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 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 
 
THE KNACK OF IT 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 SOME ESSAYS 
 IN OPTIMISM 
 
 By 
 CHARLES BATTELL LOOMIS 
 
 New 
 
 To 
 
 rk 
 
 Chicago Toronto 
 
 Fleming 
 
 H. 
 
 Revel I Company 
 
 Land 
 
 on 
 
 
 and 
 
 Edinburgh 
 
Copyright, 1906, 1907, 1908, by 
 STREET & SMITH 
 
 Copyright, 1908, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 LiSSARY of OONurtEiSsil 
 Iwo Copies Heteiv^j* 
 
 AUG 22 )^0Q 
 COPY a,* 
 
 TC) 3 
 
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 /<- 
 
 3 
 
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 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 80 Wabash Avenue 
 Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. 
 London: 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 
 
To 
 
 Mrs, Jerome K. Jerome 
 
 In memory of a delightful 
 summer at Gould's Grove 
 
Contents 
 
 
 I 
 
 To the Live Ones .... 
 
 • 9 
 
 II 
 
 On Earning One's Salt 
 
 . 14 
 
 HI 
 On Enthusiasm .... 
 
 . 22 
 
 IV 
 
 Ihe Proper lime For Ill-Temper . 
 
 31 
 
 V 
 
 On Keeping Young .... 
 
 • 39 
 
 VI 
 On Generosity .... 
 
 . 4S 
 
 VII 
 On Friendliness .... 
 
 ' 57 
 
 VIII 
 Express Yourself .... 
 
 , 66 
 
 IX 
 
 On Renting One's Spleen 
 
 . 73 
 
 X 
 
 Pass It Along 
 
 [7] 
 
 80 
 
C ontents 
 
 
 
 XI 
 
 
 
 On Housekeeping and Servant- 
 
 keeping 
 
 90 
 
 XII 
 
 
 
 Mixed Pickles , 
 
 . 
 
 . 100 
 
 XIII 
 
 
 
 The Heart of a Boy 
 
 . 
 
 . 108 
 
 XIV 
 
 
 
 On Revering Riches 
 
 . 
 
 . 117 
 
 XV 
 
 
 
 On the Golden Rule 
 
 
 . 12^ 
 
 XVI 
 
 
 
 On Being Popular . 
 
 • 
 
 ' 135 
 
 XVII 
 
 
 
 On Getting One's Money's 
 
 Worth 
 
 . 143 
 
 XVIII 
 
 
 
 A Word to Fathers 
 
 . 
 
 ' ^53 
 
 XIX 
 
 
 
 Concerning Addition 
 
 . 
 
 ' 159 
 
 XX 
 
 
 
 On Lending .... 
 
 . 
 
 167 
 
 XXI 
 
 
 
 On Getting Paid in One's Own Coin 
 
 . 174 
 
 [8] 
 
To the Live Ones 
 
 AREN'T you glad you're here? 
 Between you and me and the 
 stump isn't the one trouble on 
 earth the fact that there are too many de- 
 lightful things to do, and not that the world 
 is dull ? 
 
 If you think the world is dull see a 
 doctor. 
 
 If you're not having a good time now, 
 think of the good times you have had — 
 revitalize them and you'll find that the 
 juice is not all extracted. 
 
 When the weather is fine that fact alone 
 is worth living for. Just to breathe some- 
 times is to be happy. If the weather is 
 not up to the mark, get busy and you'll 
 forget it. 
 
 If you're a suburbanite think how much 
 [9] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 better off you are than the cramped New 
 Yorker, doomed to hang to straps, and cut 
 off from the beauties of early spring, from 
 canoeing and country walks and golf. 
 
 If you're living in the city think how 
 much better off you are than the poor 
 suburbanite who has to go 'way out home 
 after the theatre. Think of the free picture 
 shows, the accessible concerts, the daily 
 and nightly glitter and movement and in- 
 terest of the New York parade. 
 
 If you're living in the country think how 
 much better off you are than either the 
 city man or the suburbanite, with your 
 freedom from excitement, your early hours, 
 and your roomy environment. 
 
 Just think of the interesting people there 
 are in the world. If you really want to 
 know them you can do it. And if by 
 chance you are cut off from knowing them, 
 think of the interesting ones who have 
 written books in the last three thousand 
 
 [lO] 
 
To the Live Ones 
 
 years. Think of the unpainted pictures 
 that are everywhere just waiting for you 
 to compose them in your mind. 
 
 Think of the unwritten comedies that 
 are being enacted every day everywhere 
 for your delectation ; on ferry-boat, in 
 subway, on train and car and sidewalk, 
 and in your own home and office. 
 
 Think of the fun it is to study people's 
 characteristics. And if you can turn the 
 unpleasant thing of the moment into a 
 joke for future laughter then are you 
 happy indeed. 
 
 Think of the people there are in the 
 world who will not injure you if you do 
 not injure them. Think of your wonder- 
 ful immunity from harm if you mind your 
 own business. And, then, go on, carry 
 the thought a little further — think of the 
 amount of good that people are ready to 
 do you if you meet them half-way 
 Hardly a man in the world but will do you 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 a good turn if you approach him in the 
 right way. And you need not be ashamed 
 to let people do you a good turn because 
 that's a kind of coin of which you may 
 always have plenty to distribute yourself, 
 and what you would do for another man 
 you need make no bones of accepting 
 from him. 
 
 If you are a live one you won't spend 
 your life doing the work that is uncon- 
 genial to you. It's all very well to talk 
 about doing the thing that comes to hand, 
 but perhaps you have never tried doing 
 the thing you can do best of all. Try 
 doing it and you'll know what happiness 
 is. You may not make as much, but 
 you'll begin to live. 
 
 Aren't you sorry for the dead ones ; the 
 ones to whom music and sport and pic- 
 tures and the landscape and their fellow 
 beings mean nothing ; the ones who just 
 doze along with half-closed nostrils and 
 
 [12] 
 
To the Live Ones 
 
 wide open mouths and sleepy eyes and 
 torpid ears and livers ? If they don't live 
 in this world how can they expect to en- 
 joy living in heaven. 
 
 Wake up. Be happy. With honey all 
 around you if s your own fault if you ar- 
 rive at the hive carrying nothing with you. 
 
 Wake up. Try the happiness that re- 
 sults from doing other people good. It's 
 a form of joy that is open to all, and you 
 can begin drawing on it to-day if you will. 
 
 Wake up. Time is passing. How can 
 you have happy memories if you do not 
 give yourself up to being happy now. 
 
 Wake up. Live. Be happy. Let us 
 all be happy together. Hands all round. 
 It's only a knack. 
 
 [13] 
 
II 
 
 On Earning Ones Salt 
 
 ARE you useless? Are you really 
 no good in the world? When 
 you die will people say, "Well, 
 there goes nothing " ? 
 
 If you are, isn't it about time that you 
 began to earn your salt ? Recollect that 
 one can earn one's salt in many ways. 
 
 Our friend, the miserly millionaire, does 
 not earn his salt at all. He makes money 
 — he may even be said to earn money, for 
 he works hard enough in all conscience ; 
 but is the mere accumulation of money 
 earning one's salt ? 
 
 To earn your salt is to pay your way by 
 making some one else the happier by 
 your presence, and this particular miserly 
 millionaire of whom I speak makes no one 
 happy — not even himself. 
 
 [14] 
 
On Earning Ones Salt 
 
 You may be out of a job and unable to 
 obtain work and yet you can earn your 
 salt, if you contribute to the sum of the 
 world's happiness. 
 
 This doesn't mean that it is right to 
 lounge on a street corner and look cheer- 
 ful. 
 
 But if at the end of each day's unsuc- 
 cessful yet conscientious search for work 
 you cheer up the wife who naturally feels 
 your position — or lack of position — more 
 keenly than you do, you're not a drone ; 
 you're entitled to whatever salt you get. 
 
 The poor, starved inventor who was 
 never able to obtain recognition for his in- 
 ventions, but who laboured cheerfully on, 
 putting his heart and soul and body into 
 his work, and who finally died and was 
 buried in a pauper's grave, was sneered at 
 by the successful merchant of his village : 
 " Old Jenniss was never worth a pinch of 
 salt. Hadn't enough gumption to get a 
 
 [15] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 square meal a week. Such people are 
 useless. He's better off dead." 
 
 If we believe in immortality, there are a 
 good many of us who hope to be better 
 off dead, but as old Jenniss was a ray of 
 sunshine in spite of his disappointments 
 and disasters (why, a group of capitalists 
 were all ready to take up his automatic car- 
 coupler when the Chicago fire wiped them 
 out), and as he always firmly believed, 
 even up to his last hour — he died of a 
 paralytic stroke — that success was coming 
 to him soon, he had a direct, though per- 
 haps unconscious, stimulating effect on his 
 neighbours. 
 
 He was not a bad neighbour. When 
 Harkness, the sneering merchant, pro- 
 ceeded to foreclose the mortgage on 
 Deacon Payson's house and farm — an act 
 that would have sent the deacon and his 
 bedridden wife out into the street — it was 
 Jenniss who walked fifteen miles across 
 [ i6 ] 
 
On Earning One s Salt 
 
 country — there was no railroad within ten 
 miles — to state the facts of the case to that 
 warm-hearted and wealthy man, Adams 
 Chaflee; and Jenniss, having proved by 
 that act alone that he was worth his salt, 
 Chaffee showed that he was entitled to all 
 the salt he wanted by paying up interest 
 and principal, and telling the old folks that 
 they had earned the money by their 
 beautiful lives. 
 
 Some persons try to earn their salt by 
 robbing the widows and fatherless, and 
 then giving a tenth of the " loot " to other 
 orphans and widows — in institutions. But 
 a lifetime of such works wouldn't buy a 
 bag of five-cent salt — it really wouldn't. 
 
 But don't sit up with a self-satisfied grin 
 and say, ** I know plenty of rich men who 
 don't earn their salt." 
 
 You are a poor man — do you earn it? 
 Are you sure that I earn it ? I may do noth- 
 ing but give advice at so much a word. 
 
 [17] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 People who are called the salt of the 
 earth have presumably earned their salt so 
 many times over that they could pass for 
 so many Lot's wives. 
 
 It is again getting to be the fashion to 
 read the Bible, so I feel that you understand 
 my allusion. Five years ago, a person un- 
 der twenty-five would have wanted to know 
 who Lot was ; but we have changed all 
 that. The Bible is now a piece of liter- 
 ature, and every man, woman, and child 
 who reads this knows it from cover to cover. 
 (It was King David who said, " All men 
 are liars.") 
 
 ** But if the salt hath lost it savour, 
 wherewithal shall it be salted ? " 
 
 One cannot earn one's salt for good and 
 all by an isolated kindness. 
 
 Even cows need salt every day — much 
 more do humans, and you should see to it 
 that your earning capacity grows with 
 your growth. 
 
 [18] 
 
On Earning Ones Salt 
 
 If you are stupid — ask a candid friend 
 whether you are or not — if you are stupid, 
 you may still do your appointed task in a 
 way to earn a certain amount of favour 
 from your employers by your willingness 
 to do more than is required of you. 
 
 Salt for you then. 
 
 Perhaps you are a maiden aunt in a sis- 
 ter's house, and you feel that you lag su- 
 perfluous. 
 
 Stop feeling so. Do all you can for 
 your nephews and nieces, and refrain from 
 giving the usual advice of a maiden aunt, 
 and much salt shall be added unto you. 
 
 When you underpay your servant, and 
 he gives you good satisfaction, in spite of 
 his wages, think what salt he is laying up 
 for himself. 
 
 The thousand-dollar-man in the com- 
 pany who does his work with a cheerful 
 spirit, and with all the vim that is in him — 
 when he meets the president of his com- 
 
 [19] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 pany, face to face in the spirit land — will 
 find that the angels think him just as much 
 of a man, in spite of his ridiculously poor 
 earning capacity on earth. 
 
 No, the big salaried men canU earn their 
 salt. 
 
 I once knew a fellow of whom it was said 
 that ** he wasn't worth the powder to blow 
 him to Hades I " 
 
 He hasn't been blown to Hades yet, and 
 he may never compass the necessary pow- 
 der, but to-day he is earning an honest 
 living, and has made something of a name 
 as a painter, while the fellow who made 
 the remark, and who could only measure 
 success by the yard-stick, earned his pow- 
 der long ago — and took his departure. 
 
 I'd like to be by when those two meet — 
 on opposite shores. 
 
 Don't worry about the other fellow's 
 earning capacity, but see to it that when 
 the Lord gives you each day your daily 
 
 [20] 
 
On Earni?tg Ones Salt 
 
 bread, you yourself provide the savour 
 for it. 
 
 Some people say, ** The world owes me 
 a living," and they send out agents to col- 
 lect the debt. But a better adage is, '' I 
 owe the world a helpful life." 
 
 You owe it to yourself to pay your 
 brother what you owe him, and since every 
 man is your brother, you owe something 
 to every man with whom you come in con- 
 tact. See that you pay the debt in the 
 coinage of kindliness, good manners, high 
 spirits — whatever kind of coin you can best 
 lay your hands on — and then, no matter if 
 your crops fail or your schemes go awry, 
 or you '' get no orders," or you are only a 
 poor, despised orphan in an institution, you 
 will have earned your salt, and can hold 
 up your head in any company whatsoever. 
 
 [21] 
 
Ill 
 
 On Enthusiasm 
 
 ARE you enthusiastic? Do you 
 voice your delight in a thing you 
 Hke even to the point of extrava- 
 gance ? 
 
 Good I It's a good fault, believe me. 
 
 They tell me that this world of ours is 
 considerable of a success, and I thoroughly 
 believe it. It is, in fact, a huge success, 
 with all its faults — but I'll tell you some- 
 thing that is no secret, and that is the fact 
 that enthusiasm made this world a success. 
 
 When Enthusiasm marries Perseverance, 
 you may be sure that the name of their 
 first-born will be Success. 
 
 Enthusiasm is born in some people 
 whom the fates have placed among those 
 who think the outward expression of an 
 inward joy bad form. These latter say 
 
 [22] 
 
On Ent husiasm 
 
 that to be in transports over such inevi- 
 table and usual things as sunsets and pic- 
 tures and friends and workmanship of all 
 kinds is to show the lack of a critical spirit, 
 but they are wrong. One may be enthu- 
 siastic over the wrong thing beyond a 
 doubt, but it is better, sometimes, to '* slop 
 over " genuinely than to stand in unawed 
 silence before a thing of beauty that 
 should compel delighted expression. 
 
 Enthusiasm has the measles-like habit of 
 spreading until it inoculates a whole group. 
 
 If some one hadn't been enthusiastic, we 
 might still be using sailing vessels to reach 
 Davy Jones' locker, and we might still be 
 running people down with carriages in- 
 stead of motor-cars. 
 
 You take a town where there is no pub- 
 lic spirit (which is related to enthusiasm), 
 and let some one advocate the building of 
 a new town hall to replace the dingy and 
 drafty barn in which lecturers have caught 
 
 [23] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 pneumonia from time immemorial, and, 
 one after another, the townspeople will 
 say : " Oh, what's the use? Probably we 
 wouldn't like it when we got it." '* No 
 doubt they^d put up a monstrosity." 
 "Want to spend the people's money, do 
 they ? Well, I'm against it." 
 
 So it'll go, and the ramshackle hacks 
 will continue to dump you at the cheerless 
 old barn, and no one will enjoy any lec- 
 tures or anything else that is given in the 
 place, and the town will eventually die of 
 dry-rot and blow away. 
 
 But let one man of force and enthusiasm 
 setde in that town, and let him tell the 
 people how they put up a town hall in Q, 
 and that it was the beginning of a new era 
 in good architecture, and that it started a 
 gentle litde boom that has been developing 
 the town ever since ; let him go around in 
 season and out of season (but not too much 
 out of season) and advocate various im- 
 
 [24] 
 
On Enthusiasm 
 
 provements that will serve to put the town 
 in the place where she belongs in the 
 county, and after a while people will catch 
 some of his enthusiasm, and a village im- 
 provement society will be formed, and 
 women will wake up and borrow a little of 
 his enthusiasm, and blow on it until it 
 flames up and kindles blazes in every 
 heart, and in a few years when you go to 
 that place to lecture or to visit you won't 
 know the spruce little town that has taken 
 the place of the sleepy back-number of a 
 village. 
 
 Enthusiasm built this world and swung 
 it into motion in the universe. Yes, and 
 enthusiasm lit all the stars, and gave them 
 the push that has kept them going ever 
 since. 
 
 Depend upon it, whether you believe all 
 there is to believe or not, that the verse in 
 Genesis which says, ** And God looked 
 upon the earth, and it was good," means a 
 
 [25] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 lot. It means that enthusiasm antedated 
 the paleozoic age. God set the fashion 
 for enthusiasm, and it ill becomes feeble- 
 blooded folk to decry it. 
 
 There is good enthusiasm and there is 
 bad enthusiasm, but both lead to " suc- 
 cess." Both kinds, I repeat, lead to 
 ** success." 
 
 Picture a bunco-steerer who met a 
 farmer on Forty-second Street and said to 
 him in a lackadaisical w^ay : " I don't 
 believe you're John Perkins, of Stub Hol- 
 low." 
 
 The farmer would be apt to say : " I 
 don't believe it, either, and if you'll excuse 
 me, I'll be going on, for I notice there's 
 consid'able to see, and I on'y brought two 
 eyes along with me." And then he would 
 leave the spiritless bunco-steerer, who 
 would walk away disconsolate and say to 
 himself : " Why did my parents make 
 me take up bunco-steering, when I 
 
 [26] 
 
On Enthusiasm 
 
 haven't the slightest aptitude for it, and 
 don't like it, and don't believe in it? I 
 think it's positively immoral, and if I had 
 my life to live over again, I'd try to do 
 something I liked instead of trying to do 
 people I don't care for, and wouldn't care 
 if I never met again." 
 
 But take the enthusiastic bunco-steerer, 
 the man who really loves his work. How 
 his eyes sparkle as he sees James Petti- 
 bone walking along Cortlandt Street, 
 looking at the sky-scrapers. 
 
