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Springer Series on Atomic, Optical, and Plasma Physics 86

Markus Kitzler
Stefanie Gräfe Editors

Ultrafast
Dynamics Driven
by Intense Light
Pulses
From Atoms to Solids, from Lasers to
Intense X-rays
Springer Series on Atomic, Optical,
and Plasma Physics

Volume 86

Editor-in-Chief
Gordon W.F. Drake, Windsor, Canada

Series editors
Andre D. Bandrauk, Sherbrooke, Canada
Klaus Bartschat, Des Moines, USA
Philip George Burke, Belfast, UK
Robert N. Compton, Knoxville, USA
M.R. Flannery, Atlanta, USA
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Peter Lambropoulos, Iraklion, Greece
Gerd Leuchs, Erlangen, Germany
Pierre Meystre, Tucson, USA
The Springer Series on Atomic, Optical, and Plasma Physics covers in a
comprehensive manner theory and experiment in the entire field of atoms and
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new developments in the field, such as quantum computation and Bose-Einstein
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More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/411

Markus Kitzler Stefanie Gräfe
•

Editors

Ultrafast Dynamics Driven

by Intense Light Pulses
From Atoms to Solids, from Lasers
to Intense X-rays

123
Editors
Markus Kitzler Stefanie Gräfe
Photonics Institute Institute for Physical Chemistry
Vienna University of Technology University of Jena
Vienna Jena
Austria Germany

ISSN 1615-5653 ISSN 2197-6791 (electronic)

Springer Series on Atomic, Optical, and Plasma Physics
ISBN 978-3-319-20172-6 ISBN 978-3-319-20173-3 (eBook)
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Preface

The properties of matter are ultimately determined by its electronic structure.

A suitable perturbation of the electrons’ distribution from its equilibrium configu-
ration in a system such as an atom, a molecule, or a solid, can therefore initiate
certain dynamical processes. Intense and ultrashort light pulses are ideal tools for
that purpose as their electric fields couple directly to the electrons. Therefore, they
are not only able to distort the equilibrium electron distribution but, even allow
driving a system on sub-femtosecond timescales with the light’s Petahertz
field-oscillations. This has been realized first in experiments that studied atoms in
strong laser fields some 25 years ago. These experiments revealed a wealth of
fundamentally important phenomena that are strictly timed to the laser-field
oscillations such as the release of electrons by tunneling through the field-distorted
Coulomb binding potential, or field-driven (re-)collisions of the released electrons
with the atomic ion. The latter, in turn, led to the discovery of a range of essential
secondary processes such as the generation of very high orders of harmonics of the
driving light with photon energies that can extend into the X-ray range.
Since then, thanks to a true revolution in laser technology, tremendous progress
has been made in the field. Laser science has now reached a level of perfection where
it is possible to produce intense light pulses with durations down to a single oscil-
lation cycle and with virtually arbitrary evolution of the electric field in a wide range
of frequencies. The availability of such field transients enabled a number of exciting
possibilities, such as control over the breakage of selected chemical bonds in mol-
ecules by directly driving the molecular valence electrons that actually form the
bond, or the production of coherent attosecond pulses in the soft X-ray wavelength
range that can be used for probing or initiating dynamics on time-intervals during
which the electronic distribution in the system under study stays essentially frozen.
The recent years have seen a particularly vivid progress in the research of using
ultrashort intense light pulses for controlling and probing ultrafast dynamics. On the
one hand, a number of groups have extended the research field to systems with a
much increased complexity and have studied and controlled field-induced dynamics
in large polyatomic molecules, cluster complexes, bio-matter, nanoparticles and
crystals, and also in condensed phase systems such as solid surfaces,

v
vi Preface

nanostructures, and bulk solids. On the other hand, the availability of new, coherent
light sources in both the very short (X-rays) and very long (mid-infrared) wave-
length ranges have allowed for the production and application of short and intense
pulses in previously unexplored regimes.
Owing to this large diversity of pulsed sources and dynamical systems studied
with them it becomes inherently difficult to provide a unique definition and sharp
boundaries for this field of research. This is also reflected by the considerable
variety of titles used for conferences in this field. Obviously the same difficulty
arises in providing a clear and well-defined but at the same time comprehensive title
for a book on this research field. Although ultrafast dynamics is a relative term and
covers a large range of dynamical processes and timescales, including rotational
and vibrational dynamics, we would like to define this term here as electronic
dynamics and processes that result from an essentially instantaneous distortion
of the equilibrium electronic structure in a given system.
With this book we have tried, by carefully picking 14 examples of cutting-edge
scientific research, grouped in four areas, to provide a comprehensive overview not
only over the current state of the research field that uses ultrashort intense light
pulses and light sources based on these pulses for initiating, driving, controlling,
and probing ultrafast dynamics, but also over its recent tremendous and exciting
developments. With the selection of the four areas we have attempted to provide the
broadest possible overview over the such defined research field by covering
essentially all currently studied physical systems from individual atoms and
molecules to nanostructures and bulk macroscopic media, and all available ultrafast
pulse sources from the mid-infrared to the X-ray range. Of particular importance for
us was to highlight the possibilities that are opened up by the availability of new
light sources, and the new research questions that arise by pushing research toward
new systems with increased complexity such as nanostructures and bulk macro-
scopic media. Also, we have tried to provide both an experimental and theoretical
perspective on the research field. The book is structured as follows.
The first part of research that is discussed during the first four chapters shall
provide an overview of the possibilities that a strong laser field opens up for
controlling electronic processes in atoms, molecules, nanostructures, and solids.
The second part of the book is dedicated to the application of intense laser pulses in
combination with attosecond pulses, obtained by the laser-driven process of
high-harmonic generation, for triggering and probing ultrafast dynamics. The third
part of the book discusses in four chapters the only very recently opened research
route of using ultrashort intense laser pulses for driving electronic dynamics on
surfaces, in nanostructures and in solids. While on the one hand this type of
research is interesting from a fundamental point of view as it investigates the
interaction of light and matter in completely new regimes of parameters where
collective effects, material parameters, and system geometries start to play a role,
this research also comprises considerable potential for applications in that it could
be used for, e.g., fabrication of devices for information transmission or fast
switching. A particularly important process in this context is the excitation of
collective surface electron oscillations called a surface plasmon. The fourth and
Preface vii

final part of the book is dedicated to the exciting possibilities that are opened up by
the availability of intense light pulses in the X-ray wavelength regime that can be
produced by free-electron lasers, the first of which have started their operation just a
few years ago. The two chapters in this part discuss applications of such pulses
depicted by examples of research performed at the free-electron lasers in Hamburg
(FLASH) and Stanford (Linac Coherent Light Source, LCLS), respectively.
We hope that this book will be equally inspiring and helpful for young
researchers, who would like to step into this field, and for experienced researchers
who may enjoy the exhaustive discussion that covers the research on essentially all
currently studied objects and with all available ultrafast pulse sources in the field
that uses ultrashort light pulses for controlling and probing ultrafast dynamics.

Vienna Markus Kitzler

Jena Stefanie Gräfe
Contents

Part I Control of Electronic Processes with Strong Laser Fields

1 Strong-Field Induced Atomic Excitation and Kinematics ....... 3

U. Eichmann
1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....... 3
1.2 Strong Field Excitation of Atoms by Frustrated
Tunneling Ionization (FTI) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.2.1 Linearly Polarized Laser Fields. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.2.2 Elliptically Polarized Laser Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.2.3 Intermediate Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.2.4 Detection of Excited Atoms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.3 Frustrated Tunneling Ionization in Strong-Field
Fragmentation of Molecules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.3.1 Hydrogen Molecule. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.3.2 Small Molecules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.3.3 Dimers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.4 Kinematic Effects on Atoms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.4.1 Acceleration of Neutral Atoms in Strong
Laser Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.4.2 Rydberg Atoms in Strong Laser Fields . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.5 Summary and Outlook. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

2 Few-Cycle-Laser-Pulse Induced and Assisted Processes

in Atoms, Molecules, and Nanostructures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 27
Dejan B. Milošević
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.2 Definition of Few-Cycle Laser Pulse Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.3 Phase Space Path Integral and Transition Matrix Element . . . . 29
2.4 Above-Threshold Ionization by Few-Cycle Pulses . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.5 High-Order Harmonic Generation by Few-Cycle Pulses . . . . . . 39

ix
x Contents

2.6 Few-Cycle-Laser-Pulse Assisted Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

2.7 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

3 Angular Streaking for Strong Field Ionization

of Molecules—Attosecond Physics Without Attosecond Pulses . ... 49
Jian Wu and Reinhard Dörner
3.1 Coincidence Angular Streaking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 49
3.2 Phase-Dependent Directional Molecular Bond Breaking
in a Symmetric Laser Pulse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 51
3.3 Electron Tunnelling Site in Electron Localization-Assisted
Enhanced Ionization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 54
3.4 Orientation-Dependent Single Ionization of CO Molecule . ... 55
3.5 Sequencing Multiple Ionization of a Multicenter
Molecular Cluster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 57
3.6 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 60
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 60

