Chapter V: Part 5

It is true that I am now employed as a scavenger, but I was formerly the occupant of a very different station in life; I was formerly a physician. I wish to lay before you what I consider the causes of my descent in the social scale. When a man who has once been a member of an honored profession is reduced to manual labor of a peculiarly disagreeable sort, the common opinion is like to be that he is in some way responsible for his own downfall; that he has fallen a victim to drink or drugs, to a passion for gambling, or to some other injurious habit. In my own case, I will not deny that the change in my circumstances is probably due to my own conduct, though I do assure you that it was not caused by my indulgence in the habits which I have mentioned above. To be brief, Sir, I am of the opinion that my present poverty and obscurity is nothing more nor less than the reward of merit.

It has been my observation that most of the favorite theories of the human race are erroneous. They come into being as mere suggestions, they grow into convictions, they thrive as platitudes, and they die as superstitions. There have been millions of them since the world began, and I have no doubt there will be millions of others before the last man has vanished from the face of the earth. Some of these theories live on long after they have been clearly demonstrated to be without foundation in fact, and sometimes they work great harm to the innocent persons who accept and act upon them in good faith. Such has been my sad experience, and the theory which was responsible for my present unpleasant situation was the theory that merit is always rewarded.

As a boy I was of a confiding and trusting nature. I believed all that was told me, and I put especial faith in the admonitions and advice of those who were set to instruct me in manners and morals. One of the first lessons I learned was that merit is always rewarded; and another, that industry is the certain road to success and advancement. These things I firmly believed to be true. Sundays, when other boys of my acquaintance stole away to go fishing or swimming, I went to Sunday-school, firm in the conviction that my virtue and self-denial would be amply rewarded, though I was a bit hazy as to the manner in which this would come about. It was often a severe temptation to hear the truants boasting of the pleasures they had enjoyed at the swimming-pool or at the fork of the creek where they went to angle. At the end of my first summer of Sunday-school, I was given a crude picture card showing two cows of peculiar construction who appeared to be enjoying themselves immensely in the very river I had shunned so religiously. Upon this card there was printed a conspicuous legend: “The Reward of Merit.”

While this result of my season of piety was not what I had expected, I continued to hope on until I had acquired quite a collection of similar cards, some of them varied a little as to subject, but all of the same order of art, and all bearing the familiar legend. Being of a naturally optimistic and sanguine disposition, I soon convinced myself that my mistake lay in looking for material rewards in return for spiritual industry.

When I entered the profession of medicine, I still clung to my theory of the reward of merit, and no sooner did I get a patient than I set to work to cure him as quickly as possible. If a patient really had nothing the matter with him, I sent him about his business. I was not a nerve specialist and I did not care to be bothered with hypochondriacs. Though I started with an unusually good practise for a young physician, the result of this course of conduct was that I found myself in two years’ time sitting idle in my office with my waiting-room absolutely empty. I had cured all my patients who were really ill and I had offended all who only thought they were ill. It seems that one can not offend a man more than by telling him he is well when he prefers to think that he is unwell. My patients who had been cured had no further need of me, and those whom I had refused to treat had no further use for me, so that the tongue of malice completed the work which my own energy had begun. And thus, for the second time, my theory of the reward of merit had failed to work out. Having made one failure as a doctor, I could never again establish myself in the practise of medicine. Wherever I went, the story of my failure had preceded me, so that presently I found myself dropping down and down in the social scale until finally I awoke one morning to find myself a scavenger.

“Now,” said I to myself, “I have touched bottom and I must presently go up again like a man who sinks in the water.” But my hopes were not realized. I remained a collector and remover of garbage. My study of hygiene had taught me the evils of filth and I could not, therefore, neglect my work as a less intelligent scavenger might have done. I knew that my clients were depending upon me, in a great degree, to protect them from typhoid and kindred evils, and even though I realized that this dependence was more or less unconscious upon their part, I could no more have shirked my responsibility than I could have gone into their houses and killed them in cold blood. So I went to work earnestly and I flatter myself that there is no more thoroughgoing workman in the whole body of scavengers than myself.

Since I have been engaged in this work I have made another discovery. I have discovered that industry is by no means a sure road to advancement. When my work is well done I am paid, but I am not complimented. The thoroughness of my methods does not attract the attention of my clients. Nobody seeks me out with a proffer of more congenial employment. Everybody appears to take it for granted that I like to collect garbage. I do not. I have never been a collector of anything from choice. I used to think that any man who collected stamps must be lacking in intelligence, but I see now that one may be engaged in collecting worse things than stamps. Nobody says anything at all about my work unless something goes wrong. And this, I believe, is usually the case.

