Chapter 14

To avoid this trouble another invention, called the Far-talker (or Tel-ef-oan), was made; and by means of this conceit the people of Am-ri-ka could speak to one another many miles apart. The Far-talker was a remarkable sort of invention by which one merchant, by stretching a copper thread across the country to the ear of another merchant, could talk to him _through the wire_. The other merchant could reverse and talk back! Sometimes a young woman would tiptoe up to the box where the wire ended and say the most absurd things to her favorite fop down-town; this was often overheard. People had not yet learned the method of understanding each other's thoughts without the ridiculous contrivance of speech, written scratches, wires, and Fo-ny-grafs.

It was at this time that men, in their effort to carry themselves from place to place, seem to have taken the first hints from nature. It was remembered that _between_ swimming and flying, and _between_ flying and walking, certain forms of locomotion, quite rapid withal, are used by our poor relatives on land and sea. Thus the flying-fish rises from the water and shoots, quite parabolically, for some distance through the air. The genus Cheiroptera also gives a hint of progress by means of wings that are not made of feathers. The flying lemur, nearly akin to _Homo bifurcans_, shows how one may rise and go by a sort of aërial progress along the ground.

Out of these hints the men of Am-ri-ka, at the epoch of which we speak, sought inventions by means of which they might keep close to the ground for safety, but otherwise fly; for the age was very fast! Under these conditions some Unknown Man invented what was called the By-sigh-kel. It was a sort of flat-sided, rotary ground-skimmer, very thin and notorious. It came coincidently with another invention called the Trol-lee. The latter was an electrical wagon for general travel in cities and suburbs, while the By-sigh-kel was a personal carriage for one or possibly two. The passenger in this case had to start his machine and then jump on. The propulsion was effected by a pump-like action of the legs, very tiresome and elegant. The passenger generally leaned forward in a position strongly suggestive of the favorite attitude of his arboreal ancestors. It was the peculiarity of the Trol-lee that it made a sort of humming roar as it went that sounded like a hundred prisoners groaning in unison; but the By-sigh-kel made no noise in going except in collisions and wrecks. The latter were so frequent that a whole cycle of restorative arts had to be undertaken of which the principal was dentistry. At the close of the century there were few front teeth remaining--except artificials.

Many accounts of the Age of the By-sigh-kel and Trol-lee have been preserved among the old records of Am-ri-ka, and traditions of it are found in the antiquarian papers of other countries. We have seen pictorial representations made by Fo-to-graf-ure of scenes from the age referred to. The streets of extinct cities are found pictured in this way. There was an instrument called the Cow-dack which was used in taking pictures in an instantaneous manner, so that the scene would look like life.

A busy street, thus pictured, in that time, shows many Trol-lees rushing by, filled with merry people. Along the side-ways scores of passengers are seen, mounted on their 'Sigh-kels, going in divers directions at full speed. The passengers present many aspects; for riding the 'Sigh-kel was an art which had to be acquired; and by some this could not be done--at least not gracefully done. Many tried, but few were chosen. Two classes of people suffered much in this particular, namely, the very fat and the very bony. Those whom nature had favored in form and feature, and who had acquired the art of sitting upright, look well enough in these old pictures of a past age. But the clumsy and obese, the slender and angular people may well be laughed at even through the shadowy retrospect of four centuries.

One of the 'Sigh-kel machines was made _double_; and an old cartoon which is now before me gives to this kind the name of Tan-doom. On this men and women frequently rode together, the woman going before, for that was the age in which the woman, becoming new, showed her newness by being forward.

Nor may we leave these reminiscences of a bygone age without reflecting upon the absurdities of our ancestors, who had not yet imagined the ease and excellence of our own method of locomotion by skimming at will the surface of the earth. The facile beauty and natural art with which we now rise from the ground and propel ourselves by our own thought and wish to any distance--thus vindicating our superiority to all other creatures in our method of excursion--are facts so obvious and ever-present that we fail to reflect upon the impediments and hardships of the people of Am-ri-ka and indeed of the whole world in the nineteenth century....

Thinking on these things I can but imagine that I have myself seen them in some previous epoch of my existence. The facts which I have recorded appear dimly, as if in memory of what I once beheld; but the vision of it is so obscure that I still doubt whether it be dream or reality. I have long imagined that we retain from one epoch of our existence to the next a vague recollection of our experiences in the remote ages of the past. I sometimes think that it is not impossible that I myself, in some forgotten avatar, used to sit alone at the window of my office, looking into the street of one of the old towns of Am-ri-ka where the Trol-lees were going one way and the By-sigh-kels the other way, crossing and darting hither and yon, according to the wills of the riders; but the vision is so dim that it looks like the fictions of sleep.

Vita Longa.

