Part 7

Now I, Sir--I should not be proud of it. I should be miserably ashamed. And so I am ashamed when I read in my program that which brands me as a man of no taste or discrimination. I am horribly humiliated when I discover in the column of Beau Nash that I have brazenly shattered every commandment in the sartorial decalogue. I give you my word, Sir, I break into a cold perspiration whenever I recall the harrowing experience I had last Saturday-week. It so happened that when I prepared to go to the play, I found no fresh white waistcoats. This did not greatly trouble me at the time, for I am a resourceful man, and I at once recalled that I possessed a black waistcoat which my tailor had made for me at the same time he had made my dress suit. This I donned in blissful ignorance of my impending ordeal. I arrived at the theater rather late and had no opportunity of reading the program before the curtain rose. That first act is the one bright memory I have of that awful evening. I enjoyed the first act. But, Sir, I did not long remain in ignorance of my disgrace. In the first intermission my eyes were drawn by an irresistible fascination to the column headed, “What Men Wear,” and in letters which seemed fairly to jump out of the page I read, “_The black waistcoat worn with evening dress is the height of vulgarity and is not tolerated._”

Sir, you can imagine with what a sudden shock my care-free contentment dropped from me. There I sat in the full glare of the electric light, conscious that I was surrounded by hundreds of men who had read that damning paragraph which stamped me as an ignorant underbred boor, who had attempted evening dress without knowing the very rudiments of the art. I cast a hasty glance about the theater, and the fleeting hope which had sprung up died within my breast. _There was not another black waistcoat in sight._

How I lived through the rest of that intermission I can not say. I only know that I could feel the contemptuous eyes of the audience upon that dreadful black waistcoat, like so many hot augurs boring holes in the pit of my stomach. Hastily hiding my face behind my program, I slumped down in my seat in the vain hope of hiding my disgrace, while drops of anguish trickled down my brow and fell splashing upon the cruel words which had rendered me an object for pity and contempt. When the curtain rose upon the second act, I crept out of the auditorium under cover of the kindly darkness and slunk away home to hide my shame.

I do not think I shall ever attend the theater in this city again. In vain I argue and seek to persuade myself that what I read in the program was only the opinion of one man, and a man at that who, in all probability, never owned a dress suit in his life. Whoever he may be, whatever his knowledge or ignorance of dress may be, he writes with such a saucy assumption of omniscient authority that my reason stands abashed before his insolence. As aloof and austere as the Olympian gods, he crushes my spirit and fills my soul with humility. No, Mr. _Idler_, I do not believe I shall ever attend the theater here again. The mental suffering these fashion writers inflict upon me is too great a price to pay for the pleasure I extract from the drama.

I am, Sir, MAURICE MUFTI.

OF LOOKING BACKWARD

_To the Editor of The Idler._

DEAR SIR: It is a constant source of surprise to me that men continue, at all ages but the earliest, to look back upon the past with a wistful eye, recalling, with many expressions of regret, the days that are no more. Thus, while still in the twenties, the youth begins to feel the burden of worldly cares already pressing heavily upon his shoulders and sighs when he thinks of the irresponsible school-days of his teens. At thirty, he is convinced that he has missed the best part of his youth and would fain be a youngster of twenty once more, his greatest care the sprouting down upon his upper lip. Come to forty, he is sure that he should have been most happy when thirty, over the first rawness of youth, but not yet sensible of any physical deterioration and quite unmarked by the passage of time. At fifty, he envies the lustihood of forty, and at sixty he longs for the activity and the muscular ease which he enjoyed at fifty. And so it goes on, so that we can readily imagine a patriarch of ancient days exclaiming, “Oh, if I were but two-hundred-and-twenty once more! How I should enjoy life!”

Now, to me, Mr. _Idler_, things do not appear in this light at all. I can not conceive that had I been Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, I should have longed to be an obscure youth in Corsica. It is easier, of course, to understand why he might, at St. Helena, regret the departed glories of St. Cloud; but for myself, I do not believe I should ever, whatever my former station might have been, wish to lay down the present for the past. I have, it is true, some hope for the future (I am now but fifty), but even if this were denied me, and I were assured that my condition ten years hence would be no more enviable than it is at present, yet I think I should not care to reassume my youthful aspect, or to take up my life where I left it long ago.

There is, in truth, no period of my past life upon which I can look back with complete complacency. I was, at all times, very well satisfied with myself, barring occasional and inevitable spasms of self-reproach. I am, to say the truth, well enough satisfied with myself as I am to-day. But experience has taught me that the time will come when I shall look back upon to-day and will not be pleased with my present self at all. At thirty I remembered the Me of twenty as a callow and conceited boy. At forty I beheld in the Me of ten years gone a lazy careless idler. At fifty I recollected the man of forty as a pompous and affected ass. Now, while the most careful scrutiny of my person and character fails to reveal to me, at this time, any serious flaw or defect, yet I doubt not that the future Me, the Me of Sixty, will have grave fault to find with the individual who is inhabiting my skin at the present moment.

