Part 10

The islands were conquered by the native king, Kamehameha I, who died in 1819. He was a great man, a combination of warrior and statesman, like William the Conqueror.

In 1820 the American missionaries arrived. They found the natives amiable, like many of the children of the sun, but without religion, morality or education. Just the most blessed state imaginable, say many of our modern writers, whose highest ideal for humanity is animalism. The advantage of such an ideal is that one does not have to struggle to reach it--hence its popularity.

These missionaries were heroic. They came around Cape Horn in sailing vessels and they had to send their children back to the mainland for education by the same route. All ministers of the gospel believe in education and make sacrifices for it.

King Kalakaua was a picturesque and easy-tempered monarch, who loved liquor. His trip around the world was an illuminating excursion in every sense of the word. When he was at the British court, a terrific question of etiquette arose which puzzled the wise men. Should he, in going into dinner after Queen Victoria, precede or follow Edward, Prince of Wales? The matter was settled by the tact and wit of the Prince. “The man is either a king and should precede me, or he should go into the dining-room with a napkin over his arm.”

In 1893 Queen Liliuokalani tried to get a new Constitution giving more power to the throne. An American revolution--the third in our history--took place, and a republic was established, with the late Sanford B. Dole as President. In 1898 the republic was annexed to the United States and in 1900 became the Territory of Hawaii. It will some day become a State.

The voyage thither from San Francisco usually takes six days. Leaving the Golden Gate in a cold fog, one sees hump-backed whales, and thirty miles out the only land, the Farallone Islands, a desolate, melancholy place for school teachers. But school teachers are used to getting the worst of it. The weather is cold for two days, then mild, then warm; plenty of flying fish by day, strange phosphorescence in the sea by night, and overhead unfamiliar stars. The Southern Cross appears, a subject for dispute.

The climate is celestial--much too good for this world. Never hot, never cold in Honolulu. The year round it usually has a minimum of 70, a maximum of 83. The constant northeast trade winds make the climate suitable for civilised man, but they also bring frequent showers. The inhabitants will not admit that these showers are rain--they call them liquid sunshine. They are indeed liquid. On one elevation the wind blows so hard that it is difficult to stand upright and on top of one mountain I saw a waterfall up instead of down, the wind catching it just as it left the rock. But on the small island Oahu, containing Honolulu, one can find an immense variety of wind and weather. Those who dislike showers can live where it practically never rains; other places have genial, windless heat, and still others have the cooling, beneficent breeze.

It is an international place and the brethren dwell together in unity. The streets are filled with Americans, Hawaiians, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, English, Germans and other folks, who seem to get along together very well indeed. Punahou College was founded in 1841 and is the oldest American college or university west of the Mississippi. There I saw a remarkable historical pageant, attended by ex-President Dole and ex-Queen Lil. One of the natives made a long address to the Queen, which I wish I could have understood. Her face was grave and impassive and when I was presented to her, I was deeply impressed by her anachronistic expression. She seemed to be living in the past.

I visited many of the schools. At Kaiulaui School there were among the pupils fifty-eight varieties of nationalities--I remember the exact number, as it was one more than the mystic fifty-seven. The United States flag was brought out; the children sang The Star-Spangled Banner. Then they recited part of Longfellow’s _Building of the Ship_. In the primary grade of another school, the teacher was a Japanese lady. The children seem entirely free from the bigotry of nationalism. The word “foreigner” is not an epithet and the children exhibit that rarest of all human things--democracy.

The natural wonders on the biggest island of the group, Hawaii, beggar description. You must go there yourselves. But I have always been more interested in human nature than in nature. I have seldom seen the latter and never the former show to better advantage than in these delectable oases of the ocean.

XXXVII

HYMNS

The church to which I belong has this very day furnished itself with a new set of hymn-books; when I enter my accustomed pew tomorrow morning I shall find there attractive new volumes. Which fact leads me to the consideration of hymns in general.

The worst verses in the world are to be found among epitaphs and encomiums of the dead. I remember a certain town in Connecticut where the local poet hovered over the bedside of the dying, like a vulture watching a sick horse. Before the corpse was cold, this poetical ghoul had his poem on the “remains” in the village paper. You had to get up very early in the morning to die before he beat you to it, as Matthew Arnold would not say. He added new terrors to death.

Well, probably, in the number of bad verses, hymns rank a good second to epitaphs. There are so many bad hymns that some scoffers think there are few good ones. Such a generalisation is wide of the truth. The literature of hymnology contains many masterpieces; innumerable hymns of the church are as beautiful in poetic art as they are devout in aspiration. If we took all the hymns out of English literature, the loss would be huge.

If a secret ballot could be taken among all classes of people to discover the choice of the favourite hymn, I think it would appear that Cardinal Newman’s _Lead, Kindly Light_ had a majority of votes.

