Two Thousand Miles on an Automobile Part 23

We ferried across the river to New London. At Lyme there is a very steep descent to the Connecticut River, which is a broad estuary at that point. The ferry is a primitive side-wheeler, which might carry two automobiles, but hardly more. It happened to be on the far sh.o.r.e. A small boy pointed out a long tin horn hanging on a post, the hoa.r.s.e blast of which summons the sleepy boat.

There was no landing, and it seemed impossible for our vehicle to get aboard; but the boat had a long shovel-like nose projecting from the bow which ran upon the sh.o.r.e, making a perfect gang-plank.

Carefully balancing the automobile in the centre so as not to list the primitive craft, we made our way deliberately to the other side, the entire crew of two men--engineer and captain--coming out to talk with us.

The ferries at Lyme and New London would prove great obstacles to anything like a club from New York to Newport along this road; the day would be spent in getting machines across the two rivers.

It was dark when we ran into the city. This particular visit to New Haven is chiefly memorable for the exceeding good manners of a boy of ten, who watched the machine next morning as it was prepared for the day's ride, offered to act as guide to the place where gasoline was kept, and, with the grace of a Chesterfield, made good my delinquent purse by paying the bill. It was all charmingly and not precociously done. This little man was well brought up,--so well brought up that he did not know it.

The automobile is a pretty fair touchstone to manners for both young and old. A man is himself in the presence of the unexpected.

The automobile is so strange that it carries people off their equilibrium, and they say and do things impulsively, and therefore naturally.

The odd-looking stranger is ever treated with scant courtesy and unbecoming curiosity; the strange machine fares no better. The man or the boy who is not unduly curious, not unduly aggressive, not unduly loquacious, not unduly insistent, who preserves his poise in the presence of an automobile, is quite out of the ordinary,-- my little New Haven friend was of that sort.

It is a beautiful ride from New Haven to New York, and to it we devoted the entire day, from half-past eight until half-past seven.

At Norwalk the people were celebrating the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the town; the hotel where we dined may have antedated the town a century or two.

Later in the afternoon, while wheeling along at twenty miles an hour, we caught a glimpse of a signpost pointing to the left and reading, "To Sound Beach." The name reminded us of friends who were spending a few weeks there; we turned back and made them a flying call.

Again a little farther on we stopped for gasoline in a dilapidated little village, and found it was Mia.n.u.s, which we recalled as the home of an artist whose paintings, full of charm and tender sentiment, have spread the fame of the locality and river. It was only a short run of two or three miles to the orchard and hill where he has his summer home, and we renewed an acquaintance made several years before.

It is interesting to follow an artist's career and note the changes in manner and methods; for changes are inevitable; they come to high and low alike. The artist may not be conscious that he no longer sees things and paints things as he did, but time tells and the truth is patent to others. But changes of manner and changes of method are fundamentally unlike. Furthermore, changes of either manner or method may be unconscious and natural, or conscious and forced.

For the most part, an artist's manner changes naturally and unconsciously with his environment and advancing years; but in the majority of instances changes in method are conscious and forced, made deliberately with the intention--frequently missed--of doing better. One painter is impressed with the success of another and strives to imitate, adopts his methods, his palette, his key, his color scheme, his brush work, and so on;--these conscious efforts of imitation usually result in failures which, if not immediately conspicuous, soon make their shortcomings felt; the note being forced and unnatural, it does not ring true.

A man may visit Madrid without imitating Velasquez; he may live in Harlem without consciously yielding to Franz Hals; he may spend days with Monet without surrendering his independence; but these strong contacts will work their subtle effects upon all impressionable natures; the effects, however, may be wrought unconsciously and frequently against the st.u.r.dy opposition of an original nature.

No painter could live for a season in Madrid without being affected by the work of Velasquez; he might strive against the influence, fight to preserve his own eccentric originality and independence, but the very fact that for the time being he is confronted with a force, an influence, is sufficient to affect his own work, whether he accepts the influence reverentially or rejects it scoffingly.

