As We Were

I. BEFORE THE FILMS

MOVING pictures have taken possession of the cities, and have revolutionized small towns and villages. People who never expected to be entertained, and who got along very well without entertainment, now demand it as a condition of life. People who once aspired to entertain one another have retired from that laborious and unprofitable competition. Lively communities which mustered sufficient talent to exact attention have now been forgiven and forgotten. Their concerts, their tableaux, their wonderful rendition of She Stoops to Conquer, that most exacting of plays, have been relegated to the Limbo of things that should never have been. In their place the townspeople have halls, unventilated for the most part, and films of astonishing goodness and badness. These films are cheap, they conscientiously fill two hours, and the audiences which crowd to see them would do without food or drink rather than forgo what has passed from a habit to a necessity.

I know what happened in small Southern communities before the coming of films. If they sought entertainment, they had to provide it fresh and faltering from untuned pianos, untrained fingers, and unmodulated voices. There was no help from outside; no canned music; no one-night shows from straggling companies. Uncle Tom’s Cabin might have come their way; but unfortunately that facile caricature was anathema to the South, which lost a good deal by refusing to countenance it. I should have liked to see the Canadian company with the youthful Leacock playing the second chunk of ice on which Eliza crossed the river.

Elocution assumed a formidable rôle in pre-film entertainments, and elocution is an art of indescribable maladjustments. It never struck fire with ‘The King of Denmark’s Ride,’ which might have jostled clods into something resembling emotion. It clung dismally to ‘Barbara Frietchie,’ and ‘Curfew Must Not Ring To-night.’ Dickens knew all about recitations, lie knew all about most things, and he seldom told us a word too much. We are aware that Miss Petowker recited ‘The Blood-Drinker’s Burial’ with such emphasis that the little Kenwigses were frightened into fits; and that Mrs. Crummles, the great original Blood-Drinker, had been obliged to give it up because it unnerved her audiences. ‘Too tremendous for them,’ observed Mr. Crummles sadly.

I have wondered more than once if Dickens had in his mind ‘Monk’ Lewis’s ‘Maniac,’ first and more aptly called ‘The Captive,’ which had been withdrawn from the boards because too many women had hysterics when Mrs. Litchfield recited it, and too many husbands protested. It is hard for us now to credit this amazing statement; but our own century has not been without similar experiences. ‘The Blood-Drinker’s Burial’ is such a masterly title, conveying so much horror with so little reason, that we cannot quarrel with it; but Dickens, who was not wont to miss his opportunities, had in all likelihood heard ‘The Captive,’ and made use of it after his fashion.

I, too, have heard it, and have been as frightened as any little Kenwigs of my tender years. It happened in one of the smallest of Southern towns, and was, I think, part of a school entertainment. Schools were schools in those days. The stage was darkened, the unfortunate lady, clad in white and manacled, knelt on the straw which was the only approach to furnishing in her cell. The jailer with a lantern stood by her side. He did not ‘smile in scorn and turn the key’ because his lantern was needed. He listened stoically until his prisoner cried: —

Then he left, and the last terrifying verses were shrieked into the darkness, while the chains clanked dismally. And I was eight.

I did not have hysterics because I did not know how. I sat frozen with fear — fear and horror combined. The horror was for the ‘Captive,’ the fear was for myself. If it was so easy to call people maniacs and get them shut up in prison, what assurance of safety had I?

At least I would refrain from marrying, and thereby reduce the danger. My father would not have subjected a caterpillar to annoyance. I had nothing to fear from him. But the future stretched before me that night dark with danger. Cruelty, which I was beginning to understand, took on form and substance.

‘The child looks frightened,’ said a friend (a man, of course) to my cousin, as we came out of the hall.

‘Frightened?’ echoed my cousin incredulously. ‘What was there to be frightened about? But she is always like that. If there was anything real, she would not mind. I saw her the other day watching a mouse, a live mouse, running across the floor, and she actually seemed to like it.’