“We live and learn,” says the proverb, and since we do, it is unnatural if we do not feel a sort of shame in the ignorance of our former selves. I feel no shame for my present ignorance because I do not know wherein that ignorance consists, but be assured I shall, as soon as I have found myself out.

It is, I like to think, one of the wisest provisions of a merciful God that no man is ever permitted to see what a consummate simpleton he is, but only what a simpleton _he has been_. A complete and certain revelation of a man’s folly to himself would, without a doubt, result in an immediate and lasting loss of self-respect. And to lose one’s self-respect is to lose one’s identity and become a stranger to one’s self. The inmost mind, however the outward actions of the body may seem to contradict it, still clings to the noblest principles, so that no man can be truly said to be _unprincipled_. He may be debauched and depraved, but he is not without principle so long as his subconscious personality has the power to arise and accuse his conscious person. Where there is no such accusation there can be no loss of self-respect, for surely a man must possess a thing before he can lose it. As some say of another, “He is his own worst enemy,” so it may be said that every man should be his own best friend. None other is empowered so to befriend him. His life and his character must be, to a very great extent, of his own making, for every man truly lives to himself. He is the central character of the drama in which he is both actor and spectator. Others may come and go, but he alone remains throughout the play.

For all our intimacy with ourselves, we never come to know ourselves completely. We discover, day by day, ideas and opinions which we never suspected ourselves of possessing. We are wrung by emotions which take us completely by surprise. We are angered by slights which our reason tells us are beneath our notice. We are moved to compassion when we are most determined to remain firm and unmoved. We take a liking for this person whom we have decided to dislike, and we develop an inexplicable aversion for another whom we have deliberately chosen for a friend. Whence come these impulses, these orders which we can not disobey? These commands which override our conscious desires and break down our natural wills? Where, indeed, but from that Inner Man, that Unknown Self whose power we feel but can not comprehend? Where else but from that second and stronger, if submerged, personality--the human soul? Is it not, indeed, this unanswerable argument, this inexplicable conviction of another and better Self within, joined with and yet distinct from, the ordinary self, which persuades men that mankind is immortal, no matter how ably the Brain may play the Infidel, nor how aptly the Tongue may second him?

For our outward selves, our “every-day selves,” as we might say, we know whence they are derived. We know that we are born of woman and fathered of man. We can trace to the one or the other this feature or that, this trait or the other, but there are yet to be accounted for those strange whims and fancies, those impulses and ideals which come neither from the father nor the mother, and which, in very truth, _make_ us ourselves, make us to be different from our sisters and our brothers, and without which all the offspring of the same parents would be as like as so many peas in a pod. And it is these things which convince us that we have within us another Ego, another Self which comes to us from some unknown place, to guard and to guide us upon the perilous path of life. We may sometimes close our ears to his counsel, but he never suffers us to go wrong unadvised. Is it to be wondered at, then, that we grow to feel for ourselves an affection which is not wholly selfish, and to take in ourselves a pride which is not wholly egotistic? I do not feel under any obligation to the man who wears my face and bears my name; he has made me ridiculous too often for that. But I do feel a duty to that other _Me_, the _Me_ that is not wholly of my own choosing. And so, I am convinced, do most men.

As I was saying, or about to say, the keenest shame we ever feel is the shame we feel for ourselves. Shame for others may be tempered with forgiveness, but it is very difficult to forgive one’s self. There is no question there of giving the accused the benefit of the doubt. There is no doubt. I feel a certain shame for the young man that I once was because I naturally feel a tenderness for him. I can forgive him much more readily than I could forgive myself as I am to-day. Yet I would not, if I could, change places with him. My taste in Selves, as in other things, has changed as I have grown older. I blush for the weak-mindedness of that youth who was the Me of twenty years ago; yet I feel, in a way, relieved from the sense of direct responsibility, for am I not, in fact, another and a different person from the man I was?

As the delightful Holmes once expressed it, that youthful self is like a son to me. A bit of a cub, but on the whole, not at all a bad fellow. He is related to me, but he is not me. And he _never was_ the man that I now am. He wore my body for a time, that was all. We were never the same, for I was not born until he had ceased to be. I am no more that young man of twenty years ago than I am that other young man who interrupts me now--(No, I haven’t. Can’t you see I’m busy?)--to borrow a match to set his ugly bulldog pipe alight. A vile habit--pipe-smoking! Unsanitary and beastly annoying to those who have better sense. That young man we were speaking of--not the one who asked for the match, you know, but the one who had the impudence to pass himself off for me twenty years ago--_he_ used to smoke a bulldog pipe. I stopped it some time ago myself. Bad for the heart, the doctor said, and--well, I’m getting on and I can see for myself the folly of it. Decidedly, I should not like to exchange my own calm judgment for his youthful carelessness and addiction to tobacco. Unless--well, say, unless for twenty minutes after dinner!

