THE JAMES K. MOFFITT FUND. LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. GIFT OF JAMES KENNEDY MOFFITT OF THE CLASS OF '86. %eceived , i8p Accession M). 82.8.73 ' ^^^^^ ^^' 7-3J{: Digitized by the Internet Arciiive in 2007 witii funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.arcliive.org/details/astalkedinsanctuOOwildricli MR. AND MRS. ROUNSEVELLE WILDMAN AND THEIR CHILDREN— ^ ALL LOST IN THE WRECK./. MR. WILDMAN WAS UNITED STATES J HONGKONG AND WAS FORMERLY EDITOR AND«7 CONSUL-GENERAL AT PROPRIETOR OF ^_ ^- THE "OVERLAND MONTHLY." ^_ -Ki^y 4^ yam e v-^^ ~ '^ 1>*v-a^i if*^ • 1 vn iScUldMATL C^3 ValBroftli£Mal(^an.6oast COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY. Nortoooli i|re«« J. S. Cuihing & Co. — Berwick St Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. To Collis P. Huntington in grateful remembrance of many kindnesses • • • • Hong Kong II November y '^99 82873 As Talked in the Sanctum I WE were speaking the other day of magazines, — cut and uncut, — and I maintained with some warmth that, to me, a magazine was incomplete unless it was accompanied by a paper-cutter. Possibly I was thinking somewhat vainly of a certain paper-knife that represented a Malayan kris^ with a handle inlaid with yellow gold from Mt. Ophir, — albeit I was serious in my advocacy of the uncut pages of my favorite magazines. Both the Poet and the Contributor smiled pityingly at my flushed face, and said that I would soon be insisting upon having all our printing done on an old Franklin press, and 5 6 As Talked in the Sanctttm the staff putting on perukes, as it is the fashion nowadays to prefer the things that were to the things that be. There is something deUciously fascinating to me in a big arm-chair, a magazine redo- lent of the odors of the press, an open fire, and a paper-cutter — not a penknife. I smoke; so, if I am allowed, I add a Havana to the hst. I am jealous of my solitude at such times. I love the sharp buzz and low crinkle of the stiff paper as the blade runs swiftly up the virgin page. A little shower of finely- powdered flakes, dry and impalpable, marks the course of the ivory knife, and sifts softly down on my sleeve. I can change the arch-fire for a burst of summer sunshine and the shady nook of a deep veranda ; I can substitute for the leather-bound chair a long rattan one, but the neatly trimmed pages of a modern magazine irritate me, — my harmless illu- sion that was created for me is gone. As Talked in the Sanctttm 7 There is no privacy in the machine-made thing. I would as soon think of throwing the Sanctum open to the world, as lose my even- ing dissipation with magazine and paper- cutter. In my fancy I am on a voyage of discovery to scenes and lands that have been my day-dreams. As I cut the first page I find myself in Egypt, — in the shadow of the pyramids, with the yellow Nile flowing, calm and stately, between rows of yellow palms, — in the narrow, tortuous streets of Cairo, among Jews and Copts, Hindoos and Medes, men in skirts and women in panta- loons, dwellers in Mesopotamia, in Cappa- docia,. in Pontus and Pamphylia, — amid strings of camels laden with red beans and golden-yellow lentils, — water-carriers hug- ging uncanny goatskins, and naked Nubians staggering under great hair sacks of corn. I turn over the pages ; my paper-cutter sings quietly ; a little flurry of white dust falls unnoticed on my clothes, and I have 8 As Talked in the Sanctum taken up the thread of a serial where I laid it reluctantly by the month before. For a half-hour I read, and cut, and read, and forget the spluttering fire before me. Possibly I am Hving with Bret Harte*s char- acters, — my old, true friends, — here on this sunny Pacific slope, or, mayhap, with Mr. Howells' people of society and business ; or, now, Stevenson, Kipling, or Craddock cause the pages to sparkle. But my voy- age is not ended, when I at last draw a deep sigh as I come to the dreaded words, " Con- tinued in our next.'* In a moment my eyes run down a charming bit of verse of society, and up to a well-known name that beckons me on to a tour through the galleries of the Louvre, or down the dim, translucent aisles of the Cathedral of Cologne, with its mar- vellous windows and lace-like stone carvings. My knife severs two more pages. " What next ? " I think. I am not disappointed. I meditatively run my ivory plaything through my hair as the last treasure of the As Talked in the Sanctum 9 great monthly lies open before me. My cigar has gone out, — my placid voyage among the storied pages ended for the nonce. Of course, I admit that there are people who never read magazines, cut or uncut ; but then there are people who, since the time of Adam, have run after strange gods, and there are others who even prefer the Sunday newspapers to the best of maga- zines. Between books and magazines there can be no rivalry. Between magazines and Sunday newspapers there is none. There are books on my Hbrary shelves that I read with pleasure, and cannot pick up without experiencing a sensation of delight, although I have, to some extent, forgotten their plots and often their charac- ters. On turning over their pages, snatching a word here and a sentence there, running down a page or over a chapter, trying to dis- cover what endears them to me, I find that lo As Talked in the Sanctum this lies not always in what is written or what is pictured, but the associations and scenes that the novel recalls. I find that I have, in the past, in some manner, insensibly but indelibly, added to the scenery of the book the scenery of the place at which it was read ; with its characters I associate the peo- ple I knew at the time. Its sunsets are the sunsets gazed upon as I read, not the sun- sets of which I read. I cannot separate the book from the place ; I would not if I could. The quaint mountain heroes of Charles Egbert Craddock's " The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountain '* recall an autumn trip down the Chesapeake Bay, from Balti- more to Old Point Comfort ; excursions into the charming realm of that picturesque old Virginian Atlantis, the East Shore ; rides over its sandy roads amid the resin- ous odor of the pine woods ; visits in fas- cinating old colonial mansions ; twisting, snake-like lagoons bordered by funereal As Talked in the Sanctum 1 1 cypress trees hung with ghostly gray moss ; sober, rickety little towns ; ruinous board shanties filled with genial black faces ; ter- rapin and snipe. The rugged, denuded balds of Tennessee can never escape the companionship of the marshes and sand dunes of Maryland and Virginia. " Jane Eyre '' carries me away to Southern Kansas and Northern Indian Territory. I take again a long, hot, dusty ride in the caboose of a cattle train, and through a dirty window catch glimpses of dirtier Indian tepees and dried sunflowers, on an endless plain of burnt buffalo grass. " Middlemarch " finds me ever in a big arm-chair in my father's study, with the howling winds of frozen Ontario in my ears. I can see my father's silvered hair, and hear the sound of his faltering steps. The ice and snow of that winter melt before the picture that is summoned up by Dumas's glorious " Musketeers." It is that of a tropical island in a sunlit sea ; spiced ^'b nARy* or TH» UNIVERSITY 12 As Talked in the Sanctum breezes from almond and clove trees ; the sound of a great cocoanut dropping in the warm sand at my feet ; the red sails of a Malay tongkang; the somnolent washing of tepid waters over a coral reef; the nude forms of brown-eyed natives. D'Artagnan, Athos, Aramisj Porthos, Richelieu, and Louis Quatorze acted their parts for me under a great almond tree in the Straits of Malacca. Strangely enough, Daudet's pathetic "Jack" brings back the Nile, the Pyra- mids, water-carriers, the date-palm, yellow sands, and swaying camels laden with cotton, on the deserts along the Suez ; while Ebers's " Egyptian Princess " holds tenaciously to the Boulevards des Italiens and Capucines, the Place de la Concorde, and the golden dome of Les Invalides. So the iterative splash of the water-wheels of the Nile, the lunge of the bullocks as they go down through the soft mud to drink, the cry of the muezzin before the mosque of Hassan, the play of the fountains in the Jardin des As Talked in the Sanctum 13 Plantes, the flicker of the converging lines of street-lamps, and the deep bells of Notre Dame are inextricably mixed ; only Paris is summoned up by the Egyptian novel, and Egypt by the Parisian. It was during an autumn trip through the mountains and sage-bush plains of Idaho that I read " Far from the Madding Crowd." The title of the book would have been apropos to my surroundings, had I not been in company with a detachment of Uncle Sam's soldiers and all the parapher- nalia of a moving camp. I read the book in snatches, as we camped, now under the sheltering crags of a rugged spur of the Bitter Root during the noonday heat ; now in the cool, almost chilling shadows of a canon, to which the reflections of our many fires lent an added touch of weirdness ; or now among desert wastes of played-out placers. The quiet heaths and sober country homes of provincial England and the homely folk that peopled them, stand side by side 14 ^s Talked in the Sanctum with vast mountain solitudes, mining camps, Indian tepees, and all the rugged peculi- arities of Western life. Between the lines of Warner's " Little Journey in the World," I see a journey to an old world ; an ocean trip over the Pacific. I smell the salt air of northern latitudes and drink in the warm breezes of the Japanese coasts. I catch myself Hfting my eyes from its pages to follow the bounding course of a fat, awkward dolphin, or to rush to the rail and gaze out upon a black spot that the quartermaster assures me is a whale. A storm and a touch of mal-de-mer break into the thread of the story for a few days, and then I suddenly neglect its fascinations in the more insistent fascinations of the harbor of Yokohama, filled with its junks, house- boats, and sampans, A delightful trip down the St. Lawrence to Montreal and Quebec, and into the heart of the White Mountains, is associated with Stockton's quaint story, "The Late Mrs. As Talked in the Sanctum 15 Null," while my famous predecessor's "Snow Bound at Eagle's" and a little hunting camp in the north woods of Pennsylvania are forever joined together. Haggard's " Col. Quaritch, V. C." and two picturesque weeks spent in the palace of the Sultan of Johore — " The Contributor. — " See here! I move, out of pure revenge for past slights, that the speaker begin chronologically with the days of the ' Huggermuggers ' and ' Robinson Crusoe,' and come on down, regularly, to the 'Yellow Aster.'" The Artist. — "I am curiotis to know if the ' Yellow Aster ' was perused at the North Pole." The F arson. — " If so, the combination was a happy one." The Sanctum. — " Fie on the Parson ! " The Office Boy. — " Proof! " II IF our chats on indifferent topics lack the true " back-log '* flavor that all readers of Charles Dudley Warner and Ik Marvel have learned to expect when a bevy of indi- viduals like unto ourselves begins to talk, it is all owing to our want of big arm-chairs and an old-fashioned open fireplace. We have a sort of a two by two-and-a-half hole in the wall, back of the Reader's desk, that our landlord assured us was a fireplace, but we have never investigated it, and we have nothing substantial to burn in it. The Reader is the only member of the Circle that has ever seriously broached the subject of experimenting with it. But as all the emanations of our collective brains have, sooner or later, to pass through the Reader's hands before being immortalized in print, we are, as a body, naturally, though guardedly, l6 As Talked in the Sanctum 17 sceptical of his disinterestedness. An open fire would never do in an editorial sanctum. In fact, I never heard of one being so badly placed. It is certainly to the purpose, be it enthusiastically antique or garishly fin-de- siecky in your own study, in the quietude of your own home. Then if, in a moment of sanity, you commit a manuscript of your own making to its purging flames, — well and good ! you commit the act in cold blood, with malice aforethought. But in the Sanctum, — where there are a thousand and one little annoyances and a thousand and one little interruptions, — a faulty con- struction, a bit of bad grammar, a misspelled word, a sentence lacking a predicate, or an illegible " hand-write," is apt to cause the coolest of us — a cool man is often lazy or stupid, so none of us bid for that distinction — to be hasty, and to do things that he would wish undone. That the Poet's verses or the Contribu- tor's tragedy should find their way into the 1 8 As Talked in the Sa^tctum Reader*s ever handy Gehenna, would, with all due respect to them, not be as serious a loss, I think even they will admit, as the disappearance of the unnumbered manu- scripts that come weekly to the Reader's hand with the deprecating little request, " In case they are not found available, kindly return with the enclosed postage/* It is possible to rescue from the waste- basket a manuscript which its gentle author values above all earthly price, and in the inditing of which he has refused to be fet- tered by the absurd rules of Murray or the unreasonable dictums of Webster ; but " all the king's oxen and all the king's men " cannot undo the five minutes' work of a poetic arch-fire and the Reader's inexcusable rancor. Yes, an arch-fire, however much it might stimulate the quality or flow of our Sanctum talk, would surely bankrupt the magazine in a month. We must be contented with our painted radiator and big south window. As Talked in the Sanctum 19 The Contributor is, in politics, a pessimist of the most troublesome kind. No one ever accused him of being a Republican, and he would leave the room in high dudgeon if he thought that we considered him a Demo- crat. He is not a Mugwump, for he dis- likes theories and believes that to the victor belongs the spoils, consequently he is not a purist; while, of all sorts and conditions of men, a " reformer " is a thing he most despises. He is simply a citizen of the republic, who believes that " horse-sense" is the best practical guide and that it is re- quired in governmental affairs quite as much as in household matters. To show his utter contempt for all parties, he once drew up a scheme of government with the following men at the head of it ; that he invaded the graveyards did not em- barrass him ; his names only stood for quali- ties, he said : — President, George Washington ; Vice-Presi- dent, George William Curtis ; Secretary of 20 As Talked in the Sanctum State, James G. Blaine ; Secretary of the Treasury, William M. Stewart ; Secretary of War, Benjamin F. Butler ; Secretary of the Navy, Captain Alfred T. Mahan. " I am in favor of more dignified exclu- siveness at the White House; more true, progressive Americanism in the State Depart- ment, and a broader conception of the national needs in the Treasury,** he explained. " The Army wants less red tape and more organization and effectiveness ; the Navy, as many modern war-ships as are owned by any other first-class power, or more. We want Americanism instead of partisanship ; horse- sense instead of sounding phrases." The Poet, — " The Contributor is like the minister who was engaged by a little Con- necticut town to preach hell-fire and brim- stone, and board himself" The Contributor sniffed disdainfully, and ran a hand through his scanty hair. " The tariff bill has just been settled again, after a year's struggle and debate in the midst of As Talked in the Sanctum 21 the hardest times the country has ever seen/' he said. "Where are the reforms that Mr. Cleveland so vaingloriously promised ? Where are the vast benefits that the laborer was to receive ? Where are the good times that the new tariff was to bring, and which was to have been passed by a special session of Congress within a month after Mr. Cleve- land came into power ? Where are last winter's snows ? Is there any ' common sense * in tearing up our entire system of tariff laws every four years, making them the sport of trusts and corporations, reducing them to a basis of stocks, oil, and pork, — a thing to gamble on, — just to please some insane idea of a useless party ? " The Reader. — "I prefer to answer for last winter's snows." The Contributor, — " Does not this Wilson Bill strike you all as a pitiful bit of statecraft, when the fact is taken into consideration that five hundred brains labored over it for twelve months ? Would you exchange for it the 22 As Talked in the Sanctum work of the man's brain that discovered the telegraph, or the work of the man's brain that invented the sewing-machine ? Does it compare for one moment with Newton's Law of Gravitation or even with Blaine's doctrine of Reciprocity? If the Wilson Bill, the plaything of the Sugar Trust and the laugh- ing stock of Europe, is the best we can expect from our five or six hundred repre- sentatives, it is time that Free Trade be in- corporated in our Constitution." The Parson, — "It strikes me that we have listened to like tirades on the same sub- ject from our colleague before. For one, I trust that the tariff fight has been a lesson to our legislators, as the strike was to our capi- talists, and that, now that it is at last settled, the banks will open their vaults and money will be easier." The Poet, — "I rise to submit for the Sanctum's approval, the following motto for Mr. Cleveland's office wall : ' When in doubt, go duck-shooting.' " As Talked in the Smictum 23 The Occasional Caller, — " For one, I pin my faith to the Democratic tariff." The Contributor, — " Take my advice and use a safety-pin." The Office Boy, — " Proof! " ni WE were aimlessly discussing the Chi- nese-Japanese-Korean War, when the Parson entered the room, accompanied by our Occasional Visitor. We were unaffect- edly thankful for the interruption. I think we were growing blase ; then, too, the sun was pouring recklessly into our big south window, flooding the Artist's table and spreading among us a spirit of benevolent discontent. The Artist should have pulled down the shade, which he did not do ; no one else felt called upon to make the exer- tion, and the Office Boy was out after proof The Contributor, who had taken part in Sherman's March to the Sea, and was not ashamed of it, had been maintaining with his usual " servigrousness," that war was an ele- ment, not an accident of humanity ; that H As Talked in the Sanctum 25 every war marked an onward step in the march of civilization ; that it was as much of a necessity now as it was when the Lord sent out the hosts of Israel to do battle with the Philistines. "It is the human expression of a divine axiom, — fear begets wisdom/** he had just remarked. " A race that fears neither God nor man eats itself up ; or, as the Bible puts it, a 'nation that will not serve God must perish.* " This last was thrown out after the Parson made his entry, and was meant for him. The Contributor honestly thinks he is wily; but his sophistry is, broadly speaking, too palpable to raise even a pitying smile. The Parson coughed deprecatingly, — a ministerial clearing of the decks for action, as it were. When the Parson was younger, he had a chance to turn the other cheek and remain safely at home when his country was in danger; he went to the front — as a pri- vate — and stayed there a year after the Con- 26 As Talked in the Sanctum tributor returned with the wound in his hip that has so much to do with the acridity of his temper. For the last twenty-odd years the Parson has prescribed the doctrine of peace and good will in a fashionable church that has high gothic arches, among which his voice at times plays hide-and-seek, and a double row of heavy pseudo-granite pil- lars, behind which he is, as often, " tho* lost to view to memory dear." In the winter- time the hot air from the church furnaces ascends to the twilight of the groined ceil- ings, there to keep company with the good man's voice, to the shivering discomfort of his listeners. We have chaffed him many times about this absurd style of building the churches of his denomination, but he always smiles good-naturedly, asks why we insist on com- ing Sunday after Sunday, the bare-faced fisher, and insists that we would not feel at home listening to our Bible lesson in the orchestra chairs of the Baldwin. As Talked in fnk'^^^^^im^^ 27 He may be right ; still it is no argument. Gothic churches are to blame for more pneu- monia and colds in the head than all the fogs that ever came in through the Golden Gate. The Parson, — "I have heard the same thing charged to the account of funerals. The arguments are all on the side of cre- mation ; still, the old-fashioned burial holds its popularity." The Reader, — " Last Sunday I sat for an hour behind a mottled pillar in the Parson's cathedral. I heard fourteen words, and did not escape the collection plate. T left in anything but a Sunday state of mind." When Westminster Abbey was built, our ancestors existed in stone houses-of-refuge with oiled paper in the windows. To-day, the poorest of us live in houses that contain conveniences that Croesus, Esquire, could not have bought, and we continue to wor- ship in small Westminster Abbeys. The Contributor, — " Tut, tut ! You are wandering from the question. I was say- 28 As Talked in the Sancttcm Ing that war is a necessity, — at least it is inevitable. In the present Chino-Japanese embroglio there may be no high principle involved. Well and good ! The Japanese have in twenty years lived five centuries of national life. To have lived through the transition state of modern Japan ought to make one feel preternaturally old. Discuss- ing Darwinism, parliamentary institutions, and scientific belligerence, Japan is yet, in time, but a step removed from the Middle Ages. The old Samuri who, not further back than the centennial year, greeted us on the streets of the then treaty port of Kanagawa, wore a cue and two swords ; to-day, but for a certain obliqueness of eyes and scantiness of beard, he might pass for an American, in his neat suit of dittoes and black high-hat. Commodore Perry's guns began what Japan's guns will perfect, — the complete Americanizing of Japan. Withal, the Japanese are wise in their day, far-seeing in their policy. When the United States ^s Talked in the Sanctum 29 closed her doors to the teeming population of the Celestial Empire, Japan was quick to recognize the fact that her salvation and international importance lay in discarding her own artistic dress for one of Lowell shoddy, substituting a democracy for an oligarchy, buying a navy and opening schools, an idea which was carried out with a parrot-like imi- tativeness and an owl-like wisdom. Its his- torical uniqueness lies rather in its rapid and thorough fulfilment than in its conception." The Occasional Visitor, — " There is noth- ing slow about the Japanese tutelary simula- crum of Father Time ! " The Contributor, — " This war, moreover, will do more to open China to the world than a thousand years of commerce, mis- sions, and intercourse. Whether Japan is the victor or China successfully resists her attacks, makes no difference. The vast stagnant pool has been stirred, and the poison that has lurked over it must rise. The only thing I fear is, that, when once 30 As Talked in the Sanctum the great Chinese hive begins to swarm, there will be no stopping it/' The Parson, — "Then you admit that war is not an unmixed blessing. As I read his- tory, war has no good results except when there is an overshadowing principle at stake. Our two wars with England and the Civil war, like the war of the Reformation, the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the expulsion of the Saracens from Spain, are entirely different affairs from this China-Japan war, the guerilla fights in the South Ameri- can states, the war of the Roses, or the war of the Spanish Succession. There is all the difference between them that there is between the man who fights in defence of life and liberty, and the brutes who fight for plunder. The United States, England, France, and Germany owe something to civilization and religion, and they should interfere in this great loss of life and treas- ure, and forcibly arbitrate such childish quarrels. They are a disgrace to history. As Talked in the Sanctum 31 We are nothing more than spectators at a prize-fight." The Contributor, — "Exactly, spectators, referees, judges, and best of all, purse- holders. As for me, I have a gallery seat and my eyesight Is poor ; but the sound of the blows makes my old blood tingle." The Reader, — "It ought to be a good war,— morally good, — high-toned and civil- ized, as Christian nations have armed and drilled both sides, and Christian nations hope to progress In the art of war by the object lessons in the efficiency and deficiency of our modern pneumatic guns, smokeless powder, and naval coats-of-mail ! " The Contributor, — " The worst, the most sanguine, the seemingly most uncalled-for wars that ever disgraced the annals of his- tory, have In the end proved a blessing to mankind. The first French Revolution, in which was shed enough innocent blood to float the Oregon^ startled Europe, intellect- ually as well as politically, from the sepul- 32 As Talked in the Sanctum chral repose of the last century ; it shook the old continent to its centre, impregnated the entire social system with new elements, both of good and evil, woke it up, and set inquiring minds to work to an extent before unknown. The Napoleonic wars, unjusti- fied and unprincipled, overthrew the feudal system, tore down oligarchy, the divine right of kings, and made republicanism possible in Europe — " " I confess," interrupted the Parson, smil- ing blandly, " that like the Thessalonians I am ' shaken and troubled in mind.* " There is no use in trying to carry a spon- taneous conversation to a logical conclusion. The mere effort would sap all the spon- taneity out of it in a moment. There is no originality of brilliancy in the word "chest- nuts ! " but it is expressive, even am.ong savants, and will bring a haranguer — like the Contributor, for example — off his winged horse in an instant. Our talks were As Talked in the Sanctum 33 never serious for more than a moment at a time ; not long enough for any one of us to ride a hobby. We were all too indifferent to one another's opinions. Had we been called together to growl at and reform politics, law, art, or literature, had we been called together at a certain time and for a set purpose, no one would have thought of saying " chestnuts ! " or of strolling out of the room at a most critical moment. For one I do not believe in clubs, — that is, mutual improvement clubs. Debating societies for boys are a most useful adjunct to a school, and a vast benefit to the de- baters ; but Thursday or Friday or Satur- day evening clubs for the study of Browning or Guy Fawkes are, beyond the " refresh- ments " and the social part, absurd. Simply because the hour of 8 p.m. is set for the worship of Tolstoi and his works, is no reason why we should be in perfect unison with the subject. At that particular hour I may feel more like being at the Tivoli, or 34 ^s Talked in the Sanctum you may be pining for an airing on the front of a cable car. I do not believe that any great good ever came of ten men and twenty women listening for an hour to an essay on the " Whichness-of-the-Here," when any one of the number could derive twice the benefit from reading Emerson on the same subject in the quietude of his own study, when the spirit moved him. There is no spontaneity, no originality, no laugh- ter, nothing but yawns and a sense of duty. The Artist pulled down the shade, and — The Office Boy, — " Proof ! " IV THE wish takes possession of me, and I step into Moore's old book-store for a look around, and a chat with the cheery little man who is responsible for its existence. It is just above the sign of " Zum Rathskeller," up a narrow flight of steps, almost impassible because of a pot-pourri of coverless books and dust-stained copies of magazines, — the one I am making now will find its way there, I fear, — bargains at five cents to catch the eye, along with the blue and green Deutschmen who are condemned to forever quaff beer on the afore-mentioned sign. There's something pathetic in the array, for all they so bravely flaunt their loveless old age in the sun and fog of Cali- fornia Street. A dozen things occur to me that I might say, right here; comparisons I 35 36 As Talked in the Sanctum might draw ; morals I might point. But what I started to say was something entirely- different. Usually I hate to pick up a copy of a well-known author, and find every pat expression or happy thought marked, — a covert insult to any one who may read. Half of such markings have no more indi- viduality than the Milky Way. The fool that emphasized the good things in " The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table " might as well have drawn his lead pencil from top to bottom on every page and from start to fin- ish. In fact, he did, nearly. I put it down to pure affectation on the quondam owner's part, and make the deduction that his taste or weakness for books had overtaken him in middle life, and that he wished to demon- strate to some one that he knew a good thing when he saw it. I only trust he suceeeded. I do not mean to go on record as a railer at markers in books. I remember turning the pages of " Middlemarch," long after my As Talked in the Sanctum 37 father's death, and reading his thongnts at the time in a dozen faint pencilHngs about significant passages ; and it took no Sher- lock Holmes to detect the vocation of the reader of the copy of " Les Miserables " I held in my hand, in some corrections of typographical errors in the letter-press, — w.f 's, l.c/s, etc., — on its margin. Then possibly I am doubly charitable, as I have a weakness of my own, one I am conscious of, — a mild mania for original editions, rare books, and curiosities gener- ally in literature, — and I am proud to con- fess that I have ruined the books of my inherited library by odd old volumes bound in paper and parchment, lucky if bound at all. I am sure sundry stately works in vellum and calf must be scandalized in being ranged by the side of their indi- gent brethren. I never, however, attained the proud distinction of actually owning a Mazarin Bible, although I secured original editions of most of the American authors. 