Chapter II: Part 2

In the world outside there are many kinds of entertainment. We disposed of the dinner-party in a preceding page. One’s conduct anywhere must be guided by good sense and the usages of the occasion. At a concert, for instance, the main object of each person present is to hear the music. Anything that interferes with this is a breach of good manners. To chatter during a song or while a piece of music is played shows selfish disregard for the comfort of others and a contemptible indifference to the feelings of the performer. Music may be a great aid to conversation, but conversation is no assistance to music; and people who go to a concert do not pay for their tickets to hear somebody in the next seat tell his private affairs in a loud voice. There are some human creatures who seem to imagine that they may reveal everything possible to their next neighbor in a crowded theatre without being heard by anybody else. There is an old anecdote, but a true one, of a very fashionable lady in Boston who attended an organ recital in the Music Hall there. She was supposed to be an amateur of classical music, but her reputation was shattered by an unlucky pause in the tones of the organ. The music ceased unexpectedly, and the only sound heard was that of her voice, soaring above the silence and saying to her friend, “We FRY ours in LARD.” Her reputation was ruined in musical circles. One goes to a concert or an opera to listen, not to talk. It is only the vulgar, the ostentatious, the ignorant, that distinguish themselves in public places by a disregard of the rights of others. To enter a concert-room late and to interrupt a singer, to enter any public hall while a speaker is making an address, is to excite the disapproval of all well-bred people. Sir Charles Thornton, for a long time British minister at Washington, was noted for his care in this particular: he would stand for half an hour outside the door of a concert-room rather than enter while a piece of music was in progress.

Weddings, I presume, may be put down under the head of entertainments. The etiquette of the assistants is very simple. A wedding invitation requires no answer: a card sent by mail and addressed to the senders of the invitation, who are generally the father and mother of the bride, is quite sufficient. It is unnecessary to say that it is not proper during a marriage ceremony to stand on the seats of the pews in order to get a good look at the happy pair. A tradition exists to the effect that a man during a wedding ceremony once climbed on a confessional. It is added, too,—and I am glad of it,—that he fell and broke his neck. But there is no knowing what some barbarians will do: watch them on Sundays, chewing toothpicks, standing in ranks outside of the churches, and believing that the ladies are admiring their best clothes.

My list of entertainments would be incomplete without the dancing party. St. Francis de Sales says of dancing, that a little of it ought to go a great way. Society ordains that every man shall learn to dance; but if he can talk intelligently, society will forgive him for not dancing. Dancing, after all, is only a substitute for conversation; and, properly directed, it is a very good substitute for scandal, mean gossip, or the frivolous chatter which makes assemblies of young people unendurable to anybody who has not begun to be afflicted with softening of the brain.

Public dances—dances into which anybody can find entrance by paying a fee—are avoided by decent people. A young man who has any regard for his reputation will avoid them; and as nearly every young man has his way to make in the world, he cannot too soon realize how the report that he frequents such places will hurt him; for, as I said, there are no secrets in this world,—everything comes out sooner or later.

It is no longer the fashion for a young man to invite a young woman to accompany him to a dance, even at a private house. He must first ask her mother. This European fashion has—thank Heaven!—reached many remote districts of late, where young people hitherto ignored the existence of their parents when social pleasures were concerned. The young girl who doesn’t want the “old man to know” had better be avoided. And in the best circles young women are not permitted to go to the theatre or to dances without a _chaperon_,—that is, the mother or some elderly lady is expected to accompany the young people. This, of course, makes trips to the theatre expensive; but the young man who cannot afford to take an extra aunt or mother had better avoid such amusements until he can.

As to whether you are to take part in the round dances or not, that will be settled by your confessor: I have no right to dictate on that subject. But if you are invited to a dance, pay your respects to your hostess _first_, and say something pleasant. You must remember that she intends that you shall be useful,—that you shall dance with the ladies to whom she introduces you, and that you shall not think of your own pleasure entirely, but help to give others pleasure by dancing with the ladies who have no partners. In a word, you must be as unselfish in this frivolous atmosphere as on more serious occasions. When the refreshments are served, you must think of yourself last. If you want to gorge yourself, you can take a yard or two of Bologna sausage to your room after the entertainment is over. A young man over twenty-one should wear an evening suit and no jewelry at a dance. Infants under that age are supposed to be safely tucked in bed at the time the ordinary dance begins.

At a dance or at any other entertainment no introduction should be made thoughtlessly. If a gentleman is presented to a lady, it should be done only after her permission has been asked and received. And the form should be, “Mrs. Jones, allow me to present Mr. Smith.” A younger man should always be introduced to an older man, one of inferior position to one of superior position. If you are introducing a friend to the mayor of your city, you ought not to say, “Let me introduce the Mayor to you.” On the contrary, the form should be “Mr. Mayor, allow me to present my friend Mr. Smith.”

