Project Gutenberg''''s Penguin Persons & Peppermints, by Walter Prichard Eaton docx

Project Gutenberg's Penguin Persons & Peppermints, by Walter Prichard Eaton This eBook is for the use of anyoneanywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever.. You may co

Project Gutenberg's Penguin Persons & Peppermints, by Walter Prichard Eaton This eBook is for the use of anyone

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Title: Penguin Persons & Peppermints

Author: Walter Prichard Eaton

Release Date: August 23, 2008 [EBook

#26405]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PENGUIN PERSONS & PEPPERMINTS ***

Produced by Chrome, Michael Ciesielski,

Irma Spehar and

the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

WALTER PRICHARD

EATON

Essay Index Reprint Series

BOOKS FOR LIBRARIES PRESS FREEPORT, NEW YORK

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To

My Little Sister who was born just in time

to know the old, quiet ways of life

in their gentle decline—to

know and to love

them

Author's Foreword

It is not a little unfortunate that no one canattempt the essay form nowadays, moreespecially that type of essay which ispersonal, reminiscent, “an open letter towhom it may concern,” without beingaccused of trying to write like CharlesLamb Of course, if we were ever accused

of succeeding, that would be anotherstory! There is, to be sure, no doubt thatthe gentle Elia impressed his form andmethod on all English writers whofollowed him, and still reaches out across

a century to threaten with his high

standards those who still venture into thispleasant and now so neglected field Suchare the rigors of triumphant gentleness.Still—and he would have been the first torecognize the fact—it is rather unfair todemand of every essayist the revelation of

a personality like Lamb's Fundamentally,all literature, even naturalistic drama, isthe revelation of a personality, a point ofview But it is the peculiar flavor of theessay that it reveals an author through hischat about himself, his friends, hismemories and fancies, in something of thedirect manner of a conversation or a letter;and he himself feels, in writing, adelightful sense of intimacy with his futurereaders That Lamb was a master of thisart like no other, without a visible orprobable rival, hardly constitutes a reason

for denying to less delightful men andgifted artists the right also to practice it, toput themselves and their intimate littleaffairs and idiosyncrasies into direct andpersonal touch with such few readers asthey may find For the readers of hisessays are the author's friends in a sensethat the readers of his novels ordissertations, or the witnesses of hisplays, can never be There will be nostory to hold them, no fictional,independent characters, no ideas norarguments on high questions of policy.There will be only a joint interest in theminutiæ of life If I like cats andsnowstorms, and you like cats andsnowstorms, we are likely to cometogether on that mutual ground, and claspshadow hands across the page But if you

do not like cats and snowstorms, why thenyou will not like me, and we needn't boreeach other, need we?

The little papers in this volume, issuedfrom the peaceful town of Sewanee atopthe Cumberland plateau, betweenThumping Dick Hollow and Little FieryGizzard Creek, have been written atvarious times and places in the past fifteenyears, many of them while I still dwelt inNew York, and babbled o' green fields,many before, and some few after, theoutbreak of the Great War That War, youwill perhaps discover, finds in them noreflection It has been consciouslyexcluded, for though the world can never

be the same world again, as we are in nodanger of forgetting, there are some things

which even war and revolution cannotchange, such as the memories of ourchildhood, the joy of violets in the Spring,the delight in melody, the humor of smalldogs, the coo of babies I have fancied weare sometimes by way of forgetting that.

At any rate, of such matters, in hours when

he has no thought but to please himself, theessayist chats, and shall chat in the happyyears that are to come again, or all ourbloodshed has been in vain If, at the sametime, he chances to please an editor also,and then to make a few friends who likewhat he likes, smiles sympathetically atwhat makes him smile, why, that is clearagain!

This author has been fortunate enough toplease several editors in the past, and to

all of them, who have given himpermission to reprint such papers in thisvolume as have appeared in theirperiodicals, he extends his gratitude They

are specifically, the editors of The

Atlantic Monthly, Scribner's, House and Garden, The Dial, Ainslee's, The Scrap Book, The Boston Transcript and The New York Tribune.

W P E.Twin Fires,

Sheffield,

Mass.

