{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_70/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_70","id":"gutenberg_70","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/70","summary":null,"tags":["American essays","Category: American Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics"],"text":"WHAT IS MAN?\nAND OTHER ESSAYS\n\nBy Mark Twain\n\n(Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910)\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n WHAT IS MAN?\n THE DEATH OF JEAN\n THE TURNING-POINT OF MY LIFE\n HOW TO MAKE HISTORY DATES STICK\n THE MEMORABLE ASSASSINATION\n A SCRAP OF CURIOUS HISTORY\n SWITZERLAND, THE CRADLE OF LIBERTY\n AT THE SHRINE OF ST. WAGNER\n WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS\n ENGLISH AS SHE IS TAUGHT\n A SIMPLIFIED ALPHABET\n AS CONCERNS INTERPRETING THE DEITY\n CONCERNING TOBACCO\n THE BEE\n TAMING THE BICYCLE\n IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD?\n\n\n\n\n\nWHAT IS MAN?\n\nI\n\na. Man the Machine. b. Personal Merit\n\n[The Old Man and the Young Man had been conversing. The Old Man had\nasserted that the human being is merely a machine, and nothing more.\nThe Young Man objected, and asked him to go into particulars and\nfurnish his reasons for his position.]\n\nOld Man. What are the materials of which a steam-engine is made?\n\nYoung Man. Iron, steel, brass, white-metal, and so on.\n\nO.M. Where are these found?\n\nY.M. In the rocks.\n\nO.M. In a pure state?\n\nY.M. No\u2014in ores.\n\nO.M. Are the metals suddenly deposited in the ores?\n\nY.M. No\u2014it is the patient work of countless ages.\n\nO.M. You could make the engine out of the rocks themselves?\n\nY.M. Yes, a brittle one and not valuable.\n\nO.M. You would not require much, of such an engine as that?\n\nY.M. No\u2014substantially nothing.\n\nO.M. To make a fine and capable engine, how would you proceed?\n\nY.M. Drive tunnels and shafts into the hills; blast out the iron ore;\ncrush it, smelt it, reduce it to pig-iron; put some of it through the\nBessemer process and make steel of it. Mine and treat and combine\nseveral metals of which brass is made.\n\nO.M. Then?\n\nY.M. Out of the perfected result, build the fine engine.\n\nO.M. You would require much of this one?\n\nY.M. Oh, indeed yes.\n\nO.M. It could drive lathes, drills, planers, punches, polishers, in a\nword all the cunning machines of a great factory?\n\nY.M. It could.\n\nO.M. What could the stone engine do?\n\nY.M. Drive a sewing-machine, possibly\u2014nothing more, perhaps.\n\nO.M. Men would admire the other engine and rapturously praise it?\n\nY.M. Yes.\n\nO.M. But not the stone one?\n\nY.M. No.\n\nO.M. The merits of the metal machine would be far above those of the\nstone one?\n\nY.M. Of course.\n\nO.M. Personal merits?\n\nY.M. _Personal_ merits? How do you mean?\n\nO.M. It would be personally entitled to the credit of its own\nperformance?\n\nY.M. The engine? Certainly not.\n\nO.M. Why not?\n\nY.M. Because its performance is not personal. It is the result of the\nlaw of construction. It is not a _merit_ that it does the things which\nit is set to do\u2014it can\u2019t _help_ doing them.\n\nO.M. And it is not a personal demerit in the stone machine that it does\nso little?\n\nY.M. Certainly not. It does no more and no less than the law of its\nmake permits and compels it to do. There is nothing _personal_ about\nit; it cannot choose. In this process of \u201cworking up to the matter\u201d is\nit your idea to work up to the proposition that man and a machine are\nabout the same thing, and that there is no personal merit in the\nperformance of either?\n\nO.M. Yes\u2014but do not be offended; I am meaning no offense. What makes\nthe grand difference between the stone engine and the steel one? Shall\nwe call it training, education? Shall we call the stone engine a savage\nand the steel one a civilized man? The original rock contained the\nstuff of which the steel one was built\u2014but along with a lot of sulphur\nand stone and other obstructing inborn heredities, brought down from\nthe old geologic ages\u2014prejudices, let us call them. Prejudices which\nnothing within the rock itself had either _power_ to remove or any\n_desire_ to remove. Will you take note of that phrase?\n\nY.M. Yes. I have written it down; \u201cPrejudices which nothing within the\nrock itself had either power to remove or any desire to remove.\u201d Go on.\n\nO.M. Prejudices must be removed by _outside influences_ or not at all.\nPut that down.\n\nY.M. Very well; \u201cMust be removed by outside influences or not at all.\u201d\nGo on.\n\nO.M. The iron\u2019s prejudice against ridding itself of the cumbering rock.\nTo make it more exact, the iron\u2019s absolute _indifference_ as to whether\nthe rock be removed or not. Then comes the _outside influence_ and\ngrinds the rock to powder and sets the ore free. The _iron_ in the ore\nis still captive. An _outside influence_ smelts it free of the clogging\nore. The iron is emancipated iron, now, but indifferent to further\nprogress. An _outside influence_ beguiles it into the Bessemer furnace\nand refines it into steel of the first quality. It is educated, now\u2014its\ntraining is complete. And it has reached its limit. By no possible\nprocess can it be educated into _gold_. Will you set that down?\n\nY.M. Yes. \u201cEverything has its limit\u2014iron ore cannot be educated into\ngold.\u201d\n\nO.M. There are gold men, and tin men, and copper men, and leaden men,\nand steel men, and so on\u2014and each has the limitations of his nature,\nhis heredities, his training, and his environment. You can build\nengines out of each of these metals, and they will all perform, but you\nmust not require the weak ones to do equal work with the strong ones.\nIn each case, to get the best results, you must free the metal from its\nobstructing prejudicial ones by education\u2014smelting, refining, and so\nforth.\n\nY.M. You have arrived at man, now?\n\nO.M. Yes. Man the machine\u2014man the impersonal engine. Whatsoever a man\nis, is due to his _make_, and to the _influences_ brought to bear upon\nit by his heredities, his habitat, his associations. He is moved,\ndirected, _commanded_, by _exterior_ influences\u2014_solely_. He\n_originates_ nothing, not even a thought.\n\nY.M. Oh, come! Where did I get my opinion that this which you are\ntalking is all foolishness?\n\nO.M. It is a quite natural opinion\u2014indeed an inevitable opinion\u2014but\n_you _did not create the materials out of which it is formed. They are\nodds and ends of thoughts, impressions, feelings, gathered\nunconsciously from a thousand books, a thousand conversations, and from\nstreams of thought and feeling which have flowed down into your heart\nand brain out of the hearts and brains of centuries of ancestors.\n_Personally_ you did not create even the smallest microscopic fragment\nof the materials out of which your opinion is made; and personally you\ncannot claim even the slender merit of _putting the borrowed materials\ntogether_. That was done _automatically_\u2014by your mental machinery, in\nstrict accordance with the law of that machinery\u2019s construction. And\nyou not only did not make that machinery yourself, but you have _not\neven any command over it_.\n\nY.M. This is too much. You think I could have formed no opinion but\nthat one?\n\nO.M. Spontaneously? No. And _you did not form that one_; your machinery\ndid it for you\u2014automatically and instantly, without reflection or the\nneed of it.\n\nY.M. Suppose I had reflected? How then?\n\nO.M. Suppose you try?\n\nY.M. (_After a quarter of an hour_.) I have reflected.\n\nO.M. You mean you have tried to change your opinion\u2014as an experiment?\n\nY.M. Yes.\n\nO.M. With success?\n\nY.M. No. It remains the same; it is impossible to change it.\n\nO.M. I am sorry, but you see, yourself, that your mind is merely a\nmachine, nothing more. You have no command over it, it has no command\nover itself\u2014it is worked _solely from the outside_. That is the law of\nits make; it is the law of all machines.\n\nY.M. Can\u2019t I _ever_ change one of these automatic opinions?\n\nO.M. No. You can\u2019t yourself, but _exterior influences_ can do it.\n\nY.M. And exterior ones _only_?\n\nO.M. Yes\u2014exterior ones only.\n\nY.M. That position is untenable\u2014I may say ludicrously untenable.\n\nO.M. What makes you think so?\n\nY.M. I don\u2019t merely think it, I know it. Suppose I resolve to enter\nupon a course of thought, and study, and reading, with the deliberate\npurpose of changing that opinion; and suppose I succeed. _That _is not\nthe work of an exterior impulse, the whole of it is mine and personal;\nfor I originated the project.\n\nO.M. Not a shred of it. _It grew out of this talk with me_. But for\nthat it would not have occurred to you. No man ever originates\nanything. All his thoughts, all his impulses, come _from the outside_.\n\nY.M. It\u2019s an exasperating subject. The _first_ man had original\nthoughts, anyway; there was nobody to draw from.\n\nO.M. It is a mistake. Adam\u2019s thoughts came to him from the outside.\n_You_ have a fear of death. You did not invent that\u2014you got it from\noutside, from talking and teaching. Adam had no fear of death\u2014none in\nthe world.\n\nY.M. Yes, he had.\n\nO.M. When he was created?\n\nY.M. No.\n\nO.M. When, then?\n\nY.M. When he was threatened with it.\n\nO.M. Then it came from _outside_. Adam is quite big enough; let us not\ntry to make a god of him. _None but gods have ever had a thought which\ndid not come from the outside_. Adam probably had a good head, but it\nwas of no sort of use to him until it was filled up _from the outside_.\nHe was not able to invent the triflingest little thing with it. He had\nnot a shadow of a notion of the difference between good and evil\u2014he had\nto get the idea _from the outside_. Neither he nor Eve was able to\noriginate the idea that it was immodest to go naked; the knowledge came\nin with the apple _from the outside_. A man\u2019s brain is so constructed\nthat _it can originate nothing whatsoever_. It can only use material\nobtained _outside_. It is merely a machine; and it works automatically,\nnot by will-power. _It has no command over itself, its owner has no\ncommand over it_.\n\nY.M. Well, never mind Adam: but certainly Shakespeare\u2019s creations\u2014\n\nO.M. No, you mean Shakespeare\u2019s _imitations_. Shakespeare created\nnothing. He correctly observed, and he marvelously painted. He exactly\nportrayed people whom _God_ had created; but he created none himself.\nLet us spare him the slander of charging him with trying. Shakespeare\ncould not create. _He was a machine, and machines do not create_.\n\nY.M. Where _was_ his excellence, then?\n\nO.M. In this. He was not a sewing-machine, like you and me; he was a\nGobelin loom. The threads and the colors came into him _from the\noutside_; outside influences, suggestions, _experiences_ (reading,\nseeing plays, playing plays, borrowing ideas, and so on), framed the\npatterns in his mind and started up his complex and admirable\nmachinery, and _it automatically_ turned out that pictured and gorgeous\nfabric which still compels the astonishment of the world. If\nShakespeare had been born and bred on a barren and unvisited rock in\nthe ocean his mighty intellect would have had no _outside material_ to\nwork with, and could have invented none; and _no outside influences_,\nteachings, moldings, persuasions, inspirations, of a valuable sort, and\ncould have invented none; and so Shakespeare would have produced\nnothing. In Turkey he would have produced something\u2014something up to the\nhighest limit of Turkish influences, associations, and training. In\nFrance he would have produced something better\u2014something up to the\nhighest limit of the French influences and training. In England he rose\nto the highest limit attainable through the _outside helps afforded by\nthat land\u2019s ideals, influences, and training_. You and I are but\nsewing-machines. We must turn out what we can; we must do our endeavor\nand care nothing at all when the unthinking reproach us for not turning\nout Gobelins.\n\nY.M. And so we are mere machines! And machines may not boast, nor feel\nproud of their performance, nor claim personal merit for it, nor\napplause and praise. It is an infamous doctrine.\n\nO.M. It isn\u2019t a doctrine, it is merely a fact.\n\nY.M. I suppose, then, there is no more merit in being brave than in\nbeing a coward?\n\nO.M. _Personal_ merit? No. A brave man does not _create_ his bravery.\nHe is entitled to no personal credit for possessing it. It is born to\nhim. A baby born with a billion dollars\u2014where is the personal merit in\nthat? A baby born with nothing\u2014where is the personal demerit in that?\nThe one is fawned upon, admired, worshiped, by sycophants, the other is\nneglected and despised\u2014where is the sense in it?\n\nY.M. Sometimes a timid man sets himself the task of conquering his\ncowardice and becoming brave\u2014and succeeds. What do you say to that?\n\nO.M. That it shows the value of _training in right directions over\ntraining in wrong ones_. Inestimably valuable is training, influence,\neducation, in right directions\u2014_training one\u2019s self-approbation to\nelevate its ideals_.\n\nY.M. But as to merit\u2014the personal merit of the victorious coward\u2019s\nproject and achievement?\n\nO.M. There isn\u2019t any. In the world\u2019s view he is a worthier man than he\nwas before, but _he_ didn\u2019t achieve the change\u2014the merit of it is not\nhis.\n\nY.M. Whose, then?\n\nO.M. His _make_, and the influences which wrought upon it from the\noutside.\n\nY.M. His make?\n\nO.M. To start with, he was _not_ utterly and completely a coward, or\nthe influences would have had nothing to work upon. He was not afraid\nof a cow, though perhaps of a bull: not afraid of a woman, but afraid\nof a man. There was something to build upon. There was a _seed_. No\nseed, no plant. Did he make that seed himself, or was it born in him?\nIt was no merit of _his_ that the seed was there.\n\nY.M. Well, anyway, the idea of _cultivating_ it, the resolution to\ncultivate it, was meritorious, and he originated that.\n\nO.M. He did nothing of the kind. It came whence _all_ impulses, good or\nbad, come\u2014from _outside_. If that timid man had lived all his life in a\ncommunity of human rabbits, had never read of brave deeds, had never\nheard speak of them, had never heard any one praise them nor express\nenvy of the heroes that had done them, he would have had no more idea\nof bravery than Adam had of modesty, and it could never by any\npossibility have occurred to him to _resolve_ to become brave. He\n_could not originate the idea_\u2014it had to come to him from the\n_outside_. And so, when he heard bravery extolled and cowardice\nderided, it woke him up. He was ashamed. Perhaps his sweetheart turned\nup her nose and said, \u201cI am told that you are a coward!\u201d It was not\n_he_ that turned over the new leaf\u2014she did it for him. _He_ must not\nstrut around in the merit of it \u2014it is not his.\n\nY.M. But, anyway, he reared the plant after she watered the seed.\n\nO.M. No. _Outside influences_ reared it. At the command\u2014and\ntrembling\u2014he marched out into the field\u2014with other soldiers and in the\ndaytime, not alone and in the dark. He had the _influence of example_,\nhe drew courage from his comrades\u2019 courage; he was afraid, and wanted\nto run, but he did not dare; he was _afraid_ to run, with all those\nsoldiers looking on. He was progressing, you see\u2014the moral fear of\nshame had risen superior to the physical fear of harm. By the end of\nthe campaign experience will have taught him that not _all_ who go into\nbattle get hurt\u2014an outside influence which will be helpful to him; and\nhe will also have learned how sweet it is to be praised for courage and\nbe huzza\u2019d at with tear-choked voices as the war-worn regiment marches\npast the worshiping multitude with flags flying and the drums beating.\nAfter that he will be as securely brave as any veteran in the army\u2014and\nthere will not be a shade nor suggestion of _personal merit_ in it\nanywhere; it will all have come from the _outside_. The Victoria Cross\nbreeds more heroes than\u2014\n\nY.M. Hang it, where is the sense in his becoming brave if he is to get\nno credit for it?\n\nO.M. Your question will answer itself presently. It involves an\nimportant detail of man\u2019s make which we have not yet touched upon.\n\nY.M. What detail is that?\n\nO.M. The impulse which moves a person to do things\u2014the only impulse\nthat ever moves a person to do a thing.\n\nY.M. The _only_ one! Is there but one?\n\nO.M. That is all. There is only one.\n\nY.M. Well, certainly that is a strange enough doctrine. What is the\nsole impulse that ever moves a person to do a thing?\n\nO.M. The impulse to _content his own spirit_\u2014the _necessity_ of\ncontenting his own spirit and _winning its approval_.\n\nY.M. Oh, come, that won\u2019t do!\n\nO.M. Why won\u2019t it?\n\nY.M. Because it puts him in the attitude of always looking out for his\nown comfort and advantage; whereas an unselfish man often does a thing\nsolely for another person\u2019s good when it is a positive disadvantage to\nhimself.\n\nO.M. It is a mistake. The act must do _him_ good, _first_; otherwise he\nwill not do it. He may _think_ he is doing it solely for the other\nperson\u2019s sake, but it is not so; he is contenting his own spirit\nfirst\u2014the other\u2019s person\u2019s benefit has to always take _second_ place.\n\nY.M. What a fantastic idea! What becomes of self\u2014sacrifice? Please\nanswer me that.\n\nO.M. What is self-sacrifice?\n\nY.M. The doing good to another person where no shadow nor suggestion of\nbenefit to one\u2019s self can result from it.\n\nII\n\nMan\u2019s Sole Impulse\u2014the Securing of His Own Approval\n\nOld Man. There have been instances of it\u2014you think?\n\nYoung Man. _Instances_? Millions of them!\n\nO.M. You have not jumped to conclusions? You have examined\nthem\u2014critically?\n\nY.M. They don\u2019t need it: the acts themselves reveal the golden impulse\nback of them.\n\nO.M. For instance?\n\nY.M. Well, then, for instance. Take the case in the book here. The man\nlives three miles up-town. It is bitter cold, snowing hard, midnight.\nHe is about to enter the horse-car when a gray and ragged old woman, a\ntouching picture of misery, puts out her lean hand and begs for rescue\nfrom hunger and death. The man finds that he has a quarter in his\npocket, but he does not hesitate: he gives it her and trudges home\nthrough the storm. There\u2014it is noble, it is beautiful; its grace is\nmarred by no fleck or blemish or suggestion of self-interest.\n\nO.M. What makes you think that?\n\nY.M. Pray what else could I think? Do you imagine that there is some\nother way of looking at it?\n\nO.M. Can you put yourself in the man\u2019s place and tell me what he felt\nand what he thought?\n\nY.M. Easily. The sight of that suffering old face pierced his generous\nheart with a sharp pain. He could not bear it. He could endure the\nthree-mile walk in the storm, but he could not endure the tortures his\nconscience would suffer if he turned his back and left that poor old\ncreature to perish. He would not have been able to sleep, for thinking\nof it.\n\nO.M. What was his state of mind on his way home?\n\nY.M. It was a state of joy which only the self-sacrificer knows. His\nheart sang, he was unconscious of the storm.\n\nO.M. He felt well?\n\nY.M. One cannot doubt it.\n\nO.M. Very well. Now let us add up the details and see how much he got\nfor his twenty-five cents. Let us try to find out the _real_ why of his\nmaking the investment. In the first place _he_ couldn\u2019t bear the pain\nwhich the old suffering face gave him. So he was thinking of _his_\npain\u2014this good man. He must buy a salve for it. If he did not succor\nthe old woman _his_ conscience would torture him all the way home.\nThinking of _his_ pain again. He must buy relief for that. If he didn\u2019t\nrelieve the old woman _he_ would not get any sleep. He must buy some\nsleep\u2014still thinking of _himself_, you see. Thus, to sum up, he bought\nhimself free of a sharp pain in his heart, he bought himself free of\nthe tortures of a waiting conscience, he bought a whole night\u2019s\nsleep\u2014all for twenty-five cents! It should make Wall Street ashamed of\nitself. On his way home his heart was joyful, and it sang\u2014profit on top\nof profit! The impulse which moved the man to succor the old woman\nwas\u2014_first_\u2014to _content his own spirit_; secondly to relieve _her_\nsufferings. Is it your opinion that men\u2019s acts proceed from one central\nand unchanging and inalterable impulse, or from a variety of impulses?\n\nY.M. From a variety, of course\u2014some high and fine and noble, others\nnot. What is your opinion?\n\nO.M. Then there is but _one_ law, one source.\n\nY.M. That both the noblest impulses and the basest proceed from that\none source?\n\nO.M. Yes.\n\nY.M. Will you put that law into words?\n\nO.M. Yes. This is the law, keep it in your mind. _From his cradle to\nhis grave a man never does a single thing which has any_ FIRST AND\nFOREMOST _object_ _but one_\u2014_to secure peace of mind, spiritual\ncomfort_, _for_ HIMSELF.\n\nY.M. Come! He never does anything for any one else\u2019s comfort, spiritual\nor physical?\n\nO.M. No. _except on those distinct terms_\u2014that it shall _first_ secure\n_his own_ spiritual comfort. Otherwise he will not do it.\n\nY.M. It will be easy to expose the falsity of that proposition.\n\nO.M. For instance?\n\nY.M. Take that noble passion, love of country, patriotism. A man who\nloves peace and dreads pain, leaves his pleasant home and his weeping\nfamily and marches out to manfully expose himself to hunger, cold,\nwounds, and death. Is that seeking spiritual comfort?\n\nO.M. He loves peace and dreads pain?\n\nY.M. Yes.\n\nO.M. Then perhaps there is something that he loves _more_ than he loves\npeace\u2014_the approval of his neighbors and the public_. And perhaps there\nis something which he dreads more than he dreads pain\u2014the _disapproval_\nof his neighbors and the public. If he is sensitive to shame he will go\nto the field\u2014not because his spirit will be _entirely_ comfortable\nthere, but because it will be more comfortable there than it would be\nif he remained at home. He will always do the thing which will bring\nhim the _most_ mental comfort\u2014for that is _the sole law of his life_.\nHe leaves the weeping family behind; he is sorry to make them\nuncomfortable, but not sorry enough to sacrifice his _own_ comfort to\nsecure theirs.\n\nY.M. Do you really believe that mere public opinion could force a timid\nand peaceful man to\u2014\n\nO.M. Go to war? Yes\u2014public opinion can force some men to do _anything_.\n\nY.M. _Anything_?\n\nO.M. Yes\u2014anything.\n\nY.M. I don\u2019t believe that. Can it force a right-principled man to do a\nwrong thing?\n\nO.M. Yes.\n\nY.M. Can it force a kind man to do a cruel thing?\n\nO.M. Yes.\n\nY.M. Give an instance.\n\nO.M. Alexander Hamilton was a conspicuously high-principled man. He\nregarded dueling as wrong, and as opposed to the teachings of\nreligion\u2014but in deference to _public opinion_ he fought a duel. He\ndeeply loved his family, but to buy public approval he treacherously\ndeserted them and threw his life away, ungenerously leaving them to\nlifelong sorrow in order that he might stand well with a foolish world.\nIn the then condition of the public standards of honor he could not\nhave been comfortable with the stigma upon him of having refused to\nfight. The teachings of religion, his devotion to his family, his\nkindness of heart, his high principles, all went for nothing when they\nstood in the way of his spiritual comfort. A man will do _anything_, no\nmatter what it is, _to secure his spiritual comfort_; and he can\nneither be forced nor persuaded to any act which has not that goal for\nits object. Hamilton\u2019s act was compelled by the inborn necessity of\ncontenting his own spirit; in this it was like all the other acts of\nhis life, and like all the acts of all men\u2019s lives. Do you see where\nthe kernel of the matter lies? A man cannot be comfortable without _his\nown_ approval. He will secure the largest share possible of that, at\nall costs, all sacrifices.\n\nY.M. A minute ago you said Hamilton fought that duel to get _public_\napproval.\n\nO.M. I did. By refusing to fight the duel he would have secured his\nfamily\u2019s approval and a large share of his own; but the public approval\nwas more valuable in his eyes than all other approvals put together\u2014in\nthe earth or above it; to secure that would furnish him the _most_\ncomfort of mind, the most _self_\u2014approval; so he sacrificed all other\nvalues to get it.\n\nY.M. Some noble souls have refused to fight duels, and have manfully\nbraved the public contempt.\n\nO.M. They acted _according to their make_. They valued their principles\nand the approval of their families _above_ the public approval. They\ntook the thing they valued _most_ and let the rest go. They took what\nwould give them the _largest_ share of _personal contentment and\napproval_\u2014a man _always_ does. Public opinion cannot force that kind of\nmen to go to the wars. When they go it is for other reasons. Other\nspirit-contenting reasons.\n\nY.M. Always spirit-contenting reasons?\n\nO.M. There are no others.\n\nY.M. When a man sacrifices his life to save a little child from a\nburning building, what do you call that?\n\nO.M. When he does it, it is the law of _his_ make. _He_ can\u2019t bear to\nsee the child in that peril (a man of a different make _could_), and so\nhe tries to save the child, and loses his life. But he has got what he\nwas after\u2014_his own approval_.\n\nY.M. What do you call Love, Hate, Charity, Revenge, Humanity,\nMagnanimity, Forgiveness?\n\nO.M. Different results of the one Master Impulse: the necessity of\nsecuring one\u2019s self approval. They wear diverse clothes and are subject\nto diverse moods, but in whatsoever ways they masquerade they are the\n_same person_ all the time. To change the figure, the _compulsion_ that\nmoves a man\u2014and there is but the one\u2014is the necessity of securing the\ncontentment of his own spirit. When it stops, the man is dead.\n\nY.M. That is foolishness. Love\u2014\n\nO.M. Why, love is that impulse, that law, in its most uncompromising\nform. It will squander life and everything else on its object. Not\n_primarily_ for the object\u2019s sake, but for _its own_. When its object\nis happy _it_ is happy\u2014and that is what it is unconsciously after.\n\nY.M. You do not even except the lofty and gracious passion of\nmother-love?\n\nO.M. No, _it _is the absolute slave of that law. The mother will go\nnaked to clothe her child; she will starve that it may have food;\nsuffer torture to save it from pain; die that it may live. She takes a\nliving _pleasure_ in making these sacrifices. _She does it for that\nreward_\u2014that self-approval, that contentment, that peace, that comfort.\n_She would do it for your child_ IF SHE COULD GET THE SAME PAY.\n\nY.M. This is an infernal philosophy of yours.\n\nO.M. It isn\u2019t a philosophy, it is a fact.\n\nY.M. Of course you must admit that there are some acts which\u2014\n\nO.M. No. There is _no_ act, large or small, fine or mean, which springs\nfrom any motive but the one\u2014the necessity of appeasing and contenting\none\u2019s own spirit.\n\nY.M. The world\u2019s philanthropists\u2014\n\nO.M. I honor them, I uncover my head to them\u2014from habit and training;\nand _they_ could not know comfort or happiness or self-approval if they\ndid not work and spend for the unfortunate. It makes _them_ happy to\nsee others happy; and so with money and labor they buy what they are\nafter\u2014_happiness, self-approval_. Why don\u2019t miners do the same thing?\nBecause they can get a thousandfold more happiness by _not_ doing it.\nThere is no other reason. They follow the law of their make.\n\nY.M. What do you say of duty for duty\u2019s sake?\n\nO.M. That _it does not exist_. Duties are not performed for duty\u2019s\n_sake_, but because their _neglect_ would make the man _uncomfortable_.\nA man performs but _one_ duty\u2014the duty of contenting his spirit, the\nduty of making himself agreeable to himself. If he can most\nsatisfyingly perform this sole and only duty by _helping_ his neighbor,\nhe will do it; if he can most satisfyingly perform it by _swindling_\nhis neighbor, he will do it. But he always looks out for Number\nOne\u2014_first_; the effects upon others are a _secondary_ matter. Men\npretend to self-sacrifices, but this is a thing which, in the ordinary\nvalue of the phrase, _does not exist and has not existed_. A man often\nhonestly _thinks_ he is sacrificing himself merely and solely for some\none else, but he is deceived; his bottom impulse is to content a\nrequirement of his nature and training, and thus acquire peace for his\nsoul.\n\nY.M. Apparently, then, all men, both good and bad ones, devote their\nlives to contenting their consciences.\n\nO.M. Yes. That is a good enough name for it: Conscience\u2014that\nindependent Sovereign, that insolent absolute Monarch inside of a man\nwho is the man\u2019s Master. There are all kinds of consciences, because\nthere are all kinds of men. You satisfy an assassin\u2019s conscience in one\nway, a philanthropist\u2019s in another, a miser\u2019s in another, a burglar\u2019s\nin still another. As a _guide_ or _incentive_ to any authoritatively\nprescribed line of morals or conduct (leaving _training_ out of the\naccount), a man\u2019s conscience is totally valueless. I know a\nkind-hearted Kentuckian whose self-approval was lacking\u2014whose\nconscience was troubling him, to phrase it with exactness\u2014_because he\nhad neglected to kill a certain man_\u2014a man whom he had never seen. The\nstranger had killed this man\u2019s friend in a fight, this man\u2019s Kentucky\ntraining made it a duty to kill the stranger for it. He neglected his\nduty\u2014kept dodging it, shirking it, putting it off, and his unrelenting\nconscience kept persecuting him for this conduct. At last, to get ease\nof mind, comfort, self-approval, he hunted up the stranger and took his\nlife. It was an immense act of _self-sacrifice_ (as per the usual\ndefinition), for he did not want to do it, and he never would have done\nit if he could have bought a contented spirit and an unworried mind at\nsmaller cost. But we are so made that we will pay _anything_ for that\ncontentment\u2014even another man\u2019s life.\n\nY.M. You spoke a moment ago of _trained_ consciences. You mean that we\nare not _born_ with consciences competent to guide us aright?\n\nO.M. If we were, children and savages would know right from wrong, and\nnot have to be taught it.\n\nY.M. But consciences can be _trained_?\n\nO.M. Yes.\n\nY.M. Of course by parents, teachers, the pulpit, and books.\n\nO.M. Yes\u2014they do their share; they do what they can.\n\nY.M. And the rest is done by\u2014\n\nO.M. Oh, a million unnoticed influences\u2014for good or bad: influences\nwhich work without rest during every waking moment of a man\u2019s life,\nfrom cradle to grave.\n\nY.M. You have tabulated these?\n\nO.M. Many of them\u2014yes.\n\nY.M. Will you read me the result?\n\nO.M. Another time, yes. It would take an hour.\n\nY.M. A conscience can be trained to shun evil and prefer good?\n\nO.M. Yes.\n\nY.M. But will it for spirit-contenting reasons only?\n\nO.M. It _can\u2019t_ be trained to do a thing for any _other_ reason. The\nthing is impossible.\n\nY.M. There _must_ be a genuinely and utterly self-sacrificing act\nrecorded in human history somewhere.\n\nO.M. You are young. You have many years before you. Search one out.\n\nY.M. It does seem to me that when a man sees a fellow-being struggling\nin the water and jumps in at the risk of his life to save him\u2014\n\nO.M. Wait. Describe the _man_. Describe the _fellow-being_. State if\nthere is an _audience_ present; or if they are _alone_.\n\nY.M. What have these things to do with the splendid act?\n\nO.M. Very much. Shall we suppose, as a beginning, that the two are\nalone, in a solitary place, at midnight?\n\nY.M. If you choose.\n\nO.M. And that the fellow-being is the man\u2019s daughter?\n\nY.M. Well, n-no\u2014make it someone else.\n\nO.M. A filthy, drunken ruffian, then?\n\nY.M. I see. Circumstances alter cases. I suppose that if there was no\naudience to observe the act, the man wouldn\u2019t perform it.\n\nO.M. But there is here and there a man who _would_. People, for\ninstance, like the man who lost his life trying to save the child from\nthe fire; and the man who gave the needy old woman his twenty-five\ncents and walked home in the storm\u2014there are here and there men like\nthat who would do it. And why? Because they couldn\u2019t _bear_ to see a\nfellow-being struggling in the water and not jump in and help. It would\ngive _them_ pain. They would save the fellow-being on that account.\n_They wouldn\u2019t do it otherwise_. They strictly obey the law which I\nhave been insisting upon. You must remember and always distinguish the\npeople who _can\u2019t bear_ things from people who _can_. It will throw\nlight upon a number of apparently \u201cself-sacrificing\u201d cases.\n\nY.M. Oh, dear, it\u2019s all so disgusting.\n\nO.M. Yes. And so true.\n\nY.M. Come\u2014take the good boy who does things he doesn\u2019t want to do, in\norder to gratify his mother.\n\nO.M. He does seven-tenths of the act because it gratifies _him_ to\ngratify his mother. Throw the bulk of advantage the other way and the\ngood boy would not do the act. He _must_ obey the iron law. None can\nescape it.\n\nY.M. Well, take the case of a bad boy who\u2014\n\nO.M. You needn\u2019t mention it, it is a waste of time. It is no matter\nabout the bad boy\u2019s act. Whatever it was, he had a spirit-contenting\nreason for it. Otherwise you have been misinformed, and he didn\u2019t do\nit.\n\nY.M. It is very exasperating. A while ago you said that man\u2019s\nconscience is not a born judge of morals and conduct, but has to be\ntaught and trained. Now I think a conscience can get drowsy and lazy,\nbut I don\u2019t think it can go wrong; if you wake it up\u2014\n\n_A Little Story_\n\nO.M. I will tell you a little story:\n\nOnce upon a time an Infidel was guest in the house of a Christian widow\nwhose little boy was ill and near to death. The Infidel often watched\nby the bedside and entertained the boy with talk, and he used these\nopportunities to satisfy a strong longing in his nature\u2014that desire\nwhich is in us all to better other people\u2019s condition by having them\nthink as we think. He was successful. But the dying boy, in his last\nmoments, reproached him and said:\n\n\u201c_I believed, and was happy in it; you have taken my belief away, and\nmy comfort. Now I have nothing left, and I die miserable; for the\nthings which you have told me do not take the place of that which I\nhave lost_.\u201d\n\nAnd the mother, also, reproached the Infidel, and said:\n\n\u201c_My child is forever lost, and my heart is broken. How could you do\nthis cruel thing? We have done you no harm, but only kindness; we made\nour house your home, you were welcome to all we had, and this is our\nreward.\u201d_\n\nThe heart of the Infidel was filled with remorse for what he had done,\nand he said:\n\n\u201c_It was wrong\u2014I see it now; but I was only trying to do him good. In\nmy view he was in error; it seemed my duty to teach him the truth_.\u201d\n\nThen the mother said:\n\n\u201c_I had taught him, all his little life, what I believed to be the\ntruth, and in his believing faith both of us were happy. Now he is\ndead,\u2014and lost; and I am miserable. Our faith came down to us through\ncenturies of believing ancestors; what right had you, or any one, to\ndisturb it? Where was your honor, where was your shame_?\u201d\n\nY.M. He was a miscreant, and deserved death!\n\nO.M. He thought so himself, and said so.\n\nY.M. Ah\u2014you see, _his conscience was awakened_!\n\nO.M. Yes, his Self-Disapproval was. It _pained_ him to see the mother\nsuffer. He was sorry he had done a thing which brought _him_ pain. It\ndid not occur to him to think of the mother when he was misteaching the\nboy, for he was absorbed in providing _pleasure_ for himself, then.\nProviding it by satisfying what he believed to be a call of duty.\n\nY.M. Call it what you please, it is to me a case of _awakened\nconscience_. That awakened conscience could never get itself into that\nspecies of trouble again. A cure like that is a _permanent_ cure.\n\nO.M. Pardon\u2014I had not finished the story. We are creatures of _outside\ninfluences_\u2014we originate _nothing_ within. Whenever we take a new line\nof thought and drift into a new line of belief and action, the impulse\nis _always_ suggested from the _outside_. Remorse so preyed upon the\nInfidel that it dissolved his harshness toward the boy\u2019s religion and\nmade him come to regard it with tolerance, next with kindness, for the\nboy\u2019s sake and the mother\u2019s. Finally he found himself examining it.\nFrom that moment his progress in his new trend was steady and rapid. He\nbecame a believing Christian. And now his remorse for having robbed the\ndying boy of his faith and his salvation was bitterer than ever. It\ngave him no rest, no peace. He _must_ have rest and peace\u2014it is the law\nof nature. There seemed but one way to get it; he must devote himself\nto saving imperiled souls. He became a missionary. He landed in a pagan\ncountry ill and helpless. A native widow took him into her humble home\nand nursed him back to convalescence. Then her young boy was taken\nhopelessly ill, and the grateful missionary helped her tend him. Here\nwas his first opportunity to repair a part of the wrong done to the\nother boy by doing a precious service for this one by undermining his\nfoolish faith in his false gods. He was successful. But the dying boy\nin his last moments reproached him and said:\n\n\u201c_I believed, and was happy in it; you have taken my belief away, and\nmy comfort. Now I have nothing left, and I die miserable; for the\nthings which you have told me do not take the place of that which I\nhave lost_.\u201d\n\nAnd the mother, also, reproached the missionary, and said:\n\n\u201c_My child is forever lost, and my heart is broken. How could you do\nthis cruel thing? We had done you no harm, but only kindness; we made\nour house your home, you were welcome to all we had, and this is our\nreward_.\u201d\n\nThe heart of the missionary was filled with remorse for what he had\ndone, and he said:\n\n\u201c_It was wrong\u2014I see it now; but I was only trying to do him good. In\nmy view he was in error; it seemed my duty to teach him the truth_.\u201d\n\nThen the mother said:\n\n\u201c_I had taught him, all his little life, what I believed to be the\ntruth, and in his believing faith both of us were happy. Now he is\ndead\u2014and lost; and I am miserable. Our faith came down to us through\ncenturies of believing ancestors; what right had you, or any one, to\ndisturb it? Where was your honor, where was your shame_?\u201d\n\nThe missionary\u2019s anguish of remorse and sense of treachery were as\nbitter and persecuting and unappeasable, now, as they had been in the\nformer case. The story is finished. What is your comment?\n\nY.M. The man\u2019s conscience is a fool! It was morbid. It didn\u2019t know\nright from wrong.\n\nO.M. I am not sorry to hear you say that. If you grant that _one_ man\u2019s\nconscience doesn\u2019t know right from wrong, it is an admission that there\nare others like it. This single admission pulls down the whole doctrine\nof infallibility of judgment in consciences. Meantime there is one\nthing which I ask you to notice.\n\nY.M. What is that?\n\nO.M. That in both cases the man\u2019s _act_ gave him no spiritual\ndiscomfort, and that he was quite satisfied with it and got pleasure\nout of it. But afterward when it resulted in _pain_ to _him_, he was\nsorry. Sorry it had inflicted pain upon the others, _but for no reason\nunder the sun except that their pain gave him pain_. Our consciences\ntake _no_ notice of pain inflicted upon others until it reaches a point\nwhere it gives pain to _us_. In _all_ cases without exception we are\nabsolutely indifferent to another person\u2019s pain until his sufferings\nmake us uncomfortable. Many an infidel would not have been troubled by\nthat Christian mother\u2019s distress. Don\u2019t you believe that?\n\nY.M. Yes. You might almost say it of the _average_ infidel, I think.\n\nO.M. And many a missionary, sternly fortified by his sense of duty,\nwould not have been troubled by the pagan mother\u2019s distress\u2014Jesuit\nmissionaries in Canada in the early French times, for instance; see\nepisodes quoted by Parkman.\n\nY.M. Well, let us adjourn. Where have we arrived?\n\nO.M. At this. That we (mankind) have ticketed ourselves with a number\nof qualities to which we have given misleading names. Love, Hate,\nCharity, Compassion, Avarice, Benevolence, and so on. I mean we attach\nmisleading _meanings_ to the names. They are all forms of\nself-contentment, self-gratification, but the names so disguise them\nthat they distract our attention from the fact. Also we have smuggled a\nword into the dictionary which ought not to be there at\nall\u2014Self-Sacrifice. It describes a thing which does not exist. But\nworst of all, we ignore and never mention the Sole Impulse which\ndictates and compels a man\u2019s every act: the imperious necessity of\nsecuring his own approval, in every emergency and at all costs. To it\nwe owe all that we are. It is our breath, our heart, our blood. It is\nour only spur, our whip, our goad, our only impelling power; we have no\nother. Without it we should be mere inert images, corpses; no one would\ndo anything, there would be no progress, the world would stand still.\nWe ought to stand reverently uncovered when the name of that stupendous\npower is uttered.\n\nY.M. I am not convinced.\n\nO.M. You will be when you think.\n\nIII\n\nInstances in Point\n\nOld Man. Have you given thought to the Gospel of Self\u2014Approval since we\ntalked?\n\nYoung Man. I have.\n\nO.M. It was I that moved you to it. That is to say an _outside\ninfluence_ moved you to it\u2014not one that originated in your head. Will\nyou try to keep that in mind and not forget it?\n\nY.M. Yes. Why?\n\nO.M. Because by and by in one of our talks, I wish to further impress\nupon you that neither you, nor I, nor any man ever originates a thought\nin his own head. _The utterer of a thought always utters a second-hand\none_.\n\nY.M. Oh, now\u2014\n\nO.M. Wait. Reserve your remark till we get to that part of our\ndiscussion\u2014tomorrow or next day, say. Now, then, have you been\nconsidering the proposition that no act is ever born of any but a\nself-contenting impulse\u2014(primarily). You have sought. What have you\nfound?\n\nY.M. I have not been very fortunate. I have examined many fine and\napparently self-sacrificing deeds in romances and biographies, but\u2014\n\nO.M. Under searching analysis the ostensible self-sacrifice\ndisappeared? It naturally would.\n\nY.M. But here in this novel is one which seems to promise. In the\nAdirondack woods is a wage-earner and lay preacher in the lumber-camps\nwho is of noble character and deeply religious. An earnest and\npractical laborer in the New York slums comes up there on vacation\u2014he\nis leader of a section of the University Settlement. Holme, the\nlumberman, is fired with a desire to throw away his excellent worldly\nprospects and go down and save souls on the East Side. He counts it\nhappiness to make this sacrifice for the glory of God and for the cause\nof Christ. He resigns his place, makes the sacrifice cheerfully, and\ngoes to the East Side and preaches Christ and Him crucified every day\nand every night to little groups of half-civilized foreign paupers who\nscoff at him. But he rejoices in the scoffings, since he is suffering\nthem in the great cause of Christ. You have so filled my mind with\nsuspicions that I was constantly expecting to find a hidden\nquestionable impulse back of all this, but I am thankful to say I have\nfailed. This man saw his duty, and for _duty\u2019s sake_ he sacrificed self\nand assumed the burden it imposed.\n\nO.M. Is that as far as you have read?\n\nY.M. Yes.\n\nO.M. Let us read further, presently. Meantime, in sacrificing\nhimself\u2014_not_ for the glory of God, _primarily_, as _he_ imagined, but\n_first_ to content that exacting and inflexible master within him\u2014_did\nhe sacrifice anybody else_?\n\nY.M. How do you mean?\n\nO.M. He relinquished a lucrative post and got mere food and lodging in\nplace of it. Had he dependents?\n\nY.M. Well\u2014yes.\n\nO.M. In what way and to what extend did his self-sacrifice affect\n_them_?\n\nY.M. He was the support of a superannuated father. He had a young\nsister with a remarkable voice\u2014he was giving her a musical education,\nso that her longing to be self-supporting might be gratified. He was\nfurnishing the money to put a young brother through a polytechnic\nschool and satisfy his desire to become a civil engineer.\n\nO.M. The old father\u2019s comforts were now curtailed?\n\nY.M. Quite seriously. Yes.\n\nO.M. The sister\u2019s music-lessens had to stop?\n\nY.M. Yes.\n\nO.M. The young brother\u2019s education\u2014well, an extinguishing blight fell\nupon that happy dream, and he had to go to sawing wood to support the\nold father, or something like that?\n\nY.M. It is about what happened. Yes.\n\nO.M. What a handsome job of self-sacrificing he did do! It seems to me\nthat he sacrificed everybody _except_ himself. Haven\u2019t I told you that\nno man _ever_ sacrifices himself; that there is no instance of it upon\nrecord anywhere; and that when a man\u2019s Interior Monarch requires a\nthing of its slave for either its _momentary_ or its _permanent_\ncontentment, that thing must and will be furnished and that command\nobeyed, no matter who may stand in the way and suffer disaster by it?\nThat man _ruined his family_ to please and content his Interior\nMonarch\u2014\n\nY.M. And help Christ\u2019s cause.\n\nO.M. Yes\u2014_secondly_. Not firstly. _He_ thought it was firstly.\n\nY.M. Very well, have it so, if you will. But it could be that he argued\nthat if he saved a hundred souls in New York\u2014\n\nO.M. The sacrifice of the _family_ would be justified by that great\nprofit upon the\u2014the\u2014what shall we call it?\n\nY.M. Investment?\n\nO.M. Hardly. How would _speculation_ do? How would _gamble_ do? Not a\nsolitary soul-capture was sure. He played for a possible\nthirty-three-hundred-per-cent profit. It was _gambling_\u2014with his family\nfor \u201cchips.\u201d However let us see how the game came out. Maybe we can get\non the track of the secret original impulse, the _real_ impulse, that\nmoved him to so nobly self\u2014sacrifice his family in the Savior\u2019s cause\nunder the superstition that he was sacrificing himself. I will read a\nchapter or so.... Here we have it! It was bound to expose itself sooner\nor later. He preached to the East-Side rabble a season, then went back\nto his old dull, obscure life in the lumber-camps \u201c_hurt to the heart,\nhis pride humbled_.\u201d Why? Were not his efforts acceptable to the\nSavior, for Whom alone they were made? Dear me, that detail is _lost\nsight of_, is not even referred to, the fact that it started out as a\nmotive is entirely forgotten! Then what is the trouble? The authoress\nquite innocently and unconsciously gives the whole business away. The\ntrouble was this: this man merely _preached_ to the poor; that is not\nthe University Settlement\u2019s way; it deals in larger and better things\nthan that, and it did not enthuse over that crude Salvation-Army\neloquence. It was courteous to Holme\u2014but cool. It did not pet him, did\nnot take him to its bosom. \u201c_Perished were all his dreams of\ndistinction, the praise and grateful approval_\u2014\u201d Of whom? The Savior?\nNo; the Savior is not mentioned. Of whom, then? Of \u201chis\n_fellow-workers_.\u201d Why did he want that? Because the Master inside of\nhim wanted it, and would not be content without it. That emphasized\nsentence quoted above, reveals the secret we have been seeking, the\noriginal impulse, the _real_ impulse, which moved the obscure and\nunappreciated Adirondack lumberman to sacrifice his family and go on\nthat crusade to the East Side\u2014which said original impulse was this, to\nwit: without knowing it _he went there to show a neglected world the\nlarge talent that was in him, and rise to distinction_. As I have\nwarned you before, _no_ act springs from any but the one law, the one\nmotive. But I pray you, do not accept this law upon my say-so; but\ndiligently examine for yourself. Whenever you read of a\nself-sacrificing act or hear of one, or of a duty done for _duty\u2019s\nsake_, take it to pieces and look for the _real_ motive. It is always\nthere.\n\nY.M. I do it every day. I cannot help it, now that I have gotten\nstarted upon the degrading and exasperating quest. For it is hatefully\ninteresting!\u2014in fact, fascinating is the word. As soon as I come across\na golden deed in a book I have to stop and take it apart and examine\nit, I cannot help myself.\n\nO.M. Have you ever found one that defeated the rule?\n\nY.M. No\u2014at least, not yet. But take the case of servant\u2014tipping in\nEurope. You pay the _hotel_ for service; you owe the servants\n_nothing_, yet you pay them besides. Doesn\u2019t that defeat it?\n\nO.M. In what way?\n\nY.M. You are not _obliged_ to do it, therefore its source is compassion\nfor their ill-paid condition, and\u2014\n\nO.M. Has that custom ever vexed you, annoyed you, irritated you?\n\nY.M. Well, yes.\n\nO.M. Still you succumbed to it?\n\nY.M. Of course.\n\nO.M. Why of course?\n\nY.M. Well, custom is law, in a way, and laws must be submitted\nto\u2014everybody recognizes it as a _duty_.\n\nO.M. Then you pay for the irritating tax for _duty\u2019s_ sake?\n\nY.M. I suppose it amounts to that.\n\nO.M. Then the impulse which moves you to submit to the tax is not _all_\ncompassion, charity, benevolence?\n\nY.M. Well\u2014perhaps not.\n\nO.M. Is _any_ of it?\n\nY.M. I\u2014perhaps I was too hasty in locating its source.\n\nO.M. Perhaps so. In case you ignored the custom would you get prompt\nand effective service from the servants?\n\nY.M. Oh, hear yourself talk! Those European servants? Why, you wouldn\u2019t\nget any at all, to speak of.\n\nO.M. Couldn\u2019t _that_ work as an impulse to move you to pay the tax?\n\nY.M. I am not denying it.\n\nO.M. Apparently, then, it is a case of for-duty\u2019s-sake with a little\nself-interest added?\n\nY.M. Yes, it has the look of it. But here is a point: we pay that tax\nknowing it to be unjust and an extortion; yet we go away with a pain at\nthe heart if we think we have been stingy with the poor fellows; and we\nheartily wish we were back again, so that we could do the right thing,\nand _more_ than the right thing, the _generous_ thing. I think it will\nbe difficult for you to find any thought of self in that impulse.\n\nO.M. I wonder why you should think so. When you find service charged in\nthe _hotel_ bill does it annoy you?\n\nY.M. No.\n\nO.M. Do you ever complain of the amount of it?\n\nY.M. No, it would not occur to me.\n\nO.M. The _expense_, then, is not the annoying detail. It is a fixed\ncharge, and you pay it cheerfully, you pay it without a murmur. When\nyou came to pay the servants, how would you like it if each of the men\nand maids had a fixed charge?\n\nY.M. Like it? I should rejoice!\n\nO.M. Even if the fixed tax were a shade _more_ than you had been in the\nhabit of paying in the form of tips?\n\nY.M. Indeed, yes!\n\nO.M. Very well, then. As I understand it, it isn\u2019t really compassion\nnor yet duty that moves you to pay the tax, and it isn\u2019t the _amount_\nof the tax that annoys you. Yet _something_ annoys you. What is it?\n\nY.M. Well, the trouble is, you never know _what_ to pay, the tax varies\nso, all over Europe.\n\nO.M. So you have to guess?\n\nY.M. There is no other way. So you go on thinking and thinking, and\ncalculating and guessing, and consulting with other people and getting\ntheir views; and it spoils your sleep nights, and makes you distraught\nin the daytime, and while you are pretending to look at the sights you\nare only guessing and guessing and guessing all the time, and being\nworried and miserable.\n\nO.M. And all about a debt which you don\u2019t owe and don\u2019t have to pay\nunless you want to! Strange. What is the purpose of the guessing?\n\nY.M. To guess out what is right to give them, and not be unfair to any\nof them.\n\nO.M. It has quite a noble look\u2014taking so much pains and using up so\nmuch valuable time in order to be just and fair to a poor servant to\nwhom you owe nothing, but who needs money and is ill paid.\n\nY.M. I think, myself, that if there is any ungracious motive back of it\nit will be hard to find.\n\nO.M. How do you know when you have not paid a servant fairly?\n\nY.M. Why, he is silent; does not thank you. Sometimes he gives you a\nlook that makes you ashamed. You are too proud to rectify your mistake\nthere, with people looking, but afterward you keep on wishing and\nwishing you _had_ done it. My, the shame and the pain of it! Sometimes\nyou see, by the signs, that you have it _just right_, and you go away\nmightily satisfied. Sometimes the man is so effusively thankful that\nyou know you have given him a good deal _more_ than was necessary.\n\nO.M. _Necessary_? Necessary for what?\n\nY.M. To content him.\n\nO.M. How do you feel _then_?\n\nY.M. Repentant.\n\nO.M. It is my belief that you have _not_ been concerning yourself in\nguessing out his just dues, but only in ciphering out what would\n_content_ him. And I think you have a self-deluding reason for that.\n\nY.M. What was it?\n\nO.M. If you fell short of what he was expecting and wanting, you would\nget a look which would _shame you before folk_. That would give you\n_pain_. _You_\u2014for you are only working for yourself, not _him_. If you\ngave him too much you would be _ashamed of yourself_ for it, and that\nwould give _you_ pain\u2014another case of thinking of _yourself_,\nprotecting yourself, _saving yourself from discomfort_. You never think\nof the servant once\u2014except to guess out how to get _his approval_. If\nyou get that, you get your _own _approval, and that is the sole and\nonly thing you are after. The Master inside of you is then satisfied,\ncontented, comfortable; there was _no other_ thing at stake, as a\nmatter of _first_ interest, anywhere in the transaction.\n\n_Further Instances_\n\nY.M. Well, to think of it; Self-Sacrifice for others, the grandest\nthing in man, ruled out! non-existent!\n\nO.M. Are you accusing me of saying that?\n\nY.M. Why, certainly.\n\nO.M. I haven\u2019t said it.\n\nY.M. What did you say, then?\n\nO.M. That no man has ever sacrificed himself in the common meaning of\nthat phrase\u2014which is, self-sacrifice for another _alone_. Men make\ndaily sacrifices for others, but it is for their own sake _first_. The\nact must content their own spirit _first_. The other beneficiaries come\nsecond.\n\nY.M. And the same with duty for duty\u2019s sake?\n\nO.M. Yes. No man performs a duty for mere duty\u2019s sake; the act must\ncontent his spirit _first_. He must feel better for _doing_ the duty\nthan he would for shirking it. Otherwise he will not do it.\n\nY.M. Take the case of the _Berkeley Castle_.\n\nO.M. It was a noble duty, greatly performed. Take it to pieces and\nexamine it, if you like.\n\nY.M. A British troop-ship crowded with soldiers and their wives and\nchildren. She struck a rock and began to sink. There was room in the\nboats for the women and children only. The colonel lined up his\nregiment on the deck and said \u201cit is our duty to die, that they may be\nsaved.\u201d There was no murmur, no protest. The boats carried away the\nwomen and children. When the death-moment was come, the colonel and his\nofficers took their several posts, the men stood at shoulder-arms, and\nso, as on dress-parade, with their flag flying and the drums beating,\nthey went down, a sacrifice to duty for duty\u2019s sake. Can you view it as\nother than that?\n\nO.M. It was something as fine as that, as exalted as that. Could you\nhave remained in those ranks and gone down to your death in that\nunflinching way?\n\nY.M. Could I? No, I could not.\n\nO.M. Think. Imagine yourself there, with that watery doom creeping\nhigher and higher around you.\n\nY.M. I can imagine it. I feel all the horror of it. I could not have\nendured it, I could not have remained in my place. I know it.\n\nO.M. Why?\n\nY.M. There is no why about it: I know myself, and I know I couldn\u2019t\n_do_ it.\n\nO.M. But it would be your _duty_ to do it.\n\nY.M. Yes, I know\u2014but I couldn\u2019t.\n\nO.M. It was more than thousand men, yet not one of them flinched. Some\nof them must have been born with your temperament; if they could do\nthat great duty for duty\u2019s _sake_, why not you? Don\u2019t you know that you\ncould go out and gather together a thousand clerks and mechanics and\nput them on that deck and ask them to die for duty\u2019s sake, and not two\ndozen of them would stay in the ranks to the end?\n\nY.M. Yes, I know that.\n\nO.M. But you _train_ them, and put them through a campaign or two; then\nthey would be soldiers; soldiers, with a soldier\u2019s pride, a soldier\u2019s\nself-respect, a soldier\u2019s ideals. They would have to content a\n_soldier\u2019s_ spirit then, not a clerk\u2019s, not a mechanic\u2019s. They could\nnot content that spirit by shirking a soldier\u2019s duty, could they?\n\nY.M. I suppose not.\n\nO.M. Then they would do the duty not for the _duty\u2019s_ sake, but for\ntheir _own _sake\u2014primarily. The _duty_ was _just the same_, and just as\nimperative, when they were clerks, mechanics, raw recruits, but they\nwouldn\u2019t perform it for that. As clerks and mechanics they had other\nideals, another spirit to satisfy, and they satisfied it. They _had_\nto; it is the law. _Training _is potent. Training toward higher and\nhigher, and ever higher ideals is worth any man\u2019s thought and labor and\ndiligence.\n\nY.M. Consider the man who stands by his duty and goes to the stake\nrather than be recreant to it.\n\nO.M. It is his make and his training. He has to content the spirit that\nis in him, though it cost him his life. Another man, just as sincerely\nreligious, but of different temperament, will fail of that duty, though\nrecognizing it as a duty, and grieving to be unequal to it: but he must\ncontent the spirit that is in him\u2014he cannot help it. He could not\nperform that duty for duty\u2019s _sake_, for that would not content his\nspirit, and the contenting of his spirit must be looked to _first_. It\ntakes precedence of all other duties.\n\nY.M. Take the case of a clergyman of stainless private morals who votes\nfor a thief for public office, on his own party\u2019s ticket, and against\nan honest man on the other ticket.\n\nO.M. He has to content his spirit. He has no public morals; he has no\nprivate ones, where his party\u2019s prosperity is at stake. He will always\nbe true to his make and training.\n\nIV\n\nTraining\n\nYoung Man. You keep using that word\u2014training. By it do you particularly\nmean\u2014\n\nOld Man. Study, instruction, lectures, sermons? That is a part of\nit\u2014but not a large part. I mean _all _the outside influences. There are\na million of them. From the cradle to the grave, during all his waking\nhours, the human being is under training. In the very first rank of his\ntrainers stands _association_. It is his human environment which\ninfluences his mind and his feelings, furnishes him his ideals, and\nsets him on his road and keeps him in it. If he leave[s] that road he\nwill find himself shunned by the people whom he most loves and esteems,\nand whose approval he most values. He is a chameleon; by the law of his\nnature he takes the color of his place of resort. The influences about\nhim create his preferences, his aversions, his politics, his tastes,\nhis morals, his religion. He creates none of these things for himself.\nHe _thinks _he does, but that is because he has not examined into the\nmatter. You have seen Presbyterians?\n\nY.M. Many.\n\nO.M. How did they happen to be Presbyterians and not\nCongregationalists? And why were the Congregationalists not Baptists,\nand the Baptists Roman Catholics, and the Roman Catholics Buddhists,\nand the Buddhists Quakers, and the Quakers Episcopalians, and the\nEpiscopalians Millerites and the Millerites Hindus, and the Hindus\nAtheists, and the Atheists Spiritualists, and the Spiritualists\nAgnostics, and the Agnostics Methodists, and the Methodists Confucians,\nand the Confucians Unitarians, and the Unitarians Mohammedans, and the\nMohammedans Salvation Warriors, and the Salvation Warriors\nZoroastrians, and the Zoroastrians Christian Scientists, and the\nChristian Scientists Mormons\u2014and so on?\n\nY.M. You may answer your question yourself.\n\nO.M. That list of sects is not a record of _studies_, searchings,\nseekings after light; it mainly (and sarcastically) indicates what\n_association _can do. If you know a man\u2019s nationality you can come\nwithin a split hair of guessing the complexion of his religion:\nEnglish\u2014Protestant; American\u2014ditto; Spaniard, Frenchman, Irishman,\nItalian, South American\u2014Roman Catholic; Russian\u2014Greek Catholic;\nTurk\u2014Mohammedan; and so on. And when you know the man\u2019s religious\ncomplexion, you know what sort of religious books he reads when he\nwants some more light, and what sort of books he avoids, lest by\naccident he get more light than he wants. In America if you know which\nparty-collar a voter wears, you know what his associations are, and how\nhe came by his politics, and which breed of newspaper he reads to get\nlight, and which breed he diligently avoids, and which breed of\nmass-meetings he attends in order to broaden his political knowledge,\nand which breed of mass-meetings he doesn\u2019t attend, except to refute\nits doctrines with brickbats. We are always hearing of people who are\naround _seeking after truth_. I have never seen a (permanent) specimen.\nI think he had never lived. But I have seen several entirely sincere\npeople who _thought _they were (permanent) Seekers after Truth. They\nsought diligently, persistently, carefully, cautiously, profoundly,\nwith perfect honesty and nicely adjusted judgment\u2014until they believed\nthat without doubt or question they had found the Truth. _That was the\nend of the search. _The man spent the rest of his life hunting up\nshingles wherewith to protect his Truth from the weather. If he was\nseeking after political Truth he found it in one or another of the\nhundred political gospels which govern men in the earth; if he was\nseeking after the Only True Religion he found it in one or another of\nthe three thousand that are on the market. In any case, when he found\nthe Truth _he sought no further; _but from that day forth, with his\nsoldering-iron in one hand and his bludgeon in the other he tinkered\nits leaks and reasoned with objectors. There have been innumerable\nTemporary Seekers of Truth\u2014have you ever heard of a permanent one? In\nthe very nature of man such a person is impossible. However, to drop\nback to the text\u2014training: all training is one form or another of\n_outside influence, _and _association _is the largest part of it. A man\nis never anything but what his outside influences have made him. They\ntrain him downward or they train him upward\u2014but they _train _him; they\nare at work upon him all the time.\n\nY.M. Then if he happen by the accidents of life to be evilly placed\nthere is no help for him, according to your notions\u2014he must train\ndownward.\n\nO.M. No help for him? No help for this chameleon? It is a mistake. It\nis in his chameleonship that his greatest good fortune lies. He has\nonly to change his habitat\u2014his _associations_. But the impulse to do it\nmust come from the _outside _\u2014he cannot originate it himself, with that\npurpose in view. Sometimes a very small and accidental thing can\nfurnish him the initiatory impulse and start him on a new road, with a\nnew idea. The chance remark of a sweetheart, \u201cI hear that you are a\ncoward,\u201d may water a seed that shall sprout and bloom and flourish, and\nended in producing a surprising fruitage\u2014in the fields of war. The\nhistory of man is full of such accidents. The accident of a broken leg\nbrought a profane and ribald soldier under religious influences and\nfurnished him a new ideal. From that accident sprang the Order of the\nJesuits, and it has been shaking thrones, changing policies, and doing\nother tremendous work for two hundred years\u2014and will go on. The chance\nreading of a book or of a paragraph in a newspaper can start a man on a\nnew track and make him renounce his old associations and seek new ones\nthat are _in sympathy with his new ideal_: and the result, for that\nman, can be an entire change of his way of life.\n\nY.M. Are you hinting at a scheme of procedure?\n\nO.M. Not a new one\u2014an old one. Old as mankind.\n\nY.M. What is it?\n\nO.M. Merely the laying of traps for people. Traps baited with\n_initiatory impulses toward high ideals. _It is what the\ntract-distributor does. It is what the missionary does. It is what\ngovernments ought to do.\n\nY.M. Don\u2019t they?\n\nO.M. In one way they do, in another they don\u2019t. They separate the\nsmallpox patients from the healthy people, but in dealing with crime\nthey put the healthy into the pest-house along with the sick. That is\nto say, they put the beginners in with the confirmed criminals. This\nwould be well if man were naturally inclined to good, but he isn\u2019t, and\nso _association _makes the beginners worse than they were when they\nwent into captivity. It is putting a very severe punishment upon the\ncomparatively innocent at times. They hang a man\u2014which is a trifling\npunishment; this breaks the hearts of his family\u2014which is a heavy one.\nThey comfortably jail and feed a wife-beater, and leave his innocent\nwife and family to starve.\n\nY.M. Do you believe in the doctrine that man is equipped with an\nintuitive perception of good and evil?\n\nO.M. Adam hadn\u2019t it.\n\nY.M. But has man acquired it since?\n\nO.M. No. I think he has no intuitions of any kind. He gets _all _his\nideas, all his impressions, from the outside. I keep repeating this, in\nthe hope that I may impress it upon you that you will be interested to\nobserve and examine for yourself and see whether it is true or false.\n\nY.M. Where did you get your own aggravating notions?\n\nO.M. From the _outside_. I did not invent them. They are gathered from\na thousand unknown sources. Mainly _unconsciously _gathered.\n\nY.M. Don\u2019t you believe that God could make an inherently honest man?\n\nO.M. Yes, I know He could. I also know that He never did make one.\n\nY.M. A wiser observer than you has recorded the fact that \u201can honest\nman\u2019s the noblest work of God.\u201d\n\nO.M. He didn\u2019t record a fact, he recorded a falsity. It is windy, and\nsounds well, but it is not true. God makes a man with honest and\ndishonest _possibilities _in him and stops there. The man\u2019s\n_associations _develop the possibilities\u2014the one set or the other. The\nresult is accordingly an honest man or a dishonest one.\n\nY.M. And the honest one is not entitled to\u2014\n\nO.M. Praise? No. How often must I tell you that? _He _is not the\narchitect of his honesty.\n\nY.M. Now then, I will ask you where there is any sense in training\npeople to lead virtuous lives. What is gained by it?\n\nO.M. The man himself gets large advantages out of it, and that is the\nmain thing\u2014to _him_. He is not a peril to his neighbors, he is not a\ndamage to them\u2014and so _they _get an advantage out of his virtues. That\nis the main thing to _them_. It can make this life comparatively\ncomfortable to the parties concerned; the _neglect _of this training\ncan make this life a constant peril and distress to the parties\nconcerned.\n\nY.M. You have said that training is everything; that training is the\nman _himself_, for it makes him what he is.\n\nO.M. I said training and _another _thing. Let that other thing pass,\nfor the moment. What were you going to say?\n\nY.M. We have an old servant. She has been with us twenty\u2014two years. Her\nservice used to be faultless, but now she has become very forgetful. We\nare all fond of her; we all recognize that she cannot help the\ninfirmity which age has brought her; the rest of the family do not\nscold her for her remissnesses, but at times I do\u2014I can\u2019t seem to\ncontrol myself. Don\u2019t I try? I do try. Now, then, when I was ready to\ndress, this morning, no clean clothes had been put out. I lost my\ntemper; I lose it easiest and quickest in the early morning. I rang;\nand immediately began to warn myself not to show temper, and to be\ncareful and speak gently. I safe-guarded myself most carefully. I even\nchose the very word I would use: \u201cYou\u2019ve forgotten the clean clothes,\nJane.