I would not feel myself justified mentally if at some time or other I had not paused in thought over the picture of the sandwich man. These shabby figures of decayed or broken manhood, how they have always appealed to me. I know what they stand for. I have felt with them. I am sure I have felt beyond them, over and over again, the misery and pathos of their state. And yet, what a bit of color they add to the life of any city, what a foil to its prosperity, its ease—what a fillip to the imagination of those who have any! Against carriages and autos and showy bursts of enthusiastic life, if there be such, they stand out at times with a vividness which makes the antithesis of their state seem many times more important than it really is. In the face of sickness, health is wonderful. In the face of cold, warmth is immensely significant. In the face of poverty, wealth is truly grandeur and may well strut and stride. And who is so obviously, so notoriously poor as this creature of the two signs, this perambulating pack-horse of an advertisement, this hopeless, decayed creature who, if he have but life enough to walk, will do very well as an invitation to buy.
He is such a biting commentary on life, in one sense, such a coarse, shabby jest in another, that we cannot help but think on him and the conditions which produce him. To send forth an an?mic, hollow-eyed, gaunt-bodied261 man carrying an announcement of a good dinner, for instance. Imagine. Or a cure-all. Or a beauty powder. Or a good suit of clothes. Or a sound pair of shoes. And these with their toes or their naked bodies all but exposed to the world. An overcoatless man advertising a warm overcoat in winter. One from whom all and even the possibility of joy had fled, displaying a notice of joy in the shape of a sign for a dance-hall, a theater, a moving picture even. The thick-witted thoughtlessness of the trade-vulgarian who could permit this!
But the eyes of them! The cold, red, and often wet hands! The torn hats with snow on them, the thin shoes that are soppy with snow or water. Is it not a biting commentary on the importance of the individual, as such, that in life he may be used in such a way as this, in a single short life, as a post upon which to hang things! And that in the face of all the wealth of the world—over-production! And that in the face of all the blather and pother anent the poor, and Christ, and mercy, and I know not what else!
I once protested to an artist friend who chanced to be sketching a line of these, carrying signs, that it was a pity from the individual’s point of view, as well as from that of society itself, that such things must be. But he did not agree with me. “Not at all,” he replied. “They are mentally and physically pointless, anyhow, aren’t they? They have no imagination, no strength any more, or they wouldn’t be carrying signs. Don’t you think that you are applying your noble emotions to their state? Why shouldn’t they be used? They262 haven’t your emotions—they haven’t any emotions, as a matter of fact, or very rudimentary ones, and such as they have they are applying to simpler, cheaper things than you do yours. Mostly they’re dirty and indifferent, believe me.”
I could not say that I wholly disagreed with him. At the same time, I could not say that I violently agreed with him. It is true that life does queer tricks with our emotions and quondam passions at times. The ones that are so very powerful this year, where are they next? At one time we are racked and torn and flayed and blown by emotions that at another find us quite dead, incapable of any response. All the nervous ambitions, as well as the circumstances by which fine emotions and moods are at one time generated, at another have been entirely dissipated. Betimes there is nothing left save a disjointed and weary frame or a wornout brain or nervous system incapable of emotions and disturbing moods.
Yet, granting the truth of this, what a way to use the image of the human race, I thought, the image of our old-time selves! Why degrade the likeness of the thing we once were and by which once we set so much store and then expect to raise man’s estimate of man? It is written: “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain.” Why take the body of man in so shabby, so degrading a fashion? Why make a mockery of the body and mind of the human race, and then expect something superior of life? We talk of elevating the human race. Can we use ourselves as signs and then do that? It is entirely probable, of course, that the human race cannot be elevated. Very good. But if263 we dream of any such thing, what must such a sight do to the imagination of the world? What conception of the beauty and sweetness and dignity of life does it not aid to destroy? What lessons of hardness and self-preservation and indifference does it not teach? Does it not glorify health and strength and prosperity at the expense of every other quality? I think so. To be strong, to be well, to be prosperous in the face of the sandwich man—is there anywhere more of an anachronism?
I sometimes think that in our general life-classifications we neglect the individual, the exceptional individual, who is always sure to be everywhere, as readily at the bottom of society as............