THIS OR THAT
One day in London a friend told me that on the market in that city
they have eggs of five grades--new-laid eggs, fresh eggs, imported
fresh eggs, good eggs, and eggs. A few days later we were in the
Tate Gallery looking at the Turner collection when he told me a story
of Turner. It seems that a friend of the artist was in his studio
watching him at his work, when suddenly this friend said: "Really,
Mr. Turner, I can't see in nature the colors that you portray on
canvas." The artist looked at him steadily for a moment, and then
replied: "Don't you wish you could?" Life, even at its best,
certainly is a maze. I find myself in the labyrinth, all the while
groping about, but quite unable to find the exit. Theseus was most
fortunate in having an Ariadne to furnish him with the thread to
guide him. But there seems to be no second Ariadne for me, and I
must continue to grope with no thread to guide. There in the Tate
Gallery I was standing enthralled before pictures by Watts and
Leighton, and paying small heed to the Turners, when the story of my
friend held a mirror before me, and as I looked I asked myself the
question: "Don't you wish you could?"
Those Barbizon chaps, artists that they were, used to laugh at Corot
and tell him he was parodying nature, but he went right on painting
the foliage of his trees silver-gray until, finally, the other
artists discovered that he was the only one who was telling the truth
on canvas. Every one of my dilemmas seems to have at least a dozen
horns, and I stand helpless before them, fearful that I may lay hold
of the wrong one. I was reading in a book the other day the
statement of a man who says he'd rather have been Louis Agassiz than
the richest man in America. In another little book, "The Kingdom of
Light," the author, who is a lawyer, says that Concord,
Massachusetts, has influenced America to a greater degree than New
York and Chicago combined. I think I'll blot out the superlative
degree in my grammar, for the comparative gives me all the trouble I
can stand.
Everything seems to be better or worse than something else, and there
doesn't seem to be any best or worst. So I'll dispense with the
superlative degree. Whether I buy new-laid eggs, or just eggs, I
can't be certain that I have the best or the worst eggs that can be
found. If I go over to Paris I may find other grades of eggs. Our
Sunday-school teacher wanted a generous contribution of money one
day, and, by way of causing purse-strings to relax, told of a boy who
was putting aside choice bits of meat as he ate his dinner. Upon
being asked by his father why he was doing so, he replied that he was
saving the bits for Rover. He was reminded that Rover could do with
scraps and bones, and that he himself should eat the bits he had put
aside. When he went out to Rover with the plate of leavings, he
patted him affectionately and said:
"Poor doggie! I was going to bring you an offering to-day; but I
guess you'll have to put up with a collection."
I like Robert Burns and think his "To Mary in Heaven" is his finest
poem. But the critics seem to prefer his "Highland Mary." So I
suppose these critics will look at me, with something akin to pity in
the look, and say: "Don't you wish you could?" Years ago some one
planted trees about my house for shade, and selected poplar. Now the
roots of these trees invade the cellar and the cistern, and prove
themselves altogether a nuisance. Of course, I can cut out the
trees, but then I should have no shade. That man, whoever he was,
might just as well have planted elms or maples, but, by some sort of
perversity or ignorance, planted poplars, and here am I, years
afterward, in a state of perturbation about the safety of cellar and
cistern on account of those pesky roots. I do wish that man had
taken a course in arboriculture before he planted those trees. It
might have saved me a deal of bother, and been no worse for him.
Back home, after we had passed through the autograph-album stage of
development, we became interested in another sort of literary
composition. It was a book in which we recorded the names of our
favorite book, author, poem, statesman, flower, name, place, musical
instrument, and so on throughout an entire page. That experience was
really valuable and caused us to do some thinking. It would be well,
I think, to use such a book as that in the examination of teachers
and pupils. I wish I might come upon one of the books now in which I
set down the record of my favorites. It would afford me some
interesting if not valuable information.
If I were called upon to name my favorite flower now I'd scarcely
know what to say. In one mood I'd certainly say lily-of-the-valley,
but in another mood I might say the rose. I do wonder if, in those
books back yonder, I ever said sunflower, dandelion, dahlia, fuchsia,
or daisy. If I should find that I said heliotrope, I'd give my
adolescence a pretty high grade. If I were using one of these books
in my school, and some boy should name the sunflower as his favorite,
I'd find myself facing a big problem to get him converted to the
lily-of-the-valley, and I really do not know quite how I should
proceed. It might not help him much for me to ask him: "Don't you
wish you could?" If I should let him know that my favorite is the
lily-of-the-valley, he might name that flower as the line of least
resistance to my approval and a high grade, with the mental
reservation that the sunflower is the most beautiful plant that
grows. Such a course might gratify me, but it certainly would not
make for his progress toward the lily-of-the-valley, nor yet for the
salvation of his soul.
I have a boy of my own, but have never had the courage to ask him
what kind of father he thinks he has. He might tell me. Again I am
facing a dilemma. Dilemmas are quite plentiful hereabouts. I must
determine whether to regard him as an asset or a liability. But,
that is not the worst of my troubles. I plainly see that sooner or
later he is going to decide whether his father is an asset or a
liability. We must go over our books some day so as to find out
which of us is in debt to the other. I know that I owe him his
chance, but parents often seem backward about paying their debts to
their children, and I'm wondering whether I shall be able to cancel
that debt, to his present and ultimate satisfaction. I'd be
decidedly uncomfortable, years hence, to find him but "the runt of
something good" because I had failed to pay that debt. When I was a
lad they used to say that I was stubborn, but that may have been my
unsophisticated way of trying to collect a debt. I take some
comfort, in these later days, in knowing that the folks at home
credit me with the virtue of perseverance, and I wish they had used
the milder word when I was a boy.
There is a picture show just around the corner, and I'm in a
quandary, right now, whether to follow the crowd to that show or sit
here and read Ruskin's "Sesame and Lilies." If I go to see the
picture film I'll probably see an exhibition of cowboy equestrian
dexterity, with a "happy ever after" finale, and may also acquire the
reputation among the neighbors of being up to date. But, if I spend
the evening with Ruskin, I shall have something worth thinking over
as I go about my work to-morrow. So here is another dilemma, and
there is no one to decide the matter for me. This being a free moral
agent is not the fun that some folks try to make it appear. I don't
really see how I shall ever get on unless I subscribe to Sam Walter
Foss's lines:
"No other song has vital breath
Through endless time to fight with death,
Than that the singer sings apart
To please his solitary heart."