On being introduced to a lady, it is not the fashion for a man to extend his hand,—for hand-shaking on first introduction is a thing of the past. If the lady extends her hand, it is proper to take it; but the pump-handle style is no longer practised, except perhaps in some unknown wilds of Alaska. After a man is introduced to a lady and he meets her again, he must not bow until she has bowed to him. In France the man bows first; in America and England we give that privilege to the woman. An American takes his hat entirely from his head when he meets a lady; a foreigner raises it but slightly, but he bows lower than we do. In introducing people, we ought always to be careful to give them their titles, and to add, if possible, the place from which they come. If Mr. Jones, of Chicago, is introduced to Mr. Robinson, of New York, the subject for conversation is already arranged. We know what they will talk about. If the wife of the President introduced you to him, she would call him the President; but if you addressed him, you would call him “Mr. President,” as you would address the mayor of a city as “Mr. Mayor.” Mrs. Grant was the only President’s wife who did not give her husband his title in introductions: she called him simply and modestly, “Mr. Grant.”

An English bard sings:

“I know a duke, well—let him pass—
I may not call his grace an ass,
Though if I did, I’d do no wrong—
Save to the asses and my song.

“The duke is neither wise nor good:
He gambles, drinks, scorns womanhood;
And at the age of twenty-four
Is worn and battered as threescore.

“I know a waiter in Pall Mall,
Who works and waits and reasons well;
Is gentle, courteous, and refined,
And has a magnet in his mind.

“What is it makes his graceless grace
So like a jockey out of place?
What makes the waiter—tell who can—
The very flower of gentleman?

“Perhaps their mothers!—God is great!
It can’t be accident or fate.
The waiter’s heart is true,—and then,
Good manners make our gentlemen.”

IV. What Does Not Make a Gentleman.

We have touched on the etiquette of dress and of entertainments; and now I beg leave to repeat some things already said, and to add a few others that need to be said.

A young man cannot afford to be slovenly in his dress. Carelessness in dress will prejudice people against him as completely as a badly written letter. He will find himself mysteriously left out in invitations. If he applies for a position in an office or a bank, or anywhere else, where neatness of dress is expected, he will get the cold shoulder. A young man who wears grease spots habitually on the front of his coat, whose trousers are decorated with dark shadows and the mud of last week, whose shoes are red and rusty, and who hangs a soiled handkerchief, like a flag of truce, more than half out of his pocket, will find himself barred from every place which his ambition would spur him to enter. You may say that dress does not make the man. You may call to mind Burns’ lines to the effect that “a man’s a man for a’ that;” a piece of silver is only a piece of silver, worth more or less, until the United States mint stamps it a dollar. The stamp of your character and the manner of your bringing up give you the value at which the world appraises you.

I recall to mind an instance which shows that we cannot always control our dress. There was a boy at school who was the shortest and the youngest among three tall brothers. He never had any clothes of his own. He had to wear the cast-off suits of the other brothers, and it was no unusual thing for his trousers to trip him up when he tried to run, although they were fastened well up under his shoulders. This unhappy youth was the victim of circumstances; if he made a bad impression, he could not help it. But he was always neat and clean, and he never put grease on his hair or leaned against papered walls in order to leave his mark there. He never saturated himself with cologne to avoid a bath; he never chewed gum; he was never seen with a dirty-yellow rivulet at either side of his lips, which flowed from a plug of tobacco somewhere in his gullet; and so, though he was pitied for the eccentricities of his toilet, he was not despised.

In a country where we do not have to buy water there is no excuse for neglecting the bath. The average Englishman talks so much of his bath and his tub, that one cannot help thinking that the Order of Bath is a late discovery in his country, although we know it was instituted long ago. Every boy ought to keep himself “well groomed;” to be clean outside and in gives him a solid respect for himself that makes others respect him. It is like a college education: it causes him to feel that he is any man’s equal. But one with a sham diamond in his bosom, or cuffs that he has to shove up his sleeves every now and then to prevent them from showing how dirty they are, can never feel quite like a man.

We Americans have reason to be proud of the decay of two arts which Charles Dickens when he wrote “American Notes” found in a flourishing condition,—the art of swearing in public and the art of tobacco-chewing. When Dickens made his first visit to this country he was amazed by the skill which Americans showed in the art of tobacco-chewing. The “spit-box,” the spittoon, the cuspidore,—which is supposed to be an elegant name for a very inelegant utensil,—seemed to him to be the most important of American institutions. We who have become accustomed to the cuspidore do not realize how its constant presence surprises foreigners. They do not understand why the floor of every hotel should be furnished with conveniences for spitting, because no country except the United States is infested by tobacco-chewers. Charles Dickens was severe on the prevalence of the tobacco-chewing habit. He was roundly abused for his criticisms on our public manners. No doubt his censure was well founded, for the manners of Americans have improved since. To Dickens it seemed as if the principal American amusement was tobacco-chewing. He found the American a gloomy being, who regarded all the refinements with dislike, and whose politeness to women was his one redeeming feature. Dickens admitted that a woman might travel alone from one end of the country to the other and receive the most courteous attention from even the roughest miner. And this is as true now as it was then. There are no men in any country so polite to women as Americans; and in no other country on the face of the earth is the sex of our mothers so publicly respected. This chivalric characteristic, which Tom Moore tells us was the most brilliant jewel in the crown of the Irish, “When Malachi wore the collar of gold,” is now an American characteristic, and distinctively an American characteristic. So sure are the ladies of every attention, that they take the reverential attitude of men as a matter of course. They no longer thank us when we give up our places in the street-car to them, or walk in the mud to let them pass; and it is probably regard for them that has caused the American to cease to flood every public place with vile tobacco-juice.

