William Lyon Phelps

“ I wish that every American journalist, every American book reviewer, every American drama critic, would spend a month in London and diligently read the morning newspapers, such as The Times, The Telegraph, The Morning Post. Every page seems to be written for intelligent readers. These London journalists review tennis, golf and cricket matches with more dignity than the average New Yorker reviews plays and books. One reason that militates steadily against intellectual progress in America is the fact that apparently we have no language suitable as a medium for the exchange of ideas. ”

“ Unless voyagers and novelists are abandoned liars, one can be off the coast of South America, out of sight of land and dip up fresh water, so tremendous and far-reaching is the shove of the Amazon. Its mouth is so wide that one could place in it crosswise, the whole Hudson river from New York to Albany, without touching either shore.
The personality of the Mississippi is striking. In the greatest of all Mark Twain’s contributions to literature, the first volume of Life on the Mississippi, he gives us marvellous impressions of the character and behaviour of the stream. ”

“ Then, when I became a man, I realised how enormously richer in happiness is manhood than boyhood.
The average American boy has a pretty good time. What fun, on emerging from school on Friday afternoon, to know that tomorrow is Saturday! What fun to play games, to go on exploring adventures in neighbouring woods, to have picnics and jollifications, to live a life of active uselessness! The mere physical health of boyhood makes one feel like a young dog released from a chain. ”

“ He did not think life was perfect, but pessimism, he said, was intellectual arrogance. He made the point that no matter what was one’s religion or philosophy, this at all events is a spectacular universe.
To deny life, to show no appreciation of it, seems to me both ungrateful and stupid. If you showed a man the Himalaya Mountains, the ocean in a storm, sunrise in the desert, the Court of Honour in 1893, the Cathedral of Chartres, and he looked at them all with a lack-lustre eye, we should think him stupid. ”

“ Every river has a fascination for me, because it is alive. In a green landscape, or in a rocky gorge, or in the midst of a forest, or dividing a city, it gives to every scene the element of life. Living waters flowing through meadows, over sands, between mountains are always moving, progressing, going somewhere. If one climbs a hill, and looks off on a vast expanse of fresh woods and pastures new, and suddenly sees a river, the heart leaps up with recognition. ”

“ Reflexion makes us realise the imponderable worth of traditions; we know they come only from years. Even if every man had his price, which is not true, there are things beyond all price. A boy who goes to Cambridge or Oxford has something in his education beyond the price he pays for his tuition, or the instruction he receives in lectures, or the advantages of modern laboratories. The grey walls of the cloisters, the noble old towers, the enchanting beauty of the quadrangle, represent not only the best in architecture, but they are hallowed by thousands of ghosts. ”

“ It is true that the American spirit—always ambitious of success—makes every member of a university team train with an earnestness that seems tragi-comic to the nonathletic observer. But the immense advantages of this most robust of all sports outweigh all its attendant evils. For football is much more than a contest of animal vigour; in the language of Professor Stagg, who was a moralist before he was an athlete, “Football surpasses every other game in its demand for a high combination of physical, mental and moral qualities.” ”

“ George Moore says that he dislikes English, it is a lean language, the adjective does not agree with the noun—I say, thank Heaven for that! With the exception of pronunciation, the English language is ridiculously simple and easy; any foreigner can learn to write, read and understand English in a short time, and he can learn to speak it with fluent inaccuracy. What a blessed thing for a foreigner who must learn English to know that when he learns the name of a thing that name does not change. A book is always a book, no matter what you do with it. ”

“ In London, Paris, Berlin, November (and often October) is one of the worst times of the year. A chronically overcast sky, a continual drizzle, a damp chill even on mistily rainless days, combine to produce gloom. The first autumn and winter I spent in Paris revised my notions of those two seasons. As an American, I had thought of the difference between summer and winter as a difference only in temperature; I reasonably expected as much sunshine in autumn and winter as in summer. A typical January day in New York is cold and cloudless. ”

“ The English are the only people who seem to be amused by attacks on their country; does this show a sense of superiority that increases the rage of the critic? Or is it that their sense of humour extends even to that most sacred of all modern religions, the religion of nationalism?
The Irish are supposed to excel the English in humour; but it is a fact that English audiences in the theatre are diverted by sarcastic attacks on the English, whereas it is physically dangerous to try a similar method on an Irish audience. ”

