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PIECES OF HATE
HEYWOOD BROUN
PIECES OF HATE
_And Other Enthusiasms_
BY HEYWOOD BROUN
[Illustration: colophon]
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
PUBLISHERS 1922 NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1922
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
[Illustration: colophon]
PIECES OF HATE.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO MY FATHER
HEYWOOD C. BROUN
PREFACE
The trouble with prefaces is that they are partial and so we have
decided to offer instead an unbiased review of "Pieces of Hate." The
publishers have kindly furnished us advance proofs for this purpose.
We wish we could speak with unreserved enthusiasm about this book. It
would be pleasant to make out a list of three essential volumes for
humanity and suggest the complete works of William Shakespeare, the
Bible and "Pieces of Hate," but Mr. Broun's book does not deserve any
such ranking. Speaking as a critic of books, we are not at all sure that
we care to recommend it. It seems to us that the author is honest, but
the value of that quality has been vastly overstressed in present-day
reviewing. We are inclined to say "What of it?" There would be nothing
particularly persuasive if a man should approach a poker game and say,
"Won't you let Broun in; I can assure he's honest." Why should a
recommendation which is taken for granted among common gamblers be
considered flattering when applied to a writer?
Anyhow, it does not seem to us that Broun carries honesty to excess.
There is every indication that most of the work in "Pieces of Hate" has
been done so hurriedly that there has been no opportunity for a recount.
If it balances at any given point luck must be with him as well as
virtue. All the vices of haste are in this book of stories, critical
essays and what not. The author is not content to stalk down an idea and
salt it. Whenever he sees what he believes to be a notion he leaves his
feet and tries to bring it down with a flying tackle. Occasionally there
actually is an exciting and interesting crash of flying bodies coming
into contact. But just as often Mr. Broun misses his mark and falls on
his face. At other times he gets the object of his dive only to find
that it was not a genuine idea after all, but only a straw man, a sort
of tackling dummy set up to fool and educate novices.
And Broun does not learn fast. Like most newspaper persons he is an
extraordinary mixture of sophistication and naivete. At one moment he
will be found belaboring a novelist or a dramatist for sentimentality
and on the next page there will be distinct traces of treacle in his own
creative work. Seemingly, what he means when he says that he does not
like sentimentality is that he doesn't like the sentimentality of
anybody else. He would restrict the quality to the same narrow field as
charity.
The various forms introduced into the book are a little confusing.
Seemingly there has been no plan as to the sequence of stories, essays,
dramatic criticism and the rest. Possibly the author regards this as
versatility, but here is another vastly overrated quality. We once had a
close friend who was a magician and after we had watched him take an
omelet out of his high hat, and two white rabbits, and a bowl of
goldfish, it always made us a little uneasy when he said, "Wait a
minute until I put on my hat and I'll walk home with you."
The fear constantly lurked in our mind that he might suddenly remember,
in the middle of Times Square, that he had forgotten a trick and be
compelled to pause and take a boa-constrictor from under the sweat-band.
We suggest to Mr. Broun that he make up his mind as to just what he
intends to do and then stick to it to the exclusion of all sidelines.
Perhaps he has promised, but we are prepared to wager nothing on him
until we are convinced that he has begun to drive for something. He may
be a young man but he is not so young that he can afford to traffic any
further with flipness under the impression that it is something just as
good as humor. And we wish he wouldn't pun. George H. Doran, the
publisher, informs us that he had to plead with Broun to make him leave
out a chapter on the ugliness of heirlooms and particularly old sofas.
Apparently the piece was written for no other purpose than to carry the
title "The Chintz of the Fathers."
We also find Mr. Broun's pose as the professional Harvard man a little
bit trying, particularly as expressed in his essay "The Bigger the
Year." We suppose he may be expected to outgrow this in time but he has
been long enough about it.
HEYWOOD BROUN.
Some of these articles have appeared in the _New York World_, the
_New York Tribune_, _Vanity Fair_, _Collier's Weekly_, _The
Bookman_ and _Judge_, and acknowledgment is made to these
publications for permission to reprint.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I THE NOT IMPOSSIBLE SHEIK 17
II JOHN ROACH STRATON 23
III PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF OFFSPRING 26
IV G. K. C. 30
V ON BEING A GOD 35
VI CHIVALRY IS BORN 40
VII RUTH VS. ROTH 45
VIII THE BIGGER THE YEAR 49
IX FOR OLD NASSAU 54
X MR. DEMPSEY'S FIVE-FOOT SHELF 58
XI SPORT FOR ART'S SAKE 64
XII JACK THE GIANT KILLER 70
XIII JUDGE KRINK 76
XIV FRANKINCENSE AND MYRRH 79
XV THE EXCELSIOR MOVEMENT 82
XVI THE DOG STAR 86
XVII ALTRUISTIC POKER 90
XVIII THE WELL MADE REVUE 92
XIX AN ADJECTIVE A DAY 96
XX THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER 99
XXI A TORTOISE SHELL HOME 101
XXII I'D DIE FOR DEAR OLD RUTGERS 106
XXIII ARE EDITORS PEOPLE? 111
XXIV WE HAVE WITH US THIS EVENING-- 116
XXV THE YOUNG PESSIMISTS 124
XXVI GLASS SLIPPERS BY THE GROSS 180
XXVII A MODERN BEANSTALK 134
XXVIII VOLSTEAD AND CONVERSATION 137
XXIX LIFE, THE COPY CAT 143
XXX THE ORTHODOX CHAMPION 149
XXXI WITH A STEIN ON THE TABLE 153
XXXII ART FOR ARGUMENT'S SAKE 159
XXXIII NO RAHS FOR RAY 165
XXXIV "AT ABOY!" 170
XXXV HOW TO WIN MONEY AT THE RACES 174
XXXVI ONE TOUCH OF SLAPSTICK 178
XXXVII DANGER SIGNALS FOR READERS 183
XXXVIII ADVENTURE MADE PAINLESS 188
XXXIX THE TALL VILLA 197
XL PROFESSOR GEORGE PIERCE BAKER 202
XLI WHAT SHAKESPEARE MISSED 207
XLII CENSORING THE CENSOR 222
PIECES OF HATE
I
THE NOT IMPOSSIBLE SHEIK
Women must be peculiar people, if that. We have just finished "The
Sheik," which is described on the jacket as possessing "ALL the intense
passion and tender feeling of the most vivid love stories, almost brutal
in its revelations."
