romantic people who have accepted with pleasant equanimity the
reputation for being quite otherwise. Why should they do this? Why
should they take pride in their reputed stolidity rather than in their
actual cleverness. Here is a temperamental peculiarity that is worth
looking into.
John Bull may be a myth, but Englishmen have been the mythmakers. They
have for generations delighted in picturing him. He represents a
combination of qualities which they admire. Dogged, unimaginative,
well-meaning, honest, full of whimsical prejudices, and full of common
sense, he is loved and honored by those who are much more brilliant
than he.
John Bull is not a composite photograph of the inhabitants of the
British Isles. He is not an average man. He is a totem. When an Indian
tribe chooses a fox or a bear as a totem, they must not be taken too
literally. But the symbol has a real meaning. It indicates that there
are some qualities in these animals that they admire. They have proved
valuable in the tribal struggle for existence.
Those who belong to the cult of John Bull take him as the symbol of
that which has been most vital and successful in the island story.
England has had more than its share of men of genius. It has had its
artists, its wits, its men of quick imagination. But these have not
been the builders of the Empire, or those who have sustained it in the
hours of greatest need. Men of a slower temper, more solid than
brilliant, have been the nation's main dependence. "It's dogged as
does it." On many a hard-fought field men of the bull-dog breed have
with unflinching tenacity held their own. In times of revolution they
have maintained order, and never yielded to a threat. Had they been
more sensitive they would have failed. Their foibles have been easily
forgiven and their virtues have been gratefully recognized.
When we try to form an idea of that which is most distinctive in the
American temperament, we need not inquire what Americans actually are.
The answer to that question would be a generalization as wide as
humanity. They are of all kinds. Among the ninety-odd millions of
human beings inhabiting the territory of the United States are
representatives of all the nations of the Old World, and they bring
with them their ancestral traits.
But we may ask, When these diverse peoples come together on common
ground, what sort of man do they choose as their symbol? There is a
typical character understood and appreciated by all. In every
caricature of Uncle Sam or Brother Jonathan we can detect the
lineaments of the American frontiersman.
James Russell Lowell, gentleman and scholar that he was, describes a
type of man unknown to the Old World:--
"This brown-fisted rough, this shirt-sleeved Cid,
This backwoods Charlemagne of Empires new.
Who meeting Cæsar's self would slap his back,
Call him 'Old Horse' and challenge to a drink."
Mr. Lowell bore no resemblance to this brown-fisted rough. He would
not have slapped Cæsar on the back, and he would have resented being
himself greeted in such an unconventional fashion. Nevertheless he was
an American and was able to understand that a man might be capable of
such improprieties and at the same time be a pillar of the State. It
tickled his fancy to think of a fellow citizen meeting the imperial
Roman on terms of hearty equality.
"My lungs draw braver air, my breast dilates
With ampler manhood, and I face both worlds."
Dickens, with all his boisterous humor and democratic sympathies, could
not interpret Jefferson Brick and Lafayette Kettle and the other
expansive patriots whom he met on his travels. Their virtues were as a
sealed book to him. Their boastful familiarity was simply odious.
To understand Lowell's exhilaration one must enter into the spirit of
American history. It has been the history of what has been done by
strong men who owed nothing to the refinements of civilization. The
interesting events have taken place not at the centre, but on the
circumference of the country. The centrifugal force has always been the
strongest. There has been no capital to which ambitious youths went up
to seek their fortune. In each generation they have gone to the frontier
where opportunities awaited them. There they encountered, on the rough
edges of society, rough-and-ready men in whom they recognized their
natural superiors. These men, rude of speech and of manner, were
resourceful, bold, far-seeing. They were conscious of their power. They
were laying the foundations of cities and of states and they knew it.
They were as boastful as Homeric heroes, and for the same reason. There
was in them a rude virility that found expression in word as well as in
deed.
