What Is Man? and Other Essays
to us a curious sample of the quaint laws of evidence of that remote
time--a time so remote, so far back toward the beginning of original
idiocy, that the difference between a bench of judges and a basket of
vegetables was as yet so slight that we may say with all confidence
that it didn’t really exist.
During several afternoons I have been engaged in an interesting, maybe
useful, piece of work—that is to say, I have been trying to make the
mighty Jungfrau earn her living—earn it in a most humble sphere, but on
a prodigious scale, on a prodigious scale of necessity, for she
couldn’t do anything in a small way with her size and style. I have
been trying to make her do service on a stupendous dial and check off
the hours as they glide along her pallid face up there against the sky,
and tell the time of day to the populations lying within fifty miles of
her and to the people in the moon, if they have a good telescope there.
Until late in the afternoon the Jungfrau’s aspect is that of a spotless
desert of snow set upon edge against the sky. But by mid-afternoon some
elevations which rise out of the western border of the desert, whose
presence you perhaps had not detected or suspected up to that time,
began to cast black shadows eastward across the gleaming surface. At
first there is only one shadow; later there are two. Toward 4 P.M. the
other day I was gazing and worshiping as usual when I chanced to notice
that shadow No. 1 was beginning to take itself something of the shape
of the human profile. By four the back of the head was good, the
military cap was pretty good, the nose was bold and strong, the upper
lip sharp, but not pretty, and there was a great goatee that shot
straight aggressively forward from the chin.
At four-thirty the nose had changed its shape considerably, and the
altered slant of the sun had revealed and made conspicuous a huge
buttress or barrier of naked rock which was so located as to answer
very well for a shoulder or coat-collar to this swarthy and indiscreet
sweetheart who had stolen out there right before everybody to pillow
his head on the Virgin’s white breast and whisper soft sentimentalities
to her in the sensuous music of the crashing ice-domes and the boom and
thunder of the passing avalanche—music very familiar to his ear, for he
has heard it every afternoon at this hour since the day he first came
courting this child of the earth, who lives in the sky, and that day is
far, yes—for he was at this pleasant sport before the Middle Ages
drifted by him in the valley; before the Romans marched past, and
before the antique and recordless barbarians fished and hunted here and
wondered who he might be, and were probably afraid of him; and before
primeval man himself, just emerged from his four-footed estate, stepped
out upon this plain, first sample of his race, a thousand centuries
ago, and cast a glad eye up there, judging he had found a brother human
being and consequently something to kill; and before the big saurians
wallowed here, still some eons earlier. Oh yes, a day so far back that
the eternal son was present to see that first visit; a day so far back
that neither tradition nor history was born yet and a whole weary
eternity must come and go before the restless little creature, of whose
face this stupendous Shadow Face was the prophecy, would arrive in the
earth and begin his shabby career and think it a big thing. Oh, indeed
yes; when you talk about your poor Roman and Egyptian
day-before-yesterday antiquities, you should choose a time when the
hoary Shadow Face of the Jungfrau is not by. It antedates all
antiquities known or imaginable; for it was here the world itself
created the theater of future antiquities. And it is the only witness
with a human face that was there to see the marvel, and remains to us a
memorial of it.
By 4:40 P.M. the nose of the shadow is perfect and is beautiful. It is
black and is powerfully marked against the upright canvas of glowing
snow, and covers hundreds of acres of that resplendent surface.
Meantime shadow No. 2 has been creeping out well to the rear of the
face west of it—and at five o’clock has assumed a shape that has rather
a poor and rude semblance of a shoe.
Meantime, also, the great Shadow Face has been gradually changing for
twenty minutes, and now, 5 P.M., it is becoming a quite fair portrait
of Roscoe Conkling. The likeness is there, and is unmistakable. The
goatee is shortened, now, and has an end; formerly it hadn’t any, but
ran off eastward and arrived nowhere.
By 6 P.M. the face has dissolved and gone, and the goatee has become
what looks like the shadow of a tower with a pointed roof, and the shoe
had turned into what the printers call a “fist” with a finger pointing.
If I were now imprisoned on a mountain summit a hundred miles northward
of this point, and was denied a timepiece, I could get along well
enough from four till six on clear days, for I could keep trace of the
time by the changing shapes of these mighty shadows on the Virgin’s
front, the most stupendous dial I am acquainted with, the oldest clock
in the world by a couple of million years.
I suppose I should not have noticed the forms of the shadows if I
hadn’t the habit of hunting for faces in the clouds and in mountain
crags—a sort of amusement which is very entertaining even when you
don’t find any, and brilliantly satisfying when you do. I have searched
through several bushels of photographs of the Jungfrau here, but found
only one with the Face in it, and in this case it was not strictly
recognizable as a face, which was evidence that the picture was taken
before four o’clock in the afternoon, and also evidence that all the
photographers have persistently overlooked one of the most fascinating
features of the Jungfrau show. I say fascinating, because if you once
detect a human face produced on a great plan by unconscious nature, you
never get tired of watching it. At first you can’t make another person
see it at all, but after he has made it out once he can’t see anything
else afterward.