There was a time when the marble floors of our largest hotels were so spotted with this vicious fluid that their color could not be recognized, when the atmosphere reeked with filthy fumes, and many a man bit off a large chunk of tobacco between every second word. It was his method of punctuating his talk. He expectorated when he wanted to make a comma and bit off a “chew” at a period; he squirted a half-pint of amber liquid across the room for an interrogation-mark, and struck his favorite spot on the ceiling to mark an exclamation. But we are not so bad as we used to be. George Washington, whose first literary effort was an essay on Manners, might complain that we lack much, but he would find that the tobacco-chewer is not so prominent a figure in all landscapes as he formerly was.

The truth is, that American good sense is putting an end to this dirty and disgusting habit. There was a time when a man was asked for a “chew” on almost every street corner. But this was in the days of the Bowery boys and of the old volunteer fire-departments, when strange things occurred. It is related that an English traveller riding down Broadway, some time about the year 1852, found that the light was suddenly shut out of his left eye. He fancied for an instant that his optic nerves had been paralyzed. He was relieved by the sound of an apologetic voice coming from the opposite seat. It said: “I didn’t intend to put that ‘chew’ into your eye, sir. I was aiming at the window when you bobbed your head!” And the thoughtful expectorator gently removed the ball of tobacco from the Englishman’s eye!

That could hardly occur now. Chewers do not take such risks, or they aim straighter. For a long time the typical American, as represented in English novels or on the English stage, chewed tobacco and whittled a wooden nutmeg. The English have learned only of late that every American does not do these things.

If foreigners hate this savage practice, who can blame them? How we should sneer and jeer at the English if, in ferry-boats, in horse-cars, in public halls, pools of tobacco-juice should be seen, and if perpetual yellow, ill-smelling fountains sprung from men’s mouths. How _Puck_ would caricature John Bull in his constant attitude of chewing! How filthy and barbaric we would say the British were! We should speak of it, in Fourth-of-July orations, as a proof of British inferiority. But we cannot do this, for the English do not chew tobacco,—and some of us do.

It is a habit that had better be unlearned as soon as possible. It is happily ceasing to be an American vice, and with it will cease the chronic dyspepsia and many of the stomach and throat diseases which have become almost national. Many a man, come to the years of discretion, bitterly regrets that he ever learned to chew tobacco; but he thought once that it was a manly thing, and he learns when too late that the manly thing would have been to avoid it. Some of you will perhaps remember a fashion boys had—I don’t know whether they have it now—of getting tattooed by some expert who practised the art. What pain we suffered while a small star was picked in blue ink at the junction of the thumb with the hand!—and how proud we were of a blue anchor printed indelibly on our wrists! But a day came when we should have been glad to have blotted out this insignia with thrice the pain. And so the day will come when the inveterate tobacco-chewer will wish with all his heart that he had never been induced to put a piece of tobacco into his mouth. It is one of those vices which has an unpleasant sting and which is its own punishment. It is unbecoming to a gentleman; it violates every rule of good manners,—the spectacle of a young man dropping a “quid” into his hand before he goes into dinner and trying on the sly to wipe off the dirty stains on his chin is enough to turn the stomach of a cannibal.

Going back to the subject of entertainments, let me impress on you that it is your duty when you go into society to think as little of yourselves as possible, and to talk as little of yourselves. If a man can sing or play on any musical instrument or recite, and he is asked to do any of these things, let him not refuse. Young women sometimes say no in society when they mean yes; but young men are not justified in practising such an affectation. It is not good taste to show that one is anxious to sing or to play or to recite. If you are invited out, do not begin at once by talking about elocution, until somebody is forced to ask you to recite; and do not hum snatches of song until there is no escape for your friends from the painful duty of asking you to sing. The restless efforts of some amateurs to get a hearing in society always brings to mind a certain theatrical episode. There was a young actress who thought she could sing, and consequently she introduced a vocal solo whenever she could. She was cast for the principal part in a melodrama full of tragic situations. The manager congratulated himself that here, at least, there was no chance for the tuneful young lady to try her scales. But he was mistaken. The great scene was on. A flash of lightning illumined the stage. The actress was holding a pathetic conversation with her mother as the thunder rolled. The mother suddenly fell with a shriek, struck dead. And then the devoted daughter said, “Aha, mee mother is dead! Alas, I will now sing the song she loved so much in life!” And the young lady walked to the footlights and warbled “Comrades.”

