We, who are accustomed to applaud our civilization as the hope of the

world, may well look across the water and take suggestions from the

institutions of Great Britain, not with the idea of imitation, but with

a view to consider the forces at work there. For nearly a century now

the government, though in form a monarchy, has been substantially a

constitutional republic, imbued with inherited traditions and somewhat

galvanized by class distinctions, but nevertheless a constitutional

republic. The nobility still exists as a sort of French roof or

Eastern pagoda to give a pleasing appearance to the social edifice.

The hereditary meaning of titles has been so largely negatived by

the introduction of new blood--the blood of the strongest men of the

period--that they have become, what they originally were, badges

to distinguish the men most valuable to the State. Their abolition

is merely a question of time, and many of the leaders to whom they

are proffered reject them as they would a cockade or a yellow satin

waistcoat. On the other hand, and here is the point of argument,

the real aristocracy of England for the last hundred years has been

an aristocracy of the foremost, ablest, and worthiest men of the

nation, and with few exceptions the social and pecuniary rewards have

been bestowed both by the State and by public appreciation on the

master-spirits of the time in the best sense. Brilliant statesmanship,

wisdom on the bench, the surgeon’s skill, the banker’s sound

discernment, genius in literature and art, when signally contributed by

the individual, have won him fame and fortune.

It may be said, perhaps, that the pecuniary rewards of science and

literature have been less conspicuous than those accorded to other

successes, but that has been due to the inherent practical temperament

and artistic limitations of the Englishman, and can scarcely be an

argument against the contention that English society in the nineteenth

century, with all its social idiosyncrasies, has really been graded on

the order of merit.

The tide of democracy has set in across the water and is running

strongly, and there can be no doubt that the next century is likely to

work great and strange changes in the conditions of society in England

as well as here. The same questions practically are presented to each

nation, except that there a carefully constructed and in many respects

admirable system of society is to be disintegrated. We are a new

country, and we have a right to be hopeful that we are sooner or later

to outstrip all civilizations. Nor is it a blemish that the astonishing

development of our material resources has absorbed the energies of

our best blood. But it now remains to be seen whether the standards

of pure democracy, without traditions or barriers to point the way,

are to justify the experiment and improve the race. The character of

our aristocracy will depend on the virtues and tastes of the people,

and the struggle is to be between aspiration and contentment with low

ambitions. Our original undertaking has been made far more difficult

by the infusion of the worst blood in Christendom, the lees of foreign

nations; but the result of the experiment will be much more convincing

because of this change in conditions.

Who are to be the men of might and heroes of democracy? That will

depend on the demands and aspirations of the enfranchised people.

With all its imperfections, the civilization of the past has fostered

the noble arts and stirred genius to immortalize itself in bronze

and marble, in cathedral spires, in masterpieces of painting and

literature, in untiring scholarship, in fervent labors in law,

medicine, and science. Democracy must care for these things, and

encourage the individual to choose worthy occupations, or society

will suffer. We hope and believe that, in the long run, the standards

of humanity will be raised rather than lowered by the lifting of the

flood-gates which divide the privileged classes from the mass; but

it behooves us all to remember that while demand and supply must be

the leading arbiters in the choice of a vocation, the responsibility

of selection is left to each individual. Only by the example of

individuals will society be saved from accepting the low, vulgar

aims and ambitions of the mass as a desirable weal, and this is the

strongest argument against the doctrines of those who would repress

individuality for the alleged benefit of mankind as a whole. The past

has given us many examples of the legislator who cannot be bribed, of

the statesman faithful to principle, of the student who disdains to be

superficial, of the gentleman who is noble in thought, and speech and

action, and they stand on the roll of the world’s great men. Democracy

cannot afford not to continue to add to this list, and either she must

steel her countenance against the cheap man and his works, or sooner

or later be confounded. Was Marie Antoinette a more dangerous enemy

of the people than the newspaper proprietor who acquires fortune by

catering to the lowest tastes and prejudices of the public, or the

self-made capitalist who argues that every man has his price, and seeks

to accomplish legislation by bribery?

The _Use of Time_.

I.

I brought Rogers home with me again the other day. I do not mean

Rogers in the flesh; but the example of Rogers as a bogy with which to

confound my better half and myself. You may recall that Rogers is the

book-keeper for Patterson the banker, and that he has brought up and

educated a family on a salary of twenty-two hundred dollars a year.

“Barbara,” said I, “we were reflecting yesterday that we never have

time to do the things we really wish to do. Have you ever considered

how Rogers spends his time?”

My wife admitted that she had not, and she dutifully waited for me to

proceed, though I could tell from the expression of her mouth that

she did not expect to derive much assistance from the example of Mr.

Rogers. Therefore I made an interesting pathological deduction to begin

with.

“Rogers does not live on his nerves from one year’s end to the other,

as we do.”

“I congratulate him,” said Barbara, with a sigh.

“And yet,” I continued, “he leads a highly respectable and fairly

interesting life. He gets up at precisely the same hour every morning,

has his breakfast, reads the paper, and is at his desk punctually on

time. He dines frugally, returns to his desk until half-past four or

five, and after performing any errands which Mrs. Rogers has asked him

to attend to, goes home to the bosom of his family. There he exchanges

his coat and boots for a dressing-gown, or aged smoking-jacket, and

slippers, and remains by his fireside absorbed in the evening paper

until tea-time. Conversation with the members of his family beguiles

him for half an hour after the completion of the meal; then he settles

down to the family weekly magazine, or plays checkers or backgammon

with his wife or daughters. After a while, if he is interested in

ferns or grasses, he looks to see how his specimens are growing under

the glass case in the corner. He pats the cat and makes sure that the

canary is supplied with seed. Now and then he brings home a puzzle,

like ‘Pigs in Clover,’ which keeps him up half an hour later than

usual, but ordinarily his head is nodding before the stroke of ten

warns him that his bed-hour has come. And just at the time that the

wife of his employer, Patterson, may be setting out for a ball, he is

tucking himself up in bed by the side of Mrs. Rogers.”

“Poor man!” interjected Barbara.

“He has his diversions,” said I. “Now and again neighbors drop in for

a chat, and the evening is wound up with a pitcher of lemonade and

angel-cake. He and his wife drop in, in their turn, or he goes to a

political caucus. Once a fortnight comes the church sociable, and every

now and then a wedding. From time to time he and Mrs. Rogers attend

lectures. His young people entertain their friends, as the occasion

offers, in a simple way, and on Sunday he goes to church in the morning

and falls to sleep after a heavy dinner in the afternoon. He leads a

quiet, peaceful, conservative existence, unharassed by social functions

and perpetual excitement.”

“And he prides himself, I dare say,” said Barbara, “on the score of its

virtuousness. He saves his nerves and he congratulates himself that

he is not a society person, as he calls it. Your Mr. Rogers may be a

very estimable individual, dear, in his own sphere, and I do think he

manages wonderfully on his twenty-two hundred dollars a year; but I

should prefer to see you lose your nerves and become a gibbering victim

of nervous prostration rather than that you should imitate him.”

“I’m not proposing to imitate him, Barbara,” I answered, gravely. “I

admit that his life seems rather dull and not altogether inspiring,

but I do think that a little of his repose would be beneficial to many

of us whose interests are more varied. We might borrow it to advantage

for a few months in the year, don’t you think so? I believe, Barbara,

that if you and I were each of us to lie flat on our backs for one

hour every day and think of nothing--and not even clinch our hands--we

should succeed in doing more things than we really wish to do.”

“I suppose it’s the climate--they say it’s the climate,” said Barbara,

pensively. “Foreigners don’t seem to be affected in that way. They’re

not always in a hurry as we are, and yet they seem to accomplish

very nearly as much. We all know what it is to be conscious of that

dreadful, nervous, hurried feeling, even when we have plenty of time

to do the things we have to do. I catch myself walking fast--racing,

in fact--when there is not the least need of it. I don’t clinch my

hands nearly so much as I used, and I’ve ceased to hold on to the

pillow in bed as though it were a life-preserver, out of deference to

Delsarte, but when it comes to lying down flat on my back for an hour

a day--every day--really it isn’t feasible. It’s an ideal plan, I dare

say, but the days are not long enough. Just take to-day, for instance,

and tell me, please, when I had time to lie down.”

“You are clinching your hands now,” I remarked.

