cs = Soret kotI HHnE a Abt coin al Oy Yy iH aed NIE a aN 223 | ; 5 llSOsEA CaADAD a cedd eavdch ha ttahea hoses leexiene. A384 HETteeTHNtTeAULbeL teaser teats ee tbs tertetrires oe oa Pee ed LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA A a Bie a aes nse ein in| mney aap rena. a teeareg mathe ~ nd —— = Ss, eee oe 4 ~ pene at eet eee Te See GIFT OF MICHAEL ARPAD nea ae sence imei pesienweshihalgstediricentnyeteinasiade:demeiasteaemmtianiiantied oes. alhtiitipemeettiineet aan aeitieieemmemeedieeettiies —" . > ee tha : Pee ce eee TT eT te\ i 4 } 1 =F rene a A SS ST I arTe . a _— Oe a a a res — ce ee ae be ome ee he a a OY eee ee ee at th NS AEN ey tS eee ar eer eee eae Sad ; I i : 7 1 i } ] i { ‘ y Penni — = —-2* —— en a al RP ae te semen ae a ment Pan PN aay ST ae we ao aa ee eee a a Sa a a Be Pp es te a a time Ra ae it ee ee ee 2. ee tel ee ee ae Ns ieee ne a ern 7 x . rt tyes rer ET TTA TRU LUUUU UU LUA UAL HUA TESH LUDA AOA HOUT ULAA TUATHA MEA UA AOU UR ee ArrAMERICAN SOUNDINGSeee ee re a 5 Pa a Sf a ee a) ee ee ae eee WA ll A te piiamentne lindane - 8 ae a ee ‘ J P| F 4 \} i ; 4 | i | } a! I tae ‘= i eet ee arama SSS wrap mad Tors Sar = en rs SSS Noe ae a 7 ee ag fe a an ee ee tat nS Sy mies = pn heen ante Seermace - 7 ERED TUAELEEAEAUTA ULEL EULEA PULLER EL LLEA DEES TRALEE ELPA LEAL ai a3 : : i ia SLagted Thi T. Le. i ld aa i 8 a a ie , iF a re r Resorenaies Sat of A an foe bet ali ru ee aa Oe ioe oe ae thi an ah ae - van Re ote x Seal ns * : ees | * AN 4 Ce, 7h By ae th te i] ae ae ret pes Ni a > Ae or ee Photograph by Dorothy Hickling, 117, ELbury Street, London — er gee ne Ps atone ee Fe teem haste cheese i f es ~ TRU TET TTAMERICAN SOUNDINGS BEING CASTINGS OF THE LEAD IN THE SHORE-WATERS OF AMERICA SOCIAL, LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL BY J. ST. LOE STRACHEY EDITOR OF “THE SPECTATOR” America, I do not vaunt my love for you, I hae what I have. WALT WHITMAN NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY MCMXXVI‘eT P.1t} aie ‘ RTE ASS ERS TESTOR EET ATRIA AEL ER e tad heat aedeeasateeteotel Hed ke TETTTEAAEA SEAS TEAS EAI EAT ARE: POAALAREASSAROARRUOE COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY ee ee ee et A RA eS an par epee e Se akn e ie pag a eT Ee ot Fh ape re COPYRIGHT 1926 BY INDEPENDENT PUBLICATIONS (INC.) PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ~ ee eee oe SO SO a a ner eh eee ene e Sa nel —*+ a a | ig f Ca vee tAATD TEV AVT ELA CTEEEE EEEL EEE UEEEL CUPL EERE EEE EEE EE CEE EEE PET TTT PE PETE EET PETAL TTT AL HTT TEEPE ET ET EEE EEDEDICATION TO MY AMERICAN HOSTS AND HOSTESSES IN NEW YORK, IN WASHINGTON, IN BOS- TON, IN PHILADELPHIA, IN SWARTHMORE, IN VIRGINIA, IN YALE, IN GROTON, IN READVILLE AND ON THE SUSQUEHANNA TRAIL HAVE debated long and often what is the secret of American hospitality. What makes it at once so generous and so gracious, So over- whelming and so delicate, so ample and yet so intimate, so spacious and yet so kindly? No one would ever think that it was given in expectation of reciprocal hospitality on some coming visit to England. There is not a touch of the feeling commemorated in the Victorian saying that in London Society people should get ‘‘cutlet for cutlet.’’ I have no ground for imagining that the hospi- tality was due to some mistake in my personal value, or to a belief that I was a much more dis- tinguished person than I am, or than people are v a caer eT —s 3 tas Ae wt caw gage a one Caring nareioenn nat 4 ay nee ans Leathe - rea — net ee me ghee Le Fre aa. Sette) ede BS pe Sy en! — iS aay Py a ec nto per ag ty ty SE ting en an ae ay ~ NTT AT a NS La PS Ht | —BeatestAPUALUA TATRA TV ERUTEAUTTUT PEATE LST TIFTTRATPETERTEA TRATED PERT RES PAAERS ETA EeaaEea STA POTECaT Petia toa ba ie cs ba resen: ELALESTRSaAPALERAUAHEASLeAEAEATETPOUGSUE UMEAUEALOTESUEAURATRAEAERELSEUEROSPULELSCRSUG 04 (4) LHADESEAEIES ESSEOS BIEN DE DEC ATL OW: aceustomed to think of me at home. Even in the intoxicating air of America I realized that I was very far indeed from being ‘‘the only pebble on the beach.”’ Then, as such things will, there came to me a sudden revelation—a sudden solution of the mys- tery. I realized that the ardour of American hospitality comes from the desire not to boast or to show off, or to get that sinister satisfaction which meaner spirits find in surprising or over- balancing people by over-praising or over-petting. What I had discovered was the possession by my entertainers of that simple and lovable trait which comes specially to eager, active and unselt- conscious people—the desire to share their pleas- ures and delights with others—the joy that children and indeed all super-active-minded peo- ple take in going halves with others and especially with people who for some reason or other do not ° Ce ate (4 Tega) SSS Seana eee aon “e ee ee ee ee ees ne ee ee eee a a te a i i —_ s ee at seem to be by nature glad, or optimistic, or imagi- native. In an impulsive man or woman ‘‘I want to show you this’’ means not ‘‘I want to show off,’’ but ‘‘I want to share.’’ I can best set forth what I mean by quoting from a delightful poem by the author of ‘‘Ionica.’’ In ‘‘An Invocation’? a modern Englishman ad- dresses an ancient Greek and begs to show him the new worlds of the mind and all their glories. Vi ay rear arr 2 at CA eit aS b IPSS OE ISS eet | \ A ww ' ' W) videin eae THI ee Ties . sr ULLALUUAUUUSLUSUUAUUGUULULIDALSAAUUAIUUUSHAUAELUSUATISIOUUAUAUHNCEUUGH UAT EL UU AAUUA LAER URAC OMIA EMA OLRM ARE AEC UO Ce aDE DTC AT EOE, As when ancestral portrats look gravely from the walls Upon the youthful baron who treads their echoing halls, And whilst he builds new turrets, the thrice en- nobled herr Would gladly wake lis grandsire his home and feast to share; So from Avgean laurels that hide thine ancient Urn I fain would call thee hither, my sweeter lore to learn. Here was the position clear enough. I was the ancestral portrait. It was I who was being called down by the youthful baron to share in his joys and enthusiasms. He was going to exhibit before my eyes his ‘‘new turrets’’—vast and splendid buildings soaring heavenwards above and an- chored to the living rocks below. I was the grand- sire reanimated to share the home and the feast. I was to learn his sweeter lore and to enjoy it with him. Indeed, that sharing and that enjoying made up more than half the joy to him. With the alteration of a couple of words, the last lines of this exquisite piece of virtuosity, scholarship and psychology fit the situation: Vil| H . . ie EET aT LEI ERCAECA GG LS LUE L EA GEa Ge Eee ahead ee eee EEL ea See OTe Leas ts i ‘ 4 ae : Ha iF i rit ie 7 7). ai \ 5 i* r 7 : i ; a ‘ ons be Aa SteaL ebay Ni} eaeeeaa: eee ret he te eae hi eae. PrEsea Esa A FAA EELAAEA ET CHEETA ELUEAET SHUEAEUAI EARS EAUHRI EAS PEsdL EG BEPEUIID DEDICATION: Or in thy beechen prison thou waitest for the bee: Ah, leave that simple honey and take thy food from me. My sun is_ stooping westward. Entranceéd dreamer, haste; There’s fruitage in my garden that I would have thee taste. Now lift the stone a moment; now, English shep- herd, come; Two souls shall flow together, one clear-vorced and one dumb. We English on the other side of the Atlantic have a shyness which is too often mistaken for coldness or self-sufficiency. In reality it is a kind of innocent self-depreciation. The ancestral por- trait, when he is called down, is apt to be terrified by the thought that he will never be able to live up to the tremendous conception of him formed by his English-speaking descendant and that he had better run and hide before he is found out. ‘They put much too high a value upon me, and when I come down from out of my frame and they find I am not half as good a piece of brushwork as they thought, they will be deeply disappointed. T shall look an awful fraud. Besides, and apart from that, how ever am I going to pay back these debts lam incurring? I may be able to give them Vill = - ote mms te Oty 1 Se | 6 pe ee _ — - aed Se ~~ a a a coded eae a ea me = teense eat teed 4 ee een eae ees - _——s — Se ne Si PRE PO is EE NE nd Og ee a ee ee apa ne Be a a ls eee. ee thie hegromartis ~e ey en ore j Ah UTTLLELA GAD LAR LA RU TLPLEE ACARD OLU URE ERTED SRA UDERU PD TAT PEEP aaT PTET ETTRRUHEEEEEUEEEEEE TEETER TTT PEELE ECT EE PEE CET EG PETE TEE D oeDEDICATION a good dinner and make physically some return; but temperamentally I shall never be able to keep it up at their level.’’ Well, let the Englishman remember that the true sharer, the man who does not want to enjoy alone, but to be sympathized with, felt with and enjoyed with, is not the kind of man who wants to be imitated. His robust optimism requires no such support. Once more, all he wants is a sharer, not an adu- lator. There is only one thing which will turn him sour, and that is anything which seems to him like superciliousness, cynicism or contempt. But unfortunately shyness and that self-depreci- ation which an Englishman puts on as a kind of protective colouring is very apt to look lke super- ciliousness. And here one comes to the one thing necessary in the relations between the two halves of the English-speaking race—a proper under- standing of each other. If English people gener- ally can only be induced to learn the simple secret which I learned, that they are being asked to share in the pomp and circumstance, the rush and the glory of the great new Continent unfurled to music like some splendid banner, they will not suffer from being misunderstood, as, believe me, they often do suffer, but will have their enjoy- ment vastly increased. They will no longer be 1X‘4 4. OPPuitaaptteal haya ete ee ‘ Pith MEG T Ea PRaLe ere aes ibeataas: Te > Atte teu S eke S ERT 7 . i F Pam PELE EES AESLPEAPERIGEANUA eet RAT ES ERS TELTEATVATEAREATET EAT ELAT APRA AEE GA RAS EeAORSERST COU EOE GST AGA ;ORESEDES E25 Res ean bs FADO EOSEE tO ES PESRUPEAEELS ENE - f DE DICALION haunted by the idea that they will crack their voices if they try to sing to so lofty a tune. Anyway, I, in my capacity as an ancestor called down from a stiff and faded old canvas and a mouldy frame, am not now in the least afraid of any of my imperfections being found out. I was not invoked to see whether I was a real Sir Joshua, Raeburn or Romney, but just to have a good time and also, of course, to help the new branches of the old stock to have a better time than they could have if there were to be none to share with them the glories of the new home. I suppose unfriendly transatlantic critics—for I am not such a fool as to think that, because I had a good time in America, there are not plenty of them—will say that I am talking laboured and sophistical nonsense, and that I have either got a swelled head or else am merely talking through my hat and repaying your hospitality with ‘ ph gp meer is Senso ne’ —ito ee — = atin —— ae = ah ms ~ é a ae ee ay ovis = nd a eo FN a Aa nt to en i a eg ee ee ee Ne Re ee eee ae a humbug. Well, that is a view of the situation which I will not attempt to answer. I am content to leave it to my hosts, and if they are kind enough to say that on the whole I proved ‘‘a good sharer,’’ I shall be the happiest of guests. Anyway, Amer- ican hospitality, mentally quite as much as mate- rially, in its freshness and vigour suits me x ere ea a —— et. ee ere eee =e s a se i ee v\\S UU EAAN AT UUSLUNUPULLU AS CALLIAATARIEALA VU ERAELSTUL CAGTRLIGT RAT EGIRSERIUV NI DEATLUOGAOUADCATSTIH ELON ESERIUTOT EA ORAADAPLACORAL EGER EGA RLU UGT ES DSSS EO DANA OOSO POL EGTA EL LariosDEDICATION exactly, and I shall venture once more to use another set of verses from ‘‘Ionica,’’ though lL have used them already in speaking and writing to an American audience. The verses show exactly my choice between the graded, guarded and grudging attitude of Mr. Worldly-Wiseman and of the man who is not afraid of letting him- self go. I have little use for the inhuman creature with the heart of an iceberg, the face of a statue and the mind of a sphinx: The world may like, for all I care, The gentler voice, the cooler head, That bows a rival to despair, And cheaply compliments the dead; That smiles at all that’s coarse and rash, Yet wins the trophies of the fight, Unscathed, in honour’s wreck and crash, Heartless, but always in the right. My way of looking at men and things is, I con- fess, totally and irrevocably different.Se eT Le ee Fi SP Oe a oe ee etn | K i \ H { , i i SS ie pat eae - - _ ose a en te a Li at Ss Ep : aEueCEsECEEEUeeEEeETel BaEwet FERIEU CCE LaD Decca okeaeas SEAEAV RATA EOE CE | i} vet IRC Paa nara ae OUETUUSU TOUTE TTR TR Ta aateCONTENTS DEDICATION CHAPTER I. Tue Nature or My Enpravours AND LT III. EV: We WAL WD VT, exe Xe xa XII. XIII. XIV. XV. xO TT: 3 ° s im THE AVERAGE AMERICAN AN AMERICAN CHARACTERISTIC . . ‘$820 Mines anp Mucu Lanp’’ VIRGINIA New HINGLAND . Tur West UNVISITED. . . EROHIBITION | 4) 9) National PREJUDICES. . . . THe AMERICAN WomMAN THe University Sprrir . . . AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES— CoNCRETE HXAMPLES THe AMERICAN LANGUAGE LITERATURE THE REAL AND THE UNREAL AMERICA Natural ENGLISHMEN AND NATURAL AMERICANS REPRESENTATIVE AMERICANS . X1li PAGE 13 20 ol a8 46 O6 76 89 93 104 122 130 141 149 159iW ihe Pea SA aee 2 CONTENTS Mae GUBERERSON ; 9. 1208 ise 161 i: RAVAGE UINGOUN) 9 6+ ae eh XTX. Tue Suore-WATERS OF LITERATURE SOR SADIBISTS (6 a st es 190 WTRESON © 2 ES oe ee 205 Wista \WWHETMAN 2 6 «26 %&. % 216 Dany OUMICS . = «© 9s 98s 932 Tur AMERICAN PRESS 246 = 320 b rd bd bd PY bd 8 i bd h _ | —_ i oO ® Sy A < < en ee ee se ee ee Bos ~ 85 - Oe annette —d ae - ilies jnepihonartatiaatnnstapagiepaanenar aia Se be My ny _— eee eee ae ln tm Yer taa nn a aes Pom a +. ry a el — —— —_ a ERANLEUVRUERT RUT Eeecueny F f reve er ) 0 BER a e r ' ’ PAAREARAADR EE aot eae POU TRUT TERE: at i OED NURREPUERIAREATEOEAR EAR LARA TEATRO Da Ea Roe redieatoae TF LRT as ey. | PaeeeReaa eee eaaeers Baa ed ‘s i 2tae of es > ee AS A ee Os RN I TNT, et tT an * —_ a - aie ee ek ment See OL a ae @nianneasnrenammean teen eae es AMERICAN SOUNDINGS | il i —e pS a eo ict Tones — ETT Tee —-——_-. arse ee eet eS ie a ae a Se - ae hn aE a ‘ ' — oe nes a ee t eisai ahieaiemnstaaeatbaiied aie see teeete ~ i paempineatartntacthrnererarmapiens So ee he he Sere EP a ee ae ee ee ee ee Sree tle ee ne hh ott eee al PS Se teenred eg = me or — J —— —- 2 5 fi ’ j AMERICAN SOUNDINGS the bedrock foundations of the Union. There they were, standing outside their own doors, walking in their own fields, travelling on ‘‘their own occasions’? on the roads. There were the ‘minute men of the Republic,’’ the women who stand always ready to serve and save the State— the people to whom the Union had a real and not merely a sentimental significance. Let no one suppose that I saw either a dull or dingy daguerreotype of old-fashioned America, or, again, a piece of stern realism. As ood fortune would have it, an Autumn of early frosts, a Fall nearly three weeks in front of time, had clothed the countryside in purple and gold, sup- ported by the richest of greens and browns. We sped along some of the best of the new roads with which America is being slashed, as one might slash roads in their a map with a ruler and penknife fineness of design and conception worthy of a Roman consul—roads that one could see pushing on through the landscape with a steady, even thrust behind them—roads that, though they did not look out for trouble or choose to negotiate unnecessary precipices or hills, went their way and did not trip round like a field footpath in order to evade every little obstacle. These concrete or tarmacadam roads, when- ever you come near towns, villages or inhabited 2 4Jamo O YM IEE SAND) MU Con EAN D places, are arched by trees of various sorts— wind screens in the winter, coverts from the heat in the summer and later bowers built of golden boughs of sycamore and maple of different varie- ties. In the little rocky brakes or stream beds, the wild trees showed dashes of the brightest scarlet. Above us were azure skies, fit to frame the work of the great autumnal colourist. Some- times far off, and sometimes quite near, we saw flying glimpses of the Pennsylvania Apennines— mountains made, it would seem, out of.faded violet leaves, and yet mountains which, as you drew near them, had the kindly, familiar look of English, Scottish or Welsh hills. Clothed with scrub oak, ash and maple, they show green in summer, but are bare in winter. But when we passed by them they looked as if some one had given the order to dress the landscape for a high festival. I remember in particular a couple of hours’ run through one of the State forests of Pennsylvania a country of low rocky hills, half-hidden streams and thick undergrowths. Never have I seen the eround so gorgeously and so thickly carpeted. They could have challenged the ‘‘Htruscan shades thick embower’d’’ which gladdened the eyes of Milton at Vallombrosa. Charming as was the scenery spread before us, its beauty was not the extreme characteristic 25ee ea ite 4 hee be a — er ere gt gp at = Sh ge a el = Cy wy ear Peon aha eo BN TE hk ee a en a ead ee ee ee Rel ee ees ee ae oe ee Ste ee ee " ~ Se tpitela ‘sae tt! AMERICAN SOUNDINGS impression made by the pageant of the Susque- hanna Trail. I have to recall the glories of the fields and forests and hills set in the most pellucid air by an act of memory. What has impressed itself on my mind indelibly, what has become part of my spiritual heritage, is the line of home- steads stretching like a mighty procession. They were not, of course, continuous in a strict sense. There were miles upon miles of open country between the various villages and towns. But what everywhere dominated the scene were the homes of country people. Sometimes in groups, sometimes standing by themselves among their huge barns and farm buildings, and surrounded by smiling orchards, stood these homes of the men who, as I have said, hold the destiny of the Republic in their hands. In the future, as in the past, they will give the final word. The judges, the police and the court officials impose most upon the eyesight in the drama of justice; but, all the same, it is the drab jury who give the verdict. I was seeing the best type of jurymen in their habit as they live. But let no one suppose from this that I was passing the homes of hard, surly or aloof boorish people. There was an air of plenty, content and of the happier side of Puritanism about these houses that was as impressive as it was pleasant. 