This Modern Generation
What is more exasperating, more insistent, and still more
exasperating because of its insistence, than a telephone
ringing beside one’s bed at two A. M.? There is indeed some
doubt as to whether these modern appliances, together with the
modern world which they purport to make happy, are not altogether
out of place on this earth. In striving to be great, perhaps
we mortals have obscured our immortality. At any rate, Mr.
Harrow thought so, as he hurled his corpulent shape from the
bed, crashed into the small table upon which the offensive instrument
rested, swore, and put the receiver to his ear. A terrific
buzzing ensued, and a vibration which was actually painful.
“Dammit,” he said, “hello, dammit.”
And now the reader will excuse us if we leave Mr. Harrow
struggling with this all too mortal instrument, and proceed to an
explanation of the causes of his disturbance; which task will
require the remainder of the story for its consummation.
Betty Harrow lived with her father in this very modest house
somewhere in New York City. The two of them were an affectionate
pair, in spite of a large discrepancy in their characters.
For, while the implacable gruffness of Mr. Harrow prevented him
from understanding the youth and the beauty of his daughter’s
emotions, still he was able to make allowances for what seemed
to him too modern and dashing in her character. She filled a
place in the old gentleman’s life which the death of his wife had
left vacant. If Mr. Harrow had ever understood his wife, he
was the only person that believed it. But there is a kind of understanding
which arises from a tender and lasting affection, and
which is really the main prerequisite to a happy married life. This
Mr. Harrow possessed to a degree. He never tired of watching
his wife manage the house, and never failed to kiss her tenderly,
after an argument, even when his impatience had been aroused to
the point of swearing at her. When she died, he felt strangely
that it was a rebuke. He tried to compensate by increased tenderness
toward his débutante daughter.
He found this especially easy because Betty was the image of
her beautiful mother. Indeed if it had not been that she possessed
one of those intrinsically virtuous characters, in whom moral
principles are realized quite naturally without a struggle and
without being mentally formulated—if she had not owed much to
heredity—Betty would have been spoiled by her father’s attentions.
As it was, however, she came out successfully, being one
of the belles of that season; and had since lived with her father
for three years. She was now just twenty-one.
Of course, Mr. Harrow was not one of those disagreeable
early-Victorian fathers who force their daughters into undesirable
marriages; but he had nevertheless a choice for Betty in the back
of his mind, and allowed no opportunity to slip by without a sly
hint concerning the desirability of this gentleman. The gentleman’s
name was Conrad, and he had lately risen to a responsible
position in one of the largest of the down-town brokerage houses.
He was noted for his cleverness, his cool head, and for the
astoundingly impersonal way in which he looked out at the world.
He was one of those “objective” persons, who, if any criticism is
to be made of them, regard life with too slight an emphasis upon
the heart. Betty liked him well enough, though she did not
perceive those same virtues in him which had attracted her father.
But she was not yet prepared to sacrifice for a man already past
thirty-five, her present life of laughter, young love, and gayety.
Do not let me give you a false impression of this young lady.
If you had seen her in any one of a number of “scrapes” into
which her gay life had led her, you would, I think, form a very
high estimation of her character. Clandestine parties in automobiles,
with silly young men who know little beyond the recent
baseball scores, and who really do not know how to kiss a woman—these
kinds of things she had no use for. They bored her, and
did not tempt her. Romance, for her, was much more artistic
than this, and much more fundamental.
She had, indeed, managed to scare up a real romance which
served, for the present at least, as an added enjoyment to a life
that was already a happy one. Betty was cruel in such affairs.
She made it quite plain to her lovers that she was very much in
love with them: but she never allowed them to approach her with
anything more forceful than their eyes. And as her present
favorite one day exclaimed to a confidential friend, “I might as
well hang her picture on the wall and flirt with that.”
This exclamation was carried to Betty’s ears by the said friend,
who, notwithstanding his vows of secrecy, was only human. A
few days after the disclosure Betty sent the following note by way
of consolation:
“Dearest Charles:
“Monty tells me that you want to look at my picture,
but that you haven’t got one to hang on the wall. I’m
sorry for this; I don’t wish to lose any opportunities,
even if it only is with a picture; so I am sending you the
very best photograph I have, hoping that you will not
fail to make use of it.
“Yours for the winter,
“Betty.”
This note, and the photograph which followed it, astounded
Charles, in spite of the fact that he was becoming used to Betty’s
impetuosity. Yet, he reflected, he had only known her a few
months and could be excused for his astonishment. He very dutifully
placed the picture upon his dresser, and very dutifully made
love to it. He liked to fill in the colors which the photograph did
not reveal. There was nothing to distinguish them from other
observations than a lover’s except possibly the hair, which was a
strange mixture of brown and gold. The eyes were blue and
large. And the nose had a peculiar curve of its own, which was
extremely feminine. Charles sighed and decided that he would
pay a visit to New York; for he was at that time occupied with
journalism in Boston.
Now Betty was no more anxious to fall seriously in love with
Charles than she was with Mr. Conrad. While the latter was
somewhat uninteresting and unromantic, the former acquitted
himself of those faults only at the expense of poverty and an
unpretentious position on a Boston newspaper. Mr. Conrad could
offer her everything that money could buy; Charles could only
bring her those sacrifices which love often demands. She was no
more willing to save her pennies for Charles than she was to
forfeit her freedom to the middle age of Conrad. And although
she did not reason this out, she decided that something ought to
be done in the way of intimating her convictions to both lovers.
The direct antithesis which they presented amused her and gave
her an inspiration. She would pit them against one another and
see what would happen. Perhaps it was the restless tendency of
her generation which made her want to find out what would
happen. Perhaps it was the skepticism of the age which had
entered her heart and had led her to doubt which of the two goods
wielded the greatest motive—romance or a life of ease. Perhaps,
in the true spirit of the modern débutante, she preferred empirical
methods. Or perhaps it was merely femininity.