I recently read a copy of the _Memoirs of Lieutenant-Colonel Paul von Pulitz_, which I retrieved from the ash-can of one of my clients who is of a literary turn, and it was through his receptacle for discarded matter, by the way, that I first made the acquaintance of your excellent publication.

In these _Memoirs_, which are unusually interesting in many respects, I came upon an anecdote which seems to have a direct bearing upon the question which we are now considering. It appears that Colonel von Pulitz was discussing with a number of other officers the chances and mischances of a military career. Several of the officers had volunteered the causes to which they attributed their success. Colonel von Pulitz then related this anecdote, the truth of which he indorses elsewhere, and in this he is borne out by the editor of the autobiography, Professor Rudolph Ubermann, of Berlin University.

“When a young man,” writes Colonel von Pulitz, “I fell into disgrace with my family because of a certain youthful escapade--no matter what--and so forfeited my opportunity for entering the Prussian Army as an officer. I therefore determined to gain by my wits what I had lost by my folly. I was, as you who know me can testify, an unusually tall and fine-looking young man. Now it occurred to me that if I could once attract the attention of the king (he is here referring to Frederick the Great) he would undoubtedly desire me as a recruit for his ‘tall’ regiment, and if I had an opportunity to explain to him my situation, I might, after all, secure my coveted commission. I therefore secured a situation as a servant in the king’s own household, under a fictitious name, of course; and I was highly delighted when I found that I had been delegated as one of the waiters at table, for, thought I, now is my great opportunity certainly at hand. But alas for my hopes! The king bestowed upon me no notice whatever, and for all the attention my height secured from his majesty, I might have been a dwarf.

“So it went on for weeks, and I had nearly despaired of my commission when I hit upon the audacious scheme which solved the problem. I determined to attract the king’s notice at any cost, and when next I waited upon him, I deliberately pretended to stumble, and with an air of awkwardness I emptied down the neck of his majesty a plate of exceedingly hot soup. In a moment there was an uproar. The king was in a fury of temper and the majordomo was in a fair way to die of fright and chagrin, but my purpose was accomplished. The king had looked at me. He observed my height and my aristocratic bearing. He questioned me, and I told him my whole story frankly, omitting nothing but the ruse whereby I had brought myself to his notice. I secured my commission in his regiment, and from that time on I advanced steadily. The king never forgot me, but kept a friendly eye upon me. He once said in my presence: ‘Gentlemen, I never see a plate of hot soup that I do not think of my good friend the Lieutenant-Colonel Paul von Pulitz.’”

Now, Mr. _Idler_, I have no opportunity for spilling hot soup down the necks of my clients and my conscience will not permit me to attract their notice by gross neglect of duty. My effective work has failed to bring upon me their favorable regard. Finding myself so situated, and being, even yet, hopeful of some opportunity for bettering myself, I have written you this letter. I have done so in the hope that it may meet the eye of some one of my clients, perhaps that of the literary gentleman through whose barrel I first made your acquaintance and the acquaintance of the ingenious Lieutenant-Colonel Paul von Pulitz.

I, am, Sir,
Your humble servant,
CHARLES CLINKER.

THE BLESSINGS OF THE BLIND

_To the Editor of The Idler._

DEAR SIR: Those who are blessed, as the saying is, with two eyes and the gift of sight, are much given to expressing sympathy with, and sorrow for, the blind. It would be churlish to quarrel with so unselfish a sentiment, for it is, indeed, very good-natured of those who are busily engaged in seeing the sights of the world to spare the time and the thought which they give to the sightless. Yet I often wonder if the blind do not sometimes question, as I do, if a great deal of this sympathy is not wasted?

I, Sir, am blind. Totally and irretrievably blind. I have been blind all my life, having been, as the Irish say, “dark” from my birth. Born blind, in fact. My “affliction,” as it is called, being natural, I was born with no blemish to betray my infirmity, and it has so happened upon several occasions that, being thrown into the company of those who had not previously been warned of my condition, I have been compelled to make them acquainted with it myself. This information has invariably been the signal for apology and sympathetic pity. From which I infer that men generally feel that the blind are to be pitied and consoled. Also I have read a great deal of the hardship of being blind, though I have never, I confess, been quite able to see wherein that hardship lay. You are surprised, perhaps, to hear me say that I have “read” of this, but I assure you there is no reason to be surprised. If you are at all acquainted with the progress of science, as I suppose you are, you must have heard of raised type. Oh, yes, I read quite as naturally as you, yourself, though I accomplish with my fingers what you do with your eyes.

The result of my reading has been that I have come seriously to question the theory that sight is necessary to human happiness and efficiency. It has been borne in upon me that men possessed of two good eyes are often apparently unable to make use of them. I read that men often fall in love with women who seem, to all others, extremely ugly; and that women as often do the same by men. And not only that, but that they are quite frequently completely deceived in the characters of the persons whom they marry, women discovering their husbands to be bullies, and men finding their wives to be viragoes and shrews; and all this when the nuptial knot is tied hard and fast and the damage is beyond repair.