Naturally, we read it. The author is English and named E. M. Hull. The
publishers expand the "E" to Ethel, but we have a theory of our own. At
any rate the novelist displays an extraordinary knowledge of feminine
psychology. It is profound. It is also a little disturbing because it
sounds so silly. After all, whether peculiar or not women are round
about us almost everywhere, and we must make the best of them.
Accordingly, it terrifies us to learn that if by any chance whatsoever
we happen to hit one of them and knock her down she will become devoted
to us forever. The man who knows this will think twice before he strikes
a woman no matter what the provocation. He will be inclined to count ten
before letting a blow go instead of after. Miss Hull's book deserves the
widest possible circulation because of its persuasive propaganda for
forebearance on the part of men in their dealings with women.
Seemingly, there are no exceptions to the rules about women laid down by
Miss Hull. To state her theory concisely, the quickest way to reach a
woman's heart is a right hook to the jaw. To take a specific instance,
there was Miss Diana Mayo. She seemed an exception to the rule if ever a
woman did. "My God, Diana! Beauty like yours drives a man mad!" said
Arbuthnot, the young British lieutenant, in the moonlight at Biskra.
More than that, "He whispered ardently, his hands closing over the slim
ones lying in her lap." Those were her own.
Still, Diana was no miss to take a hint. With a strength that seemed
impossible for their slimness she disengaged her hands from his grasp.
"Please stop. I am sorry. We have been good friends, and it has never
occurred to me that there could be anything beyond that. I never thought
that you might love me. I never thought of you in that way at all. I
don't understand it. When God made me he omitted to give me a heart. I
have never loved any one in my life."
That was before Miss Diana Mayo went into the desert and met the Sheik
Ahmed Ben Hassan. The meeting was unconventional. Ahmed sacked the
caravan and kidnapped Diana, seizing her off her horse's back at full
gallop. "His movement had been so quick she was unprepared and unable to
resist. For a moment she was stunned, then her senses came back to her
and she struggled wildly, but stifled in the thick folds of the Arab's
robes, against which her face was crushed, and held in a grip that
seemed to be slowly suffocating her, her struggles were futile. The
hard, muscular arm around her hurt her acutely, her ribs seemed to be
almost breaking under its weight and strength, it was nearly impossible
to breathe with the close contact of his body."
But Diana did not love him yet. She seems to have been less susceptible
than most girls. Even when "her whole body was one agonized ache from
the brutal hands" she persisted in not caring for Ahmed Ben Hassan. It
almost seemed as if she had taken a dislike to the man. Up to this time
she had not learned to make allowances for him. It was much later than
this that "She looked at the marks of his fingers on the delicate skin
with a twist of the lips, then shut her eyes with a little gasp and hid
her bruised arm hastily, her mouth quivering. But she did not blame him;
she had brought it on herself; she knew his mood and he did not know his
own strength."
Diana's realization that she loved the Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan and had
loved him for some time came under sudden and dramatic circumstances.
She was running away from him at the time and he was riding after her.
Standing up in the stirrups, the Sheik shot the horse from under her and
"Diana was flung far forward and landed on some soft sand." But even yet
her blindness to the whispering of love persisted. She thought she hated
Ahmed, but dawn was about to break in her starved heart. "He caught her
wrist and flung her out of the way," yet it was not until he had lifted
her up on the saddle in front of him, using his favorite hold--a half
nelson and body scissors--that the punishing nature of the familiar grip
roused Diana to an understanding of her great good fortune. "Quite
suddenly she knew--knew that she loved him, that she had loved him for a
long time, even when she thought that she hated him and when she had
fled from him. She knew now why his face had haunted her in the little
oasis at midday--that it was love calling to her sub-consciously." And
all the time poor, foolish Diana had imagined that it was arnica which
she wanted.
