A COMMUNITY OF HUMORISTS
HUMOR is not usually looked upon as a civic virtue. It is for the most part confined to a modest sphere of usefulness, and is accepted as an alleviation to the lot of the private man. He learns to find pleasure in his small misadventures and to smile amiably at his discomfitures. The most ancient pleasantries have almost always an element of domesticity. They form the silver lining to the clouds that sometimes gather over the most peaceful homes. What comfort an ancient Hebrew must have taken in the text from Ecclesiasticus: “As climbing up a sandy way is to the feet of the aged, so is a wife full of words to a quiet man.” The quiet man would murmur to himself, “How true!” He would seize the simile as a dog snatches a bone, and would carry it off to enjoy it by himself.
But it would never occur to him to treat the large affairs of the community in this fashion. Here everything seems too dignified to allow ofpleasant conceits. The quiet man could not treat the prolixity of his social superiors as he could the too long drawn out wisdom of his wife. He must take it, as he would take the invariable laws of nature, with unsmiling acquiescence. Lord Bacon in his list of works that ought to be undertaken declared the need of one to be entitled “Sober Satire; or the Insides of Things.” Such sober satire might express the moods of a philosophical statesman, who could contrast the inside of great affairs with the outside. It implies a certain familiarity with the institutions of society which the common man does not possess.
Now and then, however, there is a reversal of the usual relation. The community is of such a nature that each member can see through it and all around it. The ordinary citizen becomes a philosopher indulging habitually in sober satire. He knows that things are not as they seem, and is pleased at the discovery. In such a case humor envelops everything and becomes the last word of sociological wisdom.
So it was in a community which I fondly remember. It was not much to look at, this brand-new Nevada mining town. The main streetswaggered up the gulch in a devil-may-care fashion, as if saying to the teamsters, “You may take me or leave me.” To the north it pointed to an alkali flat, and to the south to a dusty old mountain, which was immensely richer than it seemed. On the mountain side were hoisting works and hundreds of prospect holes which menaced the lives of the unwary. In the gulch were smelters which belched forth divers kinds of fumes. To the stranger they seemed to threaten wholesale asphyxiation, but to the citizen they gave the place the character of a health resort. An analysis of the air showed that it contained more chemicals than were to be found in the most famous mineral springs. Certain it was that there were enough to kill off all germs of contagious diseases. The community felt the need of no further hygienic precautions, and put its trust in its daily fumigations. No green thing was in sight, not so much as a grass blade, for the fumes were not only germicides, but also herbicides. On the main street were saloons and gambling houses, in close proximity to two or three struggling churches. There were two daily newspapers, each of which kept us informed of the other’s manifold iniquities. Anarrow-gauge railroad had its terminus at the foot of the gulch. Once a day a mixed train would depart for the world that lay beyond the alkali flat. Some of the passengers would be “going below,” which meant nothing worse than a trip to California; others were promoters going East on missions of mercy to benighted capitalists. The promoter was our nearest approach to a professional philanthropist. As for the rest, the chief impression was of dust. It would roll in great billows down the gulch; it seemed as if the mountains had been pulverized. Then the wind would change and the dust billows would roll back. No matter how long it blew, there was always more where it came from.
I cannot explain to an unsympathetic reader why it was that we found life in our dusty little metropolis so charming, and why it was that we felt such pity for those who had never experienced the delights of our environment. Nor can I justify to such a reader the impulse which led a woman whose husband had died far away in New England to bring his body back to be laid to rest in the bare little cemetery amid the sage brush.
“It’s not such a homelike country as the other,” I ventured.
“No,” she answered, “it isn’t, but he liked it.”
And so did we all; and the liking was not the less real because it was an acquired taste. There was nothing in it akin to serious public spirit. It was a whimsical liking, like that of Touchstone for Audrey,—“An ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own; a poor humour of mine, sir, to take that that no man else will.”
When several thousand people, set down in the midst of a howling wilderness, tacitly agree to consider it as the garden of the Lord, they can do much. It pleases the ephemeral community to make believe that it is permanent. The camp organizes itself into a city, with all the offices and dignities appertaining thereto. Civilization is extemporized like a game of dumb crambo. It amuses the citizens to see their beloved city going about in institutions several sizes too large for it. Nothing is taken literally. Humor is accepted not as a private possession, but as a public trust, and cultivated in a spirit of generous coöperation.
