The Honorable Peter Stirling | Page 2

pre-empt the pause as
to articulate the better, Mr. Pierce spoke:
"That modern times are less romantic and interesting than bygone
centuries is a fallacy. From time immemorial, love and the battle
between evil and good are the two things which have given the world
romance and interest. Every story, whether we find it in the myths of
the East, the folklore of Europe, the poems of the Troubadours, or in
our newspaper of this morning, is based on one or the other of these

factors, or on both combined. Now it is a truism that love never played
so important a part as now in shaping the destinies of men and women,
for this is the only century in which it has obtained even a partial
divorce from worldly and parental influences. Moreover the great battle
of society, to crush wrong and elevate right, was never before so
bravely fought, on so many fields, by so many people as to-day. But
because our lovers and heroes no longer brag to the world of their
doings; no longer stand in the moonlight, and sing of their 'dering does,'
the world assumes that the days of tourneys and guitars were the only
days of true love and noble deeds. Even our professed writers of
romance join in the cry. 'Draw life as it is,' they say. 'We find nothing
in it but mediocrity, selfishness, and money-loving.' By all means let us
have truth in our novels, but there is truth and truth. Most of New
York's firemen presumably sat down at noon to-day to a dinner of
corned-beef and cabbage. But perhaps one of them at the same moment
was fighting his way through smoke and flame, to save life at the risk
of his own. Boiled dinner and burned firemen are equally true. Are they
equally worthy of description? What would the age of chivalry be, if
the chronicles had recorded only the brutality, filthiness and coarseness
of their contemporaries? The wearing of underclothing unwashed till it
fell to pieces; the utter lack of soap; the eating with fingers; the
drunkenness and foul-mouthedness that drove women from the table at
a certain point, and so inaugurated the custom, now continued merely
as an excuse for a cigar? Some one said once that a man finds in a great
city just the qualities he takes to it. That's true of romance as well.
Modern novelists don't find beauty and nobility in life, because they
don't look for them. They predicate from their inner souls that the
world is 'cheap and nasty' and that is what they find it to be. There is
more true romance in a New York tenement than there ever was in a
baron's tower--braver battles, truer love, nobler sacrifices. Romance is
all about us, but we must have eyes for it. You are young people, with
your lives before you. Let me give you a little advice. As you go
through life look for the fine things--not for the despicable. It won't
make you any richer. It won't make you famous. It won't better you in a
worldly way. But it will make your lives happier, for by the time you
are my age, you'll love humanity, and look upon the world and call it
good. And you will have found romance enough to satisfy all longings

for mediæval times."
"But, dear, one cannot imagine some people ever finding anything
romantic in life," said a voice, which, had it been translated into words
would have said, "I know you are right, of course, and you will
convince me at once, but in my present state of unenlightenment it
seems to me that--" the voice, already low, became lower. "Now"--a
moment's hesitation--"there is--Peter Stirling."
"Exactly," said Mr. Pierce. "That is a very case in point, and proves just
what I've been saying. Peter is like the novelists of whom I've been
talking. I don't suppose we ought to blame him for it. What can you
expect of a son of a mill-foreman, who lives the first sixteen years of
his life in a mill-village? If his hereditary tendencies gave him a chance,
such an experience would end it. If one lives in the country, one may
get fine thoughts by contact with Nature. In great cities one is
developed and stimulated by art, music, literature, and contact with
clever people. But a mill-village is one vast expanse of mediocrity and
prosaicness, and it would take a bigger nature than Peter's to recognize
the beautiful in such a life. In truth, he is as limited, as exact, and as
unimaginative as the machines of his own village. Peter has no
romance in him; hence he will never find it, nor increase it in this world.
This very case only proves my