Revisiting the Earth Part 8

Distinguished natural historians have given us a fine cla.s.sification of the animal kingdom. But to put men in rows, and to put days into the orders shown in the calendars does not make them tally with what we know of them by observation and experience. Even a plant is a distinct individual. No other one is just like it. Yet it reveals its type.

Species cannot be confounded, a briar will clasp a solid trunk of a tree and weave its tendrils and leaves through the branches of the pine to its top, but the briar was briar in every thorn and leaf and the pine was itself in all its green needles of which Nature makes her sweetest wind harp in the world. We are alike in the general features and attributes of body and soul. We are under similar laws, have similar wants, have a similar origin, common sympathies, and a common destiny, yet no two of us are alike. Nature never repeats itself. It has been shown that there is little difference in man's bodily stature. A fathom, or thereabouts, a little more or a little less is the ordinary elevation of the human family. Should a man add a cubit to his stature, he is followed along the streets as a prodigy; should he fall very far short of it, people pay money for a sight of him as a great curiosity. But were there any exact measurements of mental statures, we should be struck by an amazing diversity. It is obvious also that on certain days we are more alive and capable than on others, yet we are the same persons with the same education, with the same capabilities, and antecedents. On occasion, from causes of which at the time we were somewhat unconscious, our ideas and resolves were awaked and become effective. Some new energies, we did not know we had, were unlocked and came into play, and life was transfigured, on that spot, and that is the locality we long to revisit.

"_I am a Part of All that I have Seen_"

The place where any event in our history has occurred becomes a memorial of the feelings which that event excited in us. When one comes back to those places, it is as when one reads old letters or meets old friends.

Byron affirms that after the most careful recollection of his experience, he could recall only eleven days of happiness, which he could wish to live over again. Memory hits the high places. Only relatively do the others come up into recognition. Mr. James Russell Lowell, standing upon the Alps, turned toward Italy, and raising his hat, exclaimed, "Glories of the past, I salute you." We express a like salutation. Grave ideas, movements, and reforms have their birthplace and their cradle, and we cannot fail to be interested in them. Long afterward, tender recollections come back to us like the murmurs of a distant hymn, and it is a great pleasure to listen to such voices.

One day we have full view of the delectable mountains, on another day we are mired in the slough of despond. There is a joyful holiday for the human intellect, which it will not soon forget, when the light blazes on us, and then come days of drudgery,--who cannot respond to this!--when our powers are shut up and will not come forth. Some of our best days seem reserved for celestial visitants. In others we "grunt and sweat under a weary life." There are many toilsome days of monotonous travel that we would gladly exchange for the single spectacle of Vesuvius in the plenitude of its eruptive power.

Those ideal days, in which we visited Mt. Was.h.i.+ngton, the loftiest object in our Atlantic country, made more grand with our greatest name, or in which we saw Niagara, the most remarkable waterfall in the world's scenery, or in which we heard the Messiah, or Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, perhaps the grandest piece of music ever composed by man, would stand in a succession of days and yet stand apart from them in our memory. So in the pulpit. Robert Hall was for fifty years the Prince of Preachers. His first three efforts had been failures. One day distinguished him. He did not know that the Princess Charlotte was dead till he entered his church and the sermon he preached then was the richest and most eloquent of all the hundreds delivered in the realm.

_There's a Reason_

Dole out to a person six minutes and tell him to take them and go back and use them simply for what they would be worth, at different times, in his career and he could probably revolutionize his whole life. Many men could thus easily have made themselves rich, others could have made themselves happy. Sleeping crimes, that awake at unexpected times and produce an awkward situation, could have been omitted. Many a man has become little in a trice. The rudder of principle was caught by a swift current from his grasp, and he became s.h.i.+p-wrecked when near a safe port, where sails might have been furled in peace, and golden opinions won. All things would be a matter of only six minutes. The issue of a single day may change all the schemes of the most ambitious. A family of aristocrats may be prominent in government for seven centuries and in a specified day an armistice is signed wherein their kind of a world comes to its end. We are cleansed as by fire. We undergo a regeneration. We find a new world. Former things are past away. The slate is wiped clean.

