CONEY ISLAND’S FAILING DAYS
WHAT ONE OF THEM HELD FOR A STROLLING PHILOSOPHER.
NOT WHOLLY WITHOUT JOY. THE ADVANTAGES OF GREAT TOYS AND THE
UNIMPORTANCE OF BUGS.
“DOWN HERE AT YOUR Coney Island,ba
toward the end of the season, I am made to feel very sad,” said the
stranger to me. “The great mournfulness that settles upon a summer
resort at this time always depresses me exceedingly. The mammoth
empty buildings, planned by extraordinarily optimistic architects,
remind me in an unpleasant manner of my youthful dreams. In those
days of visions I erected huge castles for the reception of my
friends and admirers, and discovered later that I could have
entertained them more comfortably in a small two story frame
structure. There is a mighty pathos in these gaunt and hollow
buildings, impassively and stolidly suffering from an enormous
hunger for the public. And the unchangeable, ever imperturbable sea
pursues its quaint devices blithely at the feet of these mournful
wooden animals, gabbling and frolicking, with no thought for absent
man nor maid! ”
As the stranger spoke, he gazed with considerable
scorn at the emotions of the sea; and the breeze from the far
Navesink hillsbb
gently stirred the tangled, philosophic hair upon his forehead.
Presently he went on: “The buildings are in effect more sad than
the men, but I assure you that some of the men look very sad. I
watched a talented and persuasive individual who was operating in
front of a tintypebc
gallery, and he had only the most marvelously infrequent
opportunities to display his oratory and finesse. The occasional
stragglers always managed to free themselves before he could drag
them into the gallery and take their pictures. In the long
intervals he gazed about him with a bewildered air, as if he felt
his world dropping from under his feet. Once I saw him spy a
promising youth afar off. He lurked with muscles at a tension, and
then at the proper moment he swooped. ‘Look-a-here,’ he said, with
tears of enthusiasm in his eyes, ‘the best picture in the world!
An’ on’y four fer a quarter. O‘ny jest try it, an’ you’ll go away
perfectly satisfied!’
“‘I’ll go away perfectly satisfied without trying
it,” replied the promising youth, and he did. The tintype man
wanted to dash his samples to the ground and whip the promising
youth. He controlled himself, however, and went to watch the
approach of two women and a little boy who were nothing more than
three dots, away down the board walk.
“At one place I heard the voice of a popcorn man
raised in a dreadful note, as if he were chanting a death hymn. It
made me shiver as I felt all the tragedy of the collapsed popcorn
market. I began to see that it was an insult to the pain and
suffering of these men to go near to them without buying anything.
I took new and devious routes sometimes.
“As for the railroad guards and station men, they
were so tolerant of the presence of passengers that I felt it to be
an indication of their sense of relief from the summer’s battle.
They did not seem so greatly irritated by patrons of the railroad
as I have seen them at other times. And in all the beer gardens the
waiters had opportunity to indulge that delight in each other’s
society and conversation which forms so important a part in a
waiter’s idea of happiness. Sometimes the people in a sparsely
occupied place will fare more strange than those in a crowded one.
At one time I waited twenty minutes for a bottle of the worst beer
in Christendom while my waiter told a charmingly naive story to a
group of his compatriots. I protested sotto voice at the time that
such beer might at least have the merit of being brought
quickly.
Crabs That Seemed Fresh.
“The restaurants, however, I think to be quite
delicious, being in a large part thoroughly disreputable and always
provided with huge piles of red boiled crabs. These huge piles of
provision around on the floor and on the oyster counters always
give me the opinion that I am dining on the freshest food in the
world, and I appreciate the sensation. If need be, it also allows a
man to revel in dreams of unlimited quantity.
“I found countless restaurants where I could get
things almost to my taste, and, as I ate, watch the grand, eternal
motion of the sea and have the waiter come up and put the pepper
castor on the menu card to keep the salt breeze from interfering
with my order for dinner.
