The Contributors' Club

I HAVE always had a theory that the Sphinx did not destroy herself after CEdipus solved her riddle: there are quite as good reasons for believing in her continued and present condition as in that of Le Juif Errant. Yet, granting that she did throw herself into the abyss, as reported, she certainly left behind her a long line of descendants. I am always meeting some of the family, for they are well distributed through all departments of society. I do not flatter myself when I say the encounter gives them pleasure: it is somehow apparent to them that I shall prove a meek and unresisting victim ; for I could never guess a riddle, nor put together a puzzle, nor pick in pieces any logical or illogical quiddity. From childhood, I have been the obtuse mark of these sharpshooting wits. “Do you give it up ? ” was. with me, as effectual as the moneyor life conditioning of a highway robber. I always gave it up, without the least struggle at solution. When I wish for a personal presentment of the type Sphinx, I do not think of the mythological nondescript the word suggests, but I summon up my recollections of a certain village tinker, who, as I remember,

ministered unto the ills that time, in the mortal shape of a clock, is heir to. To this acquaintance of my childhood might have been applied the famous similitude of the interrogation mark ; he being little, and crooked, and preëminently an asker of questions. He had withal an Ancient Mariner sort of eye, whereby he held his youthful listener in a condition of helpless fascination, while propounding and expounding his favorite riddles. His pièce de resistance was, “Where does the day begin ? ” Again and again — for my mind, sieve-like, leaked all such useful information — I bewilderedly followed his cruise for the bright meridian, eventually bringing up somewhere in mid-Pacific. I am reminded that, in the text-books of our grandfathers’ school-days, provision was made for the nurture and development of the juvenile sphinx. In this respect, the arithmetics were especially admirable : as a relief from the bare and unadorned problems of numerical quantity, there was occasionally thrown in what might have been termed A Handful of Pleasant Posers, consisting of various diverting puzzles and catches, — the well-known three-horned dilemma of the Fox, the Goose, and the Corn being a specimen.

To attempt a rigid classification of the family Sphinx would be to go “ beyond the scope of the present work.” Only a few of the more notable species may be mentioned. Of such is the mathematical genius, who devises new short methods of extracting the roots as well as of obtaining the powers of numbers, and whose cabalistic processes frequently appear in print. Nearly allied is the species that has a statistical “ bee in its bonnet,” and is given to barbarous calculations, in which reference is made to the tenth, twentieth, and even hundredth part of a man. A number of the family have studied law and theology, which professions seem to have favored the bent of their natures. Some have become poets (notwithstanding poeta nascitur, non fit), in which case they have written sestinas and other metrical wonders. There is yet another species, which of all is the most familiar. and perhaps the most stigmatized. I refer to the species Punster, in which should be included conundrum-mongers, and all those in any wise afflicted with paronomasia. Let us not be too swift to pass judgment upon these unfortunate persons ; their intent is doubtless to be social and care-beguiling; in any case, they are their own worst enemies, since the continued study and practice of facetious equivoque have a tendency to mull the brain. It was to meet this sad contingency, I suppose, that the Asylum for Decayed Punsters was founded, some time ago.

In one particular, to my certain knowledge, the present descendants of the Sphinx do not resemble their great ancestress : they have not her acute sensibility ; defeat never drives them to make their quietus ; they are never known to throw themselves headlong into the abyss. Perhaps their enigmatical resources are not as limited as were those of the ancient Theban bugbear ; if they knew but one riddle (it seems the Sphinx had no more), their grief and mortification at having it solved might lead them to the desperate act of self-destruction.

With his countrymen, œdipus may have passed for a sage and a hero ; we question both his sagacity and his courage. He should have disposed of the riddle by dispatching the Sphinx herself, and saved his wit for some question of genuine, philosophic importance. There is something very satisfactory in the way in which Columbus, at the banquet of old-world fogies, stood the egg on end, and one can scarcely help admiring Alexander for cutting the Gordian knot, instead of wasting precious time by trying to untie it. This is the kind of solution that is usually given by heroes. Says an old aphorism, “ The wrangler, the puzzler, and the wordhunter are incapable of great actions.” This Parthian arrow we cast at our ancient tormentor and wish him comfort of it.

