Chapter XXVII: Some First Experiences 348 (7)

I introduced him to a great many of my friends, and he was most successful in reading their palms correctly. A little later, a lady called upon me, asking me to give her topics for newspaper work. I gave her some letters to friends of mine,—well known men, asking them to let her take an impression of their hands. She visited, among others, Mr. Russell Sage, Mr. Chauncey Depew and Sir Henry Irving, who was in town, taking impressions of their hands on paper with printer’s ink. She also entered the Tombs and obtained the impression of the hand of a notorious forger. These she took to Cheiro, and without knowing whose hands they were he read each and every one correctly. Among them was an impression of my own hand. He picked it up, and said immediately:

“This is the hand of my friend, Marshall Wilder.” To my mind, this was the greatest test of his powers.

The story was written up, readily sold to a newspaper, and was copied many times, widely read and commented upon. Since then Cheiro’s work has become known all over the world.

XXII

HUMAN NATURE

Magnetism and Its Elements.—Every one Carries the Marks of His
Trade.—How Men are “Sized Up” at Hotels.—Facial Resemblance of
Some People to Animals.—What the Eye First Catches.—When Faces
are Masked.—Bathing in Japan.—The Conventions in Every-Day Life
that Hide Us from Our Fellows.—Genuineness is the One Thing
Needful.

The oftener a man—any man, from the beginner at vaudeville to the great actor or orator—appears before audiences, the more he is impressed by the many varieties of human nature and the many ways there are of comprehending it.

A few people who have to meet large numbers of their fellow-beings have no trouble on this score, for they possess something that for lack of a better name is called magnetism. Some actors who are full of faults succeed by means of this quality; twenty times as many who are more intelligent and thorough fail through lack of it. The same may be said of Congressmen, lawyers, preachers and presidents. Magnetism seems to be a combination of sensitiveness, affection, impulse and passion, so it is not strange that only a few people of any profession possess it.

For instance, go into Weber & Fields when both Lillian Russell and Fay Templeton are on the bill. The former delights the eye and ear, for she is beautiful with a charming voice. Yet Miss Templeton gets beyond the eye and ear to the heart; she takes possession of the company as well as of the audience; even the “chorus”—and the chorus is noted for paying no attention to anything or anybody but itself and its personal friends—loves Fay Templeton and manifests close interest in her work.

But one need not be on the stage to study human nature. Wherever there is a successful business organization, there you will find close observers of human nature. Go into a great hotel—the Astoria for instance—and even the bell-boys are adepts to it. Walk down the lobby, supposing yourself unobserved, and you are “sized up” at once. If you are a reporter, the whole house from the bell-boys to the head clerk know that you are not of a class that can be “pigeon-holed.” The Southern man, with his family on a pleasure jaunt, is accurately “tabbed” at once. So is the public man—not always by his clothes, but by his manner. The “drummer” signifies his business by a side-to-side movement, something like a wheat-hopper in an elevator. The prominent man betrays himself by using his legs as if they were intended solely to hold up his body, which, no matter how well off he may be, is almost sure to have an empty buttonhole somewhere. The needy man is likely to be carefully clad, but his trousers are out of season, a trifle short and pieced out with gaiters. The hotel clerk takes in all these signs at a glance, and gives answers and rooms accordingly.

I believe many men size up people by resemblances to animals; I know I do, and with uniform success—when I select the right animal; so my mind contains a menagerie of acquaintances and a few strangers not yet identified. It is almost impossible to see a man with a fox-face without finding him foxy. Then there are monkey faces, with eyes close together and shifty—eyes that seem to look into each other. Beware of them! I have heard good housekeepers say that they prefer servants with eyes wide apart, for the other kind have invariably been connected with missing silver and other portable property. Nearly every criminal whose portrait appears in the “Rogues’ Gallery” has monkey eyes; the criminal class is recruited from this type.

The bulldog face may be seen every day among the never-give-up men in every business. The late William M. Evarts’ face suggested the eagle, and he made some great fights side by side with our national bird. What is the matter with Joseph H. Choate as the owl, the late Recorder Smyth as the hawk, Dr. Parkhurst as the wary tabby on watch for the mouse? We have some orators who look like pug-dogs; preachers who resemble fashionably sheared poodles, and I know one unmistakable Dachshund of the pulpit. Strong combinations are occasionally seen; Roger A. Pryor suggests a clean-cut greyhound with the face of a mastiff. Other men resemble great-hearted St. Bernards, with intelligent eyes and a reserve force that is never squandered on trifles or bickerings. Daily, one may see a man in a carriage with his dog, and the two look so alike that you hesitate to say which dog is driving.

The first thing apt to be noticed about a man is his hat; then his shoes, collar and clothes in the order named; the face is generally left to the last, though it should be the first. Nothing is so significant to me as the eye, especially if it won’t look straight at me. Some men of great mental vitality carry so much strength focalized in the eye that they absolutely absorb. After an earnest conversation with such a person one feels as if he had done a day’s work.

Men often suggest their business occupations by their walk. A dentist displays the gait and bearing he has when he is coming to the side of your chair to draw a tooth. A printer carries his arm forward, as if feeling for the “case.” The preacher you can almost hear saying “Now we will hear from Brother Hawkins.” The rôles of stage people stick to them on the outside; the tragedian I rarely mistake; the “leading man” can’t get rid of his descriptive look. The villain and the comedian you will know apart, although, strange to say, their real characters are generally diametrically opposite to the parts they play.

