recent novelists, Thomas Hardy, says that the novel should tell a
story. The average school-boy knows that a book by Wright, Porter or
Grey will have a good story. The majority of our novelists either will
not or can not tell a story. All they have is a time-plot, beginning
with the smells the baby had in his cradle, of no interest to any one
except the novelist, going on with his fights and loves at school,
etc., etc. Most people are like the Sultan in the Arabian Nights,
they love a good story; Wright, Porter and Grey furnish it. The lives
of most boys and girls are not romantic or unusual; in the novel
they get an escape from life, a change of air, a vacation; and there
is nothing boys love more than a vacation. Again, however deficient
in conduct boys and girls may be, they instinctively love courage,
honour, truth, beauty, magnanimity; the novels of the Terrible Three
all work for righteousness. In the eternal conflict between good and
evil, these Greatest Common Divisors are on the right side; even if
they do not know much about style, or much about psychology, or much
about subtlety of motive, they do know the difference between right
and wrong, something that some much bepraised novelists seem to have
forgotten or to think unimportant.
I do not believe the majority of supercilious critics and other
cultivated mature readers began in early youth by reading great books
exclusively; I think they read _Jack Harkaway_, and _Old Sleuth_, and
the works of Oliver Optic and Horatio Alger. From these enchanters they
learned a thing of importance--the delight of reading. Once having
learned that having found that a book, easily procurable, is the key to
happy recreation, they obtained a never-failing resource of happiness.
A similar thing is observable in poetry. If a boy learns to love highly
exciting narrative poetry, or pretty sentiments set to easy tunes, it
is more probable that he will later love great poetry than if he never
caught the lilt of words in youth.
Nothing that I have said is at variance with one of my oft-expressed
beliefs--those parents who are not only interested in the welfare of
their children, but are capable of setting them a good example, do
not need to use the Greatest Common Divisor so often. They can by
sympathetic intercourse with their children, and by patience, bring
them up from the start on the Bible, Shakespeare, Bunyan, Swift, Defoe
and other writers of genius; but a large number of boys and girls
come to our schools from uncultivated homes, and from parents who are
stupid, or selfish, or silly; these children must learn the magic
of books, and it is my belief that the makers of exciting stories,
with sentiment laid on thick, with heroes and heroines who are brave,
honourable and virtuous are performing a public service.
XLVI
THE GREAT AMERICAN GAME
Baseball is American in its origin, development and area. It is also
American in its dynamic qualities of speed and force, and in the
shortness of time required to play a full game and reach a decision.
Americans do not love serial games like cricket; in literature they are
better at writing short stories than at novels, and they enjoy games
where a verdict is soon reached.
Looking back over the history of this national pastime, I can remember
when the pitcher was allowed nine balls before losing his man, and one
year in the last century it took four strikes to retire the batsman. I
can also remember when a foul ball caught on the first bound was “out,”
when a foul tip--often successfully imitated by clever catchers--was
“out,” and I played the game many years before an uncaught foul was a
strike. In order to have a wider radius for fouls, the catcher used to
stand far back, moving up behind the bat only after the second strike,
or when bases had the tenancy of opponents. Every advance in the rules
has been in the direction of speed; and at present the game seems
unimprovable.
Nearly every game has some inherent defect; as putting is sixty-five
per cent of golf, so pitching is sixty-five per cent of baseball.
Moral: Be a good putter, and see that your nine has a good pitcher.
Pitching seems to be a greater physical and mental strain than in the
last century, although the box artist does not pitch so many balls
in the average game as he used to. In spite of that fact, Radbourne
of Providence, who was the greatest professional pitcher I ever saw,
won the national championship for his team in 1884 by pitching every
day for a long period. And his team-mate, the late John M. Ward, who
afterwards joined New York, told me that in 1879 he pitched sixty-six
consecutive games! The universal disease of nerves, from which no
twentieth century American is exempt, is probably responsible for the
more careful treatment of pitchers today.