In the town were men whose education andexperience had been in the great world. There were mine superintendents who a little while ago might have been in Germany or Cornwall; there were assayers and engineers fresh from the great technical schools, and “experts” full of geological lore. The mines were as rich in litigation as in silver, and there were lawyers great and small.
But all were dominated by one typical character who was accepted as the oracle of the land,—“The Honest Miner.” To him saloons were dedicated with alluring titles, such as “The Honest Miner’s Delight” and “The Honest Miner’s Rest.” At the end of the gulch was “The Honest Miner’s Last Chance,”—one which he seldom missed. The newspapers and political orators appealed to his untutored judgments as the last word of political wisdom. He occupied the position which elsewhere is held by the “Sturdy Yeoman” or the “Solid Business Man.”
The Honest Miner of the Far West is one of those typical Americans who are builders of commonwealths. His impress is upon the western half of our continent. He is a nomad, the last of a long line of adventurers to whom the delightof the new world is in its newness. Sometimes his work is permanent, but he never is quite sure. His habitual mood is one of sober satire.
I know nothing more pleasant than to sit with an old-timer who has spent years in prospecting for silver and gold, and listen to his reminiscences. Here is a philosopher indeed, one with an historic perspective. He has the experience of the Wandering Jew, without his world-weariness. He has seen the rise and fall of cities and the successive dynasties of mining kings. His life has been a mingling of society and solitude. With his pack upon his back he has wandered into desert places where no man had been since the making of the world,—at least, no man with an eye to the main chance. A few weeks later the lonely cañon has become populated with eager fortune-seekers. The camp becomes a city which to the eyes of the Honest Miner is one of the wonders of the world. A year later he revisits the scene, and it is as Tadmor in the Wilderness. He pauses to refresh his mind with ancient history, and then passes on to join in a new “excitement.” He measures time by these excitements as the Greeks measured it by Olympiads.
He loves to tell of the ups and downs of his own fortune. There is no bitterness in his memory of his failures. They relieve the record from the monotony that belongs to assured success. His successes are not less gratifying because, like all things earthly, they have had a speedy ending. A dozen times he has “struck it rich.” He has thrown away his pick and shovel and gone below to bask in the smiles of fortune. He has indulged in vague dreams of going to Europe, of looking up his family tree, and of cultivating grammar and other fine arts. Fortune continued to smile, but after a while her smile became sardonic, and with a wink she said, “Time’s up!” Then the Honest Miner would take up his pick and shovel and return to his work, neither a sadder nor a wiser man,—in fact, exactly the same kind of man he was before. That Experience is a teacher is a pedantic theory which he rejects with scorn. Experience is not a schoolmaster, Experience is a chum who likes to play practical jokes upon him. Just now he has given him a tumble and got the laugh on him. But just wait awhile! And he chuckles to himself as he thinks how he will outwit Experience.
All the traditions of the mining country confirm him in his point of view: Listen to what Experience says, and then do just the opposite. It is the unexpected that happens. The richest diggings bear the most lugubrious names. The Montanian delights to tell of the riches taken out of Last Chance Gulch. The Arizonian for years boasted of the gayety of Tombstone and the amazing prosperity of the Total Wreck Mine.
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Certain physiologists are now telling us that the poetic praise of wine is based upon a mistake. Alcohol, they say, is not a stimulant, but a depressant. It does not stimulate the imagination so much as it depresses the critical faculty so that dullness may easily pass for wit. An idea will occur to a sober man as being rather bright, but before he has time to express it he sees that it is not so. Under the inhibition of good sense he holds his tongue and saves his reputation. But in a convivial company the inhibition is removed. Everybody says whatever is uppermost in his mind. The mice play, not because they are more lively than before, but only because the cat is away.
On first hearing this theory, it seemed to methat it was the most powerful temperance argument which could be formulated. But I am not sure but that it leaves the matter very much where it found it. After all, the man who is oppressed by the dullness of his ordinary condition would enjoy feeling brilliant, even if he were not really so.
In trying to recall any specific instances of wit and humor in my Nevada town, I am compelled to fall back on the theory of the removal of inhibition. Life was not more amusing there than elsewhere,—it only seemed so. There were no “best people” whose critical judgments inhibited the self-expression of less favored classes. Every one feeling at liberty to be himself and to express his own opinion, unfailing variety was assured. Society, being composed of all sorts and conditions of men, was in a state of perpetual effervescence. A very ordinary man, who elsewhere might have passed unnoticed in a life of drudgery, became a notable character.
