IPS 23S5 
 F75 
 
 J 1912 
 Copy 1 
 
 S. 
 
 L)ci<l<it<<iiWnr.'B9tf»i^? ..ariC74c. 
 
 :i,'.;.i,ii' I 
 
 ll '111 1,1 1 
 
 »ll.l 
 
 !• ' i^ 
 
 '"iii;'l,,!;, 
 
 l'ij!l.l|f;:i::i.;:,! 
 
 ..■-■ j:' 
 
 ■ilffli: 
 
 irunir 
 
 'i:iiit: 
 
 
 •'li-li: 
 
 I'liii-i;". 
 
 li!l! 
 
CopigW? /7/ ^ 
 
 COFVRIGIIT DEFOSnV 
 
A FREE LANCE 
 
 BEING SHORT PARAGRAPHS 
 AND DETACHED PAGES FROM 
 AN AUTHOR'S NOTE BOOK 
 
 BY 
 FREDERIC ROWLAND MARVIN 
 
 Away with that famed sentence Know thyself! 
 'Tis not well put; Know others, to my thinking. 
 Is a more apt and profitable maxim. 
 
 — Menander. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY 
 
 1912 
 
11 '* 
 
 n 
 
 coptbight, 1912 
 Sheemak, French 6* Compact 
 
 ^ 
 
 ©CI.A330680 
 
TO 
 
 MY BELOVED WIFE 
 
 I DEDICATE THESE PAGES, BECAUSE 
 
 ALL THAT IS GOOD IN THEM, AND MUCH OF 
 
 WHATEVER IS GOOD IN THEIR AUTHOR 
 
 COMES OF HER TENDER AND PURE 
 
 LOVE, AND IS DUE TO HER 
 
 DEAR COMPANIONSHIP 
 
A valiant knight whose lance doth 
 pierce the follies of the world. 
 
 — A rchcedlogia 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 A WRITER has always on his table, or con- 
 "*■ ^ cealed in one or more of its drawers, liter- 
 ary material that has failed of finding a place 
 in any of his books. As time passes the mate- 
 rial increases in quantity; and sometimes, be- 
 cause of occasional revisions, it improves in 
 character and becomes more worthy of preserva- 
 tion. What shall he do with it? He may be 
 moved by some inward impulse to cast it all into 
 the fire. Yet not a few of those pages have cost 
 him labor; and some of them may possess a 
 modicum of interest for the general reader. 
 Why should not the author, after winnowing 
 from the grain so much of the chaff as it may 
 be possible thus to separate from the ripe grain, 
 gather what remains of the corn into some such 
 granary as a book like this provides? The au- 
 thor has expressed his opinions with freedom 
 and frankness, and he believes there are in this 
 world many candid men and women who will wel- 
 come his frankness even though they may, in 
 some cases, dissent from the conclusions arrived 
 at. Only to such readers is this book addressed. 
 
 F. R. M. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Vulgar Age 1 
 
 Patrick Henrt 17 
 
 Woman's World ^'^ 
 
 Persokalitt . 39 
 
 The Shadow 40 
 
 Freedom ik Married Life 40 
 
 PoPTTLAR SuFrRAGE 44 
 
 An Interesting Exhibit of Injustice 44 
 
 "Ye Olde Booke Man" 51 
 
 Cheap and Nasty 64 
 
 Blake's Vision of Angels 64 
 
 Evert Man his own Jailer 65 
 
 Anthont Tyrrell 66 
 
 Development of the Spiritual Life 68 
 
 Religious Nature 69 
 
 God in Nature '^S 
 
 Tuning the Pulpits , . 78 
 
 Unfriendly Religion 78 
 
 The Sharp Edge of Mercy 79 
 
 "He Taught Them" 79 
 
 Theology and Physical Condition 80 
 
 The National Church and Parliament .... 80 
 
 A Faith that cannot be Sung .82 
 
 Ecclesiastical Profanity 83 
 
 Institutions 83 
 
 The Marriage of Cupid and Psyche 84 
 
 Rivalry .85 
 
 True Beauty Astonishes 86 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 a buttonless philosopher 87 
 
 The Gentlemax 87 
 
 Manners 87 
 
 A LiTERAET Resemblance 88 
 
 No Long Poem 89 
 
 A Teue Standard 89 
 
 Penance 90 
 
 Style 90 
 
 Seneca's Pilot 91 
 
 The Sense of Sound in Literature 92 
 
 Genius 92 
 
 Discernment of Beauty 94 
 
 The Five Best Poems in the English Language . 95 
 
 A Perfect Temperament 96 
 
 Civilization 96 
 
 Cooperation 99 
 
 Jefferson 99 
 
 Our National Emblem 101 
 
 swedenborg as a poet 112 
 
 A College of Journalism 113 
 
 Pharmacy 117 
 
 Hymns Better than Creeds 120 
 
 Victor Hugo 1^0 
 
 The Present 121 
 
 The Agnostic 121 
 
 Modern Poetry Artificial 123 
 
 SoNGLESs Verse is not Poetry ........ 123 
 
 We are Ruled by the Dead 123 
 
 Popular Government 124 
 
 The Successful Politician 124 
 
 Evangelical Books Dull 125 
 
 The Sensuous World is Symbolic 126 
 
 Where to Look 126 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Gladstone 126 
 
 The United States too Young foe History . . . 127 
 
 Longfellow 128 
 
 A Brazen Jackass 128 
 
 Simpler Relations 129 
 
 Suppression op Knowledge 129 
 
 Truth 129 
 
 The Mob 130 
 
 John Hancock ■. . 130 
 
 Religious Instruction in Public Schools .... 132 
 
 Socialism 133 
 
 Two Republics 138 
 
 British Rule 141 
 
 Most Men have Ordinary Abilities 142 
 
 The Approaching Period 144 
 
 Contempt for Manual Labor 145 
 
 Work is Honorable 147 
 
 English Rule in America 148 
 
 Minor Poets 150 
 
 The Crowd 153 
 
 The Bull Moose in Greek . 155 
 
 The New Beelzebub 156 
 
 Mosaics 157 
 
 IjAis Dedicates Her Mirror to Venus 165 
 
 Surroundings 168 
 
 The Reward of Virtue . 169 
 
 Physical Contact and Social Recognition . . . 170 
 
 Frances Power Cobbe 184 
 
THE VULGAR AGE 
 
 TF this paper required a motto, surely the au- 
 thor could prefix to what he has here to say 
 about the rudeness and want of refinement which 
 he believes to be peculiarly marked features of 
 the present age no words more pertinent than 
 are those which Miss Mary Windsor addressed 
 to a woman's suffrage association in convention 
 at the time (October 20, 1911) in Louisville, 
 Kentucky. The subject under discussion was 
 "The Way to Interest the Uninterested." 
 
 Miss Windsor was not in any wise what is 
 called mealy-mouthed, nor did she go out of her 
 way to find delicate phraseology. This is what 
 she is reported to have said: "Whatever you 
 do, don't be tiresome. Better be vulgar. This 
 is a vulgar age. Be loud, be yellow, be any- 
 thing to be picturesque." She followed her own 
 advice, and her harangue was highly illustrative 
 of the manner of speech she recommended to her 
 sister reformers. 
 
 She was surely right ; this is, indeed, a vul- 
 gar age — an age of vulgar men and women. 
 Whether Miss Windsor's words were strictly 
 
2 A FREE LANCE 
 
 speaking "yellow," we shall not undertake to de- 
 termine ; but they were beyond all question "pic- 
 turesque," though not in precisely the way the 
 few lovers of fine speech who still exist could 
 wish. The only criticism we shall pass upon 
 Miss Windsor's harangue is that the advice 
 which it contained was wholly unnecessary. 
 Most of the suffrage conventions called together 
 by women are, so far as we know them, suffi- 
 ciently vulgar, and require no exhortation to in- 
 creased vulgarity. The lady brought coals to 
 Newcastle when she recommended to her sisters 
 the chrome-colored speech of which her own 
 highly pigmented address was an excellent ex- 
 ample. 
 
 The Age, as we commonly use the word, is 
 something more than a fixed period. Indeed, 
 time is an inconsiderable element in what we call 
 the age. The age includes the men and women 
 living at the epoch under consideration; it in- 
 cludes also the speech of these, and their deeds 
 as well. Nothing contributes more generously 
 to the vulgarity of the present age than much 
 of the language commonly employed in ordi- 
 nary conversation and in the newspapers, books, 
 and magazines which are everywhere published 
 and read. The vulgarization of literature is 
 
THE VULGAR AGE 3 
 
 one of the most striking features of the age in 
 which we live. 
 
 We have what is commonly called "The Yel- 
 low Press." Some of our most mendacious pa- 
 pers have a very large circulation. Their ed- 
 itors stop at nothing. Scandal, slander, shame, 
 and infamy are written large on every page. 
 Sensational lies are dressed up in showy head- 
 lines. An appeal is openly made to the worst 
 passions. Good causes and worthy enterprises 
 are scoffed at and evil things are encouraged. 
 Of course the press described is something much 
 worse than vulgar, but it is the vulgarity that 
 concerns us now. The Satanic press is always 
 vulgar. Its readers are vulgar, and their tastes 
 and desires are like themselves. 
 
 But there are other papers which do not an- 
 swer to the above description and which are, 
 nevertheless, in every sense of the word vulgar. 
 Their editors would be shocked at the thought 
 of encouraging vice, and yet they are employ- 
 ing in every issue the phraseology of the vicious 
 and criminal classes. They familiarize their 
 readers with words and expressions coined and 
 circulated by worthless and profligate men, by 
 lawbreakers and disturbers of the peace. They 
 make frequent use of the word "yellow," which 
 
4 A FREE LANCE 
 
 is a slang word setting forth the kind of paper 
 which they themselves publish. The papers we 
 are describing make unrestricted use of such 
 words as "pal" (an accomplice or a partner in 
 crime), "swipe" (to grab a thing when its owner 
 is not watching), "pull" (a political claim or 
 requisition), "bounce" (to discharge an employe 
 unceremoniously or ungraciously), "boodle" 
 (money fraudulently obtained in the public serv- 
 ice), "skip" (to run away in the night, or to 
 elude an officer of the law), "cop" (a police- 
 man), "jug" (a jail or a workhouse), "graft" 
 (stolen money), and "bag" (to arrest or cap- 
 ture). These and other specimens of criminal 
 phraseology are made free use of by such pa- 
 pers as I am describing. Let none of my 
 readers think I am portraying the Police Ga- 
 zette and papers of that kind. I am setting forth 
 that paper and hundreds of other papers 
 of all kinds. I am describing for you, my 
 good reader, the morning paper that you 
 find on your breakfast table, and the evening 
 paper that you enjoy after the labor of the 
 day is over. You may not be greatly harmed 
 by such periodicals (though that is by no means 
 so certain as you may think), but what shall be 
 said of their influence over the tender minds of 
 
THE VULGAR AGE 6 
 
 your children? You would not yourself in the 
 presence of your children make use of the lan- 
 guage we are criticising. Let us hope you would 
 not use such language anywhere. What is to 
 be thought of headlines constructed after the fol- 
 lowing fashion? 
 
 "The District Attorney Consults His Pal;" 
 "More Boodle for the Ninth Ward;" "Let the 
 Jurymen Bag the Facts ;" "Grafters at Work in 
 the Windy City;" "Our Alderman Gets a Swat 
 in the Snout;" "He Skipped for Parts Un- 
 known ;" "Democrats Get the Jump ;" "The Boss 
 Kicks." 
 
 All this may have a decidedly American flavor, 
 suggestive of "uncrowned sovereigns," but there 
 is absolutely nothing about it that suggests any- 
 thing better than the peculiar flavor named. 
 This is an age that finds great pleasure in out-of- 
 door sports that have in them much that is whole- 
 some and invigorating; but there is about them 
 almost nothing that brings out the dignity and 
 beauty of the human form. In ancient Greece 
 nature was undressed, and the human figure in 
 all its nude beauty, without a thought of immod- 
 esty, impressed itself upon the imagination in 
 such a way as to educate the sense of artistic 
 beauty. But our baseball games and athletic 
 
6 A FREE LANCE 
 
 sports are commonly rude, and never suggestive 
 of refinement. Yet to the reporting of games 
 played by college students and by professional 
 players our newspapers devote much space. But 
 they seldom rebuke the gambling and the rowdy- 
 ism that are not often wanting ; on the contrary, 
 they usually resent any eifort made by the better 
 element in society to prevent or even restrict 
 these unfortunate features. Many papers openly 
 espouse the gambler's side in any controversy 
 that may occur between what are called "book- 
 makers" at the race-track and good men and 
 women who endeavor to enforce the law against 
 gambling. Such papers are, apart from their 
 viciousness, vulgar to the very last degree. 
 The age that sustains such papers and thinks 
 well of them is correctly described as a vulgar 
 age. 
 
 Think of the vulgarity of an ex-President of 
 the United States who could travel from one 
 end of the country to the other, sounding his 
 trumpet with equal vigor and energy in willing 
 and unwilling ears ; blowing his own praise in the 
 face of friend and foe. Washington did nothing 
 of the kind, nor did Lincoln. Think of a man 
 storming, as it were, heaven and earth in one 
 wild effort to make himself the nominee of a 
 
THE VULGAR AGE 7 
 
 reluctant party. Could anything be more rude 
 and repulsive than Mr. Roosevelt's self-ex- 
 ploitation, full to the brim and overflowing with 
 an obnoxious personality? 
 
 Not a political campaign goes by without my 
 receiving from candidates (strangers, most of 
 them, to me) photographs of themselves, and 
 sickening praise of their own work. Verily this 
 is indeed a vulgar age! One man of whom I 
 knew absolutely nothing — a stranger — ^wrote to 
 tell me he was a man of exceptionable probity. 
 What his letter made clear enough was that he 
 was a man of exceptionable impudence. An- 
 other seeker after political preferment sent me 
 a picture of himself. The face was that of a 
 bruiser. I might ignorantly have voted for 
 him, not knowing anything about either him or 
 the opposing candidate, had I not accounted 
 that face of brass a sufficient warning. Alas! 
 these are the kind of men that fill too many of 
 our political offices and other places of trust. 
 
 The extreme partisan feeling of most of our 
 secular papers with regard to political questions, 
 methods, and affiliations, is in every way vulgar. 
 Nothing can be more wanting in good sense, fine 
 feeling, and noble purpose than an unconditionally 
 partisan club or newspaper. In a world wherein 
 
8 A FREE LANCE 
 
 nothing is lifted above imperfection, and wherein 
 no man is infallible, it becomes all of us to be 
 charitable in judgment, ready to reverse what- 
 ever line of conduct we may have adopted, and 
 cautious in the expression of opinion. The slang 
 phrase "cock-sure," which means overconfident, 
 expresses in a rude way the intellectual and moral 
 attitude of the vulgar partisan. The crass 
 champion or reformer will denounce whatever man 
 or measure happens to lie in his way. The vul- 
 garity of the exhibition which he makes is a thing 
 of which he never even dreams. He cannot un- 
 derstand how anything can be good that he op- 
 poses, or that opposes him. 
 
 As a matter of fact, all political parties are 
 corrupt, and the man who yields any of them an 
 unconditional loyalty is, in all probability, him- 
 self like unto them. But it is also true that who- 
 ever denounces them all without reserve is quite 
 as far removed from good sense and reason. 
 Parties are essential to the welfare of our coun- 
 try. Different parties act as secret agents to spy 
 out faults and misdeeds, each holding up to view 
 the party that opposes its plans and purposes. 
 It is, of course, an illustration of the old saying, 
 "the pot calls the kettle black;" but as in this 
 case both pot and kettle are black, there is 
 
THE VULGAR AGE 9 
 
 no small need of their various and often bitter 
 assaults. Undoubtedly the Republican party is 
 quite as foul as the Democratic party represents 
 it to be, and the Democratic is no better. 
 
 Of course this mutual exposure is vulgar. 
 Gentlemen do not give each other opprobrious 
 names; but then we must remember that they 
 only are gentlemen who conduct themselves in a 
 decorous and seemly way. This is not a gentle- 
 manly age; on the contrary, it is what we have 
 called it, a vulgar age ; and in nothing is it more 
 vulgar than in its political diatribes and evil 
 deeds. The language used by otherwise respect- 
 able papers and public men in dealing with polit- 
 ical opponents, the slang, the vilification, and the 
 false charges, all go to prove this age, in what- 
 ever concerns personal refinement, a rude and 
 coarse age, though in material resources, it has, 
 of course, the advantage which comes of being the 
 inheritor of all the wealth and wisdom of the 
 world. 
 
 The age of Nero and of his immediate predeces- 
 sors and successors was one of unreportable vice 
 and crime and of the greatest extravagance, but 
 it was not the vulgar and spiritless age that the 
 world has seen many times, and will no doubt 
 see many times in the long centuries to 
 
10 A FREE LANCE 
 
 come. Nero killed his mother, a thing no sover- 
 eign of the present day could do and retain 
 his throne. He gave away vast sums in money 
 and treasure taken from the people by robbery. 
 He was, in all probability, a madman, and his 
 reign was a nightmare. But he was not vul- 
 gar; he was a man of many natural gifts and 
 of fine culture. He loved beauty, and gave 
 enormous sums for its expression in art. 
 Under the Caesars Rome became a miracle of 
 beauty. 
 
 Architecture flourished on every hand. 
 Greece also, and other nations as well, rejoiced 
 in the splendor of marble and bronze. It was 
 an age of both material and intellectual refine- 
 ment and elegance. But now contemplate for 
 one moment the shapeless structures that we call 
 public buildings. Take, for instance, the State 
 House or Capitol at Albany in the Empire State, 
 the most populous and wealthy of all the States 
 in our Union. Its cost was very great, but 
 as a specimen of good architecture could there 
 have been a more humiliating failure? It 
 is extravagantly decorated and enriched within, 
 and upon its walls hang many interesting 
 and a few meritorious pictures; but who would 
 think of describing it as an architectural 
 
THE VULGAR AGE 11 
 
 success? Call to mind the so-called statues that 
 disgrace Central Park in the city of New York. 
 Consider also the general distaste for poetry 
 which in this age makes every publisher unwill- 
 ing to bring out a book of verse. It matters not 
 how good the book may be — no one will purchase 
 it, and only here and there may be found a per- 
 son who would read the book were a copy of it 
 given him. Virgil and Horace would starve in 
 an age like ours. 
 
 I am neither excusing nor am I condoning 
 the crimes of Nero. I am only comparing his 
 love of beauty with our want of such love. 
 There may, perhaps, have been some cogent rea- 
 sons for Nero's murder of his mother. She was 
 a woman of great strength of mind, and she 
 aspired to an unlimited authority. She was also 
 equal to any crime, and beyond all doubt her 
 imperial son greatly feared her. She was a 
 much stronger woman than he was man, and 
 he knew it only too well. Had he not taken her 
 life it may be that she would have taken his. 
 She caused her rival, Lollia Paulina, to be slain, 
 and commanded the executioner to bring her head 
 to her that she might assure herself that it was in 
 truth her rival and none other that had been 
 dispatched. She pushed back with her own 
 
m A FREE LANCE 
 
 fingers the dead lips that she might see if the 
 teeth were those of LoUia. Such a woman 
 would stop at no deed of violence, and Nero be- 
 lieved his own life to be in danger so long as 
 she breathed the breath of life. Perhaps after 
 all the crime of Nero was not so desperate as 
 history represents. 
 
 Nero loved poetry, art and music as few 
 sovereigns of the present age love anything that 
 ministers to human culture. His passions were 
 violent but his tastes were fine. He may have 
 been a madman, but he was not a fool. Agrip- 
 pina was herself as extravagant as was her royal 
 son. She was an artist in dress, and attired 
 herself in robes that were of extraordinary 
 beauty. Every robe was of a new design. We 
 are encased in inelastic fashions that make all 
 women look alike, but she made her own fashions, 
 and into them she put taste and originality. 
 Her rival Lollia Paulina was also an artist in 
 dress. It is recorded of her that she wore in 
 public a robe that cost what would be in our 
 money a little over $1,664,580. To this amount 
 must be added the price of the gems that she 
 wore with the robe. Jewels in Rome at thait 
 time did not depend for value mainly upon the 
 commonplace cutting of established patterns, 
 
THE VULGAR AGE 13 
 
 but upon the marvelous beauty of original de- 
 signs. Each stone had its own peculiar beauty 
 in both the gem itself and the design. 
 
 Rome was in the day of its splendor a superb 
 city. From Ostia-on-the-sea to the imperial 
 city there extended for fifteen miles a street of 
 palaces, villas, tombs, statues, and works of art 
 of every kind. In the city itself everything 
 was arranged with a view to beauty and luxury^ 
 Palaces of green, white, and tinted marbles rose 
 on every side. It is true that the conveniences 
 of modern life were wanting, and that beneath 
 all this splendor there was a vast misery. 
 There were no hospitals and no institutions of 
 mercy and charity for the poor. Slavery was 
 common, and the rights of what we call "the 
 people" were not generally respected. The few 
 and not the many created all this beauty, and 
 to them it belonged. 
 
 To-day things are changed. This is the age 
 of the common people — an age of great comfort 
 and of measureless vulgarity. The peasant now 
 enjoys a luxury of which the early king never 
 dreamed. The common people have come to the 
 front, and they are taking possession of the 
 world. If only they were trained to use with 
 wisdom their new power, we might hope for 
 
14 A FREE LANCE 
 
 good results ; but in every age since the world 
 began wisdom, good judgment, and real ability 
 have been the possession of the trained and 
 educated few. In the very nature of things it 
 must always be so. No government can long 
 endure that rests upon the unenlightened judg- 
 ment of the untrained masses. 
 
 Writing of America to an American more 
 than fifty years ago, Macaulay said: "Your 
 republic will be as fearfully plundered and laid 
 waste in the twentieth century as the Roman 
 empire was in the fifth, with this difference, that 
 the Huns and Vandals who ravaged the Roman 
 Empire came from without, and that your Huns 
 and Vandals will have been engendered within 
 your own country and by your own institu- 
 tions." 
 
 Macaulay's prophecy is coming true. Popu- 
 lar institutions are doomed. A country gov- 
 erned by labor unions, uneducated foreigners, 
 and irresponsible bosses must in the very nature 
 of things perish. The majority of men are of 
 lowly birth and humble circumstances; they are 
 imperfectly educated, if they have any educa- 
 tion at all; and they are dependent upon daily 
 labor for daily bread. They have neither the 
 time nor the training required for the great 
 
THE VULGAR AGE 15 
 
 and difficult work of governing themselves and 
 their fellow men. 
 
 The fierce commercial competition of this age 
 is intrinsically vulgar. It reduces thousands 
 of men to the level of a machine, and it gives 
 to the few, as their principal aim in life, ma- 
 terial supremacy, while it gives to all, as their 
 chief good, daily bread. It ignores all ideal 
 considerations. It is a return to what has been 
 called "natural selection" — the survival of the 
 fittest. It is the conducting of human affairs 
 upon the same principle upon which the beasts 
 conduct theirs. There is, however, this differ- 
 ence: the struggle of tooth and claw is natural 
 and proper to the brutes, while it is not natural 
 and proper to man in a civilized condition. 
 There is nothing degrading in commerce when 
 pursued as a means and not as an end. But m 
 this age it has become an end for which men 
 strive with a fury of competition at once cruel 
 and vulgar. The one great distinction in this 
 age between man and man is the possession of 
 wealth. The aristocracy of America is one of 
 dollars and cents, and not one of brains and 
 morals. A wealthy man in the far West shot 
 himself because he had lost his fortune, though 
 he was young and in good health, and might 
 
16 A FREE LANCE 
 
 create another fortune without great difficulty. 
 He said that he could not live without money. 
 To have it known that he was poor was to be 
 disgraced. Money was all the world to him 
 because in this age it includes personal stand- 
 ing and even character. He saw no beauty 
 where there was no money. 
 
 'Compare that man with Gainsborough, who 
 found delight in every melodious sound ; who was 
 entranced by every glorious landscape; who re- 
 joiced in the freshness of spring and in the 
 splendor of autumn. 
 
 Poetry and the fine arts have much to do with 
 civilization. The age that neglects these is ipso 
 facto a vulgar age. But it is the common com- 
 plaint of all literary men that poetry is not 
 only disregarded but positively disliked by the 
 age in which we live. No publisher will now 
 risk the sale of a book of verse, and with good 
 reason, for very few care to read that kind of 
 a book. To be an eminent poet was once a mark 
 of distinction; but now the writer of good verse 
 apologizes for his genius. The last generation 
 saw weU-nigh the last of the brilliant New Eng- 
 land Transcendentalists disappear from the 
 face of the earth. Where now have we authors 
 to take the places made vacant by the death of 
 
PATRICK HENRY 17 
 
 Lowell, Emerson, Longfellow, and Whittier? 
 Among all our novelists have we any that may 
 be compared with Cooper and Hawthorne? 
 Where are the peers of Parkman, Prescott and 
 Motley? It is safe to say that many a year will 
 go by before again we have a genius like that 
 of Poe. 
 
 PATRICK HENRY 
 
 PATRICK HENRY may have been the "for- 
 "*■ est-born Demosthenes" that Byron called 
 him in "The Age of Bronze," but a man trad- 
 ing in human flesh and blood, and bequeathing 
 slaves and cattle alike in his will, is hardly the 
 man to cry, "Give me liberty or give me death !" 
 He denounced Caesar, Charles the First, and 
 George the Third, in one breath, but was he 
 himself less of a tyrant than any or all of these? 
 
 WOMAJTS WORLD 
 
 WOMEN live in a world in many ways very 
 unlike the one in which men live. The 
 lives of most men are, from a woman's point of 
 view, hard, inelastic, materialistic, and cold. 
 The man's life may rest upon a substantial 
 
18 A FREE LANCE 
 
 foundation of fixed realities; but women are by 
 nature poets: they idealize whatever they touch, 
 and it is to this idealizing tendency that they 
 owe the romance and charm of the wonder- 
 world wherein they dwell. No doubt, in this 
 idealizing which underlies the feminine life there 
 is a certain unreality that would lead the mas- 
 culine mind astray; but women find in it a sub- 
 stantialness as true and real as any matter-of- 
 fact experience known to man's grosser world 
 of "things as they are." Woman's world is an 
 illusion only in the sense in which all worlds are 
 illusions. There is no Dvng an sich for any of 
 us. We live in worlds of our own creating. 
 
 Yet with all the idealizing characteristics of 
 the feminine mind, women have never excelled 
 in the things that demand constructive or crea- 
 tive genius. The great musical composers, like 
 Beethoven, Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Wagner, 
 are all men. You will not find a woman among 
 them. The supreme painters, such as Michael 
 Angelo, Raphael, Murillo, and our modem Tur- 
 ner, are every one of them men. There is in 
 all the ages no record of a woman who was ac- 
 counted a great sculptor. You will not find 
 among women a poet of the first order, like Ho- 
 mer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, or Milton. 
 
WOMAN'S WORLD 19 
 
 The feminine mind is not constructive or crea- 
 tive. Women are well able to appreciate the 
 arts, but never will they be found among the 
 gifted few who construct the charm and allure- 
 ment of a great original work of whatever kind. 
 It is true that women have never had an oppor- 
 tunity of understanding and enjoying these 
 things ; at least, they have not had man's op- 
 portunity with all its wealth of privilege. They 
 have, however, made good use of such places and 
 occasions as have come to them. What will be 
 the final issue of their eifort to win for them- 
 selves a larger world of privilege, it would be 
 hard to say. Most of the opposition they must 
 encounter in their demand for suffrage will 
 come, no doubt, from certain well-to-do women 
 who have themselves no need for the ballot, 
 and from Roman Catholic and Episcopal priests 
 who have their own reason for interesting them- 
 selves in the matter. They will in all proba- 
 bility some day succeed in their demand, because 
 the world is moving in that direction, and the 
 spirit of the age more than any effort of theirs 
 will determine the outcome. But of how much 
 value the new life of political activity will prove, 
 no one can even remotely conjecture. 
 
