Part 14

The reader will learn with surprise that my first feeling of fellowship went out to the dog; I am well aware that I lay open my guard to a lunge of wit.... He jumped about me, barking like a small battery, under the impression that I was going for a walk; but I could not, alas, take him with me on a stroll to Palestine.... The dog’s very lawlessness is but an extravagance of loyalty; he will go mad with joy three times on the same day at going out for a walk down the same road. We hear strangely little of the real merits of animals; and one of them surely is this innocence of all boredom; perhaps such simplicity is the absence of sin. I have some sense myself of the sacred duty of surprise; and the need of seeing the old road as a new road. But I cannot claim that whenever I go out for a walk with my family and friends, I rush in front of them volleying vociferous shouts of happiness; or even leap up round them attempting to lick their faces. It is in this power of beginning again with energy upon familiar and homely things that the dog is really the eternal type of the Western civilization.

The only thing that bothers us in this: If it had occurred to G. K. C. to prove that the scraper on his doorstep, or the radish growing in the garden, was the “eternal type” of Western civilization, would he not have made out an equally agreeable and convincing case for it? In fact, only a few steps away from his home, he came to the crossroads (and well we remember that crossroads, and the pub thereby--which is it, Mr. Chesterton: the _Saracen’s Head_, or the _Royal White Hart_?) and there decided that they were the symbol of civilization which had lost its way. And then, a few minutes later (in the train, we suppose) the glorious creature was noticing the heavy clouds that lay over the landscape, and decided that _they_ were the emblem of our civilization. It takes a good deal of agility to pursue our pilgrim through this book, for every olive tree, signboard, sunset, gateway, proves to be a magnificent symbol of some spiritual gorgeousness.

We were sorry that Mr. Chesterton, when leaving Beaconsfield, did not find some symbolism in a thing which impressed us when we went pilgriming in those parts. Edmund Burke lived there at one time, and we remember reading in some guide-book that his home was “bounded in front by a ha-ha.” We thought to ourself at that time, how excellently symbolic it would have been if G. K. C. had bounded his own house in the same way. In fact, we often went along his road to listen for it.

There was another bit of symbolism that used to impress us (it is surprising how quickly one can pick up the habit of symbolizing) when we dallied around Beaconsfield. That was that Edmund Waller is buried under the big walnut tree in the churchyard:

_Edmundi Waller hic jacet id quantum morti cessit_

And we thought it pleasant that Mr. Chesterton should have settled in the village sacred to the poet who wrote the loveliest poem ever written on girth--or, rather, on slenderness. You remember, of course, his “On a Girdle.”

The average person dearly loves a label--also a libel: and Mr. Chesterton’s gnomes--which are sometimes nuggets, sometimes merely nugæ, but always golden--are ticketed as “paradoxes” by those who have small inkling of what a paradox really is. The best definition was that of Don Marquis, our happiest native contemporary practitioner in this art, when he said that if the positive and negative poles of a truth are bent until they meet (or approach) a spark flashes across.

The paradox is the oldest outcry of the philosopher on contemplating the absurdity of the world. Originally a paradox was simply a surprise--a statement contrary to generally accepted opinion, and very likely untrue. As Hamlet said: “This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof.” But latterly we do not grant the virtue of paradox unless the epigram fulfils a double requirement: it must _seem_ absurd; it must _be_ true, or at any rate true enough to give the mind a sense of cheerful satisfaction. Its essence is that of surprise--which is the essence of humour.

The intellectual growth of humanity is shown by its increasing tolerance of the paradox. The greatest of all Paradoxers was crucified. Every true paradox is a little parable of human fallibility. A parabola is a conic section; a parable, one might say, is a comic section.

Mr. Chesterton once, in a delightful essay called “Christmas,” said something that lingers in our mind as an exhibition of the paradox both in its strength and weakness. He wrote:

It is not uncommon nowadays for the insane extremes in reality to meet. Thus I have always felt that brutal Imperialism and Tolstoian nonresistance were not only not opposite, but were the same thing. They are the same contemptible thought that conquest cannot be resisted, looked at from the two standpoints of the conqueror and the conquered. Thus again teetotalism and the really degraded gin-selling and dram-drinking have exactly the same moral philosophy. They are both based on the idea that fermented liquor is not a drink, but a drug.

Now a moment’s thought will show the reader that while these two paradoxes are equal in wit, they are not equal in truth. The second is gloriously true; the first, delightfully acute as it is, begs the question. For the Tolstoian will retort that he does not maintain that conquest cannot be resisted; but that, on the contrary, it _is_ resisted and defeated by passive oppugnance.

