At midday on August 15 I stood on the pavement in Cockspur Street and watched the first contingent of American troops pass through London.I had been attracted thither by the lure of a public "show," by the blare of a band, and by a subconscious desire to pay tribute in my small way to a great people. It was a good day for London, intermittently bright, with great scurrying masses of cumuli overhead, and a characteristic threat of rain, which fortunately held off. Cockspur Street, as you know, is a turning off Trafalgar Square, and I chose it because the crowd was less dense there than in the square itself. By getting behind a group of shortish people and by standing on tiptoe I caught a fleeting view of the faces of nearly every one of the passing soldiers.London is schooled to shows of this kind. The people gather and wait patiently on the line of route. And then some genial policemen appear and mother the people back into some sort of line, an action performed with little fuss or trouble. Then mounted police appear, headed by some fat official in a cockade hat and with many ribbons on his chest. And some one in the crowd calls out:"Hullo, Percy! Mind you don't fall off yer 'orse!"Then the hearers laugh and begin to be on good terms with themselves,for they know that the "show" is coming. Then follows the inevitable band, and we begin to cheer.It is very easy and natural for a London crowd to cheer. I have heard Kaiser William II cheered in the streets of London! We always cheer our guests, and we love a band and a "show" almost as much as our republican friends across the channel. I have seen royal funerals and weddings, processions in honor of visiting presidents and kings, the return of victorious generals, processions of Canadian, Australian, Indian, French and Italian troops and bands. I wouldn't miss these things for worlds. They give color to our social life and accent to our everyday emotions. It is, moreover, peculiarly interesting to observe national traits on a march: the French, with their exuberant élan, throwing kisses to the women as they pass; our own Tommies, who have surprised the world with their gayety, and keep up a constant ragging intercourse with the crowd and cannot cease from singing; the Indians, who pass like a splendidly carved frieze; the Canadians, who move with a free and independent swing and grin in a friendly way; the Scotch, who carry it off better than any one. But I had never seen American troops, and I was anxious to see how they behaved. I said to myself, "The American is volatile and impressionable, like a child." I had met Americans who within an hour's acquaintance had told me their life-story, given me their views on religion, politics, and art, and invited me to go out to Iowa or Wisconsin or California, and spend the summer with them. Moreover, the American is above all things emotional and—may I say it?—sentimental. It would therefore be extremely interesting to see how he came through this ordeal.The first band passed, and the people were waving flags and handkerchiefs from the windows. We could hear the cheers go up from the great throng in the square. And there at last, sure enough, was Old Glory, with its silken tassels floating in the London breeze, carried by a solemn giant, with another on either side.And then they came, marching in fours, with their rifles at the slope, the vanguard of Uncle Sam's army. And we in Cockspur Street raised a mighty cheer. They were solemn, bronzed men, loose of limb, hard, and strong, with a curious set expression of purpose about them.Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp.And they looked neither to the right nor the left; nor did they look up or smile or apparently take any notice of the cheers we raised. We strained forward to see their faces, and we cried out to them our welcome.Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp.They were not all tall; some were short and wiry. Some of the officers were rather elderly and wore horn spectacles. But they did not look at us or raise a smile of response. They held themselves very erect, but their eyes were cast down or fixed upon the back of the man in front of them. There came an interval, and another band, and then Old Glory once more, and we cheered the flag even more than the men. Fully a thousand men passed in this solemn procession, not one of them smiling or looking up. It became almost disconcerting. It was a thing we were not used to. A fellow-cockney near me murmured:"They're solemn-looking blokes, ain't they?"Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp.The band blared forth once more, a drum-and-fife corps with a vibrant thrill behind it. We strained forward more eagerly to see the faces of our friends from the New World. We loved it best when the sound of the band had died away and the only music was the steady throb of those friendly boots upon our London streets. And still they did not smile. I had a brief moment of some vague apprehension, as though something could not be quite right. Some such wave, I think, was passing through the crowd. What did it mean?Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp.The cheers died away for a few moments in an exhausted diminuendo. Among those people, racked by three years of strain and suffering, there probably was not one who had not lost some one dear to them. Even the best nerves have their limit of endurance. Suddenly the ready voice of a woman from the pavement called out:"God bless you, Sammy!"And then we cheered again in a different key, and I noticed a boy in the ranks throw back his head and look up. On his face was the expression we see only on the faces of those who know the finer sensibilities—a fierce, exultant joy that is very near akin to tears.And gradually I became aware that on the faces of these grim men was written an emotion almost too deep for expression.As they passed it was easy to detect their ethnological heritage. There was the Anglo-Saxon type, perhaps predominant; the Celt; the Slav; the Latin; and in many cases definitely the Teuton: and yet there was not one of them that had not something else, who was not preëminently a good "United States man." It was as though upon the anvil of the New World all the troubles of the Old, after being passed through a white-hot furnace, had been forged into something clear and splendid. And they were hurrying on to get this accomplished. For once and all the matter must be settled.Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp.There was a slight congestion, and the body of men near me halted and marked time. A diminutive officer with a pointed beard was walking alone. A woman in the crowd leaned forward and waved an American flag in his face. He saluted, made some kindly remark, and then passed on.Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp.The world must be made safe for democracy.And I thought inevitably of the story of the Titan myth, of Prometheus, the first real democrat, who held out against the gods because they despised humanity. And they nailed him to a rock, and cut off his eyelids, and a vulture fed upon his entrails.But Prometheus held on, his line of reasoning being:"After Uranus came Cronus. After Cronus came Zeus. After Zeus will come other gods."It is the finest epic in human life, and all the great teachers and reformers who came after told the same story—Christ, Vishnu, Confucius, Mohammed, Luther, Shakespeare. The fundamental basis of their teaching was love and faith in humanity. And whenever humanity is threatened, the fires which Prometheus stole from the gods will burn more brightly in the heart of man, and they will come from all quarters of the world.He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible, swift sword.There is no quarter, no mercy, to the enemies of humanity. There is no longer a war; it is a crusade. And as I stood on theflags of Cockspur Street, I think I understood the silence of those grim men. They seemed to epitomize not merely a nation, not merely a flag, but the unbreakable sanctity of human rights and human life. And I knew that whatever might happen, whatever the powers of darkness might devise, whatever cunning schemes or diabolical plans, or whatever temporary successes they might attain, they would ultimately go down into the dust before "the fateful lightning." "After Zeus will come other gods."Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp.Nothing could live and endure against that steady and irresistible progression. And we know how you can do things, America. We have seen your workshops, your factories, and your engines of peace. And we have seen those young men of yours at the Olympic Games, with their loose, supple limbs, their square, strong faces. When the Spartans, lightly clad, but girt for war, ran across the hills to Athens and, finding the Persian hosts defeated, laughed, and congratulated the Athenians, and ran back again—since those days there never were such runners, such athletes, as these boys of yours from Yale and Harvard, Princeton and Cornell.And so on that day, if we cheered the flag more than we cheered the men, it was because the flag was the symbol of the men's hearts, which were too charged with the fires of Prometheus to trust themselves expression.At least that is how it appeared to me on that forenoon in Cockspur Street, and I know that later in the day, when I met a casual friend, and he addressed me with the usual formula of the day:"Any news?"I was able to say:"Yes, the best news in the world."And when he replied:"What news?"I could say with all sincerity:"I have seen a portent. The world is safe for democracy."
At midday on August 15 I stood on the pavement in Cockspur Street and watched the first contingent of American troops pass through London.
I had been attracted thither by the lure of a public "show," by the blare of a band, and by a subconscious desire to pay tribute in my small way to a great people. It was a good day for London, intermittently bright, with great scurrying masses of cumuli overhead, and a characteristic threat of rain, which fortunately held off. Cockspur Street, as you know, is a turning off Trafalgar Square, and I chose it because the crowd was less dense there than in the square itself. By getting behind a group of shortish people and by standing on tiptoe I caught a fleeting view of the faces of nearly every one of the passing soldiers.
