ta/ J^^Ma^^^Z^^^ ^5% ^Uw^y c /ya/i/or7«0' \ H Sf ■ %. SU7JI. e -n^o r -U^-r-U' f> nm. !~ L fO- a—v-fit, ^ a^ V A FREE LANCE BEING SHORT PARAGRAPHS AND DETACHED PAGES FROM AN AUTHOR'S NOTE BOOK BY FREDERIC ROWLAND MARVIN Away with that famed sentence Know thyself! 'Tis not well put; Know others, to my thinking, Is a more apt and profitable maxim. — Menander. BOSTON SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY 1912 ETFHE Copyright, 1912 Sherman, French c> Company TO MY BELOVED WIFE I DEDICATE THESE PAGES, BECAUSE ALL THAT IS GOOD IN THEM, AND MUCH OF WHATEVER IS GOOD IN THEIR AUTHOR COMES OF HER TENDER AND PURE LOVE, AND IS DUE TO HER DEAR COMPANIONSHIP *U 12629 A valiant knight whose lance doth pierce the follies of the world. — Archceologia PREFATORY NOTE \ WRITER has always on his table, or con- ■*■ *■ cealed in one or more of its drawers, liter- ary material that has failed of finding a place in any of his books. As time passes the mate- rial increases in quantity; and sometimes, be- cause of occasional revisions, it improves in character and becomes more worthy of preserva- tion. What shall he do with it? He may be moved by some inward impulse to cast it all into the fire. Yet not a few of those pages have cost him labor; and some of them may possess a modicum of interest for the general reader. Why should not the author, after winnowing from the grain so much of the chaff as it may be possible thus to separate from the ripe grain, gather what remains of the corn into some such granary as a book like this provides? The au- thor has expressed his opinions with freedom and frankness, and he believes there are in this world many candid men and women who will wel- come his frankness even though they may, m some cases, dissent from the conclusions arrived at. Only to such readers is this book addressed. F. R. M. CONTENTS PAGE The Vulgar Age 1 Patrick Henry 17 Woman's World 17 Personality 39 The Shadow 40 Freedom in Married Life 40 Popular Suffrage 44 An Interesting Exhibit of Injustice 44 "Ye Olde Booke Man" 51 Cheap and Nasty 64 Blake's Vision of Angels 64 Every Man his own Jailer 65 Anthony Tyrrell 66 Development of the Spiritual Life 68 Religious Nature 69 God in Nature 78 Tuning the Pulpits 78 Unfriendly Religion 78 The Sharp Edge of Mercy 79 "He Taught Them" 79 Theology and Physical Condition 80 The National Church and Parliament .... 80 A Faith that cannot be Sung 82 Ecclesiastical Profanity 82 Institutions 83 The Marriage of Cupid and Psyche 84 Rivalry 85 True Beauty Astonishes 86 CONTENTS PAGE A Buttonless Philosopher 87 The Gentleman 87 Manners 87 A Literary Resemblance 88 No Long Poem 89 A True Standard 89 Penance 90 Style 90 Seneca's Pilot 91 The Sense of Sound in Literature 93 Genius 92 Discernment of Beauty 94 The Five Best Poems in the English Language . 95 A Perfect Temperament 96 Civilization 96 Cooperation 98 Jefferson 99 Our National Emblem 101 Swedenborg as a Poet 112 A College of Journalism 113 Pharmacy 117 Hymns Better than Creeds 120 Victor Hugo 120 The Present 121 The Agnostic 121 Modern Poetry Artificial 122 Songless Verse is not Poetry 123 We are Ruled by the Dead 123 Popular Government 124 The Successful Politician 124 Evangelical Books Dull 125 The Sensuous World is Symbolic 126 Where to Look 126 CONTENTS PAGE Gladstone 126 The United States too Young for History . . . 127 Longfellow 128 A Brazen Jackass 128 Simpler Relations 129 Suppression of Knowledge 129 Truth 129 The Mob 130 John Hancock 130 Religious Instruction in Public Schools .... 132 Socialism 133 Two Republics 138 British Rule 141 Most Men have Ordinary Abilities 142 The Approaching Period 144 Contempt for Manual Labor 145 Work is Honorable 147 English Rule in America 148 Minor Poets 150 The Crowd 153 The Bull Moose in Greek 155 The New Beelzebub 156 Mosaics 157 Lais Dedicates Her Mirror to Venus 165 Surroundings 168 The Reward of Virtue 169 Physical Contact and Social Recognition . . . 170 Frances Power Cobbe 184 THE VULGAR AGE TF this paper required a motto, surely the au- thor could prefix to what he has here to say about the rudeness and want of refinement which he believes to be peculiarly marked features of the present age no words more pertinent than are those which Miss Mary Windsor addressed to a woman's suffrage association in convention at the time (October 20, 1911) in Louisville, Kentucky. The subject under discussion was "The Way to Interest the Uninterested." Miss Windsor was not in any wise what is called mealy-mouthed, nor did she go out of her way to find delicate phraseology. This is what she is reported to have said: "Whatever you do, don't be tiresome. Better be vulgar. This is a vulgar age. Be loud, be yellow, be any- thing to be picturesque." She followed her own advice, and her harangue was highly illustrative of the manner of speech she recommended to her sister reformers. She was surely right; this is, indeed, a vul- gar age — an age of vulgar men and women. Whether Miss Windsor's words were strictly % A FREE LANCE speaking "yellow," we shall not undertake to de- termine ; but they were beyond all question "pic- turesque," though not in precisely the way the few lovers of fine speech who still exist could wish. The only criticism we shall pass upon Miss Windsor's harangue is that the advice which it contained was wholly unnecessary. Most of the suffrage conventions called together by women are, so far as we know them, suffi- ciently vulgar, and require no exhortation to in- creased vulgarity. The lady brought coals to Newcastle when she recommended to her sisters the chrome-colored speech of which her own highly pigmented address was an excellent ex- ample. The Age, as we commonly use the word, is something more than a fixed period. Indeed, time is an inconsiderable element in what we call the age. The age includes the men and women living at the epoch under consideration; it in- cludes also the speech of these, and their deeds as well. Nothing contributes more generously to the vulgarity of the present age than much of the language commonly employed in ordi- nary conversation and in the newspapers, books, and magazines which are everywhere published and read. The vulgarization of literature is THE VULGAR AGE 3 one of the most striking features of the age in which we live. We have what is commonly called "The Yel- low Press." Some of our most mendacious pa- pers have a very large circulation. Their ed- itors stop at nothing. Scandal, slander, shame, and infamy are written large on every page. Sensational lies are dressed up in showy head- lines. An appeal is openly made to the worst passions. Good causes and worthy enterprises are scoffed at and evil things are encouraged. Of course the press described is something much worse than vulgar, but it is the vulgarity that concerns us now. The Satanic press is always vulgar. Its readers are vulgar, and their tastes and desires are like themselves. But there are other papers which do not an- swer to the above description and which are, nevertheless, in every sense of the word vulgar. Their editors would be shocked at the thought of encouraging vice, and yet they are employ- ing in every issue the phraseology of the vicious and criminal classes. They familiarize their readers with words and expressions coined and circulated by worthless and profligate men, by lawbreakers and disturbers of the peace. They make frequent use of the word "yellow," which 4 A FREE LANCE is a slang word setting forth the kind of paper which they themselves publish. The papers we are describing make unrestricted use of such words as "pal" (an accomplice or a partner in crime), "swipe" (to grab a thing when its owner is not watching), "pull" (a political claim or requisition), "bounce" (to discharge an employe unceremoniously or ungraciously), "boodle" (money fraudulently obtained in the public serv- ice), "skip" (to run away in the night, or to elude an officer of the law), "cop" (a police- man), "jug" (a jail or a workhouse), "graft" (stolen money), and "bag" (to arrest or cap- ture). These and other specimens of criminal phraseology are made free use of by such pa- pers as I am describing. Let none of my readers think I am portraying the Police Ga- zette and papers of that kind. I am setting forth that paper and hundreds of other papers of all kinds. I am describing for you, my good reader, the morning paper that you find on your breakfast table, and the evening paper that you enjoy after the labor of the day is over. You may not be greatly harmed by such periodicals (though that is by no means so certain as you may think), but what shall be said of their influence over the tender minds of THE VULGAR AGE 5 your children? You would not yourself in the presence of your children make use of the lan- guage we are criticising. Let us hope you would not use such language anywhere. What is to be thought of headlines constructed after the fol- lowing fashion? "The District Attorney Consults His Pal;" "More Boodle for the Ninth Ward;" "Let the Jurymen Bag the Facts ;" "Grafters at Work in the Windy City;" "Our Alderman Gets a Swat in the Snout;" "He Skipped for Parts Un- known ;" "Democrats Get the Jump ;" "The Boss Kicks." All this may have a decidedly American flavor, suggestive of "uncrowned sovereigns," but there is absolutely nothing about it that suggests any- thing better than the peculiar flavor named. This is an age that finds great pleasure in out-of- door sports that have in them much that is whole- some and invigorating; but there is about them almost nothing that brings out the dignity and beauty of the human form. In ancient Greece nature was undressed, and the human figure in all its nude beauty, without a thought of immod- esty, impressed itself upon the imagination in such a way as to educate the sense of artistic beauty. But our baseball games and athletic 6 A FREE LANCE sports are commonly rude, and never suggestive of refinement. Yet to the reporting of games played by college students and by professional players our newspapers devote much space. But they seldom rebuke the gambling and the rowdy- ism that are not often wanting ; on the contrary, they usually resent any effort made by the better element in society to prevent or even restrict these unfortunate features. Many papers openly espouse the gambler's side in any controversy that may occur between what are called "book- makers" at the race-track and good men and women who endeavor to enforce the law against gambling. Such papers are, apart from their viciousness, vulgar to the very last degree. The age that sustains such papers and thinks well of them is correctly described as a vulgar age. Think of the vulgarity of an ex-President of the United States who could travel from one end of the country to the other, sounding his trumpet with equal vigor and energy in willing and unwilling ears ; blowing his own praise in the face of friend and foe. Washington did nothing of the kind, nor did Lincoln. Think of a man storming, as it were, heaven and earth in one wild effort to make himself the nominee of a THE VULGAR AGE 7 reluctant party. Could anything be more rude and repulsive than Mr. Roosevelt's self-ex- ploitation, full to the brim and overflowing with an obnoxious personality? Not a political campaign goes by without my receiving from candidates (strangers, most of them, to me) photographs of themselves, and sickening praise of their own work. Verily this is indeed a vulgar age ! One man of whom I knew absolutely nothing — a stranger — wrote to tell me he was a man of exceptionable probity. What his letter made clear enough was that he was a man of exceptionable impudence. An- other seeker after political preferment sent me a picture of himself. The face was that of a bruiser. I might ignorantly have voted for him, not knowing anything about either him or the opposing candidate, had I not accounted that face of brass a sufficient warning. Alas ! these are the kind of men that fill too many of our political offices and other places of trust. The extreme partisan feeling of most of our secular papers with regard to political questions, methods, and affiliations, is in every way vulgar. Nothing can be more wanting in good sense, fine feeling, and noble purpose than an unconditionally partisan club or newspaper. In a world wherein 8 A FREE LANCE nothing is lifted above imperfection, and wherein no man is infallible, it becomes all of us to be charitable in judgment, ready to reverse what- ever line of conduct we may have adopted, and cautious in the expression of opinion. The slang phrase "cock-sure," which means overconfident, expresses in a rude way the intellectual and moral attitude of the vulgar partisan. The crass champion or reformer will denounce whatever man or measure happens to lie in his way. The vul- garity of the exhibition which he makes is a thing of which he never even dreams. He cannot un- derstand how anything can be good that he op- poses, or that opposes him. As a matter of fact, all political parties are corrupt, and the man who yields any of them an unconditional loyalty is, in all probability, him- self like unto them. But it is also true that who- ever denounces them all without reserve is quite as far removed from good sense and reason. Parties are essential to the welfare of our coun- try. Different parties act as secret agents to spy out faults and misdeeds, each holding up to view the party that opposes its plans and purposes. It is, of course, an illustration of the old saying, "the pot calls the kettle black;" but as in this case both pot and kettle are black, there is THE VULGAR AGE 9 no small need of their various and often bitter assaults. Undoubtedly the Republican party is quite as foul as the Democratic party represents it to be, and the Democratic is no better. Of course this mutual exposure is vulgar. Gentlemen do not give each other opprobrious names ; but then we must remember that they only are gentlemen who conduct themselves in a decorous and seemly way. This is not a gentle- manly age; on the contrary, it is what we have called it, a vulgar age ; and in nothing is it more vulgar than in its political diatribes and evil deeds. The language used by otherwise respect- able papers and public men in dealing with polit- ical opponents, the slang, the vilification, and the false charges, all go to prove this age, in what- ever concerns personal refinement, a rude and coarse age, though in material resources, it has, of course, the advantage which comes of being the inheritor of all the wealth and wisdom of the world. The age of Nero and of his immediate predeces- sors and successors was one of unreportable vice and crime and of the greatest extravagance, but it was not the vulgar and spiritless age that the world has seen many times, and will no doubt see many times in the long centuries to 10 A FREE LANCE come. Nero killed his mother, a thing no sover- eign of the present day could do and retain his throne. He gave away vast sums in money and treasure taken from the people by robbery. He was, in all probability, a madman, and his reign was a nightmare. But he was not vul- gar; he was a man of many natural gifts and of fine culture. He loved beauty, and gave enormous sums for its expression in art. Under the Csesars Rome became a miracle of beauty. Architecture flourished on every hand. Greece also, and other nations as well, rejoiced in the splendor of marble and bronze. It was an age of both material and intellectual refine- ment and elegance. But now contemplate for one moment the shapeless structures that we call public buildings. Take, for instance, the State House or Capitol at Albany in the Empire State, the most populous and wealthy of all the States in our Union. Its cost was very great, but as a specimen of good architecture could there have been a more humiliating failure? It is extravagantly decorated and enriched within, and upon its walls hang many interesting and a few meritorious pictures ; but who would think of describing it as an architectural THE VULGAR AGE U success? Call to mind the so-called statues that disgrace Central Park in the city of New York. Consider also the general distaste for poetry which in this age makes every publisher unwill- ing to bring out a book of verse. It matters not how good the book may be— no one will purchase it, and only here and there may be found a per- son who would read the book were a copy of it given him. Virgil and Horace would starve in an age like ours. I am neither excusing nor am I condoning the crimes of Nero. I am only comparing his love of beauty with our want of such love. There may, perhaps, have been some cogent rea- sons for Nero's murder of his mother. She was a woman of great strength of mind, and she aspired to an unlimited authority. She was also equal to any crime, and beyond all doubt her imperial son greatly feared her. She was a much stronger woman than he was man, and he knew it only too well. Had he not taken her life it may be that she would have taken his. She caused her rival, Lollia Paulina, to be slain, and commanded the executioner to bring her head to her that she might assure herself that it was in truth her rival and none other that had been dispatched. She pushed back with her own 12 A FREE LANCE fingers the dead lips that she might see if the teeth were those of Lollia. Such a woman would stop at no deed of violence, and Nero be- lieved his own life to be in danger so long as she breathed the breath of life. Perhaps after all the crime of Nero was not so desperate as history represents. Nero loved poetry, art and music as few sovereigns of the present age love anything that ministers to human culture. His passions were violent but his tastes were fine. He may have been a madman, but he was not a fool. Agrip- pina was herself as extravagant as was her royal son. She was an artist in dress, and attired herself in robes that were of extraordinary beauty. Every robe was of a new design. We are encased in inelastic fashions that make all women look alike, but she made her own fashions, and into them she put taste and originality. Her rival Lollia Paulina was also an artist in dress. It is recorded of her that she wore in public a robe that cost what would be in our money a little over $1,664,580. To this amount must be added the price of the gems that she wore with the robe. Jewels in Rome at that time did not depend for value mainly upon the commonplace cutting of established patterns, THE VULGAR AGE 13 but upon the marvelous beauty of original de- signs. Each stone had its own peculiar beauty in both the gem itself and the design. Rome was in the day of its splendor a superb city. From Ostia-on-the-sea to the imperial city there extended for fifteen miles a street of palaces, villas, tombs, statues, and works of art of every kind. In the city itself everything was arranged with a view to beauty and luxury* Palaces of green, white, and tinted marbles rose on every side. It is true that the conveniences of modern life were wanting, and that beneath all this splendor there was a vast misery. There were no hospitals and no institutions of mercy and charity for the poor. Slavery was common, and the rights of what we call "the people" were not generally respected. The few and not the many created all this beauty, and to them it belonged. To-day things are changed. This is the age of the common people — an age of great comfort and of measureless vulgarity. The peasant now enjoys a luxury of which the early king never dreamed. The common people have come to the front, and they are taking possession of the world. If only they were trained to use with wisdom their new power, we might hope for U A FREE LANCE good results; but in every age since the world began wisdom, good judgment, and real ability have been the possession of the trained and educated few. In the very nature of things it must always be so. No government can long endure that rests upon the unenlightened judg- ment of the untrained masses. Writing of America to an American more than fifty years ago, Macaulay said: "Your republic will be as fearfully plundered and laid waste in the twentieth century as the Roman empire was in the fifth, with this difference, that the Huns and Vandals who ravaged the Roman Empire came from without, and that your Huns and Vandals will have been engendered within your own country and by your own institu- tions." Macaulay's prophecy is coming true. Popu- lar institutions are doomed. A country gov- erned by labor unions, uneducated foreigners, and irresponsible bosses must in the very nature of things perish. The majority of men are of lowly birth and humble circumstances; they are imperfectly educated, if they have any educa- tion at all; and they are dependent upon daily labor for daily bread. They have neither the time nor the training required for the great THE VULGAR AGE 15 and difficult work of governing themselves and their fellow men. The fierce commercial competition of this age is intrinsically vulgar. It reduces thousands of men to the level of a machine, and it gives to the few, as their principal aim in life, ma- terial supremacy, while it gives to all, as their chief good, daily bread. It ignores all ideal considerations. It is a return to what has been called "natural selection" — the survival of the fittest. It is the conducting of human affairs upon the same principle upon which the beasts conduct theirs. There is, however, this differ- ence: the struggle of tooth and claw is natural and proper to the brutes, while it is not natural and proper to man in a civilized condition. There is nothing degrading in commerce when pursued as a means and not as an end. But m this age it has become an end for which men strive with a fury of competition at once cruel and vulgar. The one great distinction in this age between man and man is the possession of wealth. The aristocracy of America is one of dollars and cents, and not one of brains and morals. A wealthy man in the far West shot himself because he had lost his fortune, though he was young and in good health, and might 16 A FREE LANCE create another fortune without great difficulty. He said that he could not live without money. To have it known that he was poor was to be disgraced. Money was all the world to him because in this age it includes personal stand- ing and even character. He saw no beauty where there was no money. ■Compare that man with Gainsborough, who found delight in every melodious sound ; who was entranced by every glorious landscape; who re- joiced in the freshness of spring and in the