Naturally, one is speaking of the children of the wealthy, or at least well off; among the children of the working classes, whatever their grade of intelligence or education, we find the same sturdy independence and ability that characterizes their mothers and fathers. But all American children are sophisticated—one glance at a daily newspaper is enough to make them so; and they live in an atmosphere of worldly wisdom and knowledge of the sordid, which those of us who believe that childhood should be ingenuous and gay find rather sad. The little pitchers, in this case, have not only big ears but eyes and wits sharp to perceive the sorry things they would naturally learn soon enough.
They are allowed to wander, unshielded, among the perplexing mixed motives, the standards in disarray, of this theatre where life in its myriad relations is still in adjustment. Like small troubled gnomes seeking light, they flit across the hazardous stage; where their more experienced leaders have yet to extricate order out of a sea of sentimental hypocrisies, inflated ideals, and makeshift laws.
American men and women have been at great pains to construct “a world not better than the world it curtains, only foolisher.” They have obstinately refused to admit one another as they actually are—which, after all, is a remarkably fine race of beings; preferring the pretty flimsiness of a house of cards of their own making to the indestructible mansion of humanity. When their passion for inventing shall be converted into an equally ardent passion for reflecting—as it surely will be—they will see their mistake in a trice; and, from that time, they are destined to be not a collection of finely tuned nervous organisms, but a splendid race of thinking creatures.
II
THE CURTAIN RISES
(Paris)
I
ON THE GREAT ARTISTE
Out of the turmoil and struggling confusion of rehearsal, to gaze on the finished performance of the great artiste! For in Paris we are before the curtain, not behind it; and few foreigners, though they may adopt the city for their own, and lovingly study it for many years, are granted more than an occasional rare glimpse of its personality without the stage between. From that safe distance, Paris coquets with you, rails at you, laughs and weeps for you; but first she has handed you a programme, which informs you that she does the same for all the world, at a certain hour each day, and for a fixed price. And if ever in the ardour of your admiration you show signs of forgetting, of seeking her personal favour by a rash gesture or smile, she points you imperiously to the barricade of the footlights—or vanishes completely, in the haughtiness of her ire.
Therefore, the tourist will tell you, Paris is not satisfactory. Because to his greedy curiosity she does not open her soul as she does the gates of her art treasures and museums, he pronounces her shallow, mercenary, heartless, even wicked. As her frankness in some things is foreign to his hypocrisy, as her complex unmorality resists his facile analysis, he grasps what he can of her; and goes away annoyed. Really to know Paris is to offer in advance a store of tolerance for her inconsistencies, patience for her whims, and the sincere desire to learn finally to see behind her mask—not to snatch it rudely from her face.
But this cannot be done in the curt fortnight which generally limits the casual visitor’s acquaintance. Months and years must be spent, if true knowledge of the City of Light is to be won. We can only, in our brief survey of its more significant phases, indicate a guide to further study of a place and people well worth a wider scrutiny.
The most prejudiced will not deny that Paris is beautiful; or that there is about her streets and broad, tree-lined avenues a graciousness at once dignified and gay. Stand, as the ordinary tourist does on his first day, in the flowering square before the Louvre; in the foreground are the fountains and bright tulip-bordered paths of the Tuileries—here a glint of gold, there a soft flash of marble statuary, shining through the trees; in the centre the round lake where the children sail their boats. Beyond spreads the wide sweep of the Place de la Concorde, with its obelisk of terrible significance, its larger fountains throwing brilliant jets of spray; and then the trailing, upward vista of the Champs Elysées to the great triumphal Arch: yes, even to the most indifferent, Paris is beautiful.
To the subtler of appreciation, she is more than beautiful: she is impressive. For behind the studied elegance of architecture, the elaborate simplicity of gardens, the carefully lavish use of sculpture and delicate spray, is visible the imagination of a race of passionate creators—the imagination, throughout, of the great artist. One meets it at every turn and corner, down dim passageways, up steep hills, across bridges, along sinuous quays: the masterhand and its “infinite capacity for taking pains.” And so marvellously do its manifestations of many periods through many ages combine to enhance one another that one is convinced that the genius of Paris has been perennial; that St. Genevieve, her godmother, bestowed it as an immortal gift when the city was born.