‘the innocent sleep,Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care,The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,Chief nourisher in life’s feast.’
‘the innocent sleep,Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care,The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,Chief nourisher in life’s feast.’
‘the innocent sleep,Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care,The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,Chief nourisher in life’s feast.’
‘the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.’
Another novel read, another history finished, another biography turned over—enough of them. I am done with them. I prefer to empty another pitcher. Give me my sangaree and my own thoughts in preference to their twaddle. And why twaddle? Well, because each and all of them have a hero—a good man, or a great man, or a successful man, or a man in love with a woman, or a man in love with himself—whereas I am none of them, and I want to hear about myself. I want to hear about a failure. A man who sadly admits that he is a failure. These, then, are the Memoirs of a Failure.
Certainly there have been more failures than heroes, but fiction delights to mock the failures merely to set off the hero. Surely there have been more obscure men than famous men, but history records chiefly the attainments of the leaders. Whereas, the unknown soldier, the insignificant clerk, the patient craftsman, the underpaid writer and teacher—these humble workers had their story, perhaps more touching and perhaps less callous than the career of the noted artist, the famous statesman, the great general.
Who shall write the Epic of Unsuccess—the song of the Vast Obscure?
Did you want to paint?
And have you found that you could not? I have.
Did you try to preach, and lose conviction?
Yes, catechiser.
Did you strive to write and find that you had nothing to say?
I opened a lumber-room of useless odds and ends.
Did you see corruption and poverty and vice, and wish to conquer them?
It was a futile task.
You are soothed by music, but the art is another’s.
True, I have no genius.
What have you, then?
Nothing, but my foiled desires. My dearest hopes are rendered unavailing.
And why are you so?
Ah, that I do not know. Ask the hero, the successful man. He can tell you what I lack. I met a drunken man who said:
“Two kernels of corn fell on the ground, and sprouted in the self-same way. A toad hopped along and passed his dung at the roots of one, while the other shrunk in the shade.”
I have taken more than my usual quota of this pleasant stuff. Why not? Why not? It helps me to get away from this world of conventions and mortal routine. I like to watch the rays of fire-light glistening through the glass and liquor. I am loggerheaded. I can see my eyelashes.
Here comes one with a birch canoe. I get in. A tanned figure bare to the loins, without a sign of passion in his face, holds a paddle aloft as if awaiting my orders, a paddle curiously carved like a totem pole.
“Row to that floating bed of water lilies yonder that I may see their upturned faces of gold.”
The paddle dips noiselessly, the ripples make rings on the glimmering surface of the lake. I hear the water slush the bottom of the canoe. It sways until I can see over the sides and down into the green undergrowth of the lake where sun-fish and rainbow trout flash about in the slender thread-like leaves, as though they were swimming in the delicate, green foliage of a sunken tamarack forest or virgin growth of wild asparagus. What a cooling sensation it is to let the water trickle through the fingers as the canoe is paddled along. A little herd of four deer are coming down a woodland path to the border ofthe lake on the opposite shore. There are three does and a buck. He courts one of them, rubbing the underpart of his downy neck across her back. She shows her little teeth and leaps nimbly from under him, frisking her little cotton tail to and fro. I wonder for how many centuries that path has been trodden down by the light patter of their forefathers’ feet? I hear squirrels chattering, and I see them pursuing one another. A pair of wild ducks are diving in a little bay beyond, and another pair are mating near them on the land.
“What is the name of this northern swamp?” I ask. But the figure answers nothing at all. I take it that he, too, is one of its aboriginal inhabitants. What a ceaseless propagation has gone on here—when did it begin, when will it end? Life is to give life. “And you, you dumb being, are you happier without words and gibberish? With you there is no vice, for you mate as naturally as the wild ducks yonder. You have no slander or back-biting, then. No boring conversations about social nothings. No nasty words or thoughts! Your mind is as pure as the roebuck’s on the water’s edge.” But the figure answers nothing at all, deftly paddling on and on, until I hear the roar of rapids ahead. It must be the outlet of the swamp. The waters grow disturbed, rocks peer through the surface, foam eddiesround them. I can see the rush of the current by the leaves and twigs hurrying by. We are shooting the rapids. The figure backs water, the foam rushing up his bare arms. But he can not stop us, the canoe will strike that rock ahead instantly! He jumped and disappeared with his paddle. The next I know I am thrown forward—
Here I awoke, striking my head in some inexplicable manner against the leg of my centre table, yet for a moment I seemed to feel the closing in of waters around me. Ah, why couldn’t it have lasted a little longer and then I should have been asleep. My tumbler, half full of sangaree, is spilled on the carpet about me. Sandy has brought me some witch-hazel to rub on my head. It is very sore from the blow against the table.
