ESSAYS ON THINGS
BY WILLIAM LYON PHELPS
ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS
ESSAYS ON RUSSIAN NOVELISTS
ESSAYS ON BOOKS
ESSAYS ON MODERN DRAMATISTS
ESSAYS ON THINGS
HOWELLS, JAMES, BRYANT AND OTHER ESSAYS
READING THE BIBLE
TEACHING IN SCHOOL AND COLLEGE
SOME MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
THE ADVANCE OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
THE ADVANCE OF ENGLISH POETRY
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT
HUMAN NATURE IN THE BIBLE
HUMAN NATURE AND THE GOSPEL
ADVENTURES AND CONFESSIONS
AS I LIKE IT, FIRST, SECOND, THIRD SERIES
ARCHIBALD MARSHALL
HAPPINESS
LOVE
MEMORY
MUSIC
A DASH AT THE POLE
BROWNING--HOW TO KNOW HIM
ESSAYS ON THINGS
BY WILLIAM LYON PHELPS
NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1930
COPYRIGHT, 1930,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
All rights reserved--no part of this
book may be reproduced in any form
without permission in writing from
the publisher.
Set up and printed. Published September, 1930.
· PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ·
CONTENTS
PAGE
SUNRISE 3
MOLASSES 8
RESOLUTIONS WHEN I COME TO BE OLD 14
ENGLISH AND AMERICAN HUMOUR 20
A PAIR OF SOCKS 26
AN INSPIRING CEMETERY 31
ANCIENT FOOTBALL 35
RIVERS 39
ONE DAY AT A TIME 45
CITY AND COUNTRY 51
AGE BEFORE BEAUTY 57
CHURCH UNITY 63
POLITICAL HISTORY 68
A ROOM WITHOUT A VIEW 74
TEA 80
THE WEATHER 86
WAR 91
MAN AND BOY 96
AMBITION 101
BIRDS AND STATESMEN 107
RUSSIA BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 113
THE DEVIL 119
THE FORSYTE SAGA 124
PROFESSION AND PRACTICE 130
LONDON AS A SUMMER RESORT 135
WHAT THE MAN WILL WEAR 140
DREAMS 146
EATING BREAKFAST 151
THE MOTHER TONGUE 157
OUR SOUTH AS CURE FOR FLU 163
GOING TO CHURCH IN PARIS 169
OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM 175
TRANSLATIONS 180
MUSIC OF THE SPHERES 185
DOG BOOKS 190
GOING TO HONOLULU 196
HYMNS 201
OLD-FASHIONED SNOBS 207
A FAIR CITY 212
TRADITIONS 218
SPOOKS 224
TRIAL BY JURY 230
ATHLETICS 235
A PRIVATE LIBRARY ALL YOUR OWN 240
THE GREATEST COMMON DIVISOR 246
THE GREAT AMERICAN GAME 252
TEN SIXTY-SIX 258
GOING ABROAD THE FIRST TIME 264
SPIRITUAL HEALING 269
SUPERSTITION 274
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE EARTH 279
WHAT SHALL I THINK ABOUT? 285
ESSAYS ON THINGS
I
SUNRISE
At an uncertain hour before dawn in February 1912, as I lay asleep
in my room on the top floor of a hotel in the town of Mentone, in
Southern France, I was suddenly awakened by the morning star. It was
shining with inquisitive splendour directly into my left eye. At that
quiet moment, in the last stages of the dying night, this star seemed
enormous. It hung out of the velvet sky so far that I thought it was
going to fall, and I went out on the balcony of my room to see it
drop. The air was windless and mild, and, instead of going back to
bed, I decided to stay on the balcony and watch the unfolding drama
of the dawn. For every clear dawn in this spectacular universe is a
magnificent drama, rising to a superb climax.
The morning stars sang together and I heard the sons of God shouting
for joy. The chief morning star, the one that had roused me from
slumber, recited a splendid prologue. Then, as the night paled and
the lesser stars withdrew, some of the minor characters in the play
began to appear and take their respective parts. The grey background
turned red, then gold. Long shafts of preliminary light shot up from
the eastern horizon, and then, when the stage was all set, and the
minor characters had completed their assigned rôles, the curtains
suddenly parted and the sun--the Daystar--the star of the play, entered
with all the panoply of majesty. And as I stood there and beheld this
incomparable spectacle, and gazed over the mountains, the meadows and
the sea, the words of Shakespeare came into my mind:
Full many a glorious morning have I seen,
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye.
Kissing with golden face the meadows green.
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy.
It is a pity that more people do not see the sunrise. Many do not
get up early enough, many do not stay up late enough. Out of the
millions and millions of men, women and children on this globe only
a comparatively few see the sunrise, and I dare say there are many
respectable persons who have never seen it at all. One really should
not go through life without seeing the sun rise at least once, because,
even if one is fortunate enough to be received at last into heaven,
there is one sight wherein this vale of tears surpasses the eternal
home of the saints. “There is no night there,” hence there can be no
dawn, no sunrise; it is therefore better to make the most of it while
we can.
As a man feels refreshed after a night’s sleep and his morning bath,
so the sun seems to rise out of the water like a giant renewed. Milton
gave us an excellent description:
So sinks the daystar in the ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky.
Browning, in his poem, _Pippa Passes_, compares the sunrise to a glass
of champagne, a sparkling wine overflowing the world:
DAY!
