What Is Man? and Other Essays Read online

  What a queer, melancholy house, what a queer, melancholy street! I don't think I was ever in a street before when quite so many professional ladies, with English surnames, preferred Madam to Mrs. on their door-plates. And the poor old place has such a desperately conscious air of going to the deuce. Every house seems to wince as you go by, and button itself up to the chin for fear you should find out it had no shirt on—so to speak. I don't know what's the reason, but these material tokens of a social decay afflict me terribly; a tipsy woman isn't dreadfuler than a haggard old house, that's once been a home, in a street like this.

  Mr. Howells's pictures are not mere stiff, hard, accurate photographs; they are photographs with feeling in them, and sentiment, photographs taken in a dream, one might say.

  As concerns his humor, I will not try to say anything, yet I would try, if I had the words that might approximately reach up to its high place. I do not think any one else can play with humorous fancies so gracefully and delicately and deliciously as he does, nor has so many to play with, nor can come so near making them look as if they were doing the playing themselves and he was not aware that they were at it. For they are unobtrusive, and quiet in their ways, and well conducted. His is a humor which flows softly all around about and over and through the mesh of the page, pervasive, refreshing, health-giving, and makes no more show and no more noise than does the circulation of the blood.

  There is another thing which is contentingly noticeable in Mr. Howells's books. That is his "stage directions"—those artifices which authors employ to throw a kind of human naturalness around a scene and a conversation, and help the reader to see the one and get at meanings in the other which might not be perceived if entrusted unexplained to the bare words of the talk. Some authors overdo the stage directions, they elaborate them quite beyond necessity; they spend so much time and take up so much room in telling us how a person said a thing and how he looked and acted when he said it that we get tired and vexed and wish he hadn't said it all. Other authors' directions are brief enough, but it is seldom that the brevity contains either wit or information. Writers of this school go in rags, in the matter of state directions; the majority of them having nothing in stock but a cigar, a laugh, a blush, and a bursting into tears. In their poverty they work these sorry things to the bone. They say:

  ". . . replied Alfred, flipping the ash from his cigar." (This explains nothing; it only wastes space.)

  ". . . responded Richard, with a laugh." (There was nothing to laugh about; there never is. The writer puts it in from habit—automatically; he is paying no attention to his work; or he would see that there is nothing to laugh at; often, when a remark is unusually and poignantly flat and silly, he tries to deceive the reader by enlarging the stage direction and making Richard break into "frenzies of uncontrollable laughter." This makes the reader sad.)

  ". . . murmured Gladys, blushing." (This poor old shop-worn blush is a tiresome thing. We get so we would rather Gladys would fall out of the book and break her neck than do it again. She is always doing it, and usually irrelevantly. Whenever it is her turn to murmur she hangs out her blush; it is the only thing she's got. In a little while we hate her, just as we do Richard.)

  ". . . repeated Evelyn, bursting into tears." (This kind keep a book damp all the time. They can't say a thing without crying. They cry so much about nothing that by and by when they have something to cry ABOUT they have gone dry; they sob, and fetch nothing; we are not moved. We are only glad.)

  They gavel me, these stale and overworked stage directions, these carbon films that got burnt out long ago and cannot now carry any faintest thread of light. It would be well if they could be relieved from duty and flung out in the literary back yard to rot and disappear along with the discarded and forgotten "steeds" and "halidomes" and similar stage-properties once so dear to our grandfathers. But I am friendly to Mr. Howells's stage directions; more friendly to them than to any one else's, I think. They are done with a competent and discriminating art, and are faithful to the requirements of a state direction's proper and lawful office, which is to inform. Sometimes they convey a scene and its conditions so well that I believe I could see the scene and get the spirit and meaning of the accompanying dialogue if some one would read merely the stage directions to me and leave out the talk. For instance, a scene like this, from THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY:

  ". . . and she laid her arms with a beseeching gesture on her father's shoulder."

  ". . . she answered, following his gesture with a glance."

  ". . . she said, laughing nervously."

  ". . . she asked, turning swiftly upon him that strange, searching glance."

  ". . . she answered, vaguely."

  ". . . she reluctantly admitted."

  ". . . but her voice died wearily away, and she stood looking into his face with puzzled entreaty."

  Mr. Howells does not repeat his forms, and does not need to; he can invent fresh ones without limit. It is mainly the repetition over and over again, by the third-rates, of worn and commonplace and juiceless forms that makes their novels such a weariness and vexation to us, I think. We do not mind one or two deliveries of their wares, but as we turn the pages over and keep on meeting them we presently get tired of them and wish they would do other things for a change.

  ". . . replied Alfred, flipping the ash from his cigar."

  ". . . responded Richard, with a laugh."

  ". . . murmured Gladys, blushing."

  ". . . repeated Evelyn, bursting into tears."

  ". . . replied the Earl, flipping the ash from his cigar."

  ". . . responded the undertaker, with a laugh."

  ". . . murmured the chambermaid, blushing."

  ". . . repeated the burglar, bursting into tears."

  ". . . replied the conductor, flipping the ash from his cigar."

  ". . . responded Arkwright, with a laugh."