If eyes are really of as much use as those who see seem to think them, how is it possible that people should make such mistakes? Blind as I am, such a thing could never happen to me, nor do I think it could befall any sightless person; certainly not one who has been, as I have, blind from birth. I know the voice of a shrew the moment she opens her mouth, no matter how pleasantly she may speak at the moment. I can point out to you the drunkard, the hypocrite and the boor the moment I have heard them speak. In the tone of his voice every man carries his true certificate of character, be it good or bad. An ill-tempered man may conceal his vice from you, who look only at his face and judge his speech by his words, but he can not deceive me, for I know him by his voice. I have been engaged in business for the last thirty years and I have never once been taken in by a swindler. I have never yet been mistaken in the character of a man with whom I dealt. How many _seeing_ men can say as much?

Excepting the human being, we know of no such active or intelligent creature as the ant--the ant who lives in total darkness. Yet does he not build his cities and fight his battles as wisely as we do our own? I sometimes wonder if the possession of the power of sight is not a hindrance, rather than a help, in labor? The ant, who can not see at all, goes straight to his object. He is never distracted by the sight of things along the way. The fly, on the contrary, is possessed of a great many eyes; his head, in fact, is practically _all eyes_. Yet what is the fly but a parasite, a nuisance, a very vagabond of insects? Attracted hither and thither by everything that meets his gaze, he lights first upon one object and then upon another, without rhyme or reason save his overweening curiosity, until he finally falls into a trap and dies an ignoble death in a spider’s web, or caught fast upon a sticky paper. The fly has no social organization, no family life, no mating in any proper sense of the word. He pollutes all that he touches. His entire life is a life of destruction, as opposed to the ant’s, which is a life of construction.

According to the Grecian mythology, the largest race of men the world has ever known, the _Cyclops_, had but a single eye, and that in the middle of the forehead. The stupidest of all characters of the Grecian myths was _Argus_, who, though he had more eyes than all the gods and heroes together, yet allowed _Hermes_ to pipe him to sleep and so cut off his head. In the tail of _Hera’s_ peacock, his eyes were of as much use to him as in his own head. _Eros_, the god of love, was blind; yet he was of all the gods the most joyful. And in this, our own day, is not _Justice_ blind?

Is there, in all this, no significance? Is there no hint of an understanding of the secret that, as he who would save his soul must first lose it, so he who would see must first be blind?

Men see, as we say, with the mind as well as with the eye. Men also see with the spirit. Saul never could see the truth and beauty of Christianity until he was stricken blind upon the road to Damascus. But _while_ he was blind, he _saw_, and so became Paul. Would Homer have been the giant of poets had he had his sight? I doubt it. Would Milton have attained his heights of inspiration, had he retained his vision? I can not believe it. For the man who has physical sight looks upon the earth and the works of men; but he who has only the spiritual sight, lifts up his eyes to God and His angels.

The shepherd lad who has never traveled beyond his native valley dreams a beautiful dream of the world that lies beyond the hills that hem him in. But the tourist lives a life of constant disillusion, for he finds in distant lands, where he had thought to find the abiding-place of Romance, the same humdrum life of the commonplace that he left at home.

We who are blind, Mr. _Idler_, are the shepherd boys of this life. Enclosed in our valley of darkness by the everlasting shadow of our endless night, we dream of the world that lies beyond as a place of beauty and happiness. For us there is no sad disillusion. For us there is no rude awakening from the delights of fancy. For us the sky is always fair and the earth is always sweet. For us the woods are thronged with nymphs and the grasses with the little people of fairyland. We do not know the gloom of age or the horror of decay. We do not know the sight of death.

Do not imagine, Sir, that because we can not see, we can not create images. We can, we do. We dream of the earth as fair as other men may dream of heaven. Because we have never seen beauty, to us all things are beautiful. When I walk in the garden, the scent of the rose rises to my nostrils with a sweetness which is but intensified because I can not see the blossom whence it springs. I finger its fragile petals, and I rejoice in its beauty of form, for you must know that one can _feel_ beauty as well as see it. I lean my head against the friendly and sturdy oak and I hear the beating of his heart. For to me all these things _live_. What does it signify that they can not see, or hear, or speak? _I_ can not see; am I the less a man for that? I learn that nowadays it is possible to communicate with people who are born not only blind, but deaf and dumb as well. That it is possible to teach them to read and to speak, even as I was taught to read and speak. Is it not possible, then, that some day, if we will only try, we may be able to break through the long silence that has separated us from our brothers and sisters of the woods and fields? Already, we who are blind can almost understand the whispered syllables of the rustling leaves and the waving grass. May not some other, one perhaps more closely shut in with God than we, reach downward as well as upward, and bring about the _universal_ understanding? I hope it may be so.

