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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/13410-0.txt b/13410-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a515361 --- /dev/null +++ b/13410-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5816 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13410 *** + +Some Private Views + +by JAMES PAYN + +AUTHOR OF 'HIGH SPIRITS,' 'A CONFIDENTIAL AGENT,' ETC. + +A NEW EDITION + +1881 + +London + +CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY + + +TO + +HORACE N. PYM + +THIS + +_Book is Dedicated_ + +BY HIS FRIEND + +THE AUTHOR + +Contents + + FROM 'THE NINETEENTH CENTURY' REVIEW. + THE MIDWAY INN + THE CRITIC ON THE HEARTH + SHAM ADMIRATION IN LITERATURE + THE PINCH OF POVERTY + THE LITERARY CALLING AND ITS FUTURE + STORY-TELLING + PENNY FICTION + + FROM 'THE TIMES.' + HOTELS + MAID-SERVANTS + MEN-SERVANTS + WHIST-PLAYERS + RELATIONS + INVALID LITERATURE + WET HOLIDAYS + TRAVELLING COMPANIONS + + + + +THE MIDWAY INN. + + +'The hidden but the common thought of all.' + +The thoughts I am about to set down are not _my_ thoughts, for, as my +friends say, I have given up the practice of thinking, or it may be, as +my enemies say, I never had it. They are the thoughts of an +acquaintance who thinks for me. I call him an acquaintance, though I +pass as much of my time with him as with my nearest and dearest; +perhaps at the club, perhaps at the office, perhaps in metaphysical +discussion, perhaps at billiards—what does it matter? Thousands of men +in town have such acquaintances, in whose company they spend, by +necessity or custom, half the sum of their lives. It is not rational, +doubtless; but then 'Consider, sir,' said the great talking +philosopher, 'should we become purely rational, how our friendships +would be cut off. We form many such with bad men because they have +agreeable qualities, or may be useful to us. We form many such by +mistake, imagining people to be different from what they really are.' +And he goes on complacently to observe that we shall either have the +satisfaction of meeting these gentlemen in a future state, or be +satisfied without meeting them. + +For my part, I do not feel that the scheme of future happiness, which +ought by rights to be in preparation for me, will be at all interfered +with by my not meeting again the man I have in my. mind. To have seen +him in the flesh is sufficient for me. In the spirit I cannot imagine +him; the consideration is too subtle; for, unlike the little man who +had (for certain) a little soul,' I don't believe he has a soul at all. + +He is middle-aged, rich, lethargic, sententious, dogmatic, and, in +short, the quintessence of the commonplace. I need not say, therefore, +that he is credited by the world with unlimited common-sense. And for +once the world is right. He has nothing-original about him, save so +much of sin as he may have inherited from our first parents; there is +no more at the back of him than at the back of a looking-glass—indeed +less, for he has not a grain of quicksilver; but, like the +looking-glass, he reflects. Having nothing else to do, he hangs, as it +were, on the wall of the world, and mirrors it for me as it +unconsciously passes by him—not, however, as in a glass darkly, but +with singular clearness. His vision is never disturbed by passion or +prejudice; he has no enthusiasm and no illusions. Nor do I believe he +has ever had any. If the noblest study of mankind is man, my friend has +devoted himself to a high calling; the living page of human life has +been his favourite and indeed, for these many years, his only reading. +And for this he has had exceptional opportunities. Always a man of +wealth and leisure, he has never wasted himself in that superficial +observation which is often the only harvest of foreign travel. He +despises it, and in relation to travellers, is wont to quote the famous +parallel of the copper wire, 'which grows the narrower by going +further.' A confirmed stay-at-home, he has mingled much in society of +all sorts, and exercised a keen but quite unsympathetic observation. +His very reserve in company (though, when he catches you alone, he is a +button-holder of great tenacity) encourages free speech in others; they +have no more reticence in his presence than if he were the butler. He +has belonged to no cliques, and thereby escaped the greatest peril +which can beset the student of human nature. A man of genius, indeed, +in these days is almost certain, sooner or later, to become the centre +of a mutual admiration society; but the person I have in my mind is no +genius, nor anything like one, and he thanks Heaven for it. To an +opinion of his own he does not pretend, but his views upon the opinions +of other people he believes to be infallible. I have called him +dogmatic, but that does not at all express the absolute certainty with +which he delivers judgment. 'I know no more,' he says, 'about the +problems of human life than you do' (taking me as an illustration of +the lowest prevailing ignorance), 'but I know what everybody is +thinking about them.' He is didactic, and therefore often dull, and +will eventually, no doubt, become one of the greatest bores in Great +Britain. At present, however, he is worth knowing; and I propose to +myself to be his Boswell, and to introduce him—or, at least, his +views—to other people. I have entitled them the Midway Inn, partly from +my own inveterate habit of story-telling, but chiefly from an image of +his own, by which he once described to me, in his fine egotistic +rolling style, the position he seemed to himself to occupy in the +world. + +When I was a boy, he said (which I don't believe he ever was), I had a +long journey to take between home and school. Exactly midway there was +a hill with an Inn upon it, at which we changed horses. It was a point +to which I looked forward with very different feelings when going and +returning. In the one case—for I hated school—it seemed to frown darkly +on me, and from that spot the remainder of the way was dull and gloomy; +in the other case, the sun seemed always glinting on it, and the rest +of the road was as a fair avenue that leads to Paradise. The innkeeper +received us with equal hospitality on both occasions, and it was quite +evident did not care one farthing in which direction we were tending. +He would stand in front of his house, jingling his money—_our_ money—in +his pockets, and watch us depart with the greatest serenity, whether we +went east or west. I thought him at one time the most genial of +Bonifaces (for it was his profession to wear a smile), and at another a +mere mocker of human woe. When I grew up, I perceived that he was a +philosopher. + +And now I keep the Midway Inn myself, and watch from the hill-top the +passengers come and go—some loth, some willing, like myself of old—and +listen to their talk in the coffee-room; or sometimes in a private +parlour, where, though they speak low and gravely, their converse is +still unrestrained, because, you see, I am the landlord. + +Sometimes they speak of Death and the Hereafter, of which the child +they buried yesterday knows more than the wisest of them, and more than +Shakespeare knew. The being totally ignorant of the subject does not +indeed (as you may perhaps have observed in other matters) deter some +of them from speaking of it with great confidence; but the views of a +minority would quite surprise you, and this minority is growing—coming +to a majority. Every day I see an increase of the doubters. It is not a +question of the Orthodox and the Infidel, you must understand, at all, +though _that_ is assuming great proportions; but there is every day +more uncertainty among them, and, what is much more noteworthy, more +dissatisfaction. + +Years ago, when a hardy Cambridge scholar dared to publish his doubts +of an eternal punishment overtaking the wicked, an orthodox professor +of the same college took him (theologically) by the throat. 'You are +destroying,' he cried, 'the hope of the Christian.' But this is not the +hope I speak of, as loosing, and losing, its hold upon men's minds; I +mean the real hope, the hope of heaven. + +When I used to go to church—for my inn is too far removed from it to +admit of my attendance there nowadays—matters were very different. +Heaven and Hell were, in the eyes not only of our congregation, but of +those who hung about the doors in the summer sun, or even played +leap-frog over the grave-stones, as distinct alternatives as the east +and west highways on each side of my inn. If you did not go one way, +you must go the other; and not only so, but an immense desire was felt +by very many to go in the right direction. Now I perceive it is not so. +A considerable number of highway passengers, though even they are less +numerous than of old, are still studious—that is in their +aspirations—to avoid taking (shall I say delicately) the lower road; +but only a few, comparatively, are solicitous to reach the goal of the +upper. + +Let me once more observe that I am speaking of the ordinary +passengers—those who travel by the mail. Of the persons who are +convinced that there never was an Architect of the Universe, and that +Man sprang from the Mollusc, I know little or nothing: they mostly +travel two and two, in gigs, and have quarrelled so dreadfully on the +way, that, at the Inn, they don't speak to one another. The commonalty, +I repeat, are losing their hopes of heaven, just as the grown-up +schoolboy finds his paradise no more in home. I can remember when +divines were never tired of painting the lily, of indulging in the most +glowing descriptions of the Elysian Fields. A popular artist once drew +a picture of them: 'The Plains of Heaven' it was called, and the +painter's name was Martin. If he was to do so now, the public (who are +vulgar) would exclaim 'Betty Martin.' Not that they disbelieve in it, +but that the attractions of the place are dying out, like those of Bath +and Cheltenham. + +Of course some blame attaches to the divines themselves that things +have come to such a pass. 'I protest,' says a great philosopher, 'that +I never enter a church, but the man in the pulpit talks so unlike a +man, as though he had never known what human joys or sorrows are—so +carefully avoids every subject of interest save _one_, and paints that +in colours at once so misty and so meretricious—that I say to myself, I +will never sit under him again.' This may, of course, be only an +ingenious excuse of his for not going to church; but there is really +something in it. The angels, with their harps, on clouds, are now +presented to the eyes, even of faith, in vain; they are still +appreciated on canvas by an old master, but to become one of them is no +longer the common aspiration. There is a suspicion, partly owing, +doubtless, to the modern talk about the dignity and even the divinity +of Labour, that they ought to be doing something else than (as the +American poet puts it with characteristic ii reverence) 'loafing about +the throne;' that we ourselves, with no ear perhaps for music, and with +little voice (alas!) for praise, should take no pleasure in such +avocations. It is not the sceptics—though their influence is getting to +be considerable—who have wrought this change, but the conditions of +modern life. Notwithstanding the cheerful 'returns' as to pauperism, +and the glowing speeches of our Chancellors of the Exchequer, these +conditions are far harder, among the thinking classes, than they were. +The question 'Is Life worth Living?' is one that concerns philosophers +and metaphysicians, and not the persons I have in my mind at all; but +the question, 'Do I wish to be out of it?' is one that is getting +answered very widely—and in the affirmative. This was certainly not the +case in the days of our grand-sires. Which of them ever read those +lines— + +'For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, +This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned, +Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, +Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?'— + +without a sympathetic complacency? This may not have been the best of +all possible worlds to them, but none of them wished to exchange it, +save at the proper time, and for the proper place. Thanks to overwork, +and still more to over-worry, it is not so now. There are many +prosperous persons in rude health, of course, who will ask (with a +virtuous resolution that is sometimes to be deplored), 'Do you suppose +then that I wish to cut my throat?' I certainly do not. Do not let us +talk of cutting throats; though, mind you, the average of suicides, so +admirably preserved by the Registrar-General and other painstaking +persons, is not entirely to be depended upon. You should hear the +doctors at my Inn (in the intervals of their abuse of their +professional brethren) discourse upon this topic—on that overdose of +chloral which poor B. took, and on that injudicious self-application of +chloroform which carried off poor C. With the law in such a barbarous +state in relation to self-destruction, and taking into account the +feelings of relatives, there was, of course, only one way of wording +the certificate, but—and then they shake their heads as only doctors +can, and help themselves to port, though they know it is poison to +them. + +It is an old joke that annuitants live for ever, but no annuity ever +had the effect of prolonging life which the present assurance companies +have. How many a time, I wonder, in these later years, has a hand been +stayed, with a pistol or 'a cup of cold poison' in it, by the thought, +'If I do this, my family will lose the money I am insured for, besides +the premiums.' This feeling is altogether different from that which +causes Jeannette and Jeannot in their Paris attic to light their +charcoal fire, stop up the chinks with their love-letters, and die +(very disreputably) 'clasped in one another's arms, and silent in a +last embrace.' There is not one halfpenny's worth of sentiment about it +in the Englishman's case, nor are any such thoughts bred in his brain +while youth is in him. It is in our midway days, with old age touching +us here and there, as autumn 'lays its fiery finger on the leaves' and +withers them, that we first think of it. When the weight of anxiety and +care is growing on us, while the shoulders are becoming bowed (not in +resignation, but in weakness) which have to bear it; when our pains are +more and more constant, our pleasures few and fading, and when whatever +happens, we know, must needs be for the worse—then it is that the +praise of the silver hair and length of days becomes a mockery indeed. + +Was it the prescience of such a state of thought, I wonder (for it +certainly did not exist in their time), that caused good men of old to +extol old age; as though anything could reconcile the mind of man to +the time when the very sun is darkened to him, and 'the clouds return +after the rain?' There is a noble passage in 'Hyperion' which has +always seemed to me to repeat that sentiment in Ecclesiastes; it speaks +of an expression in a man's face: + +'As though the vanward clouds of evil days +Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear +Was with its storied thunder labouring up.' + +This is why poor Paterfamilias, sitting in the family pew, is not so +enamoured of that idea of accomplishing those threescore years and ten +which the young parson, fresh from Cambridge, is describing as such a +lucky number in life's lottery. The attempt to paint it so is +well-meaning, no doubt, 'the vacant chaff well meant for grain;' and it +is touching to see how men generally (knowing that they themselves have +to go through with it) are wont to portray it in cheerful colours. + +A modern philosopher even goes so far as to say that our memories in +old age are always grateful to us. Our pleasures are remembered, but +our pains are forgotten; 'if we try to recall a physical pain,' she +writes (for it is a female), 'we find it to be impossible,' From which +I gather only this for certain, that that woman never had the gout. + +The folks who come my way, indeed, seem to remember their physical +ailments very distinctly, to judge by the way they talk of them; and +are exceedingly apprehensive of their recurrence. Nay, it is curious to +see how some old men will resent the compliments of their juniors on +their state of health or appearance. 'Stuff and nonsense!' cried old +Sam Rogers, grimly; 'I tell you there is no such thing as a fine old +man.' In a humbler walk of life I remember to have heard a similar but +more touching reply. It was upon the great centenarian question raised +by Mr. Thorns. An old woman in a workhouse, said to be a hundred years +of age, was sent for by the Board of Guardians, to decide the point by +her personal testimony. One can imagine the half-dozen portly +prosperous figures, and the contrast their appearance offered to that +of the bent and withered crone. 'Now, Betty,' said the chairman with +unctuous patronage, 'you look hale and hearty enough, yet they tell me +that you are a hundred years old; is this really true?' 'God Almighty +knows, sir,' was her reply, 'but I feel a thousand.' + +And there are so many people nowadays who 'feel a thousand.' + +It is for this reason that the gift of old age is unwished for, and the +prospect of future life without encouragement. It is the modern +conviction that there will be some kind of work in it; and even though +what we shall be set to do may be 'wrought with tumult of acclaim,' we +have had enough of work. What follows, almost as a matter of course, is +that the thought of possible extinction has lost its terrors. Heaven +and its glories may have still their charms for those who are not +wearied out with toil in this life; but the slave draws for himself a +far other picture of home. His is no passionate cry to be admitted into +the eternal city; he murmurs sullenly, 'Let me rest.' + +It was a favourite taunt with the sceptics of old—those Early Fathers +of infidelity, who used to occupy themselves so laboriously with +scraping at the rind of the Christian Faith—that until the Cross arose +men were not afraid of Death. But that arrow has lost its barb. The +Fear of Death, even among professing Christians, is now comparatively +rare; I do not mean merely among dying men—in whom those who have had +acquaintance with deathbeds tell us they see it scarcely ever—but with +the quick and hale. Even with very ignorant persons, the idea that +things may be a great deal worse for us hereafter than even at present +is not generally entertained as respects themselves. A clergyman who +was attending a sick man in his parish expressed a hope to the wife +that she took occasion to remind her husband of his spiritual +condition. 'Oh yes, sir,' she replied, 'many and many a time have I +woke him up o' nights, and cried, "John, John, you little know the +torments as is preparing for you."' But the good woman, it seems, was +not disturbed by any such dire imaginings upon her own account. + +Higher in the social scale, the apprehension of a Gehenna, or at all +events of such a one as our forefathers almost universally believed in, +is rapidly dying out. The mathematician tells us that even as a +question of numbers, 'about one in ten, my good sir, by the most +favourable computations,' the thing is incredible; the philanthropist +inquires indignantly, 'Is the city Arab then, who grows to be thief and +felon as naturally as a tree puts forth its leaves, to be damned in +both worlds?' and I notice that even the clergy who come my way, and +take their weak glass of negus while the coach changes horses, no +longer insist upon the point, but, at the worst, 'faintly trust the +larger hope.' + +Notwithstanding these comparatively cheerful views upon a subject so +important to all passengers on life's highway, the general feeling is, +as I have said, one of profound dissatisfaction; the good old notion +that whatever is is right, is fast disappearing; and in its place there +is a doubt—rarely expressed except among the philosophers, with whom, +as I have said, I have nothing to do—a secret, harassing, and unwelcome +doubt respecting the divine government of the world. It is a question +which the very philosophers are not likely to settle even among +themselves, but it has become very obtrusive and important. Men raise +their eyebrows and shrug their shoulders when it is alluded to, +instead, as of old, of pulverising the audacious questioner on the +spot, or even (as would have happened at a later date) putting him into +Coventry; they have no opinion to offer upon the subject, or at all +events do not wish to talk about it. But it is no longer, be it +observed, 'bad form' in a general way to do so; it is only that the +topic is personally distasteful. + +The once famous advocate of analogy threw a bitter seed among mankind +when he suggested, in all innocence, and merely for the sake of his own +argument, that as the innocent suffered for the guilty in this world, +so it might be in the world to come; and it is bearing bitter fruit. To +feel aweary at the Midway Inn is bad enough; but to be journeying to no +home, and perhaps even to some harsher school than we yet wot of, is +indeed a depressing reflection. + +Hence it comes, I think, or partly hence, that there is now no fun in +the world. Wit we have, and an abundance of grim humour, which evokes +anything but mirth. Nothing would astonish us in the Midway Inn so much +as a peal of laughter. A great writer (though it must be confessed +scarcely an amusing one), who has recently reached his journey's end, +used to describe his animal spirits depreciatingly, as being at the +best but vegetable spirits. And that is now the way with us all. When +Charles Dickens died, it was confidently stated in a great literary +journal that his loss, so far from affecting 'the gaiety of nations,' +would scarcely be felt at all; the power of rousing tears and laughter +being (I suppose the writer thought) so very common. That prophecy has +been by no means fulfilled. But, what is far worse than there being no +humorous writers amongst us, the faculty of appreciating even the old +ones is dying out. There is no such thing as high spirits anywhere. It +is observable, too, how very much public entertainments have increased +of late—a tacit acknowledgment of dulness at home—while, instead of the +lively, if somewhat boisterous, talk of our fathers, we have +drawing-room dissertations on art, and dandy drivel about blue china. + +There is one pleasure only that takes more and more root amongst us, +and never seems to fail, and that is making money. To hear the +passengers at the Midway Inn discourse upon this topic, you would think +they were all commercial travellers. It is most curious how the desire +for pecuniary gain has infected even the idlest, who of course take the +shortest cut to it by way of the race-course. I see young gentlemen, +blond and beardless, telling the darkest secrets to one another, +affecting, one would think, the fate of Europe, but which in reality +relate to the state of the fetlock of the brother to Boanerges. Their +earnestness (which is reserved for this enthralling topic) is quite +appalling. In their elders one has long been accustomed to it, but +these young people should really know better. The interest excited in +society by 'scratchings' has never been equalled since the time of the +Cock Lane ghost. If men would only 'lose their money and look pleasant' +without talking about it, I shouldn't mind; but they _will_ make it a +subject of conversation, as though everyone who liked his glass of wine +should converse upon 'the vintages.' One looks for it in business +people and forgives it; but everyone is now for business. + +The reverence that used to belong to Death is now only paid to it in +the case of immensely rich persons, whose wealth is spoken of with +bated breath. 'He died, sir, worth two millions; a very warm man.' If +you happen to say, though with all reasonable probability and even with +Holy Writ to back you, 'He is probably warmer by this time,' you are +looked upon as a Communist. What the man was is nothing, what he made +is everything. It is the gold alone that we now value: the temple that +might have sanctified the gold is of no account. This worship of mere +wealth has, it is true, this advantage over the old adoration of birth, +that something may possibly be got out of it; to cringe and fawn upon +the people that have blue blood is manifestly futile, since the +peculiarity is not communicable, but it is hoped that, by being shaken +up in the same social bag with millionaires, something may be attained +by what is technically called the 'sweating' process. So far as I have +observed, however, the results are small, while the operation is to the +last degree disagreeable. + +What is very significant of this new sort of golden age is that a +literature of its own has arisen, though of an anomalous kind. It is +presided over by a sort of male Miss Kilmansegge, who is also a model +of propriety. It is as though the dragon that guarded the apples of +Hesperides should be a dragon of virtue. Under the pretence of +extolling prudence and perseverance, he paints money-making as the +highest good, and calls it thrift; and the popularity of this class of +book is enormous. The heroes are all 'self-made' men who come to town +with that proverbial half-crown which has the faculty of accumulation +that used to be confined to snowballs. Like the daughters of the +horse-leech, their cry is 'Give, give,' only instead of blood they want +money; and I need hardly say they get it from other people's pockets. +Love and friendship are names that have lost their meaning, if they +ever had any, with these gentry. They remind one of the miser of old +who could not hear a large sum of money mentioned without an +acceleration of the action of the heart; and perhaps that is the use of +their hearts, which, otherwise, like that of the spleen in other +people, must be only a subject of vague conjecture. They live abhorred +and die respected; leaving all their heaped-up wealth to some +charitable institution, the secretary of which levants with it +eventually to the United States. + +This last catastrophe, however, is not mentioned in these biographies, +the subjects of which are held up as patterns of wisdom and prudence +for the rising generation. I shall have left the Midway Inn, thank +Heaven, for a residence of smaller dimensions, before it has grown up. +Conceive an England inhabited by self-made men! + +Has it ever struck you how gloomy is the poetry of the present day? +This is not perhaps of very much consequence, since everybody has a +great deal too much to do to permit them to read it; but how full of +sighs, and groans, and passionate bewailings it is! And also how deuced +difficult! It is almost as inarticulate as an Æolian harp, and quite as +melancholy. There are one or two exceptions, of course, as in the case +of Mr. Calverley and Mr. Locker; but even the latter is careful to +insist upon the fact that, like those who have gone before us, we must +all quit Piccadilly. 'At present,' as dear Charles Lamb writes, 'we +have the advantage of them;' but there is no one to remind us of that +now, nor is it, as I have said, the general opinion that it _is_ an +advantage. + +It is this prevailing gloom, I think, which accounts for the enormous +and increasing popularity of fiction. Observe how story-telling creeps +into the very newspapers (along with their professional fibbing); and, +even in the magazines, how it lies down side by side with 'burning +questions,' like the weaned child putting its hand into the +cockatrice's den. For your sake, my good fellow, who write stories +[here my friend glowered at me compassionately], I am glad of it; but +the fact is of melancholy significance. It means that people are glad +to find themselves 'anywhere, anywhere, out of the world,' and (I must +be allowed to add) they are generally gratified, for anything less like +real life than what some novelists portray it is difficult to imagine. + +[Here he stared at me so exceedingly hard, that anyone with a less +heavenly temper, or who had no material reasons for putting up with it, +would have taken his remark as personal, and gone away. + +Another cause of the absence of good fellowship amongst us (he went on) +is the growth of education. It sticks like a fungus to everybody, and +though, it is fair to say, mostly outside, does a great deal of +mischief. The scholastic interest has become so powerful that nobody +dares speak a word against it; but the fact is, men are educated far +beyond their wits. You can't fill any cup beyond what it will hold, and +the little cups are exceedingly numerous. Boys are now crammed (with +information) like turkeys (but unfortunately not killed at Christmas), +and when they grow up there is absolutely no room in them for a joke. +The prigs that frequent my Midway Inn are as the sands in its +hour-glass, only with no chance, alas! of their running out. The wisdom +of our ancestors limited education, and very wisely, to the three R's; +that is all that is necessary for the great mass of mankind: whereas +the pick of them, with those clamping irons well stuck to their heels, +will win their way to the topmost peaks of knowledge. + +At the very best—that is to say when it produces _anything_—what does +the most costly education in this country produce in ordinary minds but +the deplorable habit of classical quotation? If it could teach them to +_think_—but that is a subject, my dear friend, into which you will +scarcly follow me. + +[I could have knocked his head off if he had not been so exceptionally +stout and strong, and as it was, I took up my hat to go, when a thought +struck me.] + +'Among your valuable remarks upon the ideas entertained by society at +present, you have said nothing, my dear sir, about the ladies.' + +'I never speak of anything,' he replied with dignity, 'which I do not +thoroughly understand. Man I do know—down to his boots; but woman'—here +he sighed and hesitated—'no; I don't know nearly so much of her.' + + + + +THE CRITIC ON THE HEARTH. + + +It has often struck me that the relation of two important members of +the social body to one another has never been sufficiently considered, +or treated of, so far as I know, either by the philosopher or the poet. +I allude to that which exists between the omnibus driver and his +conductor. Cultivating literature as I do upon a little oatmeal, and +driving, when in a position to be driven at all, in that humble +vehicle, the 'bus, I have had, perhaps, exceptional opportunities for +observing their mutual position and behaviour; and it is very peculiar. +When the 'bus is empty, these persons are sympathetic and friendly to +one another, almost to tenderness; but when there is much traffic, a +tone of severity is observable upon the side of the conductor. 'What +are yer a-driving on for just as a party's getting in? Will nothing +suit but to break a party's neck?' 'Wake up, will yer? or do yer want +that ere Bayswater to pass us?' are inquiries he will make in the most +peremptory manner. Or he will concentrate contempt in the laconic but +withering observation: 'Now then, stoopid!' + +When we consider that the driver is after all the driver—that the 'bus +is under his guidance and management, and may be said _pro tem_, to be +his own—indeed, in case of collision or other serious extremity, he +calls it so: 'What the infernal regions are yer banging into my 'bus +for?' etc., etc.,—I say, this being his exalted position, the injurious +language of the man on the step is, to say the least of it, +disrespectful. + +On the other hand, it is the conductor who fills the 'bus, and even +entices into it, by lures and wiles, persons who are not voluntarily +going his way at all. It is he who advertises its presence to the +passers-by, and spares neither lung nor limb in attracting passengers. +If the driver is lord and king, yet the conductor has a good deal to do +with the administration: just as the Mikado of Japan, who sits above +the thunder and is almost divine, is understood to be assisted and even +'conducted' by the Tycoon. The connection between those potentates is +perhaps the most exact reproduction of that between the 'bus driver and +his cad; but even in England there is a pretty close parallel to it in +the mutual relation of the author and the professional critic. + +While the former is in his spring-time, the analogy is indeed almost +complete. For example, however much he may have plagiarised, the book +does belong to the author: he calls it, with pardonable pride (and +especially if anyone runs it down), 'my book.' He has written it, and +probably paid pretty handsomely for getting it published. Even the +right of translation, if you will look at the bottom of the title-page, +is somewhat superfluously reserved to him. Yet nothing can exceed the +patronage which he suffers at the hands of the critic, and is compelled +to submit to in sullen silence. When the book-trade is slack—that is, +in the summer season—the pair get on together pretty amicably. 