Search-Light Letters

Robert Grant

Search-Light Letters

To A Young Man or Woman in Search of the Ideal. I

I shall assume certain things to begin with. If a young man, that the dividing-line between mine and thine is so clearly defined to your own consciousness that you are never tempted to cross it. For instance, that it is your invariable practice to keep the funds of others in a separate bank-account from the money which belongs to you, and not to mix them. That you will not lie to escape the consequences of your own or others' actions. That you are not afraid to stand up and be shot at if necessary. That you do not use your knife to carry food to your mouth; say "How?" for "What?" or hold the young lady whom you are courting or to whom you are engaged by the crook of her elbow and shove her along the street as though she were a perambulator. If a young woman, that you are so pure in thought that you do not feel obliged to read diseased fiction in order to enlighten yourself as to what is immorality. That you do not bear false witness against your neighbor by telling every unpleasant story you hear to the next person you meet. That you do not repeat to an acquaintance, on the plea of duty, the disagreeable remarks or criticisms which others have made to you regarding her. That you try to be unselfish, sympathetic, and amiable in spite of everything. That you neither chew gum nor use pigments. And that you do not treat young men as demigods, before whom you must abase yourself in order to be exalted.

I take it for granted that you have reached the moral and social plane which this assumption implies. Manners are, indeed, a secondary consideration as compared with ethics. A man who eats with his knife may, nevertheless, be a hero. And yet, it is not always easy to fix where manners and ethics begin. Many a finished young woman who stealthily heightens the hue of her complexion and blackens her eyebrows with paint probably regards the girl who chews gum with superior scorn. Yet tradition associates paint rather than gum with the scarlet woman. To avoid introducing the subtleties of discussion where all is so clear, it is simpler to exclude the use of either as a possible characteristic of fine womanhood. The homely adage that you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear is full of meaning for democracy. Manners must go hand in hand with morals, or character will show no more lustre than the uncut and unpolished diamond, whose latent brilliancy is marred by uncouthness, so that it may readily be mistaken for a vulgar stone.

I assume, then, that you possess honesty, purity, and courage, the intention to be unselfish and sympathetic, and an appreciation of the stigma of vulgarity. If you are seeking the ideal, you will try to be, in the first place, an uncommon person. A common person is one who is content to be just like every one else in his or her own walk of life. The laws on our statute-books are made for the benefit of common people; that is to say, they are tempered to the necessities of the weak and erring. If you stop short there you will keep out of jail, but you will be a very ordinary member of society. This sounds trite, but the application of the principle involved is progressive. It is easy to be ordinary in the higher walks of civilization and yet pass for a rather superior person. It is only necessary to be content to "do as every one else does," and accept the bare limit of the social code under which you live as the guide of conduct.

[Note. – I am reminded here by my wife, Josephine, that, though the statute-laws are broken by few of our friends, there is one law which women who claim to be highly civilized and exceedingly superior are constantly breaking – the statute which forbids them to smuggle.]

¶ Scene: An Ocean Steamship. Two sea-chairs side by side.

¶ Dramatis Personæ: A Refined and Gifted Instructress of Youth on the home passage from a summer's vacation abroad, and your Philosopher. A perfect sea and sky, which beget confidences.

Refined and Gifted Instructress of Youth. It's rather a bother to have friends ask you to bring in things.

The Philosopher. I always say "Certainly; but I shall be obliged to declare them." That ends it.

Refined and Gifted. My friends wouldn't like that at all. It would offend them. You mustn't tell, but I have as commissions a dress, two packages of gloves, and a large French doll, in my trunk.

The Philosopher. Yet you will be obliged to sign a paper that you have nothing dutiable and that everything you have is yours.

Refined and Gifted. If I were to declare the things, the duties would all have to come out of my own pocket. I shouldn't have the face to collect it from my friends.

The Philosopher. They expect you to fib, of course. You prefer, then, to cheat the Government rather than disappoint persons who made use of you in order to accomplish that very thing?

Refined and Gifted. You don't put it nicely at all, Mr. Philosopher. Besides, the things are mine. I paid for them with my own money; and, until I am paid back, the things belong to me. There, now, why shouldn't I sign the paper?

