CHAPTER XXX

I began to dream more than ever of establishing some such perfect atmosphere for myself somehow, somewhere—but never in St. Louis, of course. That was too common, too Western, too far removed from the real wonders of the world. Love and mansions and travel and saccharine romance were the great things, but they were afar off, in New York. (It was around this time that I was establishing the atmosphere of a “studio” in Tenth street.) Nothing could be so wonderful as love in a mansion, a palace in some oriental realm such as was indicated in the comic operas in which DeWolf Hopper, Thomas Q. Seabrooke, Francis Wilson, Eddie Foy and Frank Daniels were then appearing. How often, with McCord or Wood as companion, occasionally Hazard or a new friend introduced to me by Wood and known as Rodenberger, or Rody (a most amazing person, as I will later relate), I responded to these poetic stage scenes! With one or other of these I visited as many theaters as I could, if for no more than an hour or an act at a time, and consumed with wonder and delight such scenes as most appealed to me: the denunciation scene, for instance, in The Middleman, or the third act of nearly any of Henry Arthur Jones’s plays. Also quite all of the light operas of Reginald de Koven and Harry B. Smith, as well as those compendiums of nondescript color and melody, the extravaganzas The Crystal Slipper, Ali Baba, Sindbad the Sailor. Young actresses such as Della Fox, Mabel Amber, Edna May, forerunners of a long line of comic opera soubrettes, who somehow reminded me of Alice, held me spellbound with delight and admiration. Here at last was the kind of maiden I was really craving, an actress of this hoyden, airy temperament.

I remember that one night, at the close of one of Mr. Willard’s performances at the Olympic—The Professor’s Love Story, in which he was appearing with a popular leading woman, a very beautiful one—I was asked by the manager to wait for a few moments after the performance so that he might introduce me. Why, I don’t know. It seemed that he was taking them to supper and thought they might like to meet one of the local dramatic critics or that I might like to accompany them; an honor which I declined, out of fright or bashfulness. When they finally appeared in the foyer of the theater, however, the young actress very stagy and soft and clinging and dressed most carefully after the manner of the stage, I was beside myself with envy and despair. For she appeared hanging most tenderly on her star’s arm (she was his mistress, I understood) and gazing soulfully about. Such beauty! Such grace! Such vivacity! Could anything be so lovely? Think of having such a perfect creature love you, hang on your arm! And here was I, poor dub, a mere reporter, a nobody, upon whom such a splendid creature would not bend a second glance. Mr. Willard was full of the heavy hauteur of the actor, which made the scene all the more impressive to me. I think most of us like to be up-staged at one time or another by some one. I glanced at her bashfully sidewise, pretending to be but little interested, while I was really dying of envy. Finally, after a few words and a few sweety-sweet smiles cast in my direction, I was urged to come with them but instead hurried away, pleading necessity and cursing my stars and my fate. Think of being a mere reporter at twenty-five or thirty a week, while others, earning thousands, were thus basking in the sunshine of success and love! Ah, why might not I have been born rich or famous and so able to command so lovely a woman?

If I had been of an ordinary, sensible, everyday turn of mind, with a modicum of that practical wisdom which puts moderate place and position first and sets great store by the saving of money, I might have succeeded fairly well here, much better than I did anywhere else for a long period after. Unquestionably Mr. McCullagh liked me; I think he may have been fond of me in some amused saturnine way, interested to keep such a bounding, high-flown dunce about the place. I might have held this place for a year or two and made it a stepping-stone to something better. But instead of rejoicing in the work and making it the end and aim of my daily labors, I looked upon it as a mere bauble, something I had today but might not have tomorrow. And anyhow, there were better things than working day by day and living in a small room. Life ought certainly to bring me something better, something truly splendid—and soon. I deserved it—everything, a great home, fine clothes, pretty women, the respect and companionship of famous men. Indeed all my pain and misery was plainly caused by just such a lack or lacks as this. Had I these things all would be well; without them—well, I was very miserable. I was ready to accept socialism if by that I could get what I wanted, while not ready to admit that all people were as deserving as I by any means. The sad state of the poor workingman was a constant thought with me, but nearly always I was the greatest and poorest and most deserving of all workingmen.