 " Well, well, I miss my guess if this 
 isn't " and then he stops and stam- 
 mers, and says jovially and with great 
 bonhomie: ''There I am again — folk's 
 names simply won't come to my tongue. 
 I know you just as well as I know Zed 
 Mason, of Peapack, but I never can get 
 your name when I want it." 
 
 All this time he is pumping James' hand 
 with the greatest zest, and James, being of 
 
 [27] 
 
The Knack of It: 
 
 a kindly nature, is all aglow that some 
 one in the great city of New York should 
 know him. Probably some of the summer 
 folk that boarded at brother Eli's. And, 
 looking out of his innocent blue eyes into 
 the equally guileless blue eyes of the mas- 
 ter bunco-steerer, he says : ** James Petti- 
 bone is my name, and I suppose you was 
 up to Eli's last summer. Brother Eli had 
 his house crammed, didn't he? " 
 
 ** He certainly did, and as long as that 
 wife of his '^ 
 
 Here a slight pause, to ascertain 
 whether a wife is allowable under the cir- 
 cumstances. Seeing no token of surprise 
 in Mr. Pettibone's face, he goes on en- 
 thusiastically : " As long as that wife of 
 his keeps on cooking such good things, so 
 long he'll have a house full of boarders 
 every summer. Now I want you to let me 
 show you around the town. I didn't see 
 much of you up in the country, but you're 
 
 [28] 
 
On Enthusiasm 
 
 Eli's brother, and that's enough for a New 
 Yorker, born and bred like me. We New 
 Yorkers are noted for our hospitality, and 
 when we can do for strangers, we do 
 it. My wife will be tickled to death to see 
 you, and on our way I want to take you 
 to seethe most remarkable chance " 
 
 Well, you know the rest. Good old 
 James' heart is beating fast, and it won't 
 be long before he will part with his money 
 in one of the well-established ways set 
 apart by bunco-men for the separating of 
 green hands and greenbacks. And en- 
 thusiasm did the trick. 
 
 I am not advocating the establishment 
 of night-schools for the study of en- 
 thusiastic bunco-steering, but I'm trying to 
 show what a power enthusiasm is. 
 
 You write a book, and you think that 
 salesmen and advertising sell it. But the 
 thing that sells it is enthusiasm on the 
 part of its readers. If they like it so much 
 
 [29] 
 
The Knack of If 
 
 that it sets their tongues wagging in its 
 favour, why, it's you who are the candi- 
 date for the fat royalty accounts. 
 
 Enthusiasm warms the cockles of the 
 struggler's heart when you praise his 
 work. And enthusiasm never belittles. 
 
 If you are enthusiastic, if you give way 
 to sincere enthusiasms, though people may 
 laugh gently at your effervescence, they 
 will love you in the long run. 
 
 Therefore, with all thy getting, get en- 
 thusiasm. 
 
 [30] 
 
IV 
 
 The Proper Time for Ill-Temper 
 
 I KNOW a man who is only unpleasant 
 three or four hours out of his whole 
 waking day. He is almost every- 
 where spoken of as " that genial Bob 
 Sanders." 
 
 He is affable to the brakeman on the 
 suburban train ; pleasant to the deck-hands 
 and car-conductors with whom he is 
 brought in contact ; agreeable to his 
 clerks ; always has a cheery smile for the 
 old woman who sells papers at the ferry- 
 house ; and when he is with his business 
 friends at lunch he is the soul of good fel- 
 lowship. 
 
 He really does a good deal of good in 
 the world. The newswoman relishes his 
 smile ; the deck-hands always pass the 
 time of day with him ; the brakemen go 
 
 [31] 
 
T h e Kn ack of It 
 
 out of their way to open an obstinate car- 
 window for him ; his clerks are better work- 
 men because of his human way with them, 
 and his companions at lunch or at a public 
 dinner are all enabled to be better men just 
 because Bob Sanders spreads sunshine. 
 
 From the time he boards his train in the 
 morning until he comes home late and 
 tired he is a model citizen. 
 
 What wonder, then, if for the remaining 
 two or three hours he is cross and fretful 
 and nervous ? A man has to have a let- 
 down some time, and as Sanders has only 
 three children — two boys and a girl — and 
 but one wife (and she's a very little one), 
 there are not many in the world who suffer 
 by his acidity of temper. 
 
 Now, just suppose for a minute that 
 he pretended to be amiable and long-suf- 
 fering and jolly with his wife and children, 
 and then went out into the world and 
 vented his real feelings on his clerks and 
 [32] 
 
The Proper Time for III- Temper 
 
 the brakemen and the deck-hands ; scowl- 
 ing at the old newswoman, and surly and 
 sour to his business acquaintances and 
 luncheon associates. What sort of reputa- 
 tion do you suppose he would have, and 
 what sort of good would he do in the 
 world ? 
 
 Does irritability get the best work out of 
 clerks? Do fussy passengers inspire train 
 hands with a desire to serve them ? Are 
 grumpy men popular at a lunch-club or a 
 public dinner? 
 
 Why, of course not. If Sanders saved 
 his urbanity for his family and were cross 
 in public, there's not a person who would 
 call him " genial Bob," and his influence in 
 the world at large would be a distinctly 
 bad one. 
 
 Depend upon it, my dear friends, if 
 
 you're going in for a reputation for whole- 
 
 souledness, the family is a very small field 
 
 of endeavour, and it yields little publicity. 
 
 [33] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 Of course, if you have kindliness enough 
 to last you from sun-up to bedtime, and can 
 begin the day by being a human sunbeam 
 in the family circle, irradiate cockle-warm- 
 ing friendliness on the train and ferry-boat, 
 make the old woman at the ferry-gates 
 feel that she has at least one friend if she 
 should ever want to borrow as much as a 
 quarter, fill your clerks with an insatiable 
 desire to serve your interests to the best of 
 their ability, and let mirth and jollity loose 
 at the lunch -table ; and can then go home 
 and make your family happier for your 
 presence — why, I want to say to you that 
 if they got up a parade of such men as 
 you, and President Roosevelt were to start 
 reviewing it at eleven o'clock, he wouldn't 
 be late to lunch. 
 
 Just imagine the great American public 
 foisting its home manners on the outside 
 world I Why, life in the streets would be 
 unsafe — it really would. 
 [34] 
 
The Proper Time for III- Temper 
 
 Here's our friend Mr. Allen, who has 
 just been through a whirlwind experience 
 at home, trying to catch his morning train. 
 His wife is sitting on a hall chair gasping 
 with the consequent fatigue ; his children 
 have gone snarling to school, following his 
 home example. 
 
 Now, let us suppose that Mr. Brown, 
 who has been through a similar experience 
 in his own home, and whose wife is pant- 
 ing in the pantry, and his children are 
 quarrelling off to school, were to greet Mr. 
 Allen pleasantly and say, '* It's going to be 
 a hot day," and Mr. Allen were to say in 
 reply, " Confound you I don't you see I'm 
 reading my paper?" what sort of man 
 would Brown think Allen ? 
 
 Or if Allen said to the newswoman, 
 ** Here, get out of my way. You're block- 
 ing the passage. Women like you ought 
 to be indicted as nuisances," would the 
 world be any better for his presence ? 
 
 [35] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 If hot words must be said, let them be 
 said in the sanctity of the home. Let us 
 at any cost preserve our pubhc reputations 
 for suavity and patience. Even as it is, 
 there is a good deal of bad blood shown 
 in public. 
 
 A thought has just struck me : Are 
 those irascible business men who vent their 
 spleen on clerks and conductors and their 
 business associates, men who, having only 
 a small stock of good temper, save it for 
 use at home ? 
 
 It may be so. Fancy, then, what a 
 shock it must be to Mrs. Smith, who 
 adores her husband as the most even-tem- 
 pered man in the world, when she happens 
 in at his office and finds him cursing the 
 clerks and spreading bad manners every- 
 where. Shocks like that are not good 
 for a woman. Better far for Mr. Smith 
 to mix his good and bad temper to- 
 gether, and evenly distribute the result 
 
 [36] 
 
The Proper Time for Ill-Temper 
 
 on clerk and child, workman and wife 
 alike. 
 
 A friend, who sometimes watches me as 
 I press the keys, and who can read my ar- 
 ticles on the keyboard in the act of being 
 set down on paper, says that I am in a 
 cynical and unpleasant mood, and she's glad 
 she wasn't one of my family this morning. 
 
 Now, there she wrongs me, because I 
 woke up feeling just as amiable as I could, 
 and if the children had only appreciated 
 how amiable I was, all would have been 
 well, in spite of the awful heat, and this ar- 
 ticle would have turned out to be some- 
 thing to make people forget their troubles 
 (even while I was remembering my own 
 just as hard as I could), but it was hot, and 
 they were cross, and I said things that I 
 regretted before I had given utterance to 
 'em, but just couldn't help letting 'em fly, 
 and they answered back, and we had a lit- 
 tle give and take that showed them lack- 
 
 [37] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 ing in paternal reverence and me lacking 
 in parental reserve. 
 
 Then I went out for a walk, met some 
 neighbours, and was so amiable that I 
 overheard one of them say as I left, ** I 
 wonder if he ever is cross," which puffed 
 me up considerable, even in the face of 
 what I had said at home. 
 
 Oh, I tell you we are a queer lot, those 
 of us who are people. I dare say that 
 some of us won't become perfect for sev- 
 eral months. 
 
 But, at any rate, I am going to show my 
 real side to the public and be amiable — 
 and if I'm cross at home, why, that's only 
 a little veneer that I put on for the occa- 
 sion. 
 
 It's the basic wood underneath that 
 really counts, you know. Veneers are 
 generally taken at their true value. 
 
 [38] 
 
On Keeping Young 
 
 DO you say every morning when 
 you get up, " I am still young " ? 
 It will be worth your while to do 
 it, my friend. A man is not the frame- 
 work that holds in place his clothes. To 
 reverse it, the framework that holds in 
 place his clothes is not the real man. 
 That framework does age, there's no 
 doubt of it. Its joints creak, the muscles 
 grow flabby, the legs and arms grow re- 
 bellious and refuse to move as fast as they 
 used to move, the eye gets tired of seeing 
 things clearly and sees things **as in a 
 glass, darkly." 
 
 But don't we all know that a man's 
 clothes-horse, so to speak, is not the man 
 himself ? The real man is that something 
 that no one has ever been able to see or 
 
 [39] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 to put his hand upon, that something 
 that Hves forever. And does immortality 
 age? 
 
 The stars are to all intents and purposes 
 immortal, but have you noticed any per- 
 ceptible diminution of their brilliance since, 
 well, since we became the greatest nation 
 that the sun ever shone upon ? 
 
 We — our spirits — are immortal and for 
 us to age is for us to commit an un- 
 pardonable folly. 
 
 Don't look at your face in a glass and 
 ask yourself, ** Am I getting old ? " 
 Look at your spirit in the glass of your 
 friend's treatment of you and try to dis- 
 cover whether it is getting old. And if it 
 is — drop ten years. 
 
 It will not be so hard as it seems. 
 Think young thoughts. Keep your mind 
 wide open to the reception of new ideas. 
 Don't, when you get to be forty, say to 
 yourself, ** I'm one of the has-beens." 
 
 [40] 
 
On Keeping Young 
 
 Only forty years old ! Why, you ought 
 to be a colt at forty. 
 
 Take, for instance, Manuel Garcia. I 
 don't mean the Cuban patriot, but the 
 Manuel Garcia who over eighty years ago 
 brought to America the first Italian opera 
 company. 
 
 I say, take, for instance, Manuel Garcia. 
 The young man died recently at the age 
 of one hundred and two. 
 
 They gave a dinner to our young friend, 
 Manuel, when he was a hundred, and he 
 made a speech full of wit ; a speech that 
 showed that he did not consider one 
 hundred years half as heavy a load as 
 some undergraduates esteem their twenty- 
 one years. 
 
 If Manuel Garcia was still alive and 
 busy at one hundred and two, and if, in 
 our own country, Charles Haynes Haswell 
 (born in the same year as Lincoln and 
 Mendelssohn and Gladstone and Holmes 
 
 [41] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 and Edgar Allan Poe) the mechanical 
 engineer, at ninety-seven still went to his 
 office on Broadway every day, buoyant 
 and blithe, who has a right to establish a 
 " dead-line " at forty and push you over it 
 and say, " By-by, old man. Glad to have 
 met you. Hope you'll be happy among 
 the used-to-wases " ? 
 
 You can't shove me over that way, and 
 I've forgotten just when / was forty. 
 
 Why, for all I know, I have sixty years 
 before me. And if a man has sixty years 
 to come, what are forty odd that have 
 go7ie? Nothing. A mere fortnight's 
 holiday in the country. 
 
 Don't you let these beardless fellows—- 
 oh, dear, I forgot ; we're all of us beard- 
 less now since the winds blew our 
 whiskers away — but don't let the young- 
 sters tell you when you're to get old. 
 
 They tell of a youth of one hundred and 
 seven, in San Francisco, who was met just 
 
 [42] 
 
On Keeping Young 
 
 after ** the fire " and who was asked how 
 he had fared. 
 
 '' Lost everything. Got to begin life 
 over again," said he jauntily. 
 
 That's the stuff ! He was the quintes- 
 sence of the spirit that is going to make 
 the new San Francisco the wonder of the 
 world. 
 
 Do you suppose that that forty line 
 counts for anything out there? No, my 
 Christian — or heathen — friend, it does not. 
 They are all young men and women to- 
 gether over there. And they are going to 
 build the City of Youth out there by the 
 waters of the Pacific. 
 
 It is almost too soon to say it now, but 
 the time will come when San Francisco 
 will look on her disaster as a great bless- 
 ing. 
 
 Why? Because it was the touchstone 
 that showed her citizens what stuff was in 
 them. They have agreed to stop believing 
 [43] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 in old age ; and the septuagenarian painter 
 whose landscapes — the glory of the coast 
 States — were destroyed by fire and who 
 wrote a friend in the East who had con- 
 doled with him, ** I am going to paint bet- 
 ter pictures than ever," and the octogen- 
 arian whose hotel was blown up to stop 
 the progress of the flames and who, being 
 in New York at the time, went back at 
 once to render aid to those worse off than 
 himself, and the young man who lost his 
 job as a clerk and found another as a city 
 builder are all working together, shoulder 
 to shoulder. 
 
 The earthquake stopped the supply of 
 water in the great mains, but it let loose 
 the fountain of youth that was formerly 
 supposed to be in Florida, and men, 
 women, and children are drinking of it 
 eagerly. 
 
 Read the private letters that some of 
 your friends or you yourselves must have 
 [44] 
 
On Keeping Young 
 
 received from those living in San Francisco 
 when the shock came. But one spirit 
 breathes from them all. It is not a vain 
 cry of ** Time is flying " that we find in 
 those letters, but *' There is yet time. 
 We're starting afresh — to-day ! " 
 
 And starting afresh is only another way 
 of saying, " We are young." 
 
 Keep young, then, you of the East, and 
 the South, and the North. Let San Fran- 
 cisco's quake shake out of you the feeling 
 of old age that was creeping into your 
 senses. 
 
 To be sure, there are sky-rockets of 
 twenty-five and thirty that rise brilliantly, 
 but they may be spent sticks in a few years. 
 Let your flame of life burn steadily, and 
 replenish it from time to time with young 
 thoughts — Young's '' Night Thoughts " 
 would help — and you'll be as young at 
 fifty and sixty as you were at forty or thirty 
 or twenty — no, you were old at twenty ; 
 [45] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 older than you'll ever be again — and you'll 
 force these arrant young masters of three 
 decades or less to move the dead-line 
 farther on, or perhaps relegate it to the 
 limbo of useless things. 
 
 Why should there be a dead-line until 
 you are lying prone and your friends have 
 neglected to i* omit flowers " ? 
 
 A man once told me that when he was a 
 boy he knew a very old man who died and 
 was buried. Years afterwards while walk- 
 ing through the cemetery, he came on this 
 old man's tomb, and just for curiosity, 
 looked to see how old he was when he 
 died. 
 
 " And, sir, he was only forty-two and I 
 was forty-five the day I looked, and I felt 
 as young as I ever did. I suppose the 
 youngsters think I'm old, but they're mis- 
 taken." 
 
 If disease spares you, youth lies in your 
 own hands. 
 
 [46] 
 
On Keeping Young 
 
 What is the secret? Kindly thoughts, 
 good cheer, and the feeUng that you have 
 not robbed another man in getting what 
 you need. Of course, if you have failed to 
 see that other people have rights and have 
 simply played the fascinating, but wicked, 
 game of ** grab," you'll grow old so fast 
 that people will forget that you ever were 
 young. 
 
 They say a woman's as old as she looks, 
 but a man is as old as he feels. 
 
 Make it your pleasure to feel as young 
 as you can, and induce your wife to do the 
 same — for I don't believe the ungallant 
 first clause of the aphorism — and you'll get 
 so young that your son will call you ** my 
 boy," and you'll call him " old chap." 
 
 And a nation of "young men" is un- 
 conquerable. 
 
 [47] 
 
VI 
 
 On Generosity 
 
 ARE you generous ? I say " you," 
 but I don't mean the person who 
 happens to be reading these words 
 any more than I mean to be thinking of 
 my own generosity or meanness. By 
 *'you" I mean every one but the person 
 who happens to be reading this. 
 
 Are you people who constitute the pub- 
 lic generous ? 
 
 Some man who didn't give a cent or a 
 thing when the call came from San Fran- 
 cisco inflates his chest and says : ** Yes, 
 look what we Americans did for the suffer- 
 ers by the earthquake and fire." 
 
 And he's honestly proud of their gener- 
 osity. There are lots of people who are 
 proud of the generosity of their fellows, 
 but when they are called upon to be gen- 
 
 [48] 
 
On Generosity 
 
 erous personally they say : " Oh, what's 
 the use of my doing anything? Fm only 
 one person. I have heavy theatre and sup- 
 per bills. It isn't up to me to hand any- 
 thing out for this affair. But I wish you 
 success. We Americans are a generous 
 lot, and I know you'll meet with a hearty 
 response from men better able to give 
 than I." 
 