London is schooled to shows of this kind. The people gather and wait patiently on the line of route. And then some genial policemen appear and mother the people back into some sort of line, an action performed with little fuss or trouble. Then mounted police appear, headed by some fat official in a cockade hat and with many ribbons on his chest. And some one in the crowd calls out:
"Hullo, Percy! Mind you don't fall off yer 'orse!"
Then the hearers laugh and begin to be on good terms with themselves,for they know that the "show" is coming. Then follows the inevitable band, and we begin to cheer.
It is very easy and natural for a London crowd to cheer. I have heard Kaiser William II cheered in the streets of London! We always cheer our guests, and we love a band and a "show" almost as much as our republican friends across the channel. I have seen royal funerals and weddings, processions in honor of visiting presidents and kings, the return of victorious generals, processions of Canadian, Australian, Indian, French and Italian troops and bands. I wouldn't miss these things for worlds. They give color to our social life and accent to our everyday emotions. It is, moreover, peculiarly interesting to observe national traits on a march: the French, with their exuberant élan, throwing kisses to the women as they pass; our own Tommies, who have surprised the world with their gayety, and keep up a constant ragging intercourse with the crowd and cannot cease from singing; the Indians, who pass like a splendidly carved frieze; the Canadians, who move with a free and independent swing and grin in a friendly way; the Scotch, who carry it off better than any one. But I had never seen American troops, and I was anxious to see how they behaved. I said to myself, "The American is volatile and impressionable, like a child." I had met Americans who within an hour's acquaintance had told me their life-story, given me their views on religion, politics, and art, and invited me to go out to Iowa or Wisconsin or California, and spend the summer with them. Moreover, the American is above all things emotional and—may I say it?—sentimental. It would therefore be extremely interesting to see how he came through this ordeal.
The first band passed, and the people were waving flags and handkerchiefs from the windows. We could hear the cheers go up from the great throng in the square. And there at last, sure enough, was Old Glory, with its silken tassels floating in the London breeze, carried by a solemn giant, with another on either side.
And then they came, marching in fours, with their rifles at the slope, the vanguard of Uncle Sam's army. And we in Cockspur Street raised a mighty cheer. They were solemn, bronzed men, loose of limb, hard, and strong, with a curious set expression of purpose about them.
Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp.
And they looked neither to the right nor the left; nor did they look up or smile or apparently take any notice of the cheers we raised. We strained forward to see their faces, and we cried out to them our welcome.
Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp.
They were not all tall; some were short and wiry. Some of the officers were rather elderly and wore horn spectacles. But they did not look at us or raise a smile of response. They held themselves very erect, but their eyes were cast down or fixed upon the back of the man in front of them. There came an interval, and another band, and then Old Glory once more, and we cheered the flag even more than the men. Fully a thousand men passed in this solemn procession, not one of them smiling or looking up. It became almost disconcerting. It was a thing we were not used to. A fellow-cockney near me murmured:
"They're solemn-looking blokes, ain't they?"
Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp.
The band blared forth once more, a drum-and-fife corps with a vibrant thrill behind it. We strained forward more eagerly to see the faces of our friends from the New World. We loved it best when the sound of the band had died away and the only music was the steady throb of those friendly boots upon our London streets. And still they did not smile. I had a brief moment of some vague apprehension, as though something could not be quite right. Some such wave, I think, was passing through the crowd. What did it mean?
Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp.
The cheers died away for a few moments in an exhausted diminuendo. Among those people, racked by three years of strain and suffering, there probably was not one who had not lost some one dear to them. Even the best nerves have their limit of endurance. Suddenly the ready voice of a woman from the pavement called out:
"God bless you, Sammy!"
And then we cheered again in a different key, and I noticed a boy in the ranks throw back his head and look up. On his face was the expression we see only on the faces of those who know the finer sensibilities—a fierce, exultant joy that is very near akin to tears.And gradually I became aware that on the faces of these grim men was written an emotion almost too deep for expression.
As they passed it was easy to detect their ethnological heritage. There was the Anglo-Saxon type, perhaps predominant; the Celt; the Slav; the Latin; and in many cases definitely the Teuton: and yet there was not one of them that had not something else, who was not preëminently a good "United States man." It was as though upon the anvil of the New World all the troubles of the Old, after being passed through a white-hot furnace, had been forged into something clear and splendid. And they were hurrying on to get this accomplished. For once and all the matter must be settled.
Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp.
There was a slight congestion, and the body of men near me halted and marked time. A diminutive officer with a pointed beard was walking alone. A woman in the crowd leaned forward and waved an American flag in his face. He saluted, made some kindly remark, and then passed on.
Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp.
The world must be made safe for democracy.
And I thought inevitably of the story of the Titan myth, of Prometheus, the first real democrat, who held out against the gods because they despised humanity. And they nailed him to a rock, and cut off his eyelids, and a vulture fed upon his entrails.
But Prometheus held on, his line of reasoning being:
"After Uranus came Cronus. After Cronus came Zeus. After Zeus will come other gods."
It is the finest epic in human life, and all the great teachers and reformers who came after told the same story—Christ, Vishnu, Confucius, Mohammed, Luther, Shakespeare. The fundamental basis of their teaching was love and faith in humanity. And whenever humanity is threatened, the fires which Prometheus stole from the gods will burn more brightly in the heart of man, and they will come from all quarters of the world.
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible, swift sword.
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible, swift sword.
There is no quarter, no mercy, to the enemies of humanity. There is no longer a war; it is a crusade. And as I stood on theflags of Cockspur Street, I think I understood the silence of those grim men. They seemed to epitomize not merely a nation, not merely a flag, but the unbreakable sanctity of human rights and human life. And I knew that whatever might happen, whatever the powers of darkness might devise, whatever cunning schemes or diabolical plans, or whatever temporary successes they might attain, they would ultimately go down into the dust before "the fateful lightning." "After Zeus will come other gods."
Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp.
Nothing could live and endure against that steady and irresistible progression. And we know how you can do things, America. We have seen your workshops, your factories, and your engines of peace. And we have seen those young men of yours at the Olympic Games, with their loose, supple limbs, their square, strong faces. When the Spartans, lightly clad, but girt for war, ran across the hills to Athens and, finding the Persian hosts defeated, laughed, and congratulated the Athenians, and ran back again—since those days there never were such runners, such athletes, as these boys of yours from Yale and Harvard, Princeton and Cornell.
And so on that day, if we cheered the flag more than we cheered the men, it was because the flag was the symbol of the men's hearts, which were too charged with the fires of Prometheus to trust themselves expression.
At least that is how it appeared to me on that forenoon in Cockspur Street, and I know that later in the day, when I met a casual friend, and he addressed me with the usual formula of the day:
"Any news?"
I was able to say:
"Yes, the best news in the world."
And when he replied:
"What news?"
I could say with all sincerity:
"I have seen a portent. The world is safe for democracy."
Despite whatever of good has been said here about the controlling purpose, there may lurk the suspicion that it is,after all, dangerous, that perhaps it gives to a piece of writing a tendency toward bias, partial interpretation, even unfairness, and that it makes toward incompleteness. In the first place, in answering this charge, we must remember that factsas related to peopleare eternally subject to different interpretations according to shifting significance, which is determined largely by the individual to whom the facts are related. In the second place we have to remind ourselves that seldom does a writer try to say all that can be said about his subject. Much is always either implied or left to another piece of writing. And finally, even when an author attempts perfect completeness and objectivity, he usually addresses his work to some one in particular, even though the "some one" is as vague as the general reading public; and that some one has a particular attitude that must be borne in mind.
In "Solemn-Looking Blokes" not everything about the subject is said. From one point of view the tramp of American feet in London streets signified that the United States had emerged from its traditional aloofness and had joined the main current of the world; from another, that a tremendous military preparation was going on in America, the first fruits of which were those solemn ringing steps; from another, that however Europe had professed to despise American power, she was now willing, eager, to accept American aid; from another, that the old enmity between England and America has been forgotten in the common bond of like ideals and racial traditions. Each of these possible meanings—and there are more not listed here—is implied in the treatment actually given to the subject. No one of them is really developed. Instead, we have flowering before us the idea that the world is to be made safe for democracy. No one would presume to declare that the total possibilities of the subject are here met and explained; yet no one can rightly say that the chosen treatment is unfair. Considering thefacts, the author, and the people who would read the article, and their emotional connection with the facts, we see that the author chose the purpose that seemed most useful—to make American hearts warm to the fact that their country was helping to make the world safer for all men everywhere. In other words, facts are useful only in so far as they accomplish some definite end, which, in writing, is to make the reader see the truth as the author thinks that he should try to make the reader see it.