Faster and more fast,
O’er night’s brim, day boils at last:
Boils, pure gold, o’er the cloud-cup’s brim,
Where spurting and suppressed it lay,
For not a froth-flake touched the rim
Of yonder gap in the solid gray
Of the eastern cloud, an hour away;
But forth one wavelet, then another, curled.
Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed,
Rose, reddened, and its seething breast
Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world.
The sunset has a tranquil beauty but to me there is in it always a
tinge of sadness, of the sadness of farewell, of the approach of
darkness. This mood is expressed in the old hymn which in my childhood
I used to hear so often in church:
Fading, still fading, the last beam is shining,
Father in heaven! the day is declining.
Safety and innocence fly with the light,
Temptation and danger walk forth with the night.
Sorrow may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning, saith
the Holy Book. The sunrise has not only inexpressible majesty and
splendour, but it has the rapture of promise, the excitement of
beginning again. Yesterday has gone forever, the night is over and we
may start anew. To how many eyes, weary with wakefulness in the long
watches of the night, or flushed with fever, is the first glimmer of
the dawn welcome. The night makes every fear and worry worse than the
reality, it magnifies every trivial distress. Mark Twain said the
night brought madness--none of us is quite sane in the darkness. That
particular regret for yesterday or apprehension for tomorrow that
strikes you like a whiplash in the face at 2:45 A.M. dwindles into an
absurdity in the healthy dawn.
Mark Twain, who had expressed the difference between the night and
the morning tragically, also expressed it humorously. He said that
when he was lying awake in the middle of the night he felt like an
awful sinner, he hated himself with a horrible depression and made
innumerable good resolutions; but when at 7:30 he was shaving himself
he felt just as cheerful, healthy and unregenerate as ever.
I am a child of the morning. I love the dawn and the sunrise. When I
was a child I saw the sunrise from the top of Whiteface and it seemed
to me that I not only saw beauty but heard celestial music. Ever since
reading in George Moore’s _Evelyn Innes_ the nun’s description of her
feelings while listening to Wagner’s Prologue to _Lohengrin_ I myself
never hear that lovely music rising to a tremendous climax without
seeing in imagination what was revealed to the Sister of Mercy. I am
on a mountain top before dawn; the darkness gives way; the greyness
strengthens, and finally my whole mind and soul are filled with the
increasing light.
II
MOLASSES
Before both the word molasses and the thing it signifies disappear
forever from the earth, I wish to recall its flavour and its importance
to the men and women of my generation. By any other name it would taste
as sweet; it is by no means yet extinct; but for many years maple syrup
and other commodities have taken its place on the breakfast table. Yet
I was brought up on molasses. Do you remember, in that marvellous book,
_Helen’s Babies_, when Toddie was asked what he had in his pantspocket,
his devastating reply to that tragic question? He calmly answered,
“Bread and molasses.”
Well, I was brought up on bread and molasses. Very often that was all
we had for supper. I well remember, in the sticky days of childhood,
being invited out to supper by my neighbour Arthur Greene. My table
manners were primitive and my shyness in formal company overwhelming.
When I was ushered into the Greene dining room not only as the guest of
honour but as the only guest, I felt like Fra Lippo Lippi in the most
august presence in the universe, only I lacked his impudence to help me
out.
The conditions of life in those days may be estimated from the fact
that the entire formal supper, even with “company,” consisted wholly
and only of bread, butter and molasses. Around the festive board sat
Mr. Greene, a terrifying adult who looked as if he had never been
young; Mrs. Greene, tight-lipped and serious; Arthur Greene, his sister
Alice, and his younger brother, Freddy. As I was company I was helped
first and given a fairly liberal supply of bread, which I unthinkingly
(as though I were used to such luxuries) spread with butter and then
covered with a thick layer of molasses. Ah, I was about to learn
something.
Mr. Greene turned to his eldest son, and enquired grimly, “Arthur,
which will you have, bread and butter or bread and molasses?”
The wretched Arthur, looking at my plate, and believing that his
father, in deference to the “company,” would not quite dare to enforce
what was evidently the regular evening choice, said, with what I
recognised as a pitiful attempt at careless assurance, “I’ll take both.”
“No, you don’t!” countered his father, with a tone as final as that of
a judge in court. His father was not to be bluffed by the presence
of company; he evidently regarded discipline as more important than
manners. The result was I felt like a voluptuary, being the only person
at the table who had the luxury of both butter and molasses. They stuck
in my throat; I feel them choking me still, after an interval of more
than fifty years.
* * * * *
The jug of molasses was on our table at home at every breakfast and
at every supper. The only variety lay in the fact (do you remember?)
that there were two distinct kinds of molasses--sometimes we had one,
sometimes the other. There was Porto Rico molasses and there was New
Orleans molasses--brunette and blonde. The Porto Rico molasses was so
dark it was almost black, and New Orleans molasses was golden brown.
The worst meal of the three was invariably supper, and I imagine this
was fairly common among our neighbours. Breakfast was a hearty repast,
starting usually with oatmeal, immediately followed by beefsteak and
potatoes or mutton chops, sometimes ham and eggs; but usually beef
or chops. It had a glorious coda with griddle cakes or waffles; and
thus stuffed, we rose from the table like condors from their prey,
and began the day’s work. Dinner at one was a hearty meal, with soup,
roast, vegetables and pie.
