech?”
The editor hesitated a moment before he inquired solemnly: “Are you the
genuine Chauncey M. Depew?”
“Certainly! Do you doubt it?”
Again the editor hesitated. He regarded the speaker as if he was sizing
him up, and asked: “Are you the man all the newspapers have been saying
is the finest speaker, the greatest talker, the sharpest stumper and the
brightest wit before the public?”
Depew modestly blushed at this array of compliments; but replied: “I
guess I am he. But why do you ask?”
“Oh, because one can’t believe everything the newspapers say.”
And Depew made haste to shake hands with the editor and call it square.
Mr. Depew’s humorous speeches read so well that nobody misses one of
them if he can help it; but it is impossible for cold type to suggest
the inimitable manner with which they are given. A mature maiden woman
once called upon him at an hour when his time was worth about a dollar a
second and asked his advice about buying a certain bit of real estate. He
evasively answered that there were two things of which he knew absolutely
nothing: they were women and real estate.
This amused her so greatly that she lingered instead of going away, and
to prolong her stay she asked about a mutual acquaintance: “Where is Mr.
Blank, Mr. Depew?”
“He is still in the city.”
“Does he stammer as much as he did?”
“Oh, yes; worse, I believe.”
“Strange he never married.”
“No, it was not strange, my dear madam. Blank courted a lovely girl—he
told me of it years afterward—and this is the way he proposed.” Then
Mr. Depew looked soulfully at his visitor and stammered: “‘D-d-d-dear
a-a-angel, I l-l-l-love y-y-you!’ And the woman replied: ‘You need not
proceed further, Mr. Blank. I do not care to be wooed on the instalment
plan.’” But the visitor had fled too rapidly to get the benefit of the
joke.
Bandmaster Sousa is one of the “lucky” story-tellers, for he can
always cap an improbable story with a bigger one. After listening to
an extraordinary yarn about some man’s appetite, and another about
unquestioning confidence in another man’s directions, he “covered” both
with the following, which he attributed to a Southern negro:
“Down on our fahm we’ze got a man by de name o’ Jim. Now, Jim’s de
champion ham-eater of all de country roun. Unc’ Henry hed cha’ge o’
de fahm, an’ ev’ybody ’spected Unc’ Henry, an’ when Unc’ Henry tol’
any of us to do anythin’ we jus’ done it, ’ithout stoppin’ to ask any
questions, ’cause we had conf’dence in him. We knowed he wouldn’t ever
tell us to do anythin’ dat we hadn’t orter.
“But dat Jim—w’y, folks come f’om all de country roun’, jes’ to see Jim
eat ham, fo’ de way he could tuck ham away was amazin’; it suttinly was.
How you would laugh to see Jim a-settin’ by de fence one day, a-eatin’
one ham after another, like ez ef dey was cakes or biscuits! ’Twas ’ez
easy to him as pickin’ teeth, an’ he’d got down eight hams, an’ de ninth
was a follerin’, but I reckon it wuz f’om a middlin’ old hawg, for some
gris’le got in his throat, an’ choked him an’ stopped his breath, so we
wuz a-feared dat we wuz a-goin’ to lose Jim.
“But up got Unc’ Henry sort o’ easy-like, an’ he went over to de
fence—dey was a lot o’ slabs on top o’ de fence—and he tuk a slab, an’
he walk t’ward Jim, an’ he sez: ‘Jim, git down on all fours!’ Dat slab
looked mighty big, it did, an’ right in front o’ Jim was a big pile o’
stones; but Jim had conf’dence in Unc’ Henry, like ev’ybody did, so he
got down on all fours an’ waited, an’ de gris’le in his throat, why, dat
waited too. An’ Unc’ Henry pahted Jim’s coat-tails, an’ histed de slab,
an’ fetched it down wid a mighty swish, an’ give Jim a hit, an’ Jim went
head first onto dat pile o’ stones; but he had conf’dence in Unc’ Henry
so he knowed he wouldn’t be knocked through de stones, but would stop ez
soon ez he hit ’em—his conf’dence in Unc’ Henry was dat great. An’ when
he struck dem stones dat piece o’ gris’le ’lowed it had bizness somewhar
else. An’ Jim riz up an’ hollered ‘Gimme anudder ham!’”