The paradox holds the mirror up to nature, but it is not a plane mirror. It dignifies human nature by assuming that the mind is capable of viewing itself in the refraction of absurdity. Thoughtless people speak of the paradox as a reduction to absurdity. That is not so. There are some subjects that have to be elevated to absurdity.

In conclusion: it is a dangerous tool. It must be gingerly handled lest it become--like the pun--a mere verbicide. And towards the fair sex, beware of paradoxes. They esteem but rarely its prankish tooth. Was not Hamlet’s downfall--and his betrothed’s also--occasioned when he practiced paradoxes on Ophelia?

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THE RETURN TO TOWN

It was with somewhat a heavy heart that we prepared to leave Salamis for the winter. Yet inscrutable lust of adventure spurred us on; the city, also, is the place for work. In the country one is too comfortable, and there are too many distractions. Either cider, or stars, or the blue sparkle of the furnace fire--all these require frequent attentions. But it was hard to part with Long Island’s charms in November, loveliest of months. The copper-coloured woods, the chrysanthemums, the brisk walk to the morning train, the yellow crackle of logs in the chimney, the chill dry whisper of the neighbouring belt of trees heard at midnight from an airy veranda--these are some of the excitements we shall miss. Most of all, perhaps, that stony little unlit lane, traversed in pitch darkness towards supper time, until, coming clear of the trees, you open up the Dipper, sprawled low across the northern sky.

It was hard, too, to leave Salamis just when its winter season of innocent gayeties was commencing. You would hardly believe how much is going on! Did you know that that deathless old railroad station is being (as they say of ships) reconditioned? And there’s going to be a drug store in Salamis Heights. The new Methodist church is nearly finished--and, most glamorous of all, we now have an actual tea-room at the entrance to the Salamis Estates. When you are motoring out that way you can see if we don’t speak the truth. In another five years, most likely, we shall have street lights along our lonely wood road to Green Escape--and pavements--and gas to cook with. But there never will be quite as many fairies in the woods as there have been these past three years.

But, perhaps fortunately, the day set for moving into town was wet and drizzly. And the labour of piling into Dame Quickly various baggages, hampers, toys, a go-cart, and the component railings, girders, rods, springs and mattresses of two cribs was lively enough to oust from the mind any pangs of mere sentiment. The mind of one who has accomplished that task, in shirt-sleeves under a dripping weather, is heated enough to make him ready for any sort of adventurous foray. The Dame, also, grossly overloaded, and travelling smartly on greasy ways, was skiddish. As is ever our fortune, we found the road through Astoria torn up for repairs. This involved a circuit along a most horrible bypath, where our ill-adjusted freight leaped crazily with every lurch, go-cart and mattresses descended on our neck, and the violence of the bumping caused the crib-girders to burst through the rear of the Dame’s canopy. Also we incurred, and probably deserved, a stern rebuke from a gigantic policeman on Second Avenue. To tell the truth, in a downshoot of rain and peering desperately through a streaming wind-shield, we did not know he was a policeman at first. We thought he was an L pillar.

Yet, when both voyages were safely accomplished--one for the baggage, and one for the household: it would be harder to say which lading was the tighter squeeze--what an exhilaration to move once more in the city of our adoring. It is true that we began by making an immediate enemy in the apartment house, for, as we were quite innocently taking a trunk upstairs in the elevator, assisted by the cheerful elderly attendant, a lady living in the same house entered by chance and burst into violent reproach because _her_ baggage had had to go aloft in the freight elevator. She accused the attendant of favouritism; to which he, quite placidly, explained that this particular baggage had been delivered at the front door in a private car. This compliment to the Dame pleased us, but knowing nothing of the rules, and being wet and pensive, we pretended to be an expressman and said naught. The only other shock was when we took the Dame to a neighbouring garage to recuperate for a few days. (We were glad, then, it had been raining, for the well-loved vehicle looked very sleek and shiny, and it was too dark for the garage man to notice the holes in her top. We wouldn’t want him to sneer at her, and his garage, we observed, was full of very handsome cars.) When he said it would cost the Dame $1.50 a night to live there we were a little horrified. That, we reflected, was what we used to pay ourself at the old Continental Hotel in Philly, the inn where the Prince of Wales (the old one) and Dickens and Lincoln and others stayed. We now look with greater and greater astonishment at all the cars we see in New York. How can any one afford to keep them?

We were dispatched to do some hasty marketing, in time for supper. We made off to our favourite shopping street--Amsterdam Avenue. Delightedly we gazed into those alluring windows. In a dairy, a young lady of dark and appealing loveliness made us welcome. When we ordered milk and laid in a stock of groceries, making it plain to her (by consulting a list) that we were speaking on behalf of the head of the house, she urged us to advise Titania to open an account. Money she seemed loath to accept: it could all be paid for at the end of the month, she said. It is well to shop referring perplexedly to a little list. This proves that you are an humble, honest paterfamilias, acting only under orders. To such credit is always lavish, and fair milkmaids generously tender.

