PS 2043 .M3 Copy 1 J Itttlf jDtiriifB /^ to the lomr of fltirrt l^ttiiliarD }^nct ^tnentv^fitjf Craw ELBERT HUBBARD A LITTLE JOURNEY to the Home of «^ ^ By PAUL W. MAVITY ^ ^ Published a/i^ Printed iy tirijf Wtstminsittv prrtfsf Franklin, InJiana Twti Copies Recawed f^AR 2! !904 CUiSS ft. Ac. No. COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY PAUL W. MAVITY. STbe ^f»ni'.m«tfv jBresj Q But for woman I would have fled the faber and taken to trade long ago. Possibly I would still be riding one of McCormick's patent carriages, argufying ethics with the soulful bronc, pushing lumber on the docks at Green Bay, or stirring the saponaceous kettle to the lascivious pleas- ings of the gelt. Yes, it was a woman made me think. A pretty girl who waited on a boarding-house table at Davenport (or was it Rock Island?), gave me thrills whenever she passed the biscuit, others like her set my blood a-gallop, but it was a plain, unpretentious, serious, modest, dignified, gentle and honest woman made me think. ELBERT HUBBARD. m?" A LITTLE JOURNEY TO THE HOME OF ELBERT HUBBARD BY PAUL W. MAVITY HEN AH Baba, the Roy crofter, was asked what he considered his greatest discovery, he replied, "Elbert Hub- bard." Stevenson, the well-beloved, said that "no man is useless while he has a friend", which merely suggests that nei- ther Ali Baba nor Elbert Hubbard is useless. The friendship between these two strong men is as beautiful as a white hyacinth. Baba and the Fra are as inseparable as were Boswell and Dr. Johnson. Baba is known to students of the Roy croft catalogue as "The Man with the Rake", or he who defies the beef trust. If Hubbard ever dies, Baba will doubtless become his biographer. He knows all the uses of a rake. C[ Baba is a lesser Hubbard. He bears, indelibly stamped upon his per- son, the footprints of the Fra. He ad- umbrates the Pastor's genius. The fol- ELBERT HUBBARD lowing dialogue between the old man Ali and the Fra, as recorded by the latter in the famous "Philistine", illus- trates the affinity of these two great souls: 'We are living in hell now as much as we ever shall,' says the old man, *and the only way to get out is to accept all that comes. Kicking makes the matter worse. If you don't take your medicine in this life, a worse hell is in store for you the next time, the Devil tells me.' *What do you know about the Devil?' I asked. 'Me? Why, I am that man,' was the stern reply. With this hint as to the personality of Baba, with the pu- pils of our eyes adjusted by so much light, let us now turn our gaze squarely and as fearlessly as possible upon the dazzling luminary, the subject of our sketch. Let us part the curtains: let us gently push down the great, generous flowing tie from the classic features and lovingly coax aside the victorious tresses from that dominant brow, and behold! There, in the light of the dawning twentieth century, is the reincarnation of the chiefest of those that Samson slew with the jaw-bone of an ass! ELBERT HUBBARD HE wise guys say with a smile, "Genius does not reproduce itself." But let us not be too happy about it, since plain horse-sense does not always run in fam- ilies, either. Genius is likely to bob up anywhere; no home is safe from it. Q The father of Elbert Hubbard has a sound record. At the time of Elbert's birth he was a coun- try doctor, so he did not have to buy the infant; genius is sometimes cheap. The elder Hubbard was a generous, in- dulgent man. Yet he sometimes gave medicine, and thus stimulated in the rebellious lad that supreme contempt for doctors and the science of therapeutics which is so often manifested in his writings. The sons of scientists are often fanatics on letting nature take its course. The character of Hubbard's mother can be best gauged by his statement that she raises flowers to this day. Elbert is the chiefest flower of them all. Having raised him, her patience in continuing to raise poppies and sich is sublime. Hubbard has said that if he had but two loaves of bread he would sell one and buy white hyacinths. From this we in- fer that his mother docs not raise white hyacinths, else he would go to mamma and keep the bread, and maybe help himself to a little jam besides. Life is a reaching out for your own, says he. This happy family first met in Illinois in semi-pioneer times, Elbert joining the circle at a date that varies from time to time. At fifteen, when he left school, he had a pretty tight grip on the handful of things he had learned in school, and an infallible knowledge of all that can distradt a country bov from his studies. He could hypnotize wild ELBERT HUBBARD cows so that they would stand, as sweet and amiable as you please, while being milked. He learned that a lye is used in soft soap, that sheep will follow the bell-wether as faithfully as the Philistines of old worshiped their god Dagon; by virtue of such experience he has made himself dagon admirable to his flock. He was a bright, hardy, daring country boy, full of his fav- orite "life plus", in whose veins flowed all the ginger of a ginger-bread-loving lad. He knew the mysteries of apple- butter, pumpkin pie, pickled beef, smoked side-meat and cider-barrels, nor was he quite without that touch of self- confidence which makes for