“Because you have irritated me with your everlasting Mr. Rogers,”

retorted Barbara. She examined, nevertheless, somewhat dejectedly, the

marks of her nails in her palms. “In the morning, for instance, when I

came down to breakfast there was the mail. Two dinner invitations and

an afternoon tea; two sets of wedding-cards, and a notice of a lecture

by Miss Clara Hatheway on the relative condition of primary schools

here and abroad; requests for subscriptions to the new Cancer Hospital

and the Children’s Fresh Air and Vacation Fund; an advertisement of an

after-holiday sale of boys’ and girls’ clothes at Halliday’s; a note

from Mrs. James Green asking particulars regarding our last cook,

and a letter from the President of my Woman’s Club notifying me that

I was expected to talk to them at the next meeting on the arguments

in favor of and against the ownership by cities and towns of gas and

water-works. All these had to be answered, noted, or considered. Then

I had to interview the cook and the butcher and the grocer about the

dinner, give orders that a button should be sewn on one pair of your

trousers and a stain removed from another, and give directions to

the chore-man to oil the lock of the front-door, and tell him to go

post-haste for the plumber to extract the blotting-paper which the

children yesterday stuffed down the drain-pipe in the bath-tub, so

that the water could not escape. Then I had to sit down and read the

newspaper. Not because I had time, or wished to, but to make sure

that there was nothing in it which you could accuse me of not having

read. After this I dressed to go out. I stopped at the florist’s to

order some roses for Mrs. Julius Cæsar, whose mother is dead; at

Hapgood & Wales’s and at Jones’s for cotton-batting, hooks and eyes,

and three yards of ribbon; at Belcher’s for an umbrella to replace

mine, which you left in the cable-cars, and at the library to select

something to read. I arrived home breathless for the children’s

dinner, and immediately afterward I dressed and went to the meeting

of the Executive Committee of the Woman’s Club, stopping on the way

to inquire if Mrs. Wilson’s little boy were better. We started by

discussing a proposed change in our Constitution regarding the number

of black-balls necessary to exclude a candidate, and drifted off on to

‘Trilby.’ It was nearly five when I got away, and as I felt it on my

conscience to go both to Mrs. Southwick’s and Mrs. Williams’s teas,

I made my appearance at each for a few minutes, but managed to slip

away so as to be at home at six. When you came in I had just been

reading to the children and showing them about their lessons. Now I

have only just time to dress for dinner, for we dine at the Gregory

Browns, at half-past seven. We ought to go later to the reception at

Mrs. Hollis’s--it is her last of three and we haven’t been yet--but I

suppose you will say you are too tired. There! will you tell me when I

could have found time to lie down for an hour to-day?”

I was constrained to laugh at my wife’s recital, and I was not able at

the moment to point out to her exactly what she might have omitted from

her category so as to make room for the hour of repose. Nor, indeed, as

I review the events of my own daily life and of the daily lives of my

friends and acquaintances, am I able to define precisely where it could

be brought in. And yet are we not--many of us who are in the thick of

modern life--conscious that our days are, as it were, congested? We

feel sure that so far as our physical comfort is concerned we ought

to be doing less, and we shrewdly suspect that, if we had more time

in which to think, our spiritual natures would be the gainers. The

difficulty is to stop, or rather to reduce the speed of modern living

to the point at which these high-pressure nervous symptoms disappear,

and the days cease to seem too short for what we wish to accomplish.

Perhaps those who take an intense interest in living will never be able

to regain that delightful condition of equipoise, if it ever existed,

which our ancestors both here and across the water are said to have

experienced. Perhaps, too, our ancestors were more in a hurry when they

were alive than they seem to have been now that they are dead; but,

whether this be true or otherwise, we are confidently told by those

who ought to know that we Americans of this day and generation are

the most restless, nervous people under the sun, and live at a higher

pressure than our contemporaries of the effete civilizations. It used

to be charged that we were in such haste to grow rich that there was

no health in us; and now that we are, or soon will be, the wealthiest

nation in the world, they tell us that we continue to maintain the same

feverish pace in all that we undertake or do.

I am not sure that this charge could not be brought against the

Englishman, Frenchman, or German of to-day with almost equal justice,

or, in other words, that it is a characteristic of the age rather than

of our nation; but that conviction would merely solace our pride and

could not assuage “that tired feeling” of which so many are conscious.

At all events, if we do not work harder than our kinsmen across the

sea, we seem to bear the strain less well. It may be the climate,

as my wife has said, which causes our nervous systems to rebel; but

then, again, we cannot change the climate, and consequently must adapt

ourselves to its idiosyncrasies.

Ever since we first began to declare that we were superior to all

other civilizations we have been noted for our energy. The way in

which we did everything, from sawing wood to electing a President, was

conspicuous by virtue of the bustling, hustling qualities displayed.

But it is no longer high treason to state that our national life,

in spite of its bustle, was, until comparatively recently, lacking

in color and variety. The citizen who went to bed on the stroke of

ten every night and did practically the same thing each day from one

year’s end to the other was the ideal citizen of the Republic, and

was popularly described as a conservative and a strong man. His life

was led within very repressed limits, and anything more artistic than

a chromo or religious motto was apt to irritate him and shock his

principles. To be sure, we had then our cultivated class--more narrowly

but possibly more deeply cultivated than its flourishing successor

of to-day--but the average American, despite his civic virtues and

consciousness of rectitude, led a humdrum existence, however hustling

or bustling. There is a large percentage of our population that

continues to live in much the same manner, notwithstanding the wave of

enlightenment which has swept over the country and keyed us all up

to concert pitch by multiplying the number of our interests. I feel a

little guilty in having included Rogers among this number, for I really

know of my own knowledge nothing about his individual home life. It

may be that I have been doing him a rank injustice, and that his home

is in reality a seething caldron of progress. I referred to him as a

type rather than as an individual, knowing as I do that there are still

too many homes in this country where music, art, literature, social

tastes, and intelligent interest in human affairs in the abstract, when

developed beyond mere rudimentary lines, are unappreciated and regarded

as vanities or inanities.

On the other hand, there is nothing more interesting in our present

national evolution than the eager recognition by the intelligent and

aspiring portion of the people that we have been and are ignorant,

and that the true zest of life lies in its many-sidedness and its

possibilities of development along æsthetic, social, and intellectual

as well as moral lines. The United States to-day is fairly bristling

with eager, ambitious students, and with people of both sexes, young

and middle-aged, who are anxiously seeking how to make the most of

life. This eagerness of soul is not confined to any social class,

and is noticeable in every section of the country in greater or less

degree. It is quite as likely to be found among people of very humble

means as among those whose earliest associations have brought them

into contact with the well-to-do and carefully educated. Therefore I

beg the pardon of Rogers in case I have put him individually in the

wrong category. A divine yet cheery activity has largely taken the

place of sodden self-righteousness on the one hand, and analytical

self-consciousness on the other. The class is not as yet very large as

compared with the entire population of the country, but it is growing

rapidly, and its members are the most interesting men and women of the

Republic--those who are in the van of our development as a people.

Overcrowded and congested lives signify at least earnestness and

absorption. Human nature is more likely to aspire and advance

when society is nervously active, than when it is bovine and

self-congratulatory. But nerves can endure only a certain amount of

strain without reminding human beings that strong and healthy bodies

are essential to true national progress. Only recently in this country

have we learned to consider the welfare of the body, and though

we have begun to be deadly in earnest about athletics, the present

generation of workers was, for the most part, brought up on the theory

that flesh and blood was a limitation rather than a prerequisite.

We are doing bravely in this matter so far as the education of our

children is concerned, but it is too late to do much for our own

nerves. Though stagnation is a more deplorable state, it behooves us,

nevertheless, if possible, to rid ourselves of congestion for our

ultimate safety.

An active man or woman stopping to think in the morning may well

be appalled at the variety of his or her life. The ubiquity of the

modern American subconsciousness is something unique. We wish to

know everything there is to know. We are interested not merely in

our own and our neighbors’ affairs--with a knowledge of which so

many citizens of other lands are peacefully contented--but we are

eager to know, and to know with tolerable accuracy, what is going

on all over the world--in England, China, Russia, and Australia.

Not merely politically, but socially, artistically, scientifically,

philosophically, and ethically. No subject is too technical for our

interest, provided it comes in our way, whether it concern the canals

in Mars or the antitoxin germ. The newspaper and the telegraph have

done much to promote this ubiquity of the mind’s eye all over the

world, but the interests of the average American are much wider and

more diversified than those of any other people. An Englishman will

have his hobbies and know them thoroughly, but regarding affairs beyond

the pale of his limited inquiry he is deliberately and often densely

ignorant. He reads, and reads augustly, one newspaper, one or two

magazines--a few books; we, on the other hand, are not content unless

we stretch out feelers in many directions and keep posted, as we call

it, by hasty perusals of almost innumerable publications for fear lest

something escape us. What does the Frenchman--the average intelligent

Frenchman--know or care about the mode of our Presidential elections,

and whether this Republican or that Democrat has made or marred his

political reputation? We feel that we require to inform ourselves not

only concerning the art and literature of France, but to have the names

and doings of her statesmen at our fingers’ ends for use in polite

conversation, and the satisfaction of the remains of the New England

conscience. All this is highly commendable, if it does not tend to

render us superficial. The more knowledge we have, the better, provided

we do not fall into the slough of knowing nothing very well, or hunt

our wits to death by over-acquisitiveness. There is so much nowadays

to learn, and seemingly so little time in which to learn it, we cannot

afford to spread ourselves too thin.

The energy of our people has always been conspicuous in the case of

women. The American woman, from the earliest days of our history,

has refused to be prevented by the limitations of time or physique

from trying to include the entire gamut of human feminine activity in

her daily experience. There was a period when she could demonstrate

successfully her ability to cook, sweep, rear and educate children,

darn her husband’s stockings, and yet entertain delightfully, dress

tastefully, and be well versed in literature and all the current

phases of high thinking. The New England woman of fifty years ago was

certainly an interesting specimen from this point of view, in spite

of her morbid conscience and polar sexual proclivities. But among

the well-to-do women of the nation to-day--the women who correspond

socially to those just described--this achievement is possible only by

taxing the human system to the point of distress, except in the newly

or thinly settled portions of the country, where the style of living is

simple and primitive.

