Part 7

Matthew Arnold’s analysis of American life is interesting to read now. Much of his estimate he would certainly wish to revise. We forget just when it was that he travelled over here--in the 80’s, we suppose--but his general comment was that American civilization was not _interesting_. He used the word in a very special sense, apparently; he explains it by mentioning the sense of beauty and the sense of distinction. He found American life lacking in charm and in those elements of beauty which appeal to the tranquil and more reflective emotions. It is entertaining--in view of later developments--to hear him say that “the American cities have hardly anything to please a trained or a natural sense for beauty ... where the Americans succeed best in their architecture--in that art so indicative and educative of a people’s sense for beauty--is in the fashion of their villa-cottages in wood.” One cannot help putting a little covey of exclamation marks in the margin at that point. Those “villa-cottages in wood” of the 1880’s are now the jest and rapidly vanishing pox of our suburbs. Even to Abraham Lincoln, by the way, he denies “distinction.” He says, “shrewd, sagacious, humorous, honest, courageous, firm; a man with qualities deserving the most sincere esteem and praise, but he has not distinction.” We have read somewhere (it is an unforgettable crumb of human oddity) that Arnold was chiefly interested in Lincoln’s assassination because the murderer shouted in Latin as he leapt on the stage.

There is much that might be said about a point of view so sincere, so sympathetic, so bravely honest, and yet so lacking in some qualities of imagination as that we seem to find in Arnold’s book. But what we want to quote is a portion of his comment on the American newspapers. Perhaps it is more nearly true still--and, since Northcliffe, more nearly true of British newspapers also--than any other part of his remarks. But we wish to quote it without either assent or denial. He wrote:

You must have lived amongst their newspapers to know what they are. If I relate some of my own experiences, it is because these will give a clear enough notion of what the newspapers over there are, and one remembers more definitely what has happened to oneself. Soon after arriving in Boston I opened a Boston newspaper and came upon a column headed: “Tickings.” By _tickings_ we are to understand news conveyed through the tickings of the telegraph. The first “ticking” was: “Matthew Arnold is sixty-two years old”--an age, I must just say in passing, which I had not then reached. The second “ticking” was: “Wales says, Mary is a darling”; the meaning being that the Prince of Wales expressed great admiration for Miss Mary Anderson. This was at Boston, the American Athens. I proceeded to Chicago. An evening paper was given me soon after I arrived; I opened it, and found under a large-type heading, “_We have seen him arrive_,” the following picture of myself: “He has harsh features, supercilious manners, parts his hair down the middle, wears a single eyeglass and ill-fitting clothes.” Notwithstanding this rather unfavourable introduction, I was most kindly and hospitably received at Chicago. It happened that I had a letter for Mr. Medill, an elderly gentleman of Scotch descent, the editor of the chief newspaper in those parts, the Chicago _Tribune_. I called on him, and we conversed amicably together. Some time afterwards, when I had gone back to England, a New York paper published a criticism of Chicago and its people, purporting to have been contributed by me to the _Pall Mall Gazette_ over here. It was a poor hoax, but many people were taken in and were excusably angry, Mr. Medill of the Chicago _Tribune_ amongst the number. A friend telegraphed to me to know if I had written the criticism. I, of course, instantly telegraphed back that I had not written a syllable of it. Then a Chicago paper is sent to me; and what I have the pleasure of reading, as the result of my contradiction, is this: “Arnold denies; Mr. Medill refuses to accept Arnold’s disclaimer; says Arnold is a cur.”

There were California boosters even then, we note. Arnold quotes a Coast newspaper which called all Easterners “the unhappy denizens of a forbidding clime,” and added: “The time will surely come when all roads will lead to California. Here will be the home of art, science, literature, and profound knowledge.”

II

You probably thought (and justly) that we cut off Matthew Arnold rather abruptly yesterday. Well, we did; but there’s always a reason for everything. We had to hurry uptown, by order of Dr. James Kendall Burgess, the philosophical dentist, to call on Dr. Hillel Feldman for some exodontia. In the old days, we dare say, it would have been called having a tooth pulled, but we like the word exodontia much better.

Now, since we have always been candid with our clients, we will admit that we were a bit nervous. Of course, we knew that these operations rarely turn out fatally; but still, we could see, as soon as we got into that medical office building at 616 Madison Avenue, that we were out of our element. Everywhere there were trained nurses in uniform--going about on “errands of mercy,” we supposed. There was one near the elevator downstairs; there was another in the corridor upstairs; and the soothing, tender way they asked what we wanted made us, somehow, even more conscious of the painful nature of our errand.