'This +book,' says the critic, 'may be taken down to the seaside, and lounged +over not unprofitably;' or, 'Readers may do worse than peruse this +unpretending little volume of fugitive verse;' or even, 'We hail this +new aspirant to the laurels of Apollo.' But in the thick of the +publishing season, and when books pour into the reviewer by the +cartful, nothing can exceed the violence, and indeed sometimes the +virulence, of his language. That 'Now then, stoopid!' of the 'bus +conductor pales beside the lightnings of his scorn. + +'Among the lovers of sensation, it is possible that some persons may be +found with tastes so utterly vitiated as to derive pleasure from this +monstrous production.' I cull these flowers of speech from a wreath +placed by a critic of the _Slasher_ on my own early brow. Ye gods, how +I hated him! How I pursued him with more than Corsican vengeance; +traduced him in public and private; and only when I had thrust my knife +(metaphorically) into his detested carcase, discovered I had been +attacking the wrong man. It is a lesson I have never forgotten; and I +pray you, my younger brothers of the pen, to lay it to heart. Believe +rather that your unfriendly critic, like the bee who is fabled to sting +and die, has perished after his attempt on your reputation; and let the +tomb be his asylum. For even supposing you get the right sow by the +ear—or rather, the wild boar with the 'raging tooth'—what can it profit +you? It is not like that difference of opinion between yourself and +twelve of your fellow-countrymen which may have such fatal results. You +are not an Adonis (except in outward form, perhaps), that you can be +ripped up with his tusk. His hard words do not break your bones. If +they are uncalled for, their cruelty, believe me, can hurt only your +vanity. While it is just possible—though indeed in your case in the +very highest degree improbable—that the gentleman may have been right. + +In the good old times we are told that a buffet from the hand of an +Edinburgh or Quarterly Reviewer would lay a young author dead at his +feet. If it was so, he must have been naturally very deficient in +vitality. It certainly did not kill Byron, though it was a knock-down +blow; he rose from that combat from earth, like Antæus, all the +stronger for it. The story of its having killed Keats, though embalmed +in verse, is apocryphal; and if such blows were not fatal in those +times, still less so are they nowadays. On the other hand, if authors +are difficult to slay, it is infinitely harder work to give them life +by what the doctors term 'artificial respiration'—puffing. The amount +of breath expended in the days of 'the Quarterlies' in this hopeless +task would have moved windmills. Not a single favourite of those +critics—selected, that is, from favouritism, and apart from merit—now +survives. They failed even to obtain immortality for the writers in +whom there was really something of genius, but whom they extolled +beyond their deserts. Their pet idol, for example, was Samuel Rogers. +And who reads Rogers's poems now? We remember something about them, and +that is all; they are very literally 'Pleasures of Memory.' + +And if these things are true of the past, how much more so are they of +the present! I venture to think, in spite of some voices to the +contrary, that criticism is much more honest than it used to be: +certainly less influenced by political feeling, and by the interests of +publishing houses; more temperate, if not more judicious, and—in the +higher literary organs, at least—unswayed by personal prejudice. But +the result of even the most favourable notices upon a book is now but +small. I can remember when a review in the _Times_ was calculated by +the 'Row' to sell an entire edition. Those halcyon days—if halcyon days +they were—are over. People read books for themselves now; judge for +themselves; and buy only when they are absolutely compelled, and cannot +get them from the libraries. In the case of an author who has already +secured a public, it is indeed extraordinary what little effect +reviews, either good or bad, have upon his circulation. Those who like +his works continue to read them, no matter what evil is written of +them; and those who don't like them are not to be persuaded (alas!) to +change their minds, though his latest effort should be described as +though it had dropped from the heavens. I could give some statistics +upon this point not a little surprising, but statistics involve +comparisons—which are odious. As for fiction, its success depends more +upon what Mrs. Brown says to Mrs. Jones as to the necessity of getting +that charming book from the library while there is yet time, than on +all the reviews in Christendom. + +O Fame! if I e'er took delight in thy praises, +'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases +Than to see the bright eyes of those dear ones discover +They thought that I was not unworthy— + +of a special messenger to Mr. Mudie's. + +Heaven bless them! for, when we get old and stupid, they still stick by +one, and are not to be seduced from their allegiance by any blaring of +trumpets, or clashing of cymbals, that heralds a new arrival among the +story-tellers. + +On the other hand, as respects his first venture, the author is very +dependent upon what the critics say of him. It is the conductor, you +know (I wouldn't call him a 'cad,' even in fun, for ten thousand +pounds), on whom, to return to our metaphor, the driver is dependent +for the patronage of his vehicle, and even for the announcement of its +existence. A good review is still the very best of advertisements to a +new author; and even a bad one is better than no review at all. Indeed, +I have heard it whispered that a review which speaks unfavourably of a +work of fiction, upon moral grounds, is of very great use to it. This, +however, the same gossips say, is mainly confined to works of fiction +written by female authors for readers of their own sex—'_by_ ladies +_for_ ladies,' as a feminine _Pall Mall Gazette_ might describe itself. + +Nor would I be understood to say that even a well-established author is +not affected by what the critics may say of him; I only state that his +circulation is not—albeit they may make his very blood curdle. I have a +popular writer in my mind, who never looks at a newspaper unless it +comes to him by a hand he can trust, for fear his eyes should light +upon an unpleasant review. His argument is this: 'I have been at this +work for the last twelve months, thinking of little else and putting my +best intelligence (which is considerable) at its service. Is it humanly +probable that a reviewer who has given his mind to it for a less number +of hours, can suggest anything in the way of improvement worthy of my +consideration? I am supposing him to be endowed with ability and +actuated by good faith; that he has not failed in my own profession and +is not jealous of my popularity; yet even thus, how is it possible that +his opinion can be of material advantage to me? If favourable, it gives +me pleasure, because it flatters my _amour propre_, and I am even not +quite sure that it does not afford a stimulating encouragement; but if +unfavourable, I own it gives me considerable annoyance. [This is his +euphemistic phrase to express the feeling of being in a hornets' nest +without his clothes on.] On the other hand, if the critic is a mere +hireling, or a young gentleman from the university who is trying his +'prentice hand at a lowish rate of remuneration upon a veteran like +myself, how still more idle would it be to regard his views!' + +And it appears to me that there is really something in these arguments. +As regards the latter part of them, by-the-bye, I had the pleasure of +seeing my own last immortal story spoken of in an American magazine—the +_Atlantic Monthly_—as the work of 'a bright and prosperous young +author.' The critic (Heaven bless his young heart, and give him a happy +Whitsuntide) evidently imagined it to be my first production. In +another Transatlantic organ, a critic, speaking of the last work of +that literary veteran, the late Mr. Le Fanu, observes: 'If this young +writer would only model himself upon the works of Mr. William Black in +his best days, we foresee a great future before him.' + +There is one thing that I think should be set down to the credit of the +literary profession—that for the most part they take their 'slatings' +(which is the professional term for them) with at least outward +equanimity. I have read things of late, written of an old and popular +writer, ten times more virulent than anything Mr. Ruskin wrote of Mr. +Whistler: yet neither he, nor any other man of letters, thinks of +flying to his mother's apron-string, or of setting in motion old Father +Antic, the Law. Perhaps it is that we have no money, or perhaps, like +the judicious author of whom I have spoken, we abstain from reading +unpleasant things. I wish to goodness we could abstain from hearing of +them; but the 'd——d good-natured friend' is an eternal creation. He has +altered, however, since Sheridan's time in his method of proceeding. He +does not say, 'There is a very unpleasant notice of you in the +_Scorpion_, my dear fellow, which I deplore.' The scoundrel now affects +a more light-hearted style. 'There is a review of your last book in the +_Scorpion_', he says, 'which will amuse you. It is very malicious, and +evidently the offspring of personal spite, but it is very clever.' Then +you go down to your club, and take the thing up with the tongs, when +nobody is looking, and make yourself very miserable; or you buy it, +going home in the cab, and, having spoilt your appetite for dinner with +it, tear it up very small, throw it out of window, and swear you have +never seen it. + +One forgives the critic—perhaps—but never the good-natured friend. It +is always possible—to the wise man—to refrain from reading the +lucubration of the former, but he cannot avoid the latter: which brings +me to the main subject of this paper—the Critic on the Hearth. One can +be deaf to the voice of the public hireling, but it is impossible to +shut one's ears to the private communications of one's friends and +family—all meant for our good, no doubt, but which are nevertheless +insufferable. + +In Miss Martineau's Autobiography there is a passage expressing her +surprise that whereas in all other cases there is a certain modest +reticence in respect to other people's business when it is of a special +kind, the profession of literature is made an exception. As there is no +one but imagines that he can poke a fire and drive a gig, so everyone +believes he can write a book, or at all events (like that blasphemous +person in connection with the Creation) that he can give a wrinkle or +two to the author. + +I wonder what a parson would say, if a man who never goes to church +save when his babies are christened, or by accident to get out of a +shower, should volunteer his advice about sermon-making? or an artist, +to whom the man without arms, who is wheeled about in the streets for +coppers, should recommend a greater delicacy of touch? Indeed, metaphor +fails me, and I gasp for mere breath when I think of the astounding +impudence of some people. If I possessed a tithe of it, I should surely +have made my fortune by this time, and be in the enjoyment of the +greatest prosperity. It must be remembered, too, that the opinion of +the Critics on the Hearth is always volunteered (indeed, one would as +soon think of asking for it as for a loan from the Sultan of Turkey), +and in nine cases out of ten it is unfavourable. One has no objection +to their praise, nor to any amount of it; what is so abhorrent is their +advice, and still more their disapproval. It is like throwing 'half a +brick' at you, which, utterly valueless in itself, still hurts you when +it hits you. And the worst of it is that, apart from their rubbishy +opinions, one likes these people; they are one's friends and relatives, +and to cut one's moorings from them altogether would be to sail over +the sea of life without a port to touch at. + +The early life of the author is especially embittered by the utterances +of these good folks. As a prophet is of no honour in his own country, +so it is with the young aspirant for literary fame with his folks at +home. They not only disbelieve in him, but—generally, however, with one +or two exceptions, who are invaluable to him in the way of +encouragement—'make hay' of him and his pretensions in the most +heartless style. If he produces a poem, it achieves immortality in the +sense of his 'never hearing the last of it;' it is the jest of the +family till they have all grown up. But this he can bear, because his +noble mind recognises its own greatness; he regards his jeering +brethren in the same light as the philosophic writer beholds 'the vapid +and irreflective reader.' When they tell him they 'can't make head or +tail of his blessed poetry,' he comforts himself with the reflection of +the great German (which he has read in a translation) that the clearest +handwriting cannot be read by twilight. It is when his literary talents +have received more or less recognition from the public at large, that +home criticism becomes so painful to him. His brethren are then boys no +longer, but parsons, lawyers, and doctors; and though they don't +venture to interfere with one-another as regards their individual +professions, they make no sort of scruple about interfering with _him_. +They write to him their unsolicited advice and strictures. This is the +parson's letter: + +'MY DEAR DICK, + 'I like your last book much better than the rest of them; but I + don't like your heroine. She strikes both Julia and myself [Julia + is his wife, who is acquainted with no literature but the + cookery-book] as rather namby-pamby. The descriptions, however, are + charming; we both recognised dear old Ramsgate at once. [The + original of the locality in the novel being Dieppe.] The plot is + also excellent, though we think we have some recollection of it + elsewhere; but it must be so difficult to hit upon anything + original in these days. Thanks for your kind remembrance of us at + Christmas: the oysters were excellent. We were sorry to see that + ill-natured little notice in the _Scourge_. + +'Yours affectionately, +'BOB.' + +Jack the lawyer writes: + +'DEAR DICK, + 'You are really becoming ["Becoming?" he thinks _that_ becoming] + quite a great man: we could hardly get your last book from Mudie's, + though I suppose he takes very small quantities of copies, except + from really popular authors. Marion was charmed with your heroine + [Dick rather likes Marion; and doesn't think Jack treats her with + the consideration she deserves], and I have no doubt women in + general will admire her, but your hero—you know I always speak my + mind—is rather a duffer. You should go into the world more, and + sketch from life. The Vice-Chancellor gave me great pleasure by + speaking of your early poems very highly the other day, and I + assure you it was quite a drop down for me, to find that he was + referring to some other writer of the same name. Of course I did + not undeceive him. I wish, my dear fellow, you would write stories + in one volume instead of three. You write a _short_ story + capitally. + +'Yours ever, +'JACK.' + +Tom the surgeon belongs to that very objectionable class of humanity, +called, by ancient writers, wags: + +'MY DEAR DICK, + 'I cannot help writing to thank you for the relief afforded to me + by the perusal of your last volume. I had been suffering from + neuralgia, and every prescription in the Pharmacopæia for producing + sleep had failed until I tried _that_. Dear Maggie [an odious + woman, who calls novels "light literature," and affects to be blue] + read it to me herself, so it was given every chance; but I think + you must acknowledge that it was a little spun out. Maggie assures + me—I have not read them myself, for you know what little time I + have for such things—that the first two volumes, with the exception + of the characters of the hero and heroine, which she pronounces to + be rather feeble, are first-rate. Why don't you write two-volume + novels? There is always something in analogy: reflect how seldom + Nature herself produces three at a birth: when she does, it is only + two, at most, which survive. We shall look forward to your next + effort with much interest, but we hope you will give more time and + pains to it. Remember what Horace says upon this subject (He has no + more knowledge of Horace than he has of Sanscrit, but he has read + the quotation in that vile review in the _Scourge_.) Maggie thinks + you live too luxuriously: if your expenses were less you would not + be compelled to write so much, and you would do it better. Excuse + this well-meant advice from an elder brother. + +'Yours always, +'Tom.' + +'One's sisters, and one's cousins, and one's aunts' also write in more +or less the same style, though, to do their sex justice, less +offensively. 'If you were to go abroad, my dear Dick,' says one, 'it +would expand your mind. There is nothing to blame in your last +production, which strikes me (what I could understand of it at least, +for some of it is a little Bohemian) as very pleasing; but the fact is, +that English subjects are quite used up.' Others discover for +themselves the originals of Dick's characters in persons he has never +dreamt of describing, and otherwise exhibit a most marvellous +familiarity with his materials. 'Hennie, who has just been here, is +immensely delighted with your satirical sketch of her husband. He, +however, as you may suppose, is _wild_, and says you had better +withdraw your name from the candidates' book at his club. I don't know +how many black balls exclude, but he has a good many friends there.' +Another writes: 'Of course we all recognised Uncle George in your Mr. +Flibbertigibbet; but we try not to laugh; indeed our sense of loss is +too recent. Seriously, I think you might have waited till the poor old +man—who was always kind to you, Dick—was cold in his grave.' + +Some of these excellent creatures send incidents of real life which +they are sure will be useful to 'dear Dick' for his next +book—narratives of accidents in a hansom cab, of missing the train by +the Underground, and of Mr. Jones being late for his own wedding, +'which, though nothing in themselves, actually did happen, you know, +and which, properly dressed up, as you so well know how to do,' will, +they are sure, obtain for him a marked success. 'There is nothing like +reality,' they say, he may depend upon it, 'for coming home to people.' + +After all, one need not read these abominable letters. One's relatives +(thank Heaven!) usually live in the country. The real Critics on the +Hearth are one's personal acquaintances in town, whom one cannot +escape. + +'My dear friend,' said one to me the other day—a most cordial and +excellent fellow, by-the-bye (only too frank)—'I like you, as you know, +beyond everything, personally, but I cannot read your books.' + +'My dear Jones,' replied I, 'I regret that exceedingly; for it is you, +and men like you, whose suffrages I am most anxious to win. Of the +approbation of all intelligent and educated persons I am certain; but +if I could only obtain that of the million, I should be a happy man.' + +But even when I have thus demolished Jones, I still feel that I owe him +a grudge. 'What the Deuce is it to me whether Jones likes my books or +not? and why does he tell me he doesn't like them?' + +Of the surpassing ignorance of these good people, I have just heard an +admirable anecdote. A friend of a justly popular author meets him in +the club and congratulates him upon his last story in the _Slasher_ [in +which he has never written a line]. It is so full of farce and fun [the +author is a grave writer]. 'Only I don't see why it is not advertised +under the same title in the other newspapers.' The fact being that the +story in the _Slasher_ is a parody—and not a very good-natured one—upon +the author's last work, and resembles it only as a picture in _Vanity +Fair_ resembles its original. + +Some Critics on the Hearth are not only good-natured, but have rather +too high, or, if that is impossible, let us say too pronounced, an +opinion of the abilities of their literary friends. They wonder why +they do not employ their gigantic talents in some enduring monument, +such as a life of 'Alexander the Great' or a popular history of the +Visigoths. To them literature is literature, and they do not concern +themselves with little niceties of style or differences of subject. +Others again, though extremely civil, are apt to affect more enthusiasm +than they feel. They admire one's works without exception—'they are all +absolutely charming'—but they would be placed in a position of great +embarrassment if they were asked to name their favourite: for, as a +matter of fact, they are ignorant of the very names of them. A novelist +of my acquaintance lent his last work to a lady cousin because she +'really could not wait till she got it from the library;' besides, 'she +was ill, and wanted some amusing literature.' After a month or so he +got his three volumes back, with a most gushing letter. It 'had been +the comfort of many a weary hour of sleeplessness,' etc. The thought of +having 'smoothed the pillow and soothed the pain' would, she felt sure, +be gratifying to him. Perhaps it would have been, only she had omitted +to cut the pages even of the first volume. + +But, as a general rule, these volunteer censors plume themselves on +discovering defects and not beauties. When any author is particularly +popular and has been long before the public, they have two methods of +discoursing upon him in relation to their literary friend. In the +first, they represent him as a model of excellence, and recommend their +friend to study him, though without holding out much hope of his ever +becoming his rival; in the second, they describe him as 'worked out,' +and darkly hint that sooner or later [they mean sooner] their friend +will be in the same unhappy condition. These, I need not say, are among +the most detestable specimens of their class, and only to be equalled +by those excellent literary judges who are always appealing to +posterity, which, even if a little temporary success has crowned you +to-day, will relegate you to your proper position to-morrow. If one +were weak enough to argue with these gentry, it would be easy to show +that popular authors are not 'worked out,' but only have the appearance +of being so from their taking their work too easily. Those whose +calling it is to depict human nature in fiction are especially subject +to this weakness; they do not give themselves the trouble to study new +characters, or at first hand, as of old; they sit at home and receive +the congratulations of Society without paying due attention to that +somewhat changeful lady, and they draw upon their memory, or their +imagination, instead of studying from the life. Otherwise, when they do +not give way to that temptation of indolence which arises from +competence and success, there is no reason why their reputation should +suffer, since, though they may lack the vigour or high spirits of those +who would push them from their stools, their experience and knowledge +of the world are always on the increase. + +As to the argument with regard to posterity which is so popular with +the Critic on the Hearth, I am afraid he has no greater respect for the +opinion of posterity himself than for that of his possible +great-great-granddaughter. Indeed, he only uses it as being a weapon +the blow of which it is impossible to parry, and with the object of +being personally offensive. It is, moreover, noteworthy that his +position, which is sometimes taken up by persons of far greater +intelligence, is inconsistent with itself. The praisers of posterity +are also always the praisers of the past; it is only the present which +is in their eyes contemptible. Yet to the next generation this present +will be _their_ past, and, however valueless may be the verdict of +today, how much more so, by the most obvious analogy, will be that of +to-morrow. It is probable, indeed, though it is difficult to believe +it, that the Critics on the Hearth of the generation to come will make +themselves even more ridiculous than their immediate predecessors. + + + + +SHAM ADMIRATION IN LITERATURE. + + +In all highly civilised communities Pretence is prominent, and sooner +or later invades the regions of Literature. In the beginning, this is +not altogether to be reprobated; it is the rude homage which Ignorance, +conscious of its disgrace, offers to Learning; but after awhile, +Pretence becomes systematised, gathers strength from numbers and +impunity, and rears its head in such a manner as to suggest it has some +body and substance belonging to it. In England, literary pretence is +more universal than elsewhere from our method of education. When young +gentlemen from ten to sixteen are set to study poetry (a subject for +which not one in a hundred has the least taste or capability even when +he reads it in his own language) in Greek and Latin authors, it is only +a natural consequence that their views upon it should be slightly +artificial. The youth who objected to the alphabet that it seemed +hardly worth while to have gone through so much to have acquired so +little, was exceptionally sagacious; the more ordinary lad conceives +that what has cost him so much time and trouble, and entailed so many +pains and penalties, must needs have something in it, though it has +never met his eye. Hence arises our public opinion upon the ancient +classics, which I am afraid is somewhat different from (what painters +term) the private view. If you take the ordinary admirer of Æschylus, +for example—not the scholar, but the man who has had what he believes +to be 'a liberal education'—and appeal to his opinion upon some passage +in a British dramatist, say Shakespeare, it is ten to one that he shows +not only ignorance of the author (the odds are twenty to one about +_that_), but utter inability to grasp the point in question; it is too +deep for him, and, especially, too subtle. If you are cruel enough to +press him, he will unconsciously betray the fact that he has never felt +a line of poetry in his life. He honestly believes that the 'Seven +against Thebes' is one of the greatest works that ever were written, +just as a child believes the same of the 'Seven Champions of +Christendom.' A great wit once observed, when bored by the praises of a +man who spoke six languages, that he had known a man to speak a dozen, +and yet not say a word worth hearing in any one of them. The humour of +the remark, as sometimes happens, has caused its wisdom to be +underrated; for the fact is that, in very many cases, all the +intelligence of which a mind is capable is expended upon the mere +acquisition of a foreign tongue. As to getting anything out of it in +the way of ideas, and especially of poetical ones, that is almost never +attained. There are, indeed, many who have a special facility for +languages, but in their case (with a few exceptions) one may say +without uncharity that the acquisition of ideas is not their object, +though if they did acquire them they would probably be new ones. The +majority of us, however, have much difficulty in surmounting the +obstacle of an alien tongue; and when we have done so we are naturally +inclined to overrate the advantages thus attained. Everyone knows the +poor creature who quotes French on all occasions with a certain stress +on the accent, designed to arouse a doubt in his hearers as to whether +he was not actually born in Paris. _He_, of course, is a low specimen +of the class in question, but almost all of us derive a certain +intellectual gratification from the mastery of another language, and as +we gradually attain to it, whenever we find a meaning we are apt to +mistake it for a beauty.[1] Nay, I am convinced that many admire this +or that (even) British poet from the fact that here and there his +meaning has gleamed upon them with all the charm that accompanies +unexpectedness. + + [1] Since the above was written, my attention has been called to the + following remark of De Quincey: 'As must ever be the case with readers + not sufficiently masters of a language to bring the true pretensions + of a work to any test of feeling, they are for ever mistaking for some + pleasure conferred by the writer, what is, in fact, the pleasure + naturally attached to the sense of a difficulty overcome.' + +Since classical learning is compulsory with us, this bastard admiration +is much more often excited with respect to the Greek and Latin poets. +Men may not only go through the whole curriculum of a university +education, but take high honours in it, without the least intellectual +advantage beyond the acquisition of a few quotations. This is not, of +course (good heavens!), because the classics have nothing to teach us +in the way of poetical ideas, but simply because to the ordinary mind +the acquisition of a poetical idea is very difficult, and when conveyed +in a foreign language is impossible. If the same student had given the +same time—a monstrous thought, of course, but not impracticable—to the +cultivation of Shakespeare and the old dramatists, or even to the more +modern English poets and thinkers, he would certainly have got more out +of them, though he would have missed the delicate suggestiveness of the +Greek aorist, and the exquisite subtleties of the particle _de_. Having +acquired these last, however, and not for nothing, it is not surprising +that he should esteem them very highly, and, being unable to popularise +them at dinner-parties and the like, he falls back upon praise of the +classics generally. + +Such are the circumstances which, more particularly in this country, +have led to a well-nigh universal habit of literary lying—of a pretence +of admiration for certain works of which in reality we know very +little, and for which, if we knew more, we should perhaps care even +less. + +There are certain books which are standard, and as it were planted in +the British soil, before which the great majority of us bow the knee +and doff the cap with a reverence that, in its ignorance, reminds one +of fetish worship, and, in its affectation, of the passion for High +Art. The works without which, we are told at book auctions, 'no +gentleman's library can be considered complete,' are especially the +objects of this adoration. The 'Rambler,' for example, is one of them. +I was once shut up for a week of snowstorms in a mountain inn, with the +'Rambler' and one other publication. The latter was a Shepherd's Guide, +with illustrations of the way in which sheep are marked by their +various owners for the purpose of identification: 'Cropped near ear, +upper key bitted far, a pop on the head and another at the tail head, +ritted, and with two red strokes down both shoulders,' etc. It was +monotonous, but I confess that there were times when I felt it some +comfort in having that picture-book to fall back upon, to alternate +with the 'Rambler.' + +The essay, like port wine, I have noticed, requires age for its due +appreciation. Leigh Hunt's 'Indicator' comprises some admirable essays, +but the general public have not a word to say for them; it may be urged +that that is because they had not read the 'Indicator' But why then do +they praise the 'Rambler' and Montaigne? That comforting word, +'Mesopotamia,' which has been so often alluded to in religious matters, +has many a parallel in profane literature. + +A good deal of this mock worship is of course due to abject cowardice. +A man who says he doesn't like the 'Rambler,' runs, with some folks, +the risk of being thought a fool; but he is sure to be thought that, +for something or another, under any circumstances; and, at all events, +why should he not content himself, when the 'Rambler' is belauded, with +holding his tongue and smiling acquiescence? It must be conceded that +there are a few persons who really have read the 'Rambler,' a work, of +course, I am merely using as a type of its class. In their young days +it was used as a schoolbook, and thought necessary as a part of polite +education; and as they have read little or nothing since, it is only +reasonable that they should stick to their colours. Indeed, the French +satirist's boast that he could predicate the views of any man with +regard to both worlds, if he were only supplied with the simple data of +his age and his income, is quite true in the general with regard to +literary taste. Given the age of the ordinary individual—that is to say +of the gentleman 'fond of books, but who has really no time for +reading'—and it is easy enough to guess his literary idols. They are +the gods of his youth, and, whether he has been 'suckled in a creed +outworn' or not, he knows no other. These persons, however, rarely give +their opinion about literary matters, except on compulsion; they are +harmless and truthful. The tendency of society in general, on the other +hand, is not only to praise the 'Rambler' which they have not read, but +to express a noble scorn for those who have read it and don't like it. + +I remember, as a young man, being greatly struck by the independence of +character exhibited by Miss Bronte in a certain confession she made in +respect to Miss Austen's novels. It was at a period when everybody +professed to adore them, and especially the great-guns of literature. +Walter Scott thought more highly of the genius of the author of +'Mansfield Park' even than of that of his favourite, Miss Edgeworth. +Macaulay speaks of her as though she were the Eclipse of +novelists—'first, and the rest nowhere'—though his opinion, it is true, +lost something of its force from the contempt he expressed for 'the +rest,' among whom were some much better ones. Dr. Whewell, a very +different type of mind, had 'Mansfield Park,' I believe, read to him on +his death-bed. And, indeed, up to the present date, some +highly-cultured persons of my acquaintance take the same view. They may +be very possibly right, but that is no reason why the people who have +never read Miss Austen's novels—and very few have—should ape the +fashion. Now, the authoress of 'Jane Eyre' did not derive much pleasure +from the perusal of the works of the other Jane. 'I know it's very +wrong,' she modestly said, 'but the fact is I can't read them. They +have not got story enough in them to engage my attention. I don't want +my blood curdled, but I like it stirred. Miss Austen strikes me as +milk-and-watery, and, to say truth, as dull.' + +This opinion she has, in effect, repeated in her published writings, +but I had only heard her verbal expression of it; and I admired her +courage. If she had been a man, struggling, as she then was, for a +position in literature, she would not have dared to say half as much. +For, what is very curious, the advocates of the classic authors—those I +mean whom antiquity has more or less hallowed—instead of pitying those +unhappy wights who confess their want of appreciation of them, fly at +them with bludgeons, and dance upon their prostrate bodies with clogs. + +'For who would rush on a benighted man, +And give him two black eyes for being blind?' + +inquires the poet. I answer, 'lots of people,' and especially those who +worship the pagan divinities of literature. The same thing happens—but +_their_ fury is more excusable, because they have less natural +intelligence—with the lovers of music. Instead of being sorry for the +poor folks who have 'no ear,' and whom 'a little music in the evening' +bores to extremity, they overwhelm them with reproaches for what is in +fact a natural infirmity. 'You Goth! you Vandal!' they exclaim, 'how +contemptible is the creature who has no music in his soul!' Which is +really very rude. Even persons who are not musical have their feelings. +'Hath not a Jew ears?'—that is to say, though they have 'no ear,' they +understand what is abusive language and resent it. + +I am not saying one word against established reputations in literature. +The very fact of their being established (even the 'Rambler,' for +example, has its merits) is in their favour; and, indeed, some of the +works I shall refer to are masterpieces. My objection is to the sham +admiration of them, which does their authors no good (for their +circulation is now of no consequence to them), and is injurious not +only to modern writers (who are generally made the subject of base +comparison), but especially to the utterers of this false coin +themselves. One cannot tell falsehoods, even about one's views in +literature, without injury to one's morals, yet to 'tell the truth and +shame the devil' is easy, as it would seem, compared with telling the +truth and defying the critics. + +I have alluded to the intrepidity of Miss Bronte in this matter; and, +curiously enough, it is women who have the most courage in the +expression of their literary opinions. It may be said, of course, that +this is due to the audacity of ignorance, and a well-known line may be +quoted (for some people, as I have said, are rude) in which certain +angels (who are _not_ women) are represented as being afraid to tread +in certain places. But I am speaking of women who are great readers. +Miss Martineau once confessed to me that she could see no beauties in +'Tom Jones.' 'Of course,' she said, 'the coarseness disgusts me, but +apart from that, I see no sort of merit in it.' 'What?' I replied, 'no +humour, no knowledge of human life?' 