— It seems doubtful whether we have made more mistakes by reason of rash action than through indecision and deferment. The gist of our favorite philosophy is that we should deliberate long, and act late. This conclusion contains a certain spice of self-flattery: fine, reckless, incendiary spirits are ours, upon the heat and flame of whose disorder we find it necessary to sprinkle cool patience. If the diagnosis covered the case, the treatment recommended would probably be the best one to follow ; but what if it be found that the motions of our minds are tardigrade and timorous, characterized by infinite windings and doublings upon their track ? Plainly, then, we need no lenitive, but a vigorous tonic and stimulant. It is required that some one develop a new philosophy of immediateness and spontaneity. We are too much in the habit of appealing from the first impression to the sophisticated afterthought, as from Philip drunk to Philip sober. The chances are that the first impression is no nearer the condition of intelligent sobriety than are those pompous benchers and big-wigs of the mind, — our mature reflections. We never suspect that they can be muddled and heavy-headed, they contrive to maintain such show of judicial dignity in the eyes of their clients. Why is it we so helplessly sit down to a despotic session of pros and cons, advisory of matters which the heart’s election, and not the reason’s jury, should be allowed to decide ? It is possible our resolution is already taken, though we do not at once recognize it, being confused by the involved processes of our Court of Equity. Let some good genius stand beside us, and cry out, like the not-to-be-trifled-with lover in the old song, —

But if it be thought desirable to take a thorough academic course in casuistry, there is no better means to this end than the accustoming ourselves to divide and carefully test all the delicate strands of motive and feeling leading up to any given line of conduct. What respect we pay to certain cautionary maxims: Haste makes waste; Festina lente. In minding such guide-boards and dangersignals, we lose sight of the fact that there is equal jeopardy in hesitation and debate. Possibly, we pride ourselves on being too well disciplined to “ jump at a conclusion ” (leaving such light gymnastic feats to what we are pleased to term the feminine mind) ; we find it more decorous to take the logical detour, and arrive at our leisure. The shortness of life shall not frighten us into dispatch ; when our time-lease runs out, there is eternity for our conclusions. Still, we may justly insist that, in many of the dilemmas which we must meet and overcome, the saltus, or jump, is the only safe way to the conclusion. We

have heard something too much of that clever apology for the unready and the unmilitant,— Discretion is the better part of valor. Let us see how it would fit to make over the stuff of the wellworn aphorism, thus : Valor is the better part of discretion. The inverted maxim tallies charmingly with the keen observation, “ One sits out as many risks as he runs.” I should not be surprised at hearing that indiscretion belongs more to the craven than to the rashest hero. It does not appear that the immediate in decision, the precipitate in action, any oftener meet with disasters than do those who stop at every stage to consult the oracles, — the oracles that delight in obscurity and contradiction ! Most ungenerously suspicious are we as to the friendly intention of events toward us. Often we approach what promise to be the royal chances of life with a kind of old-eyed mistrust and watchfulness, — as of wary woodland creatures, that, once having tasted the cruelty of the trap, henceforward suspect springs and toils wherever they go. It would argue more magnanimity if we sometimes dismissed this pitiful circumspectness, and threw ourselves upon the clemency of the future. But we have always before us the fear of that joyless sequel to hasty action, — the repenting at leisure. True, we stand in this peril; yet we might reflect that we can buy no certain immunity, with all our sacrifices to forethought. In any case, the human probabilities are, we shall be visited by some form of regret. (Remember the sage’s dilemmatic reply to the young man who sought his opinion on marriage : whether he married or not, he would be sure to repent.) When the cup of repentance passes round, to drink it as the punishment of generous rashness and superabounding faith will not be more humiliating than to have to drink it in spite of all our measures to avoid the draught. We do not need to be taught to multiply considerations and reasons, but to focus and use those which shine upon the current moment. What, in any enterprise, is so hard as the beginning it ? Plunge us at once in medias res, and we strike out bravely enough ; instinctively defending ourselves, and gaining strength from opposition. But hold the enterprise a long time in ideal projection, and it is ten to one the imagination drops off sated, and leaves us out of conceit with the original purpose. We do well to use instantaneously any purchase we have acquired upon our own native vis inertia, as well as upon that of external matter.

