Humanly Speaking by Samuel McChord Crothers
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Samuel McChord Crothers >> Humanly Speaking
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Read again the history of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. How
admirable were the efforts of the "good emperors," and how futile!
Consider again the oft-repeated story of the way the humanitarianism of
Rousseau ushered in the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror.
With such gloomy forebodings do the over-civilized thinkers and writers
try to discourage the half-civilized and half-educated workers, who are
trying to make things better. How shall we answer the prophets of ill?
Not by denying the existence of the evils they see, or the possibility
of the calamities which they fear. What we object to is the mental
attitude toward the facts that are discovered. The spoiled child, when
it discovers something not to its liking, exaggerates the evil, and
indulges its ill-temper.
The well-trained man faces the evil, studies it, measures it, and then
sets to work. He is well aware that nothing human is perfect, and that
to accomplish one thing is only to reveal another thing which needs to
be done. There must be perpetual readjustment, and reconsideration. What
was done yesterday must be done over again to-day in a somewhat
different way. But all this does not prove the futility of effort. It
only proves that the effort must be unceasing, and that it must be more
and more wisely directed.
He compares, for example, Christianity as an ideal with Christianity as
an actual achievement. He places in parallel columns the maxims of
Jesus, and the policies of Christian nations and the actual state of
Christian churches. The discrepancy is obvious enough. But it does not
prove that Christianity is a failure; it only proves that its work is
unfinished.
A political party may adopt a platform filled with excellent proposals
which if thoroughly carried out would bring in the millennium. But it is
too much to expect that it would all be accomplished in four years. At
the end of that period we should not be surprised if the reformers
should ask for a further extension of time.
The spoiled children of civilization eliminate from their problem the
one element which is constant and significant--human effort. They forget
that from the beginning human life has been a tremendous struggle
against great odds. Nothing has come without labor, no advance has been
without daring leadership. New fortunes have always had their hazards.
Forgetting all this, and accepting whatever comforts may have come to
them as their right, they are depressed and discouraged by their vision
of the future with its dangers and its difficulties. They habitually
talk of the civilized world as on the brink of some great catastrophe
which it is impossible to avoid. This gloomy foreboding is looked upon
as an indication of wisdom.
It should be dismissed, I think, as an indication of childish unreason,
unworthy of any one who faces realities. It is still true that "the
morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the
day is the evil thereof."
The notion that coming events cast shadows before is a superstition. How
can they? A shadow must be the shadow of something. The only events that
can cast a shadow are those which have already taken place. Behind them
is the light of experience, shining upon actualities which intercept its
rays.
The shadows which affright us are of our own making. They are
projections into the future of our own experiences. They are sharply
denned silhouettes, rather than vague omens. When we look at them
closely we can recognize familiar features. We are dealing with cause
and effect. What is done foreshadows what remains to be done. Every act
implies some further acts as its results. When a principle is recognized
its practical applications must follow. When men begin to reason from
new premises they are bound to come to new conclusions.
It is evident that in the last half-century enough discoveries have been
made to keep us busy for a long time. Every scientific advance upsets
some custom and interferes with some vested interest. You cannot
discover the truth about tuberculosis without causing a great deal of
trouble to the owners of unsanitary dwellings. Some of them are widows
whose little all is invested in this kind of property. The health
inspectors make life more difficult for them.
Scholarly research among ancient manuscripts is the cause of destructive
criticism. The scholar with the most peaceable intentions in the world
disturbs some one's faith. His discovery perhaps involves the
reconstruction of a whole system of philosophy.
A law is passed. The people are pleased with it, and then forget all
about it. But by and by a conscientious executive comes into office who
thinks it his duty to enforce the law. Such accidents are liable to
happen in the most good-humored democracy. When he tries to enforce it
there is a burst of angry surprise. He is treated as a revolutionist who
is attacking the established order. And yet to the moderately
philosophic observer the making of the law and its enforcement belong to
the same process. The difficulty is that though united logically they
are often widely separated chronologically.
