D A M N14 Book of Ca/zm myBY H L MENCKEN

PH I L I P G O O D M A N N Bw Y o n x 1918

PREFACE!u

The ti tle borne by this l i ttle boo wasnot my invention

,and got my imprimatur

only rather grudgingly and at the lastmoment. I consented to i t

,in f act

,s imply

to avoid a long and co stly telegraphicdebate with the publisher

,f rom whom I

wa s separated by 200 miles . The “Damnpart seemed to me to be too heavi ly devilishand sforz ando—a fit l abel fo r a bookby a sensationa l gentleman of God or awicked college professo r. As for the“Book of Calumny” part

,i t plainly mi s

represented the work itself,which i s

chicfiy devoted , not to calumniatingthings

,bu t to defending and prai s ing

them . Thus,I even go so far as to speak

for alcohol,war and the Jews

,all of which

are usually execrated ! Sti ll more,I argue

that 99 per cent . of the married men ofAmerica are fai thfu l to thei r wives ! a doctrine absolutely novel

,and so much at

odds with current supersti tion as to appearalmost i ronical .So the ti tle

,f rom the s tart

,has l ibel led

the book,which is moral and reassuring

in character,and not only l ibelled i t

“

,but

also brought down upon i t the indignationof the righ t- thinking. For example

,the

New York Tim es,after printing one ad

vertisement of i t,refused to print any

more—ou the sound ground that a bookso named

,and of contents fitting the title

,

would surely ou trage the pruderies of i tssubscribers . Again

,a great many news

paper cri tics,too hard worked to read so

small a book,wrote thei r reviews upon i ts

cover,and so fell into lamentable m isrep

resentations . Thus the cri tic of the S altLake Repub lican called i t

“devi l i shlyslanderous

,

” where i ts actual tone,as I

have said,i s one of encom ium and insp i ra

tion . Thus the cri tic of the PhiladelphiaPub lic Ledger described i t a s full of“ fool i sh things” sa id in “moments of exasperation

,

” whereas there i s not the sl ightest s ign of exasperation in i t

,but only a

mellow forbearance . Thus the Springfield Repub lican denounced i t as

“cyn

i cal and immoral,

” and the St. LouisPos t-D ispatchas

“wri tten by a pess imistsolely for pessimists

,

” and the ChicagoDaily N ews as “ s tru tting and squall ing

,

”

whereas i t i s obviously not cynica l o r immoral or pes s im i stic

,bu t full of h igh hope

and recti tude,and not strutting and

squall ing,bu t extremely poli te and p ia

nis s im o. F inally,variou s estimable view

ers with alarm,mi s taking its theology for

pol i tics,compla ined of i t as seditious

,

whereas the plain fact is that its very firs tchapter i s given over to a defense ofGeorge Washington .

In order to di spose of such misunderstandings I have been tempted to changethe ti tle

,bu t to thi s the publisher objects .

Part of hi s obj ection i s perfectly logicalthe change would put him to expense andexpose him to the charge of trying to sellthe same book twice . Bu t part of i t

,I

fancy,i s al so due to con s iderations a good

deal less benign . A book violently en

vii

ti tled has plain advantages,on the book

counters,over books rnore decorous ; i t

arrests the eye and give s wings to the dolla r. Perhap s some such notion floats inmy own m ind

,too

,and so accounts formy

own complai sance ; I am also a hypocri teBu t after all i t i s a small matter . The substance ofthe work i s moral enough

,and i t

can stand an inappropriate ti tle . Whoreally cares what the ti tle i s ? Who reallycares

,indeed

,what the book is ? In all the

range of nature there i s no phenomenonintrinsically more trivi al . Not one bookin a thousand i s worth as much to mankind as an innocent l i ttle chi ld or a Chicago ham . Not all the books wri tten in acentury have impinged upon human history as potently as the invention of thebichloride tablet.Several reviewers have speculated as to

my reasons fo r printing a volume so oddin size and make up—a few score casualessays

,some longi sh

,some telegraphically

brief,scarcely two hanging together. My

explanation is very simp le . I t was thus

viii

that the thing came into my mind,and I

saw no good reason for laboring it intosome other form . I s aid what I had tosay upon each topic that presented i tself ,and then shut down . I f any other ideasever occur to me I shall s imp ly wri teanother book.

MENCKEN .

Baltimore , July, 1918 .

CONTENTSPrefacePater PatriaeThe Reward of the ArtistThe Heroic Cons ideredThe Burden of HumorThe Saving GraceMoral IndignationS table-NamesThe Jew sThe Comstock ian Prem issThe Lab ial InfamyA True AsceticOn Ly ingHistoryThe Curse of Civ i l iz ationEugen icsThe Jocose GodsWar

Moralist and ArtistActorsThe CrowdAn Am er ican Ph i losopherClubsFidelis ad Um umA Theological MysteryThe Test of TruthLiterary Indecenc i esVirtuous Vandalism

XXVII I

XXIXXXXXXXIXXXIIXXXII IXXXIVXXXVXXXVIXXXVIIXXXVII IXXXIX

XL

XLIXLI IXLI I IXLIVXLVXLVIXLVIIXLVII IXLIX

A Footnote on the Duel ofSex

AlcoholThoughs on the Volup tuousThe Holy EstateD ich tung und Wahrhei tW i ld ShotsBeethovenThe Tone ArtZoosOn Hearing Moz artThe Road to DoubtA New Us e for ChurchesThe Root of ReligionFree W i ll! uid est Veri tas ?The Doubter ’s RewardBefore the AltarThe MaskP ia Venez iani , Poi Cr istianiOff Again , On AgainTheologyExemp l i Gratia

DAMN ! A BOOK

O F CA LUMNYI .

PATER PATRIZE

I f George Wa shington were al ivetoday

,what a sh ining mark he wou ld be

for the whole camorra of upli fters,

forward - lookers and other such insp i redBolshevik i l He was the Rockefeller ofhis time

,the richest man in the United

S tates,a promoter of companies

,a land

magnate,an exploi ter of mines and tim

ber . He had a l iking for all forthright andpugnacious men

,and a contemp t fo r law

yers , reformers and other such obscurantists . He was not pious . He drank whiskywhenever he felt chi lly

,and kept a jug of

i t handy. He knew far more profani tythan Scripture

,and used and enjoyed i t

more . He had no bel ief in the infall iblewisdom of the lower cla sses

,bu t regarded

them as inflammatory dolts,and tried to

save the republic f rom them . He advo

13

cated no sure cure for al l the sorrows ofthe world

,and doubted that such a

panacea existed . He took no interest inthe private morals of his ne ighbors .Inhab i ting These S tates today

,George

would be inel igible to any office of honoror profit. The Senate would never dareconfirm him ; the President could notthink of nominating him . He would beon trial in a l l the yel low journal s forbelonging to the Invi s ible Government

,

the Hell Hounds of Plutocracy,the

Money Powe r,the Interests . The Sher

man Act would have him in its toils ; hewould be under ind ictment by every grandj ury south of the Potomac ; the triumphantprohibition i sts of hi s native s tate wouldbe denounc ing him ! he had a stil l atMount Vernon ! as a debaucher of youth,a recruiting offi cer for insane asylums

,a

poisoner of the homef The suffragetteswould be on his trai l

,wi th sentinels posted

all along the Accotink road . The in i ti ators and referendors would be bawl ing forhis blood . The young col lege men of the

14

Nation and the N ew Republic would belecturing him weekly. He would be usedto scare child ren in Kansas and Arkansas .The chautauquas would shive r wheneve rh i s name was mentionedAnd what a chance there would be forthat ambitious young distric t attorneywho thought to shadow the greatest manthe New World has ever produced—andgrab him under the M ann Act !

15

THE REWARD OF THE ARTIST

A man labors and fumes fo r a who leyear to write a symphony in G minor. Heputs enormous di l igence into i t

,and much

talent,and maybe no l i ttle downright

gen ius . I t draws hi s blood and wrings hissoul . He dies in i t that he may l ive again .

Nevertheless,i ts final value

,in the

open market of the world,i s a great dea l

less than that of a fur overcoat,half a

Roll s-Royce automobile,or a handful of

au thenti c hai r from the whiskers ofHenry Wadsworth Longfellow.

16

I I I

THE HEROIC CONSIDEREDFor humili ty and poverty

,in them

selves,the world has l i ttle l iking and less

respect. In the folk- lo re of all races,de

Spi te the sentimental ization of abasementfo r dramatic effect

,i t i s always power and

grandeur that count in the end . Thewhole point of the sto ry of Cinderella

,the

most widely and constantly charm ing ofal l stories

,i s that the Fairy Prince l if ts

Cinderella above her cruel s i sters andstepmother

,and so enables he r to lord i t

over them . The same idea underl ies practically all other folk- stories ! the essence ofeach of them is to be found in the ultimatetriumph and exal tation of i ts protagonist.And of the real men and women of h istory

,the most venerated and envied are

those whose early humi l i ations were butpreludes to terminal glories ; for example ,Lincoln

,Whi ttington

,Frankl in

,J ackson

,

Co lumbus,Demosthenes

,Frederick the

Great,Catherine

,Mary of Magdala

,

17

Moses . Even the Man of Sorrows,

cradled in a manger and done to death between two thieves

,i s seen

,as we part f rom

Him at last,in a s i tuation of stupendou s

magnificence,with infinite power

'

in Hishands . Even the Beati tudes

,in the m idst

of thei r eloquent counsell ing of renunciation

,give i t unimaginable splendor as i ts

reward . The meek shall inheri t—what ?The whole earth ! And the poor in spi ri t ? .

They shall s i t upon the right hand of God !

18

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Wa r,might have surv ived in history

chiefly as the father of the Americansmutty story—the on ly original art-formthat America has yet contributed to l i terature . Huxley

,had he not been the great

est intellectual duel l i st of his age,migh t

have been i ts greates t sati ri st. Bismarck ,pursu ing the gruesome trade of pol i tics

,

concealed the deva stating wit of Molierehis surviving epigrams are truly stupendous

,and a Frenchman

,Jules Hoche

,has

wri tten a whole book on h is larger buffooneries . Final ly

,Beethoven

,after soar

ing to the he ights of tragedy in the firstmovement of the Fi fth Symphony

,turned

to the sardon ic bu ll -fidd ling of thes chenz o.

No,there is not the sl igh test dis

harmony between s ense and nonsense,

humor and respectabil i ty,despi te the ski t

ti sh tendency to assume that there rs . But,

why,then

,that widespread error ?

What actua l fact of l ife l ies beh1nd it,giving it a specious appearance of reasonableness ? None other

,I am convinced

,

20

than the fact tha t the average man i s fa rtoo stupid to make a joke . He may s ee aj oke and love a joke

,particularly when i t

floors and flabbergasts some person hedisl ikes

,but the only way he can himself

take part in the priming and pointing ofa new one i s by acting as i ts target . Inbrief

,hi s personal contact wi th humor

tends to fill h im with an accumu latedsense of disadvantage

,of pricked compla

cency, of sudden and crushing defeat ; andso

,by an easy psychological process

,he is

led into the idea that the thing i tself i s incompatible with true digni ty of characterand intellect. Hence hi s deep suspicion ofjokers

,however adept thei r thrusts . “What

a damned fool !” —thi s same half-pityingtribute he pays to wit and butt al ike . H ecannot separate the vi rtuoso of comedyfrom hi s general concept of comedy itself

,

and that concept is inextricably mingledwith memories of fou l ambuscades andmortifying hurts . And so i t 1s not oftenthat he i s will ing to adm i t any wisdomin a humorist

,or to condone frivol ity in

a sage .