However, another of our habits came somewhat to our rescue when we found ourself sitting in Dr. Feldman’s chair. We are timid, we admit; but we are also inquisitive and like to know the details of what’s going on. We could see right away that Dr. Feldman is a tactful man, for he keeps his instruments under a neat little napkin so that you don’t have a chance to be alarmed by all those interesting gouges and pincers. Dr. Feldman immediately pierced our jaw with some stuff he called novocaine, and then, quite as though this was a very commonplace proceeding, began to chat leisurely. “You know,” he said, “a fellow can’t read your things in the paper just for a laugh. Those other fellows’ columns, you can read them and get some fun out of it; but your stuff, you have to read carefully and wade through a long slab to see what it’s all about.”

“Yes,” we said, “we’re like you, Doctor. We believe in giving our patients discipline--making them suffer.”

Now, of course, we said this hoping to give Dr. Feldman a chance to say right away, “Oh, I’m not going to make you suffer. This won’t hurt a bit.”

He didn’t say it, however. He chuckled in a way that seemed to us a trifle threatening. We hastened to appease him by saying some complimentary things about his shining, complicated apparatuses. To our displeasure we found that our jaw now had a numb and frozen feeling, so that we could not talk properly. We could only mumble.

The calm, genial way in which Dr. Feldman sized us up as we sat there with our jaw getting more and more queer--a curious sensation of mingled freezing and heat--reassured us a little. “Does the novocaine make perspiration come out on your forehead like that?” he asked, with a sort of intellectual curiosity. “No, no,” we hastened to say, out of the other side of our mouth. “We’ve been hurrying to get here, Doctor. Didn’t want to keep you waiting.” That was true; but we were afraid he would think we were scared. He began to toy gently with the corner of the napkin on his instrument stand. We were tremendously eager to see what kind of tools he had concealed there. But he outwitted us. He suddenly uttered the excellent words we had been hoping for. “This’ll be absolutely painless,” he said, and then with great gusto and alacrity he sprang upon us. There was a sound rather like grinding out a stone that is imbedded in a frozen pond. It was very interesting. We think the adverb _absolutely_ perhaps was a trifle too strong: perhaps a precisian in words might substitute _almost_; but at any rate our sense of excitement far outweighed any small twinges. By the time we thought that he was getting well started, “That’s all,” he said. “Perhaps you’d better have a little stimulant.”

Well, naturally, by this time we felt that Dr. Feldman was one of the best friends we had ever had. We shook his hand warmly and assured him we wouldn’t have missed the adventure for anything. Then we went to browse for a few minutes in the second-hand bookshops on Fifty-ninth Street to think it over. We called on Mr. Mitchell Kennerley at the Anderson Galleries. As our jaw was still very much frostbitten, we couldn’t talk very clearly, and we had to hold our pipe in an unaccustomed corner of our mouth. We fear he misunderstood our condition; but he was too polite to say so. Our mind went back to Matthew Arnold.

Matthew Arnold, as we were saying, complained that American civilization was not _interesting_. A silly thing to say, it seems to us. He meant, evidently, that it did not supply the kind of interest to which he was accustomed, or for which he yearned. For surely, to any one ready to lay aside preconceptions, _interesting_ is exactly what American life has always been. We reflected that the one word we instinctively used in explaining to Dr. Feldman how we had enjoyed our visit to him was just that--_interesting_. We feel that if Arnold had been a little more courageously imaginative he might have felt the same way about America. It may very truly have troubled some of his sensitive nerves; it may have caused him terror and shuddering; it may have seemed violent and tragic; but surely he might have seen that it was a teeming laboratory of life and amazement. We believe, by the way, that it was 1883 when he was first here; for we have just noticed in Mendoza’s bookshop a copy of Arnold’s poems autographed by him for a lady, and dated 1883. It was an American edition, so probably he signed it while in this country.

Mr. Arnold’s comments on American newspapers, we should like to add, were perhaps just a little scarce in humour. It is all very well to stand aghast at the jocular irreverence of much newspaper writing; but evidently it never occurred to Arnold that much of it is not mere vulgarity but expresses a national sense of gusto and hilarity that is far from a bad thing.