26oO MET ILE SS “AGN DY MU CAE ANe De 2 They looked, and I am sure were, just the kind of people who would have proved a very present help in time of trouble. I often felt a longing to stop the car, take a walk out to some homestead a mile or so up ‘‘a dirt road,’’ and hold talk with the owner and his family. But time pressed, as it too often does on a motor journey when the days are short, and perhaps it was as well. I had had plenty of luck so far. But would it last? I might have struck, not the average man, but a man who would have always appeared in my mind as typical, when in reality he was unique. So perforce I passed on and had to withhold the words of blessing which I should have liked to borrow for the occasion from the shepherd in Virgil: Ah! happy man. Therefore your homestead stands A shrine and fortress midst its smiling lands. Therefore for you the bees their descant drone, While from the elm, the ring-dove makes her moan. Besides, if I had addressed a New York or Pennsylvanian farmer in such enigmatic and emotional terms, he would ten to one have thought 27eee rear od Se Fed Poste AMERICAN SOUNDINGS me ‘‘just crazy.’’ He would have gone home to tell his wife and family how he had met a madman who talked poetry at him, though otherwise, as far as he could on the road—KEnglish seemingly see, he was quiet and amiable. The man driving the car did not seem to worry at all, so he had no doubt that they would get through safely to the next asylum. And yet, if we could have come to close quarters and understood each other, I am sure he would have acknowledged our kinship, not only in language, but in blood—I am vain enough to think that after a good talk we should have parted friends. Anyway, I had found the key and found it in the woods and fields. After what I had seen, I was : not going to worry myself any more about the future of the Republic, or, if I could prevent it, allow my friends to depress themselves. | A parody of Chatham’s famous words went through my head—‘‘There may be folly, there . ee ee ae ee ae ee ee ere te ft oa) ee oe re ae a a may be corruption, there may be lawlessness, there may be social injustice; but you shall never persuade me that this is not still the land of ee Ey Reina bat ae 8 freedom and good life, or that the spirit of the men who made the State at the Revolution and maintained it on the field of Gettysburg has died out of the land.’’ At that memorable field of war we had stayed 28 Cs aE ee Na a SN ee ee oe me oe ee San ge ee ~ 2 3l2.. TF St tH é cee i re KN : —— ¥820 MIEES AND MUCH LAND” our wheels. With our own eyes we had seen the Pennsylvanian yeomen’s boundary wall and had recalled how it proved the vantage-ground of freedom. Standing on ground made sacred by such bravery—the ground, too, from which was sent forth Lincoln’s soul-shakinge words—how could we, or any, dare to fear for the Union? I must not leave my idyll of the road without mentioning that in this eight-hundred-and-twenty- mile drive we went through no great cities or centres of population. Except for Buffalo, where we began, and Philadelphia, where we ended, it was country known to few Americans of the great world. So much was this the case that I was able to indulge my sense of mischief by telling my friends in the South and in New York that I had been to places of which they had never even heard. I proceeded to descant on the significance of what I had seen and also to catalogue the beauties of their own country. So true is it that onlookers see the best of the game. The stranger’s eye will often detect a new tint or catch a half-hidden feature which is missed by the eye too familiar with the scene to regard it with due care. The newcomer is the best seer. How difficult is the chronicling of human action in a short space, provided that the interest of the concrete is to be preserved! As I re-read the 29oye + 7 ite 2 pd ene Sr ited oS ~ Sen ee ee a ee ee ee ee ee es Pn ee re a aden ED ee - ee ae ee reste, * oy. een SS =, S ee ener Seanad polteminepeen det — Gee bia G5 Faia AMERICAN SOUNDINGS story of my tour, I see that I have said nothing about Niagara and the calm dignity of power with which the mighty river overflows the escarpment of rock that crossed its path. Again, I have said nothing as to that wonderful rocky crack in the hills that forms ‘‘Watkins Glen’’ and gives you a slice of the Alps or the Apennines in the middle of the Kastern States, nothing about the Five Finger meres, or the scimitar sweep of Seneca Lake, nothing about Cornell University perched on its ledge of hill above the lake—a Tarpean rock of learning. Again, I have said nothing as to Williamsport, though its admirable hotel, seventy years old, deserves a chapter to itself—a hotel with a Danish major-domo who introduced himself as having been ‘‘a lackey to the King of Denmark.’’ How we longed to ask this excerpt from the ‘‘Dramatis Personex’’ about Hamlet and Ophelia and Polonius, and as to the gossip below stairs when Fortinbras entered El- sinore to bury the mighty dead. Last, but not least, I regret having said nothing as to Harris- burg and its splendid State Capitol seated by its stately river and five noble bridges—a city and a stream to write home about, and yet one about whose beauties few whispers reach our, or even American, ears.QOHUACP A Ee vi VIRGINIA KOPLE so alert as the inhabitants of the Hastern States, who read my Soundings and who do not happen to live in the States of New York and Pennsylvania, will, I am certain, at once object that my motor tour was not representative and therefore unsatis- facuony. lit is\ not;?? I hear them) say, “car true sample.’’ In plain words, ‘‘Where does New Kingland come in?’’ and ‘‘What about the South?’’ The criticism is sound as far as it goes. I can, however, easily meet it, for neither New England nor the South were, in fact, excluded from my hghtninge and autumnal survey of the Republic. I ean tell the shade of Daniel Webster—his bust, given to a near relation of mine, is looking at me as I write—that I ‘‘behold’’ Massachusetts just as he suggested men should behold her and was more than satisfied. Again, I can tell the spirit of my immediate ancestor, William Strachey, the first Secretary to the Colony of Virginia and her ardent admirer (1608), that I have sampled the 31Se i ee oe Pees et eee , nes Pe nag eee et Seth Ee a ik ol A ee ne ee ee BE and Somer aerguttant ee deren Se eeenadetnatend pedal panpiate - SS - 2 AMERICAN SOUNDINGS land about which he dreamed so many dreams and prophesied so great a future, and that all he hoped and believed has come true. In a word, I can buttress and support my admittedly slenderly- held front line, from Buffalo to Philadelphia, by two strong outlying redoubts—Massachusetts at one end and Virginia at the other. First let me heave my lead in Virginian waters. Not only did I go there first, but also, though ‘‘a bottomless’? Northerner and Lincolnite, I feel the call of the blood in the State to which ‘‘the great Queen of happy memory”’’ lent her poetic name— a name which, if not bearing the extreme charac- teristic impression of the person described, is, at any rate, full of charm. It was my good fortune ‘* Twas either Fancy or ’twas Fate’’—whenever I specially wanted to do something in America to find exactly the right man offermg me just the right thing at exactly the right time and under exactly the right con- ditions. I was booked for Washington, of course; but I wanted to see something more of the South than Alexandria and Mount Vernon. Washington is one of the most fascinating capitals in the world —why should I be too shy to say the most fascinat- ang wm the world?—though I admit that I do not know Moscow, Pekin, Bogota or La Paz—but it 32VeleRiG TeNviTAd is not the South morally, geographically or politi- cally. Instead it is a great ‘‘insulated’’ constitu- tional and legal laboratory, invented, as is some- times alleged, to worry statesmen, ambitious and local, big business men, administrators, soldiers and sailors of rank, judges other than those of the Supreme Court and Foreign Powers ‘‘as per schedule.’’ C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas l’Amérique. It is a mixture which is not the least like any of the ingredients which compose it, and therefore nothing to my purpose, or, at any rate, to my purpose on the occasion in question. And then at once the proper door was opened for me by the kindest and most judicious of hands. A much-liked friend, who shall not be worried by being named any more than any of my other friends in the land of friendships par excellence, was at my side in a moment, asking me to come to his country house in the northern part of Virginia. It lies under the Blue Ridge, is not twenty miles from Charlottesville and Monticello and is a window opened on some of the loveliest and most historic of American country landscapes. I have no room in this book to say what I saw, or how I saw it. I must merely record that I looked down from the summit of the Blue Ridge upon the course of the Shenandoah—that mighty 33 " ep enc erineinin = eens nines ae SS oe TS a Sa a fe --.-— a es as EEA ay SS ee es A ape oe a ee om eaeenad tae oped pa A eae Oe aang naan ee ae — — nenee ee be tee ely) ee eee STi El lt Solin eI ae oe ee ene eee Som bs ae ara aS Pe neat es | ns scoeliettasiinstieetinaeaetetimeumaetiidas a ns ae Oe ee a ee ee eres = eee = eee ae ne oe en ae gen berate = ainlian i ek oo AMERICAN SOUNDINGS valley fraught since the Civil War with a pathos as magnificent as that of any valley that haughty Greece or insolent Rome can bring to comparison. I gazed from the grassy terraces and bowling- greens of Monticello upon ‘‘the Piedmont Pla- teau’’ spread before my feet. I saw the faultless College planning of the University of Virginia, an everlasting monument to the great architect who drew the ground-plan specifications and elevations for a colonnaded Campus as wisely and as effectively as he drafted foundations of a Republican Constitution. I saw samples of the country houses, great and small, old and new, of Virginia, and with them her towns, hamlets and farms. What is more, I saw and talked with their inhabitants. My friend, as well as the proprietor of a well-known periodical, is a Master of Foxhounds and an ‘‘owner-occupier’’ of many crimson and golden fruited orchards. Therefore I could, and did, see at his house specimens, and worthy specimens, of the Virginia stock. I saw, too, Virginia’s woodlands breaking into flame under the magic of Autumn. That set an old string quivering in my heart. When a boy lI opened Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and was at once confronted with the poem in ‘‘Drum Taps’’ entitled ‘‘As toilsome I wandered Vir- ginia’s Woods.’’ I remember to this day how the o4VIRGINIA lines transfixed me like the flight of a javelin. And last October I, too, wandered ‘‘to the music of rustling leaves kicked by feet, for ’twas Autumn. ’’ Though I found no soldier’s grave, I had found for a moment the open grave of my youth and saw a boyish figure peeping through the leaves and branches of the maples and holm-oaks. And then there came back to me some ambitious, if imma- ture, verses that I myself had penned when I knew little of life and its strange immutable ways, its swift current and its Niagara that all must shoot, and nothing whatever of Virginia but her dulcet name. I could, when I wrote my poem, have no more answered questions as to Virginia’s flowers and trees than named the State’s latitude and longitude or sketched her constitutional peculiar- ities. Yet after fifty years the old lines flashed back to me and shone out as clearly and legibly as writing on a blackboard. They not only rang true, but discovered within me strange and deep wells of emotion. In the poem of my youth I described the shores of the Mediterranean and the mountains and torrents, woods and vineyards of Provence. I went on to recall the days when the poets from Theocritus to Virgil peopled the hinterlands of the Middle Sea with gods and goddesses, nymphs, dryads and 35ra ee en ee Ss as Sr ee En es Se ee ee a Sa ae aera ole 8 tes re - oe = — - a AMERICAN SOUNDINGS oreads. But they had vanished. Neither Greece, Italy nor Provence knew them any more. Where are they fled? The happier West, Does she receive them? Do men bend In some Virgiman Forest glade To gods of Oak-tree or of Stream? What a little thing to remember after long years, to remember with tears in the irresistible swirl of a sudden emotion! What a mercy it is for myself and my readers that I am no Psycho-analyst, not even a plain un- varnished Psychologist! Were I one, I should fill a dozen chapters with my complexes and my subconscious selves, and end up, perhaps not in Virginia, but in Thebes! Still, though only an average toiling man of prose, I went back to lunch from my woodland excursions with a sense of something like exaltation. I had looked out of the shades of the Prison House before they closed for ever and had caught a real, if fleeting, glimpse of that august abode which was once mine own! I, too, had lived in Arcady and known the happy time when an iambic or trochaic foot upon the stair of time meant far more to me than all the drums and tramplings of politics and social science—things which, to borrow Carlyle’s im- 36VIRGINIA mortal phrase, still wander over the world ‘‘in a very lamentable manner.’’ So much for the Virginian redoubt at the Southern end of my trench line. I had not seen, it is true, the Palms and Beaches of the sub- tropical South, but I had noted how well the main characteristics of the English kin had stood a climate and surroundings like those of Italy or Southern France. My next Sounding must be a study of the fields of New England and all the woods, waters and wastes of her ample champaigus,ten, on reper ee — = eee — oe —— ee Ss | Ne a ee ees | w-viay-nesheatin=al minoeniend ee ee cing ee Se ene - Peter i i c i ; bebe Peery err eres | CH VACPyi by ey, NEW ENGLAND HE traveller in the rural parts of the State of New York, in Pennsylvania and and in Virginia finds those great com- monwealths very English in many particulars. In laws and customs, habits of life and the gen- eral configuration of the country population and their homes and fields, there is no foreign accent. The gates and fences, in spite of certain minor differences, have a distinctly English look, and, above all, there is nothing strange in the attitude of the horses and cattle and live stock generally. You can see at once that they belong to a people who hold to the full our tradition as to animal rights and the crime of cruelty to dumb beasts. Every one knows the story of Sherman’s soldier who in the laying waste of the country on the march sternly explained to the hen-wife why he took her chicken. ‘‘It is a ‘Sesesh’ hen, Ma’am,’’ he declared, and therefore his duty was to destroy it. Iam bound to say I could see no such subtle 08NEW ENGLAND traces of race or political creed at the barn doors by which I passed. I did not see a fowl or a pig which was not a hundred per cent. American and also a hundred per cent. Anglo-Saxon. Still, if it is a case of estimating exactly the Englishry of a countryside, one must admit that the villages and fields of New England proper carry the palm. The New IHngland village or town has, no doubt, a grander, if less intimate, air than a village in Devonshire, Hampshire or Surrey. Its houses are bigger and more impor- tant-looking, its barns more ample and its cot- tages, when there are any, are more opulent in size and appearance. Again, the trees along the road- sides, the absence of fences round the houses, though there is no absence of greensward, give a kind of anticipatory Garden City appearance which is both impressive and attractive. A New England village, indeed, often looks like a village composed entirely of prosperous farmhouses—ot eight or ten rooms apiece. If the churches and meeting-houses have not the antiquity or Gothic splendour of our English rural churches, they are generally dignified and well-preserved buildings, suitable to communities which, above all things, are self-respecting and proud of themselves and their constituents. Built of wood, painted white and adorned with 3bg9aoten - ne te he pion ne as Fe ell at mer - Se ae er te Whe eS SE a a at Se ee ee ee ee eel 7 ei er ~— ee e N IN : gle ’ 5 Yo AMERICAN SOUNDINGS handsome columns, Ionic or Tuscan Doric, they have a very distinguished air. It is curious to remember that the first visit I paid in New England, as in Virginia, was to a newspaper proprietor who, like my Virginian host, was also a Master of Foxhounds. His charm- ing house, some thirty miles distant from Boston on a perfect road, gave me a bundle of samples of rural New England and its way of hfe which lL would not have missed for a motor-magnate’s ransom. No one with any feeling for his own country could fail to be enchanted by a landscape which bore so strong a resemblance to the north- ern parts of England. There were hills as brown and as austere as those in Emily Bronte’s great dirge, but they were also hills which, like hers, year by year have ‘‘melted into Spring.’’ Meantime, the roads, the copses and the planta- tions such as those round the place where I saw the hounds put into covert (a place near the neat and prosperous-looking farmhouse of a Massa- chusetts farmer-landowner), composed a scene which one may see near some gentleman farmer’s house in any of the northern or north-midland counties. The meet resembled a meet of one of our small packs, but there was no doubt as to the earnest- ness and enjoyment of all concerned. Though 40NEW ENGLAND there was none of the display of rank and fash- ion, drags and limousines, such as one would see, no doubt, on Long Island or in the immediate neighbourhood of New York or Washington, many of the members of the small field were very well mounted. But what pleased me most was not the perfectly kept and equipped hunters of high Hibernian ancestry, creatures of noble height and figure, but the useful cobs and ponies of the lighter-pursed people. I noted, indeed, one heavy agriculturist on a delightfully eager pony who was on fire to get away. While he frisked and pawed the ground and champed his bit, his rider sat like a statue. Yet, no doubt, he was at heart quite as much excited as his mount. There will not be a reader of these words in England who has not often seen such ponies at covert side. ‘‘They are not china dishes, but very good dishes’”’ —not five-hundred-guinea hunters, but, all the same, very good things to be on the back of on a November morning. I was not in the saddle myself. A traveller cannot bring clothes for all occasions with him; but I confess to a feeling of heart-ache as I saw the field trot off after hounds when the Master moved away. I heard later from my hostess that they ‘‘had not done much.’”’ I did not attempt to fathom 4]a eee el . ee ener ee ana Oe ~ aie a fat er ster ea Sapo ain teed ~ + neat PSS ee re ems ee ee te a ee ee eae @mre3l tT uh i Hf Saas oe rn eo nual AMERICAN SOUNDINGS the exact meaning of that remark—words which throughout the English-speaking world may cover anything from a glorious run to a mere saunter in the woods and fields in search of a fox which isn’t there, though report has made him loom as large as a bear and as swift as a dromedary. But this was not the only piece of New England that I saw. For example, I remember much nearer Boston, yet in the heart of the country, seeing a large and charming wooden country house which looked a hundred years old, but was, gathered, not more than fifty or sixty. It was at the edge of what in England would be called ‘‘a great wood,’’ or in France a forest. This wooded waste had been preserved by the State of Massachusetts and was full of wonderful bridle-paths for riders and pedestrians—paths which the motor ears and trucks were not invited, or even allowed, to use—not that they would want to do so, however. There was nothing but beauty concealed in the woods, and it was always quicker and easier to stick to the fine cement roads which were to be found in their proper places—roads, be it remembered, however, not ugly or vulgarized or mean, but sweeping round the lisiéres of the forest in noble curves or straight runs lke the shaft of some mighty spear flung on the ground. In the course of one of my drives in the neigh- 4:2NEW ENGLAND bourhood of Boston, I passed the battlefield of Lexington and the famous Bridge, and heard on the spot the story of how the farmer sharp- shooters shot down the little column of redcoats as it retreated along the main road and up to the village street. I saw in a retrospective vision the rural riflemen hurrying through the fields on either side of the road, always with good cover for themselves and always with a magnificent target in the little band of soldiers. Though I hope that I possess as much national pride and as much sense of patriotism as most men, I could no more feel a sense of humiliation or defeat at Lexington than I could sustain such emotions on the field of Naseby or of Worcester, or at any other of the places where the armies of the Parliament met and overthrew those of King Charles. Even if, instead of being the Roundhead that I am, I was a Cavalier, the vic- tories of the New Model would not move me in the least. They were political differences of opin- ion fought out on the field, but there is nothing to regret or be unhappy about them. I was not either beaten or victorious when at Dunbar Crom- well gave ‘‘The Lord of Hosts’? as his battle- ery. Just in the same way I was not beaten at Lexington, or Bunker Hill, or at Saratoga. The right side won, and I am as much a participator 43: on = - _ = = ee eee Sota tee tel gti ew irmpeteke eager tem a hd ead + er ey bewildered, confounded, and miserably per- plexed man.’’ And yet with all this, as the neighbours said, he was ‘‘a man who could make a cat laugh.”’ ' Pes Fi: - ey gif ne Soenmees pEpEbee eee rae ee a Le. ut wn - ne? - a Re eee ee mre es ae are eo ee ee et re pantie penne tate er etn I tna - go ge Es A ee conta eee mend ed eat at ——— (Ss om ne a SSeS ES an . eh eS a eee See --= 7 eee “a * net Er ae OP Bese —- nareen HI . — a = se < CHARTER x 1x THE SHORE-WATERS OF LITERA- TURE—THE SATIRISTS REMEMBER a friend of mine telling me when I was a young man—indeed, while I was still at Oxford—that he had been over to Paris and seen something of M. Taine. Taine, seeing that he wished to learn something about the French people, said to him that it was essential that he should be a reader of Balzac. From Balzac, the master of interpretative fiction, as from no other source, could one get at the essence of the French nation. That, no doubt, is as true of France to-day as it was forty-five years ago. Is there any modern novelist who can be used for a similar purpose as regards America? As far as I can see, read or hear, there is none. And, curiously enough, a similar answer would have to be given in the case of England. America has had great Masters of Fiction in the past, and has them, I believe, also in the present; but their keys will not unlock the doors I want to open. 1907 tee trhi eth Pat pmaPonr | a Pees Renee! ICH ESA Lele So The extreme characteristic impression of the American people must be found elsewhere. The man who comes nearest to being an inter- preter by the novel is Mr. Sinclair Lewis. But his interpretation, though most poignant in cer- tain ways, deals only with a section of the Union. Let it not be supposed that I mean by this that his satire is not true, or again that it does not perform a most useful function. It is true and it has been, I believe, of great service to his country- men. But it is not the whole truth. The satirist in words, like the caricaturist, is bound for his special purposes to exaggerate, and, therefore, to distort. Only in that way can he make his work actual. The American nation is not composed of Bab- bitts; but there are many Babbitts in it, and it was of importance that the Babbitt element should be made visible. It could, however, only be made visible enough to goad the community into a re- duction of Babbittism by satiric exaggeration. Satire is like a strong medicine. It is often necessary to take it as a remedy, but it must never be forgotten that neither nations nor men can live upon drugs. No doubt Mr. Sinclair Lewis fully realizes this himself, for one notes that in his book, Arrowsmith, the appeal is far wider, and therefore far less satirical than it was in 19]ee ee ee tee ns Tg) ee ee nip ind Qerenargeminerteainneen Sepity Nee Bnew eal On eo ee ee ee eed a Pe me Net 5 er . rea a Rien tie Se — ee Se a Dee ee Ponape sieaishneuntcnresnneettgeaghpashann akhensupaameren ness AMERICAN SOUNDINGS Babbitt or in Main Street. Indeed, it is quite pos- sible that Mr. Sinclair Lewis may, like the Cuckoo, change his note in the June of his life and develop into a Balzac. Meantime, all lovers of good literature will wish him success and a sood voyage, and that ‘‘pleasant weather’’ which used to be so charmingly and so courteously entered upon the logs of our naval forbears. There is another satirical critic of his country whom I must eliminate from my tale of literary interpreters, Mr. Mencken. Mr. Mencken is a full- blown satirist and a man whose pen is like that described by Browning, when Dante gave his ‘‘daily dreadful line”’ to Florence. Peradventure with a pen corroded Still by drops of that hot ink he dipped for When, his left-hand wv’ the hatr o’ the wicked, Back he held the brow and pricked its stigma, Bit into the live man’s flesh for parchment, Loosed him, laughed to see the writing rankle, Let the wretch go festering through Florence. That is a not inaccurate picture of Mr. Men- cken’s methods. The only difference is that his victims go festering through Boston, New Yorks Washineton, Philadelphia, or Chicago, rather than through the flower-crowned capital of all the 192> ea eas) Ta ee: : aaa grey yeas ‘ | ; a eeu eu is Fl A teal a PLEPUARVC ROAR BL ELERE ESR EREI aeeeatnihae Pepe Te aera aaah! ae Epp ephap ee iatst TREETESEUEUERUS TET ET EE etand pvpa Gee ed EP EP a be PUPAE aa : THER SS Avi lehao sch, Arts. But, though his vitriolic methods rule out Mr. Mencken for my purpose, I do not want it to be supposed for a moment that I condemn him because he is a satirist or for the other reasons which have made so many of his countrymen resent his books. I do not think that his writings give a true picture of America—I am absolutely sure they do not—nor am I surprised that they cause so much acute annoyance and make so many Amerl- cans hold their noses. Mr. Mencken’s case is that he is engaged in the work of clearing out the drains and dust-bins of America, with the results usual to such processes. There has been dust and bad odour and discomfort. But, when that hap- pens, the wise householder does not curse the builder or the sanitary engineer, or attribute the sickening smells and ‘‘horrible revelations’’ in regard to the locations of cesspools and sewers to the men who are coping with the nuisance. He may curse his fate and get into a very bad temper; but he realizes that the fault was with himself or with his predecessors in putting in a faulty system, or in failing to keep it in repair or to do the periodical cleaning which was neces- sary. Just in the same way, Mr. Mencken may urge that he is not to be blamed for the exposures he 193ee te ge ee pre nee 22 Man Ce TN ET a en ae ee Pe we te | ‘ ay pnb ny ate ——ee SF SSS Ot Oe IS. ae canine MET Dade * tte a thd tose S58 te een aah sien nee er i re, eee a oe A ee te ee ee I A ol Sea ‘ int — — eee Nhe a ED Fy nt Se siesta eatieisetiemmeadiaie Sa Ne eae ena a i ee ee, ee SS — AMERICAN SOUNDINGS has made. On the contrary, the American people ought to be grateful to him for his indications and ‘‘pointers’’ as to where trouble is to be found. He has not caused, and is not responsible for, the nausea which he creates, and if, instead of exposing and forcing the nation to take notice of its bad drains and overflowing dust-bins, he had tried to throw:a veil over them, or to camou- flage them in patchouli, he would only have made the mess worse. It is the old, old story that it is much better to wash your dirty linen in public than not to wash it at all. The annoyance which the public washing of the said dirty linen before the whole town creates, acts as an excellent deter- rent and preventive. People who have once been forced by exposure to wash their dirty lien in public take good care to be less higgledy- piggledy in their ways. If that is Mr. Mencken’s case, as I presume it is, then I fully acknowledge its force. All that I am saying applies in a very special degree to Mr. Mencken’s ‘‘Americana.’’ If the book reprinting the monthly statements of Mr. Mencken’s magazine claims to be a true and repre- sentative picture of America as she is, it would be an outrageous falsehood. The situation would be exactly analogous to a picture of the faulty sewage system in a great and beautiful house inscribed as 194CUSTER ie eee BAROAR AY eP ' ; ICHCE Scares ‘affording an excellent view of the chief archi- tectural features of Mr. Smith’s stately home on Long Island, or in Wilts, or Somerset,’’ or wher- ever it might be. As well judge a beautiful child by the fact that he or she has been playing in the mud and has her cheeks covered with streaks of dirt. In the case of ‘‘ Americana,’’ the likeness to the cleaning out of the domestic dust-bin is uncan- nily exact. J may remind English readers that Mr. Mencken’s method is to collect every kind of folly, ineptitude, perversion and general idiocy out of the daily, weekly and monthly minor press of America, and then to ask the American public what they think of such horrors and stupidity. If they are wise, what they will think of them is exactly what a man would think if the bodies of several dead cats, bits of semi-putrid meat and other sordid remains were brought out of his neg- lected dust-bin, arranged upon the dining-room table, and he and his family were thereupon asked whether they did not feel humiliated and disgraced by living in a house where such thing's could hap- pen. A sensible family would, of course, look for a remedy, but they would not fling things at the heads of the discoverers of the horrors just de- picted. At the same time, no man of common sense would have his judgment deflected for a 195 H “ie : eepreeeeyt. fir ore ee as or - a en ae a et en ee r" a Pig eer nat — mh—S S ~ = oe eee ee eo rene ace re OG “ wo nde eT =" . a aes ~ _ Se ical aaaieciamesemmaneenenennelineeteaiaitincie inanimate ee cai Sen he gene aw a ae rey vy deans Shy Peet eed a Oe eee 2 AMERICAN SOUNDINGS moment by the fact that all the nauseous speci- mens were actually found in a neighbour’s dust- bin. A nation is no more to be judged by the contents of its dust-bin, however squalid, than is a family. This view of the case is, of course, perfectly well understood in America, even by those who are most annoyed by the publication of Mr. Mencken’s books. The real trouble and misunderstanding begin when his books are offered for the perusal of the British public. They in their ignorance, and especially, as the source of communication is American, think that the extracts are significant and even typical. The ordinary Englishman has little standard of comparison in things American. When he sees an extract from The Tucson Citizen, or El Paso Fiery Cross or The Arkansas Demo- crat, he attaches far more importance to them than he should or than does any normal American. Again, though it was most useful that the folly, fatuity and incredible ignorance shown in so many of the ‘‘clippings’? from small-town journals should be embalmed in ‘‘Americana’’ as ‘‘awful warnings,’’ who can doubt that when presented to a non-American public they should have been prefaced with a caveat as to their relative value? No doubt, Mr. Mencken in his preface says, and says very well, what I have striven to say above 196veenee: PUR Rean aa ] veka 1 rae PLUPahPae: iyi) TAPCO TPPEA EAD ERAT pee TELE SS ATA Tels £ but it is not enough. Here are his actual words: ‘‘But those who see only humour in these fantas- tic paragraphs see only half that is in them. Fundamentally, nine-tenths of them are serious in intent, and they are all presented here for a quite serious purpose. That purpose, one of the main aims of The American Mercury, is to make the enlightened minority of Americans familiar, by documentary evidence, with what is going on in the minds of the masses—the great herd of undifferentiated, good-humoured, goose-stepping, superstitious, sentimental, credulous, striving, romantic American people. Some of the ideas cherished by that herd are obviously insane. Many others stand in sharp opposition to every- thing that civilized men regard as decorous and for the common weal. But it must be obvious that no headway can be made in opposing and changing those ideas until it is known clearly what they are. The following collection is pre- sented as material to that end.”’ That is sound enough, but when he goes on to say that, though not completely comprehensive, his book is ‘‘thoroughly and representatively American,’’ it is obvious that the smell of the dust- bin has got upon his nerves. Once more, vt 1s no more ‘‘representatively American’’ than a dirty and neglected dust-bin in Chester Square or Eaton 197 yeeeiowtaehegre a ne pet nhl a ll rng SE SRE ETE a ee - ee ba ee! Ri ES armed es i Rae retewoe, eee ee ee bh ate oa et ee em ee _ — - -- eS ee denen oe oe [reetiagisidnai>arn hr eeetenrnteaniesetahamtaieeendanennietties aaa nates ae | 7 OE I rn es EE a ens enn an ee a — ee eee ee eee ee ew a a < Pa re - - — a ee sth gemma, — f ‘ ta i Wy A i ay At) ie RE AME EECAN SOUNDINGS Square is representative of the architectural charm of Belgravia. Mr. Mencken’s insistence that his English read- ers shall roll in his selected American dust-bins is made infinitely worse by his ‘‘ Notes for Foreign Students.’’ Here, if anywhere, he should have entered his caveats against misrepresentation. Instead, he gives more and more cause for mis- understanding. If the notes were addressed to American readers, they would do good, not harm. Addressed to what he ealls ‘‘Foreign Students,’’ their effect is utterly untruthful and so mischiev- ous. The fact is, Mr. Mencken falls into the dan- ger always present with the satirist. He is so much in love with his art and his skilful handling of it that he cannot get away from the exaggera- tion which is a part of that art. All the same, there is much that is exceedingly amusing in the said Notes. I shall not quote his more ferocious entries, because to do so fairly would mean disquisitions for which I have no room. I cannot, however, forbear quoting the following description of Tennessee as an example of what I may call Mr. Mencken’s ‘‘sherry-and- bitters’’ style. ‘‘Tennessee.—In Tennessee a_school-teacher was lately fined $100 for teaching Evolution to his pupils. Such heresies are prohibited by a 198- eee wiyelipiett : ; eRLLebueal i ‘ eeu a ne | i. ‘ ean PERRORDREIHADAE ERR EEL OE SOR AHTLERES ETS Pad CARTER PAA DRGOAAPTCATOARUERGTRDERAEEL RTA ET PaaPoepe. Peiati ! ; i] ' peLU Raa Pa peek il DHACTEAPASAEPERIEREE TT tEAbah ' PPaRPREeaE POE Pad ti! PARAL WHE Ee ; THE SALTLIRIST State law. Tennessee is controlled by the Primi- tive Baptists, and is only half civilized. It has no statesmen. A few poets lurk in one of its so- called universities, but the Polozet are preparing to rout them out. It is universally believed in Tennessee that if one puts a horse-hair into a bottle of water it will turn into a snake.’’ Mr. Mencken’s ‘‘Glossary’’ is even more ‘‘mal- iceful’’? and more misleading, and also, I must in fairness say, tickles the palate more cleverly than even the Notes. Here are some mild instances: ‘‘EHminent.—Applied to a politician, the word means that he is not actually in jail for corruption. Applied to a newspaper, it means nothing.’’ “Infant Damnation Belt-—That portion of the United States in which the prevailing religion 1s the Presbyterian. It lies mainly long the line of the Appalachian Mountains.”’ “Invisible Empire-—The mystic domain of the Ku Klux Klan. When a peasant is initiated into the Klan he becomes a citizen of the Invisible Empire.”’ ‘‘Red.—Any man who advocates or believes in any political idea not commonly accepted, In America Nietzsche and John Stuart Mill would be Reds.”’ ‘‘Red-Blooded—Full of pugnacity, and eager to protect female virtue and the honour of the flag. 199. ee Speer abr teeta eae eT ee Te = r eee es ba Sg ee a a) et ee in SS Saas oe roe teeny, Fre: Pe aes re ae oer para = ane " Fame : : aniatbaieetin pe ad s ee eee a — —see + oa ae tea enti * Sm ec ee tee ee a ee a a Ae a mn es ee eh ee bee La - F neca penta eases Pad Wagon ia a ema ok ES ne i " ee nt re . a Te r \ i P S-——reeel en rent AMERICAN SOUNDINGS The American Legion is composed mainly of red- blooded men. So are all the lynching parties.’’ That these definitions are as witty as they are spiteful I will not deny. I will also not merely refrain from denying, but thoroughly agree with the proposition that it is a good thing for Ameri- cans, who may be trusted to understand their rela- tive importance, to read ‘‘ Americana.’’ When, however, they are put forth as samples of the real America and of American ways of thought, I must repeat that the so-called ‘‘self- portrait of the American people’’ is nothing less than a sham, a delusion and a snare. To declare, as does the wrapper of Mr. Menck- en’s English edition of ‘‘Americana”’ that ‘‘they offer a singularly intimate and revelatory insight into the daily life and thought of the American people’’ is one of the most monstrous exaggera- tions ever perpetrated. Again, the statement that ‘‘the book is a cinema epitome of American life’’ has about as much sense and truth in it as to accept the absurd and ridiculous pictures of American millionaires’ country palaces, shown us in the movies, as faithful representations of the places in which the majority of the rich men of America live. But, though I cannot but make my protest against the possibility of Mr. Mencken’s bitter 200TTTTTTTHSHU MITT PAST UALR THEA SA RCH AI Faas bua ean a ‘4 iL! a RAGA Eh | ; , J '. } TOM EES ALT hel Sei waters being regarded as the ‘‘sealed fountain’’ of America, I must admit that as a fisher in dust- bins he shows a most amazing if impish aptitude. Take for example this extract, chosen at ran- dom: ‘‘Bditorial Pronunciamento of the celebrated Flint ‘Daily Herald’ ‘Any man of the twentieth Century who will . . stand for Evolution is not, despite his ap- pearance from a physical standpoint, a member of the race of human-kind. ... The very fact that the sun rises in the east EVERY MORNING and sets in the west EVERY EVENING, is sufficient proof for most or us that there is a God. Why doesn’t it set in the norTH once in a while for a change? BECAUSE THAT ISN’T GOD’S PLAN.’’ This, if given us as a piece of unconscious humour by a congenital idiot, is well worthy of our laughter. If given as ‘‘representative of America,’’ one can only say that it is no more that than a similar extract from an editorial in The Little Pedlington Beagle would be representative of English public opinion. Before I leave ‘‘ Americana’’ I cannot do better than remind Mr. Mencken of two pronouncements by Thales. When asked what was the most diffi- 201ier a eee SS eee a eee er ee eee ree ae Tee as i . = 3 at EEEEEneee saa taanens PS ee be eee ele art eee De! Sree eae neato re " = = er ee oe ee r) eT ee Ce ee eS — ~ - oer on == anes reel + eon Pe ee a Oe tT -. SS ne wat — AMERICAN SOUNDINGS cult thing in the world, he declared, ‘‘ Knowing oneself.’? When he was asked what was the easi- est, he said, ‘‘Giving good advice to other people.’’ Mr. Mencken may, of course, apply these remarks to me as I have applied them to him. Anyway, I wish him better sense of the relative values of dust-bins than he seems to possess at the present moment. At the same time, if he replies, ‘‘ Kindly tell me how I am to get the dust-bins cleaned if I don’t rub people’s noses in them,’’ I confess I shall not easily find an adequate answer. And now, having delivered my soul, let me be allowed to present my readers with a harmless but preposterously amusing extract from an ad- vertisement of a sermon discovered by the lynx eye of Mr. Mencken in some little Kentucky news- sheet. ‘“The Service of God in Owensboro as reported by the eminent Messenger. ‘¢¢Solomon a Six Cylinder Sport. Could you handle as many wives and concubines as this old Bird?’ Rev. B. G. Hodge will preach on this sub- ject Sunday night at Settle Memorial.’’ It is a priceless effort, and I confess that if I had seen it when it was ‘‘hot,’’ I would have walked bare-foot for a mile in the snow to see how the theme was treated by the Reverend B. G. Hodge. 202Seapiubeeu| PLOT RAPER UEP a eae aee | TT oe. "Pi veatalt. LEHTTELEUOEEA PLES PRGHA CAAT PERALSELSiEAL beat mots Tel SA Aer eas Though my Soundings in the waters of Satire have not yielded me a full interpretation of the American People, or anything approaching there- to, I have without question learned a good deal from them. They are lowering clouds im the sky- background of the picture. They have their place in the scene, though they do not constitute it. They teach us little but our soul Has heard them like the thunder roll. To what I have written above of the Satirists I cannot resist the temptation to write a word or two by way of Postscript. I have made no attempt to take a general view of modern American satire, and therefore I have said nothing of many writers who would necessarily have been included had I been engaged in constructing a Conspectus. All the same I must name two writers—out of mere eratitude and because they both shook my sides— Anita Loos’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is a liter- ary tour de force, worthy to be compared with Swift’s Advice to Servants. The calculated in- anity, bad grammar and sordid introspection, are maintained with an unbroken and courageous pre- cision which is positively devastating. Let me 1m- plore Anita Loos not to ‘‘let go’’ of her oift, but to use it to good purposes, public as well as lit- 203 SG NT A Rtn en anne a Se aaa ee ch gtr pra RL ak tap nme re ae eae a a he Petit EUV APRA aA Pures rere BE REL ee4eyt Titel gg try aT - [Ie = arrest dentin nse en, SLIP anneal i eats e igtae ht = See een Cee ey Oey eee ee ae ar, oe ere or os - pair ——> 6 Nl St Pht Se on See - = _ Ce a ah a thet he q bal ' ‘ ; / io rt ae J ; ; 7 at 7 ee i is Ty eo t% i ‘se ee a * — = SSNPS ed pi AMERICAN SOUNDINGS erary. Why should she not give us a memoir of the Machine Politician, the organizing Philan- thropist and a Chieftain of the Ku Klux Klan! If she does, let her draw no conclusions and no morals. They will be automatically obtained by her power of stripping the masque and show the creature underneath. Another delightful piece of satire is Friends of Mr. Sweeney. The author has a lightning lunge and a bright blade. Let him use them to ‘‘make the knaves skip.”CH APD ER Xx EMERSON AVING dismissed the novelists and even the satirists as of little use to my main purpose, I come to reflective literature —to the ‘‘gnomic poets’? and the essayists. Here, rightly or wrongly, I am in no sort of doubt. I chose Lincoln and Jefferson as my two represen- tative men in the sphere of action. I take Kmer- son and Walt Whitman as my interpreters in the realm of literature. They represent two strands in the American web, just as did my two states- men. You cannot understand America, and Amer- ica as a whole, unless you know Kmerson, the man with the mystic mind, and Walt Whitman, who brought the spirit of the pioneer into his poetry and his philosophy. Emerson was didactic in the best sense—a born interpreter and master of Exegesis. He had a power of creating ‘‘slogans’’ and pregnant say- ings such as have always delighted, and I believe always will delight, Americans. Take, for exam- ple, his wonderful phrase to cover the minor men 205 ™ Be ka a ae ag ne rt ee el hee ee eek ent Le Se a ee _ a ee eea re. mE a ee a ee ne eas Se | + weg Fede t 7 cals nate ao SA ook oom Paynes nr So Serene See eames nee tee a xa OE a . = ee tenet ate _ * Se Me tae uaetiamapaetinapieit eicertapeanatlliestiaiinaemed a wi es ~ nae: a a aw es een — aS a a ie oo - ap | aE ——- “ , AMERICAN SOUNDINGS in great causes—‘‘For the press of Knights not every brow can receive the laurel.’’ ‘‘Beat it,”’ as Mr. Babbitt would say. For its purpose it is quite perfect. Again, what a wealth of illumina- tion is to be found in the phrase, ‘‘Things are in the saddle!’’ The great epoch of mechanical tri- umph was never better ushered in than by that in- spired and soul-shaking phrase. Though the book may have certain minor mis- takes and disabilities, what on the whole could be better than Emerson’s English Traits? It is unique as a piece of national anatomy and must always be the despair of any one who, like me, is attempting to discharge a similar task. The way in which he contrives to be critical in the best sense and yet, at the same time, intensely sympa- thetic to the subject of his anatomy, is not only a marvel of art, but makes Emerson one of the heroes of English literature. The old home of the race, our vital Motherland, and the English-speak- ing States grouped round her in the Empire, could not have a better testimony to character and pur- pose than is contained in the last chapter of the Traits called ‘‘Result,’’ and in the speech made by Emerson at Manchester in 1847. Though they are both, no doubt, well known to the larger part of the American public and to the more judicious portion’ of the English, who have never let Hmer- 206irisiyt raha eS | veh PARR E Tea a he eee bene a iateae EET Pea } ib : eer ls =—— peer ee ange a ee ee Pr Ss EMERSON son be wholly forgotten, I cannot resist the temp- tation to condense and quote. The summing-up chapter begins with the tre- mendous sentence, ‘‘Hingland is the best of actual nations.’’ ‘‘QLondon,’’ he goes on, ‘‘is the epit- ome of our times and the Rome of to-day.’’ There is boldness as well as generosity in such words; but what follows shows that they are not the words of flattery, but of careful consideration. “‘Hngland,’’? Emerson goes on, ‘‘is tenderhearted. Rome was not.’’ And then follows a shrewd hit, but one which is probably deserved—‘‘ Truth in private life, untruth in public, makes these home- loving men’’—and a great deal more hard eriti- cism, some of which is obsolete and some, alas! much needed to-day. Later a line of exploration is followed which I must claim for my purpose, for, curiously enough, the picture which Emerson paints has most amaz- ingly close analogies to the America of to-day and shows incidentally how hard is the burden which aman takes upon himself who tries to take sound- ings in national waters. Take for example, the explanation: ‘““What we must say about a nation is a super- ficial dealing with symptoms. We cannot go deep enough into the biography of the spirit who never throws himself entire into one hero, but delegates 207 rs . 