Now, of course, if the writer makes an unfair analysis, if he blindly or willfully falsifies in seeing or expressing his subject, his writing is not only useless but actually vicious. The analysis must be correct. Every subject has its center of truth, which can be discovered by patient clear thinking; if the thinking be either unclear or impatient, the interpretation will be false. If the author of "Solemn-Looking Blokes" has made an incorrect estimate, his writing is futile. There is no more challenging quest than the search for the real truth at the core of a chosen subject. Perhaps the very difficulty of attaining success is what has stayed many minds in floundering, timid, fogginess.
As to the charge that infusion of emotional quality into the writing produces bias, first of all it must be said that if the subject contains no emotion, none should be attempted in the writing. In a report, for example, of the relative value of different woods for shingles, an author will hardly try to infuse emotion, for the reader wishes to learn, quickly and easily, just what kind of wood is the best. But most subjects are not thus aloof; even the report about shingles becomes of vast significance to the owner of extensive timber lands which are suddenly found to be of high value. All subjects which concern the prosperity and happiness of humanity are charged with emotion; the nearer to the great facts of life, such as birth, marriage, death, food, shelter, love, hatred, the keener the emotion. Who shall write of problemsof heredity and leave us unstirred? Who shall treat of our vast irrigation projects, which turn the deserts into fair gardens and give food to millions of people, without firing the imagination? The writer's task is to look so clearly at his subject that he discovers its true value to both brain and heart.
As a matter of fact, in writing of such subjects a writer finds that wordswill beemotional, whether he will have them so or not, that they take sides, are charged with tendency and fly toward or away from an emotional quality with all the power of electricity. Now, this emotional quality, when it is uncontrolled, is dangerous. Words that show tendency must be guided with the firm hand lest they lead the reader into wrong impressions and into the confusion that comes from counter emotions, the strong impression of disunion. It is only by relating these cross-tendencies to a guiding idea that they can be made to serve the author's purpose. To choose wisely a controlling purpose that recognizes and handles the inherent emotions of words is merely to organize inescapable material. In the following selection from Emerson's "Fate" we find the emotional quality both high and well-organized. Such a paragraph might easily be made to confuse a reader hopelessly, but Emerson drives the chargers of his thought straight to his goal, intellectual and emotional, and holds tight his reins:
Nature is no sentimentalist,—does not cosset or pamper us. We must see that the world is rough and surly, and will not mind drowning a man or a woman, but swallows your ship like a grain of dust. The cold, inconsiderate of persons, tingles your blood, benumbs your feet, freezes a man like an apple. The diseases, the elements, fortune, gravity, lightning, respect no persons. The way of Providence is a little rude. The habit of snake and spider, the snap of the tiger and other leapers and bloody jumpers, the crackle of the bones of his prey in the coil of the anaconda,—these are in the system, and our habits are like theirs. You have justdined, and however the slaughter-house is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity, expensive races—race living at the expense of race. The planet is liable to shocks from comets, perturbations from planets, rendings from earthquake and volcano, alterations of climate, precessions of equinoxes. Rivers dry up by opening of the forest. The sea changes its bed. Towns and counties fall into it. At Lisbon an earthquake killed men like flies. At Naples three years ago ten thousand persons were crushed in a few minutes. The scurvy at sea, the sword of the climate in the west of Africa, at Cayenne, at Panama, at New Orleans, cut off men like a massacre. Our western prairies shake with fever and ague. The cholera, the small-pox, have proved as mortal to some tribes as a frost to crickets, which, having filled the summer with noise, are silenced by the fall of the temperature of one night. Without uncovering what does not concern us, or counting how many species of parasites hang on a bombyx, or groping after intestinal parasites or infusory biters, or the obscurities of alternate generation,—the forms of the shark, thelabrus, the jaw of the sea-wolf paved with crushing teeth, the weapons of the grampus, and other warriors hidden in the sea, are hints of ferocity in the interior of nature. Let us not deny it up and down. Providence has a wild, rough, incalculable road to its end, and it is of no use to try to whitewash its huge, mixed instrumentalities, or to dress up that terrific benefactor in a clean shirt and white neck-cloth of a student in divinity.[6]
Nature is no sentimentalist,—does not cosset or pamper us. We must see that the world is rough and surly, and will not mind drowning a man or a woman, but swallows your ship like a grain of dust. The cold, inconsiderate of persons, tingles your blood, benumbs your feet, freezes a man like an apple. The diseases, the elements, fortune, gravity, lightning, respect no persons. The way of Providence is a little rude. The habit of snake and spider, the snap of the tiger and other leapers and bloody jumpers, the crackle of the bones of his prey in the coil of the anaconda,—these are in the system, and our habits are like theirs. You have justdined, and however the slaughter-house is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity, expensive races—race living at the expense of race. The planet is liable to shocks from comets, perturbations from planets, rendings from earthquake and volcano, alterations of climate, precessions of equinoxes. Rivers dry up by opening of the forest. The sea changes its bed. Towns and counties fall into it. At Lisbon an earthquake killed men like flies. At Naples three years ago ten thousand persons were crushed in a few minutes. The scurvy at sea, the sword of the climate in the west of Africa, at Cayenne, at Panama, at New Orleans, cut off men like a massacre. Our western prairies shake with fever and ague. The cholera, the small-pox, have proved as mortal to some tribes as a frost to crickets, which, having filled the summer with noise, are silenced by the fall of the temperature of one night. Without uncovering what does not concern us, or counting how many species of parasites hang on a bombyx, or groping after intestinal parasites or infusory biters, or the obscurities of alternate generation,—the forms of the shark, thelabrus, the jaw of the sea-wolf paved with crushing teeth, the weapons of the grampus, and other warriors hidden in the sea, are hints of ferocity in the interior of nature. Let us not deny it up and down. Providence has a wild, rough, incalculable road to its end, and it is of no use to try to whitewash its huge, mixed instrumentalities, or to dress up that terrific benefactor in a clean shirt and white neck-cloth of a student in divinity.[6]
Now this controlling purpose, including both the appeal to the understanding and that to the emotions, should be stated, clearly, before the author begins his actual writing, in one sentence. The value of this is at once apparent: our minds tend all too much to wander from subject to subject, browsing here and there, without any really directed feeding. Now such procedure, though difficult to avoid, is nevertheless harmful to our writing. The edge of the writing is never so keen, the telling of the message, whatever itmay be, is never so well done, until we thoroughly organize and direct all that we are to say. In phrasing the controlling purpose in one sentence, we make just such an organization. And we have one which is most easily handled, most easily remembered, least likely to allow us to escape into empty wandering. Even in a long work this should be done, this unifying knot should be tied in the writer's mind. Those readers who rise from the last pages of a long historical work, covering several volumes and hundreds or thousands of pages, with a clear central conception of the whole work are profoundly grateful to the author. It is safe to say that such a conception could not have been given to the reader had not the writer, before he wrote a word, formulated in a few words the goal, the aim of his writing. This sentence should include the emotional appeal either as stated in a separate clause or phrase, or as expressed in the choice of words to present the facts.
The amount of machinery that seems to be required for using the controlling purpose may appear too much for practical purposes in one short lifetime. The truth is that the actual finding of the purpose will require much less time, often, than the explanation of the process here has needed. In a short theme you will often be able to scan the subject itself, to estimate your own reaction to the subject, and to determine upon your reader with remarkable quickness. More frequently you will find difficulty in determining the emotional quality of the material and your desires. But a little practice will enable you to do the preliminary thinking with rapidity and comfort. But if your subject is difficult, and if the effect is of great importance, by no means allow yourself to be swerved from determination to find the real object which you are seeking, but even at the expense of time and trouble state the center of your intentions as related to the subject, yourself, and your reader.