The Philosopher. A shallow sophistry. A merchant who acted on that theory would be sent to jail. Will a refined and gifted instructress of youth, whose mission in life it is to lead the young in the paths of virtue, evade the law by a subterfuge?

Refined and Gifted. It's an odious law. My family all believe in free trade.

The Philosopher. Very possibly. But it is the law.

Refined and Gifted (after a pause). I don't care. If I declare the things they would never forgive me, and I can't afford to pay charges on their things myself. I've only just enough money to get home, anyway. Perhaps no one will ask me to sign it. By the way, how much ought I to give the man if he passes everything nicely?

The Philosopher. Nothing. That would be bribery.

Refined and Gifted. Why, I thought all men did that.

The Philosopher. Chiefly women who try to smuggle. (Silence of five minutes.)

Refined and Gifted. I don't care. I shall sign it.

And she did.

Those whose office it is to utter the last word over the dead rarely yield to the temptation to raise the mantle of charity and show the man or woman in all his or her imperfections. Society prefers to err on the side of mercy and forbearance, and to consign dust to dust with beautiful generalizations of hope and congratulation, even though the subject of the obsequies be a widely known sinner. However fitting it may be to ignore the truth in the presence of death, there can be no greater peril for one in your predicament than to cherish the easy-going doctrine that you are willing to take your chance with the rest of the world. The democratic proposition that every one is as good as his neighbor is readily amended so as to read that, if you are as good as your neighbor, everybody ought to be satisfied. A philosopher has a right to take liberties with the dead which a clergyman must deny himself. "Died at his late residence on the 5th inst., Solomon Grundy, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. Friends are kindly requested not to send flowers." Perhaps you saw it? Very likely you knew him. If so, you may have attended the funeral and heard read over his bier the beautiful words, "I heard a voice from Heaven which said, write Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord," and the hymn, which the family had requested, "Nearer, my God, to Thee." The officiating clergyman was not to blame. Solomon Grundy had worshipped at his church with regularity for twenty years, and had been a fairly generous contributor to foreign and domestic missions, in spite of the fact that he had the reputation down-town of being close as the bark of a tree. The obituary notices in the newspapers referred to him as "a leading merchant" and "a gentleman of the old school." No wonder that the Rev. Peter Tyson, who is a brave man and has been known to rear on occasions, felt that he could let himself go without injury to his conscience. Besides, even so discriminating a person as your Philosopher saw fit to attend the funeral, and remembering that the old gentleman had given him a wedding present, would probably have ordered a wreath but for the wishes of the family. And yet the facts of Solomon Grundy's life, when examined in a philosophic spirit, serve chiefly to point a moral for one who is in search of the ideal. Read the itinerary of his earthly pilgrimage and judge for yourself:

Infancy (first six years).– No reliable data except a cherubic miniature, and the family tradition that he once threw into the fire a necklace belonging to his grandmother. People who know all about such matters will tell you that during these first six years the foundations of character are laid. The miniature was always said to bear a striking resemblance to his maternal grandfather, who was a man of – nay, nay, this will never do. Those same people to whom I have just referred will tell you that we inherit everything we are, and, if I proceed on that theory, we are done with Solomon Grundy as soon as he was born. Decidedly a young man or woman in search of the ideal cannot afford to palm off on ancestors the responsibility for his or her own conduct.

Boyhood (six to sixteen).– So-called highly respectable surroundings and good educational advantages. Here we are brought face to face again with those same persons whom I have already instanced. They will assure you that Solomon's father and mother and his "environment" were the responsible agents during this period, and that whatever Solomon did not inherit or have settled for him before his sixth year was settled for him by them without the knowledge of said Solomon. This is rather discouraging as a study of Solomon as a conscious, active ego, but it affords you an opportunity, if you are not in search of the ideal, to make your parents and that comfortable phrase your "environment" bear the burden of all your shortcomings until you are sixteen, and serve as an excuse for your shortcomings in the future.