At any rate, she invited them both to dinner on the same evening,
and noted with satisfaction Mr. Conrad’s apparent uneasiness upon
perceiving the attractive features and the youthful bearing of the
new arrival. She laughed also to see that Charles merely regarded
Mr. Conrad as an uncle or as an old family friend, and had not,
as yet, a suspicion of the true nature of the case. So she devoted
the evening to Charles.
They were discussing the last Yale Promenade—for Charles
was a Yale man, having graduated only a year ago. Conrad, who
had never gone to college, leaned over with his elbows on his
knees, and tried to enter into the conversation, though puffing
nervously his cigar. Mr. Harrow was getting out the chess board,
for he was an enthusiastic player, and made it a habit to challenge
Conrad for an evening bout—usually, we fear, to that gentleman’s
annoyance, and always to his disgrace.
“Christy,” said the old man, having set up the chess-men and
arranged the chairs, “what do you say to a game of chess?”
The question was asked in this identical manner every evening,
and Christy, who had never yet found the method of avoiding
such elaborate preparations, invariably answered in the affirmative.
This evening he sat down even more reluctantly, since he had no
sooner begun to play than Betty delicately suggested to Charles
that they go into the parlor to see the family photograph albums.
“That old gentleman looks as if he needed a rest,” said Charles
after they were seated side by side.
Betty gasped. “Do you mean Christy?”
“Christy?—Is that what you call him?”
“Christopher Conrad of Wall Street,” said Betty, puckering
her lips and making a serious frown. Then she laughed. “The
idea of your calling him an old gentleman! Why—why—he’s
one of my best friends!”
“Oh.”
“And he’s just the kind of man to make a woman happy, don’t
you think, Charlie? Plenty of money—and—a fortunate disposition.”
Charles flushed. This seemed something of a pickle. “I’m
sorry,” he said. “I didn’t understand.”
Betty, having achieved that victory, sat back and opened a large
album, which she presently spread out across her knees, and his,
and leaned very close to him in order to point to the pictures of
principal interest.
After many oh’s and ah’s, Charles noticed a distinguished individual
and said: “There’s another man, I suppose, who could
make a woman happy.”
“Why, yes,” said Betty, “that’s Uncle Alfred. But he’s the
romantic type—like you. He hasn’t got a cent of money because
he spends it as fast as he gets it. I’m sure Aunt Susan must
have been very much in love with him before she married him.”
“Hm,” said Charles, “you seem to emphasize the economic side
of things to-night.”
Betty looked at him quietly. “I always make a point of it when
I’m with you,” she said; “but look here—that’s me when I was
six.”
Charles leaned as far over toward her as possible, in order to
get a clear view of the situation. She offered no objection.
Presently they were talking very seriously about his future.
Suddenly Charles said: “I say, Betty, are you engaged to—that—that
young gentleman?”
Betty eyed him. “Of course not,” she said. “Whatever put
that into your head?”
“Oh nothing, except that you have been continually praising
him all evening; and I thought perhaps you had some reason
for it.”
“Well, I have,” she said. “I think you ought to profit by his
example. He’s so industrious and calm and dignified. People
all talk about him. We’ve sort of made a model out of him.”
Saying which, she lighted a second cigarette and sat back to
look at Charles in a tantalizing way.
Meanwhile the chess players had been discussing very personal
matters between moves. Conrad had suggested to Mr. Harrow,
who knew his heart, that it was high time for a proposal of
marriage to the young lady in the adjoining room. “Especially,”
he said, “since she seemed to have her head turned by the attentions
of this young man Charles what-do-you-call-him.”
“Saunders,” said Mr. Harrow.
“Yes, Saunders. He hasn’t a cent in the world, has he?”
“No,” said Mr. Harrow, “but you mustn’t be alarmed at that.
If you had brought up a daughter, you wouldn’t be alarmed at
that. Your move.”
“Precisely,” said Conrad, moving his bishop into a position of
extreme peril, where it was promptly snatched up by the opponent’s
queen. “But I believe, sir—and surely you must agree
with me—that the better portion of a woman’s life is that which
is devoted to the care of the home; and that your daughter—”
“Your move again,” said Mr. Harrow, who was now commencing
the final drive of his attack.
“Certainly. That your daughter has seen enough of the world
to realize the futility of flirtation with—”
“Hold on—that move puts you in check. Besides, Christy, it’s
obvious that you ought to protect this rook here, if you want to
break my attack.”
“Certainly. But don’t you agree with me?”
“Eh-what? Yes. But I’ll tell you what, Christy. This modern
generation can’t be forced to do a damn thing. Haven’t I argued
with her? Haven’t I told her she’d end up in a scandal? ’Pon
my word, Christy, you’d better get a hustle on—check.”
Thus the party broke up, somewhat after ten o’clock, much to
the dissatisfaction of both lovers, and much to Betty’s enjoyment.
She was not surprised when Conrad called up the next day and
wished to have tea with her that afternoon—alone, if possible.
“Why, yes,” she said; “it would be delightful. But one can
never tell who will drop in.”
It was easy enough, however, to arrange matters so that no one
could drop in. This she did. She was knitting in the parlor when
Conrad arrived. He was resplendent in gray spats and shiny
shoes. She asked him to sit down beside her on the sofa, and
poured him a cup of tea. After this was finished, he began, quite
abruptly:
“Elizabeth, you must have noticed that even during your childhood
I have looked upon you, not with the eyes of an elderly
friend—which might, indeed, have been the case—but with those
of a lover. I have never been entirely happy out of your sight,
and never so supremely happy as when favored with a glance of
your eyes” (here he looked at her), “or a touch of your hand”
(here he took her hand, which she allowed him to retain). “I
have, of course, understood, my dear, that your youth and extreme
beauty entitled you to—ah—your little fling in—ah—society. I
have for this reason stood aside, and have offered not the slightest
objection, either to your—ah—modernism, or to your—ah—gayety.
But I feel now that you have reached the age of full
discretion. I regard you openly as a woman with whom I am in
love. And I ask you, humbly, to become my wife.”
If Betty was laughing she did not show it. “Oh, Christy!”
she exclaimed. “I—I hadn’t thought. I don’t know. It is such
a step.”
