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Title: The Art of Living

Author: Robert Grant

Release Date: September 12, 2016 [EBook #53040]

Language: English

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[i]

The Art of Living

[ii]

[iii]

The Art of
Living

BY
Robert Grant

New York
Charles Scribner’s Sons
MDCCCXCIX

[iv]

Copyright, 1895 and 1899, by Charles Scribner’s Sons

[v]

[1]

Rogers, the book-keeper for the past twenty-two years of my friend Patterson, the banker, told me the other day that he had reared a family of two boys and three girls on his annual salary of two thousand two hundred dollars; that he had put one of the boys through college, one through the School of Mines, brought up one of the girls to be a librarian, given one a coming-out party and a trousseau, and that the remaining daughter, a home body, was likely to be the domestic sunshine of his own and his wife’s old age. All this on two thousand two hundred dollars a year.

Rogers told me with perfect modesty, with just a tremor of self-satisfaction in his tone, as though, all things considered, he felt that he had managed creditably, yet not in the least suggesting that he regarded his performance as out of the common run of happy household annals. He is a neat-looking, respectable, quiet, conservative little man, rising fifty, who, while in the bank, invariably wears a nankeen jacket all the year[2] round, a narrow black necktie in winter, and a narrow yellow and red pongee wash tie in summer, and whose watch is no less invariably right to a second. As I often drop in to see Patterson, his employer, I depend upon it to keep mine straight, and it was while I was setting my chronometer the other day that he made me the foregoing confidence.

Frankly, I felt as though I had been struck with a club. It happened to be the first of the month. Every visit of the postman had brought me a fresh batch of bills, each one of which was a little larger than I had expected. I was correspondingly depressed and remorseful, and had been asking myself from time to time during the day why it need cost so much to live. Yet here was a man who was able to give his daughter a coming-out party and a trousseau on two thousand two hundred dollars a year. I opened my mouth twice to ask him how in the name of thrift he had managed to do it, but somehow the discrepancy between his expenditures and mine seemed such a gulf that I was tongue-tied. “I suppose,” he added modestly, “that I have been very fortunate in my little family. It must indeed be sharper than a serpent’s tooth to have a thankless[3] child.” Gratitude too! Gratitude and Shakespeare on two thousand two hundred dollars a year. I went my way without a word.

There are various ways of treating remorse. Some take a Turkish bath or a pill. Others, while the day lasts, trample it under foot, and shut it out at night with the bed-clothes. Neither course has ever seemed to me exactly satisfactory or manly. Consequently I am apt to entertain my self-reproach and reason with it, and when one begins to wonder why it costs so much to live, he finds himself grappling with the entire problem of civilization, and presently his hydra has a hundred heads. The first of the month is apt to be a sorry day for my wife as well as for me, and I hastened on my return home to tell her, with just a shadow of reproach in my tone, what Mr. Rogers had confided to me. Indeed I saw fit to ask, “Why can’t we do the same?”

“We could,” said Barbara.

“Then why don’t we?”

“Because you wouldn’t.”

I had been reflecting in the brief interval between my wife’s first and second replies that, in the happy event of our imitating Rogers’s example from this time forth and forever more, I[4] should be able to lay up over five thousand dollars a year, and that five thousand dollars a year saved for ten years would be fifty thousand dollars—a very neat little financial nest egg. But Barbara’s second reply upset my calculation utterly, and threw the responsibility of failure on me into the bargain.

“Mr. Rogers is the salt of the earth, a highly respectable man and, if I am not mistaken, the deacon of a church,” I remarked not altogether relevantly. “Why should we spend four times as many thousand dollars a year as he?”

“I wonder,” answered my wife, “if you really do appreciate how your friend Mr. Rogers lives. I am quite aware that you are talking now for effect—talking through your hat as the children say—because it’s the first of the month and you’re annoyed that the bills are worse than ever, and I understand that you don’t for one moment seriously entertain the hope that our establishment can be conducted on the same basis as his. But I should just like to explain to you for once how people who have only twenty-two hundred dollars a year and are the salt of the earth do live, if only to convince you that the sooner we stop comparing ourselves with[5] them the better. I say ‘we’ because in my moments of depression over the household expenses I catch myself doing the same thing. Our butcher’s bill for this month is huge, and when you came in I was in the throes of despair over a letter in the newspaper from a woman who contends that a good housekeeper in modest circumstances can provide an excellent dinner for her family of six persons, including soup, fish, an entrée, meat, pudding, dessert, and coffee, for fifty-three cents. And she gives the dinner, which at first sight takes one’s breath away. But after you prune it of celery, parsley, salted peanuts, raisins, red cabbage, salad, and cheese, all there is left is bean-soup, cod sounds, fried liver, hot gingerbread, and apples.”

“I should dine down town, if you set such repasts before me,” I answered.

“Yes,” said Barbara. “And there is a very good point of departure for illustrating the domestic economies of the Rogers family. Mr. Rogers does dine down town. Not to avoid the fried liver and cod sounds, for probably he is partial to them, but because it is cheaper. When you take what you call your luncheon, and which is apt to include as much as he eats in the entire course of[6] the day, Mr. Rogers dines; dines at a restaurant where he can get a modest meal for from fifteen to twenty-five cents. Sometimes it is pea-soup and a piece of squash-pie. The next day perhaps a mutton-stew and a slice of watermelon, or boiled beef and an éclair. Mrs. Rogers and the children have a pick-up dinner at home, which lasts them very well until night, when they and Rogers sit down to browned-hash mutton and a head of lettuce, or honey-comb tripe and corn-cake, and apple-sauce to wind up with.”

“That isn’t so very bad.”

“Why, they have a splendid time. They can abuse their social acquaintance and discuss family secrets without fear of being overheard by the servants because they don’t keep any servants to speak of. Probably they keep one girl. Or perhaps Mr. Rogers had a spinster sister who helped with the work for her board. Or it may be Mrs. Rogers kept one while the children were little; but after the daughters were old enough to do it themselves, they preferred not to keep anybody. They live extremely happily, but the children have to double up, for in their small house it is necessary to sleep two in a room if not a bed. The girls make most of their dresses, and the boys[7] never dream of buying anything but ready-made clothing. By living in the suburbs they let one establishment serve for all seasons, unless it be for the two weeks when Rogers gets his vacation. Then, if nobody has been ill during the year, the family purse may stand the drain of a stay at the humblest watering-place in their vicinity, or a visit to the farm-house of some relative in the country. An engagement with the dentist is a serious disaster, and the plumber is kept at a respectable distance. The children go to the public schools, and the only club or organization to which Mr. Rogers belongs is a benefit association, which pays him so much a week if he is ill, and would present his family with a few hundred dollars if he were to die. The son who went through college must have got a scholarship or taken pupils. The girl who married undoubtedly made the greater portion of her trousseau with her own needle; and as to the coming-out party, some of the effects of splendor and all the delights of social intercourse can be produced by laying a white drugget on the parlor carpet, the judicious use of half a dozen lemons and a mould of ice-cream with angel-cake, and by imposing on the good nature of a friend who can play the piano[8] for dancing. There, my dear, if you are willing to live like that, we should be able to get along on from twenty-two to twenty-five hundred dollars quite nicely.”

My wife was perfectly correct in her declaration that I did not seriously entertain the hope of being able to imitate Mr. Rogers, worthy citizen and upright man as I believe him to be. I certainly was in some measure talking through my hat. This was not the first time I had brought home a Rogers to confront her. She is used to them and aware that they are chiefly bogies. I, as she knows, and indeed both of us, are never in quite a normal condition on the first day of the month, and are liable, sometimes the one of us and sometimes the other, to indulge in vagaries and resolutions which by the tenth, when the bills are paid, seem almost uncalled for or impracticable. One thing is certain, that if a man earns only twenty-two hundred dollars a year, and is an honest man withal, he has to live on it, even though he dines when others take luncheon, and is forced to avoid the dentist and the plumber. But a much more serious problem confronts the man who earns four times as much as Rogers, more serious because it involves an alternative.[9] Rogers could not very well live on less if he tried, without feeling the stress of poverty. He has lived at hard pan, so to speak. But I could. Could if I would, as my wife has demonstrated. I am perfectly right, as she would agree, in being unwilling to try the experiment; and yet the consciousness that we spend a very large sum of money every year, as compared with Rogers and others like him, remains with us even after the bills are paid and we have exchanged remorse for contemplation.

The moralist, who properly is always with us, would here insinuate, perhaps, that Rogers is happier than I. But I take issue with him promptly and deny the impeachment. Rogers may be happier than his employer Patterson, because Patterson, though the possessor of a steam-yacht, has a son who has just been through the Keeley cure and a daughter who is living apart from her husband. But there are no such flies in my pot of ointment. I deny the superior happiness of Rogers in entire consciousness of the moral beauty of his home. I recognize him to be an industrious, self-sacrificing, kind-hearted, sagacious husband and father, and I admit that the pen-picture which the moralist could draw of him sitting by the[10] evening lamp in his well-worn dressing gown, with his well-darned feet adorned by carpet-slippers of filial manufacture supported by the table or a chair, would be justly entitled to kindle emotions of respect and admiration. But why, after all, should Rogers, ensconced in the family sitting-room with the cat on the hearth, a canary twittering in a cage and scattering seed in one corner, a sewing-machine in the other, and surrounded by all the comforts of home, consisting prominently of a peach-blow vase, a Japanese sun umbrella and engravings of George Washington and Horace Greeley, be regarded as happier than I in my modern drawing-room in evening dress? What is there moral in the simplicity of his frayed and somewhat ugly establishment except the spirit of contentment and the gentle feelings which sanctify it? Assuming that these are not lacking in my home, and I believe they are not, I see no reason for accepting the conclusion of the moralist. There is a beauty of living which the man with a small income is not apt to compass under present social conditions, the Declaration of Independence to the contrary notwithstanding. The doctrine so widely and vehemently promulgated in America that a Spartan[11] inelegance of life is the duty of a leading citizen, seems to be dying from inanition; and the descendants of favorite sons who once triumphed by preaching and practising it are now outvying those whom they were taught to stigmatize as the effete civilizations of Europe, in their devotion to creature comforts.

It seems to me true that in our day and generation the desire to live wisely here has eclipsed the desire to live safely hereafter. Moreover, to enjoy the earth and the fulness thereof, if it be legitimately within one’s reach, has come to be recognized all the world over, with a special point of view for each nationality, as a cardinal principle of living wisely. We have been the last to recognize it here for the reason that a contrary theory of life was for several generations regarded as one of the bulwarks of our Constitution. Never was the sympathy for the poor man greater than it is at present. Never was there warmer interest in his condition. The social atmosphere is rife with theories and schemes for his emancipation, and the best brains of civilization are at work in his behalf. But no one wishes to be like him. Canting churchmen still gain some credence by the assertion that indigence here will prove a saving[12] grace in the world to come; but the American people, quick, when it recognizes that it has been fooled, to discard even a once sacred conviction, smiles to-day at the assumption that the owner of a log cabin is more inherently virtuous than the owner of a steam-yacht. Indeed the present signal vice of democracy seems to be the fury to grow rich, in the mad struggle to accomplish which character and happiness are too often sacrificed. But it may be safely said that, granting an equal amount of virtue to Rogers and to me, and that each pays his bills promptly, I am a more enviable individual in the public eye.

In fact the pressing problem which confronts the civilized world to-day is the choice of what to have, for so many things have become necessaries of existence which were either done without or undiscovered in the days of our grandmothers, that only the really opulent can have everything. We sometimes hear it said that this or that person has too much for his own good. The saying is familiar, and doubtless it is true that luxury unappreciated and abused will cause degeneration; but the complaint seems to me to be a Sunday-school consoler for those who have too little rather than a sound argument against[13] great possessions. Granting that this or that person referred to had the moral fibre of Rogers or of me, and were altogether an unexceptionable character, how could he have too much for his own good? Is the best any too good for any one of us?

The sad part of it is, however, that even those of us who have four times, or thereabouts, the income of Rogers, are obliged to pick and choose and cannot have everything. Then is the opportunity for wisdom to step in and make her abode with us, if she only will. The perplexity, the distress, and too often the downfall of those who would fain live wisely, are largely the direct results of foolish or unintelligent selection on their part. And conversely, is not the secret of happy modern living, the art of knowing what to have when one cannot have everything there is?

I coupled just now, in allusion to Rogers and myself, virtue and punctuality in the payment of bills, as though they were not altogether homogeneous. I did so designedly, not because I question that prompt payment is in the abstract a leading virtue, nor because I doubt that it has been absolutely imperative for Rogers, and one of the secrets of his happiness; but because I[14] am not entirely sure whether, after ten years of prompt payment on the first of every month on my part, I have not been made the sorry victim of my own righteousness, self-righteousness I might say, for I have plumed myself on it when comparing myself with the ungodly. Although virtuous action looks for no reward, the man who pays his bills as soon as they are presented has the right to expect that he will not be obliged to pay anything extra for his honesty. He may not hope for a discount, but he does hope and believe—at least for a time—that beefsteak paid for within thirty days of purchase will not be taxed with the delinquencies of those who pay tardily or not at all. Slowly but sadly I and my wife have come to the conclusion that the butchers, bakers, and candlestick-makers of this great Republic who provide for the tolerably well-to-do make up their losses by assessing virtue. It is a melancholy conclusion for one who has been taught to believe that punctual payment is the first great cardinal principle of wise living, and it leaves one in rather a wobbly state of mind, not as regards the rank of the virtue in question, but as regards the desirability of strictly living up to it in practice. I have heard stated with[15] authority that the leading butchers, grocers, stable-keepers, drygoods dealers, dress-makers, florists, and plumbers of our great cities divide the customers on their books into sheep and goats, so to speak; and the more prompt and willing a sheep, the deeper do they plunge the knife. Let one establish a reputation for prompt payment and make a purchase on the twenty-fifth of the month, he will receive on the first of the following a bill, on the twentieth, if this be not paid, a bill for “account rendered,” on the first of the next month a bill for “account rendered, please remit,” and on the tenth a visit from a collector. On the other hand I have known people who seem to live on the fat of the land, and to keep the tradesfolk in obsequious awe of them by force of letting their bills run indefinitely.

Abroad, as many of us know, the status of the matter is very different. There interest is figured in advance, and those who pay promptly get a handsome discount on the face of their bills. While this custom may seem to encourage debt, it is at least a mutual arrangement, and seems to have proved satisfactory, to judge from the fact that the fashionable tailors and dress-makers of London and Paris are apt to demur or shrug[16] their shoulders at immediate payment, and to be rather embarrassingly grateful if their accounts are settled by the end of a year. No one would wish to change the national inclination of upright people on this side of the water to pay on the spot, but the master and mistress of an establishment may well consider whether the fashionable tradesmen ought to oblige them to bear the entire penalty of being sheep instead of goats. With this qualification, which is set forth rather as a caveat than a doctrine, the prompt payment of one’s bills seems to be strictly co-ordinate with virtue, and may be properly described as the corner-stone of wise modern living.

There are so many things which one has to have nowadays in order to be comfortable that it seems almost improvident to inquire how much one ought to save before facing the question of what one can possibly do without. Here the people who are said to have too much for their own good have an advantage over the rest of us. The future of their children is secure. If they dread death it is not because they fear to leave their wives and children unprovided for. Many of them go on saving, just the same, and talk poor if a railroad lowers a dividend, or there is not a[17] ready market for their real estate at an exalted profit. Are there more irritating men or women in the world than the over-conservative persons of large means who are perpetually harping on saving, and worrying lest they may not be able to put by for a rainy day, as they call it, twenty-five per cent. or more of their annual income? The capitalist, careworn by solicitude of this sort, is the one fool in creation who is not entitled to some morsel of pity.

How much ought the rest of us to save? I know a man—now you do not know him, and there is no use in racking your brains to discover who he is, which seems to be a principal motive for reading books nowadays, as though we writers had a cabinet photograph in our mind’s eye whenever we took a pen in hand. I know a man who divides his income into parts. “All Gaul is divided into three parts,” you will remember we read in the classics. Well, my friend, whom we will call Julius Cæsar for convenience and mystification, divides his income, on the first of January, into a certain number of parts or portions. He and his wife have a very absorbing and earnest pow-wow over it annually. They take the matter very seriously, and burn the midnight[18] oil in the sober endeavor to map and figure out in advance a wise and unselfish exhibit. So much and no more for rent, so much for servants, so much for household supplies, so much for clothes, so much for amusements, so much for charity, so much to meet unlooked-for contingencies, and so much for investment. By the time the exhibit is finished it is mathematically and ethically irreproachable, and, what is more, Julius Cæsar and his wife live up to it so faithfully that they are sure to have some eight or ten dollars to the good on the morning of December thirty-first, which they commonly expend in a pair of canvas-back ducks and a bottle of champagne, for which they pay cash, in reward for their own virtue and to enable them at the stroke of midnight to submit to their own consciences a trial balance accurate to a cent.

Now it should be stated that Mr. and Mrs. Julius Cæsar are not very busy people in other respects, and that their annual income, which is fifteen thousand dollars, and chiefly rent from improved real estate in the hands of a trustee, flows on as regularly and surely as a river. Wherefore it might perhaps be argued, if one were disposed to be sardonic, that this arithmetical[19] system of life under the circumstances savors of a fad, and that Julius and his wife take themselves and their occupation a trifle too seriously, especially as they have both been known to inform, solemnly and augustly, more than one acquaintance who was struggling for a living, that it is every one’s duty to lay up at least one-tenth of his income and give at least another tenth in charity. And yet, when one has ceased to smile at the antics of this pair, the consciousness remains that they are right in their practice of foresight and arithmetical apportioning, and that one who would live wisely should, if possible, decide in advance how much he intends to give to the poor or put into the bank. Otherwise he is morally, or rather immorally, certain to spend everything, and to suffer disagreeable qualms instead of enjoying canvas-back ducks and a bottle of champagne on December thirty-first.

As to what that much or little to be given and to be saved shall be, there is more room for discussion. Julius Cæsar and his wife have declared in favor of a tenth for each, which in their case means fifteen hundred dollars given, and fifteen hundred dollars saved, which leaves[20] them a net income of twelve thousand dollars to spend, and they have no children. I am inclined to think that if every man with ten thousand dollars a year and a family were to give away three hundred dollars, and prudently invest seven hundred dollars, charity would not suffer so long as at present, and would be no less kind. Unquestionably those of us who come out on December thirty-first just even, or eight or nine dollars behind instead of ahead, and would have been able to spend a thousand or two more, are the ones who find charity and saving so difficult. Our friends who are said to have too much for their own good help to found a hospital or send a deserving youth through college without winking. It costs them merely the trouble of signing a check. But it behooves those who have only four instead of forty times as much as Rogers, if they wish to do their share in relieving the needs of others, to do so promptly and systematically before the fine edge of the good resolutions formed on the first of January is dulled by the pressure of a steadily depleted bank account, and a steadily increasing array of bills. Charity, indeed, is more difficult for us to practise than saving, for the simplest method of[21] saving, life insurance, is enforced by the “stand and deliver” argument of an annual premium. Only he, who before the first crocus thrusts its gentle head above the winter’s snow has sent his check to the needy, and who can conscientiously hang upon his office door “Fully insured; life insurance agents need not apply,” is in a position to face with a calm mind the fall of the leaf and the December days when conscience, quickened by the dying year, inquires what we have done for our neighbor, and how the wife and the little ones would fare if we should be cut down in the strength of our manhood.

And yet, too, important as saving is, there are so many things which we must have for the sake of this same wife and the little ones that we cannot afford to save too much. Are we to toil and moil all our days, go without fresh butter and never take six weeks in Europe or Japan because we wish to make sure that our sons and daughters will be amply provided for, as the obituary notices put it? Some men with daughters only have a craze of saving so that this one earthly life becomes a rasping, worrying ordeal, which is only too apt to find an end in the coolness of a premature grave. My friend[22] Perkins—here is another chance, identity seekers, to wonder who Perkins really is—the father of four girls, is a thin, nervous lawyer, who ought to take a proper vacation every summer; but he rarely does, and the reason seems to be that he is saddled by the idea that to bring a girl up in luxury and leave her with anything less than five thousand dollars a year is a piece of paternal brutality. It seems to me that a father ought in the first place to remember that some girls marry. I reminded Perkins of this one day. “Some don’t,” he answered mournfully. “Marriage does not run in the female Perkins line. The chances are that two of my four will never marry. They might be able to get along, if they lived together and were careful, on seven thousand dollars a year, and I must leave them that somehow.” “Hoot toot,” said I, “that seems to me nonsense. Don’t let the spectre of decayed gentlewomen hound you into dyspepsia or Bright’s disease, but give yourself a chance and trust to your girls to look out for themselves. There are so many things for women to do now besides marry or pot jam, that a fond father ought to let his nervous system recuperate now and then.”

“I suppose you mean that they might become[23] teachers or physicians or hospital nurses or typewriters,” said Perkins. “Declined with thanks.”

“Don’t you think,” I inquired with a little irritation, “that they would be happier so than in doing nothing on a fixed income, in simply being mildly cultivated and philanthropic on dividends, in moving to the sea-side in summer and back again in the autumn, and in dying at the last of some fashionable ailment?”

“No, I don’t,” said Perkins. “Do you?”

Were I to repeat my answer to this inquiry I should be inviting a discussion on woman, which is not in place at this stage of our reflections. Let me say, though, that I am still of the opinion that Perkins ought to give his nervous system a chance and not worry so much about his daughters.

[24]

Seeing that there are so many things to have and that we cannot have everything, what are we to choose? I have sometimes, while trudging along in the sleighing season, noticed that many men, whose income I believe to be much smaller than mine, were able to ride behind fast trotters in fur overcoats. The reason upon reflection was obvious to me. Men of a certain class regard a diamond pin, a fur overcoat, and a fast horse as the first necessaries of existence after a bed, a hair-brush and one maid-of-all-work. In other words, they are willing to live in an inexpensive locality, with no regard to plumbing, society, or art, to have their food dropped upon the table, and to let their wives and daughters live with shopping as the one bright spot in the month’s horizon, if only they, the husbands and fathers, can satisfy the three-headed ruling ambition in question. The men to whom I am referring have not the moral or æsthetic tone of Rogers and myself, and belong to quite a distinct class of society from either of[25] us. But among the friends of both of us there are people who act on precisely the same principle. A fine sense of selection ought to govern the expenditure of income, and the wise man will refrain from buying a steam-yacht for himself or a diamond crescent for his wife before he has secured a home with modern conveniences, an efficient staff of servants, a carefully chosen family physician, a summer home, or an ample margin wherewith to hire one, the best educational advantages for his children which the community will afford, and choice social surroundings. In order to have these comfortably and completely, and still not to be within sailing distance, so to speak, of a steam-yacht, one needs to have nowadays—certainly in large cities—an income of from seven thousand to eleven thousand dollars, according to where one lives.

I make this assertion in the face of the fact that our legislators all over the country annually decree that from four to five thousand dollars a year is a fat salary in reward for public service, and that an official with a family who is given twenty-five hundred or three thousand is to be envied. Envied by whom, pray? By the ploughman, the horse-car conductor, and the corner[26] grocery man, may be, but not by the average business or professional man who is doing well. To be sure, five thousand dollars in a country town is affluence, if the beneficiary is content to stay there; but in a city the family man with only that income, provided he is ambitious, can only just live, and might fairly be described as the cousin german to a mendicant. And yet there are some worthy citizens still, who doubtless would be aghast at these statements, and would wish to know how one is to spend five thousand dollars a year without extravagance. We certainly did start in this country on a very different basis, and the doctrine of plain living was written between the lines of the Constitution. We were practically to do our own work, to be content with pie and doughnuts as the staple articles of nutrition, to abide in one locality all the year round, and to eschew color, ornament, and refined recreation. All this as an improvement over the civilization of Europe and a rebuke to it. Whatever the ethical value of this theory of existence in moulding the national character may have been, it has lost its hold to-day, and we as a nation have fallen into line with the once sneered-at older civilizations, though we honestly believe[27] that we are giving and going to give a peculiar redeeming brand to the adopted, venerable customs which will purge them of dross and bale.

Take the servant question, for instance. We are perpetually discussing how we are to do away with the social reproach which keeps native American women out of domestic service; yet at the same time in actual practice the demand for servants grows more and more urgent and wide-spread, and they are consigned still more hopelessly, though kindly, to the kitchen and servants’ hall in imitation of English upper-class life. In the days when our Emerson sought to practise the social equality for which he yearned, by requiring his maids to sit at his own dinner-table, a domestic establishment was a modest affair of a cook and a second girl. Now, the people who are said to have too much for their own good, keep butlers, ladies’ maids, governesses, who like Mahomet’s coffin hover between the parlor and the kitchen, superfine laundresses, pages in buttons, and other housekeeping accessories, and domestic life grows bravely more and more complex. To be sure, too, I am quite aware that, as society is at present constituted, only a comparatively small number out of our[28] millions of free-born American citizens have or are able to earn the seven to eleven thousand dollars a year requisite for thorough comfort, and that the most interesting and serious problem which confronts human society to-day is the annihilation or lessening of the terrible existing inequalities in estate and welfare.

This problem, absorbing as it is, can scarcely be solved in our time. But, whatever the solution, whether by socialism, government control, or brotherly love, is it not safe to assume that when every one shares alike, society is not going to be satisfied with humble, paltry, or ugly conditions as the universal weal? If the new dispensation does not provide a style and manner of living at least equal in comfort, luxury, and refinement to that which exists among the well-to-do to-day, it will be a failure. Humanity will never consent to be shut off from the best in order to be exempt from the worst. The millennium must supply not merely bread and butter, a house, a pig, a cow, and a sewing-machine for every one, but attractive homes, gardens, and galleries, literature and music, and all the range of æsthetic social adjuncts which tend to promote healthy bodies, delightful manners, fine[29] sensibilities, and noble purposes, or it will be no millennium.

Therefore one who would live wisely and has the present means, though he may deplore existing misery and seek to relieve it, does not give away to others all his substance but spends it chiefly on himself and his family until he has satisfied certain needs. By way of a house he feels that he requires not merely a frail, unornamental shelter, but a carefully constructed, well ventilated, cosily and artistically furnished dwelling, where his family will neither be scrimped for space nor exposed to discomforts, and where he can entertain his friends tastefully if not with elegance. All this costs money and involves large and recurrent outlays for heating, lighting, upholstery, sanitary appliances, silver, china, and glass. It is not sufficient for him that his children should be sure of their own father; he is solicitous, besides, that they should grow up as free as possible from physical blemishes, and mentally and spiritually sound and attractive. To promote this he must needs consult or engage from time to time skilled specialists, dentists, oculists, dancing and drawing masters, private tutors, and music-teachers. To enable these[30] same sons and daughters to make the most of themselves, he must, during their early manhood and womanhood, enable them to pursue professional or other studies, to travel, and to mingle in cultivated and well-bred society. He must live in a choice neighborhood that he may surround himself and his family with refining influences, and accordingly he must pay from twelve hundred to twenty-five hundred or three thousand dollars a year for rent, according to the size and desirability of the premises. Unless he would have his wife and daughters merely household factors and drudges, he must keep from three to five or six servants, whose wages vary from four to six or seven dollars a week, and feed them.

Nor can the athletic, æsthetic, or merely pleasurable needs of a growing or adolescent household be ignored. He must meet the steady and relentless drain from each of these sources, or be conscious that his flesh and blood have not the same advantages and opportunities which are enjoyed by their contemporaries. He must own a pew, a library share, a fancy dress costume, and a cemetery lot, and he must always have loose change on hand for the hotel waiter and the colored[31] railway porter. The family man in a large city who meets these several demands to his entire satisfaction will have little of ten thousand dollars left for the purchase of a trotter, a fur overcoat, and a diamond pin.

The growing consciousness of the value of these complex demands of our modern civilization, when intelligently gratified, acts at the present day as a cogent incentive to make money, not for the mere sake of accumulation, but to spend. Gross accumulation with scant expenditure has always been sanctioned here; but to grow rich and yet be lavish has only within a comparatively recent period among us seemed reconcilable with religious or national principles. Even yet he who many times a millionaire still walks unkempt, or merely plain and honest, has not entirely lost the halo of hero worship. But, though the old man is permitted to do as he prefers, better things are demanded of his sons and daughters. Nor can the argument that some of the greatest men in our history have been nurtured and brought up in cabins and away from refining influences be soundly used against the advisability of making the most of income, even though we now and then ask ourselves whether[32] modern living is producing statesmen of equally firm mould. But we thrill no longer at mention of a log cabin or rail splitting, and the very name of hard cider suggests rather unpleasantly the corner grocery store and the pie-permeated, hair-cloth suited New England parlor.

Merely because other nations have long been aware that it was wise and not immoral to try to live comfortably and beautifully our change of faith is no less absorbing to us. We confidently expect to win fresh laurels by our originality, intelligence, and unselfishness in this new old field. Already have we made such strides that our establishments on this side of the water make up in genuine comfort what they lack in ancient manorial picturesqueness and ghost-haunted grace. Each one of us who is in earnest is asking how he is to make the most of what he has or earns, so as to attain that charm of refined living which is civilization’s best flower—living which if merely material and unanimated by intelligence and noble aims is without charm, but which is made vastly more difficult of realization in case we are without means or refuse to spend them adequately.

[33]

Mr. and Mrs. Julius Cæsar, who, as you may remember, divide their income into parts with mathematical precision, were not as well off in this world’s goods at the time of their marriage as they are now. Neither Mr. Cæsar’s father nor Mrs. Cæsar’s grandmother was then dead, and consequently the newly wedded pair, though set up by their respective families with a comfortable income, felt that it was incumbent upon them to practise strict economy. Then it was that Julius conceived what seemed to them both the happy idea of buying a house dirt cheap in a neighborhood which was not yet improved, and improving the neighborhood, instead of paying an exorbitant price for a residence in a street which was already all it should be.

“Why,” said Julius, “shouldn’t we buy one of those new houses in Sunset Terrace? They look very attractive, and if we can only induce two or three congenial couples to join forces with us we shall have the nucleus of a delightful colony.”

[34]

“Besides, everything will be nice and new,” said Mrs. Julius, or Dolly Cæsar, as her friends know her. “No cockroaches, no mice, no moths, no family skeletons to torment us. Julius, you are a genius. We can just as well set the fashion as follow meekly in fashion’s wake.”

So said, so done. Julius Cæsar bent his intellect upon the matter and soon found three congenial couples who were willing to join forces with him. Before another twelve months had passed, four baby-wagons—one of them double-seated—were to be seen on four sunny grass-plots in front of four attractive, artistic-looking villas on Sunset Terrace. Where lately sterility, mortar, and weeds had held carnival, there was now an air of tasteful gentility. Thanks to the example of Dolly Cæsar, who had an eye and an instinct for such matters, the four brass door-plates shone like the sun, the paint was spick and span, the four gravel paths were in apple-pie order, the four grass-plots were emerald from timely use of a revolving lawn sprinkler, and the four nurse-maids, who watched like dragons over the four baby-wagons, were neat-looking and comely. No wonder that by the end of the second year there was not a vacant house in[35] the street, and that everybody who wished to live in a fashionable locality was eager for a chance to enter Sunset Terrace. No wonder, too, that Mr. and Mrs. Julius Cæsar were able, by the end of the fourth year, to emerge from Sunset Terrace with a profit on the sale of their villa which made it rent free for the entire period, and left them with a neat little surplus to boot, and to settle down with calm minds on really fashionable Belport Avenue, in the stately mansion devised to them by Mrs. Cæsar’s grandmother.

Now, it must be borne in mind that a Mr. and Mrs. Julius Cæsar can sometimes do that which a Mr. and Mrs. George J. Spriggs find difficulty in accomplishing. Spriggs, at the time of his marriage to Miss Florence Green, the daughter of ex-Assistant Postmaster-General Homer W. Green, conceived the happy idea of setting up his household gods in Locust Road, which lies about as far from Belport Avenue in one direction as Sunset Terrace in the other. Both are semi-suburban. It also occurred to him at the outset to join forces with three or four congenial couples, but at the last moment the engagement of one of the couples in question[36] was broken, and the other three decided to live somewhere else. To have changed his mind then would have involved the sacrifice of one hundred dollars paid to bind the bargain to the landowner. So it seemed best to them on the whole to move in, as they had to live somewhere.

“It’s just a little bit dreary, isn’t it?” said Florence Spriggs, pathetically, as she looked out of her bow window at the newly finished street which was not finished, and at the grass-plot where there was no grass. “But I sha’n’t be a bit lonely with you, George.”

“I wonder if the color of this house has been changed,” said Spriggs, presently, as he glanced up at the façade and from that to the other houses in the block, each of which was vacant. He and Florence had gone out after dinner to take a stroll and survey the neighborhood which they hoped to improve.

“Of course it hasn’t! How could it be?” said Florence.

“Somehow it looks a more staring shade of yellow than it did the first time we saw it. And I don’t fancy altogether the filigree work on the door, or that Egyptian renaissance scroll set into the eastern wall, do you, dearest? However,[37] we’re in now and can’t get out, for the title has passed. I wonder who will buy the other houses?”

They were soon to know. They were alone all winter, but in the early spring a family moved in on either side of them. The houses in Locust Road, like those in Sunset Terrace, were of the villa order, with grass-plots, which were almost lawns, appurtenant. Though less pleasing than those which had taken the more discerning eye of Mrs. Julius Cæsar, they were nevertheless comparatively inoffensive and sufficiently tasteful. Neighbor number one proved to be of an enterprising and imaginative turn. He changed the color of his villa from staring yellow to startling crushed strawberry, supplemented his Egyptian renaissance scroll and filigree with inlaid jewel and frost work, stationed a cast-iron stag in one corner of the grass-plot and a cast-iron Diana with a bow in another, and then rested on his laurels. Neighbor number two was shiftless and untidy. His grass-plot did not thrive, and the autumn leaves choked his gravel path. His windows were never washed, his blinds hung askew, and his one maid-of-all-work preferred the lawn to the laundry as a drying-room. His[38] wife sunned herself in a wrapper, and he himself in his shirt sleeves. A big mongrel dog drooled perpetually on the piazza or tracked it with his muddy feet, and even the baby-wagon wore the appearance of dilapidation and halted because of a broken spring.

The Spriggses tried to be lenient and even genial with both these neighbors, but somehow the attempt was not successful. Neighbor number one became huffy because Spriggs took no notice of his advice that he embellish his grass-plot with a stone mastiff or an umbrella and cherub fountain, and neighbor number two took offence because Spriggs complained that the ventilator on his chimney kept Mrs. Spriggs awake by squeaking. Mrs. Spriggs did her best to set them both a good example by having everything as tasteful on the one hand and as tidy on the other as it should be. In the hope of improving them she even dropped suggestive hints as to how people ought to live, but the hints were not taken. What was worse none of the other houses were taken. As Spriggs pathetically expressed it, the iron stag on the one side and the weekly wash on the other kept purchasers at bay. He tried to buoy himself up by believing that a glut[39] in the real estate market was the cause why the remaining villas in Locust Road hung fire, but this consolation was taken away from him the following spring when an active buying movement all along the line still left them without other neighbors. The unoccupied villas had begun to wear an air of dilapidation, in spite of their Egyptian renaissance scrolls and the presence of a cast-iron Diana.