“ They do not know that the experiment they have in mind has been tried so many times without success that some lesson might possibly be gained by observation of previous results. “Histories make men wise,” said Bacon; they make us wise, not merely because history books were written by wise men, but because history itself is the accumulation of human wisdom gleaned from human folly. To sneer at the past is to sneer at wisdom. ”

“ He always and everywhere recognised the forces of evil and never pretended that life was all sunshine. Religion does not pretend that everything is easy and comfortable, for religion is not meant to fill our minds with illusions but rather with fortitude. Our Lord came into the world to show us how to bear the burden of life cheerfully and bravely; life is not easy, but His yoke is.
A true optimist is one who recognises the sorrows, worries, drawbacks, misfortunes of life, its injustice and inequalities. ”

“ The majority of our novelists either will not or can not tell a story. All they have is a time-plot, beginning with the smells the baby had in his cradle, of no interest to any one except the novelist, going on with his fights and loves at school, etc., etc. Most people are like the Sultan in the Arabian Nights, they love a good story; Wright, Porter and Grey furnish it. The lives of most boys and girls are not romantic or unusual; in the novel they get an escape from life, a change of air, a vacation; and there is nothing boys love more than a vacation. ”

“ What is the worst poem ever written by a man of genius? It is certain that if an anthology should be made of the most terrible verses of the English bards the results would be both surprising and appalling. I cannot at this moment think of any worse pair of lines in English literature than those offered in all seriousness by the seventeenth-century poet, Richard Crashaw. ”

“ To how many eyes, weary with wakefulness in the long watches of the night, or flushed with fever, is the first glimmer of the dawn welcome. The night makes every fear and worry worse than the reality, it magnifies every trivial distress. Mark Twain said the night brought madness—none of us is quite sane in the darkness. That particular regret for yesterday or apprehension for tomorrow that strikes you like a whiplash in the face at 2:45 A.M. dwindles into an absurdity in the healthy dawn. ”

“ Beauty and newness are inseparable in the case of bicycles, grocery-wagons, machinery, steamboats, factory buildings, flannel shirts, shoes, typewriters, trousers, socks; with all of these articles age means ugliness. In mechanical objects there is no charm in the accumulation of years.
But cathedrals, trees, mountains, castles, manor-houses, college lawns, violins, with the increase of age take on not only dignity but beauty. A thirteenth-century cathedral is more lovely than a glossy new church; an old tree is more beautiful than any sapling ”

“ Now the best way to discover how cheerful daily life may be is to be visited by a frightful dream. The horrible wild beast has seized us, because when we tried to flee, our legs were lead. Just as it is about to sink its terrible tusks in our shrinking frame, we wake up, and hear the good old trolley car go by. ”

“ The principle of evil is so active, so tireless, so penetrating that the simplest way to account for it is to suppose that men and things receive constantly the personal attention of the Devil. Weeds, and not vegetables, grow naturally; illness, not health, is contagious; children and day-labourers are not instinctively industrious; champagne tastes better than cocoa.
Throughout the Middle Ages, although every one believed steadfastly in the reality of the Devil and that he was the most unscrupulous of all foes, there was a certain friendliness with him, born, I suppose, of daily intimacy. ”

“ If the parents make their small children go to church and stay home themselves, the children quite naturally regard church-going as one of the numerous penalties imposed on youth and look forward to maturity as an escape from this and many other unpleasant compulsions. If parents impress on their children the necessity of telling the truth, they must not themselves tell lies; they are being watched by the sharpest eyes in the world.
Although in a certain sense we are all hypocrites—for no one can live up to his ideals—we hate any flagrant case of hypocrisy. ”

“ The vast majority of even intelligent Americans know no language but their own, and that they do not know any too well. It becomes necessary, therefore, unless one is to cut oneself off from foreign thought and literature, to have recourse to translations; a reader of a newspaper does that every day, though he is not always aware of the fact.
Inasmuch as the greatest works of literature have been translated many times into English, it is rather important to know which is the best translation; no one driving a car would take a bad road if a better one were available. ”