The adjustment to a new theory involves changes in practice. But the
practical man who has usually little interest in new theories is
surprised and angry when the changes come. He looks upon them as
arbitrary interferences with his rights.
Even when it is admitted that when considered in a large way the change
is for the better, the question arises, Who is to pay for it? The
discussion on this point is bound to be acrimonious, as we are not
saints and nobody wants to pay more than his share of the costs of
progress. Even the price of liberty is something which we grumble over.
You have noticed how it is when a new boulevard is laid in any part of
the city. There is always a dispute between the municipality and the
abutters. Should the abutters be assessed for betterments or should they
sue for damages? Usually both actions are instituted. The cost of such
litigation should be included in the price which the community pays for
the improvement.
If people always knew what was good for them and acted accordingly, this
would be a very different world, though not nearly so interesting. But
we do not know what is good for us till we try; and human life is spent
in a series of experiments. The experiments are costly, but there is no
other way of getting results. All that we can say to a person who
refuses to interest himself in these experiments, or who looks upon all
experiments as futile which do not turn out as he wished, is that his
attitude is childish. The great commandment to the worker or thinker
is,--Thou shalt not sulk.
* * * * *
Sulking is no more admirable in those of great reputation than it is in
the nursery. Thackeray declared that, in his opinion, "love is a higher
intellectual exercise than hate." And looked at as an exercise of mental
power courage must always be greater than the most highly
intellectualized form of fear or despair.
I cannot take with perfect seriousness Matthew Arnold's oft-quoted
lines:--
"Achilles ponders in his tent,
The kings of modern thought are dumb.
Silent they are, though not content,
And wait to see the future come.
They have the grief men had of yore,
But they contend and cry no more."
If that is ever the attitude of the best minds, it is only a momentary
one of which they are quickly ashamed. Achilles sulked in his tent when
he was pondering not a big problem, but a small grievance. The kings of
modern thought who are described seem like kings out of a job. We are
inclined to turn from them to the intellectual monarchs _de facto_. They
are the ones who take up the hard job which the representatives of the
old regime give up as hopeless. For when the king has abdicated and
contends no more--Long live the King!
The real thinkers of any age do not remain long in a blue funk. They
always find something important to think about. They always point out
something worth doing. They cannot passively wait to see the future
come. They are too busy making it.
Matthew Arnold struck a truer note in Rugby Chapel. The true leaders of
mankind can never be mere intellectualists. There must be a union of
intellectual and moral energy like that which he recognized in his
father. To the fainting, dispirited race,--
"Ye like angels appear,
Radiant with ardour divine,
Beacons of hope, ye appear!
Languor is not in your heart,
Weakness is not in your word,
Weariness not on your brow;
Ye alight in our van: at your voice
Panic, despair, flee away."
When those whom we have looked upon as our intellectual leaders grow
disheartened, we must remember that a lost leader does not necessarily
mean a lost cause. When those whom we had called the kings of modern
thought are dumb, we can find new leadership. "Change kings with us,"
replied an Irish officer after the panic of the Boyne; "change kings
with us, and we will fight you again."
ON REALISM AS AN INVESTMENT
_From a Real-Estate Dealer to a Realistic Novelist_
Dear Sir:--
I have been for some time interested in your projects for the
improvement of literature. When I saw your name in the newspapers, I
looked you up in "Who's Who," and found that your rating is excellent
What pleased me was the bold way you attacked the old firms which have
been living on their reputations. The way you showed up Dickens,
Thackeray & Co. showed that you know a thing or two. As for W. Scott and
the other speculators who have been preying on the credulity of the
public, you gave them something to think about. You showed conclusively
that instead of dealing in hard facts, they have been handing out
fiction under the guise of novels.
Our minds run in the same channel: you deal in reality and I deal in
realty, but the principle is the same. I inclose some of the literature
which I am sending out. You see, I warn people against investing in
stocks and bonds. These are mere paper securities, which take to
themselves wings and fly away. But if you can get hold of a few acres of
dirt, there you are. When a panic comes along, and Wall Street goes to
smash, you can sit on your front porch in South Canaan without a care.
