other nation, there are times when almost any person would profit by
such treatment. The experience of John Stuart Mill is not unusual. He
was carefully brought up by his father without religious training.
When he was twenty-five years old he fell into a state of profound
depression. A cloud of melancholia settled on his mind and heart,
so that he not only lost interest in life but felt that the world
had no meaning. We know that King Saul was relieved from the evil
spirit of nervous melancholy by music; but Mill loved music, and yet
in his crisis music failed him. Fortunately, he turned to the poetry
of Wordsworth. Now of all the great poets Wordsworth is the best
healer, because he drew balm from objects within everybody’s reach.
The “Nature” that Wordsworth writes about does not require a long and
expensive journey, like going South in winter or travelling to distant
mountains. This poet wrote about the simple things in nature--the
things that can be seen from the front door or from the back yard.
The novelist George Gissing, who had been chronically tortured by
two desperate evils, grinding poverty and ill health, was, owing to
a fortunate circumstance, able to live in solitude for a time in the
charming county of Devon, in southwest England. The result of his
meditations appeared in a book, first published in 1903, called _The
Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft_. This is a book of healing, and I
recommend it to everybody, for I do not know any one who could not
profit by it. As Mill had suffered from intellectual depression and
been cured by Wordsworth, so Gissing, who had suffered from poverty and
sickness, cured himself by preserving the fruit of his communion with
nature:
I had stepped into a new life. Between the man I had been and
that which I now became there was a very notable difference. In
a single day I had matured astonishingly; which means, no doubt,
that I suddenly entered into conscious enjoyment of powers and
sensibilities which had been developing unknown to me.
“I had matured astonishingly.” Isn’t that what is really the matter
with us, that we haven’t grown up? We are like children crying for the
moon, when the riches of the earth are within our reach. Our pursuit
of excitement and our resultant sufferings are largely childish. It is
unfortunate to suffer from infantile diseases when we are old.
I have been reading a new novel, a book of healing, which most new
novels are not. It is curious that so many are eagerly reading new
novels and seeing new plays whose only purpose is to stimulate animal
instincts which need no stimulation. Or they are reading new novels
which distress and torment a mind already tumultuously confused. Be
calm, Camilla.
The book I allude to was published in 1927. It is called _Winterwise_
and is written by Zephine Humphrey. It describes a winter spent in
a lonely farmhouse in Vermont, a State not yet famous as a winter
resort--except for those who think only of winter in connexion with
violent athletics. The book is full of deep, tranquil wisdom. It points
out sources of abiding happiness--happiness that no disaster can
permanently remove.
L
SUPERSTITION
The best definition of superstition that I can remember was made by
James Russell Lowell--“Superstition, by which I mean the respecting of
that which we are told to respect rather than that which is respectable
in itself.” Mental slavery is always degrading; and superstition is a
form of slavery, because the mind is subjected to fear. As Notoriety is
the bastard sister of Reputation, so Superstition is the bastard sister
of Religion. The difference between the two can be easily and simply
expressed, but it is literally all the difference in the world. The
most elevating influence known to man is Religion; the least elevating
is Superstition.
The instinctive pessimism of humanity is shown in many careless phrases
such as “It’s too good to be true.” The majority of men and women
believe that hopes are illusory, but fears accurately foretell the
coming event. Yet any sensible old man or old woman will tell us that
nearly all the fears and worries from which they themselves suffered
almost daily during a long life really never materialised. They
suffered for nothing. We learn little from their experience, but go on
our way filled with apprehension and alarm. Shakespeare said the brave
man dies only once, but cowards die a thousand times in fearing death.
I suppose most of us are cowards. Although we are still in good enough
health to carry on, we have already died of cancer, tuberculosis, and
many other diseases.
Many social superstitions were cured by that great turning point in
history, the French Revolution. The world has never been quite the
same since the year 1789. Before that date, people really believed
that those who were born in noble and royal families were superior to
the common herd; after that date the nobility still believed it, but
the common people did not agree. They found they had been respecting
that which they had been told to respect, rather than that which is
respectable in itself. A Frenchman remarked, “The great appear to us
great because we are kneeling--let us rise.” In 1789 everybody stood up.
It is foolish to respect any person or any institution unless it is
respectable.
