A word should be said as to murder, bloodshed, suicide and other cheap
effects. When you come to think of it, there is an appalling amount of
bloodshed in our literature. I can go to my daughter’s book-shelf and
take down novel after novel, turn the pages swiftly with a glance here
and there, to hit upon the murder which I know instinctively is there
with unerring accuracy. Or I can pass to the book-shelf in which the
boys keep their favorites, and find brute force galore. Men are knocked
down, punched, run through, thrown down stairways, kicked and cuffed.
On every other page there is manifest a mighty recklessness.
Now of that kind of thing I am suspicious. Looking back in my own
life, which has been far from a quiet one, many years of which were
spent in uncivilized places, I find that I have seen but few deeds of
violence, as between man and man. I do not refer to riots, wars and
organized bloodshed. I remember seeing one man killed outright, one
duel with knives, one saloon rumpus and perhaps four men knocked down.
My experience has been exceptional. Talking with friends, I find many
who tell me that apart from school-boy days, they have never as much
as seen a man knocked down or a blow struck. That, I believe, is the
common experience. Many may easily go through life without witnessing
a single act of violence. Certainly, the vast majority of men never
dream of striking another. The world is prosaic. There are more _Doctor
Primroses_ in it than there are _Squire Westerns_. Men are more given
to have a fancy for oratorical tirades and philosophical discussions
like _Mr. Shandy_, than for fighting and battering one another about
like _Everett True_. It would seem that since the advent of the
four-reel thriller in the picture shows, murder in literature has
somewhat gone out of fashion. There has, indeed, been a gradual letting
down in the matter of violence since the days of Shakespeare and his
forerunners. Time was when men and women had to be glutted with horrors
and cruelties. Nothing less than blood or death would satisfy them.
They had to be dazzled with the full brightness of evil lusts. Only
tales in which lewdness, cruelty, love of gold, shamelessness or vice
were portrayed met with favor. No character was unmixed with sensuality
in the days of Massinger and Ford. The fact is that the early writers,
in constructing a man, did not dig down deep into the foundations.
Today it is different. There is a genuine attempt to become acquainted
with man in his fullness. Especially is this seen in the work of the
makers of present-day literature such as Conrad, Grahame, Galsworthy,
Hergesheimer, Lawrence. The days are past when, if it became necessary
to portray a man of courage, there was a digging into the depths of
diabolical and unchained nature. Unrestrained will is no longer the
keynote. The newer and higher idea hinges solely on character. The
Berserker has been retired.
Of course, the main idea intended, was to display evidence of courage.
But, any intelligent man may see, with a moment’s thought, that the
mere fact that a man fights, is no evidence at all of courage. He
may fight because he is a coward, and fight to the death, too. For
instance, suppose a man is challenged to fight a duel. The writer
who has not dug into human nature will see bravery in the fellow who
immediately accepts the challenge. To be sure there is a certain
brute courage in the act of fighting. But of two men thus fighting a
duel, one may be much braver than another. A man of imagination, who
foresees pain and death, is obviously braver than another who has no
imagination at all, just as a boy who fears the dark, but yet bottles
up his fear and goes into the dark, is braver than a boy without that
fear. As is easily seen, the second boy is not brave at all. And in the
case of the supposed duel, a man who fears public opinion very much
indeed, will fight rather than be counted a coward, and therefore is
actually a coward. So, as you see, which is what I wish to point out,
there is no _outward_ mark by which we can affirm that a particular
action is courageous or the reverse. But if you sit down and write a
story in which a character is so well portrayed that the reader will
see quite plainly that a man fighting to the death is doing it because
of his cowardice, you will have made a story that will find a publisher
in no time. Handle the theme well, and I promise you that you shall
have no rejection slip. One of the stories that O’Brien listed as among
the best in 1920 was based on this theme, though it pictured a suicide
who coldly and deliberately swam to his death, not that he feared life,
but because his conscience hurt him, he having once failed to kill a
fellow who was a military brute.
