Humanly Speaking Part 4

When we take such typical characters as John Bull and Brother Jonathan as representing actual Englishmen or Americans, we put ourselves in the way of contradiction. They are not good likenesses. An English writer says: "As the English, a particularly quick-witted race, tinged with the colors of romance, have long cherished a false pride in their reputed stolidity, and have accepted with pleasant equanimity the figure of John Bull as their national signboard, though he does not resemble them, so Americans plume themselves on the thought that they are dying of nervous energy."

There is much truth in this. One may stand at Charing Cross and watch the hurrying crowds and only now and then catch sight of any one who suggests the burly John Bull of tradition. The type is not a common one, at least among city dwellers.

But when we attribute a temperament to a nation, we do not necessarily mean that all the people are alike. We only mean that there are certain ways of thinking and feeling that are common to those who have had the same general experience. The national temperament is manifested not so much in what the people are as in what they admire and instinctively appreciate.

Let us accept the statement that the English are a quick-witted and romantic people who have accepted with pleasant equanimity the reputation for being quite otherwise. Why should they do this? Why should they take pride in their reputed stolidity rather than in their actual cleverness. Here is a temperamental peculiarity that is worth looking into.

John Bull may be a myth, but Englishmen have been the mythmakers. They have for generations delighted in picturing him. He represents a combination of qualities which they admire. Dogged, unimaginative, well-meaning, honest, full of whimsical prejudices, and full of common sense, he is loved and honored by those who are much more brilliant than he.

John Bull is not a composite photograph of the inhabitants of the British Isles. He is not an average man. He is a totem. When an Indian tribe chooses a fox or a bear as a totem, they must not be taken too literally. But the symbol has a real meaning. It indicates that there are some qualities in these animals that they admire. They have proved valuable in the tribal struggle for existence.

Those who belong to the cult of John Bull take him as the symbol of that which has been most vital and successful in the island story.

England has had more than its share of men of genius. It has had its artists, its wits, its men of quick imagination. But these have not been the builders of the Empire, or those who have sustained it in the hours of greatest need. Men of a slower temper, more solid than brilliant, have been the nation's main dependence. "It's dogged as does it." On many a hard-fought field men of the bull-dog breed have with unflinching tenacity held their own. In times of revolution they have maintained order, and never yielded to a threat. Had they been more sensitive they would have failed. Their foibles have been easily forgiven and their virtues have been gratefully recognized.

When we try to form an idea of that which is most distinctive in the American temperament, we need not inquire what Americans actually are.

The answer to that question would be a generalization as wide as humanity. They are of all kinds. Among the ninety-odd millions of human beings inhabiting the territory of the United States are representatives of all the nations of the Old World, and they bring with them their ancestral traits.

But we may ask, When these diverse peoples come together on common ground, what sort of man do they choose as their symbol? There is a typical character understood and appreciated by all. In every caricature of Uncle Sam or Brother Jonathan we can detect the lineaments of the American frontiersman.

James Russell Lowell, gentleman and scholar that he was, describes a type of man unknown to the Old World:--

"This brown-fisted rough, this shirt-sleeved Cid, This backwoods Charlemagne of Empires new.

Who meeting Caesar's self would slap his back, Call him 'Old Horse' and challenge to a drink."

Mr. Lowell bore no resemblance to this brown-fisted rough. He would not have slapped Caesar on the back, and he would have resented being himself greeted in such an unconventional fashion. Nevertheless he was an American and was able to understand that a man might be capable of such improprieties and at the same time be a pillar of the State. It tickled his fancy to think of a fellow citizen meeting the imperial Roman on terms of hearty equality.

"My lungs draw braver air, my breast dilates With ampler manhood, and I face both worlds."

d.i.c.kens, with all his boisterous humor and democratic sympathies, could not interpret Jefferson Brick and Lafayette Kettle and the other expansive patriots whom he met on his travels. Their virtues were as a sealed book to him. Their boastful familiarity was simply odious.

To understand Lowell's exhilaration one must enter into the spirit of American history. It has been the history of what has been done by strong men who owed nothing to the refinements of civilization. The interesting events have taken place not at the centre, but on the circ.u.mference of the country. The centrifugal force has always been the strongest. There has been no capital to which ambitious youths went up to seek their fortune. In each generation they have gone to the frontier where opportunities awaited them. There they encountered, on the rough edges of society, rough-and-ready men in whom they recognized their natural superiors. These men, rude of speech and of manner, were resourceful, bold, far-seeing. They were conscious of their power. They were laying the foundations of cities and of states and they knew it.

They were as boastful as Homeric heroes, and for the same reason. There was in them a rude virility that found expression in word as well as in deed.