 The masculine temperament is essentially ego- 
 
20 A FREE LANCE 
 
 tistic. Man is his own centre, and around himself 
 he revolves. The woman's temperament is ideal- 
 istic. She finds the centre of her hopes and de- 
 sires, not in herself, but in a nobler world of her 
 own making. Man rises above society and 
 seizes upon the world, which he shapes to his 
 own purpose. Woman finds her happiness in a 
 society that she has formed for herself and that 
 reflects her own mind. For her to rise above 
 society would be for her to rise above herself. 
 The social circle is feminine, and its verdict is 
 always a woman's verdict. 
 
 Much has been said against the double stand- 
 ard of morality which punishes a woman for the 
 sin it permits, and in some cases even applauds, 
 in the man. It is said that sin is sin, irrespec- 
 tive of sex. There is of course an ethical sense 
 in which that is true, but for all practical pur- 
 poses there will be, so long as there are two 
 sexes, two separate standards. The judgment 
 against moral delinquency comes through so- 
 ciety and is a' social judgment. Man is in great 
 measure independent of social exactions. He nei- 
 ther made them nor has he ever fully conformed to 
 them. To use a vulgar phrase, "He snaps his 
 finger in their face and goes his way." That 
 is because he has a way of his own in which to 
 
WOMAN'S WORLD 21 
 
 go. Woman never conformed to a masculine 
 social standard ; there never was in all the world 
 and the ages such a standard to conform to, 
 nor could there be, in the nature of the case. 
 No more could man be required to conform to 
 an essentially feminine standard. There will 
 be but one standard to which both willingly con- 
 form when both unite in constructing it. It 
 will be androgynous, combining both sexes ; that 
 is to say, it will be impartial in dealing with 
 the problems of life. When we have that stand- 
 ard, we shall have also a common verdict and 
 mutual obedience. 
 
 Man's standard of morality, were there such 
 a thing in existence, would bear less heavily 
 upon woman than does the present standard 
 which woman has herself constructed. The 
 woman who falls receives from the circle in 
 which she moves judgment without mercy. This 
 unlovely severity springs in large measure from 
 self-righteousness. The consciousness of inter- 
 nal rectitude is for most of us a very dangerous 
 thing. It is a blast of moral winter that seals 
 up every fountain of compassion, turning the 
 human heart into ice. Had the good women of 
 to-day been living when our Saviour was on 
 earth, and had they been present when He said 
 
22 A FREE LANCE 
 
 to those who accused the woman taken in adul- 
 tery, "Let whoever is without sin among you 
 cast the first stone," they would, every one of 
 them, have grabbed as many stones as they 
 could lay hold of, and they would have show- 
 ered them upon the offender's head with all the 
 cruel vindictiveness of a self-righteous spirit. 
 The inhumanity of the social verdict and of its 
 execution stands out in fearful distinctness over 
 against the compassionate words of Jesus, 
 "Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no 
 more." 
 
 A very intelligent woman told the writer of 
 this that the ferocity of the social judgment 
 sprang from the most abject fear. "The woman 
 who goes astray," she said, "endangers the home, 
 which is woman's special province. If she goes 
 unpunished, we may at any time lose a husband, 
 and see a home broken up. When she tempts a 
 man she wrongs a woman. Self-defense calls 
 for the most desperate measures. We cannot 
 take her life, but we can do more — we can crush 
 her soul." I said, by way of reply: "Most 
 women who fall are tempted by men before they 
 in turn become tempters of men. I should think 
 that of the two, the man would be usually the 
 more guilty. Is it, then, reasonable to ruin the 
 
WOMAN'S WORLD 23 
 
 woman while the man goes uninjured and even 
 unrebuked?" She answered, "We could not 
 reach the man if we would. It is to keep him, 
 and not to lose him, that we wage war upon the 
 tempter. His sin may be before God as great 
 as is that of the woman, but its effect upon the 
 home is not so disastrous." 
 
 It all comes back to the defense of the home. 
 This ferocity springs from a fear, and very nat- 
 urally the fear is combined with a deep feeling 
 of indignation and, in many cases, of revenge. 
 The wrong is great, but no wrong can be so 
 great as to justify another wrong, Shake- 
 speare never wrote truer lines than these : 
 
 **In the course of justice none of us 
 Should see salvation; we do pray for mercy; 
 And that same prayer doth teach us all to render 
 The deeds of mercy." 
 
 To "crush a woman's soul" is, so it seems to 
 the writer, to do a thing the divine Son of Mary 
 would brand as a deed of darkness. How a 
 woman can thus deal with a human being and 
 yet pray to be herself forgiven as she forgives, 
 is an unexplained mystery, unless we suppose 
 hypocrisy. 
 
24 A FREE LANCE 
 
 Women are naturally Christians, because 
 Christianity is a feminine religion. Love and 
 righteousness seem to be the two principal sup- 
 porters of the religion of our Lord. Love is 
 the feminine supporter and righteousness the 
 masculine. It can easily be seen that love comes 
 first, and underlies and sustains the masculine 
 righteousness. It is the fulfilling of the law be- 
 cause it holds in solution all the virtues. Love 
 attaches its possessor to a person, and everywhere 
 we find that it is the leader rather than the 
 cause which he represents that women love and 
 follow. 
 
 The person of Christ and the cult of Mary 
 (in the Roman Catholic Church) attract the 
 feminine mind and heart far more than the ec- 
 clesiastical organization. It is hard to find 
 among women — especially of the better sort — 
 an avowed agnostic or an unbeliever, while men 
 of unbelieving mind are far from uncommon. 
 Women are naturally conservative, afi'ectionate, 
 and religious. They are more stable than men, 
 and have greater endurance. They hold fast 
 the faith in which they were born and educated 
 long after men have learned to doubt, or have 
 wholly abandoned their early belief. 
 
 Women are by nature exceedingly religious. 
 
WOMAN'S WORLD 25 
 
 But strange it is that they are so, especially in 
 Christian Europe and America. Everywhere they 
 make much of religion, but, apart from the wor- 
 ship of Mary, the religion of our modern world 
 has made very little of them. Under old pagan 
 faiths women had many and serious disabilities, 
 yet never under such faiths were they actually 
 accursed. No sooner was the Christian religion 
 planted upon our earth than from every bending 
 bough of a rising asceticism hung the evil fruit 
 of contempt for womanhood. Of course this 
 was, though under the name of Christianity, 
 still pagan; for among the Romans a woman 
 was, first of all, the property of her father, 
 and later she was that of her husband ; she was 
 man's plaything or his slave, but never his com- 
 panion and equal. 
 
 It was asceticism in the early church, rather 
 than the church itself, that blighted woman's 
 life. It was a great wrong. It added to the 
 pagan contempt the monk's dread of moral con- 
 tagion. Of course it was at variance with the 
 teachings of Jesus; it was grafted upon those 
 teachings, and in time it came to be regarded 
 as an actual part of them. Thus was the sim- 
 ple Gospel perverted to the degradation of 
 womanhood. The Mother of our Saviour was 
 
26 A FREE LANCE 
 
 exalted to a celestial throne, and so removed 
 far above all the daughters of Eve who were 
 partakers of the ancient curse. TertuUian was 
 a Christian father who did much to shape the 
 early thought of the church; but consider for 
 a moment the opinion of women which that great 
 teacher entertained, and which he expressed in 
 a direct address to them: — 
 
 "Know you not, each of you, that you are 
 sprung from Mother Eve? Against you God 
 has registered his righteous sentence. You are 
 the gateway to forbidden fruit. You are the 
 breaker of righteous law. You persuaded Adam 
 that the Devil could not harm him, and so with- 
 out difficulty you destroyed the image of the 
 Creator in man whom he had created. What 
 came of your work but death? It was because 
 of your sin that the Son of God must die." 
 
 Thus it became sin for the priest of God to 
 mate with a woman. To see her was evil. 
 There were monks who thought that even the 
 shadow of a daughter of Eve would render 
 them unclean. Celibacy became a rule of the 
 Church. The only amendment a daughter of 
 Eve could make was religious virginity, which, 
 it was believed, introduced her into the family 
 of Mary, the everlasting Virgin Mother. 
 
WOMAN'S WORLD 2*7 
 
 I wonder much that women are so religious. 
 Their religious nature must go very deep to 
 stand the strain of such dishonor and repres- 
 sion. This state of things Was of priestly con- 
 ceiving, and not of Divine appointment. Our 
 Saviour honored womanhood and exalted the 
 marriage relation. His view of sexual life was 
 in all its essential features the reverse of the 
 ideal set up by ecclesiastical authorities. 
 Wedded love, and not virginity, was the Divine 
 model of perfection in the relation of the sexes. 
 
 By virtue of her idealizing tendency woman 
 creates for herself, first of all, a world of mar- 
 velous beauty, and then for man as well she 
 brings into existence a haven of peace and glad- 
 ness. All the hard experiences in life she or- 
 naments and adorns. She includes man in the 
 circle of her idealization. This explains the 
 many strange marriages that take place. 
 Women think they are marrying men they know 
 and understand, when in reality they are wed- 
 ding the creatures of their imagination. 
 
 Men also thus deceive themselves, but not so 
 often as do women. Narcissus, fatigued with 
 hunting, heated and thirsty, stooped down to 
 drink from a clear fountain. The classic story 
 records that he saw his own image in the water 
 
28 A FREE LANCE 
 
 and took it for a beautiful water-spirit living 
 in the fountain. He gazed upon the lovely 
 image of himself thinking it another being, and 
 so fell in love with himself. He pined away and 
 died, the victim of a mistaken self-love. 
 
 More often the water-spirit falls in love with 
 Narcissus. It is the woman who does the ideal- 
 izing. But one way or the other, the idealizing 
 takes place, and few marriages are made with 
 open vision. The men women marry and the 
 men they think they marry are not often the 
 same. Love plays fantastic tricks, and women 
 are unconscious artists. No doubt in time the 
 cruel years will destroy the illusion. The vision 
 will fade into repulsive reality. Still there has 
 been for a season a gladness it is more than 
 likely the reality could never have afforded. 
 After all, no world, whether of joy or of sorrow, 
 has for us, as has been already said, any other 
 existence than that which we ourselves give it. 
 It is as the poet tells us: 
 
 "All is but as it seems, — 
 The round, green earth. 
 With river and glen; 
 The din and mirth 
 Of busy, busy men; 
 
WOMAN'S WORLD ^9 
 
 The world's great fever. 
 
 Throbbing forever; 
 
 The creed of the sage. 
 
 The hope of the age. 
 
 All things we cherish. 
 
 All things that live and all that perish. 
 
 These are but inner dreams." 
 
 We discourse of reality, of a final criterion 
 of truth, of things as they are, and of much 
 more of the same kind, but of these things, if 
 they exist, we have no knowledge. The discus- 
 sion of the fundamental and substantial may en- 
 tertain philosophers, but for all practical pur- 
 poses such discussion can have neither use nor 
 meaning. Every man is his own Adam, and 
 every woman is her own Eve. The story of cre- 
 ation starts over again in every cradle and ends 
 in every new-made grave. 
 
 An American writer said long ago: "If we 
 discover the connection of our thoughts and feel- 
 ings with outward nature, the whole universe is 
 in our power; and we may, by a modification of 
 ourselves, change the world from its present 
 state into what we all wish it might become." 
 In other words, to quote from Goethe, "Each 
 one sees what he carries in his heart." 
 
30 A FREE LANCE 
 
 We make our own universe, and people it as 
 we will. But what does it all matter? Comes 
 it not to the same thing in the end, whether man 
 is dependent upon an outward universe, or 
 whether that universe is dependent upon the in- 
 dividual soul? To Emerson the two proposi- 
 tions are the same. "Whether," wrote the Sage 
 of Concord, "nature enjoys a substantial exist- 
 ence without, or is only in the apocalypse of the 
 mind, it is alike useful and alike venerable to 
 me. Be it what it may, it is ideal to me so 
 long as I cannot try the accuracy of my senses." 
 There the matter ends. For us the universe is, 
 view it as we rajay, ideal. It is what we make it. 
 So Coleridge thought when he wrote the famil- 
 iar lines: — 
 
 "Oh, lady, we receive but what we give. 
 And in our life alone doth nature live." 
 
 Women, light of heart, paint in the gay colors 
 of their cheerful and hopeful souls. They are 
 born optimists, living near the surface, if not 
 actually upon it. Men, too easily depressed, 
 create for themselves a universe wherein the dog- 
 star reigns. It is a universe in drab. The 
 masculine temperament is resolute but not hope- 
 
WOMAN'S WORLD 31 
 
 ful. Men sink their analysis to the inmost core 
 of things. They themselves dwell deep down 
 below the surface where the sunlight does not 
 always penetrate. 
 
 It is generally known that there is a richer 
 flow of arterial blood in the posterior region of 
 a woman's brain, while in the case of man the 
 flow is richer in the anterior section. The func- 
 tions of the posterior are mainly sensory and 
 are concerned in seeing and hearing, while the 
 anterior includes the speech centres. The 
 higher inhibitory centres are concerned with the 
 will, and there is an association of centres con- 
 cerned with the appetites. There is a corre- 
 spondence between the richer blood-supply of the 
 posterior brain and woman's delicate powers of 
 sensuous perception, rapidity of thought, and 
 emotional sensibility. Correspondingly, men 
 have greater originality, calmer judgment, and 
 stronger will. 
 
 It has been observed that women are nearer 
 the infantile type, while men approach the se- 
 nile ; hence women remain normal in thought, feel- 
 ing, and conduct, while men have a variational 
 tendency toward genius, insanity, and idiocy. 
 The nearest point of approach to genius that 
 women reach is found, so it seems to me, in novel- 
 
32 A FREE LANCE 
 
 writing. In the last generation they were ex- 
 ceptionally good letter-writers and conversa- 
 tionalists. They are now good, but not great, 
 actors. But there were some very great actors, 
 like Rachel, Siddons, Ristori, and Charlotte 
 Cushman, among them in previous genera- 
 tions. 
 
 There has been much discussion with regard 
 to the sex of the angels. The Scriptures and 
 the Church seem to make them masculine. 
 These are some of the names applied to them 
 in the Sacred Writings, and it will be seen that 
 they are of either masculine or neuter gender. 
 
 1. Gods (Elohim, "Worship Him all ye 
 gods"). 
 
 2. Sons of God (Job xxxiii: 7). 
 
 3. Seraphim ("Burning Ones"). 
 
 4. Cherubim (Plural of Cherub: "Fulness of 
 Knowledge." — Perhaps from the Chaldee for a 
 Young Man). 
 
 6. Watcher (Dan. iv: 13). 
 
 6. Thrones (Col. i: 13). 
 
 7. Dominions ("Lordships," Col. i: 16). 
 
 8. Principalities (Col. i: 16). 
 
 9. Powers (Col. i: 16). 
 
 10. Morning Stars (Job xxxviii: 7). 
 
 11. Living Creatures (Ezek. i: 6-11). 
 
WOMAN'S WORLD 33 
 
 12. Beasts (The Greek is better rendered 
 "Vital Beings": Rev. iv: 6-8). 
 
 13. Gabriel (Dan. viii: 14). 
 
 14. Michael ("Who is like unto God?" Dan. 
 x: 13; Jude 9, Rev. xii: 7. Michael is called 
 the Archangel), 
 
 In the Apocrypha we have Raphael (Tobit 
 iii: 17; xii: 15), and Uriel or Jeremiel. There 
 are also evil angels. 
 
 These names, each and all of them, suit or fit 
 men rather than women. But the artists could 
 not rest satisfied with a celestial hierarchy wholly 
 male. There seemed something unnatural in 
 painting upon these masculine figures iridescent 
 wings, aureoles, and much more of the kind. 
 Fra Angelico di Fiesole depicted angels as 
 women, and the friar never suspected that he 
 was guilty of heresy. For centuries, all over 
 the Christian world, art has represented the 
 angels as female. It was "Sancta" rather than 
 "Sanctus." Why is it the great painters have 
 wished, after all that we gather from Scripture 
 and the Church, to make their angels feminine? 
 Most of the world-renowned artists who set the 
 artistic fashion for us all are men, and they 
 very naturally think of bright and beautiful 
 angels who come and go on errands of mercy 
 
34. A FREE LANCE 
 
 as celestial women. The angels are painted in 
 flowing robes. How else could they be por-. 
 trayed.? Think of arraying them in male cos- 
 tume! How would an angel appear in a frock 
 coat or in evening dress.? Of course one might 
 arrange an antique classic style of dress, but 
 how much more natural to use such drapery as 
 would be appropriate upon a woman's form! 
 The wings suggest aspiration, the desire for 
 higher and better things. The German poet 
 tells us 
 
 "The eternal womanly 
 Draws us upward and onward." 
 
 It is the mission of these celestial risitants to 
 draw us upward. They belong not so much to 
 the earth as to the heavens. They are above 
 us, and we paint them in the upper air. They 
 go between God and man, and connect us with 
 heavenly glory. The great artists have always 
 felt that when they were painting angelic beings 
 they were depicting the essentially feminine. 
 The delicate limbs, the gentle and refined fea- 
 tures, the eye bright with hope and love, and a 
 feeling of purity — all these are suggestive of 
 the feminine side of human nature. An ath- 
 
WOMAN'S WORLD 85 
 
 letic angel would seem to be an incongruity. 
 The creature would be out of the order of na- 
 ture. Even the fighting angels who combat the 
 Prince of Darkness are represented as vanquish- 
 ing the Adversary not so much through phys- 
 ical strength as by spiritual qualities. These 
 divine combatants are made to be masculine out 
 of a sense of propriety. Otherwise the drawn 
 sword would be out of place. There is no real 
 belligerency about them, no vindictiveness, and 
 no anxiety with regard to the result. The 
 fighting angel has a face full of aspiration and 
 hope, full of an uplifting peace. 
 
 Someone has asked, "Do women love brutal 
 men?" I believe they do. There is a force in 
 brutality that pleases and even fascinates some 
 women. Women like power. Nothing so dis- 
 gusts a woman as an effeminate man, and noth- 
 ing is more repulsive to a normal man than mas- 
 culinity in a woman. I think that in the minds 
 of most men the chief objection to the woman's 
 rights movement grows out of a fear that the 
 movement will defeminize women. The fear may 
 be groundless, but it is operative nevertheless. 
 My own belief in the matter is that the en- 
 franchisement of women will have a beneficial in- 
 fluence upon our political life for about twenty- 
 
36 A FREE LANCE 
 
 five or thirty years ; after which time politics 
 will do for women what it has already done for 
 men. Women will bring new blood to our po- 
 litical system, and we shall have for a while 
 more honesty and greater faithfulness in the dis- 
 charge of public duties. But by and by the de- 
 moralizing struggle for place and power will 
 corrupt the wife as it has already corrupted the 
 husband. Wait until we have a female boss, a 
 thing as unseemly to us as is the masculine angel 
 to the Fra Angelico school of painters, and then 
 tell me what you think of the political equality 
 of the sexes. 
 
 But still I believe that women are entitled to 
 the same political rights that men enjoy. It 
 will do them little good morally, and much 
 harm, to wade in political filth, but men claim 
 the right to wade in that kind of material and 
 they seem to enjoy it. Women have the same 
 inherent right to choose their own way in both 
 public and private life that men have. The 
 boss is a very dirty creature, but he is not un- 
 popular with church members and with other 
 good people. These may denounce him, but 
 nevertheless they will vote for him. He may be 
 himself a church member. It would not be 
 strange were he an elder or a deacon. Still, the 
 
WOMAN'S WORLD 37 
 
 boss Is a disgrace to any political system. The 
 filth of political life will soil women as it has 
 soiled men, but so long as we have political 
 rights and popular suffrage some one must lie 
 in the gutter. The gutter is malodorous, but 
 hundreds of men scramble for the place, and 
 they seem to be afraid that women will get it 
 away from them. 
 
 Women are fond of power, and when they be- 
 come the political equals of men they will, be- 
 yond all question, grasp at it, and make full use 
 of it. There is no reason to think they will 
 make worse use of it than have men. If I am 
 right, they will at first make much better use of 
 it. Women have had comparatively little direct 
 power; all their power has been indirect, but it 
 has been, for the most part, well used. They 
 have had charge of the social and domestic forces 
 of the world, and they have made them tell for 
 good. Without woman's presence home would 
 be impossible. Church-work and many benevo- 
 lent enterprises are wholly theirs. 
 
 Women are more chaste than men, but they 
 have fewer temptations, less violent passions, 
 and more to fear from the consequences of 
 wrongdoing. They are less liable to be intem- 
 perate and brutal, but they have more vanity 
 
38 A FREE LANCE 
 
 and jealousy; these they do not always exhibit 
 to the world, because they have tact to a degree 
 seldom within the knowledge and practice of 
 men. Women are more merciful, but men have 
 a better sense of impartial justice. Women are 
 sympathetic and compassionate, but they lack 
 the force and energy of their brothers and hus- 
 bands. 
 
 Woman's world, beautiful in many ways, is 
 always intense, but never is it wide like the mas- 
 culine world. Women see the things that concern 
 themselves, while men, with larger vision, inter- 
 est themselves in the race to which they belong. 
 I much doubt, in truth, that a woman could be- 
 come a statesman (I suppose the word should 
 be "stateswoman"). She might with no great 
 difficulty take up the work of a politician, but 
 the mind of a true statesman calls for a much 
 larger outlook. 
 
 Women may vote, hold office, and do the things 
 men do, but only when they learn to live as men 
 live can they know what it is to lead a free life. 
 So long as they are upon their knees before the 
 milliner and the dressmaker; so long as they are 
 \mable to travel ten miles without a large trunk 
 well packed; so long as they must ride horse- 
 back with both feet on the same side of the 
 horse; so long as they must wear their hats, 
 
PERSONALITY 39 
 
 which they describe as "creations," indoors— 
 that is to say, in the theatre, in the church, and 
 at functions of various kinds; so long as they 
 must dress only as the latest fashion requires — 
 so long they must remain the slaves they have 
 always been. Man's freedom is not a thing 
 apart from his life; the two are inseparable. 
 Far back in the early colonial days in this coun- 
 try the cobbler of Agawam wrote of women, "It 
 is no marvel they wear drailes on the hinder 
 part of their heads, having nothing, as it seems, 
 in the fore part but a few squirrel's brains to 
 help them frisk from one fashion to another." 
 The only possible escape from the "squirrel's 
 brains" is now, as it always was and always 
 will be, through the open door of personal inde- 
 pendence. Voting may help, but it will not 
 change the narrow life of woman into the larger 
 one of her husband. 
 
 PERSONALITY 
 
 T7MERS0N wrote in his Journal: "I know 
 "■— ^ not why, but I hate to be asked to preach 
 here in Concord." He preached much in Con- 
 cord and in towns near by during the summer of 
 1856. I had the same feeling, and I have it 
 now. After I gave up my charge in Great Bar- 
 
40 A FREE LANCE 
 
 rington I did not like to preach in the neighbor- 
 hood. It seemed to me that my personality, 
 with which the people were familiar, came be- 
 tween the congregation and the message. The 
 speaker, to speak well, must lose sight of him- 
 self. But how can one lose sight of a person- 
 ality of which one knows that every man, woman 
 and child in the room is intensely conscious? 
 
 THE SHADOW 
 
 T^THEN in his own bosom man enthrones 
 ' " the dream and neglects the reality; 
 when he exalts the idea and forgets the prior 
 and superior claim of the deed, thus preferring 
 the shadow to the substance; when he has made 
 this final and supreme choice of the unreal, put- 
 ting aside life itself for the passing emotions 
 engendered by life, then has his doom been pro- 
 nounced. Then is his service forever ended. 
 
 FREEDOM IN MARRIED LIFE 
 
 "XTO two persons can live together without 
 ■^ ^ some surrender of personal freedom upon 
 both sides. In married life the surrender is 
 absolutely essential; and where love is present, 
 
FREEDOM IN MARRIED LIFE 41 
 
 and is wise as well as tender, the surrender may 
 cost but little, and brings true and lasting hap- 
 piness. But there is always a limit, and in no 
 two persons is it in precisely the same place. 
 To some men, as to some women, that independ- 
 ence of thought, feeling, and action which we 
 call personal liberty is more essential than it is 
 to others. But somewhere the line must be 
 drawn beyond which lies peril, if not actual dis- 
 aster. The secret of happiness in the married 
 life consists in knowing just where the line 
 should be drawn, and in respecting its require- 
 ments. 
 
 Most women have what we call the maternal 
 instinct; in some it is strong, and in others 
 weak, but few are wholly without it. Where 
 there are children, the instinct finds its own 
 natural expression in all those tender endear- 
 ments and noble self-sacrifices which render 
 motherhood the divinely beautiful thing men 
 have always believed it to be. But often (oftener 
 now than in earlier days) marriage is not 
 fruitful, and the maternal instinct, deprived of 
 its natural outlet, usurps in some measure the 
 place sacred to conjugal afi^ection. With a love 
 not wholly wifely but in part maternal, the 
 woman encroaches upon the personal freedom 
 
42 A FREE LANCE 
 
 and manly independence of her husband. She 
 has in one both husband and child. If it so hap- 
 pens that she is the older of the two, this en- 
 croachment becomes more decided, and, it may 
 be, more harmful. 
 
 Woman's life is more sheltered than that of 
 man. Her associations are, in most cases, more 
 religious. She has a life in church activities 
 which no man, unless he be a clergyman, can 
 understand. Her emotional nature is more sen- 
 sitive, and plays a larger part in her otherwise 
 more circumscribed and intense life. She has 
 comparatively little of man's free out-door life, 
 and, as a natural result, she knows little of the 
 self-reliance that comes with such a life. Of 
 man's struggle in the world for place and power 
 she has often not even the faintest conception. 
 She has grown up, if she is well placed socially, 
 in her father's home, surrounded by comfort and 
 luxury. She knows nothing of club-life, for the 
 so-called club of the modern woman is no club 
 at all in the man's understanding of the word. 
 She would hardly recognize either the flavor or 
 the scent of liquor. She never in all her life 
 smoked a cigar. She is unacquainted with the 
 interests and exigencies of a political career. 
 
FREEDOM IN MARRIED LIFE 43 
 
 Her life is in most of its salient features the 
 opposite of man's life. Most women come to 
 the marriage altar personally pure — ^wholly so 
 in body, and comparatively so in mind. Few 
 young unmarried men have led an irreproacha- 
 ble life. Upon the altar of woman's heart the 
 flame of married love burns with a steady, clear 
 light, but often with less ardor than could be 
 desired. The man's love may sometimes flicker; 
 it is not always free from the suggestion of 
 smoke and even ashes, but it is a living fire. 
 
 Now, with all these diff^erences, it is apparent 
 that some degree of freedom is called for and is 
 essential. The woman who would force her hus- 
 band to live her life, and not his, is doing a 
 great wrong. She may become a domestic ty- 
 rant. Few men would wish their wives to think, 
 feel, and live the masculine life — it would dis- 
 tress them to believe that their wives could so 
 live. If there is one thing, as has been else- 
 where said, that a man dislikes and dreads more 
 than anything else, it is a masculine woman. It 
 comes then to this, — that the two lives united in 
 the marriage estate are never one to the extent 
 of self-extermination. Self may pass from 
 sight, — it should so pass, — ^but, nevertheless, it 
 
44 A FREE LANCE 
 
 remains, and is the enduring foundation of a 
 united life and love that finds in glad surrender 
 the largest freedom. 
 
 POPULAR SUFFRAGE 
 
 "I3OPULAR suffrage means an enormous num- 
 "*• ber of votes cast for one man. The av- 
 erage man disfranchises himself, and the "boss" 
 elects himself and his political friends to what- 
 ever oj9ices he and they covet. In the end a re- 
 public is likely to become only the irresponsible 
 government of a few self-elected men, who rule 
 because the common people are indifferent. The 
 common people being what they are, shrewd 
 politicians are not likely to encounter much dif- 
 ficidty in thinking and voting for them. 
 
