American Sketches Part 6

Was ever an artist so bitterly deceived? Langdon W. Moore rose to the occasion. He was no pilferer, and scorned to carry off so mean a booty. In the words of the police-captain, he would not add larceny to burglary. But he paid the penalty of greatness. His work was instantly recognised. "I know the man," said Captain Jordan, "for there is but one in the world who would take all that trouble to save your carpet while breaking open your safe."

It reminds you of the story told by Pliny of Apelles the painter, who once upon a time called upon Protogenes, another master of his craft, when Protogenes was not within. Whereupon Apelles, seeing a picture before him, took a pencil and drew in colour upon the picture a pa.s.sing fine and small line. Then said he to the old woman in the house, "Tell thy master that he who made this line inquired for him." And when Protogenes returned, and had looked upon the line, he knew who had been there, and said withal, "Surely Apelles has come to town, for it is impossible that any but he should make in colour so fine workmanship."

Thus genius is betrayed by its own perfection, and he who refused to soil the carpet could not but be recognised by his skill.

And Langdon W. Moore was forced to pay another and a more grievous penalty for his renown. As the fame of his prowess spread abroad, he fell a prey to the greed of detectives. Do what he would, he could never rid himself of the attentions of the police. Henceforth it was almost impossible for him to work in safety, and whatever booty he obtained he must needs share with his unwelcome companions. He was like a fly condemned to spend his life in the irk-some society of the spider. When he had not much to give, his poverty was rewarded by years in prison; and then, as he says himself, he "was welcomed back into the old criminal life by crooked police officials." These officials had no desire to help him. "I was not asked by them"--again it is Moore who speaks--"if I was in want of anything, but was told that if I wanted to make some money they could put me on to a good bank job where I could make a million." And, if we may believe the historians, Moore's experience is not singular. The truth is, the thief-taker still flourishes in America. Jonathan Wild, his occupation gone in England, has crossed the ocean, and plies his trade with greater skill and treachery than ever. He thinks it better to live on the criminal than to catch him. And thus he becomes a terror not to the evildoer but to the law-abiding citizen. It is his business to encourage crime, not to stamp it out. If there were no thieves, where would the stool-pigeon and detective find their profits? "W'y," said a pickpocket {*} in New York, "them coppers up there in the Tenderloin couldn't have any diamond rings if we didn't help to pay for 'em. No, they couldn't. They'd sit down in the street and actually cry--an' they're big men some of 'em--if we guns was run off the earth." In other words, the lesson of the American Underworld is that the policeman may be a far greater danger to the community than the criminal. Jonathan Wild will always do more harm than Jack Sheppard. The skill and daring of the cracksman makes him a marked man. But _quis custodes custodiet?_

* See 'The World of Graft,' by J. Flint (1901), p. 154.

EPILOGUE.

A traveller visiting a strange land takes for granted the simpler virtues. He notes with grat.i.tude and without surprise the generous practice of hospitality. He recognises that the husbandman, patiently toiling on his farm, _adscriptus glebae_, holds in his toil-worn hands the destiny of his country. He knows that the excellent work done in tranquil seclusion by men of letters and scholars will outlast the braggart achievements of well-advertised millionaires and "prominent"

citizens. Fortunately, such virtues as these are the common inheritance of all peoples.

They are not characteristic of this nation or of that. They belong, like air and sunlight, to the whole civilised world. And it is not by similarities, but by differences, that the traveller arrives at a clear picture of a foreign land. Especially in America do the softer shades and quieter subtleties escape the unaccustomed eye. The swift energies, the untiring restlessness, the universal haste, obscure the amenities of life more darkly there than elsewhere. The frank contempt of law and blood, which receives a daily ill.u.s.tration, must needs take a firmer hold of the observer than the peaceful tillage of the fields and the silent acquisition of knowledge. America is unhappy in that she is still making her history, not one episode of which a vigilant and lupine press will suffer to go unrecorded. Graft and corruption stalk abroad, public and unashamed. The concentration of vast wealth in a few pockets results, on the one hand, in a lowering of the commercial code, on the other, in a general diffusion of poverty, These are some of the traits which mark America off from the other nations, and these traits none with a sense of the picturesque can ever overlook.