The question is not how long this bodily life may last, or how long the mind, so conditioned, can endure. It is not even how long the mind may continue to produce; for the mind, like a poor, half-exhausted field, urged with rain and fertilizers, may produce only potatoes, mullen, and cockle. The real question--the deep-down essence of it--is how long the mind, or soul, may retain the enthusiasm and passionate power of _creation_. That is the only true test of longevity; and when that ceases there is nothing left. The real duration of man-life is measured only by the persistency of creative power.

Longfellow, standing in the old pulpit, on the fiftieth anniversary of his class at Bowdoin, and saying to those who would introduce him, "I wish the desk were large enough to conceal me all," makes a beautiful section of this theme by citing some of the most inspiring instances of the long life of the soul:

Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles Wrote his grand OEdipus, and Simonides Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers, When each had numbered more than fourscore years; And Theophrastus at fourscore and ten Had but begun his "Characters of Men;" Chaucer at Woodstock with his nightingales, At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales; Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last, Completed Faust when eighty years were past: These are indeed exceptions; but they show How far the Gulf Stream of our youth may flow Into the arctic regions of our lives, Where little else than life itself survives.

Measured by this test of creative power and its persistency, how variable is the duration of human life! Sometimes the creative power appears in early youth; but when that happens there is generally an early surcease. Sometimes the power comes late and remains long. Sometimes it flashes forth in the early morning and remains in the after twilight. Estimated by years this productive power (which goes by the name of genius) sometimes reaches only to a few score moons. Sometimes it reaches to a score of years. Sometimes, though rarely, it extends to three-score years or more.

Thomas Chatterton went to a suicide's grave in Potter's Field when he was only seventeen years, nine months, and four days of age. I know of no other case of so great precocity; it is beyond belief. His mind had been productive for about three years. Byron's productive period covered sixteen years--no more. Pope began at twelve and ended at fifty-six.

In our own age, Tennyson has done well. Making an early effort to begin, he, like Dryden, did not really reach the creative epoch until he was fully thirty. His creative period covers about fifty-nine years. It extends from "A Dream of Fair Women," in 1833, to "Crossing the Bar," in 1892.

The best example, however, in the history of the human mind, is that of William Cullen Bryant; that is, Bryant has real creations that lie further apart in time than can be paralleled, so far as I know, in the case of any other of the sons of men. The date of "Thanatopsis" is not precisely known. It belongs, however, to the years 1812-13. Bryant was then eighteen--in his nineteenth year. Add to 1812 sixty-four years and we have 1876, the date of the publication of the "Flood of Years." The two poems in question lie apart in production by the space of fully three-score and four years. It is a marvel! And why not?

To him who in the love of nature holds Communion with her visible forms,

why should not life, productive life, enthusiastic fruitful life, be extended until its last acts of creation, shot through with the sunshine of experience and wisdom, shall flash in great bars of haze and glory over the landscape of the twilight days?

Kaboto.

Old John à Venice in his cockleshell Breasted the salt sea like an Englishman! He saw the bleak coast of the Tartar Khan To left-hand in the distance. "All is well!" He cried to Labrador. The roaring swell Bore him to shore, whereon his hands upran The Lion flag and flag republican Of the old Doges' wave-girt citadel.

Dominion and Democracy are ours! From the first day unto the last we hold To Liberty and Empire! We shall be, Under the Star-flag, for eternal hours, Even as Cabot's two flags first foretold, Both free and strong from mountain crag to sea!

A STROKE FOR THE PEOPLE.

Here is a message for all: FROM AND AFTER THE ISSUANCE OF THE NUMBER FOR JULY THE REGULAR SUBSCRIPTION PRICE OF THE ARENA, THE MAGAZINE OF THE PEOPLE, WILL BE REDUCED TO $2.50 A YEAR. The reasons for this reduction are not far to seek. The stringency of the times, the hardships of the people,--their lack of money, the decline in the prices of their products, the relentless grip of the mortgages on their homes,--and the absence of any symptom of present relief from a Government under the domination and dictation of the money power, have induced the managers of THE ARENA to bear their part of the common burden and distress, and to express in a practical way their sympathies with the masses by reducing the price of the magazine to the lowest possible figure consistent with its maintenance at the present standard of efficiency and excellence.

One of the immediate causes and suggestions of this course will be found in the following private letter written to THE ARENA by a plain Kansas farmer. We have obtained his permission to use his letter as an appeal to the public:

"SYLVAN GROVE, KANSAS, May 22, 1897.

"_To_ THE ARENA.

"GENTLEMEN: I enclose my subscription for THE ARENA for the current year. The only reason for my tardiness in doing this is pinching, grinding poverty. If we farmers do not assist the OLD ARENA, so loyal to our interests, we shall deserve the fate many of us have already accepted; that is, the doom of serfdom under the club of plutocracy.

