CHANGE AND CONFUSION

I suppose the shortening of human life is really a blessing. This may be why so many men and women look forward to immortal life. That would not only involve an incredible change of scenes but of conditions. We should be relieved of both our virtues and vices, and that wearing monitor inside, conscience; of appetites, indigestion and every other vicissitude of the mortal mind and the mortal body. Certainly we do tire of any existence we work out for ourselves if we keep an active mind, because the mind no less than the spirit of man is migratory. So he migrates, or endures all the hardships of a sabbatical year, or he changes his business, or he retires from business. The point is that we are made so that we cannot stay put, as the saying goes, without disintegrating.

Lately I have contemplated the adventure of sailing forth into the world as one goes to meet a good old comrade. But the more I think about it, the more it seems to me that I might meet a stranger not suitable to my years or habits of thought. The mind and character of the world I knew has changed.

When I left it in 1912 to take up my residence in this valley, nearly as many people in Nashville attended prayer meeting on Wednesday night as went to the theater on other evenings. Now prayer meetings are about to become obsolete. A popular preacher was a good pastor, but never the sensational feature of the Sunday morning paper. The Methodist Church had not lifted the ban on worldly amusements, and we had only a few earthly amusements, like playing flinch and croquet. As a Church, it was lenient toward penitents on principle, but not nearly so lenient as it is now toward the world. Nobody would have dreamed of putting on a drive for seventy-five million dollars for Christian education. The price of salvation and education have advanced more than worldly luxuries since then.

Women were still in hot pursuit of culture if they were particularly worldly minded. Otherwise they were the handmaidens of the Lord as usual. Polite social gambling was limited to a very small set, and was not recognized as a respectable diversion. Now these same women are citizens, politicians, and reformers. They have the same brains, the same natures, the same nervous systems they have always had, which are differently tempered from those of men; but they are running neck and neck now with men in civic virtue and public service. Even more of them are testing out these vices which formerly were supposed to be peculiar to men. They are much more easily deceived by their own emotions and by the flattery of politicians than the simplest maidens ever were by the eloquence of false lovers. I suppose when they realize that they have caught the bull by the horns they will retire from public life, go home and pay more attention to their yearling sons and daughters. Right now it seems to me that there are too many delinquent mothers broadcasting noble thoughts as mere citizens.

I shrink like a criminal from a nearer approach to these women. I have neither the rostrum mind nor the qualities of courage suitable for bearing banners in a parade. I must vote because it is my duty now to do so, but this is taxing to my moral nature on account of the character of the candidates put up. When it comes to choosing a politician for office I am a conscientious objector. I am an impractical Democrat who would prefer to vote for a Republican if he proved more nearly competent. I have barely sense enough not to follow my conscience in this matter and must always keep out of the way or stand among more valiant women a cubit short of the correct political stature. This keeps me silent when I should like to write a few pertinent political paragraphs for publication, especially before elections.

Crime has become an intellectual pursuit and a profitable profession these latter years. Formerly only rascals and defectives became criminals; now learned men and youngsters choose criminal careers. The youths are criminally insane because they have not received the training and discipline necessary to insure moral sanity. The passing of parents is a tragic circumstance. Formerly they exercised control and commanded obedience of their children. Now they do not. I know many families where the elder sons and daughters were brought up, you may say, under the old dispensation of parental authority, while the younger ones have grown up under the new order since the spirit of the times has changed. They matriculate into the streets, then into an adventurous school life, and finally into the universities, where they are provided with funds and speed facilities that would turn the head of a wise man, besides being made subjects for intellectual experiments by professors who have theories to prove.

The contrast between the characters of the older and younger sons and daughters in these families is frightfully significant. The first are morally sane, the others are not. Even if they commit no crimes, they practice a license in conduct and thinking which leads to the disruption of society.

This is the reason why the defense of these young criminals depends upon the testimony of alienists rather than upon the evidence of witnesses to their crime. They have managed in this sentimental age to struggle beyond the control of parents and beyond the reach of judges and juries. They are voluntary moral idiots with intellectual leanings toward every vice. My feeling is that we wait too long to send for the alienist. One should be employed to visit these boys and girls like any other health officer, so that we may be warned in time of sprouting criminals.

Somewhere in this confusion men and women are passing out into the light of great achievements. Maybe the time will come when the science of medicine will have advanced so far inoculation will take the place of morals in eradicating the physical effects of vice. But to what end? Nature is a better economist. She condemns the depraved to death. Disease is her quarantine method against every excess. Maybe in time we shall have more and more machinery to do the work of the world. Machines will not strike or join a labor union, but neither will they work without a man’s brain and aid to guide them. In any case, what is to become of the surplus man power?

This is not a happy moment in the world’s history. Never was there such a smoke screen between us and the future. I have a great wish to travel out there, at least to the edge of it, not as a tourist, but as a tired pilgrim who has come a long way in bad weather lifts his eyes and sees through the darkness a light shining, the open door of a house warm with peace and kindness. I want again at the very last the faith and hopes with which I started life. I remember that feeling, a sort of winged lightness of the heart. But I may never find the way. Something seems to be turning to ashes on my lips; not this valley or the scenes I have laid in it for happiness, but it is because I have no power of happiness now in me.