— In The Point of View Mr. James’s Miss Sturdy, among the many shrewd and just observations she makes, says one thing, not original with her, which indeed we have heard till we are quite familiar with the remark, but which sounds strangely coming from so sensible a person as this lady. She says that one of the dangers attending the American mode of life is that we shall “ cease to speak the English language: American is crowding it out.” So intelligent a woman as Miss Sturdy ought to know better than to repeat this accusation, meaningless in its vagueness, and therefore eluding a fair encounter and rebuttal. Mr. Antrobus, from his point of view, remarks much to the same effect when he says that, considering the number of people who are being educated in the country, “ the tone of the people is less scholarly than one would expect. A lady, a few days since, described to me her daughter as being ‘always on the go,’ which I take to be a jocular way of saying that the young lady was very fond of paying visits. Another person, the wife of a United States Senator, informed me that if I should go to Washington in January I should be quite ‘in the swim.’ I inquired the meaning of the phrase.” Now that Mr. Antrobus should require to have the meaning of a new slang phrase explained to him is not strange, being

quite in character with the slowness and dullness of his intellect ; but that he or any other Englishman should be surprised or shocked at a free use of slang does strike me as something extraordinary. He himself and the “ wife of a United States Senator ” are fictitious persons ; but we are ready to grant to Mr. James the possibility of an actual person occupying such a position indulging herself in the use of a slang phrase. We would not maintain that our Senators and their wives are invariably to be found persons of culture and breeding, and that only persons of culture, breeding, and the best taste habitually refrain from such expressions. The fact is that many people who know perfectly well what is good English, and what is not, do nevertheless, from carelessness or indolence, allow themselves the use of words and phrases which their own good taste condemns. But these persons would be the last to defend their own practice. Others, of less fastidious feeling about the matter, use slang, knowing it to be such, but not careful whether that or the proper English expression comes first to hand. If this habit, however, is all that is meant by the invention of an “ American ” language, the ridicule is quite misplaced, coming from an Englishman, or any one adopting the English point of view. No persons employ slang more freely in common conversation than the English, so far as my knowledge of them goes. And they use it with the same unconscious air that many Americans have in uttering slang expressions, as though it had become a matter of habit to select such words in preference to correct English. I remember a young English gentleman speaking of a relative who had lost a wife while in a certain place, and who had never been able to endure the sight of the spot since, because of its sad associations. “ He really could n’t go there again, you know : he felt too seedy about it.” I deplore the use of slang. The worst effect of its so common use is that a good many persons, not given to thought on such matters, lose sight of the fact that such and such expressions are slang. I deplore it. that is, as much as one consistently may, who at the same time confesses to a relish for certain slang phrases that seem to have something of vivid and picturesque expressiveness in them, or a humorous quality evident in the turn of them. I think that, decidedly, there is slang and slang. Some of it — most of it—is vulgar beyond pardon : it seems to me also that it is our imported English slang that lacks the humor and possesses the vulgarity. Some slang is defiling to the mouth that utters it; other slang is comparatively innocent and excusable. But if Miss Sturdy means by the “ American ” language a language that pretends to be English, or as good as good English, she ought to tell us more plainly what people it is she has heard speak it. She says it is in use in all the newspapers and schools. About the schools I confess I don’t know; as to the newspapers, it is true that many of them abound in vulgarisms of speech, and no doubt help to popularize them. But do they differ in this respect from the journals of Great Britain ?

— The reign of the sunflower has been a long one in the world of decorative art, and it might be well to consider its successor. It has been suggested that we turn our attention to the beauty of leaf forms and colors. We never have given full credit to the satisfactory qualities of a well-arranged bouquet of leaves ; to tell the truth, people in general know very little about them. It takes a very observant eye to catch at their details, for most of us look at trees or bushes, or at any foliage, only in the mass, — which is like judging flowers and making friends with them only in solid parterres. Appreciation of the leaves of native and foreign plants will come only by close study of them, and nothing will forward this like their becoming fashionable. As for the monotony of color, it is no disadvantage, if we once grow used to the delicate gradations of tint.

We have already accustomed ourselves to exquisite arrangements of ferns, but if some reader will carry the idea further, she will be greatly astonished at its success. The leaves of the silver poplar, with their whitish under surface, are most beautiful for table decoration. A few sprays in clear glasses, that show plainly the leaves that are under water, with their clinging air bubbles, and the outline of the stems, — these, above the white surface, or even colored surface, of the cloth of the teatable will be found surprisingly delicate and refreshing on a hot evening, instead of fiery geraniums, or intensely yellow marigolds, or other flowers of the sort. At least, while we do not underrate the value of brilliant colors, we beg our lady friends, who are ever on the lookout for novelties and new effects in their housekeeping, to try their hands at some of these imperfectly suggested symphonies in green. We do not imply a desire simply to return to the fire-place decorations of asparagus, beloved of our great-grandmothers, though the use of that sad-tinted but graceful foliage has been grievously overlooked by the æsthetes and the sentimental Wilde men and women, of languishing attitudes and clinging draperies.