21

V

THE SAVING GRACE

Let us not burn the univers i ties—yet.After all

,the damage they do m ight be

worse . Suppose Oxford had snaredand d i semboweled Shakespeare ! Suppose Harvard had rammed its buttermilkin to Mark Twain !

22

MORAL INDIGNATION

The loud,preposterous mora l crusades

that so endlessly rock the republ icagainst the rum demon

,against Sunday

baseball,against moving-picture s

,agains t

danc ing,against fornication

,against the

c igarette,against al l th ings s infu l and

charming—these astounding Methodist

fehad s offer fat cl inical materi al to thestudent of mobocracy. In the long run

,

nearly all of them must succeed,fo r the

mob is eternally vi rtuous,and the only

thing necessary to get i t in favor of somenew and super-oppress ive law is to convince i t that that law will be dista stefu l tothe minori ty which i t envies and hates .The poor numskull who i s so horriblyharrowed by Puri tan spulp it

- thumpersthat he can ’ t go to a bal l game on Sundayafternoon withou t dreaming of hell andthe devi l all Sunday night i s naturally env ions of the fellow who can

,and be ing

envious of him,he hates him and is eager

23

to destroy his offens ive happiness . Thefarmer who works 18 hours a day andnever gets a day offi s envious of h i s farmhand who goes to the cros sroads and barrel s up on Saturday afternoon ; hence thevi rulence of prohibition among the peasantry. The hard-working householderwho

,on some bi tter evening

,glances over

the Saturday E vening Pos t fo r a squareand honest look at hi s wife i s envious ofthose gaudy drummers who go gall ivanting abou t the country w ith~ scar1et gi rl s ;hence the Mann Act . I f these deviltrieswere equally open to all men

,and all men

were equally capable of practi s ing andappreciating them

,the i r unpopu larity

wou ld tend to wither.I often think

,indeed

,that the prohib i

tionist tub- thumpers make a tactical m i stake in dwelling too much upon the evi lsand horrors of alcohol

,and not enough

upon i ts del ights . A few enlarged photographs of first-class bar- rooms

,showing

the rows of well-fed,well -dressed b ibuli

happily moored to the brass rai ls,thei r

24

noses in f ragrant mint and hops and thei rhands reaching ou t fo r f ree rations ofol ives

,pretzels

,cloves

, pumpernickle , Bismarck herring

,anchovies

,wieners

,Sm i th

field ham and d i l l p ickles—such a galleryof contentment wou ld probably do far

more execution among the dismal shudra

than a ll the current portrai ts of drunkards ’

l ivers . To vote for prohibition in the

face of the l iver portra i ts means to vote

for the good of the other fellow,for even

the oldest b ibulomaniac always thinks that

he himsel f will escape . Thi s i s an.

act of

altru i sm almost imposs ib le to the mob

man,whose selfishness i s but l i ttle cor

rup ted by the imagination tha t shows i tself

in his betters . Hi s mos t au ste re renuncia

tions represent no more than a ma tching

of the joys of indu lgence against the pains

of hell ; rel igion , to him ,i s l i ttle more than

synthesized fear I ventu re that

many a vote for prohibi tion comes f rom

gen tlemen who look longingly through

swinging doors—and pass on in p rop itia

2 5

tion of S a tan and the i r alert consorts,the

lake of brimstone and the correctivebroomstick .

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so addressed him in the i r famous exchangeof telegrams The Czar himself wasNicky in those days

,and no doubt remains

Nicky to h is cronies today. Edgar AllanPoe was always Eddie to hi s wife

,and

Mark Twain was always Youth to hi s .P . T . Barnum ’ s s table-name was Taylor

,

hi s middle name ; Charles Lamb’ s was

Guy ; Nietzsche’ s was F ri tz ; Whistler

’ swa s J imm ie ; the late King Edward

’ s wasBertie ; Grover Cleveland

’ s was S teve ; J .

Pierpont Morgan ’ s wa s J ack ; Dr . Wilson ’ s i s Tom .

Some given names are surrounded bya whole floti l la of stable-names . Henry

,

fo r example,i s softened variously into

Harry,Hen

,Hank

,Hal

,Henny

,Enery,

O’nry and Heine . Which did AnnBoleyn use when she cooed into the sus

p icious ear of Henry VI I I . ? To whichdid Henrik Ibsen answer at the domestichearth ? I t is d iflicult to imagine hi s wifecall ing him Henrik ! the name i s harsh

,

clumsy,razor-edged . But

l

d id she makei t Hen or Rik

,or neither ? What was

28

Bismarck to the Furstin,and to the mother

he so vastly feared ? Ottchen ? Somehow i t seems imposs ible . What wasGrant to his wi fe ? Surely not Ulysses !And Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ? AndRu therford B . Hayes ? Was RobertB rowning ever Bob ? Was John Wesleyever J ack ? Was Emanuel Swendeborgever Manny ? Was Tadeusz Kosciuskoever Teddy ?A fa i r field of inqui ry inv i tes . Let somelaborious ass i s tant professor explore andchart i t. There wi ll be more sweet fancyin hi s report than in all the novels everwri tten .

VII I

THE JEWS

The Jews,l ike the Americans

,labor

under a philosophical dualism,

’

and inboth cases i t i s a theological heritage . Onthe one hand there i s the ideali sm that i slovely and uplif ting and will get a maninto heaven

,and on the other hand there

is the real i sm that works . The fact thatthe Jews cling to both

,thus running

,as i t

were,upon two tracks

,i s what makes

them so puzzl ing,now and then

,to the

goyim . In one aspect they standfo r the mos t savage practi cal i ty ; inanother a spect they are dreamers ofan almost fabu lou s other-worldliness .My own bel ief i s that the essenti al J ew i sthe ideal is t— thi s his occas ional flashing ofhyena teeth i s no more than a necessaryconcess ion to the harsh demand s of thes truggle for existence . Perhaps

,in many

cases,i t i s due to an actual corruption of

blood . The J ews come from the Levant,

and the i r women were exposed for many

30

centuries to the admiration of Greek ,Arab and Armen i an . The shark that aJ ew can be at h is worst i s s imp ly a Greekor Armenian a t his best.As a statement of post-mortem and

super-terrestial fact,the religion that the

Jews have foisted upon the world seemsto me to be as vast a curse as the influenzathat we inheri t from the Tartars o r thepoli ti cal fallacies set afloat by the FrenchRevolu tion . The one thing that can besaid in favor of i t i s that i t i s not true

,and

yet we suffe r from i t almost as much as ifi t were true,, Bu t with i t , encasing it andpreserving i t

,there has come something

that i s posi tively valuable something,

indeed,that i s beyond all price—and that

is J ewi sh poetry . To compare it to thepoetry of any other race i s Wholly imposs ible ; i t stands completely above al l therest ; i t is as fa r beyond the next best asGerman music i s beyond French mus ic

,or

French painting beyond Engli sh painting,

or the Engli sh drama beyond the I tal i andrama . There are s ingle chapters in the

31

Old Tes tament that are worth all the

poetry ever wri tten in the NewWorld andnine-tenths of tha t written in the Old .

The J ews of those anc ien t days hadimagination

,they had dign ity

,they

’

hadears fo r sweet sound

,they had

,above all

,

the faculty of grandeur. The stupendousmusic that issued from them has sweptthe i r barbaric demonology along with i t

,

setting at naught the collective intelligence of the human species ; they embalmed thei r idiotic taboos and feti shes inundying strains

,and so gave them some

measure of the same immortal i ty. A raceof lawgivers ? Bosh ! Levi ticus i s asarchaic as the Code of Manu

,and the

Decalogue belongs to ethica l paleontology. A race of seers ? Bosh again ! TheGod they saw survives only as a bogeyman

,a theory

,a gaseous vertebrate

,an

uneasy and vexatious ghost. A race oftraders and sharpers ? Bosh a third time !The Jews are as poor as the Spaniards .But a race of poets

,my lords

,a race of

poets ! I t i s a v i s ion of beau ty that has

32

ever haunted them . And i t has been theirdestiny to transmit that vi s ion

,enfeebled

,

perhaps,but sti ll distinct

,to othe r and

lesser peoples,that l i fe might be made

softer fo r the sons of men,and the good

ness of the Lord God—whoever He maybe—migh t not be forgotten .

33

IX

THE COMSTOCKIAN PREMIss

I t i s a rgued against certain books,by vir

tu0 51of moral alarm,that they depict vice

a s attractive . This recal l s the king whohanged a judge for dec id ing that an archbishop was a mammal .

34

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own ca sual observation inclines me tohold that the Opposite i s true

,that the

lungs are ac tually collapsed In a pseudoa sthmatic spasm . Again

,what i s the

ground for arguing that the l ips are “ full,

ripe and red ?” The real effect of theemotions that accompany kissing is toempty the superfic i al capillaries and soproduce a leaden pallo r. As for such sal ient symptoms as the temperature

,the

pulse and the rate of respi ration,the

learned pundi t passes them over wi thout aword . Mrs . Elsie Clews Parsons wouldbe a good one to write a sober and accurate treati se upon kissing. Her booksupon “The Fami ly and “Fear and ConventIOnality indicate her possess ion ofthe righ t sort of learning. Even betterwould be a work by H avelock Ell i s

,s ay

,

in three o r four volumes . Ellis has devoted his whole life to i lluminating themysteries of sex

,and his collection of ma

terials is unsurpassed in the world .

Surely there must be an enormous massof instructive stuff abou t kiss ing in his

36

card indexes,letter files

,book presses and

a rchives .Just why the kiss as weknow it shouldhave attained to i ts present populari ty inChri stendom is p robably one of the thingspast finding out. The Japanese

,a very

affectionate and sentimental people,do

not practise kissing in any form ; theyregard the ac t

,in fact

,wi th an aver

sion matching our own avers ion to thefamily tooth -brush . Nor i s i t in vogueamong the Moslems

,nor among the

Chinese,who countenance i t only as

between mother and chi ld . Even in partsof Christendom i t is girt about by rigidtaboos

,so that i ts p ractise tends to be re

stricted to a few occas ions . Two Frenchmen or I tal i ans

,when they meet

,kiss each

other on both cheeks . One used to see,

indeed,many pictures of General Joffre

thus buss ing the heroes of Verdun ; thereeven appeared in print a story to the effectthat one of them objected to the scratching of his moustache . But imagine twoEngl i shmen kissing ! Or two Germans !