There is infinitely more hope for the man who goes to Madrid, or any other shrine, in a spirit of opposition,--supremely egotistical, supremely confident of his own methods, disposed to belittle the teaching and example of others,--than there is for the man who goes to servilely copy and imitate. The disposition to learn is a good thing, but in all walks of life, as well as in art, it may be carried too far. No man should surrender his individuality, should yield that within him which is peculiarly and essentially his own. An urchin may dispute with a Plato, if the urchin sticks to the things he knows.

Between the lawless who defy all authority and the servile who submit to all influences, there are the chosen few who a.s.sert themselves, and at the same time clearly appreciate the strength of those who differ from them. The urchin painter may a.s.sert himself in the presence of Velasquez, providing he keeps within the limits of his own originality.

It is for those who buy pictures to look out for the man who arbitrarily and suddenly changes his manner or method; he is as a cork tossed about on the surface of the waters, drifting with every breeze, submerged by every ripple, fickle and unstable; if his work possess any merit, it will be only the cheap merit of cleverness; its brilliancy will be simply the gloss of dash.

It requires time to absorb an impression. Distance diminishes the force of attraction. The best of painters will not regain immediately his equilibrium after a winter in Florence or in Rome.

The enthusiasm of the hour may bring forth some good pictures, but the effect of the impression will be too p.r.o.nounced, the copy will be too evident. Time and distance will modify an impression and lessen the attraction; the effect will remain, but no longer dominate.

It was so dark we could scarcely see the road as we approached New York.

How gracious the mantle of night; like a veil it hides all blemishes and permits only fair outlines to be observed. Details are lost in vast shadows; huge buildings loom up vaguely towards the heavens, impressive ma.s.ses of masonry; the bridges, outlined by rows of electric lights, are strings of pearls about the throat of the dusky river. The red, white, and green lights of invisible boats below are so many colored glow-worms crawling about, while the countless lights of the vast city itself are as if a constellation from above had settled for the time being on the earth beneath.

It is by night that the earth communes with the universe. During the blinding brightness of the day our vision penetrates no farther than our own great sun; but at night, when our sun has run its course across the heavens, and we are no longer dazzled by its overpowering brilliancy, the suns of other worlds come forth one by one until, as the darkness deepens, the vault above is dotted with these twinkling lights. Dim, distant, beacons of suns and planets like our own, what manner of life do they contain? what are we to them? what are they to us? Is there aught between us beyond the mechanical laws of repulsion and attraction? Is there any medium of communication beyond the impalpable ether which brings their light? Are we destined to know each other better by and by, or does our knowledge forever end with what we see on a cloudless night?

It was Wednesday evening, September 11, when we arrived in New York. The Endurance Contest organized by the Automobile Club of America had started for Buffalo on Monday morning, and the papers each day contained long accounts of the heartbreaking times the eighty-odd contestants were having,--hills, sand, mud, worked havoc in the ranks of the faithful, and by midweek the automobile stations in New York were crowded with sick and wounded veterans returning from the fray.

The stories told by those who partic.i.p.ated in that now famous run possessed the charm of novelty, the absorbing fascination of fiction.

Once upon a time, two fishermen, who were modestly relating exploits, paused to listen to three chauffeurs who began exchanging experiences. After listening a short time, the fishermen, hats in hand, went over to the chauffeurs and said, "On behalf of the Ancient and Honorable Order of Fishermen, which from time immemorial has held the palm for large, generous, and unrestricted stories of exploits, we confess the inadequacy of our qualifications, the bald literalness of our narratives, the sober and unadorned realism of our tales, and abdicate in favor of the new and most promising Order of Chauffeurs; may the blessing of Ananias rest upon you."