How one warms the blood: how two taste bitter and sweet: and the third glass—that’s the end of me. Let us take a trip, Sandy, and escape from the bores. Be sure that you bolt the door.
I have received this minute another invitation to that distant land which lies far out from the beaten track, neither is it found on any map. I travel thither in the same fashion that the Arabian princes used to travel with their genii, and the pointed tops of trees and sooty chimney pots sweep under me, roads and rivers flying beneath look like threads in a motley loom, everything is going and whirling.... Aha, here I am once more on my fourth visit to this land of the Inconsequentials. I am a friend of their ruler, who is the soul of ingenuity, and to whom they give the unique title of Excelsior, if I may translate the word literally, meaning more lofty. Usually I find it bitter cold here.
My chief design at this moment is to describe one of the luxurious diversions of this potentate. I had His Majesty’s permission to be shown over his magnificent demesne. The sieges of extremecold weather caused him to have built a curious structure, built entirely of glass, and covering an area of eighteen acres. There were three divisions of six acres each, used to represent the three seasons other than winter; so that His Majesty, rolled in an upholstered chair along tan-bark walks from one section to another, could experience respectively the sensations of spring, summer and autumn.
In the first park, the grass was kept young and green by constant irrigation; cherry and crab trees were forced to blossom, and as soon as they began to wither, they were replaced by others; birds were mating and singing at such close proximity that one screeching varlet passed his dung on my bonnet. At the end of the enclosure depicting summer, I saw His Grace stretched out in a cushioned hammock before a fountain. He had one eunuch sprinkling perfume about him, while another kept flies off his bald pate, and a third was squeezing drops from the petals of clover blossoms into his open lips.
Upon approaching the royal presence, I bared my arms which is the custom in this country.
“Here I am, O Excelsior, on a relief expedition from the land of the Yankee bores, as your Supreme Armpit chose to call them on my previous visits, judging me as a sample of my countrymen.”
I translate the word “Armpit” literally which is used by the natives in addressing their ruler, wishing, as I suppose, to signify either that his arms are more beautifully rounded and developed than those of his subjects, or that the shoulders are more lofty and are on a higher plane than the rest of the body. His Grace motioned to the eunuch to cease the spraying of perfume and the dropping of clover juice that he might acknowledge my salutation.
“You speak of being here on a relief expedition,” quoth he; “whom, pray, are you to relieve?”
“Myself,” said I, for I had found on previous visits that the surest means of flattering His Royal Axilla was by depreciating my own countrymen. But this time it seems I was mistaken.
“I take it that you are a failure in your native land,” quoth the ruler, “for those who are failures are usually ‘bored’, to use your tongue. Is it not so, thou parasite of the warm ocean land?”
“True it is, O Excelsior,” I replied, “but my failure is due not to me; it is the fault of——” Here he cut me short with an interruption:
“Those who are failures,” quoth he, “ever place the cause of their failure upon others, while those who attain success always accredit it to themselves.”
I thanked His Majesty for these kind words of wisdom, and was about to take my departure when he asked me if I had seen the new instrument of punishment which he had just had erected. Upon my replying in the negative, he said that I could obtain a good view of it from one of the windows in the royal bed-chamber, and that as he himself was going thither to take his two o’clock siesta, he would gladly show it to me in person. I thanked him with many encomiums upon his hospitality, and we proceeded to his sleeping apartments.
Upon our arrival at the entrance to his bed-chamber, I noticed that the windows were screened by a series of reflectors, making a curious olio of lights, and there were strips of tapestry in many gradations of color and tone effects. To my query as to the purpose of these massive reflectors of light, the Excelsior replied that he deemed it to be very bad for the nervous system to awake suddenly, saying that this theory is supported by the fact that in a true state of nature one is awakened gradually from sleep by the slow transition from darkness to light. Accordingly, he produced by the arrangement of these reflectors an effect similar to that of dawn, and he could thus be awakened gradually at any hour of the day or night.