To crown the situation the baby of neighbor number two caught diphtheria from being left in its halting wagon by the maid-of-all-work too near the cesspool on the lawn, and was kissed by the Spriggs baby before the fact was discovered. If there is one thing more irritating to the maternal mind than another, it is to have dear baby catch something from the child of people whom you reprobate. One feels that the original horrors of the disease are sure to be enhanced through such a medium. When the only child of the Julius Cæsars died of the same disease, contracted from a germ inhaled on Belport Avenue, the parents felt that only destiny was to blame. On the other hand, though the Spriggs baby recovered, Mrs. Spriggs never quite forgave herself for what had happened. Before the next[40] autumn Spriggs parted with his estate on Locust Road for so much less than he had paid for it that he felt obliged to accept the hospitality of his wife’s father, ex-Assistant Postmaster-General Green, during the succeeding winter.

The moral of this double-jointed tale is twofold; firstly that the young householder cannot always count upon improving the neighborhood in which he sets up his goods and chattels after marriage, and secondly, that, in case the neighborhood fails to improve, a tenancy for a year or two is a less serious burden than absolute ownership. It is extremely pleasant, to be sure, to be able to declare that one has paid for one’s house, and I am aware that the consciousness of unencumbered ownership in the roof over one’s head affords one of the most affecting and effective opportunities for oratory which the free-born citizen can desire. The hand of many a husband and father has been stayed from the wine-cup or the gaming-table by the pathetic thought that he owned his house. As a rule, too, it is cheaper to pay the interest on a mortgage than to pay rent, and if one is perfectly sure of being able to improve the neighborhood, or at least save it from degeneration, it certainly seems desirable[41] to be the landlord of one’s house, even though it be mortgaged so cleverly that the equity of redemption is merely a name. But in this age of semi-suburban development, when Roads and Terraces and Parks and Gates and other Anglo-European substitutes for streets serve as “springes to catch woodcocks,” a young couple on real estate ownership bent should have the discerning eye of a Mrs. Julius Cæsar in order not to fall a prey to the specious land and lot speculator. If you happen to hit on a Sunset Terrace, everything is rose color, but to find one’s self an owner in fee on a Locust Road, next door to crushed strawberry and a cast-iron stag, will palsy the hopes of the hopeful.

What attractive, roomy, tasteful affairs many of these semi-suburban villas, which are built nowadays on the new Roads, Terraces, Parks, Gates, and even Streets, are to be sure. There are plenty of homely ones too, but it is a simple matter to avoid the Egyptian renaissance scroll, and the inlaid jewel work and stained-glass bull’s eyes if one only will. They seem to be affording to many a happy solution of the ever new and ever old problem, which presents itself to every man who is about to take a wife, whether it is[42] preferable to live in the city or the country. These new suburbs, or rather outlying wards of our large cities, which have been carved out of what, not many years ago, was real country where cows browsed and woods flourished, must be very alluring to people who would fain live out of town and still be in it. When, by stepping on an electric car or taking the train, you can, within a quarter of an hour, be on your own piazza inhaling fresh air and privileged to feast your eyes on a half acre or less of greensward belonging to yourself, there would seem to be strong inducements for refusing to settle down in a stuffy, smoky, dusty, wire-pestered city street, however fashionable. Rapid transit has made or is making the environs of our cities so accessible that the time-honored problem presents itself under different conditions than formerly. There is no such thing now as the real country for anybody who is not prepared to spend an hour in the train. Even then one is liable to encounter asphalt walks and a Soldier’s monument in the course of a sylvan stroll. But the intervening territory is ample and alluring.

For one-half the rent demanded for a town house of meagre dimensions in the middle of a[43] block, with no outlook whatever, new, spacious, airy, ornamental homes with a plot of land and a pleasing view attached, are to be had for the seeking within easy living distance from nearly every large city. When I begin to rhapsodize, as I sometimes do, I am apt to ask myself why it is that anybody continues to live in town. It was only the other day that I happened, while driving with my wife in the suburbs, to call her attention, enthusiastically, to the new house which Perkins has secured for himself. You may remember that Perkins is the thin, nervous lawyer with four daughters, who is solicitous as to what will become of them when he is dead. We drove by just as he came up the avenue from the station, which is only a three minutes’ walk from the house. He looked tired—he always does—but there was already a fresh jauntiness in his tread as though he sniffed ozone. He looked up at the new house complacently, as well he might, for it is large enough even for four daughters, and has all the engaging impressiveness of a not too quaintly proportioned and not too abnormally stained modern villa, a highly evolved composite of an old colonial mansion, a Queen Anne cottage, and a French château. Before he reached[44] the front door, two of his daughters ran out to embrace him and relieve him of his bag and bundles, and a half-hour later, as we drove back, he was playing lawn tennis with three of his girls, in a white blazer with pink stripes and knickerbockers, which gave his thin and eminently respectable figure a rather rakish air.

“Barbara,” I said to my wife, “why isn’t Perkins doing the sensible thing? That’s a charming house, double the size he could get for the same money in town—and the rent is eight hundred or a thousand dollars instead of fifteen hundred or two thousand. He needs fewer servants out here, for the parlor-maid isn’t kept on tenterhooks to answer the door-bell, and there is fresh air to come back to at night, and the means for outdoor exercise on his own or his neighbor’s lawn, which for a nervous, thin-chested, sedentary man like Perkins is better than cod-liver oil. Think what robust specimens those daughters should be with such opportunities for tennis, golf, skating, and bicycling.

“On Sundays and holidays, if the spirit moves him and his wife and the girls to start off on an exploring expedition, they are not obliged to take a train or pound over dusty pavements before[45] they begin; the wild flowers and autumn foliage and chestnut-burs are all to be had in the woods and glens within a mile or two of their own home. Or if he needs to be undisturbed, no noise, no interruption, but nine hours’ sleep and an atmosphere suited to rest and contemplation on his piazza or by his cheerful, tasteful fireside. Why isn’t this preferable to the artificial, restless life of the city?”

“And yet,” said Barbara, “I have heard you state that only a rich man can afford to live in the country.”

Women certainly delight to store up remarks made in quite another connection, and use them as random arguments against us.

“My dear Barbara,” said I, “this is not the country. Of course in the real country, one needs so many things to be comfortable nowadays—a large house, stables, horses, and what not—it has always seemed to me that a poor man with social or cultivated instincts had better stay in town. But have not Perkins and these other semi-suburbanites hit the happy medium? They have railroads or electric cars at their doors, and yet they can get real barn-yard smells.”

“I doubt if they can,” said Barbara. “That is,[46] unless they start a barn-yard for the purpose, and that would bring the health authorities down upon them at once. If this were the country, I could entirely thrill at the description you have just given of your friend Mr. Perkins. The real country is divine; but this is oleomargarine country. On the other hand, however, I quite agree with you that if Mr. Perkins is delicate, this is a far healthier place for him than the city, in spite of the journey in the train twice a day. The houses—his house in particular—are lovely, and I dare say we all ought to do the same. He can certainly come in contact with nature—such nature as there is left within walking distance—easier than city people. But to console me for not having one of these new, roomy villas, and to prevent you from doing anything rash, I may as well state a few objections to your paradise. As to expense, of course there is a saving in rent, and it is true that the parlor-maid does not have to answer the door-bell so often, and accordingly can do other things instead. Consequently, too, Mrs. Perkins and the four girls may get into the habit of going about untidy and in their old clothes. A dowdy girl with rosy cheeks and a fine constitution is a pitiable object in this age of feminine progress.[47] Mr. Perkins will have to look out for this, and he may require cod-liver oil after all.

“Then there is the question of schools. In many of these semi-suburban paradises there are no desirable schools, especially for girls, which necessitates perpetual coming and going on trains and cars, and will make education a wearisome thing, especially for Mrs. Perkins. She will find, too, that her servants are not so partial to wild flowers and chestnut-burs and fresh air as her husband and daughters. Only the inexperienced will apply, and they will come to her reluctantly, and as soon as she has accustomed them to her ways and made them skilful, they will tell her they are not happy, and need the society of their friends in town.

“Those are a few of the drawbacks to the semi-suburban villa; but the crucial and most serious objection is, that unless one is very watchful, and often in spite of watchfulness, the semi-suburbanite shuts himself off from the best social interests and advantages. He begins by imagining that there will be no difference; that he will see just as much of his friends and go just as frequently to balls and dinner-parties, the concert and the theatre, the educational or philanthropic[48] meeting. But just that requisite and impending twenty minutes in the train or electric car at the fag end of the day is liable to make a hermit of him to all intents and purposes by the end of the second year. Of course, if one is rich and has one’s own carriage, the process of growing rusty is more gradual, though none the less sure. On that very account most people with a large income come to town for a few months in winter at any rate. There are so many things in life to do, that even friends with the best and most loving intentions call once on those who retire to suburban villas and let that do for all time. To be sure, some people revel in being hermits and think social entertainments and excitements a mere waste of time and energy. I am merely suggesting that for those who wish to keep in close touch with the active human interests of the day, the semi-suburban villa is somewhat of a snare. The Perkinses will have to exercise eternal vigilance, or they will find themselves seven evenings out of seven nodding by their fireside after an ample meal, with all their social instincts relaxed.”

Undeniably Barbara offered the best solution of this question in her remark, that those who can afford it spend the spring and autumn in the[49] country and come to town for the winter months. Certainly, if I were one of the persons who are said to have too much for their own good, I should do something of the kind. I might not buy a suburban villa; indeed, I would rather go to the real country, where there are lowing kine, and rich cream and genuine barn-yard smells, instead of electric cars and soldiers’ monuments. There would I remain until it was time to kill the Thanksgiving turkey, and then I would hie me to town in order to refresh my mental faculties with city sights and sounds during the winter-spring solstice, when the lowing kine are all in the barn, and even one who owns a suburban villa has to fight his way from his front door through snow-drifts, and listen to the whistling wind instead of the robin red-breast or tinkling brook.

Patterson, the banker, is surely to be envied in his enjoyment of two establishments, notwithstanding that the double ownership suggests again the effete civilizations of Europe, and was once considered undemocratic. Patterson, though his son has been through the Keeley cure, and his daughter lives apart from her husband, has a charming place thirty-five miles from town,[50] where he has many acres and many horses, cows, and sheep, an expanse of woods, a running stream, delicious vegetables and fruit; golf links, and a fine country house with all the modern improvements, including a cosy, spacious library. Then he has another house—almost a palace—in town which he opens in the late autumn and occupies until the middle of May, for Patterson, in spite of some foibles, is no tax dodger.

Yes, to have two houses and live half of the year in town and the other half in the country, with six to eight weeks at the sea-side or mountains, so as to give the children salt air and bathing, or a thorough change, is what most of us would choose in case we were blessed with too much for our own good. But, unfortunately or fortunately, most of us with even comfortable incomes cannot have two houses, and consequently must choose between town and country or semi-country, especially as the six or eight weeks at the sea-side or mountains is apt to seem imperative when midsummer comes. According, therefore, as we select to live in one or the other, it behooves us to practise eternal vigilance, so that we may not lose our love of nature and wreck our nerves in the worldly bustle of city[51] life, or become inert, rusty, and narrow among the lowing kine or in semi-suburban seclusion. In order to live wisely, we who dwell in the cities should in our spare hours seek fresh air, sunlight, and intercourse with nature, and we whose homes are out of town should in our turn rehabilitate our social instincts and rub up our manners.

Regarding the real country, there is one other consideration of which I am constantly reminded by a little water-color hanging in my library, painted by me a few years ago while I was staying with my friend Henley. It represents a modest but pretty house and a charming rustic landscape. I call it Henley’s Folly. Henley, who possessed ardent social instincts, had always lived in town; but he suddenly took it into his head to move thirty miles into the country. He told me that he did so primarily for the benefit of his wife and children, but added that it would be the best thing in the world for him, that it would domesticate him still more completely, and give him time to read and cultivate himself. When I went to stay with him six months later, he was jubilant regarding the delights of the country, and declared that he had become a[52] genuine farmer. He pished at the suggestion that the daily journey to and from town was exhausting, and informed me that his one idea was to get away from the bricks and mortar as early in the afternoon as possible. Just two years later I heard with surprise, one day, that the Henleys had sold their farm and were coming back to town. The reason—confided to me by one of the family—was that his wife was so much alone that she could not endure the solitude any longer. “You see,” said my informant, “the nearest house of their friends was four miles off, and as Henley stayed in town until the last gun fired, the days he returned home at all, and as he had or invented a reason for staying in town all night at least once a week, poor Mrs. Henley realized that the lot of a farmer’s wife was not all roses and sunshine.” From this I opine that if one with ardent social instincts would live wisely he should not become a gentleman farmer merely for the sake of his wife and children.

[53]

Whether we live in the city or the country, it must be apparent to all of us that a great wave of architectural activity in respect to dwelling-houses has been spreading over our land during the past twenty years. The American architect has been getting in his work and showing what he could do, with the result that the long, monotonous row of brick or freestone custom-made city houses, and the stereotyped white country farm-house with green blinds and an ell or lean-to attached, have given place to a vivid and heterogeneous display of individual effort. Much of this is fine and some deadly, for the display includes not merely the generally tasteful and artistic conceptions of our trained native architects, who have studied in Paris, but the raw notions of all the builders of custom-made houses who, recognizing the public desire for striking and original effects, are bent upon surpassing one another.

Therefore, while we have many examples, both urban and suburban, of beautiful and impressive[54] house architecture, the new sections of our cities and suburbs fairly bristle with a multiplicity of individual experiments in which the salient features of every known type of architecture are blended fearlessly together. The native architect who has neither been to Paris nor been able to devote much time to study has not been limited in the expression of his genius by artistic codes or conventions. Consequently he has felt no hesitation in using extinguisher towers, mediæval walls, battlement effects, Queen Anne cottage lines, Old Colonial proportions, and Eastern imagery in the same design, and any one of them at any critical juncture when his work has seemed to him not sufficiently striking for his own or the owner’s taste.

Satisfactory as all this is as evidence of a progressive spirit, and admitting that many of even these lawless manifestations of talent are not without merit, it is nevertheless aggressively true that the smug complacency of the proprietor of the suburban villa, which is hedged about by a stone rampart of variegated rough stone on an ordinary building lot, has no justification whatever. Nor has the master of the castellated, gloomy, half-Moorish, half-mediæval mansion, which disfigures[55] the fashionable quarter of many of our cities, occasion to congratulate himself on having paid for a thing of beauty. The number of our well-trained architects, though constantly increasing, is still small, especially as compared with the number of people of means who are eager to occupy a thing of beauty; then, too, even the trained architect is apt to try experiments for the sake of testing his genius, on a dog, so to speak—some confiding plutocrat with a love of splendor who has left everything to him.

The result is that grotesque and eye-distressing monsters of masonry stand side by side on many of our chief avenues with the most graceful and finished specimens of native architectural inspiration. As there is no law which prevents one from building or buying an ugly house, and as the architect, whose experiment on a dog tortures the public eye, suffers no penalty for his crime, our national house architecture may be said to be working out its own salvation at the public expense. It is the duty of a patriotic citizen to believe that in this, as in other matters of national welfare, the beautiful gradually will prevail; and assuredly the many very attractive private residences which one sees both in the city[56] and the country should tend to make us hopeful.

Why is it that the rich man who would live wisely feels the necessity for so large a house in the city? Almost the first thing that one who has accumulated or inherited great possessions does nowadays is to leave the house where very likely he has been comfortable and move into a mammoth establishment suggesting rather a palace or an emporium than a house. Why is this? Some one answers that it is for the sake of abundant light and extra space. Surely in a handsome house of twenty-five or thirty feet front there should be light and space enough for the average family, however fastidious or exacting. In the country, where one needs many spare rooms for the accommodation of guests, there are some advantages in the possession of an abnormally large house. But how is the comfort of the city man enhanced by one, that is, if the attendant discomforts are weighed in the same scale? It has sometimes seemed to me that the wealthy or successful man invests in a prodigious mansion as a sort of testimonial; as though he felt it incumbent on him to erect a conventional monument to his own grandeur or success, in order to let the public entertain no doubt about it. But so[57] many otherwise sensible men have deliberately built huge city houses that this can scarcely be the controlling motive in all cases. Perhaps, if asked, they would throw the responsibility on their wives. But it is even more difficult to understand why a sensible woman should wish one of the vast houses which our rising architects are naturally eager to receive orders to construct. A handsome house where she can entertain attractively, yes: an exquisitely furnished, sunny, corner house by all means; a house where each child may have a room apart and where there are plenty of spare rooms, if you like; but why a mammoth cave? She is the person who will suffer the discomforts to be weighed in the same scale, for the care will fall on her.

We have in this country neither trained servants nor the housekeeper system. The wife and mother who is the mistress of a huge establishment wishes it to be no less a home than her former residence, and her husband would be the first to demur were she to cast upon others the burdens of immediate supervision. A moderate-sized modern house is the cause of care enough, as we all know, and wherefore should any woman seek to multiply her domestic worries by[58] duplicating or trebling the number of her servants? To become the manager of a hotel or to cater for an ocean steamship is perhaps a tempting ambition for one in search of fortune, but why should a woman, who can choose what she will have, elect to be the slave of a modern palace with extinguisher towers? Merely to be able to invite all her social acquaintance to her house once a year without crowding them? It would be simpler to hire one of the many halls now adapted for the purpose.

The difficulty of obtaining efficient servants, and the worries consequent upon their inefficiency, is probably the chief cause of the rapid growth of the apartment-house among us. The contemporary architect has selected this class of building for some of his deadliest conceits. Great piles of fantastically disposed stone and iron tower up stories upon stories high, and frown upon us at the street-corners like so many Brobdingnagians. Most of them are very ugly; nevertheless they contain the homes of many citizens, and the continuous appearance of new and larger specimens attests their increasing popularity. Twenty years ago there was scarcely an apartment-house to be seen in our cities. There[59] was a certain number of hotels where families could and did live all the year round, but the ten-story monster, with a janitor, an elevator, steam heat, electric light, and all the alleged comforts of home, was practically unknown. We have always professed to be such a home-loving people, and the so-called domestic hearth has always been such a touchstone of sentiment among us that the exchange of the family roof for the community of a flat by so many well-to-do persons certainly seems to suggest either that living cheek by jowl with a number of other households is not so distasteful as it seems to the uninitiated, or else that modern housekeeping is so irksome that women are tempted to swallow sentiment and escape from their trammels to the comparatively easy conditions of an apartment. It does seem as though one’s identity would be sacrificed or dimmed by becoming a tenant in common, and as though the family circle could never be quite the same thing to one who was conscious that his was only a part of one tremendous whole. And yet, more and more people seem to be anxious to share a janitor and front door, and, though the more fastidious insist on their own cuisine, there are not[60] a few content to entrust even their gastronomic welfare to a kitchen in common.

It must be admitted, even by those of us who rejoice in our homes, that there is much to be said in favor of the apartment-house as a solver of practical difficulties, and that our imaginations are largely responsible for our antipathy. When once inside a private apartment of the most desirable and highly evolved kind one cannot but admit that there is no real lack of privacy, and that the assertion that the owner has no domestic hearth is in the main incorrect. To be sure the domain belonging to each suite is comparatively circumscribed; there is no opportunity for roaming from garret to cellar; no private laundry; no private backyard; and no private front-door steps; but to all practical intents one is no less free from intrusion or inspection than in a private house, and it may also be said that reporters and other persevering visitors are kept at a more respectful distance by virtue of the janitor in common on the ground floor. The sentiment in favor of limited individual possession is difficult to eradicate from sensitive souls, and rightly, perhaps, many of us refuse to be convinced; but it remains true that the woman[61] who has become the mistress of a commodious and well-managed apartment must have many agreeable quarters of an hour in congratulating herself that perplexities concerning chores, heating, lighting, flights of stairs, leaks, and a host of minor domestic matters no longer threaten her peace of mind, and—greatest boon of all—that she now can manage with two or three servants instead of five or six.

In this newly developed fondness for flats we are again guilty of imitating one of the effete civilizations—France this time—where it has long been the custom for families to content themselves with a story or two instead of a house; though we can claim the size and style of architecture of the modern apartment pile as our special brand upon the adopted institution. The introduction of the custom here seems to me to be the result of exhaustion of the female nervous system. The American housewife, weary of the struggle to obtain efficient servants, having oscillated from all Catholics to all Protestants, from all Irish to all Swedes and back again, having experimented with negroes and Chinamen, and returned to pure white, having tried native help and been insulted, and reverted to the Celtic[62] race, she—the long-suffering—has sought the apartment-house as a haven of rest. She—the long-suffering—has assuredly been in a false position since the Declaration of Independence declared that all men are created equal, for she has been forced to cherish and preserve a domestic institution which popular sentiment has refused to recognize as consistent with the principles of Democracy. Our National creed, whether presented in the primer or from the platform, has ever repudiated the idea of service when accompanied by an abatement of personal independence or confession of social inferiority. Therefore the native American woman has persistently refused, in the face of high wages and of exquisite moral suasion, to enter domestic service, and has preferred the shop or factory to a comfortable home where she would have to crook the knee and say “Yes, ma’am.”

At the same time the native American woman, ever since “help” in the sense of social acquaintances willing to accommodate for hire and dine with the family has ceased to adorn her kitchen and parlor, has been steadily forced by the demands of complex modern living to have servants of her own. And where was she to obtain[63] them? Excepting the negro, only among the emigrants of foreign countries, at first among the Irish, and presently among the English and Swedes, all of whom, unharassed by scruples as to a consequent loss of self-respect, have been prompt to recognize that this field of employment lay open to them and was undisputed. They have come, and they still come in herds to our shores, raw and undisciplined, the overflow from their own countries; and as fast as they arrive they are feverishly snapped up by the American housewife, who finds the need of servants more and more imperative; for some one must do the elaborate cooking, some one must do the fine washing, some one must polish the silver, rub the brasses, care for the lamps, and dust the bric-à-brac in her handsomest establishment. And no one but the emigrant, or the son and daughter of the emigrant, is willing to.

The consequence is that, though the native American woman is as resolute as ever in her own refusal to be a cook or waitress in a private family, domestic service exists as an institution no less completely than it exists in Europe, and practically under the same conditions, save that servants here receive considerably higher wages[64] than abroad because the demand is greater than the supply. There is a perpetual wail in all our cities and suburbs that the supply of competent cooks, and skilled laundresses and maids is so limited, and well-trained servants can demand practically their own prices. The conditions of service, however, are the same. That is, the servant in the household of the free-born is still the servant; and still the servant in the household where the mistress, who has prospered, would originally have gone into service had she not been free-born. For there is no one more prompt than the American housewife to keep a servant when she can afford one, and the more she is obliged to keep the prouder is she, though her nervous system may give way under the strain. By this I do not mean that the servants here are ill-treated. On the contrary, the consideration shown them is greater, and the quarters provided for them are far more comfortable on this side of the water than abroad. Indeed, servants fare nowhere in the world so well as in the establishments of the well-to-do people of our large cities. Their bedrooms are suitable and often tasteful, they are attended by the family physician if ill, they are not overworked, and very[65] slight checks are put on their liberty. But they are undeniably servants. The free-born American mistress does not regard her servants as social equals. She expects them to stand up if they are sitting down when she enters the room. She expects them to address her sons and daughters as Mr. Samuel and Miss Fanny, and to be called in turn Maggie or Albertine (or Thompson or Jones, à l’anglaise) without a prefix. She does her best, in short, to preserve all the forms and all the deference on the one hand, and the haughtiness or condescension on the other which govern the relations between servant and mistress abroad.

From the fact that we need so many more servants than formerly, to care properly for our establishments, the servant here is becoming more and more of a machine. That is, she is in nearly the same category with the electric light and the furnace. We expect him or her to be as unobtrusive as possible, to perform work without a hitch, and not to draw upon our sympathies unnecessarily. The mistress of one or two girls is sure to grow friendly and concerned as to their outside welfare, but when she has a staff of five or six, she is thankful if she is not obliged to know anything[66] about them. The letter which appeared in a New York newspaper some years ago, from an American girl, in which she declared that she had left service because her master and his sons handed her their dripping umbrellas with the same air as they would have handed them to a graven image, was thoroughly in point. The reason the native American girl will not become a servant, in spite of the arguments of the rational and godly, is that service is the sole employment in this country in which she can be told with impunity that she is the social inferior of any one else. It is the telling which she cannot put up with. It is one thing to be conscious that the person you are constantly associated with is better educated, better mannered, and more attractive than yourself, and it is another to be told at every opportunity that this is so. In the shop, in the factory, and in other walks of life, whatever her real superiors may think of her, they must treat her as a social equal. Even that shrill-voiced, banged, bangled, impertinent, slangy, vulgar product of our mammoth retail drygoods system, who seems to believe herself a pattern of ladylike behavior, is aware in her heart that she does not know how to behave, and yearns to resemble the well-bred woman[67] whom she daily insults. But the happiness of her life, and its main-spring, too, lies in the consciousness that she is free to become the first lady in the land, and that she herself is to be her sole critic and detractor. Why is she not right in refusing to sacrifice her independence? Why should she sell her birthright for a mess of pottage?

An anomalous condition of affairs is presented by this contrast between the free-born American woman as a mistress and as a revolter against domestic service, and it seems to me that one of two things must come to pass. Necessarily we shall continue to have cooks, waiting-maids, and laundresses; at least our food must be prepared, our drawing-rooms dusted, and our linen ironed by some one. But either we shall have to accept and acknowledge the existence among us of a class, recruited from foreign emigrants and their descendants, which is tarred with the brush of social proscription in direct violation of democratic principles, or we must change the conditions of domestic service—change them so that condescension and servility vanish, and the contract of service becomes like the other contracts of employment between man and man, and man and woman.

[68]

It is fruitless now to inquire what the free-born American woman would have done without the foreign emigrant to cook and wash for her. The question is whether, now that she has her, she is going to keep her, and keep her in the same comfortable and well-paid but palpable thraldom as at present. If so, she will be merely imitating the housewives of the effete civilizations; she will be doing simply what every English, French, and German woman does and has done ever since class distinctions began. But in that case, surely, we shall be no longer able to proclaim our immunity from caste, and our Fourth of July orators will find some difficulty in showing that other nations are more effete in this respect than ourselves. Twenty-five years more of development in our houses, hotels, and restaurants, if conducted on present lines, will produce an enormous ducking and scraping, fee-seeking, livery-wearing servant class, which will go far to establish the claim put forth by some of our critics, that equality on this side of the water means only political equality, and that our class distinctions, though not so obvious, are no less genuine than elsewhere. In this event the only logical note of explanation to send to the Powers will be that[69] social equality was never contemplated by the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and that, though it is true that any man may become President of the United States, there are as great inequalities in morals, intellect, and manners among sons of liberty as among the subjects of the Czar. To this the Powers will be justified in uttering a disappointed and slightly ironical “Oh!” But perhaps the foreign emigrant will have something to say on the subject. Perhaps the horde from across the seas, now lured by high wages, will decrease in numbers, or it may be that their descendants here will learn through contact with the free-born revolter against domestic service to revolt too.

What would the free-born American mistress do then? With the free-born revolter still obdurate, and the foreign emigrant ceasing to emigrate or recalcitrant, she would be in an unpleasant fix in her elaborate establishment conducted on effete principles. In this practical dilemma, rather than in an awakened moral sense, seems to lie our best hope of regeneration, for it cannot be denied that the free-born American mistress is doing all she can at present to perpetuate the foreign idea of domestic service, and it seems[70] probable that so long as the foreign emigrant is willing to be bribed the true principles of democracy will be violated. Already the difficulty of obtaining servants is inducing home-loving families to seek the apartment-house. A more distinct dearth would speedily change the relations between mistress and servant into that of contractor and contractee, as in other employments in this country. It may be that the descendants of the emigrant will be unable to resist the lure offered them, and that the free-born mistress will triumph. If so, we shall become no better and possibly no worse than the effete civilizations we promised to make blush by the worth of our institutions.

[71]

After a man and his wife have made up their minds whether to live in a town house or suburban villa, they are obliged to consider next what they will have in the way of furniture, and presently what they will have for dinner. The consciousness that a house has nothing in it but the barest fixtures—the gasometer, the water-tanks, and the electric wires—and that it is for you and your wife to decide exactly what shall go into it in the way of wall-papers, carpets, upholstery, and objects of virtu, is inspiring, even though your purse be not plethoric and your knowledge of æsthetics limited. The thought at once presents itself that here is the chance of your lifetime to demonstrate how beautiful and cosy a home may be, and you set eagerly to work to surpass your predecessors of equal means. It is a worthy ambition to endeavor to make the matrimonial nest or the home of maturer years attractive, and if we were to peer back far enough into the past of even this country, to the time when our great great-grandmothers[72] set up housekeeping with our great great-grandfathers, we should find that furnishing was considered a seriously delightful matter, though not perhaps the almost sacred trust we regard it to-day. I mean our great great-grandparents who used to live in those charming old colonial houses, and who owned the mahogany desks with brass handles and claw feet, the tall clocks, the ravishing andirons, and all the other old-fashioned furniture which is now so precious and difficult to find. Distance may lend such enchantment to a spinning-wheel, a warming-pan, or a spinnet, that one is liable to become hysterical in praise of them, and a calm, æsthetic mind, outside the limits of an antique furniture dealer’s store, would be justified in stigmatizing many of the now cherished effects of our great great-grandparents as truck; but, on the other hand, who will dispute that they possessed very many lovely things? They had an eye for graceful shapes in their sideboards and tables; somehow the curves they imparted to the backs of their chairs cannot be duplicated now so as to look the same; and the patterns of the satins, flowered chintzes, and other stuffs which they used for covers and curtains, exercise a witchery[73] upon us, even as we see them now frayed and faded, which cannot proceed wholly from the imagination.

They had no modern comforts, poor things; no furnaces, no ice-chests, no set bath-tubs, no running water, no sanitary improvements, no gas or electric light; and their picturesque kitchen hearths, with great caldrons and cranes and leather blowers, must have been exceedingly inconvenient to cook in; but even their most incommodious appliances were not without artistic charm.

After them came the deluge—the era of horse-hair, the Sahara of democratic unloveliness, when in every house, in every country town, the set best room, which was never used by the family, stood like a mortuary chapel solely for the reception of guests. In the cities, in the households of the then enlightened, rep—generally green—was frequently substituted for the sable horse-hair. Then came the days when a dining-room or drawing-room was furnished in one pervasive hue—a suit of sables, a brick red, a dark green, or a deep maroon. Everything matched; the chairs and tables, desks and book-cases were bought in sets at one fell[74] swoop by the householder of the period who desired to produce artistic effects. For forty years or so this was the prevailing fashion, and the limit of purely indigenous expression.

To it presently succeeded the æsthetic phase, borrowed from England. Then, instead of selecting everything to match, a young or old couple bought so as just not to match, but to harmonize. All sorts of queer and subtle shades and tints in wall-papers and fabrics appeared, principally dallyings with and improvisings upon green, brown, and yellow; frescos and dados were the rage; and a wave of interest in the scope and mission of eccentric color spread over the land. Valuable as this movement was as an educational factor, there was nothing American in it; or in other words, we were again simply imitative. The very fact, however, that we were ready to imitate, betokened that horse-hair and rep had ceased to satisfy national aspiration, and that we were willing to accept suggestions from without, inasmuch as no native prophet had arisen. But though the impetus came from abroad, the awakening was genuine. Since then the desire to furnish tastefully has been steadily waxing among the more well-to-do portion of the population.[75] As in the case of architecture, the increasing interest has called into existence a professional class, which, though still small and less generally employed than their house-designing brethren, is beginning to play an important part in the education of the public taste in internal house decoration and equipment. The idea that any man or woman may be more fitted than his or her neighbor to choose a carpet or a wall-paper has been grudgingly admitted, and still irritates the average house-owner who is ready to furnish. But the masters, and more conspicuously the mistresses, of the competing superb establishments in our cities, have learned, from the sad experience of some of their predecessors, to swallow their individual trust in their own powers of selection, and to put themselves unreservedly into the clutches of a professional house decorator.

Furnishing a mammoth establishment from top to bottom with somebody else’s money, and plenty of it, must be a delightful occupation. There can be no carking consciousness of price to act as a drag on genius, and it would seem as though the house decorator who was not interfered with under these circumstances had a rare[76] chance to show what is what. When he fails, which is by no means out of the question, he can ordinarily shift the responsibility on to his employer, for an employer can rarely resist the temptation of insisting on some one touch to prove his or her own capacity, and of course it is a simple matter for the man of art to demonstrate that this one touch has spoiled everything. The temptation to try to be as original and captivating in results as possible must be almost irresistible, especially when one’s elbow is constantly jogged by furniture and other dealers, who are only too eager to reproduce a Directory drawing-room or any other old-time splendor. But there is no denying that, whatever his limitations, the house decorator is becoming the best of educators on this side of the water, for though we cannot afford or have too much confidence in our own taste to employ him, our wives watch him like cats and are taking in his ideas through the pores, if not directly.

There are, it is true, almost as many diverse styles of internal ornamentation as of external architecture in our modern residences, for everyone who has, or thinks he has, an aptitude for furnishing is trying his professional or ’prentice hand,[77] sometimes with startling results; yet the diversities seem less significant than in the case of external architecture, or perhaps it may be said that the sum total of effect is much nearer to finality or perfection. If as a nation we are deriving the inspiration for the furniture and upholsteries of our drawing-rooms and libraries from the best French and Dutch models of a century or more ago, we certainly can boast that the comfortable features which distinguish our apartments from their prototypes are a native growth. If as a people we cannot yet point to great original artistic triumphs, may we not claim the spacious and dignified contemporary refrigerator, the convenient laundry, the frequently occurring and palatial bath-room, the health-conducing ventilator-pipe and sanitary fixtures, and the various electrical and other pipes, tubes, and appliances which have become a part of every well-ordered house, as a national cult? To be genuinely comfortable in every-day life seems to have become the aim all the world over of the individual seeking to live wisely, and the rest of the world is in our debt for the many valuable mechanical aids to comfort in the home which have been invented on this side of the water.