Various tradesmen in that neighbourhood were surprised, in the tail end of a wet and depressing day, by unexpected increments of traffic. “Just nick the bone?” inquired the butcher, when, from our list, we read him the item about rib lamb chops. “Yes, just nick the bone,” we assented, not being very definite on the subject. We were interested in admiring the thick sawdust on the floor, very pleasant to slide the foot upon. The laundry man was just closing when we arrived with our bundle. “Here’s a new customer for you,” we announced. Whatever private sorrows he has were erased from his manly forehead. He told us that he also does tailoring. Cleaning and pressing, he insisted. We had a private feeling, a little shameful, that he hasn’t got as good a customer as he imagines. Next door to the tailor, by the way, and right opposite the apartment house, is a carpenter who advertises his skill at bookshelves.

How different it is from Salamis nights. Hanging out of the kitchen window (having gone to the rear of the apartment to see what the icebox is like: it’s a beauty)--instead of Orion’s Belt and the dry rustle of the trees, we see those steep walls of lighted windows, discreetly blinded, hear sudden shrills of music from above and below. Just through the wall, as we lie abed, we can hear the queer droning whine of the elevator; through the open window, the clang of trolleys on Broadway. Hunting through the books that belong in the furnished apartment, after startling ourself by reading Mr. D. H. Lawrence’s poems called _Look! We Have Come Through!_ we found an old Conan Doyle--always our favourite bedtime author. _The Adventures of Gerard_, indeed, and we are going to have a go at it immediately.

Yes, it’s very different from Salamis; but Adventure is everywhere, and we like to take things as we find them. We have never been anywhere yet, whether in the steerage of the _Mauretania_ or in a private lunch-room at the Bankers’ Club, where there wasn’t more amusement than we deserved.

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MAXIMS AND MINIMS

KINSPRITS

You know how it is: there are books that magically convey a secret subtle intimation that _you_ are the only reader who has ever, will ever, wholly grasp their elusive wit and charm. So it is with certain people. I think of my friend Pausanias. He is quiet, shy; he makes his points so demurely, so quaintly, that you sometimes think, sadly, of all the occult little japes he may be making in the weeks that elapse when you don’t see him ... and no one, perhaps, “gets” them. Folly, of course--and yet I have seen his eye widen and brighten as it caught mine across the dinner table, and I knew that he and I, secretly, had both caught some faint, delicious savour of absurdity and human queerness--something that no one else there (I strongly believed it) had quite so sharply tasted. Yes, you can catch his eye--no word is necessary. Just a slow, enjoying, gentle grin. Across the great clamour of blurb and bunk, across the huge muddle of beauty, weariness, and frustration that makes up our daily life--I am always catching his eye.

JOURNALISM AND LITERATURE

Art is the only human power that can make life stand still. Each of us, desperately clutching his identity amid the impalpable onward pour of Time and Thought, finds only in art--and chiefly in written art--a means to halt that ceaseless cruel drift. Literature was invented to halt life, to hold it still for us to examine and admire.

Here you may see the essential distinction between literature and journalism. For journalism was devised to hurry life on even faster, to give the already whirling wheel an insane accelerating fillip. Journalism is, actually, a pastime; literature, a stoptime. I refer, of course, not to the journalism of facts, which is a department of government rather than of letters; but to the journalism of fancy. In great books life (however troubled and violent in itself) stands pure and unvexed, unfretted by time and interruption.

There are many schools of journalism; for journalism, being only a hasty knack, can readily be taught. There are no schools of literature, for that is born in your own hearts only, and by manifold joys and disgusts. If it is in you, you shall know; the disease will grow more and more potent. If it is in you, you shall be dedicated to misery unguessed by the easy minds beside you. A great poet spoke of hovering between two worlds, one dead, one powerless to be born. That shall be your mental lot. You shall realize, more and more, that the bustling cheery life of the general is, in some seizures, dead to your spirit: and yet that new brave world of imagination, which travails in your heart, can never quite come to paper. Would you know the mood and emotion that move behind literature, read Arnold’s _Scholar Gipsy_. I love journalism and honour it; but it must be added that it inhabits a different world from literature, and does not even faintly understand the language that literature speaks.

HOBBES

There are some famous books which are the delight of scholars but hardly at all known to the amateur reader. Of such, we think of Thomas Hobbes’ _Leviathan_. It is so nobly sagacious and entertaining that with a little trouble spent on rephrasing his stuff and giving it snappy captions we could probably sell it to a long chain of newspapers and enter into competition with the Syndicated Spinozas who prey upon the public appetite for aphorisms.

