Chapter VIII: Part 8

And in my yard are trees and little things such as vines and stone walls, which, for all their newness and briefness, have so much more enduring power than have I. This tree near my door is fully a hundred years old, and yet it will be young, comparatively speaking, and strong, when I am no longer in existence. Its trunk is straight, its head is high, and here am I who, looking upon it now as old, will soon be older in spirit, unable to bear the too-heavy burden of a short existence and tottering wearily about when it will still be strong and straight, good for another life the length of mine--a strange contrast of forces. That is but one of the wonders of the forces of life: their persistence.

Yet it is this morning waking that impresses the marvel of their greatness upon me. It is this new day, this new-old river, this new-old tree, the new earth, so old and yet so new, which point the frailty of my physical and mental existence and make me wonder what the riddle of the universe may be.

THE CRADLE OF TEARS

There is a cradle within the door of one of the great institutions of New York before which a constant recurring tragedy is being enacted. It is a plain cradle, quite simply draped in white, but with such a look of cozy comfort about it that one would scarcely suspect it to be a cradle of sorrow.

A little white bed, with a neatly turned-back coverlet, is made up within it. A long strip of white muslin, tied in a tasteful bow at the top, drapes its rounded sides. About it, but within the precincts of warmth and comfort of which it is a part, spreads a chamber of silence--a quiet, small, plainly furnished room, the appearance of which emphasizes the peculiarity of the cradle itself.

If the mind were not familiar with the details with which it is so startlingly associated, the question would naturally arise as to what it was doing there, why it should be standing there alone. No one seems to be watching it. It has not the slightest appearance of usefulness. And yet there it stands day after day, and year after year, a ready-prepared cradle, and no infant to live in it.

And yet this cradle is the most useful, and, in a way, the most inhabited cradle in the world. Day after day and year after year it is a recipient of more small wayfaring souls than any other cradle in the world. In it the real children of sorrow are placed, and over it more tears are shed than if it were an open grave.

It is a place where annually twelve hundred foundlings are placed, many of them by mothers who are too helpless or too unfortunately environed to be further able to care for their children; and the misery which compels it makes of the little open crib a cradle of tears.

The interest of this cradle is that it has been the silent witness of more truly heartbreaking scenes than any other cradle since the world began. For nearly sixty years it has stood where it does to-day, ready-draped, open, while almost as many thousand mothers have stolen shamefacedly in and after looking hopelessly about have laid their helpless offspring within its depths.

For sixty years, winter and summer, in the bitterest cold and the most stifling heat, it has seen them come, the poor, the rich, the humble, the proud, the beautiful, the homely; and one by one they have laid their children down and brooded over them, wondering if it were possible for human love to make so great a sacrifice and yet not die.

And then, when the child has been actually sacrificed, when by the simple act of releasing their hold upon it and turning away, they have allowed it to pass out from their loving tenderness into the world unknown, this silent cradle has seen them smite their hands in anguish and yield to such voiceless tempests of grief as only those know who have loved much and lost all.

The circumstances under which this peculiar charity comes to be a part of the life of the great metropolis need not be rehearsed here. The heartlessness of men, the frailty of women, the brutality of all those who sit in judgment in spite of the fact that they do not wish to be judged themselves, is so old and so commonplace that its repetition is almost wearisome.

Still, the tragedy repeats itself, and year after year and day after day the unlocked door is opened and dethroned virtue enters--the victim of ignorance and passion and affection--and a child is robbed of a home.

I think there is a significant though concealed thought here, for nature in thus repeating a fact day after day and year after year raises a significant question. We are so dull. Sometimes it requires ten thousand or ten million repetitions to make us understand. “Here is a condition. What will you do about it? Here is a condition. What will you do about it? Here is a condition. What will you do about it?” That is the question each tragedy propounds, and finally we wake and listen. Then slowly some better way is discovered, some theory developed. We find often that there is an answer to some questions, at least if we have to remake ourselves, society, the face of the world, to get it.

WHEN THE SAILS ARE FURLED

The waters of the open sea as they rush past Sandy Hook strike upon the northeasterly shore of Staten Island, a low-lying beach overshadowed by abruptly terminating cliffs. Northeastward, separated by this channel known as The Narrows, lies Long Island. As the waters flow onward, following the trend of the shoreline of Staten Island, they become less and less exposed to the winds of the sea, and soon, as they pass the northernmost end of the island, they make a sharp bend to the west, passing between it and Liberty Statue, where the tranquil Kill von Kull separates the island from New Jersey.

Long ere they reach this region the sea winds have spent their force, and the billows, which in clear weather are still visible far out, have sunk to ripples so diminutive that the water is not even disturbed. And here, in Staten Island, facing the Kill von Kull, still stands in almost rural quiet and beauty Sailors’ Snug Harbor. Long ago this was truly a harbor, snug and undisturbed, a place where the storm-harried mariner, escaping the moods and dangers of the seven seas, found a still and safe retreat. To-day they come here, weary from a long life voyage, to find a quiet home. And truly it is restful in its arrangements. The grounds are kempt and green, the buildings pleasingly solemn, and the view altogether lovely, a mixture of land and sea.