I am, Sir, OLIVER OLDFELLOW.

THE LITERARY LIFE

_To the Editor of The Idler._

DEAR SIR: I have read a great many references, at one time or another, to something which is known as “the literary life”. I have read of it in novels, in essays, in criticisms and in the reports of the daily newspapers. Everybody seems to know of it, and everybody speaks of it as of something to be taken for granted; but though I have made an earnest effort to discover just what it is and where and by whom it is lived, I have been quite unable to do so. I had been a newspaper writer for several years when I first began to take an interest in this curiously illusive sort of existence. It was in a novel, I think, that I had read it upon the occasion when my curiosity aroused me to action. “There it is again,” I said to myself. “What is this literary life, anyway? Who lives it and in what does the living of it consist? How does one go about finding out the secret of it?”

So I set out on my quest. As all good reporters should do, I first took stock of my possible sources of information, and having done so, I did what reporters usually do when they wish to find out anything--I asked the city editor.

“How the devil do I know?” said he in his unliterary way. “You’re a reporter, ain’t you? Get busy and find out. If you get anything worth writing, make a story of it.” That is the way with city editors; they have no thought for anything but “stories”, no thirst for knowledge that is not in the way of business, no soul for the higher things in life.

With this source of information closed to me, I turned to the staff. I knew I could learn nothing from the books where I had found the term used. The books merely referred to “literary life” just as we say “prison life” or “army life” and expect every one to understand what we mean. The first man I asked about it simply laughed and said, “That’s a good one!” The second man told me to go away and stop bothering him. He was writing an interesting article about the price of onions. The third man asked me if I thought I was funny. That nearly discouraged me. I tried one or two others without success, and then I determined to try a more subtle method of investigation.

I had failed to gather my desired information as a reporter; I would try my hand as a detective. I took to following the members of the staff home from the office. It was an afternoon newspaper and that was easy to do. The result of my shadowing was that I learned much of the habits of these men, but little of what I wanted to know. The police reporter went from the office direct to the butcher shop. There he made a purchase which he tucked under his arm and went home. He stayed at home every night that I watched him. The court reporter spent his evenings in a little saloon on a side street playing poker with a particular friend of his who was a boilermaker. The hotel reporter covered the same ground every evening that he had covered during the day. He went from one hotel to another, playing pool or billiards and shaking dice with traveling men. After about a fortnight of investigation I gave up trying to learn anything about the literary life from newspaper men. I looked up a few magazine writers and the result was the same: _No two of these men lived the same life at all!_

I was astonished. I asked myself how it came about that these men had overlooked their obvious duty of living the literary life. If literary men knew nothing of the literary life, then who would? I resolved that I would solve that problem if it took me a year. From the magazine writers I went on to the novelists who seemed to have even less in common than the two former classes had. The publishers were so widely scattered in so many different suburbs that I had not the courage to seek them out.

After a conscientious search which covered a period of six months or more, I began to think that the literary life might be one of those traditions handed down from another age; one of those things which continue to be spoken of in books long after they cease to have any real existence. Perhaps the authors of other days had lived the literary life, even if the authors of my own time did not. I would see. I began to read biography. In Johnson’s _Lives of the Poets_ I found that:

Abraham Cowley was the son of a grocer. He showed early signs of genius; he was expelled from Cambridge. He was, for a time, private secretary to Lord Falkland. Afterward he spent some time in jail as a political prisoner. Upon emerging from prison he became a doctor, and thinking a knowledge of botany necessary to one of his profession, he retired into the country to study that science. For some reason, he abandoned botany for poetry and from that time on he wrote poetry. He died peacefully of rheumatism.

Edmund Waller was the son of a country gentleman. He attended Cambridge and was sent to Parliament before he was twenty. Rich by birth, he added to his wealth by marrying an heiress who died young and left him free to marry again, which he did. He lived among people of fashion and wealth, and though he was sent into exile for a short time because of a treasonable conspiracy in which he engaged, he was soon restored to general favor. He died in good circumstances of old age.

Thomas Otway was the son of a rector. He left college without a degree. He went into gay society and mingled his literary labor with dissipation. He was, for a short time, an officer in the army. He fell upon evil days, and when threatened with starvation, borrowed a guinea from a total stranger. With this he bought himself a roll, but he was so ravenous that he attempted to bolt it at one mouthful and so choked himself to death.

