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Subjects, Confidences and Decisions
Harper’s Weekly (July 10, 1909) : 29
U Michigan copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link
 

      A subject, so our literary friends tell us, must sometimes be struggled with for weeks before it will permit itself to be made captive. on the writer’s pursuit of the elusive subject One would suppose that a subject, if spotted, could be easily caught, but it seems that a great deal of sport enters into the chase, and the best subjects are surprisingly game. When they are spied faintly in the distance the author puts on all speed and is after them hot foot; but he is sure to loose the trail, and such a scamper is the merest beginning. Keeping an eye well peeled, the anxious author sees the subject peering at him over walls, and it grins from inaccessible heights, even going so far as to stick out its tongue. But the author pretends not to see, or at most bows respectfully, yet with a certain cold formality that piques the subject, and gradually it comes a little nearer, and finally, with a docility that is almost pathetic and would touch any one on earth except an avid author, the poor little subject eats ink out of its tamer’s hand. This, of course, is only one species of subject. There are countless varieties, and the only characteristic they share in is looking impressively large when seen at a distance and diminishing astonishingly as they approach nearer, thus differing from all other things. But, though they prove so much smaller than one thought them, they are always more than equal to managing the author. Some subjects are very athletic. They come forward with an attractive frankness. They engage in a hand-to-hand struggle with the author that has all the good nature of opening exercises. Then, just as the author becomes interested and takes a distinct liking to the subject, the churl throws him and, with a slipperiness that any one else would be ashamed of, jumps to a safe distance. Then, just as the author becomes interested and takes a distinct liking to the subject, the churl throws him and, with a slipperiness that any one else would be ashamed of, jumps to a safe distance. The author sees where the subject is, but out of regard for his self-respect he makes no attempt to catch it, and it is on subjects such as these that authors are always a little sensitive.
      There is another kind of subject that exhibits excessively nasty tricks when approached. and on the subject as a maze. It resembles closely a maze, a silly, vulgar, tripper’s maze, much like the one at Hampton Court. One enters blithely, meaning to stop just a minute, as the thing, of course, is utterly simple and hardly worth bothering about. Two turns, and you have come out at the place where you entered a second ago. You wave explanations to the surprised friends waiting outside, murmur that you were thinking of something else, and start in again. One turn again lands you outside. It is at this point that the author (will the reader kindly remember that the maze represents a subject of the deadliest variety?) takes an awful vow, decides to make a life-work of it if need be, and dashes again into the maze, determined to reach the square in the middle and mount the little platform to get that comforting bird’s-eye view of the whole. After trying systems, that of always turning to the right and, when that fails, taking each turn to the left, enduring a shower, the jeers of other people already on the platform, and growing so tired that the author would gladly, with thankfulness, drop in his tracks, he subdues the maze, knows it to its last cul-de-sac, and issues from it to be greeted by enthusiastic readers with: “Writing must be such a joy to you. I suppose you couldn’t stop it if you tried.” It is subjects such as these which give authors that hangdog, hunted air, and make people wonder if they did not commit some awful crime at an early age.

      The more one lives and the more one reads (and somehow the habit of doing both grows upon one) the more one is struck with the trick characters in fiction and individuals in real life have of telling “their story,” just when one is most keenly interested in one’s own. The thing is almost without exception. on the interjection of one’s own (irrelevant) story, when presented with another’s immediate and troubling case If a crisis has come and its varying demands prove as bewildering as they are absorbing, then you lay the case before a friend, and she, instead of putting her whole attention on your case, says, “Well, my dear —” and with an air of giving valuable assistance she tells at great length just what she did in a situation that resembles only vaguely the one in which you are floundering. For some unknown reason it has become the correct and permissible thing to do so invariable as to make one seem ignorant of etiquette if one fails to do it. At a time when you are so wrapped up in your own predicament that the existence of all other humans seems inopportune, when you are weak with concentration on yourself, off your guard and unable to protect yourself with your usual vigor, a story of outside matter is launched at you by a person calling herself your friend. It is a most curious fact, and one wonders how a confidence at such a moment ever came to be regarded as eminently fitting. Isn’t it, perhaps, that the nice young people in books who always have such a surprising number of things happen to them went to the dear old people in books to tell them of their escapades, and the dear old people, who had by a strange coincidence done the same exact thing in their youth and suffered for it, broke the silence of years in the hopes of making the young people see their way to happiness, which the young people always did. Thus a right and charming incident acted as a precedent for something that differed wholly from it (which is what precedents always do from the things they excuse), and people got the idea that if you laid yourself open by telling your tale they had a right to get back at you by telling theirs. An attempt at checkmate; and if it only acted as check and you dragged your friend back to the contemplation of your affairs, she at least had made a dash for freedom, had matched her life history against yours, making a last brave effort to talk about herself, and succumbing to nothing but your violent perseverance. It is an experience to chafe under, and one’s compliments go to the maker of the precedence. Is there — now that the subject has been comfortably changed — anything cleverer than the making of precedents, or anything we are each of us more anxious to do? Originality being successful attempts in the right direction, eccentricity unpopular attempts in the same direction. If there is no better excuse for a thing than that it has been done before, ten to one it ought not to be done at all, but some spirited soul, recognizing the lack of good reasons there were to support his favorite pastime, did it once with a lot of flourish and all the hall-marks of common sense, thereby making it delightfully easy for those who followed him. This shows what public benefactors makers of precedent are, at the same time pointing out how very careful we ought to be in case we intend starting in at once to benefit posterity ourselves.

      on telegraphic clarity It is doubtful if there is any woman who can receive with calm a telegram containing the words “wire yes or no.” Olivia, who could talk like a philosopher, but in moments of action behaved like a robin in a greenhouse, was a clear-brained, steady-going maiden compared with any modern matter-of-fact woman confronted with the need of limiting herself to “yes” or “no.” Being compelled to choose between those two meagre, inadequate words arouses all the latent garrulity in one’s nature. The recipient of such a telegram could debate with fluency on both sides of the question in hand. She could do anything but content herself with a scanty “yes” or a poverty-stricken “no.” To make up her mind without any attendant “ifs” or “buts” — why, no woman has reached that stage of emancipation, and her ultimate getting there seems very doubtful. Men apparently have no realization of what a bomb a telegram of this kind is. They think it a simple matter. But any woman knowing nothing of attendant circumstances will see at once that to telegraph either “yes” or “no” is out of the question. One cannot say “yes,” for that is so definite, so final, it leaves no leeway, or loophole of any kind. “Yes” is the click as the trap snaps to. “No ,” on the other hand — well, no one likes to say “no,” in cold blood, for it so ends things. It breaks the connection. It is a little ungracious and — Oh, “no” is not to be thought of for a moment. Yet the telegram says “wire yes or no.” Well, it cannot be done. et the telegram says “wire yes or no.” Well, it cannot be done. No one should expect such a paltry answer. “Can come, perhaps; will know presently. Have written,” is sent, and, that relief having been secured, the sender starts off at once. It was only the one-word telegram that was difficult; the going is perfectly simple.
 

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