There, for example, was Old Multitude, so called from the many oxen attached to the huge wagons he convoyed to the distant mines. He was a bull-whacker of the old school. His surnamehad long been lost in the abyss of time. Old Multitude was not looked upon as a mere individual. The public had adopted him, and he had become an institution.
When he was about to depart, a crowd would gather on the main street, as the inhabitants of a little seaport town gather to watch the departure of a ship. Old Multitude bore his honors meekly, but he was conscious that he was the chief actor in an important social function. There was nothing ill-advised in his actions, and his words were fitly chosen as he walked down the line, addressing to each beast of his multitudinous team the appropriate malediction. His wide vocabulary on such occasions contrasted strangely with his usual taciturnity. The words taken by themselves were blood-curdling enough, but as they rose and fell in mighty undulations it seemed as if he were intoning a liturgy.
And there was Old Tansy, a bit of wreckage from the times of ’49. There was a tradition that Tansy had seen better days; at least, it was hard to imagine how he could have seen worse. He lived without visible means of support, and yet he was not submerged. It pleased the communityto accept Tansy as a character worth knowing in spite of his fallen fortunes. His obvious failings were always clothed in soft euphemisms. No one could say that he had ever seen him drunk, and on the other hand no one would be so rash as to assert that he had ever seen him sober. In the border land between moderate drinking and inebriety, Tansy dwelt in peace.
What most endeared Tansy to his fellows was his mild religiosity, which manifested itself in persistent church-going. He was no fair-weather Christian. There was no occasion when he would not desert his favorite saloon to take his accustomed place in the back pew of the Presbyterian church. Only once did Tansy express an opinion in regard to the services which he so assiduously attended. A minister passing through the town preached a lurid sermon on the future punishment of the wicked. He spared no materialistic imagery to make his remarks effective. At the close of the service Tansy, instead of going out, as was his custom, went forward and, grasping the minister’s hands, said in a tone of quiet satisfaction, “Parson, it done me good.”
Just what the nature of the good was he didnot indicate. I suppose that there was something in the unction of the preacher that recalled memories of the past.
There was one person whom I always recall with peculiar pleasure. To see him coming over the divide in a cloud of dust was to see one of the typical forms of creation. He was known, on account of the huge pair of goggles which he wore, as “Four-Eyed Nick.” He dwelt in a cabin in the most desolate part of the mountain, and he fitted his environment perfectly. He seemed as natural a product of the soil as the sage brush, for like it he had learned to exist where there was very little water.
Great was the joy in the community when one day Four-Eyed Nick announced that he had struck pay ore and that he was about to celebrate his good fortune by getting married. Every one was intensely interested. The newspapers made an especial feature of the approaching marriage in high life. Nick was dazed by the sudden glare of publicity. Who should be invited? His generous heart rebelled against any discrimination, and he solved his problem by saying, “Come one! Come all!” He engaged every vehicle in the town tobe at the disposal of such of his fellow citizens as would honor him with their presence at his nuptials.
It would have delighted the heart of Chaucer to have seen the procession of wedding guests wending their way over the ten miles of abominable mountain road to Nick’s cabin. Not on the road to Canterbury was there more variety or more hearty good fellowship. Nick had invited the town, and the town was bent on showing its appreciation of the compliment. The mayor and members of the city council, the lawyers, editors, doctors, clergymen, gamblers, mining experts, saloon-keepers, and honest miners all joined heartily in doing honor to one whom they, for the moment, agreed to consider their most distinguished fellow citizen.
No one could remain long in assured obscurity. It pleased the community to turn its search-light now upon one member and now upon another, and give him a brief experience of living in the public eye. Greatness of one sort or another was sure to be thrust upon one in the course of the year. The choicest spirits of the town were always collaborating in somework of high-grade fiction, and were on the lookout for interesting material. It would have been churlish for any one when his turn came to have refused to be a notability.
An English writer laments the fact that the schools send out thousands of persons whose imaginations have been stifled by the too prosaic discipline which they have undergone. “Why,” he says, “is it that ninety-nine persons out of a hundred lose this faculty in the earliest period of their childhood? It is simply because their bringing up has consisted in the persistent inoculation with the material facts of life, and the correspondingly persistent elimination of all imaginative ideas.”