Davy Crockett, coon-hunter, Indian fighter, and Congressman, was a great
man in his day. It does not detract from his worth that he was well
aware of the fact. There was no false modesty about this backwoods
Charlemagne. He wrote of himself, "If General Jackson, Black Hawk, and
me were to travel through the United States we would bring out, no
matter what kind of weather, more people to see us than any other three
people now living among the fifteen millions now inhabiting the United
States. And what would it be for? As I am one of the persons mentioned I
would not press the question further. What I am driving at is this. When
a man rises from a low degree to a place he ain't used to, such a man
starts the curiosity of the world to know how he got along."
Davy Crockett understood the temper of his fellow citizens. A man who
rises by his own exertions from a low position to "a place he ain't used
to" is not only an object of curiosity, but he elicits enthusiastic
admiration. Any awkwardness which he exhibits in the position which he
has achieved is overlooked. We are anxious to know how he got along.
Every country has its self-made men, but usually they are made to feel
very uncomfortable. They are accounted intruders in circles reserved for
the choicer few. But in America they are assured of a sympathetic
audience when they tell of the way they have risen in the world. There
is no need for them to apologize for any lack of early advantages, for
they are living in a self-made country. We are in the habit of giving
the place of honor to the beginner rather than to the continuer. For the
finisher the time is not ripe.
II
The most vivid impressions of Americans have always been anticipatory.
They have felt themselves borne along by a resistless current, and that
current has, on the whole, been flowing in the right direction. They
have never been confronted with ruins that tell that the land they
inhabit has seen better days. Yesterday is vague; To-day may be
uncertain; To-morrow is alluring; and the Day after to-morrow is
altogether glorious. George Herbert pictured religion as standing on
tiptoe waiting to pass to the American strand. Not only religion but
every other good thing has assumed that attitude of expectant curiosity.
Even Cotton Mather could not avoid a tone of pious boastfulness when he
narrated the doings of New England. Everything was remarkable. New
England had the most remarkable providences, the most remarkable painful
preachers, the most remarkable heresies, the most remarkable witches.
Even the local devils were in his judgment more enterprising than those
of the old country. They had to be in order to be a match for the New
England saints.
The staid Judge Sewall, after a study of the prophecies, was of the
opinion that America was the only country in which they could be
adequately fulfilled. Here was a field large enough for those future
battles between good and evil which enthralled the Puritan imagination.
To be sure, it would be said, there isn't much just now to attract the
historian whose mind dwells exclusively on the past. But to one who dips
into the future it is thrilling. Here is the battlefield of Armageddon.
Some day we shall see "the spirits of devils working miracles, which go
forth unto the kings of the earth, and of the whole world, to gather
them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty." Just _when_ that
might take place might be uncertain but _where_ it would take place was
to them more obvious.
In the days of small things the settlers in the wilderness had large
thoughts. They felt themselves to be historical characters, as indeed
they were. They were impressed by the magnitude of the country and by
the importance of their relation to it. Their language took on a cosmic
breadth.
Ethan Allen could not have assumed a more masterful tone if he had had
an Empire at his back instead of undisciplined bands of Green Mountain
Boys. Writing to the Continental Congress, he declares that unless the
demands of Vermont are complied with "we will retire into the fastnesses
of our Green Mountains and will wage eternal warfare against Hell, the
Devil, and Human Nature in general." And Ethan Allen meant it.
The love of the superlative is deeply seated in the American mind. It is
based on no very careful survey of the existing world. It is a
conclusion to which it is easy to jump. I remember one week, traveling
through the Mississippi Valley, stopping every night in some town that
had something which was advertised as the biggest in the world. On
Friday I reached a sleepy little village which seemed the picture of
contented mediocrity. Here, thought I, I shall find no bigness to molest
me or make me afraid. But when I sat down to write a letter on the hotel
stationery I was confronted with the statement, "This is the biggest
little hotel in the State."