We have yet to answer the practical question: when I sit down to write, of just what value will the controlling purpose be to me in the actual task of expressing my ideas? How can it really serve me in my writing? The answer is clear: the controlling purpose is of the utmost strategic value in helping to select and arrange material for attack upon the objective, which is the effect to be created in the reader's mind. Now the best strategy always combines the line of greatest advantage to the writer, the line of least resistance from the reader, and the necessities of the subject. In other words, what point can I attack easiest, where is my opponent weakest, what demands of the ground—gullies, hills, swamps, etc.—must I allow for? Sometimes these three are more or less mutually antagonistic; sometimes they unite with the greatest helpfulness, as we shall see.
The first question is, What, and how many, forces shall I choose for the attack? Remember, we do not now merely attack in general, wherever we find an enemy. Instead, we decide that our objective is, perhaps, a hill ten miles across the enemy's frontier. The taking of that hill is our controlling purpose. It would be easiest for us to use several regiments of fresh young troops. But the terrain is strewn with gullies and hillocks, with boulders and tangled timber. So we shall use two regiments of veteran troops who are accustomed to rough country, and follow these with some fresh youngsters who are endowed with sense and a desire to outdo the veterans. Since the enemy has a strong battery, we shall use heavy artillery. And since the enemy lacks machine guns, we shall use many of them and catch him where he is weak and may be terrified. We could easily send thirtycamp kitchens to the fighting lines, but strategy demands that they be kept back.
In exactly the same way Mr. Burroughs plans the essay which follows this discussion. His controlling purpose is obviously to make the reader understand the process of bee-hunting in such a way as to be attracted to it as a delightful sport. The nature of the subject demands that the several steps in the process be explained. Well, that suits Mr. Burroughs, because he knows these steps. The easiest method for him is to narrate his own experiences. Of course he could investigate the authorities on bee-hunting, and write a treatise, but that would be more difficult, and moreover, it would not meet the line of least resistance from the reader. To be successful, the essay must overcome the reader's inertia and make him feel that he is actually sharing in things that he enjoys. The selection is thus determined. From his personal experience, as giving the writer the greatest advantage, Mr. Burroughs chooses. He selects details about the beauty of nature because a reader would prefer to have fine surroundings. He mentions traits of the bee that are interesting or necessary to know. He narrates two special experiences of his own for added attractiveness. And all the while, lest inertia raise its head, he lures the reader with the glimpses of pails full of rich golden honey. In other words, keeping his eye for his controlling purpose, Mr. Burroughs can easily select the things that will accomplish that purpose to his own greatest advantage, the reader's greatest ease, and according to the demands of the subject.
You do not find in the essay a discussion of the lucrative value of bees, nor of the complicated life of the hive, nor of the present standing of the science of bee-keeping. These topics, however interesting, are not useful to the controlling purpose. The standard is, not connection, but usefulness. "Any road," says Carlyle, "this simple Entepfuhl road, will lead you to the end of the world," and if you follow mereconnection with your subjects, you will find yourself at the end of the world. The practical helpfulness of the controlling purpose is seen when you ask yourself the question, "Does the matter that I am putting in this paragraph, this sentence, actually advance my reader in thought or emotion or both, nearer the point to which I wish to lead him?" Thus the question of selection is answered.
If we could have our own sweet will in attacking the hill ten miles beyond the border, we should ask the enemy to stack his arms, and then, with trumpet and drum and flag we should sweep in and take possession. But our sweet will must give way to necessity. Since unscalable crags lie ahead, we shall have to go round to the rear of the hill. Since we must cross a swamp, engineers must precede and build a road. Though we should like to crawl up a wide valley on the other side, we must choose a smaller one, because the enemy could wither us away in the larger one. And, to trick the enemy, we shall perhaps open fire far off on the left, while we are stealing out to the right, and thus we may take him off his guard. Our purpose of securing that hill makes these things necessary.
Similarly, in writing, we may sometimes employ the order of greatest advantage, but more often we must modify this order to meet the requirements of the subject and to rouse the least resistance from the reader. In Stevenson's essay, "Pulvis et Umbra," part of which follows the essay by Mr. Burroughs, the author used the method of greatest advantage. His object is to thrill the reader at the thought that mankind constantly strives in spite of all his failures. Several orders are possible: he could treat of the striving alone, neglecting the failure; he could treat the striving first and then the failure, or vice versa, and so on. He saw that he would gain his purpose best if he treated failure first, until he hadfairly overwhelmed the reader, and then suddenly shifted and showed that in spite of all this failure man still strives. He had to run the risk of offending the reader at the beginning by his insistence upon failure, and thus rousing the reader's possible great resistance. For we do not like to read unpleasant things. But he took the chance, knowing that if, by skillful use of words he could persuade the reader through the first part, he could easily thrill him with the reaction. For it makes a great difference whether we say, "In spite of striving, man always fails," or "In spite of failure, man always strives." The selection from the essay which appears here is taken from the middle. It is interesting to note that the first two sentences of the essay read: "We look for some reward of our endeavors and are disappointed; not success, not happiness, not even peace of conscience, crowns our ineffectual efforts to do well. Our frailties are invincible, our virtues barren; the battle goes sore against us to the going down of the sun." And the words of the final sentence of the essay are: "Let it be enough for faith, that the whole creation groans in mortal frailty, strives with unconquerable constancy: surely not all in vain."
In the essay by Mr. Burroughs the author's advantage and the reader's acquiescence largely coincide, so that the author can at once begin with remarks about the attractiveness of the hunt, the delights of its successful conclusion. To discuss at once the possibility of being stung would have been unwise, because unpleasant, and the controlling purpose of the essay is to attract. Later, this topic can safely be tucked in.
Mr. Wilson's war messages showed a combination of the lines of greatest advantage and of least resistance with the nature of the historical events. These messages began with a series of facts which, obviously true, would rouse no resistance and would at the same time insert some resentment against Germany, the very thing that the author wished todo. Then they followed the strict chronological order, as if the author were pursuing a course already mapped for him—which, of course, he was not doing. With the controlling purpose of showing that America's entrance into the war was occasioned entirely by Germany's actions, he then proceeded to base the proposals of the messages upon the very facts that the readers had already accepted in accordance with his ultimate point of view. Such skillful manipulation deserved the success that the messages met.
All three of these examples gain their point, their objective. They do this largely because the authors knew exactly what they wished to do, what their controlling purposes were, and then marshaled their material so as to accomplish this end. Some of the topics that are subordinated, such, for example, as the possibility of being stung, are as important as others which are magnified, such as the beauty of nature—that is, they are as important in an impersonal way. As soon as the controlling purpose is known, however, they immediately become dangerous unless so placed as to bring the reader nearer the goal and not to push him from it. The point is that knowing the controlling purpose, that is, having thought out beforehand exactly what you wish to do with subject and reader, you are at once aware of both helps and obstacles, and can make use of the one, avoid the other.
Thus you will consider both the reader's ease and his prejudices. If you are to write of abstruse matters, of some question in philosophy or ethics or religion, in order to carry your reader with you you will begin with things that he can understand, and thus pave a highway into the misty lands where you desire to take him. Failure of some eminent philosophers to receive recognition has been due to their lack of a comprehensive controlling purpose, to their restricting attention to the subject alone regardless of the reader. In setting forth the principle of the machinery that digs tunnels under rivers Mr. Brooks inThe Web-foot Engineerfirstshows how a boy digs a tunnel into a sand bank, and then proceeds, with the reader's understanding assured, to the more complex but still similar operation under the river. In explaining inductive reasoning, with the controlling purpose of making it seem both frequent and natural, Huxley showed first how we reason practically about the nature of apples in a basket at the grocer's. The reader's resistance is thus avoided and the writer's advantage is increased.