He blames parents who give their children mechanical toys, especially if they are well made. Even a doll should not have too much verisimilitude. “It would be better to place a bundle of rags in the arms of a little girl, and tell her to imagine it to be a baby. She would, if left to herself with no other resource than her own fancy learn to exercise all her dormant powers of imagination and originality.”
That kind of education the Honest Miner hascarried into mature life. He is full of imaginative ideas. The barest shanty is glorified in his eyes if it bears the sign “Palace Hotel” or “Delmonico’s.” If he cannot have the thing, he takes satisfaction in the name. Above all else, he craves variety.
The inhabitants of Gold Hill used to relate with pleasure the exploits of Sandy Bowers. When he struck an incredibly rich pocket in the mountain, Sandy built for himself a huge and expensive mansion in Washoe Valley. He imported all kinds of trees from foreign lands, none of which would grow. He filled his house with pianos, and when some one suggested sheet music he telegraphed to New York: “Send me some sheet music, one of every kind.”
It was the desire for one of every kind which induced our community, when it put off the habits of a “camp” and became a “city,” to lift into temporary prominence an elderly farmer from Pennsylvania who had drifted into Nevada without changing any of his ways. He came from York County, where he would have gone on his way unnoticed, for there were so many like him. But in the silver country he was differentfrom the common run of fortune-seekers, therefore he was made much of. Some local Diogenes turned his lantern upon him and discovered that he was an honest man, honest in a plodding, Pennsylvania Dutch fashion. “Honest John” became a man of note. Then some one suggested that we had “in our midst a grand old man.” That was enough to make the political fortune of the honest man. He was elected to a position of power in the new city government, for every one was anxious to see what our “grand old man” would do.
He proved a thorn in the flesh of the politicians. He introduced a reign of rigid economy which made the local statesmen despair of the Republic. It was decided that the city had had too much of a good thing. The Grand Old Man should be deposed,—he should not be mayor, nor member of the council, nor any such thing.
But the municipal charter had been conceived in that generous fashion which is proper to a state where there are offices in excess of the needs of the population. The Grand Old Man discovered that there was one office which had been overlookedby the astute politicians: that of the Superintendent of Streets and Sidewalks. The streets had not been clearly differentiated from the surrounding desert, and, as for sidewalks, the citizens had been accustomed to cut across the country wherever it pleased them. The highways having been left to the kindly influence of Nature, it never occurred to any one that they should be officially superintended. The Grand Old Man cast a ballot for himself as Superintendent of Streets and Sidewalks, and when the returns were in, it was found that his name led all the rest. He was declared elected by a majority of one.
Then he began to magnify his office. He brought forth a plan of the city which had heretofore been a dead letter. He discovered streets where the wildest imagination had not supposed streets to be possible. Prominent citizens were arrested for obstructing mythical sidewalks. He was encouraged to stretch his prerogatives to the utmost, for every one was curious to see how far they would go. For six months he ruled by right of eminent domain. Leading lawyers gave it as their opinion that all rights not expressly reserved by the Federal and State governments were vestedin the Grand Old Man. The Methodist minister, who was inclined to sensationalism, preached a sermon from the text in Nehemiah vi. 6: “It is reported among the heathen, and Gashmu saith it.” “Who this Gashmu was,” said the preacher, in beginning his discourse, “we do not know, but from the importance attributed to his remarks we may fairly assume that he was the Superintendent of Streets and Sidewalks in Jerusalem.”
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Lowell describes the rough humor of the frontier, with the free and easy manners which characterize
this brown-fisted rough, this shirt-sleeved Cid,This back-woods Charlemagne of empires new,Whose blundering heel instinctively finds outThe goutier foot of speechless dignities,Who, meeting Cæsar’s self, would slap his back,Call him ‘Old Horse’ and challenge to a drink.
this brown-fisted rough, this shirt-sleeved Cid,This back-woods Charlemagne of empires new,Whose blundering heel instinctively finds outThe goutier foot of speechless dignities,Who, meeting Cæsar’s self, would slap his back,Call him ‘Old Horse’ and challenge to a drink.
this brown-fisted rough, this shirt-sleeved Cid,This back-woods Charlemagne of empires new,Whose blundering heel instinctively finds outThe goutier foot of speechless dignities,Who, meeting Cæsar’s self, would slap his back,Call him ‘Old Horse’ and challenge to a drink.
this brown-fisted rough, this shirt-sleeved Cid,
This back-woods Charlemagne of empires new,
Whose blundering heel instinctively finds out
The goutier foot of speechless dignities,
Who, meeting Cæsar’s self, would slap his back,
Call him ‘Old Horse’ and challenge to a drink.