splendor of autumn. Poetry and the fine arts have much to do with civilization. The age that neglects these is ipso facto a vulgar age. But it is the common com- plaint of all literary men that poetry is not only disregarded but positively disliked by the age in which we live. No publisher will now risk the sale of a book of verse, and with good reason, for very few care to read that kind of a book. To be an eminent poet was once a mark of distinction; but now the writer of good verse apologizes for his genius. The last generation saw well-nigh the last of the brilliant New Eng- land Transcendentalists disappear from the face of the earth. Where now have we authors to take the places made vacant by the death of PATRICK HENRY 17 Lowell, Emerson, Longfellow, and Whittier? Among all our novelists have we any that may be compared with Cooper and Hawthorne? Where are the peers of Parkman, Prescott and Motley? It is safe to say that many a year will go by before again we have a genius like that of Poe. PATRICK HENRY p ATRICK HENRY may have been the "for- est-born Demosthenes" that Byron called him in "The Age of Bronze," but a man trad- ing in human flesh and blood, and bequeathing slaves and cattle alike in his will, is hardly the man to cry, "Give me liberty or give me death !" He denounced Caesar, Charles the First, and George the Third, in one breath, but was he himself less of a tyrant than any or all of these? WOMAN'S WORLD WOMEN live in a world in many ways very unlike the one in which men live. The lives of most men are, from a woman's point of view, hard, inelastic, materialistic, and cold. The man's life may rest upon a substantial 18 A FREE LANCE foundation of fixed realities ; but women are by- nature poets: they idealize whatever they touch, and it is to this idealizing tendency that they owe the romance and charm of the wonder- world wherein they dwell. No doubt, in this idealizing which underlies the feminine life there is a certain unreality that would lead the mas- culine mind astray; but women find in it a sub- stantialness as true and real as any matter-of- fact experience known to man's grosser world of "things as they are." Woman's world is an illusion only in the sense in which all worlds are illusions. There is no Ding an sich for any of us. We live in worlds of our own creating. Yet with all the idealizing characteristics of the feminine mind, women have never excelled in the things that demand constructive or crea- tive genius. The great musical composers, like Beethoven, Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Wagner, are all men. You will not find a woman among them. The supreme painters, such as Michael Angelo, Raphael, Murillo, and our modern Tur- ner, are every one of them men. There is in all the ages no record of a woman who was ac- counted a great sculptor. You will not find among women a poet of the first order, like Ho- mer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, or Milton. WOMAN'S WORLD 19 The feminine mind is not constructive or crea- tive. Women are well able to appreciate the arts, but never will they be found among the gifted few who construct the charm and allure- ment of a great original work of whatever kind. It is true that women have never had an oppor- tunity of understanding and enjoying these things ; at least, they have not had man's op- portunity with all its wealth of privilege. They have, however, made good use of such places and occasions as have come to them. What will be the final issue of their effort to win for them- selves a larger world of privilege, it would be hard to say. Most of the opposition they must encounter in their demand for suffrage will come, no doubt, from certain well-to-do women who have themselves no need for the ballot, and from Roman Catholic and Episcopal priests who have their own reason for interesting them- selves in the matter. They will in all proba- bility some day succeed in their demand, because the world is moving in that direction, and the spirit of the age more than any effort of theirs will determine the outcome. But of how much value the new life of political activity will prove, no one can even remotely conjecture. The masculine temperament is essentially ego- 20 A FREE LANCE tistic. Man is his own centre, and around himself he revolves. The woman's temperament is ideal- istic. She finds the centre of her hopes and, de- sires, not in herself, but in a nobler world of her own making. Man rises above society and seizes upon the world, which he shapes to his own purpose. Woman finds her happiness in a society that she has formed for herself and that reflects her own mind. For her to rise above society would be for her to rise above herself. The social circle is feminine, and its verdict is always a woman's verdict. Much has been said against the double stand- ard of morality which punishes a woman for the sin it permits, and in some cases even applauds, in the man. It is said that sin is sin, irrespec- tive of sex. There is of course an ethical sense in which that is true, but for all practical pur- poses there will be, so long as there are two sexes, two separate standards. The judgment against moral delinquency comes through so- ciety and is a social judgment. Man is in great measure independent of social exactions. He nei- ther made them nor has he ever fully conformed to them. To use a vulgar phrase, "He snaps his finger in their face and goes his way." That is because he has a way of his own in which to WOMAN'S WORLD 21 go. Woman never conformed to a masculine social standard ; there never was in all the world and the ages such a standard to conform to, nor could there be, in the nature of the case. No more could man be required to conform to an essentially feminine standard. There will be but one standard to which both willingly con- form when both unite in constructing it. It will be androgynous, combining both sexes ; that is to say, it will be impartial in dealing with the problems of life. When we have that stand- ard, we shall have also a common verdict and mutual obedience. Man's standard of morality, were there such a thing in existence, would bear less heavily upon woman than does the present standard which woman has herself constructed. The woman who falls receives from the circle in which she moves judgment without mercy. This unlovely severity springs in large measure from self-righteousness. The consciousness of inter- nal rectitude is for most of us a very dangerous thing. It is a blast of moral winter that seals up every fountain of compassion, turning the human heart into ice. Had the good women of to-day been living when our Saviour was on earth, and had they been present when He said 22 A FREE LANCE to those who accused the woman taken in adul- tery, "Let whoever is without sin among you cast the first stone," they would, every one of them, have grabbed as many stones as they could lay hold of, and they would have show- ered them upon the offender's head with all the cruel vindictiveness of a self-righteous spirit. The inhumanity of the social verdict and of its execution stands out in fearful distinctness over against the compassionate words of Jesus, "Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more." A very intelligent woman told the writer of this that the ferocity of the social judgment sprang from the most abject fear. "The woman who goes astray," she said, "endangers the home, which is woman's special province. If she goes unpunished, we may at any time lose a husband, and see a home broken up. When she tempts a man she wrongs a woman. Self-defense calls for the most desperate measures. We cannot take her life, but we can do more — we can crush her soul." I said, by way of reply: "Most women who fall are tempted by men before they in turn become tempters of men. I should think that of the two, the man would be usually the more guilty. Is it, then, reasonable to ruin the WOMAN'S WORLD 23 woman while the man goes uninjured and even unrebuked?" She answered, "We could not reach the man if we would. It is to keep him, and not to lose him, that we wage war upon the tempter. His sin may be before God as great as is that of the woman, but its effect upon the home is not so disastrous." It all comes back to the defense of the home. This ferocity springs from a fear, and very nat- urally the fear is combined with a deep feeling of indignation and, in many cases, of revenge. The wrong is great, but no wrong can be so great as to justify another wrong. Shake- speare never wrote truer lines than these : "In the course of justice none of us Should see salvation; we do pray for mercy; And that same prayer doth teach us all to render The deeds of mercy." To "crush a woman's soul" is, so it seems to the writer, to do a thing the divine Son of Mary would brand as a deed of darkness. How a woman can thus deal with a human being and yet pray to be herself forgiven as she forgives, is an unexplained mystery, unless we suppose hypocrisy. 24 A FREE LANCE Women are naturally Christians, because Christianity is a feminine religion. Love and righteousness seem to be the two principal sup- porters of the religion of our Lord. Love is the feminine supporter and righteousness the masculine. It can easily be seen that love comes first, and underlies and sustains the masculine righteousness. It is the fulfilling of the law be- cause it holds in solution all the virtues. Love attaches its possessor to a person, and everywhere we find that it is the leader rather than the cause which he represents that women love and follow. The person of Christ and the cult of Mary (in the Roman Catholic Church) attract the feminine mind and heart far more than the ec- clesiastical organization. It is hard to find among women — especially of the better sort — an avowed agnostic or an unbeliever, while men of unbelieving mind are far from uncommon. Women are naturally conservative, affectionate, and religious. They are more stable than men, and have greater endurance. They hold fast the faith in which they were born and educated long after men have learned to doubt, or have wholly abandoned their early belief. Women are by nature exceedingly religious. WOMAN'S WORLD 23 But strange it is that they are so, especially in Christian Europe and America. Everywhere they make much of religion, but, apart from the wor- ship of Mary, the religion of our modern world has made very little of them. Under old pagan faiths women had many and serious disabilities, yet never under such faiths were they actually accursed. No sooner was the Christian religion planted upon our earth than from every bending bough of a rising asceticism hung the evil fruit of contempt for womanhood. Of course this was, though under the name of Christianity, still pagan; for among the Romans a woman was, first of all, the property of her father, and later she was that of her husband ; she was man's plaything or his slave, but never his com- panion and equal. It was asceticism in the early church, rather than the church itself, that blighted woman's life. It was a great wrong. It added to the pagan contempt the monk's dread of moral con- tagion. Of course it was at variance with the teachings of Jesus; it was grafted upon those teachings, and in time it came to be regarded as an actual part of them. Thus was the sim- ple Gospel perverted to the degradation of womanhood. The Mother of our Saviour was 26 A FREE LANCE exalted to a celestial throne, and so removed far above all the daughters of Eve who were partakers of the ancient curse. Tertullian was a Christian father who did much to shape the early thought of the church ; but consider for a moment the opinion of women which that great teacher entertained, and which he expressed in a direct address to them: — "Know you not, each of you, that you are sprung from Mother Eve? Against you God has registered his righteous sentence. You are the gateway to forbidden fruit. You are the breaker of righteous law. You persuaded Adam that the Devil could not harm him, and so with- out difficulty you destroyed the image of the Creator in man whom he had created. What came of your work but death? It was because of your sin that the Son of God must die." Thus it became sin for the priest of God to mate with a woman. To see her was evil. There were monks who thought that even the shadow of a daughter of Eve would render them unclean. Celibacy became a rule of the Church. The only amendment a daughter of Eve could make was religious virginity, which, it was believed, introduced her into the family of Mary, the everlasting Virgin Mother. WOMAN'S WORLD 27 I wonder much that women are so religious. Their religious nature must go very deep to stand the strain of such dishonor and repres- sion. This state of things was of priestly con- ceiving, and not of Divine appointment. Our Saviour honored womanhood and exalted the marriage relation. His view of sexual life was in all its essential features the reverse of the ideal set up by ecclesiastical authorities. Wedded love, and not virginity, was the Divine model of perfection in the relation of the sexes. By virtue of her idealizing tendency woman creates for herself, first of all, a world of mar- velous beauty, and then for man as well she brings into existence a haven of peace and glad- ness. All the hard experiences in life she or- naments and adorns. She includes man in the circle of her idealization. This explains the many strange marriages that take place. Women think they are marrying men they know and understand, when in reality they are wed- ding the creatures of their imagination. Men also thus deceive themselves, but not so often as do women. Narcissus, fatigued with hunting, heated and thirsty, stooped down to drink from a clear fountain. The classic story records that he saw his own image in the water 28 A FREE LANCE and took it for a beautiful water-spirit living in the fountain. He gazed upon the lovely image of himself thinking it another being, and so fell in love with himself. He pined away and died, the victim of a mistaken self-love. More often the water-spirit falls in love with Narcissus. It is the woman who does the ideal- izing. But one way or the other, the idealizing takes place, and few marriages are made with open vision. The men women marry and the men they think they marry are not often the same. Love plays fantastic tricks, and women are unconscious artists. No doubt in time the cruel years will destroy the illusion. The vision will fade into repulsive reality. Still there has been for a season a gladness it is more than likely the reality could never have afforded. After all, no world, whether of joy or of sorrow, has for us, as has been already said, any other existence than that which we ourselves give it. It is as the poet tells us: "All is but as it seems, — The round, green earth, With river and glen; The din and mirth Of busy, busy men; WOMAN'S WORLD 29 The world's great fever, Throbbing forever; The creed of the sage, The hope of the age, All things we cherish, All things that live and all that perish, These are but inner dreams." We discourse of reality, of a final criterion of truth, of things as they are, and of much more of the same kind, but of these things, if they exist, we have no knowledge. The discus- sion of the fundamental and substantial may en- tertain philosophers, but for all practical pur- poses such discussion can have neither use nor meaning. Every man is his own Adam, and every woman is her own Eve. The story of cre- ation starts over again in every cradle and ends in every new-made grave. An American writer said long ago: "If we discover the connection of our thoughts and feel- ings with outward nature, the whole universe is in our power; and we may, by a modification of ourselves, change the world from its present state into what we all wish it might become." In other words, to quote from Goethe, "Each one sees what he carries in his heart." 30 A FREE LANCE We make our own universe, and people it as we will. But what does it all matter? Comes it not to the same thing in the end, whether man is dependent upon an outward universe, or whether that universe is dependent upon the in- dividual soul? To Emerson the two proposi- tions are the same. "Whether," wrote the Sage of Concord, "nature enjoys a substantial exist- ence without, or is only in the apocalypse of the mind, it is alike useful and alike venerable to me. Be it what it may, it is ideal to me so long as I cannot try the accuracy of my senses." There the matter ends. For us the universe is, view it as we miay, ideal. It is what we make it. So Coleridge thought when he wrote the famil- iar lines : — "Oh, lady, we receive but what we give, And in our life alone doth nature live." Women, light of heart, paint in the gay colors of their cheerful and hopeful souls. They are born optimists, living near the surface, if not actually upon it. Men, too easily depressed, create for themselves a universe wherein the dog- star reigns. It is a universe in drab. The masculine temperament is resolute but not hope- WOMAN'S WORLD 31 ful. Men sink their analysis to the inmost core of things. They themselves dwell deep down below the surface where the sunlight does not always penetrate. It is generally known that there is a richer flow of arterial blood in the posterior region of a woman's brain, while in the case of man the flow is richer in the anterior section. The func- tions of the posterior are mainly sensory and are concerned in seeing and hearing, while the anterior includes the speech centres. The higher inhibitory centres are concerned with the will, and there is an association of centres con- cerned with the appetites. There is a corre- spondence between the richer blood-supply of the posterior brain and woman's delicate powers of sensuous perception, rapidity of thought, and emotional sensibility. Correspondingly, men have greater originality, calmer judgment, and stronger will. It has been observed that women are nearer the infantile type, while men approach the se- nile ; hence women remain normal in thought, feel- ing, and conduct, while men have a variational tendency toward genius, insanity, and idiocy. The nearest point of approach to genius that women reach is found, so it seems to me, in novel- 32 A FREE LANCE writing. In the last generation they were ex- ceptionally good letter-writers and conversa- tionalists. They are now good, but not great, actors. But there were some very great actors, like Rachel, Siddons, Ristori, and Charlotte Cushman, among them in previous genera- tions. There has been much discussion with regard to the sex of the angels. The Scriptures and the Church seem to make them masculine. These are some of the names applied to them in the Sacred Writings, and it will be seen that they are of either masculine or neuter gender. 1. Gods (Elohim, "Worship Him all ye gods"). 2. Sons of God (Job xxxiii: 7). 3. Seraphim ("Burning Ones"). 4. Cherubim (Plural of Cherub: "Fulness of Knowledge." — Perhaps from the Chaldee for a Young Man). 5. Watcher (Dan. iv: 13). 6. Thrones (Col. i: 13). 7. Dominions ("Lordships," Col. i: 16). 8. Principalities (Col. i: 16). 9. Powers (Col. i: 16). 10. Morning Stars (Job xxxviii: 7). 11. Living Creatures (Ezek. i: 6-11). WOMAN'S WORLD 33 12. Beasts (The Greek is better rendered "Vital Beings": Rev. iv: 6-8). 13. Gabriel (Dan. viii: 14). 