to join several of its evening classes, which I did. I reported to him
regularly the new things which I learned there. This practice benefited
me even more than it did Jim, because in trying to explain to him the
laws of heat phenomena, which were explained to me in the evening
lectures at Cooper Union, I got a very much better hold of them. The
first ideas of sound and light I caught on the pasture-lands of my
native village; the first ideas of the phenomena of heat I caught in
the boiler-room in Cortlandt Street and at Cooper Union lectures. These
lectures, supplemented by Jim’s boiler-room demonstrations, proved
much more effective than the instruction which I had received from my
teacher Kos, in Panchevo. Kos was a Slovene, a native of that beautiful
valley in Carniola, in the very bosom of the Dolomites; it is nearer
to being an ideal dreamland than any other spot in Europe. To Kos, as
to every true Slav, and particularly to the Slovenes of Carniola, the
poetical side of physical phenomena appealed most strongly. Hence his
patient listening to my enthusiastic professions of the belief that
sound and light were different forms of the language of God. But as I
watched the busy flames under Jim’s boilers, and understood how they
were sustaining the strenuous efforts of steam to supply every hustling
wheel in the factory with driving power, I understood for the first
time that there is also a prose in physics not a bit less impressive
than its poetry. It is this prose which interested Jim, the fireman,
just as it did the Cooper Union lecturer. Their chief concern was what
heat can do and not what it is. My Slavonic craving for knowing what
heat is was soon satisfied by reading a poem in prose concerning the
nature of heat. But of that later.
During my very first visits to the Cooper Union Library I saw a great
painting hung up in the northwest corner of its large reading-room.
It was called “Men of Progress,” and represented a group of very
learned-looking men. I admired the painting, but took no pains to
find out its meaning. One day, while reading in the Cooper Union
Library, I saw quite near me an old gentleman standing and carefully
scrutinizing what was going on. I imagined, at first, that he had
stepped out of that painting. I looked again and found that the figure
in the painting which I fancied had walked out was still there and
that the old gentleman near me was undoubtedly the original from
which the artist had painted that figure. The ambidextrous youth
behind the library-desk told me afterward that the old gentleman was
Peter Cooper, the founder of Cooper Union, and that he was one of the
group of famous men represented in the great painting. He looked as I
imagined the Patriarch of Karlovci must have looked. He was a striking
resemblance to St. Sava, the Educator, as he is represented on an ikon
in our church in Idvor. The same snowy locks and rosy complexion of
saintly purity, and the same benevolent look from two luminous blue
eyes. Peter Cooper was then eighty-five years of age, but he looked
as lively as if he were going to live another eighty-five years. His
personality as revealed by his appearance inspired me with awe, and I
read everything I could lay my hands on concerning his life; then I
read about the lives of the other great men who were associated with
Peter Cooper in that historical painting. Some of these men were:
Morse, the first promoter of the electric telegraph; Joseph Henry,
the great physicist, head of the Smithsonian Institution, and founder
of scientific bureaus in Washington; McCormick, the inventor of the
reaper; Howe, the inventor of the sewing-machine; Ericsson, the
engineer of the _Monitor_, and so forth. My study of their lives was a
timely preparation for my visit to Philadelphia, to see the Centennial
Exposition, the preparatory work for which I had seen two years prior
to that time, when, returning from the Delaware farm, I stopped at
Philadelphia to search for opportunities.