[78]

This quest for comfort is being constantly borne in mind also in the æsthetic sense. We fit our drawing-rooms now to live in as well as to look at. We expect to sit on our sofas and in our easy chairs; hence we try to make them attractive to the back as well as to the eye. Though our wives may still occasionally pull down the window-shades to exclude a too dangerous sun, they no longer compel us to view our best rooms from the threshold as a cold, flawless, forbidden land. The extreme æsthetic tendencies which were rampant twenty years ago have been toned down by this inclination, among even our most elaborate house-furnishers, to produce the effect that rooms are intended for every-day use by rational beings. The ultra-queer colors have disappeared, and the carpets and wall-papers no longer suggest perpetual biliousness or chronic nightmare.

I think, too, the idea that a drawing-room can be made bewitchingly cosey by crowding it with all one’s beautiful and ugly earthly possessions has been demonstrated to be a delusion. In these days of many wedding presents, it is difficult for young people to resist the temptation of showing all they have received. I remember that Mrs. George J. Spriggs—she was the daughter, you[79] will remember, of ex-Assistant Postmaster-General Homer W. Green—had seven lamps in her parlor in Locust Road, three of them with umbrageous Japanese shades. Her husband explained to me that there had been a run on lamps and pepper-pots in their individual case.

Now, Mrs. Julius Cæsar would have managed more cleverly. She would have made the lamp-dealer exchange four or five of the lamps for, say, an ornamental brass fender, a brass coal-scuttle, or a Japanese tea-tray, and have made the jeweller substitute some equally desirable table ornaments for the pepper-pots. And yet, when I made my wedding call on Mrs. Cæsar, ten years ago, I remember thinking that her drawing-room was a sort of compromise between a curiosity shop and a menagerie. To begin with, I stumbled over the head of a tiger skin, which confronted me as I passed through the portière, so that I nearly fell into the arms of my hostess. It seemed to me that I had stepped into a veritable bazaar. A large bear skin lay before the fire as a hearth-rug, and on either side of the grate squatted a large, orientally conceived china dragon with an open mouth. Here and there, under furniture or in corners, were gaping frogs in bronze or china. A[80] low plush-covered table was densely arrayed with small china dogs of every degree. On another table was spread a number of silver ornaments—a silver snuff-box, a silver whistle, a silver feather, a silver match-box, and a silver shoe-buckle—all objects of virtu of apparently antique workmanship. There were three lamps with ornamental shades—a fluted china shade, a paper shade in semblance of a full-blown rose, and a yellow satin shade with drooping fringe. From the low studded ceiling depended a vast Japanese paper lantern. Sundry and divers china vases and shepherdesses occupied the mantel-piece and the top of the book-case, and had overflowed on to a writing-table supplied with brass ornaments. There were numerous pictures, large and small, on the walls, under many of which colored china plates had been hung. There were photographs in frames everywhere. The actual space where I could stand without knocking over anything was about the size of a hat bath, and was shut in by a circle of low chairs and divans besprinkled with æsthetic yellow, green, and pink soft silk cushions. On one of these divans my hostess was reclining in a Grosvenor gallery tea-gown, so that she seemed to wallow in cushions, and Julius Cæsar himself[81] was sunk in the depths of one of the chairs, so near the ground that his knees seemed to rest on his chin, and one might fairly have taken him for another china frog of extraordinary proportions. All this in a comparatively small room where there were several other knick-knacks which I have omitted to mention. Better this, perhaps, than the drawing-room of forty years ago, when the visitor’s gaze was bounded by cold green rep, and he was restrained only by decorum from hurling into the fire the tidy or antimacassar which tickled his neck, or detached itself and wriggled down between his back and the back of the chair.

But Mrs. Cæsar’s drawing-room, in her new house on Belport Avenue, has been furnished from a very different point of view than her first one, which shows how rapidly tastes change in a progressive society. Mrs. Cæsar and Julius chose everything themselves this time as they did before, but they had learned from experience, and from the new work of the contemporary decorator. There is plenty of unoccupied space now to show her possessions to advantage, and there are not too many possessions visible for the size of the parlor; there is neither so much uniformity of color and design as to weary[82] the eye, nor so much variety or eccentricity as to irritate it; consequently, the effect on the visitor is not that he is in a room intended for luxurious display, but in an exquisitely furnished room adapted for daily use. In other words, the controlling idea at present, of those who seek to make their houses charming, seems to be to combine comfort with elegance so skilfully that while one may realize the latter, one is conscious only of the former. Though decorators are still experimenting, as probably they always will be, to attain novel effects, they are disposed to make use of queer or attenuated hues, Moorish blazonry, stamped leather, peacock feathers, elephant tusks, stained-glass windows, and Japanese lacquer-work with much more discretion than a few years ago. Virgin-white instead of dirt-brown lights up our halls and stair-cases, and the vast chandeliers which used to dazzle the eye no longer dangle from the ceiling. Indeed, it seems as though it would be difficult to make the interior of the homes of our well-to-do class more comfortable and attractive than they are at present. It may be that some of our very rich people are disposed to waste their energies in devising and striving for more consummate elegance,[83] thereby exposing us all to the charge that we are becoming too luxurious for our spiritual good. But there can be little question that the ambition to surround one’s self with as much beauty, consistent with comfort, as one can afford is desirable, even from the ethical standpoint.

Undeniably our point of view has changed extraordinarily in the last thirty years in regard to house-furnishing, as in regard to so many other matters of our material welfare, and there certainly is some ground for fearing that the pendulum is swinging just at present too far in the direction opposite to that of high thinking and low living; but, after all, though the reaction from ugliness has been and continues to be exuberant, it is as yet by no means wide-embracing. In fact, our cultivated well-to-do class—though it is well abreast of the rest of the civilized world in aspiration and not far behind it in accomplishment, with certain vivifying traits of its own which the old world societies do not possess or have lost—is still comparatively small; and there is still so much Stygian darkness outside it in respect to house-furnishing and home comfort in general, that we can afford to have the exuberance continue for the present; for there is some[84] reason to believe that most of the descendants of our old high thinkers have become high livers, or at least, if low livers, have ceased to be high thinkers. Mutton-soup for breakfast and unattractive domestic surroundings seem to comport nowadays with ignoble aims, if nothing worse; moreover, it must not be forgotten that the plain people of the present is no longer the plain people of forty years ago, but is largely the seed of the influx of foreign peasants, chiefly inferior and often scum, which the sacredness of our institutions has obliged us to receive.

[85]

If we have become cosmopolitan in the matter of domestic comfort and elegance as regards our drawing-rooms, the same is certainly true of our dining-rooms, and dinner-tables. But here it seems to me that we are more justly open to criticism on the score of over-exuberance. That is, the fairly well-to-do class, for the plain people of foreign blood, and the low liver of native blood, eat almost as indigestible food, and quite as rapidly and unceremoniously, as the pie and doughnut nurtured yeoman of original Yankee stock, who thrived in spite of his diet, and left to his grandchildren the heritage of dyspepsia which has become nervous prostration in the present generation. It seems as though our instincts of hospitality have grown in direct ratio with our familiarity with and adoption of civilized creature comforts, and any charge of exuberance may doubtless be fairly ascribed to the national trait of generosity, the abuse of which is after all a noble blemish. But, on the other hand, facts remain, even after one has given a pleasing[86] excuse for their existence, and it may be doubted if a spendthrift is long consoled by the reflection that his impecuniosity is due to his own disinclination to stint. May it not truthfully be charged against the reasonably well-to-do American citizen that he has a prejudice against thrift, especially where the entertainment of his fellow man or woman is concerned? The rapid growth of wealth and the comparative facility of becoming rich during the last half century of our development, has operated against the practice of small economies, so that we find ourselves now beset by extravagant traditions which we hesitate to deviate from for fear of seeming mean. Many a man to-day pays his quarter of a dollar ruefully and begrudgingly to the colored Pullman car porter at the end of his journey, when he is “brushed off,” because he cannot bring himself to break the custom which fixed the fee. It would be interesting to estimate what the grand total of saving to the American travelling public would have been if ten instead of twenty-five cents a head had been paid to the tyrant in question since he first darkened the situation. If not enough to maintain free schools for the negro, at least sufficient to compel railroad managements[87] to give their employees suitable wages instead of letting the easy-going traveller, who has already paid for the privilege of a reserved seat, pay a premium on that. The exorbitant fees bestowed on waiters is but another instance of a tendency to be over-generous, which, once reduced to custom, becomes the severest kind of tax, in that it is likely to affect the warmest-hearted people.

This tendency to be needlessly lavish in expenditure is most conspicuous when we are offering hospitality in our own homes. Among the viands which we have added to the bills of fare of humanity, roast turkey and cranberry-sauce, Indian meal, and probably baked beans, are entitled to conspicuous and honorable mention, but is it not true, notwithstanding champagne is a foreign wine, that the most prodigious discovery in the line of food or drink yet made by the well-to-do people of this country, is the discovery of champagne? Does it not flow in one golden effervescing stream, varied only by the pops caused by the drawing of fresh corks, from the Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World to the Golden Gate? And the circumstance that every pop costs the entertainer between three and four dollars,[88] seems in no wise to interrupt the cheery explosions. There are some people who do not drink champagne or any other wine, from principle, and there are some with whom it does not agree, but the average individual finds that the interest of festive occasions is heightened by its presence in reasonable abundance, and is apt to deplore its total absence with internal groans. But surely ninety-nine men in our large cities out of one hundred, who are accustomed to entertain and be entertained, must be weary of the sight of this expensive tempter at the feast, which it is so difficult to refuse when set before one, and which is so often quaffed against better judgment or inclination. The champagne breakfast, the champagne luncheon, the champagne dinner, and the champagne supper, with a champagne cocktail tossed in as a stop-gap, hound the social favorite from January to December, until he is fain to dream of the Old Oaken Bucket, and sooner or later to drink Lithia water only.

With perpetual and unremitting champagne as the key-note of social gatherings, no wonder that the table ornaments and the comestibles become more splendid. A little dinner of eight or ten is no longer a simple matter of a cordial invitation[89] and an extra course. The hostess who bids her contemporaries to dine with her most informally ten days hence, uses a figure of speech which is innocuous from the fact that it is known to be a deliberate falsehood. She begins generally by engaging a cook from outside to prepare the dinner, which must surely wound the sensibilities of any self-respecting couple the first time, however hardened to the situation they may become later.

At this stage of my reflections I am interrupted by my wife, Barbara—for I was thinking aloud—with a few words of expostulation.

“Are you not a little severe? I assume that you are referring now to people with a comfortable income, but who are not disgustingly rich. Of course, nowadays, the very rich people keep cooks who can cook for a dinner-party, cooks at eight dollars or more a week and a kitchen maid; so it is only the hostess with a cook at four and a half to six dollars a week and no kitchen maid who is likely to engage an accommodator. But what is the poor thing to do? Give a wretched, or plain dinner which may make her hair grow white in a single night? Surely, when a woman invites friends to her house she does not wish[90] them to go away half starved, or remembering that they have had disagreeable things to eat. In that case she would prefer not to entertain at all.”

“The question is,” I answered, “whether it is more sensible to try to be content with what one has, or to vie with those who are better off. We do not attempt to dine on gold plate, nor have we a piano decorated with a five-thousand-dollar painting by one of the great artists, like Patterson, the banker. Why should we endeavor to compete with his kitchen?”

“The clever thing, of course, is to find a cook for six dollars a week who can cook for a dinner-party,” answered Barbara, pensively; “and yet,” she added, “though our cook can, the chances are that nine out of ten of the people who dine with us think that we hired her for the occasion.”

“Precisely. Just because the custom has grown so. It is sheer extravagance.”

“After all, my dear, it is a comparatively small matter—a five-dollar bill.”

“Pardon me. Five dollars for the cook, because one’s own cook is not good enough; three or five dollars for an accommodating maid or waiter, because you cannot trust your chamber-maid[91] to assist your waitress; eight dollars for champagne, and so on.”

“Do not say ‘your’—mine can.”

“Her, then—the woman of the day. I am trying to show that a small informal dinner is a cruelly expensive affair for the average man with a comfortable working income.”

“I admit that a dinner for eight or ten is expensive,” said Barbara. “It means twenty-five dollars at the lowest, even if you have your own cook. But what is one to do? You don’t seem to appreciate that a good plain cook cannot usually prepare dinner-party dishes, and that a plain dinner is now almost as different from a dinner-party dinner as a boiled egg is from caviare.”

“Precisely. There is the pity of it. The growth here of the French restaurant and the taste for rich and elaborate cookery has doubtless been a good thing in its way, if only that it is now possible to obtain a tolerably well-cooked meal at most of the hotels in our large cities and principal watering-places; but why should people of moderate means and social instincts feel constrained to offer a banquet on every occasion when they entertain? I for one consider it a bore to have so much provided when I go out to dinner.”

[92]

“You must admit,” said Barbara, “that dinners are not nearly so long as they were a few years ago. Now, by means of the extra service you complain of, and by keeping the number of courses down, a dinner ought not to last longer than an hour and a half, whereas it used to take two hours and over. In England they are much worse than here. You are given, for instance, two puddings, one after the other, and ices to follow.”

“I agree,” said I, “that we have curtailed the length so that there is not much to complain of on that score. I think, though, that comparatively plain dishes well served are quite as apt to please as the aspics, chartreuses, timbales, and other impressive gallicisms under which the accommodating party cook is wont to cater to the palates of informally invited guests. I sometimes think that the very few of our great great-grandfathers who knew how to live at all must have had more appetizing tables than we. Their family cooks, from all accounts, knew how to roast and boil and bake and stew, culinary arts which somehow seem to be little understood by the chefs of to-day. Then again, the old-fashioned Delft crockery—blue ships sailing on a blue sea—was[93] very attractive. Our modern dinner-tables, when arrayed for a party, have almost too much fuss and feathers. Women worry until they get cut glass, if it is not given them as a wedding present, and several sets of costly plates—Sèvres, Dresden, or Crown Derby—are apt to seem indispensable to housekeepers of comparatively limited means.”

“Cut glass is lovely, and the same plates through seven courses are rather trying,” said Barbara, parenthetically.

“Of course it is lovely, and I am very glad you have some. But is not the modern American woman of refined sensibilities just a little too eager to crowd her table with every article of virtu she possesses—every ornamental spoon, dish, cup, and candlestick—until one is unable to see at any one spot more than a square inch of tablecloth? In the centre of the table she sets a crystal bowl of flowers, a silver basket of ferns, or a dish of fruit. This is flanked by apostle or gold-lined spoons, silver dishes of confectionery of various kinds, silver candlesticks or candelabra fitted with pink or saffron shades, one or two of which are expected to catch fire, an array of cut glass or Venetian glass at every plate, and,[94] like as not, pansies strewn all over the table.”

“The modern dinner-table is very pretty,” responded Barbara. “I don’t see how it could be improved materially.”

“I dare say, but somehow one can’t help thinking at times that the effort for effect is too noticeable, and that the real object of sitting down to dinner in company, agreeable social intercourse, is consequently lost sight of. If only the very rich were guilty of wanton display, the answer would be that the rank and file of our well-to-do, sensible people have very simple entertainments. Unfortunately, while the very rich are constantly vying to outstrip one another, the dinner-table and the dinner of the well-to-do American are each growing more and more complex and elaborate. Perhaps not more so than abroad among the nobility or people of means; but certainly we have been Europeanized in this respect to such an extent that, not only is there practically nothing left for us to learn in the way of being luxurious, but I am not sure that we are not disposed to convince the rest of the civilized world that a free-born American, when fully developed, can be the most luxurious individual on earth.”

[95]

Barbara looked a little grave at this. “Everything used to be so ugly and unattractive a little while ago that I suppose our heads have been turned,” she answered. “After this I shall make a rule, when we give a dinner-party, to keep one-half of my table ornaments in the safe as a rebuke to my vanity. Only if I am to show so much of the tablecloth, I shall have to buy some with handsome patterns. Don’t you see?”

Perhaps this suggestion that our heads have been turned for the time being by our national prosperity, and that they will become straight again in due course of time, is the most sensible view to take of the situation. There can be no doubt that among well-to-do people, who would object to be classed in “the smart set,” as the reporters of social gossip odiously characterize those prominent in fashionable society in our large cities, the changes in the last thirty years connected with every-day living, as well as with entertaining, have all been in the direction of cosmopolitan usage. It is now only a very old-fashioned or a very blatant person who objects to the use of evening dress at the dinner-table, or the theatre, as inconsistent with true patriotism. The dinner-hour has steadily progressed from[96] twelve o’clock noon until it has halted at seven post meridian, as the ordinary hour for the most formal meal of the day, with further postponement to half-past seven or even eight among the fashionable for the sake of company. The frying-pan and the tea-pot have ceased to reign supreme as the patron saints of female nutrition, and the beefsteak, the egg, both cooked and raw, milk and other flesh-and-blood-producing food are abundantly supplied to the rising generation of both sexes by the provident parent of to-day. The price of beef in our large cities has steadily advanced in price until its use as an article of diet is a serious monster to encounter in the monthly bills, but the husband and father who is seeking to live wisely, seems not to be deterred from providing it abundantly.

From this it is evident that if we are unduly exuberant in the pursuit of creature comforts, it is not solely in the line of purely ornamental luxuries. If we continue to try our nervous systems by undue exertion, they are at least better fitted to stand the strain, by virtue of plenty of nutritious food, even though dinner-parties tempt us now and then to over-indulgence, or bore us by their elaborateness. Yet it remains to be seen[97] whether the income of the American husband and father will be able to stand the steady drain occasioned by the liberal table he provides, and it may be that we have some lessons in thrift on this score still in store for us. There is this consolation, that if our heads have been turned in this respect also, and we are supplying more food for our human furnaces than they need, the force of any reaction will not fall on us, but on the market-men, who are such a privileged class that our candidates for public office commonly provide a rally for their special edification just before election-day, and whose white smock-frocks are commonly a cloak for fat though greasy purses. Yet Providence seems to smile on the market-man in that it has given him the telephone, through which the modern mistress can order her dinner, or command chops or birds, when unexpected guests are foreshadowed. Owing to the multiplicity of the demands upon the time of both men and women, the custom of going to market in person has largely fallen into decay. The butcher and grocer send assistants to the house for orders, and the daily personal encounter with the smug man in white, which used to be as inevitable as the dinner, has now[98] mainly been relegated to the blushing bride of from one week to two years’ standing, and the people who pay cash for everything. Very likely we are assessed for the privilege of not being obliged to nose our turkeys and see our chops weighed in advance, and it is difficult to answer the strictures of those who sigh for what they call the good old times, when it was every man’s duty, before he went to his office, to look over his butcher’s entire stock and select the fattest and juiciest edibles for the consumption of himself and family. As for paying cash for everything, my wife Barbara says that, unless people are obliged to be extremely economical, no woman in this age of nervous prostration ought to run the risk of bringing on that dire malady by any such imprudence, and that to save five dollars a month on a butcher’s bill, and pay twenty-five to a physician for ruined nerves, is false political economy.

“I agree with you,” she added, “that we Americans live extravagantly in the matter of daily food—especially meat—as compared with the general run of people in other countries; but far more serious than our appetites and liberal habits, in my opinion, is the horrible waste which[99] goes on in our kitchens, due to the fact that our cooks are totally ignorant of the art of making the most of things. Abroad, particularly on the Continent, they understand how to utilize every scrap, so that many a comfortable meal is provided from what our servants habitually cast into the swill-tub. Here there is perpetual waste—waste—waste, and no one seems to understand how to prevent it. There you have one never-failing reason for the size of our butchers’ and grocers’ bills.”

I assume that my wife, who is an intelligent person, must be correct in this accusation of general wastefulness which she makes against the American kitchen. If so, here we are confronted again with the question of domestic service from another point of view. How long can we afford to throw our substance into the swill-tub? If our emigrant cooks do not understand the art of utilizing scraps and remnants, are we to continue to enrich our butchers without let or hindrance? It would seem that if the American housewife does not take this matter in hand promptly, the cruel laws of political economy will soon convince her by grisly experience that neither poetry nor philanthropy can flourish in a land where there is perpetual waste below stairs.

[100]

On occasions of oratory in this country, nothing will arouse an audience more quickly than an allusion to our public school system, and any speaker who sees fit to apostrophize it is certain to be fervidly applauded. Moreover, in private conversation, whether with our countrymen or with foreigners, every citizen is prone to indulge in the statement, commonly uttered with some degree of emotion, that our public schools are the great bulwarks of progressive democracy. Why, then, is the American parent, as soon as he becomes well-to-do, apt to send his children elsewhere?

I was walking down town with a friend the other day, and he asked me casually where I sent my boys to school. When I told him that they attended a public school he said, promptly, “Good enough. I like to see a man do it. It’s the right thing.” I acquiesced modestly; then, as I knew that he had a boy of his own, I asked him the same question.

“My son,” he replied slowly, “goes to Mr.[101] Bingham’s”—indicating a private school for boys in the neighborhood. “He is a little delicate—that is, he had measles last summer, and has never quite recovered his strength. I had almost made up my mind to send him to a public school, so that he might mix with all kinds of boys, but his mother seemed to think that the chances of his catching scarlet fever or diphtheria would be greater, and she has an idea that he would make undesirable acquaintances and learn things which he shouldn’t. So, on the whole, we decided to send him to Bingham’s. But I agree that you are right.”

There are many men in the community who, like my friend, believe thoroughly that every one would do well to send his boys to a public school—that is, every one but themselves. When it comes to the case of their own flesh and blood they hesitate, and in nine instances out of ten, on some plea or other, turn their backs on the principles they profess. This is especially true in our cities, and it has been more or less true ever since the Declaration of Independence; and as a proof of the flourishing condition of the tendency at present, it is necessary merely to instance the numerous private schools all over the country.[102] The pupils at these private schools are the children of our people of means and social prominence, the people who ought to be the most patriotic citizens of the Republic.

I frankly state that I, for one, would not send my boys to a public school unless I believed the school to be a good one. Whatever other motives may influence parents, there is no doubt that many are finally deterred from sending their boys to a public school by the conviction that the education offered to their sons in return for taxes is inferior to what can be obtained by private contract. Though a father may be desirous to have his boys understand early the theory of democratic equality, he may well hesitate to let them remain comparatively ignorant in order to impress upon them this doctrine. In this age, when so much stress is laid on the importance of giving one’s children the best education possible, it seems too large a price to pay. Why, after all, should a citizen send his boys to a school provided by the State, if better schools exist in the neighborhood which he can afford to have them attend?

This conviction on the part of parents is certainly justified in many sections of the country, and when justifiable, disarms the critic who is[103] prepared to take a father to task for sending his children to a private school. Also, it is the only argument which the well-to-do aristocrat can successfully protect himself behind. It is a full suit of armor in itself, but it is all he has. Every other excuse which he can give is flimsy as tissue-paper, and exposes him utterly. Therefore, if the State is desirous to educate the sons of its leading citizens, it ought to make sure that the public schools are second to none in the land. If it does not, it has only itself to blame if they are educated apart from the sons of the masses of the population. Nor is it an answer to quote the Fourth of July orator, that our public schools are second to none in the world; for one has only to investigate to be convinced that, both as regards the methods of teaching and as regards ventilation, many of them all over the country are signally inferior to the school as it should be, and the school, both public and private, as it is in certain localities. So long as school boards and committees, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, are composed mainly of political aspirants without experience in educational matters, and who seek to serve as a first or second step toward the White House, our public schools are likely to remain only pretty good. So[104] long as people with axes to grind, or, more plainly speaking, text-books to circulate, are chosen to office, our public schools are not likely to improve. So long—and here is the most serious factor of all—so long as the well-to-do American father and mother continue to be sublimely indifferent to the condition of the public schools, the public schools will never be so good as they ought to be.

It must certainly be a source of constant discouragement to the earnest-minded people in this country, who are interested in education, and are at the same time believers in our professed national hostility to class distinctions, that the well-to-do American parent so calmly turns his back on the public schools, and regards them very much from the lofty standpoint from which certain persons are wont to regard religion—as an excellent thing for the masses, but superfluous for themselves. Of course, if we are going, in this respect also, to model ourselves on and imitate the older civilizations, there is nothing to be said. If the public schools are to be merely a semi-charitable institution for children whose parents cannot afford to separate them from the common herd, the discussion ceases. But what becomes,[105] then, of our cherished and Fourth of July sanctified theories of equality and common school education? And what do we mean when we prate of a common humanity, and no upper class?

It is in the city or town, where the public school is equal or superior to the private school, that the real test comes. Yet in these places well-to-do parents seem almost as indifferent as when they have the righteous defence that their children would be imperfectly educated, or breathe foul air, were they to be sent to a public school. They take no interest, and they fairly bristle with polite and ingenious excuses for evading compliance with the institutions of their country. This is true, probably, of three-fifths of those parents, who can afford, if necessary, to pay for private instruction. And having once made the decision that, for some reason, a public school education is not desirable for their children, they feel absolved from further responsibility and practically wash their hands of the matter. It is notorious that a very large proportion of the children of the leading bankers, merchants, professional men, and other influential citizens, who reside in the so-called court end of our large cities, do not attend the public schools, and it is[106] equally notorious that the existence of a well-conducted and satisfactory school in the district affects the attendance comparatively little. If only this element of the population, which is now so indifferent, would interest itself actively, what a vast improvement could be effected in our public school system! If the parents in the community, whose standards of life are the highest, and whose ideas are the most enlightened, would as a class co-operate in the advancement of common education, the charge that our public schools produce on the whole second-rate acquirements, and second-rate morals and manners, would soon be refuted, and the cause of popular education would cease to be handicapped, as it is at present, by the coolness of the well-to-do class. If the public schools, in those sections of our cities where our most intelligent and influential citizens have their homes, are unsatisfactory, they could speedily be made as good as any private school, were the same interest manifested by the tax-payers as is shown when an undesirable pavement is laid, or a company threatens to provide rapid transit before their doors. Unfortunately, that same spirit of aloofness, which has in the past operated largely to exclude this element[107] in the nation from participation in the affairs of popular government, seems to be at the bottom of this matter. Certainly much progress has been made in the last twenty years in remedying the political evil, and the public good appears to demand a change of front from the same class of people on the subject of common education, unless we are prepared to advocate the existence and growth of a favored, special class, out of touch with, and at heart disdainful of, the average citizen.

The most serious enemies of the public schools among well-to-do people appear to be women. Many a man, alive to the importance of educating his sons in conformity with the spirit of our Constitution, would like to send his boys to a public school, but is deterred by his wife. A mother accustomed to the refinements of modern civilization is apt to shrink from sending her fleckless darling to consort, and possibly become the boon companion or bosom friend, of a street waif.

She urges the danger of contamination, both physical and moral, and is only too glad to discover an excuse for refusing to yield. “Would you like to have your precious boy sit side by[108] side with a little negro?” I was asked one day, in horrified accents, by a well-to-do American mother; and I have heard many fears expressed by others that their offspring would learn vice, or contract disease, through daily association with the children of the mass. It is not unjust to state that the average well-to-do mother is gratified when the public school, to which her sons would otherwise be sent, is so unsatisfactory that their father’s patriotism is overborne by other considerations. All theories of government or humanity are lost sight of in her desire to shelter her boys, and the simplest way to her seems to be to set them apart from the rest of creation, instead of taking pains to make sure that they are suitably taught and protected side by side with the other children of the community.

Excellent as many of our private schools are, it is doubtful if either the morals are better, or the liability to disease is less, among the children who attend them than at a public school of the best class. To begin with, the private schools in our cities are eagerly patronized by that not inconsiderable class of parents who hope or imagine that the social position of their children is to be established by association with the children of[109] influential people. Falsehood, meanness, and unworthy ambitions are quite as dangerous to character, when the little man who suggests them has no patches on his breeches, as when he has, and unfortunately there are no outward signs on the moral nature, like holes in trousers, to serve as danger signals to our darlings. Then again, those of us who occupy comfortable houses in desirable localities, will generally find on investigation that the average of the class of children which attend the public school in such a district is much superior to what paternal or maternal fancy has painted. In such a district the children of the ignorant emigrant class are not to be found in large numbers. The pupils consist mainly of the rank and file of the native American population, whose tendencies and capacities for good have always been, and continue to be, the basis of our strength as a people. There is no need that a mother with delicate sensibilities should send her son into the slums in order to obtain for him a common school education; she has merely to consent that he take his chances with the rest of the children of the district in which he lives, and bend her own energies to make the standards of that school as high as possible. In that way she[110] will best help to raise the tone of the community as a whole, and best aid to obliterate those class distinctions which, in spite of Fourth of July negations, are beginning to expose us to the charge of insincerity.

When a boy has reached the age of eleven or twelve, another consideration presents itself which is a source of serious perplexity to parents. Shall he be educated at home—that is, attend school in his own city or town—or be sent to one of the boarding-schools or academies which are ready to open their doors to him and fit him for college? Here again we are met by the suggestion that the boarding-school of this type is not a native growth, but an exotic. England has supplied us with a precedent. The great boarding-schools, Rugby, Eton, and Harrow, are the resort of the gentlemen of England. Though termed public schools, they are class schools, reserved and intended for the education of only the highly respectable. The sons of the butcher, the baker, and candlestick-maker are not formally barred, but they are tacitly excluded. The pupils are the sons of the upper and well-to-do middle classes. A few boarding-schools for boys have been in existence here for many years,[111] but in the last twenty there has been a notable increase in their number and importance. These, too, are essentially class schools, for though ostensibly open to everybody, the charges for tuition and living are beyond the means of parents with a small income. Most of them are schools of a religious denomination, though commonly a belief in the creed for which the institution stands is not made a formal requisite for admission. The most successful profess the Episcopalian faith, and in other essential respects are modelled deliberately on the English public schools.

The strongest argument for sending a boy to one of these schools is the fresh-air plea. Undeniably, the growing boy in a large city is at a disadvantage. He can rarely, if ever, obtain opportunities for healthful exercise and recreation equal to those afforded by a well-conducted boarding-school. He is likely to become a little man too early, or else to sit in the house because there is nowhere to play. At a boarding-school he will, under firm but gentle discipline, keep regular hours, eat simple food, and between study times be stimulated to cultivate athletic or other outdoor pursuits. It is not strange that parents[112] should be attracted by the comparison, and decide that, on the whole, their boys will fare better away from home. Obviously the aristocratic mother will point out to her husband that his predilection for the public school system is answered by the fact that the State does not supply schools away from the city, where abundant fresh air and a famous foot-ball field are appurtenant to the institution. Tom Brown at Rugby recurs to them both, and they conclude that what has been good enough for generations of English boys will be best for their own son and heir.

On the other hand, have we Americans ever quite reconciled ourselves to, and sympathized with, the traditional attitude of English parents toward their sons as portrayed in veracious fiction? The day of parting comes; the mother, red-eyed from secret weeping, tries not to break down; the blubbering sisters throw their arms around the neck of the hero of the hour, and slip pen-wipers of their own precious making into his pockets; the father, abnormally stern to hide his emotion, says, bluffly, “Good-by, Tom; it’s time to be off, and we’ll see you again at Christmas.” And out goes Tom, a tender fledgeling, into the great world of the public school, and[113] that is the last of home. His holidays arrive, but there is no more weeping. He is practically out of his parents’ lives, and the sweet influence of a good mother is exercised only through fairly regular correspondence. And Tom is said to be getting manly, and that the nonsense has nearly been knocked out of him. He has been bullied and has learned to bully; he has been a fag and is now a cock. Perhaps he is first scholar, if not a hero of the cricket or foot-ball field. Then off he goes to college, half a stranger to those who love him best.

This is fine and manly perhaps, in the Anglo-Saxon sense, but does it not seem just a little brutal? Are we well-to-do Americans prepared to give up to others, however exemplary, the conduct of our children’s lives? Granting that the American private boarding-school is a delightful institution, where bullying and fags and cocks are not known, can it ever take the place of home, or supply the stimulus to individual life which is exercised by wise parental love and precept? Of course, it is easier, in a certain sense, to send one’s boy to a select boarding-school, where the conditions are known to be highly satisfactory. It shifts the responsibility on to other shoulders,[114] and yet leaves one who is not sensitive, in the pleasing frame of mind that the very best thing has been done for the young idea. In our busy American life—more feverish than that of our English kinsfolk whose institution we have copied—many doubtless are induced to seek this solution of a perplexing problem by the consciousness of their own lack of efficiency, and their own lack of leisure to provide a continuous home influence superior or equal to what can be supplied by headmasters and their assistants, who are both churchmen and athletes. Many, too, especially fathers, are firm believers in that other English doctrine, that most boys need to have the nonsense knocked out of them, and that the best means of accomplishing this result is to cut them loose from their mothers’ apron-strings.

It is to be borne in mind in this connection that the great English public schools are a national cult. That is, everybody above a certain class sends his sons to one of them. On the other hand, the private boarding-schools on this side of the water, fashioned after them, have thus far attracted the patronage of a very small element of the population. It is their misfortune, rather than their fault, that they are chiefly the resort[115] of the sons of rich or fashionable people, and consequently are the most conspicuously class schools in the country. Doubtless the earnest men who conduct most of them regret that this is so, but it is one of the factors of the case which the American parent with sons must face at present. It may be that this is to be the type of school which is to become predominant here, and that, as in England, the nation will recognize it as a national force, even though here, as there, only the sons of the upper classes enjoy its advantages. That will depend partly on the extent to which we shall decide, as a society, to promote further class education. At present these schools are essentially private institutions. They are small; they do not, like our American colleges, offer scholarships, and thus invite the attendance of ambitious students without means. Moreover, they are almost universally conducted on a sectarian basis, or with a sectarian leaning, which is apt to proselytize, at least indirectly.

While those in charge of them indisputably strive to inculcate every virtue, the well-to-do American father must remember that his sons will associate intimately there with many boys whose parents belong to that frivolous class which[116] is to-day chiefly absorbed in beautiful establishments, elaborate cookery, and the wholly material vanities of life, and are out of sympathy with, or are indifferent to, the earnest temper and views of that already large and intelligent portion of the community, which views with horror the development among us of an aristocracy of wealth, which apes and is striving to outdo the heartless inanities of the Old World. He must remember that a taste for luxury and sensuous, material aims, even though they be held in check by youthful devotion to the rites of the church, will prove no less disastrous, in the long run, to manhood and patriotism, than the lack of fresh air or a famous foot-ball field.

If, however, the American father chooses to keep his sons at home, he is bound to do all he can to overcome the physical disadvantages of city life. Fresh air and suitable exercise can be obtained in the suburbs of most cities by a little energy and co-operation on the part of parents. As an instance, in one or two of our leading cities, clubs of twelve to fifteen boys are sent out three or four afternoons a week under the charge of an older youth—usually a college or other student—who, without interfering with their liberty, supervises[117] their sports, and sees that they are well occupied. On days when the weather is unsuitable for any kind of game, he will take them to museums, manufactories, or other places of interest in the vicinity. In this way some of the watchfulness and discipline which are constantly operative at a boarding-school, are exercised without injury to home ties. There is no doubt that, unless parents are vigilant and interest themselves unremittingly in providing necessary physical advantages, the boys in a crowded city are likely to be less healthy and vigorous in body, and perhaps in mind, than those educated at a first-class boarding-school. It may be, as our cities increase in size, and suburbs become more difficult of access, that the boarding-school will become more generally popular; but there is reason to believe that, before it is recognized as a national institution, sectarian religion will have ceased to control it, and it will be less imitative of England in its tone and social attitude. Until then, at least, many a parent will prefer to keep his boys at home.

