Back Aa

Love Conquers All

<h1 class="tei tei-head">LI—TROUT-FISHING</h1> I never knew very much about trout-fishing anyway, and I certainly had no inkling that a trout-fisher had to be so deceitful until I read "Trout-Fishing in Brooks," by G. Garrow-Green. The thing is appalling. Evidently the sport is nothing but a constant series of compromises with one's better nature, what with sneaking about pretending to be something that one is not, trying to fool the fish into thinking one thing when just the reverse is true, and in general behaving in an underhanded and tricky manner throughout the day. The very first and evidently the most important exhortation in the book is, "Whatever you do, keep out of sight of the fish." Is that open and above-board? Is it honorable? "Trout invariably lie in running water with their noses pointed against the current, and therefore whatever general chance of concealment there may be rests in fishing from behind them. The moral is that the brook-angler must both walk and fish upstream." It seems as if a lot of trouble might be saved the fisherman, in case he really didn't want to walk upstream but had to get to some point downstream before 6 o'clock, to adopt some disguise which would deceive the fish into thinking that he had no intention of catching them anyway. A pair of blue glasses and a cane would give the effect of the wearer being blind and harmless, and could be thrown aside very quickly when the time came to show one's self in one's true colors to the fish. If there were two anglers they might talk in loud tones about their dislike for fish in any form, and then, when the trout were quite reassured and swimming close to the bank they could suddenly be shot with a pistol. But a little further on comes a suggestion for a much more elaborate bit of subterfuge. The author says that in the early season trout are often engaged with larvae at the bottom and do not show on the surface. It is then a good plan, he says, to sink the flies well, moving in short jerks to imitate nymphs. You can see that imitating a nymph will call for a lot of rehearsing, but I doubt very much if moving in short jerks is the way in which to go about it. I have never actually seen a nymph, though if I had I should not be likely to admit it, and I can think of no possible way in which I could give an adequate illusion of being one myself. Even the most stupid of trout could easily divine that I was masquerading, and then the question would immediately arise in its mind: "If he is not a nymph, then what is his object in going about like that trying to imitate one? He is up to no good, I'll be bound." And crash! away would go the trout before I could put my clothes back on. There is an interesting note on the care and feeding of worms on page 67. One hundred and fifty worms are placed in a tin and allowed to work their way down into packed moss. "A little fresh milk poured in occasionally is sufficient food," writes Mr. Garrow-Green, in the style of Dr. Holt. "So disposed, the worms soon become bright, lively and tough." It is easy to understand why one should want to have bright worms, so long as they don't know that they are bright and try to show off before company, but why deliberately set out to make them tough? Good manners they may not be expected to acquire, but a worm with a cultivated vulgarity sounds intolerable. Imagine 150 very tough worms all crowded together in one tin! "Canaille" is the only word to describe it. I suppose that it is my ignorance of fishing parlance which makes the following sentence a bit hazy: "Much has been written about bringing a fish downstream to help drown it, as no doubt it does; still, this is often impracticable." I can think of nothing more impracticable than trying to drown a fish under any conditions, upstream or down, but I suppose that Mr. Garrow-Green knows what he is talking about. And in at least one of his passages I follow him perfectly. In speaking of the time of day for fly-fishing in the spring he says: "'Carpe diem' is a good watchword when trout are in the humor." At least, I know a good pun when I see one. <hr class="page" /> <h1 class="tei tei-head">LII—"SCOUTING FOR GIRLS"</h1> "Scouting for Girls" is not the kind of book you think it is. The verb "to scout" is intransitive in this case. As a matter of fact, instead of being a volume of advice to men on how to get along with girls, it is full of advice to girls on how to get along without men, that is, within reason, of course. It is issued by the Girl Scouts and is very subtle anti-man propaganda. I can't find that men are mentioned anywhere in the book. It is given over entirely to telling girls how to chop down trees, tie knots in ropes, and things like that. Now, as a man, I am very jealous of my man's prerogative of chopping down trees and tying knots in ropes, and I resent the teaching of young girls to usurp my province in these matters. Any young girl who has taken one lesson in knot-tying will be able to make me appear very silly at it. After two lessons she could tie me hand and foot to a tree and go away with my watch and commutation ticket. And then I would look fine, wouldn't I? Small wonder to me that I hail the Girl Scout movement as a menace and urge its being nipped in the bud as you