 AN INTERESTING EXHIBIT 
 OF INJUSTICE 
 
 TN the United States of America the personal 
 character and standing of the citizen are 
 of so little value, and the sense of justice and 
 "fair play" is so feebly developed, that an inno- 
 cent man who has been mistakenly convicted of 
 a crime he did not commit, is, upon the discov- 
 ery of new evidence establishing his innocence, 
 
AN INTERESTING EXHIBIT 45 
 
 simply pardoned, just as any genuine rascal 
 might be pardoned if for any cause it seemed to 
 the Governor best that he should be allowed to 
 go free. The State has unjustly deprived a 
 man of liberty, has associated him with crim- 
 inals, has blackened his name, has injured his 
 social and business standing and has thus im- 
 paired his ability to earn an honest living; and 
 it may be that the State has also confiscated 
 what little property he possessed by compelling 
 him to use it in his own defence: — all this the 
 State has done, and yet, upon the discovery of 
 new and exonerating evidence, it makes no rep- 
 aration. It simply opens the door, and says, 
 "Begone!" That is the kind of justice under- 
 stood and practiced in the land of the Stars 
 and Stripes. 
 
 Two thousand years ago the keeper of a 
 prison said to the Apostle Paul, "The magis- 
 trates have sent to let you go; now therefore 
 depart and go in peace." But Paul replied, 
 "They have beaten us openly, uncondemned, 
 being Romans, and have cast us into prison ; and 
 now do they thrust us out privily? nay verily, 
 let them come themselves and fetch us out." 
 Paul was an innocent man, and he refused to ac- 
 cept a pardon that left him guilty in the eye 
 
46 A FREE LANCE 
 
 of the law. He resented that kind of a pardon, 
 and demanded exoneration. He might also, had 
 he been so inclined, have insisted upon repara- 
 tion. Paul was a Roman, and he demanded 
 Roman justice. Had he been an American, he 
 would, doubtless, have thrown up the sponge. 
 It would hardly have been worth his time and 
 strength to insist upon anything resembling 
 justice. 
 
 Quite in keeping with Paul's indignant re- 
 fusal to accept the place of a guilty man, when 
 he was not only an innocent but an injured one, 
 was the refusal of George Fox, the founder of 
 the Society of Friends, commonly called Quak- 
 ers, to accept pardon for crimes of which he 
 was not guilty. When great effort had been 
 made to secure his liberation because his health 
 had become seriously impaired by reason of the 
 hardships attending his imprisonment, the judge 
 ostentatiously offered him a pardon. This he 
 spurned in words that remind us of Paul, but 
 that do not even remotely suggest our American 
 citizenship. These are his words, extracted 
 from his Journal: "A pardon was not agree- 
 able with the innocence of my cause. I had 
 rather have lain in prison all my days than come 
 out in a way dishonorable to truth." 
 
AN INTERESTING EXHIBIT 47 
 
 It was humiliating beyond expression to read, 
 as I did in the Medical Record in this year of 
 grace 1910, that a reputable physician who had 
 been sent in 1905 to the penitentiary in Iowa on 
 a twelve years' sentence, for a murder he did 
 not commit, was pardoned by the Governor 
 without apology or reparation of any kind. 
 For five years the State had taken his labor in 
 the penitentiary, and rendered him no compen- 
 sation. During all that time he had been the 
 unwilling companion of evil men. His medical 
 practice and professional standing had been de- 
 stroyed. His home had been broken up and his 
 family humiliated. All these outrages had been 
 heaped upon him, and then at last it was discov- 
 ered that he was an innocent man. Was any 
 effort made to repair the damage, or to save the 
 reputation of the man for the benefit of his 
 family.? No, the man was not evenly publicly 
 exonerated. Had he been hanged, new evidence 
 would have been of no service. He would in 
 that case have gone down to posterity as a con- 
 victed murderer, and the State that hanged him 
 would have made no attempt to repair the wrong 
 by saving his reputation for the benefit of his 
 family. 
 
 Andrew Toth served nearly twenty years in a 
 
48 A FREE LANCE 
 
 Western penitentiary for a murder he never 
 committed. When the man's innocence was dis- 
 covered, he was at once pardoned by the Gov- 
 ernor, and, homeless and penniless, he was' 
 pushed out into the hard world to shift for himr 
 self. Destitute, enfeebled by age, unused to lib- 
 erty and self-support, with most of his friends 
 no longer living, he found himself unable to meet 
 the demands of free life out in the world among 
 men. He returned to the penitentiary and 
 begged to be readmitted to the prison, which was 
 the only home of which he had any knowledge. 
 
 It was suggested that the State set aside for 
 Andrew Toth the sum of ten thousand dollars, 
 as a compensation for the ruin of his life through 
 the miscarriage of justice. It was, however, 
 shown that a bill calling for that or any other 
 amount to be devoted to the purpose named 
 would be unconstitutional. The State can send 
 innocent men and women to prison, but it can- 
 not spend a single dollar by way of compensa- 
 tion. Yet when one considers the rapidity with 
 which a number of "public servants," who for 
 one reason or another do not go to prison, ac- 
 quire wealth, it does seem that the State they 
 "serve" might make some reparation for a great 
 wrong. 
 
AN INTERESTING EXHIBIT 49 
 
 Compare in this matter the conduct of the 
 United States of America with that of New 
 Zealand. Mr. John Meikle was, in 1887, ar- 
 rested on a charge of sheep-stealing. He was 
 convicted in the Supreme Court, and sentenced 
 to a long term of imprisonment. After he had 
 spent five years in prison, it was discovered that 
 he was entirely innocent of the crime charged 
 against him. The case was brought before the 
 New Zealand Legislature, and Mr. Meikle was 
 offered a pardon and a grant of twenty-five 
 thousand dollars. Mr. Meikle at once refused 
 the "free pardon" which left him in the eye of 
 the law a guilty man; he maintained that if he 
 had not committed a crime there could be noth- 
 ing to "pardon." He insisted upon a reversal 
 of the judgment of the Supreme Court. The 
 result was that an act was passed "to reverse 
 the conviction of John Meikle on the charge of 
 sheep-stealing, and to offer him the sum of 
 twenty-five thousand dollars as compensation for 
 injuries received." Of course our "wild and 
 woolly Republic," in which Tom, Dick, and 
 Harry are, all of them, influential citizens, 
 might learn from almost any nation some im- 
 portant lessons in common morals ; but it is 
 humiliating to see New Zealand, with its civili- 
 
50 A FREE LANCE 
 
 zation of yesterday, so far in advance of our 
 own land in the simplest elements of common 
 justice. 
 
 John Henry Chance of Boston was another 
 victim of false imprisonment, who, upon the es- 
 tablishment of his innocence, was pardoned. 
 He had served a long time in prison, and his life 
 had been ruined, and yet no compensation of any 
 kind was attempted. One of the worst cases 
 on record was that of a negro, Jim Henry, who 
 in 1909 was convicted in a Florida court of as- 
 sault with intent to commit murder. After his 
 conviction he had been leased by the State to the 
 Florida Pine Company and to another company, 
 and for both corporate masters he had served as 
 a common slave, with the added stigma of a 
 crime he did not commit. A small monetary re- 
 muneration (about four hundred dollars) was 
 made, but in his case, as in all the others, a par- 
 don was granted that left him in the eye of the 
 law still a criminal. 
 
 An interesting exhibit of injustice was fur- 
 nished in December, 1911, to the people of the 
 State of New York, and, incidentally, to the citi- 
 zens of the entire country, in the discovery of an 
 innocent man serving a life sentence in Sing 
 Sing Prison. Mr. John Boehman had been in 
 
"YE OLDE BOOKE MAN" 51 
 
 the prison sixteen years, for a crime committeii 
 by some other person. The necessary testimony 
 was supplied by two men who had remained 
 silent at a time when Boehman needed their dep- 
 ositions to prove an alibi. The men stated 
 that they were afraid of being hounded by the 
 police. Had they died at any time during the six- 
 teen years of Boehman's imprisonment, the knowl- 
 edge of his innocence must have perished with 
 them. In that case, no doubt, an innocent man 
 would have been placed beyond all hope of mercy. 
 In Boehman's case, as in the other cases cited, 
 the mass of injustice was supplemented by fur- 
 ther wrongdoing. The man was thrust out into 
 the world with no exoneration. He was par- 
 doned for a crime he did not commit. He was 
 offered no compensation. The State did not even 
 think of returning to the misused man the money 
 he had earned for it during his imprisonment; 
 for he had worked for the State during all those 
 bitter sixteen years. And the two men who 
 withheld their testimony in the hour of Boeh- 
 man's need went unpunished. 
 
 "YE OLDE BOOKE MAN" 
 
 M 
 
 Y good friend, Joseph McDonough, "Ye 
 Olde Booke Man," is a hale and hearty 
 
52 A FREE LANCE 
 
 Irishman, honest as the day is long, and as 
 sharp at a bargain as any man can very well 
 be in a world like this, where every kind of busi- 
 ness, trade, enterprise, and even profession, is 
 "war to the bitter end." He will not cheat you, 
 nor will he prevaricate, but there are excellent 
 reasons for believing that he will come out on 
 top when you "rush in where angels fear to 
 tread," and put your book-knowledge against his. 
 He knows more about books than you do unless 
 you are an exceptional man, and he has the same 
 right to use his wits that you have to use yours. 
 I should advise you to spike his gun in advance 
 by asking him for his opinion of the book which 
 you want and which he would be glad to sell. 
 If the little book on the table before you is not 
 a first edition, he will tell you that it is not. 
 Should he not know (a most unheard-of thing) 
 where or when the book was first printed, it may 
 be he would roll up his eyes and look wise "above 
 what is written," but you may be very sure he 
 would say frankly, "I don't know." 
 
 But the chance of his not knowing is poor, for 
 he has given all his life to the purchase and sale 
 of old books, and he knows them not only as 
 things, but as friends to be loved and cherished. 
 He has, hidden away on one of the back shelves, 
 
«YE OLDE BOOKE MAN" 53 
 
 certain books that tell him all there is to be 
 known about editions, prices, and pretty much 
 everything else that a bookseller must know. 
 To sell one's friends does not seem ta be just 
 the right thing, but that is precisely what every 
 trader in books must do. 
 
 Books are friends and companions, and some- 
 times they even seem to be living creatures that 
 actually put their arms about their readers. It 
 is really a very tender love, more gentle and 
 persuasive than one finds it easy to resist. By- 
 ron fattened a goose for his Christmas dinner, 
 feeding it every day from his own hand. The 
 result was just what might have been expected. 
 When the Christmas time came around he had 
 become so attached to his web-footed friend that 
 he could not bring himself to consent to its death. 
 I have known traders in old books to refuse to 
 sell certain choice volumes that they had cata- 
 logued and offered to the public at remunerative 
 prices. There is a Dutch story of a dealer at 
 The Hague who assaulted his customer when he 
 saw him removing from the shop a book that he 
 had purchased and that was, therefore, his own. 
 The dealer had consented to the sale, but he had 
 not counted upon the removal. 
 
 Booksellers are generally quiet and peaceable 
 
54 A FREE LANCE 
 
 men, though Carey fought a duel with Colonel 
 Oswald and was badly wounded, and the young 
 Boston bookseller Henry Knox became the fierce 
 and belligerent General Knox of our American 
 Revolution. The Dutch dealer who struck one of 
 his best customers was more irascible than war- 
 like. He conducted a large business at The 
 Hague, and was respected by all who had deal- 
 ings with him. He had simply repeated By- 
 ron's experience with the goose, becoming so at- 
 tached to a favorite volume that the mere 
 thought of taking leave of it stirred up every 
 element of bitterness in his nature.. 
 
 I said that Mr. McDonough was an Irish- 
 man. He was born in Kilkenny, and if that 
 does not make him Irish from top to toe I 
 should like to know just what on all the surface 
 of this beautiful earth will make a man a true 
 son of the Emerald Isle. 
 
 Two very distinguished cats were also born 
 in Kilkenny, but, quite unlike "Ye Olde Booke 
 Man," they were of an exceedingly belligerent 
 disposition. The story is that they fought so 
 ferociously that each swallowed the other, leav- 
 ing only the tails behind. I have known the 
 good book man a number of happy years, and 
 never yet have I seen any marked resemblance 
 
"YE OLDE BOOKE MAN" 55 
 
 between him and the aforesaid felines. It is 
 true that all three, the "Olde Booke Man" and 
 the two lively cats, came from the same town, 
 and it is also true that they are all Irish, but 
 beyond these interesting circumstances I know 
 of nothing whatever that connects in any way 
 their several biographies. 
 
 Mr. McDonough's father was Irish before 
 him, and so it is with him a matter not simply 
 of the soil, but of blood and bone and of the 
 soul itself. He has the kindly nature and keen 
 wit for which the Irish are so justly celebrated. 
 I never knew a more friendly, warm-hearted, 
 and jovial man, but in one thing he is not, I 
 think, like the ordinary Irishman, for I have ob- 
 served in him a faint but distinct tendency in 
 the direction of mental depression. Like all the 
 rest of us, he has seen trouble, and it may be 
 that advancing age and trouble are responsible 
 for the depression. Never was there a better 
 companion. I have passed some very happy 
 hours in "Ye Olde Booke Man's" shop, in an 
 easy chair, with a fragrant "Romeo and Juliet," 
 and no end of rare old books that one might 
 look for elsewhere many a year and not find. 
 Such a place, full of strange bargains, and 
 choice and curious books from all parts of the 
 
56 A FREE LANCE 
 
 world, must be a joy to the heart of the lover 
 of books, whoever and whatever he may be. 
 With books on every side (cobwebs, dust and all 
 the other concomitants of good reading being 
 present to season the intellectual feast) in the 
 old book-shop. Father Time lays aside his pic- 
 turesque scythe and tucks away his hour-glass 
 in the ample robes that enfold his somewhat 
 emaciated anatomy. After a while he slips 
 away, and there is in the old shop no more re- 
 membrance of the hours. You read, read, and 
 read, and almost before you know it, you dis- 
 cover that the cashier is making change for you, 
 and you awaken to the fact that you have made 
 a purchase. 
 
 Everything happens so quietly and gently in 
 the old book-shop that you wonder if there is 
 not something in the mere presence of books 
 that men have overlooked. You somehow feel 
 that what little is said between leaf and leaf is 
 sacred. The Romans hung in the banqueting 
 room directly over the table a beautiful rose 
 to remind the guests that the conversation at 
 the table must not be repeated on the morrow 
 or at any other time, but must be sacredly pre- 
 served as an inviolable secret. To every guest 
 "suh rosa" meant concealment and silence. 
 
«YE OLDE BOOKE MAN" 57 
 
 White was the color of the rose, because it was 
 a white rose that Cupid dedicated to Harpocra- 
 tes, the god of silence. 
 
 In the dear old book-shop you will see over 
 the long rows of tempting volumes no white 
 flower suggesting silence, but you will see what 
 is just as good as, and to the book-lover much 
 better than, the rose of silence : you will see the no 
 less sacred and dust-white cobweb. In capa- 
 cious wine-vaults the cobwebs gather over the 
 musty corks of old and well-seasoned bottles, 
 and the critical judge will pick out no new vint- 
 age, but, stretching his arm and thrusting his 
 hand into some dark corner, he will bring to 
 view a mass of dust and cobwebs. He knows 
 what he wants, and he wants the very best. In 
 that mass of dust he holds the finest wine in 
 the cellar. 
 
 In McDonough's shop you will do well to 
 brush aside the dust, for under it all one may 
 sometimes find the richest wine of letters. Take 
 the sliding steps (you find such in every large 
 book-shop) and mount to the top shelf. The 
 best books are not supposed to be there, but 
 one can never know just what he will find; no 
 doubt you may come upon some vin ordinaire or 
 some new vintage, but you may find as well the 
 
58 A FREE LANCE 
 
 very life-blood of the mellowest grape in all the 
 vast vineyard of letters. 
 
 The mellow grape of golden song, 
 How rich the life-blood in its veins; 
 
 Happy his hours, his life how long. 
 Who the glad wine of letters drains. 
 
 In a certain sense all men die equally well off 
 in this world's goods, for all leave behind them 
 whatever the world contains. King and pauper 
 leave, both of them, all there is to be left. It 
 is true that the one can bequeath to his immedi- 
 ate family what the other has no power to dis- 
 pose of, but they both leave to the world at 
 large all they ever received from it and vastly 
 more. In a very important sense I own all 
 there is to be owned. The great libraries in 
 every land belong to me in so far as I am able to 
 use them. It is so also with the great book- 
 shops, and with all the rare and valuable books 
 that crowd their shelves. It may be "Ye Olde 
 Booke Man" does not know it, but I own his 
 shop and whatever it contains. 
 
 And yet I must respect his prior ownership, 
 which is not less real though very different. Use 
 confers ownership of its kind. Because I take 
 
«YE OLDE BOOKE MAN" 59 
 
 delight in the arts and letters, they are mine. 
 Yes, they are mine forever; that is to say, so 
 long as I live and retain my reason. I wonder 
 men who give themselves up to books do not 
 oftener lose reason. The charm and fascination 
 of books and of book-collecting are very great. 
 
 I have a beautiful copy of Charles Nodier's 
 "Bibliomaniac," translated into lovely English 
 by Mrs. Mabel Osgood Wright, and published 
 by her husband in 1894. It has forty-five illus- 
 trations from designs by Maurice Leloir, en- 
 graved on wood by Noel. It is the story of a 
 man who went mad over books. He was a most 
 amiable lunatic, and everybody loved him, save 
 some drunken thugs who knocked him down in 
 the street because they saw at a glance that he 
 was a much better man than they, any of them, 
 could ever hope to become, and because he did 
 not join them in a rude and vulgar shout for 
 Poland. From the assault he was in bed three 
 months, and during all that time he had the cov- 
 erlet over him strewn with book-catalogues. 
 
 What delightful reading good catalogues are ! 
 I find them much more attractive and in some 
 ways more instructive than the thousands of 
 wishy-washy newspapers that concern them- 
 selves and disgust their readers with worthless 
 

 IDET. ^: 
 
 "Wljen T sir 3a^ gpa 
 
 _ 1 _ ^ ' T r»est CODT of 
 
 - -i^sTK. !EriT i-~ ~tt£ 
 
 
 than I r^-T i-iL . r _:l-- -i :_^ 
 
'-TE OLDE BOOKE MAN" 61 
 
 vko aat mfy raid bat 
 
 Mil H wded hj tibe OBsfc md gonB nt ss oln 
 
 bodb-sfaop, csperienee m akm 
 
 pabe to penal the iirji^iiM of 
 
 A ccrUa leader coafesed to ae tibat ke had 
 
 ^gfignred aeienl ivlaBKs !■ a boK-flMip aad 
 
 one in a pdbfic flbnuy. Bat, as he was a 
 
 of frnmafcrahle ti'lfUiiij, ifae bodks 
 
 fae^ g ie atly daaaged. Had tibe 
 
 plam Mr. Jones, &e le^er of tihe 
 
 JQst ofCT tike wa J, or Mr. ShSIi, tibe 
 
 I sianld lia^ ^m^ 
 
 tioB (MmO, if of ao odber Usd) to lay 
 
 books be bad cottaiaity aot Mfiiwiid 
 
 Wbaf s ia a oaae? Mvb, a^ 
 rcrj, Tery madi. Tbe Maa iriio caa wiSbe W3- 
 liam Taft oa tiie faohl n^vtcr aiQ aot fare 
 preda^ as tie aaa abo acrUles Fefer Saift 
 or Taaolbj Brava anst fare. Aastii^s poebj 
 is poor ****** gfr (tiaM^^ ^J^ sade vone fwiiKs), 
 as all tile "^^gfi^-^**— ^^"g ircr.i kr.-s rilj 
 too adL A ■iliiiisii wrfter c -:?:-£ ^i_zi li 
 "a fonnfist, a naa of ilotiies zi - - . 
 idhncs aad rilnak, aad baboc- i;r-_-r ^s 
 aad ai^bt-gima posaigs;* bat ~ z:i~- z:- 
 foigottea tiuit Mr. A:i5tiz - - 
 reaiei" oier aZI ire —155 :: -;::_ ii :: .j: ^e 
 
62 A FREE LANCE 
 
 has given the world. What are those two little 
 words "poet laureate" worth to the man who 
 can write them after his name? Ah, my good 
 reader, they are worth many golden pounds that 
 better poets find themselves unable to command. 
 
 I do confess that I once yielded, in "Ye Olde 
 Booke Man's" shop, to an urgent desire to set 
 a certain author right upon one of his own mar- 
 gins. Conscience-stricken, I returned to the old 
 shop fully determined to retouch the page, or, 
 failing in that, to make myself owner of the 
 book. I did not get the book, for it was sold 
 to some careless reader who never stopped to ex- 
 amine his purchase. No one would now remove 
 from the walls of an old prison in France cer- 
 tain inscriptions cut into them with a knife or 
 traced upon them with a pencil. Not all who 
 left upon those walls their bid for remembrance 
 were men of distinction, but time and circum- 
 stances have rendered the lines they left well 
 worth the preserving. Time and place can do 
 many things that men alone find themselves un- 
 able to accomplish. 
 
 I once purchased from McDonough a book I 
 did not want. I bought it because I had writ- 
 ten within it what I thought might not please 
 him, though what I had written I might have 
 
«YE OLDE BOOKE MAN" 63 
 
 penciled in a book that belonged to me. It may 
 be the verses scribbled that fine winter afternoon, 
 with the fragrant smoke of a good cigar enfold- 
 ing me the while, would not be wholly out of 
 place here, but I shall, on second thought, put 
 them aside, substituting this rhyme of the old 
 book-shop : 
 
 "ye OLDE BOOKE MAN" 
 
 A trader in the brains of men 
 Is "Ye Olde Booke Man" sure; 
 
 What songs and stories line his shelves, — 
 Some great and some obscure. 
 
 The poets come to him for sale. 
 
 And plain prose-writers, too; 
 In dainty volumes of levant. 
 
 Or bound in gold and blue. 
 
 I wish I was an ancient book. 
 
 On Joe McDonough's shelf; 
 I'd like to see what he would ask 
 
 For my plain-featured self. 
 
 I'll bet he'd sell me for a song. 
 
 Or for a single note, 
 If that fine note called for ten pounds, 
 
 With pay-day not remote. 
 
64 A FREE LANCE 
 
 Ten pounds I ten pounds! Great Scott, how mach! 
 
 (I should Great Joseph! say) 
 Perhaps he'd tear my book-plate out. 
 
 And throw the rest away. 
 
 We authors are but books, I trow. 
 
 Some good and others poor; 
 Our leaves and bindings fall apart, 
 
 Xot one shall long endure. 
 
 We lire awhile in other minds, 
 
 Or in McDonough's shop; 
 Then Time brings down his glitt'ring scythe. 
 
 And from the shelves we drop. 
 
 CHEAP AND XASTY 
 
 /^HEAP and nasty" is a phrase that de- 
 ^-^ scribes people who, ashamed of their 
 humble birth, lie about their ancestors ; who, 
 ashamed of work, are still not ashamed to live 
 upon the industry of others ; and who, anxious 
 about the curls that sprout from their skulls, 
 care nothing that their skulls are empty of any- 
 thing worth caring about. 
 
 BLAKE'S ^^SION OF ANGELS 
 
 "13 LAKE'S first vision is said to have been when 
 ■*-^ he was eight or ten years old; it was the 
 vision of a tree filled with angels. Mrs. Blake, 
 
EVERY MAN HIS OWN JAILER 65 
 
 however, used to say : *You know, dear, the first 
 time you saw God was when you were four years 
 old, and He put His head to the window and 
 set you screaming !' " — Gilchrist's Life of Blake, 
 
 Blake was an engraver and poet, and a tree 
 full of angels would be to him what a tree full 
 of apples would be to my friend, the good farmer 
 who lives across the road. He saw along 
 the line of his own tastes and inclinations, and he 
 took his most congenial conceit for a manifes- 
 tation of Divine Power. In this he was not un- 
 like the theological and ecclesiastical romancers 
 of our day, who are so familiar with God that 
 they are no longer filled with wonder or surprise 
 when they contemplate His glory. These pass 
 with the multitude for wise and saintly souls, 
 and to their preaching gather expectant congre- 
 gations that meekly receive chaff for grain, 
 and that, being invited, strive to drink the wine 
 of life from an empty cup. 
 
 EVERY MAN HIS OWN JAILER 
 
 Li^VERY man is his own jailer. He goes to 
 "*— ^ prison to himself. He is under lock and 
 key, and cannot get beyond the limitations of 
 
66 A FREE LANCE 
 
 his own nature. We discourse in glowing terms 
 of a liberty we do not possess, and the while we 
 boast of freedom we are chained fast to our 
 conceits and prejudices. 
 
 ANTHONY TYRRELL 
 
 JANUARY 15, 1895.— Day dark and rainy, 
 ^ but study-fire brighter than usual, and full 
 of gay salamanders. The evening hours es- 
 pecially delightful in company with a new ac- 
 quaintance in smooth olive morocco: "The Re- 
 cantations as they were severallie pronounced 
 by William Tedder and Anthony Tyrrell, 
 (sometime two Seminarie Priests of the English 
 Colledge in Rome) ... at Paules Crosse; 
 with an Epistle dedicatorie unto her Maiestie, 
 and their severall Prefaces unto the Reader, 
 contayning the causes that mooved them to the 
 same: 1588." I have seen one other copy of 
 the book in the British Museum, but mine is 
 larger, and I think the impression is more dis- 
 tinct. It cost me twenty dollars^ — too much 
 by five dollars, as I have learned from a London 
 catalogue. 
 
 What a choice rascal was the old Wisbech 
 exorcist, Anthony Tyrrell; and with what su- 
 
ANTHONY TYRRELL 67 
 
 perb genius and fecundity of imagination did he 
 lie about Mary Queen of Scots ! That man had 
 as many religions as a cat has lives, and, like 
 that animal, he had the comfortable trick of com- 
 ing down upon his feet. In this very recanta- 
 tion he admits to "having twice before renounced 
 the Pope." A dime museum advertised among 
 its curiosities a man from New Zealand with an 
 elastic skin; Tyrrell had an elastic conscience, 
 and no doubt he could have turned himself into 
 a Turk or a wild man of the jungle on a mo- 
 ment's warning. "Neatness and Despatch" 
 was the motto of his religious life, and his phi- 
 losophy, like that of the Vicar of Bray, was 
 comprehended in the four lines: 
 
 So the bait be good I can recant. 
 
 Believe in less or more. 
 For the boat must tack 
 
 when strong winds blow. 
 Or never reach the shore. 
 
 An old and worldly-minded sinner of long 
 ago wrote thus : "Be not over quick to speak 
 thine opinion, nor too obstinate in maintaining 
 it, but let all thy words be seasoned with pru- 
 dence. Such an opinion is neither one thing 
 nor another, but doth change itself many times ; 
 why shouldst thou bring thy neck to the halter 
 
68 A FREE LANCE 
 
 for a mere nothing? Thou canst believe and 
 doubt much without great clamor. If thy neigh- 
 bor compel thee to his opinion, vex not thyself 
 with contentions, but go merrily with him in 
 outward matters. A pinch of incense to the 
 gods will matter Httle, since the Lord looketh 
 on the heart; and thy judgment shall be accord- 
 ing to the inward desire." 
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 WHAT a correct and beautiful picture of 
 the growth and development of a noble 
 spiritual life is given us by Confucius in the 
 following statement: 
 
 1. "At fifteen, I had my mind bent on learn- 
 
 ing." 
 
 2. "At thirty, I stood firm." 
 
 3. "At forty, I had no doubts." 
 
 4. "At fifty, I knew the decrees of heaven." 
 
 5. "At sixty, my ear was an obedient organ 
 
 for the reception of truth." 
 
 6. "At seventy, I could follow what my heart 
 
 desired, without transgressing what was 
 right." Legge's Translation. 
 
 The early search for truth gives rise to con- 
 viction; conviction clears spiritual vision, and 
 
RELIGIOUS NATUKE 69 
 
 dispels those overhanging mists of doubt which 
 render decision of character and firmness of pur- 
 pose and action impossible; a clear spiritual 
 vision kads to the discernment of truth; that 
 discernment opens the heart for its reception; 
 and the reception introduces such harmony into 
 man's entire nature that he may safely trust 
 himself to choose and do the right under all 
 circumstances and at aU times. 
 