'No; to me it is a wearisome +book.' + +I disagreed with her very much upon that point, and do so still; yet, +apart from the coarseness (which does not disgust everybody, let me +tell you), there is a good deal of tedious reading in 'Tom Jones.' At +all events that expression of opinion from such lips strikes me as +noteworthy. + +It may here be said that there are many English authors of old date, +some of whose beauties are unintelligible except to those who are +acquainted with the classics; and 'Tom Jones' is one of them. Many of +the introductions to the chapters, not to mention a certain travestie +of an Homeric battle, must needs be as wearisome to those who are not +scholars, as the spectacle of a burlesque is to those who have not seen +the original play. This is still more the case with our old poets, +especially Milton. I very much doubt, in spite of the universal chorus +to the contrary, whether 'Lycidas' is much admired by readers who are +only acquainted with English literature; I am quite sure it never +touched their hearts as, for example, 'In Memoriam' does. + +I once beheld a young lady of great literary taste, and of exquisite +sensibility, torn to pieces (figuratively) and trampled upon by a great +scholar for venturing to make a comparison between those two poems. Its +invocation to the Muses, and the general classical air which pervades +it, had destroyed for her the pathos of 'Lycidas,' whereas to her +antagonist those very imperfections appeared to enhance its beauty. I +did not interfere, because the wretch was her husband, and it would +have been worse for her if I had, but my sympathies were entirely with +her. Her sad fate—for the massacre took place in public—would, I was +well aware, have the effect of making people lie worse than ever about +Milton. On that same evening, while some folks were talking about Mr. +Morris's 'Earthly Paradise,' I heard a scornful voice exclaim, 'Oh! +give ME "Paradise Lost,"' and with that gentleman I _did_ have it out. +I promptly subjected him to cross-examination, and drove him to that +extremity that he was compelled to admit he had never read a word of +Milton for forty years, and even then only in extracts from 'Enfield's +Speaker.' + +With Shakespeare—though there is a good deal of lying about _him_—the +case is different, and especially with elderly people; for 'in their +day,' as they pathetically term it, Shakespeare was played everywhere, +and everyone went to the play. They do not read him, but they recollect +him; they are well acquainted with his beauties—that is, with the +better known of them—and can quote him with manifest appreciation. They +are, intellectually, in a position much superior to that of a +fashionable lady of my acquaintance who informed me that her daughters +were going to the theatre that night to see Shakespeare's 'Turning of +the Screw.' + +The writer who has done most, without I suppose intending it, to +promote hypocrisy in literature is Macaulay. His 'every schoolboy +knows' has frightened thousands into pretending to know authors with +whom they have not even a bowing acquaintance. It is amazing that a man +who had read so much should have written so contemptuously of those who +have read but little; one would have thought that the consciousness of +superiority would have forbidden such insolence, or that his reading +would have been extensive enough to teach him at least how little he +had read of what there was to read; since he read some things—works of +imagination and humour, for example—to such very little purpose, he +might really have bragged a little less. One feels quite grateful to +Macaulay, however, for avowing his belief that he was the only man who +had read through the 'Faery Queen;' since that exonerates everybody—I +do not say from reading it, because the supposition is preposterous—but +from the necessity of pretending to have read it. The pleasure derived +from that poem to most minds is, I am convinced, analogous to that +already spoken of as being imparted by a foreign author: namely, the +satisfaction at finding it—in places—intelligible. For the few who +possess the poetic faculty it has great beauties, but I observe, from +the extracts that appear in Poetic Selections and the like, that the +most tedious and even the most monstrous passages are those which are +generally offered for admiration. The case of Spenser in this +respect—which does not stand alone in ancient English literature—has a +curious parallel in art, where people are positively found to go into +ecstasies over a distorted limb or a ludicrous inversion of +perspective, simply because it is the work of an old master, who knew +no better, or followed the fashion of his time. + +Leigh Hunt read the 'Faery Queen,' by-the-bye, as almost everything +else that has been written in the English tongue, and even Macaulay +alludes with rare commendation to his 'catholic taste.' Of all authors +indeed, and probably of all readers, Leigh Hunt had the keenest eye for +merit and the warmest appreciation of it wherever found. He was +actively engaged in politics, yet was never blind to the genius of an +adversary; blameless himself in morals, he could admire the wit of +Wycherley; and a freethinker in religion, he could see both wisdom and +beauty in the divines. Moreover, it is immensely to his credit that +this universal knowledge, instead of puffing him up, only moved him to +impart it, and that next to the pleasure he took in books was that he +derived from teaching others to take pleasure in them. Witness his 'Wit +and Humour' and his 'Imagination and Fancy,' to my mind the greatest +treasures in the way of handbooks that have ever been offered to +students of English literature, and the completest antidotes to +pretence in it. How many a time, as a boy, have I pondered over this or +that passage in the originals, from Shakespeare to Suckling, and then +compared it with the italicised lines in his two volumes, to see +whether I had hit upon the beauties; and how often, alas! I hit upon +the blots![2] + + [2] I remember (when 'I was but a little tiny boy') I thought that + 'the fringed curtains of thine eye advance,' addressed by Prospero to + Miranda, must needs be a very fine line; imagine then my confusion, on + referring for corroboration to my 'guide, philosopher, and friend,' as + he truly was, to find this passage: 'Why Shakespeare should have + condescended to the elaborate nothingness, not to say nonsense, of + this metaphor (for what is meant by "advancing curtains"?) I cannot + conceive. That is to say, if he did condescend: for it looks very like + the interpolation of some pompous declamatory player. Pope has put it + into his _Treatise on the Bathos_.' + +It is curious that Leigh Hunt, whose style has been so severely handled +(and, it must be owned, not without some justice) for its affectations, +should have been so genuine (although always generous) in his +criticisms. It was nothing to him whether an author was old or new; nor +did he shrink from any literary comparison between two writers when he +thought it appropriate (and he was generally right), notwithstanding +all the age and authority that might be at the back of one of them. +Thackeray, by the way, a very different writer and thinker, had this +same outspoken honesty in the expression of his literary taste. In +speaking of the hero of Cooper's five good novels—Leather-Stocking, +Hawkeye, etc.—he remarks with quite a noble simplicity: 'I think he is +better than any of Scott's lot.' + +It is a 'far cry' from the 'Faery Queen' to 'Childe Harold,' which, +reckoning by years, is still a modern poem; yet I wonder how many +persons under thirty—even of those who term it 'magnificent'—have ever +read 'Childe Harold.' At one time it was only people under thirty who +_had_ read it; for poetry to the ordinary reader is the poetry that was +popular in his youth—'no other is genuine.' + +'A dreary, weary poem called the _Excursion_, +Written in a manner which is my aversion,' + +is a couplet the frankness of which has always recommended itself to me +(though I like the 'Excursion'); but, except for the rhyme, it has a +fatal facility of application to other long poems. Heaven forbid that I +should 'with shadowed hint confuse' the faith in a British classic; +but, ye gods, how men have gaped (in private) over 'Childe Harold!' + +'Gil Blas,' though not a native classic, is included in the articles of +the British literary faith; not as a matter of pious opinion, but _de +fide_; a necessity of intellectual salvation. I remember an interview I +once had with a boy of letters concerning this immortal work; he is a +well-known writer now, but at the time I speak of he was only budding +and sprouting in the magazines—a lad of promise, no doubt, but given, +if not to kick against authority, to question it, and, what was worse, +to question _me_ about it, in an embarrassing manner. The natural +affability of my disposition had caused him, I suppose, to treat me as +his Father Confessor in literature; and one of the sins of omission he +confided to me was in connection with the divine Le Sage. + +'I say—about "Gil Blas," you know—Bias [a great critic of that day] was +saying last night that if he were to be imprisoned for life with only +one book to read he would choose the Bible or "Gil Blas."' + +'It is very gratifying to me,' said I, wishing to evade my young +friend, and also because I had no love for Bias, 'that he should have +selected the Bible, even as an alternative; and all the more so, since +I should never have expected it of him.' + +'Yes, papa' (that was what the young dog was wont to call me, though he +was no son of mine—far from it); 'but about "Gil Blas"? Is it _really_ +the next best book? And after he had read it—say ten times—would he not +have been rather sorry that he had not chosen—well, Shakespeare, for +instance?' + +The picture of Bias with a long white beard, the growth of twenty +years, reading that tattered copy of 'Gil Blas' in his cell, almost +affected me to tears; but I made shift to answer gravely: 'Bias is a +professional critic; and persons of that class are apt to be a little +dogmatic and given to exaggeration. But "Gil Blas" is a great work. As +a picture of the seamy side of human life—of its vices and its +weaknesses at least—it is unrivalled. The archbishop——' + +'Oh! I know that archbishop—_well_,' interrupted my young tormentor. 'I +sometimes think, if it hadn't been for that archbishop, we should never +perhaps have heard of "Gil Blas."' + +'Tchut, tchut!' said I; 'you talk like a child.' + +'But to read it _all through_, papa—three times, ten times, for all +one's life? Poor Mr. Bias!' + +'It is a matter of opinion, my dear boy,' I said. 'Bias has this great +advantage over you in literary matters, that he knows what he is +talking about; and if he was quite sure——' + +'Oh! but he was not quite sure: he was rather doubtful, he said, about +one of the books.' + +'Not the Bible, I do hope?' said I fervently. + +'No, about the other. He was not quite sure but that, instead of "Gil +Blas," he ought to have selected "Don Quixote." Now really that seems +to me worse than "Gil Blas." + +'You mean less excellent,' I rejoined; 'you are too young to appreciate +the full signification of "Don Quixote."' + +The scoundrel murmured, 'Do you mean to tell me people read it when +they are old?' But I pretended not to hear him. 'We do not all of us,' +I went on, 'know what is good for us. Sancho Panza's physician——' + +'Oh! I know that physician—_well_, papa. I sometimes think, if it had +not been for that physician, perhaps——' + +'Hush!' I exclaimed authoritatively; 'let us have no flippancy, I beg.' +And so, with a dead lift as it were, I got rid of him. He left the room +muttering, 'But to read it through—three times, ten times, for all +one's life?' And I was obliged to confess to myself that such a +prolonged course of study, even of 'Don Quixote,' would have been +wearisome. + +Rabelais is another article of our literary faith, that is certainly +subscribed to much more often than believed in. In a certain poem of +Mr. Browning's (_I_ call it the Burial of the Book, since the Latin +name he has given it is unpronounceable, even if it were possible to +recollect it), charmingly humorous, and which is also remarkable for +impersonating an inanimate object in verse as Dickens does in prose, +there occur these lines: + +'Then I went indoors, brought out a loaf, + Half a cheese and a bottle of Chablis, +Lay on the grass, and forgot the oaf + Over a jolly chapter of Rabelais.' + +Yet I have known some wonder to be expressed (confidentially) as to +where he found the 'jolly chapter,' and the looking for the beauties of +Rabelais to be likened to searching in a huge dung-heap for a few heads +of asparagus. + +I have no quarrel with Bias and Company (though they stick at nothing, +and will presently say that I don't care for these books myself), but I +venture to think that they are wrong in making dogmas of what are, +after all, but matters of literary taste; it is their vehemence and +exaggeration which drive the weak to take refuge in falsehood. + +A good woman in the country once complained of her stepson, 'He will +not love his learning, though I beats him with a jack-chain;' and from +the application of similar aids to instruction, the same result takes +place in London. Only here we dissemble and pretend to love it. It is +partly in consequence of this that works, not only of acknowledged but +genuine excellence, such as those I have been careful to select, are, +though so universally praised, so little read. The poor student +attempts them, but failing—from many causes no doubt, but also +sometimes from the fact of their not being there—to find those +unrivalled beauties which he has been led to expect in every sentence, +he stops short, where he would otherwise have gone on. He says to +himself, 'I have been deceived,' or 'I must be a born fool;' whereas he +is wrong in both suppositions. I am convinced that the want of +popularity of Walter Scott among the rising generation is partly due to +this extravagant laudation; and I am much mistaken if another great +author, more recently deceased, will not in a few years be added to the +ranks of those who are more praised than read from the same cause. + +The habit of mere adhesion to received opinion in any matter is most +mischievous, for it strikes at the root of independence of thought; and +in literature it tends to make the public taste mechanical. It is very +seldom that what is called the verdict of posterity (absurdly enough, +for are not _we_ posterity?) is ever reversed; but it has chanced to +happen in a certain case quite lately. The production of 'The Iron +Chest' upon the stage has once more brought into fashion 'Caleb +Williams.' Now that is a work, though by no means belonging to the same +rank as those to which I have referred, which has a fine old crusted +reputation. Time has hallowed it. The great world of readers (who have +never read it) used to echo the remark of Bias and Company, that this +and that modern work of fiction reminded them—though at an immense +distance, of course—of Godwin's masterpiece. I remember Le Fanu's +'Uncle Silas,' for example (from some similarity, more fanciful perhaps +than real, in the isolation of its hero), being thus compared with it. +Now 'Caleb Williams' is founded on a very fine conception—one that +could only have occurred, perhaps, to a man of genius; the first part +of it is well worked out, but towards the middle it grows feeble, and +it ends in tediousness and drivel; whereas 'Uncle Silas' is good and +strong from first to last. Le Fanu has never been so popular as, in my +humble judgment, he deserves to be, but of course modern readers were +better acquainted with him than with Godwin. Yet nine out of ten were +always heard repeating this cuckoo cry about the latter's superiority, +until the 'Iron Chest' came out, and Fashion induced them to read +Godwin for themselves; which has very properly changed their opinion. + +I remember, in my own case, that, from that reverence for authority +which I hope I share with my neighbours, I used to speak of 'Headlong +Hall' and 'Crotchet Castle'—both great favourites of our +fore-fathers—with much respect, until one wet day in the country I +found myself shut up with them. I won't say what I suffered; better +judges of literature than myself admire them still, I know. I will only +remark that _I_ don't admire them. I don't say they are the dullest +novels ever printed, because that would be invidious, and might do +wrong to works of even greater pretensions; but to my mind they are +dull. + +When Dr. Johnson is free to confess that he does not admire Gray's +'Elegy,' and Macaulay to avow that he sees little to praise in Dickens +and Wordsworth, why should not humbler folks have the courage of their +own opinions? They cannot possibly be more wrong than Johnson and +Macaulay were, and it is surely better to be honest, though it may +expose one to some ridicule, than to lie. The more we agree with the +verdict of the generations before us on these matters, the more, it is +quite true, we are likely to be right; but the agreement should be an +honest one. At present very extensive domains in literature are, as it +were, enclosed and denied to the public in respect to any free +expression of their opinion. 'They are splendid, they are faultless,' +cries the general voice, but the general eye has not beheld them. +Nothing, of course, could be more futile than that, with every new +generation, our old authors who have won their fame should be arraigned +anew at the bar of public criticism; but, on the other hand, there is +no reason why the mouths of us poor moderns should be muzzled, and +still less that we 'should praise with alien lips.' + +'Until Caldecott's charming illustrations of it made me laugh so much,' +said a young lady to me the other day, 'I confess—though I know it's +very stupid of me—I never saw much fun in "John Gilpin."' She evidently +expected a reproof, and when I whispered in her ear, 'Nor I,' her +lovely features assumed a look of positive enfranchisement. + +'But am I right?' she inquired. + +'You are certainly right, my dear young lady,' said I, 'not to pretend +admiration where you don't feel it; as to liking "John Gilpin," that is +a matter of taste. It has, of course, simplicity to recommend it; but +in my own case, though I'm fond of fun, it has never evoked a smile. It +has always seemed to me like one of Mr. Joe Miller's stories put into +tedious verse.' + +I really almost thought (and hoped) that that young lady would have +kissed me. + +'Papa always says it is a free country,' she exclaimed, 'but I never +felt it to be the case before this moment.' + +For years this beautiful and accomplished creature had locked this +awful secret in her innocent breast—that she didn't see much fun in +'John Gilpin.' 'You have given me courage,' she said, 'to confess +something else. Mr. Caldecott has just been illustrating in the same +charming manner Goldsmith's "Elegy on a Mad Dog," and—I'm very +sorry—but I never laughed at _that_ before, either. I have pretended to +laugh, you know,' she added, hastily and apologetically, 'hundreds of +times.' + +'I don't doubt it,' I replied; 'this is not such a free country as your +father supposes.' + +'But am I right?' + +'I say nothing about "right,"' I answered, 'except that everybody has a +right to his own opinion. For my part, however, I think the 'Mad Dog' +better than 'John Gilpin' only because it is shorter.' + +Whether I was wrong or right in the matter is of no consequence even to +myself; the affection and gratitude of that young creature would more +than repay me for a much greater mistake, if mistake it is. She +protests that I have emancipated her from slavery. She has since talked +to me about all sorts of authors, from Sir Philip Sidney to Washington +Irving, in a way that would make some people's blood run cold; but it +has no such effect upon me—quite the reverse. Of Irving she naïvely +remarks that his strokes of humour seem to her to owe much of their +success to the rarity of their occurrence; the flashes of fun are +spread over pages of dulness, which enhance them, just as a dark night +is propitious to fireworks, or the atmosphere of the House cf Commons, +or of a Court of Law, to a joke. She is often in error, no doubt, but +how bright and wholesome such talk is as compared with the platitudes +and commonplaces which one hears on all sides in connection with +literature! + +As a rule, I suppose, even people in society ('the drawing-rooms and +the clubs') are not absolutely base and yet one would really think so, +to judge by the fear that is entertained by them of being natural. 'I +vow to heaven,' says the prince of letter-writers, 'that I think the +Parrots of Society are more intolerable and mischievous than its Birds +of Prey. If ever I destroy myself, it will be in the bitterness of +having those infernal and damnable "good old times" extolled.' One is +almost tempted to say the same—when one hears their praises come from +certain mouths—of the good old books. It is not everyone, of course, +who has an opinion of his own upon any subject, far less on that of +literature, but everyone can abstain from expressing an opinion that is +not his own. If one has no voice, what possible compensation can there +be in becoming an echo? No one, I conclude, would wish to see +literature discoursed about in the same pinchbeck and affected style as +are painting and music; [3] yet that is what will happen if this +prolific weed of sham admiration is permitted to attain its full +growth. + + [3] The slang of art-talk has reached the 'young men' in the furniture + warehouses. A friend of mine was recommended a sideboard the other day + as not being a Chippendale, but as 'having a Chippendale _feeling_ in + it.' + +[decoration] + + + + +THE PINCH OF POVERTY. + + +In these days of reduction of rents, or of total abstinence from +rent-paying, it is, I am told, the correct thing to be 'a little +pressed for money.' It is a sign of connection with the landed interest +(like the banker's ejaculation in 'Middlemarch') and suggests family +acres, and entails, and a position in the county. (In which case I know +a good many people who are landlords on a very extensive scale, and +have made allowances for their tenants the generosity of which may be +described as Quixotic.) But as a general rule, and in times less +exceptionally hard, though Shakespeare tells us 'How apt the poor are +to be proud,' they are not proud of being poor. + +'Poverty,' says the greatest of English divines, 'is indeed despised +and makes men contemptible; it exposes a man to the influences of evil +persons, and leaves a man defenceless; it is always suspected; its +stories are accounted lies, and all its counsels follies; it puts a man +from all employment; it makes a man's discourses tedious and his +society troublesome. This is the worst of it.' Even so poverty seems +pretty bad, but, begging Dr. Jeremy Taylor's pardon, what he has stated +is by no means 'the worst of it.' To be in want of food at any time, +and of firing in winter time, is ever so much worse than the +inconveniences he enumerates; and to see those we love—delicate women +and children perhaps—in want, is worse still. The fact is, the +excellent bishop probably never knew what it was to go without his +meals, but took them 'reg'lar' (as Mrs. Gamp took her Brighton ale) as +bishops generally do. Moreover, since his day, Luxury has so +universally increased, and the value of Intelligence has become so well +recognised (by the publishers) that even philosophers, who profess to +despise such things, have plenty to eat, and good of its kind too. +Hence it happens that, from all we hear to the contrary from the +greatest thinkers, the deprivation of food is a small thing: indeed, as +compared with the great spiritual struggles of noble minds, and the +doubts that beset them as to the supreme government of the universe, it +seems hardly worth mentioning. + +In old times, when folks were not so 'cultured,' starvation was thought +more of. It is quite curious, indeed, to contrast the high-flying +morality of the present day (when no one is permitted, either by +Evolutionist or Ritualist, however dire may be his necessity, so much +as to jar his conscience) with the shocking laxity of the Holy +Scriptures. 'Men do not despise a thief if he steal to satisfy his soul +when he is hungry,' says Solomon, after which stretch of charity, +strange to say, he goes on to speak of marital infidelity in terms +that, considering the number of wives he had himself, strike one as +severe. + +It is certain, indeed, that the sacred writers were apt to make great +allowances for people with empty stomachs, and though I am well aware +that the present profane ones think this very reprehensible, I venture +to agree with the sacred writers. The sharpest tooth of poverty is +felt, after all, in the bite of hunger. A very amusing and graphic +writer once described his experience of a whole night passed in the +streets; the exhaustion, the pain, the intolerable weariness of it, +were set forth in a very striking manner; the sketch was called 'The +Key of the Street,' and was thought by many, as Browning puts it, to be +'the true Dickens.' But what are even the pangs of sleeplessness and +fatigue compared with those of want? Of course there have been fanatics +who have fasted many days; but they have been supported by the prospect +of spiritual reward. I confess I reserve my pity for those who have no +such golden dreams, and who fast perforce. It is exceedingly difficult +for mere worldlings—such as most of us are—not to eat, if it is +possible, when we are hungry. I have known a great social philosopher +who flattered himself that he was giving his sons an experience of High +Thinking and Low Living by restricting their pocket-money to two +shillings a day, out of which it was understood they were to find their +own meals. I don't know whether the spirit in their case was willing, +but the flesh was decidedly weak, for one of them, on this very +moderate allowance, used to contrive to always have a pint of dry +champagne with his luncheon. The fact is, that of the iron grip of +poverty, people in general, by no means excepting those who have +written about it, have had very little experience; whereas of the pinch +of it a good many people know something. It is the object of this +paper—and the question should be an interesting one, considering how +much it is talked about—to inquire briefly where it lies. + +It is quite extraordinary how very various are the opinions entertained +on this point, and, before sifting them, one must be careful in the +first place to eliminate from our inquiry the cases of that +considerable class of persons who pinch themselves. For, however +severely they do it, they may stop when they like and the pain is +cured. There is all the difference in the world between pulling one's +own tooth out, and even the best and kindest of dentists doing it for +one. How gingerly one goes to work, and how often it strikes one that +the tooth is a good tooth, that it has been a fast friend to us for +ever so many years and never 'fallen out' before, and that after all it +had better stop where it is! + +To the truly benevolent mind, indeed, nothing is more satisfactory than +to hear of a miser denying himself the necessaries of life a little too +far and ridding us of his presence altogether. Our confidence in the +average virtue of humanity assures us that his place will be supplied +by a better man. The details of his penurious habits, the comfortless +room, the scanty bedding, the cheese-rinds on his table, and the fat +banking-book under his thin bolster, only inspire disgust: if he were +pinched to death he did it himself, and so much the better for the +world in general and his heir in particular. + +Again, the people who have a thousand a year, and who try to persuade +the world that they have two thousand, suffer a good deal of +inconvenience, but it can't be called the pinch of poverty. They may +put limits to their washing-bills, which persons of cleanlier habits +would consider unpleasantly narrow; they may eat cold mutton in private +for five days a week in order to eat turtle and venison in public (and +with the air of eating them every day) on the sixth; and they may +immure themselves in their back rooms in London throughout the autumn +in order to persuade folks that they are still at Trouville, where for +ten days they did really reside and in splendour; but all their stint +and self-incarceration, so far from awakening pity, only fill us with +contempt. I am afraid that even the complaining tones of our City +friend who tells us that in consequence of 'the present unsettled state +of the markets' he has been obliged to make 'great retrenchments'—which +it seems on inquiry consist in putting down one of his carriages and +keeping three horses instead of six—fail to draw the sympathising tear. +Indeed, to a poor man this pretence of suffering on the part of the +rich is perhaps even more offensive than their boasts of their +prosperity. + +On the other hand, when the rich become really poor their case is hard +indeed; though, strange to say, we hear little of it. It is like +drowning; there is a feeble cry, a little ineffectual assistance from +the bystanders, and then they go under. It is not a question of pinch +with _them_; they have fallen into the gaping mouth of ruin, and it has +devoured them. If we ever see them again, it is in the second +generation as waiters (upon Providence), or governesses, and we say, +'Why, dear me, that was Bullion's son (or daughter), wasn't it?' using +the past tense, as if they were dead. 'I remember him when he lived in +Eaton Square.' This class of cases rarely comes under the head of +'genteel poverty.' They were at the top, and hey presto! by some +malignant stroke of fate they are at the bottom; and there they stick. + +I don't believe in bachelors ever experiencing the pinch of poverty; I +have heard them complaining of it at the club, while ordering Medina +oysters instead of Natives, but, after all, what does it signify even +if they were reduced to cockles? They have no appearances to keep up, +and if they cannot earn enough to support themselves they must be poor +creatures indeed. + +It is the large families of moderate income, who are delicate, and have +delicate tastes, that feel the twinge: and especially the poor girls. I +remember a man, with little care for his personal appearance, of small +means but with a very rich sense of humour, describing to me his +experiences when staying at a certain ducal house in the country, where +his feelings must have been very similar to those of Christopher Sly. +In particular he drew a charming picture of the magnificent attendant +who in the morning _would_ put out his clothes for him, which had not +been made by Mr. Poole, nor very recently by anybody. The contempt +which he well understood his Grace's gentleman must have felt for him +afforded him genuine enjoyment. But with young ladies, in a similar +position, matters are very different; they have rarely a sense of +humour, and certainly none strong enough to counteract the force of a +personal humiliation. I have known some very charming ones, compelled +to dress on a very small allowance, who, in certain mansions where they +have been occasionally guests, have been afraid to put their boots +outside their door, because they were not of the newest, and have +trembled when the officious lady's-maid has meddled with their scanty +wardrobe. A philosopher may think nothing of this, but, considering the +tender skin of the sufferer, it may be fairly called a pinch. + +In the investigation of this interesting subject, I have had a good +deal of conversation with young ladies, who have given me the fullest +information, and in a manner so charming, that, if it were common in +witnesses generally, it would make Blue-Books very pretty reading. + +'I consider it to be "a pinch,"' says one, 'when I am obliged to put on +black mittens on occasions when I know other girls will have long white +kid gloves.' I must confess I have a prejudice myself against mittens; +they are, so to speak, 'gritty' to touch; so that the pinch, if it be +one, experienced by the wearer, is shared by her ungloved friends. The +same thing may be said of that drawing-room fire which is lit so late +in the season for economical reasons, and so late in the day at all +times: the pinch is felt as much by the visitors as by the members of +the household. These things, however, are mere nips, and may be placed +in the same category with the hardships complained of by my friend +Quiverfull's second boy. 'I don't mind having papa's clothes cut up for +me,' he says, 'but what I do think hard is getting Bob's clothes' (Bob +being his elder brother), 'which have been papa's first; however, I am +in great hopes that I am out-growing Bob.' + +A much more severe example of the pinch of poverty than these is to be +found in railway travelling; no lady of any sense or spirit objects to +travel by the second, or even the third class, if her means do not +justify her going by the first. But when she meets with richer friends +upon the platform, and parts with them to journey in the same +compartment with their man-servant, she suffers as acutely as though, +when the guard slams the door of the carriage with the vehemence +proportioned to its humble rank, her tender hand had been crushed in +it. Of course it is very foolish of her; but it demands democratic +opinions, such as almost no woman of birth and breeding possesses, not +to feel _that_ pinch. Her knowledge that it is also hard upon the +man-servant, who has never sat in her presence before, but only stooped +over her shoulder with ''Ock, miss,' serves but to increase her pain. + +A great philosopher has stated that the worst evil of poverty is, that +it makes folks ridiculous; by which, I hope, he only means that, as in +the above case, it places them in incongruous positions. The man, or +woman, who derives amusement from the lack of means of a +fellow-creature, would jeer at a natural deformity, be cruel to +children, and insult old age. Such people should be whipped and then +hanged. Nevertheless there are certain little pinches of poverty so +slight, that they tickle almost as much as they hurt the victim. A lady +once told me (interrupting herself, however, with pleasant bursts of +merriment) that as a young girl her allowance was so small that when +she went out to spend the evening at a friend's, her promised pleasure +was darkened by the presentiment (always fulfilled) that the cabman was +sure to charge her more than the proper fare. The extra expense was +really of consequence to her, but she never dared dispute it, because +of the presence of the footman who opened the door. + +Some young ladies—quite as lady-like as any who roll in chariots—cannot +even afford a cab. 'What _I_ call the pinch of poverty,' observed an +example of this class, 'is the waiting for omnibus after omnibus on a +wet afternoon and finding them all full.' + +'But surely,' I replied with gallantry, 'any man would have given up +his seat to you?' + +She shook her head with a smile that had very little fun in it. 'People +in omnibuses,' she said, 'don't give up their seats to others.' Nor, I +am bound to confess, do they do so elsewhere; if I had been in their +place, perhaps I should have been equally selfish; though I do think I +should have made an effort, in this instance at least, to make room for +her close beside me. [4] + + [4] There is, however, some danger in this. I remember reading of some + highly respectable old gentleman in the City who thus accommodated on + a wet day a very nice young woman in humble circumstances. She was as + full of apologies as of rainwater, and he of good-natured rejoinders, + intended to put her at her ease; so that he became, in a Platonic and + paternal way, quite friendly with her by the time she arrived at her + destination—which happened to be his own door. She turned out to be + his new cook, which was afterwards very embarrassing. + +A young governess whom some wicked fairy endowed at her birth with the +sensitiveness often denied to princesses, has assured me that her +journeys by railway have sometimes been rendered miserable by the +thought that she had not even a few pence to spare for the porter who +would presently shoulder her little box on to the roof of her cab. + +It is people of this class, much more than those beneath them, who are +shut out from all amusements. The mechanic goes to the play and to the +music-hall, and occasionally takes his 'old girl,' as he calls his +wife, and even 'a kid' or two, to the Crystal Palace. But those I have +in my mind have no such relaxation from compulsory duty and importunate +care. 'I know it's very foolish, but I feel it sometimes to be a +pinch,' says one of these ill-fated ones, 'to see them all [the +daughters of her employer] going to the play, or the opera, while I am +expected to be satisfied with a private view of their pretty dresses.' +No doubt it is the sense of comparison (especially with the female) +that sharpens the sting of poverty. It is not, however, through envy +that the 'prosperity of fools destroys us,' so much as the knowledge of +its unnecessariness and waste. When a mother has a sick child who needs +sea air, which she cannot afford to give it, the consciousness that her +neighbour's family (the head of which perhaps is a most successful +financier and market-rigger) are going to the Isle of Wight for three +months, though there is nothing at all the matter with them, is an +added bitterness. How often it is said (no doubt with some +well-intentioned idea of consolation) that after all money cannot buy +life! I remember a curious instance to the contrary of this. In the old +days of sailing-packets a country gentleman embarked for Ireland, and +when a few miles from land broke a bloodvessel through seasickness. A +doctor on board pronounced that he would certainly die before the +completion of the voyage if it was continued; whereupon the sick man's +friends consulted with the captain, who convoked the passengers, and +persuaded them to accept compensation in proportion to their needs for +allowing the vessel to be put back; which was accordingly done. + +One of the most popular fictions of our time was even written with this +very moral, that life is unpurchasable. Yet nothing is more certain +than that life is often lost through want of money—that is, of the +obvious means to save it. In such a case how truly has it been written +that 'the destruction of the poor is their poverty'! This, however, is +scarcely a pinch, but, to those who have hearts to feel it, a wrench +that 'divides asunder the joints and the marrow.' + +A nobler example, because a less personal one, of the pinch of poverty, +is when it prevents the accomplishment of some cherished scheme for the +benefit of the human race. I have felt such a one myself when in +extreme youth I was unable, from a miserable absence of means, to +publish a certain poem in several cantos. That the world may not have +been much better for it if I had had the means does not affect the +question. It is easy to be incredulous. Henry VII. of England did not +believe in the expectations of Columbus, and suffered for it, and his +case may have been similar to that of the seven publishers to whom I +applied in vain. + +A man with an invention on which he has spent his life, but has no +means to get it developed for the good of humanity—or even patented for +himself—must feel the pinch of poverty very acutely. + +To sum up the matter, the longer I live, the more I am convinced that +the general view in respect to material means is a false one. That +great riches are a misfortune is quite true; the effect of them in the +moral sense (with here and there a glorious exception, however) is +deplorable: a shower of gold falling continuously upon any body (or +soul) is as the waters of a petrifying spring. But, on the other hand, +the occasional and precarious dripping of coppers has by no means a +genial effect. If the one recipient becomes hard as the nether +millstone, the other (just as after constant 'pinching' a limb becomes +insensible) grows callous, and also (though it seems like a +contradiction in terms) sometimes acquires a certain dreadful +suppleness. Nothing is more monstrous than the generally received +opinion with respect to a moderate competence; that 'fatal gift,' as it +is called, which encourages idleness in youth by doing away with the +necessity for exertion. I never hear the same people inveighing against +great inheritances, which are much more open to such objections. The +fact is, if a young man is naturally indolent, the spur of necessity +will drive him but a very little way, while the having enough to live +upon is often the means of preserving his self-respect. One constantly +hears what humiliating things men will do for money, whereas the truth +is that they do them for the want of it. It is not the temptation which +induces them, but the pinch. 