“Why, dearest? How would it change you so very much?”
“Change? That’s just it. I’m afraid it wouldn’t change me
at all. I would still love dances and parties and music and Harry
Fisher (here Mr. Conrad started) and Charles Saunders (here
he jumped perceptibly), and cabarets. These things you can’t give
me, dear. I should have to be such a dutiful wife.”
She looked at him in a manner which simply denied the words
she spoke. He thought to himself “This is feminine resistance,”
and sought to embrace her. But she pushed him away gently.
“No, dear. Think it over; you will understand then.”
They talked on for some time—Conrad very ill at ease, Betty
quite delighted with the situation. She felt no compassion for
him. He was such a stupid man not to realize these things. After
an hour or so he left, to think it over.
He had no sooner gone than Charles arrived, breathlessly, and
wanted to know if Betty could go on a party that night.
She laughed at his young enthusiasm. “What kind of a party?”
she asked.
“Oh, just you and I—down to Greenwich Village. We could
go to the Green Wagon and dance and have a little punch—I
know them down there.”
The temptation was almost overpowering. Ordinarily she might
have gone. “Why, Charlie,” she exclaimed, “how perfectly
absurd! How could I think of being seen in a place like that—alone—with
you?”
Charles grinned, in spite of his disappointment, and said that
she wasn’t likely to be “seen” by anybody she knew—“unless you
are in the habit of going there,” he added.
“Well, I’m not! And I don’t think you ought to have asked
me. I think it’s something of an insult.” Upon which she pouted
her lips just a trifle and fingered one of the books on the table.
To Charles this seemed the extreme of perversity. He gazed
at her for some time without knowing whether to become angry
or humble. To most young lovers, the situation would have
called for a certain amount of humility, inasmuch as the lady
seemed to consider herself deeply insulted. We venture the opinion
that the reader would have asked Betty’s pardon and offered his
services in some other and more refined amusement. In other
words, most of us with Charles’ meagre experience in matters of
love, would have taken a healthy bite to the hook. But Charles
was impetuous and possessed of a quick temper, which, while it
never lasted for any length of time, often asserted itself in precarious
situations. It had already ducked him into much hot water
and had been the cause of a broken engagement with a young
Boston girl, who, far from having Betty’s nice scruples, was too
much devoid of them in the eyes of her lover. Meanwhile, we
have left Charles and Betty standing there silent. And the former,
being keenly disappointed (for he had come there to offer her
nothing but the best intentions) suddenly looked up and said,
“Well, I’m sorry you see it that way.—So long.” Whereupon he
turned and left the house.
You may imagine Betty’s surprise, which soon turned into
anger, for it seemed that one of the actors in her little play was
growing recalcitrant. She was decidedly not the mistress of the
situation, since Charles had done this most unexpected thing. It
was really horrid of him to react in such a manner. She boiled
over considerably.
On the other hand, Conrad rose immensely in her estimation,
because he reacted precisely as she had intended. As if he had
received written instructions, he announced his arrival as usual
by telephone, had tea with her the following afternoon, and said
that “he had thought the situation over with extreme care, and
had come to the conclusion that, in spite of his more advanced
age, he was perfectly capable of supplying Betty with that life of
gayety, music, and dancing which she so loved: in proof of which
he desired her to accompany him to Greenwich Village that very
night.” Betty was so flattered at the success of her anticipations
that she acquiesced somewhat too enthusiastically, although she
had intended to go with him from the very beginning. By way
of making her acceptance a trifle more lady-like, she urged him
to pick some cabaret obscure enough so that they would not be
seen.
Now, in case the reader should accuse me of relying too much
upon Fate in the relation of this tale, I had better acquaint him
before hand with certain facts: namely, that Conrad, having made
his decision, found himself at a loss to know of an obscure and
poorly frequented establishment in Greenwich Village, which
should at the same time be fairly respectable; that he had an artist
friend named Peter, to whom he went for advice; and that Peter,
who owned an establishment himself which seemed to suit Conrad’s
needs, was an intimate friend of Charles Saunders.
Charles, whatever may be said of his good qualities as a lover,
was not the kind to deny himself pleasure on account of a perverse
mistress. In fact, her very perversity aroused in him such
a craving to forget her, such a desire to avoid what he considered
a sickly and unmanly pining, that he was driven to indulge in
those passions, which, without the proper settings, the world considers
un-Christian. Charles would merely have called them unbeautiful.
But it is a well-known fact that the loss of a very
delicate and tender beauty, which we have coveted, leads us to
madness, in a vain attempt to beautify anything which happens
to be at hand. Thus it happened that Charles had been drunk
twice since leaving Betty’s house (for that young lady had been too
proud to relent), and had spent his evenings at his friend Peter’s
establishment, called the Green Wagon, in company with Peter
himself and a couple of not-too-respectable girls.
It is not surprising, therefore, that Charles had no sooner seated
himself and ordered cocktails, than his gaze fell upon what appeared
to him the most beautiful back in the room. He gazed at
it steadily, doubting his own senses, which, however, insisted that
the color of the lady’s hair was a strange mixture of brown and
gold. He glanced at her partner, who was none other than the
dignified Conrad, and who was leaning far over the edge of the
table, tea-cup in hand, and talking with her earnestly. Charles
thought that he could even perceive the reflection of her beautiful
eyes in Conrad’s loathsome ones. Charles shuddered, and muttered
to himself, and drank his liquor violently, ordering more.
Meanwhile, Betty and Conrad were enjoying themselves hugely.
He had been very liberal, and she had taken rather more than she
would ordinarily have considered prudent. Perhaps it was the
fact that she was safe in the care of this old and reliable friend.
Perhaps, too, she wished to compensate for the good time which
she had denied herself with Charles.