 But it's not only the giving of money 
 that makes a man generous. Here's John 
 Marchbanks, who made his money in 
 ** pure leaf lard " (*' Bubbly Creek Brand," 
 with a picture on each box of a rippling 
 stream bubbling over pebbles out in the 
 country, and clean little pigs coming down 
 to drink). 
 
 He gave ten thousand dollars to the San 
 Franciscans. That is, he asked his secre- 
 tary to make out a check for the amount. 
 He personally did not lift a finger or give 
 the matter a second thought. A mental 
 [49] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 picture of their desolate condition was not 
 in his busy brain at all. 
 
 They say his income is ten thousand dol- 
 lars a pleasant day — and just as much on 
 unpleasant ones. 
 
 George Parsons, of the same church as 
 that attended by John Marchbanks, did not 
 give a single, solitary cent. 
 
 And yet — why can't John Marchbanks be 
 as generous as George Parsons is ? 
 
 For, although Parsons couldn't and 
 didn't give a cent of money, he gave two 
 suits of clothes (and he has only three) and 
 so many shirts and other articles of under- 
 wear that his wife says she doesn't see how 
 he's going to get along next winter. 
 
 The papers had editorials about John 
 Marchbanks' generosity, but I searched in 
 vain for any reference to the generosity of 
 George Parsons. 
 
 Some people seem to think that ten 
 thousand dollars is always a generous sum. 
 
 [50] 
 
On Generosity 
 
 If you have ten thousand dollars and give 
 ten thousand dollars it's magnificent — it is 
 also unbelievable. 
 
 To Marchbanks, the giving of ten thou- 
 sand dollars represents a day's income and 
 a request to his secretary. Marchbanks 
 himself is not put to the least bit of trouble, 
 and he spends his morning playing golf, 
 while Parsons goes canvassing among 
 his friends for enough clothes to make up 
 a large box, and gives up a whole day to 
 it — in a busy season. 
 
 Of course, there are rich men who are 
 generous by any standards except those of 
 the widow's mite. No rich man (who gets 
 his name in the papers) has ever been as gen- 
 erous as she was. There have been those 
 who have said that to die rich was to die dis- 
 graced, and yet have gone on courting dis- 
 grace in four-in-hand, steamer, and rail- 
 road-train. 
 
 Give yourself to your children. To most 
 
 [51] 
 
The Knack of li 
 
 mothers, such advice is unnecessary. 
 They are generosity itself in their attitude 
 towards their children, but we men are apt 
 to think children a necessary (and rather 
 lovable) nuisance, and beyond toiling for 
 their keep in a somewhat mechanical way, 
 we give them little. 
 
 Give them some of your spare time. It 
 may keep you out of mischief. 
 
 Be generous to the servants within your 
 gates. I don't mean pay them wages that 
 will seriously pinch you, but after you 
 have agreed upon a just wage, see to it 
 that you deal with them generously — that 
 your wife makes their rooms attractive ; 
 that they have something to read after 
 their work is done. And be generous of 
 praise if their work pleases you. 
 
 Do you know who are more generous 
 than city people ? 
 
 Country people are more generous. 
 
 There is more real fellowship in a small 
 
 [52] 
 
On Generosity 
 
 farming community than there is in a fairly- 
 large city. 
 
 Farmers are not usually generous with 
 money. Some of them rarely handle actual 
 cash, their trading being in the nature of 
 produce for necessities. They help each 
 other, though. If Brown, who is poor, falls 
 sick and has no " women folks " to look 
 after him, perhaps Burke-Hastings, who 
 summers in the country and who is a 
 kindly man, sends a trained nurse to him. 
 
 But summer people are not always 
 thoughtful of the needs of country folk, 
 and it may be that there are no summer 
 people in the section in which Brown lives. 
 I have known farmers, in such a case, to 
 alternate in sitting up' with Brown, while 
 their wives saw to it that he had ministra- 
 tions and tempting food. 
 
 The comic papers have held up the hard- 
 fisted, close-fingered farmer to ridicule for 
 so long that to a great many otherwise in- 
 [53] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 telligent people " farmer " means a stingy- 
 man ; but a large proportion of the food 
 and clothing that went to San Francisco 
 in her time of need, went direct from farm- 
 ers and their good wives. 
 
 Teach your children to be generous. If 
 they seem to be grasping and selfish, try 
 to reshape their characters just as you 
 would try to make them speak melodiously 
 if, by a rare chance, they had nasal or rasp- 
 ing voices. Thanks to your efforts, there 
 are now no unpleasant voices in the com- 
 ing generation. See to it that there are no 
 children who are mean. 
 
 Some of you are generous already — gen- 
 erous of advice. That is a form of gener- 
 osity that is never appreciated at its full 
 value. I have given people advice that I 
 simply wouldn't have taken from another, 
 even if I had been starving for advice. 
 And oftentimes those to whom I gave it 
 have gone away without it. Sometimes 
 [54] 
 
On Generosity 
 
 thinking that they have forgotten it, I have 
 gone after them with it — to learn that their 
 neglect of it was intentional — that they did 
 not care to take it. 
 
 I have a friend who is most generous 
 with advice — he is always giving it to me 
 — the very kind he needs himself, and I 
 will not allow him to rob himself, and I re- 
 fuse to take it. It's easy to be generous 
 with advice, but if you take my advice you 
 won't ever give it. 
 
 But if any of you need my well-meant 
 remarks in regard to generosity, take them 
 to yourselves without a thought of me. In 
 fact, I'd rather you would not think of me 
 in this connection at all. I may have a 
 totally different conception of generosity 
 from what you have. 
 
 I'll be content if these words of mine 
 make the people of this country even half 
 as generous again as they are. 
 
 For we are known the world over for be- 
 [55] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 ing generous, and our millionaires got the 
 suggestion of generosity from the plain 
 people, who, man for man, are more gen- 
 erous than they. 
 
 The printer has suggested that if I am a 
 niggard of words on this page it will leave 
 too much white paper showing, and so just 
 to avoid the suspicion of being ungenerous 
 I add a few words that will do little else 
 than fill up. There is really food for an 
 article in this thought, but I have about 
 come to the end of my tether and can say 
 no more. 
 
 Meanwhile, let us give three cheers for 
 the widow and her mite. 
 
 [56] 
 
VII 
 
 On Friendliness 
 
 FRIENDLINESS is not the most 
 unprofitable grace to cultivate. 
 Friendliness sometimes goes farther 
 than expensive car-springs or elaborate 
 menus or comfortable beds in making 
 travel a pleasant thing, and it can even be 
 practiced in the home circle and the busi- 
 ness office and pay a pretty good percent- 
 age of profit on the amount invested. 
 
 You yourself feel drawn towards that 
 friendly child — the one who answers pleas- 
 antly when you speak to him in passing. 
 And as you feel concerning him other folk 
 will feel in regard to you if you give out 
 some of your natural warmth. 
 
 One of the queer things about genuine 
 friendliness is the way in which it meets 
 with the very same attribute in persons of 
 the most diverse temperaments. 
 
 [57] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 Once there were three persons making 
 a tour of the United States. Their way 
 led them through the portals of some of the 
 rankest as well as some of the most luxu- 
 rious hotels in the country, and^they met 
 some of the most disagreeable experiences 
 as well as some of the most charming 
 people. There were manifold discomforts 
 of railway travel ; there were departures at 
 chilly and sunless hours in the early morn- 
 ing, and arrivals at drizzly and freezing 
 hours in the late night ; there were meals 
 to be eaten that surely could never have 
 been intended for consumption by civilized 
 beings ; and in spite of many, many hours 
 of delight and pleasure there were many 
 hours of dreary discomfort. 
 
 One of the party was an English lady, 
 and she left the shores of England with the 
 most friendly feelings for Americans as a 
 race, and for those people with whom she 
 was to come in contact in particular. 
 
 [58] 
 
On Friendliness 
 
 Friendliness is not dutiable, and she was 
 allowed to bring in her entire stock without 
 question, and just as soon as she set foot 
 on terra firma (as I can testify of my own 
 knowledge) she began to irradiate it and 
 with as imperceptible a diminution of it as 
 that observed in radium. 
 
 Gruff reporters who were used to getting 
 what they were sent for with scant regard 
 for manners, as well as those of the more 
 gallant kind, felt bound to add to this 
 woman's stock, of which she had so great 
 a supply, and they offered to make her 
 way easier just as the passengers on the 
 voyage had gone out of their way to add 
 to her comfort. 
 
 She had not gone many hundred miles 
 before she had made several discoveries — 
 American men were the most courteous 
 and the most obliging she had ever met ; 
 American women were so agreeable when 
 travelling ; American children were so re- 
 
 [59] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 markably well-behaved on trains and in 
 hotels ; and American dogs were the friend- 
 liest creatures imaginable. 
 
 There was not a chambermaid, white or 
 black, who came in contact with this little 
 Englishwoman who did not express a wish 
 to go back to England and live with her. 
 The stories of their lives that she carried 
 with her were many, curious, and various. 
 
 Fretful babies in railway-stations waiting 
 for snowed-up trains forgot their worries in 
 looking at the wonderful ornaments at- 
 tached to her chatelaine, and stray dogs 
 came up to be petted and to hear stories 
 of the little fox-terrier she had left be- 
 hind. 
 
 Nor was it blarney that caused her to 
 express her belief in the universal friendli- 
 ness of the Americans. She wished every- 
 body well, and the knowledge of that wish 
 shining through her pleasant countenance 
 caused everybody to wish her well, and 
 
 [60] 
 
On Friendliness 
 
 society was on its best behaviour when she 
 was around. 
 
 Fifteen thousand miles were travelled 
 before she set foot on the steamer that was 
 to take her back to her native land, and in 
 all that time I never heard her utter a 
 serious complaint. In the worst hotel I 
 ever entered (the best one in the town), 
 where the food was so uninviting and void 
 of nourishment that I bought a half-dozen 
 fresh eggs at a grocer's in order to stave 
 oil starvation, she thought the vinegar the 
 best she had ever tasted. " It had quite a 
 bouquet." It was good vinegar, but I 
 don't think the proprietor will ever build 
 up any great business on vinegar alone. 
 
 Even he, although he knew no more 
 about making people comfortable than a 
 porcupine hung up by the hind legs, was 
 friendly to the little Englishwoman and 
 hoped she was well pleased. Pathetic 
 hope! 
 
 [6i] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 When we were luxuriating at a perfect 
 hotel amid the orange-groves of southern 
 California we could laugh at the "best 
 vinegar " of the Dakota hostelry, but we 
 never laughed at the friendliness of our 
 companion. 
 
 She received attentions on every hand 
 from people who had no idea who she 
 was, and all by virtue of her genuine 
 friendliness. 
 
 Friendliness is a species of magic. 
 Take a little of it — being careful to shake 
 all condescension out of it — when you go 
 prowling in the poorer quarters of any 
 large city you may visit in the course of 
 your travels. You'll add to the stock of 
 friendliness in that quarter, and yet you'll 
 come back with your supply undimin- 
 ished. 
 
 Why do travellers think English police- 
 men the best specimens of their kind? 
 Because they are so friendly. They thaw 
 
 [62] 
 
On Friendliness 
 
 us out. English reserve would be extinct 
 if it depended upon the London ** bob- 
 bies " to keep up the supply. They are 
 seemingly on the street solely to set you 
 right and to make your going and coming 
 pleasant ; and after you have asked the 
 way of half a dozen of them you get a stock 
 of good nature that lasts the rest of the day. 
 
 Don't blame the little chap who doesn't 
 answer when you pass the time of day 
 with him. Follow him home and ask his 
 parents to make him responsive. You'll 
 have to exercise a good deal of tact in do- 
 ing this and you may get into a scrap, but 
 if it teaches the boy to be friendly it will 
 be worth your while. 
 
 But don't let your friendliness degen- 
 erate into mealy-mouthedness. The hus- 
 band of the English lady was also 
 friendly, and travelling with him was a 
 pleasure, but he once gave me advice that 
 I will never forget. " If you have suffered 
 
 [63] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 a wrong that needs righting, see to it that 
 you get angry before the other fellow does. 
 It will give you an advantage over him." 
 
 This he exemplified when through the 
 stupidity of a gateman we had lost a train 
 for Chicago from Indianapolis. There 
 happened to be another train for Chicago 
 on another road just about to pull out 
 from the Union Station. 
 
 Quick as a flash my Englishman flew 
 into a furious rage and had two or three 
 officials looking into the matter as to why 
 we had lost our train. He also demanded 
 new tickets for us over the other line — and 
 he got them just in time for us to jump 
 aboard the train and move smoothly on 
 our way to Chicago. 
 
 Then breaking into a genial smile, he 
 said to me : *' Always get angry first. 
 They might have made us think it was our 
 fault if I hadn't stormed a bit." 
 
 That was a case where friendliness 
 
 [64] 
 
On Friendliness 
 
 might have worked the same result, but in 
 the opinion of the EngHshman there was 
 no time for it. He needed Chicago in a 
 hurry, and he got it by stormy word of 
 mouth. Through it all the friendly little 
 woman looked distressed, and hoped when 
 it was all over that no one would lose his job. 
 
 Don't make a pose of friendliness. If 
 you're friendly for what it will bring you 
 and not because your heart prompts your 
 feeling the plate of your friendliness will 
 soon wear away in spots, and people will 
 see your real nature through the gaps. 
 
 Some one has said that kind words but- 
 ter no parsnips, but there is no doubt that 
 he was wrong whoever he was. Kind 
 words with the unmistakable ring of sin- 
 cerity in them not only butter parsnips, but 
 they often buy parsnips, and the best grade 
 of parsnips ; while a chip on the shoulder 
 is the worst kind of epaulet and a constant 
 expense to the wearer. 
 [65] 
 
VIII 
 
 Express Yourself 
 
 BRETHREN, the thought that I wish 
 to expand this lovely April morn- 
 ing — it won't be April when you 
 read this, but it is April in her sunniest 
 mood now, with mocking-birds singing 
 and buzzards lazily sailing through the 
 soft air, and North Carolina darkies going 
 to work or shirking work, according to 
 their several dispositions. 
 
 Let me see, where was I when I lost my 
 thread ? Oh, yes I the thought upon which 
 I wish to enlarge is this : express yourself. 
 Get into the habit of expressing yourself. 
 
 What is public opinion ? It is the con- 
 census of popular expression. How are 
 we to get at public opinion on any given 
 subject if each man, each woman, declines 
 to give his or her opinion ? 
 [66] 
 
Express Yourself 
 
 You want some law passed. What do 
 you do? Nine times out of ten you do 
 nothing. The thing to do is to write to 
 your congressman. Never mind if you are 
 shaky on punctuation, or if your spelling 
 is poor — write your letter : free your mind, 
 and you will have become a better citizen. 
 
 An artist draws an illustration that really 
 illustrates a story. You like his work ; it 
 gives you distinct pleasure. Return the 
 pleasure to him. Express yourself. Tell 
 him how much you like his illustration. 
 He may not answer your letter, but you 
 may rest assured that he will enjoy read- 
 ing it, and will do better work because 
 of it. 
 
 A negro is burned to death in the South 
 by a lawless mob. 
 
 Be sure to express yourself in vigorous 
 English to the editor of your home paper. 
 Never mind whether you live in California, 
 or Massachusetts, or Minnesota, or Vir- 
 
 [67] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 ginia. You are an American, and every 
 negro tortured to death by a mob causes 
 us Americans to sink in the estimation of 
 the world. 
 
 I have talked with an intelligent Euro- 
 pean who thought that respectable Ameri- 
 cans countenanced the lynching of ne- 
 groes ; and his reason for so thinking was 
 just because there was not a tremendous 
 expression of popular opinion denouncing 
 such devilish barbarism. 
 
 The next time a negro is lynched, see to 
 it that you make it your duty to write 
 burning words on' the subject. 
 
 The crime of the negro is a terrible one, 
 but the crime of the lynchers is equally ter- 
 rible — and they are white. 
 
 If all the men and women who read this 
 article were to sit down to-day and express 
 themselves from their hearts on the subject 
 of lynching, the days of lynch-law would 
 be numbered. And the better element 
 [68] 
 
Express Yourself 
 
 north and south would rejoice, for lynching 
 is one of the awful, shameful blots on our 
 civilization. If you remain silent, my 
 friends, you are party to it. 
 
 Express yourself. If your railroad crowds 
 its passengers by putting on an insufficient 
 number of cars, let each crowded passen- 
 ger write a candid expression of opinion 
 to the passenger agent. If your trolleys 
 are crowded, don't lazily submit — express 
 yourselves. Not to each other, but to the 
 man who is running things. Make it hot 
 for him. He is there to serve you. Don't 
 be gentle sheep and bleat contentedly when 
 you are herded together. Be goats, and 
 butt in. 
 
 Reforms are never anything but the fruit 
 of a strong popular expression. 
 
 If your children do well at school, or in 
 music, or in drawing, express yourself as 
 pleased. Don't let it go at being internally 
 pleased, or telling your next-door neigh- 
 
 [69] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 hour, who has children of her own, what 
 remarkable children you have. Dollars to 
 doughnuts, she won't believe they are half 
 as remarkable as her own I Tell the chil- 
 dren themselves. It won't do a bit of 
 harm, but may act as a further stimulant. 
 
 If a dead man could hear the pleasant 
 things said about him, it would put new 
 life into him. Put that new life into him 
 while he is yet alive and at work. 
 
 Do you like to have some one express 
 an honest appreciation of your own work ? 
 Yes? Well, do you suppose that other 
 people are so very different from yourself? 
 Express yourself to them. 
 
 Don't be afraid to have opinions, and 
 don't be afraid of expressing them. 
 
 Emerson used to tell with relish that he 
 loaned a copy of Plato to a Massachusetts 
 farmer, and, on returning it, the man said : 
 ** Do you know, that feller has some 
 thoughts like mine 1 " 
 
 [70] 
 
Express Yourself 
 
 Perhaps if you express your own thoughts 
 they may turn out to be like Plato's ; and 
 whereas comparatively few people know or 
 care what Plato's thoughts were, the ex- 
 pression of your own may eventually win 
 for you a livelihood on account of the ap- 
 preciation of your fellows. 
 
