John Jay Chapman - an American Mind 9780231885027

Citation preview

John Jay Chapman-AN *AMERICAN

MIND

John Jay Qhapman - AN *AMERICAN

MIND

By Richard B. Hovey

COLUMBIA

UNIVERSITY

New Yor^

7959

PRESS

COPYRIGHT © 1959 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, NEW YORK PUBLISHED IN GREAT BRITAIN, CANADA, INDIA, AND PAKISTAN BY THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON, TORONTO, BOMBAY, AND KARACHI LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 59-11725 MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO MY MOTHER AND FATHER

Preface

J

O H N J A Y C H A P M A N (1862-1933), critic and essayist, has been all but lost to American letters. But Chapman's, I am convinced, is another of those deferred reputations among American writers. T o us today his value should be clearer and more meaningful than it possibly could have been during his lifetime. So often ahead of his times, Chapman, when he was sixty-two and in his final decade, had come to console himself with these words: "I am saying things which some day will be thought of, rather than trying to get the attention of anyone." The things he was saying are questions he put to the American mind— questions that plague us still.

If in his own lifetime Chapman was little heeded, today he remains largely unknown, even to the class of readers for whom he wrote. Most writers of his generation have long since found their place in the history of American letters. But Chapman continues to be ignored or misrepresented in our literary histories and our anthologies. Since his death in 1933, there have appeared M. A . DeWolfe Howe's excellent John Jay Chapman and His Letters (1937), a memorial sketch, three unpublished doctoral dissertations, and not so much as a half-dozen critical essays. Of these last, only two, those by Edmund Wilson and Jacques Barzun, are for their depth and comprehension really first-rate. As I write these lines, Dr. Barzun is putting to press a volume of Chapman selections. This at least should make Chapman more widely read. For his lack of recognition is not due to unkind criticism; but to the fact that most people have formed their impression of him through a partial or superficial reading of what the man has written—or perhaps from mere hearsay. That he has been so much ignored by his countrymen might be considered—as it has been by one of his friendly critics—"a devastating commentary on the state of American culture." His matter and manner, his task as a critic, were of course almost guarantees against wide popularity. Among more educated readers—especially those of academic predilections—Chapman has been left alone, evidently because, like his

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PREFACE

British counterpart Samuel Butler, he cannot be neatly pigeonholed. For all that, we must admit there are certain difficulties in the way of soundly assessing Chapman's work. His unusual style—its wit, its irony, its acidulous humor, its deliberate use of shock, its speed and concision of thought—these put extra demands on the reader's attention and may be a trial to the literal-minded. Besides, in some few of his causes Chapman made blunders which earned more exclusive attention than they deserved. And as a self-mutilator the unfortunate Chapman outdid Vincent van Gogh—a piece of sensationalism at which it is easier to stop and stare than to press on towards the understanding it requires. Seldom perhaps have the accidents of a career so well veiled the essentials. Despite these special difficulties and this general neglect, those priceless essentials have won for Chapman an array of admirers that includes three nations and such names as these: Henry James, William James, Gilbert Murray, W. Somerset Maugham, Èmile Legouis, André Chevrillon, Joel E . Spingarn, Edmund Wilson, Jacques Barzun, Robert M. Hutchins, Malcolm Cowley, and Perry Miller. At the very least, the elements that went into his making challenge us : given a man of distinguished ancestry, born into every privilege, disciplined in a family tradition of noblesse oblige, proud of his Abolitionist forebears, steeped in New England puritanism, sophisticated amid Manhattan's cosmopolitanism, moving always in brilliant and cultivated society, enjoying the best education America could offer, rich in the experience of European culture, associating with many of the great and the near-great; add a passionate temperament, a powerful individuality, a brilliant mind, and the rare gift of one of America's finest prose styles; plunge this man into the whirl of America from 1862 to 1933—and the result is a vivid and towering personality which must fascinate any biographer. This book, however, does not pretend to be biography. For, as I understand it, that is a narrative art which purposes the recreation of a personality, shaping a life story concretely and dramatically, bringing back to life, not merely the central character and the world in which he moved, but also the lesser personae who played their parts in the tale. "Mental biography" seems better to describe what I offer here; this is, rather, the story of a mind. Though I naturally hope that Chapman's literary personality emerges distinctly in these pages, my concern is mainly with his

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ideas; and to that concern the usual elements of biography are subordinated. In Howe's John Jay Chapman and His Letters the reader can meet the person—and doubtless get proof enough that Chapman is one of this country's greatest letter writers. I stress chiefly the more formal writings—Chapman's books, his unpublished manuscripts, and the essays he scattered through so many periodicals over so many decades. The letters serve here only to elucidate his public utterances and deeds, to provide coherence and background for the private life, and to probe the impulses at work beneath his achievements and failures. My position is that Chapman is a critic of American culture; that his central subject is the American mind; that he was always concerned with those expressions of the American mind which are generally called political, educational, religious, and literary. When Mark Van Doren reviewed Mr. Howe's biography, he posed the question for which this book seeks an answer. Though he relished Chapman's literary gifts and enjoyed the "splendid spectacle" of the man, Dr. Van Doren could not see that Chapman was representative of America or of anything else "either on or off the earth"; and he asserted that in trying "to make sense out of him" we would make Chapman "almost repulsive." T o refute that view I argue in this book that, despite all of Chapman's limitations, to study his career is to see illuminated and dramatized much of the American story during a period of revolutionary change: the Puritan and Federalist heritage from pre-Civil War times, the postbellum rise of industrialism and its attendant problems, the stirrings of the reform spirit and its crosscurrents of the 1890s, the analysis of commercialism in our civilization, the Progressive movement culminating in Wilsonian idealism, its aftermath in the heedless optimism of the materialistic twenties, the new gleams and gathering shadows of the early 1930s. But beyond Chapman's historical significance is his greater worth to us today at mid-century. He personifies the critical spirit, so necessary—yet so unpopular—in a democracy. His career is an interesting experiment in Emersonian individualism—an example of some use in an age of conformity. In these days when intellect seems often to be at a discount, his passionate commitment to things of the mind can be a bracing faith. RICHARD B. HOVEY

Western Maryland September, 195J

College

Acknowledgments

W

I T H O U T the help of many generous persons the writing of this book would have been impossible. Among those to whom I owe thanks are the following: Mr. Chanler A. Chapman, who as his father's literary executor not only granted me access to the collection of the unpublished papers of John Jay Chapman but also gave me complete freedom to do with them whatever I would; and who as a friend has lent assistance and enthusiastic interest from first to last. His older brother, Mr. Conrad Chapman, who has obtained for me books and manuscripts and led me towards a fuller understanding of his father. Mr. M. A. DeWolfe Howe, who for a decade has given practical aid and steadfast encouragement and has permitted me to quote without limitation from his John Jay Chapman and His Letters. Dr. Howard Mumford Jones of Harvard University, who supervised the earlier stages of the research and writing. Professor William A. Jackson and his staff of the Houghton Library, whose expert assistance gready facilitated the handling of manuscript problems. Dr. Jacques Barzun of Columbia University, whose painstaking criticism of style in an earlier version taught me so many lessons in the craft of writing that I hope I have remembered at least some of them here. Dr. Lionel Trilling of Columbia University, who despite the press of his own work read my final manuscript and helped it through the first steps of publication. Mr. Edmund Wilson, whose study of Chapman first led me to the subject, whose personal counsel lightened the difficulties at the outset, and who has permitted me to quote freely from his own masterly interpretation. Jens A. Dalgaard, M.D., of the Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute, Philadelphia, who guided me towards many an insight into the mysteries of Chapman's heart but never allowed pathological considerations to obscure human values. Miss Dora Slutz, teacher at Western Hills High School in Cincinnati, who first posed for me some of the eternal questions I have had to wrestle with in this book. Mr. Harry E. O'Neal,

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teachcr at the same school, who wakened me to the joys and rigors of the humanities. Those whose writings I have made use of are listed either in the notes or in the bibliography. And I am deeply grateful to the score and a half of persons I interviewed, whose names are listed under "Notes and Sources"; yet I must add here that each one of them gave me not only information and understanding but also warmhearted hospitality. Thanks also go to the following publishers: Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, for permission to quote from Howe's biography of Chapman (1937), from Chapman's Dante (1927), and from his Lucían, Plato and Greeks Morals ( 1 9 3 1 ) ; Oxford University Press, New York, for permission to quote from Edmund Wilson's The Triple Thinners (1948); and the Atlantic Monthly for permission to quote from Jacques Barzun's article on Chapman in the February, 1947, issue. T o Mr. Henry H . Wiggins and Miss Barbara Melissa Voorhis of Columbia University Press, whose conscientious and kindly assistance has solved many a technical and editorial problem, I am much obliged. My greatest debt is to my wife, Marcia Johnson Hovey: far more than my typist, she has in truth been my collaborator; there is hardly a paragraph which she has not bettered by her criticism and her editing. But for every error of fact, of interpretation, and of judgment, I alone am responsible. R.B.H.

Contents

I. II.

The Fear of the Lord Is the Beginning

i

Open Ye the Gates

17

III.

Thou Shalt Love

38

IV.

His Hand Will Be Against Every Man

58

The Root of All Evil

90

VI.

The Voice of One

118

VII.

Out of the Depths

159

Hold Fast That Which Is Good

180

The Wine Cup of This Fury

219

Where There Is No Vision

275

In a Full Age

328

Sources and Notes

348

Select Bibliography

372

Index

377

V.

VIII. IX. X. XI.

John Jay Qhapman-AN «AMERICAN

MIND

I. The Fear of the Lord Is the Beginning

E

I G H T E E N - S I X T Y - T W O was as busy as most years are. In Russia that year Turgenev's Fathers and Sons was published, in France Victor Hugo produced Les Misérables, and in Prussia Otto von Bismarck rose to be Chancellor. It was also the year when Henry David Thoreau died, when Edith Wharton was born, and when another American, Richard Jordan Gatling, patented his machine gun. In February Julia Ward Howe published "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." And on the second of March—about a week before the Confederate ironclad Merritnac was to exchange fire with the Monitor—John Jay Chapman was born, in a house on Eighteenth Street near Fourth Avenue in New York City.

His parents were Henry Grafton Chapman and Henry's wife, Eleanor Jay. Their own parents had been antislavery workers, and perhaps it was through this shared interest that the father and mother first met. 1 Henry Chapman's mother had been, with William Lloyd Garrison, an officer in the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society and an editor of the Liberator. Yet Henry's place in the Union army was taken by a hired substitute 2 while he prospered as a stockbroker. Eleanor Jay, who thought highly of herself as a flower of Revolutionary society, named her second son after her most famous ancestor, Chief Justice John Jay. Humorously looking back some forty years later, John Jay Chapman reached this characteristic conclusion about his having been born: "After all, it is just as well that there should be one person like me in the world." 3 In "Retrospections," a fragment of autobiography begun when he was sixty-nine and our chief source for his earliest years, Chapman says little of his ancestry. Although he never prided himself on pedigree, family traditions had a good deal to do with his making. His first colonial

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BEGINNING

forefather, Augustus Jay, who settled in N e w York late in the seventeenth century, was a Huguenot exile. In the eighteenth century his son married into the Van Cortlandt family. T w o years before the Battle of Lexington, his grandson, the Revolutionary John Jay, married the youngest daughter of William Livingston, delegate to the Continental Congress and the first governor of N e w Jersey. In the careers of John Jay (1745-1829), of his son William (1789-1858), and of his grandson John (1817-1894) a common pattern may be discerned. All three were well-to-do; all were trained in the law and practiced it during part of their lives; all were highprincipled and devoted to public service, without political ambition in the ordinary sense of that term; all three were country gentlemen w h o passed a fair portion of their time in semi-retirement on the ancestral f a r m in Westchester County; and each of them possessed a degree of literary talent. In politics they were Hamiltonians; in religion they were Episcopalians who took a lively interest in church affairs; and in the great social issue of their day, they all opposed slavery. Much of this pattern is repeated in the life of John Jay Chapman. From his mother, then, Chapman derived something of French Calvinism mingled with a more genial Dutch strain. On his father's side the line extends back to the Pilgrim stock of Weymouth, Massachusetts, where we meet his Abolitionist grandmother, Maria Weston Chapman. In 1835 she had been present at the antislavery meeting in Boston when Garrison was mobbed. Amidst the roaring contempt of the crowd the Abolitionist women, "each with a colored friend," walked in regular procession to Mrs. Chapman's house, to which the meeting adjourned. Besides Abolitionist writings she published two volumes of verse; and in 1877 she edited, with a memoir, the autobiography of her friend of many years, Harriet Martineau. John Jay Chapman always admired this grandmother and loved her, too, "as a born children's friend and entertainer." By blood and spirit Chapman was kin to makers of American history. First-hand accounts of his country's greatest epic since the days of Washington must have mingled in his mind with impressions of his nursery. "Histories of the war and ante-war times," he told his wife in 1893, "keep my heart in my mouth. I can't tell why—I read them in a fever. They seem to be the most exciting books ever written." 4 With some justification his lifelong friend Owen Wister could label Chapman " a belated abolitionist."

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3

C h a p m a n had an older brother and t w o younger sisters. T h e correspondence w h i c h remains suggests that he was never so close to these girls as m a n y brothers are to their sisters. But for his brother H e n r y , two years older, he felt affection and esteem. T h e y went to school and college together, and both hoped and w o r k e d for literary success. A younger brother m u s t o f t e n live in the reflected brightness of the older. E a r l y in life H e n r y showed more promise than did J a c k . " F o r some reason there was a g l o r y about his boyhood," C h a p m a n wrote in 1 9 1 3 . " H e was the prize boy of his set; brilliant things were predicted of him by e v e r y o n e . " 8 Y e t it w a s H e n r y w h o was doomed to fail. G i f t e d though he was, he never realized his best possibilities. H i s death at the age of fifty-three had been hastened by heavy drinking. 7 H e n r y was indeed too much like his father, w h o m C h a p m a n once described as belonging to "the tribe of self-tormentors." 8 B o r n in 1833 in Boston, the elder C h a p m a n attended the L a t i n School, where Phillips B r o o k s and H e n r y L e e H i g g i n s o n were a m o n g his classmates. Possibly neglected in his youth, he lacked the benefit of a regular education, t h o u g h he studied at Heidelberg. T h e n f o r a while he was a clerk in Manhattan, and made a voyage as supercargo to C h i n a in 1855. T h a t same year he became a N e w Y o r k stockbroker. W e l l k n o w n in W a l l Street f o r m a n y years, he w a s on the g o v e r n i n g committee of the N e w Y o r k Stock E x c h a n g e . O n that day w h e n the Panic of 1873 brought chaos to W a l l Street, C h a p m a n , Sr., then president, showed his courage: boldly, on his o w n responsibility, and confronting howls of protest, he closed the E x c h a n g e . "Besides his courage, he was genial, whimsical, and at times quite outrageous," writes an acquaintance. 9 T h e son's portrait of the father confirms this estimate: My father was a rough diamond, a witty man full of quaint humor and unexpected turns of thought. When I was a small boy he would come home after a hard day on the Stock Exchange, throw himself on the sofa and read Shakespeare, the only book I ever saw him read. He was extremely remiss in his attention to the care and education of his children, and my mother did all the work of finding tutors and schools. He was a man of granite chastity, and when I first went to college he gave me a lecture on the subject, with the plain statement that he was preaching what he had practised. He was a man of suppressed emotions, and he was more or less inarticulate. At the time when I was at the point of death with pneumonia at the age of fourteen, he rescued a suffering dog from the street and kept him in his thirdfloor back bedroom, where there was no carpet, for he would never have a

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BEGINNING

carpet, but only bare boards and a couple of old chairs and ancestral wardrobes. He tended the dog day and night, and had a superstitious belief that somehow my fate was wrapped up with that of the dog. That he was fundamentally unhappy goes without saying. His was an inward nature, whose emotions had never found a vehicle of expression. There were people who adored him, and could only speak of him with tears in their eyes.10 In a photograph of the f a t h e r 1 1 we meet a grave face, hinting at tragic possibilities, with the eyes of one who has seen a ghost. From some kind of shadow he must always have fled, for he was an intemperate drinker. Financial disaster overtook him in 1882, and afterwards he was broken in health. T h e next year, seeking a cure, he left N e w York in a sailing vessel, to begin a trip around the world. After two months in Japan, he went to Manila, whence he intended to sail for home. Only a day or two after his arrival in the Philippines he died of a fever on March 14, 1883. Though, as Chapman says, he was a father who took little notice of his children, the same cannot be said of the mother, whom her son likened to a duenna. Her own mother, the daughter of a rich N e w York merchant, had been "a masterly character with a passion for all her descendants." And Eleanor Jay burned with the same family loyalty. A portrait drawing of her, dating from her young womanhood, strikes one with the steady gaze of her eyes and the self-assurance of the mouth and chin. She was a mondaine [Chapman has written] and a woman of great will power who was determined that her daughters should marry well and that her sons should have a good education. Her own early education had been neglected, but she had a natural aptitude for the things of the mind. All her life she read constantly, German, French and English books. Her outlook made her at home in Europe when in later life she was often there, and she came to resemble an old countess of the continental variety, experienced, worldly, formidable, classbound. Many is the battle I have had with her. Both her great qualities and her defects were steadily enhanced by the decline in our family fortunes during the seventies, when the boys were at school, and the problems of life fell upon her alone. 12 With his mother Chapman seems never to have had an easy relation. Both were strong-willed and clashed often and fiercely. Yet, despite their differences, Chapman was a dutiful son. Until the end of her life—and she did not die until Chapman himself was almost sixty—he corresponded with her frequently. Intellectually she was always a stimulus to him. A month after her death he wrote about it to a friend: " I haven't got used

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5

to it yet—and still find myself laying out my movements, plans, or a day in town, or letters to be written—with her in them." 1 3 It is reported of Eleanor Jay Chapman that she "rather amazed her friends by her frank encouragement of the enfant terrible in Jack at an early age." 1 4 She herself was stoical, but self-restraint was not a lesson that she taught her son. Among the boy's earliest recollections are his uncurbed outbursts. About the age of four, when he was to be taken to a dame school, the procedure so outraged him that he clung to the palings at the front of the family cottage and set up a "dismal howl." He gained his point. I remember a few years later approaching a contemporary and saying—quite out of the blue—"David, if you knew how I hated you, you'd cry." I remember this because of my mother's laughter. She said, "But why should you think he'd care about your opinion of him?" . . . There were other outrages.15 Sensitive, high-strung, passionate, needing affection and reassurance, yet little heeded by his father and never close to his mother (who at one moment would pit her will against his and at another would foster the imp in him), the boy early turned inward, to find there worse uncertainties. As a child John Jay Chapman learned that to win attention he must shock people by an unexpected act or word. He also learned that his waywardness might be indulged. He was becoming at once a spoiled darling and a neglected child. Intensely he craved the love and guidance that might have steadied him. At nearly seventy, for instance, he could still recall compliments won from his parents when he was small. His father once remarked, after the boy had said something or other, "Jack has a spark"—an observation with which the little fellow secretly agreed. And he was pleased when he heard his mother say, "Jack is a very honorable child." 1 8 The winters of his childhood were spent in New York, on Madison Avenue, and later in the 1870s, in Washington Square. There were summers in New Brighton, Staten Island, where young married business men took their families and from which, by ferry, Chapman's father would go to his Wall Street office. Visits to Weymouth, the home of grandmother Chapman, were also great events: The Weymouth house was full of portraits, souvenirs, presentation copies of books written by the French liberals of the mid-century; for the antislavery people were honored in Europe, whither my grandmother made repeated visits. One of her daughters married Auguste Laugel in Paris, and another

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Edward Diccy in England. But in Boston, antislavery continued to be taboo. Friendly relations were never re-established between the Garrisonians and the social life of Boston. The breach which began in 1829 lasted for a generation after the war. 17 That as an agitator she roused the prejudices of commonplace people enhanced this grandmother in Chapman's eyes. Her husband had also been a rebel: a minister who seceded from his church, broke with all the conventional pieties of his religion, and lost interest in his profession when he passed into the antislavery ranks. Even older traditions lived at the Weymouth house; once or twice Chapman had seen his greatgrandmother " M a " Weston— a tiny bundle of an old lady in a close-fitting fringed cap, who used to send us hampers of pickles to New York she had made with her own hands. My father told me that the family tradition was that she had been chased by the negro servant of George Washington, and that when asked—"But Ma, what did the man want with you?" she would purse up her lips and say, "No good!" She was the sister of Joshua Bates, the banker, who founded the Boston Library. And Maria Weston Chapman encouraged in her small grandson an interest in literature. She was a great reader aloud, [he explains] and had made a study of the art. If she were going to read something to us after dinner, she would eat little, in order that her voice and delivery might be clear. I was therefore much pleased when a page of Crabbe's poems was given to me to read aloud, and I heard her say to my mother as I was proceeding, "You see, he takes it in just the right tempo." 1 8 Among the earliest of the thousands of letters Chapman has left are thank-you notes to "Dear Grandmama" for an autograph of William Lloyd Garrison and for presents of books. There are also reports to her on his reading of New England Ballads and the Count of Monte Cristo. At the Jay Farm in Katonah, New York, Chapman felt at home and happy. It held memories of his great-grandfather, the caustic antislavery writer. This gentleman was at least as unconventional as Maria Weston Chapman. Tradition held that William Jay had worn a red tie at his wife's funeral. And the story was told that when a visiting Englishman innocently proposed a toast to the President of the United States—then Buchanan—"the old gentleman at the head of the table thereupon turned his glass upside down and said with great determination, 'I won't drink it.'"

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Chapman's grandfather John Jay, "a handsome man of astonishing bonhommie and approachability," had defended runaway slaves in court, and could relate stories of hiding them in the house. A founder of the Republican party in the fifties, he was one of the group that in i860 called Lincoln to the Cooper Union meeting. At the Jay Farm and the Bedford House was held many a family reunion, when the dinner table was "a daily bout of festivity." 1 9 T h e f a r m w a s said to amount to a thousand acres, most of it woodland, and the title w a s held by Indian deeds to some old D u t c h ancestor. T h e little old house w a s full of portraits, by Stuart and T r u m b u l l , of W a s h i n g t o n , Hamilton, E g b e r t Benson, and a remarkable Stuart of the Chief Justice himself and a fine bust of him by Ceracchi, w h i c h one could see bore but a faint resemblance to the m a n , but w a s a magnificent Romanization of an A m e r i c a n patriot. T h e r e were t w o handsome portraits of W i l l i a m Jay and his w i f e , m y grandfather's father and mother, by the A m e r i c a n artist, V a n d e r l y n .

For the children, the place was a paradise: T h e " J a y F a r m " — t o call it by its proper t i d e — h a d other merits. T h e r e were Shetland ponies, sulkies, old hacks, dog carts, h a y m o w s , an old cider mill, old stone cottages, a pond, a small rose garden surrounded by palings so old that nothing but their white moss w a s visible, moss like moonlight. T h e palings have vanished since m y day, just vanished through the " u n i m a g i n a b l e touch of time." . . . the whole estate lives in m y m e m o r y as an enchanted palace of youth.20

But of course the palace of youth also has its donjon. For as a child reaches adolescence, his emotional nature deepens and sometimes darkens. He may become a victim of despairing introspection; and in some adolescents the religious feelings are quickened and the moral sensibilities deepened. Plainly, Chapman was a boy of this type. He was also tortured by a sense of inferiority: " I was an inward creature, wandering about in worlds unrealized," he remembers of this period. " I was not schooltrained, nor governess-trained, nor at home on the playground." 2 1 Illprepared as he was, he was now to suffer one of his life's severest trials. Being twelve years old in the autumn of 1874, he entered St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire; his brother had preceded him at the school by a year. In a long life which was to include more than the usual lot of human woes, this change of scene brought to Chapman one of his worst. St. Paul's, which has become one of the most renowned schools of its

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kind, was then in its twentieth year. Among the St. Paul's students of Chapman's generation were Owen Wister and Francis Marion Crawford; Mr. Tutt's creator, Arthur Train; the historian and biographer William Roscoe Thayer; the playwright Langdon Mitchell; and the fin de siecle exotic, Edgar Saltus. Somberly religious in its atmosphere, the school during the rectorship of its first headmaster illustrates perfectly Emerson's dictum that any institution is but the lengthened shadow of one man. As Chapman himself later put it, the St. Paul's program was "only the unconscious working out of one man's nature in the formation of a school community." The Reverend Doctor Henry Augustus Coit was no doubt inimitable, and one can hardly expect to do justice to his complex nature.22 Though far from a hypocrite, he makes one wonder what Samuel Butler or Dickens would have made of him. The secret of his awesome power over boys is now lost, but those who have written of him have not hesitated to use the word genius. Genius or no, Henry Coit marked John Jay Chapman for life. A stern, sad man in clerical black, tall, slender, and broad-browed, Dr. Coit had eyes that missed nothing. Above his small neat beard was the kind of mouth which issues commands that are never disobeyed. To Chapman "he remained always within an invisible tower of isolation." Of Salem, Massachusetts, stock, Dr. Coit, although born in 1830, was spiritually akin to an era of earlier and blacker Puritanism. He would quote St. Augustine and, as a Bible-worshiper, had only scorn and misgiving for the results of the "higher criticism." Ardent and self-abnegating, he was devoted to "the formation of the most beautiful of all things, the character of a true gentleman"—the phrase is his. His admirers have likened Dr. Coit to Thomas Arnold. Arnold's aim was, to be sure, similar and yet more moderate: he wanted to form Christian men, scarcely hoping to make Christian boys. "But Dr. Coit," one of his biographers declares, "boldly aimed at making Christian boys." Never relaxing in his perfectionism, he would hold the standard high so that, in his own words, he might "attract the nobler natures and expose the cloven hoof where it lurks." His righteousness and enthusiasm for righteousness in others were redoubtable. As the boys passed out of the chapel he customarily scrutinized every face for traces of Satan's hoofmarks. " I sit there," said he, "as an embodiment of their consciences." Anglican though

T H E F E A R O F T H E L O R D IS T H E B E G I N N I N G

9

he was, he worshiped Calvin's God of Wrath. In a sermon he warned the boys not to count on rising like the Prodigal Son. What support [he asked the boys in another sermon] will even the more innocent and less selfish pleasures give, when the body, the link between our true selves and this outer world, lies a wreck on the graveyard shore, and the immaterial world here becomes the real one, and our only fellowship is with good and holy spirits, or with spirits of evil ? The boys sang such hymns as "Weary of earth and laden with my sin" and "Soon shall you and I be lying each within our narrow bed." After sermons and hymns like these the boy Chapman "wandered to his bed, with visions of the dreadful morrow—aeons of dreadful morrows—rising in his heart." In a twelve-page essay by one of his former pupils, four paragraphs are devoted to Dr. Coit's loathing of tobacco—and not disproportionately. He had never been inside a theater; and the nineteenth-century French novel was for him "something to be taken up carefully with a pair of tongs and tossed into the fire." His sense of humor was limited to the irony he used on pupils who fell short of the twin absolutes, Duty and Diligence. Cricket might produce Christian gentlemen, but of baseball he disapproved. The human form was not beautiful to him, and the body was a "temporary clog upon the soul." Dr. Coit's purity has been called "fanatic," "aggressive," and "contagious." His test for chastity was "that any Christian man ought to be able to read a poem like Venus and Adonis without an emotional ripple." Trepidation marks all those who have written of Dr. Coit's office, behind whose closed doors, in a private exchange of confidences, the most exquisite surgery was performed on the adolescent conscience: The threshold of the Doctor's study was like a gate of judgment. In the forty years of his reign, what thousands of hangdog steps crossed it, what thousands of fluttering hearts entered there, and issued heavy with sentence, or lifted upon the wings of the morning. After a boy had been reduced to a pulp of tearful contrition and was determined to improve himself, he would, if deserving, be sent off with a few words of appreciation. His stammered "Thank you, sir" meant relief at escaping the august presence unbranded a "moral leper." Some thirty years after he had left St. Paul's, Chapman, who had never known a stable relationship with Dr. Coit, recalls:

10

T H E F E A R O F T H E L O R D IS T H E B E G I N N I N G

His low, vibrant voice, and his hand laid gently upon one's shoulder caused such a strong physical, moral, and galvanic appeal to my sensibilities that I invariably burst into tears. I think I never got through an interview with him without weeping. 23 Twenty-five years after Coit's death one of his pupils remarked that not only did the doctor's spirit still pervade the school but also that out in the world he lived so deep in m e n of forty a n d fifty that "his formidable shape would appear to them in their dreams. . . . still living in their conscience as their exalted and uncompromising mentor." If he did not teach boys of God's love, into all but the hardest hearts he instilled the fear of the Lord. Such fear is the beginning of wisdom—and sometimes of madness. W h e n such a headmaster writes to the mother of one of his charges that her son has become "very morbidly conscientious" a n d that he had better leave school to "have his m i n d somewhat diverted from the incessant strain of study and duty w h i c h seems to exercise it here," 2 4 w e might surmise that the boy has had a breakdown. T h i s is in fact what happened to John Jay C h a p m a n in his third year at St. Paul's. His own account of that terrible fourteenth year is slender. But here is what "Retrospections" preserves of his first year at the school: I could not answer a question in class or catch a ball on the field, and I looked with wonder on my young contemporaries who could do such things. School life was to me a mysterious and gloomy whirl of things, a vast, complex factory-building of clocks, bells, and automata. The meals were dreadful and the friendly attentions of the masters mortifying; and besides, there was never enough to eat. On Saturday evening—or perhaps it was Sunday evening—the whole school was gathered in the large school room; the masters and their wives ranged about the walls, and Dr. Coit on the platform. He made a holy talk, a hymn was sung—always the same hymn—and then everyone filed past the ghostly ranks of the Doctor and his underworld, shaking hands with each master, and then wandered towards his bed. . . . At this period I got an impression as to institutions of all kinds which has never left me. A jail, a lunatic asylum, a summer school—community life of any sort, is a sanitarium. It says to me, "Good morning; have you used Pear's soap? Now you may take ten minutes on the treadmill. It is such wholesome exercise." I cannot bear to pass a town high school in an automobile. Healthy paganism m i g h t enable some youngsters to withstand the worst of St. Paul's. But C h a p m a n , imaginative, scrupulous, and delicately or-

T H E F E A R O F T H E L O R D IS T H E B E G I N N I N G

n

g a n i z e d , was not such a boy. O n e side of h i m , rebelling against all that the school was and tried to m a k e of h i m , screamed out the c o m m a n d to fight

back or flee. F r o m the other side, D u t y whispered low, " T h o u

m u s t . " T h e r e w a s no way out, no one to w h o m he could tell his troubles. H e was trapped. H i s letters to his mother d o not hint his sufferings. H o w could he confess to her, w h o w a s never a confidante, the a g o n y of his heart? O n e of these sketchy letters contains a speech, nicely imitative of Ciceronian rhetoric, " m a d e u p " for a school recitation. 2 5 A little later there is a hubb u b over a b o o k : " M r . H a r r i s o n , w h o has charge of the School L i b r a r y , " he writes, "still cherishes, which at the very least is b a d taste, the o l d Southern feeling, and refuses to have Uncle

Tom's

Cabin."

26

In a letter

expressing his reluctance to be confirmed, he r e m a r k s that his classmate L a n g d o n Mitchell "is very f o n d of poetry a n d reads it all the t i m e . " 2 7 T h e r e are dutiful reportings of m a r k s in his school subjects, which show h i m as being slightly above average. O f the next school years and of his nervous b r e a k d o w n " R e t r o s p e c t i o n s " has little more than one p a r a g r a p h : On returning to St. Paul's School for the second [i/V] year, my isolation was apparent to the naked eye. I was plainly in a dream. I wandered about and made mysterious gestures before imaginary shrines. I picked up torn papers and carried them to the dust-bin. If I were playing baby cricket on the small boy's green patch at the then Lower School, I would lay my bat on the ground and wait, then pick it up and face the occult ceremony of the "service." These things astonished and bewildered the not-too-watchful school authorities, and my father was sent for. I was at this period sleeping in the attic of the then Lower School, and the water froze in my jug at night. On the journey home with my father, I developed pneumonia by sleeping in the Sound boat and arrived in a fever that kept me out of my head for many days. At my bedside were Doctors Francis Kennicutt and William H . Draper, whose kindness I never forgot. On my recovery, my body was a shell, with a weak left lung, and it was some years before my constitution was re-established. A return to school was out of the question. H i s isolation was even greater than C h a p m a n indicates here, and his s y m p t o m s were m o r e c o m p l e x ; for we learn that once, s t a n d i n g at bat in cricket, he fell into a trance, being lost in prayer. 2 8 A n unpublished manuscript gives a further e x p l a n a t i o n :

12

T H E F E A R O F T H E L O R D IS T H E

BEGINNING

What I felt was . . . that I was in the grip of a superior force both as to mind, body, and spirit—and must remain negative, quiescent, prayerful, obedient, blank. It was a matter of indifference to me what people might think.2» A n d Chapman's biographer adds: Travelling to and from the school on sleeping-cars, the presence of other boys did not keep him from kneeling openly beside his berth to say his prayers as if he were at home. There were legends at Concord of a woodland shrine of his own to which he would repair for religious rites. A schoolmate recalls a habit, when they sat next to each other in a schoolroom for Latin study, of passing his hands over the textbook as if warming them at a fire, on the theory that the language would enter his system through the pores.30 T h e letters of his third year at the school provide only a faint outline of Chapman's illness. H i s stomach bothers him. In October, after a cold, his back becomes so weak that he cannot hold himself erect; this must have been pleurisy, for the school physician later reported an irritation in the boy's left lung. Jack informs his mother that he fears low marks, though never in his life has he worked so hard. Finally, on November 25, 1876, D r . Coit writes, as we have seen, to Mrs. Chapman that her "very morbidly conscientious" son should be returned home. On the next day Jack tells M a m a that he has joined the confirmation class—a great solemnity at St. Paul's. On this same day his brother Henry writes to their mother that the school physician has recommended for Jack "any employment which will make him forget himself, and he proposed Florida and alligators." Henry goes on to say that, although the physician cannot discover what is the matter with Jack, "he puts him through a severe crossexamination whenever he can catch him." " Y o u yourself k n o w , " Henry adds, "how wickedly reserved and unsatisfactory he is." " W e know that his mind is all right, but his actions during the last month have been such as to form the theme of conversation in every mouth." His youngest son has called Chapman a kind of Puritan F a l s t a f f ; 3 1 and it is true that Chapman was destined to become a lover of life, a jester of sometimes Rabelaisian scale, and a good companion; he was also to love and to rejoice more than most. Y e t the harrowings of St. Paul's were always with him, and he never got free of the burden of Coit's sermons. T h e regimen he underwent magnified an already meticulous conscience into a ruthless judge. Chapman might later say: " T h e sense of responsibility is pure fatigue. T h e instant you throw it off you have more

T H E FEAR OF T H E L O R D IS T H E BEGINNING mind. The illusion that one must do something about anything is a symptom of poison in the system." 32 But it took him half a century to make this discovery, or at least to recognize the fact in words. The sense of guilt he brought with him to school was there so aggravated as in time to demand of him an appalling expiation. For all that, in these ragings and fires the heart of a mystic was being forged; and in time Chapman was to articulate the religious experience with a rare serenity and lucidity. Although he was of course never to graduate from St. Paul's, Chapman's mother saw to it that he had excellent tutors. By means of their instruction, during the following three winters in Washington Square he prepared to enter college. The materials that remain afford almost no continuity to this period of his life. The few letters dating from these years, however, amuse us with their glimpses of the swift growth of a mind. As early as his fifteenth year he will not be bluffed into sham respect for the classics. Concerning Sir Walter Scott, he writes to his mother: Marmion does not appeal to me; it has too much stuffing, though [I] can imagine how some people should like it. Each canto has a long introduction dedicated to some person in which he says absolutely nothing, except how the turf has grown where once was a battlefield, and where he used to wander when a child, and dear friend, the years have flown since happy days, etc. etc., etc.,. It becomes perfectly maddening.

The treatment he accords Cicero is no less highhanded: I agree with Cicero as to philosophy—for that's what he calls filling up reams of paper with maudlin monologue. It does put one in a pleasant f r a m e of mind. Sit down when you've eaten too much dinner and had no exercise—when you are as discontented as a miser—sit down and write a letter or simply an essay or a biography, of course, auto-. You will become self-satisfied in a half hour at most. This I'm afraid I've imbibed from C. Lamb—pernicious reading for the young.

In the same letter women's rights are given equally short shrift: I hold a wife commits no sin when she does her husband's will, though she knows the consequences to be evil. T h e husband is the head, the life, the duty and all the rest of the fine words in the end of The Taming. T h e idea is oldfashioned and dying out—has been dying out since the days of the old patriarchs. G [ r a n d m a m a ] C f h a p m a n ] is a misguided and unhappy woman. W h a t would Abraham have said to women's rights? 3 3

At seventeen emerge the qualities which were to make Chapman an incomparable letter writer: the spontaneity and conversational ease, the

14

T H E F E A R O F T H E L O R D IS T H E

BEGINNING

intellectual buffoonery and the w i t , the p l a y f u l allusiveness of o n e l o n g habituated to the things of the m i n d . In this period, too, C h a p m a n kept a c o m m o n p l a c e book, 3 4 resolved, as he was, to f o l l o w Bacon's m a x i m that w r i t i n g m a k e t h an exact m a n . H e could never for very long keep a d i a r y ; he a l w a y s f o u n d it embarrassing. B u t this notebook, in w h i c h he jotted d o w n occasional ideas until his second year in college, served h i m for e x p e r i m e n t s in w r i t i n g . B e g u n in A u g u s t , 1876, it suggests a k i n d of eighteenth-century prose w h e n the writer speaks of the C e n t e n n i a l E x h i b i t i o n at P h i l a d e l p h i a : W e went into it [the Main Building], and, after having been enraptured by Stuart's Washington, shocked by the French pictures, and generally disgusted by all the artists except the English ones, we went to the Government Building. M u c h m o r e in his o w n m a n n e r is this analysis of a figure of speech by Longfellow: "Dead lamb," disgusting thought. Flabby, mangy, soft-hoofed dead lamb with swollen eyes. H o w thoroughly nauseating a picture. Yet Mr. L when he wrote it expected to bring tears to one's eyes. I n this little book he also practiced versification a n d the m a k i n g

of

apothegms. A b o u t a year before C h a p m a n was to leave for college, this entry appears in the c o m m o n p l a c e b o o k : " T h e E n g l i s h stage stands in great need of

a Dramatist

w h e t h e r comic or t r a g i c — s o m e t h i n g

real, of

definite

character. Perhaps I a m the m a n . I've a l w a y s t h o u g h t the stage

my

vocation." H e was right in his instinct for the d r a m a t i c ; his g i f t w a s to lie in d r a m a t i z i n g his ideas. T h i s grandiose a m b i t i o n of early y o u t h , h o w ever, lingered into m i d d l e life, w h e n talents that m i g h t h a v e been put to better use w e n t into the m a k i n g of unsuccessful plays. C l o s e r to his vein were principles of style w h i c h at this t i m e preoccupied h i m : I used to think a nice use of language and subtle phrase was a thing to be sought for, but my ideas are changed. Give me Saxon. G i v e me short sentences and plain w o r d s — n o fencing. I admit it takes a much rarer talent to use simple words than long ones. But a force can be drawn from plain words such as derivatives can not give. A power lies hidden in everyday expressions which the master alone can elicit. All this I wholly mean but only half express. "Proper words in proper places," as Swift says, and in this way did he dictate to the English nation.

T H E F E A R O F T H E L O R D IS T H E B E G I N N I N G

15

It had been decided that H e n r y and Jack should g o to H a r v a r d . W h i l e H e n r y finished at St. Paul's, his younger brother was preparing f o r the examinations at home, being visited there each afternoon by one or the other of two " c r a c k " tutors, H o r a c e E . D e m i n g and C a m i l l u s G . K i d d e r . 3 5 H o w well C h a p m a n was equipped to educate himself and h o w f a r he w a s already initiated into the things of the m i n d is suggested in these passages f r o m "Retrospections" : My work once done for the day, I was left to my own devices, which were to wander about the city, frequent bookshops and book auctions, go to an occasional matinee and to concerts. My mother was fond of music. . . . I was taken to hear Rubenstein, Thomas's Orchestra, and an occasional violinist. I wandered in to hear Kreisler in a concert hall on Sixth Avenue when he was almost a boy. He played some Bach solos. I remember E d w i n Booth in "Macbeth," with a cast made up of scene-shifters, and a papier-mache leg of mutton to symbolize the Banquo scene. I heard Charles Coghlan play the " L a d y of Lyons," and Fanny Davenport in I forget what, Montague, the gallery Adonis, Boucicault in " T h e Shaughraun," old Walleck in his own play, "Rosedale," Hackett as Falstaff, etc. I got my father to put up $9.00 for a Lucian in Greek text, 1503, because I wanted to own a folio Aldus. It is not the best edition, but served my turn. . . . In my leisure hours I read Shakespeare, Spenser, and other English classics, Molière and " G i l Bias," etc. At this time I developed a great admiration for the writers of Queen Anne's time, especially Pope, of whom I had an early, much annotated edition. I read the "Dunciad" with gusto and was entirely on the side of Pope in his excoriations of persons I knew nothing about who were his small-fry enemies. T h e later Romantic poets, Byron, Keats, and Shelley, I regarded with contempt, and thought (as Byron himself pretended to think) that the heroic couplet was the proper vehicle for English verse. My discovery of the romantic poetry came very slowly. I remember closing the door for years on Byron with the single phrase, "Byron was a blackguard." . . . The solitude of my Washington Square period fortified me against the opinion of the world and made me conceited. It was as if I had lived in a foreign country and had come to see my own as a stranger might see it. This made me too self-sufficient, not to say self-important; and when I went on to Cambridge to take my preliminary examinations, I was boxed-up, self-conscious, and quite determined not to change my opinions for anything that Harvard might have to offer. I have a single recollection of a metaphysical sort that dates from the Washington Square period. Of course, my reading was apt to arouse ideas and questions in my mind that did not interest my family or my companions and were met with silent indifference. I said to myself, " B u t unless I say these things, I shall lose the source and habit of them." Therefore I

16

T H E F E A R O F T H E L O R D IS T H E B E G I N N I N G

continued to talk without the expectation of being understood, and I have done this ever since. After these solitary years in New York, Chapman was to find in Cambridge and Boston the sociability he delighted in. The habit of saying his say, in conversation and letters, was to become confirmed, incorrigibly. As to his "expectation of being understood," let the Harvard record speak for him now.

II. Open Ye the Gates

C

H A P M A N matriculated at Harvard College in September, 1880.

Except for fourteen months in Europe after he graduated, he was to remain in Cambridge and its environs during the next six years. There he experienced what he later called "the first living civilization" he had known. For such experience the time was propitious—and problematic. Brahmin culture was in decay. Boston might still hold sway over the nation's literary standards; but Hawthorne and Thoreau were gone, Longfellow and Emerson died when Chapman was a sophomore, Dr. Holmes's most productive years were behind him; and Howells, less interested in Boston than he had once been, would move to New York in 1881; while Thomas Bailey Aldrich, who succeeded him as editor of the Atlantic, strove to keep that magazine what it had been in Lowell's day. Lowell himself seemed now less a Yankee than a Tory gentleman. His change was a symptom of the revival among the respectable classes of colonial feeling towards England. The old aristocratic traditions of Boston were disintegrating under the impact of the new industrialism then reshaping the nation. To Lowell, as to Henry Adams, democracy had become a problem rather than a faith. By 1884, despite continuing Brahmin prestige on Beacon Hill and in State Street, there were enough Irish in Boston to elect their first mayor. Turning from the hustle of the larger American scene, old Boston insulated itself in its provincialism and took refuge, proudly, in the glories of its Anglo-Saxon and Protestant past. Abolition and the Civil War had tired the Puritan conscience. The redeeming of chattel slaves was easier to understand and sympathize with than was the novelty of freeing wage slaves. For twenty years after Appomattox Wendell Phillips might carry on to raise the status of labor and to challenge competitive capitalism, but in the Boston of the eighties he seemed a voice from the past. Boston was suffering a breakdown of belief. For one thing, New Eng-

18

OPEN Y E T H E GATES

land Christianity was being feminized: the fad of spiritualism, the growth of Christian Science, the popularity of the Reverend Phillips Brooks— these variously marked the dissolution of Christian rationalism. In secular culture the change was exactly parallel. By default of the men, so absorbed in business that literature and the arts were inanities for them, the women were taking the lead. "The whole generation is womanized," remarks a character in Henry James's The Bostonians; "the masculine tone is passing out of the world." Another who wrote novels about the Boston of the 1880s was Arlo Bates, whose theme was the conflict between the sense of duty and the enjoyment of art in life. John Jay Chapman knew the conflict also. But his letters of this period are full of the joy in life and in all the arts which Boston then offered a youth of intelligence and sensitivity. He could hardly have gained more from his privileges; for Boston was growing as well as decaying, and he grew with her. During Eliot's long presidency, for instance, Harvard was, along with Johns Hopkins, leading in the reformation of the higher learning in America. Among Chapman's teachers were George Herbert Palmer, Charles Eliot Norton, Nathaniel S. Shaler, and John Knowles Paine. If Boston was no longer the home of most of the country's great writers, it could boast in the person of the transplanted Midwesterner Howells a pathfinder of the new realism. Ten years before Chapman arrived, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts had been established; during his first year in Cambridge Henry Lee Higginson founded the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Mrs. Jack Gardner had begun to loot the art treasures of Europe; and in the salon of Mrs. Sarah Wyman Whitman young people who loved the arts received sympathy and practical encouragement.1 "Retrospections" contains happy memories: The rest of America laughed at Boston for being over-educated; but the rest of America, including New York, was under-educated. In Boston there was always humor, and after all it is humor that makes social life agreeable. In Boston, there were bon mots that circulated and dinner parties that were interesting. Among the wits were Dr. Holmes and T o m Appleton, among the hostesses were Mrs. Bell and Mrs. Dorr. Salons may originate in the ambition of clever women and in the vanity of the clever men they flatter; "yet salons arise only in deep-rooted civilization," Chapman remarked, "and there existed such a civilization in Boston." 2

OPEN YE T H E GATES

19

For a youth like Chapman, Harvard was the gateway to the society and culture of old Boston. To him, its positive virtues were unmistakable: The spiritual life of New England has never been luxuriant. It is one-sided, sad, and inexpressive in many ways. But it has coherence, and this is what makes it valuable for the young American. Every young person in the United States ought to be sent to Massachusetts for some part of his education. The proximity of Harvard College to Boston gives Harvard a natural advantage over our other colleges. You cannot go to Harvard or indeed to any New England college without getting into some sort of contact with a logical civilization. 3

For a closer view of Chapman's contact with this "logical civilization," we have the numerous letters he wrote, nearly all of them to his mother, during these Cambridge years. The letters were obviously dashed off at great speed and left careless in every way. W e know from his biographer, who was a personal friend, that Chapman's letters were much like his talk, spontaneous and utterly informal. The letters from Harvard, moreover, show intellectual maturity, even sophistication. Undergraduate flippancy is in them—something of the young gentleman feeling his oats, highhanded but also goodnatured. Their provocativeness suggests a mischievous boy's delight in shocking. Yet in one respect the letters are extremely careful: they hide the deepest feelings of the writer. Owen Wister, who like Chapman went on to Harvard after St. Paul's, has said of Chapman that although he spoke readily about many things, "his silence upon what was nearest was well-nigh absolute." 4 The nature of Chapman's relationship with his mother has already been touched upon. Of these college letters to his mother, Chapman has explained: "I . . . seem to have been conscientious in entertaining her and nevertheless retaining a sort of incognito as far as my inner self was concerned. . . . There is piety in them mixed with self-protection." 5 As to his intellectual development and the emergence during his Harvard career of his dominant interests, we are in no doubt. He then formed opinions and reached points of view to which he adhered throughout his life. One's chief impression of the freshman Chapman comes from his fierce need to express and to prove himself. Something is in him and must out. Is it music? Is it writing? At any rate, he decides not to strive for high marks but rather to follow his own bent in reading and studies. Too much time spent on college courses, he argued, was time lost on the violin. 4 He had begun to practice at the Jay Farm the summer before. By

20

OPEN YE THE

GATES

n o w , learning to play the instrument obsessed h i m ; he w o u l d force it to express w h a t he felt. H e wanted to be a genius. H e began to wonder if, had he been taught the rudiments of music from his cradle, he might not have become the Great A m e r i c a n Musician. 7 O n one occasion, after hearing a youthful prodigy, C h a p m a n wrote to his mother, his hilarity exploding into these foreboding images: T o play like that I'd cut off my foot with a hatchet, I'd pull off my ear by main force, I'd walk naked nine times around Boston, I'd swallow a fishing hook, I'd throw President Eliot out of his own parlor window sash and all— I'd go ten days without eating and before touching a morsel, I'd seize a violin and say, " N o w ! Listen." 8 A l l his life C h a p m a n needed and sought listeners. His fellow collegians listened to his scrapings—in pain; and they demonstrated. Some of them hurled lumps of coal against his door, and sophomores h u n g clocks outside his w i n d o w s in T h a y e r Hall. 9 For the pensive, solitude has its delights, but they were not enough for this sociable freshman. T h e fault was not entirely his if he stood alone, for in the 1880s Harvard's social climate was chilly. A s late as December, he still k n e w very f e w of his classmates. T h e y had come in cliques f r o m Boston schools and had little in c o m m o n with an outsider f r o m N e w Y o r k . 1 0 But in time C h a p m a n found his o w n clique, tablemates, most of w h o m had good Boston names. In the beau monde, at any rate, he was treated well enough. Frequent in the college letters are mentions of calls upon such proper Bostonians as the Cabots and Lawrences and L o w e l l s and Prescotts and Russells and Sargents and Searses. T h e rest of Boston and C a m b r i d g e seems hardly to have existed for him. H e w a s an "aristophil" and was to remain one. N e a r l y a decade after he had left H a r v a r d , calling himself a " t h u n d e r i n g swell," he wrote to his w i f e : Come down to it and you find the paradox that only aristocrats are truly democratic in their social conduct and feeling. They only are simple—they have nothing to gain and nothing to lose, and have the freedom and simplicity of human beings. 11 H e could admire and love the place and its people, and yet as a N e w Y o r k e r he w o u l d " m a k e it a point to abuse Boston." " T h e y like it inside," he contended, "and it's good for ' e m . " 1 2 A m o n g the hostesses w h o like himself were "outsiders" and w h o befriended h i m were Mrs. W h i t m a n and Mrs. G a r d n e r . But w e get at least one glance into a w o r l d improperly

OPEN Y E T H E

21

GATES

Bostonian. A "2.00 ball" into which Chapman and some of his friends had drifted inspired for his mother's benefit this account: I saw all the demimonde in Boston & a very poor show it was. Many students excited with wine, some very drunk, most affectionately and abominably drunk, trying to borrow money and calling for more. I have seen grave senators and elders with broken hats on the back of their head reeling and discoursing fustian, Cato fuddled with a wench on each knee. I have seen the harlot pouring out champagne to the all too willing beardless. All the best women in town (for Boston is a small place) passed in comment by an elbow friend with horrible particularities—I have seen men dancing and smoking with overcoats on. Women clutching to them like a log in a shipwreck. Very respectable fellows calling first names and exchanging stew jests with filth. . . . Don't be pious, and think of me as your loving son, JOHN JAY

CHAPMAN

P.S. I came away wondering why people should be fond of this kind of amusement, destitute as it is of all that is most pleasant in life—fresh air, books, music and good society. 13 That Chapman had a long way to go before he would become a critic of society is shown by his sermon on the gospel of gold: Certainly it is not respectable not to have money, and all the tribute paid to wealth has its foundation in right. Not to have it shows a lack of force of character—either in yourself or in your fathers—coming sooner or later from vice or disregard of law. If this is not so, morality has no foundation. 1 4 Besides the violin and social life, Chapman worked for recognition by emulating his brother Henry, who was contributing to undergraduate publications. But his first ventures failed: the Harvard his sonnet, and the daily Echo

Advocate

refused

rejected an article which he supposed was

too "incendiary" for it. 15 " I can only bewail the state of literature," he wrote. 18 Yet before the first semester was over he had twice appeared in the magazine and was an editor of the newspaper. Although these and his other contributions to the Advocate

show little distinction, they afford

glimpses into his feelings. Something not found in his college letters, for instance, comes out in these " L i n e s " : There is a longing that was born with me And makes continual unrest in my mind; And though each man for his felicity Must suffer and must labor, mine would be T o leave a single noble thought behind. And I have hoped and do at times believe

22

OPEN YE T H E G A T E S That once while I keep watch in doubt and pain The angel will appear with my reprieve, Stand by my side just long enough to leave His shining message, and depart again. 17

In future years Chapman would speak before a greater number and variety of audiences than he could ever remember, but like plenty of other public speakers he began with a failure. "It will please you to hear," he writes to his mother in November, that I had the satisfaction of making a fool of myself before the whole college. There is a debating society called the Harvard Union. . . . I was moved to get on my legs . . . and when I got there I found that I had nothing to say, so after a few incoherences I sat down again, remarking faintly to my neighbor that notoriety was the next best thing to fame. 18 He loved the theater and frequented the performances of Sarah Bernhardt in classic French dramas and thrilled to Salvini's Othello. This year he also paid a visit to Longfellow at Craigie House: Just back from seeing the poet. He has the finest old house I've ever seen. They say it was the headquarters of Washington, but then all houses were. He evidently didn't know how to talk to a boy; so after saying I availed myself of the privilege, etc., I launched off and talked steadily on all subjects Grandfather] Jay, the Laugels, College, Boston, the theatres, Bernhardt (I ought to have poked him in the ribs appropos [/»V] of this and said Chkk, you sly old boy!). 19 About a week later he saw and heard the Reverend Phillips Brooks. Chapman seems to have gone to a number of different Protestant churches during his Harvard years, perhaps sampling and judging sermons and rituals. He refused to attend the required chapel, calculating in his defense that in the time so saved he could learn another language. 2 0 On the books he was reading, the letters often contain extempore comments. Burns, for example, is "a great poet," for his spontaneity, "wonderful power of expression in few words," and "no refinement of emotion, no playing with the sensibilities." 2 1 As to the habit of expressing the opinion of the moment, this freshman had already made up his mind, and for life: My present theory is "talk" on all occasions—don't weigh your words too much.—It's discouraging, results from an over-estimate of self and sense of importance.—If people will repeat and remember when you are confronted with a past utterance, don't be afraid to say, "Did I say that? Well, perhaps I

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did," and give 'em a bundle of new opinions apposite, pertinent or nonsecutive, old and new, till they wonder how they had the audacity to ask an explanation. If anybody is fool enough to spend time in pondering your speech—why give 'em food for contemplation. They may make something out of it [if?] you can't.22 In the following year Chapman's curiosity about politics and history, especially American, was growing. He took a course in European history and another on the constitutional governments of England and the United States. Since his ignorance of American history was, as he put it, "really disgraceful," he was resolved to learn whatever he could.23 Reading Hildreth, Von Hoist, and other historians stirred him to write: Von Hoist very good, scientific and impartial and gives new views on many of our ancestors. I should be ashamed to be connected with Jefferson, who didn't have a principle of a fine feeling, but was a mere trimmer, changed his principles with his circumstances and cared for nothing but himself, descended to low artifices, professionally a wire-puller, a poster of placards, a sophist, one who had no convictions but played on the popular sentiment, steered with the current and was so clever as never to be notably found out. I suppose after all he was like anyone else, but he had a greater power of self-deception, and of deceiving others too. Hamilton was the greatest statesman of this country, head and shoulders. Probably he had the biggest intellect over here in any form.24 Possibly Hildreth impressed upon Chapman something of this historian's own Federalist bias. And from Von Hoist Chapman might have derived a thesis which was to influence his own writings: that slavery is the keynote to American history. Though he did not commit himself in an Advocate review of Cabot Lodge's Alexander Hamilton?6 Chapman's attitude towards Jefferson seems to have persisted throughout his life. This descendant of John Jay never quite shook off his Hamiltonian point of view. During his second year in Cambridge he also ventured into practical affairs. He informs his mother that "in a moment of thoughdessness" he has joined a temperance group. He had no faith that the organization could effect a reform: "You can't work people from without inward," he declared. "Besides, . . . I don't want an automatic conscience." 26 And for a lifetime he never did want one. Also during this second year he was more active in college life, began to be a leader, and became a little surer of his popularity. In October he was elected to an important social club, the D.K.E. In his second semester

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he edited the Advocate, a position in which he had such predecessors as E. S. Martin, George Edward Woodberry, A . B. Hart, Theodore Roosevelt, George Lyman Kittredge, and Charles Hill Grandgent. During these first six months of 1882 he often contributed short stories, verse, essays, and book reviews. Continuing his Greek, Chapman read Plato and the tragedians. Chaucer, Bacon, Milton, and Dryden he studied with Professor Francis J. Child, who has earned this characterization in "Retrospections": He was an old-fashioned, caustic, witty little man of the Scotch type, the headlight of Teutonic scholarship in America, and his subject was Ballads. His attitude toward the students was Pecksniffian. I once showed him with some pride a few folio pages of a broadside of Charles II's time. I had bought the thing at an auction in New York in my Washington Square days. Child glanced at the thing, dashed it with the back of his hand and returned it with scorn. (One would think that he would be pleased to find a boy who bought such a thing.) He became for me a symbol of the German school of documentation, classification, and footnotes. Kittredge was his pupil, and Kittredge was an iron man who would be seen stalking about Cambridge with a vicious looking small bag filled with burglar's tools and footnotes on Othello. I looked with a shudder on both Child and Kittredge and to this day feel that between the commentaries of such men and the works of genius to which they tag their notes, there is a deep gulf fixed. While Chapman was a sophomore his family's friend Henry James had returned to America for a year. The American expatriates were a puzzlement to the youth, and he thought of James as a man without a country. The Portrait of a Lady had not long been in the bookshops when Chapman was criticizing it as "too fine flavored" and agreeing with his grandmother Chapman that it was a "picture of a peculiar phase of civilization rather than of life." 2 7 Oscar Wilde visited Boston this year, and Chapman watched the freshmen planning their burlesque of him, with knee breeches, dress coats, and lilies. A snap shot of Wilde appears in a letter dated June 4, 1882: Dined last night with the Papyrus. They are the literati and artisti of Boston and usually rake up some lion to dine with 'em. This time it was Oscar, who has come back again. He made not a bad speech afterwards—laughing at himself—speaking of some young artist out West who was doing as good work as any young man in London. He said if they had such a one in England they would admire him and make much of him—in time might even come to

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caricature him, the form in which England shows her admiration of young men.—His appearance is horrible. He is very fat and bloated and looks anything but intellectual.28 The crisis of Chapman's second year at Harvard was his father's financial collapse, which meant doubt that he could continue in college. Would either he or his brother have to give up? In a rather incoherent letter to his mother, in February, 1882, he seems to reason that if either of them must leave school, it should be Henry as the older and more mature.29 For economy's sake the boys' mother and sisters went to France and for a while lived in a pension. An unidentified professor offered Chapman $800 to tide him over, although the offer did not have to be accepted. The Jays and Grandmother Chapman lent money. And President Eliot, who had learned of the family's misfortune, found tutoring work for Jack. 30 Only twenty at the time, Chapman was enough upset to worry about the cost of the ink used in writing his midyear examinations. A few days later he informed his mother: "I shall sell the violin.—It's no half way business." 3 1 At this juncture in one of his Advocate essays, on visiting pawnshops and wryly titled "The Origin of Specie," we find this sentence: "Apparently the easiest thing to live without is a violin, so many people are interested in getting rid of it." 3 2 Worried though he was, Chapman's life was not radically altered. How far he was from what are necessities for most human beings is disclosed in his later remark that his tutoring had value as "a plunge into the practical." 33 His sophomore year brought John Jay Chapman as close as he would ever get to poverty. But money was not his sole anxiety. As an old man, after he had been rereading his college letters of this period, he admitted: I was always in love—a great many times anyway—and Oh, my! how I did suffer from a sense of responsibility and inferiority. I can today block the north light of my studio and turn on various side-bulbs and dentist-probes and see my youth as a continuous torture chamber.34 The Advocate contains several of his sentimental love poems. In one of them, "Son to Mother," he frets at his mother's queries about a sweetheart he finds desirable.30 There is likewise a feeble short story about a shy adolescent, the intended irony of which does not veil its author's oversensitiveness and jealousy where girls are concerned.36 In the last month of his second college year Chapman published " A

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Doctor's Story," an account of the death of a man who had been a churchgoer but became an agnostic.37 Paucity of evidence makes impossible any reconstruction of Chapman's religious crisis during his junior year. By temperament he was all his life deeply religious; and the depth of his feelings may explain his silence; for neither the letters to his mother nor his autobiography expresses the anguish of a soul that has lost its faith. But Owen Wister has remarked: At Harvard . . . beneath the cold douche of Evolution, he reacted. The props of dogma being knocked from beneath his faith, it wholly collapsed. For a while he took unbelief as hard as he had taken belief. With a nature so sensitive, so earnest, so headlong, nothing else could be.38 His letters account for the intellectual, if not the emotional, impact of evolutionism upon Chapman. T o his mother he defends Darwin with ardor; and in the year 1882-1883 he was borrowing from the Harvard Library the works of John Fiske and Herbert Spencer. For one thing, he now revolted against Dr. Coit's Christianity. He wanted a faith that was not "small," "sentimental," and "very sad," but "large, practical and cheerful." 3 9 In "Song of the Agnostic," verses written at this time, he likens the ancient dogmas to Masks in a barbarous tragedy almost forgotten Left with the fictions of time—the clogs of the mind.40 By May of his junior year he was committed to naturalism: The stupid notion that morality in private life depends on religious belief [he writes to his mother] . . . will gradually disappear. . . . Now there are few people who are held back by the fear of God. But most are governed by their consciences in which there is no personal God but only tradition, experience, inherited tendency—the reflection of their age and country in fact. . . . I see every day sceptics and saints and humbugs observing the same code. You need not tell me it's their crede [sic\ they obey.—It's their civilization.41 Some months later, however, he began to extricate himself naturalistic ethics:

from

As for feeling and sympathy, Evolutionism leads to it. It is the only one that induced me to feel as if I had a part in the past or the future. For all others [philosophies?] are fixed, mechanical, condemning and misunderstanding past theories, feelings, etc.42 In the same letter he was recommending Fiske's Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy for his little sister. If Darwinism was destroying for him the

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externals of Christianity, its dogma and letter, it was also confirming in him the inward and mystic nature of religion. This is at least implied in another letter to his mother: The philosophical side of it is a small matter—I mean that portion which clashes with the forms of Christianity. It is a question of whether one shall kneel or stand—whether you shall believe certain formulas or the truth they contain. The Christian religion, in so far as its practical effect goes, its happiness, its power, remains the same, or rather becomes ten times more strong by being robbed of its inconsistencies and superstitions. 43 Never a philosopher nor a system maker, indifferent to theology and metaphysics, Chapman, under the impact of Darwin, abandoned once and for all philosophical absolutism. A philosophy course with Professor George Herbert Palmer reinforced his conclusions as to philosophical inquiry. In a sketch of this teacher, Chapman has explained his position: I owe to Palmer a philosophic experience that left a permanent trace in my mind—an impression, a preoccupation, that I never quite got rid of. . . . In dealing with Berkeley, Palmer outlined Berkeley's paradox as in the nature of the human intellect, and how we possessed no acid or touchstone that could test the validity of our own Reason. Our explanations of any problem were, for aught we could find out, merely a part of our dream. This was news to me, and I said to myself, "Very well; until one can get past this barrier, I do not intend to burden my mind with philosophy." This idea has been with me—you might say—every minute since then. 44 Here is the theoretical explanation—whatever the temperamental one might be—of Chapman's attitude towards formal philosophy: he did not believe that the human mind could ever by rational means attain ultimate truths. It was not the philosophers but Emerson who was to influence, to rule, almost to shape, Chapman's mind and heart. Early in his junior year he declares that Emerson's essays are to him what poetry is to some people: "the bridge between everyday life and the imagination." 45 And a few months later: Emerson is the man. Why did you never make me read him? Nobody like him—Shakespeare is his elder brother. There's been nobody, I assure you, with such power of expression. His words are levers and pickaxes. Language is a live thing in his hands. You can't call him a philosopher. Only a maker of remarks, a condenser of experience, an empiric, a poet. . . . One who calls your attention to certain things without explaining them. 4 6

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Just as early as this commitment to Emerson is Chapman's alertness to the faults of specialism in the historical method. In another letter of his junior year we find him articulating a view he held to for the rest of his life: H o w nice it would be to have an intellect like Lord Brougham's, prehensile, agile, flashy,—serviceable. Nowadays they demand such study, such thought, such reading and thoroughness that it takes a lifetime to write an essay on a historical anecdote. T h i n k of the good old times when a review could be flashed out in two hours, and it didn't make any difference what a man said so long as he was amusing. T h e Germans have done this—Goths and Vandals—men who have no appreciation of the beauties of literature—slow, ponderous and beery—exhaustive grubbers. Why couldn't they leave light flippant carelessness alone? It's these men who arc ruining every gentleman scribbler—the base specialists! 4 7

Besides his mischievous disrespect for Longfellow, Chapman's break with what Santayana was later to call "the genteel tradition" is indicated by this pronouncement on Boston's leading wit: I a m tired of O. W . Holmes. H e has his cake; let him retreat and lie quietly with the esteem and affection of all men. But I wish they wouldn't give him dinners or print his verses. I think he really believes what is said to him about himself. H e has not the faintest conception of change or of the future—fast becoming the present—or he would never write the truck he does. He's a type of a generation that didn't know the difference between an idea and an epigram. I don't dispute his humor, humanity, amusing books, but he does not see that he is as past as deism, Voltaire and snuff—and goes on m a k i n g his penny mots when the rest of mankind has struck oil.

As to striking oil, Chapman was not sure where it was or what its quality was to be: "Howells is a man of his time and pursues the path which fiction has been steadily turning toward—realism. What follows? Heaven only knows." 4 8 Evidently neither James's novels nor Howells's could satisfy Chapman, who began now to clarify his ideas on modern novelists. It was late in Chapman's third year at Harvard that his father died suddenly in Manila. The letters neither dwell on the event nor express affliction. When the news came, Chapman wrote to his mother: "Papa had fine qualities which I do not expect to see in anyone else. . . . It is a strange and terrible ending." H e was saddened that the family was "getting pretty well disintegrated." 4 9 Four months later, when the widow received, from the captain of the sailing vessel on which Chapman, Sr., had made his trip, her husband's personal effects, the son wrote:

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Papa had in him that something w h i c h called forth the humanity in the people about him. I have read the same thing about Fielding and others, and how the roughest men came and cried to them. . . . Something like w h a t Paganini did with his fiddle these men do by their simple presence. 5 0

But whatever his inward insecurities were, socially Jack Chapman was a success. As a senior he was president of Alpha Delta Phi. This office and his membership in the Porcellian club made secure his place in Harvard society. As an old man Chapman was grateful for the tardiness of his election to the Porcellian—because it meant more time for study as well as a wider acquaintance among his classmates.61 Nevertheless he delighted in club life, and for the rest of his days was a clubbable man. At the same time, the inhumanity of the club system at Harvard in the eighties burdened his conscience. So he took up for the first time the reformer's role. As one of a group who tried to democratize the caste system among undergraduates, he prepared for the Hasty Pudding and the Porcellian new constitutions that were intended to abolish the ranking system. He was also among those who proposed a clubhouse where Harvard men belonging to no clubs might congregate with clubmen. The venture came to nothing. In his seventieth year, Chapman remembered it: "Alas, Sam [Samuel Eliot, another leader in the reform] and I did not know we were erecting a child's bank of sand against one of the great tidal powers of human nature." 5 2 If this practical experiment in a social problem failed, Chapman at any rate continued his social studies with his second courses in political economy and European history. He was reading John Stuart Mill and Spencer's Sociology and John Morley's essays. Of that very new book, William Graham Sumner's What Social Classes Owe to Each Other, Chapman wrote: Evolution conclusions, remorseless, hard-headed, anti-sentimental,—very

well

done and clear,—if a little narrow and didactic Y a l e insolence about it. N o t quite the broad scientific treatment. Rather controversial, but easy reading. 5 3

How Sumner rested upon Chapman's conscience is a nice question. Anguish over the study of economics wrung from him this classic: W h a t I have been doing all day is looking over statistical tables for a polecon [political e c o n o m y ] course. It is the hardest kind of stuff I have ever k n o w n . A kind of mixture of algebra with poetry. T h e difficulty is to account for things. Y o u have a bundle of conceptions and laws—half of them denied by opposing economists. Y o u have tables of facts and

figures-—always

to be distrusted. Y o u

have volumes of H o u s e of C o m m o n s Reports and pamphlets of "Darstellung

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der Wcrtrelazion der Metallen," and reports of Conferences Internationales, and out of this you have to patch up a doctrine. The trouble is in about fifteen minutes you forget what you know and what you're trying to prove and lose the connection between the columns of results you happen to be studying and your plan of future life entirely. You are under the general impression after reading an essay or two that with a little practice one might prove anything—but the real research begins when you give up this way of looking at it and say "Let's find out how does the thing work anyhow." Then comes the despair in which I am at present.54 Out of such despair Chapman was never to find his way. In the spring of his senior year he returned to St. Paul's for a visit. He now found its "familiar odor of sanctity" so "suffocating" that he was every minute afraid he would "break something, or swear, or make an improper allusion." When he talked with Coit, the good doctor blamed himself for the Chapman boys' defection from the faith and wrung his hands with fear for their damnation. But not long afterwards, in a letter to Owen Wister, Chapman asks if their former headmaster, being "the Middle Ages," is not also "the spirit of chivalry and gentlemanliness." 5 5 Indeed, for decades he was to puzzle over the significance of Coit and St. Paul's. It is enough for the present, however, to remark the enduring effects of Darwinism on his thought. In his twenty-third year he sets forth for the same friend his Weltanschauung: The conceptions of our time are greater than those of Elizabeth's or the Medici's—since they include them. We have not their ability because our enlightenment comes from the top and is theoretical, theirs came from within— the development of a need—and was practical. But their Weltanschauung— that of regarding everything as a great perhaps—which laid them open to so many new ideas and let them into so much no one had got into before in art and literature and history, and made them have so good a time—is what ours ought to be. . . . You see, there's no particular reason why anything should be. We've just found this out. The best ages of the world practically felt it. . . . It's been gradually coming for 400 [years?] and now we've got there. Practice always goes before theory—luckily, or no one would get anywhere—but the modern no-philosophy is just about abreast of the modern world and is nearer in accordance with the facts of existence than anyone ever was before. . . . Anything may be true—probably is, in some sense, and let us run round so fast and fill so much space that we catch the ray of it—no matter in how unexpected a direction it shoots off. Then again the question of growing old—it is very much a question of

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having opinions that arc grown old. There are two ways of escaping this—to have no opinions or to have all opinions. It is safer to choose the latter. There must be a certain background of inevitable prejudice, but one ought to be as open to conviction at forty-four as one is at twenty-three. It is not the condition but the man that changes. He freezes up. He reaches his growth. He loses the power of readjusting his thoughts. Now this should be struggled against. We should live all the time like children to whom a fairy-tale is being read. Everything should be real and new and interesting—in a sense possible. If we do this perhaps the new poets will not die of starvation. Such a striving is the command and at the same time an antidote to the tendency of our age. 56 Very seldom did Chapman philosophize so extensively in his letters. But his twenty-third seems to have been a year for stocktaking. For this year also he set down his premises on how the critic should use historical perspective: It may be what you say is true about my liking paradoxes [he wrote to Owen Wister]. I had not thought so, but am always afraid of losing certain truths through a terre a terre doubting habit of mind about things in general. Thus it seems to me almost impossible to go backwards and throw yourself into a state of mind you have outgrown. . . . Take Gluck. If you are going to hear Iphigenia at Aulis as you would Parzifal you will find it thin and unmusical. If you unconsciously go to it with your mind adjusted to an eighteenth-century attitude you will find it tremendous. There is nothing absolutely affecting or beautiful. It is only as it is placed. . . . It is only by juxtaposition that the meaning of anything comes out. If things had their own meaning there would be no difference between poetry and political economy. Now the moral of all this is, have your mind balanced and set to jump into any attitude. Don't lose by your advance nor by your philosophy. Because you see the outside things, don't forget to step back into the insides. . . . You've got to be both a dreamer and a man of science. The outcome is very apt to be a perfectly conscious enjoyment of what not—a sort of winetasting almost painful endeavor to test and weigh—but ought not to be. One should have tact, an infinite self-control that one is neither disingenuous nor obtuse. All this to prove that I am not paradoxical—or that something very like paradoxical is the way to be.57 And here in part is the criticism Chapman made of a manuscript Wister had sent him: Do you remember Herbert Spencer and "the economy of the attention"? Well, all art is nothing but the economy of the attention,—poetry, painting, etc.—and all bad art is the neglect of it. . . . The question is only how people feel. Describe this so that everyone who has been through it will feel it again. . . . It's not by telling people things but by

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GATES

making them see things. If you the author can disappear your work bccomes mighty. 58 Also this year, in a letter to Wister, Chapman provided for his readers an indispensable key to understanding his manner: You take me up a little too short on the logic of my letters. That is, when I write I sit down at a table and say whatever comes into my head without trying to resolve contradictions. There are two methods of composition. The dramatic and the philosophical. The second says what it means, the first says something and you see what it means. For instance, if you want to express indecision, you may say "I am undecided," or you may express two contradictory intentions one after the other, and let the other man see. I don't recommend this method for the forum, but it has its advantages with people you know, being more homely, forcible, and with regard to the exact shade of meaning expressed—accurate. 59 Naturally, in writing for publication Chapman was not going to say whatever came into his head. But he does mean that, in his indifference to merely literal

truths, he will express himself in such a way as to force

upon his readers, dramatically, the essential

truths that concern him.

Evidently Chapman had been reading Shakespeare for years, and in college he began to collect some of D r . Furness's N e w Variorum editions. Goethe, too, he seems to have read all through his college years, his introduction to German, and to French, having begun when he was a child. Early in his senior year he wrote that he had been trying to gain an "Ubersicht" of German literature and found it hard "to get at the inwardness of the matter." 9 0 Reading Turgenev in French and German translations, he wondered Peres et Enfants:

that his mother

had never spoken

about

" T h e r e is so much like it which goes on in our family,

and a man in it I have often felt like and acted l i k e . " 6 1 Doubtless the iconoclast in Chapman caused him to identify himself with the young nihilist Bazarov. After reading much of Turgenev, he remarked: "Besides the great books there are some short stories you can cry over—dry tears that make you o l d e r . " 6 2 Zola was "cauterizing," but his novels "atrocious art—make your hair c u r l . " 6 3 O f foreign books, as of the Greek classics, "the inwardness of the matter" was to Chapman the essential problem for the critic. T h a t it is difficult for a person of one nation to understand a person from another; that languages and literatures are so steeped in local and national colorations and overtones that a foreigner can never expect to comprehend a great writer as the writer's

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compatriots can; that, however, national sentiment unconsciously leads one to estimate too highly a writer of his own country—of all these complexities Chapman was by now acutely aware. 64 There were two disappointments in his senior year. T h e penalty for not attending chapel was the withholding of his degree at Commencement in June of 1884. But he was distinguished enough to be given a Commencement part: as the class wit, he was chosen to be Ivy Orator. Because he wanted to be Class Poet like his brother Henry before him, the award was at first not to his liking: I didn't want to be a buffoon and refused point blank until Henry persuaded me it was the proper thing to take and do such things [he wrote to his mother]. So he's my apology for the sad half hour you will spend in Sanders Theatre and for the philosophy with which I shall meet the forced compliments when I step from the platform. Condole with your son. 65 A s Harvard Ivy Orations go, Chapman's is rather the average of its kind. What interests us now is its flickering illumination of topics and questions of that faraway time. President Eliot is scolded as an enemy of the classics and doubted as a reformer: " T h i s institution of learning is moulting. It is suffering a change. . . . T h e recognition of the elective principle alters the function of a University." Chapman teases Massachusetts on the passing of its preeminence in letters, prescribes for the rejuvenation of Harvard's English department, and reprimands his alma mater for its illiberal treatment of "one of the best intellects in the country," John Fiske's. H e pokes f u n at European celebrities who had recently visited America, and Matthew Arnold comes in for a drubbing: The fellow maintains he never undertook to be any definite species of beast. "I am a critic," he says, "I am a critic. I am not a philosopher, I am not a poet, I am not a statesman, I am not a man of the world, I am not of any creed, nor sect, nor party, I profess no clear principles, I am a critic, England's greatest critic." T h e fond applause had not long been silenced that June day, when Chapman was in Europe, where he remained until a few weeks before his entry into the Harvard L a w School. T h e letters he wrote to his mother during his travels reveal a mind and a sensibility, generous, alive, and fully prepared to win the best from Europe's culture. 69 H e seems never to have missed a chance to visit museums and galleries, to attend plays and concerts. Free from pedantry and priggishness, he takes to his

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cosmopolitanism easily; and he is in earnest about improving his French and German. The letters are supplemented by the memories of this Wanderjahr that are included in "Retrospections." 67 His companion was his classmate W . Amory Gardner, who became one of the founders of Groton. Chapman went abroad as a wandering student, living at the rate of $100 a month, and equipped by his grandfather Jay with letters of introduction to old friends and notabilities. On the Continent he recalls the joy with which Gardner and he "gambolled up the Rhine like puppies at play." At Homburg they found Chapman's aunt Anna Jay von Schweinitz, whose husband was then at his post in St. Petersburg as German ambassador. Next he remembers Munich, where he lived with the family of a postal clerk. "It was the Bavaria of Jean Paul Richter's time," he writes. " T h e only sign of the imperial period was the astonishing titles by which one had to refer to the wife of the tobacconist's clerk." At Bayreuth he attended a performance of Parsifal, and in the lobby there he saw Liszt, "much bent, Gothic, pontifical,—Liszt, who as a boy played for Beethoven." At Bayreuth Chapman was stricken with the Wagner contagion. T h e fever was not so severe, however, that he could not describe its symptoms to Owen Wister. Wagner's "epic strain" was "great." During the sceneshifting, too, there was "cavernous, prophetic, awful music—absolute music. . . . The blast comes sweeping from the abyss as you pass it and then dies away." That opera was "drenched" with "what is intended to be religion." But is it the real thing? It does not strike home in a religious way. Did knights or did anybody ever feel about Holy Grails or Christ in that sort of way? . . . when we hear any old music which [h]as been a reality—either the old Protestant or the old Catholic music—we recognize it, we see the connection. Now this Parsifal music I do not think is the religious feeling. . . . It is something else. It's a dream of romance, a fairy tale—a very modern thing. After hearing many of the Wagnerian operas, Chapman confessed to the same friend that he felt the power of the music. And yet: I do not feel the limits of it. I distrust this very fact about it. Perhaps it is because the work is of our own age—hits our wants between wind and water—and we fall on our knees and cry "O Eternal truth and beauty—infinite, infinite." He did not mean to be doctrinaire, he would wait until he heard more: I care for criticism and analysis only as it helps to understand a thing—as it does—as one might be able to say "I know that poem or song—I might have

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made it—I feel as if I made it." And then what it is becomes of no consequence.68 (Finally, though—by 1895—he had made up his mind. " T h e essential lack in Wagner is after all a want of sanitary plumbing," he then informed Wister. " N o amount of sentiment or passion can wholly make up for this. One feels all the time that the connection with the main is fraudulent."