\u201d When she appeared in the door I opened my mouth to say that\nphrase\u2014and out of it, moved by an instant surge of passion which I was\nnot expecting and hadn\u2019t time to put under control, came the hot\nrebuke, \u201cYou\u2019ve forgotten them again!\u201d You say a man always does the\nthing which will best please his Interior Master. Whence came the\nimpulse to make careful preparation to save the girl the humiliation of\na rebuke? Did that come from the Master, who is always primarily\nconcerned about _himself_?\n\nO.M. Unquestionably. There is no other source for any impulse.\n_Secondarily _you made preparation to save the girl, but _primarily\n_its object was to save yourself, by contenting the Master.\n\nY.M. How do you mean?\n\nO.M. Has any member of the family ever implored you to watch your\ntemper and not fly out at the girl?\n\nY.M. Yes. My mother.\n\nO.M. You love her?\n\nY.M. Oh, more than that!\n\nO.M. You would always do anything in your power to please her?\n\nY.M. It is a delight to me to do anything to please her!\n\nO.M. Why? _You would do it for pay, solely _\u2014for _profit_. What profit\nwould you expect and certainly receive from the investment?\n\nY.M. Personally? None. To please _her _is enough.\n\nO.M. It appears, then, that your object, primarily, _wasn\u2019t _to save\nthe girl a humiliation, but to _please your mother. _It also appears\nthat to please your mother gives _you _a strong pleasure. Is not that\nthe profit which you get out of the investment? Isn\u2019t that the _real\n_profits and _first _profit?\n\nY.M. Oh, well? Go on.\n\nO.M. In _all _transactions, the Interior Master looks to it that _you\nget the first profit. _Otherwise there is no transaction.\n\nY.M. Well, then, if I was so anxious to get that profit and so intent\nupon it, why did I throw it away by losing my temper?\n\nO.M. In order to get _another _profit which suddenly superseded it in\nvalue.\n\nY.M. Where was it?\n\nO.M. Ambushed behind your born temperament, and waiting for a chance.\nYour native warm temper suddenly jumped to the front, and _for the\nmoment its influence _was more powerful than your mother\u2019s, and\nabolished it. In that instance you were eager to flash out a hot rebuke\nand enjoy it. You did enjoy it, didn\u2019t you?\n\nY.M. For\u2014for a quarter of a second. Yes\u2014I did.\n\nO.M. Very well, it is as I have said: the thing which will give you the\n_most _pleasure, the most satisfaction, in any moment or _fraction _of\na moment, is the thing you will always do. You must content the\nMaster\u2019s _latest _whim, whatever it may be.\n\nY.M. But when the tears came into the old servant\u2019s eyes I could have\ncut my hand off for what I had done.\n\nO.M. Right. You had humiliated _yourself_, you see, you had given\nyourself _pain_. Nothing is of _first _importance to a man except\nresults which damage _him _or profit him\u2014all the rest is _secondary_.\nYour Master was displeased with you, although you had obeyed him. He\nrequired a prompt _repentance_; you obeyed again; you_ had _to\u2014there is\nnever any escape from his commands. He is a hard master and fickle; he\nchanges his mind in the fraction of a second, but you must be ready to\nobey, and you will obey, _always_. If he requires repentance, you\ncontent him, you will always furnish it. He must be nursed, petted,\ncoddled, and kept contented, let the terms be what they may.\n\nY.M. Training! Oh, what\u2019s the use of it? Didn\u2019t I, and didn\u2019t my mother\ntry to train me up to where I would no longer fly out at that girl?\n\nO.M. Have you never managed to keep back a scolding?\n\nY.M. Oh, certainly\u2014many times.\n\nO.M. More times this year than last?\n\nY.M. Yes, a good many more.\n\nO.M. More times last year than the year before?\n\nY.M. Yes.\n\nO.M. There is a large improvement, then, in the two years?\n\nY.M. Yes, undoubtedly.\n\nO.M. Then your question is answered. You see there _is _use in\ntraining. Keep on. Keeping faithfully on. You are doing well.\n\nY.M. Will my reform reach perfection?\n\nO.M. It will. Up to _your _limit.\n\nY.M. My limit? What do you mean by that?\n\nO.M. You remember that you said that I said training was _everything_.\nI corrected you, and said \u201ctraining and _another _thing.\u201d That other\nthing is _temperament _\u2014that is, the disposition you were born with.\n_You can\u2019t eradicate your disposition nor any rag of it _\u2014you can only\nput a pressure on it and keep it down and quiet. You have a warm\ntemper?\n\nY.M. Yes.\n\nO.M. You will never get rid of it; but by watching it you can keep it\ndown nearly all the time. _Its presence is your limit. _Your reform\nwill never quite reach perfection, for your temper will beat you now\nand then, but you come near enough. You have made valuable progress and\ncan make more. There _is _use in training. Immense use. Presently you\nwill reach a new stage of development, then your progress will be\neasier; will proceed on a simpler basis, anyway.\n\nY.M. Explain.\n\nO.M. You keep back your scoldings now, to please _yourself _by pleasing\nyour _mother_; presently the mere triumphing over your temper will\ndelight your vanity and confer a more delicious pleasure and\nsatisfaction upon you than even the approbation of your _mother\n_confers upon you now. You will then labor for yourself directly and at\n_first hand, _not by the roundabout way through your mother. It\nsimplifies the matter, and it also strengthens the impulse.\n\nY.M. Ah, dear! But I sha\u2019n\u2019t ever reach the point where I will spare\nthe girl for _her _sake _primarily_, not mine?\n\nO.M. Why\u2014yes. In heaven.\n\nY.M. (_After a reflective pause) _Temperament. Well, I see one must\nallow for temperament. It is a large factor, sure enough. My mother is\nthoughtful, and not hot-tempered. When I was dressed I went to her\nroom; she was not there; I called, she answered from the bathroom. I\nheard the water running. I inquired. She answered, without temper, that\nJane had forgotten her bath, and she was preparing it herself. I\noffered to ring, but she said, \u201cNo, don\u2019t do that; it would only\ndistress her to be confronted with her lapse, and would be a rebuke;\nshe doesn\u2019t deserve that\u2014she is not to blame for the tricks her memory\nserves her.\u201d I say\u2014has my mother an Interior Master?\u2014and where was he?\n\nO.M. He was there. There, and looking out for his own peace and\npleasure and contentment. The girl\u2019s distress would have pained _your\nmother. _Otherwise the girl would have been rung up, distress and all.\nI know women who would have gotten a No. 1 _pleasure _out of ringing\nJane up\u2014and so they would infallibly have pushed the button and obeyed\nthe law of their make and training, which are the servants of their\nInterior Masters. It is quite likely that a part of your mother\u2019s\nforbearance came from training. The _good _kind of training\u2014whose best\nand highest function is to see to it that every time it confers a\nsatisfaction upon its pupil a benefit shall fall at second hand upon\nothers.\n\nY.M. If you were going to condense into an admonition your plan for the\ngeneral betterment of the race\u2019s condition, how would you word it?\n\n_Admonition_\n\nO.M. Diligently train your ideals _upward _and _still upward _toward a\nsummit where you will find your chiefest pleasure in conduct which,\nwhile contenting you, will be sure to confer benefits upon your\nneighbor and the community.\n\nY.M. Is that a new gospel?\n\nO.M. No.\n\nY.M. It has been taught before?\n\nO.M. For ten thousand years.\n\nY.M. By whom?\n\nO.M. All the great religions\u2014all the great gospels.\n\nY.M. Then there is nothing new about it?\n\nO.M. Oh yes, there is. It is candidly stated, this time. That has not\nbeen done before.\n\nY.M. How do you mean?\n\nO.M. Haven\u2019t I put _you first, _and your neighbor and the community\nafterward?\n\nY.M. Well, yes, that is a difference, it is true.\n\nO.M. The difference between straight speaking and crooked; the\ndifference between frankness and shuffling.\n\nY.M. Explain.\n\nO.M. The others offer you a hundred bribes to be good, thus conceding\nthat the Master inside of you must be conciliated and contented first,\nand that you will do nothing at _first hand _but for his sake; then\nthey turn square around and require you to do good for _other\u2019s _sake\n_chiefly_; and to do your duty for duty\u2019s _sake_, chiefly; and to do\nacts of _self_-_sacrifice_. Thus at the outset we all stand upon the\nsame ground\u2014recognition of the supreme and absolute Monarch that\nresides in man, and we all grovel before him and appeal to him; then\nthose others dodge and shuffle, and face around and unfrankly and\ninconsistently and illogically change the form of their appeal and\ndirect its persuasions to man\u2019s _second-place _powers and to powers\nwhich have _no existence _in him, thus advancing them to _first _place;\nwhereas in my Admonition I stick logically and consistently to the\noriginal position: I place the Interior Master\u2019s requirements _first_,\nand keep them there.\n\nY.M. If we grant, for the sake of argument, that your scheme and the\nother schemes aim at and produce the same result\u2014_right living\u2014_has\nyours an advantage over the others?\n\nO.M. One, yes\u2014a large one. It has no concealments, no deceptions. When\na man leads a right and valuable life under it he is not deceived as to\nthe _real _chief motive which impels him to it\u2014in those other cases he\nis.\n\nY.M. Is that an advantage? Is it an advantage to live a lofty life for\na mean reason? In the other cases he lives the lofty life under the\n_impression _that he is living for a lofty reason. Is not that an\nadvantage?\n\nO.M. Perhaps so. The same advantage he might get out of thinking\nhimself a duke, and living a duke\u2019s life and parading in ducal fuss and\nfeathers, when he wasn\u2019t a duke at all, and could find it out if he\nwould only examine the herald\u2019s records.\n\nY.M. But anyway, he is obliged to do a duke\u2019s part; he puts his hand in\nhis pocket and does his benevolences on as big a scale as he can stand,\nand that benefits the community.\n\nO.M. He could do that without being a duke.\n\nY.M. But would he?\n\nO.M. Don\u2019t you see where you are arriving?\n\nY.M. Where?\n\nO.M. At the standpoint of the other schemes: That it is good morals to\nlet an ignorant duke do showy benevolences for his pride\u2019s sake, a\npretty low motive, and go on doing them unwarned, lest if he were made\nacquainted with the actual motive which prompted them he might shut up\nhis purse and cease to be good?\n\nY.M. But isn\u2019t it best to leave him in ignorance, as long as he _thinks\n_he is doing good for others\u2019 sake?\n\nO.M. Perhaps so. It is the position of the other schemes. They think\nhumbug is good enough morals when the dividend on it is good deeds and\nhandsome conduct.\n\nY.M. It is my opinion that under your scheme of a man\u2019s doing a good\ndeed for his _own _sake first-off, instead of first for the _good\ndeed\u2019s _sake, no man would ever do one.\n\nO.M. Have you committed a benevolence lately?\n\nY.M. Yes. This morning.\n\nO.M. Give the particulars.\n\nY.M. The cabin of the old negro woman who used to nurse me when I was a\nchild and who saved my life once at the risk of her own, was burned\nlast night, and she came mourning this morning, and pleading for money\nto build another one.\n\nO.M. You furnished it?\n\nY.M. Certainly.\n\nO.M. You were glad you had the money?\n\nY.M. Money? I hadn\u2019t. I sold my horse.\n\nO.M. You were glad you had the horse?\n\nY.M. Of course I was; for if I hadn\u2019t had the horse I should have been\nincapable, and my _mother _would have captured the chance to set old\nSally up.\n\nO.M. You were cordially glad you were not caught out and incapable?\n\nY.M. Oh, I just was!\n\nO.M. Now, then\u2014\n\nY.M. Stop where you are! I know your whole catalog of questions, and I\ncould answer every one of them without your wasting the time to ask\nthem; but I will summarize the whole thing in a single remark: I did\nthe charity knowing it was because the act would give _me _a splendid\npleasure, and because old Sally\u2019s moving gratitude and delight would\ngive _me _another one; and because the reflection that she would be\nhappy now and out of her trouble would fill _me _full of happiness. I\ndid the whole thing with my eyes open and recognizing and realizing\nthat I was looking out for _my _share of the profits _first_. Now then,\nI have confessed. Go on.\n\nO.M. I haven\u2019t anything to offer; you have covered the whole ground.\nCan you have been any _more _strongly moved to help Sally out of her\ntrouble\u2014could you have done the deed any more eagerly\u2014if you had been\nunder the delusion that you were doing it for _her _sake and profit\nonly?\n\nY.M. No! Nothing in the world could have made the impulse which moved\nme more powerful, more masterful, more thoroughly irresistible. I\nplayed the limit!\n\nO.M. Very well. You begin to suspect\u2014and I claim to _know _\u2014that when a\nman is a shade _more strongly moved _to do _one _of two things or of\ntwo dozen things than he is to do any one of the _others_, he will\ninfallibly do that _one _thing, be it good or be it evil; and if it be\ngood, not all the beguilements of all the casuistries can increase the\nstrength of the impulse by a single shade or add a shade to the comfort\nand contentment he will get out of the act.\n\nY.M. Then you believe that such tendency toward doing good as is in\nmen\u2019s hearts would not be diminished by the removal of the delusion\nthat good deeds are done primarily for the sake of No. 2 instead of for\nthe sake of No. 1?\n\nO.M. That is what I fully believe.\n\nY.M. Doesn\u2019t it somehow seem to take from the dignity of the deed?\n\nO.M. If there is dignity in falsity, it does. It removes that.\n\nY.M. What is left for the moralists to do?\n\nO.M. Teach unreservedly what he already teaches with one side of his\nmouth and takes back with the other: Do right _for your own sake, _and\nbe happy in knowing that your _neighbor _will certainly share in the\nbenefits resulting.\n\nY.M. Repeat your Admonition.\n\nO.M. _Diligently train your ideals upward and still upward toward a\nsummit where you will find your chiefest pleasure in conduct which,\nwhile contenting you, will be sure to confer benefits upon your\nneighbor and the community._\n\nY.M. One\u2019s _every _act proceeds from _exterior influences_, you think?\n\nO.M. Yes.\n\nY.M. If I conclude to rob a person, I am not the _originator _of the\nidea, but it comes in from the _outside_? I see him handling money\u2014for\ninstance\u2014and _that _moves me to the crime?\n\nO.M. That, by itself? Oh, certainly not. It is merely the _latest\n_outside influence of a procession of preparatory influences stretching\nback over a period of years. No _single _outside influence can make a\nman do a thing which is at war with his training. The most it can do is\nto start his mind on a new tract and open it to the reception of _new\n_influences\u2014as in the case of Ignatius Loyola. In time these influences\ncan train him to a point where it will be consonant with his new\ncharacter to yield to the _final _influence and do that thing. I will\nput the case in a form which will make my theory clear to you, I think.\nHere are two ingots of virgin gold. They shall represent a couple of\ncharacters which have been refined and perfected in the virtues by\nyears of diligent right training. Suppose you wanted to break down\nthese strong and well-compacted characters\u2014what influence would you\nbring to bear upon the ingots?\n\nY.M. Work it out yourself. Proceed.\n\nO.M. Suppose I turn upon one of them a steam-jet during a long\nsuccession of hours. Will there be a result?\n\nY.M. None that I know of.\n\nO.M. Why?\n\nY.M. A steam-jet cannot break down such a substance.\n\nO.M. Very well. The steam is an _outside influence, _but it is\nineffective because the gold _takes no interest in it. _The ingot\nremains as it was. Suppose we add to the steam some quicksilver in a\nvaporized condition, and turn the jet upon the ingot, will there be an\ninstantaneous result?\n\nY.M. No.\n\nO.M. The _quicksilver _is an outside influence which gold (by its\npeculiar nature\u2014say _temperament, disposition) cannot be indifferent\nto. _It stirs up the interest of the gold, although we do not perceive\nit; but a _single _application of the influence works no damage. Let us\ncontinue the application in a steady stream, and call each minute a\nyear. By the end of ten or twenty minutes\u2014ten or twenty years\u2014the\nlittle ingot is sodden with quicksilver, its virtues are gone, its\ncharacter is degraded. At last it is ready to yield to a temptation\nwhich it would have taken no notice of, ten or twenty years ago. We\nwill apply that temptation in the form of a pressure of my finger. You\nnote the result?\n\nY.M. Yes; the ingot has crumbled to sand. I understand, now. It is not\nthe _single _outside influence that does the work, but only the _last\n_one of a long and disintegrating accumulation of them. I see, now, how\nmy _single _impulse to rob the man is not the one that makes me do it,\nbut only the _last _one of a preparatory series. You might illustrate\nwith a parable.\n\n_A Parable_\n\nO.M. I will. There was once a pair of New England boys\u2014twins. They were\nalike in good dispositions, feckless morals, and personal appearance.\nThey were the models of the Sunday\u2014school. At fifteen George had the\nopportunity to go as cabin-boy in a whale-ship, and sailed away for the\nPacific. Henry remained at home in the village. At eighteen George was\na sailor before the mast, and Henry was teacher of the advanced Bible\nclass. At twenty-two George, through fighting-habits and\ndrinking-habits acquired at sea and in the sailor boarding-houses of\nthe European and Oriental ports, was a common rough in Hong-Kong, and\nout of a job; and Henry was superintendent of the Sunday-school. At\ntwenty-six George was a wanderer, a tramp, and Henry was pastor of the\nvillage church. Then George came home, and was Henry\u2019s guest. One\nevening a man passed by and turned down the lane, and Henry said, with\na pathetic smile, \u201cWithout intending me a discomfort, that man is\nalways keeping me reminded of my pinching poverty, for he carries heaps\nof money about him, and goes by here every evening of his life.\u201d That\n_outside influence _\u2014that remark\u2014was enough for George, but _it _was\nnot the one that made him ambush the man and rob him, it merely\nrepresented the eleven years\u2019 accumulation of such influences, and gave\nbirth to the act for which their long gestation had made preparation.\nIt had never entered the head of Henry to rob the man\u2014his ingot had\nbeen subjected to clean steam only; but George\u2019s had been subjected to\nvaporized quicksilver.\n\nV\n\nMore About the Machine\n\nNote.\u2014When Mrs. W. asks how can a millionaire give a single dollar to\ncolleges and museums while one human being is destitute of bread, she\nhas answered her question herself. Her feeling for the poor shows that\nshe has a standard of benevolence; there she has conceded the\nmillionaire\u2019s privilege of having a standard; since she evidently\nrequires him to adopt her standard, she is by that act requiring\nherself to adopt his. The human being always looks down when he is\nexamining another person\u2019s standard; he never find one that he has to\nexamine by looking up.\n\n_The Man-Machine Again_\n\nYoung Man. You really think man is a mere machine?\n\nOld Man. I do.\n\nY.M. And that his mind works automatically and is independent of his\ncontrol\u2014carries on thought on its own hook?\n\nO.M. Yes. It is diligently at work, unceasingly at work, during every\nwaking moment. Have you never tossed about all night, imploring,\nbeseeching, commanding your mind to stop work and let you go to\nsleep?\u2014you who perhaps imagine that your mind is your servant and must\nobey your orders, think what you tell it to think, and stop when you\ntell it to stop. When it chooses to work, there is no way to keep it\nstill for an instant. The brightest man would not be able to supply it\nwith subjects if he had to hunt them up. If it needed the man\u2019s help it\nwould wait for him to give it work when he wakes in the morning.\n\nY.M. Maybe it does.\n\nO.M. No, it begins right away, before the man gets wide enough awake to\ngive it a suggestion. He may go to sleep saying, \u201cThe moment I wake I\nwill think upon such and such a subject,\u201d but he will fail. His mind\nwill be too quick for him; by the time he has become nearly enough\nawake to be half conscious, he will find that it is already at work\nupon another subject. Make the experiment and see.\n\nY.M. At any rate, he can make it stick to a subject if he wants to.\n\nO.M. Not if it find another that suits it better. As a rule it will\nlisten to neither a dull speaker nor a bright one. It refuses all\npersuasion. The dull speaker wearies it and sends it far away in idle\ndreams; the bright speaker throws out stimulating ideas which it goes\nchasing after and is at once unconscious of him and his talk. You\ncannot keep your mind from wandering, if it wants to; it is master, not\nyou.\n\n_After an Interval of Days_\n\nO.M. Now, dreams\u2014but we will examine that later. Meantime, did you try\ncommanding your mind to wait for orders from you, and not do any\nthinking on its own hook?\n\nY.M. Yes, I commanded it to stand ready to take orders when I should\nwake in the morning.\n\nO.M. Did it obey?\n\nY.M. No. It went to thinking of something of its own initiation,\nwithout waiting for me. Also\u2014as you suggested\u2014at night I appointed a\ntheme for it to begin on in the morning, and commanded it to begin on\nthat one and no other.\n\nO.M. Did it obey?\n\nY.M. No.\n\nO.M. How many times did you try the experiment?\n\nY.M. Ten.\n\nO.M. How many successes did you score?\n\nY.M. Not one.\n\nO.M. It is as I have said: the mind is independent of the man. He has\nno control over it; it does as it pleases. It will take up a subject in\nspite of him; it will stick to it in spite of him; it will throw it\naside in spite of him. It is entirely independent of him.\n\nY.M. Go on. Illustrate.\n\nO.M. Do you know chess?\n\nY.M. I learned it a week ago.\n\nO.M. Did your mind go on playing the game all night that first night?\n\nY.M. Don\u2019t mention it!\n\nO.M. It was eagerly, unsatisfiably interested; it rioted in the\ncombinations; you implored it to drop the game and let you get some\nsleep?\n\nY.M. Yes. It wouldn\u2019t listen; it played right along. It wore me out and\nI got up haggard and wretched in the morning.\n\nO.M. At some time or other you have been captivated by a ridiculous\nrhyme-jingle?\n\nY.M. Indeed, yes!\n\n\u201cI saw Esau kissing Kate,\n    And she saw I saw Esau;\nI saw Esau, he saw Kate,\n    And she saw\u2014\u201d\n\n\nAnd so on. My mind went mad with joy over it. It repeated it all day\nand all night for a week in spite of all I could do to stop it, and it\nseemed to me that I must surely go crazy.\n\nO.M. And the new popular song?\n\nY.M. Oh yes! \u201cIn the Swee-eet By and By\u201d; etc. Yes, the new popular\nsong with the taking melody sings through one\u2019s head day and night,\nasleep and awake, till one is a wreck. There is no getting the mind to\nlet it alone.\n\nO.M. Yes, asleep as well as awake. The mind is quite independent. It is\nmaster. You have nothing to do with it. It is so apart from you that it\ncan conduct its affairs, sing its songs, play its chess, weave its\ncomplex and ingeniously constructed dreams, while you sleep. It has no\nuse for your help, no use for your guidance, and never uses either,\nwhether you be asleep or awake. You have imagined that you could\noriginate a thought in your mind, and you have sincerely believed you\ncould do it.\n\nY.M. Yes, I have had that idea.\n\nO.M. Yet you can\u2019t originate a dream-thought for it to work out, and\nget it accepted?\n\nY.M. No.\n\nO.M. And you can\u2019t dictate its procedure after it has originated a\ndream-thought for itself?\n\nY.M. No. No one can do it. Do you think the waking mind and the dream\nmind are the same machine?\n\nO.M. There is argument for it. We have wild and fantastic day-thoughts?\nThings that are dream-like?\n\nY.M. Yes\u2014like Mr. Wells\u2019s man who invented a drug that made him\ninvisible; and like the Arabian tales of the Thousand Nights.\n\nO.M. And there are dreams that are rational, simple, consistent, and\nunfantastic?\n\nY.M. Yes. I have dreams that are like that. Dreams that are just like\nreal life; dreams in which there are several persons with distinctly\ndifferentiated characters\u2014inventions of my mind and yet strangers to\nme: a vulgar person; a refined one; a wise person; a fool; a cruel\nperson; a kind and compassionate one; a quarrelsome person; a\npeacemaker; old persons and young; beautiful girls and homely ones.\nThey talk in character, each preserves his own characteristics. There\nare vivid fights, vivid and biting insults, vivid love-passages; there\nare tragedies and comedies, there are griefs that go to one\u2019s heart,\nthere are sayings and doings that make you laugh: indeed, the whole\nthing is exactly like real life.\n\nO.M. Your dreaming mind originates the scheme, consistently and\nartistically develops it, and carries the little drama creditably\nthrough\u2014all without help or suggestion from you?\n\nY.M. Yes.\n\nO.M. It is argument that it could do the like awake without help or\nsuggestion from you\u2014and I think it does. It is argument that it is the\nsame old mind in both cases, and never needs your help. I think the\nmind is purely a machine, a thoroughly independent machine, an\nautomatic machine. Have you tried the other experiment which I\nsuggested to you?\n\nY.M. Which one?\n\nO.M. The one which was to determine how much influence you have over\nyour mind\u2014if any.\n\nY.M. Yes, and got more or less entertainment out of it. I did as you\nordered: I placed two texts before my eyes\u2014one a dull one and barren of\ninterest, the other one full of interest, inflamed with it, white-hot\nwith it. I commanded my mind to busy itself solely with the dull one.\n\nO.M. Did it obey?\n\nY.M. Well, no, it didn\u2019t. It busied itself with the other one.\n\nO.M. Did you try hard to make it obey?\n\nY.M. Yes, I did my honest best.\n\nO.M. What was the text which it refused to be interested in or think\nabout?\n\nY.M. It was this question: If A owes B a dollar and a half, and B owes\nC two and three-quarter, and C owes A thirty\u2014five cents, and D and A\ntogether owe E and B three-sixteenths of\u2014of\u2014I don\u2019t remember the rest,\nnow, but anyway it was wholly uninteresting, and I could not force my\nmind to stick to it even half a minute at a time; it kept flying off to\nthe other text.\n\nO.M. What was the other text?\n\nY.M. It is no matter about that.\n\nO.M. But what was it?\n\nY.M. A photograph.\n\nO.M. Your own?\n\nY.M. No. It was hers.\n\nO.M. You really made an honest good test. Did you make a second trial?\n\nY.M. Yes. I commanded my mind to interest itself in the morning paper\u2019s\nreport of the pork-market, and at the same time I reminded it of an\nexperience of mine of sixteen years ago. It refused to consider the\npork and gave its whole blazing interest to that ancient incident.\n\nO.M. What was the incident?\n\nY.M. An armed desperado slapped my face in the presence of twenty\nspectators. It makes me wild and murderous every time I think of it.\n\nO.M. Good tests, both; very good tests. Did you try my other\nsuggestion?\n\nY.M. The one which was to prove to me that if I would leave my mind to\nits own devices it would find things to think about without any of my\nhelp, and thus convince me that it was a machine, an automatic machine,\nset in motion by exterior influences, and as independent of me as it\ncould be if it were in some one else\u2019s skull. Is that the one?\n\nO.M. Yes.\n\nY.M. I tried it. I was shaving. I had slept well, and my mind was very\nlively, even gay and frisky. It was reveling in a fantastic and joyful\nepisode of my remote boyhood which had suddenly flashed up in my\nmemory\u2014moved to this by the spectacle of a yellow cat picking its way\ncarefully along the top of the garden wall. The color of this cat\nbrought the bygone cat before me, and I saw her walking along the\nside-step of the pulpit; saw her walk on to a large sheet of sticky\nfly-paper and get all her feet involved; saw her struggle and fall\ndown, helpless and dissatisfied, more and more urgent, more and more\nunreconciled, more and more mutely profane; saw the silent congregation\nquivering like jelly, and the tears running down their faces. I saw it\nall. The sight of the tears whisked my mind to a far distant and a\nsadder scene\u2014in Terra del Fuego\u2014and with Darwin\u2019s eyes I saw a naked\ngreat savage hurl his little boy against the rocks for a trifling\nfault; saw the poor mother gather up her dying child and hug it to her\nbreast and weep, uttering no word. Did my mind stop to mourn with that\nnude black sister of mine? No\u2014it was far away from that scene in an\ninstant, and was busying itself with an ever-recurring and disagreeable\ndream of mine. In this dream I always find myself, stripped to my\nshirt, cringing and dodging about in the midst of a great drawing-room\nthrong of finely dressed ladies and gentlemen, and wondering how I got\nthere. And so on and so on, picture after picture, incident after\nincident, a drifting panorama of ever-changing, ever-dissolving views\nmanufactured by my mind without any help from me\u2014why, it would take me\ntwo hours to merely name the multitude of things my mind tallied off\nand photographed in fifteen minutes, let alone describe them to you.\n\nO.M. A man\u2019s mind, left free, has no use for his help. But there is one\nway whereby he can get its help when he desires it.\n\nY.M. What is that way?\n\nO.M. When your mind is racing along from subject to subject and strikes\nan inspiring one, open your mouth and begin talking upon that\nmatter\u2014or\u2014take your pen and use that. It will interest your mind and\nconcentrate it, and it will pursue the subject with satisfaction. It\nwill take full charge, and furnish the words itself.\n\nY.M. But don\u2019t I tell it what to say?\n\nO.M. There are certainly occasions when you haven\u2019t time. The words\nleap out before you know what is coming.\n\nY.M. For instance?\n\nO.M. Well, take a \u201cflash of wit\u201d\u2014repartee. Flash is the right word. It\nis out instantly. There is no time to arrange the words. There is no\nthinking, no reflecting. Where there is a wit-mechanism it is automatic\nin its action and needs no help. Where the wit-mechanism is lacking, no\namount of study and reflection can manufacture the product.\n\nY.M. You really think a man originates nothing, creates nothing.\n\n_The Thinking-Process_\n\nO.M. I do. Men perceive, and their brain-machines automatically combine\nthe things perceived. That is all.\n\nY.M. The steam-engine?\n\nO.M. It takes fifty men a hundred years to invent it. One meaning of\ninvent is discover. I use the word in that sense. Little by little they\ndiscover and apply the multitude of details that go to make the perfect\nengine. Watt noticed that confined steam was strong enough to lift the\nlid of the teapot. He didn\u2019t create the idea, he merely discovered the\nfact; the cat had noticed it a hundred times. From the teapot he\nevolved the cylinder\u2014from the displaced lid he evolved the piston-rod.\nTo attach something to the piston-rod to be moved by it, was a simple\nmatter\u2014crank and wheel. And so there was a working engine.\n\nOne by one, improvements were discovered by men who used their eyes,\nnot their creating powers\u2014for they hadn\u2019t any\u2014and now, after a hundred\nyears the patient contributions of fifty or a hundred observers stand\ncompacted in the wonderful machine which drives the ocean liner.\n\nY.M. A Shakespearean play?\n\nO.M. The process is the same. The first actor was a savage. He\nreproduced in his theatrical war-dances, scalp\u2014dances, and so on,\nincidents which he had seen in real life. A more advanced civilization\nproduced more incidents, more episodes; the actor and the story-teller\nborrowed them. And so the drama grew, little by little, stage by stage.\nIt is made up of the facts of life, not creations. It took centuries to\ndevelop the Greek drama. It borrowed from preceding ages; it lent to\nthe ages that came after. Men observe and combine, that is all. So does\na rat.\n\nY.M. How?\n\nO.M. He observes a smell, he infers a cheese, he seeks and finds. The\nastronomer observes this and that; adds his this and that to the\nthis-and-thats of a hundred predecessors, infers an invisible planet,\nseeks it and finds it. The rat gets into a trap; gets out with trouble;\ninfers that cheese in traps lacks value, and meddles with that trap no\nmore. The astronomer is very proud of his achievement, the rat is proud\nof his. Yet both are machines; they have done machine work, they have\noriginated nothing, they have no right to be vain; the whole credit\nbelongs to their Maker. They are entitled to no honors, no praises, no\nmonuments when they die, no remembrance. One is a complex and elaborate\nmachine, the other a simple and limited machine, but they are alike in\nprinciple, function, and process, and neither of them works otherwise\nthan automatically, and neither of them may righteously claim a\n_personal _superiority or a personal dignity above the other.\n\nY.M. In earned personal dignity, then, and in personal merit for what\nhe does, it follows of necessity that he is on the same level as a rat?\n\nO.M. His brother the rat; yes, that is how it seems to me. Neither of\nthem being entitled to any personal merit for what he does, it follows\nof necessity that neither of them has a right to arrogate to himself\n(personally created) superiorities over his brother.\n\nY.M. Are you determined to go on believing in these insanities? Would\nyou go on believing in them in the face of able arguments backed by\ncollated facts and instances?\n\nO.M. I have been a humble, earnest, and sincere Truth-Seeker.\n\nY.M. Very well?\n\nO.M. The humble, earnest, and sincere Truth-Seeker is always\nconvertible by such means.\n\nY.M. I am thankful to God to hear you say this, for now I know that\nyour conversion\u2014\n\nO.M. Wait. You misunderstand. I said I have _been _a Truth-Seeker.\n\nY.M. Well?\n\nO.M. I am not that now. Have your forgotten? I told you that there are\nnone but temporary Truth-Seekers; that a permanent one is a human\nimpossibility; that as soon as the Seeker finds what he is thoroughly\nconvinced is the Truth, he seeks no further, but gives the rest of his\ndays to hunting junk to patch it and caulk it and prop it with, and\nmake it weather-proof and keep it from caving in on him. Hence the\nPresbyterian remains a Presbyterian, the Mohammedan a Mohammedan, the\nSpiritualist a Spiritualist, the Democrat a Democrat, the Republican a\nRepublican, the Monarchist a Monarchist; and if a humble, earnest, and\nsincere Seeker after Truth should find it in the proposition that the\nmoon is made of green cheese nothing could ever budge him from that\nposition; for he is nothing but an automatic machine, and must obey the\nlaws of his construction.\n\nY.M. And so\u2014\n\nO.M. Having found the Truth; perceiving that beyond question man has\nbut one moving impulse\u2014the contenting of his own spirit\u2014and is merely a\nmachine and entitled to no personal merit for anything he does, it is\nnot humanly possible for me to seek further. The rest of my days will\nbe spent in patching and painting and puttying and caulking my\npriceless possession and in looking the other way when an imploring\nargument or a damaging fact approaches.\n\n1. The Marquess of Worcester had done all of this more than a century\nearlier.\n\nVI\n\nInstinct and Thought\n\nYoung Man. It is odious. Those drunken theories of yours, advanced a\nwhile ago\u2014concerning the rat and all that\u2014strip Man bare of all his\ndignities, grandeurs, sublimities.\n\nOld Man. He hasn\u2019t any to strip\u2014they are shams, stolen clothes. He\nclaims credits which belong solely to his Maker.\n\nY.M. But you have no right to put him on a level with a rat.\n\nO.M. I don\u2019t\u2014morally. That would not be fair to the rat. The rat is\nwell above him, there.\n\nY.M. Are you joking?\n\nO.M. No, I am not.\n\nY.M. Then what do you mean?\n\nO.M. That comes under the head of the Moral Sense. It is a large\nquestion. Let us finish with what we are about now, before we take it\nup.\n\nY.M. Very well. You have seemed to concede that you place Man and the\nrat on a level. What is it? The intellectual?\n\nO.M. In form\u2014not a degree.\n\nY.M. Explain.\n\nO.M. I think that the rat\u2019s mind and the man\u2019s mind are the same\nmachine, but of unequal capacities\u2014like yours and Edison\u2019s; like the\nAfrican pygmy\u2019s and Homer\u2019s; like the Bushman\u2019s and Bismarck\u2019s.\n\nY.M. How are you going to make that out, when the lower animals have no\nmental quality but instinct, while man possesses reason?\n\nO.M. What is instinct?\n\nY.M. It is merely unthinking and mechanical exercise of inherited\nhabit.\n\nO.M. What originated the habit?\n\nY.M. The first animal started it, its descendants have inherited it.\n\nO.M. How did the first one come to start it?\n\nY.M. I don\u2019t know; but it didn\u2019t _think _it out.\n\nO.M. How do you know it didn\u2019t?\n\nY.M. Well\u2014I have a right to suppose it didn\u2019t, anyway.\n\nO.M. I don\u2019t believe you have. What is thought?\n\nY.M. I know what you call it: the mechanical and automatic putting\ntogether of impressions received from outside, and drawing an inference\nfrom them.\n\nO.M. Very good. Now my idea of the meaningless term \u201cinstinct\u201d is, that\nit is merely _petrified thought; _solidified and made inanimate by\nhabit; thought which was once alive and awake, but is become\nunconscious\u2014walks in its sleep, so to speak.\n\nY.M. Illustrate it.\n\nO.M. Take a herd of cows, feeding in a pasture. Their heads are all\nturned in one direction. They do that instinctively; they gain nothing\nby it, they have no reason for it, they don\u2019t know why they do it. It\nis an inherited habit which was originally thought\u2014that is to say,\nobservation of an exterior fact, and a valuable inference drawn from\nthat observation and confirmed by experience. The original wild ox\nnoticed that with the wind in his favor he could smell his enemy in\ntime to escape; then he inferred that it was worth while to keep his\nnose to the wind. That is the process which man calls reasoning. Man\u2019s\nthought-machine works just like the other animals\u2019, but it is a better\none and more Edisonian. Man, in the ox\u2019s place, would go further,\nreason wider: he would face part of the herd the other way and protect\nboth front and rear.\n\nY.M. Did you stay the term instinct is meaningless?\n\nO.M. I think it is a bastard word. I think it confuses us; for as a\nrule it applies itself to habits and impulses which had a far-off\norigin in thought, and now and then breaks the rule and applies itself\nto habits which can hardly claim a thought-origin.\n\nY.M. Give an instance.\n\nO.M. Well, in putting on trousers a man always inserts the same old leg\nfirst\u2014never the other one. There is no advantage in that, and no sense\nin it. All men do it, yet no man thought it out and adopted it of set\npurpose, I imagine. But it is a habit which is transmitted, no doubt,\nand will continue to be transmitted.\n\nY.M. Can you prove that the habit exists?\n\nO.M. You can prove it, if you doubt. If you will take a man to a\nclothing-store and watch him try on a dozen pairs of trousers, you will\nsee.\n\nY.M. The cow illustration is not\u2014\n\nO.M. Sufficient to show that a dumb animal\u2019s mental machine is just the\nsame as a man\u2019s and its reasoning processes the same? I will illustrate\nfurther. If you should hand Mr. Edison a box which you caused to fly\nopen by some concealed device he would infer a spring, and would hunt\nfor it and find it. Now an uncle of mine had an old horse who used to\nget into the closed lot where the corn-crib was and dishonestly take\nthe corn. I got the punishment myself, as it was supposed that I had\nheedlessly failed to insert the wooden pin which kept the gate closed.\nThese persistent punishments fatigued me; they also caused me to infer\nthe existence of a culprit, somewhere; so I hid myself and watched the\ngate. Presently the horse came and pulled the pin out with his teeth\nand went in. Nobody taught him that; he had observed\u2014then thought it\nout for himself. His process did not differ from Edison\u2019s; he put this\nand that together and drew an inference\u2014and the peg, too; but I made\nhim sweat for it.\n\nY.M. It has something of the seeming of thought about it. Still it is\nnot very elaborate. Enlarge.\n\nO.M. Suppose Mr. Edison has been enjoying some one\u2019s hospitalities. He\ncomes again by and by, and the house is vacant. He infers that his host\nhas moved. A while afterward, in another town, he sees the man enter a\nhouse; he infers that that is the new home, and follows to inquire.\nHere, now, is the experience of a gull, as related by a naturalist. The\nscene is a Scotch fishing village where the gulls were kindly treated.\nThis particular gull visited a cottage; was fed; came next day and was\nfed again; came into the house, next time, and ate with the family;\nkept on doing this almost daily, thereafter. But, once the gull was\naway on a journey for a few days, and when it returned the house was\nvacant. Its friends had removed to a village three miles distant.\nSeveral months later it saw the head of the family on the street there,\nfollowed him home, entered the house without excuse or apology, and\nbecame a daily guest again. Gulls do not rank high mentally, but this\none had memory and the reasoning faculty, you see, and applied them\nEdisonially.\n\nY.M. Yet it was not an Edison and couldn\u2019t be developed into one.\n\nO.M. Perhaps not. Could you?\n\nY.M. That is neither here nor there. Go on.\n\nO.M. If Edison were in trouble and a stranger helped him out of it and\nnext day he got into the same difficulty again, he would infer the wise\nthing to do in case he knew the stranger\u2019s address. Here is a case of a\nbird and a stranger as related by a naturalist. An Englishman saw a\nbird flying around about his dog\u2019s head, down in the grounds, and\nuttering cries of distress. He went there to see about it. The dog had\na young bird in his mouth\u2014unhurt. The gentleman rescued it and put it\non a bush and brought the dog away. Early the next morning the mother\nbird came for the gentleman, who was sitting on his veranda, and by its\nmaneuvers persuaded him to follow it to a distant part of the\ngrounds\u2014flying a little way in front of him and waiting for him to\ncatch up, and so on; and keeping to the winding path, too, instead of\nflying the near way across lots. The distance covered was four hundred\nyards. The same dog was the culprit; he had the young bird again, and\nonce more he had to give it up. Now the mother bird had reasoned it all\nout: since the stranger had helped her once, she inferred that he would\ndo it again; she knew where to find him, and she went upon her errand\nwith confidence. Her mental processes were what Edison\u2019s would have\nbeen. She put this and that together\u2014and that is all that thought _is\n_\u2014and out of them built her logical arrangement of inferences. Edison\ncouldn\u2019t have done it any better himself.\n\nY.M. Do you believe that many of the dumb animals can think?\n\nO.M. Yes\u2014the elephant, the monkey, the horse, the dog, the parrot, the\nmacaw, the mocking-bird, and many others. The elephant whose mate fell\ninto a pit, and who dumped dirt and rubbish into the pit till bottom\nwas raised high enough to enable the captive to step out, was equipped\nwith the reasoning quality. I conceive that all animals that can learn\nthings through teaching and drilling have to know how to observe, and\nput this and that together and draw an inference\u2014the process of\nthinking. Could you teach an idiot the manual of arms, and to advance,\nretreat, and go through complex field maneuvers at the word of command?\n\nY.M. Not if he were a thorough idiot.\n\nO.M. Well, canary-birds can learn all that; dogs and elephants learn\nall sorts of wonderful things. They must surely be able to notice, and\nto put things together, and say to themselves, \u201cI get the idea, now:\nwhen I do so and so, as per order, I am praised and fed; when I do\ndifferently I am punished.\u201d Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a\nCongressman can.\n\nY.M. Granting, then, that dumb animals are able to think upon a low\nplane, is there any that can think upon a high one? Is there one that\nis well up toward man?\n\nO.M. Yes. As a thinker and planner the ant is the equal of any savage\nrace of men; as a self-educated specialist in several arts she is the\nsuperior of any savage race of men; and in one or two high mental\nqualities she is above the reach of any man, savage or civilized!\n\nY.M. Oh, come! you are abolishing the intellectual frontier which\nseparates man and beast.\n\nO.M. I beg your pardon. One cannot abolish what does not exist.\n\nY.M. You are not in earnest, I hope. You cannot mean to seriously say\nthere is no such frontier.\n\nO.M. I do say it seriously. The instances of the horse, the gull, the\nmother bird, and the elephant show that those creatures put their\nthis\u2019s and thats together just as Edison would have done it and drew\nthe same inferences that he would have drawn. Their mental machinery\nwas just like his, also its manner of working. Their equipment was as\ninferior to the Strasburg clock, but that is the only difference\u2014there\nis no frontier.\n\nY.M. It looks exasperatingly true; and is distinctly offensive. It\nelevates the dumb beasts to\u2014to\u2014\n\nO.M. Let us drop that lying phrase, and call them the Unrevealed\nCreatures; so far as we can know, there is no such thing as a dumb\nbeast.\n\nY.M. On what grounds do you make that assertion?\n\nO.M. On quite simple ones. \u201cDumb\u201d beast suggests an animal that has no\nthought-machinery, no understanding, no speech, no way of communicating\nwhat is in its mind. We know that a hen _has _speech. We cannot\nunderstand everything she says, but we easily learn two or three of her\nphrases. We know when she is saying, \u201cI have laid an egg\u201d; we know when\nshe is saying to the chicks, \u201cRun here, dears, I\u2019ve found a worm\u201d; we\nknow what she is saying when she voices a warning: \u201cQuick! hurry!\ngather yourselves under mamma, there\u2019s a hawk coming!\u201d We understand\nthe cat when she stretches herself out, purring with affection and\ncontentment and lifts up a soft voice and says, \u201cCome, kitties,\nsupper\u2019s ready\u201d; we understand her when she goes mourning about and\nsays, \u201cWhere can they be? They are lost. Won\u2019t you help me hunt for\nthem?\u201d and we understand the disreputable Tom when he challenges at\nmidnight from his shed, \u201cYou come over here, you product of immoral\ncommerce, and I\u2019ll make your fur fly!\u201d We understand a few of a dog\u2019s\nphrases and we learn to understand a few of the remarks and gestures of\nany bird or other animal that we domesticate and observe. The clearness\nand exactness of the few of the hen\u2019s speeches which we understand is\nargument that she can communicate to her kind a hundred things which we\ncannot comprehend\u2014in a word, that she can converse. And this argument\nis also applicable in the case of others of the great army of the\nUnrevealed. It is just like man\u2019s vanity and impertinence to call an\nanimal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions. Now as to the\nant\u2014\n\nY.M. Yes, go back to the ant, the creature that\u2014as you seem to\nthink\u2014sweeps away the last vestige of an intellectual frontier between\nman and the Unrevealed.\n\nO.M. That is what she surely does. In all his history the aboriginal\nAustralian never thought out a house for himself and built it. The ant\nis an amazing architect. She is a wee little creature, but she builds a\nstrong and enduring house eight feet high\u2014a house which is as large in\nproportion to her size as is the largest capitol or cathedral in the\nworld compared to man\u2019s size. No savage race has produced architects\nwho could approach the ant in genius or culture. No civilized race has\nproduced architects who could plan a house better for the uses proposed\nthan can hers. Her house contains a throne-room; nurseries for her\nyoung; granaries; apartments for her soldiers, her workers, etc.; and\nthey and the multifarious halls and corridors which communicate with\nthem are arranged and distributed with an educated and experienced eye\nfor convenience and adaptability.\n\nY.M. That could be mere instinct.\n\nO.M. It would elevate the savage if he had it. But let us look further\nbefore we decide. The ant has soldiers\u2014battalions, regiments, armies;\nand they have their appointed captains and generals, who lead them to\nbattle.\n\nY.M. That could be instinct, too.\n\nO.M. We will look still further. The ant has a system of government; it\nis well planned, elaborate, and is well carried on.\n\nY.M. Instinct again.\n\nO.M. She has crowds of slaves, and is a hard and unjust employer of\nforced labor.\n\nY.M. Instinct.\n\nO.M. She has cows, and milks them.\n\nY.M. Instinct, of course.\n\nO.M. In Texas she lays out a farm twelve feet square, plants it, weeds\nit, cultivates it, gathers the crop and stores it away.\n\nY.M. Instinct, all the same.\n\nO.M. The ant discriminates between friend and stranger. Sir John\nLubbock took ants from two different nests, made them drunk with\nwhiskey and laid them, unconscious, by one of the nests, near some\nwater. Ants from the nest came and examined and discussed these\ndisgraced creatures, then carried their friends home and threw the\nstrangers overboard. Sir John repeated the experiment a number of\ntimes. For a time the sober ants did as they had done at first\u2014carried\ntheir friends home and threw the strangers overboard. But finally they\nlost patience, seeing that their reformatory efforts went for nothing,\nand threw both friends and strangers overboard. Come\u2014is this instinct,\nor is it thoughtful and intelligent discussion of a thing\nnew\u2014absolutely new\u2014to their experience; with a verdict arrived at,\nsentence passed, and judgment executed? Is it instinct?\u2014thought\npetrified by ages of habit\u2014or isn\u2019t it brand-new thought, inspired by\nthe new occasion, the new circumstances?\n\nY.M. I have to concede it. It was not a result of habit; it has all the\nlook of reflection, thought, putting this and that together, as you\nphrase it. I believe it was thought.\n\nO.M. I will give you another instance of thought. Franklin had a cup of\nsugar on a table in his room. The ants got at it. He tried several\npreventives; and ants rose superior to them. Finally he contrived one\nwhich shut off access\u2014probably set the table\u2019s legs in pans of water,\nor drew a circle of tar around the cup, I don\u2019t remember. At any rate,\nhe watched to see what they would do. They tried various\nschemes\u2014failures, every one. The ants were badly puzzled. Finally they\nheld a consultation, discussed the problem, arrived at a decision\u2014and\nthis time they beat that great philosopher. They formed in procession,\ncross the floor, climbed the wall, marched across the ceiling to a\npoint just over the cup, then one by one they let go and fell down into\nit! Was that instinct\u2014thought petrified by ages of inherited habit?\n\nY.M. No, I don\u2019t believe it was. I believe it was a newly reasoned\nscheme to meet a new emergency.\n\nO.M. Very well. You have conceded the reasoning power in two instances.\nI come now to a mental detail wherein the ant is a long way the\nsuperior of any human being. Sir John Lubbock proved by many\nexperiments that an ant knows a stranger ant of her own species in a\nmoment, even when the stranger is disguised\u2014with paint. Also he proved\nthat an ant knows every individual in her hive of five hundred thousand\nsouls. Also, after a year\u2019s absence one of the five hundred thousand\nshe will straightway recognize the returned absentee and grace the\nrecognition with an affectionate welcome. How are these recognitions\nmade? Not by color, for painted ants were recognized. Not by smell, for\nants that had been dipped in chloroform were recognized. Not by speech\nand not by antennae signs nor contacts, for the drunken and motionless\nants were recognized and the friend discriminated from the stranger.\nThe ants were all of the same species, therefore the friends had to be\nrecognized by form and feature\u2014friends who formed part of a hive of\nfive hundred thousand! Has any man a memory for form and feature\napproaching that?\n\nY.M. Certainly not.\n\nO.M. Franklin\u2019s ants and Lubbuck\u2019s ants show fine capacities of putting\nthis and that together in new and untried emergencies and deducting\nsmart conclusions from the combinations\u2014a man\u2019s mental process exactly.\nWith memory to help, man preserves his observations and reasonings,\nreflects upon them, adds to them, recombines, and so proceeds, stage by\nstage, to far results\u2014from the teakettle to the ocean greyhound\u2019s\ncomplex engine; from personal labor to slave labor; from wigwam to\npalace; from the capricious chase to agriculture and stored food; from\nnomadic life to stable government and concentrated authority; from\nincoherent hordes to massed armies. The ant has observation, the\nreasoning faculty, and the preserving adjunct of a prodigious memory;\nshe has duplicated man\u2019s development and the essential features of his\ncivilization, and you call it all instinct!\n\nY.M. Perhaps I lacked the reasoning faculty myself.\n\nO.M. Well, don\u2019t tell anybody, and don\u2019t do it again.\n\nY.M. We have come a good way. As a result\u2014as I understand it\u2014I am\nrequired to concede that there is absolutely no intellectual frontier\nseparating Man and the Unrevealed Creatures?\n\nO.M. That is what you are required to concede. There is no such\nfrontier\u2014there is no way to get around that. Man has a finer and more\ncapable machine in him than those others, but it is the same machine\nand works in the same way. And neither he nor those others can command\nthe machine\u2014it is strictly automatic, independent of control, works\nwhen it pleases, and when it doesn\u2019t please, it can\u2019t be forced.\n\nY.M. Then man and the other animals are all alike, as to mental\nmachinery, and there isn\u2019t any difference of any stupendous magnitude\nbetween them, except in quality, not in kind.\n\nO.M. That is about the state of it\u2014intellectuality. There are\npronounced limitations on both sides. We can\u2019t learn to understand much\nof their language, but the dog, the elephant, etc., learn to understand\na very great deal of ours. To that extent they are our superiors. On\nthe other hand, they can\u2019t learn reading, writing, etc., nor any of our\nfine and high things, and there we have a large advantage over them.\n\nY.M. Very well, let them have what they\u2019ve got, and welcome; there is\nstill a wall, and a lofty one. They haven\u2019t got the Moral Sense; we\nhave it, and it lifts us immeasurably above them.\n\nO.M. What makes you think that?\n\nY.M. Now look here\u2014let\u2019s call a halt. I have stood the other infamies\nand insanities and that is enough; I am not going to have man and the\nother animals put on the same level morally.\n\nO.M. I wasn\u2019t going to hoist man up to that.\n\nY.M. This is too much! I think it is not right to jest about such\nthings.\n\nO.M. I am not jesting, I am merely reflecting a plain and simple\ntruth\u2014and without uncharitableness. The fact that man knows right from\nwrong proves his _intellectual _superiority to the other creatures; but\nthe fact that he can _do _wrong proves his _moral _inferiority to any\ncreature that _cannot_. It is my belief that this position is not\nassailable.\n\n_Free Will_\n\nY.M. What is your opinion regarding Free Will?\n\nO.M. That there is no such thing. Did the man possess it who gave the\nold woman his last shilling and trudged home in the storm?\n\nY.M. He had the choice between succoring the old woman and leaving her\nto suffer. Isn\u2019t it so?\n\nO.M. Yes, there was a choice to be made, between bodily comfort on the\none hand and the comfort of the spirit on the other. The body made a\nstrong appeal, of course\u2014the body would be quite sure to do that; the\nspirit made a counter appeal. A choice had to be made between the two\nappeals, and was made. Who or what determined that choice?\n\nY.M. Any one but you would say that the man determined it, and that in\ndoing it he exercised Free Will.\n\nO.M. We are constantly assured that every man is endowed with Free\nWill, and that he can and must exercise it where he is offered a choice\nbetween good conduct and less-good conduct. Yet we clearly saw that in\nthat man\u2019s case he really had no Free Will: his temperament, his\ntraining, and the daily influences which had molded him and made him\nwhat he was, _compelled _him to rescue the old woman and thus save\n_himself _\u2014save himself from spiritual pain, from unendurable\nwretchedness. He did not make the choice, it was made _for _him by\nforces which he could not control. Free Will has always existed in\n_words_, but it stops there, I think\u2014stops short of _fact_. I would not\nuse those words\u2014Free Will\u2014but others.\n\nY.M. What others?\n\nO.M. Free Choice.\n\nY.M. What is the difference?\n\nO.M. The one implies untrammeled power to _act _as you please, the\nother implies nothing beyond a mere _mental process: _the critical\nability to determine which of two things is nearest right and just.\n\nY.M. Make the difference clear, please.\n\nO.M. The mind can freely _select, choose, point out _the right and just\none\u2014its function stops there. It can go no further in the matter. It\nhas no authority to say that the right one shall be acted upon and the\nwrong one discarded. That authority is in other hands.\n\nY.M. The man\u2019s?\n\nO.M. In the machine which stands for him. In his born disposition and\nthe character which has been built around it by training and\nenvironment.\n\nY.M. It will act upon the right one of the two?\n\nO.M. It will do as it pleases in the matter. George Washington\u2019s\nmachine would act upon the right one; Pizarro would act upon the wrong\none.\n\nY.M. Then as I understand it a bad man\u2019s mental machinery calmly and\njudicially points out which of two things is right and just\u2014\n\nO.M. Yes, and his _moral _machinery will freely act upon the one or the\nother, according to its make, and be quite indifferent to the _mind\u2019s\n_feeling concerning the matter\u2014that is, _would _be, if the mind had any\nfeelings; which it hasn\u2019t. It is merely a thermometer: it registers the\nheat and the cold, and cares not a farthing about either.\n\nY.M. Then we must not claim that if a man _knows _which of two things\nis right he is absolutely _bound _to do that thing?\n\nO.M. His temperament and training will decide what he shall do, and he\nwill do it; he cannot help himself, he has no authority over the\nmatter. Wasn\u2019t it right for David to go out and slay Goliath?\n\nY.M. Yes.\n\nO.M. Then it would have been equally _right _for any one else to do it?\n\nY.M. Certainly.\n\nO.M. Then it would have been _right _for a born coward to attempt it?\n\nY.M. It would\u2014yes.\n\nO.M. You know that no born coward ever would have attempted it, don\u2019t\nyou?\n\nY.M. Yes.\n\nO.M. You know that a born coward\u2019s make and temperament would be an\nabsolute and insurmountable bar to his ever essaying such a thing,\ndon\u2019t you?\n\nY.M. Yes, I know it.\n\nO.M. He clearly perceives that it would be _right _to try it?\n\nY.M. Yes.\n\nO.M. His mind has Free Choice in determining that it would be _right\n_to try it?\n\nY.M. Yes.\n\nO.M. Then if by reason of his inborn cowardice he simply can _not\n_essay it, what becomes of his Free Will? Where is his Free Will? Why\nclaim that he has Free Will when the plain facts show that he hasn\u2019t?\nWhy contend that because he and David _see _the right alike, both must\n_act _alike? Why impose the same laws upon goat and lion?\n\nY.M. There is really no such thing as Free Will?\n\nO.M. It is what I think. There is _will_. But it has nothing to do with\n_intellectual perceptions of right and wrong, _and is not under their\ncommand. David\u2019s temperament and training had Will, and it was a\ncompulsory force; David had to obey its decrees, he had no choice. The\ncoward\u2019s temperament and training possess Will, and _it _is compulsory;\nit commands him to avoid danger, and he obeys, he has no choice. But\nneither the Davids nor the cowards possess Free Will\u2014will that may do\nthe right or do the wrong, as their _mental _verdict shall decide.\n\n_Not Two Values, But Only One_\n\nY.M. There is one thing which bothers me: I can\u2019t tell where you draw\nthe line between _material _covetousness and _spiritual _covetousness.\n\nO.M. I don\u2019t draw any.\n\nY.M. How do you mean?\n\nO.M. There is no such thing as _material _covetousness. All\ncovetousness is spiritual.\n\nY.M. _All _longings, desires, ambitions _spiritual, _never material?\n\nO.M. Yes. The Master in you requires that in _all _cases you shall\ncontent his _spirit _\u2014that alone. He never requires anything else, he\nnever interests himself in any other matter.\n\nY.M. Ah, come! When he covets somebody\u2019s money\u2014isn\u2019t that rather\ndistinctly material and gross?\n\nO.M. No. The money is merely a symbol\u2014it represents in visible and\nconcrete form a _spiritual desire. _Any so-called material thing that\nyou want is merely a symbol: you want it not for _itself_, but because\nit will content your spirit for the moment.\n\nY.M. Please particularize.\n\nO.M. Very well. Maybe the thing longed for is a new hat. You get it and\nyour vanity is pleased, your spirit contented. Suppose your friends\nderide the hat, make fun of it: at once it loses its value; you are\nashamed of it, you put it out of your sight, you never want to see it\nagain.\n\nY.M. I think I see. Go on.\n\nO.M. It is the same hat, isn\u2019t it? It is in no way altered. But it\nwasn\u2019t the _hat _you wanted, but only what it stood for\u2014a something to\nplease and content your _spirit_. When it failed of that, the whole of\nits value was gone. There are no _material _values; there are only\nspiritual ones. You will hunt in vain for a material value that is\n_actual, real\u2014_there is no such thing. The only value it possesses, for\neven a moment, is the spiritual value back of it: remove that end and\nit is at once worthless\u2014like the hat.\n\nY.M. Can you extend that to money?\n\nO.M. Yes. It is merely a symbol, it has no _material _value; you think\nyou desire it for its own sake, but it is not so. You desire it for the\nspiritual content it will bring; if it fail of that, you discover that\nits value is gone. There is that pathetic tale of the man who labored\nlike a slave, unresting, unsatisfied, until he had accumulated a\nfortune, and was happy over it, jubilant about it; then in a single\nweek a pestilence swept away all whom he held dear and left him\ndesolate. His money\u2019s value was gone. He realized that his joy in it\ncame not from the money itself, but from the spiritual contentment he\ngot out of his family\u2019s enjoyment of the pleasures and delights it\nlavished upon them. Money has no _material _value; if you remove its\nspiritual value nothing is left but dross. It is so with all things,\nlittle or big, majestic or trivial\u2014there are no exceptions. Crowns,\nscepters, pennies, paste jewels, village notoriety, world-wide\nfame\u2014they are all the same, they have no _material _value: while they\ncontent the _spirit _they are precious, when this fails they are\nworthless.\n\n_A Difficult Question_\n\nY.M. You keep me confused and perplexed all the time by your elusive\nterminology. Sometimes you divide a man up into two or three separate\npersonalities, each with authorities, jurisdictions, and\nresponsibilities of its own, and when he is in that condition I can\u2019t\ngrasp it. Now when _I_ speak of a man, he is _the whole thing in one,\n_and easy to hold and contemplate.\n\nO.M. That is pleasant and convenient, if true. When you speak of \u201cmy\nbody\u201d who is the \u201cmy\u201d?\n\nY.M. It is the \u201cme.\u201d\n\nO.M. The body is a property then, and the Me owns it. Who is the Me?\n\nY.M. The Me is _the whole thing; _it is a common property; an undivided\nownership, vested in the whole entity.\n\nO.M. If the Me admires a rainbow, is it the whole Me that admires it,\nincluding the hair, hands, heels, and all?\n\nY.M. Certainly not. It is my _mind _that admires it.\n\nO.M. So _you _divide the Me yourself. Everybody does; everybody must.\nWhat, then, definitely, is the Me?\n\nY.M. I think it must consist of just those two parts\u2014the body and the\nmind.\n\nO.M. You think so? If you say \u201cI believe the world is round,\u201d who is\nthe \u201cI\u201d that is speaking?\n\nY.M. The mind.\n\nO.M. If you say \u201cI grieve for the loss of my father,\u201d who is the \u201cI\u201d?\n\nY.M. The mind.\n\nO.M. Is the mind exercising an intellectual function when it examines\nand accepts the evidence that the world is round?\n\nY.M. Yes.\n\nO.M. Is it exercising an intellectual function when it grieves for the\nloss of your father?\n\nY.M. That is not cerebration, brain-work, it is a matter of _feeling_.\n\nO.M. Then its source is not in your mind, but in your _moral\n_territory?\n\nY.M. I have to grant it.\n\nO.M. Is your mind a part of your _physical _equipment?\n\nY.M. No. It is independent of it; it is spiritual.\n\nO.M. Being spiritual, it cannot be affected by physical influences?\n\nY.M. No.\n\nO.M. Does the mind remain sober with the body is drunk?\n\nY.M. Well\u2014no.\n\nO.M. There _is _a physical effect present, then?\n\nY.M. It looks like it.\n\nO.M. A cracked skull has resulted in a crazy mind. Why should it happen\nif the mind is spiritual, and _independent _of physical influences?\n\nY.M. Well\u2014I don\u2019t know.\n\nO.M. When you have a pain in your foot, how do you know it?\n\nY.M. I feel it.\n\nO.M. But you do not feel it until a nerve reports the hurt to the\nbrain. Yet the brain is the seat of the mind, is it not?\n\nY.M. I think so.\n\nO.M. But isn\u2019t spiritual enough to learn what is happening in the\noutskirts without the help of the _physical _messenger? You perceive\nthat the question of who or what the Me is, is not a simple one at all.\nYou say \u201cI admire the rainbow,\u201d and \u201cI believe the world is round,\u201d and\nin these cases we find that the Me is not speaking, but only the\n_mental _part. You say, \u201cI grieve,\u201d and again the Me is not all\nspeaking, but only the _moral _part. You say the mind is wholly\nspiritual; then you say \u201cI have a pain\u201d and find that this time the Me\nis mental _and _spiritual combined. We all use the \u201cI\u201d in this\nindeterminate fashion, there is no help for it. We imagine a Master and\nKing over what you call The Whole Thing, and we speak of him as \u201cI,\u201d\nbut when we try to define him we find we cannot do it. The intellect\nand the feelings can act quite _independently _of each other; we\nrecognize that, and we look around for a Ruler who is master over both,\nand can serve as a _definite and indisputable \u201cI,\u201d _and enable us to\nknow what we mean and who or what we are talking about when we use that\npronoun, but we have to give it up and confess that we cannot find him.\nTo me, Man is a machine, made up of many mechanisms, the moral and\nmental ones acting automatically in accordance with the impulses of an\ninterior Master who is built out of born-temperament and an\naccumulation of multitudinous outside influences and trainings; a\nmachine whose _one _function is to secure the spiritual contentment of\nthe Master, be his desires good or be they evil; a machine whose Will\nis absolute and must be obeyed, and always _is _obeyed.