She _would_ and she did sing, but I am afraid the audience laughed. I offer this authentic anecdote as a warning to young singers that they should neither be hasty nor reluctant in displaying their talents. A man goes into society that he may give as well as gain pleasure. The highest form of social pleasure is conversation; but conversation does not mean a monologue. Good listeners are as highly appreciated in society as good talkers. A good listener often gives an impression of great wisdom which is dispelled the moment he opens his mouth. Mr. Gladstone was charmed by a young lady who sat next to him at dinner; he concluded that she was one of the most intelligent women he had ever met, until she spoiled it all by saying, with effusion, “Oh, I love cabbage!”

A young man should neither talk too much nor too little, and he should never talk about himself unless he is forced to. Madame Roland, a famous Frenchwoman, who perished during the Reign of Terror under the guillotine, said that by listening attentively to others she made more friends than by any remarks of her own. “Judicious silence,” the author of “In a Club Corner” says, “is one of the great social virtues.” A man who tries to be funny at all times is a social nuisance. Two famous men suffered very much for their tendency to be always humorous. These were Sydney Smith and our own lamented S. S. Cox. Sydney Smith could not speak without exciting laughter. Once, when he had said grace, a young lady next to him exclaimed, “You are always so amusing!” And S. S. Cox, one of the most serious of men at heart and the cleverest in head, never attained the place in politics he ought to have gained because he was supposed to be always in fun. Jokes are charming things in a limited circle, but no gentleman nowadays indulges in those practical jokes which we have heard of. It is not considered a delicate compliment to pull a chair away just as anybody is about to sit down; and the young person who jabs acquaintances in the ribs, to make them laugh at his delightful sayings, is not rapturously welcomed in quiet families.

A young man should not make a practice of using slang, and he should never use it in the presence of ladies. To advise a friend to “shut his face” or to “come off the perch” may sound “smart,” but it is vulgar, and is fatal to those ambitious young men who feel that their success in life depends on the good opinion of cultivated people. Moreover, this habitual slang is likely to crop out at the most inopportune times. Mr. Sankey, of the evangelizing firm of Moody and Sankey, at a camp-meeting once asked a devout young man if he loved the Lord. There was profound silence until the young man, who thought in slang, answered in a loud voice, “You bet!”

Slang is in bad taste; and the slang we borrow from the English is the worst of all—the repetition of “don’t you know?” for instance. “I’m going to town, don’t you know, and if I see your friends, don’t you know, I’ll tell them you were asking for them, don’t you know,—oh, yes, I shall, don’t you know.” Imagine an American so idiotic as not only to imitate the vulgarest Cockney slang, but to do it in the vulgarest Cockney accent! There was a woman who at a dinner said, “Have some soup, don’t you know; it’s not half nawsty, don’t you know.”

I must remind you again not to use, in letter-writing, tinted or ornamented paper. Let it be white and, by all means, unruled; your envelope may be either oblong or square, but the square form is preferable. If you have time and want to follow the present fashion, and also to pay a compliment of extreme carefulness to the person to whom you are writing, close your letters with red sealing-wax. Some old-fashioned people look on postal cards as vulgar. However, it is not well to write family secrets on these cheap forms. And if any man owes you money, do not ask him for it on a postal card: it is against a more forcible law than those that make etiquette. Postal cards are not to be used except on business. Be sure to write the name of the person to whom the letter is addressed on the last page of the letter. But if you begin a letter with “Dear Mr. Smith,” you need not write Mr. Smith’s name again at the end of the letter. Buy good paper and envelopes. And do not write on old scraps of paper when you write home. Nothing is too good for your father and mother; they may not say much about it, but every little attention from you brightens their lives and helps towards paying that debt of gratitude to them which you can never fully discharge.

A young man has asked me to say something about the etiquette of cards and calls. A man, under the American code of politeness, need not make many calls. If he is invited to an entertainment of any kind, he should go to the house of his host to call or leave his card. If it be his first call, he must leave a card for each grown-up member of the family. After that he need leave only one card. The old fashion of turning down the corners of cards is gone out. A man’s card should be very small, _not_ gilt-edged; it should never be printed, but always engraved or written, with the address in the left-hand lower corner. A man may write his own cards. In that case he must not put “Mr.” before his name. But if he has them engraved, the present usage demands that “Mr.” must appear before his name. If he has been at a party of any kind, he must call within a week after it, or he can send his card with his mother or sister, if they should happen to be calling at his host’s within that time. A man’s card, like his note-paper, ought to be as simple as possible. Secretary Bayard’s cards always bore the plain inscription, “Mr. Bayard.” Sciolists and pretenders of all kinds put a great number of titles on their cards. Corn-cutters and spiritists and quacks of all sorts are always sure to print “Professor” before their names, but men who have a right to the title never do it. Be sure, then, to have a neat, plain card, well engraved. It costs very little to have a plate made by a good stationery firm; and a neat, elegant card, like a well-written letter, is a good introduction. It symbolizes the man. Daniel Webster’s card was simply “Mr. Webster,” and it expressed the man’s hatred for all pretence. A gentleman should never call on a young lady without asking for her mother or her _chaperon_. And he should never leave a card for her without leaving one for her mother. It will not do to send a card by mail after one has been asked to dinner. A personal visit must be made and a card left. In calling on the sons or daughters of a family, cards should be left for the father and mother.