It is not that those who go down the pike in automobiles intend to prevaricate, or even exaggerate, but the experience is so extraordinary that the truth is inadequate for expression and explanation. It seems quite impossible to so adjust our perceptions as to receive strictly accurate impressions; therefore, when one man says he went forty miles an hour, and another says he went sixty, the latter a.s.sertion is based not upon the exact speed,--for that neither knows,--but upon the belief of the second man that he went much faster than the other. The exact speeds were probably about ten and fifteen miles an hour respectively; but the ratio is preserved in forty and sixty, and the listening layman is deeply impressed, while no one who knows anything about automobiling is for a moment deceived. At the same time, in fairness to guests and strangers within the gates, each club ought to post conspicuously the rate of discount on narratives, for not only do clubs vary in their departures from literal truth, but the narratives are greatly affected by seasons and events; for instance, after the Endurance Contest the discount rate in the Automobile Club of America was exceedingly high.

Every man who started finished ahead of the others,--except those who never intended to finish at all. Each man went exactly as far as he intended to go, and then took the train, road, or ditch home. Some intended to go as far as Albany, others to Frankfort, while quite a large number entered the contest for the express purpose of getting off in the mud and walking to the nearest village; a few, a very few, intended to go as far as Buffalo.

At one time or another each made a mile a minute, and a much higher rate of speed would have been maintained throughout had it not been necessary to identify certain towns in pa.s.sing. Nothing happened to any machine, but one or two required a little oiling, and several were abandoned by the roadside because their occupants had stubbornly determined to go no farther. One man who confessed that a set-screw in his goggles worked loose was expelled from the club as too matter-of-fact to be eligible for membership, and the maker of the machine he used sent four-page communications to each trade paper explaining that the loosening of the set-screw was due to no defect in the machine, but was entirely the fault of the driver, who jarred the screw loose by winking his eye.

Each machine surmounted Nelson Hill like a bird,--or would have, if it had not been for the machine in front. There were those who would have made the hill in forty-two seconds if they had not wasted valuable time in pushing. The pitiful feat of the man who crawled up at the rate of seventeen miles an hour was quite discounted by the stories of those who would have made it in half that time if their power had not oozed out in the first hundred yards.

Then there was mud along the route, deep mud. According to accounts, which were eloquently verified by the silence of all who listened, the mud was hub deep everywhere, and in places the machines were quite out of sight, burrowing like moles. Some took to the tow-path along the ca.n.a.l, others to trolley lines and telegraph wires.

Each man ran his own machine without the slightest expert a.s.sistance; the men in over-alls with kits of tools lurking along the roadside were modern brigands seeking opportunities for hold-ups; now and then they would spring out upon an unoffending machine, knock it into a state of insensibility, and abuse it most unmercifully. A number of machines were shadowed throughout the run by these rascals, and several did not escape their clutches, but perished miserably. In one instance a babe in arms drove one machine sixty-two miles an hour with one hand, the other being occupied with a nursing-bottle.

There were one hundred and fifty-six dress-suit cases on the run, but only one was used, and that to sit on during high tide in Herkimer County, where the mud was deepest.

It would be quite superfluous to relate additional experience tales, but enough has been told to ill.u.s.trate the necessity of a narrative discount notice in all places where the clans gather.

All men are liars, but some intend to lie,--to their credit, be it said, chauffeurs are not among the latter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN ANARCHISM "BULLETINS FROM THE CHAMBER OF DEATH"

During these days the President was dying in Buffalo, though the country did not know it until Friday.

Wednesday and Thursday the reports were so a.s.suring that all danger seemed past; but, as it turned out afterwards, there was not a moment from the hour of the shooting when the fatal processes of dissolution were not going on. Not only did the resources of surgery and medicine fail most miserably, but their gifted prophets were unable to foretell the end. Bulletins of the most rea.s.suring character turned out absolutely false. After it was all over, there was a great deal of explanation how it occurred and that it was inevitable from the beginning; but the public did not, and does not, understand how the learned doctors could have been so mistaken Wednesday and so wise Friday; and yet the explanation is simple,--medicine is an art and surgery far from an exact science. No one so well as the doctors knows how impossible it is to predict anything with any degree of a.s.surance; how uncertain the outcome of simple troubles and wounds to say nothing of serious; how much nature will do if left to herself, how obstinate she often proves when all the skill of man is brought to her a.s.sistance.

