gives him plenty to do. But the role of an elderly passenger, given a
softly cushioned seat and deposited respectfully at the journey's end,
he rejects with violent expressions of scorn. It is ignominious. He will
be a policeman or robber or judge or executioner, just as the exigencies
of the game demand. These are honorable positions worthy of one who
belongs to the party of action. But do not impose upon him by asking him
to act the part of the respectable citizen who is robbed and who does
nothing but telephone for the police. He is not fastidious and will take
up almost anything that is suggested, if it gives him the opportunity of
exerting himself. The demand for exertion is the irreducible minimum.
Now to spoil all this fine enthusiasm you must arrange everything in
such a manner that the eager little worker shall find everything done
before he has time to put his hand to it. There must be no alluring
possibilities in his tiny universe. The days of creation, when "the sons
of God shouted for joy," must be passed before he is ushered in. He must
be presented only with accomplished facts. There must be nothing left
for him to make or discover. He must be told everything. All his designs
must be anticipated, by nurses and parents and teachers. They must give
him whatever good things they can think of before he has time to desire
them. From the time when elaborate mechanical toys are put into his
reluctant hands, it is understood that he is to be amused, and need not
amuse himself His education is arranged for him. His companions are
chosen for him. There is nothing for him to do, and if there were, there
is no incentive for him to do it. In the game of life he is never
allowed to be the horse. It is his fate to be the passenger.
A child is spoiled when he accepts the position into which fond, foolish
parents thrust him. Being a passenger on what was presumably intended to
be a pleasure excursion, he begins to find fault as soon as the journey
becomes a little wearisome. He must find fault, because that is the only
thing left for him to find. Having no opportunity to exercise his
creative faculties, he becomes a petulant critic of a world he can
neither enjoy nor understand. Taking for granted that everything should
be done for him, he is angry because it is not done better. His
ready-made world does not please him--why should it? It never occurs to
him that if he does not like it he should try and make it better.
Unfortunately, the characteristics of the spoiled child do not vanish
with childhood or even with adolescence. A university training does not
necessarily transform petulance into ripe wisdom. Literary ability may
only give fluent expression to a peevish spirit.
Among the innumerable children of an advanced civilization there are
those who have been spoiled by the petting to which they have been
subjected. Life has been made so easy for them that when they come upon
hard places which demand sturdy endurance they break forth into angry
complaints. They have been given the results of the complicated
activities of mankind, without having done their share in the common
tasks. They have not through personal endeavor learned how much
everything costs. They are not able, therefore, to pay cheerfully for
any future good. If it is not given to them at once they feel that they
have a grievance. For friendly coöperation they are not prepared. They
must have their own way or they will not play the game. Their fretful
complaints are like those of the children in the old-time market-places:
"We have piped unto you and you have not danced, we have mourned unto
you and you have not lamented."
There is a fashionable attitude of mind among many who pride themselves
on their acute intellectualism. It manifests itself in a supercilious
compassion for the efforts and ambitions of the man of action. He, poor
fellow, is well-meaning, but unilluminated. He is eager and energetic
because he imagines that he is accomplishing something. If he were a
serious thinker he would see that all effort is futile. We are here in
an unintelligible world, a world of mighty forces, moving we know not
whither. We are subject to passions and impulses which we cannot resist.
We are never so helpless as when we are in the midst of human affairs.
We have great words which we utter proudly. We talk of Civilization,
Christianity, Democracy, and the like. What miserable failures they all
are. Civilization has failed to produce contentment. It has failed to
secure perfect justice between man and man, or to satisfy the hungry
with bread. Christianity after all these centuries of preaching leaves
mankind as we see it to-day--an armed camp, nation fighting nation,
class warring against class. The democratic movement about which we hear
so much is equally unsuccessful. After its brilliant promises it leaves
us helpless against the passion and stupidity of the mob. Popular
education adds to the tribulations of society. It rapidly increases the
number of the discontented. The half-educated are led astray by quacks
and demagogues who flourish mightily. The higher technical education
increases that intellectual proletariat which Bismarck saw to be a
peril. Science, which once was hailed as a deliverer, is now perceived
to bring only the disillusioning knowledge of our limitations. The
bankruptcy of Science follows closely upon the bankruptcy of Faith.
Mechanical inventions, instead of decreasing the friction of life,
enormously increase it. We are destined to be dragged along by our own
machines which are to go faster and faster. Philanthropy increases the
number of the unfit. The advances of medicine are only apparent, while
statistics show that tuberculosis, a disease of early life, decreases,
cancer and diseases of later life increase.
As for the general interest in social amelioration, that is the worst
sign of all. "Coming events cast their shadows before," and we may see
the shadow of the coming Revolution. Is there any symptom of decadence
more sure than when the moral temperature suddenly rises above normal?
Watch the clinical charts of Empire. In the period of national vigor the
blood is cool. But the time arrives when the period of growth has
passed. Then a boding sense comes on. The huge frame of the patient is
feverish. The social conscience is sensitive. All sorts of soft-hearted
proposals for helping the masses are proposed. The world rulers become
too tenderhearted for their business. Then comes the end.
Read again the history of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. How
admirable were the efforts of the "good emperors," and how futile!
Consider again the oft-repeated story of the way the humanitarianism of
Rousseau ushered in the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror.
With such gloomy forebodings do the over-civilized thinkers and writers
try to discourage the half-civilized and half-educated workers, who are
trying to make things better. How shall we answer the prophets of ill?
Not by denying the existence of the evils they see, or the possibility
of the calamities which they fear. What we object to is the mental
attitude toward the facts that are discovered. The spoiled child, when
it discovers something not to its liking, exaggerates the evil, and
indulges its ill-temper.
The well-trained man faces the evil, studies it, measures it, and then
sets to work. He is well aware that nothing human is perfect, and that
to accomplish one thing is only to reveal another thing which needs to
be done. There must be perpetual readjustment, and reconsideration. What
was done yesterday must be done over again to-day in a somewhat
different way. But all this does not prove the futility of effort. It
only proves that the effort must be unceasing, and that it must be more
and more wisely directed.
He compares, for example, Christianity as an ideal with Christianity as
an actual achievement. He places in parallel columns the maxims of
Jesus, and the policies of Christian nations and the actual state of
Christian churches. The discrepancy is obvious enough. But it does not
prove that Christianity is a failure; it only proves that its work is
unfinished.
A political party may adopt a platform filled with excellent proposals
which if thoroughly carried out would bring in the millennium. But it is
too much to expect that it would all be accomplished in four years. At
the end of that period we should not be surprised if the reformers
should ask for a further extension of time.
The spoiled children of civilization eliminate from their problem the
one element which is constant and significant--human effort. They forget
that from the beginning human life has been a tremendous struggle
against great odds. Nothing has come without labor, no advance has been
without daring leadership. New fortunes have always had their hazards.
Forgetting all this, and accepting whatever comforts may have come to
them as their right, they are depressed and discouraged by their vision
of the future with its dangers and its difficulties. They habitually
talk of the civilized world as on the brink of some great catastrophe
which it is impossible to avoid. This gloomy foreboding is looked upon
as an indication of wisdom.
It should be dismissed, I think, as an indication of childish unreason,
unworthy of any one who faces realities. It is still true that "the
morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the
day is the evil thereof."
The notion that coming events cast shadows before is a superstition. How
can they? A shadow must be the shadow of something. The only events that
can cast a shadow are those which have already taken place. Behind them
is the light of experience, shining upon actualities which intercept its
rays.
The shadows which affright us are of our own making. They are
projections into the future of our own experiences. They are sharply
denned silhouettes, rather than vague omens. When we look at them
closely we can recognize familiar features. We are dealing with cause
and effect. What is done foreshadows what remains to be done. Every act
implies some further acts as its results. When a principle is recognized
its practical applications must follow. When men begin to reason from
new premises they are bound to come to new conclusions.
It is evident that in the last half-century enough discoveries have been
made to keep us busy for a long time. Every scientific advance upsets
some custom and interferes with some vested interest. You cannot
discover the truth about tuberculosis without causing a great deal of
trouble to the owners of unsanitary dwellings. Some of them are widows
whose little all is invested in this kind of property. The health
inspectors make life more difficult for them.
Scholarly research among ancient manuscripts is the cause of destructive
criticism. The scholar with the most peaceable intentions in the world
disturbs some one's faith. His discovery perhaps involves the
reconstruction of a whole system of philosophy.
A law is passed. The people are pleased with it, and then forget all
about it. But by and by a conscientious executive comes into office who
thinks it his duty to enforce the law. Such accidents are liable to
happen in the most good-humored democracy. When he tries to enforce it
there is a burst of angry surprise. He is treated as a revolutionist who
is attacking the established order. And yet to the moderately
philosophic observer the making of the law and its enforcement belong to
the same process. The difficulty is that though united logically they
are often widely separated chronologically.
The adjustment to a new theory involves changes in practice. But the
practical man who has usually little interest in new theories is
surprised and angry when the changes come. He looks upon them as
arbitrary interferences with his rights.
Even when it is admitted that when considered in a large way the change
is for the better, the question arises, Who is to pay for it? The
discussion on this point is bound to be acrimonious, as we are not
saints and nobody wants to pay more than his share of the costs of
progress. Even the price of liberty is something which we grumble over.
You have noticed how it is when a new boulevard is laid in any part of
the city. There is always a dispute between the municipality and the
abutters. Should the abutters be assessed for betterments or should they
sue for damages? Usually both actions are instituted. The cost of such
litigation should be included in the price which the community pays for
the improvement.
If people always knew what was good for them and acted accordingly, this
would be a very different world, though not nearly so interesting. But
we do not know what is good for us till we try; and human life is spent
in a series of experiments. The experiments are costly, but there is no
other way of getting results. All that we can say to a person who
refuses to interest himself in these experiments, or who looks upon all
experiments as futile which do not turn out as he wished, is that his
attitude is childish. The great commandment to the worker or thinker
is,--Thou shalt not sulk.
* * * * *
Sulking is no more admirable in those of great reputation than it is in
the nursery. Thackeray declared that, in his opinion, "love is a higher
intellectual exercise than hate." And looked at as an exercise of mental
power courage must always be greater than the most highly
intellectualized form of fear or despair.
I cannot take with perfect seriousness Matthew Arnold's oft-quoted
lines:--
"Achilles ponders in his tent,
The kings of modern thought are dumb.
Silent they are, though not content,
And wait to see the future come.
They have the grief men had of yore,
But they contend and cry no more."
If that is ever the attitude of the best minds, it is only a momentary
one of which they are quickly ashamed. Achilles sulked in his tent when
he was pondering not a big problem, but a small grievance. The kings of
modern thought who are described seem like kings out of a job. We are
inclined to turn from them to the intellectual monarchs _de facto_. They
are the ones who take up the hard job which the representatives of the
old régime give up as hopeless. For when the king has abdicated and
contends no more--Long live the King!
The real thinkers of any age do not remain long in a blue funk. They
always find something important to think about. They always point out
something worth doing. They cannot passively wait to see the future
come. They are too busy making it.
Matthew Arnold struck a truer note in Rugby Chapel. The true leaders of
mankind can never be mere intellectualists. There must be a union of
intellectual and moral energy like that which he recognized in his
father. To the fainting, dispirited race,--
"Ye like angels appear,
Radiant with ardour divine,
Beacons of hope, ye appear!
Languor is not in your heart,
Weakness is not in your word,
Weariness not on your brow;
Ye alight in our van: at your voice
Panic, despair, flee away."
When those whom we have looked upon as our intellectual leaders grow
disheartened, we must remember that a lost leader does not necessarily
mean a lost cause. When those whom we had called the kings of modern
thought are dumb, we can find new leadership. "Change kings with us,"
replied an Irish officer after the panic of the Boyne; "change kings
with us, and we will fight you again."
ON REALISM AS AN INVESTMENT
_From a Real-Estate Dealer to a Realistic Novelist_
Dear Sir:--
I have been for some time interested in your projects for the
improvement of literature. When I saw your name in the newspapers, I
looked you up in "Who's Who," and found that your rating is excellent
What pleased me was the bold way you attacked the old firms which have
been living on their reputations. The way you showed up Dickens,
Thackeray & Co. showed that you know a thing or two. As for W. Scott and
the other speculators who have been preying on the credulity of the
public, you gave them something to think about. You showed conclusively
that instead of dealing in hard facts, they have been handing out
fiction under the guise of novels.
Our minds run in the same channel: you deal in reality and I deal in
realty, but the principle is the same. I inclose some of the literature
which I am sending out. You see, I warn people against investing in
stocks and bonds. These are mere paper securities, which take to
themselves wings and fly away. But if you can get hold of a few acres of
dirt, there you are. When a panic comes along, and Wall Street goes to
smash, you can sit on your front porch in South Canaan without a care.
You have your little all in something real.
You followed the same line of argumentation. You showed that there was
nothing imaginative about your work. You could give a warranty deed for
every fact which you put on the market. I was so pleased with your
method that I bought a job lot of your books, so that I could see for
myself how you conducted your business. Will you allow me, as one in the
same line, to indulge in a little criticism? I am afraid that you are
making the same mistake I made when I first went into real estate. I was
so possessed with the idea of the value of land that I became "land
poor." It strikes me that a novelist may become reality poor in the same
way; that is, by investing in a great many realities that are not worth
what he pays for them.
You see, there is a fact which we do not mention in our circulars. There
is a great deal of land lying out of doors. _Some_ land is in great
demand, and the real trick is to find out what that land is. You can't
go out on the plains of Wyoming and give an acre of land the same value
which an acre has in the Wall Street district. I speak from experience,
having tried to convince the public that if the acres are real, the
values I suggested must be real also. People wouldn't believe me, and I
lost money.
And the same thing is true about improvements. They must be related to
the market value of the land on which they are placed. A forty-story
building at Goshenville Corners would be a mistake. There is no call for
it.
This is the mistake which I fear you have been making. Your novel is a
carefully prepared structure, and must have cost a great deal, but it is
built on ground which is not worth enough to justify the investment. It
has not what we call "site value." You yourself declare that you have no
particular interest in the characters you describe at such length. All
that you have to say for them is that they are real. It is as if I were
to put up an expensive apartment-house on a vacant lot I have at North
Ovid. North Ovid is real, and so would be the apartment-house; but what
of it?
There are ninety millions of people in this country, all with characters
which might be carefully studied, if we had time. But we haven't the
time. So we have to choose our intimates. We prefer to know those who
seem to us most worth knowing. You should remember that the novelist has
no monopoly on realism. The newspapers are full of all sorts of
realities. The historian is a keen competitor.
Do you know that when I went to the bookstore to get your works I fell
in with a book on Garibaldi by a man named Trevelyan. When I got home I
sat down with it and couldn't let it go. Garibaldi was all the time
doing things, which you never allow your characters to do because you
think they would not be real. He was acting in the most romantic and
heroic manner possible. And his Thousand trooped after him as gayly as
if they were in a melodrama. And yet I understand that Garibaldi was a
real person, and that his exploits can be authenticated.
The competition in your line of business is fierce. You try to hold the
reader's attention to the states of mind of a few futile persons who
never did anything in particular that would make people want to know
them exhaustively. And then along comes the historian who tells all
about some one who does things they are interested in.
You can't wonder at the result. People who ought to be interested in
fiction are carried away by biography, and the chances are that some of
them will never come back. When they once get a taste for highly spiced
intellectual victuals, you can't get them to relish the breakfast food
you set before them. It seems to them insipid.
I know what you will say about Garibaldi. He was not your kind. You
wouldn't touch such a character if it was offered to you at a bargain.
After looking over that expedition to Sicily you would say that there
was nothing in it for you. The motives weren't complicated enough. It
was just plain heroics. You don't care so much for passions as for
problems. You want something to analyze.
Well, what do you say to Cavour? When I was deep in Garibaldi I found I
couldn't understand what he was driving at without knowing something
about Cavour who was always mixed up with what was going on in that
section of the world.
So I took up a Life of Cavour by a man named Thayer. It's the way I
have; one thing suggests another. Once I went up to Duluth and invested
in some corner lots on Superior Street. That suggested Superior City,
just across the river. The two towns were running each other down at a
great rate just then, so I stopped at West Superior to see what it had
to say for itself. The upshot of the matter was that I sized up the
situation about like this. A big city has _got_ to grow up at the head
of Lake Superior. If Duluth grows as much as it thinks it will, it's
bound to take in Superior. And if Superior grows as much as it thinks it
will, it can't help taking in Duluth. So I concluded that the best thing
for me was to take a flier in both.
When I saw what a big proposition the Unification of Italy was, I knew
that there was room for the development of some mighty interesting
characters before they got through with the business. So I plunged into
the Life of Cavour, and I've never regretted it.
Talk about problems! That hero of yours in your last book--I know you
don't believe in heroes,--at any rate, the leading man--was an innocent
child walking with his nurse along Easy Street, when compared with
Cavour. Cavour had fifty problems at the same time, and all of them were
insoluble to every one except himself.
His project, as I have just told you, was the unification of Italy. But
he hadn't any regulated monopoly in the business. A whole bunch of
unifiers were ahead of him; each one of them was trying to unify Italy
in his own way. They were all working at cross-purposes.
Now Cavour didn't try, as you might have expected, to reconcile these
people. He saw that it couldn't be done. He didn't mind their hating one
another; when they got too peaceable he would make an occasion for them
to hate him. He kept them all irreconcilably at work, till, in spite of
themselves, they got to working together. And when they began to do
that, Cavour would encourage them in it. As long as they were all
working for Italy he didn't care what they thought of each other or of
him. He had his eye on the main chance--for Italy.
I notice that in your novel, when your man got into trouble he threw up
the sponge. That rather turned me against him and I wished I hadn't
wasted so much time on his affairs. That wasn't the way with Thayer's
hero. One of the largest deals Cavour ever made was with Napoleon III,
who at that time had the reputation of being the biggest promoter of
free institutions in Europe. He was a regular wizard in diplomacy.
Whatever he said went. You see they hadn't realized then that he was
doing business on borrowed capital.
Well, Napoleon agreed to underwrite, for Cavour, the whole project of
Italian Unity. Everybody thought it was going through all right, when
suddenly Napoleon, from a place called Villafranca, wired that the deal
was off.
That floored Cavour. He was down and out. He couldn't realize ten cents
on the dollar on his securities. If he had been like your man, Thayer
would have had to bring his book to an end with that chapter. He would
have left the reader plunged in gloom.
Cavour was mad for awhile and went up to Switzerland to cool off. Thayer
describes the way he went up to a friend's house, near Lake Geneva, with
his coat on his arm. "Unannounced, he strode into the drawing-room,
threw himself into an easy-chair, and asked for a glass of iced water."