It may surprise some young men to find that in the great world fathers and mothers are so much considered. I know that there are some boys at school who write home on any odd, soiled paper they can find, and who write only when they want something or feel like grumbling. Their letters run something like this:

“DEAR FATHER: The weather is bad. I am not well this evening, hoping
to find you the same. Grub as usual. Please send me five dollars.

“Yours,” etc.

And, of course, their fathers and mothers go down on their knees at once and thank Heaven for such dutiful and clever boys—that is, if you boys have brought them up properly. But so many of our parents have been so badly brought up. They really do not see how superior their children are to them. They actually fancy that they know more of the world than a boy of sixteen or seventeen; and they occasionally insist on being obeyed. It would be a pleasant thing to form a new society among you—a society for the proper bringing up of fathers and mothers. At present there are some parents who really refuse to be the slaves of their children, or to take their advice. This is unreasonable, I know, but it is true. Think how frightful it is for a young man of spirit to be kept at college during the best years of his life, when he might be learning new clog-dance steps on street-corners or reading detective stories all day long!

It would be hard to change things now; and the fact remains that in good society fathers and mothers are considered before their children. The man who lacks reverence for his parents, who shows irritation to them, who pains them by his grumbling and fault-finding, is no gentleman. He is what the English call a cad. He is the most contemptible of God’s creatures. Let me sum up in the famous lines which you all ought to know by heart; they are the words that Shakspere puts into the mouth of Polonius when his son Laertes is about to depart into the great world:

“Give thy thoughts no _tongue_,
Nor any unproportioned _thought_ his ACT.
Be thou familiar, but by no means _vulgar_:
The friends thou hast, and their adoption TRIED,
GRAPPLE them to THY SOUL with hooks of STEEL;
But do not dull thy _palm_ with _entertainment_
Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of _entrance_ to a quarrel, but, being in,
Bear it that the opposer may BEWARE of _thee_.

Give _every_ man thine EAR, but _few_ thy VOICE;
Take _each_ man’s censure, but reserve _thy_ judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not expressed in _fancy_; rich, not _gaudy_;
For the apparel oft proclaims the MAN.

· · · · ·

Neither a borrower nor a LENDER be;
For loan oft loses both _itself_ and _friend_,
And borrowing _dulls_ the edge of husbandry.
This, above all: to thine _own_ self be TRUE;
And it must _follow_, as the night the _day_,
Thou canst not _then_ be FALSE to ANY MAN.”

V. How to Express One’s Thoughts.

Mr. Frederick Harrison, a man of letters, whose literary judgments are as right as his philosophical judgments are wrong, tells us that the making of many books and the reading of periodical sheets obscure the perception and benumb the mind. “The incessant accumulation of fresh books must hinder any real knowledge of the old; for the multiplicity of volumes becomes a bar upon our use of any. In literature especially does it hold that we cannot see the wood for the trees.” I am not about to advise you to add to the number of useless leaves which hide the forms of noble trees; but, if your resolve to write outlives the work of preparation, you may be able to give the world a new classic, or, at least, something that will cheer and elevate. This preparation is rigid. Two important qualities of it must be keen observation and careful reading. It is a pity that an old dialogue on “Eyes or No Eyes” is no longer included in the reading-books for children. The modern book-makers have improved it out of existence; nevertheless, it taught a good lesson. It describes the experience of two boys on a country road. Common things are about them,—wild flowers, weeds, a ditch,—but one discovers many hidden things by the power of observation, while the other sees nothing but the outside of the common things. To write well one must have eyes and see. To be observant it is not necessary that one should be critical in the sense of fault-finding. Keen observation and charitable toleration ought to go together. We may see the peculiarities of those around us and be amused by them; but we shall never be able to write anything about character worth writing unless we go deeper and pierce through the crust which hides from us the hidden meanings of life. How tired would we become of Dickens if he had confined himself to pictures of surface characteristics! If we weary of him, it is because Mr. Samuel Weller is so constantly dropping his _w_’s, and Sairey Gamp so constantly talking of Mrs. Harris. If we find interest and refreshment in him now, it is because he went deeper than the thousand and one little habits with which he distinguishes his personages.

To write, then, we must acquire the art of observing in a broad and intelligent spirit. Nature will hang the East and West with gorgeous tapestry in vain if we do not see it. And many times we shall judge rashly and harshly if we do not learn to detect the trueheartedness that hides behind the face which seems cold to the unobservant. We are indeed blind when we fail to know that an angel has passed until another has told us of his passing.