A shrewd controlling purpose also makes allowance for the reader's prejudices. You ought to take as much care to cajole your reader into following you as the cook does to make us happy to the final morsel. After ices and cakes and coffee a roast or a soup is positively offensive; the cook wisely wins the battle of the spit and the dripping pan while the epicure is still receptive. So, if you are to explain democracy in a state where the recall of judges is practiced to an aristocrat who distrusts the "common herd" and is easily ruffled, you will do well to preface discussion of this recall with words about the general excellence of life in the state and then, when your reader is in a mood of acceptance, pass to the possibly offensive topic. Without knowing just what you wish to accomplish, you are likely to write in what may seem a dogged, defiant mood that intends to strike right and left, hoping to wallow through to victory.
If between us and the enemy's fort is a stream which needs pontoons for crossing, and we blindly start out marching up toward victory with no pontoons, we shall perhaps sail away to sea, but shall also probably not win the fort. If we insist upon keeping our platoon as rigidly straight, even while we climb hills through the woods, as ever a line was kept at West Point, we shall come to grief. So, if the logic of the subject has imperious demands, the controlling purpose must make count of them. William James in his essay, "The Moral Equivalent of War," saw that before a reader couldunderstand how civic work could be a moral equivalent, he must see what the morality of war is. The subject demands this. In an account of the United States Government it might be logically necessary to state and explain first the theory of checks and balances before the relations of executive, legislative, and judicial branches could be properly estimated. Wisely chosen, the controlling purpose of such an account would make this fact at once evident.
Constantly keeping in mind, in planning and composing an article, what the objective is, makes even the individual paragraphs and sentences more successful. If you will examine the paragraphs in "Pulvis et Umbra," you will observe, pretty uniformly, at the beginning and end of each, a strong statement of the message of the paragraph, sentences of high emotional value. Each paragraph definitely advances the cause of the controlling purpose. Even the sentences—an example of a sentence uncontrolled occurs in Mr. Hamlin Garland's book,A Son of the Middle Border: "It stood on the bank of a wide river and had all the value of a seaport to me, for in summer-time great hoarsely bellowing steam-boats came and went from its quay, and all about it rose high wooded hills." The final item about the hills is in no way necessary, does not even help to give the feeling of a seaport, which more often than not lacks high hills. A sentence from Stevenson is in contrast: "The sun upon my shoulders warmed me to the heart, and I stooped forward and plunged into the sea." In this sentence facts, rhythm, even the sound of the words drive in one direction.
Without being too dogmatic—for every problem in writing is new and not infrequently a law to itself—you may be sure that if you have a definite controlling purpose, and know well what it is, you will be more likely to attain success with subject and with reader when you come to the ordering of your material.
Finally, since strategy suggests that we attack the weakestplaces in the enemy's defense, we shall do well, unless the logic of the subject or the reader's prejudice demand otherwise, to make our strongest blows when the enemy, the reader, is least prepared, that is, at the beginning and the end. Success in writing depends so much upon the freshness of the reader's mind, that anattaque brusqueat first to insert important things, and a strong reinforcement at the end, when the reader is pricking up his ears at the coming final period, form a wise strategy. If, in order to understand one point, another is necessary, or to avoid irritation, a roundabout method is advisable, the path is plain. When these accidents do not obtain, the reader's understanding will be most easily won at the beginning and the end. At these points you must see to it that the reader is guided, with the first word, toward the emotional tone that your controlling purpose demands, and toward some important idea that bolsters this purpose, even if, as we have seen Stevenson do, you seem to be at first flying away from the purpose which we later discover. Thus Mr. Taft, in an article entitled "Present Relations of the Learned Professions to Political Government," places the ministry at the beginning and the law at the end. His controlling purpose is to make the reader believe that every profession offers large chance for the conscientious man to be of use to the political government. Consequently he chooses the two that he thinks most important, and of these places the less important at the beginning and the more important at the end. In this way he succeeds at once in turning the reader as he wishes, and leaves him also with the strongest possible bias toward belief. And since these two professions offer the greatest chance for victory for his controlling purpose, he gives them much more space than to the others, almost three times as much to law, for instance, as to teaching.
Moreover, since the emotions are affected in much writing, the skilled strategist will instantly bear in mind just whatemotion he wishes to rouse, and will see that the ideas of greater moving value receive larger development. Mr. Burroughs gives much more space to the sections that deal with the excitement and the joy of bee-hunting than to those that deal with the less pleasant side. To the difficulty of detecting the flight of a bee he gives the single sentence: "Sometimes one's head will swim following it, and often one's eyes are put out by the sun." To the interesting actions of the bee when it is caught he gives at least ten times as much space. In this way he guides the reader's emotions in the way he wishes them to go—and makes successful writing.
The chief strategic problem in exposition, then, is that of so choosing and arranging the material that the point of the writing is made with the proper emphasis. For the accomplishment of this purpose the writer must be able to answer the question, "What do I wish to do in this piece of writing?" Then he must bring all the material and its expression to bear upon the reader's mind so that the desired end may be inevitable. To determine what his purpose is the writer must consult the subject itself, his own personality, and the reader. He must also bear in mind the reader's intellect and his emotions. And he must unify the approach to both intellect and emotions. The firmly held conception of what his purpose is will determine what material he is to choose—what is useful and what is not—and also how to arrange this material and how to proportion the space that different sections shall have. He will arrange the material for the greatest advantage to himself and the least resistance from the reader. In other words, to make his writing successful in the sense of accomplishing its end, the writer must, before he sets down a single word, decide upon what his controlling purpose is to be and just how he intends to make material and expression—even in the individual sentence—unite to drive in the one direction of that controlling purpose.
John Burroughs
One looks upon the woods with a new interest when he suspects they hold a colony of bees. What a pleasing secret it is; a tree with a heart of comb-honey, a decayed oak or maple with a bit of Sicily or Mount Hymettus stowed away in its trunk or branches; secret chambers where lies hidden the wealth of ten thousand little free-booters, great nuggets and wedges of precious ore gathered with risk and labor from every field and wood about.But if you would know the delights of bee-hunting, and how many sweets such a trip yields beside honey, come with me some bright, warm, late September or early October day. It is the golden season of the year, and any errand or pursuit that takes us abroad upon the hills or by the painted woods and along the amber colored streams at such a time is enough. So, with haversacks filled with grapes and peaches and apples and a bottle of milk,—for we shall not be home to dinner,—and armed with a compass, a hatchet, a pail, and a box with a piece of comb-honey neatly fitted into it—any box the size of your hand with a lid will do nearly as well as the elaborate and ingenious contrivance of the regular bee-hunter—we sally forth. Our course at first lies along the highway, under great chestnut-trees whose nuts are just dropping, then through an orchard and across a little creek, thence gently rising through a long series of cultivated fields toward some high, uplying land, behind which rises a rugged wooded ridge or mountain, the most sightly point in all this section. Behind this ridge for several miles the country is wild, wooded, and rocky, and is no doubt the home of many wild swarms of bees.After a refreshing walk of a couple of miles we reach a point where we will make our first trial—a high stone wall that runs parallel with the wooded ridge referred to, and separated from it by a broad field. There are bees at work there on that goldenrod, and it requires but little manœuvring to sweep one into our box. Almost any other creature rudely and suddenly arrested in its career and clapped into a cage in this way would show great confusion and alarm. The bee is alarmed for a moment, but the bee has a passionstronger than its love of life or fear of death, namely, desire for honey, not simply to eat, but to carry home as booty. "Such rage of honey in their bosom beats," says Virgil. It is quick to catch the scent of honey in the box, and as quick to fall to filling itself. We now set the box down upon the wall and gently remove the cover. The bee is head and shoulders in one of the half-filled cells, and is oblivious to everything else about it. Come rack, come ruin, it will die at work. We step back a few paces, and sit down upon the ground so as to bring the box against the blue sky as a background. In two or three minutes the bee is seen rising slowly and heavily from the box. It seems loath to leave so much honey behind and it marks the place well. It mounts aloft in a rapidly increasing spiral, surveying the near and minute objects first, then the larger and more distant, till having circled about the spot five or six times and taken all its bearings it darts away for home. It is a good eye that holds fast to the bee till it is fairly off. Sometimes one's head will swim following it, and often one's eyes are put