\n\nY.M. Maybe the Me is the Soul?\n\nO.M. Maybe it is. What is the Soul?\n\nY.M. I don\u2019t know.\n\nO.M. Neither does any one else.\n\n_The Master Passion_\n\nY.M. What is the Master?\u2014or, in common speech, the Conscience? Explain\nit.\n\nO.M. It is that mysterious autocrat, lodged in a man, which compels the\nman to content its desires. It may be called the Master Passion\u2014the\nhunger for Self-Approval.\n\nY.M. Where is its seat?\n\nO.M. In man\u2019s moral constitution.\n\nY.M. Are its commands for the man\u2019s good?\n\nO.M. It is indifferent to the man\u2019s good; it never concerns itself\nabout anything but the satisfying of its own desires. It can be\n_trained _to prefer things which will be for the man\u2019s good, but it\nwill prefer them only because they will content _it _better than other\nthings would.\n\nY.M. Then even when it is trained to high ideals it is still looking\nout for its own contentment, and not for the man\u2019s good.\n\nO.M. True. Trained or untrained, it cares nothing for the man\u2019s good,\nand never concerns itself about it.\n\nY.M. It seems to be an _immoral _force seated in the man\u2019s moral\nconstitution.\n\nO.M. It is a _colorless _force seated in the man\u2019s moral constitution.\nLet us call it an instinct\u2014a blind, unreasoning instinct, which cannot\nand does not distinguish between good morals and bad ones, and cares\nnothing for results to the man provided its own contentment be secured;\nand it will _always _secure that.\n\nY.M. It seeks money, and it probably considers that that is an\nadvantage for the man?\n\nO.M. It is not always seeking money, it is not always seeking power,\nnor office, nor any other _material _advantage. In _all _cases it seeks\na _spiritual _contentment, let the _means _be what they may. Its\ndesires are determined by the man\u2019s temperament\u2014and it is lord over\nthat. Temperament, Conscience, Susceptibility, Spiritual Appetite, are,\nin fact, the same thing. Have you ever heard of a person who cared\nnothing for money?\n\nY.M. Yes. A scholar who would not leave his garret and his books to\ntake a place in a business house at a large salary.\n\nO.M. He had to satisfy his master\u2014that is to say, his temperament, his\nSpiritual Appetite\u2014and it preferred books to money. Are there other\ncases?\n\nY.M. Yes, the hermit.\n\nO.M. It is a good instance. The hermit endures solitude, hunger, cold,\nand manifold perils, to content his autocrat, who prefers these things,\nand prayer and contemplation, to money or to any show or luxury that\nmoney can buy. Are there others?\n\nY.M. Yes. The artist, the poet, the scientist.\n\nO.M. Their autocrat prefers the deep pleasures of these occupations,\neither well paid or ill paid, to any others in the market, at any\nprice. You _realize _that the Master Passion\u2014the contentment of the\nspirit\u2014concerns itself with many things besides so-called material\nadvantage, material prosperity, cash, and all that?\n\nY.M. I think I must concede it.\n\nO.M. I believe you must. There are perhaps as many Temperaments that\nwould refuse the burdens and vexations and distinctions of public\noffice as there are that hunger after them. The one set of Temperaments\nseek the contentment of the spirit, and that alone; and this is exactly\nthe case with the other set. Neither set seeks anything _but _the\ncontentment of the spirit. If the one is sordid, both are sordid; and\nequally so, since the end in view is precisely the same in both cases.\nAnd in both cases Temperament decides the preference\u2014and Temperament is\n_born_, not made.\n\n_Conclusion_\n\nO.M. You have been taking a holiday?\n\nY.M. Yes; a mountain tramp covering a week. Are you ready to talk?\n\nO.M. Quite ready. What shall we begin with?\n\nY.M. Well, lying abed resting up, two days and nights, I have thought\nover all these talks, and passed them carefully in review. With this\nresult: that... that... are you intending to publish your notions about\nMan some day?\n\nO.M. Now and then, in these past twenty years, the Master inside of me\nhas half-intended to order me to set them to paper and publish them. Do\nI have to tell you why the order has remained unissued, or can you\nexplain so simple a thing without my help?\n\nY.M. By your doctrine, it is simplicity itself: outside influences\nmoved your interior Master to give the order; stronger outside\ninfluences deterred him. Without the outside influences, neither of\nthese impulses could ever have been born, since a person\u2019s brain is\nincapable or originating an idea within itself.\n\nO.M. Correct. Go on.\n\nY.M. The matter of publishing or withholding is still in your Master\u2019s\nhands. If some day an outside influence shall determine him to publish,\nhe will give the order, and it will be obeyed.\n\nO.M. That is correct. Well?\n\nY.M. Upon reflection I have arrived at the conviction that the\npublication of your doctrines would be harmful. Do you pardon me?\n\nO.M. Pardon _you_? You have done nothing. You are an instrument\u2014a\nspeaking-trumpet. Speaking-trumpets are not responsible for what is\nsaid through them. Outside influences\u2014in the form of lifelong\nteachings, trainings, notions, prejudices, and other second-hand\nimportations\u2014have persuaded the Master within you that the publication\nof these doctrines would be harmful. Very well, this is quite natural,\nand was to be expected; in fact, was inevitable. Go on; for the sake of\nease and convenience, stick to habit: speak in the first person, and\ntell me what your Master thinks about it.\n\nY.M. Well, to begin: it is a desolating doctrine; it is not inspiring,\nenthusing, uplifting. It takes the glory out of man, it takes the pride\nout of him, it takes the heroism out of him, it denies him all personal\ncredit, all applause; it not only degrades him to a machine, but allows\nhim no control over the machine; makes a mere coffee-mill of him, and\nneither permits him to supply the coffee nor turn the crank, his sole\nand piteously humble function being to grind coarse or fine, according\nto his make, outside impulses doing the rest.\n\nO.M. It is correctly stated. Tell me\u2014what do men admire most in each\nother?\n\nY.M. Intellect, courage, majesty of build, beauty of countenance,\ncharity, benevolence, magnanimity, kindliness, heroism, and\u2014and\u2014\n\nO.M. I would not go any further. These are _elementals_. Virtue,\nfortitude, holiness, truthfulness, loyalty, high ideals\u2014these, and all\nthe related qualities that are named in the dictionary, are _made of\nthe elementals, _by blendings, combinations, and shadings of the\nelementals, just as one makes green by blending blue and yellow, and\nmakes several shades and tints of red by modifying the elemental red.\nThere are several elemental colors; they are all in the rainbow; out of\nthem we manufacture and name fifty shades of them. You have named the\nelementals of the human rainbow, and also one _blend _\u2014heroism, which\nis made out of courage and magnanimity. Very well, then; which of these\nelements does the possessor of it manufacture for himself? Is it\nintellect?\n\nY.M. No.\n\nO.M. Why?\n\nY.M. He is born with it.\n\nO.M. Is it courage?\n\nY.M. No. He is born with it.\n\nO.M. Is it majesty of build, beauty of countenance?\n\nY.M. No. They are birthrights.\n\nO.M. Take those others\u2014the elemental moral qualities\u2014charity,\nbenevolence, magnanimity, kindliness; fruitful seeds, out of which\nspring, through cultivation by outside influences, all the manifold\nblends and combinations of virtues named in the dictionaries: does man\nmanufacture any of those seeds, or are they all born in him?\n\nY.M. Born in him.\n\nO.M. Who manufactures them, then?\n\nY.M. God.\n\nO.M. Where does the credit of it belong?\n\nY.M. To God.\n\nO.M. And the glory of which you spoke, and the applause?\n\nY.M. To God.\n\nO.M. Then it is _you _who degrade man. You make him claim glory,\npraise, flattery, for every valuable thing he possesses\u2014_borrowed\n_finery, the whole of it; no rag of it earned by himself, not a detail\nof it produced by his own labor. _You _make man a humbug; have I done\nworse by him?\n\nY.M. You have made a machine of him.\n\nO.M. Who devised that cunning and beautiful mechanism, a man\u2019s hand?\n\nY.M. God.\n\nO.M. Who devised the law by which it automatically hammers out of a\npiano an elaborate piece of music, without error, while the man is\nthinking about something else, or talking to a friend?\n\nY.M. God.\n\nO.M. Who devised the blood? Who devised the wonderful machinery which\nautomatically drives its renewing and refreshing streams through the\nbody, day and night, without assistance or advice from the man? Who\ndevised the man\u2019s mind, whose machinery works automatically, interests\nitself in what it pleases, regardless of its will or desire, labors all\nnight when it likes, deaf to his appeals for mercy? God devised all\nthese things. _I_ have not made man a machine, God made him a machine.\nI am merely calling attention to the fact, nothing more. Is it wrong to\ncall attention to the fact? Is it a crime?\n\nY.M. I think it is wrong to _expose _a fact when harm can come of it.\n\nO.M. Go on.\n\nY.M. Look at the matter as it stands now. Man has been taught that he\nis the supreme marvel of the Creation; he believes it; in all the ages\nhe has never doubted it, whether he was a naked savage, or clothed in\npurple and fine linen, and civilized. This has made his heart buoyant,\nhis life cheery. His pride in himself, his sincere admiration of\nhimself, his joy in what he supposed were his own and unassisted\nachievements, and his exultation over the praise and applause which\nthey evoked\u2014these have exalted him, enthused him, ambitioned him to\nhigher and higher flights; in a word, made his life worth the living.\nBut by your scheme, all this is abolished; he is degraded to a machine,\nhe is a nobody, his noble prides wither to mere vanities; let him\nstrive as he may, he can never be any better than his humblest and\nstupidest neighbor; he would never be cheerful again, his life would\nnot be worth the living.\n\nO.M. You really think that?\n\nY.M. I certainly do.\n\nO.M. Have you ever seen me uncheerful, unhappy.\n\nY.M. No.\n\nO.M. Well, _I_ believe these things. Why have they not made me unhappy?\n\nY.M. Oh, well\u2014temperament, of course! You never let _that _escape from\nyour scheme.\n\nO.M. That is correct. If a man is born with an unhappy temperament,\nnothing can make him happy; if he is born with a happy temperament,\nnothing can make him unhappy.\n\nY.M. What\u2014not even a degrading and heart-chilling system of beliefs?\n\nO.M. Beliefs? Mere beliefs? Mere convictions? They are powerless. They\nstrive in vain against inborn temperament.\n\nY.M. I can\u2019t believe that, and I don\u2019t.\n\nO.M. Now you are speaking hastily. It shows that you have not\nstudiously examined the facts. Of all your intimates, which one is the\nhappiest? Isn\u2019t it Burgess?\n\nY.M. Easily.\n\nO.M. And which one is the unhappiest? Henry Adams?\n\nY.M. Without a question!\n\nO.M. I know them well. They are extremes, abnormals; their temperaments\nare as opposite as the poles. Their life-histories are about alike\u2014but\nlook at the results! Their ages are about the same\u2014about around fifty.\nBurgess had always been buoyant, hopeful, happy; Adams has always been\ncheerless, hopeless, despondent. As young fellows both tried country\njournalism\u2014and failed. Burgess didn\u2019t seem to mind it; Adams couldn\u2019t\nsmile, he could only mourn and groan over what had happened and torture\nhimself with vain regrets for not having done so and so instead of so\nand so\u2014_then _he would have succeeded. They tried the law\u2014and failed.\nBurgess remained happy\u2014because he couldn\u2019t help it. Adams was\nwretched\u2014because he couldn\u2019t help it. From that day to this, those two\nmen have gone on trying things and failing: Burgess has come out happy\nand cheerful every time; Adams the reverse. And we do absolutely know\nthat these men\u2019s inborn temperaments have remained unchanged through\nall the vicissitudes of their material affairs. Let us see how it is\nwith their immaterials. Both have been zealous Democrats; both have\nbeen zealous Republicans; both have been zealous Mugwumps. Burgess has\nalways found happiness and Adams unhappiness in these several political\nbeliefs and in their migrations out of them. Both of these men have\nbeen Presbyterians, Universalists, Methodists, Catholics\u2014then\nPresbyterians again, then Methodists again. Burgess has always found\nrest in these excursions, and Adams unrest. They are trying Christian\nScience, now, with the customary result, the inevitable result. No\npolitical or religious belief can make Burgess unhappy or the other man\nhappy. I assure you it is purely a matter of temperament. Beliefs are\n_acquirements_, temperaments are _born_; beliefs are subject to change,\nnothing whatever can change temperament.\n\nY.M. You have instanced extreme temperaments.\n\nO.M. Yes, the half-dozen others are modifications of the extremes. But\nthe law is the same. Where the temperament is two-thirds happy, or\ntwo-thirds unhappy, no political or religious beliefs can change the\nproportions. The vast majority of temperaments are pretty equally\nbalanced; the intensities are absent, and this enables a nation to\nlearn to accommodate itself to its political and religious\ncircumstances and like them, be satisfied with them, at last prefer\nthem. Nations do not _think_, they only _feel_. They get their feelings\nat second hand through their temperaments, not their brains. A nation\ncan be brought\u2014by force of circumstances, not argument\u2014to reconcile\nitself to _any kind of government or religion that can be devised; _in\ntime it will fit itself to the required conditions; later, it will\nprefer them and will fiercely fight for them. As instances, you have\nall history: the Greeks, the Romans, the Persians, the Egyptians, the\nRussians, the Germans, the French, the English, the Spaniards, the\nAmericans, the South Americans, the Japanese, the Chinese, the Hindus,\nthe Turks\u2014a thousand wild and tame religions, every kind of government\nthat can be thought of, from tiger to house-cat, each nation _knowing\n_it has the only true religion and the only sane system of government,\neach despising all the others, each an ass and not suspecting it, each\nproud of its fancied supremacy, each perfectly sure it is the pet of\nGod, each without undoubting confidence summoning Him to take command\nin time of war, each surprised when He goes over to the enemy, but by\nhabit able to excuse it and resume compliments\u2014in a word, the whole\nhuman race content, always content, persistently content,\nindestructibly content, happy, thankful, proud, _no matter what its\nreligion is, nor whether its master be tiger or house-cat. _Am I\nstating facts? You know I am. Is the human race cheerful? You know it\nis. Considering what it can stand, and be happy, you do me too much\nhonor when you think that _I_ can place before it a system of plain\ncold facts that can take the cheerfulness out of it. Nothing can do\nthat. Everything has been tried. Without success. I beg you not to be\ntroubled.\n\n\n\n\nTHE DEATH OF JEAN\n\n\nThe death of Jean Clemens occurred early in the morning of December 24,\n1909. Mr. Clemens was in great stress of mind when I first saw him, but\na few hours later I found him writing steadily.\n\n\u201cI am setting it down,\u201d he said, \u201ceverything. It is a relief to me to\nwrite it. It furnishes me an excuse for thinking.\u201d At intervals during\nthat day and the next I looked in, and usually found him writing. Then\non the evening of the 26th, when he knew that Jean had been laid to\nrest in Elmira, he came to my room with the manuscript in his hand.\n\n\u201cI have finished it,\u201d he said; \u201cread it. I can form no opinion of it\nmyself. If you think it worthy, some day\u2014at the proper time\u2014it can end\nmy autobiography. It is the final chapter.\u201d\n\nFour months later\u2014almost to the day\u2014(April 21st) he was with Jean.\n\nAlbert Bigelow Paine.\n\nStormfield, Christmas Eve, 11 A.M., 1909.\n\nJEAN IS DEAD!\n\nHas any one ever tried to put upon paper all the little happenings\nconnected with a dear one\u2014happenings of the twenty-four hours preceding\nthe sudden and unexpected death of that dear one? Would a book contain\nthem? Would two books contain them? I think not. They pour into the\nmind in a flood. They are little things that have been always happening\nevery day, and were always so unimportant and easily forgettable\nbefore\u2014but now! Now, how different! how precious they are, how dear,\nhow unforgettable, how pathetic, how sacred, how clothed with dignity!\n\nLast night Jean, all flushed with splendid health, and I the same, from\nthe wholesome effects of my Bermuda holiday, strolled hand in hand from\nthe dinner-table and sat down in the library and chatted, and planned,\nand discussed, cheerily and happily (and how unsuspectingly!)\u2014until\nnine\u2014which is late for us\u2014then went upstairs, Jean\u2019s friendly German\ndog following. At my door Jean said, \u201cI can\u2019t kiss you good night,\nfather: I have a cold, and you could catch it.\u201d I bent and kissed her\nhand. She was moved\u2014I saw it in her eyes\u2014and she impulsively kissed my\nhand in return. Then with the usual gay \u201cSleep well, dear!\u201d from both,\nwe parted.\n\nAt half past seven this morning I woke, and heard voices outside my\ndoor. I said to myself, \u201cJean is starting on her usual horseback flight\nto the station for the mail.\u201d Then Katy[1] entered, stood quaking and\ngasping at my bedside a moment, then found her tongue:\n\n [1] Katy Leary, who had been in the service of the Clemens family for\n twenty-nine years.\n\n\n\u201cMISS JEAN IS DEAD!\u201d\n\nPossibly I know now what the soldier feels when a bullet crashes\nthrough his heart.\n\nIn her bathroom there she lay, the fair young creature, stretched upon\nthe floor and covered with a sheet. And looking so placid, so natural,\nand as if asleep. We knew what had happened. She was an epileptic: she\nhad been seized with a convulsion and heart failure in her bath. The\ndoctor had to come several miles. His efforts, like our previous ones,\nfailed to bring her back to life.\n\nIt is noon, now. How lovable she looks, how sweet and how tranquil! It\nis a noble face, and full of dignity; and that was a good heart that\nlies there so still.\n\nIn England, thirteen years ago, my wife and I were stabbed to the heart\nwith a cablegram which said, \u201cSusy was mercifully released today.\u201d I\nhad to send a like shot to Clara, in Berlin, this morning. With the\nperemptory addition, \u201cYou must not come home.\u201d Clara and her husband\nsailed from here on the 11th of this month. How will Clara bear it?\nJean, from her babyhood, was a worshiper of Clara.\n\nFour days ago I came back from a month\u2019s holiday in Bermuda in\nperfected health; but by some accident the reporters failed to perceive\nthis. Day before yesterday, letters and telegrams began to arrive from\nfriends and strangers which indicated that I was supposed to be\ndangerously ill. Yesterday Jean begged me to explain my case through\nthe Associated Press. I said it was not important enough; but she was\ndistressed and said I must think of Clara. Clara would see the report\nin the German papers, and as she had been nursing her husband day and\nnight for four months[2] and was worn out and feeble, the shock might\nbe disastrous. There was reason in that; so I sent a humorous paragraph\nby telephone to the Associated Press denying the \u201ccharge\u201d that I was\n\u201cdying,\u201d and saying \u201cI would not do such a thing at my time of life.\u201d\n\n [2] Mr. Gabrilowitsch had been operated on for appendicitis.\n\n\nJean was a little troubled, and did not like to see me treat the matter\nso lightly; but I said it was best to treat it so, for there was\nnothing serious about it. This morning I sent the sorrowful facts of\nthis day\u2019s irremediable disaster to the Associated Press. Will both\nappear in this evening\u2019s papers?\u2014the one so blithe, the other so\ntragic?\n\nI lost Susy thirteen years ago; I lost her mother\u2014her incomparable\nmother!\u2014five and a half years ago; Clara has gone away to live in\nEurope; and now I have lost Jean. How poor I am, who was once so rich!\nSeven months ago Mr. Rogers died\u2014one of the best friends I ever had,\nand the nearest perfect, as man and gentleman, I have yet met among my\nrace; within the last six weeks Gilder has passed away, and Laffan\u2014old,\nold friends of mine. Jean lies yonder, I sit here; we are strangers\nunder our own roof; we kissed hands good-by at this door last night\u2014and\nit was forever, we never suspecting it. She lies there, and I sit\nhere\u2014writing, busying myself, to keep my heart from breaking. How\ndazzlingly the sunshine is flooding the hills around! It is like a\nmockery.\n\nSeventy-four years old twenty-four days ago. Seventy-four years old\nyesterday. Who can estimate my age today?\n\nI have looked upon her again. I wonder I can bear it. She looks just as\nher mother looked when she lay dead in that Florentine villa so long\nago. The sweet placidity of death! it is more beautiful than sleep.\n\nI saw her mother buried. I said I would never endure that horror again;\nthat I would never again look into the grave of any one dear to me. I\nhave kept to that. They will take Jean from this house tomorrow, and\nbear her to Elmira, New York, where lie those of us that have been\nreleased, but I shall not follow.\n\nJean was on the dock when the ship came in, only four days ago. She was\nat the door, beaming a welcome, when I reached this house the next\nevening. We played cards, and she tried to teach me a new game called\n\u201cMark Twain.\u201d We sat chatting cheerily in the library last night, and\nshe wouldn\u2019t let me look into the loggia, where she was making\nChristmas preparations. She said she would finish them in the morning,\nand then her little French friend would arrive from New York\u2014the\nsurprise would follow; the surprise she had been working over for days.\nWhile she was out for a moment I disloyally stole a look. The loggia\nfloor was clothed with rugs and furnished with chairs and sofas; and\nthe uncompleted surprise was there: in the form of a Christmas tree\nthat was drenched with silver film in a most wonderful way; and on a\ntable was a prodigal profusion of bright things which she was going to\nhang upon it today. What desecrating hand will ever banish that\neloquent unfinished surprise from that place? Not mine, surely. All\nthese little matters have happened in the last four days. \u201cLittle.\u201d\nYes\u2014_then_. But not now. Nothing she said or thought or did is little\nnow. And all the lavish humor!\u2014what is become of it? It is pathos, now.\nPathos, and the thought of it brings tears.\n\nAll these little things happened such a few hours ago\u2014and now she lies\nyonder. Lies yonder, and cares for nothing any more.\nStrange\u2014marvelous\u2014incredible! I have had this experience before; but it\nwould still be incredible if I had had it a thousand times.\n\n\u201cMISS JEAN IS DEAD!\u201d\n\nThat is what Katy said. When I heard the door open behind the bed\u2019s\nhead without a preliminary knock, I supposed it was Jean coming to kiss\nme good morning, she being the only person who was used to entering\nwithout formalities.\n\nAnd so\u2014\n\nI have been to Jean\u2019s parlor. Such a turmoil of Christmas presents for\nservants and friends! They are everywhere; tables, chairs, sofas, the\nfloor\u2014everything is occupied, and over-occupied. It is many and many a\nyear since I have seen the like. In that ancient day Mrs. Clemens and I\nused to slip softly into the nursery at midnight on Christmas Eve and\nlook the array of presents over. The children were little then. And now\nhere is Jean\u2019s parlor looking just as that nursery used to look. The\npresents are not labeled\u2014the hands are forever idle that would have\nlabeled them today. Jean\u2019s mother always worked herself down with her\nChristmas preparations. Jean did the same yesterday and the preceding\ndays, and the fatigue has cost her her life. The fatigue caused the\nconvulsion that attacked her this morning. She had had no attack for\nmonths.\n\nJean was so full of life and energy that she was constantly in danger\nof overtaxing her strength. Every morning she was in the saddle by half\npast seven, and off to the station for her mail. She examined the\nletters and I distributed them: some to her, some to Mr. Paine, the\nothers to the stenographer and myself. She dispatched her share and\nthen mounted her horse again and went around superintending her farm\nand her poultry the rest of the day. Sometimes she played billiards\nwith me after dinner, but she was usually too tired to play, and went\nearly to bed.\n\nYesterday afternoon I told her about some plans I had been devising\nwhile absent in Bermuda, to lighten her burdens. We would get a\nhousekeeper; also we would put her share of the secretary-work into Mr.\nPaine\u2019s hands.\n\nNo\u2014she wasn\u2019t willing. She had been making plans herself. The matter\nended in a compromise, I submitted. I always did. She wouldn\u2019t audit\nthe bills and let Paine fill out the checks\u2014she would continue to\nattend to that herself. Also, she would continue to be housekeeper, and\nlet Katy assist. Also, she would continue to answer the letters of\npersonal friends for me. Such was the compromise. Both of us called it\nby that name, though I was not able to see where any formidable change\nhad been made.\n\nHowever, Jean was pleased, and that was sufficient for me. She was\nproud of being my secretary, and I was never able to persuade her to\ngive up any part of her share in that unlovely work.\n\nIn the talk last night I said I found everything going so smoothly that\nif she were willing I would go back to Bermuda in February and get\nblessedly out of the clash and turmoil again for another month. She was\nurgent that I should do it, and said that if I would put off the trip\nuntil March she would take Katy and go with me. We struck hands upon\nthat, and said it was settled. I had a mind to write to Bermuda by\ntomorrow\u2019s ship and secure a furnished house and servants. I meant to\nwrite the letter this morning. But it will never be written, now.\n\nFor she lies yonder, and before her is another journey than that.\n\nNight is closing down; the rim of the sun barely shows above the\nsky-line of the hills.\n\nI have been looking at that face again that was growing dearer and\ndearer to me every day. I was getting acquainted with Jean in these\nlast nine months. She had been long an exile from home when she came to\nus three-quarters of a year ago. She had been shut up in sanitariums,\nmany miles from us. How eloquently glad and grateful she was to cross\nher father\u2019s threshold again!\n\nWould I bring her back to life if I could do it? I would not. If a word\nwould do it, I would beg for strength to withhold the word. And I would\nhave the strength; I am sure of it. In her loss I am almost bankrupt,\nand my life is a bitterness, but I am content: for she has been\nenriched with the most precious of all gifts\u2014that gift which makes all\nother gifts mean and poor\u2014death. I have never wanted any released\nfriend of mine restored to life since I reached manhood. I felt in this\nway when Susy passed away; and later my wife, and later Mr. Rogers.\nWhen Clara met me at the station in New York and told me Mr. Rogers had\ndied suddenly that morning, my thought was, Oh, favorite of\nfortune\u2014fortunate all his long and lovely life\u2014fortunate to his latest\nmoment! The reporters said there were tears of sorrow in my eyes.\nTrue\u2014but they were for _me_, not for him. He had suffered no loss. All\nthe fortunes he had ever made before were poverty compared with this\none.\n\nWhy did I build this house, two years ago? To shelter this vast\nemptiness? How foolish I was! But I shall stay in it. The spirits of\nthe dead hallow a house, for me. It was not so with other members of my\nfamily. Susy died in the house we built in Hartford. Mrs. Clemens would\nnever enter it again. But it made the house dearer to me. I have\nentered it once since, when it was tenantless and silent and forlorn,\nbut to me it was a holy place and beautiful. It seemed to me that the\nspirits of the dead were all about me, and would speak to me and\nwelcome me if they could: Livy, and Susy, and George, and Henry\nRobinson, and Charles Dudley Warner. How good and kind they were, and\nhow lovable their lives! In fancy I could see them all again, I could\ncall the children back and hear them romp again with George\u2014that\npeerless black ex-slave and children\u2019s idol who came one day\u2014a flitting\nstranger\u2014to wash windows, and stayed eighteen years. Until he died.\nClara and Jean would never enter again the New York hotel which their\nmother had frequented in earlier days. They could not bear it. But I\nshall stay in this house. It is dearer to me tonight than ever it was\nbefore. Jean\u2019s spirit will make it beautiful for me always. Her lonely\nand tragic death\u2014but I will not think of that now.\n\nJean\u2019s mother always devoted two or three weeks to Christmas shopping,\nand was always physically exhausted when Christmas Eve came. Jean was\nher very own child\u2014she wore herself out present-hunting in New York\nthese latter days. Paine has just found on her desk a long list of\nnames\u2014fifty, he thinks\u2014people to whom she sent presents last night.\nApparently she forgot no one. And Katy found there a roll of\nbank-notes, for the servants.\n\nHer dog has been wandering about the grounds today, comradeless and\nforlorn. I have seen him from the windows. She got him from Germany. He\nhas tall ears and looks exactly like a wolf. He was educated in\nGermany, and knows no language but the German. Jean gave him no orders\nsave in that tongue. And so when the burglar-alarm made a fierce clamor\nat midnight a fortnight ago, the butler, who is French and knows no\nGerman, tried in vain to interest the dog in the supposed burglar. Jean\nwrote me, to Bermuda, about the incident. It was the last letter I was\never to receive from her bright head and her competent hand. The dog\nwill not be neglected.\n\nThere was never a kinder heart than Jean\u2019s. From her childhood up she\nalways spent the most of her allowance on charities of one kind and\nanother. After she became secretary and had her income doubled she\nspent her money upon these things with a free hand. Mine too, I am glad\nand grateful to say.\n\nShe was a loyal friend to all animals, and she loved them all, birds,\nbeasts, and everything\u2014even snakes\u2014an inheritance from me. She knew all\nthe birds; she was high up in that lore. She became a member of various\nhumane societies when she was still a little girl\u2014both here and\nabroad\u2014and she remained an active member to the last. She founded two\nor three societies for the protection of animals, here and in Europe.\n\nShe was an embarrassing secretary, for she fished my correspondence out\nof the waste-basket and answered the letters. She thought all letters\ndeserved the courtesy of an answer. Her mother brought her up in that\nkindly error.\n\nShe could write a good letter, and was swift with her pen. She had but\nan indifferent ear for music, but her tongue took to languages with an\neasy facility. She never allowed her Italian, French, and German to get\nrusty through neglect.\n\nThe telegrams of sympathy are flowing in, from far and wide, now, just\nas they did in Italy five years and a half ago, when this child\u2019s\nmother laid down her blameless life. They cannot heal the hurt, but\nthey take away some of the pain. When Jean and I kissed hands and\nparted at my door last, how little did we imagine that in twenty-two\nhours the telegraph would be bringing words like these:\n\n\u201cFrom the bottom of our hearts we send our sympathy, dearest of\nfriends.\u201d\n\nFor many and many a day to come, wherever I go in this house,\nremembrancers of Jean will mutely speak to me of her. Who can count the\nnumber of them?\n\nShe was in exile two years with the hope of healing her\nmalady\u2014epilepsy. There are no words to express how grateful I am that\nshe did not meet her fate in the hands of strangers, but in the loving\nshelter of her own home.\n\n\u201cMISS JEAN IS DEAD!\u201d\n\nIt is true. Jean is dead.\n\nA month ago I was writing bubbling and hilarious articles for magazines\nyet to appear, and now I am writing\u2014this.\n\nCHRISTMAS DAY. NOON.\u2014Last night I went to Jean\u2019s room at intervals, and\nturned back the sheet and looked at the peaceful face, and kissed the\ncold brow, and remembered that heartbreaking night in Florence so long\nago, in that cavernous and silent vast villa, when I crept downstairs\nso many times, and turned back a sheet and looked at a face just like\nthis one\u2014Jean\u2019s mother\u2019s face\u2014and kissed a brow that was just like this\none. And last night I saw again what I had seen then\u2014that strange and\nlovely miracle\u2014the sweet, soft contours of early maidenhood restored by\nthe gracious hand of death! When Jean\u2019s mother lay dead, all trace of\ncare, and trouble, and suffering, and the corroding years had vanished\nout of the face, and I was looking again upon it as I had known and\nworshiped it in its young bloom and beauty a whole generation before.\n\nAbout three in the morning, while wandering about the house in the deep\nsilences, as one does in times like these, when there is a dumb sense\nthat something has been lost that will never be found again, yet must\nbe sought, if only for the employment the useless seeking gives, I came\nupon Jean\u2019s dog in the hall downstairs, and noted that he did not\nspring to greet me, according to his hospitable habit, but came slow\nand sorrowfully; also I remembered that he had not visited Jean\u2019s\napartment since the tragedy. Poor fellow, did he know? I think so.\nAlways when Jean was abroad in the open he was with her; always when\nshe was in the house he was with her, in the night as well as in the\nday. Her parlor was his bedroom. Whenever I happened upon him on the\nground floor he always followed me about, and when I went upstairs he\nwent too\u2014in a tumultuous gallop. But now it was different: after\npatting him a little I went to the library\u2014he remained behind; when I\nwent upstairs he did not follow me, save with his wistful eyes. He has\nwonderful eyes\u2014big, and kind, and eloquent. He can talk with them. He\nis a beautiful creature, and is of the breed of the New York\npolice-dogs. I do not like dogs, because they bark when there is no\noccasion for it; but I have liked this one from the beginning, because\nhe belonged to Jean, and because he never barks except when there is\noccasion\u2014which is not oftener than twice a week.\n\nIn my wanderings I visited Jean\u2019s parlor. On a shelf I found a pile of\nmy books, and I knew what it meant. She was waiting for me to come home\nfrom Bermuda and autograph them, then she would send them away. If I\nonly knew whom she intended them for! But I shall never know. I will\nkeep them. Her hand has touched them\u2014it is an accolade\u2014they are noble,\nnow.\n\nAnd in a closet she had hidden a surprise for me\u2014a thing I have often\nwished I owned: a noble big globe. I couldn\u2019t see it for the tears. She\nwill never know the pride I take in it, and the pleasure. Today the\nmails are full of loving remembrances for her: full of those old, old\nkind words she loved so well, \u201cMerry Christmas to Jean!\u201d If she could\nonly have lived one day longer!\n\nAt last she ran out of money, and would not use mine. So she sent to\none of those New York homes for poor girls all the clothes she could\nspare\u2014and more, most likely.\n\nCHRISTMAS NIGHT.\u2014This afternoon they took her away from her room. As\nsoon as I might, I went down to the library, and there she lay, in her\ncoffin, dressed in exactly the same clothes she wore when she stood at\nthe other end of the same room on the 6th of October last, as Clara\u2019s\nchief bridesmaid. Her face was radiant with happy excitement then; it\nwas the same face now, with the dignity of death and the peace of God\nupon it.\n\nThey told me the first mourner to come was the dog. He came uninvited,\nand stood up on his hind legs and rested his fore paws upon the\ntrestle, and took a last long look at the face that was so dear to him,\nthen went his way as silently as he had come. _He knows._\n\nAt mid-afternoon it began to snow. The pity of it\u2014that Jean could not\nsee it! She so loved the snow.\n\nThe snow continued to fall. At six o\u2019clock the hearse drew up to the\ndoor to bear away its pathetic burden. As they lifted the casket, Paine\nbegan playing on the orchestrelle Schubert\u2019s \u201cImpromptu,\u201d which was\nJean\u2019s favorite. Then he played the Intermezzo; that was for Susy; then\nhe played the Largo; that was for their mother. He did this at my\nrequest. Elsewhere in my Autobiography I have told how the Intermezzo\nand the Largo came to be associated in my heart with Susy and Livy in\ntheir last hours in this life.\n\nFrom my windows I saw the hearse and the carriages wind along the road\nand gradually grow vague and spectral in the falling snow, and\npresently disappear. Jean was gone out of my life, and would not come\nback any more. Jervis, the cousin she had played with when they were\nbabies together\u2014he and her beloved old Katy\u2014were conducting her to her\ndistant childhood home, where she will lie by her mother\u2019s side once\nmore, in the company of Susy and Langdon.\n\nDECEMBER 26TH. The dog came to see me at eight o\u2019clock this morning. He\nwas very affectionate, poor orphan! My room will be his quarters\nhereafter.\n\nThe storm raged all night. It has raged all the morning. The snow\ndrives across the landscape in vast clouds, superb, sublime\u2014and Jean\nnot here to see.\n\n2:30 P.M.\u2014It is the time appointed. The funeral has begun. Four hundred\nmiles away, but I can see it all, just as if I were there. The scene is\nthe library in the Langdon homestead. Jean\u2019s coffin stands where her\nmother and I stood, forty years ago, and were married; and where Susy\u2019s\ncoffin stood thirteen years ago; where her mother\u2019s stood five years\nand a half ago; and where mine will stand after a little time.\n\nFIVE O\u2019CLOCK.\u2014It is all over.\n\nWhen Clara went away two weeks ago to live in Europe, it was hard, but\nI could bear it, for I had Jean left. I said _we_ would be a family. We\nsaid we would be close comrades and happy\u2014just we two. That fair dream\nwas in my mind when Jean met me at the steamer last Monday; it was in\nmy mind when she received me at the door last Tuesday evening. We were\ntogether; WE WERE A FAMILY! the dream had come true\u2014oh, precisely true,\ncontentedly, true, satisfyingly true! and remained true two whole days.\n\nAnd now? Now Jean is in her grave!\n\nIn the grave\u2014if I can believe it. God rest her sweet spirit!\n\n\n\n\nTHE TURNING-POINT OF MY LIFE\n\nI\n\nIf I understand the idea, the _Bazar _invites several of us to write\nupon the above text. It means the change in my life\u2019s course which\nintroduced what must be regarded by me as the most _important\n_condition of my career. But it also implies\u2014without intention,\nperhaps\u2014that that turning-point _itself _was the creator of the new\ncondition. This gives it too much distinction, too much prominence, too\nmuch credit. It is only the _last _link in a very long chain of\nturning-points commissioned to produce the cardinal result; it is not\nany more important than the humblest of its ten thousand predecessors.\nEach of the ten thousand did its appointed share, on its appointed\ndate, in forwarding the scheme, and they were all necessary; to have\nleft out any one of them would have defeated the scheme and brought\nabout _some other_ result. I know we have a fashion of saying \u201csuch and\nsuch an event was the turning-point in my life,\u201d but we shouldn\u2019t say\nit. We should merely grant that its place as LAST link in the chain\nmakes it the most _conspicuous _link; in real importance it has no\nadvantage over any one of its predecessors.\n\nPerhaps the most celebrated turning-point recorded in history was the\ncrossing of the Rubicon. Suetonius says:\n\nComing up with his troops on the banks of the Rubicon, he halted for a\nwhile, and, revolving in his mind the importance of the step he was on\nthe point of taking, he turned to those about him and said, \u201cWe may\nstill retreat; but if we pass this little bridge, nothing is left for\nus but to fight it out in arms.\u201d\n\nThis was a stupendously important moment. And all the incidents, big\nand little, of Caesar\u2019s previous life had been leading up to it, stage\nby stage, link by link. This was the _last _link\u2014merely the last one,\nand no bigger than the others; but as we gaze back at it through the\ninflating mists of our imagination, it looks as big as the orbit of\nNeptune.\n\nYou, the reader, have a _personal _interest in that link, and so have\nI; so has the rest of the human race. It was one of the links in your\nlife-chain, and it was one of the links in mine. We may wait, now, with\nbated breath, while Caesar reflects. Your fate and mine are involved in\nhis decision.\n\nWhile he was thus hesitating, the following incident occurred. A person\nremarked for his noble mien and graceful aspect appeared close at hand,\nsitting and playing upon a pipe. When not only the shepherds, but a\nnumber of soldiers also, flocked to listen to him, and some trumpeters\namong them, he snatched a trumpet from one of them, ran to the river\nwith it, and, sounding the advance with a piercing blast, crossed to\nthe other side. Upon this, Caesar exclaimed: \u201cLet us go whither the\nomens of the gods and the iniquity of our enemies call us. _The Die Is\nCast_.\u201d\n\nSo he crossed\u2014and changed the future of the whole human race, for all\ntime. But that stranger was a link in Caesar\u2019s life-chain, too; and a\nnecessary one. We don\u2019t know his name, we never hear of him again; he\nwas very casual; he acts like an accident; but he was no accident, he\nwas there by compulsion of HIS life-chain, to blow the electrifying\nblast that was to make up Caesar\u2019s mind for him, and thence go piping\ndown the aisles of history forever.\n\nIf the stranger hadn\u2019t been there! But he WAS. And Caesar crossed. With\nsuch results! Such vast events\u2014each a link in the _human race_\u2019s\nlife-chain; each event producing the next one, and that one the next\none, and so on: the destruction of the republic; the founding of the\nempire; the breaking up of the empire; the rise of Christianity upon\nits ruins; the spread of the religion to other lands\u2014and so on; link by\nlink took its appointed place at its appointed time, the discovery of\nAmerica being one of them; our Revolution another; the inflow of\nEnglish and other immigrants another; their drift westward (my\nancestors among them) another; the settlement of certain of them in\nMissouri, which resulted in ME. For I was one of the unavoidable\nresults of the crossing of the Rubicon. If the stranger, with his\ntrumpet blast, had stayed away (which he _couldn\u2019t_, for he was an\nappointed link) Caesar would not have crossed. What would have\nhappened, in that case, we can never guess. We only know that the\nthings that did happen would not have happened. They might have been\nreplaced by equally prodigious things, of course, but their nature and\nresults are beyond our guessing. But the matter that interests me\npersonally is that I would not be _here _now, but somewhere else; and\nprobably black\u2014there is no telling. Very well, I am glad he crossed.\nAnd very really and thankfully glad, too, though I never cared anything\nabout it before.\n\nII\n\nTo me, the most important feature of my life is its literary feature. I\nhave been professionally literary something more than forty years.\nThere have been many turning-points in my life, but the one that was\nthe last link in the chain appointed to conduct me to the literary\nguild is the most _conspicuous _link in that chain. _because _it was\nthe last one. It was not any more important than its predecessors. All\nthe other links have an inconspicuous look, except the crossing of the\nRubicon; but as factors in making me literary they are all of the one\nsize, the crossing of the Rubicon included.\n\nI know how I came to be literary, and I will tell the steps that lead\nup to it and brought it about.\n\nThe crossing of the Rubicon was not the first one, it was hardly even a\nrecent one; I should have to go back ages before Caesar\u2019s day to find\nthe first one. To save space I will go back only a couple of\ngenerations and start with an incident of my boyhood. When I was twelve\nand a half years old, my father died. It was in the spring. The summer\ncame, and brought with it an epidemic of measles. For a time a child\ndied almost every day. The village was paralyzed with fright, distress,\ndespair. Children that were not smitten with the disease were\nimprisoned in their homes to save them from the infection. In the homes\nthere were no cheerful faces, there was no music, there was no singing\nbut of solemn hymns, no voice but of prayer, no romping was allowed, no\nnoise, no laughter, the family moved spectrally about on tiptoe, in a\nghostly hush. I was a prisoner. My soul was steeped in this awful\ndreariness\u2014and in fear. At some time or other every day and every night\na sudden shiver shook me to the marrow, and I said to myself, \u201cThere,\nI\u2019ve got it! and I shall die.\u201d Life on these miserable terms was not\nworth living, and at last I made up my mind to get the disease and have\nit over, one way or the other. I escaped from the house and went to the\nhouse of a neighbor where a playmate of mine was very ill with the\nmalady. When the chance offered I crept into his room and got into bed\nwith him. I was discovered by his mother and sent back into captivity.\nBut I had the disease; they could not take that from me. I came near to\ndying. The whole village was interested, and anxious, and sent for news\nof me every day; and not only once a day, but several times. Everybody\nbelieved I would die; but on the fourteenth day a change came for the\nworse and they were disappointed.\n\nThis was a turning-point of my life. (Link number one.) For when I got\nwell my mother closed my school career and apprenticed me to a printer.\nShe was tired of trying to keep me out of mischief, and the adventure\nof the measles decided her to put me into more masterful hands than\nhers.\n\nI became a printer, and began to add one link after another to the\nchain which was to lead me into the literary profession. A long road,\nbut I could not know that; and as I did not know what its goal was, or\neven that it had one, I was indifferent. Also contented.\n\nA young printer wanders around a good deal, seeking and finding work;\nand seeking again, when necessity commands. N. B. Necessity is a\nCIRCUMSTANCE; Circumstance is man\u2019s master\u2014and when Circumstance\ncommands, he must obey; he may argue the matter\u2014that is his privilege,\njust as it is the honorable privilege of a falling body to argue with\nthe attraction of gravitation\u2014but it won\u2019t do any good, he must OBEY. I\nwandered for ten years, under the guidance and dictatorship of\nCircumstance, and finally arrived in a city of Iowa, where I worked\nseveral months. Among the books that interested me in those days was\none about the Amazon. The traveler told an alluring tale of his long\nvoyage up the great river from Para to the sources of the Madeira,\nthrough the heart of an enchanted land, a land wastefully rich in\ntropical wonders, a romantic land where all the birds and flowers and\nanimals were of the museum varieties, and where the alligator and the\ncrocodile and the monkey seemed as much at home as if they were in the\nZoo. Also, he told an astonishing tale about COCA, a vegetable product\nof miraculous powers, asserting that it was so nourishing and so\nstrength-giving that the native of the mountains of the Madeira region\nwould tramp up hill and down all day on a pinch of powdered coca and\nrequire no other sustenance.\n\nI was fired with a longing to ascend the Amazon. Also with a longing to\nopen up a trade in coca with all the world. During months I dreamed\nthat dream, and tried to contrive ways to get to Para and spring that\nsplendid enterprise upon an unsuspecting planet. But all in vain. A\nperson may PLAN as much as he wants to, but nothing of consequence is\nlikely to come of it until the magician _circumstance _steps in and\ntakes the matter off his hands. At last Circumstance came to my help.\nIt was in this way. Circumstance, to help or hurt another man, made him\nlose a fifty-dollar bill in the street; and to help or hurt me, made me\nfind it. I advertised the find, and left for the Amazon the same day.\nThis was another turning-point, another link.\n\nCould Circumstance have ordered another dweller in that town to go to\nthe Amazon and open up a world-trade in coca on a fifty-dollar basis\nand been obeyed? No, I was the only one. There were other fools\nthere\u2014shoals and shoals of them\u2014but they were not of my kind. I was the\nonly one of my kind.\n\nCircumstance is powerful, but it cannot work alone; it has to have a\npartner. Its partner is man\u2019s _temperament_\u2014his natural disposition.\nHis temperament is not his invention, it is _born _in him, and he has\nno authority over it, neither is he responsible for its acts. He cannot\nchange it, nothing can change it, nothing can modify it\u2014except\ntemporarily. But it won\u2019t stay modified. It is permanent, like the\ncolor of the man\u2019s eyes and the shape of his ears. Blue eyes are gray\nin certain unusual lights; but they resume their natural color when\nthat stress is removed.\n\nA Circumstance that will coerce one man will have no effect upon a man\nof a different temperament. If Circumstance had thrown the bank-note in\nCaesar\u2019s way, his temperament would not have made him start for the\nAmazon. His temperament would have compelled him to do something with\nthe money, but not that. It might have made him advertise the note\u2014and\nWAIT. We can\u2019t tell. Also, it might have made him go to New York and\nbuy into the Government, with results that would leave Tweed nothing to\nlearn when it came his turn.\n\nVery well, Circumstance furnished the capital, and my temperament told\nme what to do with it. Sometimes a temperament is an ass. When that is\nthe case the owner of it is an ass, too, and is going to remain one.\nTraining, experience, association, can temporarily so polish him,\nimprove him, exalt him that people will think he is a mule, but they\nwill be mistaken. Artificially he IS a mule, for the time being, but at\nbottom he is an ass yet, and will remain one.\n\nBy temperament I was the kind of person that DOES things. Does them,\nand reflects afterward. So I started for the Amazon without reflecting\nand without asking any questions. That was more than fifty years ago.\nIn all that time my temperament has not changed, by even a shade. I\nhave been punished many and many a time, and bitterly, for doing things\nand reflecting afterward, but these tortures have been of no value to\nme; I still do the thing commanded by Circumstance and Temperament, and\nreflect afterward. Always violently. When I am reflecting, on those\noccasions, even deaf persons can hear me think.\n\nI went by the way of Cincinnati, and down the Ohio and Mississippi. My\nidea was to take ship, at New Orleans, for Para. In New Orleans I\ninquired, and found there was no ship leaving for Para. Also, that\nthere never had BEEN one leaving for Para. I reflected. A policeman\ncame and asked me what I was doing, and I told him. He made me move on,\nand said if he caught me reflecting in the public street again he would\nrun me in.\n\nAfter a few days I was out of money. Then Circumstance arrived, with\nanother turning-point of my life\u2014a new link. On my way down, I had made\nthe acquaintance of a pilot. I begged him to teach me the river, and he\nconsented. I became a pilot.\n\nBy and by Circumstance came again\u2014introducing the Civil War, this time,\nin order to push me ahead another stage or two toward the literary\nprofession. The boats stopped running, my livelihood was gone.\n\nCircumstance came to the rescue with a new turning-point and a fresh\nlink. My brother was appointed secretary to the new Territory of\nNevada, and he invited me to go with him and help him in his office. I\naccepted.\n\nIn Nevada, Circumstance furnished me the silver fever and I went into\nthe mines to make a fortune, as I supposed; but that was not the idea.\nThe idea was to advance me another step toward literature. For\namusement I scribbled things for the Virginia City _Enterprise_. One\nisn\u2019t a printer ten years without setting up acres of good and bad\nliterature, and learning\u2014unconsciously at first, consciously later\u2014to\ndiscriminate between the two, within his mental limitations; and\nmeantime he is unconsciously acquiring what is called a \u201cstyle.\u201d One of\nmy efforts attracted attention, and the _Enterprise _sent for me and\nput me on its staff.\n\nAnd so I became a journalist\u2014another link. By and by Circumstance and\nthe Sacramento _union _sent me to the Sandwich Islands for five or six\nmonths, to write up sugar. I did it; and threw in a good deal of\nextraneous matter that hadn\u2019t anything to do with sugar. But it was\nthis extraneous matter that helped me to another link.\n\nIt made me notorious, and San Francisco invited me to lecture. Which I\ndid. And profitably. I had long had a desire to travel and see the\nworld, and now Circumstance had most kindly and unexpectedly hurled me\nupon the platform and furnished me the means. So I joined the \u201cQuaker\nCity Excursion.\u201d\n\nWhen I returned to America, Circumstance was waiting on the pier\u2014with\nthe _last _link\u2014the conspicuous, the consummating, the victorious link:\nI was asked to _write a book_, and I did it, and called it _The\nInnocents Abroad_. Thus I became at last a member of the literary\nguild. That was forty-two years ago, and I have been a member ever\nsince. Leaving the Rubicon incident away back where it belongs, I can\nsay with truth that the reason I am in the literary profession is\nbecause I had the measles when I was twelve years old.\n\nIII\n\nNow what interests me, as regards these details, is not the details\nthemselves, but the fact that none of them was foreseen by me, none of\nthem was planned by me, I was the author of none of them. Circumstance,\nworking in harness with my temperament, created them all and compelled\nthem all. I often offered help, and with the best intentions, but it\nwas rejected\u2014as a rule, uncourteously. I could never plan a thing and\nget it to come out the way I planned it. It came out some other\nway\u2014some way I had not counted upon.\n\nAnd so I do not admire the human being\u2014as an intellectual marvel\u2014as\nmuch as I did when I was young, and got him out of books, and did not\nknow him personally. When I used to read that such and such a general\ndid a certain brilliant thing, I believed it. Whereas it was not so.\nCircumstance did it by help of his temperament. The circumstance would\nhave failed of effect with a general of another temperament: he might\nsee the chance, but lose the advantage by being by nature too slow or\ntoo quick or too doubtful. Once General Grant was asked a question\nabout a matter which had been much debated by the public and the\nnewspapers; he answered the question without any hesitancy. \u201cGeneral,\nwho planned the march through Georgia?\u201d \u201cThe enemy!\u201d He added that the\nenemy usually makes your plans for you. He meant that the enemy by\nneglect or through force of circumstances leaves an opening for you,\nand you see your chance and take advantage of it.\n\nCircumstances do the planning for us all, no doubt, by help of our\ntemperaments. I see no great difference between a man and a watch,\nexcept that the man is conscious and the watch isn\u2019t, and the man TRIES\nto plan things and the watch doesn\u2019t. The watch doesn\u2019t wind itself and\ndoesn\u2019t regulate itself\u2014these things are done exteriorly. Outside\ninfluences, outside circumstances, wind the MAN and regulate him. Left\nto himself, he wouldn\u2019t get regulated at all, and the sort of time he\nwould keep would not be valuable. Some rare men are wonderful watches,\nwith gold case, compensation balance, and all those things, and some\nmen are only simple and sweet and humble Waterburys. I am a Waterbury.\nA Waterbury of that kind, some say.\n\nA nation is only an individual multiplied. It makes plans and\nCircumstance comes and upsets them\u2014or enlarges them. Some patriots\nthrow the tea overboard; some other patriots destroy a Bastille. The\nPLANS stop there; then Circumstance comes in, quite unexpectedly, and\nturns these modest riots into a revolution.\n\nAnd there was poor Columbus. He elaborated a deep plan to find a new\nroute to an old country. Circumstance revised his plan for him, and he\nfound a new _world_. And _he _gets the credit of it to this day. He\nhadn\u2019t anything to do with it.\n\nNecessarily the scene of the real turning-point of my life (and of\nyours) was the Garden of Eden. It was there that the first link was\nforged of the chain that was ultimately to lead to the emptying of me\ninto the literary guild. Adam\u2019s TEMPERAMENT was the first command the\nDeity ever issued to a human being on this planet. And it was the only\ncommand Adam would NEVER be able to disobey. It said, \u201cBe weak, be\nwater, be characterless, be cheaply persuadable.\u201d The latter command,\nto let the fruit alone, was certain to be disobeyed. Not by Adam\nhimself, but by his _temperament_\u2014which he did not create and had no\nauthority over. For the _temperament _is the man; the thing tricked out\nwith clothes and named Man is merely its Shadow, nothing more. The law\nof the tiger\u2019s temperament is, Thou shalt kill; the law of the sheep\u2019s\ntemperament is Thou shalt not kill. To issue later commands requiring\nthe tiger to let the fat stranger alone, and requiring the sheep to\nimbue its hands in the blood of the lion is not worth while, for those\ncommands _can\u2019T_ be obeyed. They would invite to violations of the law\nof _temperament_, which is supreme, and takes precedence of all other\nauthorities. I cannot help feeling disappointed in Adam and Eve. That\nis, in their temperaments. Not in _them_, poor helpless young\ncreatures\u2014afflicted with temperaments made out of butter; which butter\nwas commanded to get into contact with fire and _be melted_. What I\ncannot help wishing is, that Adam and EVE had been postponed, and\nMartin Luther and Joan of Arc put in their place\u2014that splendid pair\nequipped with temperaments not made of butter, but of asbestos. By\nneither sugary persuasions nor by hell fire could Satan have beguiled\n_them _to eat the apple. There would have been results! Indeed, yes.\nThe apple would be intact today; there would be no human race; there\nwould be no YOU; there would be no _me_. And the old, old creation-dawn\nscheme of ultimately launching me into the literary guild would have\nbeen defeated.\n\n\n\n\nHOW TO MAKE HISTORY DATES STICK\n\n\nThese chapters are for children, and I shall try to make the words\nlarge enough to command respect. In the hope that you are listening,\nand that you have confidence in me, I will proceed. Dates are difficult\nthings to acquire; and after they are acquired it is difficult to keep\nthem in the head. But they are very valuable. They are like the\ncattle-pens of a ranch\u2014they shut in the several brands of historical\ncattle, each within its own fence, and keep them from getting mixed\ntogether. Dates are hard to remember because they consist of figures;\nfigures are monotonously unstriking in appearance, and they don\u2019t take\nhold, they form no pictures, and so they give the eye no chance to\nhelp. Pictures are the thing. Pictures can make dates stick. They can\nmake nearly anything stick\u2014particularly _if you make the pictures\nyourself_. Indeed, that is the great point\u2014make the pictures\n_yourself_. I know about this from experience. Thirty years ago I was\ndelivering a memorized lecture every night, and every night I had to\nhelp myself with a page of notes to keep from getting myself mixed. The\nnotes consisted of beginnings of sentences, and were eleven in number,\nand they ran something like this:\n\n\u201c_In that region the weather_\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201c_at that time it was a custom_\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201c_but in california one never heard_\u2014\u201d\n\nEleven of them. They initialed the brief divisions of the lecture and\nprotected me against skipping. But they all looked about alike on the\npage; they formed no picture; I had them by heart, but I could never\nwith certainty remember the order of their succession; therefore I\nalways had to keep those notes by me and look at them every little\nwhile. Once I mislaid them; you will not be able to imagine the terrors\nof that evening. I now saw that I must invent some other protection. So\nI got ten of the initial letters by heart in their proper order\u2014I, A,\nB, and so on\u2014and I went on the platform the next night with these\nmarked in ink on my ten finger-nails. But it didn\u2019t answer. I kept\ntrack of the fingers for a while; then I lost it, and after that I was\nnever quite sure which finger I had used last. I couldn\u2019t lick off a\nletter after using it, for while they could have made success certain\nit would also have provoked too much curiosity. There was curiosity\nenough without that. To the audience I seemed more interested in my\nfingernails than I was in my subject; one or two persons asked me\nafterward what was the matter with my hands.\n\nIt was now that the idea of pictures occurred to me; then my troubles\npassed away. In two minutes I made six pictures with a pen, and they\ndid the work of the eleven catch-sentences, and did it perfectly. I\nthrew the pictures away as soon as they were made, for I was sure I\ncould shut my eyes and see them any time. That was a quarter of a\ncentury ago; the lecture vanished out of my head more than twenty years\nago, but I could rewrite it from the pictures\u2014for they remain. Here are\nthree of them: (Fig. 1).\n\nThe first one is a haystack\u2014below it a rattlesnake\u2014and it told me where\nto begin to talk ranch-life in Carson Valley. The second one told me\nwhere to begin to talk about a strange and violent wind that used to\nburst upon Carson City from the Sierra Nevadas every afternoon at two\no\u2019clock and try to blow the town away. The third picture, as you easily\nperceive, is lightning; its duty was to remind me when it was time to\nbegin to talk about San Francisco weather, where there IS no\nlightning\u2014nor thunder, either\u2014and it never failed me.\n\nI will give you a valuable hint. When a man is making a speech and you\nare to follow him don\u2019t jot down notes to speak from, jot down\nPICTURES. It is awkward and embarrassing to have to keep referring to\nnotes; and besides it breaks up your speech and makes it ragged and\nnon-coherent; but you can tear up your pictures as soon as you have\nmade them\u2014they will stay fresh and strong in your memory in the order\nand sequence in which you scratched them down. And many will admire to\nsee what a good memory you are furnished with, when perhaps your memory\nis not any better than mine.\n\nSixteen years ago when my children were little creatures the governess\nwas trying to hammer some primer histories into their heads. Part of\nthis fun--if you like to call it that--consisted in the memorizing of\nthe accession dates of the thirty-seven personages who had ruled over\nEngland from the Conqueror down. These little people found it a bitter,\nhard contract. It was all dates, they all looked alike, and they\nwouldn\u2019t stick. Day after day of the summer vacation dribbled by, and\nstill the kings held the fort; the children couldn\u2019t conquer any six of\nthem.\n\nWith my lecture experience in mind I was aware that I could invent some\nway out of the trouble with pictures, but I hoped a way could be found\nwhich would let them romp in the open air while they learned the kings.\nI found it, and then they mastered all the monarchs in a day or two.\n\nThe idea was to make them _see _the reigns with their eyes; that would\nbe a large help. We were at the farm then. From the house-porch the\ngrounds sloped gradually down to the lower fence and rose on the right\nto the high ground where my small work-den stood. A carriage-road wound\nthrough the grounds and up the hill. I staked it out with the English\nmonarchs, beginning with the Conqueror, and you could stand on the\nporch and clearly see every reign and its length, from the Conquest\ndown to Victoria, then in the forty-sixth year of her reign\u2014_eight\nhundred and seventeen years of_ English history under your eye at once!\n\nEnglish history was an unusually live topic in America just then. The\nworld had suddenly realized that while it was not noticing the Queen\nhad passed Henry VIII., passed Henry VI. and Elizabeth, and gaining in\nlength every day. Her reign had entered the list of the long ones;\neverybody was interested now\u2014it was watching a race. Would she pass the\nlong Edward? There was a possibility of it. Would she pass the long\nHenry? Doubtful, most people said. The long George? Impossible!\nEverybody said it. But we have lived to see her leave him two years\nbehind.\n\nI measured off 817 feet of the roadway, a foot representing a year, and\nat the beginning and end of each reign I drove a three-foot white-pine\nstake in the turf by the roadside and wrote the name and dates on it.\nAbreast the middle of the porch-front stood a great granite flower-vase\noverflowing with a cataract of bright-yellow flowers\u2014I can\u2019t think of\ntheir name. The vase was William the Conqueror. We put his name on it\nand his accession date, 1066. We started from that and measured off\ntwenty-one feet of the road, and drove William Rufus\u2019s stake; then\nthirteen feet and drove the first Henry\u2019s stake; then thirty-five feet\nand drove Stephen\u2019s; then nineteen feet, which brought us just past the\nsummer-house on the left; then we staked out thirty-five, ten, and\nseventeen for the second Henry and Richard and John; turned the curve\nand entered upon just what was needed for Henry III.\u2014a level, straight\nstretch of fifty-six feet of road without a crinkle in it. And it lay\nexactly in front of the house, in the middle of the grounds. There\ncouldn\u2019t have been a better place for that long reign; you could stand\non the porch and see those two wide-apart stakes almost with your eyes\nshut. (Fig. 2.)\n\nThat isn\u2019t the shape of the road\u2014I have bunched it up like that to save\nroom. The road had some great curves in it, but their gradual sweep was\nsuch that they were no mar to history. No, in our road one could tell\nat a glance who was who by the size of the vacancy between stakes\u2014with\n_locality _to help, of course.\n\nAlthough I am away off here in a Swedish village[3] and those stakes\ndid not stand till the snow came, I can see them today as plainly as\never; and whenever I think of an English monarch his stakes rise before\nme of their own accord and I notice the large or small space which he\ntakes up on our road. Are your kings spaced off in your mind? When you\nthink of Richard III. and of James II. do the durations of their reigns\nseem about alike to you? It isn\u2019t so to me; I always notice that\nthere\u2019s a foot\u2019s difference. When you think of Henry III. do you see a\ngreat long stretch of straight road? I do; and just at the end where it\njoins on to Edward I. I always see a small pear-bush with its green\nfruit hanging down. When I think of the Commonwealth I see a shady\nlittle group of these small saplings which we called the oak parlor;\nwhen I think of George III. I see him stretching up the hill, part of\nhim occupied by a flight of stone steps; and I can locate Stephen to an\ninch when he comes into my mind, for he just filled the stretch which\nwent by the summer-house. Victoria\u2019s reign reached almost to my study\ndoor on the first little summit; there\u2019s sixteen feet to be added now;\nI believe that that would carry it to a big pine-tree that was\nshattered by some lightning one summer when it was trying to hit me.