My wife, who had the sweetest voice of any girl I ever knew, is as fair to me to-day as upon the day when I first fell in love. Her voice, if anything, has grown more pleasant as she has grown older. She, too, is blind, and together we enjoy a state of happiness which comes as near to being perpetual youth as it is possible for mortals to attain. How infinitely better this seems to me, than to be compelled, day after day, to watch the fading of that flower of my early love! To observe anxiously the lines of care creeping into that dearly beloved countenance; to see the snow of many winters slowly whiten her soft smooth hair! What a kindness of the good God is this, that she remains forever young to me, as I do to her, and that our passion knows nothing of the insidious poison of departing comeliness!

Curiously enough, our only child, the dearly beloved son who was the fruit of our attachment, has a perfect vision. And this, Mr. _Idler_, odd as it may seem to you who are accustomed to look upon this matter from a different point of view, is the one worry of my life. Many a night have I lain awake, listening to the gentle breathing of my wife at my side, and turned over and over in my mind the dangers which he must face because of his condition. Often have I prayed God that He might watch over him and turn aside his eyes from the ugliness, the sin and the temptation, which his mother and I have mercifully been spared! It is hard, in any case, to have the child grow up and go out into the world. But it is infinitely more hard to know that he is almost as though he were of another race of beings, and that he must endure the sight of pain, of misery, of squalor, of poverty and of age! That he must be subject to temptations for which I can not prepare him, having never met with them myself.

I once read a story of a man who became mysteriously possessed of the power to read the thoughts of all those with whom he came in contact. At first he was transported into the seventh heaven of delight, reveling in the sense of his new-found power. But soon he came to realize what a curse had fallen upon him. Turn where he would, he found the minds of men filled with envy, malice and evil. The fairest faces served to hide from others, but not from him, the most ignoble minds. Beneath the frankest and most friendly manner he often read the secret hatred and jealousy. Confronted upon all sides with the evidence of the wickedness and baseness of his fellows, he was at last driven to despair, and by one desperate act destroyed both his power and his life.

Mr. _Idler_, were I suddenly to be granted the gift of sight, I think that I should feel like that. It is hard enough to read of some things. I should not care to look upon them.

There have been those who, hearing me speak so of sight, have answered, “That is because you have never been able to see. You do not know what a blessing sight is, because you have never enjoyed it!” Sometimes I comfort myself with the thought that it is like that with our son. He can see, but he was born that way and he will never know the difference. Gradually he will grow used to looking upon things which I could not endure to behold. God has chosen to give him the harder part; may He grant him the strength to bear it!

I am, Sir, your sincere friend,
NOEL NIGHTSHADE.

A TALE OF A MAD POET’S WIFE

_To the Editor of The Idler._

DEAR SIR: I have long been an interested reader of your interesting periodical, though I have not hitherto presumed to address you, either personally or in your character as editor. I have ever had an aversion for that type of person who is constantly rushing into print to air personal troubles and casting upon the shoulders of the public the burdens which should rightly be borne upon his own. I have observed, however, that a great many of your readers do not scruple to address you in this respect and are quite in the habit of writing you for advice upon their personal affairs, and, since you do not appear to find this burdensome, I have determined to make known to you my own pitiable plight, in the hope that you, or some of your readers, may be able to suggest some method of relief; for, indeed, I am deep in trouble, from which I seem utterly unable to extricate myself by my own devices. Lest I weary you, I shall tell my sad story in the fewest possible words.

While yet a very young woman I fell in love with a poet. In this there was nothing especially noteworthy, since, I suppose, all women go through this experience at some time of life. The unfortunate feature of my own affair was that it ended quite as I wished it to end--in my marriage. I soon learned that the qualities which make the poet so satisfactory a suitor do not always appear in so favorable a light when he has become a husband. I found it very sweet and charming during our courtship that my lover should be concerned with my spiritual welfare and that his thoughts should never descend to the common affairs of life. It would have seemed almost like sacrilege to ask him to consider with me the sordid problems which are commonly inflicted upon young men of grosser clay when they have proposed marriage to a young woman. So certain was I that any mention of such trivialities would mortally offend my fiancé that I would permit neither my father nor my brothers to question him upon the subject of his financial condition. For this sentimental whim I very nearly paid with my happiness, for I found soon after we had been wed that these questions must inevitably be considered sooner or later, and whereas it had formerly been only a question of the expediency of my marriage, it was now become a matter of vital importance.