Apparently there is not much to think of the wrinkled hand of the old woman who crosses your path in the street. You catch a glimpse of it as she carries her bundle in that hand on her way from work in the twilight. Perhaps you pass on and think of it no more. Perhaps you note the knotted, purple veins standing out from the toil-reddened surface, and then your eyes catch at a glance the wrinkled face on which are written the traces of trials, self-sacrifice, and patience. It is hard to believe that those hands were once soft and dimpled childish hands, and that face bright with happy smiles. The story of her life is the story of many lives from day to day. Those coarse, ungloved, wrinkled hands will seem vulgar to you only if you have never learned to observe and think. They may suggest a noble story or poem to you, if you take their meaning rightly. Life, every-day life, is full of the suggestions of great things for those who have learned to look and to observe.

Mr. Harrison, from whom I have quoted already, puts his finger on a fault which must inevitably destroy all power of good literary production. It is a common fault, and the antidote for it is the cultivation of the art of careful reading. “A habit of reading idly,” Mr. Harrison says, “debilitates and corrupts the mind for all wholesome reading; the habit of reading wisely is one of the most difficult to acquire, needing strong resolution and infinite pains; and reading for mere reading’s sake, instead of for the sake of the good we gain from reading, is one of the worst and commonest and most unwholesome habits we have.”

In order to write well, one must read well—one must read a few good books—and never idle over newspapers. Newspapers have become necessities, and grow larger each year. But the larger they are the more deleterious they are. The modern newspaper lies one day and corrects its lies, adding, however, a batch of new ones, on the day after. There are a few newspapers which have literary value, though even they, mirroring the passing day, have some of its faults. As a rule, avoid newspapers. They will help you to fritter away precious time; they will spoil your style in the same way that a slovenly talker, with whom you associate constantly, will spoil your talk; for newspapers are generally written in a hurry, and hurried literary work, unless by a master-hand, is never good work. Nevertheless, in our country, the newspapers absorb a great quantity of literary matter which would, were there no newspapers, never see the light.

Literature considered as a profession includes what is known as journalism,—not perhaps reportorial work, but the writing of leaders, book reviews, theatrical notices, and other articles which require a light touch, tact, and careful practice, but which do not always have those qualities. A writer lately said: “Literature has become a trade, and finance a profession.” This is hardly true; but some authors have come to look on their profession as a trade, and to value it principally for the money it brings. Anthony Trollope, for instance, whose novels are still popular, set himself to his work as to a task; he wrote so many words for so much money daily. This may account for the woodenness of his literary productions. In the pursuit of art, money should not be the first consideration, although it should not be left entirely out of consideration; for the artist should live by his art, the musician by his music, and the author by his books. Literature, then, should be a vocation as well as an avocation.

Literature, in spite of the many stories about the poverty of writers, has, in our English-speaking countries, been on the whole a fairly well-paid profession. Chaucer was by no means a pauper; Shakspere retired at a comparatively early age to houses and lands earned by his pen in the pleasant town of Stratford. Pope earned nearly fifty thousand dollars by his translations or, rather, paraphrases of Homer. Goldsmith, though always poor through his own generosity and extravagance, earned what in our days would be held to be a handsome competence. Sir Walter Scott made enormous sums which he spent royally on his magnificent castle of Abbotsford. Charles Dickens earned enough to make him rich, and our modern writers, though less in genius, are not less in their power of securing the hire of which they are more than worthy. Mr. Howells has had at least ten thousand dollars a year for permitting his serial stories to be printed in the publications of Harper & Brothers. Mr. Will Carleton, the author of “Farm Ballads,” has no doubt an equal amount from his copyrights. Mrs. Hodgson Burnett, the author of “Little Lord Fauntleroy,” easily commands eight thousand dollars for the copyright of a novel. So you see that the picture often presented to us of the haggard author shivering over his tallow candle in a garret is somewhat exaggerated.

But none of these authors attained success without long care given to art. They all had their early struggles. Mrs. Burnett, for instance, was a very brave and hard-working young girl; she was poor; her only hope in life was her education; she used it to advantage and by constant practice in literary work. The means of her success was the capacity for taking pains. It is the means of all success in life. And any man or woman who expects to adopt literature as a profession must _see well, read well, and take infinite pains_. Probably Mr. Howells and Mrs. Burnett had many MSS. rejected by the editors. Probably, like many young authors, each day brought back an article which had cost them many weary hours,—for literary work is the most nerve-wearying and brain-wearying of all work—with the legend, “Returned with thanks.” Still they kept on taking infinite pains.