\n\n [3] Summer of 1899.\n\n\nWe got a good deal of fun out of the history road; and exercise, too.\nWe trotted the course from the conqueror to the study, the children\ncalling out the names, dates, and length of reigns as we passed the\nstakes, going a good gait along the long reigns, but slowing down when\nwe came upon people like Mary and Edward VI., and the short Stuart and\nPlantagenet, to give time to get in the statistics. I offered prizes,\ntoo\u2014apples. I threw one as far as I could send it, and the child that\nfirst shouted the reign it fell in got the apple.\n\nThe children were encouraged to stop locating things as being \u201cover by\nthe arbor,\u201d or \u201cin the oak parlor,\u201d or \u201cup at the stone steps,\u201d and say\ninstead that the things were in Stephen, or in the Commonwealth, or in\nGeorge III. They got the habit without trouble. To have the long road\nmapped out with such exactness was a great boon for me, for I had the\nhabit of leaving books and other articles lying around everywhere, and\nhad not previously been able to definitely name the place, and so had\noften been obliged to go to fetch them myself, to save time and\nfailure; but now I could name the reign I left them in, and send the\nchildren.\n\nNext I thought I would measure off the French reigns, and peg them\nalongside the English ones, so that we could always have\ncontemporaneous French history under our eyes as we went our English\nrounds. We pegged them down to the Hundred Years\u2019 War, then threw the\nidea aside, I do not now remember why. After that we made the English\npegs fence in European and American history as well as English, and\nthat answered very well. English and alien poets, statesmen, artists,\nheroes, battles, plagues, cataclysms, revolutions\u2014we shoveled them all\ninto the English fences according to their dates. Do you understand? We\ngave Washington\u2019s birth to George II.\u2019s pegs and his death to George\nIII.\u2019s; George II. got the Lisbon earthquake and George III. the\nDeclaration of Independence. Goethe, Shakespeare, Napoleon, Savonarola,\nJoan of Arc, the French Revolution, the Edict of Nantes, Clive,\nWellington, Waterloo, Plassey, Patay, Cowpens, Saratoga, the Battle of\nthe Boyne, the invention of the logarithms, the microscope, the\nsteam-engine, the telegraph\u2014anything and everything all over the\nworld\u2014we dumped it all in among the English pegs according to its date\nand regardless of its nationality.\n\nIf the road-pegging scheme had not succeeded I should have lodged the\nkings in the children\u2019s heads by means of pictures\u2014that is, I should\nhave tried. It might have failed, for the pictures could only be\neffective _when made by the pupil_; not the master, for it is the work\nput upon the drawing that makes the drawing stay in the memory, and my\nchildren were too little to make drawings at that time. And, besides,\nthey had no talent for art, which is strange, for in other ways they\nare like me.\n\nBut I will develop the picture plan now, hoping that you will be able\nto use it. It will come good for indoors when the weather is bad and\none cannot go outside and peg a road. Let us imagine that the kings are\na procession, and that they have come out of the Ark and down Ararat\nfor exercise and are now starting back again up the zigzag road. This\nwill bring several of them into view at once, and each zigzag will\nrepresent the length of a king\u2019s reign.\n\nAnd so on. You will have plenty of space, for by my project you will\nuse the parlor wall. You do not mark on the wall; that would cause\ntrouble. You only attach bits of paper to it with pins or thumb-tacks.\nThese will leave no mark.\n\nTake your pen now, and twenty-one pieces of white paper, each two\ninches square, and we will do the twenty-one years of the Conqueror\u2019s\nreign. On each square draw a picture of a whale and write the dates and\nterm of service. We choose the whale for several reasons: its name and\nWilliam\u2019s begin with the same letter; it is the biggest fish that\nswims, and William is the most conspicuous figure in English history in\nthe way of a landmark; finally, a whale is about the easiest thing to\ndraw. By the time you have drawn twenty-one wales and written \u201cWilliam\nI.\u20141066-1087\u2014twenty-one years\u201d twenty-one times, those details will be\nyour property; you cannot dislodge them from your memory with anything\nbut dynamite. I will make a sample for you to copy: (Fig. 3).\n\nI have got his chin up too high, but that is no matter; he is looking\nfor Harold. It may be that a whale hasn\u2019t that fin up there on his\nback, but I do not remember; and so, since there is a doubt, it is best\nto err on the safe side. He looks better, anyway, than he would without\nit.\n\nBe very careful and _attentive _while you are drawing your first whale\nfrom my sample and writing the word and figures under it, so that you\nwill not need to copy the sample any more. Compare your copy with the\nsample; examine closely; if you find you have got everything right and\ncan shut your eyes and see the picture and call the words and figures,\nthen turn the sample and copy upside down and make the next copy from\nmemory; and also the next and next, and so on, always drawing and\nwriting from memory until you have finished the whole twenty-one. This\nwill take you twenty minutes, or thirty, and by that time you will find\nthat you can make a whale in less time than an unpracticed person can\nmake a sardine; also, up to the time you die you will always be able to\nfurnish William\u2019s dates to any ignorant person that inquires after\nthem.\n\nYou will now take thirteen pieces of BLUE paper, each two inches\nsquare, and do William II. (Fig. 4.)\n\nMake him spout his water forward instead of backward; also make him\nsmall, and stick a harpoon in him and give him that sick look in the\neye. Otherwise you might seem to be continuing the other William, and\nthat would be confusing and a damage. It is quite right to make him\nsmall; he was only about a No. 11 whale, or along there somewhere;\nthere wasn\u2019t room in him for his father\u2019s great spirit. The barb of\nthat harpoon ought not to show like that, because it is down inside the\nwhale and ought to be out of sight, but it cannot be helped; if the\nbarb were removed people would think some one had stuck a whip-stock\ninto the whale. It is best to leave the barb the way it is, then every\none will know it is a harpoon and attending to business. Remember\u2014draw\nfrom the copy only once; make your other twelve and the inscription\nfrom memory.\n\nNow the truth is that whenever you have copied a picture and its\ninscription once from my sample and two or three times from memory the\ndetails will stay with you and be hard to forget. After that, if you\nlike, you may make merely the whale\u2019s _head and water-spout_ for the\nConqueror till you end his reign, each time _saying _the inscription in\nplace of writing it; and in the case of William II. make the _harpoon\n_alone, and say over the inscription each time you do it. You see, it\nwill take nearly twice as long to do the first set as it will to do the\nsecond, and that will give you a marked sense of the difference in\nlength of the two reigns.\n\nNext do Henry I. on thirty-five squares of _red _paper. (Fig. 5.)\n\nThat is a hen, and suggests Henry by furnishing the first syllable.\nWhen you have repeated the hen and the inscription until you are\nperfectly sure of them, draw merely the hen\u2019s head the rest of the\nthirty-five times, saying over the inscription each time. Thus: (Fig.\n6).\n\nYou begin to understand now how this procession is going to look when\nit is on the wall. First there will be the Conqueror\u2019s twenty-one\nwhales and water-spouts, the twenty-one white squares joined to one\nanother and making a white stripe three and one-half feet long; the\nthirteen blue squares of William II. will be joined to that\u2014a blue\nstripe two feet, two inches long, followed by Henry\u2019s red stripe five\nfeet, ten inches long, and so on. The colored divisions will smartly\nshow to the eye the difference in the length of the reigns and impress\nthe proportions on the memory and the understanding. (Fig. 7.)\n\nStephen of Blois comes next. He requires nineteen two-inch squares of\n_yellow_ paper. (Fig. 8.)\n\nThat is a steer. The sound suggests the beginning of Stephen\u2019s name. I\nchoose it for that reason. I can make a better steer than that when I\nam not excited. But this one will do. It is a good-enough steer for\nhistory. The tail is defective, but it only wants straightening out.\n\nNext comes Henry II. Give him thirty-five squares of _red _paper. These\nhens must face west, like the former ones. (Fig. 9.)\n\nThis hen differs from the other one. He is on his way to inquire what\nhas been happening in Canterbury.\n\nNow we arrive at Richard I., called Richard of the Lion-heart because\nhe was a brave fighter and was never so contented as when he was\nleading crusades in Palestine and neglecting his affairs at home. Give\nhim ten squares of _white _paper. (Fig. 10).\n\nThat is a lion. His office is to remind you of the lion-hearted\nRichard. There is something the matter with his legs, but I do not\nquite know what it is, they do not seem right. I think the hind ones\nare the most unsatisfactory; the front ones are well enough, though it\nwould be better if they were rights and lefts.\n\nNext comes King John, and he was a poor circumstance. He was called\nLackland. He gave his realm to the Pope. Let him have seventeen squares\nof _yellow _paper. (Fig. 11.)\n\nThat creature is a jamboree. It looks like a trademark, but that is\nonly an accident and not intentional. It is prehistoric and extinct. It\nused to roam the earth in the Old Silurian times, and lay eggs and\ncatch fish and climb trees and live on fossils; for it was of a mixed\nbreed, which was the fashion then. It was very fierce, and the Old\nSilurians were afraid of it, but this is a tame one. Physically it has\nno representative now, but its mind has been transmitted. First I drew\nit sitting down, but have turned it the other way now because I think\nit looks more attractive and spirited when one end of it is galloping.\nI love to think that in this attitude it gives us a pleasant idea of\nJohn coming all in a happy excitement to see what the barons have been\narranging for him at Runnymede, while the other one gives us an idea of\nhim sitting down to wring his hands and grieve over it.\n\nWe now come to Henry III.; _red _squares again, of course\u2014fifty-six of\nthem. We must make all the Henrys the same color; it will make their\nlong reigns show up handsomely on the wall. Among all the eight Henrys\nthere were but two short ones. A lucky name, as far as longevity goes.\nThe reigns of six of the Henrys cover 227 years. It might have been\nwell to name all the royal princes Henry, but this was overlooked until\nit was too late. (Fig. 12.)\n\nThis is the best one yet. He is on his way (1265) to have a look at the\nfirst House of Commons in English history. It was a monumental event,\nthe situation of the House, and was the second great liberty landmark\nwhich the century had set up. I have made Henry looking glad, but this\nwas not intentional.\n\nEdward I. comes next; _light-brown_ paper, thirty-five squares. (Fig.\n13.)\n\nThat is an editor. He is trying to think of a word. He props his feet\non the chair, which is the editor\u2019s way; then he can think better. I do\nnot care much for this one; his ears are not alike; still, editor\nsuggests the sound of Edward, and he will do. I could make him better\nif I had a model, but I made this one from memory. But it is no\nparticular matter; they all look alike, anyway. They are conceited and\ntroublesome, and don\u2019t pay enough. Edward was the first really English\nking that had yet occupied the throne. The editor in the picture\nprobably looks just as Edward looked when it was first borne in upon\nhim that this was so. His whole attitude expressed gratification and\npride mixed with stupefaction and astonishment.\n\nEdward II. now; twenty _blue _squares. (Fig. 14.)\n\nAnother editor. That thing behind his ear is his pencil. Whenever he\nfinds a bright thing in your manuscript he strikes it out with that.\nThat does him good, and makes him smile and show his teeth, the way he\nis doing in the picture. This one has just been striking out a smart\nthing, and now he is sitting there with his thumbs in his vest-holes,\ngloating. They are full of envy and malice, editors are. This picture\nwill serve to remind you that Edward II. was the first English king who\nwas _deposed_. Upon demand, he signed his deposition himself. He had\nfound kingship a most aggravating and disagreeable occupation, and you\ncan see by the look of him that he is glad he resigned. He has put his\nblue pencil up for good now. He had struck out many a good thing with\nit in his time.\n\nEdward III. next; fifty _red _squares. (Fig. 15.)\n\nThis editor is a critic. He has pulled out his carving-knife and his\ntomahawk and is starting after a book which he is going to have for\nbreakfast. This one\u2019s arms are put on wrong. I did not notice it at\nfirst, but I see it now. Somehow he has got his right arm on his left\nshoulder, and his left arm on the right shoulder, and this shows us the\nback of his hands in both instances. It makes him left-handed all\naround, which is a thing which has never happened before, except\nperhaps in a museum. That is the way with art, when it is not acquired\nbut born to you: you start in to make some simple little thing, not\nsuspecting that your genius is beginning to work and swell and strain\nin secret, and all of a sudden there is a convulsion and you fetch out\nsomething astonishing. This is called inspiration. It is an accident;\nyou never know when it is coming. I might have tried as much as a year\nto think of such a strange thing as an all-around left-handed man and I\ncould not have done it, for the more you try to think of an unthinkable\nthing the more it eludes you; but it can\u2019t elude inspiration; you have\nonly to bait with inspiration and you will get it every time. Look at\nBotticelli\u2019s \u201cSpring.\u201d Those snaky women were unthinkable, but\ninspiration secured them for us, thanks to goodness. It is too late to\nreorganize this editor-critic now; we will leave him as he is. He will\nserve to remind us.\n\nRichard II. next; twenty-two _white _squares. (Fig. 16.)\n\nWe use the lion again because this is another Richard. Like Edward II.,\nhe was _deposed_. He is taking a last sad look at his crown before they\ntake it away. There was not room enough and I have made it too small;\nbut it never fitted him, anyway.\n\nNow we turn the corner of the century with a new line of monarchs\u2014the\nLancastrian kings.\n\nHenry IV.; fourteen squares of _yellow _paper. (Fig. 17.)\n\nThis hen has laid the egg of a new dynasty and realizes the imposing\nmagnitude of the event. She is giving notice in the usual way. You\nnotice I am improving in the construction of hens. At first I made them\ntoo much like other animals, but this one is orthodox. I mention this\nto encourage you. You will find that the more you practice the more\naccurate you will become. I could always draw animals, but before I was\neducated I could not tell what kind they were when I got them done, but\nnow I can. Keep up your courage; it will be the same with you, although\nyou may not think it. This Henry died the year after Joan of Arc was\nborn.\n\nHenry V.; nine _blue _squares. (Fig. 18)\n\nThere you see him lost in meditation over the monument which records\nthe amazing figures of the battle of Agincourt. French history says\n20,000 Englishmen routed 80,000 Frenchmen there; and English historians\nsay that the French loss, in killed and wounded, was 60,000.\n\nHenry VI.; thirty-nine _red _squares. (Fig. 19)\n\nThis is poor Henry VI., who reigned long and scored many misfortunes\nand humiliations. Also two great disasters: he lost France to Joan of\nArc and he lost the throne and ended the dynasty which Henry IV. had\nstarted in business with such good prospects. In the picture we see him\nsad and weary and downcast, with the scepter falling from his nerveless\ngrasp. It is a pathetic quenching of a sun which had risen in such\nsplendor.\n\nEdward IV.; twenty-two _light-brown_ squares. (Fig. 20.)\n\nThat is a society editor, sitting there elegantly dressed, with his\nlegs crossed in that indolent way, observing the clothes the ladies\nwear, so that he can describe them for his paper and make them out\nfiner than they are and get bribes for it and become wealthy. That\nflower which he is wearing in his buttonhole is a rose\u2014a white rose, a\nYork rose\u2014and will serve to remind us of the War of the Roses, and that\nthe white one was the winning color when Edward got the throne and\ndispossessed the Lancastrian dynasty.\n\nEdward V.; one-third of a _black _square. (Fig. 21.)\n\nHis uncle Richard had him murdered in the tower. When you get the\nreigns displayed upon the wall this one will be conspicuous and easily\nremembered. It is the shortest one in English history except Lady Jane\nGrey\u2019s, which was only nine days. She is never officially recognized as\na monarch of England, but if you or I should ever occupy a throne we\nshould like to have proper notice taken of it; and it would be only\nfair and right, too, particularly if we gained nothing by it and lost\nour lives besides.\n\nRichard III.; two _white _squares. (Fig. 22.)\n\nThat is not a very good lion, but Richard was not a very good king. You\nwould think that this lion has two heads, but that is not so; one is\nonly a shadow. There would be shadows for the rest of him, but there\nwas not light enough to go round, it being a dull day, with only\nfleeting sun-glimpses now and then. Richard had a humped back and a\nhard heart, and fell at the battle of Bosworth. I do not know the name\nof that flower in the pot, but we will use it as Richard\u2019s trade-mark,\nfor it is said that it grows in only one place in the world\u2014Bosworth\nField\u2014and tradition says it never grew there until Richard\u2019s royal\nblood warmed its hidden seed to life and made it grow.\n\nHenry VII.; twenty-four _blue _squares. (Fig. 23.)\n\nHenry VII. had no liking for wars and turbulence; he preferred peace\nand quiet and the general prosperity which such conditions create. He\nliked to sit on that kind of eggs on his own private account as well as\nthe nation\u2019s, and hatch them out and count up the result. When he died\nhe left his heir 2,000,000 pounds, which was a most unusual fortune for\na king to possess in those days. Columbus\u2019s great achievement gave him\nthe discovery-fever, and he sent Sebastian Cabot to the New World to\nsearch out some foreign territory for England. That is Cabot\u2019s ship up\nthere in the corner. This was the first time that England went far\nabroad to enlarge her estate\u2014but not the last.\n\nHenry VIII.; thirty-eight _red _squares. (Fig. 24.)\n\nThat is Henry VIII. suppressing a monastery in his arrogant fashion.\n\nEdward VI.; six squares of _yellow _paper. (Fig. 25.)\n\nHe is the last Edward to date. It is indicated by that thing over his\nhead, which is a _last_\u2014shoemaker\u2019s last.\n\nMary; five squares of _black _paper. (Fig. 26.)\n\nThe picture represents a burning martyr. He is in back of the smoke.\nThe first three letters of Mary\u2019s name and the first three of the word\nmartyr are the same. Martyrdom was going out in her day and martyrs\nwere becoming scarcer, but she made several. For this reason she is\nsometimes called Bloody Mary.\n\nThis brings us to the reign of Elizabeth, after passing through a\nperiod of nearly five hundred years of England\u2019s history\u2014492 to be\nexact. I think you may now be trusted to go the rest of the way without\nfurther lessons in art or inspirations in the matter of ideas. You have\nthe scheme now, and something in the ruler\u2019s name or career will\nsuggest the pictorial symbol. The effort of inventing such things will\nnot only help your memory, but will develop originality in art. See\nwhat it has done for me. If you do not find the parlor wall big enough\nfor all of England\u2019s history, continue it into the dining-room and into\nother rooms. This will make the walls interesting and instructive and\nreally worth something instead of being just flat things to hold the\nhouse together.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MEMORABLE ASSASSINATION\n\n\nNote.\u2014The assassination of the Empress of Austria at Geneva, September\n10, 1898, occurred during Mark Twain\u2019s Austrian residence. The news\ncame to him at Kaltenleutgeben, a summer resort a little way out of\nVienna. To his friend, the Rev. Jos. H. Twichell, he wrote:\n\n\u201cThat good and unoffending lady, the Empress, is killed by a madman,\nand I am living in the midst of world-history again. The Queen\u2019s\nJubilee last year, the invasion of the Reichsrath by the police, and\nnow this murder, which will still be talked of and described and\npainted a thousand years from now. To have a personal friend of the\nwearer of two crowns burst in at the gate in the deep dusk of the\nevening and say, in a voice broken with tears, \u2018My God! the Empress is\nmurdered,\u2019 and fly toward her home before we can utter a question\u2014why,\nit brings the giant event home to you, makes you a part of it and\npersonally interested; it is as if your neighbor, Antony, should come\nflying and say, \u2018Caesar is butchered\u2014the head of the world is fallen!\u2019\n\n\u201cOf course there is no talk but of this. The mourning is universal and\ngenuine, the consternation is stupefying. The Austrian Empire is being\ndraped with black. Vienna will be a spectacle to see by next Saturday,\nwhen the funeral cortege marches.\u201d\n\nHe was strongly moved by the tragedy, impelled to write concerning it.\nHe prepared the article which here follows, but did not offer it for\npublication, perhaps feeling that his own close association with the\ncourt circles at the moment prohibited this personal utterance. There\nappears no such reason for withholding its publication now.\n\nA. B. P.\n\nThe more one thinks of the assassination, the more imposing and\ntremendous the event becomes. The destruction of a city is a large\nevent, but it is one which repeats itself several times in a thousand\nyears; the destruction of a third part of a nation by plague and famine\nis a large event, but it has happened several times in history; the\nmurder of a king is a large event, but it has been frequent.\n\nThe murder of an empress is the largest of all large events. One must\ngo back about two thousand years to find an instance to put with this\none. The oldest family of unchallenged descent in Christendom lives in\nRome and traces its line back seventeen hundred years, but no member of\nit has been present in the earth when an empress was murdered, until\nnow. Many a time during these seventeen centuries members of that\nfamily have been startled with the news of extraordinary events\u2014the\ndestruction of cities, the fall of thrones, the murder of kings, the\nwreck of dynasties, the extinction of religions, the birth of new\nsystems of government; and their descendants have been by to hear of it\nand talk about it when all these things were repeated once, twice, or a\ndozen times\u2014but to even that family has come news at last which is not\nstaled by use, has no duplicates in the long reach of its memory.\n\nIt is an event which confers a curious distinction upon every\nindividual now living in the world: he has stood alive and breathing in\nthe presence of an event such as has not fallen within the experience\nof any traceable or untraceable ancestor of his for twenty centuries,\nand it is not likely to fall within the experience of any descendant of\nhis for twenty more.\n\nTime has made some great changes since the Roman days. The murder of an\nempress then\u2014even the assassination of Caesar himself\u2014could not\nelectrify the world as this murder has electrified it. For one reason,\nthere was then not much of a world to electrify; it was a small world,\nas to known bulk, and it had rather a thin population, besides; and for\nanother reason, the news traveled so slowly that its tremendous initial\nthrill wasted away, week by week and month by month, on the journey,\nand by the time it reached the remoter regions there was but little of\nit left. It was no longer a fresh event, it was a thing of the far\npast; it was not properly news, it was history. But the world is\nenormous now, and prodigiously populated\u2014that is one change; and\nanother is the lightning swiftness of the flight of tidings, good and\nbad. \u201cThe Empress is murdered!\u201d When those amazing words struck upon my\near in this Austrian village last Saturday, three hours after the\ndisaster, I knew that it was already old news in London, Paris, Berlin,\nNew York, San Francisco, Japan, China, Melbourne, Cape Town, Bombay,\nMadras, Calcutta, and that the entire globe with a single voice, was\ncursing the perpetrator of it. Since the telegraph first began to\nstretch itself wider and wider about the earth, larger and increasingly\nlarger areas of the world have, as time went on, received\nsimultaneously the shock of a great calamity; but this is the first\ntime in history that the entire surface of the globe has been swept in\na single instant with the thrill of so gigantic an event.\n\nAnd who is the miracle-worker who has furnished to the world this\nspectacle? All the ironies are compacted in the answer. He is at the\nbottom of the human ladder, as the accepted estimates of degree and\nvalue go: a soiled and patched young loafer, without gifts, without\ntalents, without education, without morals, without character, without\nany born charm or any acquired one that wins or beguiles or attracts;\nwithout a single grace of mind or heart or hand that any tramp or\nprostitute could envy him; an unfaithful private in the ranks, an\nincompetent stone-cutter, an inefficient lackey; in a word, a mangy,\noffensive, empty, unwashed, vulgar, gross, mephitic, timid, sneaking,\nhuman polecat. And it was within the privileges and powers of this\nsarcasm upon the human race to reach up\u2014up\u2014up\u2014and strike from its far\nsummit in the social skies the world\u2019s accepted ideal of Glory and\nMight and Splendor and Sacredness! It realizes to us what sorry shows\nand shadows we are. Without our clothes and our pedestals we are poor\nthings and much of a size; our dignities are not real, our pomps are\nshams. At our best and stateliest we are not suns, as we pretended, and\nteach, and believe, but only candles; and any bummer can blow us out.\n\nAnd now we get realized to us once more another thing which we often\nforget\u2014or try to: that no man has a wholly undiseased mind; that in one\nway or another all men are mad. Many are mad for money. When this\nmadness is in a mild form it is harmless and the man passes for sane;\nbut when it develops powerfully and takes possession of the man, it can\nmake him cheat, rob, and kill; and when he has got his fortune and lost\nit again it can land him in the asylum or the suicide\u2019s coffin. Love is\na madness; if thwarted it develops fast; it can grow to a frenzy of\ndespair and make an otherwise sane and highly gifted prince, like\nRudolph, throw away the crown of an empire and snuff out his own life.\nAll the whole list of desires, predilections, aversions, ambitions,\npassions, cares, griefs, regrets, remorses, are incipient madness, and\nready to grow, spread, and consume, when the occasion comes. There are\nno healthy minds, and nothing saves any man but accident\u2014the accident\nof not having his malady put to the supreme test.\n\nOne of the commonest forms of madness is the desire to be noticed, the\npleasure derived from being noticed. Perhaps it is not merely common,\nbut universal. In its mildest form it doubtless is universal. Every\nchild is pleased at being noticed; many intolerable children put in\ntheir whole time in distressing and idiotic effort to attract the\nattention of visitors; boys are always \u201cshowing off\u201d; apparently all\nmen and women are glad and grateful when they find that they have done\na thing which has lifted them for a moment out of obscurity and caused\nwondering talk. This common madness can develop, by nurture, into a\nhunger for notoriety in one, for fame in another. It is this madness\nfor being noticed and talked about which has invented kingship and the\nthousand other dignities, and tricked them out with pretty and showy\nfineries; it has made kings pick one another\u2019s pockets, scramble for\none another\u2019s crowns and estates, slaughter one another\u2019s subjects; it\nhas raised up prize-fighters, and poets, and village mayors, and little\nand big politicians, and big and little charity-founders, and bicycle\nchampions, and banditti chiefs, and frontier desperadoes, and\nNapoleons. Anything to get notoriety; anything to set the village, or\nthe township, or the city, or the State, or the nation, or the planet\nshouting, \u201cLook\u2014there he goes\u2014that is the man!\u201d And in five minutes\u2019\ntime, at no cost of brain, or labor, or genius this mangy Italian tramp\nhas beaten them all, transcended them all, outstripped them all, for in\ntime their names will perish; but by the friendly help of the insane\nnewspapers and courts and kings and historians, his is safe to live and\nthunder in the world all down the ages as long as human speech shall\nendure! Oh, if it were not so tragic how ludicrous it would be!\n\nShe was so blameless, the Empress; and so beautiful, in mind and heart,\nin person and spirit; and whether with a crown upon her head or without\nit and nameless, a grace to the human race, and almost a justification\nof its creation; _would _be, indeed, but that the animal that struck\nher down re-establishes the doubt.\n\nIn her character was every quality that in woman invites and engages\nrespect, esteem, affection, and homage. Her tastes, her instincts, and\nher aspirations were all high and fine and all her life her heart and\nbrain were busy with activities of a noble sort. She had had bitter\ngriefs, but they did not sour her spirit, and she had had the highest\nhonors in the world\u2019s gift, but she went her simple way unspoiled. She\nknew all ranks, and won them all, and made them her friends. An English\nfisherman\u2019s wife said, \u201cWhen a body was in trouble she didn\u2019t send her\nhelp, she brought it herself.\u201d Crowns have adorned others, but she\nadorned her crowns.\n\nIt was a swift celebrity the assassin achieved. And it is marked by\nsome curious contrasts. At noon last Saturday there was no one in the\nworld who would have considered acquaintanceship with him a thing worth\nclaiming or mentioning; no one would have been vain of such an\nacquaintanceship; the humblest honest boot-black would not have valued\nthe fact that he had met him or seen him at some time or other; he was\nsunk in abysmal obscurity, he was away beneath the notice of the bottom\ngrades of officialdom. Three hours later he was the one subject of\nconversation in the world, the gilded generals and admirals and\ngovernors were discussing him, all the kings and queens and emperors\nhad put aside their other interests to talk about him. And wherever\nthere was a man, at the summit of the world or the bottom of it, who by\nchance had at some time or other come across that creature, he\nremembered it with a secret satisfaction, and _mentioned _it\u2014for it was\na distinction, now! It brings human dignity pretty low, and for a\nmoment the thing is not quite realizable\u2014but it is perfectly true. If\nthere is a king who can remember, now, that he once saw that creature\nin a time past, he has let that fact out, in a more or less studiedly\ncasual and indifferent way, some dozens of times during the past week.\nFor a king is merely human; the inside of him is exactly like the\ninside of any other person; and it is human to find satisfaction in\nbeing in a kind of personal way connected with amazing events. We are\nall privately vain of such a thing; we are all alike; a king is a king\nby accident; the reason the rest of us are not kings is merely due to\nanother accident; we are all made out of the same clay, and it is a\nsufficiently poor quality.\n\nBelow the kings, these remarks are in the air these days; I know it as\nwell as if I were hearing them:\n\nTHE COMMANDER: \u201cHe was in my army.\u201d\n\nTHE GENERAL: \u201cHe was in my corps.\u201d\n\nTHE COLONEL: \u201cHe was in my regiment. A brute. I remember him well.\u201d\n\nTHE CAPTAIN: \u201cHe was in my company. A troublesome scoundrel. I remember\nhim well.\u201d\n\nTHE SERGEANT: \u201cDid I know him? As well as I know you. Why, every\nmorning I used to\u2014\u201d etc., etc.; a glad, long story, told to devouring\nears.\n\nTHE LANDLADY: \u201cMany\u2019s the time he boarded with me. I can show you his\nvery room, and the very bed he slept in. And the charcoal mark there on\nthe wall\u2014he made that. My little Johnny saw him do it with his own\neyes. Didn\u2019t you, Johnny?\u201d\n\nIt is easy to see, by the papers, that the magistrate and the\nconstables and the jailer treasure up the assassin\u2019s daily remarks and\ndoings as precious things, and as wallowing this week in seas of\nblissful distinction. The interviewer, too; he tries to let on that he\nis not vain of his privilege of contact with this man whom few others\nare allowed to gaze upon, but he is human, like the rest, and can no\nmore keep his vanity corked in than could you or I.\n\nSome think that this murder is a frenzied revolt against the criminal\nmilitarism which is impoverishing Europe and driving the starving poor\nmad. That has many crimes to answer for, but not this one, I think. One\nmay not attribute to this man a generous indignation against the wrongs\ndone the poor; one may not dignify him with a generous impulse of any\nkind. When he saw his photograph and said, \u201cI shall be celebrated,\u201d he\nlaid bare the impulse that prompted him. It was a mere hunger for\nnotoriety. There is another confessed case of the kind which is as old\nas history\u2014the burning of the temple of Ephesus.\n\nAmong the inadequate attempts to account for the assassination we must\nconcede high rank to the many which have described it as a \u201cpeculiarly\nbrutal crime\u201d and then added that it was \u201cordained from above.\u201d I think\nthis verdict will not be popular \u201cabove.\u201d If the deed was ordained from\nabove, there is no rational way of making this prisoner even partially\nresponsible for it, and the Genevan court cannot condemn him without\nmanifestly committing a crime. Logic is logic, and by disregarding its\nlaws even the most pious and showy theologian may be beguiled into\npreferring charges which should not be ventured upon except in the\nshelter of plenty of lightning-rods.\n\nI witnessed the funeral procession, in company with friends, from the\nwindows of the Krantz, Vienna\u2019s sumptuous new hotel. We came into town\nin the middle of the forenoon, and I went on foot from the station.\nBlack flags hung down from all the houses; the aspects were\nSunday-like; the crowds on the sidewalks were quiet and moved slowly;\nvery few people were smoking; many ladies wore deep mourning, gentlemen\nwere in black as a rule; carriages were speeding in all directions,\nwith footmen and coachmen in black clothes and wearing black cocked\nhats; the shops were closed; in many windows were pictures of the\nEmpress: as a beautiful young bride of seventeen; as a serene and\nmajestic lady with added years; and finally in deep black and without\nornaments\u2014the costume she always wore after the tragic death of her son\nnine years ago, for her heart broke then, and life lost almost all its\nvalue for her. The people stood grouped before these pictures, and now\nand then one saw women and girls turn away wiping the tears from their\neyes.\n\nIn front of the Krantz is an open square; over the way was the church\nwhere the funeral services would be held. It is small and old and\nseverely plain, plastered outside and whitewashed or painted, and with\nno ornament but a statue of a monk in a niche over the door, and above\nthat a small black flag. But in its crypt lie several of the great dead\nof the House of Habsburg, among them Maria Theresa and Napoleon\u2019s son,\nthe Duke of Reichstadt. Hereabouts was a Roman camp, once, and in it\nthe Emperor Marcus Aurelius died a thousand years before the first\nHabsburg ruled in Vienna, which was six hundred years ago and more.\n\nThe little church is packed in among great modern stores and houses,\nand the windows of them were full of people. Behind the vast\nplate-glass windows of the upper floors of a house on the corner one\nglimpsed terraced masses of fine-clothed men and women, dim and\nshimmery, like people under water. Under us the square was noiseless,\nbut it was full of citizens; officials in fine uniforms were flitting\nabout on errands, and in a doorstep sat a figure in the uttermost\nraggedness of poverty, the feet bare, the head bent humbly down; a\nyouth of eighteen or twenty, he was, and through the field-glass one\ncould see that he was tearing apart and munching riffraff that he had\ngathered somewhere. Blazing uniforms flashed by him, making a sparkling\ncontrast with his drooping ruin of moldy rags, but he took no notice;\nhe was not there to grieve for a nation\u2019s disaster; he had his own\ncares, and deeper. From two directions two long files of infantry came\nplowing through the pack and press in silence; there was a low, crisp\norder and the crowd vanished, the square save the sidewalks was empty,\nthe private mourner was gone. Another order, the soldiers fell apart\nand enclosed the square in a double-ranked human fence. It was all so\nswift, noiseless, exact\u2014like a beautifully ordered machine.\n\nIt was noon, now. Two hours of stillness and waiting followed. Then\ncarriages began to flow past and deliver the two or three hundred court\npersonages and high nobilities privileged to enter the church. Then the\nsquare filled up; not with civilians, but with army and navy officers\nin showy and beautiful uniforms. They filled it compactly, leaving only\na narrow carriage path in front of the church, but there was no\ncivilian among them. And it was better so; dull clothes would have\nmarred the radiant spectacle. In the jam in front of the church, on its\nsteps, and on the sidewalk was a bunch of uniforms which made a blazing\nsplotch of color\u2014intense red, gold, and white\u2014which dimmed the\nbrilliancies around them; and opposite them on the other side of the\npath was a bunch of cascaded bright-green plumes above pale-blue\nshoulders which made another splotch of splendor emphatic and\nconspicuous in its glowing surroundings. It was a sea of flashing color\nall about, but these two groups were the high notes. The green plumes\nwere worn by forty or fifty Austrian generals, the group opposite them\nwere chiefly Knights of Malta and knights of a German order. The mass\nof heads in the square were covered by gilt helmets and by military\ncaps roofed with a mirror-like glaze, and the movements of the wearers\ncaused these things to catch the sun-rays, and the effect was fine to\nsee\u2014the square was like a garden of richly colored flowers with a\nmultitude of blinding and flashing little suns distributed over it.\n\nThink of it\u2014it was by command of that Italian loafer yonder on his\nimperial throne in the Geneva prison that this splendid multitude was\nassembled there; and the kings and emperors that were entering the\nchurch from a side street were there by his will. It is so strange, so\nunrealizable.\n\nAt three o\u2019clock the carriages were still streaming by in single file.\nAt three-five a cardinal arrives with his attendants; later some\nbishops; then a number of archdeacons\u2014all in striking colors that add\nto the show. At three-ten a procession of priests passes along, with\ncrucifix. Another one, presently; after an interval, two more; at\nthree-fifty another one\u2014very long, with many crosses, gold-embroidered\nrobes, and much white lace; also great pictured banners, at intervals,\nreceding into the distance.\n\nA hum of tolling bells makes itself heard, but not sharply. At\nthree-fifty-eight a waiting interval. Presently a long procession of\ngentlemen in evening dress comes in sight and approaches until it is\nnear to the square, then falls back against the wall of soldiers at the\nsidewalk, and the white shirt-fronts show like snowflakes and are very\nconspicuous where so much warm color is all about.\n\nA waiting pause. At four-twelve the head of the funeral procession\ncomes into view at last. First, a body of cavalry, four abreast, to\nwiden the path. Next, a great body of lancers, in blue, with gilt\nhelmets. Next, three six-horse mourning-coaches; outriders and coachmen\nin black, with cocked hats and white wigs. Next, troops in splendid\nuniforms, red, gold, and white, exceedingly showy.\n\nNow the multitude uncover. The soldiers present arms; there is a low\nrumble of drums; the sumptuous great hearse approaches, drawn at a walk\nby eight black horses plumed with black bunches of nodding ostrich\nfeathers; the coffin is borne into the church, the doors are closed.\n\nThe multitude cover their heads, and the rest of the procession moves\nby; first the Hungarian Guard in their indescribably brilliant and\npicturesque and beautiful uniform, inherited from the ages of barbaric\nsplendor, and after them other mounted forces, a long and showy array.\n\nThen the shining crown in the square crumbled apart, a wrecked rainbow,\nand melted away in radiant streams, and in the turn of a wrist the\nthree dirtiest and raggedest and cheerfulest little slum-girls in\nAustria were capering about in the spacious vacancy. It was a day of\ncontrasts.\n\nTwice the Empress entered Vienna in state. The first time was in 1854,\nwhen she was a bride of seventeen, and then she rode in measureless\npomp and with blare of music through a fluttering world of gay flags\nand decorations, down streets walled on both hands with a press of\nshouting and welcoming subjects; and the second time was last\nWednesday, when she entered the city in her coffin and moved down the\nsame streets in the dead of the night under swaying black flags,\nbetween packed human walls again; but everywhere was a deep stillness,\nnow\u2014a stillness emphasized, rather than broken, by the muffled\nhoofbeats of the long cavalcade over pavements cushioned with sand, and\nthe low sobbing of gray-headed women who had witnessed the first entry\nforty-four years before, when she and they were young\u2014and unaware!\n\nA character in Baron von Berger\u2019s recent fairy drama \u201cHabsburg\u201d tells\nabout that first coming of the girlish Empress-Queen, and in his\nhistory draws a fine picture: I cannot make a close translation of it,\nbut will try to convey the spirit of the verses:\n\nI saw the stately pageant pass:\nIn her high place I saw the Empress-Queen:\nI could not take my eyes away\nFrom that fair vision, spirit-like and pure,\nThat rose serene, sublime, and figured to my sense\nA noble Alp far lighted in the blue,\nThat in the flood of morning rends its veil of cloud\nAnd stands a dream of glory to the gaze\nOf them that in the Valley toil and plod.\n\n\n\n\nA SCRAP OF CURIOUS HISTORY\n\n\nMarion City, on the Mississippi River, in the State of Missouri\u2014a\nvillage; time, 1845. La Bourboule-les-Bains, France\u2014a village; time,\nthe end of June, 1894. I was in the one village in that early time; I\nam in the other now. These times and places are sufficiently wide\napart, yet today I have the strange sense of being thrust back into\nthat Missourian village and of reliving certain stirring days that I\nlived there so long ago.\n\nLast Saturday night the life of the President of the French Republic\nwas taken by an Italian assassin. Last night a mob surrounded our\nhotel, shouting, howling, singing the \u201cMarseillaise,\u201d and pelting our\nwindows with sticks and stones; for we have Italian waiters, and the\nmob demanded that they be turned out of the house instantly\u2014to be\ndrubbed, and then driven out of the village. Everybody in the hotel\nremained up until far into the night, and experienced the several kinds\nof terror which one reads about in books which tell of night attacks by\nItalians and by French mobs: the growing roar of the oncoming crowd;\nthe arrival, with rain of stones and a crash of glass; the withdrawal\nto rearrange plans\u2014followed by a silence ominous, threatening, and\nharder to bear than even the active siege and the noise. The landlord\nand the two village policemen stood their ground, and at last the mob\nwas persuaded to go away and leave our Italians in peace. Today four of\nthe ringleaders have been sentenced to heavy punishment of a public\nsort\u2014and are become local heroes, by consequence.\n\nThat is the very mistake which was at first made in the Missourian\nvillage half a century ago. The mistake was repeated and repeated\u2014just\nas France is doing in these latter months.\n\nIn our village we had our Ravochals, our Henrys, our Vaillants; and in\na humble way our Cesario\u2014I hope I have spelled this name wrong. Fifty\nyears ago we passed through, in all essentials, what France has been\npassing through during the past two or three years, in the matter of\nperiodical frights, horrors, and shudderings.\n\nIn several details the parallels are quaintly exact. In that day, for a\nman to speak out openly and proclaim himself an enemy of negro slavery\nwas simply to proclaim himself a madman. For he was blaspheming against\nthe holiest thing known to a Missourian, and could NOT be in his right\nmind. For a man to proclaim himself an anarchist in France, three years\nago, was to proclaim himself a madman\u2014he could not be in his right\nmind.\n\nNow the original old first blasphemer against any institution\nprofoundly venerated by a community is quite sure to be in earnest; his\nfollowers and imitators may be humbugs and self-seekers, but he himself\nis sincere\u2014his heart is in his protest.\n\nRobert Hardy was our first _abolitionist_\u2014awful name! He was a\njourneyman cooper, and worked in the big cooper-shop belonging to the\ngreat pork-packing establishment which was Marion City\u2019s chief pride\nand sole source of prosperity. He was a New-Englander, a stranger. And,\nbeing a stranger, he was of course regarded as an inferior person\u2014for\nthat has been human nature from Adam down\u2014and of course, also, he was\nmade to feel unwelcome, for this is the ancient law with man and the\nother animals. Hardy was thirty years old, and a bachelor; pale, given\nto reverie and reading. He was reserved, and seemed to prefer the\nisolation which had fallen to his lot. He was treated to many side\nremarks by his fellows, but as he did not resent them it was decided\nthat he was a coward.\n\nAll of a sudden he proclaimed himself an abolitionist\u2014straight out and\npublicly! He said that negro slavery was a crime, an infamy. For a\nmoment the town was paralyzed with astonishment; then it broke into a\nfury of rage and swarmed toward the cooper-shop to lynch Hardy. But the\nMethodist minister made a powerful speech to them and stayed their\nhands. He proved to them that Hardy was insane and not responsible for\nhis words; that no man _could _be sane and utter such words.\n\nSo Hardy was saved. Being insane, he was allowed to go on talking. He\nwas found to be good entertainment. Several nights running he made\nabolition speeches in the open air, and all the town flocked to hear\nand laugh. He implored them to believe him sane and sincere, and have\npity on the poor slaves, and take measures for the restoration of their\nstolen rights, or in no long time blood would flow\u2014blood, blood, rivers\nof blood!\n\nIt was great fun. But all of a sudden the aspect of things changed. A\nslave came flying from Palmyra, the county-seat, a few miles back, and\nwas about to escape in a canoe to Illinois and freedom in the dull\ntwilight of the approaching dawn, when the town constable seized him.\nHardy happened along and tried to rescue the negro; there was a\nstruggle, and the constable did not come out of it alive. Hardy crossed\nthe river with the negro, and then came back to give himself up. All\nthis took time, for the Mississippi is not a French brook, like the\nSeine, the Loire, and those other rivulets, but is a real river nearly\na mile wide. The town was on hand in force by now, but the Methodist\npreacher and the sheriff had already made arrangements in the interest\nof order; so Hardy was surrounded by a strong guard and safely conveyed\nto the village calaboose in spite of all the effort of the mob to get\nhold of him. The reader will have begun to perceive that this Methodist\nminister was a prompt man; a prompt man, with active hands and a good\nheadpiece. Williams was his name\u2014Damon Williams; Damon Williams in\npublic, Damnation Williams in private, because he was so powerful on\nthat theme and so frequent.\n\nThe excitement was prodigious. The constable was the first man who had\never been killed in the town. The event was by long odds the most\nimposing in the town\u2019s history. It lifted the humble village into\nsudden importance; its name was in everybody\u2019s mouth for twenty miles\naround. And so was the name of Robert Hardy\u2014Robert Hardy, the stranger,\nthe despised. In a day he was become the person of most consequence in\nthe region, the only person talked about. As to those other coopers,\nthey found their position curiously changed\u2014they were important people,\nor unimportant, now, in proportion as to how large or how small had\nbeen their intercourse with the new celebrity. The two or three who had\nreally been on a sort of familiar footing with him found themselves\nobjects of admiring interest with the public and of envy with their\nshopmates.\n\nThe village weekly journal had lately gone into new hands. The new man\nwas an enterprising fellow, and he made the most of the tragedy. He\nissued an extra. Then he put up posters promising to devote his whole\npaper to matters connected with the great event\u2014there would be a full\nand intensely interesting biography of the murderer, and even a\nportrait of him. He was as good as his word. He carved the portrait\nhimself, on the back of a wooden type\u2014and a terror it was to look at.\nIt made a great commotion, for this was the first time the village\npaper had ever contained a picture. The village was very proud. The\noutput of the paper was ten times as great as it had ever been before,\nyet every copy was sold.\n\nWhen the trial came on, people came from all the farms around, and from\nHannibal, and Quincy, and even from Keokuk; and the court-house could\nhold only a fraction of the crowd that applied for admission. The trial\nwas published in the village paper, with fresh and still more trying\npictures of the accused.\n\nHardy was convicted, and hanged\u2014a mistake. People came from miles\naround to see the hanging; they brought cakes and cider, also the women\nand children, and made a picnic of the matter. It was the largest crowd\nthe village had ever seen. The rope that hanged Hardy was eagerly\nbought up, in inch samples, for everybody wanted a memento of the\nmemorable event.\n\nMartyrdom gilded with notoriety has its fascinations. Within one week\nafterward four young lightweights in the village proclaimed themselves\nabolitionists! In life Hardy had not been able to make a convert;\neverybody laughed at him; but nobody could laugh at his legacy. The\nfour swaggered around with their slouch-hats pulled down over their\nfaces, and hinted darkly at awful possibilities. The people were\ntroubled and afraid, and showed it. And they were stunned, too; they\ncould not understand it. \u201cAbolitionist\u201d had always been a term of shame\nand horror; yet here were four young men who were not only not ashamed\nto bear that name, but were grimly proud of it. Respectable young men\nthey were, too\u2014of good families, and brought up in the church. Ed\nSmith, the printer\u2019s apprentice, nineteen, had been the head\nSunday-school boy, and had once recited three thousand Bible verses\nwithout making a break. Dick Savage, twenty, the baker\u2019s apprentice;\nWill Joyce, twenty-two, journeyman blacksmith; and Henry Taylor,\ntwenty-four, tobacco-stemmer\u2014were the other three. They were all of a\nsentimental cast; they were all romance-readers; they all wrote poetry,\nsuch as it was; they were all vain and foolish; but they had never\nbefore been suspected of having anything bad in them.\n\nThey withdrew from society, and grew more and more mysterious and\ndreadful. They presently achieved the distinction of being denounced by\nnames from the pulpit\u2014which made an immense stir! This was grandeur,\nthis was fame. They were envied by all the other young fellows now.\nThis was natural. Their company grew\u2014grew alarmingly. They took a name.\nIt was a secret name, and was divulged to no outsider; publicly they\nwere simply the abolitionists. They had pass-words, grips, and signs;\nthey had secret meetings; their initiations were conducted with gloomy\npomps and ceremonies, at midnight.\n\nThey always spoke of Hardy as \u201cthe Martyr,\u201d and every little while they\nmoved through the principal street in procession\u2014at midnight,\nblack-robed, masked, to the measured tap of the solemn drum\u2014on\npilgrimage to the Martyr\u2019s grave, where they went through with some\nmajestic fooleries and swore vengeance upon his murderers. They gave\nprevious notice of the pilgrimage by small posters, and warned\neverybody to keep indoors and darken all houses along the route, and\nleave the road empty. These warnings were obeyed, for there was a skull\nand crossbones at the top of the poster.\n\nWhen this kind of thing had been going on about eight weeks, a quite\nnatural thing happened. A few men of character and grit woke up out of\nthe nightmare of fear which had been stupefying their faculties, and\nbegan to discharge scorn and scoffings at themselves and the community\nfor enduring this child\u2019s-play; and at the same time they proposed to\nend it straightway. Everybody felt an uplift; life was breathed into\ntheir dead spirits; their courage rose and they began to feel like men\nagain. This was on a Saturday. All day the new feeling grew and\nstrengthened; it grew with a rush; it brought inspiration and cheer\nwith it. Midnight saw a united community, full of zeal and pluck, and\nwith a clearly defined and welcome piece of work in front of it. The\nbest organizer and strongest and bitterest talker on that great\nSaturday was the Presbyterian clergyman who had denounced the original\nfour from his pulpit\u2014Rev. Hiram Fletcher\u2014and he promised to use his\npulpit in the public interest again now. On the morrow he had\nrevelations to make, he said\u2014secrets of the dreadful society.\n\nBut the revelations were never made. At half past two in the morning\nthe dead silence of the village was broken by a crashing explosion, and\nthe town patrol saw the preacher\u2019s house spring in a wreck of whirling\nfragments into the sky. The preacher was killed, together with a negro\nwoman, his only slave and servant.\n\nThe town was paralyzed again, and with reason. To struggle against a\nvisible enemy is a thing worth while, and there is a plenty of men who\nstand always ready to undertake it; but to struggle against an\ninvisible one\u2014an invisible one who sneaks in and does his awful work in\nthe dark and leaves no trace\u2014that is another matter. That is a thing to\nmake the bravest tremble and hold back.\n\nThe cowed populace were afraid to go to the funeral. The man who was to\nhave had a packed church to hear him expose and denounce the common\nenemy had but a handful to see him buried. The coroner\u2019s jury had\nbrought in a verdict of \u201cdeath by the visitation of God,\u201d for no\nwitness came forward; if any existed they prudently kept out of the\nway. Nobody seemed sorry. Nobody wanted to see the terrible secret\nsociety provoked into the commission of further outrages. Everybody\nwanted the tragedy hushed up, ignored, forgotten, if possible.\n\nAnd so there was a bitter surprise and an unwelcome one when Will\nJoyce, the blacksmith\u2019s journeyman, came out and proclaimed himself the\nassassin! Plainly he was not minded to be robbed of his glory. He made\nhis proclamation, and stuck to it. Stuck to it, and insisted upon a\ntrial. Here was an ominous thing; here was a new and peculiarly\nformidable terror, for a motive was revealed here which society could\nnot hope to deal with successfully\u2014_vanity_, thirst for notoriety. If\nmen were going to kill for notoriety\u2019s sake, and to win the glory of\nnewspaper renown, a big trial, and a showy execution, what possible\ninvention of man could discourage or deter them? The town was in a sort\nof panic; it did not know what to do.\n\nHowever, the grand jury had to take hold of the matter\u2014it had no\nchoice. It brought in a true bill, and presently the case went to the\ncounty court. The trial was a fine sensation. The prisoner was the\nprincipal witness for the prosecution. He gave a full account of the\nassassination; he furnished even the minutest particulars: how he\ndeposited his keg of powder and laid his train\u2014from the house to\nsuch-and-such a spot; how George Ronalds and Henry Hart came along just\nthen, smoking, and he borrowed Hart\u2019s cigar and fired the train with\nit, shouting, \u201cDown with all slave-tyrants!\u201d and how Hart and Ronalds\nmade no effort to capture him, but ran away, and had never come forward\nto testify yet.\n\nBut they had to testify now, and they did\u2014and pitiful it was to see how\nreluctant they were, and how scared. The crowded house listened to\nJoyce\u2019s fearful tale with a profound and breathless interest, and in a\ndeep hush which was not broken till he broke it himself, in concluding,\nwith a roaring repetition of his \u201cDeath to all slave-tyrants!\u201d\u2014which\ncame so unexpectedly and so startlingly that it made everyone present\ncatch his breath and gasp.\n\nThe trial was put in the paper, with biography and large portrait, with\nother slanderous and insane pictures, and the edition sold beyond\nimagination.\n\nThe execution of Joyce was a fine and picturesque thing. It drew a vast\ncrowd. Good places in trees and seats on rail fences sold for half a\ndollar apiece; lemonade and gingerbread-stands had great prosperity.\nJoyce recited a furious and fantastic and denunciatory speech on the\nscaffold which had imposing passages of school-boy eloquence in it, and\ngave him a reputation on the spot as an orator, and his name, later, in\nthe society\u2019s records, of the \u201cMartyr Orator.\u201d He went to his death\nbreathing slaughter and charging his society to \u201cavenge his murder.\u201d If\nhe knew anything of human nature he knew that to plenty of young\nfellows present in that great crowd he was a grand hero\u2014and enviably\nsituated.\n\nHe was hanged. It was a mistake. Within a month from his death the\nsociety which he had honored had twenty new members, some of them\nearnest, determined men. They did not court distinction in the same\nway, but they celebrated his martyrdom. The crime which had been\nobscure and despised had become lofty and glorified.\n\nSuch things were happening all over the country. Wild-brained martyrdom\nwas succeeded by uprising and organization. Then, in natural order,\nfollowed riot, insurrection, and the wrack and restitutions of war. It\nwas bound to come, and it would naturally come in that way. It has been\nthe manner of reform since the beginning of the world.\n\n\n\n\nSWITZERLAND, THE CRADLE OF LIBERTY\n\n\nInterlaken, Switzerland, 1891.\n\nIt is a good many years since I was in Switzerland last. In that remote\ntime there was only one ladder railway in the country. That state of\nthings is all changed. There isn\u2019t a mountain in Switzerland now that\nhasn\u2019t a ladder railroad or two up its back like suspenders; indeed,\nsome mountains are latticed with them, and two years hence all will be.\nIn that day the peasant of the high altitudes will have to carry a\nlantern when he goes visiting in the night to keep from stumbling over\nrailroads that have been built since his last round. And also in that\nday, if there shall remain a high-altitude peasant whose potato-patch\nhasn\u2019t a railroad through it, it will make him as conspicuous as\nWilliam Tell.\n\nHowever, there are only two best ways to travel through Switzerland.\nThe first best is afoot. The second best is by open two-horse carriage.\nOne can come from Lucerne to Interlaken over the Brunig by ladder\nrailroad in an hour or so now, but you can glide smoothly in a carriage\nin ten, and have two hours for luncheon at noon\u2014for luncheon, not for\nrest. There is no fatigue connected with the trip. One arrives fresh in\nspirit and in person in the evening\u2014no fret in his heart, no grime on\nhis face, no grit in his hair, not a cinder in his eye. This is the\nright condition of mind and body, the right and due preparation for the\nsolemn event which closed the day\u2014stepping with metaphorically\nuncovered head into the presence of the most impressive mountain mass\nthat the globe can show\u2014the Jungfrau. The stranger\u2019s first feeling,\nwhen suddenly confronted by that towering and awful apparition wrapped\nin its shroud of snow, is breath-taking astonishment. It is as if\nheaven\u2019s gates had swung open and exposed the throne.\n\nIt is peaceful here and pleasant at Interlaken. Nothing going on\u2014at\nleast nothing but brilliant life-giving sunshine. There are floods and\nfloods of that. One may properly speak of it as \u201cgoing on,\u201d for it is\nfull of the suggestion of activity; the light pours down with energy,\nwith visible enthusiasm. This is a good atmosphere to be in, morally as\nwell as physically. After trying the political atmosphere of the\nneighboring monarchies, it is healing and refreshing to breathe in air\nthat has known no taint of slavery for six hundred years, and to come\namong a people whose political history is great and fine, and worthy to\nbe taught in all schools and studied by all races and peoples. For the\nstruggle here throughout the centuries has not been in the interest of\nany private family, or any church, but in the interest of the whole\nbody of the nation, and for shelter and protection of all forms of\nbelief. This fact is colossal. If one would realize how colossal it is,\nand of what dignity and majesty, let him contrast it with the purposes\nand objects of the Crusades, the siege of York, the War of the Roses,\nand other historic comedies of that sort and size.\n\nLast week I was beating around the Lake of Four Cantons, and I saw\nRutli and Altorf. Rutli is a remote little patch of a meadow, but I do\nnot know how any piece of ground could be holier or better worth\ncrossing oceans and continents to see, since it was there that the\ngreat trinity of Switzerland joined hands six centuries ago and swore\nthe oath which set their enslaved and insulted country forever free;\nand Altorf is also honorable ground and worshipful, since it was there\nthat William, surnamed Tell (which interpreted means \u201cThe foolish\ntalker\u201d\u2014that is to say, the too-daring talker), refused to bow to\nGessler\u2019s hat. Of late years the prying student of history has been\ndelighting himself beyond measure over a wonderful find which he has\nmade\u2014to wit, that Tell did not shoot the apple from his son\u2019s head. To\nhear the students jubilate, one would suppose that the question of\nwhether Tell shot the apple or didn\u2019t was an important matter; whereas\nit ranks in importance exactly with the question of whether Washington\nchopped down the cherry-tree or didn\u2019t. The deeds of Washington, the\npatriot, are the essential thing; the cherry-tree incident is of no\nconsequence. To prove that Tell did shoot the apple from his son\u2019s head\nwould merely prove that he had better nerve than most men and was as\nskillful with a bow as a million others who preceded and followed him,\nbut not one whit more so. But Tell was more and better than a mere\nmarksman, more and better than a mere cool head; he was a type; he\nstands for Swiss patriotism; in his person was represented a whole\npeople; his spirit was their spirit\u2014the spirit which would bow to none\nbut God, the spirit which said this in words and confirmed it with\ndeeds. There have always been Tells in Switzerland\u2014people who would not\nbow. There was a sufficiency of them at Rutli; there were plenty of\nthem at Murten; plenty at Grandson; there are plenty today. And the\nfirst of them all\u2014the very first, earliest banner-bearer of human\nfreedom in this world\u2014was not a man, but a woman\u2014Stauffacher\u2019s wife.\nThere she looms dim and great, through the haze of the centuries,\ndelivering into her husband\u2019s ear that gospel of revolt which was to\nbear fruit in the conspiracy of Rutli and the birth of the first free\ngovernment the world had ever seen.\n\nFrom this Victoria Hotel one looks straight across a flat of trifling\nwidth to a lofty mountain barrier, which has a gateway in it shaped\nlike an inverted pyramid. Beyond this gateway arises the vast bulk of\nthe Jungfrau, a spotless mass of gleaming snow, into the sky. The\ngateway, in the dark-colored barrier, makes a strong frame for the\ngreat picture. The somber frame and the glowing snow-pile are\nstartlingly contrasted. It is this frame which concentrates and\nemphasizes the glory of the Jungfrau and makes it the most engaging and\nbeguiling and fascinating spectacle that exists on the earth. There are\nmany mountains of snow that are as lofty as the Jungfrau and as nobly\nproportioned, but they lack the frame. They stand at large; they are\nintruded upon and elbowed by neighboring domes and summits, and their\ngrandeur is diminished and fails of effect.\n\nIt is a good name, Jungfrau\u2014Virgin. Nothing could be whiter; nothing\ncould be purer; nothing could be saintlier of aspect. At six yesterday\nevening the great intervening barrier seen through a faint bluish haze\nseemed made of air and substanceless, so soft and rich it was, so\nshimmering where the wandering lights touched it and so dim where the\nshadows lay. Apparently it was a dream stuff, a work of the\nimagination, nothing real about it. The tint was green, slightly\nvarying shades of it, but mainly very dark. The sun was down\u2014as far as\nthat barrier was concerned, but not for the Jungfrau, towering into the\nheavens beyond the gateway. She was a roaring conflagration of blinding\nwhite.\n\nIt is said the Fridolin (the old Fridolin), a new saint, but formerly a\nmissionary, gave the mountain its gracious name. He was an Irishman,\nson of an Irish king\u2014there were thirty thousand kings reigning in\nCounty Cork alone in his time, fifteen hundred years ago. It got so\nthat they could not make a living, there was so much competition and\nwages got cut so. Some of them were out of work months at a time, with\nwife and little children to feed, and not a crust in the place. At last\na particularly severe winter fell upon the country, and hundreds of\nthem were reduced to mendicancy and were to be seen day after day in\nthe bitterest weather, standing barefoot in the snow, holding out their\ncrowns for alms. Indeed, they would have been obliged to emigrate or\nstarve but for a fortunate idea of Prince Fridolin\u2019s, who started a\nlabor-union, the first one in history, and got the great bulk of them\nto join it. He thus won the general gratitude, and they wanted to make\nhim emperor\u2014emperor over them all\u2014emperor of County Cork, but he said,\nNo, walking delegate was good enough for him. For behold! he was modest\nbeyond his years, and keen as a whip. To this day in Germany and\nSwitzerland, where St. Fridolin is revered and honored, the peasantry\nspeak of him affectionately as the first walking delegate.