Laugh and Live Part 8

CHAPTER XIX

LAUGH AND LIVE

Again I find it expedient to resort to the personal p.r.o.noun and therefore this final chapter is to be devoted to "_you_ and _me_." There are facts you may want to know _for sure_ and one of them is whether or not I live up to my own prescription.

I do--_and it's easy_!

I have kept myself happy and well through keeping my physical department in first cla.s.s order. If that had been left to take care of itself I would surely have fallen by the wayside in other departments. Once we sit down in security the world seems to _hand us things we do not need_.

Fresh air is my intoxicant--and it keeps me in high spirits. My system doesn't crave artificial stimulation because _my daily exercise_ quickens the blood sufficiently. Then, too, I manage to _keep busy_.

That's the real elixir--_activity_! Not always physical activity, either, for I must read good books in order to exercise my mind in other channels than just my daily routine--and add to my store of knowledge as well.

Then there is my _inner-self_ which must have attention now and then.

For this a little solitude is helpful. We have only to sense the phenomena surrounding us to know that we must have a _working faith_--something _practical_ to live by, which automatically keeps us on our course. The mystery of life somehow loses its density _if we retain our spark of hope_.

All of my life since childhood I have held Shakespeare in constant companions.h.i.+p. Aside from the Bible--which is entirely apart from all other books--Shakespeare has no equal. My father, partly from his love for the great poet, and partly for the purpose of aiding me to memorize accurately, taught me to recite Shakespeare before I was old enough to know the meaning of the words. I remembered them, however, and in later years I grew to know their full significance. Then I became an ardent follower of the Master Philosopher, than whom no greater interpreter of human emotions ever lived. In the matter of sage advice there has never been his equal. In "_Hamlet_" we find the wonderful words of admonition from _Polonius_ in his farewell speech to his son _Laertes_--as good today as four hundred years ago, and they will continue to be so until the end of time.

It matters not how familiar we may be with these lines it is no waste of time to read them over again once in awhile. They seem to fit the _practical side of life_ perfectly. If we have any complaint by reason of their brusqueness we have only to temper our interpretation according to our own sense of justice. In other words if we wanted to loan a "ten-spot" now and then we would just go ahead and do it--meanwhile, to save you the trouble of looking up these lines, here they are in "Laugh and Live"--

And these few precepts in thy memory See thou character--Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportioned thought his act.

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.

The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel; But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware Of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in, Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice: Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy: For the apparel oft proclaims the man; And they in France of the best rank and station Are of a most select and generous sheaf in that.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry, This above all--_to thine ownself be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Wedlock in Time"--The Fairbanks' Family]

The time has come to close this little book. It has been a great pleasure to write it and a greater pleasure to hope that it will be received in the same spirit it has been written. These are busy days for all of us. We go in a gallop most of the time, but there comes the quiet hour when we must sit still and "take stock." I know this from the letters that come to me asking my opinion on all sorts of subjects.

People believe I am happy because my laughing pictures seem to denote this fact--_and it is a fact_! In the foregoing chapters I have told why. If, in the telling I shall have been instrumental in adding to _the world's store of happiness_ I shall ever thank my "lucky stars."

Very Sincerely

Douglas Fairbanks

A "CLOSE-UP" OF DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS

by George Creel

Reprinted from Everybody's Magazine by Permission of The Ridgway Company, New York.

CHAPTER XX

A "CLOSE-UP" OF DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS

Young Mr. Douglas Fairbanks, star alike in both the "speakies" and the "movies," is well worth a story. He is what every American might be, ought to be, and frequently is _not_. More than any other that comes to mind, he is possessed of the indomitable optimism that gives purpose, "punch," and color to any life, no matter what the odds.

He holds the world's record for the standing broad grin. There isn't a minute of the day that fails to find him glad that he's alive. n.o.body ever saw him with a "grouch," or suffering from an attack of the "blues." n.o.body ever heard him mention "hard luck" in connection with one of his failures. The worse the breaks of the game, the gloomier the outlook, the wider his grin. He has made cheerfulness a habit, and it has paid him in courage, in bubbling energy, and buoyant resolve.

We are a young nation and a great nation. Judging from the promise of the morning, there is nothing that may not be asked of America's noon. A land of abundance, with not an evil that may not be banished, and yet there is more whining in it than in any other country on the face of the globe. If we are to die, "Nibbled to Death by Ducks" may well be put on the tombstone. Little things are permitted to bring about paroxysms of peevishness. Even our pleasures have come to be taken sadly. We are irritable at picnics, snarly at clambakes, and bored to death at dinners.

The Government ought to hire Douglas Fairbanks, and send him over the country as an agent of the Bureau of Grins. Have him start work in Boston, and then rush him by special train to Philadelphia. If the wealth of the United States increased $41,000,000,000 during the last three peevish, whining years, think what would happen if we learned the art of joyousness and gained the strength that comes from good humor and optimism!