4 Control of Ultrafast Electron Dynamics with Shaped

Femtosecond Laser Pulses: From Atoms to Solids . . . . . ....... 63
Matthias Wollenhaupt, Tim Bayer and Thomas Baumert
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.2 Fundamentals of Femtosecond Pulse Shaping . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.2.1 Theoretical Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.2.2 Experimental Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
4.2.3 Adaptive Optimization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
4.3 Isolated Model Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4.3.1 Coherence Transfer from Light to Matter . . . . . . . . . . 86
4.3.2 Control by Polarization-Shaped Laser Pulses . . . . . . . 88
4.3.3 Strong Field Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
4.4 Control of Ionization Processes in Dielectrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
4.5 Summary and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Part II Attosecond Pulses for Inducing and Probing

Electronic Processes

5 XUV Attosecond Photoionization and Related Ultrafast

Processes in Diatomic and Large Molecules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Victor Despré, Alexandre Marciniak, Thomas Barillot,
Vincent Loriot, Arnaud Rouzée, Marc. J.J. Vrakking
and Franck Lépine
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
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Contents xi

5.2 The First Attoseconds of the Light-Matter Interaction:

Attosecond Control of Molecular Ionization . . . . . . . . . . .... 127
5.3 Photo-Dissociation: Attosecond Control
of Dissociation Pathways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 131
5.4 Attosecond Control of the Charge Localization . . . . . . . . .... 133
5.5 Ultrafast XUV Physics Extended to Large Molecular
Species: Case of PAH and Femto-Astrochemistry . . . . . . .... 135
5.6 The Ionization Step: Attosecond Delay in Photoemission
in the C60 Surface Plasmon Resonance . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 137
5.7 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 139
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 140

6 Attosecond Electron Spectroscopy in Molecules . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 143

Francesca Calegari, Jason Greenwood, Candong Liu,
Matteo Lucchini, Maurizio Reduzzi, Giuseppe Sansone,
Andrea Trabattoni and Mauro Nisoli
6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 144
6.2 Temporal Gating Techniques for the Generation of Isolated
Attosecond Pulses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 145
6.3 Streaking Spectroscopy and Carrier-Envelope Phase
of Attosecond Pulses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 147
6.4 Velocity Map Imaging Spectroscopy
of Diatomic Molecules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 150
6.5 Electron Dynamics in Biomolecules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 155
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 158

7 Controlling Atomic Photoabsorption by Intense Lasers

in the Attosecond Time Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........ 161
Xiao-Min Tong and Nobuyuki Toshima
7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
7.2 Theoretical Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
7.2.1 Working Equation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
7.2.2 Interpretation of the Working Equation . . . . . . . . . . . 165
7.2.3 Photoionization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
7.2.4 Photoexcitation (Photoabsorption) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
7.3 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
7.3.1 IR Assisted Photoionization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
7.3.2 IR Assisted Photoexcitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
7.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
xii Contents

8 Photoionization Time Delays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 177

J. Marcus Dahlström, Morgane Vacher, Alfred Maquet,
Jérémie Caillat and Stefan Haessler
8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
8.2 Phase-Shifts and Time-Delays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
8.2.1 Formal Definition of a Photoionization Delay. . . . . . . 179
8.2.2 Ionization Dynamics in Numerical Experiments . . . . . 182
8.3 Analysis of Two-Photon XUV +IR Ionization . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
8.3.1 Asymptotic Approximation for ATI
Transition Amplitudes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 190
8.3.2 Extracting Time-Delay Information
from Laser-Assisted Photoionization Signals. . . ..... 192
8.4 Review of Experimental Delay Measurements . . . . . . . ..... 196
8.4.1 Atomic-Delay Measurements Using Attosecond
Pulse Trains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 196
8.5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 199
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 200

Part III Surfaces, Nanostructures and Solids

in Strong Laser Fields

9 Ultrafast Nanoplasmonic Photoemission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 205

Péter Dombi
9.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 205
9.1.1 Introduction to Surface Plasmon Enhanced
Electron Phenomena . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 205
9.1.2 Surface Plasmons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 206
9.2 Novel Nanoplasmonic Photoemission Phenomena . . . . . ..... 208
9.2.1 Linear Versus Nonlinear Photoemission
and Photocurrents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 208
9.2.2 Scale Parameters in Photoemission Processes . . ..... 209
9.2.3 Mechanisms of Photoemission
and Related Phenomena. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 209
9.2.4 Electron Acceleration Phenomena
in Plasmonic Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 219
9.2.5 Surface Plasmon Induced Electron Acceleration
in the Mid-infrared . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 224
9.3 Conclusions and Outlook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 228
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 229
Contents xiii

10 Highly Nonlinear and Ultrafast Optical Phenomena

in Metallic Nanostructures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 233
L. Wimmer, M. Sivis, G. Herink, S.V. Yalunin,
K.E. Echternkamp and C. Ropers
10.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 234
10.2 Photoelectron Dynamics at Sharp Metal Nanotips . . . . . . . ... 234
10.2.1 Nonlinear Photoemission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 235
10.2.2 Sub-cycle Electron Dynamics in Highly Localized
Electric Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 237
10.2.3 Photoemission from Gold Nanotips Induced
by Near- and Mid-infrared Femtosecond Pulses . . ... 239
10.2.4 Nanostructure Streaking with Ultrashort
THz Pulses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 242
10.3 Extreme-Ultraviolet Light Generation in Plasmonic
Nanostructures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 247
10.3.1 Strong-Field EUV Light Generation
from Gas Atoms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
10.3.2 Experimental Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
10.3.3 Results and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

11 Attosecond XUV Pulses and Surface Plasmon Polaritons:

Two Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...... 259
Mattia Lupetti and Armin Scrinzi
11.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
11.2 Surface Plasmon Polaritons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
11.2.1 Excitation of SPPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
11.2.2 Standard SPP Imaging Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
11.3 A Plasmon Enhanced Attosecond Extreme
Ultraviolet Source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...... 264
11.3.1 Spatial Structure of the Plasmonic Field. . . . . ...... 266
11.3.2 Geometry of the Tapered Nanoplasmonic
Waveguide. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...... 266
11.3.3 Wave-Guiding of XUV Pulses
by the Tapered Waveguide. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
11.3.4 PEAX Temporal Characterization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
11.3.5 PEAX Spatial Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
11.3.6 Comparison with Traditional Gas Harmonics . . . . . . . 274
11.3.7 Discussion and Experimental Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
11.4 Attosecond Photoscopy of Surface Excitations . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
11.4.1 Experimental Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
11.4.2 Theory of Attosecond Photoscopy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
xiv Contents

11.4.3 Low-Speed Approximation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 280

11.4.4 Approximation of the Photoelectron
Distribution Function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 281
11.4.5 Numerical Simulation of the Photoscopic
Spectrogram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
11.4.6 Analytic Model for the SPP Field on a Grating . . . . . 284
11.4.7 Origin of Plasmon Dark and Bright Modes . . . . . . . . 288
11.4.8 Results of the Plasmon Imaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
11.5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

12 Ultrafast Control of Strong-Field Electron

Dynamics in Solids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....... 295
Vladislav S. Yakovlev, Stanislav Yu. Kruchinin,
Tim Paasch-Colberg, Mark I. Stockman and Ferenc Krausz
12.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
12.2 Main Theoretical Concepts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
12.2.1 Wannier–Stark Resonances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
12.2.2 Accelerated Bloch States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
12.2.3 Nonresonant Interband Transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
12.3 Strong-Field-Driven Electron Dynamics in Crystals . . . . . . . . . 305
12.3.1 A Numerical Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
12.3.2 Ultrafast Injection and Control
of Current in Dielectrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....... 307
12.4 Summary and Outlook. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....... 312
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....... 313

Part IV Atoms and Molecules Driven and Probed by Intense

X-Ray Pulses

13 Atomic and Molecular Systems Under Intense

X-Ray Radiation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 319
Maria Krikunova, Nicusor Timneanu and Jakob Andreasson
13.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
13.2 Temporal Diagnostics of Individual FEL Pulses . . . . . . . . . . . 322
13.2.1 Solid Surface Cross-Correlation Technique. . . . . . . . . 323
13.3 Ultrafast Ionization Dynamics of Small Quantum Systems . . . . 327
13.3.1 XUV Pump—NIR Probe Experiments
of Multi-electron Relaxation Dynamics . . . . . . . . ... 328
13.4 The Role of Ionization Dynamics for High Resolution
Imaging of Bio- and Bio-like Nanoparticles . . . . . . . . . . . ... 331
13.5 Automated and Unsupervised Identification
and Classification of Single-Shot Single-Particle CDI Data. ... 334
Contents xv

