6. Music Lessons

Frequently, through the years, I have eulogized that memorable grape pie in the presence of women friends and relatives who have attempted to build for me a custom-made pie of the same character. I have appreciated these earnest endeavors and have properly expressed my gratitude. But to have a pie like that requires certain ingredients difficult to assemble and it must be served under specified conditions not easily met. The pie must be baked in the forenoon of August 27 by a woman well past middle age who never was in a beauty parlor. The grapes must be of the Concord species and grown in Allen County, Indiana. Furthermore—and perhaps this is the most imperative factor to the success of the pie—it must be served to a starving boy on his thirteenth birthday, and eaten with a large spoon. If any of these ingredients or conditions is lacking, grape pie is just about what you thought it was before I brought the matter to your attention.

Uncle Worth and I arrived at the show grounds in time for a leisurely visit to the menagerie. All my life, as I have told you, I have had much interest in animals, whether wild or domesticated. The fact that they do not talk to us, except by pantomime, does not mean that they do not communicate with one another. I have visited zoos where the animals gave many evidences of desperate unhappiness. There is a poorly lighted animal house in the Central Park Zoo in New York where the tigers seem to have lost their minds through close confinement and complete lack of diversion, and pace to and fro all day from one side of the cage to the other, nosing the bars. If we must imprison wild animals, for our education or entertainment, it would be more humane to place them in something like their natural habitat. The San Diego Zoo seems to have done that with success.

The Barnum & Bailey menagerie’s personnel did not appear to be sad, though they were in small cages. Perhaps their apparent complacency resulted from their recent feeding. Everybody connected with the show seemed contented. The big elephants rhythmically shifted their weight from one massive foot to the other while they tucked away their trunkfuls of clover hay, but were not morose.

As for the circus performance, it was very like the shows you have seen under “the big top”; much too much going on at the same time; much risking of life and limb, obviously a tough way to earn one’s living, though it is commonly believed that trapeze performers are so infatuated with their dangerous trade that they are unhappy doing anything else.

The show reached its climax in a colorful and terrifying pageant, on a gigantic stage, depicting the Burning of Rome. This was of thrilling interest to me. I had been deeply absorbed by the stirring novel, Ben Hur, which Papa had read to us on winter evenings in Ohio. In our small but well-selected family library there was a leather-bound set of a five-volume edition of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire which I had tried to read, though that was a pretty tall order for a twelve-year-old boy.

Nor did I ever lose my early infatuation with Roman history, especially concerning the exciting period when Christianity, in its infancy, had sought refuge in the caves along the Appian Way.

I had hoped and expected that when I went to college there would be many interesting things taught about the Romans under the Caesars; but the grand old man who taught History was concerned only with the dates, sites and commanders of historic battles, and the equally grand old man who taught Latin was concerned only with Latin Grammar. I doubt whether either of them realized what they had missed, though surely both of them must have heard of Ben Hur.

As a lad I had promised myself that I would see Rome some day. There were many years, after I was out of college and into the ministry and on such beggarly wages that we could hardly meet our living expenses, that the prospect of foreign travel seemed quite remote; but even then my young wife and I studied the Italian Baedeker with all the enthusiasm of tourists who had steamship tickets in their pockets.

It was indeed a high moment in our lives when, on one summer night, lighted by a full moon, we sat silently in the deserted Colosseum and remembered at least a little of the tragic history that had been made in that ancient arena.

Eventually the time came when I felt moved to write a novel which began and ended in that enchanted city on the Tiber. Doubtless my lifelong interest in Rome aided me. I am sure I have General Lew Wallace’s Ben Hur to thank for much of this early preoccupation with the Roman Empire. Perhaps I should also give credit to Barnum & Bailey.

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