38 As Talked in the Sanctum This is the history of a deduction that at the time I thought rather clever. I com- piled it while Mr. Moore was expatiating on the beauty of a genuine Angelo to a young fencer who was just learning the difference between a thrust and a parry. The book I found was a not rare copy of Emerson's " Letters and Social Aims/* The name of its once owner was " John Doudet." John Doudet, I said, is a compound of two nationalities. Doudet is French, John, Saxon. The father or grandfather was, not unlikely, the younger son of some great French house, who fled to America, to win a fortune and then return. But he met a fair American, who was dearer to him than his French blood. John was their son, — eldest, perhaps. The young wife named him "John," after her father. Then John was proud, — his name was on several pages of the book, — proud of his French blood and lineage. He As Talked in the Sanctttm 39 had been well educated, was a thinker, else why would he read Emerson so thoroughly ? He had read it thoroughly ; it was intelli- gently marked throughout. He was a man of culture and self-control, always self-pos- sessed, for on the seventy-second page he had marked: — " The staple figure in novels is the man of aplomb " ; then he underlined, "Napo- leon is the type of this class in modern history." Then again, " Keep cool and you command everybody." He was a gen- tleman in dress and manners. He believed in the outward signs. On page 79 I saw marked, " The sense of being perfectly well- dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquillity religion is powerless to bestow." Again, I see he is not rich, neither is he poor. He philosophizes in the passage, " Every man must seek to secure his independence, but need not be rich." Possibly this is the rea- son he did not return to France and claim his ancestral rights ; his pride held back. 40 As Talked in the Sanctum He is something of a cynic, I discover, by the underlining of: " In a large sense, one would say there is no originality. All minds quote." Then again, under the sen- tence, " Take as a type the boundless free- dom here in Massachusetts," he has written in a small, elegant chirography : " See the history of witchcraft in this same Massa- chusetts." He is neither a braggart nor a fop, I con- clude, from the marked passage in the essay on Greatness, " A sensible man does not brag, avoids introducing the names of his creditable companions, omits himself as habitually as another man obtrudes himself in the discourse, and is content with putting fact or theme simply on its ground." I liked him all the better for this. I began to feel that I knew him. In my mind's eye I had reconstructed his character as satisfactorily as you might reconstruct a mastodon from one of its hairs. His physical make-up I will not try to lay down, but I should like to As Talked in the Sanctum 41 know whether John Doudet ever returned to the home of his fathers and claimed his ancestral halls. I did not buy the book. You can find it any day on the third shelf to the left, as you go in. There are so many books in this world that one must think twice before he buys an extra one, especially one who has to read and review five, ten, fifteen, even twenty new ones a month. This reviewing a new book is a curious thing. I suppose we review books because we imagine that our readers enjoy reading our opinions of them ; and yet I do not believe any one is ever guided in their choice of reading matter by the reviews that we so carefully, and ofttimes so laboriously, write down. I know I never read a review of a new novel until after I have read the novel, and made up my mind as to its merits and demerits. It is then interesting to compare opinions, or discover side lights on dark pas- sages that I did not think worth exploring. 42 As Talked in the Sanctum When " Trilby " came out, I realized by the number of reviews that filled all manner and degrees of journals, that it was a book far above the average ; but I did not seri- ously read one of them until after I had read the book and indited my own review. It is a fact worthy of note, when you pause to consider it, that a reviewer never thinks it worth while to call particular attention to a new novel until after it has actually appeared between covers. " Trilby " first saw the light in a New York magazine. If I remember correctly, there was an interval between its close as a serial and its reappearance as a bona fide book. I will venture the assertion that the propor- tion of reviews of it in its first and last form were as one to one hundred. No, the truth of the matter is that we feel we must review a book that is sent us, simply because it is sent us. There are books whose very publishers realize they are hardly worth a serious read- ing, and who, in order to obtain the dignity As Talked in the Sanctum 43 of a review, send ready-made reviews wiih the request that they be copied. Such books should never be published. I do not recollect ever finding a ready-made review that was condemnatory, neither do I recollect ever finding a ready-made review in a high-class book. The Contributor, — " Now that the election is over and the tariff bugbear disposed of, I want to know if this country is going to have time, between now and next election, to straighten out our disgraceful foreign relations ? " The Parson. — " Do you refer to the wholesale massacre of the Armenians ? If so, I trust our government will make His Turkish Majesty understand that this coun- try protects her subjects and upholds her treaties as jealously in the heart of Armenia as in the streets of Constantinople." The Contributor. — " That is all very well for the text of a missionary sermon, but how can we even expect our flag to be respected 44 ^^ Talked in the Sanctum in the Eastern Hemisphere, when our child- ish internal bickerings cause us to neglect the enforcement of our rights and self- assumed prerogatives in the Western ? " The Reader. — " The Monroe Doctrine ? " The Contributor, — "The same. Is it innocuous or not ? It holds that the United States cannot tolerate European encroach- ment upon the soil of the American Re- publics. It — " Here the Office Boy entered with the East- ern mail. There were a dozen postal cards, asking for sample copies, and holding out the never-to-be realized insinuation that, " If the magazine pleases me, I may decide to take it." We advertise to furnish " sample copies " for ten cents. They cost fifteen cents each, but the loss is not great. Where one encloses ten cents, twenty -five remit their autograph on a postal. Along about Christ- mas the number of literary beggars trebles, and the strange thing about this sponging system is, the Manager informs us, that As Talked in the Sanctum 45 Georgia and Arkansas are the banner States in the sample copy campaign, and tail the list on the subscription books. Sample copies don't pay. The Manager, who has been a miner on the coast when mines paid, can prove his axiom. He once wrote a mining story from his own life. It was called " The Temblor in the Mad Mule Mine." He had an eye to business, and openly boasted that it would sell five thou- sand copies in Shasta County alone. To let his old pards of the " Mad Mule Mine " know that the account of the famous tem- blor had been made historic, he mailed a sample copy to a leading citizen of Shasta. A year went by and the extra iv7^ thousand copies were still unordered. One day the Manager met the recipient of the " Sample Copy " on Mission Street. " Fred," shouted the old man, " you did us proud. Do you know that air story of the ' tremelor ' travelled all over three counties, and when it got back it was worn down to seven sheets. That's 46 As Talked ht the Sanctum the kind of literature that makes magazines rich. Keep it up, old Pard, keep it up." And the Manager acknowledged the subtle flattery as became a successful author. They drank to the temblor, to the magazine, to Bret Harte, and to the five thousand copies that were patiently awaiting the realization of the Manager's fond dream. The Contributor switched off again on one of his favorite themes as I extracted a big, fat, healthy poem on " The Golden Gate at Sunset" from a rather deUcate and careworn envelope. " Seventy years ago," he began, " when the Monroe Doctrine first became the boast of the Republic — " But again the Sanctum door swung open. The Office Boy, — " Proof! " I WENT to hear the Parson last Sun- day. His sermon was good. By that I mean that it was entertaining. He gave me some fresh ideas, ideas that never origi- nated in the Sanctum, and made me remem- ber that I had a higher duty to perform for my fellow-men than to edit a magazine. I believe it does one good to go to church, even if your mind does wander at times during the sermon — no matter how excel- lent it is. My grandfather was an earnest Christian and never, to my knowledge, missed a service on Sunday ; and yet one of my earliest recollections is the row of spots along the wall of the simple edifice in which he worshipped for seventy years, where his head, and the heads of his dear old neighbors, rested peacefully in slumber 47 48 As Talked in the Sancttim during the two hours exposition of the text, " Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming " (Isaiah xiv, 9). I do not think hell from beneath was moved to meet him simply because he slept. He slept reverently ; for he had become wearied in doing good all the week. I am sure I might better have been asleep during the Parson's discourse, than to have had my mind slipping away on all imaginable errands — sacred and profane. Some passage strikingly beautiful would rivet my attention for a moment, and then, before I knew it, I would recollect that I was carrying a letter in my very inside pocket that I had promised the Mistress to mail the day before. The thought would carry me to the letter's destination, and for ten minutes I would take part in a spirited conversation with the little family circle in the New England town where my grand- father slumbered through so many Sunday sermons. Then the scenery of a Sunday As Talked hi the Sanctum 49 morning would all come back to me, and the Parson, the stained glass tombstone, the groined arches, would fade away. We used always to lie abed at grand- father's on Sunday morning. On week- days, we usually arose at six, and how good that extra Sunday hour in bed seemed. The memory of it now is so filled with a sense of luxuriousness that it seems almost sinful. Grandmother never failed to shake her head gravely, with a look in her eyes that half reproved and wholly forgave our childish indulgence, and she never failed to say, as the last tousled head appeared from the twisting oak stairway, " Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep ; " but it was said so sweetly that it left no sting, and was almost an invitation to return to the great downy bed upstairs. But just as I had entered upon a Sunday morning way back in my earliest '-.hildhood, I heard the Parson say, as though in com- mentary upon my very thoughts, "The 50 As Talked in the Sanctum path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day," and I congratulated myself that even if my thoughts had strayed from the text, they were following in "the path of the just." Grandfather shaved himself carefully every Sunday morning. It was a momentous un- dertaking, and we would watch him strop his razor on the leather-bound family Bible, with an interest that bordered on awe. The Contributor, — "It is something to be able to boast of a grandfather who owned a family Bible. There is no disputing that grandfathers, family Bibles, and blue blood, hunt in trios." While grandfather was shaving, we tip- toed about the room as though his life were in danger, and I verily believe it was. The blue and green kittens that forever played with a yellow ball on the face of the great clock above the brick fireplace seemed to open their solferino eyes as grandfather lost his identity in a vast Niagara of lather. As Talked in the Sanctum 51 The Parson, — "I do not resent the day- dreams of my parishioners, if they are as innocent as the last speaker's. I am not conceited, and I do not hope to hold each and every one's mind in my grasp as I ser- monize. If I can turn their thoughts into a pleasant channel, away from business and dress, for thirty minutes once a week, I am content. Every man has an inner conscious- ness, in which is stored a vast melange of things — bits of sunshine, snatches of song, forgotten smiles, half-remembered kind- nesses, childhood recollections, and baby- ish sweets that he is ashamed to summon up in the glare of the sun and the flare of a work-a-day life. For six days you are hammered and knocked by the world and yourself; on the seventh, I want you to open your soul and let its hidden incense and honey out. The Editor may return to the Sundays of his childhood and the ^ golden texts ' of his first Sunday-school ; the Con- tributor to a sweetheart in the long ago. 52 As Talked in the Sanctum and a first kiss that has kept his lips pure ever since. You see I don't expect a gieat deal. I preach for myself as much as for you. If I can start the divine milk of human kindness, or cause an inward tear to flow, my sermon is more than a success. * For he on honey-dew hath fed, and drunk the milk of Paradise.' " The Artist, — " Bravo ! Had the Parson preached like this, the Editor's mind would not have wandered." The Parson, — " One of my first sermons was delivered in the pulpit of an eminent divine. As the congregation filed in and saw a stripling in the place of the great man they had learned to reverence, they tiptoed out again one after another. In my right- eous wrath I rose and announced that there would be an intermission of five minutes, during which all those who had come to worship Doctor Chapin might withdraw, after which all those who had come to wor- ship the Lord would unite with me in sing- As Talked in the Sanctum 53 ing the twenty -third hymn. I thought the retort very smart at the time ; but I have since learned that, perchance, I was a wasp in the ears of the good old Christians, and that my buzzing kept them from their Sunday meditation. It is the old familiar face and voice in the pulpit that bring out the best in the listener, not the gymnastics of the actor or the eloquence of the revivalist. If I suggest a train of thought that makes you better, it is as much as Demosthenes or Cicero ever accomplished. ' Wisdom is the principal thing ; therefore get wisdom ; and with all thy getting get understanding.' " There is an atmosphere about some churches that is filled with reverence. Oft- times it is owing to the preacher, sometimes to the architecture, but more often, I think, it is because of associations. If for forty years or five hundred years a church has been blessed with a congregation that fills its spaces for but one purpose, — the wor- ship of the Creator, — I believe it builds up 54 ^s Talked in the Sanctum an atmosphere that fairly throbs with their prayers ; the air is magnetic, charged with so subtle a current that the stranger feels it without understanding. The cathedral at Cologne gave me that impression, while Westminster Abbey did not. Notre Dame was so saturated with history and romance that I forgot that I was in a church, while the half-ruined Mosque of Hassan, at Cairo, impressed me, in spite of the fact that it was raised to the glory of a false Prophet, as a home of God. I am not half as reverent in the Parson's big church, with its costly windows and great organ, as in the small pine church of my grandfather. The Parson's steeple is two hundred or three hundred feet high and holds a chime of bells, but the smoke from the city hides the steeple, and the clang of the cable cars drowns the music of the chimes. As grandfather finished shaving, and while grandmother was arranging his stock for the As Talked in the Sanctum 55 fifth time, the long sweet note from the bell in the seventy-foot steeple three miles away came sounding through the soft, pulseless air. It was the " first bell," — ten o'clock. The scent of the hay and of growing things came into the half-open window. The air was sleepily warm, and so still that the urchins on the back seats could hear every fretful movement of the staid old horses in the long row of sheds that bounded the small churchyard on one side. The pulpit was five steps above the congregation, far enough to transform the white-haired old preacher, who was our companion and ad- viser on weeks days, into a priest and a master. We were in God's house ; we felt it, and whether the discourse was on heaven or hell, it was accepted with a cheerful thankfulness and a reverence befitting the place. There is something in reverence that, with a little fanning, bursts into blind obedience and unreasoning patriotism. In the solemn 56 As Talked in the Sanctum hush that preceded the benediction, when every head was bowed, every heart throbbing in unison, every mind filled with the same thought, a flood of reverence, too deep to hide, passed over the congregation, and a tear stood in more than one eye. God, for the moment, was very near. The Contributor, — "I sometimes think, after all has been said, that an autocratic monarchy is the only really sensible govern- ment. This system of government has its drawbacks, especially when the power of spending money and declaring war is vested in the hands of four hundred Congressmen, every one of whom has a different mind and is responsible to his constituents. A king, if he were not an imbecile, and imbeciles on the thrones of the world are not good form in this century, would see at a glance that the building of the Nicaragua Canal was a matter of vital importance to the commerce of the United States, and he would order it As Talked in the Sanctum 57 built. But the project was smothered in the last Congress, because one member thought the money could be better spent in river improvements on Willow Creek — his dis- trict. And another thought that Shoreditch had got to the point where the government must build it a new post-office, if it expected his vote on any bills that were for the bene- fit of the great body politic. So-called high- toned ' independent * newspapers egg on Congressmen to oppose the building of bat- tle-ships, because it is a decade of peace, and no doubt, because Wall Street needs the money. If a foreign war-ship should sail into New York harbor and drop a bomb into the midst of the big cylinder press that prints one such newspaper, I think, if able to ever get out another issue, it would see the need of more war-ships. This country is rich, in spite of its everlasting talk about lack of funds and treasury deficit. We pay our President, cabinet ministers, diplomats, mere pittances compared to fourth- and fifth-class 58 As Talked in the Sanctum European powers. We have no court to support nor any royal loafers ; we do not even pay our just claims, — adjudged to be just by the Court of Claims, — then why should we not use public moneys for public needs ? " Since when has the world become so good that war-ships and armies have become unnecessary? It is exasperating to elect a good, sensible neighbor to go to Washington, only to have him spend his time building up and tumbling down tariffs, wasting wind on bond issues, and haggling over contested election cases." The Reader, — '' ! ! " The Contributor, — " There ! don't inter- rupt me. The ' Cuckoo Congress ' is dead, and I, as an American citizen, intend to have my say. It is a matter of indifference to me what its politics was. It is what it did and what it promised to do and what it didn't do that interests me. Where is the free trade tariff it promised? How n^any of the trusts that it swore to suppress have felt its blight- As Talked in the Sanctum 59 ing breath? What has become of the boasted repeal of the prohibitory tax on State bank- notes? Has it irrigated the arid lands, or built the Nicaragua Canal, or laid a cable to Hawaii ? " The Contributor's impassioned note brought the Office Boy to the door with a look of genuine alarm on his face. " But they are gone, the cuckoos, thank God ! " The Office Boy, — " Yes, sir, they sailed for Australia on the Mariposa, Thursday/' The Contributor. — " They what ? Whom do you mean ? " The Office 5^> — "Why! the 'Gaiety Girls,' sir." Then the good Contributor blushed to the top of his dear old head. The Con- tributor, who never went to the theatre unless Shakspere was before the footlights, had gone three nights to see the " Gaiety Girls " at the Baldwin, and mere curiosity, no doubt, had taken him to the Oceanic dock to see them sail out of the ever mys- 6o ^As Talked in the Sanctum terious portals of the Golden Gate. The Artist laughed softly, and the Editor went out into the adjoining room to listen to the story of a " poetess of passion," who brought a letter of introduction from Joaquin Miller. But when he returned to the Sanctum — The Office Boy. — " Proof! " VI " T AM sixty-four to-day, boys," said the A Parson. Then he so drew himself up that there was but the faintest suspicion of a stoop in his broad shoulders and awaited our congratulations. The crown of his hat just cleared the lintel of the Sanctum door. Strength and bodily confidence pervaded his person, and the flush of health and exercise glowed in his clean-shaven face. His hair was white, but his eye was as bright and alert as a schoolboy's. Not until he gave the military salute did we recollect the ugly sabre cut concealed be- neath his immaculate shirt-bosom. We always referred to it as the Sanctum's "V. C." The Parson, however, was prouder of the fact that his four years at the front had, in his own estimation, left 6i 62 As Talked in the Sanctum no cause for him to call for a pension, than that he had brought this glory to the Sanc- tum. There was a grain of vanity in the good man's consciousness of perfect health and unimpaired vitality that we were secretly proud ofj although the Contributor never failed to remark solicitously, on occasion : " I wish you could have seen the Parson in such and such a year. Healthy ! you wouldn't know he was the same man." Then we would all look sympathetically toward the " invalid " and mourn that we could not have known him in his prime. The Parson was a sturdy shepherd, both mentally and physically, and had it ever come to the point of holding his aristo- cratic flock together by sheer force of muscle, he would have been equal to the trial. It would have been a strong sheep indeed that could twist itself out of his powerful hands. The Parson believes that no man is so busy or driven that he cannot afibrd an As Talked in the Sanctum 63 hour a day to physical drill ; that much time given to Indian clubs, dumb-bells, or to his own hobby — fencing — is, he declares, in- vested at compound interest. It had not taken him long to convert the Sanctum and turn it into a fencing class ; but upon the outside world, even those of his own flock, he had not made the least impression. I have heard him preach and lecture again and again on the Gospel of Exercise, only to have his pleased audience agree with him from first to last, without a thought of even giving his method a trial. We had only to mention that the Parson was looking well to start him off on this well-built hobby. The Parson, — " Looking well, am I ? I am sixty-four to-day, remember, and I sleep and eat like a baby. I can chase a street car two blocks without losing my breath, and tramp from here to Menlo and back without an effort; or I can work in my study, if necessary, from six in the morning 64 As Talked in the Sanctum until twelve at night, and not feel it. Do you know why ? Because I devote one hour of every day of my life, save Sunday, to good hard exercise. I bring every muscle of my body and brain into action and, for the time being, I forget my trials, my business, my work, in a grand salle (Tarmes. During that hour I had rather touche Professor Ansot than pen the best sermon ever written. Or, if it is a lesson instead of a bout, I am prouder of my self- control as I stand before the dancing point of his foil than I am of the biggest marriage fee that I ever received. And then to stop before you are tired, dripping with perspira- tion, the blood bounding through your body, your muscles all quivering with excite- ment, and go out into the street with head up and shoulders thrown back, ah ! it is glorious. Tell me, cannot you do better work in the office or in the study after that ? Look around among our friends : hollow chests and stooping shoulders greet As Talked in the Sanctum 65 you everywhere. In the spring, this one must have a tonic; in the fall, that one must go to the country for rest. The one spends more money for medicine than I do for fencing lessons, and the other more time in his one trip than I do with my hour a day the year round. What is the result on their part ? Nothing. Why, four years ago the Editor had the grip ; he took a sea voyage and a hogshead of medicine. The grip went away for that summer, but returned the next winter. You all said he was going into a decline. I am not preaching, but you know the result. I got him down to Ansot's and started him in fencing, an hour a day. The grip fled. Look at him now! He can do two men's work. His two years' fencing has made a man of him, although I confess he hasn't become much of a fencer." I bowed, and threw my gloves at the rev- erend man's patent leathers. OF TKJB XTNIVEHSITY 66 As Talked in the Sanctum The Parson, — "This generation is brought up wrong. No attention is paid to health. It has flaccid muscles and weak lungs. The American father imagines that the Indian club belongs to the specialty man on the variety stage and the fencing foil to the pages of Dumas's novels. Consequently the American boy is sent to school to develop his brain and abuse his body. He studies trigonometry for discipline without knowing that there is more discipline in a parry and three times as much mathematics in a touche. The English know better. They walk and ride and exercise conscien- tiously, and they do not have the dyspepsia or insomnia. When I advise a business friend to take an hour a day for exercise, he replies, * I wish I could, but I haven't time.' Hasn't time ! Mark my word, that man will be old at forty, wear out at fifty, and die at fifty-five. The ten or fifteen years that he will spend in his grave before I shall join him would have been plenty of time. Look As Talked in the Sanchim 67 at the patent medicines in our stores. What country on earth has so many ? Of them all, which ones have we inherited from Greece or Rome or even France ? Do you think that there would be any sale for these concoctions of iron and cod-liver oil if it were fashionable for our young ladies and gentlemen to walk and ride and fence ? Bah ! Not one per cent of them have strength enough to pick themselves up if they fall dQwn, and none of them know the pleasure of being able to enjoy the good things of the world." The Reader, — " Not even the Parson's sermons.'' The Parson. — " Why, when I was abroad >» The Office Boy. — "There is a lady out- side who wishes to know if you can use a poem on the California Poppy ? " The Reader, — "Tell the lady that the demand for poems on the California Poppy and Mount Shasta is weak to-day. We are 68 As Talked hi the Sanctum running the Yosemite and the Golden Gate for a change." The Parson, — " You may smile at my five weeks abroad, but it was a vigorous trip. I started with a party of thirty and by the time we arrived at the base of the Pyramids there were only nine left. We had tired out the weaklings. My physical training stood me in good stead. Three of the nine attempted the Great Pyramid, but only two of us succeeded. Do you not think that I was paid for my hour every morning by the view I got at its top and the proud conscious- ness I had won where so many others had failed ? There are many men, — yes, and women, — who claim that they have scaled the Great Pyramid of Cheops. Collectively, I admire them, particularly the women ; individually, all but the athletes like myself must pardon me if I am politely sceptical. The ledges that I walked along between my Bedouins, the blocks of granite the height of man that I was dragged up over, and the As Talked in the Sanctum 69 corners and crevices I edged into, would put the walls of one of our canons to shame. But the reward ! I had waited until I was sixty, but it was mine at last. The Pyra- mids ; the Sphinx, * staring right on, with calm eternal eye ' ; Heliopolis, the city of the sun, — the On of Genesis; Cairo with its thousand domes and minarets ; the sacred Nile ; the red desert of Libya, where there is no shade save what the chameleon casts ; the tombs of the Mamelukes ; the Island of Roda, where the great lawgiver was found, — lay stretched below me like the panoramic map of the Sunday-school room of my child- hood. Away to the right v/as Goshen, the land to which the silver-haired patriarch Jacob and his sons came ; farther, Ur of the Chaldees, from out of which Abraham journeyed in the time of famine ; to the south were Ghizeh and Memphis, only a mass of scattered ruins to tell of their former greatness.'