The Contributors' Club

A GREAT deal has been said about the disadvantages of newspaper reading. Some philosophers have become persuaded that it will cause the reading of books to go out of fashion by slow degrees, and that the modern mind grows less and less capable of consecutive thought, or of evolving and maintaining its own opinions; that the intellect brings itself to bear on the various aspects of life and the theory and practice of every-day affairs only in a disjointed and paragraphical sort of way.

We feel ourselves to be on the brink of a literary precipice, and remember with sorrow how apt one is to skip the editorials of the morning paper, if they appear too long, or too full of thought and reasoning. We see that we have not been reading, but merely getting the news, and the newspaper is only our welcome gossip.

With most persons, in this hurried American life, reading is the thing that is surest to be crowded out. We find time for the work or play we like best, and some people, in the midst of the greatest activity, will contrive to find a quiet space in which to follow literary pleasures ; but many of us take up a book only as an amusement, and when there is nothing else to be done. Reading belongs to our idleness, to our holidays ; it makes an agreeable approach to an afternoon nap, or, supplied from the train-boy’s collection, it beguiles the dull hours of a railway journey. The phrase “improving the mind” has been degraded into something almost like slang. Few of us make a business of having anything to do with books, and few of us remember that it is as wise to make sure of taking some good literary food every day as it is to have our regular breakfasts and dinners for the sake of our bodies. Within the last few years we seem to have demanded that our books should be divided and subdivided, and arranged so that we can take our mental sustenance in the least possible time and with the slightest effort. This state of things has come in with Liebig’s Extract of Beef, and has followed the druggist’s efforts to compress and condense the old-fashioned great doses of medicine into quickly disappearing pellets and globules, which are slipped down our throats without a shudder or regret. Our favorite authors are being minced finer and finer every year, as our tables are being served with croquettes and patés, to the shameful neglect of saddles of venison and lordly sirloins of beef. We take even our Biblereading from books that look as if they belonged to baby-house libraries : Daily Foods and Pearls of Sacred Thought, one verse of the Bible for each day, as if it were all our spiritual constitutions would bear, in their present weak condition. One would think that the Bible Society had succeeded well enough, in its endeavors to print the Scriptures in portable form, to allow us to keep the New Testament, at least, within reach, so that we could sometimes read an entire chapter.

There was formerly a book called Oracles from the Poets, made for the purpose of telling fortunes ; and one is often reminded of the evenings it used to enliven in the old days by the comparatively new invention of birthday books. We are equally curious to see if these new selections of prose and verse are satisfactory expressions of our characters, and appropriate to the day on which we celebrate our arrival in this sphere of existence ; and nobody takes up one of these small volumes without looking to see what success it has in its personal allusions. It is impossible to resist a feeling of pleasure at finding that the great author apparently had us in mind when he made a flattering remark, or an appreciative recognition of some rare virtue. But aside from the personal interest in birthday books, it is impossible to disguise the truth that most people read their George Eliot, their Longfellow and Dickens and Emerson, and even their Swedenborg, from birthday books and almanacs and calendars. It is vastly better than not reading them at all. These disconnected morsels may lead stray searchers after truth to follow the great masters and leaders more closely and reverently; and the hunger for this good food may become harder to satisfy, until the reader, after having tasted one sentence from an essay, is forced to rush to the nearest book-case, and embark upon a wild revel of reading the whole masterpiece.

The business of publishing still goes on, but even the people who buy many books are forced to confess that they usually have time for only a short scurry between the covers. They are always deluding themselves into a belief that they will presently find out all the author has to say. But soon a new bundle of books arrives, and the earlier comers are put away to make room for the strangers. We maintain large standing armies of these volumes at great expense and very little good to ourselves. It is only in long convalescence, or withdrawals from the world on account of some accidental hindrance to our every-day affairs, that we get much time for reading. It seems to me that it would be a good thing to occasionally go into retreat for the sake of our minds, after the same fashion that good Catholics retire from the distractions of worldly existence for the sake of their souls.

We cannot give up reading altogether, but we take smaller and smaller doses of it. By and by we may come round again to the custom of the Egyptians, and make one hieroglyphic stand for a sentence : we shall tear off a leaf of our calendar and see a little circle, a fat O, and on that day contemplate eternity. Reading from symbols has its advantages ; but what will become of the misguided persons who love the lazy, loitering books of some authors who wrote when there was still time for reading, and it was not driven to the wall by other things far less important ?

It is a great thing to be sure of having one fine thought, or bit of character study, or glimpse of scenery, put into the midst of our eager or tiresome, hurried or lazy day. It is all very well to be assured of a text every morning ; but we cannot afford to starve our minds, and though the calendar and birthday books may keep us alive, they cannot make us flourish. Few of us think very much for ourselves, and we are all more or less dependent upon the thoughts and observations and opinions of other people. Many of us pay so little heed to the laws of intellectual improvement that, we get our mental growth at a needlessly early age. We are like those animals which hibernate : they afterward come out of their dens very thin and meagre, however well satisfied they may have been with the sustenance derived from their own paws.