Even after Ben Hassan had succeeded in impressing Diana with his
affection, we feared that the story would not end happily. While riding
some miles away from their own carefully restricted oasis Diana was
captured by another Arab chief named Ibraheim Omair. It seemed to us
that he was in his way just as persuasive a wooer as Ben Hassan. We
read, "He forced her to her knees, and, with his hand twined brutally in
her curls, thrust her head back," and later, "She realized that he was
squeezing the life out of her." Worst of all from the point of view of a
Ben Hassan partisan (and by this time we too had learned to love him)
was the moment in which Omair dashed his hand against Diana's mouth, for
the author records that "She caught it in her teeth, biting it to the
bone." We feared, then, that Diana's heart was turning to this new and
wondrously rowdy Arab. Already it was quite evident that she was not
indifferent to him. Fortunately Ahmed came in time to shoot Omair before
Diana's Unconscious could flash to her any realization of a new love.
And the book does end happily, even more happily than anybody has a
right to expect. Ahmed is badly wounded but only in the head, and
recovers without any impairment of his punching power. The greatest
surprise of all is reserved for the last chapter, when Diana and the
reader learn that Ben isn't really an Arab at all, but the eldest son of
Lord Glencaryll, and of Lady Glencaryll, too, for that matter. It seems
Lord Glencaryll drank excessively, although his title was one of the
oldest in England. Lady Glencaryll left him on account of his alcoholism
and went to the Sahara desert for rest and contrast. A courtly sheik
gave her shelter in his oasis. Here her son was born, and when he heard
about his father's disgraceful conduct he turned Arab and stayed that
way. Of course, if he had intended nothing more than a protest against
overindulgence in alcoholic liquors he could have turned American. We
suppose such a device would not have seemed altogether plausible. No
Englishman could pass for an American. Nor can we say that we are
altogether satisfied with the ending even as it stands. For all we know
E. M. Hull may decide to take a shot at Uncle Tom's Cabin and add a
chapter revealing the fact that Uncle Tom was not actually a colored man
but the child of a couple of Caucasians who had happened to get a little
sunburned. We are not even sure that E. M. Hull is a woman. Publishers
do get fooled about such things. According to our theory, the E stands
for Egbert. He is, we think, at least five feet four inches tall and
lives in Bloomsbury, in very respectable bachelor diggings. He has never
been to the desert or near it, but if "The Sheik" continues to run
through new editions he plans to take a jaunt to the East. He thinks it
might help his hay fever.
II
JOHN ROACH STRATON
In the course of his Sabbath day talk at Calvary Baptist Church the
other day the Rev. Dr. John Roach Straton spoke of "miserable Charlie
Chaplin," or words to that effect. This seems to us an expression of the
more or less natural antipathy of a man who regards life trivially for a
serious artist. It is the venom of the clown confronted by the comedian.
Dr. Straton is, of course, an utter materialist. He is concerned with
such temporal and evanescent things as hellfire, and a heaven which he
has pictured in one of his sermons as a sort of glorified Coney Island.
Moreover, he has created a deity in his own image and has presented the
invisible king as merely a somewhat more mannerly John Roach Straton.
And while Dr. Straton has been thus engaged in debasing the ideals of
mankind, Charlie Chaplin has brought to great masses of people some
glint of things which are eternal. He has managed to show us beauty and,
better than that, he has contrived to put us at ease in this presence.
We belong to a Nation which is timorous of beauty, but Charlie has
managed to soothe our fears by proving to us that it may also be merry.
While Straton has been talking about jazz, debauchery, modesty,
vengeance and other ugly things, Chaplin has given us the story of a
child. "The Kid" captured a little of that curiously exalted something
which belongs to paternity. All spiritual things must have in them a
childlike quality. The belief in immortality rests not very much on the
hope of going on. Few of us want to do that, but we would like very much
to begin again.
Naturally, we are under no delusions as to the innate goodness even of
very small children. They are bad a great deal of the time, but before
it has been knocked out of them they see no limit to the potentialities
of the human will. Theirs is the faith to move mountains, because they
do not yet know the fearful heft of them. The world is merely a rather
big sandpile and much may be done to it with a tin pail and shovel. We
would capture such confidence again.
As a matter of fact, a great deal could be done with a pail and shovel.
We do not try because we have lost our nerve. Nobody will ever get it
back again by listening to Dr. Straton. He seems solely intent upon
detailing the limitations and the frailties of man. We think he has
outgrown his soul a little. He has sold his birthright for a mess of
potterism.
But Charlie Chaplin moves through the world which he pictures on the
screen like a mischievous child. He confounds all the gross villains who
come against him. His smile is a token and a symbol that man is too
merry to die utterly. Fearful things menace us, but they will flee
before the audacious one who has the fervor to draw back his foot and
let it fly.
Of course, we are not advocating any suppression of Dr. Straton by
censorship. We regard him and his sermons as a bad influence. But after
all, the man or woman who strays into Dr. Straton's church knows what to
expect. In justice to the clergyman it must be said that he has never
made any secret of his methods or his message. There is no deception.
Sentimentally, we think it rather shocking that these talks of his
should occur on Sunday. There really ought to be one day of the week
upon which the citizens of New York turn away from frivolity. And still
we do not urge that the Sunday Law be amended to include the
performances of John Roach Straton. He is not one whit worse than some
of the sensational Sunday magazines.