[118]

“Supposing you had four daughters, like Mr. Perkins, what would you do with them, educationally speaking?” I said to my wife Barbara, by way of turning my attention to the other sex.

“You mean what would they do with me? They would drive me into my grave, I think,” she answered. “Woman’s horizon has become so enlarged that no mother can tell what her next daughter may not wish to do. I understand, though, that you are referring simply to schools. To begin with, I take for granted you will agree that American parents, who insist on sending their boys to a public school, very often hesitate or decline point-blank to send their girls.”

“Precisely. And we are forthwith confronted by the question whether they are justified in so doing.”

Barbara looked meditative for a moment, then she said: “I am quite aware there is no logical reason why girls should not be treated in the same way, and yet as a matter of fact I am not at all[119] sure, patriotism and logic to the contrary notwithstanding, I should send a daughter to a public school unless I were convinced, from personal examination, that she would have neither a vulgar teacher nor vulgar associates. Manners mean so much to a woman, and by manners I refer chiefly to those nice perceptions of everything which stamp a lady, and which you can no more describe than you can describe the perfume of the violet. The objection to the public schools for a girl is that the unwritten constitution of this country declared years ago that every woman was a born lady, and that manners and nice perceptions were in the national blood, and required no cultivation for their production. Latterly, a good many people interested in educational matters have discovered the fallacy of this point of view; so that when the name of a woman to act as the head of a college or other first-class institution for girls is brought forward to-day, the first question asked is, ‘Is she a lady?’ Ten years ago mental acquirements would have been regarded as sufficient, and the questioner silenced with the severe answer that every American woman is a lady. The public school authorities are still harping too much on the original fallacy, or rather[120] the new point of view has not spread sufficiently to cause the average American school-teacher to suspect that her manners might be improved and her sensibilities refined. There, that sounds like treason to the principles of democracy, yet you know I am at heart a patriot.”

“And yet to bring up boys on a common basis and separate the girls by class education seems like a contradiction of terms,” I said.

“I am confident—at least if we as a nation really do believe in obliterating class distinctions—that it won’t be long before those who control the public schools recognize more universally the value of manners, and of the other traits which distinguish the woman of breeding from the woman who has none,” said Barbara. “When that time comes the well-to-do American mother will have no more reason for not sending her daughters to a public school than her sons. As it is, they should send them oftener than they do.”

“Of course,” continued Barbara, presently, “the best private schools are in the East, and a very much larger percentage, both of girls and boys, attends the public schools in the West than in the East. Indeed, I am inclined to think that comparatively few people west of Chicago do not[121] send their children to public schools. But, on the other hand, there are boarding-schools for girls all over the East which are mainly supported by girls from the West, whose mothers wish to have them finished. They go to the public schools at home until they are thirteen or fourteen, and then are packed off to school for three or four years in order to teach them how to move, and wear their hair, and spell, and control their voices—for the proper modulation of the voice has at last been recognized as a necessary attribute of the well-bred American woman. As for the Eastern girl who is not sent to the public school, she usually attends a private day-school in her native city, the resources of which are supplemented by special instruction of various kinds, in order to produce the same finished specimen. But it isn’t the finished specimen who is really interesting from the educational point of view to-day; that is, the conventional, cosmopolitan, finished specimen such as is turned out with deportment and accomplishments from the hands of the English governess, the French Mother Superior, or the American private school-mistress.

“After making due allowance for the national point of view, I don’t see very much difference[122] in principle between the means adopted to finish the young lady of society here and elsewhere. There are thousands of daughters of well-to-do mothers in this country who are brought up on the old aristocratic theory that a woman should study moderately hard until she is eighteen, then look as pretty as she can, and devote herself until she is married to having what is called on this side of the Atlantic a good time. To be sure, in France the good time does not come until after marriage, and there are other differences, but the well-bred lady of social graces is the well-bred lady, whether it be in London, Paris, Vienna, or New York, and a ball-room in one capital is essentially the same as in all the others, unless it be that over here the very young people are allowed to crowd out everybody else. There are thousands of mothers who are content that this should be the limit of their daughter’s experience, a reasonably good education and perfect manners, four years of whirl, and then a husband, or no husband and a conservative afternoon tea-drinking spinsterhood—and they are thankful on the whole when their girls put their necks meekly beneath the yoke of convention and do as past generations of women all over the civilized[123] world have done. For the reign of the unconventional society young woman is over. She shocks now her own countrywoman even more than foreigners; and though, like the buffalo, she is still extant, she is disappearing even more rapidly than that illustrious quadruped.”

“Are you not wandering slightly from the topic?” I ventured to inquire.

“Not at all,” said Barbara. “I was stating merely that the Old-World, New-World young lady, with all her originality and piquancy, however charming, and however delightfully inevitable she may be, is not interesting from the educational point of view. Or rather I will put it in this way: the thoughtful, well-to-do American mother is wondering hard whether she has a right to be content with the ancient programme for her daughters, and is watching with eager interest the experiments which some of her neighbors are trying with theirs. We cannot claim as an exclusive national invention collegiate education for women, and there’s no doubt that my sex in England is no less completely on the war-path than the female world here; but is there a question that the peculiar qualities of American womanhood are largely responsible for the awakening[124] wherever it has taken place? My dear, you asked me just now what a man like Mr. Perkins should do with his four daughters. Probably Mrs. Perkins is trying to make up her mind whether she ought to send them to college. Very likely she is arguing with Mr. Perkins as to whether, all things considered, it wouldn’t be advisable to have one or two of them study a profession, or learn to do something bread-winning, so that in case he, poor man—for he does look overworked—should not succeed in leaving them the five thousand dollars a year he hopes, they need not swell the category of the decayed gentlewoman of the day. I dare say they discuss the subject assiduously, in spite of the views Mr. Perkins has expressed to you regarding the sacredness of unemployed feminine gentility; for it costs so much to live that he can’t lay up a great deal, and there are certainly strong arguments in favor of giving such girls the opportunity to make the most of themselves, or at least to look at life from the self-supporting point of view. At first, of course, the students at the colleges for women were chiefly girls who hoped to utilize, as workers in various lines, the higher knowledge they acquired there; but every[125] year sees more and more girls, who expect to be married sooner or later—the daughters of lawyers, physicians, merchants—apply for admission, on the theory that what is requisite for a man is none too good for them; and it is the example of these girls which is agitating the serenity of so many mothers, and suggesting to so many daughters the idea of doing likewise. Even the ranks of the most fashionable are being invaded, though undeniably it is still the fashion to stay at home, and I am inclined to think that it is only the lack of the seal of fashion that restrains many conservative people, like the Perkinses, from educating their daughters as though they probably would not be married, instead of as though they were almost certain to be.”

“You may remember that Perkins assured me not long ago, that marriage did not run in the Perkins female line,” said I.

“All the more reason, then, that his girls should be encouraged to equip themselves thoroughly in some direction or other, instead of waiting disconsolately to be chosen in marriage, keeping up their courage as the years slip away, with a few cold drops of Associated Charity. Of course the majority of us will continue to be wives and[126] mothers—there is nothing equal to that when it is a success—but will not marriage become still more desirable if the choicest girls are educated to be the intellectual companions of men, and taught to familiarize themselves with the real conditions of life, instead of being limited to the rose garden of a harem, over the hedges of which they are expected only to peep at the busy world—the world of men, the world of action and toil and struggle and sin—the world into which their sons are graduated when cut loose from the maternal apron-strings? We intend to learn what to teach our sons, so that we may no longer be silenced with the plea that women do not know, and be put off with a secretive conjugal smile. And as for the girls who do not marry, the world is open to them—the world of art and song and charity and healing and brave endeavor in a hundred fields. Become just like men? Never. If there is one thing which the educated woman of the present is seeking to preserve and foster, it is the subtle delicacy of nature, it is the engaging charm of womanhood which distinguishes us from men. Who are the pupils at the colleges for women to-day? The dowdy, sexless, unattractive, masculine-minded beings who have[127] served to typify for nine men out of ten the crowning joke of the age—the emancipation of women? No; but lovely, graceful, sympathetic, earnest, pure-minded girls in the flower of attractive maidenhood. And that is why the well-to-do American mother is asking herself whether she would be doing the best thing for her daughter if she were to encourage her to become merely a New-World, Old-World young lady of the ancient order of things. For centuries the women of civilization have worshipped chastity, suffering resignation and elegance as the ideals of femininity; now we mean to be intelligent besides, or at least as nearly so as possible.”

“In truth a philippic, Barbara,” I said. “It would seem as though Mrs. Grundy would not be able to hold out much longer. Will you tell me, by the way, what you women intend to do after you are fully emancipated?”

“One thing at a time,” she answered. “We have been talking of education, and I have simply been suggesting that no conscientious mother can afford to ignore or pass by with scorn the claims of higher education for girls—experimental and faulty as many of the present methods to attain it doubtless are. As to what women are going to[128] do when our preliminary perplexities are solved and our sails are set before a favorable wind, I have my ideas on that score also, and some day I will discuss them with you. But just now I should like you to answer me a question. What are the best occupations for sons to follow when they have left school or college?”

Pertinent and interesting as was this inquiry of Barbara’s, I felt the necessity of drawing a long breath before I answered it.

[129]

The American young man, in the selection of a vocation, is practically cut off from two callings which are dear to his contemporaries in other civilized countries—the Army and the Navy. The possibility of war, with all its horrors and its opportunities for personal renown, is always looming up before the English, French, German, or Russian youth, who is well content to live a life of gilded martial inactivity in the hope of sooner or later winning the cross for conspicuous service, if he escapes a soldier’s grave. We have endured one war, and we profoundly hope never to undergo another. Those of us who are ethically opposed to the slaughter of thousands of human beings in a single day by cannon, feel that we have geography on our side. Even the bloodthirsty are forced to acknowledge that the prospects here for a genuine contest of any kind are not favorable. Consequently, the ardor of the son and heir, who would like to be a great soldier or a sea captain, is very apt to be cooled by the representation[130] that his days would be spent in watching Indians or cattle thieves on the Western plains, or in cruising uneventfully in the Mediterranean or the Gulf of Mexico. At all events our standing, or, more accurately speaking, sitting Army, and our Navy are so small, that the demand for generals and captains is very limited. Therefore, though we commend to our sons the prowess of Cæsar, Napoleon, Nelson, Von Moltke, and Grant, we are able to demonstrate to them, even without recourse to modern ethical arguments, that the opportunities for distinction on this side of the water are likely to be very meagre.

Also, we Americans, unlike English parents, hesitate to hold out as offerings to the Church a younger son in every large family. We have no national Church; moreover, the calling of a clergyman in this country lacks the social picturesqueness which goes far, or did go far, to reconcile the British younger son to accept the living which fell to his lot through family influence. Then again, would the American mother, like the conventional mother of the older civilizations, as represented in biography and fiction, if asked which of all vocations she would prefer[131] to have her son adopt, reply promptly and fervidly, “the ministry?”

I put this question to my wife by way of obtaining an answer. She reflected a moment, then she said, “If one of my boys really felt called to be a clergyman, I should be a very happy woman; but I wouldn’t on any account have one of them enter the ministry unless he did.” This reply seems to me to express not merely the attitude of the American mother, but also the point of view from which the American young man of to-day is apt to look at the question. He no longer regards the ministry as a profession which he is free to prefer, merely because he needs to earn his daily bread; and he understands, when he becomes a clergyman, that lukewarm or merely conventional service will be utterly worthless in a community which is thirsty for inspirational suggestion, but which is soul-sick of cant and the perfervid reiteration of outworn delusions. The consciousness that he has no closer insight into the mysteries of the universe than his fellow-men, and the fear that he may be able to solace their doubts only by skilful concealment of his own, is tending, here and all over the civilized world, to deter many a[132] young man from embracing that profession, which once seemed to offer a safe and legitimate niche for any pious youth who was uncertain what he wished to do for a living. Happy he who feels so closely in touch with the infinite that he is certain of his mission to his brother-man! But is any one more out of place than the priest who seems to know no more than we do of what we desire to know most? We demand that a poet should be heaven-born; why should we not require equivalent evidence of fitness from our spiritual advisers?

And yet, on the other hand, when the conviction of fitness or mission exists, what calling is there which offers to-day more opportunities for usefulness than the ministry? The growing tendency of the Church is toward wider issues and a broader scope. Clergymen are now encouraged and expected to aid in the solution of problems of living no less than those of dying, and to lead in the discussion of matters regarding which they could not have ventured to express opinions fifty years ago without exposing themselves to the charge of being meddlesome or unclerical. The whole field of practical charity, economics, hygiene, and the relations of human beings to[133] each other on this earth, are fast becoming the legitimate domain of the Church, and the general interest in this new phase of usefulness is serving to convince many of the clergy themselves that the existence of so many creeds, differing but slightly and unimportantly from one another, is a waste of vital force and machinery. In this age of trusts, a trust of all religious denominations for the common good of humanity would be a monopoly which could pay large dividends without fear of hostile legislation.

In this matter of the choice of a vocation, the case of the ambitious, promising young man is the one which commends itself most to our sympathies; and next to it stands that of the general utility man—the youth who has no definite tastes or talents, and who selects his life occupation from considerations other than a consciousness of fitness or of natural inclination. There are here, as elsewhere, born merchants, lawyers, doctors, clergymen, architects, engineers, inventors, and poets, who promptly follow their natural bents without suggestion and in the teeth of difficulties. But the promising young man in search of a brilliant career, and the general utility[134] man, are perhaps the best exponents of a nation’s temper and inclination.

In every civilization many promising youths and the general run of utility men are apt to turn to business, for trade seems to offer the largest return in the way of money with the least amount of special knowledge. In this new country of ours the number of young men who have selected a business career during the last fifty years, from personal inclination, has been very much greater than elsewhere, and the tone and temper of the community has swept the general utility man into mere money making almost as a matter of course. The reasons for this up to this time have been obvious: The resources and industries of a vast and comparatively sparsely settled continent have been developed in the last fifty years, and the great prizes in the shape of large fortunes resulting from the process have naturally captivated the imagination of ambitious youth. We have unjustly been styled a nation of shopkeepers; but it may in all fairness be alleged that, until the last fifteen years, we have been under the spell of the commercial and industrial spirit, and that the intellectual faculties of the nation have been mainly absorbed in the introduction and[135] maintenance of railroads and factories, in the raising and marketing of grain, in the development of real estate enterprises, and in trading in the commodities or securities which these various undertakings have produced.

The resources of the country are by no means exhausted; there are doubtless more mines to open which will make their owners superbly rich; new discoveries in the mechanical or electrical field will afford fresh opportunities to discerning men of means; and individual or combined capital will continue to reap the reward of both legitimate and over-reaching commercial acumen. But it would seem as though the day of enormous fortunes, for men of average brains and luck, in this country were nearly over, and that the great pecuniary prizes of the business world would henceforth be gleaned only by extraordinary or exceptional individuals. The country is no longer sparsely settled; fierce competition speedily cuts the abnormal profit out of new enterprises which are not protected by a patent; and in order to be conspicuously successful in any branch of trade, one will have more and more need of unusual ability and untiring application.

In other words, though ours is still a new[136] country, it will not be very long before the opportunities and conditions of a business life resemble closely those which confront young men elsewhere. As in every civilized country, trade in some form will necessarily engage the attention of a large portion of the population. From physical causes, a vast majority of the citizens of the United States must continue to derive their support from agriculture and the callings which large crops of cereals, cotton, and sugar make occasion for. Consequently business will always furnish occupation for a vast army of young men in every generation, and few successes will seem more enviable than those of the powerful and scrupulous banker, or the broad-minded and capable railroad president. But, on the other hand, will the well-to-do American father and mother, eager to see their promising sons make the most of themselves, continue to advise them to go into business in preference to other callings? And will the general utility man still be encouraged to regard some form of trade as the most promising outlook, for one who does not know what he wishes to do, to adopt? He who hopes to become a great banker or illustrious railway man, must remember that the[137] streets of all our large cities teem with young men whose breasts harbor similar ambitions.

Doubtless, it was the expectation of our forefathers that our American civilization would add new occupations to the callings inherited from the old world, which would be alluring both to the promising young man and the youth without predilections, and no less valuable to society and elevating to the individual than the best of those by which men have earned their daily bread since civilization first was. As a matter of fact, we Americans have added just one, that of the modern stock-broker. To be sure, I am not including the ranchman. It did seem at one time as though we were going to add another in him—a sort of gentleman shepherd. But be it that the cattle have become too scarce or too numerous, be it that the demon of competition has planted his hoofs on the farthest prairie, one by one the brave youths who went West in search of fortune, have returned East for the last time, and abandoned the field to the cowboys and the native settler. The pioneers in this form of occupation made snug fortunes, but after them came a deluge of promising or unpromising youths who branded every animal within a radius of[138] hundreds of miles with a letter of the alphabet. Their only living monument is the polo pony.

Our single and signal contribution to the callings of the world has been the apotheosis of the stock-broker. For the last twenty-five years, the well-to-do father and mother and their sons, in our large cities, have been under the spell of a craze for the brokerage business. The consciousness that the refinements of modern living cannot adequately be supplied in a large city to a family whose income does not approximate ten thousand dollars a year, is a cogent argument in favor of trying to grow rich rapidly, and both the promising young man and the general utility man welcomed the new calling with open arms. Impelled by the notion that here was a vocation which required no special knowledge or attainments, and very little capital, which was pleasant, gentlemanly, and not unduly confining, and which promised large returns almost in the twinkling of an eye, hundreds and thousands of young men became brokers—chiefly stock-brokers, but also cotton-brokers, note-brokers, real-estate-brokers, insurance-brokers, and brokers in nearly everything. The field was undoubtedly a rich one for those who first entered[139] it. There was a need for the broker, and he was speedily recognized as a valuable addition to the machinery of trade. Many huge fortunes were made, and we have learned to associate the word broker with the possession of large means, an imposing house on a fashionable street, and diverse docked and stylish horses.

Of course, the king of all brokers has been the stock-broker, for to him was given the opportunity to buy and sell securities on his own account, though he held himself out to his customers as merely a poor thing who worked for a commission. No wonder that the young man, just out of college, listened open-mouthed to the tales of how many thousands of dollars a year so and so, who had been graduated only five years before, was making, and resolved to try his luck with the same Aladdin’s lamp. Nor was it strange that the sight of men scarcely out of their teens, driving down town in fur coats, in their own equipages, with the benison of successful capitalists in their salutations, settled the question of choice for the youth who was wavering or did not know what he wished to do.

It is scarcely an extreme statement that the so-called aristocracy of our principal cities to-day is[140] largely made up of men who are, or once were, stock-brokers, or who have made their millions by some of the forms of gambling which our easy-going euphemism styles modern commercial aggressiveness. Certainly, a very considerable number of our most splendid private residences have been built out of the proceeds of successful ventures in the stock market, or the wheat pit, or by some other purely speculative operations. Many stars have shone brilliantly for a season, and then plunged precipitately from the zenith to the horizon; and much has been wisely said as to the dangers of speculation; but the fact remains that a great many vast fortunes owe their existence to the broker’s office; fortunes which have been salted down, as the phrase is, and now furnish support and titillation for a leisurely, green old age, or enable the sons and daughters of the original maker to live in luxury.

Whatever the American mother may feel as to her son becoming a clergyman, there is no doubt that many a mother to-day would say “God grant that no son of mine become a stock-broker.” I know stock-brokers—many indeed—who are whole-souled, noble-natured men, free from undue worldliness, and with refined[141] instincts. But the stock-broker, as he exists in the every-day life of our community, typifies signally the gambler’s yearning to gain wealth by short cuts, and the monomania which regards as pitiable those who do not possess and display the gewgaws of feverish, fashionable materialism. There are stock-brokers in all the great capitals of the world, but nowhere has the vocation swallowed up the sons of the best people to the extent that it has done here during the last thirty years. And yet, apart from the opportunity it affords to grow rich rapidly, what one good reason is there why a promising young man should decide to buy and sell stocks for a living? Indeed, not merely decide, but select, that occupation as the most desirable calling open to him? Does it tend either to ennoble the nature or enrich the mental faculties? It is one of the formal occupations made necessary by the exigencies of the business world, and as such is legitimate and may be highly respectable; but surely it does not, from the nature of the services required, deserve to rank high; and really there would seem to be almost as much occasion for conferring the accolade of social distinction on a dealer in excellent fish as on a successful stock-broker.

[142]

However, alas! it is easy enough to assign the reason why the business has been so popular. It appears that, even under the flag of our aspiring nationality, human nature is still so weak that the opportunity to grow rich quickly, when presented, is apt to over-ride all noble considerations. Foreign censors have ventured not infrequently to declare that there was never yet a race so hungry for money as we free-born Americans; and not even the pious ejaculation of one of our United States Senators, “What have we to do with abroad?” is conclusive proof that the accusation is not well founded. In fact: there seems to be ample proof that we, who sneered so austerely at the Faubourg St. Germain and the aristocracies of the Old World, and made Fourth of July protestations of poverty and chastity, have fallen down and worshipped the golden calf merely because it was made of gold. Because it seemed to be easier to make money as stock-brokers than in any other way, men have hastened to become stock-brokers. To be sure it may be answered that this is only human nature and the way of the world. True, perhaps; except that we started on the assumption that we were going to improve on the rest of the world, and[143] that its human nature was not to be our human nature. Would not the Faubourg St. Germain be preferable to an aristocracy of stock-brokers?

At all events, the law of supply and demand is beginning to redeem the situation, and, if not to restore our moral credit, at least to save the rising generation from falling into the same slough. The stock-broker industry has been overstocked, and the late young capitalists in fur overcoats, with benedictory manners, wear anxious countenances under the stress of that Old World demon, excessive competition. Youth can no longer wake up in the morning and find itself the proprietor of a rattling business justifying a steam-yacht and a four-in-hand. The good old days have gone forever, and there is weeping and gnashing of teeth where of late there was joy and much accumulation. There is not business enough for all the promising young men who are stock-brokers already, and the youth of promise must turn elsewhere.

[144]

But though the occupation of broker has become less tempting, the promising youth has not ceased to look askance at any calling which does not seem to foreshadow a fortune in a short time. He is only just beginning to appreciate that we are getting down to hard pan, so to speak, and are nearly on a level, as regards the hardships of individual progress, with our old friends the effete civilizations. He finds it difficult to rid himself of the “Arabian Nights’” notion that he has merely to clap his hands to change ten dollars into a thousand in a single year, and to transform his bachelor apartments into a palace beautiful, with a wife, yacht, and horses, before he is thirty-five. He shrinks from the idea of being obliged to take seriously into account anything less than a hundred-dollar bill, and of earning a livelihood by slow yet persistent acceptance of tens and fives. His present ruling ambition is to be a promoter; that is, to be an organizer of schemes, and to let others do the real work and attend to the disgusting details. There are a great[145] many gentry of this kind in the field just at present. Among them is, or rather was, Lewis Pell, as I will call him for the occasion. I don’t know exactly what he is doing now. But he was, until lately, a promoter.

A handsome fellow was Lewis Pell. Tall, gentlemanly, and athletic-looking, with a gracious, imposing presence and manner, which made his rather commonplace conversation seem almost wisdom. He went into a broker’s office after leaving college, like many other promising young men of his time, but he was clever enough either to realize that he was a little late, or that the promoter business offered a more promising scope for his genius, for he soon disappeared from the purlieus of the Stock Exchange, and the next thing we heard of him was as the tenant of an exceedingly elaborate set of offices on the third floor of a most expensive modern monster building. Shortly after I read in the financial columns of the daily press that Mr. Lewis Pell had sold to a syndicate of bankers the first mortgage and the debenture bonds of the Light and Power Traction Company, an electrical corporation organized under the laws of the State of New Jersey. Thirty days later I saw again that he had[146] sailed for Europe in order to interest London capital in a large enterprise, the nature of which was still withheld from the public.

During the next two or three years I ran across Pell on several occasions. He seemed always to be living at the highest pressure, but the brilliancy of his career had not impaired his good manners or attractiveness. I refer to his career as brilliant at this time because both his operations and the consequent style of living which he pursued, as described by him on two different evenings when I dined with him, seemed to me in my capacity of ordinary citizen to savor of the marvellous, if not the supernatural. He frankly gave me to understand that it seemed to him a waste of time for an ambitious man to pay attention to details, and that his business was to originate vast undertakings, made possible only by large combinations of corporate or private capital. The word combination, which was frequently on his lips, seemed to be the corner-stone of his system. I gathered that the part which he sought to play in the battle of life was to breathe the breath, or the apparent breath, of existence into huge schemes, and after having given them a quick but comprehensive squeeze or two for his own[147] pecuniary benefit, to hand them over to syndicates, or other aggregations of capitalists, for the benefit of whom they might concern. He confided to me that he employed eleven typewriters; that he had visited London seven, and Paris three times, in the last three years, on flying trips to accomplish brilliant deals; that though his headquarters were in New York, scarcely a week passed in which he was not obliged to run over to Chicago, Boston, Washington, Denver, Duluth, or Cincinnati, as the case might be. Without being boastful as to his profits, he did not hesitate to acknowledge to me that if he should do as well in the next three years as in the last, he would be able to retire from business with a million or so.

Apart from this confession, his personal extravagance left no room for doubt that he must be very rich. Champagne flowed for him as Croton or Cochituate for most of us, and it was evident from his language that the hiring of special trains from time to time was a rather less serious matter than it would be for the ordinary citizen to take a cab. The account that he gave of three separate entertainments he had tendered to syndicates—of ten, twelve, and seventeen covers[148] respectively, at twenty dollars a cover—fairly made my mouth water and my eyes stick out, so that I felt constrained to murmur, “Your profits must certainly be very large, if you can afford that sort of thing.”

Pell smiled complacently and a little condescendingly. “I could tell you of things which I have done which would make that seem a bagatelle,” he answered, with engaging mystery. Then after a moment’s pause he said, “Do you know, my dear fellow, that when I was graduated I came very near going into the office of a pious old uncle of mine who has been a commission merchant all his life, and is as poor as Job’s turkey in spite of it all—that is, poor as men are rated nowadays. He offered to take me as a clerk at one thousand dollars a year, with the promise of a partnership before I was bald-headed in case I did well. Supposing I had accepted his offer, where should I be to-day? Grubbing at an office-desk and earning barely enough for board and lodging. I remember my dear mother took it terribly to heart because I went into a broker’s office instead. By the way, between ourselves, I’m building a steam-yacht—nothing very wonderful, but a neat, comfortable craft—and I’m[149] looking forward next summer to inviting my pious old uncle to cruise on her just to see him open his eyes.”

That was three years ago, and to-day I have every reason to believe that Lewis Pell is without a dollar in the world, or rather, that every dollar which he has belongs to his creditors. I had heard before his failure was announced that he was short of money, for the reason that several enterprises with which his name was connected had been left on his hands—neither the syndicates nor the public would touch them—so his suspension was scarcely a surprise. He at present, poor fellow, is only one of an army of young men wandering dejectedly through the streets of New York or Chicago in these days of financial depression, vainly seeking for something to promote.

When the promising youth and the general utility man do get rid of the “Arabian Nights’” notion, and recognize that signal success here, in any form, is likely to become more and more difficult to attain, and will be the legitimate reward only of men of real might, of unusual abilities, originality, or dauntless industry, some of the callings which have fallen, as it were, into[150] disrepute through their lack of gambling facilities, are likely to loom up again socially. It may be, however, that modern business methods and devices have had the effect of killing for all time that highly respectable pillar of society of fifty years ago, the old-fashioned merchant, who bought and sold on his own behalf, or on commission, real cargoes of merchandise, and real consignments of cotton, wheat, and corn. The telegraph and the warehouse certificate have worked such havoc that almost everything now is bought and sold over and over again before it is grown or manufactured, and by the time it is on the market there is not a shred of profit in it for anybody but the retail dealer. It remains to be seen whether, as the speculative spirit subsides, the merchant is going to reinstate himself and regain his former prestige. It may already be said that the promising youth does not regard him with quite so much contempt as he did.

We have always professed in this country great theoretical respect for the schoolmaster, but we have been careful, as the nation waxed in material prosperity, to keep his pay down and to shove him into the social background more[151] and more. The promising youth could not afford to spend his manhood in this wise, and we have all really been too busy making money to think very much about those who are doing the teaching. Have we not always heard it stated that our schools and colleges are second to none in the world? And if our schools, of course our schoolmasters. Therefore why bother our heads about them? It is indeed wonderful, considering the little popular interest in the subject until lately, that our schoolmasters and our college professors are so competent as they are, and that the profession has flourished on the whole in spite of indifference and superiority. How can men of the highest class be expected to devote their lives to a profession which yields little more than a pittance when one is thoroughly successful? And yet the education of our children ought to be one of our dearest concerns, and it is difficult to see why the State is satisfied to pay the average instructor or instructress of youth about as much as the city laborer or a horse-car conductor receives.

There are signs that those in charge of our large educational institutions all over the country are beginning to recognize that ripe scholarship[152] and rare abilities as a teacher are entitled to be well recompensed pecuniarily, and that the breed of such men is likely to increase somewhat in proportion to the size and number of the prizes offered. Our college presidents and professors, those at the head of our large schools and seminaries, should receive such salaries as will enable them to live adequately. By this policy not only would our promising young men be encouraged to pursue learning, but those in the highest places would not be forced by poverty to live in comparative retirement, but could become active social figures and leaders. In any profession or calling under present social conditions only those in the foremost rank can hope to earn more than a living, varying in quality according to the degree of success and the rank of the occupation; but it is to be hoped—and there seems some reason to believe—that the great rewards which come to those more able and industrious than their fellows will henceforth, in the process of our national evolution, be more evenly distributed, and not confined so conspicuously to gambling, speculative, or commercial successes. The leaders in the great professions of law and medicine have for some time[153] past declined to serve the free-born community without liberal compensation, and the same community, which for half a century secretly believed that only a business man has the right to grow rich, has begun to recognize that there are even other things besides litigation and health which ought to come high. For instance, although the trained architect still meets serious and depressing competition from those ready-made experimenters in design who pronounce the first c in the word architect as though it were an s, the public is rapidly discovering that a man cannot build an attractive house without special knowledge.

In the same class with the law, medicine, and architecture, and seemingly offering at present a greater scope for an ambitious young man, is engineering in all its branches. The furnaces, mines, manufactories, and the hydraulic, electrical, or other plants connected with the numerous vast mechanical business enterprises of the country are furnishing immediate occupation for hundreds of graduates of the scientific or polytechnic schools at highly respectable salaries. This field of usefulness is certain for a long time to come to offer employment and a fair livelihood to many, and large returns to those who outstrip their contemporaries.[154] More and more is the business man, the manufacturer, and the capitalist likely to be dependent for the economical or successful development and management of undertakings on the judgment of scientific experts in his own employment or called in to advise, and it is only meet that the counsel given should be paid for handsomely.

Those who pursue literature or art in their various branches in this country, and have talents in some degree commensurate with their ambition, are now generally able to make a comfortable livelihood. Indeed the men and women in the very front rank are beginning to receive incomes which would be highly satisfactory to a leading lawyer or physician. Of course original work in literature or art demands special ability and fitness, but the general utility man is beginning to have many opportunities presented to him in connection with what may be called the clerical work of these professions. The great magazines and publishing houses have an increasing need for trained, scholarly men, for capable critics, and discerning advisers in the field both of letter-press and illustration. Another calling which seems to promise great possibilities[155] both of usefulness and income to those who devote themselves to it earnestly is the comparatively new profession of journalism. The reporter, with all his present horrors, is in the process of evolution; but the journalist is sure to remain the high-priest of democracy. His influence is almost certain to increase materially, but it will not increase unless he seeks to lead public thought instead of bowing to it. The newspaper, in order to flourish, must be a moulder of opinion, and to accomplish this those who control its columns must more and more be men of education, force, and high ideals. Competition will winnow here as elsewhere, but those who by ability and industry win the chief places will stand high in the community and command large pay for their services.

An aristocracy of brains—that is to say, an aristocracy composed of individuals successful and prominent in their several callings—seems to be the logical sequence of our institutions under present social and industrial conditions. The only aristocracy which can exist in a democracy is one of honorable success evidenced by wealth or a handsome income, but the character of such an aristocracy will depend on the ambitions and[156] tastes of the nation. The inevitable economic law of supply and demand governs here as elsewhere, and will govern until such a time as society may be reconstructed on an entirely new basis. Only the leaders in any vocation can hope to grow rich, but in proportion as the demands of the nation for what is best increase will the type and characteristics of these leaders improve. The doing away with inherited orders of nobility and deliberate, patented class distinctions, gives the entire field to wealth. We boast proudly that no artificial barriers confine individual social promotion; but we must remember at the same time that those old barriers meant more than the perpetuation of perfumed ladies and idle gentlemen from century to century. We are too apt to forget that the aristocracies of the old world signified in the first place a process of selection. The kings and the nobles, the lords and the barons, the knights who fought and the ladies for whom they died, were the master-spirits of their days and generations, the strong arms and the strong brains of civilized communities. They stood for force, the force of the individual who was more intelligent, more capable, and mightier in soul and body than his neighbors, and who claimed[157] the prerogatives of superiority on that account. These master-spirits, it is true, used these prerogatives in such a manner as to crystallize society into the classes and the masses, so hopelessly for the latter that the gulf between them still is wide as an ocean, notwithstanding that present nobilities have been shorn of their power so that they may be said to exist chiefly by sufferance. And yet the world is still the same in that there are men more intelligent, more capable, and mightier in soul and body than their fellows. The leaders of the past won their spurs by prowess with the battle-axe and spear, by wise counsel in affairs of state, by the sheer force of their superior manhood. The gentleman and lady stood for the best blood of the world, though they so often belied it by their actions.

We, who are accustomed to applaud our civilization as the hope of the world, may well look across the water and take suggestions from the institutions of Great Britain, not with the idea of imitation, but with a view to consider the forces at work there. For nearly a century now the government, though in form a monarchy, has been substantially a constitutional republic, imbued with inherited traditions and somewhat galvanized[158] by class distinctions, but nevertheless a constitutional republic. The nobility still exists as a sort of French roof or Eastern pagoda to give a pleasing appearance to the social edifice. The hereditary meaning of titles has been so largely negatived by the introduction of new blood—the blood of the strongest men of the period—that they have become, what they originally were, badges to distinguish the men most valuable to the State. Their abolition is merely a question of time, and many of the leaders to whom they are proffered reject them as they would a cockade or a yellow satin waistcoat. On the other hand, and here is the point of argument, the real aristocracy of England for the last hundred years has been an aristocracy of the foremost, ablest, and worthiest men of the nation, and with few exceptions the social and pecuniary rewards have been bestowed both by the State and by public appreciation on the master-spirits of the time in the best sense. Brilliant statesmanship, wisdom on the bench, the surgeon’s skill, the banker’s sound discernment, genius in literature and art, when signally contributed by the individual, have won him fame and fortune.