would nip a viper in the bud. I would not be surprised if there were Russian Soviet money back of it somewhere. A companion volume to "Scouting for Girls" is "Campward, Ho!" a manual for Girl Scout camps. The keynote is sounded on the first page by a quotation from Chaucer, beginning: "When that Aprille with his schowres swoote The drought of March hath perced to the roote, And bathus every veyne in swich licour, Of which vertue engendred is the flour." One can almost hear the girls singing that of an evening as they sit around the campfire tying knots in ropes. It is really an ideal camping song, because even the littlest girls can sing the words without understanding what they mean. But it really lacks the lilt of the "Marching Song" printed further on in the book. This is to be sung to the tune of "Where Do We Go From Here, Boys?" Bear this in mind while humming it to yourself: <h1 class="tei tei-head">MARCHING SONG</h1> Where do we go from here, girls, where do we go from here? Anywhere (our Captain5) leads we'll follow, never fear. The world is full of dandy girls, but wait till we appear— Then! Girl Scouts, Girl Scouts, give us a hearty cheer! A very stirring marching song, without doubt, but what would they do if the leader's name happened to be something like Mary Louise Abercrombie or Elizabeth Van Der Water? They just couldn't have a Captain with such a long name, that's all. And there you have unfair discrimination creeping into your camp right at the start. In "Scouting for Girls" there is some useful information concerning smoke signals. In case you are lost, or want to communicate with your friends who are beyond shouting distance, it is much quicker than telephoning to build a clear, hot fire and cover it with green stuff or rotten wood so that it will send up a solid column of black smoke. By spreading and lifting a blanket over this smudge the column can be cut up into pieces, long or short (this is the way it explains it in the book, but it doesn't sound plausible to me), and by a preconcerted code these can be made to convey tidings. For instance, one steady smoke means "Here is camp." Two steady smokes mean "I am lost. Come and help me." Three smokes in a row mean "Good news!" I suppose that the Pollyanna of the camping party is constantly sending up three smokes in a row on the slightest provocation, and then when the rest of the outfit have raced across country for miles to find out what the good news is she probably shows them, with great enthusiasm, that some fringed gentians are already in blossom or that the flicker's eggs have hatched. Unfortunately, there is no smoke code given for snappy replies, but in the next paragraph it tells how to carry on a conversation with pistol shots. One of these would serve the purpose for repartee. <hr class="page" /> <h1 class="tei tei-head">LIII—HOW TO SELL GOODS</h1> The Retail Merchants' Association ought to buy up all the copies of "Elements of Retail Salesmanship," by Paul Westley Ivey (Macmillan), and not let a single one get into the hands of a customer, for once the buying public reads what is written there the game is up. It tells all about how to sell goods to people, how to appeal to their weaknesses, how to exert subtle influences which will win them over in spite of themselves. Houdini might as well issue a pamphlet giving in detail his methods of escape as for the merchants of this country to let this book remain in circulation. The art of salesmanship is founded, according to Mr. Ivey, on, first, a thorough knowledge of the goods which are to be sold, and second, a knowledge of the customer. By knowing the customer you know what line of argument will most appeal to him. There are several lines in popular use. First is the appeal to the instinct of self-preservation—i.e., social self-preservation. The customer is made to feel that in order to preserve her social standing she must buy the article in question. "She must be made to feel what a disparaged social self would mean to her mental comfort." It is reassuring to know that it is a recognized ruse on the part of the salesman to intimate that unless you buy a particular article you will have to totter through life branded as the arch-piker. I have always taken this attitude of the clerks perfectly seriously. In fact, I have worried quite a bit about it. In the store where I am allowed to buy my clothes it is quite the thing among the salesmen to see which one of them can degrade me most. They intimate that, while they have no legal means of refusing to sell their goods to me, it really would be much more in keeping with things if I were to take the few pennies that I have at my disposal and run around the corner to some little haberdashery for my shirts and ties. Every time I come out from that store I feel like Ethel Barrymore in "Déclassée." Much worse, in fact, for I haven't any good looks to fall back upon. <ANTIMG src="images/image16.png" alt="They intimate that I had better take my few pennies and run 'round the corner to some little haberdashery." class="tei tei-figure" /> They intimate that I had better take my few pennies and run 'round the corner to some little haberdashery. But now that I know the clerks are simply acting all that scorn in an attempt to appeal to my instinct for the