“You know, my dear,” said Conrad, gazing at her intensely,
“I have never enjoyed any experience in my life quite so much
as this one. I must thank you for delivering me out of what was
proving to be a monotonous routine. I could be happy forever,
this way, with you.” Whereupon he took her hand, which she
had placed carelessly on the table, and which she allowed him to
hold. Indeed, she even gave his an affectionate squeeze, not
realizing perhaps that even old family friends can be fools. We
would, however, blush to set down on paper the thoughts which
were now in Conrad’s mind. We fear he had attempted to transfer
the cruel tactics of business into the affairs of love. For he saw
plainly that there was only one way of winning Betty for his wife,
and that he could never do so while she was in her more rational
environment at home. And although Conrad was not an unscrupulous
man, his present plan could be considered little less than
diabolical.
“You have been such a good girl to come out with me to-night,”
he said—“to give me this little pleasure which I have lacked all
my life.”
Betty met his eyes. She could not see or hear things very distinctly.
Yet she was conscious that he had said something kind.
She really liked him a great deal. She squeezed his hand again,
and asked him to light a cigarette for her.
“Dear Christy,” she said, “you have always been such a good
friend to me.”
Soon after this the music started. They rose to dance, and
Betty allowed his cheek to touch hers; for although she was not
in the habit of doing this with everybody, she chose to make an
exception to-night. She had her reasons to justify this. One
was that she wanted to show Conrad how things were done; the
other, she said, was that he was perfectly safe anyway. Whatever
motive lay beneath this we will leave the reader to judge.
At present she closed her eyes and felt rather happy and a trifle
drowsy. She was a little surprised, however, in the middle of
the dance, to feel him tighten his arm about her body and move
his lips closer to hers. This was so unlike the Conrad she knew—the
dignified Wall Street broker. She opened her eyes and
looked up at him, and smiled.
Her glance had no sooner left Conrad’s eyes than it fell upon
Charles, who was not far away, and who was watching her over
the head of his partner, with a look of dismay, and, as it seemed
to Betty, even disgust. Her first reaction was one of terror. What
a frightfully compromising meeting. Then she remembered how
she had refused Charles an invitation to this very establishment,
without any reason for so doing. Whereupon she hated herself
for the part which she was now playing. She next looked at
Charles’ partner, whose lips and cheeks were painted, and hated
Charles.
“Let’s sit down a moment,” she said to Conrad. “I’m tired.”
She changed seats with him, saying that she wanted to see the
dancers better. What was Charles doing down here, anyway,
with a disreputable woman like that? And after professing to
be in love with her! But he had never—yes, she knew he was in
love with her! Well, she did not love Charles, so it did not
matter; only she wished he had not seen her down here with
Conrad; and especially after her refusal to go with him!
Oh, it all went in such hopeless circles; and here was Conrad
trying to make her take another drink. “It will revive you, my
dear,” he said, “and brace you up.”
She looked at him. “Thank you; I’ve had enough.”
What was to be done?
The dance ended. Charles took his partner to their table. He
sat down, facing Betty. Suddenly Betty had an inspiration. She
quite unexpectedly exclaimed, “Oh!” and waved her hand toward
Charles, who, though surprised by this enthusiasm, responded
with a laugh. He presently arose and walked over to their table,
said hello to Conrad, and rallied Betty on the inconsistencies of
Fortune, “Which,” he said, “will never allow the most secret
conspiracies to pass unobserved by others.” Betty laughed and
promised to take the next dance with him, “If Christy didn’t
mind”; and Christy, scowling heavily, said he did not.
The next dance came, and Charles, realizing that Conrad’s eye
was upon them, retired with her to a corner, where they danced
in slow circles.
“Betty,” he exclaimed, “why did you come here with him—after
refusing, the other day?”
She laughed. “Why, Charles, dear, how foolish. Were you
offended at that? There’s quite a difference in your ages, you
know. He is a very old friend of mine. And he’s such a nice,
respectable man.”
“Hm. Well, to tell you quite frankly, I didn’t see anything very
respectable going on during the last dance.”
Betty flushed and bit her lip, and would have been angry had
not embarrassment overcome her.
Charles continued ruthlessly: “The woman I was with said,
‘There’s a happy party for you’, and I looked up—and saw—you.”
“Charles—” began Betty.
“Now wait a minute. Tell me one thing truthfully. Have you
ever been out like this with him before?”
“Why?”
“Because—well, because I don’t believe you ever have.”
“No, I haven’t. But I don’t see that that has anything to do
with it. I—”
“Just this. I don’t like his looks—that’s all. I judge men by
their eyes, and I don’t like his eyes. They seem especially bad
to me to-night. If you don’t believe me—”
“Well, I don’t believe you. And what I’d like to know is, what
are you doing down here with that—that creature. I should think
you would be ashamed to speak to me!”
It was her turn now to lash him, which she did, a trifle unjustly,
in the manner of a woman.
“I see,” he said, “that we can’t agree.” He began leading her
back to her table.
“You will perhaps think it over to-morrow morning. As for
that fellow there, I warn you, he’s drunk and not altogether
responsible for what he is doing.”
This ended the conversation, and they returned to the table
in silence. Although he did not show it, Charles was overcome
with grief. It seemed like such an unnecessary misunderstanding.
He adopted, in despair, a bravado mood, ordered some more liquor
quite loudly, and consciously acted as brazenly as possible. It was
unfair to him to do this. Betty sat and watched him, on the verge
of tears. She talked in an absent-minded way with Conrad, who
was so provoked that he suggested that they return home.
“No,” replied Betty, “I want to stay until the end.” As a
matter of fact, she could not tear herself away from Charles.
She could not keep her eyes from gazing at him, nor her heart
from wishing that he would stop. She hated Conrad now. He
seemed like a silent, grim barrier between herself and Charles.
She would not drink anything else, but sat there. She saw
Charles take the pudgy hand of the woman next to him. She
saw him give her a drink out of the white china cup. She saw
him put his arm around her and kiss her—passionately it seemed.
Oh horrible, horrible! This modernism!
She felt suddenly ashamed of herself, as though she had driven
Charles to do this. She wished she had not come down here.
But she could not leave.
Just before closing time, she saw Charles and his partner rise
and make preparation to go. The other two members of the
party remained seated. Charles never looked over in her direction,
but took the woman by the arm and escorted her out of the
room. They disappeared behind the green plush curtains.
