Part 17

I paid no heed to this unimportant interjection, but said, "If any true patriot were to hear you make such an accusation you would subject yourself and me to some dreadful punishment, such as happened to Dreyfus, or 'The Man Without a Country.' Not honest? By the shades of George Washington, what are you thinking of? Why, one of the chief reasons of our superiority to all the other nations of the world is because of our honesty—our immunity from the low moral standards of effete, frivolous despotisms and unenlightened masses who are without the blessings of freedom. Not strictly honest? Josephine, your lack of tact, if nothing else, is positively audacious. Do you expect me to break this cruel piece of news to the optimistic patriot to whom this letter is addressed?"

"I think you are silly," said my wife, freeing herself from the tea table-cloth and trying to compose her slightly discomposed tresses. "I only thought aloud, and I said merely what you would have said sooner or later in more philosophical terms. I saw that you were tempted by the fear of not seeming a patriot to dilly-dally with the situation and avoid expressing yourself in perspicuous language. T-h-i-e-f spells thief; B-r-i-b-e-r-y spells bribery. I don't know much about politics, and I'm not a philosopher, but I understand the meaning of every-day English, and I should say that we were not even pretty honest. There! Those are my opinions, and I think you will save time if you send them in your letter instead of beating about the bush for extenuating circumstances. If you don't, I shall—for really, Fred, it's too simple a proposition. And as for the blame, it's six of one and half a dozen of the other."

"Josephine, Josephine," I murmured, "there goes my last chance of being sent to the Philippines, in my capacity as a philosopher, to study whether the people of those islands are fit for representative government.")

You have read what Josephine says, my optimistic friend. She has stated that she would write to you her summing up of the whole matter if I did not, so I have inserted her deduction in all its crudity. She declares the trouble to be that the American people are dishonest. Of course, I cannot expect you to agree with any such conclusion, and I must admit that the boldness of the accusation is a shock to my own sensibilities as a patriot. Of course, Josephine is a woman and does not understand much about politics and ways and means, and it is notorious that women jump at conclusions instead of approaching them logically and in a dignified manner. But it is also said that their sudden conclusions are apt to be right. Dishonest? Dear me, what a dreadful suggestion. I really think that she went a little too far. And yet I am forced to agree that appearances are very much against us, and that if we hope to lead the world in righteousness and progress we must, to recur to political phraseology, mend our moral fences. I do not indulge in meteoric flights, like Josephine. Let us argue the matter out soberly.

You and I, as men of the world, will agree that if the American people prefer or find it more serviceable to cherish bribery as a federal institution, no one will interfere. The fact that it is ethically wrong is interesting to real philosophers and to the clergy, but bribery will continue to flourish like a bay-tree if it is the sort of thing which the American people like. Now, to all outward appearances they find it, if not grateful and comforting, at least endurable and convenient. Certainly, except among the class of people whom you would be apt to stigmatize as "holier than thous," there is comparatively little interest taken in the question. The mass of the community seek refuge behind the agreeable fiction that the abuse doesn't exist or exists only in such degree as to be unimportant. Many of these people know that this is false, but they will not admit that they think so in order not to make such doings familiar, just as their custom is to speak of legs as lower limbs in order not to bring a blush to the cheek of the young person. For thorough-going hypocrisy—often unconscious, but still hypocrisy—no one can equal a certain kind of American. It is so much easier in this world, where patting on the back is the touch-stone of preferment and popularity, to think that everything is as serene as the surface indicates, though you are secretly sure that it is not. How much more convenient to be able to say truthfully, "I have no knowledge of the facts, so don't bother me," than to be constantly wagging the head and entertaining doubts concerning the purity of one's fellow-citizens, and so making enemies.

As I have indicated earlier in this letter, the ideal is dear to our patriotic sensibilities that we are governed by average opinion, and that the average is peculiarly high. The fastidious citizen in this country has been and still is fond of the taunt that men of upright character and fine instincts—what he calls gentlemen—will not enter public life, for the reason that they will not eat dirt. The reply has been that the real bugaboo of the fastidious citizen is one of manners, and that in the essentials of character, in strong moral purpose and solid worth, the average American voter is the peer of any aristocracy. The issue becomes really one of fact, and mere solemn assertion will not serve as evidence beyond a certain point. If the majority prefer dishonesty, the power is in their hands to perpetuate the system, but believing as you and I do that the majority at heart is honest, how are we to explain the continued existence of the evil? How as patriots shall we reconcile the perpetuation in power of the low comedians, Peter Lynch and Jeremiah Dolan, except on the theory that it is the will of the majority that they should continue to serve the people? This is not a question of kid gloves, swallow-tailed coats, and manners, but an indictment reflecting on the moral character and solid worth of the nation. How are we to explain it? What are we to say? Can we continue to declare that we are the most honest and aspiring people in the world and expect that portion of the world which has any sense of humor not to smile? Are we, who have been accustomed to boast of our spotless integrity as a people, ready to fall back on and console ourselves with the boast, which does duty nowadays on lenient lips, that we are as honest as any of the nations of Europe except, possibly, England? That is an indirect form of patriotic negation under the shadow of which low comedians and leading villains could ply their trade comparatively unmolested.