preservation of my social self, I can face them without flinching. When that pompous old boy with the sandy mustache who has always looked upon me as a member of the degenerate Juke family tries to tell me that if I don't take the five-dollar cravat he won't be responsible for the way in which decent people will receive me when I go out on the street, I will reach across the counter and playfully pull his own necktie out from his waistcoat and scream, "I know you, you old rascal! You got that stuff from page 68 of 'Elements of Retail Salesmanship' (Macmillan)." Other traits which a salesperson may appeal to in the customer are: Vanity, parental pride, greed, imitation, curiosity and selfishness. One really gets in touch with a lot of nice people in this work and can bring out the very best that is in them. Customers are divided into groups indicative of temperament. There is first the Impulsive or Nervous Customer. She is easily recognized because she walks into the store in "a quick, sometimes jerky manner. Her eyes are keen-looking; her expression is intense, oftentimes appearing strained." She must be approached promptly, according to the book, and what she desires must be quickly ascertained. Since these are the rules for selling to people who enter the store in this manner, it might be well, no matter how lethargic you may be by nature, to assume the appearance of the Impulsive or Nervous Customer as soon as you enter the store, adopting a quick, even jerky manner and making your eyes as keen-looking as possible, with an intense expression, oftentimes appearing strained. Then the clerk will size you up as type No. 1 and will approach you promptly. After she has quickly filled your order you may drop the impulsive pose and assume your natural, slow manner again, whereupon the clerk will doubtless be highly amused at having been so cleverly fooled into giving quick service. The opposite type is known as the Deliberate Customer. She walks slowly and in a dignified manner. Her facial expression is calm and poised. "Gestures are uncommon, but if existing tend to be slow and inconspicuous." She can wait. Then there is the Vacillating or Indecisive Customer, the Confident or Decisive Customer (this one should be treated with subtle flattery and agreement with all her views), The Talkative or Friendly Customer, and the Silent or Indifferent one. All these have their little weaknesses, and the perfect salesperson will learn to know these and play to them. There seems to be only one thing left for the customer to do in order to meet this concerted attack upon his personality. That is, to hire some expert like Mr. Ivey to study the different types of sales men and women and formulate methods of meeting their offensive. Thus, if I am of the type designated as the Vacillating or Indecisive Customer, I ought to know what to do when confronted by a salesman of the Aristocratic, Scornful type, so that I may not be bulldozed into buying something I do not want. If I could only find such a book of instructions I would go tomorrow and order a black cotton engineer's shirt from that sandy-mustached salesman and bawl him out if he raised his eyebrows. But not having the book, I shall go in and, without a murmur, buy a $3 silk shirt for $18 and slink out feeling that if I had been any kind of sport at all I would also have bought that cork helmet in the showcase. <hr class="page" /> <h1 class="tei tei-head">LIV—"YOU!"</h1> In the window of the grocery store to which I used to be sent after a pound of Mocha and Java mixed and a dozen of your best oranges, there was a cardboard figure of a clerk in a white coat pointing his finger at the passers-by. As I remember, he was accusing you of not taking home a bottle of Moxie, and pretty guilty it made you feel too. This man was, I believe, the pioneer in what has since become a great literary movement. He founded the "You, Mr. Business-Man!" school of direct appeal. It is strictly an advertising property and has long been used to sell merchandise to people who never can resist the flattery of being addressed personally. When used as an advertisement it is usually accompanied by an illustration built along the lines of the pioneer grocery-clerk, pointing a virile finger at you from the page of the magazine, and putting the whole thing on a personal basis by addressing you as "You, Mr. Rider-in-the-Open-Cars!" or "You, Mr. Wearer-of-14½-Shirts!" The appeal is instantaneous. In straight reading-matter, bound in book form and sold as literature, this Moxie talk becomes a volume of inspirational sermonizing, and instead of selling cooling drinks or warming applications, it throws dynamic paragraph after dynamic paragraph into the fight for efficiency, concentration, self-confidence and personality on the part of our body politic. A homely virtue such as was taught us at our mother's knee (or across our mother's knees) at the age of four, in a dozen or so simple words, is taken and blown up into a book in which it is stated very impressively in a series of short, snappy sentences, all saying the same thing. Such a book is called, for instance "You," written by Irving R. Allen. "You" takes 275 pages to divulge a secret of success. It would not be fair to Mr. Allen to give it away here after he has