 It is not difficult to Christianize the above or- 
 der of spiritual growth thus : — 
 
 (1) I sought truth, (2) and found it in 
 Christ. (3) Under its influence doubt and mis- 
 giving disappeared, (4) and growth in grace 
 followed. (5) Growth in grace gave rise to 
 spiritual experience, (6) and that in turn, 
 slowly crystallized into holy habit and uncon- 
 scious obedience. 
 
 RELIGIOUS NATURE 
 
 A MONG many deeply religious people, and 
 •*^*- especially among such of them as reside in 
 little villages and places remote from the great 
 centres of intellectual activity, there prevails a 
 deep-seated fear that not only the church, but 
 religion itself, may be in danger from the ad- 
 
TO A FREE LANCE 
 
 vance of modern thought and the discoveries 
 of modern science. And even in large cities, 
 where the mental horizon is more extended, there 
 are some who share the same painful apprehen- 
 sion. For the comfort of all such, of whatever 
 name or creed, I call attention to a few facts, the 
 consideration of which should be helpful and re- 
 assuring. 
 
 I. Religion is an essential element in man's 
 nature, and as such can be destroyed only by 
 the destruction of human nature itself. Man 
 is, in every land and age, a religious animal. 
 He shares his physical nature with the wild 
 creatures of the forest and the beasts of the 
 stall; and with them he shares as well in some 
 measure his intellectual life. The dog can think 
 and reason in its way as correctly as does its 
 master in his. It is even possible that some 
 dogs may reason better about some things than 
 some masters, for the dog understands dog life 
 from the canine point of view, and to that kind 
 of understanding no other creature can attain. 
 The one thing that distinguishes man from beast 
 is not intellect, though differences even here are 
 vast. Man and dog are both of them intellectual 
 beings. The distinguishing factor in man, and 
 
RELIGIOUS NATURE 71 
 
 the one that everywhere appears at all times 
 and under all circumstances, is the spiritual na- 
 ture which he shares with no other creature upon 
 the face of the earth. So long as he continues 
 to possess the spiritual nature he must remain a 
 religious animal. Man and dog, both of them 
 think, but only man can worship. 
 
 Man is what he is by virtue of this spiritual 
 nature from which he can never escape, and 
 which no scientific discoveries can ever destroy. 
 His religion may be of one kind or another, he 
 may worship grotesque idols or the only true and 
 living God, but the one thing that everywhere 
 distinguishes him as a man and separates him 
 from every other animal is his recognition of 
 God. Even those who repudiate everything 
 connected with what we commonly call religion, 
 still, in one way or another, perhaps without 
 their knowledge of the fact, entertain some meas- 
 ure of religious feeling, and it may be of re- 
 ligious hope. Thomas Paine and Robert G. In- 
 gersoll were not Christians. They rejected the 
 Gospel as we understand it, but they were in 
 their own way religious men. Both of them 
 thought much and discoursed much upon reli- 
 gious themes. Even the avowed atheist who de- 
 nies the existence of God has a spiritual nature 
 
72 A FREE LANCE 
 
 which he is powerless to destroy. Could a man 
 destroy his spiritual nature, he would be no 
 longer a man, for there would remain nothing 
 to distinguish him from the beasts of the field. 
 
 Ever at the heart of doubt is the sweet con- 
 solation which springs from the assurance that 
 spiritual things can be questioned only by a 
 spiritual nature. The birds that build nests 
 over the chamber window and sing their song 
 of gladness in the early morning, never, so far 
 as can be discovered, doubt concerning the great 
 questions that allure and torment the human 
 mind. Robin and wren never inquire into their 
 own origin and destiny. They have no qualms 
 of conscience. They remember little of the past, 
 and anticipate less of the future. 
 
 Man is troubled about spiritual problems be- 
 cause he has a spiritual nature. He could not 
 doubt the existence of his soul had he not a soul 
 with which to entertain that doubt. He could 
 not question the existence of God were he not 
 made in God's image. That image is spiritual, 
 and by virtue of it he is able to deal with 
 spiritual things. Every "doctrine of grace" 
 may be doubted. Man may "if" the universe. 
 Birds and animals can doubt nothing in the 
 psychological world, since spiritual things have 
 
RELIGIOUS NATURE 73 
 
 no existence for them. They have no spiritual 
 nature. Our ability to question should give us 
 confidence, for our uncertainty may be converted 
 into a stepping-stone to larger faith. Reli- 
 gious doubts are still religious. They introduce 
 into life, not less speculation, but a wider hori- 
 zon. It is always possible to follow Tennyson's 
 wise advice: 
 
 "Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubtj 
 And cling to faith beyond the forms of faith." 
 
 The "sunnier side of doubt" is never far re- 
 moved from a sweet assurance; and "faith be- 
 yond the forms of faith" is in reality what we 
 so often mistake for doubt. 
 
 II. Religion and man's religious opinions are 
 not the same thing. Religion is an essential 
 element in man's nature, and is, therefore, inde- 
 structible, while all our opinions and convictions 
 change. A Buddhist may become a Christian, 
 but the change may not make him either more 
 or less religious. He had religious opinions be- 
 fore he became a Christian, and after his con- 
 version he still has religious opinions, only they 
 are different from those he entertained prior 
 
74 A FREE LANCE 
 
 to his acceptance of the Gospel. His religious 
 nature underwent no change, but the character 
 of his convictions underwent a very great 
 change. We should be careful not to confuse 
 religion with any peculiar theory of religion. 
 Theology is one thing and faith another. A 
 man may have very slight acquaintance with the 
 various systems of theology, and yet he may have 
 personal acquaintance with God in Christ as his 
 Father and his Saviour. 
 
 III. Religion is not dogma. Mere subscrip- 
 tion to the tenets of this or that religious de- 
 nomination does not make a man more or less 
 religious. Of course it is right that a man 
 should unite with whatever church he may find 
 himself in agreement with, but religion is some- 
 thing more than church membership. There are 
 good men in every religious organization, but it 
 is not the organization that makes them good; 
 it is something much greater and more substan- 
 tial. A man might unite with fifty churches 
 and be a bad man, and he might remain separate 
 from all religious denominations and yet be not 
 only a deeply religious man but a Christian man 
 as well. Church membership may be a duty, 
 but it does not change character. Few men 
 
RELIGIOUS NATURE 75 
 
 comprehend the doctrinal standards of the 
 churches with which they are connected, and it 
 is not necessary that they should understand 
 them. To be a Christian is not to be a religious 
 philosopher, but a sincere and affectionate dis- 
 ciple of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Let no timid soul fear the advance of modem 
 science. Nothing can destroy religion as such 
 because nothing can destroy man's religious na- 
 ture. Our opinions should change and will 
 change with new light ; and we should be willing 
 to change them when larger knowledge renders 
 such change necessary. The man who values 
 his long-cherished opinions more than known 
 truth is certainly not more religious than his 
 neighbors, but he is less of a man for his moral 
 cowardice and for his want of faith in God. 
 We shall never all of us think alike, but that 
 should not discourage us. With faith in God, 
 service of Christ, and toil of heart and hand 
 for our fellow men, we may make religion a 
 practical thing, and life all that God would 
 have it to be. 
 
 I have from time to time jotted down in my 
 note-book such definitions of religion as came 
 under my observation. These are very differ- 
 
76 A FREE LANCE 
 
 ent, one from another, and yet it is quite possible 
 to trace in them all the single thread that gives 
 them a common relationship. 
 
 Definitions 
 
 Heligion is the knowledge of God and His will, 
 and of our duties toward Him. — john henry new- 
 man. 
 
 Religion is the play of the Infinite on the finite 
 in the moral realm. — lyman abbott. 
 
 Religion is conduct touched by emotion.^ — Mat- 
 thew ARNOLD. 
 
 Religion is emotion touched by mortality. — 
 
 GEORGE M. beard. 
 
 Religion consists in the perception of the Infinite 
 under such manifestations as are able to influence 
 the moral character of man. — max muller. 
 
 Religion is a feeling of the supernatural and of 
 our relations to it. — george m. beard. 
 
 Religion is the recognition of our duties as Di- 
 vine Commands, — kant. 
 
 Religion is thought about the Higher than self 
 worked through the emotions into the acts of daily 
 life. — barnett. 
 
 Religion is the infinite nature of duty.^ — mill. 
 
 Religion is the immediate feeling of dependence 
 
 of man on God. — schleiermacher. 
 
 1 Elsewhere Matthew Arnold defines religion as 
 "Ethics heightened, enkindled, lit up by feeling." 
 
RELIGIOUS NATURE 77 
 
 Religion is awe in the presence of the majesty 
 of an inscrutable power in the universe. — Herbert 
 
 SPENCER. 
 
 Religion is the relation of man to God. — schafp. 
 Religion is the consciousness of universal rela- 
 tion. ^DAVID A. WASSON. 
 
 Religion is a feeling towards a supernatural Pres- 
 ence manifesting itself in truth, goodness, and 
 beauty. — c. c. everett. 
 
 Religion is the worship of Supreme Mind and 
 Will, directing the universe and holding moral rela- 
 tions with human life. — james martineau. 
 
 Religion is the upward flight of the soul to what 
 it believes to be Divine. — J. a. MaccuLLocH. 
 
 What is religion if we may not describe it as 
 deep calling unto deep? It is the deep in man re- 
 sponding to the infinitely greater deep in God. — 
 
 PERCY MARTIN. 
 
 Religion standeth not in wearing of a monk's 
 cowl, but in righteousness, justice and well doing. 
 
 LATIMER. 
 
 Religion is the communion between a worship- 
 ping subject and a worshipped object — the com- 
 munion of a man with what he believes to be a 
 
 God. FAITHS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Religion is the recognition of God as an object 
 of worship, love, and obedience. — anonymous. 
 
 Religion is the life of God in the soul of man. — 
 anonymous. 
 
78 A FREE LANCE 
 
 Religion is the sense of unity with the Infinite 
 
 Whole. ANONYMOUS. 
 
 GOD IN NATURE 
 
 TO see God in flowers, the grass, the trees; 
 to hear Him in the song of birds, and in 
 the music of wind and wave ; to commune with 
 Him in the silence and darkness of night — thus 
 to hold fellowship with the Eternal is something 
 beyond the power of language to describe. AU 
 things are full of God to the soul that has 
 learned to love Him. 
 
 TUNING THE PULPITS 
 
 QUEEN ELIZABETH said: "I tune my 
 pulpits." The pulpits of the Established 
 Church played in Elizabeth's day the tune that 
 pleased her best. They were all tuned to suit 
 her fancy. Now, as then, the State Church, 
 whether in England or elsewhere, is like a music- 
 box. Queen, King, Parliament tunes it, winds 
 it up, turns the lever, and lo ! the finely adjusted 
 pulpits start ofi^ with what tune was given them. 
 
 R 
 
 UNFRIENDLY RELIGION 
 
 ELIGION is not always a source of com- 
 fort and peace. There are men to whom 
 
THE SHARP EDGE OF MERCY 79 
 
 it is never a friend, but only a dim and sheeted 
 ghost, haunting a desolate conscience, and work- 
 ing an intermittent and spasmodic repentance 
 in a still xmregenerate heart. Many a man has 
 cried out to Religion from the depths of his 
 heart: "Hast thou come to torment me before 
 my time?" Only when faith turns to love, and 
 life derives from it an altered color, has Re- 
 ligion a renewing power. 
 
 THE SHARP EDGE OF MERCY 
 
 T IKE a benediction from Heaven, and as 
 "*~^ a gentle prayer from the tender heart of 
 a mother, glides the surgeon's knife around the 
 ugly tumor. A skillfiil physician wrapped his 
 sharp scalpel in a soft and yielding sponge, 
 and, while he stroked the felon, lanced it. How 
 often we are lanced while we are stroked ! The 
 velvet hand of Providence hurts in order to 
 cure. The most compassionate mercy has the 
 sharpest edge. 
 
 "HE TAUGHT THEM" 
 
 rriHE wonderful Sermon on the Mount is pre- 
 ■*• faced by "He opened His mouth." The 
 
80 A FREE LANCE 
 
 trouble with too many preachers is that they do 
 not open their mouths. They make a noise 
 without m,aking an impression. Having read 
 that *'He opened His mouth," we are not sur- 
 prised to learn from the next sentence that "He 
 taught them." 
 
 THEOLOGY AND PHYSICAL CONDITION 
 
 TOHN CALVIN had indigestion; Queen Mary 
 ^ of England had dropsy and uterine disor- 
 der ; John Knox must have had some trouble with 
 his liver; nearly all of the men and women who 
 found the severity of God, as applied to their 
 neighbors, quite restful, seem to have had some 
 extenuating disease. I wonder what distemper 
 our old friend Baxter had. Our theology seems 
 to take color from our physical condition. 
 
 THE NATIONAL CHURCH AND PARLIAMENT 
 
 rriHAT the Saviour is the head of the Kirk 
 ■■■ of Scotland, in any temporal, judicial, 
 or legislative sense, is a position which I can dig- 
 nify by no other name than absurdity. Par- 
 liament is the temporal head of the Church, from' 
 whose acts, and from whose acts alone, it exists 
 
CHURCH AND PAKLIAMENT 81 
 
 as the national church, and from which alone it 
 derives all its powers." — Lord President Hope. 
 
 So we are to understand that in every state 
 church (the Presbyterian Church in Scotland, 
 the Episcopal Church in England, the Lutheran 
 Church in Germany, the Roman Catholic Church 
 in Spain) there are two heads having equal au- 
 thority, but controlling different departments — 
 the Saviour and the Civil Government. Neither 
 of these may trench upon the other's territory. 
 Parliament can never allow the Saviour to inter- 
 fere with the "temporal, judicial, or legislative" 
 interests of the church, for these are in the 
 keeping of Parliament. On the other hand, the 
 Saviour cannot permit Parliament to interfere 
 with the spiritual affairs of the church because 
 these are His field of operation. If the word 
 "blasphemy" has any meaning whatever, it 
 seems to the writer of this paragraph that the 
 hateful word must surely apply to the language 
 of Lord President Hope. 
 
 The National Church, according to Hope, 
 owes its existence not to the Saviour but to Par- 
 liament; it derives also its powers from Parlia- 
 ment. Such being the case, it must be bound to 
 serve and please Parliament first of all, and to 
 
82 A FREE LANCE 
 
 serve and please the Saviour later, when such 
 service may be possible. Why should it not also 
 address its prayers to Parliament? 
 
 Why not mark off the "Acts of Parliament" 
 into chapters and verses, and have them bound 
 into the same volume with the "Acts of the 
 Apostles," for public reading in the Sunday 
 service, since both "acts" are of equal author- 
 ity? 
 
 The National Church must hold and teach 
 such doctrines as Parliament permits. That is 
 to say, though the Saviour established the faith, 
 the National Church may not embrace it unless 
 it has received the endorsement of Parliament. 
 
 A FAITH THAT CANNOT BE SUNG 
 
 "jV /TEN no longer sing the "Dies irae, dies ilia." 
 "^ ■*■ The hymn is still in our hymnals, but in 
 these days we do not sing it. A faith that 
 cannot be sung is not a faith to believe. 
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL PROFANITY 
 
 rriHE sin of blasphemy is by no means coii- 
 
 fined to the irreligious and openly vicious. 
 
 An Anglican clergyman said: "The Holy 
 
INSTITUTIONS 83 
 
 Communion, administered by a man not ordained 
 by a bishop, is no more spiritually effective than 
 a marriage ceremony performed by an actor in 
 a play is legally binding." That is to say, 
 the Lord's Supper derives its spiritual value not 
 from the consecrating presence of the Master 
 but from the endorsement, which it receives or 
 may receive from a certain sect of believers 
 known in this country as "The Protestant 
 Episcopal Church." Could profane audacity go 
 further,? I know the name of the man whose 
 wicked words have been quoted, but I will in all 
 charity treat him as the sons of Noah treated 
 their father when through drunkenness he had 
 made an indecent exposure of his person. They 
 walked backward that they might not see his 
 shame, and so they covered him from sight with 
 a mantle. I also will, because of the sacred of- 
 fice which he fills, hide, so far as I may, this 
 ecclesiastic's name. Let it not be remembered. 
 
 INSTITUTIONS 
 
 TNSTITUTIONS never reason; never attempt 
 to justify themselves ; seldom make any seri- 
 ous effort to improve themselves ; they stand and 
 crumble. If the church is an institution only, it 
 
84 A FREE LANCE 
 
 too must crumble. The only future such a 
 church can hope for must be one of dust and 
 ashes. 
 
 THE MARRIAGE OF CUPID AND PSYCHE 
 
 /^^NE of the most remarkable of Tryphon's 
 ^-^ gems engraved on sardonyx represents 
 "The Marriage of Cupid and Psyche." The 
 thinness of the veil through which the features 
 of the happy ones are discerned with great 
 clearness is a most difficult eflPect to produce in 
 stone. Wedgewood reproduced the gem, and 
 made all collectors familiar with its exquisite 
 beauty. The subject is one for the restricted 
 dimensions of a gem. It gives us so much of the 
 nuptial procession as could be displayed upon a 
 surface nearly an inch and three-quarters in 
 length. The figures are well spaced, with no 
 suggestion of crowding. They seem to be just 
 arriving at the banquet where all the gods wait 
 to do them honor. 
 
 It was only when Psyche was truly married to 
 Cupid that it was given them both to know the 
 sweet delight of parental duty. Their first 
 child was Pleasure. It was only at such a wed- 
 ding that the Heavenly Ones could minister. 
 A splendid banquet was spread. Mercury hfted 
 
RIVALRY 85 
 
 the sparkling goblet of nectar, and pressed it to 
 the lips of Psyche. All that was mortal passed 
 away. "Drink," said Mercury, "and never 
 know death." Ganymede held the cup to Jove, 
 and Bacchus served the rest of the Divine Be- 
 ings. The Hours bedecked themselves with 
 roses, and the Graces scattered perfumes until 
 all the air was faint with ravishment. The 
 Muses sang such songs of gladness that Apollo 
 snatched his harp and accompanied them. 
 Satyrus played the flute while Venus danced. 
 The air was rent with shouts of praise while 
 Paniscus recited heavenly verses. And so were 
 united the Pure Mind and Glowing Passion. 
 
 RIVALRY 
 
 TN the northern part of the Empire State is 
 ■■■ a little village which, with a population of 
 but three thousand souls, can boast of twelve 
 physicians and a "horse doctor." The interest- 
 ing thing in connection with this generous sup- 
 ply of medical skill is the inability of these 
 learned gentlemen to say, any one of them, a 
 good word for a neighbor-practitioner. I am 
 informed by a witty fellow who amuses himself 
 with the foibles of mankind that each physician 
 
86 A FREE LANCE 
 
 has confidently given his medical rival just one 
 year in which to practice, after which brief sea- 
 son it is openly predicted he will quit the place 
 a wiser if not a better man, and seek "pastures 
 new." For a score of years the prediction has 
 been annually renewed, and yet all these disciples 
 of Esculapius are still on the ground and in good 
 fighting condition. When I was last in the vil- 
 lage, less than a month ago, I inquired of the 
 senior combatant, as to who of all the "frater- 
 nity" had met with the largest success, and was 
 informed that the much-to-be-envied individual 
 was the "horse doctor." 
 
 TRUE BEAUTY ASTONISHES 
 
 /'^F a certain very beautiful woman I heard 
 ^-^ a man say: "I do not love her — ^I could 
 not love her ; and yet when I meet her I am con- 
 scious of a shock as from an electric battery." 
 Those words reminded me of the saying of Ba- 
 con: "There is no exquisite beauty without 
 some strangeness in the proportion." The 
 longer I think upon it, the more clearly it ap- 
 pears that there is something in the highest de- 
 velopment of beauty that not only charms but 
 astonishes. Indeed it is doubtful if true beauty 
 
A BUTTONLESS PHILOSOPHER 87 
 
 ever exists apart from some degree of sur- 
 prise. 
 
 A BUTTONLESS PHILOSOPHER 
 
 J THINK Cobbett described himself when he 
 ■*■ called the Quakers "unbaptized buttonless 
 rogues." I know not if he were baptized with 
 water, but he seems to have had little grace; 
 and in his later years his clothes were none too 
 well cared for. Perhaps he possessed two shirts, 
 which would be one more than Diogenes is said 
 to have owned when he resided in his famous 
 tub; and he may have had upon his trousers no 
 more patches than that same philosopher dis- 
 played upon his shabby cloak; but both men 
 belonged to the same "buttonless" crowd, to 
 which the Quakers did not belong. 
 
 THE GENTLEMAN 
 
 fTlHE gentleman by his personality alone at- 
 
 -■■ tracts or repels. Yoi 
 to him than he will permit. 
 
 -■■ tracts or repels. You can come no nearer 
 
 MANNERS 
 
 THE cultivation of manners is self-culture at 
 its best, for bearing, deportment, and even 
 
88 A FREE LANCE 
 
 appearance are a revelation of character. 
 Great importance attaches to a soldier's phy- 
 sique. The step is scarcely less important than 
 the manual of arms. The soldier's physical 
 presence determines in no small measure his 
 moral structure and his worth as a fighter. Sol- 
 dierly deportment will beget soldierly virtues. 
 Manners give power to a superior mind. They 
 equip the mind and insure it victory. Thus 
 with weapons neither rude nor aggressive the 
 field is won. 
 
 A LITERARY RESEMBLANCE 
 
 TN one way, and in one way only, John Ruskin 
 ■*• and Walt Whitman resemble each other ; both 
 crowd an entire poem into a title. Some of 
 Ruskin's books are, "The Ethics of the Dust," 
 "The Seven Lamps of Architecture," and "The 
 Stones of Venice." Could names be more po- 
 etic? Walt Whitman calls some of his poems, 
 "From Noon to Starry Night," "Whispers of 
 Heavenly Death," "Proud Music of the Storm," 
 "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," 
 and "A Song of the Rolling Earth." If only 
 Whitman's poems were as poetic as their names 
 are beautiful, what marvelous music we should 
 
NO LONG POEM 89 
 
 have in the "Leaves of Grass." In names only 
 the two writers approach each other. Of course 
 apart from these the two have neither resem- 
 blance nor sympathy. 
 
 NO LONG POEM 
 
 T INCLINE to Poe's opinion that there is no 
 •*■ such thing as a long poem. Song is self- 
 limited in its nature. The best singer can sing 
 but a little while. To me the long poems we so 
 admire are only successions of shorter ones 
 strung upon a single thread. It is not always 
 easy to separate these, but the separation can be 
 effected where there is the requisite skill and 
 patience. When one comes to lines which show 
 a flagging of interest, and are labored and dull, 
 it is more than likely he has come upon con- 
 nective tissues uniting the smaller poems. Be 
 this theory of verse right or wrong, still the soul 
 of all true poetry is song. 
 
 A TRUE STANDARD 
 
 HENRY I made the length of his own arm 
 the standard measure throughout England. 
 President Roosevelt strove to make his own fool- 
 
90 A FREE LANCE 
 
 ish whims and humiliating conceits the measure 
 of his country's rights and privileges. Henry's 
 yard was of real service to his age and king- 
 dom, but of what possible use could the bluster 
 and farrago of our Am,erican madcap be to a 
 nation ashamed of his selfish exploits and tur- 
 bulent demagogism? 
 
 PENANCE 
 
 T N New England there are many old women of 
 ■*• various societies for reforming the world who 
 see precisely what should be done, and who go 
 about day and night striving to induce others 
 to do it. They are like some women of an 
 earlier time who, when their consciences reproved 
 them for their many sins, returned home from 
 the preaching that had awakened them, to make 
 their servants do vigorous penance. 
 
 STYLE 
 
 TN these days much is said about literary style, 
 "*■ and we are advised to read this author or 
 that in order that we may acquire something of 
 the excellent style of which he is master. But a 
 good style is a very simple thing, not to be ob- 
 
SENECA'S PILOT 91 
 
 tained by great mental exertion. Swift covered 
 the ground when he defined a good style as noth- 
 ing more than "proper words in proper places." 
 The man who says clearly and in a forcible way 
 precisely what he wants to say is a good styl- 
 ist; and he may be safely followed, so far as 
 the following of any man is possible. There is 
 no "trick of style." Nothing is good that is 
 not straightforward. That composition is the 
 best which most perfectly fits the word to the 
 place. 
 
 SENECA'S PILOT 
 
 TT was Seneca's Pilot who said, "0 Neptune, 
 "■■ you may save me if you will; you may sink 
 me if you will; but whatever happens, I shall 
 keep my rudder true." That is the best thing 
 any one can say on land or sea, for on both 
 one is a pilot. The author of "Adam Bede" has 
 the same thought: "For my part, I think it's 
 better to see when your perpendicular's true 
 than to see a ghost." Duty may be, in any 
 given case, difficult to determine, but the pur- 
 pose to do it is always simple and direct. Never 
 in all the world is a ghost so worth seeing as is 
 
92 A FREE LANCE 
 
 the straight line of duty chosen first of all, and 
 well done so far as in the doer lies the deed. 
 
 THE SENSE OF SOUND IN LITERATURE 
 
 XTOT even Shakespeare's "garden of words" 
 •^ ^ in Richard II, to use a phrase from Pater, 
 gives me so great a delight as I at once receive 
 from the sense of sound in noble composition. 
 Goethe thought that the eye rather than the ear 
 was the organ through which one might most 
 completely seize and enjoy the right word. But 
 to me music is the essential element in all worthy 
 composition. I would hear in every line the tri- 
 umphant shout, and the no less tender pleading 
 of a mighty chorus of singing words — flute, viol, 
 dulcimer, and all soul-stirring instruments 
 changed as by magic into living, breathing words. 
 Only the poet can give us these, and we enjoy 
 them only by so much of the poet as we have 
 within our own souls. 
 
 GENIUS 
 
 'HAT genius sometimes takes the place of 
 hard work may be seen by a glance at the 
 
GENIUS 93 
 
 life and at the novels of Lever. He wrote all 
 his books at a dash, and at such odd moments 
 as he could command. He never troubled him- 
 self to examine proof-sheets. Any of his books 
 might have been printed upside-down for any 
 care he had about the matter. So soon as the 
 manuscript was out of his hands, he dismissed it 
 from his thoughts. He even forgot the names 
 of his books, and could not tell whether he had 
 or had not written a book brought to his atten- 
 tion. His life was a mixture of pretty much 
 everything: he was a doctor, a novelist, the ed- 
 itor of a paper, a gamester, and the driver of a 
 four-in-hand. He had charge of an emigrant 
 ship, lived for a time with the Indians in Canada, 
 was a fugitive from his creditors, and kept open 
 house for everybody. He was happy-go-lucky 
 from cradle to grave. Nothing but genius — 
 clear, unqualified, indisputable genius — pulled 
 him through. But would not his novels have 
 been better had he given himself to study? No, 
 I do not believe that Lever would have given us 
 a single book had he lived a more orderly life. 
 Anything like a definite plan would have spoiled 
 his work. Critics used to call his work ephem- 
 eral; they said that another generation would 
 forget that he ever lived ; that his reputation was 
 
94 A FREE LANCE 
 
 a bubble, and that it would soon burst. The 
 critics were men of well-regulated lives, who 
 knew all there was to be known about every- 
 thing. But they were mistaken in their esti- 
 mate of Lever. They could not understand his 
 life, nor yet could they make very much of his 
 work. They were analytical men, men of method 
 and of form and classification. They loved es- 
 tablished rules and conventionalities. No doubt 
 they rose every morning at the same hour, and 
 went to bed every evening at ten o'clock. What 
 could they see that was good in the wild, 
 free life of Lever? Well, they are dead, 
 and the world remembers them not; but the 
 Irish novelist was a man of genius, and he will 
 live. 
 
 DISCERNMENT OF BEAUTY 
 
 TT is evidence of fine artistic temperament and 
 ■*• training that one can see beauty where others 
 see no beauty at all. In the same way, it is evi- 
 dence of fine spiritual qualities and ethical train- 
 ing that one can see moral beauty and lovely 
 qualities of heart and mind in a man's life, where 
 others behold only the dull and unattractive level 
 
THE FIVE BEST POEMS 95 
 
 of the commonplace, or even, it may be, the ugli- 
 ness of a moral desert. 
 