As a philosopher, who is not a real philosopher, I find this charge of Josephine's a difficult nut to crack, and I commend it respectfully to your attention to mull over at your leisure, trusting that it may temper the effulgence of your thoughts on Independence Day. Yet having had my say as a philosopher, let me as an optimist, willing to succor a fellow-optimist, add a few considerations indicating that the situation may not be so ultimately evil as the existing state of affairs and Josephine would have us believe. I write "may not be," because I am not altogether confident that my intelligence is not being cajoled by the natural cheeriness and buoyancy of my disposition. The sole question at issue is whether the majority of the American people are really content to have the money power of the country prey upon and be the prey of the lowest moral sense of the community.

We have before us an every-day spectacle of eager aggregations of capital putting aside scruples as visionary and impractical, and hence "un-American," in order to compass success, and at the other side of the counter the so-called representatives of the people, solemn in their verbiage but susceptible to occult and disgraceful influences. The two parties to the intercourse are discreet and businesslike, and there is little risk of tangible disclosure. Practically aloof from them, except for a few moments on election day, stands the mass of American citizens busy with their own money-getting or problem-solving, and only too ready to believe that their representatives are admirable. They pause to vote as they pause to snatch a sandwich at a railroad station. "Five minutes for refreshments!" Five minutes for political obligations! Individually there are thousands of strictly honest and noble-hearted men in the United States. Who doubts it? The originality and strength of the American character is being constantly manifested in every field of life. But there we speak of individuals; here we are concerned with majorities and the question of average morality and choice. For though we have an aspiring and enlightened van of citizens to point the way, you must remember that emigration and natural growth has given us tens of thousands of ignorant, prejudiced, and sometimes unscrupulous citizens, each of whose votes counts one. Perhaps it is true—and here is my grain of consolation or hope—that the average voter is so easy-going, so long-suffering, so indisposed to find fault, so selfishly busy with his own affairs, so proud of our institutions and himself, so afraid of hurting other people's feelings, and so generally indifferent as to public matters, provided his own are serene, that he chooses to wink at bribery if it be not in plain view, and likes to deceive himself into believing that there is nothing wrong. The long and short of it seems to be that the average American citizen is a good fellow, and in his capacity of good fellow cannot afford to be too critical and particular. He leaves that to the reformer, the literary man, the dude, the college professor, the mugwump, the philosopher, and other impractical and un-American people. If so, what has become of that heritage of his forefathers, the stern Puritan conscience? Swept away in the great wave of material progress which has centred all his energies on what he calls success, and given to the power of money a luring importance which is apt to make the scruples of the spirit seem unsubstantial and bothersome. An easy-going, trouble-detesting, self-absorbed democracy between the buffers of rapacity and rascality.

A disagreeable conclusion for an optimist, yet less gloomy than the other alternative. This condition admits of cure, for it suggests a torpid conscience rather than deliberate acquiescence. It indicates that the representatives are betraying the people, and that there is room for hope that the people eventually may rise in their might and call them to account. If they do, I beg as a philosopher with humorous proclivities, to caution them against seizing the wrong pig by the ear. Let them fix the blame where it belongs, and not hold the corporations and the money power wholly responsible. It may be possible in time to abolish trusts and cause rich men sleepless nights in the crusading name of populism, but that will avail little unless at the same time they go to the real root of the matter, and quicken the average conscience and strengthen the moral purpose of the plain people of the United States. There will be leading villains and low comedians so long as society permits, and so long as the conscience of democracy is torpid. The players in the drama are, after all, only the people themselves. Charles the First was beheaded because he betrayed the liberties of the people. Alas! there is no such remedy for a corrupt democracy, for its heads are like those of Hydra, and it would be itself both the victim and the executioner.

THE POINT OF VIEW

[Sidenote: A Question of Accent.]