A leaf is turned. The pen is dipped for the rewriting of history. We have new lines of thought; we have a new map of Europe. To put that country back into its former dismal environment would be like attempting to force an eagle back into its long discarded sh.e.l.l. Men have dreamed of a brighter day approaching and lo, the dream comes true. Events were once showing a new trend when Dr. Charles Hodge and Dr. Musgrave were walking out together--both old men--when Dr. Musgrave said: "Charley, this train is moving, and if you are going to get aboard you had better hurry." A new spirit has now gone abroad which no walls can bound or circ.u.mscribe. The unforgettable picture, drawn by Mary Antin, of the immigrant Jew, leading the procession of his children into the schoolroom with reverence, as though it were the Lord's temple, bowing before the teacher, as the high Priestess of the one true G.o.d, and offering his homage, in impossible English, exhibits the act of one morning, for which an unseen agency had prepared the way. Yet it is the event that signalizes the place and makes the day so impressive.

CHAPTER XII

LOOKING UP SONS OF WELL-REMEMBERED MOTHERS

One of the outstanding features of revisiting the earth was to find, in the banks and stores, in the professional and political offices, the sons of women, full of thought, who used to magnetize me by their presence and character. I have a pa.s.sion for tracing the indebtedness of successful sons to their fine mothers. In visiting the Studebakers'

wagon ware-rooms in Chicago it starts a sensation to sit in the chariot presented by the government to Lafayette, but it was more affecting to see in their counting room a large portrait of their mother. These honorable and phenomenally successful men recognize the source of their power. Now and then a speaking likeness seemed to us in our early years so scenic that it is indelibly stamped upon us. This was true of the words under the picture of an old man and a boy playing checkers, which adorned the impressive, never to be forgotten, first page of The Child's Own Book.

"To teach his grandson draughts His time he did employ Until at last the old man Was beaten by the boy."

The unlooked-for element in the case came from the infusion of a high quality and ability which were a mental inheritance that the lad gained from his mother. Like Rizpah, like the mother of the Gracchi, mothers seem to feel themselves selected for their high office. Their turn of mind is to acquit themselves well in it and with all their hearts to try to rise to a level with their responsibilities.

_Consecrated Their Talents to Elevation of Humanity_

They look right after the future of their boys. That welcome, resplendent orb, the day-star, fades only at the rising of the sun. The mother of Zebedee's children thought there was no position too commanding for her boys. Nothing would be too good. It did not occur to her that either of them would be inadequate for an exalted position. She had not a moment's hesitation in seeking to have her boys well-placed in life. Such confidence in them is inspirational and makes the boys themselves look up. If there is a dispute between a boy and his teacher he feels that his side of the case is not considered and he takes the matter home to his mother. "She understands." She believes in her boy and this helps him to believe in himself. She does not believe he was wrong in his intention.

Nothing so stirs the mother-spirit as a closed door. In fact it seems to develop curiosity in any woman to know what is behind it. When she reads, No Admittance to the Public, over an entrance it seems to arouse a determination to get in at any price. No matter what is inside she is ready to die to get there. There may be an exclusive social set in the place where she lives. The society is probably not as good as that which she already enjoys but shut a door in her face or against her children

"And there is not a high thing out of heaven Her pride o'ermastereth not."

Without realizing why they do it the woman's club trades on this principle. If the number that would naturally join the organization is two hundred and seventy-five the limit of the members.h.i.+p is set at two hundred and fifty and the waiting list is crowded with impatient applicants. The reflex influence is felt by all who have already joined and this greatly enhances the privilege of those who are already members. We sometimes see a fence post standing on nothing. The earth of a bank has all slidden away from it but the fence was fastened to it and held it up. This, sometimes the family does for a boy. Such a mother will go without new gloves and up-to-the-minute costumes while her son is being educated. Knowing all the traditions of his school days it is plain that the teaching in school did less for him than the influence of his mother at home. She would cause him to see factors and movements in a great world of which her own active mind had caught glimpses.