In the early days this pleasantly quiet harbor was a long distance from New York proper. Staten Island was but thinly settled, and the Kill von Kull a passageway seldom used. To-day craft speed in endless procession like glorious birds over the great expanse of water. On a clear day the long narrow skyline of New York is visible, and when fogs make the way of the pilot uncertain the harbor resounds with endless monotony of fog-horns, of vessels feeling an indefinite way.

Though the surroundings are pastoral, the appearance of the inmates of this retreat, as well as their conversation, is of the sea, salty. Housed though they are for the remainder of their days on land, they are still sailors, vain of their service upon the great waters of the world and but little tolerant of landlubbers in general. To the passer-by without the walls they are visible lounging under the trees, their loose-fitting blue suits fluttering light with every breeze and their slouch hats pulled rakishly over their eyes, an abandon characteristic of men whose lives have been spent more or less in direct contact with wind and rain. You may see them in fair weather pacing about the paths of the grounds, or standing in groups under the trees. Upon a long bench, immediately in front of the buildings, others are sitting side by side, smoking and chatting. Many were captains, not a few common sailors. But all are now so aged that they can scarcely totter about, and hair of white is more often seen than that of any other shade.

For a period of nearly a year--a spring, summer and fall--I lived in the immediate vicinity of this retreat and was always interested by the types of men finally islanded here. They came, so I was told, from nearly all lands, France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Spain, Austria, Russia, and elsewhere, though the majority chanced to be of English and American extraction. Also, I was told and can well believe they are, a restless if not exactly a troublesome lot, and take their final exile from the sea, due to increasing years and in most instances poverty, with no very great equanimity. Yet the surroundings and the provision made for them by the founder of this institution, who, though not a sea-faring man himself, acquired his fortune through the sea over a century ago, are charming and ample; but the curse, or at least the burden of age and the ending of their vigor and activities, rests heavily upon them, I am sure. I have watched them about the very few saloons of the region as well as the coffee-houses, the small lunch counters and the moving picture theaters, and have noted a kind of preferred solitude and spiritual irritability which spells all too plainly intense dissatisfaction at times with their state. Among the quondam rovers are rovers still, men who pine to be out and away and who chafe at old age and the few necessary restraints put upon them. They would rather travel, would rather have the money it costs to maintain them annually as a pension, outside, than be in the institution. Not many but feel a sort of weariness with days and with each other, and I am quite convinced that they would be happier if pensioned modestly and set free. Yet this is a great institution and indeed a splendid benefaction, but it insists upon what is the bane and destruction of heart and mind: conformity to routine, a monotonous system which wears as the drifting of water and eats as a worm at the heart.

And yet I doubt if a better conducted institution than this could be found, or one more suited to the needs and crotchets of so many men. They have ample liberty, excellent food, clothing and shelter, charming scenery, and all the leisure there is. They are not called upon to do any labor of any kind other than that of looking after their rooms and clothes. The grounds are so ample and the buildings so large that the attention of every one is instantly taken. As you enter at the north, where is the main entrance, there is a monument to Robert Richard Randall, the founder of the institution. This marks his final resting-place; the remains of the philanthropist were brought here from St. Mark’s Church in New York, where they had lain since 1825.

The facts concerning the founding of this institution have always interested me. It seems that the father of “Captain” Robert Randall, the founder of the Harbor, was a Scotchman, who came to America in 1776 and settled in New Orleans. The Spanish Governor and Intendant of that city, Don Bernardo de Galvez, having declared the port open for the sale of prizes of Yankee privateers, Mr. Randall took an active interest in that great fleet of private-armed vessels whose exploits on the high seas, and even upon the coast of Great Britain itself, did much to contradict the modest assertion of the “British Naval Register” that:

“The winds and the seas are Britain’s wide domain,
And not a sail but by permission spreads.”

At his death his son Robert inherited the estate. Accustomed to come north to pass the summer months, Robert made, on one of his trips to New York, the acquaintance of a Mr. Farquhar, a man possessed of means but broken down by ill health. The mild climate of Louisiana agreed with the invalid, and a proposition to exchange estates was considered. After a bonus of five hundred guineas had been sent to Farquhar, this was effected. Mr. Randall then became a suburban resident of what was then the little city of New York. His property consisted of real estate fronting both sides of Broadway and adjacent streets, and extending from Eighth to Tenth Streets. At a distance of one-half mile to the westward, namely, near the site of the old Presbyterian Church on what is now Fifth Avenue, stood the dwelling of the Captain. Upon the piazza of this house, it is recorded, shaded by a luxuriant growth of ivy and clematis, the old gentleman was wont to sit in fine weather, with his dog by his side. Before the door were three rows of gladioli, which he carefully nurtured. He was a bachelor, and on the first day of June, 1801, being very ill and feeble but of “sound, disposing mind and memory,” made his will. Alexander Hamilton and Daniel D. Tompkins drew up the papers. In this document he directed that his just debts be paid; that an annuity of forty pounds a year be given to each of the children of his half-brother until they were fifteen years old; a sum of one thousand pounds to each of his nephews upon their twenty-first birthday, and a like sum to his nieces on their marriage. He bequeathed to his housekeeper his sleeve-buttons and forty pounds, and to another servant his shoe and knee buckles and twenty pounds. When this had been recorded he looked up with an expression of anxiety.