* The Artist, — " Very pretty ! Accept my 70 As Talked in the Sanctum humble congratulations and wishes for many happy returns of this day." The Poet. — " And from me, — * A green old age, unconscious c^ decays That proves the hero born in better days.* ** The Occasional Visitor. — "I shall take up fencing at once, if it will enable me to ascend the Great- Pyramid when I am sixty, and have breath enough left to see anything but a dizzy whirl before my eyes." Then we fell to talking about fencing as an art, not strictly as a means of exercise. It is rather a remarkable thing that the theory of fencing has reached all but absolute per- fection at this day, when the art has become practically useless. Had D' Artagnan known how to use his rapier as do Ansot of San Francisco or Senac of New York, he would have had less difficulty with the bravos o\ the court. In fact, Dumas, Ainsworth, Sir Walter Scott and Stanley Weyman, in order that their heroes may be victors on all occa- sions, make them masters of the modern As Talked in the Sanctum 71 fencing school, — an anachronism as absurd as it is foolish ! The duel of the days of " Ivanhoe " and " The Three Musketeers " was a question more of brute strength and agility than of skill or science. The duel with rapiers in the sixteenth and early seven- teenth centuries was far from the graceful, picturesque performance that authors and artists would have us believe. The charm- ing sword-play that one usually sees in Hamlet is innocently ridiculous. It was learned by the modern actor of the fencing master of his day, and adapted to a play that was supposed to describe a Danish court in the Middle Ages. Hamlet might as well be in full evening dress and patent-leathers as to salute Laertes with the lunge, reversing of the point, saluting in carte and tierce, etc. Such fencing was not even perfected fifty years ago. The principles which are the A B C of sword-play to-day were absolutely unknown in the days of duelling and would have established the reputation of the courtier 72 As Talked in the Sanctum in the time of Louis XV. The history of the sword is a history of the evolution of man. The rough, unskilful fighting of the Middle Ages, which has been so wrongfully idealized by author and artist, was wholly in keeping with the reign of brute force in social life as well as politics. The mighty arm and the mighty weapon went together, although the weakling of to-day could have silenced both. The mace or glaive and armor played an equal part with the sword, and the strongest won. With the Renaissance came the wild, frantic, and vicious reign of the rapier. Armor was laid aside and the cava- lier strove to outwit his antagonist instead of beating him down. There were no parriers or thrusts, only a mad whirl and exhibition of agiUty. The sword-play corresponded to the manner and literature of the time — it lacked balance. With the introduction of fire-arms, the sword lost its importance and became an article of dress, and its use an accomplishment like dancing. Not till then As Talked in the Sanctum 73 did the swordsman discover that the sword became really dangerous only when handled with the least expenditure of strength and managed almost entirely by the wrist. Duel- ling is a thing of the past, and fencing is simply a pastime that combines the greatest amount of mental excitement with bodily exercise. It is unfortunate that the use of the foil became obsolete when duelling became a crime. It can be made a game of skill that delights the brain as well as tasks the muscles. The Office Boy, — " Proof! " VII ^J^HE CONTRIBUTOR. — '' Did you JL ever feel that you had an inspiration to write ? Possibly not the divine inspira- tion of the heaven-born genius encouraged by a brain full of great live thoughts, but the lazy, irritating itching to lay aside the book you are reading and write — not to write anything in particular, but just write, compose. Mine — for I am a victim — gen- erally exhausts itself, I admit, while I am sharpening one end of my pencil or chew- ing the other into a brush-like pulp ; but still I am unable to resist this sudden, delightful call." The Reader remarked that he had heard the still, small voice often, but that it gen- erally reached him from the composing rooms via the Office Boy. 74 As Talked in the Sam The Contributor, — " When I was a boy and first heard an orchestra, I would sit through number after number with eyes half closed and thoughts spanning the uni- verse. I had no idea what was being played ; the airs did not particularly interest me. But one would drive my ambitions in one direc- tion and one in another. Sometimes, with the music, I pictured myself behind the footlights — an orator — holding spellbound the audience, of which, so I dreamed, I was one, moving them to tears or laughter by the power of my eloquence. Sentences of my mythical speech would flash through my brain. My breath would come quickly, for as I would finish this matchless oration that was to make my name honored for all time I saw the audience rising as one man and cheering until the whole earth echoed with the shouts. The orchestra would cease and I would descend from Olympus, a little sheepish withal, but with my pulses beating like trip-hammers and my eyes all aglow. 76 As Talked in the Sanctum Music fired a thousand latent, unknown, unformulated ambitions. They were big, warm, and generous. I fairly ached to be up and doing. I could not wait for the years of my adolescence to pass. When I arrived at man's estate the horizon narrowed suddenly. Instead of conquering the world and moving multitudes, I found that there were certain stubborn elementary facts that must be dealt with before I could ever make my name known and honored, even in my own city. Then music lost its power. It was of no use to picture myself a general before I knew even the ordinary drill of a common soldier ; or the editor of a great magazine, when my contributions were not acceptable in the humblest newspaper offices. " I never became an orator. Still, those early air-castles survived houses that should have been built of firmer material, and drove the dreamer to the conquering of tasks that would have been considered menial a few years before. This is what I mean by my As Talked in the Sanctum 77 sudden ambitions or inspirations to write. To-day, for example, I was reading Lafcadio Hearn's charming studies and essays of Japan, ' Out of the East.' The beauty of the language, the delicacy of the descriptions, the almost breathing perfume of the scenes, moved me strangely, — not to take the next steamer for Japan and join the author in his paradise, for I know too well the folly of anticipation and the disappointment of reali- zation ; but to imitate, or rival, the writer with my pen. I wrote at my novel for an hour. Hearn was the inspiration, and it is to him that I owe this chapter. I plagiarized his spirit, not his ideas or his words. I think he would recognize it. There are other authors that are responsible for the atmos- phere of other paragraphs and chapters, — Stanley Weyman, Ian Maclaren, Doyle, — and, myself! " This is a confession that I do not wish to go outside the Sanctum, but I have been enthused by my own published work. I 78 As Talked in the Sanctum have said to myself: ' That is great. I wonder how I ever came to do it ? If I can improve on that I shall be heard of yet.* And then, all aglow with my own greatness, I pitch in with a stimulus that carries me on for an hour or more. There ! has any one else ever felt the same, — felt this modest yearning to soar ? '* The Reader, — " The Contributor must have had one of his contributions accepted by some journal that pays on acceptance. How, otherwise, can we account for his sub- lime appreciation of his own work ? " The Contributor. — " The Reader lives so exclusively in a world of rejected manu- scripts that he is unable to recognize the true ring when he hears it. When he finds that it is possible to accept he is so thun- derstruck that he has to ride up and down in the elevator eight times before he is able to pen a gracious note to its author. He has set the refusal blanks to music, and sings them to waltz time, something like this : — As Talked in the Sanctum 79 Dear Sir. La! la! la! We find ourselves unable to use the man- uscript submitted, and accordingly return it with thanks. La! la! la! It is impossible, among so many manu- scripts, to send criticism or explanation of the reas9ns why each is unavailable. La! la! la! Many are returned because their subjects or treatment are not just in the line the mag- azine may be in need of at the time ; or be- cause, among many that are good, we must select a few and return the rest. La! la! la! Much that is not adapted to the use of this magazine will be found available by other journals. La! la! la! Tra ! la! la! " I have had a story accepted and the check is in my pocket. Possibly I do feel encouraged ; but that is neither here nor there. I was simply asking a question. Many a time have I laid down a book I 8o As Talked in the Sanctum was reading, one that was so interesting that I could scarcely take my eyes from it, and, driven by a will stronger than my own, snatched up a half-completed story, and wrote and rewrote for dear life. It was the same old familiar impulse that I felt tug- ging at my heart strings as I listened to one of Verdi's operas. Only then it was not tangible ; it had not chosen its outlet. It is only once in a month or a year that a book has this influence, and the subject-matter of the book is as varied as are the things I write. I feel the thrill as I repeat their names, — * Les Miserables,* * Henry Esmond,* ' In the Tennessee Mountains,' * The Story of a Country Town,* 'Norwood,* * Doctor Johns,* and more than one of Ebers*s, Harte*s, Caine*s, Weyman*s, and Doyle*s.*' The Reader. — "I gather from your remarks that Hugo, Thackeray, Bret Harte, and the rest did not live in vain.** The Poet. — " I, too, have felt the divine As Talked in the Sanctum 8i afflatus ' within the book and volume of my brain.' " The Reader, — " Gentlemen, please do not misunderstand me. I am not a scoffer. I also have had the desire come upon me to write as I read, but I have stood out man- fully against it. Do ye likewise." The Reviewer took from his vest pocket a newspaper clipping and read the names of a lot of big-wigs in the literary profession and the books that had most helped them to become big-wigs. Big-wig, I think, is the term for one thousand candle-power literary lights, rather than big guns. A little friend of the Sanctum, whose father is a member of the State Legislature, has just entered school. The teacher, one day, was trying to instil into the little ones' minds the first great lesson of all, — to keep their bright eyes open, to observe. Then she bade them put their books aside and suddenly asked how many pages the book contained. No one had noticed save the Sanctum's little 82 As Talked in the Sanctum friend, and he answered promptly, " One hundred and thirty-four." Then she asked who was the author of the " What-is-this ? This-is-a-cat " book. Our little man and three others out of a class of eighteen replied correctly. I was very proud of him. I saw the career of a lawyer, reporter, or natu- ralist open up. Then came some ques- tion about the great cannons that were being tried, day by day, at Presidio. " Did any one in the class ever see a big gun ? " Up went Bennie's hand. " I saw hun- dreds, teacher, when I went with mamma to Sacramento. And my papa is one, too ! " he finished, with a ring of childish pride in his voice. I saw the distinction at once between a " big-wig " and a " big- gun." Among the list of books that the afore- mentioned authors honored by acknowledg- ing, we found, once or twice, Shakspere, the Bible, Homer, and Virgil, while one referred condescendingly to Moliere ; but the majority As Talked in the Sanctum 83 cited books and writers that were entire strangers to the Sanctum : they had impos- ing Latin and Greek names that commanded our awe at once, although they did not awaken a ghmmer of intelligence in our several faces. I looked in vain for some mention of " Robinson Crusoe " ; the Par- son was convinced that it was the fault of the printer that " Pilgrim's Progress '* had been overlooked, and the Contribu- tor said flatly that the big- wigs were posing. The Contributor. — " To be honest, I will wager that Sir John Lubbock, Professor Huxley, or Mr. Ruskin, if it came down to a question of final, individual decision, would see the entire forty-two books of ' Hermes Trismegistus ' in the same embar- rassing position as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, rather than have the world lose ' Vanity Fair ' or the ' Scarlet Letter.* I have heard of the ' Y-King.* I know it was written eleven centuries before Christ 84 y^s Talked in the Sanctum by a Mister Wang-wang of the Celestial Empire. I never read one of its three thousand songs, and I don't believe that all of them would inspire me to write one chap- ter of my novel. I may be but an aver- age American, but I don't believe that the ' Y-King,' the Vedas, the * Zend-Avesta,* the ' Tagenistae ' of Aristophanes, the ' Lyrics * of Theognis, the Megarian, the ' Works and Days ' of Hesiod, with a half-dozen authors of the Augustan age thrown in, have done one-tenth as much toward shaping and stim- ulating the talents of our revered big-wigs, in spite of their own positive assertions, as the scantily noticed works of the Eliza- bethan writers and our modern novelists. You cannot take a book, no matter how erudite, with firm determination to be in- spired. Books are dependent on moods and surroundings. You may read the same volume one day, through a glass darkly, and the next, sympathetically. However much we may owe to the so-called classics, As Talked in the Sanctum 85 still I think the good books of our youth are the ones, possibly unrecognized even to-day, that have had the greatest influ- ence in shaping our thoughts, and possi- bly our careers.** The Reviewer mentioned his best-be- loved book. I do not think it would be fair to chronicle it here, as it was not a classic, and the big-wigs would probably never own up to having read it. It was a sweet, simple story of boy-and-girl love on a tropical island. There was a little de- scription in it, not much of any value, no epigrams, no foreign phrases, no analysis, and yet it had taken firm hold of something in the Reviewer's life and had never let go. It had taught him a lesson that had made him better and purer. He did not main- tain that his author had any right to a place by the side of Martial, Horace, or Catullus — neither would he have loved him better if he had. Sometimes I am afraid to reread one of 86 ^s Talked in the Sanctum these books that have helped shape my life. I do not want to discover their imperfec- tions in the light of my larger experience. I am jealous of their place in my memory. Yet they have never disappointed me. How can they, when, between every line, I read the aspirations and ambitions of my own fresh young mind, and at the end of every chapter behold a flashlike view of how those dreams were realized. " Robinson Crusoe '* and " Swiss Family Robinson " are fairly charged with the unuttered determination some day to live on a tropical island in a tropical sea, and are possibly dearer to me because the determination was really carried out. As I thumb the greasy old pages (for the books were old before my time) I am once more on my island. All about us are verdure-covered islets, that but a century ago were the homes of the fierce Malayan pirates. A rocky beach, that contracts and expands as the tide rises and falls, encircles the island, on which glisten a hundred varie- As Talked in the Sanctum 87 ties of shells, exposing their delicate shades of color to the sun. Coral formations of endless design and shape form a submarine garden of wondrous beauty, through whose shrubs, branches, and ferns the brilliantly- colored fish of the southern seas sport like goldfish in some vast aquarium. From under a great almond tree we watch the sun sink slowly to a level with the masts of a bark that is bound for Java and the Bornean coasts. The black, dead lava of the island becomes molten for the time. A faint breeze nestles among the long fan- like leaves of the palm, and brings out the rich yellow tints with their background of green. A soft, sweet aroma comes from out the almond tree. The red sun and the white sails of the bark sail away together for the Spice Islands of the South Pacific. The dream of our child- hood is being realized, and there is no disappointment. The Poet. — ''I trust that 'The Divine 88 As Talked in the Sanctum Comedy ' has never brought about a like result to the Reader." The Contributor, — "Inferno is too good a place for — " The Parson, — ''¥\^\ fie!" The Office Boy, — " Proof! " VIII IT is the simplest thing in the world to make a magazine pay, and the method is no secret. There is without doubt many an ambitious journalist on this coast ready to start a rival to our own the moment he is assured that the venture will win him fame and money. It may not be good politics for the Sanctum to lay its heart bare, but a secret is no secret when shared by a dozen persons and the Office Boy. The magazine promoter needs but just money enough to print his first issue ; for, if he take advantage of the Sanctum's receipt, money will pour in until he will imagine that the windows of heaven have been opened for his benefit. Here it is. Just know what: the people want to read and give it to them. Napo- 89 go As Talked in the Sanchim leon had no difficulty in winning battles. He always saw just where to strike, and he struck with all his might. He knew instinctively where his troops would be of the most service, and he did not hesi- tate. He did the right thing at the right time. Bind together ten articles, stories, sketches, or poems, each one of which will demand the attention of ten thousand people, and you need not worry about your printer's bills. Make a magazine popular. All that is needed is popular literature. If one short story will make an author famous, it stands to reason that one popular article a month ought to make a magazine sell. But the rub comes in deciding what will catch the public eye. Did you ever try to make up a list of subjects on which articles could be written that would have a fair chance of selling, each, say, ^v^ hundred copies of a magazine ? It is lots of fun. The Office Boy, — " The mail ! " As Talked in the Sanctum gi There are seven manuscript stories, one with twelve cents postage due ; four manu- script articles ; three letters of advice ; two kicks ; twenty-one postal card requests for sample copies, seventeen of which are south of the Mason and Dixon line ; a change of address ; seven subscriptions ; one discon- tinuance ; eleven manuscript poems, and a design in ink for a tail-piece. The Reader, — " Here are four sketches, apropos of our talk on salable manuscripts. While I read their titles, let the Sanctum decide how many magazines each would sell: — " I . 'An Ascent of Popocatepetl.' 2. ' A Journey to California in '49.' 3. ' The Intemperance of Temperance.' 4. 'Feath- ered Songsters of the Pacific Coast.' " The Sanctum, — " Possibly fifty — to their authors." The Reader, — "I should judge from the first paragraph of each, that all four of the manuscripts submitted are well written \B R A « y- or -TB* _ TJNIVERSITT 92 As Talked in the Sanctum and make interesting reading, and yet the unanimous verdict is that if they were pub- lished in any one number of the magazine their united selling abilities would be fifty. In other words, our rival who expects to make his magazine pay would do well not to choose any one of them." The Poet, — "And yet, no doubt, they would be more satisfactory to the regular magazine reader and subscriber than the special article that will sell ten thousand copies to the irregular buyers. Do you remember how weary the public became before the War articles were finished in the Century? And yet they trebled the receipts of that company, and secured the attention of a class of readers that had never before cared whether the magazine lived or died." The Contributor. — " There are special articles that nine good judges would swear were inspirations and would sell thousands, but they are financial failures because of As Talked in the Sanctum 93 the character of the special audiences inter- ested. There was the twenty page special in our April number on ' The Jew in San Francisco/ It was written by a Jewish rabbi and a Gentile, both of whom were interesting and accurate writers, and it was beautifully illustrated. It appealed directly to sixty thousand Jews, all well-to-do, in this city, and a hundred thousand more in this magazine's field. A big edition was printed, you remember. It was a dire finan- cial failure, although a multitude of papers noticed and copied it. Why ? Because of the peculiar characteristics of the class ap- pealed to. Those most interested bought a few copies and passed them around ; a penny saved is a penny earned. On the other hand, you will remember that the Artist's contribution in the July number on ' Some San Francisco Illustrators ' was a tremendous and unexpected success. It sold out the entire edition, and yet it only appealed to a few dozen artists and their 94 ^s Talked in the Sanctum friends, the assessable valuation of whose combined property would not cause a cov- etous smile to creep over the face of any of the Jews cited in the former article. Why, again ? Because talent is generous to a fault, and wealth miserly to a degree. So, I say, there is much in choosing an audience. " The responsible head of a magazine, unless he be a born editor with the mark on his brow, takes the same chances in choosing the matter for each number as the general does in ordering an attack, or the gambler in picking out his horse at the races. If he can only make up his mind as to what is timely and what the public appetite demands, he is a success, even if he cannot conjugate amo or if he spells bird with a u. There are books and books ; there are magazines and magazines ; but only once in a while is there a book, and once in two whiles a magazine, that holds the great roving, restless public eye or touches the indifferent pubHc heart." As Talked in the Sanctum 95 The Reviewer, — "I suggest that instead of offering ten thousand dollars for a prize story, we offer a hundred to any one who will simply suggest a title for a popu- lar article — one for each month. It is easy enough to write ; what we want is ideas." The Manager, — " The offer is registered." The Parson. — "I have a subject to sub- mit that will sell the required ten thousand copies. * Well-known Paintings in San Francisco Saloons, with incidentally a de- scription of interiors.' " There was meat for thought in the good Parson's remark. After all, man does not live by bread alone, and for one I wish that the magazine was as untrammelled as the Parson. No one dictates what he shall preach. A few Sundays since he took his text from Proverbs xxvii. 15, "A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a conten- tious woman are alike." The sermon lasted for half an hour. Not being a woman I 96 As Talked in the Sanctum did not take it to myself, but it was strong, clear, and pointed, and I watched the face of the handsome sister that I was sure it was aimed at. She is worth a million, and I could not but admire the Parson's hardi- hood. " What perfectly lovely talks ! " she said, as we passed down the aisle together ; "and the nicest thing about them is that they are so poetic and allegorical ; I just love the dear old Parson ! " I looked up into the great rose window through which the sun was struggling, and thought, " Should I take that independence and freedom of expression in the * Etc' we should lose every advertiser within thirty days." And yet the Parson, who is so popular that he can say the most awful truths without exciting a murmur, reviles us for wanting to be popular. The good man does not know it, but it is these very tirades in good English that draw a large class of his wealthy pewholders. They like to feel the lash playing about their As Talked in the Sanctum 97 tough hides. It Is a pleasurable stimulant after six days of obsequiousness and fawnings from their peers. The Parson cannot lay it on too strong to please them ; they even uncover their weal points so that he will be sure and see them. They chuckle quietly to themselves as they drop a gold piece on the plate, but woe to the man that points his finger. Of course there are things that are only thought even in the Sanctum, and so the Parson, not knowing what was going on inside of his colleagues' brains, continued a little pompously : — The F arson, — "I believe, and I think I live up to my beliefs, in complete indepen- dence of thought, independence of speech and action. If you run special articles be- cause you think they will pay and not be- cause you know they are good, you lose your independence." The Artist, — "How about the Sunday 98 As Talked in the Sanctum odors of benzine that have come in with white kid gloves ? Does it show an inde- pendence of the male members ' olfactory- nerves or an independence in dress ? " The Parson was more than particular about his dress — he was fashionable ; that is, he would be picked out of a crowd of well-groomed men as the best-dressed one. He does not gracefully stand chaffing on the subject, and maintains that he knows the difference between the gentleman and the dude. Then he is neat. His laundry is of the snowy whiteness of new linen. He will not excuse dirt. "Dirt is matter out of place," he remarks, as he gazes sorrow- ing! y at the Occasional Visitor's vest front — for the O. V. is mighty about the girth, and insists on wearing one white waistcoat a week. " Madam," said the Parson to his soprano, who is not noted for spotless cuffs and always asks everybody's opinion regard- ing their cleanliness, "if there is any doubt upon the subject, they are dirty." As Talked in the Sa^mV^^^^'^^ ne Parson, — "I believe m indepen- dence in dress among the Fiji Islanders ; but I insist on dependence on dress in San Francisco. Good clothes force one to be respectable. They are an outward and visible sign, not that their owners will re- spect you and your opinions if you will, but that, at least, they will treat them with a certain dignity. The clergyman who goes about wearing the Occasional Visitor's vest " (the O. V. buttoned up his coat with a mo- tion that seemed to imply that he did not "respect the cloth "), " with a coat to match, trousers that bag at the knees, and laundry that has been trimmed, may be powerful in prayer, but his influence among his congre- gation will soon become nil. The country parson that borrowed a five-dollar gold piece of his deacon before the service and returned it directly after leaving the pulpit had the right idea. A man, no matter how full of the spirit he may be, cannot talk boldly and confidently of the rewards of religion with loo As Talked in the Sanctum empty pockets any more than he can con- vince his hearers that religion pays when habited in old-fashioned, seedy garments. If my congregation is the best-dressed one in the city, I am proud of the fact, and I trust that my example has had something to do with it. In any case, I am ready to believe that their good clothes on the Sab- bath are, in part, a compliment to me." The Parson has a mission on the south side of Market. Through it he distributes the clothes that his well-dressed congregation have deemed too shiny at the elbows or too baggy at the knees to meet their pas- tor's critical glance. Last Christmas a wagon load of such garments went into the homes of the poor from its doors. One of the Parson's vestrymen lost a leg at Appomat- tox, and he disdains to wear a cork one. His trousers lack one leg. After the ser- vices on the Sunday after Christmas an old gray-haired sister arose and announced, "My son John is a thousand times obliged As Talked in the Sanctum loi to yer, sir, fur the clothes ; but he says that if the man will send him the cloth for the leg he fergot, he will be able ter come ter church next Sunday." Not only the cloth but a complete suit was sent the sufferer by the hero of Appomattox, and in time John joined the church. The Parson, — "It was the clothes that did it. It is much easier to win a man's heart when it is covered with a clean, self- respecting suit of clothes, than when hidden away in the greasy overalls of his week-day labors. The Contributor wants free baths for the poor; I want to dress them in clothes that make them ashamed to get dirty. Clean hands and clean clothes make clean hearts." The Poet, — ** Through tatter* d clothes small vices do appear ; Robes and furrM gowns hide all.