His habit of repeating a word with emphasis carried with it the feeling that he had taken it under advisement and found his original conclusion more than right. As he pedaled he talked with the expansive geniality of a perfect host, filling in any short gaps by humming, "It's me, oh oh Lord, it's me oh Lord, standin' in the need of prayer." The only thing he seemed not to be in need of was breath.

We were rolling down a street of Fifth Avenue shops, now closed and idle-smart shops where the great and the near great had been accoutred, booted and spurred on to greater activities. They stood now a futile and useless lot-plows left to rust in a deserted field, the crop made and garnered. Strangely enough I thought of a camp I had seen far up in the Rockies where tungsten had once been mined. There was no longer a paying market and the place had been forgot. It was the same stillness: there, the wind wandered lonely through the rocks, here from palm to palm-a deserted camp, a last year's nest.

"Shuah gone," my charioteer echoed to my unspoken thought. "Shuah are, all 'cept the cameran man. Was you thinkin' of havin' yo' picture took to send back to yo' folks?"

I disclaimed any such ambition and we moved on, turning into a long avenue of palms standing sentinel over Lake Worth whose waters

lapping lazily in the sunlight lull one to sleep. A pebble dislodged by my chair rattled sharply in the deep quiet.

"Kind of still lak roun' heah now,' he observed, having with a negro's keen intuition recognized my feeling, "but Lawd, Ma'am, you oughter see old Palm Beach when she's at herself. Bigges' folks in the country comes down ouah way. Yas'm, this heah," he waved his hand airily up the avenue of Spanish villas, “this heah is the home of the rich majority, the rich majority." He rolled the words as though loath to give them up. I wondered where he had heard them linked together.

"Well, they don't seem to spend much time at home," I observed hard-heartedly, and immediately repented-my Palm Beach host was so obviously disconcerted.

"No'm," he agreed, "that's so, they don', but Ah don' hold it against 'em; they ain't jess 'sponsible. They're that res'less in the blood you wouldn't believe. Allus pullin' up their roots and plantin' theirselves som❜ers else. Ain't evah down long ernough to start no tap root. Jes' lak one of these heah palm-trees-lots of li'l roots but none of 'em don' run deep. There's an old lady, kinder deef she is, as lives over heah on yo' right, Ma'am; Ah'm most shuah she'd admire to stay on, but-" He shook his head soberly; evidently it was a hopeless admiration.

its friendly arms water for a thirsty wayfarer, past an ancient baniantree leaning heavily like an old man on his walking canes.

"These heah places," my cicerone observed, puffing a little as we wheeled up the hill, ❝is to my notion about the bes'. They ain't so big and they ain't so small. They's-hi, heah that bird!" He stopped suddenly, pointing to the low branches of a tree. "Heah that bird! That's the same mockin'-bird as had a nest over to Miss Anthony Biddle's place last year. It shuah is. Jes' watch him talk back."

And to my amazement, my guide threw back his head and gave the clear perfect call of a mocking-bird. The answer from the tree was a wild sweet gush of song.

"Ah was most shuah it was him," he chuckled, "others roun' heah won't talk on cold air, got to warm 'em up saphaids! This li'l feller comes clippin' right back at yer.'

"Have you been here many seasons?" I asked as we started on.

"Seasons! Lawd, Ma'am, Ah don' count myself by seasons. Ah lives heah. Ah ain't one to trapes eround. Ah went up No'th one time with er young genelman as wanted me to fish roun' with him, but Ah 's glad to get home-Ah sutn'ly was. No'm Ah wasn't to say homesick, but some of my color-well, Ah says to myself, 'Rufe, you ain't got no bisness messin' eround up heah with these uppity

niggers whut ain't got no raisin'; you better git erlong home.' No, Ma'am, Ah ain't pinin' to trabel and that's a fac'. It's too promulgatin' a life for Rufus." He eyed me quizzically, and added, "Some folks makes they life hahd, awful hahd. Me-Ah wears this world lak a loose garment."

So by easy stages I had come to Ocean Boulevard and to Rufe's philosophy of life.

Beyond lay the blue, not azure, not sapphire, but clear, translucent indigo to which the waters of the Pacific are pale and green with jealousy. Over its edges flounced a creamy surf like a fine meshed lace, while up from the sands rose gaunt old palms, vigilantes of the East coast, bent by the storms. A scene of changing color and endearing charm. It no longer squared with my camp in the Rockies. It held a finer ore. They will come back, I thought, those prospectors for pleasure. Surely there will always be a market for this!

23

At evening when I stepped on the small boat which was to ferry me away I saw the shadows of the palms nudge each other in the water and I knew what they knew: that I, too, was only another tramp. But Rufe! Listening to the mocking-bird and not to Fashion's whistle, wearing this world like a loose garment! Perhaps after all it was "the home of the rich majority," only, what are riches? Who knows—or knowing dares.

I'

F YOU have no one else to rely on, there is little virtue in relying on yourself. Self-reliance presupposes a society around us, and a social instinct within us. It is the art of accepting companionship and aid. "Whoso would be a man," said Emerson, "must be a nonconformist." Few wise remarks have proved susceptible of more foolish interpretations. The truly self-reliant is not worrying about being a man. He takes it for granted that he is. Those of us who see safety for our personalities only in declining to conform to the social pressure around us, soon make of the virtue a centrifugal ideal. We ask what other men have done and are doing, and straightway we do something else. We grow proud of being different from others, even at the cost of being decidedly queer. We fall in love with eccentricity for its own sake, forgetting that in the common habits of mankind a great deal must be admired even though some things might be improved. The truly self-reliant man is not afraid of being right with the majority. The professional nonconformist, on the other hand, fears that if he joined the majority he would no longer attract attention, he would be swallowed up in the mass, he would cease to exist as a person.