Faces are like looking-glasses; they generally reflect the treatment they receive. Driving in the park, the wealthy lady wants Mrs. Jones to know she is on deck—footman, mountings, dog-chairs and all. You can tell her by the “Oh-have-I-to-go-through-with-this-again?” sort of look. The young Wall Street plunger’s face says, “You thought I wouldn’t be here, eh? well, here I am.” One man’s face tells you he is driving with his sweetheart; the simple soft quietude of one woman’s face tells you that she is beyond all else a mother.

As a rule, however,—and more’s the pity—a man’s real nature is obscured when he is in pursuit of gain—absorbed in business, of any kind. You would no more know him then, than you would your own house-cat when the Mr. Hyde side of his nature crops out on your garden fence late at night. Two boys were selling newspapers on a car; the larger in his eagerness for business, pushed the other off. The little fellow fell, dropped and scattered his papers and began to cry. Instantly the big boy was a different being; he lost all thought of business, hurried to his disabled rival, put the little chap on his feet and got his papers together for him.

Some people have a magnetic manner that is both instant and quelling in its effect. A certain woman enters a parlor, and for some subtle, indefinable reason all eyes are fixed upon her. She may not be brilliant yet she holds the winning hand; she bears on her face “a royal flush,” yet let her go out and some inferior will say, “now that she’s gone, we can talk about her.” Her quality is generally called instinctive, but probably it was slowly acquired, for lives are like lead-pencils—it takes long experience to sharpen them so they will leave a clear, keen line. Sometimes this line appears in the profile, which I have often believed a sure indication of character; so did Talleyrand.

Human expression is much affected by geographical location and custom. An American in Japan asked his host’s servants for a bath, and was soon informed it was ready. As he saw nothing to indicate its whereabouts, he asked,

“Where?”

“Look out into the garden, sir.” He looked and saw his hostess and host, the latter being governor of the town, awaiting him, beside an artificial pool, and entirely nude. He was told that according to Japanese custom the first plunge is the right of the guest, so there was no time to lose, for the good people were shivering while they waited. The guest went out looking like Adam before the downfall, and much embarrassed besides. Stepping into the water he found it too hot and begged for cold water; the Japanese take only warm baths, but at once the pool was emptied and cold water was turned in. Meanwhile the lord and lady stood as unadorned as Greek statues, this being Japanese custom while waiting at a bath. Such a performance in New York would cause even Tammany to rally around Dr. Parkhurst, but in Japan it “goes.” This gentle, courteous, considerate family also expressed wonder at the straightness of their guest’s legs, their own being bent through the habit of sitting on them in tailor-fashion;—Japanese custom again.

When men do not act in accordance with their looks, some tradition or custom of their ancestors or associates will account for it; a man is generally a Democrat because his father was one, though it doesn’t invariably follow that because “the governor” is a total abstainer the “Martigny” is unknown to his son. Men unconsciously initiate other men and their ways, because other men have done it. We dress in black when some one dear to us dies.

Why, oh men of Athens, do we do these things? Should any dear relative of mine die, I think I would go to the theatre that night,—if I felt like it. I believe, with Mr. Beecher, in rose-colored funerals; not in those which are gray and ghostly with ashes. There is too much convention about these things. Why do we have all the formal funerals, when the only real sentiment is attended to by the hearts of the bereaved? When the body is dead it should be put away quietly, kindly, reverently, but without any display of tears—and without the cards and flowers. They are the style, you know, but—why cards? Why shouldn’t we send flowers anonymously, so as to spare the real mourners the pains of writing an acknowledgment? Let us steer clear of conventional sorrow when we can, for there is enough of the real article to go round. If the night must come, sprinkle it with stars; if there be the winding sheet of snow, tinkle sleigh bells over it. The living want your love far more than the dead want your tears.

But, after all that can and must be said against it, human nature is kind. Deceit, love of gain, suspicion and even violence are often mere means of defense. Get through the joints of any one’s every-day armor and reach the heart and the same sweet response of sympathy rings out, the world over, in tones as mellow as old Trinity’s chimes on New Year’s eve, and self-disguised people become genuine. For illustration, let an old man or old woman enter a streetcar crowded with men whose faces are hard with business cares; why every seat is at their disposal; there is the genuineness of the people.

Yet if we were all and always genuine there would be no human nature to study, for “Truth is simple, requiring neither study nor art.”

XXIII

SUNNY STAGE PEOPLE

“Joe” Jefferson.—I Take His Life.—His
Absent-Mindedness.—Jefferson and General Grant.—Nat Goodwin and
How He Helped Me Make Trouble.—Our Bicycling Mishap.—Goodwin
Pours Oil on Troubled Dramatic Waters Abroad.—George
Leslie.—Wilton Lackaye.—Burr McIntosh.—Miss Ada Rehan.

Every class of people on earth contains a pleasing number of cheery folk, but far the greatest proportion is found in the theatrical profession. Get together, if you can, all the companionable, hospitable souls of all other classes and the stage people by themselves can make almost as good a showing. When talking of them I never know where to begin or how to stop, for they have loaded me with kindnesses, and began it when I was on the extreme outer edge of a profession which they regarded as a mere side show to their own.

Years ago when I was on the lecture platform I used to have some cloudy hours, in spite of my efforts to be sunny, for, unlike theatrical people, lecturers are usually their own only traveling companions, the railway runs are long, the engagements are what the dramatic agents call “one night stands,” so the stops are so short that the lecturer has no chance to adapt his digestive apparatus to the surprises that unknown chefs of unknown hotels delight in springing upon him. Years ago—as I said a moment ago, I was thinking of all these miseries, as I left a train at Utica on a snowy, stormy afternoon of the Christmas holidays, when I specially longed to be with some friends in New York. I had four blank hours before me, for I was not to appear on the platform until evening, and it was one of the days when I was too tired to study or read and too shaken up to sleep. Suddenly a negro porter in drawing-room car uniform accosted me with:

“Mr. Wilder, Mr. Jefferson would like to see you.”

He pointed to the right, and there in the window of a parlor car, sidetracked for the day only, stood “Joe” Jefferson. When I got into the car and looked about me I saw the great “all-star” cast of “The Rivals”—dear Mme. Ponisi, Mr. John Drew, Viola Allen, W. J. Florence, Otis Skinner, Frederic Paulding, Frank Bangs, George Dunham, Elsie C. Lombard (now Mrs. John T. Brush), and Mr. Jefferson’s sons, Tom, Charlie, Joe, Jr., and Willie.

These good people were all seated around the dining-table of the special car that I entered, and the cordial greeting I received, combined with the contrast with “all-outdoors” and all else that had been depressing me, made me the happiest man on the continent. I remained there two or three hours, partly because, when manners suggested I should go, I was forcibly detained. I told stories whenever I could, but I was more entertained than entertaining. The time came when I was really obliged to go and I said:

“Mr. Jefferson, I am booked here to-night at a church, and I must begin my hour-long entertainment at seven o’clock.”

“Well, Marshall,” was the reply, “that will give you a chance to see our performance, so we’ll reserve a box for you.”

I thanked him, seized my bag, hurried to a hotel and prepared for my work. The church in which I appeared was crowded—packed, in fact; I afterward learned that, although I was well and properly paid, there had been no charge for admission. When I reached the theatre the house was only half full, but the performance of “The Rivals” was of full size. After the curtain fell I went to my hotel, packed my bag and hurried to the station; I had almost two hours to spare, but there are times when the station is more interesting than the hotel. Soon Charlie Jefferson stumbled over me and took me back to the company’s car, where I had supper with the entire cast.

My train was due about an hour after midnight and as I rose to make my adieux, Mr. Jefferson looked kindly down on me, took me by the ear and said, in his own inimitable plaintive manner,

“Friends, I want you to look at this little scoundrel. He comes up here from New York; we entertain him; we dine him for three hours, he queers our house, yet gets a big fee for his own work. We again entertain him for hours by giving a “Rival” show, and yet he is not satisfied without taking my life”—with this he handed me a beautifully bound book, “Memoirs of Joseph Jefferson,” with the inscription in the fly-leaf, “Presented to my little friend, Marshall P. Wilder.”

Everybody tells stories of Jefferson’s absent-mindedness, and he sometimes tells them himself. I can venture to repeat two which he himself has told. A friend of young Joe was making a long visit at Mr. Jefferson’s house, so the comedian saw him at the table every day for a fortnight. One evening young Joe took his friend to the Player’s Club, in New York. The elder Jefferson was there, and on being reminded of the young man’s presence he said cordially,

“My boy, I’m very glad to meet you. Why don’t you come up and see us? Do come and make me a visit.”

But here is Jefferson’s star story against himself.

“I was in a down-town office building in New York, a few years ago, and when I entered the elevator a short stout gentleman with a cigar in his fingers spoke to me, saying,

“‘How do you do, Mr. Jefferson?’

“‘I am very glad to see you,’ I replied. He continued,

“‘You don’t know me, do you, Mr. Jefferson?’

“‘Well, really, you must pardon me, but your face is quite familiar but your name has escaped my memory.’

“‘My name is Grant,’ he said quietly, with a twinkle in his eye. I got out at the next floor; I was so afraid I might ask him if he had been in the war.”

But there is no accounting for absent-mindedness. Charles Wyndham, the English comedian, tells of an enthusiastic hunter, a man who thought of nothing else. One morning his wife saw him leaving the house and asked:

“Where are you going?”

“Hunting,” was the reply.

“But where is your gun?”

“Bless me! I was sure I had left something behind.”

Regarding sunny-hearted actors, it is well to remember that they too have troubles peculiarly their own, and one of the worst is to have an impulse where only solemnity is in order. Nat Goodwin who has been making audiences laugh for the last thirty years and I “took” a certain degree of masonry together, and as all masons know, the proceedings were quite as solemn as a church ceremony. Taking the degree with us was a worthy German, whose hold on the English language was both weak and spasmodic, as was manifested when it became our duty to repeat certain obligations, sentence or sentences after an officer of the lodge. Both Goodwin and I were fully impressed by the gravity of the occasion, yet we could not help hearing that German; he had a dialectic utterance that would have driven a Philadelphia vaudeville audience wild with delight and although he caught the sense of all the responses required of us, he unconsciously repeated many of them backward according to the constructive forms of the German language.

Goodwin and I knew it would be an unpardonable breach of decorum, as bad as laughing aloud in church in prayer time, if we gave way to our feelings. I bit my lips till they bled. Nat, less conventional, tried to stow his entire handkerchief in one side of his mouth, while he voiced the responses from the other. We had almost got full control of ourselves; the beautiful and impressive service was almost over, but when the oath was required, that engaging German repeated it backward. I yelled; Goodwin had a spasm—almost a fit.

To square ourselves, required a dinner for the entire lodge, and Goodwin and I were the hosts.

This was not the only scrape I was in with Nat Goodwin. During the bicycle craze of a few years ago, when wheels were as numerous at any good road-house as free-ticket beggars at a theatre, Nat and I met at the Casino, in McGowan’s Pass, Central Park, and he asked me to wait for him, so that we might ride home together. We found many acquaintances about the tables, remained till after dark and then started homeward on bicycles without lamps. We had not expected to be out after sunset. At that time the law was very stringent and rightly so, about lights on bicycles, so I urged haste. Luckily I had many friends among the Park Police; they knew I was not a “scorcher” and that I had proper respect for my own life, so they kindly looked aside as we passed. But Nat—well they probably had seen him on the stage again and again and been the better for it, but actors don’t wear their stage clothes and wigs and paint when they go bicycling, so none of the officers recognized him. At a turn of the road we came upon a policeman who didn’t know me either, and he shouted—“Here you fellows—stop!” I don’t believe I am a slippery chap, but I slipped past that officer before he could touch my wheel, but alas for poor Nat! he didn’t. I did not remain to hear the conversation, for I knew I could not make any useful addition to it. Goodwin was to play the next night in Boston, so I expected to see a “scare head” story in the morning paper about his arrest. But fortunately while he was reasoning with the policeman, a friend came along in a carriage and succeeded in rescuing Nat and his bicycle from the clutches of the law.

I wish the carriage had been mine for Nat Goodwin has come to my rescue more than once. I recall one of the (London) Green-room Club’s annual dinners, which Nat and I attended. It was given at the Crystal Palace; Mr. Bancroft—“Squire” Bancroft, “Squire” being his name and not a title—Mr. Bancroft was in the chair. About the middle of the evening a four cornered discussion between Sir Augustus Harris, Henry Arthur Jones, Henry Pettit and Comyns-Carr, all good fellows, became so heated that something had to be done to restore quiet, so Chairman Bancroft in a suave, diplomatic manner of which he has a mastery, arose and said,

“Gentlemen, we’re here to-night for a good time. Let’s quarrel to-morrow. I take great pleasure in calling upon our American friend, Mr. Marshall P. Wilder.”

I arose, but the excitement had got all around the tables; my job was too big for me, and I could not raise a laugh.

As I dropped into my chair, the chairman called upon Mr. Goodwin. Nat got up; he began gently to spray oil on the troubled waters; then he drizzled it; showered it and finally poured it on by the tub full until he got the entire assemblage laughing and saved the day. I mean the night.

Some actors produce sunshine, that is, laughter, by direct means, others indirectly and by inversion. George Leslie and Wilton Lackaye are to the point, for Leslie is an optimist and “jollier,” while Lackaye is sarcastic. One day Lackaye said to Leslie: “The only difference between you and me is that you bless people and things and I damn them—and neither of us is on the level.”

At a dinner at the Lambs’ Club, Lackaye bet Burr McIntosh that Burr would “make a break” nine times out of ten in whatever he did, and he added, “McIntosh, I’ll let you select the times.” It was amusing to hear Lackaye say, at the beginning of every dinner,—“Burr, that bet still goes.” I believe it has not yet been decided.

But Lackaye is best when telling a joke against himself. While he was a member of the Daly Company, he said:

“Miss Ada Rehan is a charming lady, and I’ve always considered her a great comedienne—a creative one. At rehearsal one day we were standing aside and chatting, the scene not being ours and I asked off-hand,

“‘Are you a quick study?’

“‘Oh, yes, very,’ she replied. I looked at her doubtingly and asked,

“‘How long do you think it would take you to like me?’

“‘Present?—or absent?’ she asked. That floored me.”

XXIV

SUNSHINE IS IN DEMAND

Laughter Wanted Everywhere.—Dismal Efforts at Fun.—English
Humor.—The Difference Between Humor and Wit.— Composite
Merriment.—Carefully Studied “Impromptus.”—National Types of
Humor.—Some Queer Substitutes for the Real Article.—Humor is
Sometimes “Knocked Out,” Yet Mirth is Medicine and Laughter
Lengthens Life.

Perhaps the reason that the true jester is always sunny of heart and manner is that his output is always in demand. Busy though his wits and tongue may be, the demand always exceeds the supply. Laughter, like gold, is never a drug on the market, and, as is true regarding gold, people will endure some frightful substitutes rather than go without it. In countries that have no real fun in them—and there are such countries, the people insist on having laughter provided for them, even if they must depend on the public executioner to do it. It is said that in some Asiatic countries the people become wildly mirthful at the contortions of a criminal’s body from which the head has just been severed; as to that, there are solemn Americans—men who would think it sinful to smile at a comedy, who almost split their sides with laughter over the floppings of a beheaded chicken.

As to that, I assert on my honor that I have seen Englishmen laugh over the pages of _Punch_ and Frenchmen roused gleefully by a copy of _Le Petit Journal Pour Rire_, though both papers seem as dismal, to the average American, as an old-fashioned German on the doom of the finally impenitent. According to competent judges the best thing that ever appeared in _Punch_ was a poem on the death of Abraham Lincoln, which was not exactly a laughing matter. Yet the English are a good-natured people, and full of laughter. Sometimes it takes them a lot of time to get off a laugh, but, when the climax is really reached, the sound resembles an Indian war-whoop tangled up in a thunder-storm. They don’t take their pleasure sadly, for there are no more cheery-faced people in the world, but their joke-makers are not successful when at work on serious subjects. _Punch_ was never more popular than during the recent war in South Africa, when the greatest and best nation in Europe was being humiliated in plain sight of all the world by a few thousand Boers, not one in ten of whom ever fired a shot. It made me almost wish I could be an Englishman, just to see where the fun came in, for it was plain to see that it came.

But, to get back to my subject, every healthy man likes to laugh; therefore he likes whoever will make him laugh. Ella Wheeler Wilcox voiced a great truth when she wrote “Laugh, and the world laughs with you.” Men are so fond of laughing that they will endure nine wormy chestnuts, badly served, if the tenth effort produces the genuine thing. Much of the best fun comes by accident; that is, from incongruity. Two of the few immortal figures of humorous literature—Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, owe their existence to this double motif; in the knight, by idealized chivalry being put down among pigs and kitchen wenches; while the persistent coarseness and vulgarity of his squire are thrown into juxtaposition with the chivalry and splendor of lords and ladies.

Every soul, man and woman, as well as many who are not, tries to provoke smiles, but not one in a thousand succeeds; as for those who actually create new humor, their name may be called on the fingers of two hands. Almost all humorists, whether amateur or professional, get no further than to evolve variations of old forms and climaxes, but what does it matter so long as they compel a laugh? At this sort of thing Americans beat the world. A cook who can serve a dozen different soups from one kettle is a bungler when compared with the American joker.

Mark Twain says there are only seven original jokes in existence and he ought to know, yet out of them has come an output that is incomparable, in proportion, except to the evolution of the entire English language, by varying the changes on the twenty-six letters of the alphabet.

The demand for laugh-making gives employment to many who might otherwise be in far worse business. These men are the founts of inspiration for the newspapers and the stage. The press and the footlights are ever clamoring for new fun and numberless are the attempts to supply the demand and incidentally utilize it in the form of cold cash. This stimulus has produced the humorist pure and simple, the paragrapher, the comic versifier, the compounder of burlesque and the maker of witty dialogue to spice the works of serious playwrights. There is also the humorous artist; when there isn’t, there can always be found half a dozen tipsters who can’t draw a line unless they have a yardstick to help them but who have enough funny concepts on tap (and for sale) to make fame and money for all the artists in the land.

The clever impromptu you hear in a vaudeville sketch, the delicious eight line dialogue you chuckle over in the morning paper, the flashing contest of wit you enjoy in a society drama often represent the labor, not of one but of a half dozen intellects trained to the elaboration of humorous conceits.

If all the humor which appears daily in print and on the stage could be clipped and put into scrap-books, it would fill forty large volumes in a year, yet nine-tenths of it—yes nine hundred and ninety-nine one thousandth would consist of variations of old facts, personalities, situations and plays upon words.

Besides all these clever fellows and their works, there are specialists in many other lines. Even a language serious enough in itself, may be so twisted as to make people laugh, especially if the twist can be nicknamed “dialect”; so we have the purveyor of German humor (so called) the manufacturer of Irish “bulls,” the sedlac of French jokes, the broker in Italian bon-mots, and a few days ago I heard of a cosmopolitan individual with a high sounding Celt-Iberian name, who offered to supply a prominent comedian with the latest humor of Portugal and Brazil. I don’t doubt that before long some enterprising Mongolian will be trotting around among vaudeville managers with a stock of the latest _jeux d’esprit_ of Chinatown, Canton, and Hong-kong, or that some one will put them in good enough shape to make people laugh. Good luck to them, for after all, the laugh is the thing. No one joke will be equally amusing to everybody, for each person has his own ideas of fun. For instance on a sunny Sunday afternoon in the country, a lot of good healthy minded folks will munch red winter apples and gather round the piano and sing “Happy Day,” and other Sunday-school songs, and look as full of fun as any comedian’s audience. And the grab-bag at the church fair! Around it there is more fun visible in human faces, than some great men get out of the cleverest jokes ever cracked. There is no end to fun, no more than there is to the melodies that keep rising, like birds from the eight keyed home of song, that octave that reaches from “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay” to “Tannhäuser.”

