Chapter 2

Such considerations point inevitably to the truth that our theory depends essentially not upon action or talk, but upon the quality and rationale of thought. It is a question of Potentiality, rather than of Dynamics. It is the process of reasoning which concerns us, not its translation into conduct. A man may be a devoted supporter of Mrs. Grundy and yet be a Sulphite, if he has, in his own mind, reached an original conclusion that society needs her safeguards. He may be the wildest-eyed of Anarchists and yet bromidic, if he has accepted another’s reasons and swallowed the propaganda whole.

It will be doubtless through a misconception of this principle that the first schism in the Sulphitic Theory arises. Already the cult has become so important that a newer heretic sect threatens it. These protestants cannot believe that there is a definite line to be drawn between Sulphites and Bromides, and hold that one may partake of a dual nature. All such logic is fatuous, and founded upon a misconception of the Theory.

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There is, however, a subtlety which has perhaps had something to do with confusing the neophyte. It is this: Sulphitism and Bromidism are, symbolically, the two halves of a circle, and their extremes meet. One may be so extremely bromidic that one becomes, at a leap, sulphitic, and _vice versa_. This may be easily illustrated.

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Miss Herford’s inimitable monologues, being each the apotheosis of some typical Bromide--a shopgirl, a country dressmaker, a bargain-hunter and so on--become, through her art, intensely sulphitic. They are excruciatingly funny, just because she represents types so common that we recognize them instantly. Each expresses the crystallized thought of her particular bromidic group. Done, then, by a person who is herself a Sulphite _par excellence_, the result is droll. “One has,” says Emerson, “but to remove an object from its environment and instantly it becomes comic.”

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The same thing is done less artistically every day upon the vaudeville stage. We love to recognize types; and what Browning said of beauty:

We’re made so that we love First, when we see them painted, Things we have passed Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see

can be easily extended to our sense of humor in caricature. A recent hit upon the variety stage does still more to illustrate the problem.

The “Cherry Sisters” aroused immense curiosity by an act so bromidic as to be ridiculous. Were they rank amateurs, doing their simple best, or were they clever artists, simulating the awkward crudeness of country girls? That was the question. In a word, were they Sulphites or Bromides?

What such artists have done histrionically, Hillaire Belloc has done exquisitely for literature in his “Story of Manuel Burden.” This tale, affecting to be a serious encomium upon a middle class British merchant, shows plainly that all satire is, in its essence, a sulphitic juggling with bromidic topics. It is done unconsciously by many a simple rhymester whose verses are bought by Sulphites and read with glee.

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In the terminology of our theory we must, therefore, include two new terms, describing the variation of intensity of these two different states of mind. The extremes meet at the points of Nitro-Bromidism and Hypo-Sulphitism, respectively. Intensity of Bromidism becomes, then, Nitro-Bromidism, and we have seen how, through the artist’s, or through a Sulphite’s subtle point of view, such Nitro-Bromide becomes immediately sulphitic.

By a similar reasoning, a Hypo-Sulphite can, at a step, become bromidic. The illustration most obvious is that of insanity. We are not much amused, usually, by the quaint modes of thought exhibited by lunatics and madmen.

It cannot be denied, however, that their processes of thought are sulphitic; indeed, they are so wildly original, so fanciful, that we must denominate all such crazed brains, Hypo-Sulphites. Such persons are so surprising that they end by having no surprises left for us. We accept their mania and cease to regard it; it, in a word, becomes bromidic. So, in their ways, are all cranks and eccentrics, all whose set purpose is to astonish or to shock. We end by being bored at their attitudes and poses.

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The Sulphite has the true Gothic spirit; the Bromide, the impulse of the classic. One wonders, relishing the impossible, manifesting himself in characteristic, spontaneous ways; the other delights in rule and rhythm, in ordered sequences, in authority and precedent, following the law. One carves the gargoyle and ogrillion, working in paths untrod, the other limits himself to harmonic ratios, balanced compositions, and to predestined fenestration. One has a grim, _naif_, virile humor, the other a dead, even beauty. One is hot, the other cold. The Dark Ages were sulphitic--there were wild deeds then; men exploded. The Renaissance was essentially bromidic; Art danced in fetters, men looked back at the Past for inspiration and chewed the cud of Greek thought. For the Sulphite, fancy; for the Bromide, imagination.

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From the fifteenth century on, however, the wave of Sulphitism rose steadily, gradually dropping at times into little depressions of Euphuistic manners and intervals of “sensibility” but climbing, with the advance of science and the emancipation of thought to an ideal--the personal, original interpretation of life. The nineteenth century showed curiously erratic variations of the curve. From its beginning till 1815, Sulphitism was upon the increase, while from that year till 1870 there was a sickening drop to the veriest depths of bromidic thought. Then the Bromide infested the earth. With his black-walnut furniture, his jig-saw and turning-lathe methods of decoration, his lincrusta-walton and pressed terracotta, his chromos, wax flowers, hoop skirts, chokers, side whiskers and pantalettes, went a horrific revival of mock modesty inspired by the dying efforts of the old formulated religious thought. And then---- when steam had had its day, impressing its materialism upon the world; making what should be hard, easy, and what should be easy, hard--came electricity--a new science almost approaching a spiritual force, and, with a rush, the telephone that made the commonplace bristle with romance! The curve of sulphitism arose. A wave of Oriental thought lifted many to a curious idealism--and, as so many other centuries had done before, there came to the nineteenth a _fin de siecle_ glow that lifted up the curve still higher. The Renaissance of thought came--came the cult of simplicity and Mission furniture--corsets were abandoned--the automobile freed us from the earth--the Yellow Book began, Mrs. Eddy appeared, radium was discovered and appendicitis flourished.

