“Bless the children. They are the most convenient excuses in creation. Probably, if it were not for them, you wouldn’t get to the zoological gardens or the aquarium or the fairy play oftener than once a year or so. And as for the circus—but that’s an old story.”
iv
We have not finished, though, with the man’s own account of his relation to his work.
“You can’t use actual people. People aren’t as dramatic in actual life as you want them to be. Of course, you may hear a phrase, or a story—you may talk with a person and get an impression and build up your character from those things. But using an actual person wouldn’t work. Besides, it would be rather mean.
“In writing of a Cape Cod town or village, although I purposely refrain from describing it as any one town in particular, I have tried conscientiously to give the characteristics of Cape Cod towns I am acquainted with. The promontories and inlets and hills and marshes in ‘my’ Cape Cod may not be found where I have located them, but I have tried very hard to make them like those which are on the real Cape. And so with the Cape Codders in my stories. I have never knowingly drawn the exact, recognisable portrait of an individual. I have of course, received hundreds of letters from readers who inform me, in strict confidence, that they know the original of ‘Cap’n ——’ and recognised him at once. Nevertheless they are wrong. I have endeavoured always to be true to type, and in writing of the old deep-sea captain, the coasting skipper, the longshoreman or the people of the Cape villages, I have done my best to portray each as I have seen and known specimens of his or her kind. And in attempting to transcribe the habit of language I have made it a rule never to use an expression or idiom I have not heard used by a native of the old colony.”
The differentiation of the various types of seaman has been carefully made by Mr. Lincoln, and is perhaps valuable to a full appreciation of his fiction.
“The type of sea captain who figures in my stories has not necessarily an accurately corresponding type in my acquaintance. Going back to the Cape after having lived in New York and Boston, I was able to get varying angles on the lives of the men and women I had known in my childhood. The old sea captains that I remembered best as a child were of more than one character, classified according to their work. One was the dignified old man who had travelled to some far-away corner of the earth and returned prosperous, to spend the rest of his days as an autocrat among his own people. He had met strange peoples, he had been trusted with a ship, and, as in the days I write of there were no instantaneous means of talking across the oceans, he was shrewd at bargaining and, being one of the owners of the ship, he lost no chance to bring home a cargo that would bring rich returns. In other words, he was a shrewd trader as well as a sailing master. The same dignified bearing that he used in his trade followed him on land, and, though jovial in manner, he was developed in dignity and character.
“The other type of captain was more popular with the youngsters. He may have been as shrewd, and possibly made as much money, but he was filled with a greater sense of humour, and took life as a pastime. Men of this description would gather round the stove and tell wonderful stories, though all sea captains talk shop when they get together.
“Then too there were what are termed the ‘long-shore captains.’ These were mostly engaged in fishing, or in trading with coast towns and cities. They were necessarily more limited in their views, for they spent more time ashore, often working a good-sized garden, fishing when the spirit moved, and running a schooner to New York or Boston if the chance came.
“Of all the sea-captains, however, those that I knew best were those who were actually sailing in the 1870’s and 1880’s, and who were largely engaged in carrying oranges and lemons from Mediterranean ports. These men were really the last of our sailing captains. I have one friend in particular who was in the fruit trade, and his stories of how they crowded sail and took every risk to bring in their cargoes are many and thrilling. Fruit, of course, is highly perishable, and while it might be a valuable cargo one day, a week later it would be worthless; therefore the sea races and adventures.”