I happened to be in London at the time of Newman’s death in 1890, himself just as old as the nineteenth century. Then were the old bitter controversies forgotten; Catholics, Protestants and the unclassed united in tributes to the genius and beauty of the great Cardinal’s mind and character. And as creeds were for the moment forgotten, so there came instinctively to every one’s lips the words of Newman’s creedless hymn, as creedless as the Lord’s Prayer.

The vicissitudes of literary fame are beyond divination. Who, including first of all Newman, could have dreamed that when the young man composed that poem, it would outlast his scholarly, controversial, pietistic and literary prose of eighty years? Yet such is the fact.

On June 16, 1833, while in a calm at sea, on board an orange-boat and thinking of his doctrinal perplexities, these lines came into Newman’s mind; as suddenly, as inexplicably, as fortunately as the stanzas _Crossing the Bar_ came to Tennyson on a ferryboat crossing the Solent. Newman called the poem, _The Pillar and the Cloud_.

For details concerning its composition and for some interesting criticisms on the poem itself I will refer readers to Dr. Joseph J. Reilly’s admirable book, _Newman as a Man of Letters_.

Two of our best American hymn writers are two of our national poets--Whittier and Holmes. The hymns of Whittier are beautiful in their simplicity, sincerity, and universal application:

In simple trust like those who heard, Beside the Syrian sea, The gracious calling of the Lord, Let us, like them, without a word, Rise up and follow Thee.

and the universally known hymn, beginning

We may not climb the heavenly steeps.

The splendid hymn by Oliver Wendell Holmes, commencing

Lord of all being, throned afar,

is sung somewhere every Sunday.

Two hymns by Addison, written more than two hundred years ago, are familiar to all churchgoers--one, _The spacious firmament on high_, which was a favourite with Thackeray, and the other, beginning

When all Thy mercies, O my God.

I have always especially liked one stanza of this hymn:

Ten thousand thousand precious gifts My daily thanks employ; Nor is the least a cheerful heart That tastes those gifts with joy.

After enumerating many blessings for which he is grateful to God, Addison quite rightly includes the gift of a cheerful heart. Those who are ever fastidious, difficult to please and not grateful for anything miss much happiness.

The king of hymn-writers is Isaac Watts (1674–1748). Although churchgoers sing his hymns every Sunday, he has never received due literary credit for his magnificent sacred poems. _When I Survey the Wondrous Cross_ is a hymn of tremendous passion. In one of his novels Arnold Bennett calls it “that amazing hymn.” In other hymns by Watts there is an austere grandeur.

Frederick William Faber (1814–1863) is another master of the art of hymn writing. _Hark, Hark, My Soul!_ and _There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy_ are known everywhere. No martial song was ever more inspiring than _Faith of Our Fathers_, with its thrilling second stanza. I often wonder when people sing that stanza in church, sing it mechanically with their thoughts elsewhere, what would happen if they took it literally:

Our fathers, chained in prisons dark, Were still in heart and conscience free; And blest would be their children’s fate, If they, like them, should die for Thee. Faith of our fathers, holy faith, We will be true to Thee till death.

One of the greatest of all hymns, _Nearer, My God, to Thee_, was written by Sarah Flower, a friend of the young poet Robert Browning. The first time it was ever heard in public was when Sarah and Eliza Flower sang it as a duet in the Rev. Mr. Fox’s church. Little did those sisters guess that they had added to the Christian church all over the world an imperishable song.

Scores of other hymns might be mentioned, hymns that are exalted and passionate in feeling and aspiration and nobly poetic in expression.

It is a pity that we so seldom hear good congregational singing. People nowadays let others do their singing for them, as well as their praying. If one will look at the faces of an audience in church and notice that although their mouths are open no sound emerges, one will be reminded of a cat on the back doorstep on a winter morning. You look at the cat and the animal opens its mouth as if to mew, but has not sufficient energy to bring the articulate mew to the surface--just an expression of vague discomfort. So during the singing of hymns I see people with no animation in their faces and with open, silent mouths, like the dry mew of the cat.

XXXVIII

OLD-FASHIONED SNOBS

I suppose there never was a time in the history of human society without snobs--that is, without young men of fashion who wished to be thought prominent members of the smart set. The slang of various epochs has called them macaronies, dandies, dudes, toffs, swells--but under various appellations the creature is the same, with the same habits. There are certain persons who cultivate superficial elegancies and are never caught in an informal attitude or off their guard. Lowell said that if N. P. Willis had lived in the Garden of Eden he would have attracted attention by the way he wore his skin.