On July 23, 1884, the Providence club, then in the National league,
was crippled for pitchers. Radbourne went into the box from that date
until September 26 when he had won the National league pennant, daily,
except August 2, 18, 20. He pitched thirty-six games during that
period, twenty-two on consecutive days, and winning eighteen. Of the
thirty-six, he won thirty-one, lost four, and tied one.
Tim Keefe in 1888 broke Radbourne’s record for straight games won,
by winning nineteen, and Marquard in 1912 equalled Keefe’s. Next to
Radbourne comes Joe Wood, with sixteen straight, won in 1912.
Radbourne’s total feat for the 1884 season of pitching seventy-seven
games (seventy-four National league championships and three world
series, winning three straight in the world series--no other pitcher
was used) is another record that stands.
The greatest baseball player of all time is Tyrus Raymond Cobb, of
Georgia. He not only holds an unexampled batting record, his speed in
the outfield was so great that he was moved from right to centre, and
in his base-running it is not much to say that he raised the art to
a higher plane. Ordinarily, the best of players was content to steal
second, but if Cobb saw that the ball was not going to beat him to the
second bag, he kept right on to third. The bewildered second baseman,
who naturally had a psychological caesura when the attempted play
failed, had to begin all over again in order to catch his parting guest
at third. And, flustered as he was by the sheer audacity of the thing,
he was apt to be wild. Cobb capitalised his reputation; he knew the
basemen were all “laying for him,” and owing to that curse which has
always afflicted humanity, which makes it more difficult to do a thing
in proportion to one’s desire to do it, they found it more of a task
to retire Cobb than to retire anyone else. If they had not known it
was Cobb, they could have got him. Mr. Cobb told me once that it was
largely a matter of mind reading; he had to out-guess his opponents, he
had to know what they were going to do. Certainly his stealing of bases
has been phenomenal; he would steal first base if he could.
His ambitious, fiery, high-strung disposition, which is largely
responsible for his success, has also caused him to lose his temper
on the field. This is regrettable, and of course, must be punished.
And yet I have some sympathy for these lapses, and do not condemn
them unqualifiedly as some colder judges do. The anxiety to win is
what enrages a player when things go wrong, and I fully understand it
though I recognise its sinfulness. Although I myself was very carefully
brought up by a pious father and mother, and although I had the
unspeakable advantage of being a Yale graduate, I once threw a bat at
an umpire when he called me out on strikes. In order to atone for this
sin, I have often--like Doctor Johnson--stood unprotected in the rain,
when I had no umbrella.
The greatest baseball pitcher in Yale’s history was Amos Alonzo Stagg,
of the class of 1888. He won the championship over both Harvard and
Princeton five successive years, pitching in every championship game.
He headed the batting order, was a fine base-runner, and in minor
games, played behind the bat, on the bases and in the outfield. He knew
baseball thoroughly. He never had great speed, or wide curves; but he
had marvellous control and a memory that was uncanny. If a batsman
faced him once, Stagg never forgot him, and thereafter never gave that
batsman anything he wanted.
Carter, of the class of ’95, was a great pitcher and all-round ball
player, as different in other respects from Stagg as could well be
imagined. Stagg was very short; Carter was six foot four. Carter had
blinding speed with tremendous curves. But if you compare his record
of championships with that of his predecessor, you will see why I rate
him second to Stagg. These two men, are, I think, Yale’s foremost box
heroes.
Baseball is not so spectacular as football, but in one respect it has a
great advantage over its more lusty rival. Everyone sees what happens
in baseball; the spectator sees every play, and he knows instantly
the reason for every success and every failure. In football the ball
is concealed in the line, very few can see exactly what has happened,
and no one knows whether a run or a touchdown is going to count or
not, until the official has given his consent; and if he withholds his
approval, and the ball is brought back, the spectators do not know why.
XLVII
TEN SIXTY-SIX
All persons who speak the English language should never forget the year
1066, for although it bloomed and faded long ago, it was an important
event in our lives. In that year William the Conqueror sailed across
the English Channel, landed on the south coast of England, and his
descendants and those of his party are there yet.
No wonder the British are proud of their naval and military history.