[Illustration: Depew—Porter—Wilder—Sousa—Wanamaker]
It will amaze millions of John Wanamaker’s customers to know that the
man who is so busy that they can never get a glimpse of him unless they
attend his church is an industrious teller of stories and always has
the “luck”—though that is not his name for it—to have the right story
for any situation. That most of his yarns are spun in Sunday-school
does not make them any the less good. I wish Sunday-school teachers
had told stories when I was a boy, and I will bet Bibles to buttons
that if teachers were practically instructed in story-telling, all the
Sunday-school rooms would have to be enlarged to hold the increase of
attendants.
But I was speaking of John Wanamaker. While reproving some of his
Sunday-school pupils for laughing at a deaf boy’s wrong answers to
misunderstood questions, he said:
“Boys, it isn’t right to laugh at any one’s affliction. Besides, you
never know when your own words may be turned against you. I once knew
a deaf man—let us call him Brown—who was disposed to stinginess and to
getting every dollar he could out of everybody and everything. He never
married; but he was very fond of society, so one day he felt compelled to
give a banquet to the many ladies and gentlemen whose guest he had been.
“They were amazed that his purse-strings had been unloosed so far, and
they thought he deserved encouragement, so it was arranged that he should
be toasted. One of the most daring young men of the company was selected,
for it took a lot of nerve to frame and propose a toast to so unpopular
a man as Miser Brown. But the young man rose, and Brown, who had been
notified of what was to occur, fixed his face in the customary manner
of a man about to be toasted. And this was what was heard by every one
except Brown, who never heard anything that was not roared into his ear:
“‘Here’s to you, Miser Brown. You are no better than a tramp, and it is
suspected that you got most of your money dishonestly. We trust that you
may get your just deserts yet, and land in the penitentiary.’
“Visible evidences of applause made Brown smile with gratification. He
got upon his feet, raised his glass to his lips, and said: ‘The same to
you, sir.’”
General Horace Porter is another of the men whose stories always fit. It
is said that he accepted the post of American Ambassador to France for
the sole purpose of taking a rest from making after-dinner speeches. He
can even use a pun in a manner to compel admiration, in which respect he
differs from almost every one. On one occasion he said:
“New England speakers have said that the Puritans were always
missionaries among the people with whom they came in contact. I saw
recently a newspaper paragraph that indicated the disposition of the
Puritan to busy himself with the great hereafter, and to get as close to
it as possible. The paragraph announced that the _Puritan_ had collided
in Hell Gate. (The Puritan last-named was a steamboat.)
“But when the wooden Puritan—the New Englander, gets a man on the
perilous edge, so that one or other must topple over into the pit, he
takes care that he shall not be the unfortunate. He is as cautious in
this respect as was the night-cab driver in front of a house where there
had been a bibulous dinner party. A man emerged from the house, staggered
across the sidewalk, laying out more zigzags than did our patriot sires
at the siege of Yorktown, opened the door of the cab and threw himself on
the seat.
[Illustration: “Where will I go, Sor?”]
“The driver asked: ‘Where will I go, sor?’
“‘To hell!’ was the unexpected reply.
“The cabby drove about for some moments to take a think, for though he
had heard of many sure roads to the torrid destination mentioned he was
not ‘up’ on the conveniences at the entrance, and he didn’t want to
scorch the paint on his cab. Soon he asked again: ‘Where am I to take
you, sor?’
“‘To hell,’ was again the reply. Cabby scratched his head, studied the
situation, and asked: ‘Beg pardon, sor, but can I back up when I land
you?’”
To an interviewer who expected to get a good article on the difference
between the English Parliament and our Congress (this was at a time when
many Congressmen were tobacco-chewers) he said:
“In Parliament the men sit with their hats on and cough; in Congress they
sit with their hats off and spit.”