14. Michael ("Who is like unto God?" Dan. x: 13; Jude 9, Rev. xii: 7. Michael is called the Archangel). In the Apocrypha we have Raphael (Tobit iii: 17; xii: 15), and Uriel or Jeremiel. There are also evil angels. These names, each and all of them, suit or fit men rather than women. But the artists could not rest satisfied with a celestial hierarchy wholly male. There seemed something unnatural in painting upon these masculine figures iridescent wings, aureoles, and much more of the kind. Fra Angelico di Fiesole depicted angels as women, and the friar never suspected that he was guilty of heresy. For centuries, all over the Christian world, art has represented the angels as female, It was "Sancta" rather than "Sanctus." Why is it the great painters have wished, after all that we gather from Scripture and the Church, to make their angels feminine? Most of the world-renowned artists who set the artistic fashion for us all are men, and they very naturally think of bright and beautiful angels who come and go on errands of mercy 34 A FREE LANCE as celestial women. The angels are painted in flowing robes. How else could they be por-j trajed? Think of arraying them in male cos- tume ! How would an angel appear in a frock coat or in evening dress? Of course one might arrange an antique classic style of dress, but how much more natural to use such drapery as would be appropriate upon a woman's form! The wings suggest aspiration, the desire for higher and better things. The German poet tells us "The eternal womanly Draws us upward and onward." It is the mission of these celestial visitants to draw us upward. They belong not so much to the earth as to the heavens. They are above us, and we paint them in the upper air. They go between God and man, and connect us with heavenly glor} T . The great artists have always felt that when they were painting angelic beings they were depicting the essentially feminine. The delicate limbs, the gentle and refined fea- tures, the eye bright with hope and love, and a feeling of purity — all these are suggestive of the feminine side of human nature. An ath- WOMAN'S WORLD 35 letic angel would seem to be an incongruity. The creature would be out of the order of na- ture. Even the fighting angels who combat the Prince of Darkness are represented as vanquish- ing the Adversary not so much through phys- ical strength as by spiritual qualities. These divine combatants are made to be masculine out of a sense of propriety. Otherwise the drawn sword would be out of place. There is no real belligerency about them, no vindictiveness, and no anxiety with regard to the result. The fighting angel has a face full of aspiration and hope, full of an uplifting peace. Someone has asked, "Do women love brutal men?" I believe they do. There is a force in brutality that pleases and even fascinates some women. Women like power. Nothing so dis- gusts a woman as an effeminate man, and noth- ing is more repulsive to a normal man than mas- culinity in a woman. I think that in the minds of most men the chief objection to the woman's rights movement grows out of a fear that the movement will defeminize women. The fear may be groundless, but it is operative nevertheless. My own belief in the matter is that the en- franchisement of women will have a beneficial in- fluence upon our political life for about twenty- 36 A FREE LANCE five or thirty years ; after which time politics will do for women what it has already done for men. Women will bring new blood to our po- litical system, and we shall have for a while more honesty and greater faithfulness in the dis- charge of public duties. But by and by the de- moralizing struggle for place and power will corrupt the wife as it has already corrupted the husband. Wait until we have a female boss, a thing as unseemly to us as is the masculine angel to the Fra Angelico school of painters, and then tell me what you think of the political equality of the sexes. But still I believe that women are entitled to the same political rights that men enjoy. It will do them little good morally, and much harm, to wade in political filth, but men claim the right to wade in that kind of material and they seem to enjoy it. Women have the same inherent right to choose their own way in both public and private life that men have. The boss is a very dirty creature, but he is not un- popular with church members and with other good people. These may denounce him, but nevertheless they will vote for him. He may be himself a church member. It would not be strange were he an elder or a deacon. Still, the WOMAN'S WORLD 3T boss is a disgrace to any political system. The filth of political life will soil women as it has soiled men, but so long as we have political rights and popular suffrage some one must lie in the gutter. The gutter is malodorous, but hundreds of men scramble for the place, and they seem to be afraid that women will get it away from them. Women are fond of power, and when they be- come the political equals of men they will, be- yond all question, grasp at it, and make full use of it. There is no reason to think they will make worse use of it than have men. If I am right, they will at first make much better use of it. Women have had comparatively little direct power; all their power has been indirect, but it has been, for the most part, well used. They have had charge of the social and domestic forces of the world, and they have made them tell for good. Without woman's presence home would be impossible. Church-work and many benevo- lent enterprises are wholly theirs. Women are more chaste than men, but they have fewer temptations, less violent passions, and more to fear from the consequences of wrongdoing. They are less liable to be intem- perate and brutal, but they have more vanity 38 A FREE LANCE and jealousy; these they do not always exhibit to the world, because they have tact to a degree seldom within the knowledge and practice of men. Women are more merciful, but men have a better sense of impartial justice. Women are sympathetic and compassionate, but they lack the force and energy of their brothers and hus- bands. Woman's world, beautiful in many ways, is always intense, but never is it wide like the mas- culine world. Women see the things that concern themselves, while men, with larger vision, inter- est themselves in the race to which they belong. I much doubt, in truth, that a woman could be- come a statesman (I suppose the word should be "stateswoman"). She might with no great difficulty take up the work of a politician, but the mind of a true statesman calls for a much larger outlook. Women may vote, hold office, and do the things men do, but only when they learn to live as men live can they know what it is to lead a free life. So long as they are upon their knees before the milliner and the dressmaker; so long as they are unable to travel ten miles without a large trunk well packed; so long as they must ride horse- back with both feet on the same side of the horse; so long as they must wear their hats, PERSONALITY 39 which they describe as "creations," indoors — that is to say, in the theatre, in the church, and at functions of various kinds; so long as they must dress only as the latest fashion requires — so long they must remain the slaves they have always been. Man's freedom is not a thing apart from his life; the two are inseparable. Far back in the early colonial days in this coun- try the cobbler of Agawam wrote of women, "It is no marvel they wear drailes on the hinder part of their heads, having nothing, as it seems, in the fore part but a few squirrel's brains to help them frisk from one fashion to another." The only possible escape from the "squirrel's brains" is now, as it always was and always will be, through the open door of personal inde- pendence. Voting may help, but it will not change the narrow life of woman into the larger one of her husband. PERSONALITY E MERSON wrote in his Journal: "I know not why, but I hate to be asked to preach here in Concord." He preached much in Con- cord and in towns near by during the summer of 1856. I had the same feeling, and I have it now. After I gave up my charge in Great Bar- 40 A FREE LANCE rlngton I did not like to preach in the neighbor- hood. It seemed to me that my personality, with which the people were familiar, came be- tween the congregation and the message. The speaker, to speak well, must lose sight of him- self. But how can one lose sight of a person- ality of which one knows that every man, woman and child in the room is intensely conscious? THE SHADOW WHEN in his own bosom man enthrones the dream and neglects the reality; when he exalts the idea and forgets the prior and superior claim of the deed, thus preferring the shadow to the substance; when he has made this final and supreme choice of the unreal, put- ting aside life itself for the passing emotions engendered by life, then has his doom been pro- nounced. Then is his service forever ended. FREEDOM IX MARRIED LIFE NO two persons can live together without some surrender of personal freedom upon both sides. In married life the surrender is absolutely essential; and where love is present, FREEDOM IN MARRIED LIFE 41 and is wise as well as tender, the surrender may cost but little, and brings true and lasting hap- piness. But there is always a limit, and in no two persons is it in precisely the same place. To some men, as to some women, that independ- ence of thought, feeling, and action which we call personal liberty is more essential than it is to others. But somewhere the line must be drawn beyond which lies peril, if not actual dis- aster. The secret of happiness in the married life consists in knowing just where the line should be drawn, and in respecting its require- ments. Most women have what we call the maternal instinct; in some it is strong, and in others weak, but few are wholly without it. Where there are children, the instinct finds its own natural expression in all those tender endear- ments and noble self-sacrifices which render motherhood the divinely beautiful thing men have always believed it to be. But often (oftener now than in earlier days) marriage is not fruitful, and the maternal instinct, deprived of its natural outlet, usurps in some measure the place sacred to conjugal affection. With a love not wholly wifely but in part maternal, the woman encroaches upon the personal freedom 42 A FREE LANCE and manly independence of her husband. She has in one both husband and child. If it so hap- pens that she is the older of the two, this en- croachment becomes more decided, and, it may be, more harmful. Woman's life is more sheltered than that of man. Her associations are, in most cases, more religious. She has a life in church activities which no man, unless he be a clergyman, can understand. Her emotional nature is more sen- sitive, and plays a larger part in her otherwise more circumscribed and intense life. She has comparatively little of man's free out-door life, and, as a natural result, she knows little of the self-reliance that comes with such a life. Of man's struggle in the world for place and power she has often not even the faintest conception. She has grown up, if she is well placed socially, in her father's home, surrounded by comfort and luxury. She knows nothing of club-life, for the so-called club of the modern woman is no club at all in the man's understanding of the word. She would hardly recognize either the flavor or the scent of liquor. She never in all her life smoked a cigar. She is unacquainted with the interests and exigencies of a political career. FREEDOM IN MARRIED LIFE 43 Her life is in most of its salient features the opposite of man's life. Most women come to the marriage altar personally pure — wholly so in body, and comparatively so in mind. Few young unmarried men have led an irreproacha- ble life. Upon the altar of woman's heart the flame of married love burns with a steady, clear light, but often with less ardor than could be desired. The man's love may sometimes flicker; it is not always free from the suggestion of smoke and even ashes, but it is a living fire. Now, with all these differences, it is apparent that some degree of freedom is called for and is essential. The woman who would force her hus- band to live her life, and not his, is doing a great wrong. She may become a domestic ty- rant. Few men would wish their wives to think, feel, and live the masculine life — it would dis- tress them to believe that their wives could so live. If there is one thing, as has been else- where said, that a man dislikes and dreads more than anything else, it is a masculine woman. It comes then to this, — that the two lives united in the marriage estate are never one to the extent of self-extermination. Self may pass from sight, — it should so pass, — but, nevertheless, it 44 A FREE LANCE remains, and is the enduring foundation of a united life and love that finds in glad surrender the largest freedom. POPULAR SUFFRAGE T30PULAR suffrage means an enormous num- ■"■ ber of votes cast for one man. The av- erage man disfranchises himself, and the "boss" elects himself and his political friends to what- ever offices he and they covet. In the end a re- public is likely to become only the irresponsible government of a few self-elected men, who rule because the common people are indifferent. The common people being what they are, shrewd politicians are not likely to encounter much dif- ficulty in thinking and voting for them. AN INTERESTING EXHIBIT OF INJUSTICE TN the United States of America the personal character and standing of the citizen are of so little value, and the sense of justice and "fair play" is so feebly developed, that an inno- cent man who has been mistakenly convicted of a crime he did not commit, is, upon the discov- ery of new evidence establishing his innocence, AN INTERESTING EXHIBIT 45 simply pardoned, just as any genuine rascal might be pardoned if for any cause it seemed to the Governor best that he should be allowed to go free. The State has unjustly deprived a man of liberty, has associated him with crim- inals, has blackened his name, has injured his social and business standing and has thus im- paired his ability to earn an honest living; and it may be that the State has also confiscated what little property he possessed by compelling him to use it in his own defence: — all this the State has done, and yet, upon the discovery of new and exonerating evidence, it makes no rep- aration. It simply opens the door, and says, "Begone!" That is the kind of justice under- stood and practiced in the land of the Stars and Stripes. Two thousand years ago the keeper of a prison said to the Apostle Paul, "The magis- trates have sent to let you go; now therefore depart and go in peace." But Paul replied, "They have beaten us openly, uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison ; and now do they thrust us out privily? nay verily, let them come themselves and fetch us out." Paul was an innocent man, and he refused to ac- cept a pardon that left him guilty in the eye 46 A FREE LANCE of the law. He resented that kind of a pardon, and demanded exoneration. He might also, had he been so inclined, have insisted upon repara- tion. Paul was a Roman, and he demanded Roman justice. Had he been an American, he would, doubtless, have thrown up the sponge. It would hardly have been worth his time and strength to insist upon anything resembling justice. Quite in keeping with Paul's indignant re- fusal to accept the place of a guilty man, when he was not only an innocent but an injured one, was the refusal of George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, commonly called Quak- ers, to accept pardon for crimes of which he was not guilty. When great effort had been made to secure his liberation because his health had become seriously impaired by reason of the hardships attending his imprisonment, the judge ostentatiously offered him a pardon. This he spurned in words that remind us of Paul, but that do not even remotely suggest our American citizenship. These are his words, extracted from his Journal: "A pardon was not agree- able with the innocence of my cause. I had rather have lain in prison all my days than come out in a way dishonorable to truth." AN INTERESTING EXHIBIT 47 It was humiliating beyond expression to read, as I did in the Medical Record in this year of grace 1910, that a reputable physician who had been sent in 1905 to the penitentiary in Iowa on a twelve years' sentence, for a murder he did not commit, was pardoned by the Governor without apology or reparation of any kind. For five years the State had taken his labor in the penitentiary, and rendered him no compen- sation. During all that time he had been the unwilling companion of evil men. His medical practice and professional standing had been de- stroyed. His home had been broken up and his family humiliated. All these outrages had been heaped upon him, and then at last it was discov- ered that he was an innocent man. Was any effort made to repair the damage, or to save the reputation of the man for the benefit of his family? No, the man was not evenly publicly exonerated. Had he been hanged, new evidence would have been of no service. He would in that case have gone down to posterity as a con- victed murderer, and the State that hanged him would have made no attempt to repair the wrong by saving his reputation for the benefit of his family. Andrew Toth served nearly twenty years in a 48 A FREE LANCE Western penitentiary for a murder he never committed. When the man's innocence was dis- covered, he was at once pardoned by the Gov- ernor, and, homeless and penniless, he was' pushed out into the hard world to shift for hin> self. Destitute, enfeebled by age, unused to lib- erty and self-support, with most of his friends no longer living, he found himself unable to meet the demands of free life out in the world among men. He returned to the penitentiary and begged to be readmitted to the prison, which was the only home of which he had any knowledge. It was suggested that the State set aside for Andrew Toth the sum of ten thousand dollars, as a compensation for the ruin of his life through the miscarriage of justice. It was, however, shown that a bill calling for that or any other amount to be devoted to the purpose named would be unconstitutional. The State can send innocent men and women to prison, but it can- not spend a single dollar by way of compensa- tion. Yet when one considers the rapidity with which a number of "public servants," who for one reason or another do not go to prison, ac- quire wealth, it does seem that the State they "serve" might make some reparation for a great wrong. AN INTERESTING EXHIBIT 4?9 Compare in this matter the conduct of the United States of America with that of New Zealand. Mr. John Meikle was, in 1887, ar- rested on a charge of sheep-stealing. He was convicted in the Supreme Court, and sentenced to a long term of imprisonment. After he had spent five years in prison, it was discovered that he was entirely innocent of the crime charged against him. The case was brought before the New Zealand Legislature, and Mr. Meikle was offered a pardon and a grant of twenty-five thousand dollars. Mr. Meikle at once refused the "free pardon" which left him in the eye of the law a guilty man; he maintained that if he had not committed a crime there could be noth- ing to "pardon." He insisted upon a reversal of the judgment of the Supreme Court. The result was that an act was passed "to reverse the conviction of John Meikle on the charge of sheep-stealing, and to offer him the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars as compensation for injuries received." Of course our "wild and woolly Republic," in which Tom, Dick, and Harry are, all of them, influential citizens, might learn from almost any nation some im- portant lessons in common morals ; but it is humiliating to see New Zealand, with its civili- 50 A FREE LANCE zation of yesterday, so far in advance of our own land in the simplest elements of common justice. John Henry Chance of Boston was another victim of false imprisonment, who, upon the es- tablishment of his innocence, was pardoned. He had served a long time in prison, and his life had been ruined, and yet no compensation of any kind was attempted. One of the worst cases on record was that of a negro, Jim Henry, who in 1909 was convicted in a Florida court of as- sault with intent to commit murder. After his conviction he had been leased by the State to the Florida Pine Company and to another company, and for both corporate masters he had served as a common slave, with the added stigma of a crime he did not commit. A small monetary re- muneration (about four hundred dollars) was made, but in his case, as in all the others, a par- don was granted that left him in the eye of the law still a criminal. An interesting exhibit of injustice was fur- nished in December, 1911, to the people of the State of New York, and, incidentally, to the citi- zens of the entire country, in the discovery of an innocent man serving a life sentence in Sing Sing Prison. Mr. John Boehman had been in JOSEPH McDONOUGII "YE OLDE BOOKE MAN" 51 the prison sixteen years, for a crime committed by some other person. The necessary testimony was supplied by two men who had remained silent at a time when Boehman needed their dep- ositions to prove an alibi. The men stated that they were afraid of being hounded by the police. Had they died at any time during the six- teen years of Boehman's imprisonment, the knowl- edge of his innocence must have perished with them. In that case, no doubt, an innocent man would have been placed beyond all hope of mercy. In Boehman's case, as in the other cases cited, the mass of injustice was supplemented by fur- ther wrongdoing. The man was thrust out into the world with no exoneration. He was par- doned for a crime he did not commit. He was offered no compensation. The State did not even think of returning to the misused man the money he had earned for it during his imprisonment; for he had worked for the State during all those bitter sixteen years. And the two men who withheld their testimony in the hour of Boeh- man's need went unpunished. "YE OLDE BOOKE MAN' M Y good friend, Joseph McDonough, "Ye Olde Booke Man," is a hale and hearty 52 A FREE LANCE Irishman, honest as the day is long, and as sharp at a bargain as any man can very well be in a world like this, where every kind of busi- ness, trade, enterprise, and even profession, is "war to the bitter end." He will not cheat you, nor will he prevaricate, but there are excellent reasons for believing that he will come out on top when you "rush in where angels fear to tread," and put your book-knowledge against his. He knows more about books than you do unless you are an exceptional man, and he has the same right to use his wits that you have to use yours. I should advise you to spike his gun in advance by asking him for his opinion of the book which you want and which he would be glad to sell. If the little book on the table before you is not a first edition, he will tell you that it is not. Should he not know (a most unheard-of thing) where or when the book was first printed, it may be he would roll up his eyes and look wise "above what is written," but you may be very sure he would say frankly, "I don't know." But the chance of his not knowing is poor, for he has given all his life to the purchase and sale of old books, and he knows them not only as things, but as friends to be loved and cherished. He has, hidden away on one of the back shelves, "YE OLDE BOOKE MAN" 53 certain books that tell him all there is to be known about editions, prices, and pretty much everything else that a bookseller must know. To sell one's friends does not seem to be just the right thing, but that is precisely what every trader in books must do. Books are friends and companions, and some- times they even seem to be living creatures that actually put their arms about their readers. It is really a very tender love, more gentle and persuasive than one finds it easy to resist. By- ron fattened a goose for his Christmas dinner, feeding it every day from his own hand. The result was just what might have been expected. When the Christmas time came around he had become so attached to his web-footed friend that he could not bring himself to consent to its death. I have known traders in old books to refuse to sell certain choice volumes that they had cata- logued and offered to the public at remunerative prices. There is a Dutch story of a dealer at The Hague who assaulted his customer when he saw him removing from the shop a book that he had purchased and that was, therefore, his own. The dealer had consented to the sale, but he had not counted upon the removal. Booksellers are generally quiet and peaceable 54 A FREE LANCE men, though Carey fought a duel with Colonel Oswald and was badly wounded, and the young Boston bookseller Henry Knox became the fierce and belligerent General Knox of our American Revolution. The Dutch dealer who struck one of his best customers was more irascible than war- like. He conducted a large business at The Hague, and was respected by all who had deal- ings with him. He had simply repeated By- ron's experience with the goose, becoming so at- tached to a favorite volume that the mere thought of taking leave of it stirred up every element of bitterness in his nature.. I said that Mr. McDonough was an Irish- man. He was born in Kilkenny, and if that does not make him Irish from top to toe I should like to know just what on all the surface of this beautiful earth will make a man a true son of the Emerald Isle. Two very distinguished cats were also born in