Davy Crockett, c.o.o.n-hunter, Indian fighter, and Congressman, was a great man in his day. It does not detract from his worth that he was well aware of the fact. There was no false modesty about this backwoods Charlemagne. He wrote of himself, "If General Jackson, Black Hawk, and me were to travel through the United States we would bring out, no matter what kind of weather, more people to see us than any other three people now living among the fifteen millions now inhabiting the United States. And what would it be for? As I am one of the persons mentioned I would not press the question further. What I am driving at is this. When a man rises from a low degree to a place he ain't used to, such a man starts the curiosity of the world to know how he got along."

Davy Crockett understood the temper of his fellow citizens. A man who rises by his own exertions from a low position to "a place he ain't used to" is not only an object of curiosity, but he elicits enthusiastic admiration. Any awkwardness which he exhibits in the position which he has achieved is overlooked. We are anxious to know how he got along.

Every country has its self-made men, but usually they are made to feel very uncomfortable. They are accounted intruders in circles reserved for the choicer few. But in America they are a.s.sured of a sympathetic audience when they tell of the way they have risen in the world. There is no need for them to apologize for any lack of early advantages, for they are living in a self-made country. We are in the habit of giving the place of honor to the beginner rather than to the continuer. For the finisher the time is not ripe.

II

The most vivid impressions of Americans have always been antic.i.p.atory.

They have felt themselves borne along by a resistless current, and that current has, on the whole, been flowing in the right direction. They have never been confronted with ruins that tell that the land they inhabit has seen better days. Yesterday is vague; To-day may be uncertain; To-morrow is alluring; and the Day after to-morrow is altogether glorious. George Herbert pictured religion as standing on tiptoe waiting to pa.s.s to the American strand. Not only religion but every other good thing has a.s.sumed that att.i.tude of expectant curiosity.

Even Cotton Mather could not avoid a tone of pious boastfulness when he narrated the doings of New England. Everything was remarkable. New England had the most remarkable providences, the most remarkable painful preachers, the most remarkable heresies, the most remarkable witches.

Even the local devils were in his judgment more enterprising than those of the old country. They had to be in order to be a match for the New England saints.

The staid Judge Sewall, after a study of the prophecies, was of the opinion that America was the only country in which they could be adequately fulfilled. Here was a field large enough for those future battles between good and evil which enthralled the Puritan imagination.

To be sure, it would be said, there isn't much just now to attract the historian whose mind dwells exclusively on the past. But to one who dips into the future it is thrilling. Here is the battlefield of Armageddon.

Some day we shall see "the spirits of devils working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth, and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of G.o.d Almighty." Just _when_ that might take place might be uncertain but _where_ it would take place was to them more obvious.

In the days of small things the settlers in the wilderness had large thoughts. They felt themselves to be historical characters, as indeed they were. They were impressed by the magnitude of the country and by the importance of their relation to it. Their language took on a cosmic breadth.

Ethan Allen could not have a.s.sumed a more masterful tone if he had had an Empire at his back instead of undisciplined bands of Green Mountain Boys. Writing to the Continental Congress, he declares that unless the demands of Vermont are complied with "we will retire into the fastnesses of our Green Mountains and will wage eternal warfare against h.e.l.l, the Devil, and Human Nature in general." And Ethan Allen meant it.

The love of the superlative is deeply seated in the American mind. It is based on no very careful survey of the existing world. It is a conclusion to which it is easy to jump. I remember one week, traveling through the Mississippi Valley, stopping every night in some town that had something which was advertised as the biggest in the world. On Friday I reached a sleepy little village which seemed the picture of contented mediocrity. Here, thought I, I shall find no bigness to molest me or make me afraid. But when I sat down to write a letter on the hotel stationery I was confronted with the statement, "This is the biggest little hotel in the State."

When one starts a tune it is safer to start it rather low, so as not to come to grief on the upper notes. In discussing the American temperament it is better to start modestly. Instead of asking what excellent qualities we find in ourselves, we should ask what do other nations most dislike in us. We can then have room to rise to better things. There is a family resemblance between the worst and the best of any national group. Kipling, in his lines "To an American," may set the tune for us.

It is not too high. His American is boastful, careless, and irrationally optimistic.

"Enslaved, illogical, elate, He greets the embarra.s.sed G.o.ds, nor fears To shake the iron hand of Fate Or match with Destiny for beers."

A person who would offer to shake hands with Fate is certainly lacking in a fine sense of propriety. His belief in equality makes him indifferent to the note of distinction. "He dubs his dreary brethren kings." Of course they are not kings, but that makes no difference. It makes little difference whether anything corresponds to the name he chooses to give to it. For there is

"A cynic devil in his blood That bids him mock his hurrying soul."

