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Tongues, Cameras, and Other Things
Harper’s Weekly (May 15, 1909) : 27
U Michigan copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link
 

      A Tongue is, after all, an amusing instrument, though it be a tongue lacking in training and a tongue of astonishingly undisciplined habits. The only things necessary for complete enjoyment are an instinct for self-preservation, an appreciation of unfinished sentences, a delighted wonder at the tortuous paths a tongue will take, and that unreasonable fascination sometimes found in the heartiness of vacuitous speech. Some people should be regarded solely as tongues, as detached and clattering things to be courted for their delightful irrelevancy and engaging skipping pace. A free tongue must be taken in small doses, but by all means taken. The only things necessary for complete enjoyment are an instinct for self-preservation, an appreciation of unfinished sentences, a delighted wonder at the tortuous paths a tongue will take, and that unreasonable fascination sometimes found in the heartiness of vacuitous speech. These recommendations naturally introduce the thing recommended. “Well, all I have to say is just fancy.” A statement one recognizes at once as untrue. “Fancy a country existing after all these years when one hadn’t seen it or completely believed in it, so to speak. You know I can’t help thinking they must have had to hurry to get it ready in time, so that it was really there when I finally decided to look. Sort of all Spain saying, “Oh, well, if people will keep on believing in the existence of our country, we must keep the fairy-tale up a bit longer.” Not that I really mean that, but still — and then Gibraltar — why, I’d seen it so many times in the back of the magazines advertising something or other that I felt personally upset when it looked the way it did. There is an elimination in the advertisement that the original altogether lacks. I didn’t at all feel the tremor I’ve experienced on looking at the wood-cut with the sign across it. There were babies and nursemaids toddling at the base, and a boy selling evening papers. But then a great many people don’t share my feeling for grandeur. Instinctively, it seems to me, we have very good taste, for so often the originals disappoint us. Don’t you think so? But then a great many people don’t share my feeling for grandeur. Instinctively, it seems to me, we have very good taste, for so often the originals disappoint us. Don’t you think so? Then, too, the guns that go off at sundown and sunrise — why, they make an awful noise! If England had decided to put holes in Africa she couldn’t go about it with more vim. I can’t think why she disturbs every one each time the sun gets up and sits down. That’s no way to make one believe in imperialism. It’s an over-emphasis that I should find most disagreeable if I lived there. One thing that interested me so was the number of boys who were called Romeo, boot, and hall-boys, and oh, no end of people! Could they all be descendants of Juliet? I have no idea. Perhaps they aren’t. Still, I’m not very much up in my classics, and those old families are so difficult to keep straight. They have one habit that I think capital — not the old families, but these foreigners: they encourage everything in such a helpful way — horses, mules, bullocks — it really helps them tremendously. I wonder if we couldn’t try it on the Broadway cars; one can’t help feeling that they’d like it. It is quite simple; just a concerted cry, sort of houpla every five minutes. If it is done regularly it seems to take the place of all the more modern — er — motor powers. It ought to be cheap, too, I should think. The passengers do it themselves, you understand, with, of course, a little help from the conductor. He could lead, perhaps. It’s just an idea. It would have to be elaborated, of course. It’s just an idea. It would have to be elaborated, of course. Still, you know, there was one thing that really kept me awake nights. Yes, actually, I woke up two or three times and thought about it. It was the trees. The tropical trees, you understand. They had never popped into my head before, but quite suddenly it occurred to me that they work all the year around. Yes. It’s an awful thought, isn’t it? They never lose their leaves. Think of never getting a rest from the beginning to the very end when lightning or axes or something finally strikes one. Our American trees in comparison have a very easy time, don’t they? losing their tiresome little leaves quite often, it must seem to these poor tropical dears — that is, if they know anything about it. I never felt the same comfort in being out-of-doors after I thought of that. And, oh, my dear, I don’t want to be vulgar — in fact, it’s just because I know I can’t be that I dare to say what I’m going to say; only I do want you to understand, sort of warned. Well, where was I? Oh yes, those Spaniards. Well, it’s the way in which they — you understand, I'm sure — spat. I’m really afraid this is going to sound queer, but there does seem to be a language of — er — expectoration. Well, where was I? Oh yes, those Spaniards. Well, it’s the way in which they — you understand, I'm sure — spat. I’m really afraid this is going to sound queer, but there does seem to be a language of — er — expectoration. I noticed it so strongly in the guides we had; whenever they lacked for a word — well, there they were. Of course I didn’t say it to any one, but I couldn’t help thinking that they had a mode of expression that we haven’t. If Romeo, our first guide, was pleased with himself, if he had said something clever and wished to show that it was a simple matter for him, he did what I said, you know. If he was disgusted with us and the world, but wanted us to know that he could just stand our stupidity, he did the same thing; and every time he did it I felt that he had got the best of us in an argument, that his was somehow the last word. They must begin awfully young, to do it so well; but then we noticed that they did begin young — in fact, they couldn’t have begun younger. And, oh, I’ve been meaning to tell you this from the beginning. I don’t know how I ever forgot it. You see, I was very tired on the ship and slept just as late as they would let me, which brought my bath hour during the morning concert; and would you believe it, the first morning they played Narcissus. Yes, I really mean it. I could hardly look the soap in the face, and the morning after that they played The Maiden’s Prayer. I thought it time then to change my bath hour. I know it was silly to let it bother me. Still, it did feel queer. Narcissus! Think of it! almost as if the bandmaster knew. He couldn’t have, naturally, though those Italians — I want all my girls to marry Americans, that’s one thing I’m sure of. Aren’t foreigners awful, of course utterly different civilization from ours? Yes, they pack their coal in scrap-baskets with olive branches laid across the top. Some Biblical meaning, I suppose. There are so many things I feel hazy about. I must read up when I get home, though reading often gives you a wrong impression. One author I remember called Spain arid. It may be, but it looks like very luxuriant aridity to me. I tell you life often seems —” What it seems to the possessor of this cavorting tongue we will never know. Such a tongue is necessarily left in the middle of a sentence. If one foolishly waited for periods, old age would find one still decrepitly listening.

      Great rest and solace are to be found in not having a camera. The lack frees one from all responsibility toward scenes of beauty and puts one on tremendously intimate terms with picturesque spots. As a rule, the relations are so strained between the traveller and the thing he has travelled to see, but by merely leaving one’s camera at home a sweet sympathy springs up. As a rule, the relations are so strained between the traveller and the thing he has travelled to see, but by merely leaving one’s camera at home a sweet sympathy springs up. As soon as the thing of beauty understands the delicacy of your intentions toward it a visible relaxing of its lovely lines takes place, and, quite at its ease, it manages to convey to you how seldom people permit it to lounge, how continued is the necessity for looking its best, and how really tactless it is of people to intimate that the impression they receive of its glory will not be lasting but must be helped out by photographs. Its gratitude is touching, and the understanding between it and its camera-less admirer could hardly be more perfect. If anything could assure your remembering its every detail, it would be just the knowledge of how it felt about the matter. You sit and smile at its airy outlines, and out of pure bravado, to feel for a moment like a life resident of the particular bench you are on, you close your eyes. A second after you open them to apologize whole-heartedly for having crassly slept the night through when its marvels were in the same city and might be dimly seen. It grants you its pardon, its white walls shimmer slightly in recognition of your compliment, and you sigh happily at the chance that made you forget your camera.
 

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