“I am thinking,” he said, “how I can dispose of the remainder of my property most wisely. What do you think, General?” turning to Hamilton.

“How did you accumulate the fortune you possess?”

“It was made for me by my father, and at his death became his sole heir.”

“How did he acquire it?” asked Hamilton.

“By honest privateering,” responded Randall.

“Then it might appropriately be left for the benefit of unfortunate and disabled seamen,” volunteered Hamilton, and thereupon it was so bequeathed.

The early history of Snug Harbor is clouded with legal contests which covered a period of thirty years. Though at the time of the bequest Randall’s property was of little value, being mostly farming land, situated on the outskirts of the populated parts of the city, the heirs foresaw something of its future value. In the National and State Courts they long waged a vigorous war to test the validity of the will. Their surmises as to the future value of the property were correct. For, although the income of the bequest was not more than a thousand a year at first, as the population of the city increased the rental rose by degrees, until in the present year it has reached a sum bordering $1,500,000, and the rise, even yet, is continuous.

However, the suits were eventually decided against the heirs, the court holding the will valid. As an institution the Harbor was incorporated in 1806, and the first building erected in 1831 and dedicated in 1833. So thirty years passed before the desire of a very plain-speaking document was carried into effect.

In the beginning there were but three buildings, which are to-day the central ones in a main group of nine. In toto, however, there are over sixty, situated in a park.

In a line, in the center of an eighteen hundred-foot lawn, stand the five main buildings, truly substantial and artistic. The view to the right and left is superb, tall trees shading walks and dividing stretches of lawn, with rows of benches scattered here and there. A statue by St. Gaudens beautifies the grounds between the main building and the governor’s residence, while in another direction a fountain fills to the brim a flower-lined marble basin. Everywhere about the grounds and buildings are seen nautical signs and many interesting reminders of the man who willed the refuge.

The first little chapel that was built has long since been succeeded by an imposing edifice, rich in marbles and windows of stained glass. A music hall of stately dimensions, seating over a thousand people, graces a once vacant lawn. A hospital with beds for three hundred is but another addition, and still others are residences for the governor of the institution, the chaplain, physician, engineer, matron, steward, farmer, baker, and the buildings for each branch of labor required in the management of what is now a small city. In short, it has risen to the dignity of an immense institution, where a thousand old sailors are quietly anchored for the remainder of their days.

Some idea of the lavishness of the architecture can be had by entering the comparatively new church, where marble and stained glass are harmoniously combined. The outer walls are pure white marble, the interior a soothing sanctuary of many colors. Underfoot is a rich brown marble from the shores of Lake Champlain. The wainscoting is of green rep and red Numidian marble. Eight immense pillars supporting the dome are in two shades of yellow Etrurian marble, delicate and unmarked. The altar is of the same shade, but exquisitely veined with a darker coloring. Both chancel and choir floors are richly mosaiced, the chancel steps being of the same delightful coloring as the piers. To the left of the chancel is the pulpit, an octagonal structure of Alps green, with bands and cornices of Etrurian and Sienna marble supported on eight columns of alternate Alps green and red Numidian, finished with a brass railing and Etrurian marble steps. The magnificent organ, with its two thousand three hundred or more pipes, is entirely worthy its charming setting. Over all falls the rich, warm-tinted light from numerous memorial windows, each a gem in design and coloring. On one of these the worshiper is admonished to “Be of good cheer, for there shall be no loss of life among ye, but only of the ship.”

Admonish as one may, however, the majority of the old seamen are but little moved by such graven beauty; being hardened in simple, unorthodox ways. Not a few of them are given to swearing loudly, drinking frequently, snoring heavily on Sundays and otherwise disporting themselves in droll and unsanctified ways. To many of them this institution appears to be even a wasteful affair, intended more to irritate than to aid them. Not a few of them, as you may guess, resent routine, duty, and the very necessary officials, and each other. Although they possess comfortable and even superior living apartments, wholesome and abundant food, good clothing, abundant clean linen, a library of eight thousand volumes, newspapers, periodicals, time and opportunity for the pursuit of any fad or fancy, and no restrictions at which a reasonable man could demur, still they are not entirely happy. Life itself is passing, and that is the great sorrow.

And so occasionally there is to be found in that portion of the basement room from which the light is debarred, looking out from behind an iron door upon a company of blind mariners who occupy this section, working and telling stories, a mariner or two in jail. And if you venture to inquire, his mates will volunteer the information that he is neither ill nor demented but troubled with that complaint which is common to landsmen and sailors, “pure cussedness.” In some the symptom of this, I am told, will take the form of an unconquerable desire to go from room to room in the early morning and pull aged and irate mariners from their comfortable beds. In others it has broken out as a spell of silence, no word for any one, old or young, official or fellow resident. In another drunkenness is the refuge, a protracted spell, resulting in dismissal, with an occasional reinstatement. Another will fight with his roommate or his neighbor, sometimes drawing a chalk line between the two halves of a double room and defying the other to cross it at peril of his life. There have been many public quarrels and fights. Yet, all things considered, and age and temperament being taken into consideration, they do well enough. And not a few have sufficient acumen and industry to enter upon profitable employments. For there are many visitors, to whom useful or ornamental things can be sold. And a few of these salts will even buy from or trade with each other.