The room seemed to whirl before her eyes. She arose to follow
them.
“Are you going?” asked Conrad, jumping up. This reminded
her that she had forgotten him.
“Christy,” she said, “I’m sorry. But, Christy, go and bring
Charles back here.”
“I certainly shall not,” he said. “What business have I with
Charles Saunders?”
“Please, Christy, I want to speak to him.”
“No, I shan’t do it.”
“Very well, I’ll go myself.”
He held her arm. “What do you want to speak to him about?”
It seemed to her almost like a snarl.
“Something personal. You shall go.” She eyed him, and he
obeyed.
She sat down and tapped a cup impatiently with her finger.
Presently a figure emerged from the green curtain. It was Conrad.
He crossed the now empty dance-floor at what seemed to her an
infinitely slow pace.
“He’s gone,” he said finally.
She knew then, suddenly, that he lied; that he had been lying
to her all evening; that Charles was right. She rose abruptly and
almost ran across the room, forgetting her dignity. Pushing aside
the curtains she saw Charles, with his hat and coat on, just going
out the door.
“Charlie,” she cried—“Charlie!”
He turned quickly and looked at her in a perplexed way. There
was not a trace of humility on his features, until he saw her distressed
condition, and realized that the three or four strangers
standing around were laughing at her. He was then overcome
with compassion and led her into a small hallway where they
could talk.
“Is anything the matter?” he asked.
“Just you,” she replied. “You probably think I have had too
much, but I am perfectly sober. Oh, Charlie, you—where were
you going?”
“I wasn’t going home,” he said, looking toward the ground.
“Charlie, you can’t take care of yourself. You don’t know
how.” She was much disturbed over the thought, although it
was a new one to him. He had just been thinking the same thing
about her.
She took hold of the lapels of his coat. “Charlie, don’t go back
with that awful woman?”
He looked at her defiantly. “Why not?” he asked. But the
expression of her eyes was so pitiful and so serious that his heart
relented.
“All right,” he said, “provided that you won’t let Conrad take
you home.”
Betty smiled then. There was humor in the situation.
“It’s all my fault,” she said.
“What’s all your fault?”
“Oh, I’ll tell you about it—soon—soon.”
“Tell me about it on the way home.”
“But Christy?”
“Oh, Christy be damned!” he said. “Here’s a back way out.
You can get your hat and coat to-morrow.”
He led her down a long corridor and out into the street; where
he took off his overcoat and gave it to her. They walked around
the block and climbed into the car which Charles had borrowed
for the evening, from the friend who “notwithstanding his vows
of secrecy, was only human”.
Thus, when they started down the deserted street, it was after
one o’clock. Christopher Conrad remained behind in the Green
Wagon for nearly an hour, where he ordered a search to be made,
at large expense, and strode imperiously up and down the room.
At two o’clock he called up Mr. Harrow.
RUSSELL W. DAVENPORT.
The Soul of a Button
Long ago, when I had just reached the age of walking and
talking, a young lady friend of my own age was called by
the curious name of “Buttons”. Possibly the additional touch
that her father was the author of this, that he also called her
“Butterball”, and that she was plump as all properly healthy young
ladies of that age should be, will seem proper explanation for
such a christening. But mere physical attributes can scarcely be
hoped to give complete satisfaction, for the subject is one so much
of the spirit that we might almost call it intangible. Little did I
know in those younger years why my lady was called “Buttons”;
little, likewise, did I care; for the name seemed quite suited to
her. “Buttons” and the more formal, less Christian title which
a minister had pronounced over her fitted this childish personality
equally well. Indeed, how remarkable an artistic sense the girl’s
father must have been blessed with, in order to bestow on his
daughter such a charming sobriquet! How he could have thought
of the romance in the conception buttons embodied so delightfully
in his child I could never tell. A happy creative gift he must have
had indeed, since meditation on this whim has inspired in no small
measure the following remarks.
During the period when I thus heard the word buttons for the
first time, my mother habitually dressed me in a white suit, white
stockings and shoes. However much ridicule the white shoes
themselves may have occasioned as I and my fellows more nearly
approached the state of manhood, the buttons on the white shoes
made amends. Occasionally, when my nurse was with a large
button-hook “squeezing tight” a powdery shoe, one of these pearly
buttons would pop off. She was in such a case forced to search
out another one, for I at once engaged the attentions of the stray
sheep. Have you ever imagined a pearly thing more beautiful,
and therefore more precious, than a pearl? Perhaps on account
of a semi-opacity and semi-transparency and yet a transcendency
of translucency—or perhaps it was the slippery smugness of these
little objects that attracted me. At any rate, I was brought to
wonder why father did not have one mounted to wear instead of
his pearl scarf-pin. Possibly it would be too expensive, I thought.
For long—I dare not say how long—they became of an afternoon
the center of my observation. I would watch rather than look at
their round surface backed up by a little metal ring. They seemed
to live. But in the midst of such reveries one of the little things
would slip from my fingers and, rolling along the edge of the
carpet, disappear, for all I knew, in the way most fairies did.
Buttons were kept in a button-house—that is, the buttons which
were not in contemporary use. The button-house on the outside
was brown and oblong and said “Huyler’s Chocolates, New York”
in black script on the top. But, though this might have at first
furnished an allurement to the house, the shining interior sides
and a sea of buttons—white, black, grey, yellow, blue, and green—surging
over the bottom, invited continual revisitations which in
the end caused a far firmer friendship, or love, to be formed
between me and this object than any mere acquaintance could
have brought about. As a violinist flees in dark moments to
expression through his violin, a painter through his pictures, and
a writer through his pen, so might you have seen a child poring
over his little button-house, poking in a finger once in a while to
stir the occupants to life, entirely absorbed. But had you peered
in, you would not have seen what he saw in the little tin box. And
I doubt if anyone ever will know what he saw. For I have
forgotten.