III
PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF OFFSPRING
Fannie Hurst gurgles with joy over the fact that her heroine in "Star
Dust" is able to look over the whole tray of babies which is brought to
her in the hospital and pick out her own. Miss Hurst attributes Lily's
feat to "her mother instinct." A friend of ours, more practically minded
than the novelist, suggests that she might have been aided by the fact
that hospitals invariably place an identification tag around the neck of
each child. For our part we have never been able to understand the fear
of some parents about babies getting mixed up in the hospital. What
difference does it make so long as you get a good one? Another's may be
better than your own and Lily, with a whole tray from which to choose,
should not have made an instinctive clutch immediately for her own. It
would have been rational for the lady in the story to have looked at
them all before coming to any decision.
Of course, to tell the truth, there isn't much choice in the little
ones. They need much more than necklaces with names on them to be
persons. There really ought to be some system whereby small children
after being born could be kept in the shop for a considerable period,
like puppies, and not turned over to parents or guardians until in a
condition more disciplined than usual. None of them amounts to much
during the first year. We can't see, for the life of us, why your own
should be any more interesting or precious to you during this time than
the child of anybody else.
After two, of course, they are persons, but a parent must have a good
deal of imagination if he can see much of himself in a child. Oh, yes, a
nose or the eyes or the color of the hair or something like that, but
the world is full of snub noses and brown eyes. To us it never seemed
much more than a coincidence. And if it were something more, what of it?
How can a man work up any inspiring sentimental gratification over the
fact that after he is gone his nose will persist in the world? The hope
of immortality through offspring offers no solace to us. The joys of
being an ancestor are exaggerated.
Mind you, we do not mean for a moment to cry down the undeniable
pleasure which arises from the privilege of being associated with a
child of more than two years of age. For a person in rugged health who
is not particularly dressed up and does not want to write a letter or
read the newspaper, we can imagine few diversions more enjoyable than to
have a child turned loose upon him. His own, if you wish, but only in
the sense that it is the one to which he has become accustomed. The
sense of paternity has nothing on earth to do with the fun. Only a
person extraordinarily satisfied with himself can derive pleasure if
this child in his house is a little person who gives him back nothing
but a reflection. You want a new story and not the old one, which wasn't
particularly satisfactory in the first place. We want Heywood Broun,
3rd, to start from scratch without having to lug along anything we have
left him. As a matter of fact, we like him just as well as if he were no
relation at all, because he seems to be a person quite different from
what we might have expected. When he says he doesn't want to take a bath
we feel abashed and wish we had been a cleaner child, but for the most
part we find him leading his own life altogether. When he bends over the
Victrola and plays the Siegfried Funeral March over and over again we
have no feeling of guilt. We know we can't be blamed for that. He never
got it from us.
And again, he is a person utterly strange, and therefore twice as
interesting, when we find him standing up to people, us for instance,
and saying that he won't do this or that because he doesn't want to.
Much sharper than a serpent's tooth is the pleasure of an abject parent
who finds himself the father of a stubborn child. If the people from the
hospital should suddenly call up to-morrow and say, "We find we've made
a mistake. We sent the wrong child to you three years ago, but now we
can exchange him and rectify everything," we would say, "No, this one's
been around quite a while now and is giving approximate satisfaction,
and if you don't mind you can keep the real one."
Plays and novels which picture meetings between fathers and sons parted
from birth or before have always seemed singularly unconvincing to us.
The old man says "My boy! My boy!" and weeps, and the young man looks
him warmly in the eye and says, "There, there." Not a bit like it is our
guess. If we had never seen H, 3rd, and had then met him at the end of
twenty years, we wouldn't be particularly interested. Strangers always
embarrass us. It would not even shock us much to find that they had sent
him to Yale or that he brushed his hair straight back or wore spats.
There are to us no ties at all just in being a father. A son is
distinctly an acquired taste. It's the practice of parenthood that makes
you feel that, after all, there may be something in it. And anybody's
child will do for practice.
IV
G. K. C.
The ship news man said that Gilbert K. Chesterton was staying at the
Commodore and the telephone girl said he wasn't, but we'd trust even a
ship news man before a hotel central and so we persisted.
In fact, we almost persuaded her.
"Maybe he's connected with one of the automobile companies that are
exhibiting here," she suggested, helpfully. For a moment we wondered if
by any chance the hotel authorities had made an error and placed him in
the lobby with the ten-ton trucks. It seemed too fantastic.
"He's not with any automobile company," we said severely. "Didn't you
ever hear of 'The Man Who Was Thursday'?"
"He may have been here Thursday, but he's not registered now," she
answered with some assurance. We didn't seem to be getting on. "It's a
book," we shouted. "He wrote it."
"Not in this hotel," said central with an air of finality and rang off
before we could try her out on "Man Alive" or "The Ball and the Cross."
Still, it turned out eventually that she was right for it was the
Biltmore which at last acknowledged Mr. Chesterton somewhat reluctantly
after we had spelled out the name.
"Not in his room, but somewhere about the hotel," was the message.
"You can find him," said the city editor with confidence. "Just take
this picture with you. He's sort of fat and he speaks with an English
accent."
We had a more helpful description than that in our mind, because we
remembered Chesterton's answer when a sweet girl admirer once remarked,
"It must be wonderful to walk along the streets when everybody knows who
you are."