** The Parson, — " Shakspere and our Poet are no doubt exceedingly smart, but I prefer to follow the fashions — big sleeves, crino- I02 As Talked in the Sanctttm lines or hoops, high collars, patent leathers, or ' willie-boys' — rather than have our men and women boycott the tailor and lose their ambition to vie with one another on good clothes and good deeds. You may go unshaven if you will, but I confess a weakness for the barber's chair." The Parson's talk had its effect, for the Occasional Visitor borrowed two bits of the sermonizer with the published intention of getting a shave and having his clothes brushed. The Office Boy. — " Proof! " IX THERE was a circus in town, and its cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold directly beneath the Sanctum windows. A score of horsemen and a half-dozen lancers were in the lead. There was a troupe of Sitting Bulls and a steam piano. The Office Boy, from the fire escape, dropped an overripe fig into the lap of the Queen of Carthage, who was luxuriously idling in a golden chariot. The Queen's Celtic-Ethiopian fan-bearer shook his gaunt- let at the admiring convoy of small boys who had dared to laugh. With her sceptre, her Majesty scraped the tropical jam from her regal robes, and the poet composed an original sonnet on the spot beginning, — ** Uneasy is the head that wears a crown.** 103 104 ^^ Talked in the Sanctum The accident, however, did not stop the procession, although it retired the Office Boy, and caused him to miss the elephants. From time immemorial the circus has come to town, to every town, once a year. The same old-fashioned circus, as change- less as marbles and whooping-cough. The small boy always goes, in spite of parents or funds, and the big boy relates the same old story of how he earned his way by carrying water for the elephants, when, more than likely, he stole in under the canvas. The newspapers of the following day con- tain the same familiar pictures of the small boy with bandaged neck who tried to watch three rings at once, and of the good deacon who went to teach his grandchildren natural history, and never mentioned the girls in tights who rode bareback. Everything is just the same as when the Parson and the Contributor were half a century younger. The Circassian lady and the living skeleton, the fat woman and the India-rubber man, As Talked in the Sanctum 105 were there, and the lion tamer did the identical tricks that lion tamers have been doing since the days of Daniel. Every- body ate peanuts, and it rained in the after- noon. The clown was not funny ; but the people laughed, felt they had been hum- bugged, vowed never to go again, and within a year were false to their oaths. The calliope struck up " The Suwanee River," and the Office Boy disappeared down the stairs with the speed of a California road- runner. There are some things that neither philos- ophy, reason, nor cold-blooded analysis can strip of their fascination. Why it is so be- longs more truly to the realms of philosophy than the fact itself There is no mystery in the side show that we have not explored a hundred times ; there are no surprises in the circus ring that are not as ancient as the cir- cus itself; there are no strange animals in the cages, and no one expects them. It is some- io6 As Talked in the Sanctum thing else we go to see year after year — something that is as intangible and illusive as life. And with no two persons is that something the same. There was a fearful din in the great rings below. The chariot race was on, and the charioteers were urging their steeds with whip and voice. The sawdust was flying, and a clown was chasing and yelling behind the racers and then scrambling grotesquely under the ropes as the steeds overtook him. Boys were shouting and children screaming. For all the world it was the chariot race from " Ben Hur." But the Contributor noted it not. There was a dreamy, far-away look in his eyes. The circus he saw had only one ring ; the tent held but a handful of spectators ; there was but one elephant, and the giraffe was a thing of the sign painter's imagination. It was the circus he would see as long as he lived — the circus of his boyhood. For weeks all the barns that stood up against the wide, dusty, rambling country As Talked in the Sanctum 107 road, the main street in Whitesville, had been covered with great flaunting pictures of lovely women, unbridled chargers, and savage beasts. Envied was the boy whose father owned one of these barns, for the wonderful advance agent had left behind him a golden stream of yellow cardboards that bore the magic legend, " Admit One." "Admit One!" — what dreams, what hopes, what worlds it summoned to the mind's eye of each and every urchin ! The Parson never pictured Paradise in such glorious hues. Could he do so, he would be the greatest word painter since John the Evangelist. The woods that crowned the fat little hills glowed like a halo in their russets and golds and browns on the morning when the circus came to town. At five o'clock sharp we all stole out of bed and up the winding road that led over those hills to Spring Mills. The grass was still wet, while the spider webs, as big as plates, that had sprung up io8 As Talked in the Sanctum like mushrooms during the night, shone like pale morning moons in the light. The deep dust was warm below a crust of dew, and we ran our blue toes far into it as we raced. Just above Mr. Chapin*s watering-trough a black, lumbering, swaying mass was coming down the hill. Clouds of dust hedged it in, and sharp, strange cries came from out the demi-lights, followed by a string of oaths that made us catch our several breaths. We scrambled through the fringe of elders and up on the rail fence, as the elephant, with a little red-fuzzed being on his back, burst upon our enraptured vision. No elephant again was ever half as big. We dared hardly breathe until, from the tops of great boxlike wagons whose sides were covered with the counterfeit present- ment of lions, tigers, and a dozen animals that never seemed quite real before, some show- men spied us. Then we gradually gathered courage and shouted back timid answers to their coarse jokes. As Talked in the Sanctum 109 It did not strike us then that we were parts of a picture that had never been painted, but will some day. " The Circus Coming to Town," as we knew it, would win the medal for the artist. The dust begrimed, shopworn elephant, the score of gaudy cages, the draped grand band wagon, the little company of sleepy riders on spirit- less horses, the cheap chariot trailing igno- miniously behind the baggage van, the heads of the "dazzling queens of the ring" peeping from between the canvas covers of a leather-springed couch, — all half revealed in clouds of heavy dust, the brown of the road, the red of the sumac, the green of fields and the gold of the stubble, the soft blue of the sky, — and the wonder-eyed admira- tion of a dozen little country boys in blue jeans and chip hats, are but items in the unconscious stage. Far below us was the valley and the little town — one aimless street two miles long, with houses and gar- dens and trees on either side, and a district no As Talked in the Sanctum schoolhouse at either end. Cryder Creek wound and twisted and doubled back and forth as though loath to leave the grist mill and the swimming pond. The chariot race was over. The din sub- sided so that the clang of the cars without was distinguishable. I pressed the Con- tributor's hand. He looked up with a start. There was a foolish, happy smile on his lips. " Where have you been ? '' I asked, al- though I knew. " Carrying water for the elephant," he answered, and we both laughed. The Poet, — ** How sad and bad and mad it was ! But then, how it was sweet ! ** The Contributor was passing up and down the Sanctum in shoes whose creaking testi- fied arrogantly to their newness. The Contributor. — " The small boy is a born hero-worshipper. At ten he falls down As Talked in the Sanctum iii before the lion tamer and the leader of the brass band. When the circus departs, he stretches a rope from one gnarled apple tree to another and, time and again, comes within an inch of breaking his precious neck in emulating the tight-rope walker. At twelve or fifteen his big brother commands an undivided admiration that Robin Hood never received; such as only Boswell knew how to bestow. At sixteen or seventeen he has picked out some national hero and burns to make public speeches and vote for him when he runs for Governor or Presi- dent. It is fortunate if his hero is worthy of his worship, if no one shatters his idol. It is better that the worshipper should grow strong and reliant in the fame of the worshipped.*' The Reader, — " The Contributor's senti- mental mood does him credit. The boy is but father to the man. Call in the Office Boy and find out which one of us he has placed on a pedestal." 112 As Talked in the Sanctum The Office Boy, — " There is a man out- side with a bill for — " The Sanctum, — " Tell him to call around again after the magazine comes out." The Office Boy,— (In outer office) "All gone out to lunch." Man with Bill — "This is the seven- teenth time I've been up here, and I don't intend to come again. See ! " The Office Boy, — " No, I don't see." Man with Bill, — " Don't get fresh, son!" The Office Boy, — " I won't, if that's what ails you." M^«.— "What's that?" The Office 5^j. — "The Wilson Bill has put a duty on salt." Man, — " This is no salt bill ; it's for shoes." The Office Boy, — " Snow-shoes ? " Man. — " Naw, just shoes." The Office Boy, — "Oh, just feet shoes. There's some mistake ; we all wear boots." As Talked in the Sanctum 113 The Reader, — " That boy needs a lesson or two in hero-worship." The Contributor, — " He will do." And the good man's shoes were hushed while the gentleman with a bill for the same stamped defiantly down the hall. The Office Boy, — " Proof! " " T HAVE been making a collection of A letters to the Editor from would-be contributors/* remarked the Reader as he placed a big blue "R & D*' on the envelope in his hand. The Parson, — "I would prefer a collection of scalps. If you intend to make sport of the struggles of these mute, inglorious Miltons, I must refuse to be a party to the proceedings." The Contributor, — " And yet I under- stand his reverence attended a bull fight at Madrid." The Artist, — " But have you heard him lecture on it ? It is the most realistic thing I have ever listened to. I nearly jumped out of my pew and hurrahed when the mata- dor sprang to the bull's neck and gave it the coup de grace, I made up my mind then and there that I would go a thousand miles 114 As Talked in the Sanctum 1 1 5 out of my way to see a bull fight as the Par- son saw it." The Parson, — " You understand my mo- tive. I tried, in my humble way, to arouse the indignation of my hearers over the cruelty, ferocity, and inhumanity of this relic of barbarous ages." The Artist, — " You succeeded. Every member of your congregation would break his precious neck to see such a show. 1 do not forget either that it put three hundred dollars into the treasury of the Guild." The Contributor, — " Civilization is only a garment. It will wear out or slip off once in a while, in spite of the Decalogue, and reveal the savage." The Reader, — " Mine has been worn off by such missives as these. Listen, fellow- Apaches and matadors : — ' Dear Editor : I feel that I know you. I am a constant reader of your fairly well done "As Talked in the Sanctum." It has occurred to me that the magazine might be improved in certain ii6 As Talked in the Sanctum departments. Of course you are not in a position to judge as to the merits of your own work — be- ing on the inside. Now I am willing to show you clearly how you look to others and write you a letter of personal and confidential advice once a month, which, if you will strictly follow, will place your magazine far ahead in every particular of every magazine published. In addition, I could create and edit a department that would make a place for you in a million hearts. I submit a list of one hundred and twelve brilliant epigrams. I have seventeen hundred of these ofF-flashes of my brain that I have jotted down during the last twenty-eight years. I claim no originality for them, although they are original. They came to me as I slept, walked, and ate. They are thunderbolts and lightning strokes, world thoughts of which I am the humble vehicle. I am willing to share with yoii the fame they will bring me. Kindly remit the first fifty dollars as soon as possible, so that my mind can be free from petty cares to enter your service wholly. P. S. The epigrams might be illustrated. The Epigrams : — A new wagon is better than a broken one. A maiden that has never loved does not know what love means. As Talked in the Sanctum 1 1 7 It is dangerous to ride an unbroken musteng. Life is a mystery. It is better to be than not to be. Etc., etc., etc., etc' " As no one ventured a remark on this first of the Reader*s collection, the conversation lagged. Such missives were too common to excite comment. There is no better oppor- tunity for the study of human nature than the relations between editor and contributor. It is difficult to find a word or phrase to describe it. It is seldom quite friendship, never open war, possibly a sort of "veiled hostility." The standpoint of the editor, who is the purchaser, and the contributor, who is the vender, are so widely different that it is beyond all reason to expect them ever to come together. The farmer brings his potatoes to market with the hope of sell- ing them. If he fails, he holds no local demand for the potatoes, and sends them elsewhere. The merchant might buy out of sentiment, but no one expects it. Be- 1 1 8 As Talked in the Sanctum cause he has purchased other potatoes is not a sign of partiality. In a great measure the case is a parallel one. An editor seldom buys manuscript for sentimental reasons, although he continually has appeals like this : — " I send you the enclosed poems. They are original, though you .nay not think so, because they are so much like Milton's. I hope you will be able to pay what they are worth, for I am a poor widow, and if I do not get enough to live on from my poetry, I shall have to take in washing — and there is so much competition from the Chinese in that line here in San Pasqual." Another sad case : — "Will you not accept the enclosed poem on Mount Tamalpais? I need the money. Father fell and broke his leg last March and has not been able to do a stroke of work since. If I could afford to pay for a doctor to come up from Marys- ville, every one tells us Father would get well. Will you not help me by taking this poem ? It is my first poem, although I am very clever at jingles." As Talked in the Sanctum 1 19 Alas, there was more poetry on hand in the office than could be used for two years. Two poems — a sonnet and a quatrain — had been published on Mount Tamalpais within twelve months and, lastly, the poems offered were of the "Little Ella Lee" variety. No doubt the people at Crayon Gulch and San Pasqual held indignation meetings when the poems came back. Yet they would have written us down " tender- feet " if we paid one dollar for a hundred pounds of rotten potatoes. "If you will send me what you consider the enclosed story worth, I will donate it toward building the church. We are having a hard struggle to keep our little light burning here at Dogtown, and I am devoting my pen to the ser- vice of the Lord.'* She might have devoted the postage stamps she used on her lucubrations. Then comes the youth who wants glory, who has talent, or thinks he has, which amounts to the same thing. He tells you I20 As Talked in the Sanctum grandly not to let the price stand in the way. He appeals to your own first steps and early struggles to obtain a literary foot- ing ; he complains of the injustice of other editors, and insinuatingly remarks that the editor of the Esparto Chronicle has spoken very highly of your good judgment and general kindness. You admire the refreshing ingenuousness of the supplicant, and wish him well. Some day he may have one of his bright stories accepted, and then he will be shocked to discover that people do not point him out on the street, or whisper as he passes, " There goes the author of ' A Living Sacrifice.* " It will take him years to for- give the Sanctum for refusing his first manu- script, and his unspoken prayer will be to become so famous that he will be able haughtily to refuse our timid request for something from his pen. A letter came in the mail to-day which briefly said : — As Talked in the Sanctum 121 " Dear Sir : You will no doubt be delighted to hear that my essay on Walt Whitman, which you refused, was accepted by the Atlantic.^* It was sarcastic in tone, but the writer little suspected that we were honestly pleased with her success. Had her essay been on Joaquin Miller and as well written, it would have been gladly welcomed. Walt Whit- man does not belong to our field. But the most senseless of all the knockers at the Sanctum door is the one who devotes a long letter to fulsome praise of the accom- panying manuscript. "You will notice," a full-grown man with an M.D. after his names writes, "how strongly I have drawn the character of Lyda. She seems almost to speak, and her actions and words are so perfect that she commands the admiration and homage of the reader from the first. I consider the pathos of the last chapter equal to Dickens, and you will find the humor irresistible." Another ; " Although I am a frequent and a valued contributor to 122 ^s Talked in the Sanctum Eastern periodicals, I have decided to favor my own magazine with one of my best efforts." It is useless to multiply examples, or to speak of the literary bore who always insists on seeing the editor personally. Necessarily, the editor stands on the defen- sive. He has a hundred pages, more or less, to fill monthly with subjects that he feels will interest the widest class of readers. If he allows his sympathies to warp his judgment, he hears from it through the busi- ness office. He is not in the kindergarten business, neither is it customary for him to accept fees for advice. But the question is as old as Mount Diablo, and will exist when the last trump is sounded. The Contributor. — " We were speaking about Cleveland's Venezuela Message, and, if I remember rightly, we agreed to support the Executive even to the point of asking for colonels* commissions. If nothing better comes of the patriotic wave that has swept As Talked in the Sanctum 123 over the country, I, for one, hope that it will give Congress something to do other than revive the tariff discussion. The McKinley and Wilson Bill agitations, regardless of the individual merits of either bill, brought mis- ery enough to this country for one decade. Supposedly, a protective tariff is for the pro- tection of home industries and not for the collection of revenue. If Horace Greeley were at the head of the Tribune^ he would not urge, as its editor now does, the restoration of a former tariff schedule. Neither would he maintain that the way to raise a national revenue is to clap on higher duties. I am in favor of protection of home industries, but I am not in favor of protection for reve- nue only. This talk of revenue in connec- tion with protection is disgusting. Plunge this country into six months of tariff discus- sions, and the loss of revenue from closed factories, business uncertainty, and destruc- tion of confidence would be a hundred times more than any tariff* could bring in twice the 124 ^^ Talked in the Sanctum time. The income of the government de- pends on the stability of trade and the permanence of fiscal laws. As a whole, leave the tariff alone. If it is found advisa- ble and in line with the public needs to place a higher duty on any one thing, well and good ; but simply because wool, or steel, needs more protection, it does not follow that ink and chewing gum do." The Parson, — "It is to be hoped for the Contributor's sake that there will be no tariff on chewing gum. But I must confess that I am not so much interested in what Con- gress might do as in what Congress ought to do. I believe that the President's action will save Venezuela's territory to herself, but who will raise a finger to save the lives and honor of the native Christians in Turkey ? We complacently read of the massacre of St. Bartholomew and say that such things are impossible in this century. The horrors of the legalized murders and ravishments that are taking place day after day in Armenia, As Talked in the Sanctum 125 right under the eyes of Christian Europe and America, dwarf the most lurid accounts of the persecutions of the Huguenots. Do you think if I were President of this country, or Queen of Great Britain, that I would sit still and allow a weak, dissolute Turk to perpetrate such a crime of the century ? Not I ; and I am a man of peace. Sooner or later the unspeakable Turk has got to be brought to his senses. And the nation that undertakes the role of master will win the plaudits of history. We deprecate war be- tween the two great branches of the Anglo- Saxon race, and boast that England and America, hand in hand, are the great Chris- tianizing power of the century. ' The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.' A good, honest broadside will instil the holy fear in the heart of the Father of the Faith- ful, and do more for the cause of Christianity than all the commissions, or state papers, since the time of Nebuchadnezzar. Let us slap the Turk's cheek ; and, if he turns the 126 As Talked in the Sanctum other, let us slap that as well. I believe in using our ironclads where they will build up a civilization and not tear it down." The Reader. — "I move that we memori- alize Congress." The Artist, — " Or send out fighting par- sons and men-of-war as missionaries." We are never quite sure when the Parson is in earnest. It was he who made the famous speech when introducing Dr. Parsons, the Unitarian divine, to his congregation. "I have asked Dr. Parsons to talk to us this morning," he said; "Dr. Parsons does not believe in damnation, and he thinks we shall all be saved. But we hope and pray for better things." The Office Boy, — " Proof! " XI "rpALKING shop again!" and the X Parson politely screened a yawn as the Manager of the Subscription Depart- ment interrupted himself to look up a batch of letters received from the several district schools of the State in rejoinder to repeated, possibly a little too imperative, invitations to place our magazine in their school libraries. The Manager paused, with his hand on the door: "As I am neither 'a theological theologue or pedagogical pedagogue,' I fail to see how I am in any way responsible for the literary pabulum of this thin-skinned circle." Following the lead of the Suisun Vidette^ a number of our highly prized exchanges had felt called upon to chide us editorially for — " talking shop." The Milpitas P^/>«- 127 128 As Talked in the Sanctum list remarked sarcastically that we " no doubt talked to conceal our minds." The Parson. — "It is an easy charge to make and one that admits of little argu- ment ; but it occurs to me that the good people who are most apt to bring it are not, as a general thing, singularly eminent for the luminosity or cleverness of their own conversations." The Contributor, — " As we are talking behind society's back, let that remark pass as an axiom." The Parson. — " So many things suggest themselves to me in this Hne that I think, instead of taking the Manager to task, that I will ally myself with him. A man of affairs spends two-thirds of his life in his shop. Possibly one night in a week he accompanies his wife to the house of a friend. It is his duty to make himself agreeable — to have on his society air. If he does not, — ' How stupid you were to-night, dear, — you never opened your As Talked in the Sanctum 129 lips. That horrid Mrs. So-and-So was there, and I was so anxious to show you off!' Mrs. So-and-So is a famous talker, she does not talk shop. There is no shop on earth that would hold her She talks about everything. Nothing goes into her brains that does not come instantly out of her mouth. She interrupts herself, but she never allows any one else to interrupt her. She has a strong mannish voice, rather pleas- ant, her grammar is good, but her ideas scatter like the seven plagues of Egypt. Her laugh is loud, but infectious. Her stories are bright, yet the best part of them is her own laugh of appreciation. She does all the talking for a dinner party of 'sixteen, and does it gladly. It is only when the men are left to smoke their cigars that they are permitted to settle back and enjoy themselves in talking shop. And yet it is not shop any more than our Sanctum talks are shop. Last evening we smoked two cigars, for which I received a well-merited 130 As Talked in the Sanctum lecture on my way home, while the Banker was apologizing for Mr. Carlisle's so-called popular bond issue. "The Parsoness said, 'What in the world were you talking about, dear, that made you forget the ladies ? — something you are ashamed of, I know.' " ' We were discussing bonds, my dear,' I answered humbly. " ' Bonds ? — shop,* she snapped with more warmth than I felt the subject justified. " ' And what were the ladies talking about ? ' I ventured. " ' Mrs. Nob Hill was discussing a per- fectly lovely trousseau that she had made in Paris for Mabel's marriage to Count Oh ! what is his awful name ? * " ' Lovelace,' I suggested. " ' No, you know Count, Count Hard- upsy. It was just magnificent. I never realized how the time flew until I looked at the clock.' " And then the dear soul forgot all about As Talked in the Sanctum 131 her grievance and talked the most delight- ful dressmaker's shop all the way home. She even neglected to remark that she hoped the time would come when she could have a carriage to go out to full dress affairs in. We all talk shop, even our own critics — and they, worst of all. I listened to the Par- soness in conversation with one of them. " The Parsoness, — ' Good evening, Mr. Never-Talk-Shop. I am glad to see you here. It has been some months since we met.' " Mr, Never- Talk-Shop, — * Yes. You see I have so little time to myself. I rush down to the office every morning at 8 o'clock. I snatch just time to go up to the Pacific Union for lunch and then never get home until 7. It is awful to work so hard ; but then I tell Mrs. N. T. S. that some day I will drop the office and take a little trip to Paris. You know, I commenced in life before I was five, blowing the bellows in my father's blacksmith shop,' etc. " When Mrs. P. said good night to him. 132 As Talked in the Sanctum he remarked to me, ' Mrs. P. and I had such a good chat while you and Mrs. N. T. S. were over there talking shop. Parsons, you know, are great for talking shop.' And he then laughed until his plate became loose. " Caesar's Commentaries are an example of shop talked to some purpose. I am sorry that Alexander, Hannibal, and Shak- spere, and the Witch of Endor, did not talk more shop. The world would have been wiser, and many of the dark corners in his- tory would have been lighted up." The Reviewer, — " Our creditors have an embarrassing manner of talking shop." The Artist, — " Vive le Magasin, Call in the Subscription Manager." The Subscription Manager, — " Not if the Artist is going to take such a mean advan- tage of our Sister Republic." The Artist, — "I never originated a pun knowingly in my life. A pun always sur- prises me, whether I am parent of it or the Reader ; but it never amuses." As Talked in the Sanctum 133 The Reader, — "My pun can go a step farther in descent, for each of them is a- parent." There are thirty-two hundred schools in the State of California. The State is gen- erous with its money, and allows each dis- trict to have a library. This magazine has asked the fifty-seven counties to indorse it as worthy of a place in these libraries. All but three have complied. Following up this indorsement it has mailed return pos- tal cards to the several District School Clerks, requesting them to subscribe. The Subscription Manager sent out eight sets of these cards, and then, not securing all the schools, he determined that he would at least get a reply from the unresponsive ones ; he decided on a bold stroke and composed a card as follows : — " Dear Friend : This is the ninth time we have written you. We are going to write nine times more if necessary. We arc all Californians, 134 ^^ Talked in the Sanctum working for the best interests of the State. We have been on the Coast twenty-seven years. How long have you ? It is not asking much of your rich district to take the only magazine on the Coast. Will you subscribe ? If not, will you write us ? If not, why not shake hands.? " It brought either a subscription or a reply from nearly every district. For the benefit of the Sanctum he had preserved a choice array of these answers. Selections done into English by the Sub- scription Manager : — " We do not want your magazine. We have been in the State long enough to know our business." " When I become so bereft of common sense that I cannot attend to my own busi- ness, you will be the first man I will call on. Send ninety cards if you like. Been on the Coast long enough to be your grandfather. Shake." " This is nine times I have told you, No.