greatness. He helped support the family and hasn't yet forgotten the fact. At fifteen he worked on a farm and got only a boy's pay. This so in- sulted him that he humiliated his employer by walking away toward the west and thus proving that he could take the course of empire. He became a cowboy, but deciding that he was born for greater things, he wheeled and went to Chicago to become a printer. As a humble printer he builded better than he knew. This work laid the foundation for that knowledge which enabled him in after years to employ printers. But while working at the case a terrible homesickness seized him, which he could not chase away. He longed for the mater- nal jam-jar, the soap-kettle — anything homelike. Back home he had learned much about soap-making, so he took to peddling soap from house to house to establish a tie of association. In peddling soap he displayed the same genius that he had shown in setting type; that is, he soon threw up his job. But by the work he laid more of the foundation for great ELBERT HUBBARD 5 things. He lived to evolve a great Soap Idea, which cleared him seventy-five thousand dollars. By selling soap he also became proficient as an orator, which proficiency has cleared him several thousands more. There is nothing like having your line of progress well soaped. Hubbard has ever had a noble affinity for soap, which is rather remarkable in one who has an antipathy for barbers. In his creed he says that he wishes to be clean. CI Having learned the art of persuasion by selling soap, Hubbard took up the occupation of shoving lumber on the docks. Thus he learned all about woods and wood- working. He learned to make things go, and in later years added to this a knowledge of furniture-making which enabled him to employ those who can make catalogues that go, and fine furniture and things that can go too. It is tiresome to shove lumber, so he quit and became a report- er. As in those days there was little of interest about himself to report, he soon quit and became a traveling salesman. As a traveling man Hubbard was triumphant. He took the Michigan girls by storm. His success is incredible. I myself have traveled through Michigan in the attempt to find some survivor vain enough to try to describe the effed Hubbard produced in that state some twenty-odd years ago. Not a soul has ventured to confess any recollection of Hubbard for fear the account he would have to give would not be believed. Hubbard himself writes so mod- estly about this triumph that his account is most unsatisfy- ing to his admirers. Yet I venture to quote it, hoping the reader's imagination will do the rest. Verily it is one of the most pleasing accounts of Mr. Hubbard that I have ELBERT HUBBARD ever read, and my only regret concerning it is that the poet Wordsworth could not have written something like it about his own early years as a stanza for his "Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood." I wore a dinky derby, spring-bottom pants, a red necktie, a waxed mustache, and a Warm Vest that would have made that coat of Joseph seem like the silence. I used to have a new vest every trip, and it was always a miracle in chromatics. But this was nothing to my smile — my smile was con- tagious — when I arrived in a place everybody smiled, and invited others to smile. The man who deals out Red Raven Splits smiled, the 'bus drivers glowed, the babies cooed, and the dining-room girls giggled, when I came to town. That is what! I scattered smiles, lilac-tinted stories, good cheer, and silver small change all over the route. Especially the stories — 1 always started out with three New Ones, and I told 'em from Detroit clear around to White Pigeon, and back. And I sold the goods. Q I did not merely lay corner-stones and get things in shape. I did not secure a promise of an order the next time. I did not fix the man for a future trade, and then brag about it. Not 1. 1 got his name on the bottom of the order sheet. C[ That is what I did. And he got the orders. That is what he did. But the lilac-tinted vests, the lilac-anything stories and the ELBERT HUBBARD smilax expression of countenance did not satisfy Hubbard's aspirations. He quit traveling to become a teacher in a distrid school. He soon learned to make two ideas shoot where there was only one before: that is, in his own mmd. The newly-shot idea was a great gain to him. Hubbard is never more complimented than when someone addresses him as "teacher". When he calls himself the pastor of his flock, he means of course that he is its teach- er. Teaching may therefore be said to be his lifework. He is wedded to the profession; he recently married a teacher by the name of Miss Moore. He has taught many of the workers in his shop to teach. "The idea of teach- ing", he says, *'we have found is a great benefit — to the teacher." No doubt the Pastor developed this principle of teaching 'way back in the district school. It is a prin- ciple which crops out in a modified form in his declaration that "the Kindergarten is the greatest scheme ever devised for educating parents." In accordance with this principle Elbertus has nurtured his little ones on the Battle Creek kindergarten diet and thus acquired a pretty good education, which has been