\n\nThe first walk he took was into France and Germany, missionarying\u2014for\nmissionarying was a better thing in those days than it is in ours. All\nyou had to do was to cure the head savage\u2019s sick daughter by a\n\u201cmiracle\u201d\u2014a miracle like the miracle of Lourdes in our day, for\ninstance\u2014and immediately that head savage was your convert, and filled\nto the eyes with a new convert\u2019s enthusiasm. You could sit down and\nmake yourself easy, now. He would take an ax and convert the rest of\nthe nation himself. Charlemagne was that kind of a walking delegate.\n\nYes, there were great missionaries in those days, for the methods were\nsure and the rewards great. We have no such missionaries now, and no\nsuch methods.\n\nBut to continue the history of the first walking delegate, if you are\ninterested. I am interested myself because I have seen his relics in\nSackingen, and also the very spot where he worked his great miracle\u2014the\none which won him his sainthood in the papal court a few centuries\nlater. To have seen these things makes me feel very near to him, almost\nlike a member of the family, in fact. While wandering about the\nContinent he arrived at the spot on the Rhine which is now occupied by\nSackingen, and proposed to settle there, but the people warned him off.\nHe appealed to the king of the Franks, who made him a present of the\nwhole region, people and all. He built a great cloister there for women\nand proceeded to teach in it and accumulate more land. There were two\nwealthy brothers in the neighborhood, Urso and Landulph. Urso died and\nFridolin claimed his estates. Landulph asked for documents and papers.\nFridolin had none to show. He said the bequest had been made to him by\nword of mouth. Landulph suggested that he produce a witness and said it\nin a way which he thought was very witty, very sarcastic. This shows\nthat he did not know the walking delegate. Fridolin was not disturbed.\nHe said:\n\n\u201cAppoint your court. I will bring a witness.\u201d\n\nThe court thus created consisted of fifteen counts and barons. A day\nwas appointed for the trial of the case. On that day the judges took\ntheir seats in state, and proclamation was made that the court was\nready for business. Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes passed,\nand yet no Fridolin appeared. Landulph rose, and was in the act of\nclaiming judgment by default when a strange clacking sound was heard\ncoming up the stairs. In another moment Fridolin entered at the door\nand came walking in a deep hush down the middle aisle, with a tall\nskeleton stalking in his rear.\n\nAmazement and terror sat upon every countenance, for everybody\nsuspected that the skeleton was Urso\u2019s. It stopped before the chief\njudge and raised its bony arm aloft and began to speak, while all the\nassembly shuddered, for they could see the words leak out between its\nribs. It said:\n\n\u201cBrother, why dost thou disturb my blessed rest and withhold by robbery\nthe gift which I gave thee for the honor of God?\u201d\n\nIt seems a strange thing and most irregular, but the verdict was\nactually given against Landulph on the testimony of this wandering\nrack-heap of unidentified bones. In our day a skeleton would not be\nallowed to testify at all, for a skeleton has no moral responsibility,\nand its word could not be believed on oath, and this was probably one\nof them. Most skeletons are not to be believed on oath, and this was\nprobably one of them. However, the incident is valuable as preserving\nto us a curious sample of the quaint laws of evidence of that remote\ntime--a time so remote, so far back toward the beginning of original\nidiocy, that the difference between a bench of judges and a basket of\nvegetables was as yet so slight that we may say with all confidence\nthat it didn\u2019t really exist.\n\nDuring several afternoons I have been engaged in an interesting, maybe\nuseful, piece of work\u2014that is to say, I have been trying to make the\nmighty Jungfrau earn her living\u2014earn it in a most humble sphere, but on\na prodigious scale, on a prodigious scale of necessity, for she\ncouldn\u2019t do anything in a small way with her size and style. I have\nbeen trying to make her do service on a stupendous dial and check off\nthe hours as they glide along her pallid face up there against the sky,\nand tell the time of day to the populations lying within fifty miles of\nher and to the people in the moon, if they have a good telescope there.\n\nUntil late in the afternoon the Jungfrau\u2019s aspect is that of a spotless\ndesert of snow set upon edge against the sky. But by mid-afternoon some\nelevations which rise out of the western border of the desert, whose\npresence you perhaps had not detected or suspected up to that time,\nbegan to cast black shadows eastward across the gleaming surface. At\nfirst there is only one shadow; later there are two. Toward 4 P.M. the\nother day I was gazing and worshiping as usual when I chanced to notice\nthat shadow No. 1 was beginning to take itself something of the shape\nof the human profile. By four the back of the head was good, the\nmilitary cap was pretty good, the nose was bold and strong, the upper\nlip sharp, but not pretty, and there was a great goatee that shot\nstraight aggressively forward from the chin.\n\nAt four-thirty the nose had changed its shape considerably, and the\naltered slant of the sun had revealed and made conspicuous a huge\nbuttress or barrier of naked rock which was so located as to answer\nvery well for a shoulder or coat-collar to this swarthy and indiscreet\nsweetheart who had stolen out there right before everybody to pillow\nhis head on the Virgin\u2019s white breast and whisper soft sentimentalities\nto her in the sensuous music of the crashing ice-domes and the boom and\nthunder of the passing avalanche\u2014music very familiar to his ear, for he\nhas heard it every afternoon at this hour since the day he first came\ncourting this child of the earth, who lives in the sky, and that day is\nfar, yes\u2014for he was at this pleasant sport before the Middle Ages\ndrifted by him in the valley; before the Romans marched past, and\nbefore the antique and recordless barbarians fished and hunted here and\nwondered who he might be, and were probably afraid of him; and before\nprimeval man himself, just emerged from his four-footed estate, stepped\nout upon this plain, first sample of his race, a thousand centuries\nago, and cast a glad eye up there, judging he had found a brother human\nbeing and consequently something to kill; and before the big saurians\nwallowed here, still some eons earlier. Oh yes, a day so far back that\nthe eternal son was present to see that first visit; a day so far back\nthat neither tradition nor history was born yet and a whole weary\neternity must come and go before the restless little creature, of whose\nface this stupendous Shadow Face was the prophecy, would arrive in the\nearth and begin his shabby career and think it a big thing. Oh, indeed\nyes; when you talk about your poor Roman and Egyptian\nday-before-yesterday antiquities, you should choose a time when the\nhoary Shadow Face of the Jungfrau is not by. It antedates all\nantiquities known or imaginable; for it was here the world itself\ncreated the theater of future antiquities. And it is the only witness\nwith a human face that was there to see the marvel, and remains to us a\nmemorial of it.\n\nBy 4:40 P.M. the nose of the shadow is perfect and is beautiful. It is\nblack and is powerfully marked against the upright canvas of glowing\nsnow, and covers hundreds of acres of that resplendent surface.\n\nMeantime shadow No. 2 has been creeping out well to the rear of the\nface west of it\u2014and at five o\u2019clock has assumed a shape that has rather\na poor and rude semblance of a shoe.\n\nMeantime, also, the great Shadow Face has been gradually changing for\ntwenty minutes, and now, 5 P.M., it is becoming a quite fair portrait\nof Roscoe Conkling. The likeness is there, and is unmistakable. The\ngoatee is shortened, now, and has an end; formerly it hadn\u2019t any, but\nran off eastward and arrived nowhere.\n\nBy 6 P.M. the face has dissolved and gone, and the goatee has become\nwhat looks like the shadow of a tower with a pointed roof, and the shoe\nhad turned into what the printers call a \u201cfist\u201d with a finger pointing.\n\nIf I were now imprisoned on a mountain summit a hundred miles northward\nof this point, and was denied a timepiece, I could get along well\nenough from four till six on clear days, for I could keep trace of the\ntime by the changing shapes of these mighty shadows on the Virgin\u2019s\nfront, the most stupendous dial I am acquainted with, the oldest clock\nin the world by a couple of million years.\n\nI suppose I should not have noticed the forms of the shadows if I\nhadn\u2019t the habit of hunting for faces in the clouds and in mountain\ncrags\u2014a sort of amusement which is very entertaining even when you\ndon\u2019t find any, and brilliantly satisfying when you do. I have searched\nthrough several bushels of photographs of the Jungfrau here, but found\nonly one with the Face in it, and in this case it was not strictly\nrecognizable as a face, which was evidence that the picture was taken\nbefore four o\u2019clock in the afternoon, and also evidence that all the\nphotographers have persistently overlooked one of the most fascinating\nfeatures of the Jungfrau show. I say fascinating, because if you once\ndetect a human face produced on a great plan by unconscious nature, you\nnever get tired of watching it. At first you can\u2019t make another person\nsee it at all, but after he has made it out once he can\u2019t see anything\nelse afterward.\n\nThe King of Greece is a man who goes around quietly enough when off\nduty. One day this summer he was traveling in an ordinary first-class\ncompartment, just in his other suit, the one which he works the realm\nin when he is at home, and so he was not looking like anybody in\nparticular, but a good deal like everybody in general. By and by a\nhearty and healthy German-American got in and opened up a frank and\ninteresting and sympathetic conversation with him, and asked him a\ncouple of thousand questions about himself, which the king answered\ngood-naturedly, but in a more or less indefinite way as to private\nparticulars.\n\n\u201cWhere do you live when you are at home?\u201d\n\n\u201cIn Greece.\u201d\n\n\u201cGreece! Well, now, that is just astonishing! Born there?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you speak Greek?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes.\u201d\n\n\u201cNow, ain\u2019t that strange! I never expected to live to see that. What is\nyour trade? I mean how do you get your living? What is your line of\nbusiness?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, I hardly know how to answer. I am only a kind of foreman, on a\nsalary; and the business\u2014well, is a very general kind of business.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, I understand\u2014general jobbing\u2014little of everything\u2014anything that\nthere\u2019s money in.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s about it, yes.\u201d\n\n\u201cAre you traveling for the house now?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, partly; but not entirely. Of course I do a stroke of business if\nit falls in the way\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cGood! I like that in you! That\u2019s me every time. Go on.\u201d\n\n\u201cI was only going to say I am off on my vacation now.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell that\u2019s all right. No harm in that. A man works all the better for\na little let-up now and then. Not that I\u2019ve been used to having it\nmyself; for I haven\u2019t. I reckon this is my first. I was born in\nGermany, and when I was a couple of weeks old shipped for America, and\nI\u2019ve been there ever since, and that\u2019s sixty-four years by the watch.\nI\u2019m an American in principle and a German at heart, and it\u2019s the boss\ncombination. Well, how do you get along, as a rule\u2014pretty fair?\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve a rather large family\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cThere, that\u2019s it\u2014big family and trying to raise them on a salary. Now,\nwhat did you go to do that for?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, I thought\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cOf course you did. You were young and confident and thought you could\nbranch out and make things go with a whirl, and here you are, you see!\nBut never mind about that. I\u2019m not trying to discourage you. Dear me!\nI\u2019ve been just where you are myself! You\u2019ve got good grit; there\u2019s good\nstuff in you, I can see that. You got a wrong start, that\u2019s the whole\ntrouble. But you hold your grip, and we\u2019ll see what can be done. Your\ncase ain\u2019t half as bad as it might be. You are going to come out all\nright\u2014I\u2019m bail for that. Boys and girls?\u201d\n\n\u201cMy family? Yes, some of them are boys\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd the rest girls. It\u2019s just as I expected. But that\u2019s all right, and\nit\u2019s better so, anyway. What are the boys doing\u2014learning a trade?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, no\u2014I thought\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a great mistake. It\u2019s the biggest mistake you ever made. You see\nthat in your own case. A man ought always to have a trade to fall back\non. Now, I was harness-maker at first. Did that prevent me from\nbecoming one of the biggest brewers in America? Oh no. I always had the\nharness trick to fall back on in rough weather. Now, if you had learned\nhow to make harness\u2014However, it\u2019s too late now; too late. But it\u2019s no\ngood plan to cry over spilt milk. But as to the boys, you see\u2014what\u2019s to\nbecome of them if anything happens to you?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt has been my idea to let the eldest one succeed me\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, come! Suppose the firm don\u2019t want him?\u201d\n\n\u201cI hadn\u2019t thought of that, but\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cNow, look here; you want to get right down to business and stop\ndreaming. You are capable of immense things\u2014man. You can make a perfect\nsuccess in life. All you want is somebody to steady you and boost you\nalong on the right road. Do you own anything in the business?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo\u2014not exactly; but if I continue to give satisfaction, I suppose I\ncan keep my\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cKeep your place\u2014yes. Well, don\u2019t you depend on anything of the kind.\nThey\u2019ll bounce you the minute you get a little old and worked out;\nthey\u2019ll do it sure. Can\u2019t you manage somehow to get into the firm?\nThat\u2019s the great thing, you know.\u201d\n\n\u201cI think it is doubtful; very doubtful.\u201d\n\n\u201cUm\u2014that\u2019s bad\u2014yes, and unfair, too. Do you suppose that if I should go\nthere and have a talk with your people\u2014Look here\u2014do you think you could\nrun a brewery?\u201d\n\n\u201cI have never tried, but I think I could do it after I got a little\nfamiliarity with the business.\u201d\n\nThe German was silent for some time. He did a good deal of thinking,\nand the king waited with curiosity to see what the result was going to\nbe. Finally the German said:\n\n\u201cMy mind\u2019s made up. You leave that crowd\u2014you\u2019ll never amount to\nanything there. In these old countries they never give a fellow a show.\nYes, you come over to America\u2014come to my place in Rochester; bring the\nfamily along. You shall have a show in the business and the\nforemanship, besides. George\u2014you said your name was George?\u2014I\u2019ll make a\nman of you. I give you my word. You\u2019ve never had a chance here, but\nthat\u2019s all going to change. By gracious! I\u2019ll give you a lift that\u2019ll\nmake your hair curl!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nAT THE SHRINE OF ST. WAGNER\n\n\nBayreuth, Aug. 2d, 1891\n\nIt was at Nuremberg that we struck the inundation of music-mad\nstrangers that was rolling down upon Bayreuth. It had been long since\nwe had seen such multitudes of excited and struggling people. It took a\ngood half-hour to pack them and pair them into the train\u2014and it was the\nlongest train we have yet seen in Europe. Nuremberg had been witnessing\nthis sort of experience a couple of times a day for about two weeks. It\ngives one an impressive sense of the magnitude of this biennial\npilgrimage. For a pilgrimage is what it is. The devotees come from the\nvery ends of the earth to worship their prophet in his own Kaaba in his\nown Mecca.\n\nIf you are living in New York or San Francisco or Chicago or anywhere\nelse in America, and you conclude, by the middle of May, that you would\nlike to attend the Bayreuth opera two months and a half later, you must\nuse the cable and get about it immediately or you will get no seats,\nand you must cable for lodgings, too. Then if you are lucky you will\nget seats in the last row and lodgings in the fringe of the town. If\nyou stop to write you will get nothing. There were plenty of people in\nNuremberg when we passed through who had come on pilgrimage without\nfirst securing seats and lodgings. They had found neither in Bayreuth;\nthey had walked Bayreuth streets a while in sorrow, then had gone to\nNuremberg and found neither beds nor standing room, and had walked\nthose quaint streets all night, waiting for the hotels to open and\nempty their guests into the trains, and so make room for these, their\ndefeated brethren and sisters in the faith. They had endured from\nthirty to forty hours\u2019 railroading on the continent of Europe\u2014with all\nwhich that implies of worry, fatigue, and financial impoverishment\u2014and\nall they had got and all they were to get for it was handiness and\naccuracy in kicking themselves, acquired by practice in the back\nstreets of the two towns when other people were in bed; for back they\nmust go over that unspeakable journey with their pious mission\nunfulfilled. These humiliated outcasts had the frowsy and unbrushed and\napologetic look of wet cats, and their eyes were glazed with\ndrowsiness, their bodies were adroop from crown to sole, and all\nkind-hearted people refrained from asking them if they had been to\nBayreuth and failed to connect, as knowing they would lie.\n\nWe reached here (Bayreuth) about mid-afternoon of a rainy Saturday. We\nwere of the wise, and had secured lodgings and opera seats months in\nadvance.\n\nI am not a musical critic, and did not come here to write essays about\nthe operas and deliver judgment upon their merits. The little children\nof Bayreuth could do that with a finer sympathy and a broader\nintelligence than I. I only care to bring four or five pilgrims to the\noperas, pilgrims able to appreciate them and enjoy them. What I write\nabout the performance to put in my odd time would be offered to the\npublic as merely a cat\u2019s view of a king, and not of didactic value.\n\nNext day, which was Sunday, we left for the opera-house\u2014that is to say,\nthe Wagner temple\u2014a little after the middle of the afternoon. The great\nbuilding stands all by itself, grand and lonely, on a high ground\noutside the town. We were warned that if we arrived after four o\u2019clock\nwe should be obliged to pay two dollars and a half apiece extra by way\nof fine. We saved that; and it may be remarked here that this is the\nonly opportunity that Europe offers of saving money. There was a big\ncrowd in the grounds about the building, and the ladies\u2019 dresses took\nthe sun with fine effect. I do not mean to intimate that the ladies\nwere in full dress, for that was not so. The dresses were pretty, but\nneither sex was in evening dress.\n\nThe interior of the building is simple\u2014severely so; but there is no\noccasion for color and decoration, since the people sit in the dark.\nThe auditorium has the shape of a keystone, with the stage at the\nnarrow end. There is an aisle on each side, but no aisle in the body of\nthe house. Each row of seats extends in an unbroken curve from one side\nof the house to the other. There are seven entrance doors on each side\nof the theater and four at the butt, eighteen doors to admit and emit\n1,650 persons. The number of the particular door by which you are to\nenter the house or leave it is printed on your ticket, and you can use\nno door but that one. Thus, crowding and confusion are impossible. Not\nso many as a hundred people use any one door. This is better than\nhaving the usual (and useless) elaborate fireproof arrangements. It is\nthe model theater of the world. It can be emptied while the second hand\nof a watch makes its circuit. It would be entirely safe, even if it\nwere built of lucifer matches.\n\nIf your seat is near the center of a row and you enter late you must\nwork your way along a rank of about twenty-five ladies and gentlemen to\nget to it. Yet this causes no trouble, for everybody stands up until\nall the seats are full, and the filling is accomplished in a very few\nminutes. Then all sit down, and you have a solid mass of fifteen\nhundred heads, making a steep cellar-door slant from the rear of the\nhouse down to the stage.\n\nAll the lights were turned low, so low that the congregation sat in a\ndeep and solemn gloom. The funereal rustling of dresses and the low\nbuzz of conversation began to die swiftly down, and presently not the\nghost of a sound was left. This profound and increasingly impressive\nstillness endured for some time\u2014the best preparation for music,\nspectacle, or speech conceivable. I should think our show people would\nhave invented or imported that simple and impressive device for\nsecuring and solidifying the attention of an audience long ago; instead\nof which they continue to this day to open a performance against a\ndeadly competition in the form of noise, confusion, and a scattered\ninterest.\n\nFinally, out of darkness and distance and mystery soft rich notes rose\nupon the stillness, and from his grave the dead magician began to weave\nhis spells about his disciples and steep their souls in his\nenchantments. There was something strangely impressive in the fancy\nwhich kept intruding itself that the composer was conscious in his\ngrave of what was going on here, and that these divine sounds were the\nclothing of thoughts which were at this moment passing through his\nbrain, and not recognized and familiar ones which had issued from it at\nsome former time.\n\nThe entire overture, long as it was, was played to a dark house with\nthe curtain down. It was exquisite; it was delicious. But straightway\nthereafter, of course, came the singing, and it does seem to me that\nnothing can make a Wagner opera absolutely perfect and satisfactory to\nthe untutored but to leave out the vocal parts. I wish I could see a\nWagner opera done in pantomime once. Then one would have the lovely\norchestration unvexed to listen to and bathe his spirit in, and the\nbewildering beautiful scenery to intoxicate his eyes with, and the dumb\nacting couldn\u2019t mar these pleasures, because there isn\u2019t often anything\nin the Wagner opera that one would call by such a violent name as\nacting; as a rule all you would see would be a couple of silent people,\none of them standing still, the other catching flies. Of course I do\nnot really mean that he would be catching flies; I only mean that the\nusual operatic gestures which consist in reaching first one hand out\ninto the air and then the other might suggest the sport I speak of if\nthe operator attended strictly to business and uttered no sound.\n\nThis present opera was \u201cParsifal.\u201d Madame Wagner does not permit its\nrepresentation anywhere but in Bayreuth. The first act of the three\noccupied two hours, and I enjoyed that in spite of the singing.\n\nI trust that I know as well as anybody that singing is one of the most\nentrancing and bewitching and moving and eloquent of all the vehicles\ninvented by man for the conveying of feeling; but it seems to me that\nthe chief virtue in song is melody, air, tune, rhythm, or what you\nplease to call it, and that when this feature is absent what remains is\na picture with the color left out. I was not able to detect in the\nvocal parts of \u201cParsifal\u201d anything that might with confidence be called\nrhythm or tune or melody; one person performed at a time\u2014and a long\ntime, too\u2014often in a noble, and always in a high-toned, voice; but he\nonly pulled out long notes, then some short ones, then another long\none, then a sharp, quick, peremptory bark or two\u2014and so on and so on;\nand when he was done you saw that the information which he had conveyed\nhad not compensated for the disturbance. Not always, but pretty often.\nIf two of them would but put in a duet occasionally and blend the\nvoices; but no, they don\u2019t do that. The great master, who knew so well\nhow to make a hundred instruments rejoice in unison and pour out their\nsouls in mingled and melodious tides of delicious sound, deals only in\nbarren solos when he puts in the vocal parts. It may be that he was\ndeep, and only added the singing to his operas for the sake of the\ncontrast it would make with the music. Singing! It does seem the wrong\nname to apply to it. Strictly described, it is a practicing of\ndifficult and unpleasant intervals, mainly. An ignorant person gets\ntired of listening to gymnastic intervals in the long run, no matter\nhow pleasant they may be. In \u201cParsifal\u201d there is a hermit named\nGurnemanz who stands on the stage in one spot and practices by the\nhour, while first one and then another character of the cast endures\nwhat he can of it and then retires to die.\n\nDuring the evening there was an intermission of three-quarters of an\nhour after the first act and one an hour long after the second. In both\ninstances the theater was totally emptied. People who had previously\nengaged tables in the one sole eating-house were able to put in their\ntime very satisfactorily; the other thousand went hungry. The opera was\nconcluded at ten in the evening or a little later. When we reached home\nwe had been gone more than seven hours. Seven hours at five dollars a\nticket is almost too much for the money.\n\nWhile browsing about the front yard among the crowd between the acts I\nencountered twelve or fifteen friends from different parts of America,\nand those of them who were most familiar with Wagner said that\n\u201cParsifal\u201d seldom pleased at first, but that after one had heard it\nseveral times it was almost sure to become a favorite. It seemed\nimpossible, but it was true, for the statement came from people whose\nword was not to be doubted.\n\nAnd I gathered some further information. On the ground I found part of\na German musical magazine, and in it a letter written by Uhlic\nthirty-three years ago, in which he defends the scorned and abused\nWagner against people like me, who found fault with the comprehensive\nabsence of what our kind regards as singing. Uhlic says Wagner despised\n\u201c_jene plapperude music_,\u201d and therefore \u201cruns, trills, and _Schnorkel\n_are discarded by him.\u201d I don\u2019t know what a _Schnorkel _is, but now\nthat I know it has been left out of these operas I never have missed so\nmuch in my life. And Uhlic further says that Wagner\u2019s song is true:\nthat it is \u201csimply emphasized intoned speech.\u201d That certainly describes\nit\u2014in \u201cParsifal\u201d and some of the other operas; and if I understand\nUhlic\u2019s elaborate German he apologizes for the beautiful airs in\n\u201cTannhauser.\u201d Very well; now that Wagner and I understand each other,\nperhaps we shall get along better, and I shall stop calling Waggner, on\nthe American plan, and thereafter call him Waggner as per German\ncustom, for I feel entirely friendly now. The minute we get reconciled\nto a person, how willing we are to throw aside little needless\npunctilios and pronounce his name right!\n\nOf course I came home wondering why people should come from all corners\nof America to hear these operas, when we have lately had a season or\ntwo of them in New York with these same singers in the several parts,\nand possibly this same orchestra. I resolved to think that out at all\nhazards.\n\nTUESDAY.\u2014Yesterday they played the only operatic favorite I have ever\nhad\u2014an opera which has always driven me mad with ignorant delight\nwhenever I have heard it\u2014\u201cTannhauser.\u201d I heard it first when I was a\nyouth; I heard it last in the last German season in New York. I was\nbusy yesterday and I did not intend to go, knowing I should have\nanother \u201cTannhauser\u201d opportunity in a few days; but after five o\u2019clock\nI found myself free and walked out to the opera-house and arrived about\nthe beginning of the second act. My opera ticket admitted me to the\ngrounds in front, past the policeman and the chain, and I thought I\nwould take a rest on a bench for an hour and two and wait for the third\nact.\n\nIn a moment or so the first bugles blew, and the multitude began to\ncrumble apart and melt into the theater. I will explain that this\nbugle-call is one of the pretty features here. You see, the theater is\nempty, and hundreds of the audience are a good way off in the\nfeeding-house; the first bugle-call is blown about a quarter of an hour\nbefore time for the curtain to rise. This company of buglers, in\nuniform, march out with military step and send out over the landscape a\nfew bars of the theme of the approaching act, piercing the distances\nwith the gracious notes; then they march to the other entrance and\nrepeat. Presently they do this over again. Yesterday only about two\nhundred people were still left in front of the house when the second\ncall was blown; in another half-minute they would have been in the\nhouse, but then a thing happened which delayed them\u2014the only solitary\nthing in this world which could be relied on with certainty to\naccomplish this, I suppose\u2014an imperial princess appeared in the balcony\nabove them. They stopped dead in their tracks and began to gaze in a\nstupor of gratitude and satisfaction. The lady presently saw that she\nmust disappear or the doors would be closed upon these worshipers, so\nshe returned to her box. This daughter-in-law of an emperor was pretty;\nshe had a kind face; she was without airs; she is known to be full of\ncommon human sympathies. There are many kinds of princesses, but this\nkind is the most harmful of all, for wherever they go they reconcile\npeople to monarchy and set back the clock of progress. The valuable\nprinces, the desirable princes, are the czars and their sort. By their\nmere dumb presence in the world they cover with derision every argument\nthat can be invented in favor of royalty by the most ingenious casuist.\nIn his time the husband of this princess was valuable. He led a\ndegraded life, he ended it with his own hand in circumstances and\nsurroundings of a hideous sort, and was buried like a god.\n\nIn the opera-house there is a long loft back of the audience, a kind of\nopen gallery, in which princes are displayed. It is sacred to them; it\nis the holy of holies. As soon as the filling of the house is about\ncomplete the standing multitude turn and fix their eyes upon the\nprincely layout and gaze mutely and longingly and adoringly and\nregretfully like sinners looking into heaven. They become rapt,\nunconscious, steeped in worship. There is no spectacle anywhere that is\nmore pathetic than this. It is worth crossing many oceans to see. It is\nsomehow not the same gaze that people rivet upon a Victor Hugo, or\nNiagara, or the bones of the mastodon, or the guillotine of the\nRevolution, or the great pyramid, or distant Vesuvius smoking in the\nsky, or any man long celebrated to you by his genius and achievements,\nor thing long celebrated to you by the praises of books and\npictures\u2014no, that gaze is only the gaze of intense curiosity, interest,\nwonder, engaged in drinking delicious deep draughts that taste good all\nthe way down and appease and satisfy the thirst of a lifetime. Satisfy\nit\u2014that is the word. Hugo and the mastodon will still have a degree of\nintense interest thereafter when encountered, but never anything\napproaching the ecstasy of that first view. The interest of a prince is\ndifferent. It may be envy, it may be worship, doubtless it is a mixture\nof both\u2014and it does not satisfy its thirst with one view, or even\nnoticeably diminish it. Perhaps the essence of the thing is the value\nwhich men attach to a valuable something which has come by luck and not\nbeen earned. A dollar picked up in the road is more satisfaction to you\nthan the ninety-and-nine which you had to work for, and money won at\nfaro or in stocks snuggles into your heart in the same way. A prince\npicks up grandeur, power, and a permanent holiday and gratis support by\na pure accident, the accident of birth, and he stands always before the\ngrieved eye of poverty and obscurity a monumental representative of\nluck. And then\u2014supremest value of all-his is the only high fortune on\nthe earth which is secure. The commercial millionaire may become a\nbeggar; the illustrious statesman can make a vital mistake and be\ndropped and forgotten; the illustrious general can lose a decisive\nbattle and with it the consideration of men; but once a prince always a\nprince\u2014that is to say, an imitation god, and neither hard fortune nor\nan infamous character nor an addled brain nor the speech of an ass can\nundeify him. By common consent of all the nations and all the ages the\nmost valuable thing in this world is the homage of men, whether\ndeserved or undeserved. It follows without doubt or question, then,\nthat the most desirable position possible is that of a prince. And I\nthink it also follows that the so-called usurpations with which history\nis littered are the most excusable misdemeanors which men have\ncommitted. To usurp a usurpation\u2014that is all it amounts to, isn\u2019t it?\n\nA prince is not to us what he is to a European, of course. We have not\nbeen taught to regard him as a god, and so one good look at him is\nlikely to so nearly appease our curiosity as to make him an object of\nno greater interest the next time. We want a fresh one. But it is not\nso with the European. I am quite sure of it. The same old one will\nanswer; he never stales. Eighteen years ago I was in London and I\ncalled at an Englishman\u2019s house on a bleak and foggy and dismal\nDecember afternoon to visit his wife and married daughter by\nappointment. I waited half an hour and then they arrived, frozen. They\nexplained that they had been delayed by an unlooked-for circumstance:\nwhile passing in the neighborhood of Marlborough House they saw a crowd\ngathering and were told that the Prince of Wales was about to drive\nout, so they stopped to get a sight of him. They had waited half an\nhour on the sidewalk, freezing with the crowd, but were disappointed at\nlast\u2014the Prince had changed his mind. I said, with a good deal of\nsurprise, \u201cIs it possible that you two have lived in London all your\nlives and have never seen the Prince of Wales?\u201d\n\nApparently it was their turn to be surprised, for they exclaimed: \u201cWhat\nan idea! Why, we have seen him hundreds of times.\u201d\n\nThey had seen him hundreds of times, yet they had waited half an hour\nin the gloom and the bitter cold, in the midst of a jam of patients\nfrom the same asylum, on the chance of seeing him again. It was a\nstupefying statement, but one is obliged to believe the English, even\nwhen they say a thing like that. I fumbled around for a remark, and got\nout this one:\n\n\u201cI can\u2019t understand it at all. If I had never seen General Grant I\ndoubt if I would do that even to get a sight of him.\u201d With a slight\nemphasis on the last word.\n\nTheir blank faces showed that they wondered where the parallel came in.\nThen they said, blankly: \u201cOf course not. He is only a President.\u201d\n\nIt is doubtless a fact that a prince is a permanent interest, an\ninterest not subject to deterioration. The general who was never\ndefeated, the general who never held a council of war, the only general\nwho ever commanded a connected battle-front twelve hundred miles long,\nthe smith who welded together the broken parts of a great republic and\nre-established it where it is quite likely to outlast all the\nmonarchies present and to come, was really a person of no serious\nconsequence to these people. To them, with their training, my General\nwas only a man, after all, while their Prince was clearly much more\nthan that\u2014a being of a wholly unsimilar construction and constitution,\nand being of no more blood and kinship with men than are the serene\neternal lights of the firmament with the poor dull tallow candles of\ncommerce that sputter and die and leave nothing behind but a pinch of\nashes and a stink.\n\nI saw the last act of \u201cTannhauser.\u201d I sat in the gloom and the deep\nstillness, waiting\u2014one minute, two minutes, I do not know exactly how\nlong\u2014then the soft music of the hidden orchestra began to breathe its\nrich, long sighs out from under the distant stage, and by and by the\ndrop-curtain parted in the middle and was drawn softly aside,\ndisclosing the twilighted wood and a wayside shrine, with a white-robed\ngirl praying and a man standing near. Presently that noble chorus of\nmen\u2019s voices was heard approaching, and from that moment until the\nclosing of the curtain it was music, just music\u2014music to make one drunk\nwith pleasure, music to make one take scrip and staff and beg his way\nround the globe to hear it.\n\nTo such as are intending to come here in the Wagner season next year I\nwish to say, bring your dinner-pail with you. If you do, you will never\ncease to be thankful. If you do not, you will find it a hard fight to\nsave yourself from famishing in Bayreuth. Bayreuth is merely a large\nvillage, and has no very large hotels or eating-houses. The principal\ninns are the Golden Anchor and the Sun. At either of these places you\ncan get an excellent meal\u2014no, I mean you can go there and see other\npeople get it. There is no charge for this. The town is littered with\nrestaurants, but they are small and bad, and they are overdriven with\ncustom. You must secure a table hours beforehand, and often when you\narrive you will find somebody occupying it. We have had this\nexperience. We have had a daily scramble for life; and when I say we, I\ninclude shoals of people. I have the impression that the only people\nwho do not have to scramble are the veterans\u2014the disciples who have\nbeen here before and know the ropes. I think they arrive about a week\nbefore the first opera, and engage all the tables for the season. My\ntribe had tried all kinds of places\u2014some outside of the town, a mile or\ntwo\u2014and have captured only nibblings and odds and ends, never in any\ninstance a complete and satisfying meal. Digestible? No, the reverse.\nThese odds and ends are going to serve as souvenirs of Bayreuth, and in\nthat regard their value is not to be overestimated. Photographs fade,\nbric-a-brac gets lost, busts of Wagner get broken, but once you absorb\na Bayreuth-restaurant meal it is your possession and your property\nuntil the time comes to embalm the rest of you. Some of these pilgrims\nhere become, in effect, cabinets; cabinets of souvenirs of Bayreuth. It\nis believed among scientists that you could examine the crop of a dead\nBayreuth pilgrim anywhere in the earth and tell where he came from. But\nI like this ballast. I think a \u201cHermitage\u201d scrap-up at eight in the\nevening, when all the famine-breeders have been there and laid in their\nmementoes and gone, is the quietest thing you can lay on your keelson\nexcept gravel.\n\nTHURSDAY.\u2014They keep two teams of singers in stock for the chief roles,\nand one of these is composed of the most renowned artists in the world,\nwith Materna and Alvary in the lead. I suppose a double team is\nnecessary; doubtless a single team would die of exhaustion in a week,\nfor all the plays last from four in the afternoon till ten at night.\nNearly all the labor falls upon the half-dozen head singers, and\napparently they are required to furnish all the noise they can for the\nmoney. If they feel a soft, whispery, mysterious feeling they are\nrequired to open out and let the public know it. Operas are given only\non Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, with three days of\nostensible rest per week, and two teams to do the four operas; but the\nostensible rest is devoted largely to rehearsing. It is said that the\noff days are devoted to rehearsing from some time in the morning till\nten at night. Are there two orchestras also? It is quite likely, since\nthere are one hundred and ten names in the orchestra list.\n\nYesterday the opera was \u201cTristan and Isolde.\u201d I have seen all sorts of\naudiences\u2014at theaters, operas, concerts, lectures, sermons,\nfunerals\u2014but none which was twin to the Wagner audience of Bayreuth for\nfixed and reverential attention. Absolute attention and petrified\nretention to the end of an act of the attitude assumed at the beginning\nof it. You detect no movement in the solid mass of heads and shoulders.\nYou seem to sit with the dead in the gloom of a tomb. You know that\nthey are being stirred to their profoundest depths; that there are\ntimes when they want to rise and wave handkerchiefs and shout their\napprobation, and times when tears are running down their faces, and it\nwould be a relief to free their pent emotions in sobs or screams; yet\nyou hear not one utterance till the curtain swings together and the\nclosing strains have slowly faded out and died; then the dead rise with\none impulse and shake the building with their applause. Every seat is\nfull in the first act; there is not a vacant one in the last. If a man\nwould be conspicuous, let him come here and retire from the house in\nthe midst of an act. It would make him celebrated.\n\nThis audience reminds me of nothing I have ever seen and of nothing I\nhave read about except the city in the Arabian tale where all the\ninhabitants have been turned to brass and the traveler finds them after\ncenturies mute, motionless, and still retaining the attitudes which\nthey last knew in life. Here the Wagner audience dress as they please,\nand sit in the dark and worship in silence. At the Metropolitan in New\nYork they sit in a glare, and wear their showiest harness; they hum\nairs, they squeak fans, they titter, and they gabble all the time. In\nsome of the boxes the conversation and laughter are so loud as to\ndivide the attention of the house with the stage. In large measure the\nMetropolitan is a show-case for rich fashionables who are not trained\nin Wagnerian music and have no reverence for it, but who like to\npromote art and show their clothes.\n\nCan that be an agreeable atmosphere to persons in whom this music\nproduces a sort of divine ecstasy and to whom its creator is a very\ndeity, his stage a temple, the works of his brain and hands consecrated\nthings, and the partaking of them with eye and ear a sacred solemnity?\nManifestly, no. Then, perhaps the temporary expatriation, the tedious\ntraversing of seas and continents, the pilgrimage to Bayreuth stands\nexplained. These devotees would worship in an atmosphere of devotion.\nIt is only here that they can find it without fleck or blemish or any\nworldly pollution. In this remote village there are no sights to see,\nthere is no newspaper to intrude the worries of the distant world,\nthere is nothing going on, it is always Sunday. The pilgrim wends to\nhis temple out of town, sits out his moving service, returns to his bed\nwith his heart and soul and his body exhausted by long hours of\ntremendous emotion, and he is in no fit condition to do anything but to\nlie torpid and slowly gather back life and strength for the next\nservice. This opera of \u201cTristan and Isolde\u201d last night broke the hearts\nof all witnesses who were of the faith, and I know of some who have\nheard of many who could not sleep after it, but cried the night away. I\nfeel strongly out of place here. Sometimes I feel like the sane person\nin a community of the mad; sometimes I feel like the one blind man\nwhere all others see; the one groping savage in the college of the\nlearned, and always, during service, I feel like a heretic in heaven.\n\nBut by no means do I ever overlook or minify the fact that this is one\nof the most extraordinary experiences of my life. I have never seen\nanything like this before. I have never seen anything so great and fine\nand real as this devotion.\n\nFRIDAY.\u2014Yesterday\u2019s opera was \u201cParsifal\u201d again. The others went and\nthey show marked advance in appreciation; but I went hunting for relics\nand reminders of the Margravine Wilhelmina, she of the imperishable\n\u201cMemoirs.\u201d I am properly grateful to her for her (unconscious) satire\nupon monarchy and nobility, and therefore nothing which her hand\ntouched or her eye looked upon is indifferent to me. I am her pilgrim;\nthe rest of this multitude here are Wagner\u2019s.\n\nTUESDAY.\u2014I have seen my last two operas; my season is ended, and we\ncross over into Bohemia this afternoon. I was supposing that my musical\nregeneration was accomplished and perfected, because I enjoyed both of\nthese operas, singing and all, and, moreover, one of them was\n\u201cParsifal,\u201d but the experts have disenchanted me. They say:\n\n\u201cSinging! That wasn\u2019t singing; that was the wailing, screeching of\nthird-rate obscurities, palmed off on us in the interest of economy.\u201d\n\nWell, I ought to have recognized the sign\u2014the old, sure sign that has\nnever failed me in matters of art. Whenever I enjoy anything in art it\nmeans that it is mighty poor. The private knowledge of this fact has\nsaved me from going to pieces with enthusiasm in front of many and many\na chromo. However, my base instinct does bring me profit sometimes; I\nwas the only man out of thirty-two hundred who got his money back on\nthose two operas.\n\n\n\n\nWILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS\n\n\nIs it true that the sun of a man\u2019s mentality touches noon at forty and\nthen begins to wane toward setting? Doctor Osler is charged with saying\nso. Maybe he said it, maybe he didn\u2019t; I don\u2019t know which it is. But if\nhe said it, I can point him to a case which proves his rule. Proves it\nby being an exception to it. To this place I nominate Mr. Howells.\n\nI read his _Venetian Days_ about forty years ago. I compare it with his\npaper on Machiavelli in a late number of _Harper_, and I cannot find\nthat his English has suffered any impairment. For forty years his\nEnglish has been to me a continual delight and astonishment. In the\nsustained exhibition of certain great qualities\u2014clearness, compression,\nverbal exactness, and unforced and seemingly unconscious felicity of\nphrasing\u2014he is, in my belief, without his peer in the English-writing\nworld. _sustained_. I entrench myself behind that protecting word.\nThere are others who exhibit those great qualities as greatly as he\ndoes, but only by intervaled distributions of rich moonlight, with\nstretches of veiled and dimmer landscape between; whereas Howells\u2019s\nmoon sails cloudless skies all night and all the nights.\n\nIn the matter of verbal exactness Mr. Howells has no superior, I\nsuppose. He seems to be almost always able to find that elusive and\nshifty grain of gold, the _right word._ Others have to put up with\napproximations, more or less frequently; he has better luck. To me, the\nothers are miners working with the gold-pan\u2014of necessity some of the\ngold washes over and escapes; whereas, in my fancy, he is quicksilver\nraiding down a riffle\u2014no grain of the metal stands much chance of\neluding him. A powerful agent is the right word: it lights the reader\u2019s\nway and makes it plain; a close approximation to it will answer, and\nmuch traveling is done in a well-enough fashion by its help, but we do\nnot welcome it and applaud it and rejoice in it as we do when _the\n_right one blazes out on us. Whenever we come upon one of those\nintensely right words in a book or a newspaper the resulting effect is\nphysical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt: it tingles\nexquisitely around through the walls of the mouth and tastes as tart\nand crisp and good as the autumn-butter that creams the sumac-berry.\nOne has no time to examine the word and vote upon its rank and\nstanding, the automatic recognition of its supremacy is so immediate.\nThere is a plenty of acceptable literature which deals largely in\napproximations, but it may be likened to a fine landscape seen through\nthe rain; the right word would dismiss the rain, then you would see it\nbetter. It doesn\u2019t rain when Howells is at work.\n\nAnd where does he get the easy and effortless flow of his speech? and\nits cadenced and undulating rhythm? and its architectural felicities of\nconstruction, its graces of expression, its pemmican quality of\ncompression, and all that? Born to him, no doubt. All in shining good\norder in the beginning, all extraordinary; and all just as shining,\njust as extraordinary today, after forty years of diligent wear and\ntear and use. He passed his fortieth year long and long ago; but I\nthink his English of today\u2014his perfect English, I wish to say\u2014can throw\ndown the glove before his English of that antique time and not be\nafraid.\n\nI will go back to the paper on Machiavelli now, and ask the reader to\nexamine this passage from it which I append. I do not mean examine it\nin a bird\u2019s-eye way; I mean search it, study it. And, of course, read\nit aloud. I may be wrong, still it is my conviction that one cannot get\nout of finely wrought literature all that is in it by reading it\nmutely:\n\n_Mr. Dyer is rather of the opinion, first luminously suggested by\nMacaulay, that Machiavelli was in earnest, but must not be judged as a\npolitical moralist of our time and race would be judged. He thinks that\nMachiavelli was in earnest, as none but an idealist can be, and he is\nthe first to imagine him an idealist immersed in realities, who\ninvoluntarily transmutes the events under his eye into something like\nthe visionary issues of reverie. The Machiavelli whom he depicts does\nnot cease to be politically a republican and socially a just man\nbecause he holds up an atrocious despot like Caesar Borgia as a mirror\nfor rulers. What Machiavelli beheld round him in Italy was a civic\ndisorder in which there was oppression without statecraft, and revolt\nwithout patriotism. When a miscreant like Borgia appeared upon the\nscene and reduced both tyrants and rebels to an apparent quiescence, he\nmight very well seem to such a dreamer the savior of society whom a\ncertain sort of dreamers are always looking for. Machiavelli was no\nless honest when he honored the diabolical force of Caesar Borgia than\nCarlyle was when at different times he extolled the strong man who\ndestroys liberty in creating order. But Carlyle has only just ceased to\nbe mistaken for a reformer, while it is still Machiavelli\u2019s hard fate\nto be so trammeled in his material that his name stands for whatever is\nmost malevolent and perfidious in human nature._\n\nYou see how easy and flowing it is; how unvexed by ruggednesses,\nclumsinesses, broken meters; how simple and\u2014so far as you or I can make\nout\u2014unstudied; how clear, how limpid, how understandable, how\nunconfused by cross-currents, eddies, undertows; how seemingly\nunadorned, yet is all adornment, like the lily-of-the-valley; and how\ncompressed, how compact, without a complacency-signal hung out anywhere\nto call attention to it.\n\nThere are twenty-three lines in the quoted passage. After reading it\nseveral times aloud, one perceives that a good deal of matter is\ncrowded into that small space. I think it is a model of compactness.\nWhen I take its materials apart and work them over and put them\ntogether in my way, I find I cannot crowd the result back into the same\nhole, there not being room enough. I find it a case of a woman packing\na man\u2019s trunk: he can get the things out, but he can\u2019t ever get them\nback again.\n\nThe proffered paragraph is a just and fair sample; the rest of the\narticle is as compact as it is; there are no waste words. The sample is\njust in other ways: limpid, fluent, graceful, and rhythmical as it is,\nit holds no superiority in these respects over the rest of the essay.\nAlso, the choice phrasing noticeable in the sample is not lonely; there\nis a plenty of its kin distributed through the other paragraphs. This\nis claiming much when that kin must face the challenge of a phrase like\nthe one in the middle sentence: \u201can idealist immersed in realities who\ninvoluntarily transmutes the events under his eye into something like\nthe visionary issues of reverie.\u201d With a hundred words to do it with,\nthe literary artisan could catch that airy thought and tie it down and\nreduce it to a concrete condition, visible, substantial, understandable\nand all right, like a cabbage; but the artist does it with twenty, and\nthe result is a flower.\n\nThe quoted phrase, like a thousand others that have come from the same\nsource, has the quality of certain scraps of verse which take hold of\nus and stay in our memories, we do not understand why, at first: all\nthe words being the right words, none of them is conspicuous, and so\nthey all seem inconspicuous, therefore we wonder what it is about them\nthat makes their message take hold.\n\nThe mossy marbles rest\nOn the lips that he has prest\n          In their bloom,\nAnd the names he loved to hear\nHave been carved for many a year\n          On the tomb.\n\n\nIt is like a dreamy strain of moving music, with no sharp notes in it.\nThe words are all \u201cright\u201d words, and all the same size. We do not\nnotice it at first. We get the effect, it goes straight home to us, but\nwe do not know why. It is when the right words are conspicuous that\nthey thunder:\n\nThe glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome!\n\nWhen I go back from Howells old to Howells young I find him arranging\nand clustering English words well, but not any better than now. He is\nnot more felicitous in concreting abstractions now than he was in\ntranslating, then, the visions of the eyes of flesh into words that\nreproduced their forms and colors:\n\n_In Venetian streets they give the fallen snow no rest. It is at once\nshoveled into the canals by hundreds of half-naked FACCHINI; and now in\nSt. Mark\u2019s Place the music of innumerable shovels smote upon my ear;\nand I saw the shivering legion of poverty as it engaged the elements in\na struggle for the possession of the Piazza. But the snow continued to\nfall, and through the twilight of the descending flakes all this toil\nand encounter looked like that weary kind of effort in dreams, when the\nmost determined industry seems only to renew the task. The lofty crest\nof the bell-tower was hidden in the folds of falling snow, and I could\nno longer see the golden angel upon its summit. But looked at across\nthe Piazza, the beautiful outline of St. Mark\u2019s Church was perfectly\npenciled in the air, and the shifting threads of the snowfall were\nwoven into a spell of novel enchantment around the structure that\nalways seemed to me too exquisite in its fantastic loveliness to be\nanything but the creation of magic. The tender snow had compassionated\nthe beautiful edifice for all the wrongs of time, and so hid the stains\nand ugliness of decay that it looked as if just from the hand of the\nbuilder\u2014or, better said, just from the brain of the architect. There\nwas marvelous freshness in the colors of the mosaics in the great\narches of the facade, and all that gracious harmony into which the\ntemple rises, of marble scrolls and leafy exuberance airily supporting\nthe statues of the saints, was a hundred times etherealized by the\npurity and whiteness of the drifting flakes. The snow lay lightly on\nthe golden globes that tremble like peacocks-crests above the vast\ndomes, and plumed them with softest white; it robed the saints in\nermine; and it danced over all its works, as if exulting in its\nbeauty\u2014beauty which filled me with subtle, selfish yearning to keep\nsuch evanescent loveliness for the little-while-longer of my whole\nlife, and with despair to think that even the poor lifeless shadow of\nit could never be fairly reflected in picture or poem._\n\nThrough the wavering snowfall, the Saint Theodore upon one of the\ngranite pillars of the Piazzetta did not show so grim as his wont is,\nand the winged lion on the other might have been a winged lamb, so\ngentle and mild he looked by the tender light of the storm. The towers\nof the island churches loomed faint and far away in the dimness; the\nsailors in the rigging of the ships that lay in the Basin wrought like\nphantoms among the shrouds; the gondolas stole in and out of the opaque\ndistance more noiselessly and dreamily than ever; and a silence, almost\npalpable, lay upon the mutest city in the world.\n\nThe spirit of Venice is there: of a city where Age and Decay, fagged\nwith distributing damage and repulsiveness among the other cities of\nthe planet in accordance with the policy and business of their\nprofession, come for rest and play between seasons, and treat\nthemselves to the luxury and relaxation of sinking the shop and\ninventing and squandering charms all about, instead of abolishing such\nas they find, as is their habit when not on vacation.\n\nIn the working season they do business in Boston sometimes, and a\ncharacter in _the undiscovered country_ takes accurate note of pathetic\neffects wrought by them upon the aspects of a street of once dignified\nand elegant homes whose occupants have moved away and left them a prey\nto neglect and gradual ruin and progressive degradation; a descent\nwhich reaches bottom at last, when the street becomes a roost for\nhumble professionals of the faith-cure and fortune-telling sort.\n\nWhat a queer, melancholy house, what a queer, melancholy street! I\ndon\u2019t think I was ever in a street before where quite so many\nprofessional ladies, with English surnames, preferred Madam to Mrs. on\ntheir door-plates. And the poor old place has such a desperately\nconscious air of going to the deuce. Every house seems to wince as you\ngo by, and button itself up to the chin for fear you should find out it\nhad no shirt on\u2014so to speak. I don\u2019t know what\u2019s the reason, but these\nmaterial tokens of a social decay afflict me terribly; a tipsy woman\nisn\u2019t dreadfuler than a haggard old house, that\u2019s once been a home, in\na street like this.\n\nMr. Howells\u2019s pictures are not mere stiff, hard, accurate photographs;\nthey are photographs with feeling in them, and sentiment, photographs\ntaken in a dream, one might say.\n\nAs concerns his humor, I will not try to say anything, yet I would try,\nif I had the words that might approximately reach up to its high place.\nI do not think any one else can play with humorous fancies so\ngracefully and delicately and deliciously as he does, nor has so many\nto play with, nor can come so near making them look as if they were\ndoing the playing themselves and he was not aware that they were at it.\nFor they are unobtrusive, and quiet in their ways, and well conducted.\nHis is a humor which flows softly all around about and over and through\nthe mesh of the page, pervasive, refreshing, health-giving, and makes\nno more show and no more noise than does the circulation of the blood.\n\nThere is another thing which is contentingly noticeable in Mr.\nHowells\u2019s books. That is his \u201cstage directions\u201d\u2014those artifices which\nauthors employ to throw a kind of human naturalness around a scene and\na conversation, and help the reader to see the one and get at meanings\nin the other which might not be perceived if entrusted unexplained to\nthe bare words of the talk. Some authors overdo the stage directions,\nthey elaborate them quite beyond necessity; they spend so much time and\ntake up so much room in telling us how a person said a thing and how he\nlooked and acted when he said it that we get tired and vexed and wish\nhe hadn\u2019t said it at all. Other authors\u2019 directions are brief enough,\nbut it is seldom that the brevity contains either wit or information.\nWriters of this school go in rags, in the matter of stage directions;\nthe majority of them having nothing in stock but a cigar, a laugh, a\nblush, and a bursting into tears. In their poverty they work these\nsorry things to the bone. They say:\n\n\u201c... replied Alfred, flipping the ash from his cigar.\u201d (This explains\nnothing; it only wastes space.)\n\n\u201c... responded Richard, with a laugh.\u201d (There was nothing to laugh\nabout; there never is. The writer puts it in from habit\u2014automatically;\nhe is paying no attention to his work; or he would see that there is\nnothing to laugh at; often, when a remark is unusually and poignantly\nflat and silly, he tries to deceive the reader by enlarging the stage\ndirection and making Richard break into \u201cfrenzies of uncontrollable\nlaughter.\u201d This makes the reader sad.)\n\n\u201c... murmured Gladys, blushing.\u201d (This poor old shop-worn blush is a\ntiresome thing. We get so we would rather Gladys would fall out of the\nbook and break her neck than do it again. She is always doing it, and\nusually irrelevantly. Whenever it is her turn to murmur she hangs out\nher blush; it is the only thing she\u2019s got. In a little while we hate\nher, just as we do Richard.)\n\n\u201c... repeated Evelyn, bursting into tears.\u201d (This kind keep a book damp\nall the time. They can\u2019t say a thing without crying. They cry so much\nabout nothing that by and by when they have something to cry ABOUT they\nhave gone dry; they sob, and fetch nothing; we are not moved. We are\nonly glad.)\n\nThey gravel me, these stale and overworked stage directions, these\ncarbon films that got burnt out long ago and cannot now carry any\nfaintest thread of light. It would be well if they could be relieved\nfrom duty and flung out in the literary back yard to rot and disappear\nalong with the discarded and forgotten \u201csteeds\u201d and \u201chalidomes\u201d and\nsimilar stage-properties once so dear to our grandfathers. But I am\nfriendly to Mr. Howells\u2019s stage directions; more friendly to them than\nto any one else\u2019s, I think. They are done with a competent and\ndiscriminating art, and are faithful to the requirements of a stage\ndirection\u2019s proper and lawful office, which is to inform. Sometimes\nthey convey a scene and its conditions so well that I believe I could\nsee the scene and get the spirit and meaning of the accompanying\ndialogue if some one would read merely the stage directions to me and\nleave out the talk. For instance, a scene like this, from _The\nUndiscovered Country_:\n\n\u201c... and she laid her arms with a beseeching gesture on her father\u2019s\nshoulder.\u201d\n\n\u201c... she answered, following his gesture with a glance.\u201d\n\n\u201c... she said, laughing nervously.\u201d\n\n\u201c... she asked, turning swiftly upon him that strange, searching\nglance.\u201d\n\n\u201c... she answered, vaguely.\u201d\n\n\u201c... she reluctantly admitted.\u201d\n\n\u201c... but her voice died wearily away, and she stood looking into his\nface with puzzled entreaty.\u201d\n\nMr. Howells does not repeat his forms, and does not need to; he can\ninvent fresh ones without limit. It is mainly the repetition over and\nover again, by the third-rates, of worn and commonplace and juiceless\nforms that makes their novels such a weariness and vexation to us, I\nthink. We do not mind one or two deliveries of their wares, but as we\nturn the pages over and keep on meeting them we presently get tired of\nthem and wish they would do other things for a change.\n\n\u201c... replied Alfred, flipping the ash from his cigar.\u201d\n\n\u201c... responded Richard, with a laugh.\u201d\n\n\u201c... murmured Gladys, blushing.\u201d\n\n\u201c... repeated Evelyn, bursting into tears.\u201d\n\n\u201c... replied the Earl, flipping the ash from his cigar.\u201d\n\n\u201c... responded the undertaker, with a laugh.\u201d\n\n\u201c... murmured the chambermaid, blushing.\u201d\n\n\u201c... repeated the burglar, bursting into tears.\u201d\n\n\u201c... replied the conductor, flipping the ash from his cigar.\u201d\n\n\u201c... responded Arkwright, with a laugh.\u201d\n\n\u201c... murmured the chief of police, blushing.\u201d\n\n\u201c... repeated the house-cat, bursting into tears.\u201d\n\nAnd so on and so on; till at last it ceases to excite. I always notice\nstage directions, because they fret me and keep me trying to get out of\ntheir way, just as the automobiles do. At first; then by and by they\nbecome monotonous and I get run over.\n\nMr. Howells has done much work, and the spirit of it is as beautiful as\nthe make of it. I have held him in admiration and affection so many\nyears that I know by the number of those years that he is old now; but\nhis heart isn\u2019t, nor his pen; and years do not count. Let him have\nplenty of them; there is profit in them for us.\n\n\n\n\nENGLISH AS SHE IS TAUGHT\n\n\nIn the appendix to Croker\u2019s Boswell\u2019s Johnson one finds this anecdote:\n\n_Cato\u2019s Soliloquy_.\u2014One day Mrs. Gastrel set a little girl to repeat to\nhim (Dr. Samuel Johnson) Cato\u2019s Soliloquy, which she went through very\ncorrectly. The Doctor, after a pause, asked the child:\n\n\u201cWhat was to bring Cato to an end?\u201d\n\nShe said it was a knife.\n\n\u201cNo, my dear, it was not so.\u201d\n\n\u201cMy aunt Polly said it was a knife.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, Aunt Polly\u2019s knife _may do_, but it was a _dagger_, my dear.\u201d\n\nHe then asked her the meaning of \u201cbane and antidote,\u201d which she was\nunable to give. Mrs. Gastrel said:\n\n\u201cYou cannot expect so young a child to know the meaning of such words.\u201d\n\nHe then said:\n\n\u201cMy dear, how many pence are there in _sixpence_?\u201d\n\n\u201cI cannot tell, sir,\u201d was the half-terrified reply.\n\nOn this, addressing himself to Mrs. Gastrel, he said:\n\n\u201cNow, my dear lady, can anything be more ridiculous than to teach a\nchild Cato\u2019s Soliloquy, who does not know how many pence there are in\nsixpence?\u201d\n\nIn a lecture before the Royal Geographical Society Professor Ravenstein\nquoted the following list of frantic questions, and said that they had\nbeen asked in an examination:\n\nMention all the names of places in the world derived from Julius Caesar\nor Augustus Caesar.\n\nWhere are the following rivers: Pisuerga, Sakaria, Guadalete, Jalon,\nMulde?\n\nAll you know of the following: Machacha, Pilmo, Schebulos, Crivoscia,\nBasecs, Mancikert, Taxhem, Citeaux, Meloria, Zutphen.\n\nThe highest peaks of the Karakorum range.\n\nThe number of universities in Prussia.\n\nWhy are the tops of mountains continually covered with snow (sic)?\n\nName the length and breadth of the streams of lava which issued from\nthe Skaptar Jokul in the eruption of 1783.\n\nThat list would oversize nearly anybody\u2019s geographical knowledge. Isn\u2019t\nit reasonably possible that in our schools many of the questions in all\nstudies are several miles ahead of where the pupil is?\u2014that he is set\nto struggle with things that are ludicrously beyond his present reach,\nhopelessly beyond his present strength? This remark in passing, and by\nway of text; now I come to what I was going to say.\n\nI have just now fallen upon a darling literary curiosity. It is a\nlittle book, a manuscript compilation, and the compiler sent it to me\nwith the request that I say whether I think it ought to be published or\nnot. I said, Yes; but as I slowly grow wise I briskly grow cautious;\nand so, now that the publication is imminent, it has seemed to me that\nI should feel more comfortable if I could divide up this responsibility\nwith the public by adding them to the court. Therefore I will print\nsome extracts from the book, in the hope that they may make converts to\nmy judgment that the volume has merit which entitles it to publication.