This impression of a mingling of optimism, cynicism, and hurry is one which is often made upon those who are suddenly plunged into American society. In any company of Americans who are discussing public affairs the stranger is struck by what seems the lack of logical connection between the statements of facts and the judgments pa.s.sed upon them. The facts may be most distressing and yet n.o.body seems much distressed, still less is any one depressed. The city government is in the hands of grafters, the police force is corrupt, the prices of the necessaries of life are extortionate, the laws on the statute book are not enforced, and new laws are about to be enacted that are foolish in the extreme.

Vast numbers of undesirable aliens are coming into the country and bringing with them ideas that are opposed to the fundamental principles of the republic. All this is told with an air of illogical elation. The conversation is interspersed with anecdotes of the exploits of good-natured rascals. These are received with smiles or tolerant laughter. Everyone seems to have perfect confidence that the country is a grand and glorious place to live in, and that all will come out well in the end.

Is this an evidence of a cynic humor in the blood, or is it a manifestation of childish optimism? Let us frankly answer that it may be one or the other or both. There are cynics and sentimentalists who are the despair of all who are seriously working for better citizenship. But the chances are that the men to whom our stranger was listening were neither cynics nor sentimentalists, but idealists who had the American temperament.

Among those who laughed good-naturedly over the temporary success of the clever rascal may have been those who had been giving their energies to the work of prevention of just such misdeeds. They are reformers with a shrewd twinkle in their eyes. They take a keen intellectual pleasure in their work, and are ready to give credit to any natural talent in their antagonist. If they are inclined to take a cheerful view of the whole situation it is because they are in the habit of looking at the situation as a whole. The predominance of force is actually on their side and they see no reason to doubt the final result. They have learned the meaning of the text, "Fret not thyself because of evildoers." In fact the evildoer may not have done so much harm as one might think. Nor is he really such a hopeless character. There is good stuff in him, and he yet may be used for many good purposes. They laugh best who laugh last, and their good-natured laughter was antic.i.p.atory. There are forces working for righteousness which they have experienced. On the whole things are moving in the right direction and they can afford to be cheerful.

This is the kind of experience which comes to those who are habitually dealing with crude materials rather than with finished products. They cannot afford to be fastidious; they learn to take things as they come and make the best of them. The doctrine that things are not as they seem is a cheerful one, to a person who is accustomed to dealing with things which turn out to be better than at first they seemed. The unknown takes on a friendly guise and awakens a pleasant curiosity. That is the experience of generations of pioneers and prospectors. They have found a continent full of resources awaking men of courage and industry. The opportunities were there; all that was needed was the ability to recognize them when they appeared in disguise.

III

And the human problem has been the same as the material one. Europe has sent to America not the finished products of her schools and her courts, but millions of people for whom she had no room. They were in the rough; they had to be made over into a new kind of citizen. This material has often been of the most unpromising appearance. It has often seemed to superficial observers that little could be made of it. But the attempt has been made. And those who have worked with it, putting skill and patience into their work, have been agreeably surprised. They have come to see the highest possibilities in the commonest lumps of clay.

The satisfaction that is taken in the common man is not in what he is at the present moment, but in what he has shown himself capable of becoming. Give him a chance and all the graces may be his. The American idealist admits that many of his fellow citizens may be rather dreary brethren, but so were many of the kings of whom nothing is remembered but their names and dates. Only now and then is one seen who is every inch a king. But such a person is a proof of what may be accomplished.

It may take a long time for the rank and file to catch up with their leaders. But where the few are to-day the many will be to-morrow; for they are all travelling the same road.

The visitor in the United States, especially if he has spent his time in the great cities of the East, may go away with the idea that democracy is a spent force. He will see great inequalities in wealth and position.

He will be struck by the fact that autocratic powers are wielded which would not be tolerated in many countries of Europe. He will notice that it is very difficult to give direct expression to the will of the people.

But he will make a mistake if he attributes these things to the growth of an aristocratic sentiment. They are a part of an evolution that is thoroughly democratic. The distinctive thing in an aristocracy is not the fact that certain people enjoy privileges. It lies in the fact that these privileged people form a cla.s.s that is looked upon as superior. An aristocratic cla.s.s must not only take itself seriously; it must be taken seriously by others.

In America there are groups of persons more successful than the average.

They are objects of curiosity, and, if they are well-behaved, of respect. Their comings and goings are chronicled in the newspapers, and their names are familiar. But it does not occur to the average man that they are anything more than fortunate persons who emerged from the crowd, and who by and by may be lost in the crowd again. What they have done, others may do when their time comes. The inequalities are inequalities of circ.u.mstance and not of nature.

The commonplace American follows unworthy leaders and has admiration for cheap success. But he cherishes no illusions in regard to the objects of his admiration. They have done what he would like to do, and what he hopes to be able to do sometime. He thinks of the successful men as being of the same kind with himself. They are more fortunate, that is all.

IV

The same temperamental quality is seen in the American idealist.