With the discarding of childish thoughts and childish ways, one
acquires boyish successors to these respective qualities. And so,
after learning to dress myself, I came to the struggle of buttoning
up clothes. My underwear gave me the most trouble. For who
can hope, except by dint of great practicing, to engineer in a
controlled manner a whole row of buttons up one’s back when, in
the hurry of getting up, a trying task is presented even by the
side ones. Although the appearance of these buttons fell short of
attaining a standard of beauty worthy of present description, the
sight of one (say a side one) at last becoming visible through an
obstinate buttonhole inspired me with no less joy than that felt
by children at a puppet show when they see Humpty Dumpty
suddenly burst forth from a covered box.
Aye! The struggle with these buttons gave them their meaning.
Perhaps we may rather call them villains than heroes. Or perhaps
big, plain-faced dubs with vacant eyes, hard to shove out of
the way because of their very clumsiness. Yet in a temper one
way remained—the sinful, easy road to Hell—the last resort—tearing
them off.
A young man does not need to wait till his brass wedding anniversary
(if there be such a one) for his first dealing with that
deceptive, goldlike metal. He owns it first on his blue coat. Supposing
the whole coat not to be brass, we will by elimination and
hypothesis proceed to the buttons. A correct supposition—and
more, for the brass is embossed with an anchor and chain, together
with a crest or other insignia of the kind. These have the virtue
(a) of shininess, and (b) of being like a policeman’s—or a trolley
car conductor’s, bellboy’s, naval officer’s, etc.,—all of whom,
finally, are pretty much policemen. Elders may presume such a
coat—or such buttons—to be unhealthy since they tend to make
the wearer stick out his stomach, to show them off. But critics
must as well realize that this attitude increases the morale, and
while mortifying the flesh, tends to exalt the spirit. Possibly the
spirit in this case is not of the purely heavenly quality that some
would-be angels might desire,—yet it is higher and more serene
than the majority of sensualists would admit.
When Chris, the coachman (pardon me, the chauffeur) stalks
into the kitchen of a wintry evening, mayhap to see Marie,—how
could a person of the brass-button age be expected to conceive of
the use of those great orbs stationed at intervals along the front
of Chris’s great, fuzzy coat. They are mammoth. Their very
size confounds one, especially since, in common with many great
objects, preciousness of detail or surface and delicacy of effect
have declined their rightful position in favor of a world of the
gigantesque, to be widely wondered at. Even thus Chris’s buttons.
But wonderful to say, they are useful. For after Marie had helped
him off with his greatcoat, I tried to lift it slightly from the back
of the chair in the corner. My wonder henceforth was not that
the buttons were so big, but that such a great mountain of heavy
stuff as this could be held together by anything at all!
How broadly the influence of the button world is felt you have
had as yet, dear reader, but little indication. In matters great as
the height and age of a child and in the relations which, physically,
at any rate, he may bear to his father, buttons are most subtle
indicators. Thus when one morning my parents asked me to stand
up beside my father to see how tall I was, we found among us
that my topmost crest of hair reached the second button of his
waistcoat. Feet and inches were no longer needed in the mathematical
scale:—their place was superseded by buttons and buttonholes.
“How tall are you, my boy?” I might be asked. With
romantic evasion of the point and still with a certain exactitude
I answered, “Well, I come up as far as the second button on
father’s vest.”
Some day I hope to write An Historie on the Romance of
Buttonholes. Buttonholes, however, are such unbodied beings
and taken on the whole without their buttons, are such lonely
objects that I fear lest the ambitious author should, in entertaining
a morbid affinity for the Universal Desolate, fall a prey to his
own affections and die of an heavenly grief. Have you never
felt the pitiful sentiments put forward at the mere suggestion of
the lost buttonhole? The classic illustration of this type is, of
course, the one on the lapel of a coat. Perhaps the scholar will
here accuse me of having incorrectly used the word buttonhole
for a little slit fashioned to receive no button. In reality this is
a buttonhole of many buttons. At the age when one is just too
old to be spanked the aperture first becomes fully a buttonhole—it
accommodates a youth with provision for his innumerable
colored, enamelled buttons emblazoned with advertisements of
charity drives, political campaigns, circus days, wholesale houses,
and the like. The only visible regret on these occasions is that
there is but one of its kind. In necessity invention presses even
normal ones into service. Later on, this receptacle receives buttonhole
bouquets from frail lady-fingers—fragrant forget-me-nots,
spring flowers, or dainty garden nosegays. And in empty declining
years it may clasp only an infrequent bachelor’s button
or an onion blossom.
About two years after the father-vest-second-button age, which
would land me in the father-vest-third-and-a-half-button stage, I
fell to wondering about buttons in a scientific way. Buttons were
awkward. The world, I knew, had been going on for hundreds
of centuries and men had discovered no more graceful fashion
of fastening their clothes together than by these round discs,
dangling ridiculously from clothes and yet anchored there with
an amount of pains out of all proportion to the achievement.
Furthermore the cloth was sloppy. The combination sufficed, you
may judge, to drive any young neurotic into a very unenviable
state. I fell to inventing. Pins would not do (this was an instinct).
Hooks and eyes were worse still (I had experienced all
too intense agony at the canniness of “doing up” mother’s dress).
Sewing in for the winter was obviously unchristian. In a desperate,
fevered condition of mind clothes pins, railroad spikes,
patent clasps, a series of bands like a Michelin man’s, box fasteners,
padlocks, rings, thongs, strings, and lobster claws whirled
by as a giddy panorama of substitutes, leaving me at last faint and
content necessarily with the extant order of things, yet peaked
at the impotency of my inventive genius. After carefully revolving
the matter in my mind, picturing many modes of clothes
and corresponding sorts of buttons, I finally concluded that this
whole section of the world—buttons—instead of falling under the
rule of science, was an art.
In this manner I became artistic—such mammoth results do
transpire from buttons. Whether this be the cause, or whether
the grey years are dulling with their sepulchral dust the gloss of
my golden hair, I know not. But I am now largely unconscious
of buttons. They are only miserable little nuisances flying off
and rolling across the floor at the most inconvenient moments.