  ". . . murmured the chief of police, blushing."

  ". . . repeated the house-cat, bursting into tears."

  And so on and so on; till at last it ceases to excite. I always notice stage directions, because they fret me and keep me trying to get out of their way, just as the automobiles do. At first; then by and by they become monotonous and I get run over.

  Mr. Howells has done much work, and the spirit of it is as beautiful as the make of it. I have held him in admiration and affection so many years that I know by the number of those years that he is old now; but his heart isn't, nor his pen; and years do not count. Let him have plenty of them; there is profit in them for us.

  English As She Is Taught

  In the appendix to Croker's Boswell's Johnson one finds this anecdote:

  CATO'S SOLILOQUY.—One day Mrs. Gastrel set a little girl to repeat to him [Dr. Samuel Johnson] Cato's Soliloquy, which she went through very correctly. The Doctor, after a pause, asked the child:

  "What was to bring Cato to an end?"

  She said it was a knife.

  "No, my dear, it was not so."

  "My aunt Polly said it was a knife."

  "Why, Aunt Polly's knife MAY DO, but it was a DAGGER, my dear."

  He then asked her the meaning of "bane and antidote," which she was unable to give. Mrs. Gastrel said:

  "You cannot expect so young a child to know the meaning of such words."

  He then said:

  "My dear, how many pence are there in SIXPENCE?"

  "I cannot tell, sir," was the half-terrified reply.

  On this, addressing himself to Mrs. Gastrel, he said:

  "Now, my dear lady, can anything be more ridiculous than to teach a child Cato's Soliloquy, who does not know how many pence there are in a sixpence?"

  In a lecture before the Royal Geographical Society Professor Ravenstein quoted the following list of frantic questions, and said that they had been asked in an examination:

  Mention all names of places in the world derived from Julius Caesar or Augustus Caesar.

  Where are the following rivers: Pisuer
ga, Sakaria, Guadalete, Jalon, Mulde?

  All you know of the following: Machacha, Pilmo, Schebulos, Crivoscia, Basces, Mancikert, Taxhem, Citeaux, Meloria, Zutphen.

  The highest peaks of the Karakorum range.

  The number of universities in Prussia.

  Why are the tops of mountains continually covered with snow [sic]?

  Name the length and breadth of the streams of lava which issued from the Skaptar Jokul in the eruption of 1783.

  That list would oversize nearly anybody's geographical knowledge. Isn't it reasonably possible that in our schools many of the questions in all studies are several miles ahead of where the pupil is?—that he is set to struggle with things that are ludicrously beyond his present reach, hopelessly beyond his present strength? This remark in passing, and by way of text; now I come to what I was going to say.

  I have just now fallen upon a darling literary curiosity. It is a little book, a manuscript compilation, and the compiler sent it to me with the request that I say whether I think it ought to be published or not. I said, Yes; but as I slowly grow wise I briskly grow cautious; and so, now that the publication is imminent, it has seemed to me that I should feel more comfortable if I could divide up this responsibility with the public by adding them to the court. Therefore I will print some extracts from the book, in the hope that they may make converts to my judgment that the volume has merit which entitles it to publication.

  As to its character. Every one has sampled "English as She is Spoke" and "English as She is Wrote"; this little volume furnishes us an instructive array of examples of "English as She is Taught"—in the public schools of—well, this country. The collection is made by a teacher in those schools, and all the examples in it are genuine; none of them have been tampered with, or doctored in any way. From time to time, during several years, whenever a pupil has delivered himself of anything peculiarly quaint or toothsome in the course of his recitations, this teacher and her associates have privately set that thing down in a memorandum-book; strictly following the original, as to grammar, construction, spelling, and all; and the result is this literary curiosity.

  The contents of the book consist mainly of answers given by the boys and girls to questions, said answers being given sometimes verbally, sometimes in writing. The subjects touched upon are fifteen in number: I. Etymology; II. Grammar; III. Mathematics; IV. Geography; V. "Original"; VI. Analysis; VII. History; VIII. "Intellectual"; IX. Philosophy; X. Physiology; XI. Astronomy; XII. Politics; XIII. Music; XIV. Oratory; XV. Metaphysics.

  You perceive that the poor little young idea has taken a shot at a good many kinds of game in the course of the book. Now as to results. Here are some quaint definitions of words. It will be noticed that in all of these instances the sound of the word, or the look of it on paper, has misled the child:

  ABORIGINES, a system of mountains.

  ALIAS, a good man in the Bible.

  AMENABLE, anything that is mean.

  AMMONIA, the food of the gods.

  ASSIDUITY, state of being an acid.

  AURIFEROUS, pertaining to an orifice.

  CAPILLARY, a little caterpillar.

  CORNIFEROUS, rocks in which fossil corn is found.

  EMOLUMENT, a headstone to a grave.

  EQUESTRIAN, one who asks questions.

  EUCHARIST, one who plays euchre.

  FRANCHISE, anything belonging to the French.

  IDOLATER, a very idle person.

  IPECAC, a man who likes a good dinner.

  IRRIGATE, to make fun of.

  MENDACIOUS, what can be mended.

  MERCENARY, one who feels for another.