“And yet I have an occasional objection to the sea
when dining in sight of it; for a man with a really artistic dining
sense always feels important as a duke when he is indulging in his
favorite pastime, and, as the sea always makes me feel that I am a
trivial object, I cannot dine with absolute comfort in its
presence. The conflict of the two perceptions disturbs me. This is
why I have grown to prefer the restaurants down among the narrow
board streets. I tell you this because I think an explanation is
due to you.”
As we walked away from the beach and around one of
those huge buildings whose pathos had so aroused the stranger’s
interest, we came into view of two acres of merry-go-rounds,
circular swings, roller coasters, observation wheelsbd and
the like. The stranger paused and regarded them.
“Do you know,” he said, “I am deeply fascinated by
all these toys. For, of course, I perceive that they are really
enlarged toys. They reinforce me in my old opinion that humanity
only needs to be provided for ten minutes with a few whirligigs and
things of the sort, and it can forget at least four centuries of
misery. I rejoice in these whirligigs,”be
continued the stranger, eloquently, “and as I watch here and there
a person going around and around or up and down, or over and over,
I say to myself that whirligigs must be made in heaven.
“It is a mystery to me why some man does not
provide a large number of wooden rocking horses and let the people
sit and dreamfully rock themselves into temporary forgetfulness.
There could be intense quiet enforced by special policemen, who,
however, should allow subdued conversation on the part of the
patrons of the establishment. Deaf mutes should patrol to and fro
selling slumberous drinks. These things are none of them insane.
They are particularly rational. A man needs a little nerve quiver,
and he gets it by being flopped around in the air like a tailess
kite. He needs the introduction of a reposeful element, and he
procures it upon a swing that makes him feel like thirty-five
emotional actresses all trying to swoon upon one rug. There are
some people who stand apart and deride these machines. If you could
procure a dark night for them and the total absence of their
friends they would smile, many of them. I assure you that I myself
would indulge in these forms of intoxication if I were not a very
great philosopher.”
Dreariness in The Music Halls.
We strolled in the music hall district, where the
sky lines of the row of buildings are wondrously near to each
other, and the crowded little thoroughfares resemble the eternal
“Street Scene in Cairo.” There was an endless strumming and tooting
and shrill piping in clamor and chaos, while at all times there
were interspersed the sharp cracking sounds from the shooting
galleries and the coaxing calls of innumerable fakirs. At the stand
where one can throw at wooden cats and negro heads and be in danger
of winning cigars, a self reliant youth bought a whole armful of
base balls, and missed with each one. Everybody grinned. A heavily
built man openly jeered. “You couldn’t hit a church!” “Couldn’t I?”
retorted the young man, bitterly. Near them three bad men were
engaged in an intense conversation. The fragment of a sentence
suddenly dominated the noises. “He’s got money to burn.” The sun,
meanwhile, was muffled in the clouds back of Staten Islandbf and
the Narrows.bg
Softened tones of sapphire and carmine touched slantingly the sides
of the buildings. A view of the sea, to be caught between two of
the houses, showed it to be of a pale, shimmering green. The lamps
began to be lighted, and shed a strong orange radiance. In one
restaurant the only occupants were a little music hall singer and a
youth. She was laughing and chatting in a light hearted way not
peculiar to music hall girls. The youth looked as if he desired to
be at some other place. He was singularly wretched and
uncomfortable. The stranger said he judged from appearances that
the little music hall girl must think a great deal of that one
youth. His sympathies seemed to be for the music hall girl. Finally
there was a sea of salt meadow, with a black train shooting across
it.
“I have made a discovery in one of these concert
halls,” said the stranger, as we retraced our way. “It is an old
gray haired woman, who occupies proudly the position of chief
pianiste. I like to go and sit and wonder by what mighty process of
fighting and drinking she achieved her position. To see her, you
would think she was leading an orchestra of seventy pieces,
although she alone composes it. It is a great reflection to watch
that gray head. At those moments I am willing to concede that I
must be relatively happy, and that is a great admission from a
philosopher of my attainments.
“How seriously all these men out in front of the
dens take their vocations. They regard people with a voracious air,
as if they contemplated any moment making a rush and a grab and
mercilessly compelling a great expenditure. This scant and feeble
crowd must madden them. When I first came to the part of the town I
was astonished and delighted, for it was the nearest approach to a
den of wolves that I had encountered since leaving the West. Oh,
no, of course the Coney Island of to-day is not the Coney Island of
the ancient days. I believe you were about to impale me upon that
sentence, were you not?”