In consequence one meets with an odd type of merchant here and there. There is one old seaman, for instance, a relic of Federal service in “’61,” whose chamber is ornamented to the degree of confusion with things nautical, most of which are for sale. To enter upon him one must pass through a whole fleet of small craft, barks, brigs, schooners and sloops--the result of his jacknife leisure--arranged upon chests of drawers. Still another, at the time I visited the place, delighted in painting marine views on shells, and a third was fair at photography, having acquired his skill after arriving at the Harbor. He photographed and sold pictures of other inmates and some local scenes. Many can and do weave rugs and mats, others cane chairs or hammocks or fish-nets. Still others have a turn for executing small ornaments which they produce in great numbers and sell for their own profit. No one is compelled to work, and the result is that nearly all desire to. The perversity of human nature expresses itself there. In the long, light basement corridors, where it is warm and cozy, there are to be found hundreds of old sailors, all hard at work defying monotony with rapid and skilful finger movements.

All of these are not friendly, however, and many are vastly argumentative. No subject is too small nor any too large for their discussion in this sunlit forum. Especially are they inclined to belittle each other’s experiences when comparing them with their own important past, and so many a word is passed in wrath.

“I hain’t a-goin’ to hear sich rubbish,” remarked one seaman, who had taken offense at another’s detailed account of his terrible experience in some sea fight of the Civil War. “Sich things ain’t a-happenin’ to common seamen.”

“Yuh don’t need to, yuh know,” sarcastically replied the other. “This here’s a free country, I guess, ’cept for criminals,--and they hain’t all locked up, as they should be.”

“So I thought when I first seed yuh,” came the sneering reply, and then followed a hoarse chuckle which was only silenced by the stamping away of an irate salt with cheeks puffed out in rage.

Nearly all are irritatingly independent, resenting the least suggestion of superiority with stubborn sarcasm or indifference. Thus one, who owned his own ship once and had carefully refrained from whistling in deference to the superstitious line: “If you whistle aloud you’ll call up a blow; if noisy you’ll bring on a calm,” met another strolling about the grounds exuberantly indulging a long-restrained propensity to “pipe the merry lay.”

“I’ll bet you wouldn’t whistle aboard my ship,” said he insinuatingly.

“Yeh! But I ain’t aboard yer ship, thankee--I’m on my own deck.” And “Haul in the bow lines; Jenny, you’re my darling!” triumphantly swelled out on the evening breeze.

Down on the unplaned planks of the Snug Harbor wharf a score of old salts, regardless of slivers, sit the livelong day and watch the white-winged craft passing up and down. Being “square-riggers”--that is, having served all their lives aboard ship, barks and brigs--they look with silent contempt upon the fore and aft vessels of the harbor as they sail by. Presently comes, “Hello, Jim! Goin’ to launch her?” from one who is contemplating with a quizzical eye a little weazened old man who comes clambering down the side of the dock with a miniature ship under his arm and a broad smile of satisfaction on his face.

“Ay, that’s it,” answers the newcomer. He has spent many weeks in building the little ship and now will be decided whether or not his skill has been wasted on a bad model. At once the critical faculty of the tars on the dock is engaged, and he of the boat becomes the subject of a brisk discussion. Sapient admonitions, along with long squirts of tobacco juice, are vouchsafed, the latter most accurately aimed at some neighboring target. Sarcasm is not wanting, the ability of the builder as well as the merit of his craft coming in for comment. The launching of such a craft has even engendered bitter hatreds and not a few fights.

We will say, however, that the craft is successfully launched and with sails full spread runs proudly before a light wind. In such a case invariably all the old sailors will look on with a keen squint and a certain tremor of satisfaction at seeing her behave so gallantly. Such being the case, the builder is at liberty to make a few sententious remarks anent the art of shipbuilding--not otherwise. And he may then retire after a time, proud in his knowledge and his very certain triumph over those who would have scoffed had they had the slightest opportunity.

I troubled to ask a number of these worthies from time to time whether, assuming they were young again, they would choose a sea-faring life. “Indeed I would, my boy,” one answered me one morning. And another: “Not I. If I were to sail four thousand times I’d be as seasick the last trip as on the first day out. Every blessed trip I made for the first five years I nearly died of seasickness.”

“Why did you keep it up, then?” I asked.

“Well, when I’d get into port everybody would ask: ‘Well, how did you like it? Are you going again?’ ‘Of course I am,’ I would answer, and went from pure shamefacedness and not to be outdone. After a while I didn’t mind it so much, and finally kept to it ’cause I couldn’t do anything else.”