"Yes," said Chesterton; "and if they don't know they ask."
He wasn't in the bar, but we found him in the smoking room. He was
giving somebody an interview without much enthusiasm. It seemed to be
the last round. Chesterton was beginning to droop. Every paradox, we
feared, had been hammered out of him. He rose a little wearily and
started for the elevator. We chased him. At last we had the satisfaction
of finding some one we could outrun. He paused, and now we know the look
which the Wedding Guest must have given to the Ancient Mariner.
"It's for the New York _Tribune_," we said.
"How about next week?" suggested Mr. Chesterton.
"It's a daily newspaper," we remonstrated. "You know--Grantland Rice and
The Conning Tower and When a Feller Needs a Friend."
Something in the title of the Briggs series must have touched him.
"To-morrow, perhaps," he answered. Feeling that the mountain was about
to come through we stood our ground like another Mahomet. Better than
that we rose to one of the few superb moments in our life. Looking at
Mr. Chesterton coldly we said slowly, "It must be now or never." And we
used a gesture. The nature of it escapes us, but it was something
appropriate. Later we wondered just what reply would have been possible
if he had answered, "Never." After the danger had passed we realized
that we had been holding up the visitor with an empty gun. It must have
been our manner which awed him and he stopped walking and almost turned
around.
"The press men have been here since two o'clock," he complained more in
sorrow than in anger. "What is it you want to know?"
At that stage of the interview the advantage passed to him. The whole
world lay before us. Dimly we could hear the problems of a great and
unhappy universe flapping in our ears and urging us with unintelligible,
hoarse caws to present their cases for solution. And still we stood
there unable to think of a single thing which we wanted to know.
Mostly we had read Chesterton on rum and religion, but there were too
many people passing to give the proper atmosphere for any such
confidential questions. Moreover, if he should question us in turn we
realized that we would be unable to give him any information as to when
to boil and when to skim, nor did we feel sufficiently well disposed to
let him in on the name of the drug store where you say "I'm a patient of
Dr. Brown's" and are forthwith allowed to buy gin.
All the questions we had ever asked anybody in our life passed rapidly
before us. "What do you think of our tall buildings?" "Have you ever
thought of playing Hamlet?" "Why are you called the woman with the most
beautiful legs in Paris?" We remembered that the last had seemed silly
even when we first used it on Mistinguett. On second thought we had told
the interpreter to let it drop because the photographers were anxious to
begin. There seemed to be even less sense to it now. Indeed none of our
familiar inquiries struck us as appropriate.
"What American authors do you read?" we ventured timidly, and added
"living ones" hoping to get something about "Main Street" for
Wednesday's book column.
"I don't read any," he answered.
That seemed to us a possible handicap in pursuing that line of inquiry.
"I don't read any living English authors, either," Mr. Chesterton added
hastily, as if he feared that he had trod upon our patriotism. "Nothing
but dead authors and detective stories."
That we had expected. In the march up to the heights of fame there comes
a spot close to the summit in which man reads "nothing but detective
stories." It is the Antaean touch which distinguishes all Olympians. As
you remember, Antaeus was the demigod who had to touch the earth every
once and so often to preserve his immortality. Probably he did it by
reading a good murder story.
"Can you tell me what 'Mary Rose' is all about?" we suggested, still
fumbling for a literary theme.
"I haven't seen 'Mary Rose,'" said Mr. Chesterton, although he did go on
to tell us that Barrie had done several excellent plays. Probably there
was a long pause then while we tried to think up something provocative
about the Irish question.
"If you really will excuse me, I must go to my room," he burst out. "The
press men have been here ever since two o'clock."
This, of course, is no land in which to stand between a man and his
room, where heaven knows what solace may await the distinguished visitor
who has been spending two and a half hours with the press men. We
stepped aside willingly enough. Still, we must confess a slight
disappointment in Gilbert K. Chesterton. He's not as fat as we had
heard.
V
ON BEING A GOD
We have found a way to feel very close kin to the high gods. The notion
that we too leaned out from the gold bar of heaven came to us suddenly
as we sat in the right field bleachers of one of the big theaters which
provide a combination bill of vaudeville and motion pictures. The
process of deification occurred during the vaudeville portion of the
program.
The stage was several miles away. We could see perfectly and hear
nothing as it was said. Curious little, insect-like people moved about
the stage aimlessly. And yet there was every evidence that they took
themselves seriously. You would be surprised if you watched ants
conducting a performance and calling for light cues and such things. It
would puzzle you to know why one particular ant took care to provide
himself with a flood of red and another just as arbitrarily chose green.
Still, these were not ants but potentially men and women. They had
names--Kerrigan and Vane, the Kaufman Trio, Miss Minstrel Co. and many
others. From where we sat they were insects. It seemed to us that it
would be no trouble at all to flip the three strong men and the pony
ballet into oblivion with one finger. The little finger would be the
most suitable.
And there were times when we wanted to do it. Only, the feeling that we
were too new a god to impose a doom restrained us. No divine patience
was in us, but we felt that if we could wait a while it might come. The
agitated atoms annoyed us. The audacity of "pony ballet" was almost
insufferable. Why, as in Gulliver's land, the biggest of the strong men
towered above the smallest of the ballet girls by at least the thickness
of a fingernail. And these performing ants were forever working to
entertain. They ran on and off the stage without apparent reason and
waved their antennae about furiously. Two of the ants would stand close
together as if in conversation, and every now and then one of them would
hit the other brutally in the face.