On Friday evening, and far into the night, Herald Square was filled with a surging throng watching the bulletins from the chamber of death. It was a dignified end. There must have been a good deal of innate n.o.bility in William McKinley. With all his vacillation and infirmity of political purpose, he must have been a man whose mind was saturated with fine thoughts, for to the very last, in those hours of weakness when the will no longer sways and each word is the half-unconscious muttering of the true self, he shone forth with unexpected grandeur and died a hero.

Late in the evening a bulletin announced that when the message of death came the bells would toll. In the midst of the night the city was roused by the solemn pealing of great bells, and from the streets below there came the sounds of flying horses, of moving feet, of cries and voices. It seemed as if the city had been held in check and was now released to express itself in its own characteristic way. The wave of sound radiated from each newspaper office and penetrated the most deserted street, the most secret alley, telling the people of the death of their President.

Anarchy achieved its greatest crime in the murder of President McKinley while he held the hand of his a.s.sa.s.sin in friendly grasp.

Little wonder this country was roused as never before, and at this moment the civilized world is discussing measures for the suppression, the obliteration, of anarchists, but we must take heed lest we overshoot the mark.

Three Presidents--Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley--have been a.s.sa.s.sinated, but only the last as the result of anarchistic teachings. The crime of Booth had nothing to do with anarchy; the crime of half-witted Guiteau had nothing to do with anarchy; but the deliberate crime of the cool and self-possessed Czolgoscz was the direct outcome of the "propaganda of action."

Because, therefore, three Presidents have been a.s.sa.s.sinated, we must not link the crimes together and unduly magnify the dangers of anarchy. At most the two early crimes could only serve to demonstrate how easy it is to reach and kill a President of the United States, and therefore the necessity for greater safeguards about his person is trebly demonstrated. The habit of handshaking, at best, has little to recommend it; with public men it is a custom without excuse. The notion that men in public life must receive and mingle with great ma.s.ses of people, or run the risk of being called undemocratic, is a relic of the political dark ages.

The President of the United States is an executive official, not a spectacle; he ought to be a very busy man, just a plain, hard-working servant of the people,--that is the real democratic idea. There is not the slightest need for him to expose himself to a.s.sault. In the proper performance of his duties he ought to keep somewhat aloof. The people have the right to expect that in their interest he will take good care of himself.

As for anarchism, that is a political theory that possesses the minds of a certain number of men, some of them entirely inoffensive dreamers, and anarchism as a theory can no more be suppressed by law than can any other political or religious theory. The law is efficacious against acts, but powerless against notions. But anarchism in the abstract is one thing and anarchism in the concrete is another. It is one thing to preach anarchy as the final outcome of progress, it is quite another thing to preach anarchy as a present rule of conduct. The distinction must be observed, for while the law is helpless against theories, it is potent against the practical application of theories.

In a little book called "Politics for Young Americans," written with most pious and orthodox intent by the late Charles Nordhoff, the discussion of government begins with the epigram,--by no means original with Nordhoff,--"Governments are necessary evils."

Therein lurks the germ of anarchism,--for if evil, why should governments be necessary? The anarchist is quick to admit the evil, but denies the necessity; and, in sooth, if government is an evil, then the sooner it is dispensed with the better.

When Huxley defines anarchy as that "state of society in which the rule of each individual by himself is the only government the legitimacy of which is recognized," and then goes on to say, "in this sense, strict anarchy may be the highest conceivable grade of perfection of social existence; for, if all men spontaneously did justice and loved mercy, it is plain that the swords might advantageously be turned into ploughshares, and that the occupation of judges and police would be gone," he lends support to the theoretical anarchist. For if progress means the gradual elimination of government and the final supremacy of the individual, then the anarchist is simply the prophet who keeps in view and preaches the end. If anarchy is an ideal condition, there always will be idealists who will advocate it.