At the sign of the van; being the log of the Papyrus, with other escapades in life and letters

Front matter

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE

SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND

THE GIFT OF

Book The First: At The Sign Of The Van

PAGE

A Parable ii

Spring Song in Harlem 15

Farewell to New York 20

Pro Domo Sua 38 Samples OF His Philosophy. Sheep and Goats 44

Rifts in the Lute 59

A Blank 67

Hegira 70

God's Acre 74

A Resurrection 79

His Wanderings Over 94

The Literary Motive 98

A Brother- AT- Arms 103

Book The Second: Adventures In Life

Crossing the Ferry hi

The Lions 115

6 CONTENTS

PAGE

Youth and Fame

Milady of the Anise

Pro Amicis et Hostibus

■164

Old Men for Love

The New Bouillabaisse

His Bed

BOOK THE THIRD: ADVENTURES IN LETTERS Ballade of Many Authors 247

Passion 250

Style and the Man 260

A Lost Bohemian 265

Books That Die Not 299

On the Use of Books 305

CONTENTS 7

PAGE

BOOK THE FOURTH: ADVENTURES O' THE SPIRIT The Endless War 359

Hell Is Dead 363

Saving the "Scheme" 367

Renan's Letters 372

Tolstoy 377

Holy Mother 383

Medievalism 389

The New Christ 400

Tripoli 404

'Rules of the Road 417

The Great Perhaps 432

The Eternal Feminine 435

Book The First

(to WILLIS GEORGE NASH) AT THE SIGN OF THE VAN rHIS is the best of me; for the rest, I die, and drank, and slept, loved, and hated, like another; my life was as a vapor, and is not; but this I saw and knew: this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory.

Ruskin.

AT THE SIGN OF

THE VAN

A PARABLE

THERE was once a man who had a large number of valuable and interesting opinions which he wished to get before the public. The most convenient way that occurred to him, — having in view the intractability of editors, — was to start a magazine of his own. There were, of course, difficulties in the way, but these were finally overcome by the man burning to discharge his mind of the said valuable and interesting opinions. Accordingly, the man wrote out all his valuable and interesting opinions and published them in the first number of his magazine. There he stopped; perpetual writer's cramp and inspissation of ideas set in. While his friends were sending in their valuable and interesting criticisms, he wisely decided to get out of the publishing business. No

II second or further numbers of his magazine ever appeared; the first issue was the last. They say it is hard to get a copy.

I am not going to claim for this person that he was the wisest man of whom history preserves the record. I should perhaps think so were it not for his confession, privately made, that he stopped short because he had no more to say, having exhausted himself in the first great effort. When one is "all in," there is no particular credit in losing the fight.

It is added that the man lived happily ever afterward, but I do not envy his subsequent felicity — it seems to me he should have had more fun for his money. Having had some experience in kind and paid full price for it, I must feel a certain contempt for even so heroic a quitter. On the whole, although there is (God knows) too much publishing in the world, I should not hold up this man as an object of emulation- It is just that men should not be able to point even to a pelt of him on the barn door of achievement.

For it is nothing to publish your opinions once, or even twice— the test lies, in maintaining them — ^in bleeding and suffering for them — in fighting for them against hope and staying in the fight" at any cost and at any hazard. Do you know that, with all our talk of freedom of opinion, there is really nothing that is less free? It is perfectly wonderful

A PARABLE 13

how the world labors to take a man's opinions away from him; or, in other words, to convince him that he is wrong and to make him take its opinions instead. I sometimes fancy that the public which only writes letters for the editor's private eye has more zeal in its work than he. At any rate, herein are the difficulty, the danger and the delight of publishing. The man who has a bit of the fighter in him will surely not be satisfied with a single disclosure of his opinions — nor will the world, if there be any spark or challenge in the man. So you see the fitness of things coincided in the judgment of the person who published but once : it was enough.

Indeed it may be that the true criterion by which a writer should be measured is his power to provoke dissent. If he can make trouble there is probably something in him — the world is not moved without cause. I would not seem to blarney myself by the least suggestion here, or to work the soft pedal in my own behalf — the uncharitable will say that in any event; but I am sometimes rather astonished at the number of people who think it worth their while to disagree with this little magazine and to write me of the fact. Certainly I never proposed to myself to agree with everybody — I guess not ! — and some candid friends say that my one constantly successful effort is to keep down my circulation. However, I am consoled in this, that my opinions grow the more precious to me as I realize more and more what it costs to maintain them — I svrspect this would not be so, to such a degree, if people would only stop trying to take them away from me! It's curious, but my opinions are the only property of mine that anybody has ever sought to deprive me of — maybe because they are the only things by which I have ever set much value. And yet, when all is said, I am not sure that I have any opinions at all, but only sympathies, which, being drawn to various and contradictory objects, get me into no end of trouble. Thus, I have a degree of sympathy with every shade of religious belief, whatever sectarian name it may bear; and yet, if I have a passion at all, it is for that faith without dogma, that religion of humanity, perhaps the ultimate triumph of Christ, in which I believe all the creeds will one day blend and disappear, — oh, a far day, I grant you !