Recitations have had their value in a world capable of being swept by emotions — witness the two hundred and fifty thousand pounds with which England responded to ‘The Absent-Minded Beggar.’ It was an appeal too simple and direct to miss its mark, and it must be said of Mrs. Langtry that she spoke as one who cared. No one can reap the harvest of tears or golden sovereigns unless he cares.

II. THE WORLD WAS NOT ON THE MOVE

Yet men did travel, and they knew what it meant. They no more expected to be comfortable than did Lord Byron, who said plainly and positively that folk who go a-pleasuring had no business with comfort. My father did not go a-pleasuring. He went occasionally on business for the support of his family. He knew he would not be comfortable, He carried a heavy traveling shawl, to save himself from perishing, and when I saw him depart I envied him passionately. He would sit up all night wrapped in that shawl instead of going to bed. How fortunate — how supremely and undeservedly fortunate — grown-up people were!

Children are not only impervious to discomfort — they like it, as imparting a picnic flavor to life. An aversion to picnics (like that growing distaste for asparagus of which Lamb warns us plainly) means the surrender of youth. When I was a very little girl I was happy enough to be taken by my mother on a journey which involved a night train. Sleeping cars there were none, so that indignity was spared me. I sat by my mother’s side, cold, tired, miserable, and exultant. I saw the coming of dawn for the first time in my life. A little girl (the pampered child of much solicitude) confessed at school that she had never seen a star. Her well-regulated hours had denied her that privilege, and she seemed in no wise aware of her loss.

It is strange to look back upon a time when people did not spend their lives evading the seasons. They took them in their stride. They expected to be hot in summer and cold in winter, that being the manifest design of Providence. Wealthy Philadelphians went to their country homes and sweltered. They returned to town in November, and spent five months struggling with an anthracite furnace in the cellar. If they were ill, their doctors gave them medicine and put them to bed. The happy thought of sending them to be ill elsewhere had not then dawned on the profession.

Yet there were places to which they might have gone. The German physician who suggested Peru to a New York patient had imagination; but the Mediterranean was not unknown. People in novels went to its shores, and people in Philadelphia read about them. They themselves waited until summer, and then went to Cape May, which was considered to be riotously gay, or to Atlantic City — a small demure settlement, much affected by the kind of Quakers who did not like things to happen. Bar Harbor was the refuge of schoolteachers who reveled in its beauty, and ate peanuts for dessert in the cheap, badly run hotels. It is a bit tragic to reflect upon the speed with which humble nature-lovers have been ousted from the places they discovered and enjoyed. The rich never discover any place. They wait until a bit of coast or a spur of mountain has been acclaimed as exceptionally lovely. Then they take possession, and the plain people to whom it has grown dear are driven out by the high cost of living. A taste for nature is a fatal extravagance. It requires effort, and an income. The town gives you of its best for nothing. It is open-handed, and has been condemned for its hardness. It is the friend of the poor, and has been cursed for its pride.

The business of entertaining summer boarders was once simple and cheap. Out of doors there was always croquet. Anybody could afford croquet, and anybody could play it. A bit of ill-kept ground, a few wire hoops, and someone to drive away the children. I was a child myself, a marauder, and relegated to the ranks of the unwanted. Yet there was a bald simplicity about croquet which fitted it to my physical and mental immaturity. It was made for a tenyear-old, and I, being ten, was debarred from my rightful inheritance.

For long I have sympathized with adults who find children ‘in the way.’ But I can also remember a time when I was ‘in the way’ myself. My mother was once asked in my hearing why she liked the quiet country hotel to which we went every summer. She explained that she did not like it at all; but that, as enjoyment was out of the question when she took her young children away, it was better to choose a place where the air was good and they might play in safety. A great many years have gone by since my truth-telling parent made this simple statement; but I am glad to report the accuracy of vision which enabled her to perceive that her infant family was no exception to a general rule.