[Illustration: _From an engraving by John Sartain after a painting by
J. Schussele, reproduced by the courtesy of Cooper Union_
Dr. Morton Colt Saxton
Bogardus
McCormick
Peter Cooper Professor Henry Ericsson
Goodyear Dr. Mott
Mott Sickles
Bigelow
Burden Jennings
Morse Hoe Blanchard Howe
MEN OF PROGRESS--AMERICAN INVENTORS]
The work of those great captains of industry forming the group in the
great painting, “Men of Progress,” was in evidence in every nook and
corner of the Centennial Exposition. This great show impressed me as
a splendid glorification of all kinds of wonderful mechanisms, driven
by steam and animal power, which helped to develop the great resources
of the United States. All scientific efforts exhibited there concerned
themselves with the question of what things can do, rather than what
they are. The show was also a glorification of the great men who first
formulated, clearly stated, and fought for the ideals of the United
States. I saw that fact proclaimed in many of the historical features
of the exposition, and I did not fail to understand clearly that the
show took place in Philadelphia because the Liberty Bell and the
Declaration of Independence were first heard in Philadelphia. When I
left Philadelphia and its show I carried away in my head a good bit of
American history. The Americanization process which was going on within
me was very much speeded up by what I saw at the Centennial Exposition.
On my return to New York I told Jim, the fireman, that he was
right when he said: “The English made us write the Declaration of
Independence, and they also gave us the steam-engine with which we
made our independence good.” But, instructed by my study of the lives
of men who were represented in the painting “Men of Progress,” and
by what I learned at the Philadelphia exposition of these men and of
the leaders of the American Revolution, I suggested to Jim that the
steam-engine without great men behind it would have been of little
avail. “Yes,” said Jim, “the Declaration of Independence without men of
character and brains behind it would also have been of little avail;
and the great aims of the Civil War without men like Lincoln and Grant
behind them would have ended in a foolish fizzle. This country, my
lad,” exclaimed Jim with much warmth, “is a monument to the lives of
the men of brains and character and action who made it.” Jim threw out
this chunk of wisdom with the same ease and in the same offhand manner
which he displayed when he threw a few shovelfuls of coal upon the
busy fires under his boilers. To him it was an obvious truth; to a lad
like myself, who was accustomed to look upon countries as monuments to
kings and princes and their victorious armies, it was a revelation; and
I said so. This brought from Jim another epigrammatic remark to the
effect that my trip to America would teach me nothing if it did not
teach me first to squeeze out of my mind all foolish European notions
and make room for new ideas which I might pick up here and there in
this new world. Jim’s sayings were always short and to the point and
their record in my mind never faded.
Jim was very popular with everybody in the factory, and the fact that
he thought well of me improved my standing much. A Mr. Paul, the
youngest and most active member of the New England Cracker Factory in
Cortlandt Street, paid frequent visits to the boiler-room. I had an
idea that Jim’s views of things interested him just as much as the
operations of the boiler-room. One morning he made a very early visit
before the steam-whistle had blown and the steam-engine had started on
its daily routine, and he found me in the boiler-room, a busy volunteer
fireman. Jim introduced me to him in a jocular way as a student who
found his way from Princeton to Cortlandt Street, where in daytime I
was rapidly learning every trick of the biscuit industry while in the
evening I was absorbing all the wisdom of Cooper Union. A few days
later Mr. Paul informed me that my fame as a painter of baker-wagons
and of basements on Lexington Avenue, and also my record as a student
in mechanical drawing in the evening classes of Cooper Union, had
reached the board of directors of the New England Cracker Factory, and
that they had resolved to offer me a new job. I was advanced to the
position of assistant to the shipping clerk. It meant not only more pay
but also social advancement. I was no longer a workman in the factory,
who worked for wages; I was a clerk who received a salary. I felt as
people in England probably feel when peerage is conferred upon them.
My fellow workers in the factory, including Eilers, who first got me
the job, showed no envy. They agreed with Jim, who told them that I
was “smart.” Jim used the same word which my Vila on the banks of the
Delaware had used whenever I made a good recitation in English, and I
saw in it a good omen. Jim and Vila and Christian of West Street were
my authorities, who expressed what I considered a competent opinion
upon my apprenticeship as greenhorn, and that opinion was favorable. I
felt assured that the apprenticeship was soon coming to an end.