5 — : : ; CH PECREUS! a PERE ET Pears Petty t eee 4p TAg PETE ULATED LY UREA CCR SURREAL PARA PAL DRUPAR AEE, ' Pa ALRnena ata er mat ll a mt pte ta thet ite a i Se Ei a as as ms et ee a ec ————— — ee ST ee ee ee —e ee 2a... = — oes ee ee — at warn a a vw % DS — “ rr = AME ETCAN SOUNDINGS his energy in parts of spasms to vicious and de- fective individuals. But the wealth of the source is seen in the plenitude of English nature... . It is a people of myriad personalities. ... ‘‘Their mind is in a state of arrested develop- ment—a divine cripple, like Vulcan; a blind sa- vant, like Huber and Sanderson. They do not occupy themselves on matters of general and last- ing import, but on a corporeal civilization, on eoods that perish in the using. But they read with oood intent, and what they learn they incarnate. The English mind turns every abstraction it can receive into a portable utensil, or a working inst1- tution. Such is their tenacity, and such their prac- tical turn, that they hold all they gain. Hence we say that only the Engish race can be trusted with freedom—freedom which is double-edged and dangerous to any but the wise and robust. The English designate the kingdoms emulous of free institutions as the sentimental nations.’’ Substitute the word ‘‘American,’’ and I might steal the whole passage. The quotation that fol- lows, though less of it can be applied to America, is so good that I eannot resist the temptation to quote it. ‘There is a cramp limitation in their habit of thought, sleepy routine and a tortoise’s instinct to hold hard to the ground with his claws, lest 208a OTE TES ee AFHTEAURARTALEATTOPRULEALL PERS LAE ERA ET Coat be EMERSON he should be thrown on his back. . . . They praise this drag, under the formula, that it is the excel- lence of the British Constitution, that no law can anticipate the public opinion. These poor tor- toises must hold hard, for they feel no wings sprouting out at their shoulders. Yet somewhat divine warms at their heart and waits a happier hour. It hides in their sturdy will. ‘Will,’ said the old philosophy, ‘is the measure of power,’ and personality is the token of this race. Quid vult valde vult. What they do they do with a will. You cannot account for their success by their Christianity, commerce, charter, common law, Parliament or letters, but by the contumacious, sharp-tongued energy of the English naturel, with a poise impossible to disturb, which makes all these its instruments. They are slow and reti- cent, and are like a dull good horse which lets every nag pass him, but with whip and spur will run down every racer in the field. They are right in their feeling, though wrong in their specula- tion. ‘“‘The power of performance has not been ex- ceeded—the creation of value. The Hnglish have given importance to individuals, a principal end and fruit of every society. Every man is allowed and encouraged to be what he is and is guarded 209 f PRUTPLEPTLOCEUELEOR AP OAL. SEPERATE !——— ad ee eS ST ee 2a tate " oe ~ ——+— oe pace heh ndierk eames eeamnieaton we eee een et rede eeeny Fence tye reel a ahaa iin A — — = ESS Sa to eT, on =< aagegeenipsan - Sn - —— _ - ~ a ee } ae iS a ee Ee we rere ne ee ee ay sae AMERICAN SOUNDINGS in the indulgence of his whim. ‘Magna Charta,’ said Rushworth, ‘is such a fellow that he will have no sovereign.’ By this general activity, and by this sacredness of individuals, they have in seven hundred years evolved the principles of freedom. It is the land of patriots, martyrs, sages and bards, and if the ocean out of which it emerged should wash it away, it will be remembered as an island famous for immortal laws, for the an- nouncements of original right which make the stone tables of liberty.”’ I must follow this with another indulgence for myself, because it is so uncannily significant at the present hour. When Emerson was on his famous visit to England, 7.e. in 1847, he went in the November of that year to dine at the Man- chester Atheneum’s annual banquet in the Free Trade Hall. I know not what the delivery of the speech was like, but its matter was notable in a high degree. It is precious to an Englishman as a eulogy of his country and its people; but still more precious because, though Emerson did not know it or in- tend it, it is a eulogy of the race asa whole. Take, for example: ‘‘That which lures a solitary American in the ee 1 As a matter of fact, it was said by that great lawyer Lord Coke. 210THPURP OPT ET ERTL aay SST ee PESTER TE TELE ATEUTpet tae EMERSON woods with the wish to see England is the moral peculiarity of the Saxon race—its commanding sense of right and wrong—the love and devotion to that—this is the imperial trait, which arms them with the sceptre of the globe. It is this which les at the foundation of that aristocratic character, which certainly wanders into strange vagaries, so that its origin is often lost sight of, but which, if it should lose this, would find itself paralysed; and in trade, and in the mechanic’s shop, gives that honesty in performance, that thor- oughness and solidity of work, which is a national characteristic. ‘This conscience is one element, and the other is that loyal adhesion, that habit of friendship, that homage of man to man, running through all classes—the electing of worthy per- sons to a certain fraternity, to acts of kindness and warm and staunch support, from year to year, from youth to age—which is alike lovely and hon- ourable to those who render and those who re- ceive it—which stands in strong contrast with the superficial attachments of other races, their exces- sive courtesy and short-lived connection.’’ At this point Emerson turns from the general to the particular. The moment at which he spoke was one of terrible depression—the culmination of the horrors of the Hungry Forties—a period infinitely worse and more menacing for the future 211 SUFFI LEA ees | Le RT ADR RD PARE CRS en PO Paeget tiaras Lasley Se dpic cerinsony © shines: aati encai-es ' e444 = —. tet nls Lieeese . PTT es eet lene 8 ~ o a as oh ee bh mapa Spyies parma = - x ik dec eae — tiny aad Le eae - “ - S ’ . Sn Ek pe peabaeee 7 Se eee nm tebe wr t™ lata Se ee ee ee Re Eee ee , Sr Ra = ae Se tr —— _ ae Soizi IS ~ Sn ee eee ee ee —— eerie art oe — an a | 1) ‘@ Gt tf vi a as are Be a a ree AMERICAN SOUNDINGS than is our present time of distress and discon- tent. Close on the passage just quoted comes the following: ‘¢T think it just, in this time of gloom and com- mercial disaster, of affliction and beggary in these districts, that, on these very accounts I speak of, you should not fail to keep your literary anniver- sary. I seem to hear you say that, for all that is come and gone yet, we will not reduce by one chaplet or one oak-leaf the braveries of our annual feast. For I must tell you, I was given to under- stand in my childhood, that the British island from which my forefathers came was no lotus-garden, no paradise of serene sky and roses and music and merriment all the year round; no, but a cold, foggy, mournful country, where nothing grew well in the open air, but robust men and virtuous women, and these of a wonderful fibre and endur- ance, that their best parts were slowly revealed; their virtues did not come out until they quar- relled; they did not strike twelve the first time; good lovers, good haters, and you could know little about them till you had seen them long and little good of them till you had seen them in action; that in prosperity they were moody and dampish, but in adversity they were grand. Is it not true, sir, that the wise ancients did not praise the ship part- ing with flying colours from the port, but only that BieAUHUNEPAT OAL AV HALA LEELA ead bal ett eobea eta EMERSON brave sailer which came back with torn sheets and battered sides, stript of her banners, but having ridden out the storm? And so, gentlemen, I feel in regard to this aged England, with the posses- sions, honours and trophies, and also with the infirmities, of a thousand years gathering around her, irretrievably committed as she now is to many old customs which cannot be suddenly changed: pressed upon by the transitions of trade and new and all incalculable modes, fabrics, arts, machines and competing populations—I see her not dispir- ited, not weak, but well remembering that she has seen dark days before—indeed with a kind of in- stinct that she sees a little better in a cloudy day, and that in storm of battle and calamity, she has a secret vigour and a pulse like a cannon. I see her in her old age, not decrepit, but young and still daring to believe in her power of endurance and expansion. Seeing this, I say, All hail! mother of nations, mother of heroes, with strength still equal to the time; still wise to entertain and swift to execute the policy which the mind and heart of mankind requires in the present hour, and thus only hospitable to the foreigner, and truly a home to the thoughtful and generous who are born in the soil. So be it! So let it be! If it be not so, if the courage of England goes with chances of a commercial crisis, I will go back to 213 TTT TELA PEATE CRUELLA eaa AEE A PRR DERE R aa pee Pea a Rin ES geantans seers Be a 4 Ps s eet renin ta vere Peet Se oe oe ee eee ee | — eo eer egy pe anata ak jel pp eee + beni, nae np a a olin! a ——————— SS Se Eee ee Ce ee ee ee oe Sy ett ee ws — Fn i 4 a a et sO ne eae AMERICAN SOUNDINGS the capes of Massachusetts and my own Indian stream, and say to my countrymen, the old race are all gone and the elasticity and hope of man- kind must henceforth remain on the Alleghany ranges, or nowhere.”’ That is a noble passage, and here again I must say that below the eulogy of England is a miracu- lously exact comprehension of the spirit of the English-speaking race. No wonder that the best men in England loved and respected Emerson and that he should have engaged the affection of such different contemporaries as Carlyle and Matthew Arnold, and that in the next generation men lke John Morley were to become his devotees! Remember, it is not an easy thing for men to praise the heroes of the generation just behind them. Generally the ground ‘‘fifty years ago”’’ is the blind spot of the intellectual field. Personally I have felt for a very long time that the gold-mine of Emerson’s works cannot much longer remain unvisited. I look therefore for a revival of Emerson and the Emersonian mood of mind. I shall be as much surprised as disap- pointed if it does not come in the course of the next few years. However, I have got to deal at the moment, not with a coming revival of Emerson, but with 214Sa eubeepeatnebaiheuty WERE ea? hy Se 1 | sity The fyedtrl! Toit Send cte LD saeGee SOLA Hany PrTRLLTATE Eph] rt a prtadta Fi e , | . EMERSON his period of temporary eclipse. I must pass on now to my second ‘‘representative man’’—the phrase, remember, is Hmerson’s and was used by him with great poignancy—that is, Walt Whit- man. O i / : Py en A EN a TS SS ae See ee ney aren. a eee ie Re ee Le — GEA AEP ae a aaa parasae ee et ty oe Pee | - tet — - ~ a 4 ve —. ee ae ee ee ee pan tay mem oe mE pds — ies —— EF br en ore Oe ee Ee Pe a ns Fone en a oe es eas — te a ee lee a armen al» a nS ee ee pl ao s ‘<—e en GHVACE hh Xk WALT WHITMAN HITMAN is, I confess, an even more difficult literary figure to tackle than the man I have placed as his opposite number. It would be much more difficult to get the ordinary average American of to-day to admit that Walt Whitman is his interpreter than to ex- tract a similar admission as regards Hmerson. But, though the average man may ignore or deny Walt Whitman’s ability to interpret him, the fact remains that, if we go below the surface, America has few better expositors than the author of Leaves of Grass. His sympathy and understand- ing are amazing. He not only divined the truth about his country and his countrymen in his own hour, but saw with prophetic vision the way in which America would develop. Curiously enough, my claim that Whitman’s countrymen can never be properly understood either by themselves or by outsiders without the help of the poet, can best be shown by a reference 216yh? , ‘ ‘TPULsat “ ro leh eats ree aL) 5 ae ‘ ; ‘ ~~ iT id See aeee eek TLTAUTETOGATETETAT EL ELGaudumpenT PTAA UG aRET LEAT ATEZUT AT OLUEOETLARAEAPRUTALATL EEA Le DL atEa boat PELEADGERTS ARERR EaRE Patek eakee) ORME Pci easee se piel Ba WALT WHITMAN to Walt Whitman’s criticism of his own works. When he published his last volume of poems, November Boughs, in 1888, he introduced it with a preface which is a vivid epitome of his charac- terizations of himself and of the Republic. He calls it ‘‘A Backward Glance o’er Travel’d Roads,’’ but, as will be seen, it is a great deal more than that. He begins by an excellent story of Champollion, the Egyptian expert and explorer. On his death- bed he handed the revised proof of his Egyptian Grammar to the printer with a remark memorable for its gaiety, happiness and good sense. ‘‘Be careful of this—it is my carte de visite to pos- terity.”’ In the same way, said Whitman, his Leaves of Grass was his carte de visite to the com- ing generations of the New World. Walt Whitman believed that there must be a realignment of human energy and force in view of the readjustments and discoveries of Science and the changes in the fabric of human society, and he believed further that America was destined to be the leader in the work. In spite of his love and veneration for the literature of the past, he was in every fibre of his body a modernist and, as became an American modernist, he was an opti- mist and a humanist. It was America’s vocation, as he believed, to display the new things and the 217as = gee + ere ee i ee hentia tinaeinantd ~~ - SC ag mel ee ar meh git a RNa 4 - ed — ——— $- a as AMERICAN SOUNDINGS New World, and he did his very best to make sure that the interpretation should be clear and authentic. ‘(Tn the centre of all, and object of all, stands the Human Being, towards whose heroic and spiritual evolution poems and everything directly or indirectly tend, Old World or New.’’ But it must not be supposed that Whitman was a foolish optimist. He believed in America’s mission and in her future; but he saw great difh- culties and many rocks ahead. In the first place, though an intense believer in true Democracy, he saw where the danger lay. Take, for example, the following passage from ‘‘The Glance Backward”’: ‘CAs for native American individuality, though certain to come, and on a large scale, the distine- tive and ideal type of Western character (as con- sistent with the operative political and even money-making features of United States’ human- ity in the Nineteenth Century as chosen knights, gentlemen and warriors were the ideals of the centuries of Huropean feudalism) it has not yet appear’d. I have allow’d the stress of my poems from beginning to end to bear upon American individuality and assist it—not only because that is a great lesson in Nature, amid all her general- izing laws, but as counterpoise to the levelling 218re SaCHTLNDoa TAD ad Pad aERARRGSRaPRUaTRaRGaL vERIT BEETS at ei unas: ae te | a MET ERAbaN LATE ee FAH APLAR ERLE Lege ? WALT WHITMAN tendencies of Democracy—and for other reasons. Defiant of ostensible literary and other conven- tions, | avowedly chant ‘the ereat pride of man in himself,’ and permit it to be more or less a motif of nearly all my verse. I think this pride indispen- sable to an American. I think it not inconsistent with obedience, humility, deference and self- questioning.” ‘Democracy has been so retarded and jeopard- ized by powerful personalities, that its first in- stincts are fain to clip, conform, bring in strag- elers and reduce everything to a dead level. While the ambitious thought of my son is to help the forming of a great aggregate Nation, it 1s, perhaps, altogether through the forming of myriads of fully develop’d and enclosing indi- viduals. Welcome as are equality’s and frater- nity’s doctrines and po pular education, a certain liability accompanies them all, as we see. That primal and interior something in man, in his soul’s abysms, colouring all, and, by exceptional frui- tions, giving the last majesty to him—something continually touch’d upon and attain’d by the old poems and ballads of feudalism, and often the principal foundation of them—modern science and democracy appear to be endangering, perhaps 4 The italics throughout these quotations are mine. 219 ig ma SS anne rennin Di a aa ee eae | - spe ert art a a Oe aa . tae - ge te a Ses ——— i. oo - ee — — i a - ee ee a aedeae Sa = es = 2 ae ae eee et = or tenet ——— [Pare rig bao cae ren a — ee re eel SSCS F232 ee ae iS —— ea NS ene nh | eon Sr mer h coeeenk, Oe teas SS oe - i ——— —_ AMERICAN SGOUNDINGS eliminating. But that forms an appearance only: the reality is quite different. The new influences, upon the whole, are surely preparing the way for grander wmdiwidualities than ever. To-day and here personal force 1s behind everything, just the same. The times and depictions from the Iliad to Shakespeare inclusive can happily never again be realized—but the elements of courageous and lofty manhood are unchanged.’’ I claim for this passage not only the praise due to great prose, but an insight true and helpful. Most fully and most ardently do I believe with Whitman that Democracy is only appearing to eliminate the heroic side of life. Walt Whitman goes on to declare that his mis- sion was to ‘‘endow the democratic averages of America’’ with the heroism of the older civiliza- tions. There follows a memorable passage, to which I can only put up a finger-post—a passage in which he defends Leaves of Grass from the charges of ‘‘sexuality.’’ ‘“‘T am not going to argue the question by it- self; it does not stand by itself. The vitality of it is altogether in its relations, bearings, signifi- cance—like the clef of a symphony. At last anal- ogy the lines I allude to and the spirit in which they are spoken, permeate all ‘Leaves of Grass,’ and the work must stand or fall with them, as 220Seaheauea { eka Pah i* t ‘ a | i wate beak Pak {THF DSTLATEAREOTTARSAPTATEREALAAT EME ERA coded Pee eee ee ' par a _ | WALT WHITMAN the human body and soul must remain as an entirety. ‘‘Universal as are certain facts and symptoms of communities or individuals all times, there is nothing so rare in modern conventions and poetry as their normal recognizance. Literature is al- ways calling in the doctor for consultation and confession, and always giving evasions and swath- ing suppressions in place of that ‘heroic nudity’ on which only a genuine diagnosis of serious cases ean be built.’’ The passage in regard to literature which I have italicized is incidentally an admirably-phrased piece of criticism. Then follows another memor- able passage, and one which contains what I be- lieve to be the essential and uttermost sublima- tion of Walt Whitman’s poetry and teaching: ““The crowning growth of the United States ws to be spiritual and heroic.’’ If the American world could be taught to keep that vision before their eyes, as I believe they may be taught, there would be little more need of ‘‘Americana’’ and the at- tempts to reform the squalid things of America by dragging her dust-bins into the public street and exposing their contents to the view as typical products of Transatlantic civilization and cul- ture ! But I must not take all my Soundings in Walt 221 SUPT ee eeP n Sicilia ati _— s ee eee ene Pr rs tee ee a Fa Oe aaa a z re : os . Sg rE gine ee my ——' ee wen a oepatrte tent widen n Aen clon ee —~= a ——- ee Sse ee a SS to. nerd emma cs wey Sees aes eet ee St en an = A — ——a = ——— ae -_ AMERICAN SOUNDINGS Whitman from his prose writings. If ever a man was a poet first, last and all the time, it was he. The poems, indeed, are better interpreters of the American spirit than are the prose works, though at the same time they are far more difficult to handle. One who, like me, has been an ardent admirer of Walt Whitman all his life, cannot, however, resist the temptation to give instant proof of why he feels that no one who does not use the Walt Whitman key will ever open the last doors in the psychology of the American people. For myself, I have taken, as may be seen on my title-page, two lines from Walt Whitman as the motto of my book: America! I do not vaunt my love for you, I have what I have. Here are some passages from which what I mean about Whitman may be gathered. But first let me quote the lines ‘‘Inscriptions’’ dedicated “To Foreign Lands,’’ for it shows that I am not claiming anything more for Walt Whitman than he claimed for himself. I heard that you ask’d for something to prove this puzzle the New World, And to define America, her athletic Democracy, 222: teipiets { pratrrerrehy iv cttriaas a peeaaeee Ceauee teal a Lee Gat PALCLPTLPAEAAL AAU PLEA ESLDSEUEEIE PEt bak bid ; pLep egal Rane H 1 WALT WHITMAN Therefore I send you my poems that you behold in them what you wanted. Not less significant and luciferous, though for internal rather than external use, are the lines ‘To a Historian.’’ You who celebrate bygones, Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races, the life that has exhibited itself, Who have treated of man as the creature of poli- tics, aggregates, rulers and priests, I, habitant of the Alleghanes, treating of hm as he is in himself in his own rights, Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom ex- hibited itself (the great pride of man m himself), Chanter of Personality, outlinng what rs yet to be, I project the history of the future. Next to these passages I will put the deeply moving lines ‘‘As I Ponder’d in Silence’’—lines which surely are enough without anything more being said to prove the fatuousness and folly of those who still mumble and mutter things about Walt Whitman’s ‘‘uncouthness,’’ ‘¢wildness’’ and “total want of melody and art.’’ 223 aiLe UREAPUATRAPOU Le ee? Pepe" ao ee - a ee ” —w a eee eee ee he eee te eet ~—2ri4 total Me - > a= me he - ones ee scaeaernaareatnar iad ao ae AMERICAN SOUNDINGS As a wheel on its axis turns, ths book unwitting to itself, Around the idea of thee. Again, how poignant, if properly understood, is the inscription entitled ‘‘To the States.’’ To the States or any one of them, or any city of the States, Resist much, obey little. Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved, No nations, state, city of this earth, ever after- ward resumes its liberty. Next I must put up a finger-post to that won- derful poem the ‘‘Song of the Broad-Axe,’’ which contains the answer to the question as old as the Greeks—‘‘What makes a city great and keeps it so?’’ Itis this poem which contains the immortal lines that the greatest city of all is— Where no monuments exist to heroes but in the common words and deeds. Where the populace rise at once against the never- ending audacity of elected persons. It is this poem, too, from which come the lines: 226: TAPER PEL EaL Haas uaae: TURE La? ee Aas t rT ; ‘ ea Vranhe bee eae Teetit ELbepEd EAT ELPATLAT BLEREAEUARAE TG PATELLA EARL Gos betel Peet Becta Lae Fe! | =) z a 2 t ie Ses P hs ae ee al rep te WALT WHITMAN How beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed! How the floridness of the materials of cities shrivels before a man’s or woman’s look} ° ° ° e ° 5 ° What is your money-making now? What can tv do now? What is your respectability now? What are your theology, tuition, society, trad- tions, statute-books now? Where are your jibes of being now? Where are your cavils about the soul now? But let no one suppose that Walt Whitman had nothing but eulogy for the America which he loved. The talk and the war-whoop of a savage in praise of his wigwam arises from ignorance and superficiality, but what could be more delicate, more graceful, or filled with more tender regret than the poem which Walt Whitman entitled ‘oWith all thy Gifts’’? With all thy gifts, America, Standing secure, rapidly tending, overlooking the world, Power, wealth, extent, vouchsafed to thee—with these and like of these vouchsafed to thee, 227 PETTETEETL TEas = Pa 7 _ Fee! a ~: —— Poon aenaiiinesie’ Se emheee - —- ri Pee yee, we oe a Ta — - - a = rn —— EE vert ya i> ae reese ee rae boast be pay Se ees we t .* wm Cho pee eer Se | rts se os radii ‘ reer wars —* os —— age = Pt er eet - ree Lah pee oun ane en — _ ~~ 7 — ———— - — _ =< — Sa gr a Ey SS, at OE ——o - ss armel REP TOen SEE oentom — ee ee al Se ee eer tnar ani osm ae ~ —— ms aa ec oh anne — AMERICAN SOUNDINGS What if one gift thou lackest? (the ultumate hu- man problem never solving), The gift of perfect women fit for thee—what tf that gift of gifts thou lackest? The towering feminine of thee? The beauty, health, completion fit for thee? The mothers fit for thee? But more moving still, and infinitely commend- able, is the poem of Whitman’s last years entitled ‘“‘Nay, tell me not to-day the Publish’d Shame (Winter of 1873, Congress in Session) ’’: Nay, tell me not to-day the publish’d shame, Read not to-day the journal’s crowded page, The merciless reports still branding forehead after forehead, The guilty column following guilty column. To-day to me the tale refusing, Turning from it—from the white capitol turning, Far from these swelling domes, topt with statues, More endless, jubilant, vital visions rise Unpublish’d, unreported. Through all your quiet ways, or North or South, you Equal States, you honest farms, Your million untold manly healthy lives, or East or West, city or country, 228: | Feve RT eae teaeiiy! tet Le 1 FASELERAERARLOTORLOLLALIRERL LEA HECIE HI Leak patea tena WALT WHAITTMAN Your noiseless mothers, sisters, wives, wncon- scious of their good, Your mass of homes nor poor nor rich, m visions rise—(even your excellent poverties), Your self-distilling, never-ceasing virtues, self- denials, graces, Your endless base of deep integrities within, timid but certain, Your blessings steadily bestow’d, sure as the light, and still, (Plunging to these as a determin’d diver down the deep hidden waters,) These, these to-day I brood upon—all else refus- ing, these will I con, To-day to these gwe audience. There is not a poet of our own or any time, or any age, who would not be proud to have written the line, ‘‘Through all your quiet ways, or North or South, you Equal States, you honest farms.” As exquisite is the appeal to the ‘‘noiseless mothers, sisters, wives, unconscious of their good.’’ A Greek dramatist might envy him the apoph- thegm ‘‘excellent poverties.’’ Here, indeed, is an element in Walt Whitman which, though it has been neglected, deserves following—the element which so many of his poems have in common with the Greek chorus. 229 SEPTT TTI CTET TRUER Res erates WPUEPUA PUPAE eee eeeee ee a oe ee eed eS eee ae ape ee et a IE ara ae Sis — ee eee een ie eS — 2 aaa —— einen ae Ses 4 aes eS a sensing ti ener eT - am = Pereandane Pa ae eaeat a een et Soper age - = “ > AMERICAN SOUNDINGS I will only take one more Sounding in Whit- man’s verse. It is prophetic in the truest sense. A THOUGHT OF COLUMBUS The mystery of mysteries, the crude and hurried ceaseless flame, spontaneous, bearing on 1t- self, The bubble and the huge, round, concrete orb! A breath of Deity, as thence the bulging unwerse unfolding The many issuing cycles from their precedent minute! The eras of the soul incepting m an hour, Haply the widest, farthest evolutions of the world and man. Thousands and thousands of miles hence, and now four centuries back, A mortal impulse thrilling its brain cell, Reck’d or unreck’d, the birth can no longer be postpon’ da: A phantom of the moment, mystic, stalking, sud- den, Only a silent thought, yet toppling down of more than walls of brass or stone. (A flutter at the darkness’ edge as if old Tvme’s and Space’s secret near revealing.) 230jeep ate TUES EPIAPaUEEALE eeeee . aie rh ceeueae! +7 oP Re Pa : f | 7 7 MPas ateay ean aC HATaRETT UaPAT Baa T AURA SDCL EN TEAL AP ORPOT TARA RIEL OMT ELIT oat otbodieanee! een hg THRU UIT WALT WHITMAN A thought! A definite thought works out in shape. Four hundred years roll on. The rapid cumulus—trade, navigation, war, peace, democracy roll on; The restless armies and the fleets of tume follow- ing their leader—the old camps of ages pitched in newer, larger areas, The tangl’d, long-deferr’d eclaircissement of human life and hopes boldly begins untying. As here to-day up-grows the Western World. Ho OA EEE EE aT PREPLL PRE WEEE SPR Posey ee SUPT VEEP EL ERETH GTies oe ee are es ew os oe eer ears a ~ ye yy Bl —_—--— a el are —e" re Bs — eo CHA PLER xX Xt PASE Y EOL TLI es HERE is no matter of American concern upon which an Englishman feels more shy than about speaking of American Party Politics. To begin with, he is always told by his American friends that the matter is much too complicated for him to understand and that, ex- cept when there happens to be some great issue before the country, he had better not try to con- fuse his mind by wandering in the labyrinth. If he does, he is sure to arrive, not at an under- standing, but at a misunderstanding. As a mat- ter of fact, however, the difficulties are not quite so great as 1s alleged, nor are Kinglishmen quite as inexperienced in the main difficulty as Amer- icans suppose. The main fact is that both in the United States and in Britain when they are in office, parties are very apt to change their point of view. In England it is a comparatively simple matter to find Labour Conservative when in power and Conservatism Socialistic under like condi- tions. But in America the ins and outs are so 232ay | TCEAEERRABGRES HABA DEAREST EAL eee TERPS PHO EAAMSE PAE REEROL DUE RIL OPOURE, TORT ERO vee PLD R PLE Roa y TT ee et ES ET ee PA Ye PONG LED Ces intricately dovetailed, owing to State Politics and National Politics, that we soon reach bewilder- ment. ‘T’he Republicans, being so often the outs in the State of New York, are very much inclined to steal some of the Democratic Party’s clothes while the Democratic Party holds office, just as the Democrats at Washington steal Republican political clothes for a similar object. Added to this difficulty is another, which is really a greater cause of confusion. That is the intervention of some great problem which divides, or threatens to divide, the nation, but which does not fit in with the party alignment. ‘Take the present moment. Prohibition is supposed to be- long, and does indeed belong, to both party tickets. Yet Prohibition or Anti-Prohibition 1s over a very large part of the country the dividing line in public affairs. Something very similar may be said about the issue of Free Trade and Pro- tection, and even the issue of whether America should or should not take her share in the work of the League of Nations. Neither party is prepared to commit itself absolutely on these matters. The result is not only bewildering to the visitor, but it often causes a condition amounting to sterility of mind in many American citizens. This is spe- cially the case with the younger men. They are very keen, as should be the young men in any 233 ATTATELHITL PLETE LLL TERE ELE es PE Re BETTE CPG LTTEa - = > on = ee eee Rae! beet eee Vs he Oe jill es “val mans nr aS iat 2 wattle te inet at aia EE es =m PL ad Sat eaten eden ieee Se eee ere Ps te eae Peas A ee ie SL gh Eu : Saetett meee pa tsar acne : iin = : Ceiseacs Ets See, as ee ee ie uF F TF hi i> 1 ut i}! ti oe ah i wa! - oo we ad AMERICAN SOUNDINGS community, to manage things better than their fathers did, and to get urgent reforms carried, not met with a shrug of the shoulder and the remark, ‘‘Of course, it ought to be altered; but how are you going to do it? I began to think about that forty years ago, but there has been no progress, and I have quite come to believe that we shall never get any real change. People may want to talk about it, but they don’t mean to make any sacrifice to get it done’’—and so and SO on. The young man who is honestly for progress, or again honestly in favour of a more active Con- servatism in the nation’s government, does not know where to turn. In England, where the po- sition is much less complicated, a man who is not satisfied with the status quo naturally turns to the Opposition. The Opposition he regards as the natural instrument for change and alteration. To be concrete, when a man in England who means to take up politics actively and seriously finds that the Government, i.e. the party with the majority in the House of Commons, who could if they wished amend the laws, will do nothing, his reaction is, ‘‘Well, if you won’t deal with me, I will go to the other shop and see if I can’t make an arrangement with them.’’ Naturally the other shop, whose business it is ‘‘to oppose everything, 234TeeeL: TRCRECABGALC RBG RAL nas heer ay PRUEBEE TL UEAL Rea TERR RU eae ici ronRcae: is;pasrd Toaget : i TUTLUPEGHTEACUHI ETA NU Heat Od Pee eUQated EE AEAUOAT OG EOREUARSAeAHAGAAAUAUCOMULeO Sd) Fn ES gaSRaai ! a o : a) PAR LY POLLELECS propose nothing and turn out the Government, ’’ will endeavour to do what they can for him and his friends, and so get a few new recruits—pro- vided, of course, that the new proposition will not cause active protest or annoyance in their own - i oe et Le ee eran ant ak ee el _ ——~ = Pl og Sagas ne ep party. In America the process of party squeezing car- ried on by a virtuous man or group of outsiders is by no means so easy. The dividing line between the party platforms is not well marked enough for a maneuvre of this kind. Indeed, it may be almost said that on the great issues there is a kind of unholy alliance between the competing parties to prevent any of the ereat moral or polit- ical problems becoming the dividing line between parties. It does not suit either party to be too strong, i.e. too out and out, on such matters as Prohibition, Free Trade, Social Reform with a socialistic bias, or a swing-over 1 foreign policy. To put it in another way, the party managers, partly consciously and partly subconsciously, have agreed, as it were, that the ‘‘spot stroke’’ shall be barred in their match and that the defini- tion of ‘‘spot stroke’’ shall include quite a number of items. But, though the party managers can do much to prevent forms of competition which will be dis- agreeable to both sides, Just as rival firms in trade 235 FUTEUTET TT PAEN TTA LLLA DU AD AE EES ERS PSPs CL RePs aeeeu? Later Se aes _ = Pts ee = = : == a a ee ee , S et enter a paar eaatinae = Ae a NN aD a a ecpuaiiog ee ee Ne ee ea per er nm Pe See re wr a th men wae ty Hh ‘ a ‘ dH i) S- S ae AMERICAN SOUNDINGS often find it convenient to agree that they will not cut prices against each other, but only compete in the way of facilities and salesmanship, so Re- publicans and Democrats are inclined to use the machinery of ‘‘trustification,’’ or semi-trustifica- tion in party polities. But this, of course, means a system of unstable equilibrium, 7.e. one always lable to be upset by an accidental push. I am bound to say that at the present moment it looks as if in America a point had been reached where the parties will be forced, in spite of them- selves, to agree to a realignment, which will pro- duce live issues and give the ordinary voter a choice of policy. To be more specific, the men who want things done, and not merely a division of the spoils of office between two great political organ- izations, may be able to frighten the two parties into engaging in a genuine and hard battle, in- stead of a conventional stage combat. The long suit of the realist in party politics in the case of both Republicans and Democrats is to threaten the two machines by saying that if they do not look out and give up their tacit understand- ings and winking deals, a third party will be formed which will be able to force on a real fight, or, if not, sidetrack them both. These threats, of course, have often been made in the past, and hitherto have led to little or nothing; but it does 236/ +i Sener hare Seas peatere Peeeeeara bane 1) oak! Sane hras| DOL UPe tPF hLare SOT HAVES EH TET ETRE ta PAR LY LOL ETT Cs look as if we may soon reach in American politics the vantage-ground of reality. My reason for saying this is that there are now, not one, but half a dozen fairly big issues which strongly interest the country, but which hitherto neither side has dared to tackle in earnest. These issues are not incompatible, but might conceivably be woven together into a co- herent party programme. And here I may note parenthetically that one of the things upon which the old party politicians rely is that there is no man ready to act as a leader and that the new party could not get on without a leader. Of course, there is a great deal in this assertion; but I am by no means sure that it is safe to treat with contempt the old saw that whenever the need for a man arises, the man will be found. I have another reservation. Though it may be difficult to find a new leader in the old parties, it is possible that he may be found on the fringe of them and in some part of the country where for many years the local political issues have largely dominated the national issues. But, as I have said, this question of a leader is in parenthesis and I must get on with my catalogue of cross- currents. Take first the problem of Prohibition. I do 237 BYPTTHLTITI ELT RATE UP TPP P ELL RE eeae ae —— SS eer ee hei, ton een ae oP i a Te u a / . i —~ ao SREP aa eh ee Sez eS a AMERICAN SOUNDINGS not mean by this the problem of whether men should be allowed to drink what they like or should not be so gratified; for that simple formula does not constitute the issue. Nobody wants to go back to the old days of the saloon and of brewers and distillers playing great if hidden parts in political life. What divides the nation now is the problem of whether it is wise to maintain a system of Prohibition which leads to increased drunkenness, increased crime, increased disease of many kinds, and, worst of all, increased law- lessness and anarchy—an increased belief, that is, that if you do not like a law, you have a right to break it instead of saying ‘‘I will obey till I can repeal it.’? In other words, the case is not one of Wet or Dry, but a reform of the law, national and local, which will stop lawlessness, moral turpitude and official, judicial and police corrup- tion. So serious is this issue becoming that not merely the younger men, but a very considerable body of older men are getting to the point of say- ing that they will only vote for a party that will seriously take up this problem. In these cases it is much better to be specific. The result of my Soundings in this matter is that if—for there are plenty of ‘‘ifs’’ in the way—the Democratic Party were to declare against Prohi- bition and in favour of a policy which may be 238TIEEETAPDEAAGHCLA STAD ELL Lead damian dL ooa as ULbabac dd Ea] bad LAG TAS EAGER GEST CPATTLLGT ETRE LD THIS] Pedb ec bea et te Abo Rocce VEAL PETES EHES PORES Ea tara iH iee i HERUHHU EERE FUDGE Hab Hie ID AUTRE FeO IL TEAR IES ps) roughly described as that of the Province of Quebec, it would carry the country with it. The Quebec system is one under which there is little interference with a man’s right to choose what he shall drink, but also one under which no private individual is allowed to make a dividend or other profit out of making his fellow-citizens drunk, or, at any rate, by inducing them through the arts of salesmanship to take more than they ought to take. But to continue. Granted that the Democratic Party were to adopt a ticket of that kind, all that is required is an alteration in the definition of intoxicants. I firmly believe that there would be the sort of ‘‘break-away’’ from the Republican Party in national politics that there was in New York State politics when Mr. ‘‘Al’’ Smith secured so large an amount of Republican support when he successfully stood as Governor for the State of New York for the third time. I know, of course, what is the answer which will be given by most political and party experts. It is that the Demo- erats could not, and would not, take the line I have suggested, because the Southern States are in many cases the special homes of Prohibitionary sentiment—the places also where, indeed, hard- and-fast Prohibition is based, not upon sentiment, but upon common sense. ‘The white citizen ‘‘in 239 5 7 ' —) rw " Pg 7} TeIRICY ; ] wT SIT CPI gt th yee UTT ETE AT TAT TPUTA UT FRW ATED ELLE EAL EGS EELS ESE HU EER TAO Re Tu PU PPIR PRADA LOCATORS. ; | Ree PE Pua ra DUO UMOP SSP Reape :ee ee ee ees a = a pre nampa tl in Se Sie A ees - ee ee ee ee ape ee a ee eee te Bey spray Pare t ws A ne | ae mn re eee ie iene Ee rr Serer aes = “ Re as ere ee ee ee yearend += 122 | SS hat mena "= a a —_ =. ‘ ad Bg - 4 aa AMERICAN SOUNDINGS drink’? is one thing. The intoxicated coloured man is quite another. In a word, the negroes in the Southern communities, when successfully in- cited to spend their money in drink, are so great a danger as to overwhelm all other arguments. But it must be remembered here that no one is proposing to take away from the States the old right of each State to deal with the liquor problem in its own way, but merely to change the effect of a wild rush in politics, that is, of declaring, contrary to all experience, that a drink containing one-half of one per cent. of alcohol is an intoxi- cant. In other words, there is nothing to prevent the Southern States adopting for themselves the line of ‘‘Safety First.’’ If they do that, they will be for practical purposes not in greater, but in less, danger than they are now under the boot- legger’s régime of drinking orgies. The farmers’ predicament is another cross- current. At present the tillers of the soil may be said to stand apart from both parties in a kind of bewildered indignation. Yet they seem unable to devise any scheme for giving themselves the place they ought to have in the councils of the nation. At present the farmer, though every one admits in theory that he is the backbone of the Republic, gets none of that economic shelter which in the abstract it is admitted he ought to have. 240TRsSUNEe OUTIL PLLC EVA AQULTE ae ep PARE Ye FOL TL Les He pays high taxes, or what seem to him very high taxes, and has to pay also high prices for everything he consumes in his system of produc- tion, from string to bind his reapers to the reaper itself. gain, freights and commissions of all kinds eat up his profits, whether in the matter of cereals or hogs and beef. In spite of efforts to provide him with cheap money and cheap credit, the farmer is the man least protected from the havoc of high prices. For example, the high wages which he has to pay for agricultural help when his family is not big enough to cope with his holding offer a very serious problem. It is true that he gets his Ford car cheap; but even a Middle Western farmer cannot live on ‘‘tin Lizzies”’ alone! Therefore should there be a break in the present terrifying prosperity of America and were money to become dear and difficult to obtain, one can quite well imagine a political deal between the representative of the farmers and the men who are determined not to see the Ship of State rocked any more by a dangerous system of Prohibition. Take as another question those interferences with liberty of action and liberty of opinion which can be roughly grouped as excesses of Puritan- ism, moral and religious. They are, of course, as a rule matters of State rather than of national 241 FATETTT TEL EAET LER LE RELL LE Ee PE OVATEELEETELFET FEUER TERU ELE TT Eecfr seerree ee | persica) eager SaapittadeAgepeerasras ant tide eeh a ee a ee aa Sl ep ee ee PE FTTH, TE IT, " a Pe ee ree er sg ds one a = aor sere ae tt gk ge em ee tn id isda —~ ~ titted ar ene —— oe soe coesbeenein - — Ad hh ae eee ~apened Se a —— pa ere ae — SN ee ne ee eee reed ss ete hae aes ae eens SE ee Seen ee ee ee = ae er tee, ome on a re ~ — oo nae a — _ AMERICAN SOUNDINGS action; but one can understand a party, either old or new, which demanded an alteration in the Constitution for the protection of individual rights, getting a good deal of support from the men of the younger generation, who feel humili- ated by such contemporary exhibitions of reaction. as those which he saw last summer in Tennessee over the problems of Evolution and the question whether man is descended from angels or monkeys. In the matter of foreign affairs, a great deal might be done to change party allegiances. Again, there are the problems connected with Labour— problems not at the moment as acute as they are here, but problems which, if America should be faced with a period of temporary trade depres- sion, might very easily become actual. Across them cuts the colour question. Though probably this will remain a problem about which the ordinary voters will be loath to take sides or to bring into the political arena, it may well hap- pen that it will be forced upon the attention of the Republic, not so much from any movement in the Southern States, but by action among the negroes who have of late under the pressure of high wages been storming into the cities of the Middle West and there acquiring not only educa- tion but riches. These new recruits in the Labour 242SEPP rele T Ea Pape a Pat ost eet ke ah ae SPALMCRALUHALE PALER esha eR et aeraaa MeprprtsierbectitAatelieial TALETAA TAU TCAUAT RCE RET peaid obbedd peas SUPhabed Lad Ead Pad PAS EAA TOA EM PALAU WATS UT TE ODOR LOAD SRtPat Peat pet | TUTTI EAT AGAOUNGLLUEGTEG#uveN Ooud EYPEGGAHEOEI UL EUPAU LAT EMERARTEALAOELPRUAUA AL EOMARR LSI PrAhivieYa er, Oe hle Ges market are becoming capable of exercising elec- toral power on a considerable scale. I can understand old, experienced and disillu- sioned machine politicians reading what I have written with an amused smile and remarking that they have heard all this for the last fifty years and that nothing has ever come of it. Again, if one can imagine the G.O.P., ‘‘the Grand Old Re- publican Party,’’ and that slightly damaged arch- angel, the Democratic Party, incarnate and talk- ing to each other, one might overhear a conver- sation something on these lines. I will not assume which of the two wicked old ladies, the Gamps and Prigs of their several ma- chines, would speak first, but I am sure the words would run like this: “They say, Honey, that if we don’t look out, one of us, or probably both of us, will explode owing to the frightful tension inside our bodies. That’s all bunkum! They can’t get on without us and must come under one of our flags. If they don’t, they will never get anything done. Pro- vided we stand firm together and don’t allow the rules of the game to be broken, we’re all right. Therefore, my dear, what I say is this. Don’t let ourselves be parted by designing persons. Let us instead lace each other’s corsets tighter and tighter—for we’ll still wear them in spite of what 243 ; : — UWEUEUSURESEESORIEREE WT eer ria tiated ead TPs COTTE ETE Ee HATTER EE eC ATRL SET EAT LRA PARED CREApbodo st ite ls Dope le oe De enn ail eh ee ae aoe cid eter pee Ta sa ae A Soper tk te ees eee a - ae Be att we ee alee tuy penta See et eee oe = a natn ial Ls ~ Sas Yl AMERICAN SOUNDINGS these silly girls may do—and hope for the best. If they don’t like either of us and think they can deal with somebody down the road instead, let ’em try it. They’ll soon get tired of that. That precious somebody can’t deliver the goods and we can—even though we do require to have our proper commissions, perquisites, etc., etc. Be- sides, we are both of us perfectly reasonable and quite willing to let the young ones talk any amount they like about ‘duty,’ ‘the national ideals,’ ‘pa- triotism,’ ‘favourite sons,’ and so forth—pro- vided always that it is only talk and does not end in some fat-head folly. As for liquor, we are both of us fond of a glass at the proper time and place and quite sensible about it. On that point we can assure the public that it won’t matter which polit- ical side they recruit from, provided they have got a good bootlegger. So here’s luck! If you'll put in a little more gin this time, so’ll I!”’ All this I comprehend perfectly. The only thing I have got to urge against it is I admit quite commonplace. It is that: God is not always mocked. You may humbug all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you can’t humbug all the people all the time. 2.44i PaLteaaaeatichosbcieeeet eset nee Sessa PenPucralnataapear. TELHIRAT GL AGhh ry tr Poe vs reatia tl THANE ERE eR TG AUHTEHLPALLAFALELSGELARASTAPARTALUL ERR U ESAS Atbed boas baa ca Total pe PARLEY POLITIES And that is the kind of thing the two machines are apt to forget when they rely confidently upon getting together and calling ‘Hands off!”’ I am fully aware that what I have said will expose me to the grim and reticent comment—for there ig no man more grim or reticent than the American machine politician—‘‘Mind your own business !’’ I have already taken a side-show sounding. I ask to take one more. When Thales was asked, ‘sHow can one best bear adversity?’’ he answered, ‘Tf he should see his enemies in a worse plight.”’ Probably in their secret hearts, if the wire-pullers were asked the question, they would each take this consolation: ‘‘We may be in a tight place; but, dash it all, the other fellows are even in a worse!’?? Again, if a kindly outsider asked in regard to the parties, ‘(How shall they lead the best and most righteous life?’’ one might reply with Thales, ‘‘By refraining from doing yourself what you blame in others.’’ And so I take my leave of this tangled web. At any rate, no one can say that I do not possess ‘the valour of ignorance’’; for I am not on inti- mate terms with a single machine-politician, Democrat or Republican. —— _— — oy nim alpen tn, tn ty gree AL, a ee EE ae ne ee eae 7 4 eo — - ws ae at - ee = ad eee +A) ia eT ae ae ae ET icc) = eS een detainee = ae att - a - — . - - oT .: ' TEE THe STHUEHU PH rit ; ATFUEFEER CELE ; TP: REWETETLE Pe 144 EEE HOTU TTHTITETELERLPAV ERISA EEE UI EA TEU TEER EEO EERE eee 48 i] i Ll— - + = oo mane Ane ra = ns os ey ee eee Bs mend ne ak es a ee er nein = - oe a . ee ey ou Op, whan _ ae i a r CHAPTER X X11 THE AMERICAN PRESS CANNOT close my American Soundings without dropping my lead into the wild and whirling waters of American Journalism. I fully realize that this is a dangerous thing, espe- cially for a Pressman, to do, for the American Press, while it does not desire either praise or what might look like patronage of any sort or kind, does not like, any more than any other great and powerful institution, to be criticized. It real- izes that its own profession is in the last resort erlticism, and it does not want to have its func- tions specifically discussed. This is not merely arrogance or self-righteousness on the part of the Press, but much more a sense that the epigram- matic question, Qwis custodiet wpsos custodes? 18 one futile and useless. The Press has got to get on with its daily work and duties, and cannot be always pulling up its own roots and examining them. Besides, you will always notice in Press- men that they have a kind of intellectual resent- ment for criticism of their mystery. They hold, 246THTLETAR PARI CACET DUAR RaR Edad A okbedd peed sERAeE LiEIPHlEt TEROLBTEPALAPOMPCATTAPLERU ERI EERE P edb On bekpottea ULEFTEAGTE ES AEE Gib Ftd neo ESN HALAL PLUESULURUEALUA EARLS Redcat Basi? THE AMERICAN PRESS and quite rightly, that the public does not under- stand their ideals and that if they were to explain what these are, people would think them Sophists, or Jesuits, or what not. A similar feeling of potential resentment about their profession if often shown by lawyers. They think that the public thinks that a lawyer can always be got by a fat fee to champion what he knows to be a bad cause. They do not want to go over the old, old arguments, though the case for letting every man get help to make his cause as clear as it can possibly be made is so obviously just. The doctor, again, does not want to hear his profession defended from the conventional suspicion that he does not want his patients to pass out of his hands, and that to cure a man is so obvious a loss of revenue that it affects his intent. All the same, I am going to say something about the Press, and, at any rate, I am not a member of the public, but have spent my life as a working journalist. No man has a better right to make that claim than a writing editor. I do not propose to deal with the mechanical side of American journalism, or the financial, or the mass-production organization of words and thoughts. These subjects are very interesting, not only to me, but to the world at large; but they have been dealt with again and again; and, after 247 WT eedyeag Ty » : ri 7 2 7 ee ; EET iE Te Wek! r) ry wwe TR? to TLESLOEL Thee ries eee al Wwiky GT ay ATHLENLEFLUEAEHEPEEETE PAL PRTSTR ESTA LARA Ee WT haet ee =a ee eT be et a ee ner rss er etre = a : le ee eee = ry ae Se e am emmy = eo Fae fp ate near Pe — Ce eee a FN a me ee» EL a nen mp a ee ean a na ae OE ge es Semen eT fe nannael —— i 3 ue ep - | HH ly a wet - AMERICAN SOUNDINGS all, though spectacular, they are not the most important things about the Press. In spite of vast circulations, improved methods of folding, and dodges for adding a quarter of an hour more to the period in which the latest news can be got in and the paper got out, the written word still remains the sine qua non. In no country does the Press exercise a greater influence than it does in America. The American may not be a great newspaper reader—in some ways he is not—but he is a great ‘‘glancer’’ at newspapers and cannot conceive existence as pos- sible without many newspapers, vast in size and full of everything that concerns human beings from the most trivial to the most important. It is true that he cares more for the front page than anything else, but he would not tolerate a news- paper that was, so to speak, all front page. Though he may only really look at the headlines on his front page, he must have a big, solid, hand- some frame for them. One would have thought that this habit would have demoralized, or, at any rate, petrified and dried up the American newspaper man, and espe- cially the leader writer. But that is not the case. Though at ordinary times the leaders in a great part of the American Press are not particularly sienificant—they are scintillatingly empty be- 248Gee aa eee ee ee ee eee ea ee PPTrat Tir eipatost HTEAUETIPASEUT EAT EAT Eneo4 nnd SEO RRERY PEAR BEE PMMA ERASE Poa aa aL THE AMERICAN PRESS cause they are so terrified of being called ‘‘dull,’’ or didactic, or over-critical—there is always an imminent sense of reserved power in the American newspaper. Delane said that a leader-writer should be like a crouching lion, still as death till he springs; but when he does spring, as swilt and sudden as a thunder-bolt. The American leader-writer spends, I grant, a long time in pre- paring to pounce, but when the need for speaking the truth and taking a strong line comes, he is seldom found wanting. Perhaps the greatest panegyric that was ever made of the newspaper was made by Walt Whit- man in one of his monumental prose writings about the Civil War. He tells of the effect that the great papers that espoused the cause of the North had upon his mind and upon the mind of the nation, and he grows lyrical over what their ‘leaders’? accomplished. JI, at any rate, have always noticed in the American Press that the moment the need comes, the trivialities of Jour- nalism disappear as by magic and the note struck is both worthy and virile. The soft-opera strains die away, and through the leaves a sterner music breaks. How the American leader-writer manages to keep himself so fresh, so able to strike with the force of a sledge-hammer or the swiftness of a 249 AUPISPLIPLEL! " | u 1 ; me 7 ree + 7 9 1 ] 1 7 7 7 eT ee) THEELEPE LLL arar cra SRECTILP LTE s ; BETETELHTTTEL ETAT TE HU TELEDARULETRL NTU FRUTRT TEREST HHI ETAT ETI LILEEBE TU COLO RD Ee ee WUPTEUPEeT Rca prea[Pee ee Ne ee ee ee eng ar 8 es x — 215 == - —- —— ~ OF ti Tin SE EOE POET a nels ~ ‘ det emp a s wt Se ee etary ne es a. os = eae ee SR Aas tn ee he ee moe a a Lh ii: = tesa deere RISO aa Sang ee warn nd ee a ren C j - , ——— a a AMERICAN SOUNDINGS rapier when the time and the need arise, it is diffi- cult for the slower-minded Englishman to imag- ine. One would have thought that the dealing so often with nothing but small issues would kill a man’s zeal. But this quickness in change of atti- tude, this immediate response to reactions, this rapidity of action is the special prerogative of the American. Alertness is the national virtue. The American is towours en vidette. But the normal American Pressman is much more than merely alert. He takes his profession seriously. While he believes in publicity almost as a panacea, his professional standards are high and honourable, and he is willing to run great risks and make great sacrifices to maintain them. He is content, too, to remain in the shade. In- deed, the ordinary American working journalist is the least advertised man in the new world. In an advertising age, in an advertising profes- sion and in an advertising nation, he is the most unadvertised, unboomed, unboosted person in his country. The man who breaks the record for standing on his head, or for eating his dinner without using his fingers, or some other freak stunt, may set all America ringing with his name and his futile performances. The American who proves an inspired inter- preter of national aims, or who shows an almost 250ic iE PeARACRULERLA LEP RAAT AEH TARGA BAR PALE TORPCEPaTRAERLEE. vorte N WH er Get A THPALPALAEDRALEEATAARARTAPACOAATA TUR LISA Laat EAS Peas mon casmrai THE AMERICAN PRESS uneanny instinct for the elucidation of some European problem of which he has no first-hand knowledge, does so without any personal applause or personal credit. That goes to his paper, and to his paper alone, unless, of course, he is a Spe- cial Correspondent or a recognized expert on a particular subject rather than a pure journalist. The typical American journalist is wonderful, not only for his renunciation of the flowers and the wreaths of a popular laudation. He manages to be cynical without being thereby demoralized or rendered insensitive. He is a sworn foe to sentimentality and to hysteria, to sham illusions and sham emotions. Yet he avoids the petrif- cation of the man who passes his life in watching the follies of the vast lunatic-asylum, which the world too often seems to those who watch it day by day at all its vagaries. Not only are the un- sioned political editorials of American news- papers as a rule sane and sensible. They are also clear and vigorous. | Taken as a whole, the American reviews of books are among the most penetrating and in the truest sense the most critical to be found any- where. I am not saying this because my books have been kindly treated in America. They were that, no doubt; but at the same time I had some very plain, straightforward and wise criticism 251 i i POLE iti aa ea seytaal i i rh H rl reap 7) ar 7 wh r - Hn 4 , aE ; - 4 Fy 1 POA HTT TE HUGKENSEESUTLRGATERI FEN ETURISRUTETILSTOCULER UAL LEREOUI CROAT EEO Ea OED OEE ECEpe We as be, oe Oe a eee Be ee ee eg Fe we Bn on gS 8p mer bm ha) - -- ~ a ne a pent pai an parr a OR OE SP Pareles Doe “~~ ae ee ena ae ca -—+= a ee —_ ey — Sate Res a ee | Es ee ee es ee AMERICAN SOUNDINGS from American sources—criticism that made one uncomfortable and also made one feel that the critic understood what one was aiming at and fully realized how much the author had fallen short of his own ideals! Taking a very wide view, I should say that American reviewing is often less conventional and has more insight than English reviewing’. In descriptive writing the American journalist is extraordinarily good. He will give you the impression of a scene or a personality which must be the envy of all men who have tried to paint in words. Nowhere is the art of getting a snapshot picture on to the printed page better managed. But I am not going to lay myself open to the charge of sycophancy to my own profession. I am fully aware of the weaker side of American journalism. American journalism, as I have said before, does tend to be paralysed by the persist- ently and conventionally held idea that if a man is to get a large audience, he must treat that audi- ence as if it were composed of congenital idiots. Much of what might otherwise be very fine work in the American newspaper is spoilt by the fact that the editor, when he goes over his contribu- tor’s copy, is apt to use his blue pencil and say, ‘*We can’t have this. It interests me, no doubt, 252SERUABUTEL ARATE tae) : + a4 TIUSEab Va bal sates Per eae hi Lae Tea ERT U RIE RTaT. Teathebented eae TPL EACOETPARAREAIGAEE aI PhbehD mae FRLPALAP RARE FILM APALHL ETRE EE i! , THE AMERICAN PRESS and I see the charm and subtlety of it all; buf our public simply would not stand it. They would not realize what the man was getting at, and they would eall it either ‘junk’ or ‘bunk,’ and throw down their papers in disgust. Therefore out it must go.’’ When once this idea of playing down to the audience, or rather of setting up a man of straw and attributing to him every kind of idiocy and then endeavouring to cater to his alleged and supposed imbecilities and ineptitudes, gets hold of a quick-witted and imaginative man, he soon constructs a fearful idol before which he believes it his duty to bow down. No doubt it is easy to exaggerate this adulation of the congenital idiot, and I shall perhaps be accused of having fallen into this error. Anyway, I admit that the men who adore the idol, and so spoil their newspapers and their magazines, will at a crisis act as I have described above. They will hurl their idol down —‘‘of saner worship sanely proud’’—and speak the words of truth and soberness, whether the public likes it or not, or whether they pretend not to be able to understand it, or whether, again, there seems a risk of making them angry because they cannot get the old, futile type of mental food __‘¢same as James Gordon Bennett used to bake.’’ When one deals with the American Press and 253 i Lai 7 ; i y j aw we 7 ee ci 2e ’ . ry r | r 4 Bet ‘Tal cou tit we y Th TELERLTALLEAL CLEA Gt od CETTE Te HEFATSTEVETARTATEUTRTRET LEER EER baod 7 ee ar PE ST I ott SS ee a Pres me x = Se — a + a Sng ee een a 8 rc eras a he eet ay ee y at ee Tey aaa Ge wee sme ceassiest 6 ee —~- ~—— a Se Fa dr ar. ti eaten tsi pr if sane ot ae a — a Oe Sy ae a a eet SSS ee AMERICAN SOUNDINGS the American journalist, one who is a journalist himself, if he has any power of sympathy, any sensitiveness of mind, cannot but note with ad- miration the wonderful instinct for news and publicity which informs the American newspaper and all who write in it. Americans understand better than any other People what news is and value it for its own sake. And they are quite right. Publicity as a whole is an immense anti- septic and disinfectant. It is true—to carry on my analogy—that you may produce sores and wounds by the too liberal use of germicides and disinfectants, and may thereby kill good germs as well as bad germs. But, on balance, this in- stinct for discovering news, passing it on, and understanding also what kind of news people want to hear about is a tremendous national asset, and one which I wish was more cultivated in our own country. As I have said before, what we want here is more news and less comment, and what America wants is rather less news and more comment.aoe pee Feryes hate se epi pier us pales hoat obese aeut Petrol ea hath mila rutpe rete ed Pub my bar PERVERT Pevauei rap rch raires, WP Riies AEE alte aerate Ri MIE EAL BAEE TUSHAR ATER cea Resben erty SUPER PARERTAGARE ta! ENVOI OULD I provide a better Envoi for my book than the three stanzas given below? They were written in the Seventies by an English poet dead some thirty years. I shall not name him, because half my readers, both in ling- land and America, will recognize the writer, and I want the other half who do not recognize him to find him out. If they do that, they will, 1 am sure, soon come under his spell, and I shall have helped make a conquest. If I merely put a name that is not very well known, they would pass by on the other side. Ah, friend, how vain their pedant’s part, Their hurrying toils how idly spent, How have they wronged the gentler heart Which thrills the awakening continent! Who have not learned on this bright shore What sweetness issues from the strong, Where flowerless forest, cataract-roar, Have found a blossom and a song! ° ° 9 ° ° 2 ° 255 we : — — en mW UTEEOLCHUEPECTECELEPCHLUE LETTER E ETL PRL TERA ETT HUTUEHLLFLLELE SAORI TSI FAT FRISULTAGR COU EU FEA RU AEROS EURO EOE OOOO EL TL PAE ELL4 ; : | AMERICAN SOUNDINGS And, thou, come hither, friend! thou too Their kingdom enter as a boy; Fed with their glorious youth renew Thy dimmed prerogative of joy;— Come with small question, little thought, Through thy worn veins what pulse shall flow, With what regrets, what fancies fraught, Shall silver-footed summer go. So once the Egyptian, gravely bold, Wandered the Ioman folk among, Heard from their high Letoon rolled That song the Delian maidens sung; Danced in his eyes the dazzling gold, For with his voice, the tears had sprung,— ‘““They die not, these! they wax not old, They are ever-lwing, ever young!’ i Truly can I say of the American people, as did the poet, They are ever-living, ever young! Ave, but not Vale, Columbia! THE END es ee a ne ie hs een Senate oa eetpi] ‘ HEC UEE TAU ER Ee ett REL Tel bel tes — my we ee or — ae ms oY ee a ey ae eS ee a heaton ieee el ret ee sce a hn ee et iQ ReRen Pie are oe a pata Tn a4 ny eit HH: ,) r } ' i) i h } 6 } HM! ae r af a) 1 te 7 1 a SiS See ae own SSS Cee oie ae —_— a a i ROR Rly A SS enema! eS ee CUE Ee En TUPEAIPOUI RPT EEC Haapiyetertyetyyg|a eel ee i = 2 ee et Fe ogg ear te ee age ee nearness a oon en ef eer oe a> eS ee me ae ok = a1 425s wees pene tens PeG. Sane ner ere 2S ee ee ) , } P| ; a , is { i i ; : ? ae Renee nee ant % Sanaa kee Earns SS irene —- se2tp ~eagee =~ + —= aaa . —* a i Pm heat, =, ee ne rt a nr i i Fn eneAVCHD En tet eeattomted eau Ca Ttotedtu pa PaTTaTEITSSHA TMU E Oat LiL ETD WEFEUAS A yedtes bodes tet toles bots HRFHAGGREAEEeUEAE ERs ett LEDS taT EIT AATAUUORESGNeCAEADOR AERA bees oan ena | . ’ 7 4 if: ; 3 if ii 1 J 7 a } i mi a to j i ¥ wars _ SS a Oe a hn eee ” pie ileal od EO * EDGAR H. WELLS & CO , 4.1 a East 47 - New York & Ps se ic i he ic ae ic i Pic 2 ie i ane oS MMMM