Lord Byron awoke one morning and found himself famous. But that first morning of fame had cost much study, much thought, and, no doubt, periods of despondency in which he almost resolved not to write at all. Poetry does not gush from the poet, like fire out of a Roman candle when you light it. Of all species of literary composition, poetry requires more exquisite care than any other. A sonnet which has not been written and rewritten twenty times may be esteemed as worthless. To-day no modern poem has a right to be printed unless it be technically perfect. It seems a sacrilege to speak of poetry as a profession; it ought to be a vocation only, and the poet ought not only to be made by infinite pains taken with himself, but born. As to the rewards of extreme fineness in the expression of poetry, I have heard that Longfellow received one thousand dollars for his comparatively short poem of “Keramos,” and that Tennyson had a guinea a line. But we shall leave out poetry in talking of filthy lucre, and consider literature as represented by journalism, in which there is very little poetry.

I did not intend to touch on journalism, as the work of making newspapers is sometimes called, but I have been lately asked to give my opinion as to whether journalism is a good preparation for the pursuit of literature. Perhaps the best way to do this would be to give the experiences of a young journalist first.

I imagine a young person who had written at least twenty compositions; some on “Gratitude,” one on “Ambition,” one on “The History of a Pin,” and a grand poem on the Southern Confederacy in five cantos. He had been prepared for the pursuit of literature by being made to write a composition every Friday. These compositions were read aloud in his class. What beautiful sentiments were uttered on those Fridays! How everybody thrilled when young Strephon compared Ireland to “that prairie-grass which smells sweeter the more it is trodden on”! He had never seen such grass; he would not have recognized it if he had seen it; but he had read about it, and when a cruel scientific instructor asked him to give the botanical name, he turned away in disgust. His finest feelings were outraged. This, however, did not prevent the simile of the prairie-grass of unknown genus from cantering through all the compositions of the other members of the class for many succeeding weeks, until the professor got into a habit of asking, when a boy rose to read his essay: “Is there prairie-grass in it?” If the essayist said yes, he was made to sit down and severely reprimanded. Teachers were very cruel in those days.

There was another lovely simile ruthlessly cut down in its middle age—pardon me if I digress and pour out my wrongs to you; I know you can appreciate them. A boy of genius once said that “Charity, like an eternal flame, cheers, but not inebriates.” After that inspired utterance, charity, like an eternal flame, cheered, but not inebriated, the composition of every other writer, until the same cruel hand put it out. In those days we knew a good thing when we saw it, and, if it saved trouble, we appreciated it.

Somewhat later the young person attained a position in the office of an illustrated paper. It was a newspaper which was so fearful that its foreign letters should be incorrect that it always had them written at home. The young gentleman whose desk was next to that of your obedient servant wrote the Paris, Dublin, and New York letters. The correspondent from Rome and Constantinople, who also did the market reports at home, had some trouble with his spelling occasionally, and made a very old gentleman in the corner indignant by asking him whether “pecuniary” was spelled with a “c” or a “q,” and similar questions. This old gentleman wrote the fashion column, and signed himself “Mabel Evangeline.” He sometimes made mistakes about the fashions, but they were very naturally blamed on the printers. To your obedient servant fell the agricultural and the religious columns. All went well, for the prairie-grass was kept out of the agricultural column, though some strange things went in—all went well until he copied out of a paper a receipt for making hens lay. He did not know then that it was a comic paper, and that the friend who wrote it was only in fun. The hens of several subscribers lay down and died. There was trouble in the office, and the agricultural department was taken from him and given to “Mabel Evangeline,” who later came to grief by describing an immense peanut-tree which was said to grow in Massachusetts.

Your obedient servant was asked to write leaders on current subjects. How joyfully he went to work! Here was a chance to introduce the prairie-grass and the “eternal flame.” With a happy face he took his “copy” to the managing editor. Why did that great man frown as he read: “If we compare Dante with Milton, we find that the great Florentine sage was like that prairie-grass which—” “Do you call this a current subject?” he demanded. “It will not do. Where’s the other one?” Your obedient servant, in fear and trembling, gave him the other slips. He began: “The geocentric movement, like that eternal flame which cheers, but—” He paused. “When I asked,” he said, in an awful voice—“when I asked you for current subjects, I wanted an editorial on the fight in the Fourth Ward and a paragraph on the sudden rise in lard. Do you understand?”

Dante and the geocentric movement, the prairie-grass and the eternal flame were crushed. The wise young person learned to adapt himself to the ways of newspaper offices, and all went well again, until he attempted high art. This newspaper was young and not very rich; therefore economy had to be used in the matter of illustrations. The great man, its editor, had a habit of buying second-hand pictures—perhaps it was not to save money, but because he loved the old masters,—and it became the duty of the present writer, who was then a young person, and who is now your obedient servant, to write articles to suit the pictures. For instance, if a scene in Madrid had been bought, the present writer wrote about Madrid. It was easy, for he had an encyclopædia in the office; but if anybody had borrowed the volume containing “M” we always called Madrid by some other name, for “Mabel Evangeline,” who said he had travelled, said foreign cities looked pretty much alike. “Mabel Evangeline,” who sometimes, I am afraid, drank too much beer and mixed up things, was not to be relied on, for he put in a picture of Rome, N. Y., for Rome, Italy, and brought the paper into contempt. Still, I think this would not have made so much difference, if he had not labelled a picture of an actress in a very big hat and a very low-cut gown, “Home from a convent school.” He was discharged after this, and the present writer asked to perform his functions. Nothing unpleasant would have happened, if a picture had not been sent in one day in a hurry. It was a dim picture. It seemed to represent a tall woman and a ghost. The present writer named it “Lady Macbeth and the Ghost of Banquo,” and spun out a graphic description of the artist’s meaning. Next day when the paper came out, the picture was “The Goddess of Liberty crowning Abraham Lincoln.”