You have your little all in something real.
You followed the same line of argumentation. You showed that there was
nothing imaginative about your work. You could give a warranty deed for
every fact which you put on the market. I was so pleased with your
method that I bought a job lot of your books, so that I could see for
myself how you conducted your business. Will you allow me, as one in the
same line, to indulge in a little criticism? I am afraid that you are
making the same mistake I made when I first went into real estate. I was
so possessed with the idea of the value of land that I became "land
poor." It strikes me that a novelist may become reality poor in the same
way; that is, by investing in a great many realities that are not worth
what he pays for them.
You see, there is a fact which we do not mention in our circulars. There
is a great deal of land lying out of doors. _Some_ land is in great
demand, and the real trick is to find out what that land is. You can't
go out on the plains of Wyoming and give an acre of land the same value
which an acre has in the Wall Street district. I speak from experience,
having tried to convince the public that if the acres are real, the
values I suggested must be real also. People wouldn't believe me, and I
lost money.
And the same thing is true about improvements. They must be related to
the market value of the land on which they are placed. A forty-story
building at Goshenville Corners would be a mistake. There is no call for
it.
This is the mistake which I fear you have been making. Your novel is a
carefully prepared structure, and must have cost a great deal, but it is
built on ground which is not worth enough to justify the investment. It
has not what we call "site value." You yourself declare that you have no
particular interest in the characters you describe at such length. All
that you have to say for them is that they are real. It is as if I were
to put up an expensive apartment-house on a vacant lot I have at North
Ovid. North Ovid is real, and so would be the apartment-house; but what
of it?
There are ninety millions of people in this country, all with characters
which might be carefully studied, if we had time. But we haven't the
time. So we have to choose our intimates. We prefer to know those who
seem to us most worth knowing. You should remember that the novelist has
no monopoly on realism. The newspapers are full of all sorts of
realities. The historian is a keen competitor.
Do you know that when I went to the bookstore to get your works I fell
in with a book on Garibaldi by a man named Trevelyan. When I got home I
sat down with it and couldn't let it go. Garibaldi was all the time
doing things, which you never allow your characters to do because you
think they would not be real. He was acting in the most romantic and
heroic manner possible. And his Thousand trooped after him as gayly as
if they were in a melodrama. And yet I understand that Garibaldi was a
real person, and that his exploits can be authenticated.
The competition in your line of business is fierce. You try to hold the
reader's attention to the states of mind of a few futile persons who
never did anything in particular that would make people want to know
them exhaustively. And then along comes the historian who tells all
about some one who does things they are interested in.
You can't wonder at the result. People who ought to be interested in
fiction are carried away by biography, and the chances are that some of
them will never come back. When they once get a taste for highly spiced
intellectual victuals, you can't get them to relish the breakfast food
you set before them. It seems to them insipid.
I know what you will say about Garibaldi. He was not your kind. You
wouldn't touch such a character if it was offered to you at a bargain.
After looking over that expedition to Sicily you would say that there
was nothing in it for you. The motives weren't complicated enough. It
was just plain heroics. You don't care so much for passions as for
problems. You want something to analyze.
Well, what do you say to Cavour? When I was deep in Garibaldi I found I
couldn't understand what he was driving at without knowing something
about Cavour who was always mixed up with what was going on in that
section of the world.
So I took up a Life of Cavour by a man named Thayer. It's the way I
have; one thing suggests another. Once I went up to Duluth and invested
in some corner lots on Superior Street. That suggested Superior City,
just across the river. The two towns were running each other down at a
great rate just then, so I stopped at West Superior to see what it had
to say for itself. The upshot of the matter was that I sized up the
situation about like this. A big city has _got_ to grow up at the head
of Lake Superior. If Duluth grows as much as it thinks it will, it's
bound to take in Superior. And if Superior grows as much as it thinks it
will, it can't help taking in Duluth. So I concluded that the best thing
for me was to take a flier in both.