 When you go away on a journey and 
 leave loved ones behind, be sure to express 
 yourself in letters to them. If they love 
 statistics, tell them the populations of the 
 towns and the number arrested for drunk- 
 enness — if it's a prohibition State. The 
 fact itself will be interesting, and thought- 
 producing. 
 
 If they like to hear about scenery, throw 
 in a few trees and a hill or two, and put in 
 a dash of colour. Tell them when the 
 place was settled and how it came by its 
 peculiar name and how much the oldest 
 citizen would have been worth to-day if he 
 had held onto his lots in the central portion 
 
 [71] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 of the city instead of selling them for a cow 
 that died the week after, and how they're ex- 
 pecting some time to have a union station 
 instead of the two very inconvenient ones 
 that now disgrace the architecture of the 
 city a mile apart. 
 
 But, better still, tell them the incidents of 
 travel that really interested you, and you 
 will interest them. You may find that 
 your letters are so much more entertaining 
 than you are yourself that your relatives 
 will insist upon your travelling still farther 
 — and travel is educational. 
 
 Don't be a sphinx. Express yourself. 
 
 [72] 
 
IX 
 
 On Venting One s Spleen 
 
 I MET a man the other day who told 
 me that when things got so that he 
 couldn't stand them any longer, he 
 went off by himself, down cellar preferably, 
 and swore copiously until he felt better. 
 
 Now, this would be a poor place in 
 which to defend swearing, although what 
 passed for swearing when some of us mid- 
 dle-aged men were children turns out now 
 to be nothing worse than bad form ; still, 
 I could not help thinking that my friend 
 vented his ill-feeling at the world in gen- 
 eral very harmlessly. I have no doubt he 
 did feel better when he had rid himself of 
 a lot of strong words, and I have no doubt 
 that along with the strong words escaped 
 some of the bitterness that had set him 
 " biling." 
 
 [73] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 Fm not sure but that ** biling " means 
 getting filled with bile, and when a man's 
 ** biling" he needs to get rid of the bile. 
 , Venting one's spleen in a cellar is a 
 form of blank-cartridge firing. It hurts no 
 one, and yet the noise is there just as 
 much as if you were loaded for b'ar. 
 
 There's another form of harmless firing 
 that relieves one's pent-up spirits wonder- 
 fully. You have received an injury at the 
 hands of some one, and you feel like going 
 to him while the sense of injury is strongest, 
 and telling him just what you think of him. 
 
 There are occasions when that is the 
 only manly thing to do, but there are also 
 times when the injury is more fancied than 
 real, and you are in too perturbed a state 
 to be able to differentiate between a real 
 and an imagined wrong. 
 
 This is the thing to do : Take hasty 
 strides to your writing-desk. Be sure that 
 they are hasty. Jab your pen into the ink- 
 [74] 
 
On Venting One s Spleen 
 
 well so viciously that you break the nib. 
 Take out the pen, inking your fingers in 
 so doing, and adding fuel to your wrath 
 against your enemy. Put in a new pen, 
 jab again, but not hard enough to hurt the 
 pen, and then pour out your soul in a let- 
 ter to the offending one. Use sarcasm; 
 apply vitriolic phrases that will make him 
 writhe when he reads them ; employ in- 
 vective, and wax diabolically eloquent. 
 
 Already you begin to feel better. The 
 fever of your wrath is dying down. There 
 now remain four things to do. 
 
 Sign your name, boldly and inkily and 
 angrily. 
 
 Read the letter out loud to yourself, put- 
 ting in all the proper emphasis and venom. 
 
 Tear the letter up and throw it into the 
 waste-basket. 
 
 Then go out and take a long walk in the 
 woods or streets, and forget the whole in- 
 cident. 
 
 [75] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 My word for it, you'll come back feeling 
 a great deal better. And perhaps the next 
 time you meet your enemy — who may be 
 a dear friend — you'll hold out your hand, 
 and the incident will be ** all over." 
 
 Whatever way you do it, however, be 
 sure you let the bile escape, somehow. 
 This allowing bile to simmer under the 
 frame of a man's being, engendering more 
 bile, is likely to lead to an unseemly ex- 
 plosion some time when he least expects it. 
 
 I remember once being in company with 
 a meek little man who looked as if he 
 couldn't say boo to a goose, even if the 
 goose were anxious to have boo said to it. 
 We were waiting for a trolley on a 
 crowded street in New York and bicycles 
 were passing and repassing, as it was near 
 the tempting roads of one of the city's 
 parks. 
 
 A little girl started to cross the street 
 just as a wheelman came along at a speed 
 [76] 
 
On Venting Ones Spleen 
 
 above the legal rate. He clumsily ran into 
 her, and knocked her down, and went 
 right on, while she lay where she had 
 fallen. 
 
 My meek friend suddenly found a sten- 
 torian voice and hurled it after the escap- 
 ing wheelman, saying : " Stop 1 Get ofi 
 that wheel I " 
 
 The fellow stopped as if he had been 
 lassoed, and my friend went briskly up to 
 him, and in a voice surcharged with indig- 
 nation, said : ** What do you mean by 
 trying to evade responsibility ? You run 
 over a child and then you try to escape. 
 How do you know how much you've in- 
 jured her, you coward ? Fm a wheelman 
 myself, and Fm ashamed to think that a 
 fellow wheelman can do such a thing." 
 
 The wheelman who had been stopped 
 was as large again as my meek friend, but 
 he came back, looking very contrite, and 
 asked the little girl if she was hurt. 
 [77] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 By a miracle she had not even a bruise, 
 although he had sent her headlong. The 
 big fellow apologized to her, gave her 
 a quarter, and, looking crestfallen, he 
 mounted his wheel and rode off, and then 
 my meek friend said to me : " Say, I be- 
 lieve I won't go with you. I feel sort of 
 weak." 
 
 The vehemence of his sudden upbubbling 
 of righteous anger had left him unstrung. 
 
 The small man had right on his side, 
 and right was kind enough to loan him 
 courage for a few brief moments ; while 
 wrong robbed the wheelman of his usual 
 brute force and made him like clay in the 
 hands of the meek one. 
 
 It is pertinent to this talk to say that my 
 friend who causes the cellar to reverberate 
 with his vituperations is at heart a kindly 
 man. The very fact that he is willing to 
 pour his abuse into a cellar instead of 
 mortally offending some man by it is in it- 
 [78] 
 
On Venting Ones Spleen 
 
 self a proof that his anger has a comic ele- 
 ment in it. 
 
 Most anger is comic when you come 
 right down to it. Even my meek little 
 friend looked funny to me when browbeat- 
 ing the wheelman, although I was proud 
 of him for doing his duty ; but anger is 
 seldom impressive to a third party. 
 
 Think of this the next time you set out 
 to demolish a man by the fury of your 
 voice. And if your anger is comic to your 
 victim, then you are giving a gratuitous 
 performance of utter fatuity. 
 
 [79] 
 
X 
 
 Pass It Along 
 
 SUPPOSE I do you a kindness. 
 This is just supposing, and I say 
 "I" and **you" because it sounds 
 better than "A" and "B." 
 
 Just to get the thing started let us sup- 
 pose that I do you a kindness.] 
 
 If you are one sort of man — the sort 
 commonly known as the ingrate — you will 
 promptly forget that I befriended you even 
 though the results of my befriending are 
 tangible, and that will end the matter. 
 
 If you are the very just man, you will 
 bear in mind early and late the fact that I 
 advanced you certain kind acts, and just as 
 soon as you can return those kind acts you 
 will do it. 
 
 If we live in the country, and on Mon- 
 day I send you in a luscious muskmelon. 
 
 [80] 
 
Pass It Along 
 
 of which I have a goodly supply, you will 
 not rest until you have sent me some of 
 your justly celebrated tomatoes. 
 
 If you are out walking, and I drive by 
 and pick you up and give you a lift of 
 several miles on your road, you will have 
 it on your conscience until you have 
 made some return to me for my kindness, 
 because that's the sort of man you are. 
 
 If I ask you to take pot-luck with me at 
 my suburban home, and you accept the in- 
 vitation, nothing will do you but I must 
 lunch with you before the week is out, be- 
 cause you hate to owe any one anything. 
 
 Well, you are certainly better than the 
 ingrate, but there is a type of man whom I 
 admire more than I admire you. 
 
 I do him a kindness that does not cost 
 me a great deal, at a time when a kindness 
 means everything to him. 
 
 He may not say much in the way of 
 thanks to me, but I know he is not an in- 
 [81] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 grate, and I am not at all surprised to 
 hear that he considers that he owes to 
 humanity what I advanced to him. 
 
 I knew of a steady market for a line of 
 work which — well, call him Marcy — could 
 turn out readily, and I gave him a letter to 
 the editor. 
 
 He isn't much of a talker, Marcy isn't 
 When I met him a day or two later he 
 said : ** Oh, Judson thinks I can do a 
 series of yarns for his Ananias depart- 
 ment." 
 
 That's all. Not a word of thanks, but a 
 something in his voice and look that 
 showed he appreciated the fact that I was 
 glad to do him a good turn. 
 
 But in a month or two an artist who had 
 never had a chance to make good was il- 
 lustrating Marcy' s stuff, and the editors of 
 other magazines were talking about it and 
 giving him orders. And the brilliant war- 
 series that appeared in one of the big 
 
 [82] 
 
Pass It Along 
 
 monthlies was due to Marcy's suggesting 
 Judson for the job. 
 
 And Judson, by the way, set up a pho- 
 tographer who had never done anything 
 outside of Central Park, but who was glad 
 to buy a large kodak on tick and go to 
 South Africa with Judson. 
 
 I was curious enough to follow up the 
 potential endless chain I had started roll- 
 ing. 
 
 The clever artist was one of the same 
 kind as Marcy, and when the orders for 
 his work began to come in he went around 
 to call on a clever little writer who lives 
 down in old Greenwich village, and told 
 her that he thought some old New York 
 stories illustrated by him would go in the 
 Penury. And they made an instantaneous 
 hit, and led to her doing that even more 
 famous series in McKenzies — tales that 
 served to introduce a protege of hers fresh 
 from Cooper Union, who did not stick to 
 
 [83] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 illustrating very long, but took up portrai- 
 ture, and is now making a comfortable liv- 
 ing in Paris — carrying coals to Newcastle, 
 as it were. 
 
 Judson, as I said, set up a photographer 
 whose fortune was made just as soon as his 
 dreamy, imaginative photographs were 
 made, and who is now a member of 
 every photographers' association in the 
 world. 
 
 But he was of the just type. He figured 
 that he owed Judson a certain amount of 
 gratuitous work, and he wrote him a letter, 
 which I saw, in which he calculated that 
 a dozen framed photographs of scenes 
 around Cape Town would liquidate his 
 debt to Judson. And when that debt was 
 liquidated, as near as I can make out, he 
 felt that there was no need for him to do 
 anything else but'get ahead himself as fast 
 as he could climb. He even ** knocked '* 
 a man who was trying for a little picayune 
 [84] 
 
Pass It Along 
 
 job on a paper, and the knock denied him 
 entrance. 
 
 Of course, if I borrow fifty dollars from 
 Judson and pay Marcy fifty dollars, it is 
 not going to do Judson any good unless 
 Marcy also owes Judson fifty and pays 
 him — and even that doesn't release me. 
 
 But money debts generally take care of 
 themselves if we are honest and the other 
 fellow is patient. It's the debts of another 
 sort that can be paid by just passing them 
 along the line. 
 
 Some kindnesses that were begun cen- 
 turies ago are still being passed along. 
 
 An Englishman was condemned to the 
 flames of Smithfield because he would not 
 change his religion. 
 
 It's all in Fox's " Book of Martyrs." 
 
 The night before his proposed execution, 
 a neighbour of his — and of the opposite re- 
 ligion — helped him to make his escape 
 from prison, and gave him funds to get to 
 
 [85] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 a ship sailing for America, where he found 
 religious liberty. 
 
 In his old age it came to his knowledge 
 that a man had been imprisoned for debt 
 in the little town of Windsor, Connecticut, 
 in which both lived. He made inquiries, 
 and, finding that the man was the grand- 
 son of the neighbour who had befriended 
 him, he paid his debts and enabled him to 
 gain his freedom. 
 
 The released one, whose name, by the 
 way, was Mather, left Connecticut, and 
 went back to England because his year in 
 prison had soured him on American insti- 
 tutions. 
 
 He never tired of telling what Asaph 
 Loomis had done for him, and his sons 
 and grandsons treasured the story as a 
 family tradition. 
 
 Some seventy years later a great-grand- 
 son of Asaph Loomis, through the female 
 line, one Eliphalet Taintor, went to Italy to 
 [86] 
 
Pass It Along 
 
 study art, and while there he fell sick of the 
 Roman fever and was in a critical state. 
 One of his fellow students was a young 
 Englishman by the name of Loomis 
 Mather, and it turned out that he was the 
 great-grandson of the Mather who had left 
 Windsor. 
 
 He couldn't do enough for Taintor when 
 he found out that he was a great-grandson 
 to old Asaph, but the American art-student 
 died, and his name became only a family 
 memory. 
 
 In the early years of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury an Englishman bearing the name of 
 Asaph L. Mather came to Connecticut and 
 settled in Hartford. He was a talented 
 fellow, with letters to Lydia Huntley 
 Sigourney, and he was taken up by the 
 literary set in Hartford. 
 
 He was not a very moral young man, 
 and he did something that raised a good 
 deal of a commotion in the staid little com- 
 
 [87] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 munity. Everybody dropped away from 
 him excepting a young man of the name 
 of Elkanah Taintor. He beHeved him 
 guiltless of the charge, and as you can see 
 by consulting papers of that date, he de- 
 termined to prove him innocent because 
 he was the grandson of the English art- 
 student who had befriended his great-uncle 
 in Italy I 
 
 Unfortunately the proofs were too dam- 
 ning, and Mather had to leave Hartford, but 
 last summer, when a certain resident of 
 Simsbury, Connecticut, a grandson of 
 Elkanah Taintor, visited England, he was 
 invited to spend a month — a delightful 
 month it proved — at the home of a man 
 he had met casually at the Savage Club 
 in London. 
 
 And strangely enough the name of the 
 Savage was Asaph Taintor Mather. 
 
 All because old Asaph Lomas — as he 
 spelled the name — was saved from the 
 [88] 
 
Pass It Ah 
 
 ng 
 
 Stake by a neighbour way back in Shakes- 
 peare's time. 
 
 It would be worth your while to try to start 
 some such endless chain as this and then, 
 if possible, come back in the year 2568 and 
 see if you could count the links. Even if 
 you have no expectation of coming back it 
 won't do any harm to start the chain, be- 
 cause some one else will benefit by one or 
 another of the links therein. 
 
 If you owe a debt of kindness that is 
 represented by one hundred, split it up 
 into denominations of ten and keep on pay- 
 ing it. You'll never regret it, and the 
 twenty-first century will feel the effects 
 of it. 
 
 [89] 
 
XI 
 
 On Housekeeping and Servant^ 
 Keeping 
 
 I HEARD of a woman, the other day, 
 who has had the same cook and the 
 same housemaid — or " up-stairs girl," 
 as they used to call them when I was a 
 boy — for fifteen years. 
 
 Of course at first I thought it was a 
 fairy-story. Here? In America? And 
 Irish girls at that? And an American 
 mistress ? I felt that if it was really true 
 I must lose no time in seeking an inter- 
 view with this remarkable woman, that I 
 might, possibly, account for it in her ap- 
 pearance. I said to myself : *' A woman 
 who has put up with the same insolent 
 girls for fifteen years must be an object of 
 pity by now. Perhaps she is kindly to the 
 
 [90] 
 
On Housekeeping 
 
 verge of foolishness. Or perhaps the serv- 
 ants are bound to her by the terms of a 
 quaint will. I'll go and see her." 
 
 A mutual friend gave me a letter of in- 
 troduction to her, and I went to her house 
 that very day. Presenting my card, I was 
 ushered into a comfortable parlour that 
 looked as if people lived in it — nothing 
 stiff, you know, but just ** cozy." 
 
 The maid who let me in was a rather su- 
 perior-looking woman of thirty-five, or 
 thereabouts, with pretty, Irish eyes, and 
 as I looked at her and realized that she 
 had been in that house for fifteen years, I 
 felt like asking her if she'd mind being ex- 
 hibited to New York housewives at so 
 much a head. 
 
 Pretty soon a sweet-looking woman, not 
 yet fifty, came into the room. She was 
 not old-fashioned, and yet she had not the 
 assertiveness, the ** bounce," of some of 
 the new women of to-day. And, by the 
 
 [91] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 way, some of these " new " women were 
 made over forty years ago. 
 
 " Mrs. Ailing, I want to be very inquisi- 
 tive and perhaps impertinent," said I, when 
 she had made me take a chair and had sat 
 down herself. 
 
 She smiled, and, having already read 
 my letter, said : " Really, my case is not 
 at all extraordinary. There are lots and 
 lots of women who have kept servants 
 year after year. It is so easy that I won- 
 der more do not do it." 
 
 " Easy ? " said I. " Why, Mrs. Ailing, 
 don't you know that the doors of the intel- 
 ligence-offices can never be shut because 
 of the constant stream of cooks and maids 
 returning from * week-ends ' at houses they 
 have tried ? " 
 
 She laughed in a wholesome way that 
 gave me an inkling of her secret. 
 
 **Why, of course there are girls and 
 girls just as there are mistresses and mis- 
 
 [92] 
 
On Housekeeping 
 
 tresses. I don't claim to be anything re- 
 markable, but it struck me when I began 
 housekeeping that, in a small house like 
 this, a servant must be, in a measure, a 
 part of the family ; so I carefully secured a 
 neat girl and " 
 
 " You don't mean to tell me that you in- 
 tended treating her as if she had a soul and 
 a body?" 
 
 " That's exactly what I did," said Mrs. 
 Ailing. 
 
 *' And had she?" 
 
 " She most certainly had. I found that, 
 like myself, she could get tired, and that I 
 mustn't tax her beyond her strength. I 
 also found that she had likes and dislikes, 
 and that she valued a little time for her- 
 self." 
 