“The old-fashioned method of letting up blinds or throwing open shutters,” quoth he, “and thereby admitting a sudden influx of bright light is most injurious to the optic nerves and leaves the mind in a drowsy and dazed condition. My optician, whom I have had with me for two decades, agrees with me in this theory. And my invention overcomes these deleterious effects of a sudden awakening.”
Hereupon he ordered the eunuchs to slide back the reflectors that he might show me the aforementioned instrument of punishment. We stepped out upon a balcony, and I saw in the courtyard below an immense bladder, supported upon two uprights of timber, like the sweep of an old-fashioned well. This bladder is operated as a whip, only it belabors the victim upon the head. It was thus explained to me by His Majesty.
“For what crime is this used as a punishment?” I asked.
“For those who are unduly given to self-praise,” replied the potentate, “and there are two degrees of penalty, first for those who praise themselves directly, and secondly for those who praise themselves indirectly.”
“From what class of your subjects do most of these victims come?”
“From all classes,” he continued, “but thosewho praise themselves frankly and openly are chiefly made up of successful business men, actors and patent medicine doctors; whereas those who are given to praising themselves indirectly, mostly consist of politicians, authors, artists, professors and clergymen; and to this latter class is accorded the most severe punishment.”
I observed now that the Excelsior was yawning profusely, and I began to bare my arms and to bow myself out from his presence and to excuse my long visit.
“Wait a moment,” he said, “now that you are here, take a look at another invention of mine. There it is in the corner by the hearth.”
I turned and saw a large oblong table with three layers of shelves, upon which were rows of bottles with automatic stoppers attached to them. These stoppers or flat corks were manipulated by finger stops and pedals, much the same as an ordinary organ. I should surely have noticed this unique instrument upon my entrance, had it not been for those colored reflectors which cut off the light.
“What does your Royal Axilla call that?” I asked, looking at the labels on the bottles.
“That,” quoth he, “is my smelling piano. Did it never occur to you that civilized man has been cultivating his ear with musical sounds ever sincehe was in the stage of savagery, while he has utterly neglected that much more sensitive member, the nose?”
This subject seemed to rouse great animation in His Majesty, and he spoke about it with much fluency, as follows:
“Take for instance the fact that one never forgets an odor,” he continued, “while a musical sound is scarcely remembered over night. It is a matter of common observation that an odor will recall the scenes or incidents or persons with which it was first perceived. Indeed my chief chemist, whom I have had at my court several decades, is of the belief that the memory of a smell, be it pleasant or disagreeable, is the last thing that the mind retains. I have him compress into those bottles the essences of the principal odors. There now, you have the idea of this invention in a nutshell.”
“And can you compose upon this smelling piano?” I asked.
“Why, certainly,” he replied; “there is as much a symphony of smells as of sounds; and the harmony of odors depends in like manner upon discords. As, for example, in a sonata that I was producing last night, the delicate fragrance of mignonette and of lilies of the valley was offset by an odor of Edam cheese.”
It was with difficulty that I maintained the composure of my countenance, but His Royal Armpit was in earnest, and I dared not laugh.
“Then you have scales for the smells?”
“Exactly,” continued His Majesty, glowing with satisfaction at my appreciation of the subject, “there are minor odors, such as the essences of beeswax, of tan-bark, of most kinds of flowers and the various mixtures of tobacco, and so forth; and then there are major odors in which are included the rank smell of the poppy and of the milk-weed, of the sap of the pungent ailanthus tree, and of most of the concentrated acids, and what-not, and especially those odors of a high pitch, such as of molten soap and burning rubber. And this last bottle,” said he sharply, and at the same time giving vent to an unconcealed yawn, “this last bottle I open whenever visitors overstay their welcome.” Whereupon he pulled out one of the finger stops and pushed the base pedal. Instantly the chamber was filled with the vile stench of burning gutta-percha. At this strong hint I bade the Excelsior adieu, thanking him for his cordial reception of me, and then I repeated the custom of baring my arms before leaving his presence.