Kilkenny, but, quite unlike "Ye Olde Booke Man," they were of an exceedingly belligerent disposition. The story is that they fought so ferociously that each swallowed the other, leav- ing only the tails behind. I have known the good book man a number of happy years, and never yet have I seen any marked resemblance "YE OLDE BOOKE MAN" 55 between him and the aforesaid felines. It is true that all three, the "Olde Booke Man" and the two lively cats, came from the same town, and it is also true that they are all Irish, but beyond these interesting circumstances I know of nothing whatever that connects in any way their several biographies. Mr. McDonough's father was Irish before him, and so it is with him a matter not simply of the soil, but of blood and bone and of the soul itself. He has the kindly nature and keen wit for which the Irish are so justly celebrated. I never knew a more friendly, warm-hearted, and jovial man, but in one thing he is not, I think, like the ordinary Irishman, for I have ob- served in him a faint but distinct tendency in the direction of mental depression. Like all the rest of us, he has seen trouble, and it may be that advancing age and trouble are responsible for the depression. Never was there a better companion. I have passed some very happy hours in "Ye Olde Booke Man's" shop, in an easy chair, with a fragrant "Romeo and Juliet," and no end of rare old books that one might look for elsewhere many a year and not find. Such a place, full of strange bargains, and choice and curious books from all parts of the 56 A FREE LANCE world, must be a joy to the heart of the lover of books, whoever and whatever he may be. With books on every side (cobwebs, dust and all the other concomitants of good reading being present to season the intellectual feast) in the old book-shop, Father Time lays aside his pic- turesque scythe and tucks away his hour-glass in the ample robes that enfold his somewhat emaciated anatomy. After a while he slips away, and there is in the old shop no more re- membrance of the hours. You read, read, and read, and almost before you know it, you dis- cover that the cashier is making change for you, and you awaken to the fact that you have made a purchase. Everything happens so quietly and gently in the old book-shop that you wonder if there is not something in the mere presence of books that men have overlooked. You somehow feel that what little is said between leaf and leaf is sacred. The Romans hung in the banqueting room directly over the table a beautiful rose to remind the guests that the conversation at the table must not be repeated on the morrow or at any other time, but must be sacredly pre- served as an inviolable secret. To every guest "sub rosa" meant concealment and silence. "YE OLDE BOOKE MAN" 57 White was the color of the rose, because it was a white rose that Cupid dedicated to Harpocra- tes, the god of silence. In the dear old book-shop you will see over the long rows of tempting volumes no white flower suggesting silence, but you will see what is just as good as, and to the book-lover much better than, the rose of silence : you will see the no less sacred and dust-white cobweb. In capa- cious wine-vaults the cobwebs gather over the musty corks of old and well-seasoned bottles, and the critical judge will pick out no new vint- age, but, stretching his arm and thrusting his hand into some dark corner, he will bring to view a mass of dust and cobwebs. He knows what he wants, and he wants the very best. In that mass of dust he holds the finest wine in the cellar. In McDonough's shop you will do well to brush aside the dust, for under it all one may sometimes find the richest wine of letters. Take the sliding steps (you find such in every large book-shop) and mount to the top shelf. The best books are not supposed to be there, but one can never know just what he will find; no doubt you may come upon some vin ordinaire or some new vintage, but you may find as well the 58 A FREE LANCE very life-blood of the mellowest grape in all the vast vineyard of letters. The mellow grape of golden song, How rich the life-blood in its veins; Happy his hours, his life how long, Who the glad wine of letters drains. In a certain sense all men die equally well off in this world's goods, for all leave behind them whatever the world contains. King and pauper leave, both of them, all there is to be left. It is true that the one can bequeath to his immedi- ate family what the other has no power to dis- pose of, but they both leave to the world at large all they ever received from it and vastly more. In a very important sense I own all there is to be owned. The great libraries in every land belong to me in so far as I am able to use them. It is so also with the great book- shops, and with all the rare and valuable books that crowd their shelves. It may be "Ye Olde Booke Man" does not know it, but I own his shop and whatever it contains. And yet I must respect his prior ownership, which is not less real though very different. Use confers ownership of its kind. Because I take "YE OLDE BOOKE MAN" 59 delight in the arts and letters, they are mine. Yes, they are mine forever; that is to say, so long as I live and retain my reason. I wonder men who give themselves up to books do not oftener lose reason. The charm and fascination of books and of book-collecting are very great. I have a beautiful copy of Charles Nodier's "Bibliomaniac," translated into lovely English by Mrs. Mabel Osgood Wright, and published by her husband in 1894. It has forty-five illus- trations from designs by Maurice Leloir, en- graved on wood by Noel. It is the story of a man who went mad over books. He was a most amiable lunatic, and everybody loved him, save some drunken thugs who knocked him down in the street because they saw at a glance that he was a much better man than they, any of them, could ever hope to become, and because he did not join them in a rude and vulgar shout for Poland. From the assault he was in bed three months, and during all that time he had the cov- erlet over him strewn with book-catalogues. What delightful reading good catalogues are ! I find them much more attractive and in some ways more instructive than the thousands of wishy-washy newspapers that concern them- selves and disgust their readers with worthless 60 A FREE LANCE political jabber. Give me good books. The longer I live the more I love them. They bring to the soul a life of gladness. They breathe peace and contentment into the troubled heart of man. No one who has a good book is wholly friendless. We speak of sacred literature, but all worthy literature is sacred, for it ministers to the things that are divine in our poor hu- man nature. When I am dead, good friend of mine, In each of my cold hands let be Nor rose nor leaf, but some dear book Of sweet and priceless poesy. I obtained from McDonough the best copy of Bohme's works in English that I have ever seen. It cost me only forty dollars. The next week after its purchase I came upon a London bookseller's catalogue in which the four vol- umes were quoted at sevent} T -five dollars, and, from the description of the book, I am sure that it was not so good a copy. McDonough offered me more for the work, which contains Law's plates, than I gave him, but I knew enough to retain my prize. One sometimes hears of readers and of men "YE OLDE BOOKE MAN" 61 who not only read but also purchase, who, when surrounded by the dust and genius of an old book-shop, experience an almost irresistible im- pulse to pencil the margins of suggestive books. A certain reader confessed to me that he had disfigured several volumes in a book-shop and one in a public library. But, as he was a man of considerable celebrity, the books cannot have been greatly damaged. Had the scribbler been plain Mr. Jones, the keeper of the flour-mill just over the way, or Mr. Smith, the undertaker, I should have thought him under some obliga- tion (moral, if of no other kind) to buy the books he had certainly not improved. What's in a name? Much, my dear reader, very, very much. The man who can write Wil- liam Taft on the hotel register will not fare precisely as the man who scribbles Peter Smith or Timothy Brown must fare. Austin's poetry is poor enough (though Pye made worse verses), as all the English-speaking world knows only too well. A malicious writer described him as "a formalist, a man of clothes and externals, rubrics and rituals, and baboon genuflections and night-gown posings ;" but it must not be forgotten that Mr. Austin can write "poet lau- reate" over all the mass of worthless trash he 62 A FREE LANCE has given the world. What are those two little words "poet laureate" worth to the man who can write them after his name? Ah, my good reader, they are worth many golden pounds that better poets find themselves unable to command. I do confess that I once yielded, in "Ye Olde Booke Man's" shop, to an urgent desire to set a certain author right upon one of his own mar- gins. Conscience-stricken, I returned to the old shop fully determined to retouch the page, or, failing in that, to make myself owner of the book. I did not get the book, for it was sold to some careless reader who never stopped to ex- amine his purchase. No one would now remove from the walls of an old prison in France cer- tain inscriptions cut into them with a knife or traced upon them with a pencil. Not all who left upon those walls their bid for remembrance were men of distinction, but time and circum- stances have rendered the lines they left well worth the preserving. Time and place can do many things that men alone find themselves un- able to accomplish. I once purchased from McDonough a book I did not want. I bought it because I had writ- ten within it what I thought might not please him, though what I had written I might have "YE OLDE BOOKE MAN" 63 penciled in a book that belonged to me. It may be the verses scribbled that fine winter afternoon, with the fragrant smoke of a good cigar enfold- ing me the while, would not be wholly out of place here, but I shall, on second thought, put them aside, substituting this rhyme of the old book-shop : "ye olde booke man" A trader in the brains of men Is "Ye Olde Booke Man" sure; What songs and stories line his shelves, — Some great and some obscure. The poets come to him for sale, And plain prose-writers, too; In dainty volumes of levant, Or bound in gold and blue. I wish I was an ancient book, On Joe McDonough's shelf; I'd like to see what he would ask For my plain-featured self. I'll bet he'd sell me for a song, Or for a single note, If that fine note called for ten pounds, With pay-day not remote. 64 A FREE LANCE Ten pounds ! ten pounds ! Great Scott, how much ! (I should Great Joseph! say) Perhaps he'd tear my book-plate out, And throw the rest away. We authors are but books, I trow, Some good and others poor; Our leaves and bindings fall apart, Not one shall long endure. We live awhile in other minds, Or in McDonough's shop; Then Time brings down his glitt'ring scythe, And from the shelves we drop. CHEAP AND NASTY /^HEAP and nasty" is a phrase that de- ^^ scribes people who, ashamed of their humble birth, lie about their ancestors; who, ashamed of work, are still not ashamed to live upon the industry of others ; and who, anxious about the curls that sprout from their skulls, care nothing that their skulls are empty of any- thing worth caring about. BLAKE'S VISION OF ANGELS "D LAKE'S first vision is said to have been when *~* he was eight or ten years old; it was the vision of a tree filled with angels. Mrs. Blake, EVERY MAN HIS OWN JAILER 65 however, used to say : 'You know, dear, the first time you saw God was when you were four years old, and He put His head to the window and set you screaming !' " — Gilchrist's Life of Blake. Blake was an engraver and poet, and a tree full of angels would be to him what a tree full of apples would be to my friend, the good farmer who lives across the road. He saw along the line of his own tastes and inclinations, and he took his most congenial conceit for a manifes- tation of Divine Power. In this he was not un- like the theological and ecclesiastical romancers of our day, who are so familiar with God that they are no longer filled with wonder or surprise when they contemplate His glory. These pass with the multitude for wise and saintly souls, and to their preaching gather expectant congre- gations that meekly receive chaff for grain, and that, being invited, strive to drink the wine of life from an empty cup. EVERY MAN HIS OWN JAILER T7VERY man is his own jailer. He goes to "*~* prison to himself. He is under lock and key, and cannot get beyond the limitations of 66 A FREE LANCE his own nature. We discourse in glowing terms of a liberty we do not possess, and the while we boast of freedom we are chained fast to our conceits and prejudices. ANTHONY TYRRELL JANUARY 15, 1895.— Day dark and rainy, ** but study-fire brighter than usual, and full of gay salamanders. The evening hours es- pecially delightful in company with a new ac- quaintance in smooth olive morocco: "The Re- cantations as they were severallie pronounced by William Tedder and Anthony Tyrrell, (sometime two Seminarie Priests of the English Colledge in Rome) ... at Paules Crosse; with an Epistle dedicatorie unto her Maiestie, and their severall Prefaces unto the Reader, contayning the causes that mooved them to the same: 1588." I have seen one other copy of the book in the British Museum, but mine is larger, and I think the impression is more dis- tinct. It cost me twenty dollars — too much by five dollars, as I have learned from a London catalogue. What a choice rascal was the old Wisbech exorcist, Anthony Tyrrell; and with what su- ANTHONY TYRRELL 67 perb genius and fecundity of imagination did he lie about Mary Queen of Scots ! That man had as many religions as a cat has lives, and, like that animal, he had the comfortable trick of com- ing down upon his feet. In this very recanta- tion he admits to "having twice before renounced the Pope." A dime museum advertised among its curiosities a man from New Zealand with an elastic skin; Tyrrell had an elastic conscience, and no doubt he could have turned himself into a Turk or a wild man of the jungle on a mo- ment's warning. "Neatness and Despatch" was the motto of his religious life, and his phi- losophy, like that of the Vicar of Bray, was comprehended in the four lines: So the bait be good I can recant, Believe in less or more, For the boat must tack when strong winds blow, Or never reach the shore. An old and worldly-minded sinner of long ago wrote thus : "Be not over quick to speak thine opinion, nor too obstinate in maintaining it, but let all thy words be seasoned with pru- dence. Such an opinion is neither one thing nor another, but doth change itself many times ; why shouldst thou bring thy neck to the halter 68 A FREE LANCE for a mere nothing? Thou canst believe and doubt much without great clamor. If thy neigh- bor compel thee to his opinion, vex not thyself with contentions, but go merrily with him in outward matters. A pinch of incense to the gods will matter little, since the Lord looketh on the heart; and thy judgment shall be accord- ing to the inward desire." DEVELOPMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE WHAT a correct and beautiful picture of the growth and development of a noble spiritual life is given us by Confucius in the following statement: 1. "At fifteen, I had my mind bent on learn- ing." 2. "At thirty, I stood firm." 3. "At forty, I had no doubts." 4. "At fifty, I knew the decrees of heaven." 5. "At sixty, my ear was an obedient organ for the reception of truth." 6. "At seventy, I could follow what my heart desired, without transgressing what was right." Legge's Translation. The early search for truth gives rise to con- viction; conviction clears spiritual vision, and RELIGIOUS NATURE 69 dispels those overhanging mists of doubt which render decision of character and firmness of pur- pose and action impossible; a clear spiritual vision leads to the discernment of truth; that discernment opens the heart for its reception; and the reception introduces such harmony into man's entire nature that he may safely trust himself to choose and do the right under all circumstances and at all times. It is not difficult to Christianize the above or- der of spiritual growth thus : — (1) I sought truth, (2) and found it in Christ. (3) Under its influence doubt and mis- giving disappeared, (4) and growth in grace followed. (5) Growth in grace gave rise to spiritual experience, (6) and that in turn, slowly crystallized into holy habit and uncon- scious obedience. RELIGIOUS NATURE A MONG many deeply religious people, and ■**■ especially among such of them as reside in little villages and places remote from the great centres of intellectual activity, there prevails a deep-seated fear that not only the church, but religion itself, may be in danger from the ad- TO A FREE LANCE vance of modern thought and the discoveries of modern science. And even in large cities, where the mental horizon is more extended, there are some who share the same painful apprehen- sion. For the comfort of all such, of whatever name or creed, I call attention to a few facts, the consideration of which should be helpful and re- assuring. I. Religion is an essential element in man's nature, and as such can be destroyed only by the destruction of human nature itself. Man is, in every land and age, a religious animal. He shares his physical nature with the wild creatures of the forest and the beasts of the stall; and with them he shares as well in some measure his intellectual life. The dog can think and reason in its way as correctly as does its master in his. It is even possible that some dogs may reason better about some things than some masters, for the dog understands dog life from the canine point of view, and to that kind of understanding no other creature can attain. The one thing that distinguishes man from beast is not intellect, though differences even here are vast. Man and dog are both of them intellectual beings. The distinguishing factor in man, and RELIGIOUS NATURE 71 the one that everywhere appears at all times and under all circumstances, is the spiritual na- ture which he shares with no other creature upon the face of the earth. So long as he continues to possess the spiritual nature he must remain a religious animal. Man and dog, both of them think, but only man can worship. Man is what he is by virtue of this spiritual nature from, which he can never escape, and which no scientific discoveries can ever destroy. His religion may be of one kind or another, he may worship grotesque idols or the only true and living God, but the one thing that everywhere distinguishes him as a man and separates him from every other animal is his recognition of God. Even those who repudiate everything connected with what we commonly call religion, still, in one way or another, perhaps without their knowledge of the fact, entertain some meas- ure of religious feeling, and it may be of re- ligious hope. Thomas Paine and Robert G. In- gersoll were not Christians. They rejected the Gospel as we understand it, but they were in their own way religious men. Both of them thought much and discoursed much upon reli- gious themes. Even the avowed atheist who de- nies the existence of God has a spiritual nature 72 A FREE LANCE which he is powerless to destroy. Could a man destroy his spiritual nature, he would be no longer a man, for there would remain nothing to distinguish him from the beasts of the field. Ever at the heart of doubt is the sweet con- solation which springs from the assurance that spiritual things can be questioned only by a spiritual nature. The birds that build nests over the chamber window and sing their song of gladness in the early morning, never, so far as can be discovered, doubt concerning the great questions that allure and torment the human mind. Robin and wren never inquire into their own origin and destiny. They have no qualms of conscience. They remember little of the past, and anticipate less of the future. Man is troubled about spiritual problems be- cause he has a spiritual nature. He could not doubt the existence of his soul had he not a soul with which to entertain that doubt. He could not question the existence of God were he not made in God's image. That image is spiritual, and by virtue of it he is able to deal with spiritual things. Every "doctrine of grace" may be doubted. Man may "if" the universe. Birds and animals can doubt nothing in the psychological world, since spiritual things have RELIGIOUS NATURE 73 no existence for them. They have no spiritual nature. Our ability to question should give us confidence, for our uncertainty may be converted into a stepping-stone to larger faith. Reli- gious doubts are still religious. They introduce into life, not less speculation, but a wider hori- zon. It is always possible to follow Tennyson's wise advice: "Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt, And cling to faith beyond the forms of faith." The "sunnier side of doubt" is never far re- moved from a sweet assurance; and "faith be- yond the forms of faith" is in reality what we so often mistake for doubt. II. Religion and man's religious opinions are not the same thing. Religion is an essential element in man's nature, and is, therefore, inde- structible, while all our opinions and convictions change. A Buddhist may become a Christian, but the change may not make him either more or less religious. He had religious opinions be- fore he became a Christian, and after his con- version he still has religious opinions, only they are different from those he entertained prior 74 A FREE LANCE to his acceptance of the Gospel. His religious nature underwent no change, but the character of his convictions underwent a very great change. We should be careful not to confuse religion with any peculiar theory of religion. Theology is one thing and faith another. A man may have very slight acquaintance with the various systems of theology, and yet he may have personal acquaintance with God in Christ as his Father and his Saviour. III. Religion is not dogma. Mere subscrip- tion to the tenets of this or that religious de- nomination does not make a man more or less religious. Of course it is right that a man should unite with whatever church he may find himself in agreement with, but religion is some- thing more than church membership. There are good men in every religious organization, but it is not the organization that makes them good; it is something much greater and more substan- tial. A man might unite with fifty churches and be a bad man, and he might remain separate from all religious denominations and yet be not only a deeply religious man but a Christian man as well. Church membership may be a duty, but it does not change character. Few men RELIGIOUS NATURE 75 comprehend the doctrinal standards of the churches with which they are connected, and it is not necessary that they should understand them. To be a Christian is not to be a religious philosopher, but a sincere and affectionate dis- ciple of Jesus Christ. Let no timid soul fear the advance of modern science. Nothing can destroy religion as such because nothing can destroy man's religious na- ture. Our opinions should change and will change with new light ; and we should be willing to change them when larger knowledge renders such change necessary. The man who values his long-cherished opinions more than known truth is certainly not more religious than his neighbors, but he is less of a man for his moral cowardice and for his want of faith in God. We shall never all of us think alike, but that should not discourage us. With faith in God, service of Christ, and toil of heart and hand for our fellow men, we may make religion a practical thing, and life all that God would have it to be. I have from time to time jotted down in my note-book such definitions of religion as came under my observation. These are very differ- 76 A FREE LANCE ent, one from another, and yet it is quite possible to trace in them all the single thread that gives them a common relationship. Definitions Religion is the knowledge of God and His will, and of our duties toward Him. — john henry new- man. Religion is the play of the Infinite on the finite in the moral realm. — lyman abbott. Religion is conduct touched by emotion. 