In the East, of course, in the cities and towns the women in question

ceased long ago to do all the housework; and among the well-to-do,

servants have relieved her of much, if not of all of the physical

labor. But, on the other hand, the complexities of our modern

establishments, and the worry which her domestics cause her, make the

burden of her responsibilities fully equal to what they were when she

cooked flap-jacks and darned stockings herself. In other countries

the women conversant with literature, art, and science, who go in for

philanthropy, photography, or the ornamentation of china, who write

papers on sociological or educational matters, are, for the most part,

women of leisure in other respects. The American woman is the only

woman at large in the universe who aims to be the wife and mother of a

family, the mistress of an establishment, a solver of world problems, a

social leader, and a philanthropist or artistic devotee at one and the

same time. Each of these interests has its determined followers among

the women of other civilizations, but nowhere except here does the

eternal feminine seek to manifest itself in so many directions in the

same individual.

This characteristic of our womanhood is a virtue up to a certain point.

The American woman has certainly impressed her theory that her sex

should cease to be merely pliant, credulous, and ignorantly complacent

so forcibly on the world that society everywhere has been affected

by it. Her desire to make the most of herself, and to participate

as completely as possible in the vital work of the world without

neglecting the duties allotted to her by the older civilizations,

is in the line of desirable evolution. But there is such a thing as

being superficial, which is far more to be dreaded than even nervous

prostration. Those absorbed in the earnest struggle of modern living

may perhaps justly claim that to work until one drops is a noble fault,

and that disregard of one’s own sensations and comfort is almost

indispensable in order to accomplish ever so little. But there is

nothing noble in superficiality; and it would seem that the constant

flitting from one interest to another, which so many American women

seem unable to avoid, must necessarily tend to prevent them from

knowing or doing anything thoroughly.

As regards the creature man, the critics of this country have been

accustomed to assert that he was so much absorbed in making money, or

in business, as our popular phrase is, that he had no time for anything

else. This accusation used to be extraordinarily true, and in certain

parts of the country it has not altogether ceased to be true; though

even there the persistent masculine dollar-hunter regards wistfully

and proudly the æsthetic propensities of the female members of his

family, and feels that his labors are sweetened thereby. This is a

very different attitude from the self-sufficiency of half a century

ago. The difficulty now is that our intelligent men, like our women,

are apt to attempt too much, inclined to crowd into each and every day

more sensations than they can assimilate. An Englishwoman, prominent

in educational matters, and intelligent withal, recently expressed her

surprise to my wife, Barbara, that the American gentleman existed.

She had been long familiar with the American woman as a charming,

if original, native product, but she had never heard of the American

gentleman--meaning thereby the alert, thoughtful man of high purposes

and good-breeding. “How many there are!” the Briton went on to say in

the enthusiasm of her surprise. Indeed there are. The men prominent in

the leading walks of life all over this country now compare favorably,

at least, with the best of other nations, unless it be that our intense

desire to know everything has rendered, or may render, us accomplished

rather than profound.

The _Use of Time_.

II.

After all, whether this suggestion of a tendency toward superficiality

be well founded or not, the proper use of time has come to be a more

serious problem than ever for the entire world. The demands of modern

living are so exacting that men and women everywhere must exercise

deliberate selection in order to live wisely. To lay down general

rules for the use of time would be as futile as to insist that every

one should use coats of the same size and color, and eat the same kind

and quantity of food. The best modern living may perhaps be correctly

defined as a happy compromise in the aims and actions of the individual

between self-interest and altruism.

If one seeks to illustrate this definition by example it is desirable

in the first place to eliminate the individuals in the community whose

use of time is so completely out of keeping with this doctrine that it

is not worth while to consider them. Murderers, forgers, and criminals

of all kinds, including business men who practise petty thefts,

and respectable tradesmen who give short weight and overcharge,

instinctively occur to us. So do mere pleasure-seekers, drunkards, and

idle gentlemen. On the same theory we must exclude monks, deliberate

celibates, nuns, and all fanatical or eccentric persons whose conduct

of life, however serviceable in itself as a leaven or an exception,

could not be generally imitated without disaster to society. It would

seem also as though we must exclude those who have yet to acquire

such elemental virtues of wise living as cleanliness, reverence for

the beautiful, and a certain amount of altruism. There is nothing

to learn as to the wise use of time from those whose conceptions of

life are handicapped by the habitual use of slang and bad grammar and

by untidiness; who regard the manifestations of good taste and fine

scholarship as “frills,” and who, though they be unselfish in the

bosoms of their families, take no interest in the general welfare of

the community.

Let me in this last connection anticipate the criticism of the

sentimentalist and of the free-born American who wears a chip on his

shoulder, by stating that time may be as beautifully and wisely spent,

and life be as noble and serviceable to humanity in the home of the

humblest citizen as in that of the well-to-do or rich. Of course

it may. Who questions it? Did I not, in order not even to seem to

doubt it, take back all I hazarded about the manner in which Rogers

spends his time? It _may_ be just as beautifully and wisely spent, and

very often is so. But, on the other hand, I suggest, timorously and

respectfully, that it very often is not, and I venture further to ask

whether the burden is not on democracy to show that the plain life of

the plain people as at present conducted is a valuable example of wise

and improving use of time? The future is to account for itself, and we

all have faith in democracy. We are all plain people in this country.

But just as a passing inquiry, uttered not under my breath, yet without

levity or malice, what is the contribution so far made by plainness as

plainness to the best progress of the world? Absolutely nothing, it

seems to me. Progress has come from the superiority of individuals in

every class of life to the mass of their contemporaries. The so-called

plainness of the plain people too often serves at the present day as

an influence to drag down the aspiring individual to the dead level of

the mass which contents itself with bombastic cheapness of thought and

action. This is no plea against democracy, for democracy has come to

stay; but it is an argument why the best standards of living are more

likely to be found among those who do not congratulate themselves on

their plainness than those who are content to live no better and no

worse than their neighbors. Discontent with self is a valuable Mentor

in the apportionment of time.

Therefore I offer as the most valuable study in the use of time under

modern conditions the men and women in our large cities who are so

far evolved that they are not tempted to commit common crimes, are

well educated, earnest and pleasing, and are keenly desirous to effect

in their daily lives that happy compromise between self-interest and

altruism to which I have referred as the goal of success in the use of

time. Let us consider them from the point of every day in the week and

of the four seasons. In every man’s life his occupation, the calling or

profession by which he earns his bread, must necessarily be the chief

consumer of his time. We Americans have never been an idle race, and

it is rare that the father of a family exposes himself to the charge

of sloth. His work may be unintelligent or bungling, but he almost

invariably spends rather too much than too little time over it. If

you ask him why, he says he cannot help it; that in order to get on

he must toil early and late. If he is successful, he tells you that

otherwise he cannot attend to all he has to do. There is plausibility

in this. Competition is undoubtedly so fierce that only those who

devote themselves heart and soul to any calling are likely to succeed.

Moreover, the consciousness of success is so engrossing and inspiriting

that one may easily be tempted to sacrifice everything else to the game.

But can it be doubted, on the other hand, that the man who refuses to

become the complete slave either of endeavor or success is a better

citizen than he who does? The chief sinners in this respect in our

modern life are the successful men, those who are in the thick of

life doing reasonably well. The man who has not arrived, or who is

beginning, must necessarily have leisure for other things for the

reason that his time is not fully employed, but the really busy worker

must make an effort or he is lost. If he does not put his foot down

and determine what else he will do beside pursuing his vocation every

day in the year except Sunday, and often on Sunday to boot, he may be

robust enough to escape a premature grave, but he will certainly not

make the best use of his life.

The difficulty for such men, of course, is to select what they will do.

There are so many things, that it is easy to understand why the mind

which abhors superficiality should be tempted to shut its ears out of

sheer desperation to every other interest but business or profession.

If every one were to do that what would be the result? Our leading men

would simply be a horde of self-seekers, in spite of the fact that

their individual work in their several callings was conscientious and

unsparing of self. Deplorable as a too great multiplicity of interests

is apt to be to the welfare and advancement of an ambitious man, the

motive which prompts him to endeavor to do many things is in reality a

more noble one, and one more beneficial to society than absorption to

excess in a vocation. The cardinal principle in the wise use of time is

to discover what one can do without and to select accordingly. Man’s

duty to his spiritual nature, to his æsthetic nature, to his family, to

public affairs, and to his social nature, are no less imperative than

his duty to his daily calling. Unless each of these is in some measure

catered to, man falls short in his true obligations. Not one of them

can be neglected. Some men think they can lighten the load to advantage

by disregarding their religious side. Others congratulate themselves

that they never read novels or poetry, and speak disrespectfully of

the works of new schools of art as daubs. A still larger number shirks

attention to political and social problems, and declares bluffly that

if a man votes twice a year and goes to a caucus, when he is sent for

in a carriage by the committee, it is all that can be expected of a

busy man. Another large contingent swathes itself in graceless virtue,

and professes to thank God that it keeps aloof from society people and

their doings. Then we are all familiar with the man who has no time to

know his own family, though, fortunately, he is less common than he

used to be.