37

As well imagine the former kiss ing thelatter ! Such a display of affection is s imp ly imposs ible to men of Northern blood ;they would die wi th shame i f caught a t i t.The Engli shman

,l ike the American

,

neve r ki sses i f he can help it . He evenregards i t as bad form to kiss his ownwife . The Latin has no such compunc

tions . He leaps to the business regardlessof place or time ; his sole concern is withthe lady. Once

,in drIVIng from Nice to

Monte Carlo along the lower Cornicheroad

,I pas sed a hundred or so open taxi

cabs containing man and woman,and

fu lly 75 per cent. of the men had the i rarms around thei r companions

,and were

kissing them . These were not peasants,

remember,but well- to -do persons . In

England such a scene would have causeda great scandal ; in most American S tatesthe pol ice would have charged the offenders with drawn revolvers .The charm of ki ss ing i s one of thethings I have always wondered at. I donot pretend

,of course

,that I have never

38

done i t ; mere pol i teness forces one to i t ;there are women who sulk and grow bell icose unless one at least makes the motionsof kiss ing them . But what I mean isthat I have never found the act a tenthpart as agreeable as poets

,the authors of

musical comedy l ibrettos,and ! on the

contrary s ide ! chaperones and the gendarm erie make i t out. The phys ical sensation

,far from being pleasan t

,i s intense ly

uncomfortable— the suspens ion of respi ration

,indeed

,quickly resolves itself into a

feel ing of suffocation—and the posturenecess i tated by the approximation of l ipsand l ips i s unfa i l ingly a constrained andungracefu l one . Theoretically

,a man

kisses a woman perpendicularly,wi th

the i r eyes,those windows of the soul

,

synchroniz ing exactly. But actual ly,on

account of the incompress ibi l ity of thenasal carti lages

,he has to incl ine e i ther

hi s o r her head to an angle of a t leas t 60degrees

,and the result i s tha t h is right

eye gazes insanely at the space between hereyebrows

,while h is left eye is fixed upon

39

some vague spot behind her . An instantaneous pho tograph of such a maneuvre ,taken at the moment of incidence

,would

probably turn the stomach of even themost romantic man

,and force him

,in

sheer self- respect,to renounce kiss ing as

he has renounced leap-f rog and walkingon stilts .But the most embarrass ing moment

,in

kissing,does not come during the actual

kiss ! for a t that time the sensation of suffocation d rives out all purely psychicalfeel ings ! , but immediately afterward .

What i s one to say to the woman then ?The occasion obviously d emands somesort of remark. One has just rece ived ! intheory ! a great boon ; the s i lence begins tomake i tself fel t ; there stands the fai r one ,obv iously wai ting. Is one to thank her ?Certainly that would be too transparent apiece of hypocri sy

,too flacc id a banal i ty.

I s one to tell her that one loves her ? Obviously, there i s danger in such assurances ,and beside

,one usually doesn ’ t

,and a l ie

i s a l ie . Or is one to descend to chatty

40

commonplaces—about the weather,l i tera

ture,poli ti cs

,the war ? The practical im

poss ibil ity of solving the problem leadsalmost inev itably to a blunder far worsethan any merely verba l one ! one kissesher again

,and then again

,and so on

,and

so on . The ultimate result i s satiety,re

pugnance, d i sgus t ; even the gi rl getsenough .

41

XI

A TRUE A scETIc

V’Herbert Spencer ’s objection to swearing

,of which so much has been made by

moral is ts,was not an objection to its s in

fulness bu t an obj ection to its charm . Inbrief

,he feared comfort

,sati s faction

,joy.

The boarding houses in which be draggedout his gray years were as bare and cheerless a s so many piano boxes . He avoidedall the l i ttle vices and dis s ipations whichmake human exi stence bearable ! goodeating

,good drinking

,dancing

,tobacco

,

poker,poetry

,the theatre

,personal adorn

ment,philandering. He was insanely sus

p icious of everything that threatened tointerfere with hi s work . Even when thatwork halted him by the shee r agony ofi ts monotony

,and i t became necessary fo r

him to find recreation,he sought out some

recreation that was as unattractive as poss ible

,in the hope that i t would quickly

drive him back to work again . Havingto choose be tween methods of locomotion

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H e could sacrifice al l things of the presentor one thing of the future

,all things real

or one thing ideal .

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XII

ON LYING

Lying stands on a different plane f romall other moral offenses

,not because i t i s

intrins ically more heinous o r less he inous,

but simply because i t i s the only one thatmay be accurately measured . Forgettingunwitting error

,which has nothing to do

with morals,a s tatement i s e i ther true or

not true . This i s a s imple d i s tinction andrelatively easy to establ i sh . But when onecomes to other derel iction s the thinggrows more complicated . The l ine between stealing and not s teal ing is beautifully vague ; whether o r not one hascrossed i t i s not determined by the ob

jective act, but by such del icate th ings asmotive and purpose . So again

,wi th

assaul t,sex offenses

,and even murder ;

there may be surrounding circumstanceswhich greatly cond i tion the mora l qual ityof the ac tual ac t. But lying is spec ific

,

exact,scientific . I ts capac ity for prec i se

dete rmination,indeed

,makes its presence

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or non-presence the only accurate gaugeof other immoral acts . Mu rder

,for ex

ample,i s nowhere regarded as immoral

,

save i t involve some repudi ation of asoc i al compact

,of a tac i t promise to re

f rain from it—in brief,some dece i t

,some

perfidy, some lie . One may kill f reelywhen the pac t i s formally broken

,as in

war. One may kill equa lly f reely when i ti s broken by the vi ctim

,as in an assau lt by

a highwayman . But one may not ki ll solong as i t i s not broken

,and one may not

break i t to clear the way. Some form oflie i s a t the bottom of all other recogniz ed crimes

,from seduction to embezz le

ment. Curiously enough,this master im

morali ty of them all i s not prohibi ted bythe Ten Commandments

,nor is i t penal

iz ed,in i ts pure form

,by the code of any

c ivi l ized!

nation . Only savages have lawsagainst lying p er

’

s e .

I t i s the misfortune of humani ty that i tsh i story i s chiefly written by thi rd - ratemen . The first- rate man seldom has anyimpulse to record and philo sophise ; hi simpulse in to ac t ; l i fe , to him ,

i s an adventure

,not a syllogism or an autopsy. Thus

the wri ting of history is lef t to professors,

morali sts,theorists

,dunderheads . Few

historian s,great or small

,have shown any

capac i ty for the affai rs they presume todescribe and interp ret. Gibbon was aninglorious fai lure as a membe r of Parl i ament. Thycyd ides made such a mess of ;his mil i tary ! or , rathe r , naval ! commandtha t he was exiled from Athens for twenty !

years and finally assassinated . FlaviusJosephus

,serving as governor of Gali lee

,

lost the whole prov ince to the Romans,

and had to flee fo r hi s l i fe . Momseen,

elected to the Pruss ian Land tag,

fl i rtedwith the Soc i al i sts . How much better wewould understand the habits and nature of

47

man i f there were more h istorians l ikeJulius Ca sar

,or even l ike Niccolo

Machiavell i ! Remembering the sharpand devastating characte r of thei r roughnotes

,th ink what marvelous histories Bis

marck,Washington and Frederick the

Great might have written ! Such men areprivy to the facts ; the usual historianshave to depend on deductions

,rumors

,

guesses . Again,such men know how to

tell the truth,however unpleasant ; they

are wholly free of that pueri le moral obsess ion which marks the pedagogue .But they so seldom te ll i t ! Wel l

,perhaps

some of them have—and their penalty isthat they are damned and forgotten .

XIV

THE CURSE OF C IVILIZATION

A c ivi l ized man ’s worst curse i s socialobligation . The most unpleasant ac timaginable i s to go to a dinner party. Onecould get fa r better food

,taking one day

with another,at Chil ds ’

,or even in a Penn

sylvania Rail road dining-car ; one couldfind far more amusing society in a barroom or a bordello

,or even at the Y. M .

C . A . No hostess in Chri stendom evera rranged a dinner party of any pretens ions wi thout including at lea st one intensely disagreeable person—a vain andvapid gi rl

,a hideous woman

,a fo llower

of baseball,a soci al pu sher

,a stock

broker,a veteran of some war or other

,a

gabbler of pol itics . And one is enough todo the business .

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XV

EUGEN ICS

The error of the eugenists l ies in theas sumption that a physically healthy mani s the best fitted to survive . Thi s i s true ofrats and the p ed iculae, bu t not of thehigher animals

,e . g .,

horses,dogs and

men . In these higher animals one looksfor more subtle qual i ties

,chiefly of the

Spi ri t . Imagine estimating philosophersby thei r ches t expans ions

,thei r blood

pressures,thei r Wa sserman reactions !

The so-called social d i seases,over

which eugenis ts raise such a pother,are

su rely not the worst curses that mankindhas to bear. Some of the greatest men inhi story have had them ;whole nations havehad them and survived . The truth aboutthem is that

,s ave in relatively rare cases

,

they do very l i ttle damage . The horro rin which they are held i s chiefly a moralhorror

,and i ts roots l i e in the assumption

that they cannot be contracted withou t s in .

Nothing could be more false . Many great

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XVI

THE JOCOSE GODS

What humor could be wilder than thatof l i fe i tsel f ? Franz Schubert

,on his

deathbed,read the complete works of

J . Fenimore Cooper . John Mill ingtonSynge wrote “Riders to the Sea” on asecond -hand $40 typewri te r , and wore acellu loid collar . Richard Wagner madea l iving

,du ring four lean years

,arrang

ing I tal i an opera arias for the com et.Will iamShakespeare was a social pusherand bought him a bogus coat-of—arms .Johanne s Brahms had a high

,piping voice

and wore pantaloons that s topped at hisfetlocks . Martin Luther suffered f romthe j im- j ams . One of the greatest soldiersin Hungari an history was named Hunjad iJanos

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Superficially, war seems inordinatelycruel and wasteful

,and yet i t mus t be

plain on reflection that the natural evolutionary process i s quite a s cruel and evenmore wastefu l . Man ’ s chief efforts intimes of peace are devoted to making thatprocess les s violent and sangu inary. Civiliz ation

,indeed

,may be defined as a con

structive cri tici sm,of nature

,and Hux

ley even called i t a con spi racy agains t nature . Man tries to remedy what mustinevi tably seem the mistakes and to checkwhat must inevi tably seem the wantoncruelty of the Creator . In war he abandon s these efforts

,and so becomes more

jovian . The Greeks never represented theinhabi tants of Olympus as succoring andprotecting one another

,but always as

fighting and attemp ting to destroy oneanother.No form of death infl icted by war isone-half so cruel as certain fo rms of death

53

that are seen in hosp itals every day. Be

s ides,these forms of death have the fur

ther di sadvantage of being inglorious .The average man

,dying in bed

,not only

has to stand the pains and terrors of death ;he mus t also

,i f he can bring himself to

think of i t at all,stand the notion that he

i s rid iculous . The sold ier i s at leastnot laughed at . Even his enemies treat h isagonies with respect.

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XVII I

MORALIST AND ARTIST

I dredge up the following from an ess ayon George Bernard Shaw by RobertBlatchford

,the Engli sh Social is t ! “Shaw

is something much better than a wit,much

better than an arti st,much bette r than a

poli ti ci an or a dramati st ; he i s a morali s t

,a teacher of eth ics

,austere

,relentless

,

fiercely earnest.”

