like this. There is nothing in the sublime propriety of these trees,
the wide skies above and this earth so innocently green below to
finance the erotic in fiction. It gives the impression of decadence
artificially conceived in circumstances so old and decent.
Scott’s novels go like a singing charm. So do Stevenson’s stories. And
it is the most pleasant place imaginable to read Addison’s papers. But
not Christopher North’s ‘Noctes Ambrosianæ’; too much scholarly wit
flashing between North and his brilliant companions in these ambrosial
nights. My own experience is that, living alone with the stars by
night and with the hills by day, the mind of the heavens and the earth
overcome you and you cannot think of anything very smart or funny to
say to yourself. I have never understood that great man who went off
one summer, settled himself like a hermit in the midst of an immense
landscape and wrote an essay on the ‘Sense of Humor in Jesus.’ That
which always impressed me more about Jesus was his sense of man, who is
the tragic figure in all creation.
The one book stimulating beyond all others in a place like this is the
Bible. No matter how great a theologian a man may be, I doubt if he
could come anywhere near comprehending the wisdom and the majesty of
the thirty-eighth chapter of Job unless he has spent years in the wind
and weather of a quiet place.
‘Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this
that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?
‘Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and
answer thou me.
‘Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if
thou have understanding.’
Job makes no reply.
‘Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath
stretched the line upon it?
‘Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the
cornerstone thereof;
‘When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted
for joy?’
Job remains silent.
‘Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had
issued out of the womb?
‘When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a
swaddling-band for it,
‘And brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors,
‘And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy
proud waves be stayed?’
Job hangs his old gray head.
‘Hast thou commanded the morning since thy day; and caused the
dayspring to know his place;
‘That it might take hold of the ends of the earth--’
When you consider that these are the unthinkable thoughts of the
Almighty which must be delivered by the tongue of a mortal man and
that the trace of his emotion and simplicity run through them like a
weakness, it is amazing how near he caught the majesty and meaning of
what he had to tell. Nothing ever written compares with the last five
chapters of the Book of Job and the first five chapters of Genesis,
and the authors of these books were the popular writers of their day.
Compare their works with the works of modern poets, novelists, or
historians. Let any modern scientist answer the questions the Lord put
to Job, and observe how reduced in manner and substance his answers
are. He gets the stuff out of his mind, but these Scriptures were
blown across creation to the minds of the men who recorded them. They
have a roll and a rumble mortal intelligence can never impart, and they
contain more hints of scientific truth than the wisest among us have
found out, though they labor in that direction.
We are still wrinkling our noses and squinting through a telescope at
Mars, disputing about that one little bright speck in the heavens. If
this planet had been mentioned by a single prophet in the Bible, we
should know more about it than the astronomers will ever find out, just
as there is more information about creation as applied to this earth in
Genesis than has ever been translated into the terms of science.
I have long since accepted the heavens and the earth as a part of my
future scriptures and let it all go at that.
But what I am trying to do now is to indicate the way I have passed the
time for so many years in this quiet place. One cannot work all the
time, and I was never one of those worms that inhabit books written by
others. If it is a particularly entrancing tale, I close the book and
envy the author. I pace the floor and wring the neck of my spirit in
grief because I shall never write anything as good. There are stacks of
little ragged notebooks scattered in the dusty corners of this study
which carry the record of these idle hours. Rarely ever a diary note in
them of my own performances, but they contain studies of men and women.
At that hour of the evening when mother used to pick up her knitting
and pass into a peaceful trance of industry, I reach for one of these
headless blank books and write characters from memory. Maybe of one
dead long since, but I recall her with a comprehension I never had
when she was in the flesh. The copy she has left behind her is cleared
of the fog which living casts over us. Or it is of one whom I never
knew, but I have heard or read a news item concerning him which omits
every personal detail. I piece him together as you construct a mastodon
from the bones he left behind him. I have some grand portraits of the
prophets made this way, intimate and terrible like the Scriptures they
left behind them. Sometimes I get the whiff of a man’s reputation,
compare it with his deeds and deduce a character which is finer or
worse than either the one or the other. After this it is easy to draw
the features of his face, the length of his legs, the cut or sag of his
eye. Presently I have a hero or a knave put together, respiration as
good as Adam’s, who may come in handy for copy.
