Pipefuls Part 3

"The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson," written by her sister Mrs. Sanchez (the mother of "little Louis Sanchez on the beach at Monterey" remembered by lovers of "A Child's Garden of Verses") is a book that none of the so-called idolaters will want to overlook. The romantic excitements of R. L. S.'s youth were tame indeed compared to those of f.a.n.n.y Van de Grift. R. L. S. had been thrilled enough by a few nights spent in the dark with the docile a.s.s of the Cevennes; but here was one, sprung from sober Philadelphia blood, born in Indianapolis and baptized by Henry Ward Beecher, who had pioneered across the fabled Isthmus, lived in the roaring mining camps of Nevada, worked for a dressmaker in Frisco, and venturously taken her young children to Belgium and France to study art. She had been married at seventeen, had already once thought herself to be a widow in fact by the temporary disappearance of her first husband; and was now, after enduring repeated infidelities, prepared to make herself a widow in law. Daring horse woman, a good shot, a supreme cook, artist, writer, and a very Gene Stratton Porter among flowers, fearless, beautiful, and of unique charm--where could another woman have been found so marvellously gifted to be the wife of a romancer?

It seems odd that Philadelphia and Edinburgh, the two most conservatively minded cities of the Anglo-Saxon earth, should have combined to produce this, the most radiant pair of adventurers in our recent annals.

The reading of this delightful book has taken us back into the very pang and felicity of our first great pa.s.sion--our idolatry, if you will--which we are proud here and now to re-avow. When was there ever a happier or more wholesome worship for a boy than the Stevenson mania on which so many of this generation grew up? We were the luckier in that our zeal was shared in all its gusto and particularity by a lean, long-legged, sallow-faced, brown-eyed eccentric (himself incredibly Stevensonian in appearance) with whom we lay afield in our later teens, reading R. L. S. aloud by the banks of a small stream which we vowed should become famous in the world of letters. And so it has, though not by our efforts, which was what we had designed; for at the crystal headwater of that same creek was penned "The Amenities of Book Collecting," that enchanting volume of bookish essays which has swelled the correspondence of a Philadelphia business man to insane proportions, and even brought him offers from three newspapers to conduct a book page. It seems appropriate to the present chronicler that in a quiet library overlooking the clear fount and origin of dear Darby Creek there are several of the most cherished a.s.sociation volumes of R. L. S.--we think particularly of the "Child's Garden of Verses" which he gave to c.u.mmy, and the ma.n.u.script of little "Smoutie's" very first book, the "History of Moses."

Was there ever a more joyous covenant of affection than that of Mifflin McGill and ourself in our boyish madness for Tusitala? It is a happy circ.u.mstance, we say, for a youth, before the multiplying responsibilities of maturity press upon him, to pour out his enthusiasm in an obsession such as that; and when this pa.s.sion can be shared and doubled and knitted in partnership with an equally freakish, insane, and innocent idiot (such as our generously mad friend Mifflin) admirable adventures are sure to follow. The quest begun on Darby Creek took us later on an all-summer progress among places in England and Scotland hallowed to us by a.s.sociation with R. L. S. Never, in any young lives past or to come, could there be an instant of purer excitement and glory than when, after bicycling hotly all day with the blue outline of Arthur's Seat apparently always receding before us, we trundled grimly into Auld Reekie and set out for the old Stevenson home at 17 Heriot Row, halting only to bestow our pneumatic steeds in the nearest and humblest available hostelry.

There (for we found the house empty and "To Let") we sat on the doorstep evening by evening, smoking in the long northern twilight and spinning our youthful dreams. This l.u.s.t for hunting out our favourite author's footsteps even led one of the pair to a place perhaps never visited by any other Stevensonian pilgrim--old c.o.c.kfield Rectory, in Suffolk, where Mrs. Sitwell and Sidney Colvin first met the bright-eyed Scotch boy in 1873.

The tracker of footprints remembers how kind were the then occupants of the old rectory, and how, in a daze of awe, he trod the green and tranquil lawn and hastened to visit a cottage near by where there was an ancient rustic who had been coachman at the rectory when R. L. S. stayed there, fabled to retain some pithy recollection. Alas, the Suffolk ancient, eager enough to share tobacco and speech, would only mull over his memories of a previous rector, describing how it had fallen to him to prepare the good man for burial; how he smiled in death and his cheeks were as rosy as a babe's.