About three centuries ago, in the spacious times of Queen Elizabeth, as we learn from the plays of Shakespeare and of his contemporaries, and from a satirical guide-book written by Thomas Dekker, the typical young snob in London got through an average day in the following manner:

He rose at noon. Late rising has always been an essential feature of snobbery; because if one gets up early, it proves that one has to earn one’s living, and to support oneself is incompatible with swelldom. If any one thinks that the idea of Walter Camp’s setting-up exercise is new, let me remind him that the Elizabethan dandy, invariably after rising, took a whole series of gymnastic exercises while stark naked. The object of this was twofold: he had to keep in fair physical condition, and these exercises helped to take out of his system the invariable “hangover.”

He then dressed with the utmost care, and here we must remember an essential difference between the mental attitude of Elizabethans and that of young men of today. The late Professor Moulton said that the chief characteristic of our age was anticonspicuousness. And this is quite true. Women wear short skirts not to attract attention, but to avoid it. We follow fashions to escape notoriety. But in Elizabethan times exactly the contrary was true.

The most democratic garment in the world today is men’s evening dress. After six o’clock, in any locality in the so-called civilised world, a man is in style with the black dinner jacket or swallow-tail. Time and again the tailors have fought this, doing their best to persuade men to wear something in colour, or at all events something more individual. But the men thus far have succeeded in preserving economical uniformity.

Now in Elizabethan times the garments of men were as gorgeous as the feathers of male birds. A group of men talking together was a “riot of colour.” A man wore soft leather boots, narrow at the ankle, and with immense, colored flaring tops. His knee breeches were tight-fitting silk or satin. His jacket was a slashed doublet, brilliant in colour; at the neck was an enormous white ruff, which must have kept the laundries busy; imagine eating soup over that ruff! Over the doublet he wore a short velvet cloak, with a high collar. The hat was as elaborate in design as the old style woman’s Easter bonnet, very broad, with an audacious feather. And, of course, he invariably carried a sword, with jewelled hilt.

In this array our young swell walked at ease in the centre aisle of St. Paul’s Cathedral, the favourite place for fashionable display. His tailor sometimes accompanied him like a detective and, in response to a signal, took notes of some new and particularly splendid costume. The young man would salute noblemen and aristocrats in a loud voice, calling them, if he dared, by their first name, so as to give the impression of intimacy; for it was essential then, as now, to be with the “right crowd.” In stentorian tones he would make an appointment for a two o’clock luncheon at an expensive eating house. After luncheon, the toothpick was prominently displayed while on promenade.

In contrast to the modern soldier, who never speaks of his war experiences, the young Elizabethan, if he had fought in the Low Countries or elsewhere, bragged noisily about it in all public places. If he were a poet, he behaved like a tenth-rate poet in Paris today. He entered a restaurant with a solemn, preoccupied air, and, in taking his glove from his pocket, purposely let fall a manuscript. Some one would pick it up and he would remark that it was only a poem he had dashed off an hour ago; but he would manage the conversation so that he would be asked to read it aloud.

Tobacco was “coming in” then, and every young swell must be able to smoke in public without becoming sick. They had their favourite pipes and elaborate silver pouches; they talked about the different brands of tobacco like a professional, and it was a great accomplishment to blow rings.

All public theatrical performances were in the afternoon. The swell always entered late, attracting as much attention as possible, and took a seat on the stage, in full view of the audience. In the midst of a tragedy, he laughed aloud, to show his immunity to sentiment; at a funny play he scowled and sometimes noisily left the theatre, clanking his spurs, and saluting acquaintances as he passed out. Sometimes he would take a rush from the stage floor and playfully tickle the ear of one of the actors.

After the play, he went to the tavern, where it was important to call the waiters by their first names, showing that he was a regular patron; and when the bill was presented he must never look at the items or add them up, which might show that he was a family man, or familiar with current prices; no, he must glance carelessly at the total, and pay with a big tip.

Then in the night he went to his lodgings. One must remember there were no paved streets in London and no sidewalks and no lights; if the young gentleman could afford it, he had a linkboy, carrying a torch, precede him, for in Dryden’s later phrase, the real swell “sailed behind his link.” The boy was properly tipped, so that if he met strangers, he would call out, “My lord, step this way.” Then others gave him place, and the officers of the law respected his intoxicated condition. And so to bed.

XXXIX

A FAIR CITY

Almost every writer and thinker has the city of his dreams, his Utopia. In recent years the novelists W. H. Hudson, H. G. Wells and Alfred Ollivant have each published a book setting forth a conception of the ideal community. It is not my purpose to add another Utopia but rather to call attention to an actual city, which, while it is imperfect like everything else in this motley world, has nevertheless many advantages that might well be imitated by American cities. I refer to Munich, Germany.

Munich is my favourite European town. I had rather live in the United States of America than in any other country; partly because I was born here, partly because I like the country anyway, but if I could not live in the United States I had rather live in Munich than in any other city in the world.