13.6 Future Perspectives of AMO Science at Novel

Light Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337

14 Probing Molecular Photoexcited Dynamics by Soft X-Rays . ..... 341

Markus Gühr
14.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 341
14.2 Molecular Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 343
14.2.1 Experimental Work on Molecular Dynamics
Outside the BOA Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
14.3 Probing Molecular Electronic Structure by Soft X-Rays . . . . . . 348
14.3.1 X-Ray Absorption. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
14.3.2 X-Ray Emission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
14.3.3 Auger Electron Emission and Fragmentation . . . . . . . 353
14.3.4 X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
14.4 Sources for Ultrafast X-Ray Spectroscopy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
14.5 Ultrafast X-Ray Probing of Photoexcited
Molecular Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 359
14.6 Outlook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 363
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 364

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
Contributors

Jakob Andreasson Molecular Biophysics Department of Cell and Molecular

Biology (ICM), Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden; ELI-Beamlines, Institute of
Physics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czech Republic
Thomas Barillot Institut Lumière Matière ILM, CNRS, Villeurbanne CEDEX,
France
Thomas Baumert Universität Kassel, Institut für Physik und CINSaT, Kassel,
Germany
Tim Bayer Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Institut für Physik,
Oldenburg, Germany
Jérémie Caillat UPMC, UMR 7614, Laboratoire de Chimie Physique—Matière et
Rayonnement 11, Paris Cedex 05, France; CNRS, UMR 7614, Laboratoire de
Chimie Physique—Matière et Rayonnement 11, Paris Cedex 05, France
Francesca Calegari Institute of Photonics and Nanotechnologies, IFN-CNR,
Milano, Italy
J. Marcus Dahlström Department of Physics, Stockholm University, AlbaNova
University Center, Stockholm, Sweden; Max-Planck Institute for the Physics of
Complex Systems, Dresden, Germany
Victor Despré Institut Lumière Matière ILM, CNRS, Villeurbanne CEDEX,
France
Péter Dombi MTA “Lendület” Ultrafast Nanooptics Group, Wigner Research
Centre for Physics, Budapest, Hungary
Reinhard Dörner Institut Für Kernphysik, Goethe Universität, Frankfurt,
Germany

xvii
xviii Contributors

K.E. Echternkamp IV. Physical Institute—Solids and Nanostructures, University

of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
U. Eichmann Max-Born-Institute, Berlin, Germany
Jason Greenwood Centre for Plasma Physics, School of Maths and Physics,
Queen’s University Belfast, BT7 1NN, UK
Markus Gühr PULSE, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford
University, Menlo Park, CA, USA
Stefan Haessler Photonics Institute, Vienna University of Technology, Vienna,
Austria; LOA, ENSTA ParisTech, CNRS, Ecole Polytechnique, Université Paris-
Saclay, Palaiseau Cedex, France
G. Herink IV. Physical Institute—Solids and Nanostructures, University of
Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
Ferenc Krausz Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, Hans-Kopfermann-Straße 1,
Garching, Germany; Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Am Coulombwall 1,
Garching, Germany
Maria Krikunova Institut Für Optik und Atomare Physik, Technische Universität
Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Stanislav Yu. Kruchinin Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, Hans-
Kopfermann-Straße 1, Garching, Germany
Franck Lépine Institut Lumière Matière ILM, CNRS, Villeurbanne CEDEX,
France
Candong Liu State Key Laboratory of High Field Laser Physics, Shanghai
Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai,
China
Vincent Loriot Institut Lumière Matière ILM, CNRS, Villeurbanne CEDEX,
France
Matteo Lucchini Department of Physics, ETH Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland
Mattia Lupetti Ludwig Maximilians Universität, Munich, Germany
Alfred Maquet UPMC, UMR 7614, Laboratoire de Chimie Physique—Matière et
Rayonnement 11, Paris Cedex 05, France; CNRS, UMR 7614, Laboratoire de
Chimie Physique—Matière et Rayonnement 11, Paris Cedex 05, France
Alexandre Marciniak Institut Lumière Matière ILM, CNRS, Villeurbanne
CEDEX, France
Contributors xix

Dejan B. Milošević Faculty of Science, University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosnia

and Hercegovina; Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Hercegovina,
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Hercegovina; Max-Born-Institut, Berlin, Germany
Mauro Nisoli Institute of Photonics and Nanotechnologies, IFN-CNR, Milano,
Italy; Department of Physics, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy
Tim Paasch-Colberg Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, Hans-Kopfermann-
Straße 1, Garching, Germany
Maurizio Reduzzi Department of Physics, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy
C. Ropers IV. Physical Institute—Solids and Nanostructures, University of
Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
Arnaud Rouzée Max-Born Institute (MBI), Berlin, Germany
Giuseppe Sansone Institute of Photonics and Nanotechnologies, IFN-CNR,
Milano, Italy; Department of Physics, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy
Armin Scrinzi Ludwig Maximilians Universität, Munich, Germany
M. Sivis IV. Physical Institute—Solids and Nanostructures, University of
Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
Mark I. Stockman Center for Nano-Optics (CeNO) and Department of Physics
and Astronomy, Georgia State University (GSU), Atlanta, GA, USA
Nicusor Timneanu Molecular Biophysics Department of Cell and Molecular
Biology (ICM), Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden; Department of Physics and
Astronomy, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
Xiao-Min Tong Division of Materials Science, Faculty of Pure and Applied
Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan; Center for
Computational Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan
Nobuyuki Toshima Division of Materials Science, Faculty of Pure and Applied
Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan
Andrea Trabattoni Department of Physics, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy
Morgane Vacher Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London, London,
United Kingdom
Marc. J.J. Vrakking Max-Born Institute (MBI), Berlin, Germany
L. Wimmer IV. Physical Institute—Solids and Nanostructures, University of
Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
xx Contributors

Matthias Wollenhaupt Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Institut für

Physik, Oldenburg, Germany
Jian Wu State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy, East China Normal
University, Shanghai, China
Vladislav S. Yakovlev Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, Hans-Kopfermann-
Straße 1, Garching, Germany; Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Am Coulombwall
1, Garching, Germany
S.V. Yalunin IV. Physical Institute—Solids and Nanostructures, University of
Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
 Part I
Control of Electronic Processes
with Strong Laser Fields
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Chapter 1
Strong-Field Induced Atomic Excitation
and Kinematics

U. Eichmann

Abstract Frustrated tunneling ionization (FTI) has recently been found to be an

important exit channel of atomic strong-field ionization models such as the simple
man’s or rescattering model if one considers the Coulomb field explicitly. It leads
to the population of bound excited states rather than to ionization after the elec-
tron has tunneled and quivered in the laser field. In this chapter we introduce the
FTI model and describe experiments whose outcome supports its importance. In
particular, we focus on strong-field excitation of atoms and the observation of neu-
tral (ionic) excited fragments with high kinetic energy in strong-field fragmentation
and Coulomb explosion of small molecules. Furthermore, we present experiments
in which a direct position sensitive detection of excited neutral atoms reveals the
exceptionally high acceleration of atoms in short pulsed strongly focused laser fields
and discuss possible applications.