 " And you let her have it ? " said I in- 
 credulously. " I mean beyond her every 
 other Thursday out? " 
 
 " Why, of course I did. I told her that 
 [93] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 I wanted the kitchen kept in order, and for 
 that and the cooking would pay her her 
 wages, but that if her work was done well 
 I didn't care when she did it, and so long 
 as meals were on time and she let me 
 know when she was going, she was wel- 
 come to go out every day in the week." 
 
 ** Oh, but she must have presumed on 
 that, and your husband had to go out and 
 read her the riot act." 
 
 Mrs. Ailing looked at me in unfeigned 
 astonishment. 
 
 " What possible occasion could my hus- 
 band have for interfering with household 
 affairs? Would I go to his office and 
 scold his clerks for their mistakes ? " 
 
 It was now my turn to be astonished. 
 
 ** Then you don't believe in a husband 
 going into the kitchen and telling the 
 cook, * I'm the man you've got to obey ; 
 understand that ' .^ " 
 
 " If there are husbands like that," said 
 [94] 
 
On Housekeeping 
 
 Mrs. Ailing, "it's no wonder that some 
 girls don't stay. No, my husband leaves 
 household affairs to me. He is always 
 pleasant to Ann and to Mary, but he never 
 tells them to do anything any more than I 
 tell his clerks to do anything. 
 
 ** After Ann had been with us six months 
 her sister came to this country, and, my 
 husband's business having prospered, he 
 thought he would relieve me of some of 
 the actual housework by engaging Mary 
 as up-stairs girl. 
 
 "I kept Mary busy, but I remembered 
 that she, too, was not a machine. She was 
 inclined to be quick-tongued, but I told her 
 sister about it, and showed her that Mary 
 stood in her own light when she said pert 
 things, and Ann gave her a sisterly talk- 
 ing to " 
 
 " Poor Mary ! " 
 
 " And I had no more trouble from that 
 source. Both Mary and Ann are interested 
 [95] 
 
Th e Kn ack of li 
 
 in all that concerns us and our children, 
 and yet they never presume on it." 
 
 *' They're unusual. You take a coarse- 
 grained, common, filthy cook " 
 
 " But why take her ? " asked Mrs. Ailing. 
 " Why bring into your house and among 
 your children a woman you would not 
 wish to come in contact with any- 
 where ? '* 
 
 " But good servants are so hard to get," 
 said I. 
 
 ** Because good mistresses are so hard 
 to find. When the mistresses reform 
 there'll be a reform among the girls. Half 
 the servant troubles come from above- 
 stairs. I know fussy housewives who 
 insist upon the letter of service and for- 
 get that it is the spirit that gives it 
 life. 
 
 " If I believe in one method of sweeping 
 and Mary believes in another way that 
 cleans the room just as well, I'm not going 
 
 [96] 
 
On Housekeeping 
 
 to force her to do it my way just for the 
 sake of discipHne ; but there are martinets 
 in households the same as in the army, 
 and I have a friend who has a cook for 
 every week, and who is always obeyed to 
 the letter, or else " 
 
 Mrs. Ailing hesitated. 
 
 '' Or else what ? " 
 
 " Or else the cook loses her head." 
 
 ** I should say that in that case the mis- 
 tress had lost her head." I rose to go. 
 "Well, really, you've given me food for 
 thought. Is it possible that the fault is not 
 at all on the servants' side ? " 
 
 " I don't say that. As I hinted before, 
 servants are human beings, and have 
 faults ; but just as one farmer's wife will 
 make the most refractory hen set on its 
 eggs when another woman has no luck at 
 all, so, by the exercise of tact, one house- 
 wife will obtain marvellous results from un- 
 promising raw material." 
 [97] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 *' Don't you think it humbling to a 
 woman's pride to exercise tact with a mere 
 servant?" 
 
 " Ah, now you are sarcastic ; but there 
 are lots of women who, at the end of a 
 year of heart-breaking troubles with serv- 
 ants, say : * Well, at least I've not given 
 in one jot or tittle.' As if their husbands 
 married them in order that they might 
 show their independence instead of run- 
 ning a well-regulated house I And a house 
 in which servants go off every week is not 
 a well-regulated house." 
 
 I offered Mrs. Ailing my hand. ** You've 
 let in a flood of Hght on me," said I. ** Let 
 me see : Make a careful selection of serv- 
 ants in the first place ; then treat them as 
 if they were almost as human as you are ; 
 then practice the virtues of tact and for- 
 bearance, and then, if you have domestic 
 labour troubles " 
 
 " It will be because this world isn't para- 
 
 [98] 
 
On Housekeeping 
 
 disc," said Mrs. Ailing, smiling as she 
 bowed me out. 
 
 I told this to a friend who said that Mrs. 
 Ailing had simply been fortunate. " Most 
 girls are ungrateful. I began by being a 
 regular charitable institution to my first 
 cook. I told her that it wasn't every one 
 who would do as much for a mere servant, 
 but that I was determined to keep her if 
 honey would do it. But the ungrateful 
 thing left me when her month was up. 
 Since then I haven't tried and I ought to 
 know what I'm talking about, for I had 
 twelve cooks last winter." 
 
 Which rather strengthens my faith in 
 Mrs. Ailing' s system. 
 
 [99] 
 
XII 
 
 Mixed Pickles 
 
 A YOUNG woman who was on her 
 way home from business dropped 
 a package addressed to herself 
 and containing something very valuable to 
 her. She did not discover her loss until 
 she reached home, and then she was in 
 despair. She was quite sure that she 
 would never see the package again, as she 
 lived out in New Jersey and she had lost it 
 in New York. But next evening when 
 she went home, there was the little box 
 awaiting her. It had been picked up by 
 some one, who put a couple of stamps on 
 it and mailed it to the address upon it. 
 
 The young woman was quite over- 
 whelmed by the kindness of the unknown 
 person ; she said it gave her a better idea 
 
 [lOO] 
 
Mixed Pickles 
 
 of human nature ; that people were not so 
 bad, after all. 
 
 Well, they're not. It doesn't require 
 the dropping of an addressed package to 
 find that out. 
 
 Why, look here. Don't you suppose 
 that if that young woman had picked up 
 a similar package and had found that the 
 address was not one in easy walking 
 distance she would have put a stamp on it 
 and dropped it in a letter-box ? 
 
 What would you yourself do? You'd 
 put a stamp on it and send it along. 
 
 Well, do you think that you are any bet- 
 ter than the average man or woman ? If 
 you'd do it, so would almost any man. 
 
 The thing is, however, always to ask 
 yourself, when you read of or hear about 
 or observe a kindly action : *' Would I 
 do that? " And if you find you wouldn't, 
 then it's up to you to raise your standard 
 of kindliness and helpfulness. 
 
 [lOl] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 \iyou would do it, then it isn't anything 
 so very remarkable, because you are an 
 average man, and you don't do things 
 that lift you on a pinnacle of goodness. 
 
 I am always ready to believe anything 
 good that I hear about any one whatso- 
 ever ; and I'm equally ready to believe 
 anything bad. Your defaulting cashier is 
 kind to his mother, and your sunny- 
 tempered, unselfish man is hateful to his 
 sister. 
 
 Sometimes your defaulting cashier is 
 hateful to his mother, but you'll find that 
 he has his good points— perhaps he gives 
 half of his stolen money to the poor, 
 which is certainly better than if he spent 
 it all on his own fleshly pleasures. 
 
 And the sunny-tempered, unselfish man 
 who is hateful to his sister ; what excuse 
 can I make for him ? Shall I say that his 
 sister is unpleasant and provokes his hate- 
 fulness ? 
 
 [I02] 
 
Mixed Pickles 
 
 No, Fm not extenuating anything or 
 setting down anything in malice — the 
 sunny-tempered man has his weak spot, 
 and his sister always makes him show it. 
 
 He ought to be ashamed of himself, but 
 he isn't — not often. One reason for this is 
 that he is a human being. 
 
 Once there was a man who was full of 
 good deeds ; he was honest, upright, a 
 kindly neighbour, a helpful son, a devoted, 
 faithful husband, and a loving and 
 brotherly father. The whole neighbour- 
 hood respected him, loved him. 
 
 He lived to be fifty years old, and still 
 had the thoroughly deserved respect of his 
 family, his neighbours, and his friends. 
 
 If he had died at fifty he would have 
 gone to glory with an unblemished repu- 
 tation. 
 
 But he lived to be fifty-one, and then he 
 died — on the gallows. He had killed a 
 man in a moment of sudden passion. 
 [ 103] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 There was another man, crooked from 
 his baby-days. He was a cheat, an un- 
 scrupulous, mean, stingy, loveless and un- 
 loved rascal, and the wonder of wonders is 
 that he escaped the penitentiary. 
 
 He lived to be forty-two, and then a fire 
 broke out in the apartment in which he 
 lived. He was escaping from the house 
 when he heard a woman cry out in a room, 
 the door of which he was passing. He 
 tried the door, found it locked, burst it in, 
 and found the woman so panic-stricken 
 that she could do nothing but shriek. He 
 tried to save her, with the flames roaring 
 behind him, and she fought him by reason 
 of the lunacy of fearful fright. At last he 
 got her to the window and handed her to 
 a fireman who appeared outside, and then, 
 the opening of the window having created 
 a sudden draft, he fell into the roaring 
 flames and was burned to death. 
 
 Do you remember the puzzle-pictures 
 [ 104] 
 
Mixed Pickles 
 
 that you used to have when you were 
 children? The head of the ape could be 
 set on the shoulders of the Newfoundland 
 dog, and the noble-maned visage of the 
 lion could be placed on the misshapen 
 form of the baboon. 
 
 Queer monstrosities resulted. 
 
 There you have us ; you and me, near 
 saints and real sinners. The kindly 
 neighbour and upright man of business 
 ought to have had a chance to go out of 
 life saving the life of a woman. And it 
 would have been fitting if the wicked, 
 cheating rascal had come to the gallows. 
 For he worked more harm in his life than 
 a simple killing can work. 
 
 But the one who designs the puzzle- 
 pictures has his own reasons for making 
 quaint forms of them, and we do not know 
 why we are such mixed pickles — fifty-seven 
 varieties in one man. 
 
 There's excuse for despair in the proudest 
 
 [105] 
 
Th e Kn ack of li 
 
 moment of victory, and there's reason for 
 hope in the darkest hour of defeat. 
 
 There are loads of wicked rascals in this 
 country, and it is no wonder that Europe 
 holds up her hands in holy horror at the 
 spectacle of so much successful unright- 
 eousness. 
 
 If there were not just as many success- 
 ful rascals in Europe we might well feel 
 abased at calling forth her honest indigna- 
 tion. 
 
 But there are thousands of young men 
 and old men in this country who are sin- 
 cerely trying to better existing conditions 
 — men who ten years ago didn't care at all 
 what happened as long as they were able 
 to earn a decent living. 
 
 When Pessimist looks at the wicked 
 rascals he says : " This is the wickedest 
 country that was ever coloured yellow on 
 a map." 
 
 And when Optimist looks at the zealots 
 [ io6 ] 
 
Mixed Pickles 
 
 who are wielding the muck-rake to good 
 purpose, he says : ** This is the best coun- 
 try that ever held its brotherly arms open 
 to the oppressed of all nations." 
 
 As it is the only country that ever did 
 such a thing, Optimist is right. 
 
 But he would be right if he didn't mod- 
 ify his clause. And so would Pessimist. 
 
 There was never so much evil as there is 
 to-day, and there was never so much good. 
 
 If it weren't for the evil on earth, this 
 globe of ours would be heaven. 
 
 And it sometimes occurs to me that 
 heaven will be a place where the evil is en- 
 tirely eliminated. 
 
 Meanwhile, when you see an addressed 
 package on the sidewalk be sure to stamp 
 it and mail it. But don't glow with pride 
 when you do it, and don't think when you 
 hear of some one else doing it that the 
 Millennium is slowing down to stop here. 
 For it isn't. 
 
 [107] 
 
A 
 
 XIII 
 
 The Heart of a Boy 
 
 FRIEND came to visit me the 
 other day. He was from Eng- 
 land. Now, I have had friends 
 from England before, and I have generally 
 expected that they would condescend to 
 admire certain of our institutions, and tell 
 me in tones as affable as they could make 
 them that, considering our youth, we were 
 really doing very well. 
 
 But this friend was different. 
 Before leaving home for his holiday he 
 took care to see that the heart of a boy 
 which he possessed was in its proper place. 
 He'll never see forty again, so this 
 heart of a boy was given to him over four 
 decades ago, but he has never cared to 
 use any other. 
 
 [io8] 
 
The Heart of a Boy 
 
 As he was leaving his native town one 
 of his friends, who had been over here, 
 said : ** Well, I hope you'll have a good 
 time." 
 
 ** I don't have to hope I will. I know 
 I will," said he. 
 
 " You'll find a good many crudities over 
 there," said the friend. 
 
 " Crudities are interesting, and they'll 
 probably be different from our own crudi- 
 ties," said he. 
 
 " They're very young, you know." 
 
 " Good for them. I like young people." 
 
 ** Ah, I'm afraid you're hopelessly opti- 
 mistic," said his friend. 
 
 " Well, if I were pessimistic, I'd certainly 
 see a doctor at once, so that's another way 
 of saying I'm in good health. I'm going 
 to have the time of my life." 
 
 Well, he's having it. 
 
 He is disposed to like everything. He 
 has critical faculties of a fine order, but 
 [109] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 just now his faculty for enjoyment is being 
 worked to the utmost. 
 
 The day he arrived was bitter cold, the 
 thermometer registering three degrees be- 
 low zero, or "thirty-five degrees below 
 freezing," as he phrased it, but it interested 
 him. He had never known such cold in 
 his life before, and it made his blood leap. 
 
 He had stood, he said, on the forward 
 deck as the steamer came up the bay, so 
 as to get the first possible glimpse of New 
 York. It was early in the morning, and 
 mist softened the lines of the great sky- 
 scrapers which have entered into a com- 
 pact to hide old Trinity from the view of 
 returning Americans. 
 
 ** Really," said he, ** that's a noble sky- 
 line you have. It might be a great castle 
 on a height. The approach to your city 
 is most beautiful. I had heard that sky- 
 scrapers were ugly, but seen in the atmos- 
 phere of this morning they are worthy of 
 [no] 
 
The Heart of a Boy 
 
 the brush of the most poetic of painters. 
 I'll never forget my sail up the bay. It 
 was worth the voyage across, really." 
 
 That was a good beginning. Then, as 
 we stood waiting for his baggage to come 
 up out of the hold, a man stepped up to 
 him, and asked him if he cared to cable 
 home. 
 
 Of course he did, and, the cable sent, he 
 was lost in admiration of our systematic 
 way of doing things. 
 
 He had smuggled nothing — as I say, he 
 is not an American — and he came through 
 the customs inspection with flying colours, 
 and, having been very urbane himself, was 
 delighted with the urbanity of the in- 
 spector. 
 
 "Really, you know, I had heard that 
 your customs inspection was so very 
 odious. Upon my word, people do exag- 
 gerate." 
 
 I did not tell him of certain unpleasant 
 
 [III] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 experiences of my own on returning from 
 abroad. If he was in a mood to be de- 
 lighted, far be it from me to rake up an- 
 cient history with a muck-rake. 
 
 I took him out to my suburban home, in 
 New Jersey, and he found much to his Hk- 
 ing in the "wooden villas." That they 
 were built of wood struck him as being 
 very odd. 
 
 " Wood is so expensive, you know." 
 
 He also liked the nip in the air. 
 
 '' Makes me feel like taking a walk." 
 
 The nip in the air struck me as having 
 something of cruelty in it, as it seized hold 
 of my ears, and made them tingle most 
 unpleasantly, but we set out into the coun- 
 try with swinging step. 
 
 He loved the winding, frozen river, the 
 birches and willows that skirted its banks, 
 the white trunks and reddish branches en- 
 livening the winter landscape. 
 
 Sordid-looking houses he passed by with- 
 
 [112] 
 
The Heart of a Boy 
 
 out comment, seemingly not noticing them, 
 but when we came on some graceful 
 colonial house, set in a grove of trees, or 
 a quaint old Dutch house, a hundred and 
 fifty years old, and nestling comfortably 
 in the snow, he said : 
 
 " My word, but I thought they said 
 America was not picturesque. I wish Fd 
 brought my sketch-book. And this air is 
 very invigourating." 
 
 And he broke out whistling like a boy. 
 
 Later on he took his first sleigh ride at 
 sunset through a mountainous part of New 
 Jersey, and then his artistic soul revelled 
 in the beauty of it all. 
 
 " This is very jolly I To be wrapped up 
 so warmly, and to be gliding smoothly 
 over the snow. This might be in Norway. 
 And they told me it was a prosaic country, 
 and that I mustn't look for beauty outside 
 of New England. Really, where are 
 people's eyes ? '' 
 
 ["3 J 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 All things contributed to his delight. 
 A few days after his arrival the weather 
 softened, and the snow followed its 
 example, making walking sloppy. He 
 went out for a walk, and got his feet wet. 
 
 " I now see why your people wear what 
 you call 'rubbers.' I believe Til get a 
 pair." 
 
 When they were on his feet he was as 
 proud as a child with his first pair of 
 shoes. 
 
 All was fish that came to his net. One 
 evening it would be a dinner at a New 
 York artists' club, where he met a lot of 
 ** most interesting men," with whom he 
 chatted afFably, and who took a liking to 
 this extraordinary Englishman, who made 
 himself at home everywhere — not realizing 
 that the explanation of the phenomenon 
 lay in the fact that he had never changed 
 his boyish heart for one of more mature 
 make. 
 
 ["4] 
 
The Heart of a Boy 
 
 A vaudeville show, a church sociable, a 
 prowl on the East Side, a visit to the art 
 galleries on Fifth Avenue, attendance at 
 church of a Sunday morning — all con- 
 tributed to his enjoyment, because he was 
 interested in all phases of humanity, and 
 was not ashamed to show it. 
 
 At the theatre he clapped harder than 
 most, and when he was especially pleased 
 he shouted : " Bravo ! " 
 
 There was just one thing that made all 
 this possible to him ; there is one good 
 and sufficient reason for the fact that he 
 will go back to England thoroughly 
 pleased with his experiences. 
 