Hobbes’ wisdom is of the shrewd and nipping sort. If we had to choose but one passage, to show a seventeenth-century mind at its best, we should pluck his remarks on Laughter--famous indeed, but probably little known to casual readers. See the clear stream of the mind flowing in a channel of granite prose:--

Sudden glory is the passion which maketh those grimaces called laughter; and is caused either by some sudden act of their own that pleaseth them, or by the apprehension of some deformed thing in another by comparison whereof they suddenly applaud themselves. And it is incident most to them that are conscious of the fewest abilities in themselves: who are forced to keep themselves in their own favour by observing the imperfections of other men. And therefore much laughter at the defects of others is a sign of pusillanimity. For of great minds one of the proper works is to help and free others from scorn, and compare themselves only with the most able.

On the contrary, sudden dejection is the passion that causeth weeping, and is caused by such accidents as suddenly take away some vehement hope or some prop of their power; and they are most subject to it that rely principally on helps external, such as are women and children. Therefore some weep for the loss of friends, others for their unkindness, others for the sudden stop made to their thoughts of revenge by reconciliation. But in all cases, both laughter and weeping are sudden motions, custom taking them both away. For no man laughs at old jests, or weeps for an old calamity.

The vain-glory which consisteth in the feigning or supposing of abilities in ourselves which we know are not is most incident to young men, and nourished by the histories or fictions of gallant persons, and is corrected oftentimes by age and employment.

LADIES AT THE PHONE

There is a certain department store on the slope of Murray Hill which has in it a gallery much frequented by ladies for meeting their friends. Once in a while we have an appointment there to wait for Titania, and always we find it an entertaining corner of the world. Along one side of the gallery is a long line of telephone booths, and we know nothing more amusing than to stroll past the glass doors, with apparently abstracted and meditative air, to watch the faces of the fair captives within. How admirable a contrivance is the feminine face for reflecting the emotions! Some you will see talking animatedly, with bright colour, sparkling eyes, every appearance of mirth and merry cheer. Others are waiting, all anguish and grievance, for some dilatory connection; their small brows heavy with perplexity. Often it seems to be necessary, for some mysterious sharing of secrets or shopping plans, for two ladies to occupy the same booth at a time; how they do it we cannot guess; but they sit demurely squeezed upon one another and their faces appear side by side, both apparently talking at once into the receiver. Through the glass pane this offers a curious sight, apparently a lady with two heads; muffled by the barrier, shrill squeaks and conjectures are dimly heard. There are ladies, generous of physique, who find it hard enough to press in singly; when they seek to arise they are held tightly by the cage and a great wrench and backing outward are necessary. Particularly on a Saturday, shortly before matinée time, are these lively creatures full of animation and derring-do. A gay and vivid panorama of human frailty, only surpassed in quaint absurdity by a similar row of men in the phone booths of a large cigar store.

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OF STREET CLEANING

(_By Our Own Lord Bacon_)

Snow is a deposit fair in itself, but a shrewd thing in a city. Where ways be crowded and traffic insisteth, let there be alacrity and stirring on the part of the city servants, lest the public have occasion of murmuring. Of streets which need purifying, there be three kinds: as Broadway, which is treacle; Fifth Avenue, syrup; and uptown, which is soup and all manner of beastliness. So also of snow there be three sorts, the dry and powdery; the wet and slushy, liquefying soon; the granular and sleety, whereof the latter adhereth long and occasioneth sudden prostrations, unwholesome to human dignity but opportunity of sport to the vulgar. When men are checked in their desires to pass to and fro without let or stoppage, then must the prince be wary to reason with the commuters, who being ever great self-lovers, _sui amantes sine rivali_, are like to be disproportionate in outcry. And for the most part, the subway will be still current, but small praise accrueth thereto from citizens, sudden cattle in protest but tardy to acknowledge favour. This is not handsome. Of the surface cars I will not speak; let them be, for the occasion, as though they existed not. For though there be some talk about revival of the service when the Broadway slot be picked and scalded by hand, yet is this but vaunting and idle boast. There is no impediment in the streets but may be wrought out by resolute labour. Of block parties, flame throwers, tractors, steam-ploughs and other ingenuities, I like them not. These be but toys. Let men toil with wit and will, by pick and shovel and horse-cart. This is best for the public.

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DR. OSLER

“In seventy or eighty years” (said Thomas Browne, M. D.) “a man may have a deep Gust of the World, know what it is, what it can afford, and what ’tis to have been a Man. Such a latitude of years may hold a considerable corner in the general Map of Time.”