A moment later Sandy came running into myroom crying, “Lor’ maarstar, the house am on fire!”
This information startled me, though I doubted its truth. “No, Sandy,” said I, “it is only the smell of burning rubber.” And upon making an investigation, Sandy discovered that I had for some inexplicable reason thrown my fountain pen into the fire. Probably in an absent-minded moment I mistook it for my half-burned segar. Such was the cause of the stench. Sandy reports that it is four o’clock in the morning. My lamp is just flickering. Perhaps I shall now be able to get a little sleep.
My window is open, though it is a night in the late autumn. I have sat sipping this beverage until my brain is aroused to false action. Listen! There comes a band of music, marching. It is coming nearer and nearer until I can hear the human shouts of applause. I can see the crowd swaying and forging up the street past my window. I can see that they are escorting a chief to a rostrum where they may proclaim him leader! How grand and humble must he feel, knowing their expectations and his limitations.
Hear the fighting, onward notes of that music! It seems to say for him:
“Come on, my followers! I have won. I have triumphed! At last I have come into my own. Life is not a failure! My forehead beats with the inspiration of fame, of music, of triumphal progress. The bells are ringing for me, and every clash of their tongues sends a quiver through my blood. The whistles shriek! Each blast makes the hair on my head tingle. And the shouts: ‘Huzzah! Huzzah! Tiger! Three cheers for Me! And three times three! Huzzah! Huzzah!’”
The band, the crowd and the leader have passed my window, and the music has died away. I sitlooking up into the star-lighted heavens, sipping my sangaree.
I wonder how many of the followers of that exalted man had longed to hear the music sound what it was sounding for him? Or was it? Ah, the dream of fame that was, but never is, pewter for silver. I see the spirits of the things which were to be, hovering about the living facts of the things which are, I see them standing as shadow sentinels to us, the sullen puppets of fate.
That crowd begins to march before me.
“You there! what are you? A clerk? A neat, scribbling clerk, and in your hopeful youth, in the knee breeches of sturdy boyhood, you dreamed that you were to be an architect! An architect of what? You alone can tell us. Oh yes, I know you.
“Next! What art thou? A cringing politician, and from the height of your white temple, one might surmise that good blood flowed in your veins. What of you? Back at college, are you? I mean in your memory. Very good, do you remember a clear-eyed enthusiastic youth with ideals of civic purity, a young lawyer hearing the dictates of righteousness—where is he? Dead! And you stand in his place, stanching the wounds of conscience with the cobwebs of half-success. You had money. It was not the greed for money,no, not that, but the easy greed of ambition. Cheap ambition! Has the band played for you? How, pray, does it sound? Tell us that? Ah yes, I know you.
“And you too, you lazy being with a sleek, well-fed smile upon your rosy lips, yes, yes, I know you well. You have shirked doing anything except to stroll along the Road of Least Resistance. You were born an inheritor of great wealth, were you not? You are the scion of a great money-getter who was at heart a voluptuary, and so you have never done what you have not wanted to do, eh? No, that is not strictly the truth, else why have you not done what youreallywanted to do? Look back to that brilliant dawn of your manhood, when your soul bade you speak, and you had a decent ambition to tell your fellow beings the truth, that you were not to be envied, that it was not so! And you thought of a great poem of discontent, of half-lighted love—aha, I know you well. Do you ever hear the band?
“Here is another of your ilk, only he was poor, and had more excuse. See his fingers, smeared with ink. See his nervous eye, dodging us lest we read his secret. He has a little money now; he can buy food and raiment, yet even when he is physically most at ease, he is still uncomfortable.He wrote what he did not want to write. He wrote what he did not believe. He had to please or starve, so he pleased. Ah, sir, I do not want to examine you, for you know yourself. I knew your twin brother once, years ago, he had genius, whereas you have talent. Why did he cut his throat?