_A Reproof to Defamers of Human Nature_

I do not care what later delights may be in store for a neglected child, there will be a void, a sin of omission, a cheat, a missing factor in his composition, a loneliness, if the mother element was absent in his development. In this was the safety of Samuel in the poisoned air of Hophni and Phinehas, Eli's sons. The environment was exactly the same for the boys of both families but one boy, as compared with the bad lot, was so enveloped by the mother influence that he was kept pure amid surroundings which were charged with temptations. I used to be greatly impressed with the vast amount of what the Chinamen called the By and By there is in the life of one of these mothers. No day is self-contained.

Her happiness depends upon a succession of futures. Intersect her career at what point you will and you find her mind taken up with coming events. The harvest of her struggles is to be reaped later. Life's deferred gains bulk up largely in her life. She reminded me of Was.h.i.+ngton's campaigns which were not usually immediately fruitful.

McKinley's mother or Moody's mother or Garfield's mother, like Bunyan's Pilgrim, was in heaven before she had come at it by the consummation of glory in the life of her son. All her wishes and prayers were more than met. But there was the day by day life that had to be lived while this fruition was in a very remote future. I visited the home of a mother who said her happiness would be complete if she could only see her son fitted for life and well settled in it.

The slogan "Back to the land" carries a meaning a little obscured until one recalls the conditions of a generation ago when the people lived closer to nature than they do now. We can only go back to a place where we were. It implies an earlier connection with land that we can go back to it. It may have been a family connection. This spirit of a.s.sociation is seen in that singular expression, "Thou hast been our dwelling place"

(How a residence for us?) "In all generations." We must then have lived in what has gone before, if we had our dwelling place in former generations.

_One an Ill.u.s.tration of Many_

In the generation just gone a mother wanted her son to have a better educational equipment and suggested, no matter what the sacrifice, that they leave the land and move to town to put the boy into a higher grade of schools. Her husband opened a general country store of the old type for the sale of anything the people needed and if he did not have it he would get it. He sold everything from needles to nails, from harvesters to quinine capsules, from ready-made boots to dried codfish. It was a convenience to have the post office boxes in a front corner of the store which was a place of general resort. I recall the frequent sight, a farmer's wife, paying for postage stamps by handing out eggs from a basket up to any number the postmaster might indicate. I once saw an article lying upon the counter that I desired to buy and said to the storekeeper that I would take it. The woman put out her hand deprecatingly and said, "I am trading for it." Now this is what she meant,--the country merchant had fixed the price on his wares. Then when farm produce is offered in exchange he presumes to fix the price on that also. One of the parties to the transaction is left out of the account.

"If you fix the price on yours ought I not to fix the price on mine?" He cannot live without the store and the store cannot live without the customer. A basis of agreement must be reached. Cannot you give me a little better trade? We speak of a storekeeper as in trade in a large city. The expression has come with the people from their earlier homes.

One of the causes of the high price of living is the use of the telephone in ordering supplies hastily from the store which are paid for, in the lump, without visiting the stores and stalls and considering the relative value of the commodities in view of all the facts. Any one knows that on visiting the market and seeing the great variety of supplies offered for sale he used his money in a different way from what he expected. In Was.h.i.+ngton, where Daniel Webster used to go to market with a basket on his arm, the people are finding themselves benefited by the free open air in going to the tempting remarkable markets.

_The Lure of the Store_

The general store in our town was a landmark. It was central to the community. In it gathered each evening the men of the place and questions of the day were discussed around the old drum stove. Store haunting developed into a habit in winter when there was little to do.

Here men played checkers through long evenings and tried to reach the king row. This place of merchandise was a political hotbed. It filled a place that even the church could not supply, also in exposing evil doers to scorn. Skulduddery would here get some body blows. Public opinion is police, ever on the alert, without pay in a small town. "Opinion is the queen of the world." It is feared and is the chief deterrent. Both men and women are saved by it, which is very much more active and a better recognized agency in small places than in great. It pretty nearly rules the town. People bow to it. Town talk has an unequalled power to regulate, restrain and actually govern conduct. In small communities the real ruler can be rightfully named the Public.

The store was the place for the born story-teller. A man with thrilling adventures in the seven seas found in this "senate" a responsive auditory. A woman knew where her husband could be found if any one called and wanted to see him.