"We, at _our_ home, are straining every nerve and denying ourselves of almost the comforts of life for the purpose of meeting our mortgage that falls due on the first of July. Our farmers here in the West are divided into four classes:

"_First._ Those who have failed to meet even the interest on loans, who have been closed out, and are now renters, often, of the very farms which they once fondly hoped to make their own.

"_Second._ Those who are still paying interest or keeping the companies at bay in the courts until one more crop may ripen, but without any well-founded hope of saving their homes.

"_Third._ Those who are skimping, pinching, almost starving to pay their mortgages. I belong to this class. I still struggle with the incubus.

"_Fourth._ A very few who wisely have never encumbered their homes. I have given the classes in the order of their numerical importance.

"I live in the beautiful little West Twin Creek valley about seven miles in length. There are but two pieces of unencumbered property in the valley; one belonging to a poor widow, and the other to a bank president. Thirty-five per cent of the farms have already passed into the hands of mortgagees; many of the remainder have changed hands, shifted under renewals and various expedients to avoid the ruination of closing out. This is more than an average well-to-do community, selected from this or any other central county of Kansas. We are realizing to the full that 'Beneficent Effect of Falling Prices' which was so ably set forth (from his standpoint) by Dean Gordon in THE ARENA for March. If all people were out of debt, falling prices might not work so great injustice. But when a vast majority of the people are in debt, and heavily in debt, and when a man talks of the blessings that fall from falling prices, the conviction is forced upon us that the killer of fools in his annual round has missed one conspicuous example. The trouble is, our dollar of debt, instead of decreasing, has more than doubled in its power as compared with labor and the products of labor. Meanwhile our Solons talk glibly of 'vested rights,' 'corporate rights,' etc., strenuously objecting to squeezing the water out of their stocks, while they have by legislation for the last thirty-five years remorselessly squeezed the _value_ out of our property.

"When our debts were contracted the values of everything were double what they now are. I could then have sold my farm for three thousand dollars; now, although it has been much improved, it would go a-begging at one thousand dollars. Perhaps there is not as much distress in our country as there was three or four years ago. People have adjusted themselves somewhat to their straitened circumstances, and a few are becoming actually reconciled to their condition! I heard one man who had recently failed in business as a grain-dealer say, 'Well, Cleveland is right on this money question; we want a money good in Yurrup or any other part of the world.' As I looked at the battered hat of this personage, at the split toes of his shoes, the ragged elbows of his coat, and the rents in his demoralized nether garments, I could but ejaculate, 'May the Lord have mercy on your ignorant soul! what does it matter to _you_ what kind of money they use in Europe?'

"We are now taking the advice of Governor Morrill, who says: 'If you cannot get seventy-five cents a day, work for fifty cents.' Our Republican speakers advise us to dress plainly, live the same, and work still harder. We are told to 'stop running around to Alliances and picnics.' We have taken this advice. _We had to take it!_ But we have now reached the bottom. We can curtail our dress no further without making our garb identical with our complexion. We cannot further reduce our rations and live. We cannot extend the hours of labor, for most of us have already adopted the blessed eight-hour system; that is, we work eight hours _before_ dinner and eight hours _after_ dinner.

"However, Kansas is coming to the front again. Since the mortgage companies are willing to do business once more our Governor is no longer 'ashamed of the State.' Occasionally a Republican politician squirms and kicks as the pressure is turned on. The eloquent and volcanic Ingalls breaks out at intervals. In these eruptions he pours lava upon his party in fine style. But he does not break out often enough!

"The most serious bar to the progress of reform is that the people are too poor to pay for reform papers and magazines; out of these they might get the truth. The publishers of such are unable to send their periodicals for less than cost. Not so the party in power. Thousands of people get complimentary copies of the gold-bug papers, and other thousands get them for a nominal sum. Somebody pays for them. Who?

"I have been pleased with THE ARENA, both old and new. I first subscribed to it in order to get 'The Bond and the Dollar,' which I consider the most succinct exposition of the American money question ever written. No publication that I am acquainted with equals THE ARENA as an educator. I wish you godspeed in your efforts for the betterment of our people and of humanity in general. I hope (almost against hope) for the peaceful solution of the difficulties that now beset our beloved country.

"Sincerely yours,

"A. BIGGS."

Moved by the foregoing communication and scores of others of the same purport, and knowing the truth of what the honest producers (who are the very blood and sinew and soul of this Republic) say of their trials and of the wrongs to which they have been mercilessly subjected for years, THE ARENA has decided to share the common lot. With the people we shall stand or fall. Let all who _can_ rally, therefore, rally to the support of THE ARENA, and the management will try to show the nation what a great and free American magazine devoted to American interests and American democracy really is, and will be, in the battle for human rights.