X
JOURNALISTS AND AUTHORS
Not All Journalists are Critics, nor are All Critics
Fault-finders.—The Most Savage Newspapers not the Most
Influential.—The Critic’s Duty.—Horace Greeley.—Mark Twain’s
First Earnings.—A Great Publisher “Approached” by Green
Goods Men.—Henry Watterson.—Opie Reid.—Quimby of the _Free
Press_.—Laurence Hutton, Edwin Booth and I in Danger Together.
When you say “journalist” to a man of my profession—or of any other that
devotes its time and wits to the task of amusing and entertaining people,
it is taken for granted that you mean “critic,” and that “critic” in turn
means faultfinder. This is extremely unfair to journalists in general and
to critics in particular, for not all journalists are critics, nor all
critics faultfinders. Run over the names of all the critics you’ve heard
of here or in London or Paris—critics, dramatic, musical and literary,
and you will discover, to your surprise, that those who are best known
and have most influence, are those who are quickest to praise and slowest
to find fault.
[Illustration: “Trying it on the dog” is the name for this sort of thing—]
As a proof of it, and how it strikes the men and women most concerned,
both in pocket and pride, is the following:—almost every new play,
concert and entertainment of any kind tries to give its first real
performance in New York. It may endeavor to get some money out of the
later rehearsals by giving a few performances out of town:—“Trying it
on the dog” is the name for this sort of thing, but New York is trusted
to set the pace, and this is what follows;—on the day on which New York
newspapers containing a report of the performance reaches any city or
town where the same attraction has been booked conditionally, or where
managers or entertainment committees have heard enough in advance about
it to want to hear more, there is a run on news-stands for certain
New York papers. I won’t indicate them closer than to say that they
are not those sheets which support the brilliant chaps who skilfully
ride hobbies of their own, or who are most skilled at vivisecting and
eviscerating a playwright and splitting each particular hair of an actor,
singer or entertainer. The papers for which there is general demand are
those which tell whether the performance was good of its kind, specify
the kind and tell how the audience regarded it. At the end of the third
act of a new play in New York a noted critic was buttonholed in the lobby
by a club-man who had a friend in the cast and asked for his opinion.
“It’s a success—a great success,” was the reply.
“Good! I’m so glad you like it.”
“Like it? My dear fellow, I never was worse bored in my life. I’d rather
have heard ‘Julius Cæsar’ done by a lot of high school boys. But that has
nothing to do with it. If pieces were written and played for me and my
kind, they’d have to charge ten dollars a ticket to get money enough to
pay for the gas and music. Plays are made for audiences; this audience
likes this play—likes it immensely, so other audiences will like it too,
and if I don’t say so in our newspaper to-morrow morning I deserve to be
bounced and have this week’s salary docked.”
Of course it is a critic’s business to see defects and call attention
to them. When he does so he confers a favor upon the performer, who
generally is so absorbed in what he is doing that he doesn’t know what
he is leaving undone or doing badly. But the faults of stage or platform
can’t be remedied with a sledge-hammer or a double bladed dagger—not
ever if you give the dagger a turn or two after you have jabbed it in. A
prominent critic said to me:
“I don’t criticise a play according to my own feelings and tastes.
Although I’ve a very good opinion of my own personal standard of
judgment, I don’t believe the people collectively would give a snap of
the finger for it. I simply try to ascertain the opinion of the audience
and express it for the benefit of the people of whom audiences are made.
I greatly dislike ⸺ and ⸺ (mentioning a popular actor and actress) but
who cares? It would not be fair to try to impress my dislikes upon
others, unless I chance upon some one who takes the stage seriously, and
there are only two classes who do this—conceited critics, and actors who
don’t get their pay. Fortunately I know very few professional people;
if I knew more I would become insane through trying to dissociate their
personality from their work. It is bad to know too much about anybody
or anything, if you don’t want to throw the world out of joint. Except
in matters of morals and manners, ‘where ignorance is bliss ’tis folly
to be wise.’ Did you ever hear how Horace Greeley once got cold feet?