_He Lived With His Mother's Spirit_

Ibsen represents the Master Builders as oppressed by a strange fear. He hears the young knocking at the door and he fears that the young will enter in and dispossess him. A mother, with n.o.bleness of nature and sweetness of disposition, is too magnanimous for such an apprehension.

In my visit no one needed to inquire who was the mother of one man whom I met, his success and the honors paid him bore testimony to her worth.

Providence was kind to him. I remember the mother so revered by the son, as fragile yet dignified, and the fineness of the feminine element imparted gentility to her boy. Watch the expression on such a face, keep your gaze fixed on it and you will learn a lesson for life. A man's nature when submitted to tests turns on its quality. He was sought in society and was the life of many a company. "Did you ever meet his mother?" was asked. "No." "Well, if you had you would understand him. He is what she made him." To these sons the mothers reveal themselves. To them, the mothers are no more alike than fair women are alike in the eyes of their wors.h.i.+ppers. A mother's love has a peculiar carrying quality. The real significance of her patience is not seen at once. It is like orders given to a sea commander, not to be opened until he gets into a certain lat.i.tude. "What I do thou knowest not now."

After-meanings are disclosed with touching beauty.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MEETING PLACE OF "THE SENATE"]

_Astonished as if He Had Seen a Vision_

In determining what kind of women these mothers were we are to compare their standards, not with ours now, but with the standards of the times in which they lived.

When revisiting the earth the ordinary life of the people had in it a great fascination. I wonder that the pleasures of memory and a.s.sociation are not more vividly realized in connection with the people we have known. The lessons are very salutary. With the hope of having my ideas more nearly approach my ideals I resolved increasingly to cultivate admiration. If called upon off-hand to cite one of the most striking impressions it would be that a pure, beautiful, intelligent, and well-bred woman "is the most attractive object of vision and contemplation in the world." I thought that nature had lavished her gifts about equally without and again within the human family. It is not a question of six of one and half a dozen of the other, but of half a dozen and a dozen. There is no answer to the question, What will G.o.d give us when he takes the sea? It is its only parallel. Without detracting from it there is also a world of beauty in an amazing river, always arriving, always departing; its banks wondrously deeply colored with green and gold. The mountains and the canyon and the waterfall have commanding attractions. These are without the human race, but for objects of study and enthusiasm and deference I turn to those made but little lower than the angels and crowned with glory and honor.

Let me add another recollection of the moment, that my eyes, my ears, my whole soul seemed sometimes to be just opening upon what appeared to me a new fact that such a mother of charming character, such as I used to see, was the day-star of that apotheosis of mother which reached its climax in the last year of the German war. A nation does not know what it has until it comes to exhibit it.

_Retrospect is Cheering_

The son of such a mother who became philanthropic looked benevolent. The commercialized look their part. Business men are in the saddle. Sons succeed sires as we pa.s.s into trade. The teachers and accountants and the scholars looked somewhat bookish. The boys had been making faces.

Each man had made his. I never knew a man equally transfigured with one I saw. It is not guessing, it is not flattery, it is exact truth. It is not to be discussed under general rules. It is a real case with a particular history. It is a confirmed expression. It has atmosphere, almost a dim remote shade of halo. This is labeled on him for the townspeople to read. It fell to me thus to take a few short lessons in heredity. On returning to the homes of these people I remembered the pictures they had upon their walls that were all new and different to boyhood's eyes and seemed a real part of the make-up of the town. I now turn to the belief that they had their influence on the families. The religious portrayal of the child Samuel and so of others were silent evangelists and remained right there till they fixed an impression. I remember that mothers held their boys up to these pictures and encouraged them to talk to them, which they did, and now they report the conversation. Queenly mothers! Blessed among women shall they be!

"All my fears are laid aside, If I but remember only Such as these have lived and died!"

You may think that children cannot understand or don't care. They can understand and they do care. It is not a matter of the mind only but of the instinct. Mother's chair and father's Bible make a place for themselves in the family history. In one year, 1782, there were born in four families residing in three different states Daniel Webster, John C.

Calhoun, Lewis Ca.s.s, and Martin Van Buren. The families were undistinguished as such from the mult.i.tude of others about them. Not so, however, with the sons, for just the reason that has now come under our observation.