\n\nAs to its character. Every one has sampled \u201cEnglish as She is Spoke\u201d\nand \u201cEnglish as She is Wrote\u201d; this little volume furnishes us an\ninstructive array of examples of \u201cEnglish as She is Taught\u201d\u2014in the\npublic schools of\u2014well, this country. The collection is made by a\nteacher in those schools, and all the examples in it are genuine; none\nof them have been tampered with, or doctored in any way. From time to\ntime, during several years, whenever a pupil has delivered himself of\nanything peculiarly quaint or toothsome in the course of his\nrecitations, this teacher and her associates have privately set that\nthing down in a memorandum-book; strictly following the original, as to\ngrammar, construction, spelling, and all; and the result is this\nliterary curiosity.\n\nThe contents of the book consist mainly of answers given by the boys\nand girls to questions, said answers being given sometimes verbally,\nsometimes in writing. The subjects touched upon are fifteen in number:\nI. Etymology; II. Grammar; III. Mathematics; IV. Geography; V.\n\u201cOriginal\u201d; VI. Analysis; VII. History; VIII. \u201cIntellectual\u201d; IX.\nPhilosophy; X. Physiology; XI. Astronomy; XII. Politics; XIII. Music;\nXIV. Oratory; XV. Metaphysics.\n\nYou perceive that the poor little young idea has taken a shot at a good\nmany kinds of game in the course of the book. Now as to results. Here\nare some quaint definitions of words. It will be noticed that in all of\nthese instances the sound of the word, or the look of it on paper, has\nmisled the child:\n\nABORIGINES, a system of mountains.\n\nALIAS, a good man in the Bible.\n\nAMENABLE, anything that is mean.\n\nAMMONIA, the food of the gods.\n\nASSIDUITY, state of being an acid.\n\nAURIFEROUS, pertaining to an orifice.\n\nCAPILLARY, a little caterpillar.\n\nCORNIFEROUS, rocks in which fossil corn is found.\n\nEMOLUMENT, a headstone to a grave.\n\nEQUESTRIAN, one who asks questions.\n\nEUCHARIST, one who plays euchre.\n\nFRANCHISE, anything belonging to the French.\n\nIDOLATER, a very idle person.\n\nIPECAC, a man who likes a good dinner.\n\nIRRIGATE, to make fun of.\n\nMENDACIOUS, what can be mended.\n\nMERCENARY, one who feels for another.\n\nPARASITE, a kind of umbrella.\n\nPARASITE, the murder of an infant.\n\nPUBLICAN, a man who does his prayers in public.\n\nTENACIOUS, ten acres of land.\n\nHere is one where the phrase \u201cpublicans and sinners\u201d has got mixed up\nin the child\u2019s mind with politics, and the result is a definition which\ntakes one in a sudden and unexpected way:\n\nREPUBLICAN, a sinner mentioned in the Bible.\n\nAlso in Democratic newspapers now and then. Here are two where the\nmistake has resulted from sound assisted by remote fact:\n\nPLAGIARIST, a writer of plays.\n\nDEMAGOGUE, a vessel containing beer and other liquids.\n\nI cannot quite make out what it was that misled the pupil in the\nfollowing instances; it would not seem to have been the sound of the\nword, nor the look of it in print:\n\nASPHYXIA, a grumbling, fussy temper.\n\nQUARTERNIONS, a bird with a flat beak and no bill, living in New\nZealand.\n\nQUARTERNIONS, the name given to a style of art practiced by the\nPhoenicians.\n\nQUARTERNIONS, a religious convention held every hundred years.\n\nSIBILANT, the state of being idiotic.\n\nCROSIER, a staff carried by the Deity.\n\nIn the following sentences the pupil\u2019s ear has been deceiving him\nagain:\n\nThe marriage was illegible.\n\nHe was totally dismasted with the whole performance.\n\nHe enjoys riding on a philosopher.\n\nShe was very quick at repertoire.\n\nHe prayed for the waters to subsidize.\n\nThe leopard is watching his sheep.\n\nThey had a strawberry vestibule.\n\nHere is one which\u2014well, now, how often we do slam right into the truth\nwithout ever suspecting it:\n\nThe men employed by the Gas Company go around and speculate the meter.\n\nIndeed they do, dear; and when you grow up, many and many\u2019s the time\nyou will notice it in the gas bill. In the following sentences the\nlittle people have some information to convey, every time; but in my\ncase they fail to connect: the light always went out on the keystone\nword:\n\nThe coercion of some things is remarkable; as bread and molasses.\n\nHer hat is contiguous because she wears it on one side.\n\nHe preached to an egregious congregation.\n\nThe captain eliminated a bullet through the man\u2019s heart.\n\nYou should take caution and be precarious.\n\nThe supercilious girl acted with vicissitude when the perennial time\ncame.\n\nThe last is a curiously plausible sentence; one seems to know what it\nmeans, and yet he knows all the time that he doesn\u2019t. Here is an odd\n(but entirely proper) use of a word, and a most sudden descent from a\nlofty philosophical altitude to a very practical and homely\nillustration:\n\nWe should endeavor to avoid extremes\u2014like those of wasps and bees.\n\nAnd here\u2014with \u201czoological\u201d and \u201cgeological\u201d in his mind, but not ready\nto his tongue\u2014the small scholar has innocently gone and let out a\ncouple of secrets which ought never to have been divulged in any\ncircumstances:\n\nThere are a good many donkeys in theological gardens.\nSome of the best fossils are found in theological cabinets.\n\n\nUnder the head of \u201cGrammar\u201d the little scholars furnish the following\ninformation:\n\nGender is the distinguishing nouns without regard to sex.\nA verb is something to eat.\nAdverbs should always be used as adjectives and adjectives as adverbs.\nEvery sentence and name of God must begin with a caterpillar.\n\n\n\u201cCaterpillar\u201d is well enough, but capital letter would have been\nstricter. The following is a brave attempt at a solution, but it failed\nto liquify:\n\nWhen they are going to say some prose or poetry before they say the\npoetry or prose they must put a semicolon just after the introduction\nof the prose or poetry.\n\nThe chapter on \u201cMathematics\u201d is full of fruit. From it I take a few\nsamples\u2014mainly in an unripe state:\n\nA straight line is any distance between two places.\nParallel lines are lines that can never meet until they run together.\nA circle is a round straight line with a hole in the middle.\nThings which are equal to each other are equal to anything else.\nTo find the number of square feet in a room you multiply the room by\nthe\nnumber of the feet. The product is the result.\n\n\nRight you are. In the matter of geography this little book is\nunspeakably rich. The questions do not appear to have applied the\nmicroscope to the subject, as did those quoted by Professor Ravenstein;\nstill, they proved plenty difficult enough without that. These pupils\ndid not hunt with a microscope, they hunted with a shot-gun; this is\nshown by the crippled condition of the game they brought in:\n\nAmerica is divided into the Passiffic slope and the Mississippi valey.\n\nNorth America is separated by Spain.\n\nAmerica consists from north to south about five hundred miles.\n\nThe United States is quite a small country compared with some other\ncountrys, but is about as industrious.\n\nThe capital of the United States is Long Island.\n\nThe five seaports of the U.S. are Newfunlan and Sanfrancisco.\n\nThe principal products of the U.S. is earthquakes and volcanoes.\n\nThe Alaginnies are mountains in Philadelphia.\n\nThe Rocky Mountains are on the western side of Philadelphia.\n\nCape Hateras is a vast body of water surrounded by land and flowing\ninto the Gulf of Mexico.\n\nMason and Dixon\u2019s line is the Equator.\n\nOne of the leading industries of the United States is mollasses,\nbook-covers, numbers, gas, teaching, lumber, manufacturers,\npaper-making, publishers, coal.\n\nIn Austria the principal occupation is gathering Austrich feathers.\n\nGibraltar is an island built on a rock.\n\nRussia is very cold and tyrannical.\n\nSicily is one of the Sandwich Islands.\n\nHindoostan flows through the Ganges and empties into the Mediterranean\nSea.\n\nIreland is called the Emigrant Isle because it is so beautiful and\ngreen.\n\nThe width of the different zones Europe lies in depend upon the\nsurrounding country.\n\nThe imports of a country are the things that are paid for, the exports\nare the things that are not.\n\nClimate lasts all the time and weather only a few days.\n\nThe two most famous volcanoes of Europe are Sodom and Gomorrah.\n\nThe chapter headed \u201cAnalysis\u201d shows us that the pupils in our public\nschools are not merely loaded up with those showy facts about\ngeography, mathematics, and so on, and left in that incomplete state;\nno, there\u2019s machinery for clarifying and expanding their minds. They\nare required to take poems and analyze them, dig out their common\nsense, reduce them to statistics, and reproduce them in a luminous\nprose translation which shall tell you at a glance what the poet was\ntrying to get at. One sample will do. Here is a stanza from \u201cThe Lady\nof the Lake,\u201d followed by the pupil\u2019s impressive explanation of it:\n\nAlone, but with unbated zeal, The horseman plied with scourge and\nsteel; For jaded now and spent with toil, Embossed with foam and dark\nwith soil, While every gasp with sobs he drew, The laboring stag\nstrained full in view.\n\nThe man who rode on the horse performed the whip and an instrument made\nof steel alone with strong ardor not diminishing, for, being tired from\nthe time passed with hard labor overworked with anger and ignorant with\nweariness, while every breath for labor he drew with cries full of\nsorrow, the young deer made imperfect who worked hard filtered in\nsight.\n\nI see, now, that I never understood that poem before. I have had\nglimpses of its meaning, in moments when I was not as ignorant with\nweariness as usual, but this is the first time the whole spacious idea\nof it ever filtered in sight. If I were a public-school pupil I would\nput those other studies aside and stick to analysis; for, after all, it\nis the thing to spread your mind.\n\nWe come now to historical matters, historical remains, one might say.\nAs one turns the pages he is impressed with the depth to which one date\nhas been driven into the American child\u2019s head\u20141492. The date is there,\nand it is there to stay. And it is always at hand, always deliverable\nat a moment\u2019s notice. But the Fact that belongs with it? That is quite\nanother matter. Only the date itself is familiar and sure: its vast\nFact has failed of lodgment. It would appear that whenever you ask a\npublic-school pupil when a thing\u2014anything, no matter what\u2014happened, and\nhe is in doubt, he always rips out his 1492. He applies it to\neverything, from the landing of the ark to the introduction of the\nhorse-car. Well, after all, it is our first date, and so it is right\nenough to honor it, and pay the public schools to teach our children to\nhonor it:\n\nGeorge Washington was born in 1492.\n\nWashington wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1492.\n\nSt. Bartholemew was massacred in 1492.\n\nThe Brittains were the Saxons who entered England in 1492 under Julius\nCaesar.\n\nThe earth is 1492 miles in circumference.\n\nTo proceed with \u201cHistory\u201d\n\nChristopher Columbus was called the Father of his Country.\n\nQueen Isabella of Spain sold her watch and chain and other millinery so\nthat Columbus could discover America.\n\nThe Indian wars were very desecrating to the country.\n\nThe Indians pursued their warfare by hiding in the bushes and then\nscalping them.\n\nCaptain John Smith has been styled the father of his country. His life\nwas saved by his daughter Pochahantas.\n\nThe Puritans found an insane asylum in the wilds of America.\n\nThe Stamp Act was to make everybody stamp all materials so they should\nbe null and void.\n\nWashington died in Spain almost broken-hearted. His remains were taken\nto the cathedral in Havana.\n\nGorilla warfare was where men rode on gorillas.\n\nJohn Brown was a very good insane man who tried to get fugitives slaves\ninto Virginia. He captured all the inhabitants, but was finally\nconquered and condemned to his death. The confederasy was formed by the\nfugitive slaves.\n\nAlfred the Great reigned 872 years. He was distinguished for letting\nsome buckwheat cakes burn, and the lady scolded him.\n\nHenry Eight was famous for being a great widower haveing lost several\nwives.\n\nLady Jane Grey studied Greek and Latin and was beheaded after a few\ndays.\n\nJohn Bright is noted for an incurable disease.\n\nLord James Gordon Bennet instigated the Gordon Riots.\n\nThe Middle Ages come in between antiquity and posterity.\n\nLuther introduced Christianity into England a good many thousand years\nago. His birthday was November 1883. He was once a Pope. He lived at\nthe time of the Rebellion of Worms.\n\nJulius Caesar is noted for his famous telegram dispatch I came I saw I\nconquered.\n\nJulius Caesar was really a very great man. He was a very great soldier\nand wrote a book for beginners in the Latin.\n\nCleopatra was caused by the death of an asp which she dissolved in a\nwine cup.\n\nThe only form of government in Greece was a limited monkey.\n\nThe Persian war lasted about 500 years.\n\nGreece had only 7 wise men.\n\nSocrates... destroyed some statues and had to drink Shamrock.\n\nHere is a fact correctly stated; and yet it is phrased with such\ningenious infelicity that it can be depended upon to convey\nmisinformation every time it is uncarefully read:\n\nBy the Salic law no woman or descendant of a woman could occupy the\nthrone.\n\nTo show how far a child can travel in history with judicious and\ndiligent boosting in the public school, we select the following mosaic:\n\nAbraham Lincoln was born in Wales in 1599.\n\nIn the chapter headed \u201cIntellectual\u201d I find a great number of most\ninteresting statements. A sample or two may be found not amiss:\n\nBracebridge Hall was written by Henry Irving.\n\nSnow Bound was written by Peter Cooper.\n\nThe House of the Seven Gables was written by Lord Bryant.\n\nEdgar A. Poe was a very curdling writer.\n\nCotton Mather was a writer who invented the cotten gin and wrote\nhistories.\n\nBeowulf wrote the Scriptures.\n\nBen Johnson survived Shakspeare in some respects.\n\nIn the Canterbury Tale it gives account of King Alfred on his way to\nthe shrine of Thomas Bucket.\n\nChaucer was the father of English pottery.\n\nChaucer was a bland verse writer of the third century.\n\nChaucer was succeeded by H. Wads. Longfellow an American Writer. His\nwritings were chiefly prose and nearly one hundred years elapsed.\n\nShakspere translated the Scriptures and it was called St. James because\nhe did it.\n\nIn the middle of the chapter I find many pages of information\nconcerning Shakespeare\u2019s plays, Milton\u2019s works, and those of Bacon,\nAddison, Samuel Johnson, Fielding, Richardson, Sterne, Smollett, De\nFoe, Locke, Pope, Swift, Goldsmith, Burns, Cowper, Wordsworth, Gibbon,\nByron, Coleridge, Hood, Scott, Macaulay, George Eliot, Dickens, Bulwer,\nThackeray, Browning, Mrs. Browning, Tennyson, and Disraeli\u2014a fact which\nshows that into the restricted stomach of the public-school pupil is\nshoveled every year the blood, bone, and viscera of a gigantic\nliterature, and the same is there digested and disposed of in a most\nsuccessful and characteristic and gratifying public-school way. I have\nspace for but a trifling few of the results:\n\nLord Byron was the son of an heiress and a drunken man.\n\nWm. Wordsworth wrote the Barefoot Boy and Imitations on Immortality.\n\nGibbon wrote a history of his travels in Italy. This was original.\n\nGeorge Eliot left a wife and children who mourned greatly for his\ngenius.\n\nGeorge Eliot Miss Mary Evans Mrs. Cross Mrs. Lewis was the greatest\nfemale poet unless George Sands is made an exception of.\n\nBulwell is considered a good writer.\n\nSir Walter Scott Charles Bronte Alfred the Great and Johnson were the\nfirst great novelists.\n\nThomas Babington Makorlay graduated at Harvard and then studied law, he\nwas raised to the peerage as baron in 1557 and died in 1776.\n\nHere are two or three miscellaneous facts that may be of value, if\ntaken in moderation:\n\nHomer\u2019s writings are Homer\u2019s Essays Virgil the Aenid and Paradise lost\nsome people say that these poems were not written by Homer but by\nanother man of the same name.\n\nA sort of sadness kind of shone in Bryant\u2019s poems.\n\nHolmes is a very profligate and amusing writer.\n\nWhen the public-school pupil wrestles with the political features of\nthe Great Republic, they throw him sometimes:\n\nA bill becomes a law when the President vetoes it.\n\nThe three departments of the government is the President rules the\nworld, the governor rules the State, the mayor rules the city.\n\nThe first conscientious Congress met in Philadelphia.\n\nThe Constitution of the United States was established to ensure\ndomestic hostility.\n\nTruth crushed to earth will rise again. As follows:\n\nThe Constitution of the United States is that part of the book at the\nend which nobody reads.\n\nAnd here she rises once more and untimely. There should be a limit to\npublic-school instruction; it cannot be wise or well to let the young\nfind out everything:\n\nCongress is divided into civilized half civilized and savage.\n\nHere are some results of study in music and oratory:\n\nAn interval in music is the distance on the keyboard from one piano to\nthe next.\n\nA rest means you are not to sing it.\n\nEmphasis is putting more distress on one word than another.\n\nThe chapter on \u201cPhysiology\u201d contains much that ought not to be lost to\nscience:\n\nPhysillogigy is to study about your bones stummick and vertebry.\n\nOccupations which are injurious to health are cabolic acid gas which is\nimpure blood.\n\nWe have an upper and lower skin. The lower skin moves all the time and\nthe upper skin moves when we do.\n\nThe body is mostly composed of water and about one half is avaricious\ntissue.\n\nThe stomach is a small pear-shaped bone situated in the body.\n\nThe gastric juice keeps the bones from creaking.\n\nThe Chyle flows up the middle of the backbone and reaches the heart\nwhere it meets the oxygen and is purified.\n\nThe salivary glands are used to salivate the body.\n\nIn the stomach starch is changed to cane sugar and cane sugar to sugar\ncane.\n\nThe olfactory nerve enters the cavity of the orbit and is developed\ninto the special sense of hearing.\n\nThe growth of a tooth begins in the back of the mouth and extends to\nthe stomach.\n\nIf we were on a railroad track and a train was coming the train would\ndeafen our ears so that we couldn\u2019t see to get off the track.\n\nIf, up to this point, none of my quotations have added flavor to the\nJohnsonian anecdote at the head of this article, let us make another\nattempt:\n\nThe theory that intuitive truths are discovered by the light of nature\noriginated from St. John\u2019s interpretation of a passage in the Gospel of\nPlato.\n\nThe weight of the earth is found by comparing a mass of known lead with\nthat of a mass of unknown lead.\n\nTo find the weight of the earth take the length of a degree on a\nmeridian and multiply by 62 1/2 pounds.\n\nThe spheres are to each other as the squares of their homologous sides.\n\nA body will go just as far in the first second as the body will go plus\nthe force of gravity and that\u2019s equal to twice what the body will go.\n\nSpecific gravity is the weight to be compared weight of an equal volume\nof or that is the weight of a body compared with the weight of an equal\nvolume.\n\nThe law of fluid pressure divide the different forms of organized\nbodies by the form of attraction and the number increased will be the\nform.\n\nInertia is that property of bodies by virtue of which it cannot change\nits own condition of rest or motion. In other words it is the negative\nquality of passiveness either in recoverable latency or insipient\nlatescence.\n\nIf a laugh is fair here, not the struggling child, nor the\nunintelligent teacher\u2014or rather the unintelligent Boards, Committees,\nand Trustees\u2014are the proper target for it. All through this little book\none detects the signs of a certain probable fact\u2014that a large part of\nthe pupil\u2019s \u201cinstruction\u201d consists in cramming him with obscure and\nwordy \u201crules\u201d which he does not understand and has no time to\nunderstand. It would be as useful to cram him with brickbats; they\nwould at least stay. In a town in the interior of New York, a few years\nago, a gentleman set forth a mathematical problem and proposed to give\na prize to every public-school pupil who should furnish the correct\nsolution of it. Twenty-two of the brightest boys in the public schools\nentered the contest. The problem was not a very difficult one for\npupils of their mathematical rank and standing, yet they all failed\u2014by\na hair\u2014through one trifling mistake or another. Some searching\nquestions were asked, when it turned out that these lads were as glib\nas parrots with the \u201crules,\u201d but could not reason out a single rule or\nexplain the principle underlying it. Their memories had been stocked,\nbut not their understandings. It was a case of brickbat culture, pure\nand simple.\n\nThere are several curious \u201ccompositions\u201d in the little book, and we\nmust make room for one. It is full of na\u00efvet\u00e9, brutal truth, and\nunembarrassed directness, and is the funniest (genuine) boy\u2019s\ncomposition I think I have ever seen:\n\nON GIRLS\n\n\nGirls are very stuck up and dignefied in their maner and be have your.\nThey think more of dress than anything and like to play with dowls and\nrags. They cry if they see a cow in a far distance and are afraid of\nguns. They stay at home all the time and go to church on Sunday. They\nare al-ways sick. They are always funy and making fun of boy\u2019s hands\nand they say how dirty. They cant play marbels. I pity them poor\nthings. They make fun of boys and then turn round and love them. I dont\nbeleave they ever kiled a cat or anything. They look out every nite and\nsay oh ant the moon lovely. Thir is one thing I have not told and that\nis they al-ways now their lessons bettern boys.\n\nFrom Mr. Edward Channing\u2019s recent article in _Science_:\n\nThe marked difference between the books now being produced by French,\nEnglish, and American travelers, on the one hand, and German explorers,\non the other, is too great to escape attention. That difference is due\nentirely to the fact that in school and university the German is\ntaught, in the first place to see, and in the second place to\nunderstand what he does see.\n\n\n\n\nA SIMPLIFIED ALPHABET\n\n\n(This article, written during the autumn of 1899, was about the last\nwriting done by Mark Twain on any impersonal subject.)\n\nI have had a kindly feeling, a friendly feeling, a cousinly feeling\ntoward Simplified Spelling, from the beginning of the movement three\nyears ago, but nothing more inflamed than that. It seemed to me to\nmerely propose to substitute one inadequacy for another; a sort of\npatching and plugging poor old dental relics with cement and gold and\nporcelain paste; what was really wanted was a new set of teeth. That is\nto say, a new _alphabet_.\n\nThe heart of our trouble is with our foolish alphabet. It doesn\u2019t know\nhow to spell, and can\u2019t be taught. In this it is like all other\nalphabets except one\u2014the phonographic. That is the only competent\nalphabet in the world. It can spell and correctly pronounce any word in\nour language.\n\nThat admirable alphabet, that brilliant alphabet, that inspired\nalphabet, can be learned in an hour or two. In a week the student can\nlearn to write it with some little facility, and to read it with\nconsiderable ease. I know, for I saw it tried in a public school in\nNevada forty-five years ago, and was so impressed by the incident that\nit has remained in my memory ever since.\n\nI wish we could adopt it in place of our present written (and printed)\ncharacter. I mean _simply _the alphabet; simply the consonants and the\nvowels\u2014I don\u2019t mean any _reductions _or abbreviations of them, such as\nthe shorthand writer uses in order to get compression and speed. No, I\nwould _spell every word out._\n\nI will insert the alphabet here as I find it in Burnz\u2019s Phonic\nShorthand. (Figure 1) It is arranged__ on the basis of Isaac Pitman\u2019s\n_Phonography_. Isaac Pitman was the originator and father of scientific\nphonography. It is used throughout the globe. It was a memorable\ninvention. He made it public seventy-three years ago. The firm of Isaac\nPitman & Sons, New York, still exists, and they continue the master\u2019s\nwork.\n\nWhat should we gain?\n\nFirst of all, we could spell _definitely_\u2014and correctly\u2014any word you\nplease, just by the _sound _of it. We can\u2019t do that with our present\nalphabet. For instance, take a simple, every-day word _phthisis_. If we\ntried to spell it by the sound of it, we should make it TYSIS, and be\nlaughed at by every educated person.\n\nSecondly, we should gain in _reduction of labor_ in writing.\n\nSimplified Spelling makes valuable reductions in the case of several\nhundred words, but the new spelling must be _learned_. You can\u2019t spell\nthem by the sound; you must get them out of the book.\n\nBut even if we knew the simplified form for every word in the language,\nthe phonographic alphabet would still beat the Simplified Speller\n\u201chands down\u201d in the important matter of economy of labor. I will\nillustrate:\n\nPRESENT FORM: through, laugh, highland.\n\nSIMPLIFIED FORM: thru, laff, hyland.\n\nPHONOGRAPHIC FORM: (Figure 2)\n\nTo write the word \u201cthrough,\u201d the pen has to make twenty-one strokes.\n\nTo write the word \u201cthru,\u201d the pen has to make twelve strokes\u2014a good\nsaving.\n\nTo write that same word with the phonographic alphabet, the pen has to\nmake only _three _strokes.\n\nTo write the word \u201claugh,\u201d the pen has to make _fourteen _strokes.\n\nTo write \u201claff,\u201d the pen has to make the _same number_ of strokes\u2014no\nlabor is saved to the penman.\n\nTo write the same word with the phonographic alphabet, the pen has to\nmake only _three _strokes.\n\nTo write the word \u201chighland,\u201d the pen has to make twenty-two strokes.\n\nTo write \u201chyland,\u201d the pen has to make eighteen strokes.\n\nTo write that word with the phonographic alphabet, the pen has to make\nonly FIVE strokes. (Figure 3)\n\nTo write the words \u201cphonographic alphabet,\u201d the pen has to make\nfifty-three strokes.\n\nTo write \u201cfonografic alfabet,\u201d the pen has to make fifty strokes. To\nthe penman, the saving in labor is insignificant.\n\nTo write that word (with vowels) with the phonographic alphabet, the\npen has to make only _seventeen _strokes.\n\nWithout the vowels, only _thirteen _strokes. (Figure 4) The vowels are\nhardly necessary, this time.\n\nWe make five pen-strokes in writing an m. Thus: (Figure 5) a stroke\ndown; a stroke up; a second stroke down; a second stroke up; a final\nstroke down. Total, five. The phonographic alphabet accomplishes the m\nwith a single stroke\u2014a curve, like a parenthesis that has come home\ndrunk and has fallen face down right at the front door where everybody\nthat goes along will see him and say, Alas!\n\nWhen our written m is not the end of a word, but is otherwise located,\nit has to be connected with the next letter, and that requires another\npen-stroke, making six in all, before you get rid of that m. But never\nmind about the connecting strokes\u2014let them go. Without counting them,\nthe twenty-six letters of our alphabet consumed about eighty\npen-strokes for their construction\u2014about three pen-strokes per letter.\n\nIt is _three times the number_ required by the phonographic alphabet.\nIt requires but _one _stroke for each letter.\n\nMy writing-gait is\u2014well, I don\u2019t know what it is, but I will time\nmyself and see. Result: it is twenty-four words per minute. I don\u2019t\nmean composing; I mean _copying_. There isn\u2019t any definite\ncomposing-gait.\n\nVery well, my copying-gait is 1,440 words per hour\u2014say 1,500. If I\ncould use the phonographic character with facility I could do the 1,500\nin twenty minutes. I could do nine hours\u2019 copying in three hours; I\ncould do three years\u2019 copying in one year. Also, if I had a typewriting\nmachine with the phonographic alphabet on it\u2014oh, the miracles I could\ndo!\n\nI am not pretending to write that character well. I have never had a\nlesson, and I am copying the letters from the book. But I can\naccomplish my desire, at any rate, which is, to make the reader get a\ngood and clear idea of the advantage it would be to us if we could\ndiscard our present alphabet and put this better one in its place\u2014using\nit in books, newspapers, with the typewriter, and with the pen.\n\n(Figure 6)\u2014_Man Dog Horse_. I think it is graceful and would look\ncomely in print. And consider\u2014once more, I beg\u2014what a labor-saver it\nis! Ten pen-strokes with the one system to convey those three words\nabove, and thirty-three by the other! (Figure 7) I mean, in SOME ways,\nnot in all. I suppose I might go so far as to say in most ways, and be\nwithin the facts, but never mind; let it go at _some_. One of the ways\nin which it exercises this birthright is\u2014as I think\u2014continuing to use\nour laughable alphabet these seventy-three years while there was a\nrational one at hand, to be had for the taking.\n\nIt has taken five hundred years to simplify some of Chaucer\u2019s rotten\nspelling\u2014if I may be allowed to use so frank a term as that\u2014and it will\ntake five hundred more to get our exasperating new Simplified\nCorruptions accepted and running smoothly. And we sha\u2019n\u2019t be any better\noff then than we are now; for in that day we shall still have the\nprivilege the Simplifiers are exercising now: _anybody _can change the\nspelling that wants to.\n\n_But you can\u2019t change the phonographic spelling; there isn\u2019t any way._\nIt will always follow the SOUND. If you want to change the spelling,\nyou have to change the sound first.\n\nMind, I myself am a Simplified Speller; I belong to that unhappy guild\nthat is patiently and hopefully trying to reform our drunken old\nalphabet by reducing his whiskey. Well, it will improve him. When they\nget through and have reformed him all they can by their system he will\nbe only HALF drunk. Above that condition their system can never lift\nhim. There is no competent, and lasting, and real reform for him but to\ntake away his whiskey entirely, and fill up his jug with Pitman\u2019s\nwholesome and undiseased alphabet.\n\nOne great drawback to Simplified Spelling is, that in print a\nsimplified word looks so like the very nation! and when you bunch a\nwhole squadron of the Simplified together the spectacle is very nearly\nunendurable.\n\nThe da ma ov koars kum when the publik ma be expektd to get rekonsyled\nto the bezair asspekt of the Simplified Kombynashuns, but\u2014if I may be\nallowed the expression\u2014is it worth the wasted time? (Figure 8)\n\nTo see our letters put together in ways to which we are not accustomed\noffends the eye, and also takes the _expression _out of the words.\n\nLa on, Makduf, and damd be he hoo furst krys hold, enuf!\n\nIt doesn\u2019t thrill you as it used to do. The simplifications have sucked\nthe thrill all out of it.\n\nBut a written character with which we are _not acquainted_ does not\noffend us\u2014Greek, Hebrew, Russian, Arabic, and the others\u2014they have an\ninteresting look, and we see beauty in them, too. And this is true of\nhieroglyphics, as well. There is something pleasant and engaging about\nthe mathematical signs when we do not understand them. The mystery\nhidden in these things has a fascination for us: we can\u2019t come across a\nprinted page of shorthand without being impressed by it and wishing we\ncould read it.\n\nVery well, what I am offering for acceptance and adoption is not\nshorthand, but longhand, written with the _Shorthand Alphabet\nUnreduced_. You can write three times as many words in a minute with it\nas you can write with our alphabet. And so, in a way, it _is _properly\na shorthand. It has a pleasant look, too; a beguiling look, an inviting\nlook. I will write something in it, in my rude and untaught way:\n(Figure 9)\n\nEven when _I_ do it it comes out prettier than it does in Simplified\nSpelling. Yes, and in the Simplified it costs one hundred and\ntwenty-three pen-strokes to write it, whereas in the phonographic it\ncosts only twenty-nine.\n\n(Figure 9) is probably (Figure 10).\n\nLet us hope so, anyway.\n\n\n\n\nAS CONCERNS INTERPRETING THE DEITY\n\n\nI\n\nThis line of hieroglyphs was for fourteen years the despair of all the\nscholars who labored over the mysteries of the Rosetta stone: (Figure\n1)\n\nAfter five years of study Champollion translated it thus:\n\nTherefore let the worship of Epiphanes be maintained in all the\ntemples, this upon pain of death.\n\nThat was the twenty-fourth translation that had been furnished by\nscholars. For a time it stood. But only for a time. Then doubts began\nto assail it and undermine it, and the scholars resumed their labors.\nThree years of patient work produced eleven new translations; among\nthem, this, by Grunfeldt, was received with considerable favor:\n\nThe horse of Epiphanes shall be maintained at the public expense; this\nupon pain of death.\n\nBut the following rendering, by Gospodin, was received by the learned\nworld with yet greater favor:\n\nThe priest shall explain the wisdom of Epiphanes to all these people,\nand these shall listen with reverence, upon pain of death.\n\nSeven years followed, in which twenty-one fresh and widely varying\nrenderings were scored\u2014none of them quite convincing. But now, at last,\ncame Rawlinson, the youngest of all the scholars, with a translation\nwhich was immediately and universally recognized as being the correct\nversion, and his name became famous in a day. So famous, indeed, that\neven the children were familiar with it; and such a noise did the\nachievement itself make that not even the noise of the monumental\npolitical event of that same year\u2014the flight from Elba\u2014was able to\nsmother it to silence. Rawlinson\u2019s version reads as follows:\n\nTherefore, walk not away from the wisdom of Epiphanes, but turn and\nfollow it; so shall it conduct thee to the temple\u2019s peace, and soften\nfor thee the sorrows of life and the pains of death.\n\nHere is another difficult text: (Figure 2)\n\nIt is demotic\u2014a style of Egyptian writing and a phase of the language\nwhich had perished from the knowledge of all men twenty-five hundred\nyears before the Christian era.\n\nOur red Indians have left many records, in the form of pictures, upon\nour crags and boulders. It has taken our most gifted and painstaking\nstudents two centuries to get at the meanings hidden in these pictures;\nyet there are still two little lines of hieroglyphics among the figures\ngrouped upon the Dighton Rocks which they have not succeeded in\ninterpreting to their satisfaction. These: (Figure 3)\n\nThe suggested solutions of this riddle are practically innumerable;\nthey would fill a book.\n\nThus we have infinite trouble in solving man-made mysteries; it is only\nwhen we set out to discover the secret of God that our difficulties\ndisappear. It was always so. In antique Roman times it was the custom\nof the Deity to try to conceal His intentions in the entrails of birds,\nand this was patiently and hopefully continued century after century,\nalthough the attempted concealment never succeeded, in a single\nrecorded instance. The augurs could read entrails as easily as a modern\nchild can read coarse print. Roman history is full of the marvels of\ninterpretation which these extraordinary men performed. These strange\nand wonderful achievements move our awe and compel our admiration.\nThose men could pierce to the marrow of a mystery instantly. If the\nRosetta-stone idea had been introduced it would have defeated them, but\nentrails had no embarrassments for them. Entrails have gone out,\nnow\u2014entrails and dreams. It was at last found out that as hiding-places\nfor the divine intentions they were inadequate.\n\nA part of the wall of Valletri having in former times been struck with\nthunder, the response of the soothsayers was, that a native of that\ntown would some time or other arrive at supreme power. \u2014_Bohn\u2019s\nSuetonius_, p. 138.\n\n\u201cSome time or other.\u201d It looks indefinite, but no matter, it happened,\nall the same; one needed only to wait, and be patient, and keep watch,\nthen he would find out that the thunder-stroke had Caesar Augustus in\nmind, and had come to give notice.\n\nThere were other advance-advertisements. One of them appeared just\nbefore Caesar Augustus was born, and was most poetic and touching and\nromantic in its feelings and aspects. It was a dream. It was dreamed by\nCaesar Augustus\u2019s mother, and interpreted at the usual rates:\n\nAtia, before her delivery, dreamed that her bowels stretched to the\nstars and expanded through the whole circuit of heaven and\nearth.\u2014_Suetonius_, p. 139.\n\nThat was in the augur\u2019s line, and furnished him no difficulties, but it\nwould have taken Rawlinson and Champollion fourteen years to make sure\nof what it meant, because they would have been surprised and dizzy. It\nwould have been too late to be valuable, then, and the bill for service\nwould have been barred by the statute of limitation.\n\nIn those old Roman days a gentleman\u2019s education was not complete until\nhe had taken a theological course at the seminary and learned how to\ntranslate entrails. Caesar Augustus\u2019s education received this final\npolish. All through his life, whenever he had poultry on the menu he\nsaved the interiors and kept himself informed of the Deity\u2019s plans by\nexercising upon those interiors the arts of augury.\n\nIn his first consulship, while he was observing the auguries, twelve\nvultures presented themselves, as they had done to Romulus. And when he\noffered sacrifice, the livers of all the victims were folded inward in\nthe lower part; a circumstance which was regarded by those present who\nhad skill in things of that nature, as an indubitable prognostic of\ngreat and wonderful fortune.\u2014_Suetonius_, p. 141.\n\n\u201cIndubitable\u201d is a strong word, but no doubt it was justified, if the\nlivers were really turned that way. In those days chicken livers were\nstrangely and delicately sensitive to coming events, no matter how far\noff they might be; and they could never keep still, but would curl and\nsquirm like that, particularly when vultures came and showed interest\nin that approaching great event and in breakfast.\n\nII\n\nWe may now skip eleven hundred and thirty or forty years, which brings\nus down to enlightened Christian times and the troubled days of King\nStephen of England. The augur has had his day and has been long ago\nforgotten; the priest had fallen heir to his trade.\n\nKing Henry is dead; Stephen, that bold and outrageous person, comes\nflying over from Normandy to steal the throne from Henry\u2019s daughter. He\naccomplished his crime, and Henry of Huntington, a priest of high\ndegree, mourns over it in his Chronicle. The Archbishop of Canterbury\nconsecrated Stephen: \u201cwherefore the Lord visited the Archbishop with\nthe same judgment which he had inflicted upon him who struck Jeremiah\nthe great priest: he died within a year.\u201d\n\nStephen\u2019s was the greater offense, but Stephen could wait; not so the\nArchbishop, apparently.\n\nThe kingdom was a prey to intestine wars; slaughter, fire, and rapine\nspread ruin throughout the land; cries of distress, horror, and woe\nrose in every quarter.\n\nThat was the result of Stephen\u2019s crime. These unspeakable conditions\ncontinued during nineteen years. Then Stephen died as comfortably as\nany man ever did, and was honorably buried. It makes one pity the poor\nArchbishop, and wish that he, too, could have been let off as\nleniently. How did Henry of Huntington know that the Archbishop was\nsent to his grave by judgment of God for consecrating Stephen? He does\nnot explain. Neither does he explain why Stephen was awarded a\npleasanter death than he was entitled to, while the aged King Henry,\nhis predecessor, who had ruled England thirty-five years to the\npeople\u2019s strongly worded satisfaction, was condemned to close his life\nin circumstances most distinctly unpleasant, inconvenient, and\ndisagreeable. His was probably the most uninspiring funeral that is set\ndown in history. There is not a detail about it that is attractive. It\nseems to have been just the funeral for Stephen, and even at this\nfar-distant day it is matter of just regret that by an indiscretion the\nwrong man got it.\n\nWhenever God punishes a man, Henry of Huntington knows why it was done,\nand tells us; and his pen is eloquent with admiration; but when a man\nhas earned punishment, and escapes, he does not explain. He is\nevidently puzzled, but he does not say anything. I think it is often\napparent that he is pained by these discrepancies, but loyally tries\nhis best not to show it. When he cannot praise, he delivers himself of\na silence so marked that a suspicious person could mistake it for\nsuppressed criticism. However, he has plenty of opportunities to feel\ncontented with the way things go\u2014his book is full of them.\n\nKing David of Scotland... under color of religion caused his followers\nto deal most barbarously with the English. They ripped open women,\ntossed children on the points of spears, butchered priests at the\naltars, and, cutting off the heads from the images on crucifixes,\nplaced them on the bodies of the slain, while in exchange they fixed on\nthe crucifixes the heads of their victims. Wherever the Scots came,\nthere was the same scene of horror and cruelty: women shrieking, old\nmen lamenting, amid the groans of the dying and the despair of the\nliving.\n\n\nBut the English got the victory.\n\nThen the chief of the men of Lothian fell, pierced by an arrow, and all\nhis followers were put to flight. For the Almighty was offended at them\nand their strength was rent like a cobweb.\n\n\nOffended at them for what? For committing those fearful butcheries? No,\nfor that was the common custom on both sides, and not open to\ncriticism. Then was it for doing the butcheries \u201cunder cover of\nreligion\u201d? No, that was not it; religious feeling was often expressed\nin that fervent way all through those old centuries. The truth is, He\nwas not offended at \u201cthem\u201d at all; He was only offended at their king,\nwho had been false to an oath. Then why did not He put the punishment\nupon the king instead of upon \u201cthem\u201d? It is a difficult question. One\ncan see by the Chronicle that the \u201cjudgments\u201d fell rather customarily\nupon the wrong person, but Henry of Huntington does not explain why.\nHere is one that went true; the chronicler\u2019s satisfaction in it is not\nhidden:\n\nIn the month of August, Providence displayed its justice in a\nremarkable manner; for two of the nobles who had converted monasteries\ninto fortifications, expelling the monks, their sin being the same, met\nwith a similar punishment. Robert Marmion was one, Godfrey de\nMandeville the other. Robert Marmion, issuing forth against the enemy,\nwas slain under the walls of the monastery, being the only one who\nfell, though he was surrounded by his troops. Dying excommunicated, he\nbecame subject to death everlasting. In like manner Earl Godfrey was\nsingled out among his followers, and shot with an arrow by a common\nfoot-soldier. He made light of the wound, but he died of it in a few\ndays, under excommunication. See here the like judgment of God,\nmemorable through all ages!\n\n\nThis exaltation jars upon me; not because of the death of the men, for\nthey deserved that, but because it is death eternal, in white-hot fire\nand flame. It makes my flesh crawl. I have not known more than three\nmen, or perhaps four, in my whole lifetime, whom I would rejoice to see\nwrithing in those fires for even a year, let alone forever. I believe I\nwould relent before the year was up, and get them out if I could. I\nthink that in the long run, if a man\u2019s wife and babies, who had not\nharmed me, should come crying and pleading, I couldn\u2019t stand it; I know\nI should forgive him and let him go, even if he had violated a\nmonastery. Henry of Huntington has been watching Godfrey and Marmion\nfor nearly seven hundred and fifty years, now, but I couldn\u2019t do it, I\nknow I couldn\u2019t. I am soft and gentle in my nature, and I should have\nforgiven them seventy-and-seven times, long ago. And I think God has;\nbut this is only an opinion, and not authoritative, like Henry of\nHuntington\u2019s interpretations. I could learn to interpret, but I have\nnever tried; I get so little time.\n\nAll through his book Henry exhibits his familiarity with the intentions\nof God, and with the reasons for his intentions. Sometimes\u2014very often,\nin fact\u2014the act follows the intention after such a wide interval of\ntime that one wonders how Henry could fit one act out of a hundred to\none intention out of a hundred and get the thing right every time when\nthere was such abundant choice among acts and intentions. Sometimes a\nman offends the Deity with a crime, and is punished for it thirty years\nlater; meantime he has committed a million other crimes: no matter,\nHenry can pick out the one that brought the worms. Worms were generally\nused in those days for the slaying of particularly wicked people. This\nhas gone out, now, but in old times it was a favorite. It always\nindicated a case of \u201cwrath.\u201d For instance:\n\n... the just God avenging Robert Fitzhilderbrand\u2019s perfidy, a worm grew\nin his vitals, which gradually gnawing its way through his intestines\nfattened on the abandoned man till, tortured with excruciating\nsufferings and venting himself in bitter moans, he was by a fitting\npunishment brought to his end.\u2014(P. 400.)\n\nIt was probably an alligator, but we cannot tell; we only know it was a\nparticular breed, and only used to convey wrath. Some authorities think\nit was an ichthyosaurus, but there is much doubt.\n\nHowever, one thing we do know; and that is that that worm had been due\nyears and years. Robert F. had violated a monastery once; he had\ncommitted unprintable crimes since, and they had been permitted\u2014under\ndisapproval\u2014but the ravishment of the monastery had not been forgotten\nnor forgiven, and the worm came at last.\n\nWhy were these reforms put off in this strange way? What was to be\ngained by it? Did Henry of Huntington really know his facts, or was he\nonly guessing? Sometimes I am half persuaded that he is only a guesser,\nand not a good one. The divine wisdom must surely be of the better\nquality than he makes it out to be.\n\nFive hundred years before Henry\u2019s time some forecasts of the Lord\u2019s\npurposes were furnished by a pope, who perceived, by certain perfectly\ntrustworthy signs furnished by the Deity for the information of His\nfamiliars, that the end of the world was\n\n... about to come. But as this end of the world draws near many things\nare at hand which have not before happened, as changes in the air,\nterrible signs in the heavens, tempests out of the common order of the\nseasons, wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes in various places; all\nwhich will not happen in our days, but after our days all will come to\npass.\n\nStill, the end was so near that these signs were \u201csent before that we\nmay be careful for our souls and be found prepared to meet the\nimpending judgment.\u201d\n\nThat was thirteen hundred years ago. This is really no improvement on\nthe work of the Roman augurs.\n\n\n\n\nCONCERNING TOBACCO\n\n\n(Written about 1893; not before published)\n\nAs concerns tobacco, there are many superstitions. And the chiefest is\nthis\u2014that there is a _standard _governing the matter, whereas there is\nnothing of the kind. Each man\u2019s own preference is the only standard for\nhim, the only one which he can accept, the only one which can command\nhim. A congress of all the tobacco-lovers in the world could not elect\na standard which would be binding upon you or me, or would even much\ninfluence us.\n\nThe next superstition is that a man has a standard of his own. He\nhasn\u2019t. He thinks he has, but he hasn\u2019t. He thinks he can tell what he\nregards as a good cigar from what he regards as a bad one\u2014but he can\u2019t.\nHe goes by the brand, yet imagines he goes by the flavor. One may palm\noff the worst counterfeit upon him; if it bears his brand he will smoke\nit contentedly and never suspect.\n\nChildren of twenty-five, who have seven years of experience, try to\ntell me what is a good cigar and what isn\u2019t. Me, who never learned to\nsmoke, but always smoked; me, who came into the world asking for a\nlight.\n\nNo one can tell me what is a good cigar\u2014for me. I am the only judge.\nPeople who claim to know say that I smoke the worst cigars in the\nworld. They bring their own cigars when they come to my house. They\nbetray an unmanly terror when I offer them a cigar; they tell lies and\nhurry away to meet engagements which they have not made when they are\nthreatened with the hospitalities of my box. Now then, observe what\nsuperstition, assisted by a man\u2019s reputation, can do. I was to have\ntwelve personal friends to supper one night. One of them was as\nnotorious for costly and elegant cigars as I was for cheap and devilish\nones. I called at his house and when no one was looking borrowed a\ndouble handful of his very choicest; cigars which cost him forty cents\napiece and bore red-and-gold labels in sign of their nobility. I\nremoved the labels and put the cigars into a box with my favorite brand\non it\u2014a brand which those people all knew, and which cowed them as men\nare cowed by an epidemic. They took these cigars when offered at the\nend of the supper, and lit them and sternly struggled with them\u2014in\ndreary silence, for hilarity died when the fell brand came into view\nand started around\u2014but their fortitude held for a short time only; then\nthey made excuses and filed out, treading on one another\u2019s heels with\nindecent eagerness; and in the morning when I went out to observe\nresults the cigars lay all between the front door and the gate. All\nexcept one\u2014that one lay in the plate of the man from whom I had\ncabbaged the lot. One or two whiffs was all he could stand. He told me\nafterward that some day I would get shot for giving people that kind of\ncigars to smoke.\n\nAm I certain of my own standard? Perfectly; yes, absolutely\u2014unless\nsomebody fools me by putting my brand on some other kind of cigar; for\nno doubt I am like the rest, and know my cigar by the brand instead of\nby the flavor. However, my standard is a pretty wide one and covers a\ngood deal of territory. To me, almost any cigar is good that nobody\nelse will smoke, and to me almost all cigars are bad that other people\nconsider good. Nearly any cigar will do me, except a Havana. People\nthink they hurt my feelings when they come to my house with their life\npreservers on\u2014I mean, with their own cigars in their pockets. It is an\nerror; I take care of myself in a similar way. When I go into\ndanger\u2014that is, into rich people\u2019s houses, where, in the nature of\nthings, they will have high-tariff cigars, red-and-gilt girded and\nnested in a rosewood box along with a damp sponge, cigars which develop\na dismal black ash and burn down the side and smell, and will grow hot\nto the fingers, and will go on growing hotter and hotter, and go on\nsmelling more and more infamously and unendurably the deeper the fire\ntunnels down inside below the thimbleful of honest tobacco that is in\nthe front end, the furnisher of it praising it all the time and telling\nyou how much the deadly thing cost\u2014yes, when I go into that sort of\nperil I carry my own defense along; I carry my own brand\u2014twenty-seven\ncents a barrel\u2014and I live to see my family again. I may seem to light\nhis red-gartered cigar, but that is only for courtesy\u2019s sake; I smuggle\nit into my pocket for the poor, of whom I know many, and light one of\nmy own; and while he praises it I join in, but when he says it cost\nforty-five cents I say nothing, for I know better.\n\nHowever, to say true, my tastes are so catholic that I have never seen\nany cigars that I really could not smoke, except those that cost a\ndollar apiece. I have examined those and know that they are made of\ndog-hair, and not good dog-hair at that.\n\nI have a thoroughly satisfactory time in Europe, for all over the\nContinent one finds cigars which not even the most hardened newsboys in\nNew York would smoke. I brought cigars with me, the last time; I will\nnot do that any more. In Italy, as in France, the Government is the\nonly cigar-peddler. Italy has three or four domestic brands: the\nMinghetti, the Trabuco, the Virginia, and a very coarse one which is a\nmodification of the Virginia. The Minghettis are large and comely, and\ncost three dollars and sixty cents a hundred; I can smoke a hundred in\nseven days and enjoy every one of them. The Trabucos suit me, too; I\ndon\u2019t remember the price. But one has to learn to like the Virginia,\nnobody is born friendly to it. It looks like a rat-tail file, but\nsmokes better, some think. It has a straw through it; you pull this\nout, and it leaves a flue, otherwise there would be no draught, not\neven as much as there is to a nail. Some prefer a nail at first.\nHowever, I like all the French, Swiss, German, and Italian domestic\ncigars, and have never cared to inquire what they are made of; and\nnobody would know, anyhow, perhaps. There is even a brand of European\nsmoking-tobacco that I like. It is a brand used by the Italian\npeasants. It is loose and dry and black, and looks like tea-grounds.\nWhen the fire is applied it expands, and climbs up and towers above the\npipe, and presently tumbles off inside of one\u2019s vest. The tobacco\nitself is cheap, but it raises the insurance. It is as I remarked in\nthe beginning\u2014the taste for tobacco is a matter of superstition. There\nare no standards\u2014no real standards. Each man\u2019s preference is the only\nstandard for him, the only one which he can accept, the only one which\ncan command him.\n\n\n\n\nTHE BEE\n\n\nIt was Maeterlinck who introduced me to the bee. I mean, in the\npsychical and in the poetical way. I had had a business introduction\nearlier. It was when I was a boy. It is strange that I should remember\na formality like that so long; it must be nearly sixty years.\n\nBee scientists always speak of the bee as she. It is because all the\nimportant bees are of that sex. In the hive there is one married bee,\ncalled the queen; she has fifty thousand children; of these, about one\nhundred are sons; the rest are daughters. Some of the daughters are\nyoung maids, some are old maids, and all are virgins and remain so.\n\nEvery spring the queen comes out of the hive and flies away with one of\nher sons and marries him. The honeymoon lasts only an hour or two; then\nthe queen divorces her husband and returns home competent to lay two\nmillion eggs. This will be enough to last the year, but not more than\nenough, because hundreds of bees get drowned every day, and other\nhundreds are eaten by birds, and it is the queen\u2019s business to keep the\npopulation up to standard\u2014say, fifty thousand. She must always have\nthat many children on hand and efficient during the busy season, which\nis summer, or winter would catch the community short of food. She lays\nfrom two thousand to three thousand eggs a day, according to the\ndemand; and she must exercise judgment, and not lay more than are\nneeded in a slim flower-harvest, nor fewer than are required in a\nprodigal one, or the board of directors will dethrone her and elect a\nqueen that has more sense.\n\nThere are always a few royal heirs in stock and ready to take her\nplace\u2014ready and more than anxious to do it, although she is their own\nmother. These girls are kept by themselves, and are regally fed and\ntended from birth. No other bees get such fine food as they get, or\nlive such a high and luxurious life. By consequence they are larger and\nlonger and sleeker than their working sisters. And they have a curved\nsting, shaped like a scimitar, while the others have a straight one.\n\nA common bee will sting any one or anybody, but a royalty stings\nroyalties only. A common bee will sting and kill another common bee,\nfor cause, but when it is necessary to kill the queen other ways are\nemployed. When a queen has grown old and slack and does not lay eggs\nenough one of her royal daughters is allowed to come to attack her, the\nrest of the bees looking on at the duel and seeing fair play. It is a\nduel with the curved stings. If one of the fighters gets hard pressed\nand gives it up and runs, she is brought back and must try again\u2014once,\nmaybe twice; then, if she runs yet once more for her life, judicial\ndeath is her portion; her children pack themselves into a ball around\nher person and hold her in that compact grip two or three days, until\nshe starves to death or is suffocated. Meantime the victor bee is\nreceiving royal honors and performing the one royal function\u2014laying\neggs.\n\nAs regards the ethics of the judicial assassination of the queen, that\nis a matter of politics, and will be discussed later, in its proper\nplace.\n\nDuring substantially the whole of her short life of five or six years\nthe queen lives in the Egyptian darkness and stately seclusion of the\nroyal apartments, with none about her but plebeian servants, who give\nher empty lip-affection in place of the love which her heart hungers\nfor; who spy upon her in the interest of her waiting heirs, and report\nand exaggerate her defects and deficiencies to them; who fawn upon her\nand flatter her to her face and slander her behind her back; who grovel\nbefore her in the day of her power and forsake her in her age and\nweakness. There she sits, friendless, upon her throne through the long\nnight of her life, cut off from the consoling sympathies and sweet\ncompanionship and loving endearments which she craves, by the gilded\nbarriers of her awful rank; a forlorn exile in her own house and home,\nweary object of formal ceremonies and machine-made worship, winged\nchild of the sun, native to the free air and the blue skies and the\nflowery fields, doomed by the splendid accident of her birth to trade\nthis priceless heritage for a black captivity, a tinsel grandeur, and a\nloveless life, with shame and insult at the end and a cruel death\u2014and\ncondemned by the human instinct in her to hold the bargain valuable!\n\nHuber, Lubbock, Maeterlinck\u2014in fact, all the great authorities\u2014are\nagreed in denying that the bee is a member of the human family. I do\nnot know why they have done this, but I think it is from dishonest\nmotives. Why, the innumerable facts brought to light by their own\npainstaking and exhaustive experiments prove that if there is a master\nfool in the world, it is the bee. That seems to settle it.\n\nBut that is the way of the scientist. He will spend thirty years in\nbuilding up a mountain range of facts with the intent to prove a\ncertain theory; then he is so happy in his achievement that as a rule\nhe overlooks the main chief fact of all\u2014that his accumulation proves an\nentirely different thing. When you point out this miscarriage to him he\ndoes not answer your letters; when you call to convince him, the\nservant prevaricates and you do not get in. Scientists have odious\nmanners, except when you prop up their theory; then you can borrow\nmoney of them.\n\nTo be strictly fair, I will concede that now and then one of them will\nanswer your letter, but when they do they avoid the issue\u2014you cannot\npin them down. When I discovered that the bee was human I wrote about\nit to all those scientists whom I have just mentioned. For evasions, I\nhave seen nothing to equal the answers I got.\n\nAfter the queen, the personage next in importance in the hive is the\nvirgin. The virgins are fifty thousand or one hundred thousand in\nnumber, and they are the workers, the laborers. No work is done, in the\nhive or out of it, save by them. The males do not work, the queen does\nno work, unless laying eggs is work, but it does not seem so to me.\nThere are only two million of them, anyway, and all of five months to\nfinish the contract in. The distribution of work in a hive is as\ncleverly and elaborately specialized as it is in a vast American\nmachine-shop or factory. A bee that has been trained to one of the many\nand various industries of the concern doesn\u2019t know how to exercise any\nother, and would be offended if asked to take a hand in anything\noutside of her profession. She is as human as a cook; and if you should\nask the cook to wait on the table, you know what would happen. Cooks\nwill play the piano if you like, but they draw the line there. In my\ntime I have asked a cook to chop wood, and I know about these things.\nEven the hired girl has her frontiers; true, they are vague, they are\nill-defined, even flexible, but they are there. This is not conjecture;\nit is founded on the absolute. And then the butler. You ask the butler\nto wash the dog. It is just as I say; there is much to be learned in\nthese ways, without going to books. Books are very well, but books do\nnot cover the whole domain of esthetic human culture. Pride of\nprofession is one of the boniest bones in existence, if not the\nboniest. Without doubt it is so in the hive.\n\n\n\n\nTAMING THE BICYCLE\n\n\n(Written about 1893; not before published)\n\nIn the early eighties Mark Twain learned to ride one of the old\nhigh-wheel bicycles of that period. He wrote an account of his\nexperience, but did not offer it for publication. The form of bicycle\nhe rode long ago became antiquated, but in the humor of his pleasantry\nis a quality which does not grow old.\n\nA. B. P. I\n\nI thought the matter over, and concluded I could do it. So I went down\nand bought a barrel of Pond\u2019s Extract and a bicycle. The Expert came\nhome with me to instruct me. We chose the back yard, for the sake of\nprivacy, and went to work.\n\nMine was not a full-grown bicycle, but only a colt\u2014a fifty-inch, with\nthe pedals shortened up to forty-eight\u2014and skittish, like any other\ncolt. The Expert explained the thing\u2019s points briefly, then he got on\nits back and rode around a little, to show me how easy it was to do. He\nsaid that the dismounting was perhaps the hardest thing to learn, and\nso we would leave that to the last. But he was in error there. He\nfound, to his surprise and joy, that all that he needed to do was to\nget me on to the machine and stand out of the way; I could get off,\nmyself. Although I was wholly inexperienced, I dismounted in the best\ntime on record. He was on that side, shoving up the machine; we all\ncame down with a crash, he at the bottom, I next, and the machine on\ntop.\n\nWe examined the machine, but it was not in the least injured. This was\nhardly believable. Yet the Expert assured me that it was true; in fact,\nthe examination proved it. I was partly to realize, then, how admirably\nthese things are constructed. We applied some Pond\u2019s Extract, and\nresumed. The Expert got on the _other _side to shove up this time, but\nI dismounted on that side; so the result was as before.\n\nThe machine was not hurt. We oiled ourselves up again, and resumed.\nThis time the Expert took up a sheltered position behind, but somehow\nor other we landed on him again.\n\nHe was full of surprised admiration; said it was abnormal. She was all\nright, not a scratch on her, not a timber started anywhere. I said it\nwas wonderful, while we were greasing up, but he said that when I came\nto know these steel spider-webs I would realize that nothing but\ndynamite could cripple them. Then he limped out to position, and we\nresumed once more. This time the Expert took up the position of\nshort-stop, and got a man to shove up behind. We got up a handsome\nspeed, and presently traversed a brick, and I went out over the top of\nthe tiller and landed, head down, on the instructor\u2019s back, and saw the\nmachine fluttering in the air between me and the sun. It was well it\ncame down on us, for that broke the fall, and it was not injured.\n\nFive days later I got out and was carried down to the hospital, and\nfound the Expert doing pretty fairly. In a few more days I was quite\nsound. I attribute this to my prudence in always dismounting on\nsomething soft. Some recommend a feather bed, but I think an Expert is\nbetter.\n\nThe Expert got out at last, brought four assistants with him. It was a\ngood idea. These four held the graceful cobweb upright while I climbed\ninto the saddle; then they formed in column and marched on either side\nof me while the Expert pushed behind; all hands assisted at the\ndismount.\n\nThe bicycle had what is called the \u201cwabbles,\u201d and had them very badly.\nIn order to keep my position, a good many things were required of me,\nand in every instance the thing required was against nature. Against\nnature, but not against the laws of nature. That is to say, that\nwhatever the needed thing might be, my nature, habit, and breeding\nmoved me to attempt it in one way, while some immutable and unsuspected\nlaw of physics required that it be done in just the other way. I\nperceived by this how radically and grotesquely wrong had been the\nlife-long education of my body and members. They were steeped in\nignorance; they knew nothing\u2014nothing which it could profit them to\nknow. For instance, if I found myself falling to the right, I put the\ntiller hard down the other way, by a quite natural impulse, and so\nviolated a law, and kept on going down. The law required the opposite\nthing\u2014the big wheel must be turned in the direction in which you are\nfalling. It is hard to believe this, when you are told it. And not\nmerely hard to believe it, but impossible; it is opposed to all your\nnotions. And it is just as hard to do it, after you do come to believe\nit. Believing it, and knowing by the most convincing proof that it is\ntrue, does not help it: you can\u2019t any more DO it than you could before;\nyou can neither force nor persuade yourself to do it at first. The\nintellect has to come to the front, now. It has to teach the limbs to\ndiscard their old education and adopt the new.\n\nThe steps of one\u2019s progress are distinctly marked. At the end of each\nlesson he knows he has acquired something, and he also knows what that\nsomething is, and likewise that it will stay with him. It is not like\nstudying German, where you mull along, in a groping, uncertain way, for\nthirty years; and at last, just as you think you\u2019ve got it, they spring\nthe subjunctive on you, and there you are. No\u2014and I see now, plainly\nenough, that the great pity about the German language is, that you\ncan\u2019t fall off it and hurt yourself. There is nothing like that feature\nto make you attend strictly to business. But I also see, by what I have\nlearned of bicycling, that the right and only sure way to learn German\nis by the bicycling method. That is to say, take a grip on one villainy\nof it at a time, and learn it\u2014not ease up and shirk to the next,\nleaving that one half learned.\n\nWhen you have reached the point in bicycling where you can balance the\nmachine tolerably fairly and propel it and steer it, then comes your\nnext task\u2014how to mount it. You do it in this way: you hop along behind\nit on your right foot, resting the other on the mounting-peg, and\ngrasping the tiller with your hands. At the word, you rise on the peg,\nstiffen your left leg, hang your other one around in the air in a\ngeneral in indefinite way, lean your stomach against the rear of the\nsaddle, and then fall off, maybe on one side, maybe on the other; but\nyou fall off. You get up and do it again; and once more; and then\nseveral times.\n\nBy this time you have learned to keep your balance; and also to steer\nwithout wrenching the tiller out by the roots (I say tiller because it\nIS a tiller; \u201chandle-bar\u201d is a lamely descriptive phrase). So you steer\nalong, straight ahead, a little while, then you rise forward, with a\nsteady strain, bringing your right leg, and then your body, into the\nsaddle, catch your breath, fetch a violent hitch this way and then\nthat, and down you go again.\n\nBut you have ceased to mind the going down by this time; you are\ngetting to light on one foot or the other with considerable certainty.\nSix more attempts and six more falls make you perfect. You land in the\nsaddle comfortably, next time, and stay there\u2014that is, if you can be\ncontent to let your legs dangle, and leave the pedals alone a while;\nbut if you grab at once for the pedals, you are gone again. You soon\nlearn to wait a little and perfect your balance before reaching for the\npedals; then the mounting-art is acquired, is complete, and a little\npractice will make it simple and easy to you, though spectators ought\nto keep off a rod or two to one side, along at first, if you have\nnothing against them.