1.1 Introduction

The understanding of strong-field ionization dynamics of atoms and molecules rests

a great deal on the seminal tunneling picture introduced by Keldysh [1]. A linearly
polarized pulsed strong laser field is considered as a classical electric field F(t) =
F L (t) cos(ωt) with F L (t) = f (t)F0 êx , where f (t) is a slowly time-varying pulse
envelope, F0 is the field amplitude and ω is the angular frequency of the laser. All
equations throughout the paper are given in atomic units unless otherwise stated. If
an atom in its ground state with an ionization potential I P is exposed to such a laser
field, the atomic Coulomb potential is periodically bent up and down and allows for
tunneling of an electron at certain phases of the laser field. The pure tunneling picture
describes ionization extremely well, particularly in those situations, where a fairly
large number ofphotons is necessary to overcome the binding energy. The Keldysh
parameter γ = I P /2U p , where U p = F 2 /4ω 2 is the ponderomotive potential, is

U. Eichmann (B)
Max-Born-Institute, Max-Born-Strasse 2a,12489 Berlin, Germany
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 3

M. Kitzler and S. Gräfe (eds.), Ultrafast Dynamics Driven
by Intense Light Pulses, Springer Series on Atomic, Optical,
and Plasma Physics 86, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-20173-3_1
4 U. Eichmann

used to distinguish the tunneling regime γ < 1 from the multiphoton regime γ > 1.
It has been found, however, that the subsequent dynamics of the electron in the laser
field is of decisive importance. It results in secondary processes, which are embraced
in the simple man’s model [2–4] and in the famous three-step or rescattering model
[5–7]. The simple man’s model concentrates on the cycle-averaged energy a liberated
electron can extract from the classical laser field, neglecting any interaction with the
parent ion in the first place. The rescattering model, on the other hand, focuses
on the processes initiated after the first return(s) of the electron to the core, where
particularly electrons liberated in a certain phase range after a field cycle maximum
provide high kinetic energies at the return. These processes include high-order above
threshold ionization (HATI) [8], non-sequential double or non-sequential multiple-
ionization (NSDI) by collision [9–12] and radiative recombination generating high
harmonics (HHG) [13, 14].
We will concentrate on the dynamics of electrons, which tunnel around the field
cycle maximum thus avoiding substantial energy transfer during rescattering with
the parent ion. Astonishingly, the physical consequences that arise in the context of
these electrons have not been considered coherently before, neither in the simple
man’s model nor in the rescattering model. By taking into account the Coulomb field
explicitly, one finds that ionization of the atom, expected to follow the tunneling
process of the electron, is frustrated under certain circumstances. This exit chan-
nel leads to the population of excited states. The process, which has been dubbed
frustrated tunneling ionization (FTI), describes quantitatively (quasi multi-photon)
excitation within the tunneling picture [15].
To put the FTI model into perspective one has to mention that since the early
days of optical strong-field physics, experiments have shown beside multiphoton
ionization also multiphoton excitation [16–19]. In the multiphoton picture, it was
argued qualitatively that a Rydberg state is excited at the beginning of the laser
pulse. Similar to a free electron the quasi free Rydberg electron does not absorb
energy from the electromagnetic field and remains bound. The picture of Rydberg
state excitation was strongly supported by the observation of strong enhancements
in the above threshold ionization (ATI) electron spectra, which were explained in
terms of transient Freeman resonances [20]. These are Rydberg states that are shifted
ponderomotively into resonance with the laser field at particularly intensities during
the rise of the laser pulse and subsequently ionized. To explain why an atom in a
Rydberg state is finally stable against ionization, different stabilization mechanisms
[21] such as interference stabilization at lower intensities [22–27] or strongly reduced
ionization rates due to high angular momentum [17, 28] have been suggested. An
easy quantitative explanation of excitation in the multiphoton picture, however, has
not been achieved.
We remark that population trapping in excited states should not be misinterpreted
with atomic stabilization in strong laser fields. Simply speaking the strong-field
actually stabilizes the atom by reducing the overlap of the laser driven electronic wave
function with the ionic core. This phenomenon, usually associated with the situation
that a single-photon absorption is in principle sufficient to ionize, was first predicted
about a quarter century ago [29–32]. Since then, the subject has been extensively
1 Strong-Field Induced Atomic Excitation and Kinematics 5

discussed theoretically for the last two decades [33, 34] with newly increased interest
[35, 36]. Stabilization of a single prepared low lying Rydberg state in a moderately
strong laser field without any remaining loop holes such as state redistribution has
been observed in impressive experiments [37, 38].
The qualitative arguments expressed within the multiphoton picture were also
applied to explain excitation of atoms in the strong-field tunneling regime.
In [18, 39] high-lying Rydberg states after strong-field interaction were observed by
subsequent field ionization and in [40], e.g., excitation was deduced from structures
in the measured ionization yields. First trials to explain excitation in the strong-field
tunneling regime have been given within the simple man’s model [2–4]. Early inves-
tigations on stabilization of atoms using classical Monte Carlo analysis [41] found as
an alternate way to stabilization that the quivering electrons land on Rydberg states
after the laser pulse has terminated. Yudin and Ivanov reported transient Rydberg
trajectories [42] in the tunneling regime and finally Muller concluded from exten-
sive quantum mechanical calculation excitation in the tunneling regime [43]. Only
recently excited states of He have been observed [15], in which the intensities were
well in the tunneling regime of strong-field physics. The obvious question that arose
in this context was whether there is a way to comprehend strong-field excitation
purely within the tunneling picture without invoking the multiphoton picture. The
solution lies in the frustrated tunneling ionization model, which describes astonish-
ingly well observed features.
In the following sections we will elucidate in detail how frustrated tunneling
ionization leads to excited states and we will discuss consequences for strong-field
physics. Besides important ramifications in atomic strong-field physics we also find
FTI at work in strong-field dissociation of molecules. Finally, FTI establishes the
basis to explain observed kinematic effects of strong inhomogeneous fields on neutral
atoms.

1.2 Strong Field Excitation of Atoms by Frustrated

Tunneling Ionization (FTI)

1.2.1 Linearly Polarized Laser Fields

In tunneling models, the tunneling process is mostly regarded to be tantamount to

tunneling ionization. This is correct, if no attractive potential, whatsoever, is explicitly
considered in the first place. However, by taking into account the Coulomb potential
of the parent ion, frustrated tunneling ionization might happen. Assuming that the
tunneling process is instantaneous at some time tt , the electron is then located at the
tunnel exit, which is only a few Bohr radii away from the ionic core. At this point,
the electron has a high negative potential energy of a few eV. The electron quivers
in the strong laser field and, whenever the tunneled electron does not gain enough
energy during the interaction with both the laser field and the Coulomb field to finally
6 U. Eichmann

overcome the attractive Coulomb force [15], it has not been set free at all. Therefore,
one expects FTI to occur mainly for electrons that tunnel in the vicinity of a field cycle
maximum of a linearly polarized laser field at a phase φt = ωtt ≈ 0 (or a multiple
integer of π). In this case, the laser induced drift energy, given by E dr = 2U p sin2 φt
[19], is close to zero and also the energy upon the first rescattering on the parent ion
is rather moderate and typically less than the potential energy in the Coulomb field.
Decisive, whether ionization occurs after tunneling, or not, is the total energy T
of the electron at a time, when the laser pulse is over. If it is positive, the electron
motion is eventually unbound, if it is negative, the electron will firmly relax into
a bound state. Again, the notion in the rescattering model that the “electron tunnel
ionizes in the first step” is correct as long as no attractive potential is considered. In
the presence of an attractive potential one can assert that ionization has happened
only after the laser pulse is over . Consequently, thinking in terms of the rescattering
model, where it is common agreement that an electron is considered to be “ionized”
after the tunneling process, the term frustrated tunneling ionization is meaningful
and justified. However, it is most important to emphasize that an electron that has
undergone frustrated tunneling ionization, has in fact never been unbound in the
sense of a strict definition of ionization.
In the following we will explore the parameter range for producing bound excited
states through FTI. For given laser pulse parameters and a specified atom, which
will be Helium in the present examples, the position and momentum of the electron,
and the phase φt of the oscillating laser field at the instant of tunneling are crucial
[15, 44]. To calculate trajectories leading to frustrated tunneling ionization we solve
the classical Newton equations  for an electron in a combined pure Coulomb potential
Vc (r ) = −1/r , where r = x 2 + y 2 + z 2 , and the electric field F(t).

ẍ(t) = −F(t) − ∇Vc (r (t)) (1.1)

The initial conditions at tt are obtained from the tunneling ionization model,
which
 locate the tunneling exit in a linearly polarized laser field at x(tt ) =
− I P + [I P2 − 4 |F(tt )|]1/2 /2F(tt ), and y(tt ) = z(tt ) = 0. Furthermore, at tt ,
the longitudinal momentum of the electron along the polarization axis is px (tt ) = 0.
The initial momentum perpendicular to the field axis p⊥ (tt ) = p 2y + pz2 is a para-
meter. To get an overview over bound and unbound trajectories we exploit the fact
that trajectories are planar and symmetric with respect to the field axis. We thus vary
p y and take pz = 0.
In Fig. 1.1 we show the occurrence of bound trajectories as a function of the para-
meters φt = ωtt and p y . For clarity we restrict the electron to tunnel only in the
vicinity of the field cycle maximum at the laser pulse envelope maximum. The cal-
culations are performed with a linearly polarized laser pulse with 8 fs (FWHM) pulse
duration and field strengths of F0 = 0.0755 a.u. and F0 = 0.169 a.u., Fig. 1.1a, b,
respectively, and with 29 fs (FWHM) pulse duration and the same field strengths as
before, Fig. 1.1c, d, respectively. The Keldysh parameters associated with the two
field strengths are γ = 1 and γ = 0.44, respectively. Obviously, there are only
1 Strong-Field Induced Atomic Excitation and Kinematics 7