Which one of these men might properly be said to have led the literary life?

You need not be surprised to find in your paper some morning an advertisement to this effect: “Wanted--Some definite information concerning the character and habitat of the Literary Life.” But if you know anything about it, don’t wait for the advertisement, but send on your information at once. I think maybe I would be willing to try it myself. Certainly _somebody_ ought to live it.

I am, Sir, A. J. PENN.

THE POETIC LICENSE

_To the Editor of The Idler._

DEAR SIR: Your recent strictures upon a certain poem by John Masefield, and the general tenor of several other volumes of verse recently published, have moved me to address you upon a subject which holds considerable interest for me; and that, Sir, is the scope and legitimacy of what is commonly called “the poetic license”. To what does this license extend and by whom is it granted? Is there no way in which it may be regulated by law?

This matter of the poetic license is a source of continual annoyance to me. I find it invoked upon all occasions. I find that it is considered a sufficient answer to any criticisms or charges that may be brought against a poet. I am curious to know if there is any real authority for it; if it is not, in fact, a mere figment of the imagination, a polite fiction of letters invented by men of letters for the purpose of confounding the layman and depriving him of his natural right to pass an opinion upon all that he reads?

I confess I am no poet. This being so, I may be lacking in sympathy for the art, as some of my poetic acquaintances have averred. But I protest that a man need not be a poet to be a judge of poetry, any more than he need be a vintner to be a judge of wines, or a cook to be a judge of preserves. I may lack the finer ear of the poet when it comes to a question of complicated rhythms, but I am not lacking in an elementary knowledge of grammar, as some of our poets appear to be. I never could see any reason why a poet’s grammatical or orthographical errors should be condoned merely because he chooses to write in verse. We do not condone such defects in a prose writer, why then in a poet? It may be urged that the poet has a harder task than the prose writer; that it is more difficult to express one’s self in verse than in prose. No doubt it is, but is that any reason why incompetent writers should be excused their errors? Or their laxness? Or their laziness? Why write poetry at all if they can not write it properly? Why not choose prose for a medium? There are men, no doubt, who find prose as difficult as most men find poetry, but do we therefore overlook their mistakes or their vagaries?

Sir, it appears to me that the leniency shown to verse writers in this respect has worked a great injury to the art of poetry. It has encouraged men to write verses, who were in no way fitted to write verses. It has led tyros to choose poetry rather than prose because in the former they feel more secure from the well-merited censure of their readers. It has degraded really good poetry to the level of very poor poetry by allowing virtue where there was none and by holding verses full of defects to be equal in merit with verses marred by no such violations of the common rules of grammar and orthography.

All this, Sir, was bad enough, but I was prepared to pass over it since it is a practise inaugurated and upheld by professional critics who will allow us laymen no word at all in the matter. But, Sir, when these poets attempt to extend their poetic license to clothing, to manners and to morals, I think they go too far.

Not long since, I ventured some remarks, not altogether complimentary, upon the personal appearance of a certain poet, or poetaster, as I prefer to call him, in the presence of a literary woman. “Oh, yes,” she replied. “There’s no denying it--he _is_ a sloven. But really one of his spirituality could hardly be expected to be finicky about his clothing and that sort of thing.” Upon another occasion, I spoke harshly with regard to the manners of a well-known versifier, and I was rebuked for my hasty judgment with the assurance that the oddity of his conduct ought not to be ascribed to boorishness or rudeness, but to his poetic temperament. And, Sir, only yesterday, when I condemned the unbridled license and immorality of a recent book of poetry, I was informed that a poet could not be expected to view a moral question from the same angle as an ordinary uninspired mortal.

Sir, if these scribblers of verse are to be allowed any license, why should they not qualify for it as do pedlers, saloon-keepers and the like? Why not require them to prove their fitness for the business of writing poetry? Let them secure their license from the civil authorities, and let those licenses be revoked at the first indication of abuse of privilege.

As affairs now stand, any one who chances to possess a pen, a windsor tie and a wide-awake hat can pass himself off for a poet and can claim indulgence for his bad verse, bad manners and bad morals upon the plea of poetic temperament. Therefore, to insure the public against such imposture, I suggest that every poet be compelled, like every chauffeur, to wear his license in a conspicuous place, and that if he fail to comply with this requirement, he be immediately impounded.

This arrangement, I think, would operate as an effective check upon the too exuberant poetic temperament, and would also be an excellent thing for the public, for, Sir, if every poet were required, like every dog, to wear his license attached to a collar, the pound would soon be full of poets.

I am, Sir, P. ROSE.

THE NECESSITY FOR BEGGARS

_To the Editor of The Idler._