Fortunately, I have always been of an excellent _wheedling_ disposition, so much so that my father used to say I could coax a Scotchman into extravagance or a politician into honesty by merely smiling upon him. I turned this natural gift to account in the case of my husband by inducing him to constitute me his business agent. I then went about among the editors selling his verse, and in this I was so successful that he was soon supplying _no less than a third_ of the current verse which was printed in the six or seven leading monthly magazines published in this city. No doubt you have often heard poets express surprise at the amount of rather mediocre poetry which finds its way into the columns of standard publications. You may understand this more readily when I tell you that several other writers of magazine poetry, learning of our own arrangement, immediately set about acquiring handsome and attractive wives, to whom they turned over their output, never appearing at the offices of the editors in person but always sending their wives as their representatives.

In this way we managed very well for several years, though latterly I have encountered one or two editors who were apparently either very near-sighted or peculiarly unsusceptible. We were doing very well, however, and my husband had acquired a wide reputation, so that he was often invited to lecture before associations of one sort or another and to give readings at entertainments in private dwellings. This added to our income, but both of us by now being under the necessity of always appearing dressed in the very neatest and most attractive fashion, we soon found that whatever sum we had left over from current living expenses went for keeping up appearances; so that we were able to live very well but were by no means enabled to lay by a competence for the future.

It was at this stage of our career, which is to say some three years gone, when we were doing better than we ever had before, that the sad blow fell upon us which has cast a shadow over our household, and which has left me, at the age of forty, a widow in all but name and a pauper in anticipation, if not already one in fact. My husband had been invited to speak before a certain literary club or society, and as was always his custom, had accepted without hesitation. Little did he realize, when he carelessly mentioned this appointment to me, that it would be his last public appearance for a long time to come--perhaps forever! Little did I know when he left our apartment that evening, looking so debonair and engaging in his faultless evening attire, that I should next behold him a pitiful wreck--a driveling idiot! Yet, Mr. _Idler_, this was, alas! what befell your wretched correspondent. He came back to me from that reading a man without understanding, a mental incompetent, a man who, despite his stalwart frame and glowing health of body, exhibited all the symptoms of senile decay! A man who could scarcely scrawl his own name in legible fashion, to say nothing of inditing sonnets, quatrains and ballads.

And what, Mr. _Idler_, do you suppose those heartless wretches who composed that literary society had done to my innocent and harmless husband? Not content with having him read his verses, _they had insisted that he explain them_! And he, poor weak man that he was, yielded to the unhappy vanity which is the birthright of all poets, and had attempted to comply with their request. The result you already know. His mind was completely overturned. He has spent the time since that dreadful evening in dictating to an imaginary stenographer a critical appreciation of each rhyme in _Mother Goose_. Only once has he attempted anything in the way of original poetry, which I hastened to jot down in shorthand, and which was so puerile, so empty of all meaning, that I could not forbear to weep heartbrokenly as I transcribed my notes.

Now, Mr. _Idler_, what redress have I against those inhuman creatures, those compassionless brutes, who brought my husband to this pass? Can I sue them in a court of law? Or must I bear without compensation the dreadful sorrow which has befallen me? I beg of you, advise me at once, as I do not know which way to turn.

I am, Sir, distractedly yours,
BEDELIA BARDLET.

P. S.--All is come right after all, Mr. _Idler_. After writing you the above, yesterday morning, I determined to make one more desperate trial. I took around to an editor the one original poem, of which I spoke, which my husband had dictated in his madness. That editor has just called me on the telephone to say that the poem will be printed in the next number of his magazine, and that he finds it by far the best that my husband has ever submitted. And so, please God, it may turn out that his misfortune will prove to be a blessing in disguise.

THE LOCK-STEP

_To the Editor of The Idler._

DEAR SIR: Thackeray once said: “Every one knows what harm the bad may do, but who knows the mischief done by the good?” It appears to me that there is a valuable suggestion in this query which merits the consideration of all men who live under a civilized government, and especially the attention of young men who are about to enter upon the serious business of life. Young people, being by nature somewhat lacking in logic, are prone to consider everything that is good _per se_ as a thing which must necessarily be good in its effect, and similarly to class all thing which are bad in themselves as bad in their effects. Nothing could be more erroneous than this assumption. There is no man who will maintain that a beating is a thing which is good in itself; yet I am old-fashioned enough to believe that many a beating has been very salutary in its effect. Early in life, I fell into this common error of confusing the inherent quality of an act with the quality of its effect, and it is in the hope that I may save some worthy young man the miseries resulting from such an error that I am writing this letter.