II Spring Song In Harlem

T is the spring in New York not less than in green country places of which the heart now begins to dream. A swarthy Calabrlan grinds out a vernal chant under my window. High in the air, above the rataplan of the street, rise the staccato notes. The Calabrian's wife twirls and thumbs her tambourine, looking up expectantly. For a nickel one may purchase all the grace and gratitude of the South. I make the hazard and am correspondingly rewarded. The dark eyes smile their thanks and the Calabrian twitches off his cap. Nay, I am lagniapped with the "Toreador's Song," but, having heard it overmuch in winter concerts and cafes, I feel that it is not in accord with the Spring. This, too, is the Calabrian's afterthought, for, the piece ended, without soliciting another nickel he lifts his organ to his back and trudges off to the next block, his faithful sposa trailing behind.

More Calabrian organ-grinders with expectant wives and twirling tambourines — one feels that everything is overdone in New York (except the

Spring!). Children pour with joyous tumult from the great, many-storied tenement houses into the streets. A shrill gamin chorus pierces everywhere. Beggars creep out from their winter hiding places and with their manifold dpformities movingly accost the passer-by. A policeman suns himself at the corner, in easy independence, looking wjth professional tolerance on the varied din and disorder of an early Spring day in Harlem. Herein is now the very heart of the New Jerusalem and in this particular sectiqn few but Jewish faces are seen. Along Fifth Avenue, south of 125th Street, the daughters of Rebekah, tumid of bosom, voluptuous and overripe, promenade in all their garish finery — the Oriental in the Jewess persists after years of American acclimation. About her is an atmosphere of love that breathes of harmony with the Spring, the revival of all life and desire, and almost seems to chant tempestiva viro with the music of every bold curve, challenging" bust and flowing line — a somewhat vulgar and disturbing but yet sufficiently native version of the "Song which is Solomon's." An endless procession of go-carts and baby-carriages, each holding a chubby dark-eyed miniature of the race, suggests the solid virtues of these daughters of Israel. Truly theirs is a goodly inheritance. No people get more sap and sweet out of life than the Jews — and it is Spring in New York !

Stiill, thpre might be less, noise about it. New

SPRING SONG IN HARLEM 17

elements constantly make themselves felt in eardeafening clamor — a conglomerate inferno that would drive Stentor to the sign language. Don't kick! — it is the jubilant Spring chorus to which the scissors-grinder, armed with a cornet, furnishes a chattering crescendo. Fakers and hawkers of every sort mingle their strident challenges with voice and horn, with hewgag and shofar. The facial traits of the Jew repeat themselves on every side with a persistent monotony. Men lean and dark; women brunette and overfleshed. Now and then a man rarely handsome or a girl of singular but perishable beauty; and, occasionally, a head that recalls the patriarchs. That feature which, according to Heine, has become curved and elongated by Jehovah pulling the Jew around during so many ages, is here seldom seen in caricature dimensions. Prosperity is beautifying, and, if you will permit the word, normalizing, the race. You will not have a better opportunity to observe this than on a fine early Spring day in Harlem.

With the first genial warmth of the Spring sun come into view all the poor devils, waifs, and strays of humanity, who annually renew their uncertain tenure of a bench in the public parks and squares. Poor snakes they, whom the vernal warmth reinvests with a new skin and a timid show of life and speculation. All of them have hard-luck stories (which are often not without a charm of romance, kind reader), ending always with a request for "a little assistance" — so they will decently phrase it. Some of them are deserving, more not, in strict verity; yet, if you be both humane and philosophic, you will not consider the point too curiously nor seek to follow your alms beyond its proximate destination — the petitioner's pocket. You will not forget that this poor artist in sorrow, who for an obolus moves your secret admiration, is also of the Spring. No doubt the most lamentable among all these heirs of misery are the poor fellows who have just gotten out of hospital and crawled to the park or square for a sunbath. There you may see them on any fine day, sunning themselves with anxious care, looking at the backs of their thin white hands with the insatiable interest of sick men in everything that denotes their state, or turning a resentful yellow eye upon you should you step into their sunshine. At a little distance roars and rattles the great Babel from which they have dragged themselves with weary effort. Not unlike mariners are they, esctiped after long stress of storm and shipwreck, to die in the harbor that gives them refuge. For certain it is that many of them will never go back to the great Babel, to renew the hopeless struggle in which they were baffled and broken. Here they will sit during the warm Spring days, each jealously claiming his end of bench by right of preemption and indulged by his fellows in that poor monopoly.