TO

)

After Bayreuth came Vienna and then Italy, where sky and climate led Chapman to drop his guidebooks and use his own eyes. In Germany life had been "a series of interviews with absolute sovereigns from the car conductors u p " ; in Italy he found the people free to enjoy life. 70 A t Venice he delighted in the carnival, walked the galleries, and bought an old Variorum Dante, which he read with a pocket dictionary. H e passed little time in the American colonies in Europe, for his intention was to keep away from "foreigners." There was also a trip to Russia, where he stayed with his relatives at the German Embassy in St. Petersburg: T h e Russian experience was disillusioning in the extreme, all external, while behind and beneath the externals, lay unimaginable horrors. Midwinter, the Neva frozen and at night a soldier standing on guard beneath each bridge to guard against dynamite. Droschkies, generals, moujiks, adjutants, troikas, on the Nevsky Prospekt; enormous distances, palaces, police. Fairyland? N o ! Tolstoy had shattered that thought. . . . I saw one of the annual state pageants at Petersburg, the "Blessing of the Neva." It took place on the ice—which was carpeted in red and crowned with a pavilion. T h e Grand Dukes were there, half a dozen of them, like Paladins in a group, magnificent in their pride and splendor. I had a good view of the show from a gallery, a sort of enclosure for secretaries and lesser foreign functionaries. I attended a ball at the Winter Palace, an ugly building about half a mile long. On the steps stood servants and gorgeous ministers holding glittering staves, tufted at the top with ostrich plumes, while imperial ambassadors and Russian princesses trailed up the great staircase, and diplomats greeted, soothed and heartened one another with consoling duplicities. At supper, which was at an immensely long table raised at one side of an immensely long gallery, the Emperor and Empress were sitting under a canopy halfway down the table, the guests bowing low before the sovereign as they passed. A n d the young American was proud when his uncle, General

von

Schweinitz, remarked of him, " W i e der junge Mann versteht Goethe!" There was another story of Chapman in Russia, which he seems never to have told of himself but which epitomizes the impetuosity and courage

36

OPEN Y E T H E GATES

of his nature. Once when the young people of the diplomatic set at St. Petersburg were out tobogganing, Chapman, noticing from the top of the chute that a pair of sleds were starting their parallel descent so loosely held together that a dangerous accident might occur, instantly flung himself upon the toboggans, held them together by main force, and was dragged on his stomach from the top to the bottom of the slide. He was less moved by the praise and thanks showered on him than by the loss of all the buttons from his coat. 71 The climax of his wanderings was England, where the spell of the personalities he met formed his chief remembrance. "People used to write essays on the uses of great men," he wrote. "The British had long understood the matter. Great men were to be shown off." Britain was in fact generous enough in displaying to this young American a number of her eminent Victorians. T o m Hughes was one of them. Another was Lord Salisbury, who at a reception in his palace "loomed like Olympus in his great drawing-room . . . [and] looked like the British Empire." Armed with a letter of introduction supplied by Thackeray's daughter, Chapman lunched with the Tennyson family in the country. Unfortunately, the luncheon was "colorless": " W e all seemed to be equally overshadowed by his greatness. It was the mot d'ordre to be speechless." Later that day the minor poet Sir Lewis Morris dropped in. "Tennyson and Morris conversed about small water-creatures, newts and frogs, and little things that flit about on azure wings, and I felt I was seeing life." Henry M. Stanley appeared at a tea, and "a tough customer he was, with rather terrible hands, and eyes as hard as quartz." There was also a family dinner at the Gladstones, and a "vacuous" luncheon at Herbert Spencer's. Others who befriended Chapman were Mr. and Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson, to whom Henry James had provided a letter of introduction and who were then living at Bournemouth. Chapman, staying in a neighboring cottage, set up two or three nights in a row and by candlelight wrote a tragic, Othello-like story—a story he read to the romancer. "Retrospections" has this glimpse of R.L.S. and his wife: Stevenson at that time was the whimsical, picturesque enchanting invalid that he is in Sargent's sketch of him, and his wife was the blazing gypsy from New Mexico who contrasted with him like a big tropical plant—and both were friendly and most dear. At Dresden Chapman had struck up a friendship with a young Englishman, Henry C. Cust, later editor of the Pall Mall Gazette. "Cust,"

OPEN Y E T H E GATES

37

he recalls, "was first and last a great education to me. H e invaded my crepuscular mind like a piece of

fireworks

. . . there was a strong

bond between us—the bond of y o u t h . " 7 2 T o Chapman he seemed a man of the world, gay, charming, a heartbreaker—a figure in the romance of old Europe. A s the autumn of 1885 approached, however, the Wanderjahr

had to

come to an end. Reluctant to return to America and study law, Chapman was wishing his resources would permit him to stay abroad longer. Would he add his name to the list of American expatriates? After all, was not Europe his natural habitat? " B y accident I had been born in a desert, a suburb, a penal colony," he wrote in his autobiography. " I felt that I was just beginning to get my eyes open and my feathers dried out after life in the shell. What I needed was more Europe—another dip in the elixir." His eyes had yet to be opened, and something more than foreign residence was needed to blast his shell. Sedate old Boston, decent tranquil Cambridge, the drudgery of the Harvard L a w School, and the dark Italianate eyes of a girl as fiery as himself—these were to provide an elixir far more potent than Europe.

Ill Thou Shalt Love

S

O M E O N E wise in the matter once remarked, "Love is the soul's ordeal." For Chapman it was certainly nothing less. Our concern in this crisis is not with the development of his ideas but with a delving into the subsoil of impulse in which they were rooted and shaped. Even if they know nothing of his career and achievement, those who have heard the name John Jay Chapman will at least tell you that in a fit of jealousy he beat another man, his rival in love, and then, overcome by remorse, thrust the offending hand into a fire until it was burned off. This seems like an episode from Dostoyevsky; and one may shudder at such monstrous self-punishment. Or one may shrug his shoulders and ask, as someone asked Chapman's biographer, " 'Why should I read a book about such a damn fool as t h a t ? ' " 1 The truth of the matter is not so simple. Chapman was made of human stuff and possessed the urges common to humanity. But Chapman the lover lays bare a psyche from which the shield of rationality has been ripped away, and one may peer into depths where rages the common battle of love against hate and of life against death. What is astonishing is that the man survived this excruciation. We lack certain particulars but have facts enough to reconstruct the story. T o interpret such self-mutilation we must of course rely in part on hypothesis. Yet this method promises much illumination. 2 At any rate, even a partial insight into Chapman's youthful love helps us to understand his powers and limitations as a thinker and writer. More than with most of us, Chapman's battle against the enemies within was fated to be severe. But there was nothing dark in the memories he brought with him from Europe. The Wanderjahr had been an experience from which he gained all that anyone could. In Chapman's eyes, accustomed to Europe's charms, the return to his own country in the autumn of 1885 was a letdown. On October 5, he entered Harvard L a w School, where his brother

THOU SHALT LOVE

39

Henry was already a student. In the company of James J. Storrow, Eliot Norton, Owen Wister, and others, Chapman took his meals in " T h e Palace," a small frame house they had rented on a side street in Cambridge. On occasion there were guests like Charles Eliot Norton, William James, and Professor Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. T h e young men and the older mingled; and the food and the wine and the talk were all good. 3 Chapman was not a youth forever wrapped in his own gloom. Witty, effervescent, he was spoken of as "a fountain of delight." Once when four or five of his circle undertook the writing of a novel, each of them to produce a chapter and read it aloud after supper, Jack Chapman's began: "Lounging in his luxurious chamber, the Marquis was seated in his purple dressing-gown with his feet in iced claret." 4 H e himself was a marquis relishing fine clothes and good times. Nearly six feet tall, dark-haired, with a strong chin and jaw, and sporting a mustache and boyish sideburns, Chapman must have been a good-looking young fellow. 5 Among the girls he was a heartbreaker. Mrs. Winthrop Chanler, in her memoirs, remembers him in R o m e the year after his graduation: He was delightfully intelligent, bubbling with his own ideas, with a strong bias against those of others. His first reaction to my Dante cult was to say that Dante was altogether overrated, and that anyone could write that kind of thing. He scratched off an imitation of a Canto that did not exactly prove his point.® His assertions and denials were fiery, says another friend, who calls him a "spell-binder": He was inclined to run a tilt against any current opinion or established reputation. Goethe was now a mere dilettante; Plato a clever litterateur; Shakespeare would bear watching; and many other extravagances of the sort, covering quite a period.7 Yet Chapman was not happy in the study of the law. H e began it with "gloomy forebodings," imagined that his initiation into the subject was giving him his first glimpse of the struggle for existence; and to the severity of these studies he partly attributed his second breakdown. 8 T o w a r d the close of his first year, so he recollected in his autobiography, he became hypochondriac about his eyes, consulted a specialist, was told he had nothing to fear, yet continued so anxious that he hired students to read to him, and in the midst of his sociability became a kind of

40

THOU SHALT

LOVE

solitary. In "Retrospections," he fancies that he had originally harmed his eyes when, the year before in England, he had sat up a few evenings and by candlelight written the story which he read to Stevenson and his wife. This story—"feeble and extravagant trash," Chapman later called it, adding that he burned the manuscript—was about a man who out of mistaken jealousy murdered his wife. T h a t in later life Chapman linked his imagined eye weakness to an expression of sexual jealousy is worthy of note. But his memory deceived him; he had in fact been worried about his eyes, obsessively, all through the college years; and the first record of this anxiety appears scarcely two years after the breakdown at St. Paul's—where he had been "very morbidly conscientious." Such dread concern about one's eyes usually indicates a powerful sense of guilt. 9 Did Chapman as a small child see or think he saw something forbidden by the sexual mores in which he was reared? If this were fact and not conjecture, one might assert that in fearing for his eyes Chapman was, unknown to himself, punishing the offending sense. That his supposed eyestrain during his first year at law masked some deeper ill Chapman himself recognized: The truth was that I was oppressed with the responsibilities of life, the dreaded hurdles, the fated race-course, imaginative pressures, perhaps the inheritances of a Puritan's conscience, or the drive of a submerged ambition. 10 A n d when it came to sex, Chapman's ideal of chastity outdid that of John Milton—with D r . Coit adding his burden to the conscience. N o r should we forget how Chapman honored his father—"a man of suppressed emotions"—for his "granite chastity." Besides, there were tensions in the family circle; for the marriage of his father and mother was not a happy one entirely. On her side, Eleanor Jay, a stoic and the stronger of the pair, suppressed her feelings. In a college letter Chapman advised his mother that his little sister be allowed to weep over the books she was reading: It's possible to hurt people by making them ashamed to show emotion. I have felt it myself—indeed all of us [the Chapman family?] have a Spartan and false tendency to despise feelings. Your theory about strong people crying over books I take to be nonsense, if you'll excuse the term. 1 1 A s a boy he had not learned to express his natural tenderness. In the bond between mother and son there was on Chapman's part, as w e have

THOU SHALT LOVE

41

noted, always an undercurrent of antagonism. Despite his collegiate successes he felt inadequate and somehow blamed his mother for his shortcomings. Indeed, from one perspective, his school career was a series of mishaps. T h e St. Paul's experience had ended in debacle. A t Harvard he was a lonely freshman; in his second year there his father's failure threatened with humiliation an adolescent who was at once proud and sensitive; in his third year his religious beliefs were undermined; and in his last the disappointment of not being made Class Poet was swallowed up in the withholding of his degree. Membership in elite Harvard clubs may prove a man's popularity and eminence. But does that help if in his own heart he feels unsure and somehow unworthy? Within himself, John Jay Chapman lived in a black hell, fearsome, unmanning, and crushing in its demand for expiation of unremembered sins. What escape was there? I can see in retrospect [he later wrote] that the solitude of my New York boyhood had never been really outgrown. / was always moving about in worlds unrealized and trying to shake hands with the present. 12 For desperate ills, a desperate remedy. Only so far can we understand this fear of failure, these "dreaded hurdles," this fierceness of the "submerged ambition." A n d for "Puritan's conscience" may we not translate the sense of sin to be atoned? What was the sin? F r o m where might it have come? Though he loved his brother and was glad of Henry's success at school, in his secret depths Jack saw in him his chief rival. A s a freshman, writing to their mother of the "honors of all kinds" coming to Henry, Jack remarked, " I sometimes think I have overrated my capabilities in trying to learn the fiddle." T h e same letter includes this description of a dream: I dreamt Henry got shot with a gun and was filled with small shot. We thought some might be lodged dangerously and sent for young Dr. Prince. The doctor examined him, looked grave, and declared it a "straight-go-to-hell case." 1 3 T h e college letters contain further evidence of the rivalry. In another, for example, Chapman, offended with

his mother, retorted "that

I

am not straight I know, but when you drag in your other children, I am an arrow."

14

W e may surmise, then, that Chapman, without realizing it

42

THOU SHALT LOVE

always, struggled for his mother's approval and was jealous and resentful lest his brother stand higher in her esteem. From childhood, Chapman's impulses escaped only in the verbal explosions which so delighted his companions—or in such a collegiate episode as hurling through the glass of a closed window a platter of tripe which disgusted him. 1 5 That in his youth Chapman was in a sense so rigid a personality is explainable: his impulses to love—and these neutralize the hostile urges toward others as toward oneself—these loving impulses, were checked and thwarted. So there were at least two sides to Chapman's nature: the jolly and high-spirited social being; and the inward, solitary, melancholy creature. In the melancholy temperament the conscience may be enormously overdeveloped. Chapman himself stumbled upon this truth when, years later, in a poem not intended for publication, he declared to the woman he loved: The thought of thee doth conquer all distress, Turning to love the very heat of shame (For conscience finishes where Love begins). O Loved One, life has lost all bitterness, Sorrow is dead, repentance is a name And only Joy is gushing from my sins.18 From youth onward, if not before, the mind of Chapman was sundered in its efforts to reconcile his impulses towards love and hate with the demands of a tyrant conscience. The problem he faced was this: could he effect a workable compromise among these enemies within? How he answered this question is the burden of his love story. A t the end of his first year in law school Chapman about his eyes that he decided to cure himself by work crossed into Canada, had his first taste of roughing it, dug holes for posts. He remembered the experience with

was so worried on a farm. He did chores, and little relish:

As I had never taken any interest in sport, athletics, or muscular development, couldn't throw a ball, drive a nail, lift a spade or lead a horse to water, I was not well fitted to make myself useful on a farm. . . . I did odd jobs, and so badly that one burly farmer at first refused to pay me what he had promised.17 Returning to law school in the autumn of 1886, he was more than ever occupied with social life. Cust, whom he had met in Dresden, had come over from England, and Chapman wanted to show him a fine time.

THOU SHALT

LOVE

43

T h e r e w e r e visits to country houses on the N o r t h Shore and trips to the W h i t e Mountains and festivities in Boston and C a m b r i d g e . A m o n g the hosts and hostesses mentioned in the f e w letters C h a p m a n wrote this a u t u m n were M r . a n d M r s . B r i m m e r . M a r t i n B r i m m e r he later described as "the

figure-head

of philanthropy, art a n d social life in

Boston." H i s public interests brought to his house the intellectuals of the day, and C h a p m a n was as m u c h at h o m e there as he w a s at M r s . W h i t m a n ' s salon. T h e great attraction at 47 Beacon Street, h o w e v e r , was one of the t w o adoptive nieces w h o m the B r i m m e r s had brought to A m e r i c a after the death of the girls' father. H e r n a m e was

Minna

T i m m i n s ; and she was the eldest daughter of a Milanese lady

who

had married a rich American, G e o r g e H e n r y T i m m i n s , the brother of Mrs.

Brimmer.

Like

Chapman,

Minna

Timmins's

youth

had

been

stormy. A s a child, M i n n a , half Italian and half Bostonian, seems to have been neglected by her mother. H e r e in part is C h a p m a n ' s portrait of M i n n a , penned m a n y years after her death: When I think of her it is as a tall young matron full of life, entering a room with gaiety, bearing an armful of flowers for the pots and vases—crowned with inner dignity, ready to meet the thoughts of all, domestic and full of common sense. It was life that glowed in her and flowed out in her correspondence, her friendships, her pursuits, her passions. Her vitality seemed like extravagance because of its fullness, but in her it was nature and the modesty of nature. I think that the rarity came from a sort of double endowment. She had the man-minded seriousness of women in the classic myths, the regular brow, heavy dark hair, free gait of the temperament that lives in heroic thought and finds the world full of chimeras, of religious mysteries, sacrifice, purgation. This part of her nature was her home and true refuge. Here dwelt the impersonal power that was never far from her. There have been f e w women like her; and most of them have existed only in the imagination of Aeschylus and the poets. But Minna's seriousness was not the whole of her; and perhaps the part that is played on the stage is not the whole of Antigone and Medea. Within the priestess there lived a joyous nymph—a kind of Euphrosyne; and this is what makes her doings indescribable, because, when she ran riot, it was the riot of the grapevine. There was divinity in it. . . . She acted upon her impulses, which were loving and headstrong, personal or impersonal as occasion gave rise to them, but always large and done with a sweep. Some people she terrified by her force, others she melted by her warmth. . . . I must admit—what the reader will have surmised—that her unconventionality and habit of spontaneous expression did not please all people. There are those who cannot enjoy nature in this geyser form. 1 8

44

THOU SHALT LOVE

Her intensity soon found its match in Chapman's. In "Retrospections" he tells his own story of their love: I had never abandoned my reading of Dante and it somehow came about that I read Dante with Minna. There was a large airy room at the top of the old Athenaeum Library in Boston whose windows looked out on the churchyard. It was a bare and quiet place; no one ever came there. A n d during the winter we read Dante together, and in the course of this she told me of her early life in Milan. There were five children, three of them boys, and there were tempestuous quarrels between the parents. I saw that it was from her mother that she had inherited her leonine temperament. T h e mother had been a fury. I could see this, though she did not say it. . . . T h e Dante readings moved gradually like a cloud between me and the law, between me and the rest of life. It was done with few words. I had come to see that she was in love with someone. It never occurred to me that she might be in love with me. An onlooker might have said, " Y o u loved her for the tragedies of her childhood and she loved you that you did pity them." T h e case was simple, but the tension was blind and terrible. I was completely unaware that I was in love. 1 9

An intimate of Chapman's at this time noted that he was brooding and absent-minded and even talked to himself while dressing. 20 T h e amenities of life went on as usual—calls, visits, a dinner here, a dance there—all of them commonplace. Yet my mind must have worked in a most unusual way and very rapidly, for I imagined the cause of her suffering and picked out an acquaintance of hers, a friend in whom she had little interest— how much I didn't know, for I knew nothing about him and she had never mentioned him. I do not remember having any intention to pursue or injure this man. N o w there happened to be the most innocent kind of party that you can imagine at a country house. A few pleasant people were there of whom I remember only one, who was a friend of my childhood that I had not seen for years and whose face comes back to me as I write. When the evening was half over I invited the gentleman to whom I have referred to step out on the lawn, and there I beat him with a stick—whence procured I don't know—about the head and shoulders. H o w I got away or what I did for the next day or two I cannot say. T h e next thing I remember is returning late at night to my room. At that time I was rooming alone in a desolate side-street in Cambridge. It was a small, dark, horrid little room. I sat down. There was a hard-coal fire burning brightly. I took off my coat and waistcoat, wrapped a pair of suspenders tightly on my left forearm above the wrist, and plunged the left hand deep in the blaze and held it down with my right hand for some minutes. When I took it out, the charred knuckles and finger-bones were exposed. I said to myself,

THOU SHALT

LOVE

45

" T h i s will never d o . " I took an old coat, wrapped it about my left hand and arm, slipped my right arm into an overcoat, held the coat about me and started for Boston in the horsecars. On arriving at the Massachusetts General Hospital I showed the trouble to a surgeon, was put under ether, and the next morning waked up without the hand and very calm in my spirits. Within a few days I was visited by the great alienist D r . Reginald Heber Fitz, an extremely agreeable man. H e asked me a m o n g other things whether I was insane. I said, " T h a t is for you to find out." H e reported me as sane. I took no further interest in the scandal which my two atrocities must have occasioned. T o this day I know nothing of what w a s thought or said on the matter. I k n o w only of the extreme kindness of my friends in Boston and am grateful to my mother for having kept a f e w of my scanty notes from the hospital in which some of those friends are mentioned. M y mother herself must have been the worst sufferer; yet there was somehow a hardy intellectual basis of understanding between us. I did not worry about her. A s for Minna, I k n e w that she loved me and that all was well. A f e w intimates came to see me in the hospital. My arm healed up rapidly. M y inner composure, so far as I can remember, was complete. W h e n I left the hospital Judge and Mrs. Holmes took me in till I was strong enough to be m o v e d . 2 1 O n the day after he entered the hospital C h a p m a n sent his mother this telegram: January 27, 1887, Boston, Mass. T o Mrs. C h a p m a n , 1 9 1 Second A v e n u e , N e w Y o r k Please don't be scared by telegram f r o m hospital. I had my left hand run over yesterday and taken off. I am perfectly well and happy. Don't mind it a bit—it shall not m a k e the least difference in my life. If you can help it don't come on. I shall be here in the Massachussetts Hospital week or so with all science and comfort. J. C h a p m a n . 2 2 In one sense it is true that the loss of his hand was not to make any difference in his life—or more accurately, as C h a p m a n ' s biographer puts it, that "he held himself unfalteringly from any outward dramatizing of it." " I f thy hand offend thee, cut it o f f , " and John Jay C h a p m a n obeyed. "Joined with a Biblical austerity in Chapman's nature," comments his biographer, "there must have been the exaltation of an Oriental capable of incredible indifference to s u f f e r i n g . " 2 3 T h e r e

was indeed

austerity—in fact, something more terrible; and there was

biblical

exaltation,

but perhaps of another kind. W h e n C h a p m a n says that he woke the next morning "very calm in my spirits," w e can only wonder at the paroxysm that could need such a remedy.

46

THOU SHALT LOVE

Besides, Chapman's own account of this self-torture is untrue in some respects and incomplete in others. He was not secure in Minna's love or certain that all was well between them. Instead of the "inner composure" he speaks of, his self-mutilation brought on more than a year of mental anguish almost beyond endurance. A few more details and differences have been added by another narrator of these events, Mr. Ellery Sedgwick. 24 The social gathering which was the scene of Chapman's assault was the Brookline home of Mrs. Walter C. Cabot. As one of the guests, Percival Lowell, in evening dress, was walking toward the Cabot steps, Chapman dashed from the house and beat the unsuspecting man with a heavy cane. This was the Percival Lowell whose brother was to become president of Harvard, whose sister was to lead the Imagist poets, whose books on Japan were to inspire Lafcadio Hearn, and who in time was to be immortalized as the astronomer who mathematically located another planet. At the time, he was thirty-two, about seven years Chapman's senior, good-looking, worldly-wise, lighthearted, and something of a ladies' man. 25 He was the sort who can easily rouse jealousy. And Chapman fancied that Lowell, who belonged to a dramatics group with Minna, 28 was toying with the young woman's affections and maybe plotting something worse. So he beat Lowell. What happened immediately afterwards we do not know. But what precipitated Chapman's thrusting his hand into the fire was his receiving from Minna, a day or two after the assault, a note asking him to apologize to the wronged man. T o understand what lay behind and beneath Chapman's self-mutilation, we must turn to the correspondence which, for a year and more, the maddened lover poured out in frenetic abundance. The figures of this inner drama, like those in a nightmare, are grotesque, yet also significant. In a letter he sent her some two months later Chapman told Minna, "Each of us, Beloved, began by wanting to help the other and finding out they could do it only with their lives." The irony was this: "If I hadn't wanted your love so much I should have seen I had it." Why was this lover so blind ? When Minna told him she would give him her heart "with the scars on it," he could believe there were scars; but he could not believe that she was declaring her love—not even when she confessed

THOU SHALT LOVE

47

it in letters. Doubtless Minna was troubled by a lover w h o responded so incompletely. A t an earlier party, at Mrs. Whitman's, attended by the pair and Lowell also, Chapman went to Minna and addressed her with a cryptic phrase. This phrase he supposed she would understand as referring to her own troubles; and from it he thought she would deduce that he was asking her if he could help. When, instead, Minna asked, " W h a t do you refer t o ? " Chapman translated her simple query into a request to be left alone in her grief. 2 7 In his frenzy he then leaped to the conclusion that Minna's distress could have only one cause: Lowell had seduced her! Then inside I sort of rebelled against everything [he later explained]. If God thinks I can stand by and sec this happening, I will destroy everything. I thought of beating him in the street, some awful thing to break the charm— to make Minna see her life is not ruined by any such puppet—that great things remain in the world. 28 A l l this of course existed only in Chapman's imagination. Its counterpart in actuality was nothing more than Lowell's attractiveness. His misreading nevertheless shattered C h a p m a n : " T h e thing came and took me up like a leaf. I thought every instant I am cool, I am level, I am doing just the sensible thing; and for months—all this autumn—I have lived in a tornado." 2 " Then came a second misunderstanding—and further complications. T o o proud to call Minna to his side in the hospital, Chapman's heart was broken because she did not come to see him. What he did not know was that when she came one day, unannounced, the doctors refused her admission to his room. 30 Though she told them that it was she who by a misunderstanding had brought this evil upon her lover, they refused her, fearing she might aggravate his condition. She next did a very natural thing: told older friends like Judge Holmes and Mrs. Whitman that she loved Jack Chapman and had to see him. 3 1 T h e doctors admitted Holmes, who evidently had been on happy terms with Chapman and his fellows of " T h e Palace." During

Chapman's

weeks in the hospital

Holmes visited him often; and apparently, though Holmes was hardly the psychologist for a case like this one, he tried in his way to help the sufferer. H e was a go-between, and Minna put her trust in him. W h a t else could she do? She could not expect sympathy from her uncle; for

48

THOU SHALT LOVE

Mr. Brimmer was reportedly so shocked by Chapman's behavior that he remarked, "I hope we have seen the last of that unfortunate young man." 3 2 Meanwhile, Chapman, in an agony of doubt over Minna's seeming disloyalty, lay in the hospital and pretended to be jolly. (He spoke truth of himself in telling her later, "It's second nature for me to deceive people about my own feelings." 3 3 ) When, on leaving the hospital, he learned only part of the truth, i.e., that Holmes had been an intermediary, he felt that Minna had betrayed the high and secret idealism of their love. Lovers often want a solitude ci deux; but Chapman's dream of love required, so to speak, a private universe for two. Because he fancied that Minna in permitting another person to enter their universe had somehow desecrated their love, Chapman now began to heap cruelty and abuse upon her, along with Romeo-like declarations of love. The lovers were certain they were meant for each other, but Chapman's mad deed had alienated many. T o frustrate or postpone the marriage of his niece to Chapman, Mr. Brimmer sent Minna, soon after her lover left the hospital, to visit her brother in Colorado; and then he took her to England, the Continent, and Egypt. 34 About the time she went West, in April, Chapman returned to New York, to resume as well as he could his study of the law. Their two years of separation meant misery to both lovers. Minna was torn between the filial gratitude she owed the Brimmers, on the one hand, and, on the other, her love for Chapman and her knowledge of his need of her. The lacerating of Chapman's spirit was more grievous, however, because his conflicts were deeper. As for Holmes, Chapman now imagined that the man had, parasitelike, fed upon his youthful emotions. In Holmes's efforts to help, Chapman could see nothing but a spiritual "detective" and puller of wires. When Minna wrote that he might rely upon Holmes and when, more particularly and most unfortunately, she called the Judge "the father of my inmost," Chapman grieved, despaired, and raged like a wild thing. He contemplated with pleasure how he was going to murder Holmes. And since his love was desecrated and his life was over anyway, he wanted to commit suicide. For a year after he had learned of Holmes's mediation, Chapman held this murderous attitude toward him, obsessed by the phrase "father of my inmost." 3 5 For the rest of his life he would

THOU SHALT LOVE

49

have nothing to do with Holmes. For the rest of Holmes's life, so far as is known, he never suspected why Chapman disliked him. 36 Holmes evidently helped as well as he knew how. And yet maybe he was prompted also by sheer curiosity before this explosion of passions. Or was it because his sympathy was cool, intellectual, subtly skeptical, rather than warmly impulsive that Holmes seemed to Chapman no friend to his spirit? At any rate, to the fatherless young couple, Holmes had served as something like a father; and such was Chapman's state that any image of a father which might now enter his imagination would start a frenzy of wrath. T o the feverish mind of her lover, Minna now appeared to make another and a worse mistake. When he learned that she had informed his mother of their love, Chapman was roused to even greater ferocity. Now giving way to the years-long antagonism he had felt toward his mother, he demanded that Minna join him in his hatred and reprimanded her for not protecting him against his mother.37 Later he became reconciled to his mother and resumed a relationship like the one noted in the college letters. But why this fury against the woman who bore him? One answer has already been suggested: without realizing it, he was, as his brother's rival in her esteem, tormented that she did not give him the love he sought. So, in punishing himself he did not care what sufferings he brought upon his mother, because he was punishing her also and unconsciously giving her her just deserts. Fairly common in an illness like Chapman's—with him it is explicit in this hatred of his mother—is the usually unrecognized wish to punish or destroy the mother for her "faithlessly" preferring a brother—or the father. 38 In all that the son wrote during his lifetime there is almost nothing about his father. When Jack was sixteen, however, he recorded a dream, the vividness of its details indicating that he recalled it distinctly: Papa for some unknown reason was in a most inhuman rage and as he was incensed in most part with me, I did wander, fleeing him in as it were a long gallery having stairs on either side. Finally, he having caught me and I supposed killed me, I existed in a semi-human manner, being perfectly visible and tangible. I could speak, hear, and possed [sic: possessed?] all the qualities of a living person except that my head—whether it was that my head was unseen or of a darker color—I know not what, but there was a difference between my head and my body, wherein consisted my superhumanity. At the end of my dream, we being collected together, Papa being also with us, he suddenly made such a horrible contortion of all his limbs together with such an exorbitant

50

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LOVE

exhibition of wrath that a mirror before which he stood was thereafter left in a blurred state in such a manner that though the glass appeared much as other glass nothing could be reflected therein. This is but one of many disgusting and revolting fantasies which chased me during the night. I woke with the exclamation on my lips: "My imagination is more distraught than De Quincey's." 3 9 Naturally, only the psychoanalyst is qualified to interpret this dream with any fullness and precision. If we accept the existence of the unconscious mind, however, and if we agree that during sleep the unconscious mind can give freer play to images charged with deep-rooted feelings, we can at least point to a few psychological facts here. First, the dream pains the dreamer, who calls it "disgusting and revolting"—i.e., something the waking mind prefers not to dwell on. Second, the dreamer obviously has intense feelings toward his father. Third, the dreamed-of father not only reveals "a most inhuman rage" against the son, but also threatens the son, chases him, catches him, and "kills" him: he cuts off his head—i.e., makes it "unseen or of a darker color." T h e boy fears his father's wrath—a wrath so a w f u l that in the dream it eventuates in depriving the son of a part of his body and thereby altering his humanity. Since Freudian psychology has demonstrated that in the unconscious mind images can be disguised, telescoped, and reversed—for instance, in a dream the image of one part of the body may represent another and different part of the body—we are fairly safe to surmise that Chapman's fear and hatred of his father included a fear of castration. This fear of Chapman's we can only surmise; sexual impotence, however, is in one respect the nearest thing to actual castration. A n d here surmise yields to fact. T h e fear that he was impotent Chapman made explicit in this letter, written to Minna the following October: You see it was a great sorrow to me that I could not give you children . . . and I felt that if that thought passed between you and another my life was defiled. So one day when Mama threw me a letter of yours, saying, "I understand all," I knew the thing had happened and I turned dizzy and weak and knew the ideal thing was broken. . . . O Minna, suppose a defect like that in yourself—that made you imperfect in giving yourself to the man you loved and opened yourself to—and be sympathized over it with someone else.40 Since his mother was always the more aggressive and more self-assertive of his parents, Chapman doubtless felt closer to her than to his father;

THOU SHALT LOVE

51

he identified with h e r — m a d e certain of her qualities his o w n . W e might suspect, then, that in C h a p m a n ' s make-up—as in that of most men—there were distinctly feminine components. Indeed, in the ordeal of his love C h a p m a n recognized these elements in himself. In N o v e m b e r , he wrote to M i n n a : My letters were full of women and, strange, the woman thing in me got pretty well mangled. . . . What I need is to be with men . . . but the soul of me loved women and will till while [sic] I live. . . . Dead now. 4 1 Besides, though he w a s not aware of it, C h a p m a n as a lover wished to play the passive role. T o an older w o m a n , to w h o m as a kind of substitute mother he n o w turned for comfort, he confessed: I was ashamed to impose my instincts or personality on her [Minna] and went through hell rather than do it—did what no man ought ever to d o — suffered something to come between himself and his fulfillment. . . . I denied myself the being a man even. . . . In the hospital somehow I wanted recognition. I wanted Minna to know that I was a trembling thing though all the world thought otherwise. I wanted her to understand. I didn't want to be admired. . . . I wanted to be loved and pitied and kept covered. I demanded that she should know that under all that brag was a spirit of some broken-hearted poet-thing whose heart she held. 42 To

this same lady C h a p m a n

wrote a g a i n : " G o d

has used me as a

clinical demonstration. L i k e a w o m a n . M y soul was like a woman's in many w a y s . " 4 3 T h e love which came to C h a p m a n , so suddenly and

unexpectedly

as it seemed to him, precipitated a crisis which, by shattering his earlier emotional patterns, unleashed in a fury both love and hate. Love's coming he could not at first recognize because for twenty-four years his impulse to love had been so fettered and caged in. T h e shackling and twisting of love, moreover, had induced an anxiety whose m a r k was an overdeveloped conscience. T h e advent of adult love stirred in h i m t w o antipodal urges w h i c h his rationality could not manage. F r o m one side he felt, though his reason failed to recognize it, his natural desire for Minna. H e did not k n o w what this was, he k n e w only that he had to do something about it. F r o m the other side he felt some threat—something he was driven to strike out against, to punish or destroy. T h i s urge entered into his reason and caused him to imagine that L o w e l l had ruined Minna. H i s "reason" thereupon understood that the right and chivalrous thing

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was to attack Lowell, for this was what conscience also dictated. Hatred and conscience were now allied, an alliance which only the will to love might have undermined. But Chapman could not yet allow love to have its way. So when after the assault on Lowell he received the note from Minna requesting that he apologize to Lowell, he must have felt that love had deserted the field. Hate, then being freed, caused Chapman to "reason" that for his a w f u l error he must punish himself. Conscience again gave the command, this time: "If thy hand offend thee, cut it off." There is of course a more primary biblical command; it is " T h o u shalt love thy neighbor as thyself"—and it is the more difficult. If we accept, as a corollary to be derived from this command, the rule that love frustrated breeds hate, we have a formula to explain much of Chapman's inner drama. In a conscientious person like Chapman, hate breeds guilt; and guilt demands punishment or sacrifice. T h e wages of sin is death; and this is true for the consequences of hatred. Instead of destroying himself, however, Chapman destroyed only a part of himself; burning off his hand was a partial suicide. T h e fear and hatred so painfully bound up with the very first love he knew now seemed to demand the sacrifice of a part of his body; so as the price for Minna's love, he must sacrifice his hand. By this one deed he "reconciled" his conflicts: he satisfied the demands of his conscience, gave vent to his hatred, and gratified his craving for love." T h o u g h life and love were not yet gone, Minna, as Chapman's chief link to the reality of things, had to fight against his tyrant conscience and his misdirected hatreds. She had to plead with him that their love should not be a private universe but all-inclusive, that his mother in truth loved him and wished him well, that Lowell's attentions had been mere "foppishness," that her calling Holmes "the father of my inmost" had been only an absurd figure of speech. Once when Chapman mentioned to her that he could imagine a certain other girl as a mistress only but never as a wife, Minna's Italian blood boiled over. Could a Northerner ever understand a Southerner? she asked him. His splitting of love and lust outraged her. H o w could he suspect that even for a second another man could approach her? " B u t the sorrow you cradled," she wrote to him, " w a s the sorrow of the ideal, which has revealed itself misshapen to m e . " 4 5 His misshapen and sorrowful ideal was, it seems, one that D r . Coit had nurtured. Against such sickliness Minna threw her whole force:

THOU SHALT LOVE

53

Honestly she is not and could never be my wife, but she is my mistress. T h i s that you say is like a sheet of lightning at midnight illuminating, making glow the very elements of which I am made. . . . T h u s the very quivering part of my nature you touch. Don't you see it, don't you feel it, the very root of the matter—this the temple of love in every pore of one's body. T h e appetite of love is that very whirlwind of passion, making it a true, open reality, sublime, the primary force that lies beneath all. I do not believe in wife if she be not the mistress also. . . . I acknowledge and feel the value and power of the primary forces of nature. T h e r e f o r e I repudiate what you say. I don't believe it. W e r e I to believe it even for an instant!—Why, Jack, you do not know, with all your ironed fine linen philosophy of life—you do not hold in your little ball—this dynamite—this open sesame—that everything else is false unless the woman feels the man-way—his life and her power over him. . . . La natura e potente. You cannot wink at it and pass by. Nature contracted, outraged, becomes the Circe—that which can m a k e a man and keep him to his highest and develop him to the noblest and the best, as power, can also, by occupation, by hiding the light of the power of the nature of man and woman, become the debasement of each. But you see, Jack, when you say this, love then becomes denaturee. Y o u change m e into a wild lioness—loose the individual and bring forth the whole race of womanhood in me.—Strange that you cannot feel this—but you must—nay, I know you do. . . . W i t h you, shame? Between you and I [ j i V ] it is an insult to love. I say the thing out to you which you with your accursed reasonings hid from me. . . . But how crude and undeveloped you have been of nature's instincts. H a d you followed or been engulfed in its sweeping lordship of passions you never would have asked m e if I had been seduced. . . . I will put all lances in my breast, but I will lead you back to life. N o matter if I die in the struggle, you shall live. By the high heavens I know you will. . . . My soul affirms that the worst is over and you are to throw the shackles of the past off. . . . but feel, my love, the excruciating existence I must lead until I know you well and bounding with life. You must not let one door unlocked. Y o u must get life back. 4 8

Minna had gone far enough into Chapman's nature to realize that in those depths she had to fight against the hate and death in him. She would will him back to life and love: "Oh, you, most beloved. Yours, yours, I am. You bought me with the soul of fire, the blood of your flesh—I am your wife now." 4 7 "Try to live a little in others," she counsels him. "You always strike me as being disposed to live in yourself entirely." 4 8 And of her faith in him: I say! If God in his mysterious power has through me broken the dams in you and let the waters of love break over your soul carrying you all free out into eternity—horizon-bound ocean—shall not the glory that flashed once and forever in your eyes be seen, be felt by men and women w h o gaze into your

THOU SHALT

54

LOVE

eyes. . . . Beloved, your heart and soul are made for the world at large. I ¡(now it.*9 Minna's help and the wisdom of her heart were indispensable to Chapman's recovery. But for two years they were separated, and he had to help himself as well as he could. Slowly, painfully, through the long months, mostly alone, he had yet to struggle towards something like reality. H e must find his new self, he must meet the world. Uncertainties were everywhere. " F o r a year he walked about N e w York and paid visits," a friend has written, "all in a sort of tragic inner exile, surrounded by affection to which he reached out for comfort and sustenance." 6 0 You used to say you were a wild thing [he wrote to Minna at the time]. It was I that was a wild thing—an absolute wild, untamed barbarian—like Othello with his black skin and forty years—who set his heart on just you—a woman—the woman, and you ought to have known that for such a person to think ill of the woman was damnation. 61 More than once he compares himself to Othello. O n e old ideal he does not forget: he will recover his power and once more take life like a "gentleman."

62

H e looks for consolation to heal his pride:

There was a power in that love of mine. See the way people reported it. Though I did the most foolish things in the world, they felt something of respect . . . that power was to have made me. I should not have slipped. It was a tremendous capacity for feeling and willing, and all power is only this. I should have been a tempest of happiness.63 H e tries to understand what he has been through, what he is still going through: What people I meet somehow do not miss in me—that was the unspeakable, unfathomable thing—not growing out of anything, but out of everything, from one's childhood dreams—intimations in the cradle. . . . The whole thing was a revelation to me. You see, beloved, I was a terrible person. I was wound up like a clock—my heart burst like some natural thing—at its time, not before. . . . I think I should have done something with that love of you. It raised me so high. The beginning now is great and terrible. My spirit sickens and collapses. In the night I wake feeling my loins empty. . . . Surely I sinned against the Holy Ghost, Minna, and it is in my mind day and night, regret, regret, regret. 54 I f only he had been able to speak out his love! " I think the mystery of love had never so frightful a form," he wrote to Minna. 6 5 Mysterious and frightful indeed seems the manner in which Hate-and-Death are intertwined with Love-and-Life in our human depths. " Y o u see, love," he tells

THOU SHALT LOVE Minna, "I needed you like destruction."

56

55

And again: "I have been Minna

Timmins, and she got burnt alive in me." I want to die, not figuratively, but literally because the system of life, which makes life worth while—the reproductive system got destroyed and burnt up and pulled out of me. . . . I am in no sense sick, but in the true sense dead. The passion of life is gone out of me. Do you not know that all passion is sex? 5 7 "The more you loved, the more I blinded my eyes and rushed to destruction. . . . On ne badine

pas avec l'amour."5S

He had still to pass

through the Center of Indifference: Dear Child, In the roundness of your love you must find place for all these cryings out of my spirit. I have not yet found bottom and do not know what life is to be like. We are all born in the twilight and come out into [the] light of common life—by love's fulfillment or the other. 69 During the eternal months of wandering through these wastelands, he wrote to his beloved: Do you know, Minna, the one time in my life during which I lived was that twenty days of pain. I read "Henry Esmond," Dickens' "Christmas Stories," one morning—I shall never forget them—"Mr. Barnes of New York." Every word of it is glowing with life and love. There was fire in all things I touched—the fire of the activity of that part of me which was meant to be used, which got suppressed all my life till it broke. The depth of the intentions and remote unkempt wells of life and feeling. . . . Somehow I have known the meaning of things, if not for long, and all the while I thought I need rest. I need sleep. You see life is an experiment. I had not the least idea but what [if] I met you all this would run the other way and the pain turn into pleasure. I thought I had opened life forever. What matter if the entrance was through pain? . . . Dear Beloved Minna, you don't think I say these things now to brag, do you? brag to you? Only to chat, with your hand on me. I was a foolish boy, no hero.60 Fitfully, slowly, he improved. By September he could tell her: Two things are equilibrating in my mind—the thought of love and the thought that the past shall bury its past, and this last is going to conquer and I'm going gradually to become well and kind and not miss those fields of glory I looked on like Moses. I see it coming, but I dread and hesitate. . . • I dread taking the plunge into any more life or effort—apart from you.61 After he had been working for some time in the law office of his uncle, he began to feel that though his world was still cold, it was coming to

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LOVE

life. 62 H e resolved to check his brooding. More often in the letters of this next autumn he begins to realize that Minna has suffered also, and he apologizes for the wild and hateful things he has written her. H e begins to interest himself in other people and to sympathize with them in their distress. H e wills to live: Don't think I give up. Not a bit. The thing has made a man of me. I feel quite differently, as you do. It went wrong; but the next act is something—something good and worth while. You can't expect me just now to care about anything but the love of you I had, which I think was the best love on earth—but I know with my mind that some good will follow. Let us not dramatize or anticipate, as you say. 63 His sociability no doubt favored Chapman's recuperation. Despite inner isolation, even in these months he was among people and at least partially responding to them. So full of pain has been this episode that one is surprised to recall that Chapman had once been witty and fun-loving, a side of him absent from the letters of this period. Y e t not entirely—he was able to peer through his self-deceptions to at least this glimmer of truth when, some months after beating Lowell, he wrote Minna: " B u t I missed greatness in not seeing the comic side of this act and justifying it if necessary."

64

Within a few months he could say: Dear me, if another fellow should do such a thing now, I should go to him and say, "My dear fellow, you've been a damned fool, but it don't make any difference, there's nothing diabolical or insane or inhuman"—and I would give him what he wanted then and there, tho' it cost me the respect of everyone in the world. This world is a terrible place if one makes it so, and people take you for what you think you are.65 In June, 1887, he was on shipboard, crossing to England and the Continent, to pass the summer there in quest of health and composure. A friend who saw him boating on the Thames and managing the oar with his one arm remembers how he added to the fun and even played pranks. 66 H e by no means enjoyed it, but perhaps work and study in the law offices of Jay and Candler was also a form of therapy. A t any rate, he was admitted to the bar in December, 1888. In March of the following year his engagement to Minna Timmins was announced. Of course he attended to the purchase of the ring: " T h e r e is a correct-

THOU SHALT LOVE ness about these things you cannot disregard w h e n you have

57 been

married as often as I have," he informed M i n n a . Send me one of your rings [he instructed her] and be thankful if I bring you a brass one. Are we to lose one dewdrop that glistens on the leaves of human life because we have tastes and money—and elegance? You will remember as to those Turkey carpets, and I feel in myself that if you get too many of them and silver lamps and incense, I shall spend my evenings in railroad barrooms. Luxury gives me indigestion—like peach trees that must be manured occasionally with ashes. A n d again: Suppose we had none of it—damn all the beautiful things—they'll get here all right. I wonder if you'll be dusting them and wanting me to keep my feet off them. I wish we were going to live in two rooms with horsehair furniture. But the wish did not materialize. Instead, he wrote, " I think I've got a gash in the wind-swept Apennines for y o u . " T h i s was a house at 327 West Eighty-second Street. O n July 2, 1889, at the B r i m m e r s ' summer place, at Pride's Crossing, Massachusetts, they were married. According to Chapman's biographer, only the routine crisis m a r k e d this event: In a nervous moment before the ceremony, when the best man, Amory Gardner, was quitting the room in which the bridegroom and two surpliced clergymen stood waiting, there was a cry from Chapman, "Oh, Amory, do not leave me with these two men!" For all that had gone before, Chapman was even as the rest of mankind at this point. 67 Whatever was in store for this pair, in their twenty-seventh year they had life and love firmly in their grasp. W h e n C h a p m a n himself looked back upon the tragedy of his youth, he told M i n n a : "It was all foolishness, beloved, and wicked—all I did, and yet in moving away f r o m it—it was m y youth after all. I do think there was something promethean in it, in the capacity to y i e l d . " 8 8 Promethean? Certainly John Jay C h a p m a n was to bring to the A m e r i c a of his time a fire it might have f o u n d a better use for. T h e capacity to yield, however, was another matter.

IV. His Hand Will Be Against Every M.an

WTPHE

time is for action and political organization," Chapman told

X . Minna T i m m i n s in the spring of 1888. "Better cast a vote than write a book." H e was sounding the keynote of the next dozen years of his life. F r o m the time of his marriage and the establishment of his household in N e w Y o r k City until the illness which downed him at the turn of the century, Chapman gave himself chiefly to politics. H e began with petty reforms in his native city and ended in a crusade against the imperialism of 1900. Harvard and Boston had been one phase of his education, love another, and politics was to become a third. Out of these experiences he was to gain his insight into the American mind. Out of this understanding he was in turn to produce his unique periodical, the Nursery,

and

three books acclaimcd on both sides of the Atlantic. T h e Harvard record does not suggest that politics would ever so much absorb Chapman. A m o n g the circles in which he moved, politics, one gathers, was not quite respectable. But the times were out of joint; and by the nineties revolt and reform permeated nearly every department of American life. T h e era cried out for reform, the reformers came forth; and Chapman, like thousands of other rebels, joined their ranks. His Puritan conscience drove him now to assail the myriad evils of a metropolis: he would make no compromise whatsoever with wrong and dishonesty. For more than a decade the fighting qualities he had once turned against himself he now directed outwardly. T h e foes were many. For the nation which emerged from the Civil W a r into the dislocations of the new industrialism was spawning everywhere—in business, politics, society, and culture—a plethora of problems to test the faith and challenge the conduct of every thoughtful American. T h e 1890s have been called the watershed of our history. Before that decade we were predominantly an agricultural nation, concerned with

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59

domestic issues, self-confident in our unique destiny, and living by beliefs and institutions inherited from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A f t e r that decade emerged the America we know today: a world power involved in the affairs of this planet; an industrial colossus undergoing vast changes in economy and social structure; a mixed people struggling to fit traditional faiths and forms to novel and ever-varying conditions. 1 By 1890, not only had the frontier been closed—a physical as well as psychological fact; but the population of the country had doubled since the fall of Fort Sumter. Into the cities rushed a torrent of new masses, drained from our farms and poured in from central and southern Europe. With the concentration of wealth, economic and political power was shifting to the East. Big business consolidated and grew bigger; in the cities millionaires multiplied. T h e debtor farmers of the West rebelled; and unrest in the centers of industry was signalized by strikes and by the trebling of A . F . of L . membership. A President who began as a champion of popular reform became a strikebreaker; and when the government faced financial disaster he found his savior in J . P. Morgan. While Congress seemed more responsive to the lobbyists than to the voice of the people, the Supreme Court was so antipathetic to radicalism as to outlaw the income tax. Legislation to curb the trusts turned out in practice to be a farce. Was money in fact coming to own the nation? A t least one divine, Bishop Lawrence of Massachusetts, preached that "Godliness is in league with riches." Applied science and democracy had made us world leaders in material prosperity; yet millions of Americans were discontented with their government, and science seemed to answer few of our basic questions. Lord Bryce's observation that the city was the one conspicuous failure of our democracy was dramatized in N e w Y o r k . A s the decade began, the Metropolitan Opera House, then seven years old, memorialized the defeat of the old aristocracy; for the diamond horseshoe was forged by the new rich—the tycoons of banks and railroads, who were also building palaces on Fifth Avenue. A n d yet of the million and a half inhabitants of Manhattan in 1890, probably three quarters lived in tenements. N o r were these homes of disease, vice, and crime divorced from the castles on the Avenue. Were not Mrs. Astor's balls for the four hundred supported by tracts of slums? Besides, a subterranean labyrinth connected these tenements to the caliph of the metropolis, the Boss of T a m m a n y Hall.

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True, his predecessor of some two decades past, William Marcy Tweed, had personified worse conditions. He took from the city treasury an amount between forty-five and two hundred million dollars, while prominent citizens who "understood" the procedure continued to believe that theirs was a law-abiding and well-governed city. Some even praised Tweed as a reformer; certainly he was an innovator. He applied to public transactions the same business methods that furthered the projects of magnates like Fisk and Gould and Vanderbilt. By adjusting it to the necessities of the times, was not Tweed modernizing the machinery of government? At any rate, the ancient woes of the taxpayer combined with old-fashioned civic virtue to doom him. Such virtue, however, is fickle. T o throw down Tweed was to erase a symbol, but not to root out the real evil. In the New York of the nineties corruption was still shameless. Political rings fattened on the people's money, sold public franchises, and with police cooperation profited by lawbreaking. Politicians and the interests they served encouraged and protected brothels and saloons. For those who had a moment to reflect, what they saw around them was in violent conflict with the ideals on which the Republic had been founded. T o Chapman's own kind (the men of family, gentlemen and clubmen, often well-to-do, sometimes intellectual), if they were at all sensitive, the coarseness and cynicism of those riding to success was unbearable. "In truth, the age was tyrannous," Chapman remarked forty years afterwards, "and said to each man, 'Perish, or play the game.'" 2 T o enter politics was to soil one's hands; money-making was sordid and unheroic. Some of this generation sought refuge in academic life, others fled to Europe. Of this breed, but hardier and more flexible in their scruples, were Henry Cabot Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt, who chose rather to adapt themselves to the conditions of political success.8 Roosevelt, for instance, organized in New York City in the early eighties the City Reform Club, a group of gentlemen like himself who tried, through "practical idealism," to apply "democracy" to city government. These young hopefuls fancied that if they obtained indictments for bribery at elections, they could smash Tammany. Near the polls on election day one frequently saw men with fat rolls of bills, who, when approached or observed, would disappear with voters into the nearest saloon—saloons illegally open on that day. Just before a certain election day, all the liquor dealers in town were amused to receive from the

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"dudes" of the City Reform Club circulars explaining the law; the dudes had taken the same trouble with the police. But when, with their evidence of violations, the reformers went to the Excise Commission and then to the higher Board of Excise, they encountered ingeniously contrived delays. Eventually, after much litigation, they were defeated by judges who were hand in glove with a corrupt state legislature.4 This formed Chapman's introduction to practical politics. As a watcher at the polls, the young man with one hand was soon grabbing lawbreakers and turning them over to the police. Joining the City Reform Club in the autumn of 1890, he was hoping that as one of its executive committee, then compiling records on the assemblymen, he might learn something.5 Soon enough he learned about the relation of saloons to politics and of politics to business. In his canvass of upstate towns for membership in the Excise Reform Association, nearly every businessman he met feared boycott by the liquor interests. "The unorganized are a prey to the organized," he wrote to his wife, "and the individual to the corporation." 9 Without special experience or knowledge, with only his impulse to tell him that good was good and evil evil, Chapman approached reform as an empiric. Like Lincoln Steffens, another young man come to New York at this time, he stumbled along, facing not a theory but a millionfaceted situation, gathering impressions, tackling each task as it offered, puzzling his head as to how the gigantic picture could be pieced together and made intelligible. Unlike Steffens, who was primarily an observer and reporter, Chapman was compelled to take action. What he saw drove him to "do something." 7 As an Emersonian Chapman was trying to apply what wisdom he had to the riddles of the age. His vision was always on the greater problem, however much day-to-day details occupied him. There were day-to-day details aplenty. Besides those of reform, Chapman had the responsibilities of a young husband and father, and was trying to make his way as a lawyer in Wall Street. His first son, Victor Emmanuel, was born in April, 1890; three years later, in November, a second, John Jay, was born. Having, like most novice attorneys, very few cases, he found an outlet for his abundant energies in politics as well as in literary experiments. The first of these to be published, in the Atlantic Monthly in 1890, was "The Fourth Canto of the Inferno," a verse translation of Dante, with introductory comment.8 But in their desire to live

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in the style to which both were accustomed, Chapman and Minna, whose marriage was one of love and happiness without grave misunderstandings or antagonisms, were often pressed for money and irked by the need of petty economy. Although he sensed that political reform was taking him in the right direction, Chapman worried that he might fail to make money at law. He had not yet found his real vocation. He was capable of legal work; but the profession did not suit his temperament or satisfy his cravings, and it left unused half-suspected faculties. The prospect of success at the New York bar, moreover, went against his grain, morally. 9 In reform, which, despite its trials, had always its gayer and convivial side, he could forget these troubles. As a member of the People's Municipal League, Chapman worked in the 1890 mayoralty campaign to defeat Tammany's candidate. The expose of the large bribes this man had paid to Tammany's chief resulted simply in his reelection by a comfortable majority. Throwing the rascals out was not easy, and Chapman's group was consoled only by thinking they had given Tammany a scare. 10 Though not a dry, Chapman continued his labors in excise reform for half a dozen years. In New York City the saloons (by 1890 there was one for every 200 persons), many of them centers of Tammany influence, provided through their licensing and inspection excellent opportunities for graft. Throughout the state, liquor regulation had become a political weapon used in turn by each party to its own advantage. The Republican machine in 1896 pushed through the state legislature the Raines Liquor Law, which redistributed revenues and met the Sunday-closing demand by permitting only hotels and restaurants to serve liquor with meals on that day. In New York City saloons promptly were converted into "restaurants" by serving "Raines-law sandwiches"—rat cheese that no one was expected to eat but a farce that everyone understood; and the saloons became "hotels" by renting upstairs rooms, which they hired out to prostitutes and couples without luggage. 11 T o the legal complexities of this problem, Chapman, as secretary and attorney for the Excise Reform Association, devoted his energies. In September, 1895, he published in the New Yor\ Times, a letter proposing a better liquor bill, largely his own product. 12 The following January he was among the notables who appeared at Albany to criticize the Raines Bill and offer alternative legislation. 13 But the bill became the law of the state and remained so until federal prohibition was invoked in 1919. For Chapman six years of work had come to nothing.

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While this agitation was in progress, Godkin's Evening Post editorially approved the reformers' efforts to put the liquor system on a rational basis but deplored the fact that one John Jay Chapman was their chief counsel and representative. This young man was a "Goo Goo," and no "Goo Goo" could be taken seriously, much less placed in any office supported by the people's money and confidence. "Grave business" was at hand, and the Post had had enough of Mr. Chapman's "ethics." 14 Chapman's activities of the four preceding years show clearly why he had earned such censure. In 1891 he had explained to a Brahmin friend his almost Jacksonian faith in democracy: T h e great trouble with [the] republican system is that government is everybody's business, and hence is sure to be badly done. This is bad for the state but good for the people, and it's one of the reasons why the Americans are the most intelligent people in the world, for every one of them is called on to pass judgment on everything that is done in all departments of government. 1 5

Chapman would fight the fight at home, on his own soil, and no longer yearn for the Europe of the expatriates. Neither the Americans nor their government was wrong, he felt; perhaps the fault lay in the reformers themselves. 16 Yet the reformers had high hopes in the spring of 1892. The City Reform Club, of which Chapman was now secretary, took the initiative in stirring sentiment against a law authorizing the construction along the west side of Central Park of a speedway on which trotting horses might be raced. Chapman's group and their allies won the battle. Against all sorts of legal chicanery, the people, through the concentration of their anger, had within four weeks defeated the machine politicians. 17 Success in this small crusade exhilarated Chapman. The year 1892 was a busy and hopeful one for him. In the Century he published a lyric, "Earth Hath Her Hurts," echoing the sufferings of his youth. 18 This year also marked his first separate publication, an anonymous pamphlet, The "Two Philosophers: A Quaint and Sad Comedy, a satire on two squabbling Harvard teachers. 19 Although he scorned the literary profession as "a woman's business," Chapman could not help writing; and it is the abundance of his letters, in addition to his pieces in periodicals and dailies, which has left us so complete an account of his thoughts and deeds during this decade. Visiting Colorado this year to look after real estate in which he and Minna had invested, Chapman, in a letter scribbled on the train, surveyed

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the American scene. H e missed cathedral towns, cafés, and museums; but the woodwork in his parlor car showed how public taste was improving: N.B. [he continued] It is nonsense to decry material progress as antithetical to intellectual progress. This stupid idea has somehow been foisted on the public by the professors. [Was he thinking of his old teacher Norton?] I cannot look at these new railways, combines, cities, mammoth enterprises, without seeing signs of a gigantic organized intellect—something the like of which was never seen before, the intellect not of one but of one plus many. 20 In the autumn of this year, Chapman met a young man named Edmond Kelly, recently widowed and returned from Paris, where for more than a decade he had practiced law. Kelly wanted to meet some of the "cranks" of N e w York—he meant men dissatisfied with conditions but believing improvement possible and willing to work for it. 2 1 By October he and John Jay Chapman had set up a partnership in both law and reform. Kelly shared Chapman's humanitarianism and was overconfident of human nature—for he believed that when a hundred citizens clearly understood their duty, at least ninety would be ready for any sacrifice to fulfill it. 22 Having a faith like Chapman's, Kelly wanted to "do something." Hitherto, reform in N e w Y o r k City had been sporadic: temporary associations had sought to accomplish specific ends. T o withstand T a m m a n y , Kelly maintained that issues had to be made clear to the public at every election and that the education of the voters must be carried on year after year. T o organize reform as a permanent undertaking, he proposed the establishment of clubs, to be named by the letters of the alphabet, with one club in each assembly district, their membership to consist of citizens who would cooperate for better government. Honesty and efficiency in the management of municipal business; election to office on the basis of fitness instead of as a reward for party service; the separation of local affairs from national politics; and when prospects were fair, the nomination of candidates on a citizens' ticket which in time might lead to an administration representative of the best interests of the whole city—these were the chief purposes of the Good Government Clubs, as they came to be called. L i k e Tammany, they were to have a permanent headquarters and continuing machinery. A central club became in effect the parent of all these clubs. When it was organized in 1892 and named the City Club, the members of the City Reform Club joined; and the older organization

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went out of existence. The City Club had a kitchen, library, sitting rooms, and all the facilities of an up-to-date gentlemen's club. The Good Government Clubs grew rapidly. In 1893 there were four of them; three years later there were twenty-five, with a total membership of io.ooo.23 Through these clubs (a local symptom of the nonpartisan movement starting in American cities at the time) Chapman directed his political agitation for some six years. But Kelly's impatience with the conservatism of the City Club's president and his own failure to enlist in his ranks even one skilled laborer led him to withdraw from the movement and pushed him into socialism. Chapman had little sympathy with Kelly's Continental socialistic theories; on his side, Kelly could not understand how a man of Chapman's intelligence failed to see that compromise was unavoidable if one meant to get anything done.24 But Chapman was slower to lose faith in the efficacy of the Goo Goos—the nickname given the Club men by Charles A . Dana of the New Yor^ Sun. Work in the City Club and as an officer in Good Government Club " C " permitted Chapman to gratify several urges: his sociability, his aggressiveness, his moral fervor, his delight in exercising his wit in conversation and speechmaking. As a Goo Goo he had to watch polls, prepare meetings, participate in conferences, give talks, write letters, hunt for candidates, canvass for votes, distribute pamphlets, harangue crowds, attend dinners, beat down opponents, and bring backsliders into line. Always he struggled to rouse the public conscience. Consecrated to truth as he saw it, without any material or political ambition, Chapman was, in the words of his biographer, "a constant disturber of the peace for those who preferred to leave things alone and ascribed 'queerness' to young men whose mission it was to stir things up." 2 5 As Edmund Wilson has observed of Chapman, " H e had at this period what the poet Yeats called 'the purity of a natural force,' and he disturbed and frightened people." No wonder! Here, for instance, he describes his way of dealing with people: There is nothing one may not do. I almost throw some men out of the window —I get so violent, and I suddenly turn as heavy and icy as cold lemon pie. Some men are to be taken by the throat, some jollied, some taken aside into an alcove—and by Jove, all men are nothing but dough so far as I can see.26 And of himself:

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I tell you the kind of man I am thrives only in romance. In real life he does murders, loves, revenges, heroisms, and crimes. He gets into places where no human agency can reach him. How much good is he? For business, for politics, for anything but poetry and possibly war? 27 Instinctively he dramatized himself. Fiery, witty, and ironic his little speeches must have been. Often he carried with him a pocket Bible, and from it he would read passages humorously but reverently applied to the situation at hand. Or he might do the same thing with lines from Shakespeare: I've known Shakespeare so much in infancy that he's given me a stage feeling about Life generally, and I'm only at home on an imaginary stage—that's a fact. I'm always on a stage and the whole world is a stage.28 Because he knew his own motives could not be questioned, he was at this time confident of his abilities and of his methods generally. Of course he was a firebrand—or a kind of Socratic gadfly. "The people lil(e to be agitated. That's the great secret," he declared in another letter. "The people like a cause, and all it takes is a sort of instinct as to how far they will go before they need a rest." 29 As to this instinct for timing, " I have never been connected with a cause for which the time was ripe," he explained in 1895, "and never expect to be. Such activities as this ripen the times and bring them to fruition." 30 To his mother he wrote, "My line of politics is war—war—war—with an ideal of absolute good humor and self-control." 31 The self-control was problematic. With him, it was act first, think afterwards; he confessed in a letter: "It is Emerson madness. Imagine a man taking Emerson au pied de la lettre."32 Of course he would offend: You might as well try to raise a crop without breaking the surface as try to raise the standard of decency without offending people. The people who are for smooth methods . . . never heard of Luther or Garrison.33 Relentlessly he fought: Politics takes physique, and being odious takes physique. I feel like Atlas lifting the entire universe. I hate this community and despise 'em—and fighting, fighting, fighting an atmospheric pressure gets tiresome.34 Never does Chapman seem to have lost his good humor and hilarity. Plain speech on all occasions, laughter, and ridicule—these were the weapons for the righteously wrathful. Was he too violent? It seldom occurred to him to try Benjamin Franklin's easier methods. But of John

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Jay, Chapman wrote that just such a man was needed then in New York City, a man of integrity, above party passions, yet worldly-wise: " H e was one of those fortunate persons fitted for this world, whose balance of faculties is such that their intellect governs." 35 Yet it was against the smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment of the times that Chapman hurled himself. For an atmosphere of fraudulent complacency his prescription was fanatical honesty. "So long as the world remains as it is," he told Minna, "the truth will generally stir up excitement enough." 38 It was not all talk; it was action too. Although he hated to distribute pamphlets up and down Ninth Avenue, it was "humanizing" to meet so many people who cared nothing for his idealism. "I really believe," he remarked to Minna of this particular task, "if you only have force enough and courage enough you can call what spirits you choose out of other people." 37 Among the activities which took both force and courage was "cart-tailing." The Goo Goo would travel around the city in a cart, stop it at some likely corner, and stand in the rear of the vehicle to harangue whatever crowd might gather. The son of Richard Watson Gilder recalls how as a boy he accompanied his father and Chapman on one of these expeditions into the Bowery, the very lair of the Tammany Tiger. Mr. Gilder remembers Chapman shouldering his way through the crowd, derby hat low over blazing eyes, chin jutting out not quite so far as his cigar, a bundle of leaflets clutched in the stump of his left arm, his right hand thrusting them at the toughs milling around him, and Chapman shouting, "Here, take this! Here, read this!" 3 8 After nightfall, cart-tailing in the Lower East Side was, according to one Times reporter, "picturesque and at all times free from monotony": A real stanch Good Government man should hold up the end of the truck without even so much as flinching from an old shoe or a decayed turnip. Like the Great Reaper, the gamins on the east side love a shining mark, and the Chinese lanterns which dangle from the poles of the trucks just fill the bill. "Whoop! Whoo-oo-oo-oop 'er up. They's a comin'. It's them. The Goo Goo carts!" rang out from the corner of Eldridge and Houston Streets as a mob of street arabs drew up to receive cart number one as it swung into Houston Street westward. "Steady, everybody!" called out W. P. Scharton, who was Captain of the party. "They're going to fire." And a minute later there was a bombardment, some of the missiles being unsavory. Yells of "Supe" and "scab" and "Charlie boy" followed, but the truck, drawn by two sturdy cabs, soon distanced the mischief-makers and reached

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the corner of Grand and Forsyth Streets, where a large crowd collected around the vehicle and listened decorously to speeches by John J. Chapman, Nathaniel H . Lewis, and Mr. Scharton. 39

And Chapman told this story of a Tammany man he happened to convert: H e never got over my jumping from a cart and collaring a ruffian in the crowd who was interrupting me, then finishing the speech, and then having drinks with the ruffian—all of which was purely the result of excitement—but which had a romantic and courageous appearance, greatly enhanced by the fact of my having only one hand. 4 0

These were the days, too, when more than one Tammany leader had begun his career by winning first of all with his fists. Never a cultist of the strenuous life like Roosevelt, the Chapman of the nineties was, however, a robust figure who, with his clean-shaven face aglow with health, looked like a fighter of great physical strength. 41 Because he was living hard and beset by pressures inward and outward, friends urged Chapman to moderate his pace. But he felt secure from the threat of mental illness: As for insanity [he exclaimed in a letter] why, I was once examined for insanity by the two most distinguished physicians in Boston. It has no terrors. I talked to them like Plato. I was sitting in bed, and they left laughing and good friends. 4 2

At their start, Chapman saw a bright future for the Good Government Clubs. After he had been to a City Club meeting attended by "half the old big-wigs in town," he decided that combinations to exploit, for reform purposes, the names and money of the respectable classes was "the whole art of agitation in this country." 4 3 And in another five years, he was thinking in 1893, it would be a worthy ambition for every young lawyer to spend a year or two at Albany. 44 His was not a blind optimism, however; for Chapman knew very well that progress could not be fast.4"' For some months during this and the following year, Chapman, for reasons of economy, had to leave Minna and the two little boys in Italy. T o his financial worries were added the pain of separation and anxiety for the health of the children. But New York friends, especially the John Winthrop Chanler family, assuaged his loneliness.46 In the history of New York City the year 1894 was a critical one. If any one man precipitated the crisis, it was the president of the Society for the Prevention of Crime who did it. From his pulpit one Sunday in the old

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Madison Square Presbyterian Church, the Reverend D r . Charles H . Parkhurst asseverated: In its municipal life our city is thoroughly rotten. . . . There is not a form under which the devil disguises himself that so perplexes us in our efforts, or so bewilders us in the devising of our schemes, as the political harpies that, under the pretense of governing this city, are feeding night and day on its quivering vitals. They are a lying, perjured, rum-soaked, libidinous lot.47 In disguise this minister journeyed through the worst dives so that he could give dates, name names, and quote prices to prove his denunciations of countless failures to enforce the laws. H e charged, for example, that the saloons did not close on Sundays because their owners, like the keepers of bawdyhouses and the operators of gambling hells, bribed the police. A s Lincoln Steffens was learning at this time: " T h e police were protecting from the law and from public opinion the lawbreakers they were appointed and paid to protect the public from." 48 T h e newspapers published D r . Parkhurst's revelations, the public was roused, and early in 1894 the Chamber of Commerce was enough upset to ask the state legislature to investigate the city's police department. Because this looked like political capital to him, Republican Thomas C . Piatt, who controlled the legislature at Albany, caused a committee of investigation to be appointed under State Senator L e x o w . T h e committee was to act with discretion. But matters got out of hand. Month after month, newspaper readers gaped at the testimony unearthed in an inquisition that laid bare a vast system of corruption, a metropolis honeycombed with bribery from bottom to top. 49 Public shock over this expose promised the defeat of T a m m a n y in the next mayoralty election. T h e reform forces united in nominating for mayor a respectable merchant, William L . Strong. 5 0 On this particular election day, John Jay Chapman as a pollwatcher was inspirited that the Goo Goos were showing a talent for organization as good as Tammany's. T a m m a n y was in fact defeated; upstate the Republicans were victorious. But Chapman was less naive than most N e w Yorkers; he knew that Strong's makeshift ticket by no means ushered in the day of independent voting. H e feared, too, that Boss Piatt would prefer to keep T a m m a n y in power so that he might make deals with it. A n d the City Club, he knew, dared not relax its vigilance over the Committee of Seventy, lest these prominent men w h o supported Strong begin to backslide. 51

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Strong's administration disillusioned everybody. A businessman who understood neither practical politics nor the function of the reformer, the new mayor was soon rewarding those who had helped him and so furthering the very spoils system he was supposed to eliminate. Tammany chief Richard T . Croker had not lost heart: "Our people could not stand the rotten police corruption," he told Lincoln Steffens. "They'll be back at the next election; they can't stand reform either." From Strong's conduct, the muckraker drew this lesson: I saw enough of it to realize that reform politics was still politics, only worse; reformers were not as smooth as the professional politicians, and it seemed to me that they were not so honest—which was a very confusing theory to me.52 Chapman soon reached the same conclusion. In the next year he got all the illustration he needed of Steffens's paradox. Since the voters had been stirred sufficiently to elect a reformer, Tammany's foes now hoped to crush the Democratic machine in the coming municipal elections. This at once caused a split in the reform elements. A Committee of Fifty, Chamber of Commerce members, prepared a supposedly independent ticket which in reality represented a deal with the Republican machine that now dominated the state. Aware that the enemy was not Tammany but corrupt machine politics in whatever shape, the Good Government Clubs, now at their maximum strength, put up their own ticket in opposition to that of the Fifty. T o Chapman the issue was not to beat Tammany but to consolidate public confidence in the ends and means of reform. This campaign of 1895, his first experience in working for true independents, brought about Chapman's great disillusionment with the respectable and the well-to-do. By autumn the Good Government men were a minority of nonconformists lashed by the powers of the press and of money. "I cannot express to you the atmospheric terrorism," Chapman wrote to his wife in the midst of the campaign. 53 Godkin's Evening Post ridiculed their independent action, and this was followed by a hot exchange of letters between Chapman and the editor.64 The New Yor\ Times made it clear that when the Chamber of Commerce organized its Fifty, the Good Government men postponed further action in hopes that the Fifty might produce a genuinely nonpartisan union; but that the Fifty disregarded their own resolutions, bought from the Republicans and the state Democrats certain judicial nominations, and

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conceded as party spoils other places on the ticket. The Times account quoted from the Goo Goo's denunciation of "the honorable and wealthy" citizens who, instead of appealing directly to the voters, supposed they could "purchase" better government from the politicians. Between Tammany misrule and a pseudo-reform that would mask the Republican machine the Good Government men had no choice. They could only call for "a union of citizens, not a union of political organizations." 65 Chapman's fears now materialized. As early as June he had lost all patience with respectable bigwigs. By fall he denounced them: I hate those well-intentioned traitors [he wrote to his w i f e ] , those wise, old, rich, respected, innocent, self-complacent Judases. T h e y adopt our platforms but will not apply them. T h e y have fair words and weak hearts. T h e y are the victims of twenty years of corruption. . . . T h e y would have been Tories in the Revolution, Copperheads d u r i n g the w a r . T h e y are the rich, past middle life. W h a t new thing, w h a t good thing ever came forth to a community from this class? E n d o w m e n t s to museums. W h a t is established they will support — i f blackmail, then blackmail, if deals, then deals. O

G o d , in T h y

good

time, put these men in their memorable graves; and while they live may they not run any reform movements. 5 6

In Cooper Union, where the "Fusionists" held their mass rally, they pounded the Goo Goos: James C . Carter, w h o

was called upon to preside, belittled them;

Joseph

Choate poked fun at them; Peckham bullied them; and Carl Schurz, James Harsen Rhoades and Seth L o w pleaded with them to come to the help of the fusion candidates. 5 7

Schurz, whom Chapman loved and admired, pained rather than angered him. The weariness and casehardening of the older man's idealism, Chapman felt, explained their disagreement. Since the two had been exchanging letters on this very issue, one gathers that Schurz was thinking of Chapman when he pleaded that even a "distasteful concession" might serve political morality if the Good Government men would only join in using one boss as a club to beat down the other.58 But events proved Carl Schurz wrong and Richard T . Croker right: Tammany defeated the Fusionists. Chapman held that Tammany justly represented the men who could sanction such a connivance. For the bankers and merchants were fattening the Tiger by putting money into the Republican machine, which year after year sold out to Tammany. 59 The next two years were to bring Chapman both personal triumph and

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disaster. Practical politics had taught him how much was involved in the campaigns of 1895 and 1897. His attempt to elucidate the meaning of the mayoralty contest of the latter year led him to write his extraordinary book Causes and Consequences. These years also mark the beginning of his literary reputation. In November, 1896, the Atlantic Monthly printed his essay "The Young Shakespeare: A Study of Romeo." In two issues of the same magazine, January and February, 1897, appeared his classic "Emerson Sixty Years After." On the day before Christmas, 1896, Minna gave birth to their third son, Conrad. Letters of congratulation were already pouring in on the first part of his "Emerson," and all seemed well. Then disaster struck, again suddenly, as it always did in Chapman's career. As Minna's faith in her husband's talents was beginning to be justified, she herself was lying on her deathbed. For a month after the birth of the baby, her recovery had been first slow, then quite unsatisfactory. On the evening of January 25, as she lay flat upon the bed and while Chapman was reading to her, suddenly she sat upright and then fell back dead. A blood clot had stopped forever her great and loving heart.80 One may try to imagine the helplessness of the widowed Chapman, in his battles more alone now than ever, and faced with the task of rearing three little boys. Yet he seems to have borne this tragedy like a stoic. He took comfort in his sons, and continued the work for reform. Sympathy and help came from Miss Elizabeth Chanler, who had become a close friend of both Minna and her husband. In India with her sister Margaret when the news of Minna's death arrived, both she and Margaret returned to New York in April of that year. In time Elizabeth Chanler and Chapman both recognized that she was to become his second wife. By May he could write to her: Joy, Elizabeth, nothing but joy and happiness shall there be for those who come within reach. I resolved that when Minna died. It is the only thought to meet life with. There is no one shall take death as back setting and despair, not one moment of it. If I have any grief it is that I should not before her death and always have seen this light and given it to her instead of my worry and cloudiness over the world. She should have had this. That is the only grief. I say we must bring a full measure to every man we meet pressed down and flowing over.61 He resolved not to sentimentalize his grief. 82 Perhaps during these months of anguish Chapman did not dare to look within his private uni-

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verse. Soon enough these griefs would have their way with him and exact their toll. 63 Meanwhile there was joy, at least a fighter's joy—"the joy of casting at the world"—as he had written to his old friend Mrs. Whitman the year before—"the stone of an unknown world." 6 4 What Minna's death meant to Chapman and all that she had been to him in life, one can only guess. Religious, idealistic, and ardent like himself, she had shared with him his love of art, enthusiasm for ideas, and delight in social life. Her abundant vitality fed his own. Always she had been a stimulus to him, always a source of encouragement in his writing. Perhaps, had Minna remained at Chapman's side until old age, her dynamism, her openness to the new, and her heedlessness of petty convention would have saved him from some of the conservatism of his later years. At any rate, in politics and in writing Chapman now redoubled his efforts. Within three months of Minna's death he began to publish his four-page periodical, the Nursery. Until January, 1901, it appeared at intervals of a month or more, making a total of thirty-six issues. Writing at first anonymously, Chapman was editor of the Nursery and its principal contributor. From beginning to end, the motto of the Nursery was, "Let break what must break, we shall soon see the way." The first issue announced his purpose: The object of the Nursery is to tell the truth. There is no publication at present which seems to cover this exact field. Truth is best seen by the light of example, hence the Nursery does not shun personalities, when they are in point. Written contributions will be considered if sincere and short. Cash contributions will not be returned. Nursery will be published so long as the demand for truth exceeds the supply. Later came two announcements: "Future issues are not promised, but may be expected." "Persons who desire to risk a dollar on a year's subscription may address 'The Nursery, P.O. Box 1750, New York City.'" With the inauguration of the Nursery Chapman more and more played a dual role: he was engaged in practical affairs like his fellow reformers; simultaneously he was trying to think, sub specie aeternitatis, about what he was doing and what was going on around him. The Nursery was proof that to Chapman at this period of his life thought and action were one thing. Instinctively he was carrying out the strenuous program of Emerson's "American Scholar."

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In January, 1897, when he was reading proof on Emerson and Other Essays, he wrote to his mother: I am not making money at the Law and never shall, but I am glad of it, because the power to see business relations and the money in them blinds the eyes to everything else and I doubt whether any mortal intellect can be put to both uses at once.65 In municipal politics he was keeping his eyes on a different aspect of "business relations and the money in them." With Greater N e w Y o r k emerging in 1897 from the consolidation of the several boroughs, T a m many sought control of the enlarged metropolis. Tammany's foes, led by City Club independents, who were organizing voters into a Citizens' Union, began to agitate for the nomination as mayor of Seth Low, then president of Columbia University and formerly mayor of Brooklyn. Chapman shared the belief of the times that the way to improve the nation's politics was to begin at home, by fighting corruption in the towns and cities. Though N e w York City was only one symptom of the national evil, if N e w Yorkers could be given the chance to elect an independent mayor and if their government could be put on a nonpartisan basis, such an example might hearten the rest of the country. Chapman felt that he was on sure ground and that "these reform ideas" were the ideas of the coming decade. 66 Besides, upstate in Syracuse and Utica, proven independents were running for mayor. A s the contest developed, however, Chapman lost patience. During the long weeks while the independents were uncertain of getting their candidate (for L o w hesitated to accept) and while Chapman feared that L o w would be helped by machine Republicans, he became exasperated: I simply won't stand to hear it said that all life everywhere has been like this. It ain't true. No books would ever have been written, no poetry, no belief (as there are none here) if the world had always been like this. Jerusalem during the captivity had more life and unbought manhood. It degrades the universe and one's own ideals to say that Low, Larocque, Gilder are as good as Luther, Hampden or Sir John Lubbock. 87 T h e Nursery

dubbed L o w a mere "idol of the shopkeeping classes in the

town." Chapman wanted a hero for his mayor. A talk with Carl Schurz did not cheer h i m : He regards courage and independence of opinion as disqualifications for public leadership [Chapman wrote to Elizabeth Chanler], mentions Cleveland

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as a rare instance of the contrary law. . . . Fortunately, I don't agree with Schurz, or I should commit suicide. 88 A s the battle grew hotter, his passions pushed Chapman further into radicalism. He began by questioning the premises of his own class. Of a luncheon with Owen Wister this September, Chapman complained: H e made me mad with his mediocre, velvet collar shop manners—old collegeworn filbert ideas and a general belief I was absurd, a terror—and regard and sudden respect because I mentioned I was going to lecture at Bryn Mawr. . . . Also told him that the only man I had struck yet in the U.S. was William James—simply the only man who wasn't terrified at ideas, moonstruck at a living thought, but alive himself. 89 But he was not going to be grim or one-sided. " O my, how solemn we are in our reforms," he exclaimed. Jest and joy are the greatest and best thing in the world. They open the heart. They give truth scope and expression. They unite and enlarge people and discover the true way of feeling. 70 H e was thinking of radicals too: The very radicals of the last age seem to think they are to be the last radicals —the last chartered iconoclasts—and that what they leave is to last forever. . . . I want to find someone on earth so intelligent that he welcomes opinions which he condemns—I want to be this kind of a man and I want to have known this kind of a man. 7 1 While agitating to force completion of the independent nominations— before the bankers could press the Citizens' Union to include Boss Piatt's Republican cohorts for the tail of their ticket—Chapman wrote to his mother: I shall speak at Cooper Union tonight and am going to put the reform argument as an economic argument. It has never been put exactly on the right basis. . . . Of course everybody knows it is true, and no intelligent man ever dreams that there is any other question than the money fight involved in the struggle for better City Government. Of course the same thing is true with regard to all reform fights against all bosses in all American cities wherever boss rule exists. 72 But Seth L o w did not sell out. Small wonder that Chapman's spirits rose as election day approached: I have a feeling that the bottom conscience of the masses of people has got hold of the idea [i.e., "the money fight"] and that nothing can beat Low.