— I read in one of our newspapers, the other day, a very gloomy and tearful statement of the literary situation, and was malicious enough to find a great deal of quiet enjoyment in the pessimistic views of the writer. A good pessimist is as fine a thing in his way as a good hater, and vastly more useful. Pessimism is an excellent corrective — taken in moderation. The distressed person of whom I am writing — he not inaptly described himself as being in a state of “ spiritual orphanage ” — unfolded no new idea in saying that the present is a fallow period in our literature. The present is always a fallow period in literature. The assertion is one of those fossils of criticism which are unearthed with mechanical regularity, and are to be predicted with as much certainty as the eclipse of the sun or the advent of the potato-bug. The stage was a degraded stage in Shakespeare’s time. It is so difficult to get the right perspective when objects are too near. While Bryant, Emerson, Longfellow, Poe, Hawthorne, and the other brilliant men of that cycle were doing some of their best work (the marvelous Twice-Told Tales fell for nearly two decades upon unlistening ears), the literary pessimist of the period was shedding tears over the nonexistence of a national literature. Forty years from now he will still he lamenting and weeping, and throwing what little wet blanket he can over the poets and novelists and essayists of 1923. I imagine him holding forth somewhat in this fashion : —

“ American literature has gone up. All our great authors are dead. You may cast your eye (it is a quite painless operation) over the whole of North and South America, and the dislocated optic will not encounter a single poet, storyteller, or essayist in any way worthy of being perched upon. Howells and James and Warner and Harte and Cable and — and Jones have passed away, and who is left to fill their places ? Where will you find among the writers of to day (February 1st, 1923) the pathos and humor of A Foregone Conclusion, the keen analysis of The Portrait of a Lady, the rich vein of The Grandissimes, the strength of The Luck of Roaring Camp, . . . the broad critical insight of The Victorian Poets ? What histories and biographies and books of travel and science were given to the world in those times ! To what perfection the art of writing short stories was brought in the period extending from 1860 to 1883 ! What a fine lyrical quality also characterized that same period ! There were no great epics produced, — altera tempore alteri mores, — but what a cluster of great little lyrics! The silvery chords struck then are still vibrating ; but, alas! the hands of the musicians are dust, and the present race of performers are merely banjo players. The fact is, we are fallen upon evil days, we have lost our spectacles and misplaced our ear-trumpet, and our digestion is not what it used to be.”

— The modern guide-book certainly deserves the gratitude of every traveler; but, without disrespect to Murray or Baedeker, it must be confessed that even their most ardent admirers experience, occasionally, a feeling of relief when some unexpected event, “ not in Murray,” occurs, to break for a time the tyranny of their guide. The celebration at Madrid of the two hundredth anniversary of the death of the Spanish poet Calderon was such an event, and came to me as a relief, after weeks of sight-seeing in Spain. The fête was advertised to begin on Monday, but that day and the next were devoted by the inhabitants of Madrid to preparation: hundreds of workmen were busy decorating the streets, houses, and shops; strangers came flocking to the city from all parts of the country ; booths were erected along the Prado, and articles of every description, from a penny whistle to an India shawl, exposed for sale; benches were hastily put up in some of the streets through which the processions were to pass, and seats rented, as at Rome during the Carnival. All was excitement and expectation. The theatres were crowded every evening, and Calderon’s plays were enthusiastically received. A loan collection was opened, under the auspices of nobility, if not royalty, and many were the objects of interest displayed to the public. I saw in a case full of fine old Spanish fans one, exquisitely painted, which had belonged to a lady in waiting at the court of Philip II.; and as if to recall that court more vividly to me, a worn and timestained missal, once used by the bigot king, and the sword of the great and terrible Alva were placed near it. The fan, the missal, and the sword were good specimens of an age renowned for its intrigue, intolerance, and cruelty. Beyond the Prado, in a small wooden building, there was an exposition of modern Spanish pictures. These were, however, but side-shows ; the great fête was opened on Wednesday by the celebration of high mass in one of the principal churches, attended by the royal family and dignitaries of state. Then followed a military procession, with the usual display of soldiers to be seen in every large city on great occasions. In the evening, I went with the crowd to see the decorations and illuminations. The Puerta del Sol, the grand square, was one blaze of light. The Spanish national colors, red and yellow, added to the gayety of the scene ; flags were flying ; tapestries covered the balconies of the houses, brilliant with colored lights; Chinese lanterns hung in festoons across the streets ; and the name of Calderon was everywhere.