'Give me neither poverty nor riches,' was +Agur's prayer; 'feed me with food convenient for me, lest I be full and +deny Thee, and say, Who is the Lord? or lest I be poor and steal.' And +there are many things—flatteries, disgraceful humiliations, +hypocrisies—which are almost as bad as stealing. One of the sharpest +pinches of poverty to some minds must be their inability (because of +their dependency on him and that of others upon them) to tell a man +what they think of him. + +Riches and poverty are of course but relative terms; but the happiest +material position in which a man can be placed is that of 'means with a +margin.' Then, however small his income may be, however it may behove +him to 'cut and contrive,' as the housekeepers call it, he does not +feel the pinch of poverty. I have known a rich man say to an +acquaintance of this class, 'My good friend, if you only knew how very +small are the pleasures my money gives me which you yourself cannot +purchase!' And for once it was not one of those cheap and empty +consolations which the wealthy are so ready to bestow upon their less +fortunate fellow-creatures. Dives was, in that instance, quite right in +his remark; only we must remember he was not speaking to Lazarus. 'A +dinner of herbs where love is,' is doubtless quite sufficient for us; +only there must be enough of it, and the herbs should be nicely cooked +in an omelette. + +[Illustration] + + + + +THE LITERARY CALLING AND ITS FUTURE. + + +One would think that in writing about literary men and matters there +would be no difficulty in finding a title for one's essay, or that any +embarrassment which might arise would be from excess of material. I +find this, however, far from being the case. 'Men of Letters,' for +example, is a heading too classical and pretentious. I do indeed +remember its being used in these modern days by the sub-editor of a +country paper, who, having quarrelled with his proprietor, and reduced +him to silence by a violent kick in the abdomen, thus addressed him: 'I +leave you and your dirty work for ever, and start to-night for London, +to take up my proper position as a Man of Letters.' But this +gentleman's case (and I hope that of his proprietor) was an exceptional +one. The term in general is too ambitious and suggestive of the author +of 'Cato,' for my humble purpose. 'Literature as a Profession,' again, +is open to objection on the question of fact. The professions do not +admit literature into their brotherhood. 'Literature, Science, and Art' +are all spoken of in the lump, and rather contemptuously (like +'reading, writing, and arithmetic'), and have no settled position +whatever. In a book of precedence, however—a charming class of work, +and much more full of humour than the peerage—I recently found +indicated for the first time the relative place of Literature in the +social scale. After a long list of Eminent Personages and Notables, the +mere perusal of which was calculated to bring the flush of pride into +my British cheek, I found at the very bottom these remarkable words, +'Burgesses, Literary Persons, and others.' Lest haughtiness should +still have any place in the breasts of these penultimates of the human +race, the order was repeated in the same delightful volume in still +plainer fashion, 'Burgesses, Literary Persons, etc.' It is something, +of course, to take precedence—in going down to dinner, for example—even +of an et cetera; but who are Burgesses? I have a dreadful suspicion +they are not gentlemen. Are they ladies? Did I ever meet a Burgess, I +wonder, coming through the rye? At all events, after so authoritative a +statement of its social position, I feel that to speak of Literature as +a profession would be an hyperbole. + +On the other hand, 'The Literary Calling' is not a title that satisfies +me. For the word 'calling' implies a certain fitness; in the religious +sense it has even more significance; and it cannot be denied that there +are a good many persons who devote—well, at least, their time to +literature, who can hardly be said to have 'a call' in that direction, +nor even so much as a whisper. At the same time I will venture to +observe, notwithstanding a great deal of high-sounding twaddle talked +and written to the contrary, that it is not necessary for a man to feel +any miraculous or even extraordinary attraction to this pursuit to +succeed in it very tolerably. I remember a now distinguished personage +(in another line) who had written a very successful work, expressing +his opinion to me that unless a certain divine afflatus animated a man, +he should never take up his pen to address the public. The writing for +pay, he added (he had at least £5,000 a year of his own), was the +degradation of literature. As I had written about a dozen books myself +at the time, and most decidedly with an eye to profit, and had never +experienced much afflatus, this remark discouraged me very much. +However, as the gentleman in question did essay another volume, which +was so absolute and distinct a failure that he promptly took up another +line of business (far above that of Burgesses), it is probable he +altered his views. + +Nature of course is the best guide in the matter of choosing a pursuit. +When she says 'This is your line, stick to it,' she seldom or never +makes a mistake. But, on the other hand, her speech must be addressed +to mature ears. For my part, I do not much believe in the predilections +of boyhood. I was never so simple as to wish to go to sea, but I do +remember (when between seven and eight) having a passionate longing to +become a merchant. I had no notion, however, of the preliminary stages; +the high stool in the close street; luncheon at a counter, standing (I +liked to have my meals good, plentiful, often, and in comfort, even +then); and imprisonment at the office on the eves of mail nights till +the large hours p.m. Even the full fruition of such aspirations—the +large waistcoat beginning to 'point,' (as it soon does in merchants), +heavy watchchain, and cheerful conviction of the coming scarcity of +necessaries for everybody else, would have failed to please. The sort +of merchant I wanted to be was never found in 'Post Office Directory,' +but in the 'Arabian Nights,' trading to Bussorah, chiefly in pearls and +diamonds. When the Paterfamiliases of my acquaintance instance certain +stenches and messes which their Toms and Harrys make with chemicals all +over their house, as a proof of 'their natural turn for engineering,' I +say, 'Very likely,' or 'A capital thing,' but I _think_ of that early +attraction of my own towards Bussorah. The young gentlemen never dream +of what I once heard described, in brief, as the real business life of +a scientific apprentice: 'To lie on your back with a candle in your +hand, while another fellow knocks nails into a boiler.' + +Boys have rarely any special aptitude for anything practical beyond +punching each others' heads, or (and these are the clever ones) for +keeping their own heads unpunched. As a rule, in short, Nature is not +demonstrative as respects our professional future. + +It must nevertheless be conceded that if the boy is ever father to the +man in this respect, it is in connection with literature. Also, however +prosaic their works are fated to be, it is curious that the aspirants +for the profession below Burgesses always begin with Poetry. Even +Harriet Martineau wrote verses in early life bad enough to comfort the +soul of any respectable parent. The approach to the Temple of Literary +Fame is almost always through double gates—couplets. And yet I have +known youthful poets, apparently bound for Paternoster Row, bolt off +the course in a year or two, to the delight of their friends, and +become, of their own free will, drysalters. + +There is so much talk about the 'indications of immortality in early +childhood' (of a very different kind from those referred to by +Wordsworth), and it is so much the habit of biographers to use +magnifiers when their subject is small, that it needs some courage to +avow my belief that the tastes of boys have very little significance. A +clever boy can be trained to almost anything, and an ordinary boy will +not do one thing much better than another. With the Geniuses I will +allow (for the sake of peace and quietness) that Nature is +all-powerful, but with nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand +of us, Second Nature, Use, is the true mistress; and what will +doubtless strike some people as almost paradoxical, but is nevertheless +a fact, Literature is the calling in which she has the greatest sway. + +It is the fashion with that enormous class of people who don't know +what they are talking about, and who take up cuckoo-cries, to speak +contemptuously of modern literature, by which they mean (for they are +acquainted with little else) periodical literature. However small may +be its merits, it is at all events ten times as good as ancient +periodical literature used to be. A very much better authority than +myself on such a subject has lately informed us that the majority of +the old essays in the _Edinburgh Review_, at the very time when it was +supposed to be most 'trenchant,' 'masterly,' 'exhaustive,' and a number +of other splendid epithets, are so dull and weak and ignorant, that it +is impossible that they or their congeners would now find acceptance in +any periodical of repute. And with regard to all other classes of old +magazine literature, this verdict is certainly most just. + +Let us take what most people suppose to be 'the extreme case,' Magazine +Poetry. Of course there is to-day a great deal of rant and twaddle +published under the name of verse in magazines; yet I could point to +scores and scores of poems that have thus appeared during the last ten +years,[5] which half a century ago would have made—and deservedly have +made—a high reputation for their authors. Such phrases as 'universal +necessity for practical exertion,' 'prosaic character of the age,' +etc., are, of course, common enough; but those who are acquainted with +such matters will, I am sure, corroborate my assertion that there was +never so much good poetry in our general literature as exists at +present. Persons of intelligence do not look for such things perhaps, +and certainly not in magazines, while persons of 'culture' are too much +occupied with old china and high art; but to humble folks, who take an +interest in their fellow-creatures, it is very pleasant to observe what +high thoughts, and how poetically expressed, are now to be found about +our feet, and, as it were, in the literary gutter. I don't compare +these writers with Byrons and Shelleys; I don't speak of them as born +poets at all. On the contrary, my argument is that second nature +(cultivation, opportunities of publication, etc.) has made them what +they are; and it is immensely creditable to her. + +And what holds good of verse holds infinitely better in respect to +prose. The enormous improvement in our prose writers (I am not speaking +of geniuses, remember, but of the generality), and their great +superiority over writers of the same class half a century ago, is +mainly due to use. Sir Walter Scott, who, like most men of genuine +power, had great generosity, once observed to a brother author, 'You +and I came just in the nick of time.' He foresaw the formidable +competition that was about to take place, though he had no cause to +fear it. I think in these days he would have had cause; not that I +disbelieve in his genius, but that I venture to think he diffused it +over too large an area. In such cases genius is overpassed by the +talent which husbands its resources; in other words, Nature succumbs to +second nature, as the wife in the patriarchal days (when _she_ grew +patriarchal) succumbed to the handmaid. And after all, though we talk +so glibly about genius, and profess to feel, though we cannot express, +in what it differs from talent, are we quite so sure about this as we +would fain persuade ourselves? At all events, it cannot surely be +contended that a man of genius always writes like one; and when he does +not, his work is often inferior to the first-rate production of a man +of talent. For my own part, I am not sure whether (with the exception, +perhaps, of the highest gifts of song) the whole distinction is not +fanciful. + +We are ready enough in ordinary matters to allow that 'practice makes +perfect,' and the limit of that principle is yet to be found. Moreover, +the vast importance of exclusive application is almost unknown. We see +it, indeed, in men of science and in lawyers, but without recognition; +nay, socially, it is even quoted against them. The mathematician may be +very eminent, but we find him dry; the lawyer may be at the head of his +profession, but we find him dull; and it is observed on all sides how +very little great A and great B, notwithstanding the high position they +have earned for themselves in their calling, know of matters out of +their own line. On the other hand, the man of whom it was said that +'science was his forte and omniscience his foible,' has left no +enduring monument behind him; and so it must always be with mortals who +have only fifty years of thought allotted to them at the very most, and +who diffuse it. Everyone admits the value of application, but very few +are aware how its force is wasted by diffusion: it is like a volatile +essence in a bottle without a cork. When, on the other hand, it is +concentrated—you may call it 'narrowed' if you please—there is hardly +anything within its own sphere of action of which it is not capable. So +many high motives (though also some mean ones) prompt us to make broad +the bases of education, that any proposal to contract them must needs +be thankless and unpopular; but it is certain that, among the upper +classes at least, the reason why so many men are unable to make their +way in the world, is because, thanks to a too liberal education, they +are Jacks of all trades and masters of none; and even as Jacks they cut +a very poor figure. + +How large and varied is the educational bill of fare set before every +young gentleman in Great Britain; and to judge by the mental stamina it +affords him in most cases, what a waste of good food it is! The dishes +are so numerous and so quickly changed, that he has no time to decide +on which he likes best. Like an industrious flea, rather than a bee, he +hops from flower to flower in the educational garden, without one +penny-worth of honey to show for it. And then—though I feel how +degrading it is to allude to so vulgar a matter—how high is the price +of admission to the feast in question! Its purveyors do not pretend to +have filled his stomach, but only to have put him in the way of filling +it for himself, whereas, unhappily, Paterfamilias discovers that that +is the very thing that they have not done. His young Hopeful at +twenty-one is almost as unable to run alone as when he first entered +the nursery. To discourse airily upon the beauties of classical +education, and on the social advantages of acquiring 'the tone' at a +public school at whatever cost, is an agreeable exercise of the +intelligence; but such arguments have been taken too seriously, and the +result is that our young gentlemen are incapable of gaining their own +living. It is not only that 'all the gates are thronged with suitors, +all the markets overflow,' but even when the candidates are so +fortunate as to attain admittance, they are still a burden upon their +fathers for years, from having had no especial preparation for the work +they have to do. Folks who can afford to spend £250 a year on their +sons at Eton or Harrow, and to add another fifty or two for their +support at the universities, do not feel this; but those who have done +it without affording it—_i.e._, by cutting and contriving, if not by +pinching and saving—feel their position very bitterly. There are +hundreds of clever young men who are now living at home and doing +nothing—or work that pays nothing, and even costs something for doing +it—who might be earning very tolerable incomes by their pen if they +only knew how, and had not wasted their young wits on Greek plays and +Latin verses; nor do I find that the attractions of such objects of +study are permanent, or afford the least solace to these young +gentlemen in their enforced leisure. + +The idea of bringing young people up to Literature is doubtless +calculated to raise the eyebrows almost as much as the suggestion of +bringing them up to the Stage. The notions of Paterfamilias in this +respect are very much what they were fifty years ago. 'What! put my boy +in Grub Street? I would rather see him in his coffin.' In his mind's +eye he beholds Savage on his bunk and Chatterton on his deathbed. He +does not know that there are many hundreds of persons of both sexes who +have found out this vocation for themselves, and are diligently +pursuing it—under circumstances of quite unnecessary difficulty—to +their material advantage. He is unaware that the conditions of +literature in England have been as completely changed within a single +generation as those of locomotion. + +There are, it is true, at present no great prizes in literature such as +are offered by the learned professions, but there are quite as many +small ones—competences; while, on the other hand, it is not so much of +a lottery. It is not necessary to marry an attorney's daughter, or a +bishop's, to get on in it. The calling, as it is termed (I know not +why, for it is often heavy enough), of 'light literature' is in such +contempt, through ignorance on the one hand, and arrogance on the +other, that one is almost afraid in such a connection to speak of +merit; yet merit, or, at all events, aptitude with diligence, is +certain of success in it. A great deal has been said about editors +being blind to the worth of unknown authors; but if so, they must be +also blind (and this I have never heard said of them) to their own +interests. It would be just as reasonable to accuse a recruiting +sergeant of passing by the stout six-feet fellows who wish to enlist +with him, and for each of whom—directly or indirectly—he receives +head-money. It is possible, of course, that one particular sergeant may +be drunken, or careless of his own interests, but in that case the +literary recruit has only to apply next door. The opportunities for +action in the field of literature are now so very numerous that it is +impossible that any able volunteer should be long shut out of it; and I +have observed that the complaints about want of employment come almost +solely from those unfit for service. Nay, in the ranks of the +literaryarmy there are very many who should have been excluded. Few, if +any, are there through favour; but the fact is, the work to be done is +so extensive and so varied, that there is not a sufficiency of good +candidates to do it. And of what is called 'skilled labour' among them +there is scarcely any. + +The question 'What can you do?' put by an editor to an aspirant, +generally astonishes him very much. The aspirant is ready to do +anything, he says, which the other will please to suggest. 'But what is +your line in literature? What can you do best—not tragedies in blank +verse, I hope?' Perhaps the aspirant here hangs his head; he _has_ +written tragedies. In which case there is good hope for him, because it +shows a natural bent. But he generally replies that he has written +nothing as yet except that essay on the genius of Cicero (at which the +editor has already shaken his head), and that defence of Mary Queen of +Scots. Or perhaps he has written some translations of Horace, which he +is surprised to find not a novelty; or some considerations upon the +value of a feudal system. At four-and-twenty, in short, he is but an +overgrown schoolboy. He has been taught, indeed, to acquire knowledge +of a certain sort, but not the habit of acquiring; he has been taught +to observe nothing; he is ignorant upon all the subjects that interest +his fellow-creatures, and in his new ambition is like one who +endeavours to attract an audience without having anything to tell them. +He knows some Latin, a little Greek, a very little French, and a very +very little of what are called the English classics. He has read a few +recent novels perhaps, but of modern English literature, and of that +(to him at least) most important branch of it, English journalism, he +knows nothing. His views and opinions are those of a public school, +which are by no means in accordance with those of the great world of +readers; or he is full of the class prejudices imbibed at college. In +short, he may be as vigorous as a Zulu, with the materials of a +first-rate soldier in him, but his arms are only a club and an assegai, +and are of no service. Why should he not be fitted out in early life +with literary weapons of precision, and taught the use of them? + +I say, again, that poor Paterfamilias looking hopelessly about him, +like Quintus Curtius in the riddle, for 'a nice opening for a young +man,' is totally ignorant of the opportunities, if not for fame and +fortune, at least for competency and comfort, that Literature now +offers to a clever lad. He looks round him; he sees the Church leading +nowhere, with much greater certainty of expense than income, and +demanding a huge sum for what is irreverently termed 'gate money;' he +sees the Bar, with its high road leading indeed to the woolsack, but +with a hundred by-ways leading nowhere in particular, and full of +turnpikes—legal tutors, legal fees, rents of chambers, etc.—which he +has to defray; he sees Physic, at which Materfamilias sniffs and turns +her nose up. 'Her Jack, with such agreeable manners, to become a +saw-bones! Never!' He sees the army, and thinks, since Jack has such +great abilities, it seems a pity to give him a red coat, which costs +also considerably more than a black one; And how is Jack to live upon +his pay? + +After all, indeed, however prettily one puts it, the question is with +him, not so much '_What_ is my Jack to be?' as '_How_ is my Jack to +live?' To one who has any gift of humour there are few things more +amusing than to observe how this vulgar, but really rather important +inquiry, is ignored by those who take the subject of modern education +in hand. They are chiefly schoolmasters, who are not so deep in their +books but that they can spare a glance or two in the direction of their +banker's account; or fellows of colleges who have no children, and +therefore never feel the difficulties of supporting them. Heaven forbid +that so humble an individual as myself should question their wisdom, or +say anything about them that should seem to smack of irreverence; but I +do believe that (with one or two exceptions I have in my mind) the +system they have introduced among us is the Greatest Humbug in the +universe. In the meantime poor Paterfamilias (who is the last man, they +flatter themselves, to find this out) stands with his hands (and very +little else) in his pockets, regarding his clever offspring, and +wondering what he shall do with him. He remembers to have read about a +man on his deathbed, who calls his children about him and thanks God, +though he has left them nothing to live upon, he has given them a good +education, and tries to extract comfort from the reminiscence. That he +has spent money enough upon Jack's education is certain; something +between two or three thousand pounds in all at least, the interest of +which, it strikes him, would be very convenient just now to keep him. +But unfortunately the principal is gone and Jack isn't. + +Now suppose—for one may suppose anything, however ridiculous—he had +spent two or three hundred pounds at the very most, and brought him up +to the Calling of Literature. He believes, perhaps, that it is only +geniuses that succeed in it (in which case I know more geniuses than I +had any idea of), and he doesn't think Jack a genius, though Jack's +mother does. Or, as is more probable, he regards it as a hand-to-mouth +calling, which to-day gives its disciples a five-pound note, and +to-morrow five pence. He calls to mind a saying about Literature being +a good stick, but not a good crutch—an excellent auxiliary, but no +permanent support; but he forgets the all-important fact that the +remark was made half a century ago. + +Poor blind Paterfamilias—shall I couch you? If the operation is +successful, I am sure you will thank me for it; but, on the other hand, +I foresee I shall incur the greatest enmities. Should I encourage +clever Jack, and, what is worse, a thousand Jacks who are not clever, +to enter upon this vocation, what will editors say to me? I shall have +to go about, perhaps, guarded with two policemen with revolvers, like +an Irish gentleman on his landed estate. 'Is not the flood of rubbish +to which we are already subjected,' I hear them crying, 'bad enough, +without your pulling up the sluices of universal stupidity?' My +suggestion, however, is intended to benefit them by clearing away the +rubbish, and inducing a clearer and deeper stream for the turning of +their mills. At the same time I confess that the lessening of +Paterfamilias's difficulties is my main object. What I would open his +eyes to is the fact that a calling, of the advantages of which he has +no knowledge, _does_ present itself to clever Jack, which will cost him +nothing but pens, ink, and paper to enter upon, and in which, if he has +been well trained for it, he will surely be successful, since so many +succeed in it without any training at all. Why should not clever Jack +have this in view as much as the _ignes fatui_ of woolsacks and mitres? +If it has no lord chancellorships, it has plenty of county court +appointments; if it has no bishoprics, it has plenty of benefices—and +really, as times go, some pretty fat ones. + +On your breakfast-table, good Paterfamilias, there lies, every morning, +a newspaper, and on Saturday perhaps there are two or three. When you +go out in the street, you are pestered to buy half a score more of +them. In your club reading-room there are a hundred different journals. +When you travel by the railway you see at every station a provincial +newspaper of more or less extensive circulation. Has it never struck +you that to supply these publications with their leading articles, +there must be an immense staff of persons called journalists, +professing every description of opinion, and advocating every +conceivable policy? And do you suppose these gentry only get £70 a year +for their work, like a curate; or £60, like a sub-lieutenant; or that +they have to pay three times those sums for the privilege of belonging +to the press, as a barrister does for belonging to his inn? Again, in +London at least, there are as many magazines as newspapers, containing +every kind of literature, the very contributors of which are so +numerous, that they form a public of themselves. That seems at the +first blush to militate against my suggestion, but though contributors +are so common, and upon the whole so good—indeed, considering the +conditions under which they labour, so wonderfully good—they are not (I +have heard editors say) so good as they might be, supposing (for +example) they knew a little of science, history, politics, English +literature, and especially of the art of composition, before they +volunteered their services. At present the ranks of journalistic and +periodical literature are largely recruited from the failures in other +professions. The bright young barrister who can't get a brief takes to +literature as a calling, just as the man who has 'gone a cropper' in +the army takes to the wine-trade. And what æons of time, and what +millions of money, have been wasted in the meanwhile! + +The announcement written on the gates of all the recognised professions +in England is the same that would-be travellers read on the faces of +the passengers on the underground railway after office hours: 'Our +number is complete, and our room is limited.' In literature, on the +contrary, though its vehicles may seem as tightly packed, substitution +can be effected. There may be persons travelling on that line in the +first-class who ought to be in the third, and indeed have no reasonable +pretext for being there at all. And if clever Jack could show his +ticket, he would turn them out of it. + +Again, so far from the space being limited, it is continually +enlarging, and that out of all proportion to those who have tickets. We +hear from its enemies that the Church is doomed, and from its friends +that it is in danger; there is a small but energetic party who are bent +on reducing the Army, and even on doing away with it; nay, so wicked +and presumptuous has human nature grown, that mutterings are heard and +menaces uttered against the delay and exactions of the Law itself; +whereas Literature has no foes, and is enlarging its boundaries in all +directions. It is all 'a-growing and a-blowing,' as the peripatetic +gardeners say of their plants; but, unlike their wares, it has its +roots deep in the soil and is an evergreen. Its promise is golden, and +its prospects are boundless for every class of writer. + +In some excellent articles on Modern Literature in _Blackwood's +Magazine_ the other day, this subject was touched upon with respect to +fiction, and might well have filled a greater space, for the growth of +that description of literature of late years is simply marvellous. +Curiously enough, though France originated the _feuilleton_, it was +from America and our own colonies that England seems to have taken the +idea of publishing novels in newspapers. It was a common practice in +Australia long before we adopted it; and, what is also curious, it was +first acclimatised among us by our provincial papers. The custom is +rapidly gaining ground in London, but in the country there is now +scarcely any newspaper of repute which does not enlist the aid of +fiction to attract its readers. Many of them are contented with very +poor stuff, for which they pay a proportional price; but others club +together with other newspapers—the operation has even received the +technical term of 'forming a syndicate'—and are thereby enabled to +secure the services of popular authors; while the newspapers thus +arranged for are published at a good distance from one another, so as +not to interfere with each other's circulation. Country journals, which +are not so ambitious, instead of using an inferior article, will often +purchase the 'serial right,' as it is called, of stories which have +already appeared elsewhere, or have passed through the circulating +libraries. Nay, the novelist who has established a reputation has many +more strings to his bow: his novel, thus published in the country +newspapers, also appears coincidently in the same serial shape in +Australia, Canada, and other British colonies, leaving the three-volume +form and the cheap editions 'to the good.' And what is true of fiction +is in a less degree true of other kinds of literature. Travels are +'gutted,' and form articles in magazines, illustrated by the original +plates; lectures, after having served their primary purpose, are +published in a similar manner; even scientific works now appear first +in the magazines which are devoted to science before performing their +mission of 'popularising' their subject. + +When speaking of the growth of readers, I have purposely not mentioned +America. For the present the absence of copyright there is destroying +both author and publisher; but the wheels of justice, though tardy, are +making way there. In a few years that great continent of readers will +be legitimately added to the audience of the English author, and those +that have stolen will steal no more. + +Nor, in our own country, must we fail to take notice of the +establishment of School Boards. A generation hence we shall have a +reading public almost as numerous as in America; even the very lowest +classes will have acquired a certain culture which will beget demands +both for journalists and 'literary persons.' The harvest will be +plenteous indeed, but unless my advice be followed in some shape or +another, the labourers will be comparatively few and superlatively +inadequate. + +I am well aware how mischievous, as well as troublesome, would be the +encouragement of mediocrity; and in stating these promising facts I +have no such purpose in my mind. On the contrary, there is an immense +amount of mediocrity already in literature, which I think my +proposition of training up 'clever Jack' to that calling would +discourage. I have no expectation of establishing a manufactory for +genius—and indeed, for reasons it is not necessary to specify, I would +not do it if I could. But whereas all kinds of 'culture' have been +recommended to the youth of Great Britain (and certainly with no limit +as to the expense of acquisition), the cultivation of such natural +faculties as imagination and humour (for example) has never been +suggested. The possibility of such a thing will doubtless be denied. I +am quite certain, however, that they are capable of great development, +and that they may be brought to attain, if not perfection, at all +events a high degree of excellence. The proof, to those who choose to +look for it, is plain enough even as matters stand. Use and opportunity +are already producing scores of examples of it; if supplemented by +early education they might surely produce still more. + +There is so great and general a prejudice against special studies, that +I must humbly conclude there is something in it. On the other hand, I +know a large number of highly—that is broadly—educated persons, who are +desperately dull. 'But would they have been less dull,' it may be +asked, 'if they were also ignorant?' Yes, I believe they would. They +have swallowed too much for digestions naturally weak; they have become +inert, conceited, oppressive to themselves and others—Prigs. And I +think that even clever young people suffer in a less degree from the +same cause. Some one has written, 'Information is always useful.' This +reminds me of the married lady, fond of bargains, who once bought a +door-plate at a sale with 'Mr. Wilkins' on it. Her own name was Jones, +but the doorplate was very cheap, and her husband, she argued, _might_ +die, and then she might marry a man of the name of Wilkins. 