 THE FIVE BEST POEMS IN THE ENGLISH 
 LANGUAGE 
 
 XTO two persons, were they called upon to 
 •^^ name the five best poems in the English 
 language, would make precisely the same selec- 
 tion. Shelley has given us some of the finest 
 verses in our language, but, being limited to the 
 narrow compass of five metrical compositions, I 
 should not select any of that poet's work. Mil- 
 ton's poems are among the very best, but our 
 age has grown away from him, and, great as he 
 is, he fails of providing us the satisfaction derived 
 from the reading of some of the humbler lines 
 of poets not so well known. I should select 
 the following poems, and in the order given 
 below : 
 
 1. Hamlet — Shakespeare. 
 
 2. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage — byron. 
 
 3. Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard 
 
 GRAY, 
 
96 A FREE LANCE 
 
 4. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner — cole- 
 
 EIDGE. 
 
 5. The Vision of Sir Launfal — lowell. 
 
 A PERFECT TEMPERAMENT 
 
 T I IHAT woman has the most symmetrical, bal- 
 ■*■ anced, wholesome and perfect temperament 
 who, with the sweetness of womanhood, unites 
 the strength of manhood; and that man has the 
 most complete and rounded temperament who, 
 to the strength of manhood, joins the fineness, 
 gentleness and sweetness of womanhood. 
 
 CIVILIZATION 
 
 nnHE vast deposit of our civilization is pass- 
 ■•• ing from the trained aristocracies to the 
 untrained masses. What is to be the fate of 
 that deposit? No man who loves his race or 
 even his own smaller country can wholly free his 
 mind from grave apprehension. The sub- 
 merged masses are coming to the surface with- 
 out any preparation for the new duties that 
 await them. The bull in the china-shop re- 
 mained a bull, but the shop underwent a most 
 
CIVILIZATION 97 
 
 disastrous change. Millions of people in the 
 lower walks of life are now coming into possession 
 of privileges and duties they neither understand 
 nor appreciate. Is civilization to go the way of 
 the china-shop.? 
 
 II 
 
 The men who traveled on the Titanic believed 
 that ship unsinkable, and they believed it even 
 when the great vessel was making ready for its 
 final plunge. Men are equally sure that our 
 present civilization is imperishable, and yet there 
 are now on every side ominous signs that should 
 awaken in thoughtful minds anxiety if not ac- 
 tual alarm. The tap-root of every civilization 
 is buried deep in its aristocracies; these are the 
 depositories of ancient superiorities. Under the 
 leveling processes of Democracy all these are 
 rapidly disappearing. What is to take their 
 place in this world, receiving and preserving the 
 sacred deposit of the ages.'' 
 
 Ill 
 
 Civilizations have passed away, some of them 
 leaving to our world treasures in art and letters 
 that must always delight the cultivated mind. 
 Our present civilization in no essential feature 
 
98 A FREE LANCE 
 
 differs from those that have preceded it. It is 
 disintegrating; and all history shows us that, 
 while the process of disintegration may be at 
 first, and for a long time, slow, a fearful mo- 
 mentum is acquired. The final plunge, alike in 
 the Atlantic liner and in the great Ship of State, 
 must be sudden. It may be in one case an ice- 
 berg that brings about the catastrophe, and in 
 the other some extensive strike of workmen, a 
 contested election, internal dissension, or the 
 treachery of an ambitious man. Unless some 
 force can be brought to bear capable of re- 
 sisting the downward leveling of Democ- 
 racy, the final plunge must be sooner or later 
 taken. 
 
 COOPERATION 
 
 "1^ yTHAT we call cooperation is usually noth- 
 ' " ing but compromise, and compromise 
 means the annihilation of personality. I am 
 weary of patched-up agreements that destroy 
 individual action and purpose. The men who 
 have influenced others have acted apart from 
 them. The strong swimmer sinks when he is 
 seized in a death-grip by the drowning man he 
 would save. We help men most when we stand 
 
JEFFERSON 99 
 
 apart from them ; when we grasp them, and will 
 not permit them to grasp us. 
 
 JEFFERSON 
 
 JEFFERSON was always, both by nature and 
 by association with men of his way of think- 
 ing, a "leader of the reds"; and it is after his 
 model rather than after that of Washington 
 and Hamilton that our country has shaped its 
 political life and development. Jefferson was a 
 centre of disturbance both in the council cham- 
 ber and in the political life of the day in which 
 he lived. His conception of republican simplic- 
 ity left out of view every thing like dignity of 
 bearing, stateliness, and fine deportment. He 
 looked upon these with suspicion. It is to him, 
 and not to Washington, that we owe much of 
 the rudeness and uncouthness of our present-day 
 methods of governing. He could not endure the 
 forms and ceremonies of older nations. He even 
 pronounced the etiquette and formalities attend- 
 ing the first Inauguration of Washington to be 
 "not in character with the simplicity of repub- 
 lican government." He said that these all sa- 
 vored of European courts. 
 
 He was by nature a revolutionist, an agitator, 
 and a disturber of old ideas and old ways. He 
 
100 A FREE LANCE 
 
 called the French Revolution a "beautiful revo- 
 lution," and expressed the hope that it would 
 "spread all over the earth." He looked for 
 much good from the lawlessness of the French, 
 even in that evil time when they leveled in the 
 dust all established institutions, when they trod 
 upon order and religion, and when they repudi- 
 ated decency itself. He still hoped, and even 
 praised, when one of the most kindly disposed of 
 sovereigns was brutally murdered. When the 
 massacres were at their height Jefferson wrote a 
 friend (Mr. Short) such words as these: — 
 
 "In the struggle which was necessary, many 
 guilty persons fell without the forms of trial, 
 and, with them, some innocent. These I deplore 
 as much as anybody, and shall deplore some of 
 them to the day of my death. But I deplore 
 them as I should have done had they fallen in 
 battle. . . . The liberty of the whole earth 
 was depending on the issue of the contest, and 
 was ever such a prize won with so little inno- 
 cent blood?" Think of it! "The whole earth 
 was depending on the issue" of unchecked and 
 merciless massacre for the prize of popular lib- 
 erty ! In Jefferson's eyes the thousands of mur- 
 ders committed in all parts of France were "only 
 a little innocent blood." 
 
OUR NATIONAL EMBLEM 101 
 
 There were among the American patriots of 
 1776 some who foresaw the peril of Jefferson's 
 views. Washington and Hamilton were not the 
 only ones who were awake to the danger. John 
 Adams, late in life, reviewing the past, described 
 the French Revolution as a monstrosity, and he 
 traced it to the effect produced in France by the 
 American Revolution. He regretted his own 
 early ultra-democratic views, and he did what he 
 could to undo some of his work which, in the 
 light of a more mature judgment, seemed to him 
 incautious if not actually unwise ; but he soothed 
 his conscience by saying in a letter to an old 
 friend, "I meant well." ^ 
 
 OUR NATIONAL EMBLEM 
 
 /'~\UR American Republic made a grotesque 
 ^-^ mistake when it chose for its national em- 
 blem the Roman eagle. The eagle is venture- 
 some, predatory, and warlike, and in no way 
 does it denote the peace, business tact, sagacity, 
 enterprise, and common sense which are distin- 
 guishing features of our Republic. The eagle 
 is by consent of all men King of Birds. But 
 what have we to do with kings? The only king 
 we ever had, we thrust from our shores with 
 ijohn Adams's Works, vol. ii, p. 340. 
 
102 A FREE LANCE 
 
 the not over-civil, and certainly in no wise true 
 pronouncement: "All men are born free and 
 equal." The eagle is not a suitable bird for 
 us. Our national emblem should be, beyond all 
 question, the Thanksgiving turkey. A not 
 over-patriotic wit, looking over my shoulder, in- 
 sists that "for obvious reasons the lordly pea- 
 cock is the true and only emblem of our Great 
 Western Republic;" but the simple fact that 
 the peacock Is "lordly" would seem to be a seri- 
 ous disqualification. The unromantic and good- 
 natured barnyard fowl might not look so im- 
 posing upon our flag and coin as a first-class 
 Fourth-of-July Bird of Freedom, but it is, never- 
 theless, a more thoroughly American symbol. 
 Of course the turkey is native to the soil, as is 
 also the eagle, and we cannot forget that a 
 very large percentage of the citizens of this re- 
 public came to our country from somewhere 
 else, and that their children speak with a rich 
 and melodious brogue not by any means pecul- 
 iarly American. But it is not at all necessary 
 that the emblem should fit the thing represented 
 too closely. In fact, in this case, it would be 
 just as well, I think, that the emblem should 
 not remind us too forcibly of that for which it 
 stands. 
 
OUR NATIONAL EMBLEM 103 
 
 Of all days, Thanksgiving Day is the most 
 distinctively American ; and of that day the tur- 
 key is the one and only possible emblem. Every 
 good American enjoys a distinct advantage over 
 the inhabitants of other lands. He can eat his 
 national bird, and even pick its bones. But the 
 very thought of roast eagle with cranberry 
 sauce is too absurd to be considered a single 
 moment. Not ten thousand eagles could make 
 so much as a fraction of a New England 
 Thanksgiving dinner. But any decent fowl, 
 weighing, say, six or eight pounds (a mere 
 charity turkey), might, with little or no diffi- 
 culty, and without even so much as a teaspoon- 
 ful of cranberry sauce, inaugurate a very re- 
 spectable repast. In the window of a taxider- 
 mist the eagle would seem much better than 
 the turkey; but the Roman bird has absolutely 
 no right to a place on our postage-stamps, our 
 coins, or our flag. The barnyard fowl, with 
 its crop well filled with corn and whatever else 
 the crop of a domestic bird is likely to hold, is 
 the true emblem of our American Republic. 
 
 It will be conceded that the eagle can be put 
 to more romantic uses than any turkey we know 
 of could be put to. Other nations have adopted 
 the eagle, but, so far as we know, not one nation 
 
104 A FREE LANCE 
 
 on all the face of the earth has ever chosen the 
 turkey. The Emperor Napoleon, delivering the 
 colors to his troops, said: "Soldiers ! take again 
 the eagles which have so often led our fathers to 
 glory." Think for one moment of associating 
 turkeys with glory! What effect would it have 
 had upon the French troops had the Emperor 
 addressed them thus : "Soldiers ! take again the 
 barnyard fowls which have so often led our 
 fathers to glory"? No doubt they would have 
 laughed themselves to death; and perhaps that 
 would have been a very good way (as good as 
 some other ways) of dying for the French 
 colors. 
 
 Americans have stolen a march on Johnnie 
 Crapaud, whose Emperor described his flag as 
 having led the fathers and Johnnie himself, in 
 gilt and fustian, to glory ; but an American, not 
 to be outdone by any Frenchman, actually 
 named his bunting glory itself. Dr. Thomas 
 Dunn English, who should have changed his 
 family name to something more patriotic, once 
 wrote what he hoped might prove a national 
 song, and in time supplant the unsingable "Star- 
 Spangled Banner." He wrote these even more 
 unsingable lines ; 
 
OUR NATIONAL EMBLEM 106 
 
 "Though crowns may break and thrones may fall. 
 Though changes may the world appall. 
 Our banner shall survive them all 
 
 And ever live in story. 
 The rainbow of a rescued land, 
 Where freemen brave together stand, 
 With truth and courage hand in hand. 
 
 Floats proudly here. Old Glory. 
 
 Refrain 
 "Old Glory, Old Glory, 
 Float proudly here. Old Glory. 
 Old Glory! Old Glory! Hurrah for you. Old 
 Glory! 
 
 "In days we fought with George the Third, 
 When Independence was the word. 
 One voice, from rising manhood heard 
 
 As well as old age hoary. 
 One purpose then we had in view. 
 To form of states a Union true. 
 And eyes and hearts were turned to you. 
 
 Our banner, grand Old Glory, 
 
 Refrain 
 
 "Old Glory, Old Glory, 
 Our banner, grand Old Glory. 
 Old Glory! Old Glory! Hurrah for you. Old 
 Glory!" 
 
106 A FREE LANCE 
 
 The "Old Glory" song, like many another na- 
 tional song, is boastful and vainglorious. An 
 added calamity was the music to which it was set, 
 and which may be truthfully described as gran- 
 diose and pretentious. It was later set to better 
 music, but it died an early yet natural death. 
 Still, Dr. English will be remembered for many 
 a year to come because of that one felicitous 
 name, "Old Glory," and because of "Ben Bolt." 
 He should be remembered also, so I think, be- 
 cause of his "Book of Battle Lyrics." The 
 word "old," as used by Dr. English, is expres- 
 sive of endearment and not of age. Our flag is 
 young. The first legislative movement looking 
 to the formation of a national flag was made 
 June 14, 1777, and resulted in the following 
 resolution : — 
 
 "Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen United 
 States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; 
 that the Union be thirteen stars^ white, in a blue 
 field, representing a new constellation." 
 
 Public proclamation of the flag was made Sep- 
 tember 3, 1777; and the "Stars and Stripes" 
 floated for the first time over Fort Schuyler, 
 located on the site of the present village of 
 Rome, Oneida County, New York. Our flag has 
 
OUR NATIONAL EMBLEM 107 
 
 been changed many times by the addition of new 
 stars as new States have been received into the 
 Union. Up to February 24, 1866, every flag 
 hoisted over our Capitol at Washington had 
 been manufactured from English bunting. On 
 the day named, the first wholly American flag 
 was given to the breeze, waving over the seat of 
 our National Government at Washington. 
 
 There is now a tendency in the United States 
 (a tendency emphasized by various patriotic so- 
 cieties) to fall down and worship the flag, while 
 at the same time there is but little corresponding 
 wish to render that flag supremely worthy of 
 adoring love. One may not advertise his busi- 
 ness, be it one of the most honorable in all the 
 world, upon either the front or the back of 
 "Old Glory;" but he may put, without rebuke, 
 that same "Old Glory" to most inglorious uses. 
 We are truly a thoughtless, careless people. A 
 foreigner was arrested for rubbing dust from 
 the floor with a worn and frayed sample of the 
 "Stars and Stripes." He was a very ignorant 
 man, and had no thought of insulting either the 
 nation or its standard. To him a dilapidated 
 banner of any country was suitable only for 
 scrubbing and mopping uses. He was arrested 
 for an unintended insult which it was said he had 
 
108 A FREE LANCE 
 
 offered the American flag ; but the man who had 
 him arrested (no doubt for political effect) was 
 permitted to insult the flag every day in the 
 year by associating it with all kinds of political 
 rottenness. 
 
 An effort is now being made to teach our chil- 
 dren to love their country by shaking flags in 
 front of them, and by having them sing in the 
 public schools "America" and "The Star-Span- 
 gled Banner." Only when we illustrate in our 
 lives what we would have operative in the lives 
 of our children can we look for good citizenship 
 in the rising generation. Speech-making, flag- 
 waving, and song-singing are well enough in 
 their places, but good citizenship cannot be man- 
 ufactured by any mechanical contrivance or per- 
 functory performance. So long as the children 
 in Dur schools see that we mean by the country 
 a political party, they will read into the tri-col- 
 ored bunting nothing better than party feeling. 
 
 I once heard a distinguished orator declare 
 on the public platform that Tammany Hall was 
 "an association of patriotic and unselfish Amer- 
 ican citizens who were banded together to secure 
 to New York City, and incidentally to the State, 
 and even to the entire country, good govern- 
 ment, and the impartial administration of just 
 
OUR NATIONAL EMBLEM 109 
 
 and reasonable laws." The statement sand- 
 bagged the entire audience. Not a word was 
 said. All were silent as the grave. There were 
 no sounds of approval, nor were there any of 
 disapproval. Three thousand persons sat 
 stunned by that statement. But the listeners 
 were only stunned and not permanently para- 
 lyzed. In a few moments something like ap- 
 plause was heard; but before the applause could 
 become general, gravity gave way, and the hall 
 resounded with uproarious laughter. How many 
 flags do you think it would require to instill love 
 of country and respect for our institutions into 
 the minds of children taught to believe such a 
 statement? 
 
 An officious and over-patriotic teacher in a 
 school connected with Trinity Chapel in the City 
 of New York got it into his head that one of 
 the most important of the many important things 
 in a well-arranged curriculum is the adoration 
 of the American flag. At Trinity Chapel, when 
 the children file out at the close of the session, 
 all "salute the flag." A little Italian boy 
 stalked past the flag with head erect. The head- 
 master requested the youth to do the usual obei- 
 sance, and received from him only a defiant look. 
 The child refused to salute what was to him a 
 
110 A FREE LANCE 
 
 foreign flag, and at once the master proceeded 
 to administer what seemed to him to be just and 
 reasonable punishment. A moderate riot re- 
 sulted, in which fists and even a few bricks and 
 stones were used, but the little fellow did not mock 
 with false reverence the symbol of our American 
 institutions. It is more than likely the flag lost 
 rather than gained by that headmaster's super- 
 ficial patriotism. 
 
 The value of the flag lies wholly in what it 
 represents. To a Turk the Stars and Stripes 
 may mean very little. To an Italian not in 
 sympathy with our traditions and institutions, 
 it may represent much that is even repellent. 
 So long as a stranger observes our laws and con- 
 ducts himself in such a way as to awaken no 
 animosity or ill-will, we can well afford to ex- 
 cuse him from foolish dissimulations with regard 
 to our flag and armorial bearings. 
 
 I suppose it is of no great consequence what 
 device or emblem is chosen for flag, coin, or es- 
 cutcheon. An eagle is as good as a crocodile, 
 and a Thanksgiving turkey would be in time as 
 sacred in the eyes of an American as is the holy 
 dragon to the vision of a native of China. Ger- 
 many has a double eagle; England and Persia 
 have, each of them, a lion; and Siam rejoices in 
 
OUR NATIONAL EMBLEM 111 
 
 an elephant. The appropriate turkey, once at 
 roost upon our national arms, would, I am sure, 
 seem to us quite as sacred as the more highly 
 appreciated eagle now appears to be. 
 
 The real flag is not a matter of bunting only, 
 nor is it a matter of stars, stripes, eagle, lion, 
 dragon, elephant, or aught else. Neither Betsy 
 Ross nor any other woman ever was or could be 
 the mother of "Old Glory." They have in Phila- 
 delphia what they call "The Flag House." It 
 is the house in which Betsy Ross once lived, and 
 in which she (so it is said) made, at the request 
 of Washington, the first flag of the United 
 States. The "patriotic landmark," as it was 
 called in circulars and on invitations to contrib- 
 ute towards its purchase, has been secured by 
 the "Betsy Ross Memorial Association;" and 
 already it has become the Mecca of patriotic 
 pilgrims. But the real building so sacred to 
 Americans is not the shabby little wooden struo- 
 ture on Arch street in Philadelphia: it is the 
 much nobler building that patriotic imagination 
 has constructed in the minds and hearts of Amer- 
 icans. Imagination makes everything that we 
 are and all we have. Red, white, and blue bunt- 
 ings count for nothing unless there be observed 
 a certain arrangement in colors. We follow 
 
112 A FREE LANCE 
 
 the pattern, for it is into that we have breathed 
 the love, the romance, and the loyalty of our 
 hearts. It is the pattern that we have idealized, 
 and not the rude material of the bunting. 
 Idealization of that pattern gives us the symbol 
 we revere. In the same way imagination has 
 transformed for us a rapacious and not-over- 
 clean bird of prey into a noble and magnificent 
 creature grasping in its fierce talons at once the 
 olive branch of peace and the sharp arrows of 
 war. In some parts of the country the eagle 
 is protected by law. It may not be hunted and 
 shot as are other birds. Imagination makes the 
 fiag, the escutcheon, the symbol, and everything 
 else; and what it makes them they are. Image 
 or outline in your mind what you hold to be 
 sacred, and at once hallowed associations spring 
 up on every side, and grow thick and fast. 
 
 SWEDENBORG AS A POET 
 
 T7I MERSON thinks that Swedenborg will be- 
 "*-^ come popular when men no longer regard 
 him as a "sectarian," and account him a poet.^ 
 I much doubt the future popularity of the great 
 Swedish seer, but I have for a long time viewed 
 ^Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1836-1838, p. 70. 
 
A COLLEGE OF JOURNALISM 113 
 
 him as a poet. You must get beyond his dog- 
 matism if you would find delight in his heavenly 
 vision. Swedenborg is one of the greatest of 
 poets. The man who takes Swedenborg at his 
 own appraisement exchanges poetic rapture for 
 poor and literal statements about a world of 
 which we know but little. It is just because men 
 do take him at his own appraisement that they 
 get no further than the New Jerusalem Church, 
 and never see the poetic beauty of his visions and 
 apocalyptic disclosures. Swedenborg is a poet; 
 as such I take him, and as such I read him. 
 
 A COLLEGE OF JOURNALISM 
 
 ALL things come round in due time. I de- 
 livered in the First Congregational Church 
 of Portland, Oregon, March 13, 1883, a sermon 
 on "Editors and Newspapers," which was soon 
 after printed in pamphlet form. In that ser- 
 mon I recommended the establishment of a Col- 
 lege of Journalism, where young men might be 
 trained for the responsible duties they are called 
 to discharge in preparing for the public the 
 great journals that so powerfully affect public 
 opinion. The suggestion met with little favor. 
 In some places it was ridiculed. But now, in 
 
114 A FREE LANCE 
 
 1912, twenty-nine years after the delivery of 
 that discourse, the cornerstone of the Columbia 
 University School of Journalism building, on 
 Broadway and 116th Street, in the City of New 
 York, has just been laid. A magnificent gift of 
 two million dollars from Mr. Pulitzer rendered 
 the school possible. 
 
 In the copper box inside the cornerstone were 
 deposited among other things an article on the 
 School of Journalism in Columbia University, 
 a report of the University Council on the or- 
 ganization and academic relations of the School 
 of Journalism ; agreements between Mr. Pulitzer 
 and the heads of the University concerning the 
 school; extracts from Mr. Pulitzer's will con- 
 cerning the endowment; the curriculum of the 
 school; Columbia's latest catalogue; an article 
 by Dr. Williams, printed in the Columbia Uni- 
 versity Quarterly and copies of the World, the 
 Times, the Brooklyn Eagle and the Sun. Ed- 
 itors of these papers are members of the advi- 
 sory board of the school. 
 
 I cannot but think a copy of the sermon re- 
 ferred to, in which the new School of Journalism 
 just established in connection with Columbia 
 University was forecast and recommended, might 
 have properly graced the copper box in the 
 
A COLLEGE OF JOURNALISM IIQ 
 
 cornerstone; for, so far as I know, it contains 
 the first suggestion of any such school. Jour- 
 nalism is a branch of literature, and as such it 
 should be taught either in a school by itself, or 
 as a part of the voluntary or post-graduate 
 curriculum of some established college. Thack- 
 eray had an exalted opinion of journalism, and 
 among his friends were many editors of not only 
 national, but world-wide reputation. He never, 
 so far as I know, thought of a school of journal- 
 ism, but many are the good things he said of the 
 influential papers of his country and of his day. 
 My readers wiU no doubt recall these words 
 from "Pendennis :" — 
 
 "They were passing through the Strand as they 
 talked, and by a newspaper office, which was all 
 lighted up and bright. Reporters were coming out 
 of the place, or rushing up to it in cabs; there were 
 lamps burning in the editors' rooms, and above, 
 where the compositors were at work, the windows 
 of the building were in a blaze of gas. 'Look at 
 that. Pen/ Warrington said. 'There she is — ^the 
 great engine — she never sleeps. She has her am- 
 bassadors in every quarter of the world, her cour- 
 iers upon every road. Her officers march along with 
 armies, and her envoys walk into statesmen's cab- 
 inets. They are ubiquitous. Yonder journal has 
 
116 A FREE LANCE 
 
 an agent at this minute giving bribes at Madrid, 
 and another inspecting the price of potatoes in Co- 
 vent Garden. Look! here comes the Foreign Ex- 
 press galloping in. They will be able to give the 
 news to Downing Street to-morrow; funds will rise 
 
 or fall, fortunes be made or lost. Lord B 
 
 will get up, and holding the paper in his hand, 
 and seeing the noble marquis in his place, will make 
 a great speech; and — and Mr. Doolan will be called 
 away from his supper at the Back Kitchen, for he 
 is foreign sub-editor, and sees the mail on the news- 
 paper sheet before he goes to his own.' And so 
 talking, the friends turned into their chambers, as 
 the dawn was beginning to peep." 
 
 Schopenhauer's idea of the newspaper and of 
 journalism was by no means so high, but he also 
 regarded the public paper, whether daily or 
 weekly, as the mirror of the times. It was not 
 simply a record of events, but it was as well an 
 enlargement and display of them. He wrote: — 
 
 "Exaggeration of every kind is as essential to 
 journalism as it is to the dramatic art; for the 
 object of journalism is to make events go as far 
 as possible. Thus it is that all journalists are, 
 in the very nature of their calling, alarmists; and 
 this is their way of giving interest to what they 
 write. Herein they are like little dogs; if any- 
 
PHARMACY 117 
 
 thing stirs them, they immediately set up a shrill 
 bark. 
 
 "Therefore, let us carefully regulate the atten- 
 tion to be paid to this triumph of danger, so that 
 it may not disturb our digestion. Let us recognize 
 that a newspaper is at best but a magnifying glass, 
 and very often merely a shadow on the wall." 
 
 Whitelaw Reld wrote: "The day is coming 
 when the position of a first-class editor will be 
 more influential in the United States than that 
 of a member of the Cabinet at Washington." 
 It is essential that so great an influence should 
 be as well a worthy one. We may follow Scho- 
 penhauer's advice, and so regulate the attention 
 we give the journal that there shall be no dis- 
 turbance of our digestion; but the great world 
 will read, every year, still more eagerly the daily 
 paper, and will be changed by the reading. All 
 the more, then, do we need the College of Jour- 
 nalism. 
 
 PHARMACY 
 
 T WAS present at the Commencement of the 
 •■■ College of Pharmacy. The young men had 
 made themselves proficient in pharmacy, chemis- 
 try, and materia medica, with other branches of 
 learning thought to be essential to the com- 
 
118 A FREE LANCE 
 
 pounding of drugs. They received their diplo- 
 mas, signed by grave and accomplished profess- 
 ors. The clergyman who had been invited to 
 open the exercises with prayer asked the Divine 
 blessing and guidance for the young pharma- 
 cists who were "leaving the halls of learning to 
 engage in professional life." The orchestra 
 discoursed sweet music. The orator indulged 
 in flights of eloquence, and urged the youths to 
 set before themselves high ideals. It was a 
 grand affair. But one could not but smile in- 
 wardly at the thought that in a few days or, at 
 most, a fortnight, the larger number of the 
 young men would be in charge of soda-water 
 fountains, or dipping out ice-cream to eager 
 youngsters. It was for that sort of thing, ap- 
 parently, they had received instruction in such 
 learned branches as have been named, and had 
 obtained diplomas. 
 
 Perhaps the clergyman would hardly have 
 mentioned in prayer the distinguished services 
 these young men were to render a much-to-be- 
 congratulated community, had he stopped to con- 
 template the fact that nine out of ten of those 
 fountains of summer drink would do their larg- 
 est business on Sunday while he was preaching 
 the gospel in a neighboring church. The mod- 
 
PHARMACY 119 
 
 ern drug shop is only a soda-water fountain 
 with a small drug attachment. That being the 
 case, there should be in the College of Pharmacy 
 a learned chair of Soda-water Fountains; and, 
 it may be, an associate professorship of Ice- 
 cream. 
 
 There is now a rage for colleges and profes- 
 sions. Doubtless, before long there will be a 
 College of Domestic Service, with a President 
 and Faculty of Kitchen Girls, having, among 
 other chairs, one of dish-towels. There are 
 learned professions, and there are honorable oc- 
 cupations that are not learned; law, medicine, 
 and theology belong to the former, and the at- 
 tending of counters in shops, of whatever kind, 
 belongs to the latter. No doubt the apothecary 
 should understand the putting up of prescrip- 
 tions, and he should undergo an examination, 
 and be licensed ; but why call his business a 
 learned profession? It is nothing of the kind. 
 Still further, what little dignity the pharmacy 
 once had it has itself destroyed. It is now a 
 sort of conglomerate establishment, where you 
 can buy medicine or chewing-gum, an adhesive 
 plaster or a kite and a bag of marbles, as you 
 please. Why not have fewer drug shops, and 
 have them real drug shops, where good medi- 
 
120 A FREE LANCE 
 
 cines can be had, and where a prescription can 
 be put up without danger to the patient? 
 