Fig. 1.1 Occurence of bound states after tunneling. Laser parameters: F0 = 0.0755 a.u. (2 ×
1014 W cm−2 ) and a 8 fs (FWHM) and b 29 fs (FWHM) pulse duration. Laser parameters: F0 =
0.169 a.u. (1015 W cm−2 ) and c 8 fs and d 29 fs pulse duration. The circles indicate initial parameters
for calculated trajectories shown in Fig. 1.2. The phase φt = ωtt is indicated with respect to the field
cycle maximum at the maximum of the laser pulse envelope. Final negative total energy T of the
electron is color coded. White areas stand for trajectories with positive total energy corresponding
to strong-field ionization

certain well defined regions of the parameters, where frustrated tunneling ionization
prevails. Inspecting Fig. 1.1a, b one finds that the parameter space for bound trajec-
tories is much larger for electrons starting before the maximum than for electrons
starting after it. Particularly, for the short laser pulses, Fig. 1.1a, one finds a relatively
large region of parameters allowing for bound states [44]. In this case the laser drift
momentum the electron acquires is opposite to the Coulomb force. If the electron
starts after the field cycle maximum, the recollision with the ionic core is likely,
which obviously counteracts formation of bound states. At longer pulse duration,
Fig. 1.1b, on the other hand, the allowed parameter range is reduced and is charac-
terized by distinct isolated areas. Apparently, bound states are no longer populated
due to the higher probability of a fatal encounter of the electron with the ionic core at
longer pulse durations. If we increase the field amplitude and use otherwise identical
laser parameters, the parameter space for bound trajectories shrinks substantially,
Fig. 1.1c, d. Most striking is that bound states are no longer found for electrons that
tunnel after the field cycle maximum.
The interesting question that arises is how important is the influence of the
Coulomb potential on the electron dynamics during the laser pulse? It is well
known that most of the strong-field physics associated with the rescattering model
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Dunne, George Ade, Thomas L. Masson, George Horace Lorimer,
Stephen Leacock, Don Marquis, Irvin S. Cobb, Ellis Parker Butler,
George Fitch, Montague Glass, Christopher Ward, Robert C.
Benchley and Harry Leon Wilson. Sixty Years of American Humor
provides considerably more than the ordinary humorous book’s
quantity of diversion to the square inch.
 But I come at last to the two books whose claim to inclusion in this
chapter is most undeniable—two books of which it can truthfully be
said, not only that they are not found elsewhere, but that they
contain a thousand things not to be found elsewhere.
John Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations is so wonderful in its
completeness and its resourcefulness that although it went without
revision for twenty-three years, it remained the best book of its kind
and no more recent work was able to displace it. It has now been
revised and enlarged by Nathan Haskell Dole, so that the new
quotations included are from nearly 200 of the more important
writers of the last few decades, not included before, among them
Stevenson, Swinburne, Kipling and Mark Twain. This, then, is the
book without which newspapermen, editors, writers, public speakers,
scholars, librarians, and many, many households could not exist—at
least, the households could not exist in harmony. It is the book which
saves you from saying, “fresh fields and pastures new”; that tells you
it should be “fresh woods,” and that the line is Milton’s. Is it possible
that in this book of 1,400 pages, citing from nearly 1,000 authors,
and with its quotations indexed and cross-indexed under their
various outstanding words, so that the index has almost 50,000
entries—is it possible that there is some phrase you half-recall and
yet cannot find? It is just possible. If it occurs, there is something left
for you yet to do. You may try Frank J. Wilstach’s A Dictionary of
Similes (the new and enlarged edition).
Mr. Wilstach’s social register of similes is the only book of
reference of its kind. Since its original publication, in 1916, A
Dictionary of Similes, with its 17,000 quaint figures of speech, has
become pretty nigh indispensable for writers, speakers, teachers and
students. One hundred pages have been added in the new edition,
as Mr. Wilstach says that similes should be kept fresh, like oysters.
And the figures of speech themselves? They are drawn from the
writings of a great number of authors, from Chaucer and
Shakespeare, through English and American literature, to O. Henry
and Irvin S. Cobb. The arrangement is alphabetical under subject
headings. I have nothing against the 16,999 other comparisons in
the book, though personally I shall always maintain that the best
simile in the world is Irvin S. Cobb’s “no more privacy than a
goldfish.” I have looked for hours in Mr. Wilstach’s masterpiece in
search of a suitable comparison for A Dictionary of Similes.
Well, I cannot find one.
 21. Frank L. Packard Unlocks a Book
i
From his home on the shore of the St. Lawrence, Frank L.
Packard sent word that the title was The Locked Book. No details.
The Locked Book remained a locked book until the manuscript
arrived. One had a vision of Mr. Packard going to his safe and
turning the combination and swinging open the door and taking out
the story, complete, released only in its entirety. Knowing his work,
one has similar visions of the tales he has written unlocking
themselves and stepping, full-statured, into his mind. Mr. Packard,
one of the most disconcerting of men, would not be himself
disconcerted by such apparitions. His is a personality full of outward
contradictions and inward reconcilements. There is something gruff,
even ferocious, in his speech and manner on many occasions; it
melts every other moment into a really exquisite urbanity. He is
alarmingly direct, dreadfully uncompromising—and he is the soul of
hospitality and gentleness, a person of stainless honor. He assumes
rudeness like a mask and his blue eyes and the look in them give
him quite away with an utter transparency. His coat is rough, fuzzy,
scratchy, yet his heart is on the sleeve of it. And his fiction? Full half
of it moves in the “underworld” and is peopled with criminals; yet the
thing that most markedly distinguishes Frank L. Packard from all
other writers of mystery-adventure stories is his belief in a moral
order. Immanuel Kant and Sherlock Holmes are commingled in him;
and, though he may invent plots he really believes in miracles.
He is, as everyone must know, the author of The Miracle Man, a
novel which George M. Cohan made into a successful play and
which, as a motion picture, made millions of dollars for various
persons not including the author.... A moral order has some
advantages over a money order.
 ii
Frank Lucius Packard was born of American parents at Montreal
on 2 February 1877 and was graduated from McGill University in
1897. The following year he took a postgraduate course in
engineering at L’Institut Montefiore, University of Liége, Belgium. He
engaged in engineering work in the United States for a number of
years and when, in 1906, he began writing for various magazines,
his first tales were railroad stories. On the Iron at Big Cloud (1911),
The Wire Devils (1918), which tells of the work of a band of expert
telegraphers and masters of the art of cipher codes, and The Night
Operator (1919) are best characterized in Mr. Packard’s own
Foreword to The Night Operator:
“Summed up short, the Hill Division is a vicious piece of track;
also, it is a classic in its profound contempt for the stereotyped
equations and formulæ of engineering. And it is that way for the very
simple reason that it could not be any other way. The mountains
objected, and objected strenuously, to the process of manhandling.
They were there first, the mountains, that was all, and their surrender
was a bitter matter.
“So, from Big Cloud, the divisional point, at the eastern fringe of
the Rockies, to where the foothills of the Sierras on the western side
merge with the more open, rolling country, the right of way ... sweeps
through the rifts in the range like a freed bird from the open door of
its cage; clings to canyon edges where a hissing stream bubbles and
boils eighteen hundred feet below; burrows its way into the heart of
things in long tunnels and short ones; circles a projecting spur in a
dizzy whirl, and swoops from the higher to the lower levels in grades
whose percentages the passenger department does not deem it
policy to specify in its advertising literature, but before which the men
in the cabs and the cabooses shut their teeth and try hard to
remember the prayers they learned at their mothers’ knees. Some
parts of it are worse than others, naturally; but no part of it, to the last
inch of its single-tracked mileage, is pretty—leaving out the scenery,
which is grand. That is the Hill Division.”
 So much for the setting.
“And the men who man the shops, who pull the throttles on the
big, ten-wheel mountain racers, who swing the picks and shovels in
the lurching cabs, who do the work about the yards, or from the
cupola of a caboose stare out on a string of wriggling flats, boxes
and gondolas, and, at night time, watch the high-flung sparks sail
heavenward, as the full, deep-chested notes of the exhaust roar an
accompaniment in their ears, are men ... whose hearts are big and
right.”
The human values of these early stories of Packard’s are as
sturdy today as when they were first written; whatever their
shortcomings, a lack of vitality was not one of them. The man who
was to become a chef of plots began by simply pitching the fat of
human nature in the fire of dramatic incident. His first stories are like
steaks; and if they are hastily and simply cooked, they are not
cooked up. Thick, rich cuts from the flanks of actual life, burned a
little at the edges, perhaps, they still are tender with juices and flavor.
They nourish directly. Their protein is the example of courage, from
the story of a train newsboy who averted a wreck to the tale of how
Martin Bradley saved the Rat River Special.