'Depend +upon it, everything comes in useful,' she said, 'if you only keep it +long enough.' + +This is what I venture to doubt. I have myself purchased several +door-plates (quite as burthensome, but not so cheap as that good +lady's), which have been of no sort of use to me, and are still on +hand. + + [5] I take up a half-yearly volume of a magazine (price 1½d. weekly) + addressed to the middle classes, and find in it, at haphazard, the + five following pieces, the authors of which are anonymous: + +AGATHA. + +'From under the shade of her simple straw hat +She smiles at you, only a little shamefaced: +Her gold-tinted hair m a long-braided plait +Reaches on either side down to her waist. +Her rosy complexion, a soft pink and white, +Except where the white has been warmed by the sun, +Is glowing with health and an eager delight, +As she pauses to speak to you after her run. + +'See with what freedom, what beautiful ease, +She leaps over hollows and mounds in berrace; +Hear how she joyously laughs when the breeze +Tosses her hat off, and blows in her face! +It's only a play-gown of homeliest cotton +She wears, that her finer silk dress may be saved; +And happily, too, she has wholly forgotten +The nurse and her charge to be better behaved. + +'Must a time come when this child's way of caring +For only the present enjoyment shall pass; +When she'll learn to take thought of the dress that she's wearing, +And grow rather fond of consulting the glass? +Well, never mind; nothing really can change her; +Fair childhood will grow to as fair maidenhood; +Her unselfish, sweet nature is safe from all danger; +I know she will always be charming and good. + +'For when she takes care of a still younger brother, +You see her stop short in the midst of her mirth, +Gravely and tenderly playing the mother: +Can there be anything fairer on earth? +So proud of her charge she appears, so delighted; +Of all her perfections (indeed, they're a host), +This loving attention to others, united +With naive self-unconsciousness, charms me the most. + +'What hearts that unthinkingly under short jackets +Are beating to-day in a wonderful wise +About racing, or jumping, or cricket, or rackets, +One day will beat at a smile from those eyes! +Ah, how I envy the one that shall win her, +And see that sweet smile no ill-humour shall damp, +Shining across the spread table at dinner, +Or cheerfully bright in the light of the lamp. + +'Ah, little fairy! a very short while, +Just once or twice, in a brief country stay, +I saw you; but when will your innocent smile +That I keep in my mem'ry have faded away? +For when, in the midst of my trouble and doubt, +I remember your face with its laughter and light, +It's as if on a sudden the sun had shone out, +And scattered the shadow, and made the world bright.' + +CHARTREUSE. + +(_Liqueur_.) + +'Who could refuse +Green-eyed Chartieuse? +Liquor for heretics, +Turks, Christians, or Jews +For beggar or queen, +For monk or for dean; + +Ripened and mellow +(The _green_, not the yellow), +Give it its dues, +Gay little fellow, +Dressed up in green! +I love thee too well, O +Laughing Chartreuse! + +'O the delicate hues +That thrill through the green! +Colours which Greuze +Would die to have seen! +With thee would De Musset +Sweeten his muse; +Use, not abuse, +Bright little fellow! +(The green, _not_ the yellow.) +O the taste and the smell! O +Never refuse +A kiss on the lips from +Jealous Chartreuse!' + +THE LIFE-LEDGER. + +'Our sufferings we reckon o'er +With skill minute and formal; +The cheerful ease that fills the score +We treat as merely normal. +Our list of ills, how full, how great! +We mourn our lot should fall so; +I wonder, do we calculate +Our happinesses also? + +'Were it not best to keep account +Of all days, if of any? +Perhaps the dark ones might amount +To not so very many. +Men's looks are nigh as often gay +As sad, or even solemn: +Behold, my entry for to-day +Is in the "happy" column.' + +OCTOBER. + +'The year grows old; summer's wild crown of roses +Has fallen and faded in the woodland ways; +On all the earth a tranquil light reposes, +Through the still dreamy days. + +'The dew lies heavy in the early morn, +On grass and mosses sparkling crystal-fair; +And shining threads of gossamer are borne +Floating upon the air, + +'Across the leaf-strewn lanes, from bough to bough +Like tissue woven in a fairy loom; +And crimson-berried bryony garlands glow +Through the leaf-tangled gloom. + +'The woods are still, but for the sudden fall +Of cupless acorns dropping to the ground, +Or rabbit plunging through the fern-stems tall, +Half-startled by the sound. + +'And from the garden lawn comes, soft and clear, +The robin's warble from the leafless spray, +The low sweet Angelus of the dying year, +Passing in light away.' + +PROSPERITY. + +'I doubt if the maxims the Stoic adduces +Be true in the main, when they state +That our nature's improved by adversity's uses, +And spoilt by a happier fate. + +'The heart that is tried by misfortune and pain, +Self-reliance and patience may learn; +Yet worn by long waiting and wishing in vain, +It often grows callous and stern. + +'But the heart that is softened by ease and contentment, +Feels warmly and kindly t'wards all; +And its charity, roused by no moody resentment, +Embraces alike great and small. + +'So, although in the season of rain-storms and showers, +The tree may strike deeper its roots, +It needs the warm brightness of sunshiny hours +To ripen the blossoms and fruits.' + +Observe, not only the genuine merit of these five pieces, but the +variety in the tones of thought: then compare them with similar +productions of the days, say, of the once famous L.E.L. + + + + +STORY-TELLING. + + +The most popular of English authors has given us an account of what +within his experience (and it was a large one) was the impression among +the public at large of the manner in which his work was done. They +pictured him, he says, + +as a radiant personage whose whole time is devoted to idleness and +pastime; who keeps a prolific mind in a sort of corn-sieve and lightly +shakes a bushel of it out sometimes in an odd half-hour after +breakfast. It would amaze their incredulity beyond all measure to" be +told that such elements as patience, study, punctuality, determination, +self-denial, training of mind and body, hours of application and +seclusion to produce what they read in seconds, enter in such a career +… correction and recorrection in the blotted manuscript; consideration; +new observations; the patient massing of many reflections, experiences, +and imaginings for one minute purpose; and the patient separation from +the heap of all the fragments that will unite to serve it—these would +be unicorns and griffins to them—fables altogether. + +And as it was, a quarter of a century ago, when those words were +written, so it is now: the phrase of 'light literature' as applied to +fiction having once been invented, has stuck, with a vengeance, to +those who profess it. + +Yet to 'make the thing that is not as the thing that is' is not (though +it may seem to be the same thing) so easy as lying. + +Among a host of letters received in connection with an article +published in the _Nineteenth Century_, entitled 'The Literary Calling +and its Future,' and which testify in a remarkable manner to the +pressing need (therein alluded to) of some remunerative vocation among +the so-called educated classes, there are many which are obviously +written under the impression that Dogberry's view of writing coming 'by +nature' is especially true of the writing of fiction. Because I +ventured to hint that the study of Greek was not essential to the +calling of a story-teller, or of a contributor to the periodicals, or +even of a journalist, these gentlemen seem to jump to the conclusion +that the less they know of anything the better. Nay, some of them, +discarding all theories (in the fashion that Mr. Carlyle's heroes are +wont to discard all formulas), proceed to the practical with quite an +indecent rapidity; they treat my modest hints for their instruction as +so much verbiage, and myself as a mere convenient channel for the +publication of their lucubrations. 'You talk of a genuine literary +talent being always appreciated by editors,' they write (if not in so +many words by implication); 'well, here is an admirable specimen of it +(enclosed), and if your remarks are worth a farthing you will get it +published for us, somewhere or another, _instanter_, and hand us over +the cheque for it. Nor are even these the most unreasonable of my +correspondents; for a few, with many acknowledgments for my kindness in +having provided a lucrative profession for them, announce their +intention of throwing up their present less congenial callings, and +coming up to London (one very literally from the Land's End) to live +upon it, or, that failing (as there is considerable reason to expect it +will), upon _me_. + +With some of these correspondents, however, it is impossible +(independent of their needs) not to feel an earnest sympathy; they have +evidently not only aspirations, but considerable mental gifts, though +these have unhappily been cultivated to such little purpose for the +object they have in view that they might almost as well have been left +untilled. In spite of what I ventured to urge respecting the advantage +of knowing 'science, history, politics, English literature, and the art +of composition,' they 'don't see why' they shouldn't get on without +them. Especially with those who aspire to write fiction (which, by its +intrinsic attractiveness no less than by the promise it affords of +golden grain, tempts the majority), it is quite pitiful to note how +they cling to that notion of 'the corn-sieve,' and cannot be persuaded +that story-telling requires an apprenticeship like any other calling. +They flatter themselves that they can weave plots as the spider spins +his thread from (what let us delicately term) his inner consciousness, +and fondly hope that intuition will supply the place of experience. +Some of them, with a simplicity that recalls the days of Dick +Whittington, think that 'coming up to London' is the essential step to +this line of business, as though the provinces contained no +fellow-creatures worthy to be depicted by their pen, or as though, in +the metropolis, Society would at once exhibit itself to them without +concealment, as fashionable beauties bare themselves to the +photographers. + +This is, of course, the laughable side of the affair, but, to me at +least, it has also a serious one; for, to my considerable embarrassment +and distress, I find that my well-meaning attempt to point out the +advantages of literature as a profession has received a much too free +translation, and implanted in many minds hopes that are not only +sanguine but Utopian. + +For what was written in the essay alluded to I have nothing to reproach +myself with, for I told no more than the truth. Nor does the +unsettlement of certain young gentleman's futures (since by their own +showing they were to the last degree unstable to begin with) affect me +so much as their parents and guardians appear to expect; but I am sorry +to have shaken however undesignedly, the 'pillars of domestic peace' in +any case, and desirous to make all the reparation in my power. I regret +most heartily that I am unable to place all literary aspirants in +places of emolument and permanency out of hand; but really (with the +exception perhaps of the Universal Provider in Westbourne Grove) this +is hardly to be expected of any man. The gentleman who raised the +devil, and was compelled to furnish occupation for him, affords in fact +the only appropriate parallel to my unhappy case. 'If you can do +nothing to provide my son with another place,' writes one indignant +Paterfamilias, 'at least you owe it to him' (as if I, and not Nature +herself, had made the lad dissatisfied with his high stool in a +solicitor's office!) 'to give him some practical hints by which he may +become a successful writer of fiction.' + +One would really think that this individual imagined story-telling to +be a sort of sleight-of-hand trick, and that all that is necessary to +the attainment of the art is to learn 'how it's done.' I should not +like to say that I have known any members of my own profession who are +'no conjurors,' but it is certainly not by conjuring that they have +succeeded in it. + +'You talk of the art of composition,' writes, on the other hand, +another angry correspondent, 'as though it were one of the exact +sciences; you might just as well advise your "clever Jack" to study the +art of playing the violin.' So that one portion of the public appears +to consider the calling of literature mechanical, while another holds +it to be a soft of divine instinct! + +Since the interest in this subject proves to be so wide-spread, I trust +it will not be thought presumptuous in me to offer my own humble +experience in this matter for what it is worth. To the public at large +a card of admission to my poor manufactory of fiction—a 'very one-horse +affair,' as an American gentleman, with whom I had a little difficulty +concerning copyright, once described it—may not afford the same +satisfaction as a ticket for the private view of the Royal Academy; but +the stings of conscience urge me to make to Paterfamilias what amends +in the way of 'practical hints' lie in my power, for the wrong I have +done to his offspring; and I therefore venture to address to those whom +it may concern, and to those only, a few words on the Art of +Story-telling. + +The chief essential for this line of business, yet one that is much +disregarded by many young writers, is the having a story to tell. It is +a common supposition that the story will come if you only sit down with +a pen in your hand and wait long enough—a parallel case to that which +assigns one cow's tail as the measure of distance between this planet +and the moon. It is no use 'throwing off' a few brilliant ideas at the +commencement, if they are only to be 'passages that lead to nothing;' +you must have distinctly in your mind at first what you intend to say +at last. 'Let it be granted,' says a great writer (though not one +distinguished in fiction), 'that a straight line be drawn from any one +point to any other point;' only you must have the 'other point' to +begin with, or you can't draw the line. So far from being 'straight,' +it goes wabbling aimlessly about like a wire fastened at one end and +not at the other, which may dazzle, but cannot sustain; or rather what +it does sustain is so exceedingly minute, that it reminds one of the +minnow which the inexperienced angler flatters himself he has caught, +but which the fisherman has in fact previously put on his hook for +bait. + +This class of writer is not altogether unconscious of the absence of +dramatic interest in his composition. He writes to his editor (I have +read a thousand such letters): 'It has been my aim, in the enclosed +contribution, to steer clear of the faults of the sensational school of +fiction, and I have designedly abstained from stimulating the +unwholesome taste for excitement.' In which high moral purpose he has +undoubtedly succeeded; but, unhappily, in nothing else. It is quite +true that some writers of fiction neglect 'story' almost entirely, but +then they are perhaps the greatest writers of all. Their genius is so +transcendent that they can afford to dispense with 'plot;' their +humour, their pathos, and their delineation of human nature are amply +sufficient, without any such meretricious attraction; whereas our too +ambitious young friend is in the position of the needy knife-grinder, +who has not only no story to tell, but in lieu of it only holds up his +coat and breeches 'torn in the scuffle'—the evidence of his desperate +and ineffectual struggles with literary composition. I have known such +an aspirant to instance Miss Gaskell's 'Cranford' as a parallel to the +backboneless flesh-and-bloodless creation of his own immature fancy, +and to recommend the acceptance of the latter upon the ground of their +common rejection of startling plot and dramatic situation. The two +compositions have certainly _that_ in common; and the flawless diamond +has some things, such as mere sharpness and smoothness, in common with +the broken beer-bottle. + +Many young authors of the class I have in my mind, while more modest as +respects their own merits, are even still less so as regards their +expectations from others. 'If you will kindly furnish me with a +subject,' so runs a letter now before me, 'I am sure I could do very +well; my difficulty is that I never can think of anything to write +about. Would you be so good as to oblige me with a plot for a novel?' +It would have been infinitely more reasonable of course, and much +cheaper, for me to grant it, if the applicant had made a request for my +watch and chain;[6] but the marvel is that folks should feel any +attraction towards a calling for which Nature has denied them even the +raw materials. It is true that there are some great talkers who have +manifestly nothing to say, but they don't ask their hearers to supply +them with a topic of conversation in order to be set agoing. + + [6] To compare small things with great, I remember Sir Walter Scott + being thus applied to for some philanthropic object. 'Money,' said the + applicant, who had some part proprietorship in a literary miscellany, + 'I don't ask for, since I know you have many claims upon your purse; + but would you write us a little paper gratuitously for the + "Keepsake"?' + +'My great difficulty,' the would-be writer of fiction often says, 'is +how to begin;' whereas in fact the difficulty arises rather from his +not knowing how to end. Before undertaking the management of a train, +however short, it is absolutely necessary to know its destination. +Nothing is more common than to hear it said that an author 'does not +know where to stop;' but how much more deplorable is the position of +the passengers when there is no terminus whatsoever! They feel their +carriage 'slowing,' and put their heads expectantly out of window, but +there is no platform—no station. When they took their tickets, they +understood that they were 'booked through' to the _dénouement_, and +certainly had no idea of having been brought so far merely to admire +the scenery, for which only a very few care the least about. + +As a rule, anyone who can tell a good story can write one, so there +really need be no mistake about his qualification; such a man will be +careful not to be wearisome, and to keep his point, or his catastrophe, +well in hand. Only, in writing, there is necessarily greater art. +_There_ expansion is of course absolutely necessary; but this is not to +be done, like spreading gold leaf, by flattening out good material. +_That_ is 'padding,' a device as dangerous as it is unworthy; it is +much better to make your story a pollard—to cut it down to a mere +anecdote—than to get it lost in a forest of verbiage. No line of it, +however seemingly discursive, should be aimless, but should have some +relation to the matter in hand; and if you find the story interesting +to yourself notwithstanding that you know the end of it, it will +certainly interest the reader. + +The manner in which a good story grows under the hand is so remarkable, +that no tropic vegetation can show the like of it. For, consider, when +you have got your germ—the mere idea, not half a dozen lines +perhaps—which is to form your plot, how small a thing it is compared +with, say, the thousand pages which it has to occupy in the +three-volume novel! Yet to the story-teller the germ is everything. +When I was a very young man—a quarter of a century ago, alas!—and had +very little experience in these matters, I was reading on a coachbox +(for I read everywhere in those days) an account of some gigantic +trees; one of them was described as sound outside, but within, for many +feet, a mass of rottenness and decay. If a boy should climb up +birdsnesting into the fork of it, thought I, he might go down feet +first and hands overhead, and never be heard of again. How inexplicable +too, as well as melancholy, such a disappearance would be! Then, 'as +when a great thought strikes along the brain and flushes all the +cheek,' it struck me what an appropriate end it would be—with fear +(lest he should turn up again) instead of hope for the fulcrum to move +the reader—for a bad character of a novel. Before I had left the +coachbox I had thought out 'Lost Sir Massingberd.' + +The character was drawn from life, but unfortunately from hearsay; he +had flourished—to the great terror of his neighbours—two generations +before me, so that I had to be indebted to others for his portraiture, +which was a great disadvantage. It was necessary that the lost man +should be an immense scoundrel to prevent pity being excited by the +catastrophe, and at that time I did not know any very wicked people. +The book was a successful one, but it needs no critic to point out how +much better the story might have been told. The interest in the +gentleman, buried upright in his oak coffin, is inartistically weakened +by other sources of excitement; like an extravagant cook, the young +author is apt to be too lavish with his materials, and in after days, +when the larder is more difficult to fill, he bitterly regrets it. The +representation of a past time I also found it very difficult to +compass, and I am convinced that for any writer to attempt such a +thing, when he can avoid it, is an error in judgment. The author who +undertakes to resuscitate and clothe with flesh and blood the dry bones +of his ancestors, has indeed this advantage, that, however unlifelike +his characters may be, there is no one in a position to prove it; it is +not 'a difference of opinion between himself and twelve of his +fellow-countrymen,' or a matter on which he can be condemned by +overwhelming evidence; but, on the other hand, he creates for himself +unnecessary difficulties. I will add, for the benefit of those literary +aspirants to whom these remarks are especially addressed—a circumstance +which, I hope, will be taken as an excuse for the writing of my own +affairs at all, which would otherwise be an unpardonable +presumption—that these difficulties are not the worst of it; for when +the novel founded on the Past has been written, it will not be read by +a tenth of those who would read it if it were a novel of the Present. + +Even at the date I speak of, however, I was not so young as to attempt +to create the characters of a story out of my own imagination, and I +believe that the whole of its _dramatis personæ_ (except the chief +personage) were taken from the circle of my own acquaintance. This is a +matter, by-the-bye, on which considerable judgment and good taste have +to be exercised; for if the likeness of the person depicted is +recognisable by his friends (he never recognises it by any chance +himself), or still more by his enemies, it is no longer a sketch from +life, but a lampoon. It will naturally be asked by some: 'But if you +draw the man to the life, how can he fail to be known?' For this there +is the simplest remedy. You describe his character, but under another +skin; if he is tall you make him short, if dark, fair; or you make such +alterations in his circumstances as shall prevent identification, while +retaining them to a sufficient extent to influence his behaviour. In +the framework which most (though not all) skilled workmen draw of their +stories before they begin to furnish them with so much even as a +door-mat, the real name of each individual to be described should be +placed (as a mere aid to memory) by the side of that under which he +appears in the drama; and I would strongly recommend the builder to +write his real names in cipher; for I have known at least one instance +in which the entire list of the _dramatis personæ_ of a novel was +carried off by a person more curious than conscientious, and afterwards +revealed to those concerned—a circumstance which, though it increased +the circulation of the story, did not add to the personal popularity of +the author. + +If a story-teller is prolific, the danger of his characters coinciding +with those of people in real life who are unknown to him is much +greater than would be imagined; the mere similarity of name may of +course be disregarded; but when in addition to that there is also a +resemblance of circumstance, it is difficult to persuade the man of +flesh and blood that his portrait is an undesigned one. The author of +'Vanity Fair' fell, in at least one instance, into a most unfortunate +mistake of this kind; while a not less popular author even gave his +hero the same name and place in the Ministry which were (subsequently) +possessed by a living politician. + +It is better, however, for his own reputation that the story-teller +should risk a few actions for libel on account of these unfortunate +coincidences than that he should adopt the melancholy device of using +blanks or asterisks. With the minor novelists of a quarter of a century +ago it was quite common to introduce their characters as Mr. A and Mr. +B, and very difficult their readers found it to interest themselves in +the fortunes and misfortunes of an initial: + +It was in the summer of the year 18—, and the sun was setting behind +the low western hills beneath which stands the town of C; its dying +gleams glistened on the weather-cock of the little church, beneath +whose tower two figures were standing, so deep in shadow that little +more could be made out concerning them save that they were young +persons of the opposite sex. The elder and taller, however, was the +fascinating Lord B; the younger (presenting a strong contrast to her +companion in social position, but yet belonging to the true nobility of +nature) was no other than the beautiful Patty G, the cobbler's +daughter. + +This style of narrative should be avoided. + +Another difficulty of the story-teller, and one unhappily in which no +advice can be of much service to him, is how to describe the lapse of +time and of locomotion. To the dramatist nothing is easier than to +print in the middle of his playbill, 'Forty years are here supposed to +have elapsed;' or 'Scene I.: A drawing-room in Mayfair; Scene II.: +Greenland.' But the story-teller has to describe how these little +changes are effected, without being able to take his readers into his +confidence.[7] He can't say, 'Gentle reader, please to imagine that the +winter is over, and the summer has come round since the conclusion of +our last chapter.' Curiously enough, however, the lapse of years is far +easier to suggest than that of hours; and locomotion from Islington to +India than the act, for instance, of leaving the room. If passion +enters into the scene, and your heroine can be represented as banging +the door behind her, and bringing down the plaster from the ceiling, +the thing is easy enough, and may be even made a dramatic incident; but +to describe, without baldness, Jones rising from the tea-table and +taking his departure in cold blood, is a much more difficult business +than you may imagine. When John the footman has to enter and interrupt +a conversation on the stage, the audience see him come and go, and +think nothing of it; but to inform the reader of your novel of a +similar incident—and especially of John's going—without spoiling the +whole scene by the introduction of the commonplace, requires (let me +tell you) the touch of a master. + + [7] That last, indeed, is a thing which, with all deference to some + great names in fiction, should in my judgment never be done. It is + hard enough for him as it is to simulate real life, without the poor + showman's reaching out from behind the curtain to shake hands with his + audience. + +When you have got the outline of your plot, and the characters that +seem appropriate to play in it, you turn to that so-called 'commonplace +book,' in which, if you know your trade, you will have set down +anything noteworthy and illustrative of human nature that has come +under your notice, and single out such instances as are most fitting; +and finally you will select your scene (or the opening one) in which +your drama is to be played. And here I may say, that while it is +indispensable that the persons represented should be familiar to you, +it is not necessary that the places should be; you should have visited +them, of course, in person, but it is my experience that for a +description of the salient features of any locality the less you stay +there the better. The man who has lived in Switzerland all his life can +never describe it (to the outsider) so graphically as the (intelligent) +tourist; just as the man who has science at his fingers' ends does not +succeed so well as the man with whom science has not yet become second +nature, in making an abstruse subject popular. + +Nor is it to be supposed that a story with very accurate local +colouring cannot be written, the scenes of which are placed in a +country which the writer has never beheld. This requires, of course, +both study and judgment, but it can be done so as to deceive, if not +the native, at least the Englishman who has himself resided there. I +never yet knew an Australian who could be persuaded that the author of +'Never Too Late to Mend' had not visited the underworld, or a sailor +that he who wrote 'Hard Cash' had never been to sea. The fact is, +information, concerning which dull folks make so much fuss, can be +attained by anybody who chooses to spend his time that way; and by +persons of intelligence (who are not so solicitous to know how blacking +is made) can be turned, in a manner not dreamt of by cram-coaches, to +really good account. + +The general impression perhaps conveyed by the above remarks will be +that to those who go to work in the manner described—for many writers +of course have quite other processes—story-telling must be a mechanical +trade. Yet nothing can be farther from the fact. These preliminary +arrangements have the effect of so steeping the mind in the subject in +hand, that when the author begins his work he is already in a world +apart from his everyday one; the characters of his story people it; and +the events that occur to them are as material, so far as the writer is +concerned, as though they happened under his roof. Indeed, it is a +question for the metaphysician whether the professional story-teller +has not a shorter lease of life than his fellow-creatures, since, in +addition to his hours of sleep (of which he ought by rights to have +much more than the usual proportion), he passes a large part of his +sentient being outside the pale of ordinary existence. The reference to +sleep 'by rights' may possibly suggest to the profane that the +storyteller has a claim to it on the ground of having induced slumber +in his fellow-creatures; but my meaning is that the mental wear and +tear caused by work of this kind is infinitely greater than that +produced by mere application even to abstruse studies (as any doctor +will witness), and requires a proportionate degree of recuperation. + +I do not pretend to quote the experience (any more than the mode of +composition) of other writers—though with that of most of my brethren +and superiors in the craft I am well acquainted—but I am convinced that +to work the brain at night in the way of imagination is little short of +an act of suicide. Dr. Treichler's recent warnings upon this subject +are startling enough, even as addressed to students, but in their +application to poets and novelists they have far greater significance. +It may be said that journalists (whose writings, it is whispered, have +a close connection with fiction) always write in the 'small hours,' but +their mode of life is more or less shaped to meet their exceptional +requirements; whereas we storytellers live like other people (only more +purely), and if we consume the midnight oil, use perforce another +system of illumination also—we burn the candle at both ends. A great +novelist who adopted this baneful practice and indirectly lost his life +by it (through insomnia) notes what is very curious, that +notwithstanding his mind was so occupied, when awake, with the +creatures of his imagination, he never dreamt of them; which I think is +also the general experience. But he does not tell us for how many hours +_before_ he went to sleep, and tossed upon his restless pillow till far +into the morning, he was unable to get rid of those whom his +enchanter's wand had summoned.[8] What is even more curious than the +story-teller's never dreaming of the shadowy beings who engross so much +of his thoughts, is that (so far as my own experience goes at least) +when a story is once written and done with, no matter how forcibly it +may have interested and excited the writer during its progress, it +fades almost instantly from the mind, and leaves, by some benevolent +arrangement of nature, a _tabula rasa_—a blank space for the next one. +Everyone must recollect that anecdote of Walter Scott, who, on hearing +one of his own poems ('My hawk is tired of perch and hood') sung in a +London drawing-room, observed with innocent approbation, 'Byron's, of +course;' and so it is with us lesser folks. A very humorous sketch +might be given (and it would not be overdrawn) of some prolific +novelist getting hold, under some strange roof, of the 'library +edition' of his own stories, and perusing them with great satisfaction +and many appreciative ejaculations, such as 'Now this _is_ good;' 'I +wonder how it will end;' or 'George Eliot's, _of course_! + + [8] Speaking of dreams, the composition of Khubla Khan and of one or + two other literary fragments during sleep has led to the belief that + dreams are often useful to the writer of fiction; but in my own case, + at least, I can recall but a single instance of it, nor have I ever + heard of their doing one pennyworth of good to any of my + contemporaries. + +Although a good allowance of sleep is absolutely necessary for +imaginative brain work, long holidays are not so. I have noticed that +those who let their brains 'lie fallow,' as it is termed, for any +considerable time, are by no means the better for it; but, on the other +hand, some daily recreation, by which a genuine interest is excited and +maintained, is almost indispensable. It is no use to 'take up a book,' +and far less to attempt 'to refresh the machine,' as poor Sir Walter +did, by trying another kind of composition; what is needed is an +altogether new object for the intellectual energies, by which, though +they are stimulated, they shall not be strained. + +Advice such as I have ventured to offer may seem 'to the general' of +small importance, but to those I am especially addressing it is worthy +of their attention, if only as the result of a personal experience +unusually prolonged; and I have nothing unfortunately but advice to +offer. To the question addressed to me with such _naïveté_ by so many +correspondents, 'How do you make your plots?' (as if they were +consulting the Cook's Oracle), I can return no answer. I don't know, +myself; they are sometimes suggested by what I hear or read, but more +commonly they suggest themselves unsought. + +I once heard two popular story-tellers, A who writes seldom, but with +much ingenuity of construction, and B who is very prolific in pictures +of everyday life, discoursing on this subject. + +'Your fecundity,' said A, 'astounds me; I can't think where you get +your plots from.' + +'Plots?' replied B; 'oh! I don't trouble myself about _them_. To tell +you the truth, I generally take a bit of one of yours, which is amply +sufficient for my purpose.' + +This was very wrong of B; and it is needless to say I do not quote his +system for imitation. A man should tell his own story without +plagiarism. As to Truth being stranger than Fiction, that is all +nonsense; it is a proverb set about by Nature to conceal her own want +of originality. I am not like that pessimist philosopher who assumed +her malignity from the fact of the obliquity of the ecliptic; but the +truth is, Nature is a pirate. She has not hesitated to plagiarise from +even so humble an individual as myself. Years after I had placed my +wicked baronet in his living tomb, she starved to death a hunter in +Mexico under precisely similar circumstances; and so late as last month +she has done the same in a forest in Styria. Nay, on my having found +occasion in a certain story ('a small thing, but my own') to get rid of +the whole wicked population of an island by suddenly submerging it in +the sea, what did Nature do? She waited for an insultingly short time +(if her idea was that the story would be forgotten), and then +reproduced the same circumstances on her own account (and without the +least acknowledgment) in the Indian seas. My attention was drawn to +both these breaches of copyright by several correspondents, but I had +no redress, the offender being beyond the jurisdiction of the Court of +Chancery. + +When the story-teller has finished his task and surmounted every +obstacle to his own satisfaction, he has still a difficulty to face in +the choice of a title. He may invent indeed an eminently appropriate +one, but it is by no means certain he will be allowed to keep it. Of +course he has done his best to steer clear of that borne by any other +novel; but among the thousands that have been brought out within the +last forty years, and which have been forgotten even if they were ever +known, how can he know whether the same name has not been hit upon? He +goes to Stationers' Hall to make inquiries; but—mark the usefulness of +that institution—he finds that books are only entered there under their +authors' names. His search is therefore necessarily futile, and he has +to publish his story under the apprehension (only too well founded, as +I have good cause to know) that the High Court of Chancery will +prohibit its sale upon the ground of infringement of title. + +[Illustration] + + + + +PENNY FICTION + + +It is now nearly a quarter of a century ago since a popular novelist +revealed to the world in a well-known periodical the existence of the +'Unknown Public;' and a very curious revelation it was. He showed us +that the few thousands of persons who had hitherto imagined themselves +to be the public—so far, at least, as their being the arbiters of +popularity in respect to writers of fiction was concerned—were in fact +nothing of the kind; that the subscribers to the circulating libraries, +the members of book clubs, the purchasers of magazines and railway +novels, might indeed have their favourites, but that these last were +'nowhere,' as respected the number of their backers, in comparison with +novelists whose names and works appear in penny journals and nowhere +else. + +This class of literature was of considerable dimensions even in the +days when Mr. Wilkie Collins first called attention to it; but the +luxuriance of its growth has since become tropical. His observations +are drawn from some half a dozen specimens of it only, whereas I now +hold in my hand—or rather in both hands— nearly half a hundred of them. +The population of readers must be dense indeed in more than one sense +that can support such a