American nights entertainment
been trusted with a ship, and, as in the days I write of there were
no instantaneous means of talking across the oceans, he was shrewd at
bargaining and, being one of the owners of the ship, he lost no chance
to bring home a cargo that would bring rich returns. In other words,
he was a shrewd trader as well as a sailing master. The same dignified
bearing that he used in his trade followed him on land, and, though
jovial in manner, he was developed in dignity and character.
“The other type of captain was more popular with the youngsters. He may
have been as shrewd, and possibly made as much money, but he was filled
with a greater sense of humour, and took life as a pastime. Men of this
description would gather round the stove and tell wonderful stories,
though all sea captains talk shop when they get together.
“Then too there were what are termed the ‘long-shore captains.’ These
were mostly engaged in fishing, or in trading with coast towns and
cities. They were necessarily more limited in their views, for they
spent more time ashore, often working a good-sized garden, fishing when
the spirit moved, and running a schooner to New York or Boston if the
chance came.
“Of all the sea-captains, however, those that I knew best were those
who were actually sailing in the 1870’s and 1880’s, and who were
largely engaged in carrying oranges and lemons from Mediterranean
ports. These men were really the last of our sailing captains. I have
one friend in particular who was in the fruit trade, and his stories
of how they crowded sail and took every risk to bring in their cargoes
are many and thrilling. Fruit, of course, is highly perishable, and
while it might be a valuable cargo one day, a week later it would be
worthless; therefore the sea races and adventures.”
In an article, “Some Samples of Yankee Shrewdness,” appearing in the
American Magazine, Mr. Lincoln has told stories of Cape Cod captains he
has known. Acuity of observation, caution joined to a quality of going
in head-first if one goes in at all, and a singularly dry humour are a
large part of the “shrewdness,” as Lincoln makes it out. In the course
of the article he offers this admittedly serious statement:
“In all my forty-odd years of experience with Yankees I do not remember
ever having met one who habitually whittled. I have, of course, known
some who whittled occasionally, when they were making a ‘bow ’n’ arrer’
or a boat for one of the children. But I never knew one who whittled
when he was making a trade.” _Sic transit_ the “Yankee” of one species
of “fiction” and drama. But it is time to look at Mr. Lincoln’s own
fiction; then, perhaps, we may revert for a closing glance at the
puzzle of Yankee shrewdness.
v
The newest Lincoln novel (1923) is _Doctor Nye of North Ostable_--Mr.
Lincoln has something of a gift in titles for his special kind of
book. There is a comfortable assurance in knowing that one is going to
read about Dr. Nye, or a place called Fair Harbour, or an individual
named Keziah Coffin, or the sure-to-be-amusing process of _Extricating
Obadiah_. That last has a music of the syllables; it is solitary in
this respect among Lincoln titles which are also easily affected by
climatic changes, so that _Galusha the Magnificent_ had to be altered
in England to _The Magnificent Mr. Bangs_. But to return to our
fishing--
Ephraim Nye, M.D., a “sympathetic” hero, self-sacrificing, a man with
a deal of humour, has a black cloud over his past, as all North Ostable
knows. The story opens with his return to that Cape Cod village. All
that day Marietta Lamb (“Mary’s Lamb”) had been scrubbing away at a
great rate in the old Dillingham house, so long untenanted, and Henry
Ward Beecher Payson, in full working regalia of overalls and wooden leg
(for “best” and Sundays he had a cork leg) was busy in the yard. Miss
Althea Bemis, who lived across the road and missed nothing that went on
among her neighbours, asked innumerable questions, learning nothing.
Judge Copeland, Cyrenus Stone and Cap’n Mark Bearse, “natives,” and
“the three most influential men in North Ostable” appeared on the
scene. The Judge and Stone were bitter political enemies, always flying
at each other’s throats. Stone, who owned the empty house, admitted to
Cap’n Mark Bearse that the place was being made ready for someone whose
coming would be a great surprise.
Then, at nightfall, Doctor Eph arrived in a ramshackle gig.
People sat up late that night in North Ostable. In the home of Shubal
Bash discussion ran high as Shubal and his wife, Angelina, tried to
tell deaf old Aunt Lidy the story of Ephraim Nye. After studying
medicine, the young Ephraim had married Judge Copeland’s sister,
Fanny, and had returned to his native town to practise. Fanny was
fond of clothes and jewels and the Doctor worked hard to give them
to her. Respected and liked, everyone turned against him when it
was discovered that $7,200 of the $10,000 in the fund for the new
meeting-house, of which he was treasurer, had been stolen. The bank
had exhibited a check for $7,200 signed “Ephraim Nye, Treasurer,” and
the Doctor admitted the check to be his. His wife was very ill at the
time. After her death, which occurred shortly, Ephraim Nye was tried
and sentenced to five years in State’s prison. Later the money began to
come back in instalments until it was all paid up. Always the sums were
sent through Doctor Nye’s lawyer.
The two enemies, Cyrenus Stone and Judge Copeland, have, respectively,
a son and a daughter; and Tom Stone and Faith Copeland are young lovers.