There is one whom I always wanted to put into a tale, but could never
set up a situation sufficiently noble and stupid to contain him. He
is old now and coming to his end; but in the days when I knew him
he was a great man who had no manner or sensibility about achieving
greatness--homely, with what you might call a country-town smile,
which is an expression of facial simplicity. He had a splendid figure
and wore his clothes as if he hated clothes. He walked as if he were
stepping over dead bodies. I do not know why, because he was by nature
singularly merciful. He worked indefatigably and rose to the top of his
profession without distinction.
This vicious stride he had was an offense his fellow men would not
forgive. His unpopularity was cumulative. He did not need to boast to
get it; he had only to be seen striding along the street to his office,
down the aisle of a church, or even as a pall-bearer at a funeral, to
add fury to these flames that never consumed him. He loved music and
had no talent for it, but he always kept mute musical instruments in
his house, as some people keep a Bible on the center table which they
do not read. He loved learning and had no learning, but he had the
finest private library in the city; not to show his friends, because he
had no friends, but probably by way of brushing shoulders with poets,
philosophers, and historians.
The queer thing was that he read these books, as you perform a wearying
task. Every evening for twenty years he would sit down in this library,
cross his legs, lean back like a tired man and get through as many
pages of a volume as he could endure before bedtime. He never referred
to this prodigious labor, and no one ever heard him quote an opinion
or passage from one of these books. He made his own opinions and
maintained them without citing authorities to uphold them.
I seem to have filled a notebook with speculations half touching, half
humorous, on the character of this man; but it appears from the record
that I could not determine whether he formed this habit of reading as a
lonely person sometimes plays solitaire to pass the time, or whether
it was a terrific duty he performed toward himself. In any case, I
record the sequel. He finally simmered down to silence and fishing. His
conscience was clear. He had read every volume in that populous library
and now reads no more.
Follows a very good paragraph on the quality of valor peculiar to noble
stupidity. It shows up cleaner than the makeshift courage of smarter
people. But I must have been by this man as Lundy used to be by the
great textbook he would write for teaching Greek. He had the idea, as
entrancing as any fiction could be, but he did not write the book. Such
a romance of the rudiments of a language was really beyond any man to
achieve. Just so, you will not find a trace of this valorous dunce so
carefully thought out in any story I have written. Evidently I could
not find the deeds to dramatize him.
Many writers probably practice their art in this manner, as those of
us who are not writers practice the oral art of gossiping. I have
sometimes wondered if an author’s sketchbook might not read better
than an artist’s sketchbook looks. But it is unusual to be reduced to
talking to yourself with a pen about people whom you have actually
known or suspected by way of entertainment.
XLIX
CHANGE AND CONFUSION
I suppose the shortening of human life is really a blessing. This may
be why so many men and women look forward to immortal life. That would
not only involve an incredible change of scenes but of conditions. We
should be relieved of both our virtues and vices, and that wearing
monitor inside, conscience; of appetites, indigestion and every other
vicissitude of the mortal mind and the mortal body. Certainly we do
tire of any existence we work out for ourselves if we keep an active
mind, because the mind no less than the spirit of man is migratory. So
he migrates, or endures all the hardships of a sabbatical year, or he
changes his business, or he retires from business. The point is that
we are made so that we cannot stay put, as the saying goes, without
disintegrating.
Lately I have contemplated the adventure of sailing forth into the
world as one goes to meet a good old comrade. But the more I think
about it, the more it seems to me that I might meet a stranger not
suitable to my years or habits of thought. The mind and character of
the world I knew has changed.
When I left it in 1912 to take up my residence in this valley, nearly
as many people in Nashville attended prayer meeting on Wednesday night
as went to the theater on other evenings. Now prayer meetings are about
to become obsolete. A popular preacher was a good pastor, but never the
sensational feature of the Sunday morning paper. The Methodist Church
had not lifted the ban on worldly amusements, and we had only a few
earthly amusements, like playing flinch and croquet. As a Church, it
was lenient toward penitents on principle, but not nearly so lenient
as it is now toward the world. Nobody would have dreamed of putting
on a drive for seventy-five million dollars for Christian education.
The price of salvation and education have advanced more than worldly
luxuries since then.