“Who is that pompous one over there? Let him step forward. He looks the part of self-made success. He comes nigh to the World’s Conception of Complete Rapture, only he speaks fairly bad grammar. He is the practical ideal of the present-day American, industrious, self-reliant, not embarrassed by his past, confident in his contempt for others—we almost hear the conquering music as he advances. But do we know him? Let him come closer. You struggled all your youth and manhood and middle life, did you not? He nods. You slaved for your children and for your children’s children, to perpetuate your name above want and in respectability. Ah yes, I think I know you. Your children? They are not what you willed them to be. He hung his head. And sadder than that, you imagined that you outgrew the wife of your struggles. You may take your stand under the Banner of Success for Others; it is just ahead of the Banner of Success. The band plays a littlesweetly for you, but it does not thrill you. The zest is gone.”
Charity, charity, I pray God for charity toward the Other’s Self and toward myself. Charity!
For, sirs, I, too, have had Macbeth’s vaulting ambition which o’erlept itself. I, too, have horsed the clouds with Kaiser Peer Gynt, and ridden under the stars. Ozymandias, king of kings, never looked upon grander works than those on my demense. And I have dropped from poetry into fact. I have sailed the sea and cried, “Fear not. You carry Caesar!”
Macbeth became a murderer; Peer Gynt something worse. Ozymandias has been forgotten; and we know not where Julius Caesar lies.
On such a night as this, the heavens seem aglow with brilliants. Stars, moons, planets, suns, worlds—how many of you are inhabited as ours is? Or do you reckon at all of such atoms as men and women? You have shone upon a mighty host of leaders and their followers. You shine indifferently upon our passing shows and remain to shine when we are gone, mocking our longest efforts. Ah, how does that Eternity of the Past outdo the little Eternity of the Future of which poor man has dreamed!
Tell us, Moon, did the mastodons shed theirheavy hair when the ice receded? And did the Aztecs have a written alphabet?
Was Helen of Troy sweet to look upon? Or was she bold and brazen?
Was Shakespeare a drunkard? And did he consider Marlowe a failure?
In that company of Greeks who came to Philip with the request: “Sir, we would see Jesus;”—did they think that Christ had Grecian blood in his veins, as his thought indicated?
When I die, will I get my sleep at last in the wide bed which holds us all? Failures and successes cut much the same figure under the great green sheet of that bed, don’t they?
Sandy, the moon has set and will not answer me. You may go to sleep, Sandy. I am going out for an early morning walk and gather us some mushrooms before the sun strikes them.
I am in a warm part of the world where the sun is always vertical. I should judge that I must be somewhere in the tropic of Capricorn. Magnificent forests stretch away from the spot where I am lying, but immediately before me is a grove of the wild date palm, while I myself am luxuriating in the midst of gigantic grasses. I seem to be overcome with deep drowsiness. Yet my mind is quick to such a degree that I am able to contemplate an endless panorama that is unwinding before me. My body is bare in the white sunlight, but my head is kept cool by the lush green shade of the date palm. Let me watch that figure in the panorama.
I observe that the figure is a male. He is seated at the trunk of a tree on the edge of the forest. I set my eyes steadily upon him and perceive that his jaw projects as it does in all brutes, his nose is rudimentary, his hide is covered with silken hairs, his face partially naked, and when he turns his back to me I can see that his buttocks are callous. He is devouring fruit; but he is of a prying, inquisitive nature and examines what he eats. His mate, overhead in the branches, is likewise eating, and feeding theirsingle offspring, but her meal is upon cocoanuts, which she throws at other of her kind who draw near to their tree.
When lo! of a sudden, I see the male figure try to raise himself off all fours. He appears to find it most difficult to stand erect for more than a moment, for his head is thrown forward, and he stands awkwardly upon the sides of his two rear feet. He keeps, trying, trying, and each time that I see him erect himself, he takes a look afar off, and gradually from these attempts, lo and behold! his forehead rises slowly, his jaw is receding, his eye develops, he can see his enemy at a distance!
Who is this enemy? I scan the outer skirts of the forest and perceive another male figure, fashioned like himself. Only this one approaches on all fours, whereas his upright brother has already seen him and is striving to prepare for his attack. I can see his front claws itch and quiver with indecision, when, ha! one claw spreads out from the others and the thumb is born! Now he is thinking. An idea is germinating!
His enemy is creeping slowly upon him, imagining himself unseen, little knowing of his disadvantage of being upon all fours. With a hideous yell he springs into view. But our upright brother is calmly chattering. He has used that thumb—he has grasped a club! The enemyis awe-stricken at that erect figure, which drives him to cover and strikes him dead.