 HYMNS BETTER THAN CREEDS 
 
 T MUCH prefer the things men say of God in 
 ■*■ their hymns to the picture of Him found in 
 the various treatises of theology, creeds, and 
 sermons. 
 
 VICTOR HUGO 
 
 \ 7ICT0R HUGO added no thought to our in- 
 ' tellectual treasure, but our old and com- 
 mon-place literary material he rendered mar- 
 velously attractive by the pomp of his rhetoric. 
 He is not a world-poet; no one would think of 
 him as in the same class with Shakespeare; and 
 yet he is a writer of no common sort. The 
 serene creative light of Goethe's genius he had 
 not, but he had action beyond anything to be 
 found in the work of the German poet. His 
 genius was that of revolution, revolt, insurrec- 
 tion, protest. He found the air in his day sur- 
 charged with the spirit of unrest, and he gave 
 that spirit new expression. 
 
THE PRESENT 121 
 
 II 
 
 As an artist in words Hugo was what Dore 
 was as an artist in lines and colors. Both 
 painted with a large brush, and neither of the 
 two men knew the meaning of simplicity. But 
 in Hugo there was always the marvelous touch 
 of the master. Music and color were every- 
 where. 
 
 THE PRESENT 
 
 T TOW easily we remember the past! how 
 -*• -■' eagerly we anticipate the future! but how 
 little we improve the present ! We may recall the 
 long ago remorsefully, we may dread the years 
 to come, but we too easily forget that all our 
 hope springs from the use we make of the pres- 
 ent. Past and future are no longer ours, nor 
 have they any existence; the present alone re- 
 mains, and it is ours. 
 
 THE AGNOSTIC 
 
 A SORROWFUL agnostic I can well under- 
 stand, but a joyous one astonishes me. 
 A man may regretfully acknowledge his igno- 
 rance, but what shall be said of him when he 
 
122 -A FREE LANCE 
 
 tosses his cap in the air and boasts of that igno- 
 rance before all the world? One may not be re- 
 sponsible for want of knowledge, but why should 
 he rejoice in that want? That all men are 
 equally ignorant upon the subject under dis- 
 cussion does not help matters; on the contrary, 
 it should deepen sorrow, for it renders the want 
 of knowledge more hopeless. Yet I find boast- 
 ful agnostics who think confessed ignorance a 
 thing to be proud of. The man who is wanting 
 in information with regard to some question in 
 mechanics is rarely known to rejoice in his ig- 
 norance ; but when he comes to consider the 
 vastly more important question of religion, he is 
 boastful of his want of knowledge. His changed 
 attitude with regard to the question of religion 
 can be explained in only one way: his want of 
 knowledge gives him pleasure, and he does not 
 desire instruction. He loves darkness rather 
 than light. 
 
 w 
 
 MODERN POETRY ARTIFICIAL 
 
 HY is it in this age poets can get no 
 hearing? Why is it no publisher will 
 touch a book of verse? The world loves good 
 poetry, and always will love it. Why is it, then, 
 that poetry is a drug in the market? I think 
 
SONGLESS VERSE NOT POETRY 123 
 
 the reason is that our poets no longer write for 
 the people, but everywhere address those only who 
 have artistic and artificial tastes. The poetry 
 of this age is excellent, but it appeals only to 
 the few. Could Burns return to earth, our age 
 would welcome his verses with great joy of heart. 
 Not much was said a hundred years ago about 
 the technique of verse, and few cared for those 
 fine conceits that so please verse-makers of the 
 present time. The taste for much of our mod- 
 ern poetry is like that for olives — wholly ac- 
 quired. 
 
 SONGLESS VERSE IS NOT POETRY 
 
 T WEARY of hearing this perpetual discourse 
 ""■ concerning the moral purpose of poetic art. 
 The end and aim of all good verse is song. The 
 composition need not be distinctively lyric, and 
 yet songless verse, be it never so correct in meas- 
 ure and pleasing in structure, is not poetry. 
 
 WE ARE RULED BY THE DEAD 
 
 Q^TAND of a Sunday morning in any cathe- 
 ^^ dral, and you may hear the dead sing and 
 preach; you may hear them avow their faith. 
 The wax-tapers that burn upon the altar were 
 
124 A FREE LANCE 
 
 lighted centuries ago by priests and acolytes 
 who put aside their white surplices and fell 
 asleep when the great city was young. Unseen 
 hands swing the glittering censer, and they will 
 still swing it, filling the air with clouds of in- 
 cense, when other centuries have gone by. How 
 very old is the service ! It will continue, it may 
 be, so long as man continues to dwell upon the 
 earth, and in it the living and the dead are one. 
 We are ruled by the dead. From their urns 
 they lay hold of us, and whither they will they, 
 turn us. 
 
 POPULAR GOVERNMENT 
 
 /GOVERNMENT of the people, by the peo- 
 ^^ pie, and for the people" is likely to be a 
 very good government or a very bad one, but it 
 is seldom anything between. 
 
 THE SUCCESSFUL POLITICIAN 
 
 T HEARD a successful politician say: "My 
 ■■■ fellow citizens have forced upon me honors 
 and offices from which I shrink, and from which 
 I would gladly escape. My friends all know 
 how domestic and retiring I am in my tastes, 
 
EVANGELICAL BOOKS DULL 125 
 
 and it is difficult to see why they have insisted 
 upon forcing me into public life, for which na- 
 ture has so poorly qualified me. I have ever 
 cherished the hope that it might be my lot to 
 serve my country in some humble station, far re- 
 moved from noise and excitement ; and I have de- 
 sired no other reward than that of seeing my 
 fellow citizens prosperous and happy. I reluc- 
 tantly accept an ojBSce which I feel in my heart 
 should have fallen to a worthier man." 
 
 There is a surprising beauty that our English 
 language is powerless to describe, in the more- 
 than-Christian humility and unselfish patriotism 
 of the average politician. Where in all the 
 world can we match the modest and retiring dis- 
 position and the irreproachable integrity of a 
 New York alderman? 
 
 EVANGELICAL BOOKS DULL 
 
 pROFESSOR SIHLER calls Lessing's "Na- 
 *■• than the Wise" the Canticum Canticorum 
 of Deism. Well said ! Why is it that the books 
 we call "evangelical" are so often dull? I sup- 
 pose it is because they lack human sympathy. 
 They shut their readers in on every side with 
 wrought-iron traditions. Nothing so ofi^ends 
 
126 A FREE LAN'CE 
 
 their authors as an inclmation on the part of 
 their readers to form an independent opinion. 
 If you love Hberty, whether of mind or person, 
 always allow the "'"'Right Reverend Fathers in 
 God" to go by on the other side, 
 
 THE SENSUOUS WORLD IS SY^IBOLIC 
 
 nr^HE sensuous world is purely symbolic. It 
 -*- is a vast show in which men provide their 
 own entertainment, actor and spectator being 
 one and the same person. 
 
 WHERE TO LOOK 
 
 SIDNEY wrote, '"Xook in thy heart, and 
 write." I should think a glance at one's 
 own heart would render writing difficult. Why 
 not look at the needs of others, so far as they 
 may be discovered, and write with them in 
 view? 
 
 GLADSTONE 
 
 GLADSTONE was certainly a "great and 
 good man," but I do not see why he should 
 go down in history as the champion of the rights 
 of the common man, and as the friend of the 
 
TOO YOUNG FOR HISTORY 127 
 
 oppressed. He generally managed to be on the 
 wrong side of whatever great moral question 
 was before the English public. He was on the 
 wrong side of the Engljsh Church question, of 
 the Irish question, and of the American Civil 
 War question. He said during the Civil War 
 that he "expected the liberation of the slaves by 
 their own masters sooner than by the North.'* 
 He said, "Jefferson Davis and the leaders of the 
 South have made an army; they are soon, I un- 
 derstand, to have a navy; but, greater than all 
 this, they have made a nation." Well, Mr. 
 Davis did not make a nation, but somebody in 
 England made a fool of himself. In nothing 
 was the real greatness of Gladstone more mani- 
 fest than in the ability he exhibited of retaining 
 his influence and power in the face of so many 
 colossal mistakes. 
 
 THE UNITED STATES TOO YOUNG FOR 
 HISTORY 
 
 nnHE United States is yet too young a coun- 
 -*• try for anything like an exhaustive his- 
 tory. Time is an important element in the 
 preparation of trustworthy records, annals, and 
 chronicles. One must view the events of which 
 one writes from a suiBcient distance, but the 
 
128 A FREE LANCE 
 
 distance should not be so great that it obscures 
 those events and renders them indistinct. Pub- 
 lishers announce from time to time a history of 
 the Civil War, and reviewers recommend the 
 book. Believe them not. When another cen- 
 tury shall have passed away it may be possible 
 to write the history of what we sometimes call 
 the Great Rebellion. 
 
 LONGFELLOW 
 
 T ONGFELLOW may not be so original as 
 •'-^ are some of the poets for whom we care 
 less, and he may be open to some of the criticism 
 with which Poe and others assailed him, but he 
 is now, and will long remain, the most dearly be- 
 loved and most frequently quoted of all our 
 American poets. 
 
 A BRAZEN JACKASS 
 
 rriHE children of Israel worshiped in the wil- 
 ■*■ derness, so it is recorded, a Golden Calf. 
 Had they been living not very long ago in Chi- 
 cago and been attending in that city a certain 
 political convention, they might have given a 
 pleasing variety to their worship by falling 
 
SIMPLER RELATIONS 129 
 
 down before a Brazen Jackass. There is such 
 a thing as taste even in religion. 
 
 SIMPLER RELATIONS 
 
 NO two men," said Emerson, "but being left 
 alone with each other enter into simpler 
 relations." That depends upon what you call 
 "simpler relations." I know of two men who, 
 so soon as they were left alone with each other, 
 came to blows. 
 
 SUPPRESSION OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 fTlHE suppression of knowledge on the ground 
 ^ of expediency is like the quenching of the 
 sun. The Man of Galilee said, "I am the Light 
 of the world." That in some measure should 
 every man be. What new truth I possess must 
 be imparted. The good man is a socialist when 
 he comes to the field of ethics. 
 
 TRUTH 
 
 LL private ownership in truth is moral 
 robbery. 
 
130 A FREE LANCE 
 
 II 
 
 I must not only impart what truth I possess, 
 but I must also welcome new truth from what- 
 ever source. To reject any truth because it 
 seems to contradict a preconceived opinion, is 
 to quench the light ; and of all sins those against 
 light are the most deadly. I must tell the truth 
 and shock the world. 
 
 THE MOB 
 
 rilHE man who would argue with a mob may 
 "*■ count upon defeat before he begins his argu- 
 ment. Napoleon knew how useless it was to 
 argue with such mobs as inaugurated in France 
 the "Terror" of '93, and his instant appeal was 
 to arms. The red night-fires of his soldiers tore 
 even the robe of darkness from the bloodthirsty 
 wretches hiding in every place of concealment. 
 He argued only with the blazing lips of cannon, 
 and with the remorseless tread of trained and 
 disciplined troops. 
 
 JOHN HANCOCK 
 
 JOHN HANCOCK may have been a patriot, 
 but if Harvard University (then College) 
 had been compelled to take up with more men of 
 
JOHN HANCOCK 131 
 
 Hancock's moral equipment there would not be 
 much of a university in Cambridge to-day. Some- 
 thing like fifteen thousand and four hundred 
 pounds of College funds was paid over to him 
 (a large sum for those days), and that was the 
 last Harvard saw of the sum until, after his 
 death, his heirs, who had a cleaner account with 
 conscience, made honorable restitution. For a 
 quarter of a century the College begged and 
 threatened, but not one cent could it recover 
 during the distinguished patriot's stay on earth. 
 It is not a pleasant transaction to contemplate, 
 but history is history, and the truth should be 
 told — so Quincy thought when he published his 
 "History of Harvard University." 
 
 The men who signed the Declaration of In- 
 dependence were, many of them, men of uncom- 
 promising uprightness, and they were, as well, 
 men of great courage ; but human nature was no 
 more angelic then than it is now. The average 
 man, of whatever circle in society, will average 
 about the same in one age as in another. One 
 sample of honesty will come up to the standard 
 of other samples if circumstances and knowledge 
 be taken into account ; and the only reason there 
 is no recognized common standard is that it is 
 impossible to say just what any single specimen 
 
132 A FREE LANCE 
 
 is worth. It may be that our revolutionary 
 fathers were far above the average in honesty, 
 but they certainly could not, all of them, have 
 believed the Declaration of Independence, which 
 they nevertheless signed; that is to say, they 
 could not have believed it in anything but a 
 Pickwickian sense. When they signed the docu- 
 ment, with its statement that "all men are born 
 free and equal," they knew very well that 
 slavery was a part of their system. They knew 
 also that the "inalienable" rights named in the 
 Declaration were not inalienable. And they 
 knew many other things which the children who 
 came after them never gave them credit for 
 knowing. It is astonishing how Glory takes to 
 the woods when History turns upon her the 
 blaze of her searchlight. If we would fare 
 better with our children and stand well with our 
 consciences, it is incumbent upon us to do better 
 while we have the opportunity. 
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN PUBLIC 
 SCHOOLS 
 
 rpHOUGHTFUL minds, troubled about the 
 
 "*■ condition of their country, turn with hope 
 
 to Popular Education. The value of such an 
 
SOCIALISM 133 
 
 education cannot be overestimated, but it must 
 be of the right kind. And it must be fortified 
 by a substantial ethical safeguard of some sort. 
 There are those who believe that we sacrifice our 
 safeguard when we forbid the imparting of re- 
 ligious instruction in public schools ; and yet 
 the very persons who thus believe are unable 
 to show us how we may furnish such instruction 
 where there is no state church, and at the same 
 time avoid sectarian aggression. The moment 
 we provide religious instruction, we throw our- 
 selves open to all manner of proselyting ; and yet 
 even a state church, which is the natural and 
 final result of proselyting, is better than ex- 
 tinction. 
 
 SOCIALISM 
 
 rilHE Socialist tells us it is the duty of the 
 -*• State to provide for the individual, but he 
 does not stop to reflect upon the fact that the 
 State that is to provide and the individuals that 
 are to be provided for are one and the same 
 thing. If the State provides for the individual, 
 it can do so only because individuals have first 
 provided for the State, You can draw from a 
 
134* A FREE LANCE 
 
 bank only so much money as you have deposited 
 in that bank. There is no State apart from the 
 individuals that compose it ; and what those in- 
 dividuals are, that the State must become. If 
 Socialists want the State to care for them, then 
 they must care for the State. They will get out 
 of it only what they put into it. I fail of 
 seeing what they gain when they receive only 
 what they have given. Well, suppose the State 
 becomes the dispenser of all there is to dis- 
 pense, and that it guarantees to every man a 
 living: how much will the State be able to dis- 
 pense unless men guarantee to it honest and 
 continuous work? Might they not just as well 
 toil for themselves as for the State? Is not 
 work for the one work for the other? 
 
 II 
 
 One would think there were enough loafers in 
 our cities and villages without making an eflFort 
 to increase the number of idle and worthless men 
 and women. But Socialism proposes to pauper- 
 ize the entire nation by guaranteeing to every 
 individual a good living. Civilization is, like 
 every other good thing, founded upon honest 
 toil. No man ever had an inherent right to a 
 living. It is the law of Nature that if a man 
 
SOCIALISM 135 
 
 will not work he must starve. Whatever guar- 
 antees to him a living without toil lifts him at 
 once above the requirements of that law. So- 
 cialism would give to every man such guaranty, 
 destroying at a stroke all incentive to an in- 
 dustrious and useful life. The system has been 
 rightly described as "the lazy man's Utopia.'* 
 It is the delightful dream of seedy individuals 
 who, having beer incomes, are "tormented by 
 champagne tastes." 
 
 A writer in a New York paper some time ago 
 called Socialism "the dream of vengeance of the 
 weak man against the strong." Therein lies its 
 most ugly characteristic. With its impractica- 
 bilit}'^ it mixes the most deadly hatred. It takes 
 for granted that the prosperous man is a de- 
 spoiler of his race ; one of its most popular texts 
 is nothing less than an assault upon all private 
 property. Holding that private property is 
 robbery, it yet stretches out its hands, and is 
 clamorous for a division of that robbery. Even 
 savages have property, and I think but few of 
 the children of the forest would relish a proposal 
 to have the bows and arrows of the prosperous 
 divided so that the lazy and worthless should 
 have an equal share. 
 
 One of the worst features of Socialism is, as 
 
136 A FREE LANCE 
 
 has been said, the bitter hatred it engenders. It 
 tells the poor man that the property of every 
 wealthy man belongs in part to him. It calls 
 every rich man a robber. Of course nothing of 
 the kind is true. There are honest rich men, 
 and there are as well some dishonest poor men. 
 Yet this evil system goes on embittering man 
 against man, and leading to crime after crime. 
 
 Ill 
 
 No system of government can ever change 
 human nature. Men would be just as selfish 
 under Socialism as they now are under a Re- 
 public. No brotherhood of love can be evolved 
 from the hard scramble for place and possessions 
 by relieving men of the common burdens of life ; 
 in fact, such foolish relief must only increase the 
 selfishness of man's heart. It is the claim of 
 Socialists that the inequalities of life are in large 
 measure due to human selfishness ; but selfishness 
 goes much deeper than government, and deeper 
 than the mere accident of birth and circum- 
 stance; it is, unfortunately, an element inherent 
 in human nature. It will appear in every state 
 and under all circumstances, so long as it exists 
 in our nature. Among the most selfish of all 
 men will be found those who have been relieved 
 
SOCIALISM 137 
 
 of anxiety, and who are provided with wealth 
 and ease. Socialism would make the world all 
 the more selfish by guaranteeing to every one 
 the very things that make people selfish. More- 
 over, it would create a vast stagnation by ren- 
 dering us all equally well off. Equality in pos- 
 sessions could not but remove every incentive to 
 work. We labor to obtain more than we have; 
 but we would not labor had we all we want. 
 Were all equally well off, there could be no such 
 thing as service, for all men would be masters. 
 Think of a millionaire banker riding behind his 
 millionaire coachman! 
 
 IV 
 
 This is, so far as I know and so far as I have 
 been able to discover, the true Socialistic pro- 
 gramme. Not all of these items would be 
 acknowledged by every Socialist, and, perhaps, 
 no one would wholly approve the entire pro- 
 gramme, but for "substance of doctrine" this 
 representation is in every way just and fair. 
 Of course the arrangement chosen is not pre- 
 cisely such as a trained Socialist might be ex- 
 pected to adopt, but the items here catalogued 
 are either held in the form given, or as logical 
 and fair deductions from the system itself. 
 
138 A FREE LANCE 
 
 1. Abolition of all private property. 
 
 2. Abolition of the wage-system. 
 
 8. Abolition of the competitive system. 
 4«. Abolition of all private banking and in- 
 surance business. 
 
 6. Government ownership of all land, machin- 
 ery, railroads, telegraph lines, and canals. 
 
 7. The organization of national and interna- 
 tional trades and labor unions on a socialistic 
 basis. 
 
 8. Cooperative production, with a just distri- 
 bution of its rewards. 
 
 9. All wages to be paid at intervals of time 
 not exceeding one week. 
 
 10. All conspiracy laws operating against the 
 right of working-men to strike, or to induce 
 others to strike, shall be repealed. 
 
 11. Gratuitous administration of justice in all 
 courts of law. 
 
 12. A graded income tax. 
 
 13. All banking and insurance to be con- 
 ducted by the general government. 
 
 14. All public officers to be subject to prompt 
 recall. 
 
 TWO REPUBLICS 
 T HAVE been greatly impressed by the close 
 ■^ resemblance between the old Roman Repub- 
 
TWO REPUBLICS 139 
 
 He at the time when it was about to become an 
 empire, and our own modern Republic, the 
 United States of America, now that it appears 
 to be verging upon dissolution. The decadent 
 features seem very much the same in both, as any 
 student may see if he will be at the pains to com- 
 pare the two governments in the light of history 
 and in that of present conditions in our own 
 country. The tabulation given below brings out, 
 I think, this sad but interesting resemblance be- 
 tween the two great republics of history. It 
 may not be too late to profit by the lesson of 
 the past. If it be not too late, then the writer 
 who brings before his readers the peril both he 
 and they would gladly escape may not write 
 wholly in vain. 
 
 ROMAN REPUBLIC AMERICAN REPUBLIC 
 
 1. Decrease in Patri- 1. Decrease in Patri- 
 
 otism, with growing otism, with growing 
 
 idealization of the idealization of the 
 
 Roman standards. flag and historic 
 
 places and associa- 
 tions. 
 
 2. Popular inclination 2. Rise and great influ- 
 in the direction of ence of demagogues, 
 demagogues and agi- self -seekers, polit- 
 tators. ical schemers; pop- 
 ular approval of 
 men like Bvyan, 
 
140 
 
 A FREE LANCE 
 
 3. Immense fortunes. 
 
 4. Great speculation in 
 
 real estate. 
 
 5. Cornering of food- 
 
 stuffs. 
 
 6. General corruption 
 in politics. 
 
 7. Demoralization of 
 the family; divorce; 
 few children among 
 the rich. 
 
 8. The homes of the 
 wealthy full of 
 treasures of art and 
 of bric-a-brac. 
 
 9. Great extravagance 
 
 of women; luxurious 
 living ; contempt for 
 manual labor and 
 all kinds of domes- 
 tic service. 
 
 10. Unwillingness o f 
 the poor to work; 
 vagabondage ; in the 
 city of Rome a large 
 percentage of men 
 without fixed habita- 
 tion. 
 
 Roosevelt and Till- 
 man. 
 S. Enormous fortunes, 
 trusts, and colossal 
 monetary schemes 
 and combinations. 
 
 4. Great speculation in 
 many directions. 
 
 5. Cornering of the 
 necessities of life. 
 
 6. "Graft" in both poli- 
 tics and business. 
 
 7. Divorce common; 
 
 few children among 
 the rich. 
 
 8. Palaces of lavish 
 and wasteful ex- 
 travagance for the 
 wealthy; costly jew- 
 els and luxurious 
 living. 
 
 9. Rise of labor unions 
 and the passing 
 away of skilled labor 
 and domestic serv- 
 ice. 
 
 10. Disinclination to 
 work ; increasing 
 number of "tramps," 
 loafers, and men 
 without fixed habita- 
 tion. 
 
BRITISH RULE 
 
 141 
 
 11. General spread of 
 unbelief; neglect of 
 the gods, the tem- 
 ples, and religious 
 observances. 
 
 12. Great literary ac- 
 tivity, with little 
 seriousness and not 
 much originality. 
 
 13, Alarming increase 
 of insanity and 
 crime. 
 
 11. General unsettling 
 of belief ; growing 
 doubt with regard to 
 fundamental d o c- 
 trines of Christian- 
 ity. 
 
 12. Great literary activ- 
 ity, with little seri- 
 ousness of thought. 
 Not much original- 
 ity. Countless nov- 
 els. 
 
 13. Alarming increase 
 of insanity and 
 crime. 
 
 BRITISH RULE 
 
 "DRITISH rule in India is well-nigh perfect of 
 •*^ its kind, and its kind is surely good, but 
 no rule was ever more unpopular. It is a strong 
 and safe rule, but there is nothing about it 
 pleasing to the pride and indolence of the 
 natives. Its strength and weakness are prac- 
 tically one and the same thing. People ener- 
 vated by a tropical climate like nothing that 
 exhibits energy and firmness, both of which 
 qualities are essential to English rule, and es- 
 sential also to India's prosperity. England is 
 the world's great colonizer, and every country 
 
142 :a: free lance 
 
 she takes under her wing is made thereby better 
 and happier. It will be a sore day for our 
 world when she relaxes her strong yet gentle 
 hold on Ireland. The American Revolution 
 taught her, at our expense, the lesson of colonial 
 government, and that lesson has been remem- 
 bered. We may be said to have purchased for 
 the world much of its peace and happiness, at 
 great cost to ourselves, when we fought the 
 mother-land and set up for ourselves, surren- 
 dering so many things that less important peo- 
 ples possess and enjoy. 
 
 MOST MEN HAVE ORDINARY ABILITIES 
 
 TV ^OST of the young men in this and in every 
 •^ -*• other country have only ordinary abilities, 
 and yet American boys will not prepare them- 
 selves for such ordinary occupations as they are 
 able to pursue. The "Every-Man-a-Sovereign" 
 doctrine is rapidly coming to jflower in the 
 **Every-Man-a-rool" experience. Great husky 
 fellows who were created for manual labor, and 
 who should be on a farm or in a shop, are study- 
 ing painting, architecture, and literature. Con- 
 tempt for rough work is one of the banes of 
 our age and country. The common mechanical 
 
MEN HAVE ORDINARY ABILITIES 143 
 
 pursuits do not bring an easy and swift fortune, 
 and for that reason they are despised and 
 avoided. It is now very hard to find a good 
 workman. There are few skilled mechanics. 
 And men are generally unwilling to till the soil 
 unless the tilling be on a very large scale. To 
 sit all day in a broker's office, watching the 
 fluctuation of railway stocks and betting on their 
 rise or fall ; to peddle worthless mining stocks ; 
 or to control corrupt political parties and meas- 
 ures — these occupations seem to the young men 
 of our country more alluring than more useful 
 and honorable employments. The "Get-rich- 
 quick" idea, coupled with the great American 
 lie, "All men are bom free and equal," has sent 
 the coming generation off on a fool's picnic, the 
 end whereof must be failure. 
 
 The entire drift of republican thought and 
 feeling is away from work, and in the direction 
 of individualism and self-indulgence. Every 
 man has a vote, and every man must be con- 
 sulted with regard to every question. The man 
 may have no brains, but the elective franchise 
 has given him a voice, and he can make a noise 
 even if he can do nothing more. Election day 
 summons thousands of ignorant men to express 
 their worthless opinions. Two such opinions go 
 
lU A FREE LANCE 
 
 further and count for more than one opinion of 
 a better sort. The majority rule, and the 
 trained and qualified take back seats. Ours is 
 the wisdom of numbers. Not many voters un- 
 derstand much about the questions concerning 
 which they vote, yet the privilege of registering 
 one's ignorance at the polls is the priceless pre- 
 rogative of an American citizen. Thus it comes 
 to pass that skilled labor goes to the wall, labor 
 unions with their vast deposit of folly come to 
 the front, and ignorance and inexperience win 
 the day alike in politics and industry. 
 
 THE APPROACHING PERIOD 
 
 T^ 7E are now approaching a critical period in 
 * ' the history of this great Republic. We 
 have left far behind the beauty, grace, and ster- 
 ling integrity which marked the character and 
 administration of Washington and the few men 
 who were of his mind and manners. We are a 
 republic modeled after the thought and feeling 
 of Jeiferson, and not after the opinions and 
 teaching of Washington and Hamilton. It will 
 soon appear whether Jefferson's idea of govern- 
 ment has sufficient strength to hold together the 
 divergent elements that are contending with each 
 
CONTEMPT FOR MANUAL LABOR 145 
 
 other; whether it will be able to resist the de- 
 structive influences of political intrigue, the sale 
 and purchase of votes, pension-grabbing, the 
 crime introduced by immigration, the murderous 
 Black Hand and other organizations of the kind> 
 the dense ignorance of large numbers of foreign- 
 ers, the selfishness of astute politicians, the co- 
 lossal greed of capitalistic combinations, and the 
 general corruption which fills every thoughtful 
 mind with dismay. The outlook is anything but 
 encouraging. It is as Henry George has said, 
 "The struggle that^must either revivify or con- 
 vulse in ruin is near at hand, if it be not already 
 begun." 
 