It would take many pages to narrate all the bypaths and happy excursions trod by these simple youths in their quest of the immortal Louis. The memories come bustling, and one knows not where to stop. The supreme adventure, for one of the pair, lay in the kindness of Sir Sidney Colvin. To this prince of gentlemen and scholars one of these lads wrote, sending his letter (with subtle cunning) from a village in Suffolk only a few miles from Sir Sidney's boyhood home. He calculated that this might arouse the interest of Sir Sidney, whom he knew to be cruelly badgered with letters from enthusiasts; and fortune turned in his favour, granting him numerous ecstatic visits to Sir Sidney and Lady Colvin and much unwarranted generosity. But, since our mind has been turned in this direction by Mrs. Sanchez's book, it might be appropriate to add that one of the most thrilling moments in the crusade was a season of April days spent beside the green and stripling Loing, in the forest of Fontainebleau region, visiting those lovely French villages where R. L. S. roamed as a young man, crowned by an afternoon at Grez. One remembers the old gray bridge across the eddying water, and the door of the inn where the young pilgrim lingered, trying to visualize scenes of thirty-five years before.

It is not mere idolatry when the hearts of the young are haunted by such spells. There was some real divinity behind the enchantment, some marvellous essence that made all roads Tusitala trod the Road of Loving Hearts. In these matters we would trust the simple Samoans to come nearer the truth than our cynic friend in Greenwich Village. The magic of that great name abides unimpaired.

THE FIRST COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS

(_Delivered to Cain and Abel, the first graduating cla.s.s of the Garden of Eden Normal School._)

[Ill.u.s.tration]

My young friends--It is a privilege to be permitted to address you this morning, for I am convinced that never in the world's history did the age beckon with so eager a gesture to the young men on the threshold of active life. Never indeed in the past, and certainly never in the future, was there or will there be a time more deeply fraught with significance. And as I gaze upon your keen faces it seems almost as though the world had ama.s.sed all the problems that now confront us merely in order to give you tasks worthy of your prowess.

The world, I think I may safely say, is smaller now than ever before.

The recent invention of young women, something quite new in the way of a social problem, has introduced a hitherto undreamed-of complexity into human affairs. The extreme rapidity with which ideas and thoughts now circulate, due to the new invention of speech, makes it probable that what is said in Eden to-day will be known in the land of Nod within a year. The greatest need is plainly for big-visioned and purposeful men, efficient men, men with forward-looking minds. I hope you will pattern after your admirable father in this respect; he truly was a forward-looking man, for he had nothing to look back on.

You are aware, however, that your father has had serious problems to deal with, and it is well that you should consider those problems in the light of the experiences you are about to face. One of his most perplexing difficulties would never have come upon him if he had not fallen into a deep sleep. I counsel you, therefore, be wary not to overslumber. The prizes of life always come to those who press resolutely on, undaunted by fatigue and discouragement. Another of your father's failings was probably due to the fact that he was never a small boy and thus had no chance to work the deviltry out of his system. You yourselves have been abundantly blessed in this regard. I think I may say that here, in our Normal Academy, you have had an almost ideal playground to work off those boyish high spirits, to perpetrate those mischievous pranks that the world expects of its young. Remember that you are now going out into the mature work of life, where you will encounter serious problems.

As you wend your way from these accustomed shades into the full glare of public life you will do so, I hope, with the consciousness that the eyes of the world are upon you. The sphere of activity in which you may find yourselves called upon to perform may be restricted, but you will remember that not failure but low aim is base. You will hold a just balance between the conflicting tendencies of radicalism and conservatism. You will endeavour to secure for labour its due share in the profits of labour. You will not be forgetful that all government depends in the last resort on the consent of the governed. These catch words in the full flush of your youth you may be inclined to dismiss as truisms, but I a.s.sure you that 10,000 years from now men will be uttering them with the same air of discovery.

It is my great pleasure to confer upon you both the degree of bachelor of arts and to pray that you may never bring discredit upon your alma mater.

THE DOWNFALL OF GEORGE SNIPE

George Snipe was an ardent book-lover, and sat in the smoking car in a state of suspended ecstasy. He had been invited out to Mandrake Park to visit the library of Mr. Genial Girth, the well-known collector of rare autographed books. Devoted amateur of literature as he was, George's humble career rarely brought him into contact with bookish treasures, and a tremulous excitement swam through his brain as he thought of the glories he was about to see. In his devout meditation the train carried him a station beyond his alighting place, and he ran frantically back through the well-groomed suburban countryside in order to reach Mr. Girth's home on time.