What could be more idiotic ? ThenCotton Mather was a greater man thanJohann Sebasti an Bach . Then the average college cri tic of the arts

,with his

balderdash abou t inspi ration and moralpurpose

,is greater than George B randes

o r S aint-Beuve . Then Eugene Brieux,

with hi s Y. M . C . A . platitudiniz ing,i s

greater than Moliere,with his ethical

agnostici sm, his i ronical determinism .

This chi ld i sh respect fo r moral iz ingruns through the whole of contemporarycri tici sm—at least in England and Ame rica . Blatchford differs f rom the profes

55

sorial cri tics only in the detai l that hecan actually wri te . What he says aboutShaw has been said

,in heavy and suffo

cating words,by almost all of them . And

yet nothing could be less true . The moral i st

,at h is best

,can never be anything

s ave a sort of journal i st. Moral valueschange too often to have any serious validi ty or interest ; what is a vi rtue today is asin tomorrow . But the man who createsa thing of beau ty creates something that

lasts .

56

In France they call an actor a m ’

as

tu-ou, which , angl icised , means a haveyou seen me ? The average actorholds the mirror up to nature and sees ini t only the reflec tion of himsel f .” I takethe words from a late book on the so

called art of the mime by the editor of amagazine devoted to the stage . Thelearned author evades plumbing the p sychological springs of thi s a stounding andalmost invari able vani ty

,thi s endless

bumptiousness of the cabotin in all cl imesand all ages . His one attempt i s banal“ a fooli sh publ ic makes much of him .

With all due respect,Nonsense ! The

larval actor i s full of hot and rancid gaseslong before a fool i sh publ ic has had afai r chance to make anything of him atall

,and he continues to em i t them long

after i t has tried him,condemned him and

bidden him be damned . There is,indeed

,

l i ttle choice in the vi rulence of thei r self

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respec t between a Broadway star who isslobbered over by press agents and fatwomen

,and the poor ham who plays

thinking parts in a No . 7 road company.

The two are alike charged to the limit ;one more ohm

,or molecu le

,and they

would burst. Actors begin where mil iti acolonels

,Fifth avenue rectors and Chau

tauqua ora tors leave off . The most modest of them ! barring , perhap s , a few un

earthly tra i tors to the craft ! matches theconce it of the sol i tary pretty girl on aslow ship . In thei r lofty em inence ofpomposi ty they are challenged only byAnglican bishops and grand opera tenors .I have spoken of the danger they run ofbursting. In the case of tenors i t mustsometimes actually happen ; even the leastof them swells vis ibly as he S ings

,and

permanently as he grows older .But why are actors

,in general

,such

blatant and obnoxious asses,such arrant

posturers and wind -bags ? Why is i t assurpri s ing to find an unassuming and l ikable fellow among them as to find a Greek

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not of men,but Of women . He is

,in

brief,a hollow and incompetent creature ,

a stru tte r and poseu r,a popinj ay

,a pretty

one .I thus beg the question

,but explain the

actor. He i s this s i l ly youngster grownolder

,but otherwise unchanged . An ini

tiate of a profess ion requi ring l ittle moreinformation

,culture or capacity for ratio

cination than that of the lady of joy,and

surrounded in hi s workshop by men whoare a s stupid

,as vain and as empty as he

him sel f will be in the years to come,he

suffers an arres t of development,and the

l i ttle intell igence that may happen tobe in h im gets no chance to show itself .The result

,in i ts u sual manifestation

,i s

the average bad actor—a man with thecerebrum of a floor-walker and the vani tyof a fashionable chi ropodist . The result

,

in i ts h ighest and holiest form is the actormanager

,with his retinue of press - agents

,

paras i tes and worshipping wenches—perhaps the most preposterous and aweinspi ring donkey that c ivi l ization has yet

60

produced . To look for sense in a fel lowof such equ ipment and such a his to rywould be l ike looking for serviettes in asailors ’ boarding-house .By the same token

,the relatively

greate r intell igence of actresses i s explained . They are

,at thei r worst

,quite

as bad as the general i ty of ac tors . Thereare she- s tars who are all temperament andbalderdash— intellectually speaking

,beg

gars on horseback,se rvant gi rls well

washed . Bu t no one who knows anythingabout the s tage need be told that i t canshow a great many more quick-mindedand self-respecting women than intelligent men . And why ? S imply because i tswomen are recru i ted

,in the main

,f rom

a class much above that which fu rnishesi ts men . I t i s afte r all

,not unnatural for

a woman of cons iderable intell igence toasp ire to the stage . I t offers her

,indeed

,

one of the most tempting careers that i sopen to her. She cannot hope to succeedin business

,and in the other profess ions

she i s an unwelcome and much-scoffed-at

61

intruder,but on the boards She can meet

men on an equal footing . I t is therefore,

ho wonder that women of a relativelysuperior clas s often take to the bus iness .

Once they embrace i t,thei r superior

i ty to thei r male colleagues i s qu icklyman i fest . All movements agains t puerili ty and imbeci l i ty in the drama haveoriginated

,not with actors

,but with

actre sses— that i s,in so far a s they have

originated among stage folks at all . TheIbsen pioneers were such women asHelena Modj eska

,Agnes Sorma and

Janet Achu rch ; the men all hung back .

Ibsen,i t wou ld appear

,was aware of this

superio r alertnes s and took shrewd ad

vantage ofi t. At all events,hi s most tempt

ing acting parts are feminine ones .The gi rl s of the stage demonstrate thistendency against great d ifliculties . Theyhave to carry a heavy handicap in theenormou s number of women who seek thefootl ights merely to adverti se thei r realprofess ion

,bu t despi te all this

,anyone

who has the sl ightest acquaintance with

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Stagefolk will testi fy that, taking one withanother

,the women have vastly more

brain s than the men and are appreciablyless vain and idiotic . Relatively fewactresses of any rank marry actors . Theyfind close communion with the stru ttingbrethren p sychologically imposs ible .Stock-brokers

,dramati sts and even theat

rical managers are greatly to be preferred .

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XX

THE CROWD

Gustave Le Bon and his school,in thei r

d iscussions of the psychology of crowds,

have put forward the doctrine that theindividual man

,cheek by jowl with the

multi tude,drops down an intellectual peg

.

,or two

,and so tends to Show the mental

and emotional reaction s of hi s inferiors .I t i s thus that they explain the wel l-knownviolence and imbec i l i ty of crowds . Thecrowd

,as a crowd

,performs acts that

many of i ts members,as individuals

,

would never be gu i l ty of . I ts average intelligence i s very low ; i t i s inflammatory ,vic ious

,idiotic

,almost s imian . Crowds

,

properly worked up by skilful dema

gogues , are ready to bel ieve anything, andto do anything .

Le Bon,I daresay

,i s partly righ t

,but

al so partly wrong. Hi s theory is probably too flattering to the average numskull . H e accounts for the extravaganceo f c rowds on the assumption that the

64

numsku ll,along wi th the superio r man

,

i s knocked out of his wits by suggestionthat he

,too

,does things in assoc i ation that

he wou ld never think of doing singly. Thefact may be accepted

,bu t the reasoning

raises a doubt . The numskull runs amuckin a crowd

,not because he has been inocu

la ted with new rascali ty by the mysteri

ous crowd influence , but because h is habitual rascal i ty now has i ts only chance tofunction safely. In other words

,the num

sku ll i s vicious,but a poltroon . He re

f ra ins from all attempts at lynchinga cappella,

not because i t takes sugge stionto make him desi re to lynch

,bu t because

i t takes the protection of a crowd to makehim brave enough to try i t.What happens when a crowd cu ts loosei s not qu i te what Le Bon and his followers describe . The few superio r men in i tare not S traigh tway reduced to the levelof the underlying stonehead s . On the contrary, they usual ly keep thei r heads , andoften make efforts to combat the c rowdaction . But the stonehead s are too many

65

for them ; the fence i s torn down or theblackamoor i s lynched . And why ? Not

. because the stonehead s,normally vi rtu

ous,are suddenly crim inally insane . Nay

,

bu t because they are suddenly consciousof the power lying in thei r numbersbecause they suddenly realize that the i rnatural v i ciousness and in sanity may besafely perm i tted to function .

In other word s,the particula r swinish

nes s of a crowd is permanently re s identin the majori ty of i ts members—in allthose members

,that i s

,who are natu rally

ignorant and vicious— perhap s 95 percent. All studies of mob psychology aredefective in that they underes timate thisviciousness . They are poisoned by theprevai l ing delus ion that the lower ordersof men are angels . This i s nonsense . Thelow eno rders o f-men ‘are incurable rascals

,

e i ther indi vidually,or collectively.

. Decency, self - restraint, the sense of justice ,courage—these v i rtues belong only to. asmall minori ty of men . This minoritynever runs amuck . I ts most distinguish

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XXI

AN AMERICAN PH ILOSOPHER

AS for Wi ll i am Jennings Bryan,of

whom so much piffle,pro and con

,

'has

been wri tten,the whole of his pol itical

philosophy may be reduced to two propositions

,nei ther of which is true . The first

IS the propos i tion that the common peoplea re wise and honest

,and the second is the

proposi tion that all persons who refuseto bel ieve i t are scoundrels . Take awaythe two

,and all that would remain of Jen

nings would be a somewhat greasy baldheaded man wi th his mouth Open .

Men ’s clubs have but one intell igiblepurpo se ! to afford asylum to fel lows whohaven ’ t any girl s . Hence thei r generalgloom

,thei r ai r of lost cau ses

,thei r prevail

ing acrimony. N0 man would ever entera club i f he had an agreeable woman totalk to . Thi s i s particularly true of married men . Those of them that one findsin clubs answer to a general descriptionthey have wives too unattractive to entertaIn them

,and yet too watchfu l to allow

them to seek entertainmen t elsewhere .

The bachelors,in the main

,belong to two

classes ! ! a ! those who have been unfor

tunate in amour,and are sti l l too sore to

Show any new enterprise,and ! b ! those so

l acking in charm that no woman will payany attention to them . I s i t any wonderthat the men one thus encounters in clubsare stupid and miserable creatures

,and

that they find their p leasure in such banalSports as playing cards

,d rinking high

balls,shooting pool

,and reading the

ba!rber-shop weekl ies ? The day a man ’ smistress i s married one always finds himat his club .

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XXII I

FIDELIS AD URNUM

Despite the common bel ief of women tothe contrary

,fully 95 per cent. of all mar

ried men,at least in America

,are fa i th

fu l to thei r wives . This,however

,is not

due to vi rtue,but chiefly to lack of cour

age . I t takes more ini ti ative and daringto s ta rt up an extra - legal affai r than mostmen are capable of . They look and theymake plans

,bu t that i s a s far as they get.

Another sal ient cause of connubial rectitude is lack of means . A mistress costs agreat deal more than a wife ; in the openmarket of the world she can get more . I ti s only the rare man who can concealenough of hi s income from his wife to payfor a morganatic affai r. And most of themen clever enough to do thi s a re tooclever to be intrigued .

