Florida Pier : writings and about / jmcvey.net
Extracting Flavor
“The Gentler View,” Harper’s Weekly (May 8, 1912) : 26
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There is a certain fatuity in claiming any quality as a national characteristic, for national differences prove themselves to be of such intangible, ungaugeable material that after interminable comparisons one is left with nothing to show but varying terminology. The fact that the quality to be described is like all things seen in the bulk, of mixed virtue, makes one slightly more willing to assign it boldly to America, especially as other nationalities have repeatedly disclaimed possessing it with any degree of intensity.
The characteristic is a passion for tasting, for rolling scant, non-essential, or infinite experiences luxuriously on the tongue, for getting from all life’s processes the final grain of flavor. It is, in its extreme, American. It is, fundamentally, feminine.a passion for tasting, for rolling scant, non-essential, or infinite experiences luxuriously on the tongue, for getting from all life’s processes the final grain of flavor. It is, in its extreme, American. It is, fundamentally, feminine. It is, lastly, the most absorbing and delightful of the epicurean appetites. Men scorning it on the unconscious ground of their incurable objectivity miss an immeasurable amount, and present a picture of bolting their food with such speed as to have had no time to take account of its quality. Their consequent bewilderment as to what precisely has happened to them, and their ill-tempered discomfort when the whole thing is over, are only what might have been expected. Women, on the other hand, subjectively wallowing, gain worlds of shading, and run the risk of nothing worse than an occasional wearing of the subject and themselves to tatters, with, as a final stage, the possibility of finding themselves enmeshed in an unworthy amount of stale pettiness. This last and, after all, not frequent result could only have been evaded by silence, by refraining from analyzing what in the end was seen not to exist, or, at least, to be capable of disappearing if ignored. A man’s ignoring of it gives him a superiority he should not in fairness have, as it usually comes from abstraction, which is half blindness. Moreover , as he never saw the possibilities of speculation, in what to a woman loomed large, there was no virtue in his holding aloof. The very fact of temptation would at least have implied sight.
When the unfortunate results of the tendency to taste are avoided, one rises on a flight of speculation and floats about at rarefied altitudes, getting views of amazing comprehensiveness, taking in the juxtaposition of neighborhoods, the network of roads, the changing glamor of shadows cast by dispersing clouds. ...the changing glamor of shadows cast by dispersing clouds. There is almost nothing from which one cannot extract something, and, when an incident approaches with all the signs of legitimate interest upon it, it is made use of to the point of depleting prodigality. All is done that possibly can be done with anticipation.There is almost nothing from which one cannot extract something, and, when an incident approaches with all the signs of legitimate interest upon it, it is made use of to the point of depleting prodigality. All is done that possibly can be done with anticipation. It is possible that thrift will have filled one so full that the incident on actually happening is paid little attention to, merely gone through with as a matter of form. If, after energetically wondering precisely what it will be like, satiation is not reached, one then lives through the enactment of it avidly, with all one’s senses agog to take impressions, intense only that the after taste may be intenser. The feast, later on, is seen to be of a magnificence. It will last, with coddling, for days. Women extract from these debauches of analysis a sense which, when used actively, is known as intuition. Women would never have had intuition if she had not had markedly a power of labeling accurately her impressions, of sorting and placing them, until they formed a substantial foundation for wide-reaching and often tested theories. If she jumps quickly to conclusions, it is because she has been such an infinity of times step by step over the same route. Anything less than a jump would be a waste of time.
She is obtusely accused of squinting at atoms only by those who have not learned the meaningfulness of details and the trick they have of pointing to big factors. She holds them waiting until they point, then follows and finds herself at sources. The result is that, the next time the indications are the same and the flavor smacks with familiarity on her trained tongue, she is sure of her ground to a marvel, capable of action and sometimes of prophetic action, because she has learned by much handling to know the taste of human nature.
9 August 2026