 He had had the foresight years before 
 to make arrangements for the continuance 
 in service of his heart of a boy, and with 
 that beating under his waistcoat he could 
 not help but find this world a most engag- 
 ing place. 
 
 To men who have this type of heart it 
 
 [115] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 matters little what country they are in, or 
 what is done to please them. 
 
 Every country is God's country, each 
 day has its store of delights, every one you 
 meet can be made to furnish his quota of 
 interesting material, present annoyances 
 may be made to yield future mirth, if the 
 heart is young. 
 
 Perhaps you can't make your own heart 
 any younger than it is, but you can try to 
 keep it from growing any older. Preserve 
 it in high spirits ; there are no spirits that 
 are such a good preservative. 
 
 What matter if your grandfather didn't 
 leave you any of his estate as long as he 
 left you his unconquerable spirits. 
 
 The heart of a boy. What a legacy I 
 
 [Ii6] 
 
XIV 
 
 On Revering Riches 
 
 SOME one told me yesterday that 
 there are still people in this world 
 who revere riches ; that is to say, 
 there are those who look up to ordinary 
 people who have xaoney just because they 
 have it. 
 
 We all know that money plus kindliness, 
 generosity, right feeling, is better than 
 kindliness, generosity, right feeling, with- 
 out money, for the reason that money con- 
 verts kindly impulses into charitable acts ; 
 but money plus, it may be, pomposity, 
 narrow-mindedness, ostentation and sel- 
 fishness — why, what is there to admire in 
 that ? And who with brains would admire 
 wealth in that guise ? 
 
 You, a poor clerk with the desire to 
 make the world happier and a wish to do 
 ["7] 
 
Th e Kn ack of It 
 
 your work well, are a bigger figure than 
 your rich employer, if he is a Gradgrind, 
 or if he thinks that his mere riches add a 
 whit to his character. 
 
 I know very well that there have been 
 those who taught us to look up to the man 
 who, by a strict looking out for number 
 one and a royal disregard for the rights of 
 others, had amassed a fortune, and at the 
 age of fifty was gray side-whiskered, re- 
 spectable — and supercilious. 
 
 But now we are being forced to believe 
 that no man can be absolutely honest and 
 become what is called a plutocrat, a mas- 
 ter of tens of millions ; and therefore we 
 who are poor but honest, like our parents 
 before us, are coming to see that, as Amer- 
 icans, we are every bit as good as the men 
 who scatter middle-aged benefactions 
 where they will make the most noise. 
 
 Now, mind you, dislike for the rich 
 simply because they are rich shows nar- 
 [118] 
 
On Revering Riches 
 
 row-mindedness and a petty disposition on 
 your part. Don't think that just because 
 you are a poor clerk and your employer is 
 rich you are better than he is. It is pos- 
 sible that he, with his thousands, does 
 more good proportionately than you do 
 with your talents and your miserable sal- 
 ary. 
 
 It may be that his brains are of a better 
 kind than yours ; that he had kindlier an- 
 cestors ; that his instincts are purer. 
 There are rich men with an admirable an- 
 cestry behind them, with splendid brains 
 in their heads, and with big, warm hearts, 
 that pump money as well as blood, and 
 just because you are a poor clerk, it does 
 not follow that you are better than they. 
 
 In the matter of ancestry — it isn't a bad 
 thing to look it up. Family pride, if it 
 have a common-sense basis, is far better 
 than purse-proudness. 
 
 You are what you have made yourself 
 
 [119] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 and what your associations have made 
 you, plus — Fm fond of that word plus — 
 what your father and mother and your two 
 grandfathers and two grandmothers and 
 your four great-grandfathers and great- 
 grandmothers and your eight great-great- 
 grandfathers and great-great-grandmoth- 
 ers made you ; and if they were of sturdy 
 stock, you have not only reason to be 
 proud, but you have also incurred a duty. 
 You should so live as to reflect credit on 
 them who made you what you are. 
 
 In other words, if your father was a min- 
 ister and your grandfather a doctor, and 
 your great-grandfather a farmer or a Con- 
 tinental soldier, you certainly have good 
 cause to poise your head straight above 
 your backbone when you come into the 
 presence of your rich employer, who may 
 not know who his grandfather was. Your 
 good family is worth as much as his money. 
 
 But don't on the strength of it ask him 
 [ 120] 
 
On Revering Riches 
 
 to Sunday supper. You with your ten 
 dollars a week and he with his eighty 
 thousand dollars a year — why, he might 
 not understand your motive. He might 
 think that, instead of condescending to 
 him, you were trying to placate him for 
 some maladministration of office on your 
 part. 
 
 In fact, it is well to have as little to do 
 with your rich employer as you can. Don't 
 bow down to his riches, but also don't use 
 up his noon hour in trying to explain to 
 him that you esteem him only as a man, 
 and that his dollars can go to Ballyhack 
 for all you care. Rich employers never 
 understand philosophic clerks, and a clerk 
 with too much expressed philosophy is 
 oftentimes a clerk without a job. And if, 
 jobless, you rail at riches, people are sure 
 to cry *' sour grapes." 
 
 But let your despising of riches take the 
 form of making the most of your opportu- 
 
 [121] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 nities, and try to get more out of life than 
 most rich men are able to extract. 
 
 Perhaps, in spite of your miserable sal- 
 ary, you have a better ear for music than 
 your rich employer has. Cultivate your 
 love for music. Go to good concerts and 
 the opera and sit up in the ''peanut gal- 
 lery," for music, like smoke, ascends, and 
 harmonies blend as they go up, and you 
 in the cockloft get a better tone-picture than 
 your howling swells in the five-dollar seats, 
 wljo perhaps don't care for music at all. 
 
 It may be that even if you are underpaid 
 by that rich employer of yours, you have a 
 more ardent love for nature than he. He 
 may be blind to the beauties that lie in a 
 walk through the country. If he is, take 
 my word for it that not all the money in 
 the world will buy him a better love for it. 
 So there you have — perhaps a legacy from 
 one of your plain ancestors — a gift that he 
 has not. Cultivate it. 
 
 [ 122] 
 
On Revering Riches 
 
 It is not beyond belief that through your 
 love of nature you have a taste for pictures 
 that he with his expensive gallery, made 
 up entirely of Old World paintings, does 
 not have and never will have. His pic- 
 tures were bought for him by his agents, 
 and he relies on their word as to their 
 value as works of art. But you, with your 
 love for nature and through your love for 
 nature, are able to appreciate the beauty 
 of a sincere picture without having any one 
 at your elbow to point it out. 
 
 And remember that you have galleries 
 that are free if you live in any of the large 
 cities — galleries where you can compare 
 the native with the foreign work. Re- 
 member, also, what is getting to be a 
 greater truth day by day : that it is in this 
 country that some of the best landscapes 
 are being painted, and that when your rich 
 employer pours out his dollars in European 
 capitals for French and Italian modern 
 [123] 
 
 1 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 landscapes, he could have got for a tenth 
 of the sum better pictures of his own land 
 painted by his own countrymen. 
 
 You see, his riches have not taught him 
 to know that American landscape art 
 knows no superior, and is still in the as- 
 cendant. When his pocketbook tells him 
 so, then he will believe it. But you, using 
 your own eyes and comparing the spon- 
 taneous work of our American masters with 
 the great nature that lies out of doors, al- 
 ready believe it. And for your consolation 
 let me tell you that the French critics in- 
 dorse your opinion. 
 
 So when they tell me that there are still 
 people in this world who revere riches, and 
 I look about and see that a man may be a 
 good American citizen, and love nature 
 and the arts and attend to his business 
 dutifully, with nothing in the world but a 
 poor salary to back him, I say that if such a 
 man does revere mere riches, he is foolish. 
 L 124] 
 
XV 
 
 On the Golden Rule 
 
 THAT Golden Rule is a queer sort 
 of proposition. There was a man 
 out in Toledo named Jones, and 
 he actually lived by the Golden Rule — he 
 did unto others as he would that they 
 should do unto him. 
 
 What was the result? What was the 
 inevitable result? 
 
 Why, people said he was crazy. 
 That is, some people said so ; others said 
 he was up to some game. 
 
 And he was simply following that rule 
 that the sanest man who ever lived gave 
 us as a means of attaining happiness in 
 this world and the next. 
 
 Nineteen hundred years of preaching of 
 that kindly doctrine, and they call " Golden 
 Rule" Jones either crazy or knavish. 
 ["5] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 This is a queer world. 
 
 But I want to tell you that every one did 
 not think Jones crazy. Some of the men 
 whom he benefited thought it the most 
 natural thing in the world that he should 
 do unto them as he would have them do 
 unto him, and they passed the good word 
 along that he was giving people " a square 
 deal," and I would not be a bit surprised 
 if the United States, in 2006, would be a 
 better place just because that ** eccentric" 
 fellow Jones lived here in the closing years 
 of the nineteenth century and followed the 
 teaching of a man who taught nineteen hun- 
 dred years ago and who still has influence. 
 
 There are some people who hate to be 
 Christians, and probably if any one asked 
 you and me pointblank if we were Chris- 
 tians, the answer in each case would either 
 be a hesitating affirmative or a shame- 
 faced negative or a hesitating negative or 
 a shamefaced affirmative. 
 
 [126] 
 
On the Golden Rule 
 
 But there are men who aren't good 
 " Christians " who try to follow the Golden 
 Rule. 
 
 I dare say there are men who swear 
 an^ drink and do most of the things that 
 most of us do who yet try to follow the 
 dictates of the Golden Rule — sometimes. 
 
 They are not Christians, and yet they 
 are friendly to Christ and His teach- 
 ings. 
 
 A hundred years ago there were a good 
 many philosophers who ridiculed Christ 
 and tried to set Him aside as an impossi- 
 ble person, but the world has grown 
 kindlier and broader as it has grown older, 
 and now we have absolute infidels who 
 say boldly that Christ was perhaps the 
 best man who ever lived. 
 
 Some of us use Christ's name to swear 
 by — those of us who do not consider swear- 
 ing bad form — and yet even we who do 
 that would not stand for any besmirching 
 
 [127] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 of Christ as a man and as a brother to 
 men. Why is that ? Is it because at the 
 back of our brains we Americans have a 
 good deal of reverence ? 
 
 Foreigners say that we hold nothing 
 sacred excepting the Almighty Dollar ; 
 but, look here : What would happen if a 
 man came out on the vaudeville stage and 
 began to make fun of Abraham Lincoln ? — 
 I don't care whether the vaudeville show 
 was in Boston or Galveston or San Fran- 
 cisco or St. Louis or Chicago or Washing- 
 ton or in a Western mining-town on the 
 new boom — there's just one thing would 
 happen every time : that man would be 
 hissed off the stage, and, like as not, if he 
 were playing a circuit, he'd be short-cir- 
 cuited at once by the manager. 
 
 Well, if we have that sort of feeling for 
 a man who died over forty years ago and 
 who was never seen by millions of the 
 men who love and venerate him in this 
 
 [128] 
 
On the Golden Rule 
 
 country to-day, we have that feeling by 
 virtue of something that he did and stood 
 for. 
 
 And he stood for the Golden Rule. 
 
 He wasn't much on churchgoing or 
 psalm-singing, although some very good 
 men have gone to church and have sung 
 psalms — if they had the voice (and some- 
 times they have sung without the voice — I 
 know, for I've sat behind 'em) — but he did 
 have the highest reverence for the man 
 who first enunciated the Golden Rule, and 
 he tried to steer himself and the country 
 by the laws laid down in it. 
 
 We're a nation of money-grubbers — any 
 one on the other side of the water will tell 
 you so, even those who have never been 
 here, and they ought to know — but our 
 national idols are not Rockefeller or Car- 
 negie or Harriman, but Lincoln and Grant 
 and Washington — and not one of the 
 latter trio could have signed his check for 
 [129] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 a hundred thousand dollars at any stage 
 of the game. 
 
 What does that prove? It proves that 
 there is some sort of shamefaced idealism 
 about us Americans, after all. 
 
 And it's a strange thing that not only- 
 Lincoln, but Grant and Washington, did 
 quite a little Golden Rule business. 
 
 When General Grant, in his tour of the 
 world, was travelling in Japan, he visited 
 the sacred bridge of Nikko. No one ever 
 crosses this bridge but the mikado him- 
 self ; but General Grant was the great 
 representative of a great and friendly- 
 people, and the mikado paid him the un- 
 heard-of compliment of opening the bridge 
 to him. 
 
 What did General Grant do ? 
 
 He thanked the mikado for his kindli- 
 ness of feeling, but, with a tact that one 
 would not have looked for in a soldier, he 
 did not step on the bridge. 
 [ 130] 
 
On the Golden Rule 
 
 What rule did he obey ? 
 
 Infant class, please stand up and say in 
 unison : 
 
 *' Q,o\dtin Rule ! " 
 
 Very good. You may sit down. 
 
 And it seems to me that there were 
 traces of the Golden Rule in his treatment 
 of another Golden Rule man, General 
 Robert E. Lee, at Appomattox. That was 
 a heart-stirring incident in American his- 
 tory. 
 
 And General Lee also was very much of 
 a Golden Rule man. It may be a mere 
 coincidence, but the South worships Gen- 
 eral Lee and not the greatest Southern 
 millionaire. 
 
 Really, there is something in this Golden 
 Rule. 
 
 A good place to see what it is not is the 
 Brooklyn Bridge at the rush-hour. They 
 say that every American is a ruler, but 
 there are few Golden Rulers at the bridge. 
 
 [ 131 ] 
 
Th e Kn ack of It 
 
 One reason is that most of them are tem- 
 porarily either insane, or else wild beasts, 
 and you can't look for the Golden Rule in 
 either insane people or wild beasts. 
 
 This would seem to prove that Golden 
 Rule Jones was not as insane as some of 
 his detractors thought. 
 
 It's the queerest thing what odd speci- 
 mens of humanity sometimes practice the 
 Golden Rule. You all know the story of 
 the drunken man who went into the Iro- 
 quois Theatre, in Chicago, a few years ago, 
 and annoyed a woman and her little girl 
 to such an extent that she was on the 
 point of having him put out of the 
 theatre. 
 
 But, without knowing it, a world-re- 
 nowned drama, in which she and he and 
 the little girl and hundreds of others were 
 to take part, was just on the point of be- 
 ing enacted before her eyes. As far as 
 she was concerned, she was first old 
 [132] 
 
On the Golden Rule 
 
 woman, the drunken man was hero, and 
 the child was the heroine. 
 
 The frightful flames burst into that thea- 
 tre, and men and women became beasts 
 and trampled each other in a rush to es- 
 cape from the fiery tomb. Then the man 
 became sobered enough to remember the 
 Golden Rule, and, catching up the little 
 girl, he made his way to the. street with 
 her and she was restored to her mother on 
 the sidewalk. 
 
 Why, there's not one of us who hasn't 
 obeyed the rule at one time or another, 
 and there's not one of us who doesn't hold 
 the late John Hay in the highest respect 
 because he was the first Golden Rule dip- 
 lomat — and a highly successful one. 
 
 Some people call Golden Rule Jones 
 crazy, but the most of us believe that he 
 had a rule that is a safe guide for conduct. 
 And the beauty of it for most of us — for 
 you and me especially, dear reader — is 
 [ 133] 
 
Th e Kn ack of It 
 
 that when we find it interfering with our 
 chances of success we forget it — we cut it 
 out. 
 
 But it is much better to remember it. A 
 well known millionaire has recently said 
 that business is war. Surely he is mis- 
 taken. War is a suspension of the Golden 
 Rule, generally for political reasons, and 
 political reasons should never govern busi- 
 ness. I am afraid that our friend the 
 millionaire was not talking of legitimate 
 business but of the game of grab that has 
 made so many of our men with daughters 
 objects of interest to the nobility of other 
 lands. 
 
 Now the first rule of the game of grab is 
 " Let's forget the Golden Rule." 
 
 But it is by no means a dead letter to 
 those who remember the other fellow and 
 do not try to lift themselves up by tramp- 
 ling him down. 
 
 [134] 
 
XVI 
 
 On Being Popular 
 
 THE trouble with a great many men 
 and women who seek popularity 
 through the retailing of their per- 
 sonal ailments and misfortunes is that they 
 don't make the recital interesting enough. 
 
 If I meet Brown and he says : *' Isn't it 
 a beautiful day ? " and I immediately say : 
 ** I hadn't noticed the weather. Do you 
 know, I lay awake last night for nearly 
 three hours with a nasty, tickling cough ? " 
 it is not going to make me a favourite with 
 Brown. 
 
 You see, the statement is too bald, and, 
 besides, I have ignored something that 
 Brown is interested in and substituted 
 something that only I am interested in. 
 
 If, on the contrary, I meet Brown and 
 say : *' Isn't this a beautiful day ? " and he 
 
 [135] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 says : " Yes, it's a day to make you glad 
 you^re alive," I feel that my opinion has 
 been well bolstered up and am willing to 
 hear more from Brown. And he goes on 
 to say : "I was glad there were no bur- 
 glars in my house last night." 
 
 That attracts my attention at once be- 
 cause one wonders why a man should 
 make such an obvious remark. 
 
 I ask him why, and he says : " Why, 
 almost any burglar would have been an- 
 noyed at my cough. It was most discon- 
 certing. I felt like a whole consumptive 
 colony. I coughed so much in the night 
 that I used up my entire stock of coughs 
 and haven't coughed since." 
 
 Now, Brown has told me of a trouble, 
 and I have troubles of my own ; but his 
 way of telling disarms criticism, and I find 
 myself wishing he'd have the measles or 
 something else that he could embroider in 
 a whimsical way. I go on a little farther 
 
 [ 136 ] 
 
On Being Popular 
 
 and meet Mrs. Haskell, and no sooner do I 
 see her than I quicken my step and make 
 as if I were in a great hurry. Why? 
 Mrs. Haskell is an extremely pretty 
 woman, and she is bright and well-read. 
 But I know from the expression of her face 
 that she has a trouble that I can't help by 
 sympathy, and I know she won't interest 
 me in telling it. 
 