We cannot resist concluding this too brief excursus by quoting a letter which came to us from a mysterious correspondent--whom we know only by the initials N. O. N. P. It seems to us the most charming portrait of Arnold that we have ever seen. N. O. N. P. wrote:

There is no art to read the mind’s construction in the face; but it is possible to see the correspondence, after the cypher has been well de-coded. Matthew Arnold--a plain face--a plain brow--dark hair, parted exactly in the middle--and cheek whiskers! A long nose, slightly thick, and drooping--a wide plaster of mouth, firm but highly sensitive--a six-foot stature and slim build--a scholastic figure and face and cut--tutorial, perhaps; and in that plain face the expression of _im_pression--that is, the visible result of sensitiveness. Every pre-natal and post-natal fineness of his rarely fine, high, sincere mind pervaded the texture of his countenance and gave its stamp of authentic quality to render nugatory anything that might seem superficially to counteract the inherent integrity. Superficially, it might have seemed (perhaps) a smug face or a supercilious one; not inwardly. Inward daintiness might have been there, as there certainly was fastidiousness, if not a frigidity. But a warm heart corresponded to that mouth, which was thick without seeming sensual, and back of that face was a just, a clear, a steady mind, a heat for right and truth, a manly spirit with a manly intellect, a manly sense of clean beauty--and with whatever æsthetic narrowings (if they existed), a broad, direct, noble simplicity and humanity. I hope he will verily have his reward, for in his brave, unwhining, spotless life, he did most valuable, intelligent drudgery for his bread; and out of a beautiful gift composed the loftiest, simplest, broadest, gravest, most reserved and felt, and perhaps most musical and moving poem (as pure poem) of his generation--_Sohrab and Rustum_. It lacks all the prettinesses of his contemporaries, but is the sole product of his time, in “The Grand Style”--this, however, being of course only the individual opinion of the present commenter.

If a man, one hundred years after his birth, still evokes such graceful and pensive homage, he has evidently some durable claim upon our hearts. Ever since our teens we have wondered what _Sohrab and Rustum_ was about and why it was always assigned as required study for College Entrance. Now we intend to read it.

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DAME QUICKLY AND THE BOILROASTER

Something had happened to Dame Quickly’s storage battery, and all the amperes seemed to have escaped. An extremely friendly and cheerful young man came up from Fred Seaman’s garage, with mysterious medical-looking instruments, to grant a consultation. In the course of the chat he remarked, “If you once ride in a _Boilroaster_ car, you’ll never be satisfied with any other.”

His energetic hands were at that moment deep in our loved Dame Quickly’s mechanisms; she was wholly at his mercy; naturally we did not feel like contradicting him or saying anything tactless. We wondered, but only privately, whether the fact that Fred Seaman is the local agent for the _Boilroaster_ had anything to do with this comment? Or perhaps, we thought to ourself, our friend the battery expert really is a convinced enthusiast for the _Boilroaster_, and felt that way about it before he took a job at Fred Seaman’s establishment? We were sorry that William James was dead, for we felt that the author of _The Will to Believe_ would be the man to whom to submit this philosophical problem. We were puzzled, because only a few days earlier another man had said to us (with an equal accent of decisiveness and conviction) that he would rather have a Dame Quickly than any _Boilroaster_ ever made. “They stand up better than any of ’em,” he had said. Suddenly it occurred to us how useful it would be if there were some kind of spiritual gauge--like the hydrometer our friend was plunging into the cells of the Dame’s battery--which one could dip into a man’s mind to test the intellectual mixture of his remarks; to evaluate the proportions of those various liquids (the strong acid of self-interest, the mild distilled water of candour, etc.) which electrify his mental ignition.

Well, how about the _Boilroaster_, we said--(searching for a technical term that would show him we are a practical man)--Do they stand up?

He suggested that we get into his own _Boilroaster_, which stood grandly overshining the dusty Dame (reminding us of those pictures where a silhouette of the new _Majestic_ is placed behind a little picture of the _Teutonic_ or some other humble ship of older days) and take a run around Salamis while he tinkered with the battery.

Oh, no, we said nervously. Dame Quickly is the only car we know how to run, and besides the gear shift is different in the _Boilroaster_; we might get confused and have to come all the way home in reverse, which would be bad for our reputation in the village.

Have you ever ridden in the _Boilroaster_? he asked.

Yes, we said--Fred Seaman took us over to Locust Valley the other evening. (Suddenly a horrid thought struck us. We had thought that Fred had given us that lift over to Locust Valley just in the goodness of his heart. But now we wondered----)

When he left, he put in our hand a handsome book all about the _Boilroaster_. That, we felt, was the first step in breaking down our “sales resistance,” as they say in the _Business e19 Course_ up at Columbia.

We’ve been reading that book, and we want to say that the chaps who write that sort of literature are cunning fellows, and masters of a very insinuating prose style. They begin with a very pretty frontispiece of a _Boilroaster_ car standing, all alone and dazzling-new, in a magnificent landscape of snow-clad peaks and clear lakes. How the _Boilroaster_ got way up there (evidently somewhere near Banff) without any one driving her, and without even a speck of dust on her fenders, is a mystery. But there she is. Perhaps the man who drove her all those miles from the nearest distributing agency is at the bar of the C. P. R. Hotel, off behind those pine forests.