[159]

It may be said, perhaps, that the pecuniary rewards of science and literature have been less conspicuous than those accorded to other successes, but that has been due to the inherent practical temperament and artistic limitations of the Englishman, and can scarcely be an argument against the contention that English society in the nineteenth century, with all its social idiosyncrasies, has really been graded on the order of merit.

The tide of democracy has set in across the water and is running strongly, and there can be no doubt that the next century is likely to work great and strange changes in the conditions of society in England as well as here. The same questions practically are presented to each nation, except that there a carefully constructed and in many respects admirable system of society is to be disintegrated. We are a new country, and we have a right to be hopeful that we are sooner or later to outstrip all civilizations. Nor is it a blemish that the astonishing development of our material resources has absorbed the energies of our best blood. But it now remains to be seen whether the standards of pure democracy, without traditions or barriers to point the way, are to justify[160] the experiment and improve the race. The character of our aristocracy will depend on the virtues and tastes of the people, and the struggle is to be between aspiration and contentment with low ambitions. Our original undertaking has been made far more difficult by the infusion of the worst blood in Christendom, the lees of foreign nations; but the result of the experiment will be much more convincing because of this change in conditions.

Who are to be the men of might and heroes of democracy? That will depend on the demands and aspirations of the enfranchised people. With all its imperfections, the civilization of the past has fostered the noble arts and stirred genius to immortalize itself in bronze and marble, in cathedral spires, in masterpieces of painting and literature, in untiring scholarship, in fervent labors in law, medicine, and science. Democracy must care for these things, and encourage the individual to choose worthy occupations, or society will suffer. We hope and believe that, in the long run, the standards of humanity will be raised rather than lowered by the lifting of the flood-gates which divide the privileged classes from the mass; but it behooves us all to remember that while demand[161] and supply must be the leading arbiters in the choice of a vocation, the responsibility of selection is left to each individual. Only by the example of individuals will society be saved from accepting the low, vulgar aims and ambitions of the mass as a desirable weal, and this is the strongest argument against the doctrines of those who would repress individuality for the alleged benefit of mankind as a whole. The past has given us many examples of the legislator who cannot be bribed, of the statesman faithful to principle, of the student who disdains to be superficial, of the gentleman who is noble in thought, and speech and action, and they stand on the roll of the world’s great men. Democracy cannot afford not to continue to add to this list, and either she must steel her countenance against the cheap man and his works, or sooner or later be confounded. Was Marie Antoinette a more dangerous enemy of the people than the newspaper proprietor who acquires fortune by catering to the lowest tastes and prejudices of the public, or the self-made capitalist who argues that every man has his price, and seeks to accomplish legislation by bribery?

[162]

I brought Rogers home with me again the other day. I do not mean Rogers in the flesh; but the example of Rogers as a bogy with which to confound my better half and myself. You may recall that Rogers is the book-keeper for Patterson the banker, and that he has brought up and educated a family on a salary of twenty-two hundred dollars a year.

“Barbara,” said I, “we were reflecting yesterday that we never have time to do the things we really wish to do. Have you ever considered how Rogers spends his time?”

My wife admitted that she had not, and she dutifully waited for me to proceed, though I could tell from the expression of her mouth that she did not expect to derive much assistance from the example of Mr. Rogers. Therefore I made an interesting pathological deduction to begin with.

“Rogers does not live on his nerves from one year’s end to the other, as we do.”

[163]

“I congratulate him,” said Barbara, with a sigh.

“And yet,” I continued, “he leads a highly respectable and fairly interesting life. He gets up at precisely the same hour every morning, has his breakfast, reads the paper, and is at his desk punctually on time. He dines frugally, returns to his desk until half-past four or five, and after performing any errands which Mrs. Rogers has asked him to attend to, goes home to the bosom of his family. There he exchanges his coat and boots for a dressing-gown, or aged smoking-jacket, and slippers, and remains by his fireside absorbed in the evening paper until tea-time. Conversation with the members of his family beguiles him for half an hour after the completion of the meal; then he settles down to the family weekly magazine, or plays checkers or backgammon with his wife or daughters. After a while, if he is interested in ferns or grasses, he looks to see how his specimens are growing under the glass case in the corner. He pats the cat and makes sure that the canary is supplied with seed. Now and then he brings home a puzzle, like ‘Pigs in Clover,’ which keeps him up half an hour later than usual, but ordinarily his head is[164] nodding before the stroke of ten warns him that his bed-hour has come. And just at the time that the wife of his employer, Patterson, may be setting out for a ball, he is tucking himself up in bed by the side of Mrs. Rogers.”

“Poor man!” interjected Barbara.

“He has his diversions,” said I. “Now and again neighbors drop in for a chat, and the evening is wound up with a pitcher of lemonade and angel-cake. He and his wife drop in, in their turn, or he goes to a political caucus. Once a fortnight comes the church sociable, and every now and then a wedding. From time to time he and Mrs. Rogers attend lectures. His young people entertain their friends, as the occasion offers, in a simple way, and on Sunday he goes to church in the morning and falls to sleep after a heavy dinner in the afternoon. He leads a quiet, peaceful, conservative existence, unharassed by social functions and perpetual excitement.”

“And he prides himself, I dare say,” said Barbara, “on the score of its virtuousness. He saves his nerves and he congratulates himself that he is not a society person, as he calls it. Your Mr. Rogers may be a very estimable individual, dear, in his own sphere, and I do think[165] he manages wonderfully on his twenty-two hundred dollars a year; but I should prefer to see you lose your nerves and become a gibbering victim of nervous prostration rather than that you should imitate him.”

“I’m not proposing to imitate him, Barbara,” I answered, gravely. “I admit that his life seems rather dull and not altogether inspiring, but I do think that a little of his repose would be beneficial to many of us whose interests are more varied. We might borrow it to advantage for a few months in the year, don’t you think so? I believe, Barbara, that if you and I were each of us to lie flat on our backs for one hour every day and think of nothing—and not even clinch our hands—we should succeed in doing more things than we really wish to do.”

“I suppose it’s the climate—they say it’s the climate,” said Barbara, pensively. “Foreigners don’t seem to be affected in that way. They’re not always in a hurry as we are, and yet they seem to accomplish very nearly as much. We all know what it is to be conscious of that dreadful, nervous, hurried feeling, even when we have plenty of time to do the things we have to do. I catch myself walking fast—racing, in fact—when[166] there is not the least need of it. I don’t clinch my hands nearly so much as I used, and I’ve ceased to hold on to the pillow in bed as though it were a life-preserver, out of deference to Delsarte, but when it comes to lying down flat on my back for an hour a day—every day—really it isn’t feasible. It’s an ideal plan, I dare say, but the days are not long enough. Just take to-day, for instance, and tell me, please, when I had time to lie down.”

“You are clinching your hands now,” I remarked.

“Because you have irritated me with your everlasting Mr. Rogers,” retorted Barbara. She examined, nevertheless, somewhat dejectedly, the marks of her nails in her palms. “In the morning, for instance, when I came down to breakfast there was the mail. Two dinner invitations and an afternoon tea; two sets of wedding-cards, and a notice of a lecture by Miss Clara Hatheway on the relative condition of primary schools here and abroad; requests for subscriptions to the new Cancer Hospital and the Children’s Fresh Air and Vacation Fund; an advertisement of an after-holiday sale of boys’ and girls’ clothes at Halliday’s; a note from Mrs.[167] James Green asking particulars regarding our last cook, and a letter from the President of my Woman’s Club notifying me that I was expected to talk to them at the next meeting on the arguments in favor of and against the ownership by cities and towns of gas and water-works. All these had to be answered, noted, or considered. Then I had to interview the cook and the butcher and the grocer about the dinner, give orders that a button should be sewn on one pair of your trousers and a stain removed from another, and give directions to the chore-man to oil the lock of the front-door, and tell him to go post-haste for the plumber to extract the blotting-paper which the children yesterday stuffed down the drain-pipe in the bath-tub, so that the water could not escape. Then I had to sit down and read the newspaper. Not because I had time, or wished to, but to make sure that there was nothing in it which you could accuse me of not having read. After this I dressed to go out. I stopped at the florist’s to order some roses for Mrs. Julius Cæsar, whose mother is dead; at Hapgood & Wales’s and at Jones’s for cotton-batting, hooks and eyes, and three yards of ribbon; at Belcher’s for an umbrella to replace[168] mine, which you left in the cable-cars, and at the library to select something to read. I arrived home breathless for the children’s dinner, and immediately afterward I dressed and went to the meeting of the Executive Committee of the Woman’s Club, stopping on the way to inquire if Mrs. Wilson’s little boy were better. We started by discussing a proposed change in our Constitution regarding the number of black-balls necessary to exclude a candidate, and drifted off on to ‘Trilby.’ It was nearly five when I got away, and as I felt it on my conscience to go both to Mrs. Southwick’s and Mrs. Williams’s teas, I made my appearance at each for a few minutes, but managed to slip away so as to be at home at six. When you came in I had just been reading to the children and showing them about their lessons. Now I have only just time to dress for dinner, for we dine at the Gregory Browns, at half-past seven. We ought to go later to the reception at Mrs. Hollis’s—it is her last of three and we haven’t been yet—but I suppose you will say you are too tired. There! will you tell me when I could have found time to lie down for an hour to-day?”

I was constrained to laugh at my wife’s recital,[169] and I was not able at the moment to point out to her exactly what she might have omitted from her category so as to make room for the hour of repose. Nor, indeed, as I review the events of my own daily life and of the daily lives of my friends and acquaintances, am I able to define precisely where it could be brought in. And yet are we not—many of us who are in the thick of modern life—conscious that our days are, as it were, congested? We feel sure that so far as our physical comfort is concerned we ought to be doing less, and we shrewdly suspect that, if we had more time in which to think, our spiritual natures would be the gainers. The difficulty is to stop, or rather to reduce the speed of modern living to the point at which these high-pressure nervous symptoms disappear, and the days cease to seem too short for what we wish to accomplish. Perhaps those who take an intense interest in living will never be able to regain that delightful condition of equipoise, if it ever existed, which our ancestors both here and across the water are said to have experienced. Perhaps, too, our ancestors were more in a hurry when they were alive than they seem to have been now that they are dead; but, whether this be true or[170] otherwise, we are confidently told by those who ought to know that we Americans of this day and generation are the most restless, nervous people under the sun, and live at a higher pressure than our contemporaries of the effete civilizations. It used to be charged that we were in such haste to grow rich that there was no health in us; and now that we are, or soon will be, the wealthiest nation in the world, they tell us that we continue to maintain the same feverish pace in all that we undertake or do.

I am not sure that this charge could not be brought against the Englishman, Frenchman, or German of to-day with almost equal justice, or, in other words, that it is a characteristic of the age rather than of our nation; but that conviction would merely solace our pride and could not assuage “that tired feeling” of which so many are conscious. At all events, if we do not work harder than our kinsmen across the sea, we seem to bear the strain less well. It may be the climate, as my wife has said, which causes our nervous systems to rebel; but then, again, we cannot change the climate, and consequently must adapt ourselves to its idiosyncrasies.

Ever since we first began to declare that we[171] were superior to all other civilizations we have been noted for our energy. The way in which we did everything, from sawing wood to electing a President, was conspicuous by virtue of the bustling, hustling qualities displayed. But it is no longer high treason to state that our national life, in spite of its bustle, was, until comparatively recently, lacking in color and variety. The citizen who went to bed on the stroke of ten every night and did practically the same thing each day from one year’s end to the other was the ideal citizen of the Republic, and was popularly described as a conservative and a strong man. His life was led within very repressed limits, and anything more artistic than a chromo or religious motto was apt to irritate him and shock his principles. To be sure, we had then our cultivated class—more narrowly but possibly more deeply cultivated than its flourishing successor of to-day—but the average American, despite his civic virtues and consciousness of rectitude, led a humdrum existence, however hustling or bustling. There is a large percentage of our population that continues to live in much the same manner, notwithstanding the wave of enlightenment which has swept over the country and keyed us all up[172] to concert pitch by multiplying the number of our interests. I feel a little guilty in having included Rogers among this number, for I really know of my own knowledge nothing about his individual home life. It may be that I have been doing him a rank injustice, and that his home is in reality a seething caldron of progress. I referred to him as a type rather than as an individual, knowing as I do that there are still too many homes in this country where music, art, literature, social tastes, and intelligent interest in human affairs in the abstract, when developed beyond mere rudimentary lines, are unappreciated and regarded as vanities or inanities.

On the other hand, there is nothing more interesting in our present national evolution than the eager recognition by the intelligent and aspiring portion of the people that we have been and are ignorant, and that the true zest of life lies in its many-sidedness and its possibilities of development along æsthetic, social, and intellectual as well as moral lines. The United States to-day is fairly bristling with eager, ambitious students, and with people of both sexes, young and middle-aged, who are anxiously seeking how to make the most of life. This eagerness of soul[173] is not confined to any social class, and is noticeable in every section of the country in greater or less degree. It is quite as likely to be found among people of very humble means as among those whose earliest associations have brought them into contact with the well-to-do and carefully educated. Therefore I beg the pardon of Rogers in case I have put him individually in the wrong category. A divine yet cheery activity has largely taken the place of sodden self-righteousness on the one hand, and analytical self-consciousness on the other. The class is not as yet very large as compared with the entire population of the country, but it is growing rapidly, and its members are the most interesting men and women of the Republic—those who are in the van of our development as a people.

Overcrowded and congested lives signify at least earnestness and absorption. Human nature is more likely to aspire and advance when society is nervously active, than when it is bovine and self-congratulatory. But nerves can endure only a certain amount of strain without reminding human beings that strong and healthy bodies are essential to true national progress. Only recently in this country have we learned to consider[174] the welfare of the body, and though we have begun to be deadly in earnest about athletics, the present generation of workers was, for the most part, brought up on the theory that flesh and blood was a limitation rather than a prerequisite. We are doing bravely in this matter so far as the education of our children is concerned, but it is too late to do much for our own nerves. Though stagnation is a more deplorable state, it behooves us, nevertheless, if possible, to rid ourselves of congestion for our ultimate safety.

An active man or woman stopping to think in the morning may well be appalled at the variety of his or her life. The ubiquity of the modern American subconsciousness is something unique. We wish to know everything there is to know. We are interested not merely in our own and our neighbors’ affairs—with a knowledge of which so many citizens of other lands are peacefully contented—but we are eager to know, and to know with tolerable accuracy, what is going on all over the world—in England, China, Russia, and Australia. Not merely politically, but socially, artistically, scientifically, philosophically, and ethically. No subject is too[175] technical for our interest, provided it comes in our way, whether it concern the canals in Mars or the antitoxin germ. The newspaper and the telegraph have done much to promote this ubiquity of the mind’s eye all over the world, but the interests of the average American are much wider and more diversified than those of any other people. An Englishman will have his hobbies and know them thoroughly, but regarding affairs beyond the pale of his limited inquiry he is deliberately and often densely ignorant. He reads, and reads augustly, one newspaper, one or two magazines—a few books; we, on the other hand, are not content unless we stretch out feelers in many directions and keep posted, as we call it, by hasty perusals of almost innumerable publications for fear lest something escape us. What does the Frenchman—the average intelligent Frenchman—know or care about the mode of our Presidential elections, and whether this Republican or that Democrat has made or marred his political reputation? We feel that we require to inform ourselves not only concerning the art and literature of France, but to have the names and doings of her statesmen at our fingers’ ends for use in polite conversation, and the[176] satisfaction of the remains of the New England conscience. All this is highly commendable, if it does not tend to render us superficial. The more knowledge we have, the better, provided we do not fall into the slough of knowing nothing very well, or hunt our wits to death by over-acquisitiveness. There is so much nowadays to learn, and seemingly so little time in which to learn it, we cannot afford to spread ourselves too thin.

The energy of our people has always been conspicuous in the case of women. The American woman, from the earliest days of our history, has refused to be prevented by the limitations of time or physique from trying to include the entire gamut of human feminine activity in her daily experience. There was a period when she could demonstrate successfully her ability to cook, sweep, rear and educate children, darn her husband’s stockings, and yet entertain delightfully, dress tastefully, and be well versed in literature and all the current phases of high thinking. The New England woman of fifty years ago was certainly an interesting specimen from this point of view, in spite of her morbid conscience and polar sexual proclivities. But among the well-to-do[177] women of the nation to-day—the women who correspond socially to those just described—this achievement is possible only by taxing the human system to the point of distress, except in the newly or thinly settled portions of the country, where the style of living is simple and primitive.

In the East, of course, in the cities and towns the women in question ceased long ago to do all the housework; and among the well-to-do, servants have relieved her of much, if not of all of the physical labor. But, on the other hand, the complexities of our modern establishments, and the worry which her domestics cause her, make the burden of her responsibilities fully equal to what they were when she cooked flap-jacks and darned stockings herself. In other countries the women conversant with literature, art, and science, who go in for philanthropy, photography, or the ornamentation of china, who write papers on sociological or educational matters, are, for the most part, women of leisure in other respects. The American woman is the only woman at large in the universe who aims to be the wife and mother of a family, the mistress of an establishment, a solver of world problems, a social[178] leader, and a philanthropist or artistic devotee at one and the same time. Each of these interests has its determined followers among the women of other civilizations, but nowhere except here does the eternal feminine seek to manifest itself in so many directions in the same individual.

This characteristic of our womanhood is a virtue up to a certain point. The American woman has certainly impressed her theory that her sex should cease to be merely pliant, credulous, and ignorantly complacent so forcibly on the world that society everywhere has been affected by it. Her desire to make the most of herself, and to participate as completely as possible in the vital work of the world without neglecting the duties allotted to her by the older civilizations, is in the line of desirable evolution. But there is such a thing as being superficial, which is far more to be dreaded than even nervous prostration. Those absorbed in the earnest struggle of modern living may perhaps justly claim that to work until one drops is a noble fault, and that disregard of one’s own sensations and comfort is almost indispensable in order to accomplish ever so little. But there is nothing noble in superficiality; and it[179] would seem that the constant flitting from one interest to another, which so many American women seem unable to avoid, must necessarily tend to prevent them from knowing or doing anything thoroughly.

As regards the creature man, the critics of this country have been accustomed to assert that he was so much absorbed in making money, or in business, as our popular phrase is, that he had no time for anything else. This accusation used to be extraordinarily true, and in certain parts of the country it has not altogether ceased to be true; though even there the persistent masculine dollar-hunter regards wistfully and proudly the æsthetic propensities of the female members of his family, and feels that his labors are sweetened thereby. This is a very different attitude from the self-sufficiency of half a century ago. The difficulty now is that our intelligent men, like our women, are apt to attempt too much, inclined to crowd into each and every day more sensations than they can assimilate. An Englishwoman, prominent in educational matters, and intelligent withal, recently expressed her surprise to my wife, Barbara, that the American gentleman existed. She had been long familiar with the American[180] woman as a charming, if original, native product, but she had never heard of the American gentleman—meaning thereby the alert, thoughtful man of high purposes and good-breeding. “How many there are!” the Briton went on to say in the enthusiasm of her surprise. Indeed there are. The men prominent in the leading walks of life all over this country now compare favorably, at least, with the best of other nations, unless it be that our intense desire to know everything has rendered, or may render, us accomplished rather than profound.

[181]

After all, whether this suggestion of a tendency toward superficiality be well founded or not, the proper use of time has come to be a more serious problem than ever for the entire world. The demands of modern living are so exacting that men and women everywhere must exercise deliberate selection in order to live wisely. To lay down general rules for the use of time would be as futile as to insist that every one should use coats of the same size and color, and eat the same kind and quantity of food. The best modern living may perhaps be correctly defined as a happy compromise in the aims and actions of the individual between self-interest and altruism.

If one seeks to illustrate this definition by example it is desirable in the first place to eliminate the individuals in the community whose use of time is so completely out of keeping with this doctrine that it is not worth while to consider them. Murderers, forgers, and criminals of all kinds, including business men who practise petty thefts, and respectable tradesmen who give short[182] weight and overcharge, instinctively occur to us. So do mere pleasure-seekers, drunkards, and idle gentlemen. On the same theory we must exclude monks, deliberate celibates, nuns, and all fanatical or eccentric persons whose conduct of life, however serviceable in itself as a leaven or an exception, could not be generally imitated without disaster to society. It would seem also as though we must exclude those who have yet to acquire such elemental virtues of wise living as cleanliness, reverence for the beautiful, and a certain amount of altruism. There is nothing to learn as to the wise use of time from those whose conceptions of life are handicapped by the habitual use of slang and bad grammar and by untidiness; who regard the manifestations of good taste and fine scholarship as “frills,” and who, though they be unselfish in the bosoms of their families, take no interest in the general welfare of the community.

Let me in this last connection anticipate the criticism of the sentimentalist and of the free-born American who wears a chip on his shoulder, by stating that time may be as beautifully and wisely spent, and life be as noble and serviceable to humanity in the home of the humblest citizen[183] as in that of the well-to-do or rich. Of course it may. Who questions it? Did I not, in order not even to seem to doubt it, take back all I hazarded about the manner in which Rogers spends his time? It may be just as beautifully and wisely spent, and very often is so. But, on the other hand, I suggest, timorously and respectfully, that it very often is not, and I venture further to ask whether the burden is not on democracy to show that the plain life of the plain people as at present conducted is a valuable example of wise and improving use of time? The future is to account for itself, and we all have faith in democracy. We are all plain people in this country. But just as a passing inquiry, uttered not under my breath, yet without levity or malice, what is the contribution so far made by plainness as plainness to the best progress of the world? Absolutely nothing, it seems to me. Progress has come from the superiority of individuals in every class of life to the mass of their contemporaries. The so-called plainness of the plain people too often serves at the present day as an influence to drag down the aspiring individual to the dead level of the mass which contents itself with bombastic cheapness of thought and action. This is no plea against[184] democracy, for democracy has come to stay; but it is an argument why the best standards of living are more likely to be found among those who do not congratulate themselves on their plainness than those who are content to live no better and no worse than their neighbors. Discontent with self is a valuable Mentor in the apportionment of time.

Therefore I offer as the most valuable study in the use of time under modern conditions the men and women in our large cities who are so far evolved that they are not tempted to commit common crimes, are well educated, earnest and pleasing, and are keenly desirous to effect in their daily lives that happy compromise between self-interest and altruism to which I have referred as the goal of success in the use of time. Let us consider them from the point of every day in the week and of the four seasons. In every man’s life his occupation, the calling or profession by which he earns his bread, must necessarily be the chief consumer of his time. We Americans have never been an idle race, and it is rare that the father of a family exposes himself to the charge of sloth. His work may be unintelligent or bungling, but he almost invariably spends rather too much than[185] too little time over it. If you ask him why, he says he cannot help it; that in order to get on he must toil early and late. If he is successful, he tells you that otherwise he cannot attend to all he has to do. There is plausibility in this. Competition is undoubtedly so fierce that only those who devote themselves heart and soul to any calling are likely to succeed. Moreover, the consciousness of success is so engrossing and inspiriting that one may easily be tempted to sacrifice everything else to the game.

But can it be doubted, on the other hand, that the man who refuses to become the complete slave either of endeavor or success is a better citizen than he who does? The chief sinners in this respect in our modern life are the successful men, those who are in the thick of life doing reasonably well. The man who has not arrived, or who is beginning, must necessarily have leisure for other things for the reason that his time is not fully employed, but the really busy worker must make an effort or he is lost. If he does not put his foot down and determine what else he will do beside pursuing his vocation every day in the year except Sunday, and often on Sunday to boot, he may be robust enough to escape a[186] premature grave, but he will certainly not make the best use of his life.

The difficulty for such men, of course, is to select what they will do. There are so many things, that it is easy to understand why the mind which abhors superficiality should be tempted to shut its ears out of sheer desperation to every other interest but business or profession. If every one were to do that what would be the result? Our leading men would simply be a horde of self-seekers, in spite of the fact that their individual work in their several callings was conscientious and unsparing of self. Deplorable as a too great multiplicity of interests is apt to be to the welfare and advancement of an ambitious man, the motive which prompts him to endeavor to do many things is in reality a more noble one, and one more beneficial to society than absorption to excess in a vocation. The cardinal principle in the wise use of time is to discover what one can do without and to select accordingly. Man’s duty to his spiritual nature, to his æsthetic nature, to his family, to public affairs, and to his social nature, are no less imperative than his duty to his daily calling. Unless each of these is in some measure catered to, man falls short in his[187] true obligations. Not one of them can be neglected. Some men think they can lighten the load to advantage by disregarding their religious side. Others congratulate themselves that they never read novels or poetry, and speak disrespectfully of the works of new schools of art as daubs. A still larger number shirks attention to political and social problems, and declares bluffly that if a man votes twice a year and goes to a caucus, when he is sent for in a carriage by the committee, it is all that can be expected of a busy man. Another large contingent swathes itself in graceless virtue, and professes to thank God that it keeps aloof from society people and their doings. Then we are all familiar with the man who has no time to know his own family, though, fortunately, he is less common than he used to be.

If I were asked to select what one influence more than another wastes the spare time of the modern man, I should be inclined to specify the reading of newspapers. The value of the modern daily newspaper as a short cut to knowledge of what is actually happening in two hemispheres is indisputable, provided it is read regularly so that one can eliminate from the consciousness[188] those facts which are contradicted or qualified on the following day. Of course it is indispensable to read the morning, and perhaps the evening, newspaper in order to know what is going on in the world. But the persistent reading of many newspapers, or the whole of almost any newspaper, is nearly as detrimental to the economy of time as the cigarette habit to health. Fifteen minutes a day is ample time in which to glean the news, and the busy man who aspires to use his time to the best advantage may well skip the rest. There is no doubt that many of our newspapers contain some of the best thought of the day scattered through their encyclopædic columns; but there is still less doubt that they are conducted to please, first of all, those who otherwise would read nothing. From this point of view they are most valuable educators; moreover, the character of the newspaper is steadily improving, and it is evident that those in charge of the best of them are seeking to raise the public taste instead of writing down to it; but the fact remains that they at present contain comparatively little which the earnest man can afford to linger over if he would avoid mental dissipation of an insidious kind. A newspaper containing[189] only the news and the really vital thought of the day compressed into short space is among the successful enterprises of the future which some genius will perpetuate. How many of us, already, weary of the social gossip, the sensational personalities, the nauseous details of crime, the custom-made articles, the Sunday special features, the ubiquitous portrait, and finally the colored cartoon, would write our names large on such a subscription-list!

In the matter of books, too, the modern man and woman may well exercise a determined choice. There is so much printed nowadays between ornamental covers, that any one is liable to be misled by sheer bewilderment, and deliberate selection is necessary to save us from being mentally starved with plenty. We cannot always be reading to acquire positive knowledge; entertainment and self-oblivion are quite as legitimate motives for the hard worker as meditated self-improvement; but whether we read philosophy and history, or the novel, the poem, and the essay, it behooves us to read the best of its kind. From this standpoint the average book club is almost a positive curse. A weekly quota of books appears on our library tables, to be devoured in[190] seven days. We read them because they come to us by lot, not because we have chosen them ourselves. There is published in every year of this publishing age a certain number of books of positive merit in the various departments of literature and thought, which a little intelligent inquiry would enable us to discover. By reading fewer books, and making sure that the serious ones were sound and the light or clever ones really diverting, the modern man and woman would be gainers both in time and approbation.

In this connection let me head off again the sentimentalist and moralist by noting that old friends in literature are often more satisfying and engaging than new. Those of us who are in the thick of life are too apt to forget to take down from our shelves the comrades we loved when we were twenty-one—the essayists, the historians, the poets, and novelists whose delightful pages are the literature of the world. An evening at home with Shakespeare is not the depressing experience which some clever people imagine. One rises from the feast to go to bed with all one’s æsthetic being refreshed and fortified as though one had inhaled oxygen. What a contrast this to the stuffy taste in the roof of the[191] mouth, and the weary, dejected frame of mind which follow the perusal of much of the current literature which cozening booksellers have induced the book club secretary to buy.

A very little newspaper reading and a limited amount of selected reading will leave time for the hobby or avocation. Every man or woman ought to have one; something apart from business, profession, or housekeeping, in which he or she is interested as a study or pursuit. In this age of the world it may well take the form of educational, economic, or philanthropic investigation, or co-operation, if individual tastes happen to incline one to such work. The prominence of such matters in our present civilization is, of course, a magnet favorable to such a choice. In this way one can, as it were, kill two birds with one stone, develop one’s own resources and perform one’s duty toward the public. But, on the other hand, there will be many who have no sense of fitness for this service, and whose predilections lead them toward art, science, literature, or some of their ramifications. The amateur photographer, the extender of books, the observer of birds, are alike among the faithful. To have one hobby and not three or four, and to persevere[192] slowly but steadily in the fulfilment of one’s selection, is an important factor in the wise disposal of time. It is a truism to declare that a few minutes in every day allotted to the same piece of work will accomplish wonders; but the result of trying will convince the incredulous. Indeed one’s avocation should progress and prevail by force of spare minutes allotted daily and continuously; just so much and no more, so as not to crowd out the other claimants for consideration. Fifteen minutes before breakfast, or between kissing the children good-night and the evening meal, or even every other Saturday afternoon and a part of every holiday, will make one’s hobby look well-fed and sleek at the end of a few years.

Perhaps the most difficult side of one’s nature to provide for adequately is the social side. It is easy enough to make a hermit of one’s self and go nowhere; and it is easy enough to let one’s self be sucked into the vortex of endless social recreation until one’s sensations become akin to those of a highly varnished humming-top. I am not quite sure which is the worse; but I am inclined to believe that the hermit, especially if self-righteous, is more detestable in that he is[193] less altruistic. He may be a more superior person than the gadfly of society, but ethics no longer sanctions self-cultivation purely for the benefit of self. Every man and woman who seeks to play an intelligent part in the world ought to manage to dine out and attend other social functions every now and then, even if it be necessary to bid for invitations. Most of us have more invitations than we can possibly accept, and find the problem of entertaining and being entertained an exceedingly perplexing one to solve from the standpoint of time. But in spite of the social proclivities of most of us, there are still many people who feel that they are fulfilling their complete duty as members of society if they live lives of strict rectitude far from the madding crowd of so-called society people, and never darken the doors of anybody. It is said that it takes all sorts of people to make up the world, but disciplinarians and spoil-sports of this sort are so tiresome that they would not be missed were they and their homilies to be translated prematurely to another sphere.

Those of us, however, who profess a contrary faith, experience difficulty at times in being true to it, and are often tempted to slip back into domestic[194] isolation by the feverishness of our social life. It sometimes seems as though there were no middle way between being a humming-top and a hermit. Yet nothing is more fatal to the wise use of time than the acceptance of every invitation received, unless it be the refusal of every one. Here again moderation and choice are the only safeguards, in spite of the assurance of friends that it is necessary to go a great deal in order to enjoy one’s self. In our cities the bulk of the entertainments of the year happen in the four winter months; from which many far from frivolous persons argue that the only way is to dine out every night, and go to everything to which one is asked during this period, and make up between April 15th and December 15th for any arrears due the other demands of one’s nature. This is plausible, but a dangerous theory, if carried to excess. Wise living consists in living wisely from day to day, without excepting any season. Three evenings in a week spent away from one’s own fireside may not be an easy limit for some whose social interests are varied, but both the married and the single who regret politely in order to remain tranquilly at home four evenings out of seven, need not fear that they[195] have neglected the social side of life even in the gayest of seasons.

And here, for the sake of our sometimes dense friend the moralist—especially the moralist of the press, who raves against society people from the virtuous limit of an occasional afternoon tea—let me add that by entertainments and recreation I intend to include not merely formal balls and dinner-parties, but all the forms of more or less innocent edification and diversion—teas, reform meetings, theatres, receptions, concerts, lectures, clubs, sociables, fairs, and tableaux, by which people all over the country are brought together to exchange ideas and opinions in good-humored fellowship.

In the apportionment of time the consideration of one’s physical health is a paramount necessity, not merely for a reasonably long life, but to temper the mind’s eye so that the point of view remain sane and wholesome. An overwrought nervous system may be capable of spasmodic spurts, but sustained useful work is impossible under such conditions. To die in harness before one’s time may be fine, and in exceptional cases unavoidable, but how much better to live in harness and do the work which one has undertaken[196] without breaking down. Happily the young men and women of the country of the present generation may almost be said to have athletics and fresh air on the brain. What with opportunity and precept they can scarcely help living up to the mark in this respect. The grown-up men and women, absorbed in the struggle of life, are the people who need to keep a watchful eye upon themselves. It is so easy to let the hour’s fresh air and exercise be crowded out by the things which one feels bound to do for the sake of others, and hence for one’s immortal soul. We argue that it will not matter if we omit our walk or rest for a day or two, and so we go on from day to day, until we are brought up with a round turn, as the saying is, and realize, in case we are still alive, that we are chronic invalids. The walk, the ride, the drive, the yacht, the bicycle, the search for wild flowers and birds, the angler’s outing, the excursion with a camera, the deliberate open-air breathing spell on the front platform of a street-car, some one of these is within the means and opportunities of every busy worker, male and female.

For many of us the most begrudged undertaking of all is to find time for what we owe to[197] the world at large or the State, the State with a capital S, as it is written nowadays. There is no money in such bestowals, no private gain or emolument. What we give we give as a tribute to pure altruism, or, in other words, because as men and women we feel that it is one of the most important elements in wise living. It is indisputable that there was never so much disinterested endeavor in behalf of the community at large as there is to-day, but at the same time it is true that the agitations and work are accomplished by a comparatively small number of people. There are probably among the intelligent, aspiring portion of the population at least five persons who intend to interest themselves in public affairs, and regard doing so as essential to a useful life, to every one who puts his theories into practice. No man or woman can do everything. We cannot as individuals at one and the same time busy ourselves successfully in education, philanthropy, political reform, and economic science. But if every one would take an active, earnest concern in something, in some one thing, and look into it slowly but thoroughly, this man or woman in the public schools, this in the methods of municipal government, and this in the problems of[198] crime or poverty, reforms would necessarily proceed much faster. Just a little work every other day or every week. Let it be your hobby if you will, if you have no time for a hobby too. If five thousand men in every large city should take an active interest in and give a small amount of time in every week to the school question, we should soon have excellent public schools; if another five thousand would devote themselves to the affairs of municipal government in a similar fashion, would there be so much corruption as at present, and would so inferior a class of citizens be chosen to be aldermen and to fill the other city offices? And so on to the end of the chapter. Is not something of the kind the duty of every earnest man and woman? Let those who boast of being plain people put this into their pipes and smoke it. When the self-styled working-classes are prohibited by law from working more than eight hours, will they contribute of their spare time to help those who are trying to help them?