But the greatest display of all — the historical procession — was reserved for Friday afternoon. It was opened by six heralds, dressed in the costume of the time of Calderon ; yellow satin cloaks, with the Spanish coat of arms embroidered upon them in black, forming the most conspicuous part of their attire. It was a splendid sight, as was also the “ Yellow Guard,” that came some time later : those on foot wearing dark olive-green coats over their yellow breeches and vests, while the mounted guard wore bright yellow suits bordered with alternate checks of black and red. There were horsemen in old armor; knights with their retainers ; an old printing-press associated with the early works of the poet; cars, on which were represented the different trades busy at their work ; the Spanish colonies, with their peculiar characteristics; and, the crowning glory of all, the apotheosis of Calderon. After these came the carriages of state, carrying the magnates of the different cities of Spain, with their respective banners unfurled, and, following them, the richly-carved black coach of Jeanne la Folle. This latter, connected with the story of the sad wanderings of the poor queen, who, refusing to be separated from her dead husband, the handsome Philip, carried his coffin with her in this same carriage, seemed out of place amid these festivities and not even the white horses and gayly dressed postilions could relieve it of its sombre aspect. It was like the mummy at the Egyptian feast. The joyous faces of a party of Salamanca students, however, who came next in order, soon dispelled all gloomy thoughts. Looking down from the balcony of the hotel upon the great square, whose central fountain reflected the bow of promise in its crystal water, and through whose many diverging streets a living tide was flowing, I saw below me the customs and costumes of 1681 vividly contrasted with those of 1881, and recognized what an advance even Spain has made in the last two centuries.

All the processions, after leaving the Puerta del Sol, passed by the royal palace, where they were greeted by the king and queen from one of the balconies. Opposite the palace is the grand equestrian statue of Philip IV., the patron of Calderon. Here the little girls had left their green wreaths on Thursday, which almost concealed the base of the statue. The weather during the festival was perfect, — a blessing not often enjoyed in a city proverbial for its extremes of heat and cold. When there was nothing else to do, the strangers crowded around the booths and shops, while the water-carriers in the street were so besieged with customers that they had little need to utter their shrill cry of “ Agua, Agua,” — a cry that may generally be heard above all others, especially in the Puerta del Sol. Never was a greater variety of costumes collected in one city. The eye wandered from the bright dresses of the peasant women to the lace mantillas so gracefully worn by the Spanish ladies ; from the velvet breeches and short embroidered jackets of the men of Segovia to the cloaks of the Spanish hidalgos, and found an artistic pleasure in all. The picture-gallery on the Prado being free to the public on one of the festival days, I followed the crowd; but my object was not to gaze, as usual, at the wonderful creations of Velasquez or Murillo, but to look at the living pictures, which the peasants unconsciously made as they stood before the works of the old masters. I sat for half an hour on the little bench, covered with red velvet, in front of Velasquez’s Topers, without observing the marvelous bacchanalian king, or his merry, half-clothed subjects. I was too much interested in the peasants who stopped before it, and, watching them, I saw the picture reflected in their faces, and, listening, heard contagious bursts of laughter, which may have come from the canvas or the spectators. Certainly no art critic could have interpreted the picture better. The favorite dwarfs of Philip IV., whose portraits, painted by the court painters of his reign, are scattered through the gallery, afforded much amusement to these simple peasants. They never tired of gazing at one by Carreno, a curious female dwarf, dressed in a robe of gaudy flowering chintz, and many were the jokes called forth by the apples, one in each hand, which she seemed to be offering them. Among the women in the crowd, I noticed three dressed in the style characteristic of the age of Calderon, — the hideous hooped skirt, that I had thought only a Velasquez could make me tolerate; but, strange to say, the dress was very becoming to one of the dark-eyed beauties who wore it. The hoop was a trifle less exaggerated than in the great painter’s portraits, but it was without doubt the peasant costume of that period. The most picturesque group, however, that I saw during the morning was one standing before that exquisite picture of the Lord’s Supper, by Juanes, the Raphael of Spain. The men in the prime of life, the women carrying their babies in their arms, and hushing the little creatures who clung timidly to their skirts, were listening attentively to an aged woman in their midst, as with tremulous voice she repeated the sacred legends of the Apostles, designating each with her trembling finger. But when, after making the sign of the cross, she pointed to the figure of the Saviour, holding in his hand the Holy Chalice, now in the cathedral at Valencia, made of agate and adorned with precious stones, a reverential awe settled upon the faces of her audience, and the men, taking off their hats, bowed solemnly. The reverence of the peasants recalled the devout spirit of the artist; for Juanes, like Fra Angelico, depended upon divine guidance in his art, and no praise from royal lips would have been as grateful to him as this recognition of the sacredness of his work. Notwithstanding the number of people in the gallery, and the freedom with which they expressed their opinions of the pictures, there was very little noise or confusion. The guards, with true Spanish politeness, answered questions and pointed out objects of interest with as much readiness as if they were dealing with well-known connoisseurs of art. Indeed, this politeness was one of the prominent features of the festival. Though there were said to be over sixty thousand strangers in Madrid during the week, no serious disturbance was reported, and amusement never degenerated into license.

What becomes of a crowd, when the object which calls it together is accomplished, is always a matter of conjecture. When, therefore, at the close of the historical procession, the last act on the programme, the curtain fell, the spectators of the Calderon fête mysteriously disappeared, and Madrid soon settled into the routine of ordinary daily life.