 CONTEMPT FOR MANUAL LABOR 
 
 CONTEMPT for manual labor seems to be a 
 necessary result of popular government. 
 We fix in this country no limit to the ambition 
 of any man. The most illiterate youth in the 
 most unimportant family in all the length and 
 breadth of these United States is assured over 
 and over again by politicians and stump-orators 
 that if he will but aspire to place and power, he 
 may become our chief executive. Fillmore and 
 Johnson were in early life tailors, Lincoln was 
 
146 A FREE LANCE 
 
 a rail-splitter. Garfield was a canal-boy. 
 Even Washington was in early life a surveyor. 
 Why should not Tom, Dick, and Harry leave 
 lowly occupations, to govern the State of New 
 York, or preside over the affairs of an entire 
 nation? Other men have risen, and why should 
 not any boy do what others have done? 
 
 The possibility is as stated, but how few con- 
 sider the remoteness of the probability. And so 
 it comes to pass that the present labor is de- 
 spised. Why should one perfect hand and brain 
 in that which must so soon be laid aside for the 
 exalted positions and duties that under a popu- 
 lar government await Tom, Dick, and Harry? 
 It rarely occurs to the young man to ask if there 
 was not something more than mere opportunity 
 required for the splendid achievements and his- 
 toric importance of Washington, Lincoln, and 
 Grant. 
 
 As the housemaid believes that the only 
 difference between her mistress and herself is 
 that of money or of fine clothes, so the village 
 lubber holds that the only difference between the 
 wisest and ablest man that ever walked this earth 
 and himself is that of opportunity. He will tell 
 you that the same opportunity must in either 
 case, or in both cases, produce exactly the same 
 
WORK IS HONORABLE 147 
 
 result ; all of which is as untrue as would be the 
 statement that, given the same soil, moisture, 
 light, and temperature, all seeds must come to 
 the same flower. 
 
 WORK IS HONORABLE 
 / 
 'l^T'ORK is honorable, and bread and butter 
 
 * » are quite as respectable as are ortolan 
 and choice wines. We are, most of us, created 
 on the bread-and-butter side of life, and upon 
 that side we are wanted. To improve the work 
 that belongs to us and that awaits us is much 
 better than to do poorly work that does not be- 
 long to us. It was the enemy of mankind who 
 whispered into the attentive but inexperienced 
 ear of our great progenitor, "Ye shall be as 
 gods ;" and it is the same old enemy that to-day 
 whispers to the sons of men, "Leave off serving 
 in humble stations, and you shall become the 
 arbiters of destiny and the rulers of the 
 world." Carlyle said in all his life no wiser 
 words than these: "Work is man's true maj- 
 esty." Said also the ancient Oracle, "Do to- 
 day thy nearest duty," — do it with all thy 
 might, and do it well. 
 
 In the old days in England service, like lord- 
 
148 A FREE LANCE 
 
 ship, extended through many generations, and 
 perfected itself with the years. Men were not 
 ashamed of service. They contemplated with 
 noble pride the well-performed work of 
 grandfather, and great-grandfather, and it was 
 their ambition to do their own work as well. 
 The butler did not trouble his head with dreams 
 of Parliament. Now no man will work if he can 
 escape the necessity. Why should he perfect 
 himself in that which he despises, and which he 
 regards as nothing but a stepping-stone to some- 
 thing better? When you take the dignity out 
 of labor, you destroy the quality and value of 
 labor for all the world. 
 
 ENGLISH RULE IN AMERICA 
 
 ri^HE rule of England in America was never 
 -*" the hard and ugly thing our Fourth-of- 
 July patriots would have us believe. Senator 
 Hoar said, in a speech delivered at South Bos- 
 ton, March 18th, 1901: "The government of 
 England was, in the main, a gentle government, 
 much as our fathers complained of it. Her yoke 
 was easy and her burden was light; our fathers 
 were a hundred times better off in 1775 than were 
 the men of Kent, the vanguard of liberty in Eng- 
 
ENGLISH RULE IN AMERICA 149 
 
 land. There was more happiness in Middlesex 
 on the Concord than there was in Middlesex on 
 the Thames." 
 
 The government of England was in early 
 times not so mild as it is to-day, but it was al- 
 ways in advance of the age; it is in advance of 
 the age in which we live, and it will, no doubt, 
 remain the leader of all ages in the wisdom and 
 mildness of its administration. Every govern- 
 ment has its own peculiar worth to the entire 
 world, but the mission of England has always 
 been, notwithstanding its many civil and for- 
 eign wars, one of peace and domestic happiness. 
 It has made the world a safe place to live in. 
 The English have great respect for law. Noth- 
 ing seems to them quite so bad as anarchy. 
 Their judges and courts have authority, and 
 their decisions are respected. Wherever the 
 English flag waves, life, liberty, and property 
 are protected. It is not so with us. We can 
 scarcely keep our judges from becoming the 
 creatures of political factions. We have lost 
 much of our reverence for law, and in some parts 
 of our country the citizens can hardly be called 
 law-abiding. I have no doubt that were we un- 
 der the government of England, law and order 
 as well as personal liberty would be for us a 
 
150 A FREE LANCE 
 
 larger and richer possession. Still, it would be 
 at the sacrifice of that national independence 
 which both England and America hold dear. 
 
 MINOR POETS 
 
 T HAVE in my library a number of books 
 ■*■ written by poets little known to the reading 
 world. Some of the books contain verses of 
 great beauty and of rare worth. Why is it that 
 their authors never succeeded in attracting the 
 attention they deserved, and which their more 
 fortunate confreres so easily secured? I use the 
 word "confreres" because the order of poets is 
 always religious. There could be no religion but 
 of mud-gods and dirt-worship, without the over- 
 hanging dream-world of which the poet is 
 prophet and interpreter. We shall never know 
 how great is the world's indebtedness to the mas- 
 ters of song who prevent men from living by 
 bread alone. "Where there is no vision," said 
 the sacred writer, "the people perish." The 
 breath of spiritual life is preserved within us 
 by the revelations of those sons of light. 
 
 Why are so many of them neglected? Why 
 do they fail of reasonable recognition? The 
 cause is only remotely in the poets themselves, 
 
MINOR POETS 151 
 
 while it is in general, and most clearly in the 
 unspiritual crowd of money-makers, log-rollers, 
 and pleasure-seekers we call the world. These 
 count the easiest way the way to take; and the 
 easiest way is the one others have already taken. 
 The common verdict of the unthinking multi- 
 tude is accepted without question. "Can there 
 any good thing come out of Nazareth?" Why, 
 certainly not. No good thing ever did come 
 from a new place ; and, what is more, we are busy 
 making mud-pies, and do not want to be troubled 
 about either Nazareth or good things. The 
 poets who years ago fought their way to the 
 front are great; being at the front makes them 
 great, and there the matter ends. Of course 
 new poets want recognition. The toad may 
 want a tail, but he has it not. We take poet 
 and toad for what they are. It may be that 
 when the one gets a tail the other will get rec- 
 ognition. 
 
 Are the publishers different from the un- 
 spiritual crowd of earth-worshipers? On the 
 contrary, they are a part of that crowd. Pretty 
 much all there is to get out of literature they 
 get for themselves. The writers of stories pro- 
 duce "marketable stuff" — that is to say, the 
 stuff the crowd want, and will pay for in good 
 
152 A FREE LANCE 
 
 money. But the man who, in these days, writes 
 a fine poem wastes ink that might be more 
 profitably employed in casting up accounts or 
 in making out bills. No publisher, in this com- 
 mercial age, encourages such waste of good ma- 
 terial. 
 
 The poets, great and small, give us, if they 
 are in truth poets, and not merely artistic ver- 
 sifiers, gladness of heart. The age may think 
 poorly of them, but we know their worth. Pub- 
 lishers may not be willing to print what they 
 have written, but the books they have given us 
 we will cherish. Surely these sons of light have 
 done for us all that the old dramatist Heywood 
 represents them as doing for himself and others. 
 And what they have already done for us, they 
 are still doing, and will continue to do so long 
 as we open to them our hearts, and drink in their 
 inspiration and their song. 
 
 "They cover us with counsel to defend us 
 From storms without; they polish us within 
 With learning, knowledge, arts, and disciplines; 
 All that is nought and vicious they sweep from us 
 Like dust and cobwebs; our rooms concealed 
 Hang with the costliest hangings 'bout the walls, 
 Emblems and beauteous symbols pictured round." 
 
 Many centuries before our English bard lived 
 
THE CROWD 153 
 
 and wrote, another and a wiser poet sang the 
 just praise of his own great and worthy fellow- 
 ship of song: — 
 
 '0^ oX^to<:^ SvTiva Mouaai 
 <f>iXu)VTar rXuKepjj oi aizb arofiaro^ ^iet au8^. 
 El yap Tfc Kol -nivdoii e^tov veoKtjSil dufiip 
 aZtjTat KpaZirjv dKa^TJfievo':, abrap d.oih6<: 
 Moutrdwv depdittov KkeJa nporiptov dvOptOTztov 
 Ofiv:jff7j, pdKapdi re deovt:, oi' OXufxnov ix^oaiv, 
 a\(}/ SXe 8u6<f>poveiov incXjjdeTai, ouSi Tt KfjUcav 
 fiifivTjTac raj^iioi Se irapirpaTts SaJpa Geucav. 
 
 Blessed is he whom the Muses love! Sweetly do his 
 words flow from his lips. Is there one afflicted with fresh 
 sorrow, pining away with deep grief? Then if the minstrel, 
 servant of the Muses, sings the glorious deeds of men of 
 yore, the praise of the blessed gods who dwell in Olympus, 
 quickly does he forget his sorrows, nor remembers aught 
 of all his griefs; for the gifts of these goddesses swiftly 
 turn his woes away. 
 
 THE CROWD 
 
 rpHERE is no excuse for sheriffs in the South 
 -*■ who surrender their black prisoners to 
 noisy mobs. Those mobs are in most cases cow- 
 ardly and easily outwitted. And, still further, 
 aU sheriffs and officers of the law should be 
 
154. A FREE LANCE 
 
 taught to handle large bodies of men, whether 
 armed or unarmed. No crowd is to be trusted. 
 It matters not that the concourse is well dis- 
 posed; a single word may change the most 
 peaceable crowd into a furious mob. No wild 
 animal is so fierce and cruel as is an enraged 
 mob, and yet well-nigh all mobs are cowardly. 
 That is their one good feature; it renders dis- 
 persion possible with fewer shots and a much 
 lighter mortality. 
 
 I witnessed the Orange Riot in the City of 
 New York many years ago. I was in the crowd, 
 where I saw deeds of shame and cruelty that I 
 should like to forget. From that day to this 
 I have dreaded large crowds. A crowd, of 
 whatever kind, is always to be viewed with ap- 
 prehension ; even if it is not likely to become 
 criminal, still it may easily become the victim of 
 panic. In a densely-packed theatre one may 
 at once change all the fine ladies and gallant 
 gentlemen into a mass of struggling humanity 
 by shouting. Fire! A little smoke oozing out 
 from behind the proscenium will unfold in five 
 seconds more human nature than can be described 
 upon twice as many pages of foolscap. Do not 
 understand me to say that there are no brave 
 men and serene women in the world. There are 
 
THE BtILL MOOSE IN GREEK 155 
 
 many such. What I wish to say is that there 
 are fewer such men and women than the easy- 
 going optimist would have us believe. The 
 nobler qualities of human nature are with the 
 few, and only when we are governed by the few 
 are we governed by those qualities. You may 
 be sure that there is little wisdom and not much 
 courage with the crowd. 
 
 THE BULL MOOSE IN GREEK 
 
 rilHE prevision of the seer has in all ages of 
 ■*• our world's history astonished the sons of 
 men. Nearly every century has its more con- 
 spicuous prophets, who, looking down the ages, 
 foretell events that later came to pass. The 
 Hebrew prophets stand at the head, and after 
 them come other predicters who, without inspira- 
 tion, astonished those who came under the spell 
 of their marvelous genius. In still later times 
 Swedenborg captured the consciences of men. 
 But one of the strangest of all miracles of pre- 
 vision is that of the Greek dramatist Euripides. 
 He seems to have actually seen upon the far- 
 away horizon of American politics our race of 
 demagogues. He described that race; and who 
 
156 A FREE LANCE 
 
 can fail of seeing Roosevelt in all his war-paint 
 upon that classic page, as the never-to-be-envied 
 chieftain of the thankless crew "whom like am- 
 bition joins" to sway the loveless mob. Could 
 prophecy come nearer home than do these lines 
 that took their rise in a Greek mind, and have 
 wandered down the ages to mirror the man to 
 whom we owe so little, and from whom we have 
 reason to fear so much? Think of it — the Bull 
 Moose in Greek! Is it not like the prevision of 
 the Hebrew king who described the "naughty 
 person" of Proverbs vi:12-15? 
 
 'A^dptffTov Vfiuiv ffrripfi, 8 trot 8rjfir}y6poo^ 
 
 ol Todi <jitXoU(: ^XaTZTOVTSi OU <f>pOVTlZeTS, 
 
 THE NEW BEELZEBUB 
 
 rriHE parent who named his son Beelzebub has 
 -■" retired from active life, and taken up his 
 abode in the violent ward of an asylimi for the 
 insane ; but the parent, who, by precept and con- 
 duct, educated his son into a veritable Beelzebub, 
 was elected school-commissioner, and is now chair- 
 man of a committee charged with the responsible 
 
MOSAICS 157 
 
 duty of devising some plan for the better moral 
 training of the young. 
 
 MOSAICS 
 
 N 
 
 O one ever recovered a lost faith by adver- 
 tising for it. 
 
 II 
 
 Good-natured mediocrity is like an old slipper : 
 one wears it when he has nothing better, and he 
 is sure to find it wonderfully comfortable. 
 
 Ill 
 If there is no judge in heaven, there is surely 
 all the greater need for a judge within thine own 
 heart. 
 
 IV 
 
 There is always at the heart of every great 
 happiness a sense of melancholy without which 
 the happiness would be nothing more than a 
 trivial gayety. 
 
 V 
 
 There is a certain companionship in sound. 
 The man who pokes fun at death whistles to keep 
 his courage up. Passing a graveyard after 
 dark, he thinks to scare the spectres of which 
 
158 A FREE LANCE 
 
 he is afraid, by making a noise. The sound of 
 one's own voice inspires courage even when noth- 
 ing is said worth the saying. 
 
 VI 
 
 Who administers consolation in advance of 
 the occasion only adds a new sorrow to the one 
 he would assuage. 
 
 VII 
 
 Truth casts off first this creed and then that, 
 as the serpent sheds year after year its once 
 bright and glittering skin. The integument, 
 becoming dry and useless, must perish, but the 
 living creature survives. Let no man mourn for 
 Truth. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Whether a flag is worth fighting for will de- 
 pend upon what that flag stands for. Uncon- 
 ditional loyalty to any country is treason to 
 mankind. 
 
 IX 
 
 "God is on our side!" is the vainglorious cry 
 of thousands. How few inquire, with humble 
 mind and honest heart, "Am I on God's side?" 
 
 X 
 
 "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself;" 
 this is surely a rule than which none can be more 
 
MOSAICS 159 
 
 golden, for therein is taught a kind of self-love 
 that is never selfish. We can love others only 
 when we have learned to love ourselves in a noble 
 and generous fashion. 
 
 XI 
 
 Universal suffrage is only glorified mob-rule; 
 a sort of ragamuflSn respectability. 
 
 XII 
 
 The over-valuation of physical culture is the 
 great fault of this age. We are frenzied by the 
 too rapid development of our material resources. 
 
 XIII 
 I am not averse to hearing a man discourse 
 about himself, if only he will make that self 
 worthy of the discourse. 
 
 XIV 
 
 Man is the measure of his own universe. Of 
 every circle he is the centre. Only that which 
 reflects his age-long conflict with destiny has for 
 him enduring interest. 
 
 XV 
 
 "Live with the gods," wrote Marcus Aurelius ; 
 
160 A FREE LANCE 
 
 but that must, I think, depend somewhat upon 
 the willingness of the gods to live with us. 
 
 XVI 
 Most men had rather be thought wiclced than 
 weak, and yet this choice is itself a weakness. 
 
 XVII 
 Habit is the old man's delight. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 **A lie," wrote Sophocles, "never lives to be 
 old." Perhaps not, but it lives to do mischief. 
 
 XIX 
 
 If the source of all wrongdoing is in the will, 
 so also is the hidden root of every worthy ac- 
 tion. Not what I am, but what I would be is 
 the one important thing. Whether I perceive 
 it or not, I am proceeding in the direction of 
 my desire. 
 
 XX 
 
 The man who strives to forget Death only 
 thinks of it the more. There is for all of us 
 but one way of escape from its impending 
 shadow, and that we find in strong and noble 
 living. 
 
MOSAICS 161 
 
 XXI 
 
 The rule of the majority is often a very un- 
 worthy one. Good government is the gift of 
 the trained few to the incompetent and thought- 
 less multitude. 
 
 XXII 
 His lot is one of drudgery whose work is not 
 a part of himself. 
 
 XXIII 
 No victory is final that is not just. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 A man's dread of death and a child's fear of 
 darkness are the same thing. In both cases, 
 Imagination is the terror-worker, and in both 
 cases the remedy is Light. 
 
 XXV 
 
 In the end a man's rights and his necessities 
 are one. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 The voices that shouted, "Hosanna to the 
 Son of David !" cried a few hours later, "Crucify 
 Him! Crucify Him!" Popular applause and 
 popular clamor come in the end to one and the 
 same thing. The hemlock and the statue are 
 never far apart. 
 
162 A FREE LANCE 
 
 XXVII 
 God is not God because He is infinite, for 
 space and duration are also infinite; but He 
 would not be God were He not infinite. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 We speak of the foreknowledge of God, but 
 how can One who never was nor ever will be, but 
 always is, know one thing before another? The 
 Infinite is timeless, and, therefore, without pro- 
 gression. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 I doubt all arguments about God. How can 
 one reason about a Being who is above all logic, 
 and whose will is law? Yet God is not in His 
 nature, nor yet in His attributes, contrary to 
 reason; He is superior to reason. 
 
 XXX 
 
 The man who contemplates his own littleness 
 without humility, and his own imperfections 
 without disgust, neither loves holiness nor fears 
 sin. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 A pure democracy means savagery. A gov- 
 ernment in which one man is of as much impor- 
 tance as his neighbor is one in which no one is 
 
MOSAICS 163 
 
 of any importance. The man who advocates 
 such a government is either a fool or a 
 demagogue. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 There are men who believe in a mobocracy in 
 which every man is his own lawyer, jury and 
 judge. The man who wins his case in such 
 a government is the one who is most vocif- 
 erous. Whether a man executes or gets exe- 
 cuted will depend upon the strength of his biceps 
 muscle. The man who wants that kind of gov- 
 ernment should support Theodore Roosevelt. 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 Materiahsm as a system is easily demolished, 
 because it is without foundation ; but materialism 
 as a tendency of the worldly mind is impregnable 
 save to Divine Grace, because it has a real foun- 
 dation in the nature of the man who entertains 
 it. 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 Men who decry speculation still call them- 
 selves scientific, and yet no science could live 
 without speculation. But the speculation must 
 be in some measure fruitful — it must lead up to 
 facts. Experimentation, in which every man of 
 science believes, lies behind most of the great 
 
164 A FREE LANCE 
 
 discoveries, and yet speculation is nothing but 
 mental experimentation. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 It is generally believed that the majority 
 should rule, but I think our world would be in 
 a much better condition were the minority in 
 power. The few are wiser than the many. The 
 opinion of a judge is usually worth more than 
 that of a jury. 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 The strong nature is elastic. A weak nature 
 breaks because it cannot bend. Obstinate men 
 are never strong. 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 There are those who think Nietzsche's lack of 
 geniality and of consideration for others was due 
 to the fact that he never married. They think 
 that with a good wife other good things would 
 have come to him. But what about the wife? 
 Is it worth while to reform a man by deforming 
 a woman? Is, then, a man worth so much more 
 than a woman? 
 
 XXXVIII 
 Of all selfish men in the intellectual world, I 
 
LAIS DEDICATES HER MIRROR 165 
 
 think Nietzsche and Schopenhauer the most self- 
 ish. I wonder if Von Hartmann was any better. 
 If not, I fear pessimism makes a bad showing. 
 Scripture tells us "No man liveth unto himself," 
 but these men seem to have lived for nothing bet- 
 ter than themselves ; nor did they in dying think, 
 so far as we know, of anything better than them- 
 selves. 
 
 LAIS DEDICATES HER MIRROR TO 
 
 VENUS 
 
 QEPTEMBER 1, 1912. Came upon Prior's 
 ^^ translation of Plato's lines on Lais in her 
 old age, dedicating her mirror to Venus. Prior 
 does not say that it was Lais who made the 
 dedication; he calls her "a lady," and we must 
 go to the Greek to discover her identity. He 
 describes her mirror as a "looking glass," though 
 it was, doubtless, a burnished metal mirror such 
 as women in Rome used at that time. What most 
 interests me in this connection is the fact that 
 some years ago I came upon Plato's lines when 
 I had not yet seen Prior's version. I translated 
 the Greek lines in their entirety, and the transla- 
 tion was published in my "Flowers of Song from 
 Many Lands," Prior translated only the first 
 
166 A FREE LANCE 
 
 four lines; but Austin Dobson says that they 
 are so good that "Landor might have been 
 pleased to sign them." It becomes me to be 
 modest, for I am a fellow translator. Below 
 are the two versions. 
 
 THE LADY WHO OFFERS HER LOOKING GLASS TO 
 
 VENUS 
 
 Venus, take my votive glass. 
 Since I am not what I was; 
 What from this day I shall be, 
 Venus, let me never see. 
 
 — Matthew Prior. 
 
 lais dedicates her mirror to venus 
 
 Once at Greece proud Lais mocked, — 
 
 With gay lovers laughed all day; 
 Now these lovers come no more. 
 
 Mirth and song are passed away. 
 Venus, take this glass from me. 
 
 Since I old and wrinkled grow; 
 What I am I would not see. 
 
 What I shall be, would not know. 
 — F. R. M. in "Flowers of Song from Many Lands.*' 
 
 I do not know why the English poet tells 
 us his lines are "after" Plato, since they are 
 
LAIS DEDICATES HER MIRROR 167 
 
 not an imitation but a bona fide translation. I 
 prefer my own rendition, but that may be be- 
 cause it is complete, and also because I am the 
 translator. Authors are literary parents, and 
 naturally love their own mental offspring. So 
 it may be that, were Prior now living, he would 
 not give a rush for my lines, much preferring 
 his own. We hear of cruel parents who maltreat 
 their children, but we never hear that a literary 
 father has deserted his own poems or derided 
 his own essays. We are more kindly disposed 
 toward paper and ink than we are toward flesh 
 and blood; we treat more tenderly a printed 
 page than a smiling face. May God have mercy 
 upon us, and save us from such cruel selfishness ! 
 Many a man has given up wife, home, and useful 
 service to win for himself political or literary 
 honor. We are so easily allured and carried 
 away by the vanity of our own foolish hearts. I 
 cannot think that preferring the evanescent 
 praise of the world is in any way a better choice 
 than that of Lais, who loved above all other 
 things the flattery of the learned and the great. 
 Who was Lais? She was a beautiful and 
 dissolute Sicilian woman, who added to her mar- 
 velous physical charms the still more attractive 
 enticement of fine mental culture. At first the 
 
168 A FREE LANCE 
 
 slave of Apelles, who loved her, and who bought 
 her that he might educate her, she became the 
 possessor of great wealth and of even greater 
 beauty. Artists studied to reproduce the charm 
 of her presence in marble, and for a few brief 
 years art, learning, and whatever else was worthy 
 of her notice did her abundant honor. All we 
 know of her old age is obtained from Epicrates, 
 who tells us that she died destitute and alone. 
 With her mirror she dedicated and surrendered 
 to the goddess of beauty aU that was left of 
 her once brilliant life. 
 
 SURROUNDINGS 
 
 A MAN this morning told me that his lack of 
 education was mainly due to the meanness 
 of his surroundings. But it was in the dirty 
 Soho streets that Blake saw the earliest of his 
 divine visions. A man may build him a house 
 for his soul to dwell in where the sons of mud 
 see nothing better than their own rudeness and 
 vileness. And in that house, lighted by the glory 
 of heaven, he may abide in wonder and gladness 
 all the days of his life on earth. Emerson 
 heard the song celestial, and gazed upon scenes 
 of marvelous splendor in even the "mud and scum 
 
THE REWARD OF VIRTUE 169 
 
 of things." A man may not be the creator of 
 (Circumstances, but neither is he wholly their 
 creature. 
 
 THE REWARD OF VIRTUE 
 
 WHAT a comment on the reward of virtue is 
 the preservation of Ovid's works. Many 
 excellent books of the old Greek and Roman days 
 are lost, perhaps forever. Of some of these we 
 know nothing save the fact that they once ex- 
 isted. Some books have been preserved only in 
 part, or in a mutilated condition. Think of 
 Livy, represented only by tattered remnants of 
 his invaluable history. Think of the perished 
 plays of some of the old dramatists of those 
 early times. But Ovid, lascivious and blas- 
 phemous, lives on, with not a poem lost. Ovid 
 was in his own country and age accounted a man 
 of evil influence. His own people banished him, 
 and his works were regarded as harmful. Yet 
 to-day his books, unabridged and in a perfect 
 condition, so far as we know, may be had by 
 any school-boy for a shilling. I am not sorry 
 that his poems have come down to our age, for 
 they are of value to scholars, and there is in 
 them much beauty and worth. I am glad we have 
 
170 A FREE LANCE 
 
 them, but I sorrow that we have lost other and 
 better works. It seems strange that Time 
 should spare all of Ovid's writings, and obliterate 
 so much of the work of other authors who wrote 
 as well from a literary point of view, and much 
 better from an ethical standpoint. 
 
 PHYSICAL CONTACT AND SOCIAL RECOGNITION 
 
 T FIND myself in perfect agreement with 
 ■*■ James Russell Lowell, who disliked being 
 handled. He was pleased with Howells because 
 Howells did not want upon every occasion to 
 shake hands with him. Lowell often made it the 
 condition of his acceptance of an invitation to 
 a social or public function, that he should not 
 be compelled to shake hands with people. The 
 promiscuous shaking of hands is a vulgar and 
 offensive familiarity. There can be no more 
 reason why a man should take liberties with 
 my hand than with my shoulder blade or my 
 kneepan. Apart from the rudeness, there is 
 something devitalizing in the touch of many 
 hands having different magnetic conditions, and 
 being, in some cases, capable of conveying dis- 
 ease. When I was installed pastor of the First 
 Congregational Church in Great Barrington, the 
 
SOCIAL RECOGNITION 171 
 
 entire congregation filed by the pulpit after 
 service, each person shaking my hand and twist- 
 ing my arm with what was the next day de- 
 scribed in the Berkshire Courier as "a hearty 
 good will." I got back into the Manse, when it 
 was all over, with a feeling of gratitude that I 
 had escaped a compound fracture. 
 
 There lived in Middletown, N. Y., where I 
 was for a time the pastor of a Congregational 
 Church, a man who was in the habit of emphasiz- 
 ing what he had to say by poking his finger into 
 the ribs of his! interlocutor. He called it "nudg- 
 ing," but it was, in fact, nothing less than an 
 ofi^ered indignity. It got him into trouble, for 
 one day, having waxed peculiarly earnest in con- 
 versation with a stranger, he gave him an unus- 
 ually vicious thrust, and in return had his hat 
 knocked from his head. Buttonholing a man to 
 prevent him from escaping a long-winded dis- 
 course is another atrocious familiarity ; it is also 
 an abridgment of a natural right, for every one 
 has an inalienable right (if any such right there 
 be) to shake oif, with whatever violence may 
 be necessary, the wearisome bore. Like a vam- 
 pire that sucks the very life from a man, the 
 bore exhausts the vitality of whoever must, for 
 one reason or another, listen to his dreary and 
 
172 A FREE LANCE 
 
 interminable flow of words. I have known an 
 old dotard to drive an entire company well-nigh 
 crazy because no person could be found rude 
 enough to check his wearisome iteration of mean- 
 ingless words. The true gentleman fences him- 
 self about with propriety. He observes the fit- 
 ness of things, and has great respect for es- 
 tablished rules and for the customs that prevent 
 encroachment. To the rude and vulgar he seems 
 encased by a thin sheet of ice. He will not be 
 handled. 
 
