Chapter XXXIII: The Retired Colonel

We took many lovely drives, using Betts-y-Coed as a centre, but as you have done it all on foot you will not want to listen to my raptures, so I will again tell you about the people I met.

I had not cared to go to Llandidno, for it is the paradise of trippers, but John the porter told me we ought not to miss it, so thither we went. The sands were a sight never to be forgotten. Hundreds of children were on the beach, the little ones laboriously building houses, forts, and even towns--all of which the lapping sea soon licked up. "Vanity of vanities," saith the preacher. But the preacher knew nothing of children, else he would have said they were the only wise ones. Their play is not "vanity," it is when men lose the sense of proportion, and act as if things "seen" are eternal, that vanity eats out the heart. These children were wise. They knew their labor was but for a moment, and therefore did not weep, but rather laughed, when the tongue of the sea touched their work and it was gone. However you do not care to hear me moralize!

Surely no more beautiful children can be found in the world than these English children. They may lack the vivacity of French and American children, but, on the other hand, they are free from the self-consciousness of the one and the febrile nervousness of the other. They are superb little animals, which is what a child ought to be. Those that I saw on the sands--and I suppose it is generally true--had the supreme animal virtue, which is obedience. The babies obeyed the nurses, the "middle-sized bears" obeyed the "big bears," and all obeyed--not as with us--the mother, but the father. For it is the man who is the supreme court in England. One never hears the familiar "Well, ask your mother!" And the result is a well-organized feudal society, in which there is far more happiness than in many of the so-called democratic, but really anarchistic, families that you and I could name. In short, the family is a microcosm of that larger life in which, some day, the children are to take their places.

When I imparted these reflections to Ruth, she said: "You have missed the best."

"And what might that be, Madame Philosopher?" said I.

"If you had not set up to be a philosopher, yourself," she pertly remarked, "you would have seen the obvious, which so many philosophers overlook. It is the hair and the eyes of these children that makes them so beautiful. Did you ever see such hair as these girls have? It floats in the air like the corn-silk on an Indiana farm! And look at the eyes of the boys; they are not blue as we count blueness, but real blue, like the delphinium. I wonder if the English reputation for truthfulness above other nations is not in part due to the prevailing blue eyes? Who could doubt anything that angel were to say?"

I looked at the "angel" in question, and laughed heartily at this attempt to imitate Taine!

The people on the sands were not trippers. Those hung round the shops and the booths, where, for a penny, one might take a shy at "Aunt Sally." Or, if they came to the sands at all, gathered in shrieking groups about the "niggers," men blacked up, indeed, but whose yellow hair and blue eyes made disguise as impossible as did their cockney accent. Why is it, I wonder, that all people think they can imitate negroes? I once saw a minstrel show given by Chinamen, and, I assure you, it was scarcely more grotesque than these "niggers" on the sands.

No, my friends were not such as these. They were what Matthew Arnold, in his supercilious way, called "Philistines." But I miss my guess if, should a great crisis arise, the "culture" of England will not be saved, if saved it is, by these same Philistines, even as David of old was saved by the bearers of the name from the tyranny of Saul! "The submerged tenth," in England, as elsewhere, is green or rotten; the upper classes are over-ripe; it is the great middle class, without charm or culture, which will show what England's heart is, when the great struggle comes.

"But," you will say, "what struggle? Only a little while ago you were writing that you thought all this talk about war was nothing but what you elegantly called 'fluff,' and now you write as if an ultimatum from one of the great powers was imminent. What has happened to change your tune?"

In reply, I can only say "Nothing tangible." But there is a tension which one comes gradually to feel. For instance, the German contempt and hatred of England is too well known to call for comment. It is like what my father told me our Southern friends felt about the North in the days before the outbreak of war, and which he felt had as much to do with secession as did slavery. But few people with us appreciate the feeling in England toward the Germans. Business men are exasperated by Germany's expanding trade--especially in regard to trade-marks--the statesmen, even of the Liberal school, are anxious about the naval activities across the North Sea. But more significant still is the fact that some of the "best-selling" novels and most popular plays are picturing the invasion of England by Germany. This, of course, appeals most strongly to the Jingoes, but even such a respectable--if semi-chauvinistic--paper as the _Spectator_ is solemnly discussing an "amicable" division of the "backward" world--including Brazil, to which, said the writer--it was a leading article--"we should have no objection." Shades of Monroe! And yet, while they do not seem to think we should have any voice in the partition of the world, they are apparently convinced that we must feel about the mother country as Canada does. The truth is, the people of England have never recognized the independence of the United States! That is to say, they cannot believe that we do not regret the Revolution as sincerely as they now do, and that, were it possible, we should be glad to enter into a closer political association with them. In other words, while the fact of our independence must be assumed by the two governments, our sentiments must be colonial!

A few days ago I was talking with a retired colonel, who is convinced that war may break out any day, and he said to me: "I suppose if the old country had her back to the wall you would come to her help?"

I answered: "I do not think you could count on it. It would depend a good deal on the cause of the quarrel. There was a strong feeling against England during the Boer War, and there are thousands of Americans of pure British stock who do not think that Ireland has had a fair deal."

He looked at me for a moment as if he could not credit his ears, and then simply said: "My G--d!"

Had I known how deeply it would wound him, I would not have spoken. Certainly the thought of war between us and England is too horrible to put into words, and I dare say if there were a possibility of England's being crushed by a world power the superficial differences would be swept away like the sand-forts of the children, and deep would call to deep as it was recognized that the two peoples share a common ideal, and that it must be defended for the good of mankind. You know how I feel about war, yet I confess that should there be a righteous war in which England and America fought side by side it might not only remove the petty misunderstandings of the past but also lead to an abiding peace in the future. If only England could see that the Irish question is an American question!

Meanwhile, I wish the _Times_ would let Germany alone, and English travellers let us alone for a while!

Dr. Weir Mitchell once told me that he had a patient--a policeman from somewhere in the Jerseys--Newark, I think--who was a victim of an _idée fixe_. He asked him if he had ever been bitten by a mosquito? The man, with a wan smile, said: "What do you think?"

"Very good," said Dr. Mitchell. "When you let it alone it soon ceased to trouble you, but if you scratched it it festered, and you had a hard time. _You must quit scratching this thought!_"

But what was the poor fellow to do if every passer-by scratched it?