FullReads

She had a predecessor on the English throne by the name of Charles. Like Louis in France, he wasn’t all he should have been, and there were those in his own day who didn’t entirely approve of him. But it wasn’t because of his dogs. However, if you mention King Charles now, it is a dog you think of–a small, eary dog, with somewhat splay feet and a seventeenth-century monarchical preference for the society of ladies and the softest cushion. Maybe the royal gentleman didn’t deserve anything better of posterity; but, anyhow, that’s what he got.

St. Bernhard fared better. If one had to be remembered by a dog, what better dog could he select, save possibly an Airedale? Big, strong, faithful, wise, true to type for centuries, the most reliable of God’s creatures (including Man by courtesy in that category), the St. Bernhard is a monument for–well, not for a king, and a king didn’t get him; for a saint, rather. It is doubtful if the old monk is playing any lamentations on his harp.

But I’m not so sure about that peerless military leader, General A. E. Burnside. When you have risen to lead an army corps against your country’s foes, when you have commanded men and sat your horse for a statue on the grounds of the state capitol or the intersection of Main and State Streets, it really is rather rough to be remembered for your whiskers. Of course, as a wit remarked of Shaw, no man is responsible for his relatives, but his whiskers are his own fault. Nevertheless, how is a great general to know that his military exploits will be forgotten, while his whiskers thunder down the ages, as it were, progressing in the course of time with the changing fashions from bank presidents to Presbyterian elders, and finally to stage butlers? At last even the stage butlers are shaving clean, and a stroke of the razor wipes out a military reputation, blasts a general’s immortality! Fame is a fickle jade.

An artistic reputation lasts longer, and resists the barber, proving the superiority of the arts to militarism. “Van Dyke” is still a generally familiar appellation and sounds the same, no matter which way you spell it. Of course, there’s no rhyme nor reason in it–artist and whiskers should be spelled the same way. Only they’re not. “Something ought to be done about it.” However, to resume…. If you tell me John Jones has a Vandyke, I don’t visualize John as an art-collector standing in his gallery in rapt contemplation of a masterpiece by the great Flemish painter. I visualize him as a man with a certain type of beard. I may later think of the master who put these beards upon his portraits. Then again, I may not. Exactly the same would be true if I told you John Jones had a Vandyke, instead of the other way about. Don’t contradict me–you know it’s so. It is nearly as difficult to-day to own a Van Dyke canvas as it is to paint one, but anybody can raise a Vandyke beard. In fact, many still do, and thus keep the master’s memory green. “By their whiskers ye shall know them.”

A military reputation, as we have already proved by the case of General Burnside, is a precarious thing. How many patrons of Atlantic City, I wonder, know the hero of the wars in the Low Countries and his greatest triumph by a certain hotel on the Board Walk, and would be hard put to say which half of the hyphenated name was the general and which the battle? Then there was Wellington, who at one time threatened to be remembered for his boots, and Blucher who still is remembered for his. A certain Massachusetts statesman (anybody elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives is a statesman) once said that the greatest triumph of Napoleon was when Theodore Roosevelt stood silent at his tomb. This is witty, but like most witty sayings, not quite true. It was a great triumph, of course, but rather spectacular. The greatest triumphs are not showy. What actually proves Napoleon’s greatness is the fact that he is still remembered as a commander after generations have selected from the tray of French pastry the detectable and indigestible morsel of sugar, flour and lard that bears his name. To have a toothsome article of food named after you, and then to be still remembered for your actual achievements, is the ultimate test of human greatness. Only a Napoleon can meet it. Even Washington might not now be known as the father of his country if his pie had been a better one.