He searched the garden through and through,
And called “Hi Adam! where are you?”
But Mister Adam, he,
Clum up a tree.
There is something in this graphic narrative which appears to tickle my young cavalier’s fancy immensely, for whenever he says “Mister Adam, he, Clum up a tree,” he opens his big blue eyes very widely, claps his tiny hands very loudly, and gives vent to ecstatic shrieks of laughter. It is quite evident that he entirely understands and appreciates Adam’s position. Young as he is, he has the instinctive knowledge within him that when the time comes, he will likewise adopt the “Clum up a tree” policy. For Adam is the same Adam still, and nothing will ever change him. And when things are getting rather “mixed” in his career, and the forbidden fruit he has so readily devoured turns out to be rather more sour and tasteless than he had anticipated,—when his Garden of Eden is being searched through and through for the causes of the folly and disobedience which have devastated its original fairness, the same old story may be said of him—“Mister Adam, he, Clum up a tree.” Perhaps if he only climbed a tree one might excuse him,—but unfortunately he talks while climbing,—talks as though he were an old babbling grandam instead of a lord of creation,—and grandam-like puts the blame on somebody else. He says—“The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat.” Coward Adam! Observe how he at once transfers the fault of his own lack of will and purpose to the weaker, more credulous, more loving and trusting partner;—how he leaves her defenceless to brave the wrath which he himself dreads,—and how he never for one half second dreams of admitting himself to be the least in the wrong! But there is always one great satisfaction to be derived from the perusal of the strange old Eden story, and this is that “Mister Sarpint” was of the male gender. Scripture leaves no room for doubt on this point. It says: “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman——” So that a “he” tempted a woman, before “she” ever tempted a “he.” Women should be duly thankful for the sex of “Mister Sarpint,” and should also bear in mind that this particular “he” was “more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.” On many an occasion it will be found a salutary and useful fact to remember.
Once upon a time, so we are told, there was an Age of Chivalry. The word “chivalry” is stated in the dictionary to be derived from the French “cheval” a horse, and “chivalrous” men were, in the literal meaning of the term, merely men who rode about on horseback. But chivalry has somehow come to imply respect, devotion, and reverence for women. The “chivalrous” knight is supposed to have gone all over the world, wearing the glove or the ribbon of his “ladye faire,” in his helmet, and challenging to single combat every other knight that dared to question the supremacy of her beauty and virtue. I confess at once that I do not believe in him. If he ever existed he must have been a most unnatural and abnormal product of humanity, as unlike his first progenitor Adam as he could well be. For even in the “Round Table” romances one finds an entire lack of chivalry in the so-called chivalrous knights of King Arthur. Their moral principles left much to be desired, and the conduct of Sir Meliagraunce who betrayed the loves of Lancelot and the Queen was merely that of a common sneak. Coward Adam spoke in him, as in many of the Arthurian heroes,—and that they were more “chivalrous” than the modern male gossips who jeer away a woman’s name and honour in their smoking and gaming rooms, is a legend which like that of the Tree of Good and Evil itself, requires stronger confirmation than history as yet witnesseth.
Coward Adam, taking him as he appears in the present day, has lately shown himself off in various odd phases and lamentable positions. During the South African War he came out strong in some of our generals, who put the blame of certain military mishaps on one another like quarrelsome children, thereby losing dignity and offering a most humiliating spectacle to the amazed British public. Coward Adam’s policy, after making a blunder, is to adopt any lie, rather than say frankly and boldly—“I did it!” He will eat dirt by the bushel in preference to the nobler starvation act of singly facing his foes. He is just now exhibiting himself to his usual advantage in the British Parliament, while the nation looks on, waiting for the inevitable finale of his various hesitations and inefficiencies—the “Mister Adam, he, Clum up a tree.” For in most matters of social, political, and moral progress, the great difficulty is to obtain an upright, downright, honest and impartial opinion from any leading public man. The nation may be drifting devilwards, but statesmen are judged to be more statesmanlike, if they hold their tongues and watch it go. They must not speak the truth. It would offend so many people. It would upset so many interests. It would create a panic on the Stock Exchange. It would throw Wall Street into hysterics. The world’s vast public, composed of thinking, working, and more or less educated and intelligent people, may and do crave for a bold utterance, a truth openly enunciated and bravely maintained, but to the weavers of political intrigue and the self-seeking schemers in Governmental departments, the public is considered merely as a Big Child, to be soothed with lollipop phrases and tickled by rattle promises. If the Big Child cries and screams because it is hungry, they chirp to it about Fair Trade,—if it complains that its ministers of religion are trying to make it say its prayers backwards, they promise a full “enquiry into recent abuses in the Church.” But fine words butter no parsnips. Coward Adam always climbs up a tree as quickly as he can when instead of fine words, fine deeds are demanded. Physical feats of skill, physical gymnastics of all kinds he excels in, but a moral difficulty always places him as it did in the Garden of Eden, in what he would conventionally term “an awkward position.”
“Never kiss and tell” is I believe an “unwritten law of chivalry.” This law, so I understand, Coward Adam does sometimes manage to obey, albeit reluctantly. Because he would like to tell,—he would very much like to tell,—if—if the story of the kiss did not involve himself in the telling! But at this juncture “the unwritten laws of chivalry” step in and he is saved. And chivalry is the tree up which he climbs, chattering to himself the usual formula—“The woman whom thou gavest to be with me,”—etcetera, etcetera. Alas, poor woman! She has heard him saying this ever since she, in an unselfish desire to share her food with him, gave him the forbidden apple. No doubt she offered him its rosiest and ripest side! She always does,—at first. Not afterwards! As soon as he turns traitor and runs up a tree, she takes to pelting him, metaphorically speaking, with cocoa-nuts. This is quite natural on her part. She had thought him a man,—and when he suddenly changes into a monkey, she doesn’t understand it. To this cause may possibly be attributed some of the ructions which occasionally jar the harmonious estate of matrimony.
Coward Adam does very well in America. He sees his position there quite plainly. He knows that if he climbs his tree too often, hundreds of feminine hands will pull him down. So he resigns himself to the inevitable. He is not slow to repeat the customary whine—“The woman whom thou gavest me”—but he says it quietly to himself between whiles. Because he knows that she knows all his share in the mischief! So he digs and delves, and finds gold and silver and limitless oil wherewith to turn into millions of dollars for her pleasure; he packs pork, lays railway tracks, starts companies, organizes “combines”—and strains every nerve and sinew to “do” every other Adam save himself in his own particular line of business, so that “the woman” (or may we say the women?) “whom thou gavest” may be clothed in Paris model gowns, and wear jewels out-rivalling in size and lustre those of all the kings and queens that ever made their sad and stately progress through history. Indeed, Coward Adam, in the position he occupies as a free citizen of that mighty Republic over which the wild eagle screams exultingly, looks a little bit like a beaten animal. But he bears his beating well, and is quite pleasant about it. In regard to “the woman whom thou gavest me” he is nearer the imaginary code of “chivalry” than his European brother. If the original Adam had learned the ways of a modern American gentleman of good education and fine manners, one can quite imagine him saying—“The woman whom thou gavest to be with me generously offered me a share of the apple, and I did eat. But the Serpent whom thou didst permit to tell lies to my amiable partner concerning this special kind of fruit, was chiefly to blame.”