When one starts a tune it is safer to start it rather low, so as not to
come to grief on the upper notes. In discussing the American temperament
it is better to start modestly. Instead of asking what excellent
qualities we find in ourselves, we should ask what do other nations most
dislike in us. We can then have room to rise to better things. There is
a family resemblance between the worst and the best of any national
group. Kipling, in his lines "To an American," may set the tune for us.
It is not too high. His American is boastful, careless, and irrationally
optimistic.
"Enslaved, illogical, elate,
He greets the embarrassed gods, nor fears
To shake the iron hand of Fate
Or match with Destiny for beers."
A person who would offer to shake hands with Fate is certainly lacking
in a fine sense of propriety. His belief in equality makes him
indifferent to the note of distinction. "He dubs his dreary brethren
kings." Of course they are not kings, but that makes no difference. It
makes little difference whether anything corresponds to the name he
chooses to give to it. For there is
"A cynic devil in his blood
That bids him mock his hurrying soul."
This impression of a mingling of optimism, cynicism, and hurry is one
which is often made upon those who are suddenly plunged into American
society. In any company of Americans who are discussing public affairs
the stranger is struck by what seems the lack of logical connection
between the statements of facts and the judgments passed upon them. The
facts may be most distressing and yet nobody seems much distressed,
still less is any one depressed. The city government is in the hands of
grafters, the police force is corrupt, the prices of the necessaries of
life are extortionate, the laws on the statute book are not enforced,
and new laws are about to be enacted that are foolish in the extreme.
Vast numbers of undesirable aliens are coming into the country and
bringing with them ideas that are opposed to the fundamental principles
of the republic. All this is told with an air of illogical elation. The
conversation is interspersed with anecdotes of the exploits of
good-natured rascals. These are received with smiles or tolerant
laughter. Everyone seems to have perfect confidence that the country is
a grand and glorious place to live in, and that all will come out well
in the end.
Is this an evidence of a cynic humor in the blood, or is it a
manifestation of childish optimism? Let us frankly answer that it may be
one or the other or both. There are cynics and sentimentalists who are
the despair of all who are seriously working for better citizenship. But
the chances are that the men to whom our stranger was listening were
neither cynics nor sentimentalists, but idealists who had the American
temperament.
Among those who laughed good-naturedly over the temporary success of the
clever rascal may have been those who had been giving their energies to
the work of prevention of just such misdeeds. They are reformers with a
shrewd twinkle in their eyes. They take a keen intellectual pleasure in
their work, and are ready to give credit to any natural talent in their
antagonist. If they are inclined to take a cheerful view of the whole
situation it is because they are in the habit of looking at the
situation as a whole. The predominance of force is actually on their
side and they see no reason to doubt the final result. They have learned
the meaning of the text, "Fret not thyself because of evildoers." In
fact the evildoer may not have done so much harm as one might think. Nor
is he really such a hopeless character. There is good stuff in him, and
he yet may be used for many good purposes. They laugh best who laugh
last, and their good-natured laughter was anticipatory. There are forces
working for righteousness which they have experienced. On the whole
things are moving in the right direction and they can afford to be
cheerful.
This is the kind of experience which comes to those who are habitually
dealing with crude materials rather than with finished products. They
cannot afford to be fastidious; they learn to take things as they come
and make the best of them. The doctrine that things are not as they seem
is a cheerful one, to a person who is accustomed to dealing with things
which turn out to be better than at first they seemed. The unknown takes
on a friendly guise and awakens a pleasant curiosity. That is the
experience of generations of pioneers and prospectors. They have found
a continent full of resources awaking men of courage and industry. The
opportunities were there; all that was needed was the ability to
recognize them when they appeared in disguise.
III
And the human problem has been the same as the material one. Europe has
sent to America not the finished products of her schools and her courts,
but millions of people for whom she had no room. They were in the rough;
they had to be made over into a new kind of citizen. This material has
often been of the most unpromising appearance. It has often seemed to
superficial observers that little could be made of it. But the attempt
has been made. And those who have worked with it, putting skill and
patience into their work, have been agreeably surprised. They have come
to see the highest possibilities in the commonest lumps of clay.