The mate in the tree screams with exultation, the offspring leaps to her bosom, and both descend to embrace their upright spouse and father in a perfect whirl of chattering. Inarticulate chattering, most unlike speech, but still chattering—for Love was born.
And those other enemies, those tremendous enemies, various and of a multitude of shapes, some as big as a mastodon—think of it!—he can see them away in the distance in season to escape. He pats himself with a sense of relief. He even kisses his wife.
Scenes shift before me; and there is a persistent blank in the panorama. This tapestry of the fated past, vast and unknown, winds and unwinds before me. Yet chaos on the screen is becoming more and more definite in outline. Yes, praise be given, there is the figure, the same upright figure, before me again. He is sitting on a rocky beach, bordering the bank of a gurgling river. His club is beside him. It is evidently late in the autumn, for the rock pile is covered with dried leaves. A little animal that he has killed with his club, is lying beside him. That off-member, the thumb, has grown strong on both hands, and he is grabbing the smallerboulders with intense delight and clashing them together. What? A spark flew to the elemental tinder and the dead leaves are all ablaze. The figure became so frightened at this sight and so insane in his actions that he fell into the river. But by the time he scrambled ashore, the blaze had spent its force, and he noticed that where he shook himself, the water extinguished the fire. Gracious! What a relief to be without those biting colors once more. Whatdidcause that trouble? He sits upon his haunches and ponders until his mind hurts. He is hungry. Where is the animal that he killed? He looks over at the rock pile with trepidation. Yes, there is the little carcass, but its fur is gone! He can hardly recognize it. He summons up courage and snatches it. But it hurts so that he lets it fall. He sucks his thumb in pain. The new smell! The new taste! Those biting colors made that rich odor and delicious flavor. How did he make them? He will make them again! He wants some more cooked meat.
Here the panorama ceased; and I fell inadvertently into a light sleep. I know not for how long I remained in slumber, but I was abruptly aroused by cries of “Fire! Fire!” That did not seem to me strange, as my room is directly opposite an engine house. I rushed to my windows. I could hear the telephone and the telegraph ring and clickin the engine house. Gong! Gong! The fire tower sounded. Gong! Gong! And there was the hitching up of the fire patrol.
I could not rid myself of the remembrance of the figure, and my mental eye kept looking about for him. Gong! Gong! There was the clatter of the horses’ hoofs. Gong! Gong! The entire fire company sprang through its doors. Gong! Gong!
“There he is!” I cried to myself, tingling in every hair of my head, “there he is!”
It was the flash of the figure that I saw, driving horses breakneck, to save his fellow men.
This morning I am making a tour of inspection with the Great Axilla. We are driving in his chariot, which is a wide-seated, low-swung ox-cart drawn by a yoke of white oxen. The Excelsior has other means of faster locomotion, but he abhors those vehicles, while I am made nervous by the slow speed of our ox-cart.
“Why are you so fidgety, puny one?” asked the Excelsior, “evidently the inhabitants of your country get small enjoyment out of life, because they do not train themselves to observe. If one travels faster than an ox can walk, it is not possible for him to observe the indispensable details of this world. I am going through life for the last time, my little fellow, and I want to see all that there is. I am in no hurry.”
We rode along in frisky pomp, and I tried to sit still.
“Who lives in that great mansion?” I asked, as we jaunted past the abode of some evidently wealthy citizen.
“His name was Missed-It.”
“Is he dead?”
“Yes, he died yesterday.”
“What a strange name;” I mused.
“No, not if you knew him,” said the Excelsior, “you know I never allow my great folk to have permanent names until they are dead. Then I name them. If you will go some other time to visit our cemetery you will see by the tombstones that several important personages have passed away this winter. You will see that I have had their names cut deep in the stones. For instance, ‘Natural Poser’ died in November; likewise ‘Poor Imitation.’ Then in December, we lost ‘Anybody’s Flirt,’ and a little later ‘Sublime Assurance’ had to die. And now little old ‘Missed-It’ is to be tucked away. He was certainly very rich.”
“How much did he leave?”
“He left everything.”