If I were asked to select what one influence more than another wastes

the spare time of the modern man, I should be inclined to specify the

reading of newspapers. The value of the modern daily newspaper as a

short cut to knowledge of what is actually happening in two hemispheres

is indisputable, provided it is read regularly so that one can

eliminate from the consciousness those facts which are contradicted

or qualified on the following day. Of course it is indispensable to

read the morning, and perhaps the evening, newspaper in order to

know what is going on in the world. But the persistent reading of

many newspapers, or the whole of almost any newspaper, is nearly as

detrimental to the economy of time as the cigarette habit to health.

Fifteen minutes a day is ample time in which to glean the news, and

the busy man who aspires to use his time to the best advantage may

well skip the rest. There is no doubt that many of our newspapers

contain some of the best thought of the day scattered through their

encyclopædic columns; but there is still less doubt that they are

conducted to please, first of all, those who otherwise would read

nothing. From this point of view they are most valuable educators;

moreover, the character of the newspaper is steadily improving, and

it is evident that those in charge of the best of them are seeking

to raise the public taste instead of writing down to it; but the

fact remains that they at present contain comparatively little which

the earnest man can afford to linger over if he would avoid mental

dissipation of an insidious kind. A newspaper containing only the

news and the really vital thought of the day compressed into short

space is among the successful enterprises of the future which some

genius will perpetuate. How many of us, already, weary of the social

gossip, the sensational personalities, the nauseous details of crime,

the custom-made articles, the Sunday special features, the ubiquitous

portrait, and finally the colored cartoon, would write our names large

on such a subscription-list!

In the matter of books, too, the modern man and woman may well

exercise a determined choice. There is so much printed nowadays

between ornamental covers, that any one is liable to be misled by

sheer bewilderment, and deliberate selection is necessary to save us

from being mentally starved with plenty. We cannot always be reading

to acquire positive knowledge; entertainment and self-oblivion

are quite as legitimate motives for the hard worker as meditated

self-improvement; but whether we read philosophy and history, or the

novel, the poem, and the essay, it behooves us to read the best of its

kind. From this standpoint the average book club is almost a positive

curse. A weekly quota of books appears on our library tables, to be

devoured in seven days. We read them because they come to us by lot,

not because we have chosen them ourselves. There is published in every

year of this publishing age a certain number of books of positive merit

in the various departments of literature and thought, which a little

intelligent inquiry would enable us to discover. By reading fewer

books, and making sure that the serious ones were sound and the light

or clever ones really diverting, the modern man and woman would be

gainers both in time and approbation.

In this connection let me head off again the sentimentalist and

moralist by noting that old friends in literature are often more

satisfying and engaging than new. Those of us who are in the thick of

life are too apt to forget to take down from our shelves the comrades

we loved when we were twenty-one--the essayists, the historians, the

poets, and novelists whose delightful pages are the literature of

the world. An evening at home with Shakespeare is not the depressing

experience which some clever people imagine. One rises from the feast

to go to bed with all one’s æsthetic being refreshed and fortified as

though one had inhaled oxygen. What a contrast this to the stuffy taste

in the roof of the mouth, and the weary, dejected frame of mind which

follow the perusal of much of the current literature which cozening

booksellers have induced the book club secretary to buy.

A very little newspaper reading and a limited amount of selected

reading will leave time for the hobby or avocation. Every man or woman

ought to have one; something apart from business, profession, or

housekeeping, in which he or she is interested as a study or pursuit.

In this age of the world it may well take the form of educational,

economic, or philanthropic investigation, or co-operation, if

individual tastes happen to incline one to such work. The prominence

of such matters in our present civilization is, of course, a magnet

favorable to such a choice. In this way one can, as it were, kill two

birds with one stone, develop one’s own resources and perform one’s

duty toward the public. But, on the other hand, there will be many who

have no sense of fitness for this service, and whose predilections lead

them toward art, science, literature, or some of their ramifications.

The amateur photographer, the extender of books, the observer of birds,

are alike among the faithful. To have one hobby and not three or four,

and to persevere slowly but steadily in the fulfilment of one’s

selection, is an important factor in the wise disposal of time. It is a

truism to declare that a few minutes in every day allotted to the same

piece of work will accomplish wonders; but the result of trying will

convince the incredulous. Indeed one’s avocation should progress and

prevail by force of spare minutes allotted daily and continuously; just

so much and no more, so as not to crowd out the other claimants for

consideration. Fifteen minutes before breakfast, or between kissing the

children good-night and the evening meal, or even every other Saturday

afternoon and a part of every holiday, will make one’s hobby look

well-fed and sleek at the end of a few years.

Perhaps the most difficult side of one’s nature to provide for

adequately is the social side. It is easy enough to make a hermit of

one’s self and go nowhere; and it is easy enough to let one’s self

be sucked into the vortex of endless social recreation until one’s

sensations become akin to those of a highly varnished humming-top. I

am not quite sure which is the worse; but I am inclined to believe

that the hermit, especially if self-righteous, is more detestable in

that he is less altruistic. He may be a more superior person than the

gadfly of society, but ethics no longer sanctions self-cultivation

purely for the benefit of self. Every man and woman who seeks to play

an intelligent part in the world ought to manage to dine out and attend

other social functions every now and then, even if it be necessary

to bid for invitations. Most of us have more invitations than we

can possibly accept, and find the problem of entertaining and being

entertained an exceedingly perplexing one to solve from the standpoint

of time. But in spite of the social proclivities of most of us, there

are still many people who feel that they are fulfilling their complete

duty as members of society if they live lives of strict rectitude far

from the madding crowd of so-called society people, and never darken

the doors of anybody. It is said that it takes all sorts of people to

make up the world, but disciplinarians and spoil-sports of this sort

are so tiresome that they would not be missed were they and their

homilies to be translated prematurely to another sphere.

Those of us, however, who profess a contrary faith, experience

difficulty at times in being true to it, and are often tempted to slip

back into domestic isolation by the feverishness of our social life.

It sometimes seems as though there were no middle way between being

a humming-top and a hermit. Yet nothing is more fatal to the wise

use of time than the acceptance of every invitation received, unless

it be the refusal of every one. Here again moderation and choice are

the only safeguards, in spite of the assurance of friends that it is

necessary to go a great deal in order to enjoy one’s self. In our

cities the bulk of the entertainments of the year happen in the four

winter months; from which many far from frivolous persons argue that

the only way is to dine out every night, and go to everything to which

one is asked during this period, and make up between April 15th and

December 15th for any arrears due the other demands of one’s nature.

This is plausible, but a dangerous theory, if carried to excess. Wise

living consists in living wisely from day to day, without excepting any

season. Three evenings in a week spent away from one’s own fireside may

not be an easy limit for some whose social interests are varied, but

both the married and the single who regret politely in order to remain

tranquilly at home four evenings out of seven, need not fear that they

have neglected the social side of life even in the gayest of seasons.

And here, for the sake of our sometimes dense friend the

moralist--especially the moralist of the press, who raves against

society people from the virtuous limit of an occasional afternoon

tea--let me add that by entertainments and recreation I intend to

include not merely formal balls and dinner-parties, but all the forms

of more or less innocent edification and diversion--teas, reform

meetings, theatres, receptions, concerts, lectures, clubs, sociables,

fairs, and tableaux, by which people all over the country are brought

together to exchange ideas and opinions in good-humored fellowship.

In the apportionment of time the consideration of one’s physical health

is a paramount necessity, not merely for a reasonably long life, but

to temper the mind’s eye so that the point of view remain sane and

wholesome. An overwrought nervous system may be capable of spasmodic

spurts, but sustained useful work is impossible under such conditions.

To die in harness before one’s time may be fine, and in exceptional

cases unavoidable, but how much better to live in harness and do the

work which one has undertaken without breaking down. Happily the

young men and women of the country of the present generation may

almost be said to have athletics and fresh air on the brain. What with

opportunity and precept they can scarcely help living up to the mark in

this respect. The grown-up men and women, absorbed in the struggle of

life, are the people who need to keep a watchful eye upon themselves.

It is so easy to let the hour’s fresh air and exercise be crowded out

by the things which one feels bound to do for the sake of others, and

hence for one’s immortal soul. We argue that it will not matter if we

omit our walk or rest for a day or two, and so we go on from day to

day, until we are brought up with a round turn, as the saying is, and

realize, in case we are still alive, that we are chronic invalids. The

walk, the ride, the drive, the yacht, the bicycle, the search for wild

flowers and birds, the angler’s outing, the excursion with a camera,

the deliberate open-air breathing spell on the front platform of a

street-car, some one of these is within the means and opportunities of

every busy worker, male and female.

For many of us the most begrudged undertaking of all is to find time

for what we owe to the world at large or the State, the State with

a capital S, as it is written nowadays. There is no money in such

bestowals, no private gain or emolument. What we give we give as a

tribute to pure altruism, or, in other words, because as men and women

we feel that it is one of the most important elements in wise living.