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Pray God it may be so. It's like Kingdom Come, this election, any way. I thought to wait fifteen years for it. 73 Though the Tammany poor jeered at and heckled him in his cart, Chapman was hoping to make an impression of personal honesty on at least a few people. 74 Was not the moral passion of himself and of the handful like him, through personal influence only, gradually educating the voters to realities? A t least no one this year dared to mouth a euphemism like "Fusion."T5 Fusion or not, the reformers were whipped at the polls. T h e first mayor of Greater N e w York was Robert A . V a n W y c k , the people's choice—and Tammany's also. Croker's candidate for District Attorney had provided the slogan which swept the city: " T o Hell with R e f o r m ! " All night long after the election, the cry of " W i d e O p e n ! " rang through the Tenderloin and the Bowery. F a r into the next morning the celebrating metropolis rocked with joy. " T o Hell with R e f o r m ! " 7 6 But John Jay Chapman would not surrender his idealism—nor let it blind him to actualities either. N o w , as he brooded over the causes of the defeat, all that he had seen and done began gradually to make sense. It had been a "money fight"—that was a "bottom fact." T h e n the idea seized him: The Jew has it all. The love of money is at the root of all evils! Slavery, bad manners, Howells' novels, the public feeling of contempt for personality which makes the [William R. Hearst's New Yor\ Morning] Journal possible—all those terrors which have hitherto been set down to Democracy. In the gross everyone knows it is money. In mode of operation, no one. Show the operation has nothing to do with politics, and you save the country. T h e fault, he thought, lies not with the mass of uneducated voters, for the educated classes he found the most unenlightened of all about municipal government. T h e ignorant, even the illiterate, man will vote rightly merely by following his own feelings—so long as he is not bribed. It is upon dishonesty, not upon ignorance, that the demagogue does his work. H o w then explain this corruption of men's thoughts and feelings? T h e answer Chapman groped towards he summed up in the term "commercialism." In a long, speculative letter—"roads cut out of the wilderness" and "mere memoranda"—he tries to define the thing: The hand of Commerce has been upon the brain of the United States. Our public life is debased by it, our literature ruined by it, our social life rendered

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ridiculous. It has been the suppression of the individual character involved in the development of our continent which has destroyed our public life. It has been the booksellers' rage to make money that has ruined our literature. That rage was developed by the commercialism of the era. The syndicating of literature is a part of the syndicating of opinion which commerce found it necessary to encourage in order to control politics." Here is Chapman's epiphany. Here is the germ of an essay, titled "Social Results of Commercialism," which was soon to be printed in the New Yor\ Times78 and which later formed a chapter of his Causa and ConsequencesJ9 The suddenness of the insight surprised him: I feel as if I had only waked up out of a sleep since a few days ago when I began to throw those ideas on the Boss system together—and that I was just beginning to see what I've been drifting towards in my sleep.80 As Chapman worked towards defining commercialism, he was also seeking a strategy to fight it. Repeatedly he had seen the reformers fail to stick together; and he had long since despaired of either political party. By now he even doubted that any formal organization could effect reform. Their defeat in 1897 hastened the disintegration of the Good Government Clubs; in time, both the City Club and the Citizens' Union also dropped out of active campaigning, to become only critical and supervisory bodies. These developments were not lost on Chapman. How, he wondered, could reform sentiment be concentrated into a force uncapturable by those who would twist it to their special ends? Plainly, sham reform was the spoilsmonger's best friend. The tenement dweller was right to call all reformers frauds: There is only one way to get near the people [Chapman wrote in the Nursery], and that is to be honest in dealing with public affairs. . . . Our reformers do not agitate. They conspire.81 The logic of it pushed Chapman to consider organizing on the basis of ideal principles only. Because formal delegation of power puts power where someone can seize it—makes power an immediate end—he wanted each question to be settled according to the character and purpose of individuals. Then, and then only, is there no hook upon which anything but an argument can hang. How else could one sift out the traitors and halfhearted and find the idealists ? Forty such idealists will be enough: a core of force to initiate any and every particular reform.82 Thus Chapman struggled to refute Carl Schurz's conclusion that all reform movements

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must grow corrupt. 83 He sought a few converts to his no-organization idea. Schurz himself was doubtful, a prominent clergyman more sympathetic. The only one who really understood was Isaac H. Klein. If anyone was Chapman's right-hand man in reform it was Klein. The two had little in common. Klein was of the humblest origins, the son of a Jewish immigrant who had settled in Bridgeport, Connecticut, before the Civil War. He was scarcely literate. Having had to earn his living since boyhood, Klein, by first-hand contact, knew the practical side of America's commercial civilization as Chapman never could. In a touching memorial to Klein some two decades after these wars, Chapman confessed : I sat at the feet of Klein as he unpacked the raw material of his experience, and I tried to arrange it into some sort of academic view, some kind of philosophy, or thesis, or plain tale, with, at first, no intention of writing it up, but merely for the sake of understanding it. 84

Klein was not merely useful in educating Chapman. The same disinterestedness lived in both men. T o Chapman, Klein was moral force personified. " H e couldn't express himself coherently," Chapman remarked, "and was like Caliban babbling divinity." It encouraged Chapman that he and Klein had arrived at the same insight by such different routes. T o both men Tammany was no more than a symbol of "the invisible private cowardice and personal selfishness of almost everyone." During these years Klein seems always to have been at Chapman's side. It was Klein, for instance, who was manager of the Nursery. And it was in the Nursery that Chapman sought a hearing for his ideas on "commercialism" and "no-organization." It's very curious [he wrote in January, 1898]. I \nou> I'm right. I know it's the important thing in this country. I'm on to it. But I don't know exactly what it is. I would die at the stake to find out. . . . T h e thing has got into the region of science on one side and practical politics on the other. 85

In testing these insights against actualities, Chapman was this year to experience his highest political hopes and his deepest political disillusionment. T w o events were to absorb him: the Spanish-American War and the gubernatorial campaign in New York. There were also personal matters to occupy him. He was seeing through the press his Emerson volume and Causes and Consequences, and he had fallen in love with Elizabeth Chanler.

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In his loneliness after Minna's death, Chapman had turned to Elizabeth for comfort. Earlier, sympathy and friendship had bound them together. In many ways Elizabeth Chanler was blessed. Born and reared in wealth and cultivation, knowing the brightest society in London, N e w Y o r k , and Newport, she was a descendant, on her mother's side, of the first John Jacob Astor; and her father, John Winthrop Chanler, had been a Democratic member of Congress in the 1880s. H e r family life, as Chapman's biographer says, "was of the gayest, whether in the houses successively occupied in N e w Y o r k or at the country place of 'Rokeby' at Barrytown on the Hudson, where the Chanlers and their forebears had long been established among the 'River families.'" There were eight in the family: three sisters of whom Elizabeth was the eldest; and five brothers, gifted and spirited young men, whose exploits abroad and at home, in exploration and art, in society and politics and affairs, would make an exciting chronicle. Elizabeth Chanler was also beautiful. In his portrait of her as a young woman, John Singer Sargent draws one's attention to her eyes—deep and lovely but troubled and melancholy. For like Minna's, Elizabeth's youth had not been happy. A cousin recalls seeing her as a child, in pain but smiling, as she lay on a board, undergoing treatment for a prolonged illness that left her lame. 88 Physically weak and from childhood suffering a hip disease, Elizabeth had been brought up by a relative to believe that she must never marry. 87 T h e depths of her suffering responded to those of the widowed Chapman, and his pity for her met hers for him. A t the same time she had a steadiness and balance which Chapman lacked. Pain of the flesh and of the spirit had not damped her fire; it had, rather, disciplined her already strong will, deepened her religious sensibility, and quickened her sympathies. Those in trouble naturally turned to Elizabeth. Yet her response was more often a call to battle than mere condolence. T o a young friend who faced a future of pain, she asked, "But why let yourself think of i t ? "

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soon grew to be the feminine head of the household. His equal in conscientiousness and almost his equal in individuality, Elizabeth was more practical than Chapman and more conventional than Minna. She was less impulsive than either. Their courtship, though not tumultuous as had been that of Chapman's first love, was not without lyricism—as their correspondence and the verses he wrote to her attest. Very likely, when

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they were quietly married, on April 23, 1898, during the excitement over the outbreak of war with Spain, Chapman was taking a step which saved his life. He had been living in a fever of agitation. He needed steadying, and for the remainder of his days Elizabeth was to be his balance wheel. Even before their marriage [says Chapman's biographer] he was writing to his future wife, "I need to ask you to direct and command me at every moment. Please call me down, correct, and chastise me"; and she was bespeaking a quieter spirit in him.88 That in marrying a wealthy woman he was freed from economic worries for the rest of his life at first in no way affected either Chapman's thought or politics. He was wide awake to the dangers of wealth. "The first thing you know," he wrote to Elizabeth before they married, "we'll be drowned in possessions and then by thinking of our horses' health." And again: "If I become classed with men at ease about money, the Lord protect me. It is a steel corslet against the heart of mankind and the knowledge of life." 90 When the war broke, Chapman lost his head. In the previous year the Nursery had treated national problems only once or twice, and then but briefly. In June, 1897, for instance, in four paragraphs he outlined his whole point of view on the great economic and political question of the decade: A Republican ring of manufacturers is now in possession at Washington. They hope to exploit the country, and believe they can make money enough in the next four years to discount fate. They are faced by a Democratic mob of Populists who are waiting for the carcass. . . . The aims of both sets are the same—to run the government for their own personal benefit. It is a fight between organized capital and organized waste. It is the great economic struggle on the great scale. As between the two sets of bandits, the average man favors the manufacturers simply because the manufacturers' methods of pillage interfere less with business activity. The Populists would fail in their efforts to make money by legislation because the only way that labor can be benefited is by laws founded on the economic needs of the entire community. Convinced that municipal reform was of nation-wide importance, Chapman kept his eye only upon New York City. Such narrowness of vision explains in part why the war fever took him in. True, in March of this year the Nursery had lashed out at the warmongers. But by June and July its pages contained extravagances like these:

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It is hard to say what good end this Spanish W a r has not accomplished. T h e A m e r i c a n people has risen above the love of money and flung themselves by the thousands to die for an idea. . . . T h e deep communion of spirit in which all Americans live and breathe the air has been apparent. . . . Bryan is no more. Debs is dead. T h e labor question has lost its venom, and the Western hatred of the W a l l Street bankers has vanished in a night. . . . T h e call to a r m s sounded. T h e Populist responded and found himself side by side with the young millionaire. . . . N o t h i n g but compassion could have so m o v e d [ t h e ] American people or any people.

Disillusionment had arrived by September, and the Nursery started to muckrake War Department corruption. Nearly two more years had to pass, however, before Chapman began to see that imperialism was indeed related to the political and social wrongs he had been fighting in his own home town. His education was still going on. For the immediate future, Theodore Roosevelt was to become Chapman's most effective teacher. When the Rough Rider with the gift for publicity came home the hero of San Juan, amidst the talk of making him the next governor of New York state, Chapman, like millions of others, cast longing eyes at the shining figure. In August, he explained his hopes to his wife: It would be the saving of Roosevelt's life to be nominated by the independents and forced upon the Republican machine—would leave him free. H e is a strong Republican in his talk, with party loyalty, but in his actions he is an independent. . . . T h e instinctive impropriety of a rush by our g a n g to get a w a r hero to drag our reform w a g o n is evaporating, with the lapse of time. 9 1

With Preble Tucker, Fulton Cutting and Isaac Klein, Chapman now schemed to run Roosevelt as the reform candidate. Here was the chance of a lifetime. If Chapman and his reformers could get Roosevelt to head their independent ticket, his great popularity would make his election certain. An independent victory in New York would rock party machines locally and nationally; and its example would hearten millions throughout the country. If I'm w r o n g about all this, I must find out by events [ C h a p m a n told his w i f e in September], If for instance, I'm w r o n g in this idea—of looking at Roosevelt's acts and not his professions in dealing with him, it will m a k e an enormous difference in my whole philosophy. 9 2

Other heroes might as bravely storm San Juan, the Nursery remarked in September; but Roosevelt's charge of corruption in the War Department spelled moral courage, "the quality most needed in politics today." If, on the other hand, Roosevelt became the nominee solely of the Republicans,

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the hero-worship he had inspired would reinforce the iniquity of machine politics. Early in the month, Chapman was touring the state—as he was to do three more times during this campaign—to gather petitions in support of an independent ticket. By the twenty-second of September the independents had completed their ticket, with the hero's name at the top. On that same day, from Sagamore Hill on Oyster Bay, Theodore Roosevelt wrote to John Jay Chapman to decline the nomination by the independents.93 In simple truth Roosevelt had double-crossed Chapman's group. There is no kinder word for what had happened. The story in all its details need not be recounted here.94 The facts in brief are these: Chapman and Isaac Klein conferred with Roosevelt about the nomination on August 24 and September 1; Roosevelt promised orally that he would run on the independent ticket; it was a gentleman's agreement. The independents did not object to Roosevelt's running also on the Republican ticket; but the Republican Boss, Senator Piatt, did object; so that in the end Roosevelt obeyed his chief and broke his word to the reformers.96 On the front page of the next issue of Chapman's little periodical— which now changed its name to the Political Nursery and dropped its former anonymity—appeared an article headed "The Catastrophe": N o matter how long Roosevelt lives or what he does he can never again furnish such a terrible illustration of the power of the boss as he did when he refused to allow his fellow-citizens to vote for him except on the Piatt ticket. T h e military hero, with fresh laurels on his brow, the people's candidate, has obeyed like a child the unreasonable orders of his political manager. . . . H e slapped independence in the face. 9 6

This has been called "one of the most unpleasant episodes in Roosevelt's career." 97 In Chapman's, it was clearly one of the bitterest. Up to this point there is in all of Chapman's writings hardly a sentence that can be termed sour or embittered. N o w in the strength of his young manhood he fought on, knowing that all was lost, hoping only to "educate" a few individuals. The independent ticket had to be reorganized, and nominees found anew: Theodore Bacon of Rochester consented to the candidacy for governor; for lieutenant governor there was Chapman's classmate, Thomas Mott Osborne. Chapman's tours in behalf of the crippled ticket were dismal:

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One man cannot help us because he feels conscientiously bound to stand by the Democrats for one more election, having protested his Democracy against Bryan. Another also with us in spirit, but his brother has a chance of being Congressman on Piatt's ticket and his hands are tied. About every single business man or man of consequence in Syracuse is tied up by some such tie. The uniformity of it is ludicrous. I think the description of politics in the essay is accurate. More so than I knew. 98 (The essay was either his "Social Results of Commercialism" or "The Capture of Government by Commercialism," which appeared in the Atlantic Monthly this year and likewise formed a chapter of Causes and Consequences.) Though stumping in the upstate towns was dispiriting, Chapman did encounter half a dozen men who had read his Causes and Consequences and hoped that that fact would give the Independents more standing. One man read it five times [he wrote from Utica]; asked me why when I write like this I waste my time in politics. All the same it's useful. It's something like being two people, and the more people you can be the better." Friday, Auburn; Saturday, Geneva; Monday, Binghamton—so Chapman made the towns. In Ithaca the bookish classes knew his essays. Of his talk at Cornell: I gave the professors a nasty jar by saying, "I don't mind Roosevelt's being a damned fool, but I do object to his taking me for a damned fool." His bugles and his tom-fool campaign, his thinking himself the American flag, his saying that a vote against him puts courage into every Spaniard is all right because he is sincere. He really believes that he is the American flag. But when he endorses the administration of McKinley in words that are intended to cover and do cover Alger [then Secretary of War], I despise him, for I know him to be dishonest.100 T o make matters worse, the independent nominee for state engineer and surveyor, the popular Colonel George E. Waring, died during the campaign. Besides, nearly all the other reformers deserted Chapman's little band. Choate, who had helped destroy Tweed and had once denounced Piatt and run against him for United States Senator, now called the boss "the presiding genius of the Republican party." And Seth Low, who in 1897 had asserted that the struggle against the bosses was "absolutely fundamental," had also come out for Piatt and Roosevelt. How many persons smiled at Chapman during these hectic days? How many shook their heads sadly at the mention of his name? Chapman him-

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self and a few others, at any rate, were willing to take the consequences. Happily, one of these few was Carl Schurz, who in an open letter to the Evening Post declared himself for the independents. Roosevelt's jingoism and his absurdities about living dangerously that the military virtues might save the American race from "Chinese degeneracy," Schurz damned as the "manifest-destiny swindle." The Political Nursery reprinted Schurz's letter. It must have been some comfort to Chapman that now the quarrel between the old hero and the young was past; for Schurz admitted: A t one time it w a s thought possible to use one boss as a club for annihilating the other. T h a t has turned out a vain hope, for they have too good an understanding a m o n g themselves as to the interest they have in c o m m o n . 1 0 1

Though Roosevelt's election and Piatt's victory meant a big setback for the nonpartisan idea, Chapman resolved not to be cast down, to accept political actualities, but to help run independent tickets year after year if only for the enlightenment of the voters. 102 Something of an interlude in his political activities came in 1899, when Chapman and his family spent about six months in England. His sympathies were all with the Boers, and British and American imperialism more and more preoccupied him. The moral interests of the two nations might be one; their business interests, he was coming to see, were also a bond—a bond which included their imperialism. 103 Although out of this country half the year, Chapman continued to edit the Political Nursery. Even before January it was scrutinizing the seamy side of the war with Spain. What was going on in our War Department excellently illustrated commercialism. Very much the muckraker, Chapman was specific about his facts: the neglect of sick soldiers, the government's refusal to accept a donation of milk for the men because someone wanted to make money by selling the milk, etc., etc. A l l this is not the result of bad m a n a g e m e n t , but of good management, great care that no chance for someone's m a k i n g a penny should be lost; intelligent co-operation in theft by thousands of people f r o m every class in the community.104

The Political Nursery this year kept a close watch over the governor's doings also. Roosevelt's achievements were recorded—and so was his palpable opportunism. In the Political Nursery and elsewhere, Chapman's stabs went deeper into Roosevelt than he perhaps ever imagined.

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For in the mid-century edition of Roosevelt's letters, one may count from 1899 to 1903, from the governor's chair to the White House, nearly a scorc of vituperations heaped upon the "small fry" Chapman: "vanity," "vermin," "mean envy," "hypocrisy," "Bedlamite," "thoroughly discreditable," "fundamental dishonesty of purpose and motive," "fundamental incapacity to think straight," "traitors to the country"—these are among the Rough Rider's choice of words. As Chapman was drawn more and more into national affairs, he wrote in his periodical: "There is no distinction between local, state and national politics. The same men run them all. The stock in the same company pays the freight." 1 0 5 It was the same in international politics. The argument for a closer union with Great Britain Chapman welcomed—but not sentimentally: "It will be a good education for us in our new role of international power to find out what England stands for." The Boer War merely raised again the perennial issue: democracy battling against the interests of business. Were he a Filipino, Chapman declared, he would be in the ranks of Aguinaldo, for he could no more trust the United States than could the Boers, Great Britain: "The last hours of the nineteenth century are made noisy by the sound of machine guns trained by England and the United States upon two petty nations who are fighting for their independence." The prostitution of religion to justify imperialism enraged Chapman. And the atmosphere of fraud which for the past decade he had been breathing in his native city now blanketed the globe. In the Political Nursery some verses titled "American Ideals" pay this tribute to Realpolitit The all-sufficing rule, the present tense, The grammar of all government, I read, Purged of hypocrisy and sly pretense, Is: Play your greed against the next man's greed. Who wins is King. 108 Wearing as the struggle had become, Chapman could do no other than fight on. International events illustrated fully the rules of private morality: "Attack another's rights," he wrote, "and you destroy your own." 1 0 ' As the Philippine insurrection was being quelled, Chapman's diagnosis was that not only had the spirit of America been distorted by the psychology of commercialism, it was now being brutalized by im-

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perialism, the end product of commercialism. By the autumn of 1900, the materialism to which the Bryan-McKinley contest had been reduced nauseated him: "Business is good: vote for McKinley" is the theme. . . . The smell of warm tripe is McKinley's answer to the laborers' pity for the Filipinos. The American people have defrauded their allies and are conducting an unjust war. The answer is "Banks and Factories." . . . The people at large are voting for their bellies, and admit it. . . . Unless God shall be merciful to this people and shall smite them with a famine, they will fasten upon themselves the shackles of a syndicated government by voting continuously for the dinner pail against the cry of humanity. . . . Given twenty-five years of unexampled prosperity and the United States will be run by a dictator.108 But it was not enough for Chapman to sound these warning notes on the small trumpet of his Political Nursery. He had to act. H e had to strike again for what he believed. That summer, with a few reformers who could accept neither McKinley nor Bryan, he agitated for a "Third Ticket Movement." His only illusions now were "educational." But he complained that Providence had become unimaginative, offering on every occasion the same dish—a choice between two evils: McKinley's reelection would continue well-organized corruption; Bryan's victory would be specious, for the business world knew well enough how to protect itself against any change in the national administration. Imperialism was not the issue: The bottom fact is that we are not confronted with any volcanic calamity which can be cured by this election. We are confronted by an era of dishonesty and indifference to dishonesty, corruption and indifference to corruption, inactivity on the part of decent men and indifference to politics.109 There was no cure-all, but an independent candidate for the presidency might be a beginning. Could Grover Cleveland be induced to run once more? Cleveland's reputation is about all that remains out of the wreck of American party politics [Political Nursery declared]. Let that reputation be remembered not as the end of an old regime but as the beginning of a new regime. Let him lead the next generation. His own he cannot lead. By June Chapman was drafting a letter to be sent to all state committees of the Gold Democrats, inviting them to attend a Third Ticket meeting in Indianapolis the day after their own convention met there to gather forces against Bryan. If the Gold Democrats should decide on a ticket

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for themselves, so Chapman anticipated, some malcontents would leave their ranks. With a small corps of men from the East, he hoped to be at hand and so draw some of the renegades to his cause. He doubted that the scheme would work, but he would try it anyway. 1 1 0 Some weeks later he wrote from Indianapolis, " I say it's amazing to get eleven men to travel two thousand miles on a goose chase in the middle of July." If the eleven had any success with the Gold Democrats, Chapman's letters do not disclose it. The little group, however, planned to return to Indianapolis later in the summer when the anti-imperialists' "Liberty Congress" would convene there, and to try with them the same tactics. 111 On the 7th of August Chapman wrote from Boston, describing his conversation with Cleveland: He's about the biggest man I ever met. But he won't play our game. It's unreasonable to expect him to. . . . But for a man who has always had a big party behind him to be turned into a John the Baptist by a conversation showing that it would be a useful thing if he did it is hardly to be expected. . . . He was so quick in seizing the meaning of phrases descriptive of our function —e.g., that all a reformer could do was raise the moral issue—and raise it again—and again—and the good he did was the discomfort he gave to the club men who had to settle it—that we were now at the maximum of purity and minimum of power—that nothing was the matter with politics except personal selfishness and the only cure was personal unselfishness—the rest was illusion—the more metaphysical I was the closer he followed. The connection between these ideas and having no organization—he even seemed to understand. 112 With or without Cleveland, Chapman wanted to go on. At one with the Anti-Imperialist Leaguers, he gloried of course when the jingoes called them "a parcel of old women." But before their August meeting in Indianapolis (even though he recognized McKinley's election as a foregone conclusion) he was urging the anti-imperialists not to endorse Bryan and so lose their own identity and force. T o nominate their own candidate on a positive platform would make their campaign "hot, real, clear, a heart-felt thing." Then when the fight was over, the country would be left with a few leaders of public opinion. 1 1 3 The movement Chapman envisioned, the formation of a nucleus for a new national party, was of course not yet due. What the anti-imperialists did or failed to do was of little moment. Bryan himself was thoroughly beaten. Chapman had been right, though, as to the real issues of the

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campaign. All things went the way of McKinley: his party had won a war, the working men had full dinner pails, the farmers were getting higher prices. " T h e country was prosperous and contented," wrote a historian of the year 1900, "and weary of idealism." 1 1 1 Chapman himself was weary, but less content than ever. T h e last four years had tried him sorely in his affections and in his faiths. And now, in 1900—in addition to ten issues of the Political Nursery, his contributions to other periodicals, his letters to the press, and his voluminous correspondence,—he produced his third book, Practical Agitation, the complement to Causes and Consequences. And always he was performing the double labor of practicing reform and theorizing about it. Perhaps Chapman began to think that his vocation was other than that of reformer. But these lessons he could hardly help taking as blows—not against himself personally, but against his "religion." For his actions had been so many confessions of faith. His intellect might tell him that he must always sow and never reap; but his heart insisted that he exert at least a trace of visible influence upon affairs. He expressed his disappointment with political reform in an essay, " T h e Doctrine of Non-Resistance," which comprised the whole of the December Political Nursery,m Here he summarized his dozen years of effort to stop "certain actual cruelties, corruptions, injurious things done by particular men in plain sight." He had begged the wrongdoers to desist—with no results; he had next worked to remove the officials in authority over them—with no results; he had joined the party in opposition—with no results; and finally he had tried to create a new reform party —with no results. He thought his methods had been erroneous: he had been trying to induce others to act; but the thing to do was to act himself, alone and directly, and not wait for help from others. The clue was in Christ's saying "Resist not evil; but overcome evil with good." One aspect of Chapman's understanding of this dictum is the principle he had acted upon from the start: that reform could not advance by use of the enemy's tactics against him. The other aspect is the new note of passivity: for Chapman was beginning to see that Christ's life taught what cannot be done as well as what can be done. The vision of Christ militant, which had so long inspired him, was fading before that of Jesus meek and humble of heart. The burden he put upon his single conscience was too heavy, and

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there were personal anxieties. Then, early in the winter of 1901 and in his thirty-ninth year, Chapman, after an attack of grippe, suffered a severe physical and nervous collapse. "The crisis came with a crash," he later recalled. While making an address in a small town near Philadelphia, he was suddenly unable to understand the questions from his audience. Shortly afterwards, he was in bed in a darkened room at Rokeby. For months he was as helpless as an infant. 1 1 6 Into darkness and quietude he had retreated. The lance with which he had so valiantly charged against the evils of his times was now broken. Both the symbolism and the motto of his family's coat of arms, his biographer tells us, meant much to Chapman. The arms of the Chapman family are a mailed arm and a fist clasping a broken lance; where the broken parts of the lance meet rests a sprig of olive. The motto for the device is Crescit sub pondere virtus—Under the burden virtue grows.

V. The Root of All Evil

H E C h a p m a n of the nineties had made of his own life an experiment, had used himself to test his ideas. H e had lived out his faith in his country: his conviction that "the key and cause of human progress" might be gained from the study of American conditions. 1 W i t h him, to study was to attack: not to view, report, and speculate at a distance, but to be involved in actualities. So he had hurled his individual

might

against the juggernaut of a brutal society. T h e giant wheels rolled over and crushed h i m . F o r him there was a bed and a lonely, darkened room in a tower on the banks of the Hudson. H e had retired to a country estate as had his ancestors before him—but not so willingly. H a d all of it come to nothing? T h e price which C h a p m a n was to pay for this initiation—the long years of illness, the helplessness in body and mind—belongs

in

the

record and deserves a chapter in itself. B u t before we return to the story of the private m a n , much more needs to go into the account of Chapman's work in this decade. T o discover the value of these years, we must look, not to their sound and fury, but to what C h a p m a n made them signify. T h e

fruits by which this experience may be judged are of

course Chapman's writings about it, his Political O f the latter, Emerson

and

Other

Essays

Nursery

and his books.

comprises literary and cul-

tural criticism. T h e other two books, because they are the more direct product of his political activity, are our immediate concern. In them C h a p m a n had done what no other American writer before h i m had. In relatively few pages he had, as one reader put it, turned "the whole fabric of society inside out like an old g l o v e . " 2 In the first of these books, Causes

and

Consequences,

he diagnosed and described the disease

which he called commercialism, in its peculiarly American origins, and workings, and consequences. In Practical

Agitation,

its sequel, he offered

his prescription. T o g e t h e r , these two volumes were and still are our best and briefest introduction politics and culture.

to the American way in business and

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His biographer has remarked that Chapman's political studies "possess an astonishing vitality and appositeness to the present"—so much so that "it would be impossible to modernize many passages in his writings of forty years ago." T o Edmund Wilson, they "mark the turning of the tide in the open discussion of the relations between American public life and business." 3 Jacques Barzun contends that "they might have taught and inspired a whole generation." On February 20, 1898, after he had read a part of the books, William Dean Howells wrote to Chapman: Perhaps you would rather not have the praise of one of the sociological host, but when a man speaks the truth where it will do often the most good, and himself the most harm, I like to pipe up out of my perdition and thank him. You have made me look at pp. 180-220 of Altruria and think I was not far from wrong.4 A few weeks later, when William James read in manuscript one of the chapters of Causes and Consequences, he thought that its author had probably done a bigger thing than he knew. "Keep it up, my boy," James wrote to his younger friend. "Don't let it slip away and you will be a spiritual leader, by the pen or otherwise, a shepherd of your people." 5 Again, when James wrote to George Herbert Palmer to criticize Santayana's philosophy as "a perfection of rottenness," he went on to say: "As a contrast, read Jack Chapman's 'Practical Agitation.' The other pole of thought and a style all splinters—but a gospel for our rising generation.— I hope it will have its effect." 6 Of Chapman's methods, James declared: " H e just looks at things and tells the truth about them—a strange thing even to try to do, and he doesn't always succeed." 7 Yet James was impressed by how often his friend did succeed. Causes and Consequences opens with these words: "Misgovernment in the United States is an incident in the history of commerce. It is part of the triumph of industrial progress." Our Civil War, says Chapman, caused political power in America to become "condensed and packed for delivery." The great wealth born of the postwar conditions was ready at hand to buy that power. As the purchasing process went on, it shifted the motivation behind our political parties from principles to money. The bought part of political organization came to be called "the machine," its general manager "the boss." Accompanying the change was a degradation in public life and in individual character. How all this

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came about, Chapman

EVIL

illustrates in epitome, antedating by

half

a

decade the methods and exposes of the muckrakers. Let us suppose, says Chapman, that a railroad company wants to run a line through a town or small city. T h e company employs the best local attorney, w h o bribes town officials and gets permits for street uses and the like. T h e railroad prospers; so does the town. In time, however, new permits are needed; but t'ney are blocked by local ordinances. A town election being in the offing, the railroad lawyer goes to the party likely to win—say, the Republicans—and explains that what is good for the town is also good for the railroad; that his company wants only fair play, "no factitious obstruction," etc. T h e attorney is given the chance to look over the list of candidates and maybe to select some. With the railroad's heavy contribution to the campaign funds, the Republican leader is sure of victory, and can, if need be, buy some votes and distribute funds to keep his "organization" intact. T h e Republicans win, the railroad's rights are secured for a year. Then, during the year, a question comes up as to the railroad's rights to some land claimed by the town. T h e city attorney, although a "reasonable" and "able" man, "manages somehow to state the city's case on untenable ground." T h e railroad wins, next fall the city attorney finds himself Republican candidate for judge, and the railroad has tripled its campaign subscription. By this time the community is controlled by a ring. N o w occurs a scandal. Someone rumors that there is a deficit in the town treasurer's account. Since the district attorney happens to be one of the railroad's lawyers—"in fact, one of the committee on nominations who put the town treasurer into office"—no prosecution eventuates. T h e district attorney is up for reelection, and all is well. A newcomer to the town who wants to reform things begins to talk politics. Chapman explains what happens to him: He is not so inexperienced as to seek aid from the rich and respectable classes. He knows that the men who subscribed to the railroad's stock are the same men who own the local bank, and that the manufacturers and other business men of the place rely on the bank for carrying on their business. He knows that all trades which are specially touched by the law, such as the liquor dealers' and hotel-keepers', must "stand in" with the administration. . . . The newcomer talks to the leading hardware merchant, a man of stainless reputation, who admits that the district attorney has been remiss; but the merchant is

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a Republican, and says that so long as he lives he will vote for the party that saved the country. T o vote for a Democrat is a crime. . . . H e goes to the florist. But the florist owns a piece of real estate, and has a theory that it is assessed too high. T h e time for revising the assessment rolls is coming near, and he has to see the authorities about that. T h e florist agrees that the town is a den of thieves; but he must live; he has no time to go into theoretical politics. The stranger next interviews a retired grocer. But the grocer has lent money to his nephew, who is in the coal business, and is getting special rates from the railroad, and is paying off the debt rapidly. T h e grocer would be willing to help, but his name must not be used. After canvassing the whole community, the stranger finds five persons who are willing to work to defeat the district attorney: a young doctor of good education and small practice, a young lawyer who thinks he can make use of the movement by betraying it, a retired anti-slavery preacher, a maiden lady, and a piano-tuner. T h e district attorney is re-elected by an overwhelming vote. B u t next year matters g o f r o m bad to worse. M o r e money is missing f r o m the town treasury, the district attorney is publicly accused of shari n g the loot. T h e Democrats shout f o r r e f o r m a n d threaten to run their strongest man, a prominent citizen, f o r district attorney. T h e suggestion gets popular a p p r o v a l ; even the h a r d w a r e m e r c h a n t says he will vote Democratic. T h e railroad n o w goes to the m a n a g e r of the local D e m o crats, declares it takes no interest in politics, a n d wants only to be left alone; but explains that if a change is to come, it desires merely that Soand-So be retained. T h e railroad, n o w h a v i n g to m a k e the best terms it can, leaves a subscription f u n d w i t h the Democratic m a n a g e r . If this politico thinks he is in a position to m a k e a clean sweep, he nominates the distinguished citizen (a perfect piece of w i n d o w dressing) along with a g r o u p of his o w n organization pals. S o the D e m o c r a t s do w i n , a n d the regime continues, the same ring, but with a different label. Or, C h a p m a n explains, the railroad company m a y meet its crisis differently. By letting a f e w D e m o c r a t s into the r i n g and promising t h e m some minor appointive jobs and a contract here and there, the railroad makes it pointless f o r the D e m o c r a t s to put up their distinguished citizen candidate. T h i s state of affairs, with " e q u i l i b r i u m " achieved, C h a p m a n dubs the " H a p p y F a m i l y " stage of municipal g o v e r n m e n t . " C o m m e r c i a l i s m is in control": the railroad pays for the upkeep of both political parties, getting in return the care and protection of whichever one happens to be nominally in power. A s to the townspeople, so long as they vote on party

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EVIL

lines they cannot get away from the railroad. In fact, they cannot vote on party lines, really; they can vote only for or against the railroad. T o vote against it, they would have to run an independent ticket. So, the boss in power, "the handy man of the capitalist," rides high. A n d the boss out of power may welcome any citizen reform movements—to use them as a front for getting his own party back into the running. Rings like this one prevail, Chapman declares, wherever available capital has concentrated, a phenomenon most evident in the big cities. T h e railroad simply pours out its money "in the systematic corruption of the entire community." So starts and spreads the degradation of individual character: Even the offices with which it [the railroad] has no contact will be affected by this corruption. Men put in office because they are tools will work as tools only. Through this phase, says Chapman, our American towns have been passing since 1865. Although the state boss is a more recent development, he plays the same game as the city bosses. Both types are simply commercial agents. If the primaries, caucuses, town and county and state conventions of American party government have been intended to work out the will of the people by gradual delegation of power from the bottom to the top, the exigencies of business, says Chapman, require that the whole mechanism work in reverse—from top to bottom. Gravely, the procedures of nomination are acted out—the men "appear like acolytes going through mystical rites and ceremonies"—while the dictator stands by at every step to designate officers and committeemen. T h e function of the legislator is similarly perverted. In theory he is supposed to be "a wise, enlightened m a n " responsible only to the Constitution and his own conscience. But since the boss system reduces the legislator to a zero, almost anybody will do for the job. T h e reason why America so far does not have a national boss is that the "necessity for owning Congress has not yet become continuous." So much for Chapman's explication—done in a mere score of pages— of the causes and workings of commercialism in American political life. H i s critique of the consequences amounts to the working out of three propositions: first, that our democratic government has been captured by the forces of business; second, that commercialism has emasculated

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our social life; and third, that f r o m such a society w e can expect only an impotent cultural life. S o C h a p m a n takes up the question: W h a t does commercialism do to us as a society, as a civilization? W i t h K i n g Boodle absolute monarch of the United States, what are his subjects like? Once they are corrupted, public officers, C h a p m a n thinks, will w o r k only for money. T h i s is w h y every business which deals with city or state government contributes to "protection"—a f o r m of bribery that has now become as regular an item of expense as rent. Unconsciously the m i n d of the businessman, like that of the lawyer, makes an allowance for g r a f t . T h e well-to-do prosper by m a k i n g themselves part of the system. T h e poor, w h o cannot buy immunity, are the chief sufferers. Essentially bribery is terrorism; yet it masks plausibly as an appeal to self-interest. T o be sure, not every m a n in a commercialized community is a rascal; but integrity has become a luxury which f e w can afford. F o r whenever a man's business affairs bring him into contact with government officers, he faces "the choice between lucrative malpractice and thankless honesty." But the highest cost of our bondage is that it is i n f u s i n g into our national character " a low and perverted moral tone, an incapacity to think clearly, or to tell the truth even w h e n w e k n o w it." W e find it hard to believe that any m a n can be disinterested. "Business thunders at the y o u n g man, ' T h o u shalt have none other gods but me.' N o r is it a weak threat, for business, when it speaks, means business." Hence a young doctor in a small town will not advocate reform because people will think h i m frivolous and an unreliable physician. " T h e newsdealer in the A r c a d e at Rector Street lost customers because it was discovered he was a Bryan m a n . T h e bankers would not buy papers of h i m . " T h e professional classes are parasites on the moneyed classes; they dare not bite the hand that feeds them. The world famous timidity of Americans in matters of opinion is the outward and visible sign of a mental preoccupation. Tocqueville thought it was due to their democratic form of government. It is not due to democracy, but to commercial conditions. In Tocqueville's day it arose out of the slavery question, solely because that question affected trade. Commercialism has also stiffened class barriers, and made social life dull;

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The millionaire dines with the millionaire, the artist with the artist, the hatmaker with the hat-maker, gentlefolk with gentlefolk. All of these sets are equally uninspiring, equally frightened at a strange face. The hierarchy of commerce is dull. The intelligent people in America are dull, because they have no contact, no social experience. Their intelligence is a clique and wears a badge. They think they are not affected by the commercialism of the times; but their attitude of mind is precisely that of a lettered class living under a tyranny. They flock by themselves. C h a p m a n argues further that commercialized self-interest has hardened us all into the habit of keeping our mouths shut. Broach the subject of free trade at a men's luncheon gathering and there will be no discussion. W h o will speak first? W h o k n o w s but that some phase of the talk m a y affect his own pocketbook? Business training is so stereotyping us that we Americans now use any and every authority to discipline the recusant. T h e Americanization of our i m m i g r a n t s means their standardization too. A n d w h y , for instance, is a gathering at a gentlemen's club certain to be a bore? W e must now add one dreadful fact: Many of these men at the club are dishonest. The banker has come from a Directors' meeting of a large corporation, where he has voted to buy ten thousand shares of railroad stock which he and his associates bought on foreclosure at seventeen three weeks before, but which now stands at thirty, because the quotations have been rigged. The attorney for the corporation is here talking to Professor Scuddamore about the new citizens' movement, which the attorney has joined, for he is a great reformer, and lives in horror at the wickedness of the times. Beyond him sits an important man, whose corporation has just given a large sum to a political organization. . . . Here is also another type of honor, the middle-aged practitioner of good family, who has one of the best heads in town. He knows what all these other men are, and how they make their money; yet he dines at their houses, and gets business from them. . . . There also is a great doctor, visiting physician of three hospitals, one of which is in receipt of city funds, and he knows the practice of packing the hospitals before inspection day in order to increase the appropriation. The man who endowed the hospital sits beyond. All these wires end in this club-room. Now start your topic—jest about free silver, make a merry sally on Mayor Jones. Start the question: "Why is . . . the last reform commissioner of the gas works not in jail?" and see what a jovial crew you are set down with. C h a p m a n avers that this point here is not "ethical" but "sociological." Base a civilization on corruptly m a n a g e d commerce and you have an

T H E ROOT OF ALL

EVIL

97

u n i n t e l l i g e n t a n d m e d i o c r e social l i f e — " m a d e u p of people a f r a i d of each other, whose ideas are shop-worn, w h o s e m a n n e r s are self-conscious." W i t h each i n d i v i d u a l so a g r e e a b l y d e p e n d e n t upon the other, free speech a n d therefore free t h o u g h t are impossible. T h i s e c o n o m i c a l l y

motivated

desire to please, " w h i c h has so m u c h of the s h o p m a n ' s s m i l e in it," has s h a p e d A m e r i c a n m a n n e r s : at one e n d , it m a k e s for g e n e r a l k i n d l i n e s s , for p h i l a n t h r o p i c e n t e r p r i s e s ; at the other, it m a k e s a m a n desire to efface himself into a smooth m e d i o c r i t y . T h e f e a r f u l price is o u r unconscious self-deception: Mere financial dishonesty is of very little importance in the history of civilization. W h o cares whether Caesar stole or Caesar Borgia cheated? Their intellects stayed clear. T h e real evil that follows in the w a k e of a commercial dishonesty so general as ours is the intellectual dishonesty it generates. One need not mind stealing, but one must cry out at people whose minds are so befuddled that they do not know theft when they see it. Robert Walpolc bought votes. He deceived others, but he did not deceive himself. Bred by c o m m e r c i a l i s m , such intellectual dishonesty fosters a " m e n t a l a t t i t u d e " w h i c h prevents a m a n f r o m c o n f r o n t i n g a n y real issues or havi n g a n y positive opinions. T h e suppression of the i n d i v i d u a l a n d o u r poverty of spirit—these a n d other c o n s e q u e n c e s of A m e r i c a n

muddle-

headedness m u s t , says C h a p m a n , be studied i n social life. N o class is exempt: The dandy at Newport who conscientiously follows his leaders and observes the cab rule, the glove ordinance, and the mystery of the oyster fork, is governed by the law, is fettered by the same force, as the labor man who fears to tell his fellows that he approves of W a r i n g ' s clean streets. Each is a halfman, each is afraid of his fellows, and for the same reason. Each is commercial, keeps his place by conciliatory methods, and will be punished for contumacy by the loss of his job. Neither of them has an independent opinion on any subject. T h o u g h w e m a y cherish o u r bills of r i g h t s as b u l w a r k s of liberty, the b a r r a g e of c o m m e r c i a l i s m m e a n w h i l e batters the i n d i v i d u a l ' s i n t e g r i t y from all sides. Since the C i v i l W a r , A m e r i c a n s h a v e c o m e to r e g a r d abso lute self-seeking as the n o r m a l state of m a n : " W e have a special disease. It is o u r m i n d s w h i c h have been i n j u r e d . W e a r e cross-eyed w i t h selfishness." T r u e e n o u g h , the A m e r i c a n , because he h a s escaped so m a n y of the ancicnt biases of Europe, has the o p p o r t u n i t y for a direct, e m p i r i c a l v i e w of life. But—

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he must foreswear thrift, and the calculating of interest in his sleep. No religious revival will help us. We are religious enough already. It is our relaxation. Only the painful unwinding of that intellectual knot into which our minds are tied,—that state of intense selfishness during which we see business advancement as our first duty, taught us at the cradle, enforced by example, inculcated like a religion,—can make us begin to operate our institutions upon the lines on which they alone can run freely, and we ourselves develop normally. Chapman was not looking forward to Utopia. H e was calling for a politics where ideas could count for something. This he knew would comc about only as fast as the public developed ideas, and no sooner. By an idea C h a p m a n meant something that "governs your conduct all the time": The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practise politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. . . . Imagine a tea-party of pre-Raphaelites discussing Dante; they dote on his style, his passion, his force, his quality. In walks Dante, grim, remorseless, harsh, powerful. The man represents everything they hate. He is a horror and an outrage. The whole region of literature that these men live in is not more fictitious than the region of political thought in which the effete American—I mean your banker, your college president, your writer of editorial leaders— lives. Exclude for the moment those who are financially corrupt and consider only the men of intellect, and in all that concerns politics they are as removed from real ideas as Rossetti was removed from the real Dante. 8 Passages like these hold the real fire because they are the product not of scholarly seclusion but of a "wrenchingly close" struggle with actualities. Edmund Wilson has scarcely erred in calling Causes and Consequences "one of the most powerful tracts ever written on the debasement of our politics and government by unscrupulous business interests." In Causes and Consequences, then, Chapman's thesis is that "the temporary distortion of h u m a n character by the forces of commerce" has prevented democracy in America from fulfilling itself. Yet he believes that ethical intelligence can direct the destinies of society, a conviction grounded in his individualism and in his faith in democracy. Because he feels that the individual is not predominantly evil, Chapman holds that men are capable of self-government and thus accepts the framework of American government as being in accord with a sound

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view of human nature. For, despite a generation of corruption and misrule since the Civil War, our democratic institutions, though diseased by commercialism, have yet survived. H a d there been in America anything like a state church or hereditary aristocracy, they would by the nineties have been reduced to a mere chattel of business, anchored in abuses, and continually devising new yokes for the people. N o t only have these democratic institutions survived, but also, Chapman maintains, they provide our means of salvation. But he warns that we must not mistake the nature of democracy. Paradoxically, democracy does not mean "good" government—which is something most readily achieved under a benign tyrant. Democracy means, rather, the power of self-government—the chance to arrive at and maintain good government through the operation of individual character. Paternalism may insure the welfare of a subject people, beautifully. But democracy, asserts Chapman, provides for the highest welfare of the individual. That is, in allowing the people to choose their rulers, democracy dedicates a part of each man to the public. By its very principle it thus checks the individual from being absolutely selfish by repeatedly appealing to the highest in him—an appeal to which the "organic unselfishness" of human nature can respond: It is thought that the peculiar merit of Democracy lies in this: that it gives to every man a chance to pursue his own ends. The reverse is true. The merit lies in the assumption imposed upon every man that he shall serve his fellow men. This is by the law of his being, his only chance for happiness. Accordingly, Chapman calls democracy a "man-ometer," a measuring instrument for each person: " O u r f o r m of government throws the moral idea with terrible force, as a practical issue, into the life of each man. 'Thou art the m a n . ' " Because democracy assumes the perfectability of human nature, it affords a political system "by which private selfishness, the bane and terror of all government, is thrust brutally to the front and kept there, staring in hideous openness." All corruption is shown up as a loss of the power of self-government. The framework of government lies there exposed in all its parts like a vast and complex dial, recording with the nicety of a scientific instrument every departure from virtue of the human beings whose lives, whose standards, whose very thoughts are registered against it. When selfishness reaches a certain point, the machine stops. Government by force comes in.

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T o be sure, every form of government professes to be "organized altruism." But democracy, as Chapman understands it, exists just to the degree that it is in fact organized altruism. Get too far away from this truth, he declares, and we get too close to government by force. W e are threatened by such an eventuality because we have been degrading our democratic faith. And that degradation, as Chapman analyzes it, has been fostering two sorts of related pressures upon the individual: fear that the utterance of any unpopular sentiment may at once affect his bank account, and the weight of majority, standardized opinion. Nor does Chapman think that democratic institutions are enough in themselves to protect individualism. They can also enforce conformity. W e dare not be complacent about the excellence of our machinery. Even such an institution as universal suffrage could in America prepare the way for tyranny in so far as it becomes a medium through which voters express their ruling passion—the desire for money. Make Mammon the universal arbiter and you standardize opinion: "If the individual must submit when outvoted in politics, he ought to submit when outvoted in ethics, in opinion, or in sentiment. Private opinion is a thing to be stamped out like private law." T o appreciate the accuracy of Chapman's diagnosis and to estimate the value of his prescription for improvement, we must look more closely at the assumptions he makes about democracy and human nature —particularly in the light of the scientific and sociological thinking common in the nineties. For even the idealist will blink at such notions as "organic unselfishness" and "organized altruism." Chapman seems to contradict point-blank those who, like the eighteenth-century author of The Fable of the Bees, reason that society is organized and thrives on the rapacity of its individual members. According to Mandeville, the "private vices" which make for "public benefit" derive from the instinct of self-preservation. T o be sure, very few postbellum Americans had ever heard of Mandeville. Yet the majority of them shared his view. For the evolutionary philosophy of the nineteenth century lent it scientific credibility. It was the Englishman Herbert Spencer who applied the biologic scheme of evolution to society and who coined the phrase "survival of the fittest." On its darker side, social Darwinism pictured each man struggling selfishly against all other men for his own survival. On its brighter side, in the grand synthesis which Spencer and his American

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followers elaborated, evolution was equated with progress and progress made into a cosmic law. Progress was held to be inevitable if we merely conformed to the natural laws which control society. Here was reassurance to conservative Americans troubled by the contrast they saw between the evils around them and the ideals on which the Republic had been founded. T h e Spencerian philosophy certainly comforted the "haves," who could reason that, since the status quo is part of a natural process, it must never be interfered with. But to exalt such laissez-faire into an absolute is to paralyze the will to reform. From the seventies to the nineties social Darwinism made for a kind of fatal optimism. Still worse was its tendency to denigrate the role of intelligence and will in the direction of human affairs: men were parts of a vast process over which they had no control. 9 Against this orthodoxy—as if against the atmosphere itself—Chapman had to fight. Perforce, he must grab any weapon at hand to beat down the paralyzing grip of social Darwinism. If then his individualism is exaggerated, it is exaggerated by necessity. In his chapter "Education: Froebel," he employs the theories of the German proponent of kindergarten to put forward what is after all a more workable view of human nature than that entertained by most of Chapman's contemporaries. In Froebel, he finds what he calls "laws" of human nature: that the child is a growing organism, with a unity of its own, to be developed through creative activity—an activity that implies his unselfish cooperation with other children. Against the Darwinian view of man as engaged in a selfcentered struggle for existence Chapman hurls the assertion that "the animal man is unselfish." And he maintains: "It is fair to retort with a paradox. Man absolutely selfish could not survive. Man absolutely unselfish would survive splendidly. The individuals would support each other." T o Chapman the instinct of self-preservation is by nature unselfish —a truth he finds demonstrated in the democratic organization of society. Hence, he contends that democracy approaches or retreats from its self-fulfillment to the degree that it fosters and at the same time harnesses the unselfishness of its citizens. "Herbert Spencer has been a useful churchwarden to science," Chapman declares, "but . . . his sociology is a farce." Nevertheless, as a democrat Chapman saw the issue: "Man is both selfish and unselfish, but it makes a great difference whether we regard him primarily as one thing or the other." If you believe that democracy

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can work, you must, according to Chapman, also believe that men are primarily unselfish. In this conviction Chapman was strengthened by his Emersonian individualism. When he had completed the central essay of Causes Consequences,

and

"Social Results of Commercialism," he explained that it

was "all Emerson" and "Emerson made coherent." But Chapman carries Emersonianism into new and fruitful directions. If you find yourself in some moral predicament, he contends, you need only tell yourself, " 'Life is larger than this little imbroglio. I shall follow my instinct.' As you say this, your compass swings true." Intellectually, too, we are able to think straight and gain objectivity, only in so far as we rid ourselves of our specially private concerns and prejudices: Unselfishness and intellectual development are one and the same thing, . . . there is no failure of intellect which cannot be expressed in terms of selfishness, and no selfishness that cannot be expressed as intellectual shortcoming. Another side of our unselfishness is thus "the instinctive love of truth." As to how the intelligence works towards truth, Chapman offers an explanation of what the present-day psychiatrist would recognize as the conflict between "the pleasure principle" and "the reality principle." Suppose, says Chapman in effect, that we face a moral issue or encounter a difficulty in the process of learning something new. W e then experience an inner conflict. On the one hand, we want to take the course which looks easier, more pleasurable, and more certain to advance our private interests. On the other hand, we are pulled toward a course whose rewards appear to be remote and which involves effort and sacrifice. These workings of the human mind we cannot amend, says Chapman; "they are the facts of psychology." Only in this way do we develop the capacity for impersonal thinking: It would seem as if the brain of man were so constituted that at the moment of its full operation the man himself disappears. His consciousness becomes wholly occupied with impersonal interests. Thus, in the process of thought, a man begins to see his own personal interests threatened. If he continues to think, they must vanish. This is the struggle between right and wrong. It is really the struggle between two attitudes of mind. It is the experience we suffer when the mind is passing from the self-regardant to the non-self-regardant attitude. Though, according to Chapman, human beings can never know final and absolute truth, there are moments when all the life within us vi-

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brates in a harmony. Such experiences have something of truth in them, because in these moments our attention is focused and we are responding as a whole being. In contrast: Whatever cracks men up and obliterates parts of them, makes them powerless to give out this vibration. This is about all we know of individualism and the integrity of the individual. . . . All the tyrannies and abuses in the world are only bad because they injure this integrity. We desire truth. It is the only thing we desire. T o have it, we must develop the individual. . . . The love of truth is the same passion as the veneration for the individual. T o seek to improve the masses meant to Chapman the discovery that "there are no masses . . . only individuals . . . each controlled by individual interests." T h e integrity of the individual person is precious for another reason: "while it takes the whole of a man to do anything true, no matter how small, anything that the whole of him does is right." This principle Chapman also uses to distinguish what is truly creative in works of art or of intellect from what is imitative: the artist as a whole man "must have responded in real life to every particle of experience which he uses in his work." Yet how is Emersonianism to bridge the gap between the dreams of poets and the visions of prophets on the one side, and, on the other, the ugliness and evil which the reformer encounters? Chapman himself refused to accept as forever necessary a dichotomy between ideals and actualities: In our ordinary moods we regard the conclusions of the poets as both true and untrue—true to feeling, untrue to fact; true as intimations of the next world or of some lost world; untrue here, because detached from those portions of society that are perennially visible. Most men have a duplicated philosophy which enables them to love the arts and the wit of mankind, at the same time that they conveniently despise them. Life is ugly and necessary; art is beautiful and impossible. . . . The practical problem is to keep them in separate spheres and to enjoy both. . . . Such are the convictions of the average cultivated man. His back is broken, but he lives in the two halves comfortably enough. W e can bring our ideals nearer to realization, Chapman was convinced, if we face the consequences of the truths we already intuit. T o Chapman, facing these consequences was a practical undertaking—the only means to individual growth and social regeneration. What is dramatic in his political career is the attempt to live out these Emersonian doctrines in

T H E ROOT OF ALL EVIL word and deed: to take them directly into society—a more complicated experiment than Thoreau's at Walden. Chapman's attack on this "hypothesis of a duplicity in the universe" is a pragmatic one. Ideas come from action, and their truth is to be tested by their practical results: If people develop a c c o r d i n g to their activities, their opinions will be a m e r e reflex of their c o n d u c t . W h a t they see in the world comes out of what they d o in the w o r l d . . . . G i v e m e a m a n ' s belief, and I will give you his occupation. . . . T h e thing w e call belief is a m e r e record left by c o n d u c t . . . . T h i s m a n is an optimist. It m e a n s that he has struggled. T h a t m a n is a pessimist. It m e a n s that he has shirked. . . . Y o u c a n only discover in the universe, try h o w you will, strain your eyes h o w you please, you can only see what you have lived. . . .

If you w a n t to understand

that most difficult of all things,

the

present, you must be s o m e or all of it, s o m e of it any way. Y o u must have it g r o u n d into you by a contact so w r e n c h i n g l y close, by a struggle so severe, that you lose consciousness, and a f t e r w a r d s — n e x t y e a r — y o u will understand.

For the scholar, however, Emerson had made action essential but subordinate. In politics, Chapman went beyond Emerson: he would make an equation of action and thought. Chapman's faith that the actual and the ideal can be brought closer together is, as we have seen, based on his conviction that our democratic institutions provide the means for improving the general situation. Everyone knows that democracy implies the education of its citizens. But according to Chapman it also affords the method of this education. T h e "great machinery" of our government, "designed to be at the service of anybody," is "an advertising agency for ideas"—especially in that when it gives a man the vote, it forces him to think. So, the companion volume, Practical Agitation, opens with these two sentences: It is the ambition of the agitator to use the m a c h i n e r y of g o v e r n m e n t to m a k e m e n m o r e unselfish. In so far as he succeeds in this, he is creating a living c h u r c h , the only sort of State c h u r c h that would be entirely at one with our system, because it would be merely a representation in the formal g o v e r n m e n t of a spirit abroad a m o n g t h e people.

His experience had taught Chapman that we did not so much need to throw rascals out of office or to make new laws as we needed to raise general standards. He argues that failure to carry out this prescription has retarded reform and often discredited it. In trying to raise the standard of political morality the reformers have, instead of relying on their own

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ideas, too readily believed that any appeal to unselfish motives means sure failure. T h e i r method has been " t o use the selfishness of some one as a lever to increase the unselfishness of somebody else." In this w a y they confirm the people's unfaith. F o r example, suppose that, as a result of public discussion in your town, the voters want better p l u m b i n g in the schoolhouse. T h e executive committee of your school association meets to decide whether it will support a candidate, put up by the politicos, w h o will get the new plumbi n g — " e v e n if he does steal the books." If your school association endorses the candidate, he will w i n . If it does not, both plumbing and books are likely to remain the prey of the other party, and the Lord knows how bad that is. T h e fight rages in the committee, and some sincere old gentleman is prophesying typhoid. The practical question is: " D o you want good plumbing, or do you want the truth?" You cannot have both this year. If the association goes out and tells the public exactly what it knows, it will get itself laughed at, insult the candidate, and elect his opponent. If it tells the truth, it might as well run a candidate of its own as a protest and an advertisement of that truth. It can buy good plumbing with a lie, and the old gentleman thinks it ought to do so. The reformers are going to endorse the candidate, and upon their heads will be visited his theft of the books. They have sold out the little public confidence they held. Part of the difficulty has been that w e are in hot haste to get results: As soon as reformers give up trying to be statesmen, and perceive that their own function is purely educational, and that they are mere anti-slavery agitators and persons of no account whatever, they will succeed better. T h e n h o w can a reformer use the machinery of g o v e r n m e n t f o r "educational" purposes w h e n he k n o w s , as did C h a p m a n , that both political parties have been captured by c o m m e r c i a l i s m ? U n l i k e his partner, E d mond

Kelly,

C h a p m a n could

not and w o u l d

not turn to

socialism.

Economic factors might cause political corruption, but C h a p m a n

did

not think economic changes w o u l d eliminate it: The economic laws are valuable and suggestive, but they are founded on the belief that a man will pursue his own business interests exclusively. This is never entirely true even in trade, and the doctrines of the economists become more and more misleading when applied to fields of life where the money motive becomes incidental. The law of supply and demand does not govern the production of sonnets.

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Chapman could sympathize with the humanitarian elements of socialism and call it "a religious reaction going on in an age which thinks in terms of money." But he could not be a socialist. If you eschew a party connection, reject socialism, and call for no change in the economic system, your only alternative is to go it alone. That is precisely what Chapman recommends. Assuming that both the immediate and the ultimate end of all politics is to awaken the better feelings of the individual man, Chapman would work for the sort of progress that he calls "an increasing tender-heartedness which can give no lucid account of itself, because it is an organic process." W e might at this point dismiss Chapman with the label "Christian idealism," or "beneficent Nietzcheanism." But clearly his tract is not in the ordinary sense a handbook on how to actualize reforms. Like everybody else, Chapman knew that any specific reform results from a complex interplay of forces, not all of which are by any means examples of the Golden Rule at work. His manual is titled Practical

Agitation—

not Practical Reforming. It is addressed to the agitator—not to those who seek to improve some specific condition or correct some particular abuse. Chapman's is an idea that, in his own words, "must be taken up as a whole": You do not want any specific thing. You use every issue as a symbol. Let us give up the hope of finding any simpler way out of it. Let us take up the burden at its heaviest end, and acknowledge that nothing but an increase of personal force in every American can change our politics. T h e agitator is one who aims to disturb the minds and hearts of his fellows by urging them, through his own example, to live up to the best in themselves. T h e rest will follow. We think that political agitation must show political results. This is like trying to alter the shape of a shadow without touching its object. T h e practical reformer makes "transient use of visible conditions," but the practical agitator seeks to create conditions: It is apparent that between the initial political activity of reformers and their ultimate political accomplishments, there must intervene the real agitation, the part that does the work, which goes on in the brains and souls of individual men, and which can only be observed in social life, in manners and conversation.

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Although Chapman was not as rigorous in his differentiation of the terms agitator and reformer

as he might have been, the distinction was

obviously clear in his mind: It is the very greatest folly in the world for an agitator to be content with a partial success. It destroys his cause. He fades instantly. You cannot see him. He is become part of the corrupt and contented public. His business is to make others demand good administration. He must never reap, but always sow. Let him leave the reaping to others. In self-assertion the practical agitator begins his sowing. He does not argue with others to gain their intellectual assent, for that does not go deep enough. Nor does he drive other men, nor conspire with them to check a concrete abuse. Rather, he acts out his beliefs—he may explain them later—and so uses himself to demonstrate how ideas can be applied to practical affairs. His conduct then becomes a symbol and proof of self-reliance. By being a living refutation of needless conformity, his example helps to free others to act spontaneously. For instance: When you see cruelty going on before you, you are put to the alternative of interposing to stop it, or of losing your sensibility. There is a law of growth here involved. . . . "Use or lose," says Nature when she gave us capacities. What you condone, you support; what you neglect, you confirm. N o w since the agitation which does the work is something that goes on in the minds and hearts of individual persons and since it is observable in social life and in talk, anyone, Chapman tells us, may thrust in his individual wedge almost anywhere simply by "indiscriminate truth-telling." At this very point you reveal the identity between public and private life. If, says Chapman, you happened to attend the last meeting of, say, your library committee and there learned that Commissioner Hopkins's nephew is in the piano business and so came to understand the commissioner's views on the music question, tell your discovery to the first man you meet in the street, and bring it up at the next committee meeting. The town will soon be talking of your attack on Hopkins. Every citizen, by the way he treats you, will expose his real character and his relation both to the town's wickedness and to the universe. You yourself will get near to something real and interesting and not to be found in the sociology books. Of course, this will not turn back Niagara; but

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by taking a stand against some actual abuse, you m a k e your force felt against the whole currcnt. W h a t does this accomplish? Everything, declares C h a p m a n . Y o u have more deeply stirred each m a n in your town than any sermon he m a y have listened t o : H e may howl, but he hears. T h e grocer's boy, for the first time in his life, believes that t h : whole outfit of morality has any place in the practical world. Every class contributes its comment. Next year a new element comes forward in politics, as if the franchise had been extended. H o w truth-telling operates, C h a p m a n explains this w a y : So long as a man is trying to tell the truth, his remarks will contain a margin which other people will regard as mystifying and irritating exaggeration. It is this very margin of controversy that does the work. But for the agitator there is no such thing as abstract truth. A n d here Chapman Nursery

sums up what had been his o w n

practice in the

and outlines what was to become the muckrakers'

Political program:

You must talk facts, you must name names, you must impute motives. You must say what is in your mind. It is the only means you have of cutting yourself free from this body of death. Innuendo will not do. Nobody minds innuendo. W e live and breathe nothing else. If you are not strong enough to face the issue in private life, do not dream that you can do anything for public affairs. This, of course, means fight, not to-morrow, but now. In the early stages of your idea, expect denunciation and welcome it as a better advertisement than silence: " I f an agitator is not reviled, he is a q u a c k . " E v e n the private m a n can reach people with his ideas, but he must act them o u t : You can get assent to almost any proposition so long as you are not going to do anything about it. And on the other hand, no amount of verbal proof will justify a new thought until it has been put in practice. . . . Act first—explain afterwards. T h a t is the way to get heard. . . . It is easier to knock a man down than to say why you do it. T h e act is sometimes needed, and wisdom then approves it after the event. People who love soft methods and hate iniquity forget this,—that reform consists in taking a bone from a dog. Philosophy will not do it. Is C h a p m a n ' s medicine too strong? H e r e is his a n s w e r : T h e general cowardice of this age covers itself with the illusion of charity, and asks, in the name of Christ, that no one's feelings be hurt. But there is not in the New Testament any hint that hypocrites are to be treated with charity. T h i s class is so entrenched on all sides that the enthusiasts cannot touch them.

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T h e i r elbows are interlocked; they sit cheek by jowl with virtue. T h e y are the rich; they possess the earth. H o w shall w e strike them? V e r y easily. T h e y are so soft with feeding on politic lies that they drop dead if you give them a dose of ridicule in a drawing-room. Denunciation is well e n o u g h , but laughter is the true ratsbane for hypocrites.

The results? "We shall not note our increase of virtue so much by seeing more crooks in Sing Sing, as by seeing fewer of them in the drawingrooms." Surely, Chapman's program calls for courage. Yet, rightly understood, it does not require a superman any more than does Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience." Nor does Chapman propose anarchy—or make any claim that the strongest man is he who stands alone. But Chapman saw that the agitator, as soon as he joins an organization—however lofty its aims —by that fact limits his powers as an agitator. His freedom to speak and act is then qualified: expedience may outvote him. But must you go it completely alone as an agitator? N o : for, in Thoreau's phrase, if you are more right than your neighbors, you already constitute "a majority of one." As such, says Chapman, you should speak out, take your case to the people, ask them to help you. So you get behind you whatever force exists at this particular time for this particular purpose. As yet you do not bind either yourself or others with written documents or votes. Perhaps you merely tell a friend or two of your intention. If the friends say no, you are still not wasting your time, because prejudice against the individual is part of the evil you must fight. Hold your course alone for a while; and one by one people will come to you and form "a sort of centre of influence." That center of influence and enlightenment will be unified as to both ends and means; only those who really understand and are with you will seek you out. But little by little seeds will be growing in preparation for a later campaign. Organization and specializing of function you must develop, to be sure—when the time is ripe: "But you must not have them on paper faster than they exist in reality." Meanwhile, you have allies, though they may call your cause by different names. You cannot force those allies into your organization, and you do not have to. But consolidation is going on. For when people find themselves represented by some person or some group, they follow that influence. This Chapman calls representative government. But it "represents

no

T H E ROOT OF A L L EVIL

only the positive and aspiring part of the community," the independents who never quite get represented under the regular party system. And he asks: By what other means can you speak to the whole people at once in the language of action? By what other means can you reach the conscience of the unknown man? . . . The regular party is in theory representative of enrolled voters. You represent the sentiment of undiscovered people. The party appeals to old forces and extant conditions. You appeal to new feelings and new voters. Chapman knew very well that waves of reform sentiment spend themselves. But his argument is that if the agitators act wisely, the waters, when they recede, go back to a slightly higher level. For while their work has been educating individual voters, it has also raised public morality. In such a way progress can be made. By its nature, practical agitation nearly always fights for losing causes. But when such agitation is practical in Chapman's sense—applied as he recommends—it does not lose; it advances the cause of public enlightenment. The quarrel between the practical man in politics and Chapman's practical agitator might be put this w a y : the immediate responsibilities of each are different. The man in political office cannot be so free as the agitator. He must conspire, as it were. By their own admission, neither Abraham Lincoln nor Woodrow Wilson, for example, could in public say all that they thought on public issues. But the agitator can: he needs to be loyal only to the truth as he sees it. Such is his use in a democracy —and, often, the reason for his unpopularity. If Chapman's political writings have not yet found their place in the history of American thought, this much at least may be said for them: the courage of the man and of his message remains a heartening standard for men who cherish the right and duty of the individual citizen to feel, think, and speak for himself. Chapman's career in politics proves the vitality of Emersonian individualism. Until "civil disobedience" becomes a crime in America, his two small books belong squarely in the native tradition of our criticism. No more than Emerson does Chapman have a definite political program. Like Emerson's wisdom, Chapman's doctrine of the individual agitator is addressed not so directly to the politician or legislator or or-

T H E R O O T OF ALL EVIL

HI

ganizer of new groups as to the educated, thinking, creative person. For Practical Agitation transcends political concerns. Together with its companion volume, it amounts to a program for the American critic—detailing a way of life and a technique of operation for all intellectuals who care to perform their proper function in our society. T h e relation between Chapman's political and his critical writings is close indeed. T h a t his larger synthesis was cultural rather than political or social is obvious in this passage from Causes and Consequences: "What is there in it for me?" is the state of mind in which our people have been existing. Out of this come the popular philosophy, the social life, the architecture, the letters, the temper of the age; all tinged with the same passion. T h o u g h individualistic, Chapman's attitude toward culture is also social. "Man cannot sing nor write, nor paint, nor reform," he asserts, "nor build nor do anything except die, alone." Only if the artist responds as a whole man to his society can the artist create a genuine work of art. For the artist, like the scientist, must be interested in truth for its own sake; and on this basis ought the public estimate the fruits of his efforts. But the commercialized spirit of the American public creates such an atmosphere of "subserviency and of intellectual fog" that the American is incapable of taking a real interest in anything—much less in the artist's labors: The lack of passion in the American—noticeable in his books and in himself —comes from the same habitual mental distraction; for passion is concentration. Hence also the flippancy, superficiality, and easy humor for which we are noted. Nothing except the dollar is believed to be worthy the attention of a serious man. People are even ashamed of their tastes. Until recently, we thought it effeminate for a man to play on the piano. When a man takes a living interest in anything, we call him a "crank." There is an element of selfsacrifice in any honest intellectual work which we detect at once and score with contumely. . . . The second-rate quality of all our letters and verse is due to the same cause. The intellectual integrity is undermined. The literary man is concerned for what "will go," like the reformer who is half-politician. The attention of everyone in the United States is on some one else's opinion, not on truth. The ruling preoccupation of American society puts an extra burden on the integrity of the creative person:

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EVIL

Commercial or sexual crime or violence, that does not unman the artist, ought not to extinguish art, and it never has done so. Anything that has made him time-serving or truthless ought to show in his work, and it always has done so. One chapter of Practical Agitation

is devoted to "Literature." It treats,

however, not literature but the conditions which shape literature. Its subject is journalism; and Chapman's point of attack is the magazine, which he defines as "a meeting-place between the forces of intellect and commerce." Chapman's concern here is with that revolution in the conditions of American authorship which occurred in the 1890s. In brief, publishing was becoming a big business, adapting itself to the ways of commerce, tending to come under the control of finance capitalism, and so being pressed for surer profits. Editors and publishers were pushing to exploit the big new reading public. A n d the editors of such high-paying magazines as the Century

and Harper's

Monthly

were pledged not to offend

any reader's religious sensibilities nor to print anything that might not be read by women in the family circle. T h e struggle to get readers and writers drove publishers to spend hugely for publicity, advertising, and promotion. T h e same competition was forcing editors to urge their contributors into money-making channels of

writing. Frank

Norris,

from his experience as a reader for a large firm, has told us that often by "direct solicitation" publishers would shove a writer into a "moneymaking

proposition."

George

Ade

confessed

to Howells

that

four

times he had sickened of doing fables in slang, but had each time given way when his publisher pointed to the cash returns. Henry James also complained of being "condemned to the economy of serialisation," which subjected the author to the arbitrary limitations of "catch-penny picturebooks."

10

Into the heart of this jungle Chapman cut his way.

On the premise that the judgment of the editors of the more important magazines was the clue to the literary tone of the period, he drew the issue: in so far as an editor does not publish what he himself thinks of interest for its own sake, he encourages in the public something other than intellect. Such an editor subserves financial, political, or religious bias—or caters to popular whim. T o this extent he becomes merely a custodian of prejudice. As Chapman saw it, commercialism in literature involves two threats: standardization and conservatism. T o an editor conducting a business enterprise, repetition is often safer than innova-

THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL

n

3

tion, and of course money is to be made by catering to mass prejudices. So, pressed by his editor to conform to the market, the writer who has once hit upon a successful (i.e., m o n e y - m a k i n g ) pattern will repeat it. T h e h a r m is not so much done in the editorial office, though, as it is subtly in the writer's mind. Let him once attempt to cater to the prejudices of others, to please the public, and he will henceforth talk by rote, go on imitating himself, and sacrifice his chance for growth. A n d C h a p m a n explains w h y so m a n y creative Americans do not fulfill their early promise: It is not because the men stop growing that they repeat themselves, but they stop growing because they repeat themselves. They cease to experiment; they cease to search. The lawyer adopts routine methods; the painter follows up his success with an imitation of his success; the writer finds a recipe for style or plot. Everyone saves himself the trouble of re-examining the contents of his own mind. He has the best possible reason for doing this. The public will not pay for his experiments as well as it will for his routine work. But the laws of nature are deaf to his reasons. Research is the price of intellectual growth. If you face the problems of life freshly and squarely each morning, you march. If you accept any solution as good enough, you drop. For there is no finality and ending place to intellect. . . . You cannot flinch and qualify in your first book, and speak plainly in your second. W h e n a writer stereotypes himself for the market, he is selling his opinion. T o C h a p m a n this is no less fraudulent than selling one's vote at the polls. T h e same principles govern both, although no legislation can ever save the author: What shall a man take in exchange for his soul? No man has the privilege upon this earth of being more than one person. In this matter of expression, it is the last ten per cent of accuracy that saves or sells you. Talent evaporates as easily as a delegate holds his tongue or a lawyer smiles to a rich man; and the injury is irremediable. C h a p m a n accordingly diagnoses the malady from which American literature w a s then suffering: The notable lack in our literature is this: the prickles and irregularities of personal feeling have been pumice-stoned away. It is too smooth. There is an absence of individuality, of private opinion. This is the same lack that curses our politics—the absence of private opinion. The sacrifice in political life is honesty, in literary life is intellect; but the closer you examine honesty and intellect the more clearly they appear to be the same thing. Suppose that a judge, in order to please a boss, awards Parson

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Jones' cow to Deacon Brown; does he boldly admit this even to himself? Never. He writes an able opinion in which he befogs his intelligence, and convinces himself that he has arrived at his award by logical steps. In like manner, the revising editor who reads with the eyes of the farmer's daughter begins to lose his own. He is extinguishing some sparks of instructive reality which would offend—and benefit—the farmer's daughter; and he is obliterating a part of his own mind with every stroke of his blue pencil. He is devitalizing literature by erasing personality. Chapman sympathizes with the writer who by his pen must support wife and children, yet the law of growth does not connive at malpractice even in a worthy cause. Poverty, he reminds us, is neither the excuse for all bad work nor the prerequisite of all good work. When poverty stirs the whole man to action, it may be a blessing; but if, while the artist is at work, poverty enters into "the detail of his attention . . . it is damnation." If into his thinking and feeling goes some alloy of personal concern, the artist is at once self-conscious, not a whole man, and so incapable of doing his real work. The brain of a Rabelais would be chilled if he had to think, in the heat of creation, "I cannot use that phrase, because the editor would think it too strong." What must the writer do? At any rate, asserts Chapman, let him never alter a line or paragraph at an editor's suggestion. If he needs, criticism, let him go to a critic—or whatever man is farthest removed from the influence of magazines. However a writer is to win a public, he must reach it as a whole man. In time his readers, however few, may qualify the general public. Meanwhile, he himself must never sacrifice his own integrity to gain even a small public. In the half century since Chapman published this pair of books, we have perhaps gotten used to such critiques. And it is true that during the Gilded Age, Walt Whitman and Bayard Taylor and George Edward Woodberry all worried that American literature lacked—in the words of John Burroughs—"blood or viscera, or healthy carnality, or depth of human and manly affection." It is also true that the author of Looking Backward blamed our competitive system for wearing down human values in all social classes. Yet no one before Chapman drove home these truths—not with his sting and aptness, his brevity and impact. Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class appeared in 1899, a year after Causes and Consequences, and was not to afford a convenient terminology until nearly thirty years later. The muckrakers and the novelists

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of political protest thrived chiefly in the decade after Chapman's political labors. Yet, for all their good intentions and their exposes, the latter, in the words of a later critic, "never achieved a style, nor condensed their indignation into a thought." 1 1 No one before Chapman had so trenchantly demonstrated what the supremacy of business values in American society was coming to mean. It was Chapman who showed us, as Edmund Wilson declares, "the results of this process in the general cultural life with a force which was not later surpassed by Mencken or Van Wyck Brooks." But William James's hope that Chapman might supply a gospel for the rising generation never materialized. Why was the influence of these two books so limited and their sale so disappointing? Jacques Barzun's explanation is that, because the tradition of cultural criticism in America from Tocqueville on had been sporadic rather than continuous, there was no public prepared to comprehend Chapman when he appeared: "The critic has to have an audience that knows what to make of his utterances —or else he must exhort them to do this or that in detail, which is not his business and spoils his art." The reviews of these books bear out Barzun's opinion. Although the reviewers were generally favorable to Chapman, his thought and style puzzled them. Too much taken up by Chapman's application of idealism to politics, they failed to appreciate the force of his analysis of the American state of mind. T w o of his American critics boggled over Chapman's irony. Following several quotations from Causes and Consequences, a reviewer in the Boo\ Buyer wrote: Some of them must have had a struggle with Mr. Chapman's sense of humor before they were admitted to his pages, some of them must have appealed to his sense of fun as he wrote them, and some of them are true. 12 Another reviewer believed that Chapman "stimulated" rather than "led" thought. 13 A third felt that "we do not always get it straight from the shoulder." 14 The reviewer in the Nation, though he understood Chapman's use of paradox, deplored the author's ignorance of and lack of interest in government, economics, and law! 1 5 It was a British reviewer who best comprehended Chapman's drift and method—who saw that he employed irony and "suggestive phrases" and "a razor-edge of forcible statement" to vivisect an entire body politic. 18 Practical Agitation was also a problem for the reviewers. But one of them did perceive this much:

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For consequences, as a true moral reformer, Mr. Chapman cares nothing; he has the boldness to call attention to the fact which casuists have slighted, that though you may save a life by falsehood, what you have promoted is lifesaving, not truth.17 Chapman was "paradoxical," "one-sided," "left out half of life," and yet he told the truth. Another, who admitted that Chapman's arraignment of American journalism was "almost as just as it is severe," went on to say: "There are an indefinite number of things in the volume which will seem to most readers overstated, but Chapman tells us more new truth when he is wrong than most essayists do when they are right." 18 There are several reasons why such readers missed much of what was in Chapman. In what he had to say he was ahead of his times. Besides, his was a genuinely new style for an American writer. His wit in itself might be an obstacle in a nation that by the nineties had produced a fair share of humorists but whose wits from Franklin to Dr. Holmes could be counted on the fingers of one hand. He used a shock technique, akin to the paradoxical manner of Shaw and to Emerson's deliberate use of overstatement. Dr. Barzun has pointed to Chapman's affinity with Samuel Butler: "both used violent exaggeration to blast through the hard cake of customary thought; and both believed acidulated humor a good medium for serious criticism." Since it has become an American prejudice that a man's sincerity is to be doubted if he speaks of serious things in a playful manner, here may be another obstacle to appreciating Chapman. Of course his subtlety, irony, quickness, and erudition might confuse the meagerly educated reader. And for the academic reader Chapman may seem undisciplined in the conventions of thought. Besides, we could condemn these two books for the very fact that in them Chapman has expressed himself in the language of successful art. A rich, swift, and complex imagination has in them achieved a picture of a crucial phase of America's story; and nowadays we have come to suspect that brilliancy and vivacity can never get at realities half as well as can plodding ponderosities—and the jargon of scientism. To be sure, Chapman has his limitations. He pushed to extremes a doctrine of individual responsibility that in itself cannot cope with all the actualities in a world dominated by corporatism and pressure groups. Grant also that he gives little heed to economics, which he too readily reduces to a branch of ethics merely. Of course Chapman did not tell the absolute truth—nor all of the truth:

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no man can. Of course he failed to solve the conflict between action and thought: no man has. It was ideas he cared about in the first place. It is the ideas he gained from his actual experience that are precious to us. His career becomes intelligible when we see him not as a political radical who retired when the fight exhausted him, but as a man of letters whose long experience in reform work was an essential education for his true calling: critic of the American mind.