This view naturally tended to modify the sanity of my work. Granting a modicum of imagination and force, still any youth limited as I was at that time has a long road to go. Even in that most imaginative of all professions, the literary, the possessor of such notions as I then held is certainly debarred from accomplishing anything important until he passes beyond them. Yet the particular thought or attitude I have described appears to reign in youth. Too often it is a condition of many minds of the better sort and is retained in its worst form until by rough experience it is knocked out of them or they are destroyed utterly in the process. But it cannot be got over with quickly. Mine was a sad case. One of the things which this point of view did for me was to give my writing, at that time, a mushy and melancholy turn which would not go in any newspaper of today, I hope. It caused me to paint the ideal as not only entirely probable but necessary before life would be what it should!—the progress bug, as you see. I could so twist and discolor the most commonplace scenes as to make one think that I was writing of paradise. Indeed I allowed my imagination to run away with me at times and only the good sense of the copy-reader or the indifference of a practical-minded public saved the paper from appearing utterly ridiculous.

On one occasion, for instance, I went to report a play of mediocre quality that was running at the Olympic, and was so impressed with a love scene which was a part of it that I was entirely blinded to all the faults of construction which the remainder of the play showed, and wrote it up in the most glowing colors. And the copy-reader, Hartung, was too weary that night or too inattentive to capture it. The next day some of the other newspaper men in the office noticed it and commented on it to me or to Hartung, saying it was ridiculously high-flown and that the play itself was silly, which was true. But did that cure me? Not a bit. I was reduced for a day or two by it, but not for long. Seeing other plays of the same caliber and with much sweet love mush in them, I raved as before.

A little later a negro singer, a young woman of considerable vocal ability who was being starred as the Black Patti, was billed to appear in St. Louis. The manager of the bureau that was presenting her called my attention by letter to her “marvelous” ability, and by means of clippings and notices of her work published elsewhere had endeavored to impress me favorably. I read these notices, couched in the glowing phrases of the press-agent, and then went forth on this evening to cover this myself. To make it all the grander, I invited McCord and with him proceeded to the theater, where we were assigned a box.

As it turned out, or as I chanced to see or feel it, the young woman was a sweet and impressive singer, engaging and magnetic. McCord agreed with me that she could sing. We listened to the program of a dozen pieces, including such old favorites as Suwanee River and Comin’ Thro’ the Rye, and then I, being greatly moved, returned to the office and wrote an account that was fairly sizzling with the beauty which I thought was there. I did not attempt critically to analyze her art—I could not, knowing nothing of even the rudiments of music—but plunged at once into that wider realm which involved the subtleties of nature itself. “What is so beautiful as the sound which the human voice is capable of producing,” I wrote in part, “especially when that voice is itself a compound of the subtlest things in nature? Here we have a young girl, black it is true, fresh from the woods and fields of her native country, yet, blessed by some strange chance with that mystic thing, a voice, and fittingly interpreting via song all that we hold to be most lovely. The purling of the waters, the radiance of the moonlight, the odor of sweet flowers, sunlight, storm, the voices and echoes of nature, all are found here, thrilling over lips which represent in their youthfulness but a few of the years which wisdom and skill would seem to require. Yes, one may sit and, in hearing Miss Jones sing, vicariously entertain all these things, because of them she is a compound, youthful, vivacious, suggestive of the elemental sweetness of nature itself.”

To understand the significance of such a statement in St. Louis one would have to look into the social and political conditions of the people who dwelt there. To a certain extent they were Southern in temperament, representing the vigorous anti-negro spirit which prevailed for so many years after the war. Again, they were fairly illuminated where music was concerned. Assuming that a bit of idealism such as this was sound, it might get by; but when it is remembered that this was largely mush and written about a negro, a race more or less alien to their sympathy, would it not naturally fall upon hard ears and appear somewhat ridiculous? A negro the compound of the subtlest elements in nature! And this in their favorite paper!

By chance it went through, Hartung having come to look upon most of my stuff as the outpourings of some strange genius who could do about as he pleased. Neither Mitchell nor the editor-in-chief saw it perhaps, or if they did they gave it no attention, music, the theater and the arts being of small import here. But, depend upon it, the editors of the various rival papers that were constantly being sniffed at by the Globe saw it and knowing the sensitiveness of our editor-in-chief to criticism of his own paper at once set to work to make something out of it. And of all the editors in the middle West, McCullagh, by reason of his force and taste and care in editing his paper, was a shining target for a thing like this. He was, as a rule, impeccable and extremely conspicuous. Whatever he did or said, good, bad or indifferent, was invariably the subject of local newspaper comment, and when any little discrepancy or error appeared in the Globe-Democrat it was always charged to him personally. And so it was with this furore over the Black Patti. It was too good a thing to be lost sight of.