** " We are renting an organ and thinking As Talked in the Sanctum 135 of buying it. I have been here nine years and used to get four and five cents for raisins, but now get but one and a half per pound. How long do you think I can stand it ? *' " Your persistency is as sweet as a day in June." "You will have to write ten times to raise our funds." " Have been in California four and a half years, from Michigan, near St. Joseph." " Nine times is enough. No more. You are on the Coast twenty-seven years ? Born here, of course — native sons '^. I am twenty-two years on the Coast, a Californian by choice, not by chance. When you talk of our * rich district,' you are informed correctly. We have, as a library and appa- ratus, one map and a dictionary." " Have been on the Coast long enough to become accHmated — twenty years. Too many good things are superfluous." " Don't trouble yourselves any more on my account. No more at present." 136 As Talked in the Sanctum " Your favors remind me of the old song entitled 'Ninety and Nine.' Shake ! '* " You have written nine times, and as you are an old Californian we cannot doubt you; for we are one of them, having landed in Sacramento County on Christmas Day, 1853, on the hurricane deck of an ox cart, and in consequence can go you a few better on the ' old * part. We are still young and truthful, having rubbed all that other part off against nuggets that we have not been fortunate enough to get our honest clutches on. Shake ! " "Always write on postals with paid reply to insure prompt attention." " No, we will not be offended if you continue to write until you secure our subscription. If you start on the job, I advise you to provide yourself with paper by the ream, pens by the gross, and ink by the barrel." The longest of the replies, but one of several received from the same trustee, is As Talked in the Sanctum 137 so good that I venture to print it, untrans- lated. "Yours, in which you still urge the trustees of this school district to subscribe for your magazine, and also express a desire to further continue the correspondence on the subject, is received. In reply I have to say I am heartily in sympathy, and am eagerly anxious to continue a correspond- ence that cannot fail to be interesting and instructive. I have got a new style of pen, wholly glass ; its point is fairly tingling with eagerness to jot down the ideas that are throbbing in my brain on that subject. You are evidently laboring under a mis- apprehension of the condition of affairs in this school when you refer to us as strug- gling along without your magazine in our school library. My dear Sirs, let me inform you that we are not struggling along; we are gliding along on the smooth and placid surface of a prosperity that may be described as follows : the trustees are doing their duty 138 As Talked in the Sanctum to the best of their ability, guided by a fair amount of intelligence. Our teachers, two young ladies, are efficient in industry and ability ; in fact, they are gems, physically, socially, intellectually, and professionally. Our pupils are bright, healthy, and studi- ous. The patrons of the school are happy and contented, believing the education of their offspring is being attended to honestly, intelligently, and well. This is the condition of affairs in this school. " Now hold down your ear ; I want to whisper to you the main reason why we do not take your magazine. There are so many attractive features about it that we are sure the pupils would be so fascinated with it that they would neglect their studies. Those attractive features would also tend to distract the teachers' attention from their duties. " All the trustees would like to take your magazine, but we have only time from our farm duties (we are all farmers) to read the As Talked in the Sanctum 139 news in one of the great San Francisco dailies and our Bible. If we could take the time to read your magazine, we are not really financially able to subscribe for it. This financial embarrassment, we hope, is only temporary. It was brought about partly by the foolish tinkering with the govern- ment finances by Representatives McKinley and Wilson, and partly by the criminal demonetization of silver by Senator Sher- man over twelve years ago, and the balance, if anything more were needed, by. the silly misapprehension of the people as to the correctness of President Cleveland's action in the matter of the Bond Sales. It has also been thought that the * gold bugs ' of Wall Street, N.Y., had something to do with the financial pressure, but I think that is a mistake. The gold bugs of New York are, many of them, members of the church, and all of them good men, and would not do a mean thing like that. " Still wishing your magazine bountiful 140 As Talked in the Sanctum success, and hoping for further correspond- ence, I am — " P. S. Is your magazine in need of an editor-in-chief or a managing editor? If so, I think I know a man who could well fill the bill. He might lack a little in cheek and gall at first, but he is quick to catch on, and could quickly acquire a suffi- ciency of both if installed in the position." The Reviewer, — " Cheek, n. The side of the face below the eye on either side. — Gaul, n. France, anciently so-called." The Editor refused to join in the laugh, and seemed relieved when the young man with the spectacles opened the door. The Office Boy. — " Proof ! " XII "T HAVE been thinking/* remarked the A Contributor, as he carefully dusted the leather cushion of his accustomed chair, " that there are many points in common between what we call primeval barbarism and nine- teenth-century civilization." The Artist rather encouraged the Con- tributor, the Parson, and the Occasional Visitor in their daily monologues. They did not interfere with his work. But there were times when they were deemed imperti- nences by the Editor and the Reader. " Yes ? " remarked the Artist, encourag- ingly. "Yes," echoed the Contributor, his eyes glowing with a big idea. Washington's Birthday fell on Saturday this year, making two holidays in succession. 141 142 As Talked in the Sanctum The Contributor had taken advantage of the summer-like February days to climb Mount Tamalpais. The Contributor, — " With Adam and Eve, or with the islanders of the South Seas, life is made up of a series of gorgeous holidays — legal holidays with the banks closed/' The Artist, — " Pardon me one moment — would you mind raising your arm ? I want to get the position of your fingers — so. Now, go ahead." The Poet, — ** If all the year were playing holidays. To sport would be as tedious as to work.** The Contributor, — " As we emerge from barbarism, life becomes serious and prosaic, and days set apart for pure enjoyment are unknown. Early Christianity made the Sabbath a day of penance and prayer. As civilization progressed and mankind became gentle, an excuse was found for certain lapses from the rigid rules of the fathers. The Puritans would not celebrate their first goodly As Talked in the Sanctum 143 crops and their peace with the Indians with ungodly Olympian games. They were not fully civilized. They appointed a day of solemn, mirthless feasting. It was a holiday, nevertheless. It was a step in the right direction, one that made Thanksgiving foot- ball possible two hundred years later. I thought it all out as I sat on the top of Tamalpais and looked through the golden mists across the Golden Gate toward the great city that was being glad that George Washington lived, if for no other reason than that he gave it another holiday." The Artist, — "You can lower your arm. Thanks. Now turn your head a trifle. I want to catch the curve of your neck — good." The Contributor, — " The fierce heat of August and the warm haze of September that ripened the crop of Puritan corn called forth one holiday ; the grim, bleak forests of Valley Forge and the blood of half-starved patriots at Saratoga and Yorktown gave birth 144 ^^ Talked in the Sanctum to another. Thanksgiving, Fourth of July, Washington's Birthday, Christmas, New Year, Easter, Labor Day, — all marked the advance of the race toward the millennium, or, if you choose, denote a relapse for a few brief hours into the life when man lived not by the sweat of his brow." The Occasional Visitor, — " You neglect to include the Bohemian High Jinks season in the redwoods. Ah ! those glorious holidays in Camp Bohemia among the vast red mon- archs, where men become boys, and the banker unbends to his humblest debtor. It would be well if all men for a little space could 'take to the woods* as we Bohemians do, and know the delights of getting close to nature and to the hearts of our fellows. Yet it may be possible that it needs trees three hundred feet high and eighteen feet in diameter, and many of them, to house four hundred men for a fortnight. And such perfect days, when streamers of light fresco and enamel the redwoods' leafy roof, or when the fog As Talked in the Sanctum 145 creeps in from the Pacific and fills all the higher arches with a clinging, fleecy mist like clouds of incense. Ah me, ah me ! *' The Poet. — " Who first invented work, and bound the free And holiday-rejoicing spirit down ? ' ' The Contributor, — " No one ever accused me of being an Anglomaniac, but I would that we took in exchange for that slice of Venezuela that Britain covets her Bank Holidays, and shut our banks on Easter Monday, Monday in Whitsun week, first Monday in August, Good Friday, and first Monday in May. Who would be the loser? Not the laborer, who dons his Sunday best, takes his care-worn helpmate and family of half-grown children off the streets out on the warm sands below the Cliff House, or among the roses and green things of Golden Gate Park. The sunshine that never enters their damp, cheerless alley finds its ways into his heart, and he renews 146 As Talked in the Sanctum his honeymoon and gets in touch with the hunger in his little ones* lives. His work the next day means something. He has resolved that Tommy and Mary shall have more holidays than have fallen to his bare lot. Not the Banker, who discovers that there is other music in life that is as sweet to his ears as the music of the gold that pours over his counter. " The Parson agrees that the Sabbath is a day of rest, pure and simple, and not a day of self-mortification. I have had two glorious holidays, Washington's Birthday and Sunday. I thank the Bible and the statute book for them, and now I am ready and willing to go to work." The Reader, — "Then, if the Artist has finished with your neck, possibly you would not object to holding copy for an hour or so." The Contributor ignored the invitation, and we fell to thinking of the holidays of long ago — of the chain of fadeless Satur- As Talked in the Sanctum 147 days that began with our first pants and ended on the very threshold of manhood. It is too bad that the Saturday holiday cannot go on through life. I am sure the longevity of the human race would benefit by it. Five days a week are enough for the schools, why should not they be enough for the banks? Possibly it was the incense of the winter oranges that floated into the open window from the wagon below that brought back the perfume of those autumn holidays in blackberrying time. Just for a moment I grasped the taste of the almost forgotten fruit that grew so luscious among the black- ened logs under the scarlet sumachs. We were small epicures, every one of us. The ordinary berries were put in our patent pails, but the big ones, — large as thimbles and sweet and watery as melons, — they were our reward. We knew the art of eating them, — little end first, slowly, the lips tightly pressed together, the rich wine, cool 148 As Talked in the Sanctum and pure, slipping regretfully down our throats. The Contributor's lips trembled reminis- cently as I rehearsed it all. Back and above the grand, paternal home- stead towered the " Pinnacle," its dome- shorn trees only protected from sun and rain by a stunted growth of sumach and beech. Just below its summit, on the further side, in a " slashing " through which the fire had swept years before, grew the biggest and sweetest berries in all Inde- pendence Township. We did not start until the morning sun had absorbed the heavy dews, for our ging- ham roundabouts were thin, and our feet bare, and berrying time only lacked a few weeks of nutting time and the frosts. With shouts and hellos we were up the steep hill, charging the dozy cattle from their nests and warming our blue toes where they had slept. The little valley, with its As Talked in the Sanctum 149 shimmering creek, and Whitesville lay di- rectly below, and Uncle Tob's mill pond, whose fringe of willow and beech cast reflec- tions like the scrawls in our Spencerian copy books. For a moment we rested to catch our breaths, then to loosen a great moss- coated bowlder and send it down through log fence and brush heap into the lawnlike meadow, to dull some unfortunate*s scythe. The Pinnacle did not quite reach the sky, but it came nearer to it, as its memory holds, than Diablo or Tamalpais. Into the wild, lonesome patches of wind- fall and fallow we disappeared. The briers reached above our heads, and their gray- green thorns found the very spot where our tanned legs left our short pants. There were paths in and about the ebony black logs that the cows had followed since the great fire when grandfather had singed his hair close to his head in a vain fight to save his buckwheat in the " back lot." They were mysterious, winding paths, matted 150 As Talked in the Sanctum deep with ash-gray leaves, and they led down toward the sugar-bush. When our pails were full, — and it was always a sur- prise how they got so, — we would follow the paths. Sometimes I was De Soto, or again Jack was Hawk Eye. " Hist ! " — Hawk Eye would pause in his tracks with head lowered and finger raised. A par- tridge was drumming on a log : " It is a vile Huron ! Look to your priming." Among the resinous needles under a blasted pine we ate our noon-day lunch. The shadow lay close to the foot of the pine, so we knew it was time. As we munched the thick slices of salt- rising bread heavily crusted with shaven maple-sugar, we built castles in Spain — castles of which we were never to possess the title-deeds, but castles that were filled with hopes and aspira- tions that had their own silent influence in shaping our young lives. A gray squirrel ran down the limb of a white birch and marked with bright, greedy eyes the spot where each crumb fell. As Talked in the Sanctum 151 "When I get to be a man/' said Jack, as he softly answered the call of a catbird. Such was our dreaming. The world has been the loser because of the impossibility of his not being able to fulfil that day- dream. Somehow I always picture him as he would be, and not as he is. It is the hoHday — free from care or thought — that brings out the beauty and best in man. So the short autumn day passed. The hot sun overhead only made itself known by a few meshlike streamers that reached the leaves at our feet. Then, as it lost itself below the Pinnacle far down the valley of the Cryder, we followed the lengthening shadows along the mountain side, driving the cows with us as we went. Our shrill, happy " Whey, Boss," and " Coe, Boss," woke the echoes across the pastures in the darkening " drafts " beyond. The Parson. — "I feel that 1 am equal to as many holidays as the law permits; but 152 As Talked in the Sancttim as a public man I am not allowed to spend them as I choose. I am willing to have the Fourth of July set apart as a distinct political holiday, — with harangues, powder, and brass bands ; with Union League and Iroquois Club banquets at night; with noise and fireworks, — but I do object to having every other legal holiday devoted to the same object. Why not hold Washington's Birthday sacred to his memory ? Make it the school children's holiday, and for once put aside all political antagonisms and class wars. Washington was neither a Repub- lican, Democrat, nor Populist; he did not belong to the A. P. A.'s or the Y. M. I.'s. He stands as the greatest moral memory in the repubHc, the conscience of the American people. If we are to have parades, let them be devoid of "Little Red Schoolhouses'* and rotten egg throwing. Let them be sweet, quiet reminders of the noble Father of the whole country." The Office Boy had been listening. He As Talked in the Sanctum 153 took off his spectacles and dusted them carefully. The Office Boy. — " Please, sir, my cousin is visiting me from San Luis. May 1 have a holiday to-morrow ? We want to go to a picnic in the redwoods at Mill Valley." The Office Boy's petition was timely, and it was granted without a dissenting voice. The Office Boy. — " Proof ! " XIII THERE are certain pat sayings — axioms if you please — that are forever staring one in the face, meeting you at every cross- road, looming up like a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day. They are sanctified by age — so very, very hoary that their white hairs command your rever- ence outwardly, even while your whole mind and soul revolts. Only personal experience will convince the scoffer of their honesty. The Sanctum, from a purely worldly point of view, is not a success. It does not con- tain a rich member. So when one of the directors or stockholders in the Company — that is, of the Publishing Company — solemnly assures us that riches do not bring happiness, we listen respectfully and as re- spectfully doubt him. We are like the »54 As Talked in the Sanctum 155 Scotchman — I am not sure but I have used this simile before — who was willing to be convinced, but would like to see the man that could convince him. If a man cannot be happy with the means to supply every bodily, moral, and mental want then, we maintain, there is something wrong with the man. There was a romantic little story running through the press that Mr. Huntington said, as his palatial private car drew up to the charming station at Santa Rosa, — "I would be willing to give up all my millions and be a brakeman on one of my own freight trains, if I could have my youth and eat my lunch from my tin pail on the shady side of this little depot, and watch the red- cheeked, sunny-haired maidens of Santa Rosa come out, day after day, to see the trains pull in.** We all have these fugitive wishes — they are idyllic and very creditable, but they are foolish. It is one thing to be a handsome. 156 As Talked in the Sanctum strong young brakemen, with a good diges- tion, among a bevy of pretty girls, and quite another thing to be a brakeman, old and crippled from long service. No doubt the railroad president looks back with pleasure mingled with regret on the days when he was a brakeman, as Lin- coln, surrounded with all the cares and anxieties of a great civil war, may have longed with a genuine longing for the little country law office in the quiet Illinois town. It is to be deplored that none of us have ever had actual experience with riches. We all have our day-dreams, even now, of what we would do in case we were Hunting- ton, Gould, or Vanderbilt ; how we would make ourselves happy in making others happy ; and we are in a continual state of surprise that our rich friends do not take kindly to our crafty suggestions. It is so easy for one of them to write his check and make so many people happy, and at the same time do so much good, that we are As Talked in the Sanctum 157 amazed that he does not do it. It is use- less to specify here our wishes ; but if any of our wealthy readers are in want of our advice, it is as free as water. A philosopher is simply a person who observes, draws conclusions, and puts his conclusions down in intelligent form. The Parson and the Contributor are not young, their minds are stored with more than a half century of experiences, but if you listen to their genial Sanctum talk day after day, the following thought takes shape : — How years of work and struggle and great events are forgotten, and certain mo- ments and days, that seem of no significance or importance, cling like life itself to the memory. A commonplace saying, an ordi- nary action, or a trivial happening remains, when the memory of things, seemingly of the greatest moment, fades away. The Parson never talks of his daring charge at Antietam, or of the time he perilled his life to rescue a boat load of 158 As Talked in the Sanctum picnickers in Raccoon Straits — even an old comrade's praise does not seem to spur his memory. A campfire story or a boy- hood prank remains as vivid in his mind as the day when it took place. Here is the opportunity for the philoso- pher. He asks himself the why of it all. It is a universal experience. Then there must be a reason. Was the campfire story or the boyhood prank a turning-point in the Parson's career ? Unknown to him, did it have some great and lasting influence on his life ? Do we not have crises in our lives that we do not recognize ? ** There is a tide in the affairs of men ; " will the sage please point out the hour of high tide ? Shakspere was no doubt a philosopher, but he left no chart whereby you or I can recognize these supreme moments. Conse- quently, as an amateur philosopher, I am inclined to assert that there is something within us that recognizes and treasures the As Talked in the Sanctum 159 memory of the tide-times of our life, even when our reason and senses pass them by. We entertain many an angel unawares, as we refuse bread to many a deserving beggar. The Typewriter, — " There is a party out here that will not leave until he sees the Editor. He has discontinued his subscrip- tion and has his reasons for so doing written out. He wishes to read them to some one in authority." The Reader, — " Poetry or prose ? " The Ex-Subscriber, — " Excuse me, gentle- men, for intruding on your valuable time and interrupting your puerile drivel, but I want you to understand that I am one of the original subscribers to this magazine. I am no chicken, if my hair is long. You may have seen my letters signed * Veritas * in the Guinda Populist ? " The Reader respectfully removed his hat. The Ex-Subscriber, — "Do you follow me? Good ! Now what I pick on is this. You don't abuse the railroad. You say noth- i6o As Talked in the Sane htm ing. You go along as though it was a great and good institution, like the corner grocery and the primary. You take no part in such burning questions of the day as whether the Examiner did or did not sell its protection for one thousand dollars a month. What we want up in the country is more vim, and backbone, and personalities. Show up the iniquities of the rich, and so help the poor. We can live longer and enjoy better health if we know that the predatory rich are not sleeping comfortably between their two feather ticks. Down with the railroads ! Why, sir ! last Christmas they refused me a pass back to my childhood home in Vermont. To me, who came to this country before rail- roads were thought of! The railroad is a tyrant, and California is the last of the slave States. Do you hear me ? Take my name off your books. I am one of the people." The Manager, — " Certainly. There is four years due — will you pay now ? " The Ex-Subscriber.— ''"P^yl Never! Col- As Talked in the Sanctum i6i lect it of Huntington and Crocker. You juggernaut ! " The Manager. — " Thanks. We prefer to collect it from your estate after you have talked yourself to death." The Contributor. — "I have long wanted to meet 'Veritas.' Since my boyhood days I have read his scholarly essays on the * Want of a New Sewer on M Street/ and ' An Ap- peal to the Self-respecting Citizens of the Eighth Ward.* He is catholic in his choice of mediums. The Whitesville News and the New York Tribune are honored alike with his brilliant pyrotechnics. His com- munications to the editor bristle with quota- tions from the orators and poets of the Fourth Reader. With Wendell Phillips he exclaims, 'Revolutions are not made; they come/ and with Daniel Webster, ' Let our object be our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country.' He is first cousin to Old Subscriber, Taxpayer, Old Settler, Pioneer, *49-er, and Vox Populi. 1 62 As Talked in the Sanctum He is a brother of Pro Bono Publico. His rhetoric is as picturesque as his grammar is original. He fears neither libel suits nor public opinion. From the sunny side of the corner grocery he formulates State con- stitutions and regulates family jars. * Veritas * is the friend of the poor, excepting his own, and the advocate of the other people*s down- trodden. He is as old as the printing-press and as fresh as a spring poem. To have met a modest, self-confessed * Veritas ' is better than to have been received by the Queen. Would that the Sanctum group could make him one of them.