My duties as assistant to the shipping clerk were to superintend the
packing of biscuits, to help address with brush and paint the boxes
in which they were packed, and to see to it that they were shipped on
time. A squad of some thirty girls did the packing and they seemed at
first inclined to file objections whenever I found fault with their
packing. They seemed to resent being bossed by an immigrant youth whose
foreign accent would “stop a train,” as they sometimes expressed it. I
found out from Jim that the principal object of their resentment was to
make me angry, because when my Serbian temper was up my accent became
most atrocious and that furnished them a most hilarious amusement. I
soon became convinced that my success as assistant to the shipping
clerk demanded a perfect control of my temper and a speedy improvement
of my accent, each of them a most difficult task.
My efforts to control my temper were frequently put to severe tests.
Now and then a biscuit, well aimed, would hit me on the head, and my
Serbian blood would rush to my cheeks and I would look daggers at the
supposed offender. “Look at the bashibozouk,” one of the girls would
sing out on these occasions, and another would add: “Did you ever see
such a Bulgarian atrocity?” These words were in everybody’s mouth at
that time and they referred to the incidents of the Balkan War of
1876-1878, which Serbia, Montenegro, and Russia were waging against the
Turks. A third girl would stick her tongue out and make funny faces
at me in response to my savage glare. She evidently tried to make me
laugh, and I did laugh. Then a fourth girl would sing out: “Oh, look at
the darling now; I just love him when he smiles.” Then they all would
sing:
“Smile, Michael, smile,
I love your sunny style.”
I did smile, and every day I smiled more and more, after I had
discovered that the girls did not really dislike me, but just loved to
tease me whenever I showed any signs of a European greenhorn. I dropped
the airs put on by European superiors in authority and gradually the
girls became friendly and began to call me by my first name instead
of mockingly addressing me as “Mister” as they addressed the old
shipping clerk. “You are getting on swimmingly, my lad,” said Jim one
day, and he added something like this: “The girls are calling you
Michael, just as they call me Jim. We are popular, my boy, but don’t
let this popularity mislead you into foolish notions. Just watch me; I
have enjoyed this popularity for twenty years, and here I am still a
bachelor, and an old bachelor at that. You have controlled your temper
well, but how about controlling your heart, my lad?” Jim grinned and
winked and placed his index finger in front of his forehead, as if to
indicate that many a wise experience is stored in the practical head
of a canny old fireman. I understood his meaning, but did I heed its
warning? I knew that it contained a warning, and I suspected strongly
that Jim had discovered one of my deepest secrets.
There was one girl among the thirty biscuit-packers who, in my opinion,
never made a mistake in packing. I never took pains to inspect her
work, and why should I when I was sure of her perfection? But I watched
her and feasted my eyes upon her whenever I had spare time and was sure
that nobody was observing me. She became conscious of it and every now
and then she would suddenly look up and catch my admiring but cautious
gaze. A bashful blush would give me away in spite of my efforts to
hide my thoughts and feelings. She guessed them and she smiled as if
greatly pleased and much amused, but she cleverly avoided giving me an
opportunity to make a confession. I might have done it in spite of my
extreme bashfulness. My note-books were full of her pictures, which I
drew and signed under them her name, Jane Macnamara. Perhaps Jim had
seen these pictures among my many sketches of the boiler-room and its
contents, and hence his warning to me.