All the highbrow critics will tell you that the truly great writers are lovers of Beauty. Well, the anonymous author of the _Boilroaster_ book is as keen a champion of Beauty as any one we ever heard of. And not only beauty, but refinement, too. There are two whole pages giving little pictures of “refinements.” This is a book, we think, that could be put in the hands of the young without any hesitation. In fact, that is just where we did put it, for the urchin is cutting out the pictures of _Boilroasters_ at this very minute. The whole trend of Advertising nowadays (we wonder if they mention this in the lectures on Advertising Psychology up at Columbia) is to give delight to children. We would hate to tell the Cunard Line and the International Mercantile Marine Company how many of their folders our juveniles have scissored up with shouts of delight.

The _Boilroaster_ book is going to be a lesson to us. We don’t know if we will ever own a _Boilroaster_, but we are certain that before we do we have got to spruce up and be a bit more genteel. At present, we would be a bit of anticlimax riding in a car like that. There is “new beauty in its double bevel body line.” We want to look a bit more streamline ourself before we go in for one. There are “massive head lamps, graceful cowl lights, the louvres are more in number and their edges show a smart touch of gold.” There is “a courtesy light illuminating the left side of the car,” and a ventilator in the cowl. We don’t know exactly what the cowl is, or the louvres, or at any rate we’ve never discovered them in Dame Quickly.

Just as we are writing this, we see a headline in the papers (in the _Evening Post_, to be accurate) about Sir Charles Higham, who “Sees Advertising as a Great Moral Force.” We know of no writer who has a more solid appreciation of moral forces than the author of our _Boilroaster_ brochure. What he has to say about “sheer merit,” “sound principles,” “elimination of waste,” “combination of beauty and utility,” “superiority and refinement,” “good taste” and “harmony of colour” makes this work a genuine essay in æsthetics. Moreover, we like his rational eclecticism. When the car has a 126-inch wheelbase, it makes it very easy riding and gives it charming “roadability.” When it has a 119-inch wheelbase, it “gives a short turning radius which makes it remarkably easy to handle.” Even in the least details, our author has an eye for loveliness. He confesses himself struck by “the attractive grouping of instruments on the dash, which emphasizes _Boilroaster_ individuality.” The upholstery, he says, is “restful.” The folding seat for the extra passenger is “in reality a comfortable chair.” And when we learn that the opalescent dome and corner lamps “provide enough light for reading,” our only regret is that he doesn’t add a suggested list of readings for tenants of a _Boilroaster_ Enormous Eight.

Unhappily space is lacking to tell you in detail what a competent and winning fellow this author is. In the scientific portions of the work he rivals Fabre--in regard to the clutch, he says “the driven member is a single spider rotating between two rings.” His passion for elegance, comfort, simplicity, and economy has never been surpassed--no, not by Plato or Walter Pater. The only drawback about his essay is that we feel we could never live up to the vehicle he describes.

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VACATIONING WITH DE QUINCEY

I

Having severed our telephone wire and instructed the office boys to tell all callers that we are out at lunch, we look forward to a happy summer. We are going to begin enjoying ourself by systematically exploring the books in the library of the _Evening Post_. On a top shelf, well sprinkled with dust, we have found the excellent collected edition of De Quincey, in fourteen volumes, edited by David Masson. It is true that the first four volumes seem to have disappeared; but even if we begin at Volume V we calculate we shall find enough to keep us entertained for some time.

After we have finished De Quincey we are going to tackle P. T. Barnum’s _Struggles and Triumphs_, a book that has long tempted us. We think kindly of the Founding Fathers of the _Post_ for having assembled all these interesting volumes for our pleasure.

We have begun De Quincey with Volume V--_Biographies and Biographic Sketches_. Some of this--particularly the Joan of Arc--has a faintly familiar taste: perhaps we were made to read it at school. But we do not think we ever read before the magnificent essay on Charles Lamb. There is a long interpolated passage about Joan of Arc which does not seem to have anything to do with Lamb. Perhaps the _North British Review_ (in which the essay first appeared in 1848) paid its contributors on a space basis. But, ejecting this parenthesis, it is certainly noble stuff. Moreover, it is interesting to note that at the time De Quincey wrote, Lamb was by no means established on the pinnacle of security as a permanent brightness in our literature. De Quincey writes as though consciously contradicting some opposition. It seems odd to hear him speak of people who “regard him [Lamb] with the old hostility and the old scorn.”

We had intended not to introduce any quotations, for in this very volume De Quincey makes some stinging remarks about people who pad out their copy by interlarding material from stronger fists. But indeed the following passage seems to us so near the top of prose felicity that we lapse from grace: