Samuel McChord Crothers

“ It’s a way you clever people have,—you are not content with one good and sufficient reason for your statement of fact. You must reinforce it by another of a more general character. It makes me feel as I do when, a faucet needing a new washer, I send for a plumber,—and behold twain! One would be enough, if he would attend strictly to business. Every system has its failures. If that of the present day seems to have more than its share, it is because its failures are still in evidence, while those of your generation are mostly forgotten. ”

“ It pleases the ephemeral community to make believe that it is permanent. The camp organizes itself into a city, with all the offices and dignities appertaining thereto. Civilization is extemporized like a game of dumb crambo. It amuses the citizens to see their beloved city going about in institutions several sizes too large for it. Nothing is taken literally. Humor is accepted not as a private possession, but as a public trust, and cultivated in a spirit of generous coöperation. ”

“ Sins of weakness yield to an improved environment. But what are you going to do with the man who is incapable of seeing that he is in the wrong? Treat him with compassion, and he accepts the kindness as a tribute to his own merits; attempt to punish him, and he is a martyr; reason with him, and his controversial ardor is aroused in defense of his favorite thesis.
Sometimes the lover of humanity, after he has tried everything which he can think of to make an impression on such a character and to bring him to a realizing sense of social responsibility, becomes utterly discouraged. ”

“ The editor of the Journal says, “As an example of a mind tremulously apprehensive of sin, loathing it in every form and for its own sake, avoiding even the appearance of evil, rising above all terrestrial considerations, advancing rapidly in holiness, and finding its only enjoyment in the glory of God, probably no similar work in any language can furnish a parallel.” Poor Brainerd! Every step along the heavenly way cost him a pang. He never could forget for more than a few hours at a time that he was human, and to be human was to be vile. ”

“ Each plucky Diogenes sat in its own tub, saying to its neighbors, “Get out of my sunshine!”
It was only as they turned westward that Americans discovered America,—a discovery which in some instances has been long delayed. “The West” is not merely a geographical expression, it is a state of mind which is most distinctive of the national consciousness. It is a feeling, an irresistible impulse. It is the sense of undeveloped resources and limitless opportunities. It is associated with the verb “to go.” To the American the West is the natural place to go to, as the East is the place to come from. ”

“ To enter that world we must not only lay aside our easily besetting sins, but our easily besetting virtues as well. We must cast aside all the prudential virtues, we must rid our minds of all prejudice in favor of scientific charity and rationalistic schemes of philanthropy, and we must disclaim personal responsibility for the progress of modern civilization. With such impedimenta the pilgrim of thought might possibly get as far back as the sixteenth century, but it would be impossible for him to penetrate into the thirteenth. He who would do so must first drink deep of Lethe. ”

“ Great expectations are treated with the respect that elsewhere had been reserved for accomplished facts. There is a stir in the air as if Humanity were a new family just setting up housekeeping. What a fine house it is, and how much room there is on the ground floor! What a great show it will make when all the furniture is in! There is no time now for the finishing touches, but all will come in due order. There is need for unskilled labor and plenty of it. Let every able-bodied man lend a hand.
One does not know his America until he has been touched by the Western fever. ”

“ I cannot explain to an unsympathetic reader why it was that we found life in our dusty little metropolis so charming, and why it was that we felt such pity for those who had never experienced the delights of our environment. Nor can I justify to such a reader the impulse which led a woman whose husband had died far away in New England to bring his body back to be laid to rest in the bare little cemetery amid the sage brush. ”

“ If we can only hold fast to the allegorical clue, and be assured that he is dealing with sins and not with persons, we can follow Dante through purgatory without flinching. The moral always is a good one, and full of suggestiveness.
But the moment we mistake an allegorical character for a person of flesh and blood we get into trouble. Even the most perfect parable represents only a certain phase of reality. When it is forced beyond its real intention and taken literally it shocks our sense of humanity. ”

“ The imagination of Hawthorne, brooding over the past, repeopled the House of the Seven Gables with the successive generations. But there is another kind of romance, in which the imagination is projected into the future. Looking at the new house not yet enclosed against the storm, it dreams dreams and sees visions. ”

“ America is a fresh field for human endeavor. Here are men busily making roads, bridging rivers, building new cities. They have been given the task of subduing a continent. But in such conflicts with Nature the conquered influences the conquerors. What impress does the continent make upon the minds of the hardy men who are mastering it? What visions of the future do they see which transform their drudgery into an heroic adventure? ”

“ If the choice is between commercialism and militarism we need not wonder if many an idealist chooses the latter as the less perilous course. It seems less threatening toward the things for which he cares.
The call is for a new chivalry. Our duty is not only to keep the peace, but to make a peace that is worth keeping. This is no easy task. It means the humanizing of all our activities. Everywhere a human ideal must be placed above every other kind of success. Religion must be lifted above ecclesiasticism; and business honor above the vulgar standards of commercialism. ”

“ There is a sudden thrill when we come to the ‘therefore,’ the blossoming time of the argument. We feel that we are entering into one of Nature’s secret processes. Unless our senses are deceiving us, we are actually reasoning. ”

“ When we hear of the Malthusian doctrine about population, we picture its author as a cold-blooded, economical Herod, who would gladly have ordered a massacre of the innocents. Let no one tell us that the Reverend Richard Malthus was an amiable clergyman, who was greatly beloved by the small parish to which he ministered. In spite of all his church wardens might say, we would not trust our children in the hands of a man who had suggested that there might be too many people in the world. But in such cases we should remember that a man’s theories do not always throw light upon his character. ”

“ In the work of creating a condition of peace and good will among men the Christian nations have not gone very far. But why twit on facts? Let us be reasonable. Why should we take it as a grievance that our birth has not been delayed till the Millennium, but that we have been placed among those who are responsible for bringing it in? There is a satisfaction in being allowed a part in the preliminary work. And what if many well-meant endeavors have come to nought? Let us not spend our time crying over the spilt milk of human kindness. ”

“ In two directions the expectation of moral amplitude in things American is fulfilled,—in Education and in Charity. Here we feel that the people have been aroused to the need of making plentiful provision, not only for immediate necessities, but for future growth. Along these lines we think and plan nationally.
But there are some questions which give pause to the most boastful patriot. Where is the distinctive American Art which interprets in a broad, fresh way the genius of the land, and where is the public that would recognize it and delight in it if it should appear? ”

“ The temperance agitation of the last century has not abolished drunkenness, but it has made the conception of a pious, respectable drunkard seem grotesque. It has also reduced the business of liquor-selling to a decidedly lower place in the esteem of the community. When we read to-day of the horrors of the slave trade, we reconstruct in our imagination the character of the slave trader,—and a brutal wretch he is. ”

“ The Honest Miner of the Far West is one of those typical Americans who are builders of commonwealths. His impress is upon the western half of our continent. He is a nomad, the last of a long line of adventurers to whom the delight [Pg 182] of the new world is in its newness. Sometimes his work is permanent, but he never is quite sure. His habitual mood is one of sober satire.
I know nothing more pleasant than to sit with an old-timer who has spent years in prospecting for silver and gold, and listen to his reminiscences. Here is a philosopher indeed, one with an historic perspective. ”

“ In a society where everything is measured by money, where is the limitation to despotism? What is to prevent the rich man from buying up his neighbors and using all their talents to serve his own narrow purposes? He is able to pay for the best food and drink and shelter. Why may he not bend to his will the best human ability? ”

“ They are persecuted for self-righteousness without the benefit of any beatitude. Why should we consider it unpardonable to be fully cognizant of one’s undoubted virtues? Of course unconscious virtue is the more paradisiacal, while conscious virtue often rubs one the wrong way. But while there are so many worse things in the world, why should we mind a little thing like that?
We listen to Dumas’ swashbuckling heroes recounting their transgressions. We know that they are not so bad as they would have us believe, but we think no worse of them for that. ”

“ He has the experience of the Wandering Jew, without his world-weariness. He has seen the rise and fall of cities and the successive dynasties of mining kings. His life has been a mingling of society and solitude. With his pack upon his back he has wandered into desert places where no man had been since the making of the world,—at least, no man with an eye to the main chance. A few weeks later the lonely cañon has become populated with eager fortune-seekers. The camp becomes a city which to the eyes of the Honest Miner is one of the wonders of the world. ”

“ For after all, the same principles hold good there also, and as we are forming the habit of looking at thought as a kind of plant, we may also consider it as a kind of animal,—let us say, if you please, a goldfish. You have often paused to watch the wonders of marine life as epitomized in a glass globe upon your centre-table. Those who go down to the sea in ships have doubtless seen more of the surface of waters, but they have not the same facilities for looking into its interior life that you have in your aquarium. A school of goldfishes represent for you the finny monsters of the deep. ”

“ For, in addition to other accomplishments, he plays golf, a game that develops a conscience of its own. He plays well, but his conscience tells him that he does not play as well as he might. “I belong,” he says, “to that unhappy class of beings forever pursued by remorse, who are conscious that they threw away in youth opportunities that were open to them of beginning golf at a time of life when alone the muscles can be attuned to the full perfection required by the most difficult game that perhaps exists.” ”

“ The allegorist takes a naked truth and clothes it with the garments of the imagination. Frequently the clothes do not fit and the poor truth wanders about awkwardly, self-conscious to the last degree. But if the artist be a genius the abstract thought becomes a person.
Hawthorne’s work is something more than allegory, but his mind worked allegorically. ”

“ Their characters have been painted in glaring virtues that swear at one another. We are sure [Pg 69] that we should not like such a combination of unmitigated excellencies, for human nature abhors a paragon. And yet the too highly commended person may, in reality, not be a paragon at all, but a very decent fellow. He would quickly rise in our regard were it not for the eulogies which hang like millstones around his neck.
It is no easy thing to praise another in such a way as to leave a good impression on the mind of the hearer. A virtue is not for all times. ”

“ We must not, through misdirected charity, lower the standards of self-respecting artists.
But some of us are not artists. The ordinary man is compelled to spend most of his time on pot-boilers of one kind or another. When the pot is merrily boiling, and all the odds and ends are being mingled in a savory stew, I would allow [Pg 14] the ordinary man some satisfaction. As fingers were made before forks, so mediocrity was made before genius. Has mediocrity no right to enjoy its own work, just because it is not the very best? ”

“ There is a delightful transitoriness about everything, and yet the sense that there is more where it all comes from. To the unsophisticated mind Eternity is not the negation of Time; it is having all the time one wants. ”

“ Has there been evolved a wisdom equal to the task of justly distributing what enterprise has created? We hear of American “Captains of Industry.” How far have they realized Carlyle’s idea when he gave the title to those whose success lies not in personal gain but in ability to be real leaders of men? How far has America produced great [Pg 174] captains, able to bring into commerce and manufacture the soldierly virtues of courage, loyalty, and willing obedience?
When he considers these things the just critic must say to the Republic, “Thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting.” ”

“ Persons can change their minds, they can repent and aspire after a better life, and above all they have feelings,—which abstract virtues and vices do not have. Does not the cruelty of the good chiefly arise from the fact that they do not see all this?
In a preceding essay we have considered Hawthorne’s judgment on the characters which he himself created. His most powerful story of sin and retribution wears to his eyes “a stern and sombre aspect too much ungladdened by the tender and familiar influences which soften almost every scene of Nature and real life.” ”

“ The great man should remember that most of those whose manners seem unduly respectful mean nothing personal.
As great Pompey passes through the streets of Rome, he may be pardoned for thinking meanly of the people. They appear to be a subservient lot, with no proper interests of their own, their happiness dependent on his passing smile,—and he knows how little that is worth. ”

“ It is better to fight for the good than to rail, however eloquently, against the ill. To feel for one’s native land, to unite in generous comradeship with one’s kind, to endure hardness for a noble cause,—these things are of the essence of manhood. ”

“ I, myself, like to have my fling at the man who is trying to do his duty, and to twit him occasionally for not doing more. It keeps him from self-righteousness. But sometimes it is carried too far, and the poor man staggers under a load of vicarious guilt.
I especially hate to see the man who is trying to do his duty given over to the censures of those who do not try. There is something very harsh in the judgment of the ne’er-do-well upon his well-to-do brother. ”

“ They feel that they are never taken seriously. When we go to a good play we find it so easy to be amused that we do not realize what hard work it is for those whose business it is to be amusing. The better the work, the more effortless it seems to us. On a summer afternoon we take up a novel in a mood which to the conscientious novelist seems sacrilege. ”

“ The interesting things to see are those which belong to the world that is in process of becoming. These are not visible from the seat of the scornful.
The sweeping accusation of hypocrisy against men or nations whenever an incongruity is perceived between a professed purpose and an actual achievement is an indication of too great simplicity of mind. It is the simplicity that is characteristic of one without experience in the work of creation.
The cynic, perceiving the shortcomings of those who “profess and call themselves Christians,” greets their professions with a bitter laugh. ”