Women were still in hot pursuit of culture if they were particularly
worldly minded. Otherwise they were the handmaidens of the Lord as
usual. Polite social gambling was limited to a very small set, and was
not recognized as a respectable diversion. Now these same women are
citizens, politicians, and reformers. They have the same brains, the
same natures, the same nervous systems they have always had, which are
differently tempered from those of men; but they are running neck and
neck now with men in civic virtue and public service. Even more of them
are testing out these vices which formerly were supposed to be peculiar
to men. They are much more easily deceived by their own emotions and by
the flattery of politicians than the simplest maidens ever were by the
eloquence of false lovers. I suppose when they realize that they have
caught the bull by the horns they will retire from public life, go home
and pay more attention to their yearling sons and daughters. Right now
it seems to me that there are too many delinquent mothers broadcasting
noble thoughts as mere citizens.
I shrink like a criminal from a nearer approach to these women. I
have neither the rostrum mind nor the qualities of courage suitable
for bearing banners in a parade. I must vote because it is my duty
now to do so, but this is taxing to my moral nature on account of
the character of the candidates put up. When it comes to choosing
a politician for office I am a conscientious objector. I am an
impractical Democrat who would prefer to vote for a Republican if
he proved more nearly competent. I have barely sense enough not to
follow my conscience in this matter and must always keep out of the
way or stand among more valiant women a cubit short of the correct
political stature. This keeps me silent when I should like to write a
few pertinent political paragraphs for publication, especially before
elections.
Crime has become an intellectual pursuit and a profitable profession
these latter years. Formerly only rascals and defectives became
criminals; now learned men and youngsters choose criminal careers.
The youths are criminally insane because they have not received the
training and discipline necessary to insure moral sanity. The passing
of parents is a tragic circumstance. Formerly they exercised control
and commanded obedience of their children. Now they do not. I know
many families where the elder sons and daughters were brought up, you
may say, under the old dispensation of parental authority, while the
younger ones have grown up under the new order since the spirit of the
times has changed. They matriculate into the streets, then into an
adventurous school life, and finally into the universities, where they
are provided with funds and speed facilities that would turn the head
of a wise man, besides being made subjects for intellectual experiments
by professors who have theories to prove.
The contrast between the characters of the older and younger sons and
daughters in these families is frightfully significant. The first
are morally sane, the others are not. Even if they commit no crimes,
they practice a license in conduct and thinking which leads to the
disruption of society.
This is the reason why the defense of these young criminals depends
upon the testimony of alienists rather than upon the evidence of
witnesses to their crime. They have managed in this sentimental age to
struggle beyond the control of parents and beyond the reach of judges
and juries. They are voluntary moral idiots with intellectual leanings
toward every vice. My feeling is that we wait too long to send for the
alienist. One should be employed to visit these boys and girls like any
other health officer, so that we may be warned in time of sprouting
criminals.
Somewhere in this confusion men and women are passing out into the
light of great achievements. Maybe the time will come when the science
of medicine will have advanced so far inoculation will take the place
of morals in eradicating the physical effects of vice. But to what
end? Nature is a better economist. She condemns the depraved to death.
Disease is her quarantine method against every excess. Maybe in time
we shall have more and more machinery to do the work of the world.
Machines will not strike or join a labor union, but neither will they
work without a man’s brain and aid to guide them. In any case, what is
to become of the surplus man power?
This is not a happy moment in the world’s history. Never was there
such a smoke screen between us and the future. I have a great wish to
travel out there, at least to the edge of it, not as a tourist, but as
a tired pilgrim who has come a long way in bad weather lifts his eyes
and sees through the darkness a light shining, the open door of a house
warm with peace and kindness. I want again at the very last the faith
and hopes with which I started life. I remember that feeling, a sort of
winged lightness of the heart. But I may never find the way. Something
seems to be turning to ashes on my lips; not this valley or the scenes
I have laid in it for happiness, but it is because I have no power of
happiness now in me.
L
CAN WE BE HAPPY?
At the risk of offending many people, but with the hope of helping a
few who are making the same mistake, I am venturing at the very end
of the record to set down the only explanation that occurs to me: I
believe I have totally misunderstood the Scriptures by which I was
guided during the formative years of my life. I had in the beginning
a natural gift for the simplest, most innocent happiness. I needed no
more than a bright day and a long path winding across the hills and
through the fields. I had a mind which retained the lacy shadows leaves
made upon the ground. Now I seem to have lost the will to take these
little idle paths to peace and happiness. I could weep sometimes when
at this season of the year the wind blows a shower of yellow elm leaves
twinkling like gold high in the sunlight because I can only see them. I
do not feel the loveliness of the sight.