We did not know why and our sympathies went entirely to the one who was
struck. It was difficult not to interfere. We rather think that some of
the seemingly extraordinary judgments of the high gods between mortals
must be explained on the ground of a somewhat similar imperfect
knowledge. They too see us, but they cannot hear. Time is required for
sound to reach Olympus. When we get into warfare they observe only the
carnage and the turmoil. The preliminary explanations arrive several
years after the peace treaties have been signed, and then they sound
silly and entirely irrelevant.
Accordingly, the high gods are rather loath to interfere in the wars of
earth. They are too far removed to understand causes, and even
trumpet-like shouts about national honor merely amble up to their ears
through long lanes of retarding ether. Indeed, the period of transit is
so long that national honor invariably arrives at Olympus in poor
condition. Only when strictly fresh is it in the least inspiring. Little
old last century's national honor is quite unpalatable. It is food
neither for gods nor men.
It was just as well that we waited before taking blind vengeance on the
vaudeville insects, because half an hour or so after the blows were
struck by the seemingly aggressive ant the conversation which preceded
the violence began to drift back to us. It came to our ears during the
turn of the strong men and created a rather uncanny effect. At first we
were puzzled because we had never known strong men to exchange any words
at all except the traditional "alleyup." Almost immediately we realized
that it was merely the tardiness of sound waves which caused the delay
of the dialogue in reaching us in our bleacher seat.
Fortunately, in spite of our illusion of omnipotence, the distance from
the stage was not truly Olympian. The jokes came in time to be
appreciated. It seems that one of the ants, whom we shall immediately
christen A, told his friend and companion, B for convenience, that he
was taking two ladies to dinner and that he would like to have B in the
party, but that he, A, did not have sufficient funds to defray any
expense which he might incur. B admitted promptly that he himself had
nothing. Accordingly, A suggested a scheme for sociability's sake. He
urged B to come, but impressed upon him that when asked as to what he
wished to eat or drink he should reply, "I don't care for anything."
In order to guard against a slip-up the friendly ants rehearsed the
scene in advance. It ran something like this:
A--August! August!
B--You're a little wrong on your months. This is January.
A (punching him)--You fool! August is the name of the waiter.
The delay which retarded the progress of this joke to our ears impaired
its effectiveness a little. The rest was more sprightly.
A--August, bring some chicken en casserole and combination salad for
myself and the two ladies. Oh, I've forgotten my friend. What will you
have?
B--Bring me some pigs' knuckles.
At this point A hit B for the second time and again called him a fool.
A--Why did you say, "Bring me some pigs' knuckles?"
B--Why did you ask me so pretty?
Thereupon they rehearsed the situation again.
A--Oh, I've forgotten my friend. Won't you have something? You must join
us.
B--Sure, bring me a dish of ham and eggs.
Again blows were struck and again A inquired ferociously as to the cause
of the slip-up.
A--What made you say, "Bring me a dish of ham and eggs?"
B--Well, why did you go and coax me?
Earlier in the evening we had observed that other blows were struck and
there must have been further dialogue to go with them, but we could not
wait for it to arrive. We rather hoped that the jokes would follow us
home, but they must have become lost on the way.
Perhaps you don't think there was much sense to this talk anyway.
Maybe the real gods on high Olympus feel the same way about us when our
words limp home.
VI
CHIVALRY IS BORN
Every now and then we hear parents commenting on the fearful things
which motion pictures may do to the minds of children. They seem to
think that a little child is full of sweetness and of light. We had the
same notion until we had a chance to listen intently to the prattle of a
three-year-old. Now we know that no picture can possibly outdo him in
his own fictionized frightfulness.
Of course, we had heard testimony to this effect from Freudians, but we
had supposed that all these horrible blood lusts and such like were
suppressed. Unfortunately, our own son is without reticence. We have a
notion that each individual goes through approximately the same stages
of progress as the race. Heywood Broun, 3d, seemed not yet quite as high
as the cavemen in his concepts. For the last few months he has been
harping continuously, and chiefly during meal times, about cutting off
people's noses and gouging out eyes. In his range of speculative
depredations he has invariably seemed liberal.
There seemed to us, then, no reason to fear that new notions of horror
would come to Heywood Broun, 3d, from any of the pictures being licensed
at present in this State. As a matter of fact, he has received from the
films his first notions of chivalry. Of course, we are not at all sure
that this is beneficial. We like his sentimentalism a little worse than
his sadism.
After seeing "Tol'able David," for instance, we had a long argument.
Since our experience with motion pictures is longer than his we often
feel reasonably certain that our interpretation of the happenings is
correct and we do not hesitate to contradict H. 3d, although he is so
positive that sometimes our confidence is shaken. We knew that he was
all wrong about "Tol'able David" because it was quite evident that he
had become mixed in his mind concerning the hero and the villain. He
kept insisting that David was a bad man because he fought. Pacifism has
always seemed to us an appealing philosophy, but it came with bad grace
from such a swashbuckling disciple of frightfulness as H. 3d.