I have said that 95 per cent. of marriedmen are fa ithfu l . I bel ieve the real proportion i s nearer 99 per cent . Whatwomen mistake for infidel i ty is usually no

71

more than vani ty. Every man l ikes to beregarded as a devil of a fellow

,and par

ticularly by his wi fe . On the one hand ,i t d iverts her attention f rom his moregenuine shortcom ings

,and on the other hand

i t increases her respect for him . Moreover

,it gives her a chance to win the sym

pathy of other women,and so satisfies that

c raving fo r martyrdom which is perhapswoman ’ s S trongest characteri stic . Awoman who never has any chance to sus

pect her husband feels cheated and humi liated . She i s in the posi tion of thosepatriots who are induced to enl i s t for awar by pic tures of caval ry charges

,and

then find . themselves told off to wash thegeneral ’s underwear .

72

XXIV

A THEOLOGICAL MYSTERY

The moral o rder of the world runsaground on hay fever . Of what use i s i t ?Why was i t invented ? C ancer and hydrophobia

,at least

,may be defended on the

ground that they kill . Killing may havesome benign purpose

,some esoteric sig

nificance,some cosmic use . Bu t hay feve r

never kill s ; i t merely tortures . No manever died of i t. I s the torture

,then

,an

end in itsel f ? Does i t break the pride ofstrutting

,snorting man

,and tu rn his heart

to the things of the sp i rit ? Nonsense ! Aman wi th hay fever i s a natural c riminal .He curses the gods

,and defies them to

kill him . He even curses the devil . I si ts use

,then

,to prepare him for happiness

to come—for the vast ease and comfortof convalescence ? Nonsense again ! Theone thing he i s sure of

,the one thing he

never forgets for a moment,i s tha t i t wi l l

come back again next year.

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XXV

THE TEST OF TRUTH

it The final test of truth is rid icule . Veryfew religious dogmas have ever faced itand survived . Huxley laughed the dev i lsout of the Gadarene swine . Dowie

’s whis

kers broke the back of Dowieism . Not thelaws of the United S tates but the motherln- l aw joke brought the Mormons to compromise and surrender . Not the horrorof i t bu t the absu rdi ty of i t killed the do

'

ctrine of infant damnation . But therazor edge of ridicule is tu rned by thetough hide of truth . How loud ly thebarber- surgeons laughed at Harvey—andhow vainly ! What c lown ever broughtdown the house l ike Galileo ? O r Columbus ? Or Jenner ? Or Lincoln ? O r Darwin ? They are laughing at Nietzscheyet.

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H auptman and Robert Hichens ; Voltai reand Henry Van Dyke ; Flaubert andJohn Fox

, Jr. ; Balzac and John KendrickBangs ; Ostrovsky and E . Phill ips Oppenhe im ; Elinor Glyn and Theophi le Gautier ; Joseph Conrad and Robert W .

Chambers ; Zola and Zangwill !Midway of my scant shelf of novels

,

between George Moore and Frank Nor

ri s,there i s just room enough for the three

volumes of “Derringforth,” by Frank A .

Munsey.

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XXVII

VIRTUOUS VANDALISM

A hearing of Schumann ’ s B flat symphony of late

,otherwise a very caress ing

experience,was corrupted by the thought

that music would be much the ga iner i fmusicians cou ld get over thei r superstitious reverence for the mere text of themusical class ics . Tha t reverence

,indeed

,

i s al ready subj ect to certa in l imitations ;hands have been laid

,a t one time o r ah

other,upon mo st of the immortal orato

rios,and even the awfu l name of Bach

has not dissuaded certain German editors .But i t s ti ll swathes the standard symphon ies l ike some vast armor of rubberand angel food

,and so imagination has to

come to the aid of the flutes and fidd leswhen the band plays Schumann

,Mozart

,

and even parts of Beethoven . One discerns

,often qu i te clearly , what the rever

end Maste r was aiming at,but just as

often one fai l s to hear i t in preci se tones .This i s particularly true of Schumann

,

77

who se deficiency in instrumental cunningha s passed into proverb . And in the B flatsymphony

,his first venture into the epic

form,his fai lures are most numerous .

More than once,obvious ly attempting to

roll up tone into a moving cl imax,he

succeed s only in muddling his colors . Iremember one place— at the moment Ican ’ t recall where i t i s—where the S tringsand the bra ss storm at one another in furious figures . The blast ofthe bras s

,as the

vaudevillains say, gets across —but thefidd les merely scream ab surdly. Thewhole pas sage suggests the bleating ofSheep In the mid st of a vast bellowing ofbu ll s . Schumann overestimated the horsepower of fiddle mus ic so fa r up the Estring—or underestimated the fu l l thrustof the trumpets . Other such soft spotsare well known .

Why,then

,go on parroting gaucheries

that Schumann himsel f,were he al ive

today,wou ld have long since corrected ?

Why not call an ecumenical council,ap

point a commiss ion to see to such things,

78

and then forget the sacri lege ? As a selfelected delegate f rom partibus infid elium ,

I nominate Dr . Richard S trauss as chai rman . When all i s said and done , Straussp robably knows more abou t writing fororchestra than any other two men thatever l ived

,not excluding Wagner. Su rely

no l iving rival ha s anything to teach him .

I f,after hearing a new compos ition by

Strauss,one turn s to the music

,one is in

variably su rpri sed to find how simple i tis . The performance reveals so manypurple moments

,so staggering an array

of lusciousness,that the ear i s bemused

into detecting scales and chord s that neverwere on land or sea . What the exploratory eye subsequently di scovers

,perhap s

,

i s no more than ou r stou t and comfortableold friend

,the highly well-born Haus

frau, Mme . C Dur—with a vine leaf o rtwo of C Sharp minor or F major in herhai r . The trick l ies in the tone-color—inthe flabbergasting magic of the orchestration . There are some moments in “Elektra” when sounds come ou t of the orches

79

tra that tug at the very roots of the hai r,

sounds so unearthly that they suggest acarol ing of dragons or Bierfis ch—and yetthey are made by the same old fidd les thatplay the Kaiser ! uartette , and by thesame old trombones that the Valkyrie ridel ike witch ’s broomsticks

,and by the same

old flutes that sob and snufll e in T it’ l ’sSerenade . And in parts of “Feuersnot”

but Roget mus t be rewritten by'

Straussbefore “Feuersnot” is described . There isone place where the harps

,taking a run

ning start f rom the scrolls of the viol ins,

leap slambang through ! or i s i t into ? ! thefirmament of Heaven . Once

,when I

heard thi s pas sage played at a concert,a

fat woman S i tting bes ide me rolled overl ike a perfumed ox

,and had to be hau led

out by the ushers .Yes ; S traus s i s the man to reorchestratethe symphonies of Schumann

, particu

larly the B flat and the Fourth . I doubtthat he could do much with Schubert

,

fo r Schubert,though he is dead nearly a

hundred years,yet remains curiously mod

80

cm . The Unfinished symphony is ful l ofexquis i te color effects—conside r

,fo r exam

ple,the rustl ing figure for the s trings in

the fi rs t movement—and as for the Cmajor

,i t i s so s tupendou s a debauch of

melodic and harmonic beau ty that onescarcely notices the colors at all . In i tsS low movement mere lovelines s in musicp robably says all that will eve r be said .

Bu t what'ofold Ludwig ? Har,har ;

here we begin pull ing the whiskers ofBaal Himself . Nevertheless

,I am vandal

enough to wonder,on sad Sunday morn

ings,what S trauss could do with the firs t

movement of the C minor More,i f

S trauss ever does i t and lets me hear theresu l t jus t once

,I ’ l l be glad to serve Six

months in j ai l with him But in Mu

nich,of course ! And with a daily vis i tor ’ s

pass fo r Cous in Pschorr !

81

XXVII I

A FOOTNOTE ON THE DUEL OF SEx

I f I were a woman I shou ld want to bea blonde

,with golden

,s i lky hai r, pink

cheeks and sky-blue eyes . I t wou ld notbother me to think that thi s color schemewas mi staken by the world for a flauntingbadge of stupidi ty ; I wou ld have a bettera rm in my arsenal than mere intell igence ;I wou ld get a husband by easy surrenderwhile the brunettes attempted i t vainly byfrontal a ssault.Men are not easi ly taken by frontalassau l t ; i t i s only s trategem that canqu i ckly knock them down . To be ablonde

,pink

,soft and delicate

,i s to be a

strategem . I t i s to be a ruse,a feint

,an

ambush . I t i s to‘

fight under the RedCross flag . A man sees nothing alert anddes Igning in those pale , crystall ine eyes ;he sees only something helpless

,childi sh

,

weak ; something that call s to hi s compass ion ; someth ing that appeals powerfullyto hi s concei t in hi s own strength . And

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I t is all an optical matter,a question of

color. The pastel Shades deceive him ; thelouder hues send him to his arti llery. Godhelp

,I say, the red -hai red girl ! She goes

in to ac tion with warning pennants flying .

The du l les t,blindest man can see her a

m IIe away ; he can catch the alarm ing flashof her hai r long before he can see thewhi tes

,or even the terrible red -browns

,

of her eyes . She has a long field to cross,

heavily under defens ive fire,before She

can get into rifle range . Her quarry hasa chance to throw up redoubts

,to dig him

self ln,to call for re in forcements

,to elude

her by ignom inious fl ight. She must win,

i f She i s to win at all,by an unparalleled

combina tion of craft and resolution . Shemust be swift

,daring

,merci less . Even

the brunette of black and penetrating eyehas great advan tages over her. No wonder she never lets go

,once her arms are

around her antagoni s t’ s neck ! No wonder she is

,of al l women

,the hardest to

shake off!All nature works in c i rcles . Causes be

84

come effects ; effects develop into causes .The red -hai red gi rl ’s di re need of courage and cunning has augmented her sto reof those qual i ties by the law of naturalselec tion . She i s

,by long odd s

,the most

intell igent and bemusing of women . Sheshows cunning

,fores ight

,technique

,

variety . She always fai ls a dozen timesbefore she succeed s ; but she brings to thefinal bus iness the abominable expertnessof a Ludendorff; she has learnt painfu llyby the proces s of tri al and error . Redhaired gi rls are Intellectual stimulants .They know all the tricks . They are so

clever that they have even cast a falseglamour of beauty about the i r wors t defect—thei r harsh and gaudy hai r . Thev

give i t euphem i s ti c and decei tfu l namesauburn

,bronze

,Titian . They overcome

by thei r hell i sh arts that deep - seated dreadof red which is inborn in all of God ’ screatures . They charm men with whatwould even alarm bulls .And the blondes

,by following the law

of least res i stance,have gone In the other

85

di rection . The great majority of themI speak

,of course

,of natural blondes ; not

of the immoral wenches who work thei ratroci ties under cover of a syntheticblondeness—are qu i te a s shallow ands tupid as they look . One seldom hears ablonde say anything worth hearing ; themo st they commonly achieve i s a specious

,

baby- l ike prattl ing,an infanti le artless

ness . Bu t let us not blame them for nature ’ s work . Why

,after all

,be intelli

gent ? I t i s,at best

,no more than a capac

i ty fo r unhappines s . The blonde not onlydoesn ’ t m i ss i t ; She i s even better offwithout it. What imaginable intell igencecou ld compen sate her for the flat blueness of her eyes

,the xanthous pallor of

her hai r,the doll - l ike pink of her cheeks ?

