Peter Whiffle

by Carl Van Vechten

Peter Whiffle, I replied.

Peter Whistle? was her interrogative reproduction.

Presently the quiet even voice of Bill Haywood was heard from the drawing-room, a voice that by its very mildness compelled silence:

Violence, yes, we advocate violence of the most violent sort, violence that consists in keeping your mouth shut and your hands in your pockets. Don't fold your arms, I say to the men, but keep your hands in your pockets to keep hired thugs and detectives from putting bombs there. In doing this and staying on strike you are committing the most violent acts in the world, for you are stopping industry and keeping it stopped until the mill owners grant your demands, an eight hour day, two looms to a worker, and higher wages.

See how he talks, pointed out my unidentified companion, rubbing his flabby fingers the while around the flange of his wine-glass, about half-full of red California wine. No rage, no emotion, a simple explanation of the humanities. Let us go in where we can hear him better.

But when we joined the throng in the drawing-room, we discovered that Haywood was not beginning. He had already finished what he had to say to the group and had returned to his more intimate conversation with Edith. He brought back to my mind Cunninghame Graham's description of Parnell, not popular, in the hail-fellow-well-met and loudly cheered conception of the word, but yet with an attraction for all women whom he came across, who were drawn to him by his careless treatment of them, and by the wish that nature has implanted in their sex, to be the rulers of all men who stand above their kind.

Did it ever occur to you? my companion began again, that there is some strange relationship between trade unionism and tribal magic? You know how the men of one union cannot do the work for the men of another union. What is this restriction but the taboo?

What, indeed? I echoed pleasantly, unable to think of anything more apposite to say. Besides, my attention was wandering. I had discovered Peter, who appeared to be engrossed in the charms of a pretty girl of whom I knew little except that her name was Mahalah Wiggins.

Now the round-faced, cherubic Max Weber rose to speak.

The art consciousness is the great life consciousness, he began in his somewhat high-pitched voice. Its product and the appreciation of its product are the very flower of life.... Hutchins Hapgood's companion continued to finger lovingly the polished wooden African figure.... Its presence in man is Godliness on earth. It humanizes mankind. Were it spread broadcast it would do away with dry, cold intellectualism, which dead and unfired, always seeks refuge in pretending to be more than it is.... Bill Haywood, the giant Arimaspian, was pounding the seat of the brocaded sofa with his great fist.... Art or art consciousness is the real proof of genuine human sympathy. It oozes spiritual expression. Were it fostered it would sooner solve the great modern economic problem than any labour propaganda.... Helen Westley was yawning, with a great open jaw, which she made no effort to conceal.... A lack of this art consciousness—Weber was very earnest, but in no sense theatrical—, on the part of both capital and labour, is one cause of this great modern struggle. Were this art consciousness more general, material possession would be less valued; the covetous spirit would soon die out.... Yorska, a wraith of black satin and black tulle, her pale Pierrot face slit with crimson and punctuated with two black holes, lined with purple, stood in the doorway motionless, like another Rachel, with one hand lifted above her head, grasping the curtain, trying to look uncovetous.... Art socializes more than socialism with its platform and its platitudes.... Bravo! This from Hippolyte Havel.... Economists go not deep enough into the modern monetary disease. They deal only with materialism. They concentrate only on what is obvious, the physical starvation of the toiling class, but never do they see or seem to realize the spiritual starvation or the lack of an art consciousness to both capital and labour. They would argue that the material relief must come first. I reply, now as always, we must begin with the spiritual. I do not see, however, how the spiritual or æsthetic can be separated from the material.... Clara Barnes gave an angry shake to her long ear-rings, but Donald Evans had the rapt attentive air of a man hearing a great truth for the first time.... The common solution of this great problem is too dry, too matter of fact, too calculated, too technical, too scientifically intellectual and not enough intellectually imaginative. Art consciousness is not merely a form of etiquette, nor a phase of culture—it is life—the quality of sensitive breathing, seeing, hearing, developed to a high true spirituality. Man would value man more. The wonder of and the faith in other human beings would kindle a new social and spiritual life.