VI. The Voice of One

T

O turn from Chapman's "political" works to his achievement in letters during the nineties is to see that his literary criticism is part of his cultural criticism, which in turn is one with his "practical agitation." His career in that decade emerges as a sustained attack, on several fronts, against the same foe: the venality which was degrading American politics, impoverishing our social life, and emasculating our culture. He was not then a self-styled critic of literature, and his writings of this period are mostly nonliterary. " I am not a literary man," he told Mrs. Whitman; "I am an agitator" 1 —a remark occasioned by the preparation of "Emerson, Sixty Years After." That paper became the central piece in his Emerson and Other Essays, a volume which also contains studies of Walt Whitman, Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Dante, Browning, and Stevenson. Chapman's "Emerson" is important on several counts. It links the reformer and the man of letters, and it makes plain the unity of Chapman's vision. Work on it gave him, he confessed to another friend, "the enjoyment of writing an autobiography under the form and pretense of a philosophical essay." 2 But the essay has more than biographic import. Considering that when Chapman wrote, neither the authoritative edition of Emerson's works nor a large part of his journals and correspondence was yet in print; that the only substantial biography was James Elliot Cabot's, which is not critical; and that scarcely a handful of significant essays had been published about Emerson, it is hard to disagree with Chapman's biographer that the "Emerson" is "secure in its place as a classic of interpretation." 3 Samuel Gray Ward, a friend of Emerson's since 1838, told Chapman that he had succeeded in "recalling the age from its banal acceptance of him as a 'great man' to what he was and still is to us as a living force." 4 Cabot himself wrote to Chapman that he approached the essay in a "fault-finding" mood: "But I fear we agree too much. . . . It seems to me you have come nearer the mark than anybody." 5 Henry James described the essay as "the most effective critical attempt made in

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the United States, or I should suppose anywhere, to get near the sage of Concord." Chapman had employed, said James, a "really critical process"; and he added: "The New England spirit in prose and verse was, on a certain side, wanting in life—and this is one of the sides that Mr. Chapman has happily expressed." 6 Chapman finds both the power and the weakness of Emerson not by studying his pages, but by living his ideas. Of course he identifies himself with Emerson as a vindicator of individualism against majority tyranny. For Chapman believes that, just as in his own youth, so in Emerson's there was such kowtowing to public opinion as to thwart freedom of expression and even manliness. It was the "era of American brag" under which gnawed the anxiety that the nation could not permanently endure halfslave and half-free—"which was the truth, but which could not be uttered." Against this state of affairs rose two rebels: Garrison, the man of action; and a little later, Emerson, his prophet. Each attacked "the vice of the age, moral cowardice." The reception given to "The American Scholar" and "The Divinity School Address" indicates that society felt the blow. But why, asks Chapman, was Emerson aloof from politics—and in particular, during the earlier years of their agitation, irked by the Abolitionists ? Why was Emerson not stirred to pity for the slave—a sentiment that brought to the emotional dry rot of Boston of the 1830s "the purest form of an indulgence in human feeling that was ever offered to men"? And why was he not disillusioned by Daniel Webster until that politician, in 1850, defended the Compromise—a deed which, to Emerson, violated the "Moral L a w " ? These questions pose a psychological problem which leads Chapman to survey the New England spirit and its influence upon America's culture. The harsh creed of the Puritans exalted conscience; but, according to Chapman, it stifled tenderness. In New England, he declares, for two hundred years "a dogmatic crucifixion of the natural instincts had been in progress." Although he was otherwise liberated from the old creed, Emerson becomes dogmatic whenever he approaches the line between the natural instincts and his absolutist Moral Law. In fact, when Emerson asserts "that the spiritual powers are sufficient to him if no other being existed," Chapman sees, "a new form of old Calvinism as cruel as Calvinism, and not much different from its original." What Calvinism had done

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to m a n y hearts, including Emerson's a n d his own, C h a p m a n tells us in this a r r a i g n m e n t : In this final form, the Moral Law, by insisting that sheer conscience can slake the thirst that rises in the soul, is convicted of falsehood; and this heartless falsehood is the same falsehood that has been put into the porridge of every Puritan child for six generations. A grown man can digest doctrine and sleep at night. But a young person of high purpose and strong will, who takes such a lie as this half-truth and feeds on it as on the bread of life, will suffer. It will injure the action of his heart. Against Puritan conservatism and distrust of h u m a n feelings, both the Abolitionist and the Transcendentalist revolted—the one devoted to a public aim, the other to "self-culture a n d aesthetic and sentimental education." T h o u g h C h a p m a n regards Emerson as less the "cause" than the "victim" of the Transcendentalists, he sees in Emerson's unconsciously cruel treatment of M a r g a r e t Fuller the epitome of what was lacking in Transcendentalism and in Emerson himself. T h e "anaemic incompleteness" of Emerson's personality he traces to "the philosophy of his race." W h a t is w r o n g w i t h Emerson's " 'natural asceticism' . . . a thing hardly to be distinguished from functional weakness. . . . a lack of vigor," is that it tends "to close the avenues between the soul and the universe." Because he suffered "almost a hiatus between the senses and the most i n w a r d spring of life," Emerson w a s w e a k in those "lower registers of sensation which domesticate a m a n into fellowship with common life." In a letter to M i n n a at the time, C h a p m a n tells us w h a t he meant but could not p r i n t : Strangely enough he [Emerson] lacks body—avoirdupois. I cannot get over it. He would be as great as Milton if he had it. It's a most strange lack, this weakness of the sexual element. It makes a tin-pan sort of effect like a weak old piano. 7 T h e larger implications of his discovery C h a p m a n puts in the form of this indictment: This perpetual splitting up of love into two species one of which is condemned, but admitted to be useful—is it not degrading? There is in Emerson's theory of the relation between the sexes neither good sense, nor manly feeling, nor sound psychology. It is founded on none of these things. It is a pure piece of dogmatism, and reminds us that he was bred to the priesthood. W e are not to imagine that there was in this doctrine anything peculiar to Emerson. But we are surprised to find the pessimism inherent in the doctrine overcome Emerson, to whom pessimism is foreign. Both doctrine and pessimism are a

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part of the Puritanism of the times. They show a society in which the intellect had long been used to analyze the affections, in which the head had become dislocated from the body. To this disintegration of the simple passion of love may be traced the lack of maternal tenderness characteristic of the New England nature. The relation between the blood and the brain was not quite normal in this civilization, nor in Emerson, who is its most remarkable representative. Not since Walt Whitman had defended, against Emerson's objections, his "Children of A d a m " section in Leaves

of Grass had anyone confronted

the Sage on the question of sexual emotions. 8 Chapman dares to resume that quarrel: If an inhabitant of another planet should visit the earth, he would receive, on the whole, a truer notion of human life by attending an Italian opera than he would by reading Emerson's volumes. He would learn from the Italian opera that there were two sexes; and this, after all, is probably the fact with which the education of such a stranger ought to begin. It is the New Englander's distrust and dread of emotion which for Chapman also explains the chief lack in Emerson's poetry as well as the incompleteness of his response to the arts. Without "the sensuous and ready contact with nature which more carnal people enjoy," Emerson's eyes and ears were deadened: The most vulgar plutocrat could not be blinder to beauty nor bring home less from Athens than this cultivated saint. Everything in the world which must be felt with a glow in the breast, in order to be understood, was to him deadletter. Art was a name to him, music was a name to him; love was a name to him. Since he lived in a time and clime when the fine arts did not flourish, Emerson could arrive at his aesthetic ideas only by ratiocination, and so "he projected his feelings about morality into the field of the plastic arts." As to Emerson's poetry, despite everything we can say for it—that it is authentic, '«indigenous" to New England, unconventional, and "homespun"—it lacks the quality of Shakespeare, Keats, Burns, Browning: "the fullness, the throb, the overflow of physical life." Nor are its faults (Emerson's defective ear and his want of music) countervailed, as in Browning, by force. As to the shortcomings of Emerson the poet, Chapman offers this explanation: Some of his verse gives the reader a very curious and subtle impression that the lines are a translation. They were thought first, and poetry afterwards. Read off his poetry, and you see through the scheme of it at once. Read his

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prose, and you will be put to it to make out the connection of ideas. The reason is that in the poetry the sequence is intellectual, in the prose the sequence is emotional. It is no mere epigram to say that his poetry is governed by the ordinary laws of prose writing, and his prose by the laws of poetry. By contrast, in his prose Emerson is an artist because he possesses "that union of the man himself, his beliefs, and his vehicle of expression which makes men great because it makes them comprehensible." With Emerson, style and character are the same thing; this is why he writes as he speaks without any literary pretensions. Besides, in embodying his central idea —"the value of the individual soul"—Emerson has used "such illusive and abstract forms" that no accident or change of circumstances can turn his creed into a dogma or use it to found a school. So, for Chapman, what makes Emerson unique in the history of teachers is the manner in which he expresses this creed: It either lives as the spirit lives, or else it evaporates and leaves nothing. Emerson was so afraid of the letter that killeth that he would hardly trust his words to print. He was assured there was no such thing as literal truth, but only literal falsehood. He therefore resorted to metaphors which could by no chance be taken literally. And he has probably succeeded in leaving a body of work which cannot be made to operate to any other end than that for which he designed it. If we recognize this method, says Chapman, Emerson's want of coherence and his indifference to logic do not trouble us. For Emerson's hints and images are not, like those of most writers, illustrations of ideas which have been through the mill of generalization in his own mind. Rather, they have "all the vividness of disconnected fragments of life, and yet they all throw light on one another." Nor will Emerson offer a generalization—a generalization never being more than a partial truth—and then trust his readers to make allowances; instead, he will give "two conflicting statements and leave the balance of truth to be struck in our own minds on the facts." Such a method Chapman defends with his own pungent metaphors: You cannot always sec Emerson clearly; he is hidden by a high wall; but you always know exactly on what spot he is standing. You judge it by the flight of the objects he throws over the wall,—a bootjack, an apple, a crown, a razor, a volume of verse. With one or the other of these missiles, all delivered with a very tolerable aim, he is pretty sure to hit you. These catchwords stick in the mind. People are not in general influenced by long books or discourses, but by odd fragments of observation which they overhear, sentences or head-

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lines which they read while turning over a book at random or while waiting for dinner to be announced. These are the oracles and orphic words that get lodged in the mind and bend a man's most stubborn will. . . . They get driven into your mind like nails, and on them you catch and hang your own experiences, till what was once his thought has become your character. T o estimate his stature, Chapman compares Emerson with his New England contemporaries and then assesses his value to the America of the nineties and of the future. Before the Civil War American letters, according to Chapman, were provincial not only because of our dependence on Europe but also because of our political and social disunion. The literature of the Northern states lacked "body" and "courage"; nor could it have "a full national tone" since the South was not in it. Then came the war, which carried of? the new generation and left the New England worthies (whose "mutual admiration" was bound to irk the country at large) "magnified beyond their natural size, like a grove of trees left by a fire." The complacency, formality, and pomposity of Lowell, Holmes, Longfellow, and the Saturday Club derived from their provincial manners; and, as Chapman puts it, "an ante-bellum colonial posing, inevitable in their own day, survived with them." So he evaluates the contribution of the New Englanders: The shadow of the time in which they wrote hangs over us still. The conservatism and timidity of our politics and of our literature today are due in part to that fearful pressure [the slavery question] which for sixty years was never lifted from the souls of Americans. That conservatism and timidity may be seen in all our past. They are in the rhetoric of Webster and in the style of Hawthorne. They killed Poe. They created Bryant. Emerson, who fought this pressure, charged that American genius lacked "nerve and dagger." His charge, says Chapman, is personified in "our best scholar," James Russell Lowell. In the Bigelow Papers, with their "mixture of shrewdness and religion," we have the exception; for shrewdness and religion are the very elements of Lowell's power. But these same traits also set Lowell's limitations as a poet: Lowell had the soul of the Yankee, but in his habits of writing he continued the English tradition. His literary essays are full of charm. The Commemoration Ode is the high-water mark of the attempt to do the impossible. It is a fine thing, but it is imitative and secondary. It has paid the inheritance tax. By contrast, Emerson, in Chapman's view, was the only writer of his times to achieve complete self-expression; he alone was original because

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he never measured himself against the ideals of others, in letters or in living: The other men of his epoch, and among whom he lived, believed that literature was a very desirable articlc, a thing you could create if you were only smart enough. But Emerson had no literary ambition. He cared nothing for belles-lettres. The consequence is that he stands above his age like a colossus. So much for the Emerson of the past. By the nineties, of course, America is a union, has begun a national life, and is ready for a culture independent of Europe. Yet now commercialism has in its turn riveted upon our democracy "the very traits encouraged by provincial disunion": the American's lack of individual independence and his overconcern with the good opinion of others. Because Emerson was able to utter what was suppressed in millions of hearts, his revolt gave the lie to the self-satisfied complacency of his own age. Because he realized that universal suffrage of itself is no guarantee of freedom, because he assailed "the publicness of opinion, the absence of private opinion," Emerson is as momentous to us now as he was in the 1830s. By showing "the identity in essence of all tyranny," even that tyranny possible in a democracy, Emerson, so Chapman contends, "has advanced the political thought of the world by one step." Four points might be made about the significance of this essay. Obviously, it is a confession of faith; for Chapman finds in Emerson a justification for his own manner of thinking, writing, and acting. Next, we have here the premise which guided Chapman the agitator-critic; for he is as chary as Emerson about organizing with others to effect reforms. In fact, in Practical Agitation Chapman has elaborated and applied to modern circumstances two Emersonian dicta—statements quoted in this essay: "He who aims at progress should aim at an infinite, not a special benefit"; and—for Chapman's wariness of machinery—"the reform of reforms must be accomplished without means." Third, implied in his radical emphasis on Emerson's individualism is Chapman's thumbnail history of the American spirit. And last is the probing of Emerson's lack of sane carnality. Until Chapman fell in love with Minna, Emerson's appeal to his conscience seemed a sufficient guide to live by. But that appeal had nurtured what was already in Chapman's Puritan make-up: the repression of those "lower registers of sensation." So we find our key to what Chapman most prizes in his social and cultural criticism and in his literary studies. That is, Emersonian individualism is not enough; the knowledge

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of the blood, the wisdom of the heart—these are also indispensables. Every paper in Emerson

and Other Essays demonstrates the same theme:

an individualism in which heart and brain work as one. S o the essay on Browning, written at the same time, is the counterpart to that on Emerson. In Browning Chapman finds what Emerson lacked: to all the latter's individualism Browning adds the beat of the lifeblood. "Emerson lived in a cottage and saw the stars over his head through a skylight. Browning, on the other hand, loved pictures, palaces, music, men and women, and his works are like the house of a rich man." Yet, according to Chapman, Browning is no thinker, was never in doubt, had fixed conclusions from the start, and resorts to disputation only as a means to inculcate his truths. Rather, "the force of his feelings is so much greater than his intellect that his mind serves his soul as a valet." A s a champion of the individual in an age of convention, Browning was to his adoring public a liberator: If ever a generation had need of a poet,—of someone to tell them they might cry and not be ashamed, rejoice and not find the reasons in John Stuart Mill, someone who should justify the claims of the spirit which was starving on the religion of humanity,— it was the generation for whom Robert Browning wrote. H e has been especially popular in America because— We had suffered more. We needed to be told that it was right to love, hate, and be angry, to sin and repent. It was a revelation to us to think that we had some inheritance in the joys and pains of mankind. We needed to be told these things as a tired child needs to be comforted. Browning gave them to us in the form of a religion. This, says Chapman, does not mean that his work is likely to be so appreciated by future readers. For, nineteenth-century sympathy with him has concealed from us today his lack of the dramatic element. And the future will be annoyed by Browning's manners: "the dig in the ribs, the personal application, the de te

fabula."

These unpleasant things are part of his success with us to whom he means life, not art. Posterity will want only art. We needed doctrine. If he had not preached, we would not have listened to him. But posterity evades the preachers and accepts the singers. Half of this essay Chapman devotes to an analysis of Browning's deficiencies as a "singer": his failure to fuse form and content, his metrical

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awkwardnesses, his grammatical negligence, the inversions and contortions and expansions into which he was led by his maladroit rhyming. In spite of all, Browning, according to Chapman, has the force which Emerson could command only in prose. In both men the secret is the same. Browning's is the language of "common speech; his force, the immediate force of life." Browning is in fact expressed by his very defects— a paradox for which Chapman offers this explanation: "Browning never really stoops to literature; he makes perfunctory obeisance to it." By violating form Browning reinforces his meaning: that life is greater than art. Browning's revolt is thus one of manner as well as matter: "These savageries spoke to the hearts of men tired of smoothness and platitude, and who were relieved by just such a break-up of the ice." In form and content, of course, Walt Whitman is another rebel. But Chapman did not find his revolt so satisfactory. Indeed the most capricious essay in the volume is this on Whitman, from whom he turns away with the formula: "Walt Whitman has given utterance to the soul of the tramp." In his letters Chapman calls this paper a "merry jest" made "in a gay and trivial mood." 8 All the same, he believed his interpretation sufficient. The label "tramp" is, to be sure, not intended to be wholly depreciatory. It means three things to Chapman: that Whitman was splendid in defying convention and in living life as he chose; that as one of nature's outlaws, he is a cosmic type and by no means what English university men suppose, a phenomenon representative of American culture; and that Whitman, isolated from social life and untethered, knew the world only as an observer, lacked "human passion," and therefore could not, like Heine, Musset, or Browning, treat the complications arising from the close ties of human life: "As to his talk about comrades and Manhattanese car-drivers and brass-founders displaying their brawny arms about each other's brawny necks, all this gush and sentiment in Whitman's poetry is false to life." Although Whitman sometimes "breaks the frame of poetry and gives us life in the throb"; has "flashes of reality"; can create "first-hand and wonderful" descriptions of nature; and, when without self-consciousness, can write great lyrics and produce lines of "epic directness and cyclopian vigor and naturalness"—despite all these merits, he must obtrude himself and his "mission." For this self-consciousness Chapman enthusiastically damns him, because "a poet who discovers his mission is already half done for." By assuming that he had a mission Whitman

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became a "professional," a "poseur," and something of a " q u a c k " ; and he "hampered his talents by the imposition of a monstrous parade of rattletrap theories and professions." According to Chapman, this obtrusion of Whitman's self and his mission into the matter at hand accounts for his "bad taste." One of the most irradiating essays in the book is " A Study of Romeo." Its inspiration began when Chapman was so piqued by Mrs. Henry Holt's once making a remark to him about his similarity to Shakespeare's hero that he "read the play over again in order to demonstrate what an inane character Romeo was."

10

T h e result is a psychological study of

the tragedy. Chapman approaches the work as a piece for the theater, and in part he writes from the point of view of the actor. 1 1 A f t e r a caveat that the person w h o tries to size up Shakespeare will only pigeonhole himself, Chapman declares that Romeo is one of the Bard's most difficult roles. Part of the trouble is that at this point in his career, "Shakespeare's knowledge of human nature seems to have antedated his knowledge of the stage." In his "passion for realism" Shakespeare was thinking more about the facts and probabilities of real life than about the limitations the stage sets for them. Because Romeo is so true to life that it is nearly impossible to represent him in the theater— Romeo must be a man almost wholly made up of emotion, a creature very young, a lyric poet in the intensity of his sensations, a child in his helplessness beneath the ever-varying currents and whirlpools of his feeling. He lives in a walking and frenzied dream, comes in contact with real life only to injure himself and others, and finally drives with the collected energy of his being into voluntary shipwreck upon the rocks of the world. So the actor must from the beginning conceive of his role "with reference to this self-destroying culmination." In the earlier scenes Shakespeare has aimed to give "a rationalistic account" of Romeo's falling in love at first sight and to convince the audience subtly of the "lyrical egoism" in all of his hero's words and acts. Passing through the story from dream to dream and only fitfully awake to the actualities of his predicament, Romeo (who must "cry like a baby or a Greek hero" and so pay "the penalty for being a lyric poet") cannot readily establish himself with the audience as a fit protagonist for tragedy. His dreamy lyricism does not distract the reader. But on the stage—in, for instance, the balcony scene—only an actor of unusual power can con-

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vcy "these subtlest shades of feeling" and yet not retard the action. Romeo has his chance to win our respect as an adult only when, "stung into life" by Mercutio's death, this creature of words and moods challenges Tybalt to a duel. T h e news of his banishment, however, promptly reduces him to a pitiable boy. T h e reception in Mantua of the news of Juliet's death demands of the actor that he portray a Romeo who, with his emotions paralyzed, does nothing, says nothing, and yet suggests a mind alert and cruelly clear as to actualities. T h e n the lyricist gives way to a maddened rationalist who, though his speeches and deeds are efficient and practical, is a divided spirit. T h e last scenes of Romeo's life, for all their "floods of eloquence," are "in the highest degree naturalistic." Chapman tells us w h y : There is a type of highly organized being, not well fitted for this world, whose practical activities are drowned in a sea of feeling. Egoists by their constitution, they become dangerous beings when vexed, cornered, or thwarted by society. Their fine energies have had no training in the painful constructive processes of civilization. Their first instincts, when goaded into activity, are instincts of destruction. They know no compromise. If they are not to have all, then no one shall possess anything. Romeo is not suffering in this final scene. He is experiencing the greatest pleasure of his life. He glories in his deed. It satisfies his soul. It gives him supreme spiritual activity. The deed brings widespread desolation, but to this he is indifferent, for it means the destruction of the prison against which his desires have always beaten their wings, the destruction of a material and social universe from which he has always longed to be free. Under the guise of criticism we have more than a hint here of the inward experience of Chapman's first love. But we need know nothing of Chapman's o w n story to agree with Henry James that this is an interpretation of "extreme acuteness."

12

T h e " R o m e o " was originally published in the Atlantic Monthly

in N o -

vember, 1896, six years after Chapman's first contribution to that magazine, a terza rima translation, with introductory comment, of " T h e Fourth Canto of the Inferno." Under the same title it appears in Emerson

and

Other Essays. A facile linguist since childhood, Chapman had begun to learn Italian when during his Wanderjahr

he tried reading Dante with

a pocket dictionary. Minna of course became his teacher, the two of them falling in love as together they read and translated the Divine

Comedy.

In the eighties and nineties among cultivated Americans a sort of Dante cult was developing. Chapman's correspondence with Horace E . Scudder,

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then editing the Atlantic, indicates his interest in the translation of the Divine Comedy being done by his old teacher Charles Eliot Norton. 18 Norton preferred prose as best fitted to preserve the integrity of the original; and Chapman, who argued for verse, was hoping to write a review of Norton's work. 14 But putting the Fourth Canto into verse, Chapman admitted to his wife, was as arduous as "ten sonnets in acrostic." Though he liked "Bohn prose" more than William Michael Rossetti's blank verse, he contended that to suggest any of the "penumbra" of Dante's music, to echo the original even faintly, terza rima was necessary.15 Since the letter killeth, he felt that the translator should use the resources of his own language with the same freedom Dante enjoyed and should never sacrifice English idiom to literal correctness. Still, for all the freedom he took, Chapman's translation of this canto is, according to a present-day Dantist, almost literal. Norton, who, by report, considered the translation "the best ever written" had no grounds to object that its imagery and diction were Chapman's rather than Dante's. 16 In his commentary Chapman is no admirer of the structure of the poem, which he calls "a series of disconnected scenes." Dante's power is in his untranslatable "verbal felicities." But Chapman points to two obstacles the Divine Comedy presents for a non-Italian reader: its humorlessness and its extreme concision. By contrast, the Northern temper, he reminds us, is used to mingling humor with its treatment of the supernatural—to make it grotesque but endurable; and when we are steeped in the genius of, say, typically English writers, we become accustomed to diffusiveness. Already Chapman reveals the attitude which will dominate his later skirmishes with Dante: dislike for the person, amazed admiration for the poet. Chapman's other venture into Italian letters during this decade is an essay on Michelangelo's sonnets, in which he includes some translations. He finds in their individualism a "modern element," which he calls "a voice of the Reformation." The same element in the paintings and sculpture explains for Chapman why Michelangelo has more affinity with us than has any other artist of his age. Let us admit that we Americans are not at home in the language of the plastic arts. Yet possibly, so Chapman contends, we understand, better than Michelangelo's contemporaries, his "profoundly human meaning." For Protestantism has left its mark on

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the Americans' moral sense; and it is to that sense which Michelangelo directly appeals. So to Chapman the value of these sonnets lies in this: if we grasp their thought, we can at least approach "the emotional side" of Michelangelo's genius. However, the real stimulus for Chapman's excitement over Michelangelo the sonneteer erupted in a letter to Mrs. James T . Fields:

I have been reading M. Angelo all the morning and he really is one of the few poets whom it pays to read because he only writes when he has something to say. . . . I hate sonnets because they are the most literary of all the forms of verse— even our best English poets are on their best literary behavior in the sonnet— their best foreign manner gloved and scented. . . . Michael Angelo being an Italian was at home, so to speak, in the sonnet and wasn't obliged to imitate anyone in particular—(for an Englishman to write a sonnet is as if he should try to say his prayers in French) and Michael Angelo was constantly taken up only with the endeavor to say the thing—he was not giving sops to literary tradition. He was like a powerful man packing a carpet bag—when he has too many things to go in. You can see the veins swell on his forehead as he grips the edges and tries to make it close. Half the time he takes everything out again and makes a new arrangement—with the shaving brush at the bottom—and then he is so uncertain which is best that he allows both readings to stand. But they have thought in 'em. There is not a fraud nor a paper stuffing nor a filigree ornament in the volume—and O, how can we ever be grateful enough for this! Here is a man that writes poetry which is as good as prose. Their language is colloquial and simple—anything but literary. . . . Do you know I really believe that there's a great deal of humbug talked about workmanship and form in poetry. These things are results—the shimmer and gleam that comes from saying things well. They are not entities. . . . and anyone who sets to work to put good form on his poetry is like the man in the story who wanted good architecture put on to his house. These [Thomas Bailey] Aldriches who think style is the means of saying things well! How false is a philosophy of composition which admits that there is such a thing as beauty—as an end to be reached—and yet this simple proposition seems like a paradox—what better proof could we have of how thoroughly the plagiarists have overcrawled the world? "Use beauty-wash!" they cry—patent Italian sonnet-varnish—the only thing that has stood the test of time. Use the celebrated "Milton finish" for odes, epics and epitaphs—cures lame feet and rhymatism. Use the Petrarch burnisher—porcelain-lined, it secures fame. Use Shakespolio, Wordsworthene, and Racine—they never vary and are Reliable"—Is it a wonder a man will not arrive anywhere if he spends all his life in getting forward and backward over his style? 17

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In Browning and Michelangelo Chapman finds writing in which "strong feeling has condensed and distorted the language" so as to produce, paradoxically, "clearness of expression." He uses Robert Louis Stevenson to demonstrate the converse of this principle. Since the Stevenson problem involves something more than literature, Chapman begins his study with an explanation of that writer's popularity. In the eighties George Eliot's ideals still predominated; most of the first-rank English novelists were dead; and, because "the scientific school" was in the ascendant, "fiction was entering upon its death grapple with sociology." In these circumstances, Stevenson came upon the scene to bring romance, adventure, and outdoor life; to remind us once again that novels could be amusing; and to recall to us the delight of our childhood reading. Because Stevenson met certain needs of the times, Chapman thinks, we may find in him a clue to the age. For one thing, Stevenson's work makes no demand on our attention: "It is food so thoroughly peptonized that it is digested as soon as swallowed and leaves us exhilarated rather than fed." But Stevensonians praise him for his style. Now, when we say of a thing that it has style, remarks Chapman, we mean that it has been done as we have seen it done before. Contrariwise, "if a man writes as he talks, he will be thought to have no style, until people get used to him, for literature means what has been written." Hence, Stevenson, in whom theory and practice are one, produced "literature" and had a "style," because he was "the most extraordinary mimic that has ever appeared in literature." Most great artists as they develop fall incidentally and genuinely under particular influences, to break through these and yet to be qualified by them, as their own manner matures. On the other hand, Stevenson, according to Chapman, never grew up; rather, like a talented schoolboy he always regarded the great authors as magicians whose secrets might be gained and used again. Since Stevenson thought of himself as an "artist" and his writings as "performances," his attention was never so much absorbed in the matter at hand as in his consciousness of how each stroke was going to appear. The consequence is an "undertone of insincerity" in nearly all that he wrote: " H e himself regards his work as a toy; and how can we do otherwise?" Stevenson's theories of art amount to a "vice" because "they call for a self-surrender by the artist of his own mind to the pleasure of others, for a subordination of himself to the production of this 'effect.'" They

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"degrade and belittle" the writer. A n d C h a p m a n goes as far as to quote Stevenson's remark that the artist is of the same family as the filles de joie. Doctrines like these, "the outcome of an Alexandrine age," tend, says C h a p m a n , to produce imitative w o r k , bring the arts into contempt, and corrupt and menace all h u m a n intercourse. T o demonstrate h o w Stevenson's "boyish ambition led h i m to employ perfectly phenomenal diligence in cultivating a perfectly

phenomenal

talent for imitation," C h a p m a n includes in his essay eight sizeable quotations, each of w h i c h exemplifies one of Stevenson's styles. T h e r e is no h a r m if the bookish classes relish this conjurer's a w a k e n i n g of literary reminiscences. Y e t that class encourages others w h o love Stevenson with their hearts and souls. A n d there is the harm. For Stevenson is only "the Improvisatore," or "the mistletoe of English literature whose roots are not in the soil but in the tree." T h e reason why Stevenson represents a backward movement in literature, is that literature lives by the pouring into it of new words from speech, and new thoughts from life, and Stevenson used all his powers to exclude both from his work. He lived and wrote in the past. C h a p m a n of course appreciates Stevenson's gifts and praises his courage and lovableness. H o w e v e r , to check the Americans' adulation for w h a t were after all not great books, he lets his case rest in these words: The truth is that as a literary force, there was no such man as Stevenson; and after we have racked our brains to find out the mechanism which has been vanquishing the chess players of Europe, there emerges out of the Box of Maelzel a pale boy. Another essay at odds w i t h popular taste is one on K i p l i n g , published in the Political

Nursery

in April, 1899. " T h e greatest immediate political

influence that has ever been seen in literature," K i p l i n g , says C h a p m a n , produced before he left India some stories w h i c h are beyond criticism. H a v i n g seen and said all that was best in conquest and expansion, K i p l i n g went to E n g l a n d , where he acquired "the truly British religious note." T h e "deeply felt British sentimentalism" of " T h e Recessional" was, politically, "a ten strike." From this moment Kipling was an Englishman. He became the Pindar of the Pan-Saxon forward movement, and it is not only his license but his duty to write verses whenever all the world looks one way over an international episode.

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But in his imperialism Kipling has failed to create anything like a myth out of which his own and the works of other writers might develop. T h e bard of Anglo-Saxondom turns out to be only a class poet, blazoning an empty race prejudice. Neither as poet nor as novelist has Kipling any future: He is the greatest product of journalism. . . . He has covered the globe and run down the gamut of readers from the highest intelligence to the lowest before his first note has stopped sounding. However that may be, Kipling has cared too much for public favor. " W h y , " asks Chapman, "could he not have held his own course from the start and served the age like Walter Scott without becoming its lackey? . . . W h y could he not go his own gait like Tolstoi?" Dante, Balzac, Thackeray, Fenimore Cooper—each of these greater writers created a universe of his own, all of a piece. " B u t Kipling is lopsided. H e is all turmoil and passion; but he is not all humanity." T h e product of temporary conditions which he reflects and which explain him, Kipling has "no beyond to his mind: . . . [he] cannot expand Expansion into any cosmic force or solar myth." It is regrettable that among Chapman's essays in manuscript presumably dating from this period the one on Tolstoy was never completed and published. In one of his letters William James linked Chapman and Tolstoy. 1 8 A n d Chapman might have identified himself with the Russian: both men were aristocratic and born into privilege; both were animated by deep moral convictions and tormented by a sense of guilt; both agonized over the evils of modern society and sought to avoid all complicity with them; and Chapman believed that, like himself, Tolstoy was not cut out to be a student of textbooks. According to Chapman, Tolstoy was an unconscious genius. Because he felt himself a part of the world's evil and partly responsible for it, Tolstoy became dissatisfied with merely writing novels and turned to a study of some of the social theorists of the West—Comte, Mill, Spencer, and Marx. But when social doctrines are imported from a land where special and local conditions have shaped them into a land where circumstances are not identical, those doctrines naturally become transformed. Tolstoy, moreover, being grandly naive in speculative thinking, failed to comprehend fully these Western doctrines in their historical perspective. So when he appears as a prophet with a message, renounces his previous works as

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a novelist, and devotes himself henceforth to a "purpose" which he tries to explain by having gone through a "conversion," he is deceiving himself. T o Chapman Tolstoy is right in his conviction that luxurious living may be reprehensible; but he argues that the steps in Tolstoy's economic reasoning towards this conclusion are false. T o lay the blame for the evils of the world upon the leisure classes is not, says Chapman, evidence that one has grasped Christianity, but rather that one has been taken in by economic theorists. So in taking upon himself the life of the peasant, Tolstoy is only seeking a short cut to peace of mind. T o be sure, Chapman does not dogmatize in giving this interpretation. H e knows that no man can explain his own career or give a rational account of his conduct: Tolstoi himself believes that he was once a wicked man who wrote novels and that he underwent a conversion, by which he became a slightly less wicked man who now makes shoes and carries water. But the truth is that Tolstoi has always been a writer upon social reform—whatever else he has done, he has written constantly. He could not stop writing if he would. He has that kind of devotion to truth that makes every word he utters the last drop wrung from his brain. The "can no other" ultimatum of his conviction. Chapman declares that Tolstoy's concentration upon evil and his seeking to escape from "apparent complicity with evil" is "the monkish error." H e maintains that in so far as Tolstoy becomes didactic he fails; because when he tries to argue didactically, he becomes merely heated, dogmatic, and obscure. For Tolstoy's is the logic of character, not of theory. H e becomes great the moment he describes an incident—"how he saw a poor man in the street, what soup he eats, what his w i f e said to him, how he felt after a bath." In these things Tolstoy gives us the "logic of respiration and human anatomy." In these things his mind becomes humble, it is all questions, no explanations, and all of him is absorbed in his work. But Tolstoy, conscious of a mission, is a man attacked not by old age but by theory, a man "answering not questioning the universe." So much for Chapman's practice in the art of literary criticism—illustrated in this handful of essays. As to the theories and values and methods which shaped his performance, it is obvious that he was the enemy of whatever forces in the 1890s tended to compartmentalize American culture. H e rebelled against formalism. H e would not be shut up inside any special discipline; and he could not categorize his fellow creatures

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according to such divisions as legal man, economic man, political man, religious man, literary man, and so on. He distinguished, as we observed, between logic in books and "logic as it grows on the tree." Likewise, in his literary studies Chapman is neither a systematic student nor a maker of systems. Here, as in his "political" writings, he is an amateur. That label needs to be reexamined just as the type of man it designates needs to be revalued. In essence the term amateur means anything but dilettante, dabbler, superficial student, desultory reader, and such. In its Latin origins the word denotes the idea of love and passion. A s such, it is innocent of connotations of professionalism—which is not always disinterested. On one occasion, after a dinner followed by bright conversation, Chapman was somehow depressed and wondered why. Then the next day it comes to him. His table companions— take a superficial, sleek, comfortable, selfish interest in art, poetry, and ideas, and three inches underneath is a conservatism as hard as iron, as ignorant as a graven image, as cruel as a deaf adder. 19 Cultivation without heart was damnation. Chapman was the sort of amateur who was appalled at "the horror that makes intellect a plaything." T h e genuine seriousness he wanted in our literature he contrasted to the mock seriousness, the pomposity, of our manners. In fact, he distrusted art criticism except that of the practicing artist: Here's Burckhardt [he remarked in a letter from Venice] who writes on the Renaissance. Can he draw a cow? Has he put up a shanty? Has he ever decorated anything? A country bridge builder would probably be more fit to judge the real problem in the mind of the architect.20 His own "dabbling" in creative writing raised his "appreciation of the real thing ten times." Disliking since college days the scholarly criticism of the German variety, he wrote to Mrs. Whitman while he was collating the texts of Romeo and

Juliet:

This kind of study tends to belittle the mind. It makes every word of equal importance. It surely gets us farther away from the meaning and purpose of Shakespeare than anything else could. Witness its effect on most commentators, who no doubt, as the child said, once were men. 21 A s a literary critic Chapman was even afraid of studying his subject too much. While preparing his "Emerson," for instance, he decided at a cer-

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tain point to read no more books about the subject: "They impoverish me. They are dilutions of dilutions and enervate the mind. . . . Emerson gets covered over with a lot of rubbish." 22 In that essay, it was the quality of Emerson's mind which Chapman sought. " I want to read him all through with a serene and casual glance," he explained. 23 Casual glance is a phrase that may shock us; but when we recover, we must recognize how well Chapman has named the disinterestedness and perspective which all good critics strive for. In his confession that Browning's poems "must be judged by the future and by men who can speak of them with a steady lip," Chapman lays bare not only his own passion for that poet but also his awareness of the pitfalls in writing about contemporaries and near-contemporaries. He formulates his ideal in this sentence: Now, true criticism means an attempt to find out what something is, not for the purpose of judging it, or of imitating it, nor for the purpose of illustrating something else, nor for any other ulterior purpose whatever.24 The canons of criticism are useful, Chapman says, as the Lord's Prayer and the Nicene Creed are useful to the student of church history. T o use them as criteria, however, is to produce a judgment "interesting only as a record of a most complex state of mind." Criticism was therefore "idiocy" except when motivated by the desire to induce others to see for themselves the meanings in a work. In this aim Chapman regularly succeeds in cutting through sham and convention, through stereotyped responses and hackneyed formulations, to get at the author himself. And he usually makes us see what we have all the while been missing. Chapman the literary critic, like Chapman the social critic, is empirical. What he has to say of a writer is the outcome of his experience with him. Such an approach to literature naturally depends on a critic's capacity for experience. T o be sure, Chapman's tastes are not catholic. Not a broad observer of the literary currents of his time, he scarcely thought of systematically studying the literature of his own or of any other country, past or present. He has to become involved in an author: his own impulses, either by attraction or repulsion, have to respond to an author before Chapman can be moved to write about him. As an empiric he is convinced that no mere observer (i.e., reader) can know. "When I read Emerson himself," he declared in a letter, " I work so hard that I drop down with exhaustion at the end of a few hours." 2 5 From such a critic we must

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cxpcct fewer essays than might be wished for; yet a John Jay Chapman will never write on an author unless he has something to say. If we prize the sort of critic who makes us see what we have overlooked and who excites us to fresh interest in books and their makers, Chapman will not disappoint us. We might even gain more by reading and disagreeing with him than by perusing many another critic who leaves our feathers less ruffled. But Chapman is neither an impressionist nor an eclectic. He is consistent in his general principles and fully present at all moments of their application. His prime emphasis is upon the nonrational, the unconscious. Against the cool, polite, and self-conscious craftsmanship of the genteel writers of his era, he called for fire and for a heart alive to the world around us. As a gentlemen Chapman might have winced at our twentieth-century inelegancy, guts; yet he agreed with the Hebrew prophets that their word bowels rightly designated the focus of feelings. Like Whitman before him, Chapman called for "a little healthy rudeness, savage virtue, justification of what one has in one's self." Desire is, for Chapman, a sine qua non in art. He wants people to feel with their brains and to think with their hearts —these organs having become dissevered in the world he knew. To Chapman, passion means concentration, and concentration means the involvement of the entire personality. He therefore maintains that in the product of any true artist "the whole man must have responded in real life to every particle of experience which he uses in his work." 20 This is why he charged, in the 1890s, that American literature had been imitative and our culture derivative: that is, both of them lacked passion in so far as they failed to body forth a direct and integral response to our experience. Like Emerson, Chapman believes that great art is necessary and unconscious—an organic and functional part of life. His organic ideal for literature Chapman sets forth in his essay on Kipling: Permanent interest cannot attach to anything which does not consist, from rind to seeds, of instructive truth. A thing must be interesting from every point of view, as history, as poetry, as philosophy; good for a sick man, just the thing for a Sunday morning. It must be true if read backwards, true literally and true as a parable, true in fragments and true as a whole. It must be valuable as a campaign document, and it must make you laugh or cry at any time, day or night. Lasting literature has got to be so very good as to fulfill all these conditions.

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In meeting this requirement, the plays of Shakespeare express universal truths because they are "the projection of a completely developed and completely unconscious human intellect." 27 Such a view of the unconscious Chapman applies to the artist at work: There is only one rule of art. Let a man work at a thing till it looks right to him. Let him adjust and refine it till, as he looks at it, it passes straight into him, and grows for a moment unconscious again, that the forces which produced it may be satisfied. As it stands then, it is the best he can do. In so far as we completely develop this power we become completely happy and completely useful, for our acts, our statements, our notes, our books, our statues become universally significant.28 Growing out of his idea of the unconscious is Chapman's understanding of how intuition operates in both the making and the appreciating of works of art. By intuition he means something we are all aware of in our everyday, practical communication with one another. W e rely not on mere words and gestures but on tone of voice and slight facial expressions— on hints and on inferences. When we do this, our senses take in their clues and make their responses with a speed which our conscious reason can neither follow nor record. A great doctor, lawyer, merchant, or chief always uses "the whole of his sensibilities in each act of reading a man" and trusts "the accuracy of direct impressions." We call great men "simple," says Chapman, when they retain a sensitivity to "immediate impressions" common in children and in the uneducated. But this sensitivity is impeded in persons whose intellects are so preoccupied with formulated knowledge that they have lost their spontaneity. In great and simple men, thought "subserves the direct currents of suggestion," instinct rules, the intellect is the servant. The same intuition controls the response of the true artist. We value our communication with him when we feel in his work "a painstaking submission to facts beyond the author's control, and to ideas imposed upon him by his vision." In this communication, however, the transference of thought and feeling does not creep step by step, it flies with the speed of intuition. For this reason, Chapman argues, our response to a work of art cannot be articulated by formal and rationalistic demonstrations. We can recognize the work of a genius, though, because: His suggestions carry. Their extreme subtlety baffles analysis, just as the suggestions of real life baffle analysis. The miracle of reality in art is due to refinement of suggestion. We cannot follow its steps or see how it is done. We

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see only the idea. Shakespeare gives you all the meaning, and none of the means.29 As Chapman understands it, we can never reduce criticism to a system— a guaranteed method. What counts more than the tool is its user. For criticism is an art, not a science. Like Emerson's prescription for the poet—"it is not metres but a metremaking argument that makes a poem"—Chapman's maxim is that: "Beauty is not the aim of the writer. His aim must be truth. But beauty and elevation shine out of him while he is on the quest." He adds: It seems to be a law of psychology that the only way in which the truth can be strongly told is in the course of a search for truth. The moment a man strives after some "effect," he disqualifies himself from making that effect; for he draws the interest of his audience to the same matters that occupy his own mind; namely, upon his experiment and his efforts.3u How beauty and truth and goodness are related, Chapman explains this way: Any system of morality or conjunction of circumstances that tends to make men tell the truth as they see it will tend to produce what the world will call art. If the statement be accurate, the world will call it beautiful. Put it as you will, art is self-assertion and beauty is accuracy.31 Chapman is, then, a moralist but never a schoolmaster in his criticism; and in none of the papers in Emerson and Other Essays does he slight aesthetic problems. Besides, his aims as to beauty in his own style are perfectly consistent with the principles by which he criticized others. Of course there is something to William James's complaint that Chapman's style (especially in the Political Nursery) was "all splinters"; for in the published writings of this decade we sometimes find choppiness and a confused tumbling-together of images. Yet he was aware of these blemishes and deliberately let them stand. Because he had "sometimes lapsed into familiar style and sometimes not," he anticipated criticism that would be made of his "Emerson": I think on the whole it makes the thing stronger and more unconscious to leave these things. . . . The greatest ambition one can have is to wake people up—and make 'em think, make other people be less literary in their essays, break up this hard-baked literary tradition.32 The man who defined "literature" as "what has been written" and "style" as the manner in which "we have seen things done before," was,

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by his own definitions, the enemy of both. He knew his purpose: to hurl both manner and matter into his charge that American literature was too smooth—"the prickles and irregularities of personal feeling have been pumice-stoned away." H e intended to break with tradition but would not strive for novelty per se; one cannot create form, he asserted. " O n e can only come at simple writing by breaking through these stone walls, wrecking the machine if necessary." Emerson was his master, but not at all points. From Emerson he got "both precept and practice—in form of freedom, freedom, freedom." His own aim, however, was "above freedom and quite different"; if another style suited his need, he would go after it. 33 One thinks of Hemingway learning his craft when, for a friend's "affected and dilettante" manner, Chapman prescribed: He ought to train himself for six years writing—"The cow has four legs— I see a man," to get back some healthy directness. Twiddlededee. . . . It's unmanly to go simpering through fourteen mortal pages—Stevenson banality— Virginibus Puerisque—I should say so—Senilibus Canibusque.34 His forcefulness, even the violence of his manner, he defends in these paradoxes: The aim is . . . to get understood—i.e. be vivid at the risk of misunderstanding if necessary. . . . Mind is nothing. You must write with a sword. It takes me four hours to write three sentences, though I know what I mean and have had it ten years in my mind. 35 If his prose is occasionally marred by abrupt transitions, there are two explanations. In the first place, he was leery of academicism, of "gamboge and style, with . . . 'however's' and 'moreover's' and semicolons." 3 6 T h e second is his striving to be concise—even succinct. H e wished he could have made his essay on Emerson still more compact: If I were Shakespeare I could have said all this in twenty lines—true enough— and feathered them so they struck home like winged bolts. If I were a literary man I could have written three volumes.37 O f Chapman's letters Jacques Barzun has said that he "never deviates from perfect informality—the rarest of all literary gifts." And if, as his biographer tells us, Chapman's letters are much like his talk, it is true also that his published writings are remarkably like his letters. "Open his works at hazard," Chapman writes of Emerson. " Y o u hear a man talking." T h e same is true of himself.

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For perspective on Chapman's values as a critic and for an estimate of the validity of his principles and practices, we might view his work under the lights and shadows of the 1890s. As to his effect on the decade, Chapman later remarked that, in looking over his old scrapbooks, he had been surprised to see how favorably his early books had been reviewed. Then he joked: "My first book had 1800 readers; my next, 1342; my next, 8 1 1 ; my next, 103; and after that I lost interest in details and was taken up with sheer curiosity as to the nature of the phenomenon." 3 8 The figures come of course from his own fancy, resting probably on publishers' reports. Yet it is true enough that his books were favorably reviewed. Emerson and Other Essays did not strike everyone alike, but most reviewers were sympathetic. All of them agreed that Chapman was a new kind of creature; that, whether or not one accepted his interpretations, he compelled one to think; that he was singularly forceful in thought and diction; and that he cut through convention and came directly to grips with his subject. Take the conservative critique in The Dial?9 The article is less a review than an admission that the time had come for revaluing America's classics. One can imagine the writer adjusting his cravat and giving a genteel cough as he remarks that Chapman's conclusions about Emerson arc "so far at variance with those that have long been seemingly crystallized in the histories of our literature" that he makes Matthew Arnold's essay on the Sage appear "almost the extreme of laudatory and reverent handling." In the Springfield Republican, Frank B. Sanborn—he had been an associate of the Transcendentalists and had written books on his fellow Concordians—scoffed at the portrait of an Emerson who, he said, had never existed. He thought it ludicrous that Chapman's psychology had tried to go so deep.40 For the nineties, it took daring to penetrate to Emerson's "weakness of the sexual element." In pointing up Margaret Fuller's association with the Transcendentalists Chapman had in fact anticipated by decades the interpretations made of N e w England culture by, say, Van Wyck Brooks or Lewis Mumford. So it is no surprise that, for his recommending that if a Martian wished to understand human life he would gain more from an Italian opera than from Emerson's pages, Chapman got his wrist slapped by a lady reviewer: " I would humbly suggest to Mr. Chapman that the function of literature is not to impart elementary instruction to inhabitants of other planets." 41

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If he read the Bookman's review, Chapman must have been delighted to see again how he had scored. For this reviewer deplored Chapman's lack of "a reverent desire to keep at sufficient distance from his subject," preferred the manner of Andrew Lang and Edmund Gosse—preferred, in fact, "a friendly house-to-house visitation by candle-light" to Chapman's "search light" methods. The son of Edward Everett Hale had another complaint: Chapman's "lack of feelings for his countrymen" and his anger with "the harmless fallacies and fancies" of the public. Hale also feared that Chapman's tone might lead him into "ebullitions" which would take him "a long distance from the right road." 4 2 For the present, however, Chapman knew very well what he was doing. In his correspondence we find this report on his grandmother Jay's opinion of his "arrogance" in the "Whitman," the piece which had especially irritated Hale: She said she had never seen so many different kinds of words in her life. That the reason people wouldn't publish my writings was they didn't like my arrogant tone. That I seemed to be one who took the tone of having read everything and knew everything from the beginning of the world and for whom everyone had been waiting from the beginning of time. That I never said "by your leave" or "don't you think so" or "it seems to me"—but just laid down the law. That I was an egotist as bad as Walt Whitman. That I must "bow down my spirit within." On my asking whether I wasn't humble in private life she said "Yes—you pretend, but that's not enough." I tell you my grandmother is hard to deceive. . . . She also said I needed someone by me every instant to tell me how to behave. That she wouldn't give two cents for my opinion on any subject. If that's not a wonderful woman. . . 4 3 The reviewer for the Nation recognized the rebellious individualism which had impelled Chapman to use his subjects as— stalking horses from behind which he shoots his invectives at the pachydermatous creatures whom he particularly abominates, and some of them are sharp enough to pierce the thickest hide. He described as "apt" Chapman's explanation of Emerson's narrow sensuous range and of "the frigidity of his doctrines of love and marriage." 44 The Critic pronounced Chapman undassifiable but a "treat," and called for another volume from him. 45 But the British were more discriminating and enthusiastic than the Americans. In the Academy, one of them, who relished Chapman's attack on idola fori, described his criticism this way:

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He compels cither the revision of your conceptions . . . under the influence of his, or the confirmation of them, in conflict with his. And surely the power to do this is of the essence of that dynamic force in which the potency of veritable criticism consists. . . . Few living critics go so straight to the heart of the problem, or waste so little time writing "about it and about." 46 Another English reviewer found in Chapman "a rare store of critical acumen" and a style neither "obscure" nor "inflated." 47 Henry James praised Chapman but entered a qualification. Many of Chapman's "discriminations" struck him "both as going straight and going deep," but he would be readier to name Chapman the critic America now needed if in some of the essays Chapman had been as firmly on his feet as he was in the others. Despite these reservations—and James was regarding Emerson and Other Essays from an exclusively literary standpoint—he concluded that the young critic could not "be too pressingly urged to proceed." 48 But Chapman's purposes were otherwise. Had he been then a potential Sainte-Beuve, he probably would have replied, "No, thank you." While at work on the "Stevenson," he explained to Mrs. Whitman why a SainteBeuve would not do: "His handwriting is all the same size. H e is a mill. He is passive. What you want is not a criticism that sizes up the past but that stirs up the present." 49 What preoccupied him now was not literature but the social and cultural conditions that frustrate literature in the making. The weakness of our literature before 1900 was for him only one symptom of the ill that troubled the American mind. Because he tried to describe those symptoms, each of these essays on writers has, besides its literary aim, an ulterior motive—an extra usefulness: that on Michelangelo, to show up the poetasters of the day; those on Emerson and Browning, to champion individualism; that on Romeo, to illustrate how bloodless and shoddy was the contemporary ideal of the gentleman; that on Whitman, to satirize the Englishman's attempt to understand the United States once and for all; those on Kipling and Stevenson, to mark off dead ends in literary development and to correct the populace's notion of what cultivation really is; and that on Tolstoy, to consider the relevance to American conditions of "Tolstoyan democracy." For an aggressive man in a world where so many graven images waited to be smashed, "agitation" was the thing. In The Mauve Decade, Thomas Beer has informed us that, when Jeannette Gilder objected to Stephen

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Crane's naturalism, she was told that free speech is any man's right. T o this she retorted, "Not if it hurts people's feelings." For Beer, this reply is a token of "the American's whole social posture before free thought at the century's ending." 50 The year was 1896. Within the same twelvemonth, Chapman (who called this posture an illusion of charity by which the cowardice of the age covered itself) asserted in a letter that the same timidity had brought on at least half of our troubles. "Do you know," he continued, "I believe that any real expression of opinion, no matter how mistaken, given without any qualifications because of the audience, is what is most now and here needed of all things in the world." 5 1 On this belief he acted. Take this belief into account, add to the account the fierceness of Chapman's fighting instincts, add also his inward need to assault figures of authority, and the results are something more than fireworks. For Chapman assailed scores of prominent persons in the nineties. His conduct puzzled Americans then; its like still does today. Except in politics, we are not used to it. We forget that such behavior is in the tradition of great criticism. We forget the harshness of Ben Jonson, the murderous couplets of Dryden and of Pope, Dr. Johnson's pulverization of the creator of Ossian, the Scotch reviewers' lambasting of Byron and his fellow poets, Hazlitt's pugnacity, Carlyle's sulphurous invectives, Samuel Butler's idolsmashing, Shaw's dexterity with either bludgeon or needle, Mencken's use of heavy artillery. This is the company of Chapman. When in Chapman's imagination man and idea became fused into a symbol that embodied for him a falsehood or evil, he let go with a broadside to effect utter demolition. The lists of the Political Nursery are strewn with battered and bleeding casualties—and Chapman's private fondness for his victims never deterred him. One such casualty is Charles Eliot Norton, then professor of the history of fine arts at Harvard. Norton, we learn, is "a man born blind with the religion of pictures, a deaf man worshipping music, a man devoid of sensuous experience erecting altars to the Aesthetic." In this burlesque the man Norton is lost sight of. What emerges is an onslaught upon the Norton-Idea, in both its antecedents and consequences, a caricature as hilariously indifferent to literalness as it is deadly serious about the soul of the issue.52 The same spirit seethes in a letter which describes James Russell Lowell:

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In later life he got all barnacled with quotations and leisure. He pulls out pocketbooks and gold snuff boxes and carbuncled cigarette cases and emerald eye-glasses, and curls and pomatums himself and looks in pocket looking-glasses, and smooths his Vandyke beard and is a literary fop—f-o-p. Too much culture,—overnourished as Waddy Longfellow says—too many truffled essays and champagne odes and lobster sonnets, too much Spanish olives, potted proverbs —a gouty old cuss in his later essays. But in '54—'65 he wrote rapidly and most clearly. Belles Lettres is the devil after all. It spoils a man. His prefaces—sometimes very nice, in spirit—but his later prefaces are so expressive—O my! so expressive of hems and haws and creased literary trousers. I feel like running him in the belly and singing out Hulloo! old cockalorum.53 In fact, Chapman's first separate publication, in 1892, an anonymous pamphlet of thirty-seven pages, The Two Philosophers: A Quaint and Sad Comedy, is a humorous attack upon a pair of Harvard teachers, Josiah Royce and the Reverend Dr. Francis Ellingwood Abbott. Their quarrel disgusted Chapman as discrediting the name of professor. About this little dramatic piece in doggerel and the episode that inspired it, Chapman wrote to his wife: "There is really no seat reserved in the universe for the professional thinker, as I've often told Royce." Chapman's biographer has supplied this commentary on the affair: When the "Sad Comedy" appeared, William James told Chapman that the best thing about the drama was that it bore no relation to the facts. At this later day its interest lies in its revelation of an unterrified spirit in dealing impudently with dignified figures.54 T h e attacks were not always extravaganzas. Chapman was coolly sober in his opposition to the prudery of the nineties—a time when Anthony Comstock harassed shopkeepers for selling photographs of statues, scolded dealers in athletic goods for displaying "elastic breech clouts" worn by football players, and proclaimed that no decent American would ever admit paintings of the nude into the home. 55 Writing then to Minna on the subject of nudes, Chapman thanked the Greeks for helping us to see the unity and sanity of life: Now there is a modesty and beauty about the natural figure that makes me in love with life. I can imagine no such purifying education—-such a stroke [against?] bad thoughts—such a beam of happiness and sunlight—holy beauty of life, as should come with a sane art, dealing with things as they are. . . . I swear if I were a painter I would bring back the oneness of life. . . . The civilizing of man, owing to its complications of conditions, sociology and

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climate, has tended to crack the organism up into dominions and provinces, the highest, the lowest, the middle provinces, and philosophies and subtle dealing reason has stamped these divisions on the thought of the ages and tended to foster specialization in life. Thus whole categories of existence were stamped with the mark of Cain. Who cannot see that the danger is as great as the utility of this? 58 Among Chapman's unpublished papers dating from this decade is one titled " A Defense of Women: In Answer to Elizabeth Stuart Phelps." Somewhere this popular novelist had written an article on "the decollete in modern life." From it Chapman quotes: "Any fashion which gives to the roue the right to clasp a pure woman in his arms and hold her for the length of an intoxicating piece of music is below moral defense." Write passionately on delicacy and decency [he replies] and you'll suggest the indelicate and the indecent. . . . What pictures—what imaginations of improper things, are here called up by this use of the word "pure." Then Mrs. Phelps goes on in this vein: There is an indescribable expression in the eye—every fine observer knows it —which distinguishes the modest girl from the matron. Look for it in the eyes of our girls today. It is too often missing, etc. And Chapman takes her up: I am not a fine observer, but I have not been struck with any particular difference of expression between the eyes of modest girls and matrons—and I do not propose to look for any. Because the word purity had suffered so much at the hands of eloquent preachers, Chapman ends his manuscript by advising the young girls whom Mrs. Phelps was addressing not to believe that society was as she had described it. Such was the uneasy prudery of the times that it is pointless to guess whether Chapman ever approached an editor with this piece of bravado. For in the nineties no fewer than six congresses of reformers went on record as favoring "purity." 57 Another paper which might have found scarcely more favor with magazine editors was the "Stevenson." In 1897, when Chapman was at work on it, almost the only other American to complain that Stevenson's admirers had gone too far was Harry Thurston Peck. 58 In fact, Chapman even worried that the publishers of Emerson and Other Essays might want him to exclude the study. It took nerve to go against the taste of the times. The historian of The Mauve Decade adds this detail:

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»47

In 1898 the flippant Guy Wetmore Carryl remarked that American colleges were the back yards of English criticism, and in 1898 two professorlings rounded on John Jay Chapman when the essayist attacked Stevenson as a derivative writer. 58 Such was the penalty for taking an unpopular view of a popular writer. Alert to the increase in schooling and in the reading public which his generation had witnessed—he called it "the age of the Distribution of Knowledge"—Chapman was attacking not so much Stevenson as his extraordinary vogue among Americans. That a minor writer was being hailed in this country as a classic led Chapman to this analysis: Does any one believe that the passion of the American people for learning and for antiquity is a slight and accidental thing? Does any one believe that the taste for imitation old furniture is a pose? It creates an eddy in the Maelstrom of Commerce. It is a power like Niagara, and represents the sincere appreciation of half-educated people for second-rate things. There is here nothing to be ashamed of. In fact there is everything to be proud of in this progress of the arts, this importation of culture by the carload. The state of mind it shows is a definite and typical state of mind which each individual passes through, and which precedes the discovery that real things are better than sham. When the latest Palace Hotel orders a hundred thousand dollars' worth of Louis X V furniture to be made—and most well made—in Buffalo, and when the American public gives Stevenson an order for Pulvis et Umbra—the same forces are at work in each case. It is Chicago making culture hum. 60 T h e titan of this "age of the Distribution of K n o w l e d g e " was President Eliot of Harvard. Against his recent collections of essays, American tributions

to Civilization,

Con-

Chapman exploded in this letter:

There's no offense in them. Two by six. Everything in Massachusetts is deal boards. You can put every man in a box—Smug, Smug. . . . It's the Dodgedom of Culture. My God, how I hate it. He's the very highest type of a most limited and inspiring pork-chopism. My God, he is hopeful—calls his book "American Contributions to Civilization"—thinks we don't understand small parks and drainage—but will learn and are doing nicely. Has a chapter on "the pleasures of life." It's all one size. The Puritans—the war—the problems of labor and capital—education—all excite the same emotion—i.e. that of a woodchuck eating a carrot. 61 In the review of the book which appeared in the Political

Nursery

Chap-

man has tempered his style, but not his judgment: Bend down and look into the peep-hole of this man's mind, and the whole world looks like a toy village lighted by Arctic moonlight. . . . Here is Edu-

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cation running around on its little track, and here is Art. Poetry is thought of— a dainty tin wreath lies on the little shrine. Humanity is spelt with large letters and taxes are explained like clockwork. Marriage and happiness are understood. How simple, how excellently planned are all thy work, O Arctic Village! 62 Again it is not a man but a state of mind which requires demolition —a philosophy "benignant but dead." In Eliot Chapman sees the personification of nineteenth-century attitudes: the shallow common sense; the faith in machinery; the easy optimism; the dogma of progress; the wishful forgetting that there is always "night and madness and mystery to contend with, coexisting with daylight and science and universal literacy." The blast at President Eliot is only one of many good things in the Political Nursery. It is full of lively essays on topics as varied as history, philosophy, ethics, religion, education, journalism, literature, and international affairs. In fact, Edmund Wilson regards the Political Nursery as "one of the best written things of the kind which has ever been published anywhere." Take, for instance, Chapman's remarks "On the Function of a University." Why, he asks, does a busy man when he visits a campus experience a "slightly enervating calm"? It is because the "pictures" of life being shown the students are too "bright"—as if the teachers do not realize what tragedies they are handling. The visitor is almost tempted to lecture the students on "the almost imperceptible vestiges of pain still shown on the plate." The lack of vigor in the air of a university comes from the professors. It is impossible for a man to remain at the top of his bent v'hile he is doing anything else but wrestle with new truth; and the temptation of a teacher towards lassitude is overwhelming. He is beyond the reach of new experience, except as he makes it himself in contact with his students and Faculty; and the man who can make spiritual progress with this outfit is a rare man. The consequence is that most professors go on thinking and teaching the same thing year after year. Give a professor a false thesis in early life, and he will teach it till he dies. He has no way of correcting it. T o bring students closer to what they will face after college, Chapman dreams of professors "who want to learn and who have nothing to teach." A university ought to be the mere residence of a lot of men who are excited about various aspects of life and history, and who lecture as a means of expressing themselves and of developing their own thought. Their chief corporate bond should be distrust of each other's society, lest that society come between

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them and the world. . . . Where such men lived no poppy would bloom, no nerves would grow limp, and the pictures they showed to the young would have in them some tinge of effort and of pain which would imprint them indelibly, and make them hold their own beside the sombre originals which the young are soon to see at no distant date.63 Surely William James met some of these specifications. Nevertheless, both James and his Harvard colleague Dr. Hugo Munsterberg were teased as "psychologers." Reviewing Munsterberg's Psychology and Life, Chapman admitted sympathy with the thesis of the book: It may be vaguely summarized thus: There's no harm in psychology if you don't take it too seriously. . . . Psychological truth is a thing like a jig-saw; it is of no use except in the hands of any expert. Anyone else will cut off his fingers. His own position Chapman suggests in this effusion: If Mr. Munsterberg or any one else will sit down and write an account of the universe without using any words that begin with phy- and psy- or end with -ology and -istic, it will be the best bit of mental training that ever befell him. Munsterberg is just the man to try it. Success in the enterprise would leave him without a profession and shunt him back upon the undiscovered and undiscoverable world as a mere naked questioning human soul that had uttered a few words that got remembered because they were significant. . . . Munsterberg is unfortunately a man, like Wagner in Goethe's "Faust," who knows so much, so much. "Schon weiss ich viel, doch mocht ich alles wissen." 64 With James's spirit Chapman was in full agreement, but he quarreled with James's logic and with what he took to be its damaging implications. To James's thesis that the heart, not the rational intellect, is "an inevitable and lawful determinant" 65 in the question of religious faith—in the evidence of things unseen—Chapman subscribed without reservations. But when James in his The Will to Believe linked the heart with the will—when he pushed on to argue that faith in a fact can help create the fact—Chapman recoiled. He rejected James's use of the terms faith and will. And in three essays that take up most of the July, 1899, Nursery, he made these objections clear. To Chapman a man has faith when he thinks and believes something because he cannot help himself from doing so, cannot do otherwise—i.e., has no will in the matter. Faith he defines in these terms: It is the result of a highly harmonized and coordinated mind and nature. It is like light given off by a dynamo running at a certain speed. A man may possess it in one degree at one moment and less in the next. It is of absolute inconse-

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quence what terms he speaks in or what he is about. . . . He may talk on politics or on religion, or about reform underwear—if he has faith in reform underwear as the important thing, and if his whole nature is focused on that, then he has faith. But here's the point: A man thinks that something is very important and acts accordingly. Follow James's method, he argues, and you unfit yourself for faith, because you "are trying to believe something you do not believe." You cannot "use" your mind to get faith, he maintains; the use of the mind is only for "search"; in search you do not think about faith but concentrate on the investigation. Against James's reasoning Chapman declares: "The attempt to believe something that you don't quite believe is at the bottom of every evil of government in America." 88 Chapman himself of course had neither the temper nor the special faith of the philosophic inquirer. It is interesting, though, that he pronounced James hard to follow because James had written of faith in the abstract without having made a study of persons who had faith—the study which James undertook within the next two years in Varieties of Religious Experience. Intellectual agnosticism prevented James from experiencing religious faith. By contrast, Chapman, an avowed mystic, wrote of religion in language different from James's because, as Chapman has told us, the consciousness of divine power working through him never left him.87 Not for another decade was Chapman to begin to elucidate the meanings of his own religious experience; yet the fervor of religious belief sustained Chapman in his political labors in the nineties and is everywhere implicit in his writings of the decade. His contention that James's philosophy was, however unconsciously, entangled in the spirit of the age anticipates the view taken by a later writer, Lewis Mumford, who termed this Zeitgeist "the pragmatic acquiescence." 68 Pragmatically or otherwise, Chapman had no intention of acquiescing. In "The Unity of Human Nature," a confession of faith, he tells us why. 09 This was an address he delivered before the graduating class at Hobart College in 1900, on the occasion of receiving the honorary degree of L.H.D. Instead of the commencement speaker's customary unction, Chapman provides an astringent. He confronts his hearers with a gospel of failure. If there are among them any young rebels who dream of exerting "moral influence" upon society, Chapman tells them that they are better off

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without "social and business prominence." For these are "the payment with which the world subsidizes men to keep quiet." When an American protests some abuse, he is not silenced by "a German sergeant" or "a Russian officer of the precinct"; but a friend of his father may offer him a job—and that will be his "warning from the secret police." So, to prevent youthful radicals from souring into ex-college idealists, Chapman recommends one rule of conduct: "Do what you will, but speak out always. Be shunned, be hated, be ridiculed, be scared, be in doubt, but don't be gagged." Behind his challenge, of course, is the faith which animated his own career during the nineties. Yet now Chapman links individualism to what he calls "the unity of human nature." By that phrase he means, in biblical language, "Ye are members one of another." And the wisdom he would apply to international affairs, to national problems and local politics, and to our personal lives is that of the practical agitator committed to Christian brotherhood. The skeptic, the sophisticate in Realpolitif{, will smile at such naivete; but the pages in which Chapman demonstrates the interdependence of all peoples and nations seem more cogent in our nuclear age than they must have been fifty years ago: Now the future of civil society upon the earth depends upon the application to international politics of this familiar idea . . . that what is done for one is done for all. When you say a thing is "right," you appeal to mankind. What you mean is that everyone is at stake. America's role in helping the backward countries of the world Chapman puts in these terms: "We must either help the wretched or we ourselves become degenerate." For those who lack faith that security is to be had in the development of bigger and better weapons, he lays down the paradox that humanitarianism is the price of self-preservation: "The logic of selfprotection under the illusion of self-sacrifice, is the logic which is at the bottom of all human progress." For the individual the task is to dare attack some nuisance in his home town; because "if he can cut free from the tyranny of neighborhood gossip, the world has no terrors for him." For the graduating class of Hobart College in 1900 Chapman puts the case: "Why, if any of you young gentlemen have a mind to make himself heard a mile off, you must make a bonfire of your reputations and a close enemy of most men who wish you well." Perhaps such doctrine seems altogether too Herculean for ordinary

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mortals. Chapman, however, was not lost in a fanatic's dream. Not long before he gave this address he had received from somewhere in the Midwest a letter which was a cry for help. Its writer, a sixteen-year-old boy, needed during a summer vacation to earn a few dollars toward paying his way at college, later; and an uncle, the general freight manager of a railroad, had found him a job in a freight office. In the course of his duties the youngster began to notice how many of the outgoing letters concerned rebates which seemed to him unethical and perhaps illegal because they were made only to large shippers. The impression which Chapman's Atlantic Monthly article "The Capture of Government by Commercialism" made on his adolescent conscience was deep enough to shatter his peace of mind. Should he notify the I.C.C., or, out of gratitude to the uncle, keep his mouth shut? Not daring to consult his parents, the boy finally wrote to Chapman himself, "blurting out all my childish agony of mind." In a sixteen-page letter the agitator reassured the youngster that the wise and right course for him was to wait a little before challenging the world's evils. Sixty years afterwards an elderly man, who in his time proved a successful muckraker, remembers how Chapman's tenderheartedness once made him "the proudest and happiest boy east of the Mississippi River." 70 Perhaps Chapman was better at helping others than at saving himself. Somewhere Lewis Mumford has suggested that "the search for anaesthetics" is a clue to the nineteenth century in all "its depauperate phases." Surely, in the nineties Chapman did not seek an anaesthetic, and certainly he did not find any. In part, his dilemma is that he did not belong sufficiently either to the nineteenth or to the twentieth century. We see this plain in Chapman the literary critic. He defended the old only in so far as there had been in America a tradition of individualism. Against the vacuities and senescence of the genteel tradition he was in revolt. And yet, though he called for an American literature deep in passion and broadly representative of the nation, he could not throw in his lot with the new realists nor with their pathfinders, Henry James and William Dean Howells. He seems to have made up his mind about these two while he was an undergraduate. This, for instance, is from a collegiate letter about Henry James—its date, April 21, 1883, and content suggesting that the book he had in mind might have been Portrait of a Lady:

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He is distinctly, nay confessedly, a man of the last century—an empiric, a man whose only guide is the indefinite word and notion of "taste." This would do well enough when other men were as misty as himself about such matters, but in this age of why and how and when, form is at a discount and people will not be satisfied till they have raked the matter to the bottom—all literateurism, the turning out of pretty sentences and pretty sense, the making of witticisms— is a mere waste of good brain. . . . He belongs to the school that thought all such things were a matter of genius, will, and the study of human nature. Thus he goes on fishing in a void and squeezing a dry sponge. T h e n , after a devastating critique of James's dramatized version of Miller,

Daisy

Chapman reaches this conclusion:

All this is the result, I think, of reading romances when the age is past—of taking cultivation as the aim of existence—without settling very definitely what cultivation was, or being born one hundred and fifty years too late—or else fifty years too early. 71 A month later, after reading A Modern

Instance,

C h a p m a n tells his

mother: Realism don't condense, necessarily and psychologically. . . . T h e little things take as much attention as the big ones, a fault peculiar to writers; for though a painter may spend as much time on his shoe-buttons as his faces, the public is not obliged to look at them. As to Howells's commonplace characters: People really are so—not an agreeable idea perhaps after our heroes and highstrung abstractions. . . . T h e persons are very distinct. Each one's whole horizon is displayed on every remark he makes,—as in real life each one is on a different plane of thought from his neighbor. . . . T h e persons understand each other as if different yet at bottom alike, or members of a family—their minds have a certain fund in common—i.e., the author's own traditions. T o get away from this ever so little seems great to me. But rarer still in novels or plays is this—a corollary of realism—and perhaps a doubtful gain. The action of the story don't seem to take the whole attention of the characters. This is a terrible jump from all the old fiction. T h e characters as in real life take a sidelong interest in each other. . . . I doubt whether such stuff can be called art, which so far as I see must be idealism—that is making an effort and keeping the background in its place— taking a hint only from nature and illustrating it. These novels have a use much more approaching that of science. They appeal to intelligence, not feeling, account for the phenomena rationalistically, are a kind of popular lecture on human life. Nobody believes in abstractions

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or qualities nowadays. . . . On the contrary, the unconquerable tendency and desire is to explain, to clarify the unknown. They use more or less the materials at their hands—theories lately realized, heredity, natural selection, etc. As time goes on and more such implements of investigation are put into their hands —and they realize more distinctly what they are doing—we shall have great novelists write masterly books such as we may now almost call scientific books —and no doubt doing a great deal of good by spreading the new ideas and modes of thinking . . . with the aids of psychology, physiology, etc. and such results as they gain be applied to human life and history. 72 T h e s e are just about the most explicit reasons C h a p m a n ever g a v e as to w h y the imaginative literature of the late nineteenth a n d the early twentieth century did not interest h i m . T h e r e is m u c h to be said f o r his opinion; but by it he closed forever one road to understanding his w o r l d . T h e record is nearly complete if w e add these observations—from a letter of 1894: T h e spirit which has come over all modern fiction is this—that the writer is a thing apart from his works, that he too is a student of life, not an author. He does not take his books out of his bowels, but he collects and sews together and makes omelets. T h e result is that the reader always has two things in his mind—the writer and the book. . . . it is the writer claims our attention, not the book. . . . It is Zola and George Eliot we talk and think about—their works are only their way of talking. It is only by merging himself, by identifying himself with his works, that a man can get himself forgotten by the reader. T h e paradox is that the more consciously the fictionist strives f o r objectivity, the deeper he gets into subjectivism: Dickens is on the whole not very much like Shakespeare, but if you read him after a course in modern novels, you will be struck by the resemblance. There is only one stage in the old school. In the new there is always a stage within a stage. T h e curtain goes up, and you see the author with his pointing stick, showing off the second stage. 73 Realism, inspired or controlled by scientism, oppressed C h a p m a n . Ibsen w a s distasteful to h i m , and he seems to have forgotten his r e a d i n g of T u r g e n e v . H e could share w i t h the naturalists only their critical spirit a n d their iconoclasm. Zola, the practical agitator in the D r e y f u s a f f a i r . C h a p m a n adored. Zola's mastery in " g i v i n g scenes w i t h great f o r c e " he could appreciate; otherwise he considered Zola's f r a n k treatment of sex a trademark to increase his sales. 74 In Tolstoy alone a m o n g contemporary realists did C h a p m a n find the qualities of great art.

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His correspondence of this period suggests that Chapman never heard of Stephen Crane or Norris or Garland or William Vaughan Moody or Edwin Arlington Robinson. In the essay on Emerson, Emily Dickinson is merely mentioned as "the last authentic voice" of "village life." 75 The letters are silent on Mark Twain, and of course on Melville. In Chapman's view of American literature at this time there was only one figure of world rank, Emerson. Though in spirit Chapman is kin to the author of "Civil Disobedience," there is no evidence in his letters that either before or during his years in politics he cared for Thoreau. The Scarlet Letter was "a very wonderful well of art"; 76 but in the rest of Hawthorne Chapman evidently could see no more than Emerson had. And for all his Emersonianism, he was apparently unaware of any significant relationships between Emerson and Whitman. Always the independent, Chapman, in his literary criticism, as in his political criticism, followed his own instinct. That he belonged to no school we see when we place him among his fellow critics of this period. In point of time Chapman's contemporaries in criticism are the "Bohemians"—Harry Thurston Peck and James Gibbon Huneker, for example; and the "academics"—Lewis E. Gates, W . C. Brownell, George Edward Woodberry, Irving Babbitt, and Paul Elmer More. 77 Chapman's letters contain no important references to Peck. Though Huneker 78 described Causes and Consequences as "fearless," and thought its "accusations" "unassailable"; and though he considered Emerson and Other Essays "most subtle and searching," Chapman seems not to have returned the compliment. In his Ivy Oration Chapman had teased his classmate Gates as the star among Harvard undergraduates in English; but otherwise he took no interest in Gates's career. Dealings with Scribner's, which published his three early books, brought Chapman into a brief and friendly relation with W . C. Brownell. He was pleased that the "entirely non-political" Brownell grasped the ideas in Causes and Consequences,79 but he seems in the nineties to have given no thought to Brownell as a critic. Woodberry he respected as a scholar; but with his vision so much on the future, a man like Chapman would be impatient with Woodberry's yearning over the past. Besides, Woodberry was among the lost souls: Scudder—but here is stereoplate. He publishes nothing in the Atlantic that has not been published before.—I know him. I know his fathers. There is no

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God but Style and Woodberry is his prophet.—I must read Woodberry's essays so as to be able to damn him at leisure and with particularity. I know he is damned. Anyone who has the good countenance of Norton and Co. is damned.80 Chapman is just as harsh towards the earlier generation of conservatives who were still influential throughout the nineties. Of Thomas Bailey Aldrich's poems, he wrote: "Polite literature they are. They would not offend." 8 1 As for Edmund Clarence Stedman, Chapman thought The Poets of America "a really very good book," but its author "a conscientious conceited cuss who writes poetry himself and looks like a too starched shirt." 82 Chapman's general attack on magazine editors made, as we have seen, a chapter of Practical Agitation. Elsewhere he named names. Take this, from a letter about his friend Richard Watson Gilder, then editing the Century: He is the type of spurious literary taste. . . . For himself, he is innocent, innocuous, commendable, but as an index, an emanation, an outcome of conditions which he represents—he is to the eye of the intellect a ghastly sight.83 When in 1900 Henry Mills Alden published, in the journal he edited, an article on "Fifty Years of Harper's Magazine," he drew this fire from the pages of the Political Nursery: The reader is fanned with phrases and stimulated with jockey club perfume, he is stroked with gentle counsel and goes home from that lethal chamber, the "Editor's Study," with a memorial spoon sticking out of his mouth, and a general feeling that the painless dentistry of American journalism has extracted all unpleasantness as well as all savor from life, and that stewed smiles are the only thing for the gums and the complexion.84 It is scarcely an exaggeration to claim that to study Chapman's attacks upon persons and things during the nineties is to read a chapter in American cultural history. In literature as in political reform, Chapman went his own way. He could not cast his lot with the critical realists. Naturally, he could agree with the idealists in their horror at the dislocations of American society and in their impatience with mediocrity. On the other hand, when these genteel representatives of the old order conceived of an idealism from which all "base" desire and all daring speculation were removed, Chapman was their foe. With the academic critics of his own generation—especially Brownell, More, and Babbitt—Chapman in

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the nineties shared their revolt against the earlier idealists and their call to examine all contemporary values. But with the academic biases and the Arnoldian inspiration of the " N e w Humanists" a spirit like Chapman's could have little sympathy. Henry James was Chapman's senior by nearly twenty years, and as critics the two men had different interests: James's was more exclusively literary, Chapman's predominantly cultural. Still, certain similarities between James's critical principles and those Chapman had formulated by 1900 are unmistakable. Each had been oppressed by social conditions and reacted against the "dogma of science." In facing the problem of reconciling actual experience with the requirements of art, each demands that the critic be involved in the experience upon which art is based and that he use such experience to test the validity of art. Both are convinced that—in James's phrase—"the moral sense and the artistic sense lie very close together." Both believe that the critic's ultimate task is to estimate "the artist's quality of mind." Both hold suspect all cults and dogmas, reject art for art's sake, and deny that Zolaesque naturalism is a complete aesthetic. Unflattering as was Chapman's opinion of James the novelist, James's definition of the ideal critic would have won—except for the phrases "incorrigibly patient" and "stooping to conquer"—Chapman's entire approval: T o lend himself, to project and steep himself, to feel and feel till he understands, and to understand so well that he can say, and to have perception at the pitch of passion and expression as embracing as the air, to be infinitely curious and incorrigibly patient, and yet plastic and inflammable and determinable, patient, stooping to conquer and yet striving to direct—these are fine chances for an active mind, chances to add the idea of independent beauty to the conception of success. . . . Just in proportion as he reacts and reciprocates and penetrates, is the critic a valuable instrument. 8 5

N o r is this the first time he has been likened to Henry James. E d m u n d Wilson has made the comparison in these forceful terms: I cannot remember any other A m e r i c a n critic of that period—except, in his more specialized field and his more circumlocutionary w a y , H e n r y J a m e s — w h o had anything like the same sureness of j u d g m e n t , the same freedom f r o m current prejudices and sentimentalities. C h a p m a n was then, as, it seems to me, he was to remain, much our best writer on literature of his g e n e r a t i o n — w h o made the Babbitts and the Mores and the Brownells, for all the more formidable rigor of their systems and the bulkier mass of their w o r k , look like colonial schoolmasters.

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But however fully the critic of culture emerged in the nineties, we must at this point be satisfied with estimating only the promise of the literary critic. For the bulk of Chapman's published works, especially his literary studies, was the fruit of his later career. His work was by no means finished. There was to follow a long autumn, whose labors were to be done in sunlight as bright as the spring's had been, and in shadows more chilling.

VII Out of the Depths

H E full-blown summertide of life John Jay Chapman was never to know. After the spring storms of his youth he emerged into autumn. Most of his forties, that period when men are usually in mid-career and at the height of their powers, he spent as an invalid. His fortieth year and retirement to Rokeby, the Chanters' country estate, mark a change in Chapman's career. It took him nearly a decade to recover from the physical and nervous collapse he suffered. His breakdown on the lecture platform had been followed by an attack of grippe, but that was not thought serious enough to prevent Elizabeth from leaving him for a visit to Washington in midwinter of 1901. On her return she found her husband so weak that he could not walk; and there was fear that he might lose his mind. Less than a month later, in April, their son Chanler was born. 1 A s soon as she could travel, Elizabeth, with the baby, hurried to Barrytown. There she found her husband still in bed, tormented by wild imaginings, under the delusion that he had lost the use of his legs. With his knees drawn up under his chin, Chapman's posture was like that of a baby in the womb. 2 F o r a year he was bedfast and had to have quiet, solitude, and darkness. Helpless as an infant, he had to be fed, clothed, and bathed. It must have horrified Elizabeth, so newly a mother, to see her husband crawling about on all fours. 3 Because a brother-in-law who had become close to him during these months declared that Chapman was sane, though imaginative, it was decided not to hospitalize him. 4 What he must have suffered is painful even to contemplate. " A t night I often felt like Poe's man in 'The Pit and the P e n d u l u m , ' " he later wrote of the experience. " I must lie perfectly still while the circular saw or swinging scythe filed the core of me. If I resisted I destroyed myself. Some of those midnights were unforgettable. In the early morning the dim light that came in a slit from above the roller shade smote me like a mace and waked me to p a i n . " 5 It was his season in hell.

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T h e illness tyrannized over R o k e b y : all things and all persons that might excite h i m had to be kept far away. Chapman's sickroom was on the second story of the Chanler mansion. F r o m the window, whenever his eyes could endure the daylight, he might have looked out on a wide expanse of rolling lawn. By night, when the wind blew up the Hudson and over the hills, he heard outside his windows the creaking of chestnut boughs, whose sound, family tradition had it, was that of the Rokeby ghost.® W e r e there not ghosts enough in his own memory these solitary m o n t h s ? O f the years of political agitation—the smashing of third-party hopes—the shattering of the independents—T.R. and the broken promise —the mayoralty

fights—the

garbage hurled by East Side street arabs at

cart-tailing G o o G o o s — K l e i n — t h e Nursery?

