Our boasted democracy has resulted in little more than the privilege every living, breathing American has of being rude and brutal to every other, but it is not beyond possibility that sometime as a nation we will sober down into something approximating human civility. Our early revolt against sham civility has, in so far as I can see, resulted in nothing save the abolition of all civility—which is sickening. Life, I am sure, will shame us out of it eventually. We will find we do not get anywhere by it. And I blame it all on the lawlessness of the men at the top. They have set the example which has been most freely copied.
Still, I was glad to be going home.
When the time came the run from London to Folkstone and Dover was pleasant with its fleeting glimpses of the old castle at Rochester and the spires of the cathedral at Canterbury, the English orchards, the slopes dotted with sheep, the nestled chimneys and the occasional quaint, sagging roofs of moss-tinted tiles. The conductor who had secured me a compartment to myself appeared just after we left Folkstone to tell me not to bother about my baggage, saying that I would surely find it all on the dock when I arrived to take the boat. It was exactly as he said, though having come this way I found two transfers necessary. Trust the English to be faithful. It is the one reliable country in which you may travel. At Dover I meditated on how thoroughly my European days were over and when, if ever, I should come again. Life offers so much to see and the human span is so short that it is a question whether it is advisable ever to go twice to the same place—a serious question. If I had my choice, I decided—as I stood and looked at the blue bay of Dover—I would, if I could, spend six months each year in the United States and then choose Paris as my other center and from there fare forth as I pleased.
After an hour’s wait at Dover, the big liner dropped anchor in the roadstead and presently the London passengers were put on board and we were under way. The Harbor was lovely in a fading light—chalk-blue waters, tall whitish cliffs, endless squealing, circling gulls, and a bugle calling from the fort in the city.
* * * * *
Our ship’s captain was a Christian Scientist, believing in the nothingness of matter, the immanence of Spirit or a divine idea, yet he was, as events proved, greatly distressed because of the perverse, undismissable presence and hauntings of mortal thought. He had “beliefs” concerning possible wrecks, fires, explosions—the usual terrors of the deep, and one of the ship’s company (our deck-steward) told me that whenever there was a fog he was always on the bridge, refusing to leave it and that he was nervous and “as cross as hell.” So you can see how his religious belief squared with his chemical intuitions concerning the facts of life. A nice, healthy, brisk, argumentative, contentious individual he was, and very anxious to have the pretty women sit by him at dinner.
The third day we were out news came by wireless that the Titanic had sunk after collision with an iceberg in mid-ocean. The news had been given in confidence to a passenger. And this passenger had “in confidence” told others. It was a terrible piece of news, grim in its suggestion, and when it finally leaked out it sent a chill over all on board. I heard it first at nine o’clock at night. A party of us were seated in the smoking-room, a most comfortable retreat from the terrors of the night and the sea. A damp wind had arisen, bringing with it the dreaded fog. Sometimes I think the card room is sought because it suggests the sea less than any place else on the ship. The great fog-horn began mooing like some vast Brobdingnagian sea-cow wandering on endless watery pastures. The passengers were gathered here now in groups where, played upon by scores of lights, served with drinks and reacted upon, one by the moods of the others, a temperamental combustion took place which served to dispel their gloom. Yet it was not possible entirely to keep one’s mind off the slowing down of the ship, the grim moo of the horn, and the sound of long, swishing breakers outside speaking of the immensity of the sea, its darkness, depth, and terrors. Every now and then, I noticed, some one would rise and go outside to contemplate, no doubt, the gloominess of it all. There is nothing more unpromising to this little lamp, the body, than the dark, foggy waters of a midnight sea.
One of the passengers, a German, came up to our table with a troubled, mysterious air. “I got sumpin’ to tell you, gentlemen,” he said in a stage whisper, bending over us. “You better come outside where the ladies can’t hear.” (There were several in the room.) “I just been talkin’ to the wireless man upstairs.”
We arose and followed him out on deck.
The German faced us, pale and trembling. “Gentlemen,” he said, “the captain’s given orders to keep it a secret until we reach New York. But I got it straight from the wireless man: The Titanic went down last night with nearly all on board. Only eight hundred saved and two thousand drowned. She struck an iceberg off Newfoundland. You, gentlemen, must promise me not to tell the ladies—otherwise I shuttn’t have told you. I promised the man upstairs. It might get him in trouble.”