“ But man has thoughts and dreams and longings that seem to belong to eternal life and eternal development, whereas in reality he dies like the fish; only with all his dreams and longings unsatisfied and with the constant fear and horror of annihilation in a universe where, no matter how sublime or far-reaching his thoughts, he is, in reality, of no more importance than a fish and must in the end share the same fate. ”

“ London has no prolonged hot weather, like St. Louis. It has been said that the English climate consists of eight months of winter, and four months of bad weather. This is an exaggeration. Every now and then there is a year when summer is omitted; but even in such an unfortunate time, one is better off in London than in the country. In fact, to an American London, while not the most beautiful city in the world, is assuredly the most interesting. It is inexhaustible. Every foot of it, to one well read in English literature, is hallowed ground ”

“ As far as a mortal man may understand the feelings of a man of genius, I understand the emotion of Hawthorne.
I think nearly every one, if he were able to afford it, would like to have a room all his own. I believe it to be an important factor in the development of the average boy or girl if in the family house each child could have one room sacred to its own personality. ”

“ I am aware that there are many men of excellent character who eat almost nothing for breakfast, and that there are some saints who eat no breakfast at all. In character and personal habits, I have never met a man more saintly than Henry Ford. I refer both to the asceticism of his physical life and to the purity of the motives that inspire his conduct. He eats no breakfast at all, not a morsel of food. He rises very early, goes outdoors, runs a mile or two and then works with absolute concentration till one o’clock, when he has the first meal of the day. ”

“ DREAMS
I look upon horrible dreams as one of the assets of humanity, one of the good things of life; because one feels so elated after waking. I am convinced that most men and women do not sufficiently appreciate the advantages they possess. They either exaggerate their sufferings and drawbacks or, instead of enjoying what they have, they spend their time in longing for what is beyond their reach. ”

“ A whole science is built on one foundation—that every man in the world will get all he can for himself. The subject is naturally studied not from an ethical, but from a scientific standpoint. Life is a race.
Now I believe that Efficiency—mere practical success in the world—is as false an ideal as asceticism. If the morality of withdrawal is not good enough, neither is the morality of success. Those deserve the highest admiration and the most profound respect who have actually aided their human brethren, who have left the world better than they found it. ”

“ Europe should be visited only in the summer, because no Americans are comfortable in Europe at any other time. George Ade once tried to spend a winter in Venice and he nearly froze. He declared that the next winter he would spend in Duluth, where they have steam heat and he could keep warm.
The intolerable thing about most “winter resorts” in Europe is that they are so much warmer outdoors than in. The American takes a pleasant walk in the mild sunshine, and, his body in an agreeable glow, he enters his hotel room which has the chill of the grave. ”

“ Well, I get along very well without tea, though I rejoice to see that more and more in “big business” houses in American cities there is a fifteen-minute pause for afternoon tea.
One of the chief differences between the life of Englishmen and of Americans is tea. Millions of Englishmen take tea three times a day. Tea is brought to their bedside early in the morning, and thirstily swallowed while in a horizontal attitude. The first thing an Englishman thinks of, if he wakes at dawn, is tea. When Arnold Bennett was travelling in America he took a limited train from New York to Chicago. ”

“ It is rather amusing to consider that in our age, which is so often called the age of machines, and when many people are afraid that simplicity and individuality will be lost, country places, mountain scenery, and the wilderness are more popular than ever before.
Now there are fashions in outdoor nature just as there are fashions in clothes. Today everyone must profess a love for mountains whether one really likes them or not; for mountains are very fashionable. Switzerland is the playground of the world ”

“ I love to see the whole family assemble at breakfast and eat a good meal leisurely. In order to accomplish this, every one must get up early enough to allow for complete preparation in the way of bathing, shaving, etc., and then leave enough time to consume food in peace of mind. Of how many families is this true? Of course, there are many persons who like to eat breakfast in bed, and perhaps, there are some who can do this neatly, even artistically. I never eat breakfast in bed unless I am too sick to get up, for I hate to have crumbs all over my night clothes or inside the bed. ”