Munich is nearly as large as Boston and yet as quiet as a country village. Where the people are I don’t know, but those who are familiar with Boylston and Tremont Streets in Boston will see nothing like that in Munich. The streets are calm, the sidewalks uncrowded, the highway uncongested by traffic; there is no Great White Way; there are no flaring lights; there is no hurly-burly. You can hear your own footsteps. An American who arrived at Munich at nine o’clock in the evening, observing the silence of the streets, asked his taxi driver to take him somewhere. The driver said, “Isn’t that rather indefinite?” “You know what I mean--take me where there is a lot of noise and a lot of people.” The driver answered, “What you want is the railway station.” And indeed that is the only place in Munich that fulfills those requirements.

There is everything in Munich to make a cultivated foreigner happy, cheerful and content with a long stay. I have never seen any town that has so much to give to the visitor. In the first place, everything that one wants to see is within easy walking distance. If one rooms in a boarding house on a side street off the Ludwig Strasse, one can walk in a few moments to the university, to the public library, to the concert halls, to the State Opera House, to the State Theatre, to the Play House, to the art galleries; and the English Garden, an enormous tract of land, is in the centre of the town and close to all of these other delectable places. In the English Garden in summer one may take long walks or one may sit down and hear music as one sips coffee or beer. In the winter one may skate on the frozen lake. Those who are fond of winter sports have the mountains close at hand. It is estimated that on some Sunday mornings in winter 100,000 people take an early train to the mountains for skiing and other amusements. In the summer the environs of Munich are beautiful. There is a series of lakes where one may take excursions in a little steamer or in a rowboat; where one may visit famous old castles and see the treasures with which they are filled.

If one is fond of tennis, there are three or four tennis courts in the heart of the city where one may become a visiting member at a nominal fee and find plenty of agreeable companions. The golf links are ten minutes by trolley, and there again the entrance fee is nominal. The only objection that I have to the golf links is that the magnificent mountains are so near that one is constantly tempted to lift up one’s eyes to the hills, and, however valuable it may be for one’s spiritual development, it is fatal to one’s efficiency in golf.

Every night in Munich there is something interesting to hear at the opera, at the theatre or at the concert hall. Every morning there is published a little paper devoted exclusively to theatrical and musical affairs. This paper gives every event that will take place in the city in the afternoon and evening, with the exact time of beginning, the exact time of closing and a complete list of the actors, singers and performers.

One of the chief attractions of the theatre and the operas in Munich is the fact that they begin early. The opera begins at six o’clock and is always over before ten, except in the case of a very long opera. The plays begin at seven-thirty and in nearly every instance are over at nine-thirty. In other words, the opera and theatres are run not for the benefit of members of a leisure class who do not have to get up the next morning but for the ordinary citizen and his family who are obliged to rise early and go to work. In New York, in Paris and in London theatre-going and opera-going are in the nature of a dissipation. The theatres in Paris do not close until midnight, and in New York and London one does not usually get to one’s domicile before that. The result is that one is exhausted, and, according to Kipling, “There is nothing certain but the morning head.” To go to the theatre or opera four nights in succession in London, Paris or New York--unless one is able to rise very late the next day--is an exhausting ordeal, but in Munich, during a period of seven months, I averaged five nights a week at the opera and theatre and never felt fatigue.

There is another advantage about beginning early. Instead of going to the opera or theatre stuffed with a soggy dinner and made somnolent by food, one takes tea before going and when the entertainment is over one goes into a cheerful café and has a hot supper in delightful company and is in bed before eleven.

What does going to the theatre mean in New York, London and Paris? It too often means something like this. One attends a dinner party where half the guests arrive late; one then has a long course dinner, hurried toward the end; the entire company is hustled into automobiles and arrives at the theatre or opera a half hour after the performance has begun and in a condition that precludes the possibility of mental concentration.

After one has spent two or three months in Munich, one falls in love with the place, with the temper of the town and with the people. I am frequently homesick for Munich. In one year, after I had spent four months there, I went in April to Italy--the land where the lemon trees bloom. There I lived in sunshine and enjoyed the glory and beauty of the romantic country. But after a while I became homesick for Munich and, although on the morning of my return it was raining and the weather in general was doing its worst, my heart was singing, for I was home again.

XL

TRADITIONS

Whether we like it or not, we are governed by the past. The books written by men long dead have the largest influence in shaping our minds and ruling our conduct; the laws that control our duties and our privileges as citizens were made by men whose names we cannot remember; spirit hands guide our footsteps; we think the thoughts of our ancestors and carry into execution conceptions formed by them. The muscles of our bodies and the swifter impulses of our minds are set in motion by thousands of men and women. We have been shaped by our traditions. We can ourselves add something to these traditions, but even if we would, we cannot annihilate them. They are as real as we are.