out by the sun. This bee gradually drifts down the hill, then strikes away toward a farm-house half a mile away, where I know bees are kept. Then we try another and another, and the third bee, much to our satisfaction, goes straight toward the woods. We could see the brown speck against the darker background for many yards.A bee will usually make three or four trips from the hunter's box before it brings back a companion. I suspect the bee does not tell its fellows what it has found, but that they smell out the secret; it doubtless bears some evidence with it upon its feet or proboscis that it has been upon honey-comb and not upon flowers, and its companions take the hint and follow, arriving always many seconds behind. Then the quantity and quality of the booty would also betray it. No doubt, also, there are plenty of gossips about a hive that note and tell everything. "Oh, did you see that? Peggy Mel came in a few moments ago in great haste, and one of the up-stairs packers says she was loaded till she groaned with apple-blossom honey which she deposited, and then rushed off again like mad. Apple blossom honey in October! Fee, fi, fo, fum! I smell something! Let's after."In about half an hour we have three well-defined lines of bees established—two to farm-houses and one to the woods, and ourbox is being rapidly depleted of its honey. About every fourth bee goes to the woods, and now that they have learned the way thoroughly they do not make the long preliminary whirl above the box, but start directly from it. The woods are rough and dense and the hill steep, and we do not like to follow the line of bees until we have tried at least to settle the problem as to the distance they go into the woods—whether the tree is on this side of the ridge or in the depth of the forest on the other side. So we shut up the box when it is full of bees and carry it about three hundred yards along the wall from which we are operating. When liberated, the bees, as they always will in such cases, go off in the same directions they have been going; they do not seem to know that they have been moved. But other bees have followed our scent, and it is not many minutes before a second line to the woods is established. This is called cross-lining the bees. The new line makes a sharp angle with the other line, and we know at once that the tree is only a few rods into the woods. The two lines we have established form two sides of a triangle of which the wall is the base; at the apex of the triangle, or where the two lines meet in the woods, we are sure to find the trees. We quickly follow up these lines, and where they cross each other on the side of the hill we scan every tree closely. I pause at the foot of an oak and examine a hole near the root; now the bees are in this tree and their entrance is on the upper side near the ground, not two feet from the hole I peer into, and yet so quiet and secret is their going and coming that I fail to discover them and pass on up the hill. Failing in this direction, I return to the oak again, and then perceive the bees going out in a small crack in the tree. The bees do not know they are found out and that the game is in our hands, and are as oblivious of our presence as if we were ants or crickets. The indications are that the swarm is a small one, and the store of honey trifling. In "taking up" a bee-tree it is usual first to kill or stupefy the bees with the fumes of burning sulphur or with tobacco smoke. But this course is impracticable on the present occasion, so we boldly and ruthlessly assault the tree with an axe we have procured. At the first blow the bees set up a loud buzzing, but we have no mercy, and the side of the cavity is soon cut away and the interior with its white-yellow mass of comb-honey is exposed, and not a bee strikes a blow in defenseof its all. This may seem singular, but it has nearly always been my experience. When a swarm of bees are thus rudely assaulted with an axe, they evidently think the end of the world has come, and, like true misers as they are, each one seizes as much of the treasure as it can hold; in other words, they all fall to and gorge themselves with honey, and calmly await the issue. When in this condition they make no defense and will not sting unless taken hold of. In fact they are as harmless as flies. Bees are always to be managed with boldness and decision.Any halfway measures, any timid poking about, any feeble attempts to reach their honey, are sure to be quickly resented. The popular notion that bees have a special antipathy toward certain persons and a liking for certain others has only this fact at the bottom of it; they will sting a person who is afraid of them and goes skulking and dodging about, and they will not sting a person who faces them boldly and has no dread of them. They are like dogs. The way to disarm a vicious dog is to show him you do not fear him; it is his turn to be afraid then. I never had any dread of bees and am seldom stung by them. I have climbed up into a large chestnut that contained a swarm in one of its cavities and chopped them out with an axe, being obliged at times to pause and brush the bewildered bees from my hands and face, and not been stung once. I have chopped a swarm out of an apple-tree in June and taken out the cards of honey and arranged them in a hive, and then dipped out the bees with a dipper, and taken the whole home with me in pretty good condition, with scarcely any opposition on the part of the bees. In reaching your hand into the cavity to detach and remove the comb you are pretty sure to get stung, for when you touch the "business end" of a bee, it will sting even though its head be off. But the bee carries the antidote to its own poison. The best remedy for bee sting is honey, and when your hands are besmeared with honey, as they are sure to be on such occasions, the wound is scarcely more painful than the prick of a pin.When a bee-tree is thus "taken up" in the middle of the day, of course a good many bees are away from home and have not heard the news. When they return and find the ground flowing with honey, and piles of bleeding combs lying about, they apparently do not recognize the place, and their first instinct is to fall to andfill themselves; this done, their next thought is to carry it home, so they rise up slowly through the branches of the trees till they have attained an altitude that enables them to survey the scene, when they seem to say, "Why,thisis home" and down they come again; beholding the wreck and ruins once more they still think there is some mistake, and get up a second or a third time and then drop back pitifully as before. It is the most pathetic sight of all, the surviving and bewildered bees struggling to save a few drops of their wasted treasures.Presently, if there is another swarm in the woods, robber-bees appear. You may know them by their saucy, chiding, devil-may-care hum. It is an ill-wind that blows nobody good, and they make the most of the misfortune of their neighbors; and thereby pave the way for their own ruin. The hunter marks their course and the next day looks them up. On this occasion the day was hot and the honey very fragrant, and a line of bees was soon established S.S.W. Though there was much refuse honey in the old stub, and though little golden rills trickled down the hill from it, and the near branches and saplings were besmeared with it where we wiped our murderous hands, yet not a drop was wasted. It was a feast to which not only honey-bees came, but bumble-bees, wasps, hornets, flies, ants. The bumble-bees, which at this season are hungry vagrants with no fixed place of abode, would gorge themselves, then creep beneath the bits of empty comb or fragment of bark and pass the night, and renew the feast next day. The bumble-bee is an insect of which the bee-hunter sees much. There are all sorts and sizes of them. They are dull and clumsy compared with the honey-bee. Attracted in the fields by the bee-hunter's box, they will come up the wind on the scent and blunder into it in the most stupid, lubberly fashion.The honey-bee that licked up our leavings on the old stub belonged to a swarm, as it proved, about half a mile farther down the ridge, and a few days afterward fate overtook them, and their stores in turn became the prey of another swarm in the vicinity, which also tempted Providence and were overwhelmed. The first mentioned swarm I had lined from several points, and was following up the clue over rocks and through gulleys, when I came to where a large hemlock had been felled a few years before and aswarm taken from a cavity near the top of it; fragments of the old comb were yet to be seen. A few yards away stood another short, squatty hemlock, and I said my bees ought to be there. As I paused near it I noticed where the tree had been wounded with an axe a couple of feet from the ground many years before. The wound had partially grown over, but there was an opening there that I did not see at the first glance. I was about to pass on when a bee passed me making that peculiar shrill, discordant hum that a bee makes when besmeared with honey. I saw it alight in the partially closed wound and crawl home; then came others and others, little bands and squads of them heavily freighted with honey from the box. The tree was about twenty inches through and hollow at the butt, or from the axe mark down. This space the bees had completely filled with honey. With an axe we cut away the outer ring of live wood and exposed the treasure. Despite the utmost care, we wounded the comb so that little rills of the golden liquid issued from the root of the tree and trickled down the hill.The other bee-tree in the vicinity, to which I have referred, we found one warm November day in less than half an hour after entering the woods. It also was a hemlock, that stood in a niche in a wall of hoary, moss-covered rocks thirty feet high. The tree hardly reached to the top of the precipice. The bees entered a small hole at the root, which was seven or eight feet from the ground. The position was a striking one. Never did apiary have a finer outlook or more rugged surroundings. A black, wood-embraced lake lay at our feet; the long panorama of the Catskills filled the far distance, and the more broken outlines of the Shawangunk range filled the near. On every hand were precipices and a wild confusion of rocks and trees.The cavity occupied by the bees was about three feet and a half long and eight or ten inches in diameter. With an axe we cut away one side of the tree and laid bare its curiously wrought heart of honey. It was a most pleasing sight. What winding and devious ways the bees had through their palace! What great masses and blocks of snow-white comb there were! Where it was sealed up, presenting that