Penguin Persons

After all, one knows so little about a manfrom his printed works! They are thegleanings of his thoughts andinvestigations, the pick of his mind andheart; and they are at best but animpersonal and partial record of thewriter Even autobiography has somethingunsatisfactory about it; one feels thenarrator is on guard always, as it were,and, aware of an audience cold and ofstrangers, keeps this back and trims up that

to make himself more what he should be(or, in some perverse cases, what he

should not be) But probably no man who

is worthy of attention sits down to write aletter to a good friend with one eye onposterity and the public In his intimatecorrespondence he is off guard Hence,some day, when he has died, the worldcomes to know him by fleeting glimpses

as he was,—which is almost as near, is itnot, as we ever get to knowing oneanother?—knows him under his littleprivate moods, in the spell of his personaljoys and sorrows, sees his flashes ofunexpected humor,—even, it may be, hisunexpected pettinesses Thus dangerousand thus delightful is it to publish a greatman's letters

Such letters were Ruskin's to CharlesEliot Norton, which Professor Norton has

given to the world No one can fail fromthose letters to get a more intimate picture

of the author of Modern Painters than

could ever be imagined out of that workitself, and out of the rest of his works

besides, not excepting the wonderful Fors

Clavigera; and not only a more intimate,

but a different picture, touched withgreater whimsicality, and with infinitesadness, too Not his hard-wrung thoughtsand theories, but his moods of the moment

—and he was a man rich in the moods ofthe moment—tell most prominently here.And with how many of these moods canthe Ordinary Reader sympathize! Againand again as the Ordinary Reader turns thepages he finds the great man under thethralldom of the same insect cares andannoyances which rule us all, until he

realizes as perhaps never before that poetand peasant, genius and scribe, are indeedone in a common humanity, and sighs, with

a lurking smile of satisfaction, “So nigh isgrandeur to our dust!”

One of the points of convergencebetween Ruskin and the Ordinary Readerwhich has appealed to me with peculiarforce occurs in a letter from London dated

in 1860 “When I begin to think at all,”Ruskin writes, “I get into states of disgustand fury at the way the mob is going on(meaning by the mob, chiefly Dukes,crown-princes, and such like persons) that

I choke; and have to go to the BritishMuseum and look at Penguins till I getcool I find Penguins at present the onlycomfort in life One feels everything in the

world so sympathetically ridiculous; onecan't be angry when one looks at aPenguin.”

Why, of course one can't! It is absurdlytrue, when one comes to think of it, thisbeneficent influence of penguins, stuffedpenguins, at that, which cannot evenwaddle I dare say few readers everthought of this peculiar bird (if it is a bird)

in just that light before Mr Ruskin's lettercame to view; I'm sure I never did Butfew readers will fail to recall at a firstreading of the words that picture of apenguin which used to adorn the schoolgeographies, and presently will come tothem the old sensation of amusement at thewaddly fellow propped up on hisimpossible feet, the smile will break over

their lips, and they will be one in moodwith Mr Ruskin They may affirm that ofcourse the author was only indulging in alittle whimsicality, and they may twothirds believe it, as it is no doubt twothirds true; but just the same, unless I ammuch mistaken, the image of a penguinwill persist in their minds, as it persisted

in Ruskin's mind—else how did he come

to write of it in this letter?—and they will

be the better and the happier for the smile

it evokes, as Ruskin was the better and thehappier Indeed, that letter was hischeeriest for months

For me, however, the image has notfaded with the passing of the mood, orrather it has changed into something moreabiding It has assumed, in fact, no less a

guise than the human; it has becomeconverted into certain of my friends I nowknow these friends, in my thoughts ofthem, as Penguin Persons I find they havethe same beneficent effect on me, and onothers around them, as the penguins onRuskin I mean here to sing their praises,for I believe that they and their kind (sinceeveryone enters on his list of friends, as I

do, some Penguin Persons) have, even ifthey do not know it, a mission in theworld, an honorable destiny to fulfill.They prevent us from taking life tooseriously; they make everything

“sympathetically ridiculous”; they areoften “as the shadow of a great rock in aweary land.”

But, at the very outset, I would not be

misunderstood I do not mean that aPenguin Person must resemble the amusingbird in physical aspect There are, I know,certain people, a far more numerous classthan is generally supposed, who see inalmost everybody a resemblance to someanimal, bird, or fish I am one of thesepeople myself It is on record as far back

as the fourth generation that some one of

my successive ancestors had the sameunhappy faculty, for it is unhappy, since itimposes on the person who resembles for

us a pig, in our thoughts of him, theattributes of that beast, and so on throughthe natural history catalogue It is notpleasant to watch a puma kitten sittingbeside you in the opera house, especiallywhen your mere brain tells you she isprobably a sweet, even-tempered little

matron, or to wait in pained expectancyfor your large-eared minister to bray, eventhough you know he will not depart fromhis measured exposition of sound and sanedoctrine However, the Penguin Personsare such by virtue of their moral andmental attributes solely, of the similareffect they produce on those about them bytheir personalities I have never met a manyet who physically resembled a penguin,though I fancy the experience would beinteresting.