Perhaps you have read Stockton’s “Lady or the Tiger,” a tale in
which the reader is left wondering, is given something to think of.
The effect upon the reader is something like the effect left after
seeing Ibsen’s “Doll’s House.” So it would be in a tale such as above
outlined. The reader would ponder deeply, if indeed he would not be
torn between two emotions. Did the fighter fight because he did not
fear death, or did he fight because he feared public opinion more
than death? At first blush, you may say, “It is obvious that he was a
coward.” But, consider a moment. Is the average man given to subtle
distinctions? For instance, during the war, when some went to jail
for their opinions, were not many torn with conflicting ideas? Were
pacifists brave? Were they cowards? Were they actuated by fear of death
or were they courageous enough to defy public opinion and the charge of
cowardice, to give up their own liberty and happiness for conscience
sake?
Take another theme, or rather angle of the same theme. Suppose a
character similar to the average man: somewhat timid, careful to keep
within the bounds of the law, tied to his business hand and foot,
his expenses keeping neck and neck with his income, anxious to avoid
publicity of an unpleasant nature. Yet he is a thoughtful man and a
law-abiding one, and, therefore, opposed to all forms of mob law.
Moreover, like the most of us, he shrinks from physical pain, and
cannot kill a chicken without a beating of the heart. We will also
suppose that he is violently opposed to war. To him comes one day
another, suspected by a lawless mob doing deeds of violence in the name
of “patriotism.” Call it the Ku Klux Klan, the American Legion, a Law
and Order League or what you will. Although trembling, in an agony of
terror, fearing for his own life, yet the character we have in mind
shelters the fugitive.
Here you have the opposition between physical and moral courage. The
searching mob seeing him pale and fearful would know him for an arrant
coward, and he himself would certainly admit himself to be that. Yet,
knowing his motive, we see that he was essentially brave, since his
fear was subordinated by a conscious effort to the end in view.
I believe enough has been said to show why, if you would write a short
story involving the exemplification of courage, it is not at all
necessary to fall back upon brute force.
It is somewhat in this connection that I would lightly sketch a talk I
had with a young writer who had submitted a story in which he outlined
a “brave” feminine character--a woman who had faced a little mob. I had
held that the mere fact of facing a mob, when a woman did it, was no
great sign of courage. But the conversation had not a single beginning.
We had talked of other things, and he had objected to a scene in the
novel “Dust” in which _Martin_ had seemed to hold a light regard for
woman’s comfort in the chapter in which _Rose_ accused him of caring
more for the welfare of a fine-blooded cow than for his own wife.
_Martin_, you may remember, had held that altogether too much fuss was
made by women, and sometimes men, about child-bearing--that it was a
natural function just as is teeth growing. My young friend held that
the whole scene was derogatory to American ideals of “womanhood.” Then
we looped back to his short story.
It seems to me that there is a great deal of what the English call
“tosh” about “womanhood.” When _Martin_ compared the cow with the
women to the detriment of the latter, as far as fuss in the matter
of young-bearing, he was obviously right. On first reading the
passage there came to my mind Whitman’s poem in which he tells of his
admiration for the cattle in the field because they were so “calm and
self-possessed.” Like _Martin_, and Whitman, I hold that both men and
women have much to learn from animals.
To touch on the other, and co-lateral branch of the subject of our
conversation. I held that the act of the woman who stood in front of
a little mob bent on mischief was an act apparently, but not really,
involving danger. The same act performed by a man most certainly would
be courageous, but not in the case of the woman, because she would bank
upon popular opinion as to the weakness of her sex. The opinion was
her protection. She well knew that the rioters would not club her, a
woman, and it was her “womanhood” that she counted on to preserve her.
Hers then was a spurious bravery. So also is the man-killing woman a
fake heroine. A woman may shoot a man, especially in the case of a
so-called seduction, with the chances all in her favor that she will
never be found guilty of murder. Pose as a heroine as she will, yet she
knows perfectly well that she may rely on the support of a clamorous,
sentimental and often hypocritical section of public opinion.