Youth (sixteen to twenty-one).– Now we at least make progress. Solomon enters college. Gets one or two conditions, but works them off and stands erect. High spirits and corresponding consequences. Becomes popular and idle. Subscribes to the faith that the object of going to college is to study human nature, and is fascinated by his own acumen. Sudden revulsion at beginning of senior year. The aims and responsibilities of life unfold themselves in absorbing panorama, and his soul is full of high resolve. The world is his oyster. Studies hard for six months and graduates somewhat higher than had been anticipated. (Curtain descends to inspiring music.) Solomon stands on the threshold of life the image of virile youth, shading his brow and looking at the promised land.

Early Manhood (twenty-one to thirty).– Solomon decides to go into business. Reasons chiefly pecuniary. No special aptitude for anything else. Is sent abroad to study more human nature, acquire breadth of view and learn French. Does so in Paris. Returns with some of his high resolve tarnished, and with only a smattering of the language in question. Goes into the employ of a wholesale dry-goods merchant, and begins at the lowest round of the ladder. Works hard and absorbedly. Very little leisure. Devotes what he has to social diversion. Develops a pleasing talent for private theatricals, in the exercise of which falls in love with a pretty but impecunious young woman. (Slow and sentimental music.) Yearns to marry, but is advised by elderly business friends that he cannot afford it. Dejected winter in bachelor apartments. Takes up with Schopenhauer. Spirits slightly restored by first rise on ladder. Eschews society and private theatricals. Forms relations, which recall Paris, with sympathetic, nomadic young person. Gets another rise on the ladder, and is spoken of among his contemporaries as doing well.

Manhood (thirty-one to forty).– Works steadily and makes several fortunate investments. Joins one or two clubs, and gains eight pounds in weight. Grows side-whiskers or a goatee. Gets another rise, and the following year is taken into the firm. Complains of dyspepsia, and at advice of physician buys saddle-horse. Contributes fifty dollars to charity, joins a book-club and attends two political caucuses. Thinks of taking an active interest in politics, but is advised by elderly business friends that it would interfere with his business prospects. Owing to the death of a member of the firm, becomes second in command. Thinks of changing bachelor rooms and wonders why he shouldn't marry instead. Goes into society a little and looks about. Gains five extra pounds and makes more fortunate investments. Picks out good-looking, sensible girl eight years younger than himself, with a tidy property in her own right. Is conscious of being enraptured in her presence, and deems himself very much in love. (Orchestra plays waltz by Strauss.) Offers himself and is accepted. Burns everything in his bachelor rooms and sells out all his speculative investments. Regrets to observe that he is growing bald. Impressive ceremony and large wedding-cake.

Manhood – Middle Age (forty to fifty-five).– Conservative attitude toward domestic expenses. Works hard from what he calls "new incentive." Delights in the peacefulness of the domestic hearth. Blissful mental condition. (Religious music.) Buys pew in Rev. Peter Tyson's church. Buys baby-wagon. Increasing profits in dry-goods business. Almost bald. Gives two hundred dollars to foreign missions. Is proud of his wife's appearance and entertains in moderation. Becomes head of firm. Buys gold-headed cane and gains five more pounds. Goes to Europe for six months, with his wife, and conducts himself with propriety, visiting cathedrals and historical monuments. Shows her Paris. Foresees financial complications and turns ship accordingly. Increasing family expenses and depressing conditions in dry-goods trade. Completely bald. First attack of gout. Absorbed in business and in real-estate investments. On return of commercial prosperity, reaps the reward of foresight and sagacity. Is chosen director of two railroads and a trust company. Is elected president of his club. Gives five hundred dollars to domestic missions. Buys new house and a barouche for his wife. Gives large evening entertainment. Second attack of gout. Goes to Carlsbad for treatment. (Toccata by Galuppi.)

Old Age – (fifty-five to sixty-seven).– Addresses Christian association on "How to Succeed in Life." Is appointed trustee of a hospital and an art museum. Votes conservatively on every question. Is referred to in newspapers as "Hon. Solomon Grundy." Slight attack of paralysis. Becomes somewhat venerable in appearance. Deplores degeneracy of modern ideas. Retires from active business. More venerable in appearance. Second attack of paralysis and death.