It was a mistake; but who does not make mistakes? Who ever saw the Goddess of Liberty, anyhow? If you heard the way that editor talked to the promising young journalist, you would have thought he was personally acquainted with both Lady Macbeth and the Goddess of Liberty, and that they had not succeeded in teaching him good manners. It is sad to think that mere trifles will often cause thoughtless people to lose their tempers.

The writing for newspapers is a good introduction to the profession of literature, if the aspirant can study, can read good books when not at work, can still take pains in spite of haste, and cultivate accuracy of practice. The best way to learn to write is to write. One engaged in supplying newspapers with “copy” _must_ write. If he can keep a strict eye on his style—if he can avoid slang, “smart” colloquialism, he will find that the necessity for conciseness and the little time allowed for hunting for the right word for the right place will help him in attaining ease and aptness of expression.

The first difficulty the unpractised writer has to overcome is a lack of the right words. Words are repeated, and other words that are wanted to express some nice distinction of meaning will not come. Constant reference to a good dictionary or a book of synonyms is the surest remedy for this; and if the writer will refuse to use any word that does not express _exactly_ what he means, he will make steady advance in the power of expression. Words that burn do not come at first. They are sought and found. Tennyson, old as he was, polished his early poems, hoping to make them perfect before he died. Pope’s lines, which seem so easy, so smooth, which seem to say in three or four words what we have been trying to say all our lives in ten or eleven, were turned and re-turned, carved and re-carved, cut and re-cut with all the scrupulousness of a sculptor curving a Grecian nose on his statue:

“A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.”

That is easy reading. It seems as easy as making an egg stand on end, or as putting an apple into a dumpling—when you know how. It is easy because it was so hard; it is easy because Pope took infinite pains to make it so. Had he put less labor into it, he would have failed to make it live. It is true that a thing is worth just as much as we put into it.

Although the desire to write is often kindled by much reading, the power of writing is often paralyzed by the discovery that the reading has been of the wrong kind. Again, the tyro who has read little and that little unsystematically is tempted to lay down his pen in despair. Lord Bacon said that “reading maketh a full man, writing a ready man;” from which we may conclude that he who reads may best utilize his stock of knowledge by learning to write. But he must first read, no matter how keen his observation may be or how original his thoughts are; for a good style does not come by nature. It must be the expression of temperament as well as thought; but it must have acquired clearness and elegance, which are due to the construction of sentences in the good company of great authors. To write, you must read, and be careful what you read; and you must read critically. To read a play of Shakspere’s only for the story is to degrade Shakspere to the level of the railway novel. It is better to have read the trial scene in “The Merchant of Venice” critically, missing no shade in Portia’s character or speech, no expression of Shylock’s, than to have read all Shakspere carelessly. To make a specialty of literature, one must be, above all, thorough. The writings that live have a thousand fine points in them unseen of the casual reader, and, like the carvings mentioned in Miss Donnelly’s fine poem, “Unseen, yet Seen,” known only to God. Take ten lines of any great writer, examine them closely with the aid of all the critical power you have, and then you will see that simplicity in literature is produced by the art which conceals art. That style which is easiest to read is the hardest to write. Genius has been defined as the capacity for taking infinite pains.

There is a passage in “Ben Hur” which seems to me particularly applicable to our subject. You remember, in the chariot-race, where Ben Hur’s cruel experience in the galleys serves him so well. He would not have had the strength of hand or the steadiness of posture, were it not for the work with the oars and the constant necessity of standing on a deck which was even more unsteady than the swaying chariot. “All experience,” says the author, “is useful.” This is especially true for the writer. One can hardly write a page without feeling how little one knows; and if the great aim of knowledge be to attain that consciousness, the writer sooner attains it than other men.

Everything, from the pink tinge in a seashell to the varying tints of an approaching thunder-cloud, from an old farmer’s talk of crops and weather to your lesson in geology and astronomy, will help you. Do not imagine that science and literature are opponents. For myself, I would not permit anybody who did not know at least the rudiments of botany and geology to begin the serious study of literature. If Coleridge felt the need of attending a series of geological lectures late in life, in order to add to his power of making new metaphors and similes, how much greater is our necessity for adding to our knowledge of the phenomena of nature, that we may use our knowledge to the greater glory of God! Literature is the reflection of life, and literature ought to be the crystallization of all knowledge.