We rely on the railroad train for transportation, and on the postal service to carry our letters. For what purpose or end do we rely on ourselves? Emerson's famous sentence tells us that the purpose of selfreliance is to be a man-a vague phrase, but capable of specific definition. If our self-reliance is nothing but eccentricity, Emerson's remark would seem to emphasize the article rather than the noun-we try to be unlike others so that the world will think of us as at least one individual personality. The ambition here implied is of the protective variety founded on fear. We can understand the bearings of self-reliance when we ask ourselves frankly whether our own version of that virtue has reference to fear or to faith.

We all know by experience, though sometimes we hesitate to admit it, that the splendid inheritance of our civilization, the best of the past in science and art, the best of society around us, is not particularly encouraging to the individual even when he approaches life with the supposed enthusiasms of youth. Perhaps we ought to have come to our studies in school or college, or to our profession afterwards, with overflowing audacity and high spirits. As a matter of fact, we were a little

scared. So much to know and acquire, and our capacities so inadequate! So many other people ahead of us, firmly in the saddle, and apparently no place reserved for our career! So many fine things already done and said, and no audience, so far as we could notice, impatient to watch or hear us! The prospect of life to youth is often so overwhelming that our best hope is merely not to fail. Supreme success seems out of the question. We shall be content if somehow we are not utterly lost.

In this mood the ideal of self-reliance as eccentricity, as a studied habit of not conforming, is a strong temptation. Instead of mastering our place in the stream of public and private life, we can turn inward and rely on ourselves. We can cultivate a sort of stoicism in the face of what might otherwise be our opportunity. Of course this self-reliance carries with it no necessary bitterness or antagonism to our fellows, but it cuts us off from rich adventure, from the possible good of life, in order that we may avoid the possible evil.

We have all known men and women brought up in honest poverty who had missed in their early days contacts with the world at large, with society in the narrow sense, with other conventions than their own. When their own merits and industry brought to them at last a more generous opportunity, we have noticed how often they hold back on grounds which they formulate almost as moral. They do not care, they say, to mingle with the idle rich, whose etiquette is different from theirs and is therefore probably insincere. They do not care to travel among foreign peoples whose standards of life are

not theirs and are probably, therefore, inferior. They will rely on themselves-that is, they will close their minds to any possible influence from outside, and within this self-made prison they, at least, will be conscious of their own strong personalities.

Some of us have known writers who did not care to read the works of other men for fear that their own originality would be diminished. On rather a large scale modern artists have feared to know too much about the older masters lest that accumulated prestige of theirs should dominate a growing talent. Some of us fear to study a theology or a skepticism not ours, lest our own faith should be shaken. Many more of us dislike history because the reading of it damages our satisfaction with the present moment.

All of these moods, though they may assist us in preserving our individuality, cut us off from contacts with our fellows, make us uncompanionable, and prevent us from receiving the aid which we ought to enjoy. In each of these fears there is an unintentional tribute to the things we dislike. If people wealthier than we, would influence our manners more than we should influence theirs, the reason must be that they are stronger characters. If another theology or culture or historical period could upset our satisfaction with our present mental and spiritual status, it must be that we suspect a fundamental weakness in ourselves. The truly self-reliant person would have faith in all that is his—in his own past, in his own thoughts, in his own ambitions. Without hesitation he would join his fellows, confident that the truth and sanity within him

23

Self-reliance in the true sense is a happy faith in the possibilities of life. It is an attitude rather than a purpose. So far as it has a conscious end, it is an exercise of faith for the purpose of growing out of one's self into contacts with other minds. Some imagination must precede it. When you are young you can hardly have the courage to compete with all that the past has bequeathed to you, unless you can see that the great men of the past were once young like yourself, and suffered at the beginning quite as much embarrassment. Your faith is of course in your own talents, but it is less an egotistic confidence than a reliance on the creative properties of mere time. The really self-reliant person is willing to wait until his powers are grown. He can join the older men in his profession or art undiscouraged by their preeminence, because he knows that in time he, too, will be one of the elders, exercising whatever influence experience brings.

With a little more imagination even a young person can see that time does not always move in a straight line. There are cycles of influence and taste, and cycles, too, of opportunity. If, temporarily, we are neglected, yet our moment will probably arrive. We have only to be cordial to the fortunate who now enjoy their hour, and make ourselves ready for our own success. In other words, the first principle of self-reliance is faith in one's life as a whole, not a childish clamoring to have one's way immediately, but a long trust that when the career is finished,

just.

To say that self-reliance implies faith in one's talents is to understate the point. The truly great men of the type Emerson was describing assume not only latent powers within them, but also the coöperation of other men's gifts. They lay hands on all that life brings to them, or that they can pursue and capture, and appropriate it as their own. When a leader in politics or elsewhere hesitates to associate with him ability greater than his, he may succeed in preserving the impress of his personality, but in the long run he will not convince the world that he is self-reliant. Another type of man, blessed, his enemies may say, with unlimited conceit, will call to him the greatest of the earth, either because he can't conceive of any one greater than himself, or because he has forgotten himself and has his mind only on greatness. He leaves his biographers to argue his motives, but to agree about his self-reliance. The young man starting his career who has the choice between occupying a high place in a small office or a low place in a great one, will, if he is worried about his personality, select the mean eminence. If he is self-reliant, he will take the large opportunity, even though he has to begin at the bottom.

In such a point of view, to return once more to the idea of time, there is faith in the continuity of our lives. A man or woman who begins to protect his or her personality must expect that personality to develop no further; it is a finished thing. What if Lincoln in his early years as a lawyer had decided to protect his personality from further influences?