The religion of many unenlightened people seems to be based largely
on fear, in which case it is of course not religion at all, but rank
superstition. James Whitcomb Riley told me of a remark made by a small
boy to his mother at bedtime. He jumped into bed, and to the question
of his mother, “What, aren’t you going to say your prayers?” the child
answered, “No, I ain’t going to say my prayers tonight, and I ain’t
going to say ’em tomorrow night, nor the next night. And then if
nothing happens, I ain’t ever going to say ’em again.”
This all-too-typical boy looked upon prayer as a means of warding off
danger, and he was sufficiently intelligent and sufficiently brave to
risk its omission. But if he had been brought up to believe that prayer
is neither a charm against peril nor a method of getting what you want,
that prayer was intimate communion with a Divine Friend, he would have
looked upon it from a different point of view. George Meredith told his
son never to ask any material thing from God, but to pray to Him every
day of his life.
Now many men and women have the religious maturity of a small boy,
which is infinitely worse than having the religion of a little child.
They never pray except when they are in danger, or when they think they
are going into danger, or when they have suffered from some calamity.
That is like speaking to a friend only when you want to borrow money.
The profound wisdom of mysticism consists not in making use of God, but
in hoping and believing that God will make some use of us.
The base-born idea that God is against us is accompanied by the idea
that He may be placated or humoured. In Richard Halliburton’s exciting
account of his adventures in southern countries, he tells us how the
pagan priests used to sacrifice thousands of young maidens to their
deity. It would seem, looking back on history, that the more abominable
the religion, the fewer the atheists. Every sensible person in those
countries ought to have been an atheist.
Now although many “enlightened” people today laugh at the terrible
fears and even more terrible remedies of those intellectual slaves,
they themselves are not very much wiser. It is highly probable that the
majority of Americans today would not dare to say “I haven’t had a bad
cold this winter” without touching wood. Some of them might grin as
they touched it, but they would touch it just the same. Such a gesture
is intellectually and morally contemptible.
But many are even poorer in brains. For many would not dare to say that
they had not had a cold this winter, with or without wood in reach.
They believe that if you express anything pleasant, you will soon “get
your come-uppance.” God seems to lie in wait for us, and the moment
we seem satisfied or happy or even prominent, He will teach us who
is running the show. The best thing therefore is never to appear too
happy. For many, who have been foolish enough to say aloud, “I haven’t
had a cold this winter,” wake up the next morning snuffling. “Now you
see what I’ve got! If I’d only had sense enough to keep my mouth shut,
I would have been all right. But of course I had to brag about it!”
The most degrading of all superstitions is the belief that God can be
placated, appeased, or diverted, as we humour a refractory boy or a
drunken man. This abominable idea sometimes takes an extremely tragic
form, as when the Indian mother throws her own baby into the Ganges.
“Now, God, you’ve got to be good to me! I’ve given you the best thing I
had!”
Sometimes it takes a merely silly form, as when one gives up some
pleasant little luxury; not with the great idea of drawing nearer to
God by removing an obstacle, but with the absurd idea of bargaining
with Him.
LI
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE EARTH
Perhaps nothing nowadays is a more common target for ridicule than
the hustler and booster, whether he boosts as an individual or as a
member of a service organisation. The man whose motto is “bigger and
better business,” a bigger town, with a bigger population and bigger
buildings, is laughed at for his enthusiasm and for his perspiring
efforts. Much of this laughter is merely the cynical adverse criticism
of men who have never done anything themselves, never will do
anything, and so pretend to be faintly and superciliously amused by
the optimistic exertions of others. We may dismiss these unproductive
and complacent occupiers of the seats of the scornful, for they are
comparatively few in number and their opinions of no moment. But the
rational basis for laughter at the booster is that the hustler and the
booster often have a false standard of excellence.
When a noisy man roars in your face that the population of his
particular town has doubled in ten years we have a right to enquire,
what of it? Is it a cause for rejoicing? When you climb into a trolley
car on a rainy day you do not rejoice because the population of the
trolley car doubles in three minutes. A mere increase in the number of
persons at a given spot does not necessarily mean that collectively or
individually they are any better off. What we wish to know is something
quite different from the word “more.” Is the community growing in
intelligence? Are there better schools, better theatres, better art
museums, better churches, better orchestras--are the inhabitants of
this locality growing in grace and in the fruits of the spirit?
The last thing I wish to be guilty of is to make cheap remarks against
science or scientific men to whom I, in common with others, owe so
much; but, strangely enough, some of the professional men of science,
who are often the first to laugh at the booster because he applies the
quantitative rather than the qualitative standard of measurement, are
themselves guilty of the same fault on a larger scale. They do not
apply standards of size to a growing business or a growing village;
they apply these standards to the universe.