iii
In 1910 Mr. Packard married Marguerite Pearl Macintyre, of
Montreal, and the next year saw the publication of his first book, On
the Iron at Big Cloud. In 1912 he wrote his first novel, Greater Love
Hath No Man. The novel was written in Lachine, a city eight miles
from Montreal, where Packard had settled and where his home is
now. The outline of the story is as follows:
“Varge, the hero, was a foundling brought up by Dr. and Mrs.
Merton as if he had been their own son. Their real son, Harold, kills
his father in a quarrel, and begs Varge to disappear so that it will
seem that he is the actual murderer. Varge goes further than that. He
does not run away, but publicly shoulders the guilt for the sake, not
of Harold, but of Mrs. Merton, whose heart would break if she knew
that her son had killed his father. Varge believes he owes them this
act of sacrifice in return for the life-long kindness of his benefactors.
The story thereafter is the story of this sacrifice; his life in prison,
where as a trusty he meets the warden’s daughter, Janet Rand; his
love for Janet which both impels him to escape and to give himself
up again—and finally his freedom as Harold Merton, dying,
confesses the truth.”[95]
Here was a novel on the theme of sacrifice, a theme which had
already been persistent and noticeable in Frank L. Packard’s short
stories, and a theme which was to recur later, but interwoven with
another idea of equal strength and beauty. The discovery of that
other idea—its discovery, that is, in the necessary terms of a story—
was to come in the same year in which Greater Love Hath No Man
was published. If you journey directly north from Montreal, you will
find yourself after a while in mountainous country with summits of
less height than many on the North American continent.
Nevertheless the Laurentian Mountains have a distinction more
interesting than altitude; they are geologically the oldest formation—
older than the Adirondacks, the Alleghanies, the Rockies; older than
the plains. They are fundamental and as unchanging as the capacity
to wonder and the will to believe in the heart of that higher insect,
Man. In 1913 Packard was in the Laurentians and there and at
Lachine he was engaged in writing a novel which he purposed
calling “The Wrong Right Road.” When it was finished it appeared as
a complete novel in Munsey’s Magazine for February, 1914. A set of
advance proofs was sent to George M. Cohan, who bought the
dramatic rights and changed the title. The book was arranged to
appear immediately and Mr. Cohan at once set to work to fashion the
play.
The scene of Packard’s story was the village of Needley, Maine. In
Needley, says an outline,[96] “lives an old man—deaf, dumb and
almost blind—known as the Patriarch. For many years, through the
exercise of faith, he has cured the people in the neighborhood of
their simple ailments. An article about him finds its way into a New
York City newspaper which comes under the eye of the celebrated
‘Doc’ Madison, a quick-witted and ingenious confidence man, who at
once evolves a scheme to make the Patriarch’s home a shrine to
which Doc will entice all ailing humanity from far and near, and then
pluck the golden hoard through his trickery.
“Among Doc’s disciples is a clever and beautiful girl named
Helena Vail. Another is a dope fiend, Pale Face Harry, an artful
dodger with a hacking cough. The faker that Doc Madison selects to
take the star part in setting the procession of ailing ones in motion is
called the Flopper. The Flopper has an uncanny control over his
joints by which he can, with a single gesture, convert himself into a
loathsome cripple, twisted and broken, begging in the streets,
shattered in body and soul; truly a spectacle to soften the hardest
heart. Doc Madison rounds up his little band of efficient scoundrels,
takes them to Needley, Maine, and plants them on the sweet-souled
Patriarch, whose faith in his own powers to heal is merely his faith in
the influence upon man’s soul and body of love and goodness and
belief in all that is worth while. Helena forces herself upon him as his
grandniece, and becomes his trusted confidante. The Flopper crawls
from the train through the dust of the street to the Patriarch’s
threshold. Here the old man, practically blind, surrounded by a crowd
of visitors and devotees from all over the country, stretches out his
thin hands, and the Flopper rises from the earth a new man. At the
same moment a crippled child, helpless from birth and staggering
along on crutches, throws his artificial supports from him and cries
aloud: ‘I can walk!’”
This supreme moment of The Miracle Man—book, play and
picture—leads to the wreck of Doc Madison’s scheme; the crooks
are self-defeated by the advent of a power they cannot understand.
A valley has been exalted, a mountain and hill have been made low,
the crooked has been made straight....
And Mr. Packard had made the discovery of his second idea, the
theme of regeneration which is so much the most powerful
manifestation known to human lives. In finding it he had unlocked
more than a book, or a striking play, or an extraordinary motion
picture. The camera version of this simple tale did indeed make
lasting reputations for Thomas F. Meighan, Betty Compson and Lon
Chaney, as well as enhance the reputation of the late George Loan
Tucker, whom Mr. Meighan prodded into directing the picture; money
rolled in upon the picture’s backers in a tidal wave; the success of
“The Birth of a Nation” was outdone, nor has any film since
surpassed the record set by Packard’s story. These phenomena are
picturesque—staggering, if you like. But they came afterward; they
had little to do with the author, who, perhaps, could have used some
of the money but to whose work these successes could have no true
relevance. What Mr. Packard had unlocked was an inwardness in
himself, the fullness of his own mind. He was, perhaps, never to
write well in the sense of writing with literary distinction; he was to
become a master of plot and of incident, and to do stories in which
characterization was to suffer from the very rush of action and the
galvanization of suspense. But he was never to write a book in which
the emotion was cheap or the immanent morality less than
uncompromising. And with his themes of sacrifice and regeneration,
intertwined, he was to arrest, enthrall and convince the thousands.