American men have the reputation of being considerate husbands and indulgent fathers; but they have been apt at all events, until recently, to make permission to spend take the place of[199] personal comradeship. This has been involuntarily and regretfully ascribed to business pressure; but fatalistic remorse is a poor substitute for duty, even though the loved ones eat off gold plate and ride in their own carriages as a consequence. We Americans who have begotten children in the last twenty years do not need to be informed that the time given to the society of one’s wife and family is the most precious expenditure of all, both for their sakes and our own. But though the truth is obvious to us, are we not sometimes conscious at the end of the week that the time due us and them has been squandered or otherwise appropriated? Those walks and talks, those pleasant excursions from city to country, or country to city, those quiet afternoons or evenings at home, which are possible to every man and woman who love each other and their children, are among the most valuable aids to wise living and peace of mind which daily existence affords. Intimacy and warm sympathy, precept and loving companionship, are worth all the indulgent permission and unexpected cheques in the world. Some people, when Sunday or a holiday comes, seem to do their best to get rid of their families and to try to amuse themselves[200] apart from them. Such men and women are shutting out from their lives the purest oxygen which civilization affords; for genuine comradeship of husband and wife, and father or mother and child, purges the soul and tends to clear the mind’s eye more truly than any other influence.

Lastly and firstly, and in close compact with sweet domesticity and faithful friendship, stand the spiritual demands of our natures. We must have time to think and meditate. Just as the flowers need the darkness and the refreshing dew, the human soul requires its quiet hours, its season for meditation and rest. Whatever we may believe, whatever doubts we may entertain regarding the mysteries of the universe, who will maintain that the aspiring side of man is a delusion and an unreality? In the time—often merely minutes—which we give to contemplation and serious review of what we are doing, lies the secret of the wise plan, if not the execution. To go on helter-skelter from day to day without a purpose in our hearts resembles playing a hurdy-gurdy for a living without the hope of pence. The use of Sunday in this country has changed so radically in the last twenty-five years that every one is free to spend it as he will, subject[201] to certain restrictions as to sport and entertainment in public calculated to offend those who would prefer stricter usages. But whether we choose to go to church or not, whether our aspirations are fostered in the sanctuary or the fresh air, the eternal needs of the soul must be provided for. If we give our spare hours and minutes merely to careless amusement, we cannot fail to degenerate in nobility of nature, just as we lose the hue of health when we sully the red corpuscles of the body with foul air and steam heat. Are we not nowadays, even the plain people, God bless them, too much disposed to believe that merely to be comfortable and amused and rested is the sole requirement of the human soul? It does need rest most of the time in this age of pressure, Heaven knows, and comfort and amusement are necessary. But may we not, even while we rest and are comfortable, under the blue sky or on the peaceful river, if you will, lift up our spirits to the mystery of the ages, and reach out once more toward the eternal truths? Merely to be comfortable and to get rested once a week will not bring those truths nearer. May we not, in the pride of our democracy, afford to turn our glances back to the pages of history, to the long[202] line of mighty men kneeling before the altar with their eyes turned up to God, and the prayer of faith and repentance on their lips? Did this all mean nothing? Are we so wise and certain and far-seeing that we need not do likewise?

[203]

What is the good American to do with himself or herself in summer? The busiest worker nowadays admits that a vacation of a fortnight in hot weather is at least desirable. Philanthropy sends yearly more and more children on an outing in August, as one of the best contributions to the happiness and welfare of the poor. The atmosphere of our large cities in midsummer is so lifeless and oppressive that every one who can get away for some part of the summer plans to do so, and fathers of families find themselves annually confronted by a serious problem.

I specify the father of a family because the problem is so much easier for a single man. The single man, and generally the single woman, can pack a bag and go to the beach or mountains, or to a hotel within easy distance from town, without much premeditation. The worst that can happen to them is that they may become engaged without intention; besides they can always come home if they are dissatisfied with their surroundings.[204] But the family man who lives in a large city finds more and more difficulty every year, as the country increases in population, in making up his mind how best to provide for the midsummer necessities of his wife and children. There are several courses of action open to him.

He can remain in town and keep his family there.

He can remain in town himself and send his family to a distance.

He can hire a house or lodgings by the sea or in the country within easy reach of town by railroad or steamboat.

He can send his family to a summer hotel at a distance, or take a house or lodgings at a distance, making occasional flying trips to and from town, according to his opportunities.

To stay in town and keep one’s family there is a far from disagreeable experience except in very large cities in unusually hot weather. The custom of going away from home in summer is one which has grown by force of imitation. The inclination to change one’s surroundings, and to give the wife and children a whiff of country or sea or mountain air for a few weeks in the course[205] of the year is an ambition which is neither godless nor extravagant. But it is not worth while to set this necessity up as an idol to be worshipped at the expense of comfort for the rest of the year, for, after all, our ancestors successfully reared large families of children, including some of us, without going away from home in the summer, and “the-can’t-get-aways” in our largest and most uncomfortable cities still outnumber those who can and do in the proportion of at least five to one. It costs more to go away than to stay in town; from which certain native philosophers, who maintain that any one who spends more than twenty-five hundred dollars on his family in any one year is not a good American, may argue that those who have both a summer and a winter home are aristocrats and materialists. Their argument is not likely to diminish summer travel, to bankrupt the summer hotels, or to induce the well-to-do American citizen to shut up his cottage. A change in summer, for a longer or shorter period, is generally recognized as one of the most healthful and improving advantages which a father in our civilization can give his family and himself. On the other hand, to go out of town simply because one’s neighbors[206] do, when one cannot afford it, is a pitiful performance.

Moreover, the man who does not send his family out of town from motives of economy, has more than a clean conscience to comfort him. He can remember that probably one-third of the annual experiments in summer culture and health-giving recreation, made by his friends and acquaintance, turn out dire failures, and that another one-third result in mixed joy and comfort. He can reflect too, if he lives in the suburbs of a city, or in a town or small city, that, barring a few exceptionally hot days, he and his family are really very comfortable at home. Even if his household gods are in a parboiled metropolis, he will commonly be able to relieve his tedium and physical discomfort by some form of excursion. All our seaboard cities have their midsummer Meccas for the multitude in the form of beaches; and even where no ocean breezes blow, there is usually close at hand verdure, a lake, a grove, or a river where the philosophical soul can forget the thermometer, and cease to commiserate with itself on being kept in town. One’s own bed is never humpy, and the hollows in it are just fitted to one’s bones or adipose developments.[207] One can eat and drink in one’s town-house without fear of indigestion or germs. Decidedly the happiness of staying at home is not much less than the happiness of passing one, two, or three months at a place where everything is uncomfortable or nasty, at a cost which one can ill afford, if at all. Good city milk and succulent city vegetables are luxuries which are rarely to be found at the ordinary summer resort.

It is difficult to convince one’s family of this in advance. Besides, man is always to be blessed. We are always hoping that the next summer will be a grand improvement on those which have gone before, and generally by the first of May we believe, or at least imagine, that we have discovered the genuine article—the ideal spot at last. Discovered it for our families. The American father has the trick of sending his family out of town for the summer, and staying at home himself. This had its origin probably in his supposed inability to escape from business in the teeth of the family craving to see something of the world outside of their own social acquaintance. Yet he acknowledged the force of the family argument that with such a large country to explore it would be a pity not to explore it; and[208] accordingly he said, “Go, and I will join you if and when I can.” Paterfamilias said this long ago, and in some instances he has vainly been trying to join them ever since. There are all sorts of trying in this world, and perhaps his has not been as determined as some; nevertheless, he has maintained tolerably well the reputation of trying. The Saturday night trains and steamboats all over the country are vehicles, from July first to October first, of an army of fathers who are trying successfully to join their nearest and dearest at the different summer-resorts of the land.

To be separated for three months from one’s wife and children, except for a day or two once a fortnight, is scarcely an ideal domestic arrangement, in spite of the fact that it is more or less delightful for the dear ones to meet new people and see new scenes. The American father may not try very hard to leave his city home, but it must be admitted that he has been an amiable biped on the score of the summer question. He has been and is ready to suffer silently for the sake of his family and his business. But now that he has made up his mind at last that he prefers to leave his business for the sake of his family and[209] his own health, the difficulties of sending them to a distance are more apparent to him. Ten or fifteen years ago it dawned upon him that the city in summer without his family was not the ideal spot his fancy had painted, and that the sea-side and country, especially the former, were, after all, the best place for an overworked, full-grown man on a summer’s afternoon. It dawned upon him, too, that there was sea-coast and country close at hand where he could establish his family and refresh himself at the end of every day’s work. Twenty-five years ago the marine and attractive suburban environs of our cities were substantially unappropriated. To-day they bristle with cottages, large and small, the summer homes of city men. Every available promontory, island, hill, nook, and crook, which commands a pleasing view or is visited by cooling breezes is, or soon will be, occupied. What can a busy man do better, if he can afford it, than buy or hire a cottage, as humble as you like, to which he can return in the afternoon to the bosom of his own family, and be comfortable and lazy until morning?

From the domestic point of view this is assuredly the most satisfactory arrangement for the[210] father, and the American paterfamilias, ever since the truth dawned upon him, has been prompt in recognizing the fact. He has builded, too, according to his taste, whim, and individual idiosyncrasies. A sea-side cottage within easy reach of town includes, to-day, every variety of shelter from a picturesque villa of the most super-civilized type to the hulk of a ship fitted up as a camping-out home. To a large extent, too, the hotel has been discarded in favor of the domestic hearth, even though the single chimney smokes so that tears are perpetually in the domestic eye. The well-to-do city man who comes to town every day appreciates that a hotel is a poor place for children; consequently the long piazzas, where the terrible infant forever used to abound, are now trodden chiefly by visitors from a distance and transients who have escaped from the city for a day in search of a sea-bath and a clam chowder.

If the summer cottage to which the husband returns at night, is not the most satisfactory arrangement for the mother, she must blame herself or the civilization in which she lives. The sole argument in favor of passing the summer at a hotel is that the wife and mother escapes[211] thereby the cares of housekeeping, too often so severe during the rest of the year that the prospect of not being obliged to order dinner for three months causes her to wake in the night and laugh hysterically. Formality and conventional ceremony are the lurking enemies of our American summer life, who threaten to deprive our mothers and daughters of the rest and vacation from the tension, excitement, and worry begotten by nine months of active domestic duties. Simplicity of living ought to be the controlling warm-weather maxim of every household where the woman at the head of the establishment does the housekeeping, as nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine women out of ten thousand in America do.

It may be argued that greater simplicity in living all the year round would enable the wife and mother to do without a vacation. Possibly. But unfortunately for her the trend of the tide is all the other way. Besides, simplicity is such a difficult word to conjure with. Her interests have become so varied that the wear and tear is quite as likely to proceed from new mental strivings as from a multiplicity of sheer domestic duties. At least there seems to be no immediate[212] prospect that she will be less tired in the spring, however exemplary her intentions, and it therefore behooves her not to allow the wave of increasing luxury to bear her on its crest through the summer and land her in her town-house in October a physical and mental wreck.

The external attractiveness of the modern summer cottage, with its pleasing angles and comely stains, is easily made an excuse for an artistic interior and surroundings to match. But artistic beauty in summer can readily be produced without elaboration, and at comparatively slight cost, if we only choose to be content with simple effects. The bewitching charm of the summer girl, if analyzed, proves to be based on a few cents a yard and a happy knack of combining colors and trifles. Why need we be solicitous to have all the paraphernalia of winter-life—meals with many courses, a retinue of servants, wines, festal attire, and splendid entertainments? While we rejoice that the promiscuous comradeship of hotel life has largely given place at Newport, Bar Harbor, Lenox, and our other fashionable watering-places to the pleasant protection of the cottage home, is it not seriously deplorable that simplicity is too often lost sight of? To be[213] comfortable is one thing, to be swathed in luxury or to be tortured by ceremony all the time is another. It seems strange to many of us, who cannot choose precisely what we will do and where we will go in summer, that those who can so often select a mere repetition of mid-winter social recreation.

There is Patterson the banker for instance, the employer of Rogers. He can go where he pleases, and he goes to Newport. One can see him any afternoon driving augustly on Bellevue Avenue or along the ocean drive, well gloved, well shod, and brilliantly necktied, in his landau beside Mrs. Patterson. They have been to Newport for years in summer, and their house, with its beautiful outlook to sea, has doubled and trebled in value. How do they pass their time? Entertain and let themselves be entertained. Dinners with formal comestibles, late dances, champagne luncheons, paté de fois gras picnics on a coach are their daily associations. Mr. and Mrs. Patterson are close upon sixty themselves, but they follow—a little more solemnly than formerly, but still without stint—the same programme, which grows more and more elaborate with each succeeding year. It was there that their youngest daughter was married six months ago, with widely heralded splendor, to a[214] Russian nobleman who speaks beautiful English. May her lot be a happy one! The son, who went through the Keeley cure, and the elder daughter, who is separated from her husband, have spent their summers at Newport from their youth up.

There are comparatively few who have the means to live, or who do live just like Patterson, but there is many a man of fine instincts and with a sufficient income to maintain a summer home, who finds himself to-day oppressed by the incubus of things. He seeks rest, books, fresh air, the opportunity to enjoy nature—the sea, the foliage, the flowers—and yet he is harassed by things, the very things he has all winter, with a garnishment suitable to hot weather. He wishes to be still; and things keep him moving. He yearns to strip off, if not all his clothing, at least enough of it to give his lungs and his soul full play; but things keep him faultlessly dressed. He intends to slake his thirst only from the old oaken bucket or the milk-pail, and things keep his palate titillated with champagne and cocktails. Our old-time simplicity in summer is perhaps no longer possible in the large watering-places. It is even with considerable satisfaction that we don, and see our wives and children don,[215] the attractive clothing which has taken the place of shirt-sleeves and flannel shirts as articles of toilette; but is it not time to cry halt in our procession toward luxury, if we do not wish to live on our nerves all the year round?

It is this difficulty in escaping the expenses and the formality of city life in the summer cottage or at the summer hotel, almost as much as the fact that the desirable locations near town have all been taken, which is inclining the American father to send his family to a distance. After twenty-five years of exploration the outlying beaches and other favorite resorts near our large cities have become so thoroughly appropriated that the man who wishes to build or own a summer home of his own is obliged to look elsewhere. As a consequence cottages have sprung up all along the line of our coast, from the farthest confines of Maine to New Jersey, on the shores of the lakes of the Middle West, and on the Pacific shore. Many of these are of a simple and attractive character, and generally they stand in small colonies, large enough for companionship and not too large for relaxation. With the similar double purpose of obtaining an attractive summer home at a reasonable price, and of avoiding[216] the stock watering-place, city families are utilizing also the abandoned farm. There is not room for us all on the sea-coast; besides those of us whose winter homes are there are more likely to need inland or mountain air. There are thousands of beautiful country spots, many of them not so very far from our homes, where the run-down farm can be redeemed, if not to supply milk and butter, at least to afford a picturesque shelter and a lovely landscape during the season when we wish to be out of doors as much as possible. A very few changes, a very little painting and refurnishing will usually transform the farm-house itself into just the sort of establishment which a family seeking rest and quiet recreation ought to delight in. You may bring mosquito-frames for the windows if you like, and you must certainly test the well-water. Then swing your hammock between two apple-trees and thank Providence that you are not like so many of your friends and acquaintances, working the tread-mill of society in the dog-days.

Of course most men who have homes of this description at a distance cannot be with their families all the time. But, on the other hand, the conviction that a busy man can do better work in[217] ten or eleven months than in twelve, is gaining ground, and most of us, if we only choose to, can slip away for at least three weeks. Many of the demands of modern civilization on the family purse cannot be resisted without leaving the husband and parent a little depressed; but it seems to me that a serious item of expense may be avoided, and yet all the genuine benefits and pleasures of a change of scene and atmosphere be obtained, if we only dismiss from our minds the idea of living otherwise than simply. A little house with very little in it, with a modest piazza, a skiff or sail-boat which does not pretend to be a yacht, a garden hoe and rake, a camera, books and a hammock, a rod which is not too precious or costly to break, one nag of plebeian blood and something to harness him to, rabbits in the barn and sunflowers in the garden, a walk to sunset hill and a dialogue with the harvest moon—why should we not set our summer life to such a tune, rather than hanker for the neighborhood of the big steam-yacht and polo-ground, for the fringe of the fashionable bathing beach, for the dust of the stylish equipage, and try in our several ways, and beyond our means, to follow the pace which is set for us by others?

[218]

Why? Largely on account of that newly created species, the American girl. From solicitude for her happiness and out of deference to her wishes. Many a father and mother would be delighted to pass the summer on an abandoned farm or in any other spot where it were possible to live simply and to be cool, comfortable, and lazy, but for fear of disappointing their young people—principally their daughters, who, unlike the sons, cannot yet come and go at will. Feminine youth has its inherent privileges everywhere, but the gentle sway which it exercises in other civilizations has become almost a sour tyranny here. Was there ever an American mother who knew anything portrayed in fiction? The American daughter is commonly presented as a noble-souled, original creature, whose principal mission in life, next to or incidental to refusing the man who is not her choice, is to let her own parents understand what weak, ignorant, foolish, unenlightened persons they are in comparison with the rising generation—both parents in[219] some measure, but chiefly and utterly the mother. She is usually willing to concede that her father has a few glimmering ideas, and a certain amount of sense—horse business sense, not very elevating or inspiring—yet something withal. But she looks upon her poor dear mother as a feeble-minded individual of the first water. What we read in contemporary fiction in this realistic age is apt to be photographed from existing conditions. The newly created species of our homes does not always reveal these sentiments in so many words; indeed she is usually disposed to conceal from her parents as far as possible their own shortcomings, believing often, with ostrich-like complacency, that they have no idea what she really thinks of them. Quite frequently late in life it dawns upon her that they were not such complete imbeciles as she had adjudged them, and she revises her convictions accordingly. But often she lives superior to the end.

It would be an excellent thing for the American girl if her eyes could be definitely opened to the fact that her parents, particularly her mother, are much more clever than she supposes, and that they are really her best counsellors. But on the other hand, is not the American mother herself[220] chiefly responsible for this attitude of loving contempt and sweet but unfilial condescension on the part of her own flesh and blood? It sometimes seems as though we had fallen victims to our reluctance to thwart our children in any way lest we should destroy their love for us. But is it much preferable to be loved devotedly as foolish, weak, and amiable old things, than to be feared a little as individuals capable of exercising authority and having opinions of our own?

This yielding, self-abnegating tendency on the part of parents, and consequent filial tyranny, are especially conspicuous in the case of that arch despot, the summer girl. I admit her fascination unreservedly, and am willing to concede that she has run the gauntlet of criticism hurled at her by the effete civilizations with an unblemished reputation. Though she may have become a little more conservative and conventional out of deference to good taste, she is still able to be lost in caves or stranded on islands with any young man of her acquaintance without bringing a blush to any cheek except that of the horror-stricken foreigner. But having admitted this, I am obliged to charge her with trampling on the prostrate form of her mother from the first of July to the[221] first of October. She does so to a certain extent the year round, but the summer is the crowning season of her despotism.

The first concern of the American father and mother in making plans for the summer is to go to some place which the children will like, and the summer girl in particular. This is natural and in keeping with the unselfish devotion shown by the present generation of parents toward their children. But it is one thing to endeavor to select a place which will be satisfactory to one’s eighteen-year-old daughter and another to be sweetly hectored by that talented young woman into going to some place selected by her of which you entirely disapprove. And just here it is that the American mother almost seems to be convicted of the feebleness of intellect ascribed to her by the newly created species. You, the father, are just screwing your courage up to say that you will be blessed if you will go to a summer hotel at Narragansett Pier (or wherever it is), when your wife, who has been cowed or cajoled by the despot in the interim, flops completely, as the saying is, and joins an almost tearful support to the summer girl’s petition. And there you are. What are you to do? Daughter and mother, the[222] apple of your eye and the angel of your heart, leagued against you. Resistance becomes impossible, unless you are ready to incur the reputation of being a stony-hearted old curmudgeon.

The summer girl invariably wishes to go where it is gay. Her idea of enjoyment does not admit domesticity and peaceful relaxation. She craves to be actively amused, if not blissfully excited. It is not strange that the tastes and sentiments of young persons from seventeen to twenty-three should differ considerably from those of mothers and fathers from forty to fifty, and it speaks well for the intelligence and unselfishness of middle-aged parents and guardians in this country that they so promptly recognize the legitimate claims of youth, and even are eager to give young people a chance to enjoy themselves before the cares of life hedge them in. But have we not gone to the other extreme? Is it meet that we should regard ourselves as moribund at fifty, and sacrifice all our own comfort and happiness in order to let a young girl have her head, and lead a life in summer of which we heartily disapprove? It is not an exaggeration to state that there is a growing disposition on the part of the rising hordes of young men and girls to regard any one in[223] society over thirty-five as a fossil and an encumbrance, for whom, in a social sense, the grave is yawning. It is not uncommon to hear a comely matron of forty described as a frump by a youth scarcely out of his teens, and every old gentleman of thirty-nine has experienced the tactless pity which fashionable maidens under twenty-one endeavor to conceal in the presence of his senility.

The summer girl is generally a young person who has been a winter girl for nine months. I am quite aware that some girls are much more effective in summer than at any other season, and it may be that in certain cases they appear to so little advantage in winter that to attempt to gratify parental inclinations at their expense would be rank unkindness. But it is safe to allege that the average summer girl in this country has been doing all she ought to do in the way of dancing, prancing, gadding, going, working, and generally spending her vital powers in the autumn, winter, and spring immediately preceding, and consequently when summer comes needs, quite as much as her parents, physical, mental, and moral ozone. But what does she prefer to do? Whither is she bent on leading her father by the nose with the assistance of her mother? To various[224] places, according to her special predilection, and the farthest limit of the parental purse. If possible, to one of the gayest watering-places, where she hopes to bathe, play tennis, walk, talk, and drive during the day; paddle, stroll, or sit out during the evening, and dance until twelve o’clock at night two or three times a week. Else to some much-advertised mountain cataract or lake resort, to lead a stagnant hotel corridor and piazza life, in the fond hope of seeing the vividly imagined Him alight from the stage-coach some Saturday night. Meanwhile she is one of three-score forlorn girls who haunt the office and make eyes at the hotel clerk. The summer girl has a mania for the summer hotel. It seems to open to her radiant possibilities. She kindles at the mention of a hop in August, and if she is musical, the tinkle of her piano playing reverberates through the house all day until the other boarders are driven nearly crazy. In the gloaming after supper she flits off from the house with her best young man of the moment, and presently her mother is heard bleating along the piazza, “My Dorothy has gone without her shawl, and will catch her death a cold.”

And so it goes all summer. When autumn[225] comes and the leaf is about to fall, and Dorothy returns to town, what has she to show for it? A little tan and a callous heart, a promised winter correspondence with the hotel clerk, new slang, some knack at banjo-playing, and considerable uncertainty in her mind as to whom she is engaged to, or whether she is engaged at all. And like as not the doctor is sent for to build her up for the winter with cod-liver oil and quinine. There is too much ozone at some of these summer hotels.

We cannot hope to do away wholly with either the summer hotel or the fashionable watering-place by the assertion of parental authority. Such an endeavor, indeed, would on the whole be an unjust as well as fruitless piece of virtue. The delightful comradeship between young men and young women, which is one of our national products, is typified most saliently by the summer girl and her attendant swains. Naturally she wishes to go to some place where swains are apt to congregate; and the swain is always in search of her. Moreover, the summer hotel must continue to be the summer home of thousands who, for one reason or another, have no cottage or abandoned farm. My plea is still the same, however.[226] Why, now that the negro slave is free, and the workingman is being legislated into peace and plenty, and the wrongs of other women are being righted, should not the American mother try to burst her bonds? It would be a much more simple matter than it seems, for, after all, she has her own blood in her veins, and she has only to remember what a dogmatic person she herself was in the days of her youth. If the code of fathers and mothers, instead of that of girls and boys, were in force at our summer hotels and watering-places, a very different state of affairs would soon exist; and that, too, without undue interference with that inherent, cherished, and unalienable right of the American daughter, the maiden’s choice. We must not forget that though our civilization boasts the free exercise of the maiden’s choice as one of the brightest jewels in the crown of republican liberties, the crowded condition of our divorce courts forbids us to be too demonstrative in our self-satisfaction.

It would be dire, indeed, to bore the young person, especially the summer girl. But does it necessarily follow that a summer home or a summer life indicated by the parent would induce such a disastrous result? I am advising neither a[227] dungeon, a convent, nor some excruciatingly dull spot to which no fascinating youth is likely to penetrate. Verily, even the crowded bathing beach may not corrupt, provided that wise motherly control and companionship point out the dangers and protect the forming soul, mind, and manners, instead of allowing them to be distorted and poisoned by the ups and downs of promiscuous amatory summer guerilla warfare. But may it not happen, when the maternal foot is once firmly put down, that the summer girl will not be so easily bored as she or her mother fears, and will even be grateful for protection against her own ignorance and inexperience? Boating, sketching, riding, reading, bicycling, travel, sewing, and photography are pastimes which ought not to bore her, and would surely leave her more refreshed in the autumn than continuous gadding, dancing, and flirtation. To be a member of a small, pleasant colony, where the days are passed simply and lazily, yet interestingly; where the finer senses are constantly appealed to by the beauties of nature and the healthful character of one’s occupations, is a form of exile which many a summer girl would accommodate herself to gladly if she only understood[228] what it was like, and understood, moreover, that the selection of a summer programme had ceased to be one of her prerogatives. A determined man who wishes to marry will discover the object of his affections on an abandoned farm or in the heart of the Maine woods, if he is worth his salt. In these days of many yachts and bicycles true love can travel rapidly, and there is no occasion for marriageable girls to select courting-grounds where their lovers can have close at hand a Casino and other conveniences, including the opportunity to flirt with their next best Dulcineas.

If the summer-time is the time in which to recuperate and lie fallow, why should we have so many summer schools? After the grand panjandrum of Commencement exercises at the colleges is over, there ought to be a pause in the intellectual activity of the nation for at least sixty days; yet there seems to be a considerable body of men and women who, in spite of the fact that they exercise their brains vigorously during the rest of the year, insist on mental gymnastics when the thermometer is in the eighties. These schools—chiefly assemblies in the name of the ologies and osophies—bring together more or less people[229] more or less learned, from all over the country, to talk at one another and read papers.

Judging merely from the newspaper accounts of their proceedings, it is almost invariably impossible to discover the exact meaning of anything which is uttered, but this may be due to the absence of the regular reporters on their annual vacations, and the consequent delegation to tyros of the difficult duty in question. But even assuming that the utterances of the summer schools are both intelligible and stimulating, would not the serious-minded men and women concerned in them be better off lying in a hammock under a wide-spreading beech-tree, or, if this seems too relaxing an occupation, watching the bathers at Narragansett Pier? There is wisdom sometimes in sending young and very active boys to school for about an hour a day in summer, in order chiefly to know where they are and to prevent them from running their legs off; but with this exception the mental workers in this country, male and female, young and old, can afford to close their text-books with a bang on July 1st, and not peep at them again until September. Philosophy in August has much the flavor of asparagus in January.

[230]

A not inconsiderable portion of the women of the United States is inclined to regard man as a necessary evil. Their point of view is that he is here, and therefore is likely, for the present at least, to remain a formidable figure in human affairs, but that his ways are not their ways, that they disapprove of them and him, and that they intend to work out their lives and salvation as independently of him as possible. What man in the flush and prime of life has not been made conscious of this attitude of the modern woman? She is constantly passing us in the street with the manner of one haughtily and supremely indifferent. There are women enough still who look patterns of modesty, and yet let us feel at the same time that we are more or less an object of interest to them; but this particular type sails by in her trig and often stylish costume with the air not merely of not seeing us, but of wishing to ignore us. Her compressed lips suggest a judgment; a judgment born of meditated conviction which leaves no[231] hope of reconsideration or exception. “You are all substantially alike,” she seems to say, “and we have had enough of you. Go your ways and we will go ours.”

The Mecca of the modern woman’s hopes, as indicated by this point of view, would appear to be the ultimate disappearance of man from the face of the earth after the manner of the mastodon and other brutes. Nor are her hopes balked by physiological barriers. She is prepared to admit that it is not obvious, as yet, how girls alone are to be generated and boy babies given the cold maternal shoulder; but she trusts to science and the long results of time for a victory which will eliminate sexual relations and all their attendant perplexities and tragedies from the theatre of human life.

We are not so sanguine as she that the kingdom of heaven is to be brought to pass in any so simple and purely feminine a fashion. That is, we men. Perhaps we are fatuous, but we see no reason to doubt that sexual relations will continue to the crack of doom, in spite of the perplexities and tragedies consequent upon them; and moreover, that man will continue to thrive like a young bay-tree, even though she continues[232] to wear a chip on her tailor-made shoulder. And yet at the same time we feel sober. It is not pleasant to be regarded as brutes and to have judgment passed upon us by otherwise attractive women. It behooves us to scratch our heads and ask ourselves if we can possibly merit the haughty indifference and thinly disguised contempt which is entertained toward us. To be weighed in the balance and found wanting by a serene and beautiful young person is a far from agreeable experience. There must be something wrong with us, and if so, what is it?

Of course there was a time—and not so very long ago—when men were tyrants and kept women under. Nowadays the only thing denied them in polite circles is to whisk around by themselves after dark, and plenty of them do that. The law is giving them, with both hands, almost everything they ask for nearly as rapidly as existing inequalities are pointed out, and the right of suffrage is withheld from them only because the majority of women are still averse to exercising it. Man, the tyrant and highwayman, has thrown up his arms and is allowing woman to pick his pockets. He is not willing to have her bore a hole in his upper lip, and drag him[233] behind her with a rope, but he is disposed to consent to any reasonable legislative changes which she desires to have made, short of those which would involve masculine disfigurement or depreciation. It certainly cannot be his bullying qualities which have attracted her disdain, for he has given in. If woman to-day finds that the law discriminates unjustly between her and man, she has merely to ask for relief in sufficient numbers to show that she is not the tool of designing members of her own sex, in order to obtain it.

Under the spur of these reflections I consulted my wife by way of obtaining light on this problem. “Barbara, why is it that modern women of a certain type are so sniffy toward men? You know what I mean; they speak to us, of course, and tolerate us, and they love us individually as husbands and fathers; but instead of counting for everything, as we once did, we don’t seem to count for anything unless it be dollars and cents. It isn’t merely that you all talk so fast and have so much to say without regard to us that we often feel left out in the cold, and even hurt, but there is a stern, relentless look on some of your faces which makes us feel as though we had stolen the Holy Grail. You must have noticed it.”

[234]

“Oh, yes,” said Barbara, with a smile. “It doesn’t mean very much. Of course times are not what they were. Man used to be a demigod, now he is only a——”

Barbara hesitated for a word, so I suggested, “Only a bank.”

“Let us say only a man. Only a man in the eyes of reflective womanhood. We have caught up and are beginning to think for ourselves. You can’t expect us to hang on your every word and to fall down and worship you without reservation as we once did. Man used to be woman’s whole existence, often to her infinite sorrow, and now he is only part of it, just as she is only a part of his. You go to your clubs; we go to ours; and while you are playing cards we read or listen to papers, some of which are not intelligible to man. But we love you still, even though we have ceased to worship you. There are a few, I admit, who would like to do away with you altogether; but they are extremists—in every revolution, you know, there are fanatics and unreasonable persons—but the vast majority of us have a tender spot for you in our hearts, and regard your case in sorrow rather than in anger—and as probably not hopeless.”

[235]

“What is the matter with us?”

“Oh, everything. You are a failure fundamentally. To begin with, your theory of life is founded on compromise. We women—the modern woman—abhor compromise.”

Although it was obvious that Barbara was trying to tease me, I realized from her expression that she intended to deal my sex a crucial stab by the word compromise. I must confess that I felt just a little uncomfortable under the white light of scorn which radiated from her eyes, while her general air reminded me for the first time disagreeably of the type of modern woman to whom I had referred.

“The world progresses by compromise,” I replied, sententiously.

“Yes, like a snail.”

“Otherwise it would stand still. A man thinks so and so; another man thinks precisely opposite; they meet each other half-way and so much is gained.”

“Oh, I know how they do. A man who stands for a principle meets another man; they argue and bluster for a few minutes, and presently they sit down and have something to eat or drink, and by the time they separate the man who stands[236] for a principle has sacrificed all there is of it, except a tiny scrap or shred, in order not to incommode the man who has no principles at all; and what is almost worse, they part seemingly bosom friends and are apt to exchange rhetorical protestations of mutual esteem. The modern woman has no patience with such a way of doing things.”

“I suppose,” said I, “that two modern women under similar circumstances would tear each other all to pieces; there would be nothing to eat or drink, except possibly tea and wafers, and the floor would be covered with fragments of skin, hair, and clothing. When they separated one would be dead and the other maimed for life, and the principle for which the victor stood would be set back about a century and a half.”

Barbara winced a little, but she said, “What have you men accomplished all these years by your everlasting compromises? If you were really in earnest to solve the liquor problem, and the social evil, as you call it, and all the other abuses which exist in civilized and uncivilized society, you would certainly have been able to do more than you have. You have had free scope; we haven’t been consulted; we have stood aside[237] and let you have your innings; now we merely wish to see what we can do. We shall make mistakes I dare say; even one or two of us may be torn to pieces or maimed for life; but the modern woman feels that she has the courage of her convictions and that she does not intend to let herself be thwarted or cajoled by masculine theories. That accounts largely for our apparent sniffiness. I say ‘apparent,’ because we are not really at bottom so contemptuous as we seem—even the worst of us. I suppose you are right in declaring that the proud, superior, and beautiful young person of the present day is a little disdainful. But even she is less severe than she looks. She is simply a nineteenth-century Joan of Arc protesting against the man of the world and his works, asking to be allowed to lead her life without molestation from him in a shrine of her own tasteful yet simple construction—rooms or a room where she can practise her calling, follow her tastes, ambitions, or hobbies, pursue her charities, and amuse herself without being accountable to him. She wishes him to understand that, though she is attractive, she does not mean to be seduced or to be worried into matrimony against her will, and that she intends to use her[238] earnings and her property to pay her own bills and provide for her own gratification, instead of to defray the debts of her vicious or easy-going male relations or admirers. There is really a long back account to settle, so it is not surprising that the pendulum should swing a little too far the other way. Of course she is wrong; woman can no more live wholly independent of man than he of her—and you know what a helpless being he would be without her—and the modern woman is bound to recognize, sooner or later, that the sympathetic companionship of women with men is the only basis of true social progress. Sexual affinity is stronger than the constitutions of all the women’s clubs combined, as eight out of ten young modern women discover to their cost, or rather to their happiness, sooner or later. Some brute of a man breaks into the shrine, and before she knows it she is wheeling a baby carriage. Even the novelist, with his or her fertile invention, has failed to discover any really satisfactory ending for the independent, disdainful heroine but marriage or the grave. Spinsterhood, even when illumined by a career, is a worthy and respectable lot, but not alluring.”