spent so much time concealing it. But it might be possible to give some idea of the importance of Mr. Allen's discovery by stating one of my own, somewhat in the manner in which he has stated his. I will give my little contribution to the world's inspiration the title of HEY, YOU! You and I are alone. No, don't try to get away. That door is locked. I won't hurt you—much. What I want to do is make you see yourself. I want you, when you put down this book, to say, "I know myself!" I want you to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and say: "Why, certainly I remember you, Mr. Addington Simms of Seattle, you old Rotary Club dog! How's your merger?" And the only way that you can ever be able to do this is to read this book through. Then read it through again. Then read it through again. Then ring Dougherty's bell and ask for "Chester." Now let's get down to business. I knew a man once who had made a million dollars. If he hadn't been arrested he would have made another million. Do you see what I mean? If not, go back and read that over a second time. It's worth it. I wrote it for you to read. You, do you hear me? You! If you want to know the secret of this man's success, of the success of hundreds of other men just like him, if you want to make his success your success, you must first learn the rule. What is this rule? you may ask. Go ahead and ask it. Very well, since you ask. It is a rule which has kept J.P. Morgan what he is. It is a rule which gives John D. Rockefeller the right to be known as the Baptist man alive. It is a rule which is responsible for the continued existence of every successful man of today. And now I am going to tell it to you. You, the you that you know, the real you, are going to learn the secret. Can you bear it? Here it is: You can't win if you breathe under water. Read that again. Read it backward. It may sound simple to you now. You may say to yourself, "What do you take me for, a baby boy?" Well, you paid good money for this book, didn't you? <hr class="page" /> <h1 class="tei tei-head">LV—THE CATALOGUE SCHOOL</h1> Without wishing in the least to detract from the praise due to Sinclair Lewis for the remarkable accuracy with which he reports details in his "Main Street," it is interesting to speculate on how other books might have read had their authors had Mr. Lewis's flair for minutiae and their publishers enough paper to print the result. For instance, Carol Kennicott, the heroine, whenever she is overtaken by an emotional scene, is given to looking out at the nearest window to hide her feelings, whereupon the author goes to great lengths to describe just exactly what came within her range of vision. Nothing escapes him, even to shreds of excelsior lying on the ground in back of Howland & Gould's grocery store. Let us suppose that Harriet Beecher Stowe had been endowed with Mr. Lewis's gift for reporting and had indulged herself in it to the extent of the following in "Uncle Tom's Cabin:" "Slowly Simon Legree raised his whip-arm to strike the prostrate body of the old negro. As he did so his eye wandered across the plantation to the slaves' quarters which crouched blistering in the sun. Cowed as they were, as only ramshackle buildings can be cowed, they presented their gray boards, each eaten with four or five knot-holes, to the elements in abject submission. The door of one hung loose by a rust-encased hinge, of which only one screw remained on duty, and that by sheer willpower of two or three threads. Legree could not quite make out how many threads there were on the screw, but he guessed, and Simon Legree's guess was nearly always right. On the ground at the threshold lay a banjo G string, curled like a blond snake ready to strike at the reddish, brown inner husk of a nut of some sort which was blowing about within reach. There were also several crumbs of corn-pone, well-done, a shred of tobacco which had fallen from the pipe of some negro slave before the fire had consumed more than its very tip, an old shoe which had, Legree noticed by the maker's name, been bought in Boston in its palmier days, doubtless by a Yankee cousin of one of Uncle Tom's former owners, and an indiscriminate pile of old second editions of a Richmond newspaper, sweet-potato peelings and seeds of unripe watermelons. "Swish! The blow descended on the crouching form of Uncle Tom." Or Sir Walter Scott: "Sadly Rowena turned from her lover's side and looked out over the courtyard of the castle. Beneath her she saw the cobble-stones all scratched and marred with gray bruises from the horses' hoofs, a faded purple ribbon dropped from the mandolin of a minstrel, three slightly imperfect wassails and a trencher with a nick on the rim, all that had not been used of the wild boar at last night's feast, a peach-stone like a wrinkled almond nestling in a sardine tin. Slowly she faced her knight: "'Prithee,' she said." And I am not at all sure that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "Ivanhoe" wouldn't have made better reading if they had lapsed into the photographic at times. Mr. Lewis may overdo it, but I expect to re-read "Main Street" some day, and that is more encouragement than I can hold out to Mrs. Stowe or Sir Walter Scott. <hr class="page" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.