** The Manager. — "I have often thought I would take up philosophy as a profession, but I never could make a beginning. Now there was the time the Contributor, Tim O'Brien, and myself salted that little woman's mine at Smartsville. Our hearts were all in the right place, but our brains were in a bog. The Parson was saying that As Talked in the Sanctum 163 no good action was ever done that some one was not the better for it. But, whoever received the benefit in this case, I know that the Contributor suffered, for the laugh the boys had on him beat him for judge in Stanislaus County." The Artist, — "But he got the title of Judge, if he did lose the office." The Manager, — "Talk about trivial things being impressed on your memory. I can see it all as though it happened but yester- day, while I cannot even remember the fee I paid the minister that married me. One hot summer day, back in the fifties, a big, strapping fellow, with as dainty a bit of a wife as a man ever clapped eyes on, clam- bered out of the old Marysville coach at Smartsville and moved into a little cabin over at the foot of the hill. The very next morning we saw her sitting in her cabin door with her big blue eyes swimming with tears. Some of the boys thought the husband had been beating her, and were for divorcing 164 As Talked in the Sanctum them then and there. We talked it over all the forenoon, and in the afternoon the little woman walked down to the store and asked the storekeeper where she could stake a claim. She was sobbing as if her poor heart would break as she told him her hus- band had been taken with rheumatism and couldn't move, and that they didn't have any money. She thought she could do a little mining alone if she just had a show. We all tried to give her a little dust, but her eyes snapped so they dried up her tears, when she thanked us and said she was no beggar, but could work for a living. " She walked straight out of there and over to the side hill and staked out a claim on a piece of ground that was as barren as the top of Ararat. A man couldn't have found color there if he had gone clean through to China, but she shovelled away with her soft little hands that blistered almost as soon as she touched the handle, and then cooled them in the water while she. As Talked in the Sanctum 165 washed the dirt. Tim and the rest of us felt mighty sorry for the delicate little crea- ture, working away so bravely to support herself and her sick husband ; so — it was the Contributor who thought it all out — we slipped around that night and salted her claim pretty heavy. The next morning we all sat in front of the saloon and watched her work out her first pan of dust. It netted somewhere about two hundred dollars in coarse gold, and she felt so good that she fell right down on her knees and thanked the good Lord. We all kind of choked and wiped our eyes, and made a bee line for the bar. The little woman was so happy and worked away so cheerily all that day that the boys couldn't help giving her claim another salting. " The husband, a nice, patient kind of a chap, kept sick for weeks, his noble little wife kept digging and working away, and the Contributor and the rest of us kept salt- ing her claim, for we couldn't bear to think 1 66 As Talked in the Sanctum of her disappointment if we should let it peter out. Our own claims weren't paying any too well, the water was slow, and what with standing around and watching her all day, we made so little that it wasn't very long before she had pretty nearly all the dust in camp. Finally, when she found her claim wasn't paying and her husband was better, she decided to take her departure. We were all mighty sorry to see her go ; for she was a bright, cheery little creature, and as pretty as a picture. The sight of her made us all kind of religious, and the Contributor had collected somewhere in the neighborhood of two hundred dollars for a church. But with her went our yearning after a parson, and by a standing vote we made her a present of the whole collection. During the election it was told that the Contributor surreptitiously added his diamond stud." The Contributor, — " Regarding which my memory fails me." The Manager, — " Our divinity's husband As Talked in the Sanctum 167 took sick again at Rough and Ready, and the boys there salted her claim until she broke the camp. He took sick again at Boston Ravine, and then over again at Selby Flat, and I think he carried that rheumatism into every camp in the State — and all the gold dust out ! " The Contributor, — " Isn*t it about time for the proof ? " The Office Boy, — " Proof ! " XIV FRANCOIS VILLON'S conceited as- sertion, that "good talkers are only found in Paris/* may be true. Still it has been remarked that certain members of the Sanctum are more than mediocre conversa- tionalists, — ornaments to the circle, — men of mark. They, the talkers, have absorbed whatever meed of praise comes sanctum- ward. If the Parson and the Contributor are pointed out on the street and quoted in the newspapers, invited to banquets, asked to read papers before learned societies, we feel it is only their due. Instead of showing jealousy, we are secretly elated at their favor. Every member of the circle fills his own modest niche. The Editor, the Poet, the Reader, know that they are just as accom- plished listeners as the Parson is an accom- i68 As Talked in the Sanctum 169 plished talker. The good listener does not hold the exalted place in polite society that the good talker does ; but, surely, he is quite as important. A man, we have all agreed, is never a perfect success as a talker unless he be a listener as well. " Not to listen is not merely a want of politeness: it is a mark of disrespect." The Contributor had been airing his opin- ions on the Cuban question. The Reviewer had an idea, and he struggled to clothe it in imposing verbiage. The Contributor gazed absently out of the great south window toward the weather signals on the Mills Building. He may have understood before- hand what the Reviewer was trying to ex- press, or he may have had the faculty of listening while thinking of what he meant to reply, but it was not long before the Reviewer began to stutter and stumble. He closed abruptly in the middle of a sentence, his ideas disconcerted and his vanity wounded. The Contributor, without noticing either the lyo As Talked in the Sanctum unfinished argument or the broken, feeble finale, went on with the thread of his ha- rangue as though the Reviewer had not spoken. The Contributor's oblivious rudeness and the Reviewer's poorly concealed annoyance sent a smile around the circle. The Artist. — "There is no question but that our Contributor is an accomplished monologist. Euripides has described him, ' He is a talker and needs no questioning before he speaks.' We all admire the ease and agility with which he skips from the cause of the downtrodden Cubans to Reid's presidential chances. At the same time he is equally interesting on cathode ray, and the Sinai Gospels. Yet, if I may be allowed to criticise at the same moment, I would say that he shares with all egotists their radi- cal defect — polite inattention to the conver- sation of their peers. I want to have this matter out once for all with the Contributor, for I have long been a silent sufferer from As Talked in the Sanctum 171 his courteous condescension. It should not be necessary for me always to call him to earth with a question. He carries his habit too far. When he talks, I do more than merely lend him a semiconscious ear, I give him freely both my ears and my eyes. I am willing to put up with this form of imperti- nence from my Senator, my creditor, or the man of whom I am to ask a favor ; but from the circle — never! I can imagine only one thing more stupid than a dinner party of brilliant monologists, — a dinner party of listeners only. As Balzac says, ' Nothing brings more profit in the commerce of society than the small change of attention.' " The Contributor, — " I do not think I can be accused of being inattentive to the Artist's uncalled-for philippic. I am too old to change my bad habits, and too proud to be held up as a horrible example. I am willing, however, modestly to confess that for some time I have been aware that I am a better talker than listener. If I am a poor listener, 172 As Talked in the Sanctum it is because I have never received proper encouragement in my youth. ' The Art of Conversation/ ' How to Become a Conver- sationalist/ are familiar titles in every library. The Conversationalist is patted on the back in prose and in verse. If for a moment he gives up his prerogative of being the central figure, he sinks to the dead level of a bored listener to some halting speaker's threadbare platitudes." The Poet. — " I will vouch for the glorifi- cation of the talker in poetry, — ** * Form'd by thy converse happily to steer From grave to gay, from lively to severe, advised Pope, and Milton testifies, — " 'With thee conversing I forget all time.' ** The Artist, — " Still I wish one might say of the Contributor as Sydney Smith said of Macaulay, ' He has -occasional flashes of silence, that make his conversation perfectly delightful.' " The Typewriter, — " There is a gentleman As Talked in the Sanctum^' i']2> out here that would like to have a short con- versazione with the Artist. He complains that he had a story in the March number, and that the Artist put flowing Dundrearies on his clean-shaven hero/* The Reader, — " No doubt the whiskers had plenty of time to grow while the tale was awaiting publication." The Parson, — "It seems to me that a read- able article might be written on the genesis of a good listener. Success in Hfe, nine times out of ten, makes a good talker. The suc- cessful man is seldom a listener. The listener is the courtier ; for the poor man can win more by intelligent attention than by the brilliancy of his conversation. The unsuccessful man who talks well is put down as unpractical, and dismissed with a shrug of the shoulders. His mistake is that he as- sumes that people wili listen to ideas without a mental inventory of the speaker. The rich man should be respectfully listened to for what he is and not for what he says. 174 ^^ Talked in the Sanctum Remember this, and many things will be forgiven you, even your failures in life." The Contributor, — " The Parson reminds me of the man who for two hours talked steadily to a deaf man on the Silver Question, and left, remarking that he, the deaf man, was the most entertaining conversationalist he ever met." The Reader, — "I have run across the titles of a lot of curious old books of Cromwell's time. They rival our modern appellations of ' The Tinted Venus,* ' The Gilded Sin,' and ' The Heavenly Twins.' Listen : ' The Christian Sodality ; or, Catho- lic Hive of Bees, sucking the Honey of the Churches' Prayer from the Blossoms of the World of God, Blowne out of the Epistles and Gospels of the Divine Service through- out the Yeare, collected by the Puny Bee of All the Hive, not worthy to be named otherwise than by these Elements of his Name, F. P.' * y/ Fan to drive away Flies : As Talked in the Sanctum 175 a Theological Treatise on Purgatory/ ^ A Most Delectable Sweet Perfumed Nosegay for God*s Saints to Smell at/ ^A Reaping- hook^ well tempered, for the Stubborn Ears of the coming Crop ; or, Biscuit baked in the Oven of Charity, carefully conserved for the Chickens of the Church, the Sparrows of the Spirit, and the Sweet Swallows of Salvation/ ^ Eggs of Charity ^ layed by the Chickens of the Covenant, and boiled with the Water of Divine Love. Take Ye and Eat/ ' Hooks and Eyes for Believers' Breeches' ^ High-heeled Shoes for Dwarfs in Holiness/ ' The Spir^ itual Mustard Pot^ to make the Soul sneeze with Devotion/ ** The Artist, — " No doubt the publica- tions of the aboriginal Salvation Army/* The Reader. — "As I went through a list of these archaic book captions, the thought came to me that I might bring some fame to the circle by indicting a bibelot on * The Fashion in Book Titles, — How They 176 As Talked in the Sanctum Change.' There is a fashion in the nam- ing of new books, that is, novels. In Thackeray, Dickens, and Levers's day the name of the hero generally gave his name to the volume. Fenimore Cooper, Victor Hugo, Dumas, and Walter Scott affected descriptive titles, while Charles Reade and Wilkie Collins went in for mystery. To- day, the title is more often chosen without regard to anything between covers, like Artemus Ward's celebrated lecture on ' The Babes in the Wood,* — for example, * Ships that Pass in the Night,' — or, for pure sensa- tionalism, note ' An Amazing Marriage,' ' A Sawdust Doll,' 'Two Women and a Fool,' * Three Men in a Boat.' However, I only intend to outline and patent my idea now. Later — who can tell? — it may appear in sweet-smelling vellum, heralded by a home- for-the-feeble-minded poster by Beardsley. It is thus great thoughts have their birth." " It is written," asserted the Contributor, As Talked in the Sanctum 177 with a majestic wave of the hand, " that Cuba shall be free. Fashions in clothes change, so they must in governments. The powdered wig, knee breeches, and high red-heeled shoes have gone the way of the divine right of kings. Debased, broken- spirited servitude is less noisy than ram- pant, hot-headed liberty ; but as for me I prefer my champagne in my glass to having it well corked and secured in bottles. It may spoil the table linen at first, but it will soon settle and be fit to drink. The Cubans have served their apprenticeship. Four hundred years of unrequited labor pays any debt that may be owing to their progenitors. It is not for us to criticise their nationality or color. They are what their protecting Mother Spain has made them. Their excesses in the struggle for liberty are nothing in comparison to the outrages of the chivalrous officers of the land of Ferdinand and Isabella. I want to see Cuba free only because I believe it is lyS As Talked in the Smictum right that she should be. I do not beHeve that any power on earth has the legal or moral right to fasten on the necks of a mill- ion and a half of human beings the galling yoke of a debt that is monstrous in its size and in its future consequences. Spain is fighting, not because she really cares to hold Cuba, but because she wants to compel her to pay to her creditors three hundred mill- ion dollars — a sum of money ten times the size of the debt that the great State of Vir- ginia has admitted, time and again, that she was absolutely unable to meet. Spain has sent to Cuba within a year one hundred and forty thousand soldiers. Forty thousand of them rot in Cuban soil. She is spending one million dollars a day. She is cooped up in the city of Havana, and yet she re- fuses to acknowledge that there is a war going on on the island. Foreign corre- spondents are refused passes to the front; they are not permitted on pain of death to visit the insurgents' camp; and yet the As Talked in the Sanctum 179 official despatches report brilliant Spanish victories, and claim that the rebels are but a handful of bandits. If Captain-General Weyler is such a genius and his troops so invincible, it is natural that he should want all the world to know it. If there is no war in Cuba and the Spanish troops are so humane in their treatment of old men and women, why then are the representatives of our great journals forbidden to leave Havana? If all these things are true, Spain has nothing to fear from American recogni- tion of the so-called belligerents. It is the duty of every civilized power to uphold civilization. Because England was deaf to the cries of fifty thousand dying Armenians is no reason why America should close her ears and eyes to Spanish atrocities in this hemisphere. I should not care if three- fourths of the Cuban army were blacks in- stead of one-fourth. I would rather see them free and murdering one another than being murdered by the most Christian king- i8o As Talked in the Sanctum dom of Spain. One or two generations would teach them the great lessons of free- dom. Let this country formally recognize Cuba, and the world will recognize Spain's bankruptcy. It is un-American to wait longer.** The Office Boy, — " Proof! *' XV 1WAS reading the life of one of the great ones of the earth, long since gone before. It was a simple, honest biography, one that would not do its subject or its " Boswell " any serious harm. I would not mention it here had I not been forced to admire, in spite of a wholly uncalled-for prejudice, the marked, almost brilliant, cleverness displayed in discovering a relationship between the triumphs of manhood and certain youthful characteristics or idiosyncrasies. It was noted that in this lawyer-politi- cian's youth he successfully organized a boycott on the aged taffy-man who sold sundry home-made sweets on the sunny side of the village court house, who, profit- ing by an uncontested monopoly, charged a cent here and there in excess of the prices that prevailed during the past generation. i8i 1 82 As Talked in the Sanctum It was also a matter of record that in the subject's tenth year he " floored " the vil- lage pettifogger in a debate at the district schoolhouse on the question — ^^ Resolved^ that city life is preferable to country life/* and there are numerous instances that go to show that he was of an accumulative turn of mind. The biographer eagerly deduces the fact that his hero was simply among men what he had been among boys — a leader. His mind contained a cog here and there that the ordinary mind lacked. He arrived at conclusions before his fellows had settled on premises. In politics and trade, as in chess and fencing, he saw his moves far ahead, and while others were experimenting, he was simply following out a clearly fore- seen policy. I became very much interested in this biographical analysis, and it led to a discussion one day in the Sanctum. I do not know that anything worth record- ing was said, but some ideas were put into' As Talked in the Sanctum 183 words that had previously lived vaguely in the nebula of uncollected thoughts. One reason why the writer or the orator achieves fame for erudition is, that in his constant delving for something new to write about or to declaim, he unearths, from the mental chaos of his brain-tunnels, naked truths that only need a new dress for every one to instantly recognize familiar " saws " in un- familiar garbs. No one is more surprised at what a drag-net will bring to light in the human mind than the owner of the mind himself The Contributor has a pretty little theory, and I think a harmless one, that the Creator is ever busy making minds for earthly bodies. The minds are mathematical mechanisms; they are not all equal in workmanship or finish. Some are hurriedly thrown together, others only half completed, but once in a generation a mind perfect in certain lines is created, and then history makes note of a Napoleon, a Newton, an Edison. The 184 As Talked in the Sanctum theory is graceful, but it hardly calls for respect, although the Contributor fortifies it forcibly with examples that prove he has given the matter some thought. He says Stradivarius and Guarnerius made one perfect violin to ten mediocre ones, that the steel workers of Damascus turned out thousands of faulty swords to a score of imperishable ones ; but, to the Sanc- tum, all these arguments, more or less inter- esting, proved quite a different thing from what they were intended, namely, that the Contributor would have made an excellent lawyer. So one's thoughts fly, in spite of all, from the general to the particular, and the Artist irrelevantly inquired if the talker believed in Woman's Suffrage. The Con- tributor ignored the interrogation, and it was noted that the Artist had been read- ing a four-column brevier letter in the Call^ signed by Susan B. Anthony. He turned to the Parson. The Parson, — "I will believe in Woman's As Talked in the Sanctum 185 Suffrage and will vote for it when the Par- soness asks it. I have never denied her anything that it was possible for me to grant, but until she request it, I do not feel inclined to do for Miss Anthony or Miss Shaw what might not please my home. When the ladies of this country ask their husbands to share with them the ballot, Woman's Suffrage will be possible ; but, until that time, no self-respecting husband and father will raise a finger to enhance the notoriety of a bevy of professional agi- tators." The Reviewer, — "Not being a benedict, I, too, will take my marching orders from the Parson's generalissimo." Granting that there was some reason in the biographer's argument that the acts of our adolescence foreshadow the career of our mature manhood, I am curious to know how he would account for and apply to my own after life my boyhood passion for 1 86 As Talked in the Sanctum making " scrap-books/' If it is a sign that I possess the accumulating or saving instinct, I would answer that these are the only things I ever accumulated. If it shows that I was destined for any particular profession, I would ask, why, then, do not fifty per cent of those who have the scrap-book mania choose the same profession ? However, it never struck me as curious until one day, not long ago, I discovered that I had preserved these old books. Now I wonder at them ; I have not opened them for years. Their pot-pourri of gleanings for the curious, curiosities of literature, words, facts and phrases, familiar quota- tions, and melange of excerpts have done me no conscious good, and yet I have pre- served them. The largest of these literary graveyards I opened. It is an old "Agri- cultural Report,** and emits a damp, aged odor. It is as full of memories as it is of gleanings. The opening poem reads as follows; — As Talked in the Sanctum 187 «* Mary had a little jam She locked it up to grow ; And everywhere that Mary went The key was sure to go. «• She lost it in the grass one day While fleeing from a cow ; Her brother Johnny picked it up — He is an angel now.** But as if to testify that I was not des- tined to be a poet of passion, the follow- ing page contains an editorial from the New York Sun on the " Distracted Condition of France/* followed by a tabulation of " The Nation's Dead.'* Then comes an article that purports to have appeared in a London paper at the time James G. Blaine visited England. It begins : — " The Rt. Hon. James G. Blaine and wife have just arrived in this city. Mr. Blaine is at present governor-general of Maine, a province on the southwestern coast of Lake Mississippi. . . . Mr. Blaine is a first cousin of the Rt. Hon. William F. Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill, and is expected to call upon him to-morrow to formu- 1 88 As Talked in the Sanctum late governmental plans for action on the reassem- bling of the American Senate, Mr. Cody being a Senator from the province of Key West. . . . Mr. Blaine's military title is major-general. He gained it by gallant action on the field at Look- out Mountain, where he commanded the Second Chicago Infantry under General Beauregard, etc." This struck me as eminently funny at the time. I had then never been in England or lived among English people. I reread and copied the extract; it strikes me as sadly true, that is, the spirit of it. I was discuss- ing American and English magazines with an Englishwoman of whose opinion on matters literary I have the greatest respect. In a general way I was boasting of the supe- riority of American magazines. " Yes," she assented, in that imperturbable, politely pat- ronizing way that has become second nature to our English cousins, " there is no doubt but that your Atlantic^ Overland^ and North Amer- ican are creditable, but how can you compare them to our Harper s and Century,'* Neither As Talked in the Sanctum 189 would she believe me when I assured her that her favorites were the very American magazines of which I was so proud, although I was sorry to admit that one of them, like many good Americans, affected English- made clothes as soon as it touched English soil. The English know almost absolutely nothing of our geography. One of our California girls, who had spent three years in a New York boarding-school, was stay- ing with friends in London before returning to her native State. " Where do you live ? " asked a titled caller. " California," she replied. " Ah, and went to school in New York. Did you go home every night ? " The Englishwoman knows those parts of our great country where her relatives are on a ranch, and the Englishman those sections where his surplus capital is invested. They talk of Johannesburg, Rajputana, Ottawa, and Penang as though they were but a iQO As Talked in the Sanctum step from London Bridge, but St. Louis, San Francisco, Buenos Ayres, and Havana are somewhere in that great undiscovered " States," and that is enough. " I have a friend in the States," remarked an Englishwoman, who was making polite conversation while we were waiting for the dining-room doors to open. " Possibly you have met him. He lives in — let me think, oh, yes, how stupid, Rio de Janeiro." English geographies and English histories are to blame for this want of neighboring knowledge of our affairs. I could not help reminding an English governor who was dilating on Britain's prow- ess that the " States " had twice come off fairly well in wars with his great nation. " Twice," he echoed, while a genuine knot of amazement grew between his quiet blue eyes. " Oh, ah — you refer to your Revo- lution and — yes, I fancy that Chesapeake affair." I found out later that the " Chesapeake " As Talked in the Sanctum 191 affair, an English naval victory, was all his school history had taught his nation of the War of 1812. Since the death of that charming fellow and delightful companion, who was child- hood's poet-laureate — Eugene Field — the story of his celebrated encounter with the famous author of " Robert Elsmere " at a dinner party in London has become the property of the newspapers. When it was related to me by one who heard it, it was known only to the " Saints and Sinners." Field was placed next to Mrs. Humphry Ward, who was the bright, particular star of the evening. She ignored the modest Ameri- can until the fifth course ; then, for the sake of making a show of conversation, she turned to him with the stereotyped English inquiry: — " Mister — Mister — " " Field," interpolated her auditor. " Pardon, Mister Field of Chicago, eh ? Do you know this Doctor Cronin (of Clan- Na-Gael fame) ? " 192 As Talked in the Sanctum " Certainly, madam," replied Field, with the most intelligent expression he could assume, " we live in adjoining trees." But to return to the scrap-book. I find that I have saved some one's estimate of the difference between the English poets. " Chaucer describes men and things as they are ; Shakspere, as they would be under the circumstances supposed ; Spenser, as we would wish them to be; Milton, as they ought to be ; Byron, as they ought not to be ; and Shelley, as they never can be." I often wonder if any one else has ever thought it worth while to preserve the same items that I have. If so, we are affinities. These earlier scrap-books are severely impersonal. They were made up when the compiler's life had not begun to interest himself and prior to that interesting period when he entered upon the record of his own comings and goings. At this date it is impossible to decide what great merit cer- tain receipts of how to make guava jelly As Talked in the Sanctum 193 held for me. I doubt if I had a clear idea of what a guava was. I know I could never have hoped to see one. Neither can I imagine why I preserved an obituary notice of one G. Henry Snell. It must have been an example of style, for I am sure I never knew any one of the name. However, it is not my intention to hold this old book up to scorn. Scrap-books will continue to grow and flourish as long as papers are published and good paste can be made from a handful of wheat flour and a cup of cold water. The Office Boy.