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Generations, Pessimism, Dreams
“The Gentler View,” Harper’s Weekly (March 5, 1910) : 27
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      There is something hopelessly involved about the generations. They are spoken of with great familiarity, just as though one knew perfectly where one began and another left off. While all the time we are wondering about them people continue to get born and so tangle matters more and more. It is absurd of the dictionaries to say that there are thirty-three and a third years between each two generations, because if there were, if things were one-half as simple as that, all the members of the last generation would be the same age and all the members of this just thirty-three years their junior; that is — well, the thing has been shockingly bungled by some one, and has probably gone too far ever to be straightened out. The babies, the grandmothers, are beyond reproach, just where they should be, and easily understood; but those intermediate people who have carelessly scattered themselves around with no regard for law and order — what is to be done about them? Unmarried aunts just beginning to be well preserved; uncles who married, late in life, women older than themselves, their perversely new children twenty-two years younger than you, yet undeniably your first cousins — this is a chaos that can never be reduced to order. Ideas come, are accepted in their newness by certain people, who, no matter what their age, are, by reason of their power of acceptance, the new generation, the “eternal young Italy.” It is plain that generations and one’s place in them must be marked by something other than the accident, and what is more likely than that the something else is opinion, one’s mental colors, the party badge flourished by each of us in every word that we speak? For it goes without saying, and yet from overcaution must be said, that our parents are frequently in the front rank of the marchers, and we, their children, come lagging far behind, embarrassed at the advanced views of our elders, old-fashionedly ashamed for them, and unhappily disturbed at their efforts to dislodge us from our settled conservatism. Ideas come, are accepted in their newness by certain people, who, no matter what their age, are, by reason of their power of acceptance, the new generation, presumably referencing La Giovine Italia, the “Italian political movement founded in 1831 by Giuseppe Mazzini...”
wikipedia the “eternal young Italy. When these ideas have lost their vigor and taken on a jagged course along with the people who still from habit hold them, then they are of the last generation, the members of which are easily picked out by their impatience at the new ideas which they have lost the capacity to grasp.

      Pessimism is spreading. It used to be confined to people, but now so many other things have taken it up. Ostrich feathers, for instance, have lost their old-time interest in life and hang down in the most cheerless way Pessimism is spreading. It used to be confined to people, but now so many other things have taken it up. Ostrich feathers, for instance, have lost their old-time interest in life and hang down in the most cheerless way, as though they had no hope in a future and had found the past utterly depressing. The babies are not what they used to be. They no longer have their wonted bounce and prodigality of crow. They sigh and sputter over their bottles, taking it all so hard, as much as to say, “Oh, well, I expect I shall be able to get through the thing somehow.” They cross their little legs wearily and tilt their caps over one eye with the philosophical dejection of one who knows life. As for the dogs, it is as much as a cheery human being can stand to have one around, what with their rolling melancholy eyes and aimless way of wandering about up stairs and down, like weary souls, throwing themselves in corners with inconsolable groans, so idle, so detached from the busy world, so out of sympathy with one’s concerns that they cannot bring themselves to keep from under one’s hurrying feet, just tuckered out with the boredom of things in general, the droop of their tails saying: “Nothing but living! O, Lord! how long?” Even they are easier to bear than the sparrows. That they should be touched by the general pessimism does seem a drop too much. Yet there they sit, all huddled together on the telegraph wires, slackly slumping one against the other, swollen with ennui, balls of lassitude, thinking, “ Cuss. What’s the use of chirping?”

      It seems very hard that no one will ever show, much less feel, any interest in the wholly remarkable dreams one has. Stupid details which occur during one’s waking hours are paid some slight attention to — at least there is a controlled silence on the part of the other person while one talks; but when at breakfast, to the kindly ears of one’s own family, one attempts to unfold the positively preposterous adventures experienced in sleep, every one either yawns or, without waiting to listen, launches forth into a description of what happened to him. This instinct for dream-telling, on the part of at least one member of the family, may be the reason why so many people now take their breakfast in bed, preferring not to meet the home circle until dreams have faded irretrievably from the mind.
      It is not that one wishes to bore people; it is just that one is unable to relinquish the hope that some one will some day appreciate the uncommon strangeness of one’s dreams. There must be people in this world with minds so unbiassed that they will not prefer their dreams because they are their dreams, but will recognize the quality, the genuine interest of your dreams, and feel the same desire to hear every last incident that you have to recount it. So far the most that get is a brutal, “Yes, I have that dream all the time.” They can’t have. It is impossible. You are sorry to dispute with them, but the reason why they say they have had the same dream is because they did not listen attentively while you were telling of your dream. You will repeat it and they will see.
      “I was dancing the Merry Widow waltz with a basket of teeth on my arm, and I was thinking —” you say.
      At this point you are interrupted with: “Yes, I know; you need not go on. I often dream of teeth.”
      You cease, not because you are convinced, but because it is no longer a question of dreams, but has become one of manners. Your sense of justice compels you to protest. “Pardon me, but I had only just begun. I had not even explained that, in spite of the fact that the basket was very large, each of the teeth was my own and ached dully in time to the waltz.”
      “That’s the sort of thing I dream.”
      You cease, not because you are convinced, but because it is no longer a question of dreams, but has become one of manners. If the conversation were carried further you would have to tell the person what you thought of him. That you would regret. Suffice it to say that no one could possibly dream such dreams as you do, for the simple reason that it is impossible the dreams of any one else should be one-half as interesting. Yours are incomparable. This you state as a fact, and if no one wishes to continue the subject further — very well. It is closed.

      When a word new to one is left behind by an obliging friend one takes it up with delight, more pleased than by any gift received since Christmas. A new word!... it clutters up the tip of one’s tongue, clamoring for a hearing; it is spoiling one’s days. A new word! It can be put to so many uses. One starts out armed with it and there will come an occasion — some one will make an opening and the word will be brought out with a flash — it will be thrown into the breach. Days go by and it grows very heavy. If an opportunity does not come soon one will throw it away in discouragement, for it clutters up the tip of one’s tongue, clamoring for a hearing; it is spoiling one’s days. But finally, with the pride of Balboa presenting the Pacific to his friends, the large, beautiful word is casually floated into the conversation, and one’s satisfied vanity bows modestly right and left.
 

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