Another reason for this large utterance is that in a new country the ordinary man identifies himself with his community in a way impossible to any but very great magnates in an old civilization. He feels very much as did the kings and earls he has read about. How proudly on the Shakespearean stage a great noble will speak of himself as Norfolk or Northumberland! It is as if his personality had been multiplied by so many square miles. He is no longer a mere individual,—he is a whole county.
An American may have much the same sense of territorial aggrandizement by identifying himself with a promising community in its first stage of growth. He is not a unit lost in a multitude. His town has a fine name and a glorious future. Some day these glories may be divided among thousands, now they are his own. He is proud of the town, and the pride is more satisfying because he is it.
I once camped for a whole month in the city of Naples on the shores of the Pacific. I knew it was a city, for a huge sign announced the fact to every one who passed by the beautiful, secluded spot. Unlike some of the boom towns of that period, Naples had an inhabitant, whom I had occasion frequently to meet. When I addressed him, it was hard for me to use his surname, as I would with a common man. For to me he was Naples. It would have seemed appropriate for him to speak in blank verse.
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There are those who look upon the Western delight in the idea of bigness as an evidence of vulgarity of sentiment and of the lack of idealism. They have a scorn of those who habitually think of quantity rather than of quality. But the man of fastidious taste should not be allowed to have it all his own way. One poet may be inspired by “the murmur of a hidden brook in the leafy month of June.” But another may prefer to stand on the shore of the ocean and feel its immensity. He is tremendously impressed by its size. It is a big thing. But the ocean is as poetical as the brook, though in its own huge way.
There are some things wherein quality is the first consideration. They are the luxuries of life. But when we come to the prime necessities, the first question is in regard to the adequacy of the supply. When a sentimental young lady was seated at dinner next to a great poet, she waited, awestruck, for him to give utterance to a fine thought. The only gem he vouchsafed was, “How do you like your mutton? I like mine in hunks.” The poet was a man of sound sense. There is one law for poetry and another for mutton. Poetry is precious, and a little goes a long way; we can get on without any but the best. But mutton should be served more generously.
It is the glory of the West that it treats what elsewhere are the luxuries of the few as the necessities of the many. It dispenses even “the higher education” not in dainty morsels, but in hunks.
Old Mrs. Means, in “The Hoosier Schoolmaster,” formulated the wisdom of the pioneer. “You see, this ’ere bottom land was all Congress land in them there days and sold for a dollar and a quarter, and I says to my old man, ‘Jack,’ says I, ‘do you git a plenty while you’re gittin’. Git a plenty while you’re gittin’,’ says I, ‘for ’twont be no cheaper than ’tis now;’ and it haint, and I knowed ’twouldn’t.”
Translate Mrs. Means’s shrewd maxim into the terms of idealism, and you have the characteristic contribution of the West. The old prudential maxims, which were true enough in a finished civilization, may well be disregarded by those who face a great new opportunity. They can well afford to preëmpt more territory than they can at present cultivate. When one’s aims are selfish, the desire to get a plenty is mere greed, but in the altruist it rises into “the enthusiasm for humanity.” It is the ambition to supply the wants of men no longer in niggardly fashion, but in full measure.
In two directions the expectation of moral amplitude in things American is fulfilled,—in Education and in Charity. Here we feel that the people have been aroused to the need of making plentiful provision, not only for immediate necessities, but for future growth. Along these lines we think and plan nationally.