It is indisputable that there was never so much disinterested endeavor

in behalf of the community at large as there is to-day, but at the

same time it is true that the agitations and work are accomplished

by a comparatively small number of people. There are probably among

the intelligent, aspiring portion of the population at least five

persons who intend to interest themselves in public affairs, and regard

doing so as essential to a useful life, to every one who puts his

theories into practice. No man or woman can do everything. We cannot

as individuals at one and the same time busy ourselves successfully in

education, philanthropy, political reform, and economic science. But if

every one would take an active, earnest concern in something, in some

one thing, and look into it slowly but thoroughly, this man or woman in

the public schools, this in the methods of municipal government, and

this in the problems of crime or poverty, reforms would necessarily

proceed much faster. Just a little work every other day or every week.

Let it be your hobby if you will, if you have no time for a hobby

too. If five thousand men in every large city should take an active

interest in and give a small amount of time in every week to the school

question, we should soon have excellent public schools; if another five

thousand would devote themselves to the affairs of municipal government

in a similar fashion, would there be so much corruption as at present,

and would so inferior a class of citizens be chosen to be aldermen and

to fill the other city offices? And so on to the end of the chapter.

Is not something of the kind the duty of every earnest man and woman?

Let those who boast of being plain people put this into their pipes and

smoke it. When the self-styled working-classes are prohibited by law

from working more than eight hours, will they contribute of their spare

time to help those who are trying to help them?

American men have the reputation of being considerate husbands and

indulgent fathers; but they have been apt at all events, until

recently, to make permission to spend take the place of personal

comradeship. This has been involuntarily and regretfully ascribed to

business pressure; but fatalistic remorse is a poor substitute for

duty, even though the loved ones eat off gold plate and ride in their

own carriages as a consequence. We Americans who have begotten children

in the last twenty years do not need to be informed that the time

given to the society of one’s wife and family is the most precious

expenditure of all, both for their sakes and our own. But though the

truth is obvious to us, are we not sometimes conscious at the end of

the week that the time due us and them has been squandered or otherwise

appropriated? Those walks and talks, those pleasant excursions from

city to country, or country to city, those quiet afternoons or evenings

at home, which are possible to every man and woman who love each other

and their children, are among the most valuable aids to wise living

and peace of mind which daily existence affords. Intimacy and warm

sympathy, precept and loving companionship, are worth all the indulgent

permission and unexpected cheques in the world. Some people, when

Sunday or a holiday comes, seem to do their best to get rid of their

families and to try to amuse themselves apart from them. Such men

and women are shutting out from their lives the purest oxygen which

civilization affords; for genuine comradeship of husband and wife, and

father or mother and child, purges the soul and tends to clear the

mind’s eye more truly than any other influence.

Lastly and firstly, and in close compact with sweet domesticity and

faithful friendship, stand the spiritual demands of our natures. We

must have time to think and meditate. Just as the flowers need the

darkness and the refreshing dew, the human soul requires its quiet

hours, its season for meditation and rest. Whatever we may believe,

whatever doubts we may entertain regarding the mysteries of the

universe, who will maintain that the aspiring side of man is a delusion

and an unreality? In the time--often merely minutes--which we give

to contemplation and serious review of what we are doing, lies the

secret of the wise plan, if not the execution. To go on helter-skelter

from day to day without a purpose in our hearts resembles playing a

hurdy-gurdy for a living without the hope of pence. The use of Sunday

in this country has changed so radically in the last twenty-five years

that every one is free to spend it as he will, subject to certain

restrictions as to sport and entertainment in public calculated to

offend those who would prefer stricter usages. But whether we choose

to go to church or not, whether our aspirations are fostered in the

sanctuary or the fresh air, the eternal needs of the soul must be

provided for. If we give our spare hours and minutes merely to careless

amusement, we cannot fail to degenerate in nobility of nature, just

as we lose the hue of health when we sully the red corpuscles of the

body with foul air and steam heat. Are we not nowadays, even the plain

people, God bless them, too much disposed to believe that merely to

be comfortable and amused and rested is the sole requirement of the

human soul? It does need rest most of the time in this age of pressure,

Heaven knows, and comfort and amusement are necessary. But may we not,

even while we rest and are comfortable, under the blue sky or on the

peaceful river, if you will, lift up our spirits to the mystery of the

ages, and reach out once more toward the eternal truths? Merely to be

comfortable and to get rested once a week will not bring those truths

nearer. May we not, in the pride of our democracy, afford to turn our

glances back to the pages of history, to the long line of mighty

men kneeling before the altar with their eyes turned up to God, and

the prayer of faith and repentance on their lips? Did this all mean

nothing? Are we so wise and certain and far-seeing that we need not do

likewise?

The _Summer Problem_.

I.

What is the good American to do with himself or herself in summer?

The busiest worker nowadays admits that a vacation of a fortnight in

hot weather is at least desirable. Philanthropy sends yearly more and

more children on an outing in August, as one of the best contributions

to the happiness and welfare of the poor. The atmosphere of our large

cities in midsummer is so lifeless and oppressive that every one who

can get away for some part of the summer plans to do so, and fathers of

families find themselves annually confronted by a serious problem.

I specify the father of a family because the problem is so much easier

for a single man. The single man, and generally the single woman, can

pack a bag and go to the beach or mountains, or to a hotel within

easy distance from town, without much premeditation. The worst that

can happen to them is that they may become engaged without intention;

besides they can always come home if they are dissatisfied with their

surroundings. But the family man who lives in a large city finds more

and more difficulty every year, as the country increases in population,

in making up his mind how best to provide for the midsummer necessities

of his wife and children. There are several courses of action open to

him.

He can remain in town and keep his family there.

He can remain in town himself and send his family to a distance.

He can hire a house or lodgings by the sea or in the country within

easy reach of town by railroad or steamboat.

He can send his family to a summer hotel at a distance, or take a house

or lodgings at a distance, making occasional flying trips to and from

town, according to his opportunities.

To stay in town and keep one’s family there is a far from disagreeable

experience except in very large cities in unusually hot weather. The

custom of going away from home in summer is one which has grown by

force of imitation. The inclination to change one’s surroundings, and

to give the wife and children a whiff of country or sea or mountain

air for a few weeks in the course of the year is an ambition which

is neither godless nor extravagant. But it is not worth while to set

this necessity up as an idol to be worshipped at the expense of comfort

for the rest of the year, for, after all, our ancestors successfully

reared large families of children, including some of us, without going

away from home in the summer, and “the-can’t-get-aways” in our largest

and most uncomfortable cities still outnumber those who can and do in

the proportion of at least five to one. It costs more to go away than

to stay in town; from which certain native philosophers, who maintain

that any one who spends more than twenty-five hundred dollars on his

family in any one year is not a good American, may argue that those who

have both a summer and a winter home are aristocrats and materialists.

Their argument is not likely to diminish summer travel, to bankrupt the

summer hotels, or to induce the well-to-do American citizen to shut

up his cottage. A change in summer, for a longer or shorter period,

is generally recognized as one of the most healthful and improving

advantages which a father in our civilization can give his family and

himself. On the other hand, to go out of town simply because one’s

neighbors do, when one cannot afford it, is a pitiful performance.

Moreover, the man who does not send his family out of town from

motives of economy, has more than a clean conscience to comfort him.

He can remember that probably one-third of the annual experiments

in summer culture and health-giving recreation, made by his friends

and acquaintance, turn out dire failures, and that another one-third

result in mixed joy and comfort. He can reflect too, if he lives in

the suburbs of a city, or in a town or small city, that, barring a few

exceptionally hot days, he and his family are really very comfortable

at home. Even if his household gods are in a parboiled metropolis, he

will commonly be able to relieve his tedium and physical discomfort by

some form of excursion. All our seaboard cities have their midsummer

Meccas for the multitude in the form of beaches; and even where no

ocean breezes blow, there is usually close at hand verdure, a lake,

a grove, or a river where the philosophical soul can forget the

thermometer, and cease to commiserate with itself on being kept in

town. One’s own bed is never humpy, and the hollows in it are just

fitted to one’s bones or adipose developments. One can eat and drink

in one’s town-house without fear of indigestion or germs. Decidedly

the happiness of staying at home is not much less than the happiness

of passing one, two, or three months at a place where everything is

uncomfortable or nasty, at a cost which one can ill afford, if at all.

Good city milk and succulent city vegetables are luxuries which are

rarely to be found at the ordinary summer resort.

It is difficult to convince one’s family of this in advance. Besides,

man is always to be blessed. We are always hoping that the next summer

will be a grand improvement on those which have gone before, and

generally by the first of May we believe, or at least imagine, that we

have discovered the genuine article--the ideal spot at last. Discovered

it for our families. The American father has the trick of sending

his family out of town for the summer, and staying at home himself.