Supper consisted of “remainders.” There was no relish in it, and I
remember that very often my mother, who never complained vocally,
looking at the unattractive spread with lack-lustre eye, would either
speak to our one servant or would disappear for a moment and return
with a cold potato, which it was clear she distinctly preferred to the
sickening sweetish “preserves” and cookies or to the bread and molasses
which I myself ate copiously.
However remiss and indifferent and selfish I may have been in my
conduct toward my mother--and what man does not suffer as he thinks of
this particular feature of the irrecoverable past?--it does me good to
remember that, after I came to man’s estate, I gave my mother what it
is clear she always and in vain longed for in earlier years, a good
substantial dinner at night.
At breakfast we never put cream and sugar on our porridge; we always
put molasses. Then, if griddle cakes followed the meat, we once more
had recourse to molasses. And as bread and molasses was the backbone of
the evening meal, you will see what I mean when I say I swam to manhood
through this viscous sea. In those days youth was sweet.
The transfer of emphasis from breakfast to supper is the chief
distinguishing change in the procession of meals as it was and as it
became. It now seems incredible that I once ate large slabs of steak
or big chops at breakfast, but I certainly did. And supper, which
approached the vanishing point, turned into dinner in later years.
Many, many years ago we banished the molasses jug and even the lighter
and more patrician maple syrup ceased to flow at the breakfast table.
I am quite aware that innumerable persons still eat griddle cakes or
waffles and syrup at the first meal of the day. It is supposed that the
poet-artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti ruined his health by eating huge
portions of ham and eggs, followed by griddle cakes and molasses, for
breakfast. To me there has always been something incongruous between
syrup and coffee; they are mutually destructive; one spoils the taste
of the other.
Yet waffles and syrup are a delectable dish; and I am quite certain
that nectar and ambrosia made no better meal. What to do, then? The
answer is simple. Eat no griddle cakes, no waffles and no syrup at
breakfast; but use these commodities for dessert at lunch. Then comes
the full flavour.
Many taverns now have hit upon the excellent idea of serving only two
dishes for lunch or dinner--chicken and waffles. This obviates the
expense of waste, the worry of choice, the time lost in plans. And what
combination could possibly be better?
One of the happiest recollections of my childhood is the marvelous hot,
crisp waffle lying on my plate, and my increasing delight as I watched
the molasses filling each square cavity in turn. As the English poet
remarked, “I hate people who are not serious about their meals.”
III
RESOLUTIONS WHEN I COME TO BE OLD
At the age of thirty-two, Jonathan Swift wrote the following:
RESOLUTIONS WHEN I COME TO BE OLD
(1) Not to marry a young woman.
(2) Not to keep young company, unless they desire it.
(3) Not to be peevish, or morose, or suspicious.
(4) Not to scorn present ways, or wits, or fashions, or men, or
war, etc.
(5) Not to be fond of children.
(6) Not to tell the same story over and over to the same people.
(7) Not to be covetous.
(8) Not to neglect decency or cleanliness, for fear of falling into
nastiness.
(9) Not to be over severe with young people, but give allowances
for their youthful follies and weaknesses.
(10) Not to be influenced by, or give ear to, knavish tattling
servants, or others.
(11) Not to be too free of advice, or trouble any but those who
desire it.
(12) To desire some good friend to inform me which of these
resolutions I break or neglect, and wherein, and reform accordingly.
(13) Not to talk too much, nor of myself.
(14) Not to boast of my former beauty, or strength, or favour with
ladies, etc.
(15) Not to hearken to flatteries, nor conceive I can be beloved by
a young woman.
(16) Not to be positive or opinionative.
(17) Not too set for observing all these rules, for fear I should
observe none.
Swift died at the age of seventy-eight; so far as I can find out, he
lived up to these resolutions with commendable consistency, except one:
his friend, Dr. Sheridan, was sufficiently indiscreet to remind him
that he was becoming too parsimonious. Swift resented this criticism,
and it spoiled their friendship.
* * * * *
Although Swift was a pessimist, a cynic and a misanthrope, these
resolutions contain much wisdom; so much, in fact, that a faithful
adherence to them would save most old men much suffering and
humiliation. I read them first when I was a boy and they produced a
profound impression; now that I am in a position where they fit my
case, I believe them to be good medicine, bitter but wholesome. Swift
must have been bored horribly by many old men, or he must have observed
many old people behaving in a silly fashion to have written down these
rules with such emphasis.
(1, 2) “Crabbed age and youth cannot live together,” said Shakespeare;
the few exceptions do no more than prove the rule. Many old people
suffer because they fear that young people do not desire their company.
The solution is for old people not to allow their happiness to be
dependent on young folks but to have either company of their own age
or intellectual resources which will make them mentally independent. I
have taught young people for forty years, and although I am very fond
of them, I prefer the society of people of my own age. If I were about
to take a trip around the world and could choose either a young or old
companion, I would take the latter.
(3) Good advice for any age, but old persons, owing to bodily
infirmities, are more apt to show these unlovely characteristics.
(4) This advice was never more needed than now.
(5) I would change this, so it would read “Not to fondle children.” A
man with a bushy beard can terrify babes.
(6) “I suppose you have all heard this before, but----” then why tell
it?