However, we did not develop that line of reasoning but contended that
David had to fight in order to protect himself. Woodie considered this
for a while and then answered triumphantly, "David hit a woman."
Our disgust was unbounded. Film life had seared the child after all.
Actually, it was not David who hit the woman but the villainous Luke
Hatburn, the terrible mountaineer. That error in observation was not the
cause of our worry. The thing that bothered us was that here was a young
individual, not yet four years of age, who was already beginning to talk
in terms of "the weaker vessel" and all the other phrases of a romantic
school we believed to be dying. It could not have shocked us more if he
had said, "Woman's place is in the home."
"David hit a woman," he piped again, seeming to sense our consternation.
"What of it?" we cried, but there was no bullying him out of his point
of view. The fault belongs entirely to the motion pictures. H. 3d cannot
truthfully say that he has had the slightest hint from us as to any sex
inferiority of women. By word and deed we have tried to set him quite
the opposite example. We have never allowed him to detect us for an
instant in any chivalrous act or piece of partial sex politeness. Toasts
such as "The ladies, God bless 'em" are not drunk in our house, nor has
Woodie ever heard "Shall we join the ladies," "the fair sex," "the
weaker sex," or any other piece of patronizing masculine poppycock.
Susan B. Anthony's picture hangs in his bedroom side by side with
Abraham Lincoln and the big elephant. He has led a sheltered life and
has never been allowed to play with nice children.
But, somehow or other, chivalry and romanticism creep into each life
even through barred windows. We have no intention of being too hard upon
the motion pictures. Something else would have introduced it. These
phases belong in the development of the race. H. 3d must serve his time
as gentle knight just as he did his stint in the role of sadistic
caveman. Presently, we fear, he will get to the crusades and we shall
suffer during a period in which he will try to improve our manners.
History will then be our only consolation. We shall try to bear up
secure in the knowledge that the dark ages are still ahead of him.
We hoped that the motion pictures might be used as an antidote against
the damage which they had done. We took H. 3d to see Nazimova in "A
Doll's House." There was a chance, we thought, that he might be moved by
the eloquent presentation of the fact that before all else a woman is a
human being and just as eligible to be hit as anybody else. We read him
the caption embodying Nora's defiance, but at the moment it flashed upon
the screen he had crawled under his seat to pick up an old program and
the words seemed to have no effect. Indeed when Nora went out into the
night, slamming the door behind her, he merely hazarded that she was
"going to Mr. Butler's." Mr. Butler happens to be our grocer.
The misapprehension was not the fault of Nazimova. She flung herself out
of the house magnificently, but Heywood Broun, 3d, insisted on believing
that she had gone around the corner for a dozen eggs.
In discussing the picture later, we found that he had quite missed the
point of Mr. Ibsen's play. Of Nora, the human being, he remembered
nothing. It was only Nora, the mother, who had impressed him. All he
could tell us about the great and stimulating play was that the lady had
crawled on the floor with her little boy and her little girl. And yet it
seems to us that Ibsen has told his story with singular clarity.
D'Artagnan Woodie likes very much. He is fond of recalling to our mind
the fact that D'Artagnan "walked on the roof in his nightshirt." H. 3d
is not allowed on the roof nor is he permitted to wander about in his
nightshirt.
Perhaps the child's introduction to the films has been somewhat too
haphazard. As we remember, the first picture which we saw together was
called "Is Life Worth Living?" The worst of it is that circumstances
made it necessary for us to leave before the end and so neither of us
found out the answer.
VII
RUTH VS. ROTH
We picked up "Who's Who in America" yesterday to get some vital
statistics about Babe Ruth, and found to our surprise that he was not in
the book. Even as George Herman Ruth there is no mention of him. The
nearest name we could find was: "Roth, Filibert, forestry expert; b.
Wurttemberg, Germany, April 20, 1858; s. Paul Raphael and Amalie (Volz)
R., early edn. in Wurttemberg----"
There is in our heart not an atom of malice against Prof. Roth (since
September, 1903, he has been "prof. forestry, U. Mich."), and yet we
question the justice of his admission to a list of national celebrities
while Ruth stands without. We know, of course, that Prof. Roth is the
author of "Forest Conditions in Wisconsin" and of "The Uses of Wood,"
but we wonder whether he has been able to describe in words uses of wood
more sensational and vital than those which Ruth has shown in deeds.
Hereby we challenge the editor of "Who's Who in America" to debate the
affirmative side of the question: Resolved, That Prof. Roth's volume
called "Timber Physics" has exerted a more profound influence in the
life of America than Babe Ruth's 1921 home-run record.
The question is, of course, merely a continuation of the ancient
controversy as to the relative importance of the theorist and the
practitioner; should history prefer in honor the man who first developed
the hypothesis that the world was round or the other who went out and
circumnavigated it? What do we owe to Ben Franklin and what to the
lightning? Shall we celebrate Newton or the apple?
Personally, our sympathies go out to the performer rather than the
fellow in the study or the laboratory. Many scientists staked their
reputations on the fact that the world was round before Magellan set
sail in the _Vittoria_. He did not lack written assurances that there
was no truth in the old tale of a flat earth with dragons and monsters
lurking just beyond the edges.