It was something to be assured by my wife[239] that the modern woman does not purpose to abolish either maternity or men, and that, so to speak, her bark is worse than her bite. Barbara belongs to a woman’s club, so she must know. We men are in such a nervous state, as a result of what Barbara calls the revolution, that very likely we are unduly sensitive and suspicious, and allow our imaginations to fly off at a tangent. Very likely, too, we are disposed to be a trifle irritable, for when one has been accustomed for long to sit on or club a person (literally or metaphorically, according to one’s social status) when she happens to express sentiments or opinions contrary to ours, it must needs take time to get used to the idea that she is really an equal, and to adjust one’s ratiocinations to suit. But even accepting as true the assurance that the forbidding air of the modern woman does not mean much, and that she loves us still though she has ceased to worship us, we have Barbara’s word for it, too, that the modern woman thinks we have made a mess of it and that man is a failure fundamentally. Love without respect! Sorrow rather than anger! It sobers one; it saddens one. For we must admit that man has had free scope and a long period in which to make the most of himself;[240] and woman has not, which precludes us from answering back, as it were, which is always more or less of a consolation when one is brought to bay.

A tendency to compromise is certainly one of man’s characteristics. Barbara has referred to it as a salient fault—a vice, and perhaps it is, though it is writ large in the annals of civilization as conducted by man. We must at least agree that it is not woman’s way, and that she expects to do without it when we are no more or are less than we are now. Probably we have been and are too easy-going, and no one will deny that one ought at all times to have the courage of one’s convictions, even in midsummer and on purely social occasions; nevertheless it would have been trying to the nervous system and conducive to the continuance and increase of standing armies, had we favored the policy of shooting at sight those whose views on the temperance question differed from ours, or of telling the host at whose house we had passed the evening that we had been bored to death.

If one runs over in his mind the Madame Tussaud Gallery of masculine types, he cannot fail to acknowledge that, in our capacity of lords[241] of creation and viceregents of Providence, we have produced and perpetuated a number of sorry specimens. First in the list stands the so-called man of the world, on account of whom in particular, according to Barbara, the nineteenth-century Joan of Arc looks askance at our sex. He is an old stager; he dates back very nearly, if not completely, to the garden of Eden, and he has always been a bugbear to woman. It is not necessary to describe him; he has ever stood for simply carnal interests and appetites, whether as a satyr, a voluptuary, a wine-bibber, a glutton, a miser, an idler, or a mere pleasure-seeker. If all the human industries which have owed and still owe their prosperity to his propensities were to be obliterated, there would be a large array of unemployed in the morning but a healthier world. The bully, or prevailer by brute force, the snob, the cynic, the parasite, the trimmer, and the conceited egotist are others prominent in the category, without regard to criminals and unvarnished offenders against whose noxious behavior men have protected themselves by positive law.

On the other hand, our gallery of past types has many figures of which we have a right to be proud. Unfortunately we are barred again from[242] comparison or answering back by the taunt that woman has never had a chance; nevertheless we may claim for what it is worth that, in the realm of intellect or of the spirit, there have been no women who have soared so high; seers, poets, law-givers, unfolders of nature’s secrets, administrators of affairs, healers and scholars have been chiefly or solely men. If some of us have fraternized with Belial, others have walked, or sought to walk, with God no less genuinely and fervently than any woman who ever breathed. In the matter of spirituality, indeed, some of us in the past having been led to believe that women knew more about the affairs of the other world than men, sought to cultivate the spindle-legged, thin-chested, pale, anæmic Christian as the type of humanity most acceptable to God and serviceable to society; but we have gone back to the bishop of sturdy frame and a reasonably healthy appetite as a more desirable mediator between ourselves and heaven.

From the standpoint of our present inquiry, what man in his various types has been in the past is less pertinent than what he is at present. To begin with, certainly the modern man is not a picturesque figure. He no longer appeals to the[243] feminine or any eye by virtue of imposing apparel or accoutrements. Foreign army officers and servants in livery are almost the only males who have not exchanged plumage for sober woollens, tweeds, or serges, and the varied resplendent materials and colors by means of which men used to distinguish themselves from one another and to negative their evil-doings in the eyes of women have been discarded. All men but one look alike to any woman, and even that one is liable to be confounded with the rest of mankind when he is more than half a block away.

Nor is the homogeneous tendency limited to clothes; it includes manners, morals, and point of view. The extreme types approximate each other much more closely than formerly, and apart from criminals and deliberately evil-minded persons, women have some ground for their insinuation that we are all pretty much alike. Let it be said that this effect is in one sense a feather in our caps. The nineteenth-century Joan of Arc to the contrary notwithstanding, the modern man of the world is a manifest improvement on his predecessor. He is no longer to be found under the table after dinner as a social matter of course, and three-bottles-to-a-guest festivities have[244] ceased to be an aristocratic function. Though on occasions still he will fumble with the latch-key, he mounts the stairs very little, if at all, after midnight with the nonchalance of self-congratulatory sobriety, and all those dire scenes of woman on the staircase with a lighted candle looking down at her prostrate lord and master belong to an almost dim past. True it may be that the man of the world fears God no more than formerly, but he has learned to have a wholesome dread of Bright’s disease, the insane asylum, and those varied forms of sudden and premature death which are included under the reportorial head of heart-failure. Mere brutishness in its various forms is less apparent. The coarse materialist still swaggers in public places and impudently puffs a cigar in the face of modesty, but he serves no longer as a model for envious contemporaries or an object of hero-worship to the rising generation. Good taste, if nothing better, has checked man’s tendencies to make a beast of himself in public or in private.

Similarly, also, the type of man to whom we look up most proudly and confidently to-day is not altogether the same. The model whom we were urged, and whom we sought of old to imitate,[245] was he who wrestled with God on the mountain-top, without a thought of earth’s smoke and din and wretchedness. Human life and its joys and interests served for him as a homily on vanity, or was regarded as a degradation in comparison with the revelations obtained by the priest, poet, or devotee of culture through the vista of aspiring imagination or zeal. The conservative man of affairs—vigorous, far-seeing, keenly alive to the joys and interests of this life, strongly sympathetic on the humanitarian side, a man of the world withal in a reasonable sense—has impressed his personality on modern society more successfully than any other type. The priest who cares not for his fellow-man, the poet whose dreams and visions include no human interest or passion, the devotee of culture who refines merely to refine, have been superseded, and in their stead we have the man of the world who is interested in the world and for the world.

This change in the avowed aims and aspirations of man has not been without certain apparently melancholy results and manifestations of which society is feeling the effect at present, and which if allowed to prevail too far will undo us.[246] The removal of the gaze of the priest, poet, and devotee of culture from the stars in contempt of earth, and the substitution of earth-gazing as a method for understanding the stars, has seemed to cast a damper on human imagination and has thereby caused many excellent women and some men to weep. If materialism be the science of trying to get the most out of this life, this is a material age; but at the same time it should be remembered that man in this age has ceased for the first time to be either a hypocrite or a fool. Undoubtedly the process of becoming both sincere and sensible, especially as it has substituted concern for the ignorant, the oppressed, and the vicious of this earth about whom we know next to nothing, in place of Pre-Raphaelite heavenly choirs, alabaster halls, and saints in glory about whom we thought we knew everything, has been a little trying for the rest of us as well as for the priests, poets, and devotees of culture. But the women must not be discouraged; we shall grow to the situation in time, and even the poets, who seem to be most down in the mouth at present, will sooner or later find a fresh well of inspiration by learning to study the reflection of the stars on the earth instead of looking directly at them. Let[247] them be patient, though it be to death, and some day through others, if not through themselves, the immortal verse will flow and the immortal lyre sound again.

Undoubtedly the modern man is at present a rather trying person to woman, for woman would have been glad, now that she is coming into her kingdom, to have him more of a crusader and less of a philosopher. To behold him lacking in picturesqueness and a philosopher addicted to compromise into the bargain is almost irritating to her, and she has certainly some ground for criticism. The man who sits opposite to her at the breakfast-table, even after he has overcome conservative fears of nothing to live on and dawdled into matrimony, is a lovable but not especially exciting person. He eats, works, and sleeps, does most of the things which he ought to do and leaves undone a commendable number of the things which he ought not to do, and is a rather respectable member of society of the machine-made order. He works very hard to supply her with money; he is kind to her and the children; he gives her her head, as he calls it; and he acquiesces pleasantly enough in the social plans which she entertains for herself and[248] him, and ordinarily he is sleepy in the evening. Indeed, in moments of most serious depression she is tempted to think of him as a superior chore-man, a comparison which haunts her even in church. She would like, with one fell swoop of her broom, to clear the world of the social evil, the fruit of the grape, tobacco, and playing cards, to introduce drastic educational reforms which would, by kindergarten methods, familiarize every one on earth with art and culture, and to bring to pass within five, or possibly six years, a golden age of absolute reform inspired and established by woman. Life for her at present means one vast camp of committee meetings, varied only by frequent cups of tea; and that steaming beverage continues prominent in her radiant vision of the coming millennium. No wonder it disconcerts and annoys her to find so comparatively little enthusiastic confidence in the immediate success of her fell swoop, and to have her pathway blocked by grave or lazy ifs and buts and by cold contradictions of fact. No wonder she abhors compromise; no wonder she regards the man who goes on using tobacco and playing cards and drinking things stronger than tea as an inert and soulless creature.

[249]

Yet smile as we may at the dull, sorry place the world would be were the golden age of her intention to come upon us over night like a cold wave, is she not justified in regarding the average custom-made man of the day as a highly respectable, well-to-do chore-man who earns fair wages and goes to sleep at night contented with a good meal and a pipe? Is he not machine-made? Sincere and wise as he is, now that his gaze is fixed on the needs of earth, has he not the philosophy of hygienic comfort and easy-going conservative materialism so completely on the brain that he is in danger of becoming ordinary instead of just a little lower than the angels? Let us consider him from this point of view more in detail.

[250]

The young man of the present era on his twenty-first birthday is apt to find himself in a very prudent and conservative atmosphere. The difficulties of getting on are explained to him; he is properly assured that, though there is plenty of room on the top benches, the occupations and professions are crowded, if not overcrowded, and that he must buckle down if he would succeed. It is obvious to him that the field of adventure and fortune-seeking in foreign or strange places is practically exhausted. It is open to him, to be sure, to go to the North Pole in search of some one already there, or to study in a cage in the jungles of Africa the linguistic value of the howls and chatterings of wild animals; but these are manifestly poor pickings compared with the opportunities of the past when a considerable portion of the globe was still uninvestigated soil, and a reputation or treasure-trove was the tolerably frequent reward of leaving the rut of civilized life. It is plainly pointed out to him, too, that to be florid is regarded as almost a mental[251] weakness in intellectual or progressive circles. He sees the lawyer who makes use of metaphor, bombast, and the other arts of oratory, which used to captivate and convince, distanced in the race for eminence by him who employs a succinct, dispassionate, and almost colloquial form of statement. He recognizes that in every department of human activity, from the investigation of disease-germs to the management of railroads, steady, undemonstrative marshallings of fact, and cautious, unemotional deduction therefrom are considered the scientific and only appropriate method. He knows that the expression of unusual or erratic ideas will expose him to the stigma of being a crank, a reputation which, once acquired, sticks like pitch, and that the betrayal of sentiment will induce conservative people to put him on the suspected list.

All this is imbibed by him as it should be, in the interest of sincerity and sense. Under the sobering restraint of it the young man begins to make his way with enthusiasm and energy, but circumspectly and deliberately. He mistrusts everything that he cannot pick to pieces on the spot and analyze, and though he is willing to be amused, beguiled, or even temporarily inspired by appeals to[252] his imagination or emotions, he puts his doubts or qualms aside next morning at the behest of business. He wishes to get on. He is determined not to allow anything to interfere with that, and he understands that that is to be accomplished partly by hard work and partly by becoming a good fellow and showing common-sense. This is excellent reasoning until one examines too closely what is expected of him as a good fellow, and what is required of him in the name of common-sense.

There have been good fellows in every age, and some of them have been tough specimens. Our good fellow is almost highly respectable. He wishes to live as long as he can, and to let others live as long as they can. His patron saints are his doctor, his bank account, prudence, and general toleration. If he were obliged to specify the vice not covered by the statute law which he most abhors, he would probably name slopping over. He aims to be genial, sympathetic, and knowing, but not obtrusively so, and he is becomingly suspicious and reticent regarding everything which cannot be demonstrated on a chart like an international yacht-race or a medical operation. He is quietly and moderately licentious, and justifies himself satisfactorily but mournfully[253] on hygienic grounds or on the plea of masculine inevitability. He works hard, if he has to, for he wishes to live comfortably by the time he is forty, and comfort means, as it ought to mean, an attractive wife, an attractive establishment, and an attractive income. An imprudent marriage seems to him one of the most egregious forms of slopping over. If he hears that two of his contemporaries are engaged, his first inquiry is, “What have they to live on?” and if the answer is unsatisfactory, they fall a peg or two in his estimation, and he is likely, the next time he feels mellow after dinner, to descant on the impropriety of bringing children into the world who may be left penniless orphans. If he falls in love himself before he feels that his pecuniary position warrants it, he tries to shake out the arrow, and, if that fails, he cuts it out deliberately under antiseptic treatment to avoid blood-poisoning. All our large cities are full of young men who have undergone this operation. To lose one’s vermiform appendix is a perilous yet blessed experience; but this trifling with the human heart, however scientific the excision, can scarcely be regarded as beneficial unless we are to assume that it, like the fashionable sac, has become rudimentary.

[254]

We see a great many allusions in our comic and satiric weeklies to marrying for money, but the good fellow of the best type ordinarily disdains such a proceeding. His self-respect is not offended but hugely gratified if the young woman with whom he intends to ally himself would be able immediately or prospectively to contribute a million or so to the domestic purse; but he would regard a deliberate sale of himself for cash as a dirty piece of business. On the other hand, he is very business-like where his heart is engaged, and is careful not to let his emotions or fancy get the better of him until he can see his ship—and a well-freighted one at that—on the near horizon. And what is to become of the young woman in the meantime? To let concealment, like a worm in the bud, feed on a damask cheek may be more fatal than masculine arrow extraction; for woman, less scientific in her methods than man, is less able to avoid blood-poisoning. She doses herself, probably, with anti-pyrine, burns her Emerson and her Tennyson, and after a period of nervous prostration devotes herself to charity toward the world at large with the exception of all good fellows.

The good fellow after he marries continues[255] to be a good fellow. He adapts himself to the humanitarian necessities of the situation; he becomes fond and domestic, almost oppressively so, and he is eager to indulge the slightest wish or fancy of his mate, provided it be within the bounds of easy-going rationalism. The conjugal pliability of the American husband is a well-recognized original feature of our institutions, nevertheless he is apt to develop kinks unless he be allowed to be indulgent and companionable in his own way. He works harder than ever, and she for whose sake he is ostensibly toiling is encouraged to make herself fetching and him comfortable as progressively as his income will permit. When the toil of the week is over he looks for his reward in the form of a Welsh-rarebit with theatrical celebrities, a little game of poker within his means, or, if he be musical, a small gathering of friends to sing or play, if possible in a so-called Bohemian spirit. It irks him to stand very upright or to converse for long, whether in masculine or feminine society. He likes to sprawl and to be entertained with the latest bit of humor, but he is willing, on a pleasant Sunday or holiday, to take exercise in order to perspire freely, and then to lie at ease under[256] a tree or a bank, pleasantly refreshed with beer and tobacco, and at peace with the world. He prefers to have her with him everywhere, except at the little game of poker, and is conscious of an aching void if she be not at hand to help him recuperate, philosophize, and admire the view. But he expects her to do what he likes, and expects her to like it too.

In no age of the world has the reasoning power of man been in better working order than at present. With all due respect to the statistics which show that the female is beginning to outstrip the male in academic competitive examinations, one has only to keep his ears and eyes open in the workaday world in order to be convinced that man’s purely mental processes suggest a razor and woman’s a corkscrew. The manager of corporate interests, the lawyer, the historian, the physician, the chemist, and the banker seek to-day to probe to the bottom that which they touch, and to expose to the acid of truth every rosy theory and seductive prospectus. This is in the line of progress; but to be satisfied with this alone would speedily reduce human society to the status of a highly organized racing stable. If man is to be merely a jockey, who is to ride[257] as light as he can, there is nothing to be said; but even on that theory is it not possible to train too fine? With eloquence tabooed as savoring of insincerity, with conversation as a fine art starved to death, with melody in music sniffed at as sensational, and fancy in literature condemned as unscientific, with the loosening of all the bonds of conventionality which held civilization to the mark in matters of taste and elegance, and with a general doing away with color and emotion in all the practical affairs of life out of regard to the gospel of common-sense and machine-made utility, the jockey now is riding practically in his own skin.

One has to go back but a little way in order to encounter among the moving spirits of society a radically different attitude. Unquestionably the temper of the present day is the result of a vigorous reaction against false or maudlin sentiment, florid drivel, and hypocritical posturing; but certainly a Welsh-rarebit at midnight, with easy-going companions, is a far remove as a spiritual stimulus from bread eaten in tears at the same hour. As has been intimated, this exaggeration of commonplaceness will probably right itself in time, but man’s lack of susceptibility to influences[258] and impressions which cannot be weighed, fingered, smelt, looked at, or tasted, seems to justify at present the strictures of the modern woman, who, with all her bumptiousness, would fain continue to reverence him. Some in the van of feminine progress would be glad to see the inspiration and direction of all matters—spiritual, artistic, and social—apportioned to woman as her sole rightful prerogative, and consequently to see man become veritably a superior chore-man. Fortunately the world of men and women is likely to agree with Barbara that mutual sympathy and co-operation in these matters between the sexes are indispensable to the healthy development of human society.

But even assuming that women were ready to accept the responsibility and men were willing to renounce it, I, for one, fear that civilization would find itself in a ditch rather speedily. All of us—we men, I mean—recognize the purifying and deterrent influence of woman as a Mentor and sweet critic at our elbows. We have learned to depend upon her to prod us when we lag, and to save us from ourselves when our brains get the better of our hearts. But, after all, woman is a clinging creature. She has been used[259] to playing second fiddle; and it is quite a different affair to lead an orchestra. To point the way to spiritual or artistic progress needs, first of all, a clear intellect and a firm purpose, even though they alone are not sufficient. Woman is essentially yielding and impressionable. At the very moment when the modern Joan of Arc would be doing her best to make the world a better place, would not eleven other women out of the dozen be giving way to the captivating plausibility of some emotional situation?

As an instance of what she is already capable of from a social point of view, now that she has been given her head, may well be cited the feverish eagerness with which some of the most highly cultivated and most subtly evolved American women of our large cities vie with each other for intimacy with artistic foreign lions of their own sex known to be unchaste. They seem to regard it as a privilege to play hostess to, or, at least, to be on familiar terms with, actresses, opera-singers, and other public characters quietly but notoriously erotic, the plea in each case being that they are ready to forgive, to forget, and ignore for the sake of art and the artist. Yes, ignore or forget, if you choose, so far as seeing the artist[260] act or hearing her sing in public is concerned, where there are no social ceremonies or intercourse; but let us please remember at the same time that even those effete nations who believe that the world would be a dull place without courtesans, insist on excluding such persons from their drawing-rooms. Indeed there is reason to believe that some of the artists in question have become hilarious, when out of sight of our hospitable shores, over the wonders of American social usages among the pure and cultivated women. Before our young men will cease to sow wild oats their female relations must cease to run after other men’s mistresses. Decidedly, the modern Joan of Arc to the contrary notwithstanding, man cannot afford to abdicate just yet. But he needs to mend his hedges and to look after his preserves.

[261]

A great many men, who are sane and reasonable in other matters, allow themselves, on the slightest provocation, to be worked up into a fever over the aspirations of woman. They decline to listen to argument, grow red in the face, and saw the air with their hands, if they do not pound on the table, to express their views on the subject—which, by the way, are as out of date and old-fashioned as a pine-tree shilling. They remind one of the ostrich in that they seem to imagine, because they have buried their heads in the sand, nothing has happened or is happening around them. They confront the problem of woman’s emancipation as though it were only just being broached instead of in the throes of delivery.

For instance, my friend, Mr. Julius Cæsar, who though a conservative, cautious man by nature, is agreeably and commendably liberal in other matters, seems to be able to see only one side of this question. And one side seems to be all he wishes to see. “Take my wife,” he said to me the other[262] day; “as women go she is a very clever and sensible woman. She was given the best advantages in the way of school-training open to young ladies of her day; she has accomplishments, domestic virtues, and fine religious instincts, and I adore her. But what does she know of politics? She couldn’t tell you the difference between a senator and an alderman, and her mind is practically a blank on the tariff or the silver question. I tell you, my dear fellow, that if woman is allowed to leave the domestic hearth and play ducks and drakes with the right of suffrage, every political caucus will become a retail drygoods store. If there is one thing which makes a philosopher despair of the future of the race, it is to stand in a crowded drygoods store and watch the jam of women perk and push and sidle and grab and covet and go well-nigh crazy over things to wear. The average woman knows about clothes, the next world, children, and her domestic duties. Let her stick to her sphere. A woman at a caucus? Who would see that my dinner was properly cooked, eh?”

One would suppose from these remarks that the male American citizen spends his days chiefly at caucuses; whereas, as we all know when we reflect, he goes perhaps twice a year, if he be[263] a punctilious patriot like Julius Cæsar, and if not, probably does not go at all. If the consciousness that his wife could vote at a caucus would act as a spur to the masculine political conscience, the male American citizen could well afford to dine at a restaurant on election-days, or to cook his own food now and then.

Of course, even a man with views like Julius Cæsar would be sorry to have his wife the slavish, dollish, or unenlightened individual which she was apt to be before so-called women’s rights were heard of. As he himself has proclaimed, he adores his wife, and he is, moreover, secretly proud of her æsthetic presentability. Without being an advanced woman, Dolly Cæsar has the interests of the day and hour at her fingers’ ends, can talk intelligently on any subject, whether she knows anything about it or not, and is decidedly in the van, though she is not a leader. Julius does not take into account, when he anathematizes the sex because of its ambitions, the difference between her and her great-grandmother. He believes his wife to be a very charming specimen of what a woman ought to be, and that, barring a few differences of costume and hair arrangement, she is practically her great-grandmother[264] over again. Fatuous Julius! There is where he is desperately in error. Dolly Cæsar’s great-grandmother may have been a radiant beauty and a famous housekeeper, but her brain never harbored one-tenth of the ideas and opinions which make her descendant so attractive.

Those who argue on this matter like Julius Cæsar fail to take into account the gradual, silent results of time; and this is true of the results to come as well as those which have accrued. When the suffrage question is mooted one often hears sober men, more dispassionate men than Julius—Perkins, for instance, the thin, nervous lawyer and father of four girls, and a sober man indeed—ask judicially whether it is possible for female suffrage to be a success when not one woman in a thousand would know what was expected of her, or how to vote. “I tell you,” says Perkins, “they are utterly unfitted for it by training and education. Four-fifths of them wouldn’t vote if they were allowed to, and every one knows that ninety-nine women out of every hundred are profoundly ignorant of the matters in regard to which they would cast their ballots. Take my daughters; fine girls, talented, intelligent women—one of them a student of history;[265] but what do they know of parties, and platforms, and political issues in general?”

Perkins is less violently prejudiced than Julius Cæsar. He neither saws the air nor pounds on the table. Indeed, I have no doubt he believes that he entertains liberal, unbiassed views on the subject. I wonder, then, why it never occurs to him that everything which is new is adopted gradually, and that the world has to get accustomed to all novel situations. I happened to see Mr. Perkins the first time he rode a bicycle on the road, and his performance certainly justified the prediction that he would look like a guy to the end of his days, and yet he glides past me now with the ease and nonchalance of a possible “scorcher.” Similarly, if women were given universal suffrage, there would be a deal of fluttering in the dove-cotes for the first generation or so. Doubtless four-fifths of womankind would refuse or neglect to vote at all, and at least a quarter of those who went to the polls would cast their ballots as tools or blindly. But just so soon as it was understood that it was no less a woman’s duty to vote than it was to attend to her back hair, she would be educated from that point of view, and her present crass ignorance of political[266] matters would be changed into at least a form of enlightenment. Man prides himself on his logic, but there is nothing logical in the argument that because a woman knows nothing about anything now, she can never be taught. If we have been content to have her remain ignorant for so many centuries, does it not savor both of despotism and lack of reasonableness to cast her ignorance in her teeth and to beat her about the head with it now that she is eager to rise? Decidedly it is high time for the man who orates tempestuously or argues dogmatically in the name of conservatism against the cause of woman on such flimsy pleas as these, to cease his gesticulations and wise saws. The modern woman is a potential reality, who is bound to develop and improve, in another generation or two, as far beyond the present interesting type as Mrs. Julius Cæsar is an advance on her great-grandmother.

On the other hand, why do those who have woman’s cause at heart lay such formal stress on the right of the ballot as a factor in her development? There can be no doubt that, if the majority of women wish to vote on questions involving property or political interests, they will be enabled to do so sooner or later. It is chiefly[267] now the conviction in the minds of legislatures that a large number of the intelligent women of their communities do not desire to exercise the right of suffrage which keeps the bars down. Doubtless these bodies will yield one after another to the clamor of even a few, and the experiment will be tried. It may not come this year or the next, but many busy people are so certain that its coming is merely a question of time that they do not allow themselves to be drawn into the fury of the fray. When it comes, however, it will come as a universal privilege, and not with a social or property qualification. I mention this simply for the enlightenment of those amiable members of the sex to be enfranchised who go about sighing and simpering in the interest of drawing the line. That question was settled a century ago. The action taken may have been an error on the part of those who framed the laws, but it has been settled forever. There would be no more chance of the passage by the legislature of one of the United States of a statute giving the right of suffrage to a limited class of women than there would be of one prescribing that only the good-looking members of that sex should be allowed to marry.

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Many people, who believe that woman should be denied no privilege enjoyed by man which she really desires to exercise, find much difficulty in regarding the right of suffrage as the vital end which it assumes in the minds of its advocates. One would suppose, by the clamor on the subject, that the ballot would enable her to change her spots in a twinkling, and to become an absolutely different creation. Lively imaginations do not hesitate to compare the proposed act of emancipation with the release of the colored race from bondage. We are appealed to by glowing rhetoric which celebrates the equity of the case and the moral significance of the impending victory. But the orators and triumphants stop short at the passage of the law and fail to tell us what is to come after. We are assured, indeed, that it will be all right, and that woman’s course after the Rubicon is crossed will be one grand march of progress to the music of the spheres; but, barring a pæan of this sort, we are given no light as to what she intends to do and become. She has stretched out her hand for the rattle and is determined to have it, but she does not appear to entertain any very definite ideas as to what she is going to do with it after she has it.

[269]

Unquestionably, the development of the modern woman is one of the most interesting features of civilization to-day. But is it not true that the cause of woman is one concern, and the question of woman suffrage another? And are they not too often confounded, even deliberately confounded, by those who are willing to have them appear to be identical? Supposing that to-morrow the trumpet should sound and the walls of Jericho fall, and every woman be free to cast her individual ballot without let or hindrance from one confine of the civilized world to another, what would it amount to after all by way of elucidating the question of her future evolution? For it must be remembered that, apart from the question of her development in general, those who are clamoring for the ballot have been superbly vague so far as to the precise part which the gentle sex is to play in the political arena after she gets her rattle. They put their sisters off with the general assertion that things in the world, politically speaking, will be better, but neither their sisters nor their brothers are able to get a distinct notion of the platform on which woman means to stand after she becomes a voter. Is she going to enter into competition with men for the prizes and offices,[270] to argue, manipulate, hustle, and do generally the things which have to be done in the name of political zeal and activity? Is it within the vista of her ambition to become a member of, and seek to control, legislative bodies, to be a police commissioner or a member of Congress? Those in the van decline to answer, or at least they do not answer. It may be, to be sure, the wisdom of the serpent which keeps them non-committal, for they stand, as it were, between the devil and the deep sea in that, though they and their supporters would perhaps like to declare boldly in favor of competition, or at least participation, in the duties and honors, they stand in wholesome awe of the hoarse murmur from the ranks of their sisters, “We don’t wish to be like men, and we have no intention of competing with them on their own lines.” Accordingly, the leaders seek refuge in the safe but indefinite assertion that of course women will never become men, but they have thus far neglected to tell us what they are to become.

It really seems as though it were time for woman, in general congress of the women’s clubs assembled, to make a reasonably full and clear statement of her aims and principles—a declaration[271] of faith which shall give her own sex and men the opportunity to know precisely what she is driving at. Her progress for the last hundred years has been gratifying to the world, with the exception of pig-headed or narrow-minded men, and civilization has been inestimably benefitted by the broadening of her intelligence and her interests. But she has now reached a point where there is a parting of the ways, and the world would very much like to know which she intends to take. The atmosphere of the women’s clubs is mysterious but unsuggestive, and consequently many of us feel inclined to murmur with the poet, “it is clever, but we don’t know what it means.” Unrepressed nervous mental activity easily becomes social affectation or tomfoolery, in the absence of a controlling aim or purpose. To exhaust one’s vitality in papers or literary teas, merely to express or simulate individual culture or freedom, may not land one in an insane asylum, but it is about as valuable to society, as an educating force, as the revolutions of the handle of a freezer, when the crank is off, are valuable to the production of ice-cream. For the benefit of such a congress, if haply it should be called together later, it will not be out of[272] place to offer a few suggestions as to her future evolution. In this connection it seems to me imperative to go back to the original poetic conception of woman as the wife and mother, the domestic helpmate and loving, self-abnegating companion of man. Unedifying as this formula of description may seem to the active-minded modern woman, it is obvious that under existing physiological conditions she must remain the wife and mother, even though she declines to continue domestic, loving, and self-abnegating. And side by side with physiological conditions stands the intangible, ineffable force of sexual love, the poetic, entrancing ecstasy which no scientist has yet been able to reduce to a myth or to explode. Schopenhauer, to be sure, would have us believe that it is merely a delusion by which nature seeks to reproduce herself, but even on this material basis the women’s clubs find themselves face to face with an enemy more determined than any Amazon. A maid deluded becomes the sorriest of club members.

What vision of life is nobler and more exquisite than that of complete and ideal marital happiness? To find it complete and ideal the modern woman, with all her charms and abilities,[273] must figure in it, I grant; the mere domestic drudge; the tame, amiable house-cat; the doting doll, are no longer pleasing parties of the second part. To admit so much as this may seem to offer room for the argument that the modern woman of a hundred years hence will make her of the poet’s dream of to-day appear no less pitiable; but there we men are ready to take issue. We admit our past tyranny, we cry “Peccavi,” yet we claim at the same time that, having taken her to our bosoms as our veritable, loving companion and helpmate, there is no room left, or very little room left, for more progress in that particular direction. Her next steps, if taken, will be on new lines, not by way of making herself an equal. And therefore it is that we suggest the vision of perfect modern marital happiness as the leading consideration to be taken into account in dealing with this question. Even in the past, when woman was made a drudge and encouraged to remain a fool, the poetry and joy and stimulus of life for her, as well as for her despot mate, lay in the mystery of love, its joys and responsibilities. Even then, if her life were robbed of the opportunity to love and be loved, its savor was gone, however free she might be from masculine[274] tyranny and coercion. Similarly, after making due allowance for the hyperbole as to the influence which woman has on man when he has made up his mind to act to the contrary, there is no power which works for righteousness upon him comparable to the influence of woman. There is always the possibility that the woman a man loves may not be consciously working for righteousness, but the fact that he believes so is the essential truth, even though he be the victim of self-delusion. This element of the case is pertinent to the question whether woman would really try to reform the world, if she had the chance, rather than to this particular consideration. The point of the argument is that the dependence of each sex on the other, and the loving sympathy between them, which is born of dissimilarity, is the salt of human life. The eternal feminine is what we prize in woman, and wherever she deflects from this there does her power wane and her usefulness become impaired. And conversely, the more and the higher she advances along the lines of her own nature, the better for the world. Nor does the claim that she has been hampered hitherto, and consequently been unable to show what her attributes[275] really are, seem relevant; for it is only when she develops in directions which threaten to clash with the eternal feminine that she encounters opposition or serious criticism. And here even the excitability and unreasonableness of such men as our friend Julius Cæsar find a certain justification. Their fumes and fury, however unintelligent, proceed from an instinctive repugnance to the departure or deviation from nature which they find, or fear to find, in the modern woman. Once let them realize that there was no danger of anything of the kind, and they would become gentle as doves, if not all smiles and approval.

There is no more beautiful and refining influence in the world than that of an attractive and noble woman. Unselfishness, tenderness, aspiring sentiment, long-suffering devotion, grace, tact, and quickly divining intelligence are her prerogatives, and she stands an ever-watchful guardian angel at the shoulder of man. The leading poetic and elevating associations of life are linked with her name. The lover’s passion, the husband’s worship, the son’s reverential affection are inspired by her. The strong man stays his hand and sides with mercy or honor when his mother speaks within him. In homelier language,[276] she is the keeper of the hearth and home, the protector and trainer of her children, the adviser, consoler, and companion of her husband, father, son, brother, or other masculine associates.

Now, the modern woman, up to this point, has been disposed, on the whole, to regard this as the part which she is to play in the drama of life. At least she has not materially deviated from it. Her progress has been simply in the way of enabling her to play that part more intelligently and worthily, and not toward usurpation, excepting that she claims the right to earn her daily bread. Higher education in its various branches has been the most signal fruit of her struggle for enlightenment and liberty, and this is certainly in entire keeping with the eternal feminine, and to-day seems indispensable to her suitable development. By means of education similar to that lavished upon man she has been enabled, it is true, to obtain employment of various kinds hitherto withheld from her, but the positions of professor, teacher, nurse, artist, and clerk, are amplifications of her natural aptitudes rather than encroachments. She has, however, finally reached the stage where she will soon have to decide whether the hearth and the home or down-town is to[277] be the principal theatre of her activity and influence. Is she or is she not to participate with man in the tangible, obvious management of the affairs of the world?