 There is a certain animal familiarity among 
 men and women of the lower orders of society; 
 an expression of kindly feehng through, or by 
 means of the sense of touch. Men throw their 
 arms around each other, pat each other upon the 
 shoulder, hold each other's hand, salute with 
 a kiss upon meeting and upon parting. To 
 them actual contact seems the only adequate ex- 
 pression of mutual interest and good will. They 
 fondle each other's children, dandle them upon 
 the knee, toss them up and down, and stroke 
 them very much as one would stroke a kitten. 
 With finer training comes a disinclination to such 
 expressions of kindly feeling, and yet there is 
 nothing in the training itself that necessarily 
 lessens the feeling. Still the reserve is not in- 
 
SOCIAL RECOGNITION 173 
 
 frequently mistaken for indifference and lack 
 of personal interest. I am persuaded that much 
 of the misunderstanding between "the classes and 
 the masses" comes of just this difference in ex- 
 pression. 
 
 It may be inquired, "Of what consequence is it 
 whether the one way or the other prevail? Are 
 not all our expressions of inward feeling a mat- 
 ter of custom and habit only?" Doubtless 
 habit has much to do with the differences pointed 
 out, and yet there is in them something vastly 
 more important. In the respect I show another 
 I foster self-respect. Fine address is seldom far 
 removed from fine feeling. Behavior is the sign 
 we hang out to show others what may be ex- 
 pected of us. In what we do we reveal what we 
 are. Social distinctions are not wholly ar- 
 bitrary. The wall I construct around my field 
 is exterior to that field, and is in no sense what- 
 ever a part of the field. But social barriers are 
 a part of society itself, and for that reason so- 
 ciety could not exist without them. The wall 
 does not, as has been said, form any part of my 
 field, nor is it necessary to the existence of that 
 field. It only defines it, and prevents strangers 
 from intruding upon it. But the rules and reg- 
 ulations with which society surrounds itself not 
 
174* A FREE LANCE 
 
 only prevent intrusion, but are themselves a part 
 of the society they guard and protect. They 
 are absolutely essential. There could be no 
 society (at least no select society) without them. 
 They prevent different classes from flowing to- 
 gether. They prevent destructive afBliations. 
 But for these barriers all classes and conditions 
 of men and women would mix and mingle in in- 
 describable confusion. Such a mixing of het- 
 erogeneous elements could only prove destruc- 
 tive to everything like culture. There is now 
 much foolish talk about Democracy. But social 
 order leans in the other direction. There could 
 be neither society nor civilization without separa- 
 tion and walls of demarcation. 
 
 To return to the topic with which we started, 
 and of which this paper primarily treats: It 
 would be well, I think, to insist upon a radical 
 reform in our way of receiving guests at a social 
 entertainment or a reception of any kind. For 
 a relatively long time (relatively as compared 
 with the other "functions" of the afternoon or 
 evening) those who receive must remain stand- 
 ing in line in some conspicuous place in the room. 
 Before them pass in another line the guests who 
 have been invited, and who are to be presented 
 as an act of social recognition. The point of 
 
SOCIAL RECOGNITION 175 
 
 contact all along the two parallel and meeting 
 lines is marked by the customary felicitations, 
 and with these there is the usual shaking of 
 hands. The delicate lady who is, perhaps, in- 
 disposed, and who under any circumstances 
 would naturally shrink from physical contact 
 with an entire stranger, must extend her hand 
 to the guests, one after the other, as they come 
 in the line that often seems to the jaded nerves 
 well-nigh interminable. Or, if she feels herself 
 excused from the initiative, she must still take 
 the hand that is proffered. I do not know what 
 is the precise nature of the pathological diffi- 
 culty involved, but the taking of many hands, 
 one after the other, is to most men and to nearly 
 all women a nerve-exhausting experience. Some 
 persons can endure it for only a very brief time. 
 Those who have talked with me upon the subject 
 say that after a little season there is felt at 
 the base of the brain a nervous depression which 
 is soon accompanied by a corresponding mental 
 depression. I know the feeling, for I have ex- 
 perienced it many times. At its worst it 
 amounts to something like despair. Earth and 
 Heaven seem to be failures, and life appears de- 
 void of all interest. 
 
 Could the sacredness of the King's person be 
 
176 A FREE LANCE 
 
 so extended as to cover all men and women every- 
 where, there might be more regard in the minds 
 of all for personal presence. It was not exactly 
 regicide to touch the Royal Person, but it was 
 something more than Use majeste. The safe- 
 guard was necessary in earlier times, and no 
 doubt it is necessary even now. No sovereign 
 is safe unattended. But the hedging about of 
 the King's person meant more than safety; it 
 meant as well honor. Familiarity would soon 
 deprive the King of his peculiar dignity. He 
 would be as other men, while at the same 
 time other men would not be in any wise like 
 unto the King. It would be a leveling down- 
 ward. 
 
 There are on record several instances of unin- 
 tentional disregard of the rules of decorum and 
 fitness that hedge about a King. Two men, at 
 different times, were guilty of touching the King 
 without permission. They were, both of them, 
 of high rank and were quite at home in the com- 
 pany of their sovereign, and yet neither of them 
 was spared. They were put to death. Birth 
 and position only made matters worse. They 
 might, for aught that could be known to the 
 contrary, hold the monarch in contempt. It 
 might be that they aspired to the crown. Cer- 
 
SOCIAL RECOGNITION 177 
 
 tainly the dignity of their rank rendered their 
 conduct suspicious. But no man of humble 
 birth could be suspected of such treasonable de- 
 signs. We fear little from insignificant men. 
 The Pope will wash once in the year the feet of 
 pilgrims and of begging friars. The act passes 
 for one of noble condescension. It is so far 
 from wounding the papal pride that it, in truth, 
 indulges it, for it wins the applause of the 
 thoughtless. It is a sham humility, another 
 way of playing Lady Bountiful. You will 
 never hear that the Pope has washed the feet of 
 Kings, for that would be an act of real humility. 
 Kings and Popes may patronize the lowly; they 
 may wink at the short-comings of peasants, for 
 these can do them no harm. But the case is 
 different with men higher up. The beggar may 
 be dismissed with contempt, but the noble must 
 die. 
 
 Let the gentleman keep his distance if he would 
 be accounted a gentleman. All cheap familiari- 
 ties disgust. Noble qualities demand large 
 space for growth. We cannot honor each the 
 other at too close a range. Many logs piled 
 upon the fire may extinguish the flame. An 
 over-display of afi^ection will destroy what meas- 
 ure of real affection there actually is. 
 
178 A FREE LANCE 
 
 In olden times men were afraid of the Evil 
 Eye and of the baneful influence of strangers. 
 Against these the King must be defended. A 
 deputation from a distant country could not 
 come into the presence of the sovereign to whom 
 it was accredited before it had passed between 
 two fires which were supposed to destroy the 
 baneful influences that came with the deputa- 
 tion. In the Congo Basin an ambassador could 
 not see the King to whom he was deputed be- 
 fore he had bathed in two brooks on two succes- 
 sive days. The clothes of a stranger must not 
 touch the King. All sacred persons were dan- 
 gerous to touch. Priests as well as Kings were 
 hedged about by rules and regulations. To 
 touch the priest was sacrilege and to put one's 
 hand upon the King was treason. Royal and 
 priestly taboos surrounded all sacred persons 
 with a web, the strands of which were unyielding 
 as steel and yet so fine as to be invisible. En- 
 cased in diaphanous armor, the sacred persons 
 were invulnerable. As a bird beats its wing 
 against a window-pane, not discerning the glass, 
 so most of those who would injure the King 
 struck only his armor. Emerson thinks that 
 Anderson's story of the cobweb of cloth so finely 
 woven as to be invisible signifies manners, but I 
 
SOCIAL RECOGNITION 179 
 
 do not believe the story has any relation to man- 
 ners as we usually understand that word. To 
 me the transparent web stands for that fine 
 repulsion with which the great invest them- 
 selves. It is an armor through which stupidity 
 cannot penetrate, and against which the bitter- 
 est hatred shivers its lance. It is so fine that 
 eyes of glass and brains of mud cannot discern 
 it, and yet it is so firm and sure that the elect 
 soul may trust it with implicit confidence. It is 
 not something put on; it is a subtile spiritual 
 atmosphere, clear and cold. The man who has 
 this, so Emerson tells us, will need no auxiliaries 
 to his personal presence. 
 
 Yet it is also true that no man can be a 
 gentleman without kindness. Reserve is one 
 thing, indifference is another. The man who 
 cares nothing for the happiness of others is very 
 far from that compassion which is essential to 
 courtesy. Nothing is more rude than selfish- 
 ness. The man of fine feeling recognizes the 
 relation which he sustains to the surrounding 
 world. It was charged against the literary 
 men of thirty or forty years ago in New Eng- 
 land that they stood apart from their fellow- 
 men; that they were cold and inaccessible. Mr. 
 Emerson has been described as an intellectual 
 
180 A FREE LANCE 
 
 icicle. Certain \nts declared that while other 
 men had within their veins good warm blood, 
 Mr. Emerson had only iced-water, with snow- 
 flakes for blood-globules. Boston was repre- 
 sented as a city walled in by its own colossal 
 conceit and self-importance. No doubt the New- 
 England literati were somewhat exclusive. The 
 professions and the social circles must, well-nigh 
 all of them, adopt defensive measures. Phy- 
 sicians have their code of medical ethics so framed 
 as to exclude professional pretenders. Lawyers 
 have rules and regulations with which they shut 
 out from their legal associations wrongdoers. 
 Authors protect themselves in the same way. 
 Social circles give what is called "the cold shoul- 
 der"; and of all cold things, that kind of a 
 shoulder is the coldest. The studied neglect of 
 a beautiful lady, well painted, powdered, and 
 bejeweled, is something to carry dismay to the 
 stoutest heart. Women are more gifted than 
 are men in the silent but remorseless warfare 
 of snubs and contempt. Only those who have 
 been wounded know how sharp and effective a 
 weapon is a woman's tongue. The French have 
 a quatrain that, in my "Book of Quatrains," I 
 have rendered into English thus : 
 
SOCIAL RECOGXITION 181 
 
 Tlie tongue is woman's sword, and to it she doth 
 
 trust ; 
 By constant use she keeps it always free from rust; 
 Deep in the heart of man she sheathes its glittering 
 
 blade ; 
 And lo ! the mighty hero falls before the timid maid. 
 
 Man has no shaft so deadly as is the scornful 
 glance of a woman's eye. Women are more 
 sentimental, enthusiastic, and gentle than are 
 men; but men are more just, serious, and merci- 
 ful than are even the most perfectly constructed 
 women. I think that the calm, cold, and pol- 
 ished indifference attributed to the Boston 
 literati (I say attributed, for I doubt if it was 
 so hard a thing to overcome as some have 
 claimed) would have been much more repellent 
 had the great New England writers been women 
 and not men. Those who were privileged to 
 know personally Emerson, Thoreau, Holmes, 
 Lowell, Longfellow, \\Tiipple, and Aldrich aU 
 bear witness to the kindness and willingness to 
 help others which ever dwelt in their hearts and 
 actuated their lives. Octavius Brooks Frothing- 
 ham was in his day regarded as a very difficult 
 man to approach, and yet Julia Ward Howe, 
 who knew him well, told me that he was the most 
 courteous and considerate man she had ever 
 
182 A FREE LANCE 
 
 known, and my limited acquaintance with him 
 confirms her statement. Thoreau was in many 
 ways different from the other New England writ- 
 ers named. He had less interest in his fellow 
 men, and was less open to surprises of every kind. 
 He lived at the time of the Millerite excitement, 
 when many persons parted from property or 
 reason or from both. Thousands of men and 
 women were expecting the end of the world. 
 Thoreau gave no heed to any of these things. 
 He said he would not go around the corner "to 
 see the world blow up." The common, every- 
 day events seemed to him more worthy of at- 
 tention; to him they were more important. 
 But even Thoreau was not so diflScult to ap- 
 proach as many timid souls have imagined. 
 
 Public men are always in more or less peril. 
 Their prominence attracts attention; their suc- 
 cess awakens envy and jealousy; their peculiar 
 opportunity or privilege will often lead men to 
 make more or less effort to use such opportunity 
 or privilege for their own selfish ends. The 
 sovereign is always liable to assassination. 
 Wealthy men are often robbed. Men distin- 
 guished in the world of letters are, it is true, 
 not so liable to personal violence, but they are 
 often pursued by fanatics, castle-builders, and 
 
SOCIAL RECOGNITION 183 
 
 notoriety-hunters. Some of our public men have 
 all their peace of mind, no small part of their 
 time, and much of their usefulness stolen from 
 them by vast swarms of self-seekers. How 
 shall they escape these noxious creatures? Has 
 the literary man any better weapon at his com- 
 mand with which he may defend himself than 
 just that "thin sheet of ice" of which so many 
 of his admirers complain? To be cordial is 
 sometimes to invite destruction. Think of the 
 callow crowd of autograph-hunters that pur- 
 sued Longfellow and Lowell day and night. 
 Think of the strangers from over the sea and 
 from over the prairie who pestered Emerson, and 
 who could be gotten rid of only by a nipping 
 frost. There are a few men who have won in- 
 ferior places in literary recognition by attaching 
 themselves to men of real ability. There are 
 many more who are endeavoring to accomplish 
 the same feat. They are the "mixed multitude" 
 of Exodus ; they only impede the progress of 
 well equipped pilgrims who journey from the 
 obscurity of our common birth to the far-away 
 literary standing of our dreams. They are as 
 "sounding brass and tinkling cymbal," making 
 a great noise whilst they contribute nothing to 
 the harmony and beauty of letters. Are not 
 
184 A FREE LANCE 
 
 men of genius and scholarship fully justified in 
 guarding their time and toil against such as 
 these ? 
 
 FRANCES POWER COBBE 
 
 FRANCES POWER COBBE, with whom it 
 was my delightful privilege to correspond 
 during the closing years of her useful and beau- 
 tiful life, and whose last contribution to litera- 
 ture was, I suppose, the brief "Introductory 
 Notice" that prefaces my little book, "Conse- 
 crated Womanhood," was bom December 4, 1822, 
 and passed her early life in a home of luxury 
 and refinement. A fashionable school at 
 Brighton contributed something to her mental 
 equipment, but could not have added much to 
 the moral force and unyielding integrity that in 
 later years made her the noble champion of so 
 many worthy causes, and the kind-hearted and 
 self-sacrificing friend of dumb animals. Her 
 school was like most, perhaps all, of the schools 
 for young ladies at that time: a place where 
 showy and empty accomplishments were strenu- 
 ously but indifferently taught to the exclusion of 
 everything like solid attainment and useful in- 
 formation. Young ladies were never allowed to 
 know anything about anatomy and physiology. 
 
FRANCES POWER COBBE 185 
 
 which, with most of the natural sciences, were 
 regarded as too vulgar for what was then com- 
 monly described as "the female mind." This 
 mind, which was supposed to be peculiar to 
 women, was represented as being quite too deli- 
 cate and fragile for the reception of any other 
 kinds of knowledge than those which concern 
 themselves with the working of "samplers," the 
 doing of various sorts of ornamental needlework, 
 the painting of indescribable pictures on velvet 
 and china, and the graceful execution of difficult 
 figures in the dances of the period. 
 
 Miss Cobbe has left us in her autobiography a 
 witty and just description of the educational 
 farce to which the young ladies of her day were 
 treated, and for which their parents and guard- 
 ians spent large sums of money that might have 
 been put to better uses. It was only when her 
 school-days were ended that her real education 
 commenced. She had an active and inquiring 
 mind, not at all feminine according to the stand- 
 ard of that day. It was a mind disinclined to 
 receive anything on faith without investigation, 
 and naturally disposed to resent the ill-fitting 
 and arbitrary restraints of conventional life. 
 Like most of us, she inherited the religious con- 
 victions of generations of stout-hearted believers. 
 
186 A FREE LANCE 
 
 There had been five archbishops and one bishop 
 among her near kindred. 
 
 Her father and mother were orthodox — that is 
 to say, they were followers of John Calvin. 
 Perhaps their Calvinism was of the attenuated 
 variety, but it was still Calvinism, and had about 
 it much of the frigidity and rigidity of the origi- 
 nal article. Against all this, when not yet 
 twenty-two years old, she rebelled with a deter- 
 mination worthy of her religious heritage and 
 of the "solemn and awful" domestic training to 
 which she had been subjected. The Evangelical 
 beliefs of her home were abandoned, not, as has 
 been represented, through the influence of Theo- 
 dore Parker, with whose writings she became ac- 
 quainted early in life, and with whom she cor- 
 responded, but through what may be called a 
 natural development of the spiritual perception. 
 
 Thousands of earnest and deeply religious na- 
 tures have been led by the early austerity of a 
 severely orthodox home (I give the word "ortho- 
 dox" its unfortunate but common meaning, 
 though it cannot be denied that the word has 
 also a good meaning of which it has not yet been 
 wholly despoiled by the brutality of ecclesiastical 
 fisticuffs), to question and renounce even the 
 most fundamental truths of natural as well as of 
 
FRANCES POWER COBBE 187 
 
 revealed religion. Such convictions as must be 
 swallowed as one swallows a nauseous medicine 
 are not likely to do much good and may accom- 
 plish some mischief. Miss Cobbe's change of 
 belief was preceded, as such changes usually are 
 in earnest and devout minds, by a long and dis- 
 tressing period of spiritual uncertainty, during 
 which she plunged into a great darkness of soul 
 whence at last she emerged with little or no help 
 from without. Her father, who was greatly in- 
 censed by what he regarded as a fearful apostasy 
 on her part, insisted upon his Church of Eng- 
 land doctrines, which were of the old and rigor- 
 ous kind, as a sovereign remedy for the sickness 
 of her spiritual nature. 
 
 Miss Cobbe fell in with the works of Theodore 
 Parker just about the time she was undergoing 
 the great change in her faith which gave new in- 
 spiration and purpose to her life. The change 
 was not in the direction of atheism of any kind, 
 but rather in that of a decided and enthusiastic 
 Deism. She discarded what is commonly called, 
 at least in Evangelical circles, Christianity — 
 that is to say, Christianity as a supernatural re- 
 ligion. Her views were largely those enter- 
 tained by modern Unitarians. The Unitarians 
 of to-day adopt the ver}'' opinions they denounced 
 
188 A FREE LANCE 
 
 Parker for entertaining. So the world goes. 
 The heterodoxy of the present is the orthodoxy 
 of the future. Men stone the prophets for 
 teaching what their children are sure to believe ; 
 and they, in turn, stone other prophets, and thus 
 from generation to generation the assault is con- 
 tinued. No one learns wisdom from the un- 
 ending contention that always comes to the 
 same result. 
 
 Miss Cobbe entered into correspondence with 
 Parker, became his fast friend, was with him 
 when he died, and later edited his works. The 
 friendship between these two souls was peculiarly 
 noble and tender. When they first met (after 
 years of correspondence), Parker was sick unto 
 death. He would not trust himself too much in 
 her society ; he said it made his heart swell too 
 high. He had fought single-handed the entire 
 religious world, and the appreciation and sym- 
 pathy of a woman like Frances Power Cobbe was 
 a greater gladness than he thought himself able 
 to sustain. The beautiful friendship of these 
 two reminds us of the friendship between Dr. 
 Channing and Lucy Aikin; a friendship that 
 lightened with calm and heavenly radiance six- 
 teen years of the great preacher's life. 
 "Never," wrote Lucy Aikin to Dr. Channing, 
 
FRANCES POWER COBBE 189 
 
 **are you forgotten when my soul seeks com- 
 munion with our common Father; and when I 
 strive most earnestly to overcome some evil 
 propensity, or to make some generous sacrifice, 
 the thought of you gives me strength not my 
 own." 
 
 In 1852 Miss Cobbe was very ill, and for a 
 time it was thought that she could not live. She 
 was confined to her room many weeks, and the 
 thought of the brevity and uncertainty of life 
 impressed her mind deeply. From that time 
 dates her resolve to work earnestly for the good 
 of others; to pass, "like bread at sacrament," 
 the truth she had come to know, and which she 
 in some measure published in her "Essay on the 
 Theory of Intuitive Morals" — a book which she 
 tells us was suggested to her by the reading of 
 Kant's "Metaphysics of Ethics." It is a noble 
 work, full of inspiration, and aglow with en- 
 thusiasm for humanity. The reasoning is clear 
 and close, and through every page of the book 
 there breathes a deeply religious spirit. 
 
 In 1864 Miss Cobbe published her "Broken 
 Lights," a book mainly in review of the Eng- 
 lish Church. In 1880 she gave the world "The 
 Duties of Women." Some of her other works, 
 published between the dates already named, are 
 
190 A FREE LANCE 
 
 "An Essay on Religion's Duty," "The Cities of 
 the Past," "Italics," and "Studies New and Old 
 of Ethical and Social Subjects." I treasure a 
 copy of the last-named book which she sent me 
 not long before her death, and which has the 
 added charm of a personal inscription. Her 
 "Darwinism and Morals" is a book of unusual 
 interest. Her "Hopes of the Human Race" and 
 her book called "The Peak in Darien" possess a 
 certain chamiij not so much of style as of at- 
 mosphere. 
 
 Every one knows of Miss Cobbe's interest in 
 and work for the "Woman's Suffrage Move- 
 ment." With a woman of her temperament to 
 sympathize with any cause, especially if the cause 
 be unpopular, is openly and aggressively to 
 enter the lists of its knights-errant, and go out 
 in search of the foe. Of course in England the 
 ballot is not so great a power as in this country. 
 Here everything is settled by the counting of 
 noses. We believe that the unenlightened opin- 
 ion of the riff-raff of great cities is a much safer 
 guide for us to follow than the mature and in- 
 telligent judgment of the educated few. We 
 are enthusiastic upholders of the jury system, 
 and see no reason why twelve unwilling and ill- 
 informed jurymen should not decide some of the 
 
FRANCES POWER COBBE 191 
 
 most delicate and difficult questions involving hu- 
 man life, liberty, and property. One of the most 
 picturesque spectacles to be witnessed in the 
 United States is a murder trial before a jury of 
 sorely perplexed tradesfolk. Six insanity ex- 
 perts on one side swear to the mental soundness 
 of the prisoner, and as many alienists on the 
 other side take their solemn oath that the pris- 
 oner is raving mad. The air is blue with affi- 
 davits of every description. The medical men 
 ventilate their professional jealousies, and the 
 legal luminaries exchange personalities. No 
 one who has any sense of humor should miss the 
 superb spectacle. 
 
 Just what will be the result of the Woman's 
 Rights Movement it is difficult to determine, but 
 in all probability the entire equality of the sexes, 
 when once established (if ever it is established), 
 will take some shape not foreseen. The real 
 enemies of the enfranchisement of women are not 
 men but the women themselves. Miss Cobbe saw 
 and regretted this. She found most of her 
 friends and supporters in this and many other 
 social and political reforms among men. Only 
 a few days before her death she wrote me a long 
 and earnest letter in which was expressed the 
 suspicion that the few women who had found 
 
192 A FREE LANCE 
 
 their way into the ministry had taken up preach- 
 ing and religious instruction not through any 
 moral and internal pressure, nor yet through 
 any sincere desire for the work in itself, but 
 from a wish to be of service to their husbands, 
 who were most of them clergymen. One has 
 only to read the paper on "The Fitness of 
 Women for the Ministry of Religion" in her 
 book, "The Peak in Darien," to see how deep 
 was her feeling in this matter. 
 
 In the United States a few gifted women like 
 Miss Anna Oliver, Mrs. Van Cott, Miss Olympia 
 Brown, Mrs. Hannaford, Mrs. Celia Burleigh, 
 Mrs. Livermore, Miss Anna Dickinson, and 
 Mrs. Julia Ward Howe were public speakers; 
 and some of these had prefixed to their names 
 the sacred "Reverend." But not one of them 
 had ministered ten, or even eight, years accept- 
 ably to any one church. I remember well Mrs. 
 Celia Burleigh. She was a lady of rare culture 
 and charming presence; a good speaker, but 
 wanting in physical force. She preached for a 
 brief season in Connecticut, but died not long 
 after entering the ministry. Miss Olympia 
 Brown preached three years for a Universalist 
 church at Bridgeport, in the same State, and 
 then retired. Mrs. Van Cott was regarded as 
 
FRANCES POWER COBBE 193 
 
 an eloquent speaker, but her ministry could 
 hardly be called successful. 
 
 The closing years of Miss Cobbe's life were 
 devoted to the anti-vivisection campaign. This, 
 it has been said, was her "literary ruin," and in 
 a certain way it was, for it circumscribed her field 
 of vision, and lessened her interest in the great 
 world of human affairs. It gave to all her men- 
 tal processes an intensity that in a poorer na- 
 ture might have degenerated into vulgar fanati- 
 cism. She founded a "Society for the Protec- 
 tion of Animals from Vivisection," and she was 
 its secretary for ten years. She wrote one hun- 
 dred and seventy-three tracts against vivisection, 
 and published countless articles on the subject 
 in papers and magazines. Her work for ani- 
 mals was in keeping with her work in other di- 
 rections. It always reflected the beautiful light 
 of a strong and noble character. It may be 
 that her views were in some ways extreme, but 
 the cause was a worthy one, and she championed 
 it in a knightly spirit that won the admiration 
 of both friend and foe. 
 
 Frances Power Cobbe died on April 5, 1904, 
 at her home in Hengwrt, Dolgelly, North Wales. 
 She had risen early in the morning and had 
 opened the shutters to her window. As she was 
 
194 A FREE LANCE 
 
 walking across the room, swiftly and painlessly 
 the summons came in the way she had hoped it 
 would come. Her funeral took place Friday, 
 April 8, and was conducted according to direc- 
 tions which were written in her will. Prior to 
 the embalming of her body the carotid artery 
 was severed by a surgeon. This she had di- 
 rected as a precaution against premature burial, 
 though of course the process of embalming must 
 have rendered such an operation unnecessary. 
 She had decided upon the place of burial, which 
 was to be close to the grave of her dear friend. 
 Miss Lloyd, near "the little ivy-cornered church 
 of Llanelltyd." The churchyard and the grave- 
 stones that everywhere dot its rich velvety sod 
 were clearly visible from her window, and she 
 often pointed to the beautiful roses that flour- 
 ished so luxuriantly over her friend's grave. 
 The cemetery (if such it may be called — it is an 
 English churchyard) looks across the tidal 
 Mawddach towards Hengwrt, Miss Lloyd's an- 
 cestral, and Miss Cobbe's adopted home, where 
 for many years the two friends lived side b}?^ side. 
 At the home a prayer was offered, and Miss 
 Cobbe's favorite hymn, "Nearer, My God, to 
 Thee," was sung. The Reverend J. Estlin Car- 
 
FRANCES POWER COBBE 195 
 
 penter, the distinguished Biblical critic, who was 
 a personal friend of Miss Cobbe, conducted the 
 services. The coffin was carried to the grave 
 in no dark and mournful hearse, but in one of 
 Miss Cobbe's open carriages, drawn by her own 
 horses, driven by her coachman. No crape was 
 worn, and instead of the usual floral decorations 
 for funerals, the coffin was covered by a mass of 
 red roses. In her will she had written, "I desire 
 that my coffin be not made of oak or of any 
 durable wood; but, on the principle of earth-to- 
 earth burials, of the lightest and most perishable 
 materials, merely sufficient to carry my body de- 
 cently to the grave, and without any ornament 
 or inscription whatever. I desire to be carried 
 to Llanelltyd Cemetery, not on a funeral hearse 
 or on men's shoulders, but in one or another of 
 my own carriages, driven by my coachman, at 
 his usual pace. And I desire that neither then 
 nor at any other time may my friends or serv- 
 ants wear mourning for me." 
 
 Her beautiful spirit has passed into the un- 
 seen world, of which she longed to know more, 
 and of which we all know so little. She has left 
 us books of rare worth, full of deep thinking 
 and of the allurement and charm of a vigorous 
 
196 A FREE LANCE 
 
 yet graceful style, and alive with hope and prom- 
 ise. Few women have lived so large and so rich 
 a life in the two worlds of intellectual activity 
 and philanthropic endeavor. 
 
JAN 8 1913