As Mr. James Coolidge Carter points out in his book, _Law: Its Origin, Growth and Function_, and as Blackstone and others pointed out before him, all law originates in custom. As a custom becomes general--so general as to be termed the common custom among a given people--it is usually enacted as law. And even where such legislative sanction is wanting, a general custom takes on the force of law and operates as law, as is the case with the great body of the common law of England. Thus, a custom, which in the beginning all are free to adopt or to reject as they may see fit, eventually acquires the force of a rule to which all are obliged to conform, whether from strict legal necessity or merely by force of public opinion.

The law, theoretically at least and actually in most cases, is merely the expression of a public sentiment. It is the constant tendency of all uniform and generally prevalent customs and opinions to take on the form of law. The general disapproval of profanity, for instance, results in laws providing penalties for the use of profane language in public places. Practically all ordinances may be traced to the same source of public sentiment. Not all laws, however, represent the will of the majority. Certain of our laws are representative of the general opinion of all mankind, others of the sentiments of a majority of mankind, and still others of the ideas and prejudices of an active minority. To the extent that such habits, ideas, customs, opinions and prejudices become crystallized into law, the members of a community become enslaved to those habits, ideas, customs, opinions and prejudices; since a departure from them is followed by penalties and punishments. And there are some customs which, while not actually laws, exert quite as strong an influence upon the average citizen as the duly enacted statutes. The fear of social ostracism is often quite as effective a check upon the inclinations of an individual as the fear of legal punishment.

Now, as every man is the slave of general laws and customs, so, in a lesser sense, is he the slave of his own personal habits. And oddly enough this is more often true of good habits than of bad ones. Should the town drunkard make a sudden resolution to reform, the town may laugh, but nobody will condemn his resolution to mend his ways; nobody will be scandalized at his change of habits. But should the leader of the local prohibitionists suddenly resolve to test the joys of inebriety, what a protest would go up on all sides! Even the town drunkard would sneer and despise him as a man who had fallen from his high estate. Much as the inebriate may dislike the sincere teetotaler, he dislikes the ex-teetotaler even more. No, every man is a slave to his good habits and he can not hope to change them without exciting the animosity of all who know him.

I recall reading not long ago a story of an eastern governor who was caught in the act of smoking a cigarette. Now, there was nothing especially horrifying about the fact that he smoked cigarettes except for the fact that he was the vice-president of an anti-cigarette society. Under the circumstances this governor, who is in all probability a capable and fairly honest executive, has endangered, if he has not destroyed, his political future--and all for the matter of a cigarette! While it may seem an injustice to him that he be made to suffer a political eclipse for so slight a lapse, there is hardly a smoker who will not heartily agree with the idly busy people who make up the anti-cigarette league, that the governor deserves all the punishment his outraged associates may choose to inflict upon him. He has been a double renegade; for he has betrayed his fellow smokers by publicly indorsing the aims of the society, and he has betrayed his fellow members of the society by privately indulging in the very habit which the society condemns.

And the general public may very justly condemn him not because he smokes cigarettes--but because he has played the hypocrite. This statesman is evidently one of those foolish men who believe that it pays to appear better than one really is, and that an undeserved reputation for abstinence and virtue is better than none. And of all the possible attitudes that he might have assumed in this connection, the one which he did assume was the worst, for it was the most hypocritical and insincere. And what monumental folly! For the sake of a cigarette he has jeopardized his career--by such a slender thread is the Damoclean sword of public opprobrium suspended!

But I am digressing. I did not intend to write you a dissertation upon the follies of politicians, but to set forth, in some sort, the results of my own stupidity in failing to discover early in life the tyranny of custom and habit.

I am, as you may possibly have conjectured, a member of the legal profession; which profession I have followed with some degree of success for the last thirty years. I think I may say without boasting that I have attained an enviable reputation among my colleagues of the bar as an able advocate and a man possessed of a logical mind and a rather extensive knowledge of the “delightful fictions of the law.” I have no complaint to make upon the score of my professional career. If it has not led me to eminence, it has at least preserved me from want. My practise, while general and not so profitable as that of some legal specialists of my acquaintance, is yet sufficiently lucrative to enable me to maintain a comfortable establishment at home and to pay without pinching the expenses of my son’s collegiate and my daughter’s “finishing school” education. I have a comfortable home, a healthy and happy family, a prosperous business, a large number of congenial friends and a hale and hearty constitution. Doubtless you will say that I am blessed beyond the majority of mankind. Doubtless I am, and doubtless, too, beyond my deserts. But for all these blessings, which are obviously much to be desired, there is, so to speak, a fly in the ointment of my contentment. And that is just this--_I have too good a reputation_! In me, Sir, you may behold a man who has become an abject slave to good Reputation. Totally unknown to the great majority of my millions of fellow countrymen, and having but a modest degree of celebrity among the members of my own profession, I am yet compelled to be as careful of my speech and as circumspect in my actions as if I were the Czar of all the Russias! I am bound hand, foot and tongue by the ties of a lifetime; I am manacled at the cart-tail of Respectability; I am pilloried in the pillory of Dignified Demeanor! If you will bear with me a bit longer, I shall endeavor to explain my present situation.