Yet it is not these traits which make the deepest impression upon the returning traveller. As he leaves the sh.o.r.es of America he forgets for the moment her love of money and of boodle, he forgets her superb energy and hunger for life, he forgets the exquisite taste shown by the most delicately refined of her citizens. He remembers most vividly that he is saying good-bye to the oldest land on earth. It is an irony of experience that the inhabitants of the United States are wont to describe themselves as a young people. They delight to excuse their extravagances on the ground of youth. When they grow older (they tell you) they will take another view of politics and of conduct. And the truth is that old age long ago overtook them. America is not, never was, young. She sprang, ready-made, from the head of a Pilgrim Father, the oldest of G.o.d's creatures. Being an old man's daughter, she has escaped the virtues and vices of an irresponsible childhood. In the primitive history of the land her ancestors took no part. They did not play with flint-knives and set up dolmens where New York now stands.

They did not adorn themselves with woad and feathers. The Prince Albert coat (or its equivalent) was always more appropriate to their ambition.

In vain you will search the United States for the signs of youth.

Wherever you cast your eye you will find the signal proofs of an eager, grasping age. Youth loiters and is glad, listening to the songs of birds, wondering at the flowers which carpet the meadow, and recking not of the morrow. America is grave and in a hurry. She is not content to fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden age. The one hope of her citizens is to get to Wall Street as quickly as possible, that they may add to their already useless h.o.a.rd of dollars. For this purpose they have perfected all those material appliances which increase the rapidity and ease of life. They would save their labour as strenuously as they would add to their fortunes. A telephone at every bed-head has made the toil of letter-writing superfluous. A thousand ingenious methods of "transportation" have taken away the necessity of walking.

There is no reason why in the years to come hand and foot should not both be atrophied. But there is nothing young in this sedulous suppression of toil. Youth is prodigal of time and of itself. Youth boasts of strength and prowess to do great deeds, not of skill to pile millions upon millions, a Pelion upon an Ossa of wealth. Nor in the vain luxury of New York can we detect anything save the signs of age. It is only in modern America that the mad extravagance of Nero's Rome may be matched. There the banquet of Trimalchio might be presented without surprise and without reproach. It differs from what are known as "freak dinners" only in the superiority of its invention and in the perfection of its table-talk.

In brief, the fantastic ambition of a "cottage" at Newport, as of Trimalchio's villa in Southern Italy, is the ambition, not of primitive, reckless, pleasure-loving youth, but of an old age, sated and curious, which hurries to decay.

Again, it is not a young people which cries aloud "too old at forty!" In the childhood of the world, the voice of age is the voice of wisdom.

It is for Nestor that Homer claims the profoundest respect, and to-day America is teaching us, who are only too willing to learn the baneful lesson, that knowledge and energy die with youth. Once upon a time I met an American who had returned from his first visit to Europe, and when I asked what was the vividest impression he brought from thence, he replied: "I was surprised to see an old man like the German Emperor doing so much work." In our more youthful eyes the German Emperor has but crossed the threshold of life. The years of his mature activity lie before him, we believe, like an untrodden road. But for the American, prematurely worn out by the weight of time and the stress of affairs, William II. already hastens to his decline, and clings to the reins of office with the febrile courage of an old man.

And all the while America is sublimely unconscious that the joys of childhood are not hers. Though with the hypochondria of advancing years she demands a doctor for her soul, she knows not from what disease she suffers. She does not pray for a Medea to thrust her into a cauldron of rejuvenescence. With a bluff optimism she declares that she is still the youngest of the nations, and boasts that when she has grown up to the height of her courage and activity she will make triumphant even her bold experiment in democracy. Not upon her has the divine injunction descended: [Greek phrase]. She who knows so much knows not herself. How should she, when she is composed of so many and so diverse elements?

