What Is Man? and Other Essays Part 5

O.M. It was I that moved you to it. That is to say an outside influence moved you to it-not one that originated in your head. Will you try to keep that in mind and not forget it?

Y.M. Yes. Why?

O.M. Because by and by in one of our talks, I wish to further impress upon you that neither you, nor I, nor any man ever originates a thought in his own head. The utterer of a thought always utters a second-hand one.

Y.M. Oh, now-

O.M. Wait. Reserve your remark till we get to that part of our discussion-tomorrow or next day, say. Now, then, have you been considering the proposition that no act is ever born of any but a self-contenting impulse-(primarily). You have sought. What have you found?

Y.M. I have not been very fortunate. I have examined many fine and apparently self-sacrificing deeds in romances and biographies, but-

O.M. Under searching a.n.a.lysis the ostensible self-sacrifice disappeared?

It naturally would.

Y.M. But here in this novel is one which seems to promise. In the Adirondack woods is a wage-earner and lay preacher in the lumber-camps who is of n.o.ble character and deeply religious. An earnest and practical laborer in the New York slums comes up there on vacation-he is leader of a section of the University Settlement. Holme, the lumberman, is fired with a desire to throw away his excellent worldly prospects and go down and save souls on the East Side. He counts it happiness to make this sacrifice for the glory of G.o.d and for the cause of Christ. He resigns his place, makes the sacrifice cheerfully, and goes to the East Side and preaches Christ and Him crucified every day and every night to little groups of half-civilized foreign paupers who scoff at him. But he rejoices in the scoffings, since he is suffering them in the great cause of Christ. You have so filled my mind with suspicions that I was constantly expecting to find a hidden questionable impulse back of all this, but I am thankful to say I have failed. This man saw his duty, and for duty's sake he sacrificed self and a.s.sumed the burden it imposed.

O.M. Is that as far as you have read?

Y.M. Yes.

O.M. Let us read further, presently. Meantime, in sacrificing himself-not for the glory of G.o.d, primarily, as he imagined, but first to content that exacting and inflexible master within him-did he sacrifice anybody else?

Y.M. How do you mean?

O.M. He relinquished a lucrative post and got mere food and lodging in place of it. Had he dependents?

Y.M. Well-yes.

O.M. In what way and to what extend did his self-sacrifice affect them?

Y.M. He was the support of a superannuated father. He had a young sister with a remarkable voice-he was giving her a musical education, so that her longing to be self-supporting might be gratified. He was furnis.h.i.+ng the money to put a young brother through a polytechnic school and satisfy his desire to become a civil engineer.

O.M. The old father's comforts were now curtailed?

Y.M. Quite seriously. Yes.

O.M. The sister's music-lessens had to stop?

Y.M. Yes.

O.M. The young brother's education-well, an extinguis.h.i.+ng blight fell upon that happy dream, and he had to go to sawing wood to support the old father, or something like that?

Y.M. It is about what happened. Yes.

O.M. What a handsome job of self-sacrificing he did do! It seems to me that he sacrificed everybody except himself. Haven't I told you that no man ever sacrifices himself; that there is no instance of it upon record anywhere; and that when a man's Interior Monarch requires a thing of its slave for either its momentary or its permanent contentment, that thing must and will be furnished and that command obeyed, no matter who may stand in the way and suffer disaster by it? That man ruined his family to please and content his Interior Monarch-

Y.M. And help Christ's cause.

O.M. Yes-secondly. Not firstly. He thought it was firstly.

Y.M. Very well, have it so, if you will. But it could be that he argued that if he saved a hundred souls in New York-

O.M. The sacrifice of the family would be justified by that great profit upon the-the-what shall we call it?

Y.M. Investment?

O.M. Hardly. How would speculation do? How would gamble do? Not a solitary soul-capture was sure. He played for a possible thirty-three-hundred-per-cent profit. It was gambling-with his family for "chips." However let us see how the game came out. Maybe we can get on the track of the secret original impulse, the real impulse, that moved him to so n.o.bly self-sacrifice his family in the Savior's cause under the superst.i.tion that he was sacrificing himself. I will read a chapter or so.... Here we have it! It was bound to expose itself sooner or later. He preached to the East-Side rabble a season, then went back to his old dull, obscure life in the lumber-camps "hurt to the heart, his pride humbled." Why? Were not his efforts acceptable to the Savior, for Whom alone they were made? Dear me, that detail is lost sight of, is not even referred to, the fact that it started out as a motive is entirely forgotten! Then what is the trouble? The auth.o.r.ess quite innocently and unconsciously gives the whole business away. The trouble was this: this man merely preached to the poor; that is not the University Settlement's way; it deals in larger and better things than that, and it did not enthuse over that crude Salvation-Army eloquence. It was courteous to Holme-but cool. It did not pet him, did not take him to its bosom. "Perished were all his dreams of distinction, the praise and grateful approval-" Of whom? The Savior? No; the Savior is not mentioned. Of whom, then? Of "his fellow-workers." Why did he want that? Because the Master inside of him wanted it, and would not be content without it. That emphasized sentence quoted above, reveals the secret we have been seeking, the original impulse, the real impulse, which moved the obscure and unappreciated Adirondack lumberman to sacrifice his family and go on that crusade to the East Side-which said original impulse was this, to wit: without knowing it he went there to show a neglected world the large talent that was in him, and rise to distinction. As I have warned you before, no act springs from any but the one law, the one motive. But I pray you, do not accept this law upon my say-so; but diligently examine for yourself. Whenever you read of a self-sacrificing act or hear of one, or of a duty done for duty's sake, take it to pieces and look for the real motive. It is always there.

Y.M. I do it every day. I cannot help it, now that I have gotten started upon the degrading and exasperating quest. For it is hatefully interesting!-in fact, fascinating is the word. As soon as I come across a golden deed in a book I have to stop and take it apart and examine it, I cannot help myself.

O.M. Have you ever found one that defeated the rule?

Y.M. No-at least, not yet. But take the case of servant-tipping in Europe. You pay the hotel for service; you owe the servants nothing, yet you pay them besides. Doesn't that defeat it?

O.M. In what way?

Y.M. You are not obliged to do it, therefore its source is compa.s.sion for their ill-paid condition, and-

O.M. Has that custom ever vexed you, annoyed you, irritated you?

Y.M. Well, yes.

O.M. Still you succ.u.mbed to it?

Y.M. Of course.

O.M. Why of course?

Y.M. Well, custom is law, in a way, and laws must be submitted to-everybody recognizes it as a duty.

O.M. Then you pay for the irritating tax for duty's sake?

Y.M. I suppose it amounts to that.

O.M. Then the impulse which moves you to submit to the tax is not all compa.s.sion, charity, benevolence?

Y.M. Well-perhaps not.

O.M. Is any of it?

Y.M. I-perhaps I was too hasty in locating its source.

O.M. Perhaps so. In case you ignored the custom would you get prompt and effective service from the servants?

Y.M. Oh, hear yourself talk! Those European servants? Why, you wouldn't get any of all, to speak of.

O.M. Couldn't that work as an impulse to move you to pay the tax?

Y.M. I am not denying it.