I was born and reared in the little Missouri town where I now reside. I am personally acquainted with practically every man, woman and child in the place, which, while not exactly a village, is hardly large enough to be called a city outside of the columns of our local newspapers. The present county attorney is a young man of thirty whom I trotted on my knee and for whom I made kites many years ago. The county judge and I fell out many years ago because he insisted that we had been playing marbles for “keeps”, while I maintained that we had been playing merely for fun. We are now the best of friends, however, and there is no judge in the state who passes heavier sentences on convicted gamblers than he. The pastor of the church which I attend is a lad who in former years was a member of the Sunday-school class I taught and which used to embarrass me with all sorts of questions concerning the wives of Cain and Abel and the origin of the inhabitants of the Land of Nod. And so it is; I know them all and they all know me.

“Jimmy” Vance is our family physician; he is the family physician for at least a third of our population. He has been helping the people of our town to be born and to die for more than thirty years--but he is still “Jimmy”. Jimmy and I were born in the same year. It was once a joke with us to call ourselves “twins” on this account. But Jimmy and I are “twins” no longer. Jimmy is still a smooth-faced boy at fifty-five, while I am a gray-bearded oldster. You may gather something of my life when I tell you that though my Christian names are Jeremiah Samuel (I do not give my surname for reasons you will understand), I have never, since my twenty-first year, been addressed either as “Jerry” or “Sam”. My wife calls me “Jeremiah”, as do my other relatives, while my business associates and friends never grow more familiar than “Jeremiah S.”

When I determined to enter upon the study and practise of the law, my maternal uncle, who was himself a practising attorney, became a sort of supplementary preceptor to me by virtue of his avuncular relationship. He assisted me in my studies and when the time came for me to be admitted to the bar, he gave me a deal of what he no doubt considered sound advice as to my future conduct. “Jeremiah,” said he, “there is no profession on earth which is a more serious business than the law. Men do not go to law for fun. Nobody brings a lawsuit for mere amusement. When clients come to you they will come because they have serious business on hand and they want a sober competent man to attend to it for them. It is no joke to them and they don’t want you to joke about it. Now, my advice to you--which you may take or leave as you see fit--is always to keep a straight face. No matter how funny a case may seem to you, don’t laugh. Your dignity will be more than half your capital; see that you don’t forget your dignity.”

Such was the advice of my maternal uncle. And such was the character I assumed upon entering the practise of the law. From the day I drew my first real brief I became the very essence of dignity. I even wooed and won my wife in the character of a dignified young man of serious mind and purpose. She has never in all these years suspected my innate frivolity. Should I yield to my natural impulse and indulge in the nonsense and fun which has ever been so dear to my heart, I am convinced that she would at once lose all respect for me, if, indeed, she did not think me suddenly insane. I am grave. Under all conditions and circumstances I am as grave as an undertaker. I do smile now and then, but it is generally the indulgent superior smile which I labored so hard to acquire when young and which I can not now shake off. I have been dignified so long that my dignity has become a part of me--not really a part of my inward personality--but a part of my outward appearance; I should feel naked and ashamed without it; it would seem like going about half-dressed. I am so grave that nobody ever tells me a funny story excepting the kind that one tells a minister. They are afraid to be natural when in my presence. As Midas turned everything he touched to gold, so I turn all my friends to bores. No sooner do I come into my house than the whole family stops talking and waits to hear what I have to say. Nobody dares to interrupt me; nobody presumes to contradict me, unless it be old Brownly, who is our oldest inhabitant and so considers himself somewhere near my own age. Every one is grave when with me. That is, every one but Jimmy. Jimmy has always seen through my pose and Jimmy takes a malicious pleasure in pretending he is young when with me.

From the day I entered upon the practise of the law, I modeled my conduct upon that of my maternal uncle who was, as my boy Tom says, “as cheerful as a crutch.” I abandoned the bright colored scarfs which have always delighted my eye, and I donned the sober black bow tie which I wear to this day. Striped and checked clothing gave way to the non-committal pepper-and-salt suit of indefinite hue which has been my unvarying garb from that day to this. And I grew that Vandyke beard, to which, I am convinced, I owed my early reputation for learning and even now owe a good part of the respect which I command. My beard is as fixed an institution as our local literary club. Fashion has at least relieved me of the necessity of wearing a top hat, or “plug” as we call it here; but fashion will never relieve me of my beard, for beards may come and beards may go, but mine grows on forever. Should I shave that beard it would electrify the community. My wife would regard me with suspicion, my children with pity, my friends with mirth and my clients with horror. I verily believe that old Brown the banker, who is my best client, would be less shocked should I tell him that I had forgotten how to frame a complaint or draw a mortgage, than if he should walk into my office and find me clean-shaven.