When I saw what a big proposition the Unification of Italy was, I knew
that there was room for the development of some mighty interesting
characters before they got through with the business. So I plunged into
the Life of Cavour, and I've never regretted it.
Talk about problems! That hero of yours in your last book--I know you
don't believe in heroes,--at any rate, the leading man--was an innocent
child walking with his nurse along Easy Street, when compared with
Cavour. Cavour had fifty problems at the same time, and all of them were
insoluble to every one except himself.
His project, as I have just told you, was the unification of Italy. But
he hadn't any regulated monopoly in the business. A whole bunch of
unifiers were ahead of him; each one of them was trying to unify Italy
in his own way. They were all working at cross-purposes.
Now Cavour didn't try, as you might have expected, to reconcile these
people. He saw that it couldn't be done. He didn't mind their hating one
another; when they got too peaceable he would make an occasion for them
to hate him. He kept them all irreconcilably at work, till, in spite of
themselves, they got to working together. And when they began to do
that, Cavour would encourage them in it. As long as they were all
working for Italy he didn't care what they thought of each other or of
him. He had his eye on the main chance--for Italy.
I notice that in your novel, when your man got into trouble he threw up
the sponge. That rather turned me against him and I wished I hadn't
wasted so much time on his affairs. That wasn't the way with Thayer's
hero. One of the largest deals Cavour ever made was with Napoleon III,
who at that time had the reputation of being the biggest promoter of
free institutions in Europe. He was a regular wizard in diplomacy.
Whatever he said went. You see they hadn't realized then that he was
doing business on borrowed capital.
Well, Napoleon agreed to underwrite, for Cavour, the whole project of
Italian Unity. Everybody thought it was going through all right, when
suddenly Napoleon, from a place called Villafranca, wired that the deal
was off.
That floored Cavour. He was down and out. He couldn't realize ten cents
on the dollar on his securities. If he had been like your man, Thayer
would have had to bring his book to an end with that chapter. He would
have left the reader plunged in gloom.
Cavour was mad for awhile and went up to Switzerland to cool off. Thayer
describes the way he went up to a friend's house, near Lake Geneva, with
his coat on his arm. "Unannounced, he strode into the drawing-room,
threw himself into an easy-chair, and asked for a glass of iced water."
Then he poured out his wrath over the Villafranca incident, but he
didn't waste much time over that. In a few moments he was
enthusiastically telling of the new projects he had formed. "We must not
look back, but forward," he told his friends. "We have followed one
road. It is blocked. Very well, we will follow another."
That's the kind of man Cavour was. You forgot that he was a European
statesman. When you saw him with his coat off, drinking ice-water and
talking about the future, you felt toward him just as you would toward a
first-rate American who was of Presidential size.
Now, I'm not saying that there's any more realism to the square inch in
a Life of Cavour than in a Life of Napoleon III. It would take as much
labor on the part of a biographer to tell what Napoleon III really was
as to tell what Cavour really was--perhaps more. But you come up against
the law of supply and demand. You can't get around that. There isn't
much inquiry for Napoleon, now that his boom is over.
The way Thayer figured it was, I suppose, something like this. It would
take eight or ten years to assemble the materials for a first-rate
biography such as he wished to make. If he chose Napoleon there would be
steady deterioration in the property, and when the improvements were put
on there would be no demand. If he put the same work on Cavour, he would
get the unearned increment. I think he showed his sense.
Of course the biographer has the advantage of you in one important
particular. He knows how his story is coming out In a way, he's betting
on a certainty. Now you, as I judge, don't know how your story is coming
out, and if it doesn't come out, all you have to do is to say that is
the way you meant it to be. You cut off so many square feet of reality,
and let it go at that. Now that is very convenient for you, but from the
reader's point of view, it's unsatisfactory. It mixes him up, and he
feels a grudge against you whenever he thinks how much better he might
have spent his time than in following a plot that came to nothing. You
see you are running up against that same law of supply and demand. There
are so many failures in the world that the market is overstocked with
them. There is a demand for successes.