One Monday morning Jane did not appear at her usual place in the
packing-room; her friend, another packing girl, told me that Jane had
been married on the previous Saturday. I tried my best to appear as if
I received the news with indifference, but failed. The girls observed
a change; I neither smiled nor did I frown, but I thought a lot, and
the girls seemed to take quite an interest in my thoughtfulness, but
studiously avoided annoying me. Only now and then one of the girls
would whisper to me: “Penny for your thoughts, Michael.” Jim, I was
sure, also observed the change, but said nothing, as if he had observed
nothing. One day he introduced me to an acquaintance of his whom he
called Fred, who looked like a middle-aged man. He had wonderful
deep furrows in his face, and his hands were large and very bony and
looked as if the daily toil had rubbed off all the superfluous flesh
and fat from them. Jim told me that Fred was far from middle age, but
barely over thirty, and that some twelve years before he had plans and
ambitions just as big as mine, backed by at least as much brains as he
thought I had. Fred’s friends expected big things from him, said Jim,
but suddenly Fred lost his heart and married and raised a big family
of children somewhere in Jersey City. “To-day,” said Jim, “Fred is
mentally just where he was twelve years ago, and if he did not have
the contract of making the wooden packing-boxes for this factory he
would look even older than he is looking now,” and then he added, in
his usual offhand manner by way of illustration, that corn-stalks
cease to grow as soon as the ears of corn appear and all the sap of
the corn-stalk is served to the ears. Referring to Fred’s numerous
children, Jim finished his picture by saying that Fred looked like a
withering corn-stalk with many small ears of corn on it, and that he
hoped that the withering corn-stalk would hold out until the numerous
ears of corn had ripened. He admitted, however, that he himself was a
withering corn-stalk with no ears of corn at all; that his life was the
other extreme from Fred’s, and that neither he nor Fred had in their
younger days studied and applied in practice the controlling regulators
of life. Jim’s sermons on self-control always hit the mark; and when,
referring to his advice to me to control my temper, my heart, and my
speech, I suggested that according to him life was a series of all
kinds of controls difficult to manage, he answered that nothing is
difficult when it becomes a habit. “Just examine my boiler-room,” he
said, “and you will find that everything is controlled. The centrifugal
governor controls the speed of the engine; the safety-valve limits
the pressure of steam; every fire has a regulator of its air draft,
and every oven has a temperature indicator. I know them all and I
watch their operations without knowing that I am doing it. Practice
makes perfect, my lad, and perfection knows no difficulties even in a
boiler-room as full of all kinds of tricks as human life is.” Jim’s
sermons were always short and far ahead of anything I had ever heard
in the churches in Delaware City, or in Dayton, New Jersey, or in the
Bowery Mission, or in any other church which up to that time I had
visited in this country; and, moreover, they were not accompanied
by congregational singing, which bored me. I understood why so many
blacksmiths and other people of small learning made a great success as
preachers in this country, whereas in my native village the priest, who
prided himself upon his learning, was obliged to read those sermons
only which were sent to him by the bishop of the diocese. I suggested
to Jim in a jocular way to quit the boiler-room and become a preacher,
and he answered that the boys and girls of the New England Cracker
Factory in Cortlandt Street furnished a sufficiently large field for
his religious and educational mission. Jim’s assistance helped me much
to let the dream about Jane fade away gradually and make room in my
imagination for the dreams which I first saw at Princeton under that
elm-tree in front of Nassau Hall.
The factory in Cortlandt Street was in many respects a college in which
Jim was the chaplain; and it had a professor who should be mentioned
here. It also had a dormitory; several of the young fellows employed in
the factory lived on the top floor of the building. I was one of them,
and I did not change my quarters when I was advanced to the position
of assistant to the shipping clerk. Two great attractions kept me
there. One was that the other fellows were out every evening visiting
theatres and music-halls, so that I had the whole loft, and, in fact,
the whole factory all to myself and to a chum of mine, who was much
older than I in years but not in his position in the factory. His name
was Bilharz, and he was the second attraction. He was the opposite to
Jim and to every human being I had ever met. He knew nothing of nor did
he care for the concrete or practical things of life, but always lived
in dreams about things which happened centuries ago. He knew Latin and
Greek and all kinds of literatures, but never made any attempts to make
any use of his knowledge. Factory work of the humblest kind was good
enough for him, and I believed that he would have been satisfied to
work for his board only, if pay had been refused him. He informed me
once by an accidental slip of the tongue that he had studied theology
at the University of Freiburg, in southern Germany, and would have
become a priest if an unfortunate love-affair had not put an end to
his ecclesiastical aspirations. He had no other aims when he came to
America, he said, than to work for a modest living and to lead a life
of profound obscurity, until the Lord called him away from this valley
of tears, as he expressed it. He used a German expression and called
the earth a “Thraenenthal.” Although a German he spoke English well,
being a finished scholar and having lived in America for a number
of years, and having a memory for sound which impressed me as most
remarkable. He sang like a nightingale, but only on evenings when we
were all alone. Ecclesiastical music was his favorite, and during many
an evening the strains of “Gloria in Excelsis Deo,” “Ave Maria,” and
“I Know That My Redeemer Liveth” rang forth from the spacious lofts of
the New England Cracker Factory and lost themselves in the silence
of night among the deserted buildings of Cortlandt Street, which were
alive in daytime only. I never tired listening to his recitations
of Latin and Greek poetry, although I did not understand it, and of
selected passages from Shakespeare and Goethe, which I did understand.
