Abroad At Home Part 37

"I think I had better stay with the car, sir," he said.

"All right, all right," said our host indifferently. "You can be turning her around. We'll be back in a couple of hours or so."

The chauffeur looked at the edge.

"Well," he said, "I don't know but what the exercise will do me good, too. I guess I'll come along if you don't mind, sir."

On foot we could pick our way, avoiding the larger drifts, so that, for the most part, we merely trudged through snow a foot deep. But it was uphill work in the sun, and before long overcoats were removed and cached at the roadside, weighted down against the wind with stones. Now and then we left the road and took a short cut up the mountainside, wading through drifts which were sometimes armpit deep and joining the road again where it doubled back at a higher elevation. Presently our coats came off, then our waistcoats, until at last all five of us were in our shirts, making a strange picture in such a wintry landscape.

Now that the dread of skidding was removed I began to enjoy myself, taking keen delight in the marvelous blue plains spread out everywhere to the eastward, and inhaling great drafts of effervescent air.

When we had struggled upward for perhaps two hours we left the road and a.s.sailed a little peak, from the top of which our host believed the main range of the Rockies would be visible. The slope was rather steep, but the ground beneath the snow was fairly smooth, giving us moderately good footing. By making transverse paths we zigzagged without much difficulty to the top, which was sharp, like the backbone of some gigantic animal.

I must admit that I had not been so anxious to see the main range as my Denver friends had been to have me see it. It did not seem to me that any mountain spectacle could be much finer than that presented by the glittering wall as seen from Denver. I had expected to be disappointed at the sight of the main range, and I am glad that I expected that, because it made all the greater the thrill which I felt when, on topping the hill, I saw what was beyond.

I do not believe that any experience in life can give the ordinary man--the man who is not a real explorer of new places--the sense of actual discovery and of great achievement, which he may attain by laboring up a slope and looking over it at a vast range of mountains glittering, peak upon peak, into the distance. The sensation is overwhelming. It fills one with a strange kind of exaltation, like that which is produced by great music played by a splendid orchestra. The golden air, vibrating and shimmering, is like the tremolo of violins; the shadows in the abysses are like the deep throbbing notes of violoncellos and double ba.s.ses; while the great peaks, rising in their might and majesty, suggest the surge and rumble of pipe organs echoing to the vault of heaven.

[Ill.u.s.tration: I was by this time very definitely aware that I had my fill of winter motoring in the mountains. The mere reluctance I felt as we began to climb had now developed into a pa.s.sionate desire to desist]

I had often heard that, to some people, certain kinds of music suggest certain colors. Here, in the silence of the mountains, I understood that thing for the first time, for the vast forms of those jewel-encrusted hills seemed to give off a superb symphonic song--a song with an air which, when I let my mind drift with it, seemed to become definite, but which, when I tried to follow it, melted into vague, elusive harmonies.

There is no place in the world where Man can get along for more than two or three minutes at a time without thinking of himself. Everything with which he comes in contact suggests him to himself. Nothing is too small, nothing too stupendous, to make man think of man. If he sees an ant he thinks: "That, in its humble way, is a little replica of me, doing my work." But when he looks upon a mountain range he thinks more salutary thoughts, for if his thoughts about himself are ever humble, they will be humble then. Indeed, it would be like man to say that that was the purpose with which mountains were made--to humble him. For it is man's pleasure to think that everything in the universe was created with some definite relation to himself.

However that may be, it is man's habit, when he looks upon the mountains, to endeavor to make up for the long vainglorious years with a brief but complete orgy of self-abnegation. And that, of course, is a good thing for him, although it seems a pity that he cannot spread it thinner and thereby make it last him longer. But man does not like to take his humility that way. He prefers to take it like any other sickening medicine, gulping it down in one big draft, and getting it over with. That is the reason man can never bear to stay for any length of time upon a mountain top. Up there he finds out what he really is, and for man to find that out is, naturally, painful.

As he looks at the mountains the ego, which is 99 per cent. of him, begins to shrivel up. He may not feel it at first. Probably he doesn't.

Very likely he begins by writing his own name in the eternal snows, or scratching his initials on a rock. But presently he gazes off into s.p.a.ce and remarks with the Poet Towne: "Ain't Nature wonderful!" And, of course, after that he begins to think of himself again, saying with a great sense of discovery: "What a little thing I am!" Then, as his ego shrinks farther, the orgy of humility begins.