What conceivable cunning cou ld do suchexecution as he r stupendous appeal tomasculine vani ty

,sentimental i ty

,egoi sm ?

I f I were a woman I should want to bea blonde . My blondenes s might be b ideous

,but i t wou ld get me a husband

,and

i t wou ld make him cheri sh me and loveme. 86

XXIX

ALCOHOL

Envy,as I have said

,i s at the heart of

the mess i an ic delus ion,the mania to con

vert the happy sinner into a “good” man,

and so make him miserable . And at theheart of that envy is fea r— the fea r to s in

,

to take a chance,to monkey with the buzz

saw . This ineradicable fear i s the ou ts tanding mark of the fifth- rate man

,at

all times and everywhere . I t dom inatesh i s poli tics

,hi s theology

,his whole think

ing. He is a moral fellow because he isafraid to venture over the fence— and hehates the man who i s not.The so‘lemn proofs

,so laboriously de

duced f rom l i fe in surance stati stics,that

the man who uses alcohol,even moder

ately,di

‘

es S l ightly sooner than the teetotale r— these p roofs merely show thatthi s man i s one who lead s an active andvigorou s l i fe

,and so faces hazards and

uses himself up—in brief , one who l ivesat high tempo and with full joy

,what

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ii

Nietzsche used to call the I a-Sager, oryes- sayer. He may

,in fact

,die S l ightly

Sooner than the teetotaler,but he l ive s in

fini tely longer . Moreover,his l i fe

,

humanly speaking,i s much more worth

while,to himself and to the race . He

does the hard and dangerou s work of theworld

,he takes the chances

,he makes the

experiments . He i s the soldier,the arti st

,

the innovator,the lover . All the grea t

works of man have been done by menwho thu s l ived joyously

,strenuously

,and

perhaps a bi t dangerously. They havenever been concerned abou t s tretching lifefo r two or three more years ; they havebeen concerned abou t making l i fe engrossing and stimulating and a high adventurewhile i t lasts . Teetotali sm is as imposs ibleto such men as any other manifestationof cowardice

,and

,i f i t were poss ible

,i t

would destroy thei r uti l i ty and signif

icance j ust as certainly.

A man who shrinks from a cocktai l be

fore dinner on the ground it may flabbergast his hormones , and so make him

88

die a t 69 years,ten month s and five days

instead of at 69 years , eleven months andseven days

,such a man is as absurd a pol

troon as the fellow who shrinks f rom kiss

ing a woman on the ground that She may

floor himwith a chai r leg . Each flees f rom

a purely theoretical ri sk . Each i s a use

les s encumberer of the earth,and the

sooner dead the be tte r . Each is a di s

credi t to the human race,al ready d iscred

itab le enough,God knows .

Teetotal i sm does not make for human

happiness ; i t makes for the du ll , id ioti c

happiness of the barnyard . The men who

do things in the world,the men worthy

of admi ration and Im I tatIOn are men con

stitutionally incapable of any such peck

Sniffian stupidi ty . Thei r idea ! i s not a

safe l i fe,but a ful l l i fe ; they do not try

to follow the canary bird in a cage,but

the eagle in the ai r. And in particular

they do not flee from shadows and bugaboos . The alcohol myth is such a

bugaboo . The sort of man i t scares i s the

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sort of man whose chief mark is that hei s always scared .

No wonder the Rockefellers and thei rlike are hot for saving the workingmanf rom John Barleycorn ! Imagine theadvantage to them of operating upon aflabby horde of timorous and joylessslaves

,af raid of all fun and kicking up

,

horribly moral,eager only to l ive as long

as poss ible ! What mu le- l ike fidel i ty andefliciency cou ld be got out of such , arabble ! But how many Lincolns wouldyou get out of i t

,and how many Jacksons

,

and how many Grants ?

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yokels . For the “Dodo school,v iolets

and Russi an c igarettes . For the venerableHowells

,l avender and mignonette . For

Zola,Rochefort and wet leather. For

Mrs . Humphrey Ward,l i l ies of the val

ley. For Marie Corell i,tuberoses and

embalming flu id . For Chambers,sachet

and lip paint. ForBut I leave you to make your own

choices . All I offe r i s the general idea .I t has been tried in the theatre . Well doI remember the firs t weeks of “Florodora” at the old

“

Cas ino,with a mannikin

in the lobby squi rting “La Flor de Florodora” upon all us F lorodorans . I wasput on trial for my l i fe when I got home !

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XXXI

THE HOLY ESTATE

Marriage i s always a man ’ s secondchoice . I t i s entered upon

,more often

than not,as the safes t form of intrigue .

The caitiff yields quickes t ; the man wholoves danger and adventure holds outlongest. Behind i t one f requently finds

,

not that lofty romantic passion whichpoets hymn

,but a mere yearn ing for peace

and securi ty . The abominable hazardsof the high seas

,the rough humors and

pesti lences of the forecastle—these drivethe timid mariner ashore . The authentic Cupid

,at leas t in Christendom

,was

discovered by the late Albert LudwigS iegmund Neisser in 1879 .

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XXXII

D ICHTUNG UND WAHRHEIT

Deponent,being du ly sworn

,sai th

My taste in poetry i s for delicate andfragile things—to be honest

,for artifici al

th ings . I like a f rai l but perfectly articulated stanza

,a sonnet wrough t l ike ivory

,

a song fu ll of glowing noun s,verb s

,ad

jectives , adverb s , pronoun s , conjunction s ,prepo s i tion s and participles

,bu t without

too much hard sen se to i t . Poetry,to me

,

ha s bu t two meanings . On the one hand,

i t i s a magical escape from the sordidnessof metaboli sm and the class war

,and on

the other hand i t i s a subtle,very diffi cu l t

and hence very charm ing art,l ike wri ting

fugues or mixing mayonnaise . I do notgo to poets to be taught anything

,or to

be heated up to indignation,o r to have my

con science blas ted ou t of i ts torpor,bu t to

be soothed and caressed,to be lulled with

sweet sounds,to be wooed into forgetfu l

ness,to be tickled under the metaphys ical

chin . My favori te poem i s Lizette Wood

94

worth Roose ’ s “Tears,which

,a s a state

ment of fact,seems to me to be as idiotic

a s the Book of Revelation . The poetryI regard least i s such stuff a s that of Robert B rown ing and Matthew Arnold

,

which argues and illum inates . I di sl ikepoetry of intellectual content as much as Idi sl ike women of intellectual contentand fo r the same reason .

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XXXII I

WILD SHOTS

I f I had the time,and there were no

sweete r foll ies offering,I should like to

wri te an essay on the books that have quitefai led of achieving thei r original purposes

,and are yet of respectable use and

potency for other purposes . For example

,the Book of Revelation . The obvious

aim of the learned author of thi s workwas to bring the early Christi ans into acco rd by tell ing them authori tatively whatto expect and hope for ; i ts actual effectduring eighteen hundred years has beento spl i t them into a multitude of camps

,

and so set them to denouncing,damning

,

j a i l ing,and murdering one another.

Again,consider the autobiography of

Benvenuto Cel l ini . Ben wrote i t to provethat he was an honest man

,a mirro r of al l

the v i rtues,an injured innocent ; the

world,reading i t

,hails h im respectfully

as the noblest,the boldest

,the gaudies t

l i a r that ever l ived . Again,turn to “Gul

96

l iver ’s Travels . The th ing was plannedby i ts rev . au thor as a devastating sati re

,

a terrible p iece of cynic i sm ; i t surv ivesas a s torybook for sucklings . Ye t again

,

there i s “Hamlet.” Shakespeare wrote i tf rankly to make money for a theatrica lmanager ; i t has lost money for theatricalmanagers ever S ince . Yet again

,there i s

Cwsar’s“De Bello Gall ico .

” Ju l ius composed it to thri ll and arouse the Romans ;i ts sole use today i s to stupefy and sickenschoolboys . Finally

,there i s the cele

brated book of General F . von Bernhardi.He wrote i t to inflame Germany ; its effectwas to inflame England .

The l ist migh t be lengthened almost adinfinitum . When a man writes a book hefires a machine gun into a wood . Thegame he brings down often astonisheshim

,and sometimes horrifies him . Con

sider the case of Ibsen . After my bookon Nietzsche I was actually invi ted tolecture at Princeton .

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XXXIV

BEETHOVEN

Romain Rolland ’s “Beethoven,one of

the cornerstones of hi s celebri ty a s acri ti c

,i s based upon a thes i s that i s of al

mo st inconceivable inaccuracy,to wi t

,the

thes i s that old Ludwig was an apostleof joy

,and that his mus ic reveals h is de

termination to experience and utte r i t insp i te of all the sl ings and arrows of outrageous fortune . Nothing cou ld be moreab surd . Joy , in tru th , was precisely theemotion that Beethoven cou ld never conjure up ; i t s imply wa s not in him . Turnto the s cb erz o of any of hi s trio s

,quartets

,

sonatas o r symphonies . A sardonic wag

gishness i s there , and sometimes even awistful sort of merriment

,but joy in the

real sense— a kicking up of legs,a l ight

heartedness,a complete freedom from

care—i s not to be found . I t i s in Haydn,

i t is in Schubert and i t i s often in Mozart,

but i t i s no more in Beethoven than i t i s inTchaikovsky. Even the hymn to joy at the

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you wi l l find a collec tion of moral banali ties that wou ld have del ighted Jonathan!E dwards—a collection that migh t wellbe emblazoned on gi l t card s and hungin Sunday schools . He begins wi th a na ifanthropomorphism that i s now almostperi shed from the world ; he ends wi th asolemn repudiation of adultery. Bu t agreat man

,my masters

,a great man ! We

have enough biographies of him,and tal

muds upon his works . Who wi l l do afull- length psychological study of h im ?

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XXXV

THE TONE ART

The notion that the aim of art i s to fixthe sh i fting aspects of nature

,tha t al l art

i s primari ly representativefl this notion i sas unsound as the theory that Friday i s anunlucky day

,and is dying as hard . One

even finds some trace of i t in AnatoleFrance

,surely a man who should know

bette r. The true function of art i s to cri ticise

,embell i sh and edit nature— partic

ularly to edi t i t, and so make i t coherentand lovely. The arti st i s a sort of impassioned proof- reader

,blue-penc i l l ing the

bad spel l ing of God . The sounds in aBeethoven symphony

,even the Pastoral

,

are infinitely more orderly,varied and

beauti ful than those of the woods . Theworst flute i s neve r as bad as the worstsoprano . The best v iol incello i s immeas

urab ly better than the best tenor.All first-rate music suffers by the fact

that i t has to be performed by humanbe ings—that i s

,that nature must be per !