The reason is that I have spent my life and strength in service and
sacrifice according to the way the Scriptures have been heaped upon me
by preachers and my own dear saint who died a martyr’s death to such
teachings. If I had had the courage to interpret them according to my
own good senses, provided especially by the Lord for that purpose, I
should have known the doctrines precisely as He promises.
How many sermons I have heard from this text, ‘Bear ye one another’s
burdens,’ but not one preacher ever interpreted them to mean, ‘Do not
bear the other fellow’s burden unless he will bear one of yours.’
Therefore this bearing of other people’s burdens has contributed more
to damnable selfishness in this world than any other Christian virtue.
Here is another one, ‘Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be
opened unto you.’
I got the right cue on that one long ago. When Lundy was in mortal
need of some earthly blessing, I used to go out and seek it with
both hands and knock on every door until the right one opened to
him. But I lacked the time and sense to practice the same wisdom for
myself. I have earned more than I deserve, Heaven knows, but I have
not sought sensibly the little things I needed for happiness. I have
wasted too much of my time for others, without having the spiritual
gumption to ask them to pay it back. There is no telling how much
moral damage I have done in this world practicing the religion I have
been taught, which I now know was a puerile and spiritually illiterate
interpretation of the Scriptures. I have had my share of blame in
making whimpering parasites of honest people in the name of the Lord.
It was blasphemous, and my hope for forgiveness is repentance and a
determination to reform.
I shall never be able to face what remains of the future properly
without weaning myself of this inglorious and sentimentally spiritual
past. Therefore I must change my scenes, as a bad man sometimes goes
off to escape the temptation of evil companions. At the present
moment I am in bondage to all manner of charitable habits and false
obligations which would read like the calendar of a saint’s deeds if
I should set them down here, but they are really the tax I pay upon a
wrong interpretation of the Christian life.
This is what I have discovered--that there is no way to satisfy a
sentimental conscience. It is the thief in your breast. The more you
give, the more will it urge you to give; the more you sacrifice, the
greater sacrifices will it demand of you. I am determined to stop
gratifying my conscience. I am far more honorable and sensible than it
is. I shall be guided by my sense. And that points directly to casting
off every weight that besets me and looking about for the fair weather
of happier days.
My idea is to prove the Scriptures by seeking and finding happiness.
I am late starting off on this adventure, and I have no very definite
idea about the direction in which happiness lies, but that very
uncertainty has a sort of sparkle in it. My feeling now is that I
shall need only to get away from my dreadful past to find it changing
me to some easier goodness of mind, a place where I can sit down and
not be responsible for anything or anybody, where I shall feel light
on my feet and ready to travel a long way in bright silence to another
country. Sometimes it seems to me that I may be thinking of the kingdom
of Heaven.
We do grow up at last somewhere, but not in this present world. We
invariably pass out of it trying to add another cubit to our stature,
topping it off with a poor little deed of no importance to any one but
ourselves. I doubt if any man or woman, however old, is really ready
to give up his ghost. There is something he had not time to say or to
finish before this chill came on and this shortening of the breath.
Maybe it is a blessed illusion with which we instinctively finance our
feeling of worth and importance when we are no longer of any worth or
importance, but I do not think so. My idea is that it may be a sort
of a dull intimation of immortality, a feeling of incompleteness, as
if there must be much more life in which to finish up things; not the
things we started here, but other cubits to be added later. I have
always thought of saints as being exceedingly tall spirits, probably a
trifle top-heavy as to their countenances.
As I have grown older I am more and more convinced that I have not
grown up, that my powers have not come to me, not my real wisdom to do
and achieve the right thoughts. I lack some dear grace. I cannot seem
to steady down and get the single eye. There is a curriculum in living
which I have not studied. This may be happiness. I want to know it; I
should feel better prepared for immortality. I do not wish to arrive
fagged at last and a bit slipshod in the spirit, as if I had a hard
time all my mortal life. It is not complimentary to God. I wish to come
up before His face in a high mood as if I had tasted all His benefits.
I wish to be clothed in the bright garments of my human happiness, more
colorful than the glistening white robes of the merely redeemed.
I have an intimate feeling of God that this is a bright idea, and that
at least it is permitted one may seek happiness even if at last he must
sink into the defeat of mere peace.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes
Italics have been represented by _underlines_. Small caps have been
represented by CAPITALS.
A few inconsistencies in hyphenation have been reconciled, and minor
printing errors in punctuation have been silently corrected.