I suppose there is no gainsaying the authority of "general usage" in the matter of English pronunciation—even when that usage is etymologically wrong. If there is one instinct in the Anglo-Saxon race which is at once widespread and admirable, it is surely our instinct to avoid even the semblance of preciosity; the Prig is justly our pet abhorrence. Maybe some of us incline to carry this instinct a thought too far; as, for instance, the educated English lady who, when taken to task by an American for saying _sónorous_, replied: "We always say _sónorous_; of course we know well enough that it really is _sonórous_, but it would sound awfully priggish to say so in every-day talk!" But she was an extreme example, and, though I still persist in saying _sonórous_, I am far from wishing to undo the long-done work of that "general usage" which has given us _bálcony_ (for _balcóny_) and _anémone_ (for _anemóne_). About _paresis_ I may be in some doubt, for the word is so young in general use that there may still be time to check the spread of the illiterate _parésis_. The latter pronunciation does not seem to me to have been consecrated by sufficiently long usage to have won indisputable authority; there may be a chance for _páresis_ yet!

There are, however, many words in our language, derived from the Latin, on the accentuation of which both authority and usage are still divided; and I cannot think the time past for etymology fairly having something to say about these. Yet it seems to me that the etymological rule for accenting such words, as it is commonly set down, leaves a good deal to be desired in point of logic. It is that syllables which are long by derivation should be accented, that those which are short should not; and by it we get _compénsate_, _contémplate_, etc.; but a large number of recognizedly educated people say _cómpensate_ and _cóntemplate_, and also have the authority of some excellent lexicographers therefore. What authority there may be for throwing the accent upon the penult in these words cannot yet be considered as final.

A word which leads me to an explanation of my idea is _elegiac_—which the Standard Dictionary now gives as _elégiac_ only, but which used to be pronounced _elegíac_ by most cultivated English speakers. It is rather a scholarly word, and I fancy most scholars to-day still pronounce it _elegíac_; it seems to me that there still hangs about _elégiac_, as Walker said in his day, a "suspicion of illiteracy." But, if _elegíac_ is right, why is it right? The rule for accenting syllables that are long by etymology does not hold good here, for the _i_ in _elegiācus_ is short, as it is also in the Greek _elegiakós_. It seems to me so highly probable as to amount almost to a certainty, that scholarly Englishmen fell into the habit of saying _elegíac_ simply because they had already formed the habit of saying _elegiācus_. They accented the _i_ in English because it was accented in Latin; and in Latin it is accented, not because it is long (which it is not), but because the _a_ which follows it is short. And, if English scholars said _elegíac_ from habit, may not the results of a similar Latin habit be found in our pronunciation of hosts of other English words of Latin origin?

The rule for accentuation I would propose is this: "If the syllable which is penultimate in the English word is accented in the Latin, it should be accented in the English word also; if, however, this syllable is unaccented in Latin, the accent in the English word should fall back upon the antepenult." Thus the penultimate _i_ in _elegiac_ is accented because the corresponding _i_ is accented in _elegíacus_. An old school-master of mine used to insist upon our saying _Quirínal_, because the _i_ was long; I maintain that _Quírinal_ is right, because the second _i_ in _Quirinālis_ is unaccented. This rule would give us _cóntemplate_ and _cómpensate_ because the syllables _tem_ and _pen_ are unaccented in _contemplātus_ and _compensātus_ respectively. (It is of no avail to argue in favor of _contémplate_ that the _tem_ is long, and accented in _contémplo_; our English word is derived from the Latin participle, not from the first person singular of the present indicative.) _Désiccate_ would be right on the same principle, and _desíccate_, wrong.

By this rule of mine we can preserve an English pronunciation as nearly like the original Latin as it is in the spirit of our language to do; and, where authority and usage are wellnigh equally divided, this seems to me worth while.

THE FIELD OF ART

_THE USE AND ABUSE OF DECORATIVE CONVENTIONS IN ARCHITECTURE_

It is always more or less futile to quarrel with the vernacular. Otherwise we should take exception to the word _design_ in the sense of invention. The latter is the more expressive term. In the language of those nations from which modern art is derived, _dessiner_, _disegnare_ mean to draw. Italian authors of the Renaissance, in estimating an artist's achievement, invariably weighed his inventive faculties. Thus Vasari, in summarizing Raphael's qualities, extols his "_disegno, colorito ed invenzione_"—his drawing, color, and invention. An illustrator "invents" and "draws;" for instance, "Giovanni Albertelli _inv. e dis._" Emphasis is here laid on the word invention, and on its vogue in other lands, both because it is very forceful, and because it seems to imply something more than "design." A plagiarist might venture to risk the term "design" when he would balk at "invention."