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So there are bromidic vegetables like cabbage, and sulphitic ones like garlic. The distinction, once understood, applies to almost everything thinkable. There are bromidic titles to books and stories, and titles sulphitic. “The Something of Somebody” is, at present, the commonest bromidic form. Once, as in “The Courting of Dinah Shadd” and “The Damnation of Theron Ware,” such a title was sulphitic, but one cannot pick up a magazine, nowayears, without coming across “The ---- of ----” As most magazines are edited for Middle Western Bromides, such titles are inevitable. I know of one, with a million circulation, which accepted a story with the sulphitic title, “Thin Ice,” and changed it to the bromidic words, “Because Other Girls were Free.” One of O. Henry’s first successful stories, and perhaps his best humorous tale, had its title so changed from “Cupid _a la carte_,” to “A Guthrie Wooing.”

This is one of the few exceptions to the rule that a sulphitic thing can become bromidic. Time alone can accomplish this effect. Literature itself is either bromidic or sulphitic. The dime novel and melodrama, with hackneyed situations, once provocative, are so easily nitro-bromidic that they become sulphitic in burlesque and parody.

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Metaphysically, Sulphitism is easily explained by the theory of Absolute Age. We have all seen children who seem to be, mentally, with greater possibility of growth than their parents. We see persons who understand without experience. It is as if they had lived before. It is as if they had a definite Absolute Age. We recognize and feel sympathetic with those of our caste--with those of the same age, not in years, but in wisdom. Now the standard of spiritual insight is the person of a thousand years of age. He knows the relative Importance of Things. And it might be said, then, that Bromides are individuals of less than five hundred years; Sulphites, those who are over that age. In some dim future incarnation, perhaps, the Bromide will leap into sulphitic apprehension of existence. It is the person who is Absolutely Young who says, “Alas, I never had a youth--I don’t understand what it is to be young!” and he who is Absolutely Old remarks, blithely, “Oh, dear, I can’t seem to grow up at all!” One is a Bromide and the other a Sulphite--and this explanation illuminates the paradox.

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The Sulphite brings a fresh eye to life. He sees everything as if for the first time, and not through the blue glasses of convention. As if he were a Martian newly come to earth, he sees things separated from their environment, tradition, precedent--the dowager without her money, the politician without his power, the sage without his poverty; he sees men and women for himself. He prefers his own observation to any _a priori_ theories of society. He knows how to work, but he knows, too (what the Bromide does never), how to play, and he plays with men and women for the joy of life, and his own particular game. Though his view be eccentric it is his own view, and though you may avoid him, you can never forget or ignore him.

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And so, too, using an optical symbolism, we may speak of the Sulphite as being refractive--every impression made upon him is split up into component rays of thought--he sees beauty, humor, pathos, horror, and sublimity. The Bromide is reflective, and the object is thrown back unchanged, unanalyzed; it is accepted without interrogation. The mirrored bromidic mind gives back only what it has taken. To use the phraseology of Harvard and Radcliffe, the Sulphite is connotative, the Bromide denotative.

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But the theory is constructive rather than destructive. It makes for content, and peace. By this philosophy one sees one’s friends revealed. Though the Bromide will never say whether he prefers dark or white meat; though he inflict upon you the words, “Why, if two hundred years ago people had been told that you could talk through a wire they would have hanged the prophet for witchcraft!” though he repeats the point of his story, rolling it over on his tongue, seeking for a second laugh; though he says, “Dinner is my best meal”--he cannot help it. You know he is a Bromide, and you expect no more.

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You will notice, also, in discussing this theory with your friends, that the Bromide will take up, with interest, only the bromidic aspect of life. The term will amuse him, and, never thinking that it should be applied to himself, he will use the word “Bromide” in season and out of it. To the Sulphite, however, Sulphitism is a thing to be watched for, cultivated, and treasured. He will search long for the needle in the haystack, and leave the bromidiom to be observed by the careless, thoughtless Bromide. And, as the supreme test, it may be remarked that, should buttons be put on the market, bearing the names “Bromide” and “Sulphite” in blue and red, a few minutes’ reflection will convince the Sulphite that, before long, all the Bromides would be wearing the red Sulphite buttons, and all the Sulphites the blue Bromide. Such is the rationale of the perverse.

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Bromides we may love, and even marry. Your own mother, your sister, your sweetheart, may be bromidic, but you are not less affectionate. They are restful and soporific. You may not have understood them; before you heard of the Sulphitic Theory you were annoyed at their dullness, their dogmas, but, with this white light illuminating them, you accept them, now, for what they are, and, expecting nothing original from them, you find a new peace and a new joy in their society. “You may estimate your capacity for the Comic,” says Meredith--and the statement might be applied as well to the Bromidic--“by being able to detect the ridicule of them you love, without loving them less.”

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The Bromide has no salt nor spice nor savor--but he is the bread of Society, the veriest staff of life. And if, like Little Jack Horner, you can occasionally put in your thumb and pull out a sulphitic plum from your acquaintance, be thankful for that, too!