And as it is with dress, so it is with other things. Jimmy Vance, although a doctor, never affected that dignity which has come to be my strongest personal characteristic. Jimmy never imitated anybody’s dignity. And as a consequence Jimmy is as free as the wind. If he wants to smoke, he does it. If he wants to drink, he takes a drink. If he wants to go roller-skating, he goes. And nobody ever thinks of objecting to anything he does. Jimmy has never led any one to expect any particular sort of conduct from him. He is full of surprises and nobody likes him the less for it. I can drink at my club--occasionally--or at a banquet, or at home; but I can not go into a bar like Jimmy and shake dice with a traveling man. I can smoke, but I could not chew tobacco. I can read, but I can not read light novels--that is, not unless I hide away to do it. If I were to go into our public library and ask for _The Siege of the Seven Suitors_ I honestly think that old Miss Peters, our librarian, would faint dead away. Now it isn’t that I want to _do_ these things which irks me, so much as the fact that I want to be able to do them if I feel like it. I thank God I have escaped the gravest danger which lies in the acquisition of too good habits--I have never become what so many men of super-excellent reputations do become--a hypocrite. I have been a poser, a pretender, a rebel--ah, I have fairly seethed with rebellion against the tyranny of this fictitious self at times!--but I have never broken my habits on the sly. I have lived up to the straw man I so foolishly put in my place; I have gone around and around in my lock-step of respectability when I felt that I might gladly have died for a single year of absolute personal freedom; I have made my bed and like Damiens I have lain chained to it with iron chains for years; and never before now have I cried aloud!

And Jimmy! What a life is Jimmy’s! Jimmy is as prosperous as I; as respected as I; far happier than I; and ah, how much more is Jimmy loved than I!

When the girls go away to boarding-school, Jimmy kisses them good-by; when they come home again, Jimmy kisses them hello. Jimmy never misses an opportunity to kiss them, coming or going. But who cares? Nobody. “It’s only old Jimmy,” the girls say. “It’s only old Jimmy,” echo their sweethearts. “It’s only Jimmy’s way!” giggle their mothers--for Jimmy kisses them, too; Jimmy is no fool. But suppose I should try it? Who would say, “It’s only old Jeremiah?”

Since there is small danger that your magazine will ever be read by any one who will recognize me in this letter, I don’t mind confessing that I did try it once; it is the only sin of the sort that I have on my conscience after twenty-five years of dignity, domestic and foreign. It was last year that it happened. The girl had been visiting one of my daughter’s chums for the Christmas vacation and she was one of the guests at the Christmas party we had at our house. I came into the front hall and found her standing all alone, directly under the mistletoe. I looked at her standing there so sweet and pretty and so unconscious of the mistletoe, and I wondered how it would feel to kiss some one on the lips. I have been kissed on the forehead for years. Even my children kiss me on the forehead. They learned to do that early, when they explained that my beard was “cratchy”. I looked at the girl again. I was tempted and I fell. That is, I tried to fall, but she wouldn’t let me.

“Why not?” I asked her. “You let my boy Tom do it.”

“Oh, but _he’s_ only a boy!” she said.

“Well,” I insisted, “you let Jimmy do it!”

“Oh, but he’s an _old_ man!” she exclaimed.

“Yes!” said I, “and so am I an old man!”

“Oh, but,” she protested, “you’re not _that kind_ of an old man!”

That’s it! That’s always been it, and that always will be it--I’m not _that kind_ of an old man!

J. S.

THE FRUIT OF FAME

_To the Editor of The Idler._

DEAR SIR: I have told many strange and distressing stories in my time; tales of struggle, of suffering, of sorrow and of bitter disappointment; for I, Sir, am an author, and the telling of tales has long been my vocation. But of all the tales which I have spun from the thread of my inner consciousness, there is none, I believe, more strange or more filled with disillusionment than the true story which I am about to tell you now.

I began writing at an early age. Indeed, I was writing short stories while yet in the high school and selling them before I had done with college. The history of my younger years does not differ greatly from that of most young authors; it is the history of an existence which would have been inexpressibly sordid had it not been glorified by youthful hope and ambition. I married young and was forced to write constantly in order to make both ends meet. The years went slipping by almost unnoticed until suddenly one day I awoke to find myself upon the verge of middle age and realized that for years I had been postponing the writing of my first real book, meanwhile falling unconsciously into the habit of giving all of my attention to the market value of what I wrote and growing more and more indifferent to the question of its literary merit. I had, in fact, become a confirmed hack-writer.