***




Produced by Al Haines.





                            *THE ROMANCE OF
                            THE COMMONPLACE*


                            *Gelett Burgess*



_Now things there are that, upon him who sees,_
_A strong vocation lay; and strains there are_
_That whoso hears shall hear for evermore._
  ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON



           Paul Elder and Morgan Shepard : : : San Francisco




                           _Copyright_, 1902
                           by GELETT BURGESS

                     _Entered at_ Stationer's Hall
                                _London_



          PRINTED BY THE STANLEY-TAYLOR COMPANY, SAN FRANCISCO




                                   To
                       My Sisters, Ella and Ann:
                               with whom
                       This Philosophy was Proven




                            *THE ROMANCE OF
                            THE COMMONPLACE*


                               *Contents*

Introduction
April Essays
Getting Acquainted
Dining Out
The Uncharted Sea
The Art of Playing
The Use of Fools
Absolute Age
The Manual Blessing
The Deserted Island
The Sense of Humour
The Game of Correspondence
The Caste of the Articulate
The Tyranny of the Lares
Costume and Custom
Old Friends and New
A Defense of Slang
The Charms of Imperfection
"The Play's the Thing"
Living Alone
Cartomania
The Science of Flattery
Romance *en Route*
At the Edge of the World
The Diary Habit
The Perfect Go-between
Growing Up
A Pauper's Monologue
A Young Man's Fancy
Where is Bohemia?
The Bachelor's Advantage
The Confessions of an Ignoramus
A Music-Box Recital
A Plea for the Precious
Sub Rosa




                             *Introduction*


To let this book go from my hands without some one more personal note
than the didactic paragraphs of these essays contained, has been, I must
confess, a temptation too strong for me to resist.  The observing reader
will note that I have so re-written my theses that none of them begins
with an "I" in big type, and though this preliminary chapter conforms to
the rule also, it is for typographic rather than for any more modest
reasons.  Frankly, this page is by way of a flourish to my signature,
and is the very impertinence of vanity.

But this little course of philosophy lays my character and temperament,
not to speak of my intellect, so bare that, finished and summed up for
the printer, I am all of a shiver with shame.  My nonsense gave, I
conceit myself, no clue by which my real self might be discovered.  My
fiction I have been held somewhat responsible for, but escape for the
story-teller is always easy.  Even in poetry a man may so cloak himself
in metaphor that he may hope to be well enough disguised.  But the essay
is the most compromising form of literature possible, and even such
filmy confidences and trivial gaieties as these write me down for what I
am.  Were they even critical in character, I would have that best of
excuses, a difference of taste, but here I have had the audacity to
attempt a discussion of life itself, upon which every reader will
believe himself to be a competent critic.

By a queer sequence of circumstances, the essays, begun in the _Lark_,
were continued in the _Queen_, and, if you have read these two papers,
you will know that one magazine is as remote in character from the other
as San Francisco is from London.  But each has happened to fare far
afield in search of readers, and between them I may have converted some
few to my optimistic view of every-day incident.  To educate the British
Matron and Young Person was, perhaps, no more difficult an undertaking
than to open the eyes of the California Native Son.  The fogs that fall
over the Thames are not very different to the mists that drive in
through the Golden Gate, after all!

Still, I would not have you think that these lessons were written with
my tongue in my cheek.  I have made believe so long that now I am quite
sincere in my conviction that we can see pretty much whatever we look
for; which should prove the desirability of searching for amusement and
profit rather than for boredom and disillusion.

We are in the day of homespun philosophy and hand-made dogma.  A kind of
mental atavism has made science preposterous; modern astrologers and
palmists put old wine into new bottles, and the discussion of
Psychomachy bids fair to revolutionize the Eternal Feminine.  And so I,
too, strike my attitude and apostrophize the Universe.  As being, in
part, a wholesome reaction from the prevailing cult, I might call my
doctrine Pagan Science, for the type of my proselyte is the Bornese war
chief peripatetic on Broadway--the amused wonderer.  But I shall not
begin all my nouns with capitals, for it is my aim to write of romance
with a small "r."  Also my philosophy must not be thought a mere
_laissez faire_; it is an active, not a passive creed.  We are here not
to be entertained, but to entertain ourselves.

I might have called this book _A Guide Through Middle Age_, for it is
then that one needs enthusiasm the most.  We stagger gaily through
Youth, and by the time Old Age has come we have usually found a
practicable working philosophy, but at forty one is likely to have a
bitter hour at times, especially if one is still single. Or, so they
tell me; I shall never confess to that status, and shall leap boldly
into a white beard.  A kindly euphemism calls this horrid, half-way
stage one's Prime.  I have here endeavoured to justify the usage, though
I am opposed by a thousand poets.

If some of these essays seem but vaguely correlated to my major theme,
you must think of them as being mere illustrations or practical
solutions of the commonplace, solved by means of the theory I have
developed and iterated.  It was hard, indeed, to know when to stop, but,
ragged as are my hints, I hope that in all essentials I have covered the
ground and formulated the main rules of the Game of Living.  One does
not even have to be an expert to be able to do that!




                            *THE ROMANCE OF
                            THE COMMONPLACE*


                             *April Essays*


They were begun in the April of my life, and though it is now well into
mid-June, some of the glamour of the Spring yet inspires me, and I am
still a-wondering.  I have tried every