O f Minna's death in child-

birth just when as a writer he was beginning to find himself—of his first love for her—their reading together in the old Athenaeum—the

mad

night in the dismal little Cambridge room where he watched the flesh of his own hand searing on the scarlet coals—the searching eyes of blackclad D r . C o i t ? N o w he lay helpless. A s for America—the country was prosperous and content and went on its accustomed way as if John Jay C h a p m a n had never been. After all the struggle and fury, was this his accomplishment—to be in bed, a maddened cripple listening to the creak of the chestnut trees as if they, too, helplessly complained of die wind's torment ? T h e exact nature of his illness must have been as much a mystery to C h a p m a n as to all who were with him. H i s own explanation, given some months later to his mother, was that "too much will and self-will" had undone him. 7 Decades afterwards, in his autobiography, he ascribed the collapse to the strain of trying to be both a philosopher of reform and a participant in it. C o m m o n sense readily accepts such a view. Chapman had in fact been doing too much and had worn himself out. But why? we ask; why had the m a n driven himself so? F o r more than a decade he had found in reform work both an outlet for his aggressions and relief from his overburdened conscience. Political agitation gave him the opportunity to lash out against authority and at the same time to punish himself through brutally hard work. T h e n , to a personality like Chapman's the loss of a wife in childbirth

deepens

the sense of guilt and the need for self-punishment. H a v i n g lost one wife, dreading a repetition of that tragedy, and blocked now in his reform work,

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this tired, guilt-laden man again turned his fighting impulses inward against himself. In an earlier love crisis he had punished himself by sacrificing his hand. Now he would pay the penalty of invalidism and sacrifice the use of his legs. Whom had he offended that he should feel so sinful? Guilt like Chapman's might have originated in hostility towards his father. A scrupulous conscience can forbid such animosity but cannot destroy it. Conscience can only condemn that feeling to chains and the dungeon—bury it so deep that it may never return to the waking memory. Something like this must have happened to the mind and heart of Chapman. For in a lifetime this man who produced paragraphs by the thousands wrote scarcely four about his own father. Evidently, even before the actual death of Chapman, Sr., he was already dead in the thoughts of his son. And as everyone knows, the wish is father to the thought. Chapman, then, must have wished for the death of his father. We rightly say that such criminality is unthinkable, and that is why we confine the criminal to his dungeon. But when the severe judge works powerfully (as did Chapman's conscience) to keep the murderous criminal chained, the psyche where this conflict rages is so agonized by guilt as to demand a towering penance. Add to this Chapman's anxiety over Elizabeth's pregnancy, and we can at least surmise the burdens heaped upon his reason. Perhaps there is more than surmise here. Murder will out, the saying goes. Even the murderous impulse can trick the conscience, escape from its dungeon, and present itself in a form decent enough for reason to accept. During this illness, Chapman's real father and all the thoughts and emotions bound up with him were probably not permitted to enter his consciousness.8 Yet the image of his father might enter if disguised —say, in the shape of one who during the crisis of Chapman's early adolescence had been something of a father to the boy. So it is no surprise that shortly after the period of his illness Chapman wrote his essay on Dr. Coit. "The Influence of Schools" was originally a talk which Chapman gave before the St. Paul's students.9 The religious and educational bearing of the piece is for our later consideration; its interest at the moment is autobiographical. For this is the most problematic paper that Chapman ever wrote: it is highly subjective, self-contradictory, even sentimental. Above all, it reveals a curious mixture of love and hate, of attraction and fearful repulsion, towards his old schoolmaster whom he calls

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part "Tartar" and part Christian. As Chapman approaches his "tremulous matter," he explains how he suffered during his illness "periods of mental fixity"—obsessions: Indeed during many months of convalescence, I lived in my imagination at St. Paul's, always alone with the place, suffering it to move itself through me and present the most forgotten aspects, angles, and bits of scenery with silent, friendly precision. Immense sadness everywhere; immense power. . . . my nature began to take up again the threads of St. Paul's School influence, and to receive the ideas which Dr. Coit had been striving to convey. Swiftly he had been laid low; slowly, slowly might Chapman recover now. Elizabeth herself had known pain always; it had steeled her will and tranquillized her spirit. Could she give him some of that steel, some of her own calm? A cousin who was at hand during these trials remembers how, when Chapman's eyes could endure the light, he would sit in the sunshine, Elizabeth alongside him, holding his hand as if to cause her own serenity to flow into and heal him. 10 When Chapman finally straightened out his legs, it took many massage treatments to restore the muscles. For long months after he could get out of bed, he walked only with crutches. In time he was able to go for short drives. Gradually, the drives were lengthened until on one occasion, when he seemed strong enough to pass a couple of days in a house high in the Catskills, he was called from his room to see a sunset. Its beauty more than he could endure, he suffered a relapse. 11 Among the gains during this period of Chapman's life is the friendship which had been growing and deepening between him and William James. Their common interest in religion, education, and the American mind, along with their first-hand experience of nervous instability—these tightened the bond. In August, 1902, when he was able to walk a few steps a day, Chapman dictated a letter to James to thank him for a copy of Varieties of Religious Experience. In that book James quotes at length one of Chapman's articles from the Political Nursery and designates its author a "profound moralist." I thought to myself, so that's what I am, is it? Why of course, why certainly, why not? But it really is a jolly idea in one way, because most people who have heard of the Political Nursery, regard it as a malicious and unnecessary squib, and will sit up hard when they glance at the footnote. I laugh every time I think of it in this light. 12

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Such encouragement, coming at a time when Chapman sorely needed it, roused him to something of his old-time humor. Less than two months later, Elizabeth's days were crowded with preparations for sailing to Italy. T h e trip, she hoped, would give her husband a "jounce" toward better health. "Jack is a monument of imperceptible recovery," she reported to Mrs. Whitman. 1 3 A n d shortly after Christmas she could write from Florence to Chapman's mother that he was getting a little stronger all the time and had dispensed with his nurse. There, as spring came on, the Chapmans, who were buying paintings and art objects for the house they intended to build, were with such friends as Lionel Cust and Bernard Berenson. Then, while Chapman was on the way to recovery, he had still another shock to suffer. T o escape the heat of an Italian summer, the family proceeded to Ober Tarvis in the Austrian Tyrol. Here in a little valley they settled at an inn by the side of a stream. T o Chapman it was "absolute heaven" and "the most blessed place on earth." " I am almost too happy to live," he declared. 14 F r o m here Chapman, with the boys' tutor, took Victor and Jay on an excursion to Rómerbad, a watering place about ninety miles from Ober Tarvis. 1 5 In a grove, with comfortable seats and tables, a small orchestra played "very sweetly, mostly good music—overtures by Weber, etc."; and Jay went bowling on the green with Austrian friends. 1 6 Jay, who would be ten in about three months, was perhaps Chapman's favorite son and, artistically, the most gifted of the four boys. There had been childish tears on the morning of August 10—tears over his failure to achieve the proper shadow for a chestnut tree that he was drawing. 1 7 Three days later Chapman was planning one of the little philanthropies which were typical of him. H e wrote to Elizabeth that because their twenty-two-year-old chambermaid did not look well he intended to give her enough money for a month's vacation when the resort closed. T h e n he gave Elizabeth some amusing advice about her contemplated purchase of a Stradivarius, concluding with, " H o w smart I am. I'm just the kind of man that always gets cheated." T h e next word Elizabeth received f r o m her husband was a telegram: "Jay drowned this afternoon. Body not found. T h e Lord gave and the L o r d hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." What had happened between the writing of the joyous letter and the

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telegram was this: A t Romerbad there was a bathing pool fed from the river. There the tutor took the two boys and, leaving them in the care of the bath-keeper, went to check their bicycles. H e returned in a few minutes, but Jay was gone. H e had slipped through the outlet into the rushing river and drowned. 1 8 T h e eldest son Victor blamed himself for failing somehow to prevent the accident. 19 When Elizabeth hastened to join her husband, his first words to her were, " I would rather it had been y o u . " 2 0 Elizabeth's love was great enough for her to understand at once the real meaning of these cruel-seeming words: the savagery of a grief nearly beyond endurance. T w o days later they recovered the body of the son most loved for his beauty and sweet temper and promise. But the shock and call to action under the difficulties of foreign residence, instead of worsening Chapman's illness, caused him in a sense to pull out of it. " N o w we can go home," he announced. 2 1 A n d suddenly he abandoned his crutches. Because he now had to endure this blow from the outside, Chapman's own inner torment lessened. Fate had demanded of him this time a sacrifice more precious than a hand or the use of his limbs. Another payment had been made to the debt of secret guilt, and Chapman began to walk. In September of 1903 he and his family returned to this country. Anticipating a visit from his mother, Chapman wrote to her, "Don't talk of Jay," and told her how hard it had been on their return to face the sympathetic questionings and condolences of relatives. 22 A s Elizabeth explained to old Mrs. Chapman, "Such sorrows do not grow less with time. Years may teach us to do without h i m . " 2 3 T h e years, however, could hardly do that. Nearly two decades later Chapman wrote a sonnet in which Jay, visiting his father in a dream, had seemed to ask for something. In this sestet, we have the father's response: Did we not break our hearts above thy grave, Giving them that which never comes again Save in a twilight and a spasm of pain? Tho' joy to life her after-blossoms gave, Thou cravest something, What is it, my son? Thine eyes make answer: "Not oblivion!" 24 A s after Minna's death, Chapman again called forth his stoicism. But in the years immediately following that earlier tragedy he had thrown

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himself into activity and society. N o w he needed to be quiet and alone. Feeling unable to resume his former way of life, he retired to Edgewater, an old country house adjoining the Chanler lands and on the edge of the Hudson. Here he spent two cold, lonely winters, living, as he put it, "in furs like an Esquimaux." In a solitude broken by visits from Elizabeth or Victor, he began to study harmony with the master Percy Goetschius. 25 Such study, which Chapman continued for a year or more, was for him both diversion and therapy. A f t e r he had been at it for six months, he wrote to James that harmony was "fine tonic." But, he went on, " T h e thing that is most disastrous is being socially agreeable to people almost strangers. If some one comes to dine, I go into a cold sweat—lie awake after it and resolve never to see anybody."

26

Indeed, one of the changes

that accompanied this breakdown was Chapman's greater neeed for solitude. Formerly a very sociable man, henceforth, it seems, he could be with people only for brief periods and then had to flee them. W h e n he emerged from his second lonely winter at Edgewater, Chapman had grown the beard which gave him the appearance, as many who knew him in life have remarked, of a Hebrew prophet. T h e beard was a kind of outward mark of an inward change. Meanwhile Sylvania was being prepared. This was the large tract of land at Barrytown which the Chapmans had acquired and for which the architect Charles A . Piatt had designed a house. Barrytown proper, a hamlet of only a few houses scattered about on a hillside and plateau, is situated in Dutchess County, the home of the Chanlers and Livingstons and Fishes and Roosevelts. It is semiwooded, rolling country—a terrain of many levels and great variety of aspect, all of it composed and aligned by the majestic Hudson River and its towering, dark-wooded hills. Of buff stucco in the style of the Classic Revival, and with its dominant feature a portico, the Chapman house, facing westward, sits on a height that gives it a commanding position. Sloping gradually downward and westward toward the river is a gracious lawn flanked by avenues of tall white pines. T o the north, the ground drops sharply into a little glen which in early spring is pied with crocuses and snowdrops. Looking westward from the upper windows of this three-story house one can catch glimpses of the broad river or see, blue in the distance, the Catskills. 27 Here around Easter of 1905 the Chapmans established their household.

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Though there were winters in New York and summers for many years on an island off the Maine coast, Sylvania became, for the rest of his life, Chapman's real home. Strong-willed characters like Chapman and Elizabeth must of necessity have clashed now and then. Yet happy is the right word to describe their married life. No deep conflict seems to have marred their harmony. But sometimes during these clashes he would declare that "marriage is hell." Or he would announce, "I pray God every time I leave the house to keep me from falling in love with the first woman I meet on the street." 28 But this was so much tosh. On the engagement of some young friends, he wrote: All marriages may be unhappy and all marriages contain terrible grinding difficulties of character. Marriage demands the utmost of human virtue. That's why it is valuable. You will suffer immensely and would have suffered immensely no matter who or when you had married. What of it? We cannot escape it—ought not to seek to escape it. Rather we ought to prepare for it as necessary to our and all men's fulfillment. Happy those to whom it is not denied. 29 And earlier, about a half year after Minna's death, he had declared himself with equal conviction: As for me, my private self, I could never have got there alone—and never wanted eternity, immortality, or even mortality, alone. Wouldn't take it on any terms—take no interest in it—desire to be excused—and always felt so.30 It was Elizabeth who made life easier for Chapman, for it was she who took on the duties of managing the household and running the Sylvania farms. As Chapman assumed something of the role of a country squire, it was she who shielded him from whatever might too much agitate his nerves. 31 His health, it now seemed, could stand no further active public life. Visitors to the household were usually limited to a few close friends or relatives. 32 Yet he took pleasure in his sons and in their upbringing and education. And his love for children went beyond his own. It became a weekly custom that the youngsters of the village visit Sylvania to hear him read to them and to be treated to ice cream or lemonade. 33 During his illness and convalescence Chapman became more conscious of the force which religion exerted on his personality. Though Elizabeth was a devout Episcopalian and though he, too, by family tradition belonged to that church, his affiliation was official rather than personal. He

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was too much an individualist to subscribe to dogmas, rituals, and forms; all his life Chapman remained a sect unto himself. Elizabeth could get him to go to church; but his preference was to sit well in the back, where, although he "suffered" the sermons, the atmosphere was to his taste. It was Elizabeth's office, during services, to tug at his coattails when he remained standing while the rest of the congregation sat down; or was on his knees, absorbed in prayer, while the rest were sitting or standing.34 It makes a simple story to say that when Chapman became frustrated in politics he turned to religion. He himself encouraged such a view when he remarked of his illness: At this time began the normal awakening and development of my nature which had been interrupted by the St. Paul's School experience. I was no longer merely intellectual. I was religious, as I had been cut out by nature to be. 35

He lent more credence to this interpretation of his change when, two decades after the breakdown, he explained to a friend his experience in politics: There was never anyone with more practical notions, or less under the belief that he was religious in his aims than I. I wanted to attack practical evils— find out about them anyway, affront and examine them, understand them— and I set out by experiment and analysis to deal with them as a workaday problem. 36

Now, any person's recollection as to precisely when and how an inward change occurs is, as Chapman always recognized, highly uncertain. The key word here is of course religious. T o be sure, in the context of all that Chapman did in the nineties, he can scarcely be called in any conventional or self-styled sense a religious man. Yet Chapman obviously is not declaring that he had then been unreligious. For since youth he had been deeply religious. Religion had fired that unity of thought and action, of word and deed, which signalized his years of practical agitation. Subtract from Chapman's writings the religious, the Christian, element, and you have taken from them their soul and half their body. T o argue, as has one student,37 that Chapman before 1901 was a secularist who failed to recognize in Emersonian self-reliance the complementary idea of Godreliance is to misread totally the man and his works. With such an exegesis we can look at Chapman's writings with half an eye and then dismiss him as one who, when his quixoticism collapsed before political actualities, learned a lesson in humility and so sought ease in religion.

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Quite the contrary: Chapman does not emerge from his illness with a markedly different philosophy or interests. True enough, he does gain a new point of view—or, as Edmund Wilson rightly expresses it—"really a sort of rarefication of his earlier one." His transition is best explained in Chapman's own words: I went into N e w York politics—Mayoralty contest—and found by getting thrown down—and by analyzing the forces that threw us down that the thing was larger than N e w York politics—or any politics. My views and thoughts and books became wider till they turned out to be dealing with religion. T h i s is always so and is the way the universe is. T h e people against a reformer do something in order to beat him which gives him a larger field—in his mind first—and then in the world—for somehow the scope of your thought is the scope of your influence. 3 8

The change through which Chapman was passing can be regarded in three ways. The psychiatrist might see in it Chapman's conflict between the active and the passive role, between attacking and retreating from the realities of the outside world. Or, viewed as a problem in the practical economy of his own energies, Chapman now recognized that he could no longer carry on a strenous public life and at the same time think and write. Or, as to the religious question: Chapman now had to rethink the problem of the relation of man's will to God's. Both he and Elizabeth came to believe that his breakdown was an expression of the Divine will and that henceforth his peace lay in surrendering to that will. 39 The crux of such a religious problem was formulated long ago in the words " T h y kingdom come, Thy will be done." By a supernormal exertion of his individual powers Chapman had in the nineties labored for the kingdom in the belief that he was doing God's will. It was act, act, act—then the activity came to a sudden stop. But the "wise passiveness" which Wordworth teaches and for which T . S. Eliot prays in his "Ash Wednesday": Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still.

—this other road to truth Chapman had yet to travel. During his illness and convalescence he was gaining new spiritual insights: not the way of abject self-immolation before the Deity, but the wisdom which comes from self-surrender. Out of the inner experiences of these years of retirement, Chapman was later to develop his ideas on Thy-will-be-done in

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two books, Notes on Religion (1915) and Letters and Religion (1924), and to trace their application in conduct and culture. What Chapman was now learning through self-surrender we find in a letter dating from the spring of 1906. T o William James (who had confessed that he had "no living sense of commerce with God") Chapman explained: You will hear before you die the strains you have waited for so long—and stopped your ears to so earnestly—and which are heard only when search is exhausted and curiosity is dead and stillness follows because there is no power of motion left. Then the wind from without blows upon the soul and having blown it out—or seemingly out—blows it to a new life, steadily, and the old is seen to have been but a blustering and beating of the same power, and to have been a part and origin and necessary stage leading to the exhaustion.40 Perhaps few men understood each other's hearts and spirits so well as did James and Chapman. It was intellectually that they differed. In "Retrospections" appears this sketch: James himself was the child of Christianity bridled by the languages of historical, metaphysical theory—a saint in chains. He finds a chink here and there in the walls of his jail-psychology, and shows the sky to his followers. You can find his jail at night through the light that streams out of his chinks. The light is the light of Christianity.41 Of course Chapman would regularly give the rag-doll Pragmatism a drubbing. When, in February, 1907, he missed one of James's lectures on that subject, he wrote to the philosopher: "By the way, I afterwards met a lady—not one of your auditors—who says quite seriously, 'Ah, Fragmentism—such a good name, too.'" 4 2 In November of that year the Chapmans were in Europe again, to spend several months traveling and visiting on the Continent and in England. During the spring of 1908 James was delivering at Oxford his Hibbert Lectures, published the next year as A Pluralistic Universe. He and Mrs. James joined the Chapmans in a tour of the Cotswolds. The two men must have frequently discussed philosophy and religion; and of one of James's lectures Chapman gained this impression: "It seemed to me to be a destruction of all authority in philosophy—and that it ought to be called 'A Defense of Poesy.' . . . I think James would resent the name of mystic and yet he is coming to be what I call a mystic." T o James

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himself Chapman at the time suggested that "philosophy was only an inexpressive form of poetry and that you would end by teaching poetry if you make philosophy speak. It becomes poetry." 4 3 So the debate went on. By the spring of 1909 Chapman was informing the author of A Pluralistic

Universe

that there might very well be no

such thing as a concept. H e argued that modern philosophy since Kant had become a game: Kant was not playing a game, he was inventing a language. But all you fellows since Kant, and including Hegel, are living on Kant and haven't the initial force to use him, as for instance Dante uses Thomas Aquinas—simply quarry out of him or take words which you reinfuse with your own meaning. You are using words at second hand and are dabblers. . . . Thousands of young men are yearly ruined at your gaming table—their intellects gone forever. 44 For this charge James had a perfect answer: " A certain witness at a poisoning case was asked how the corpse looked. 'Pleasant-like and foaming at the mouth,' was the reply. A good description of you, describing philosophy, in your letter." 4 5 But Chapman was not quite done for. By October he was firing off at James again: I have a notion that I could tell you what is the matter with pragmatism—if you would only stand still. A thing is not truth till it is so strongly believed in that the believer is convinced that its existence does not depend upon him. This cuts off the pragmatist from knowing what truth is. 48 T o this James replied in kind: You are the most delightful maniac—your diatribe letter just received. As regards pragmatism, I have a great mind to send you my new book the Meaning of Truth, but I refrain, for I fear you'll take the trouble to read it if I do—and I am kind of heart. Keep telling your own truths in your own way, and you'll do most good. 47 H o w he felt about these truths of religion Chapman at this time made more explicit to Owen Wister: I can so far feel nothing outside of us—external nature, the arrangement of the world, appal me with their cruelty. But inside of ourselves there is light I can see—and through this, if through anything, I can work my way to serenity. T h e blasphemous, bitter, ironic thoughts I have are directed against nothing but the graven image which the older faith once inhabited and which stands up like a totem or a pillar of salt. The Temple is not made with hands. The

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whole wake of man is marked by the extinct lighthouses he once built for his soul.48 During the worst period of his illness, the torrent of letters habitually poured out by Chapman dwindled to a trickle. Then around 1906 the stream increased to something like its usual size. By the middle of the next year he was at work, to resume an interest that had begun when as a boy he dreamed of becoming a playwright. In the next four years he produced five books of plays. T w o of these volumes contain four plays each—all for children. One reason for their composition was Chapman's interest in youngsters, his own and those of his Barrytown neighbors. In his preface to the first of these small books, Four Plays for Children (1908), Chapman explained that these "miniature" pieces were the outcome of his interest in children's theatricals. Most of the plays are pretty, delicate bits of fantasy. And we might sigh that the man who had once declared one must write with a sword was now given to weaving such gossamer as could wound no more than could a fairy's wing. Yet they should be considered first of all as the exercises of a valetudinarian; work on them was a kind of therapy for Chapman. Of course his plays are the weakest of all of his writings. "The personalities he imagined paled beside his own," Chapman's biographer has remarked; "and the 'tricks of the trade' eluded him. It is one thing to live drama, another to create it." 49 For all that, a craftsman like Chapman could do no less than write with loving care. The first volume is mostly in blank verse, smooth and readable enough. Yet one wonders how childish actors could ever have understood or articulated such lines as these—when a maiden speaks of elves who— . . . in their innocency show a life Whose fluctuations are accessory To murders and prayers they know not of. Occasionally there are passages of real beauty. With these lines an elderly man opens one of the plays: The snow falls lightly on the mountain top, Soothing with silver locks his craggy brow, And shrouding with a kind oblivion Autumn's bereavement. So our years descend. Their tragic hands discrown us lovingly,

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OUT OF T H E D E P T H S Replacing joy with patience, company With solitude, and hope with resignation.

Most of the plays are artificial comedies, romantic in mood and method, medieval in setting, and idealized in characterization. They deal with hermits and lovers, villains and magicians, kings and long-lost children, enchantresses and knightly heroes. They were performed, apparently with success, at various times in Barrytown, at Isleboro (on an island off the Maine coast, where the Chapmans usually summered), at several schools, and at the University Settlement in New York city.50 The second collection of pieces for children, Neptune's Isle and Other Plays for Children (1911 and 1916), is similar to the first. But although Wilfred the Young, A Dragon-Play for Boys has the usual materials: a usurping king, lost heirs, a dragon, a seer, and a witch, it is obviously influenced by Chapman's fight for reform. Among the characters are the apologetic, half-way rebel; the ex-idealist who has sold out; a populace sacrificing to maintain the status quo; and a hero who realizes that his mission is to enlighten the public. Again, under the innocence and fun of a sketch titled A Family Quarrel, A Play for the Nursery, there is a complex psychological problem: of a child's tendency to identify himself with one parent and of parents' tendency to nurture children in their own image. The story concerns a couple with two sons; the father is bent on making a little savage of one, while the mother is turning the older boy into a sissy. Of this boy these lines are spoken: Woe to the favorite child! His soul is drained By devils in the night that suck him dry. Along his path a thousand traps are hid That spring in manhood, yes, in after-life. More men are crippled by a parent's love Than by the wars. There is also a curious accuracy in Chapman's depicting a son's passionate wish to hurt and punish his father. Although The Maid's Forgiveness (1908) was not intended for children, one might almost designate it as a child's play that has pretensions to adulthood. This comes to mind as we again encounter medieval royalty and the problem of succession to a throne. Neither the dialogue— rhetorical blank verse—nor the dramatis personae, ever quite come to life. In later years Chapman remarked of this play: " A failure from every

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point of view—even the biographical. Don't read it." Though severe, the judgment holds. Even as closet drama, The Maid's Forgiveness has little appeal. A much better adult play is A Sausage from Bologna (1909). The craftsmanship in this farce is more sure. After reading the comedy, James wrote to Chapman: "Your Sausage from Bologna is altogether delectable. What strikes me most is the stage construction, every word makes a stage effect of the utmost comicality in most instances." 5 2 Awareness of his friend's need for encouragement at this time caused James to use too many superlatives. He is nevertheless right about the economy with which Chapman has managed his comic effects. Grant that the play is a jeu d'esprit and artificial, grant that its wit and humor are not of the quality of Chapman's letters and essays, this little comedy is fast-moving and deft in characterization, dialogue, and structure. The personages are types. But how well Chapman knows and projects them: the parlor priest, the pompous bourgeois gentleman, the snobbish old grande dame, the hero —of the tribe of Benedick-Petruchio-Figaro. Although A Sausage from Bologna does not touch upon great comedy, the play is not brittle; it has warmth; and even the characters who are laughed at are treated sympathetically. In sum, however, the verdict cannot be favorable. In contrast to Chapman's essays, the plays lack originality. They are derivative and bookish —literary concoctions. Their author shows facility—at times something more than facility—in writing verse. But he is everywhere in debt, heavily, to Shakespeare. It is curious that as a playwright Chapman had forgotten Emerson's warning to the American Scholar that the "dramatic poets" had "Shakespearized" for some two hundred years. Most of all, one notices how non-American these plays are; in subject, treatment, and spirit they look to a remote European past. Except at a few points they seem remote also from Chapman's life and thought. Soon enough, however, he was to put his ability as dramatist into a truly American subject. To set an exact date for the end of Chapman's convalescence is impossible. For never after the 1901 breakdown was he physically vigorous enough to risk such lavish expenditure of energies as he had in the nineties. As late as 1908, for instance, he was worried about his eyes. And he was still enough shaken then that he could write to his wife: "I am so dependent on you that I really suffer all the time I am away from you

i74

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T H E DEPTHS

and live in continual fear something may happen to you or the children, and constant prayer." 5 3 Yet sometime during 1909 we might say that these anxieties diminish and that Chapman moves towards a more active and productive career. That year, at any rate, he reissued his three volumes of the 1890s. T o each of these he added prefaces, which throw light on his effort to regain his bearings. In the preface to his new edition of Emerson and Other Essays he explains his twofold indebtedness to Emerson and to New England culture. Emerson had given to him the courage of his individualism, while New England had brought him into vital relation with a "logical civilization." At Harvard he had been "intoxicated" by Emerson. It was to Emerson's individualism that he owed his zest in accepting himself: " H e let loose something within me which made me in my own eyes as good as anyone else," Chapman confesses. It was also Emerson who had taught him to say—not as an egoist but metaphysically—"After all it is just as well that there should be one person like me in the world." Though he himself had never met the aged Emerson, Chapman recalls here how his grandmother once told him "that the first time she had ever heard Emerson's name was when a neighbor said to her: 'O have you heard? The new minister of the Second Church has gone mad.'" So "out of gossip and observation" he had "put together a picture of Emerson and his times." Glancing back, we begin to see how New England, along with New York City, had come to form something more than a mere geographical axis for Chapman's life—how New England was to deepen his individualism, while New York was to expand his cosmopolitanism. But Boston and its environs could afford him what Manhattan never could. " N e w York is not a civilization," he declared; "it is a railway station." T o Chapman, the pace of Manhattan's perpetual changing seemed so swift and the present moment there so overpowering that any sense of an ordered and meaningful past was lost. By contrast, New England gave him a sense of continuity with the past and of a homogeneous culture. New England was a home for his spirit, not a way-station. When "old original Emersonians" informed Chapman that in his essay on the Sage he had found the Emerson they too had known, he felt that he was "at one with these old ante-bellum enthusiasts" and that their vision was also his own. Though Chapman was far from done with writing about N e w

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England, in the conclusion to this preface he summarized what for him was the life-long value of its heritage: I had climbed up out of the hurly-burly of nineteenth century America and was sitting on a sort of bleak Massachusetts Ararat, panting but safe. Dry ground was at least under foot; a consecutive relation to all the past had been established. This much I owe to Emerson and to Massachusetts; and, no doubt, thousands of others before and since have owed the same. But in the new prefaces to Causes and Consequences and Practical Agitation there is a note of self-doubt. In the first he explains how he wrote that book in the belief that to free the intellect by way of stating truths would do more for progress than a thousand years of "clouded" humanitarian endeavor. To his own doubts now he can only reply: It is curious to hear these beliefs called illusions. If so, they are illusions in form only; the substance of them is true. One might almost say that the substance of them is religious truth itself. But wondering now if the social worker might not best fulfill Emerson's ideal of the benevolent superman, he gives this impression of a Y M C A worker who had solicited him: He seemed to me a great many feet high. I knew that his mind was proof against all protest, proof against any idea except his own. I knew that he was right. I knew that he would establish whatever he was trying to establish; and that I should help him establish it, and be glad if I escaped with my life. The irony is that Chapman should ever have felt himself to be only a private among the inarticulate army of do-gooders which at this time was swarming over America on the crest of such triumphs as the Progressive Era was to enjoy. Whether the wave of mass benevolence which was impelling the reformers and muckrakers and charitable institutions would foster the intellectual maturing of the American mind and so bring in its wake a new birth in our cultural life—whether indeed the whole reform movement could manage without any clear philosophy— whether the American heart could get along without a head—these were questions Chapman now began to puzzle over.54 How unsure he was of the value of his own work in the preceding decade is underscored in the prefatory note he included in Practical Agitation. "At the time I wrote this book I intended it to be an epitome of human wisdom," he confessed, "one of those million-faceted wonder-

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stones which every man takes to be his own hearth-stone, and therefore accepts as comprehensible and commonplace." A n d he explains his quandary: It may cause the judicious to smile to learn how much philosophic endeavor is secreted in the following chapters. "Why," thought I to myself as I was writing them, "why, these things are certainly destined to go walking and skulking about the world for hundreds of years. . . ." Whether I over-reached myself by saying things that are too deep for humanity, and which can never be discovered,—or whether I simply underestimated the time necessary for the diffusion of explosive truth, and so kept watching a bomb that wouldn't go off, simply because the time had not come for it to go off,—I do not know. Perhaps the bomb was merely a pumpkin after all; and perhaps in the fullness of time it will be found to fructify good pumpkin seeds after the manner of the wholesome earth. Thus was Chapman making his crossing from an expansive, confident nineteenth century into the torments of the twentieth. Though personal reasons go far towards explaining his collapse in 1901, his defeat then was scarcely more a private matter than it was a symptom of the times. Had the crash been less grievous, of course his passage from the one century into the other might have been less lonely. That loneliness he was beginning now to reckon with. The nineties were, as we have seen, not prepared to understand his message. In the following decade, when progressivism was at the flood, he might have found a wider audience and perhaps established between them and himself a mutually fructifying relationship. But now he was cut off from any active part in affairs. And when the times were ready for a New Republic and ready to hail Van Wyck Brooks's Americas Coming-of-Age, the man who had anticipated and himself had dramatized so much of the program years before was all but forgotten. T o compound these ironies: Chapman never knew—if we are to judge by the correspondence of a lifetime—how much direct influence his political writings were having on Herbert Croly, the first editor of the New Republic and the man who has been called the philosopher of progressivism. This same year, 1909, Croly published The Promise of American Life, the book in which he sought to articulate a philosophy for the era of reform. T o be sure, Croly's peculiar ideas about nationalism and his recommendations for control of the trusts did not come from Chapman. But

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he quotes Chapman at length to argue that the educational value of a reform movement may well be greater than its practical results; and he is at one with Chapman in his view that the merit of democracy is not that it gives to every person the chance to pursue his own ends but that it imposes upon the individual citizen the task of serving his fellows. More important, Croly's description of the "radical critic" is simply Chapman's practical agitator. Such a critic, wrote Croly, must carry on "an incessant and rebellious warfare on the prevailing intellectual insincerity. . . . He must stab away at the gelatinous mass of popular indifference, sentimentality and complacency even though he seems quite unable to penetrate to the quick and draw blood." Precisely such warfare was the vocation of John Jay Chapman. Perhaps it was his countrymen's indifference that stirred Chapman's interest in the career of another unthanked American. The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold (1910) is the only dramatic piece by Chapman which is original in technique, American in subject matter, and a personal expression of its author. Subtitled A Play for a Gree\ Theatre, this work is an experiment in treating an American story in the manner of the Greek dramatists. Intended for open-air production in a sort of natural amphitheater, the Arnold was in fact twice presented in this way: once at Katonah, New York, with Chapman's brother Henry enacting Arnold and Ben Greet as Father Hudson; and again at Mount Kisco in the summer of 1911, with Walter Hampden as Father Hudson. 55 Though Chapman calls it a play, it is a dramatic poem in the tradition of Samson Agonistes. Concerned with historical events which have become legendary and dealing as much with locale as with men, Chapman drew his inspiration from the grandeur of the Hudson's banks near West Point. Certainly Chapman did not identify himself with Arnold the traitor. But what had once been heroic in Arnold appealed to the heroic in Chapman. By no means does he defend Arnold or justify Arnold's treachery. But Arnold's loneliness after his betrayal hints at Chapman's own loneliness in America, just as Milton's Samson pours out the wrath and grief of the fighter-poet in the Restoration world. For Chapman, the essence of Arnold's tragedy is that he was a great man gone wrong. Hence Chapman has done here a difficult thing: he has made us respect and pity a hated character in American history without doing violence to the facts and without relenting our judgment of Arnold's crime.

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Structurally, Benedict Arnold is in three parts. The first act deals with the betrayal of West Point. This is followed by an intermezzo in which the choruses comment on the deed. The second act presents Arnold's old age in England and his death. As in Greek drama, the episodes are separated by choric comments. In both chorus and dialogue Chapman displays a firm control of a variety of metric and rhythmic forms. Nothing seems forced or incongruous about Father Hudson and the choruses. They have a double function: in descriptive passages they create the atmosphere of the place and its spiritual overtones; in their gnomic utterances they elucidate the meaning of the tragedy. Father Hudson symbolizes America's pristine landscape, innocent of the griefs of men and reluctant to witness them—a "foolish god that must await the baptism of humanity." It is the travail of the Hudson hills which this legend is immortalizing. In a manner reminiscent of Wordsworth Chapman would interfuse the landscape with the spirit of man, to adumbrate how human woe also causes suffering in the natural world. Scholars have informed us that in Benedict Arnold's real wife there was nothing to be admired. Quite indifferent to that fact, Chapman, in the choric comment on this woman (and in tones suggesting the Book of Proverbs), brings forth from his heart his best tribute to his own wife: I will sing a song of woman, and magnify the wife of a man's soul. His goodness she has discerned when no man else can find it; his crimes are known to her, yet he is not in them: she seeketh his soul among many. She divineth salvation out of hell; and bringeth water from the desert. Who shall praise a woman save He that made her; save God who understandeth all things? Goethe has somewhere reminded us how from strength can come sweetness. That Chapman's suffering during these years had not impaired what was sound in his own heart is suggested by the serene declaration of faith with which he ends this dramatic poem. What is good cannot be lost: God forgets not the virtue of those who have failed; and why should man seek to judge them? Verily, all courage is immortal: the man himself cannot kill it. Not long after publishing the play Chapman received a letter from Richard G. Moulton.58 This Bible scholar and Greekist told him that "as a special student of poetic machinery," he had been struck with the

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writer's "interesting way of handling the old choral form of drama with entirely novel application." The piece, he assured Chapman, was "altogether a success." Such praise pleased Chapman. To his friend Sir William Rothenstein, the English painter, he wrote: "I really don't expect scholars and Greekists to like it, and I think it very remarkable that one should." 57 In November, 1910, Chapman read Benedict Arnold before a Harvard audience in Emerson Hall. The next day he wrote to Elizabeth that he had cried as he read it. " I had to hold up in the middle and get a handkerchief from my overcoat pocket in the next room. I held up short, and thunderous applause came down like a shower bath— At the end they applauded, the right sort of way—automatically and for a long time." 5 8 After a second Harvard reading, attended by Professor George Baker, Chapman could give this report: Then to the Tavern to lunch with Baker. . . . Baker told me he had been skeptical till he heard it himself but he gave in and conceded. No one had any criticism—not even Baker from whom I expected some technical ideas or difficulty.59 Chapman's forte, however, always lay elsewhere. Frank More Colby, encyclopedist and essayist, at about this time wrote Chapman that he had done a "hurried and very inadequate paragraph" on his plays in the Bookman. "But good as they are," he went on, "I took the liberty of growling because you weren't writing essays. It's all very well to damn over-writing, but since you stopped, there hasn't been anybody." Paul Elmer More's Shelburne Essays had been coming out for four years now. But Colby was not satisfied: More is a good man but after all he is always the teacher. I know of no man who writes out of as full knowledge as you did without losing every vestige of personal quality. If they know anything, it kills them. Our most cultural essayists are carcasses of insects full of eggs.60 The verdict was perhaps wholesale. Plainly, however, Colby knew where his friend's real gift lay. Once again Chapman was ready for the work of the critic.

VIII.

Hold Fast That Which Is Good

B

Y 1910 Chapman had oncc more found his own voicc. When he turned to the American past for the theme of his Benedict Arnold, he had pretty well put an end to valetudinarian playwriting. With the publication this same year of Learning and Other Essays, his first book of criticism in a decade, he was again ready to face the present and to come to grips with the subject which had occupied him before his breakdown: the American mind. In the world at large, events moved briskly from 1910 to 1914. These were the years when Baron Rutherford propounded the nuclear theory of the atom and when Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole. In Europe this period saw the emergence of such writers as Marcel Proust, D . H . Lawrence, and James Joyce. In America the work of novelists like Dreiser, Wharton, and Cather and of poets like Amy Lowell, Lindsay, and Frost indicated that another renaissance in our letters might be at hand. Meanwhile Henry Ford was revolutionizing mass-production. T o Manhattan Island the year 1913 brought not only the memorable Armory Show; it also brought the completion of the Woolworth Building, the world's first tower-form skyscraper. And in Washington progressivism was symbolized in the figure of President Wilson, who was championing "the New Freedom." But these years are the least eventful of Chapman's personal life. Most of this time he passed at Sylvania. Occasionally he would visit old friends and old scenes in Boston. There was a trip to Italy and North Africa in the winter and spring of 1911, and again in the summer of 1914 the Chapmans were traveling through France and Germany. All three boys were now away at school, the two younger ones at St. Paul's, and Victor at Harvard. Early in 1913 his brother died; and Chapman wondered if the pathos of Henry's carcer might not have been due to Ameri-

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can conditions—"a pretty killing age" he called it. Elizabeth was sick enough during these years to be hospitalized twice, but her husband's health and spirits continued to be good. Except for one or two incidents, there is little story to tell here. There is, however, a question to be answered. More than one student has gained the impression that

Chapman

emerged from his breakdown a profoundly changed man. It goes without saying that he was no longer able to participate in politics or to lavish his energy upon public activities. But whether Chapman

was

henceforth isolated from American life is another matter. Jacques Barzun declares that Chapman's isolation is not crucial—that since he worked with ideas in literature and education and the arts, isolation did not harm either Chapman or his work. But E d m u n d Wilson thinks that it did harm to both; and he finds the second half of Chapman's life "quite distinct from the first." His argument deserves full statement: It is impossible to escape the impression that the comfort and security of his later years did to some degree dull his responses and cut him off from the active world. . . . In both his political and his literary writing, he had dealt with matters of current interest. But now, in his second period, he seems to have withdrawn from contemporary life, and tends to confine himself to history and the classics. . . . The second half of Chapman's career must inevitably be surprising and depressing, though not entirely disappointing, to one who has been stirred by the first. Though he had been able to throw away his crutches, he was to remain, in a deeper sense, a crippled man all the rest of his life. T h e force of this charge is only the more increased by Wilson's sympathy with Chapman. Clearly such an interpretation is specially pertinent to this period when Chapman seeks to reestablish a relationship with the public. But toward testing its validity, a f e w reminders are in order. First of all, even in the nineties, Chapman was indifferent to or unsympathetic with several "matters of current interest"—especially the development of realism. Whatever conservatism he will hereafter show in such matters did not suddenly result from his breakdown. Next, though in his psyche Chapman was a cripple and though his "failure" in the nineties did not help matters, it is questionable that the 1901 collapse was the most crippling experience. Third, grant that Chapman returns to "history and the classics"; we shall see that he scarcely "confines himself" to these interests.

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Glancing back for a moment here, we can see that even in the decade of his convalescence Chapman was alert to contemporary ideas and issues, particularly on the subject of education; and he could be amazingly accurate in predicting their impact on American life. In 1905, for instance, he was applying his theory of commercialism to censure the schools for adopting the boom techniques of business enterprise.1 When in 1906 he heard talk that Roosevelt might be chosen the next president of Harvard, he saw what such a step would mean. Roosevelt, he told Owen Wister, would keep Harvard to the front— in the ordinary sense—that is in numbers, popularity, and general notoriety. . . . but as an influence on young men he is about the opposite of what we want. He represents, you might say, the reigning vices—glorying in being seen, Hurrah for us, Americanism of a magazine variety . . . and the settlement of questions by a sloppy emotionalism which turns to anger when confronted with world-old, world-deep, and world-near moral alternatives.2 By 1907 Chapman was zealously assailing his own alma mater for her money-raising circulars, done in the "language of display advertising." What he feared was that America's business interests might eventually threaten that freedom of the mind which he saw as the essential condition of any university's existence. Unquestionably, President Eliot had made Harvard bigger and richer. But—so Chapman informed William James: at the dedication of the New Medical School, Eliot goes about in a cab with Pierpont [Morgan], hangs laurel wreaths on his nose, and gives him his papal kiss. Now what I want to know is this—what has Eliot got to say to the young man entering business or politics . . . ? Can he say anything that will reverberate through the chambers of that young man's brain more loudly than that kiss? 3 Even before his convalescence was over, Chapman was bringing such charges to public attention. With the announcement of President Eliot's "Harvard Classics," he published an article in Science for October 1, 1909, to denounce the commercialism that would link Harvard's name with a money-making enterprise. He knew that the "Five-Foot Shelf" was not a cold-blooded scheme for lucre, that the trustees of the university sought to spread its influence, and that Eliot himself wished only to do good. T o Chapman, the venture nonetheless proved that those controlling Harvard were "very little else than business men, running a

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large department store which dispenses education to the millions." T o spread a little culture among the masses was benevolence, but it was not Harvard's "true mission." The reason for any university's existence is, declared Chapman, to be "a guide to the people in true scholarship, to be a light and not a false beacon to the half-educated." Let the universities compete among themselves to render social services to the populace and they will diminish the one thing they have in common: "a sentiment of reverence for intellect, a feeling of unity with the history of mankind." The people need honest dealing from their intellectuals, he protested; and it is imposture for any educational institution to advertise that culture is easy. These are only the first of the attacks he was henceforth to level against his alma mater. But Chapman's frequent attacks on Harvard are something more than those of a cantankerous and snobbish alumnus. He was a man of symbols, and he was always concerned with the greater problem behind any immediate one. Harvard was the symbol, or the handle, by which he grasped the bigger thing. He dealt with that university because he knew it best; and what he wrote of Harvard he would apply to all seats of higher learning in America. At any rate, in the piece on the "Harvard Classics," he laid down the principle by which as a critic he would try to live and work: "Loyalty to truth is a fine thing; but loyalty to anything else is an attack on truth." Of course, it is only when we look at Chapman's record from 1910 to 1914 that we can decide whether he has changed as a critic of American culture—or that we can assess the effect which the years of illness had upon him. The best place to begin is with the 1910 volume, Learning and Other Essays. One of the obvious things about the book is that its author's interests are the same as they were in the nineties. He is still concerned with the American mind. He is still writing about four different expressions of that mind: education, literature and critical theory, religion, and social and political issues. For this reason, the book is pivotal to the second half of Chapman's career. It is immediately evident in Learning and Other Essays that as a stylist Chapman's power has not diminished. He has the same lucidity, sting, and fire as in the 1890s. The manner is different now only in being more disciplined. Nor do the contents of Learning and Other Essays disappoint us. Here is the critic-agitator returning to the old and ever-

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new battles. Just as he did in the nineties, he still finds applications for the Emersonian strain in the American tradition; he defends the classics against imposters, deplores his country's inability to appreciate the necessity of liberal education to a democratic society, attacks scientism as a dogma, and is a foe of easy learning. In the nineties he had marked commercialism as the enemy of a vital cultural life; he finds it so in this period also. Indeed, it is hard to argue that the Chapman who emerges now is much changed from the earlier man, or that—as Wilson remarks —the issues he raises are "trivial or unreal." At least the reviewers took to the book with enthusiasm. For the New Yor% Times reviewer, Learning and Other Essays was charged with "a rapid series of faint galvanic shocks that leaves you more active than it found you, and you will find the real book growing within you after the printed one is closed." Chapman's way of pointing out a remedy for American materialism, he remarked, was "to fling burning texts at one, and force one to sermonize for himself." 4 Stuart P. Sherman, in the Nation, lauded Chapman's analysis of "the more dangerous tendencies" in American education, especially our "blind faith in educational machinery"; and he welcomed Chapman's protest against "the domination and subordination of the scholar by the business man." 5 James G . Crosswell, a scholar and teacher, affirmed in the Bookman that some of these essays "form the most considerable addition to the literature of educational discussion that has been made for a long time." 8 Earlier in the same journal, another reviewer—possibly Frank More Colby—was struck by the timeliness of the book: Mr. Chapman is very much alive to the issues of the moment and writes of them forcibly, and sometimes aggressively. Editorial writers would find a muchneeded stimulus in his pages, and might pluck up courage after reading them.7 Such reviews must have heartened Chapman; for as he moved back into productive work and the discussion of public questions, he probably had his moments of self-doubt. At any rate, friends like Bernard Berenson and Sir William Rothenstein seem at this period to have inspirited him. After Rothenstein's visit to Sylvania, Chapman wrote him: "What you have done for me in the way of inward encouragement you never can know." 8 Perhaps loneliness made Chapman want such support. Today his views on education might win for him more allies, but in 1910

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he was analyzing tendencies too little in evidence to disturb even farseeing readers. Superficially, his titular essay, "Learning," looks like the plea of an old-fashioned gentleman for a return to the classics. Yet the heart of Chapman's writings on education—as it was the heart of his "political" essays in the nineties—is his faith in the ability of the free and cultivated mind to guide the destinies of a democratic society. Striking the same note which T . S. Eliot was later to sound in his essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent," Chapman declares that the artist and thinker—or anyone bent on self-expression—can achieve originality only through mastery of traditional learning. But in America, says Chapman, the tradition of culture has encountered powerfully destructive elements. Towards explaining this anti-intellectualism he surveys our history. Although our Revolutionary W a r naturally made for some temporary cultural disadvantages, it was, according to Chapman, chiefly on the frontier where the artist and scholar lost status in society. Besides, while the dynamism and experimentation of American

life

were always driving the individual to develop self-reliance, they also put a strain on the private mind and tended to isolate it. T h e n in the nineteenth century democracy and applied science gave rise to a vast, new, and uneducated populace. Technology brought material well-being to these masses, but it could hardly bring to them the experience and refinements that accompanied the arts and crafts of the past. Meanwhile, as Chapman sees it, science became elevated to a position where it exercised a threat like that of the old religions: the tyrannical narrowness of a dogma. T o be sure, Chapman does not assail the disinterested search for truth which marks true science. Rather, he maintains that when science is not "hallowed by the spirit of religion," it can become "a mere extension of business." A n d the peculiar liaison which has formed between "the influence of business and the influence of uninspired science" he considers the great foe of education in the modern world—and especially in the United States. So the person disciplined only in business or only in science has no real education—for this reason: cut off from the humanistic traditions of the past, he is denied the ability to express the life of the feelings and to articulate the truths of spiritual things. In a word, poverty of culture means poverty of expressiveness. The year was 1910; and as he wrote Chapman was alive to a "liter-

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ary awakening . . . signifying a new era." Yet he worried that the coming writers would be frustrated in their work by lack of a rich tradition. For he saw that the American artist is handicapped by cultural poverty in the two extremes of his education: his home life in childhood and his experience in college. Familiarity with the arts must begin early: The whole future of civilization depends upon what is read to children before they can read to themselves. T h e world is powerless to reconvey itself through any mind that it has not lived in f r o m the beginning,—so hard is the language of symbols, whether in music, or in poetry, or in painting.

The thinness of our culture has not blocked the artist only; it has also imposed a handicap on any boy who seeks an education: A n ignorant man makes a fortune and demands the higher education for his children. But it is too late; he should have given it to them when he was in his shirt sleeves. A l l that they are able to receive now is something very different from education.

As to the superior student: "young men are born whom nothing will satisfy except the arts and sciences." Though "society does not create this hunger," society is responsible for nourishing it: This exalted famine of the young scholar is the hope of the world. It is religion and art and science in the chrysalis. The thing which society must beware of doing is of interposing between the young learner and his natural food some mechanical product or patent food of its own.

Because he realized that to acquire a taste for this "natural food" of the mind and heart is difficult enough, Chapman points to what was then a new and "strange thing" happening in our schools: The teachers wish to make learning easy. They desire to prepare and peptonize and sweeten the food. Their little books are soft biscuit for weak teeth, easy reading on great subjects; but these books are filled with a pervading error: they contain a subtle perversion of education.

Too often Americans forget that "the steps to Parnassus are steep and terribly arduous"—although in architecture and painting we have gone willingly to Europe for training. Chapman, however, is not at all recommending "subserviency to Europe," but "subserviency to intellect"; for his prescription is that "our scholars must absorb Europe without themselves being absorbed." Institutions of higher learning ought to be the very centers of "subservi-

H O L D F A S T T H A T W H I C H IS G O O D ency to intellect." Y e t , as C h a p m a n

surveys

American

187 colleges

and

universities, he is obliged to indict them f o r treason. U n d e r the guise of g u a r d i a n angels, they are really becoming destroyers of m i n d — a n d ironically, in all innocence. T h i s is c o m i n g about as they yield, step by step, to the philosophy that "the advancement of material interests constitutes civilization." In practice, they are aping business m e t h o d s : T h e y advertise, they compete with each other, they pretend to give good value to their customers. They desire to increase their trade, they offer social advantages and business openings to their patrons. A s f a r back as 1 9 1 0 C h a p m a n laid before us the real issue: This miscarriage of education has been developed and is being conducted by some of our greatest educators, through a perfectly unconscious adaptation of their own souls to the spirit of the age. T h e underlying philosophy of these men might be stated as follows: " T h e r e is nothing in life nobler than for a man to improve his condition and the condition of his children. Learning is a means to this end." Such is the current American conception of education. H o w far we have departed from the idea of education as a search for truth, or as a vehicle of spiritual expression, may be seen herein. T h e scepticism inherent in the new creed is concealed by its benevolence. Y o u wish to help the American youth. This unfortunate, benighted, ignorant boy, who has from his cradle heard of nothing but business success as the one goal of all human effort, turns to you for instruction. He comes to you in a trusting spirit, with reverence in his heart, and you answer his hope in this wise: "Business and social success are the best things that life affords. Come to us, my dear fellow, and we will help you toward them." . . . It would have been better for that boy if he had never come to your college, for in that case he might have retained a belief that somewhere in the world there existed ideas, art, enthusiasm, unselfishness, inspiring activity. T h e more nearly our universities turn into business agencies, the more they lose "their imaginative importance." Of course, says C h a p m a n , w e A m e r i c a n s still consider " a dash and varnish of education" desirable. B u t since basically w e regard learning as " a useful c o m m o d i t y which is to be distributed for the personal advantage of the recipients, it is a thing to be paid for rather than w o r s h i p p e d . " B y blind drifting, by lack of foresight, the educators, C h a p m a n predicted, w o u l d someday reach an impasse. F o r , once the A m e r i c a n people discover that liberal education is not a " c o m m e r c i a l asset," they will see no " e x c u s e " for retaining it; and then, "they will force the colleges to live up to the advertisements a n d to f u r n i s h the k i n d of education that pays

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its way." T h e truth, says Chapman, is that higher education does not— except incidentally and accidentally—advance one's personal interests. " W h a t it gives a man is the power of expression; but ability to express himself has kept many a man poor." T o Chapman, then, a utilitarian philosophy, born of the union of commercialism

with

unhallowed

science, might so dominate

higher

learning in America as ultimately to destroy liberal education. Again, he was not calling for a return to the past. On the contrary, he wanted the new century to cast off the commercial tyranny it had inherited from Victorian times. T h e reform era during which he offered this critique buoyed him enough to hope that the problem would be grasped by the intellectuals and that the ferment of the times would stir the universities. His optimism seems out of the question today, but his plea to our institutions of higher learning and his faith in our children are as valid now as then: If our colleges will but allow something unselfish, something that is true for its own sake, something that is part of the history of the human heart and intellect to live in their classrooms, the boys will find their way to it. In the second essay in this volume, "Professorial Ethics," Chapman addresses both the public at large and that anomalous American citizen, the academic. H e aims to start what has never existed between the two —a clear and fruitful line of communication. This public of course seldom hears of it when a promising young college teacher is discharged from his post—or knows or cares about the reasons for such dismissals. T h e usual cause of these "judicial murders" in the groves of Academe, Chapman explains, is that the victims fail to conform to the academic machine. T h e development of this machine Chapman sees as part of the recent history of America. That is, while American society has since 1870 been reorganizing, our colleges and universities have also been speedily transformed. T h e y have been expanded, and new ones created, on money coming directly from our commercial and industrial enterprises. Those who engineered this academic revolution were men chosen by the business world: As the Boss has been the tool of the business man in politics, so the College president has been his agent in education. The colleges during this epoch. . . . have been manned and commissioned for a certain kind of service, as you might man a fishing-smack to catch herring. There has been so much necessary

HOLD FAST THAT

WHICH

IS G O O D

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business—the business of expanding and planning, of adapting and remodeling —that there has been no time f o r education. S o m e big deal has always been p e n d i n g in each college—some consolidation of departments, some annexation of a n e w w o r l d — s o m e t h i n g so momentous as to m a k e private opinion a nuisance. In this regard the colleges have . . . simply not been different f r o m the rest of A m e r i c a n life. T h e results of our A m e r i c a n genius for big organization are palpable to everybody. But in the midst of our self-congratulation, w h a t has become of certain intangibles? Let a man express an opinion at a party caucus, or at a railroad directors' meeting, or at a college faculty meeting, and he will find that he is speaking against a predetermined force. W h a t shall w e do with such a f e l l o w ? Well, if he is old and distinguished, you may suffer h i m to have his say, and then override h i m . B u t if he is young, energetic, and likely to g i v e more trouble, you must eject him with as little fuss as the circumstances will permit. In other words—just

as in politics—the critical-minded man

with

"a

horizon of w h a t 'ought to b e ' " has been the " g r a i n of sand in the college machine." B y hiring the safe mediocrity, the dean or department head is secure against criticism by his administrators. Such, in C h a p m a n ' s view, is "the great general trend of influences" since the Civil W a r . O n e feature of this trend has been the emergence in our colleges of men whose special talents as administrators " h a v e been developed at the expense of their taste for learning." T h e s e men became college presidents; and "as toward their faculties they have been autocrats, because the age has demanded autocracy here; as toward the millionaire

they

sycophancy

have

been

sycophants,

here." But C h a p m a n

because

the age

has

brands neither the college

demanded president

nor the millionaire as the villain of the piece. A s he analyzes the problem, he sees rather— a coil of influence emanating f r o m the great public, and w i n d i n g u p — a n d generally w i n d i n g up very tight—about the necks of our college faculties and professional scholars. T h e millionaire and the college president are simply middle m e n , w h o transmit the pressure f r o m the average citizen to the learned classes. W h a t the average citizen desires to have done in education gets itself accomplished, though the process should involve the extinction of the race of educated gentlemen. Chapman

admits he has no guaranteed

way

to u n w i n d

"this

boa

constrictor of ignorant public opinion." H e does, however, accuse the

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learned men and the professors, as "the natural custodians of education," of having dodged their proper responsibility: The average professor in an American college will look on at an act of injustice done to a brother professor by their college president, with the same unconcern as the rabbit who is not attacked watches the ferret pursue his brother up and down through the warren, to predestinate and horrible death. We know, of course, that it would cost the non-attacked rabbit his place to express sympathy for the martyr; and the non-attacked is poor, and has offspring, and hopes of advancement. T h e question is not so much one of general ethics as of "a special theory of professorial

ethics":

It seems to me that there exists a special prohibitory code, which prevents the college professor from using his reason and his pen as actively as he ought in protecting himself, in pushing his interests, and in enlightening the community about our educational abuses. The professor in America seems to think that self-respect requires silence and discretion on his part. He is too great to descend into the arena. He thinks that by nursing this gigantic reverence for the idea of professordom, such reverence will, somehow, be extended all over society, till the professor becomes a creature of power. . . . In the meantime, the professor is trampled upon, his interests are ignored, he is overworked and underpaid, he is of small social consequence, he is kept at menial employments, and the leisure to do good work is denied him. T h e needed change can come, Chapman believes, only when the American people is enlightened. Towards this end, the professor, with "willingness to speak and to fight for himself," must "in all ways and on all occasions" appeal to the public. H e "must teach the nation to respect learning and to understand the function and the rights of the learned classes." Whatever security and authority the English or Continental scholar has is based on the support he gets from the public. In America, too, thinks Chapman, only the public can protect the professor. Meanwhile Chapman is appalled at faculty members who with dumb reticence can sit and watch the things of the mind and spirit devaluated —because of a peculiar conception of their vocation and because of ethical notions that prevent them from "interfering with the practical running of the college." "Merciful heavens!" cries Chapman, " w h o is to run a college if not the learned men? Our colleges have been handled by men whose ideals were as remote from scholarship as the ideals of the N e w York theatrical managers are remote from poetry." Against "the

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general atmospheric ignorance of the great public in America," not only legitimate personal ambition but also public duty should impel the professors to fight as "a host of battlers for the cause." For whom large? Are the people supporting

do these universities exist, after all? Is it not for the people at not the people the ultimate beneficiaries? Then why should not be immediately instructed in such manner as will lead to their true universities?

Are the professors right to suppose that fighting is beneath their dignity? "Whatever a man's calling," Chapman answers them, "it is not beneath him to make a fight for the truth." By themselves, of course, "Learning" and "Professorial Ethics" are not enough to erase the impression that after the turn of the century Chapman was "withdrawn from contemporary life." At the very least, though, their author seems to have been disconcertingly right in some of his predictions. In these two essays we have the core of Chapman's thought on higher education in America. On this subject for the rest of his life he frequently sought the public ear in speeches and in articles. For instance, the next year, in June of 1911, he gave an address at little St. Stephens College on the Hudson.9 Hoping that such smaller schools could escape the bigness and busyness of the universities, he cautioned against their control by any institution, even by an affiliated church. Though St. Stephens was poor, Chapman warned it not to seek financial help from any source that could leave behind a "sense of restrictive obligation toward particular persons, or interests, or ideas." The same admonition was the theme of the Phi Beta Kappa poem he read at Harvard the following June. In a short piece for the Educational Review, in 1913, 10 he pointed out an inherent danger to democracy if our schools became indifferent to the student of "exceptional talent." Chapman's trust is in the brains and hearts of human beings, not in tinkering with schedules and looking for gimmicks. The teachers, he affirmed, are "in process of development, and give they know not what. They give themselves, really—their ideas and aspirations, their faiths and languages. The curriculum is an illusion through which the process goes on." Chapman saw, too, what it takes even the wise teacher a long time to learn—that students need freedom in the learning process. T o Dr. Samuel S. Drury, headmaster of St. Paul's School, he wrote:

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Let 'em alone. Don't worry about them. Give them a chance but don't try to cram them—don't want to. This is the besetting sin of educators—to want to do too much—to think that they have got to do something and work over and pull wires in people. In the last analysis no one does anything—but merely allows force, nature and God to operate.11 Faith in intellect, hostility to every form of tyranny over the human mind, impatience with machinery, skepticism as to mere methods, reliance on mastery of traditional learning, recognition of the need for an enlightened public—these are the central ideas of Chapman's educational writings. They are likewise important to his literary studies during this period. For half of the dozen papers in Learning and Other Essays are literary criticism. Among these, "The Drama" is a notable essay. Not until nearly a decade after its publication can we say that the modern theater arrived in America—despite the experiments of William Vaughan Moody and the training of playwrights then going on at Harvard in Professor George Pierce Baker's "47 Workshop." Chapman's discussion of problems facing the potential dramatist is marked by forward-looking wisdom. As in "Learning," his approach is traditionalist; and he argues that if American playwrights are to bring life and art to our theater, they must understand and make use of the great dramatic traditions of the past. The American lacks an advantage the European has—long experience in the arts and generations of practical training within the profession of the theater. The want of schools of art comparable to those on the Continent also impels the American playwright to make the present moment "continually too important." A third obstacle besetting the American is that, living in an "epoch of miscellaneous experiment," he has no audience which can share with him a set of theatrical conventions. Since things done and said on the stage must be obvious and easy enough to follow that the audience's attention is not worn out in merely getting its bearings, the dramatist has to provide "a grand cue . . . as to which kind of play is coming." In Europe the critics have helped to supply such cues by priming audiences to accept the new departures in drama. Criticism of this sort Chapman describes as "the articulate utterance of those conventions, those assumptions, and prejudices which must accompany and support any drama in the mind of the audience, and which in sim-

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pier ages hardly needed statement, because they were established." But criticism of itself, he is certain, will not bring about the birth of a genuine American drama. Critics may be valuable to the audience, but they are of little use to the playwright. For the critic employs one language, the artist another; and even were the artist to follow the critic's ideas, he must retranslate them into the symbols of his own art. A further handicap to serious American drama is the bias of commercialism; professional theater people argue that they must always make concessions to what public taste will support. T h e y feel, says Chapman, that the "reformer" should be satisfied with giving the public only an occasional taste of excellence. His own dream, however, is of an "educational theatre"; and he declares his faith: "Give the best, and it will supplant the less good." Believing that the art of the theater should be not descriptive but evocative and holding that the power of a play comes from its inward reality and has to do with the life and feelings of the audience, Chapman brands photographic realism as the vehicle for people with enfeebled imaginations: We may, then, measure the life in people's fancy by the weight of suggestion which is required to awaken them—a feather of imagery, or a cannonball of actuality. . . . The recent realism seen on our stage shows a deadness of wit in our life— the sad, unresponsive seriousness of persons who do not habitually live in the world of imagination. That world seems flat to them. Nevertheless, the same persons will, with a little encouragement, begin to enjoy humor, and trust poetry. T h e notion that poetry is impossible for drama is held, says Chapman, only by persons who have never heard poetry well recited. T h e truth is that poetry can lift a play "into a region native to great thoughts, where lightnings strike, as in their element, and music like a natural thunder rolls across the scene." T h e "majestic conventions of verse" will return to drama "as soon as those themes return which only verse can carry." T h e conventions of the past can also teach us that the proper use of accessories and decor is only to create "an atmosphere of high conductivity" between the dramatic idea and the audience. T h e denudation of the Greek theater, the f e w properties of the Elizabethan, the meagerness of decoration on the French classic stage—these point the way. It was of course more than a decade after Chapman wrote this that such imagina-

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tive minimizing of decor—and then by way of European expressionism —appeared in our theater. How well he posed the general problem of the verse plays that were to come we can recognize in the successes and failures of such dramatists as Maxwell Anderson and T . S. Eliot. It was Chapman's prediction that out of an amateur movement would emerge a modern American theater. And so it did: five years after the publication of this essay, the Provincetown Players were to organize and to provide work for a young man named Eugene O'Neill. Another essay on drama is titled "Norway." It is a tiny jeu d'esprit that offers a valid critique of Ibsen. Chapman's point is that, despite Ibsen's pathfinding in modern drama, the materials of his tragic world are usually cramped and commonplace. Like Saintsbury, Chapman argues that Ibsen is, after all, parochial; and that those who uncritically admire him are deficient in a sense of humor and blinded by their revolt against the past. "Jesters," the next paper in Learning and Other Essays is spoiled by Chapman's bias. Though he tries to disarm us by calling his opinions "the tapping of a staff of a blind man," he is nevertheless satisfied to set down, without justifying it, that Shaw and Chesterton are only "buffoons" who are moving with the show and will pass with it. He admits that at the start these two had "to break the crust of the public with . . . pungency"; but by this date they have, he feels, yielded to the public demand for sensationalism and continue to "sting themselves into notice" when that is no longer necessary. Chapman disappoints us here for two reasons. He has nothing to say about the contents of these writers. Second, and less forgivable, he deprecates a method whose use for his own purposes he had been defending barely a decade before. Three years later, in Harper's Weekly, Chapman more fully expressed his views on "Shaw and the Modern Drama." 12 The immediate animus for the article was a performance of Fanny's First Play, which Chapman had attended with mixed feelings. His feelings towards the author are even more mixed. On the one hand, he praises Shaw for his sincerity, for his being "the kindliest of men," and for his having banished "the fluffy mediocrity of the old plays and of the old-style acting." On the other hand, he blames Shaw for wanting "merely to get heard and to make money," for being too much the preacher, and for having acquired

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the "somewhat loathsome touch of the social reformer who has worn off the fine edge of his feelings by contact with grossness." He further accuses Shaw of seeming satisfied merely to present "the irreconcilable conflicts in the world of morality." When Shaw treats adultery, declares Chapman ("and it is his favorite theme"), he seems to "soil the whole of human nature." In fact, we are told, Shaw's popularity depends on precisely this kind of crudity: We must have mustard at every course. We like the butter to be a little rancid, and humor seems flat unless it contains just a little tang of doubt as to the fundamental truth of virtue and honor. N o w what really fifteen young girls, had sat in the row century confusion,"

upset Chapman about Fanny's First Play was the a graduating class from a fashionable school, who in front of him, "devoured all this medley of 20thand giggled at every reference to adultery.

The expression of their faces—which, by the way, are often painted—is what the older dramatists would have designated as "wanton." And yet a baby freshness and youthful emptiness peeps through the veneer of crime. . . . I suspect that, at maturity, some of these girls may be found in the divorce courts. One is shocked here at Chapman's old-fogeyness, at his fear of something vicious in the sex-consciousness of adolescents. Was he himself to become like the Mrs. Phelps against whose uneasy prudery he had lashed in the 1890s? His friend, James G . Crosswell, scholarly headmaster of a girls' school in New York and one of Chapman's best private critics, advised him against publishing this piece—because he was printing things about "giggling girls" which were not true and because the essay was too brief to get to the root of the matter. 13 But the British poet, Alfred Noyes, wrote of his delight with the attack on the "increasing demand for 'piquancy' in all branches of a r t " ; 1 4 and though William Dean Howells esteemed some of Shaw's work, he sent Chapman his approval also. 15 Whatever the reason, Chapman's view of Shaw is marked by ambivalence. In this essay he granted Shaw's sincerity. Four months later, in a letter to his playwright friend Langdon Mitchell, he damned Shaw outright for his "heavy English hypocrisy—he must be a prophet—society demands it of him." 1 0 Since Shaw and Chapman shared so much and

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sincc there is no rational explanation why Chapman could never abide Shaw, the reason must lie hidden in emotion—perhaps

unconscious

envy. Completely free from any distortion, personal or other, is Chapman's discussion of " T h e Aesthetic." Here he distinguishes two functions in the psychology of art: the "creative" and the "enjoying." T h e first function concerns the artist; the enjoying function concerns the aesthete, the critic, and the public. While he is at work, says Chapman, the artist must be neither an enjoyer nor a spectator, but "wholly creator." That is, his "aesthetic sense" must then be inactive—or, rather, "it must be consumed in the furnace of unconscious intellectual effort." H e admits that in some great poets, like Dante and Goethe, we meet "a selfconscious, self-appreciatory note"; but their works prevail in spite of that element. T h e lesson for the practicing artist is this: he must so trust his material and so yield himself to its complexities and to its "organic inner logic" that he is no longer aware of his technical proficiency and no longer tries to judge his own success. A s for the enjoyment of art and the cultivation of the aesthetic sense, Chapman holds that it is the lesser function, since "it is not through receptivity, but through activity, that men are changed." L i v e solely to appreciate the fine arts and you will make yourself a trivial person—a result Chapman notes in the expatriate American turned aesthete. His love of fine things only enfeebles such a man, because "he has divorced himself from the struggles of normal social existence, from communal life and duty." On the brighter side, however, Chapman sees a use for the aesthete in America. By introducing new arts from abroad or by reviving old ones, the aesthete may prove himself "the precursor of the domestic artist." "Notes on the Teaching of Art"—which first appeared as a newspaper article in the summer of 1913

17

—treats of the relation between the un-

conscious mind of the artist and that conscious discipline he undergoes on his way toward the mastery of his medium. Intensive training, says Chapman, may not impair the originality of the great artist; and yet from his earliest years such a man has probably never taken in more than he could digest. Because, generally speaking, discipline in the arts must be piecemeal and analytical, Chapman points to a danger which is always present: the teacher must never break up an art into so many parts that the student is ever afterwards unable to experience it as a

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unity. A s to young learners who are unsure of themselves, yearn to make art easy, and want to cling to rules, Chapman's reminder is that rules as such must never stand between our impulse and our expression; they are no more than "mnemonic aids to indicate the whereabouts of certain invisible and unimaginable forces." T h i s is why the student must be brought to understand that "the rule is not the truth, but merely an easy way of recalling the truth." Naturally, Chapman was well aware that the magic of a fine work of art does not derive from mere technique. H e is nevertheless certain that "remote spiritual interests" are vitally related to "great diligence in technical matters." He puts it in the form of a paradox: " T h e handling of difficulties seems to be the road to facilities. . . . T h e limitations— namely, those very conditions

which constitute technique—give

rise

through compression to the soul of the work." A f t e r the long years of drudgery which make up the artist's education— at last nature brings her gifts on a silver salver to the perfect artist and puts her words in his mouth. He thinks he is merely pursuing the solution of a problem, and, in effect, he is unrolling the hidden tapestries of his own soul. W h e n such an artist arrives, no one, says Chapman, can know or imagine what portions of his work w e ought to consider technical and what portions nontechnical. In the training it offers, the art school has the responsibility not merely to foster the development of the artist as artist but also to send out a person whose mind has been liberalized through apprenticeship in art. Chapman shows uncommon insight when he argues here that the methods for training both the artist and the scientist should be basically the same. Each should be disciplined "through successive original investigations tempered by text books." The psychological problem is the same in the study of science as of art—to keep the old formulations fluid, to possess them and use them, without being possessed or ruled by them. In the realm of science and of art, nothing is fact, all is hypothesis, all is symbol. T h e idea of disciplining and at the same time liberating the creative imagination Chapman developed further in " A r t and Art Schools," an address he delivered in June, 1914, on the occasion of the forty-eighth anniversary of the Yale School of Fine Arts. 1 8 T h e first essential step in

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America's coming-of-age, he told his audience, is to cast off "certain bad habits of thought" which the nineteenth century has foisted upon the world. The scientism of that century brought to the fore a peculiar critical spirit which has blighted creativity. That age forgot that "the natural language of humanity is art"; its faith was that by research and theorizing truth could be seized and put up "into linear and enduring prose." What such an illusion has done is to petrify art, make a preacher out of the poet, and turn the novelist and playwright to work at social problems. Chapman believes that much of nineteenth-century art "lacks resonance and is equivocal, because it has been made by men whose faith in their own vehicle was on the wane." He tells us that we shall have to escape our thralldom to scientism, conscious or unconscious, if our artists are to be freed to do their proper work. Furthermore, to foster the artist of the future, we Americans, Chapman thinks, will have to go against our popular notion of higher education. We must learn that "the best thing we can do for the average mind is to give exceptional advantages to the exceptional mind." And, lest the humanitarians of the progressive era should overlook this truth, Chapman reminded them that the exceptional mind, the great artist, is "the most educative influence upon the globe"—even though he is indifferent to improving other people. "He cares for truth, and leaves that to do the work." How the artist's care for truth does its work in the medium of comedy is the subject of another study in Learning and Other Essays. Humorist and wit that he is, Chapman can speak with special authority about "The Comic." Apparently, his starting point had been dissatisfaction with Henri Bergson's Le Rire. Bergson, he avowed, had discussed not the comic but only the French comic. Besides, Chapman was sure that no one can explain comedy, because it is always "a gorgeous, happy, spontaneous, enduring mystery." 1 9 Nor does he himself try to explain it. Rather, his "few stray observations" comprise his own declaration of faith in the comic. In that faith, Aristophanes is evidently one of Chapman's canonized saints: Compared to Aristophanes, Shakespeare is not funny; he lacks size. He is a great and thoughtful person, of superabundant genius and charm, who makes Dutch interiors, drenched in light. But Aristophanes splits the heavens with a jest, and the rays of truth stream down from inaccessible solitudes of speculation. He has no epigram, no cleverness, no derivative humor. His is bald

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foolery. And yet he conveys mysticism; he conveys divinity. He alone stands still while the whole empyrean of Greek life circles about him. According

to Chapman,

it might

have been

Plato's

response

to

Aristophanes' comic power which led the philosopher to remark that the genius of comedy and tragedy are the same. All of us have known of course those "almost sublime" moments of self-delusion in comedy that suggest the tragic; and again, we are sometimes tempted to laugh at a high moment in tragedy. Both comedy and tragedy, then, deal with "the helplessness of mankind before destiny"; comedy illustrates "the fatality of character" on a small scale, tragedy on a large scale. A s Chapman understands them, both comedy and tragedy also have "divine affinities"; both imply that human conduct is relevant to "the moral constitution of the universe." A f t e r more than two millenniums, Aristophanes can speak to us as a modern, Chapman declares. For this he has a suggestive explanation. H e reminds us that between ourselves and ancient Greece there has intervened the Middle Ages, when Hebraic thought was all-pervasive; so we can never treat Greek culture on a genuinely Greek basis but must always look upon the ancient Mediterranean world "with Hebrew eyes." W e have been steeped in a Judaic and Christian philosophy in which the comic is foreign—at least the Bible makes upon us "the impression of a race devoid of humor." A n d yet since Aristophanes can still blast through our solemness and make us laugh, we must conclude that we are moved by a power which transcends something in our Christian religion. For in Aristophanes we have— a kind of laughter that makes the whole universe throb. It has in it the immediate flash of the power of God. We can no more understand it than we can understand other religious truth. It reminds us that we are not wholly Jew. There is a light in the world that does not come from Israel; nevertheless, that this is a part of the same light that shines through Israel we surely know. W e need not accept the mystical element here to follow Chapman's ideas on the comic medium. All human expression, he believes, involves a certain amount of mystery. Accordingly, he argues that whenever we try to express "the profoundest truths" of life we can never state them exactly but can only allude to them. Because they understand this so well, the seers, poets, and prophets have always had to speak in paradoxes. Comedy speaks to us in the same w a y :

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The comic is about the most durable vehicle that truth has ever found. It pretends to deal with momentary interests in terms of farce and exaggeration; and yet it leaves an image that strikes deeper and lasts longer than philosophy . . . . It pretends only to allude to the truth, and by this method makes a directer appeal to experience than any attempted statement of truth can make. Recognizing a common force at work in the inspiration of the poet, in the absorption of the religious person in the will of God, and in "a commonplace of modern scientific psychology [i.e.,] that unconsciousness accompanies high intellectual activity," Chapman takes the next step and asserts that consciousness may well be "resistance to the current of life." On the other hand, "the maximum of intellectual power will be the maximum of unimpeded, unconscious activity." T h e creative value of comedy, then, is in its appeal to our unconscious: whatever laughter may be in itself—laughter will be most strongly called forth by anything that merely calls and vanishes. Such things are jokes, burlesques, humor. They state nothing: they assume inaccuracy: they cry aloud and vanish, leaving the hearer to become awakened to his own thoughts. T h e soul of man, Chapman was convinced, must be fed on the Bible and the ancient classics. His familiarity with the latter is suggested of course in " T h e C o m i c . " 2 0 H e had begun the study of Greek and Latin as a schoolboy and had continued it through college. After 1901 he again turned to this study, to find translating good as therapy and to discover that his own efforts at playwriting gave him fresh insights into Greek drama. Once Chapman had remarked that Emerson was probably "the last great writer who will fling about classic anecdotes as if they were club gossip." T h e same jauntiness, however, lives on in Chapman and comes out in letters like this one, written to Miss Grace Norton in 1913: The first thing that strikes me in the Greek is its nudity—and then its joreignness. What a shameless, outrageous people. And their religion—what a lot of rot is talked by the moderns about Greek religion. Why, the clever people in Greece, with the single exception of Aeschylus, regarded religion as the material for amusement. Plato for talk, Sophocles for drama, Euripides for pathos, Aristophanes for laughter. You'll say I talk like a fool—I admit it. I am only telling how the Greeks appear to me. I think the Greek person of education and genius is a sardonic person—not as cavalier as Voltaire—but of that bent. He is looking for fun—or, say, effects. He is seeing what can be done with his material . . . through following out aesthetic laws. . . . the result of subtle architectonic collocations of idea. They mean, you might say,

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nothing. They suggest, you might say, anything. No wonder they worry the moderns—as Shakespeare so long worried the Germans. I think I could take the Alcestis or the Bacchi—or any dialogue of Plato—and show that its points were dramatic—or dialectic—never ontological. The Greek was indifferent to truth. He had not the patience nor the mood for it. . . . Irony is the keynote of the Greek mind. 21 A little later he told his friend H . O. T a y l o r : As for the candied buncomb of Pericles's speeches, which have been the prolegomena of the nineteenth century view of the Greeks, you might as well take Edward Everett's speeches on the revolutionary fathers as a view of America. The difference is only in form. . . . Truly viewed, they show up the Greeks. 22 In these jottings are the seeds of Chapman's later studies of the Greeks. In effect, he is insisting that none of us can be positive in our understanding of a culture so remote as that of the Greeks. N o debunker, Chapman admired Greek genius as much as most of us do. T o be sure, his own metaphysical bias blinded him to Greek contributions to Western philosophy; and his humanistic bias prevented him from appreciating the legacy of Greece to modern science. But to Greek literature and moral wisdom be brought the wealth of his own spiritual experience and his wide knowledge of English, French, and German classics. When he protests that the Greeks are not interested in truth, he means, largely, moral and religious truth; that they have not the spiritual depth, the heart, of the ancient Jews. Besides, since he was fairly sure that no civilization is ever perfect, he simply refused to believe that the Greeks, however mighty their achievement and however lasting their influence, could have attained in actual life a perfection the like of which the rest of the world has never known. H e strongly suspected that the Greeks were not much different from the rest of mankind. A n d he resented as false and sentimental the rapt idealization of all things Greek. If the Greeks dwindle under Chapman's gaze, it is not that he would deprive them of stature, but that he would get them into human proportions. For it is the human Greek—and the humanism of the Greeks— that Chapman values. It is this which he says we dare not discard from any scheme of education which we call liberal. In 1913, at a time when schools and colleges were preparing to shove aside the classics, he guessed that the trouble was not with the classics but with the way they were

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taught. In " G r e e k as P l e a s u r e , " 2 3 an article he printed that year in the Boston Evening

Transcript,

he lambastes the old-time grammarian's ap-

proach to G r e e k and L a t i n . L e t anyone read ten pages of English in the manner in w h i c h the schoolboy is forced to sweat over G r e e k and Latin, and he will k n o w w h y the boy drops these dead languages as quickly as possible: For some deep psychological reason the best books to construe are often dull books. Perhaps an amusing book might distract the student's attention. Caesar's Commentaries is the dullest book in Latin. It is like making a road to read it. It is not a book; it is a stone-crushing machine. T h e teacher, a two-dollar-aday-man, stands beside the machine and runs it. And this is the Classics. Instead of this, w h y not encourage the student to read, asks C h a p m a n , and to read always for the sense, in the natural way that a child learns its native tongue? T h e rules of g r a m m a r he can glean along the w a y ; for g r a m m a r can close doors as surely as it can open them. In concluding this essay w i t h the words, " L e t us shut our guide books, and look at the works and fragments of antiquity w i t h all our eyes," C h a p m a n reveals the view w h i c h is basic to all that he was to write about the classics in the next three decades. The

first

result of f o l l o w i n g his o w n

a poetic invitation to a great epic. Homeric well and the Wrath of Achilles,

recommendation is, happily, Scenes, subtitled Hector's

Fare-

a small volume completed in A p r i l , 1914,

is really the Iliad in epitome. A n y reader w h o has shied away f r o m the Iliad will, if he chances on this version, very likely seek out H o m e r to see w h a t he has been missing. Years later C h a p m a n wrote, " T h i s I printed myself, and I have bushels of them. I think it my best thing; never noticed or reviewed a n y w h e r e . " H e was w r o n g ; for Homeric

Scenes

had

no fewer than a d o z e n reviews, nearly all of them favorable. In the Nation,

for example, the "thin and unpretentious little v o l u m e "

praised for the "purity and vigor of its E n g l i s h " ; and the thought "it might even be effective in the theatre."

24

was

reviewer

It must have pleased

C h a p m a n that Greekists like G e o r g e Herbert Palmer and Crosswell and a dramatist like L a n g d o n Mitchell also thought highly of w h a t he had done. 2 5 Chapman's procedure is to offer in dramatic form seven scenes f r o m the Iliad. In robust and readable blank verse, that does not attempt literal translation but amounts to a marvel of condensation, C h a p m a n carries

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the reader steadily and easily through the central narrative. Naturally his seventy-three pages cannot hold the power and scope of the original; but what we have here is a diamond chip so skillfully cut that its reflected lights somehow suggest the epic sweep and force of Homer. Most of what Chapman published on the Greeks comes later in his career. The same is true of his writings on religion. Yet two or three essays on religion and a letter or two dating from this period throw some light on the central questions of this chapter: has Chapman turned to the past? and to what degree is he isolated from important issues then facing America? "The Influence of Schools," one of the papers in Learning and Other Essays, has already provided us with some insights into the nature of Chapman's emotional ills. Its subject, it will be recalled, is St. Paul's School. What gives to this curiously confessional essay an interest that is more than psychological is Chapman's sentimentalizing over that school. We can understand why he should value St. Paul's for remaining untouched by the commercialism of the times. We nevertheless refuse to respect Chapman for the old-school-tie attitude he reveals here. He seems also to want to dream of that school as a place—or a symbol—from out of a better, purer, simpler past—"a society of the sanctuary," where "no opposing or critical influence could enter"! Clearly, then, we have here, as in Chapman's views on Shaw, a tendency to retreat into the past. It is, however, a tendency merely and by no means the whole story—not even in this essay. For Chapman has devoted some hard thinking to the puzzle of Dr. Coit's character and—more important—to the religious significance of personalities like Coit's. In effect, he tries to answer this question: how is it that a man who is rigid, narrow, autocratic, full of hostility, and capable of only very imperfect communication with other human beings, can at the same time burn with religious and moral zeal and subscribe to Christ's teachings? To be sure, Chapman's explanation is more religious than psychological. He likens Dr. Coit to the type of "the tyrantfounder-saint" of the Middle Ages—say, St. Bernard. Judged by the New Testament, such a man, in Chapman's view, is only partly converted to Christianity; the rest of him is "Tartar." His unconverted part makes the man a tyrant, a creature of "unfaith" who relies on "bolts and bars." "At the worst, these enthusiasts are schemers, unscrupulous, crafty, and

204

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cruel," writes Chapman. " A t the best they are merely opinionated, arbitrary, and lonely men." As to just how Christianity has given rise to "this peculiar kind of tyrant," Chapman offers an interesting explanation: It seems as if any formulation of spiritual truth, uttered by a higher intelligence, were apt to act as an astringent upon the lower intelligence. The bread of life poisons many men. The formula means more than the neophyte is able to understand; and this overplus of meaning stimulates him to fierceness. . . . At any rate, the fact remains that Christ's gentlest words have, as he predicted, become fire and sword in the world, and that through this fire and sword truth spreads. Somewhere in Learning and Other Essays Chapman explains his position on the philosophical problem of the One and the Many: "What we see is illusion: what we say is illusion. The reality is behind all; and we neither see it nor say it but only feel it." Such a view may include the mystic as well as the skeptic. It was of course the mystic in him which drew Chapman to such a book as Thomas a Kempis's Imitation of Christ. In a letter of 1912 he noted that this medieval mystic, like Emerson, appealed to the individual to cultivate his inner life. About a year afterwards, in a letter to a friend, Chapman revealed the sort of skeptic he was. His subject was Montaigne—the Apologie de Raimond Sebonde. "It is really the greatest philosophic thing ever written," he exclaims. "It holds water. No other philosophic treatise does that I ever read." So deep is Montaigne's skepticism, according to Chapman, that "to go beyond it, you must build upon it—and nothing but mystical truth will stand on it." 2 9 But not all expressions of mystical truth suited Chapman's own predilections. Early in 1913, for instance, he talked with Rabindranath Tagore. T o William Rothenstein, the friend who had arranged the meeting, Chapman gave this account of his impressions: I went to see Tagore with reluctance. He telephoned me with reluctance. He doesn't want to sec anyone, and I don't want to see a man whose seclusion is so self-conscious and who is a little afraid. But both of us "done noble" for the sake of Rothenstein, and come together, and bore with each other for half an hour—and I am extremely delighted to have looked at him, and profoundly moved with the reality of his power and his relationship to the unseen. He is a little unhealthy. His voice is falsetto, and his moral being, hot house. I speak as a fool, of course; because, what do I know?