SPRING SONG IN HARLEM 19

Here shall you see them dozing and muttering to themselves in the manner of sick men, or giving themselves up to long fits of blank abstraction. Sometimes a feeble argument will break out amongst them and voices rise high and shrill in the futile fierceness of the sick. But this is rare; their concern is not to argue, nor even to think, but just to sit in the sun, the good Spring sun, who is pouring his heat down their backs instead of on their covered graves. Healthy though you be, with life and hope at the full, the sight of them makes you shiveringly glad of the sun and the Spring.

Ill

FAREWELL TO NEW YORK

Hoc erat in votis. — Horace,

FAREWELL, you City of fuss and fake, Where men the dollar their idol make, Fit spawn of you, an Arachne fell, Weaving your web for the sons of Hell ! Here's one, by God! that is glad to go And leave you here with your noisy show. Your foolish wealth and your flaring vice, Your honor that only bids for a price. Your myriad-handed iron gin That ever crushes the slaves of sin.

Farewell to your fruitless rush and roar, Where a life is a breath and nothing more; Where the swarming thousands of every race Insanely fight for an inch's space; Where the Devil has never a moment's ease. Nor can tell the half of his votaries ; Where human pity dies in the heart,

FAREWELL TO NEW YORK 21

And men have forgot the better part; Where the only lesson that all learn well, Is the surest road from here to Hell 1

Adieu to the monstrous sweat and stew, Adieu (ah Godl) to the paramount Jew; Farewell to the Lesbians of the pave, The lure and the prey and the wiser knave. So-long to the dive and the gilded den, The image of God defaced in men, The Satyr's leer and the wordless shame. That makes of mercy an idle name, And turns to a curse the thought of Him Who died for these on the gallows limb.

Farewell to your thieves of high degree, Fit nurselings they of your "liberty" 1 With none so bold as to say them nay, In the House of Fraud they plunder and prey. Tearing each other with beak and claw, And scorning aught save the harpies' law. Oh, Freedom, blush that here at thy gate Should rise a portent and shame so great; Here, where thou kindlest thy holy flame And callest the exiles to bless thy name I

Adieu to your blare and boast and blague, To your scarlet crimes that never flag. To your evil press that crowns the sum

Of lawless deeds with a premium.

Farewell to your fake of a "better class," Where the proudest name decks the perfect ass, And the end of all is to imitate The fool and his folly degenerate; Where virtue has sunk to a thing absurd, And a woman's honor dies at a word.

The Devil's luck to you all ! — I know

A place where the things of God yet grow;

Where children laugh in their innocence,

And a maiden's blush is her sole defence;

Where the buds are bursting and soon the green

Shall spread over all the gentle scene;

Where a man may live out his earthly lease,

The country preaching its text of peace ;

And a faithful wife and a thriving brood

Shall people the pleasant solitude.

Pipe on to your dance of sin and death !

For me is the country's vital breath,

The nights of rest and the days of calm.

Yea, the genial task of a mind content,

Rising unforced to its native bent : —

But the hollow prize that you call success.

The idols you cherish and caress.

The life that you live, a sham and a lie.

My soul will no more of — good-bye, good-bye I

• IV

SO this, then, was One Summer which he may well count as gain, since, though filled with effort and anxiety, the labor was what his hand sought to do voluntarily; the care was to insure a future that he might call his own. Thus he found the fleeting, golden days all too few for his Task — time and he, time and he against any other two ! — but somehow time seemed to fail him. Recalling this One Summer, so swift, so memorable, now with the declining splendors of Autumn about him, he can but regret much that was done imperfectly; much that in the heat and haste of performance was left undone. . . .

The very beginning of it (if you will not scorn a simple story) was in the early Spring when the Family moved away from a Flat in the great City, and took possession of the Little House in the Country. Oh, how happy the Children all were, and how glad to escape from the tyranny of the stony-hearted Janitress! No more threats of punishment if they but laid a finger on the brasses, or tumbled the hall-mats, or played on the front stoop, or — horror of horrors! — pulled the janitor's bell. There were no brasses at the Little House — even if there had been, do you think the kind Mother would have cared? No jealous eye watched over the hall mats, and the front stoop, which was actually a Porch, became the scene of Revels. The Youngest Girl pondered over this undreamed-of liberty for several days, until at last, being unable to contain her innocent wonder, she came out with — "Pa, are You the Janitor?" . . .