He had in mind the backwoodsmen whom sturdy apostles like Peter Cartwright labored with to such good purpose. But the Honest Miner, though a pioneer, is not a backwoodsman. His humor is of a different quality. He would not think of slapping Cæsar on the back and calling him “Old Horse.” It would seem moreamusing to him to address some one who might properly be called “Old Horse” with titles of honor.
“Truthful James” delights in euphemism. He does not object to calling a spade a spade, but he refuses to do so in such a way as to give offense.
Which it is not my styleTo produce needless painBy statements that rileOr that go ’gin the grain.
Which it is not my styleTo produce needless painBy statements that rileOr that go ’gin the grain.
Which it is not my styleTo produce needless painBy statements that rileOr that go ’gin the grain.
Which it is not my style
To produce needless pain
By statements that rile
Or that go ’gin the grain.
He is no “brown-fisted rough” who delights in swagger. There is roughness enough all about him, and it pleases him to cultivate the amenities. His gentlemanliness is often carried to excess.
The most characteristic humor of the Honest Miner consists, not in grotesque exaggeration, but in delicate understatement. What can be more considerate than the notice posted by the side of an open shaft: “Gentlemen will please not fall down this shaft, for there are men at work below.”
A Nevada minister once described to me the action of a brother minister in the early days. The minister went to a certain town where he offendedthe lawless element, and was threatened with physical violence if he persisted in his intention of preaching. My friend described the method by which the liberty of prophesying was asserted. “He went into the pulpit, laid his revolver on the Bible—and then he preachedextempore.”
The manner of narration savored of the soil. The Honest Miner under such circumstances would subordinate everything to emphasis on the correct homiletical method. No matter how able the minister might be, it was evident that if he were closely confined to his notes, his delivery could not be effective.
A good woman described the way in which her minister, a young man fresh from the theological school, made one of his first parish calls. He found his parishioner, who had been extolled as one of the pillars of the church, in a state of intoxication, and he was chased out of the house and some distance down the street.
“We were sorry it happened, for it gave him an unpleasant impression of the congregation. You know Mr. —— met with several rebuffs.”
The unconventional episode was related with all the prim propriety of “Cranford.”
The perfect democracy of a mining camp develops a certain naïve truth-telling, which has all the unexpectedness which belongs to the observations of a boy. There is no attempt to reduce everything to uniformity, or to prove any particular thesis. The gossip of a conventional village where people know each other too well is apt to be malicious. A creditable action is narrated, and then comes the inevitable “but.” The subject of conversation falls in the estimation of the hearers with a sudden thud.
The Honest Miner does not attempt to pass final judgment or to arrange his fellow men according to any sort of classification. He speaks of them as he sees them, and so virtues and failings jostle one another and take no offense. The result is a moral inconsequence which has all the effect of studied wit. This is what delights us in the characterization of Thompson of Angel’s:
Frequently drunk was Thompson, but always polite to the stranger.
Frequently drunk was Thompson, but always polite to the stranger.
Frequently drunk was Thompson, but always polite to the stranger.
Frequently drunk was Thompson, but always polite to the stranger.
As we read the line we smile, not so much at Thompson as at the society of which he was a part. We see behind him the sympathetic company at Angel’s. Here was a public with whosetemper he was familiar. He could trust himself to the judgment of his peers. No misdemeanor would blind them to such virtues as he actually possessed. He could appeal to them with perfect confidence.
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,Nor set down aught in malice.
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,Nor set down aught in malice.
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,Nor set down aught in malice.
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice.
The Western mining camp is not primarily an educational institution, yet it has served a most important function in the making of Americans. The young man is fortunate who on leaving college can take a post-graduate course in a community where he can study sociology at first hand. He will learn many things, especially that human nature is not so simple as it seems, but that it has many “dips, spurs, and angles.”