"What am I," he cries, "in the eyes of the eternal hills? I am relatively unimportant! By George, I shouldn't be surprised if I were a miserable atom! Yes, that's what I am! I am a frail, wretched thing, created but to be consumed. My life is but a day. I am a poor, two-legged nonent.i.ty, trotting about the surface of an enormous ball. I am filled with egotism and self-interest. I call myself civilized--and why? Because I have learned to make sounds through my mouth, and have a.s.signed certain meanings to these sounds; because I have learned to mark down certain symbols, to represent these sounds; and because, with my sounds and symbols, I can maintain a ragged interchange of ragged thought with other men, getting myself, for the most part, beautifully misunderstood.

"Of what else is my life composed? Of the search for something I call 'pleasure' and something else I call 'success,' which is represented by piles of little yellow metal disks that I designate by the silly-sounding word, 'money.' I spend six days in the week in search of money, and on the seventh day I relax and read the Sunday newspapers, or put on my silk hat and go to church, where I call G.o.d's attention to myself in every way I can, praying to Him with prayers which have to be written for me because I haven't brains enough to make a good prayer of my own; singing hymns to Him in a voice which ought never to be raised in song; telling Him that I know He watches over me; putting a little metal disk, of small denomination, in the plate for Him; then putting on my shiny hat again--which I know pleases Him very much--going home and eating too much dinner."

That is the way man thinks about himself upon a mountain top. Naturally he can only stand it for a little while before his contracting ego begins to shriek in pain.

Then man says: "I have enjoyed the view. I will note the fact in the visitors' book if there happens to be one, after which I will retire from this high elevation to the world below."

Going down the mountain he begins to say to himself: "What wonderful thoughts I have been thinking up there! I have had thoughts which very few other men are capable of thinking! I have a remarkable mind if I only take the time to use it!"

So, as he goes down, his ego keeps on swelling up again until it not only reaches its normal size, but becomes larger than ever, because the man now believes that, in addition to all he was before, he has become a philosopher.

"I must write a book!" he says to himself. "I must give these remarkable ideas of mine to the world!"

And, as you see, he sometimes does it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The homes of Colorado Springs really explain the place and the society is as cosmopolitan as the architecture]

CHAPTER x.x.xII

COLORADO SPRINGS

In a certain city that I visited upon my travels, I met one night at dinner, one of those tall, pink-cheeked, slim-legged young polo-playing Englishmen, who proceeded to tell me in his positive, British way, exactly what the United States amounted to. He said New York was ripping. He said San Francisco was ripping. He said American girls were ripping.

"But," said he, "there are just two really civilized places between your Atlantic and Pacific coasts."

The idea entertained me. I asked which places he meant.

"Chicago," he said, "and Colorado Springs."

"But Colorado Springs is a little bit of a place, isn't it?" I asked him.

"About thirty thousand."

"Why is it so especially civilized?"

"It just _is_, y'know," he answered. "There's polo there."

"But polo doesn't make civilization," I said.

"Oh, yes, it does," he insisted. "I mean to say wherever you find polo you find good clubs and good society and--usually--good tea."

This, and further rumors of a like nature, plus some pleasant letters of introduction, caused my companion and me to remove ourselves, one afternoon, from Denver to the vaunted seat of civilization, some miles to the south.

Colorado Springs is somewhat higher than Denver and seems to nestle closer to the mountains. The moment you alight from the train and see the park, facing the station and the pleasant facade of the Antlers Hotel, beyond, you feel the peculiar charm of the little city. It is well laid-out, with very wide streets, very good public buildings and office buildings, and really remarkable homes.

The homes of Colorado Springs really explain the place. They are of every variety of architecture, and are inhabited by a corresponding variety of people. You will see half-timbered English houses, built by Englishmen and Scots; Southern colonial houses built by people from the South Atlantic States; New England colonial houses built by families who have migrated from the regions of Boston and New York; one-story houses built by people from Hawaii, and a large a.s.sortment of other houses ranging from Queen Anne to Cape Cod cottages, and from Italian villas to Spanish palaces. There is even the Grand Trianon at Broadmoor, and an amazing Tudor castle at Glen Eyre.

