What Is Man? and Other Essays
of God, and with the reasons for his intentions. Sometimes—very often,
in fact—the act follows the intention after such a wide interval of
time that one wonders how Henry could fit one act out of a hundred to
one intention out of a hundred and get the thing right every time when
there was such abundant choice among acts and intentions. Sometimes a
man offends the Deity with a crime, and is punished for it thirty years
later; meantime he has committed a million other crimes: no matter,
Henry can pick out the one that brought the worms. Worms were generally
used in those days for the slaying of particularly wicked people. This
has gone out, now, but in old times it was a favorite. It always
indicated a case of “wrath.” For instance:
... the just God avenging Robert Fitzhilderbrand’s perfidy, a worm grew
in his vitals, which gradually gnawing its way through his intestines
fattened on the abandoned man till, tortured with excruciating
sufferings and venting himself in bitter moans, he was by a fitting
punishment brought to his end.—(P. 400.)
It was probably an alligator, but we cannot tell; we only know it was a
particular breed, and only used to convey wrath. Some authorities think
it was an ichthyosaurus, but there is much doubt.
However, one thing we do know; and that is that that worm had been due
years and years. Robert F. had violated a monastery once; he had
committed unprintable crimes since, and they had been permitted—under
disapproval—but the ravishment of the monastery had not been forgotten
nor forgiven, and the worm came at last.
Why were these reforms put off in this strange way? What was to be
gained by it? Did Henry of Huntington really know his facts, or was he
only guessing? Sometimes I am half persuaded that he is only a guesser,
and not a good one. The divine wisdom must surely be of the better
quality than he makes it out to be.
Five hundred years before Henry’s time some forecasts of the Lord’s
purposes were furnished by a pope, who perceived, by certain perfectly
trustworthy signs furnished by the Deity for the information of His
familiars, that the end of the world was
... about to come. But as this end of the world draws near many things
are at hand which have not before happened, as changes in the air,
terrible signs in the heavens, tempests out of the common order of the
seasons, wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes in various places; all
which will not happen in our days, but after our days all will come to
pass.
Still, the end was so near that these signs were “sent before that we
may be careful for our souls and be found prepared to meet the
impending judgment.”
That was thirteen hundred years ago. This is really no improvement on
the work of the Roman augurs.
CONCERNING TOBACCO
(Written about 1893; not before published)
As concerns tobacco, there are many superstitions. And the chiefest is
this—that there is a _standard _governing the matter, whereas there is
nothing of the kind. Each man’s own preference is the only standard for
him, the only one which he can accept, the only one which can command
him. A congress of all the tobacco-lovers in the world could not elect
a standard which would be binding upon you or me, or would even much
influence us.
The next superstition is that a man has a standard of his own. He
hasn’t. He thinks he has, but he hasn’t. He thinks he can tell what he
regards as a good cigar from what he regards as a bad one—but he can’t.
He goes by the brand, yet imagines he goes by the flavor. One may palm
off the worst counterfeit upon him; if it bears his brand he will smoke
it contentedly and never suspect.
Children of twenty-five, who have seven years of experience, try to
tell me what is a good cigar and what isn’t. Me, who never learned to
smoke, but always smoked; me, who came into the world asking for a
light.
No one can tell me what is a good cigar—for me. I am the only judge.
People who claim to know say that I smoke the worst cigars in the
world. They bring their own cigars when they come to my house. They
betray an unmanly terror when I offer them a cigar; they tell lies and
hurry away to meet engagements which they have not made when they are
threatened with the hospitalities of my box. Now then, observe what
superstition, assisted by a man’s reputation, can do. I was to have
twelve personal friends to supper one night. One of them was as
notorious for costly and elegant cigars as I was for cheap and devilish
ones. I called at his house and when no one was looking borrowed a
double handful of his very choicest; cigars which cost him forty cents
apiece and bore red-and-gold labels in sign of their nobility. I
removed the labels and put the cigars into a box with my favorite brand
on it—a brand which those people all knew, and which cowed them as men
are cowed by an epidemic. They took these cigars when offered at the
end of the supper, and lit them and sternly struggled with them—in
dreary silence, for hilarity died when the fell brand came into view
and started around—but their fortitude held for a short time only; then
they made excuses and filed out, treading on one another’s heels with
indecent eagerness; and in the morning when I went out to observe
results the cigars lay all between the front door and the gate. All
except one—that one lay in the plate of the man from whom I had
cabbaged the lot. One or two whiffs was all he could stand. He told me
afterward that some day I would get shot for giving people that kind of
cigars to smoke.