1 — Mat- thew ARNOLD. Religion is emotion touched by mortality. — GEORGE M. BEARD. Religion consists in the perception of the Infinite under such manifestations as are able to influence the moral character of man. — max muller. Religion is a feeling of the supernatural and of our relations to it. — george m. beard. Religion is the recognition of our duties as Di- vine Commands. — kant. Religion is thought about the Higher than self worked through the emotions into the acts of daily life. BARNETT. Religion is the infinite nature of duty. — mill. Religion is the immediate feeling of dependence of man on God. — schleiermacher. i Elsewhere Matthew Arnold defines religion as "Ethics heightened, enkindled, lit up by feeling." RELIGIOUS NATURE 77 Religion is awe in the presence of the majesty of an inscrutable power in the universe. — Herbert spencer. Religion is the relation of man to God. — schaff. Religion is the consciousness of universal rela- tion. DAVID A. WASSON. Religion is a feeling towards a supernatural Pres- ence manifesting itself in truth, goodness, and beauty. — c. c. everett. Religion is the worship of Supreme Mind and Will, directing the universe and holding moral rela- tions with human life. — james martineau. Religion is the upward flight of the soul to what it believes to be Divine. — J. a. MaccuLLOCH. What is religion if we may not describe it as deep calling unto deep? It is the deep in man re- sponding to the infinitely greater deep in God. — PERCY MARTIN. Religion standeth not in wearing of a monk's cowl, but in righteousness, justice and well doing. LATIMER. Religion is the communion between a worship- ping subject and a worshipped object — the com- munion of a man with what he believes to be a God. FAITHS OF THE WORLD. Religion is the recognition of God as an object of worship, love, and obedience. — anonymous. Religion is the life of God in the soul of man. — ANONYMOUS. 78 A FREE LANCE Religion is the sense of unity with the Infinite Whole. — ANONYMOUS. GOD IN NATURE TO see God in flowers, the grass, the trees; to hear Him in the song of birds, and in the music of wind and wave; to commune with Him in the silence and darkness of night — thus to hold fellowship with the Eternal is something beyond the power of language to describe. All things are full of God to the soul that has learned to love Him. TUNING THE PULPITS QUEEN ELIZABETH said: "I tune my pulpits." The pulpits of the Established Church played in Elizabeth's day the tune that pleased her best. They were all tuned to suit her fancy. Now, as then, the State Church, whether in England or elsewhere, is like a music- box. Queen, King, Parliament tunes it, winds it up, turns the lever, and lo ! the finely adjusted pulpits start off with what tune was given them. UNFRIENDLY RELIGION R ELIGION is not always a source of com- fort and peace. There are men to whom THE SHARP EDGE OF MERCY 79 it is never a friend, but only a dim and sheeted ghost, haunting a desolate conscience, and work- ing an intermittent and spasmodic repentance in a still unregenerate heart. Many a man has cried out to Religion from the depths of his heart: "Hast thou come to torment me before my time?" Only when faith turns to love, and life derives from it an altered color, has Re- ligion a renewing power. THE SHARP EDGE OF MERCY T IKE a benediction from Heaven, and as a gentle prayer from the tender heart of a mother, glides the surgeon's knife around the ugly tumor. A skillful physician wrapped his sharp scalpel in a soft and yielding sponge, and, while he stroked the felon, lanced it. How often we are lanced while we are stroked! The velvet hand of Providence hurts in order to cure. The most compassionate mercy has the sharpest edge. "HE TAUGHT THEM" rpiHE wonderful Sermon on the Mount is pre- * faced by "He opened His mouth." The 80 A FREE LANCE trouble with too many preachers is that they do not open their mouths. They make a noise without making an impression. Having read that "He opened His mouth," we are not sur- prised to learn from the next sentence that "He taught them." THEOLOGY AND PHYSICAL CONDITION JOHN CALVIN had indigestion; Queen Mary ** of England had dropsy and uterine disor- der ; John Knox must have had some trouble with his liver; nearly all of the men and women who found the severity of God, as applied to their neighbors, quite restful, seem to have had some extenuating disease. I wonder what distemper our old friend Baxter had. Our theology seems to take color from our physical condition. THE NATIONAL CHURCH AND PARLIAMENT rpHAT the Saviour is the head of the Kirk ■*• of Scotland, in any temporal, judicial, or legislative sense, is a position which I can dig- nify by no other name than absurdity. Par- liament is the temporal head of the Church, from whose acts, and from whose acts alone, it exists CHURCH AND PARLIAMENT 81 as the national church, and from which alone it derives all its powers." — Lord President Hope. So we are to understand that in every state church (the Presbyterian Church in Scotland, the Episcopal Church in England, the Lutheran Church in Germany, the Roman Catholic Church in Spain) there are two heads having equal au- thority, but controlling different departments — the Saviour and the Civil Government. Neither of these may trench upon the other's territory. Parliament can never allow the Saviour to inter- fere with the "temporal, judicial, or legislative" interests of the church, for these are in the keeping of Parliament. On the other hand, the Saviour cannot permit Parliament to interfere with the spiritual affairs of the church because these are His field of operation. If the word "blasphemy" has any meaning whatever, it seems to the writer of this paragraph that the hateful word must surely apply to the language of Lord President Hope. The National Church, according to Hope, owes its existence not to the Saviour but to Par- liament; it derives also its powers from Parlia- ment. Such being the case, it must be bound to serve and please Parliament first of all, and to 82 A FREE LANCE serve and please the Saviour later, when such service may be possible. Why should it not also address its prayers to Parliament? Why not mark off the "Acts of Parliament" into chapters and verses, and have them bound into the same volume with the "Acts of the Apostles," for public reading in the Sunday service, since both "acts" are of equal author- ity? The National Church must hold and teach such doctrines as Parliament permits. That is to say, though the Saviour established the faith, the National Church may not embrace it unless it has received the endorsement of Parliament. A FAITH THAT CANNOT BE SUNG "IVyTEN no longer sing the "Dies irae, dies ilia." ■*■ ■*■ The hymn is still in our hymnals, but in these days we do not sing it. A faith that cannot be sung is not a faith to believe. ECCLESIASTICAL PROFANITY ri^HE sin of blasphemy is by no means con- *■" fined to the irreligious and openly vicious. An Anglican clergyman said: "The Holy INSTITUTIONS 83 Communion, administered by a man not ordained by a bishop, is no more spiritually effective than a marriage ceremony performed by an actor in a play is legally binding." That is to say, the Lord's Supper derives its spiritual value not from the consecrating presence of the Master but from the endorsement which it receives or may receive from a certain sect of believers known in this country as "The Protestant Episcopal Church." Could profane audacity go further? I know the name of the man whose wicked words have been quoted, but I will in all charity treat him as the sons of Noah treated their father when through drunkenness he had made an indecent exposure of his person. They walked backward that they might not see his shame, and so they covered him from sight with a mantle. I also will, because of the sacred of- fice which he fills, hide, so far as I may, this ecclesiastic's name. Let it not be remembered. INSTITUTIONS INSTITUTIONS never reason; never attempt **• to justify themselves ; seldom make any seri- ous effort to improve themselves ; they stand and crumble. If the church is an institution only, it 84 A FREE LANCE too must crumble. The only future such a church can hope for must be one of dust and ashes. THE MARRIAGE OF CUPID AND PSYCHE /^VNE of the most remarkable of Tryphon's ^-^ gems engraved on sardonyx represents "The Marriage of Cupid and Psyche." The thinness of the veil through which the features of the happy ones are discerned with great clearness is a most difficult effect to produce in stone. Wedgewood reproduced the gem, and made all collectors familiar with its exquisite beauty. The subject is one for the restricted dimensions of a gem. It gives us so much of the nuptial procession as could be displayed upon a surface nearly an inch and three-quarters in length. The figures are well spaced, with no suggestion of crowding. They seem to be just arriving at the banquet where all the gods wait to do them honor. It was only when Psyche was truly married to Cupid that it was given them both to know the sweet delight of parental duty. Their first child was Pleasure. It was only at such a wed- ding that the Heavenly Ones could minister. A splendid banquet was spread. Mercury lifted RIVALRY 85 the sparkling goblet of nectar, and pressed it to the lips of Psyche. All that was mortal passed away. "Drink," said Mercury, "and never know death." Ganymede held the cup to Jove, and Bacchus served the rest of the Divine Be- ings. The Hours bedecked themselves with roses, and the Graces scattered perfumes until all the air was faint with ravishment. The Muses sang such songs of gladness that Apollo snatched his harp and accompanied them. Satyrus played the flute while Venus danced. The air was rent with shouts of praise while Paniscus recited heavenly verses. And so were united the Pure Mind and Glowing Passion. RIVALRY TN the northern part of the Empire State is ■*■ a little village which, with a population of but three thousand souls, can boast of twelve physicians and a "horse doctor." The interest- ing thing in connection with this generous sup- ply of medical skill is the inability of these learned gentlemen to say, any one of them, a good word for a neighbor-practitioner. I am informed by a witty fellow who amuses himself with the foibles of mankind that each physician 86 A FREE LANCE has confidently given his medical rival just one year in which to practice, after which brief sea- son it is openly predicted he will quit the place a wiser if not a better man, and seek "pastures new." For a score of years the prediction has been annually renewed, and yet all these disciples of Esculapius are still on the ground and in good fighting condition. When I was last in the vil- lage, less than a month ago, I inquired of the senior combatant, as to who of all the "frater- nity" had met with the largest success, and was informed that the much-to-be-envied individual was the "horse doctor." TRUE BEAUTY ASTONISHES OF a certain very beautiful woman I heard a man say: "I do not love her — I could not love her ; and yet when I meet her I am con- scious of a shock as from an electric battery." Those words reminded me of the saying of Ba- con: "There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion." The longer I think upon it, the more clearly it ap- pears that there is something in the highest de- velopment of beauty that not only charms but astonishes. Indeed it is doubtful if true beauty A BUTTONLESS PHILOSOPHER 87 ever exists apart from some degree of sur- prise. A BUTTONLESS PHILOSOPHER T THINK Cobbett described himself when he "*• called the Quakers "unbaptized buttonless rogues." I know not if he were baptized with water, but he seems to have had little grace; and in his later years his clothes were none too well cared for. Perhaps he possessed two shirts, which would be one more than Diogenes is said to have owned when he resided in his famous tub; and he may have had upon his trousers no more patches than that same philosopher dis- played upon his shabby cloak; but both men belonged to the same "buttonless" crowd, to which the Quakers did not belong. THE GENTLEMAN f | THE gentleman by his personality alone at- **■ tracts or repels. You can come no nearer to him than he will permit. MANNERS THE cultivation of manners is self-culture at its best, for bearing, deportment, and even 88 A FREE LANCE appearance are a revelation of character. Great importance attaches to a soldier's phy- sique. The step is scarcely less important than the manual of arms. The soldier's physical presence determines in no small measure his moral structure and his worth as a fighter. Sol- dierly deportment will beget soldierly virtues. Manners give power to a superior mind. They equip the mind and insure it victory. Thus with weapons neither rude nor aggressive the field is won. A LITERARY RESEMBLANCE TN one way, and in one way only, John Ruskin ■*• and Walt Whitman resemble each other : both crowd an entire poem into a title. Some of Ruskin's books are, "The Ethics of the Dust," "The Seven Lamps of Architecture," and "The Stones of Venice." Could names be more po- etic? Walt Whitman calls some of his poems, "From Noon to Starry Night," "Whispers of Heavenly Death," "Proud Music of the Storm," "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," and "A Song of the Rolling Earth." If only Whitman's poems were as poetic as their names are beautiful, what marvelous music we should NO LONG POEM 89 have in the "Leaves of Grass." In names only the two writers approach each other. Of course apart from these the two have neither resem- blance nor sympathy. NO LONG POEM T INCLINE to Poe's opinion that there is no •*■ such thing as a long poem. Song is self- limited in its nature. The best singer can sing but a little while. To me the long poems we so admire are only successions of shorter ones strung upon a single thread. It is not always easy to separate these, but the separation can be effected where there is the requisite skill and patience. When one comes to lines which show a flagging of interest, and are labored and dull, it is more than likely he has come upon con- nective tissues uniting the smaller poems. Be this theory of verse right or wrong, still the soul of all true poetry is song. A TRUE STANDARD TENRY I made the length of his own arm * ■■' the standard measure throughout England. President Roosevelt strove to make his own fool- 90 A FREE LANCE ish whims and humiliating conceits the measure of his country's rights and privileges. Henry's yard was of real service to his age and king- dom, but of what possible use could the bluster and farrago of our American madcap be to a nation ashamed of his selfish exploits and tur- bulent demagogism? PENANCE T N New England there are many old women of * various societies for reforming the world who see precisely what should be done, and who go about day and night striving to induce others to do it. They are like some women of an earlier time who, when their consciences reproved them for their many sins, returned home from the preaching that had awakened them, to make their servants do vigorous penance. STYLE IN these days much is said about literary style, and we are advised to read this author or that in order that we may acquire something of the excellent style of which he is master. But a good style is a very simple thing, not to be ob- SENECA'S PILOT 91 tained by great mental exertion. Swift covered the ground when he defined a good style as noth- ing more than "proper words in proper places." The man who says clearly and in a forcible way precisely what he wants to say is a good styl- ist; and he may be safely followed, so far as the following of any man is possible. There is no "trick of style." Nothing is good that is not straightforward. That composition is the best which most perfectly fits the word to the place. SENECA'S PILOT TT was Seneca's Pilot who said, "0 Neptune, -*■ you may save me if you will; you may sink me if you will; but whatever happens, I shall keep my rudder true." That is the best thing any one can say on land or sea, for on both one is a pilot. The author of "Adam Bede" has the same thought: "For my part, I think it's better to see when your perpendicular's true than to see a ghost." Duty may be, in any- given case, difficult to determine, but the pur- pose to do it is always simple and direct. Never in all the world is a ghost so worth seeing as is 92 A FREE LANCE the straight line of duty chosen first of all, and well done so far as in the doer lies the deed. THE SENSE OF SOUND IN LITERATURE NOT even Shakespeare's "garden of words" in Richard II, to use a phrase from Pater, gives me so great a delight as I at once receive from the sense of sound in noble composition. Goethe thought that the eye rather than the ear was the organ through which one might most completely seize and enjoy the right word. But to me music is the essential element in all worthy composition. I would hear in every line the tri- umphant shout, and the no less tender pleading of a mighty chorus of singing words — flute, viol, dulcimer, and all soul-stirring instruments changed as by magic into living, breathing words. Only the poet can give us these, and we enjoy them only by so much of the poet as we have within our own souls. GENIUS THAT genius sometimes takes the place of hard work may be seen by a glance at the GENIUS 93 life and at the novels of Lever. He wrote all his books at a dash, and at such odd moments as he could command. He never troubled him- self to examine proof-sheets. Any of his books might have been printed upside-down for any care he had about the matter. So soon as the manuscript was out of his hands, he dismissed it from his thoughts. He even forgot the names of his books, and could not tell whether he had or had not written a book brought to his atten- tion. His life was a mixture of pretty much everything: he was a doctor, a novelist, the ed- itor of a paper, a gamester, and the driver of a four-in-hand. He had charge of an emigrant ship, lived for a time with the Indians in Canada, was a fugitive from his creditors, and kept open house for everybody. He was happy-go-lucky from cradle to grave. Nothing but genius — clear, unqualified, indisputable genius — pulled him through. But would not his novels have been better had he given himself to study? No, I do not believe that Lever would have given us a single book had he lived a more orderly life. Anything like a definite plan would have spoiled his work. Critics used to call his work ephem- eral; they said that another generation would forget that he ever lived ; that his reputation was 94 A FREE LANCE a bubble, and that it would soon burst. The critics were men of well-regulated lives, who knew all there was to be known about every- thing. But they were mistaken in their esti- mate of Lever. They could not understand his life, nor yet could they make very much of his work. They were analytical men, men of method and of form and classification. They loved es- tablished rules and conventionalities. No doubt they rose every morning at the same hour, and went to bed every evening at ten o'clock. What could they see that was good in the wild, free life of Lever? Well, they are dead, and the world remembers them not; but the Irish novelist was a man of genius, and he will live. DISCERNMENT OF BEAUTY TT is evidence of fine artistic temperament and * training that one can see beauty where others see no beauty at all. In the same way, it is evi- dence of fine spiritual qualities and ethical train- ing that one can see moral beauty and lovely qualities of heart and mind in a man's life, where others behold only the dull and unattractive level THE FIVE BEST POEMS 95 of the commonplace, or even, it may be, the ugli- ness of a moral desert. THE FIVE BEST POEMS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE VTO two persons, were they called upon to -*-^ name the five best poems in the English language, would make precisely the same selec- tion. Shelley has given us some of the finest verses in our language, but, being limited to the narrow compass of five metrical compositions, I should not select any of that poet's work. Mil- ton's poems are among the very best, but our age has grown away from him, and, great as he is, he fails of providing us the satisfaction derived from the reading of some of the humbler lines of poets not so well known. I should select the following poems, and in the order given below : 1. Hamlet — Shakespeare. 2. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage — byron. 3. Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard — GRAY. 96 A FREE LANCE 4. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner — cole- kidge. 5. The Vision of Sir Launfal — lowell. A PERFECT TEMPERAMENT t ■ THAT woman has the most symmetrical, bal- **■ anced, wholesome and perfect temperament who, with the sweetness of womanhood, unites the strength of manhood; and that man has the most complete and rounded temperament who, to the strength of manhood, joins the fineness, gentleness and sweetness of womanhood. CIVILIZATION f I THE vast deposit of our civilization is pass- **■ ing from the trained aristocracies to the untrained masses. What is to be the fate of that deposit? No man who loves his race or even his own smaller country can wholly free his mind from grave apprehension. The sub- merged masses are coming to the surface with- out any preparation for the new duties that await them. The bull in the china-shop re- mained a bull, but the shop underwent a most CIVILIZATION 97 disastrous change. Millions of people in the lower walks of life are now coming into possession of privileges and duties they neither understand nor appreciate. Is civilization to go the way of the china-shop? II The men who traveled on the Titanic believed that ship unsinkable, and they believed it even when the great vessel was making ready for its final plunge. Men are equally sure that our present civilization is imperishable, and yet there are now on every side ominous signs that should awaken in thoughtful minds anxiety if not ac- tual alarm. The tap-root of every civilization is buried deep in its aristocracies ; these are the depositories of ancient superiorities. Under the leveling processes of Democracy all these are rapidly disappearing. What is to take their place in this world, receiving and preserving the sacred deposit of the ages? Ill Civilizations have passed away, some of them leaving to our world treasures in art and letters that must always delight the cultivated mind. Our present civilization in no essential feature 98 A FREE LANCE differs from those that have preceded it. It is disintegrating; and all history shows us that, while the process of disintegration may be at first, and for a long time, slow, a fearful mo- mentum is acquired. The final plunge, alike in the Atlantic liner and in the great Ship of State, must be sudden. It may be in one case an ice- berg that brings about the catastrophe, and in the other some extensive strike of workmen, a contested election, internal dissension, or the treachery of an ambitious man. Unless some force can be brought to bear capable of re- sisting the downward leveling of Democ- racy, the final plunge must be sooner or later taken. COOPERATION WHAT we call cooperation is usually noth- ing but compromise, and compromise means the annihilation of personality. I am weary of patched-up agreements that destroy individual action and purpose. The men who have influenced others have acted apart from them. The strong swimmer sinks when he is seized in a death-grip by the drowning man he would save. We help men most when we stand JEFFERSON 99 apart from them ; when we grasp them, and will not permit them to grasp us. JEFFERSON JEFFERSON was always, both by nature and by association with men of his way of think- ing, a "leader of the reds"; and it is after his model rather than after that of Washington and Hamilton that our country has shaped its political life and development. Jefferson was a centre of disturbance both in the council cham- ber and in the political life of the day in which he lived. His conception of republican simplic- ity left out of view every thing like dignity of bearing, stateliness, and fine deportment. He looked upon these with suspicion. It is to him, and not to Washington, that we owe much of the rudeness and uncouthness of our present-day methods of governing. He could not endure the forms and ceremonies of older nations. He even pronounced the etiquette and formalities attend- ing the first inauguration of Washington to be "not in character with the simplicity of repub- lican government." He said that these all sa- vored of European courts. He was by nature a revolutionist, an agitator, and a disturber of old ideas and old ways. He 100 A FREE LANCE called the French Revolution a "beautiful revo- lution," and expressed the hope that it would "spread all over the earth." He looked for much good from the lawlessness of the French, even in that evil time when they leveled in the dust all established institutions, when they trod upon order and religion, and when they repudi- ated decency itself. He still hoped, and even praised, when one of the most kindly disposed of sovereigns was brutally murdered. When the massacres were at their height Jefferson wrote a friend (Mr. Short) such words as these: — "In the struggle which was necessary, many guilty persons fell without the forms of trial, and, with them, some innocent. These I deplore as much as anybody, and shall deplore some of them to the day of my death. But I deplore them as I should have done had they fallen in battle. . . . The liberty of the whole earth was depending on the issue of the contest, and was ever such a prize won with so little inno- cent blood?" Think of it! "The whole earth was depending on the issue" of unchecked and merciless massacre for the prize of popular lib- erty ! In Jefferson's eyes the thousands of mur- ders committed in all parts of France were "only a little innocent blood." OUR NATIONAL EMBLEM 101 There were among the American patriots of 1776 some who foresaw the peril of Jefferson's views. Washington and Hamilton were not the only ones who were awake to the danger. John Adams, late in life, reviewing the past, described the French Revolution as a monstrosity, and he traced it to the effect produced in France by the American Revolution. He regretted his own early ultra-democratic views, and he did what he could to undo some of his work which, in the light of a more mature judgment, seemed to him incautious if not actually unwise ; but he soothed his conscience by saying in a letter to an old friend, "I meant well." 1 OUR NATIONAL EMBLEM /^VUR American Republic made a grotesque ^-^ mistake when it chose for its national em- blem the Roman eagle. The eagle is venture- some, predatory, and warlike, and in no way does it denote the peace, business tact, sagacity, enterprise, and common sense which are distin- guishing features of our Republic. The eagle is by consent of all men King of Birds. But what have we to do with kings? The only king we ever had, we thrust from our shores with ijotm Adams's Works, vol. ii, p. 240, 102 A FREE LANCE the not over-civil, and certainly in no wise true pronouncement: "All men are born free and equal." The eagle is not a suitable bird for us. Our national emblem should be, beyond all question, the Thanksgiving turkey. A not over-patriotic wit, looking over my shoulder, in- sists that "for obvious reasons the lordly pea- cock is the true and only emblem of our Great Western Republic;" but the simple fact that the peacock is "lordly" would seem to be a seri- ous disqualification. The unromantic and good- natured barnyard fowl might not look so im- posing upon our flag and coin as a first-class Fourth-of-July Bird of Freedom, but it is, never- theless, a more thoroughly American symbol. Of course the turkey is native to the soil, as is also the eagle, and we cannot forget that a very large percentage of the citizens of this re- public came to our country from somewhere else, and that their children speak with a rich and melodious brogue not by any means pecul- iarly American. But it is not at all necessary that the emblem should fit the thing represented too closely. In fact, in this case, it would be just as well, I think, that the emblem should not remind us too forcibly of that for which it stands. OUR NATIONAL EMBLEM 103 Of all days, Thanksgiving Day is the most distinctively American; and of that day the tur- key is the one and only possible emblem. Every good American enjoys a distinct advantage over the inhabitants of other lands. He can eat his national bird, and even pick its bones. But the very thought of roast eagle with cranberry sauce is too absurd to be considered a single moment. Not ten thousand eagles could make so much as a fraction of a New England Thanksgiving dinner. But any decent fowl, weighing, say, six or eight pounds (a mere charity turkey), might, with little or no diffi- culty, and without even so much as a teaspoon- ful of cranberry sauce, inaugurate a very re- spectable repast. In the window of a taxider- mist the eagle would seem much better than the turkey; but the Roman bird has absolutely no right to a place on our postage-stamps, our coins, or our flag. The barnyard fowl, with its crop well filled with corn and whatever else the crop of a domestic bird is likely to hold, is the true emblem of our American Republic. It will be conceded that the eagle can be put to more romantic uses than any turkey we know of could be put to. Other nations have adopted the eagle, but, so far as we know, not one nation 104 A FREE LANCE on all the face of the earth has ever chosen the turkey. The Emperor Napoleon, delivering the colors to his troops, said : "Soldiers ! take again the eagles which have so often led our fathers to glory." Think for one moment of associating turkeys with glory! What effect would it have had upon the French troops had the Emperor addressed them thus : "Soldiers ! take again the barnyard fowls which have so often led our fathers to glory"? No doubt they would have laughed themselves to death; and perhaps that would have been a very good way (as good as some other ways) of dying for the French colors. Americans have stolen a march on Johnnie Crapaud, whose Emperor described his flag as having led the fathers and Johnnie himself, in gilt and fustian, to glory ; but an American, not to be outdone by any Frenchman, actually named his bunting glory itself. Dr. Thomas Dunn English, who should have changed his family name to something more patriotic, once wrote what he hoped might prove a national song, and in time supplant the unsingable "Star- Spangled Banner." He wrote these even more unsingable lines; OUR NATIONAL EMBLEM 105 "Though crowns may break and thrones may fall, Though changes may the world appall, Our banner shall survive them all And ever live in story. The rainbow of a rescued land, Where freemen brave together stand, With truth and courage hand in hand, Floats proudly here, Old Glory. Refrain "Old Glory, Old Glory, Float proudly here, Old Glory. Old Glory! Old Glory! Hurrah for you, Old Glory! "In days we fought with George the Third, When Independence was the word, One voice, from rising manhood heard As well as old age hoary. One purpose then we had in view, To form of states a Union true, And eyes and hearts were turned to you, Our banner, grand Old Glory. Refrain "Old Glory, Old Glory, Our banner, grand Old Glory. Old Glory! Old Glory! Hurrah for you, Old Glory!" 106 A FREE LANCE The "Old Glory" song, like many another na- tional song, is boastful and vainglorious. An added calamity was the music to which it was set, and which may be truthfully described as gran- diose and pretentious. It was later set to better music, but it died an early yet natural death. Still, Dr. English will be remembered for many a year to come because of that one felicitous name, "Old Glory," and because of "Ben Bolt." He should be remembered also, so I think, be- cause of his "Book of Battle Lyrics." The word "old," as used by Dr. English, is expres- sive of endearment and not of age. Our flag is young. The first legislative movement looking to the formation of a national flag was made June 14, 1777, and resulted in the following resolution : — "Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the Union be thirteen stars, white, in a blue field, representing a new constellation." Public proclamation of the flag was made Sep- tember 3, 1777; and the "Stars and Stripes" floated for the first time over Fort Schuyler, located on the site of the present village of Rome, Oneida County, New York. Our flag has OUR NATIONAL EMBLEM 107 been changed many times by the addition of new stars as new States have been received into the Union. Up to February 24, 1866, every flag hoisted over our Capitol at Washington had been manufactured from English bunting. On the day named, the first wholly American flag was given to the breeze, waving over the seat of our National Government at Washington. There is now a tendency in the United States (a tendency emphasized by various patriotic so- cieties) to fall down and worship the flag, while at the same time there is but little corresponding wish to render that flag supremely worthy of adoring love. One may not advertise his busi- ness, be it one of the most honorable in all the world, upon either the front or the back of "Old Glory;" but he may put, without rebuke, that same "Old Glory" to most inglorious uses. We are truly a thoughtless, careless people. A foreigner was arrested for rubbing dust from the floor with a worn and frayed sample of the "Stars and Stripes." He was a very ignorant man, and had no thought of insulting either the nation or its standard. To him a dilapidated banner of any country was suitable only for scrubbing and mopping uses. He was arrested for an unintended insult which it was said he had 108 A FREE LANCE offered the American flag ; but the man who had him arrested (no doubt for political effect) was permitted to insult the flag every day in the year by associating it with all kinds of political rottenness. An effort is now being made to teach our chil- dren to love their country by shaking flags in front of them, and by having them sing in the public schools "America" and "The Star-Span- gled Banner." Only when we illustrate in our lives what we would have operative in the lives of our children can we look for good citizenship in the rising generation. Speech-making, flag- waving, and song-singing are well enough in their places, but good citizenship cannot be man- ufactured by any mechanical contrivance or per- functory performance. So long as the children in our schools see that we mean by the country a political party, they will read into the tri-col- ored bunting nothing better than party feeling. I once heard a distinguished orator declare on the public platform that Tammany Hall was "an association of patriotic and unselfish Amer- ican citizens who were banded together to secure to New York City, and incidentally to the State, and even to the entire country, good govern- ment, and the impartial administration of just OUR NATIONAL EMBLEM 109 and reasonable laws." The statement sand- bagged the entire audience. Not a word was said. All were silent as the grave. There were no sounds of approval, nor were there any of disapproval. Three thousand persons sat stunned by that statement. But the listeners were only stunned and not permanently para- lyzed. In a few moments something like ap- plause was heard; but before the applause could become general, gravity gave way, and the hall resounded with uproarious laughter. How many flags do you think it would require to instill love of country and respect for our institutions into the minds of children taught to believe such a statement? An officious and over-patriotic teacher in a school connected with Trinity Chapel in the City of New York got it into his head that one of the most important of the many important things in a well-arranged curriculum is the adoration of the American flag. At Trinity Chapel, when the children file out at the close of the session, all "salute the flag." A little Italian boy stalked past the flag with head erect. The head- master requested the youth to do the usual obei- sance, and received from him only a defiant look. The child refused to salute what was to him a 110 A FREE LANCE foreign flag, and at once the master proceeded to administer what seemed to him to be just and reasonable punishment. A moderate riot re- sulted, in which fists and even a few bricks and stones were used, but the little fellow did not mock with false reverence the symbol of our American institutions. It is more than likely the flag lost rather than gained by that headmaster's super- ficial patriotism. The value of the flag lies wholly in what it represents. To a Turk the Stars and Stripes may mean very little. To an Italian not in sympathy with our traditions and institutions, it may represent much that is even repellent. So long as a stranger observes our laws and con- ducts himself in such a way as to awaken no animosity or ill-will, we can well afford to ex- cuse him from foolish dissimulations with regard to our flag and armorial bearings. I suppose it is of no great consequence what device or emblem is chosen for flag, coin, or es- cutcheon. An eagle is as good as a crocodile, and a Thanksgiving turkey would be in time as sacred in the eyes of an American as is the holy dragon to the vision of a native of China. Ger- many has a double eagle; England and Persia have, each of them, a lion; and Siam rejoices in OUR NATIONAL EMBLEM 111 an elephant. The appropriate turkey, once at roost upon our national arms, would, I am sure, seem to us quite as sacred as the more highly appreciated eagle now appears to be. The real flag is not a matter of bunting only, nor is it a matter of stars, stripes, eagle, lion, dragon, elephant, or aught else. Neither Betsy Ross nor any other woman ever was or could be the mother of "Old Glory." They have in Phila- delphia what they call "The Flag House." It is the house in which Betsy Ross once lived, and in which she (so it is said) made, at the request of Washington, the first flag of the United States. The "patriotic landmark," as it was called in circulars and on invitations to contrib- ute towards its purchase, has been secured by the "Betsy Ross Memorial Association;" and already it has become the Mecca of patriotic pilgrims. But the real building so sacred to Americans is not the shabby little wooden struc- ture on Arch street in Philadelphia: it is the much nobler building that patriotic imagination has constructed in the minds and hearts of Amer- icans. Imagination makes everything that we are and all we have. Red, white, and blue bunt- ings count for nothing unless there be observed a certain arrangement in colors. We follow 112 A FREE LANCE the pattern, for it is into that we have breathed the love, the romance, and the loyalty of our hearts. It is the pattern that we have idealized, and not the rude material of the bunting. Idealization of that pattern gives us the symbol we revere. In the same way imagination has transformed for us a rapacious and not-over- clean bird of prey into a noble and magnificent creature grasping in its fierce talons at once the olive branch of peace and the sharp arrows of war. In some parts of the country the eagle is protected by law. It may not be hunted and shot as are other birds. Imagination makes the flag, the escutcheon, the symbol, and everything else; and what it makes them they are. Image or outline in your mind what you hold to be sacred, and at once hallowed associations spring up on every side, and grow thick and fast. SWEDENBORG AS A POET T71 MERSON thinks that Swedenborg will be- -*-^ come popular when men no longer regard him as a "sectarian," and account him a poet. 1 I much doubt the future popularity of the great Swedish seer, but I have for a long time viewed i Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1836-1838, p. 70. A COLLEGE OF JOURNALISM 113 him as a poet. You must get beyond his dog- matism if jou would find delight in his heavenly vision. Swedenborg is one of the greatest of poets. The man who takes Swedenborg at his own appraisement exchanges poetic rapture for poor and literal statements about a world of which we know but little. It is just because men do take him at his own appraisement that they get no further than the New Jerusalem Church, and never see the poetic beauty of his visions and apocalyptic disclosures. Swedenborg is a poet; as such I take him, and as such I read him. A COLLEGE OF JOURNALISM A LL things come round in due time. I de- * *" livered in the First Congregational Church of Portland, Oregon, March 13, 1883, a sermon on "Editors and Newspapers," which was soon after printed in pamphlet form. In that ser- mon I recommended the establishment of a Col- lege of Journalism, where young men might be trained for the responsible duties they are called to discharge in preparing for the public the great journals that so powerfully affect public opinion. The suggestion met with little favor. In some places it was ridiculed. But now, in 114 A FREE LANCE 191£, twenty-nine years after the delivery of that discourse, the cornerstone of the Columbia University School of Journalism building, on Broadway and 116th Street, in the City of New York, has just been laid. A magnificent gift of two million dollars from Mr. Pulitzer rendered the school possible. In the copper box inside the cornerstone were deposited among other things an article on the School of Journalism in Columbia University, a report of the University Council on the or- ganization and academic relations of the School of Journalism ; agreements between Mr. Pulitzer and the heads of the University concerning the school; extracts from Mr. Pulitzer's will con- cerning the endowment ; the curriculum of the school; Columbia's latest catalogue; an article by Dr. Williams, printed in the Columbia Uni- versity Quarterly and copies of the World, the Times, the Brooklyn Eagle and the Sun. Ed- itors of these papers are members of the advi- sory board of the school. I cannot but think a copy of the sermon re- ferred to, in which the new School of Journalism just established in connection with Columbia University was forecast and recommended, might have properly graced the copper box in the A COLLEGE OF JOURNALISM 115 cornerstone; for, so far as I know, it contains the first suggestion of any such school. Jour- nalism is a branch of literature, and as such it should be taught either in a school by itself, or as a part of the voluntary or post-graduate curriculum of some established college. Thack- eray had an exalted opinion of journalism, and among his friends were many editors of not only national, but world-wide reputation. He never, so far as I know, thought of a school of journal- ism, but many are the good things he said of the influential papers of his country and of his day. My readers will no doubt recall these words from "Pendennis :" — "They were passing through the Strand as they talked, and by a newspaper office, which was all lighted up and bright. Reporters were coming out of the place, or rushing up to it in cabs; there were lamps burning in the editors' rooms, and above, where the compositors were at work, the windows of the building were in a blaze of gas. 