The Philosophy of Frankfurters.
We walked along for some time in silence until the
stranger went to buy a frankfurter. As he returned, he said: “When
a man is respectable he is fettered to certain wheels, and when the
chariot of fashion moves, he is dragged along at the rear. For his
agony, he can console himself with the law that if a certain thing
has not yet been respectable, he need only wait a sufficient time
and it will eventually be so. The only disadvantage is that he is
obliged to wait until other people wish to do it, and he is likely
to lose his own craving. Now I have a great passion for eating
frankfurters on the street, and if I were respectable I would be
obliged to wait until the year 3365, when man will be able to hold
their positions in society only by consuming immense quantities of
frankfurters on the street. And by that time I would have
undoubtedly developed some new pastime. But I am not respectable. I
am a philosopher. I eat frankfurters on the street with the same
equanimity that you might employ toward a cigarette.
“See those three young men enjoying themselves.
With what rakish, daredevil airs they smoke those cigars. Do you
know, the spectacle of three modern young men enjoying themselves
is something that I find vastly interesting and instructive. I see
revealed more clearly the purposes of the inexorable universe which
plans to amuse us occasionally to keep us from the rebellion of
suicide. And I see how simply and drolly it accomplishes its end.
The insertion of a mild quantity of the egotism of sin into the
minds of these young men causes them to wildly enjoy themselves. It
is necessary to encourage them, you see, at this early day. After
all, it is only great philosophers who have the wisdom to be
utterly miserable.”
The End of it All.
As we walked toward the station the stranger
stopped often to observe types which interested him. He did it with
an unconscious calm insolence as if the people were bugs. Once a
bugbh
threatened to beat him. “What ‘cher lookin’ at?” he asked of him.
“My friend,” said the stranger, “if any one displays real interest
in you in this world, you should take it as an occasion for serious
study and reflection. You should be supremely amazed to find that a
man can be interested in anybody but himself!” The belligerent
seemed quite abashed. He explained to a friend: “He ain’t right!
What? I dunno. Something ‘bout ‘study’ er something! He’s got
wheels in his head!”
On the train the cold night wind blew transversely
across the reeling cars, and in the dim light of the lamps one
could see the close rows of heads swaying and jolting with the
motion. From directly in front of us peanut shells fell to the
floor amid a regular and interminable crackling. A stout man, who
slept with his head forward upon his breast, crunched them often
beneath his uneasy feet. From some unknown place a drunken voice
was raised in song.
“This return of the people to their battles always
has a stupendous effect upon me,” said the stranger. “The gayety
which arises upon these Sunday night occasions is different from
all other gayeties. There is an unspeakable air of recklessness and
bravado and grief about it. The train load is going toward that
inevitable, overhanging, devastating Monday. That singer there
tomorrow will be a truckman, perhaps, and swearing ingeniously at
his horses and other truck-men. He feels the approach of this
implacable Monday. Two hours ago he was ingulfed in whirligigs and
beer and had forgotten that there were Mondays. Now he is
confronting it, and as he can’t battle it, he scorns it. You can
hear the undercurrent of it in that song, which is really as
grievous as the cry of a child. If he had no vanity—well, it is
fortunate for the world that we are not all great thinkers.”
We sat on the lower deck of the Bay Ridge
boatbi and
watched the marvelous lights of New York looming through the purple
mist. The little Italian band situated up one stairway, through two
doors and around three corners from us, sounded in beautiful, faint
and slumberous rhythm. The breeze fluttered again in the stranger’s
locks. We could hear the splash of the waves against the bow. The
sleepy lights looked at us with hue of red and green and orange.
Overhead some dust-colored clouds scudded across the deep indigo
sky. “Thunderation,” said the stranger, “if I did not know of so
many yesterdays and have such full knowledge of to-morrows, I
should be perfectly happy at this moment, and that would create a
sensation among philosophers all over the world.”