\n\nAnd now you come to the voluntary dismount; you learned the other kind\nfirst of all. It is quite easy to tell one how to do the voluntary\ndismount; the words are few, the requirement simple, and apparently\nundifficult; let your left pedal go down till your left leg is nearly\nstraight, turn your wheel to the left, and get off as you would from a\nhorse. It certainly does sound exceedingly easy; but it isn\u2019t. I don\u2019t\nknow why it isn\u2019t but it isn\u2019t. Try as you may, you don\u2019t get down as\nyou would from a horse, you get down as you would from a house afire.\nYou make a spectacle of yourself every time.\n\nII\n\nDuring the eight days I took a daily lesson of an hour and a half. At\nthe end of this twelve working-hours\u2019 apprenticeship I was graduated\u2014in\nthe rough. I was pronounced competent to paddle my own bicycle without\noutside help. It seems incredible, this celerity of acquirement. It\ntakes considerably longer than that to learn horseback-riding in the\nrough.\n\nNow it is true that I could have learned without a teacher, but it\nwould have been risky for me, because of my natural clumsiness. The\nself-taught man seldom knows anything accurately, and he does not know\na tenth as much as he could have known if he had worked under teachers;\nand, besides, he brags, and is the means of fooling other thoughtless\npeople into going and doing as he himself has done. There are those who\nimagine that the unlucky accidents of life\u2014life\u2019s \u201cexperiences\u201d\u2014are in\nsome way useful to us. I wish I could find out how. I never knew one of\nthem to happen twice. They always change off and swap around and catch\nyou on your inexperienced side. If personal experience can be worth\nanything as an education, it wouldn\u2019t seem likely that you could trip\nMethuselah; and yet if that old person could come back here it is more\nthan likely that one of the first things he would do would be to take\nhold of one of these electric wires and tie himself all up in a knot.\nNow the surer thing and the wiser thing would be for him to ask\nsomebody whether it was a good thing to take hold of. But that would\nnot suit him; he would be one of the self-taught kind that go by\nexperience; he would want to examine for himself. And he would find,\nfor his instruction, that the coiled patriarch shuns the electric wire;\nand it would be useful to him, too, and would leave his education in\nquite a complete and rounded-out condition, till he should come again,\nsome day, and go to bouncing a dynamite-can around to find out what was\nin it.\n\nBut we wander from the point. However, get a teacher; it saves much\ntime and Pond\u2019s Extract.\n\nBefore taking final leave of me, my instructor inquired concerning my\nphysical strength, and I was able to inform him that I hadn\u2019t any. He\nsaid that that was a defect which would make up-hill wheeling pretty\ndifficult for me at first; but he also said the bicycle would soon\nremove it. The contrast between his muscles and mine was quite marked.\nHe wanted to test mine, so I offered my biceps\u2014which was my best. It\nalmost made him smile. He said, \u201cIt is pulpy, and soft, and yielding,\nand rounded; it evades pressure, and glides from under the fingers; in\nthe dark a body might think it was an oyster in a rag.\u201d Perhaps this\nmade me look grieved, for he added, briskly: \u201cOh, that\u2019s all right, you\nneedn\u2019t worry about that; in a little while you can\u2019t tell it from a\npetrified kidney. Just go right along with your practice; you\u2019re all\nright.\u201d\n\nThen he left me, and I started out alone to seek adventures. You don\u2019t\nreally have to seek them\u2014that is nothing but a phrase\u2014they come to you.\n\nI chose a reposeful Sabbath-day sort of a back street which was about\nthirty yards wide between the curbstones. I knew it was not wide\nenough; still, I thought that by keeping strict watch and wasting no\nspace unnecessarily I could crowd through.\n\nOf course I had trouble mounting the machine, entirely on my own\nresponsibility, with no encouraging moral support from the outside, no\nsympathetic instructor to say, \u201cGood! now you\u2019re doing well\u2014good\nagain\u2014don\u2019t hurry\u2014there, now, you\u2019re all right\u2014brace up, go ahead.\u201d In\nplace of this I had some other support. This was a boy, who was perched\non a gate-post munching a hunk of maple sugar.\n\nHe was full of interest and comment. The first time I failed and went\ndown he said that if he was me he would dress up in pillows, that\u2019s\nwhat he would do. The next time I went down he advised me to go and\nlearn to ride a tricycle first. The third time I collapsed he said he\ndidn\u2019t believe I could stay on a horse-car. But the next time I\nsucceeded, and got clumsily under way in a weaving, tottering,\nuncertain fashion, and occupying pretty much all of the street. My slow\nand lumbering gait filled the boy to the chin with scorn, and he sung\nout, \u201cMy, but don\u2019t he rip along!\u201d Then he got down from his post and\nloafed along the sidewalk, still observing and occasionally commenting.\nPresently he dropped into my wake and followed along behind. A little\ngirl passed by, balancing a wash-board on her head, and giggled, and\nseemed about to make a remark, but the boy said, rebukingly, \u201cLet him\nalone, he\u2019s going to a funeral.\u201d\n\nI have been familiar with that street for years, and had always\nsupposed it was a dead level; but it was not, as the bicycle now\ninformed me, to my surprise. The bicycle, in the hands of a novice, is\nas alert and acute as a spirit-level in the detecting of delicate and\nvanishing shades of difference in these matters. It notices a rise\nwhere your untrained eye would not observe that one existed; it notices\nany decline which water will run down. I was toiling up a slight rise,\nbut was not aware of it. It made me tug and pant and perspire; and\nstill, labor as I might, the machine came almost to a standstill every\nlittle while. At such times the boy would say: \u201cThat\u2019s it! take a\nrest\u2014there ain\u2019t no hurry. They can\u2019t hold the funeral without YOU.\u201d\n\nStones were a bother to me. Even the smallest ones gave me a panic when\nI went over them. I could hit any kind of a stone, no matter how small,\nif I tried to miss it; and of course at first I couldn\u2019t help trying to\ndo that. It is but natural. It is part of the ass that is put in us\nall, for some inscrutable reason.\n\nI was at the end of my course, at last, and it was necessary for me to\nround to. This is not a pleasant thing, when you undertake it for the\nfirst time on your own responsibility, and neither is it likely to\nsucceed. Your confidence oozes away, you fill steadily up with nameless\napprehensions, every fiber of you is tense with a watchful strain, you\nstart a cautious and gradual curve, but your squirmy nerves are all\nfull of electric anxieties, so the curve is quickly demoralized into a\njerky and perilous zigzag; then suddenly the nickel-clad horse takes\nthe bit in its mouth and goes slanting for the curbstone, defying all\nprayers and all your powers to change its mind\u2014your heart stands still,\nyour breath hangs fire, your legs forget to work, straight on you go,\nand there are but a couple of feet between you and the curb now. And\nnow is the desperate moment, the last chance to save yourself; of\ncourse all your instructions fly out of your head, and you whirl your\nwheel AWAY from the curb instead of TOWARD it, and so you go sprawling\non that granite-bound inhospitable shore. That was my luck; that was my\nexperience. I dragged myself out from under the indestructible bicycle\nand sat down on the curb to examine.\n\nI started on the return trip. It was now that I saw a farmer\u2019s wagon\npoking along down toward me, loaded with cabbages. If I needed anything\nto perfect the precariousness of my steering, it was just that. The\nfarmer was occupying the middle of the road with his wagon, leaving\nbarely fourteen or fifteen yards of space on either side. I couldn\u2019t\nshout at him\u2014a beginner can\u2019t shout; if he opens his mouth he is gone;\nhe must keep all his attention on his business. But in this grisly\nemergency, the boy came to the rescue, and for once I had to be\ngrateful to him. He kept a sharp lookout on the swiftly varying\nimpulses and inspirations of my bicycle, and shouted to the man\naccordingly:\n\n\u201cTo the left! Turn to the left, or this jackass \u2019ll run over you!\u201d The\nman started to do it. \u201cNo, to the right, to the right! Hold on! THAT\nwon\u2019t do!\u2014to the left!\u2014to the right!\u2014to the LEFT\u2014right! left\u2014ri\u2014Stay\nwhere you ARE, or you\u2019re a goner!\u201d\n\nAnd just then I caught the off horse in the starboard and went down in\na pile. I said, \u201cHang it! Couldn\u2019t you SEE I was coming?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, I see you was coming, but I couldn\u2019t tell which WAY you was\ncoming. Nobody could\u2014now, _could _they? You couldn\u2019t yourself\u2014now,\n_could_ you? So what could _I_ do?\u201d\n\nThere was something in that, and so I had the magnanimity to say so. I\nsaid I was no doubt as much to blame as he was.\n\nWithin the next five days I achieved so much progress that the boy\ncouldn\u2019t keep up with me. He had to go back to his gate-post, and\ncontent himself with watching me fall at long range.\n\nThere was a row of low stepping-stones across one end of the street, a\nmeasured yard apart. Even after I got so I could steer pretty fairly I\nwas so afraid of those stones that I always hit them. They gave me the\nworst falls I ever got in that street, except those which I got from\ndogs. I have seen it stated that no expert is quick enough to run over\na dog; that a dog is always able to skip out of his way. I think that\nthat may be true: but I think that the reason he couldn\u2019t run over the\ndog was because he was trying to. I did not try to run over any dog.\nBut I ran over every dog that came along. I think it makes a great deal\nof difference. If you try to run over the dog he knows how to\ncalculate, but if you are trying to miss him he does not know how to\ncalculate, and is liable to jump the wrong way every time. It was\nalways so in my experience. Even when I could not hit a wagon I could\nhit a dog that came to see me practice. They all liked to see me\npractice, and they all came, for there was very little going on in our\nneighborhood to entertain a dog. It took time to learn to miss a dog,\nbut I achieved even that.\n\nI can steer as well as I want to, now, and I will catch that boy out\none of these days and run over HIM if he doesn\u2019t reform.\n\nGet a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live.\n\n\n\n\nIS SHAKESPEARE DEAD?\n\n\n(from _My Autobiography_)\n\nI\n\nScattered here and there through the stacks of unpublished manuscript\nwhich constitute this formidable Autobiography and Diary of mine,\ncertain chapters will in some distant future be found which deal with\n\u201cClaimants\u201d\u2014claimants historically notorious: Satan, Claimant; the\nGolden Calf, Claimant; the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, Claimant; Louis\nXVII., Claimant; William Shakespeare, Claimant; Arthur Orton, Claimant;\nMary Baker G. Eddy, Claimant\u2014and the rest of them. Eminent Claimants,\nsuccessful Claimants, defeated Claimants, royal Claimants, pleb\nClaimants, showy Claimants, shabby Claimants, revered Claimants,\ndespised Claimants, twinkle star-like here and there and yonder through\nthe mists of history and legend and tradition\u2014and, oh, all the darling\ntribe are clothed in mystery and romance, and we read about them with\ndeep interest and discuss them with loving sympathy or with rancorous\nresentment, according to which side we hitch ourselves to. It has\nalways been so with the human race. There was never a Claimant that\ncouldn\u2019t get a hearing, nor one that couldn\u2019t accumulate a rapturous\nfollowing, no matter how flimsy and apparently unauthentic his claim\nmight be. Arthur Orton\u2019s claim that he was the lost Tichborne baronet\ncome to life again was as flimsy as Mrs. Eddy\u2019s that she wrote _Science\nAnd Health_ from the direct dictation of the Deity; yet in England\nnearly forty years ago Orton had a huge army of devotees and\nincorrigible adherents, many of whom remained stubbornly unconvinced\nafter their fat god had been proven an impostor and jailed as a\nperjurer, and today Mrs. Eddy\u2019s following is not only immense, but is\ndaily augmenting in numbers and enthusiasm. Orton had many fine and\neducated minds among his adherents, Mrs. Eddy has had the like among\nhers from the beginning. Her Church is as well equipped in those\nparticulars as is any other Church. Claimants can always count upon a\nfollowing, it doesn\u2019t matter who they are, nor what they claim, nor\nwhether they come with documents or without. It was always so. Down out\nof the long-vanished past, across the abyss of the ages, if you listen,\nyou can still hear the believing multitudes shouting for Perkin Warbeck\nand Lambert Simnel.\n\nA friend has sent me a new book, from England\u2014_The Shakespeare Problem\nRestated_\u2014well restated and closely reasoned; and my fifty years\u2019\ninterest in that matter\u2014asleep for the last three years\u2014is excited once\nmore. It is an interest which was born of Delia Bacon\u2019s book\u2014away back\nin that ancient day\u20141857, or maybe 1856. About a year later my\npilot-master, Bixby, transferred me from his own steamboat to the\n_Pennsylvania_, and placed me under the orders and instructions of\nGeorge Ealer\u2014dead now, these many, many years. I steered for him a good\nmany months\u2014as was the humble duty of the pilot-apprentice: stood a\ndaylight watch and spun the wheel under the severe superintendence and\ncorrection of the master. He was a prime chess-player and an idolater\nof Shakespeare. He would play chess with anybody; even with me, and it\ncost his official dignity something to do that. Also\u2014quite uninvited\u2014he\nwould read Shakespeare to me; not just casually, but by the hour, when\nit was his watch and I was steering. He read well, but not profitably\nfor me, because he constantly injected commands into the text. That\nbroke it all up, mixed it all up, tangled it all up\u2014to that degree, in\nfact, that if we were in a risky and difficult piece of river an\nignorant person couldn\u2019t have told, sometimes, which observations were\nShakespeare\u2019s and which were Ealer\u2019s. For instance:\n\nWhat man dare, _I_ dare!\n    Approach thou _what_ are you laying in the leads for? what a hell\n    of an idea! like the rugged ease her off a little, ease her off!\n    rugged Russian bear, the armed rhinoceros or the _there_ she goes!\n    meet her, meet her! didn\u2019t you _know_ she\u2019d smell the reef if you\n    crowded it like that? Hyrcan tiger; take any shape but that and my\n    firm nerves she\u2019ll be in the _woods_ the first you know! stop the\n    starboard! come ahead strong on the larboard! back the\n    starboard!... _now_ then, you\u2019re all right; come ahead on the\n    starboard; straighten up and go \u2019long, never tremble: or be alive\n    again, and dare me to the desert _damnation_ can\u2019t you keep away\n    from that greasy water? pull her down! snatch her! snatch her\n    baldheaded! with thy sword; if trembling I inhabit then, lay in the\n    leads!\u2014no, only with the starboard one, leave the other alone,\n    protest me the baby of a girl. Hence horrible shadow! eight\n    bells\u2014that watchman\u2019s asleep again, I reckon, go down and call\n    Brown yourself, unreal mockery, hence!\n\n\nHe certainly was a good reader, and splendidly thrilling and stormy and\ntragic, but it was a damage to me, because I have never since been able\nto read Shakespeare in a calm and sane way. I cannot rid it of his\nexplosive interlardings, they break in everywhere with their\nirrelevant, \u201cWhat in hell are you up to _now_! pull her down! more!\n_More!_\u2014there now, steady as you go,\u201d and the other disorganizing\ninterruptions that were always leaping from his mouth. When I read\nShakespeare now I can hear them as plainly as I did in that\nlong-departed time\u2014fifty-one years ago. I never regarded Ealer\u2019s\nreadings as educational. Indeed, they were a detriment to me.\n\nHis contributions to the text seldom improved it, but barring that\ndetail he was a good reader; I can say that much for him. He did not\nuse the book, and did not need to; he knew his Shakespeare as well as\nEuclid ever knew his multiplication table.\n\nDid he have something to say\u2014this Shakespeare-adoring Mississippi\npilot\u2014anent Delia Bacon\u2019s book?\n\nYes. And he said it; said it all the time, for months\u2014in the morning\nwatch, the middle watch, and dog watch; and probably kept it going in\nhis sleep. He bought the literature of the dispute as fast as it\nappeared, and we discussed it all through thirteen hundred miles of\nriver four times traversed in every thirty-five days\u2014the time required\nby that swift boat to achieve two round trips. We discussed, and\ndiscussed, and discussed, and disputed and disputed and disputed; at\nany rate, _he_ did, and I got in a word now and then when he slipped a\ncog and there was a vacancy. He did his arguing with heat, with energy,\nwith violence; and I did mine with the reserve and moderation of a\nsubordinate who does not like to be flung out of a pilot-house that is\nperched forty feet above the water. He was fiercely loyal to\nShakespeare and cordially scornful of Bacon and of all the pretensions\nof the Baconians. So was I\u2014at first. And at first he was glad that that\nwas my attitude. There were even indications that he admired it;\nindications dimmed, it is true, by the distance that lay between the\nlofty boss-pilotical altitude and my lowly one, yet perceptible to me;\nperceptible, and translatable into a compliment\u2014compliment coming down\nfrom above the snow-line and not well thawed in the transit, and not\nlikely to set anything afire, not even a cub-pilot\u2019s self-conceit;\nstill a detectable complement, and precious.\n\nNaturally it flattered me into being more loyal to Shakespeare\u2014if\npossible\u2014than I was before, and more prejudiced against Bacon\u2014if\npossible\u2014than I was before. And so we discussed and discussed, both on\nthe same side, and were happy. For a while. Only for a while. Only for\na very little while, a very, very, very little while. Then the\natmosphere began to change; began to cool off.\n\nA brighter person would have seen what the trouble was, earlier than I\ndid, perhaps, but I saw it early enough for all practical purposes. You\nsee, he was of an argumentative disposition. Therefore it took him but\na little time to get tired of arguing with a person who agreed with\neverything he said and consequently never furnished him a provocative\nto flare up and show what he could do when it came to clear, cold,\nhard, rose-cut, hundred-faceted, diamond-flashing _reasoning_. That was\nhis name for it. It has been applied since, with complacency, as many\nas several times, in the Bacon-Shakespeare scuffle. On the Shakespeare\nside.\n\nThen the thing happened which has happened to more persons than to me\nwhen principle and personal interest found themselves in opposition to\neach other and a choice had to be made: I let principle go, and went\nover to the other side. Not the entire way, but far enough to answer\nthe requirements of the case. That is to say, I took this attitude\u2014to\nwit, I only _believed_ Bacon wrote Shakespeare, whereas I _knew_\nShakespeare didn\u2019t. Ealer was satisfied with that, and the war broke\nloose. Study, practice, experience in handling my end of the matter\npresently enabled me to take my new position almost seriously; a little\nbit later, utterly seriously; a little later still, lovingly,\ngratefully, devotedly; finally: fiercely, rabidly, uncompromisingly.\nAfter that I was welded to my faith, I was theoretically ready to die\nfor it, and I looked down with compassion not unmixed with scorn upon\neverybody else\u2019s faith that didn\u2019t tally with mine. That faith, imposed\nupon me by self-interest in that ancient day, remains my faith today,\nand in it I find comfort, solace, peace, and never-failing joy. You see\nhow curiously theological it is. The \u201crice Christian\u201d of the Orient\ngoes through the very same steps, when he is after rice and the\nmissionary is after _him_; he goes for rice, and remains to worship.\n\nEaler did a lot of our \u201creasoning\u201d\u2014not to say substantially all of it.\nThe slaves of his cult have a passion for calling it by that large\nname. We others do not call our inductions and deductions and\nreductions by any name at all. They show for themselves what they are,\nand we can with tranquil confidence leave the world to ennoble them\nwith a title of its own choosing.\n\nNow and then when Ealer had to stop to cough, I pulled my\ninduction-talents together and hove the controversial lead myself:\nalways getting eight feet, eight and a half, often nine, sometimes even\nquarter-less-twain\u2014as _I_ believed; but always \u201cno bottom,\u201d as _he_\nsaid.\n\nI got the best of him only once. I prepared myself. I wrote out a\npassage from Shakespeare\u2014it may have been the very one I quoted awhile\nago, I don\u2019t remember\u2014and riddled it with his wild steamboatful\ninterlardings. When an unrisky opportunity offered, one lovely summer\nday, when we had sounded and buoyed a tangled patch of crossings known\nas Hell\u2019s Half Acre, and were aboard again and he had sneaked the\n_Pennsylvania_ triumphantly through it without once scraping sand, and\nthe _A. T. Lacey_ had followed in our wake and got stuck, and he was\nfeeling good, I showed it to him. It amused him. I asked him to fire it\noff\u2014_read_ it; read it, I diplomatically added, as only _he_ could read\ndramatic poetry. The compliment touched him where he lived. He did read\nit; read it with surpassing fire and spirit; read it as it will never\nbe read again; for _he_ knew how to put the right music into those\nthunderous interlardings and make them seem a part of the text, make\nthem sound as if they were bursting from Shakespeare\u2019s own soul, each\none of them a golden inspiration and not to be left out without damage\nto the massed and magnificent whole.\n\nI waited a week, to let the incident fade; waited longer; waited until\nhe brought up for reasonings and vituperation my pet position, my pet\nargument, the one which I was fondest of, the one which I prized far\nabove all others in my ammunition-wagon\u2014to wit, that Shakespeare\ncouldn\u2019t have written Shakespeare\u2019s works, for the reason that the man\nwho wrote them was limitlessly familiar with the laws, and the\nlaw-courts, and law-proceedings, and lawyer-talk, and lawyer-ways\u2014and\nif Shakespeare was possessed of the infinitely divided star-dust that\nconstituted this vast wealth, _how_ did he get it, and _where_ and\n_when_?\n\n\u201cFrom books.\u201d\n\nFrom books! That was always the idea. I answered as my readings of the\nchampions of my side of the great controversy had taught me to answer:\nthat a man can\u2019t handle glibly and easily and comfortably and\nsuccessfully the argot of a trade at which he has not personally\nserved. He will make mistakes; he will not, and cannot, get the\ntrade-phrasings precisely and exactly right; and the moment he departs,\nby even a shade, from a common trade-form, the reader who has served\nthat trade will know the writer _hasn\u2019t_. Ealer would not be convinced;\nhe said a man could learn how to correctly handle the subtleties and\nmysteries and free-masonries of _any_ trade by careful reading and\nstudying. But when I got him to read again the passage from Shakespeare\nwith the interlardings, he perceived, himself, that books couldn\u2019t\nteach a student a bewildering multitude of pilot-phrases so thoroughly\nand perfectly that he could talk them off in book and play or\nconversation and make no mistake that a pilot would not immediately\ndiscover. It was a triumph for me. He was silent awhile, and I knew\nwhat was happening\u2014he was losing his temper. And I knew he would\npresently close the session with the same old argument that was always\nhis stay and his support in time of need; the same old argument, the\none I couldn\u2019t answer, because I dasn\u2019t\u2014the argument that I was an ass,\nand better shut up. He delivered it, and I obeyed.\n\nO dear, how long ago it was\u2014how pathetically long ago! And here am I,\nold, forsaken, forlorn, and alone, arranging to get that argument out\nof somebody again.\n\nWhen a man has a passion for Shakespeare, it goes without saying that\nhe keeps company with other standard authors. Ealer always had several\nhigh-class books in the pilot-house, and he read the same ones over and\nover again, and did not care to change to newer and fresher ones. He\nplayed well on the flute, and greatly enjoyed hearing himself play. So\ndid I. He had a notion that a flute would keep its health better if you\ntook it apart when it was not standing a watch; and so, when it was not\non duty it took its rest, disjointed, on the compass-shelf under the\nbreastboard. When the _Pennsylvania_ blew up and became a drifting\nrack-heap freighted with wounded and dying poor souls (my young brother\nHenry among them), pilot Brown had the watch below, and was probably\nasleep and never knew what killed him; but Ealer escaped unhurt. He and\nhis pilot-house were shot up into the air; then they fell, and Ealer\nsank through the ragged cavern where the hurricane-deck and the\nboiler-deck had been, and landed in a nest of ruins on the main deck,\non top of one of the unexploded boilers, where he lay prone in a fog of\nscald and deadly steam. But not for long. He did not lose his head\u2014long\nfamiliarity with danger had taught him to keep it, in any and all\nemergencies. He held his coat-lapels to his nose with one hand, to keep\nout the steam, and scrabbled around with the other till he found the\njoints of his flute, then he took measures to save himself alive, and\nwas successful. I was not on board. I had been put ashore in New\nOrleans by Captain Klinefelter. The reason\u2014however, I have told all\nabout it in the book called _Old Times On The Mississippi_, and it\nisn\u2019t important, anyway, it is so long ago.\n\nII\n\nWhen I was a Sunday-school scholar, something more than sixty years\nago, I became interested in Satan, and wanted to find out all I could\nabout him. I began to ask questions, but my class-teacher, Mr. Barclay,\nthe stone-mason, was reluctant about answering them, it seemed to me. I\nwas anxious to be praised for turning my thoughts to serious subjects\nwhen there wasn\u2019t another boy in the village who could be hired to do\nsuch a thing. I was greatly interested in the incident of Eve and the\nserpent, and thought Eve\u2019s calmness was perfectly noble. I asked Mr.\nBarclay if he had ever heard of another woman who, being approached by\na serpent, would not excuse herself and break for the nearest timber.\nHe did not answer my question, but rebuked me for inquiring into\nmatters above my age and comprehension. I will say for Mr. Barclay that\nhe was willing to tell me the facts of Satan\u2019s history, but he stopped\nthere: he wouldn\u2019t allow any discussion of them.\n\nIn the course of time we exhausted the facts. There were only five or\nsix of them; you could set them all down on a visiting-card. I was\ndisappointed. I had been meditating a biography, and was grieved to\nfind that there were no materials. I said as much, with the tears\nrunning down. Mr. Barclay\u2019s sympathy and compassion were aroused, for\nhe was a most kind and gentle-spirited man, and he patted me on the\nhead and cheered me up by saying there was a whole vast ocean of\nmaterials! I can still feel the happy thrill which these blessed words\nshot through me.\n\nThen he began to bail out that ocean\u2019s riches for my encouragement and\njoy. Like this: it was \u201cconjectured\u201d\u2014though not established\u2014that Satan\nwas originally an angel in Heaven; that he fell; that he rebelled, and\nbrought on a war; that he was defeated, and banished to perdition.\nAlso, \u201cwe have reason to believe\u201d that later he did so and so; that \u201cwe\nare warranted in supposing\u201d that at a subsequent time he traveled\nextensively, seeking whom he might devour; that a couple of centuries\nafterward, \u201cas tradition instructs us,\u201d he took up the cruel trade of\ntempting people to their ruin, with vast and fearful results; that by\nand by, \u201cas the probabilities seem to indicate,\u201d he may have done\ncertain things, he might have done certain other things, he must have\ndone still other things.\n\nAnd so on and so on. We set down the five known facts by themselves on\na piece of paper, and numbered it \u201cpage 1\u201d; then on fifteen hundred\nother pieces of paper we set down the \u201cconjectures,\u201d and\n\u201csuppositions,\u201d and \u201cmaybes,\u201d and \u201cperhapses,\u201d and \u201cdoubtlesses,\u201d and\n\u201crumors,\u201d and \u201cguesses,\u201d and \u201cprobabilities,\u201d and \u201clikelihoods,\u201d and\n\u201cwe are permitted to thinks,\u201d and \u201cwe are warranted in believings,\u201d and\n\u201cmight have beens,\u201d and \u201ccould have beens,\u201d and \u201cmust have beens,\u201d and\n\u201cunquestionablys,\u201d and \u201cwithout a shadow of doubts\u201d\u2014and behold!\n\n_Materials?_ Why, we had enough to build a biography of Shakespeare!\n\nYet he made me put away my pen; he would not let me write the history\nof Satan. Why? Because, as he said, he had suspicions\u2014suspicions that\nmy attitude in that matter was not reverent, and that a person must be\nreverent when writing about the sacred characters. He said any one who\nspoke flippantly of Satan would be frowned upon by the religious world\nand also be brought to account.\n\nI assured him, in earnest and sincere words, that he had wholly\nmisconceived my attitude; that I had the highest respect for Satan, and\nthat my reverence for him equaled, and possibly even exceeded, that of\nany member of any church. I said it wounded me deeply to perceive by\nhis words that he thought I would make fun of Satan, and deride him,\nlaugh at him, scoff at him; whereas in truth I had never thought of\nsuch a thing, but had only a warm desire to make fun of those others\nand laugh at _them_. \u201cWhat others?\u201d \u201cWhy, the Supposers, the\nPerhapsers, the Might-Have-Beeners, the Could-Have-Beeners, the\nMust-Have-Beeners, the Without-a-Shadow-of-Doubters, the\nWe-Are-Warranted-in-Believingers, and all that funny crop of solemn\narchitects who have taken a good solid foundation of five indisputable\nand unimportant facts and built upon it a Conjectural Satan thirty\nmiles high.\u201d\n\nWhat did Mr. Barclay do then? Was he disarmed? Was he silenced? No. He\nwas shocked. He was so shocked that he visibly shuddered. He said the\nSatanic Traditioners and Perhapsers and Conjecturers were _themselves_\nsacred! As sacred as their work. So sacred that whoso ventured to mock\nthem or make fun of their work, could not afterward enter any\nrespectable house, even by the back door.\n\nHow true were his words, and how wise! How fortunate it would have been\nfor me if I had heeded them. But I was young, I was but seven years of\nage, and vain, foolish, and anxious to attract attention. I wrote the\nbiography, and have never been in a respectable house since.\n\nIII\n\nHow curious and interesting is the parallel\u2014as far as poverty of\nbiographical details is concerned\u2014between Satan and Shakespeare. It is\nwonderful, it is unique, it stands quite alone, there is nothing\nresembling it in history, nothing resembling it in romance, nothing\napproaching it even in tradition. How sublime is their position, and\nhow over-topping, how sky-reaching, how supreme\u2014the two Great Unknowns,\nthe two Illustrious Conjecturabilities! They are the best-known unknown\npersons that have ever drawn breath upon the planet.\n\nFor the instruction of the ignorant I will make a list, now, of those\ndetails of Shakespeare\u2019s history which are _facts_\u2014verified facts,\nestablished facts, undisputed facts.\n\nFACTS\n\nHe was born on the 23d of April, 1564.\n\nOf good farmer-class parents who could not read, could not write, could\nnot sign their names.\n\nAt Stratford, a small back settlement which in that day was shabby and\nunclean, and densely illiterate. Of the nineteen important men charged\nwith the government of the town, thirteen had to \u201cmake their mark\u201d in\nattesting important documents, because they could not write their\nnames.\n\nOf the first eighteen years of his life _nothing_ is known. They are a\nblank.\n\nOn the 27th of November (1582) William Shakespeare took out a license\nto marry Anne Whateley.\n\nNext day William Shakespeare took out a license to marry Anne Hathaway.\nShe was eight years his senior.\n\nWilliam Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway. In a hurry. By grace of a\nreluctantly granted dispensation there was but one publication of the\nbanns.\n\nWithin six months the first child was born.\n\nAbout two (blank) years followed, during which period _nothing at all\nhappened to Shakespeare_, so far as anybody knows.\n\nThen came twins\u20141585. February.\n\nTwo blank years follow.\n\nThen\u20141587\u2014he makes a ten-year visit to London, leaving the family\nbehind.\n\nFive blank years follow. During this period _nothing happened to him_,\nas far as anybody actually knows.\n\nThen\u20141592\u2014there is mention of him as an actor.\n\nNext year\u20141593\u2014his name appears in the official list of players.\n\nNext year\u20141594\u2014he played before the queen. A detail of no consequence:\nother obscurities did it every year of the forty-five of her reign. And\nremained obscure.\n\nThree pretty full years follow. Full of play-acting. Then\n\nIn 1597 he bought New Place, Stratford.\n\nThirteen or fourteen busy years follow; years in which he accumulated\nmoney, and also reputation as actor and manager.\n\nMeantime his name, liberally and variously spelt, had become associated\nwith a number of great plays and poems, as (ostensibly) author of the\nsame.\n\nSome of these, in these years and later, were pirated, but he made no\nprotest.\n\nThen\u20141610-11\u2014he returned to Stratford and settled down for good and\nall, and busied himself in lending money, trading in tithes, trading in\nland and houses; shirking a debt of forty-one shillings, borrowed by\nhis wife during his long desertion of his family; suing debtors for\nshillings and coppers; being sued himself for shillings and coppers;\nand acting as confederate to a neighbor who tried to rob the town of\nits rights in a certain common, and did not succeed.\n\nHe lived five or six years\u2014till 1616\u2014in the joy of these elevated\npursuits. Then he made a will, and signed each of its three pages with\nhis name.\n\nA thoroughgoing business man\u2019s will. It named in minute detail every\nitem of property he owned in the world\u2014houses, lands, sword,\nsilver-gilt bowl, and so on\u2014all the way down to his \u201csecond-best bed\u201d\nand its furniture.\n\nIt carefully and calculatingly distributed his riches among the members\nof his family, overlooking no individual of it. Not even his wife: the\nwife he had been enabled to marry in a hurry by urgent grace of a\nspecial dispensation before he was nineteen; the wife whom he had left\nhusbandless so many years; the wife who had had to borrow forty-one\nshillings in her need, and which the lender was never able to collect\nof the prosperous husband, but died at last with the money still\nlacking. No, even this wife was remembered in Shakespeare\u2019s will.\n\nHe left her that \u201csecond-best bed.\u201d\n\nAnd _not another thing_; not even a penny to bless her lucky widowhood\nwith.\n\nIt was eminently and conspicuously a business man\u2019s will, not a poet\u2019s.\n\nIt mentioned _not a single book_.\n\nBooks were much more precious than swords and silver-gilt bowls and\nsecond-best beds in those days, and when a departing person owned one\nhe gave it a high place in his will.\n\nThe will mentioned _not a play, not a poem, not an unfinished literary\nwork, not a scrap of manuscript of any kind_.\n\nMany poets have died poor, but this is the only one in history that has\ndied _this_ poor; the others all left literary remains behind. Also a\nbook. Maybe two.\n\nIf Shakespeare had owned a dog\u2014but we need not go into that: we know he\nwould have mentioned it in his will. If a good dog, Susanna would have\ngot it; if an inferior one his wife would have got a dower interest in\nit. I wish he had had a dog, just so we could see how painstakingly he\nwould have divided that dog among the family, in his careful business\nway.\n\nHe signed the will in three places.\n\nIn earlier years he signed two other official documents.\n\nThese five signatures still exist.\n\nThere are _no other specimens of his penmanship in existence_. Not a\nline.\n\nWas he prejudiced against the art? His granddaughter, whom he loved,\nwas eight years old when he died, yet she had had no teaching, he left\nno provision for her education, although he was rich, and in her mature\nwomanhood she couldn\u2019t write and couldn\u2019t tell her husband\u2019s manuscript\nfrom anybody else\u2019s\u2014she thought it was Shakespeare\u2019s.\n\nWhen Shakespeare died in Stratford, _it was not an event_. It made no\nmore stir in England than the death of any other forgotten\ntheater-actor would have made. Nobody came down from London; there were\nno lamenting poems, no eulogies, no national tears\u2014there was merely\nsilence, and nothing more. A striking contrast with what happened when\nBen Jonson, and Francis Bacon, and Spenser, and Raleigh, and the other\ndistinguished literary folk of Shakespeare\u2019s time passed from life! No\npraiseful voice was lifted for the lost Bard of Avon; even Ben Jonson\nwaited seven years before he lifted his.\n\n_So far as anybody actually knows and can prove_, Shakespeare of\nStratford-on-Avon never wrote a play in his life.\n\n_So far as anybody knows and can prove_, he never wrote a letter to\nanybody in his life.\n\n_So far as any one knows, he received only one letter during his life_.\n\nSo far as any one _knows and can prove_, Shakespeare of Stratford wrote\nonly one poem during his life. This one is authentic. He did write that\none\u2014a fact which stands undisputed; he wrote the whole of it; he wrote\nthe whole of it out of his own head. He commanded that this work of art\nbe engraved upon his tomb, and he was obeyed. There it abides to this\nday. This is it:\n\nGood friend for Iesus sake forbeare\nTo digg the dust encloased heare:\nBlest be ye man yt spares thes stones\nAnd curst be he yt moves my bones.\n\n\nIn the list as above set down will be found _every positively known_\nfact of Shakespeare\u2019s life, lean and meager as the invoice is. Beyond\nthese details we know _not a thing_ about him. All the rest of his vast\nhistory, as furnished by the biographers, is built up, course upon\ncourse, of guesses, inferences, theories, conjectures\u2014an Eiffel Tower\nof artificialities rising sky-high from a very flat and very thin\nfoundation of inconsequential facts.\n\nIV\n\nCONJECTURES\n\nThe historians \u201csuppose\u201d that Shakespeare attended the Free School in\nStratford from the time he was seven years old till he was thirteen.\nThere is no _evidence_ in existence that he ever went to school at all.\n\nThe historians \u201cinfer\u201d that he got his Latin in that school\u2014the school\nwhich they \u201csuppose\u201d he attended.\n\nThey \u201csuppose\u201d his father\u2019s declining fortunes made it necessary for\nhim to leave the school they supposed he attended, and get to work and\nhelp support his parents and their ten children. But there is no\nevidence that he ever entered or returned from the school they suppose\nhe attended.\n\nThey \u201csuppose\u201d he assisted his father in the butchering business; and\nthat, being only a boy, he didn\u2019t have to do full-grown butchering, but\nonly slaughtered calves. Also, that whenever he killed a calf he made a\nhigh-flown speech over it. This supposition rests upon the testimony of\na man who wasn\u2019t there at the time; a man who got it from a man who\ncould have been there, but did not say whether he was nor not; and\nneither of them thought to mention it for decades, and decades, and\ndecades, and two more decades after Shakespeare\u2019s death (until old age\nand mental decay had refreshed and vivified their memories). They\nhadn\u2019t two facts in stock about the long-dead distinguished citizen,\nbut only just the one: he slaughtered calves and broke into oratory\nwhile he was at it. Curious. They had only one fact, yet the\ndistinguished citizen had spent twenty-six years in that little\ntown\u2014just half his lifetime. However, rightly viewed, it was the most\nimportant fact, indeed almost the only important fact, of Shakespeare\u2019s\nlife in Stratford. Rightly viewed. For experience is an author\u2019s most\nvaluable asset; experience is the thing that puts the muscle and the\nbreath and the warm blood into the book he writes. Rightly viewed,\ncalf-butchering accounts for \u201cTitus Andronicus,\u201d the only play\u2014ain\u2019t\nit?\u2014that the Stratford Shakespeare ever wrote; and yet it is the only\none everybody tried to chouse him out of, the Baconians included.\n\nThe historians find themselves \u201cjustified in believing\u201d that the young\nShakespeare poached upon Sir Thomas Lucy\u2019s deer preserves and got haled\nbefore that magistrate for it. But there is no shred of respectworthy\nevidence that anything of the kind happened.\n\nThe historians, having argued the thing that _might_ have happened into\nthe thing that _did_ happen, found no trouble in turning Sir Thomas\nLucy into Mr. Justice Shallow. They have long ago convinced the\nworld\u2014on surmise and without trustworthy evidence\u2014that Shallow _is_ Sir\nThomas.\n\nThe next addition to the young Shakespeare\u2019s Stratford history comes\neasy. The historian builds it out of the surmised deer-steeling, and\nthe surmised trial before the magistrate, and the surmised\nvengeance-prompted satire upon the magistrate in the play: result, the\nyoung Shakespeare was a wild, wild, wild, oh, _such_ a wild young\nscamp, and that gratuitous slander is established for all time! It is\nthe very way Professor Osborn and I built the colossal skeleton\nbrontosaur that stands fifty-seven feet long and sixteen feet high in\nthe Natural History Museum, the awe and admiration of all the world,\nthe stateliest skeleton that exists on the planet. We had nine bones,\nand we built the rest of him out of plaster of Paris. We ran short of\nplaster of Paris, or we\u2019d have built a brontosaur that could sit down\nbeside the Stratford Shakespeare and none but an expert could tell\nwhich was biggest or contained the most plaster.\n\nShakespeare pronounced \u201cVenus and Adonis\u201d \u201cthe first heir of his\ninvention,\u201d apparently implying that it was his first effort at\nliterary composition. He should not have said it. It has been an\nembarrassment to his historians these many, many years. They have to\nmake him write that graceful and polished and flawless and beautiful\npoem before he escaped from Stratford and his family\u20141586 or \u201987\u2014age,\ntwenty-two, or along there; because within the next five years he wrote\nfive great plays, and could not have found time to write another line.\n\nIt is sorely embarrassing. If he began to slaughter calves, and poach\ndeer, and rollick around, and learn English, at the earliest likely\nmoment\u2014say at thirteen, when he was supposably wrenched from that\nschool where he was supposably storing up Latin for future literary\nuse\u2014he had his youthful hands full, and much more than full. He must\nhave had to put aside his Warwickshire dialect, which wouldn\u2019t be\nunderstood in London, and study English very hard. Very hard indeed;\nincredibly hard, almost, if the result of that labor was to be the\nsmooth and rounded and flexible and letter-perfect English of the\n\u201cVenus and Adonis\u201d in the space of ten years; and at the same time\nlearn great and fine and unsurpassable literary _form_.\n\nHowever, it is \u201cconjectured\u201d that he accomplished all this and more,\nmuch more: learned law and its intricacies; and the complex procedure\nof the law-courts; and all about soldiering, and sailoring, and the\nmanners and customs and ways of royal courts and aristocratic society;\nand likewise accumulated in his one head every kind of knowledge the\nlearned then possessed, and every kind of humble knowledge possessed by\nthe lowly and the ignorant; and added thereto a wider and more intimate\nknowledge of the world\u2019s great literatures, ancient and modern, than\nwas possessed by any other man of his time\u2014for he was going to make\nbrilliant and easy and admiration-compelling use of these splendid\ntreasures the moment he got to London. And according to the surmisers,\nthat is what he did. Yes, although there was no one in Stratford able\nto teach him these things, and no library in the little village to dig\nthem out of. His father could not read, and even the surmisers surmise\nthat he did not keep a library.\n\nIt is surmised by the biographers that the young Shakespeare got his\nvast knowledge of the law and his familiar and accurate acquaintance\nwith the manners and customs and shop-talk of lawyers through being for\na time the _clerk of a Stratford court_; just as a bright lad like me,\nreared in a village on the banks of the Mississippi, might become\nperfect in knowledge of the Bering Strait whale-fishery and the\nshop-talk of the veteran exercises of that adventure-bristling trade\nthrough catching catfish with a \u201ctrot-line\u201d Sundays. But the surmise is\ndamaged by the fact that there is no evidence\u2014and not even\ntradition\u2014that the young Shakespeare was ever clerk of a law-court.\n\nIt is further surmised that the young Shakespeare accumulated his\nlaw-treasures in the first years of his sojourn in London, through\n\u201camusing himself\u201d by learning book-law in his garret and by picking up\nlawyer-talk and the rest of it through loitering about the law-courts\nand listening. But it is only surmise; there is no _evidence_ that he\never did either of those things. They are merely a couple of chunks of\nplaster of Paris.\n\nThere is a legend that he got his bread and butter by holding horses in\nfront of the London theaters, mornings and afternoons. Maybe he did. If\nhe did, it seriously shortened his law-study hours and his\nrecreation-time in the courts. In those very days he was writing great\nplays, and needed all the time he could get. The horse-holding legend\nought to be strangled; it too formidably increases the historian\u2019s\ndifficulty in accounting for the young Shakespeare\u2019s erudition\u2014an\nerudition which he was acquiring, hunk by hunk and chunk by chunk,\nevery day in those strenuous times, and emptying each day\u2019s catch into\nnext day\u2019s imperishable drama.\n\nHe had to acquire a knowledge of war at the same time; and a knowledge\nof soldier-people and sailor-people and their ways and talk; also a\nknowledge of some foreign lands and their languages: for he was daily\nemptying fluent streams of these various knowledges, too, into his\ndramas. How did he acquire these rich assets?\n\nIn the usual way: by surmise. It is _surmised_ that he traveled in\nItaly and Germany and around, and qualified himself to put their scenic\nand social aspects upon paper; that he perfected himself in French,\nItalian, and Spanish on the road; that he went in Leicester\u2019s\nexpedition to the Low Countries, as soldier or sutler or something, for\nseveral months or years\u2014or whatever length of time a surmiser needs in\nhis business\u2014and thus became familiar with soldiership and soldier-ways\nand soldier-talk and generalship and general-ways and general-talk, and\nseamanship and sailor-ways and sailor-talk.\n\nMaybe he did all these things, but I would like to know who held the\nhorses in the mean time; and who studied the books in the garret; and\nwho frolicked in the law-courts for recreation. Also, who did the\ncall-boying and the play-acting.\n\nFor he became a call-boy; and as early as \u201993 he became a\n\u201cvagabond\u201d\u2014the law\u2019s ungentle term for an unlisted actor; and in \u201994 a\n\u201cregular\u201d and properly and officially listed member of that (in those\ndays) lightly valued and not much respected profession.\n\nRight soon thereafter he became a stockholder in two theaters, and\nmanager of them. Thenceforward he was a busy and flourishing business\nman, and was raking in money with both hands for twenty years. Then in\na noble frenzy of poetic inspiration he wrote his one poem\u2014his only\npoem, his darling\u2014and laid him down and died:\n\nGood friend for Iesus sake forbeare\nTo digg the dust encloased heare:\nBlest be ye man yt spares thes stones\nAnd curst be he yt moves my bones.\n\n\nHe was probably dead when he wrote it. Still, this is only conjecture.\nWe have only circumstantial evidence. Internal evidence.\n\nShall I set down the rest of the Conjectures which constitute the giant\nBiography of William Shakespeare? It would strain the Unabridged\nDictionary to hold them. He is a brontosaur: nine bones and six hundred\nbarrels of plaster of Paris.\n\nV\n\n\u201cWE MAY ASSUME\u201d\n\nIn the Assuming trade three separate and independent cults are\ntransacting business. Two of these cults are known as the\nShakespearites and the Baconians, and I am the other one\u2014the\nBrontosaurian.\n\nThe Shakespearite knows that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare\u2019s Works; the\nBaconian knows that Francis Bacon wrote them; the Brontosaurian doesn\u2019t\nreally know which of them did it, but is quite composedly and\ncontentedly sure that Shakespeare _didn\u2019t_, and strongly suspects that\nBacon _did_. We all have to do a good deal of assuming, but I am fairly\ncertain that in every case I can call to mind the Baconian assumers\nhave come out ahead of the Shakespearites. Both parties handle the same\nmaterials, but the Baconians seem to me to get much more reasonable and\nrational and persuasive results out of them than is the case with the\nShakespearites. The Shakespearite conducts his assuming upon a definite\nprinciple, an unchanging and immutable law: which is: 2 and 8 and 7 and\n14, added together, make 165. I believe this to be an error. No matter,\nyou cannot get a habit-sodden Shakespearite to cipher-up his materials\nupon any other basis. With the Baconian it is different. If you place\nbefore him the above figures and set him to adding them up, he will\nnever in any case get more than 45 out of them, and in nine cases out\nof ten he will get just the proper 31.\n\nLet me try to illustrate the two systems in a simple and homely way\ncalculated to bring the idea within the grasp of the ignorant and\nunintelligent. We will suppose a case: take a lap-bred, house-fed,\nuneducated, inexperienced kitten; take a rugged old Tom that\u2019s scarred\nfrom stem to rudder-post with the memorials of strenuous experience,\nand is so cultured, so educated, so limitlessly erudite that one may\nsay of him \u201call cat-knowledge is his province\u201d; also, take a mouse.\nLock the three up in a holeless, crackless, exitless prison-cell. Wait\nhalf an hour, then open the cell, introduce a Shakespearite and a\nBaconian, and let them cipher and assume. The mouse is missing: the\nquestion to be decided is, where is it? You can guess both verdicts\nbeforehand. One verdict will say the kitten contains the mouse; the\nother will as certainly say the mouse is in the tom-cat.\n\nThe Shakespearite will Reason like this\u2014(that is not my word, it is\nhis). He will say the kitten _may have been_ attending school when\nnobody was noticing; therefore _we are warranted in assuming_ that it\ndid so; also, it _could have been_ training in a court-clerk\u2019s office\nwhen no one was noticing; since that could have happened, _we are\njustified in assuming_ that it did happen; it _could have studied\ncatology in a garret_ when no one was noticing\u2014therefore it _did_; it\n_could have_ attended cat-assizes on the shed-roof nights, for\nrecreation, when no one was noticing, and have harvested a knowledge of\ncat court-forms and cat lawyer-talk in that way: it _could_ have done\nit, therefore without a doubt it _did_; it _could have_ gone soldiering\nwith a war-tribe when no one was noticing, and learned soldier-wiles\nand soldier-ways, and what to do with a mouse when opportunity offers;\nthe plain inference, therefore, is that that is what it _did_. Since\nall these manifold things _could_ have occurred, we have _every right\nto believe_ they did occur. These patiently and painstakingly\naccumulated vast acquirements and competences needed but one thing\nmore\u2014opportunity\u2014to convert themselves into triumphant action. The\nopportunity came, we have the result; _beyond shadow of question_ the\nmouse is in the kitten.\n\nIt is proper to remark that when we of the three cults plant a \u201c_we\nthink we may assume_,\u201d we expect it, under careful watering and\nfertilizing and tending, to grow up into a strong and hardy and\nweather-defying \u201c_there isn\u2019t a shadow of a doubt_\u201d at last\u2014and it\nusually happens.\n\nWe know what the Baconian\u2019s verdict would be: \u201c_There is not a rag of\nevidence that the kitten has had any training, any education, any\nexperience qualifying it for the present occasion, or is indeed\nequipped for any achievement above lifting such unclaimed milk as comes\nits way; but there is abundant evidence\u2014unassailable proof, in\nfact\u2014that the other animal is equipped, to the last detail, with every\nqualification necessary for the event. without shadow of doubt the\ntom-cat contains the mouse_.\u201d\n\nVI\n\nWhen Shakespeare died, in 1616, great literary productions attributed\nto him as author had been before the London world and in high favor for\ntwenty-four years. Yet his death was not an event. It made no stir, it\nattracted no attention. Apparently his eminent literary contemporaries\ndid not realize that a celebrated poet had passed from their midst.\nPerhaps they knew a play-actor of minor rank had disappeared, but did\nnot regard him as the author of his Works. \u201cWe are justified in\nassuming\u201d this.\n\nHis death was not even an event in the little town of Stratford. Does\nthis mean that in Stratford he was not regarded as a celebrity of _any_\nkind?\n\n\u201cWe are privileged to assume\u201d\u2014no, we are indeed _obliged_ to\nassume\u2014that such was the case. He had spent the first twenty-two or\ntwenty-three years of his life there, and of course knew everybody and\nwas known by everybody of that day in the town, including the dogs and\nthe cats and the horses. He had spent the last five or six years of his\nlife there, diligently trading in every big and little thing that had\nmoney in it; so we are compelled to assume that many of the folk there\nin those said latter days knew him personally, and the rest by sight\nand hearsay. But not as a _celebrity?_ Apparently not. For everybody\nsoon forgot to remember any contact with him or any incident connected\nwith him. The dozens of townspeople, still alive, who had known of him\nor known about him in the first twenty-three years of his life were in\nthe same unremembering condition: if they knew of any incident\nconnected with that period of his life they didn\u2019t tell about it. Would\nthey if they had been asked? It is most likely. Were they asked? It is\npretty apparent that they were not. Why weren\u2019t they? It is a very\nplausible guess that nobody there or elsewhere was interested to know.\n\nFor seven years after Shakespeare\u2019s death nobody seems to have been\ninterested in him. Then the quarto was published, and Ben Jonson awoke\nout of his long indifference and sang a song of praise and put it in\nthe front of the book. Then silence fell _again_.\n\nFor sixty years. Then inquiries into Shakespeare\u2019s Stratford life began\nto be made, of Stratfordians. Of Stratfordians who had known\nShakespeare or had seen him? No. Then of Stratfordians who had seen\npeople who had known or seen people who had seen Shakespeare? No.\nApparently the inquires were only made of Stratfordians who were not\nStratfordians of Shakespeare\u2019s day, but later comers; and what they had\nlearned had come to them from persons who had not seen Shakespeare; and\nwhat they had learned was not claimed as _fact_, but only as legend\u2014dim\nand fading and indefinite legend; legend of the calf-slaughtering rank,\nand not worth remembering either as history or fiction.\n\nHas it ever happened before\u2014or since\u2014that a celebrated person who had\nspent exactly half of a fairly long life in the village where he was\nborn and reared, was able to slip out of this world and leave that\nvillage voiceless and gossipless behind him\u2014utterly voiceless., utterly\ngossipless? And permanently so? I don\u2019t believe it has happened in any\ncase except Shakespeare\u2019s. And couldn\u2019t and wouldn\u2019t have happened in\nhis case if he had been regarded as a celebrity at the time of his\ndeath.\n\nWhen I examine my own case\u2014but let us do that, and see if it will not\nbe recognizable as exhibiting a condition of things quite likely to\nresult, most likely to result, indeed substantially _sure_ to result in\nthe case of a celebrated person, a benefactor of the human race. Like\nme.\n\nMy parents brought me to the village of Hannibal, Missouri, on the\nbanks of the Mississippi, when I was two and a half years old. I\nentered school at five years of age, and drifted from one school to\nanother in the village during nine and a half years. Then my father\ndied, leaving his family in exceedingly straitened circumstances;\nwherefore my book-education came to a standstill forever, and I became\na printer\u2019s apprentice, on board and clothes, and when the clothes\nfailed I got a hymn-book in place of them. This for summer wear,\nprobably. I lived in Hannibal fifteen and a half years, altogether,\nthen ran away, according to the custom of persons who are intending to\nbecome celebrated. I never lived there afterward. Four years later I\nbecame a \u201ccub\u201d on a Mississippi steamboat in the St. Louis and New\nOrleans trade, and after a year and a half of hard study and hard work\nthe U.S. inspectors rigorously examined me through a couple of long\nsittings and decided that I knew every inch of the Mississippi\u2014thirteen\nhundred miles\u2014in the dark and in the day\u2014as well as a baby knows the\nway to its mother\u2019s paps day or night. So they licensed me as a\npilot\u2014knighted me, so to speak\u2014and I rose up clothed with authority, a\nresponsible servant of the United States Government.\n\nNow then. Shakespeare died young\u2014he was only fifty-two. He had lived in\nhis native village twenty-six years, or about that. He died celebrated\n(if you believe everything you read in the books). Yet when he died\nnobody there or elsewhere took any notice of it; and for sixty years\nafterward no townsman remembered to say anything about him or about his\nlife in Stratford. When the inquirer came at last he got but one\nfact\u2014no, _legend_\u2014and got that one at second hand, from a person who\nhad only heard it as a rumor and didn\u2019t claim copyright in it as a\nproduction of his own. He couldn\u2019t, very well, for its date antedated\nhis own birth-date. But necessarily a number of persons were still\nalive in Stratford who, in the days of their youth, had seen\nShakespeare nearly every day in the last five years of his life, and\nthey would have been able to tell that inquirer some first-hand things\nabout him if he had in those last days been a celebrity and therefore a\nperson of interest to the villagers. Why did not the inquirer hunt them\nup and interview them? Wasn\u2019t it worth while? Wasn\u2019t the matter of\nsufficient consequence? Had the inquirer an engagement to see a\ndog-fight and couldn\u2019t spare the time?\n\nIt all seems to mean that he never had any literary celebrity, there or\nelsewhere, and no considerable repute as actor and manager.\n\nNow then, I am away along in life\u2014my seventy-third year being already\nwell behind me\u2014yet _sixteen_ of my Hannibal schoolmates are still alive\ntoday, and can tell\u2014and do tell\u2014inquirers dozens and dozens of\nincidents of their young lives and mine together; things that happened\nto us in the morning of life, in the blossom of our youth, in the good\ndays, the dear days, \u201cthe days when we went gipsying, a long time ago.\u201d\nMost of them creditable to me, too. One child to whom I paid court when\nshe was five years old and I eight still lives in Hannibal, and she\nvisited me last summer, traversing the necessary ten or twelve hundred\nmiles of railroad without damage to her patience or to her old-young\nvigor. Another little lassie to whom I paid attention in Hannibal when\nshe was nine years old and I the same, is still alive\u2014in London\u2014and\nhale and hearty, just as I am. And on the few surviving\nsteamboats\u2014those lingering ghosts and remembrancers of great fleets\nthat plied the big river in the beginning of my water-career\u2014which is\nexactly as long ago as the whole invoice of the life-years of\nShakespeare numbers\u2014there are still findable two or three river-pilots\nwho saw me do creditable things in those ancient days; and several\nwhite-headed engineers; and several roustabouts and mates; and several\ndeck-hands who used to heave the lead for me and send up on the still\nnight the \u201cSix\u2014feet\u2014_scant!_\u201d that made me shudder, and the\n\u201cM-a-r-k\u2014_twain!_\u201d that took the shudder away, and presently the\ndarling \u201cBy the d-e-e-p\u2014_four!_\u201d that lifted me to heaven for joy.[4]\nThey know about me, and can tell. And so do printers, from St. Louis to\nNew York; and so do newspaper reporters, from Nevada to San Francisco.\nAnd so do the police. If Shakespeare had really been celebrated, like\nme, Stratford could have told things about him; and if my experience\ngoes for anything, they\u2019d have done it.\n\n [4] Four fathoms\u2014twenty-four feet.\n\nVII\n\nIf I had under my superintendence a controversy appointed to decide\nwhether Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare or not, I believe I would place\nbefore the debaters only the one question, _was shakespeare ever a\npracticing lawyer_? and leave everything else out.\n\nIt is maintained that the man who wrote the plays was not merely\nmyriad-minded, but also myriad-accomplished: that he not only knew some\nthousands of things about human life in all its shades and grades, and\nabout the hundred arts and trades and crafts and professions which men\nbusy themselves in, but that he could _talk_ about the men and their\ngrades and trades accurately, making no mistakes. Maybe it is so, but\nhave the experts spoken, or is it only Tom, Dick, and Harry? Does the\nexhibit stand upon wide, and loose, and eloquent generalizing\u2014which is\nnot evidence, and not proof\u2014or upon details, particulars, statistics,\nillustrations, demonstrations?\n\nExperts of unchallengeable authority have testified definitely as to\nonly one of Shakespeare\u2019s multifarious craft-equipments, so far as my\nrecollections of Shakespeare-Bacon talk abide with me\u2014his\nlaw-equipment. I do not remember that Wellington or Napoleon ever\nexamined Shakespeare\u2019s battles and sieges and strategies, and then\ndecided and established for good and all that they were militarily\nflawless; I do not remember that any Nelson, or Drake, or Cook ever\nexamined his seamanship and said it showed profound and accurate\nfamiliarity with that art; I don\u2019t remember that any king or prince or\nduke has ever testified that Shakespeare was letter-perfect in his\nhandling of royal court-manners and the talk and manners of\naristocracies; I don\u2019t remember that any illustrious Latinist or\nGrecian or Frenchman or Spaniard or Italian has proclaimed him a\npast-master in those languages; I don\u2019t remember\u2014well, I don\u2019t remember\nthat there is _testimony_\u2014great testimony\u2014imposing\ntestimony\u2014unanswerable and unattackable testimony as to any of\nShakespeare\u2019s hundred specialties, except one\u2014the law.\n\nOther things change, with time, and the student cannot trace back with\ncertainty the changes that various trades and their processes and\ntechnicalities have undergone in the long stretch of a century or two\nand find out what their processes and technicalities were in those\nearly days, but with the law it is different: it is mile-stoned and\ndocumented all the way back, and the master of that wonderful trade,\nthat complex and intricate trade, that awe-compelling trade, has\ncompetent ways of knowing whether Shakespeare-law is good law or not;\nand whether his law-court procedure is correct or not, and whether his\nlegal shop-talk is the shop-talk of a veteran practitioner or only a\nmachine-made counterfeit of it gathered from books and from occasional\nloiterings in Westminster.\n\nRichard H. Dana served two years before the mast, and had every\nexperience that falls to the lot of the sailor before the mast of our\nday. His sailor-talk flows from his pen with the sure touch and the\nease and confidence of a person who has _lived_ what he is talking\nabout, not gathered it from books and random listenings. Hear him:\n\nHaving hove short, cast off the gaskets, and made the bunt of each sail\nfast by the jigger, with a man on each yard, at the word the whole\ncanvas of the ship was loosed, and with the greatest rapidity possible\neverything was sheeted home and hoisted up, the anchor tripped and\ncat-headed, and the ship under headway.\n\n\nAgain:\n\nThe royal yards were all crossed at once, and royals and sky-sails set,\nand, as we had the wind free, the booms were run out, and all were\naloft, active as cats, laying out on the yards and booms, reeving the\nstudding-sail gear; and sail after sail the captain piled upon her,\nuntil she was covered with canvas, her sails looking like a great white\ncloud resting upon a black speck.\n\n\nOnce more. A race in the Pacific:\n\nOur antagonist was in her best trim. Being clear of the point, the\nbreeze became stiff, and the royal-masts bent under our sails, but we\nwould not take them in until we saw three boys spring into the rigging\nof the _California_; then they were all furled at once, but with orders\nto our boys to stay aloft at the top-gallant mast-heads and loose them\nagain at the word. It was my duty to furl the fore-royal; and while\nstanding by to loose it again, I had a fine view of the scene. From\nwhere I stood, the two vessels seemed nothing but spars and sails,\nwhile their narrow decks, far below, slanting over by the force of the\nwind aloft, appeared hardly capable of supporting the great fabrics\nraised upon them. The _California_ was to windward of us, and had every\nadvantage; yet, while the breeze was stiff we held our own. As soon as\nit began to slacken she ranged a little ahead, and the order was given\nto loose the royals. In an instant the gaskets were off and the bunt\ndropped. \u201cSheet home the fore-royal!\u201d\u2014\u201cWeather sheet\u2019s home!\u201d\u2014\u201cLee\nsheet\u2019s home!\u201d\u2014\u201cHoist away, sir!\u201d is bawled from aloft. \u201cOverhaul your\nclew-lines!\u201d shouts the mate. \u201cAye-aye, sir, all clear!\u201d\u2014\u201cTaut leech!\nbelay! Well the lee brace; haul taut to windward!\u201d and the royals are\nset.\n\n\nWhat would the captain of any sailing-vessel of our time say to that?\nHe would say, \u201cThe man that wrote that didn\u2019t learn his trade out of a\nbook, he has _been_ there!\u201d But would this same captain be competent to\nsit in judgment upon Shakespeare\u2019s seamanship\u2014considering the changes\nin ships and ship-talk that have necessarily taken place, unrecorded,\nunremembered, and lost to history in the last three hundred years? It\nis my conviction that Shakespeare\u2019s sailor-talk would be Choctaw to\nhim. For instance\u2014from \u201c_The Tempest_\u201d:\n\n    _Master_. Boatswain!