England is separated from the continent by only twenty miles; and yet
since 1066 not a single person has got into England and stayed there
without an invitation. For nearly nine hundred years England has
successfully repelled boarders. Many able and determined foes devoted
all their energies to realise their heart’s desire. The Spanish Armada
was a grandiose war-fleet, but Sir Francis Drake and the surface of
the Channel that has made so many tourists seasick, were too powerful
a combination for the gallant Spaniards. The dream of Napoleon was
to invade and possess England; the nearest he ever got to it was St.
Helena. There is an enormous column at Boulogne which was erected to
“commemorate the intention of Napoleon to invade England.” I knew that
intentions were often used as pavingstones in a certain locality;
but, like Browning’s futile lovers in _The Statue and the Bust_, the
immobility of the commemoration is an ironical commentary. In the World
War, the Central Powers were well-equipped for an expeditionary force
on land, water and air; the best-selling novel in Germany in 1916 was
called _General Hindenburg’s March into London_, but it was a work of
the imagination.
In reading Tennyson’s play _Harold_, it is interesting to see that his
sympathies are all with the Saxon king; and it is well to remember that
William could not have conquered England had not Harold been engaged in
a fatal civil war with his own brother Tostig. Was there ever a more
suicidal folly? When William landed, Harold was fighting away up in the
North in what is now Yorkshire; and he had to bring his army down to
the South coast through incredibly bad roads, and there meet the First
Soldier of Europe.
However and whatever Tennyson may have thought, William’s victory was
the best thing that ever happened to England and to those who now
speak English. The battle of Hastings meant much to Americans. Not only
was William a statesman and law-and-order man, he made English a world
language. By the addition of the Romance languages to Anglo-Saxon, he
doubled the richness of our vocabulary; English is a gorgeous hash of
Teutonic and Latin tongues. But William did far more for us than that.
Anglo-Saxon, the language spoken by Harold in London, is more unlike
the language spoken by King George V than the language of Virgil in
Rome is unlike the language spoken by Mussolini. Anglo-Saxon is a
difficult language, as difficult for a beginner as German; furthermore,
it is inflected. William, although he did not know it, made English the
universal language, the clearing-house of human speech in the twentieth
century. It is easier for an American to learn either French or German
than it is for a German to learn French or a Frenchman to learn German.
Not only are there many words in English which are like French words,
but the most blessed result of this victory in 1066 was the eventual
simplification of English grammar and syntax.
If William had not conquered England, it is probable that today English
speech would have inflexions and grammatical gender. George Moore says
that he dislikes English, it is a lean language, the adjective does not
agree with the noun--I say, thank Heaven for that! With the exception
of pronunciation, the English language is ridiculously simple and easy;
any foreigner can learn to write, read and understand English in a
short time, and he can learn to speak it with fluent inaccuracy. What
a blessed thing for a foreigner who must learn English to know that
when he learns the name of a thing that name does not change. A book is
always a book, no matter what you do with it. Now, if William had not
conquered England, every time you did anything to a book, the accursed
word would change. “The book is mine,” but “I take bookum,” “I go away
booke,” “I tear a page out bookes,” and so on. Then one would have to
discover and remember whether book were masculine, feminine, or neuter,
and every time one used an adjective, like “good book,” that miserable
adjective would have to agree with the book in gender, case and number.
When one sits down to dinner in a German hotel, one must remember that
the knife is neuter, the fork is feminine, and the spoon masculine,
and then one’s troubles have only begun. Remember what Mark Twain said
of German. How simple to have no case-ending, no gender, and almost
no grammar! No wonder English is becoming the world-language; it will
of course never drive out other languages, but it has already taken
the place occupied by Latin in the Middle Ages, and by French in the
eighteenth century. A man can go almost anywhere in the world with
English; and any foreigner who decides to learn one language besides
his own, must choose English. Anyhow they all do.