supplemented by the great benefit he has derived from teaching his flock of good Philistine folk. Nothing need be said about the benefit to the pupils in either case; that doesn't enter into the principle. After his new idea had shot, Hubbard left the district school and went to work in a soap fadory. He became manager, then partner, evolved a third idea and sold it to the concern— "sold out my interest", he says with fine hu- mor, "for seventy-five thousand dollars and went to Har- vard College." This third idea, the great Soap Idea, was a remarkable example of the man's genius. Indeed his ELBERT HUBBARD brief career in the soap fadory — his rapid rise and his in- genuity — is evidence that his gifts were fast maturing. He needed only to find himself to do great things. CJ At Harvard College he did not find himself. He took its discipline (or he didn't) as he had taken his father's medicine: rebelliously. The result was that he soon left, and ever afterward cherished a contempt for colleges. There were no men of genius at Harvard when Hubbard was there, or if there were any he failed to discover them. The faculty was made up of zealous toilers for the cause of systematic education — for the cause of that kind of educa- tion which gently blesses some of those whom life does not have to teach by first knocking down with a stuffed club. Hubbard had little sympathy with the exponents of this kind of education; his admiration was for the men who have flavored their work with their own individualities. So he soon quit Harvard, to say harsh things about college professors and to use their labors in search of material for his "Little Journeys" and their "scholarly assistance" in the preparation of the texts of Roycroft books. ELBERT HUBBARD LBERT HUBBARD, like the late |William Waldorf Astor, had to go a- broad to find himself. While tramping Ithrough Europe he met William Morris and soon discovered that one Hubbard was not the greatest man in the world. Morris had some self-confidence of his own, and was truly a great man. Hubbard, seeing in Morris that the age had not gone by when a genius could be useful, gained a new purpose in life. He would do beautiful and useful work, or at least employ others to do it for him, or at the very least write about others who have done beautiful and useful work. Returning to America, after a few experiments he found his work in the writing of "Little Journeys". Hubbard had always met failure in his attempts to have his writings published. "Editors of magazines refused my manuscript", he says, "because they said it was too plain, too blunt, sometimes indelicate — it would give offense." When, therefore, G. P. Putnam's Sons finally consented to publish the "Little Journeys", Hubbard was inflated. He wanted to pounce upon the publishers and magazine editors who had refused his good stuff. Accordingly he printed a little pamphlet on his own hook and called it the "Philis- tine". He got up a subscription list, but meant to get out only one number. The "Philistine" sold. It was saucy, racy, piquant — yes, indelicate. Hubbard had struck a vein for which there is always a considerable stratum of taste. His genius had at last triumphed. The "Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great" sold, too. Hubbard was then a ELBERT HUBBARD worshiper of genius, and he portrayed the "good men and great" in glowing colors, and in a truly fascinating style. C( Such was the success of the decent Journeys and of the pamphlet of protest that Mr. Hubbard decided he could af- ford to buy a printing outfit which his printers offered to sell cheap to pay their debts. "I decided to run the * Philis- tine Magazine' for a year — ", he naively confesses, "to keep faith with the misguided who had subscribed — and then quit." H. A. Taine has said that there is a morality "for every age, race, and sky." Hubbard has recalled Taine by saying that morality is largely a matter of geography. Keeping faith is sometimes a matter of accident. Had his East Au- rora printers not been in debt immediately after his success with the first number of the "Philistine", the "misguided who had subscribed" might have remained misguided to this day. "My virtue has never been of so extreme a type as to chal- lenge attention", says the Pastor of his flock. I was but a boy when I received my first impression of the "Philistine". The impression came from my having some choice passages read to me, in a barn, by the tough boy of the neighborhood. This boy was very careful not to let his parents discover the "Philistine" on his person. I wish I could forget those choice passages. But if Hubbard has the taint, he also has the divine spark. He has known William Morris. Ever reverent of genius, he has worshiped Morris until he has gathered in some of his life. The spirit of Morris, working through Hubbard, has built the Roycroft Shop, where beautiful things are made. ELBERT HUBBARD C{ But maybe I am wrong. Hubbard says it was a woman who made him think. Perhaps he refers to his first wife. If so, there seems to have come a time when she ceased to be useful to him as a means of making him think, so he renounced his most important obligation to her by break- ing his marriage vow and the seventh commandment.