"Doug" Fairbanks--now that he is in the "movies" we don't have to be formal--is the living, breathing proof of the value of a grin. His rise from obscurity to fame, from poverty to wealth, has no larger foundation than his ever-ready willingness to let the whole world see every tooth in his head.

Good looks? Artistry? Bos.h.!.+ The Fairbanks features were evidently picked out by a utilitarian mother who preferred use to ornament; and as for his acting, critics of the drama, imbued with the traditions of Booth and Barrett, have been known to sob like children after witnessing a Fairbanks performance.

It is the joyousness of the man that gets him over. It's the 100 per cent interest that he takes in everything he goes at that lies at the back of his success. He does nothing by halves, is never indifferent, never lackadaisical.

At various stages in his brief career he has been a Shakespearean actor, Wall Street clerk, hay steward on a cattle-boat, vagabond, and business man, knowing poverty, hunger, and discomfort at times, but never, _never_ losing the grin. Things began to move for him when he left a Denver high school back in 1900 for the purpose of entering college. As he says, "A man can't be too careful about college."

He started for Princeton, but met a youth on the train who was going to Harvard. He took a special course at Cambridge--just what it was he can't remember--but at the end of the year it was hinted to him that circus life was more suited to his talents, particularly one with three rings.

A friend, however, suggested the theatre, and gave him a card to Frederick Warde, the tragedian. Mr. Warde fell for the Fairbanks grin, and as a first part a.s.signed him the role of _Francois_, the lackey, in "Richelieu." What he lacked in experience he made up for in activity and unflagging merriment. It got to be so that Warde was almost afraid to touch the bell, for he never knew whether the amazing _Francois_ would enter through the door or come down from the ceiling.

After the company had done its worst to "Richelieu," it changed to Shakespearean repertoire, and for one year young Fairbanks engaged in what Mr. Warde was pleased to term a "catch-as-catch-can bout with the immortal Bard." When friends of Shakespeare finally protested in the name of humanity, the strenuous Douglas accepted an engagement with Herbert Kelcey and Effie Shannon in "Her Lord and Master."

Five months went by before the two stars broke under the strain, and by that time news had come to Mr. Fairbanks that Wall Street was Easy Money's other name. Armed with his grin, he marched into the office of De Coppet & Doremus, and when the manager came out of his trance Shakespeare's worst enemy was holding down the job of order man.

"The name Coppet appealed to me," he explains.

He is still remembered in that office, fondly but fearfully. He did his work well enough; in fact, there are those who insist that he invented scientific management.

"How about that?" I asked him, for it puzzled me.

"Well, you see, it was this way: For five days in a week I would say, 'Quite so' to my a.s.sistant, no matter what he suggested. On Sat.u.r.day I would dash into the manager's office, wag my head, knit my brow, and exclaim, 'What we need around here is _efficiency_.' And once I urged the purchase of a time-clock."

The way he filled his spare time was what bothered. What with his tumbling tricks, boxing, wrestling, leap-frog over chairs, and other small gaieties, he mussed up routine to a certain extent. But he was _not_ discharged. At a point where the firm was just one jump ahead of nervous prostration, along came "Jack" Beardsley and "Little" Owen, two husky football players with a desire to see life without the safety clutch.

The three approached the officials of a cattle-steams.h.i.+p, and by persistent claims to the effect that they "had a way" with dumb animals, got jobs as hay stewards.

"We found the cows very nice," comments Mr. Fairbanks. "No one can get me to say a word against them. But those stokers! And those other stable-maids! Pow! We had to fight 'em from one end of the voyage to the other, and it got so that I bit myself in my sleep. The three of us got eight s.h.i.+llings apiece when we landed at Liverpool, and tickets back, but there were several little things about Europe that bothered us, and we thought we'd see what the trouble was."

They "hoboed" it through England, France, and Belgium, working at any old job until they gathered money enough to move along, whether it was carrying water to English navvies or unloading paving-blocks from a Seine boat. After three joyous months, they felt the call of the cattle, and came home on another steamer.

Back on his native heath, young Fairbanks took a shot from the hip at law, but missed. Then he got a job in a machine-manufacturing plant, but one day he found that his carelessness had permitted fifty dollars to acc.u.mulate, and he breezed down to Cuba and Yucatan to see what openings there were for capital. Back from that tramping trip, he figured that since he had not annoyed the stage for some time it certainly owed him something.

His return to the drama took place in "The Rose of Plymouth Town," a play in which Miss Minnie Dupree was the star. Meeting Miss Dupree, I asked her what sort of an actor Fairbanks was in those days.

"Well," she said judiciously, "I think that he was about the nicest case of St. Vitus' dance that ever came under my notice."