(7) Especially of the health, vigour, and activity of younger men.
(8) Swift was himself almost fanatically clean. It is a disgusting
sight to behold old men who are careless of their clothes and
appearance, as though old age gave one the privilege to appear in
public with the remains of the last meal on the coat, waistcoat and
shirt.
(9) Observe the ways of the dog, and learn wisdom. The dog allows
children to pull his tail, and bother him in many ways; not because he
likes it, but because he knows children have no sense. It is useless
to expect that children and young people will think and act like
middle-aged men and women; why be fretful when they are simply running
true to form?
(10) One must remember that slander is of value only as a
self-revelation, never as an accurate description. The recoil of that
particular gun is greater than the discharge.
(11) Every person loves to give advice and no one loves to take it.
The mother says to the child, “Now, Freddy, don’t forget to put your
rubbers on!” to which Freddy replies “Huh!” Then when Freddy is
seventy-six years old, his granddaughter says, “Now, Grandpa, don’t
forget to put your rubbers on!” to which the grandparent replies “Huh!”
It is a good thing not to force one’s opinion on others unless they
ask for it; one’s professions and creed will be judged by one’s life,
anyhow.
(12) Ah, that requires the very grace of God. This kind comes only by
prayer and fasting.
(13, 14) Many an old man likes to have others think that he was in his
prime a devil of a fellow. This particular vanity is hard to eradicate.
Even in the moment of Lear’s heartbreaking and shattering grief over
the death of his daughter Cordelia he found time to boast of his former
prowess.
(15) I say it not cynically, but in all seriousness: There is no one
who cannot be successfully flattered, provided the flattery be applied
with some skill. We have at the core such invincible egotism that
we not only listen greedily to flattery, but, what is far worse, we
believe it!
(16) An overbearing, domineering, dogmatic manner in conversation
is abominable in persons of any age; when old people behave in this
fashion, and it is not resented by the young, it should really all the
more humiliate the old. For such acquiescence means that the old man
hasn’t any sense, anyhow.
(17) Know thyself. Ulysses showed his wisdom in not trusting himself. A
Yale undergraduate left on his door a placard for the janitor on which
was written, “Call me at 7 o’clock; it is absolutely necessary that I
get up at seven. Make no mistake. Keep knocking until I answer.” Under
this he had written. “Try again at ten.”
IV
ENGLISH AND AMERICAN HUMOUR
Some one has said that American humour consists in over-statement
and English humour in understatement. This judgment does not include
everything, but so far as it goes it is not only accurate, but helps
both to explain English humour and the frequently heard remark that
the English are without it. I suppose one reason many ill-informed
Americans say that Englishmen have no sense of humour is because the
English do not indulge so commonly as we in boisterous jocularity,
exaggeration, surprise and burlesque. The average Englishman does not
see why a stranger should accost him with jocosity--many Englishmen do
not see why a stranger should accost them at all. It is an excellent
plan while travelling in England or anywhere in Europe never to speak
first to an Englishman; let him open the conversation.
One of the chief differences between the average Englishman and
American is in amiability, responsiveness, amenity. Americans are
probably the most amiable people in the world, the most happy to
respond to an exploratory remark, the most willing. I dare say it is
partly a matter of climate. Our chronic sunshine makes us expansive and
ebullient.
In any American city on a terrifically hot day, two hitherto
unacquainted men will speak to each other as they pass on the street,
one saying, “Don’t you wish you had brought your overcoat!” which
harmless jest is returned by the other with equal affability. If you
said that to an Englishman, he might stare at you blankly, and perhaps
hazard the query, “You mean, of course, your _light_ overcoat?”
After introduction to a resident Englishman in Vancouver, British
Columbia, at a small dining-table in a hotel, I remarked gently, “Even
though you are behind the times here in Vancouver, I do not see why you
should advertise the fact.” “What on earth do you mean?” he enquired.
Then I called his attention to the dinner-card, on which was printed
Vancouver, B. C. He exclaimed, “But it doesn’t mean that, you know!” I
do not believe he was deficient in a sense of humour. I had just met
him, and he did not see why a stranger should be sufficiently intimate
to be taken otherwise than seriously.
_Punch_ is the best of comic papers; it expresses the genuine original
humour of a humorous folk. I remember seeing there a picture of the
village orchestra, and as the director rapped for attention, the first
violin leaned forward and asked, “What is the next piece?” and being
informed, replied, “Why I just played that one.”
Woodrow Wilson once told me a story which illustrates how dangerous it
is for anyone to assume that the English have no sense of humour.
Three Americans were telling anecdotes to illustrate the English dearth
of humour, when they saw approaching a representative of that nation.
It was agreed that he should then and there be put to the test. So one
of them stopped him and narrated a side-splitting yarn. The Englishman
received the climax with an impassive face. The American, delighted,
cried, “Cheer up, old man, you’ll laugh at that next summer.” “No,”
said the Briton, gravely, “I think not.” “Why not?” “Because I laughed
at that _last_ summer.”
The humour of English political campaign speeches at its best, is
unsurpassed. When the late John Morley had finished an oration by
requesting his hearers to vote for him, one man jumped up and shouted
angrily, “I’d rather vote for the devil.” “Quite so,” returned the
unruffled statesman; “but in case your friend declines to run, may I
not then count upon your support?”