crop. + +Doubtless the individual circulation of none of these serials is equal +to that of the most successful of them at the date of their first +discovery; but those who read them must, from various causes, of which +the most obvious is the least important, have trebled in number. +Population, that is to say, has increased in very small proportion as +compared with the increase of those who very literally run and read—the +peripatetic students, who study on their way to work or even as they +work, including, I am sorry to say, the telegraph boy on his errand. + +Nevertheless, notwithstanding its gigantic dimensions, the Unknown +Public remains practically as unknown as ever. The literary wares that +find such favour with it do not meet the eye of the ordinary observer. +They are to be found neither at the bookseller's nor on the railway +stall. But in back streets, in small dark shops, in the company of +cheap tobacco, hardbake (and, at the proper season, valentines), their +leaves lie thick as those in Vallombrosa. Early in the week is their +springtime, when they are put forth from Heaven knows what +printing-houses in courts and alleys, to lie for a few days only on the +counter in huge piles. On Saturdays, albeit that is their nominal +publishing day, they have for the most part disappeared. For this sort +of literature has one decidedly advanced feature, and possesses one +virtue of endurance—it comes out ever so long before the date it bears +upon its title-page, and 'when the world shall have passed away' will, +by a few days at least, if faith is to be placed in figures, survive +it. + +Why it should have any date at all no man can tell. There is nothing in +the contents that is peculiar to one year—or, to say truth, of one +era—rather than another. As a rule, indeed, time and space are alike +annihilated in them, in order to make two lovers happy. The general +terms in which they are written is one of their peculiar features. One +would think that, instead of being as unlike real life as stories +professing to deal with it can be, they were photographs of it, and +that the writers, as in the following instance, had always the fear of +the law of libel before their eyes: + +We must now request our readers to accompany us into an obscure _cul de +sac_ opening into a narrow street branching off Holborn. For many +reasons we do not choose to be more precise as to locality. + +Of course in this _cul de sac_ is a Private Inquiry Office, with a +detective in it. But in defining even him the novelist gives himself no +trouble to arouse excitement in his readers: they have paid their penny +for the history of this interesting person, and, that being done, they +may read about him or not, as they please. One would really think that +the author of the story was also the proprietor of the periodical. + +Those who desire (he says) to make the acquaintance of this somewhat +remarkable person have only to step with us into the little dusky room +where he is seated, and we shall have much pleasure in introducing him +to their notice. + +—A sentence which has certainly the air of saying, 'You may be +introduced to him, or you may let it alone.' + +The coolness with which everything is said and done in penny fiction is +indeed most remarkable, and should greatly recommend it to that +respectable class who have a horror of 'sensation.' In a story, for +example, that purports to describe University life (and is as much like +it as the camel produced from the German professor's self-consciousness +must have been to a real camel) there is an underplot of an amazing +kind. The wicked undergraduate, notwithstanding that he has the +advantage of being a baronet, is foiled in his attempt to win the +affections of a young woman in humble life, and the virtuous hero of +the story recommends her to the consideration of his negro servant: + +'Talk to her, Monday,' whispered Jack, 'and see if she loves you.' + For a short time Monday and Ada were in close conversation. + Then Monday uttered a cry like a war-whoop. + 'It am come all right, sare. Missy Ada says she not really care for + Sir Sydney, and she will be my little wife,' he said. + 'I congratulate you, Monday,' answered Jack. + In half an hour more they arrived at the house of John Radford, + plumber and glazier, who was Ada's father. + Mr. and Mrs. Radford and their two sons received their daughter and + her companions with that unstudied civility which contrasts so + favourably with the stuck-up ceremony of many in a higher position. + They were not prejudiced against Monday on account of his dark + skin. + It was enough for them that he was the man of Ada's choice. + Mrs. Radford even went so far as to say, 'Well, for a coloured + gentleman, he is very handsome and quite nice mannered, though I + think Ada's been a little sly in telling us nothing about her + engagement to the last.' + They did not know all. + Nor was it advisable that they should. + +Still they knew something—for example, that their new son-in-law was a +black man, which one would have thought might have struck them as +phenomenal. They take it, however, quite quietly and as a matter of +course. Now, surely, even among plumbers and glaziers, it must be +thought as strange for one's daughter to marry a black man as a lord. +Yet, out of this dramatic situation the author makes nothing at all, +but treats it as coolly as his _dramatis personæ_ do themselves. Now +_my_ notion would have been to make the bridegroom a black lord, and +then to portray, with admirable skill, the conflicting emotions of his +mother-in-law, disgusted on the one hand by his colour, attracted on +the other by his rank. But 'sensation' is evidently out of the line of +the penny novelist: he gives his facts, which are certainly remarkable, +then leaves both his characters and his readers to draw their own +conclusions. + +The total absence of local scenery from these half hundred romances is +also curious, and becomes so very marked when the novelists are so +imprudent as to take their _dramatis personæ_ out of England, that one +can't help wondering whether these gentlemen have ever been in foreign +parts themselves, or even read about them. Here is the conclusion of a +romance which leaves nothing to be desired in the way of brevity, but +is unquestionably a little abrupt and vague: + +A year has passed away, and we are far from England and the English +climate. + +Whither 'we' have gone the author does not say, nor even indicate the +hemisphere. It will be imagined, perhaps, that we shall find out where +we are by the indication of the flora and fauna. + +A lady and gentleman before the dawn of day have been climbing up an +arid road in the direction of a dark ridge. + +Observe, again, the ingenious vagueness of the description: an 'arid +road' which may mean Siberia, and a 'dark ridge' which may mean the +Himalayas. + +The dawn suddenly comes upon them in all its glory. Birds twittered in +their willow gorges, and it was a very glorious day. Arthur and Emily +had passed the night at the ranche, and he had now taken her up to look +at the mine which at all events had introduced them. He had previously +taken her to see his mother's grave, the mother whom he had so loved. +The mine after some delay proved more prosperous than ever. It was not +sold, but is the 'appanage' of the younger sons of the house of Dacres. + +With the exception of the 'ranche,' it will be remarked that there is +not one word in the foregoing description to fix locality. The mine and +the ranche together seem indeed to suggest South America. But—I ask for +information—do birds twitter there in willow gorges? Younger sons of +noble families proverbially come off second best in this country, but +if one of them found his only 'appanage' was a mine, he would surely +with some justice make a remonstrance. + +The readers of this class of fiction will not have Dumas at any +price—or, at all events, not at a penny. Mr. Collins tells us how +'Monte Christo' was once spread before them, and how they turned from +that gorgeous feast with indifference, and fell back upon their tripe +and onions—their nameless authors. But some of those who write for them +have adopted one peculiarity of Dumas. The short jerky sentences which +disfigure the 'Three Musketeers,' and indeed all that great novelist's +works, are very frequent with them, which induces me to believe that +they are paid by the line. + +On the other hand, some affect fashionable description and conversation +which are drawn out in 'passages that lead to nothing' of an amazing +length. + +'Where have I been,' replied Clyde with a carelessness which was half +forced 'Oh, I have been over to Higham to see the dame.' + 'Ah, yes,' said Sir Edward, 'and how is the poor old creature?' + 'Quite well,' said Clyde, as he sat down and took up the menu of + the elaborate dinner. 'Quite well, she sent her best respects,' he + added, but he said nothing of the lodger, pretty Miss Mary + Westlake. + And when, a moment afterwards, the door opened and Grace came + flowing in with her lithe noiseless step, dressed in one of Worth's + masterpieces, a wonder of amber, satin, and antique lace, he raised + his eyes and looked at her with an earnest scrutiny—so earnest that + she paused with her hand on his chair, and met his eyes with a + questioning glance. + 'Do you like my new dress?' she said with a calm smile. + 'Your dress?' he said. 'Yes, yes, it is very pretty, very.' But to + himself he added, 'Yes, they are alike, strangely alike.' + +Which last remark may be applied with justice to the conversations of +all our novelists. There appears no necessity for their commencement, +no reason for their continuance, no object in their conclusion; the +reader finds himself in a forest of verbiage from which he is +extricated only at the end of the chapter, which is always, however, +'to be continued.' + +It is true that these story-tellers for the million generally keep 'a +gallop for the avenue' (an incident of a more or less exciting kind to +finish up with), but it is so brief and unsatisfactory that it hardly +rises to a canter; the author never seems to get into his stride. The +following is a fair example: + +But before we let the curtain fall, we must glance for a moment at +another picture—a sad and painful one. In one of those retreats, worse +than a living tomb, where reside those whose reason is dead, though +their bodies still live, is a small spare cell. The sole occupant is a +woman, young and very beautiful. Sometimes she is quiet and gentle as a +child; sometimes her fits of frenzy are frightful to witness; but the +only word she utters is 'Revenge,' and on her hand she always wears a +plain gold band with a cross of black pearls. + +This conclusion, which I chanced upon before I read the tale which +preceded it, naturally interested me immensely. Here, thought I, is at +last an exciting story; I shall now find one of those literary prizes +in hopes, perhaps, of hitting upon which the penny public endures so +many blanks. I was quite prepared to have my blood curdled; my lips +were ready for a full draught of gore; yet, I give you my word, there +was nothing in the whole story worse than a bankruptcy. + +This is what makes the success of penny fiction so remarkable; there is +nothing whatever in the way of dramatic interest to account for it; nor +of impropriety either. Like the lady friend of Dr. Johnson, who +congratulated him that there were no improper words in his dictionary, +and received from that unconciliatory sage the reply, 'You have been +looking for them, have you?' I have carefully searched my fifty samples +of penny fiction for something wrong, and have not found it. It is as +pure as milk, or, at all events, as milk-and-water. Unlike the Minerva +Press, too, it does not deal with eminent persons: wicked peers are +rare; fraud is usually confined within what may be called its natural +limits—the lawyer's office; the attention paid to the heroines not only +by their heroes, but by their unsuccessful and objectionable rivals, is +generally of the most honourable kind; and platitude and dulness hold +undisputed sway. + +In one or two of these periodicals there is indeed an example of the +mediaeval melodrama; but 'Ralpho the Mysterious' is by no means +thrilling. Indeed, when I remember that 'Ivanhoe' was once published in +a penny journal and proved a total failure, and then contemplate the +popularity of 'Ralpho,' I am more at sea as to what it is that attracts +the million than ever. + +'Noble youth,' cried the King as he embraced Ralpho, 'to you we must +entrust the training of our cavalry. I hold here the list which has +been made out of the troops which will come at the signal. To certain +of our nobles we have entrusted certain of our _corps d'armée_, but +unto you, Ralpho, we must entrust our horse, for in that service you +can display that wonderful dexterity with the sword which has made your +name so famous.' + 'Sire,' cried our hero, as he dropped on one knee and took the + King's hand, pressing it to his lips, 'thou hast indeed honoured me + by such a reward, but I cannot accept it.' + 'How!' cried the King; 'hast thou so soon tired of my service?' + 'Not so, sire. To serve you I would shed the last drop of my blood. + But if I were to accept this command, I should cease to do the + service for the cause which now it has pleased you to say I have + done. No, sire, let me remain the guardian of my King—his secret + agent. I, with my sword alone, will defend my country and my King.' + 'Be not rash, Ralpho; already hast thou done more than any man ever + did before. Run no more danger.' + 'Sire, if I have served you, grant my request. Let it be as I have + said.' + 'It shall be so, mysterious youth. Thou shalt be my secret agent. + Take this ring, and wear it for my sake; and, hark ye, gentlemen, + when Ralpho shows that ring, obey him as if he were ourselves.' + 'We will,' cried the nobles. + Then the King took the Star of St. Stanislaus, and fixed it on our + hero's breast. + +Now, to my mind, though his preferring to be 'a secret agent' to +becoming a generalissimo of the Polish cavalry is as modest as it is +original, Ralpho is too 'goody-goody' to be called 'the Mysterious.' He +reminds me, too, in his way of mixing chivalry with self-interest, of +those enterprising officers in fighting regiments who send in +applications for their own V.C.s while their comrades remain in modest +expectation of them. + +I am inclined to think, however, from the following advertisement, that +some author has been recently piling up the virtues of his hero too +strongly for the very delicate stomachs of the penny public, who, it is +evident, resent superlatives of all kinds, and are commonplace and +conventional to the marrow of their bones: 'T.B. TIMMINS is informed +that he cannot be promised another story like "Mandragora," since, in +deciding the contents of our journal, the tastes of readers have to be +considered whose interest cannot be aroused by the impossible deeds of +impossible creatures.' Alas! I wish from my heart I knew what 'deeds' +or 'creatures' _do_ arouse the interest of this (to me) inexplicable +public; for though I have before me the stories they obviously take +delight in, why they do so I cannot tell. + +At the 'Answers to Correspondents,' indeed, which form a leading +feature in most of these penny journals, one may exclaim, with the +colonel in 'Woodstock,' when, after many ghosts, he grapples with +Wildrake: 'Thou at least art palpable.' Here we have the real readers, +asking questions upon matters that concern them, and from these we +shall surely get at the back of their minds. But it is unfortunately +not so certain that these 'Answers to Correspondents' are not +themselves fictions, like all the rest—only invented by the editor +instead of the author, and coming in handy to fill up a vacant page. It +is, to my mind, incredible that a public so every way different from +that of the Mechanic's Institute, and to whom mere information is +likely to be anything but attractive, should be genuinely solicitous to +learn that 'Needles were first made in England in Cheapside, in the +reign of Queen Mary, by a negro from Spain;' or that 'The family name +of the Duke of Norfolk is Howard, although the younger members of it +call themselves Talbot.' + +Even the remonstrance of 'Our Correspondence Editor' with a gentleman +who wishes to learn 'How to manufacture dynamite' seems to me +artificial; as though the idea of saying a few words in season against +explosive compounds had occurred to him, without any particular +opportunity having really offered itself for the expression of his +views. + +There are, however, one or two advertisements decidedly genuine, and +which prove that the readers of penny fiction are not so immersed in +romance but that they have their eyes open to the main chance and their +material responsibilities. 'ANXIOUS TO KNOW,' for example, is informed +that 'The widow, unless otherwise decreed, keeps possession of +furniture on her marriage, and the daughter cannot claim it;' while +SKIBBS is assured that 'After such a lapse of time there will be no +danger of a warrant being issued for leaving his wife and family +chargeable to the parish.' + +As when Mr. Wilkie Collins made his first voyage of discovery into +these unknown latitudes, the penny journals are largely used for +forming matrimonial engagements, and for adjudicating upon all +questions of propriety in connection with the affections. 'It is just +bordering on folly,' 'NANCY BLAKE' is informed, 'to marry a man six +years your junior.' In answer to an inquiry from 'LOVING OLIVIA' +whether 'an engaged gentleman is at liberty to go to a theatre without +taking his young lady with him,' she is told 'Yes; but we imagine he +would not often do so.' + +Some tender questions are mixed up with others of a more practical +sort. 'LADY HILDA' is informed that 'it is very seldom children are +born healthy whose father has married before he is three-and-twenty; +that long engagements are not only unnecessary but injurious; and that +washing the head will remove the scurf.' 'LEONE' is assured that 'it is +not necessary to be married in two churches, one being quite +sufficient;' that 'there is no truth in the saying that it is unlucky +to marry a person of the same complexion;' and that 'a gentle aperient +will remove nettle-rash.' + +'VIRGINIE' (who, by the way, should surely be VIRGINIUS) is thus +tenderly sympathised with: + +'It does seem rather hard that you should be deprived of all +opportunity of having a _tête-à -tête_ with your betrothed, owing to her +being obliged to entertain other company, although there are others of +the family who can do so; still, as her mother insists upon it, and +will not let you enjoy the society of her daughter uninterrupted, you +might resort to a little harmless strategy, and whenever your stated +evenings for calling are broken in on that way, ask the young lady to +take a walk with you, or go to a place of amusement. She can then +excuse herself to her friends without a breach of etiquette, and you +can enjoy your _tête-à -tête_ undisturbed.' + +The photographs of lady correspondents which are received by the +editors of most of these journals are apparently very numerous, and, if +we may believe their description of them, all ravishingly beautiful. It +is no wonder they receive many applications of the following nature: + +'CLYDE, a rising young doctor, twenty-two, fair, with a nice house and +servants; being tired of bachelor life, wishes to receive the +carte-de-visite of a dark, fascinating young lady, of from seventeen to +twenty years of age; no money essential, but good birth indispensable. +She must be fond of music and children, and very loving and +affectionate.' + +Another doctor: + +'Twenty-nine, of a loving and amiable disposition, and who has at +present an income of £120 a year, is desirous to make an immediate +engagement with a lady about his own age, who must be possessed of a +little money, so that by their united efforts he may soon become a +member of a lucrative and honourable profession.' + +How the 'united efforts' of two young people, however enthusiastic, can +make a man an M.D. or an M.R.C.S. (except that love conquers all +things) is more than one can understand. The last advertisement I shall +quote affects me nearly, for it is from an eminent member of my own +profession: + +'ALEXIS, a popular author in the prime of life, of an affectionate +disposition, and fond of home, and the extent and pressing nature of +whose work have prevented him from mixing much in society, would be +glad to correspond with a young lady not above thirty. She must be of a +pleasing appearance, amiable, intelligent, and domestic.' + +If it is with the readers of penny fiction that Alexis has established +his popularity, I would like to know how he did it, and who he is. To +discover this last is, however, an impossibility. These novelists all +write anonymously, nor do their works ever appear before the public in +another guise. There is sometimes a melancholy pretence to the contrary +put forth in the 'Answers to Correspondents.' 'PHOENIX,' for example, +is informed that 'The story about which he inquires will not be +published in book form at the time he mentions.' But the fact is it +will never be so published at all. It has been written, like all its +congeners, for the unknown millions and for no one else. + +Some years ago, in a certain great literary organ, it was stated of one +of these penny journals (which has not forgotten to advertise the +eulogy) that 'its novels, are equal to the best works of fiction to be +got at the circulating libraries.' The critic who so expressed himself +must have done so in a moment of hilarity which I trust was not +produced by liquor; for 'the best works of fiction to be got at the +circulating libraries' obviously include those of George Eliot, +Trollope, Reade, Black, and Blackmore, while the novels I am discussing +are inferior to the worst. They are as crude and ineffective in their +pictures of domestic life as they are deficient in dramatic incident; +they are vapid, they are dull. Indeed, the total absence of humour, and +even of the least attempt at it, is most remarkable. There is now and +then a description of the playing of some practical joke, such as tying +two Chinamen's tails together, the effect of the relation of which is +melancholy in the extreme, but there is no approach to fun in the whole +penny library. And yet it attracts, it is calculated, four millions of +readers—a fact which makes my mouth water like that of Tantalus. + +When Mr. Wilkie Collins wrote of the Unknown Public it is clear he was +still hopeful of them. He thought it 'a question of time' only. 'The +largest audience,' he says, 'for periodical literature in this age of +periodicals must obey the universal law of progress, and sooner or +later learn to discriminate. When that period comes the readers who +rank by millions will be the readers who give the widest reputations, +who return the richest rewards, and who will therefore command the +services of the best writers of their time.' This prophecy has, +curiously enough, been fulfilled in a different direction from that +anticipated by him who uttered it. The penny papers—that is, the +provincial penny newspapers—_do_ now, under the syndicate system, +command the services of our most eminent novel writers; but Penny +Fiction proper—that is to say, the fiction published in the penny +literary journals—is just where it was a quarter of a century ago. + +With the opportunity of comparison afforded to its readers one would +say this would be impossible, but as a matter of fact, the opportunity +is _not_ offered. The readers of Penny Fiction do not read newspapers; +political events do not interest them, nor even social events, unless +they are of the class described in the _Police News_, which, I +remark—and the fact is not without significance—does not need to add +fiction to its varied attractions. + +But who, it will be asked, _are_ the public who don't read newspapers, +and whose mental calibre is such that they require to be told by a +correspondence editor that 'any number over the two thousand will +certainly be in the three thousand'? + +I believe, though the vendors of the commodity in question profess to +be unable to give any information on the matter, that the majority are +female domestic servants. + +As to what attracts them in their favourite literature, that is a much +more knotty question. My own theory is that, just as Mr. Tupper +achieved his immense popularity by never going over the heads of his +readers, and showing that poetry was, after all, not such a difficult +thing to be understood, so the writers of Penny Fiction, in clothing +very conventional thoughts in rather high-faluting English, have found +the secret of success. Each reader says to himself (or herself), 'That +is _my_ thought, which I would have myself expressed in those identical +words, if I had only known how. + + + + +HOTELS. + + +The desire for cheap holidays—as concerns going a long distance for +little money—is no doubt very general, but it is not universal. It +demands, like the bicycle, both youth and vigour. In mature years, not +only because we are more fastidious, but because we are less robust, +the element of cheapness, though always agreeable, is subsidiary to +that of comfort. For my own part, if the chance were offered me to +travel night and day for forty-eight hours anywhere—though it was to +the Elysian Fields—and that in a Pullman car, and for nothing, I would +rather go to Southend at my own expense from Saturday to Monday. +Suppose the former journey to be commenced by a Channel passage and +continued in a third-class carriage, I would rather stop at home. Or +if, in addition to the other discomforts, I am to be a unit among 100 +excursionists, with a coupon that insures my being lodged on the sixth +floor everywhere, I had rather take a month's quiet holiday in London +at the House of Detention. + +These things are matters of taste; but it is certain that a very large +number of people, who, like myself, are neither rich nor in a position +which justifies them in giving themselves airs, consider quiet, +comfort, and the absence of petty cares the most essential conditions +of a holiday. These views necessitate some expense and generally limit +the excursions of those who entertain them to their native land; but, +on the other hand, they have their advantages. They give one, for +example, a great experience in the matter of hotels. + +As I idly flutter the yellow leaves of the advertisements of inns in +'Bradshaw,' they call up pictures in my mind quite undreamt of by the +proprietors. I have been a sojourner in almost all of these which are +described as 'situated in picturesque localities.' They are all—it is +in print and must be true—'first-class' hotels; they have most of them +'unrivalled accommodation;' not a few of them have been 'patronised by +Royalty,' and one of them even by 'the Rothschilds.' These last, of +course, are great caravanserais, with 'magnificent ladies' +drawing-rooms' and 'replete' (a word that seems to have taken service +with the licensed victuallers) 'with every luxury.' They make up (a +term unfortunately suggestive of transformation) hundreds of beds; they +have equipages and 'night chamberlains;' '_On y parle français_;' '_Man +spricht Deutsch_.' Of some of these there is quite a little biography, +beginning with the year of their establishment and narrating their +happy union with other agreeable premises, like a brick and mortar +novel. I remember them well: their 'romantic surroundings' or 'their +exclusive privilege of meeting trains upon the platform;' their +accurate resemblance to 'a gentleman's own house' (with 'a +reception-room 80 feet by 90 feet'); their 'douche and spray baths;' +their 'unexceptionable tariff;' and even their having undergone those +'extensive alterations,' through which I also underwent something, +which they did not allow for in the bill. + +These hotels are all more or less satisfactory as to appearance; +furnished, not, indeed, with such taste, nor so lavishly, as their +rivals on the Continent, but handsomely enough; they are much cleaner +than foreign inns; and if their reference to 'every sanitary +improvement which science can suggest' is a little tall, even for an +advertisement, one never has cause to shudder as happens in some places +in France proper and in Brittany everywhere. Though it must be admitted +that _tables d'hôte_ abroad are not the banquets which the travelling +Briton believes them to be, our own hotel public dinners are inferior +to their originals, and, what is very hard, those who pay for an +entertainment in private suffer from them. The guest who happens to +dine later than the _table d'hôte_ in his own apartment can hardly +escape getting things 'warmed up;' and if he dines at the same time he +has nobody to wait on him. There is one thing that presses with great +severity on paterfamilias—the charge which is made at many of the large +hotels of 1s. 6d. a day for attendance on each person. Half a guinea a +week for service is a high price even for a bachelor; but when this has +to be paid for every member of the family, it is ruinous. Young ladies +who dine at the same table and do not give half the trouble of 'single +gentlemen' ought not to be taxed in this way. It is urged by many that +since attendance is charged in the bill,' there should be no other +fees. But the lover of comfort will always cheerfully pay for a little +extra civility; nor do I think that this practice—any more than that of +feeing our railway porters—is a public disadvantage. The waiter does +not know till the guest goes whether he is a person of inflexible +principles or not, and, therefore, hope ameliorates his manners and +shapes his actions to all. As to getting 'attendance' out of the bill, +now it has once got into it, that I believe to be impossible. There it +is, like the moth in one's drawing-room sofa. And yet I am old enough +to remember how poor Albert Smith plumed himself on the benefit he +bestowed upon the public, as he had imagined, by introducing a fixed +charge for all services and doing away with 'Please, sir, boots.' In +this country, and, to say truth, in most others, 'Please, sir, boots,' +is indigenous and not to be done away with. We did very much better +under the voluntary system, although a few people who did not deserve +it, but simply could not afford to be lavish, were called in +consequence 'screws.' + +To pay the wages of another man's servants is absurd, and reminds one +of the 'plate, glass, and linen' that used to be charged for at the +posting-house on the Dover road with every threepenny-worth of +brandy-and-water, I have been asked 6d. for an orange (when oranges +were cheap) at a London hotel, upon the ground that they never charged +less than 6d. for anything; and I have read of 'an old established and +family hotel' near Piccadilly, where the charge for putting the _Times_ +upon a guest's breakfast-table was 6d. up to this present year of +grace. 'Gentlemen and families had always been supplied with it at that +price,' said the landlord, when remonstrated with, 'and it was his +principle, and his customers approved it, to keep things as they were.' +It must be admitted, however, that matters have changed for the better +in this respect elsewhere; and, at all events, the printed tariff that +may now be consulted in every modern hotel enables you to know what you +are spending. + +Things are improved, too, in the way of light and air; both the public +and private rooms of our hotels are far more cheerful and better +appointed than they used to be, and instead of the four-posters there +are French beds. The one great advantage that our new system possesses +over the old is, indeed, the sleeping accommodation. The 'skimpy' +mattress, the sheet that used to come untucked through shortness, +leaving the feet tickled by the blanket, and the thin, limp thing that +called itself a feather bed, are only to be found in ancient +hostelries. + +On the other hand, it must be confessed that the food has deteriorated; +the bill of fare, indeed, is more pretentious, but the materials are +inferior, and so is the cooking. The well-browned fowl, with its rich +gravy and the bread-sauce that used to be its homely but agreeable +attendant, has disappeared. The bird appears now under a French title, +and is in other respects unrecognisable; as an Irish gentleman once +explained it to me, it is not only that the thing appears under an +_alias_, but the _alias_ comes up instead of the thing. There is one +essential which the old hotel often omitted to serve with your chicken, +and which the new hotel supplies—the salad. This, however, few hotel +cooks in England—and far less hotel waiters—can be trusted to prepare. +Their simple plan is to deluge the tender lettuce with some hateful +ingredient called 'salad mixture,' poured out of a peculiarly shaped +bottle, such as the law now compels poisons to be sold in; and the +jewel is deserving of its casket—it is almost poison. Nor, alas! is +security always to be attained by making one's salad for one's self. +For supposing even that the lettuce is fresh and white, and not +manifestly a cabbage that is pretending to be a lettuce, how about the +oil? Charles Dickens used to say that he could always tell the +character of an inn from its cruets; if they were dirty and neglected, +all was bad. The cruets are now clean enough in all hotels of +pretension; but alas for that bottle which should contain (and perhaps +did at some remote period contain) the oil of Lucca! On the fingers of +one hand I could count all the hotels in England which have not given +me bad oil. Whether it was never good, or whether it has gone bad, I +leave to those philosophers who investigate the origin of evil. I only +know that it tastes as hair-oil smells. As to the soups, they are no +worse than they used to be, and no better; there is soup and there is +hotel soup. + +'Gravy soup, fried sole, _entrée_, leg of mutton, and apple tart' used +to be the unambitious _menu_ of the old-fashioned inn. The _entrée_ was +terrible, but the fish, meat, and sweet were excellent. I will say +nothing of the _entrées_ now; I am not in a position to say anything, +for not being of a sanguine temperament, and having but a few years to +live, I do not venture upon them. But it is undeniable that our bill of +fare is greatly more varied than it used to be, and that the way in +which the table is arranged is much more attractive. At the great +hotels in the neighbourhood of London where rich, or at all events +prodigal people, go to dine in the summer months, this is especially +the case. All these establishments affect fine dinners, yet how seldom +it is they give you good ones! Their wines, though monstrously dear, +are very fair; indeed, of the champagnes at least you may make certain +by looking at the corks; but the food! How many of their fancifully +named dishes might be included under the common title, Fiasco! + +It was once suggested to a decayed man of fashion that an excellent +profession for him to take up would be the proprietorship of an hotel +of this class. 'You know what is really worth eating,' said an +influential friend of his, 'and these caterers for your own class +evidently don't; if you will undertake the management of the _Mammoth_ +(naming an inn of very high repute), I will furnish the funds.' But the +man of fashion, who had spent his all with very little to show for it, +had at least acquired some knowledge of his fellow-creatures. 