The Autobiography of an Idea

a cherished world all his own, a world made up of dreams, of practicalities, of deep faith, of unalloyed acceptance of externals, only now to find that world trembling and tottering on its foundations, threatening to collapse upon him, or to vanish before this new and awful revelation from the unseen. This ghostly apparition which his father called “perspective” terrorized him. What his father said about it did not help. For behind the perspective that the father saw was a perspective that the child saw⁠—invisible to the father. It was mystery⁠—a mystery that lay behind appearances, and within appearances, and in front of appearances, a mystery which if penetrated might explain and clarify all, as his father had explained and clarified a little. Did this mystery reside also in his lovely slender elm tree? Was his great friend the ash tree involved in mystery? Was the sunrise that had glorified him and the earth around him part of this mysterious perspective that lay behind appearances, that lay behind even the clear apparition his father called perspective? Must he lose his faith in what seemed real? Was Boston itself and all within it but a mask and a lie? Was there within it and behind it a perspective, a mystery which if understood might reveal and clarify it, making it intelligible? Could this mystery be penetrated? He was determined it should be, soon or late⁠—and that he would do it. Thus had a father’s playful joke set up in a child a raging fermentation. Such high-pitched emotion could not last. Such vision was bound to fade. Such fear must pass. And so it happened. The turmoil, the chaos lasted but as the span of a daydream. But within that dream, within that turmoil, there awakened a deeper dream that has not passed. Thus Louis Sullivan accepted and rejected; rejected and accepted.

He returned to the school and the streets which were much the same thing to him. At recess he promptly announced that he could lick any boy of his size. Whereupon “his size” knocked him in the eye, and the two “sizes” went at it, according to regulations which consisted in beginning fairly and ending foully⁠—two boys rolling over and over in the middle of the street, in the center of an eager, urging, admiring circle of excited ruffians of varied sizes, who cried at the proper time: “He’s had enough; let him up.” Sometimes Louis’s prophecies were verified. Sometimes they proved unfortunate. But it was all the same, all in the game; and there was established in the school a “Who’s Who” that never reached print. Moreover there was established a Hierarchy in which each “who” was definitely ranked according to the who’s he could lick, and the who’s and sizes who could lick him. And while all this was going on, Louis picked up, in addition to a bit of geography and arithmetic, every form of profanity, every bit of slang, and every particle of verbal garbage he could assimilate. In other words he was one of the gang and a tough. But his honor required that he refrain from licking the good boys just because they were good⁠—which could not be said of some.

He was progressing so well at school, his mother thought⁠—for his teacher so certified for reasons unknown⁠—perhaps to conceal the truth⁠—that she believed it time he learn to play the piano. Louis thought otherwise. Mamma was stern, Louis yielded. Mamma promised it should be half an hour only, every day. She placed her watch in good faith on the piano shelf⁠—fatal error⁠—and the series began. It was not that Louis disliked music; quite the contrary. Had not his parents but recently taken him to Boston Music Hall, there to hear a great Oratorio rendered by the Handel and Haydn Society? Had he not been overwhelmed by the rich volume and splendor of choral harmonies⁠—again a new and revealing world? Had he not thrilled to the call: “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of Glory shall come in.”

Was he not always teasing his mother to play for him any one of a group of brilliant five-fingered exercises arranged as stately composition? No; Louis loved his Mamma but hated the piano when annexed to himself. So the series moved on to disaster. The five-finger work bored him, the dinky tunes enraged him; he watched the watch, he kicked the piano, he struck false notes, he became utterly unruly; and at the agonizing end of one especially bad half-hour, Mamma burst into hysterical tears; and Louis, seeing the damage he had done, threw his arms about her neck and cried his heart out with her. Thus the series ended, by mutual understanding and Mamma’s forgiveness⁠—as Mamma’s tears still flowed from bitterly swollen eyes, as she gazed blindly in unspeakable sorrow at her repentant but incorrigible son. But⁠—let it be said in a whisper⁠—Mamma should have known that Louis’s hands were not made for the piano. Louis did not know it; yet there lay all the trouble.

Then the father thought he would teach his son drawing. His son thought otherwise. His son detested drawing. The prospect of copying a lithographic plate setting forth a mangle, a stepladder, a table, a mop and a pail, was not alluring. Louis demurred. Father thought a thrashing would help along some. He started in. A she-wolf glared. He quailed⁠—End of stillborn drawing lesson. No series.

Meanwhile the name of the village of South Reading was, by popular vote, changed to Wakefield. Cyrus Wakefield, rattan magnate, thought it good business to offer a new town hall in exchange for his name. The townspeople thought so too. The deed was done; both deeds were done; and, as if on a magic carpet the farm that Louis had lived on floated from South Reading into Wakefield⁠—meanwhile remaining stationary as of yore. This occurred in the summer of 1868 when Louis was in his twelfth year.

Meanwhile,