The romance of the commonplace

Front matter

BY GELETT BURGESS

Class _J l_____ i

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. , u

Preface

Of course you have heard of that faithful widow who, in her old age, visited the glacier to find the body of her husband, fallen into a crevasse during their honeymoon.

So it seems now to publish, after sixteen years, the careless chattering of my youth. And as she marveled at the change, so do I. To her, poor soul, the alteration was in that half-forgotten, idealized youthful mate — but I have no such illusion. Well I know the change is in myself.

So, how innocent, how irresponsible do these slight essays now appear! And yet I can not redress them in the sophisticated diction of my prime. They must wear the frivolous costume in which they first went forth, or lose all their character. As well might one try to rewrite a love-letter when one's passion has cooled.

For those wherein I have prosecuted my main thesis I have less desire to apologize. Their enthusiasm will, I. hope, atone for their superficiality. And, too, even in middle age I see no great flaw in their optimistic reasoning, such as it is, for to view life romantically I have found the surest cure for cynicism and ennui.

The later essays may be regarded as diversions from

the main theme, practical applications of my theorem,

. .

Vll viii PREFACE

laboratory experiments in the principle. They may be judged as the pragmatic tests of my philosophy — if so slight a reasoning may be called by so pedantic a term.

Here I have ranged perhaps too far afield and strayed at times from the subject. But the same mood, I think, inspires them. There are numberless ways in which the thesis might be illustrated, and I have but chosen a few, hit or miss.

For the matter itself, then, I have few qualms, as I sought but to suggest, not to convince. It is the manner of my expression that I most regret. Such smooth legato movement is not at all to the present tempo of my literary mood, and this, even though to preserve consistency, I adopt at present, an earlier style.

This is the pathos of the writer's profession — that his first work has more of life and his latest more of art. For matter he must gradually substitute manner. His first thoughts are ambitious and unrestrained, and growth of skill seems almost inevitably to preclude spontaneity. Indeed, in the realm of literature one might almost transpose the old plaint and say : "Si la jeunesse pouvait, si la vieillesse savait!" Youth believes and dares, age has technique but lacks enthusiasm. How age could create, if age were youth !

So now I might rewrite, enlarge, polish and perfect, make my style modern and vivid — but something would be awry. My slender boyish dreams would never stand the strain.

PREFACE ix

And so, I do but revisit the glacier and show you the vision of my youth. If it seem callow and quaintly clad, none the less was it lusty, and its song to my older ears still rings true. And perhaps, though middle age may smile to-day at its obvious harmonies, some youngster may smile, too, to find the melody awakening a responsive thrill.

G. B.

Introduction

To let this book go from my hands without some one more personal note than the didactic paragraphs of these essays contained, has been, I must confess, a temptation too strong for me to resist. The observing reader will note that I have so rewritten my theses that none of them begins with an "I" in big type, and though this preliminary chapter conforms to the rule also, it is for typographic rather than for any more modest reasons. Frankly, this page is by way of a flourish to my signature, and is the very impertinence of vanity.

But this little course of philosophy lays my character and temperament, not to speak of my intellect, so bare that, finished and summed up for the printer, I am all of a shiver with shame. My nonsense gave, I conceit myself, no clue by which my real self might be discovered. My fiction I have been held somewhat responsible for, but escape for the story-teller is always easy. Even in poetry a man may so cloak himself in metaphor that he may hope to be well enough disguised. But the essay is the most compromising form of literature possible, and even such filmy confidences and trivial gaieties as these write me down for what I am. Were they even critical in character,

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I would have that best of excuses, a difference of taste, but here I have had the audacity to attempt a discussion of life itself, upon which every reader will believe himself to be a competent critic.

By a queer sequence of circumstances, the essays, begun in the Lark, were continued in the Queen, and, if you have read these two papers, you will know that one magazine is as remote in character from the other as San Francisco is from London. But each has happened to fare far afield in search of readers, and between them I may have converted some few to my optimistic view of every-day incident.* To educate the British Matron and Young Person was, perhaps, no more difficult an undertaking than to open the eyes of the California Native Son. The fogs that fall over the Thames are not very different to the mists that drive in through the Golden Gate, after all !

Still, I would not have you think that these lessons were written with my tongue in my cheek. I have made believe so long that now I am quite sincere in my conviction that we can see pretty much whatever we look for; which should prove the desirability of searching for amusement and profit rather than for boredom and disillusion.

We are in the day of homespun philosophy and hand-made dogma. A kind of mental atavism has made science preposterous; modern astrologers and palmists put old wine into new bottles, and the discus-

INTRODUCTION xiii

sion of Psychomachy bids fair to revolutionize the Eternal Feminine. And so I, too, strike my attitude and apostrophize the Universe. As being, in part, a wholesome reaction from the prevailing cult, I might call my doctrine Pagan Science, for the type of my proselyte is the Bornese war chief peripatetic on Broadway — the amused wonderer. But I shall not begin all my nouns with capitals, for it is my aim to write of romance with a small "r." Also my philosophy must not be thought a mere laissez faire; it is an active, not a passive, creed. We are here not to be entertained, but to entertain ourselves.

I might have called this book A Guide Through Middle Age, for it is then that one needs enthusiasm the most. We stagger gaily through Youth, and by the time Old Age has come we have usually found a practicable working philosophy, but at forty one is likely to have a bitter hour at times, especially if one is still single. Or, so they tell me ; I shall never confess to that status, and shall leap boldly into a white beard. A kindly euphemism calls this horrid, half-way stage one's Prime. I have here endeavored to justify the usage, though I am opposed by a thousand poets.

If some of these essays seem but vaguely correlated to my major theme, you must think of them as being mere illustrations or practical solutions of the commonplace, solved by means of the theory I have de* xiv INTRODUCTION

veloped and iterated. It was hard, indeed, to know when to stop, but, ragged as are my hints, I hope that in all essentials I have covered the ground and formulated the main rules of the Game of Living. One does not even have to be an expert to be able to do that!

Contents

PAGE

Preface vii

Introduction xi

PART I CONTENTS— Continued

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The Confessions of an Ignoramus 182