'I am +deeply obliged to you,' he said, 'but were I to accept your offer I +should only lose your money. There are but a very few people in the +world who know a good dinner when it is set before them; and a very +large class (including all the ladies, who are only solicitous about +its _looking_ good) do not care whether it is good or bad. In private +life if a dinner consists of many courses, is given at a fine house, +and is presumably expensive, nineteen-twentieths of those who sit down +to it are satisfied. The twentieth alone says to himself, 'How much +better I should have dined at home!' I have been at scores and scores +of great dinner-parties where the very plates were cold and nobody but +myself has observed it.' + +I have no doubt the gentleman of fashion was right; delicate cooking +would be entirely thrown away upon the general palate. The fair sex, +the young, the hungry, the easy-going, the ignorant—how large a +majority of the 'frequenters' of hotels do these classes embrace! And +it must also be remarked that to cook food (except whitebait) +delicately in large quantities is a very difficult operation indeed. + +Upon the whole, I think, our large hotels, 'arranged on the Continental +system,' are well adapted for those who frequent them, and they show a +readiness to adopt improvements. An immense number of well-to-do people +go to Brighton, to Scarborough, and scores of other places to get a +change and fresh air, but also to find the same amusements to which +they have been accustomed in London; and, on the whole, they get what +they want without paying very much too much for it. But what drives +many quiet folks abroad is their disinclination to meet with all this +gaiety and public life; they do not mind it so much when it is mixed +with the foreign element, and they are also under the impression that +picturesque scenery is a peculiarity of the Continent. I believe that +more English people have visited Switzerland than have seen the Lake +District and the Channel Islands, and very many more than have +travelled in North Devon and Cornwall. The chief reason of their +abstinence in this respect is, however, their dread of the want of +'accommodation.' To the last two counties, with the exception of some +towns, such as Ilfracombe, approachable by sea, or a direct railway +route, folks never go in crowds, and never will go. It is true there +are no mammoth hotels to be found there; but for picturesque situation +and a certain homely comfort, that takes one not only into another +world, but another generation, there is nothing equal to certain little +inns in these out-of-the-way places. In Wales also, and even in the +Isle of Wight, there are perfect bowers of bliss of this description, +still undesecrated by the excursionist. Not ten years ago, in a part of +North Devon which shall be nameless, I came, with my wife and daughter, +upon an inn of this description. We were all enraptured with the +exquisite beauty of its situation, and were so imprudent as to express, +in the presence of the landlady, our wish to live and die there. 'Well, +indeed, sir,' she said, 'I am delighted to see you, but I hope you are +not going to stay very long.' 'My dear madam,' I remonstrated, aghast +at this remark, 'are we, then, such very objectionable-looking +persons?' 'Bless your heart, no, sir, it isn't that; but the fact is, +we have only room for three, and if parties come and come, and always +find us full (through your being here, you know), they will think it is +no use coming, and we shall lose our custom.' We did stay on, however, +a pretty long time—it was a place of ineffable beauty, such as one +parts from almost with tears—and when on our departure I asked for my +bill, the landlady said, 'Dear me, sir, would you kindly tell me what +day you come upon, for I ha' lost my account of it?' The life we led at +that inn was purely pastoral; the clotted cream was of that consistency +that it was meat and drink in one; but although the fare was homely, it +was good of its kind, and admirably cooked. There was fresh fish every +day—for we were too far from railways for that Gargantuan ogre, 'the +London market,' to deprive us of it—and tender fowls, and jams of all +kinds such as no money could buy. + +The landlady had a genius for making what she called 'conserves,' and +every cupboard in the queer little house was filled with them. In the +sitting-room was a quantity of old china and knick-knacks, brought by +the sailors of the place from foreign lands; the linen was white as +snow, and smelt of lavender. Outside the inn was a sea that stretched +to Newfoundland, and cliffs that caught the sunset—such scenery as is +not surpassed by that of the Tyrol (though, of course, in a very +different line), and be sure I was afraid of no comparison between our +'Travellers' Rest' and any Tyrolean inn. It is noteworthy that this +hostelry of ours was so peculiarly and picturesquely placed that it +could only be approached on foot, which reminds me of another place of +entertainment for man, but not for beast. + +In appearance, 'The Strangers' Welcome' (as I will take leave to term +it) is more ambitious than 'The Rest,' but it is of the same simple +type. In some respects it is even more primitive; no sign hangs over +its door, nor is any other symbol of its vocation visible, 'Liberty,' +not 'License,' as one may say without much metaphor, being its motto. +It is on an island, so insignificant in extent that horse exercise is +impossible on it. What it lacks in superficial area is more than made +up, however, in its stupendous height. From the 'Welcome,' though it +lies in a dell, one looks down perhaps a hundred sheer feet upon the +ocean. Its solemn murmur, even in calm, always reaches the place, and +when in storm, its spray. As one watches it from the lawn among the +fuchsias, one scarcely knows which mood becomes it best. The fuchsias +grow against our walls and tap at our window-panes in the morning as +though they were roses; they even make their homes in the rocks, like +the conies. The island is a very garden of fuchsias, tall as trees; and +there are no other trees. The 'Welcome' itself is a sort of farmhouse +without the farm; there is a goat or two and a donkey to be seen about +it, which would account for the milk having an alien flavour, if it had +one. But the 'Welcome' has excellent milk, so that there must be some +cows somewhere. From the cliff-top you may see Alderney, for our inn is +among the Channel Islands. When a storm comes you must stop where you +are; for until the last waves of it have ceased there is no approach to +us from the world without. To the stranger it seems probable at such +seasons that the little place will burst up from below, for beneath it +are caverns innumerable, filled with furious waves like sea monsters +roaring for our lives. The sea, in short, has honeycombed it, and +renews her vows to be its ruin with every gale. Yet the 'Welcome' lasts +our time, and will last that of many generations, who will continue, +however, doubtless to believe that the sublimities of Nature are +unattainable short of Switzerland. + +My memory now transports me to a mountain district in the north, but on +this side of the border; and here, again, the inn is signless, and has +no appearance of an inn at all. It is situated on the last of a great +chain of hills, with lakes among them. It has lawns and shrubberies, +but few flowers; Nature frowns on every hand, even in sunshine, when +the waterfalls flow like silver, and the crags are decked with +diamonds. There are no 'trencher-scraping, napkin-carrying,' waiters in +the house, but country damsels attend upon you, and a motherly dame, +their mistress, expresses her hope every morning that you have slept +well. If you have not, it is the fault of your conscience: you have had +a poet's recipe for it, for you have been 'within the hearing of a +hundred streams' all night. Will you go up the Fells, or will you row +on the Lake? These are your simple alternatives; there is no brass +band, no promenade, no pier, no anything that the vulgar like. Yet once +a week at least a great spectacle can be promised you without crossing +the inn threshold (indeed, when the promise is kept it is better to be +on the right side of it)—a thunder-storm among the hills. The +arrangements for lighting the place, of which you may have complained, +not without reason, are then in perfection, and the silence is broken +with a vengeance. It is difficult to imagine the grandeurs of a +sham-fight—a battle without corpses—but here you have them. First the +musketry, then the guns, with the explosion of the +powder-magazine—repeated about forty times by the mountain echoes—at +the end of it. When all is over you sit down to such a supper as +Lucullus would have given a year of life for, and which, in all +probability—for he had no prudence—would have shortened it for him. At +the 'Retreat,' as it is called, among other native delicacies, they +give you fresh char cooked to a turn. I like to think that this was the +fish that Monte Christo had sent him in a tank to Paris on the occasion +of a certain banquet; but all the wealth of the Indies could not have +accomplished that; the char (in spite of its name) does not travel. + +One more reminiscence of country inns; and, though I have more of them +in the picture-gallery of my memory, I have done. I conjure up an +ivy-covered dwelling, long roofed but low, and sheltered by a lofty +hill. Its situation is quite solitary, and, save for the cry of the +seagull, there reigns about it an unbroken silence. It is on the very +highway of the world, but the road is noiseless, for it is the sea. +From the windows, all day long, we can watch the ships pass by that +carry the pilgrims of the earth, for their freight is chiefly human. It +is here 'the first ray glitters on the sail that brings our friends up +from the under world, and the last falls on that which sinks with all +we love below the verge.' Even at night there is no cessation to this +coming and going; only, a red light or a white, and the distant strokes +of a paddle-wheel in the hush of the moonless void are then the sole +signs of all this motion. What hopes and fears contend in unseen hearts +under those moving stars! Is it nothing to have the opportunity to +watch them from the ivied porch of the 'Outlook,' and to welcome the +thoughts they arouse within us? On land, too, there are stars, not made +in heaven, but their shining is intermittent. As I lie in my bed I can +see the great revolving light on the farthest point of rock that juts +to sea. That is the 'Outlook's' watchman, not of much use to it, +indeed, in a practical way, but imparting a marvellous sense of +guardianship and security. + +The chief means of amusement at inns of this kind is supplied by +science in the telescope. You note through it all that comes and goes, +and after a day or two can tell-for yourself whither each stately ship +is bound, or whence it comes. At the 'Outlook' the food is plain, but +good; the prawns in particular (which the young people, by-the-bye, can +catch for themselves) are of an exquisite flavour, and in size approach +the lobster. Twice a week for four hours this earthly Paradise is as a +town taken by assault and given over to pillage. An excursion steamer +stops at the little pier and discharges a cargo of excursionists. But +those to whom the happiness of their fellow-creatures is intolerable +can withdraw themselves at these seasons to the neighbouring Downs and +Bays, and on their return they will find peace with folded wing sitting +as before on the 'Outlook's' flagstaff. + +Such are the inns which I have known, and there are hundreds in +beautiful England like them. On its rivers in particular there are many +charming little inns, but, to say truth, although the +gentlemen-fishermen are as quiet as mice (from their habits of caution +in their calling), the disciples of the oar are noisy; they get up too +early and go to bed too late, and are too much addicted to melody. +Moreover, these houses of entertainment often carry the principle of +home production to excess: their native fare is excellent; but, spring +mattresses not growing in the neighbourhood, the stuffing of the beds +is supplied, to judge by results, from the turnip-field. For the +purpose for which they are intended, however, these little hostels are +well fitted and have a river charm that is indescribable. + +I could speak, too, of excellent hotels set in the grounds of ruined +castles or abbeys; but the attractions of the latter interfere with the +repose of the visitor. Moreover, it has been my chief object, while +admitting the merits of the _Crown_ (and) _Imperial_, to paint the +lily—to point out the violet half hid from the eye. It seems to me a +pity that so many persons should leave their native land and spend +their money among foreigners through ignorance of the quiet +resting-places that await them at home. I have in no way exaggerated +their merits, but it must be confessed that they have one serious +drawback, which, however, only affects bachelors; if Paterfamilias is +troubled by it he ought to be ashamed of himself. I allude to the happy +couples on their honeymoon whom one is wont to meet with in these +retired bowers. It is aggravating, no doubt, to see how Angelina and +Edwin devote themselves to one another without the slightest regard for +the feelings of the solitary stranger. The poor creature has no wish, +of course, to thrust his company upon them, still he would like to have +his existence acknowledged; and they ignore it. They have not a word to +throw to him, nor even a glance. Then there are certain endearments, +delightful, no doubt, to those who exchange them, but which to the +spectator are distraction. What I would recommend to the bachelor as a +remedy is a wife of his own. The good Mussulman's idea of future +happiness is a perpetual honeymoon; and these little Paradises are the +very places to spend it in. The customs of our own country forbid the +agreeable variety which has such charms for the Faithful; but, even as +it is, I have seen in these pleasant inns a great deal of human +happiness, such as to the sober lover of his species only adds to their +attraction. + +[Illustration] + + + + +MAID-SERVANTS. + + +It is a common thing to hear the remark expressed by much-tried +mistresses that servants are not 'reasonable beings.' The observation +may either have been provoked by the misbehaviour of some particular +domestic, or by the injudicious defence of the class by one of the male +sex. For the gentlemen have more to urge in favour of our domestics +than the ladies have, and, as the latter maintain, for a very obvious +reason—'they have much less to do with them.' The statement is cynical, +but correct. So long as a man finds his clothes brushed and his meals +well and punctually cooked, he 'does not see much to complain of,' nor +does he give much thought to the pains and trouble which even that +moderate amount of service entails upon his wife. Unless in great +households, where everything is delegated to a paid housekeeper, it is, +indeed, certain that ladies who are resolved to keep a house as it +should be have, now, from various causes, a very hard time of it. The +old feeling of feudal service, though a few examples—both mistresses +and servants—may still exist of it, is dead; and in its place we have +the employer and the hireling. There are faults, of course, on both +sides; mistresses are accustomed to look upon their servants too much +as machines, and in the working thereof do not, perhaps, estimate +sufficiently the advantages of the use of sweet oil; while servants are +more prone to 'eye-service' than were ever the housemaids of Ephesus. +Which of the two began it I cannot tell, but a certain antagonism has +grown up between these two classes which shakes the pillars of domestic +peace. At the root of it all, as at the root of most evils, lies +ignorance, and in the servants' case ignorance of a stupendous nature. + +I have had in my household an under-nurse, who, upon the family's +leaving town for a short holiday, was enjoined to see that the birds in +the nursery (canaries) were well supplied with sand. When we came back +we found them all starved to death. She had given them sand, but, alas! +no seed. This was a girl from the country, who, one would think, would +have known what birds fed upon; otherwise one does not expect much +intelligence from Arcadia. When our last importation (an +under-housemaid) 'turned on the gas' in the upper apartments as she was +directed to do, but omitted to light it, I thought it very excusable; +she had not been accustomed to gas. On the other hand, when her +mistress told her to 'look to the fire' of a certain room, I contend we +had a right to expect that that fire should be kept in. It was not so, +however, and when the lady inquired, 'Why did you not look to it, as I +told you?' the girl replied, 'Well, I did, mum; the door was open and I +looked at the fire every time I passed.' She appeared to attach some +sort of igneous power to the human eye. + +Each of these young ladies came to us very highly recommended by the +wife of the clergyman of her native place. Surely, in the curriculum of +the village school, something else beside the catechism ought to have +been included; yet, of the things they were certain to be set to do—the +merest first principles of domestic service—they had been taught +nothing; and in learning them at our expense they cost us ten times +their wages. + +It may be said, indeed, that when you employ a young girl who has never +been out to service before, you secure honesty, chastity, and sobriety, +and must not look for the artificial virtues; but, unhappily, things +are not very much better when you engage an experienced hand. The lady +of the house should not, of course, expect too much (in these days she +must be of a very sanguine temperament if she falls into _that_ error); +she will think it necessary to warn the new arrival—although she 'knows +her place' and is 'a thorough housemaid'—that a velvet pile carpet, for +example, should not be brushed backwards. But on more obvious matters +she will probably leave the 'thorough housemaid' to her own devices, +the result of which is that the boards beside the stair-carpets are +washed with soda the first morning, which takes the dirt off +effectually—and the paint also. An hour or two before she was caught at +this, she has, perhaps, utterly spoilt a polished grate or two by +rubbing them with scouring paper instead of emery powder. + +Paterfamilias feels these things when he has to pay the bill, but his +wife feels them in the meantime, and it is more than is to be expected +of human nature that she can welcome cordially such an addition to her +household. A prejudice against the girl springs up in her mind, which +is very promptly responded to, and the mutual respect that ought to +grow up between them is nipped in the bud. I am sorry to say that good +housewives are almost always opposed to having servants well educated; +they think that 'knowledge puffs up,' blows them above their places, +and encourages a taste for light literature which is opposed to the +arts of brushing and cleaning. What the 'higher education' of domestic +servants is to be under the School Boards I know not; but I hope they +will not imagine, as the Universities do, that their duty is only to +teach their pupils how to educate themselves. I confess I agree with +the housewives, that, for young persons intended for service, reading, +writing, and arithmetic, with the use of the scrubbing and hearth +brushes, are far preferable acquirements to those of the same three +great principles with the use of the globes. Whether there are any +handbooks in existence, other than cookery books, to teach the duties +of servants I know not; but, even if there are, servants will never +read them of their own free will. Not one in a hundred has a +sufficiently strong desire to improve herself for that. They must be +taught like children, and when they _are_ children, if any good is to +come of it. + +It is to me astounding, and certainly makes me very suspicious of the +advocates of women's rights, that they have done little or nothing in +this direction. Why should not some of that immense energy which is now +expended on platforms be directed into this less ambitious but more +natural channel? There are tens of thousands of persons of their own +sex, not indeed out of employment, but who are obtaining employment on +false pretences, who would do so honestly enough if they had had but a +little early training. Unfortunately, the ladies of the platform do not +in general stoop to such small things as domestic matters; they do not +care about mere comfort, they even perhaps resent it because it is so +dear to tyrannous man. If they would only turn their attention to the +education of their humbler sisters, they would win over all their +enemies and put to shame the cynic who has associated Man's Lefts with +Women's Rights. + +The only School for Servants I am acquainted with sent us the worst we +ever had, and if it had not been for the very handsome fee it charged +both us and her for our mutual introduction, I should not have +recognised it as an educational establishment at all. + +It will naturally be said by men (not by their wives, for they know +better), 'But surely self-interest will cause a servant to qualify +herself for a place, since, having done so, she will command better +wages.' This is the mistake of the political economists, who, right +enough in the importance they attach to self-interest, gravely err in +supposing it to be always of a material kind. They start with the idea +that everybody wants to make as much money as possible. So they do; but +with a large majority this desire is subordinate to the wish for +leisure and enjoyment. Trades unionism, with all its faults, is founded +on this important fact in human nature—that many of us prefer narrow +means, with comparative leisure, to affluence with toil. That this +notion, if universal, would destroy good work of all kinds and make +perfection impossible, is beside the question, or certainly never +enters into the minds of those chiefly concerned in the matter. 'A good +day's work for a good day's wage' is a fine sentiment; but 'half a +day's work for half a day's wage' suits some people even better; while +'half a day's work for a good day's wage' suits them better still. In +old times the sense of 'service being no inheritance' begat habits of +good conduct as well as thrift, for in most well-conducted households, +servants' wages were made proportionate to their length of service. But +nowadays a lady's promise of raising a servant's wages every year is +quite superfluous, since it is ten to one against her keeping her for +the first twelve months. It is no wonder, then, that while the +conviction of service being of a temporary character is, at least, as +strong as ever, the course of conduct it now suggests is to make as +much as possible out of it while it lasts, in the way of perquisites, +etc. With our cooks, especially, it is not too much to say that wages +are often a secondary object as compared with the opportunity of making +a purse for themselves; and the recognised privilege of selling the +dripping affords cover for a multitude of petty delinquencies which if +not positive thefts have a strong family resemblance to them. + +Before leaving the subject of short terms of service, it should be +noted that the modern servant openly avows her love of change. An +excellent mistress, and a very kind one, has told me that housemaids +and kitchenmaids have given her warning again and again for no other +cause than this. They have avowed themselves quite happy and contented +in their place, but they want 'fresh woods and pastures new.' When Jack +Mytton was reminded by his lawyer that a certain estate he was about to +sell had been in his family for 500 years, he replied, 'Then it's high +time it should go out of it;' and the same reflection occurs to our +Janes and Bessies. They have been in their present situation a year +perhaps, or two at most—indeed, two years is considered in the world +below stairs the extreme point for any person of spirit to remain under +one roof—and it is high time they should leave it. One would naturally +think that, in the case of young women at all events, they would be +slow to exchange even a moderately comfortable place for a home among +strangers; that they would bear the ills they know of, even if ills +exist, rather than venture on those of which they know nothing; but +this is far from being the case. Nor do they even quit their place in +order 'to better themselves.' They have absolutely no reason except the +love of change. Behaviour of this sort naturally gives some colour to +the remark already quoted that servants are not 'reasonable beings.' I +was almost a convert to that opinion myself when, on one occasion, +having asked a female domestic to be good enough to put my boots on the +tree, she literally obeyed my order. She hung all my boots on the tree +in the garden, and it was very wet weather. But to young persons who +come from the country everything is pardonable—except 'temper.' + +The growth of this parasite in both town and country is, however, quite +alarming. Little as mistresses dare to say to the disadvantage of +servants when leaving their employment, no matter for what reason, they +do sometimes remark of them that their temper is 'uncertain.' When this +happens and the fact is communicated to Jane or Betsy by the lady to +whom they have proposed themselves, they have one invariable method of +self-defence: 'Temper, mum? Well, I 'ave my faults, I daresay, but not +_that_; all as knows me knows my temper is 'eavenly. But the fact is, +mum, Mrs. Jones [her late mistress] was a bit flighty.' And she touches +her forehead, and even sometimes winks, to indicate aberration of the +intellect. A really good-tempered servant is now rare; and there are +very few who will bear 'speaking to' when their work is neglected or +ill-done. + +What, however, always puts them in the highest good humour is an +expensive breakage. When Susan comes to say, 'Oh, please, mum, I've 'ad +a haccident with the pier glass,' her face is wreathed in smiles. To a +mistress who cannot relieve her feelings by strong language, as a man +would do, this behaviour is very aggravating. If servants do not +actually delight in these misfortunes, I am afraid not one in twenty +shows the least consideration for her employer's purse. It is +charitable to say, when Thomas or Jane leaves the gas burning all +night, or the sun-blinds out in the pouring rain, that they have 'no +head;' but it is my experience that they are very careful, and, indeed, +take quite extraordinary precautions, with respect to their own +property. I am afraid that the true reason of the waste and +extravagance among servants is that they have no attachment to their +employers, and of course it is less troublesome to be lavish than to be +economical. All the education in the world cannot make selfish persons +unselfish; but it can surely implant in them some sense of duty. At +present, so long as a servant is not absolutely dishonest, her +conscience rarely troubles her. This is especially the case with our +cooks, who also—that 'dripping' question making their path so +slippery—draw the line between honesty and its contrary very fine +indeed. + +Moreover, they know less of what they pretend to know than any other +class of servant. The proof of this is in the fact that not one in a +hundred of them will cook you a dinner on trial. I have often said to a +cook, 'Your character is satisfactory enough in other respects; but, +before engaging you, will you show what you can do by sending up one +good dinner, for which I will pay you at the ordinary rate —namely, +half-a-guinea?' She won't do it; she says she can cook for a prince, +and affects to be hurt at the proposition. The consequence is that for +a month, at least, we are slowly poisoned. Once only I hired a cook who +accepted these terms. I am bound to say she sent us up a most excellent +dinner, but when I sent for her to pay the half-guinea she was dead +drunk on the kitchen floor. She had taken a bottle of port wine and one +of stout while serving up that entertainment, and afterwards confessed +that during her arduous duties she required 'constant support.' Again, +it is by no means unusual for cooks to succeed to admiration for a week +and then to begin to spoil everything, the proverb respecting a 'new +broom' applying, curiously enough, even more to them than to the +'housemaids.' + +These observations are no doubt severe, but they are not unjust; nor do +I for a moment imply that servants are always to blame, and never +mistresses. There are faults on both sides. Ladies often show +themselves as 'unreasonable' as their female domestics. For example, +although very solicitous for the settlement of their own daughters in +life, they often do not give sufficient opportunities for their +maid-servants to find husbands. A girl in service is quite as anxious +to get a husband as her young mistresses, and, indeed, it is of much +more consequence for her to do so. She sees her youth slipping away +from her in a place where no 'followers' are allowed, and it is no +wonder that she 'wants a change.' She has a right to have her holidays +and her 'Sundays out,' and it is the mistress's duty not only to grant +them, but to make some inquiry as to how she spends them. Many ladies +who go to church with much regularity never take the smallest interest +in the moral conduct of those to whom they stand, morally if not +legally, _in loco parentis_, and who may, perhaps, have no other +adviser. + +Mistresses of all ranks, too, show a lamentable want of principle in +the matter of character-giving. It wants, no doubt, a certain strength +of mind to write the truth. 'The girl is going, thank Heaven,' they say +to themselves, and they are glad to get rid of her, without a row, at +the easy price of a small falsehood. They lay the flattering unction to +their souls that they are concealing certain facts in order 'not to +stand in the way of the poor girl's future.' What they are really doing +is an act of selfishness, cruel as regards the lady who is trusting to +their word, and baneful as regards the public good. It is the good +characters which make the bad servants. In a certain primitive district +of England, where ministers are 'called' from parish to parish, one of +the churchwardens of X complained to the churchwardens of Y that his +late importation from the Y pulpit was not very satisfactory. 'And +yet,' he said, 'you all cracked him up enormously.' 'Yes,' replied the +churchwarden of Y, 'and you will have to crack him up too before you +get rid of him.' + +Now, it is only ignorance which causes ladies to believe that there is +any necessity to 'crack up' the character of a servant. They are not +obliged (though, of course, if the servant has behaved well it would be +infamous to withhold it) to give her any character at all, and they may +state the most unpleasant truth (if they are quite certain of the fact +and can prove it) without the least fear of an action for libel. The +law does not punish them for telling the truth about their servants, +and in another matter also it is more just than it is supposed to be. +There is a superstition among servants that when leaving their +situations before their time is out they have a right to claim board +wages, and that even when dismissed for gross misconduct they have a +right to their ordinary wages for the remainder of the month; but these +are mere popular errors. The only case with which I am acquainted where +neither of these dues was demanded was rather a curious one. A widow +lady advertised for a cook and a housemaid, and procured them by the +first cast of her net. They came together with an open avowal of their +previous acquaintanceship; they were attached to one another, they +said, and did not wish to be in separate service, and wages were not so +much an object to them as opportunities of friendship. The lady, who +had an element of romance in her, was touched with this expression of +sentiment; it was also a great convenience to her to be so quickly +suited; and, their characters being good, she engaged them. They had +come from a house of much greater pretensions than her own, and had +taken higher wages, which might have attracted her suspicions; but she +had very little work for them to do, and she concluded that 'an easy +place' had had its attractions for them. Her servants were well treated +and well fed, and were allowed to see their friends; but she objected +to evening visits, and required the back door to be locked and the key +placed in her possession at nine o'clock every evening. If the front +door was opened she could hear it from every part of her modest +residence (and, being very nervous, she used often to fancy that it +opened when it did not), while a wire for the use of the policeman +connected the ground-floor with an alarm bell in her own room in case +of fire or other contingency. The two servants had been six days with +her when this alarm bell was pealed one night with great violence. She +looked out of window, and beheld a cab laden with luggage standing at +her door. She expected nobody; but whoever had come was more welcome +than 'thieves' or 'fire,' and she went up to the maid's room to bid +them answer the door. She found to her great astonishment—for it was +two in the morning—the apartment empty, and while she was there the +alarm-bell sounded again with increased fury. Looking over the +balusters, she perceived a light in the hall and inquired who was +there. 'Well, it's us two,' returned the cook, 'we're just agoin, so +good-bye. It ain't at all the sort o' place for us, and you ain't the +sort o' missis.' Then there was a shout of laughter, the front door was +opened and slammed to, and the cab drove off with its tenants, leaving +their mistress to her lonely meditations. The two friends had come on +trial, it seemed, and had had enough of it. + +That they made no claim for wages of any kind seems quite curious when +one considers what sort of servants, and in what sort of circumstances, +do demand them. And, as a rule, masters and mistresses give in to the +extortion. Yet the law is on their side, nor have they any reason to +complain of it in other respects. The improvement that is needed is in +themselves, and in their relations to those in their employment. Our +young ladies are so engaged in their accomplishments and their +amusements that they have no time to acquire a knowledge of domestic +affairs, so that when they marry they know no more of a housewife's +duties than their husbands. No wonder men of moderate means shrink from +marriage when wives have become a source of discomfort and expense, +instead of their contraries, and have lost the name of helpmate. How +can they be in a position to teach their servants when they themselves +are grossly ignorant of what they would have them learn? There are +certain village schools, indeed, which profess to train their pupils +for domestic service, but they only teach them to be maids-of-all-work, +the least remunerated and the hardest-worked of all the daughters of +toil. They offer no premium to diligence and perfection. + +This state of things is very hard both upon mistresses and servants, +but it is not irremediable, and the remedy must come from the upper of +the two classes. Schools are as necessary for servants as they are for +other people; they must be taught their calling before they can +practise it; and schools for servants must therefore be instituted. +With schools will come certificates of merit, and servants will then be +paid for what they can really do, and not, as now, in proportion to +their powers of audacity of assertion. + + + + +MEN-SERVANTS. + + +The subject of men-servants is by no means of such universal interest +as that of maid-servants, and those who suffer from them are not only +less numerous, but less deserving of pity; as a lady of limited means +once put it in my hearing, 'They can better afford to be robbed and +murdered' On the other hand, whatever truth may be in the dogma that +where a woman is bad she is worse than a bad man, it is certain that +when a man-servant is bad he can do more mischief than a bad +maid-servant. In many cases he is a necessity, not because folks are +rich, but because they have large families, and the service is +consequently too heavy to be undertaken solely by women. I have known +many householders who, weary of the trouble and annoyance given by +men-servants, have resolved to engage only those of the other sex, and +who have had to resort to men-servants again for what may be called +physical reasons. + +When this happens, however, both master and mistress should agree to +the arrangement, or at all events be both informed that it has been +made. Only last autumn a lady friend of mine adopted it in the absence +of her husband abroad, and forgot to apprise him of it by letter. He +arrived home late at night, and, letting himself in with a latch-key, +took the strange man for a burglar, and was almost the death of him by +strangulation before he could explain that he was the new butler. + +No woman can bring up a luncheon or dinner tray for a dozen people +twice a day without sooner or later coming to grief with it. And here +it is appropriate to say that in places where there is much heavy work +it is only reasonable that wages should be higher than where the work +is light. Whereas, upon such irrational grounds is our whole system of +domestic service built, that this is hardly ever taken into +consideration. Since the servant is told beforehand what he or she will +have to do, it is taken for granted that the conditions are acceptable +to them; whereas, the fact is that the capability of performing their +duties is the very last thing to enter their minds. They cannot afford +to remain 'out of a situation,' and therefore take the first that +offers itself as a stopgap, with no more intention of permanently +remaining there than a European who accepts an appointment in Turkey, +and with the same object—namely, to make as much as possible out of the +Turks in the meantime. + +In the case of a man-servant, especially in London, no written +character should ever be held sufficient. A personal interview with his +late master or mistress is indispensable. This gives a little trouble, +no doubt, on both sides; but those who grudge it, for such a purpose, +must indeed be grossly selfish, and when they engage a ticket-of-leave +man for their butler get no worse than they deserve. One of the best +butlers, however, I ever knew was a ticket-of-leave man—engaged on the +faith of a written character, which was, of course, a forged one, and +who remained with his employer no less than eighteen months. If his +speculations on the turf had been successful, he might have parted with +him the best of friends, and perhaps have purchased a residence in the +same square; but something went wrong with the brother to Bucephalus, +whom he had backed for the Derby, and the poor man had to dispose of +the whole of his master's family plate to pay his own debts of honour +and defray his travelling expenses—probably to some considerable +distance, as the police could never hear of him. The risk in taking a +butler without a personal guarantee of at least his honesty and +sobriety can indeed hardly be exaggerated. If a clever fellow, his +influence over his fellow-servants of the other sex is very great, and +it is a recognised maxim of the class never 'to tell upon one another' +so long as they remain good friends. I have heard an experienced +housewife say there is nothing she dreads so much as an unbroken +harmony below stairs; like silence in the nursery, it is ominous of all +sorts of mischief. + +Of course, the ticket-of-leave man was an extreme case; but it is +certain that some butlers who are not thieves are always treading on +the very confines of roguery. They are like trustees who, though they +will not touch the principal entrusted to them, not only omit to put it +out to the best advantage, but will sometimes even pocket a portion of +the interest 'for their trouble.' I remember reading a curious case of +this sort. A gentleman who had been with his family in Switzerland for +nine months was met by a London acquaintance on his return, who +expressed his regret at his having been in trouble at home. 