One of the old basket makers at the Harbor had occupied a rolling chair in the hospital and made baskets for nearly thirty-nine years. There was still another, ninety-three years of age, who would have been there forty years the summer I was there. And withal he was a most ingenious basket maker. One of the old salts kept an eating-stand where appetizing lunches were served, and he bore the distinction of having rounded the Horn forty-nine times in a sailing vessel. He was one of the few who possessed his soul in patience, resting content with his lot and turning to fate a gentle and smiling face.

“Will you tell me of an adventure at sea?” I once asked him.

“I could,” he answered, “but I would rather tell you of thirteen peaceful years here. I came here when I was seventy, though at sixty, when I was weathering a terrible storm around the Cape with little hope of ever seeing the rising sun, I promised myself that if ever I reached home again I would stay there. But I didn’t know myself even then. My destiny was to remain on the sea for ten years more, with this Harbor for my few remaining years. At that, if I were young I would go to sea again, I believe. It’s the only life for me.”

Back of all this company of a thousand or more, playing their last parts upon this little Harbor stage, is an interesting mechanism, the system with which the institution is run. There is a clothing department, where the sailors get their new outfits twice a year. I warrant that the quizzical old salt who keeps it knows every rent and tear in every garment of the Harbor. There is a laundry and sewing department, of which the matron has charge. There is a great kitchen, absolutely clean, where is space enough to set up a score of little kitchens. At four p.m. there are visible only two dignitaries in this savory realm. At that time one slices tomatoes and the other “puts on tea” for a thousand, the number who regularly dine here. The labor of cutting great stacks of bread is done by a machine. Broiling steaks or frying fish for a thousand creates neither excitement nor hurry. The entire kitchen staff numbers thirty all told, and the thousand sailors are served with less noise and confusion than an ordinary housewife makes in cooking for a small family.

There are separate buildings devoted to baking, vegetable storing and so forth, and the steward, farmer, baker and engineer, that important quartette, has each his private residence upon the grounds. The hospital, too, is a well-kept building, carefully arranged and bright and cleanly as such institutions can be made.

Passing this place, I have often thought what a really interesting and unique and beautiful charity it is, the orderly and palatial buildings, the beautiful lawns and flowers, and then the thousand and one characters who after so many earthly vicissitudes have found their way here and who, if left to their own devices, would certainly find the world outside a stormy and desperate affair. So old and so crotchety, most of them are. Where would they go? Who would endure them? Wherewith would they be clothed and fed? And again, after having sailed so many seas and seen so much and been so independent and done heaven only knows what, how odd to find them here, berthed into so peaceful a realm and making out after any fashion at all. How quaint, how naïve and unbelievable, almost. The blue waters of the bay before them, the smooth even lawn in which the great buildings rest, the flowers, the calm, the order, the security. And yet I know, too, that to the hearts of all of these, as to the hearts of each and every one of us, come such terrific storms of restlessness, such lightnings of anger or temper, such torturing hours of ennui, beside which the windless lifelessness of Sargasso is as activity. How fierce their resentment of that onward shift and push of life that eventually loosens each and every barque from its moorings and sets it adrift, rudderless, upon the great, uncharted sea, their eyes and their mood all too plainly show. And yet here they are, and here they will remain until their barque is at last adrift, the last stay worn to a frazzle, the last chain rusted to dust. And betimes they wait, the sirenic call of older and better days ever in their ears--those days that can never, never, never be again.

Who would not be ill at ease at times? Who not crotchety, weary, contemptuous, however much he might choose to possess himself in serenity? There is this material Snug Harbor for their bodies, to be sure. But where is the peaceful haven of the heart--on what shore, by what sea--a Snug Harbor for the soul?

THE SANDWICH MAN

I would not feel myself justified mentally if at some time or other I had not paused in thought over the picture of the sandwich man. These shabby figures of decayed or broken manhood, how they have always appealed to me. I know what they stand for. I have felt with them. I am sure I have felt beyond them, over and over again, the misery and pathos of their state.

And yet, what a bit of color they add to the life of any city, what a foil to its prosperity, its ease--what a fillip to the imagination of those who have any! Against carriages and autos and showy bursts of enthusiastic life, if there be such, they stand out at times with a vividness which makes the antithesis of their state seem many times more important than it really is. In the face of sickness, health is wonderful. In the face of cold, warmth is immensely significant. In the face of poverty, wealth is truly grandeur and may well strut and stride. And who is so obviously, so notoriously poor as this creature of the two signs, this perambulating pack-horse of an advertisement, this hopeless, decayed creature who, if he have but life enough to walk, will do very well as an invitation to buy.

He is such a biting commentary on life, in one sense, such a coarse, shabby jest in another, that we cannot help but think on him and the conditions which produce him. To send forth an anæmic, hollow-eyed, gaunt-bodied man carrying an announcement of a good dinner, for instance. Imagine. Or a cure-all. Or a beauty powder. Or a good suit of clothes. Or a sound pair of shoes. And these with their toes or their naked bodies all but exposed to the world. An overcoatless man advertising a warm overcoat in winter. One from whom all and even the possibility of joy had fled, displaying a notice of joy in the shape of a sign for a dance-hall, a theater, a moving picture even. The thick-witted thoughtlessness of the trade-vulgarian who could permit this!

