Florida Pier : writings and about       /       jmcvey.net

The Romantic Mind, Etc.
“The Gentler View,” Harper’s Weekly (September 14, 1912) : 21
Purdue copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link
archive.org : link
 

      Some people regard an incident as a concrete thing of hard, unmistakable outlines which can be told but in one way, and that is as it happened. Others feel the most worried responsibility about everything they recount. They are perturbed for fear it should present a nude appearance and they dress it up as they tell it, frantically patting and pinning on bows. They do not at all feel that the incident was over when it took place. They regard it as having a new chance at success every time they give an account of it, and so what seems to be inaccuracy of so extreme a kind as to verge on untruthfulness is really an amiable desire to lend to the drabest happening a hectic interest. They do not at all feel that the incident was over when it took place. They regard it as having a new chance at success every time they give an account of it, and so what seems to be inaccuracy of so extreme a kind as to verge on untruthfulness is really an amiable desire to lend to the drabest happening a hectic interest. Their taste is for the garish and opulent, and just as their money is spent in giving a glitter to life so is their tongue employed in doing the same. It would be lying if a literal-minded man indulged in any such perversions of fact. But a certain amount of such perversion is so natural to the romantic mind that anything else would for it be understatement.
      Its speech is what it is just as its clothes are provided for the rare occasion and its emotions for blank verse. It is very hard for a person who would so have enjoyed being a character in a melodrama to be forced to live in the every-day world with its repression and gaucherie at display. The social reformer dislikes society as it is and tries to change it. The romantic mind dislikes it even more and tries with even greater persistency to change it. But the social reformer admits what he is, and places his ideal in the future. The romantic individual passes for an ordinary type of person and changes life while it is in the act of being lived. That is what makes contact with the romantic mind so exhausting to those not possessing it. One has to remember that the other is singing an octave higher because he finds it more comfortable up there, not because the occasion demands it of every one. It is not easy to sing duets under such conditions, but then dealings with the romantic mind never are easy. It persists in wearing vermillion mentally, no matter what the occasion, and we find it so difficult to attune ourselves to this that we either say it lies, which is crass of us; or else we regret the flatness of our response, which is nice of us, but unnecessary, for the romantic mind is made principally effective by the amazedly drooping jaw of its audience.

      The sense of property is being absorbed until presently it will be like our tails, a mere rudimentary reminder of two joints. A hundred years ago old gentlemen actually got purple with rage at trespassing. It did not matter that the trespasser was a harmless pedestrian treading a wood road. He was not doing any harm to the wood, perhaps, but he was giving apoplexy to the owner of the wood by daring to walk on his ground without his permission. It genuinely mattered to the choleric gentleman. His sense of property extended to the farthest boundary of all that was his. but he was giving apoplexy to the owner of the wood by daring to walk on his ground without his permission. It genuinely mattered to the choleric gentleman — nowadays the choleric anti-immigrant everyman? choleric gentleman. His sense of property extended to the farthest boundary of all that was his. It even went far enough beyond to lead him to dislike the people whose land touched his at the boundary line, and he relieved himself by going to law with them.
      Fifty years ago big landowners found that their sense of property did not react hotly on slight and frequent provocation, and so they left more and more the duty of being incensed at trespass to servants, and even now no one can feel with such vibrating poignancy as a game-keeper the fact that an innocent stranger is on the wrong side of a fence. To-day, with the exception of a small minority who principally serve as picturesque souvenirs of a bygone age, the sense of property has shrunk to such dimensions that it only begins to work at the door of one’s house. Some people do not feel it there and are only roused when you approach their stamp-box or rubbers — in such odd corners has a sense of property taken refuge.
      We know how it ought to work, but it refuses to do so. We are dragged to a field by some incensed old-fashioned person, and we admit that we see a man with whom we have no acquaintance whatever taking birds’ eggs from a nest in a tree that belongs to us. But it is of no use; we cannot get excited any more about that sort of thing. If we went to him and said with a great deal of noise, “That nest belongs to me,” we should feel foolish, and the parent birds would probably expect us to feel foolish. To argue with the man about the morality of taking birds’ eggs at all might be managed at a pinch, but then one cannot moralize with every stranger one meets, and, besides, the man is by way of being your guest for the time and you have a certain feeling of delicacy about criticizing his actions.
      If he is not taking birds’ eggs, but, let us say, gathering firewood, and if it is firewood that you could use as well as he, your sense of property may make you walk up to him with the intention of remonstrating. The spirit of the times being what it is, he does not take on a look of guilt, but perhaps says, “Good morning.” You do the same, and then to avoid an awkward pause you remark that wood is scarce. Try as one will, one’s emotions will not respond to theory. They have a way of keeping abreast of the times... He agrees with you, and in order to get away gracefully you make a remark about the weather and leave, hoping that he did not know who you were and feeling yourself to be an intrusive, prying person. You think him cool, but you admire such coolness and respect the untroubled simplicity of his attitude. If it did not occur to him that you were selfish, far be it from you to change his conception of your character. Try as one will, one’s emotions will not respond to theory. They have a way of keeping abreast of the times that is surprising, perhaps, but as they do it quite on their own, with no help from us, we should at least give them full credit for it.
 

20260908