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Abdul Baha—if that is the right name, the Persian—happened to be here in the autumn and by some accident I went to see him. (It's a funny business to be in—visiting prophets—and was accident in both cases.) Well, I liked Abdul the better of the two. He could sit in the sun and talk to children. . . . But this Indian was specialized. . . . I looked upon him with wonder and enthusiasm, but with a little repulsion too—not that either, but rather as one feels towards a very luxurious invalid. 27 Plainly Chapman's mysticism is of the Western variety. Its kinship with Emerson's faith in the Over-Soul he made clear in " T h e Function of the Church School," another talk given at St. Paul's. 2 8 Y e t not everyone, he affirms, can feel the consciousness of G o d as an i n w a r d and personal experience. E v e n the mystic experiences this spiritual power only intermittently; for it depends upon— a sort of docility of mind, a knowledge of our own impotence, that is very near to the threshold of intellectual vision and to the threshold of religious feeling. Whenever a man has this sentiment very strongly, people almost always give him credit for being somehow a religious person—even if the man protests he is not interested in religion. T h e man in w h o m such docility lives, w h o is humble before the mysteries of life, will not, according to Chapman, want to force his religious experience upon another person. It is the m a n that has lost this docility and then tries to reason his way to certitude w h o becomes the doctrinaire and the dogmatist. T h o u g h frequently they belong to no church, good people w h o live " i n a wholehearted simplicity of f e e l i n g " C h a p m a n calls "children of the N e w Testament." Such Christians seemed to him more vigorous and more at one with life than the medieval people, whose religious emotionalism he considered "generally tinged with a hot-house element of w i l l f u l intensity." H e concludes his address in the hope that a new age of faith is coming: "Physics and metaphysics have of late joined hands to proclaim an unthinkable power visibly ruling all things." Such a view perhaps recalls to mind what Einstein said of

knowing

"that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant b e a u t y . " 2 9 Chapman has raised here the question as to where faith and morality meet. T h a t is, since there are good persons w h o seem never to experience religion, what may be the relation between religious faith and ethical conduct? T o this question he offers an answer in a paper read before the Ethical Culture Society in N e w Y o r k and later published in the

206 Hibbert

H O L D F A S T T H A T W H I C H IS G O O D Journal?0

H e takes it for granted that there is something in

religion which only conduct can express; and that this is why we think better of the good man who is uninterested in religion than of the religious man whose conduct we cannot admire. In fact, says Chapman, "warm-hearted conduct" draws humanity together, whereas dogmas drive us apart. And yet whenever we are stirred by fine conduct which rests on a dogma which we ourselves do not approve of, we cannot in fairness deny the importance of that dogma. T o escape dilemmas of this sort—issues sharpened by the nineteenthcentury conflict between science and religion—the Ethical Culture Society was founded. Its aim was to separate ethical truths from Judaic and Christian dogmas. But Chapman believes that this aim can never have much success—for these reasons: Moral truth is born in the form of religion. Afterwards comes ethical theory and rakes in the ashes for precepts. You cannot run the Salvation Army upon Ethical Statements, nor abolish Slavery through Ethical Culture. The movement would have to be heated and vaporized into steam power before its blows would tell. In the process God would be discovered. Pure Ethics has a weak voice. She has no poets of high rank, no prophets with heart-cleaving words. Sometimes ethics has served the human race by saving "the fragments where theologies clash and hope to destroy one another." Nevertheless, ethics must constantly draw its life and power from religion. Necessarily, then, the study of ethics leads to theology. W e moderns, however, fear theology and its symbols and rituals because we have identified these things with particular causes which reach back into history—"where," says Chapman, "we are still carrying on the animosities of the wars of religion." Yet we need no longer fear the Bible, which for the West holds "the symbols of living ethical faith." T h e power of the Bible comes not from any sect or commentator but from its personal appeal to each of us. So Chapman offers to the individual seeker this wisdom to guide him towards penetrating the relation of faith to conduct: Every mind has a law of its own. The idiom of it is formed slowly in each one of us and must be waited for patiently. You must not accept another man's terms of thought or sacrifice the integrity of your mind at any time. It may be that you are not destined to experience religion. Very well, accept this destiny; acceptance is the beginning as it is the end of religion. . . . By fol-

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lowing our inner feeling, no matter how quaintly it may express itself, or how remote it may seem from the usual modes of expression, we shall set ourselves on the road towards the great discoveries. For all that, "following our inner feeling" was at times a trial to Chapman himself. For he in especial was the person whose heart was "still carrying on the animosities of the wars of religion." It is during these years when his private life is relatively quiet that he becomes concerned over the growth of Catholic power in America. Aside from his intense individualism, Chapman's anti-Catholicism was a part of his Huguenot heritage, which might be traced to the massacre on St. Bartholomew's Day. His uncompromisingly Protestant grandfather Jay had, in 1879, published a pamphlet on Rome, the Bible, and the Republic. Long, long before then, the Revolutionary John Jay, in the debate over the constitution of the State of New York, had proposed that Roman Catholic citizens be denied their civil rights until they had sworn in the Supreme Court that no pope or priest had "authority to absolve them from their allegiance to the state." 31 These ancestral voices prophesying war were so strong in Chapman that, in 1911, when he heard about pending legislation that touched on Catholicism in New York City's public schools, he quivered to resume the role of public agitator. When a letter which he sent to the newspapers on this question was not printed, he concluded that Protestants were afraid to speak out. Early in the summer of the next year he rejoiced to get hold of a "rabid," "hot and fierce" anti-Catholic paper called The Menace and published in Aurora, Missouri.32 As that year drew to a close we find him at work on an essay about "Churches and Religion," the ideas in which later became a part of his book Notes on Religion. The action he was to take to bring this issue to public attention comes at a later period of Chapman's career, but already, as the spring of 1913 arrived, he was writing to a friend: I confess to an inherited hatred of the Catholic Church, which I only get free from for moments at a time—"moments philosophiques"—eclairs of perception. We have lost the familiarity with its good side.33 That Chapman's interest in ethics was not merely theoretical is suggested by his rehearsing Jewish youngsters from the New York tenement districts for a production of one of his children's plays at the University Setdement. A little later he was to try an experiment more demanding

2o8

HOLD FAST THAT WHICH IS GOOD

than amateur dramatics. Though he had of coursc given up active work in reform, Chapman, with something of Tolstoy's feeling, could not rest easy when he thought of slum dwellers. A sister-in-law recalls how on one occasion Chapman and his wife announced that they had decided to go into the city and work with the poor.34 They chose the Hell's Kitchen district; and to get the children off the streets, they rented a vacant store on Tenth Avenue below 49th Street, set it up as a clubroom for juveniles, and hired instructors in practical skills and crafts. This was the era when Jane Addams's work was still a fresh inspiration; and the Chapmans were hoping that efforts like theirs might help to educate the community, rich and poor alike. But the difficulties were such that, said Chapman, they made "all the rest of life easy" and kept him "prepared to forgive enemies and die on the scaffold or cross —if there should happen to be such a nice wind-up." 3 5 In actual fact the wind-up brought discomfiture enough. One night, two wild boys had been expelled from the clubroom and forbidden to return. The next evening, expecting them back, Chapman awaited them outside the door. When the boys appeared, they not only scuffled with Chapman; but, their mouths filled with kerosene, they spit upon his beard and lighted matches beneath it. He was not burned, and remained patient and kind to the boys. But he was "in sorrow for Tenth Avenue." The next winter, Elizabeth's physician advised her against taking part in the venture, and it was given up. 36 One so quick to sympathize with the unfortunate as was Chapman might naturally admire a humanitarian like Samuel Gridley Howe. This man who helped to found a Boston antislavery newspaper, who organized the Perkins Institution for the Blind, who as her mentor made of the deaf and blind Laura Bridgman something like the Helen Keller of the Victorian world, and who as a young adventurer brought aid to the Greeks in that same war against the Turks which took the life of Lord Byron—this man embodied the kind of moral heroism which fired Chapman's imagination. Dr. Howe appears in Learning and Other Essays as the subject of a long study. Considering the difficulties which surround any twentieth-century person who tries to serve his fellows, we can surmise how Chapman envied the simplicity of this man of action and of benevolence. Howe, so blessedly at home in his universe—"devoid of mysticism or philosophic curiosity, a man to whom the world is a very

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plain proposition"—could wholeheartedly give "practical aid" to suffering and disabled people. Howe's role in the antislavery struggle poses for Chapman the problem of the humanitarian vis-a-vis the practical politician. As an angel of mercy, Howe was a genius; in politics he was lost. Howe helped John Brown. Then, after innocent men had been killed at Harper's Ferry, he publicly denied any knowledge of or complicity in the affair. This kind of blundering a smart politician avoids. Howe stumbled into such duplicity, says Chapman, because he was the victim of an era when "idealism [had] to seek its outlet in crime." In Howe's defense Chapman declares: It should no more be counted against Howe that he could not express himself through the medium of politics than it is counted against Goethe that he could not paint. To have mastered one vehicle is enough for one man in this world. To have seen life from a point of view which unifies contradictions, merges thought with feeling, identifies religion and common sense, is enough to give a man a niche in the temple of humanity—yes, even though this power of vision is accorded to him only at moments, or when he is dealing with a particular subject, or when he has a violin or a paintbrush in his hand. It is the man that makes this unity—this stained-glass window through which truth shines. Here, unconsciously perhaps, Chapman tries to understand his own "failure" in politics and to reconcile his conflict between thinking and doing. Beneath this identification with Howe is Chapman's yearning to act against some palpable instance of man's inhumanity to man. He got his chance soon enough. During these years, his biographer tells us, Chapman was preoccupied with the problem of the Negro. In midsummer of 1911 there occurred in Pennsylvania a tragedy of race hatred over which Chapman brooded silently for a year. Then he took action. He did a symbolic thing, unique in the annals of this nation. His biographer has told the story, which can be sketched here only in outline.37 On Saturday night of August 12, 1911, in the town of Coatesville, a Negro named Walker was caught in the act of robbing a man near the mills of a steel company. When a special officer of the company tried to apprehend him, Walker shot and killed the man, and then tried to escape. He was pursued by armed men, who caught him in a tree in a woods near by. When they began to fire at him, Walker shot himself in the mouth, fell to the ground, and under police guard was taken to the hospital. From there, a mob pulled him to

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the outskirts of town and to his doom. As he was being dragged along, Walker cried out that he had shot the officer only in self-defense. "Don't give me a crooked death," he pleaded, "because I am not white." His death was more than crooked. They tied the Negro to his hospital cot and put it on a pile of refuse; then, their faces hid in handkerchiefs, the lynchers ignited the pyre. When his ropes burned and the man tried to flee, the mob hurled him back into the flames. Shortly afterwards on the highway near where he met his death, the scorched torso of Walker was kicked around by children of the neighborhood. Even after the remains were put into a box for the morgue, there was fear of the frenzy of the mob. The lynchers could not be identified; and a surprising number of Coatesville's citizens were either out of town or in bed on this particular night. Chapman learned of the affair in the newspapers. " I was greatly moved at the time of the lynching," he wrote— and as the anniversary came round my inner idea forced me to do something. I felt as if the whole country would be different if any one man did something in penance, and so I went to Coatesville, and declared my intention of holding a prayer meeting to the various business men I could buttonhole. By the 14th of August he was on his way, having interrupted his vacation in Maine. T h e next day he wrote to Elizabeth from Coatesville that he was having a hard time getting a hall because of "the prejudice against the subject." 38 On the 16th, a Friday, he wrote again and enclosed a notice clipped from the Coatesville Record of that date: In Memoriam A Prayer Meeting will be held on Sunday morning, at 11 o'clock at the Nagel Building. Silent and aral [sic] prayer: Reading of the Scriptures: Brief address by John Jay Chapman In memory of the Tragedy, of August 13, 1911 O Lord receive my prayer There was still a reign of terror in Coatesville. T o speak of the lynching made any man suspect; and the local daily at first refused to mention it in the announcement of the prayer meeting. "'Who's back of this?' said the editor of the Record fiercely. 'No one,' said I; 'at least I am.'

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This satisfied him as he didn't know what kind of feller I was, but I looked meek." T h u s Chapman described it in his next letter to Elizabeth. H e managed to rent a room in an unused store, large enough for twenty people, and across the street from a church. With him that Sunday morning was a friend, one of the "children of the N e w Testament," Miss Edith Martin. H e had supposed people would come. But when he faced his congregation, it consisted of two: an aged N e g r o woman from Boston and a stool pigeon. H e went on with the meeting —the Lord's Prayer, an address, his o w n prayer, and some readings f r o m Isaiah. " T h e r e was a church meeting going on opposite to us," Chapman explained, "and people coming and going, and our glass front windows revealed us like Daniel when he was commanded to open the windows and pray." His address—preserved in only seven pages of a book he was to publish in 1915, Memories

and Milestones—is,

as Chapman's biographer remarks,

a thing of "austere and tragic beauty." His purpose, Chapman declares, is not to condemn the crime, "but to repent of our share in it." What the Coatesville lynching afforded him was "a glimpse into the unconscious soul . . . a seldom revealed picture of the American heart and of the American nature." I said to myself, "I shall forget this, we shall all forget it; but it will be there. What I have seen is not an illusion. I have seen death in the heart of this people." For to look on at the agony of a fellow-being and remain aloof means death in the heart of the onlooker. Religious fanaticism has sometimes lifted men to the frenzy of such cruelty, political passion has sometimes done it, personal hatred might do it, the excitement of the amphitheater in the degenerate days of Roman luxury could do it. But here an audience chosen by chance in America has stood spellbound through an improvised auto-da-fe, irregular, illegal, having no religious significance, not sanctioned by custom, having no immediate provocation, the audience standing by merely in cold dislike. I saw during one moment something beyond all argument in the depth of its significance. You might call it the paralysis of the nerves about the heart in a people habitually and unconsciously given over to selfish aims, an ignorant people who knew not what spectacle they were providing, or what part they were playing in a judgment-play which history was exhibiting on that day. No theories about the race problem, no statistics, legislation, or mere educational endeavor, can quite meet the lack which that day revealed in the American people. For what we saw was death. . . .

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Whatever life is, that thing must be replenished in us. The opposite of hate is love, the opposite of cold is heat; what we need is the love of God and reverence for human nature. For one moment I knew that I had seen our true need. . . . Someone may say that you and I cannot repent because we did not do the act. But we are involved in it. We are still looking on. In this extraordinary act of atonement we might, with the psychiatrist, search for hidden feelings of guilt to explain Chapman's private motivation. But we are better employed in seeing the deed for what in itself it was. He went to Coatesville not as an agitator or reformer, not as a belated abolitionist, not as a liberal with a program to better race relations. He went, rather, as a critical witness to report his experience —his vision of one of the blackest corners of the American soul. Jacques Barzun is correct to call this critical utterance "diagnostic." The wrong, affirms Chapman, was not of Coatesville or of that day. Behind it is an American evil of long standing. For no nation can practice slavery for three centuries and then suddenly cast off the consequences. To a historic view of the malaise which the presence of the Negro has brought upon the conscience of America Chapman addressed himself in William Lloyd Garrison, published in 1913. This is also the year of the publication of Charles A. Beard's Economic Interpretation of the Constitution. The future of historiography of course belonged in considerable degree to Beard; and it is hardly a wonder that for decades the Garrison has been dismissed as a crotchet. As usual Chapman was going his own way. At first glance he appears to have been going backward. It might be argued that by identifying himself with America's most successful agitator, Chapman sought to win in his imagination a victory that life denied him. In fact, Edmund Wilson thinks that in the Garrison Chapman "fought the battle of slavery all over again with a spirit that would have been employed more usefully in fighting the battle of labor." He is correct that the book had no immediate application to the political and economic problems of a decade when Americans were more taken up with Woodrow Wilson's New Freedom than with the old slavery. At the present writing, though, in midcentury, when neither labor nor economic questions seem so acute as do certain other issues now upon us, William Lloyd Garrison speaks more directly to us than it could have in the past. Though Chapman himself considered Garrison the sort of man Americans would gladly dismiss "as one who held impractical views and used

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over-strong language," the book got favorable reviews. Seldom had subject and author been "so molded of one element as in this instance," wrote

a reviewer in the Los Angeles Times.39 The Nation took the book to be a new departure because it was " a social study, an examination of the growth of public opinion and ethical consciousness in antebellum A m e r i c a . " 4 0 His historian friend H . O. Taylor sent Chapman this praise: It is as good as Carlyle's "Cromwell," and I incline to think it a great book. Doubtless you are wrong in a lot of things, and your reasoning seems to me only emotionally sound; but that has nothing to do with the strong presentation you have given of the whole business, with Garrison the storm center. 41

William

Lloyd

Garrison

is not biography, nor did Chapman pretend

that he was writing history. H e called the book an "essay." T o a granddaughter of Julia W a r d H o w e he explained: "It won't do perhaps for the historian—but an essayist . . . doesn't pretend to be giving history as much as suggesting something that may or must be concealed in history." 4 2 Perry Miller values this unusual book for these reasons: Carefully read today, it is a masterly Philippic upon American materialism and intellectual laziness. By recapturing the archaic passion of the Abolitionists Chapman asserts the need of passion in any society, most of all in ours. 43 Chapman's success in dramatizing Garrison

that archaic passion makes his

about as exciting as a good novel. For example, in the opening

section, we have this picture of the years between 1830 and 1865: That history is all one galvanic throb, one course of human passion, one Nemesis, one deliverance. And with the assassination of Lincoln in 1865 there falls from on high the great unifying stroke that leaves the tragedy sublime. N o poet ever invented such a scheme of curse, so all-involving, so remotely rising in an obscure past and holding an entire nation in its mysterious bondage—a scheme based on natural law, led forward and unfolded from mood to mood, from climax to climax, and plunging at the close into the depths of a fathomless pity. T h e action of the drama is upon such a scale that a quarter of the earth has to be devoted to it. Yet the argument is so trite that it will hardly bear statement. Perhaps the true way to view the whole matter is to regard it as the throwing off by healthy morality of a little piece of leftover wickedness—that bad heritage of antiquity, domestic slavery. T h e logical and awful steps by which the process went forward merely exhibit familiar, moral, and poetic truth. In Aristotelian phrase, the man who writes in this vein might be called a poet because his urge to tell general "philosophic" truths is stronger than his historian's desire to record particular facts.

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These "philosophic" truths nevertheless make us reconsider some of the facts. For instance, we are not accustomed to think of the North as morally more twisted than was the South over the slavery issue. Yet Chapman dramatizes such an interpretation in a series of scenes which recreate the atmosphere of persecution and ostracism which the Abolitionists regularly endured: Beacon Street snubbing Wendell Phillips after he became an antislavery man; Dr. Charles Follen losing first a Harvard professorship and then a Unitarian pastorate because he was an Abolitionist; Garrison being mobbed and marked for assassination; a theological student being lashed by a Vigilance Committee, one of whose members had on the previous Sunday given him the bread and wine of Holy Communion; the New Yor^ Herald asserting that free speech has no right to exist when it does not promote the public good, and rousing rioters to break up an antislavery meeting. In his effort to plumb what we now call the collective unconscious, in his alertness to the complexities of group psychology, Chapman's approach anticipates that of more recent social thinkers. The great evil of slavery, he maintains, is that it blighted the freedom not only of the slave but of everybody in the United States. The Southerner was fettered by an inherited dogma about slavery. Northerners might feel that slavery was wrong but could not touch it for business reasons. The Christian might believe slavery to be incompatible with his religion; but let a minister say so and he was usually thrown out of his pulpit. For an individual to befriend a slave meant, after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, to resort to crime. In Chapman's view, our national psyche was split. On the surface, the adolescent nation displayed "bumptious pride and ignorance"; beneath was the feeling that all matters on which an American might pride himself were somehow tied up with falseness. By practicing slavery America was also isolating herself from the whole movement of liberal Western civilization. And finally, our civil liberties were being undermined. Those who sought to quell the Abolitionists found themselves necessarily attacking free speech, freedom of the press, the right of petition, the right of assembly, the right of trial by jury —attacking even normal benevolence and common sense. "When a whole age is completely insane upon some subject," Chapman writes, "sane views upon that subject will seem like madness to the age." In the early years of the antislavery movement the average citizen

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"really believed that the Abolitionist was a criminal in essence, and ought to be proclaimed as such by law." Even as late as 1858 politicians dreaded plain talk about slavery—which is why Lincoln's "house divided against itself" speech took great political courage. What William Lloyd Garrison did in the midst of this conspiracy of silence was to utter the one thing that everyone knew in his heart: that slavery was wrong. But Garrison looked further: " T h e point seen by Garrison was the practical point that the slavery issue was the only thing worth talking about, and that all else must be postponed till slavery was abolished." For this, Chapman labels Garrison the "Giant of an Idea." T o be sure, Garrison was Cyclopean, had only one idea; but he was also ahead of his times, because "what he was thinking, all men were destined to think." A s a man of action, Garrison became the embodied symbol of the nation's conscience. T h e forces which gave his voice such clarity and carrying power were not, Chapman tells us, in the man himself; they were in American life; and had there been no Garrison and no Abolitionists, those forces would somehow have prevailed. N o hero-worshiper, Chapman makes us see Garrison's limitations: his weaknesses and inconsistencies, the wearying violence of his language, his use of personalities in attack and defense, the narrow range of his intellectual interests. Yet Chapman regards these as necessary qualities in Garrison:

he was narrow

and uncompromising

because he

was

devoted to one idea; he was vituperative because he had to get heard. Garrison, says Chapman, was no seer, but a man of the market place. Since a Garrison counts upon action for influence, language for such a practical agitator is not "the mere means of stating truth, but a mace to break open a jail." T h e difference between the agitator and the seer Chapman elucidates in a section titled "Garrison and Emerson." In each man he sees a symptom of the split in the American mind: Their spirit was the same, and the influence of each was a strand in the same reaction. . . . Both men were dissolvents. With Emerson this was idea; with Garrison, it was function. . . . T o compare the relations of these men to each other brings out very vividly the strong and weak sides of each of them; for each seems to split the age, and show the sutures in the skull of the world; each is the key to the puzzle, and each is the missing half of the other's nature.

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Never in all literature has there been such a passionate proclamation of the individual as Emerson makes: and one of the few men that ever lived, who best fulfills Emerson's ideal picture of the influential individual is Garrison. . . . The Anti-slavery cause was always badly crippled for lack of a philosopher; and Emerson's influence has always stood in need of more animal life as a vehicle to float it towards mankind. Among other things, William Lloyd Garrison was for its author a means of taking stock. As in his essay "Emerson" Chapman had found explanations for the strengths and limitations of his youth, so in Garrison he seeks to interpret the labors of his young manhood. Perhaps he was measuring the methods of America's greatest agitator against his own and wondering whether even a Garrison could have made himself heard in the nineties. At any rate, in the final section, "Epilogue," Chapman is explicit about his intention in this book: he wrote not only to remind Americans that the fight for freedom of expression is a living part of our tradition but also to give us a light from the past for illuminating the present and future. Much of what was good out of the past we had lost during our colonial and frontier experience; and next, "we were stripped bare by the pirate Slavery and marooned for seventy years in a sort of Babylonian captivity." How this isolation impoverished the American mind and heart he explains: The intellect and passion of the country was given up during this time to a terrible conflict between prophetic morality, on the one hand, and the unprofitable sophistries of law, politics, and government on the other. Our attitude towards Europe was unintelligent; our experience in ideas (other than prophetic ethics and Constitutional Law) was nil. Then, the end of the struggle over slavery coincided with the rise of modern commerce; so we Americans "no sooner got free from one enemy to the soul than we were fastened upon by another—and that other the half-brother and blood relation of the first." Remarks about the present, Chapman confesses, cannot have certitude; so he merely indicates "three shapes" or "passing fancies" that he thinks he sees in American life: "The first is a kind of specter, the second is a visitation from on high; the third is a prophecy. They are namely: the Decay of Learning, the Rise of Love, and the ultimate Revival of Spiritual Interests."

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Besides the "historic and withering influence of isolation and of commerce, Chapman points out another deterrent to learning in America: "the present preoccupation of our noblest minds with philanthropic work." For while humanitarian endeavors are admirable, if they siphon off talents which are essential to the intellectual development of our nation, their attraction for our youth may serve to impoverish our spirit. As to our isolation from Europe, the result which troubles Chapman is our low respect for learning. In every other time and clime there have been educated men who transmitted the traditions of the human spirit from one age to the next. T o be sure, a superstitious awe of antiquity often cowed the world; still, what was good in that feeling lived on in Europe as a "reverence for the past." By contrast, American life seems bleak: T o cut loose, to cast a w a y , to destroy, seems to be o u r impulse. W e d o not w a n t the past. T h i s a w f u l loss of all the terms of thought, this beggary of intellect, is shown in the unwillingness of the average man in A m e r i c a to g o to the bottom of any subject, his mental inertia, his hatred of impersonal thought, his belief in labor-saving, his indifference to truth.

Add together the American faith in commerce and the American contempt for the humane past, declares Chapman, and the result to be expected is neither a rich social nor a rich cultural life. When we glance back on what Chapman wrote during the four years before the war, we can hardly say that he has really turned away from the modern world any more than he had in the 1890s. True enough, he sentimentalizes over St. Paul's School, hates Shaw, and overestimates the threat he saw in Catholicism; yet these remain minor tendencies, negligible to Chapman's general drift. Certainly, he is still a traditionalist; but, just as he had done two decades before, he holds fast that which is good in tradition—clings only to the vital, the fruitful, the forward-looking. Essays like those on comedy and on aesthetic theory neither turn back to a particular past nor belong to a specific present. The paper on "The Drama" looks to the future; so does the little discussion on teaching language in "Greek as Pleasure." Nor do his religious writings during this period return to anything like old orthodoxies. And if Robinson Jeffers is not to be scolded for retreating to the classics when he gave us his version of Euripides' Medea, neither should Chapman be blamed for giving us his Homeric Scenes. When it comes to his views on higher

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education in America, most of us have needed about forty years to realize the force and lucidity with which he laid bare the issues we now face. The Chapman who emerges in 1910 has changed his tack, but he is still sailing in the same direction. Of course he is no longer making a head-on assault against political evils. But political action was for Chapman only a means toward his larger end—a part of the education of one who cared more for ideas than for immediate results. That Chapman withdrew from active politics is no more to be regretted than that Joseph Conrad retired from the sea. The man who wrote William Lloyd Garrison was not essentially isolated and insulated from the progressive era and the reform spirit. He was in this book still wrestling with the question which had troubled him during his convalescence: whether progressivism could manage without a philosopher, whether the American heart could get along without a head. Now he is ready to give us his answer. He believes that out of the idealistic and humanitarian ferment of the era may come a renascence in American art and learning. In their indictment of an older civilization and in their attempt to create a new one, the reformers and muckrakers were "obeying a law of love." "It would seem," he explains in Garrison, "that the bowels and viscera of society must be heated first, and thereafter in time—it may be a century or two—a warmer life will reach the mind." Naturally Chapman regretted the loss of "the old cultivation"; yet he felt that he was living in a time of "great regeneration." He saw the churches growing more liberal; he saw men whose enthusiasm for science was a "form of worship for truth"; and he rejoiced to see passing away the "wrecks of many creeds." He was glad to be "born in this swirl and current of the new freedom"; and he felt himself a part of the great movement he was envisioning. Such dreams were soon to yield to a nightmare. The "conventions and lies" of the past were ready now to be shattered not by the Rise of Love but by a universal orgy of hate. The scientists' worship of truth was to be metamorphosed into devotion to bigger and better means of destruction. The hope of a "great regeneration" was to be blacked out by despair over a great degeneration. Not many months after William Lloyd Garrison was off the presses, an Austrian archduke was assassinated at Sarajevo. And the First World War began.

IX The Wine Cup of This Fury

M

A R K V A N D O R E N has remarked that during the First World W a r Chapman behaved like any other "over-heated, upper-class

savage." "on

1

fire."

Savage he surely was, but "over-heated" is less accurate than That holocaust consumed John Jay Chapman. It was the

supreme test of his beliefs; it profoundly altered his world outlook; it disoriented him in American life. E d m u n d Wilson thinks that the change in Chapman occurred during his 1901 breakdown when he suffered "permanent psychological damage . . . by beating his head against the gilt of the Gilded A g e . " But evidence which could not be at Mr. Wilson's disposal indicates that the psychic wounds Chapman suffered from 1914 to 1920 brought about the real metamorphosis. Before then, his vision had been a unity; henceforth it was to be only fragmentary. F r o m the first he was more intimately involved than most Americans. In June of 1914 the Chapmans were abroad to see Victor, who was a Beaux Arts student of architecture. 2 On July 28 they were in Germany visiting Chapman's aunt A n n a von Schweinitz. T w o days later Chapman wrote that the war scare was on, the streets surging with people, and his aunt saying goodbye to her sons who had been called to their regiments. 3 T w o days later, after a hectic flight, the Chapmans had reached Holland, and by August 3 they were safe in England. What they had experienced, Chapman wrote his mother, seemed "like Jules Verne— and the Imaginary Romances." 4 A few days later, in a London hotel room, Victor announced that he wanted to enlist. His father opposed him, and Victor concurred—as Chapman later wrote—"with dumb diffidence." But the boy looked so crushed when he left the room that Elizabeth told her husband, " H e has submitted through humility and through his reverence for you. But

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I had rather see him lying on the battlefield than see that look on his face." By August 8 Victor had left for France.5 Chapman's actions and attitudes during the first weeks of the war show sane insight. Even before England declared war, he perceived that some form of international government would have to follow the war. "People will see the necessity," he wrote. "The whole weight of the world must be turned against a nation who begins a war—just as the whole weight of society is turned against a street fight."6 The London Times of August 5, which headlined England's declaration of war, also carried a letter by Chapman, "An Appeal to Americans." He told his British readers that, although America's policy forced her to stand outside the conflict, it was the duty of Americans abroad to explain the war to their fellow citizens at home, "who may think that this is . . . a European diplomatic imbroglio which will settle itself." The next day the aged Henry James sent Chapman his "fiery approval" of the letter.7 In a brief paper, "Memorandum on Compulsory Disarmament," dated August 12, 1914, Chapman foresaw the need for disarmament after the war. "We are all very virtuous just now," he wrote, but he warned that the Allies must abandon their dreams of national aggrandizement and plan even at this moment for the peace. Otherwise, the war would set the stage for another conflict: One might prophecy with boldness that such will be the outcome; for Government is a slow growth, and World Government has not yet begun. Nevertheless, it is worth while to consider the whole problem at the present time; for the moment we admit that Germany may fail in her ambition, we are face to face with these questions. T o deprive Germany of her colonies will not cure her, but to police her land and prevent her from rearming might be the solution: It will be said offhand by everybody that this suggestion is impossible of execution. But the thing does not seem impossible. France and her allies will, if they win, dominate the Western world. With their congregated power they can compel the gradual disarming of all other Western nations—doing the thing slowly, and in such a way that their own congregated power remains ever predominant, while all Powers diminish gradually. In other words, Europe and America must consolidate for police purposes.

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Anticipating that public feeling for disarmament would be overwhelming after the war, Chapman urged that "plans should be matured now which can be carried out before the new world-sentiment evaporates through delay or dribbles away in diplomatic controversies." 8 But his concern was not only for securing the peace after the war. A more immediate concern, expressed in a second paper, "The Practical Aspect," was the declaration of war aims. Chapman believed that if Britain would declare that she had no territorial ambitions she would "arouse a wave of enthusiasm among neutrals. . . . [ a n d ] prevent the war from degenerating—as crusades are apt to do." 9 A war journal 1 0 which he began in London records what Chapman did about these ideas. Through American Ambassador Walter Hines Page he was able to talk disarmament with Balfour, but he afterwards feared that the ideas discussed might "evaporate in talk—in the way of the moony, educated English." Another talk with Viscount Haldane brought agreement that Prussian militarism must be ended by general disarmament. And yet— the English don't understand the idea of acting for the world [Chapman wrote]. To act for themselves with resultant benefit to the world—. . . . This has been their destiny. If you ask them to do something for anyone else, they answer, "Why, England always does that." They cannot see that the present fact that they want no more land is a novelty. Their feelings are hurt if you ask them to make plain their intentions. According to themselves they have always been a lovely people. Chapman had been hoping that Sir Edward Grey would read his "Memorandum"; that there might follow an announcement of principles on which England and America could agree; that Wilson could then ask each belligerent to state its war aims. He hoped to get Grey's answer first, and then cable his findings to the President. But Lord Haldane told Chapman that the time had not yet come for England to declare her war aims; and Grey hesitated when Chapman suggested that a personal note be sent to Wilson. He was encouraged, though, that Cabot Lodge was arranging for him an interview with Wilson when Chapman should return to America. 1 1 On the first of September Chapman started for home and another strenuous month of interviews, this time with American leaders. In a

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journal entry made on shipboard he was u r g i n g calmness and passivity on himself. " G o s l o w — d o n o t h i n g — t h i n k n o t h i n g — w a i t . A l l o w forces to unravel and use you." H e began to wonder if his disarmament ideas were not like "reaching for the moon." Perhaps A m e r i c a had to g o through w i t h this experience "to be melted into modern E u r o p e " a n d to become "an integral conscious portion" of Europe. O n the other h a n d , if A m e r i c a remained neutral perhaps she could be more u s e f u l — c o u l d stand for peace and disarmament: T h e chances are against it, but the era begins well any way. . . . The Great Future has as yet no spokesman. . . . T h e telegraph and the railroad have made a new Europe and mankind seems to be getting unified somehow. T h e race as a unit becomes less unthinkable all the time. T h e grand mystery is the fact—This man is me. T h e man in the slums is me. The German is me. This cannonball of metaphysical truth is what so rouses us. Y e t he could feel also the collective death w i s h : " T h e r e ' s an intoxication in the mere exertion of destructive power." O n September 10 C h a p m a n discussed with Cleveland D o d g e his chance of presenting the disarmament scheme to W i l s o n . A

f e w days later

he journeyed to F a l m o u t h , Massachusetts, to speak w i t h Richard O l n e y , w h o had been G r o v e r Cleveland's Secretary of State. T h e next interview recorded is this: Washington. Sept. iy: 1914. Yesterday at 8 P.M. had a talk with President Wilson. He looks a little rocky but then enduring. He is all religion and feeling. I told him of my English interviews with Grey, Haldane, etc., and of the subordinate position that Disarmament occupies in the European mind. He was very quick and very sympathetic—much more so than I expected—and not at all surprised. He seemed to know all I told him—but not to know it so definitely as I do. He did nothing but assent; but perhaps I was so moved and vehement and the time was so short that this was the easiest thing to do. . . . I told W . — w h a t was just suggested while we were talking of the matter privately in England—that perhaps the time might come when the English Statesmen might willingly answer a question of Wilson's on the subject. I spoke of the necessity of internal agitation in America—to formulate our ideas, told him of how I had warned Grey they might reap a barren victory unless they kept educating the public and especially the American public as they went along—to all of which Mr. W . gave an assenting attention. C h a p m a n w a s pleased to find W i l s o n "a hot and natural person" and he felt t h a t —

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the notable thing is that Wilson saw I didn't want anything and that I understood the complexity of his position. . . . I asked if I might send him the Mem. and have done so. It is an immense relief to have this long prayed for interview over. On the same day Chapman wrote to his mother: "Don't spread the report abroad, as it is all a personal episode and I am far from wanting to get into politics." Without any trace of self-importance at this time, he seems to have been doing what common sense dictated: he had seen something of the war at firsthand, had his ideas on disarmament and war aims, and was strategically situated to act as go-between among British and American leaders. Old precedents counted for nothing; an age had come to an end: "The political philosophy prior to August 1, 1914, will be as quaint as Calvin's Institutes. . . . The 19th century with all its wheel works and fireworks is interesting rubbish." Of Chapman's frequent letters to American newspapers during the war, the first is of particular interest. When the German Chancellor told the Reichstag that "necessity knows no law," Chapman was shocked enough to write in the New Yor\ Evening Post of September 27 that henceforth he could put stock in atrocity stories. Moreover, he now believed that Germany would not hesitate to violate international law. Ideas like these were going into his most extensive piece of propaganda, Deutschland iiber Alles; or, Germany Speaks, a little book published in November, 1914. Its subtitle is a good description of its contents: A Collection of the Utterances of Representative Germans—Statesmen, Military Leaders, Scholars, and Poets—in Defence of the War Policies of The Fatherland. Chapman's own commentaries occupy only about one third of its hundred pages. His method is to let the Germans damn themselves by their own apologia. In analyzing the German mind, Chapman maintains that fear and a sense of guilt have brought the Germans to the morbid illusion that their duty is to save mankind through bloodshed. That the nation is prepared to believe in its "Holy war" is due, he thinks, to the educational system and the German intellectuals. Rigidly, they have set up uncrossable confines between one intellectual discipline and another. As Chapman puts it, "The Militarism of Kultur has always been as rigid as the Kultur

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of Militarism." T h e G e r m a n faith in specialized training has given them marvelous efficiency in accomplishing particular ends, but it has its pitfalls. Such specialism minimizes the unconscious, makes a tool of the mind, and tends to reduce man to a cog in the machinery of state. Outside his o w n field, the specialist tends to size up the rest of the w o r l d with a f e w "catch-all-ideas," ready-made by society. E v e n G e r m a n childtraining, C h a p m a n thinks, is too severe; and children survive it at the cost of their "spiritual elasticity." Since 1870, this overworking and overtraining has induced in the G e r m a n s a mental fatigue which makes for perversity; and C h a p m a n predicted that after the w a r Germany would suffer a nervous collapse—"a period of fatigue and depression, of soulhunger, melancholia, spiritual atrophy, suicidal despair." O n the whole, his little propaganda book is calm and

reasonable

throughout. T h e wisdom of its final paragraph is k i n d l y : The antidote to war is peace, to unreason, reason, to mania, sense. If America can remain neutral without a violation of her self-respect, it is far better for her to do so. If America should enter the war, the world would lose the benevolence and common-sense which we now possess, and which is a strong factor in the whole situation. You and I would, in that case, become partisans, cruel, excited, and bent on immediate results. The unfortunate sick-man, Germany, would have a double pressure put upon his brain, and the solution of the whole world-problem would be a little retarded. H a d C h a p m a n adhered to this spirit and conduct, the consequent history of his o w n m i n d and heart would probably have been a happier one. But after 1914 most of C h a p m a n ' s words and deeds connected with the w a r leave little to be praised. T r u e enough, personal anguish tore at h i m ; for Victor was fighting in the trenches as a Foreign Legionaire; and later Conrad was called to dangerous naval duty. B u t many a parent has suffered worse in w a r and yet not taken Chapman's road. T h e reason must rest in his emotional depths. T h o u g h of course nearly everybody in war times suffers some degree of hysteria, f e w people go to C h a p m a n ' s extremes. A s the w a r progressed, he reversed nearly all his values, ceased to use his rational intelligence, threw aside his doctrine of passive nonresistance, became barbarously aggressive, forgot all benevolence, and so utterly abandoned himself to war-madness that it is hard to distinguish his brand of fanaticism f r o m that of the G e r m a n s whose morbidity he had analyzed so sharply. Plainly

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such a man is driven by impulses which he can neither understand nor control. It is interesting to note that there is a kind of cyclic pattern to Chapman's breakdowns; they seem to recur about every twelve or fourteen years. This time, however, he neither burned off his hand nor retreated to a dark room. Instead, he went out to meet the world; and as the war fever mounted, it created an atmosphere in which Chapman could give free rein to his destructiveness in a socially acceptable form. Of Chapman's hidden drives, this much seems fairly sure: just as in the crisis of his hand-burning, once again the impulses to hate and destroy form an alliance with conscience. Against this alliance reason has almost no chance whenever Chapman turns to the war. When he forgets the war, he writes with his usual genius and judgment on literature, on the classics, and on religion. In these Chapman maintained a workable harmony of conscience, reason, and impulse. But the spectacle of the war terrorized him and released uncontrollable hostilities; his aggressions could no longer be used up in mere criticism; instead, when conscience sanctioned them, Chapman found his deepest satisfaction in fighting the war with words. These writings develop into a diabolical compound of homicidal urges and religious fervor. Indeed, he comes to speak of "the religion of the war"; and his vision of it as a cosmic morality play thrilled him. Reveling in self-punishment and a highly verbalized kind of sadism, Chapman is an appalling figure during the war. The beginning of the change is obvious in his letter to the New Yor\ Times on February 24, 1915. Ostensibly the piece is a criticism of America's failure to protest the invasion of Belgium. Implicit in it is a growing hostility to Wilson, whose slowness in leading the country into war roused Chapman's wrath. Before the war, the relations between these two men had begun cordially enough. Chapman had voted for Wilson; approved his domestic reforms, particularly those designed to check big business; and had once or twice written Wilson suggestions—to which the President had replied graciously. Before long, however, he could scarcely mention Wilson's name without censure—without vilification that was, somehow, too personal, too petulant, almost childish—like an angry boy quarreling with his father. When the Lusitania was torpedoed, Chapman blamed Wilson and decided he would vote next time for—of all persons!—Theodore Roosevelt, who had called Wilson

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"personally timid." 1 2 Convinced by now that Americans "must get into the game by spilling their blood," he became furiously anti-German and concluded that Edmund Burke had been a fool to say that one could not draw up an indictment against a whole nation.13 Meanwhile, Victor, who belonged to an outfit which had been in the trenches for over one hundred consecutive days and had suffered 50 percent casualties, had been slightly wounded and was given a short leave. In May of 1915 the Chapmans went to Paris and managed to see him briefly before he transferred to a group of American aviation volunteers that came to be known as the Lafayette Escadrille. When Chapman and Elizabeth disembarked in New York on August 10, Chapman told a Times reporter that it was the duty of young American men to give their services to France and her allies. "If it were not for the British fleet," he asserted, "the Germans would have been firing shells on Long Island long ago." 1 4 Within nine days he published a letter in the New Yorf^ World, "Kicked About Too Much," in which he accused Wilson of complimenting Germans, encouraging German-Americans, and breeding traitors. A few weeks later, in a more charitable mood, he stated in a feature article in Philadelphia's Public Ledger that Americans must blame themselves if Wilson was following instead of leading the public. Meanwhile, he thought we could be grateful that America's problems had been "quietly thought out by General Wood" —the patron saint of preparedness. Visiting some of the training camps, Chapman was impressed by the "religion" of the soldiers; and it is surprising that the man who once had hated organization was now relishing the fact that life in the camps "consists of doing what you don't want to do at every moment of the day, and to the sound of the whistle." 1 5 But Chapman could do little except fume against Wilson. His rage against the President's phrase "too proud to fight" boiled over into a playlet published in the Neu> Yor\ Tribune, a burlesque aimed at making of Wilson a perfect ass.16 Soon Chapman was entertaining "a scheme for making a register of Wilson-Haters all over the country." Just "pottering, skirmishing, intermittent activity," as he called it. Still, he found comfort in the fact that the J. P. Morgans were as hot against the President as he himself was. 17 A man in Chapman's state of mind falls easy victim to propaganda and rumor. In January he wrote Victor that he at last had light on

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Wilson's "peace-at-any-price" policy: he had heard that Andrew Carnegie, heavy stockholder in Krupps munitions, had offered Wilson a life pension if America avoided war during his term of office. 18 Obviously, the war fever was causing Chapman more and more to run with the pack. Intermittently, the old values were to return, to clear his vision. In an unpublished essay of February, 1916, he saw that American isolation was at an end: The myth of America as a promised land is finished. We are going to be taken back into the fold. We are Europeans, European history, both past and present, is our history, and Europe's future is our future. The thought of this allies us with every form of intellectual life in Europe and destroys at a blow the mind-killing theory on which we have all been brought up,—namely, that America has a private destiny of her own, a fate distinct from Europe's fate. These flashes of insight are all too few and are obscured by the violence of the rest. The next month for a "secours" meeting Chapman wrote a poem, " T o the Scholars in the French Army." Exorting them to commingle their blood with their native soil, he cries: Go, race of warriors! All the world is won For him that reasons not, but plunges straight.19 In the New Yor/( Tribune of March 12, 1916, is another poem on the same level. In "The Sword" Chapman begs God to heal American cowardice by putting that antique weapon into our hands: The sword will flash. I bless the thought of it. Then shall we wake, grow manly. . . . etc., etc. We are not surprised when in May Chapman writes his mother that he has become so enraged about the war as to be sick for a week. 20 T o be sure, he was more anxious about Victor than he dared admit. Before the outbreak of the war Chapman had told Langdon Mitchell, "I lost a boy once. It's more terrible than anyone can have any idea of. You have to be remade in seven years and come out another man." 2 1 Naturally he was proud of Victor. And while the young man was flying with the Lafayette Escadrille in the Battle of Verdun his father wrote to him of the publicity value which the American flyers had for the people back home. On the same day Chapman informed the secretary of his Harvard class that he would be unable to attend the annual dinner and was in no mood to write nonsense verses for the occasion: his

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friend Robert S. Minturn was suffering his final illness; and another classmate, Thomas Mott Osborn, idealistic reformer in penology, was facing ugly charges and had actually been jailed. "You terribly bald," he joshed, " I broken-winded and gone in the legs—it's uphill work." 2 2 The war was wearing Chapman down. Then came news that Victor had again been slightly wounded, and a shadow fell over an event which gave Chapman long-awaited recognition. In June of 1916 his play Cupid and Psyche was produced in New Haven for the fiftieth anniversary of the Yale Art School, and on the twenty-first of that month he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Letters, along with John Singer Sargent, who was honored as Doctor of Arts. Shortly afterwards, at Boston's Tavern Club, Chapman read to friends a fellow aviator's account of Victor's extraordinary daring in combat. He added, "That boy will never get through." 2 3 He was right. On June 23 Chapman learned that Victor had been killed, shot down at Verdun behind the German lines. The message, telephoned from Poughkeepsie, was taken by the head farmer at Sylvania, then given to Chapman, who soon walked by. "It was received with no visible emotion," states Chapman's biographer: and only the words, hard enough of comprehension even by one who had known all the workings of Chapman's mind and heart, "That's good." This was Chapman's way of saying Amen to the will of God. H e came at once to Sylvania with his tragic burden, more concerned for Mrs. Chapman's sorrow than his own. Looking up and seeing his face at the library door, she hardly needed to hear his words, "Victor has been killed"; the quiet and matter-offact tone in which they were spoken could not belie their meaning. 24

Victor was the first American aviator to be killed in the First World War. Before his death in his twenty-seventh year, he had downed four enemy planes and had had seven planes shot from under him. Aside from the tragedy of heroic youth snuffed out, the poignancy is that Victor's life seemed a prelude to such an end. His was a complex, suffering temperament. The death of his mother when he was six shocked the boy into morbid grief. At twelve he witnessed the drowning of his brother and somehow fancied himself to blame for the accident. Slow in school, somewhat awkward in social life, he was also greathearted and generous; several times during boyhood he rescued other children from serious accidents. From childhood on, Victor so loved

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danger that one cannot avoid the surmise that he was unconsciously seeking death. The war gave him his chance and transformed him. " I do not think," remarked his father, "that he was ever completely happy in his life till the day he got his flying papers." His comrades loved Victor, called him their bravest, and sometimes even had to check his intrepidity. He died trying to rescue his fellow aviators. 25 Victor's death probably shocked his father more than is indicated by anything Chapman wrote. During the autumn of 1916 he occupied himself compiling and editing Victor Chapman's Letters from France, a collection of quietly vivid, straightforward letters, free of heroics. Mostly they report and describe concrete impressions in the manner of one whose senses are uncluttered by bookishness—the kind of war writing which readers of Hemingway might like. Editing the letters stirred memories—of Victor, of Minna, and of Chapman's own young manhood. These recollections are to be found in one of Chapman's autobiographical pieces, the "Memoir," which he published with the Letters. The emotions stirred on both sides of the Atlantic by Victor's death made Chapman into more and more of a public figure. Faith in the cause for which his son had died doubtless consoled Chapman in his private grief, but it seems not to have diminished the fury of his public words and deeds. At any rate, in The French Heroes, a pamphlet dating from about this time, Chapman deplored America's remaining untouched by the "great wave of moral regeneration" that the war was bringing. What sears the nerves are passages like this one: France is full of cripples. The men who are daily and hourly maimed are not sad. They return from the front mangled yet joyous; blind, lame, truncated wrecks and fragments of human life, yet content, high-spirited, dominant. They know they are saving not only France, but the soul of the modern world. They have given their utmost, and Fate gives them in return an enduring exaltation. France today swarms with triumphant cripples, whose only concern is lest they become a charge upon their country.26 In daily actuality the man who wrote this could hardly bear to see others in pain.27 But the war-maddened Chapman spared no one, least of all himself, in his barbaric idea of blood sacrifice. By December of 1916 he was so gloomy that he expected the war to last ten more years and anticipated the invasion of America. 28 By the end of the month he published a letter in the New Yorf^ Tribune in which he called for a military dicta-

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torship in the United States, and asserted that "in case of war the people desire General Wood's wishes to be put through." 2 * That his perspective was gone is dramatized by what might be called "the affair of the Harvard War Memorial." In November, 1916, the Harvard Corporation voted to accept money for a memorial to alumni killed in the war. Because the university did not officially, explicitly, and immediately repudiate an unauthorized suggestion to include the names of three German alumni who had fallen fighting for Germany, Chapman protested to Harvard's President Lowell. And in the Harvard Alumni Bulletin he erroneously charged the Corporation with voting to include the German names. Then when a Boston newspaper published a list of Harvard war dead—again including the three Germans and again not the official list for the memorial—Chapman revived the issue. In a letter in the New Yor\ Times he stated that, because the Germans were still listed, he had telegraphed Harvard's president to strike Victor's name off. The matter was serious, Chapman charged, because "the hand of German propaganda" was evident in the memorial.30 Nor did a soothing editorial in the Times satisfy Chapman,81 who now sent to fifty newspapers an open letter to Lowell demanding that Harvard rescind its action. To this Lowell replied in an open letter that the charge was "founded on a series of misapprehensions" and that the Harvard Corporation "could not rescind an action which was never taken nor revoke an intention which it had never had." 32 Perhaps Chapman remained unsatisfied. But when subscriptions were asked for, his own was generous and among the first; Victor's name is included with 372 others on the walls of the Harvard Memorial Church. Chapman also established the Victor Emmanuel Chapman Fellowship, whereby a student from France, chosen by a group of French scholars, is every year sent to Harvard. When in March, 1917, President Wilson called an extra session of Congress and it was decided to arm American ships, Chapman could hardly believe the good news. "War, war—how I long to see a few Americans getting killed and fighting!" he bellowed.33 Then at last the declaration of war came in April, and Chapman must have been among the most relieved of men. He now felt like forgiving Wilson, to whom he dedicated a long, artificial "Ode on the Sailing of Our Troops for France"—published in

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the North American Review of November, 1917. Wilson wrote Chapman a letter of thanks, adding that he had read the ode twice to his family, with the approval of all.34 In January, 1918, Chapman's views on the "religion" of the conflict gained wide circulation when he published "The New Vision of the War" in the Literary Digest and "The Bright Side of the War" in the Atlantic Monthly. Taken together, these comprise just about the most insane things Chapman ever put into print. In the first he fancied that the war was bringing thousands to religious illumination. Youth's readiness to die, he raved, "restores our faith in human nature . . . that the sacrificial part is what counts in the spread of truth." T o count the cost in life and property, he was sure, would be to doubt the value of truth. "To what better use could these young heroes and all this amassed wealth have been put? It was for this that they existed." Let us also be wary of compassion, Chapman urges: "There is a species of tenderness towards human suffering which if exhibited in the midst of heroic crises, turns into a morbid element." As to his doctrine of nonresistance, Chapman has also turned it upside down: Under what circumstances may I use force to protect the opprest or to prevent some profanation? God knows; but there are times when I must. If this be not Christian, then Christianity, or its interpreters, are in favor of suppressing a divine impulse. "The Bright Side of the War" is a web of delusions and a nightmarish mystique of the war which amounts to a recantation of nearly everything that Chapman ever believed in. He sees the whole world as having "become the stage of a miracle play," where humanity is enacting "its great allegory," and "natural law" has put the nations into two groups—good and evil. America is at last squarely and surely on the side of the good. In fact, to Chapman, it appears that America has solved all her problems: Immediately upon the invasion of Belgium our newspapers showed a clearness and profundity of thought, and an eloquence which can hardly be matched in the history of popular literature. They became beacons to the people. . . . Intellect triumphed. Even the evils of commercialism are no more; for now— big business men—men whose whole training and purpose had apparently been commercial—have become spiritual leaders, guides who are striving to save the people from their own weaknesses and to wean us from idolatry.

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All this has come about because "the mystery of sacrifice" is understood and acted upon by everyone. From the war has come a new faith, which "will shine on the life of the world forever." Like the German intellectuals whom he had censured in Deutschland iiber Alles, Chapman is no longer thinking: he is—to use his own term—"agonizing" over the world conflict. But because not every man shared to the full his weird vision of the war, Chapman was not satisfied even with this abundance of miracles. The mildly recalcitrant and the hesitant, the pacifists and the socialists— these in particular had to be converted. T o this mission Chapman addressed himself in a pair of essays dating from 1918. In "Pacifism, Socialism, and the Fire of Life," published in The Outloo/(,35 he took a position uncomfortably close to the Germans' "Inter arma leges silent. In war times the laws are silent." And the man who once grieved for what had happened at Coatesville now proclaims, "Every emergency is its own excuse for a breach of law." Hence, he brands the pacifist as a weak thinker to preach turning the other cheek; and the socialist he labels as a "mildmannered" philanthropist with "make-shift" formulas. If such infidels truly understood the war, Chapman is sure, they would be content to become "a cog in the war machine." And the ex-champion of freely speaking one's mind now informs us— as if free speech were a formula that solved all the problems of free government; as if free speech were a metaphysical and indestructive entity that must be guarded at every moment as the sacred, heaven-descended image of liberty. Free speech is merely a tendency. Evidently the author of Causes and Consequences and of Practical tion has become a full-fledged Hobbesian:

Agita-

All that is quite certainly known about government is that one man will tyrannize over the next until the sword has taught him not to try it. "Patriotism and our Foreign Population," the manuscript of a speech Chapman seems to have given at various places in 1918, is another expression of dread lest radicals, especially those of the New York slums, tamper with the religion of the war. Humanitarian workers in the slums were, he feared, yielding to the heresy that war excites bad passions and can emotionally injure those who participate in it; further, they were being tainted by "the miscellaneous socialistic sons from Southern Europe" and thus tending themselves to become socialistic and "de-patriated."

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From these benighted ones was hidden the light seen by Chapman: "that mystical part of self-sacrifice which is the glory of human nature." True liberty, he announced, is "nothing but organized courage"! How Chapman justified this reversal of values to his own satisfaction is explained in a letter he wrote at this time about the Reverend Dr. Samuel Drury: One can, apparently, no more hope to save intact one's theology and pile of sermons In this war than save a favorite cracked tea-pot, or a son's life. It is, Give all, or you don't belong. 38

In May Chapman published an essay, "The Eternal Battle," in which he declared that the war would quicken man's response to art and truth. The world of 1918 was better than the world he had known thirty years before: When I came out of college the world seemed to me to be like a padded cell in a lunatic asylum. . . . T h e inspiration of art, literature, and conduct, which had been brilliant in the middle of the nineteenth century, had passed, and faded away, and died down to dispersed death-taps and rumbles. T h e atmosphere was deaf. Men's senses were blunted; and in order to pierce their indifference and insensitiveness, the artists, poets, and playwrights had to resort to strong acids and weird conceits. Art became sharp-tongued, cynical and often sinister.

What wonders he sees the war as performing! Now the idealism of mankind can speak to us anew in all literature and history; the human spirit has been made ready for "time's whole treasury of legend and divinity"; the war has shown us "spiritual realities" and has caused "the rest of life's appearances to evaporate." For these ends Chapman would see the war continue even "if we have to lose all the wealth and half the population of the Allies." 37 It is beyond our scope here to determine to what degree Chapman expressed the orthodox rationale of the war, though a surprising number of highly respectable magazines and newspapers offered their space to his ravings. But when we consider the fiery words, vivid images, and seductive phrases of Chapman's war writings, we come to understand why an Ernest Hemingway preferred the flatly factual. In A Farewell to Arms the soldier-writer tells us: I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with

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the meat except to bury it. There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places had dignity. . . . Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates. As October waned and the peace feelers came out, Chapman saw that the United States had risen to such prominence that she would be "tried in the fire of success as other nations have been—and no one of them has come out scathless." With a flash of his old insight, in the North American Review he warned his fellow Americans against the intoxications of world power: Let us adopt no tone of bettering humanity or pushing our sacred institutions over the face of the earth—for this is the suggestion with which the serpent will approach us.38 Yet he himself had hardly regained his sobriety. In " A Soldier of the Legion," a piece written shortly after the Armistice, we have an intimate glance at what the war had meant to Chapman. Surely, he had enjoyed the "romantic agony" of it: Why, we have assisted at a world-drama, with a thousand scenes, each one more rapid and thrilling than the last, while we clung to our seats and screamed with every emotion of which the heart is capable,—love, joy, terror, anguish, triumph, and pure intellectual excitement. Surely, so far as emotional experience goes, we may die content. We have seen life. And of the 1920s Chapman foretold something generally and for himself when he guessed that the aftermath of the war might be "a heaven for plodding mediocrity" but "a weariness of life for those who demand heroic emotions." 39 In "Below the Cataract," an article in Vanity Fair of January, 1919, he made some further predictions of postwar psychology: "The selfish passions have been suppressed by the exigencies of war beyond the point which nature permanently tolerates, and there is apt to ensue a period of license." And of postwar patriotism: "We feel that we must have order and patriotism now, even at the cost of free speech. But it shows a state of mind in us just a little out of key with our institutions." And he was almost prophetic when he said, "If national passions become excited and old feuds are revived, History may look back upon this war as her most gigantic failure." But even here Chapman's confusion is apparent. On the one

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hand he rejoiced that Wilson's presence in Europe marked the beginning of the "intimate communion of that continent with America"; and he hoped that the President would not yield "at some point to the pressure of the conservative reactionary forces." On the other hand, he was growing more isolationist, opposed the League of Nations, and followed the mood of those about him who desired a quick way out of "the European mess." From this point onward, it becomes plain that in all Chapman was to write on politics and social questions there was to be a curious mixture of truth and falsehood. It is as though before the war we had viewed the world through the mirror of Chapman's psyche and had found there perspectives helpful to us. During the war, the mirror joggles, half melts, shatters. Now we can pick up only its fragments. Emotionally and intellectually he was a war casualty. But one acquainted with Chapman's writings even at their most erratic will be inclined to agree with Edmund Wilson's estimate: "Whatever his inconsistencies and his crusadings for mistaken causes, his spirit and example were a force of incalculable value." Intelligent criticism will be wary about throwing away these bits of broken mirror before looking into them. For instance, in October, 1918, he made a slashing attack on the idea of Nordic supremacy in an article, "The Passing of a Great Bogey." This piece was inspired by the racist Madison Grant, the reactionary author of The Passing of a Great Race. With a kind of Voltairean gusto Chapman reduced Grant's lucubrations to absurdity.40 Again in the Journal of Heredity he showed on what dubious scientific basis the idea of Nordic supremacy rests.41 Early in 1919, in an article complaining good-humoredly about the sentimentality of British propaganda in America, he pointed out that if a feeling of "world citizenship" was to develop, appeals to race loyalty, by the British or others, could only delay the process.42 For himself, however, Chapman would not hasten that process by Wilsonian methods. On February 25, 1919, for instance, he wrote a letter which appeared in several newspapers, expressing his doubts about America's entering the League of Nations. He wanted to know exactly to what extent the United States was to take charge of Europe. A month later, in the Boston Evening Transcript, he wrote on "The League Muddle" to argue that a written constitution for the League of Nations was then premature. 43 His op-

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position was based on the "no-organization" idea that he had developed in the 1890s; that is, he feared that a reform movement might shackle itself by a too rigid commitment to merely written agreements. His other fear was that America might go imperialistic. This anxiety came out in a magazine article, " T h e Balance of Power in the DrawingR o o m , " a rather amusing bit of reflection on social psychology which challenges Emerson: " T h e weighty calmness of demeanor which the ingenuous Sage of Concord attributed to race was a question of sea power and land power. It was, in fact, the Balance of Power." Into the make-up of every human being, according to Chapman, goes some consciousness of the power of his own nation. T h e obverse of that feeling is the fear of one another which nations have experienced from time immemorial. America has been distinguished from Europe, not so much by the freedom of her institutions, as by her freedom from that fear. Chapman saw that, as other nations came to fear America, she would become more competitive. "If some one fears you and competes with you, it is almost impossible not to frown and bristle." 4 4 In midsummer of 1919 the Chapmans traveled to France, chiefly to see Victor's grave. In Paris at the time was William Astor Chanler, Chapman's colorful brother-in-law, whom Chapman described at the time as— full of the underworld—managing Bulgaria—dividing Russia—planning the Holy Land—and in touch every day with every sort of patriot and conspirator in Europe. The age is just after his own heart—and as he has always been doing this sort of thing and getting up revolutions in Turkey before the war— he knows a good deal about queer people and conditions. The formal governments of the world have broken down and it's a time of chaos. Evidently William Chanler was full of wild stories: that Wilson had promised the Pope support of Catholicism in return for use of the papal spy system; that the League of Nations was a Jewish scheme to run the world; that Wilson's Fourteen Points were written by Untermeyer, Judge Brandeis, Jack Schiff, and the Jews. 4 5 It is impossible to determine the effect of Chanler's ideas on Chapman's thinking; but whether or not these are the seeds, Chapman was in time to develop a sort of conspiracy theory of history. A letter he wrote at this time shows a state of mind ready to swallow such nonsense: I used to be so full of opinions and cocksure of them—and now when I go to the closet I can't find any opinion. I have a strong prejudice against the

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Irish and this is all I have left over from the magnificent equipage with which I started the voyage.46 On shipboard on the return from France, Chapman was thinking that the aftermath of the war, even among the victors, was anything but glorious. For a while he believed that the idealism and work of the "uplifters" would do more to remake France and Germany than the League. But by the eighth of November Chapman found this sort of reform wearing: Over here . . . [he wrote an English friend] everything is a barn-raising. Teachers' salaries? Everybody forms in line; periodicals appear; conventions gather; people stop you in the street and put their hand in your pocket. The world is to be saved tomorrow, this is virtue, this is religion. . . . Then, perhaps, arises the idea "if you don't want a Revolution you must instruct labor; —make friends, be sensible; be humane; get together; have councils, forums, committees; see each other's point of view; break the shock. . . . The war got us into the drive habit, and trained a hundred thousand very able men and women into how to make drives. He concluded that, though Americans might be expert at organizing reforms at home, they were neither virtuous enough nor able enough to take charge of Europe. 47 When Wilson made his stumping tour to win approval of the League, Chapman was unstirred by the heroism of the President—and untouched by Wilson's breakdown—despite the resemblances to his own career in the nineties. Then the man who himself had held to no-compromise now assailed the President for the rigidity of his idealism. A small incident early in 1920 dramatizes the change that the war had brought about in Chapman. In his young manhood Chapman had declared: " I want to find someone on earth so intelligent that he welcomes opinions which he condemns—I want to be this kind of man." Chapman was no longer "this kind of man." One evening the Chapmans had as a dinner guest a young British officer, who had fought in the trenches, been wounded, and won the Military Cross for bravery. Battle experiences had taught him that whatever gains war sometimes has for an individual, its "spiritual disasters far outweigh any of its advantages." These convictions he was putting into poetry, for his name was Siegfried Sassoon. At dinner Chapman tried to dissuade Sassoon from spreading his ideas of war-weariness and disillusion. H e was present next evening at the Cosmopolitan Club when Sassoon talked and read some of his poems.

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When Sassoon finished, Chapman in a rage mounted the rostrum to demand what would happen to the world if such philosophy of self-pity and fear were to prevail. Some of Chapman's friends hissed him; some of the audience stood with him; and others left the room outraged. In his autobiographical Siegfried's Journey, Sasson has given a good-tempered account of the affair. At the time, however, Chapman was so distraught that he intended to go to the "British mission" to stop Sassoon from speechmaking. Yet the next day when he called on Sassoon and failed to find him in, he left a friendly note: Sorry to miss you this morning. It was a suffering occasion last night. I think I suffered as much as you did. If you will do it, why, you must: and I suppose the universe will not be wrecked by you or by my trying to stop you. As for the wrecking of a ladies' club or two, it's not of the smallest consequence.48 T o his son, though, Chapman could give no explanation for Sassoon's behavior except "mental aberrations" brought on by shell shock and German propaganda.49 In a similar vein was Chapman's treatment of the Reverend Percy Stickney Grant. Grant, two years older than Chapman, was a Bostonian who had become rector of a fashionable Episcopal church on Fifth Avenue. Aristocratic in his tastes, democratic in his faith in the common man, humanitarian in his sympathy with the outcast and oppressed, Grant was a social-gospel sort of Christian. He gave sermons on the questions of the day; and he created a forum in his church where liberals and radicals, Jews, Catholics, and Protestants, met to discuss social problems. "During the World War," Grant's biographer tells us— though no pacifist, he championed free speech, opposed the Espionage Act, organized demonstrations in favor of amnesty for political prisoners, stood by a Tolstoyan agitator Bouck White, and shocked the nation by comparing a crowd of Red deportees on the S.S. Buford with the Pilgrims on the Mayflower.50 Whatever Grant's errors, had Chapman known such a heretic in the nineties, he would have found the man after his own heart. But not the postwar Chapman. In an "imaginary obituary" published in Vanity Fair, he ridiculed Grant as "a little clothy and important," named his forum a "circus," and averred that Grant was hurling harmless bombs to get attention—in fact to amuse people. Chapman was relieved that the minister had been placed in the charge of three special investigators. 51

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As the Red scare began to work on Chapman, he came, like many of his countrymen, to seek only security and the maintenance of the status quo. T h e end of the decade found Chapman tired in spirit and weary of world-uplift. When a friend sent him a book on the diplomatic activities at Paris and Versailles, he thought it "a very timely and very handsome tombstone to set upon the grave of 'Diplomacy.'" 5 2 His letters and his public writings grew calmer. For a while, at least, he became almost apathetic to the stream of events. "Grind your hurdy-gurdy—that's all my philosophy," Chapman told his sons in the spring of 1920. "It puts you in the right relation of indifference toward events and this indifference is a great releaser and loosener of the mind." 5 3 So his war mania had run its course. Yet if the war freed Chapman's destructiveness, it seemed also to stimulate him to creativity. Subtract most of his war writings as of only pathological interest, and the remainder of his work during these years is impressive in quantity and quality. During no comparable period did Chapman publish so much. Besides the propaganda pamphlet, Homeric Scenes, and the edition of Victor's letters, the years from 1914 to 1920 brought five other books. In 1915 alone came Memories and Milestones, in which Chapman proved his rare gift as a portraitist; Notes on Religion, which partly consists of aphorisms gleaned from his religious experiences; and his longest book, Gree\ Genius and Other Essays—studies in literary and cultural criticism. In 1916 came another volume of plays, Cupid and Psyche; and in 1919 there was a small book of verse, Songs and Poems. Besides these, there was a fair spate of magazine essays. Although the war and the peace problems were Chapman's main preoccupation, he escaped his obsession often enough to produce work inferior to none of the rest of his writings. In fact, to concentrate as we have on the war tells only half of the truth about Chapman. The other half is his sanity. Of the books, Cupid and Psyche deserves the least attention. T w o of its pieces are tiny historical skits for children: one on Washington and Lafayette, the other on Romulus and Remus. The third, a more ambitious poetic play, from which the volume takes its name, follows the classic love story pretty much as we have it in Apuleius' Golden Ass. Produced outdoors at Yale under the supervision of Chapman's friend, William Sargent Kendall, Dean of the Art School there, and with its songs set to music by Horatio Parker, Cupid and Psyche doubtless had a faery charm

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like that of a good court masque of Jacobean times. But for a reader it has no more reality than those antique spectacles. What we have here is a twentieth-century prose writer imitating a Victorian versemaker's attempt to recapture a Renaissance treatment of a Greek myth! Chapman himself thought better of the accompanying music than of his own part in the production.54 Nor does Songs and Poems require much more attention than these plays. Chapman of course versified all his life, and Songs and Poems is a sort of harvest at mid-life, its thirty-five pieces being those he considered his best. T o this little volume, however, we might apply Chapman's own critique of Emerson's poetry: it gives one an "impression that the lines are a translation." Though by temperament he was a poet, what was poetic in him Chapman expressed in his prose. He had developed a prose style unique and his own—in its rhythms, its tone, its diction and imagery. The fire and wit and drama of that prose come from his deepest impulses and work in perfect harmony with his conscious intellect. The man in his fullness is everywhere in Chapman's prose, and his style is an original contribution to our literature. In contrast, Chapman's voice in his poetry is often so muffled and disguised that one can scarcely recognize it. Another man—a considerable number of other versemakers—could have written these poems. In them is a voice of the past, of the Victorian romantic tradition. In his verse, Chapman's wit is dulled; his images are mostly those tried and made safe by the centuries; and too often his diction is artificial, sometimes curiously Old World, occasionally antiquated. Perhaps this criticism is too severe. Actually Chapman himself had no pretensions about his poetry and was always aware that his versifying was subordinate to his prose. Yet with all its faults, Songs and Poems is saved by Chapman's craftsmanship, his emotional force, and his facility in music and meter. The musicality is well illustrated in this stanza from "Sappho's Last Song": This was the summer whose gradual splendor Burned the meridian while the deep sea Whispering, murmuring, watched the surrender, Cradled my union, my loved one, with thee.

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In this poem, as in several others w h i c h are adaptations f r o m old classicists, Chapman's inspiration is partly bookish. Yet within such limitations he could turn out clean, hard verses, like these "Lines in a Copy of V i r g i l " : Crumbling on Tiber's edge Lie columns sunk in sedge. A bird upon the spray Carols and flits away Across the river. Only what soars and sings, Only what flows and springs Passing on wheels as light As fancy or the spirit's flight— Endures forever. Quite a f e w of the pieces here are nature poems. T h e best of these are inspired by autumn, his favorite season, and by the landscape of the Hudson Valley, which C h a p m a n sketches in broad, quiet scenes. It is interesting that, though the poems dealing with spring are often melancholy, in Chapman's autumn poems there breathes a "tang of joy"—as in this happy imagery: A wind is in the laughing grain That bends to dodge his rough caress, Knowing the rogue will come again T o frolic with its loveliness. Y e t even the best of the nature poems are marred by archaisms and padding. In his war poems, frenzy and rage are generally quieted; their predominant mood is grief or bleak anxiety. " M a y , 1 9 1 7 " is a kind of ode to dejection. E v e n spring of that year was bitter to h i m : Behind your bowers and your blooms Volcanic desolation looms; Your life doth death express. Such was his despair that this poem contains an expressed desire f o r his own death, the only one since the hand-burning: Would I had perished with the past! Would I had shared the fate

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"Chaos has wrecked the outer world,/ Chaos invades the brain," cries Chapman elsewhere in this poem; and the words explain the man. Even in his poetic efforts he cannot maintain his balance. He was driven to excesses like these in the "Ode on the Sailing of Our Troops for France": Awake! the virgins perish, monsters rage; The earth is mastered by Hell's Overlord; Accept the manhood of thine heritage: Behold the shield, the sandals and the sword. One pauses to consider what use the doughboys of 1917 could have made of such accoutrements—particularly the sandals. Perhaps the wildest absurdity of Chapman's war-madness, though a harmless one, is his poem on the death of Roosevelt. In sonorous blank verse, he informed the Harvard Club of New York that "the great war/ Was all a fight for Paris." Moreover, " T w a s Roosevelt saved Paris"! Sad America Dreamed in the distance as a charmed thing Till Roosevelt, like Roland, blew his horn. Alone he did it! By his personal will. It is a relief to turn from this gaseous stuff to Gree\ Genius and Other Essays, which is sizable, solid, and offers plenty to chew on. Its four long studies—one on a great exemplar of classicist art, Euripides; the second on a great romanticist, Shakespeare; the third, on Balzac, the realist; and the final, a discussion of the American expatriate—were too much for the tastes of some reviewers. Except for the essay on the Greeks, the Nation detested the book because Chapman lacked academic sobriety.55 The Independent also wanted him to be "more restrained." 56 Though he took issue on some points, the New Yor\ Sun's reviewer nevertheless thought that Chapman had attained a level of style which only one English writer out of a thousand could reach.57 But this reviewer had the same trouble as did his fellow in the Boston Evening Transcript; 58 both of them regretted the wit and fun with which the final essay treated the serious subject of expatriation. A similar complaint came from the Springfield Republican, which reviewed Chapman's book together with Van Wyck Brooks's America's Coming-of-Age.59 Both the older and the

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younger critic received cool and cautious treatment because they were rebels against the genteel. The Bookman, less addicted to solemnity, got closer to the truth. Its reviewer found in Chapman "that sturdy American common sense which demands that even flights of imagination shall pay toll at the gates of human experience," and relished the way he never lost a chance to "jibe with good-natured and often brilliant irony" at sham and self-deception.60 That is precisely Chapman's purpose; for thus would he encourage Americans to find their own way towards their European heritage— ancient, Renaissance, and modern. Edmund Wilson thinks Chapman unusual among critics of his generation because he was never afflicted by nostalgia for Europe. "In his opinions on European culture," says Mr. Wilson, Chapman was "naturally and uncompromisingly American." Greeks Genius and Other Essays demonstrates Wilson's view. The first study here, "Euripides and the Greek Genius," is a cogent example. The "teasing perfection" of Greek literature, remarks Chapman, sets us moderns to dreaming. But the question of how close our dream is to the reality of Greek feeling is complicated by our inability to go direct to the Greeks themselves. Instead, we see the classics through the lenses of foreign scholarship, provided for us by specialists from English and German universities—scholars who, whatever their national differences, are sure that they understand the Greeks. So, if we are to use their lenses, we shall have to take into consideration "certain social laws of refraction; for example, spectacles, beer, sausages. . . . the Anglican communion, School honour, Pears' soap." Chapman tells us how the Germans grind their lenses. Only those who have been through the mill of the doctorate are certified to dream up theories about the ancients. But specialism hardly compensates for the cramped social life the German students knew in childhood and youth: They were aware that they could not be allowed to go out and play in the open until they had learned their lessons thoroughly; they therefore became prize boys. When the great freedom was at last conferred upon them, they roamed through Greek mythology, and all other mythologies, and erected labyrinths in which the passions of childhood may be seen gambolling with the discoveries of adult miseducation. Careerism, too, dragooned the ambitious German scholar into making a "find" or producing a new theory. So, while Herr Doktor might himself

THE WINE CUP OF THIS FURY be inexperienced in social life or sports or religion, he could always in libraries come upon the whole and definitive truth about Athenian conversation or G r e e k athletics or Hellenic religion. A s to their fellow scholars across the w a t e r : T h e Britons are gentlemen, afternoon callers, who eat small cakes, row on the Thames, and are all for morality. . . . T h e thesis of the British belleslettrists, to which they devote their energies, might be stated thus: British culture includes Greek culture. . . . While the German doctors use Greek as a stalking-horse for Teutonic psychology, these English gentlemen use it as a dress-maker's model upon which they exhibit home-made English lyrics and British stock morality . . . Browning's appeal is always the appeal to robust feeling as the salvation of the world. Gilbert Murray, on the other hand, sheds a sad, clinging Tennysonian morality over Dionysus. Jowett is happy to announce that Plato is theologically sound, and gives him a ticket-of-leave to walk anywhere in England. . . . There is a whole school of limp Grecism in England, which has grown up out of Keats' Grecian urn, and which is now buttressed with philosophy and adorned with scholarship. . . . How this school of poetry invaded Greece is part of the history of British expansion in the nineteenth century. M a k i n g fun of scholars is of course one of the oldest of literary enterprises, and C h a p m a n here singles out for demolition the influential Grecian Gilbert Murray. Perhaps no finer tribute has ever been written for a scholar-critic than the one C h a p m a n here pays to Murray. But the Murray w h o imposed upon his poetic translations " t h e plaintive and the highly moral note" and the Murray who was "the first man to talk boldly about God, and to introduce his name into all G r e e k myths, using it as a fair translation of any G r e e k thought," this Murray C h a p m a n dispatches to T o p h e t . In "ethical endeavor," he declares, Gilbert Murray and Matthew Arnold are " t w i n s " : I think that it was Arnold who first told the British that Greece was noted for melancholy and for longings. He told them that chastity, temperance, nudity, and a wealth of moral rhetoric marked the young man of the Periclean period. Even good old Dean Plumptree has put this young man into his prefaces. Against such sentimental and parochial moralizing, C h a p m a n provides a corrective. F o r instance, he bids us consider Euripides primarily as an artist: In reading Euripides, we find ourselves ready to classify him at moments as a satirist, and at other moments as a man of feeling. Of course he was both.

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Sometimes he seems like a religious man, and again, like a charlatan. Of course he was neither. He was a playwright. More specifically, rejecting Murray's attempt to read into Euripides' difficult Bacchantes a religious allegory, Chapman hammers at what sentimentalists like to overlook: the climactic horror of Greek tragedy and its brilliantly manipulated cruelties. This assault on Murray seems never to have generated any animosity between the two men. When years later it was reported that someone had asked him, ' " H o w about Jack Chapman's attack on you?' Murray replied, 'He hit me very hard. But he's a great spirit.'" 8 1 T o be sure, the charges leveled against Murray are no longer so timely as they were in 1915—or even in 1918 when T . S. Eliot made his more genteel attack.62 On the other hand, Chapman was ahead of his day in finding in the Bacchantes a clue, not to the limitations of Euripides' genius merely, but to the mind and art of Greece generally. By excessive sophistication, by too evident virtuosity, Euripides, says Chapman, tried to wring emotions from an audience grown weary of greater and calmer art. The drama became decadent because the Greeks turned away from experiment and could not conceive of other themes and new departures. In sum, the Greek lacked imagination for whatever lay outside his world; but within the limits of his world, "he has thought out everything with a fineness of perception and an accuracy of statement never known before or since." A valuable though unpublished study titled "Plato" and dating from this period of Chapman's career is related to the subject of "Greek Genius." Chapman never tried to print the piece, evidently becausc his views on the philosopher had not yet crystallized; but it is a milestone on his way to writing, in 1931, his controversial Lucian, Plato and Gree\ Morals. As we might expect, Chapman makes no attempt to assess Plato's contribution to formal philosophy. Dissenting from the Platonists, he argues that the greatness of Plato is not as a thinker and moral teacher but as a poet and literary artist. Not that he denies Plato's moral fervor —or Plato's attainment, through intellection, to a sort of prophecy of Christ. But in Chapman's view The Republic, like the Book of Job, justifies the moral sentiment not by reasonings but only through "flashes of literary talent." True, Plato affords solace—for "those ills of life which

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penetrate to the study." But to read him, Chapman reminds us, "never lifts a man out of his chair and sets him to doing uncomfortable, unpoetic, haggard things, as the Bible does." For Plato's dialectical thought Chapman has no relish: it is "logicchopping," artifice, and "pretended close-reasoning"—all of it part of a game cherished by Greek talkers. "Plato's audience did not care about the truth," he declares, "but they longed to know what could be said about it, and they loved to hear Socrates talk." Why he has no enthusiasm for the fine talk about Plato's Utopia Chapman explains shrewdly: "Pure Reason is splendid when it remains pure and executes itself. But myths do their work mythically and should never be assisted by a police force." By following Plato's arguments too closely, says Chapman, we miss the chief power of his genius—that of a maker of myths. Plato's unique talent was to develop complex metaphysical speculations and keep them alive by myths, by a marvelous blending of picture and idea. The essential vehicle of Plato's thought is "these floating luminosities of ideas, these embryo poems that swim in him." Since the rest is "convention and procedure," Chapman feels that we do better "to stumble on 'the divine' in Plato rather than to seek it out." For Plato's supreme merit is that he has the wisdom of a poet: Plato knew that the assault upon truth cannot be carried by a frontal attack. It is the skirmishing of Plato which makes his thought carry. . . . His work is a province of romantic fiction, and his legitimate influence has been upon the romantic fiction and poetry of the world. Plato used Philosophy as a puppet on his stage, and made her convey thoughts which she is powerless to tell upon her own platform. He saw that philosophy could live in the sea of moving fiction, but died on the dry land of formal statement. A further point might be made here. Chapman penetrates far when he attributes Plato's recommendations for the community of wives and the propagation of children by state license to some abnormal lack in that philosopher's personality. "They are the views," Chapman thinks, "of a man devoid of sexual passion." This insight he was to develop emphatically and centrally in the book on Lucian and Plato. In "Shakespeare," the second paper in Gree\ Genius and Other Essays, we might perhaps expect Chapman to treat of the great Englishman as another maker of myths. But we find that in this essay Chapman rides his theory too hard. His belief that Shakespeare is a totally "unconscious"

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genius drives Chapman into careless generalizing, and sometimes into such extravagances as these: that Othello is "a plea for evil"; that Shakespeare can forget the stage for hours together; that his plays are "plays only incidentally . . . water-colour sketches made by an amateur for his own pleasure"; etc., etc. Chapman can nevertheless be suggestive when, for instance, he compares the ancient with the Elizabethan theaters and points out how the Greek made for unity while the Elizabethan encouraged variety. More valuable is his recommendation that if we want insight into Shakespeare's methods as a creator we ought to examine the less successful plays. For Chapman shows how, when the un-self-critical Shakespeare chances upon a source or a theme that has no deep appeal to him, he blunders, plods, or sprawls. According to Chapman, in perfection of form the Greek dramatists surpassed Shakespeare; but in "native talent" he far outdistanced them. It is this matter of native talent which puts fumes into Chapman's head in the Shakespeare essay. Fortunately, it produced exactly the opposite effect upon him in the Balzac study. "Balzac" is in every way as good as the "Emerson" of the nineties. The French scholar-critic, André Chevrillon, once remarked: "I knew him when he was studying Balzac and I was amazed at his insight into the complexity of that extraordinary genius." 63 Naturally, Balzac appeals to Chapman because he is, like Shakespeare and unlike Euripides, an unconscious artist. Chapman is also drawn to this "Messiah of fiction" because Balzac stands outside the classic tradition represented by France's Academie—an institution here defined as "the organized taste of a nation which loves correctness." To the rest of the world Balzac is a giant ranking in influence next to Montaigne and Voltaire and Rousseau; but an academic-minded Frenchman, says Chapman, can prove him guilty of every fault a writer can have. To our question, what, then, becomes of the Academie? Chapman's answer is that "Balzac upsets the apple-cart of French classicism, and in doing so makes the strongest commentary on it that has ever been made." Just as the German and English specialists might prove "false guides" towards our understanding the Greeks, so we can hardly come at the secret of Balzac's genius by reading what his classic-minded compatriots have written about him. To shock the prepossessions of tidily academic folk, Chapman then offers this advice:

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W e should use no method of dealing with Balzac, but should approach him through accident and chaotically, pulling down one of his books occasionally to see if it speaks to us. T h e scholars have tried to measure him. They have walked over his huge back like inch-worms. Even Sainte-Beuve, the most liberal of the F r e n c h m e n , tries to "place" Balzac. But the jug is too wide for the shelf: the critic is left with the sprawling author in his arms.