The King of Greece is a man who goes around quietly enough when off
duty. One day this summer he was traveling in an ordinary first-class
compartment, just in his other suit, the one which he works the realm
in when he is at home, and so he was not looking like anybody in
particular, but a good deal like everybody in general. By and by a
hearty and healthy German-American got in and opened up a frank and
interesting and sympathetic conversation with him, and asked him a
couple of thousand questions about himself, which the king answered
good-naturedly, but in a more or less indefinite way as to private
particulars.
“Where do you live when you are at home?”
“In Greece.”
“Greece! Well, now, that is just astonishing! Born there?”
“No.”
“Do you speak Greek?”
“Yes.”
“Now, ain’t that strange! I never expected to live to see that. What is
your trade? I mean how do you get your living? What is your line of
business?”
“Well, I hardly know how to answer. I am only a kind of foreman, on a
salary; and the business—well, is a very general kind of business.”
“Yes, I understand—general jobbing—little of everything—anything that
there’s money in.”
“That’s about it, yes.”
“Are you traveling for the house now?”
“Well, partly; but not entirely. Of course I do a stroke of business if
it falls in the way—”
“Good! I like that in you! That’s me every time. Go on.”
“I was only going to say I am off on my vacation now.”
“Well that’s all right. No harm in that. A man works all the better for
a little let-up now and then. Not that I’ve been used to having it
myself; for I haven’t. I reckon this is my first. I was born in
Germany, and when I was a couple of weeks old shipped for America, and
I’ve been there ever since, and that’s sixty-four years by the watch.
I’m an American in principle and a German at heart, and it’s the boss
combination. Well, how do you get along, as a rule—pretty fair?”
“I’ve a rather large family—”
“There, that’s it—big family and trying to raise them on a salary. Now,
what did you go to do that for?”
“Well, I thought—”
“Of course you did. You were young and confident and thought you could
branch out and make things go with a whirl, and here you are, you see!
But never mind about that. I’m not trying to discourage you. Dear me!
I’ve been just where you are myself! You’ve got good grit; there’s good
stuff in you, I can see that. You got a wrong start, that’s the whole
trouble. But you hold your grip, and we’ll see what can be done. Your
case ain’t half as bad as it might be. You are going to come out all
right—I’m bail for that. Boys and girls?”
“My family? Yes, some of them are boys—”
“And the rest girls. It’s just as I expected. But that’s all right, and
it’s better so, anyway. What are the boys doing—learning a trade?”
“Well, no—I thought—”
“It’s a great mistake. It’s the biggest mistake you ever made. You see
that in your own case. A man ought always to have a trade to fall back
on. Now, I was harness-maker at first. Did that prevent me from
becoming one of the biggest brewers in America? Oh no. I always had the
harness trick to fall back on in rough weather. Now, if you had learned
how to make harness—However, it’s too late now; too late. But it’s no
good plan to cry over spilt milk. But as to the boys, you see—what’s to
become of them if anything happens to you?”
“It has been my idea to let the eldest one succeed me—”
“Oh, come! Suppose the firm don’t want him?”
“I hadn’t thought of that, but—”
“Now, look here; you want to get right down to business and stop
dreaming. You are capable of immense things—man. You can make a perfect
success in life. All you want is somebody to steady you and boost you
along on the right road. Do you own anything in the business?”
“No—not exactly; but if I continue to give satisfaction, I suppose I
can keep my—”
“Keep your place—yes. Well, don’t you depend on anything of the kind.
They’ll bounce you the minute you get a little old and worked out;
they’ll do it sure. Can’t you manage somehow to get into the firm?
That’s the great thing, you know.”
“I think it is doubtful; very doubtful.”
“Um—that’s bad—yes, and unfair, too. Do you suppose that if I should go
there and have a talk with your people—Look here—do you think you could
run a brewery?”
“I have never tried, but I think I could do it after I got a little
familiarity with the business.”
The German was silent for some time. He did a good deal of thinking,
and the king waited with curiosity to see what the result was going to
be. Finally the German said:
“My mind’s made up. You leave that crowd—you’ll never amount to
anything there. In these old countries they never give a fellow a show.
Yes, you come over to America—come to my place in Rochester; bring the
family along. You shall have a show in the business and the
foremanship, besides. George—you said your name was George?—I’ll make a
man of you. I give you my word. You’ve never had a chance here, but
that’s all going to change. By gracious! I’ll give you a lift that’ll
make your hair curl!”
AT THE SHRINE OF ST. WAGNER
Bayreuth, Aug. 2d, 1891
It was at Nuremberg that we struck the inundation of music-mad
strangers that was rolling down upon Bayreuth. It had been long since
we had seen such multitudes of excited and struggling people. It took a
good half-hour to pack them and pair them into the train—and it was the
longest train we have yet seen in Europe. Nuremberg had been witnessing
this sort of experience a couple of times a day for about two weeks. It
gives one an impressive sense of the magnitude of this biennial
pilgrimage. For a pilgrimage is what it is. The devotees come from the