  PARASITE, a kind of umbrella.

  PARASITE, the murder of an infant.

  PUBLICAN, a man who does his prayers in public.

  TENACIOUS, ten acres of land.

  Here is one where the phrase "publicans and sinners" has got mixed up in the child's mind with politics, and the result is a definition which takes one in a sudden and unexpected way:

  REPUBLICAN, a sinner mentioned in the Bible.

  Also in Democratic newspapers now and then. Here are two where the mistake has resulted from sound assisted by remote fact:

  PLAGIARIST, a writer of plays.

  DEMAGOGUE, a vessel containing beer and other liquids.

  I cannot quite make out what it was that misled the pupil in the following instances; it would not seem to have been the sound of the word, nor the look of it in print:

  ASPHYXIA, a grumbling, fussy temper.

  QUARTERNIONS, a bird with a flat beak and no bill, living in New Zealand.

  QUARTERNIONS, the name given to a style of art practiced by the Phoenicians.

  QUARTERNIONS, a religious convention held every hundred years.

  SIBILANT, the state of being idiotic.

  CROSIER, a staff carried by the Deity.

  In the following sentences the pupil's ear has been deceiving him again:

  The marriage was illegible.

  He was totally dismasted with the whole performance.

  He enjoys riding on a philosopher.

  She was very quick at repertoire.

  He prayed for the waters to subsidize.

  The leopard is watching his sheep.

  They had a strawberry vestibule.

  Here is one which—well, now, how often we do slam right into the truth without ever suspecting it:

  The men employed by the Gas Company go around and speculate the meter.

  Indeed they do, dear; and when you grow up, many and many's the time you will notice it in the gas bill. In the following sentences the little people have some information to convey, every time; but in my case they fail to connect: the light always went out on the keystone word:

  The coercion of some things is remarkable; as bread and molasses.

  Her hat is contiguous because she wears it on one side.

  He preached to an egregious congregation.

  The captain eliminated a bullet through the man's heart.

  You should take caution and be precarious.

  The supercilious girl acted with vicissitude when the perennial time came.

  The last is a curiously plausible sentence; one seems to know what it means, and yet he knows all the time that he doesn't. Here is an odd (but entirely proper) use of a word, and a most sudden descent from a lofty philosophical altitude to a very practical and homely illustration:

  We should endeavor to avoid extremes—like those of wasps and bees.

  And here—with "zoological" and "geological" in his mind, but not ready to his tongue—the small scholar has innocently gone and let out a couple of secrets which ought never to have been divulged in any circumstances:

  There are a good many donkeys in theological gardens.

  Some of the best fossils are found in theological gardens.

  Under the head of "Grammar" the little scholars furnish the following information:

  Gender is the distinguishing nouns without regard to sex.

  A verb is something to eat.

  Adverbs should always be used as adjectives and adjectives as adverbs.

  Every sentence and name of God must begin with a caterpillar.

  "Caterpillar" is well enough, but capital letter would have been stricter. The following is a brave attempt at a solution, but it failed to liquify:

  When they are going to say some prose or poetry before they say the poetry or prose they must put a semicolon just after the introduction of the prose or poetry.

  The chapter on "Mathematics" is full of fruit. From it I take a few samples—mainly in an unripe state:

  A straight line is any distance between two places.

  Parallel lines are lines that can never meet until they run together.

  A circle is a round straight line with a hole in the middle.

  Things which are equal to each other are equal to anything else.

  To find the number of square feet in a room you multiply the room by the number of the fe
et. The product is the result.

  Right you are. In the matter of geography this little book is unspeakably rich. The questions do not appear to have applied the microscope to the subject, as did those quoted by Professor Ravenstein; still, they proved plenty difficult enough without that. These pupils did not hunt with a microscope, they hunted with a shot-gun; this is shown by the crippled condition of the game they brought in:

  America is divided into the Passiffic slope and the Mississippi valey.

  North America is separated by Spain.

  America consists from north to south about five hundred miles.

  The United States is quite a small country compared with some other countrys, but it about as industrious.

  The capital of the United States is Long Island.

  The five seaports of the U.S. are Newfunlan and Sanfrancisco.

  The principal products of the U.S. is earthquakes and volcanoes.

  The Alaginnies are mountains in Philadelphia.

  The Rocky Mountains are on the western side of Philadelphia.

  Cape Hateras is a vast body of water surrounded by land and flowing into the Gulf of Mexico.

  Mason and Dixon's line is the Equator.

  One of the leading industries of the United States is mollasses, book-covers, numbers, gas, teaching, lumber, manufacturers, paper-making, publishers, coal.

  In Austria the principal occupation is gathering Austrich feathers.

  Gibraltar is an island built on a rock.

  Russia is very cold and tyrannical.

  Sicily is one of the Sandwich Islands.

  Hindoostan flows through the Ganges and empties into the Mediterranean Sea.

  Ireland is called the Emigrant Isle because it is so beautiful and green.

  The width of the different zones Europe lies in depend upon the surrounding country.

  The imports of a country are the things that are paid for, the exports are the things that are not.

  Climate lasts all the time and weather only a few days.