Leaf From My Samoan Notebook.
(A. D. 2297.)

In that age (siÈcle XIX, ad finem) great attention was given on the continent of Am-ri-ka to increased speed in locomotion. Men and women went darting about like the big yellow gnats that we see at sundown on the western coast of our island when the bay is hazy. The whole history of that century in both Am-ri-ka and Yoo-rup might well be written around the fact of transit, for transit was the spinal cord of the whole social, civil, and political order. Man-life then seemed to oscillate more rapidly than ever before, as if in sympathy with the vibration of the universal ether.

The struggle for the increase of speed began in the early part of the century referred to—about 1822. Scarcely had the wars of Na-Bu-Leon subsided when the matter of getting over the earth’s surface at a greater velocity was taken up as eagerly as if life consisted in going quickly to a certain point. Men, it would appear, had not yet learned that the principal aim of this existence is the going, and not the getting there. Then it was that the steam En-jo-in was invented. The Bah-lune had been frequently tried, but always with ludicrous or fatal results. A young man by the name of Dee Green once essayed this method in Am-ri-ka, with a most ridiculous catastrophe. A poem was written about the affair beginning thus—

An aspiring genius was Dee Green.

For more than half a century locomotion by steam prevailed in Am-ri-ka, though it did not satisfy the demand for swiftness. When this method no longer sufficed, several expedients were found to avoid going anywhere. It was observed that the necessity of going depended upon the limitation of the human voice; that is, of hearing vocal utterances. The voices of human beings could not then be heard beyond a certain limit. To hear the voice of a man from Am-ri-ka to Ing-land was then thought to be impossible. The possessors of voices, therefore, had in that age to get together before they could communicate. True, there were some men upon whom this necessity did not rest, for they could be heard at a great distance. It might be noted, however, that this kind, called Homo politicus, had so little sense that nobody cared to hear them, so that their success in vociferation amounted to nothing.

All the people of Am-ri-ka who were civilized spoke in a low tone, and any who cared to communicate must seek each other’s presence. This had been the reason for the old invention of E-pistol-ary correspondence. This method, however, was not satisfactory, since it required much time to say only a little, and since what was said in this manner was found so wide of the mark as to produce disastrous results. Society was, on this account, frequently rent with lawsuits, having no better foundation than a bundle of Let-yers.

To avoid this trouble another invention, called the Far-talker (or Tel-ef-oan), was made; and by means of this conceit the people of Am-ri-ka could speak to one another many miles apart. The Far-talker was a remarkable sort of invention by which one merchant, by stretching a copper thread across the country to the ear of another merchant, could talk to him through the wire. The other merchant could reverse and talk back! Sometimes a young woman would tiptoe up to the box where the wire ended and say the most absurd things to her favorite fop down-town; this was often overheard. People had not yet learned the method of understanding each other’s thoughts without the ridiculous contrivance of speech, written scratches, wires, and Fo-ny-grafs.

It was at this time that men, in their effort to carry themselves from place to place, seem to have taken the first hints from nature. It was remembered that between swimming and flying, and between flying and walking, certain forms of locomotion, quite rapid withal, are used by our poor relatives on land and sea. Thus the flying-fish rises from the water and shoots, quite parabolically, for some distance through the air. The genus Cheiroptera also gives a hint of progress by means of wings that are not made of feathers. The flying lemur, nearly akin to Homo bifurcans, shows how one may rise and go by a sort of aËrial progress along the ground.

Out of these hints the men of Am-ri-ka, at the epoch of which we speak, sought inventions by means of which they might keep close to the ground for safety, but otherwise fly; for the age was very fast! Under these conditions some Unknown Man invented what was called the By-sigh-kel. It was a sort of flat-sided, rotary ground-skimmer, very thin and notorious. It came coincidently with another invention called the Trol-lee. The latter was an electrical wagon for general travel in cities and suburbs, while the By-sigh-kel was a personal carriage for one or possibly two. The passenger in this case had to start his machine and then jump on. The propulsion was effected by a pump-like action of the legs, very tiresome and elegant. The passenger generally leaned forward in a position strongly suggestive of the favorite attitude of his arboreal ancestors. It was the peculiarity of the Trol-lee that it made a sort of humming roar as it went that sounded like a hundred prisoners groaning in unison; but the By-sigh-kel made no noise in going except in collisions and wrecks. The latter were so frequent that a whole cycle of restorative arts had to be undertaken of which the principal was dentistry. At the close of the century there were few front teeth remaining—except artificials.

Many accounts of the Age of the By-sigh-kel and Trol-lee have been preserved among the old records of Am-ri-ka, and traditions of it are found in the antiquarian papers of other countries. We have seen pictorial representations made by Fo-to-graf-ure of scenes from the age referred to. The streets of extinct cities are found pictured in this way. There was an instrument called the Cow-dack which was used in taking pictures in an instantaneous manner, so that the scene would look like life.