A friend—one of the wise, observant, upsetting kind of friends called
on Greeley, one cold winter day, and found the great journalist with a
favorite book in his hand, a beatific smile on his face and his feet
over the register. The visitor had previously been through the building
and learned that the furnace had gone wrong and been removed, the cold
air flue could not be closed, and zero air was coming through all the
registers, so he said:
“‘Mr. Greeley, why do you keep your feet there? There is no heat—only
cold air is coming up!’
“Greeley tumbled out of his chair and in the childish whine that always
came to him when he was excited, replied,
“‘Why didn’t you let me alone? I was entirely comfortable; but now, I’m
near you, I’m frozen.’”
Mention of Greeley, who was too busy a man to think of being a humorist,
yet was one in spite of himself, recalls one of Mr. Depew’s stories about
him. A man who was in search of financial aid for some evangelistic
work got into Mr. Greeley’s sanctum one day, and found the great editor
writing, with his head held sideways and close to the desk, like a
schoolboy, as was his custom. He waved his hand, to signify that the man
should go away, but Greeley had the reputation of being an easy-mark,
financially, and the visitor’s mind was fixed on business, so he asked,
“Mr. Greeley, how much will you give to prevent your fellow men from
going to hell?”
[Illustration: The brilliant chaps who ride hobbies of their own—]
“Not a damn cent!” was the reply, as the great editor went on writing.
“Not enough of them go there now. I could name hundreds who ought to
have been there long ago——” all this in a whining drawl that carried
conviction with it.
Speaking of drawls, I wish all my readers could have heard Mark Twain’s
voice as he told me a tale of juvenile woe. I had asked him if he could
remember the first money he had ever earned.
“Yes,” he said. “It was at school. All boys had the habit of going to
school in those days, and they hadn’t any more respect for the desks
than they had for the teachers. There was a rule in our school that any
boy marring his desk, either with pencil or knife, would be chastised
publicly before the whole school or pay a fine of five dollars. Besides
the rule there was a ruler; I knew it because I had felt it; it was a
darned hard one, too.
“One day I had to tell my father that I had broken the rule, and had to
pay a fine or take a public whipping, and he said:
“‘Sam, it would be too bad to have the name of Clemens disgraced before
the whole school, so I’ll pay the fine. But I don’t want you to lose
anything, so come up-stairs.’ I went up-stairs with father and he was
for-_giving_ me. I came down-stairs with the feeling in one hand and the
five dollars in the other, and decided that as I’d been punished once,
and got used to it, I wouldn’t mind taking the other licking at school.
So I did, and I kept the five dollars. That was the first money I ever
earned.”
This unexpected shift of the moral point of view is peculiar to boys.
James Whitcomb Riley, author of no end of things, humorous and pathetic,
told me of a small boy who astonished his mother one night by saying his
prayers in German. When reproved, he said:
“Oh, that was a joke.”
“You must not joke with heaven,” said his mother severely.
“Oh, the joke isn’t on heaven; it’s on you,” was the reply.
Another small friend of Mr. Riley jumped quickly into bed one cold night.
His mother said:
“Johnny, haven’t you forgotten something?”
“No, mamma,” was the reply. “I’ve made up my mind not to say my prayers
to-night or to-morrow night or the night after, and then if I have luck I
won’t say them any more at all.”
My friend Frank Doubleday, a member of a publishing firm that all
authors regard admiringly, would rather get a laugh on some one than
get a record-breaking novel. He is a fine, tall, handsome fellow and
like many another handsome man who is really manly, he is careless of
his dress, looking more like a busy farmer than a successful publisher.
Going through Greenwich Street one day, near the ferries and steamboat
landings, his rural appearance and manner attracted the attention of one
of the “bunco” or “green goods” gentry, who accosted him with:
“Why, Mr. Brown, I’m very glad to see you.”
“But my name isn’t Brown,” said Doubleday, in his most innocent manner.
“What? Aren’t you Mr. Brown, of Paterson?”
“No, my name is Marshall P. Wilder.”
“Oh, you go to h⸺ll!” growled the bunco-man with a glare.