Now, as is well known, the Ptolemaic system of cosmogony stated that
the earth was the centre of the universe and that around the earth
revolved the sun, the moon and all the innumerable stars. Thus man
regarded himself as of high importance because he was the centre of
everything.
Along came Copernicus, whose book was published in 1543 but not
generally accepted until long after its appearance. Copernicus wrought
a far greater miracle than Joshua. The Old Testament hero made the
sun stand still only for an afternoon; but in the sixteenth century
Copernicus commanded the sun to stand still and (relatively speaking)
it has not budged since. Copernicus was a magician.
Many astronomers have recently been fond of reminding us that our sun
itself is only a tiny star--one out of many billions--and that our
earth is but the tiniest speck. They are fond of drawing diagrams
showing the comparative size of our sun and that of other globes in
the starry skies, and the earth dwindles to a mere point. “Therefore,”
say these scientists, “how unimportant is man and how ridiculous that
he should consider either himself or his earthly abode a matter of any
importance to God or to space or time or gravitation”; the conclusion
following that religion and morals are matters of small consequence
and we need not bother our heads about them.
Now it seems to me that expressions of this kind are as fallacious and
as injurious as any booster’s standard of mere quantity; for what are
these gentlemen trying to say except that as the earth is so tiny in
comparison with other stars it must necessarily follow that man himself
is a very unimportant factor in the universe? On the contrary, I
believe the earth to be the most important spot in the entire creation
and that the most precious thing on the earth is man--men, women and
children.
The ordinary ignoramus looks at the starry vault and exclaims: “There
are all those stars and every one inhabited with life!” As a matter of
fact the latest researches of science show that the rarest thing in the
entire universe is human life. There is not one vestige of evidence to
show that life exists anywhere except on the earth.
The universe is frightfully hot. The fixed stars have a temperature
ranging from nearly two thousand degrees to more than thirty thousand
degrees, which is considerably hotter than the Needles in California.
Furthermore, among all the heavenly bodies _planets_ are the most
scarce, and the only conditions which can produce a planet occur
almost never. Now the planets in our particular little solar system had
the good luck to come into being, and of these planets only the earth
can support human life. The late Percival Lowell, an eminent astronomer
and a gallant gentleman, looking at the sky through the clear air of
Arizona, thought he saw evidence of the intelligent work of beings on
Mars, but he saw it because his telescope was not good enough; “bigger
and better” telescopes destroyed the illusory things he thought he saw.
I advise all those who believe in the insignificance of man because he
lives on a small ball to read the last chapter of Sir James Jeans’s
book _The Universe Around Us_. Sir James does not himself say that man
has a divine destiny, because that is not the subject of his book. But
he does say: “All this suggests that only an infinitesimally small
corner of the universe can be in the least suited to form an abode of
life.”
People used to be flabbergasted by the consideration of the vastness of
the starry heavens while retaining their respect for man and their own
self-respect; but of late years many astronomers, by applying the “big
and little” method of measurement, have tried to convince us that man
is of no importance. Thus astronomy, instead of filling its students
with majestic wonder, fills them with despair. To these scientific
boosters it is the devout and not the undevout astronomer who is mad.
Fear not, little flock. We are no longer the geographical centre of the
universe, but--so far as evidence goes--we are the only part of it that
amounts to anything.
LII
WHAT SHALL I THINK ABOUT?
“What shall I think about when I am dying?” said Turgeney. Well,
if I were dying at this moment, and were fortunate enough to be
conscious--for death is an adventure no one ought to miss--I should
endeavour to compose my mind and prepare it properly for its next
experience. Then, having made whatever arrangements were necessary for
the welfare of those I leave, I might--if there were time--review some
of the events of my days on earth from which I had derived the largest
amount of pleasure.
Omitting religion and family life, the two greatest sources of
happiness that I know, which need no explanation to those familiar
with them, and which no language could possibly explain to those
unacquainted with them, I must honestly say I have found life good.
I would not have missed it for anything. There have of course been
misfortunes, illnesses, periods of mental depression, failures, loss
of friends, and the general sense of frustration that afflicts every
candid mind. But these are shadows, and my life has mainly been passed
in sunshine.
It would of course be very nice to be an immortal poet or an immortal
something-or-other; to feel the steadfast assurance that one had left
on earth some enduring work that would remain as a permanent memorial.
But although one knows, as I do, that everything one has done will be
speedily forgotten, I do not see why that should make one miserable.