And that was the end of Solomon Grundy. A highly respectable representative of a second-class man. The term suggests an idea. We have here no first, second, and third-class railway carriages, as are found in England and other countries. But it would be interesting, from a philosophical point of view, to invent such a train for the occasion, and bestow our friends and acquaintances, and, indeed, society at large, according to their qualifications. You, of course, are desirous to know who are the persons entitled to travel first-class, in order that you may be introduced to them and avoid intimacy with the others, so far as is consistent with Christian charity and the mutual obligations of social beings. But let me first dip my pen in the ink again.

To A Young Man or Woman in Search of the Ideal. II

Abracadabra. Presto! Behold the train. The gates are opened and the people press in. There will not be much trouble with the third-class passengers. See how they take their proper places of their own accord. Some of them deserve to ride second-class quite as much as many who will be affronted at not being allowed to go first-class. Do you see that man? He is a commercial traveller, or drummer, and, naturally, early on the ground. He doesn't hesitate or examine his ticket, but gets directly into a second-class smoking-car, settles himself, and puts on a silk cap. He knows that it is useless to ask for a first-class seat, and he is going to make the best of it (which is good philosophy). Very likely if you were sitting next to him he would utter some such cheery remark as, "It will be all the same a hundred years hence," and tell you a pat story to illustrate the situation. Did you happen to notice, though, the longing look he cast at the first-class coaches as he went by? I feel sure that down in his heart he is ready to admit that there are such things as ideals, after all, and he is making resolutions as to what he would do if he could live his life over again.

Did you notice that stout, fashionably dressed man who stopped and looked at me with a grin? He was trying it on, so to speak. He knew just as well as Tom Johnson, the drummer, that he had no right to travel first-class, but he thought I might admit him on the score of social prestige. He is one of the kindest-hearted of fellows – just the man to whom a friend would apply in a tight place, and I rather think he would be apt to help an enemy, unless it happened that something he had eaten for supper the night before had disagreed with him. He has the digestion of an ostrich, and he needs it, for his skin is full of oil, and whiskey, and tortured goose-liver, and canvas-back ducks, and pepper-sauce, and ripe Camembert cheese, and truffles, and Burgundy, and many other rich and kindred delicacies. He could tell four different vintages of champagne apart with his eyes shut, and he has honor at his club on account of it. His name is Howard Vincent. An illustrious-sounding name, isn't it? He inherits gout from both sides of the family. He does not know Tom Johnson, the drummer. They have moved in different social strata. But they belong to the same order of human beings. There! you notice, he asks Tom for a light, and they have begun to talk together. They are laughing now, and Tom is winking. I shouldn't wonder if they were making fun of the first-class passengers. Vincent has read more or less in his day, and he rather prides himself on what he calls keeping abreast of the times in the line of thought. See, they have opened the window, and are beckoning to me. Let us hear what they have to say.

Drummer. Ah, there, philosopher! You wouldn't let us in, and I guess you know your business. We've had a good time in life, anyhow. If the religious folk are right, we shall be in it up to our necks. If they're wrong, they've been wasting a lot of valuable time.

Howard Vincent. We've ridden straight, at all events. (Vincent is an authority on sporting matters.) We haven't pretended to be something we were not. We've never cheated anybody, and we've never lied to anybody, and each, according to his light (this last qualification was for Tom's benefit), has been a gentleman. We've been men of the world, and we have found the world a reasonably satisfactory place. We're in no haste to leave it.

The Philosopher. And may I add, gentlemen, that each of you has a kind and generous heart?