A perfect retort was made to the great and genial Thackeray, on the
one occasion when he ran for Parliament. He met his opponent, Edward
Cardwell, during the course of the campaign, and after a pleasant
exchange of civilities, Thackeray remarked, “Well, I hope it will be a
good fight, and may the best man win.” “Oh, I hope not,” said Cardwell.
The English are the only people who seem to be amused by attacks on
their country; does this show a sense of superiority that increases the
rage of the critic? Or is it that their sense of humour extends even to
that most sacred of all modern religions, the religion of nationalism?
The Irish are supposed to excel the English in humour; but it is a fact
that English audiences in the theatre are diverted by sarcastic attacks
on the English, whereas it is physically dangerous to try a similar
method on an Irish audience. The Irish patriot, Katharine Tynan, said
that if she could only once succeed in enraging the English, she would
feel that something might be accomplished. “But,” said she, “I tell
them at dinner parties the most outrageous things that are said against
their country, and they all roar with laughter.” Undue sensitiveness
to attack betrays a feeling of insecurity.
Typical American humour is not subtle and ironical; it is made up
largely of exaggeration and surprise--Mark Twain was a master of ending
a sentence with something unexpected. “I admire the serene assurance
of those who have religious faith. It is wonderful to observe the calm
confidence of a Christian with four aces.”
Anthony Hope, in his recent book _Memories and Notes_, says that when
Mark made his first dinner speech in London before a distinguished
audience, there was intense curiosity as to what he would say. He began
with an unusually slow drawl. “Homer is dead, Shakespeare is dead--and
I am far from well.”
Another true story (which I took pains to verify) happened during the
early days of his married life, which synchronised with the beginnings
of the telephone. Incredible as it may seem, Mrs. Clemens had not heard
Mark swear, for during the engagement he had managed by superhuman
efforts to refrain from what he called that noble art, and she did
not dream of his oral efficiency. But one day, thinking he was alone,
he started to use the telephone. (The Paris _Figaro_ says that to get
your telephone connexion is not an achievement; it is a career.) Mark,
having difficulties, poured out a torrent of river profanity. He looked
around and there was his wife, frozen with horror.
But she had heard that the way to cure a husband of profanity was for
the wife to swear in his presence. So, in a cold, artificial voice, she
said, “Blankety-Blank-Blank.” Mark cried, “Darling, you know the words,
but you don’t know the tune!”
Mark had a way of combining philosophy and humour. This is the gospel
according to Mark Twain. “Live so that when you die even the undertaker
will be sorry.”
V
A PAIR OF SOCKS
One fine afternoon I was walking along Fifth Avenue, when I remembered
that it was necessary to buy a pair of socks. Why I wished to buy only
one pair is unimportant. I turned into the first sock shop that caught
my eye, and a boy clerk who could not have been more than seventeen
years old came forward. “What can I do for you, sir?” “I wish to buy
a pair of socks.” His eyes glowed. There was a note of passion in his
voice. “Did you know that you had come into the finest place in the
world to buy socks?” I had not been aware of that, as my entrance had
been accidental. “Come with me,” said the boy, ecstatically. I followed
him to the rear of the shop, and he began to haul down from the shelves
box after box, displaying their contents for my delectation.
“Hold on, lad, I am going to buy only one pair!” “I know that,” said
he, “but I want you to see how marvellously beautiful these are.
Aren’t they wonderful!” There was on his face an expression of solemn
and holy rapture, as if he were revealing to me the mysteries of his
religion. I became far more interested in him than in the socks. I
looked at him in amazement. “My friend,” said I, “if you can keep this
up, if this is not merely the enthusiasm that comes from novelty, from
having a new job, if you can keep up this zeal and excitement day after
day, in ten years you will own every sock in the United States.”
* * * * *
My amazement at his pride and joy in salesmanship will be easily
understood by all who read this article. In many shops the customer has
to wait for some one to wait upon him. And when finally some clerk does
deign to notice you, you are made to feel as if you were interrupting
him. Either he is absorbed in profound thought in which he hates to
be disturbed or he is skylarking with a girl clerk and you feel like
apologising for thrusting yourself into such intimacy.
He displays no interest either in you or in the goods he is paid to
sell. Yet possibly that very clerk who is now so apathetic began his
career with hope and enthusiasm. The daily grind was too much for him;
the novelty wore off; his only pleasures were found outside of working
hours. He became a mechanical, not an inspired, salesman. After being
mechanical, he became incompetent; then he saw younger clerks who
had more zest in their work, promoted over him. He became sour and
nourished a grievance. That was the last stage. His usefulness was over.
I have observed this melancholy decline in the lives of so many men in
so many occupations that I have come to the conclusion that the surest
road to failure is to do things mechanically. There is, for example,
no greater literature in the world than the Bible and no more exciting
subject than religion. Yet I have heard many ministers of the gospel
read the Bible in their churches with no interest and no emphasis,
whereas they ought to read it as if they had just received it by
wireless from Almighty God. I have heard hundreds of sermons preached
mechanically, with no more appeal than if the speaker were a parrot.
There are many teachers in schools and colleges who seem duller than
the dullest of their pupils; they go through the motions of teaching,
but they are as impersonal as a telephone.