But the eyes of them! The cold, red, and often wet hands! The torn hats with snow on them, the thin shoes that are soppy with snow or water. Is it not a biting commentary on the importance of the individual, _as such_, that in life he may be used in such a way as this, in a single short life, as a post upon which to hang things! And that in the face of all the wealth of the world--over-production! And that in the face of all the blather and pother anent the poor, and Christ, and mercy, and I know not what else!

I once protested to an artist friend who chanced to be sketching a line of these, carrying signs, that it was a pity from the individual’s point of view, as well as from that of society itself, that such things must be. But he did not agree with me. “Not at all,” he replied. “They are mentally and physically pointless, anyhow, aren’t they? They have no imagination, no strength any more, or they wouldn’t be carrying signs. Don’t you think that you are applying your noble emotions to their state? Why shouldn’t they be used? They haven’t your emotions--they haven’t any emotions, as a matter of fact, or very rudimentary ones, and such as they have they are applying to simpler, cheaper things than you do yours. Mostly they’re dirty and indifferent, believe me.”

I could not say that I wholly disagreed with him. At the same time, I could not say that I violently agreed with him. It is true that life does queer tricks with our emotions and quondam passions at times. The ones that are so very powerful this year, where are they next? At one time we are racked and torn and flayed and blown by emotions that at another find us quite dead, incapable of any response. All the nervous ambitions, as well as the circumstances by which fine emotions and moods are at one time generated, at another have been entirely dissipated. Betimes there is nothing left save a disjointed and weary frame or a wornout brain or nervous system incapable of emotions and disturbing moods.

Yet, granting the truth of this, what a way to use the image of the human race, I thought, the image of our old-time selves! Why degrade the likeness of the thing we once were and by which once we set so much store and then expect to raise man’s estimate of man? It is written: “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain.” Why take the body of man in so shabby, so degrading a fashion? Why make a mockery of the body and mind of the human race, and then expect something superior of life? We talk of elevating the human race. Can we use ourselves as signs and then do that? It is entirely probable, of course, that the human race cannot be elevated. Very good. But if we dream of any such thing, what must such a sight do to the imagination of the world? What conception of the beauty and sweetness and dignity of life does it not aid to destroy? What lessons of hardness and self-preservation and indifference does it not teach? Does it not glorify health and strength and prosperity at the expense of every other quality? I think so. To be strong, to be well, to be prosperous in the face of the sandwich man--is there anywhere more of an anachronism?

I sometimes think that in our general life-classifications we neglect the individual, the exceptional individual, who is always sure to be everywhere, as readily at the bottom of society as at the top, as readily sandwiched between two glaring signs as anywhere else. It is quite all right to admit, for argument’s sake or our own peace of mind, that most of these men are dirty and worn and indifferent, and hence negligible; though it always seems silly to me to assume that a man is indifferent or negligible when he will pack a sign in the cold and snow in order to preserve himself. It is so easy for those of us who are comfortable to assume that the other man does not care, does not feel. Here he comes, though, carrying a sign. Why? To be carrying it because it makes no difference to him? Because he has no emotions? I don’t believe it. I could not believe it. And all the evidence I have personally taken has been to the contrary, decidedly so.

I remember seeing once, in the rush of the Christmas trade in New York City a few years ago, a score of these decidedly shabby and broken brethren carrying signs for the edification, allurement and information of the Christmas trade. They were strung out along Sixth Avenue from Twenty-third to Fourteenth Streets, and the messages which their billboards carried were various. I noticed that in the budding gayety of the time these men alone were practically hopeless, dull and gray. The air was fairly crackling with the suggestion of interest and happiness for some. People were hurrying hither and thither, eager about their purchases. There were great van-loads of toys and fineries constantly being moved and transferred. Life seemed to say: “This is the season of gifts and affection,” but it obviously meant nothing to these men. I took a five-dollar bill and had it changed into half-dollars. I stopped before the first old wizened loiterer I met, his sign hanging like a cross from his gaunt shoulder, and before his unsuspecting eyes lifted the half-dollar. Who could be offering him a half-dollar? his eyes seemed indifferently to ask at first. Then a perfect eagle’s gleam flashed into them, old and dull as they were, and a claw-like hand reached for it. No thanks, no acknowledgment, no polite recognition--just grim realization that money, a whole half-dollar, was being given, and a physical, wholly animal determination to get it. What possibilities that half-dollar seemed to hold to that indifferent, unimaginative mind at that moment! What it suggested, apparently, of possible comfort! Why? Because there was no imagination there? because life meant nothing? Not in that case, surely. A whole epic of failure and desire was written in that gleam--and we speak of them as emotionless.

I went further with my half-dollars. I learned what a half-dollar means to a man in a sandwich sign in the cold in winter. There was no case in which the eagerness, the surprise, the astonishment was not interesting if not pathetic. They were not expecting the Christmas holidays to offer them any suggestion of remembrance. It did not seem real that any one should stop and give them anything. Yet here was I, and apparently their wildest anticipations were outreached.