With the advent of lawn tennis and the lavish opulence of golf, summer resorts shook off simplicity, and unfortunate nature-lovers (whom nothing can cure of illusions) wandered farther afield in their search for the inexpensive and uncomfortable. They came home lean and hungry, bitten by fleas, and black flies, and mosquitoes; but eloquent over some lovely spot where life was ‘primitive ’ — a word of many meanings. These comfort-scorning adventurers were always women. There must be plenty of men nature-lovers. I have met them from time to time, and have semioccasionally read their books. But the friends who say to me, ‘How can you bear to look at bricks and mortar all your life?’ are invariably women. It is useless to point out to them the comeliness and convenience of bricks and mortar. They are thinking of woods and waters which tell a different tale.

III. THE ERA OF BROWNING SOCIETIES

It is a perfectly well remembered period, and it lasted for over twenty years. It originated no doubt in a simple and praiseworthy desire on the part of simple and praiseworthy people to understand Browning more intelligently and to love him better. The Philadelphia Browning Society had its counterpart in every city of the Union, and in a great many cities of England. In December 1897, Augustine Birrell read a paper before the Browning Hall Settlement, at Walworth. It is uncommonly like the papers we have heard from less famous people in less august surroundings. Fifteen years earlier its author had published in his first Obiter Dicta a supremely competent article on ‘The Alleged Obscurity of Mr. Browning’s Poetry’; but that was a challenge to the reading world. Nothing resembling it has ever perplexed an anxious audience, wondering if it heard aright.

Our Philadelphia Browning Society was small and poor and high-minded. The dues were very low because we did not think it right to deny its privileges to townspeople who could not — or who would not — give more. Therefore we had no money to pay speakers. We could not even afford a coveted young Bostonian who earned a precarious livelihood by reading Browning’s poems to less impecunious communities. We read them to one another (uphill work it was!), and we read papers of our own composition to one another, and we encouraged one another in mediocrity, being less impatient than Charles Lamb, and dimly aware that there are worse things than mediocrity in the world, and that some of us had climbed a bit to reach that despised estate.

Above all, be it remembered to our credit, we never tried to be funny at Browning’s expense. That stupendous insolence was foreign to our mental make-up. If a joke was ever heard, it came from the audience, and was an impromptu joke, not a carefully prepared attempt at the wit which Heaven had thought fit to deny us. When Dr. Talcott Williams arose and in a larmoyant voice, heavy with unshed tears, announced, ‘I will now read you a few lines, not from Browning’s pen, but from the pen of her whom he loved so many long and faithful years,’ Mr. Harrison Morris, who sat in the front row, said clearly and distinctly, ‘Mrs. Bloomfield Moore,’ whereupon the house laughed delightedly. It had earned this much relaxation, and the sudden projection of light-minded gossip into the solemn sentimentalities that oppressed us was like opening a window, or stepping out of doors.

The Contemporary Club of Philadelphia (which is still a deeply respected organization) was bigger, richer, and more socially prominent than the Browning Society. It had higher dues, paid its speakers, and occasionally enjoyed an evening of lively and intelligent debate. The experience of years taught it one truth — that American speakers, whether dull or vivacious, invariably gave the best that was in them; and that English speakers thought that anything would do. It did not do very well. No Barmecide feast satisfies the robust appetites of men, and the Contemporary Club had many male members. They had a way of standing near the doors, and vanishing one by one into the hospitable hotel corridors, while the women, politely escorted to front rows, sat in serried ranks, unable to extricate themselves, or to escape from the speaker’s searching eye.