Chapman prefers not to apply "realism" to Balzac because that term has been invented since Balzac's time. At any rate, Balzacian realism is paradoxical: " T h e internal world of his fiction is the real world for Balzac, and he contrives to make it the real world for his readers." By methods which are not "intentional" but "instinctive" and which are so subtle that a reader can seldom perceive them, Balzac demonstrates— the gift of creating an illusion of realism through the use of the most extravagant, romantic, unreal claptrap; the gift of alternately dazzling, stimulating, and informing the reader's mind till the reader gives up all hope of analyzing his own sensations and surrenders himself heart and soul to the spell of the magician.

Again, paradoxically, even when Balzac bores us he interests us: H i s manner of procedure in writing seems to be that of a man who, having been a witness of certain events, should sit down and think aloud about them. D u r i n g the process of this thinking aloud the story is told. . . . All these practices are not the elaborate devices of literary art, but, on the contrary, are habits of a man w h o is so very familiar with his subject that he can state it in fifty ways, and is, at best, merely giving the reader the fringes of it.

These same "habits" are at work in Balzac's characters. T h e crowd of them in the Comedie Humaine comprises an entire society, each personage suggesting part of the whole. For Balzac's brain teemed with readyprepared biographies of the typical citizens of his imaginary world. When a tale calls for a particular character—say, a senator, a Jewish banker, a notary, a Napoleonic general: "Balzac already has the man in his greenroom. He does not have to create him, as every other novelist must do; he simply refers to him—taps a bell, and in he walks." T o Chapman, the thrilling reality of Balzac's creatures comes from this: that they are "unreal in form, true in substance." That is, in his portraits Balzac was never a realist in our present-day sense: T h e colours in them result from the analysis of light. Colours made in this way are the only colours that will hold; for colours that are ignorantly copied

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out of nature soon fade into nondescript. There is nothing in Balzac which is copied from nature. Everything has been first understood and then arranged so as to symbolise nature. . . . There is nothing that exists merely for the sake of the picturesque. The phrase "symbolise nature" is the key to Chapman's argument. T o be sure, part of Balzac's power is his understanding of the trappings of life. But his use of such detail is far from mere documentation: In lodging and furnishing his characters he makes their bedsteads and clothes, their curtains, carpets and wall-papers, speak as eloquently as their lips. The meaning of furniture was one of his discoveries; he draws orchestral music out of it. For Balzac's mimic world, Chapman points out, is "a world of symbolism, ruled by certain laws of illusion." When Balzac offers us some piece of this imaginary world, he makes us feel that he is omniscient about it, about finance, politics, the Church, student life—everything. On the contrary, says Chapman, Balzac knew none of these things correctly: "he merely knew their stage uses, their imaginative values, their symbolic effectiveness." To Chapman, Balzac deserves the name of thinker. But like the born novelist he is, he thinks in dramatis personae; and ideas to him are true only as they are bodied forth in his characters. Balzac's stories are indeed demonstrations or parables that exist, not for their own sake merely, but for a remoter truth. Yet, beyond "a general conception of life as force, and of the visible portions of our being as mere projections of the far larger and more important invisible part," Balzac has no explicit message. For, according to Chapman, "The greater the poet, the less he is conscious of any message." We think of Shakespeare here; and Chapman finds that he and Balzac are also kin in that each tends to disappear into his own creations : He has, as it were, no outer life: he is all artist. His works are not really works at all, but are what is left over in the mere process of the artist's existence. In making them, he is experiencing, he is searching. Holding the Russian novelists inferior to this Frenchman, Chapman calls Balzac the greatest tragic writer since Shakespeare. Yet his curious view of Balzac the tragedian—Chapman regrets that Balzac concentrates so on the evil forces of life— is the one weakness in this otherwise strong essay. It is curious, because Chapman fails to see what would be obvious

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to a bright college sophomore: that to make his point, both morally and aesthetically, Balzac, by the very logic of his narratives, often must have his tragic ending. Instead, Chapman offers specious excuses: that the Mediterranean tradition frankly enjoys tragedy, that we ought not therefore to weep too much over a Balzac novel, that his tragic elements are often merely convention, etc. We cannot be satisfied with so inadequate a view of tragic art. Doubtless, private anguish and wartime anxieties made Chapman wish to armor himself against the pain of tragedy even in art. Perhaps this is why his sympathy with the Russian realists was imperfect. Turgenev he forgot; Chekhov he seemingly never knew; and if he read Dostoyevsky, his letters are silent about it. Both the mysticism and pathology of Dostoyevsky should have fascinated Chapman— unless they struck home too hard. He was unwilling, he admitted, to give his "painful attention to reading a novel if the book is only a restatement of life's injustices and incongruities, a mere attack on the incomprehensibility of the universe." Plainly Chapman is imposing limitations on himself as a literary critic; for he required of great works of art that they give him "something that confirms the faith in me which the real world so constantly baffles." But his point is valid: that detailed photographic representation of life—no matter how competent its genius —must always produce an art inferior to that of the greatly creative imagination. Before we turn away from this essay, one more passage in it deserves attention—"in view," as Chapman's biographer remarks, "of the stupendous number of written pages in which Chapman recorded his own existence." 64 Here, then, is Chapman's description of the natural-born writer—of Honore de Balzac, and of himself: Your complete literary man writes all the time. It wakes him in the morning to write, it exercises him to write, it rests him to write. Writing is to him a visit from a friend, a cup of tea, a game of cards, a walk in the country, a warm bath, an after-dinner nap, a hot Scotch before bed, and the sleep that follows it. Your complete literary chap is a writing animal; and when he dies he leaves a cocoon as large as a haystack, in which every breath he has drawn is recorded in writing. In " L a Vie Parisienne," the study which concludes Gree\ Genius, Chapman brings his theme of America's European heritage down to the present. This is one of his most playful essays; but he makes a serious point: that expatriates will never build up the arts and sciences in America.

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" Y o u r intelligent American," he declares, "will stand more chance of becoming a significant intelligence if he babbles in the purlieus of Hoboken than if he hobnobs with the Sorbonne." During their 1915 visit to Paris, Edith Wharton had befriended the Chapmans; and as an expatriate, she became the immediate inspiration of this essay. 05 "Wicked, lovely Paris," Chapman reminds us, can seduce persons of all nationalities; but most of them get over it. Yet some so completely succumb to her charms that they determine henceforth to reside in Paris A m o n g the Americans so victimized, Chapman labels three types: the Vulgarians, the Natural Nobles, and the Inner Templars. T h e Vulgarians stay because they frankly enjoy this world's goods and get more for their money in Europe than at home. T h e Natural Nobles are bewitched by Europe's social glamor: They hold the hands of real nobles very tightly when they meet them, and look in their eyes very lovingly. They are really long-lost brothers to dukes and kings, to barons, and to persons with old names and good manners. . . . A holy smell, as of incense, pervades the habitations of the elect in Europe; a gentle radiation of influence causes the Natural Noble from America to purr and raise his back and rub himself against the knees of the great,—yea, even against the chairs and wainscoting. But it is the Inner Templars who worry Chapman. These are the intellectuals who, though they may be stanchly democratic in social sympathy, are so oppressed by America's crudities that they "melt before the finesse of European cultivation." Thereafter they feel unhappy at home. So they seek consolation in a special European "society of critical cleverness," a world of "social and esthetic chatter," which prides itself on keeping abreast of the latest in ideas and the arts. T o Chapman, however, this society is no more than "a little wart or excrescence which grows on the body of art"; and it gets whatever vitality it has from the "deep currents of national life that flow about it and over it." T h e trouble comes when the Inner Templar, by identifying himself with this small world, supposes he is "seeing life." According to Chapman, just the opposite is happening. For the uprooted American can no longer draw upon the contemporary life of his own people, nor can he get sustenance from the deeper flow of European life around him. If the Inner Templar is an artist or writer, he must work cut off f r o m the collective unconscious. (Not that Chapman uses this

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term; he only predicates that "this Unconscious is. . . . the great umbilical cord that holds a man in touch with the universe and permits the power of the universe to reverberate through him.") The expatriate therefore lacks what the creative person needs to feel deeply: a sort of belief that his way must prevail because he knows that at bottom everybody is like himself. Nearly as bad, the expatriate becomes susceptible to "certain drawingroom diseases of Europe." "The cult of cultivation," Chapman contends, "which is merely a becoming sort of fashionable cough to thousands of Europeans, runs straight into scarlet fever and typhoid with the American visitors." We Americans, he thinks, lack sufficient reserve power to indulge in cleverness with impunity; we have been isolated from Europe for so long that we cannot take sophistication lightly. A Dodsworth, says Chapman in effect, has a more "self-respecting and natural relation" to Europe's cultivation than the "simian and nervous relation" of the Inner Templar. Thus, Chapman rests his case. This same year, 1915, he published Memories and Milestones. Here he turned away from Europe, to look directly at the American mind; and the eighteen brief papers of this book constitute a kind of informal survey of our culture. About half of these essays—the "milestones," dealing with education, religion, art, drama, and social problems—were written before the war and have been previously discussed. In the remaining pieces— the "memories"—Chapman proves himself a genius in what is for him a new genre: the literary portrait. His sitters are mostly eminent Americans: a philosopher, a scholar, a teacher, an educator, women reformers, and social leaders of the Boston of the eighties. These portraits are near to perfection. Even Van Wyck Brooks, who finds Chapman the least among his contemporaries, admits that this "handful of character-sketches . . . unique in their kind in America, bore witness to the writer's wit and his gifts of intuition and the happy phrase." 66 But it is hard to define the literary portrait as Chapman practiced it. It is easier to say what these essays are not. They are in no sense the conventional short biography, nor monographs for historiographers. Off guard and informal, they never aim at a rounded account of their subject, but focus upon and highlight those features and details which strike the eye of the knowing artist. The portraits are suggestive and nearly as concise as good poetry.

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The most discerning review of the book was written for the New Republic by Philip Littell, who used the occasion for some portraiture himself. Chapman in real life, says Littell, looks like "a brigand who has retired from business, like a gentleman of a school that was always old, and a little like a saint who has taken on weight." Of the essays he has this to say: They are done with humor, insight, kindly malice, they are done in words which serve easily, casually, the fine imagery in Mr. Chapman's mind, in words colored by the poetical feeling which accounts for so much of him, and with never an ungenerous word. . . . Seldom do you find a portrait painter whose interest in function is so nearly equal to his interest in idiosyncrasy. And you cannot help suspecting, from Mr. Chapman's manner, that he has no idea how good these portraits are. 67

All of them were done between 1910 and 1920, since in or near to this decade came the deaths of those who were Chapman's subjects. After reading the first of them, Edith Wharton wrote to Chapman: "Oh, how you do it, when you do it, and why don't you oftener? Those too few pages are so packed with fine and penetrating things that I want you to be looking over my shoulder while my finger points 'Here—and here— and here!'" 6 8 She was exclaiming over the portrait of William James, which in point of time was the first. Shortly after James's death in 1910, his widow had written to Chapman: "I doubt whether you know how he valued you, how he delighted in you, how he sympathized with and understood, ah, how he understood,—your nervous temperament." 69 When Memories and Milestones came into her hands, she wrote again: "The pages about my husband are dear to me— Even if you don't care for the philosophic passion of his soul, you have felt the man as few have done." 70 Perhaps wifely loyalty made for bias. But that sentiment hardly affected the aged £mile Boutroux, then dean of French philosophers, when he wrote to Chapman: You have marvelously made us comprehend the moral grandeur and the angel-like character of William James; after reading you, we understand better the extraordinary impression he made upon us. 7 1

Chapman's point about James is that he was essentially not a philosopher but took up philosophy out of a puritanical sense of duty and "as a vehicle through which his nature could work upon society." Behind

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all of James's work Chapman sees "a great religious impulse," which was never expressed in literary form nor reduced to "dogmatic utterance." Rightly, the public sensed in him "the religious truth which James was in search of, yet could never quite grasp in his hand." The spirit of this essay is finely intimate, and Chapman confesses how he regularly wrote and spoke to James "in a tone of fierce contempt" and how James always responded with "the most spontaneous and celestial gayety." Beneath James's playfulness, however, was sadness: "You felt that he had just stepped out of this sadness in order to meet you, and was to go back into it the moment you left him." It was the sadness of one deeply religious, says Chapman, like that of Lincoln or Tolstoy: " H e was a victim of divine visitation: the Searching Spirit would have winnowed him in the same manner, no matter what avocation he might have followed." The influential teacher who sits for the next portrait is Charles Eliot Norton, whom Chapman had so outrageously assailed in the days of the Nursery. But now we have a mellowed picture of "a great individuality through whom the best traditions of American college life were continued." Chapman honors Norton because he stood up for "the larger interests of humanity" during an era when the ways of the business world invaded our colleges and threatened to silence the individualist. T o be sure, Norton was too limited to be a key to humanity at large; he was only "a local sage." In the fact of Norton's usefulness to his times, during his heyday as a professor of art history, Chapman finds a hint for studying the state of American culture. Aesthetically weak and having a "stiff New England brain," Norton had not grown up with the arts in childhood but had only "learned them as a grown man learns French." Over his "powerful moral nature" was a "thin wash of estheticism," gained in Norton's younger days from Ruskin and the pre-Raphaelites. Compounded of such elements was the doctrine which this teacher "ladeled out like hot salvation to the hungry and shivering youth of America." For at Harvard Norton's vocation was to point out that such things as architecture and painting and sculpture did exist in the world. Though he was naughty in his agnosticism, though Norton had so much of the mule in him that "even before you spoke you received an ultimatum," and though he shared with Harvard's president "an incorruptible obtuseness" towards what was creative and poetic and temperamental, he was always unselfish and specially tender in his concern for impecunious students. And as Norton grew older—

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the core of him began to shine through its coverings; and at the age of eighty he was plainly nothing else than a darling old saint, with a few sophistical hobbies which, when you went to see him, he drew from his cabinet and showed you with glee—old philosophical gimcracks. These things you perceived at once to be of no importance; while the man himself was everything. In the Philadelphian Howard Horace Furness Chapman found, combined, the qualities of the perfect scholar and the perfect gentleman; and yet there gleamed through him "a crystal idea of something nobler than either." Editing the Variorum Shakespeare meant endless laborious detail, but Dr. Furness was interested only in the "poetic kernel of Shakespeare." He was not the sort to whom literature is a carcass for dissecting, but "a live animal to be stroked and talked to, befriended, lived with, laughed and cried over." Chapman was always amused by the scholarship which pretends to finality and makes a parade at being definitive. Still, he confesses here: I love the race of men who write notes on great books, whether on Dante or Shakespeare. They collect miscellaneous information and they chatter like happy magpies. They keep literature alive, like Darwin's earthworms, by creeping down out of sight and bringing new soil to the top. Furness made it his lifework to put "all the Shakespeare chatterers into one great aviary." He collected "all the bones and tidbits from three hundred years of Shakespearean controversy; and having laid them before you, scampers away with a jest." Like James, Furness was gay. Even his deafness joined him to, rather than separated him from, others: "his elegant, delicate silver ear-trumpet—(more like some elfin horn, or the ornament of a fairy king or goblin herald, than a necessary instrument) . . . was always at hand . . . to receive good news from the guest." His deafness drew other persons out, invited fun and foolish sallies. Yet, as with James—"one knew all the while that somewhere in the middle of all this gayety lay a great renunciation. This power to give and take innocent pleasure is always bought with a great price." T o Chapman, the wonder was that America could produce in those times a scholar so supremely humane. Even the bristling expert in Indo-Germanic philology, he hoped, might be softened, sweetened, humanized by contact with the "unscientific, non-conclusive intellect" of Dr. Furness. Though the philosopher Josiah Royce does not appear in Memories and Milestones—he died the year after its publication and Chapman memorialized him only in an article in The Outlooin 1919 7 2 —he belongs here

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with the other scholarly sitters. "Royce," Chapman announces, "was the John L . Sullivan of philosophy"; and the essay opens with this blast: There is no such thing as philosophy. But there are such things as philosophers. A philosopher is a man who believes that there is such a thing as philosophy, and who devotes himself to proving it. He believes that behind the multifarious, contradictory, and often very unpleasant appearances of the world there is a unity which he can put into typewriting. Probably there is; but certainly he can't. Chapman suspects that there was but one real philosopher on this continent, and he was Josiah Royce. "All the rest of them have had doubts and weaknesses and backslidings." If Royce had never been taught to read, Chapman avers, he would have been "a very great man." An extravagant statement—but we find such a philosopher as Ralph Barton Perry agreeing with Chapman that Royce was "in a measure immobilized by his intellectual possessions." 73 Royce, Chapman tells us, "knew everything and was a bumblebee—a benevolent monster of pure intelligence, zigzagging, ranging, uncatchable. I always had this feeling about Royce— that he was a celestial insect." Another portrait not to be found in Memories and Milestones is the Memoir of Isaac H. Klein, Chapman's faithful Achates in the reform years. This piece is preserved only in a six-page booklet with the subtitle Read at the Memorial Service at the Madison House on January u, /920.74 In spirit, it is one of the tenderest things Chapman ever wrote. Klein's shortcoming was diametrically opposite Royce's; never having gone to high school, he was so little the reader that, Chapman avouches, he could hardly keep his mind on a newspaper. Yet, had his natural abilities been developed through education, Klein might have become "one of the voices of the age." For all the humbleness of his origin and the hard scrabble of his early life, Klein shared with the great Harvardians and with Dr. Furness the "same passionate integrity of spirit." Like the philosophers', Klein's whole life was a search for that place in the universe where reason and conscience must meet; for him, though, the quest was not theory but the practice of everyday experience "in that push where men betray their real selves." Incapable of tampering with his integrity, Klein represented for Chapman the truly religious man: "He was ready at every moment to cast in the whole of his life as the price of the truth at that moment, leaving the outcome to God."

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A third portrait appearing only in the Harvard Graduates' Magazine in 1918, 73 is that of Robert Shaw Minturn, a New York friend of Chapman's own social class. It is immaterial that history has paid no more heed to Minturn than to Klein; for after reading this essay, we are made to see what is eternally best in his type. The ideal of the gentleman always meant much to Chapman; and here is his description of that ideal. The essay weaves together many different strands: history, social virtue, the concept of the honnete homme, butterfly frivolity, grim tragedy, a brush with the problem of evil. Minturn, a friend since the St. Paul's School days, belonged to the "race of courtly gentlemen whose dress, manners, and temperament fitted them as the plumage fits a fine bird." The beau monde is the very atmosphere of the gentleman: "His powers are stimulated by banners and chandeliers, by prancing coursers and evening dress, by pictures, engravings, and the entourage of civilization." When a man of this breed happens also to be public-spirited and religious, all these luxuries become, by one of nature's illusions, merely a foil to his inward worth. Minturn was such a man. Into old New York (with its "many an icy palace, where coldness and rudeness had been adopted as the nearest American equivalent to the stiff English manner") Minturn brought the "gallantry of his natural manners" and refused to be "frozen by furniture or by flummery." After a happy youth, Minturn had had his portion of disappointments and hardships; but "under stroke after stroke of the divine lightning," his spirit seemed to rise. How is it, Chapman asks, that "the shattering events of life seem designed to attack a man's whole system merely for the purpose of forcing a single inner golden thread of resignation to vibrate"? At a dinner party at the Chapmans' and when Minturn was in mid-career, he was suddenly stricken with paralysis, at once lost his power of speech, and started on his final illness. He carried off the occasion gracefully, and gave "such an example of the grand manner that his picture ought to be in the history of knighthood forever." For another year Minturn lingered, dying slowly: One is tempted to pause and say, "If I had been the Creator I should have omitted this last scene, or else I should have had the facts merely told by a messenger to the audience and not acted out on the stage." In the other portraits of gentlemen and of ladies in Memories and Milestones, the emphasis is as much on scene as on character. Their back-

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ground is "the great world of little Boston" of the i88os, and Chapman writes about it as one who had been in it yet not of it. Boston in those days was "a family,—a club"; its great business was "to place values upon everything in the world, with conscientious accuracy." Only old Boston could give charm, for instance, to Professor Norton's remarking, after a performance of Beethoven's Eroica, that "the 'sentiment' of the funeral march was a little 'forced.' " T o Chapman, the finest of Boston's gentlemen was Martin Brimmer, ward of Chapman's first wife and leader in philanthropy, art patronage, and social life. He pictures the Brimmers' red-silk drawing room and the gorgeous parade of banquets and receptions which had terrified him as a youth and awed all of Boston. But he does not laugh at the memory: "Say what you will, there was something strong about the old Commonwealth; and, as it melted slowly into modern times, I watched and treasured the apparition." In the center of this splendor was the lame, frail Mr. Brimmer, who with his "kind of Hidalgo humility" cared little for luxury. He moved about in it "as an old lord might move in a castle, just because it was there." Not so "warm as the Tropics," Mr. Brimmer nevertheless was "very much warmer than the average Beacon street mantelpieces were." When as a youth in Italy Chapman had seen paintings of the old Venetian merchants, "keen-eyed, practical, hard and cold," he fancied he could fix the name of a Boston worthy to almost every one of them. By contrast, Martin Brimmer had "nothing of that austere look which comes from holding on to property and standing pat." He was the best of old Boston, yet not quite a pure Bostonian; for he was sweeter by nature and "less sure he was right than the true Bostonian is." Another of these portraits is a tribute to Sarah Wyman Whitman, who had launched Chapman on his career as a writer. She, too, was no true Bostonian, not even a native. T o encourage good conversation, she would gather in her home cultivated people, both old and young. In time, "this unknown lady from some savage town,—Baltimore, perhaps," became a "center of social influence" of a rare sort in America, an influence comprised of art, idealism, and intellect. Mrs. Whitman's was a true and unusual talent: she simply believed that other people are remarkable— and nearly made them so by her faith in them. Hers was a "spiritual hospitality," and its essence was her own selflessness.

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The gallery of Memories and Milestones contains two other ladies who likewise could never be proper Bostonians. One is Julia Ward Howe, the great-aunt of Chapman's second wife; and the other, his own Abolitionist grandmother. Since Mrs. Howe had devoted her life to worrying politicians and rousing the public, she remained to the end of her days a "doughty, gallant battler in the drawing room." Her brand of social talent was hardly acceptable. Convinced that all humanity walked on the same social plane, Mrs. Howe entertained whom she pleased—including too many who Boston thought should not be entertained at all. As for Maria Weston Chapman, she "bore herself like bronze and marble" and was uniquely suited by physique and temperament to lead a crusade. And Chapman describes the dramatic meeting of his grandmother and Harriet Martineau at the very moment when the Abolitionists were threatened by a mob. Her grandson looks upon this woman and the antislavery people she worked with as "titanic creatures, whom Nature spawned to stay the plague—and then withdrew them, and broke the mold. Heroic they remain." The most pathetic of these essays is that on his brother, Henry, who died in 1913. Chapman implies more than he can state about the life of one whose early promise of fine gifts was never fulfilled. For Henry lost career, health, and life itself to his own self-destructiveness. Before we turn away from Memories and Milestones, there is one more essay which ought to be considered. "President Eliot" is something more and something less than a literary portrait. It is not so much about Charles William Eliot the man as it is about the educator. More broadly, Chapman analyzes here the forces which made of this Harvard president the great tycoon among educators in the era of tycoons. The "embodiment of a mood of the American people," Eliot razed the old buildings and traditional values of our institutions of higher learning and replaced them with huge physical plants and gigantic organizations. T o this faith in bigness, typical of the years from 1870 to 1910, Eliot dedicated his life. In his deepest heart, Eliot, Chapman feels, held no reverence for culture. His was the genius of the administrator; he was not so great for his conceptions as for his ability to carry them through. Like his fellow titans in industry and commerce, Eliot desired power—which of course in that epoch meant money. So, for that unending line of college and university

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presidents whose prime duty is money-gathering, Eliot must always be the hero. T h e youthful Chapman was shocked by the first speech he heard the president give: Eliot in his financial rhapsodies drew golden tears down Pluto's cheek, and he built his college. The music was crude: it was not Apollo's lyre; it was the hurdy-gurdy of pig-iron and the stock yards. T o this music rose the walls of Harvard, and of all our Colleges. In Eliot Chapman sees symbolized the managerial genius that transformed our higher education by adapting it to American conditions—our exploding population, expanding industries, fabulous material wealth, and a lack of a deep-rooted cultural tradition. T h e loss, according to Chapman, is the hostility which such systematization and corporatism spell for independent-minded persons. Since such persons are often the most inspiring teachers, organizational expediency can strike at the heart of true education. For, as Chapman sees it, the relation between student and teacher is "a tiny crucible [which] must boil, or your whole College will be cold." Unfortunately, "the Business Era chilled this heart-center of University life in America." A true university can never rest upon the will of one man or be run like a big business firm—even

if its boss is an Eliot: " A true University always rests upon

the wills of many divergent-minded old gentlemen, who refuse to be disturbed, but who growl in their kennels." Busy as the war years were for him, Chapman continued to think and write about education. Some of his ideas spilled over into the letters that he so frequently fired off into the study of D r . Drury, headmaster of St. Paul's School. These we must pass over, with only a glance at such pleas as that preparatory schools stop making it their chief aim to fit their students to pass college entrance examinations; and that—a novel idea in these years—colleges would benefit by supporting a creative artist or two on their faculties. In an address before the American Library Association in 1916, Chapman repudiated the innovation of writing books pseudo-scientifically adapted to various age levels of children readers. 79 In the fall of this year, he spoke to a conference of teachers on " T h e Better Use of the Spoken W o r d . " Training young children in the correct use of English, he pointed out, cannot be divorced from other disciplines; for "the ability to speak and write English is so intimately dependent upon the ability to think

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for oneself that the thing cannot be taught but only inspired." H e also reminded his hearers of something teachers too often overlook: that behind anyone's use of language is the whole state of his society's general cultivation. 77 In May, 1919, he returned to his charge of business control in an essay titled "Harvard's Plight: Will Somebody Kindly Arouse H e r from Her C o m a ? " H e accuses the professors of the eighties and nineties for failing to turn a hand against the "devastation" of the colleges. Men of repute, like Royce or James, Chapman argues, might have set the nation an example by going to their university president and demanding that at least one or two men of purely intellectual interests and aspiration always sit on their governing boards. Alas, the professors were so devoted to their specialties that, unawares, they abandoned their leadership and slipped into the role of servitors: They couldn't see that it was their business to fix the kitchen stove. . . . In them there occurred a break, a schism between the contemplative and active life of our country. They were given to understand by the Management that the great and complicated externals of the College . . . must be left in the hands of real estate and bond experts, and the philosophers accepted the decision. . . . accepted an analysis of their function which was offered them by crude, practical men. 78 A s usual, familiarity led Chapman to concentrate his fire on Harvard. T h e next month he wrote from Boston that "everyone" there referred "humorously and distantly" to his attacks but avoided considering whether or not he had raised real questions. " I believe half of them think I'm an amoosin' little cuss, not so insane as used to be thought, and best, so far as possible, discouraged." 7 9 T h e lightheartedness often enough masked his rage. It was this same year that, in a magazine article, he took issue with Henry Ford's thoroughly American dictum: "History is bunk." Chapman was even then seeing in Henry Ford a personification of what the life-adjustment philosophy of American public education would come to mean. Ford's genius, he declared, lay in "being fitted for his environment if ever a man was." In time, perhaps the educators would catch up with Ford's conviction that the study of the past or the acquiring of any general information or schooling not in the line of business was useless, if not inimical to us. When the schools try to produce this type of successful man, Chapman

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predicted, Destiny, standing behind them, will point to a signboard: "READING AND WRITING ABOLISHED."

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Another American who at this time roused even more ire in Chapman was Henry Adams. His first draft for a review of The Education of Henry Adams he tore up because it was "bad-hearted" and "the odiousness of the man actually got into my essay on him." To be sure, the finished product—it is something more than a review—is not sympathetic to Adams. But the "odiousness" has given way to a flavorsome malice. And Chapman has made here an original interpretation of a problematic figure—of the writer whom F. O. Matthiessen has linked with Chapman himself as "two of our most symptomatic minds." 81 Since, like Norton, Adams "represented a top dressing of European cultivation grafted upon a sturdy, stiff, native American stock," Chapman smiles to think how Adams and his cronies (John La Farge and John Hay and Clarence King) formed "a sort of secret society of the Only Intellectuals in America." For history, Chapman values the chapters on England in The Education. But in the rest of the book he can find only "the after dinner talk of a brilliant raconteur . . . who is under the delusion that he is a philosopher." As to Adams's third-person auctorial stance, it may aim at "philosophical insouciance"; but only those who are real believers and yet real doubters can get away with such a pose—say, a Voltaire or a Montaigne. By this device Adams succeeds only in stirring reminiscences of greater writers and so causes the reader to make comparisons damaging to Adams. Another annoyance is Adams's family pride; it is like a rattle, says Chapman, "and we hold our ears till it stops": Even when his rattle is not actually sprung, Adams holds it coyly in his lap and causes it now and again to give a sudden delicious "click"; at which he smiles with infantile satisfaction and nestles deeper into the silken gown of his literary pose. Is it possible, Chapman wonders, for any man whose emotional nature has been suppressed like that of this New Englander to write an autobiography and avoid faults of taste? He thinks of Adams sitting beside his wife's tomb to eavesdrop at the remarks of casual visitors; "I suppose," he says, "because these ineptitudes were a part of his education." In analyzing the meaning of failure as that word appears in The Education, Chapman regards Adams as representative of the generation of promising youths who, though they survived the Civil War, had been

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fatigued by its idealism. In one respect those young men's aims harmonized with the postbellum temper: "Their notion of success was worldly success." Their ambition was "a little vulgar" because it was "competitive, boyish, greedy." Of course, some of them, like Adams, had gifts other than commercial ones. Yet an atmospheric materialism so influenced their early manhood that they could never escape feeling that, after all, art and intellect are only "top dressing." Men like Henry Adams, then, could not become true intellectuals because unconsciously they clung to "the admirations of their epoch": These dilettanti retained a competitive relation to their contemporaries, the magnates who shone so bright and owned so much. . . . Thus they both admired America too much and despised her too much. They could not help bowing the knee to success, though they did so with a sneer upon their lips. Chapman predicted that in the 1920s the very defects of The Education of Henry Adams would make it a much-read book: "For there is nothing that dull people in all ages enjoy so much," so he concluded his essay, "as strongly flavored imitation cynicism." 82 It goes without saying that Chapman could never have become popular as a magazine writer. He could never master what he called "the writing down" style. "One can't condescend to one's audience without also condescending to one's subject," he declared in a letter—"the very last thing one ought to do now when there are a lot of new young minds waiting for the best and most personal." 83 But he did take a step towards becoming popular at least among the highbrows. For about two years, from 1918 onward, he contributed over a score of articles on education, the arts, and contemporary affairs to the illustrated monthly Vanity Fair. He stopped writing for this magazine, however, as soon as he realized that he was beginning to fall into mannerisms and to write by formula. Friendship and mutual respect existed between Chapman and its editor, the liberal, gentlemanly bon vivant, Frank Crowninshield. Sympathetic to the arts, Crowninshield had made Vanity Fair into a sophisticated and lively review. If not avant garde, the magazine was distinctly modernist and welcomed to its pages talents as varied as those of Dreiser, Colette, Papini, D. H. Lawrence, Maurois, Molnar, Mencken, E. E. Cummings, T . S. Eliot, Dos Passos, Scott Fitzgerald, and others. It was through Vanity Fair, too, that Chapman met such writers as Tarkington, Benchley, Robert E. Sherwood, and Edmund Wilson. Besides being an editor,

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Crowninshield was also a collector of celebrities in the arts and letters; and these he often feted at parties or luncheons in the Coffee House, an informal club of writers in which he was the leading spirit and Chapman an honorary member. One might think that such an immersion into contemporaneity might have refreshed Chapman. N o doubt he enjoyed these contacts, but his correspondence indicates that he remained indifferent to all the new talents. For example, though in a letter early in 1920 he writes of having been to "an excellent play . . . in language, setting, and action, it's absolute perfection," he mentions neither the author nor the title.84 This was O'Neill's Beyond the Horizon; and it marks the end of Chapman's interest in that playwright. A year earlier in a Vanity Fair review of Tarkington's The Magnificent Ambersons Chapman prophesied that as a result of the World War "American letters will perhaps hereafter show a weight and gravity which will unify them with the older literatures." 85 But he showed no further curiosity to test his prediction. Nevertheless, his Vanity Fair pieces are by no means simply backward glances. Besides his contributions on the war, Chapman wrote on topics like art patronage, architecture, painting, the drama, and craftsmanship. Of course he made no pretensions to authoritative knowledge of these subjects. He is, rather, concerned with tendencies in the general state of American culture that might help or hinder the climate for art. As the war drew towards its close, Chapman became hopeful of a revival of Shakespeare on the boards, and he was encouraging Walter Hampden's career and keenly observing John Barrymore's Shakespearean interpretations.86 This interest inspired him to write a pair of Vanity Fair articles on the theater. In one of these, he argued that American audiences were ready for a renascence in drama and in their tastes were ahead of the "cynical, worldly, unlearned gatekeepers" of Broadway's commercial theaters.87 Because in the next decade Chapman was to write books on both Shakespeare and Dante, it is interesting to find among the Vanity Fair contributions a critical sketch contrasting these two poets. In Chapman's view, they are so antipodal that it is hard to imagine they belong to the same human race. Both poets will prevail, however, because they share equally the power of utterance:

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Behind each of their minds there is a great chamber, an immense resounding cavern of thought, and it is the size of this sound-chamber that gives their words such power. Each of them has, at one time or another, thought of almost everything that a human mind can imagine; and in each of them the cavern is clear, it echoes, it is free of obstacles; and every point in it responds antiphonally to every other point.88 On the subject of the architectural firm "McKim, Mead, and White," Chapman reminisces on Stanford White and his period. What is notable, however, is Chapman's attitude towards modern urban architecture in America. He labels it "the extravaganzas of commerce." Though he does not deny its virtues, he feels that they have been "subordinated to the fantastic needs of a queer period, to a moon-race of whirl-people." Dizzied by the swift dynamism of American life, he wanted a more humane and stable architecture, and he tells us why: Good architecture is the mightiest artistic power in the world. It passes on the shadows of humanity from one age to the next as no other art can do. It speaks to the mind of the infant without the need of an interpreter. It does not merely hark back to the past. Any great building is the past, an enduring, inescapable, present reality. It creates literature, feeding the world with ever new imagination, and growing more potent in its decay than it was in its prime.80 "There is not room in America for a past," he sighed, "—no, not for yesterday." But in "Artists and Academies"—an essay whose starting point was a squabble among the members of the National Academy of Design—Chapman, remembering the yesterday of his own radicalism, takes sides with the young rebels. "It is always a sign of health in any Academy," he remarks in this Vanity Fair piece, "when a lot of young men are apparently being starved and suppressed by the elder generation. You don't find this out until the young men are strong enough and talented enough to get heard and make a row about it." 80 Again he looks towards the future in "Art in Our Universities." He was hopeful now that America might soon feel a new artistic impulse—this time from the young men whom the war had brought into direct experience of Europe. "This wafture from the old world," he affirmed, "will pass into our life mysteriously and will make art easier for us." France, for instance, because she understands how "the seed bed of art is the universal consciousness," generates a high average of art appreciation among her citizens

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and so helps to foster and preserve her great talents. T o set up art schools and art departments in our American universities, Chapman thinks, is hardly enough to create anything like the congenial environment of France. At best, art schools can only "blaze the way for the spirit . . . prepare a sort of layette for art." However, he adds this: "The child will not draw its life from these things, but without them it will die." 9 1 In "The Small Craftsman and the Progress of Taste," Chapman declares that, though mass production has driven out the craftsman, popular taste in America has been improving. A comparison of Civil War and World War monuments shows this. Yet in this matter of a proper climate for art, Americans are still less fortunate than Europeans: The Italian peasant, who had brought with her in the steerage nothing but a cardboard box tied with a cord and a collection of personal rubbish wound up in a bit of sail-cloth, was carrying about in her brain the unconscious record of 2000 years of painting, architecture and decoration. It was craftsmen, says Chapman, who educated this peasant; and it is craftsmanship which is the basis of art; because wherever craftsmanship flourishes among any people it causes them to live, far more than Americans do, "in their eyesight." Beautiful objects are therefore the real teachers of art. But their presence in art schools and museums will not be enough, according to Chapman, because in such places they enter one's life too late to be first impressions. For this reason he wishes that objects worthy of a museum might come to adorn our high schools and colleges and "thus insensibly, and without thought of it from anybody, distribute their influence" wherever the young are going to school.82 In a series of three Vanity Fair articles, "Portraits and Portrait Painting," "Artists and Art Patrons," and "Highbrows, Guttersnipes and Taxpayers," 93 Chapman skirmishes with the problem of art patronage in America. In the first of these essays he points out that the advent of photography has brought about a hiatus between society and the portrait painter, though there may be plenty of artists in America who need only the pressure of work to make them into competent portraitists. Until his reputation is secure, the general public may always be a threat to the integrity of the young artist; for it presses him to repeat his initial successes rather than go his own way. With this aspect of patronage Chapman is concerned in the second of these essays. It is safer, he believes, for the artist to rely on a patron; for he doubts whether institutional

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patronage can ever take the place of "the right sort of Maecenas." T h o u g h the patron may cramp the freedom of a writer, Chapman feels that the danger is less to the worker in the fine arts. Such a man is perhaps "a little enslaved, but he is not artistically corrupted: his art is not enslaved." A t any rate, two things seem clear: that there must never come between the artist and his Maecenas any middleman—any advisor or agent or decorator; and second, that we must find some way to cultivate in patrons "that feeling of reverence for the creative spirit which liberates talent in others." In "Highbrows, Guttersnipes and Taxpayers" Chapman has another go at the problem. Any work of art, he points out, calls for a meeting of "tradition, genius, and a paying public." T o each of these elements he gives a name: the "guttersnipe" is the talented young artist seeking to make his mark; the "taxpayer" is the public which finances art and learning; and the "highbrow" is the academically trained intellectual. " T h e word Highbrow," according to Chapman's own etymology, "was first hurled by a guttersnipe at a plaster bust of John Milton which stood in the sanctum of a High School. T h e word signifies intellect divorced from social intercourse. . . . It spoke a whole volume about learning in America." What impoverishes our art, in Chapman's view, is that in this country the social relations among these three groups are marked by

misunderstanding.

Europe, he thinks, meets the situation more successfully: In the old world the brain of a nation (which for the moment we might call its traditional education) is kept in touch with the heart of the nation (which we might call the new talent) by an inherited system of waterworks that nobody thinks about. In America, if the highbrow happens to be a professor he simply gives the taxpayers the sort of university they want; while the guttersnipe relates himself to the general public only if he feeds its vanities. W e face, then, this irony: "It seems as if the whole process of pulling the Taxpayer's leg were a mere succession of sacrifices through which both the Highbrow and the Guttersnipe were corrupted." So, the hard course for the American artist and intellectual is to educate the public and at the same time keep themselves alive. Of Chapman's inconsistency one cannot help asking, how can he write so sensibly about fostering new American talents and yet be blind to those talents when they were under his nose ? In a sense, his traditional-

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ism is sound enough; and with broader sympathies he might have profitably applied it to contemporary work. But he closed his heart to contemporary work because he feared the newly emerging world in which he found himself during and after the war. He clings now to a traditionalism (which is narrowed and made almost static) because it is the known— and not so terrifying as the unknown. His terror of the post-1914 world was to become neurotically intensified by his tendency to project upon that world—to see it as colored by—his private fears. Evidently, these were largely unconscious fears of the hostility within himself, hostility whose destructiveness the war years had brought nearer to his recognition. Common sense of course tells us that in all creatures fear stirs a fight-orflight response; and depth psychology has shown that, however complicated and subtilized our behavior, we human beings either attack or try to flee from whatever frightens us. Chapman's war fears, as we have seen, drove him to attack with a violence beyond all reason; yet whenever he wrote on things unrelated to the war, his reason and wisdom were unimpaired. This is why his writings on religion during this period are of unusual interest. They illustrate the depth of both his wisdom and his need to attack. The attack is upon something he feared within and outside himself. The wisdom in this instance springs from a traditionalism which is anything but defunct. In 1915 Chapman published a tiny book which caused a sizable furor. Notes on Religion, containing only ninety pages in its first edition and a hundred in its second,94 consists of two parts: the first half is an assault upon the Roman Catholic Church; the second is a series of "Notes," brief aphoristic essays expressing his religious intuitions. The first part is the opening shot in the one-man battle against the Church to which in the twenties Chapman was to devote so much of his energies. Anti-Catholicism was of course an ancestral heritage, and he now began to fear the expansion of Romanism in American life. What links the halves of this book is Chapman's individualism, shaped as that was by a mystic's approach to religion. So powerful an individualist could hardly abide the idea of an authoritarian and systematic church providing an intermediary between the private person and his God. Chapman declares that his purpose is only to open up a discussion of the Catholic question in America and not to attack anyone's personal religion. His own position distinguishes between

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the essence of Christ's teachings and what the organized Church has made of them. T o Chapman, Christ transcends Christianity and is the "point" at which Jewish and Christian history meet. The Jews had kept the Scriptures open to all. But as soon as the power of the Bible became apparent, its "serviceability as an instrument of government was seen." As Chapman views it, in the succession of the Christian Church to the Roman Empire, Hebraic thought became fused with the old Roman ritual, spirit of obedience, worship of external display, and passion for universal domination. In this process "the mysteries of the soul were transformed into political agencies, and men were brought into superstitious obedience." To control the worshiper, the Church soon found it necessary to interpose something between him and the Bible. So grew its thousandfold dogmas, rituals, theologies, and hierarchical organizations— "with the aim of the intercepting of Christ's message at the source." According to Chapman, the Catholic must therefore believe "that a thing can be and not be"—believe that he is in union with God and yet that he must have the Church standing between him and his Maker. The result is the maiming of the private mind: The intellect . . . which is able to conceive of a thing as being both true and not true at the same time, has received an injury in early life from which it has never recovered. This is the injury which the Roman church inflicts upon the brains of her adherents. Unless this injury be inflicted, the man is not a true Catholic; he is not sure to remain a Catholic. If it be cured, he cannot remain a Catholic in the papal sense of the word. Catholicism, so understood, seemed to Chapman inimical to the American democrat; for in many questions it interposed between his private mind and conscience the command of obedience to Mother Church. By qualifying the freedom of the individual, Catholicism, in Chapman's opinion, spelled hostility to the American philosophy of public education, to the advancement of learning, and to all forms of goodness except its own. If Rome's ultimate mission towards the United States is to make it a Catholic land, the American's busyness with money-making, his preoccupation with social reform, his ignorance of history, and the timidity of his press will all aid the Church to this end. Notes on Religion was published by Laurence Gomme, who, though he did not share Chapman's views on Rome and in fact had published Catholic authors like Kilmer and Belloc, was promptly praised and ex-

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coriated. The book excited discussion, was a commercial success, and soon sold 3,000 copies.95 Most reviewers recognized Chapman's deep concern for direct communion with God and, like the one in the Oregonian, praised him for his "profound historical learning and appreciation" and for his "tolerance for the best in all religions." 98 But the Nation thought he had oversimplified the problem and saw things "rather tinged with red." 97 While Boston's Christian Register considered Chapman fair to the Roman Church, 98 the Churchman disdained him for having written with "the easy infallibility of a pure individualist." 99 The Catholic America refused to take the author seriously: "The Jesuits' carefully laid plot to secure entire control of this country has been detected just in the nick of time by the astute and high-minded John Jay Chapman." 1 0 0 But the Catholic World scowled: " A better title for this book would have been: Evidences of My Ignorance about Religion, Especially Catholicism." 1 0 1 In the spirit, if not by the hand, of H. L . Mencken, the Baltimore Evening Sun reported: "More than half of . . . Notes on Religion repeats about the Church of Rome things which the average Protestant long since knew to be true and which the average Catholic long since knew to be false." 1 0 2 And in an article in the New Republic George Santayana used the little book as a starting point to express his own reflections on American Catholicism. The philosopher agreed with Chapman that if the Catholic Church became dominant here, American life and institutions would be transformed and "all independent pursuits of truth would be over, the truth in crucial matters being supposed to be known." He nevertheless discounts Chapman's fear that such dominance is ever likely; because American life is "a powerful solvent" which seems to "neutralize every intellectual element, however tough and alien it may be, and to fuse it in the native good-will, complacency, thoughtlessness, and optimism." Antipathetic as he was to the rigors of the Puritan temper, Santayana naturally rejected Chapman's view of the relation between individual religious experience and religion in its institutional forms. 103 As to religion organized, Chapman says, "I will not found an institution nor will I pull one down." There is only one church—that "axis of indestructible force" which passes through our hearts and joins us with all men: I am not offended if you call this river of life—this immortal core of Godhead —the mystical body of Christ, so long as you leave it there nakedly in the uni-

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verse and do not try to clap a cover on it or claim it for your scct. All men are part of it.

That Chapman was no orthodox Christian is unmistakable in the second half of Notes on Religion. He titles this part "Memories and HalfThoughts" and describes these as "little scraps of essays detached and helpless." "There is a certain self-delusion in all coherent writing, especially about religion," he tells us at the outset. "It is the saying of a little more than a man knows that makes Theology," he affirms. In any doctrinal sense Chapman is uninterested in such concepts as the Trinity, the Incarnation, Original Sin, the Redemption, the Resurrection, immortality. Yet instead of scorning the dogmas of orthodoxy, he sees them as awkward attempts to formulate religious experience. "After we have once had the experience of the truths to which they refer," we cannot disregard them: " W e should accept these dogmas as we accept a child's drawing of a haystack. We do not doubt the existence of the haystack." T o Chapman, all such things as rituals, sacraments, observances, dogmas, theologies, are no more than symbols by which mankind has tried to express the inexpressible truths of the Spirit. Let every man use what symbols his own education requires and change them as his education advances; and let him accord to other people a like liberty. . . . Symbols are the outcome, not the cause of, religion. They live as long as faith lives: they die as faith dies. T o perpetuate them for theoretic reasons is wrong. Let love perpetuate them; and they will last as long as they ought to last.

Such a statement seems to point the direction in which, in this century, we may be able to work out a synthesis of the religious and the scientific mind. The man who holds to this lives, as to his religion, in the present and faces the future. In religion Chapman is no narrow or static traditionalist; and there is no neo-orthodoxy in him. For Chapman, faith in God is neither a convention of the tribe nor a conviction that reason leads us to. It is, rather, an awareness of being in communion with God, an experience of receiving power from Spirit. But it is an experience that comes to us; it cannot be sought—not by effort of will or mind, nor through special methods. Paradoxically, religion comes when we cease searching, struggling, "setting up a machine of our own": Most men learn through exhaustion what a few happy souls are taught through the fulness of life that is in them. As a rule a man must be hurt by

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the poisons of the world, he must be defeated and worn out before he will keep quiet. At last, when he is too weak to speak, he is silent. H e hears now for the first time the sounds which his own voice has drowned before. T h u s C h a p m a n arrives at an understanding of T h y - W i l l - B e - D o n e : W e live in a universe whose development we cannot assist, save by accepting its operations as wiser than we. But in so far as our will becomes dissolved in the acceptance of the processes of God, great powers are momentarily released, and all the wheels turn freely. . . . Life comes neither through affirmation nor through negation but through waiting. Let God then execute himself in all the world; for all our strength is to do evil. T h e key to all Jewish thought is this: that you make no endeavor to understand it. Of course C h a p m a n cannot cause his readers to share with him his mystical experiences—as the great poets, painters, and composers sometimes can. H i s religious writings have the same virtues and limitations as his essays on literature: that is, he reports in the language of intellect his experience in the subject. H i s authority is not that of a student or specialist but of an empiric. N o r does he sacrifice his critical powers w h e n he writes on religion. F o r instance, on the errors and excesses religion has led to, he remarks, " I t is plain that any recipe which ensures piety—like any recipe w h i c h makes art easy—weakens piety—or art." H e speaks of "three porches to the T e m ple of T r u t h " : those of L o v e , Intellect, and Character. T h e m a n of love, of "strong feeling," reaches G o d without intellection; but the m a n of intellect must w o r k out some theory; and the m a n of character is the g o o d citizen ruled by conscience. " N o w of these three," C h a p m a n avows, " h e that loves becomes the saint, he that thinks becomes the prophet, and he that acts becomes the hero." H o w e v e r differently they m i g h t explain themselves in words, all three types of men have G o d ' s p o w e r w o r k i n g through them. O n the other hand, men fall into error w h e n , in their overstrenuous effort to attain the experience of religion, they find along the w a y certain partial truths and then build these into w h o l e theologies or philosophies or sects. T h e ascetic, perceiving that t h r o u g h s u f f e r i n g can come w i s d o m and moral advance, errs to "clutch the k n i f e and h u g p a i n . " So the Christian Scientist, w h o apprehends a relationship between m i n d and body, errs w h e n he says purposively, " I t is the w i l l of G o d that I shall recover f r o m m y sickness." In their different w a y s Tolstoy a n d Nietzsche have hold of partial truths. " T h e r e is the great f o g - m i n d e d ,

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Promethean Tolstoi, shifting his huge limbs in vain to find ease upon his crag." He oversimplified the Hebrew idea of humility. The same idea seized Nietzsche in the form of "the awful reality of man's helplessness . . . a malignant illusion which must be dispelled." To counteract it, Nietzsche ("who had the nature of a saint, but who could not compass the role of Lucifer") proposed his superman. Yet, like these two great spirits, Chapman himself had not found peace. Quietism is the keynote of his religion here, and there is hostility towards nothing but Romanism. All that such hostility meant to Chapman we shall see in the next decade of his career. At the moment it is enough to suggest that in assailing Mother Church he was attacking the most enduring example of parental authority in Western history. What is harder to understand is the gulf between Chapman's religious thought and war conduct. Even while he teaches us to resist-not-evil and proclaims Christ's love, he is full of murderous hatred of the Germans—seeing the war as a drama of blood sacrifice—offering a war message that might be fairly translated thus: one must joyously sacrifice his life to kill Germans and in that way help Germans to sacrifice their lives also. So Chapman could yield himself to war's blood-lust under the delusion that he was thus surrendering to the Will of God. The moral problem here unsolved is the relationship between righteous wrath and religious self-surrender. Beneath this is the psychological problem, the split in Chapman's own psyche, when, as in the hand-burning of his youth, a morbid alliance between conscience and hatred drove reason from the field. We do right to pity Chapman's sufferings and to condemn his frightful error. But we would do wrong to the validity of Chapman's religious writings if we push too hard the ad hominem argument. On the question of righteous wrath, Santayana challenged certain implications of Notes on Religion when he wrote of it: "It is not the worldly ecclesiastics that kindle the fires of persecution, but mystics who think they hear the voice of God." T o this one might reply that Chapman knew well enough that there are good and bad mystics; and one ought to add that the Chapman who fought in the war was a bad mystic, while the author of Notes on Religion was a good one. After the war, however, Chapman's discordant impulses continued to drive him until his anti-Catholicism became fanatical. For instance, on Thanksgiving Day, 1920, the Cork Men's Benevolent

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and Protective Association, coming out of St. Patrick's Cathedral after attending a requiem mass for the soul of the martyred Terence Macswiney, saw flying from the mast over the door of the Union Club the British flag. With sticks and stones the Irish-Americans attacked this gentlemen's club; some windows were broken and some bloody noses were exchanged with club members. Gently but firmly the police routed the Hibernian patriots, while over the fortress the Union Jack still waved. 104 For Chapman the fracas was of international significance. A few days later he published a flaming letter, "The Union Club Incident," in the New Yor^ Evening Post. Those prominent New York Catholics who had signed and published a letter to Archbishop Hayes in protest against "the infusion of politics into our beloved Church," Chapman praised as heroes, near-martyrs, and saviors of their country's honor. "The whole episode," he declared, "marks an epoch in the history of religious controversies in America." And he believed it would have "an immense influence for good" all over the country. 105 A few weeks later, he drafted a letter—probably never sent—to the Catholic essayist of Philadelphia, Agnes Repplier. This letter is a protracted diatribe against the Irish as "a clique of foreign agitators." 1 0 6 Evidently, Chapman considered his sledge hammer altogether too feeble an instrument to crush this Irish fly. The anti-Catholicism was another matter. Yet in Chapman's career this affair seems fittingly to close a period of frenzy—not with a bang but with a snicker. A latter-day historian has added this fillip to the story: "Mr. Telfair Minton, the Union Club member who sustained greatest mayhem in the shape of two black eyes, was consoled by a cablegram from a friend in London, 'O say can you see?'"107

X Where There Is No Vision

i t T N the twenties," Chanler Chapman has remarked, "my father fought JLa twilight battle with the present." 1 It was indeed a decade to rouse a prophet's fury yet drown his voice in babel. As for the twilight: in a big house on S Street in Washington sat a war casualty, a gray old man, half-paralyzed, too lame to rise from his chair when visitors called—a man remembering campaigns, one to make the world safe for democracy and a second grimmer one with his fellow Americans to join the League of Nations. But if Wilson had ended in defeat and loneliness, the present was sunnier—or seemed so. On the front porch of his Ohio home a healthy genial man was carrying on a simpler campaign. Wearing a carnation like McKinley's, Warren G. Harding was assuring the folks that he thought of America first and was uncluttered by professorial nonsense about saving the world. The President-to-be addressed a nation disillusioned by internationalist idealism, weary of domestic reforms, and yearning for normalcy. If the dying Wilson personified one part of the American mind, the rising Harding represented the other—the wish to escape the consequences of our new maturity as a nation. It was time now for a recess. Why should not Europe stew in its own juices? Had not American industrial genius won the greatest war in history? The "eternal job of administering this planet," the task in which religion, government, war, and ali had failed—did it not devolve upon the American businessman? President Coolidge put it cogently: "The business of the United States is business." The American way worked. The nation was enjoying the greatest prosperity it ever had. Perhaps some farmers were being squeezed and perhaps labor was restive; yet the moral laxitude and inefficiency of the laboring man were, according to many people, bound to be improved by the constitutional prohibition of alcoholic beverages. The middle-class businessman was hedged with divinity; his cult of "service" was formulated in books such as E. W . Howe's The Blessings of Business. Perhaps Christ himself was the proto-

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type of the modern businessman. At least Bruce Barton, the advertising genius, thought so; and the fact that his biography of Jesus, The Man Nobody Knows, remained a best seller for two years suggests that millions agreed with him. Another evangelist of the new piety was the economist Roger W. Babson, who published Prayers for the Business Man. True, there were scandals in Washington as black as those of Grant's administration, but most voters were satisfied and wanted, with Harding, "not surgery but serenity." T o be sure, not all was serenity. The decade began with fierce strikes, which came to be linked in the public mind with a Bolshevik conspiracy aimed at overthrowing American institutions. Backed by mass hysteria, superpatriots directed a Big Red Scare to harass all who did not conform to their idea of 100 percent Americanism. The Red scare waned; but it left an aftermath of bigotry, intolerance, and racial tensions that signalized the resurgence of the K u Klux Klan. The sentiments which lifted the Klan to its peak membership in 1924 of four and a half millions were in part responsible for the whispering campaign that four years later helped to defeat a Roman Catholic candidate for the presidency. Such feelings, intensifying American anxiety over our foreign-born population, also had their part in a radical revision of our immigration law. They also fostered Henry Ford's discovery of the "International J e w s ' " conspiracy to dominate the world; and Ford even found in Jewery the source of such woes as jazz, drunkenness, loose morals, and short skirts. It was, of course, the Jazz Age; and youth was revolting against the genteel code of behavior. With the upset in values that followed the war came the pseudo-scientific popularizing of Freud, who seemed to justify rebellion against the sexual restraints of the older generation. Prosperity meanwhile was doubling college enrollment between 1920 and 1930. Taking over the techniques of the publicity expert, colleges advertised their services and offered the market what it wanted in a college degree: a guarantee of business success and a certificate of social distinction. But if educators—and clergymen—felt that they had to wear the guise and use the methods of business, it was because they were competing more and more with high-powered advertising. For if the salesman was the agent of prosperity, the advertising man was its evangel. Americans had plenty of bread, but they also wanted circuses. The

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ballyhoo experts supplied them. Perhaps the public got so excited over tremendous trifles like sports heroes and movie idols and flagpole-sitters because there were no real issues—except Prohibition—about which it might feel deeply. New media like the radio and the movies, plus the greater circulation of fewer magazines and newspapers, tended to mass produce and standardize information, opinions, and feelings. Amid all the noise, the thinking person had small chance of being heard. If he was too independent-minded to jump on the band wagon of bigness and betterness, he was likely to be labeled a Bolshevik or a crank. Against this state of affairs the intellectuals, especially the younger ones, protested strenuously. Fresh breezes of criticism stirred by Mencken and company in the American Mercury encouraged the attack on old cultural standards and helped to clear the way for experiment and development of native genius in our arts and letters. American literature, inspired towards a new self-searching, rose to international recognition. Alert to the malaise that gnawed away beneath the hoopla and the heedless optimism of the decade, our writers, in spirit and in tone, were out of step with most of their fellow Americans. For, by and large, the thinker and artist in the twenties was a lonely figure, painfully conscious of the gulf which separated intellect from the forces then shaping American life. 2 Few were perhaps quite so lonely in their awareness of the abyss as was John Jay Chapman. Yet his private life during the twenties was quite calm. Though his aged mother died in 1921, there were scarcely any other personal griefs. His private concerns were mostly family matters, such as the completion of the education of his sons, Conrad and Chanler, and their setting up in life. The chief family dramas of these years were the establishment by Conrad of a private school in France and the shipwreck of Chanler off the coast of Nova Scotia—in an attempt by five men to cross the Atlantic in a forty-foot sailing vessel. Later, Chanler married Olivia James, a niece of William James, and Chapman subsequently assumed the status of grandfather. What Sylvania was like during these years we glimpse in this letter from Robert Nichols, who had had a happy visit there in the summer of 1926: That big library smelling of wood-smoke and desultory conversation—the sort of library in which things—books, pamphlets, circulars, rose-clippers, cigar-boxes, book-catalogues, Italian texts of Homer bound in queer white skin gone ivory with age, Dutch texts of Horace printed for learned peda-

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gogues who scratched bottle noses over " J a c o b u s Hoogassomethingorother stultissime emandavit," get piled up. No library ought to be spic and span, garnished as they often are in lords' houses; this kills the spirit and the books stand mean and regimented on shelves, dull as beaten convicts, not like runners facing the mark or a jolly confraternity of all choice and scampish heroes. Sylvania! Sylvania! Zion! Zion! In heaven I think one is perpetually coming through the garden doors to begin a judicious and wordy difference with John Jay and Elizabeth. Dear place and darling people! 3 Chapman's own physical health was good; and the greatest trouble visited upon the family seems to have been the illnesses of Elizabeth, who several times required hospitalization. In these ten years the Chapmans made three trips to Europe. Their summers, as usual, they spent in Maine; and during the coldest months they now wintered in Florida and, later, in Charleston, South Carolina. Inwardly, however, Chapman was struggling to understand an age that both bored and terrified him. The boredom came from the letdown after his emotionalism of the war years and from the sense that no issues ruffled the complacency of the American people at large. His terror, on the other hand, was greater than that of most intellectuals; it was the terror of the unknown. In part, that unknown was unconscious fear of his own inward hostilities. For the rest, the war had seemed to him such a threat to Western civilization that the fright of it harrowed him for more than a decade after.4 The twenties seemed to him another threat. "It appears now as if all the tin cans and dead dogs of humanity were exposed to view." This sounds like something from Ernest Hemingway, but it is Chapman of 1921; and writing a preface that year to the second edition of William Lloyd Garrison, he went on: The heroic echoes of the terrible struggle have died away and left all the nations dizzy and defocalized, worn out by effort and emotion, and, apparently, more cynical and bent on petty aims than they were before the war. "All nations are odious in prosperity," he remarked; and the America of the twenties seemed to him as fearful as sixteenth-century Spain, France of the ancien régime, and England of the nineteenth century. "In the time of Jerome one went into the desert," he told Émile Legouis. "Now one must bore a hole in the desert of vociferation and live with the psalms." 5 Early in this decade, however, Chapman was not without hope. He was sure that the war had freed the younger generation from "many

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shibboleths and cramping views." But having already closed the door upon them, Chapman increased his loneliness by refusing to make friends among the new lights in art, letters, and thought. Besides, he failed to recognize that the solitary agitator would now have a worse time of it than in the 1890s: he was capable of sharing with his fellow rebels nothing but their hatred of the majority and their anxiety over the blind optimism of the era. Yet Chapman's view of the tyrannous majority was different from and less rewarding than that of most intellectuals. They set out to smash the idols of Babbitry. T o demolition of this sort Chapman now gave little of his time and gifts. This is most curious. For long ago, in his books of the nineties and in Learning and Other Essays, he had his clue to the thing. From his earlier analysis of commercialism he could have shaped for himself, through application to changed conditions, a program and line of attack. That he rejected this chance is due to the psychic wounds that the First World War inflicted upon him. Four days before the final gun had been silenced over N o Man's Land, Chapman had put into a sonnet the confusion that millions of warwearied spirits must have felt. The Sybil pauses in her writing—as if she would tell the poet: "Trouble thyself no more. The time is brief. Thy mind is harvested: its little sheaf Stands in the granary of yesterday." Abashed, I spake not, but observed her then, Watching to see if she would turn the page Or write the caption for some newer age. And next the god inflamed her, and her hand In a poetic fury wrote amain— Strange symbols that I could not understand.4 Though scarcely ready for yesterday's granary, he might have done better had his baffled spirit remained more teachable. For Chapman's rage to understand the "strange symbols" of the times comes to be driven by a fear not so much of the middle-class majority as of the masses—a fear that is to take a peculiar, profitless, and finally morbid form. Drawing closer now to his own class, he launches an oblique attack on the masses, whom he dreads as inimical to democratic ideals and to the things of the mind and spirit. We begin to note a change even in his humanitarianism when Chap-

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man informs a friend: "These labor troubles and humanitarian excitements are all very well if they are passing phenomena; but if they are to be permanent preoccupations, it's the end of intellect." 7 And before the end of the war, we have seen how he rejected his former international idealism. It is ironic to watch the man who had pressed the argument that America and Europe need each other turn now to the isolationist camp. An essay published in the autumn of 1922 in the London Spectator, "America the Backslider," discloses how much of a backslider Chapman himself has become. T o Europeans downcast by America's rejection of the League, Chapman explains that America must first set her own house in order. "Consider the state of America today," he invites his foreign readers: a country "wrestling with corruptions," "the home of many traitorous cliques," a land where, behind Wilson's "intermeddling foreign policy" has been "the Jewish peril," a nation "rocking with Bolshevism in every form, from parlour to garret, from pulpit to slum." And "this Bolshevism is opposed by the best organized commercial tyranny in the world." (Here is the country gentleman, Tory squire American style, ground between the Red mobs and their duped sympathizers on the one hand and on the other by middle-class commercialism!) America also has, Chapman reminds his British audience, a Negro problem— "without having recourse to India or the treatment of subject races by France and England." 8 Because Chapman's sincerity is beyond question, what is pathetic in his compulsive misreading of the decade is that here and there, as if through unexpected cracks, his former liberalism shines through. Jettisoning much of his wisdom, however, Chapman, out of bits and fragments of the world outlook he had achieved before 1914, now shapes for himself a monstrous, new synthesis. Along with many intellectuals he felt that minorities were being oppressed, individuals were being crushed, and certain special interest groups were working against the national wellbeing. The consequences he saw as being a decline in our educational, literary, and journalistic standards. But Chapman now becomes a victim of racist notions. For he attributes this situation to the influx into America of immigrants who—in his opinion racially inferior to our old AngloSaxon stock—are pushing that stock to the wall. Given Chapman's personality problems, his family background, and his experience in political reform, the next step was easy to take: to believe that these "hybrid

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Americans and unlettered masses" were on one side being manipulated by the authoritarian Roman Catholic Church and on the other side being exploited by our industrial system and its commercial spirit. Essentially, this is the interpretation that controls Chapman's view of America in the 1920s. Whenever he turns away from it, he does his usual good work and is his old self. When he turns to racism, though, he is a scared bigot. In this interpretation, one element in particular had a fatal hold upon the man: his inward need always to attack authority, always to batter away at some image or reality of parental power. Now it was Mother Church. It is true that, forgetting old friends like Isaac Klein, Chapman also turns against the Jews. He is swayed by the anti-Semitism that issued from Henry Ford's Dearborn Independent; yet he never makes of this prejudice the crusade he was to carry on against the Roman Church. These changes of heart caused Chapman in time to ally himself with some of the least savory elements in American life. Sometimes it seems that during the twenties the only need he sees clearly is the need for the individual to speak out. T o his own mind, his anti-Catholicism made good sense. He supposed he was fighting for freedom of expression. Something like this is the vision which held him. Of course it was not enough. By the mid-twenties, this man, who once had forged from his own experience a key to an epoch, fell for the conspiracy theory of history. The story is not pretty; and the protagonist who emerges from the voluminous paper remains Chapman has left us comes near to being, for the first time in his career, a downright bore. Early in 1920 he was afire when he learned from Owen Wister of a to-do at Harvard over the election as a Governing Fellow of James Byrne, a New York lawyer, whom Chapman described as "high up in the Cathedral gang." 9 Later, someone told Chapman that the men who made Byrne a Fellow admitted that Harvard needed money—Catholic money, too—and that Byrne seemed the right sort. 10 The money factor gave a new twist to Chapman's anti-Catholicism: he could link Catholicism with business interests and brand it "a commercial boycott!'11 Then, in 1924 an incident occurred that brought him to agitate the question publicly. Cardinal O'Connell, in dedicating a church newly erected near Harvard, was quoted as saying that "some centuries ago some of the great schools of Europe, like Oxford and Cambridge, for-

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got their duty to their mother." The Cardinal went on to say that if Harvard still had "the old faith of Christ" for which she was founded, hers would be a tremendous influence and Catholics would be the first to gather round her. Such a pronouncement put Chapman into a dither. He now wrote to the Episcopalian Bishop Lawrence of the Harvard Corporation an open letter in which he quoted the Cardinal's words and asked for comment on them—especially on the election of Byrne as a Harvard Fellow. Would precedent require that another Catholic take Byrne's place when it became vacant? And how could there be discussion of the relation of Catholicism to education among members of the Harvard Corporation when one of them was a Catholic? These queries led Chapman to his main point of attack: "The outspoken purpose of the Roman Church," he announced, "is to control American education." He sent copies of this letter to fifteen different newspapers and to about a thousand persons he regarded as influential.12 Bishop Lawrence did not respond, but many others did; and the row it kicked up went on for months, to make copy for the newspapers. We would go far afield here even to name all the combatants who entered the fray and to touch on the various theological positions they took. Some agreed with Chapman, but many did not. Ellery Sedgwick, then editing the Atlantic Monthly, took issue with Chapman: "Cardinal O'Connell and Mr. Chapman seem to agree," declared Sedgwick, "in regretting that Harvard is a nonsectarian university." 13 Among those who answered Chapman in the Catholic Commonweal, the church architect Ralph Adams Cram told him, "In this letter you take occasion to make some of the most extraordinary and, in my opinion, absurd and unfounded, statements and accusations that I have come in contact with outside the lucubrations of the Ku Klux Klan." 14 To debate the question with the requisite detachment was not possible for Chapman. Something personal put too sharp an edge on his feelings. He was quarreling not merely with the Catholic Church; unconsciously he was also fighting over again the battle of his childhood—against the domination of a mother who did not love him wisely enough. Paul Fuller —whose Catholic father, a cohort in the old reform days, Chapman had not long before memorialized in a pen portrait—made a telling point when he wrote to Chapman: "In some regards I am afraid you are unconsciously more Catholic than I am." 15 Of course wherever we find

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powerful evulsion we may suspect an equally powerful attraction. Such were Chajman's anxieties during the twenties that we may surmise he secretly yarned for the kind of security the Church provides. More important than these inner conflicts for us, however, is the direction in which thex took Chapman in American life. The direction is obvious in Chapman's correspondence with Madison Grant, autior of The Passing of the Great Race, whose doctrines Chapman had shortly before ridiculed. Agreeing with all that Chapman had put into Hs open letter, Grant wrote him to deplore that Boston and Harvard hid thrown away their birthright "for a very miserable mess of liberal pottage." He pointed out that Harvard was paying the price "with the necessity of establishing Kykological Tests to save itself from being swanped." 1 6 In a similar vein an impassioned South Carolinian wrote to isform Chapman that the Roman Catholic Church was seeking control o\er baseball, railroads, press associations, telegraph companies, the Army and the Navy—and even the soft drink industry! T o deepen the desola'ion, this informant also disclosed how under the Pope's dictation "the Catholics were attempting through the League [of Nations] to run the world." 1 7 Chapman was not yet ready, however, to throw in his lot with crackpots of this stripe. In a brief unpublished manuscript dated November 10, 1924, and Titled simply "Courage," he deplores his fellow citizens' lack of nerve enough to speak out freely; and he fears that the apathy and timidity whi;h our business-minded civilization has induced may be the prelude to loss of liberty: This defect of ours comes to its climax in the Ku Klux Klan, which is made up by natural selection of cowardly natives who seek to regulate society by imposing on tie cowardice of their fellow-citizens. One must confess that the dangers whicl the Klan have pointed to are true dangers,—the Negro question, the Jewsh question, the Catholic question and immigration. But the methods of the Klan are so atrocious and unspeakable that one wonders why the rest of socety does not get behind its sheriffs and give the quietus to such of the Klan a: can be come up with. About this time Chapman begins to keep an address book of persons who evidenty wrote to him regarding his anti-Catholic crusade. This list of cours< cannot tell us how many were in agreement with him. Among the lames, however, are a scattering of yokels and cranks, some

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socially prominent New Yorkers, one renowned scientist, and several figures high in government circles. Among them also are Madison Grant and the editor of the Ku Klux Kourier,18 Chapman was now storing up ammunition for a full-scale bombardment of American Catholics. The blast came in April, 1925, in a paper titled "Strike at the Source" and published in the Forum. This journal was then running a series of four articles on the question, two favorable to the Church and two hostile. "Strike at the Source" marks a turning point, for its author is ready to welcome into respectability the Klansmen and their sympathizers. The piece opens with an assertion basic in Chapman's thinking: T h e R o m a n Catholic question in America is an aftermath of the Reformation, w h i c h was essentially a struggle between t w o opposing forms of thought, one of which relied on Authority and the other on the Private M i n d .

Next he analyzes the reactionary Pius IX's 1864 encyclical to argue that the Roman Church is seeking to extend its authority beyond matters of faith and morals and that she must forever be the enemy of "progress, liberalism, and modern civilization." He then levels specific charges: ( 1 ) that the Church seeks the Romanization of America; (2) that she attacks our public schools; (3) that she influences public communications; (4) that, through her Knights of Columbus, her "social cliques," her public demonstrations, and her insistence that children of mixed marriages must be reared as Catholic, she advertises her claim to "despotic control"; (5) that she exercises commercial boycotts; (6) that she gets representatives on boards of social and humanitarian agencies, not to help those agencies, but to spread her own discipline; and (7) that when a non-Catholic protests, the Church cries "illiberal" or "un-American." It is as if, says Chapman (echoing the anticlericalist Montalembert), the Catholic might explain: "When you are in power we claim liberty in the name of your principles, and when we are in power we refuse it you in the name of our own." In this jeopardy, says Chapman, our enlightened liberals have been silent, while the issue has been kept alive by the common people: I f o u n d some years a g o that our farmers in remote country districts had longer views on this whole matter than m y o w n educated acquaintances. It is largely the doing of our country folk that the issue has been kept alive. Quite recently the K u K l u x K l a n has taken u p the cry against the R o m a n machine in terms more rational than is generally suspected.

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Chapman was right that "our country folk" were making old issues very much alive; for many of us remember 1925 as the year of the Scopes monkey trial in Dayton, Tennessee. But if Chapman ever heard of this piece of fundamentalist opposition to modernism, there is no evidence of it among his letters and papers. The response to his Forum article was prompt. Of course support came from men like Madison Grant—whose gift for fantasy may be judged by this excerpt from his letter to Chapman: I have been u r g i n g the F o r u m people to get some Protestant to take the position that the Catholic C h u r c h

under Jewish

leadership, the J e w s and

the

C o m m u n i s t L a b o r Party are all international organizations and as such are hopelessly irreconcilable to the principles of nationalism upon w h i c h modern Christendom is f o u n d e d . 1 9

The Masonic New Age Magazine was quick to reprint "Strike at the Source." 20 So was the National Kourier, official organ of the K K K . 2 1 And now Chapman was welcomed with open arms by the Klan. A Mr. Milton Elrod, who subsequently revealed himself as the editor of the Kourier, wrote to express "intense admiration" for what Chapman had done. Elrod also pointed out how the K u Klux Klan had got far wider circulation for Chapman's article than the "quality group" of magazines could provide; he further informed Chapman that one hundred copies of "Strike at the Source" would be sent to "all of our important state officials." 22 On the 25th of May Elrod wrote again to thank Chapman for contributing a sonnet which the Klan could print and circulate. Four days later, "Cape Cod, Rome and Jerusalem" appeared in the National Kourier. The mentality which Madison Grant displayed in his letter to Chapman we have long since come to recognize as fascistic. How close Chapman was to that state of mind is suggested by these verses: H o w restful is it to survey the sea F r o m some low, windswept, silvery, sandy dune, A n d watch the eternal climbing of the moon Full-orbed above the shore's complacency; W o n d e r i n g the while if Asian plains there be, O r rock-walled valleys, never shined Save by the perpendicular

sun

at

upon,— noon,—

S o safe, so guarded, so remote as we. But see, a sail!—nay m o r e , — f r o m every land T h e y cloud the ocean, convoyed by a c r e w

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For a while Chapman considered getting up a lecture against the Church and delivering it in Boston. For that "citadel" was the right place to begin a movement; and why should not the meeting be "as important as the tea party"? Litigation could result, and he was even hoping that the affair might wind up as a riot.23 To the eternal regiet oi the Muse of Comedy, this intention was never realized. Of course his fears brought Chapman into the ranks of those who were working to tightly restrict immigration from Europe. It is no surprise to find him twice reviewing—once in the New Age Magazine and again in the Yale Review—Gino Speranza's Race or Nation, a racist study of America's heterogeneous population.24 Despite his unabashedly non-Anglo-Saxon name, Mr. Speranza's preference seems to have been stanchly for the old American stock—Nordic and Protestant. Chapman's reviews bear every mark of hysteria. He encourages the "righteous indignation" of the "old time patriotic Americans" who are fighting "all those forms of insidious foreign influence" which have become a sleepless threat to our beloved republic. Speranza's warning, asseverates Chapman, "rings like a trumpet." He is glad to agree with Speranza that "likemindedness" among our citizens is what will rescue America. All this is so because Speranza has based himself on "the proposition, now a commonplace of science, that race is more persistent than government." It was easy for Chapman to use Speranza's population statistics not only to explain "the petering out of our literacy" but also to buttress his conspiracy theory of history. Connect "the presence among us of these enormous unassimilable foreign masses" with "our peculiar industrial progress," he cries, and we begin to understand America's cultural blight. Our press is controlled by advertisers; and since the advertisers seek the market of the masses, "the dime of the moron is as important as the dime of the scholar." Besides, as the "second and third generation of invaders" enter college they will want only such schooling as conduces to "speedy industrial success." For Chapman, the worst ingredient in this witches' melting pot was Catholicism; for he believed that the power of the Roman Church is always greatest where the masses are "unlettered."

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Among the ironies of this period is Chapman's correspondence with the British poet Robert Nichols. Besides his war verse, Nichols is remembered as collaborating with Maurice Browne in Wings over Europe, a drama that foretold the discovery of the atom bomb. Chapman had befriended Nichols, and the young man passionately admired him. In small ways Nichols had been following Chapman's "practical agitation" methods of the nineties. Nichols tells the story how, when speaking before a club in Los Angeles, his hosts had pressed him to talk frankly about their city. The K K K being at the time active in that area, Nichols denounced the Klan as un-American and inhuman. When someone tugged at his coattails, Nichols informed his audience that a neighbor had warned him that Klan members were present and that he was risking his skin. Then, remembering Chapman at Coatesville, he declared that if there were any Klansmen present he hoped they would stand up and "face one Englishman who has only said what he has said at the request of his hosts and having said it will stick to it till proven wrong come what may." Nobody stood up. For several days afterwards, whenever he returned home after dark, Nichols was, he admitted, "subject to very cold feet." 2 5 Not long after this affair, Chapman advised the young Englishman: The K.K. are all right. They are the only healthy-minded people in the country and while they have the lamentable simplicity of mind that seems universal in America their lunacies seem to be confined to foolish names.29 No, Chapman never joined the Klan. But surely—at least among the descendants of the Abolitionists—he must have been the Klan's most distinguished supporter. By now he had succeeded in reducing the great conspiracy to these terms: "The Catholic and Jewish and Big Business questions are merely the Form in which wealth is destroying character and mind in America." 2 7 By mid-April of 1925 he was longing for "blood." And in the next month he explained his views to Owen Wister: Being an old agitator, I see the game so clearly—the needs of the moment— i.e., to connect up the Ku Klux element with the better element in the East. The K.K. are on the right tracks, i.e. open war, and the rest of the country is in a maze of prejudice against the K K due to R.C. manipulation of the Eastern Press.28 So he raved. The avalanche of anti-Catholic correspondence which Chapman has preserved is proof enough of his pathological obsession. He

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was of course flailing about in his own nightmare. Y e t a waking nightmare, when it includes such distortion of vision in a m a n like Chapman, means near-madness. At this point he had arrived as the summer came on. T o his credit, however, he began to gain some insight into his illness. In the same letter he told Wister that he and Elizabeth were planning a trip abroad because " I must break with my anti-Catholic agitatation or it will break me down." T h e desperation of Chapman's struggle for sanity comes out in this letter to André C h c v r i l l o n — the decay of the life, mind, and character of the American has got on my brain and has come out in the form of anti-Catholicism . . . and really you know it's easy to become toqué [cracked]—in agitating—anything that is ariti. It turns into mystic hostility and this in turn grows very often into "manie des persecutions." Men come to believe that they are spied on, followed, and treated with black magic by the organization or sect that they hold in horror.* 9 H o w close to paranoia Chapman came is hard to say; the letters scarcely indicate any delusions about persecutions such as he has described here. T h i s much self-awareness doubtless saved him from a breakdown. By July he could admit to Émile Legouis: " A f t e r all, it's not Catholicism that's the enemy in the U.S.—it's our native materialism, which shews everywhere." A n d he made some show of reason when he explained: I suppose that my Protestant inheritance makes me think that the Roman Church is the most serious and everlasting professional destroyer of private opinion and open talk, and so I rush to open the subject on that side—as being the side I best understand. But truly—it is the decay in the American brain that is the real danger, and in my narrow philosophy I see the only cure in self-expression, passion, feeling—spiritual reality of some sort. We're about dead spiritually—that's my illusion. 30 B u t such self-understanding Chapman could not hold to for very long. Certain turns of events in the decade would again give impetus to his compulsions. As a distraction, though, the two months in E u r o p e in the late summer and early fall were good therapy. Near the year's end he tried to throw off his overwhelming sense of responsibility at least to the point of recognizing a connection between egocentricity and overconcern for the world's perennial tendency to go to the dogs. " W h y do superior minds always feel so responsible for keeping Phoebus' car on its t r a c k — and that sort of thing," he asked Robert Nichols in a Christmas letter, "while inferior natures are so damned comfortable and so logical in re-

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lation to the matter?" 3 1 It might be remarked here that Chapman had an uncanny capacity for relating himself to the social morbidity of the times. Such was his virtue in the nineties and later. But then he had been the physician, diagnosing the ills of society and giving his own prescription. By the twenties, the doctor has lost his prescription and has caught the disease himself. Whatever other trials the decade was to bring him, at least Chapman was never again to become so helpless a victim of his own neurosis as he was in the year 1925. His fever in fact might have run its course had it not been for the Democratic party. Ever since the convention of 1924 Chapman had been worrying that the Democrats might nominate a Roman Catholic as their presidential candidate. By 1927 his apprehensions were mounting. The likely candidate, Alfred E. Smith, published an open letter to declare that, as a good Catholic, he recognized that in all civil matters the Church is subordinate to the state. The New Yor^ Times was so convinced of Smith's honesty that it asserted only a person of "hardihood" would dare challenge the statement.32 On November 21, 1927, Chapman had the requisite hardihood to publish in the Times a long letter to question "The Honesty of A1 Smith." He accused Smith of denying the real issue— the proposed nomination of Smith by the Catholic wing of the Democratic Party raised such a storm in the Convention of 1924 as almost to split the party. . . . One is driven to reflect that if the roaring of that convention could not teach Smith that the issue existed, he is hard of hearing. The rest of Chapman's letter—he printed it also in pamphlet form for private distribution—contains his familiar argument. Smith himself did not reply, although the Knights of Columbus denied Chapman's charges. In the sense of making speeches and attending meetings Chapman did not get into the 1928 campaign. Some instinct of self-preservation must have restrained him. He worked off his anti-Catholicism in a long series of Byronic stanzas which he titled "My Secret Journal." Most of these he printed and distributed in pamphlet form by the thousands, and many of them also appeared in the Forum.33 "I remember," Chapman has written of his adolescence, "closing the door for years on Byron with the single phrase 'Byron was a blackguard.'" 34 But it is easy to see why in the twenties Chapman had come to love the poet and his damnthe-consequences spirit:

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W H E R E T H E R E IS N O V I S I O N This boyish demigod, the untamed colt This demon-angel, minstrel of revolt And prophet to all peoples, dumb or cowed, Whate'er he felt or thought, believed or doubted, Hoped, dreaded, recollected—out it spouted.