iv
The next book was The Belovéd Traitor (1916. And please make
three syllables of the adjective). Jean Laparde and Marie-Louise are
fisher folk in a French village and are affianced. Jean, who is always
modeling little figures in clay, is a genius. A wealthy American named
Bliss discovers him. Jean is sent to Paris to study and his great gift
ultimately causes a sensation. Bliss’s daughter makes him her
conquest, for adulation has turned the sculptor’s head and he has
forgotten Marie-Louise. Jean and Myrna Bliss sail for America where
they are to be married at the Bliss home. Marie-Louise in her great
loneliness decides to go to America. On shipboard, in the steerage
one night, Jean sees Marie-Louise. His love for her returns, and with
it repentance for the way he has used her. It is now a question of
both sacrifice and regeneration. Regeneration comes first; and the
apparent sacrifice is canceled by a far greater success; for on his
return to France, Jean’s work reflects the new sincerity of his life and
love.
 Consider The Sin That Was His (1917). Here regeneration leads
to sacrifice, or willingness to sacrifice, and the story develops with a
power which makes Packard’s first novel, Greater Love Hath No
Man, appear weak and insufficiently motivated. Raymond Chapelle,
alias Three-Ace Artie, a gambler, is banished from the Yukon. Later,
in a little village in French Canada, in order to save himself from the
consequences of a murder which he has not done, but in which
circumstantial evidence would insure his conviction, he
masquerades as Father Aubert, a young priest who had been hurt.
The story shows the conditions that force Raymond to continue the
rôle of Father Aubert; tells how he loves Valerie; how he converts an
old hag named Mother Blondin and becomes the idol of the parish;
how, finally, the real Father Aubert becomes the victim of that same
circumstantial evidence which Raymond has tried to escape. When
the real priest is tried and sentenced to death Raymond’s assumed
rôle has so wrought upon him that he confesses the false part he
has played—which, in the situation, involves taking the death
sentence upon himself. Mother Blondin, his convert, who is really
guilty of the murder, in turn saves him.
Again: From Now On (1920) tells the story of Dave Henderson,
who succumbs to temptation and steals $100,000. He succeeds in
hiding the money before he is caught, convicted and sentenced to
five years in the penitentiary. When he is released both the
bookmaker who had employed him, and who is an inherent crook,
and the police take up his trail. But it is a woman’s love and his love
for her which finally bring Dave Henderson to the point of returning
the money. Regeneration. A sacrifice.
In Pawned (1921)—a story of pawned people, not pawned things
—the father of Claire sacrifices his rights and privileges as a father in
the effort toward regeneration. Ultimately he sacrifices his life to free
her from a man more dissolute, and far more evil, than himself.
Regeneration fails, but redemption takes its place. It is John Bruce,
to save whose life Claire has risked everything, who is regenerated.
The novel is an extraordinary achievement in plot construction, the
precursor of The Four Stragglers in that respect; for Doom of the
Night (1022) was earlier in point of composition.
 In order to trace connectedly through a succession of novels the
dual themes of sacrifice and regeneration which are Packard’s forte,
we have omitted mention of his best-known figure, Jimmie Dale. He
was introduced with The Adventures of Jimmie Dale (1917), carried
through The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale (1919) and not
necessarily finished with Jimmie Dale and the Phantom Clue (1922).
Mr. Packard began to write these tales of his gentleman burglar in
1914 and it is a tribute to his skill as a storyteller that, ten years
afterward, people read The Adventures of Jimmie Dale with a
conviction that he will never do better stories.
Jimmie Dale is a rich young man, the inheritor of a fortune made in
manufacturing safes. “It had begun really through his connection with
his father’s business—the business of manufacturing safes that
should defy the cleverest criminals.... It had begun through that—but
at the bottom of it was his own restless, adventurous spirit. He had
meant to set the police by the ears.”[97] What he had been doing was
to force safes as a burglar might force them. The police would find
no theft, “in the last analysis they would find only an abortive attempt
at crime.” Partly “as an added barb,” partly “that no innocent
bystander of the underworld, innocent for once, might be involved,”
he had made a habit of pasting conspicuously in sight (on the safe’s
dial, generally) a diamond- or lozenge-shaped paper wafer, prepared
with adhesive on one side and handled with tweezers to avoid
leaving a finger print. The succession of crimes without theft became
known as the work of the Gray Seal. Then, one night, he had been
caught while at work in Maiden Lane, New York. He had wrapped a
string of pearls around his wrist in a facetious moment and discovery
had compelled him to a desperate dash without time to leave the
jewelry behind. Not until the next day had he known that his detector
was a woman. “The first letter from her had started by detailing his
every move of the night before—and it had ended with an ultimatum:
‘The cleverness, the originality of the Gray Seal as a crook, lack but
one thing,’ she had naïvely written, ‘and that one thing is a leading
string to guide it into channels worthy of his genius.’ In a word, she
would plan the coups, and he would act at her dictation and execute
them—or else how did twenty years in Sing Sing for that little Maiden
Lane affair appeal to him?”
Cold consideration convinced Jimmie Dale that not even his own
father (then alive) would believe in his innocence. “And then had
followed those years in which there had been no temporizing, in
which every plan was carried out to the last detail, those years of
curious, unaccountable, bewildering affairs ... until the Gray Seal had
become a name to conjure with.” In all this time Jimmie Dale, though
communicated with by letter and telephone, had never been able to
trace or identify his directress. A year before the book opens she had
written: “Things are a little too warm, aren’t they Jimmie? Let’s let
them cool for a year.”
Mr. Packard opens, in masterly fashion, at this point; it is the
technique of Conan Doyle in the case of Sherlock Holmes (to quote
no other examples). One establishes one’s detective or criminal—or
other exceptional character who tests plausibility—by raising the
curtain on him in full career. The way to begin is—not to plunge, but
just to slip casually into the middle of things. At first our interest is
centered on Jimmie Dale’s successive adventures—extremely well-
constructed—but as the book develops, the importance and interest
of the woman back of Jimmie Dale asserts itself. Jimmie Dale is led
into a series of adventures strictly on her behalf; and what has been
in effect a chain of connected short stories becomes virtually a novel.
But one characteristic stands out in every chapter. Other writers
have shown, though only rarely, an equal ingenuity; no one that I can
now recall has shown the same fundamental concerns, the same
intense preoccupation under his melodramatic structure. For the
exploits of Jimmie Dale, those bizarre and disconnected enterprises
to which he is ordered, are Robin Hood exploits, rightings of wrongs,
crimes of form and philanthropies of intention. So, later, are the
struggles into which Jimmie Dale is precipitated on behalf of the
woman whom, no longer mysterious, he deeply loves. Simply, Frank
L. Packard is a man who cannot abide the spectacle of a world
unless it is the philosopher’s world, erected about the steel
framework of a moral order. He indulges in crime for morality’s sake.
 v
In algebra, as you may remember, one equation suffices if you are
solving to find a single unknown quantity; two are necessary if two
unknown quantities are to be ascertained; and so on. Given three
unknown quantities and only two equations, the affair is hopeless. In
a perfectly constructed mystery story, the reader is solving for
several unknown quantities—for x and for y and possibly for z—but
always with one too few equations.
When he came to write The Four Stragglers (1923) Mr. Packard
had had a considerable experience in handling plots. The first eight
pages of the book show three men huddled together under a
bombardment in France. Their talk reveals them as former
confederates in crime in London. There is a fourth man lying very still
on the ground, apparently dead or dying. To make sure, one of the
three shoots him. The group is in pitch darkness except for
occasional flares. One of these, coming shortly, lights the scene fully.
All three look at the spot where a murdered man should be lying. No
man is there.
The story opens three years later, in London. We see the three
confederates, a varied, effectively contrasted three, reassembled
and active. We follow them in a thrilling operation. The main thread
now begins to spin. Just as the three have planned to cease
operations and take a vacation they come to know of the existence
of a treasure hid and watched over by a madman on one of the
islands or keys off the Florida coast. The knowledge comes to each
one separately, except that B and C each knows that A knows it. And
the fourth man, D?
One of the excellences of The Four Stragglers is the economy of
means; there is not a character in the book who is not indispensable
to the action. There is, too, an effect of a Monte Cristo tale, due
probably to the treasure quest, the island, and the hiding-place
devised by the madman’s cunning. The suspense is not only
sustained but is steadily intensified; and the book has some scenes
very exceptional in their bizarre character. Take this, which is
imaginative and not merely inventive. The setting is an aquarium at
night, brilliantly lighted, but with the window shades tightly drawn
down:
“Locke blinked a little in the light as he stepped forward. It
reflected bewilderingly from the glass faces of the tanks that were
everywhere about. He joined the old man in the center of the
aquarium. Here there was an open space from which the tanks
radiated off much after the manner of the spokes of a wheel. A
heavy oriental rug was on the tiled floor, and ranged around the table
were a number of big easy chairs.
“From under his dressing gown now the old man took a package
that was wrapped in oiled silk, and laid it on the table.
“‘Money!’ he cried out abruptly. He suddenly commenced to titter
again. ‘Did I not tell you I was being followed, always being followed?
Well, last night they followed a wrong scent.... They were there—
they are always there—watching—eyes are always watching.’ He
broke into his insane titter again....
“Subconsciously Locke was aware that the old maniac was still
talking, the crazed words rising in shrieks of passionate intensity—
but he was no longer paying any attention to the other. He was
staring again at the glass tank, behind and a little to one side of the
old madman, that contained the sea-horse. It was only a small and
diminutive thing, but, unless he were the victim of an hallucination, it
had taken on an extraordinary appearance. It seemed to possess
human eyes; to assume almost the shape of a face—only there was
a shadow across it. The water rippled a little. The sea-horse moved
to the opposite corner of the tank—but the eyes remained in exactly
the same spot.”
The reader of The Four Stragglers will say, with entire truth: “There
is no principal motif of either regeneration or sacrifice here.” No, but
there is another motif which Frank L. Packard has reiterated with an
equal persistence—punishment for evildoing. The story has,
furthermore, a distinctly more ironical quality than Mr. Packard, in his
warm indignation at moral disorder, in his determined institution of a
moral order, has generally been able to fall back upon. If the wages
of sin is death, as his story reminds us, the reward of greed is defeat
and the possession of money as money is a grim futility. It is a sharp
lesson from one who has learned it—how? I think of the fortunes
made by The Miracle Man and feel a Jimmie Dale smile on my lips
(“his lips thinned”; “a mirthless smile was on his lips”) as it occurs to
me that Mr. Packard could easily have learned it from simply
watching others learn it at his expense. The bill for the lesson, so
presented, does not seem unreasonable.