They are intensely realistic. How in truth could anyone, save a
fool, suck romance from their marrow? Fie upon you!—collar
buttons—but tread softly,—we will not embark there. One exception
only to this indifference do I know—the comfort of sitting
in an easy-chair and unbuttoning a tight vest. This sensation is
the most agreeable immediately after a large meal—say, an over-large
meal. And however gross the indulgence, it causes buttons
again to swim into my ken—this time on the side of mine enemies;—and
as great ones indeed do they loom over me when I, by
yielding to the order of unbuttoned vests, am constrained to
think—
“... now ’tis little joy
To know I’m farther off from heaven
Than when I was a boy.”
L. HYDE.
Book Reviews — The Story of Mankind. By Hendrick Van Loon . (Boni & Liveright.) — Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard. By Eleanor Farjeon . (Frederick A. Stokes Company.) — Finders. By J. V. A. Weaver . (Alfred Knopf.) — Dramatic Legends and Other Poems. By Padraic Colum . (Macmillan.) — The Interpreters. By A. E. (Macmillan & Co.) — The Eighteen Nineties. A Review of Art and Ideas at the Close of the Nineteenth Century. By Holbrook Jackson . (Published by Alfred A. Knopf, 1922. $5.00.)
“The Story of Mankind” by Hendrick Van Loon is an original
and valuable contribution to education. Those who have
read little or no history will find here a well-drawn picture of the
life of the world and its people from the earliest times we know
of. And those who have read much of these things will find the
book an acute survey of the whole—a survey which sets off
individual races and periods and changes in definite perspective.
Mr. Van Loon’s viewpoint of history and its presentation varies
very radically from that of the average historian. History to
him is no long list of wars and kings and papal edicts; it is
primarily dramatic. Here before you are the greatest plots,
intrigues, heroes, heroines, villains that you could ever imagine—now
playing a comedy, now a tragedy, now a farce. No wonder
you are startled to find your attention so completely held by “an
old history book”.
But beneath this we find a more fundamental viewpoint. In
the author’s own words you are to “try to discover the hidden
motives behind every action and then you will understand the
world around you much better and you will have a greater chance
to help others, which (when all is said and done) is the only true
satisfactory way of living”. Here we have Mr. Van Loon’s ideal
as an historian; and the spirit which runs through the book proves
how well he lived up to it.
As I turn back over the pages the treatment of three or four
subjects is particularly significant. Another of the author’s precepts—“it
is more important to ‘feel history’ than to know it”—perhaps
explains why the chapters on the religions of the world
are so impressive. That on Joshua of Nazareth, when the Greeks
called Jesus, is indeed a unique presentation of the story of Christ.
And for the first time in my life I feel that Mohammed and
Buddha and Confucius have ceased to be names—have become
very wise men who actually lived and whose words one may well
listen to. Napoleon is criticized very severely, but with unprejudiced
insight into his character. The last chapters—those on the
Great War and the New World—sum up all that has gone before.
Mr. Van Loon turns from his backward glance into the ages and
looks with all his optimistic philosophy to the greater drama that
is still to be enacted. In all you feel the man’s sympathetic touch;
he believes in mankind—in its past and in its future.
W. E. H., JR.
In these enlightened days when the past is a memory only and
life but the illusion of our daily experience, it is rather startling
to have a “grown-up person” talk to us of fairies, and magic
spells, and the beauty of an apple orchard. Such things are all
very well in the nursery, but really, now that we have grown wise
enough to put away childish things—. So let this be a warning
to all who by chance might read the first page of “Martin Pippin”,
for he who once exposes himself to the magic spell of this fairy
tale may well find himself an object for mockery by his scornful
companions. At least, here is one man’s experience, and he speaks
for many others. Mr. J. D. Beresford, who read the manuscript,
writes in the introduction: “Before I had read five pages ... I
had forgotten who I was or where I lived. I was transported
into a world of sunlight, of gay inconsequence, of emotional
surprise, a world of poetry, delight, and humor. And I lived and
took my joy in that rare world until all too soon my reading was
done.” A better expression could not be found for the fancy,
the whimsy, the delicate beauty of this fairy tale. Its spirit
touches in us a chord that is rarely awakened in our modern
environment or in the literature of to-day.
To clothe her richness of imagination, Miss Farjeon possesses
a richness of language most worthy of so high a service. Quite
unconsciously you run across striking metaphors, most subtle
bits of philosophy. You may look far before discovering quite
as beautiful a combination of language and imagination as this:
“‘I am not so old, young shepherd, that I do not remember
the curse of youth.’
“‘What’s that?’ he said moodily.
“‘To bear the soul of a master in the body of a slave,’
she said; ‘to be a flower in a sealed bud, the moon in a
cloud, water locked in ice, Spring in the womb of the year,
love that does not know itself.’”
There will be few who will not find delight in this fairy tale;
and there shall be some, even, who will see beyond their illusions
for a day and an hour and follow Martin Pippin where his fancy
may lead.
W. E. H., JR.
These two volumes are similar in intention and to a certain
extent in method. Padraic Colum is attempting to communicate
some of the nuances of Irish character and life, more
especially as it is lived in the farms and villages of the countryside.
Mr. Weaver, substituting the subway for the lonely roads, is performing
the same service for America. Both poets use the language
of the people with whom they are dealing, either because
they believe it beautiful in itself or because it adds to their effect.
The sole but enormous difference between the two men is in the
measure of their success. Mr. Weaver, in choosing the American
language, was admittedly under great disadvantage at the start.
He was forced to assume a defensive attitude and as a result lost
sight of most of the important things which constitute poetry. He
seemed to think that the fact he was writing in a new language
was sufficient, that he need use no fine discretion in the choice of
his words in that language, or the manner in which those words
were arranged. We imagine he is trying to write in metrical
verse, although few of the lines have meter. In short, the novelty
of his medium was too much for Mr. Weaver. He was so overcome
by the thought of writing in American slang that he forgot
the essential elements of poetry. Moreover, if Mr. Weaver fails
in his language, there is little other interest to be found in the
book. His themes are as sentimental and inconsequential as ever.