Using the stanzaic form of Don Juan and in a style always close to conversational ease, Chapman sets down his views on the state of American culture, on education, on politics, and of course on Catholicism. One stanza contains these lines: The Atom's very serious, and may start Some revolution that will give a shove To everything,—except the human heart. During the campaign Chapman contented himself with donating money and moral support to an anti-Catholic radio station and with distributing his pamphlets on "The Honesty of A1 Smith" and "The Roman Catholic Mind: Extracts from My Secret Journal." There was little response to these screeds. But the judge and novelist Robert Grant wrote to a friend about "My Secret Journal": It will please the A.P.A. and protestants with so little wits that they "can't make their living," but will, I should think, tend to drive reasonable people into voting for Smith, if anything. . . . Chapman, you will remember, has had this particular bug for some time. . . . What a pity that so brilliant a man should ride such a delusion.35 As Election Day, 1928, approached, Chapman supposed that Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was running for the governorship of New York State, had been forced into the race only because the Democrats needed "an American" on their ticket. When Roosevelt, alive to the Catholic issue, declared he did not want the vote of any "bigot," that settled the matter for Chapman. He considered Roosevelt, a neighbor of his, guilty of "flat treason" to the cause he was supposed to support and would not vote for him. 36 But with Hoover's election Chapman's antipapist fever began to break. By July of 1929 he could say, " I have been quite calm about the Roman question ever since the election—somehow got rid of it." 3 7 This is not quite the truth; for to judge by his letters, it took about two more years for the virus to work out of his system. Not until 1931 can the

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patient report himself cured: "Why," he then assured a friend, "I can pass the row of convents and Roman Churches on the way up the Hudson with equanimity. All is well." 3 8 The madness had spent itself. And Chapman's recommendation for the future is that America should not get angry with the Roman Catholic Church but must study and watch her. This, he warns, is not easy for us Americans: "Because our best quality—the willing to live and let live—is entangled with our worst quality—an inability to think clearly when the thinking involves distress." T o suppose that in America religion and politics can always be separated is, says Chapman, less a national ideal or a reason for selfcongratulation than a sign of our flabby sentimentalism.39 Whatever view we take of the importance of Rome's numerical power, we cannot shrug off Chapman's crusade as solely the doings of a fool or a madman. Very likely his agitation then made no difference to other people, one way or another. He made enemies; he probably won few, if any, converts; and he in no measurable way influenced public opinion. He scarcely advanced the cause of liberalism; and he certainly did not hurt the cause of Catholicism. Paradoxically, too, Chapman, so passionately committed to speaking out—in the Miltonic conviction that "opinion in good men is knowledge in the making"—found allies in "the Invisible Empire" of the Klan. Still, there was no smugness in the sixty-year-old man who threw himself into this fray. The high-minded Chapman—an epithet the Catholics themselves had given him—was genuinely anguished over the way of the world. At least he saw—and had the courage to act on what he saw—that commitment to the democratic way demands eternal vigilance as to every powerful pressure group, Catholic or otherwise, minorities or majorities, which might threaten the freedom of the human spirit. Those who feel that Chapman's later career petered out have as their best justification his waywardness in this decade. T w o men who at the time tried to alter his course were E. S. Martin, who was then writing the "Easy Chair" column in Harper's, and Thomas B. Wells, the editor of that magazine. Ned Martin was an old friend, and it was really an affectionate game of mutual criticism which Chapman played with him. Since at his best Chapman was a relentless critic of the gap between the actual America and the America that might be, he stabbed away at the use of pious platitudes that gloss over real conflicts and tensions. The

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quarrel which animates his epistolary blasts at Martin stems from Chapman's belief that the kindliness of his friend cast such a benevolent haze over his writings as to muddle the issues he dealt with. Martin was wise enough to take it all in good spirits, but once he let Chapman have it between the eyes: You have no judgment. You see a little and not the rest. You complain of me because I sometimes suspect that the nose is not the whole face. You have ingrowing insight. The nose is all you see. The really important things that are going on you pay no attention to. You are full of learning and most of it is old stuff—not operative. Really, I wonder that I bother with you at all.40 Chapman took no offense and bantered back: "Dear Ned: That's the first sincere fire I've ever seen over your signature. Ma^e it public."*1 But there was one attack over which there could be no exchange of banter. Wells, it seems, had rejected a piece on the Catholics which Martin had prepared for his "Easy Chair" as being less important at the moment than the Mexican troubles of 1926 and also as being the sort of thing that "may possibly offend the Church." When Chapman learned what had happened, he could not resist sending Wells a letter containing both good nature and malice. To this Wells replied at length: Harper's Magazine is not a journal of opinion. . . . I am a large stockholder in this business, but I don't own it. . . . I have no business to put into it material that is certain to interfere with its success. You gentlemen who sit aloof on the high pinnacles may say this is a cowardly policy. I can't agree with you. So frank an admission that the magazine he edited was a commercial enterprise played right into Chapman's hands. But then Wells turned on Chapman personally. Granting that Chapman had "considerably more than a touch of genius," he pictured him standing at the bar of Heaven, made silent by charges of failure to use the gifts that were his by legacy from the first John Jay and by education from John Harvard. "There ought to be to your credit at this time," Wells went on, "some of the most distinguished books that have come from any American author." Wells concluded that he was "extremely sorry" for men of "genius." 42 The charge that Chapman had not wisely used his gifts, from 1915 onward, can neither be denied nor dodged. We have seen the waste and the harmfulness of his war writings. And though one part of his mind and heart knew better, we have seen that in the grip of his obsession with

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2

93

Catholicism he too seldom turned his attention to the materialism and commercialism of the twenties or to its educational a n d cultural and literary questions. T h e r e is, h o w e v e r , another side to his story; and w e have concentrated too long on the antipapist for a true picture of the m a n even in this depressing phase of his career. T h a t C h a p m a n did not m a k e more enemies and that he escaped such a b r e a k d o w n as he had suffered at the turn of the century are due, in no small part, to the fact that he still retained his w a r m t h as a personality, his delight in people, and, above all, his sense of h u m o r . H e was a l w a y s on excellent terms, for instance, even w i t h the Catholic priest of the little parish in B a r r y t o w n ;

it was

the same w i t h

the

Irish-Catholic

servants at Sylvania. 4 3 A n d in his correspondence of this decade there are plenty of letters which bubble over w i t h f u n and in w h i c h C h a p m a n can laugh at himself. Consider, for instance, this one, sent to G e o r g e D u d l e y S e y m o u r in the a u t u m n of 1925, the year w h e n C h a p m a n ' s anti-Catholicism had become patently morbid. T h e jest is that S e y m o u r had recently sat for a portrait and that C h a p m a n ' s bust had been done by a R u s s i a n sculptor named Séraphin S o n d b i n i n : DEAR

GEORGE:

This paper is only used on serious occasions:—You are a vain old thing. (So am I, but I'm smarter than you and luckier than you.) I should never have been painted by a party named with such a name as Cecilia Beaux—and famous for pictures of lovely children—nor by any woman any way. But if I had done so—I would conceal my chagrin and die rather than reveal the pain of it. You, you have been butchered, and will go down to posterity as " T h e man with the lily," etc., by Carola Colci—such color and sweetfulness. N o w look at me! I refused all comers including many best friends, starting artists—till my sister-in-law comes home with a Russian Genius—and I must—I give way, and he leaves me as a Tartar prince in bronze—just the way I pose to my looking glass—fierce, you know—bloody—and mouvementé. When I think of you lying there with that chromo of Dante waiting for the blessed Damozel, I hate that dreaded Cecilia. 44 A n d in another letter w e find this: It is undoubtedly the finest bust of modern times. It is rather more like Michael Angelo than like me—and where it leaves off resembling Michael Angelo it moves on to John Brown, Brahms, Victor H u g o , Euripides—(only better looking). The trouble is that people will say—"But where are the works of this m a n ? " I am having an inscription in archaic Greek incised on

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the neck—saying "The works of this man perished in the Eruption of Vesuvius." 4 5 Nor was Chapman consistently reactionary during the twenties. It is true that he took no interest in the Sacco and Vanzetti trial.46 But there were issues on which he spoke out for the liberal forces. One of these issues was the exclusion of Negro students from the freshman dormitories at Harvard. How he reconciled his stand here with his sympathy for the K u Klux Klan is a pretty question. At any rate, President Lowell of Harvard had explained publicly to a Negro father that his son could not live in a freshman dormitory although the boy was free to use other Harvard dormitories. Lowell's reason was that residence in dormitories was compulsory for freshmen, but that it was not considered possible to compel men of different races to reside together.47 In a letter to the New Yor\ World Chapman branded this policy "a political move intended to conciliate southern sentiment [and] . . . to keep alive at Harvard the idea of white supremacy." He maintained that "such negroes among us as can receive a college education must be offered one which is without stigma." As for the white boys, he argued that college is a good place for them to learn to think wisely and humanely of the Negro. 48 Chapman was also the friend of liberalism on the Prohibition question. In "Drink and the Tyranny of Dogma," an article published in the Outloo^ in January, 1924, he declared that the Eighteenth Amendment was now satisfying "three tremendous popular passions: the passion of the prohibitionists for law, the passion of the drinking classes for drink, and the passion of the largest and best-organized smuggling trade that has ever existed for money." Although he felt that the law would eventually go, the experience might be educationally good for the American people: Prohibition is seen as a mere symptom of the American psychology. We are plain people and settle things with an ax. Matters which require thought are apt with us to be settled by blind religious impulse. Besides, the cynicism with which the liquor law was treated might force the public to face its own hypocrisy. If Americans did obey the Eighteenth Amendment, he thought it likely that more prohibitory laws would be passed, for "government-imposed morality" struck Chapman as a greater menace than the evils of drink. In August of that year, in the Independent, he returned to the subject in an article titled "Why

W H E R E T H E R E IS N O V I S I O N

295

Not Speak Out?" Calling for an informal referendum, he invited everyone to declare openly his views on Prohibition. For himself, he confessed that, though he could not bear to deal with bootleggers or swear falsely, he would buy and drink wine from neighbors and friends and would "subscribe" to a social cocktail "without inquiring too particularly where the liquor comes from." I am trying to get into jail on the liquor question [he wrote Robert Nichols about this time], and no one will take any notice of me. I shall die in my bed I fear. The good old days when people were persecuted for their opinions have gone.49 For one of his most direct influences on social welfare, Chapman has never been recognized. Only his unpublished correspondence discloses what lay behind his publishing, in the Harvard Graduates' Magazine in 1927, a long biographical essay on his classmate and friend Thomas Mott Osborne. Osborne's practical reforms and theories have long since secured him a place in the history of American penology. Chapman's essay, a reflection of his own philosophy of agitation, is the story of a humanitarian whose labors took him into a dismal corner of American life— prison conditions. Osborne, a native of Auburn, New York, and a descendant of New England Puritan and Pennsylvania Quaker stock, had in him something of the heart of his great-aunt, Lucretia Mott, Abolitionist and feminist. Catching the reform spirit of the Progressive Era, he had entered public life and then become interested in the prison near his home town. As an individualist who regarded each prisoner as a person and a special case, Osborne soon rejected all the old psychological theories of criminal types. In 1913 the governor of New York appointed him chairman of the Commission on Prison Reform. T o experience the actualities of prison existence, Osborne put on the convict's garb and for a while lived among the inmates at Auburn. The experience taught him that, however much a man might deserve punishment, the prison system would only bring him to "complete enmity against society for its stupid and brutal treatment." " 'The prison system,'" wrote Osborne, " 'was a relic of the old idea that men can be frightened by brutality into accepting our point of view.'" Against this, Osborne tried to help the prisoner by instilling into him a germ of self-respect. The success of his rehabilitation experiments at Auburn led to his appointment as warden of Sing Sing.

296

W H E R E T H E R E IS N O V I S I O N

Then came Osborne's troubles. His methods and principles went against the grain, he stepped on too many toes, and he threatened a political prison ring. Like most reformers, Osborne had, says Chapman, that "fierceness of militant righteousness" which is the only thing that can cut into "the smug illusions of the stand-patters": My own belief [writes Chapman] is that the bone taken from the dog is always the real point of the contest. Material interests are at the bottom moral controversies. Power is at stake. Thought attacks power, and power defends itself. As a result of the contest a whole hierarchy of conservative forces is brought to the surface. It was inevitable, then, that Osborne should be attacked. Early in the 1920s before a grand jury he was accused of homosexuality—a charge brought by some of the worst of the convicts involved. Because evidence was lacking, the court dismissed the charge; and Osborne went on to become commanding officer of a United States naval prison. He had already won renown among European penologists; and his lectures on Society and Prisons have become classic in the literature of penology. But what Chapman does not tell us about—either out of modesty or because while he was writing this essay he did not have at hand certain letters Osborne had written to him—is his own influence upon his friend. Back in 1905, when Osborne was just getting into politics, he wrote to Chapman: " I think it was through your influence more than any other that I learned to try and avoid self-deception and to think clear and straight in political matters." 5 0 Again, as a successful prison reformer, Osborne wrote: The last two years in Auburn and the last year in Sing Sing have brought about developments which give most satisfactory proof of what you and I both believe in. I wonder if you realize that it was you who first made me understand the meaning of "Resist not evil"—that sermon you preached in the Nursery many years ago. 51 Osborne's testimonial calls us back to the saner side of Chapman. Nowhere was this side of the man more finely expressed than in Letters and Religion. This little classic, published in 1924, is a compendium of a lifetime of meditation and of living with and for the things of the spirit. Unquestionably Chapman here is working his real vein: nothing goes astray, nothing rings false. However we explain the man's errors, there

W H E R E T H E R E IS N O V I S I O N

297

is nothing neurotic in these serene pages; and to appreciate their wisdom requires no interest in Chapman's pathology. In this instance, his literary ancestor is Sir Thomas Browne, and his book is a kind of Religio Literati for the twentieth century. In the tradition of Christian humanism, Letters and Religion comprises one man's credo as to certain unifying truths which give life and meaning to the arts and religion. To Edmund Wilson, who admits being unsympathetic to modern manifestations of religion, the book seems "genuine and impressive in a way that most other such recent writings do not." Letters and Religion, though much the better book, has the same qualities as Notes on Religion. For this reason, Chapman's mysticism may disappoint some readers. For he does not, like the poet Blake, create his own symbols or myths; and of course he cares nothing for system building. "Conclusions are lame and impotent," he avows, "and the reason is plain. There are no conclusions in nature; nor can any round-up of ideas have any more finality than the first two notes of a rhapsody." When an old philosopher friend complained of "vapor" in the book, Chapman replied, "My idea is that accurate thought always ends in something that other people will call mystic."52 To be sure, Chapman appeals not so much to intellect or to emotion as to that level in us where intellect and emotion are one. Perhaps this book will say most to people who, not being dogmatists in either science or religion, recognize that feeling and imagination are also means of reaching truth. However individual preferences may vary, Letters and Religion was well received. One reviewer said that the book made him "see the Churches fading into a dim distance and the creeds sounding as a faint echo, for there is in the room the whisper of a still, small voice." 53 Although Chapman was out of sympathy with theologians, at least two were not out of sympathy with him. Willard L. Sperry, dean of Harvard's Divinity School, declared that Chapman's "artist's vision of the world is an unfailing source of spiritual insight." 54 Another Doctor of Divinity, Joseph Fort Newton, described Letters and Religion as "one of the rarest books of the year—ripe, wise, aglow with serene vision, studded with memorable sayings." 55 The review which pleased Chapman most was that by Richard Le Gallienne in the New Yor\ Times. Perceiving that it is the sort of work one lives with rather than merely reads, Le Gallienne

298

W H E R E T H E R E IS N O V I S I O N

remarked, " H o w different a book that has grown from one that has merely been m a d e . " 5 6 A m i d the babel to which Chapman joined his own cries in the twenties, the quietude of the book comes as a relief. For this is a meditation on Thy-Will-Be-Done—a testament of belief in nonresistance and in wise passiveness. A n d the fact is, in this book, if anywhere, Chapman points towards the solution of his conflict between activity and passivity, between commitment and detachment. "Pause is religion," he affirms—and we think perhaps of Rodin's dictum that beauty is slowness. "It hovers over all men at all times, and Christianity does no more than discover and expound it, exhibit and assist it into the world." In Christ's metaphors Chapman finds a center of "absolute quiescence, and the discovery of love." Knock and it shall be opened unto you: Seek and ye shall find: Ask and it shall be given unto you. This injunction goes to the very bottom of our functional life—contraction, relaxation; work, rest. It is stated as religious truth with man asking and God giving; but it is a universal metaphysical truth, and one of the profoundest things ever said in psychology. You must have wished; you must have striven; you must have held on with intensity. But you must let go. Just how hard to strive, just when to let go—for this Chapman has no infallible formula. " A t last you give up the game," he explains, "not as one who despairs, but as one who has shot his bolt." Yet this is not to recommend the passiveness or the fatalism of the Orient: The East has the wisdom of the cell but not of the market place. . . . Christ's words pass into the practical part of men. The Gospels have left in the mind of Europe a nimbus of consciousness which cries, "Your activities are as much a part of your faith as your beliefs." So of Chapman's understanding of the doctrine of nonresistance: " W h e n a man resists not evil, but refers it to God, this does not mean that the evil is not resisted, but that the man summons a power within him which resists the evil for him." N o r does such passiveness mean that we are to be withdrawn from the world's woes or uncommitted among life's conflicts: " O n the contrary, we must follow our sympathies, only remembering the while that the thing in hand is but part of a larger, remoter battle: the thing in hand is important because it is a symbol."

W H E R E T H E R E IS N O V I S I O N

299

Letters and Religion is in two parts. The first part, "Words and the Spirit," consists of four essays on literature and religion; "Comment and Reflection," the second part, includes about a score of short, aphoristic pieces which illustrate and clarify Chapman's insights. The first three essays treat the conflict between modern science on the one hand and religion and the arts on the other. Chapman professes faith in the indestructibility of classic letters, because they are the soul of the "historic imagination of the world." He believes that neither commercial nor utilitarian forces can destroy them, since the spontaneous power of joy in life is what sustains literature. The defenders of the humanities, he declares, need not argue that the study of Greek and Latin trains the mind nor hunt for moral reasons to justify their value: "Why not see at the outset that all this classic tradition exists as an aid to spiritual power and happiness, and that the humanities make people capable of life?" Chapman is, however, concerned with the impact of science upon endeavors which are not its province—especially upon arts and letters. Science is "weak" in these fields because, dealing with "externals," she is powerless to explain "the personal mystery that lies behind every act and thought." Nevertheless, Chapman does not attack science so much as scientism: that crude, popular notion that there exists a body of knowledge and a system of methods whose votaries, when they speak, speak always the whole truth—or all of the truth that can or need be known. In "The Two Languages" he says that we have two ways of using our mental faculties. We address them to the actual world, "that part of life that can be identified and talked of without fear of misunderstanding." We also address them to an "ideal world." the world of "emotions which we feel vaguely and strive to account for." Now the exact sciences, which deal with "specific departments of life" in the actual world, have a language of their own—a language whose various forms are all interrelated. On the other hand, religion, poetry, and the arts, which deal with "life as a totality" and with the "ideal world," must employ "the language of the instinctive emotional life of man in all its forms." (Chapman, of course, assumes that " 'Science' as an abstraction merges itself in the ideal world.") Through the arts, our contacts with the "ideal world"—by means of words, bodily motions, sounds, rays of light, "dialects and vehicles

300

W H E R E T H E R E IS N O V I S I O N

[ w h i c h ] have an exactitude and a psychological precision of their own"— shape our way of looking at and feeling life. Hence, to C h a p m a n , religion and the arts are related: Religious feeling is evoked by a thousand influences that are not called by the name of religion. There is a little religious truth in anything that moves us. Every art is full of it. The arts are sounding boards that stand behind us as we listen. . . . are jumbles and fragments of inexpugnable mysticism. Our confusion about the two languages arose w h e n post-Kantian philosophers, responsive to science's development of its own useful idioms, tried "to develop a technique of scientific terms in order to express mental realities—in other words, to drop the use of metaphor." W i t h this "conscientious endeavor to banish the vernacular from the study of moral and religious truth" began "the invasion of the fine art of writing by the cant terms of science." So the jargoneers won the field. For them—perhaps also for the experts in linguistics—Chapman poses our problem: How can one ever get a professional scientist to understand that the art of writing—any kind of writing—even psychology—consists in using symbols that are cloudy and fluid, as words must be, to express ideas that are clean-cut, powerful, and unforgettable? In "Fatigue and Unrest" he applies his idea of wise passiveness to the creation and enjoyment of the arts. Speed rules us today: Hurry was born the day that steam was invented; and though art and letters resisted the acceleration for a couple of generations, they succumbed at last, and are now whirling and scurrying like ferryboats packed with wide-awake people holding watches in their hands. In suggesting the relation between our cultural life and the pace of our civilization, C h a p m a n challenges some of our dearest prepossessions: Our impatience with the classics is part of a larger mood, which is somehow connected with industry and progress, somehow related to art and religion. The idea flung into life by Science, that man is responsible for his own destiny, has made men tense and nervous; it has overexcited the ambitions of the intellectual classes, whether in pure Science or in literature. Before Darwin, scholars made it part of their a i m to entertain a n d to touch the hearts of their readers. By contrast: The modern sciences . . . such as anthropology, economics, psychology, sociology, and the schools of writing which they generate, do not treat either the

W H E R E T H E R E IS N O V I S I O N

301

past or the present with sympathy. They bid the past stand and deliver, and bid the public stand and swallow. It is, then, the "slow pace" of the arts of the past which so bores the futurist. W e have lost what our ancestors h a d : true leisure, contemplation, and the power of attention. In losing these, we moderns have also lost our receptivity—a receptivity which should be— a reliance on some solution which shall swim into our minds without aid from us, a half-consciousness that our own faculties are part of the operations of Nature. This \nac\ of a loose and dreamy attention seems to be lost to the world for the time being. . . . the eye loses faculty if rigidly focused. Contraction kills feeling, and feeling is a gift that must be spontaneous. 57 W e have looked for explanations why, from his Harvard years onward, Chapman shut his heart and m i n d against the arts and letters of the twentieth century. N o w he sums up his own reasons for rejecting the moderns: Their tensions require tensions; their nervousness, an edge. Our novelists, dramatists, painters, have been hardening their voices and sharpening their pencils. They regard nature and human nature with a cold, deliberate, intellectual eye. A jaded palate calls for pickles. . . . [Our writers and artists] have become acidulated and bitter prophets of something that is serious and clever. The overtones are lost, the technique is tortured. T o those who argue that for an age of anxiety there must be an art of anxiety, to those who hope that our contemporary experimenters are forerunners of "a new burst of genius," Chapman's answer is that they are ridden by "a shibboleth of semiscientific origin, to the effect that art must come." Yet in the past, art has never come by force, will, intellectual effort, cleverness; it has always come out of folklore and tradition and reverence for the past. For his proof Chapman points to the Renaissance. If contemporary work leaves us unsatisfied, we may have to admit that Chapman's case against the moderns is worth considering. Whatever his limitations, Chapman can hardly be dismissed, as he has been by one writer, on the ground that he was so much involved in the genteel tradition as to "withdraw from the world around him and . . . seem merely a victim of exacerbated nerves, a crank in rather than a critic of a new world." 5 8 In this book he scarcely provides us with an anodyne in either art or religion. A n d it may be that future generations will look at the art

302

W H E R E T H E R E IS N O VISION

and literature of our time with an eye not too different from Chapman's. In sum, then, Chapman holds that the harm of scientism is the misuse and overuse of purposive intellect. "Purpose is error," he affirms. Yet he is not attacking rationality. Rather, he believes that the conscious reason is only one small part of the psyche and that the whole process of thinking is far more complex than most of us are ready to admit. For Chapman, using th 42, 45, 50-52, 65-67, 1 3 3 , 1 4 4 , 1 6 0 - 6 1 , 164-65, 167-68, 267-68, 273, 293, 3 1 4 - 1 5 . 329, 3 4 2 - 4 3 ; periods of breakdown, 1 0 - 1 2 , 39-40, 89, 90, 1 5 9 - 6 2 , 1 6 3 - 7 9 passim; physical health of, 1 2 , 39-40, 56, 89, 90, 1 5 9 , 1 6 0 - 6 1 , 1 6 3 , 164, 166-68, 1 7 1 , 1 7 3 74, 1 8 1 , 3 2 8 , 344-45, 346; at Harvard, 1 7 - 3 7 ; circle of friends, 20, 3 4 1 - 4 2 ; burning of his hand, 38, 44-53, 160; in love with Minna Timmins, 38-57, 62, 1 2 8 , 3 3 9 ; physical appearance of, 39, 68, 165, 3 4 3 ; law practice of, 55, 56, 6 1 - 6 2 ; agitation for political reform, 58-89; relations with his children, 68, 72, 2 1 9 , 224, 22729, 328-29; marriage with Elizabeth Chanler, 72, 1 5 9 , 1 6 1 , 163-64, 165, 166-67, 228, 340, 3 4 7 ; formulation of political and social theory, 9 0 - 1 1 7 ; as literary critic in the nineties, 1 1 8 - 5 8 ; resumption of career after third breakdown, 1 8 0 - 2 1 8 ; emotional involvement in First World War, 2 1 9 - 7 4 ; in postwar period, 2 7 5 - 3 2 7 ; last years, 328-47; death, 338, 347 —Writings: early, 14, 25-26; list of Chapman's published books, 3 7 2 (see also specific titles of complete books, e.g., Causes and Consequences)', selective list of Chapman's pamphlets, 3 7 3 (see also Pamphlets); selective list of Chapman's essays, 3 7 3 - 7 5 (see also specific titles under Essays): selective list of Chapman's unpublished manuscripts, 375 (see also "Retrospections" and specific titles under Essays) ; and see other specific categories of Chapman's work,, i.e., Greek studies; Lectures; Letters; Literary criticism; Pamphlets; Plays; Translations; Verse Chapman, John Jay, Jr. (son of John Jay Chapman), 6 1 , 163-65, 227 Chapman, Maria Weston (grandmother of

379

John Jay Chapman), 2, 5, 6, 2 5 ; Chapman's essay on, 259 Chapman, Minna Timmins (first wife of John Jay Chapman), 20, 1 2 0 , 1 4 5 , 229; character of, 43-44, 7 3 ; courtship and marriage, 46-57, 62, 1 2 8 , 3 3 9 ; death o f , 7 1 "73> 79. ' 6 o , 1 6 4 , 166 Chapman, Victor Emmanuel (son of John Jay Chapman), 6 1 , 180, 230; grief for his brother, John Jay, 1 6 3 , 164, 1 6 5 ; military service, 219-20, 224, 226, 227-29, 3 4 7 ; death, 228-29, 236; letters, 229, 239 "Characters of Shakespeare's Plays" (Hazlitt), 3 1 1 Charleston, S.C., 278, 343, 344, 346 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 24 Chekhov, Anton, 250 Chesterton, Gilbert Keith, 194 Chevrillon, Andre, 288, 3 3 3 Child, Francis J., 24 Choate, Joseph, 7 1 , 83 Christian Register (periodical), 270 Christian Science, 18, 272 Churchman (periodical), 270 Cicero, 1 3 Cist, Charles M., 344 Citizens' Union, 74, 75, 77 City Club of N e w York, organization, 64-65; activity in N e w York City reform, 68, 69, 74. 77 City Reform Club, 60, 6 1 , 63, 64-65; see also City Club of N e w York Civil Disobedience (Thoreau), 109, 1 5 5 Civil War: aftermath of, 1 7 , 58, 9 1 , 97, 99, 1 8 9 ; literature before, 1 2 3 ; see also Abolition of slavery Cleveland, Grover, 86, 87, 222 Coatesville, Pa., 2 0 9 - 1 2 , 287 Coatesville Record (newspaper), 2 1 0 Coffee House Club, 329, 342 Coghlan, Charles, 1 5 Coit, Henry Augustus: character of, 8; as director of St. Paul's School, 8 - 1 0 ; influence on Chapman, 1 2 , 26, 30, 40, 52, 1 6 0 ; Chapman's estimate of, 1 6 1 , 203 Colby, Frank More, 1 7 9 , 184 Columbia University, 3 3 0 Comedie Humaine, La (Balzac), 248 "Commemoration Ode" ( L o w e l l ) , 1 2 3 Commercialism: rise of American, 59-60, 85-86, 2 1 6 - 1 7 ; education and, 76, 182-83, 185-92, 259-60, 2 6 1 - 6 2 , 303, 305-6; Chapman's definition of, 76-77; social effects

INDEX

380 Commercialism

(Continued)

of, 7 7 . 83, 95-97, 1 0 2 - 3 , ' 8 4 : reform and, 78, 1 0 4 - 5 , 1 5 2 ; politics and, 84, 9 1 , 92-94; religion and, 98, 1 1 2 ; individualism and, 1 0 0 , 1 8 9 ; art and, m - 1 4 ; literature and, 1 1 2 - 1 3 , 1 1 8 , 299, 3 1 4 ; First World War and, 2 3 1 - 3 2 , 275-77, 279, 3 3 1 - 3 2 Commonweal (periodical), 282 Communism, see under Politics, Red scare Communist Labor Party, 285 Comstock, Anthony, 1 4 5 Comte, Auguste, 1 3 3 Conrad, Joseph, 2 1 8 Cooper, James Fenimore, 1 3 3 Cooper Union, 7, 71 Cork Men's Benevolent and Protective Association, 273-74 Corneille, Pierre, 3 1 1 Cornell University, 83 Correspondence, see Letters (Chapman) Corruption, see under Politics, corruption in Cortissoz, Royal, 342 Cram, Ralph Adams, 282 Crane, Stephen, 1 5 5 Craven, Frank, 342 C r a w f o r d , Francis Marion, 8 Critic (periodical), 1 4 2 Criticism in America (Spingarn), 3 2 5 Croker, Richard T . , 70, 7 1 , 76 Croly, Herbert, 176-77 " C r o m w e l l " (Carlyle), 2 1 3 Crosswell, James G., 184, 195, 202 Crowninshield, Frank, 263-64 Culture (American): individualism and, m , 3 3 2 ; commercialism and, m - 1 2 , 1 8 4 , 185-88, 3 3 1 - 3 2 ; compartmentalization o f , 1 3 4 - 3 5 ; classic influences in, 1 4 5 - 4 6 , 199, 2 0 1 - 2 , 299, 3 4 1 ; mass education and, 1 8 5 , 186, 306-7, 3 1 3 - 1 4 ; respect for learning and, 1 9 0 - 9 1 , 2 1 7 ; Hebraic influences in, 199, 3 4 1 ; science and, 2 1 8 , 3 0 0 - 1 ; European influences in, 243, 247; after First World War, 277, 330, 3 3 1 - 3 2 Cust, Henry C „ 36-37, 42 Cust, Lionel, 1 6 3 Cutting, Fulton, 81 Daisy Miller (Henry James), 1 5 3 Dana, Charles A . , 65 Dante (Chapman), 3 1 8 - 2 2 Dante Alighieri, 98, 336, 3 3 7 ; Chapman's early interest in, 3 5 , 39, 44; translations

from, 6 1 , 1 2 8 - 2 9 , 3°9> 3 1 8 - 2 2 ; Chapman on, 1 1 8 , 1 3 3 , 196, 3 1 8 - 2 2 Darwin, Charles, 26, 300 Darwinism: influence on Chapman, 26-27, 3 0 ; social, 100-1 Davenport, Fanny, 1 5 Dearborn Independent (periodical), 281 Debs, Eugene, 81 Defoe, Daniel, 306 Deming, Horace E., 1 5 Democracy: Chapman on, 63, 9 8 - 1 0 2 ; individualism and, 1 0 3 , 1 1 0 - 1 1 , 1 1 6 ; education and, 184, 1 8 5 ; Catholicism and, 269, 291 Democratic Party, 80, 86-87, 289-90 Depression, the, 328, 330, 341 Deutschland über Alles; or, Germany Speaks (Chapman), 223-24, 2 3 2 Dial (periodical), 1 4 1 Dicey, Edward, 5-6 Dickens, Charles, 1 5 4 Dickinson, Emily, 1 5 5 Disarmament, 2 2 0 - 2 1 , 222 Divine Comedy, The (Dante), 6 1 , 1 2 8 "Divinity School Address, T h e " (Emerson), 119 D . K . E . club, 23 Dodge, Cleveland, 222 Don Juan ( B y r o n ) , 290 Dorr, Mrs. Charles H., 1 8 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 1 , 250 Drama, see Plays ( C h a p m a n ) ; Theater Draper, William H., 1 1 Drury, the Rev. Dr. Samuel S., 1 9 1 , 260

233,

Dryden, John, 24, 1 4 4 Echo (periodical), 21 Economic Interpretations of the Constitution (Beard), 2 1 2 Economics, 29-30, 1 1 6 Edgewater house, 165 Education: reform and, 76, 104, 188; university, 148-49; commercialism and, 18283, 185-92, 259-60, 2 6 1 - 6 2 , 303, 305-6; democracy and, 184, 1 8 5 ; art and, 197-98; classical influences in, 2 0 1 - 2 ; German, 224; of young children, 2 6 0 - 6 1 ; after First World War, 276; movement toward conformity in, 303-4, 306-7; literature and, 3 1 4 ; science and, 3 3 1 Educational Review (periodical), 1 9 1

INDEX Education

of Henry Adams,

262-63,

The

(Adams),

339

Eighteenth A m e n d m e n t , see under L i q u o r Eliot, Charles W i l l i a m , 1 8 , 2 5 ; C h a p m a n o n , 33,

147-48,

182,

259-60

Eliot, G e o r g e , 1 3 1 , 1 5 4 Eliot, S a m u e l , 29 Eliot, T h o m a s Stearns, 1 6 8 , 1 8 5 , 1 9 4 ,

245,

263

El rod, Milton, 2 8 5 Emerson, Ralph W a l d o , 8, 1 7 , 1 8 4 ; influence of,

on

Chapman,

103-4,

IIO-II,

174-75, man

on,

141-42,

poetry, rison,

66,

302, 72,

143,

139,

119,

325,

74,

155,

73, 137,

326,

341;

118-25,

200,

173;

61, 124,

236,

102, 140,

Chap-

135-36, 247,

compared

140,

336;

with

on

Gar-

215-16

Emerson 78,

205,

27-28,

116,

and Other Essays (Chapman), 74,

90,

118-41;

reviews

of,

141-43,

155;

preface to n e w edition, 1 7 4 E n g l a n d : C h a p m a n ' s travel in, 3 6 , 56, 84, 1 6 9 , 2 1 9 , 3 4 3 , 3 4 6 ; C h a p m a n quoted on the E n g l i s h , 8 5 , 2 2 1 , 2 4 4 ; reception of C h a p m a n ' s w o r k s in, 1 4 2 - 4 3 , 3 2 6 ; First World W a r and, 2 2 0 , 2 2 1 , 2 3 6 ; Carlyle and,

3 1 5 - 1 6

Episcopalians, 2 Essays ( C h a p m a n ) , published and unpublished: " T h e Aesthetic," 1 9 6 , 2 1 7 ; " A m e r ica the B a c k s l i d e r , " 2 8 0 ; " A n t i g o n e and P r o h i b i t i o n , " 3 2 5 ; " A r t in O u r U n i v e r sities," 2 6 5 - 6 6 ; "Artists and A c a d e m i e s , " 2 6 5 ; "Artists and Art P a t r o n s , " 266; " T h e Balance of P o w e r in the D r a w i n g - R o o m , " 2 3 6 ; " B a l z a c , " 2 4 2 , 2 4 7 - 5 0 ; " B e l o w the Cataract," 2 3 4 - 3 5 ; " T h e B r i g h t Side of the W a r , " 2 3 1 ; on Martin B r i m m e r , 2 5 8 ; on B r o w n i n g , 1 2 5 - 2 6 , 1 4 3 ; " T h e Capture of G o v e r n m e n t by C o m m e r c i a l i s m , " 8 3 , 1 5 2 ; on Carlyle, 3 1 4 - 1 7 ; on H e n r y C h a p man, 2 5 9 ; " M a r i a W e s t o n C h a p m a n , " 259;

"The

Comic,"

198-200,

217;

"Con-

cerning O u r Slovenly English," 313; " C o u r a g e , " 2 8 3 ; " T h e D a n g e r of B o o k s , " 3 1 8 ; " A Defense of W o m e n , " 1 4 6 , 1 9 5 ; "The Disappearance of the Educated Man,"

306-7;

"The

Doctrine

of

Non-

Resistance," 88; " T h e D r a m a , " 1 9 2 - 9 4 , 2 1 7 ; " D r i n k and the T y r a n n y of D o g m a , " 2 9 4 : " T h e Education of Henry A d a m s , " 2 6 2 - 6 3 ; " E m e r s o n Sixty Years A f t e r , " 7 2 ,

381

118-25,

135-36,

MO,

141.

Ml,

143.

155.

2 1 6 , 2 4 7 ; " T h e Eternal B a t t l e , " 233; "Euripides and the Greek G e n i u s , " 2 4 2 , 1 4 3 - 4 5 ; " F a t i g u e and U n r e s t , " 3 0 0 ; " T h e Fourth Canto of the I n f e r n o , " 1 2 8 - 2 9 ; on H o w a r d Horace Furness, 2 5 5 ; " G o e t h e , " 3 3 6 - 3 7 . 344» 3 4 5 ; " G r e e k as P l e a s u r e , " 2 0 2 , 2 1 7 ; " H a r v a r d ' s P l i g h t : Will S o m e o n e Kindly Arouse Her from H e r C o m a ? " 2 6 1 ; " H e n r y Ford's Place in H i s t o r y , " 261-62; " H i g h b r o w s , Guttersnipes and T a x p a y e r s , " 266, 2 6 7 - 6 8 ; " J u l i a W a r d H o w e , " 2 5 9 ; " I m a g i n a r y Obituary: P . S . G r a n t , " 2 3 8 ; " T h e Influence of S c h o o l s , " 161-62,

"William

203;

James,"

253-54;

" J e s t e r s , " 1 9 4 ; on Kipling, 1 3 2 - 3 3 , 1 3 7 , 143; " T h e League M u d d l e , " 235-36; " L e a r n i n g , " 1 8 5 ; " M c K i m , Mead and White," 265; "Memoir," 229; "Memor a n d u m on Compulsory D i s a r m a m e n t , " 220-21;

on

Michelangelo,

129-31,

143;

on Robert S h a w Minturn, 2 5 7 ; " M o d e r n Craze of L e a r n i n g H o w to W r i t e , " 3 1 4 ; "Munsterberg's 'Psychology and L i f e , ' " 1 4 9 ; " T h e N e w Vision of the W a r , " 2 3 1 ; '9'5—1920, 2 3 9 ; on Charles Eliot N o r t o n , 2 5 4 - 5 5 ; " N o r w a y , " 1 9 4 ; " N o t e s on t h e T e a c h i n g of A r t , " 1 9 6 - 9 7 ; " O n F a i t h , " 149-50;

"On

Free

Will,"

"On

149-50;

Prof. James's Will to B e l i e v e , " 1 4 9 - 5 0 ; " O n the Function of a University," 1 4 8 49; " T h e Origin of S p e c i e , " 2 5 ; on T h o m a s Mott Osborne, 2 9 5 ; " O u r C o l leges," 3 0 3 ; " O u r Slovenly E d u c a t i o n , " 3 0 4 ; " O u r Slovenly T h i n k i n g , " 3 1 3 - 1 4 ; " O u r Universities," 3 0 5 - 6 , 3 3 1 ; " P a c i f i s m , Socialism, and the Fire of L i f e , " 2 3 2 ; " T h e Passing of a Great B o g e y , " 2 3 5 ; "Plato,"

245-46;

on

Poe,

317-18;

"Por-

traits and Portrait P a i n t i n g , " 2 6 6 ; " T h e Practical A s p e c t , " 2 2 1 ; "President E l i o t , " 2 5 9 - 6 0 ; " T h e President's D i c t a t o r s h i p , " 2 3 4 ; "Professorial E t h i c s , " 1 8 8 - 9 1 ; on Josiah Royce, 2 5 5 - 5 6 ; " S h a k e s p e a r e , " 2 4 2 , 2 4 6 - 4 7 ; " S h a k e s p e a r e the M a n : A M e m o r a n d u m , " 3 3 8 - 3 9 , 3 4 4 ; " S h a w and the Modern D r a m a , " 1 9 4 - 9 6 ; " T h e S m a l l C r a f t s m a n and the Progress of T a s t e , " 2 6 6 ; "Social Results of C o m m e r c i a l i s m , " 7 7 , 8 3 , 1 0 2 ; " A Soldier of the L e g i o n , " 234;

on

146-47;

Stevenson,

"The

Story

131-32,

140,

and

Sayings

143,

of

3

82

INDEX

Essays (Chapman) ( C o n t i n u e d ) Christ," 302; "Strike at the Source," 284-85; on Tolstoy, 1 3 3 - 3 4 , 1 4 3 ; " T h e Two Languages," 299-300; "Trends in Popular Thought," 3 3 1 - 3 2 ; in Vanity Fair, 263, 266; "La Vie Parisienne," 242, 250-52; on Whitman, 126-27, 1 4 2 , 1 4 3 ; on Sarah Wyman Whitman, 258; "Why Not Speak Out?" 294-95; '"Hie Young Shakespeare: A Study of Romeo," 72, 127-28, 143; see also Lectures (Chapman) Ethical Culture Society of New York, 205 Ethics, religion and, 206-9 Euripides: Chapman on, 200, 242, 243-45, 247; Jeflers's translation, 2 1 7 ; Chapman's translation, 323 Everett, Edward, 201 Evolutionism, 26-27, 3 ° Excise Reform Association, 6 1 , 62 Fable of the Bees, The (Mandeville), 100 Fanny's First Play ( S h a w ) , 194-95 Fathers and Sons (Turgenev), 1, 3 2 Faust (Goethe), 337 Fields, Mrs. James T . , 1 3 0 "Fifty Years of Harper's Magazine" (Alden), 1 5 6 First World War: declaration of, 2 1 8 , 220, 2 3 0 - 3 1 ; Chapman and, 2 1 9 - 3 5 , 260, 273, 278, 292-93, 3 2 5 , 329, 3 4 1 ; commercialism and, 2 3 1 - 3 2 , 275-77, 279, 3 3 1 3 2 ; politics after, 235-36, 239; reform after, 237; literature after, 264, 279; education after, 276; American culture after, 330-32 Fiske, John, 26, 33 Follen, Charles, 2 1 4 Ford, Henry, 261-62, 276, 281 Ford, James Lauren, 3 2 2 Forum (periodical), 284, 285, 290, 308 France, 278, 343; Victor Chapman in, 220, 226, 236; after First World War, 2 3 7 ; literary tradition in, 247; American expatriates in, 250-52; art and, 265 Franklin, Benjamin, 66, 1 1 6 Freeman, Alice, 341 Freud, Sigmund, 276, 3 3 5 Froebel, F. W. A., 1 0 1 Fugitive Slave Law, 2 1 4 Fuller, Margaret, 1 2 0 , 1 4 1 Fuller, Paul, 282 Furness, Howard Horace, 3 2 , 255, 256, 3 1 0 Fusionists, 7 1 , 76

Gardner, Mrs. Jack, 1 8 , 20 Gardner, W . Amory, 34, 57 Garland, Hamlin, 1 5 5 Garrison, William Lloyd: abolition of slavery and, 1, 2; Chapman on, 6, 1 1 9 , 2 1 2 - 1 8 , 344; influence on Chapman, 3 2 5 Gaselee, Sir Stephen, 3 3 3 Gates, Lewis E., 1 5 5 Gauss, Christian, 3 1 8 , 3 1 9 Germany: Chapman on the Germans, 28, 2 1 9 , 220, 223-24, 226, 232, 273; education in, 224, 243-44; after First World War, 237 Gil Bias ( L c Sage), 15 Gilder, Jeannette, 1 4 3 Gilder, Richard Watson, 74, 1 5 6 Gladstone, William Ewart, 36 Glance Toward Shakespeare, A (Chapman), 310-13 Gluck, Christoph Willibald von, 31 Godkin, Edwin Lawrence, 63 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1 7 8 ; Chapman's early interest in, 32; Chapman on, 39. ' 9 6 . 336-37. 344. 345; Carlyle and, 317 Goetschius, Percy, 1 6 5 , 360 (n. 25) Gold Democrats, 86-87 Gomme, Laurence, 269, 343 Good Government Clubs: New York City reform and, 63, 64-65, 68, 160; disintegration of, 77 Goo Goos, see Good Government Clubs Gosse, Edmund, 142 Graft, see under Politics, corruption in Grandgent, Charles Hill, 24, 3 1 9 Grant, Madison, 235, 283, 284, 285 Grant, Percy Stickney, 238-39 Grant, Robert, 290 Great Britain, see England Greek, Genius and Other Essays (Chapman), 239, 242-52 Greek studies (Chapman), 200-3, 333-34 Greene, Mrs. Henry Copley, 327 Greenslet, Ferris, 339 Greet, Ben, 1 7 7 Grey, Sir Edward, 2 2 1 , 222

242-46,

Haldane, Richard Burdon, Viscount dane of Cloan, 2 2 1 , 222 Hale, Edward Everett, son of, 1 4 2 Hamilton, Alexander, 23 Hamlet (Shakespeare), 3 1 1 , 338-39

Hal-

INDEX Hampden, Walter, 264 Harper's Ferry, 209 Harper's Monthly (periodical), 1 1 2 , 291, 292, 308 Harper's Weekly (periodical), 194 Hart, Albert Bushnell, 24, 306 Harvard Advocate (periodical), 2 1 , 23, 24, 25 Harvard Alumni Bulletin, 230 Harvard Business Review (periodical), 304 "Harvard Classics" (Charles William Eliot), 182-83 Harvard Club of New York, 242 Harvard Graduates' Magazine, 257, 295 Harvard University, 63, 144, 145, 180; Chapman at, 15, 16-33, 4 1 . 58. 292, 3 0 1 , 340! Law School, 33, 37, 38, 39, 42; commercialism and, 182-83, 259-61, 304-6; 47 Workshop, 192; James Byrne offered Governing Fellowship, 281-82; discrimination against Negroes, 294; Chapman offered honorary degree, 307 Harvard War Memorial, 230 Hasty Pudding Club, 29 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1 7 , 1 2 3 , 1 5 5 Hay, John, 262 Hayes, Patrick Joseph, archbishop, 274 Hazlitt, William, 144, 3 1 1 Hearst, William Randolph, 76 Hegel, Georg W. F., 170 Heine, Heinrich, 126 Hemingway, Ernest, 140, 229, 233, 278 Hibbert Journal (periodical), 206 Higginson, Henry Lee, 3, 18 Hildreth, Richard, 23 Hitschmann, Edward, 337 Hobart College, 150, 1 5 1 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr., 39, 47, 48-49, 51 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Sr.: New England school and, 17, 18, 1 1 6 , 1 2 3 ; Chapman on, 28 Holt, Mrs. Henry, 127 Homburg, Germany, 34 Homer, 202-3 Homeric Scenes: Hector's Farewell and the Wrath of Achilles (Chapman), 202-3, 2 3 9 Hoover, Herbert, 290, 329 Howe, E. W., 275 Howe, Julia Ward, 1, 259 Howe, M. A. DeWolfe (biographer of John Jay Chapman), cited, 1 2 , 19, 9 1 , 339, 346-47

383

Howe, Samuel Gridley, 208-9 Howells, William Dean, 17, 18, 1 1 2 ; Chapman on, 28, 76, 152, 153-54; on Chapman, 91, 195 Hudibras (Butler), 3 1 5 Hughes, Tom, 36 Huneker, James Gibbon, 1 5 5 Hutchins, Robert M., 307 Ibsen, Henrik, 154, 194 Idealism, Chapman quoted on, 103 Iliad, 202 Imitation of Christ (Thomas it Kempis), 204 Immigration, 283, 286 Imperialism: Chapman's crusade against, 58, 84, 86, 236; religion and, 85; of Kipling, '33 Independent (periodical), 242, 294, 3 1 8 Independent Party, Roosevelt and, 81 Individualism: democracy and, 100, 1 0 1 , 103, 1 1 0 - 1 1 , 1 1 6 ; art and, 103, 1 3 1 - 3 2 ; reform and, 106; culture and, 111, 332; literature and, 1 1 3 - 1 4 , 1 5 2 ; of Emerson, 124; of Browning, 1 2 5 ; literary criticism and, 134-35, 142; in politics, 1 5 1 - 5 2 ; commercialism and, 189; religion and, 268-69 Industrialism, 58, 3 3 1 ; see also cialism Internationalism, 280 Italy, 35, 163 Ithaca, N.Y., 83

Commer-

James, Henry: quoted, 18, 1 1 2 , 1 1 8 - 1 9 , 128, 143, 220; Chapman on, 24, 28, 152-53; Chapman compared with, 1 5 7 James, Olivia, 277 James, William, 39, 165, 182; Chapman's friendship with, 75, 169, 302, 340; quoted on Chapman, 9 1 , 1 1 5 , 133, 139. 145, 162, 1 7 3 ; Chapman on, 148-50, 16970, 253-54, 2 6 1 ; Furness compared with, 255 Japan, 330 Jay, Augustus, 2 Jay, John ( 1 7 4 5 - 1 8 2 9 ) , 1 , 2, 23, 66-67, 292 Jay, John ( 1 8 1 7 - 1 8 9 4 ) , 2, 7, 34, 207 Jay, Sarah V. L. (grandmother of John Jay Chapman), 1 4 2 Jay, William ( 1 7 8 9 - 1 8 5 8 ) , 2, 6 Jay and Candler, law offices, 56 Jay Farm, Katonah, N.Y., 2, 6, 7, 19 Jeffers, Robinson, 2 1 7

3»4

INDEX

Jefferson, Thomas, 2 3 , 3 0 3 Jesus Christ, 88, 298, 302-3 Jews, 2 0 1 , 207, 238, 269; anti-Semitism, 236, 280, 2 8 1 , 283, 2 8 5 ; see also Klein, Isaac H. John Brown's Body (Benet), 3 2 5 Johns Hopkins University, 1 8 Johnson, Samuel, 144 Jones, Ernest, 3 3 9 Jonson, Ben, 144 journal of Heredity (periodical), 2 3 5 Jowett, Benjamin, 244 Jung, Carl, 3 3 5 , 342 Kant, Immanuel, 1 7 0 Keats, John, 1 5 , 1 2 1 , 244 Kelly, Edmond, 64, 65, 1 0 5 Kendall, William Sargent, 239 Kennicutt, Francis, 11 Kidder, Camillus G., 15 King, Clarence, 262 King Lear (Shakespeare), 3 1 1 , 3 1 2 Kipling, Rudyard, 1 3 2 - 3 3 , 1 3 7 , 1 4 3 Kittredge, George Lyman, 24, 3 1 0 Klein, Isaac H . : in crusade against Tammany Hall, 78, 8 1 , 82, 1 6 0 , 2 8 1 ; Chapman's Memoir of, 256 Knights of Columbus, 2 8 5 , 289 Kreisler, Fritz, 15 Ku Klux Klan: resurgence after First World War, 276, 2 8 3 ; Ralph Adams Cram on, 2 8 2 ; Chapman's defense of, 284, 285, 2 8 7 , 2 9 1 , 294 Ku Klux Kourier (periodical), 284 Labor, in the 1890s, 59, 2 3 7 La Farge, John, 262 Lafayette Escadrille, 226, 2 2 7 Lamb, Charles, 13 Lang, Andrew, 1 4 2 Laugel, Auguste, 5 Law, study of, see under Harvard University Law School Lawrence, David Herbert, 1 8 0 , 263, 3 3 7 Lawrence, William, bishop, 59, 282 Lawrence, W . W . , 3 3 3 League of Nations: opposition to American participation in, 2 3 5 - 3 6 , 2 3 7 , 2 7 5 , 280, 283, 3 3 2 ; Manchurian crisis and, 3 3 0 Learning and Other Essays (Chapman), 1 8 0 , 1 8 3 - 2 0 9 , 279 Leaves of Grass (Whitman), 121 Lectures (Chapman): first, 2 2 ; Harvard Ivy

Oration, 3 3 , 1 5 5 ; in New York City reform period, 68, 7 5 ; at Cornell, 83; "The Unity of Human Nature," 1 5 0 - 5 2 ; at St. Paul's School, 1 6 1 ; at St. Stephen's College, 1 9 1 ; "Art and Art Schools," 197-98; "The Function of the Church School," 205; to the Ethical Culture Society of New York, 205-6; Coatesville sermon, 2 1 1 - 1 2 ; "Patriotism and Our Foreign Population," 2 3 2 ; to the American Library Association, 260; "The Better Use of the Spoken W o r d , " 2 6 0 - 6 1 ; Princeton Phi Beta Kappa address, 3 0 3 ; Harvard Business Review annual dinner, 304; Columbia University, 3 3 0 Le Gallienne, Richard, 297 Legouis, Emile, 278, 288 Le RJre (Bergson), 198 Letters (Chapman): early, 6, 1 8 ; to his mother, 11, 1 3 - 1 4 , 1 9 , 2 1 , 25, 26, 28, 29. 4 ° . 45. 74. 75. «53. ^ 4 . 2 1 9 , 223, 227, 340, 3 5 1 (n. 6 6 ) ; style in, 1 6 , 3 2 , 1 4 0 ; to Minna Timmins Chapman, 20, 46, 5 ' . 54. 55. 56, 57, 67, 1 2 0 , 1 4 5 ; to Owen Wister, 30, 3 2 , 3 4 - 3 5 , 1 7 0 - 7 1 , 1 8 2 , 287, 3 4 5 ; to Elizabeth Chanler Chapman, 7475. 79. 80, 1 7 9 , 2 1 0 , 2 1 1 ; to the press, 88, 220, 2 2 3 , 2 2 5 , 226, 229-30, 2 3 5 , 274, 282, 289, 294; to Horace E. Scudder, 1 2 8 - 2 9 ; to Mrs. James T . Fields, 1 3 0 ; to Mrs. Sarah Wyman Whitman, 1 3 5 ; in the nineties, 1 5 5 ; to William James, 1 6 2 , 1 6 5 , 1 6 9 , 1 8 2 ; to Sir William Rothenstein, 1 8 4 , 204, 3 4 3 - 4 4 ; to the Rev. Dr. Samuel S. Drury, 1 9 1 - 9 2 , 2 3 3 , 260, 3 0 7 ; to L a n g don Mitchell, 1 9 5 , 2 2 7 ; to Grace Norton, 200-1; to Rosalind Richards (granddaughter of Julia Ward Howe), 2 1 3 ; to Victor Chapman, 226-27; to Siegfried Sassoon, 2 3 8 ; to Chanler Chapman, 264, 3 4 5 ; to Agnes Repplier, 274; to Bishop Lawrence, 2 8 2 ; to Madison Grant, 2 8 3 ; to Robert Nichols, 287, 288, 2 9 5 ; antiCatholic, 287, 290; to André Chevrillon, 288; to George Dudley Seymour, 293-94; literary criticism in, 3 1 0 , 3 2 4 ; to Edmund Wilson, 3 2 6 ; to Mrs. Henry Copley Greene, 3 2 7 ; to Conrad Chapman, 3 2 8 ; of last years, 3 2 9 ; to M. A. DeWolfe Howe, 339-40; to Charles M. Cist, 344 Letters and Religion (Chapman), 1 6 9 , 2963°3 Lexow, Clarence, 69

INDEX Liberator (periodical), 1 Life of John Sterling (Carlyle), 3 1 7 Life of Schiller (Carlyle), 3 1 7 Lincoln, Abraham, 7, n o , 2 1 3 , 254, 341 Lippmann, Walter, 329 Liquor: political influence of liquor interests, 61, 62-63; Prohibition, 277, 294-95, 325. 329. 33° Liszt, Franz, 34 Literary criticism (Chapman): iSgo-igoi, 1 1 8 - 5 8 ; reception of, 1 4 1 - 4 4 ; approach to, 1 5 7 ; / 9 / 0 - / 9 2 0 , 180, 183-84, 192-204; after / 9 2 0 , 309; in Chapman's letters, 310, 324; see also under specific authors criticized, e.g., Lucian Literary Digest (periodical), 231 Literary Shop (James Lauren Ford), 322 Literature: German, 32; commercialism and, 1 1 2 - 1 3 , " 8 , 299, 314; individualism and, 1 1 3 - 1 4 , 152; criticism and, 118, 1 3 1 , 134-36; New England school, 123-24; realism in, 153-54; Greek, 200-3, 242-46, 333-34; Russian, 249; after First World War, 264, 279 Littell, Philip, 253, 3 1 0 Livingston, William, 2 Lodge, Henry Cabot, 23, 60, 2 2 1 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth: Chapman on, 14, 22, 28, 123; death of, 17 Looking Backward (Bellamy), 1 1 4 Los Angeles, Calif., 287 Los Angeles Times (newspaper), 213 "Lover's Complaint, T h e " (Shakespeare), 337 Low, Seth, 7 1 , 74, 75, 83 Lowell, Abbott Lawrence, 230, 294 Lowell, James Russell, 17, 123, 144-45 Lowell, Percival, 46, 47, 52 Lucian, 15, 334-35. 34* Lucian, Plato and Greek Morals (Chapman), 329. 333-35 Lusitania (vessel), 225 Macbeth (Shakespeare), 15 Mackall, Leonard, 342 McKenzie, Kenneth, 3 1 9 McKinley, William, 83, 86, 87-88 Magazines, see Periodicals Magnificent Ambersons, The (Tarkington), 264 Main Currents of American Thought (Parrington), 325 Manchuria, 330

385

Mandeville, Bernard de, 100 Man Nobody Knows, The (Barton), 276 Marmton (Scott), 13 Martin, Edith, 2 1 1 Martin, E. S., 24, 291, 292 Martineau, Harriet, 2, 259 Marx, Karl, 133 Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1 Materialism, see Commercialism; Wealth Matthiessen, F. O., 262 Maurois, Andre, 263 Mauve Decade, The (Beer), 143, 146 Medea (Euripides), 2 1 7 , 323 Medea (Jeffers), 2 1 7 , 323 Melville, Herman, 155, 325 Memories and Milestones (Chapman), 2 1 1 12, 239, 252-60 Menace (periodical), 207 Mencken, H. L„ 263, 270, 277; Chapman compared with, 1 1 5 , 144; Chapman quoted on, 325 Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1 1 8 , 1 2 9 - 3 1 , 143 Mill, John Stuart, 29, 1 3 3 Miller, Perry, 2 1 3 , 3 1 0 Milton, John, 24, 40, 177, 267 Minturn, Robert Shaw, 228, 257 Mitchell, Langdon, 195, 202, 227; Chapman's friendship with, 8, n , 342 Moby Dick. (Melville), 325 Modern Instance, A (Howells), 153 Molière, 15 Montaigne, Michel de, 204, 247, 262 Montalembert, Charles, Comte de, 285 Moody, William Vaughan, 155, 192 More, Paul Elmer, as literary critic, 1 5 5 , 156, 157, 179, 333 Morgan, James Pierpont, 59, 182, 226 Morley, John, 29 Morris, Sir Lewis, 36 Motion pictures, 277 Mott, Lucretia, 295 Moulton, Richard G., 178-79 Mumford, Lewis, 1 4 1 , 150, 1 5 2 Munson, Gorham B., 323 Munsterberg, Hugo, 149 Murray, Gilbert, 244, 245, 342 Music: Chapman on, 15, 3 1 , 34, 258; Chapman's study of, 19-20, 347, 360 (n. 25) Musset, Alfred de, 126 Nation (periodical), reviews of Chapman's work, 1 1 ; , 142, 184, 202, 2 1 3 , 242, 270 National Academy of Design, 265

386

INDEX

National Kourier (periodical), 285 Negroes: Coatesville lynching, 209-12, 232, 287; Chapman on, after First World War, 280, 283, 294; see also Abolition of slavery; Ku KJux Klart New Age Magazine, 285, 286 New England, influence of, on Chapman, 174-75 New England Quarterly (periodical), 3 3 2 New Horizons in American Life (Chapman), 329, 330-32 " N e w Humanists," 1 5 5 , 1 5 7 , 324 New Republic (periodical), 1 7 6 ; reviews of Chapman's work in, 2 5 3 , 270, 3 1 0 , 3 1 9 , 326. 334 Newspapers, see Periodicals; see also specific titles of newspapers, e.g., New Yor\ Times Newton, Joseph Fort, 297 New Variorum Shakespeare (Furness), 32, 255 New York City: Washington Square, 5, 1 3 , 1 5 ; Tammany regime and agitation for reform, 5 8 - 8 1 ; mayoralty campaign o£ 1897, 72; influence on Chapman, 1 7 4 ; anti-Catholic legislation in, 207 New York Evening Post (newspaper): in reform period, 63, 84; Chapman's contributions to, 2 2 3 , 274, 304; review of A Glance Toward Shakespeare, 310 New York Herald (newspaper), 2 1 4 New York Morning Journal (newspaper), 76 N e w York State: gubernatorial campaign of 1898, 78, 81-84; constitution, 207; gubernatorial campaign of 1928, 290 New York. Sun (newspaper), 65, 242 New Yorl( Times (newspaper): in reform period, 62, 67-68, 7 0 - 7 1 ; Chapman's contributions to, 62, 225, 226, 230, 3 1 3 , 3 1 7 ; reviews of Chapman's work, 184, 297, 3 3 4 ; on Harvard, 306 New York Tribune (newspaper), 226, 227, 229-30 New York World (newspaper), 226, 294 Nichols, Robert, 287, 288, 3 2 5 , 3 2 7 Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 272 Nock, Albert Jay, 325 Norris, Frank, 1 1 2 , 1 5 5 North American Review (periodical), 2 3 1 , 234, 3 1 0 Norton, Charles Eliot, 18, 39, 262; translation of Dante, 1 2 9 ; Chapman on, 1 4 4 , 254-55; on Beethoven, 258

Norton, Grace, 200 Notebooks, The (Butler), 3 1 0 Notes on Religion (Chapman), 169, 207, 239, 268-73, 1 9 7 Noyes, Alfred, 195 Nursery (periodical), see Political Nursery (periodical) Ober Tarvis, Austria, 163 O'Connell, Cardinal, 2 8 1 , 282 Olney, Richard, 222 O'Neill, Eugene, 194, 264 Oregonian (newspaper), 270 Osborne, Thomas Mott, 82, 228, 295-97 Othello (Shakespeare), 247 Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy (Fiske), 26 Outlook (periodical), 232, 255, 294, 3 1 9 Pacifism, 2 3 2 Page, Walter Hines, 2 2 1 Paine, John Knowles, 18 Palmer, George Herbert, 18, 27, 9 1 , 202, 340 Pamphlets (Chapman): The Two Philosophers, 63, 1 4 5 : propaganda, 223-24, 239; Memoir of Isaac H. Klein, 256; The Honesty of Al Smith, 289; The Roman Catholic Mind, 290; Alma Mater, 304; lames L. Ford, 3 2 2 ; select list, 373-75 Panic of ¡87j, 3 Parker, Horatio, 239 Parkhurst, Charles H., 69 Parsifal (Wagner), 34-35 Passing of a Great Race, The (Grant), 2 3 5 , 283 Pearson, Edmund, 3 1 9 Peck, Harry Thurston, 146, 1 5 5 People's Municipal League, 62 Pcricles, 201 Periodicals: commercialism and, 112-13, 1 5 6 , 277; select list of Chapman's contributions to, 3 7 3 - 7 5 ; for specific contributions, see under Essays (Chapman); see also specific titles of magazines, e.g., Vanity Fair, or specific titles of newspapers, e.g., New York Times Perkins Institution for the Blind, 208 Perry, Bliss, 306 Perry, Ralph Barton, 256 Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart, 146, 1 9 5 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, 1 4 Philadelphia Public Ledger (newspaper), 226

INDEX Phillips, Wendell, 17, 214 Philoctetes (Sophocles), 323 Philosophy: Chapman on, 27, 30-31, 1697 1 ; of Kant, 170; mysticism and, 204-5; reform and, 2 1 8 ; Platonism, 245-46; of William James, 253-54; of Josiah Royce, 256; of Nietzsche, 272; tee alto Lucian, Plato and Greek. Morals Photography, 266 Pius IX, pope, 285 Plato, 24, 336, 342; Chapman on, 39, 199, 200, 244, 245-46, 333-35 Piatt, Charles A., 165 Piatt, Thomas C., 69, 75, 82, 83 Plays (Chapman): Four Playt for Children, 1 7 1 - 7 2 ; Family Quarrel, A Play for the Nartery, 1 7 2 ; Neptune's Isle and Other Playt for Children, 172; Wilfred the Young, A Dragon-Play for Boys, 1 7 2 ; The Maid't Forgivenett, 172-73; A Sausage from Bologna, 1 7 3 ; The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold, 177-79, 180; Homeric Scenes: Hector's Farewell and the Wrath of Achilles, 202-3, 239; experiment in amateur dramatics, 207-8; burlesque on Woodrow Wilson, 226; Cupid and Psyche, 228, 239; Two Greek Playt: The Philoctetet of Sophoclet and the Medea of Euripidet, 323-24; The Antigone of Sophocles, 323-24 Pluralistic Universe, A (William James), 169, 170 Poe, Edgar Allan, 123, 3 1 7 - 1 8 , 327 Poetry, see Verse Poets of America, The (Stedman), 156 Political Nursery (periodical): Chapman's publication of, 58, 73, 90, 108, 139, 148, 160, 162, 296; on Seth Low, 74; on agitation for reform, 77; on commercialism, 78, 85; on national politics, 80, 86; on Spanish-American War, 81, 84; on Theodore Roosevelt, 82, 84; "The Doctrine of Non-Resistance," 88; on Charles Eliot Norton, 144, 254; on Charles William Eliot, 147-48; on William James, 149; on Henry Mills Alden, 156 Politics: Hamiltonian, 2; Chapman's early interest in, 23, 58-59, 6 1 ; corruption in, 60-61, 68-71, 95, 99-100, 105, 330; liquor interests and, 61, 62-63; Chapman quoted on, 66, 80, 85; commercialism and, 84, 91, 92-94; boss system, 94; ideas in, 98, 107, 1 1 7 , 218; individualism in, 1 5 1 - 5 2 ;

S»?

religion and, 167, 168; after First World War, 235-36; Red scare, 239, 276, 280, 285; presidential campaign of 7928, 28990; New Deal, 330; see also Reform and political parties, e.g., Republican Party Pope, Alexander, 15, 144 Populist Party, 80, 81 Porcellian Club, 29 Portrait of a Lady, The (Henry James), 24, 152 Practical Agitation (Chapman), 88, 90, 104-14, 232; reviews of, 1 1 5 - 1 6 ; Emersonian influence in, 124; attack on editors, 156; new preface, 175-76 Pragmatism, 149-50, 169, 170; tee alto James, William Prayert for the Business Man (Babson), 276 Pre-Raphaelites, 254 Price, Lucien, 332-33, 344 Princeton University, 303 Prison Reform, New York State Commission on, 295; see also Osborne, Thomas Mott Progress, Chapman on, 64, 90, 1 1 0 , 176 Prohibition, see under Liquor Promise of American Life, The (Croly), 176-77 "Protection," see under Politics, corruption in, Protestantism, 17-18, 22, 129-30 Provincetown Players, 194 Prudery, 146, 195 Psychology and Life (Munsterberg), 149 Puritanism, 17, 1 1 9 - 2 1 , 124, 341 Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur, 3 1 0 Race or Nation (Speranza), 286 Race relations, Chapman's intolerance in, 280, 285-87; Negro students at Harvard, 294; see also Jews; Ku Klux Klan; Negroes Radicalism, 75 Radio, 277, 290 Rafael Sanzio, 314 Railroads, hypothetical illustration of relation between political corruption and, 9294

Raines Liquor Law, 62 "Recessional, The" (Kipling), 1 3 2 Reform: at Harvard, 29; in New York City, 58-81; agitation for, 66-67, 77"78, 106-14, 1 5 1 - 5 2 , 160; education and, 76, 104, 188; Chapman's influence in, 88, 175-76, 1 7 7 ;

388

INDEX

Reform (Continued) commercialism and, 104-5; individualism and, 106; philosophy and, 218; after First World War, 237, 279 Religion: Episcopalians, 2; Calvinism, 2, 1 1 9 , 3 1 5 , 3 1 6 ; early influences on Chapman, 8-9, 10, 1 1 - 1 2 , 22, 25-27, 4 1 ; Protestantism, 1 7 - 1 8 , 22, 129-30; music and, 34-35; imperialism and, 85; Chapman's religious thought, 88, 149-51, 16669, 178, 199-200, 203-7, 268-73, 297-303, 3 1 5 , 329; commercialism and, 98, 1 1 2 ; science and, 185, 299-301; ethics and, 206-9; Chapman's "religion of the war," 225, 2 3 1 ; see also Catholics; Jews; Puritanism Rcpplicr, Agnes, 274 Republic, The (Plato), 245-46 Republican Party: John Jay and, 7; New York machine in the nineties, 62, 69, 707 ' . 74. 75: Chapman on, 80; Theodore Roosevelt and, 81-84 "Retrospections" (Chapman), 1, 15, 18, 25, 34, 40, 169, 339, 341 Rhoades, James Harsen, 7 1 Richard III (Shakespeare), 3 1 2 Richter, Jean Paul, 34 Robinson, Edwin Arlington, 155 Rodin, Auguste, 298 Rokeby, Chanlers' country estate, 159, 160 Roman Catholic Church, see Catholics Romerbad, Austria, 163 Rome, the Bible, and the Republic (Jay), 207 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 290, 330, 341 Roosevelt, Theodore, 24, 68, 225; New York City reform and, 60, 160; New York gubernatorial campaign of, 81-85, 356 (n. 9 2 ) ; proposed as president of Harvard, 182 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 98 Rossetti, William Michael, 129 Rothenstein, Sir William, 179, 184, 204, 343 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 247 Royce, Josiah, 145, 255-56, 261 Rubenstein, Anton, 15 Ruskin, John, 254 Russia, 35-36 Sacco and Vanzetti, trial of, 294 Sainte-Beuve, Charles Augustin, 143, 248 St. Paul's School, Concord, N.H., 15, 180, 1 9 1 , 260, 307; Chapman at, 7 - 1 3 , 40; in-

fluence on Chapman, 30, 162, 167, 203, "7 St. Petersburg, Russia, 35, 36 Saintsbury, George, 194 Salisbury', Robert A. T . Gascoyne-Cecil, Marquess of, 36 Saltus, Edgar, 8 Salvini, Tommaso, 22 Samson Agonistes (Milton), 1 7 7 Sanborn, Frank B., 141 Santayana, George, 28, 91, 270, 273 Sarajevo, 218 Sargent, John Singer, 79, 228 Sassoon, Siegfried, 237-38 Saturday Club, 123 Sausage from Bologna, A (Chapman), 173 Scarlet Letter, The (Hawthorne), 155 Schilf, Jack, 236 School and Society (periodical), 305 Schurz, Carl, 7 1 , 74-75, 77-78, 84 Schweinitz, Anna Jay von, 34, 2 1 9 Schweinitz, General von, 35 Science: harm of scientism, 154, 157, 184, 198, 218, 302, 3 3 1 ; religion and, 185, 299-301; art and, 198, 299-300, 3 0 1 ; Dante and, 322 Science (periodical), 182 Scopes trial, 285 Scott, Sir Walter, 13, 1 3 3 Scribner's (periodical), 1 5 5 Scudder, Horace E., 1 5 5 - 5 6 Sedgwick, Anne Douglas, 346 Sedgwick, Ellery, 46, 282 Selincourt, Basil de, 346 Sewanee Review, 308 Sex: Chapman's attitude toward, 40, 50, 5 1 52, 55, 120, 145-46, 195; Emerson and, 120-21, 1 4 1 , 142; Plato and, 246, 334-35; Goethe and, 3 3 7 ; in Hamlet, 338-39 Seymour, George Dudley, 293 Shakespeare, William: Chapman's early interest in, 15, 32, 39; Chapman's essays on, 72, 118, 127-28, 143, 242, 246-47, 3 1 0 - 1 3 , 338-39, 344; art of, 1 2 1 , 138, 154, 201, 249; commentators on, 135, 255; Dante compared with, 264-65, 320 Shakespeare, Variorum edition edited by Furness, 32, 255 Shaler, Nathaniel S., 18 Shaw, Bernard: Chapman compared with, 1 1 6 , 144; Chapman on, 194-95, 203, 2 1 7 Shelburne Essays (More), 179 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 15

INDEX Sherman, Stuart P., 184 Sherwood, Robert E., 263 Shorey, Paul, 333-34 Siegfried's Journey (Sassoon), 238 Sing Sing Prison, 296 Slavery, see Abolition of slavery Slums, 208, 232 Smith, Alfred E., 289-90 Socialism, 65, 105-6, 232 Society and Prisons (Osborne), 296 Society for the Prevention of Crime, 68 Sociology (Spencer), 29 Socrates, 246 Sondbinin, Seraphin, 293 Songs and Poems (Chapman), 239, 240-42, 308-9 Sonnets (Shakespeare), 3 1 2 - 1 3 Sophocles, 200, 323-24 Spanish-American War, 78, 80, 81, 84 Spectator (London, periodical), 280 Speeches (Chapman), see Lectures (Chapman) Spencer, Herbert, 26, 29, 3 1 , 36, 1 3 3 ; social Darwinism and, 100, 1 0 1 Spenser, Edmund, 15 Speranza, Gino, 286 Sperry, Willard L., 297 Spingarn, Joel E., 3 1 9 , 325, 333 Spiritualism, 18 Springfield Republican (newspaper), 1 4 1 , 242 Stanley, Henry M., 36 Stedman, Edmund Clarence, 156 Steffens, Lincoln, 61, 69, 70 Sterne, Laurence, 3 1 5 Stevenson, Robert Louis: Chapman's visit with, 36; Chapman on, 1 1 8 , 1 3 1 - 3 2 , 140, 143, 146-47 Storrow, James J., 39 Strong, William L., 69, 70 Stuart, Gilbert, 7, 14 Style: Chapman quoted on, 14, 263; in Chapman's letters, 16, 32, 140; in Chapman's political writing, 1 1 5 - 1 7 , 139; of Emerson, 122-23; of Robert Browning, 125-26; of Stevenson, 1 3 1 - 3 2 ; in Chapman's plays, 1 7 1 - 7 3 ; in Chapman's Learning and Other Essays, 183; in Chapman's war writings, 233; in Chapman's prose and poetry, compared, 240; in Chapman's Greek. Genius and Other Essays, 242-43; in Chapman's literary portraits, 252-53; in Shakespeare's sonnets, 3 1 2 - 1 3 ; of Car-

389

lyle, 3 1 6 - 1 7 ; in Chapman's Columbia lectures, 3 3 1 , 332; in Chapman's "Retrospections," 341 Suffrage, 100, 124 Sumner, William Graham, 29 Sylvania, estate, Barrytown, N.Y., 180, 184, 277, 293, 326, 345; construction of, 16566 Tagore, Rabindranath, 204 Taine, Hippolyte Adolphe, 3 1 8 Tammany Hall: New York political corruption under, and Chapman's attack upon, 59-71 passim, 76; Seth Low and, 74; Isaac Klein and, 78 Tarkington, Booth, 263, 264 Taylor, Bayard, 1 1 4 Taylor, H. O., 201, 2 1 3 , 333, 344 Teacher in America (Barzun), 307 Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 36 Thackeray, William Makepeace, 1 3 3 Thayer, William Roscoe, 8 Theater: Chapman's early interest in, 14, 1 5 , 22; Elizabethan, 127-28, 193, 247, 3 1 0 , 3 1 1 - 1 2 ; tragedy, 127-28, 245, 249-50; dramatic criticism and, 192-93; poetry in, '93-94; Greek, 193, 200-1, 245, 247; realism, 193, 3 1 0 ; comedy, 198-200; First World War and, 254; tradition in, 3 1 2 ; see also Plays (Chapman) and individual playwrights, e.g., Euripides Theory of the Leisure Class (Veblen), 1 1 4 "Third Ticket Movement" (political party), 86 Thomas i Kempis, 204 Thomas's Orchestra, 1 5 Thoreau, Henry David, 104, 109, 155, 3 4 1 ; death of, I, 17 Thorin, Bill, 234, 347 Times (London, newspaper), 220, 3 1 9 , 326 Timmins, George Henry, 43 Timmins, Minna, see Chapman, Minna Timmins (first wife of John Jay Chapman) Tocqueville, Alexis de, 95, 1 1 5 Tolstoy, Leo, Chapman on, 133-34, 1 4 3 , 154, 254, 272-73 "Tradition and the Individual Talent" (Eliot), 185 Train, Arthur, 8 Transcendentalism, 120, 1 4 1 ; tee also Emerson, Ralph Waldo Translations (by Chapman): of Dante, 6 1 , 128-29, 309, 318-22; of Homer, 202-3; of

390

INDEX

Translations (by Chapman) (Continued) Euripides, 2 1 7 , 323; of Sophocles, 323-24 Travel: in Europe, 17, 33-37, 38, 169, 180, 218-19, 226, 278, 288, 343, 346; in Canada, 42; in Colorado, 63-64 Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold, The (Chapman), 177-79, 180 Trittram Shandy (Sterne), 3 1 5 Trollope, Anthony, 306 Trumbull, John, 7 Turgenev, Leo, 1 , 32, 250 Twain, Mark, 155 Tweed, William Marcy, 60, 83 Uncle Tom's Cabin (Stowe), 1 1 Union Club incident, 274 U n i t e d States C o n g r e s s , 5 9

United States House of Representatives, Judiciary Committee, 329 United States Supreme Court, 59 United States War Department, 81, 84 Vanderlyn, John, 7 Van Doren, Mark, 219 Vanity Fair (periodical), 234, 238, 263-64, 306 Van Wyck, Robert A., 76 Varieties of Religious Experience (William James), 150, 162 Vassar Hospital, Poughkecpsie, N.Y., 344, 346 Veblen, Thorstein, 1 1 4 Venus and Adonis (Shakespeare), 9 Verse (Chapman): "Lines," 21-22; "Son to Mother," 25; "Song of the Agnostic," 26; on love, 42; "The Fourth Canto of the Inferno," 61, 128; "Earth Hath Her Hurts," 63; to Elizabeth Chanler Chapman, 79; "American Ideals," 85; on the death of his son, 164; in Four Plays for Children, 1 7 1 - 7 2 ; in Benedict Arnold, '77-79; Phi Beta Kappa poem, 1 9 1 ; " T o the Scholars in the French Army," 227; "The Sword," 227; "Ode on the Sailing of Our Troops for France," 230-31, 242; in Songs and Poems, 239, 240-42, 308-9; "Sappho's Last Song," 240-41; "Lines in a Copy of Virgil," 2 4 1 ; nature poems, 2 4 1 ; "May, 1 9 1 7 , " 241-42; on the death of Theodore Roosevelt, 242; "The Sybil," 279; "Cape Cod, Rome and Jerusalem," 285; "My Secret Journal," 289-90; "Stolen

Happiness," 308; "Birds in May," 308; "Boy Reading," 308-9; "Any Husband to Any Wife," 309; "Last Words," 327 Victor Chapman's Letters from France (Chapman), 229, 239 Victor Emmanuel Chapman Fellowship, 230 Vienna, Austria, 35 Vigilance Committees, 2 1 4 Voltaire, 200, 247, 262 Von Hoist, Edward Herman, 23 Wagner, Richard, 3 1 , 34-35 Walden (Thoreau), 341 Walker, a Negro lynched at Coatesville, 209-12 Ward, Samuel Gray, 1 1 8 Waring, George E., 83 Wealth: Chapman quoted on, 2 1 , 57, 7 1 , 74, 80, 133-34, 287; see also Commercialism Webster, Daniel, 1 1 9 , 1 2 3 Wells, H. G „ 3 1 8 Wells, Thomas B., 2 9 1 , 292 Weymouth, Mass., 2, 5, 6 Wharton, Edith, 1 , 180, 2 5 1 , 253 What Social Classes Owe to Each Other (Sumner), 29 Whicher, George Mason, 323 White, Bouck, 238 White, Stanford, 265 Whitehead, Alfred North, 342 Whitman, Sarah Wyman, 73, 1 1 8 , 1 3 5 , 163; Boston salon of, 18, 20, 43, 47; Chapman's essay on, 258 Whitman, Walt, 1 1 4 ; Chapman on, 1 1 8 , 126-27, '4 2 < 1 4 3 ; Emerson and, 1 2 1 , 1 5 5 ; Chapman compared with, 1 3 7 , 327 Wilde, Oscar, 24-25 Wilhelm Meister (Goethe), 3 1 7 William Lloyd Garrison (Chapman), 2 1 2 - 1 8 , 278, 332 Will to Believe, The (William James), 149 Wilson, Edmund, 263; quoted on Chapman, 65, 9 1 , 98, 1 1 5 , 148, 1 5 7 , 168, 1 8 1 , 184, 2 1 2 , 2 1 9 , 235, 297, 3 1 9 . 326. 334 Wilson, Woodrow, n o ; "New Freedom" and, 180, 2 1 2 ; war aims and, 2 2 1 ; Chapman on, 222-23, " 5 - 2 6 , 227, 230-31, 235, 280; League of Nations and, 236, 237. 275 Wings over Europe (Browne, Nichols), 287 Wister, Owen, 8, 2 8 1 ; quoted on Chapman,

INDEX 2, 19, 26; Chapman quoted on, 75; see also under Letters (Chapman), to Owen Wister Women's rights, 13 Wood, Leonard, general, 230 Woodberry, George Edward, 24, 114, 155-56 Wordsworth, William, 168

World government, 220-21 World War, see First World War Yale Review (periodical), 286, 308, 310 Yale School of Fine Arts, 197, 228, 239 Zola, £mile, 32, 154, 157