The satisfaction that is taken in the common man is not in what he
is at the present moment, but in what he has shown himself capable of
becoming. Give him a chance and all the graces may be his. The American
idealist admits that many of his fellow citizens may be rather dreary
brethren, but so were many of the kings of whom nothing is remembered
but their names and dates. Only now and then is one seen who is every
inch a king. But such a person is a proof of what may be accomplished.
It may take a long time for the rank and file to catch up with their
leaders. But where the few are to-day the many will be to-morrow; for
they are all travelling the same road.
The visitor in the United States, especially if he has spent his time in
the great cities of the East, may go away with the idea that democracy
is a spent force. He will see great inequalities in wealth and position.
He will be struck by the fact that autocratic powers are wielded which
would not be tolerated in many countries of Europe. He will notice that
it is very difficult to give direct expression to the will of the
people.
But he will make a mistake if he attributes these things to the growth
of an aristocratic sentiment. They are a part of an evolution that is
thoroughly democratic. The distinctive thing in an aristocracy is not
the fact that certain people enjoy privileges. It lies in the fact that
these privileged people form a class that is looked upon as superior. An
aristocratic class must not only take itself seriously; it must be taken
seriously by others.
In America there are groups of persons more successful than the average.
They are objects of curiosity, and, if they are well-behaved, of
respect. Their comings and goings are chronicled in the newspapers, and
their names are familiar. But it does not occur to the average man that
they are anything more than fortunate persons who emerged from the
crowd, and who by and by may be lost in the crowd again. What they have
done, others may do when their time comes. The inequalities are
inequalities of circumstance and not of nature.
The commonplace American follows unworthy leaders and has admiration for
cheap success. But he cherishes no illusions in regard to the objects of
his admiration. They have done what he would like to do, and what he
hopes to be able to do sometime. He thinks of the successful men as
being of the same kind with himself. They are more fortunate, that is
all.
IV
The same temperamental quality is seen in the American idealist.
His attitude toward his spiritual leaders is seldom that of meek
discipleship. It is rather that of frank, outspoken comradeship. No
mysterious barrier separates the great man from the common man. One has
more, the other has less, that is all.
The men who have cherished the finest ideals have insisted that these
should be shared by the multitude. In a newspaper of sixty years ago
there is this contemporary character sketch: "Ralph Waldo Emerson is
the most erratic and capricious man in America. He is emphatically a
democrat of the world, and believes that what Plato thought, another man
may think. What Shakespeare sang, another man may know as well. As for
emperors, kings, queens, princes, or presidents, he looks upon them as
children in masquerade. He has no patience with the chicken-hearted who
refer to mouldy records or old almanacs to ascertain if they may say
that their souls are their own. Mr. Emerson is a strange compound of
contradictions. Always right in practice, and sometimes in theory. He is
a sociable, accessible, republican sort of man, and a great admirer of
nature."
Could any better description be given of the kind of man whom Americans
delight to honor? This "sociable, accessible, republican sort of man"
happened to be endowed with gifts denied in such full measure to his
countrymen. But they were gifts which they understood and appreciated.
He was one of them, and expressed and interpreted their habitual
thought. Luther used to declare that no one who had never had trials and
temptations could understand the Holy Scriptures. And one might say that
no one who had never taken part in a town meeting, or listened to the
talk of neighbors at the country store, or traveled in an "accommodation
train" in the Middle West, can fully understand Emerson.
Critics have often written of the optimism of Emerson as if he were one
of those who did not perceive the darker side of things. Nothing could
be more untrue to his temper of mind. Emerson was cheerful, but he never
pretended that the world was an altogether cheerful place to live in.
Indeed, it distinctly needed cheering up, and that, according to him, is
what we are here for.