And lacking self-knowledge, she lacks humour. With the best will in the world, she cannot see the things about her in a true proportion. The blithe atmosphere, clear as crystal, sparkling as champagne, in which she lives, persuades her to take a too serious and favourable view of her own character. And let it be remembered that with her optimism she still treasures the sentimentality of her Puritan ancestors. She is a true idealist, who loves nothing so dearly as "great thoughts." She delights in the phrases and aspirations which touch the heart more nearly than the head. Though her practice does not always square with her theory, especially in the field of politics, she is indefatigable in the praise of freedom, equality, and the other commonplaces of democracy. The worst is, that she cannot laugh at herself. Her gravity and sensitiveness still lie, like stumbling-blocks, in her path. She accepts the grim adulation of such unwise citizens as Mr Carnegie as no more than her due. If only she could dismiss the flattery of her admirers with an outburst of Gargantuan hilarity, all virtues might be added unto her. But, as I have said, she lacks this one thing. She is the home of humourists and no humour. A thousand jesters minister to her amus.e.m.e.nt, and she pays them handsomely. More jokes are made within her borders in a day than suffice the rest of the globe for a year. And the laughter which they provoke is not spontaneous. You can hear the creak of the machine as it goes to work. The ever-present jester is a proof that humour is an exotic, which does not grow naturally on the soil, and does not belong more intimately to the American people than did the c.u.mbersome jokes of Archie Armstrong to the monarch who employed him.

The humour which simplifies life, and detects a spice of ridicule even in the operations of business and politics, is rarely found in America.

Nor is its absence remarkable. The Americans are absorbed from early youth to ripe old age in the pursuit of success. In whatever path they walk they are determined to triumph. Sport for them is less an amus.e.m.e.nt than a chance to win. When they embark upon business, as the most of them do, their ambition is insatiable. They are consumed by the pa.s.sion of money-making. The hope of victory makes them despise toil and renounce pleasure. Gladly will they deprive themselves of rest and lead laborious lives. The battle and its booty are their own reward.

They count their gathered dollars with the same pride wherewith the conquering general counts his prisoners of war. But the contest marks their faces with the lines of care, and leaves them beggared of gaiety.

How can they take themselves other than seriously when millions depend upon their nod? They have bent their energies to one special end and purpose--the making of money; and in the process, as an American once said to me, they forget to eat, they forget to live. More obviously still, they forget to laugh. The comedy of their own career is never revealed to them. Their very slang displays their purpose: they are "out for the stuff," and they will not let it escape them. A kind of sanct.i.ty hangs about money. It is not a thing to be taken lightly; it is no proper subject for a jest. And as money and its quest absorb the best energies of America, it follows that America is distinguished by a high seriousness with which Europe is powerless to compete. However far a profession may be removed from the mart, profit is its end. Brilliant research, fortunate achievement--these also are means, like buying and selling. In scholarship, as in commerce, money is still the measure of success. Dr Munsterberg, a well-known professor at Harvard, has recorded the opinion of a well-known English scholar, which, with the doctor's comment, throws a clearer light upon the practice of America than a page of argument. "America will not have first-cla.s.s scholarship," said the Englishman, "in the sense in which Germany or England has it, till every professor in the leading universities has at least ten thousand dollars salary, and the best scholars receive twenty-five thousand dollars." Dr Munsterberg refused at first to accept this conclusion of the pessimist, but, says he, the years have convinced him. Scholars must be paid generously in the current coin, or they will not respect their work.

It is not greed, precisely, which drives the American along the road of money-getting. It is, as I have said, a frank pride in the spoils, a pride which is the consistent enemy of light-heartedness, and which speedily drives those whom it possesses into a grave melancholy.

This, then, is the dominant impression which America gives the traveller--the impression of a serious old gentleman, whom not even success will persuade to laugh at his own foibles. And there is another quality of the land, of which the memory will never fade. America is apprehensive. She has tentacles strong and far-reaching, like the tentacles of a cuttle-fish. She seizes the imagination as no other country seizes it. If you stayed long within her borders, you would be absorbed into her citizenship and her energies like the enthusiastic immigrant.

You would speak her language with a proper emphasis and a becoming accent. A few weeks pa.s.sed upon her soil seem to give you the familiarity of long use and custom. "Have I been here for years?" you ask after a brief sojourn. "Can it be possible that I have ever lived anywhere else?"