101

m itted to corrupt i t. The performanceone hears in a concert hall or opera housei s no more than a barq e parody uponthe thing the composer imagined . In anorchestra of eighty men there i s inevitably at leas t one man with a sore thumb

,

or bad kidneys,or an anthropophagous

wife,or Katz erjamm er and one i s

enough . Some day the natural clumsinessand imperfection of fingers

,l ips and

larynxes will be overcome by mechanicaldevi ces

,and we shall have Beethoven and

Mozart and Schubert in such wonderfu land perfec t beauty that i t will be almostunbearable . I f half as much ingenu i tyhad been lavished upon mus ic machinesas ha s been l avi shed upon the telephoneand the steam engine

,we wou ld have had

mechani cal orchestra s long ago . Mechanical p ianos are already here . Piano -players

,bound to pu t some value on the tor

ture s of Czerny,affect to laugh at all such

contrivances,but that i s no more than a

pale phosphorescence of an ou tragedWille z ur M acht. Setting as ide half a

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mass become mere accomplishments to ananecdote in a picture by an Englishacademic i an

,or by a sentimental German

of the Boeck lin school .The purified and dephlogisticatedmusic of the future

,to be sure

,will never

appeal to the mob,which will keep on

demanding its chance to gloat over gaudy,

voluptuous women,and fat

,scandalous

tenors . The mob , even dis regarding i tsinsati able appetite for the improper

,i s

a natural hero worshipper. I t loves , notthe beauti ful

,but the S trange

,the unpre

cedented,the astounding ; i t suffers f rom

an incurable héliogabalisme. A sopranowho can gargle her way up to G sharp ina l ti ss imo interests i t almost as much a s acontralto who has slep t pub l icly wi th agrand duke . I f i t cannot get the tenorwho receives a nigh t

,i t wi l l take

the tenor who fough t the manager withbung- s tarters last Tuesday. But this i smerely saying that the tastes and des i resof the mob have nothing to do with musica s an art. For its

‘

ears,for i ts eyes

,i t de

104

mands anecdotes-w on the one hand theSuicide symphony

,

“The Forge in theFores t

,

” and the general run of I tal i anopera

,and on the other hand such things

a s “The Angelus,

” “Playing Grandpa”

and the so- called “Mona Lisa . I t cannotimagine art as devoid of moral conten t

,

as beauty pure and simple . I t always demands something to edi fy i t

,or

,fai l ing

that,to shock i t.

These concep ts,of the ed i fying and the

Shocking,are closer together in the psyche

than most persons imagine . The one,in

fact,depends upon the other ! without

some defin i te notion of the improving i tis a lmos t impossible to conjure up an active notion of the improper. All salac iousart i s addressed

,not to the damned

,but

to the consc iously saved ; i t is Sundayschool superintendents

,not bartenders

,

who chiefly patron ize peep -shows,and

know the di rty books,and have a high

regard fo r soprano s of superio r glutealdevelopment. The man who has ri senabove the petty eth ical supersti tions of

105

Christendom gets l i ttle pleasure out of improprie ty

,fo r very few ordinary phenom

ena seem to him to be improper . Thus aFrenchman

,vi ewing the undraped s tatues

which bedizen hi s native galleries of art,

ei the r enjoys them in a pu rely ae sthetic

fashion which is seldom possible save

when he i s in l iquor—or confesses f rankly

that he doe sn ’ t l ike them at all ; whereas

the vi s i ting Americano i s so powerfu l ly

Shocked and fasc inated by them that onefinds h im

,the same evening

,in places

where no respectable man ought to go .

All art,to th i s fel low

,must have a certain

bawdines s,o r he cannot abide i t. Hi s

favori te sop rano,in the opera hou se

,i s

not the fat and middle-aged lady who can

actually sing,but the gi rl with the bare

back and trans lucent d rawers . Conde

scending to the concert hall,he is bored

by the posse of enemy aliens in funereal

black,and so demands a vocal solois t

that i s,a gaudy creature of such advanced

corsetting that she can make him forget

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nettes for actors . The removal of the orchestra to a sort

/

Of trench,out of s igh t of

the audience,i s al ready an accomplished

fact at Munich . The end,perhaps

,will be

music purged of i ts current ptomaines .In brief

,music .

108

XXXVI

Zoos

I often wonder how much sound andnou rishing food is fed to the animals in thezoological gardens of America everyweek

,and try to figure out what the pub

l ic gets in return for the cost thereof . Theannual bi ll must surely run into mill ions ;one i s constantly hearing how much beefa l ion downs at a mea l and how many tonsof hay an elephant dispatches in a month .

And to what end ? To the end,princ i

pally,tha t a horde of superintendents and

keepers may be kept in easy jobs . To theend

,secondari ly

,that the least intell igen t

minori ty of the population may have anid iotic Show to gape at on Sunday afternoons

,and tha t the young of the spec ies

may be instructed in the methods of amourprevai l ing among chimpanzees and become privy to the technic employed byj aguars

,hyenas and polar bears in ridd ing

themselves of l ice .

So fa r as I can make out,after labori

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ous vi s i ts to all the chief zoos of the nation,

no other imaginable purpose i s served bythei r exi stence . One hears constantly

,true

enough !mainly from the gentlemen theysupport ! that they are educational. Bu thow ? Jus t what sort of instruction dothey radiate

,and what i s i ts value ? I

have never been able to find ou t . Thesober truth i s that they are no more educational than so many firemen

’s parades

or di splays of sky- rockets,and that al l

they actually offer to the publ ic in returnfor the taxes wasted upon them is a formof idle and witless amusement

,compared

to which a vi s i t to a penitenti ary,or even

to Congress or a state legi slature in sess ion,

i s inform ing,s timu lating and ennobl ing .

Education you r grandmother ! Showme a schoolboy who has ever learned anything valuable or important by watchinga mangy old l ion snoring away in its cageor a fam i ly of monkeys‘fighting for peanu ts . To get any useful instruction out ofsuch a spectacle i s palpably impossible ;not even a college professor i s improved

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is to biology what the late Camil le Flammarion was to astronomy

,which is to say

,

i ts court j es te r and reductio ad absurdum .

When he leaps into public notice withsome new pearl of knowledge

,it com

monly turns out to be no more than thenews that Marie Bashkirtseff

,the Russian

lady walrus,has had her teeth plugged

with z inc and i s expecting twins . Or thatPishposh

,the man-eating all igator

,i s

down with locomotor ataxia . Or thatDamon

,the grizzly

,has jus t finished his

brother Pythias in the tenth round,chew

ing off his tai l,nose and remaining ear.

Sc ience,of course

,has i ts uses for the

lower an imals . A dil igent study of the i rl ivers and l ights helps to an understanding of the anatomy and physiology

,and

particularly of the pathology,of man .

They are necessary a ids in devis ing andmanufacturing many remedial agents

,

and in testing the virtues of those alreadydevi sed ; out of the mute agon ies of a rabbi t or a calf may come rel ief fo r a babywi th diphtheria

,o r means fo r an a rch

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deacon to escape the consequences of h isyou thful foll ies . Moreover

,something

valuable i s to be got out of a mere studyof thei r habi ts

,ins tincts and ways of mind

—knowledge that,by analogy

,may illu

minate the parallel doings of the genushomo

, and so enable us to comprehend theprimitive mental processes of Congressmen

,moron s and the rev . c lergy .

But i t must be obvious that none ofthese studies can be made in a zoo . Thezoo animals

,to begin with

,provide no

materi al for the biologist ; he can find outno more about thei r ins ides than what hedi scerns from a safe distance and throughthe bars . H e i s no t allowed to try hisgerms and specifics upon them ; he is notallowed to v ivisect them . I f he wou ldfind out what goes on in the animal bodyunder this condi tion or that

,he must turn

f rom the inhabitants of the zoo to the customary guinea pigs and street dogs , andbuy or steal them for himself . Nor doeshe get any chance for profitable inqui rywhen zoo animals die ! usually of lack of

113

exerci se or ignorant doctoring ! , for thei rcarcas ses are not handed to him forau topsy

,but at once stuffed with gypsum

and excels io r and placed in some museum .

Least of al l do zoos produce any newknowledge about animal behavior . Suchknowledge must be got

,not from animals

penned up and tortured,but from an imals

in a state of nature . A college professo rstudying the habits of the gi raffe

,for ex

ample,and confining hi s observation to

spec imens in zoos,wou ld inevi tably come

to the conclus ions that the gi raffe i s a sedentary and melancholy beast, standing immovable fo r hours at a time and emp loying an I tal i an to feed him hay and cabbages . AS well proceed to a study of thep sychology of a ju ri scon su lt by first immersing him in S ing S ing

,or of a juggler

by firs t cutting off his hands . Knowledgeso gained i s inaccurate and imbec i leknowledge . Not even a college professor

,

if sober,would give i t any faith and

credi t.There remains

,then

,the only true u ti l

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phi les !which i s about as s afe as assuming that the keepers of a prison are allsentimental i sts

,and weep for the sorrows

of thei r charges ! , i t must be plain thatthe work they do involves an endless warupon the native instincts of the animals

,

and that they must thus infl ict the mostabominable tortu res every day. Whatcould be a sadder s ight than a tige r in acage

,save i t be a forest monkey cl imbing

despai ringly up a barked stump,or an

eagle chained to i ts roost ? How can manbe benefi tted and made better by robbingthe seal of i ts arc tic ice

,the hippopotamus

of i ts soft wallow,the buffalo of i ts Open

range,the l ion of i ts kingship

,the bi rds

of thei r a i r ?I am no sentimental is t

,God knows . I

am in favor of vivisection unrestrained,

so long as the v ivi sectionist knows what hei s about. I advocate c lubbing a dog thatbarks unnecesarily, which all dogs do . Ienj oy hangings , particu larly of convertsto the evangelical fai ths . I once poi soneda clergyman . The crunch of a cockroach

116

i s mus i c to my ears . Bu t when the daycomes to turn the prisoners of the zoo outof thei r cages

,i f i t i s only to lead them

to the swifte r,kinder kni fe of the s chochet,

I shall be present and rejoicing,and if

any one present thinks to suggest that i twou ld be a good plan to celebrate theday by shooting the whole zoo faculty

,I

shall have a revolver in my pocket and asound eye in my head .

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XXXVII

ON HEARING MOZART

The only permanent values in theworld are tru th and beauty

,and of

’

these i tis probable that truth i s lasting only in sofa r as i t i s a function and manifestationof beau ty—a proj ection of feeling in termsof idea . The world i s a charnel house ofdead religions . Where are all the fa ithsof the middle ages

,so complex and yet so

preci se ? Bu t all that wa s essenti al in thebeau ty of the middle ages sti ll l ives .This i s the heri tage of man , but not ofmen . The great majori ty of men are noteven aware of i t. Thei r partic ipation inthe progress of the world

,and even in the

h istory of the world,i s infini tely remote

and trivi al . They live and die,at bottom

,

as animals l ive and die . The human race,

a s a race,i s scarcely cogn iz ant of thei r ex

istence they haven ’ t even definite number,

bu t s tand grouped together as x, the quanti ty unknown and not worth knowing.