They went through the library together. Mr. Girth displayed all his fascinating prizes with generous good nature, and George grew excited. The palms of his hands were clammy with agitation. All round the room, encased in scarlet slip-covers of tooled morocco, on fireproof shelves, were the priceless booty of the collector.

Here was Charles Lamb's "Essays of Elia," inscribed by the author to the woman he loved. Here was a copy of "Paradise Lost,"

signed by John Milton. Here was a "Hamlet" given by Shakespeare to Bacon with the inscription, "Dear Frank, don't you wish you could have written something like this?" Here was the unpublished ma.n.u.script of a story by Robert Louis Stevenson. Here was a note written by Doctor Johnson to the landlord of the Cheshire Cheese, refusing to pay a bill and accusing the tavern-keeper of profiteering. Here were volumes autographed by Goldsmith, Keats, Sh.e.l.ley, Poe, Byron, DeFoe, Swift, d.i.c.kens, Thackeray, and all the other great figures of modern literature.

Poor George's agitation became painful. His head buzzed as he surveyed the faded signatures of all these men who had become the living figures of his day-dreams. His eye rolled wildly in its...o...b..t. Just then Mr. Girth was called out of the room, and left George alone among the treasures.

Just at what instant the mania seized him we shall never know.

There were a pen and an inkpot on the table, and the frenzied lover of books dipped the quill deep in the dark blue fluid. He ran eagerly to the shelves. The first volume he saw was a copy of "Lorna Doone." In it he wrote "Affectionately yours, R. D.

Blackmore." Then came Longfellow's poems. He scrawled "With deep esteem, Henry W. Longfellow" on the flyleaf. Then three volumes of Macaulay's "History of England." In the first he jotted "I have always wanted you to have these admirable books, T. B. M."

In "The Mill on the Floss" he wrote "This comes to you still warm from the press, George Eliot." The next book happened to be a copy of Edgar Guest's poems. In this he inscribed "You are the host I love the best, This is my boast, Yours, Edgar Guest." In a copy of Browning's Poems he wrote "To my dear and only wife, Elizabeth, from her devoted Robert." In a pamphlet reprint of the Gettysburg Speech he penned "This is straight stuff, A. Lincoln."

But perhaps his most triumphant exploit was signing a copy of the Rubaiyat thus: "This book is given to the Anti-Saloon League of Naishapur by that thorn in their side, O. Khayyam."

By the time the ambulance reached Mr. Girth's home George was completely beyond control. He was taken away screaming because he had not had a chance to autograph a copy of the "Songs of Solomon."

MEDITATIONS OF A BOOKSELLER

(Roger Mifflin _loquitur_)

[Ill.u.s.tration]

I had a pleasant adventure to-day. A free verse poet came in to see me, wanted me to buy some copies of "The Pagan Anthology." I looked over the book, to which he himself had contributed some pieces. I advised him to read Tennyson. I wish you could have seen his face.

If you want to see a really good anthology (I said) have a look at Pearsall Smith's "Treasury of English Prose," just out. The only thing that surprises me is that Mr. Smith didn't include some free verse in it. The best thing about free verse is that it is often awfully good prose.

It's a superb clear night: a milky pallor washed in the blue: a white moon overhead: stars rare but brilliant, one in the south twinkles and flutters like a tiny flower stirred by faint air. The wind is "a cordial of incredible virtue" (Emerson)--sharp and chill, but with a milder tincture. To-day, though brisk and snell on the streets, the sunshine had a lively vigour, a generous quality, a promissory note of the equinox. I felt it from first rising this morning--the old demiurge at work! As I sat in the bathtub (when a man is fifty he may be pardoned for taking a warm bath on winter mornings) my mind fell upon the desire of wandering: it occurred to me that a spread of legs in the vital air would be richly repaid. The windows called me: as soon as shirt and trousers were on, I was at the sill peering out over Gissing Street.

Later, even through closed panes, the c.h.i.n.k of milk bottles on the pavement below seemed to rise with a clearer, merrier note. Setting out for some tobacco about 8:30, I stopped to study the ice-man's great blocks of silvery translucence, lying along the curb by a big apartment house. "Artificial" ice, I suppose: it was interesting to see, in the meridian of each cake, a kind of silvery fracture or membrane, with the grain of air-bubbles tending outward therefrom--showing, no doubt, if one knew the mechanics of refrigeration, just how the freezing proceeded. Even in so humble a thing as a block of ice are these harmonic and lovely patterns, the seal of Nature's craft, inscrutable, inimitable. I might have made a point of this in talking to that free verse poet. I'm glad I didn't, however: he would have had some tedious reply, convincing to himself. That's the trouble with replies: they are always convincing to the replier. As a friend of mine used to say, one good taciturn deserves another.