— '' Proof! " XVI IN reporting the Parson's lecture before "the Young Men's Self-culture Club," one of the morning papers charged him with being a transcendentalist. How a beardless reporter had discovered such a defect in the good man's armor, when we of the Sanctum had known him for generations without ever detecting it, set us to thinking. Like the fish woman whom Curran called "an isos- celes triangle," we were at first carried oflf our feet. In these decadent times it is not polite to charge a public man in print with being an ass, so such specious terms as an " isosceles triangle " and a " transcenden- talist" have become common. The Contributor was mad. He arose to defend his absent colleague's character. The Contributor. — "It is a disgrace that there is no protection for a man's good 194 As Talked in the Sanctum 195 name. The Parson a trans — trans — oh, well, whatever you call it ! It is a disgrace ! He is no more a transcen — thing-a-me- bob — than I am, and the Lord knows I never let one of my notes go to protest. What's a trans — what do you call it — anyway ?" The Reader, — " One who believes in transcendentalism." The Contributor, — "That's it. Now, who dares to defame our Parson ? Er — er — What in the name of common sense is this new ism ? " The Reader, — " The spiritual cognoscence of psychological irrefragability, connected with concutient ademption of incolumnient spirituality and etherealized contention of subsultory concretion." The Reader put up his guard as though he expected to be struck. The Contribu- tor's old face fairly glowed. His chair came down on all four legs, and he grasped the Reader's upraised hand. 196 As Talked in the Smtctimi The Contributor, — "A thousand thanks. You have made many things clear to me. I once knew a transcendentalist — only we called him a fool. He has since gone crazy, but alack ! too late, you have discov- ered my mistake for me. He lived in New York, and he figured out that a post-hole for a fence on Broadway cost, as real estate sold, one hundred dollars. Up in Allegheny County, where he was born, good land was worth twenty-five dollars an acre. He con- ceived the idea of digging post-holes in Alle- gheny, where they could be had for a song, and shipping them to New York, where a carload would sell for a small fortune." The Reviewer, — " In good Anglo-Saxon, then, transcendentalism is two holes in a sand-bank ; a storm washes away the sand- bank without disturbing the holes." The Reader, — "I have always noticed that the people who are forever discussing these many isms take themselves more seriously than does any one else. They As Talked in tlie Sanctum 197 get hold of a lot of stock words and phrases and build up an article around them, which, when torn apart and reduced to good, old- fashioned United States, contains but one single everyday idea. Our dictionaries grow year by year in bulk because of the thankless tasks the compilers undertake in clearing up and making plain a lot of this stilted bosh. When I read that some short- haired woman is going to lecture on tran- scendentalism or empiricism, I wonder how big an audience she would draw if she advertised to speak on ' The Absurdity of Experience,' on the one hand, or ' The Value of Experience,' on the other. In the case of the Parson, the callow reporter no doubt meant to be complimentary, or, at the worst, to say that the preacher talked over the heads of his audience. There is nothing more serious in these weak-minded isms than in Curran's isosceles triangle." To the average man all this vain striving 198 As Talked in the Sanctum after the " thingness of the here " and " the whichness of the where " is supremely laugh- able. It is but just one remove from the madhouse. A world-renowned theosophist dined with us one night. We were all " average men and women " at the table except himself, and we were as curious as children to know what he knew. The Gen- eral, who was something of an Oriental scholar and had been in charge of the British-Palestine Exploration Expedition, expressed his polite though undisguised astonishment at some of the statements made by our guest. When cornered as to his authorities, the theosophist at last cited cuneiform inscriptions. " But surely not from any of the cunei- form inscriptions that have been recorded." And the old General arose from the table to take down some ponderous reports. " Oh, no, not from the Persian or Assyrian inscriptions." " What, then ? " And the old man re- As Talked in the Sanctum 199 placed the tome, his face all alight with the thought that the theosophist had discovered some unknown people that used the famous wedge-shaped characters. " From the cuneiform inscriptions of the temples of the Aztecs," replied the high priest of theosophy, triumphantly. There was a stillness of death about the table. The General's face was a study, but our guest was mighty in the double-riveted armor of his own ignorance. "Theosophy is all-wise, all-powerful," he went on. " But is it practical ? " some one timidly suggested. " Can it build a Brooklyn Bridge, or make known the law of repulsion ? " " Practical ? " he sneered. " What are the triumphs of the material in the light of the fact that we know where we came from and where we are going to ? " " Nothing," we admitted in one voice. " And do you know ? " "I do ; but I am one of the elect." 200 As Talked in the Sanctum We did not embarrass him by asking vulgar questions, we were fearful he would refer us to the cuneiform inscriptions of the Esquimaux. The other evening the Parson and I heard a female adept in theosophy — a Russian Countess — lecture on death and what comes after. She outlined cleverly enough the seven stages through which the soul would pass after death. She said that cremation was the only humane manner of disposing of the earthly body. From the moment the body was consumed the astral body was re- leased, whereas if ordinary burial took place, the soul had to remain until the body was decayed. She proved conclusively that a man who committed suicide did not deUver himself from his troubles. The soul was condemned to remain on earth and work out its own salvation. It suffered hunger and thirst and the real temptations of the flesh. It attached itself to weak-minded per- sons who became what are styled mediums, As Talked in the Sanctum 201 in order to Inhale the aroma of their dinners and participate in the essence of their pleas- ures. In payment for these privileges it aided the medium in his or her table rap- pings and chair knockings. Naturally, the thought took possession of us that the wan- dering, condemned soul showed very bad taste in its choice of victims. If they wish to smell good dinners, why do they not attach themselves to Chauncey Depew or one of a dozen bon vivants that we could name ? And all the authority our Countess could give for her remarkable scheme of after death was two cases recorded by W. T. Stead in his Review of Reviews of the sen- sation of two men coming back to life, one of whom was nearly frozen to death and the other nearly drowned. In our minds, the only difference between the lecturer and an old inmate of a madhouse who labored under the agreeable hallucination that she was Queen Victoria was, that in one case the people did not smile and in the other they did. 202 As Talked in the Sanctum The Reviewer, — "Her logic was not half as clever, yet fully as absurd, as the verdict of a Mohammedan court of 'homicide by an intermediate cause/ You remember the case of the young man of the Island of Cos in the iEgean Sea who was desperately in love with a girl of Stanchio, and sought to marry her. His proposals were rejected. In consequence he took poison. The Turkish police arrested the father of the obdurate fair one, and tried him for culpable homi- cide. * If the accused,' argued they, with much gravity, ' had not had a daughter, the deceased would not have fallen in love ; con- sequently, he would not have been disap- pointed ; consequently, he would not have swallowed poison ; consequently, he would not have died ; but the accused had a daughter, the deceased had fallen in love, and so on.' Upon all these counts he was called upon to pay the price of the young man's life ; and this, being fixed at the sum of eighty piasters, was accordingly exacted." As Talked in the Sanctum 203 The Occasional Visitor, — "I have noted that these clever spirit mediums who can make chairs and miscellaneous furniture dance a hornpipe, always call in a very material drayman when they want to move the piano." The Contributor, — " That's simple ; the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak." The Artist, — " However absurd the Coun- tess's explanation of the how of a medium's powers, it may be true, nevertheless. You recollect the Frenchman who asked an Irish medium to produce the spirit of Voltaire. Voltaire came forth, much to his admirer's delight. It was Voltaire complete in every detail. The Frenchman began an animated conversation in their native tongue. The shade did not respond. At last the French- man grew exasperated and turned to the medium. "'Not can ze great Voltaire converse.?' " ' Of course he can, yez heathin, if ye will stop that furrin lingo and talk good 204 * As Talked in the Sajtctum English. Do yez take him for a frog- eater ? ' " It occurred to me that the medium was rather to be pitied than laughed at. Her silent partner, the suicide, according to the Countess's theory, had not learned French before he took his own life. It was not the medium's fault that in the spirit lottery she had not drawn a linguist." The Poet, — *' It occurs to me that the Sanctum hvas been housed too long in the city. It has become hypercritical. A season at the summer resorts would put new blood and kindlier feelings into it. For one, I take the train to-morrow for Castle Crags. I bid you, my good fellow-mystics, good day." As the Poet passed through the Office Boy's sanctum he was arrested with a de- fiant, " Say ! " There was no help for it and no rescue possible. " Well ? " answered the Poet, tentatively. As Talked in the Sanctum 205 " Are you de Editor ? " The Poet's modest explanation was un- heeded. " I brung up a poem here two weeks ago on ' The Cooing Dove/ I want ter know why it has not been brung out. Tm no tenderfoot, der you see, an' if that 'ere poem don't see light in next month's maga- zine there'll be trouble. You sabe ! I don't forget faces, and I've yourn spotted. You'll miss about twelve feet of that yellow alfalfa yer so all-fired proud of Now does ' The Cooing Dove ' go, or ain't I no poet ? " The Poet gave his word that " The Coo- ing Dove" would coo in large pica, and thanked Heaven that he was leaving for Castle Crags. Whereupon it was at once deemed best that the Editor should recu- perate at Napa Soda ins tan ter. The Office Boy, — " Proof ! " XVII THE Parson has joined the " Sons of the American Revolution." He was literally driven to it by the Par- soness, who, now that the children are all settled away from home, has been hunt- ing up her forebears. A month ago the Parson knew the names of his father and his grandfather. Of late, every sheet of loose paper in the office contains a rough sketch of the genealogical tree. He talks of Mindwell who died of spasms in the fourth month of her existence as familiarly as though she were the offspring of one of his parishioners instead of his great-great- great-great-aunt, twice removed. The other day he stopped the machinery of the Sanc- tum while he told us a thrilling tale of how Steadfast was personally thanked by General 206 As Talked in the Sanctum 207 Washington for taking prisoner twenty-four Hessians at Monmouth. Steadfast was the particular ancestor that had the honor of making it possible for the Parson to bear on his lapel the proud insignia of the order of " The Sons of the American Revolution." I think we were all a little jealous of the Parson, although we openly joked him on his weakness ; for it would seem that the search after the elusive Revolutionary great- great-grandfather, of whom we have heard marvellous stories since our cradle days, be- comes as exciting as a tiger hunt. There is never any particular trouble in locating your great-grandfather or your many times great- grandfather. You soon discover his birth, marriage, and death, that he was a select- man, justice, or elder, and a good honest farmer or tradesman, in and about Colonial times ; but the heroic ancestor who bore arms that the Nation might be free, soon proves as hard to grasp and hold as an eel. There is no doubt that he fought in the 2o8 ^s Talked in the Sanctum Connecticut line. There is no reason to think that the story of his personally cap- turing twenty-four Hessians has been ex- aggerated. You have worshipped many a time at the shrine of the old flintlock that he bore at Monmouth, and yet the hard- hearted society will not take you in until you actually know the letter of his company and the number of his regiment. Our an- cestors do not seem to have had proper appreciation of their duty toward their pos- terity. It is not every man that can become an ancestor. Our Revolutionary fathers, Hke Napoleon's marshals, should have realized that they were ancestors, and that, sometime within the next two hundred years, a great- great-grandchild would wish to date from them and join the sons or daughters of the Revolution. It was Washington's duty to have brevetted every private in the Conti- nental Line at least a major, on retirement. It is a humiliating thing to have to own up that you came down from a private, or ^s Talked in the Sanctum 209 even a sergeant-major. Washington, who thought of so much, should have thought of this. Was he not the Father of his Country ? The Parson's ancestor seems to have been so glad when the war closed that he settled quietly down and never ran for office or applied for a pension. From the day when peace was declared, the family records do not even make mention of a fight in church over a choir. To the shame of his pos- terity, he did not strive to realize in any way on his Commander's thanks for captur- ing the two dozen odd Hessians. An an- cestor who has so little regard for the glory of the family tree does not deserve to have a great-great-great-grandchild in the " Sons of the American Revolution." The Parson feels this blot on the escutcheon keenly, almost as keenly now as the good Parsoness. It was one of the Occasional Visitor's grandchildren that solved the question for us the other day. The Parson was fondly 2IO As Talked in the Sanctum boasting, in his dear quiet way, of the good blood in his veins. The little fellow listened thoughtfully and respectfully until he heard the Occasional Visitor acknowledge thai: he could not join the " Sons " ; then he flew to his sire's defence. "My grandpa has just as good blood as any one if he can't join the society, and twice as good veins. Haven't you, Grandpa ? " he finished triumphantly. It is something to have good veins in these degenerate days. When we came to discussing seriously the Parson and his Revolutionary ancestor, after the good man had departed, we were surprised to discover how much our man of peace and good-will valued the bloody deeds, and how he deprecated his later, uneventful life. Not that we did not all agree with him ; but it gives one a start to be brought face to face with the fact that after all these centuries of cultivation and civilization we are nothing but barbarous war-dogs at heart. As Talked in the Sancttim 2 1 1 The Occasional Visitor's Revolutionary ancestor was a minister, a godly man who wrote a godly book, and yet, on the genea- logical tree, he is placed far below the farmer brother who cultivated a little farm on the Indian borderland with a gun in one hand and a plough in the other, and who left the plough to follow Ethan Allen to Ticon- deroga. The faint odor of dried scalps and the perfume of gunpowder smother the es- sence of the godly life and the reminiscent aroma of musty tomes. The descendants of the illustrious Ben- jamin Franklin need never expect to out- rank the descendants * of the savage old warrior, Ethan Allen, or the obstinate old fighter, Israel Putnam. It is better to have been a sergeant-major even, and, single- handed, to have captured twenty-four Hes- sians, than to have been a Colonial Governor ; while a Colonial Doctor of Divinity is passed over in pitying silence. Four-fifths of the Christian world would rather boast of being 212 As Talked in the Sanctum a great-great-great-something of Richard the Lion-Hearted than of Shakspere. And yet all of our Revolutionary an- cestors could not have been fighting farmers. Some of them were soap-boilers, button- makers, anchor-smiths, and candle-makers. Still, that is never mentioned. The tiller of the soil was of the baronial class, although the soap-boiler may have been his own brother and have captured twenty-two more Hessians, and run for office after the war. The Reader, — " While I am ready to give up laughing at the once pitied genea- logical * crank,* I wish to protest against the habit my neighbors have of tracing themselves back to English Barons and French Counts. I am willing to concede that the Mayflower was larger than the Great Eastern^ and that the families of Lord Fairfax and Lord. Baltimore were the most numer- ous on earth ; but I cannot be expected to bow to the lady next door because she calmly asserts that, by rights, her father is As Talked in the Sanctum 213 the only true Earl of Tallpuddle, and she should be known as Lady Maud. The mere fact that my name happens to be Hapsburg does not make me, an American citizen, the Crown Prince of Austria. If I believe in your genealogy back to the time when your ancestor came over in an emigrant ship, I think I may be excused for smiling at you when you claim kinship with George III. or Guy Fawkes.*' The Artist, — "I move that the Reader be excused." The Reader, — " Insomuch as I am confess- ing and the Artist so freely grants me abso- lution, I feel encouraged to unburden my mind on the subject. There is another class of individuals that tire me. The Editor complains that our Revolutionary fathers did not realize that they were ancestors. To me, that is the grandest thing about them, — their glorious unconsciousness. Had they been posing for history we should still be a Colony. To the actors, there was 214 ^^ Talked in the Sanctum nothing picturesque in the crossing of the Delaware. Washington and his Httle band had no thought of the fame the act would bring them on the front of a fire insurance calendar. I doubt if the tattered, starving, frozen veterans at Valley Forge could have been more picturesque had they been deliber- ately posing, yet the only thought they had of their posterity was to give them all the rights of man. We have grown wiser since, studying the mistakes of our ancestors, and, to-day, when one of our neighbors achieves riches and is elected to the Senate of the United States, he begins to prepare for the admiration of those that are to follow. He carefully puts aside his boot-jacks, the coat he wore when he took the oath of office, the forks that were used when he had the President at his table, his manicure set (unused), his shaving-mug, a hat, a pocket-book (most interesting), a pipe pre- sented by the convicts of the State Peniten- tiary as a mark of esteem, and a cane made As Talked in the Sanctum 215 from the wood of his first rocking-chair. He has his picture painted heroic size, in the attitude of Henry Clay. He discovers a coat-of-arms and by it proves, a mere noth- ing, that if he chose — but he is above all that — he could lay claim to the blood of Warwick, or even Cromwell. He prepares himself for posterity, and his supreme ego- tism makes him unaware of the sneers and laughter of his own generation. A dozen busts of himself adorn the palatial home, which he has built for the family castle, and which the heirs will sell or present to the city for a Museum or Art Gallery within a year after his death. He gives a statue of himself to the Park Commissioners and another to some near-by university which he has endowed. Such is the professional ancestor ! It is unnecessary to name names. You all know the species. Should it be encouraged ? " The Artist, — "It should be. I would not take all the humor out of life." 2i6 As Talked in the Sanctum The Contributor, — "I am looking forward to the time when genealogy will be studied as a science by the aid of which the irrevoca- ble laws of nature in human culture can and will be as definitely determined as in agri- culture, horticulture, or the raising of live stock. In the perfect genealogy I want every family's inherent weaknesses, mental and moral, physical and intellectual, set down as truly and as honestly as its strong points. Then it will be an easy matter to determine what men have been and what we may expect for the future. If a young man or young woman has such an open book before him or her, there will be more judicious marriages and less suffering from ignorance. If you wish to unite yourself with a family of brains, you will not expect anything from a single line of muscle. If it is a Christian family that you wish to bring into the world, you will not be aided by a family whose genealogy shows a line of sceptics. Blood tells every time; only one is apt to mistake blood. As Talked in the Sanctum 217 The scholar, the Christian, or the inventor owes more to the blood of his ancestors than to his own efforts. In the introduction of every genealogy I would have copied the Parable of the Sower. Although the seed was of the same quality and sown by the same hand, it produced widely different re- sults, some thirty, some sixty, and some an hundred fold ; and some sprang up to wither away ; and because, while some seeds fell in good soil, others fell by the wayside and on stony places, so, in our marriages, look for success where there are sound heads, healthy bodies, and honest hearts. Such should be my genealogy, even if I failed to get into the * Sons ' or was forced to admit that my ancestor was a crippled Colonial cobbler, who stayed quietly at home, and sent anonymously every fifth pair of his laboriously made shoes to the freezing men at Valley Forge, while the Parson's fighting ancestor was capturing his score of Hessians." 2i8 As Talked in the Sanctum The Poet, — " Sublime. That is good enough for the Parson/' The Contributor, — "I am not jealous of the Parson. I am glad he belongs to the * Sons.' I believe in knowing who your an- cestors are, even if you must have them made to order by a second-rate portrait painter. It all stimulates love of country, and makes anarchy and foreign meddling impossible. Let every man claim that his great-great-grandfather captured twenty-four Hessians in the Revolution. Whether he did or not, it will make your children will- ing to undertake it some day if the occasion ever occurs. Selah ! " The Bookkeeper. — " There is a German lady out here who wishes to read a two-quire ballad to the Editor." The Office Boy. — " Proof ! " XVIII " T HAVE often wondered," remarked the A Contributor, "why some one has not laid the charge of plagiarism at my door." The Reader. — " There may be reasons that would never suggest themselves to you." The Contributor, — "Indeed! I admit that I am not what might be called a popu- lar author, but I am a voluminous one and a wide reader. Again and again I have caught myself plagiarizing, sometimes my- self, ofttimes my favorite authors. " Within the year I have read an article in a magazine that I had read not a month before in a New York publication. I did not feel called upon to announce my dis- covery to the world ; for the plagiarism was an improvement. I remember writing a story, one winter. I worked hard over it. I felt inspired. The plot slowly, but surely, 219 220 As Talked in the Sane htm developed. Incidents grew into scenes, and what, at first, seemed to be embryo thoughts, gradually formed themselves into rounded paragraphs. At last, it was finished. I read it aloud to the family. As I read, something about it all seemed strangely familiar, and as if led by an unseen hand I arose, went to my library, took down an old scrap-book, and turned to my story with a well-known, but almost forgotten, author's name signed to it. It was a bitter moment, and the experience was curious. For years I dis- trusted myself, and even to-day I am always expecting some one to rise up and demand an explanation and apology.'* The Artist. — " You flatter us." The Poet, — "Our Contributor says of himself as Hawesworth said of Johnson, * You have a memory that would convict any author of plagiarism in any court of literature in the world.* " The plagiarism hunter found plenty of sport in the literature of the last campaign. As Talked in the Sanctum 221 Moreover, it was wonderful how boldly the profession was carried on, and how little attention was paid to the revelations of the plagiarism-hunter. A few years ago half the big New York papers devoted a page a day of parallel column to convict one of our Senators of stealing an oration. It seemed to be a clear case, but the Senator got the credit of the oration, and the very name of the original orator is lost. In any case, he improved upon it, which met all of Byron's requirements of a plagiarist : " A good thought is often far better expressed at second-hand than at first utterance. If rich material has fallen into incompetent hands, it would be the height of injustice to debar a more skilful artisan from taking possession of it and working it up." The campaign plagiarist, in the maga- zines and out, works, generally, on the same model, — in an article on some phase of the burning questions of the day he combines extracts, without credit or quota- 222 As Talked in the Sancttim tion marks, from speeches, essays, editorials, statistics, and campaign literature, under one head, and signs his name to the pot-pourri as the veritable author. He does it skil- fully, therefore he is excused with a smile. Again, he is within the Byronic definition : " Plagiarism, to be sure, is branded of old, but is never criminal except when done in a clumsy way, like stealing among the Spartans." In August, 1894, there appeared in our magazine a story called " Kaala, the Flower of Lanai," rather a pretty bit of Hawaiian folk-lore. The writer's name was Carey, and his manuscript had been in the Sanctum since the November previous. On the fol- lowing Sunday, after the appearance of the magazine, one of the big dailies had a Hawaiian tale entitled, " Kaala, the Flower of Lanai," reproducing our story without either credit or signature. Very promptly the magazine called the attention of the newspaper to the apparent theft, whereupon As Talked in the Sanctum 223 the newspaper demanded an explanation from one Hayne, the ambitious author who had sold it the manuscript. Hayne promptly denied having seen our August number, and proved beyond argument that his " copy " had for several weeks previous been in the newspaper's possession. The tale was writ- ten the preceding January, he claimed, and, like Carey, he was unable to conceive how his exact ideas and phrases could possibly have occurred to any one else. Further, to complicate the situation, an ex- United States Minister to Hawaii wrote, referring us to King Kalakaua's volume, " The Legends and Myths of Hawaii," for the original version of Kaala. Both the contributors, however, denied any knowledge of the exist- ence of the book, and a month later a Honolulu paper wrote an editorial denounc- ing the editor of this magazine for stealing, bodily, word for word, the story *' Kaala," from its old files, and signing a fictitious name to it. 224 ^^ Talked in the Sanctum And that was not the end. A year later a well-known Hawaiian gentleman, of good literary standing, submitted " Kaala," the same old " Kaala," even to the punctuation marks, for the magazine's consideration. It was not considered. The same arrange- ment of gray matter could not have been in all these brains — or was it possible ? Only the X-ray will ever reveal. Two years ago there was received in the Sanctum a delicious Irish story that was read with enthusiasm and published with a blare of trumpets. It was out of the ordinary — full of delightful waggish wit and pictu- resque conceits. From the opening sentence it brought a smile to the lips, and left a feel- ing of good digestion. At once the writer was asked to become a regular contributor, but before his next was received the follow- ing letter came to the editor's desk : — " The paper in the last issue of your magazine entitled 'Told in the Dog- Watch,' by 'T. J. B.,' is a plagiarism. It is taken from page 580 of ' Bur- As Talked in the Sanctum 225 ton's Cyclopedia of Wit and Humor,' published by the Appletons in 1858. Its real title is 'Darby Doyle's Voyage to Quebec' " "T. J. B." may have a plausible excuse. Yet I think that even he would recognize a difference between his methods and Doc- tor Holmes's, who confessed, " I have often felt, after writing a line that pleased me more than common, that it was not new, and was perhaps not my own." Neither do I think that even Byron would pat " T. J. B." on the back and remark, as he has done : " Com- mend me to a pilferer. You may laugh at it as a paradox, but I assure you that the most original writers are the greatest thieves." The Reviewer, — "I never heard of any one plagiarizing the Poet." The Poet, — " No one ever plagiarized Virgil." The Reader, — "Yet one must get the straw for his bricks somewhere." Successful plagiarism all depends upon the caliber of the plagiarist. To copy ver- 226 ^s Talked in the Sanctum batim requires no brain, but to draw from Homer and Theocritus, as Virgil did, and leave behind the "i^neid" requires some- thing more than a lead pencil and white paper. It was Tennyson who spoke of the " masterly plagiarisms " of Virgil and Mil- ton, and yet his work is a perfect mosaic of gems from almost every writer in ancient and modern times. Of Milton it has been said : " The lilt of old songs was in his ears, the happy phrases of old poets, the jewels, five words long, from old treasures. He had the opulent memory of the profound stu- dent, and these things crowded thickly into his thought with each new suggestion from without.'