slightly dented, uneven surface, it looked like some precious ore. When we carried a large pail of it out of the woods, it seemed still more like ore.In lining bees through the woods, the tactics of the hunter are to pause every twenty or thirty rods, lop away the branches or cut down the trees, and set the bees to work again. If they still go forward, he goes forward also and repeats his observations till the tree is found or till the bees turn and come back upon the trail. Then he knows he has passed the tree, and he retraces his steps to a convenient distance and tries again, and thus quickly reduces the space to be looked over till the swarm is traced home. On one occasion, in a wild rocky wood, where the surface alternated between deep gulfs and chasms filled with thick, heavy growths of timber and sharp, precipitous, rocky ridges like a tempest-tossed sea, I carried my bees directly under their tree, and set them to work from a high, exposed ledge of rocks not thirty feet distant. One would have expected them under such circumstances to have gone straight home, as there were but few branches intervening, but they did not; they labored up through the trees and attained an altitude above the woods as if they had miles to travel, and thus baffled me for hours. Bees will always do this. They are acquainted with the woods only from the top side, and from the air above; they recognize home only by landmarks here, and in every instance they rise aloft to take their bearings. Think how familiar to them the topography of the forest summits must be—an umbrageous sea or plain where every mark and point is known.Another curious fact is that generally you will get track of a bee-tree sooner when you are half a mile from it than when you are only a few yards. Bees, like us human insects, have little faith in the near at hand; they expect to make their fortune in a distant field, they are lured by the remote and the difficult, and hence overlook the flower and the sweet at their very door. On several occasions I have unwittingly set my box within a few paces of a bee-tree and waited long for bees without getting them, when, on removing to a distant field or opening in the woods I have got a clue at once.Bees, like the milkman, like to be near a spring. They do water their honey, especially in a dry time. The liquid is then of course thicker and sweeter, and will bear diluting. Hence, old bee-hunters look for bee-trees along creeks and near spring runs in the woods. I once found a tree a long distance from any water,and the honey had a peculiar bitter flavor imparted to it, I was convinced, by rain water sucked from the decayed and spongy hemlock tree, in which the swarm was found. In cutting into the tree, the north side of it was found to be saturated with water like a spring, which ran out in big drops, and had a bitter flavor. The bees had thus found a spring or a cistern in their own house.Wild honey is as near like tame as wild bees are like their brothers in the hive. The only difference is that wild honey is flavored with your adventure, which makes it a little more delectable than the domestic article.
One looks upon the woods with a new interest when he suspects they hold a colony of bees. What a pleasing secret it is; a tree with a heart of comb-honey, a decayed oak or maple with a bit of Sicily or Mount Hymettus stowed away in its trunk or branches; secret chambers where lies hidden the wealth of ten thousand little free-booters, great nuggets and wedges of precious ore gathered with risk and labor from every field and wood about.
But if you would know the delights of bee-hunting, and how many sweets such a trip yields beside honey, come with me some bright, warm, late September or early October day. It is the golden season of the year, and any errand or pursuit that takes us abroad upon the hills or by the painted woods and along the amber colored streams at such a time is enough. So, with haversacks filled with grapes and peaches and apples and a bottle of milk,—for we shall not be home to dinner,—and armed with a compass, a hatchet, a pail, and a box with a piece of comb-honey neatly fitted into it—any box the size of your hand with a lid will do nearly as well as the elaborate and ingenious contrivance of the regular bee-hunter—we sally forth. Our course at first lies along the highway, under great chestnut-trees whose nuts are just dropping, then through an orchard and across a little creek, thence gently rising through a long series of cultivated fields toward some high, uplying land, behind which rises a rugged wooded ridge or mountain, the most sightly point in all this section. Behind this ridge for several miles the country is wild, wooded, and rocky, and is no doubt the home of many wild swarms of bees.
After a refreshing walk of a couple of miles we reach a point where we will make our first trial—a high stone wall that runs parallel with the wooded ridge referred to, and separated from it by a broad field. There are bees at work there on that goldenrod, and it requires but little manœuvring to sweep one into our box. Almost any other creature rudely and suddenly arrested in its career and clapped into a cage in this way would show great confusion and alarm. The bee is alarmed for a moment, but the bee has a passionstronger than its love of life or fear of death, namely, desire for honey, not simply to eat, but to carry home as booty. "Such rage of honey in their bosom beats," says Virgil. It is quick to catch the scent of honey in the box, and as quick to fall to filling itself. We now set the box down upon the wall and gently remove the cover. The bee is head and shoulders in one of the half-filled cells, and is oblivious to everything else about it. Come rack, come ruin, it will die at work. We step back a few paces, and sit down upon the ground so as to bring the box against the blue sky as a background. In two or three minutes the bee is seen rising slowly and heavily from the box. It seems loath to leave so much honey behind and it marks the place well. It mounts aloft in a rapidly increasing spiral, surveying the near and minute objects first, then the larger and more distant, till having circled about the spot five or six times and taken all its bearings it darts away for home. It is a good eye that holds fast to the bee till it is fairly off. Sometimes one's head will swim following it, and often one's eyes are put out by the sun. This bee gradually drifts down the hill, then strikes away toward a farm-house half a mile away, where I know bees are kept. Then we try another and another, and the third bee, much to our satisfaction, goes straight toward the woods. We could see the brown speck against the darker background for many yards.
A bee will usually make three or four trips from the hunter's box before it brings back a companion. I suspect the bee does not tell its fellows what it has found, but that they smell out the secret; it doubtless bears some evidence with it upon its feet or proboscis that it has been upon honey-comb and not upon flowers, and its companions take the hint and follow, arriving always many seconds behind. Then the quantity and quality of the booty would also betray it. No doubt, also, there are plenty of gossips about a hive that note and tell everything. "Oh, did you see that? Peggy Mel came in a few moments ago in great haste, and one of the up-stairs packers says she was loaded till she groaned with apple-blossom honey which she deposited, and then rushed off again like mad. Apple blossom honey in October! Fee, fi, fo, fum! I smell something! Let's after."
In about half an hour we have three well-defined lines of bees established—two to farm-houses and one to the woods, and ourbox is being rapidly depleted of its honey. About every fourth bee goes to the woods, and now that they have learned the way thoroughly they do not make the long preliminary whirl above the box, but start directly from it. The woods are rough and dense and the hill steep, and we do not like to follow the line of bees until we have tried at least to settle the problem as to the distance they go into the woods—whether the tree is on this side of the ridge or in the depth of the forest on the other side. So we shut up the box when it is full of bees and carry it about three hundred yards along the wall from which we are operating. When liberated, the bees, as they always will in such cases, go off in the same directions they have been going; they do not seem to know that they have been moved. But other bees have followed our scent, and it is not many minutes before a second line to the woods is established. This is called cross-lining the bees. The new line makes a sharp angle with the other line, and we know at once that the tree is only a few rods into the woods. The two lines we have established form two sides of a triangle of which the wall is the base; at the apex of the triangle, or where the two lines meet in the woods, we are sure to find the trees. We quickly follow up these lines, and where they cross each other on the side of the hill we scan every tree closely. I pause at the foot of an oak and examine a hole near the root; now the bees are in this tree and their entrance is on the upper side near the ground, not two feet from the hole I peer into, and yet so quiet and secret is their going and coming that I fail to discover them and pass on up the hill. Failing in this direction, I return to the oak again, and then perceive the bees going out in a small crack in the tree. The bees do not know they are found out and that the game is in our hands, and are as oblivious of our presence as if we were ants or crickets. The indications are that the swarm is a small one, and the store of honey trifling. In "taking up" a bee-tree it is usual first to kill or stupefy the bees with the fumes of burning sulphur or with tobacco smoke. But this course is impracticable on the present occasion, so we boldly and ruthlessly assault the tree with an axe we have procured. At the first blow the bees set up a loud buzzing, but we have no mercy, and the side of the cavity is soon cut away and the interior with its white-yellow mass of comb-honey is exposed, and not a bee strikes a blow in defenseof its all. This may seem singular, but it has nearly always been my experience. When a swarm of bees are thus rudely assaulted with an axe, they evidently think the end of the world has come, and, like true misers as they are, each one seizes as much of the treasure as it can hold; in other words, they all fall to and gorge themselves with honey, and calmly await the issue. When in this condition they make no defense and will not sting unless taken hold of. In fact they are as harmless as flies. Bees are always to be managed with boldness and decision.