And there is no need of it all, for “mirth is medicine and laughter lengthens life.” That is what my good friend Colonel Robert Ingersoll wrote under his picture which adorns my wall. The Colonel was one of us entertainers, though not professionally. Our merry champion he! The spirit of his tender epigram seems to haunt the dim twilight ways of men, looking with cheery solicitude for those who are weary, to take them by the hand and tell them tales full of dawn and breaking day, and rush of rosy life in rising sun. It stands on the side of light and love along the paths where flowers bloom and birds are glad in song. And it is needed, for from the start, there has been a fight between merriment and misery and the latter has its stout advocates. The gloomster and the jester have ever been sparring for paints and sometimes the jester has gone down under swinging right-handers; then, something that its enemies call Puritanism, probably because it hates all purity not of its own peculiar brand, has clapped its hands, all smeared with brimstone, until you could see the blue flames of the place that Ingersoll said didn’t exist.

XXV

“BILL” NYE

A Humorist of the Best Sort.—Not True to His Own Description
of Himself.—Everybody’s Friend.—His Dog “Entomologist” and
the Dog’s Companions.—A Man With the Right Word for Every
Occasion.—His Pen-Name was His Own.—Often Mistaken for a
Distinguished Clergyman.—Killed by a Published Falsehood.

In one respect entertainers closely resemble preachers;—they greatly enjoy listening to the greater members of their own profession. Consequently, I never lost a chance to listen to Bill Nye, and I worship the memory of him as he was—a gentle yet sturdy and persistent humorist of so good a sort, that he never could help being humorous, no matter how uncongenial the surroundings. Although he saw hundreds and thousands of chances of hitting other men so hard that the hurt would last forever, he dropped every one of them and trampled them so hard that they never dared show their faces again. He was an apostle of the Golden Rule, which he exemplified in himself, so there never was a sting in his jokes; gentle raillery was the sweetest thing he ever attempted, and even this he did with so genial a smile and so merry an eye, that a word of his friendly chaffing was worth more than a cart-load of formal praise.

I speak what I do know, for he and I were close friends for many years before his untimely death, and he was so solicitous for my welfare and comfort, that after he had played father and mother to me successfully, he couldn’t help going on till he had become my grandfather and grandmother, as well as a number of sisters and cousins and aunts.

I don’t believe he ever had an enemy but himself, and he injured himself only by his peculiarities of self-description. Any one reading his humorous articles would imagine him an undersized scrawny backwoods invalid with an irritable disposition and an unquenchable thirst for something else than water. In reality he was a tall, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, healthy, genial chap so in love with the mere fact of living, that he took scrupulous care of himself in every way. He was as abstemious as any clergyman who is not a total abstainer, and he never lost his temper except when some deliberate scoundrelism was inflicted upon him. He would go out of his way—a whole day’s journey out of his way, with all the railway fares and other discomforts in such cases made and provided,—to help a friend out of a sick bed or other trouble, and he endured all the torments of a busy entertainer’s season on the road as cheerfully, as if he were perpetual holder of the record for patience.

People often wondered how he could go on year after year digging the same kind of fun out the same old vein, but the secret was that he lived right in the centre of that vein and was merely digging his way out of it. He had a full assortment of polite commonplaces, and carried them as gracefully as he did his full-dress clothes, but as soon as he got well acquainted with a man—and it didn’t take him long to get inside of any decent fellow’s waistcoat—he would talk in his characteristic droll manner all day and seven days a week, and as much longer as they two traveled together.

As seriously as if he were talking of audiences or hotel tables or railway nuisances, he told me a story of a dog he had owned. It was a Dachshund, and Nye described him as two and a-half dogs long by one dog high. He had named the animal “Entomologist,” because it was a collector of insects. In fact, the dog lived up to his name so strenuously that something had to be done. A friend suggested soaking the dog in kerosene, saying,

“If it doesn’t rid the dog of fleas, it will rid you of the dog.”

So kerosene was tried and the dog passed away. After all was over Bill felt so bad that he went out for a walk, which did him no good. Returning home with dejected spirits and a sorrowing soul, he was smitten afresh with remorse when he realized that there would be no little dog awaiting him. But yes, surely there was something on the steps. Looking closer he saw seven hundred fleas sitting there, and they all looked up into his face as if to say,

“When are you going to get us another dog?”

Few of the great world’s great dispatches contained so much wisdom in so few words as Nye’s historic wire from Washington—

“My friends and money gave out at 3 A. M.”

He had an enviable faculty for suppressing annoyances in the course of an entertainment—something more dreaded by any entertainer than a thin house. In the course of one of his lectures in Minneapolis a late-comer had some difficulty about his seat, and lingered inside the inner door to voice some loud protestations. Of course every head in the audience turned toward the door;—anything for a change, no matter how good a thing has been provided.

Nye endured the disturbance for some time; then he said politely but icily,

“This is a large auditorium, and a difficult one in which to hear, but fortunately we are provided with a speaker at each end of the house.” It is needless to say which speaker received attention after that.

Mr. Nye was engaged to speak at Columbus, Ohio, in a newly-finished church with which the minister and his flock were as well pleased as a small boy with his first pair of trousers. So, in a short preliminary and self-congratulatory address the minister referred to the church edifice, called attention to its many details of architectural beauty and convenience, and laid special stress on its new and improved system of exits.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” drawled Nye a moment later, “I have appeared in a great many cities, but this is the first time I have been preceded by any one instructing the audience how to get out.”