\n    _Boatswain_. Here, master; what cheer?\n    _Master_. Good, speak to the mariners: fall to \u2019t, yarely, or we\n    run ourselves to ground; bestir, bestir! (_Enter Mariners_.)\n    _Boatswain_. Heigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts! yare,\n    yare! Take in the topsail. Tend to the master\u2019s whistle.... Down\n    with the topmast! yare! lower, lower! Bring her to try wi\u2019 the main\n    course.... Lay her a-hold, a-hold! Set her two courses. Off to sea\n    again; lay her off.\n\n\nThat will do, for the present; let us yare a little, now, for a change.\n\nIf a man should write a book and in it make one of his characters say,\n\u201cHere, devil, empty the quoins into the standing galley and the\nimposing-stone into the hell-box; assemble the comps around the frisket\nand let them jeff for takes and be quick about it,\u201d I should recognize\na mistake or two in the phrasing, and would know that the writer was\nonly a printer theoretically, not practically.\n\nI have been a quartz miner in the silver regions\u2014a pretty hard life; I\nknow all the palaver of that business: I know all about discovery\nclaims and the subordinate claims; I know all about lodes, ledges,\noutcroppings, dips, spurs, angles, shafts, drifts, inclines, levels,\ntunnels, air-shafts, \u201chorses,\u201d clay casings, granite casings; quartz\nmills and their batteries; arastras, and how to charge them with\nquicksilver and sulphate of copper; and how to clean them up, and how\nto reduce the resulting amalgam in the retorts, and how to cast the\nbullion into pigs; and finally I know how to screen tailings, and also\nhow to hunt for something less robust to do, and find it. I know the\nargot of the quartz-mining and milling industry familiarly; and so\nwhenever Bret Harte introduces that industry into a story, the first\ntime one of his miners opens his mouth I recognize from his phrasing\nthat Harte got the phrasing by listening\u2014like Shakespeare\u2014I mean the\nStratford one\u2014not by experience. No one can talk the quartz dialect\ncorrectly without learning it with pick and shovel and drill and fuse.\n\nI have been a surface miner\u2014gold\u2014and I know all its mysteries, and the\ndialect that belongs with them; and whenever Harte introduces that\nindustry into a story I know by the phrasing of his characters that\nneither he nor they have ever served that trade.\n\nI have been a \u201cpocket\u201d miner\u2014a sort of gold mining not findable in any\nbut one little spot in the world, so far as I know. I know how, with\nhorn and water, to find the trail of a pocket and trace it step by step\nand stage by stage up the mountain to its source, and find the compact\nlittle nest of yellow metal reposing in its secret home under the\nground. I know the language of that trade, that capricious trade, that\nfascinating buried-treasure trade, and can catch any writer who tries\nto use it without having learned it by the sweat of his brow and the\nlabor of his hands.\n\nI know several other trades and the argot that goes with them; and\nwhenever a person tries to talk the talk peculiar to any of them\nwithout having learned it at its source I can trap him always before he\ngets far on his road.\n\nAnd so, as I have already remarked, if I were required to superintend a\nBacon-Shakespeare controversy, I would narrow the matter down to a\nsingle question\u2014the only one, so far as the previous controversies have\ninformed me, concerning which illustrious experts of unimpeachable\ncompetency have testified: _Was The Author Of Shakespeare\u2019s Works A\nLawyer?_\u2014a lawyer deeply read and of limitless experience? I would put\naside the guesses and surmises, and perhapses, and might-have-beens,\nand could-have-beens, and must-have-beens, and,\nwe-are-justified-in-presumings,and the rest of those vague specters and\nshadows and indefinitenesses, and stand or fall, win or lose, by the\nverdict rendered by the jury upon that single question. If the verdict\nwas Yes, I should feel quite convinced that the Stratford Shakespeare,\nthe actor, manager, and trader who died so obscure, so forgotten, so\ndestitute of even village consequence, that sixty years afterward no\nfellow-citizen and friend of his later days remembered to tell anything\nabout him, did not write the Works.\n\nChapter XIII of _The Shakespeare Problem Restated_ bears the heading\n\u201cShakespeare as a Lawyer,\u201d and comprises some fifty pages of expert\ntestimony, with comments thereon, and I will copy the first nine, as\nbeing sufficient all by themselves, as it seems to me, to settle the\nquestion which I have conceived to be the master-key to the\nShakespeare-Bacon puzzle.\n\nVIII\n\nSHAKESPEARE AS A LAWYER[5]\n\n [5] From Chapter XIII of _The Shakespeare Problem Restated_. By George\n G. Greenwood, M.P. John Lane Company, publishers.\n\n\nThe Plays and Poems of Shakespeare supply ample evidence that their\nauthor not only had a very extensive and accurate knowledge of law, but\nthat he was well acquainted with the manners and customs of members of\nthe Inns of Court and with legal life generally.\n\n\u201cWhile novelists and dramatists are constantly making mistakes as to\nthe laws of marriage, of wills, and inheritance, to Shakespeare\u2019s law,\nlavishly as he expounds it, there can neither be demurrer, nor bill of\nexceptions, nor writ of error.\u201d Such was the testimony borne by one of\nthe most distinguished lawyers of the nineteenth century who was raised\nto the high office of Lord Chief Justice in 1850, and subsequently\nbecame Lord Chancellor. Its weight will, doubtless, be more appreciated\nby lawyers than by laymen, for only lawyers know how impossible it is\nfor those who have not served an apprenticeship to the law to avoid\ndisplaying their ignorance if they venture to employ legal terms and to\ndiscuss legal doctrines. \u201cThere is nothing so dangerous,\u201d wrote Lord\nCampbell, \u201cas for one not of the craft to tamper with our freemasonry.\u201d\nA layman is certain to betray himself by using some expression which a\nlawyer would never employ. Mr. Sidney Lee himself supplies us with an\nexample of this. He writes (p. 164): \u201cOn February 15, 1609,\nShakespeare... obtained judgment from a jury against Addenbroke for the\npayment of No. 6, and No. 1, 5s. 0d. costs.\u201d Now a lawyer would never\nhave spoken of obtaining \u201cjudgment from a jury,\u201d for it is the function\nof a jury not to deliver judgment (which is the prerogative of the\ncourt), but to find a verdict on the facts. The error is, indeed, a\nvenial one, but it is just one of those little things which at once\nenable a lawyer to know if the writer is a layman or \u201cone of the\ncraft.\u201d\n\nBut when a layman ventures to plunge deeply into legal subjects, he is\nnaturally apt to make an exhibition of his incompetence. \u201cLet a\nnon-professional man, however acute,\u201d writes Lord Campbell again,\n\u201cpresume to talk law, or to draw illustrations from legal science in\ndiscussing other subjects, and he will speedily fall into laughable\nabsurdity.\u201d\n\nAnd what does the same high authority say about Shakespeare? He had \u201ca\ndeep technical knowledge of the law,\u201d and an easy familiarity with\n\u201csome of the most abstruse proceedings in English jurisprudence.\u201d And\nagain: \u201cWhenever he indulges this propensity he uniformly lays down\ngood law.\u201d Of \u201cHenry IV.,\u201d Part 2, he says: \u201cIf Lord Eldon could be\nsupposed to have written the play, I do not see how he could be\nchargeable with having forgotten any of his law while writing it.\u201d\nCharles and Mary Cowden Clarke speak of \u201cthe marvelous intimacy which\nhe displays with legal terms, his frequent adoption of them in\nillustration, and his curiously technical knowledge of their form and\nforce.\u201d Malone, himself a lawyer, wrote: \u201cHis knowledge of legal terms\nis not merely such as might be acquired by the casual observation of\neven his all-comprehending mind; it has the appearance of technical\nskill.\u201d Another lawyer and well- known Shakespearean, Richard Grant\nWhite, says: \u201cNo dramatist of the time, not even Beaumont, who was the\nyounger son of a judge of the Common Pleas, and who after studying in\nthe Inns of Court abandoned law for the drama, used legal phrases with\nShakespeare\u2019s readiness and exactness. And the significance of this\nfact is heightened by another, that it is only to the language of the\nlaw that he exhibits this inclination. The phrases peculiar to other\noccupations serve him on rare occasions by way of description,\ncomparison, or illustration, generally when something in the scene\nsuggests them, but legal phrases flow from his pen as part of his\nvocabulary and parcel of his thought. Take the word \u2018purchase\u2019 for\ninstance, which, in ordinary use, means to acquire by giving value, but\napplies in law to all legal modes of obtaining property except by\ninheritance or descent, and in this peculiar sense the word occurs five\ntimes in Shakespeare\u2019s thirty-four plays, and only in one single\ninstance in the fifty-four plays of Beaumont and Fletcher. It has been\nsuggested that it was in attendance upon the courts in London that he\npicked up his legal vocabulary. But this supposition not only fails to\naccount for Shakespeare\u2019s peculiar freedom and exactness in the use of\nthat phraseology, it does not even place him in the way of learning\nthose terms his use of which is most remarkable, which are not such as\nhe would have heard at ordinary proceedings at _Nisi Prius_, but such\nas refer to the tenure or transfer of real property, \u2018fine and\nrecovery,\u2019 \u2018statutes merchant,\u2019 \u2018purchase,\u2019 \u2018indenture,\u2019 \u2018tenure,\u2019\n\u2018double voucher,\u2019 \u2018fee simple,\u2019 \u2018fee farm,\u2019 \u2018remainder,\u2019 \u2018reversion,\u2019\n\u2018forfeiture,\u2019 etc. This conveyancer\u2019s jargon could not have been picked\nup by hanging round the courts of law in London two hundred and fifty\nyears ago, when suits as to the title of real property were\ncomparatively rare. And besides, Shakespeare uses his law just as\nfreely in his first plays, written in his first London years, as in\nthose produced at a later period. Just as exactly, too; for the\ncorrectness and propriety with which these terms are introduced have\ncompelled the admiration of a Chief Justice and a Lord Chancellor.\u201d\n\nSenator Davis wrote: \u201cWe seem to have something more than a sciolist\u2019s\ntemerity of indulgence in the terms of an unfamiliar art. No legal\nsolecisms will be found. The abstrusest elements of the common law are\nimpressed into a disciplined service. Over and over again, where such\nknowledge is unexampled in writers unlearned in the law, Shakespeare\nappears in perfect possession of it. In the law of real property, its\nrules of tenure and descents, its entails, its fines and recoveries,\ntheir vouchers and double vouchers, in the procedure of the Courts, the\nmethod of bringing writs and arrests, the nature of actions, the rules\nof pleading, the law of escapes and of contempt of court, in the\nprinciples of evidence, both technical and philosophical, in the\ndistinction between the temporal and spiritual tribunals, in the law of\nattainder and forfeiture, in the requisites of a valid marriage, in the\npresumption of legitimacy, in the learning of the law of prerogative,\nin the inalienable character of the Crown, this mastership appears with\nsurprising authority.\u201d\n\nTo all this testimony (and there is much more which I have not cited)\nmay now be added that of a great lawyer of our own times, _viz_.: Sir\nJames Plaisted Wilde, Q.C. 1855, created a Baron of the Exchequer in\n1860, promoted to the post of Judge-Ordinary and Judge of the Courts of\nProbate and Divorce in 1863, and better known to the world as Lord\nPenzance, to which dignity he was raised in 1869. Lord Penzance, as all\nlawyers know, and as the late Mr. Inderwick, K.C., has testified, was\none of the first legal authorities of his day, famous for his\n\u201cremarkable grasp of legal principles,\u201d and \u201cendowed by nature with a\nremarkable facility for marshaling facts, and for a clear expression of\nhis views.\u201d\n\nLord Penzance speaks of Shakespeare\u2019s \u201cperfect familiarity with not\nonly the principles, axioms, and maxims, but the technicalities of\nEnglish law, a knowledge so perfect and intimate that he was never\nincorrect and never at fault.... The mode in which this knowledge was\npressed into service on all occasions to express his meaning and\nillustrate his thoughts was quite unexampled. He seems to have had a\nspecial pleasure in his complete and ready mastership of it in all its\nbranches. As manifested in the plays, this legal knowledge and learning\nhad therefore a special character which places it on a wholly different\nfooting from the rest of the multifarious knowledge which is exhibited\nin page after page of the plays. At every turn and point at which the\nauthor required a metaphor, simile, or illustration, his mind ever\nturned _first_ to the law. He seems almost to have _thought_ in legal\nphrases, the commonest of legal expressions were ever at the end of his\npen in description or illustration. That he should have descanted in\nlawyer language when he had a forensic subject in hand, such as\nShylock\u2019s bond, was to be expected, but the knowledge of law in\n\u2018Shakespeare\u2019 was exhibited in a far different manner: it protruded\nitself on all occasions, appropriate or inappropriate, and mingled\nitself with strains of thought widely divergent from forensic\nsubjects.\u201d Again: \u201cTo acquire a perfect familiarity with legal\nprinciples, and an accurate and ready use of the technical terms and\nphrases not only of the conveyancer\u2019s office, but of the pleader\u2019s\nchambers and the Courts at Westminster, nothing short of employment in\nsome career involving constant contact with legal questions and general\nlegal work would be requisite. But a continuous employment involves the\nelement of time, and time was just what the manager of two theaters had\nnot at his disposal. In what portion of Shakespeare\u2019s (i.e.,\nShakspere\u2019s) career would it be possible to point out that time could\nbe found for the interposition of a legal employment in the chambers or\noffices of practicing lawyers?\u201d\n\nStratfordians, as is well known, casting about for some possible\nexplanation of Shakespeare\u2019s extraordinary knowledge of law, have made\nthe suggestion that Shakespeare might, conceivably, have been a clerk\nin an attorney\u2019s office before he came to London. Mr. Collier wrote to\nLord Campbell to ask his opinion as to the probability of this being\ntrue. His answer was as follows: \u201cYou require us to believe implicitly\na fact, of which, if true, positive and irrefragable evidence in his\nown handwriting might have been forthcoming to establish it. Not having\nbeen actually enrolled as an attorney, neither the records of the local\ncourt at Stratford nor of the superior Courts at Westminster would\npresent his name as being concerned in any suit as an attorney, but it\nmight reasonably have been expected that there would be deeds or wills\nwitnessed by him still extant, and after a very diligent search none\nsuch can be discovered.\u201d\n\nUpon this Lord Penzance comments: \u201cIt cannot be doubted that Lord\nCampbell was right in this. No young man could have been at work in an\nattorney\u2019s office without being called upon continually to act as a\nwitness, and in many other ways leaving traces of his work and name.\u201d\nThere is not a single fact or incident in all that is known of\nShakespeare, even by rumor or tradition, which supports this notion of\na clerkship. And after much argument and surmise which has been\nindulged in on this subject, we may, I think, safely put the notion on\none side, for no less an authority than Mr. Grant White says finally\nthat the idea of his having been clerk to an attorney has been \u201cblown\nto pieces.\u201d\n\nIt is altogether characteristic of Mr. Churton Collins that he,\nnevertheless, adopts this exploded myth. \u201cThat Shakespeare was in early\nlife employed as a clerk in an attorney\u2019s office may be correct. At\nStratford there was by royal charter a Court of Record sitting every\nfortnight, with six attorneys, besides the town clerk, belonging to it,\nand it is certainly not straining probability to suppose that the young\nShakespeare may have had employment in one of them. There is, it is\ntrue, no tradition to this effect, but such traditions as we have about\nShakespeare\u2019s occupation between the time of leaving school and going\nto London are so loose and baseless that no confidence can be placed in\nthem. It is, to say the least, more probable that he was in an\nattorney\u2019s office than that he was a butcher killing calves \u2018in a high\nstyle,\u2019 and making speeches over them.\u201d\n\nThis is a charming specimen of Stratfordian argument. There is, as we\nhave seen, a very old tradition that Shakespeare was a butcher\u2019s\napprentice. John Dowdall, who made a tour in Warwickshire in 1693,\ntestifies to it as coming from the old clerk who showed him over the\nchurch, and it is unhesitatingly accepted as true by Mr.\nHalliwell-Phillipps. (Vol. I, p. 11, and Vol. II, pp. 71, 72.) Mr.\nSidney Lee sees nothing improbable in it, and it is supported by\nAubrey, who must have written his account some time before 1680, when\nhis manuscript was completed. Of the attorney\u2019s clerk hypothesis, on\nthe other hand, there is not the faintest vestige of a tradition. It\nhas been evolved out of the fertile imaginations of embarrassed\nStratfordians, seeking for some explanation of the Stratford rustic\u2019s\nmarvelous acquaintance with law and legal terms and legal life. But Mr.\nChurton Collins has not the least hesitation in throwing over the\ntradition which has the warrant of antiquity and setting up in its\nstead this ridiculous invention, for which not only is there no shred\nof positive evidence, but which, as Lord Campbell and Lord Penzance\npoint out, is really put out of court by the negative evidence, since\n\u201cno young man could have been at work in an attorney\u2019s office without\nbeing called upon continually to act as a witness, and in many other\nways leaving traces of his work and name.\u201d And as Mr. Edwards further\npoints out, since the day when Lord Campbell\u2019s book was published\n(between forty and fifty years ago), \u201cevery old deed or will, to say\nnothing of other legal papers, dated during the period of William\nShakespeare\u2019s youth, has been scrutinized over half a dozen shires, and\nnot one signature of the young man has been found.\u201d\n\nMoreover, if Shakespeare had served as clerk in an attorney\u2019s office it\nis clear that he must have so served for a considerable period in order\nto have gained (if, indeed, it is credible that he could have so\ngained) his remarkable knowledge of the law. Can we then for a moment\nbelieve that, if this had been so, tradition would have been absolutely\nsilent on the matter? That Dowdall\u2019s old clerk, over eighty years of\nage, should have never heard of it (though he was sure enough about the\nbutcher\u2019s apprentice) and that all the other ancient witnesses should\nbe in similar ignorance!\n\nBut such are the methods of Stratfordian controversy. Tradition is to\nbe scouted when it is found inconvenient, but cited as irrefragable\ntruth when it suits the case. Shakespeare of Stratford was the author\nof the Plays and Poems, but the author of the Plays and Poems could not\nhave been a butcher\u2019s apprentice. Away, therefore, with tradition. But\nthe author of the Plays and Poems _must_ have had a very large and a\nvery accurate knowledge of the law. Therefore, Shakespeare of Stratford\nmust have been an attorney\u2019s clerk! The method is simplicity itself. By\nsimilar reasoning Shakespeare has been made a country schoolmaster, a\nsoldier, a physician, a printer, and a good many other things besides,\naccording to the inclination and the exigencies of the commentator. It\nwould not be in the least surprising to find that he was studying Latin\nas a schoolmaster and law in an attorney\u2019s office at the same time.\n\nHowever, we must do Mr. Collins the justice of saying that he has fully\nrecognized, what is indeed tolerably obvious, that Shakespeare must\nhave had a sound legal training. \u201cIt may, of course, be urged,\u201d he\nwrites, \u201cthat Shakespeare\u2019s knowledge of medicine, and particularly\nthat branch of it which related to morbid psychology, is equally\nremarkable, and that no one has ever contended that he was a physician.\n(Here Mr. Collins is wrong; that contention also has been put forward.)\nIt may be urged that his acquaintance with the technicalities of other\ncrafts and callings, notably of marine and military affairs, was also\nextraordinary, and yet no one has suspected him of being a sailor or a\nsoldier. (Wrong again. Why, even Messrs. Garnett and Gosse \u201csuspect\u201d\nthat he was a soldier!) This may be conceded, but the concession hardly\nfurnishes an analogy. To these and all other subjects he recurs\noccasionally, and in season, but with reminiscences of the law his\nmemory, as is abundantly clear, was simply saturated. In season and out\nof season now in manifest, now in recondite application, he presses it\ninto the service of expression and illustration. At least a third of\nhis myriad metaphors are derived from it. It would indeed be difficult\nto find a single act in any of his dramas, nay, in some of them, a\nsingle scene, the diction and imagery of which are not colored by it.\nMuch of his law may have been acquired from three books easily\naccessible to him\u2014namely, Tottell\u2019s _Precedents_ (1572), Pulton\u2019s\n_Statutes_ (1578), and Fraunce\u2019s _Lawier\u2019s Logike_ (1588), works with\nwhich he certainly seems to have been familiar; but much of it could\nonly have come from one who had an intimate acquaintance with legal\nproceedings. We quite agree with Mr. Castle that Shakespeare\u2019s legal\nknowledge is not what could have been picked up in an attorney\u2019s\noffice, but could only have been learned by an actual attendance at the\nCourts, at a Pleader\u2019s Chambers, and on circuit, or by associating\nintimately with members of the Bench and Bar.\u201d\n\nThis is excellent. But what is Mr. Collins\u2019s explanation? \u201cPerhaps the\nsimplest solution of the problem is to accept the hypothesis that in\nearly life he was in an attorney\u2019s office (!), that he there contracted\na love for the law which never left him, that as a young man in London\nhe continued to study or dabble in it for his amusement, to stroll in\nleisure hours into the Courts, and to frequent the society of lawyers.\nOn no other supposition is it possible to explain the attraction which\nthe law evidently had for him, and his minute and undeviating accuracy\nin a subject where no layman who has indulged in such copious and\nostentatious display of legal technicalities has ever yet succeeded in\nkeeping himself from tripping.\u201d\n\nA lame conclusion. \u201cNo other supposition\u201d indeed! Yes, there is\nanother, and a very obvious supposition\u2014namely, that Shakespeare was\nhimself a lawyer, well versed in his trade, versed in all the ways of\nthe courts, and living in close intimacy with judges and members of the\nInns of Court.\n\nOne is, of course, thankful that Mr. Collins has appreciated the fact\nthat Shakespeare must have had a sound legal training, but I may be\nforgiven if I do not attach quite so much importance to his\npronouncements on this branch of the subject as to those of Malone,\nLord Campbell, Judge Holmes, Mr. Castle, K.C., Lord Penzance, Mr. Grant\nWhite, and other lawyers, who have expressed their opinion on the\nmatter of Shakespeare\u2019s legal acquirements....\n\nHere it may, perhaps, be worth while to quote again from Lord\nPenzance\u2019s book as to the suggestion that Shakespeare had somehow or\nother managed \u201cto acquire a perfect familiarity with legal principles,\nand an accurate and ready use of the technical terms and phrases, not\nonly of the conveyancer\u2019s office, but of the pleader\u2019s chambers and the\nCourts at Westminster.\u201d This, as Lord Penzance points out, \u201cwould\nrequire nothing short of employment in some career involving _constant\ncontact_ with legal questions and general legal work.\u201d But \u201cin what\nportion of Shakespeare\u2019s career would it be possible to point out that\ntime could be found for the interposition of a legal employment in the\nchambers or offices of practicing lawyers?... It is beyond doubt that\nat an early period he was called upon to abandon his attendance at\nschool and assist his father, and was soon after, at the age of\nsixteen, bound apprentice to a trade. While under the obligation of\nthis bond he could not have pursued any other employment. Then he\nleaves Stratford and comes to London. He has to provide himself with\nthe means of a livelihood, and this he did in some capacity at the\ntheater. No one doubts that. The holding of horses is scouted by many,\nand perhaps with justice, as being unlikely and certainly unproved; but\nwhatever the nature of his employment was at the theater, there is\nhardly room for the belief that it could have been other than\ncontinuous, for his progress there was so rapid. Ere long he had been\ntaken into the company as an actor, and was soon spoken of as a\n\u2018Johannes Factotum.\u2019 His rapid accumulation of wealth speaks volumes\nfor the constancy and activity of his services. One fails to see when\nthere could be a break in the current of his life at this period of it,\ngiving room or opportunity for legal or indeed any other employment.\n\u2018In 1589,\u2019 says Knight, \u2018we have undeniable evidence that he had not\nonly a casual engagement, was not only a salaried servant, as many\nplayers were, but was a shareholder in the company of the Queen\u2019s\nplayers with other shareholders below him on the list.\u2019 This (1589)\nwould be within two years after his arrival in London, which is placed\nby White and Halliwell- Phillipps about the year 1587. The difficulty\nin supposing that, starting with a state of ignorance in 1587, when he\nis supposed to have come to London, he was induced to enter upon a\ncourse of most extended study and mental culture, is almost\ninsuperable. Still it was physically possible, provided always that he\ncould have had access to the needful books. But this legal training\nseems to me to stand on a different footing. It is not only\nunaccountable and incredible, but it is actually negatived by the known\nfacts of his career.\u201d Lord Penzance then refers to the fact that \u201cby\n1592 (according to the best authority, Mr. Grant White) several of the\nplays had been written. \u2018The Comedy of Errors\u2019 in 1589, \u2018Love\u2019s\nLabour\u2019s Lost\u2019 in 1589, \u2018Two Gentlemen of Verona\u2019 in 1589 or 1590,\u201d and\nso forth, and then asks, \u201cwith this catalogue of dramatic work on\nhand... was it possible that he could have taken a leading part in the\nmanagement and conduct of two theaters, and if Mr. Phillipps is to be\nrelied upon, taken his share in the performances of the provincial\ntours of his company\u2014and at the same time devoted himself to the study\nof the law in all its branches so efficiently as to make himself\ncomplete master of its principles and practice, and saturate his mind\nwith all its most technical terms?\u201d\n\nI have cited this passage from Lord Penzance\u2019s book, because it lay\nbefore me, and I had already quoted from it on the matter of\nShakespeare\u2019s legal knowledge; but other writers have still better set\nforth the insuperable difficulties, as they seem to me, which beset the\nidea that Shakespeare might have found time in some unknown period of\nearly life, amid multifarious other occupations, for the study of\nclassics, literature, and law, to say nothing of languages and a few\nother matters. Lord Penzance further asks his readers: \u201cDid you ever\nmeet with or hear of an instance in which a young man in this country\ngave himself up to legal studies and engaged in legal employments,\nwhich is the only way of becoming familiar with the technicalities of\npractice, unless with the view of practicing in that profession? I do\nnot believe that it would be easy, or indeed possible, to produce an\ninstance in which the law has been seriously studied in all its\nbranches, except as a qualification for practice in the legal\nprofession.\u201d\n\nThis testimony is so strong, so direct, so authoritative; and so\nuncheapened, unwatered by guesses, and surmises, and maybe-so\u2019s, and\nmight-have-beens, and could-have-beens, and must-have-beens, and the\nrest of that ton of plaster of Paris out of which the biographers have\nbuilt the colossal brontosaur which goes by the Stratford actor\u2019s name,\nthat it quite convinces me that the man who wrote Shakespeare\u2019s Works\nknew all about law and lawyers. Also, that that man could not have been\nthe Stratford Shakespeare\u2014and _wasn\u2019t_.\n\nWho did write these Works, then?\n\nI wish I knew.\n\nIX\n\nDid Francis Bacon write Shakespeare\u2019s Works? Nobody knows.\n\nWe cannot say we _know_ a thing when that thing has not been proved.\n_Know_ is too strong a word to use when the evidence is not final and\nabsolutely conclusive. We can infer, if we want to, like those\nslaves.... No, I will not write that word, it is not kind, it is not\ncourteous. The upholders of the Stratford-Shakespeare superstition call\n_us_ the hardest names they can think of, and they keep doing it all\nthe time; very well, if they like to descend to that level, let them do\nit, but I will not so undignify myself as to follow them. I cannot call\nthem harsh names; the most I can do is to indicate them by terms\nreflecting my disapproval; and this without malice, without venom.\n\nTo resume. What I was about to say was, those thugs have built their\nentire superstition upon _inferences_, not upon known and established\nfacts. It is a weak method, and poor, and I am glad to be able to say\nour side never resorts to it while there is anything else to resort to.\n\nBut when we must, we must; and we have now arrived at a place of that\nsort.... Since the Stratford Shakespeare couldn\u2019t have written the\nWorks, we infer that somebody did. Who was it, then? This requires some\nmore inferring.\n\nOrdinarily when an unsigned poem sweeps across the continent like a\ntidal wave whose roar and boom and thunder are made up of admiration,\ndelight, and applause, a dozen obscure people rise up and claim the\nauthorship. Why a dozen, instead of only one or two? One reason is,\nbecause there are a dozen that are recognizably competent to do that\npoem. Do you remember \u201cBeautiful Snow\u201d? Do you remember \u201cRock Me to\nSleep, Mother, Rock Me to Sleep\u201d? Do you remember \u201cBackward, turn,\nbackward, O Time, in thy flight! Make me a child again just for\ntonight\u201d? I remember them very well. Their authorship was claimed by\nmost of the grown-up people who were alive at the time, and every\nclaimant had one plausible argument in his favor, at least\u2014to wit, he\ncould have done the authoring; he was competent.\n\nHave the Works been claimed by a dozen? They haven\u2019t. There was good\nreason. The world knows there was but one man on the planet at the time\nwho was competent\u2014not a dozen, and not two. A long time ago the\ndwellers in a far country used now and then to find a procession of\nprodigious footprints stretching across the plain\u2014footprints that were\nthree miles apart, each footprint a third of a mile long and a furlong\ndeep, and with forests and villages mashed to mush in it. Was there any\ndoubt as to who made that mighty trail? Were there a dozen claimants?\nWhere there two? No\u2014the people knew who it was that had been along\nthere: there was only one Hercules.\n\nThere has been only one Shakespeare. There couldn\u2019t be two; certainly\nthere couldn\u2019t be two at the same time. It takes ages to bring forth a\nShakespeare, and some more ages to match him. This one was not matched\nbefore his time; nor during his time; and hasn\u2019t been matched since.\nThe prospect of matching him in our time is not bright.\n\nThe Baconians claim that the Stratford Shakespeare was not qualified to\nwrite the Works, and that Francis Bacon was. They claim that Bacon\npossessed the stupendous equipment\u2014both natural and acquired\u2014for the\nmiracle; and that no other Englishman of his day possessed the like;\nor, indeed, anything closely approaching it.\n\nMacaulay, in his Essay, has much to say about the splendor and\nhorizonless magnitude of that equipment. Also, he has synopsized\nBacon\u2019s history\u2014a thing which cannot be done for the Stratford\nShakespeare, for he hasn\u2019t any history to synopsize. Bacon\u2019s history is\nopen to the world, from his boyhood to his death in old age\u2014a history\nconsisting of known facts, displayed in minute and multitudinous\ndetail; _facts_, not guesses and conjectures and might-have-beens.\n\nWhereby it appears that he was born of a race of statesmen, and had a\nLord Chancellor for his father, and a mother who was \u201cdistinguished\nboth as a linguist and a theologian: she corresponded in Greek with\nBishop Jewell, and translated his _Apologia_ from the Latin so\ncorrectly that neither he nor Archbishop Parker could suggest a single\nalteration.\u201d It is the atmosphere we are reared in that determines how\nour inclinations and aspirations shall tend. The atmosphere furnished\nby the parents to the son in this present case was an atmosphere\nsaturated with learning; with thinkings and ponderings upon deep\nsubjects; and with polite culture. It had its natural effect.\nShakespeare of Stratford was reared in a house which had no use for\nbooks, since its owners, his parents, were without education. This may\nhave had an effect upon the son, but we do not know, because we have no\nhistory of him of an informing sort. There were but few books anywhere,\nin that day, and only the well-to-do and highly educated possessed\nthem, they being almost confined to the dead languages. \u201cAll the\nvaluable books then extant in all the vernacular dialects of Europe\nwould hardly have filled a single shelf\u201d\u2014imagine it! The few existing\nbooks were in the Latin tongue mainly. \u201cA person who was ignorant of it\nwas shut out from all acquaintance\u2014not merely with Cicero and Virgil,\nbut with the most interesting memoirs, state papers, and pamphlets of\nhis own time\u201d\u2014a literature necessary to the Stratford lad, for his\nfictitious reputation\u2019s sake, since the writer of his Works would begin\nto use it wholesale and in a most masterly way before the lad was\nhardly more than out of his teens and into his twenties.\n\nAt fifteen Bacon was sent to the university, and he spent three years\nthere. Thence he went to Paris in the train of the English Ambassador,\nand there he mingled daily with the wise, the cultured, the great, and\nthe aristocracy of fashion, during another three years. A total of six\nyears spent at the sources of knowledge; knowledge both of books and of\nmen. The three spent at the university were coeval with the second and\nlast three spent by the little Stratford lad at Stratford school\nsupposedly, and perhapsedly, and maybe, and by inference\u2014with nothing\nto infer from. The second three of the Baconian six were \u201cpresumably\u201d\nspent by the Stratford lad as apprentice to a butcher. That is, the\nthugs presume it\u2014on no evidence of any kind. Which is their way, when\nthey want a historical fact. Fact and presumption are, for business\npurposes, all the same to them. They know the difference, but they also\nknow how to blink it. They know, too, that while in history-building a\nfact is better than a presumption, it doesn\u2019t take a presumption long\nto bloom into a fact when _they_ have the handling of it. They know by\nold experience that when they get hold of a presumption-tadpole he is\nnot going to _stay_ tadpole in their history-tank; no, they know how to\ndevelop him into the giant four-legged bullfrog of _fact_, and make him\nsit up on his hams, and puff out his chin, and look important and\ninsolent and come-to-stay; and assert his genuine simon-pure\nauthenticity with a thundering bellow that will convince everybody\nbecause it is so loud. The thug is aware that loudness convinces sixty\npersons where reasoning convinces but one. I wouldn\u2019t be a thug, not\neven if\u2014but never mind about that, it has nothing to do with the\nargument, and it is not noble in spirit besides. If I am better than a\nthug, is the merit mine? No, it is His. Then to Him be the praise. That\nis the right spirit.\n\nThey \u201cpresume\u201d the lad severed his \u201cpresumed\u201d connection with the\nStratford school to become apprentice to a butcher. They also \u201cpresume\u201d\nthat the butcher was his father. They don\u2019t know. There is no written\nrecord of it, nor any other actual evidence. If it would have helped\ntheir case any, they would have apprenticed him to thirty butchers, to\nfifty butchers, to a wilderness of butchers\u2014all by their patented\nmethod \u201cpresumption.\u201d If it will help their case they will do it yet;\nand if it will further help it, they will \u201cpresume\u201d that all those\nbutchers were his father. And the week after, they will _say_ it. Why,\nit is just like being the past tense of the compound reflexive\nadverbial incandescent hypodermic irregular accusative Noun of\nMultitude; which is father to the expression which the grammarians call\nVerb. It is like a whole ancestry, with only one posterity.\n\nTo resume. Next, the young Bacon took up the study of law, and mastered\nthat abstruse science. From that day to the end of his life he was\ndaily in close contact with lawyers and judges; not as a casual\nonlooker in intervals between holding horses in front of a theater, but\nas a practicing lawyer\u2014a great and successful one, a renowned one, a\nLauncelot of the bar, the most formidable lance in the high brotherhood\nof the legal Table Round; he lived in the law\u2019s atmosphere thenceforth,\nall his years, and by sheer ability forced his way up its difficult\nsteeps to its supremest summit, the Lord-Chancellorship, leaving behind\nhim no fellow-craftsman qualified to challenge his divine right to that\nmajestic place.\n\nWhen we read the praises bestowed by Lord Penzance and the other\nillustrious experts upon the legal condition and legal aptnesses,\nbrilliances, profundities, and felicities so prodigally displayed in\nthe Plays, and try to fit them to the historyless Stratford\nstage-manager, they sound wild, strange, incredible, ludicrous; but\nwhen we put them in the mouth of Bacon they do not sound strange, they\nseem in their natural and rightful place, they seem at home there.\nPlease turn back and read them again. Attributed to Shakespeare of\nStratford they are meaningless, they are inebriate\nextravagancies\u2014intemperate admirations of the dark side of the moon, so\nto speak; attributed to Bacon, they are admirations of the golden\nglories of the moon\u2019s front side, the moon at the full\u2014and not\nintemperate, not overwrought, but sane and right, and justified. \u201cAt\nevery turn and point at which the author required a metaphor, simile,\nor illustration, his mind ever turned _first_ to the law; he seems\nalmost to have _thought_ in legal phrases; the commonest legal phrases,\nthe commonest of legal expressions, were ever at the end of his pen.\u201d\nThat could happen to no one but a person whose _trade_ was the law; it\ncould not happen to a dabbler in it. Veteran mariners fill their\nconversation with sailor-phrases and draw all their similes from the\nship and the sea and the storm, but no mere _passenger_ ever does it,\nbe he of Stratford or elsewhere; or could do it with anything\nresembling accuracy, if he were hardy enough to try. Please read again\nwhat Lord Campbell and the other great authorities have said about\nBacon when they thought they were saying it about Shakespeare of\nStratford.\n\nX\n\nTHE REST OF THE EQUIPMENT\n\nThe author of the Plays was equipped, beyond every other man of his\ntime, with wisdom, erudition, imagination, capaciousness of mind,\ngrace, and majesty of expression. Every one has said it, no one doubts\nit. Also, he had humor, humor in rich abundance, and always wanting to\nbreak out. We have no evidence of any kind that Shakespeare of\nStratford possessed any of these gifts or any of these acquirements.\nThe only lines he ever wrote, so far as we know, are substantially\nbarren of them\u2014barren of all of them.\n\nGood friend for Iesus sake forbeare\nTo digg the dust encloased heare:\nBlest be ye man yt spares thes stones\nAnd curst be he yt moves my bones.\n\n\nBen Jonson says of Bacon, as orator:\n\nHis language, _where he could spare and pass by a jest_, was nobly\ncensorious. No man ever spoke more neatly, more pressly, more\nweightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he\nuttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his (its) own\ngraces.... The fear of every man that heard him was lest he should make\nan end.\n\n\nFrom Macaulay:\n\nHe continued to distinguish himself in Parliament, particularly by his\nexertions in favor of one excellent measure on which the King\u2019s heart\nwas set\u2014the union of England and Scotland. It was not difficult for\nsuch an intellect to discover many irresistible arguments in favor of\nsuch a scheme. He conducted the great case of the _Post Nati_ in the\nExchequer Chamber; and the decision of the judges\u2014a decision the\nlegality of which may be questioned, but the beneficial effect of which\nmust be acknowledged\u2014was in a great measure attributed to his dexterous\nmanagement.\n\n\nAgain:\n\n\nWhile actively engaged in the House of Commons and in the courts of\nlaw, he still found leisure for letters and philosophy. The noble\ntreatise on the _Advancement Of Learning_, which at a later period was\nexpanded into the _De Augmentis_, appeared in 1605.\n\nThe _Wisdom Of The Ancients_, a work which, if it had proceeded from\nany other writer, would have been considered as a masterpiece of wit\nand learning, was printed in 1609.\n\nIn the mean time the _Novum Organum_ was slowly proceeding. Several\ndistinguished men of learning had been permitted to see portions of\nthat extraordinary book, and they spoke with the greatest admiration of\nhis genius.\n\nEven Sir Thomas Bodley, after perusing the _Cogitata Et Visa_, one of\nthe most precious of those scattered leaves out of which the great\noracular volume was afterward made up, acknowledged that \u201cin all\nproposals and plots in that book, Bacon showed himself a master\nworkman\u201d; and that \u201cit could not be gainsaid but all the treatise over\ndid abound with choice conceits of the present state of learning, and\nwith worthy contemplations of the means to procure it.\u201d\n\nIn 1612 a new edition of the _Essays_ appeared, with additions\nsurpassing the original collection both in bulk and quality.\n\nNor did these pursuits distract Bacon\u2019s attention from a work the most\narduous, the most glorious, and the most useful that even his mighty\npowers could have achieved, \u201cthe reducing and recompiling,\u201d to use his\nown phrase, \u201cof the laws of England.\u201d\n\n\nTo serve the exacting and laborious offices of Attorney-General and\nSolicitor-General would have satisfied the appetite of any other man\nfor hard work, but Bacon had to add the vast literary industries just\ndescribed, to satisfy his. He was a born worker.\n\n\nThe service which he rendered to letters during the last five years of\nhis life, amid ten thousand distractions and vexations, increase the\nregret with which we think on the many years which he had wasted, to\nuse the words of Sir Thomas Bodley, \u201con such study as was not worthy\nsuch a student.\u201d\n\nHe commenced a digest of the laws of England, a History of England\nunder the Princes of the House of Tudor, a body of National History, a\nPhilosophical Romance. He made extensive and valuable additions to his\nEssays. He published the inestimable _Treatise De Augmentis\nScientiarum_.\n\n\nDid these labors of Hercules fill up his time to his contentment, and\nquiet his appetite for work? Not entirely:\n\nThe trifles with which he amused himself in hours of pain and languor\nbore the mark of his mind. _The Best Jest-Book In The World_ is that\nwhich he dictated from memory, without referring to any book, on a day\non which illness had rendered him incapable of serious study.\n\n\nHere are some scattered remarks (from Macaulay) which throw light upon\nBacon, and seem to indicate\u2014and maybe demonstrate\u2014that he was competent\nto write the Plays and Poems:\n\n\nWith great minuteness of observation he had an amplitude of\ncomprehension such as has never yet been vouchsafed to any other human\nbeing.\n\nThe _Essays_ contain abundant proofs that no nice feature of character,\nno peculiarity in the ordering of a house, a garden, or a court-masque,\ncould escape the notice of one whose mind was capable of taking in the\nwhole world of knowledge.\n\nHis understanding resembled the tent which the fairy Paribanou gave to\nPrince Ahmed: fold it, and it seemed a toy for the hand of a lady;\nspread it, and the armies of the powerful Sultans might repose beneath\nits shade.\n\nThe knowledge in which Bacon excelled all men was a knowledge of the\nmutual relations of all departments of knowledge.\n\nIn a letter written when he was only thirty-one, to his uncle, Lord\nBurleigh, he said, \u201cI have taken all knowledge to be my province.\u201d\n\nThough Bacon did not arm his philosophy with the weapons of logic, he\nadorned her profusely with all the richest decorations of rhetoric.\n\nThe practical faculty was powerful in Bacon; but not, like his wit, so\npowerful as occasionally to usurp the place of his reason and to\ntyrannize over the whole man.\n\n\nThere are too many places in the Plays where this happens. Poor old\ndying John of Gaunt volleying second-rate puns at his own name, is a\npathetic instance of it. \u201cWe may assume\u201d that it is Bacon\u2019s fault, but\nthe Stratford Shakespeare has to bear the blame.\n\n\nNo imagination was ever at once so strong and so thoroughly subjugated.\nIt stopped at the first check from good sense.\n\nIn truth, much of Bacon\u2019s life was passed in a visionary world\u2014amid\nthings as strange as any that are described in the _Arabian Tales_...\namid buildings more sumptuous than the palace of Aladdin, fountains\nmore wonderful than the golden water of Parizade, conveyances more\nrapid than the hippogryph of Ruggiero, arms more formidable than the\nlance of Astolfo, remedies more efficacious than the balsam of\nFierabras. Yet in his magnificent day-dreams there was nothing\nwild\u2014nothing but what sober reason sanctioned.\n\nBacon\u2019s greatest performance is the first book of the _Novum\nOrganum_.... Every part of it blazes with wit, but with wit which is\nemployed only to illustrate and decorate truth. No book ever made so\ngreat a revolution in the mode of thinking, overthrew so may\nprejudices, introduced so many new opinions.\n\nBut what we most admire is the vast capacity of that intellect which,\nwithout effort, takes in at once all the domains of science\u2014all the\npast, the present and the future, all the errors of two thousand years,\nall the encouraging signs of the passing times, all the bright hopes of\nthe coming age.\n\nHe had a wonderful talent for packing thought close and rendering it\nportable.\n\nHis eloquence would alone have entitled him to a high rank in\nliterature.\n\n\nIt is evident that he had each and every one of the mental gifts and\neach and every one of the acquirements that are so prodigally displayed\nin the Plays and Poems, and in much higher and richer degree than any\nother man of his time or of any previous time. He was a genius without\na mate, a prodigy not matable. There was only one of him; the planet\ncould not produce two of him at one birth, nor in one age. He could\nhave written anything that is in the Plays and Poems. He could have\nwritten this:\n\nThe cloud-cap\u2019d towers, the gorgeous palaces,\nThe solemn temples, the great globe itself,\nYea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,\nAnd, like an insubstantial pageant faded,\nLeave not a rack behind. We are such stuff\nAs dreams are made on, and our little life\nIs rounded with a sleep.\n\n\nAlso, he could have written this, but he refrained:\n\nGood friend for Iesus sake forbeare\nTo digg the dust encloased heare:\nBlest be ye man yt spares thes stones\nAnd curst be he yt moves my bones.\n\n\nWhen a person reads the noble verses about the cloud-cap\u2019d towers, he\nought not to follow it immediately with Good friend for Iesus sake\nforbeare, because he will find the transition from great poetry to poor\nprose too violent for comfort. It will give him a shock. You never\nnotice how commonplace and unpoetic gravel is until you bite into a\nlayer of it in a pie.\n\nXI\n\nAm I trying to convince anybody that Shakespeare did not write\nShakespeare\u2019s Works? Ah, now, what do you take me for? Would I be so\nsoft as that, after having known the human race familiarly for nearly\nseventy-four years? It would grieve me to know that any one could think\nso injuriously of me, so uncomplimentarily, so unadmiringly of me. No,\nno, I am aware that when even the brightest mind in our world has been\ntrained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never\nbe possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely,\ndispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance\nwhich shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that\nsuperstition. I doubt if I could do it myself. We always get at second\nhand our notions about systems of government; and high tariff and low\ntariff; and prohibition and anti-prohibition; and the holiness of peace\nand the glories of war; and codes of honor and codes of morals; and\napproval of the duel and disapproval of it; and our beliefs concerning\nthe nature of cats; and our ideas as to whether the murder of helpless\nwild animals is base or is heroic; and our preferences in the matter of\nreligious and political parties; and our acceptance or rejection of the\nShakespeares and the Author Ortons and the Mrs. Eddys. We get them all\nat second hand, we reason none of them out for ourselves. It is the way\nwe are made. It is the way we are all made, and we can\u2019t help it, we\ncan\u2019t change it. And whenever we have been furnished a fetish, and have\nbeen taught to believe in it, and love it and worship it, and refrain\nfrom examining it, there is no evidence, howsoever clear and strong,\nthat can persuade us to withdraw from it our loyalty and our devotion.\nIn morals, conduct, and beliefs we take the color of our environment\nand associations, and it is a color that can safely be warranted to\nwash. Whenever we have been furnished with a tar baby ostensibly\nstuffed with jewels, and warned that it will be dishonorable and\nirreverent to disembowel it and test the jewels, we keep our\nsacrilegious hands off it. We submit, not reluctantly, but rather\ngladly, for we are privately afraid we should find, upon examination\nthat the jewels are of the sort that are manufactured at North Adams,\nMass.\n\nI haven\u2019t any idea that Shakespeare will have to vacate his pedestal\nthis side of the year 2209. Disbelief in him cannot come swiftly,\ndisbelief in a healthy and deeply-loved tar baby has never been known\nto disintegrate swiftly; it is a very slow process. It took several\nthousand years to convince our fine race\u2014including every splendid\nintellect in it\u2014that there is no such thing as a witch; it has taken\nseveral thousand years to convince the same fine race\u2014including every\nsplendid intellect in it\u2014that there is no such person as Satan; it has\ntaken several centuries to remove perdition from the Protestant\nChurch\u2019s program of post-mortem entertainments; it has taken a weary\nlong time to persuade American Presbyterians to give up infant\ndamnation and try to bear it the best they can; and it looks as if\ntheir Scotch brethren will still be burning babies in the everlasting\nfires when Shakespeare comes down from his perch.\n\nWe are The Reasoning Race. We can\u2019t prove it by the above examples, and\nwe can\u2019t prove it by the miraculous \u201chistories\u201d built by those\nStratfordolaters out of a hatful of rags and a barrel of sawdust, but\nthere is a plenty of other things we can prove it by, if I could think\nof them. We are The Reasoning Race, and when we find a vague file of\nchipmunk-tracks stringing through the dust of Stratford village, we\nknow by our reasoning bowers that Hercules has been along there. I feel\nthat our fetish is safe for three centuries yet. The bust, too\u2014there in\nthe Stratford Church. The precious bust, the priceless bust, the calm\nbust, the serene bust, the emotionless bust, with the dandy mustache,\nand the putty face, unseamed of care\u2014that face which has looked\npassionlessly down upon the awed pilgrim for a hundred and fifty years\nand will still look down upon the awed pilgrim three hundred more, with\nthe deep, deep, deep, subtle, subtle, subtle expression of a bladder.\n\nXII\n\nIRREVERENCE\n\nOne of the most trying defects which I find in these\u2014these\u2014what shall I\ncall them? for I will not apply injurious epithets to them, the way\nthey do to us, such violations of courtesy being repugnant to my nature\nand my dignity. The farthest I can go in that direction is to call them\nby names of limited reverence\u2014names merely descriptive, never unkind,\nnever offensive, never tainted by harsh feeling. If _they_ would do\nlike this, they would feel better in their hearts. Very well, then\u2014to\nproceed. One of the most trying defects which I find in these\nStratfordolaters, these Shakesperiods, these thugs, these bangalores,\nthese troglodytes, these herumfrodites, these blatherskites, these\nbuccaneers, these bandoleers, is their spirit of irreverence. It is\ndetectable in every utterance of theirs when they are talking about us.\nI am thankful that in me there is nothing of that spirit. When a thing\nis sacred to me it is impossible for me to be irreverent toward it. I\ncannot call to mind a single instance where I have ever been\nirreverent, except towards the things which were sacred to other\npeople. Am I in the right? I think so. But I ask no one to take my\nunsupported word; no, look at the dictionary; let the dictionary\ndecide. Here is the definition:\n\n_Irreverence_. The quality or condition of irreverence toward God and\nsacred things.\n\n\nWhat does the Hindu say? He says it is correct. He says irreverence is\nlack of respect for Vishnu, and Brahma, and Chrishna, and his other\ngods, and for his sacred cattle, and for his temples and the things\nwithin them. He endorses the definition, you see; and there are\n300,000,000 Hindus or their equivalents back of him.\n\nThe dictionary had the acute idea that by using the capital G it could\nrestrict irreverence to lack of reverence for _our_ Deity and our\nsacred things, but that ingenious and rather sly idea miscarried: for\nby the simple process of spelling _his_ deities with capitals the Hindu\nconfiscates the definition and restricts it to his own sects, thus\nmaking it clearly compulsory upon us to revere _his_ gods and _his_\nsacred things, and nobody\u2019s else. We can\u2019t say a word, for he has our\nown dictionary at his back, and its decision is final.\n\nThis law, reduced to its simplest terms, is this: 1. Whatever is sacred\nto the Christian must be held in reverence by everybody else; 2.\nwhatever is sacred to the Hindu must be held in reverence by everybody\nelse; 3. therefore, by consequence, logically, and indisputably,\nwhatever is sacred to _me_ must be held in reverence by everybody else.\n\nNow then, what aggravates me is that these troglodytes and muscovites\nand bandoleers and buccaneers are _also_ trying to crowd in and share\nthe benefit of the law, and compel everybody to revere their\nShakespeare and hold him sacred. We can\u2019t have that: there\u2019s enough of\nus already. If you go on widening and spreading and inflating the\nprivilege, it will presently come to be conceded that each man\u2019s sacred\nthings are the _only_ ones, and the rest of the human race will have to\nbe humbly reverent toward them or suffer for it. That can surely\nhappen, and when it happens, the word Irreverence will be regarded as\nthe most meaningless, and foolish, and self-conceited, and insolent,\nand impudent, and dictatorial word in the language. And people will\nsay, \u201cWhose business is it what gods I worship and what things hold\nsacred? Who has the right to dictate to my conscience, and where did he\nget that right?\u201d\n\nWe cannot afford to let that calamity come upon us. We must save the\nword from this destruction. There is but one way to do it, and that is\nto stop the spread of the privilege and strictly confine it to its\npresent limits\u2014that is, to all the Christian sects, to all the Hindu\nsects, and me. We do not need any more, the stock is watered enough,\njust as it is.\n\nIt would be better if the privilege were limited to me alone. I think\nso because I am the only sect that knows how to employ it gently,\nkindly, charitably, dispassionately. The other sects lack the quality\nof self-restraint. The Catholic Church says the most irreverent things\nabout matters which are sacred to the Protestants, and the Protestant\nChurch retorts in kind about the confessional and other matters which\nCatholics hold sacred; then both of these irreverencers turn upon\nThomas Paine and charge _him_ with irreverence. This is all\nunfortunate, because it makes it difficult for students equipped with\nonly a low grade of mentality to find out what Irreverence really _is_.\n\nIt will surely be much better all around if the privilege of regulating\nthe irreverent and keeping them in order shall eventually be withdrawn\nfrom all the sects but me. Then there will be no more quarreling, no\nmore bandying of disrespectful epithets, no more heartburnings.\n\nThere will then be nothing sacred involved in this Bacon-Shakespeare\ncontroversy except what is sacred to me. That will simplify the whole\nmatter, and trouble will cease. There will be irreverence no longer,\nbecause I will not allow it. The first time those criminals charge me\nwith irreverence for calling their Stratford myth an\nArthur-Orton-Mary-Baker-Thompson-Eddy-Louis-the-Seventeenth-Veiled-\nProphet -of-Khorassan will be the last. Taught by the methods found\neffective in extinguishing earlier offenders by the Inquisition, of\nholy memory, I shall know how to quiet them.\n\nXIII\n\nIsn\u2019t it odd, when you think of it, that you may list all the\ncelebrated Englishmen, Irishmen, and Scotchmen of modern times, clear\nback to the first Tudors\u2014a list containing five hundred names, shall we\nsay?\u2014and you can go to the histories, biographies, and cyclopedias and\nlearn the particulars of the lives of every one of them. Every one of\nthem except one\u2014the most famous, the most renowned\u2014by far the most\nillustrious of them all\u2014Shakespeare! You can get the details of the\nlives of all the celebrated ecclesiastics in the list; all the\ncelebrated tragedians, comedians, singers, dancers, orators, judges,\nlawyers, poets, dramatists, historians, biographers, editors,\ninventors, reformers, statesmen, generals, admirals, discoverers,\nprize-fighters, murderers, pirates, conspirators, horse-jockeys,\nbunco-steerers, misers, swindlers, explorers, adventurers by land and\nsea, bankers, financiers, astronomers, naturalists, claimants,\nimpostors, chemists, biologists, geologists, philologists, college\npresidents and professors, architects, engineers, painters, sculptors,\npoliticians, agitators, rebels, revolutionists, patriots, demagogues,\nclowns, cooks, freaks, philosophers, burglars, highwaymen, journalists,\nphysicians, surgeons\u2014you can get the life-histories of all of them but\n_one_. Just _one_\u2014the most extraordinary and the most celebrated of\nthem all\u2014Shakespeare!\n\nYou may add to the list the thousand celebrated persons furnished by\nthe rest of Christendom in the past four centuries, and you can find\nout the life-histories of all those people, too. You will then have\nlisted fifteen hundred celebrities, and you can trace the authentic\nlife-histories of the whole of them. Save one\u2014far and away the most\ncolossal prodigy of the entire accumulation\u2014Shakespeare! About him you\ncan find out _nothing_. Nothing of even the slightest importance.\nNothing worth the trouble of stowing away in your memory. Nothing that\neven remotely indicates that he was ever anything more than a\ndistinctly commonplace person\u2014a manager, an actor of inferior grade, a\nsmall trader in a small village that did not regard him as a person of\nany consequence, and had forgotten all about him before he was fairly\ncold in his grave. We can go to the records and find out the\nlife-history of every renowned _race-horse_ of modern times\u2014but not\nShakespeare\u2019s! There are many reasons why, and they have been furnished\nin cart-loads (of guess and conjecture) by those troglodytes; but there\nis one that is worth all the rest of the reasons put together, and is\nabundantly sufficient all by itself\u2014_he hadn\u2019t any history to record_.\nThere is no way of getting around that deadly fact. And no sane way has\nyet been discovered of getting around its formidable significance.\n\nIts quite plain significance\u2014to any but those thugs (I do not use the\nterm unkindly) is, that Shakespeare had no prominence while he lived,\nand none until he had been dead two or three generations. The Plays\nenjoyed high fame from the beginning; and if he wrote them it seems a\npity the world did not find it out. He ought to have explained that he\nwas the author, and not merely a _nom de plume_ for another man to hide\nbehind. If he had been less intemperately solicitous about his bones,\nand more solicitous about his Works, it would have been better for his\ngood name, and a kindness to us. The bones were not important. They\nwill moulder away, they will turn to dust, but the Works will endure\nuntil the last sun goes down.\n\nMARK TWAIN.\n\n\n_P.S. March 25_. About two months ago I was illuminating this\nAutobiography with some notions of mine concerning the\nBacon-Shakespeare controversy, and I then took occasion to air the\nopinion that the Stratford Shakespeare was a person of no public\nconsequence or celebrity during his lifetime, but was utterly obscure\nand unimportant. And not only in great London, but also in the little\nvillage where he was born, where he lived a quarter of a century, and\nwhere he died and was buried. I argued that if he had been a person of\nany note at all, aged villagers would have had much to tell about him\nmany and many a year after his death, instead of being unable to\nfurnish inquirers a single fact connected with him. I believed, and I\nstill believe, that if he had been famous, his notoriety would have\nlasted as long as mine has lasted in my native village out in Missouri.\nIt is a good argument, a prodigiously strong one, and most formidable\none for even the most gifted and ingenious and plausible\nStratfordolator to get around or explain away. Today a Hannibal\n_Courier-Post_ of recent date has reached me, with an article in it\nwhich reinforces my contention that a really celebrated person cannot\nbe forgotten in his village in the short space of sixty years. I will\nmake an extract from it:\n\n\nHannibal, as a city, may have many sins to answer for, but ingratitude\nis not one of them, or reverence for the great men she has produced,\nand as the years go by her greatest son, Mark Twain, or S. L. Clemens\nas a few of the unlettered call him, grows in the estimation and regard\nof the residents of the town he made famous and the town that made him\nfamous. His name is associated with every old building that is torn\ndown to make way for the modern structures demanded by a rapidly\ngrowing city, and with every hill or cave over or through which he\nmight by any possibility have roamed, while the many points of interest\nwhich he wove into his stories, such as Holiday Hill, Jackson\u2019s Island,\nor Mark Twain Cave, are now monuments to his genius. Hannibal is glad\nof any opportunity to do him honor as he had honored her.\n\nSo it has happened that the \u201cold timers\u201d who went to school with Mark\nor were with him on some of his usual escapades have been honored with\nlarge audiences whenever they were in a reminiscent mood and\ncondescended to tell of their intimacy with the ordinary boy who came\nto be a very extraordinary humorist and whose every boyish act is now\nseen to have been indicative of what was to come. Like Aunt Becky and\nMrs. Clemens, they can now see that Mark was hardly appreciated when he\nlived here and that the things he did as a boy and was whipped for\ndoing were not all bad, after all. So they have been in no hesitancy\nabout drawing out the bad things he did as well as the good in their\nefforts to get a \u201cMark Twain\u201d story, all incidents being viewed in the\nlight of his present fame, until the volume of \u201cTwainiana\u201d is already\nconsiderable and growing in proportion as the \u201cold timers\u201d drop away\nand the stories are retold second and third hand by their descendants.\nWith some seventy-three years young and living in a villa instead of a\nhouse, he is a fair target, and let him incorporate, copyright, or\npatent himself as he will, there are some of his \u201cworks\u201d that will go\nswooping up Hannibal chimneys as long as graybeards gather about the\nfires and begin with, \u201cI\u2019ve heard father tell,\u201d or possibly, \u201cOnce when\nI.\u201d The Mrs. Clemens referred to is my mother\u2014_was_ my mother.\n\n\nAnd here is another extract from a Hannibal paper, of date twenty days\nago:\n\nMiss Becca Blankenship died at the home of William Dickason, 408 Rock\nStreet, at 2.30 o\u2019clock yesterday afternoon, aged 72 years. The\ndeceased was a sister of \u201cHuckleberry Finn,\u201d one of the famous\ncharacters in Mark Twain\u2019s _Tom Sawyer_. She had been a member of the\nDickason family\u2014the housekeeper\u2014 for nearly forty-five years, and was a\nhighly respected lady. For the past eight years she had been an\ninvalid, but was as well cared for by Mr. Dickason and his family as if\nshe had been a near relative. She was a member of the Park Methodist\nChurch and a Christian woman.\n\n\nI remember her well. I have a picture of her in my mind which was\ngraven there, clear and sharp and vivid, sixty-three years ago. She was\nat that time nine years old, and I was about eleven. I remember where\nshe stood, and how she looked; and I can still see her bare feet, her\nbare head, her brown face, and her short tow-linen frock. She was\ncrying. What it was about I have long ago forgotten. But it was the\ntears that preserved the picture for me, no doubt. She was a good\nchild, I can say that for her. She knew me nearly seventy years ago.\nDid she forget me, in the course of time? I think not. If she had lived\nin Stratford in Shakespeare\u2019s time, would she have forgotten him? Yes.\nFor he was never famous during his lifetime, he was utterly obscure in\nStratford, and there wouldn\u2019t be any occasion to remember him after he\nhad been dead a week.\n\n\u201cInjun Joe,\u201d \u201cJimmy Finn,\u201d and \u201cGeneral Gaines\u201d were prominent and very\nintemperate ne\u2019er-do-weels in Hannibal two generations ago. Plenty of\ngrayheads there remember them to this day, and can tell you about them.\nIsn\u2019t it curious that two \u201ctown drunkards\u201d and one half-breed loafer\nshould leave behind them, in a remote Missourian village, a fame a\nhundred times greater and several hundred times more particularized in\nthe matter of definite facts than Shakespeare left behind him in the\nvillage where he had lived the half of his lifetime?\n\nMARK TWAIN.\n\nTHE END","title":"What Is Man? and Other Essays","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":94438}