“The erudite editor of the Globe-Democrat,” observed the Post-Dispatch editorially, “appears to have visited one of our principal concert halls last night. It is not often that that ponderous intellect can be called down from the heights of international politics to contemplate so simple a thing as a singer of songs, a black one at that; but when true art beckons even he can be counted upon to answer. Apparently the Black Patti beckoned to him last evening, and he was not deaf to her call, as the following magnificent bit of word-painting fresh from his pen is here to show.” (Then followed the praise in full.) “None but the grandiloquent editor of the Globe-Democrat could have looked into the subtleties of nature, as represented by the person of Miss Sisseretta Jones, and there discovered the wonders of music and poetry such as he openly confesses to have done. Indeed we have here at last a measure of that great man’s insight and feeling, a love of art, music, poetry and the like such as has not previously been indicated by him. And we hereby hasten to make representation of our admiration and great debt that others too may not be deprived of this great privilege.” After this came more of the same gay raillery, with here and there a reference to “the great patron of the black arts” and the pure joy that must have been his at thus vicariously being able to enjoy within the precincts of Exposition Hall “the purling of the waters” bubbling from a black throat. It was a gentle satire, not wholly uncalled for since the item had appeared in the Globe, and directed at the one man who could least stand that sort of thing, sensitive as he was to his personal dignity.

I was blissfully unaware that any comment had been made on my effusion until about five in the afternoon, by which time the afternoon editions of the Post-Dispatch had been out several hours. When I entered the office at five, comfortable and at peace with myself in my new position, excited comment was running about the office as to what “the old man” would think and say and do now. He had gone at two, it appeared, to the Southern for luncheon and had not returned. Wait until he saw it! Oh me! Oh my! Wouldn’t he be hopping! Hartung, who was reasonably nervous as to his own share in the matter, was the first to approach and impress me with the dreadfulness of it all, how savage “the old man” could be in any such instance. “Gee, just wait! Oh, but he’ll be hot, I bet!” As he talked the “old man” passed up the hall, a grim and surly figure. I saw my dramatic honors going a-glimmering.

“Here,” I said to Hartung, pretending a kind of innocence, even at this late hour, “what’s all this about? What’s the row, anyhow?”

“Didn’t you see the editorial in the Post-Dispatch?” inquired Hartung gloomily. It was his own predicament that was troubling him.

“No. What about?”

“Why, that criticism you wrote about the Black Patti. They’ve made all sorts of fun of it. The worst of it is that they’ve charged it all up to the old man.”

I smiled a sickly smile. I felt as if I had committed some great crime. Why had I attempted to write anything “fine” anyhow? Why couldn’t I have been content and rested with a little praise? Had I no sense at all? Must I always be trying to do something great? Perhaps this would be the end of me.

Hartung brought me the Post-Dispatch, and sorrowfully and with falling vitals I read it, my toes curling, my stomach seeming gradually to retire to my backbone. Why had I done it!

As I was standing there, my eyes glued to the paper, near the door which looked into the main city room in which was Tobe scribbling dourly away, I heard and then saw McCullagh enter and walk up to the stout city editor. He had a copy of the selfsame Post-Dispatch crumpled roughly in his hand, and on his face was gathered what seemed to me a dark scowl.

“Did you see this, Mr. Mitchell?” I heard him say.

Tobe looked up, then closely and respectfully at the paper.

“Yes,” he said.

“I don’t think a thing like that ought to appear in our paper. It’s a little bit too high-flown for our audience. Your reader should have modified it.”

“I think so myself,” replied Tobe quietly.

The editor walked out. Tobe waited for his footsteps to die away and then growled at Hartung: “Why the devil did you let that stuff go through? Haven’t I warned you against that sort of thing? Why can’t you watch out?”

I could have fallen through the floor. I had a vision of Hartung burying his head in his desk, scared and mute.

After the evening assignments had been given out and Tobe had gone to dinner, Hartung crept up to me.

“Gee, the old man was as mad as the devil!” he began. “Tobe gave me hell. He won’t say anything to you maybe, but he’ll take it out on me. He’s a little afraid of your pull with the old man, but he gives me the devil. Can’t you look out for those things?”