If we enter one of our patrician homes—palaces, palazzi, or private hotels, they would be called elsewhere—what do we find to exalt the decorative artist, where the work has been the sole product of the architect, and it may be added of the patrician himself? Much splendor there is, assuredly, and gold, and rich carving, and sumptuous marble, and opulent stuffs; even expatriated mantles and whole rooms, kidnapped from the harmonious surroundings where they were a perpetual joy—imported to discord with our modern alien habitats. Sometimes we happen on an Italian Renaissance room without a spark of the easy invention and graceful free-hand work that was the charm of the original; but more frequently we meet with debased Louis XV. and Louis XVI., debased in the inspirationless copy. The originals of these things are very beautiful indeed, and will ever be the immortal models for decorative artists. But it must not for a moment be supposed by the laity that in mechanically reproducing these things we are inventing or adding an iota to the art product of the world. Perhaps this lack of invention can better be appreciated when the bald statement is made that a well-equipped decorator would not think it worth his while to enter our buildings for the purpose of studying fresh ideas; always excepting those instances where the services of a capable artist have been engaged, and the few exceptions to every rule.

Archæology has taught its lesson of accuracy in the arts. As we have already observed, the tendency is to copy rather than to assimilate. The reproductive processes have overwhelmed the practitioner with an excess of material, far more than can be digested. We have acquired the photograph habit. Could half the time be devoted to invention that is given to the excavation from portfolios of the desired prototypes, and to the formation of collections, it would be better for art. We have repeatedly anathematized the vast aggregation of photographs so cheaply and easily obtained. Were they to perish from the earth, design would take a great leap forward—for their abuse is almost inevitable. The mere power of limning is compromised by an over-reliance on them. Constant reference, even to an original study from nature, clogs the creative faculty, and hampers the impatient hand, much more so, an alien reproduction. Once a distinguished artist lost all his preliminary studies for a picture when his house was ransacked by the Prussians. "I am glad of it," he said, "for now I feel emancipated and can work with greater freedom." It must always be borne in mind that the best designs were made before the invention of the reproductive processes, and the exactions of precise archæology. It is safe here to use the word "best," because the constant copying of them is an admission of their primacy. It must not be supposed that the Renaissance man was more virtuous than we are. Probably he was less so. He stole things wherever he could lay his hands on them. Fortunately, there was less to steal in quality and quantity. Nor had he acquired the lesson of accuracy. Even the engraver, when he tried to counterfeit, let us say an "Albert Dürer," did it rather clumsily. If an artist wished to reproduce another's work for self-instruction, he rendered it very freely, infusing a good deal of his own personality into the copy, unconsciously, without doubt. From our point of view this copy was pitiable as an imitation. For his purpose, it was just as good as the closer reproduction, even better. Giuliano Sangallo's drawing from the antique would make schoolboys merry, while both they and their preceptors admire the creations which these somewhat clumsy sketches evoked. One of the fragments of the lost "Battle of Anghiari," by Leonardo, comes to us through the exuberant handling of Rubens, the freest sort of a translation, as were all his Italian notes. Raphael, painter-architect, makes a pen and ink from the "Three Graces at Sienna," after graduating from the school of Perugino (we follow Müntz). From the photographic standpoint the humblest in a well-conducted antique class could do better. But these men, and hosts of others, _invented_—some painters, some sculptors, some architects, perhaps the two or three in one. Take, for instance, that much used and very popular member, the capital, a magnificent vehicle for decorative expression. Observe Sangallo's in the Palazzo Gondi, Stagio-Stagi's at Pisa, or those in the Palazzo dei Pazzi. But why specify these, when beautiful examples swarm in Bologna, Ferrara, Urbino, and all over northern Italy, full of lovely ideas and graceful in contour, capitals evolved from the antique in a general way, and quite equal to them for pure beauty, and surpassing them in fancy? We are prone to denounce the "barocco" work. Eliminating for the nonce the question of taste, let us glance at it from the inventive point of view. We have seen compositions by the much abused painter-architect, Vasari, evidently turned out with perfect facility, that would tax the creative faculty of a modern almost to despair. The Zuccari Brothers, Poccetti, and men of that generation, at times did things in shocking taste, but at times they composed very beautifully and were always interesting, flinging broadcast fresh ideas. We may not like a frame, or an arm-chair by a barocco Brustolon, yet we must admire his fluent design. Thanks to passionless imitations, the uninitiated are prone to associate nothing but dry formality with such names as Vignola or Palladio. Let them see the villas by these architects in the neighborhood of Rome or Vicenza, and they will soon be disabused of any such impressions.

It is high time that the architect should declare himself an artist by a display of the artistic qualities, an important one being the invention of ornamental motives. He should differentiate himself from the engineer. But as matters now stand, finding himself unable to evolve fresh decorative forms either from lack of time or faculty, he has recourse to his library, and cribs or re-distributes decorative conventions, more or less trite, according to the date of the print or photograph, with the well known result. These aids are also within the reach of the engineer, or even the "builder," pure and simple. With a very little study, either might learn to handle them adroitly. So that if the architect wishes to occupy an impregnable position, he must fortify it with artistic accomplishments.