vi
Frank L. Packard and his wife and boys live in a particularly
pleasant, and rather a roomy, house set back from the avenue which
winds along the north bank of the St. Lawrence at Lachine. In the
summer Mrs. Packard and the children may go to Kennebunkport in
Maine or some other spot on the seashore. Then will the husband
and father spend all the hours of daylight at the Royal Montreal Golf
Club, the oldest golf club on this continent, with a clubhouse whose
very wide veranda is 300 feet long and whose two eighteen-hole
courses are a test of good playing. In the evening he likes to get in
three friends, including M. Henri B——, a notary of an old Quebec
family, for bridge. Monsieur B—— and his friend, the writer, are likely
to have exchanges in French, even though Packard insists that his
French is somewhere short of perfection and less good, even, than
in his youth when he was a student at Liége. If Robert H. Davis,
editor of Munsey’s Magazine, or some other old friend from New
York is a house guest he will be golfed by day and admitted to the
bridge game by night. There are, also, occasions for talk ... and there
are superlative meals, whether at the Royal Montreal, the University
Club in Montreal, or at the Packard house. Not only these meals, but
the hours between the meals, are made more grateful to many a
visitor by the fact that the Province of Quebec is not dry. In fact, the
Province is in the liquor business, to the exclusion of all private
selling. By establishing government shops where liquor is sold in
bottles only, the Province has abolished the saloon and made
unnecessary a Provincial income tax.
 A few years ago Robert H. Davis used to be able to lure Packard
up North on camping and hunting expeditions in which a truly
incredible degree of hardship was endured in the name of recreation
and healthful exercise. But lately Packard has refused to go. He is
content to take his healthful exercise at the Royal Montreal and have
a little physical comfort with it.
He is not tall. He has a weathered face, blue eyes, and a grim-
looking mouth that is never through smiling. He has been pretty
much around the world. Back in 1912 (I think) he sailed from
Montreal to Cape Town and then went on to Melbourne and Sydney
in Australia. From there he stepped over to Auckland, New Zealand,
and investigated Maoriland. He continued through the Pacific,
visiting Tonga, Samoa, Fiji and Hawaii. At Samoa he went from Apia
to one of the smaller islands, where he lived for a couple of weeks in
a chief’s hut in native fashion.
Again, in 1923, he went to South America.
Twelve years Mr. Packard waited while an idea that he came upon
in the course of his round the world trip took shape. The Locked
Book is in characteristics somewhat like The Four Stragglers. It
begins with a yacht drifting, disabled, in Malay waters and proceeds
without hesitation to the moment when Kenneth Wayne finds on a
barbaric altar a book bound in leather, very old, clasped by the
design of a dragon in thick brass, and locked in a strange fashion.
The dragon’s tail and mouth meet over the edges and the tail is
solidly brazed into the mouth. One cannot move the covers by the
fraction of an inch. It seems probable that the book holds the secret
of a Rajah’s treasure in gold and jewels.... The reader, after the first
flush of enjoyment has passed, will be distinctly interested in
analyzing Mr. Packard’s methods in the plot and his use of the plot
as a vehicle for effects more important.
He believes in having a story. If you ask him to write something
about fiction he will emphasize two things: the story and the
character of the story, the moral character, that is, and the “moral
responsibility” of those who write.[98] And once, certainly, his sense
of drama and his sense of the ideal fused in a story of such simplicity
and force and elevation as to be intrinsically a work of art. No faults
of execution can take away that core of beauty from Frank L.
Packard’s legend of The Miracle Man.

BOOKS BY FRANK L. PACKARD.

1911 On the Iron at Big Cloud

1913 Greater Love Hath No Man
1914 The Miracle Man
1916 The Belovéd Traitor
1917 The Adventures of Jimmie Dale
1917 The Sin That Was His
1918 The Wire Devils
1919 The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale
1919 The Night Operator
1920 From Now On
1920 The White Moll
1921 Pawned
1922 Doors of the Night
1922 Jimmie Dale and the Phantom Clue
1923 The Four Stragglers
1924 The Locked Book

SOURCES ON FRANK L. PACKARD

In addition to those cited in the text of the chapter: Robert H.
Davis, 280 Broadway, New York, N. Y.
 22. All Creeds and None
i
This ought to be the most interesting chapter in this book. For it
deals with the subject of belief. Belief is of many kinds—religious,
scientific, philosophical—but when one ceases to believe in anything
at all, one dies.
In Chapter 10, I tried to indicate how the interest in religious belief
has already begun to reflect itself in current fiction. In this chapter I
am to deal with books which vary profoundly but are all
straightforward efforts to express a belief held to be worth while. For
the difficulty is not a lack of things to believe in, but a choice among
them, a reconciliation (sometimes) of one with another; and very
often a search for the thing that will mean more than life itself.
Can anything mean more than life itself? Yes. Men and women
have sacrificed their lives for such.
Are the terms of belief capable of a common expression,
acceptable to all men and women? No; at least, not yet.
Is it even necessary to know what one believes, in the sense of
being able to give it a satisfactory expression? No; not if one lives it.
Can anything be achieved by reading books on belief? Yes. I
suppose you may show surprise if I say that disagreement is often
more useful than agreement. But agreement leading to a placid
inactivity is against the very principle of life itself.
Disagreement causes thought. Thinking always enlarges our
living. For what we then do is done more consciously, more
knowingly, than before. To that extent—and in no other way is it
possible—we live more fully.
 Which among the books to follow you ought to read or in what
order they are for your reading, no one like myself can determine, for
an answer depends on your belief, tastes, the extent of your reading
and the extent of your thinking. Such a book as L. P. Jacks’s
Religious Perplexities is safely commendable to anyone, anywhere.
But such studies as Lord Balfour’s Theism and Thought, full of
refinements and instinct with intellectual subtlety, are for the
scholarly taste. Dr. E. Y. Mullins’s Christianity at the Crossroads is
fundamentalist in its position. Dr. Joseph A. Leighton’s Religion and
the Mind of Today is the work of a churchman who is also a
philosopher and a teacher; it adopts the liberal attitude. And a
number of these books concern themselves with health, the mind,
the will and the spirit—those factors which so often determine not
only belief, but the possibility of believing in anything.
If I start with Ernest Renan’s Life of Jesus, a work now many years
old, I do so because this Frenchman’s extraordinary book remains
undisplaced by the current great success of Papini’s Life of Christ,
but also because the popularity of Papini’s book shows where the
average interest lies. For when men begin contending about the
forms of creeds and the facts behind phrases which have become
sacred formulas, the instinct of the ordinary man is to go straight to
the essentials and the beginnings. Let doctors argue the Virgin Birth;
he rather asks himself what sort of Man was this Son born of Mary. It
is the assertion of this instinct, joined to the timely appearance of the
Life of Christ with its undeniable interest and eloquence, which made
the success of Papini’s volume. Such a success is fleeting. Like
other converts and re-converts to Catholicism, Papini exhibited a
marked tendency toward a belief that little had happened in the
centuries preceding his accession. Not so, Renan. To go from the
Italian to the Frenchman is to pass from painted scenery to the clear
air and the sublime altitude of mountain peaks. There is something
beyond eloquence, and Renan has it. With him both reflection and
emotion are controlled; they lift him high and sustain him there.
“Disastrous to Reason the day when she should stifle religion!”
exclaimed this author of the Life of Jesus, adding: “Religions are
false when they attempt to prove the infinite, to define it, to incarnate
it; but they are true when they affirm it. The greatest errors they
import into that affirmation are nothing compared to the value of the
truth which they proclaim. The simplest of the simple, provided he
practice heart-worship, is more enlightened as to the reality of things
than the materialist who thinks he explains everything by chance or
by finite causes.”
Renan was repeatedly called an atheist; but none of the books
discussed in this chapter are atheistic. I should present any which
were, but I think it significant that none is. Lord Balfour’s Theism and
Thought, a strictly philosophical treatise in sequence to his Theism
and Humanism, is a deliberate attempt to consider whether theism—
that is, belief in God—is necessary or good. And every Balfourian
conclusion is in favor of theism. Dr. L. P. Jacks, with his marvelous
simplicity of expression, deals in Religious Perplexities with the two
questions that every man asks: Why am I here? Why am I, and not
some other, here and now? But the answer to both of these
questions, stated as Dr. Jacks states it, for men of every sort,
Christian and non-Christian, presupposes a God.
The three most recent books by Dr. Jacks vary considerably. The
Lost Radiance of the Christian Religion is simply an address in which
he makes a moving appeal for the recapture of Christian joyousness.
Realities and Shams is a series of essays produced by reflection on
events of the last nine years, continuous in the thread of their
thought, which is the few and simple tests to tell the genuine from
the false; and Dr. Jacks applies these tests to some public affairs. A
Living Universe is directly related to Religious Perplexities; its point
is that education without religious feeling is lifeless, just as a
universe in which education does not proceed is a dead universe.
Such books as Realities and Shams and A Living Universe are
directly related to Felix Adler’s Hibbert lectures, now published under
the title, The Reconstruction of the Spiritual Ideal. The distinguished
founder of the Ethical Culture Society has never been one to deal
with abstractions. In this book he brings his spiritual ideal to bear
upon the problem of marriage, the labor problem, and the problem of
a society of nations. The essence of his teaching, which employs
both Jewish and Christian ideals of holiness, is his conception of a
“weft of souls” in which each individual soul has intrinsic worth but all