[278]

The mystic oracles of the women’s clubs do not give a straightforward answer to this question. Yet there are mutterings, mouthings, and signs from them which tend to arouse masculine suspicions. To use a colloquialism, woman fancies herself very much at present, and she spends considerable time in studying the set of her mind in the looking-glass. And her serenity is justified. In spite of ridicule, baiting, and delay for several generations, she has demonstrated her ability and fitness to do a number of things which we had adjudged her incapable of doing. She can almost take care of herself in the street after dark. She has become a most valuable member of committees to ameliorate the condition of the poor, the sick, and the insane. She has become the president and professors of colleges founded in her behalf. The noble and numerous army of teachers, typewriters, salesladies, nurses, and women doctors (including Christian Scientists), stands as ample proof of her intention and capacity to strike out for herself. No wonder, perhaps, that[279] she is a little delirious and mounted in the head, and that she is tempted to exclaim, “Go to, I will do more than this. Why should I not practise law, and sell stocks, wheat, corn, and exchange, control the money markets of the world, administer trusts, manage corporations, sit in Congress, and be President of the United States?”

The only things now done by man which the modern woman has not yet begun to cast sheep’s eyes at are labor requiring much physical strength and endurance, and military service. She is prepared to admit that she can never expect to be so muscular and powerful in body as man. But this has become rather a solace than a source of perplexity to her. Indeed, the women’s clubs are beginning to whisper under their breath, “Man is fitted to build and hew and cut and lift, and to do everything which demands brute force. We are not. We should like to think, plan, and execute. Let him do the heavy work. If he wishes to fight he may. Wars are wicked, and we shall vote against them and refuse to take part in them.”

If woman is going in for this sort of thing, of course she needs the ballot. If she intends to manage corporations and do business generally,[280] she ought to have a voice in the framing of the laws which manifest the policy of the state. But to earn one’s living as a college professor, nurse, typewriter, saleslady, or clerk, or to sit on boards of charity, education, or hygiene, is a far remove from becoming bank presidents, merchants, judges, bankers, or members of Congress. The one affords the means by which single women can earn a decent and independent livelihood, or devote their energies to work useful to society; the other would necessitate an absolute revolution in the habits, tastes, interests, proclivities, and nature of woman. The noble army of teachers, typewriters, nurses, and salesladies are in the heels of their boots hoping to be married some day or other. They have merely thrown an anchor to windward and taken up a calling which will enable them to live reasonably happy if the right man does not appear, or passes by on the other side. Those who sit on boards, and who are more apt to be middle-aged, are but interpreting and fulfilling the true mission of the modern woman, which is to supplement and modify the point of view of man, and to extend the kind of influence which she exercises at home to the conduct of public interests of a certain class.

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Now, some one must keep house. Some one must cook, wash, dust, sweep, darn, look after the children, and in general grease the wheels of domestic activity. If women are to become merchants, and manage corporations, who will bring up our families and manage the home? The majority of the noble army referred to are not able to escape from making their own beds and cooking their own breakfasts. If they occupied other than comparatively subordinate positions they would have to call Chinatown to the rescue; for the men would decline with thanks, relying on their brute force to protect them, and the other women would toss their heads and say “Make your own beds, you nasty things. We prefer to go to town too.” In fact the emancipation of women, so far as it relates to usurpation of the work of man, does not mean much in actual practice yet, in spite of the brave show and bustle of the noble army. The salesladies get their meals somehow, and the domestic hearth is still presided over by the mistress of the house and her daughters. But this cannot continue to be the case if women are going to do everything which men do except lift weights and fight. For we all know that our mothers, wives, and sisters,[282] according to their own affidavits, have all they can do already to fulfil the requirements of modern life as mothers, wives, and sisters in the conventional yet modern sense. Many of them tell us that they would not have time to vote, to say nothing of qualifying themselves to vote. Indisputably they cannot become men and yet remain women in the matter of their daily occupations, unless they discover some new panacea against nervous prostration. The professions are open; the laws will allow them to establish banks and control corporate interests; but what is to become of the eternal feminine in the pow-wow, bustle, and materializing rush and competition of active business life? Whatever a few individuals may do, there seems to be no immediate or probably eventual prospect of a throwing off by woman of domestic ties and duties. Her physical and moral nature alike are formidable barriers in the way.

Why, then, if women are not going to usurp or share to any great extent the occupations of men, and become familiar with the practical workings of professional, business, and public affairs, are they ever likely to be able to judge so intelligently as men as to the needs of the state? To[283] hear many people discuss the subject, one would suppose that all the laws passed by legislative bodies were limited to questions of ethics and morality. If all political action were reduced to debates and ballots on the use of liquor, the social evil, and other moral or humanitarian topics, the claim that women ought to be allowed and encouraged to vote would be much stronger—that is, assuming that she herself preferred to use her influence directly instead of indirectly. But the advocates of female suffrage seem to forget that three-fifths of the laws passed relate to matters remotely if at all bearing upon ethics, and involve considerations of public policy from the point of view of what is best for the interests of the state and the various classes of individuals which compose it. We do not always remember in this age of afternoon teas and literary papers that the state is after all an artificial body, a form of compact under which human beings agree to live together for mutual benefit and protection. Before culture, æstheticism, or even ethics can be maintained there must be a readiness and ability to fight, if the necessity arises, and a capacity to do heavy work. Moreover, there must be ploughed fields and ship-yards and grain-elevators and engines[284] and manufactories, and all the divers forms and phases of industrial and commercial endeavor and enterprise by which men earn their daily bread. If woman is going to participate in the material activities of the community she will be fit to deal with the questions which relate thereto, but otherwise she must necessarily remain unable to form a satisfactory judgment as to the merits of more than one-half the measures upon which she would be obliged to vote. Nor is it an argument in point that a large body of men is in the same predicament. Two evils do not make a benefit. There is a sufficient number of men conversant with every separate practical question which arises to insure an intelligent examination of it. The essential consideration is, what would the state gain, if woman suffrage were adopted, except an enlarged constituency of voters? What would woman, by means of the ballot, add to the better or smoother development of the social system under which we live?

Unless the eternal feminine is to be sacrificed or to suffer, it seems to me that her sole influence would be an ethical or moral one. There are certainly strong grounds for the assumption that she would point the way to, or at least champion,[285] the cause of reforms which man has perpetually dilly-dallied with and failed to do battle for. To be sure, many of her most virtuous endeavors would be likely to be focussed on matters where indulgences and weaknesses chiefly masculine were concerned—such as the liquor problem; but an alliance between her vote and that of the minority of men would probably be a blessing to the world, even though she showed herself somewhat a tyrant or a fanatic. Her advocacy of measures calculated to relieve society of abuses and curses, which have continued to afflict it because men have been only moderately in earnest for a change, could scarcely fail to produce valuable results. Perhaps this is enough in itself to outweigh the ignorance which she would bring to bear on matters which did not involve ethical or humanitarian principles; and it is indisputably the most legitimate argument in favor of woman suffrage. The notion that women ought to vote simply because men do is childish and born of vanity. On the other hand, if the state is to be a gainer by her participation in the perplexities of voting, the case takes on a very different aspect.

I have been assuming that the influence of woman would be in behalf of ethics, but my wife[286] Barbara assures me that I am thereby begging the question. She informs me that I have too exalted an idea of woman and her aims. She has confided to me that, though there is a number of noble and forceful women in every community, the general average, though prolific of moral and religious advice to men by way of fulfilling a sort of traditional feminine duty, is at heart rather flighty and less deeply interested in social progress than my sex. This testimony, taken in connection with the reference of Julius Cæsar to the disillusioning effect of a crowd of women in a drygoods store, introduces a new element into the discussion. Frankly, my estimate of women has always been high, and possibly unduly exalted. It may be I have been deceived by the moral and religious advice offered into believing that women are more serious than they really are. Reflection certainly does cause one to recollect that comparatively few women like to dwell on or to discuss for more than a few minutes any serious subject which requires earnest thought. They prefer to skim from one thing to another like swallows and to avoid dry depths. Those in the van will doubtless answer that this is due to the unfortunate training which woman has been[287] subjected to for so many generations. True, in a measure; but ought she not, before she is allowed to vote, on the plea of bringing benefit to the state as an ethical adviser, to demonstrate by more than words her ethical superiority?

We all know that women drink less intoxicating liquor than men, and are less addicted to fleshly excesses. Yet the whole mental temper and make-up of each sex ought to be taken into account in comparing them together; and with all the predisposition of a gallant and susceptible man to say the complimentary thing, I find myself asking the question whether the average woman does not prefer to jog along on a worsted-work-domestic-trusting-religious-advice-giving basis, rather than to grapple in a serious way with the formidable problems of living. At any rate I, for one, before the right of suffrage is bestowed upon her, would like to be convinced that she as a sex is really earnest-minded. If one stops to think, it is not easy to show that, excepting where liquor, other women, and rigid attendance at church are concerned, she has been wont to show any very decided bent for, or interest in, the great reforms of civilization—that is, nothing to distinguish her from a well-equipped[288] and thoughtful man. It is significant, too, that where women in this country have been given the power to vote in local affairs, they have in several instances shown themselves to be more solicitous for the triumph of a religious creed or faction than to promote the public welfare.

It is extremely probable, if not certain, that the laws of all civilized states will eventually be amended so as to give women the same voice in the affairs of government as men. But taking all the factors of the case into consideration, there seems to be no pressing haste for action. Even admitting for the sake of argument that woman’s apparent lack of seriousness is due to her past training, and that she is really the admirably earnest spirit which one is lured into believing her until he reflects, there can assuredly be no question that the temper and proclivities of the very large mass of women are not calculated at present to convict man of a lack of purpose by virtue of shining superiority in persevering mental and moral aggressiveness. Not merely the drygoods counter and the milliner’s store with their engaging seductions, but the ball-room, the fancy-work pattern, the sensational novel, nervous prostration, the school-girl’s[289] giggle, the tea-pot without food, and a host of other tell-tale symptoms, suggest that there is a good deal of the old Eve left in the woman of to-day. And bless her sweet heart, Adam is in no haste to have it otherwise. Indeed, the eternal feminine seems to have staying qualities which bid fair to outlast the ages.

[290]

Now that more than a century has elapsed since our independence as a nation was accomplished, and we are sixty million strong, what do we stand for in the world? What is meant by the word American, and what are our salient qualities as a people? What is the contribution which we have made or are making to the progress of society and the advancement of civilization?

There certainly used to be, and probably there is, no such egregiously patriotic individual in the world as an indiscriminately patriotic American, and there is no more familiar bit of rhetoric extant than that this is the greatest nation on earth. The type of citizen who gave obtrusive vent to this sentiment, both at home and abroad, is less common than formerly; nevertheless his clarion tones are still invariably to be heard in legislative assemblies when any opportunity is afforded to draw a comparison between ourselves and other nations. His extravagant and highfalutin boastings have undoubtedly been the occasion of[291] a certain amount of seemingly lukewarm patriotism on the part of the educated and more intelligent portion of the American public, an attitude which has given foreigners the opportunity to declare that the best Americans are ashamed of their own institutions. But that apparent disposition to apologize already belongs to a past time. No American, unless a fool, denies to-day the force of the national character, whatever he or she may think of the behavior of individuals; and on the other hand, is it not true that every State in the Union has a rising population of young and middle-aged people who have discovered, Congress and the public schools to the contrary notwithstanding, that we do not know everything, and that the pathway of national progress is more full of perplexities than our forests were of trees when Daniel Boone built his log cabin in the wilds of Kentucky? In short, the period of unintelligent jubilation on one side, and carping cynicism on the other, have given place to a soberer self-satisfaction. We cannot—why should we?—forget that our territory is enormous, and that we soon shall be, if we are not already, the richest nation on earth; that the United States is the professed asylum and Mecca[292] of hope for the despondent and oppressed of other countries; and that we are the cynosure of the universe, as being the most important exemplification of popular government which the world has ever seen. At the same time, the claims put forth by our progenitors, that American society is vastly superior to any other, and that the effete world of Europe is put to the blush by the civic virtues of the land of the free and the home of the brave, are no longer urged except for the purposes of rodomontade. The average American of fifty years ago—especially the frontiersman and pioneer, who swung his axe to clear a homestead, and squirted tobacco-juice while he tilled the prairie—really believed that our customs, opinions, and manner of living, whether viewed from the moral, artistic, or intellectual standpoint, were a vast improvement on those of any other nation.

But though most of us to-day recognize the absurdity of such a view, we are most of us at the same time conscious of the belief that there is a difference between us and the European which is not imaginary, and which is the secret of our national force and originality. International intercourse has served to open our eyes[293] until they have become as wide as saucers, with the consequence that, in hundreds of branches of industry and art, we are studying Old World methods; moreover, the pioneer strain of blood has been diluted by hordes of immigrants of the scum of the earth. In spite of both these circumstances, our faith in our originality and in the value of it remains unshaken, and we are no less sure at heart that our salient traits are noble ones, than the American of fifty years ago was sure that we had the monopoly of all the virtues and all the arts. He really meant only what we mean, but he had an unfortunate way of expressing himself. We have learned better taste, and we do not hesitate nowadays to devote our native humor to hitting hard the head of bunkum, which used to be as sacred as a Hindoo god, and as rife as apple-blossoms in this our beloved country.

What is the recipe for Americanism—that condition of the system and blood, as it were, which even the immigrant without an ideal to his own soul, seems often to acquire to some extent as soon as he breathes the air of Castle Garden? It is difficult to define it in set speech, for it seems almost an illusive and intangible quality[294] of being when fingered and held up to the light. It seems to me to be, first of all, a consciousness of unfettered individuality coupled with a determination to make the most of self. One great force of the American character is its naturalness, which proceeds from a total lack of traditional or inherited disposition to crook the knee to any one. It never occurs to a good American to be obsequious. In vulgar or ignorant personalities this point of view has sometimes manifested itself, and continues to manifest itself, in swagger or insolence, but in the finer form of nature appears as simplicity of an unassertive yet dignified type. Gracious politeness, without condescension on the one hand, or fawning on the other, is noticeably a trait of the best element of American society, both among men and women. Indeed, so valuable to character and ennobling is this native freedom from servility, that it has in many cases in the past made odd and unconventional manner and behavior seem attractive rather than a blemish. Unconventionality is getting to be a thing of the past in this country, and the representative American is at a disadvantage now, both at home and abroad, if he lacks the ways of the[295] best social world; he can no longer afford to ignore cosmopolitan usages, and to rely solely on a forceful or imposing personality; the world of London and Paris, of New York and Washington and Chicago, has ceased to thrill, and is scarcely amused, if he shows himself merely in the guise of a splendid intellectual buffalo. But the best Americanism of to-day reveals itself no less distinctly and unequivocally in simplicity bred of a lack of self-consciousness and a lack of servility of mind. It seems to carry with it a birthright of self-respect, which, if fitly worn, ennobles the humblest citizen.

This national quality of self-respect is apt to be associated with the desire for self-improvement or success. Indeed, it must engender it, for it provides hope, and hope is the touchstone of energy. The great energy of Americans is ascribed by some to the climate, and it is probably true that the nervous temperaments of our people are stimulated by the atmospheric conditions which surround us; but is it not much more true that, just as it never occurs to the good American to be servile, so he feels that his outlook upon the possibilities of life is not limited or qualified, and that the world is really his[296] oyster? To be sure, this faith has been fostered by the almost Aladdin-like opportunities which this great and rich new country of ours has afforded. But whatever the reason for our native energy and self-reliance, it indisputably exists, and is signally typical of the American character. We are distinctly an ambitious, earnest people, eager to make the most of ourselves individually, and we have attracted the attention of the world by force of our independent activity of thought and action. The extraordinary personality of Abraham Lincoln is undoubtedly the best apotheosis yet presented of unadulterated Americanism. In him the native stock was free from the foreign influences and suggestions which affected, more or less, the people of the East. His origin was of the humblest sort, and yet he presented most saliently in his character the naturalness, nobility, and aspiring energy of the nation. He made the most of himself by virtue of unusual abilities, yet the key-note of their influence and force was a noble simplicity and farsighted independence. In him the quintessence of the Americanism of thirty years ago was summed up and expressed. In many ways he was a riddle at first to the people of the cities[297] of the East in that, though their soul was his soul, his ways had almost ceased to be their ways; but he stands before the world to-day as the foremost interpreter of American ideas and American temper of thought as they then existed.

In the thirty years since the death of Abraham Lincoln the country has been inundated with foreign blood. Irish, Germans, English, Poles, and Scandinavians, mainly of the pauper or peasant class, have landed in large numbers, settled in one State or another, and become a part of the population. The West, at the time of the Civil War, was chiefly occupied by settlers of New England or Eastern stock—pioneers from the older cities and towns who had sought fortune and a freer life in the new territory of prairies and unappropriated domain. The population of the whole country to-day bears many different strains of blood in its veins. The original settlers have chiefly prospered. The sons of those who split rails or followed kindred occupations in the fifties, and listened to the debates between Lincoln and Douglas, are the proprietors of Chicago, Denver, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, and Topeka. Johann Heintz now follows the plough and in turn squirts tobacco-juice while he tills the prairie;[298] and Louis Levinsky, Paul Petrinoff, and Michael O’Neil forge the plough-shares, dig in the mine, or work in the factory side by side with John Smith and any descendant of Paul Revere who has failed to prosper in life’s battle. But this is not all. Not merely are the plain people in the dilemma of being unable to pronounce the names of their neighbors, but the same is getting to be true of the well-to-do merchants and tradespeople of many of our cities. The argus-eyed commercial foreigner has marked us for his own, and his kith and kin are to-day coming into possession of our drygoods establishments, our restaurants, our cigar stores, our hotels, our old furniture haunts, our theatres, our jewelry shops, and what not. One has merely to open a directory in order to find the names in any leading branch of trade plentifully larded with Adolph Stein, Simon Levi, Gustave Cohen, or something ending in berger. They sell our wool; they float our loans; they manufacture our sugar, our whiskey, and our beer; they influence Congress. They are here for what they can make, and they do not waste their time in sentiment. They did not come in time to reap the original harvest, but they have blown across the ocean to help the free-born[299] American spend his money in the process of trying to out-civilize Paris and London. As a consequence, the leading wholesale and retail ornamental industries of New York and of some of our Western cities are in the grip of individuals whose surnames have a foreign twang. Of course, they have a right to be here; it is a free country, and no one can say them nay. But we must take them and their wives and daughters, their customs and their opinions, into consideration in making an estimate of who are the Americans of the present. They have not come here for their health, as the phrase is, but they have come to stay. We at present, in our social hunger and thirst, supply the grandest and dearest market of the world for the disposal of everything beautiful and costly and artistic which the Old World possesses, and all the shopkeepers of Europe, with the knowledge of generations on the tips of their tongues and in the corners of their brains, have come over to coin dowries for their daughters in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Many of them have already made large fortunes in the process, and are beginning to con the pages of the late Ward McAllister’s book on etiquette with a view to social aggressiveness.

[300]

Despite this infusion of foreign blood, the native stock and the Anglo-Saxon nomenclature are still, of course, predominant in numbers. There are some portions of the country where the late immigrant is scarcely to be found. True also is it that these late-comers, like the immigrants of fifty years ago, have generally been prompt in appropriating the independent and energetic spirit typical of our people. But there is a significant distinction to be borne in mind in this connexion: The independent energy of the Americans of fifty years ago, whether in the East or among the pioneers of the Western frontier, was not, however crude its manifestations, mere bombastic assertiveness, but the expression of a faith and the expression of strong character. They were often ignorant, conceited, narrow, hard, and signally inartistic; but they stood for principle and right as they saw and believed it; they cherished ideals; they were firm as adamant in their convictions; and God talked with them whether in the store or workshop, or at the plough. This was essentially true of the rank and file of the people, no less true and perhaps more true of the humblest citizens than of the well-to-do and prominent.

[301]

There can be little doubt that the foreign element which is now a part of the American people represents neither a faith nor the expression of ideals or convictions. The one, and the largest portion of it, is the overflow and riff-raff of the so-called proletariat of Europe; the other is the evidence of a hyena-like excursion for the purposes of plunder. In order to be a good American it is not enough to become independent and energetic. The desire to make the most of one’s self is a relative term; it must proceed from principle and be nourished by worthy, ethical aims; otherwise it satisfies itself with paltry conditions, or with easy-going florid materialism. The thieving and venality in municipal political affairs of the Irish-American, the dull squalor and brutish contentment of the Russian-Pole, and the commercial obliquity of vision and earthy ambitions of the German Jew, are factors in our national life which are totally foreign to the Americanism for which Abraham Lincoln stood. We have opened our gates to a horde of economic ruffians and malcontents, ethical bankrupts and social thugs, and we must needs be on our guard lest their aims and point of view be so engrafted on the public conscience as to sap the[302] vital principles which are the foundation of our strength as a people. The danger from this source is all the greater from the fact that the point of view of the American people has been changed so radically during the last thirty years as a secondary result of our material prosperity. We have ceased to be the austere nation we once were, and we have sensibly let down the bars in the manner of our living; we have recognized the value of, and we enjoy, many things which our fathers put from them as inimical to republican virtue and demoralizing to society. Contact with older civilizations has made us wiser and more appreciative, and with this growth of perspective and the acquirement of an eye for color has come a liberality of sentiment which threatens to debauch us unless we are careful. There are many, especially among the wealthy and fashionable, who in their ecstasy over our emancipation are disposed to throw overboard everything which suggests the old régime, and to introduce any custom which will tend to make life more easy-going and spectacular. And in this they are supported by the immigrant foreigner, who would be only too glad to see the land of his adoption made to conform in all its usages to the land of his birth.

[303]

The conduct of life here has necessarily and beneficially been affected by the almost general recognition that we have not a monopoly of all the virtues, and by the adoption of many customs and points of view recommended by cosmopolitan experience. The American people still believe, however, that our civilization is not merely a repetition of the older ones, and a duplication on new soil of the old social tread-mill. That it must be so in a measure every one will admit, but we still insist, and most of us believe, that we are to point the way to a new dispensation. We believe, but at the same time when we stop to think we find some difficulty in specifying exactly what we are doing to justify the faith. It is easy enough to get tangled up in the stars and stripes and cry “hurrah!” and to thrust the American eagle down the throats of a weary universe, but it is quite another to command the admiration of the world by behavior commensurate with our ambition and self-confidence. Our forefathers could point to their own nakedness as a proof of their greatness, but there seems to be some danger that we, now that we have clothed ourselves—and clothed ourselves as expensively as possible and not always in the[304] best taste—will forget the ideas and ideals for which those fathers stood, and let ourselves be seduced by the specious doctrine that human nature is always human nature, and that all civilizations are alike. To be sure, an American now is apt to look and act like any other rational mortal, and there is no denying that the Atlantic cable and ocean greyhound have brought the nations of the world much closer together than they ever were before; but this merely proves that we can become just like the others, only worse, in case we choose to. But we intend to improve upon them.

To those who believe that we are going to improve upon them it must be rather an edifying spectacle to observe the doings and sayings of that body of people in the city of New York who figure in the newspapers of the day as “the four hundred,” “the smart set,” or “the fashionable world.” After taking into full account the claims of the sensitive city of Chicago, it may be truthfully stated that the city of New York is the Paris of America. There are other municipalities which are doing their best in their several ways to rival her, but it is toward New York that all the eyes in the country are turned, and[305] from which they take suggestion as a cat laps milk. The rest of us are in a measure provincial. Many of us profess not to approve of New York, but, though we cross ourselves piously, we take or read a New York daily paper. New York gives the cue alike to the Secretary of the Treasury and (by way of London) to the social swell. The ablest men in the country seek New York as a market for their brains, and the wealthiest people of the country move to New York to spend the patrimony which their rail-splitting fathers or grandfathers accumulated. Therefore it is perfectly just to refer to the social life of New York as representative of that element of the American people which has been most blessed with brains or fortune, and as representative of our most highly evolved civilization. It ought to be our best. The men and women who contribute to its movement and influence ought to be the pick of the country. But what do we find? We find as the ostensible leaders of New York society a set of shallow worldlings whose whole existence is given up to emulating one another in elaborate and splendid inane social fripperies. They dine and wine and dance and entertain from January to December. Their houses, whether in[306] town or at the fashionable watering-places to which they move in summer, are as sumptuous, if not more so, than those of the French nobility in its palmiest days, and their energies are devoted to the discovery of new expensive luxuries and fresh titillating creature comforts. That such a body of people should exist in this country after little more than a century of democratic institutions is extraordinary, but much more extraordinary is the absorbing interest which a large portion of the American public takes in the doings and sayings of this fashionable rump. There is the disturbing feature of the case. Whatever these worldlings do is flashed over the entire country, and is copied into a thousand newspapers as being of vital concern to the health and home of the nation. The editors print it because it is demanded; because they have found that the free-born American citizen is keenly solicitous to know “what is going on in society,” and that he or she follows with almost feverish interest and with open-mouthed absorption the spangled and jewelled annual social circus parade which goes on in the Paris of America. The public is indifferently conscious that underneath this frothy upper-crust in New York there is a large[307] number of the ablest men and women of the country by whose activities the great educational, philanthropic, and artistic enterprises of the day have been fostered, promoted, and made successful; but this consciousness pales into secondary importance in the democratic mind as compared with realistic details concerning this ball and that dinner-party where thousands of dollars are poured out in vulgar extravagance, or concerning the cost of the wedding-presents, the names and toilettes of the guests, and the number of bottles of champagne opened at the marriage of some millionaire’s daughter.

No wonder that this aristocracy of ours plumes itself on its importance, and takes itself seriously when it finds its slightest doings telegraphed from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It feels itself called to new efforts, for it understands with native shrewdness that the American people requires novelty and fresh entertainment, or it looks elsewhere. Accordingly it is beginning to be unfaithful to its marriage vows. Until within a recent period the husbands and wives of this vapid society have, much to the bewilderment of warm-blooded students of manners and morals, been satisfied to flirt and produce the appearance[308] of infidelity, and yet only pretend. Now the divorce court and the whispered or public scandal bear frequent testimony to the fact that it is not so fashionable or “smart” as it used to be merely to make believe.

Was there ever a foreign court, when foreign courts were in their glory, where men and women were content merely to whisper and giggle behind a rubber-tree in order to appear vicious? It may be said at least that some of our fashionables have learned to be men and women instead of mere simpering marionettes. Still there was originality in being simpering marionettes: Marital infidelity has been the favorite excitement of every rotten aristocracy which the world has ever seen.

[309]

A manner of life of this description can scarcely be the ideal of the American people. Certainly neither George Washington, when he delivered his farewell address, nor Abraham Lincoln, on the occasion of his second inaugural, looked forward to the evolution of any such aristocracy as the fulfilment of the nation’s hopes. And yet this coterie of people has its representatives in all the large cities of the country, and there is no reason to doubt that in a short time the example set will be imitated to some extent, at least, and that one portion of the country will vie with another in extravagant social vanities and prodigal display on the part of a pleasure-seeking leisure class.

Most of these people go to church, and, indeed, some of them are ostensibly regardful of church functions and ceremonies, and, as they do not openly violate any laws so as to subject themselves to terms of imprisonment, the patriotic American citizen finds himself able merely to frown by way of showing his dissatisfaction[310] at this form of high treason against the morals and aims of democracy. To frown and to be grateful that one is not like certain pleasure-seeking millionaires is not much of a comfort, especially when it is obvious that the ignorant and semi-ignorant mass is fascinated by the extravagances and worldly manifestations of the individuals in question, and has made them its heroes on account of their unadulterated millions. Indeed, the self-respecting, patriotic American citizen finds himself to-day veritably between Scylla and Charybdis in the matter of the conduct of life. We are no longer the almost homogeneous nation we were fifty years ago. There are far greater extremes of wealth and poverty. Our economic conditions, or at least the conditions which exist in our principal cities, are closely approximating those which exist in the cities of the Old World. Outside of our cities the people for the most part live in respectable comfort by the practice of what passes in America for economy, which may be defined as a high but ignorant moral purpose negatived by waste and domestic incompetence. It has always been true of our beloved country that, though the ship of state has seemed on the point of floundering[311] from time to time, disaster has invariably been averted at critical junctures by the saving grace of the common-sense and right-mindedness of the American people. This is not so complimentary as it sounds. It really means that the average sense and intelligence of the public is apt to be in the wrong at the outset, and to be converted to the right only after many days and much tribulation. In other words, our safety and our progress have been the result of a slow and often reluctant yielding of opinion by the mass to the superior judgment of a minority. This is merely another way of stating that, where every one has a right to individual opinion, and there are no arbitrary standards of conduct or of anything else outside the statute law, the mean is likely to fall far short of what is best. Our salvation in every instance of national perplexity has been the effectual working on the public conscience of the leaven of the best Americanism. A comparatively small proportion of the population have been the pioneers in thought and suggestion of subsequent ardent espousals by the entire public. This leaven, in the days when we were more homogeneous, was made up from all the elements of society; or, in other words, the[312] best Americanism drew its representatives from every condition of life; the farmer of the Western prairie was just as likely to tower above his fellows and become a torch-bearer as the merchant or mechanic of the city.

If we as a nation have needed a leaven in the past, we certainly have no less need of one to-day, now that we are in the flush of material prosperity and consciousness of power. Fortunately we have one. The public-spirited, nobly independent, earnest, conscientious, ambitious American exists to-day as indisputably and unmistakably as ever, and he is a finer specimen of humanity than he used to be, for he knows more and he poses much less. It is safe to assert, too, that he is still to be found in every walk of our national life. The existence of an aggravating and frivolous aristocracy on the surface, and an ignorant, unæsthetic mass underneath should not blind us to the fact that there is a sound core to our social system. The hope of the United States to-day lies in that large minority of the people who are really trying to solve the problems of life from more than a merely selfish standpoint. One has merely to think a moment in order to realize what a really numerous and significant body[313] among us is endeavoring to promote the cause of American civilization by aspiring or decent behavior. Our clergymen, our lawyers, our doctors, our architects, our merchants, our teachers, some of our editors, our bankers, our scientists, our scholars, and our philanthropists, at once stand out as a generally sane and earnest force of citizens. The great educational, charitable, artistic, and other undertakings which have been begun and splendidly completed by individual energy and liberality since the death of Abraham Lincoln, bespeak eloquently the temper of a certain portion of the community. If it be true that the so-called aristocracy of New York City threatens the repute and sincerity of democracy by its heartlessness and unworthy attempts to ape the vices of a fifteenth-century European nobility, New York can fairly retort that it offers in its working force of well-to-do people the most vital, interesting, sympathetic, and effective force of men and women in the nation. If the Paris of America contains the most dangerous element of society, it also contains an element which is equal to the best elsewhere, and is more attractive than any. The New York man or woman who is in earnest is sure to accomplish something,[314] for he or she is not likely to be handicapped by ignorant provincialism of ethics or art which plays havoc with many of the good intentions of the rest of the country.

This versatile and interesting leaven of American society finds its counterpart, to a greater or less extent, in every section of the United States, but it is nowhere quite so attractive as in the Paris of America, for the reason that nowhere does the pulse of life move so keenly as there, and nowhere is the science of living absorbingly so well understood. The art of living has there reached a more interesting phase than in any part of America, if zest in life and the facilities to make the most of it are regarded as the test.

This may sound worldly. The people of the United States used to consider it worldly to admire pictures or to listen to beautiful music. Some think so still. Many a citizen of what was lately the prairie sits down to his dinner in his shirt-sleeves to-day and pretends to be thankful that he is neither an aristocrat nor a gold-bug. The next week, perhaps, this same citizen will vote against a national bankrupt law because he does not wish to pay his debts, or vote for a bill which will enable him to pay them in depreciated[315] currency. Many a clergyman who knows better gives his flock consolingly to understand that to be absorbed in the best human interests of life is unworthy of the Christian, and that to be ordinary and unattractive is a legitimate condition of mind and body. Surely the best Americanism is the Americanism of the man or woman who makes the most of what this life affords, and throws himself or herself keenly into the thick of it. The art of living is the science of living nobly and well, and how can one live either nobly or well by regarding life on the earth as a mere log-cabin existence? If we in this country who seek to live wisely are in danger from the extravagant vanities of the very rich, we are scarcely less menaced by that narrow spirit of ethical teaching which tries to inculcate that it does not much matter what our material surroundings are, and that any progress made by society, except in the direction of sheer morality, is a delusion and a snare.

Character is the basis and the indispensable requisite of the finest humanity; without it refinement, appreciation, manners, fancy, and power of expression are like so many boughs on a tree which is dead. But, on the other hand, what is[316] more uninspiring than an unadorned soul? That kind of virtue and morality which finds no interest in the affairs of this life is but a fresh contribution to the sum of human incompetence, and but serves to retard the progress of civilization. The true and the chief reason why there is less misery in the world than formerly is that men understand better how to live. That straight-laced type of American, who is content to be moral in his own narrow way, and to exclude from his scheme of life all those interests which serve to refine and to inspire, bears the same relation to the ideal man or woman that a chromo bears to a masterpiece of painting.

We have no standards in this country. The individual is free to express himself here within the law in any way he sees fit, and the conduct of life comes always at last to an equation of the individual. Each one of us when we awake in the morning finds the problem of existence staring him anew in the face, and cannot always spare the time to remember that he is an American. And yet Americanism is the sum total of what all of us are. It will be very easy for us simply to imitate the civilizations of the past, but if our civilization is to stand for anything vital, and to[317] be a step forward in the progress of humanity, we must do more than use the old combinations and devices of society in a new kaleidoscopic form. Our heritage as Americans is independence, originality, self-reliance, and sympathetic energy animated by a strong ethical instinct, and these are forces which can produce a higher and a broader civilization than the world has yet seen if we choose to have it so. But it is no longer a matter of cutting down forests and opening mines, of boasting beside the plough and building cities in a single year, of fabulous fortunes won in a trice, and of favorite sons in black broadcloth all the year round. It is a matter of a vast, populous country and a powerful, seething civilization where the same problems confront us which have taxed the minds and souls of the Old World for generations of men. It is for our originality to throw new light upon them, and it is for our independence to face them in the spirit of a deeper sympathy with humanity, and free from the canker of that utter selfishness which has made the prosperity and glory of other great nations culminate so often in a decadence of degrading luxury and fruitless culture.

No civilization which regards the blessings and[318] comforts of refined living as unworthy to be striven for and appropriated can hope to promote the cause of humanity. On the other hand, we Americans must remember that purely selfish appropriation and appreciation of these blessings and comforts has worked the ruin of the most famous civilizations of the past. Marie Antoinette was more elegant than the most fashionable woman in New York, and yet that did not save her from the tumbrel and the axe. The best Americanism of to-day and for the future is that which shall seek to use the fruits of the earth and the fulness thereof, and to develop all the manifestations of art and gentle living in the interest of humanity as a whole. But even heartless elegance is preferable to that self-righteous commonness of spirit which sits at home in its shirt-sleeves and is graceless, ascetic, and unimaginative in the name of God.

THE END

D. B. Updike
The Merrymount Press
104 Chestnut Street
Boston

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