Why spend one’s life or even one’s last moments in crying for the moon?
Why not make the best of the good old world?
That daily life is really good one appreciates when one wakes from a
horrible dream, or when one takes the first outing after a sickness.
Why not realise it now?
My life has been divided into four parts--Work, Play, Development,
Social Pleasures. Work is man’s greatest blessing. Whenever it is in
any way possible, every boy and girl should choose as his life work
some occupation which he would like to do anyhow, even if he does not
need the money. It has always been necessary for me to work, but if at
any time during the last twenty years some eccentric person had left
me a million dollars, I should have gone right on working at my chosen
professions, teaching, writing, and public speaking. I enjoy all
three. I enjoy them so much that I have no hesitation in saying that I
enjoy them more than vacations. There are better teachers, there are
better writers, there are better lecturers; but I doubt if any of them
have enjoyed their work more than I.
I have also had an enormous amount of fun out of play. I am a
playboy, and shall never get over it. I like all kinds of games,
except alley-bowling, just as I like all famous music except that
by Meyerbeer. In every game I have never succeeded in rising above
mediocrity; but here again I doubt if the great players--whom I
nevertheless envy--have enjoyed playing football, baseball, hockey,
tennis, golf, billiards, pool, duplicate whist--a better game than
bridge--more than I have. If I were now given the opportunity to spend
every single day for the next five hundred years in an invariable
programme of work all the morning, golf all the afternoon, and social
enjoyment all the evening, I should accept with alacrity, making only
one stipulation--that at the end of the five hundred years I should
have the privilege of renewal. And that’s that.
In cultural development, by which I mean the enrichment of the mind by
Nature and by Art, I have had unspeakable delight. Yet I am neither a
naturalist nor an artist. I don’t know anything about flowers, and very
little about animals. I cannot draw or paint, or make anything with my
hands. The only musical instrument I can play is a typewriter.
But no one loves the scenes of nature more than I. The first sunset
that I remember with enjoyment occurred when I was ten years old; and
how many I have seen since then! On an autumn day in 1903, I saw the
sun sink into the ocean off the coast of Normandy, and, by the miracle
of memory, I can see it again whenever I wish. I thought of Browning’s
lines:
“Than by slow, pallid sunsets in autumn, ye watch from the shore,
At their sad level gaze o’er the ocean--a sun’s slow decline.”
I have seen the Matterhorn from the Gorner Grat, Mont Blanc from
Chamonix, and the divine flush on the summit of the Jungfrau.
Forty years ago I heard for the first time the Ninth Symphony;
and while I have heard it often since then, the most memorable
occasion was in May 1912 when I heard it at Paris, played by a
magnificent orchestra, conducted by Felix Weingartner; I have heard
_Die Meistersinger_ in Munich, conducted by Arthur Nikisch; I have
heard the Emperor Concerto, with Ossip Gabrilowitsch at the piano; I
have heard _Tod und Verklärung_ with Stokowski and the Philadelphia
Orchestra; I have heard De Pachmann (in his prime) play Chopin’s B flat
minor sonata, Paderewski play Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, Josef
Hofmann play Beethoven’s Sonata 111. I have heard _Carmen_ sung by Emma
Calvé, Emma Eames, Jean de Reszké and Lassalle; _Tristan und Isolde_
sung by Jean de Reszké and Lilli Lehmann; _Faust_ sung by Jean and
Edouard de Reszké, Emma Eames, Maurel, and Scalchi; _Mignon_ sung by
Mme. Lucrezia Bori; I have repeatedly heard the three greatest bassos
of modern times, Edouard de Reszké, Pol Plançon, and Chaliapin.
In the theatre I have seen Edwin Booth as Shylock, Mansfield as Richard
III, Irving in _The Lyons Mail_, Possart as Mephistopheles, Sarah
Bernhardt as La Tosca, Duse as Francesca, Salvini as Othello, and twice
have I seen the Passion Play at Oberammergau. All these are memorable
experiences, and for fear I may not be conscious when I am dying, I am
recalling them now. But if I should attempt to recall all the glorious
things I have seen in nature and in art, I should have no time for
fresh experiences that await me.
As for social pleasures, one of the highest enjoyments is agreeable
company and good conversation; and I especially like men, women and
children.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.
Just for the curious: Chapter XVIII has four references to “F. P. A.”
but doesn’t give the full name. When this book was written, he was a
well-known columnist: Franklin P. Adams.