Max Nordau, like Shakespeare, absorbs humanity as
a whole. Tolstoy considers the Bible the most
dramatic work ever written, and turns this knowledge
of the world’s demand for religion to theatrical
account. Tolstoy is outwardly a Christian, Nordau
outwardly a pagan. Tolstoy openly acknowledges
God, but exemplifies the ideas of man, while Max Nordau’s
private life embodies the noble teachings of the Christ
whom he denies.
It was not until months afterward, we were back in
London in fact, when Jimmie’s opinion of Tolstoy
seemed to have crystallised. He came to me one
morning and said:
“I’ve read everything, since we left Moscow,
that Tolstoy has written. Now you know I don’t
pretend to know anything about literary style and
all that rot that you’re so keen about, but I
do know something about human nature, and I do know
a grand-stand play when I see one. Now Tolstoy
is a genius, there’s no gainsaying that, but
it’s all covered up and smothered in that religious
rubbish that he has caught the ear of the world with.
If you want to be admired while you are alive, write
a religious novel and let the hoi polloi snivel over
you and give you gold dollars while you can enjoy
’em and spend ’em. That’s where
Tolstoy is a fox. So is Mrs. Humphrey Ward.
She’s a fox, too. They are getting all
the fun now. But it’s all gallery
play with both of ’em.”
I said nothing, and he smoked in silence for a moment.
Then he added:
“But I say, what a ripper Tolstoy could
write if he’d just cut loose from religion for
a minute and write a novel that didn’t have any
damned purpose in it!”
Verily, Jimmie is no fool.
SHOPPING EXPERIENCES
In going to Europe timid persons often cover their
real design by claiming the intention of taking German
baths, of “doing” Switzerland, or of learning
languages. But everybody knows that the real reason
why most women go abroad is to shop. What cathedral
can bring such a look of rapture to a woman’s
face as New Bond Street or what scenery such ecstasy
as the Rue de la Paix?
Therefore, as I believe my lot in shopping to be the
common lot of all, let me tell my tale, so that to
all who have suffered the same agonies and delights
this may come as a personal reminiscence of their own,
while to you who have Europe yet to view for that blissful
first time, which is the best of all, this is what
you will go through.
When I first went to Europe I had all of the average
American woman’s timidity about asserting herself
in the face of a shopgirl or salesman. Many years
of shopping in America had thoroughly broken a spirit
which was once proud. I therefore suffered unnecessary
annoyance during my first shopping in London, because
I was overwhelmingly polite and affable to the man
behind the counter. I said “please,”
and “If you don’t mind,” and “I
would like to see,” instead of using the martial
command of the ordinary Englishwoman, who marches up
to the show-case in flat-heeled boots and says in
a tone of an officer ordering “Shoulder arms,”
“Show me your gauze fans!” I used to listen
to them standing next me at a counter, momentarily
expecting to see them knocked down by the indignant
salesman and carried to a hospital in an ambulance.