'Look at that, Pen/ Warrington said. 'There she is — the great engine — she never sleeps. She has her am- bassadors in every quarter of the world, her cour- iers upon every road. Her officers march along with armies, and her envoys walk into statesmen's cab- inets. They are ubiquitous. Yonder journal has 116 A FREE LANCE an agent at this minute giving bribes at Madrid, and another inspecting the price of potatoes in Co- vent Garden. Look! here comes the Foreign Ex- press galloping in. They will be able to give the news to Downing Street to-morrow; funds will rise or fall, fortunes be made or lost. Lord B will get up, and holding the paper in his hand, and seeing the noble marquis in his place, will make a great speech; and — and Mr. Doolan will be called away from his supper at the Back Kitchen, for he is foreign sub-editor, and sees the mail on the news- paper sheet before he goes to his own.' And so talking, the friends turned into their chambers, as the dawn was beginning to peep." Schopenhauer's idea of the newspaper and of journalism was by no means so high, but he also regarded the public paper, whether daily or weekly, as the mirror of the times. It was not simply a record of events, but it was as well an enlargement and display of them. He wrote: — "Exaggeration of every kind is as essential to journalism as it is to the dramatic art; for the object of journalism is to make events go as far as possible* Thus it is that all journalists are, in the very nature of their calling, alarmists; and this is their way of giving interest to what they write. Herein they are like little dogs; if any- PHARMACY 117 thing stirs them, they immediately set up a shrill bark. "Therefore, let us carefully regulate the atten- tion to be paid to this triumph of danger, so that it may not disturb our digestion. Let us recognize that a newspaper is at best but a magnifying glass, and very often merely a shadow on the wall." Whitelaw Reid wrote: "The day is coming when the position of a first-class editor will be more influential in the United States than that of a member of the Cabinet at Washington." It is essential that so great an influence should be as well a worthy one. We may follow Scho- penhauer's advice, and so regulate the attention we give the journal that there shall be no dis- turbance of our digestion; but the great world will read, every year, still more eagerly the daily paper, and will be changed by the reading. All the more, then, do we need the College of Jour- nalism. PHARMACY WAS present at the Commencement of the ■*■ College of Pharmacy. The young men had made themselves proficient in pharmacy, chemis- try, and materia medica, with other branches of learning thought to be essential to the com- 118 A FREE LANCE pounding of drugs. They received their diplo- mas, signed by grave and accomplished profess- ors. The clergyman who had been invited to open the exercises with prayer asked the Divine blessing and guidance for the young pharma- cists who were "leaving the halls of learning to engage in professional life." The orchestra discoursed sweet music. The orator indulged in flights of eloquence, and urged the youths to set before themselves high ideals. It was a grand affair. But one could not but smile in- wardly at the thought that in a few days or, at most, a fortnight, the larger number of the young men would be in charge of soda-water fountains, or dipping out ice-cream to eager youngsters. It was for that sort of thing, ap- parently, they had received instruction in such learned branches as have been named, and had obtained diplomas. Perhaps the clergyman would hardly have mentioned in prayer the distinguished services these young men were to render a much-to-be- congratulated community, had he stopped to con- template the fact that nine out of ten of those fountains of summer drink would do their larg- est business on Sunday while he was preaching the gospel in a neighboring church. The mod- PHARMACY 119 era drug shop is only a soda-water fountain with a small drug attachment. That being the case, there should be in the College of Pharmacy a learned chair of Soda-water Fountains ; and, it may be, an associate professorship of Ice- cream. There is now a rage for colleges and profes- sions. Doubtless, before long there will be a College of Domestic Service, with a President and Faculty of Kitchen Girls, having, among other chairs, one of dish-towels. There are learned professions, and there are honorable oc- cupations that are not learned; law, medicine, and theology belong to the former, and the at- tending of counters in shops, of whatever kind, belongs to the latter. No doubt the apothecary should understand the putting up of prescrip- tions, and he should undergo an examination, and be licensed ; but why call his business a learned profession? It is nothing of the kind. Still further, what little dignity the pharmacy once had it has itself destroyed. It is now a sort of conglomerate establishment, where you can buy medicine or chewing-gum, an adhesive plaster or a kite and a bag of marbles, as you please. Why not have fewer drug shops, and have them real drug shops, where good medi- 120 A FREE LANCE cines can be had, and where a prescription can be put up without danger to the patient? HYMNS BETTER THAN CREEDS T MUCH prefer the things men say of God in •■■ their hymns to the picture of Him found in the various treatises of theology, creeds, and sermons. VICTOR HUGO T 7ICTOR HUGO added no thought to our in- * tellectual treasure, but our old and com- mon-place literary material he rendered mar- velously attractive by the pomp of his rhetoric. He is not a world-poet; no one would think of him as in the same class with Shakespeare; and yet he is a writer of no common sort. The serene creative light of Goethe's genius he had not, but he had action beyond anything to be found in the work of the German poet. His genius was that of revolution, revolt, insurrec- tion, protest. He found the air in his day sur- charged with the spirit of unrest, and he gave that spirit new expression. THE PRESENT 121 II As an artist in words Hugo was what Dore was as an artist in lines and colors. Both painted with a large brush, and neither of the two men knew the meaning of simplicity. But in Hugo there was always the marvelous touch of the master. Music and color were every- where. THE PRESENT T TOW easily we remember the past! how •*■ ■■■ eagerly we anticipate the future! but how little we improve the present ! We may recall the long ago remorsefully, we may dread the years to come, but we too easily forget that all our hope springs from the use we make of the pres- ent. Past and future are no longer ours, nor have they any existence; the present alone re- mains, and it is ours. THE AGNOSTIC A SORROWFUL agnostic I can well under- stand, but a joyous one astonishes me. A man may regretfully acknowledge his igno- rance, but what shall be said of him when he 122 A FREE LANCE tosses his cap in the air and boasts of that igno- rance before all the world? One may not be re- sponsible for want of knowledge, but why should he rejoice in that want? That all men are equally ignorant upon the subject under dis- cussion does not help matters; on the contrary, it should deepen sorrow, for it renders the want of knowledge more hopeless. Yet I find boast- ful agnostics who think confessed ignorance a thing to be proud of. The man who is wanting in information with regard to some question in mechanics is rarely known to rejoice in his ig- norance; but when he comes to consider the vastly more important question of religion, he is boastful of his want of knowledge. His changed attitude with regard to the question of religion can be explained in only one way: his want of knowledge gives him pleasure, and he does not desire instruction. He loves darkness rather than light. MODERN POETRY ARTIFICIAL WHY is it in this age poets can get no hearing? Why is it no publisher will touch a book of verse? The world loves good poetry, and always will love it. Why is it, then, that poetry is a drug in the market? I think SONGLESS VERSE NOT POETRY 123 the reason is that our poets no longer write for the people, but everywhere address those only who have artistic and artificial tastes. The poetry of this age is excellent, but it appeals only to the few. Could Burns return to earth, our age would welcome his verses with great joy of heart. Not much was said a hundred years ago about the technique of verse, and few cared for those fine conceits that so please verse-makers of the present time. The taste for much of our mod- ern poetry is like that for olives — wholly ac- quired. SONGLESS VERSE IS NOT POETRY WEARY of hearing this perpetual discourse x concerning the moral purpose of poetic art. The end and aim of all good verse is song. The composition need not be distinctively lyric, and yet songless verse, be it never so correct in meas- ure and pleasing in structure, is not poetry. WE ARE RULED BY THE DEAD QTAND of a Sunday morning in any cathe- *^ dral, and you may hear the dead sing and preach ; you may hear them avow their faith. The wax-tapers that burn upon the altar were 124 A FREE LANCE lighted centuries ago by priests and acolytes who put aside their white surplices and fell asleep when the great city was young. Unseen hands swing the glittering censer, and they will still swing it, filling the air with clouds of in- cense, when other centuries have gone by. How very old is the service ! It will continue, it may be, so long as man continues to dwell upon the earth, and in it the living and the dead are one. We are ruled by the dead. From their urns they lay hold of us, and whither they will they turn us. POPULAR GOVERNMENT GOVERNMENT of the people, by the peo- ple, and for the people" is likely to be a very good government or a very bad one, but it is seldom anything between. THE SUCCESSFUL POLITICIAN T HEARD a successful politician say: "My ■*■ fellow citizens have forced upon me honors and offices from which I shrink, and from which I would gladly escape. My friends all know how domestic and retiring I am in my tastes, EVANGELICAL BOOKS DULL 125 and it is difficult to see why they have insisted upon forcing me into public life, for which na- ture has so poorly qualified me. I have ever cherished the hope that it might be my lot to serve my country in some humble station, far re- moved from noise and excitement ; and I have de- sired no other reward than that of seeing my fellow citizens prosperous and happy. I reluc- tantly accept an office which I feel in my heart should have fallen to a worthier man." There is a surprising beauty that our English language is powerless to describe, in the more- than-Christian humility and unselfish patriotism of the average politician. Where in all the world can we match the modest and retiring dis- position and the irreproachable integrity of a New York alderman? EVANGELICAL BOOKS DULL PROFESSOR SIHLER calls Lessing's "Na- than the Wise" the Canticum Canticorum of Deism. Well said ! Why is it that the books we call "evangelical" are so often dull? I sup- pose it is because they lack human sympathy. They shut their readers in on every side with wr ought-iron traditions. Nothing so offends 126 A FREE LANCE their authors as an inclination on the part of their readers to form an independent opinion. If you love liberty, whether of mind or person, always allow the "Right Reverend Fathers in God" to go by on the other side. THE SENSUOUS WORLD IS SYMBOLIC THE sensuous world is purely symbolic. It is a vast show in which men provide their own entertainment, actor and spectator being one and the same person. WHERE TO LOOK SIDNEY wrote, "Look in thy heart, and write." I should think a glance at one's own heart would render writing difficult. Why not look at the needs of others, so far as they may be discovered, and write with them in view ? GLADSTONE GLADSTONE was certainly a "great and good man," but I do not see why he should go down in history as the champion of the rights of the common man, and as the friend of the TOO YOUNG FOR HISTORY W oppressed. He generally managed to be on the wrong side of whatever great moral question was before the English public. He was on the wrong side of the English Church question, of the Irish question, and of the American Civil War question. He said during the Civil War that he "expected the liberation of the slaves by their own masters sooner than by the North." He said, "Jefferson Davis and the leaders of the South have made an army ; they are soon, I un- derstand, to have a navy ; but, greater than all this, they have made a nation." Well, Mr. Davis did not make a nation, but somebody in England made a fool of himself. In nothing was the real greatness of Gladstone more mani- fest than in the ability he exhibited of retaining his influence and power in the face of so many colossal mistakes. THE UNITED STATES TOO YOUNG FOR HISTORY THE United States is yet too young a coun- try for anything like an exhaustive his- tory. Time is an important element in the preparation of trustworthy records, annals, and chronicles. One must view the events of which one writes from a sufficient distance, but the 128 A FREE LANCE distance should not be so great that it obscures those events and renders them indistinct. Pub- lishers announce from time to time a history of the Civil War, and reviewers recommend the book. Believe them not. When another cen- tury shall have passed away it may be possible to write the history of what we sometimes call the Great Rebellion. LONGFELLOW ONGFELLOW may not be so original as ■* — * are some of the poets for whom we care less, and he may be open to some of the criticism with which Poe and others assailed him, but he is now, and will long remain, the most dearly be- loved and most frequently quoted of all our American poets. A BRAZEN JACKASS fin HE children of Israel worshiped in the wil- *■■ derness, so it is recorded, a Golden Calf. Had they been living not very long ago in Chi- cago and been attending in that city a certain political convention, they might have given a pleasing variety to their worship by falling SIMPLER RELATIONS 129 down before a Brazen Jackass. There is such a thing as taste even in religion. SIMPLER RELATIONS NO two men," said Emerson, "but being left alone with each other enter into simpler relations." That depends upon what you call "simpler relations." I know of two men who, so soon as they were left alone with each other, came to blows. SUPPRESSION OF KNOWLEDGE THE suppression of knowledge on the ground of expediency is like the quenching of the sun. The Man of Galilee said, "I am the Light of the world." That in some measure should every man be. What new truth I possess must be imparted. The good man is a socialist when he comes to the field of ethics. TRUTH A I LL private ownership in truth is moral robbery. 130 A FREE LANCE II I must not only impart what truth I possess, but I must also welcome new truth from what- ever source. To reject any truth because it seems to contradict a preconceived opinion, is to quench the light ; and of all sins those against light are the most deadly. I must tell the truth and shock the world. THE MOB rTIHE man who would argue with a mob may *■ count upon defeat before he begins his argu- ment. Napoleon knew how useless it was to argue with such mobs as inaugurated in France the "Terror" of '93, and his instant appeal was to arms. The red night-fires of his soldiers tore even the robe of darkness from the bloodthirsty wretches hiding in every place of concealment. He argued only with the blazing lips of cannon, and with the remorseless tread of trained and disciplined troops. JOHN HANCOCK JOHN HANCOCK may have been a patriot, but if Harvard University (then College) had been compelled to take up with more men of JOHN HANCOCK 131 Hancock's moral equipment there would not be much of a university in Cambridge to-day. Some- thing like fifteen thousand and four hundred pounds of College funds was paid over to him (a large sum for those days), and that was the last Harvard saw of the sum until, after his death, his heirs, who had a cleaner account with conscience, made honorable restitution. For a quarter of a century the College begged and threatened, but not one cent could it recover during the distinguished patriot's stay on earth. It is not a pleasant transaction to contemplate, but history is history, and the truth should be t ld — so Quincy thought when he published his "History of Harvard University." The men who signed the Declaration of In- dependence were, many of them, men of uncom- promising uprightness, and they were, as well, men of great courage ; but human nature was no more angelic then than it is now. The average man, of whatever circle in society, will average about the same in one age as in another. One sample of honesty will come up to the standard of other samples if circumstances and knowledge be taken into account ; and the only reason there is no recognized common standard is that it is impossible to say just what any single specimen 132 A FREE LANCE is worth. It may be that our revolutionary fathers were far above the average in honesty, but they certainly could not, all of them, have believed the Declaration of Independence, which they nevertheless signed; that is to say, they could not have believed it in anything but a Pickwickian sense. When they signed the docu- ment, with its statement that "all men are born free and equal," they knew very well that slavery was a part of their system. They knew also that the "inalienable" rights named in the Declaration were not inalienable. And they knew many other things which the children who came after them never gave them credit for knowing. It is astonishing how Glory takes to the woods when History turns upon her the blaze of her searchlight. If we would fare better with our children and stand well with our consciences, it is incumbent upon us to do better while we have the opportunity. RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS HOUGHTFUL minds, troubled about the condition of their country, turn with hope to Popular Education. The value of such an T SOCIALISM 133 education cannot be overestimated, but it must be of the right kind. And it must be fortified by a substantial ethical safeguard of some sort. There are those who believe that we sacrifice our safeguard when we forbid the imparting of re- ligious instruction in public schools ; and yet the very persons who thus believe are unable to show us how we may furnish such instruction where there is no state church, and at the same time avoid sectarian aggression. The moment we provide religious instruction, we throw our- selves open to all manner of proselyting ; and yet even a state church, which is the natural and final result of proselyting, is better than ex- tinction. SOCIALISM fTlHE Socialist tells us it is the duty of the ■*■ State to provide for the individual, but he does not stop to reflect upon the fact that the State that is to provide and the individuals that are to be provided for are one and the same thing. If the State provides for the individual, it can do so only because individuals have first provided for the State. You can draw from a 134 A FREE LANCE bank only so much money as you have deposited in that bank. There is no State apart from the individuals that compose it ; and what those in- dividuals are, that the State must become. If Socialists want the State to care for them, then they must care for the State. They will get out of it only what they put into it. I fail of seeing what they gain when they receive only what they have given. Well, suppose the State becomes the dispenser of all there is to dis- pense, and that it guarantees to every man a living: how much will the State be able to dis- pense unless men guarantee to it honest and continuous work? Might they not just as well toil for themselves as for the State? Is not work for the one work for the other? II One would think there were enough loafers in our cities and villages without making an effort to increase the number of idle and worthless men and women. But Socialism proposes to pauper- ize the entire nation by guaranteeing to every individual a good living. Civilization is, like every other good thing, founded upon honest toil. No man ever had an inherent right to a living. It is the law of Nature that if a man SOCIALISM 135 will not work he must starve. Whatever guar- antees to him a living without toil lifts him at once above the requirements of that law. So- cialism would give to every man such guaranty, destroying at a stroke all incentive to an in- dustrious and useful life. The system has been rightly described as "the lazy man's Utopia." It is the delightful dream of seedy individuals who, having beer incomes, are "tormented by champagne tastes." A writer in a New York paper some time ago called Socialism "the dream of vengeance of the weak man against the strong." Therein lies its most ugly characteristic. With its impractica- bility it mixes the most deadly hatred. It takes for granted that the prosperous man is a de- spoiler of his race ; one of its most popular texts is nothing less than an assault upon all private property. Holding that private property is robbery, it yet stretches out its hands, and is clamorous for a division of that robbery. Even savages have property, and I think but few of the children of the forest would relish a proposal to have the bows and arrows of the prosperous divided so that the lazy and worthless should have an equal share. One of the worst features of Socialism is, as 136 A FREE LANCE has been said, the bitter hatred it engenders. It tells the poor man that the property of every wealthy man belongs in part to him. It calls every rich man a robber. Of course nothing of the kind is true. There are honest rich men, and there are as well some dishonest poor men. Yet this evil system goes on embittering man against man, and leading to crime after crime. Ill No system of government can ever change human nature. Men would be just as selfish under Socialism as they now are under a Re- public. No brotherhood of love can be evolved from the hard scramble for place and possessions by relieving men of the common burdens of life ; in fact, such foolish relief must only increase the selfishness of man's heart. It is the claim of Socialists that the inequalities of life are in large measure due to human selfishness ; but selfishness goes much deeper than government, and deeper than the mere accident of birth and circum- stance; it is, unfortunately, an element inherent in human nature. It will appear in every state and under all circumstances, so long as it exists in our nature. Among the most selfish of all men will be found those who have been relieved SOCIALISM 137 of anxiety, and who are provided with wealth and ease. Socialism would make the world all the more selfish by guaranteeing to every one the very things that make people selfish. More- over, it would create a vast stagnation by ren- dering us all equally well off. Equality in pos- sessions could not but remove every incentive to work. We labor to obtain more than we have; but we would not labor had we all we want. Were all equally well off, there could be no such thing as service, for all men would be masters. Think of a millionaire banker riding behind his millionaire coachman! IV This is, so far as I know and so far as I have been able to discover, the true Socialistic pro- gramme. Not all of these items would be acknowledged by every Socialist, and, perhaps, no one would wholly approve the entire pro- gramme, but for "substance of doctrine" this representation is in every way just and fair. Of course the arrangement chosen is not pre- cisely such as a trained Socialist might be ex- pected to adopt, but the items here catalogued are either held in the form given, or as logical and fair deductions from the system itself. 