This had its origin probably in his supposed inability to escape from

business in the teeth of the family craving to see something of the

world outside of their own social acquaintance. Yet he acknowledged the

force of the family argument that with such a large country to explore

it would be a pity not to explore it; and accordingly he said, “Go,

and I will join you if and when I can.” Paterfamilias said this long

ago, and in some instances he has vainly been trying to join them ever

since. There are all sorts of trying in this world, and perhaps his

has not been as determined as some; nevertheless, he has maintained

tolerably well the reputation of trying. The Saturday night trains

and steamboats all over the country are vehicles, from July first to

October first, of an army of fathers who are trying successfully to

join their nearest and dearest at the different summer-resorts of the

land.

To be separated for three months from one’s wife and children, except

for a day or two once a fortnight, is scarcely an ideal domestic

arrangement, in spite of the fact that it is more or less delightful

for the dear ones to meet new people and see new scenes. The American

father may not try very hard to leave his city home, but it must be

admitted that he has been an amiable biped on the score of the summer

question. He has been and is ready to suffer silently for the sake of

his family and his business. But now that he has made up his mind at

last that he prefers to leave his business for the sake of his family

and his own health, the difficulties of sending them to a distance

are more apparent to him. Ten or fifteen years ago it dawned upon him

that the city in summer without his family was not the ideal spot his

fancy had painted, and that the sea-side and country, especially the

former, were, after all, the best place for an overworked, full-grown

man on a summer’s afternoon. It dawned upon him, too, that there was

sea-coast and country close at hand where he could establish his family

and refresh himself at the end of every day’s work. Twenty-five years

ago the marine and attractive suburban environs of our cities were

substantially unappropriated. To-day they bristle with cottages, large

and small, the summer homes of city men. Every available promontory,

island, hill, nook, and crook, which commands a pleasing view or is

visited by cooling breezes is, or soon will be, occupied. What can a

busy man do better, if he can afford it, than buy or hire a cottage,

as humble as you like, to which he can return in the afternoon to the

bosom of his own family, and be comfortable and lazy until morning?

From the domestic point of view this is assuredly the most satisfactory

arrangement for the father, and the American paterfamilias, ever since

the truth dawned upon him, has been prompt in recognizing the fact.

He has builded, too, according to his taste, whim, and individual

idiosyncrasies. A sea-side cottage within easy reach of town includes,

to-day, every variety of shelter from a picturesque villa of the most

super-civilized type to the hulk of a ship fitted up as a camping-out

home. To a large extent, too, the hotel has been discarded in favor

of the domestic hearth, even though the single chimney smokes so that

tears are perpetually in the domestic eye. The well-to-do city man who

comes to town every day appreciates that a hotel is a poor place for

children; consequently the long piazzas, where the terrible infant

forever used to abound, are now trodden chiefly by visitors from a

distance and transients who have escaped from the city for a day in

search of a sea-bath and a clam chowder.

If the summer cottage to which the husband returns at night, is not the

most satisfactory arrangement for the mother, she must blame herself

or the civilization in which she lives. The sole argument in favor of

passing the summer at a hotel is that the wife and mother escapes

thereby the cares of housekeeping, too often so severe during the rest

of the year that the prospect of not being obliged to order dinner for

three months causes her to wake in the night and laugh hysterically.

Formality and conventional ceremony are the lurking enemies of our

American summer life, who threaten to deprive our mothers and daughters

of the rest and vacation from the tension, excitement, and worry

begotten by nine months of active domestic duties. Simplicity of living

ought to be the controlling warm-weather maxim of every household where

the woman at the head of the establishment does the housekeeping, as

nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine women out of ten thousand in

America do.

It may be argued that greater simplicity in living all the year round

would enable the wife and mother to do without a vacation. Possibly.

But unfortunately for her the trend of the tide is all the other way.

Besides, simplicity is such a difficult word to conjure with. Her

interests have become so varied that the wear and tear is quite as

likely to proceed from new mental strivings as from a multiplicity

of sheer domestic duties. At least there seems to be no immediate

prospect that she will be less tired in the spring, however exemplary

her intentions, and it therefore behooves her not to allow the wave of

increasing luxury to bear her on its crest through the summer and land

her in her town-house in October a physical and mental wreck.

The external attractiveness of the modern summer cottage, with its

pleasing angles and comely stains, is easily made an excuse for an

artistic interior and surroundings to match. But artistic beauty

in summer can readily be produced without elaboration, and at

comparatively slight cost, if we only choose to be content with simple

effects. The bewitching charm of the summer girl, if analyzed, proves

to be based on a few cents a yard and a happy knack of combining colors

and trifles. Why need we be solicitous to have all the paraphernalia

of winter-life--meals with many courses, a retinue of servants, wines,

festal attire, and splendid entertainments? While we rejoice that

the promiscuous comradeship of hotel life has largely given place at

Newport, Bar Harbor, Lenox, and our other fashionable watering-places

to the pleasant protection of the cottage home, is it not seriously

deplorable that simplicity is too often lost sight of? To be

comfortable is one thing, to be swathed in luxury or to be tortured by

ceremony all the time is another. It seems strange to many of us, who

cannot choose precisely what we will do and where we will go in summer,

that those who can so often select a mere repetition of mid-winter

social recreation.

There is Patterson the banker for instance, the employer of Rogers. He

can go where he pleases, and he goes to Newport. One can see him any

afternoon driving augustly on Bellevue Avenue or along the ocean drive,

well gloved, well shod, and brilliantly necktied, in his landau beside

Mrs. Patterson. They have been to Newport for years in summer, and

their house, with its beautiful outlook to sea, has doubled and trebled

in value. How do they pass their time? Entertain and let themselves be

entertained. Dinners with formal comestibles, late dances, champagne

luncheons, _paté de fois gras_ picnics on a coach are their daily

associations. Mr. and Mrs. Patterson are close upon sixty themselves,

but they follow--a little more solemnly than formerly, but still

without stint--the same programme, which grows more and more elaborate

with each succeeding year. It was there that their youngest daughter

was married six months ago, with widely heralded splendor, to a

Russian nobleman who speaks beautiful English. May her lot be a happy

one! The son, who went through the Keeley cure, and the elder daughter,

who is separated from her husband, have spent their summers at Newport

from their youth up.

There are comparatively few who have the means to live, or who do live

just like Patterson, but there is many a man of fine instincts and with

a sufficient income to maintain a summer home, who finds himself to-day

oppressed by the incubus of things. He seeks rest, books, fresh air,

the opportunity to enjoy nature--the sea, the foliage, the flowers--and

yet he is harassed by things, the very things he has all winter, with a

garnishment suitable to hot weather. He wishes to be still; and things

keep him moving. He yearns to strip off, if not all his clothing, at

least enough of it to give his lungs and his soul full play; but things

keep him faultlessly dressed. He intends to slake his thirst only from

the old oaken bucket or the milk-pail, and things keep his palate

titillated with champagne and cocktails. Our old-time simplicity in

summer is perhaps no longer possible in the large watering-places. It

is even with considerable satisfaction that we don, and see our wives

and children don, the attractive clothing which has taken the place of

shirt-sleeves and flannel shirts as articles of toilette; but is it not

time to cry halt in our procession toward luxury, if we do not wish to

live on our nerves all the year round?

It is this difficulty in escaping the expenses and the formality of

city life in the summer cottage or at the summer hotel, almost as

much as the fact that the desirable locations near town have all been

taken, which is inclining the American father to send his family

to a distance. After twenty-five years of exploration the outlying

beaches and other favorite resorts near our large cities have become

so thoroughly appropriated that the man who wishes to build or own a

summer home of his own is obliged to look elsewhere. As a consequence

cottages have sprung up all along the line of our coast, from the

farthest confines of Maine to New Jersey, on the shores of the lakes

of the Middle West, and on the Pacific shore. Many of these are

of a simple and attractive character, and generally they stand in

small colonies, large enough for companionship and not too large for

relaxation. With the similar double purpose of obtaining an attractive

summer home at a reasonable price, and of avoiding the stock

watering-place, city families are utilizing also the abandoned farm.

There is not room for us all on the sea-coast; besides those of us

whose winter homes are there are more likely to need inland or mountain

air. There are thousands of beautiful country spots, many of them not

so very far from our homes, where the run-down farm can be redeemed, if

not to supply milk and butter, at least to afford a picturesque shelter

and a lovely landscape during the season when we wish to be out of

doors as much as possible. A very few changes, a very little painting

and refurnishing will usually transform the farm-house itself into

just the sort of establishment which a family seeking rest and quiet

recreation ought to delight in. You may bring mosquito-frames for the

windows if you like, and you must certainly test the well-water. Then

swing your hammock between two apple-trees and thank Providence that

you are not like so many of your friends and acquaintances, working the

tread-mill of society in the dog-days.