The stage is now set for Mr. Lincoln’s story. And immediately, in a
backward glance, one gets the rapid impression that the plot consists
entirely of typhoid fever. Such an impression, however, is quite
unjust. _Doctor Nye_ is one of the more carefully articulated (or more
carefully complicated) Lincoln novels. In addition to the revelation
forming the climax of the story and putting Ephraim Nye in a heroic
light, there is a fully-constituted early love affair for the Doctor,
brought back and actively developed; there is the pair of young lovers,
Tom and Faith; there is the prolonged duel between Judge Copeland
and the Doctor; there is a considerable variety of minor incidents
essential to the movement of the tale and to its final outworking.
All this, mind you, aside from the real end sought by most readers of
Mr. Lincoln’s work--the exposition of “characters” and the continuous
oscillation into humour.
It is the humour, then, that most deserves our scrutiny; for many of
the Lincoln novels, practically plotless beside such a tale as _Doctor
Nye_, have only the assets of their “characters” and humour to sustain
a popular interest which they have not failed to feed. If there is any
question about this, a glance at the technical “descriptions” of half a
dozen of the books ought to settle the matter. Here, in a sentence, is
what some of them simmer down to:
_Partners of the Tide._ Cap’n Ezra Titcomb and young Bradley Nickerson
go into the wrecking business and meet with a series of surprising
adventures and difficulties.
_Cy Whittaker’s Place._ Old Cy Whittaker, bachelor, adopted a little
girl. He and an old crony form a “Board of Strategy” for her upbringing.
_Keziah Coffin._ Keziah Coffin, typical Cape Cod old maid, proves the
good angel of the minister in his courtship. Incidentally, she turns
out not to be incurably an old maid.
_The Postmaster._ Cap’n Zeb Snow is discontented with inactivity after
retiring from the sea. As postmaster he finds all the activity he wants.
_Thankful’s Inheritance._ Thankful Barnes and her helper Emily lose
their boarders when the house proves to be “ha’nted,” but they gain a
Cape Cod sea captain and also a handsome young lawyer--for life.
“_Shavings._” The quaint, unbusinesslike windmill-maker has no success
in posing as a bank robber, but his loyalty and shrewdness bring
happiness to all his friends.
_The Portygee._ The temperament and “calf love” of the son of a
Spanish opera singer make difficulties with his Yankee grandfather.
vi
No plots, only complications; but there must be admitted to be, within
somewhat narrow bounds, a considerable display of “characters.”
Although even here certain stock figures are (probably necessarily)
much employed--the gossiping old maid, Mis’ Somebody-or-Other; the
village comedian, like Henry Ward Beecher Payson, who periodically
lapses from good behaviour and goes on sprees. One of the most
interesting of Lincoln’s portrayals is Albert in _The Portygee_, a
young fellow half Spanish, half New Englander, with poetic and artistic
impulses. “Set there in the small hamlet, chafing at the restraints
and humdrumness of the place, Albert makes a delicious contrast to
the native population,” says Hildegarde Hawthorne. “We understand the
passionate, temperamental boy as well as his old Grandfather, with
his fury against all that sort of ‘foolishness,’ because their author
understands them.” I cannot go so far as Hildegarde Hawthorne in praise
of the variety or depth of Mr. Lincoln’s characters, while cheerfully
granting, as I do, their frequent colour and whimsical charm. Often and
inevitably, I suppose, in the work of one who has written two dozen
books the “characters” are not _character_, but a selected idiosyncrasy
or two. Often and inevitably in the case of one who is not the
inexhaustible and fecund creator, like Dickens.
But there is the humour....
Now we have come to it. In the first place, Mr. Lincoln shows the
quick faculty evidenced from the outset by Mary Roberts Rinehart
of getting the humour on every page. Mrs. Rinehart has not always
practised with that intention, but Mr. Lincoln has never neglected the
rapid shift of the reader’s mood. To insure it, he does not hesitate
to sacrifice something of his more important scenes, making them if
necessary less dramatic. The common-sensicality running through his
stories is a solvent to drama and a feeder to the spirit of fun; if it
makes it impossible for his story ever to leave the ground, it also
kills to a large extent the language, or lingo, of sentimentality
so-called, that terrible jargon in which so much popular fiction is
sugared and preserved. Mr. Lincoln pickles his stories in this salty
common-sensibleness, rather--a breath of Cape Cod air and a dip in the
ocean brine. All his “atmosphere” is as matter of fact as a dip in the
ocean, and the temperature is much more unvarying and satisfactory
... unless you may find it tepid. He is a funmaker, resorting without
hesitation to such crude and cheerful devices as the spree in which
Henry Ward Beecher Payson breaks his “Sunday best,” or cork, leg. And
yet fun warms the heart. We laugh inanely, and afterward we have the
feeling of having laughed inanely, a sense of a slight immoderacy or
excess, of a mild dissipation which perhaps has not really done us any
good (though the harm be passing and inconsiderable); but when the
moment comes we are ready to laugh again.
vii
A final note on that debateable Yankee shrewdness, then....
Can we not find its fruitful exercise in Mr. Lincoln’s own case? I
think we can. Here was a man of around thirty whose observation was
keen, whose caution was used to direct him in a proper self-committal,
whose own personal sense of humour was of a sufficient dryness to keep
him from the easy trails of self-deception. Just as his friend, Captain
Lorenzo Baker, of Wellfleet, Massachusetts, was able to discern in the
casual remarks of a West Indian the commercial possibilities of the
yellow banana, so Joseph C. Lincoln could perceive from a token or two
the personal possibilities of Cape Cod as he could put it on paper. And
acuteness, or, as the Yankee says, ‘cuteness, having done its work,