I cannot help thinking, as I close, of an old gray-haired Irish gentleman--for that he was, by every mark of refinement of feature and intelligence of eye--who had come so low as to be the perambulating representative of a restaurant, with a double sign strapped over his shoulders. His hair was thin, his face pale, his body obviously undernourished, but he carried himself with dignity and undisturbed resignation, though he must have been deeply conscious of his state. I saw him for a number of days during the winter season, walking up and down the west side of Sixth Avenue, and then I saw him no more. But during that time a sense of what it means to accept the slings and arrows of fortune with fortitude and equanimity burned itself deeply into my mind. He was so much better than that which he was compelled to do. He walked so patiently to and fro, his eyes sometimes closed, his lips repeating something. I wondered, what? Whether in the depths of this slough of his despond this man had not risen superior to his state, his mind on those high cold verities which after all are above the pointless little existence that we lead here, this existence with its petty gauds and its pretty and petty vanities. I hope so. But I do know that a stinging sense of the slings and arrows of fortune overcame me, never to be eradicated, and I quoted to myself that arresting, forceful inquiry of one William Shakespeare:

“For who would bear the whip and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes.
Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life?”

Not you, you think? Boast not. For after all, who shall say what a day or a year or a lifetime may not bring forth? And with Whatley cannot we all say: “There, but for the grace of God, go I”--a beggar, an outcast of fortune, a sandwich man, no less, to whom the meaning of life is that he shall be a foil to comfort, a contrast to prosperity, a commentary on health.

To be the antithesis of what life would prefer to be--what could be more degraded than that?

THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF LITTLE ITALY

One of the things that has always interested me about the several Italian sections of New York City is their love feuds. Every day and every hour, in all these sections, is being enacted those peculiarly temperamental and emotional things which we attribute more to dispositions that sensate rather than think. How often have I myself been an eye-witness to some climacteric conclusion, to some dreadful blood feud or opposition or contention--a swarthy Italian stabbing a lone woman in a dark street at night, a seemingly placid diner in some purely Italian restaurant rising to an amazing state of rage because of a look, a fancied insult, some old forgotten grudge, maybe, renewed by the sight of another. At one time, when I had personal charge of the Butterick publications, I was an immediate and personal witness to stabbings and shootings that took place under my very eye, some bleeding and fleeing adversary brushing me as he ran, to fall exhausted a little farther on. And mobs of Americans, not understanding these peculiarly deep-seated and emotional feuds, and resenting always the use of the knife or the stiletto, seeking to wreak summary vengeance upon those who, beyond peradventure, are in nowise governed by our theories or our conventions, but hark by other and more devious paths back into the Italy of the Middle Ages, and even beyond that.

The warmth of passion and tenderness that lies wrapped up in these wonderful southern quarters of our colder northern clime. The peculiarly romantic and marvelously involved series of dramatic episodes, feuds or fancies, loves or hates, politics or passion, such as would do honor to a mediæval love tale--the kind of episodes that have made the history of Italy as intricate as any in the world!

The section that has always interested me most is the one that lies between Ninety-sixth Street and One Hundred and Sixteenth on the East Side of Manhattan Island, and incloses all the territory that lies between Second Avenue and the East River. It is a wonderful section. Here, regardless of the presence of the modern tenement building and the New York policeman, you may see such a picture of Italian life and manners as only a visit to Naples and the vine-clad hills of southern Italy would otherwise afford.

Vigorous and often attractive maidens in orange and green skirts, with a wealth of black hair fluffed back from their foreheads, and yellow shawls and coral necklaces fastened about their necks; dark, somber-faced Italian men, a world of moods and passions sleeping in their shadowy eyes, decked out in bright Garibaldian shirts and soft slouch hats, their tight-fitting corduroy trousers drawn closely about their waists with a leather belt; quaint, cameo-like old men with earrings in their ears and hands like claws and faces seamed with the strongest and most sinister lines, and yet with eyes that flash with feeling or beam with tenderness; and old women, in all forms of color and clothing, who chatter and gesticulate and make the pavements resound with the excitement of their everyday bargaining.

This, truly, in so far as New York is concerned, is the region of the love feud and the balcony. If you will stand at any of the cross-streets that lead east from Second Avenue you will obtain a splendid panorama of the latter feature, window after window ornamented with a red or green or orange iron balcony and hung, in the summertime, with an array of green vines and bright flower-pots that invariably suggests the love scene of Shakespeare’s famous play and the romantic love feeling of the south. Dark, poetic-looking Italians lean against doorjambs and open gateways and survey the surrounding neighborhood with an indolent and romantic eye. Plump Italian mothers gaze comfortably out of open windows, before which they sit and sew and watch their chubby little children romp and play in the streets. Fat, soft-voiced merchants, and active, graceful, song-singing Italian street venders ply their various vocations, the latter turning a wistful eye to every window, the former lolling contentedly in wooden chairs, the blessings of warmth and a little trade now and again being all that they require.