We had notable evenings, of course: when Miss Amy Lowell aroused a storm of indignation by indicating that Walt Whitman’s successors had surpassed him in his own field — a doubtful thing to say anywhere, but a veritable heresy in Philadelphia, which naturally cherished the fame of its celebrity; when Walt himself came to us, looking like a cross between a cowboy and Little Lord Fauntleroy, and with natural, lovable egotism accepted us all as friends and followers; when a local politician assured us that city and state were being wisely administered by incorruptible officials, and we, thinking he was satiric, insulted him with laughter; when Mr. Henry James broke the silence of a lifetime, and made his first address before our envied society.

That was an occasion! As the president of the Contemporary Club, I felt its full importance. It was necessary to spend more than we could afford, and it was necessary to be the first in the field. We accomplished these two feats, and fortune favored us. Mr. James spoke on Balzac. He might, had he so chosen, have spoken on Beelzebub, What the club wanted — what all Philadelphia wanted, as I discovered later — was to see and hear the great novelist. They did hear as well as see him. His voice, clear and distinct, was audible in every corner of the room. His nervous fright wore off after the first few minutes. It was plain that, while his audience thought little about Balzac and a great deal about Henry James, Mr. James thought little about his audience and a great deal about Balzac— a happy adjustment of interests.

One incident lingers in my memory. On the day before the memorable event I had a visit from a very eager stranger, a Jew, who wanted beyond measure to hear Mr. James because (which was a most unusual reason) he had been a reader of the distinguished and difficult novels all his life. I explained to him that every seat and every inch of standing room had long before been assigned. He persisted, humbly but with iron determination, in his plea. I then said, ‘Well, there will be no room for you or for anybody else, so one more won’t count. I’ll write a line on my visiting card. If you can fight your way in with it, well and good, and if I am on hand I will help you.’

He did fight his way in (I might have been sure of it), and late in the evening I saw him in earnest conversation with Mr. James, who looked more interested and animated than usual. Then I forgot all about him until months later when he came out of Dr. Weir Mitchell’s office as I was entering. ‘What,’ I said to Dr. Mitchell, ’are you doing with my little Jew?’

’He is not your little Jew,’ retorted Dr. Mitchell. ‘He is my little Jew.’

‘Oh, well,’ I admitted, ‘I lay no claim to him. I chanced to do him a trifling favor, and I was amazed to see him here.’

‘I will tell you why he is here,’ said Dr. Mitchell. ‘For one thing, he is possibly the first Arabic scholar in the city. He came to me six years ago, a broken man. Sheer overwork. Nothing else the matter with him. Happily, I was able to give him what he needed. I sent him into the country for six months — six months of rest and unconcern about the future. He returned, sound and well, and he has never needed help from anybody since. But he comes to see me now and then for friendship’s sake.’

Think of it! To know what was wanted. To be able to give what was wanted. To be ready to give what was wanted. It is not the best, but it is assuredly not the worst of all possible worlds when it has sons worthy of their inheritance.

IV. FIGHTING FOR THE FRANCHISE

Not that I fought, for Heaven knows I did not; but there were times when Elizabeth Robins Pennell — that calm, contemplative woman — and I seemed the only non-combatants in the field. Nine out of every ten women whom I knew believed sincerely that the world would be a better place when they were able to vote. The tenth woman believed sincerely that the world would be a far worse place when debased by feminine incompetence. That it would go on being the same old world we had always known was an idea which never occurred to any of us. What would become of enthusiasms and antagonisms if it were given to us to look into the future? I can recall the promises made by ardent reformers that the polling booths under the new dispensation would be pleasant, ‘homelike’ rooms, decorated with flowers, and emblematic of the nation’s refined and lofty purposes. I wish these prophets could see the hovel in which I cast my vote, and in which I am the only representative of my race, tolerated by the good-tempered Negroes as a harmless and pleasant-spoken eccentricity.

I wish also that I could have known the fine old war horse, Susan B. Anthony. She was a pioneer, which is a glorious but uncomfortable thing to be. She did the many hard things and the occasional foolish things that fall to the lot of pioneers. She hewed wood and drew water that her successors might have an easy time of it. A comparison between her life and the life of Dr. Anna Shaw illustrates to perfection the desirability of being a little late in the field.