Am I certain of my own standard? Perfectly; yes, absolutely—unless
somebody fools me by putting my brand on some other kind of cigar; for
no doubt I am like the rest, and know my cigar by the brand instead of
by the flavor. However, my standard is a pretty wide one and covers a
good deal of territory. To me, almost any cigar is good that nobody
else will smoke, and to me almost all cigars are bad that other people
consider good. Nearly any cigar will do me, except a Havana. People
think they hurt my feelings when they come to my house with their life
preservers on—I mean, with their own cigars in their pockets. It is an
error; I take care of myself in a similar way. When I go into
danger—that is, into rich people’s houses, where, in the nature of
things, they will have high-tariff cigars, red-and-gilt girded and
nested in a rosewood box along with a damp sponge, cigars which develop
a dismal black ash and burn down the side and smell, and will grow hot
to the fingers, and will go on growing hotter and hotter, and go on
smelling more and more infamously and unendurably the deeper the fire
tunnels down inside below the thimbleful of honest tobacco that is in
the front end, the furnisher of it praising it all the time and telling
you how much the deadly thing cost—yes, when I go into that sort of
peril I carry my own defense along; I carry my own brand—twenty-seven
cents a barrel—and I live to see my family again. I may seem to light
his red-gartered cigar, but that is only for courtesy’s sake; I smuggle
it into my pocket for the poor, of whom I know many, and light one of
my own; and while he praises it I join in, but when he says it cost
forty-five cents I say nothing, for I know better.
However, to say true, my tastes are so catholic that I have never seen
any cigars that I really could not smoke, except those that cost a
dollar apiece. I have examined those and know that they are made of
dog-hair, and not good dog-hair at that.
I have a thoroughly satisfactory time in Europe, for all over the
Continent one finds cigars which not even the most hardened newsboys in
New York would smoke. I brought cigars with me, the last time; I will
not do that any more. In Italy, as in France, the Government is the
only cigar-peddler. Italy has three or four domestic brands: the
Minghetti, the Trabuco, the Virginia, and a very coarse one which is a
modification of the Virginia. The Minghettis are large and comely, and
cost three dollars and sixty cents a hundred; I can smoke a hundred in
seven days and enjoy every one of them. The Trabucos suit me, too; I
don’t remember the price. But one has to learn to like the Virginia,
nobody is born friendly to it. It looks like a rat-tail file, but
smokes better, some think. It has a straw through it; you pull this
out, and it leaves a flue, otherwise there would be no draught, not
even as much as there is to a nail. Some prefer a nail at first.
However, I like all the French, Swiss, German, and Italian domestic
cigars, and have never cared to inquire what they are made of; and
nobody would know, anyhow, perhaps. There is even a brand of European
smoking-tobacco that I like. It is a brand used by the Italian
peasants. It is loose and dry and black, and looks like tea-grounds.
When the fire is applied it expands, and climbs up and towers above the
pipe, and presently tumbles off inside of one’s vest. The tobacco
itself is cheap, but it raises the insurance. It is as I remarked in
the beginning—the taste for tobacco is a matter of superstition. There
are no standards—no real standards. Each man’s preference is the only
standard for him, the only one which he can accept, the only one which
can command him.
THE BEE
It was Maeterlinck who introduced me to the bee. I mean, in the
psychical and in the poetical way. I had had a business introduction
earlier. It was when I was a boy. It is strange that I should remember
a formality like that so long; it must be nearly sixty years.
Bee scientists always speak of the bee as she. It is because all the
important bees are of that sex. In the hive there is one married bee,
called the queen; she has fifty thousand children; of these, about one
hundred are sons; the rest are daughters. Some of the daughters are
young maids, some are old maids, and all are virgins and remain so.
Every spring the queen comes out of the hive and flies away with one of
her sons and marries him. The honeymoon lasts only an hour or two; then
the queen divorces her husband and returns home competent to lay two
million eggs. This will be enough to last the year, but not more than
enough, because hundreds of bees get drowned every day, and other
hundreds are eaten by birds, and it is the queen’s business to keep the
population up to standard—say, fifty thousand. She must always have
that many children on hand and efficient during the busy season, which
is summer, or winter would catch the community short of food. She lays
from two thousand to three thousand eggs a day, according to the
demand; and she must exercise judgment, and not lay more than are
needed in a slim flower-harvest, nor fewer than are required in a
prodigal one, or the board of directors will dethrone her and elect a
queen that has more sense.
There are always a few royal heirs in stock and ready to take her
place—ready and more than anxious to do it, although she is their own
mother. These girls are kept by themselves, and are regally fed and
tended from birth. No other bees get such fine food as they get, or
live such a high and luxurious life. By consequence they are larger and
longer and sleeker than their working sisters. And they have a curved
sting, shaped like a scimitar, while the others have a straight one.
A common bee will sting any one or anybody, but a royalty stings
royalties only. A common bee will sting and kill another common bee,
for cause, but when it is necessary to kill the queen other ways are
employed. When a queen has grown old and slack and does not lay eggs
enough one of her royal daughters is allowed to come to attack her, the
rest of the bees looking on at the duel and seeing fair play. It is a
duel with the curved stings. If one of the fighters gets hard pressed