* * * * *
In reading that remarkable book, _The Americanization of Edward Bok_, I
was impressed by what he said of competition in business. Beginning as
a very young man in a certain occupation, he had expected to encounter
the severest competition. As a matter of fact, he met no competition at
all, and found that success was the easiest thing in the world, if one
provided the conditions necessary for it.
He worked along with a number of other young men in the business. He
was the only one who ever got to the place ahead of time. At the noon
hour at lunch the other youngsters never on a single occasion mentioned
the business in which they were engaged. They talked of their girls, or
of athletic sports, or of various dissipations. He was the only man who
ever remained after business hours, and he was convinced that he was
the only one who ever occupied his mind with the business during his
evenings.
He rose above the others with consummate ease, and for two obvious
reasons: First, he made himself indispensable; second, he found his
chief pleasure in his work, not in the dissipations outside of it.
It is simple enough for any one to be attracted by the novelty of a
new job. The real difficulty is to keep up that initial enthusiasm
every day of one’s life, to go to work every morning with zest and
excitement. I believe that a man should live every day as if that day
were his first and his last day on earth.
Every person needs some relaxation, some recreation; but a man’s
chief happiness should not lie outside his daily work, but in it. The
chief difference between the happiness of childhood and the happiness
of maturity is that the child’s happiness is dependent on something
different from the daily routine--a picnic, an excursion, a break of
some kind. But to the right sort of men and women happiness is found
in the routine itself, not in departures from it. Instead of hoping
for a change, one hopes there will be no change, that one will have
sufficient health to continue in one’s chosen occupation. The child has
pleasures; the man has happiness. But unfortunately some men remain
children all their lives.
VI
AN INSPIRING CEMETERY
Americans should not leave Florence without spending some reflective
hours in the so-called Protestant cemetery. The grave of Elizabeth
Barrett Browning is adorned with a beautiful marble tomb designed by
the famous artist Leighton, and the only inscription thereupon is
“E. B. B. Ob. 1861.”
Not far away lies the famous poet, Walter Savage Landor, who died in
1864 at the age of eighty-nine. His grave is covered with a flat stone.
Here is a poem he wrote about it:
Twenty years hence, though it may hap
That I be called to take a nap
In a cool cell where thunder clap
Was never heard,
There breathe but o’er my arch of grass,
A not too sadly sigh’d “Alas!”
And I shall catch ere you can pass,
That wingéd word.
The last time I was in Florence I bent over his grave and with
deliberate emphasis I whispered “Alas!” I do not know whether he heard
me or not.
Robert and Elizabeth Browning made the poet’s later years as happy as
was possible for one of his temperament; they secured a villa for him,
furnished it, hired servants and did what they could. He was wildly
irascible, and if he did not like a meal that was served, he grabbed
the table-cloth, and twitched all the food and dishes on to the floor.
All his life he was a fighting man, which makes the beautiful Farewell
he wrote somewhat incongruous.
THE LAST FRUIT OF AN OLD TREE
I strove with none; for none was worth my strife.
Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art;
I warmed both hands before the fire of life.
It sinks and I am ready to depart.
In order to fit my own feelings, I should have to make some slight
changes in his poem, so that the amended version would read as follows:
I strove with none. I always hated strife.
Nature I loved, and God and Man and Art.
I warmed both hands before the fire of life;
It sinks--yet I’m not ready to depart.
Landor was sometimes in a more jovial mood, as in his invitation to
Tennyson:
I entreat you, Alfred Tennyson,
Come and share my haunch of venison.
I have too a bin of claret,
Good, but better when you share it.
Tho’ ’tis only a small bin,
There’s a stock of it within.
And as sure as I’m a rhymer,
Half a butt of Rudesheimer.
Come; among the sons of men is one
Welcomer than Alfred Tennyson?
Along the path leading to Mrs. Browning’s tomb is the grave of the
English poet, Arthur Hugh Clough (pronounced Cluff), who crossed the
ocean with Thackeray and James Russell Lowell and whose most famous
poem is _Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth_. He died in 1861
the same year as Mrs. Browning, at the early age of 42. He was a
distinguished scholar of Balliol college, Oxford. He expressed in his
poems the doubts and struggles that have afflicted so many honest and
candid minds.
Where lies the land to which the ship would go?
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.
And where the land she travels from? Away,
Far, far behind, is all that they can say.
On sunny noons upon the deck’s smooth face,
Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace;
Or, o’er the stern reclining, watch below
The foaming wake far widening as we go.
On stormy nights when wild northwesters rave,
How proud a thing to fight with wind and wave!
The dripping sailor on the reeling mast,
Exults to bear, and scorns to wish it past.
Where lies the land to which the ship would go?
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.
And where the land she travels from? Away.
Far, far behind, is all that they can say.
In addition to the three great English poets who are buried in this
cemetery, two famous Americans lie there, Richard Hildreth and Theodore
Parker. When I was an undergraduate, I asked Prof. W. G. Sumner what
was the best History of the United States that had ever been written;
he answered gruffly and without a word of qualification, “Hildreth’s!”
Accordingly, I read every word of the six volumes. Many years later I
had the unique pleasure of telling Sumner something he had not known;
I told him I had done homage at Hildreth’s grave in Florence, and he
was surprised to learn that the historian was buried there. If any
one believes that the contemporary custom of “debunking” historical
characters is new, he should read Hildreth’s Preface to his History.