And from out these windows and within these doors hang or lounge those same maidens, over whom many a bloody feud has been waged and for whom (for a glance of the eyes or the shrug of the shoulder) many of these moody-faced, somber-eyed, love-brooding Romeos have whipped out their glistening steel and buried it in the heart of a hated rival. Girls have been stabbed here, been followed and shot (I have seen it myself); petty love-conversations upon a street corner or in the adjacent park between two ardent lovers have been interrupted by the sudden appearance of a love frenzied Othello, who could see nothing for it but to end the misery of his unrequited affection by plunging his knife into the heart of his rival and into that of his fair but unresponsive sweetheart. They love and hate; and death is the solution of their difficulties--death and the silence of the grave.

“She will not love me! Then she must die!”

The wonder of the colony is the frankness and freedom with which its members take to this solution. Actually, it would seem as if this to them were the only or normal way out of a love tangle. And if you can ever contrive an intelligent conversation with any of them you will find it so. Lounge in their theaters, the _teatro marionette_, their cafés, about the open doorways and the street corners, and hear the frankness with which they discuss the latest difficulty. Then you will see for yourself how simple it all seems to them.

Vincenzo is enamored of his Elvina. So is Nicola. They give each other black looks, and when Elvina is seen by Vincenzo to walk openly with Nicola he broods in silence, meditating his revenge.

One night, when the moon is high and the noisy thoroughfare is pulsating with that suppressed enthusiasm which is a part of youth and passion and all the fervid freshness of a warm July night, Vincenzo meets them at the street corner. He is despondent, desperate. Out comes his knife--click!--and the thing is done. On the pavement lies Nicola bleeding. Elvina may be seen running and screaming. She too is wounded, mayhap to the death. Vincenzo runs and throws his hands dramatically over his head as he falls, mayhap shot or stabbed--by himself or another. Or Elvina kneels in the open street beside her lover and cries. Or Vincenzo, white-faced and calm, surrenders himself into the hands of the rough, loud swearing American policeman--and there you have it.

But ask of the natives, and see what it is they think. They will not have it that Vincenzo should not have done so, nor Elvina, nor Nicola. Love is love! Youth is youth! What would you? May not a man settle the affairs of his heart in his own way? _Perdi!_

And these crimes (as the law considers them), so common are they that it would be quite impossible to give more than a brief mention to any of a hundred or more that have occurred within as many as ten or fifteen years. Sometimes, as in the case of Tomasso Ceralli and Vincenzo Matti, it is a question of a married woman and an illegal passion. Sometimes, as in the case of Biegio Refino and Alessandro Scia, it is some poor cigarette-factory girl who, being used as a tool by one or more, has fallen into others’ hands and so incensed all and brought into being a feud. Sometimes, as in the case of Mollinero and Pagnani, it is a bold, bad Carmen who is not sorry to see her lovers fight.

But these stories are truly legion and in some instances the police would never have been the wiser save for a man or a woman whom the neighbors could not get out of the way in time. Once caught, however, they come bustling into the nearest station house, these strange groups of wild, fantastic, disheveled men and women, and behind them, or before, the brawny officers of our colder clime, with their clubs and oaths and hoarse comments on the folly and the murderous indecency of it all--and all in an effort to inspire awe and a preventive fear that, somehow, can never be inspired. “These damned dagos, with their stilettos! These crazy wops!” But the melancholy Italian does not care for these commands or our laws. They are not for him. Let the cold, chilly American threaten; he will carry his stiletto anyhow. It is reserved as a last resource in the face of injustice or cruelty or the too great indifference of this world and of fate.

One of the most interesting of these love affairs that ever came to my personal attention was that of Vincenzo Cordi, street musician and, in a way, a ne’er-do-well, who became unduly enraged because Antonio Fellicitti, vegetable merchant, paid too marked attention to his sweetheart. These men, typical Italians of the quarter, knew each other, but there was no feeling until the affections of both were aroused by the charms of Maria Maresco, the pretty daughter of one of the laborers of the street.

According to the best information that could be obtained at the time, Cordi had been first in the affections of the girl, but Fellicitti arrived on the scene and won her away from him. Idling about the vicinity of her house in One Hundred and Fourteenth Street he had seen her and had fallen desperately in love.

Then there was trouble, for Cordi soon became aware of the defection which Fellicitti had caused, and told him so. “You keep away,” was his threat. “Go, and come near her no more. If you do, I will kill you.”

You can imagine the feeling which this conversation engendered. You can see the gallant Antonio, eyeing his jealous rival through the long, thin slits of his shadowy, southern eyes. He keep away? Ha! Ha! Vincenzo keep him away? Ha! Ha! If Maria but loved him, let Vincenzo rage. When the time came he would answer.

And of course the time came. It was of a Sunday evening in March, the first day on which the long cold winter broke and the sun came out and made the city summer-like. Thousands in this section filled the little park, with its array of green benches, to overflowing. Thousands more lounged in the streets and sunned themselves, or swarmed the cafés where was music and red wine and lights and conversation. Still other thousands sat by open windows or on the steps in front of open doors and gossiped with their neighbors--a true forerunner of the glorious summer to follow.