The ox-cart slowly mounted a snow-covered hill, and I kept quiet. Presently my host said:
“There are no pockets to our shrouds; neither are there money drawers in our burial vaults; and that man’s coffin could not hold a tithe of what he amassed.”
“Why, how much was he worth?”
“Ninety billion buttons!” exclaimed the Excelsior, his eyes bulging in spite of himself.
“Buttons? Are buttons the coin of your realm?” I asked, smiling.
“You need not be so supercilious, my smallguest,” snapped the Excelsior, “for I adopted our currency system from your own people.”
“How is that?”
“I sent my agents to the warm ocean lands to search out what gave the majority of your people the greatest satisfaction. They made an exhaustive inquiry, and reported that most of you derived satisfaction from saying and having it said: He or she is worth so many million dollars, francs, pounds, rubles; and that the larger the number they could say the more glee they derived. Very well, if it be simply that the larger the sum the more the satisfaction, why not have a coin which can be multiplied indefinitely? Hence I decided upon buttons. Moreover, there is a moral attaching to our form of currency, for as buttons are used upon our clothes, and we can not use more than ten or a dozen upon one suit, and can only wear one suit at a time, a rich man is constantly reminded how superfluous are his other billions of buttons. Now, let us ride along for a while in peace.”
The snow fell so fast that it balled upon the feet of our oxen, but as we ourselves were protected by a massive parasol, our view was unobstructed. Shortly we entered a thickly settled portion of the city where high structures towered toward the clouds. They resembled in architecture our greatoffice buildings. I could not maintain my silence any longer.
“Pray tell me what are all these high edifices jammed together here?”
“They are Sane Asylums,” answered the Excelsior, “and the inmates are devotees of routine.”
At that moment, whistles shrieked and bells rang: and lo, behold! vast throngs of individuals swarmed in the hallways and issued out of doors.
“Look at them,” said the Excelsior, “they are now going to crawl to luncheon, no matter whether they are hungry or not. Yet you will find odd specimens in that mass. You will find presidents of companies who spend their lives poring over countless figures when they would much prefer to study along the inclinations of their temperaments. You will find lawyers and physicians who long to love and dream instead of listening to petty ills and complaints. You will find bankers who might have been philosophers. You will find clerks who conceal and are ashamed of poetic fancies. And yet they all slave on in their voluntary prisons, giving forth only mediocre efforts. And why? Because they do not love their work. They work only to procure buttons, instead of living for rational happiness. That is why this age of ours is unfortunately a Millennium of Minnows.”
My host thought he had said enough for a while and ceased to entertain me. He lolled back and stroked his magnificent whiskers. Again we were jaunting down hill when the oxen drew up to water at a curved trough which stood before a crooked building with dingy, little windows, all arow.
“What on earth is this; who lives in here?”
“My cowards,” answered the Excelsior, “did you not know that I own the rarest and most complete collection of cowards in the world?”
“I have never even heard of such a collection.”
“What a puny ignoramus you are!” exclaimed the Great Axilla, “where can you have lived and not have been taught the underlying principles of cowardice? And I, sir, have specimens to illustrate each of those principles. Do you not even know the three grand divisions of cowards: the Physical Coward, the Moral Coward and the Intellectual Coward?”
“Have we not time to go in and see some of them?”
The Excelsior consulted his travelling dial, and said:
“It is almost time for my afternoon siesta, but if you will make haste and not interrupt me with your insipid questions, I can give you a quick tour of inspection.”
We alighted and ran in through the low, grated portals.
“Here,” said the Excelsior, as we entered the first tier of cells, “are the Physical Cowards. They are too ordinary and common to need explanation. They are divided into two main subdivisions. Firstly, the positive physical coward, who, having neither intellect nor morality on his side, resorts to force. And when he defeats you by the strength of his bull neck and coarse fists he declares that he has proved himself in the right.
“The second subdivision, which comprises those cells on the left-hand side, consists of the other and even more common variety. That is, a person who will not risk his body for the chance of protecting another, or who will not give up his cheap life for his country. A philosopher of your country once remarked, ‘’Tis man’s perdition to be safe, when for the Truth, he ought to die!’”