A busy street, thus pictured, in that time, shows many Trol-lees rushing by, filled with merry people. Along the side-ways scores of passengers are seen, mounted on their ‘Sigh-kels, going in divers directions at full speed. The passengers present many aspects; for riding the ‘Sigh-kel was an art which had to be acquired; and by some this could not be done—at least not gracefully done. Many tried, but few were chosen. Two classes of people suffered much in this particular, namely, the very fat and the very bony. Those whom nature had favored in form and feature, and who had acquired the art of sitting upright, look well enough in these old pictures of a past age. But the clumsy and obese, the slender and angular people may well be laughed at even through the shadowy retrospect of four centuries.

One of the ‘Sigh-kel machines was made double; and an old cartoon which is now before me gives to this kind the name of Tan-doom. On this men and women frequently rode together, the woman going before, for that was the age in which the woman, becoming new, showed her newness by being forward.

Nor may we leave these reminiscences of a bygone age without reflecting upon the absurdities of our ancestors, who had not yet imagined the ease and excellence of our own method of locomotion by skimming at will the surface of the earth. The facile beauty and natural art with which we now rise from the ground and propel ourselves by our own thought and wish to any distance—thus vindicating our superiority to all other creatures in our method of excursion—are facts so obvious and ever-present that we fail to reflect upon the impediments and hardships of the people of Am-ri-ka and indeed of the whole world in the nineteenth century….

Thinking on these things I can but imagine that I have myself seen them in some previous epoch of my existence. The facts which I have recorded appear dimly, as if in memory of what I once beheld; but the vision of it is so obscure that I still doubt whether it be dream or reality. I have long imagined that we retain from one epoch of our existence to the next a vague recollection of our experiences in the remote ages of the past. I sometimes think that it is not impossible that I myself, in some forgotten avatar, used to sit alone at the window of my office, looking into the street of one of the old towns of Am-ri-ka where the Trol-lees were going one way and the By-sigh-kels the other way, crossing and darting hither and yon, according to the wills of the riders; but the vision is so dim that it looks like the fictions of sleep.

Vita Longa.

The question is not how long this bodily life may last, or how long the mind, so conditioned, can endure. It is not even how long the mind may continue to produce; for the mind, like a poor, half-exhausted field, urged with rain and fertilizers, may produce only potatoes, mullen, and cockle. The real question—the deep-down essence of it—is how long the mind, or soul, may retain the enthusiasm and passionate power of creation. That is the only true test of longevity; and when that ceases there is nothing left. The real duration of man-life is measured only by the persistency of creative power.

Longfellow, standing in the old pulpit, on the fiftieth anniversary of his class at Bowdoin, and saying to those who would introduce him, “I wish the desk were large enough to conceal me all,” makes a beautiful section of this theme by citing some of the most inspiring instances of the long life of the soul:

Measured by this test of creative power and its persistency, how variable is the duration of human life! Sometimes the creative power appears in early youth; but when that happens there is generally an early surcease. Sometimes the power comes late and remains long. Sometimes it flashes forth in the early morning and remains in the after twilight. Estimated by years this productive power (which goes by the name of genius) sometimes reaches only to a few score moons. Sometimes it reaches to a score of years. Sometimes, though rarely, it extends to three-score years or more.

Thomas Chatterton went to a suicide’s grave in Potter’s Field when he was only seventeen years, nine months, and four days of age. I know of no other case of so great precocity; it is beyond belief. His mind had been productive for about three years. Byron’s productive period covered sixteen years—no more. Pope began at twelve and ended at fifty-six.

In our own age, Tennyson has done well. Making an early effort to begin, he, like Dryden, did not really reach the creative epoch until he was fully thirty. His creative period covers about fifty-nine years. It extends from “A Dream of Fair Women,” in 1833, to “Crossing the Bar,” in 1892.

The best example, however, in the history of the human mind, is that of William Cullen Bryant; that is, Bryant has real creations that lie further apart in time than can be paralleled, so far as I know, in the case of any other of the sons of men. The date of “Thanatopsis” is not precisely known. It belongs, however, to the years 1812-13. Bryant was then eighteen—in his nineteenth year. Add to 1812 sixty-four years and we have 1876, the date of the publication of the “Flood of Years.” The two poems in question lie apart in production by the space of fully three-score and four years. It is a marvel! And why not?

why should not life, productive life, enthusiastic fruitful life, be extended until its last acts of creation, shot through with the sunshine of experience and wisdom, shall flash in great bars of haze and glory over the landscape of the twilight days?

Kaboto.