What joy to explore the Little House (that was yet immensely large as compared to the City Flat) ; full of cunning alcoves it was, and out-of-the-way cubby-holes, — really, the Children were sure it was all meant as a playhouse for them. There was a lovely bedroom for each pair of them, and each room was papered "different," and, to the great joy of the Family, the Youngest Girl (who is of an adorable but somewhat touchy disposition) could now have a bed all to herself, where she might stretch her short legs with comfort. And then, the most ravishing discovery of all, there was the nicest — the Youngest said the "nicicest" — ^Attic you ever heard of, with three large rooms, — oh, ever so much larger than our make-believe bedrooms in the now despised Flat, which the Children soon began to speak of as belonging, with the Janitress, to a remote past, — though even that contemned residence had had its day of praise. Of course, the first thing they did was to divide up among themselves this glorious Attic, laying down metes and boundaries in the manner which first determined the Law of Property; nor was the Youngest Girl a whit behind the rest in staking out her Claim and shrilly asserting her Title. But I must confess that they all agreed with rare accord to give Papa the "lightiest" room to "do his writing in," on condition that he would not go up there on rainy days when they had no other place to play. This agreement was duly ratified, and, I am bound to say, was carried out in a spirit that did honor to the contracting parties.

The Children's play being thus provided for, — and, really, what concern is more important than that? — it was necessary to think about Papa's Work. For, absurd as it may seem, there was to be a Business started, actually a Magazine published, in the Little House ! Well, you would say that the Good Fairies had planned for Papa's Office, as for the Children's Attic — there was a sewing room on the shady side of the house, with two windows looking out upon a tangle of greenery, that proved just the thing. Here, accordingly, the Office was installed, the walls decorated with some humble pieces of Art (not, however, without Quality) including a fine impressionistic study of the Editor by Samuel Warner, F. R. A, Then a typewriting machine was procured and set up on a strong oak table, made (in his own time) by Little James of East Aurora. A beautiful blooming Country Girl was next engaged to operate it — and the Business began.

Oh, it was very slow first along, and Uncle Sam and the printer got all the money — even now it's not so swift but that you can see the wheels move. Still, the wonderful fact was that it did actually begin, and continued, by fits and starts, at first, then regularly, to grow. For if a man has something to say, sincerely and in his own voice, be sure he will get an audience, however small. So the Postman, from rare stops at the Little House, — announced by his whistle which raised at once hope and fear, — presently fell into the habit of leaving something with every mail — there were only two a day, and during the first blank period of waiting, it's lucky there were not more!

Then from all parts of the country letters began to come in a steady flow, — nay, there were some bearing foreign stamps and even a few from clear 'round t'other side of the world, — a fact which greatly exercised the imagination of the Youngest Girl. To be quite candid, not all of these letters brought money or words of cheer — if success were so easy, it would not be worth having! No, there were letters which predicted failure and defeat, these written by "friends" who loved the Editor too well to hide the "truth" from him; hostile, wounding letters from strange hands written with the sole purpose of inflicting pain, but which moved only his contempt; letters from the idly curious who had no hope or hand to give the struggler; well-meant letters, too, that yet breathed discouragement and were better not written or read, since they but confirmed the haunting fear of self. All kinds of letters, indeed, but enough of the right sort, thank God I to hearten one for the fight and point the way to victory. . . .

Yes, this was One Summer worth living for — One Summer In which something was done for Life, for Character, for Purpose. Nor does he regret its tale of labor, and stress, and anxiety, its hope too easily depressed, its joy too easily awakened, its unwise alternations of confidence and fear, since these were redeemed In some measure by loyalty to the Task.

HIS REASONS FOR PUBLISHING

[From the first number of The Papyrus, July, 1903]

Why do I publish this little magazine?

The public, I am told, will ask the question, and I should make a clean breast of It in the first number of The Papyrus.

But that were to tell the "story of my life," which is so marvellously interesting and important that it would fill many numbers of this magazine.

Perhaps the simplest and most candid answer I could make to the question is this :

I am putting forth this little magazine because all my life has led up to it and for years it has been the dearest wish of my heart.

The reason here given is doubtless unique among the explanations of publishers. But let it stand.

There is a proverb of indifferent wisdom that, if you only wish hard enough for a thing, you will be sure to get it.