Every man has his special trouble, but Nye had two; one was the reluctance of the public to believe that his pen name was his real name, and the other was the persistency of some people at mistaking for another fine fellow in a somewhat different public position—The Rev. Morgan Dix, D. D., LL. D., Rector of Trinity Parish, New York. Mr. Dix’s stories are as good as his sermons, which is saying a great deal, and Nye’s face when in repose suggested a man who could preach a strong sermon of his own. Nevertheless, it is awkward to be mistaken for any one but yourself. As to his name, every one who heard of Bill Nye associated him mentally with the oft-quoted person of the same name who first appeared in Bret Harte’s poem “The Heathen Chinee,” and assumed that the humorist’s professional name was assumed. The poor chap explained at length, through a popular magazine, that he came honestly by his name, having been christened Edgar William Nye and nicknamed “Bill” from his cradle, but to his latest days he was besieged by autograph-hunters who asked for his signature—“your real name, too, please.”

This genial man of cleanly life and good habits was brutally slaughtered by the public to whom for years he had given laughter and sunshine. People throughout the country turned against him when they heard the first breath of calumny. Without waiting to hear whether the story told of him was true or false, “The Dear Public” treated him so meanly that it crushed his spirit, sturdy, honest man though he was, broke his heart, and caused his death within a year.

It came about at Paterson, New Jersey, where he had been engaged to deliver a lecture. He had been suffering greatly from insomnia, for which expert medical direction he had taken a certain anodyne (non-alcoholic). Before his evening nap preceding the lecture he may have taken an overdose, or it may have worked slower than usual. Whatever the medical cause—for he had taken nothing else, he was drowsy and slow of speech on the platform. To make matters worse from the start, he tumbled over a loose edge of carpet as he came before the audience; although very near sighted, he had good professional precedents for disliking to wear glasses on the platform, otherwise his eyes might have saved his feet. But the succession of accident and manner impressed the audience wrongly. When the lecture was over some rough characters who had been in the audience followed Nye’s carriage to the railway, throwing eggs at it and whooping like demons.

Next morning almost all the New York papers published the report that Mr. Nye had appeared before an audience the night before in an outrageously intoxicated condition, and had been egged off the platform! Newspapers are entirely at the mercy of the men whom they employ to collect news for them; some which used the Paterson story were honest enough to publish corrections afterward, but no correction is ever strong and swift enough to catch up with a lie. What I have said regarding the causeless cause of the untimely death of a humorist who can never be replaced is of my own knowledge; I was very close to Mr. Nye in the last year of his life and know what he thought and said.

I also had a strange reminder of the night on which the story started. Some of the audience had complained to the lecture committee that they had not received their money’s worth, so it was decided to give another lecture without charge, to make amends for the disappointment. I chanced to be the man chosen to give the entertainment which was to apply salve to the wounded pockets of that audience, though I did not know it at the time. I did notice however, that the committee seemed to be “in a state of mind” and urged me to do my best. It also seemed to me that, metaphorically speaking, the entire audience had a chip on its shoulder; still, I succeeded in pleasing it.

After I had finished I learned that I had been selected to pacify the very people whose ignorance, stupidity and folly had caused the death of a good man who had been my friend. By a sad coincidence, it was on that very day that dear Bill Nye was buried!

XXVI

SOME SUNNY SOLDIERS

General Sherman.—His Dramatic Story of a Trysting-place.—The
Battle of Shiloh Fought Anew.—Sherman and Barney
Williams.—General Russell A. Alger On War.—General Lew
Wallace.—The Room in Which He Wrote “Ben Hur.”—His Donkey
Story.—General Nelson A. Miles and Some of His Funny Stories.—A
Father Who Wished He Had Been a Priest.

Soldiers are popularly supposed to be the grimmest men in the world, but I have found them a jolly lot, and the more prominent they were the greater the assortment of fun in them.

The first of the military profession whom I came to know well was General Sherman, and I never had a kindlier or cheerier friend. He had no end of good stories at his tongue’s end, and no one cared if they were funny or serious when Sherman told them, for his manner was so earnest and animated that it was a treat to listen to him and look at him. Besides having a fluent tongue and a voice with no end of modulation, he talked also with his eyes and all his features, his head, hands and shoulders. It used to seem to me that a deaf man could understand all that Sherman was saying. He was one of the few talkers who could interest all sorts and conditions of hearers, from wise men and women, to simple boys and girls. Speaking of girls, reminds me of a story that General Sherman told one day at a dinner I attended with my friend Col. John A. Cockerill:

“When I was driving one day with General Grant, I asked him what he was going to have as a hobby, now that the war was over. He answered promptly, ‘Horses,’ and continued,

“‘What’s to be yours, Sherman?’ and I replied,

“‘Oh, I’ll take the girls!’ My fondness for the fair sex seems to be pretty well known, but I’m not ashamed of it; on the contrary, I’m very proud of it, for I don’t know of any better company than nice girls of all ages—say from a hundred minutes to a hundred years. My fondness for them began early; why, when I was a mere boy I had a little sweetheart down South of whom I was very fond. We used to take long walks in the scented pine woods, and ride down the white ‘pikes’; but our favorite spot—it became almost a trysting-place,—was a little hill on her father’s plantation. No matter where we rode or walked, we were pretty sure to find our way to that spot, for it commanded a view of all the country round, yet it could scarcely be seen from the lower ground, for some pine-trees screened it.