Any halfway measures, any timid poking about, any feeble attempts to reach their honey, are sure to be quickly resented. The popular notion that bees have a special antipathy toward certain persons and a liking for certain others has only this fact at the bottom of it; they will sting a person who is afraid of them and goes skulking and dodging about, and they will not sting a person who faces them boldly and has no dread of them. They are like dogs. The way to disarm a vicious dog is to show him you do not fear him; it is his turn to be afraid then. I never had any dread of bees and am seldom stung by them. I have climbed up into a large chestnut that contained a swarm in one of its cavities and chopped them out with an axe, being obliged at times to pause and brush the bewildered bees from my hands and face, and not been stung once. I have chopped a swarm out of an apple-tree in June and taken out the cards of honey and arranged them in a hive, and then dipped out the bees with a dipper, and taken the whole home with me in pretty good condition, with scarcely any opposition on the part of the bees. In reaching your hand into the cavity to detach and remove the comb you are pretty sure to get stung, for when you touch the "business end" of a bee, it will sting even though its head be off. But the bee carries the antidote to its own poison. The best remedy for bee sting is honey, and when your hands are besmeared with honey, as they are sure to be on such occasions, the wound is scarcely more painful than the prick of a pin.
When a bee-tree is thus "taken up" in the middle of the day, of course a good many bees are away from home and have not heard the news. When they return and find the ground flowing with honey, and piles of bleeding combs lying about, they apparently do not recognize the place, and their first instinct is to fall to andfill themselves; this done, their next thought is to carry it home, so they rise up slowly through the branches of the trees till they have attained an altitude that enables them to survey the scene, when they seem to say, "Why,thisis home" and down they come again; beholding the wreck and ruins once more they still think there is some mistake, and get up a second or a third time and then drop back pitifully as before. It is the most pathetic sight of all, the surviving and bewildered bees struggling to save a few drops of their wasted treasures.
Presently, if there is another swarm in the woods, robber-bees appear. You may know them by their saucy, chiding, devil-may-care hum. It is an ill-wind that blows nobody good, and they make the most of the misfortune of their neighbors; and thereby pave the way for their own ruin. The hunter marks their course and the next day looks them up. On this occasion the day was hot and the honey very fragrant, and a line of bees was soon established S.S.W. Though there was much refuse honey in the old stub, and though little golden rills trickled down the hill from it, and the near branches and saplings were besmeared with it where we wiped our murderous hands, yet not a drop was wasted. It was a feast to which not only honey-bees came, but bumble-bees, wasps, hornets, flies, ants. The bumble-bees, which at this season are hungry vagrants with no fixed place of abode, would gorge themselves, then creep beneath the bits of empty comb or fragment of bark and pass the night, and renew the feast next day. The bumble-bee is an insect of which the bee-hunter sees much. There are all sorts and sizes of them. They are dull and clumsy compared with the honey-bee. Attracted in the fields by the bee-hunter's box, they will come up the wind on the scent and blunder into it in the most stupid, lubberly fashion.
The honey-bee that licked up our leavings on the old stub belonged to a swarm, as it proved, about half a mile farther down the ridge, and a few days afterward fate overtook them, and their stores in turn became the prey of another swarm in the vicinity, which also tempted Providence and were overwhelmed. The first mentioned swarm I had lined from several points, and was following up the clue over rocks and through gulleys, when I came to where a large hemlock had been felled a few years before and aswarm taken from a cavity near the top of it; fragments of the old comb were yet to be seen. A few yards away stood another short, squatty hemlock, and I said my bees ought to be there. As I paused near it I noticed where the tree had been wounded with an axe a couple of feet from the ground many years before. The wound had partially grown over, but there was an opening there that I did not see at the first glance. I was about to pass on when a bee passed me making that peculiar shrill, discordant hum that a bee makes when besmeared with honey. I saw it alight in the partially closed wound and crawl home; then came others and others, little bands and squads of them heavily freighted with honey from the box. The tree was about twenty inches through and hollow at the butt, or from the axe mark down. This space the bees had completely filled with honey. With an axe we cut away the outer ring of live wood and exposed the treasure. Despite the utmost care, we wounded the comb so that little rills of the golden liquid issued from the root of the tree and trickled down the hill.
The other bee-tree in the vicinity, to which I have referred, we found one warm November day in less than half an hour after entering the woods. It also was a hemlock, that stood in a niche in a wall of hoary, moss-covered rocks thirty feet high. The tree hardly reached to the top of the precipice. The bees entered a small hole at the root, which was seven or eight feet from the ground. The position was a striking one. Never did apiary have a finer outlook or more rugged surroundings. A black, wood-embraced lake lay at our feet; the long panorama of the Catskills filled the far distance, and the more broken outlines of the Shawangunk range filled the near. On every hand were precipices and a wild confusion of rocks and trees.
The cavity occupied by the bees was about three feet and a half long and eight or ten inches in diameter. With an axe we cut away one side of the tree and laid bare its curiously wrought heart of honey. It was a most pleasing sight. What winding and devious ways the bees had through their palace! What great masses and blocks of snow-white comb there were! Where it was sealed up, presenting that slightly dented, uneven surface, it looked like some precious ore. When we carried a large pail of it out of the woods, it seemed still more like ore.
In lining bees through the woods, the tactics of the hunter are to pause every twenty or thirty rods, lop away the branches or cut down the trees, and set the bees to work again. If they still go forward, he goes forward also and repeats his observations till the tree is found or till the bees turn and come back upon the trail. Then he knows he has passed the tree, and he retraces his steps to a convenient distance and tries again, and thus quickly reduces the space to be looked over till the swarm is traced home. On one occasion, in a wild rocky wood, where the surface alternated between deep gulfs and chasms filled with thick, heavy growths of timber and sharp, precipitous, rocky ridges like a tempest-tossed sea, I carried my bees directly under their tree, and set them to work from a high, exposed ledge of rocks not thirty feet distant. One would have expected them under such circumstances to have gone straight home, as there were but few branches intervening, but they did not; they labored up through the trees and attained an altitude above the woods as if they had miles to travel, and thus baffled me for hours. Bees will always do this. They are acquainted with the woods only from the top side, and from the air above; they recognize home only by landmarks here, and in every instance they rise aloft to take their bearings. Think how familiar to them the topography of the forest summits must be—an umbrageous sea or plain where every mark and point is known.
Another curious fact is that generally you will get track of a bee-tree sooner when you are half a mile from it than when you are only a few yards. Bees, like us human insects, have little faith in the near at hand; they expect to make their fortune in a distant field, they are lured by the remote and the difficult, and hence overlook the flower and the sweet at their very door. On several occasions I have unwittingly set my box within a few paces of a bee-tree and waited long for bees without getting them, when, on removing to a distant field or opening in the woods I have got a clue at once.
Bees, like the milkman, like to be near a spring. They do water their honey, especially in a dry time. The liquid is then of course thicker and sweeter, and will bear diluting. Hence, old bee-hunters look for bee-trees along creeks and near spring runs in the woods. I once found a tree a long distance from any water,and the honey had a peculiar bitter flavor imparted to it, I was convinced, by rain water sucked from the decayed and spongy hemlock tree, in which the swarm was found. In cutting into the tree, the north side of it was found to be saturated with water like a spring, which ran out in big drops, and had a bitter flavor. The bees had thus found a spring or a cistern in their own house.
Wild honey is as near like tame as wild bees are like their brothers in the hive. The only difference is that wild honey is flavored with your adventure, which makes it a little more delectable than the domestic article.
Robert Louis Stevenson