Address all subscriptions and all other business communications to

JOHN D. MCINTYRE, Manager of THE ARENA, Copley Square, Boston.

BOOK REVIEWS.

[_In this Department of_ THE ARENA _no book will be reviewed which is not regarded as a real addition to literature._]

The Emperor.[8]

[8] "Life of Napoleon Bonaparte." By Willian Milligan Sloane, Ph. D., L. H. D.; Professor of History in Princeton University. Four volumes, imperial octavo; pp. 1120. New York: The Century Company. Boston: Balch Brothers, 1896.

At the hour when, on the evening of the first day of this century, the first asteroid was discovered by Piazzi at Naples, an olive-complexioned man was sitting smileless in a box in the opera house in Paris. He sat back where nobody could see him. It was his way not to be seen--except on business.

The man was thirty-one years, four months, and sixteen days of age. He had already done something. If he had not equalled the work of Alexander at the corresponding age, he had at least surpassed Cæsar; for Cæsar at thirty was still a comparatively unknown roué in Rome.

The figure in the opera box was slender and trim. He who sat there was only five feet, four and a half inches high; but his head was fine, heavy, symmetrical. His features twitched when he was disturbed, but were beautiful when he smiled. To a profound observer he looked dangerous. He had the faculty of making his face signify nothing at all. He had been begotten an insular Italian, but was born a Frenchman. His wife, a Creole, more than six years older than he, was in the box with him. She sat at the front, and was seen by thousands. She _wished_ to be seen; and when the pit shouted in the direction of the box she smiled a little smile, with a puckered mouth--for her teeth were not good.

The birthplace of this man had been oddly set on the map of the world, for the meridian of Discovery and the parallel of Conquest intersect at the birthplace of NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. The birthlines of Cæsar and Columbus--drawn, the one due west from Rome, the other due south from Genoa--cross each other within a few miles of Ajaccio! It is a circumstance that might well incline one to astrology.

About the birth of great men cycles of fiction grow. Friends and enemies alike invent significant circumstances. The traducers of Napoleon have said that he was illegitimate--that his father was the French marshal Marboeuf. They also say, on better grounds, that the marriage of Letitia Ramolino to Carlo di Buonaparte was not solemnized until 1767--that the first two children were therefore born out of wedlock. On the other hand, the idol-worshippers would fain have Napoleon born as a god or Titan. Premature pangs seize the mother at church. She hurries home, barely reaching her apartment when the heroic babe is delivered, without an accoucheur, on a piece of tapestry inwrought with an effigy of Achilles! This probably occurred. It was the 15th of August, 1769.

Thus, as it were before the Corsican saw the light of day in this world, dispute began about him. It has been continued for a hundred and twenty-eight years. Whatever else he succeeded in doing--whatever else he failed to do--he at least did succeed in dividing the civilized world into two parties; he made himself the subject of a controversy which has not ceased to the present hour. The reason, no doubt, is that we do not as yet understand human history and the part which the individual plays in the progress of events. Nearly all men begin with a prejudice in judging all other men, and nearly all men end as they begin. So it has been in the case of Bonaparte. After a while we shall see things more clearly; after a while we shall be able to interpret _men_--but not yet.

The writings relative to this man constitute a cycle. The books on him and his times make a library, the perusal and study of which might absorb a large section of an active life. The name of such productions is legion. Most of them will fortunately perish. The controversial aspect of the life of the Emperor must at last subside. Nine out of ten of the books about him will go down to the nether oblivion. Then the judicial aspect will arise--if it has not already arisen--and will occupy the attention of those who are still curious to study the career of him who shares with the son of Philip and the matchless Julius the triune honor of being the greatest warriors known to human history. If a fourth should be added to the group it would be Hannibal, and if a fifth, Charlemagne.

Here at the date of a century from those days in which the star of Napoleon emerged from the mists and clouds and began to climb the sky the interest in his life revives. In America this revival is attributable in part to general and in part to special causes. The general causes are to be found in the fact that society _de la fin de siècle_ is in such a state of profound disturbance, and the existing order feels so insecure, that that order--as it always does--begins to cast about in the shadows to find, if it may, some Big Man with a Sword; him when found we will make our Imperator, and by sharing some of our estates with certain of his military subalterns we will make sure of the rest--and after us the deluge. The special cause--at least in America--is the tremendous and growing tradition of General Grant. Albeit, General Grant hated the Bonapartes, from the Great One to the Little One; yet his own luminous setting has left a glow in which the nation sees men as trees walking--and among these the greatest simulacrum is Napoleon Bonaparte.