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The Ostentatious Sea and Disappearing Man
“The Gentler View,” Harper’s Weekly (October 23, 1909) : 31
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      The steamship companies make most hopeful efforts to break the sea gently to their patrons, flashing elevators and Japanese tea-rooms before horror-stricken eyes; but as all ships are frightfully and uniformly handicapped by their each having to cross the ocean, it would be so much more intelligent to take hold of the opposite end of the problem and render each passenger happily insensible before carrying him on board. The advantages of such a scheme make hilarious thinking. With every one placed limp and unconscious on a shelf surrounded by his baggage, the expenses of the ship-owners would be reduced to a mere drop of oil for their engines. No disciplining stewards, no maltreated food, no pitiless band, no pursuing sandwiches, nothing but a trusty watchman or two to see that no one rolled off his shelf. It will be seen at once that fares would go down to a quarter of their present enormous size. If one provided one’s own drug the charges should be infinitesimal. It can only be an oversight that has prevented this reform from being long ago brought about. A serious investigation into the realities of shipboard life and it would not be allowed to continue another season. We do not permit anything else to make us sit still for ten days unless it is a sprained ankle, and with that go a pleasing number of perquisites. to look a wandering heron in the face, who, after having inspected carefully the deck life, prefers dying from exhaustion farther on to resting even for a night in such realms of dulness. If one has loved the sea from land, it is a desecration to venture from the shore. To strip the last haze of mystery from your enthusiasm and find at the centre no sunsets, no salt smell, no color, nothing but a damp, ill-natured heaveOne is permitted crotchety out-bursts, flowers are sent one, and sympathy is given freely, but no one condoles with you for being at sea. Instead, it is taken for granted that you like it, and an awful air of gayety reigns. Gayety when the only alternative of sitting is walking, cold-blooded, undisguised walking, which does not in the least aid the ship and greatly annoys you and the limper passengers!
      It is a marvellous compliment to the Continent that Americans are willing to endure so much for its sake. The stoical nobility with which we go through so severe a test is a matter for pride. Another nation would have succumbed earlier; we have shown what we are made of and now we deserve a respite. There may be fatal results from getting excited at seeing a ship at sea. It is disquieting to have one’s mind working so strangely, for what but a ship, a sane landlubber demands, would one expect to see. If a motor or a mule were spied in the offing, then surprise would be justified. It is the discovery that one’s faculties are working on insufficient excuse that pains and warns us. When we are amused by watching the steerage and laugh audibly at the obese jests of the deck steward, then we are rightly unable to look a wandering heron in the face, who, after having inspected carefully the deck life, prefers dying from exhaustion farther on to resting even for a night in such realms of dulness. If one has loved the sea from land, it is a desecration to venture from the shore. To strip the last haze of mystery from your enthusiasm and find at the centre no sunsets, no salt smell, no color, nothing but a damp, ill-natured heave, is an exposure that the most callous should shrink from. To believe the sea the most beautiful thing in the world, and, when you are at its heart, to feel that you are bestride a nag in a stage chariot-race, gaining not an inch and surrounded by circling gray canvas palpably painted — the flatness of such a moment calls piteously for an insensible passage.

      Men tell us that what can be proved must be so, yet the existence of men can be satisfactorily proven while in reality they are nowhere to be found. This somehow seems to reflect on the stability of their characters. Men tell us that what can be proved must be so, yet the existence of men can be satisfactorily proven while in reality they are nowhere to be found. This somehow seems to reflect on the stability of their characters. To prove that the reasoning is faultless, it is only necessary to take the most rudimentary steps. First look in any baby-carriage or converse with any mannerly becapped nurse. It will not take a moment to arrive at the assuring news that countless numbers of boy babies are born and, unlikely as it seems, reared. You sneer openly and announce that you have no intention of being duped. The nurse protests. You visit other nurses and other babies; apparently they know of what they speak, and your next step is taken wonderingly. It is in the direction of grandfathers. Nothing is simpler than to ascertain that almost every one has had a grandfather. At the most round-about approach to the subject people are on the defensive and hotly prove their claim to a grandfather; in fact, two in most cases. You decide to believe them, and on second thoughts it stood to reason. Their presence quite settled it beforehand; you marvel that you took the trouble to ask. With the two exits, or entrances, thus closed, the chase is concentrated, and the — prey has been discarded and another word is being sought —and the object in view (the phrase has a nice propriety) must soon loom large. On tiptoe and with the feeling that the thing hunted may at any moment pounce upon you, such is its close proximity, you question right and left. Every one, it seems, had a father, and brothers are spoken of familiarly. With all doubts removed on this score there surely remains nothing but a whisking aside of the curtain to disclose numerous — that is to say, a normal number — of men. But at this point things come to an abrupt stop, and no matter how often you go back to the beginning, retrace your steps, and arrive at the place where the men logically should be, they are never there. It is most baffling and real concern is felt on all sides. Those who live in the country think there surely must be men in the city; wily city matrons declare they personally know a lot of men who at present happen to be out of town; spinsters in the East put all their faith in the existence of men in the Far West. America believes man to thrive in England, England suspects them of being in India, India leans toward South Africa, South Africa suggests heaven, and heaven is convinced that all the men have gone directly below.
      The best logicians, who are now engaged in the solving of this breathless mystery, say that never have they known such a case since the cause célèbre of Pudd’nhead Wilson’s dog, the animal he bought half shares in for the announced purpose of killing his half. They are still divided as to whether it could have been done without injuring the other half. They declare that the case now under their consideration bears many points of resemblance to Mr. Wilson’s dog. If men can both begin and end, yet not exist betweentimes, who is to blame, how is it done, and which is the injured party? Though they are at the present moment completely at sea, there is no doubt in their minds that some one will have to be punished. If men do exist, as quantities of optimistic souls maintain — it seems more amiable to call them optimistic, though they may be stubborn creatures believing what they have heard instead of sensibly deducting personal facts from individual experience — then they will have to pay heavily for their skulking ways. It has been going on for some time and public opinion is much against them. The searchers are past the place where things are managed quietly; they are nearing the spot where one hears heated murmurs of, “I’ll have no more of this foolishness.” Daily they grow more dangerous, and it is from a perfectly neutral, though deeply interested, ground that this hint is thrown out. A seemingly voluntary and upright appearance is much more dignified than a struggle and a final dishevelled issuing from the hiding-place, feet first and covered with the dust of futile resistance. With all the quiet resorts of the world being opened up, the north pole surrounded by a pushing, crowded mob, the south pole reluctantly peering from its pleasant isolation, it seems impossible that the men can much longer enjoy their seclusion. No matter where they are, discovery is inevitable, and we only hope that when the moment comes they will not as an alternative choose extinction.
 

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