The Excelsior took me by the arm and escorted me up a flight of winding stairs, until we reached a shaky, moving platform. The Axilla expatiated as follows:
“On this higher level in this second tier of cells, live my Moral Cowards. Their cowardice has to do with character. Here too, there are subdivisions. Firstly, those who prefer to be whatthey are, and not what they might be. My friend, I speak with all due reverence: your Savior spoke of the Sin against the Holy Ghost, and here I think is that sin’s personification. For, the Unpardonable Sin, as I understand it, is not to struggle, not to strive to do right even though failure faces you at every turn, but instead to give up and become satiated with sloth, to yield to the worst elements in your nature and to grovel in their lowness. Bah! Do not start me talking about them, for it taints my own soul.
“The other and more open moral coward, and therefore the more simple, is he or she who takes out his or her anger, not upon himself or herself who is really to blame, but foists the blame upon another, as the wolf found pretext against the lamb. Then of course, there is also that vast class who openly attack one of their sex for having done what they themselves would inwardly like to do. This last variety has always struck me as being the most human of all.
“Come, now, to the third and highest level, where I maintain my Intellectual Cowards at a great expense. They are the very costly specimens, for they come chiefly from the places of elevated culture.”
While he was speaking, we ascended a cast-iron stairway inlaid with arabesques. The Excelsiorlet down a narrow, filigree draw-bridge which was the only means of access to the tier of intellectual cowards. We ambled across it, and the Excelsior made a sweep with his cane, exclaiming:
“Look at them! Are they not ludicrous? You have often heard the adjective contemptible applied to cowardice. The application came from this sect. These are the contemptible cowards. They lack the courage of their convictions. And the curious fact is that these persons are proud of their cowardice, because they call it another name—self-preservation, which includes self-appreciation.”
Here the Excelsior turned upon me.
“Did it ever occur to you,” he asked, “that a humbug is at heart a coward? A humbug is simply one who is afraid to be himself for fear it may not pay. As an example, one of the oldest and most harmful devices of the humbug is to titulate the imagination with smut under the pretense of being outspoken. That is why you see so many modern playwrights and novelists amongst them. If they were really clean-minded and earnest in their work, they would not have to adopt such false methods.”
The Excelsior took me to the other end of the balcony where a ball was in progress.
“Here are some more humbugs,” he began,“indeed by far the majority of humbugs are found among the so-called fashionable classes. These specimens came from the esoteric ‘sets’ of your society folk.”
“Do you allow them to carry on their same diversions?” I asked, noticing the luxurious furnishings and grandeur.
“Oh yes,” answered the Excelsior, “otherwise they would languish and die. Look at that grand lady there in the gilt arm-chair. She is a famous leader. She has composure, but nothing to compose.
“Can you see that loose-jointed male specimen, stroking his blond mustache. How very haughty he is! He is exclusive, for fear of being excluded.
“These are all cowards, you understand, because they are imitated poses. Imitation is a confession that you lack the stamina to be yourself.”
My brain was buzzing with the Excelsior’s concentrated talk. He gave me some relief by asking me to follow him into a wing of the building. He unlocked a suite of private apartments. In the dining-room there sat five persons.
“Here,” he whispered, “is a family of cowards, two parents and three children, a sister and two brothers. One of the brothers is a poet of some ability, but his family opposes him on the ground that it is not nice and proper to write suchsentiments as he desires to give forth. Instead of lending a word of encouragement to his feeble will, as relatives are supposed to do, they show him their utmost contempt. And he does not realize that contempt from certain persons is a compliment. They are Pharisees of the purest type; and no more profound coward exists than a Pharisee, for he or she is invariably a conscious coward, shamming sincerity.”
The Excelsior descended to the open air, and I gladly followed him; for the atmosphere was close and exotic within.
“Now I excuse you;” he said to me, yawning, “please do not visit me again for at least some months.”
I am on the Pacific seaboard, seated in an ocean breeze; the sun, falling delicately through a mist, makes me feel like a young god awaiting the daughters of men. It seems as though all nature would utter passionate yearnings upon this warm, buxom day. Yonder in clear view are the round, beautifully curved hills, rising gently from the soft smooth water, like breasts from a woman’s form. And the firm, supple ship masts leap upward upon the waves.