The only difficulty with our language is its pronunciation. Not only
are we the only people in the world who pronounce the vowels a, e, i,
as we do, there are so many exceptions that this rule does not always
apply. One has to learn the pronunciation of every word. Suppose a
foreigner learns _danger_, what will he do with _anger_? And having
finally learned both anger and danger, what will he do with _hanger_?
I never met but one foreigner who spoke English without a trace of
accent; that was the late Professor Beljame, who taught English at the
Sorbonne. He told me that he had practiced English every day for forty
years, and I afterward discovered that his mother was an Englishwoman.
One day I met a Polish gentleman who spoke English fluently, but with
much accent; he insisted that he spoke it as well as a native. I left
him alone for three hours with this sentence:
“Though the tough cough and hiccough plough me through”; and when I
came to hear him read it, I thought he was going to lose his mind.
XLVIII
GOING ABROAD THE FIRST TIME
There is no thrill like the first thrill. When Wilhelm Meister kissed
the Countess, Goethe said they tasted “the topmost sparkling foam on
the freshly poured cup of love,” and Goethe knew what he was talking
about. I shall always be glad that my first trip to Europe had three
features--I was young; the steamer was small; we landed at Antwerp.
I was twenty-five and in perfect health; my head was stuffed with
literature, descriptions and pictures shrieking for verification; my
mates and I rode bicycles across Europe and over the Alps; we lived
with impunity in cheap inns and on cheap food; we were soaked to the
skin by frequent rains; we were exposed to every inclemency of the air
and to innumerable germs in rooms, food and water; we were never sick.
We stored away memories which have been paying daily dividends.
It is not well to wait until one is old, for an American is, as a
rule, never physically comfortable in Europe. Unless one is reeking
with cash one is almost always chilly or damp or hungry or filled with
the wrong kind of food. But Europe has all the things an intelligent
American wants to see, and it is best to see them when one’s health is
rugged enough to rise above inconveniences.
I am glad I went on a small boat, for I asked a traveller who recently
returned on an enormous ship if the sea was rough: “I have no idea, I
never saw it.” Our little _Waesland_ had only one deck, and that was
sometimes awash. It was not a hotel, it was a ship. Finally, instead
of landing at Cherbourg at some unearthly hour, being transferred
to a squeaky lighter, and then to a train with long hours of travel
before one reached the destination, we steamed up the Scheldt past the
windmills and stepped off the boat right in the midst of one of the
most interesting cities in the world. The transition from America to
Europe was as dramatic as it could possibly be, unshaded by tenders
and trains. Thus I advise first-timers to sail either to London or to
Antwerp; you embark at New York and you disembark at the desired haven.
I love Europe, London, Paris, Munich, Florence, with inexpressible
fervour; but I can never recapture the first careless rapture. I
remember after that fine first afternoon and evening in Antwerp,
when we walked about in ecstasy in the rain, we bicycled to Bonn from
Cologne, and that evening before going to bed in the little Rhenish
inn, I looked out from my bedroom window on the river and on the roofs
of the quaint old town, and I said, “Is it real or is it a dream?”
The next day was a fulfillment; for when my classmate, George Pettee,
and I were sophomores, we were sitting in the top gallery of the
theatre watching a picture of the Rhineland put on the screen by John
L. Stoddard. One of us turned to the other and whispered: “I’ll shake
hands with you on standing on that spot within seven years.” The answer
was, “You’re on!” We had no money and no prospect of getting any; but
in five years, not seven, we stood on that identical spot, and as we
leaned our bicycles up against the road wall, we reminded each other of
the night in the gallery. It is pleasant to dream; but it is pleasanter
to make the dream come true.
The most beautiful country I have ever seen is England. It has not the
majesty of Switzerland, but it has everything else. Almost exactly the
same size as North Carolina or Michigan, it has an amazing variety
of scenery and climate. As one approaches it from the Atlantic, the
cliffs of Cornwall look austere and forbidding; but there the roses
bloom in January. Stand almost anywhere in Devonshire, and you see the
meadows leaning on the sky; they are separated from one another not by
stone fences, or by split-rails or barbed wire, but by hedgerows in
self-conscious bloom; Salisbury Plain is like Western Nebraska, a far
horizon; the misty slopes of the Sussex downs reach dreamily to the
sea. Every few miles in England the topography changes; could anything
be more different than those different counties?