Dr. Shaw was never called on to wear obnoxious clothing or to face obnoxious crowds. She was the friend of college presidents and of women of fashion. She was made welcome and entertained wherever she went. She was listened to with attention and respect. Her sarcasm was an affront to human taste and to human intelligence; but when she spoke soberly and sincerely her words carried conviction to many, and a plain sensible meaning to all. She was able — by the grace of God — to believe in what she preached. She was quite sure that women were endowed with an organization ‘morally equivalent and ethically identical’ with that of men, which is perhaps true. She refused very sensibly to be affected by the escapades of the British militants who were having the time of their lives, but whose sprightly antics were disturbing to citizens with a logical turn of mind.

I can still see the stupefied expression with which Mr. Henry James appealed to my sense of equity. He had expressed supreme satisfaction in Mr. Sargent’s portrait of himself. He had stood before it for a half hour at a time, fitting every line into his retentive visual memory, and making up his mind anew that it was a great painting. When the militants slashed it, as an unanswerable argument for their political rights, he was terribly distressed, and I was distressed for him, knowing how few and far between were his mundane pleasures. ‘ I never opposed their franchise,’ he said defensively. ‘Before this I never thought much about it; and Sargent said he did n’t care a tinker’s damn whether they got it or not. By the way, what is a tinker’s damn?’

I turned him from this aside (asides were his perdition) into the main current of argument, which was a gloomy road, but a straight one, and easily trodden. Was it really less than twentysix years ago that this casual conversation was held? Things had then that strange aspect of immutability which they are apt to assume before a radical change. The wounded portrait was mended so skillfully that none now know how cruelly it has been hurt. The war blew like a blast through the world, and the first thing to shrivel and die was the moth, militancy. What remained was femininity, indestructible and long-suffering. It helped to save civilization; and as a reward for its services Britain and the United States gave it the coveted franchise — a boon nobly bestowed and received with grateful ardor. Therefore I go to my undecorated polling booth, and wonder a little what happens to my vote. It reminds me of a school prize which was, in my day at least, a reward of merit — a hook, beautifully bound, grandly given, and gratefully received, but unreadable.

Parades were more popular before the World War than they are now. As arguments they are feeble, but as an expression of political views they are without a flaw. The Irish Catholic parade on Saint Patrick’s day, the Orangemen’s parade on July 12 (commemorative of the Battle of the Boyne), have carried opportunities to many contentious hearts. Philadelphians cannot forget that less than a hundred years ago the ‘Native American riots,’ which cost the town some scores of burned churches, schools, and homes, were provoked by the arrogance of parades.

Happily the arguments so popular in 1844 were obsolete when the suffragists first paraded in New York to prove their numerical strength. There were certainly plenty of them. They went on and on and on until I could think of nothing but the army worms which I once saw moving with leisurely precision along the South Coast of Massachusetts. The army worms were not marching, they were merely moving on, and they took two days to do it. The suffragists were not marching. They did not know how to march. The easy stride which the street boy of thirteen acquires to perfection was beyond their power. Many of them looked supremely self-conscious, some of them looked desperately tired; but in one and all there was the same driving force, a profound and touching belief in the reform they advocated. They would have gone to the block for their principles. Some of them do actually go to the polls to-day.

The bitter cry of frustrated humanity lies compressed in Swinburne’s lines: —

And the answer is plain to read: ‘You had the fight. You had the burning days when values were counted by the cost.’ How eminently desirable was the golden fleece when the heroes of the world fought for it! How unrecorded its subsequent history! How imperatively beautiful was Helen when she brought to Ilium ‘destruction as a dower’! In what ignoble peace Menelaos, subsequently, possessed her! The franchise has always been esteemed a thing worth fighting for. It has never been esteemed a thing worth noble handling. ‘Thy service is in the work only; but in the fruits thereof never.’