Did you observe how pleased they looked when I said that? It was a little weak of me to say it, but I could not help it. Somehow, it is very difficult to be sufficiently severe to such easy-going, pleasant-natured fellows, who are content to take the world as they find it, laugh and grow fat. Moreover, Tom Johnson has for twenty years supported his old mother and invalid sister, and remained single as a consequence; and Howard Vincent has a habit of giving away delightful sums on Christmas Day without advertising the fact. How often, on the occasion of death, do we hear the aphorism that everything counts for nothing save the kindly deeds of the deceased, until one is tempted to believe that a genial commercial traveller, like our friend, with a benignant soul is more admirable and inspiring than a highly sensitive gentleman and scholar. Indisputably this is so if the gentleman and scholar lacks the humanity for which the other is conspicuous; but, nevertheless, it behooves the soul in search of the ideal to beware of the slough of mere warm-heartedness. It is an attribute which, if relied on too exclusively as a leavening force, is readily made to subserve very ordinary purposes. The two Falstaffian men in the second-class car belong there, even though you might find their kindly ways and their stories attractive up to a certain point. They are of the class of men who, more signally perhaps than any other, bar the path of the world's progress toward the stars by means of the argument that what has been must be, and that what is is good enough. They are of the men who shrug their shoulders when the hope is expressed that the abuse of liquor may be lessened and finally controlled; who sneer at the efforts of the police authorities to shut up all the houses of ill-repute, on the ground that prostitution has always existed and must always exist. (That it will never become "unpopular," as the drummer would tell you in his breezy way.) Assuredly, you need to be on your guard against infatuation with those big, genial and (usually) pot-bellied personages whose large hearts and abundant charity and splendid appetites allow them to discard as unworthy of a sensible man's regard everything but honesty, reading, spelling and arithmetic (add, in the case of Howard Vincent, a dash of accomplishments and agnostic philosophy), Worcestershire sauce and jests of custom-made humor. Blessed be humor. The man or woman without it is like a loaf of stale bread or a cup of brackish water. But to be content with the mere workaday world and its ways is like travelling perpetually with a grip-sack. When we open the grip-sack, what do we find? The barest necessaries of life, without a trace of anything which inspires or refines. I have no desire to betray the private affairs of any commercial traveller, or to imply that the Bible and Shakespeare are not occasionally to be found both in the kit of the travelling man and the English leather trunk of the more elegant man of fashion. I am simply cautioning you, my male correspondents, to beware of accepting as final your world as you find it. Nothing is more sure to make you a second-class person. Mere good-natured common-sense ("horse-sense," as our drummer would call it) is a useful virtue, but it would keep civilization ordinary to the crack of doom.

Ah! now we are likely to have trouble. Notice, please, the lady coming this way. How graceful and elegant she is. A delicate, refined face and bearing. See how she sidles off from the third and second-class passengers with an expression of distaste for them which suggests pain. She cannot bear coarse people. She believes herself to be an intellectual woman with serious tastes. She aims to be a spiritual person and she reads many essays – by Emerson, Matthew Arnold, Pater, and others. She is fond of history and politics; not of this country, because she claims that it is vulgar and lacks picturesqueness. But she can tell you all about the governments of Europe, and who is prime minister of or in authority in each of them. Democracy does not interest her. It seems to her to concern the affairs of dirty or common people; and she cares nothing for the great social questions of the age. They appear to her to clash with personal spirituality and culture. She is very sensitive. She has made a study of music, especially Wagner. She is very particular as to what she has to eat, but the grossness of men, as she calls it, offends her seriously. She believes herself to be not very strong physically, and she is nervous on the subject of arsenic in wall-papers and germs in drinking-water. She has retained her maidenly instincts to the last.

What is that you ask, madam? A seat in a first-class carriage. Excuse me, you cannot go in there. You belong in the second-class section of the train. Mistake? There is no mistake. I understand perfectly. I'm ready to take your word for it that you have read Dante in the original, and I know that you are

Chaste as the icicleThat's curded by the frost from purest snow,And hangs on Dian's temple.

(Doubtless you recall the quotation.) But you must stay out. Your ticket reads "Personal culture and individual salvation," and it entitles you to ride in any of those second-class cars. You don't like the passengers? I am very sorry, I'm sure, but my instructions are explicit. I was told to keep out all ladies of your kind, who think that the ideal is to be attained by hugging themselves to themselves (excuse the coarseness of the metaphor, madam) all their days in a hot-house atmosphere, and playing bo-peep with their own souls. You intend to write a letter about it to the Boston Evening– ? Oh, very well. You will have to ride second-class, all the same.