God knows I have wished hard enough for many things which I did not get. Perhaps they were not good for me — would I might believe it I — and so the just fates forbade.

Alas I are we ever convinced that we should not have had what we wanted? I recall my own early and ungratified desires with increasing poignancy. As an old man I know I shall be lamenting the baubles of which my youth was cheated.

And this little magazine, the darling first-born of my hope, which I now expose with fear and trembling to the cold world's charity, — do not think it has come easily to me.

Nay, I have purchased it with tears and travail — the price which the good God ordained must ever be paid for the fruits of love.

Ah, kind reader, you who make so small account of these few pages, sure am I that your heart would be touched with a warmer sympathy could you know by what hard roads I have reached this goal of my desire*

And now that we are fairly met, shall we not go on together, taking the chance of the road and gain»- ing courage and good cheer from our companionship?

Dear Friend, into your eyes I may never look, your bodily presence I may never feel, the sound of your voice I may never hear: yet I need you for the long way. And the day may come when some words of mine shall lighten the journey for you.

Our most precious obligations, are they not to those whom we have never seen? Our dearest intimacies, are they not of the mind? Our most loyal and helpful friends, are they not of the spirit?

y.

WHEN you leave Mount Vernon's main street, following the trolley road toward the heights of Pelham and New Rochelle, you begin to see something of the rare beauty of old Westchester.

I am writing this in the first days of May, with a great thankfulness at my heart that I have at last escaped from the terrible Scylla that but a few miles to the south crushes the lives of men. Would she were farther away and that I might free myself from the fear that some night she will steal upon this paradise, blighting its innocence and beauty 1 Proudly I exclaim with an almost forgotten poet —

"God made the Country and man made the Town."

From the attic window at which I write (I am thus high for quiet as well as to avoid trespassing on the Good Woman's proper domain), I look out upon a fairy landscape, rich in trees and grass and all those unnoted gifts of outdoor nature which have so indescribable a charm to one long deprived of them. The voices of my children gathering early violets reach my ear like the broken strains of a melody. They come upstairs presently to offer me a bouquet — in the City I fear I would have been vexed at this interruption of my task.

But in the country, children — even other people's children — do not get on your nerves. That is a condition of the accursed flat life. Here they seem to belong, with all young and growing things.

Also I have found that the days here are long enough for both play and labor.

There is always plenty of time.

In the country one does not mix the night with the day.

Nature is the great worker and creator.

We can attain the fountains of power only by getting her to support the effort.

The nights for sleep and rest — the days for thought and toil and recreation.

Health is the first Muse. . . .

Mr. Bard, who has chosen for his hustling emblem the Bee (he is in the real estate hne), strikes me as not the least interesting citizen of Mount Vernon. Whether his activities have any relation to the cosmic scheme I know not, but, unlike the pismire diligence of many persons commended by the undiscerning, they are pleasant to look upon.

Although Mr. Bard belongs to all the fraternal organizations hereabouts, he has never once asked me if I was a Brother. Which I take kindly of him, for I am a stranger to the whole realm of grips and passwords, never joined a secret society in my life, and never took a pledge. Every one to his taste, but the Brotherhood of Man is good enough for me.

Yes, I know it will shut me out of a lot of things in Mount Vernon, where every one you meet belongs to some society or other, and every other man you bump against is a Past or Present Grand. I can well understand, however, that life would be shorn of Romance in towns like this without the Pythians, the Templars, the Mystic Shriners, and the various other Sir Knights of the plume and helmet.

No doubt my bookish tastes have had much to do in forming what some people might call an unsocial habit. A good book has always seemed more attractive to me than an average piece of human punk in a tin mitre. And I never could understand how it added to your culture to swallow a Ritual or read the Psalm of Life in moving tones to some worthy aspirant who was presently to be pounded with an initiatory stuffed club.

But I have not been any the less interested in that larger fellowship, the Brotherhood of Man, and it seems that as I grow older tags and badges of every kind have less and less significance for me. No doubt you have to take on that habit early in life, like most others. And I cheerfully admit that it makes life the brighter and busier and happier for many here, as in Hoboken and Hackensack, Think how jejune and joyless it would be in these bully towns without the parades of the uniformed societies, the paladins of the silver plume, the thirtysecond degree lockstep and a' that; or what a glory for plain Bill Smith to rise to a big feathered shako and other gorgeous trimmings, with the sounding title of Sir Knight Commander !

Also I am aware that the eternal lure of sex enters into all this splendiferous business — a motive never absent when man the peacock spreads his tail. And then, bless my soul, we have the Ladies' Auxiliaries !