* iEsop's fables can be found in the older Hindoo literature. Goethe never claimed all the credit for his immortal "Faust." "What," he asks, "would re- main to me if this art of appropriation were derogatory to genius .^ Every one of my writings has been furnished to me by a thousand different poems, a thousand As Talked in the Sanctum 227 different things. My work is an aggrega- tion of beings taken from the whole of nature; it bears the name of Goethe." It would have done the soul of Moliere good if he could have made the same frank confession regarding " Don Juan." Wash- ington Irving "lifted" the "Story of the German Student," in the " Tales of a Trav- eller," from one of Hoffmann's " Contes Nocturnes," and the very same story was afterward used by Alexandre Dumas the elder, in " La Dame au Collier de Velours." Goldsmith's " Madame Blaize " is a close translation of a poem by the Frenchman De la Monnoye. Thackeray's "Romance of the Rhine'- is nothing more than Dumas's "Othon I'Archer." Tennyson's "Enoch Arden " was probably modelled on Words- worth's "Michael," his "In Memoriam " was suggested by Petrarch, his " Dream of Fair Women " by Chaucer, his " Godiva " by Moultrie, and hi^ " Dora '' by Miss Mitford. The debts of Boccaccio, of De la 228 As Talked in the Sanctum Salle, of Chaucer, Shakspere, and Moliere to the old French " Fabliaux " will never be discharged. . One of the most amusing cases of uncon- scious plagiarism that was tragically comical in its results happened to a once well-known Philadelphia magazine. Its editor unearthed in a German monthly Edward Everett Hale's " Man Without a Country." It struck him as one of the best things of the century, and he promptly retranslated it back into its original English, and published it in the magazine with a salvo of hurrahs that was heard from Bangor to the Golden Gate. He and his magazine were laughed into their graves by a good-natured republic. The modern writer is indebted more than he realizes to the ancients for the most con- ventional phrases. On three successive pages of Fielding may be discovered the well-worn expressions, " The eternal fitness of things," " Distinction without a difference," and "An amiable weakness." Sir Walter Scott is As Talked in the Sanctum 229 caught using in " St. Ronan's Well," " Fat, fair, and forty." The Bible is full of epigrams and catch- words that are discovered and rediscovered yearly by every new batch of strictly original literateurs. There are certain expressions that are always used without quotation marks, and yet not one in a hundred stops to think from whence they come ; for example, " It is not good that the man should be alone," " There were giants in those days," "In a green old age," " Darkness which may be felt," "The wife of thy bosom," " He kept him as the apple of his eye," " Quit yourselves like men," " A man after his own heart," "I am escaped with the skin of my teeth," " Great men are not always wise." It must be annoying to the author, as it is to the inventor, to stumble on a brand new idea, and then be informed that it is as old as the Alexandrian Library. The Contributor, — "I have often made up my mind, after listening to one of the 230 As Talked hi the Sanctum Parson's sermons, that there is such a thing as being too original." The Parson, — " Thank you. I can't say as much for this conversation." The Bookkeeper. — " Joaquin Miller wants to know if it is safe for him to come in ? " The Office Boy.—'' Proof! " XIX 1KEEP a note-book, — not a large one, — and in it jot down things that come to me as I read — thoughts that I imagine are original. A passage in a novel calls forth an idea that, nine times out of ten, it was never intended to suggest. Of all writers Balzac, I think, is the most fertile in this direction. The Contributor main- tains that Balzac tires him, that he can- not even keep the thread of the narrative, much less go afield for the original gems ; but, with me, it is so entirely different that I am inclined to charge the old man with falling into his dotage. Balzac acts like a stimulant. My mind is never so active as when reading " Pere Goriot " or " Eugenie Grandet." It seems to grasp every word, to read between the lines, and to look into 232 As Talked in the Sanctum th« great Frenchman's soul for the thought that he discarded in weaving the superb fabric. I keep the note-book, as I have found it impossible to hold and summon up at will the ideas that go dancing before my eyes. Now the note-book has discovered to me another phase of my disposition, at which again, the Contributor pooh-poohs. It is this : after chronicling my thoughts, which, if they come to me while reading Balzac, have a philosophical twist, I find that it may be months before I am in the exact mood to take advantage of them. I admit, as J glance them over with a firm intention of using them, that they are not half bad, but — but — for some reason I pass them by. It was said of Bob Burdette that he discovered his talent as a humorist while trying to amuse his dying wife ; so, if you can appear gay when you are sad, instead of being simply stolid, something has been achieved. As Talked in the Sanctum 233 There are times when you can read any book that comes to hand. And there are times when you crave for inspiration or ab- solutely require a mental stimulant. Then it is that your favorite authors become a bless- ing. Whether they be Balzac, Thackeray, Dickens, Hugo, Bret Harte, or Haggard, the result is the same. Champagne has no fascination when you want beer. With absolute failure, mayhap possible poverty, staring you in the face, it may take a great exercise of will power to sit calmly down to a novel, even by a prime favorite ; but it is worth the effort. You think, " I will read and enjoy while I can ; for the time may come, at .any moment, when I cannot afford the luxury, and the memory of this will be a well-spring of pleasure and a solace." Then the power of the book enters into you and drives you to the very effort that surmounts the obstacles that lie in your path. " If I must fail, I will fail doing my best.** And then I win. It is 234 ^^ Talked in the Sanctum a surprise that never grows stale. All, even the Contributor, acknowledge these mental struggles and self-doubts ; but only a few recognize and profit by accepting them. There is one little plot for a story in my note-book that I have always intended to work up. As I remember it, it was a true story, but when or where its incidents occurred I cannot recollect. Many and many a time I have paused when I came to it, and remarked that it was a capital plot for a child's story, and one that would bring the tears. I have shrunk from the effort of dressing the skeleton ; for in order to put the proper clothes on it I should have to draw too heavily from my own scant wardrobe. The story was pathetic in the extreme, and in order to make the most of it I realized that I must get teary in its writing, or my readers would never do so. Charles Warren Stoddard said of the first editor of this magazine, " Once, when he had taken me to task for a bit of careless As Talked in the Sanctum 235 work, then under his critical eye, and com- plained of a false number, I thought to turn away wrath by a soft answer ; I told him that I had just met a man who had wept over a certain passage in one of his sketches." "Well," said Harte, "I wept when I wrote it." Here is the outline of my story as I noted it. You will see why I hesitate to bring my- self to the proper pitch, and you will recog- nize the artistic possibilities. \ c> R M H V A or THK Unrequited Devotion f tj r r VFRSITx Little boy is cast away in a flood on a timb6'. -y^lf 2^ ^ His faithful dog swims out to him, and they are carried away together. They live for two days floating down a great river. The dog sustains the boy after he is exhausted. The dog's barking attracts attention. A rescuing party saves the boy, but heartlessly allows the dog to perish. A master might expand the sixty words to three thousand and make of it a sweet little 236 As Talked in the Sanctum classic that would rank with some of Hans Christian Andersen's ; and yet the thought comes up, could he paint a more pathetic picture with all his art than the tender, sym- pathetic imagination of any child would weave about this tiny outline the moment he read it ? Of course it is this quality of expressing what one feels that makes the author; yet, again, would it not take a greater genius to fill a book with just such tales in miniature than to pad out half a dozen to occupy the same number of pages? In the one, everything is left to the imag- ination ; in the other, nothing. One is a song without words, the other a well-studied harmony. Such a narrative, if I am not unduly con- fident, would bring out powers of descrip- tion in the young mind that would do more for its proper development than a hundred fairy tales of two syllables. The Professor. — "I am ready to admit that the Editor's story might be used as a As Talked in the Smtctiim 237 text for a Saturday afternoon exercise. One or two in a class of thirty would arise to its possibilities ; the rest would probably suggest where the boy could get another dog cheap. The young mind is full of unconscious humor, but seldom weighed down with artistic pathos. I gave out as a subject for composition, ' Winter.' My school was up near the snow line, and not one in it had ever experienced a San Francisco winter, although they were perfectly familiar with the legends of roses and oranges at Christmas. The average result of what I obtained would read somewhat as follows : — " ' Winter is the coldest season of the year, be- cause it comes in winter mostly. In San Francisco winter comes in summer and their Christmas and Fourth of July gets all kerfuddled. I wish winter came in summer in this country, for then we could go skating barefooted and we could snowball with- out getting our fingers cold. It snows more in the winter than any other season. This is because snow seeks its own altitude. When it don't, it is not snow. A wicked boy stole my skates and ran 238 As Talked in the Sanctum ofF with them, and I couldn't catch him. Ma says judgment will overtake him. Well, if judg- ment does, it will have to be pretty lively in its legs, for that boy can run bully.' " The result of an examination brought a number of definitions that would have made Bill Nye famous. ' Anatomy is how to take care of the bones.* ' The digestive fluids are tea, coffee, rum, beer, and sometimes alcohol.' ' The pancreatic juice is secreted in the colon.' ' Five important organs of digestion are the heart, chest, liver, brains, and gizzard.' ' Cursory : The act of cursing.' ' Lambrequin : A young lamb.' ' Patriotic : My Country 'tis of Thee.' " " Which goes to prove that truth is funnier than fiction," remarked the Reader. " I still laugh at the mistakes in pronunciation of the Sunday-school Superintendent of my boyhood, who insisted on calling Artaxerxes * Arte Texas,* and invariably spoke of Joseph going down into Egg-pit. Still, the old style of pronunciation and spelling is chang- As Talked in the Sanctum 239 ing so rapidly that who knows but that the next generation will be so pronouncing Egypt. Spelling-books and grammars get old-fashioned almost as rapidly as clothes. We once placed the accent on the last sylla- ble. Now it is quite the thing to put it on the first. Remember this, if you wish to be considered cultivated. I have often thought what havoc, say, the President of Harvard might make with our ever changing language, and what trouble he would cause us plodders, by transferring the accents on half a hundred common words. He could do it as easily as some one changed per-fect'-ed to per'-fect-ed, Cle-o-pa'-tra to Cle-op'-a-tra, com-par'-a-ble to com'-par-a-ble, op-po'-nent to op'-po-nent, in'-ter-est-ing to in-ter-est'-ing, and dec'-or- a-tive to de-cor'-a-tive." It is always a grave question whether it is worth while to chronicle the trivial every- day life of the Sanctum, and yet in its way it reflects the doings of a greater world. There are people that you never would be- 240 As Talked in the Sanchim lieve could be imposed upon, people of judgment and experience, and yet like our hardy old Contributor they have in their time trod very near the danger line. It seems that the Contributor had received from time to time tempting letters from a certain New York firm of bankers by the suggestive name of " U. R. Green Co." Judging from these, it would appear that U. R. Green Co. know their business. Everything they touch turns into gold. They are philanthropists as well as specu- lators, and are willing, for a small sum — two hundred and fifty dollars — down, to share with their friends this coveted power. It is never for an instant a question with them how the cat will jump, nor does it make any particular difference whether the market goes up or down, it goes their way and yours. Twenty per cent per month is what they guarantee, although they gracefully intimate that thirty per cent may be expected. In spite of himself the Contributor fell to As Talked in the Sanctum 241 figuring. In five months his two hundred and fifty dollars would be ^v^ hundred dol- lars ; in ten months, one thousand dollars ; in fifteen months, two thousand dollars ; in twenty months, four thousand dollars ; and in twenty-five months he w6uld be worth eight thousand dollars. Now our Contribu- tor has two hundred and fifty dollars in the savings bank that is only drawing five per cent a year, and the fever of speculation was upon him. The deposit, however, is pay- able to the order of Mrs. Contributor, and a family council revealed the fact that Mrs. C. had for some days been pondering over an advertisement that had been running in The Housewife 5 Friend^ which read as follows : — " A Fortune. — I have a simple scheme for making money rapidly, which I will mail to any one on receipt of ten cents. Address I. M. Innit, Banker. Box D, New York." Mrs. C. did not wish to risk two hun- dred and fifty dollars, but v/as willing to 242 As Talked in the Sanctum invest ten cents for so promising a receipt. As a compromise, it was agreed to test the advertisement first, and if it turned out sat- isfactory to look farther into the U. R. Green Co.'s proposals. In twelve days the following reply came to hand, which was noted rather for its force than for its eloquence. " Dear Madam : You ask me to tell you how to make more money rapidly. Fish for suckers as I do. — I. M. Innit." It would be interesting to know how many times a month so palpable a fraud entices dimes from a good-natured public. It would hardly seem possible that any one could be taken in by it, and yet it must re- quire at least two hundred answers a month to pay for the one-inch "ad." in The House- wife s Friend, I remember an "ad." that ran in all the country papers in Southern New York, where potato bugs luxuriated, advising the farmer that for ten cents a receipt for the absolute extermination of the As Talked in the Sanctum 243 little pest would be sent. Hundreds ac- cepted the invitation, and in reply received two small blocks of wood and the following printed directions : — " Catch the bug and place it on the block marked A, then press firmly with block B, and the bug will cease to trouble you." The Parson, — " Which reminds me of the story of the tramp who contracted to kill every rat in a roadside inn for a dinner and a drink. The landlord accepted the offer and paid in advance. When he had finished his repast, the tramp selected a formidable club, quietly seated himself on the lawn outside within a circle of admiring villagers, and said in stentorian tones as he rolled up his shirt sleeves, " Now, bring on your rats ! " We realized that the kindly Parson had related the familiar old tale to cover the Contributor's retreat and cut off the Artist's jeers. The Typewriter, — "A lady wishes to 244 ^^ Talked in the Sanctum know if you will give her a year's subscrip- tion for a twenty-verse poem on ' Suffering Cuba'?" The Office Boy, — " Proof ! " XX As children, we told fortunes on the buttons of our elders' coats thus : — " Rich man, Poor man, Beggar man, Thief j Doctor, Lawyer, Merchant, Chief.'* If we particularly disliked the victim, it was arranged so the stop would come on " ^^gg^^ ^^^ " o^ " Thief." I do not know who was the inventor of the formula. I wish I did, as the discovery would make both the unknown author's reputation and my own. Offhand I will hazard it came from the Orient, for there I found that to be a beggar was as much a profession as to be a doctor. The Contributor was com- plaining of the very unprofessional conduct of a beggar on Battery Street, who first asked for the price of a drink, pleading that he was the father of a family, and then 246 As Talked in the Sanctum cursed long and deep because of a prof- fered soup ticket. The man was not a pro- fessional, or he would not have so laid himself open to a charge of "conduct un- becoming a gentleman and a beggar." A professional would have said, " Beg your pardon," passed over to the other side of the street, and told his story to the Poet, whose heart is always open, but whose pocket is empty^ A beggar must be a reader of character. On Decoration Day I met one who had taken the thirty-third degree. The very tones of his voice made me falter, and sent my hand pocketward. Before he had fin- ished his conte I had made up my mind that not less than four bits would answer. There was something about him that sug- gested a noble in exile or a great soul beat- ing itself to death against unresponsive rocks. " Can you blame me," he pleaded, " for begging for the bare necessities, when two million bushels of life-giving wheat from As Talked in the Sanctum 247 the golden fields of California were left to the mercy of the weevil in the elevators of Contra Costa, waiting while their millionnaire owners cornered the market ? What was destroyed would have saved the famine in India or fed the unemployed of the Pacific Coast. Where is the justice ? But who am I that I should judge my neighbor ? " "Amen!" said I. And I was glad that for once my fifty cents were well invested. However, I do not believe in beggars, and I will ^ager that the Contributor was right in refusing to divide his slender salary with the blackguard who reviled him. OflF and on for a month I have noticed an able-bodied man of middle age issue from the historic precincts of the "What Cheer House." He would walk leisurely up Montgomery Street to Market and turn up Market, continuing his stroll as far as the New City Hall, returning by way of Union Square, where he would rest and nap in the sun. The regularity and method of 248 As Talked in the Sanchtm these strolls, combined with the fact that he from time to time paused to speak a civil word to some well-dressed pedestrian, ex- cited my curiosity. A brief investigation developed the fact that the man was a beg- gar, and also that he was very successful. Twice I gave him a short bit. One day I met him in Union Square. The fog was rolling in from Golden Gate, and only here and there a tramp, too drunk to notice the moisture of the seats, marred the landscape. My friend was leaning against a tree, deeply intent on some figures in a greasy note- book. I stopped in front of him and he looked up, slipping the book into his pocket. " How*s business?" I asked. He commenced to whine. " Never mind your regular story," I inter- rupted, " I know it. Answer my questions like a man, and you may add a dollar to your bank account." After a little preliminary skirmishing he As Talked in the Sanctum 249 waxed confidential, and showed a pride in his profession and an unhallowed joy in his success that was gratifying. " I make it a rule," in the firm, clear tones of a stockbroker, " never to walk less than one hundred blocks a day. It keeps up my muscle, aids digestion, and insures a good appetite." " And a thirst," I commented. "And a thirst," he went on, unabashed. "It is a very poor block that does not average two and one-half cents. Two blocks will more often net me ten cents." He consulted the aforementioned book. "Yes, the average of the past six months is five dollars a day, that is just five cents a block. I have been on this beat nearly a year now, and I have my regular customers. Excuse me a minute." He passed through the fog to the other side of the street and touched his hat to an elderly acquaintance of mine, who was com- ing down the broad steps of the Pacific 250 As Talked in the Sanctum Union Club. In a moment he had returned with a bright new quarter in his hand. " I told him my wife was better to-day/' he said, smiling pleasantly, "and that she prayed for him night and day. Well, so long ! Your dollar passes the limit to-day — and business is over." About a week after he was in court charged with vagrancy. An officer had been watching as well as myself. With a great show of indignation my old friend arose and produced a bag containing four twenty-dollar gold pieces and enough change to bring the total to eighty-seven dollars. He was discharged for want of enough direct evidence, but he had an enemy in the hard- hearted officer who made it his business to watch him. Within another week there was evidence enough to send him to the workhouse. The Reader. — " Can you blame him ? Five dollars a day is the wages of a first- class mechanic. Why should not begging As Talked in the Sanctum 251 become a profession when people are such easy game. The only thing to do is to call a policeman every time a fellow solicits alms, and yet if I did such a thing I should be pointed out on the street as a warning to all tender-hearted children." The Parson. — "I believe that I have given alms where they were deserved ; but I have never yet been quite sure." The Artist. — " For the sake of my profes- sion I trust the Sanctum will not completely abolish beggars. Who else would supply color and life to Italy ? What would Notre Dame or St. Peter's be without them } Even the Pyramids and Pompey's Pillar would lose half their charm, stripped of their bands of backsheesh gatherers. Art must come to the rescue. The beggar is thrice welcome to all he gets from me." The Reviewer, — " Your cure, then, must be starvation." The F arson. — "I once heard a rather curious confession from a professional beg- 252 As Talked in the Sanctum gar, which if true, and I beHeve it was, opened my eyes to the reckless way in which American beggars are made. ' I had been keeping a sidewalk stand for five years,* he said. * I worked hard and earned from three to four dollars a week. On that I lived. One night when I started to go home by the Mission street-cars I found that my pocket had been picked. It was too far to walk, so I decided to try and borrow a nickel. The first man to whom I told my story gave me a quarter without hesitation. All the way home I thought over it. A quarter was as much as I made clear at my stand many a day. It all ended by my selling out and going to begging, always telling my first story. I have done pretty well since and like the business.* " The Reviewer, — " Charge him to the Artist." The Occasional Visitor, — "In reading the resolutions passed by the Board of Council- As Talked in the Sanctum 253 men of Canton, Mississippi, it struck me that bulls grow fat on the herbage of this country as well as on Erin's soil. Listen: — ' I. Resolved^ by this Council, that we build a new jail. ' 2. Resolved^ that the new jail be built out of the materials of the old jail. '3. Resolved^ \}c\zX. the old jail be used till the new jail is finished.* " The Poet, — "Which is paralleled by Doc- tor Johnson's famous dictum that every momental inscription should be in Latin ; for that, being a dead language, it will always live." There must be some remedy for the beggar, some scheme whereby the profes- sional "unemployed" can be turned into good citizens. Joaquin Miller tried it in his little ranch on the Heights, but failed. •Municipalities have tried, and philanthro- pists since the time of Nero have under- taken the job ; but only the cannibal has 254 ^^ Talked in the Sanctum succeeded. The beggars own the world ; from the picturesque knaves of the " Arabian Nights " to our own Chinatown bummers, they fill a place in the great human comedy that force and education cannot usurp. They are more of a drain on a nation than ban- ditti and a far greater menace, and yet every scheme for their regeneration falls pow- erless. After all, they may be happy in their way, and life is fleeting. The old fellow who twice a year would slip into my neighbor's back-yard and have a fainting fit from feigned starvation believed himself as great an actor as Booth — and he was. His contortions were awful, and the smell of food caused him to lose con- sciousness. He fairly earned the nickels that were showered upon him from second- story windows, and no one ever complained to the police. I believe if every vagrant in the city were sent to the poor farm to- morrow, a new and just as vigorous a crop would spring up in twenty-four hours. As Talked in the Sanctum 255 The Pastor, — "I would that good things were as tenacious of life.'* I wish to record here, as I close this random report of things " As Talked in the Sanctum," that I believe that patriotism needs culture, and that it is an element in man that flourishes like religion when the soil is prepared for it. For a century and more we have been worshipping the heroes of other countries. I once related to the Sanctum my feelings at the Hotel des Invalides as I stood between a French peasant in wooden shoes and an old oflicer of the Legion of Honor, silently worshipping at the stately tomb of the greatest of all Frenchmen. It seemed then that there could be no Ameri- can counterpart, that no American shrine would ever draw such never failing crowds as come daily there. Not long ago, when I was in New York, I took my little boy to the tomb of Grant, at Riverside. I did not expect to find more than a corporal's guard of sightseers. I admit that curiosity 256 As Talked in the Sanctum drew me. The name of Grant seemed plebeian by the side of that of the French Emperor. Vicksburg, Donelson, the Wil- derness, Appomattox, ran flat alongside Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, and Waterloo. One was the soldier of a repub- lic, the other was the Man of Destiny. The great gray dome that surmounts the remains of our soldier is not hedged round with historic associations or emblazoned with regal memories, and yet I was not alone in my pilgrimage. There was a line three deep, a quarter of a mile long, passing in and around the crypt. It was not one crowd, but many, and all day long it swayed in a ceaseless throng. For a month this had been going on. Every head was uncov- ered as we entered the stately sarcophagus, and the soft light from above that fell on the tomb carried with it the same idealiza- tion that enshrouds the last resting place of that other warrior. The reverence was as genuine in the one as in the other — the As Talked in the Sanctum 257 homage paid this republican hero was as sin- cere as that lavished on Frenchmen's demi- god. For the first time I appreciated at their full value the power and benefit of such national shrines. About it, from year to year, will crystallize a love of country and a pride of home. It is something that can be pointed to — something tangible. On it will feed patriotism ; and the tomb of the man who said, " Let us have peace," will become, to unborn generations, all that the golden dome of the InvaUdes is to France. \ 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. RenawwdiaftOks are subjea to immediate recall. --^pyg^^fe^tp -M-n^-mn fXQ- 8t983 - arc. cm. JAN 27*83 LD 21A-60m-3,'65 (F2336sl0)476B General Library , Umversity of California Berkeley .- m 11' 'n i||l|li]l!llliiyilli