But suppose, in spite of all this, Magellan had gone on sailing, sailing
until his ship did topple over into the void of dragons and big snakes.
The professors would have been abashed. Undoubtedly they would have
tried to laugh the misfortune off, and they might even have been good
enough sports to say, "That's a fine joke on us." But at worst they
could lose nothing but their reputations, which can be made over again.
Magellan would not live to profit by his experience. Being one of those
foreigners, he had no sense of humor, and if the dragons bit him as he
fell, it is ten to one he could not even manage to smile.
By this time we have rather traveled away from Roth's "Timber Physics"
and Ruth's home-run record, but we hope that you get what we mean.
Without knowing the exact nature of "Timber Physics," we assume that the
professor discusses the most efficient manner in which to bring about
the greatest possible impact between any wooden substance and a given
object. But mind you, he merely discusses it. If the professor chances
to be wrong, even if he is wrong three times, nobody in the classroom is
likely to poke a sudden finger high in the air and shout, "You're out!"
The professor remains at bat during good behavior. He is not subject to
any such sudden vicissitudes as Ruth. Moreover, timber physics is to Mr.
Roth a matter of cool and calm deliberation. No adversary seeks to fool
him with speed or spitballs. "Hit it out" never rings in his ears. And
after all, just what difference does it make if Mr. Roth errs in his
timber physics? It merely means that a certain number of students leave
Michigan knowing a little less than they should--and nobody expects
anything else from students.
On the other hand, a miscalculation by Ruth in the uses of wood affects
much more important matters. A strike-out on his part may bring about
complete tragedy and the direst misfortune. There have been occasions,
and we fear that there will still be occasions, when Ruth's bat will be
the only thing which stands between us and the loss of the American
League pennant. In times like these who cares about "Forest Conditions
in Wisconsin"?
Coming to the final summing up for our side of the question at debate,
we shall try to lift the whole affair above any mere Ruth versus Roth
issue. It will be our endeavor to show that not only has Babe Ruth been
a profound interest and influence in America, but that on the whole he
has been a power for progress. Ruth has helped to make life a little
more gallant. He has set before us an example of a man who tries each
minute for all or nothing. When he is not knocking home runs he is
generally striking out, and isn't there more glory in fanning in an
effort to put the ball over the fence than in prolonging a little life
by playing safe?
VIII
THE BIGGER THE YEAR
As soon as we heard that "The Big Year--A College Story" by Meade
Minnigerode was about Yale we knew that we just had to read it. Tales of
travel and curious native customs have always fascinated us. According
to Mr. Minnigerode the men of Yale walk about their campus in big blue
sweaters with "Y's" on them, smoking pipes and singing college songs
under the windows of one another. The seniors, he informs us, come out
on summer afternoons on roller skates.
Of course, we are disposed to believe that Mr. Minnigerode, like all
travelers in strange lands, is prone to color things a little more
highly than exact accuracy would sanction. We felt this particularly
when he began to write about Yale football. There was, for instance,
Curly Corliss, the captain of the eleven, who is described as "starting
off after a punt to tear back through a broken field, thirty and forty
yards at a clip, tackling an opposing back with a deadliness which was
final--never hurt, always smiling--a blond head of curly hair (he never
wore a headguard) flashing in and out across the field, the hands
clapping together, the plaintive voice calling 'All right, all right,
give me the ball!' when a game was going badly, and then carrying it
alone to touchdown after touchdown."
Although we have seen all of Yale's recent big games we recognized none
of that except "the plaintive voice" and even that would have been more
familiar if it had been used to say "Moral victory!" We waited to find
Mr. Minnigerode explaining that of course he was referring to the annual
contest with the Springfield Training School, but he did no such thing
and went straight ahead with the pretense that football at Yale is
romantic. To be sure, he attempts to justify this attitude by letting us
see a good deal of the gridiron doings through the eyes of a bull
terrier who could not well be expected to be captious. Champ, named
after the Yale chess team, came by accident to the field just as Curly
Corliss was off on one of his long runs. Yes, it was a game against the
scrubs. "Some one came tearing along and lunged at Curly as he went by,
apparently trying to grab him about the legs. Champ cast all caution to
the winds. Interfere with Curly, would he? Well, Champ guessed not! Like
an arrow from a bow Champ hurled himself through the air and fastened
his jaws firmly in the seat of the offender's pants, in a desperate
effort to prevent him from further molesting Curly."
Champ was immediately adopted by the team as mascot. It seems to us he
deserved more, for this was the first decent piece of interference seen
on Yale field in years. The associate mascot was Jimmy, a little
newsboy, who also took football at New Haven seriously. His romanticism,
like that of Champ, was understandable. Hadn't Curly Corliss once saved
his life? We need not tell you that he had. "Jimmy," as Mr. Minnigerode
tells the story, "started to run across the street, without noticing the
street-car lumbering around the corner... and then before he knew it
Jimmy tripped and fell, and the car was almost on top of him grinding
its brakes. Jimmy never knew exactly what happened in the next few
seconds, but he heard people shouting, and then something struck him and
he was dragged violently away by the seat of the pants. When he could
think connectedly again he was sitting on the curb considerably
battered--and Curly was sitting beside him, with his trousers torn,
nursing a badly cut hand."