138 A FREE LANCE 1. Abolition of all private property. 2. Abolition of the wage-system. 3. Abolition of the competitive system. 4. Abolition of all private banking and in- surance business. 5. Government ownership of all land, machin- ery, railroads, telegraph lines, and canals. 7. The organization of national and interna- tional trades and labor unions on a socialistic basis. 8. Cooperative production, with a just distri- bution of its rewards. 9. All wages to be paid at intervals of time not exceeding one week. 10. All conspiracy laws operating against the right of working-men to strike, or to induce others to strike, shall be repealed. 11. Gratuitous administration of justice in all courts of law. 12. A graded income tax. 13. All banking and insurance to be con- ducted by the general government. 14. All public officers to be subject to prompt recall. TWO REPUBLICS I HAVE been greatly impressed by the close resemblance between the old Roman Repub- TWO REPUBLICS 139 lie at the time when it was about to become an empire, and our own modern Republic, the United States of America, now that it appears to be verging upon dissolution. The decadent features seem very much the same in both, as any student may see if he will be at the pains to com- pare the two governments in the light of history and in that of present conditions in our own country. The tabulation given below brings out, I think, this sad but interesting resemblance be- tween the two great republics of history. It may not be too late to profit by the lesson of the past. If it be not too late, then the writer who brings before his readers the peril both he and they would gladly escape may not write wholly in vain. ROMAN REPUBLIC AMERICAN REPUBLIC 1. Decrease in Patri- 1. Decrease in Patri- otism, with growing otism, with growing idealization of the idealization of the Roman standards. flag and historic places and associa- tions. 2. Popular inclination 2. Rise and great influ- in the direction of ence of demagogues, demagogues and agi- self-seekers, polit- tators. ical schemers; pop- ular approval of men like Bryan, 140 A FREE LANCE S. Immense fortunes. 4. Great speculation in real estate. 5. Cornering of food- stuffs. 6. General corruption in politics. 7- Demoralization of the family; divorce; few children among the rich. 8. The homes of the wealthy full of treasures of art and of bric-a-brac. 9. Great extravagance of women; luxurious living; contempt for manual labor and all kinds of domes- tic service. 10. Unwillingness o f the poor to work; vagabondage ; in the city of Rome a large percentage of men without fixed habita- tion. Roosevelt and Till- man. 3. Enormous fortunes, trusts, and colossal monetary schemes and combinations. 4. Great speculation in many directions. 5. Cornering of the necessities of life. 6. "Graft" in both poli- tics and business. 7. Divorce common; few children among the rich. 8. Palaces of lavish and wasteful ex- travagance for the wealthy; costly jew- els and luxurious living. 9. Rise of labor unions and the passing away of skilled labor and domestic serv- ice. 10. Disinclination to work ; increasing number of "tramps," loafers, and men without fixed habita- tion. BRITISH RULE 141 11. General spread of 11. unbelief; neglect of the gods, the tem- ples, and religious observances. 12. Great literary ac- 12, tivity, with little seriousness and not much originality. 13. Alarming increase 13 of insanity and crime. General unsettling of belief ; growing doubt with regard to fundamental doc- trines of Christian- ity. Great literary activ- ity, with little seri- ousness of thought. Not much original- ity. Countless nov- els. Alarming increase of insanity and crime. BRITISH RULE "ORITISH rule in India is well-nigh perfect of * - * its kind, and its kind is surely good, but no rule was ever more unpopular. It is a strong and safe rule, but there is nothing about it pleasing to the pride and indolence of the natives. Its strength and weakness are prac- tically one and the same thing. People ener- vated by a tropical climate like nothing that exhibits energy and firmness, both of which qualities are essential to English rule, and es- sential also to India's prosperity. England is the world's great colonizer, and every country 142 A FREE LANCE she takes under her wing is made thereby better and happier. It will be a sore day for our world when she relaxes her strong yet gentle hold on Ireland. The American Revolution taught her, at our expense, the lesson of colonial government, and that lesson has been remem- bered. We may be said to have purchased for the world much of its peace and happiness, at great cost to ourselves, when we fought the mother-land and set up for ourselves, surren- dering so many things that less important peo- ples possess and enjoy. MOST MEN HAVE ORDINARY ABILITIES Ti /COST of the young men in this and in every ■*> ■*• other country have only ordinary abilities, and yet American boys will not prepare them- selves for such ordinary occupations as they are able to pursue. The "Every-Man-a-Sovereign" doctrine is rapidly coming to flower in the "Every-Man-a-Fool" experience. Great husky fellows who were created for manual labor, and who should be on a farm or in a shop, are study- ing painting, architecture, and literature. Con- tempt for rough work is one of the banes of our age and country. The common mechanical MEN HAVE ORDINARY ABILITIES 143 pursuits do not bring an easy and swift fortune, and for that reason they are despised and avoided. It is now very hard to find a good workman. There are few skilled mechanics. And men are generally unwilling to till the soil unless the tilling be on a very large scale. To sit all day in a broker's office, watching the fluctuation of railway stocks and betting on their rise or fall; to peddle worthless mining stocks; or to control corrupt political parties and meas- ures — these occupations seem to the young men of our country more alluring than more useful and honorable employments. The "Get-rich- quick" idea, coupled with the great American lie, "All men are born free and equal," has sent the coming generation off on a fool's picnic, the end whereof must be failure. The entire drift of republican thought and feeling is away from work, and in the direction of individualism and self-indulgence. Every man has a vote, and every man must be con- sulted with regard to every question. The man may have no brains, but the elective franchise has given him a voice, and he can make a noise even if he can do nothing more. Election day summons thousands of ignorant men to express their worthless opinions. Two such opinions go 144 A FREE LANCE further and count for more than one opinion of a better sort. The majority rule, and the trained and qualified take back seats. Ours is the wisdom of numbers. Not many voters un- derstand much about the questions concerning which they vote, yet the privilege of registering one's ignorance at the polls is the priceless pre- rogative of an American citizen. Thus it comes to pass that skilled labor goes to the wall, labor unions with their vast deposit of folly come to the front, and ignorance and inexperience win the day alike in politics and industry. THE APPROACHING PERIOD WE are now approaching a critical period in the history of this great Republic. We have left far behind the beauty, grace, and ster- ling integrity which marked the character and administration of Washington and the few men who were of his mind and manners. We are a republic modeled after the thought and feeling of Jefferson, and not after the opinions and teaching of Washington and Hamilton. It will soon appear whether Jefferson's idea of govern- ment has sufficient strength to hold together the divergent elements that are contending with each CONTEMPT FOR MANUAL LABOR 145 other; whether it will be able to resist the de- structive influences of political intrigue, the sale and purchase of votes, pension-grabbing, the crime introduced by immigration, the murderous Black Hand and other organizations of the kind, the dense ignorance of large numbers of foreign- ers, the selfishness of astute politicians, the co- lossal greed of capitalistic combinations, and the general corruption which fills every thoughtful mind with dismay. The outlook is anything but encouraging. It is as Henry George has said, "The struggle that must either revivify or con- vulse in ruin is near at hand, if it be not already begun." CONTEMPT FOR MANUAL LABOR CONTEMPT for manual labor seems to be a necessary result of popular government. We fix in this country no limit to the ambition of any man. The most illiterate youth in the most unimportant family in all the length and breadth of these United States is assured over and over again by politicians and stump-orators that if he will but aspire to place and power, he may become our chief executive. Fillmore and Johnson were in early life tailors. Lincoln was 146 A FREE LANCE a rail-splitter. Garfield was a canal-boy. Even Washington was in early life a surveyor. Why should not Tom, Dick, and Harry leave lowly occupations, to govern the State of New York, or preside over the affairs of an entire nation? Other men have risen, and why should not any boy do what others have done? The possibility is as stated, but how few con- sider the remoteness of the probability. And so it comes to pass that the present labor is de- spised. Why should one perfect hand and brain in that which must so soon be laid aside for the exalted positions and duties that under a popu- lar government await Tom, Dick, and Harry? It rarely occurs to the young man to ask if there was not something more than mere opportunity required for the splendid achievements and his- toric importance of Washington, Lincoln, and Grant. As the housemaid believes that the only difference between her mistress and herself is that of money or of fine clothes, so the village lubber holds that the only difference between the wisest and ablest man that ever walked this earth and himself is that of opportunity. He will tell you that the same opportunity must in either case, or in both cases, produce exactly the same WORK IS HONORABLE 147 result ; all of which is as untrue as would be the statement that, given the same soil, moisture, light, and temperature, all seeds must come to the same flower. WORK IS HONORABLE T X TORK is honorable, and bread and butter » » are quite as respectable as are ortolan and choice wines. We are, most of us, created on the bread-and-butter side of life, and upon that side we are wanted. To improve the work that belongs to us and that awaits us is much better than to do poorly work that does not be- long to us. It was the enemy of mankind who whispered into the attentive but inexperienced ear of our great progenitor, "Ye shall be as gods ;" and it is the same old enemy that to-day whispers to the sons of men, "Leave off serving in humble stations, and you shall become the arbiters of destiny and the rulers of the world." Carlyle said in all his life no wiser words than these: "Work is man's true maj- esty." Said also the ancient Oracle, "Do to- day thy nearest duty," — do it with all thy might, and do it well. In the old days in England service, like lord- 148 A FREE LANCE ship, extended through many generations, and perfected itself with the years. Men were not ashamed of service. They contemplated with noble pride the well-performed work of grandfather, and great-grandfather, and it was their ambition to do their own work as well. The butler did not trouble his head with dreams of Parliament. Now no man will work if he can escape the necessity. Why should he perfect himself in that which he despises, and which he regards as nothing but a stepping-stone to some- thing better? When you take the dignity out of labor, you destroy the quality and value of labor for all the world. ENGLISH RULE IN AMERICA THE rule of England in America was never the hard and ugly thing our Fourth-of- July patriots would have us believe. Senator Hoar said, in a speech delivered at South Bos- ton, March 18th, 1901: "The government of England was, in the main, a gentle government, much as our fathers complained of it. Her yoke was easy and her burden was light; our fathers were a hundred times better off in 1775 than were the men of Kent, the vanguard of liberty in Eng- ENGLISH RULE IN AMERICA 149 land. There was more happiness in Middlesex on the Concord than there was in Middlesex on the Thames." The government of England was in early times not so mild as it is to-day, but it was al- ways in advance of the age; it is in advance of the age in which we live, and it will, no doubt, remain the leader of all ages in the wisdom and mildness of its administration. Every govern- ment has its own peculiar worth to the entire world, but the mission of England has always been, notwithstanding its many civil and for- eign wars, one of peace and domestic happiness. It has made the world a safe place to live in. The English have great respect for law. Noth- ing seems to them quite so bad as anarchy. Their judges and courts have authority, and their decisions are respected. Wherever the English flag waves, life, liberty, and property are protected. It is not so with us. We can scarcely keep our judges from becoming the creatures of political factions. We have lost much of our reverence for law, and in some parts of our country the citizens can hardly be called law-abiding. I have no doubt that were we un- der the government of England, law and order as well as personal liberty would be for us a 150 A FREE LANCE larger and richer possession. Still, it would be at the sacrifice of that national independence which both England and America hold dear. MINOR POETS [ HAVE in my library a number of books ■"■ written by poets little known to the reading world. Some of the books contain verses of great beauty and of rare worth. Why is it that their authors never succeeded in attracting the attention they deserved, and which their more fortunate confreres so easily secured? I use the word "confreres" because the order of poets is always religious. There could be no religion but of mud-gods and dirt-worship, without the over- hanging dream-world of which the poet is prophet and interpreter. We shall never know how great is the world's indebtedness to the mas- ters of song who prevent men from living by bread alone. "Where there is no vision," said the sacred writer, "the people perish." The breath of spiritual life is preserved within us by the revelations of those sons of light. Why are so many of them neglected? Why do they fail of reasonable recognition? The cause is only remotely in the poets themselves, MINOR POETS 151 while it is in general, and most clearly in the unspiritual crowd of money-makers, log-rollers, and pleasure-seekers we call the world. These count the easiest way the way to take; and the easiest way is the one others have already taken. The common verdict of the unthinking multi- tude is accepted without question. "Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?" Why, certainly not. No good thing ever did come from a new place ; and, what is more, we are busy making mud-pies, and do not want to be troubled about either Nazareth or good things. The poets who years ago fought their way to the front are great; being at the front makes them great, and there the matter ends. Of course new poets want recognition. The toad may want a tail, but he has it not. We take poet and toad for what they are. It may be that when the one gets a tail the other will get rec- ognition. Are the publishers different from the un- spiritual crowd of earth-worshipers? On the contrary, they are a part of that crowd. Pretty much all there is to get out of literature they get for themselves. The writers of stories pro- duce "marketable stuff" — that is to say, the stuff the crowd want, and will pay for in good 152 A FREE LANCE money. But the man who, in these days, writes a fine poem wastes ink that might be more profitably employed in casting up accounts or in making out bills. No publisher, in this com- mercial age, encourages such waste of good ma- terial. The poets, great and small, give us, if they are in truth poets, and not merely artistic ver- sifiers, gladness of heart. The age may think poorly of them, but we know their worth. Pub- lishers may not be willing to print what they have written, but the books they have given us we will cherish. Surely these sons of light have done for us all that the old dramatist Heywood represents them as doing for himself and others. And what they have already done for us, they are still doing, and will continue to do so long as we open to them our hearts, and drink in their inspiration and their song. "They cover us with counsel to defend us From storms without; they polish us within With learning, knowledge, arts, and disciplines; All that is nought and vicious they sweep from us Like dust and cobwebs; our rooms concealed Hang with the costliest hangings 'bout the walls, Emblems and beauteous symbols pictured round." Many centuries before our English bard lived THE CROWD 153 and wrote, another and a wiser poet sang the just praise of his own great and worthy fellow- ship of song: — '0$ SXfiioi;) Zvriva Movffat (Xtuvrar rXuKeprj ol and aTOfiaro? /5£et auSrj. El yap Ttpovkiov intXrjOerat^ ouBi rt K7)8ipa 6eua>v. Blessed is he whom the Muses love! Sweetly do his words flow from his lips. Is there one afflicted with fresh sorrow, pining away with deep grief? Then if the minstrel, servant of the Muses, sings the glorious deeds of men of yore, the praise of the blessed gods who dwell in Olympus, quickly does he forget his sorrows, nor remembers aught of all his griefs; for the gifts of these goddesses swiftly turn his woes away. THE CROWD fTl HERE is no excuse for sheriffs in the South ■*• who surrender their black prisoners to noisy mobs. Those mobs are in most cases cow- ardly and easily outwitted. And, still further, all sheriffs and officers of the law should be 154 A FREE LANCE taught to handle large bodies of men, whether armed or unarmed. No crowd is to be trusted. It matters not that the concourse is well dis- posed; a single word may change the most peaceable crowd into a furious mob. No wild animal is so fierce and cruel as is an enraged mob, and yet well-nigh all mobs are cowardly. That is their one good feature; it renders dis- persion possible with fewer shots and a much lighter mortality. I witnessed the Orange Riot in the City of New York many years ago. I was in the crowd, where I saw deeds of shame and cruelty that I should like to forget. From that day to this I have dreaded large crowds. A crowd, of whatever kind, is always to be viewed with ap- prehension; even if it is not likely to become criminal, still it may easily become the victim of panic. In a densely-packed theatre one may at once change all the fine ladies and gallant gentlemen into a mass of struggling humanity by shouting, Fire ! A little smoke oozing out from behind the proscenium will unfold in five seconds more human nature than can be described upon twice as many pages of foolscap. Do not understand me to say that there are no brave men and serene women in the world. There are THE BULL MOOSE IN GREEK 155 many such. What I wish to say is that there are fewer such men and women than the easy- going optimist would have us believe. The nobler qualities of human nature are with the few, and only when we are governed by the few are we governed by those qualities. You may be sure that there is little wisdom and not much courage with the crowd. THE BULL MOOSE IN GREEK rilHE prevision of the seer has in all ages of -** our world's history astonished the sons of men. Nearly every century has its more con- spicuous prophets, who, looking down the ages, foretell events that later came to pass. The Hebrew prophets stand at the head, and after them come other predicters who, without inspira- tion, astonished those who came under the spell of their marvelous genius. In still later times Swedenborg captured the consciences of men. But one of the strangest of all miracles of pre- vision is that of the Greek dramatist Euripides. He seems to have actually seen upon the far- away horizon of American politics our race of demagogues. He described that race; and who 156 A FREE LANCE can fail of seeing Roosevelt in all his war-paint upon that classic page, as the never-to-be-envied chieftain of the thankless crew "whom like am- bition joins" to sway the loveless mob. Could prophecy come nearer home than do these lines that took their rise in a Greek mind, and have wandered down the ages to mirror the man to whom we owe so little, and from whom we have reason to fear so much? Think of it — the Bull Moose in Greek ! Is it not like the prevision of the Hebrew king who described the "naughty person" of Proverbs vi:12-15? y A%dpiGTOv u/jLUtv ff7:ipfj.\ offot fy {XT/yd pou? C^oDre Tt(j.a