Still less would I have it understoodthat Penguin Persons are stupid Far from

it Dr Crothers declares, in his Gentle

Reader, that he would not like to be

neighbor to a wit “It would be like being

in proximity to a live wire,” he says “A

certain insulating film of kindly stupidity

is needed to give a margin of safety tohuman intercourse.” I do not think that Dr.Crothers could have known a PenguinPerson when he wrote that The PenguinPerson is not a wit, there is no barb to hisshafts of fun, no uneasiness from hispreternatural cleverness, for he is notpreternaturally clever You never feelunable to cope with him, you never feelyour mind keyed to an unusual alertness tofollow him; you feel, indeed, a sense ofcomforting superiority, for, after all, you

do take the world so much more seriously

than he! And yet he is not stupid; he isbright, alert, “kindly,” to be sure, butdelightfully humorous, deliciously droll.Life with him appears to be one huge joke,and there is an unction about him, a

contagion in his point of view, that affectsyou whether you will or no, and when youare in his presence you cannot take lifeseriously, either,—you can but laugh withhim He does you good You say he is

“perfectly ridiculous,” but you laugh Then

he smiles back at you and cracks another

of those absurd remarks of his, and youknow he is “sympathetically ridiculous.”Perhaps you were out of sorts with lifewhen you met him, but one cannot beangry when one looks at a Penguin Person.But do you say that the original bird isnot like that at all, that he is the moststupid of fellows? Ah! then you havenever seen a penguin swim! He is graceand beauty and skill in the water If itwere only his stupidity that made us smile,

not he, but the hen, would be the mostamusing of God's creatures It issomething more subtle, more personal,than that It can only be described asPenguinity.

Penguinity! The word is not in thedictionaries; it is beyond the pale of the

“purists”; in coining it I am fully awarethat I violate the canons of the HarvardEnglish Department, that I fly in the face

of philology, waving a red rag Yet I do itgladly, assertively, for I have confidencethat some day, when Penguin Persons havetaken their rightful place in the world'sestimation, the world will not be able todispense with my little word, which willthen overthrow the dictionary despotismand enter unchallenged the leather

strongholds of Webster and Murray.

Yet before that day does come, and tohasten its coming, I would record a tribute

to my first and firmest Penguin friend,—

my friend and the friend of how manyothers?—long and lank of limb, thin andhigh-boned of face, alert, smiling,ridiculous On the nights when steamshipswere sunk in the East River, or incipientsubways elevated suddenly above ground,

or other exciting features of New Yorklife came clamoring for publicity, hewould sit calm and smiling, coatless, acorncob pipe between his teeth, and read

“copy” with the speed of two ordinarymen The excited night city editor wouldrush about, shouting orders andcountermanding them; reporters would

dash in and out; telegraph instrumentswould buzz; the nerve-wracking whistle ofthe tube from the composing room wouldshrill at sudden intervals, causingeverybody to start involuntarily each timeand to curse with vexation and anger; theirritable night editor, worried lest he missthe outgoing trains with his first edition,would look furtively at the clock at three-minute periods and plunge his grimy handover his sweating forehead; but thePenguin Person would sit smiling at hisplace by the “copy” desk, blue pencil inhand, serene amid the Babel And whenthe tension was greatest, the strain nerve-breaking to get the big story, in all itscomplete and coherent details, into thehungry presses that seemed almost visible,though they waited the stroke of one, ten

stories down, in the sub-basement, thePenguin Person would sit back in hischair, grin amiably, and say with a drawl,

“Hell, ain't it, fellers? D' you know whatI'm going to do to-morrow, though? I'mgoing to put on my asbestos collar, sidetrack some beaut, take her to the theatre,and after the show, thanks to the princelysalary I'm paid for keeping split infinitivesout of this sheet, I'm going to rush herround to Sherry's or Delmonico's andblow her to a glass of beer and afrankfurter.”