“Of centennial sermons and Fourth of July orations, whether
professedly such or in the guise of history, there are more than
enough. It is due to our fathers and ourselves, it is due to truth
and philosophy, to present for once, on the historic stage, the
founders of our American nation unbedaubed with patriotic rouge,
wrapped up in no fine-spun cloaks of excuses and apology, without
stilts, buskins, tinsel, or bedizenment, in their own proper
persons.”
VII
ANCIENT FOOTBALL
Attacks on the American game of football are often more sensational
than the game itself. Some volley out statistics of injuries, in which
we see the names of persons “crippled for life” whom we know to be
unlike their biographers in that they are both well and cheerful;
others descant wildly on the evils of betting and the drunkenness
attendant upon a great match; others deplore the time and attention
robbed from study; some believe the rivalry of two strong teams causes
prolonged bitterness and hatred; some regard the intense earnestness of
training as both silly and harmful; some assert that the players on the
field behave like ruffians, and some, like the old Puritans, hate the
game not because they really think it wicked but because they secretly
hate to see eighty thousand people out for a holiday.
There is no doubt that football, like every other sport and recreation,
is open to many serious objections. Certain players are every year
killed and wounded, though the mortality is nothing like so great as
that resulting from automobile accidents and week-end celebrations. It
is certainly true that betting and dissipation accompany the game; it
is true that many young men sit on the benches, cheering and singing,
when they might be studying in the seclusion of their rooms.
It is true that the American spirit--always ambitious of success--makes
every member of a university team train with an earnestness that seems
tragi-comic to the nonathletic observer. But the immense advantages
of this most robust of all sports outweigh all its attendant evils.
For football is much more than a contest of animal vigour; in the
language of Professor Stagg, who was a moralist before he was an
athlete, “Football surpasses every other game in its demand for a high
combination of physical, mental and moral qualities.”
This article, however, is not written for the purpose of defending
modern football but rather to show that the game thus far has not only
flourished in spite of attacks but that there has been a tremendous
rise in its respectability since the days of Queen Elizabeth. I cannot
just now remember anything on which the Puritans and the playwrights
were then agreed, except their opinion of football. What Shakespeare
thought of it may be seen in the epithet which Kent applies to one of
the most odious characters in _King Lear_. Tripping up Oswald, he calls
him “you base football player.”
Modern legislators must rejoice at finding that they have plenty of
precedents for legal prohibition of the game. In 1424 we find “The King
forbiddes that na man play fut ball under payne of iiiid.” Sir Thomas
Elyot remarked, in 1531, “Foote balle, wherin is nothing but beastly
furie and exstreme violence.”
If in Elizabethan days the dramatists, who were not noted for their
piety, attacked football, what shall we expect from the Puritans? The
most circumstantial indictment of the game came from a Puritan of
Puritans, Philip Stubbs. In his _Anatomie of Abuses_ (1583) he thus
denounces the sport:
For as concerning football playing, I protest vnto you it may
rather be called a frieendly kinde of fight, then a play of
recreation; A bloody and murthering practise, then a felowly
sporte or pastime. For dooth not euery one lye in waight for his
Aduersarie, seeking to ouerthrowe him & to picke him on his nose,
though it be vppon hard stones? In ditch or dale, in valley or hil,
or what place soeuer it be, hee careth not, so he haue him down.
And he that can serue the most of this fashion, he is counted the
only felow, and who but he? so that by this meanes, sometimes
their necks are broken, sometimes their backs, sometime their
legs, sometime their armes; sometime one part thrust out of ioynt,
sometime another. Sometime the noses gush out with blood, sometime
their eyes start out; and sometimes hurt in one place, sometimes in
another. But whosoeuer scapeth away the best, goeth not scotfree,
but is either sore wounded, craised, and bruiseed so as he dyeth
of it, or else scapeth very hardly, and no meruaile, for they haue
the sleights to meet one betwixt two, to dash him against the hart
with their elbowes, to hit him vnder the short ribbes with their
griped fists, and with their knees to catch him vpon the hip, and
to pick him on his neck, with a hundred such murdering deuices; and
hereof groweth enuie, malice, rancour, cholor, hatred, displeasure,
enemities, and what not els; and sometimes fighting, brawling,
contention, quarrel picking, murther, homicide, and great effusion
of blood, as experience dayely teacheth.
In the attack just quoted the most interesting thing to the modern
reader is that precisely the same objections were made to the game as
we hear today.
In the robust days of Queen Bess football was regarded as low and
vulgar; it received the denunciation of the Church and the more potent
frown of fashionable society. Today at a great university match
prominent clergymen are seen even on the sidelines; the bleachers bloom
with lovely women, and in a conspicuous place stands the President of
the United States.
VIII
RIVERS
On the first of several agreeable visits to Carbondale in southern
Illinois, whither I went to address the best of all audiences--public
school teachers--I enquired of the superintendent, Mr. Black, as to the
precise distance that separated us from the Mississippi river. I told
him I loved all rivers, and this one particularly. I had seen it at St.
Paul, at St. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans. I wished to see it far
from the noise, smoke and artificiality of cities. I wished to see it
naked. He informed me that he was the proud owner of an open Ford car,
that the Father of Waters was only eighteen miles away, and that he
would lead me to it that very afternoon.