 Sure enough. " Oh, good-afternoon. I 
 suppose you know where Fm going ? '^ 
 
 ** To a whist party? " 
 
 " No such luck for me. I'm without a 
 girl again, and I am on my way to try to 
 get another. I never seem to be able to 
 keep a girl. I do think that things have 
 come to a pretty pass in this country. 
 What are we going to do ? I think it is 
 perfectly scandalous the way girls leave 
 attractive places for no reason in the world 
 but spite." 
 
 It is scandalous, but Mrs. Haskell is not 
 
 [137] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 increasing her popularity by telling me her 
 woes in such a bald and complaining way. 
 As a matter of fact, I am sick of the sub- 
 ject, for I, myself, am on my way to see a 
 girl who has been well recommended and 
 whom I hope to keep for at least a week 
 end. 
 
 It isn't so much the woes one has as the 
 way one retails them that affects popu- 
 larity. 
 
 Here comes Mrs. Borden, all smiles, and 
 I know that she lost two servants yester- 
 day — her coachman and her cook. 
 
 " Don't you want to start a cooperative 
 colony," she says, nodding her pretty head, 
 " and be my coachman, if I'll be your cook ? 
 I heard from your wife that you'd lost your 
 cook, and I've lost both coachman and 
 cook. But it was just because Janet was 
 so pretty and Sam so handsome and she 
 used to invite him in to dinner every day. 
 He liked her dinners so well that he pro- 
 
 [138] 
 
On Being Popular 
 
 posed that she cook for him, and I'm on 
 my way to their wedding. Afterwards, 
 Tm going to advertise for a coachman who 
 is too old to marry, and a plain cook — the 
 plainer the better." 
 
 And so she rattles on. Her troubles are 
 as real as those of Mrs. Haskell, but she 
 makes a jest of them, and so you don't 
 mind hearing about them. You probably 
 answer in kind ; and if you do, you in- 
 crease your popularity with yourself. 
 That in itself is a good thing. A man 
 who is unpopular with himself is in a par- 
 lous state — whatever that is. 
 
 One of the quickest ways of becoming 
 popular is as follows : You have a cun- 
 ning little boy, aged five. I have one 
 aged three, just as cunning — as a matter 
 of fact far more so, 
 
 I meet you on the ferry-boat and politely 
 ask you how your boy is ; and, without 
 waiting for your answer, I say : ** You 
 [ 139] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 ought to see my Freddy. He's only three, 
 but he's a buster. Why, I believe he's al- 
 most as big as your John." 
 
 You, being an angel and already ex- 
 ceedingly popular, smother your natural 
 instincts and say : " I dare say. Do tell 
 me something about Freddy ; he is so 
 original." 
 
 And, although the ferry trip is a quarter 
 of an hour long, I have no difficulty in fill- 
 ing the entire time telling anecdotes about 
 my remarkable child. Suppose you had 
 taken up the time telling me about John. 
 It wouldn't have pleased me half as much, 
 and you would have become to me that 
 most tiresome of mortals : the person who 
 harps on the virtues of his children, to the 
 exclusion of every other topic. 
 
 Then there are men and women who try 
 to achieve popularity by a most discon- 
 certing frankness. 
 
 I'm on my way to the train and I meet 
 [ 140] 
 
On Being Popular 
 
 Banks, who really looks as if he were in 
 the last stages of consumption. Just to 
 jolly the poor fellow along I say : ** You're 
 looking better. Gaining a little every day, 
 aren't you ? " 
 
 And what does he say in reply ? " Oh, 
 I'm all right. But say, old man, you look 
 like a death's-head. What's the matter? 
 Run down ? " 
 
 " Yes, by an automobile," you answer 
 sarcastically, and wish you'd told him how 
 ill he looks. You know you're feeling well, 
 but you stop at the next mirror and look 
 at yourself and notice that you do look a 
 little desk-tied, and you wonder whether 
 you don't need a vacation. 
 
 Banks ought to know better. If he 
 is popular, it is in spite of his frank- 
 ness. 
 
 Of course, it is better to be honest than 
 to be popular, but one does not have to 
 tell the whole truth as if he were on a 
 
 [141] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 witness-stand when he's merely passing the 
 time of day. 
 
 Think of the popular men you know, 
 and try to remember how may times 
 they've stopped you to tell you the names 
 of their favourite complaints, or the witty 
 remarks of their year-old twins, or the 
 reason why they can't keep a servant 
 through a rainy afternoon, or that you 
 look like the next candidate for funeral 
 honours. 
 
 And then try to become popular your- 
 self. 
 
 [142 ] 
 
XVII 
 
 On Getting Ones Money s Worth 
 
 THE other day there were a hun- 
 dred young people waiting at a 
 railroad-station. They were go- 
 ing on a day's outing, and from their looks 
 money was not easy with them. 
 
 To while the time away one of them 
 suggested that they all get weighed. In- 
 stantly the men began to fumble in their 
 pockets for pennies, and it looked as if the 
 insensate machine was going to be glutted 
 with cents. 
 
 But there was a wise young chap in the 
 party. '* Look here, fellers," said he, 
 " what's the matter with chipping in a cent 
 apiece, buying a book and getting Kid 
 Lacey to read to us?" 
 
 ** Kid Lacey " was evidently a popular 
 reader, for the weighing-machine was for- 
 
 [143] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 gotten, the book was bought at the news- 
 stand, and I suppose when the young folks 
 reached their destination some of the 
 time was occupied in listening to him 
 read. 
 
 It struck me as a particularly wise use 
 to which to put the money. As a writer 
 of books I may be biased, but I appeal to 
 you all if that group of picnickers did not 
 have more fun in listening to Kid Lacey 
 read — he had an elegant Irish brogue and 
 seemed bubbling over with animal spirits 
 — than they would have got out of the 
 consciousness that Mamie weighed 130 
 and that Jimmie weighed only 119 and 
 that " Fatty " Lenihan weighed 195 — a 
 loss of five pounds since summer set in. 
 
 To spend wisely ; that's a problem 
 that many people never consider. It is 
 not likely that many of us are going to 
 set much aside — most of us come to the 
 end of the season or the end of the trip 
 [ 144] 
 
On Getting One s Money s W^orth 
 
 with every last cent spent and perhaps a 
 doctor's bill not yet paid, but have we got 
 the worth of our money ? 
 
 I know a man who never goes to the 
 theatre unless he can get orchestra seats 
 for himself and his wife. After the play is 
 over Black — to give him a name — feels 
 that he must do "■ the proper thing," and 
 so he takes his wife, who is a dyspeptic, 
 to a *' lobster palace," and they eat lobster 
 salad and ice-cream, and generally miss 
 the last train, for they are suburbanites, 
 and so have to put up at a hotel, and by 
 the time his junket is over he has spent so 
 near to ten dollars that a bootblack 
 wouldn't scramble for the difference. His 
 wife's digestion is upset, he is cross, and 
 he thinks theatre-managers are sharks. 
 
 That is throwing money away, in my 
 opinion. It's all right to spend ten dol- 
 lars on fun when you're getting only forty 
 dollars a week, if you want to spend it, 
 
 [145] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 but for pity's sake get the worth of your 
 money. 
 
 Black generally goes to some show that 
 has been recommended by a business 
 friend — for he knows little of the theatre 
 himself, and he usually picks a play that 
 disgusts both him and his wife, and makes 
 them vow they won't go to the theatre 
 again. And they don't — until next time ; 
 and then it's orchestra seats again, and 
 the same indigestible supper and a long 
 journey home — if they don't miss the train 
 — and a headache for his wife, anyhow. 
 
 No, Black doesn't know how to get his 
 money's worth. 
 
 White comes nearer to doing it. White 
 is a philosophical sort of chap, who never 
 puts on any airs, and who never does a 
 thing because every one else is doing it. 
 He never played ping-pong. 
 
 Just pause a ' moment and think what 
 that means. 
 
 [146] 
 
On Getting Ones Money s Worth 
 
 White gets only thirty dollars a week, 
 so he is not as well off as his neighbour, 
 Black, but he knows a heap more about 
 getting the worth of his money. 
 
 He weighs what this one and that one, 
 and this paper and that paper, say about 
 current theatrical attractions, and then he 
 picks out one that seems suited to his 
 tastes. 
 
 Then he and his wife get seats in the 
 front row of the second balcony for a dol- 
 lar a piece, and with the help of the opera- 
 glasses which his grandfather used to 
 look at Jenny Lind, he manages to see all 
 there is to be seen, and Mrs. White has 
 such good eyesight that she doesn't need 
 opera-glasses. 
 
 Both are very fond of the theatre, and he 
 generally manages to pick a winner, and 
 the two are mightily amused. 
 
 He is past the age when golden-bucks 
 ride easily, and his wife hates after-theatre 
 
 [147] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 suppers, but they are both very fond of 
 books, and he has the ridiculous habit of 
 putting the supper-money into a volume 
 of some classic, which he buys the after- 
 noon of the day he is going to the 
 theatrCo 
 
 He reads it on the train going back, so 
 it is he that gets the headache, but his 
 wife just dozes ofi comfortably in the seat, 
 and forgets that it's an awful nuisance go- 
 ing home to the suburbs, and next day 
 she's as fresh as a lark. 
 
 He has added to their library, they have 
 both had a good time, and have seen a 
 play to which they will recommend their 
 friends, and the whole cost has come under 
 four dollars. 
 
 White goes oftener to the theatre than 
 Black does, because he has such good 
 luck in picking amusing plays ; therefore, 
 he spends as much on amusement as Black 
 does, but he gets much more fun out of it 
 
 [148] 
 
On Getting One s Money s Worth 
 
 than his neighbour does, just because he 
 is unwilling to spend for the mere sake of 
 being like other people. 
 
 When you have come to the end of the 
 year and have regretted that you did not 
 get more fun for your money, just count 
 up how much you spent for the mere sake 
 of doing the proper thing, and you'll find 
 that you have thrown away enough to have 
 paid for several outings. 
 
 I know a man — my, the number of men 
 I know when Fm writing one of these 
 " preachments " ! — who has been a bachelor 
 for forty-odd years, although he is a great 
 admirer of women. And do you know 
 why ? Because he says he cannot support 
 a wife ** as a wife ought to be supported.'* 
 He makes a goodish bit of money in a year 
 — something like five thousand dollars — 
 and he knows, or has known, lots of nice 
 two-thousand-dollar girls, but he remains a 
 lonely old bachelor, just because he never 
 [ 149] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 learned how to get the worth of his money. 
 He spends it all, but he isn't happy, be- 
 cause he is naturally a family man — and 
 he has no family. 
 
 Think of the two-thousand-dollar girls 
 who could have made him happy and en- 
 abled him to soak away three thousand a 
 year, if he had been so minded. 
 
 Of course, if it pleases you to be consid- 
 ered as belonging to a higher social 
 stratum than is yours by right of income 
 — if you are foolish enough to care two 
 straws about incomes — if, I say, you spend 
 your money on maintaining a proud posi- 
 tion, and you feel your bluff has carried, 
 I suppose it's no use to say to you that 
 you have misspent your money or failed to 
 get your money's worth ; but it does no 
 harm to say that the persons who are really 
 happiest when the end of the year comes 
 are the ones who have been able to wrest 
 a dollar's worth of happiness out of every 
 
 [150] 
 
On Getting Ones Money s Worth 
 
 dollar spent for pleasure. And they are 
 never the rich. 
 
 The other day a Britisher, a member of 
 Parliament, came to visit us, and he wrote 
 an article about New York which contained 
 some unconscious humour. 
 
 After showing that he spent a large part 
 of his time meeting the newly rich, he con- 
 tinues : 
 
 Side by side with the reckless good- 
 humour, the extravagant optimism of many 
 classes in New York, I thought I saw a 
 sombreness and unrest among the poor. 
 
 It's quite likely he did. And the som- 
 breness and unrest are likely to grow, 
 more's the pity. 
 
 But he goes on : 
 
 And there is another class which I did 
 not meet, but which must be even sadder 
 and more pathetic, and that is the middle 
 class, which has to get along with moder- 
 ate means in this carnival of luxury and 
 
 [151] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 extravagance and costliness. You must 
 have money, and plenty of it, to find life 
 tolerable ; that is what, finally, I felt about 
 New York. 
 
 And this last is the joke. Members of 
 the middle class, allow me to extend to 
 you my sympathy. 
 
 If you cannot find life tolerable in New 
 York, even without plenty of money, it is 
 because you have never found out how to 
 get the worth of what money you do 
 spend. 
 
 There are lots of fellows and their wives 
 who are happy as fairy kings and queens 
 in New York on less than two thousand 
 dollars a year. 
 
 But aping those who have better means 
 won't bring happiness, nor the worth of 
 your money. 
 
 [152] 
 
XVIII 
 A Word to Fathers 
 
 DOES your boy stand in awe of you ? 
 I have asked that question be- 
 fore in print, but nobody answered 
 me. Perhaps it was not read ; but as you 
 are reading this, I repeat : Does your boy 
 stand in awe of you ? 
 
 If he does, why does he ? Is it because 
 you are a director in half-a-dozen influen- 
 tial business concerns and cannot forget 
 the fact even at home ? 
 
 If that is his reason for regarding you 
 with awe, it won't be many years before 
 his awe will change to amusement. For 
 a boy after a time becomes a man, and if 
 he has a sense of humour, he can't help 
 being amused at pomposity, even if the 
 inflated one is his father. 
 
 [153] 
 
T/i e Kn ack of It 
 
 Drop that stern face when you are with 
 him, and let him into the secret that you 
 are merely a human being like himself and 
 not even a distant relative of the immortal 
 gods. 
 
 Tin gods on wheels — how many there 
 are of them, and how many people bow 
 down before them 1 
 
 Now, it is a natural thing for some men 
 to enjoy mounting a pedestal — like a cigar- 
 store Indian — and looking down on the 
 multitude ; but it is unfair to your boy to 
 force him to join the gaping crowd. 
 
 You really are not worth any man's 
 worship. It may sound impertinent for 
 me to say it, when I have never had the 
 privilege of addressing you ; but you are 
 not so very superior to the common run of 
 humanity, and if your fellow men knew 
 you as well as you know yourself you 
 would not dare pose even as a tin god. 
 
 So unbend to the boy, and let him feel 
 
 [154] 
 
A Word to Fathers 
 
 that he is almost your equal in the family 
 at least. 
 
 But perhaps he stands in awe of you be- 
 cause you are a stern disciplinarian, and 
 believes that you are his keeper, and he is 
 in prison for a term of years — twenty-one, 
 to be exact. 
 
 That's a worse reason than the other. 
 Discipline is as good for him as it is for 
 you, but awe — I hate that word awe^ ex- 
 cept as applied to one's impression of 
 thunder-clouds, or stormy seas, or everlast- 
 ing mountains. You are not a thunder- 
 cloud — at least, I hope not — and you are 
 not a stormy sea, and you are not an ever- 
 lasting hill ; but just an erring human be- 
 ing, with an innate and perhaps untried 
 power of inspiring love. 
 
 Your son ought to be your younger 
 
 brother. You were a boy before he was, 
 
 and did all the things you rebuke him for 
 
 doing ; and you ought to take him on one 
 
 [155] 
 
Th e Kn ack of It 
 
 side and show him the folly of his course 
 as evinced by your own failure to become 
 a perfect man. 
 
 Make a playmate of the boy. 
 
 I'd rather have a son warmly affectionate 
 to me than be a director in five ordinary 
 business concerns and one life insurance 
 company. 
 
 " Stop I Here comes father I " That's 
 what I heard a boy say to his brother. 
 The two were lying under a tree after a 
 game of tennis, singing a harmless song. 
 I wondered if the father was a poor judge 
 of music, for their voices were tuneful, or 
 whether he was an invalid who had to be 
 coddled — until I saw him. 
 
 Five feet two at least, and as straight as 
 a wooden Indian, with a rigid walk and 
 an eye like an imitation Jove, and a stern, 
 set mouth — I understood. 
 
 He passed those boys then without a 
 word, although he had not seen them 
 
 [156] 
 
A Word to Fathers 
 
 since morning, and went into the house as 
 imposingly as five-feet-two can accom- 
 plish such a thing. 
 
 I thought of Mr. Peewee, who used to 
 figure in the evening papers, and I won- 
 dered if an ordinary pin would '* deflate " 
 him. 
 
 I was spending Sunday at the house 
 next his, and I found out who he was : a 
 martinet ; a man whose wife never called 
 him anything but ** Mr." Brown ; presi- 
 dent of an asphalt pavement company and 
 director in three or four other concerns. 
 
 Six months later, the asphalt company 
 failed, and Mr. Brown's name was men- 
 tioned in connection with some bribery at 
 Albany, and the Browns left the suburb 
 they had been living in. 
 
 I couldn't help thinking how like a 
 character in a book he was, and I won- 
 dered whether he still kept up his awe- 
 inspiring gait and behaviour. 
 
 [157] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 I don't go so far as to say that if he had 
 been " hail fellow well met " with his boys 
 he would not have been guilty of bribery, 
 but if he had not assumed such a pose of 
 awesomeness he might have been com- 
 forted by his boys when he fell on evil 
 days. 
 
 Get acquainted with your son, make a 
 friend of him, renew your youth ; and 
 when you die other people will really 
 mourn you, and no one will refer to you 
 as a solemn ass — which is another name 
 for an awesome person. 
 
 [158] 
 
E 
 
 XIX 
 
 Concerning Addition 
 
 VERY little bit added to what 
 you've got makes just a little bit 
 
 I wish that I could print the music to 
 that popular refrain as its felicitous rag- 
 time adds to the catchiness of the dictum. 
 
 ** Every little bit added to what you've 
 got jnakes just a little bit more.'* 
 
 It's an amusing song, and the suggested 
 advice is good. Strange how many 
 people there are who do not act on it ! 
 
 There were two brothers born within a 
 year or two of each other and of the same 
 parents — that's why they were brothers — 
 but they were as different as day and night. 
 
 One of them was always bent on accum- 
 ulating experiences of one kind or another ; 
 he was fond of music, fond of books, fond 
 
 [159] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 of pictures. He possessed a good deal of 
 curiosity regarding the habits of men, and 
 neglected his business — so they say — in or- 
 der to increase his stock of knowledge con- 
 cerning mankind. But, after all, that was 
 his own business. He was fond of going to 
 the theatre, and while he always picked out 
 good plays, still, in the opinion of his 
 brother, he might have been employed stay- 
 ing late at his office, heaping up dollars. 
 