Then as if by magic the drawn faces ofall his associates would clear, the nighteditor would laugh and forget to look atthe clock, we would resume our toil,momentarily forgetful of the high pressure

under which we labored, and working thebetter for the forgetfulness; and thePenguin Person, the smile still expandinghis mouth, would tilt down his chair andwork with us, only faster If he had seriousthoughts, he never disclosed them to us—seriously When he opened his lips wewaited always in the expectation of someridiculous remark, even though it shouldclothe a platitude or a piece of good,common-sense advice And we werenever disappointed Life with him wasapparently one huge joke, and it cameabout that when we thought of him orspoke of him among ourselves, it wasalways with a smile Yet now he is gone

—and what a hole! Other men can do hiswork as well, if not as quickly The paperstill goes to press and the public sees no

change; but we, who worked beside him,see it nightly By twelve o'clock on a busynight, nervous, drawn faces surround thecentral desk, and profanity is snappedcrossly back and forth There is noalleviation of cheerful inanity Presentlysomebody looks up, remarking, “I wishBobbie Barton was back.” And somebodyelse replies with profane asperity and laxgrammar, “I wish he was!” Bobbie,meanwhile has become a lawyer, and cannow afford a whole plate of frankfurters atDelmonico's But we are the poorer, and, I

do not hesitate to declare, the worse menfor the loss of his Penguinity

Then there is David David ispenguinacious by fits and starts, notwholly to be depended on, sometimes

needing himself to be cheered with thePenguinity of others, but, when the mood

is on him, softly, fantastically ridiculous,like the nonsense verse of Lewis Carroll,

a sort of Alice in Wonderland person I

should not hesitate to recommend him to

Dr Crothers as a neighbor; indeed Isuspect the good doctor is almost such aman himself,—too gentle, too fantastic inhumor to suggest, however remotely, a

“live wire,” and yet how far from beingstupid! David's mind works sounexpectedly You are quite sure youknow what he is going to say, and yet henever says it, giving his remark a verbaltwist which calls up some absurdlyimpossible picture, and evokes, not alaugh, but a deep, satisfying smile There

is something quaint and refreshing about

such a mind as David's It does not somuch restore one's animal spirits, or one'sgood nature, as it rejuvenates the springs

of fancy, brings back the whimsicalimagination of childhood David willpeople a room with his airy conceits, as

Mr Barrie peopled Kensington Gardenswith Peter Pan and his crew; and it is asimpossible not to forget anger and care,not to feel sweeter and fresher, for

David's jests, as for The Little White

Bird Only a Penguinity like David's is

subtle, a little unworldly, and, like mostgracious gifts, fragile There are dayswhen the world is too much for David,when his jests are silent and his conceits

do not assemble Then it is that he in turnneeds the good cheer of another'sPenguinity, and it is then my happy

privilege to reward him by hunting upBobbie Barton, if I can, and joining them

at a dinner party Bobbie's Penguinity isbased on an inexhaustible fount of animalspirits, he is never anything but a Penguin

He usually has David put to rights by theroast

The other day, while Bobbie wasrunning on in his ridiculous fashion, in anidiom all his own that even Mr Ade couldnot hope to rival, telling, I believe, aboutsome escapade of his at Asbury Park,where he had “put the police force of twomen and three niggers out of business” byasking the innocent and unsuspecting chiefthe difference between a man who hadseen Niagara Falls, and one who hadn't,and a ham sandwich, I fell to musing on

Ruskin's unhappy lot, who did not knowBobbie, nor apparently anybody like him.Poor Ruskin! After all, there is morepathos than humor in his periodic visits tothe penguins Isolated, from childhood, byparental care, from the commonfriendships and associations of life, stillfurther isolated in mature years by his owngenius and early and lasting intellectualeminence, the wonder is that he was notmore unhappy, rather than less He hadfew friends, and those few, like ProfessorNorton, were intellectual companions aswell, always ready and eager to debatewith him the problems of Art and Lifewhich were forever vexing him Theircompanionship must often have been astimulant—when he needed, perhaps, anarcotic Their intercourse drove him

continually in upon himself, where therewas only seething unrest, when he needed

so often to be taken completely out ofhimself, where there was peace And, inhis hours of need, he turned to the Alps,and the penguins But both were dumbthings, after all, that could not quite meethis mood, could not quite satisfy thathunger which is in all of us for thecommon association of our kind, for thehumble jest and cheery laugh of a smilinghumanity Neither of them was Bobbie,who adds personality to the penguin, andsatisfies a double need

Bobbie would not have talked Art withRuskin, and for a very good reason,—heknows nothing about it Bobbie would nothave cared a snap about his Turners,