Of course most men who have homes of this description at a distance

cannot be with their families all the time. But, on the other hand,

the conviction that a busy man can do better work in ten or eleven

months than in twelve, is gaining ground, and most of us, if we only

choose to, can slip away for at least three weeks. Many of the demands

of modern civilization on the family purse cannot be resisted without

leaving the husband and parent a little depressed; but it seems to me

that a serious item of expense may be avoided, and yet all the genuine

benefits and pleasures of a change of scene and atmosphere be obtained,

if we only dismiss from our minds the idea of living otherwise than

simply. A little house with very little in it, with a modest piazza,

a skiff or sail-boat which does not pretend to be a yacht, a garden

hoe and rake, a camera, books and a hammock, a rod which is not too

precious or costly to break, one nag of plebeian blood and something

to harness him to, rabbits in the barn and sunflowers in the garden, a

walk to sunset hill and a dialogue with the harvest moon--why should

we not set our summer life to such a tune, rather than hanker for the

neighborhood of the big steam-yacht and polo-ground, for the fringe of

the fashionable bathing beach, for the dust of the stylish equipage,

and try in our several ways, and beyond our means, to follow the pace

which is set for us by others?

The _Summer Problem_.

II.

Why? Largely on account of that newly created species, the American

girl. From solicitude for her happiness and out of deference to her

wishes. Many a father and mother would be delighted to pass the summer

on an abandoned farm or in any other spot where it were possible to

live simply and to be cool, comfortable, and lazy, but for fear of

disappointing their young people--principally their daughters, who,

unlike the sons, cannot yet come and go at will. Feminine youth has its

inherent privileges everywhere, but the gentle sway which it exercises

in other civilizations has become almost a sour tyranny here. Was there

ever an American mother who knew anything portrayed in fiction? The

American daughter is commonly presented as a noble-souled, original

creature, whose principal mission in life, next to or incidental to

refusing the man who is not her choice, is to let her own parents

understand what weak, ignorant, foolish, unenlightened persons they

are in comparison with the rising generation--both parents in

some measure, but chiefly and utterly the mother. She is usually

willing to concede that her father has a few glimmering ideas, and

a certain amount of sense--horse business sense, not very elevating

or inspiring--yet something withal. But she looks upon her poor dear

mother as a feeble-minded individual of the first water. What we read

in contemporary fiction in this realistic age is apt to be photographed

from existing conditions. The newly created species of our homes does

not always reveal these sentiments in so many words; indeed she is

usually disposed to conceal from her parents as far as possible their

own shortcomings, believing often, with ostrich-like complacency, that

they have no idea what she really thinks of them. Quite frequently late

in life it dawns upon her that they were not such complete imbeciles as

she had adjudged them, and she revises her convictions accordingly. But

often she lives superior to the end.

It would be an excellent thing for the American girl if her eyes could

be definitely opened to the fact that her parents, particularly her

mother, are much more clever than she supposes, and that they are

really her best counsellors. But on the other hand, is not the American

mother herself chiefly responsible for this attitude of loving

contempt and sweet but unfilial condescension on the part of her own

flesh and blood? It sometimes seems as though we had fallen victims to

our reluctance to thwart our children in any way lest we should destroy

their love for us. But is it much preferable to be loved devotedly as

foolish, weak, and amiable old things, than to be feared a little as

individuals capable of exercising authority and having opinions of our

own?

This yielding, self-abnegating tendency on the part of parents,

and consequent filial tyranny, are especially conspicuous in the

case of that arch despot, the summer girl. I admit her fascination

unreservedly, and am willing to concede that she has run the gauntlet

of criticism hurled at her by the effete civilizations with an

unblemished reputation. Though she may have become a little more

conservative and conventional out of deference to good taste, she is

still able to be lost in caves or stranded on islands with any young

man of her acquaintance without bringing a blush to any cheek except

that of the horror-stricken foreigner. But having admitted this, I

am obliged to charge her with trampling on the prostrate form of her

mother from the first of July to the first of October. She does so to

a certain extent the year round, but the summer is the crowning season

of her despotism.

The first concern of the American father and mother in making plans for

the summer is to go to some place which the children will like, and

the summer girl in particular. This is natural and in keeping with the

unselfish devotion shown by the present generation of parents toward

their children. But it is one thing to endeavor to select a place which

will be satisfactory to one’s eighteen-year-old daughter and another

to be sweetly hectored by that talented young woman into going to some

place selected by her of which you entirely disapprove. And just here

it is that the American mother almost seems to be convicted of the

feebleness of intellect ascribed to her by the newly created species.

You, the father, are just screwing your courage up to say that you will

be blessed if you will go to a summer hotel at Narragansett Pier (or

wherever it is), when your wife, who has been cowed or cajoled by the

despot in the interim, flops completely, as the saying is, and joins

an almost tearful support to the summer girl’s petition. And there you

are. What are you to do? Daughter and mother, the apple of your eye

and the angel of your heart, leagued against you. Resistance becomes

impossible, unless you are ready to incur the reputation of being a

stony-hearted old curmudgeon.

The summer girl invariably wishes to go where it is gay. Her idea of

enjoyment does not admit domesticity and peaceful relaxation. She

craves to be actively amused, if not blissfully excited. It is not

strange that the tastes and sentiments of young persons from seventeen

to twenty-three should differ considerably from those of mothers and

fathers from forty to fifty, and it speaks well for the intelligence

and unselfishness of middle-aged parents and guardians in this country

that they so promptly recognize the legitimate claims of youth, and

even are eager to give young people a chance to enjoy themselves

before the cares of life hedge them in. But have we not gone to the

other extreme? Is it meet that we should regard ourselves as moribund

at fifty, and sacrifice all our own comfort and happiness in order to

let a young girl have her head, and lead a life in summer of which we

heartily disapprove? It is not an exaggeration to state that there is a

growing disposition on the part of the rising hordes of young men and

girls to regard any one in society over thirty-five as a fossil and an

encumbrance, for whom, in a social sense, the grave is yawning. It is

not uncommon to hear a comely matron of forty described as a frump by a

youth scarcely out of his teens, and every old gentleman of thirty-nine

has experienced the tactless pity which fashionable maidens under

twenty-one endeavor to conceal in the presence of his senility.

The summer girl is generally a young person who has been a winter

girl for nine months. I am quite aware that some girls are much more

effective in summer than at any other season, and it may be that in

certain cases they appear to so little advantage in winter that to

attempt to gratify parental inclinations at their expense would be

rank unkindness. But it is safe to allege that the average summer

girl in this country has been doing all she ought to do in the way of

dancing, prancing, gadding, going, working, and generally spending her

vital powers in the autumn, winter, and spring immediately preceding,

and consequently when summer comes needs, quite as much as her

parents, physical, mental, and moral ozone. But what does she prefer

to do? Whither is she bent on leading her father by the nose with

the assistance of her mother? To various places, according to her

special predilection, and the farthest limit of the parental purse.

If possible, to one of the gayest watering-places, where she hopes

to bathe, play tennis, walk, talk, and drive during the day; paddle,

stroll, or sit out during the evening, and dance until twelve o’clock

at night two or three times a week. Else to some much-advertised

mountain cataract or lake resort, to lead a stagnant hotel corridor

and piazza life, in the fond hope of seeing the vividly imagined Him

alight from the stage-coach some Saturday night. Meanwhile she is one

of three-score forlorn girls who haunt the office and make eyes at the

hotel clerk. The summer girl has a mania for the summer hotel. It seems

to open to her radiant possibilities. She kindles at the mention of a

hop in August, and if she is musical, the tinkle of her piano playing

reverberates through the house all day until the other boarders are

driven nearly crazy. In the gloaming after supper she flits off from

the house with her best young man of the moment, and presently her

mother is heard bleating along the piazza, “My Dorothy has gone without

her shawl, and will catch her death a cold.”

And so it goes all summer. When autumn comes and the leaf is about

to fall, and Dorothy returns to town, what has she to show for it?

A little tan and a callous heart, a promised winter correspondence

with the hotel clerk, new slang, some knack at banjo-playing, and

considerable uncertainty in her mind as to whom she is engaged to, or

whether she is engaged at all. And like as not the doctor is sent for

to build her up for the winter with cod-liver oil and quinine. There is

too much ozone at some of these summer hotels.

We cannot hope to do away wholly with either the summer hotel or the

fashionable watering-place by the assertion of parental authority.

Such an endeavor, indeed, would on the whole be an unjust as well as

fruitless piece of virtue. The delightful comradeship between young men

and young women, which is one of our national products, is typified

most saliently by the summer girl and her attendant swains. Naturally

she wishes to go to some place where swains are apt to congregate; and

the swain is always in search of her. Moreover, the summer hotel must

continue to be the summer home of thousands who, for one reason or

another, have no cottage or abandoned farm. My plea is still the same,

however. Why, now that the negro slave is free, and the workingman is

being legislated into peace and plenty, and the wrongs of other women

are being righted, should not the American mother try to burst her

bonds? It would be a much more simple matter than it seems, for, after

all, she has her own blood in her veins, and she has only to remember

what a dogmatic person she herself was in the days of her youth. If the

code of fathers and mothers, instead of that of girls and boys, were in

force at our summer hotels and watering-places, a very different state

of affairs would soon exist; and that, too, without undue interference

with that inherent, cherished, and unalienable right of the American

daughter, the maiden’s choice. We must not forget that though our

civilization boasts the free exercise of the maiden’s choice as one of

the brightest jewels in the crown of republican liberties, the crowded

condition of our divorce courts forbids us to be too demonstrative in

our self-satisfaction.