 The brother was heaping them up all 
 right. Why, that man was the first one to 
 reach his office and the last one to leave 
 it. The office-boy always got tired of wait- 
 ing for him and went home before him. 
 You may be sure that his business 
 prospered, and at thirty he was worth a 
 hundred times as much as his unbusiness- 
 like brother. He may have had an ear for 
 music when he was a boy, but at thirty he 
 had lost it, and regarded time spent at 
 concerts as money thrown away. 
 [i6o] 
 
Concerning Addition 
 
 Time and money were convertible terms 
 with him, and he sought by every means 
 in his power to build up a huge fortune. 
 
 Reading was not for him. Books were 
 apt to be idle thoughts, only fit for idle fel- 
 lows, and he had no time to waste on non- 
 sense. Pictures might make good invest- 
 ments if a man happened to buy the right 
 kind, but he didn't pretend to know a 
 good one from a bad one, and so he never 
 bought any. The companionship of his 
 fellows was not congenial to him and he 
 belonged to no clubs. A club, in his 
 opinion, was a place where a man wasted 
 time that might have been employed in 
 making money and where idle fellows 
 swapped idler stories. No, the office for 
 him and his whole mind to the making of 
 money. 
 
 His brother went to Europe, to South 
 America, to Asia, to Africa ; how he did it 
 was a mystery, for he made very little 
 [ I6i ] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 money. He seemed to know how to get 
 a good deal of service for a small expendi- 
 ture of silver, and he acted as if life were 
 an enjoyable thing. 
 
 Neither brother married, and after a 
 time old age came upon each of them. 
 
 Then the moneyed man retired from 
 business, broken in health and with noth- 
 ing to do but regret that he had not made 
 more money while he was at it. 
 
 But the " lazy " brother, who had worked 
 his mind and his sensibilities for all they 
 were worth his whole life long, was able to 
 sit by himself, if need be, and have the full 
 companionship of the many bright minds 
 that he had known in life and in books, to 
 bring before his mind's eye the many 
 lovely pictures he had seen on canvas and 
 in the landscape, to call up to recollection's 
 ear the delightful harmonies that he had 
 heard from the world's great orchestras, 
 the beautiful melodies that had come from 
 
 [162] 
 
Concerning Addition 
 
 full-throated singers ; and if he had had 
 none of these solaces, great reward would 
 have been his in his ability to reach up to 
 his book shelves and pick therefrom the 
 fruit of a lifetime's gathering. 
 
 The one, rich, old and unhappy ; the 
 other, rich in associations, friends, and all 
 those things that go to the making of a 
 cultivated man — and the heart of a boy in 
 him still. 
 
 " Every little bit added to what you've 
 got makes just a little bit more," and the 
 wise brother had added a little bit of infor- 
 mation to a little bit of amusement and a 
 little bit of good-will and a little bit of 
 helpfulness, and so when he was seventy 
 he had an accumulation that sufficed him 
 for the long twilight of a healthy old age, 
 while his brother the money-getter 
 
 It has just occurred to me that he, too, 
 followed the advice, but it does not seem 
 to have done him much good. Every lit- 
 
 [163] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 tie bit (of money) added to what (money) 
 you've got makes just a little bit more 
 (money), but all the money in the world 
 won't buy good-fellowship, real, sincere 
 good-fellowship — I mean, if you haven't 
 planted the seeds of friendliness in your 
 youth ; and when you are seventy and 
 have neglected books all your life you are 
 not going to sit down and suddenly enjoy 
 them. Nor will a rich man find that his 
 bulging pocketbooks can buy him appre- 
 ciation of the beautiful in pictures or of the 
 gorgeous tone-colouring in symphonies, 
 if he has neglected to begin his addition of 
 one kind of cultivation to another kind in 
 his boyhood and young manhood. 
 
 Don't regard the money spent on a good 
 play or a good concert as money thrown 
 away. Don't regard the hour spent with 
 a good friend as time thrown away. 
 Don't regard the time spent on a captivat- 
 ing romance or a well-developed novel or 
 [164] 
 
Concerning Addition 
 
 a cleverly written essay as time misspent. 
 Don't regard the time spent in outdoor 
 sports as wasted. 
 
 I'm not advocating idleness or the neg- 
 lect of duty. If a man is in business let 
 him give his mind to his business. If I 
 had given my mind to the business I was 
 in when I was a young man I might to-day 
 control the dry-goods market, but the 
 trouble was I wouldn't read good advice 
 like this I am handing out, and I hadn't 
 horse-sense enough to know that I could 
 never hope to advance without industry ; 
 and every little bit of idleness, added to 
 what I had, made just a litde bit more ; 
 and when the pile was big enough my em- 
 ployer noticed it and asked me if I would 
 kindly make place for a friend of his, and 
 I obligingly stepped down and out and 
 lost my chance of being a dry-goods king 
 that very day. 
 
 Don't do as I did, but do as I advise. If 
 
 [ 165 ] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 I spent my time in picture-galleries that 
 should have been given to separating the 
 moreens from the mohairs, or attended 
 afternoon concerts when I should have 
 been extricating the buntings from among 
 the worsteds, I was adding a little bit of 
 time that I didn't own to some more that I 
 had already got (dishonestly), and while it 
 made a little bit more it didn't better my 
 character at all, and if I had stayed in the 
 dry-goods business I fear to say what I 
 might have become. 
 
 Be sure that your time is your own, then 
 spend it so as to accumulate treasure for 
 your old age ; and if you die before you are 
 old you will have already realized a good 
 deal on your investment. 
 
 Now let us sing together : ** Every little 
 bit added to what you've got makes just 
 a little bit more." 
 
 [i66] 
 
XX 
 
 On Lending 
 
 IF you desire to know how poorly off 
 you are, just notice what you say the 
 next time some poor fellow comes and 
 asks you for a loan of money to help him 
 out of a tight place. 
 
 But perhaps you remember what you 
 said last time. 
 
 "Awfully sorry, old man, but we're putting 
 a steam-heating plant into the house, and 
 you know how that costs. And we've got to 
 paper the servant's room. And it does seem 
 as if business was falling off every month. 
 Hard times are upon us, and I believe this 
 country is going to the dogs. Awfully 
 sorry to disoblige, but you know how it is." 
 
 Of course, ** old man " knows how it is, 
 and he goes away feeling bitter because 
 you won't accommodate him, totally for- 
 
 [167] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 getting that a little while ago, when I was 
 in a hole and went to him for a loan, he 
 said : "By George 1 why didn't you come 
 yesterday ? Paid a bill I needn't have 
 paid, and now I really can't do a thing for 
 you. Awfully sorry, old chap. Better 
 luck next time." 
 
 Why, I remember that when Janeway 
 came to me last month and wanted to bor- 
 row fifty dollars to pay his life insurance 
 premium, I told him that I hadn't sold a 
 story for two weeks (absolute truth), and 
 that, much as I wanted, etc., etc., etc. 
 
 Oh, we certainly do feel poor when the 
 time to help one of our fellow sufferers 
 comes along. 
 
 But there's one thing about it. The 
 more we have the poorer we feel, and some 
 of those who really are poor will dip right 
 into the bottom of their pockets and hand 
 over everything to help, knowing how it is 
 themselves. 
 
 [168] 
 
On Lending 
 
 I know one man who would make the 
 best kind of millionaire imaginable, for, if 
 any of his friends is about to undertake 
 something calling for ready money, he is 
 sure to say : "By the way, got plenty of 
 money ? Because if you need any, I'll be 
 glad," etc., etc. 
 
 Popular man ? Well, yes, he is ; only I 
 will say this for human nature — that he is 
 not imposed upon as often as you might 
 think. When a man is as ready as that to 
 help a friend along, it would be a mean 
 friend who would try to bleed him. 
 
 But isn't it queer how the most of us 
 will cling to our money ? Maybe we are 
 bachelors, and have next to no call on our 
 funds, and there is not a day passes that 
 we could not give a young chap a start in 
 business, or make the sledding easier for a 
 few days, but we never think of doing a 
 thing. 
 
 We listen to a call for ten dollars, and 
 [169] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 hand out the threadbare plea of the need 
 of papering the basement or putting a 
 carpet in the attic, and then in sheer ennui 
 we go to the opera and have a supper after- 
 wards, inviting a rich friend, and we blow 
 in ten dollars — perhaps the very ten dol- 
 lars that the poor devil wanted, although 
 we have so many ten dollars it would be 
 hard to tell which was which without 
 marking them. 
 
 Of course, a man has a right to do what 
 he will with his money, and perhaps if any 
 one of us was rich he would enjoy getting 
 ten dollars' worth of Caruso's voice far bet- 
 ter than he would enjoy helping a deserving 
 man out of a hole to the extent of ten dollars; 
 but just looking at it academically, it would 
 seem that the best fun a man could have 
 would be looking around for people who 
 needed help, and helping them. 
 
 Imagine being a millionaire and going 
 around among the studios or the con- 
 [170] 
 
On Lendi 
 
 n 
 
 g 
 
 servatories and finding out this fellow with 
 talent and that girl with a voice, and help- 
 ing them to art educations, not asking 
 that they return the money, but pledging 
 them to pass the favour along when they 
 themselves had succeeded. 
 
 An endless chain of that sort, eh ? Fd 
 like to come back here five hundred years 
 after it was started just for the purpose of 
 noting how much better the world was 
 by virtue of these benefactions passed 
 along. 
 
 That's one good thing about human 
 nature. If a man does a kindly thing, the 
 fellow benefited never rests until he can go 
 and do something for some one else. 
 
 I fancy that the reason why it is so hard 
 to borrow money when one gets into a tight 
 place, is because one goes to people who 
 have never been helped. Don't you know 
 there are people who are worth a million 
 or more, and who are proud of saying : 
 
 [171] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 " I am under no obligations to any one. 
 I'm entirely a self-made man. I made 
 every dollar myself, and no man has a 
 claim on a single one. If I give, it is be- 
 cause I'm naturally generous, and want to 
 help others." 
 
 But if he never would accept help, why 
 should he insult others by helping them ? 
 
 It is to laugh. Fancy a man in this 
 America of ours being independent. In- 
 dependence may be our boast, but even 
 your plutocrat depends upon the often 
 underpaid efTorts of the man below. 
 
 But if you go to the right man when 
 you are in a hole — if you use good judg- 
 ment and go to the poor man, and tell 
 him what your prospects are, and how a 
 little tiding over at the present time will 
 enable you to succeed later on, he won't 
 have a word to say about papering his 
 cellar or buying a new automobile for his 
 invalid son. He will say: "Sit right 
 
 [172] 
 
On Trending 
 
 where you are, old man, and I'll raise it 
 inside of half an hour. I know a place 
 where money grows." 
 
 And he'll be back with it in the half-hour. 
 I don't know where he gets it — whether 
 he has a fat stocking that he takes good 
 care of, or knows a lot of **easy marks" 
 who are glad to unload when he gives 
 them the password. One thing I do 
 know, he is the boy that you hurry to pay 
 back when success perches on your ban- 
 ner once more, and nothing would make 
 you happier than to hear that he was in a 
 bad hole — just so that you could run in 
 and offer him all you had. 
 
 [173] 
 
XXI 
 
 On Getting Paid in One s Own 
 Coin 
 
 LAUGH and the world laughs with 
 you, quarrel and — you have the 
 help of the world. 
 
 Man is an imitative creature, and he is 
 apt to do what he sees you do. Knowing 
 this, you have yourself to blame if your 
 merry outing sees its finish in a cell. 
 
 I knew a man who, having received a 
 little inheritance that enabled him to 
 travel, set forth in blithe fashion, for all 
 the world like a hero in a romantic novel. 
 
 As he fared along the road, he'd greet 
 those he met with a ** Good-morning ; it's 
 a pretty day, isn't it ? " He was from the 
 Southwest, where they have " pretty " days 
 instead of " fine " ones — and his smile was 
 reflected back from every face he passed. 
 
 [174] 
 
Paid in One s Own Coin 
 
 " It's the merriest kind of world," said 
 he, and he was quite right. His suddenly- 
 acquired means had rose-tinted the whole 
 world. Every one was his friend, and he 
 was on the best possible terms with every 
 one. 
 
 If he sojourned at a private house — and 
 he found such hospitality everywhere — he 
 was so hail-fellow-well-met, without being 
 too familiar, that gruff men relaxed and 
 women melted. 
 
 " The world is better for having him," 
 said they as he went on his way. 
 
 "■ It surely is a merry world," said he. 
 " This talk about trouble is very much ex- 
 aggerated." 
 
 He met Mexicans and Chinamen and 
 Indians, and he found them all compan- 
 ionable. He had the knack of getting un- 
 der the skin with a pleasant remark just as 
 some people do with a bit of sarcasm ; 
 and, of course, once you get under the 
 
 [175] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 skin, human nature is so much alike every- 
 where that it would make a monotonous 
 exhibit at a county fair if specimens of it 
 from all over the world were laid side by 
 side. 
 
 One day he fell in with a dark-complex- 
 ioned, weather-bronzed man in the foot- 
 hills around Santa Barbara, and he found 
 him a most companionable fellow. He 
 was courteous, he had a sense of humour, 
 had plenty of knowledge of men and 
 things — even of botany and other bits of 
 learning that schoolgirls absorb to-day and 
 forget to-morrow ; and our friend said that 
 he never heard any one say more poetical 
 things about nature than this casual com- 
 panion did, when the setting sun illu- 
 mined the foot-hills and finally set in a 
 sparkling sea of molten gold known on the 
 map as the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 (Laugh and the world laughs with you ; 
 and yet, as it turned out, this particular 
 
 [ 176 ] 
 
Paid in Ones Own Coin 
 
 Santa Barbara member of the association of 
 world inhabitants was a criminal leisurely 
 and calmly getting away from justice.) 
 
 Laugh and the world laughs with you ; 
 and our friend had a laughing trip of five 
 days, and at last came to Saturday. 
 
 Now Saturday is really one of the nicest 
 days in the week. Pay-day is apt to be 
 on Saturday ; also it is the day on which 
 one begins week-end visits. Saturday is a 
 good day, a merry day, the merriest day 
 in the whole seven. 
 
 Just what happened to our friend Friday 
 night he did not fully tell me. He may 
 have had too merry a time with a party of 
 campers with whom he spent the night. 
 Something stronger than California wine 
 flowed in that camp, and he said that they 
 were a roystering lot, with little need of 
 his smile to set them going. 
 
 Whatever the cause, when the early 
 birds began to sing among the redwoods, 
 [177] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 they witnessed as cold and gray a dawn as 
 ever comes the morning after to California ; 
 and our friend woke with what is unpleas- 
 antly known as a grouch. His smile was 
 with the snows of yester-year, and as he went 
 on his weary way, stiffly and sourly, he felt 
 that this world was not quite the paradise it 
 had been cracked up to be. There was a 
 rift in somebody's lute, and the lute looked 
 like his. And, what's more — he didn't like 
 the songs the birds were singing. 
 
 Not far on his way he met a man who 
 was noted for his amiability, and had the 
 stranger spoken first he might have waked 
 a smile on our friend's gray features, but 
 the man who had slept out spoke first. 
 
 " I don't think much of your California 
 weather," said he sourly and gratuitously. 
 
 Now, the man addressed was a native 
 son, and no native son, however amiable 
 he may be, can stand any aspersions on 
 the perfect, simply perfect California 
 
 [178] 
 
Paid in One s Own Coin 
 
 weather, so he said, in a tone tinctured 
 with acidity : ** You couldn't match this 
 day in the East?" 
 
 " East ! " said our friend contemptu- 
 ously. " Say, do I look like an Easterner ? 
 I'm from Missouri myself, and down there 
 we have pretty days, but if this is the kind 
 of weather you advertise in the magazines, 
 I'd like you to show me its superlativeness." 
 
 This led to words on the part of the 
 amiable man, and at last our smiling 
 traveller and the amiable one came to 
 blows, all under the arching dome of the 
 California sky, with the little birds still 
 singing. 
 
 Laugh and the world laughs with you, 
 quarrel — and you'll get what's coming to 
 you. 
 
 Speaking of merry hearts and fighting, I 
 once knew a young clerk who was fond of 
 fighting, and he thought this the best of 
 all possible worlds because it was so easy 
 
 [179] 
 
The Knack of It 
 
 to pick a quarrel, and such fun to shake 
 hands over it afterwards. He was not 
 malicious at heart. He was simply high- 
 spirited, and rejoiced in a scrap. 
 
 If he celebrated a holiday by going to a 
 picnic with his Maggie, and we asked him 
 next morning if he'd had a good time, his 
 answer would be very apt to be : *' I had 
 a dandy time. Licked a feller that got 
 saucy on the way down to Coney.*' 
 
 " How did he get saucy ? " 
 
 ** Oh, he looked at Maggie, and I told 
 him not to get gay, and he looked at her 
 again, and I told him to mind his own 
 business or I'd give him something to re- 
 member me by, and he said he was mind- 
 ing his own business, and I'd better mind 
 mine, and then I sailed into him. He 
 won't look at Maggie again before he's in- 
 troduced." 
 
 "And he'll never get introduced, will 
 he?" 
 
 [i8o] 
 
Paid in One s Own Coin 
 
 " Oh, I introduced him after the scrap 
 was over. He was a nice enough feller, 
 only too free with his eye. He introduced 
 me to his steady, and we all spent the 
 afternoon together down at Coney." 
 
 Jimmy was of Irish extraction, and Mag- 
 gie was the same, and a fight was possibly 
 a species of hospitality in their eyes, but it 
 serves to show that whether you smile or 
 quarrel the world does the same. 
 
 But it's a good thing to start out a-laugh- 
 ing of a Monday, keep laughing Tuesday, 
 Wednesday and Thursday, be careful how 
 you spend Friday night, and then make 
 Saturday the merriest day of the week. 
 You will have plenty of company, for the 
 world loves a happy man. 
 
 [I8i] 
 
#iUG '-'' 
 
/