But we do not go to England for natural scenery, though we might well
do so; we go because in England every scene is, in the phrase of Henry
James, “peopled with recognitions.” The things that we have seen in
imagination we see in reality; there they are! The September afternoon
when I bicycled alone to Stoke Poges and saw the churchyard in the
twilight exactly as it was in 1750 when Gray described it, I fell on
my knees. As we looked from the top of the hill down into Canterbury,
the setting sun glorified the Cathedral; as we stood on the most solemn
promontory in England, Land’s End, and gazed into the yeasty waves at
the foot of the cliff, I remembered Tennyson’s lines:
One showed an iron coast and angry waves.
You seemed to hear them climb and fall
And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves,
Beneath the windy wall.
And here one of the Wesley brothers wrote the familiar hymn about the
narrow neck of land and the divided seas.
One day, talking with an Englishman on the train, I raved about
Warwickshire and about Devon. “Ah,” said he, “if you haven’t seen the
valley of the Wye you haven’t seen England.” Accordingly, we went to
the little town of Ross in the West; there we hired a rowboat, and
two stalwart sons of Britain rowed us many miles down the stream.
Occasionally, the river was so shallow they poled us over the pebbly
bottom; sometimes it was so narrow we could almost touch the shores;
then it would widen out nobly, and we saw the white-faced Hereford
cattle feeding in green pastures. “What castle is that?” I asked,
pointing to a ruin on a hill. “That is Goodrich Castle, sir.” And that
is where Wordsworth met the little girl who knew her departed brother
and sister were alive. We moved by Monmouth, sacred to Henry V, the
Roosevelt of kings; we came to Tintern Abbey, and you may be sure we
stopped there; whatever you see, don’t miss the valley of the Wye.
XLIX
SPIRITUAL HEALING
I believe that the average man or woman today needs one thing more than
he needs anything else--spiritual healing. I believe this is truer of
the men and women of our age than of those of any preceding epoch--and
I believe they need it more than they need material luxuries, increase
of mechanical resources, yes, more than they need mental tonics or
emotional inspiration.
The people of the United States are suffering from “nerves.” Now the
casualties in diseases of the nerves are large, because, as is well
known, in cases of nervous prostration everybody dies except the
patient. I shall not say that America won the war, but anyhow America
was on the winning side. We were triumphantly victorious; we are the
only rich and prosperous nation on earth. Americans are the only
people in the world who are physically comfortable in bad weather. But
although there is a steady increase in physical luxuries, I am not sure
of a steady increase in serene happiness, in the calm that comes from
mental contentment, in an approach toward universal peace of mind.
What shall we say of a prosperous and rich nation whose prosperity and
wealth are accompanied by an epidemic of suicide?
We are overwrought, tense, excited; our casual conversations are
pimpled with adjectives; our letters are written in italics, and--a
sure sign of fever--there has been an increase in cursing and swearing.
Many respectable persons show a proficiency in this verbal art that
used to be chiefly characteristic of lumberjacks and longshoremen. We
become colossally excited about trivial things. Sometimes when I find
myself in a state of almost insane irritation over some trifle I seem
to hear the quiet voice of Emerson speaking from the grave--Why so hot,
little man?
In a charming comedy by Clare Kummer, in which that beautiful and
accomplished actress the late Lola Fisher took the leading part, one of
her speeches explained that when she was a child her mother told her
that whenever she felt herself rising to a boiling point she must stop
for a moment and say aloud, “Be calm, Camilla.” That was the name of
the play, “Be Calm, Camilla”--and there are many Camillas who need that
relaxation.
It is characteristic of the American temperament that it needs mental
sedatives more than spurs; and yet thousands of Americans are looking
around all the time for something with a “kick” in it. How often we
hear in casual conversation the phrase, “I got a fearful kick out of
that.” What they need is not a kick, but a poultice; not a prod, but a
cool, healing hand.