The society is as cosmopolitan as the architecture. It has been drawn with perfect impartiality from the well-to-do cla.s.s in all parts of the country and has been a.s.sembled in this charming garden town with, for the most part, a common reason--to fight against tuberculosis. This does not mean, of course, that the majority of people in Colorado Springs are victims of tuberculosis, but only that, in many instances, families have moved there because of the affliction of one member.

I say "affliction." Literally, I suppose the word is justified. But perhaps the most striking thing about society in Colorado Springs is its apparent freedom from affliction. One goes to the most delightful dinner parties, there, in the most delightful houses, and meets the most delightful people. Every one seems very gay. Every one looks well. Yet one knows that there are certain persons present who are out there for their health. The question is, which? It is impossible to tell.

In the case of one couple I met, I decided that the wife who was slender and rather pale, had been the cause of migration from the East. But before I left, the stocky, ruddy husband told me, in the most cheerful manner that he had arrived there twenty years before with "six months to live." That is the way it is out there. There is no feeling of depression. There is no air of, "Shh! Don't speak of it!" Tuberculosis is taken quite as a matter of course, and is spoken of, upon occasion, with a lightness and freedom which is likely to surprise the visitor.

They even give it what one man designated as a "pet name," calling it "T. B."

Club life in Colorado Springs is highly developed. The El Paso Club is not merely a good club for such a small city, but would be a very good club anywhere. One has only to penetrate as far as the cigar stand to discover that--for a club may always be known by the cigars it keeps.

So, too, with the Cheyenne Mountain Country Club at Broadmoor, a suburb of the Springs. It isn't one of those small-town country clubs, in which, after ringing vainly for the waiter, you go out to the kitchen and find him for yourself, in his shirtsleeves and minus a collar. Nor, when he puts in his appearance, is he wearing a spotted alpaca coat that doesn't fit. Without being in the least pretentious, it is a real country club, run for men and women who know what a real club is.

When you sit at luncheon at the large round table in the men's cafe you may find yourself between a famous polo-player from Meadowbrook, and a bronzed young ranch-owner, who will tell you that cattle rustling still goes on in his section of the country. The latter you will take for a perfect product of the West, a "gentleman cowboy," from a novel. But presently you will learn that he is a member of that almost equally fict.i.tious thing, an "old New York family," that he has been in the West but a year or two, and that he was in "Tark's cla.s.s" at Princeton. So on around the table. One man has just arrived from Paris; another from Honolulu, or the Philippines, or China or j.a.pan. And when, as we were sitting there, a man came in whom I had met in Rome ten years before, I said to myself: This is not life. It is the beginning of a short story by some disciple of Mrs. Wharton: A group of cosmopolitans seated around a table in a club. Casual mention of Bombay, Buda-Pesth and Singapore. Presently some man will flick his cigarette ash and say, "By the way, De Courcey, what ever became of the queer little chap we used to see at the officer's mess in Simla?" Whereupon De Courcey, late of the Lancers, and second son of Lord Thusandso, will light a fresh Corona and recount, according to the accepted formula, the story of The Queer Little Chap.

I could even imagine the ill.u.s.trations for the story. They would be by Wenzell, and would show us there, in the club, like a group of sleek Greek statues, clothed in full afternoon regalia of the most unbelievable smoothness--looking, in short, not at all like ourselves, or anybody else.

However, the story of The Queer Little Chap was not told. That is the trouble with trying to live short stories. You can get them started, sometimes, but they never work out. If the setting is all right, the story somehow will not "break," whereas, on the other hand, when the surroundings are absolutely wrong, when the wrong people are present, when the conditions are utterly impossible, your short story will break violently and without warning, and will very likely cover you with spots. The trouble is that life, in its more fragmentary departments, lacks what we call "form" and "composition." There is something amateurish about it. Nine editors out of ten would reject a short story written by the Hand of Fate, on this ground, and would probably advise Fate to go and take a course in short-story-writing at some university.

No; Fate has not the short story gift. She writes novels--rather long and rambling, most of them, like those of De Morgan or Romaine Rolland.

But even her novels are not popular. People say they are too long. They can't be bothered reading novels which consume a whole lifetime.

Besides, Fate seldom supplies a happy ending, and that's what people want, now-a-days. So, though Fate's novels are given away, they have no vogue.