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XXXIX

A NEW USE FOR CHURCHES

The argument by design,i t may be

granted,establ i shes a reasonable ground

for accepting the existence of God . I tmakes bel ief

,at all events

,qu ite as intel

l igible as unbelief . But when the theologians take thei r step from the existenceof God to the goodness of God they treadupon much less firm earth . How can onesee any proof of that goodness in the senseless and intolerable Stifferings of man—hishelplessness

,the brief and troubled span

of hi s l i fe,the inexplicable disproportion

be tween his deserts and his rewards,the

tragedy of his soaring aspi ration,the

worse tragedy of his dumb questioning ?Granting the existence of God

,a house

dedicated to Him naturally follows . H ei s all- important ; i t i s fit that man shouldtake some noti ce of Him . But Why prai seand flatter h im for his unspeakable cruelties ? Why forget so supinely His fai lu resto remedy the eas ily remediable ? Why

,

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indeed,devote the churches exclus ively to

worship ? Why not give them over,now

and then,to ju stifiable indignation meet

ings ?Perhaps men will incl ine to this idealater on . I t i s not inconceivable

,indeed

,

that rel igion will one day cease to be a

pgltru

oonish acqu iescence and become avigOrOus and insi stent cri tic i sm . I f Godcan hear a petition

,what ground i s there

for holding that He wou ld not hear acomplaint ? I t might

,indeed

,please Him

to find His creatu res grown so sel f- rel iantand reflective . More

,i t m ight even help

Him to get through His infinitely complex and diffi cul t work . Theology hasalready moved toward such notions . I thas abandoned the primi tive doctrine ofGod ’ s arbitrariness and indifference

,and

substi tuted the doctrine that He i s wi l l ing,

and even eager,to hear the des i res of His

creatures—i. e .,thei r private notions

,born

of experience,as to wha twou ld be best for

them Why assume that those notionswould be any the less worth hearing and

121

heeding if they were cast in the form ofcri tic ism

,and even of denunc i ation ?Why

hold that the God who can understandand fo rgive even treason cou ld not understand and forgive remonstrance ?

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XLI

FREEWILL

Free will,i t appears

,i s sti l l a Christi an

dogma . Withou t i t the cruelties Of‘

GOd

wou ld Strain fa i th to the breaking-point.But ou ts ide the fold i t i s gradually fall inginto decay. Such men of sc ience as GeorgeW . Crile and J acques Loeb have dealt i tstaggering blows

,and among laymen of

inqu i ring mind i t seems to be giving wayto an apologeti c sort of dete rm in ism— a

determini sm,one may say, tempered by

defective observation . The late MarkTwain

,in his secret heart

,was such a de

termin i s t. In hi s “What I s Man ?” youwill find him a t his farewel l s to libertarianism . The vas t majori ty of our acts

,he

argues,are determined

,bu t there remains

a res iduum of free choices . Here we standf ree of compuls ion and face a pa i r o r moreof alte rnatives

,and are f ree to go this way

or that.A pillow for free will to fal l uponbu t one loaded wi th disconcerting brick

124

bats Where the occupants of this lasttrench of l ibertarianism err i s in the i rassumption that the pulls of the i r antagonistic impulse s are exactly equal—that theindividual i s absolu tely free to choosewhich one he will yield to . Such freedom

,

in practise,is never encountered . When

an individual confronts alternatives,it i s

not alone hi s vol i tion that chooses betweenthem

,but also hi s envi ronment

,his in

herited prejudices,his race

,his colo r

,his

condi tion of servi tude . I may kiss a gi rlo r I may not ki ss her

,but surely i t would

be absurd to say that I am ,in any true

sense,a free agent in the matter. The

world has even put my helplessness intoa proverb . I t says that my deci sion andact depend upon the time

,the place—and

even to some extent,upon the gi rl .

Examples migh t be multipl ied ad infinitum . I can scarcely remember performing a wholly voluntary act. My wholel i fe

,as I look back upon i t

,seems to be

a long series of inexpl icable accidents,not

only qui te unavoidab le,bu t even qui te un

125

intell igible . I ts hi story i s the history ofthe reaction s of my personal ity to my environment

,of my behavior before exter

nal stimu l i . I have been no more respons ible for that personal i ty than I have beenfo r that envi ronment. To say that I canchange the former by a voluntary effortis as rid iculous as to say that I can modifythe curvature of the len ses of my eyes . Iknow

,because I have often tried to change

,

i t,and always fai led . Nevertheless

,i t has

changed . I am not the same man I wasin the last century. But the grati fying im

provements so pla inly vi s ible are surelynot to be credi ted to me . All of themcame from without—or from unplumbable and uncontrollable depths within .

The more the matter i s exam ined themore the res iduum of free wil l shrinks andshrinks

,unti l in the end i t i s almo s t im

poss ible to find i t . A great many men,of

course,looking a t themselves

,see i t as

something very large ; they S l ap the i rchests and call themselves free agents

,and

demand that God reward them for the i r

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who are tracked down and shanghaied bythei r wives have just a s hard a time of i ta s men who wa lk fatuous ly into the trapby formally proposing.

Even on the ghostly s ide,determ in i sm

does not do much damage to theology . I ti s no harder to bel ieve that a man will bedamned for hi s involuntary acts than i t i sto bel ieve that he will be damned for hisvoluntary acts

,for even the supposi tion

that he is wholly free does not di spose ofthe ma ss ive fact that God made him as heis,and that God cou ld have made him a

saint i f He had so desi red . To deny thisis to flou t omnipotence—a crime at which

,

as I have often said,I balk . Bu t here I

begin to fear that I wade too far into thehot waters of the sacred sciences

,and that

I had bette r reti re before I lose my hide .

This p rudent reti rement is purely deterministic . I do not ascribe i t to my ownsagaci ty ; I ascribe i t wholly to that s ingul

i

ar kindness which fate always shows me .

I f I were free I ’d probably keep on,and

then regret i t afterward .

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XLII

! UID EST VERITAS ?

Al l great rel igions,in order to escape

absurd ity,have to admit a dilution of ag

nosticism . I t is only the s avage,whether

of the African bush or the American gospel tent

,who pretends to know the wi l l

and intent of God exactly and completely.

“For who hath known the mind of theLord ?” asked Paul of the Romans . “Howunsearchable a re hi s judgments

,and his

ways past finding out !” “ I t i s the gloryof God

,

” s aid Solomon,

“ to conceal athing .

” Cloud s and darkness,

” sa idDavid

,are around him .

” “No man,

sa id the Preacher,

“can find out the workof God . The difference between re

ligions i s a difference in thei r relative content of agnosticism . The most satisfyingand ecstatic fa i th i s almost purely agnostic . I t trusts absolutely without professing to know at all .

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XLI I I

THE DOUBTER’S REWARD

Despite the common delusion to the

contrary the philosophy of doubt i s farmore comforting than that of hope .

’

The

doubter escapes the worst penalty of the

man of i s never disappointed,

and hence never indignant! The inexplicable and i rremediable may interesthim

,but they do not enrage h im

,or

,I

may add,fool h im . This immuni ty is

worth all the dubious assurances ever

foisted upon man . I t i s pragmatically im

p regnable . Moreover,it makes for

tolerance and sympathy. The doubter does

not hate his opponents ; he sympathizes

wi th them . In the end,he may even come

to sympathize with God . The old idea

of fatherhood here submerges in a new

idea of brotherhood . God,too

,i s beset by

limi ta tions,d ifliculties

,broken hopes . I s

it disconcerting to think of Him thus ?Well

,is i t any the less d i sconcerting to

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XLIV

BEFORE THE ALTAR

A sal ient objection to the prevail ing religious ceremon i al l ies in the atti tudes ofabasemen t that i t enforces upon the fai thfu l . A man would be thought a sl imy andknavi sh fellow if he approached anyhuman judge or potentate in the mannerprovided for approach ing the Lord God .

I t i s an etiquette that involves loss of selfrespect

,and hence i t cannot be pleas ing

to i ts object,for one cannot th ink of the

Lord God as sacrificing decent feel ingsto mere vani ty. This notion of abasement

,

l ike most of the other ideas that are general in the world

,i s obviously the inven

tion of smal l and ignoble men . I t i s thepollu tion of theology by the Sklavenm oral .

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XLV

THE MASK

Ri tual i s to religion what the music ofan opera i s to the l ibretto ! o sten s ibly ameans of interpretation

,but actually a

means of concealment. The Presbyterians made the mistake of keeping the doctrine of infant damnation in plain words .As enlightenmen t grew in the world

,in

telligence and prudery revolted against i t ,and so i t had to be abandoned . Had itbeen set to music i t would have surviveduncomprehended

,unsuspected and un

challenged .

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XLVI

PIA VENEZ IAN I,POI CRISTIAN I

I have spoken of the poss ibi l ity thatGod

,too

,may suffe r f rom a finite intell i

gence,and so know the bitter sting of dis

appointment and defeat. Here I yieldedsomething to poli teness ; the thing i s notonly po ss ible

,but obvious . Like man

,God

i s deceived by appearances and probab ili ties ; He makes calculations that do notwork out ; He falls into specious assumptions . For example

,He a ssumed that

Adam and Eve wou ld obey the law in theGarden . Again

,He assumed that the ap

pall ing lesson of the F lood wou ld makemen better . Yet again

,He as sumed that

men would always put religion in fi rstplace among thei r concerns— that i t wouldbe eternally poss ible to reach and influence them through i t. This last assumption was the most erroneous of them all .The truth is that the general i ty of men havelong since ceased to take rel igion seriously.

When we encounter one who sti l l does so,

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XLVII

OFF AGAIN, ON AGAIN

The osten s ible obj ec t of the Reformation

,which lately reached its fourth cen

tenary, was to purge the Church of imbecilities . That obj ect was accomplished ;the Church Shook them off. But imbeci li ties make an i rres i stible appeal to man ;he inevi tably tries to preserve them byc loaking them with rel igious sanctions .The result i s Protestanti sm .

136

XLVI I I

THEOLOGY

The notion that theology is a dull sub

ject i s one of the strangest delu s ions of astupid and uncri tical age . The truth isthat some of the most engross ing booksever written in the world are full of i t.For example

,the Gospel according to

S t. Luke . For example,Nietzsche ’ s “Der

An tichri st.” For example,Mark Twain ’ s

“What I s ManP”

,S t. Augustine ’ s Confes

s ions,Haeckel ’s “The Riddle of the Uni

verse,

” and Huxley ’s Essays . How,in

deed,could a thing be dull that has sent

hundreds of thousands of men—the verybes t and the ve ry worst of the race—to thegal lows and the s take

,and made and

broken dynasties,and insp i red the great

est Of human hopes and enterp ri ses,and

embroi led whole continents in war ? No,

theology is not a soporific. The reason itso often seems so is that its publ ic exposition has chiefly fa llen

,in these later days

,

into the hands of a sect of intellectual cas

137

trati,who begin by mi staking i t for a sub

!department of etiquette

,and then proceed

to anoint i t wi th butter,rose water and

talcum powder. Whenever a first- rate intellect tackles i t

,as in the case of Huxley

,

or in that of Leo XI I I .,it at once takes

on all the S iniste r fasc ination i t had inLuther ’ s day.

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