It was a charming day in early spring. I stood on the bank of the
mighty Mississippi. There was no town, settlement, not even a house in
sight. The glorious old river at this point was one mile wide, fifty
feet deep, and running seven miles an hour. Away up stream on the
Missouri side the trees were in the living green of April; and the
flood came rolling along in silent majesty.
I thought of the old seventeenth century poet, Denham, and what he said
of another river.
Oh, could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!
Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;
Strong without rage, without o’erflowing full.
Every river has a fascination for me, because it is alive. In a green
landscape, or in a rocky gorge, or in the midst of a forest, or
dividing a city, it gives to every scene the element of life. Living
waters flowing through meadows, over sands, between mountains are
always moving, progressing, going somewhere. If one climbs a hill,
and looks off on a vast expanse of fresh woods and pastures new, and
suddenly sees a river, the heart leaps up with recognition.
Looking at a map--the expressive face of the world--I have often wished
to follow the course of various rivers. I should like to go down the
Amazon, the Yukon, and the Yangtze. Each river has a personality. Most
rivers that empty into the ocean are tidal; their current is pushed
backward by the incoming sea. But the Amazon is so mighty that it
overcomes the force of the tide and transforms the ocean into fresh
water. Unless voyagers and novelists are abandoned liars, one can be
off the coast of South America, out of sight of land and dip up fresh
water, so tremendous and far-reaching is the shove of the Amazon. Its
mouth is so wide that one could place in it crosswise, the whole Hudson
river from New York to Albany, without touching either shore.
The personality of the Mississippi is striking. In the greatest of all
Mark Twain’s contributions to literature, the first volume of _Life on
the Mississippi_, he gives us marvellous impressions of the character
and behaviour of the stream. And in one of the foremost novels of our
time, Charles Stewart’s _Partners of Providence_, the peculiar habits
and whims of the Mississippi are set forth. It quite rightly regards
itself as socially superior to the Missouri; so much so, in fact, that
for some time after the entrance of the Missouri into its waters,
the Mississippi positively refuses to have anything to do with the
interloper.
In the old days “before the war” (our war), luxurious passenger
steamers plied from St. Louis to New Orleans; and I understand that,
after the lapse of many years, we are to have similar vessels. This
is as it should be; an immense amount of American literature and
history, from De Soto to Edna Ferber, is associated with this river,
and the opportunity of travelling on it should be given to all
Americans. I have not yet abandoned my youthful dream of travelling on
the Mississippi from St. Paul to St. Louis, and from St. Louis to New
Orleans.
I never miss a good chance for a river voyage. One has the element of
adventure as one rounds the next bend. I have been on the rivers of
southern Florida, I have been on the Savannah river in Georgia, and the
last time I was at Vanderbilt university, in Nashville, friends gave me
a memorable excursion on the Cumberland. One of the most interesting
of all inland voyages in the United States is to take the steamer from
Norfolk to Richmond on the James. From seven in the morning to eight at
night it is a panorama of American history.
The word river occurs many times in the Bible, and think of the part
played in the story of mankind by the Euphrates, the Nile, and the
Jordan! The Bible begins and ends with a river. In the second chapter
of Genesis, we read “And a river went out of Eden to water the garden,”
a lovely spectacle, for Paradise would never have been complete without
a river. In the last chapter of Revelation, we read, “And he showed me
a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the
throne of God and of the Lamb.”
It is curious when the Bible speaks of the River of Life--“on either
side of the river there was the tree of life”--that the idea should
persist of the River of Death. This is a heathen and pagan idea and has
no place in Jewish or Christian thought. Many people speak solemnly of
crossing the river--they get the notion either from Greek mythology
or from Bunyan’s _Pilgrim’s Progress_, or metaphorically, from the
Promised Land lying on the other side of the Jordan.
In reality the Bible tells us that both the earthly and the heavenly
Paradise had a river to refresh and gladden the people.
Without sermonising too grossly, we may say that a river is like a
human life. The source is often obscure and humble, then a tiny stream,
then growing bigger and more important (the widening of influence),
then flowing tranquilly (prosperous, happy days), then getting into
sand flats, hardly moving (serious illness), then roaring tempestuously
in rapids (times of excitement and adventure), yet going on, somehow
and somewhere.
Furthermore, they always arrive ultimately at the same destination--the
mysterious open sea, leaving narrow circumstances for a deeper and
greater existence.
And even those streams that seem to perish without fulfilling their
destiny, are in their subsequent influence like the lives of obscurely
good men. Some travellers in a desert came to a bit of green meadow
where a river once had been.
IX
ONE DAY AT A TIME
On a certain morning in the year 1900 I called on President Eliot at
his office in Harvard University. He was in a gracious mood and we
talked of many things. As I rose to leave I said I hoped I might always
have the privilege of calling on him whenever I came to Cambridge. He
remarked gravely (in every sense of that word): “The next time you come
I may not be here.”
“What’s the matter? Are you going to resign?” “Resign? Certainly not.
But, remember, I am sixty-six years old.” The only answer to that was a
laugh, which I provided spontaneously.
Now if the distinguished president of Harvard had known then that
twenty-five years after this interview, he would be in the full
possession of his physical and mental faculties, even though he had
ceased to possess the Harvard one, he would have wasted not a single
moment on the thought of his approaching death. And if gold rusts, what
shall iron do?