It might be possible to make out a list of matters of fact treated by
Emerson and his friend Carlyle. They would be essentially the same. When
it came to hard facts, one was as unflinching in his recognition as the
other. There was nothing smug in Emerson's philosophy. He never took an
apologetic attitude nor attempted to minimize difficulties. There was no
attempt to justify the ways of God to man. But while agreeing in regard
to the facts the friends differed as to their conclusions. In reading
Carlyle one seems to stand at the end of a world struggle that has
proved unavailing. Everything has been tried, and everything has failed.
Alas! Alas!
Emerson sees the same facts, but he seems to be standing at the
beginning. The moral world is still without form and void, but the
creative spirit is brooding upon it. "Sweet is the genesis of things."
Emerson is pleased with the world, not because he thinks its present
condition is very good, but because he sees so much room for it to
become better. It is a most promising experiment. It furnishes an
abundance of the raw materials of righteousness.
Nor does he flatter himself that the task of betterment is an easy one,
or that the end is in sight. It is not a world where wishes, even good
wishes, are fulfilled without effort. There are inexorable laws not of
our making. The whims of good people are not respected.
"For Destiny never swerves
Nor yields to man the helm."
The struggle is stem and unrelenting. It taxes all our energies. And
yet it is exhilarating. There is a moral quick-wittedness which sees
the smile behind the threatening mask of Fate. Destiny is after all a
good comrade for the brave and the self-reliant.
"He forbids to despair,
His cheeks mantle with mirth,
And the unimagined good of man
Is yeaning at the birth."
The riddle of existence is seen not from the Old World point of view,
but from that of the new. It is of the nature of a surprise. The Sphinx
of Emerson is not carved in stone. It is not silent and motionless,
waiting for answers that do not come.
It is the American Sphinx leading in a game of hide-and-seek. The
mystery of existence baffles us, not because there is no answer, but
because there are so many. They are infinite in number, and all of them
are true. They wait for the mind large enough to harbor them in all
their variety, and serene enough not to be annoyed because their
contradictions are not at once reconciled.
The catalogue of ills may be never so long, but it fails to depress one
who sees everything in the making.
"I heard a poet answer
Aloud and cheerfully,
'Say on, sweet Sphinx! thy dirges
Are pleasant songs to me.'
* * * * *
"Uprose the merry Sphinx,
And crouched no more in stone;
She melted into purple cloud.
She silvered in the moon."
This conception of the merry Sphinx may seem strange to the dyspeptic
philosopher pondering on the inscrutableness of the universe. But the
prospectors in the mining camps of the Far West, and the builders of new
cities understand what Emerson meant. Their experience of the ups and
downs of fortune has taught them how to find pleasure in uncertainty.
You never can tell how anything will turn out till you try. That's the
fun of it. They are quite ready to believe that the same thing holds
good in the higher life.
Or take the lines on "Worship." How can Worship be personified?
Emerson's picture is not that of a patriarch on bended knee; it is that
of a vigorous youth picking himself up after he has been knocked down by
his antagonist.
"This is he, who, felled by foes,
Sprung harmless up, refreshed by blows."
Religion is a kind of spiritual resilience. It is that which makes a man
come back with new vigor to his work after his first failure. It is the
ability to make a new beginning.
In Emerson the American hurry is transformed into something of spiritual
significance. A new commandment is given to the good man--Be quick! Keep
moving!
"Trenchant Time behoves to hurry,
* * * * *
O wise man, hearest thou the least part,
Seest them the rushing metamorphosis,
Dissolving all that fixture is,
Melts things that be to things that seem."
Morality and religion must be speeded up if they are to do any useful
work in this swift world.
If the ideals of the saints and reformers were criticized, so were those
of the scholars. Matthew Arnold's definition of culture was that of a
man of books. It was the knowledge of the best that had been said and
known in the past. Emerson's lines entitled "Culture" begin with a
characteristic question and end with an equally characteristic
affirmation. The question is--
"Can rules or tutors educate
The semigod whom we await?"
The affirmation is that the man of culture is one who
"to his native centre fast,
Shall into Future fuse the Past,
And the world's flowing fates in his own mould recast."