He loved the art of articulate speech and of melody, and he thought of
things only that happened three thousand years ago when Homer sang and
the Olympian gods guided the destinies of men, but he cared for nothing
else. The steam-engine and every other kind of mechanism were to him a
deadly prose which, in his opinion, Satan had invented for the purpose
of leading astray the spirit of man. “They are the weapons by which
people like you are keeping in slavery people like me,” he said once,
jokingly, referring to my interest in the boiler-room operations and to
my admiration of the great captains of industry whose lives I studied
and whose work I had seen and admired at the Philadelphia exposition.
I sometimes suspected that he felt alarmed by what he considered my
worship of false gods, and that this impelled him to do everything he
could for my redemption from heathenism. My admiration for his learning
was great, but my sympathy for his misfortunes was even greater. His
hands were once caught in a machine and most of his fingers had become
stiff and crooked so that they looked like the talons of a falcon. His
sharp features, a crooked nose and protruding eyes, supported this
suggestion of a falcon, but his awkward, flat-footed walk suggested a
falcon with broken wings; to say nothing of his other misfortunes which
made him in spirit also a falcon with broken wings.
I felt that he knew a great deal more about the Jane incident than he
cared to disclose to me. One day I referred to her as the Minnehaha
of Cortlandt Street. “Minnehaha, laughing water,” exclaimed Bilharz:
“where did you ever get that, you boiler-room bug?” and he laughed
as if he had never heard a funnier thing in his life. “From Jim, the
boiler-room hermit, to Longfellow, one of the greatest of American
poets, is a tremendous jump, a _salto mortale_, as they call it in a
circus,” said Bilharz; and then, growing more serious and thoughtful,
he added something like this: “It is really wonderful what the eyes
of a woman can do! They are just like the stars in the heavens,
encouraging us poor mortals to aim at celestial heights. But many a
sky-rocket seemed to be sailing for the stars and suddenly it found
itself buried in mud. I am one of these sky-rockets,” said Bilharz;
“you are not, thanks to the timely intervention of a kindly divinity.”
He meant Jim. Then, continuing in his usual dramatic manner, he recited
in Latin an ode of Horace, in which the poet speaks of a youth trusting
to the beaming countenance of his lady-love as a mariner trusting to
the sunlit ripples of a calm sea who is suddenly upset by a treacherous
squall and, being rescued, gratefully offers his wet garments in
sacrifice to Neptune, the god of the sea. After translating the ode and
explaining its meaning to me he urged me to hang my best clothes in the
boiler-room as a sacrifice to Jim, the divinity which had rescued me
from the treacherous waves of “Minnehaha, laughing water.” “You are the
luckiest of mortals, my boy,” said Bilharz to me; “some day you will
provoke the envy of the gods and then look out for stern Nemesis!” I
did not understand the full meaning of these classical allusions, but
he assured me that some day I should. I told Bilharz that my luck, of
which he spoke so often, was mostly due to my being so near to a man of
his learning, and that I thought he ought to be a professor in Nassau
Hall at Princeton. He declined the honor, but offered to prepare me for
it, and I accepted.