But Padraic Colum is primarily a poet and only incidentally
the exponent of a new form of expression. He does not take the
speech of his people as spoken in the dull hours, but only when it
is lifted to eloquence by the vision and poignancy of rare moments.
He is a master of the words in his language, their sounds, their
colors, their subtle shadings. Furthermore, the things he writes
about, however local they might at first appear, have always something
permanent and universal in them—death, poverty, thwarted
heroes and remembered queens. Perhaps the first lyric, To a
Poet, is the most significant in the book, both in its relation to the
author and in its expression of the ancient problem of the artist
and his race. He is speaking of his own people:
“White swords they have yet, but red songs;
Place and lot they have lost—hear you not?
For a dream you once dreamed and forgot!”
Despite the many fine things in the present volume it is greatly
inferior to the earlier Wild Earth. Every lyric in that collection
was cast in the same mood and attained the same high degree of
perfection. Dramatic Legends would almost make us believe
that Mr. Colum has abandoned the particular type of poetry which
he can write so much better than anyone else in the language.
W. T.
“The Interpreters” is a product of the present-day groping
for an explanation of man’s purpose on earth as conceived
by the Creator and the instrument of government—or non-government—best
adapted to fulfill this purpose; as A. E. has put it,
“the relation of the politics of time to the politics of eternity”.
Like the rest of the world A. E. is not able to completely pierce
the mist which conceals our conception of things eternal, so that
this book is rather a seeking along a path illumined by the white
light of a superbly analytical reasoning, and the path seems to
lead somewhere.
It is A. E.’s belief that there is a spiritual law operating above
all intellectual and physical laws in such a way that our affairs
are linked with the vast purpose that the Creator has for His
universe. This is not, however, a doctrine of fatalism, for A. E.
believes we have control of our own destinies in proportion as we
work in harmony with the Eternal—“I think it might be truer to
say of men that they are God-animated rather than God-guided”.
In this sentence he has precluded the possibility of interpreting
his doctrine as a disguised fatalism.
A. E. is moving in an extremely rarified atmosphere in his
discussion. To keep the book somewhere near the ground, he
provides a simple mechanism. During a revolution against an
autocratic world state two centuries hence a number of revolutionary
leaders are brought together in a prison, where they devote
the night before their death to a discussion of their ideals for the
union of world politics with the spiritual Will. Each one takes a
different stand as to the methods to be employed, one supporting
socialism, another nationalism, a third individualism, and it is in
the arguments over governmental forms that some of the finest
logic comes out. The following quotation is an example, taken
from Leroy’s statement for individualism: “You and I see different
eternities.... It is our virtue to be infinitely varied.
The worst tyranny is uniformity.”...
It is possible to call A. E. a visionary. Doubtless, “The Interpreters”
was written under the press of an immense surge of
inspiration, for there is much of poetical fervor in its pages. But
it is for this very reason that it can hold us with the spell of its
sincerity and the intensity of its philosophy. The world of the
world has been inspired by visionaries, and there is a place for a
vision to-day.
S. M. C.
This fine volume, whose thrillingly beautiful format is alone
enough to recommend it to any collector of unique books, is
a reprint, with a few addenda, of a work of the same name issued
in 1913. It is to be doubted whether the former copy could have
been as effective as the present one which, with its clear, round
type, and profuse illustrations, and magenta and purple covers,
make up a volume that no true book-lover can afford not to own.
Mr. Jackson, intimately connected with British periodicals of
note since 1897, the author himself of such noteworthy pieces as
“The Eternal Now” and “Romance and Reality”, is admirably
qualified to write on “The Eighteen Nineties”, a creative period
in English literature, which for the quality as well as the quantity
of its output, is second only to the Elizabethan era. He knew
intimately the men about whom he writes, and whose work he
appraises. In the admirable introduction he sets forth his aim as
“interpretative rather than critical ... to interpret the various
movements of the period not only in relation to one another, but
in relation to their foreign influences and the main trend of our
national art and life.” The following passage exemplifies as well
as any the illuminating quality of mind that makes all Mr. Jackson’s
comments valuable: “Anybody who studies the moods and
thoughts of the Eighteen Nineties cannot fail to observe their
central characteristic is a widespread concern for the correct—that
is the most righteous, the most effective, the most powerful
mode of living. For myself, however, the awakening of the
nineties does not appear to be the realization of a purpose, but the
realization of a possibility.”
The book deals in twenty-one chapters with every important
phase of art and life that came into the crowded hour of the last
decade of the last century. To the present reviewer, at least, the
most substantial and most unusual interpretations are those in
the cases of Francis Thomson, Rudyard Kipling, and George
Bernard Shaw. “Consciously or unconsciously,” the author says,
“men were experimenting with life, and it would seem also as if
life were experimenting with men. It was a revolution precipitated
by the Time Spirit. Francis Thomson represented the revolt
against the world. He did not, as so many had done, defy the
world; he denied it, and by placing his condition beneath contempt,
he conquered it.” Of Shaw he says, “he strove to add to
the heritage of the race a keener sense of reality.... To look
at life until you see it clearly is Bernard Shaw’s announced aim....
His sense of reality does not take reason for its basis. The
basis of the new realism is the will.”
The predominating trends of the decade are summed up under
the discussion called “Fin de Siecle” under the three headings,
“The So-called Decadence; the introduction of a Sense of Fact
into life literature and art; and the development of a Transcendental
View of Social Life”.
Each chapter, with its astounding collection of facts, never
pedantically, often brilliantly, and always intelligently presented,
are brightened by comment that is often epigrammatical: “Wilde
was the playboy of the Nineties.” “Aubrey Beardsley’s art would
have been untrue had it been imitable or universal.” “The decade
began with a dash for life and ended with a retreat—but not a
defeat.” Speaking of Shaw’s wit, the author says, “It was the
sharp edge of the sword of purpose.... Although the majority
of those who go to his plays go to laugh and remain to laugh
(often beyond reason), many remain to laugh and pray.” It is
a sane book, carefully written, and clamors to be read—and read
again.
F. D. T.