I was thinking, as I took a parcel of laundry up to the Chinaman on McFee Street just now, it would be interesting to write a book dealing solely, candidly, exactly, and fully with the events, emotions, and thoughts of just one day in a man's life. If one could do that, in a way to carry conviction, a.s.sent, and reality, to convey to the reader's senses a recognition of genuine actual human _being_, one might claim to be a true artist.

I have found an admirable book for reading in bed--this little anthology of prose, collected by Pearsall Smith. He knows what good prose is, having written some of the daintiest bits of our time in his "Trivia," a book with which I occasionally delight a truly discerning customer. What a fascination there is in good prose--"the cool element of prose" as Milton calls it--a sort of fluid happiness of the mind, unshaken by the violent pangs of great poetry. I am not subtle enough to describe it, but in the steadily c.u.mulating satisfaction of first-cla.s.s prose there seems to be something that speaks direct to the brain, unmarred by the claims of the senses, the emotions. I meditate much, ignorantly and fumblingly, on the modes and purposes of writing. It is so simple--"Fool!" said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart and write!"--all that is needful is to tell what happens; and yet how hard it is to summon up that necessary candor. Every time I read great work I see the confirmation of what I grope for. How vivid, straight, and cleanly it seems when done: merely the outward utterance of "what the mind at home, in the s.p.a.cious circuits of her musing, hath liberty to propose to herself." Let a man's mind depart from his audience; let him have no concern whether to shock or to please. Let him carry no consideration save to utter, with unsparing fidelity, what pa.s.ses in his own spirit.

One can trust the brain to do its part. All that is needed is honourable frankness: not to be ashamed to open our hearts, to speak our privy weakness, our inward exulting. Then the pain and perplexity, or the childish satisfactions, of our daily life are the true material of the writer's art, and that which is sown in weakness may be raised in power.

Curious indeed that in this life, brief and precariously enjoyed, men should so set their hearts on building a permanence in words: something to stand, in the lovely stability of ink and leaden types, as our speech out of silence to those who follow on. Indefensible absurdity, and yet the secret and impa.s.sioned dream of those who write!

I was about to say that, for the writing of anything truly durable, the first requisite is plenty of silence. Then I recall Dr. Johnson's preface to his Dictionary--"written not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academic bowers, but amid inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow."

IF BUYING A MEAL WERE LIKE BUYING A HOUSE

This Indenture

between A. B., an innkeeper, organized and existing under the laws of good cooking, party of the first part, and C. D., party of the second part, witnesseth:

That the said party of the first part, for and in consideration of the sum of $1.50, lawful money of the United States, paid by the said party of the second part, does hereby grant and release unto the said C. D., and his heirs, administrators, and a.s.signs forever,

All that certain group, parcels, or allotments of food, viands, or victuals, situate or to be spread, served, and garnished upon the premises of said A. B., shown and known and commonly designed as one square meal, table d'hote, together with the drinking water, napkin, ash tray, finger-bowl and hat-and-coat-hanging privileges or eas.e.m.e.nts appurtenant thereto,

And Together With the rights, privileges, and opportunities (as an eas.e.m.e.nt additionally appurtenant to the meal above nominated) to partake, eat, enjoy, and be nourished upon said victuals, and to call for extra pats, parcels, or portions of b.u.t.ter.

Subject to the following restrictions, to wit: That neither the party of the second part, nor his heirs, executors, or a.s.signs, will feast immoderately upon onions, to the confusion of his neighbours; nor will the said C. D. or his guests smoke any form of tobacco other than cigars and cigarettes, the instrument commonly known as a pipe being offensive to the head waiter (a man of delicate nurture); nor will said party of the second part covet, retain, nor seek to remove any knives, forks, spoons, or other tableware whatsoever; nor is anything said or implied or otherwise intimated in this covenant to be construed as permitting the party of the second part to carry on loud laughter, song, carnival, nor social uproar; nor unnecessarily, further than is tactful for the procurement of expeditious attention, to endear himself to or otherwise cajole, compliment, and ingratiate the waitress.