It would be dire, indeed, to bore the young person, especially the

summer girl. But does it necessarily follow that a summer home or a

summer life indicated by the parent would induce such a disastrous

result? I am advising neither a dungeon, a convent, nor some

excruciatingly dull spot to which no fascinating youth is likely to

penetrate. Verily, even the crowded bathing beach may not corrupt,

provided that wise motherly control and companionship point out the

dangers and protect the forming soul, mind, and manners, instead of

allowing them to be distorted and poisoned by the ups and downs of

promiscuous amatory summer guerilla warfare. But may it not happen,

when the maternal foot is once firmly put down, that the summer

girl will not be so easily bored as she or her mother fears, and

will even be grateful for protection against her own ignorance and

inexperience? Boating, sketching, riding, reading, bicycling, travel,

sewing, and photography are pastimes which ought not to bore her, and

would surely leave her more refreshed in the autumn than continuous

gadding, dancing, and flirtation. To be a member of a small, pleasant

colony, where the days are passed simply and lazily, yet interestingly;

where the finer senses are constantly appealed to by the beauties of

nature and the healthful character of one’s occupations, is a form of

exile which many a summer girl would accommodate herself to gladly

if she only understood what it was like, and understood, moreover,

that the selection of a summer programme had ceased to be one of her

prerogatives. A determined man who wishes to marry will discover the

object of his affections on an abandoned farm or in the heart of the

Maine woods, if he is worth his salt. In these days of many yachts

and bicycles true love can travel rapidly, and there is no occasion

for marriageable girls to select courting-grounds where their lovers

can have close at hand a Casino and other conveniences, including the

opportunity to flirt with their next best Dulcineas.

If the summer-time is the time in which to recuperate and lie fallow,

why should we have so many summer schools? After the grand panjandrum

of Commencement exercises at the colleges is over, there ought to be

a pause in the intellectual activity of the nation for at least sixty

days; yet there seems to be a considerable body of men and women who,

in spite of the fact that they exercise their brains vigorously during

the rest of the year, insist on mental gymnastics when the thermometer

is in the eighties. These schools--chiefly assemblies in the name of

the ologies and osophies--bring together more or less people more or

less learned, from all over the country, to talk at one another and

read papers.

Judging merely from the newspaper accounts of their proceedings, it is

almost invariably impossible to discover the exact meaning of anything

which is uttered, but this may be due to the absence of the regular

reporters on their annual vacations, and the consequent delegation to

tyros of the difficult duty in question. But even assuming that the

utterances of the summer schools are both intelligible and stimulating,

would not the serious-minded men and women concerned in them be better

off lying in a hammock under a wide-spreading beech-tree, or, if this

seems too relaxing an occupation, watching the bathers at Narragansett

Pier? There is wisdom sometimes in sending young and very active boys

to school for about an hour a day in summer, in order chiefly to

know where they are and to prevent them from running their legs off;

but with this exception the mental workers in this country, male and

female, young and old, can afford to close their text-books with a bang

on July 1st, and not peep at them again until September. Philosophy in

August has much the flavor of asparagus in January.

The _Case of Man_.

I.

A not inconsiderable portion of the women of the United States is

inclined to regard man as a necessary evil. Their point of view is

that he is here, and therefore is likely, for the present at least,

to remain a formidable figure in human affairs, but that his ways are

not their ways, that they disapprove of them and him, and that they

intend to work out their lives and salvation as independently of him

as possible. What man in the flush and prime of life has not been made

conscious of this attitude of the modern woman? She is constantly

passing us in the street with the manner of one haughtily and supremely

indifferent. There are women enough still who look patterns of modesty,

and yet let us feel at the same time that we are more or less an object

of interest to them; but this particular type sails by in her trig

and often stylish costume with the air not merely of not seeing us,

but of wishing to ignore us. Her compressed lips suggest a judgment;

a judgment born of meditated conviction which leaves no hope of

reconsideration or exception. “You are all substantially alike,” she

seems to say, “and we have had enough of you. Go your ways and we will

go ours.”

The Mecca of the modern woman’s hopes, as indicated by this point of

view, would appear to be the ultimate disappearance of man from the

face of the earth after the manner of the mastodon and other brutes.

Nor are her hopes balked by physiological barriers. She is prepared

to admit that it is not obvious, as yet, how girls alone are to be

generated and boy babies given the cold maternal shoulder; but she

trusts to science and the long results of time for a victory which will

eliminate sexual relations and all their attendant perplexities and

tragedies from the theatre of human life.

We are not so sanguine as she that the kingdom of heaven is to be

brought to pass in any so simple and purely feminine a fashion. That

is, we men. Perhaps we are fatuous, but we see no reason to doubt that

sexual relations will continue to the crack of doom, in spite of the

perplexities and tragedies consequent upon them; and moreover, that

man will continue to thrive like a young bay-tree, even though she

continues to wear a chip on her tailor-made shoulder. And yet at the

same time we feel sober. It is not pleasant to be regarded as brutes

and to have judgment passed upon us by otherwise attractive women. It

behooves us to scratch our heads and ask ourselves if we can possibly

merit the haughty indifference and thinly disguised contempt which

is entertained toward us. To be weighed in the balance and found

wanting by a serene and beautiful young person is a far from agreeable

experience. There must be something wrong with us, and if so, what is

it?

Of course there was a time--and not so very long ago--when men were

tyrants and kept women under. Nowadays the only thing denied them in

polite circles is to whisk around by themselves after dark, and plenty

of them do that. The law is giving them, with both hands, almost

everything they ask for nearly as rapidly as existing inequalities

are pointed out, and the right of suffrage is withheld from them only

because the majority of women are still averse to exercising it. Man,

the tyrant and highwayman, has thrown up his arms and is allowing woman

to pick his pockets. He is not willing to have her bore a hole in his

upper lip, and drag him behind her with a rope, but he is disposed to

consent to any reasonable legislative changes which she desires to have

made, short of those which would involve masculine disfigurement or

depreciation. It certainly cannot be his bullying qualities which have

attracted her disdain, for he has given in. If woman to-day finds that

the law discriminates unjustly between her and man, she has merely to

ask for relief in sufficient numbers to show that she is not the tool

of designing members of her own sex, in order to obtain it.

Under the spur of these reflections I consulted my wife by way of

obtaining light on this problem. “Barbara, why is it that modern women

of a certain type are so sniffy toward men? You know what I mean; they

speak to us, of course, and tolerate us, and they love us individually

as husbands and fathers; but instead of counting for everything, as we

once did, we don’t seem to count for anything unless it be dollars and

cents. It isn’t merely that you all talk so fast and have so much to

say without regard to us that we often feel left out in the cold, and

even hurt, but there is a stern, relentless look on some of your faces

which makes us feel as though we had stolen the Holy Grail. You must

have noticed it.”

“Oh, yes,” said Barbara, with a smile. “It doesn’t mean very much. Of

course times are not what they were. Man used to be a demigod, now he

is only a----”

Barbara hesitated for a word, so I suggested, “Only a bank.”

“Let us say only a man. Only a man in the eyes of reflective womanhood.

We have caught up and are beginning to think for ourselves. You can’t

expect us to hang on your every word and to fall down and worship

you without reservation as we once did. Man used to be woman’s whole

existence, often to her infinite sorrow, and now he is only part of it,

just as she is only a part of his. You go to your clubs; we go to ours;

and while you are playing cards we read or listen to papers, some of

which are not intelligible to man. But we love you still, even though

we have ceased to worship you. There are a few, I admit, who would

like to do away with you altogether; but they are extremists--in every

revolution, you know, there are fanatics and unreasonable persons--but

the vast majority of us have a tender spot for you in our hearts, and

regard your case in sorrow rather than in anger--and as probably not

hopeless.”

“What is the matter with us?”

“Oh, everything. You are a failure fundamentally. To begin with,

your theory of life is founded on compromise. We women--the modern

woman--abhor compromise.”

Although it was obvious that Barbara was trying to tease me, I realized

from her expression that she intended to deal my sex a crucial stab

by the word compromise. I must confess that I felt just a little

uncomfortable under the white light of scorn which radiated from her

eyes, while her general air reminded me for the first time disagreeably

of the type of modern woman to whom I had referred.

“The world progresses by compromise,” I replied, sententiously.

“Yes, like a snail.”

“Otherwise it would stand still. A man thinks so and so; another man

thinks precisely opposite; they meet each other half-way and so much is

gained.”

“Oh, I know how they do. A man who stands for a principle meets another

man; they argue and bluster for a few minutes, and presently they sit

down and have something to eat or drink, and by the time they separate

the man who stands for a principle has sacrificed all there is of it,

except a tiny scrap or shred, in order not to incommode the man who has

no principles at all; and what is almost worse, they part seemingly

bosom friends and are apt to exchange rhetorical protestations of

mutual esteem. The modern woman has no patience with such a way of

doing things.”

“I suppose,” said I, “that two modern women under similar circumstances

would tear each other all to pieces; there would be nothing to eat or

drink, except possibly tea and wafers, and the floor would be covered

with fragments of skin, hair, and clothing. When they separated one

would be dead and the other maimed for life, and the principle for

which the victor stood would be set back about a century and a half.”