When I was in an old house which I took on the foreclosure of a mortgage
the other day, I came upon a little old novel, of a hundred years ago.
It was the sentimental kind that you despise. It was called "Alonzo and
Melissa," which was enough to condemn it in your eyes. But the preface
seemed to me to have some sense.
The author says: "It is believed that this story contains no indecorous
stimulants, nor is it filled with inexplicated incidents imperceptible
to the understanding. When anxieties have been excited by involved and
doubtful events, they are afterwards elucidated by their consequences.
In this the writer believes that he has generally copied Nature."
I have a feeling that those inexplicated incidents in your novel might
have been elucidated by their consequences if you had chosen a person
whose actions were of the kind to have some important consequences. In
tying up to an inconsequential person you lost that chance.
I don't mean to discourage you, because I believe you have it in you to
make a novel that would be as interesting as half the biographies that
are written. But you must learn a trick from the successful biographers,
and not invest in second-rate realities. The best is none too good. You
have to exercise judgment in your initial investment.
Now, if I were going to build a realistic novel, and had as much skill
in detail as you have, and as much intellectual capital to invest, I
would go right down to the business centre, so to speak, and invest in a
really valuable piece of reality; and then I would develop it. The first
investment might seem pretty steep, but it would pay in the end. If you
could get a big man, enthusiastic over a big cause, in conflict with big
forces, and bring in a lot of worth-while people to back him up, and
then bring the whole thing to some big conclusion, you would have a
novel that would be as real as the biographies I have been reading, and
as interesting. I think it would be worth trying.
Respectfully yours,
R.S. LANDMANN.
P.S. If you don't feel that you can afford to make such a heavy
investment as I have suggested, why don't you put your material into a
short story?
TO A CITIZEN OF THE OLD SCHOOL
Our talk last night set me to thinking. It was the first time during all
the years of our acquaintance that I had ever heard you speak in a
discouraged tone. You have always been healthy to a fault, and your
good-humor has been contagious. Especially has it been pleasant to hear
you talk about the country and its Manifest Destiny.
I remember, some years ago, how merrily you used to laugh about the
"calamity-howler," whose habitat at that time was Kansas. The farmers of
Kansas were not then as prosperous as they are now. When several bad
years came together they didn't like it, and began to make complaints.
Their raucous cries you found very amusing.
The calamity-howler, being ignorant of the laws of political economy and
of the conditions of progress, did not take his calamities in the spirit
in which they were offered to him by the rest of the country. He did not
find satisfaction in the thought that other people were prosperous
though he was not. Instead of acting reasonably and voting the straight
ticket from motives of party loyalty, he raised all sorts of irrelevant
issues. He treated Prosperity as if it were a local issue, instead of a
plank in the National Platform.
Now, all this was opposed to your good-natured philosophy of progress.
You were eminently practical, and it was a part of your creed never to
"go behind the returns." As to Prosperity, it was "first come, first
served." In this land of opportunity the person who first sees an
opportunity should take it, asking no questions as to why he came by it.
It is his by right of discovery.
You were always a great believer in the good old American doctrine of
Manifest Destiny. This was a big country and destined to grow bigger. To
you bigness was its own excuse for being. Optimism was as natural as
breathing. It was manifest destiny that cities and corporations and
locomotives and armies and navies and national debts and daily
newspapers, with their Sunday supplements, and bank clearances and
tariffs and insurance companies and the price of living should go up. It
was all according to a beautiful natural law, "as fire ascending seeks
the sun." Besides these things, it was manifest destiny that other
things not so good should grow bigger also,--graft and slums and foolish
luxury. They were all involved in the increasing bigness of things.
Sometimes you would grumble about them, but in a good-natured way, as
one who recognized their inevitability. Just as you said, boys will be
boys, so you said, politicians will be politicians, and business is
business. If one is living in a growing country he must not begrudge the
cost of the incidentals.
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