“But this love idyl of mine came to naught, like many other boyish affairs. I went to West Point, the girl married another fellow and the next time I found myself in that part of the country was on the day of a desperate battle. The enemy was pressing us closely, we were contesting every step, yet losing ground, for lack of a good position for our batteries. Trees were so numerous that it seemed impossible to find a clearing or elevation from which the guns could be served to advantage.

“Suddenly, in spite of a head full of business and trouble, for my aides and other men’s aides were bringing me dismal reports, and things were looking very dark, I realized where I was and remembered our beloved knoll. My mind’s eye informed me that a more perfect position for field artillery could not have been designed, for it commanded the surrounding country to the full range of our guns. Yet for a moment I hesitated. It seemed desecration, for I had absolute reverence for the ground which that dear girl’s feet had often pressed. But—yes, war _is_ hell—my duty at the moment was to the nation, so I turned to an aide, described the knoll and told how the artillery could reach it. The batteries were soon in position there, and, as most of the enemy were in the open beyond the trees, they were quickly checked by a deadly fire, and we were saved.”

This story was told as simply as I have repeated it, yet the manner of telling affected all the listeners noticeably. Colonel Cockerill leaned over me and whispered,

“I’m going to write that story up some day, Marshall, so you be careful to let it alone, and leave it to me.”

I promised, but Cockerill’s untimely death prevented him doing it. Besides, I have not attempted to “write it up.”

Sherman’s pen was quite as descriptive as his tongue, as the following letters to me will attest. One is on a subject on which he was very sore—the oft repeated story that on the first day of the battle of Pittsburg Landing, or Shiloh, our army was surprised and defeated.

“_No. 75 West 71st St., New York, Jan. 1., 1890._

“DEAR MARSHALL:—

“I thank you for sending me the printed paper containing the
observations and experiences of our friend Cockerill about the
battle of Shiloh or Pittsburg Landing, April 6 or 7, 1862.
Having leisure this New Year’s day, I have read every word of
it, and from his standpoint as a boy, four miles from the war,
where the hard fighting was done, his account was literally
true. His father (a noble gentleman) and I were fighting for
_time_ because our enemy for the moment outnumbered us, and we
had good reason to expect momentarily Lew Wallace’s division,
only six miles off, and Buell’s whole army, only twenty miles
away. By contesting every foot of ground, the enemy was checked
till night. Our reinforcements came on the 7th. We swept our
front and pursued a retreating enemy ten miles, and afterward
followed up to Corinth, Memphis, Vicksburg, etc., etc., to
the end. That bloody battle was fought April 6 and 7, 1862.
After we had actually driven our assailants back to Corinth,
twenty-six miles, we received the St. Louis, Cincinnati and
Louisville papers, that we were ‘surprised,’ bayonetted in our
beds (blankets on the ground) and disgracefully routed.

“These reports we heard at the river bank, and from steamboats
under high pressure to get well away. And such is history.

“In the van of every battle is a train of fugitives. We had at
the time 32,000 men, of which, say five or six thousand were at
the steamboat landing, but what of the others? A braver, finer
set of men never existed on earth. The reporters dwelt on the
fugitives, because they were of them, but who is to stand up
for the brave men at the front?

“We had no reporters with us. Like sensible men they preferred
a steamboat bound for Paducah and Cincinnati, where they could
describe the battle better than we, who were without pen and
ink.

“This to me, is straw already threshed, for we had fought this
battle on paper several times—a much more agreeable task than
to fight with bullets.

“When in England some years ago, I was gratified to listen to
old veterans fighting Waterloo and Sebastopol over again. So,
I infer, our children will continue the fight of Shiloh long
after we are dead and gone.

“Wishing you a Happy New Year, I am,

“Sincerely yours,

“W. T. SHERMAN.”

“_75 W. 71st St., New York, Sept. 20, 1889._

“_Marshall P. Wilder, Esq., The Alpine, New York City._

“MY DEAR MARSHALL:—

“I have now completed the first reading of the volume entitled,
‘The People I’ve Smiled With,’ and according to promise, write
to assure you that it has afforded me unusual pleasure. I
feel the better at having smiled with you, with enjoying many
a happy laugh, and moved by its pathos; and as I infer you
will have occasion to amend and add other volumes in the same
strain, I venture to suggest, as to myself, page 211 should
read, ‘some years ago, down at the little village of Paducah,
Ky., the Seventieth Ohio reported to me. Cockerill was a
drummer boy in the regiment. His father was _the_ colonel, and
had got his education in Virginia, but was true to the nation.
That regiment was with me at Shiloh, where we stood a heavy
fire, and that is what made us staunch friends. He went ahead
right straight along, as he has been doing ever since. As the
sins of the father go down to the fourth generation, as the
Bible says, it is a comfort to realize that the virtues go down
_one_.’

“The stereotype plate can easily be changed to this, and it
would be more accurate and satisfactory to military readers.

“Your anecdotes of after-dinner speakers, actors, actresses,
etc., etc., are most interesting, and soon may become historic.
I venture to add one which you can ‘stow away’ and use, or
_not_ according to your pleasure.