'Nay, I +have been in no trouble,' he replied, 'and, indeed, none of us have +been at home.' 'But a month ago when I was passing down your street I +surely saw a funeral standing at your door?' Nor had his eyes deceived +him. The butler in charge had let the house for a couple of months, and +but for his singular ill-luck in one of his tenants happening to die +during their temporary occupation of it, he would have pocketed the +rent (_minus_ the money requisite to keep the maids' mouths shut) and +his master would have been none the wiser. It is said that it is only +when we have lost a friend that we come to value him at his true worth; +and it is certain that it is only when one's butler has left us and the +tongues of his fellow-servants are loosened that we come to learn his +demerits—the difference between his real character and his written one. +If he is a rogue, his evil influence remains behind him, and, next to +the maidservants, it is the page who suffers most from it. He +becomes—poor little fellow!—almost by necessity an accessory to his +delinquencies, plays pilot-fish to the other's shark, and himself grows +up to swell the host of bad servants and that army of martyrs their +masters and mistresses. + +A common cause of a butler's ruin, and for which he is much to be +pitied, is his having married unfortunately. I had once a good servant +whom I was very loth to lose, but whose departure became necessary from +his constantly being visited by a wife in advanced stages of +intoxication. Housewives generally prefer a married man for their +servant, for reasons that are not inscrutable. I do not wish to differ +from such good authorities. But though I have no objection to my butler +being married, I do object to maintain his wife, which, if he be on +good terms with the cook, there is a strong probability of my having to +do. As to his own eating, Heaven forbid that I should grudge it to him; +but it is curious and utterly subversive of all medical dogma that both +men-servants and maidservants, who take, of course, comparatively +little exercise, should, nevertheless, contrive to eat more apiece for +dinner than two average Alpine climbers. Four meals a day, and three of +them meat meals, is their usual rate of sustenance, and the food must +not only be frequent and plentiful, but very good. It is a gratifying +proof of the rapid influence of civilisation that the daughter of a +farm-labourer, accustomed at home to consider bacon a treat and beef a +windfall, will, after a month's experience of her London place, decline +to eat cold meat of any kind, reject salt butter as 'not fit for a +Christian,' and become quite a _connoisseur_ as to the strength of +bitter ale. Indeed, two of our present female domestics are +'recommended' to drink claret because beer makes them bilious. I do not +mind giving them claret, but I think it hard that under such +circumstances I should have had a butler give me warning because the +female domestics are 'not select enough.' My own impression is, though +I scarcely like to mention it, because he was a married man, that he +considered them too plain. + +The reasons, or at all events the professed reasons, which servants +give for leaving their situations are sometimes very curious. One man +left a family of my acquaintance because he said he was interfered with +by the young ladies. 'Good gracious, what do you mean?' inquired his +mistress. Her daughters, it appears, were accustomed to arrange the +flowers for the dinner-table, whereas, as he imagined, he had a +peculiar gift for that kind of decoration himself. + +On the other hand, it is sometimes difficult for a sensitive master or +mistress to give the true reason for their parting with a servant. A +friend of mine had a footman who, through trick, or some defect in his +respiratory organs, used to blow like a grampus, and indeed more like a +whale, while waiting at table. It was not a vice, of course, but it was +very objectionable, and guests who were bald especially objected to it. +My friend consulted with his butler, who admitted that 'John did blow +like a pauper' (meaning, as I suppose, a porpoise), and undertook to +break the subject to him. It is quite common to find candidates for +service very deaf, and if they contrive to pass their 'entrance +examination' (for which no doubt they sharpen their faculties), they +stay with you for a month at least with an excellent excuse for making +it a holiday, since, whatever you tell them to do they cannot hear and +do not do it, or do something else which they like better. Mistresses +who are silent about moral disqualifications are much more so, of +course, about physical ones, and have no scruples in ridding themselves +of a deaf man. + +The worst class of men-servants, perhaps, are those who are said to +'require a master;' which means that when he happens to be not at home +they neglect everything. A friend of mine who happened to take a week's +holiday, alone, discovered on his return that his family might almost +as well have had no servant at all as the man he left with them; he was +generally out, and when at home had not even troubled himself to answer +the drawing-room bell. Some men-servants are always running out; they +have 'just stepped round the corner,' they say, 'to post a letter;' +which in nine cases out of ten means to have a dram at the +public-house. The servants who 'require a master' sometimes retain +their situation with a very selfish one by devoting themselves to his +service at the expense of the rest of the family. 'John suits me very +well,' he says, 'and thoroughly understands his duties,' which in this +case means the length of the master's foot. + +On the other hand, there are some men-servants who, one would think, +ought to belong to the other sex, so utterly ignorant they are of that +branch of their duty which they call 'valeting.' A lady blessed with a +scientific husband, who certainly did not take much notice whether he +was 'valeted' or not, once complained to his man of his neglect in this +particular. 'When your master comes in, William, you should look after +him, and see to his hat and coat, and pay him little attentions.' So +the next time the man of science came in he was not a little surprised +by William (who, it is fair to say, came from the country) running up +and taking his hat off his head, like some highly-trained retriever. +Happy the master to whom a worse thing has never happened at the hands +of his retainer! + +The main thing to be dreaded in men-servants—next to downright +dishonesty—is, of course, intoxication. If a man has been long in one's +service and gets drunk for once and away, it may well be forgiven him; +but when your new servant gets drunk, wait till he is sober enough to +receive his wages, and then dismiss him—if you can. Not long ago I had +occasion to discharge a butler for habitual intoxication; he was never +quite drunk, but also never quite sober; he was a sot. I made him fetch +a cab, and saw his luggage put upon it, and I tendered him his month's +wages. But he refused to leave the house without board wages. Of +course, I declined to pay him any such thing; and, as he persisted in +leaning against the dining-room door murmuring at intervals, 'I wants +my board wages,' I sent for a policeman. 'Be so good,' I said,' as to +turn this drunken person out of my house.' 'I daren't do it, sir,' was +the reply; 'that would be to exceed my duty.' 'Then, why are you here?' +'I am here, sir, to see that you turn the man out yourself without +using unnecessary violence.' 'The man' was six feet high and as stout +as a beer-barrel. I could no more have moved him than Skiddaw, and he +knew it. 'I stays here,' he chanted in his maudlin way, 'till I gets my +board wages.' Fortunately, two Oxford undergraduates happened to be in +the house, to whom I mentioned my difficulty, and I shall not easily +forget the delighted promptitude with which they seized upon the +offender and 'ran him out' into the street. He fled down the area steps +at once with a celerity that convinced me he was accustomed to being +turned out of houses, and tried to obtain re-admission at the +back-door. It was fortunately locked, but when I said to the policeman, +'_Now_, please to remove that man,' he answered, 'No, sir; that would +be to exceed my duty; he is still upon your premises and a member of +your household.' As it was raining heavily, the delinquent, though +sympathised with by a great crowd round the area railings, presently +got tired of his position and went away. But supposing my young Oxford +friends had not been in the house and he had fallen upon me (a little +man) in the act of expulsion; or supposing I had been a widow lady with +no protector, would that too faithful retainer have remained in my +establishment for ever? + +I have purposely addressed myself to that large class of the community +only who are said 'to keep a man-servant'—that is, one man, assisted, +perhaps, by a page. Those who keep butler, footman, coachman, grooms, +and valets are comparatively few in number, and know nothing of the +inconveniences which their less wealthy fellow-countrymen endure. In +large establishments, if William is drunk, John is sober, and the work +is done for the rich man by somebody; especially, too, if William is +drunk, there are John and Thomas to turn him out of the house and have +done with him. But it is certain that the lower Ten Thousand are not in +a satisfactory condition as respects their men-servants; hardly more +so, in fact, than the Hundred Thousand are in regard to their maids. +The men-servants, however, are not so ignorant of their duties as are +the latter, and if only their masters would have the courage to tell +the truth when giving them their 'characters,' there would be a great +improvement in them. Against the masters themselves (unlike the +mistresses) I have never heard much complaint. Most of them object to +be 'bothered' and 'troubled,' and are willing enough to put everything +into their man's hands, including the key of the Cellar, if only they +could trust him; but at present, alas! this is a very large 'If.' + +[Illustration] + + + + +WHIST-PLAYERS. + + +If cards are the Devil's books, Whist is the _édition de luxe_ of them. +Whist-playing is one of the few vices of the upper classes that has not +in time descended to the lower, with whom the ingenious and attractive +game of 'All Fours' has always held its own against it. I have known +but two men not belonging to the upper ten thousand who played well at +whist. One was a well-known jockey in the South of England, who was +also, by the way, an admirable billiard-player. He called himself an +amateur, but those who played with him used to complain that his +proceedings were even ultra-professional. On the Turf men are almost as +equal as they are under it, and this ornament of the pigskin would on +certain occasions (race meetings) take his place at the card-table with +some who were very literally his betters, while others who had more +self-respect contented themselves with backing him. The other example I +have in my mind was an ancient Cumberland yeoman, who, having lost the +use of his limbs in middle life from having been tossed by a bull, +pursued the science under considerable difficulties. A sort of +card-rack (such as Psycho uses at the Egyptian Hall) was placed in +front of him, and behind him stood his little granddaughter who played +the cards for him by verbal direction. Both these men played a very +good game of the old-fashioned kind, for though the jockey used +subtleties, they were not of the Clay or Cavendish sort. The asking for +trumps was a device unknown to him, though there were folks who +whispered he would take them under certain circumstances without +asking, and of the leading of the penultimate with five in the suit it +could be said of him, for once, that he was as innocent as a babe. + +Of course, many persons join the 'upper ten' who come from the lower +twenty (or even thirty), and it need not be said that they are by no +means inferior in sagacity to their new acquaintances; yet they rarely +make first-rate players. Whist, like the classics, must be learnt young +for any excellence to be attained in it. Of this Metternich was a +striking example. If benevolent Nature ever intended a man for a +whist-player one would have supposed that she had done so in his case, +but had been baffled by some malign Destiny which had degraded him to +that class by whom, in conjunction with Kings, it was fondly believed, +previously to the recent general election, that 'the world was +governed.' Until late in life he never took to whist, when he grew +wildly fond of it, and played incessantly, till it is said a certain +memorable event took place which caused him never to touch a card +again. The story goes that, rapt in the enjoyment of the game, he +suffered a special messenger to wait for hours, to whom if he had given +his attention more promptly a massacre of many hundred persons would +have been prevented. Humanity may drop a tear, but whist had nothing to +regret in the circumstance; for in Metternich it did not lose a good +player, and, what redeems his intelligence, he knew it. 'I learnt my +whist too late,' he would say, with more pathos and solemnity, perhaps, +than he would have used when speaking of more momentous matters of +omission. + +He must be a wise man indeed who, being an habitual whist-player, is +aware that he is a bad one. In games of pure skill, such as chess, and, +in a less degree, billiards, a man must be a fool who deceives himself +upon such a point; but in whist there is a sufficient amount of chance +to enable him to preserve his self-complacency for some time—let us +say, his lifetime. If he loses, he ascribes it to his 'infernal luck,' +which always fills his hands with twos and threes; and if he wins, +though it is by a succession of four by honours as long as the string +of four-in-hands when the Coaching Club meets in Hyde Park, he ascribes +it to his skill. 'If I hadn't played trumps just when I did,' he +modestly observes to his partner, 'all would have been over with us;' +though the result would have been exactly the same had he played +blindfold. To an observer of human nature, who is not himself a loser +'on the day,' there are few things more charming than the genial, +gentle self-approval of two players of this class who have just +defeated two experts, and proved, to their own satisfaction, that if +fortune gives them 'a fair chance' or 'something like equal cards,' as +they term the conditions of their late performance, they can play as +well as other people. + +Of course, the term 'good-play' is a relative one; the player who wins +applause in the drawing-room is often thought but little of in places +where the rigour of the game is observed; and the 'good, steady player' +of the University Clubs is not a star of the first magnitude at the +Portland. The best players used to be men of mature years; they are now +the middle-aged, who, with sufficient practical experience, have +derived their skill in early life from the best books. 'It is difficult +to teach an old dog new tricks,' and for the most part the old dogs +despise them. When I hear my partner boast that he is 'none of your +book-players,' I smile courteously, and tremble. I know what will +become of him and me if fortune does not give him his 'fair chance,' +and I seek comfort from the calculation which tells me it is two to one +against my cutting with him again. How marvellous it is, when one comes +to consider the matter, that a man should decline to receive +instruction on a technical subject from those who have eminently +distinguished themselves in it, and have systematised for the benefit +of others the results of the experience of a lifetime! With books or no +books, it is quite true, however, that some men, otherwise of great +intelligence, can never be taught whist; they may have had every +opportunity of learning it—have been born, as it were, with the ace of +spades in their mouth instead of a silver spoon—but the gift of +understanding is denied them; and though it is ungallant to say so, I +have never known a lady to play whist well. + +In the case of the fair sex, however, it may be urged that they have +not the same chances; they have no whist clubs, and the majority of +them entertain the extraordinary delusion that it is wrong to play at +whist in the afternoon. One may talk scandal over kettle-drums, and go +to morning performances at the theatre, but one may not play at cards +till after dinner. There is even quite a large set of male persons who, +'on principle,' do not play at whist in the afternoon. In seasons of +great adversity, when fortune has not given me my 'fair chance' for +many days, I have sometimes 'gone on strike,' as it is termed, and +joined them; but anything more deplorable than such a state of affairs +it is impossible to imagine. After their day's work is over, these good +people can't conceive what to do with themselves, and, between +ourselves, it is my experience, drawn from these occasional 'intervals +of business,' that this practice of not playing whist in the afternoon +generally leads to dissipation. + +It is sometimes advanced by this unhappy class, by way of apology, that +they play at night; which may very possibly be the case, but they don't +play well. There is no such thing, except in the sense in which +after-dinner speaking is called 'good,' as good whist after dinner. It +may seem otherwise, even to the spectators; but having themselves dined +like the rest, they are not in a position to give an opinion. The +keenness of observation is blunted by food and wine; the delicate +perceptions are gone; and what is left of the intelligence is generally +devoted to finding faults in your partner's play. The consciousness of +mistakes on your own part, which he is in no condition to discern, +instead of suggesting charity, induces irritation, and you are +persuaded, till you get the next man, that you are mated with the worst +player in all Christendom. Moreover, that 'one more rubber' with which +you propose to finish is generally elastic (_Indian_ rubber), and you +sit up into the small hours and find them disagree with you. If I ever +write that new series of the 'Chesterfield Letters' which I have long +had in my mind, and for which I feel myself eminently qualified, my +most earnest advice to young gentlemen of fashion will be found in the +golden rule, 'Never sit down to whist after dinner;' it is a mistake, +and almost an immorality. If they must play cards, let them play +Napoleon. + +With regard to finding fault with one's partner, I have no apology to +offer for it under any circumstances; but it must be remembered that +this does not always arise from ill-temper, or the sense of loss that +might have been gain. There are many lovers of whist for its own sake +to whom bad play, even in an adversary, excites a certain distress of +mind; when a good hand is thrown away by it, they experience the same +sort of emotion that a gourmand feels who sees a haunch of venison +spoilt in the carving. In such a case a gentle expression of +disapproval is surely pardonable. And I have observed that, with one or +two exceptions (_non Angli sed angeli_, men of angelic temper rather +than ordinary Englishmen), the good players who never find fault are +not socially the pleasantest. They are men who 'play to win,' and who +think it very injudicious to educate a bad partner who will presently +join the ranks of the Opposition. + +What is rather curious—and I speak with some experience, for I have +played with all classes, from the prince to the gentleman farmer—the +best whist-players are not, as a rule, those who are the most highly +educated or intellectual. Men of letters, for example (I am speaking, +of course, very generally), are inferior to the doctors and the +warriors. Both the late Lord Lytton and Charles Lever had, it is true, +a considerable reputation at the whist-table, but though they were good +players, they were not in the first class; while the author of 'Guy +Livingstone,' though devoted to the game, was scarcely to be placed in +the second. The best players are, one must confess, what irreverent +persons, ignorant of the importance of this noble pursuit, would term +'idlers'—men of mere nominal occupation, or of none, to whom the game +has been familiar from their youth, and who have had little else to do +than to play it. + +While some men, as I have said, can never be taught whist, a few are +born with a genius for the game, and move up 'from high to higher,' +through all the grades of excellence, with a miraculous rapidity; but, +whether good, bad, or indifferent, I have not known half a dozen +whist-players who were not superstitious. Their credulity is, indeed, +proverbial, but no one who does not mix with them can conceive the +extent of it; it reminds one of the African fetish. The country +apothecary's wife who puts the ivory 'fish' on the candlestick 'for +luck,' and her partner, the undertaker, who turns his chair in hopes to +realise more 'silver threepences,' are in no way more ridiculous than +the grave and reverend seigneurs of the Clubs who are attracted to 'the +winning seats' or 'the winning cards.' The idea of going on because +'the run of luck' is in your favour, or of leaving off because it has +declared itself against you, is logically of course unworthy of +Cetywayo. The only modicum of reason that underlies it is the fact that +the play of some men becomes demoralised by ill-fortune, and may, +possibly, be improved by success. Yet the belief in this absurdity is +universal, and bids fair to be eternal. 'If I am not in a draught, and +my chair is comfortable, you may put me anywhere,' is a remark I have +heard but once, and the effect of it on the company was much the same +as if in the House of Convocation some reverend gentleman had announced +his acceptance of the religious programme of M. Comte. + +With the few exceptions I have mentioned, whist-players not only stop +very far short of excellence in the game, but very soon reach their +tether. I cannot say of any man that he has gone on improving for +years; his mark is fixed, and he knows it—though he is exceptionally +sagacious if he knows where it is drawn as respects others—and there he +stays till he begins to deteriorate. The first warning of decadence is +the loss of memory, after which it is a question of time (and good +sense) when he shall withdraw from the ranks of the fighting men and +become a mere spectator of the combat. It was said by a great gambler +that the next pleasure in life to that of winning was that of losing; +and to the real lover of whist, the next pleasure to that of playing a +good game is that of looking on at one. + +Whist has been extolled, and justly, upon many accounts; but the +peculiar advantage of the game is, perhaps, that it utilises socially +many persons who would not otherwise be attractive. Unless a player is +positively disagreeable, he is as good to play whist with as a +conversational Crichton. Moreover, though the poet has hinted of the +evanescent character of 'friendships made in wine,' such is not the +case with those made at whist. The phrase, 'my friend and partner,' +used by a well-known lady in fiction, in speaking of another lady, is +one that is particularly applicable to this social science, and holds +good, as it does, alas, in no other case, even when the partner becomes +an adversary. + +[Illustration] + + + + +RELATIONS. + + +It is a favourite utterance of a much 'put-upon' Paterfamilias of my +acquaintance, when he finds his family more than usually too much for +him, and cynically confesses his own shortcomings, that 'children +cannot be too particular in their choice of their parents, or begin +their education too early.' + +But not only are children a necessity—that is, if the world of men and +women is to be kept going, concerning the advantage of which there +seems, however, just now, to be some doubt,—but when they have arrived, +they cannot, except in very early life, be easily got rid of. In this +respect they differ from the relations whose case I am about to +consider, and also possess a certain claim upon us over and above the +mere tie of blood, since we are responsible for their existence. The +obligation on the other side is, I venture to think, a little +exaggerated. If there is such a thing as natural piety, which, even in +these days, few are found to deny, it is the reverence, it is true, +with which children regard their parents; but their moral indebtedness +to them as the authors of their being is open to doubt. That theory, +indeed, appears to be founded upon false premises; for, unless in the +case of an ancestral estate, I am not aware that the existence of +children is much premeditated. On the contrary, their arrival is often +looked upon, from pecuniary reasons, with much apprehension, or, at +best, till they do arrive, they may be described, in common phrase, as +'neither born nor thought of.' I am a father myself, but I wish to be +fair and to take a just view of matters. If a mother leaves her child +on a doorstep, for example, the filial bond can hardly be expected to +be very strong. In such a case, indeed, the infant seems to me to have +a very distinct grievance against its female parent, and to be under no +very overwhelming obligation to its father. 'Handsome is as handsome +does' is a principle that applies to all relations of life, including +the nearest; and if duty never absolutely ceases to exist, it is, at +all events, greatly moulded by circumstances. + +Patriotism, for instance, is very commendable, but your country must be +worth something to make you love it. It is next to impossible that an +inhabitant of Monaco, for example, should be patriotic. He can at most +be only parochial. The love of one's mother is probably the purest and +noblest of all human affections; but some people's mothers are habitual +drunkards, and others professional thieves. Even filial reverence, it +is plain, must stop somewhere. That is one of the objections which, +with all humility, I feel to the religion of M. Comte. The worship of +my grandmother would be impossible to me, unless I had reason to +believe her to have been a respectable person. Her relationship, unless +I had had the advantage of her personal acquaintance, would weigh I +fear, but little with me, and that of my great-grandmother nothing at +all. The whole notion of ancestry—unless one's ancestors have been +distinguished people—seems to me ridiculous. If they have _not_ been +distinguished people—folks, that is, of whom some record has been +preserved—how is one to know that they have been worthy persons, whose +mission has been to increase the sum of human happiness? If, on the +other hand, they have been only notorious, and done their best to +decrease it, I should be most heartily ashamed of them. The pride of +birth from this point of view—which seems to me a very reasonable +one—is not only absurd, but often very reprehensible. We may be +exulting, by proxy, in successful immorality, or even crime. Our +boastfulness of our progenitors is necessarily in most cases very +vague, because we know so little about them. When we come to the +particular, the record stops very short indeed—generally at one's +grandmother, who, by the way, plays a part in the dream-drama of +ancestry little superior to that of that 'rank outsider,' a +mother-in-law. 'Tell that to your grandmother' is a phrase that +certainly did not originate in reverence; and even when that lady is +proverbially alluded to in a complimentary sense, her intelligence is +only eulogised in connection with the 'sucking of eggs.' + +It so happens that I have quite a considerable line of ancestors +myself, but only one of them ever distinguished himself, and that (he +was an Attorney-General) in a doubtful way; and I confess I don't take +the slightest interest in them. I prefer the pleasant companion with +whom I came up in the train yesterday, and whose name I forgot to ask, +to the whole lot of them. + +And if I don't care about ancestors on canvas (for their pictures, of +course, are all we have seen of them), I have good cause to be offended +with them on paper. My favourite biographies—such as that of Walter +Scott, for example—are disfigured by them. When men sit down to write a +great man's life, why should they weary us with an epitome of that of +his grandfather and grandmother? Of course, the book has to be a +certain length. No one is more sensible than myself of the difficulty +of providing 'copy' sufficient for two octavo volumes; but I do think +biographers should confine themselves to two generations. For my part, +I could do with one, but there is the favourite theory of a great man's +inheriting his greatness from the maternal parent, which I am well +aware cannot be dispensed with. It is like the white horse, or rather +the grey mare, in Wouvermanns's pictures; you can't get rid of it any +more than Mr. Dick could get Charles I. out of his memorial. For my +part, I always begin biographies at the fourteenth chapter (or +thereabouts)—'The subject of this memoir was born,' etc.; and even so I +find I get quite enough of them. In novels the introduction of ancestry +is absolutely intolerable. When I see that hateful chapter headed +'Retrospective,' I pass over to the other side, like the Levite, only +quicker. What do I care whether our hero's grandfather was Archbishop +of Canterbury or a professional body-snatcher? I don't even care which +of the two was my own personal friend's grandfather, and how much less +can I take an interest in this imaginary progenitor of the creation of +an author's brain? The introduction of such a colourless shadow is, to +my mind, the height of impertinence. If I were Mr. Mudie, I would put +my foot down resolutely and stamp out this literary plague. As George +III., who had an objection to commerce, is said to have observed, when +asked to confer a baronetcy on one of the Broadwood family, 'Are you +sure there is not a piano in it?' so should Mr. M. inquire of the +publisher before taking copies of any novel, 'Are you sure there is not +a grandfather in it?' + +Again, what a nuisance is ancestry in our social life! It cannot, +unhappily, be done away with as a fact, but surely it need not be a +topic. How often have I been asked by some fair neighbour at a +dinner-table, 'Is that Mr. Jones opposite one of the Joneses of +Bedfordshire?' One's first impulse is naturally to ask, 'What on earth +is that to you or me?' But experience teaches prudence, and I reply +with reverence, 'Yes, of Bedfordshire,' which, at all events, puts a +stop to argument upon the matter. Moreover, she seems to derive some +sort of mysterious satisfaction from the information, and it is always +well to give pleasure. + +A well-known wit was once in company with one of the Cavendishes, who +had lately been to America, and was recounting his experiences. 'These +Republican people have such funny names,' he said. 'I met there a man +of the name of Birdseye.' 'Well, and is not that just as good as +Cavendish?' replied the wit, who was also a smoker. But the remark was +not appreciated. + +Ancestral people do not, as a rule, appreciate wit; but, on the other +hand, it must be admitted that this is not a defect peculiar to them +alone. I once knew a man of letters who, though he had risen to wealth +and eminence, was of humble descent, and had a weakness for avoiding +allusion to it. His daughter married a man of good birth, but whose +literary talents were not of a high order. This gentleman wrote a +letter applying for a certain Government appointment, and expressed a +wish for his father-in-law's opinion upon the composition. 'It's a very +bad letter,' was the frank criticism the other made upon it. 'The +writing is bad, the spelling is indifferent, the style is abominable. +Good heavens! where are your relatives and antecedents?' 'If it comes +to that,' was the reply, 'where are yours? For I never hear you speak +about them.' Nor did he ever hear him, for his father-in-law never +spoke another word to him. + +Nothing, of course, can be more contemptible than to neglect one's poor +relations on account of their poverty; but it is very doubtful whether +the sum of human happiness is increased by our having so much respect +for the mere tie of kindred, unaccompanied by merit. Other things being +equal, it is obviously natural that one's near relatives should be the +best of friends. But other things are not always equal. Indeed, a +certain high authority (which looks on both sides of most questions) +admits as much. 'There is a friend,' it says, 'that sticketh closer +than a brother. The connection, with its consequences, is somewhat +similar to a partnership in commercial life. If partners pull together, +and are sympathetic, nothing can be more delightful than such an +arrangement. The tie of business clenches the tie of social attraction. +For myself, I am not commercial; but I envy the old firm of Beaumont +and Fletcher, and the modern one of Erckmann and Chatrian. But if the +members of the firm do _not_ pull together? Then, surely the bond +between them is most deplorable, and a divorce _a vinculo_ should be +obtained as soon as possible. + +One of the greatest mistakes—and there are many—that we fall into from +a too ready acknowledgment of the tie of kindred is the obligation we +feel under to consort with relations with whom we have nothing in +common. You may take such persons to the waters of affection, but you +cannot make them drink; and the more you see of them the less they are +likely to agree with you. Not once, nor twice, but fifty times, in a +life experience that is becoming protracted, I have seen this forcible +bringing together of incongruous elements, and the result has been +always unfortunate. I say 'forcible,' because it has been rarely +voluntary; now and then a strong, though, I venture to think, a +mistaken sense of duty may lead a man to seek the society of one with +whom he has nothing in common save the bond of race; but for the most +part they are obeying the wishes of another —the sacred injunction, +perhaps, of a parent on his death-bed. 'Be good friends,' he murmurs, +'my children,' not reflecting, in that supreme and farewell hour, how +little things, such as prejudice, difference of political or religious +opinions, conflicting interests, and the like, affect us while we are +in this world, and how perilous it is to attempt to link like with +unlike. I am quite certain that when relations do not, in common +phrase, 'get on well with one another,' the best chance of their +remaining friends is for them to keep apart. This is gradually becoming +recognised by 'the common sense of most,' as we see by the falling-off +in those family gatherings at Christmas, which only too often partook +of the character of that assembly which met under the roof of Mr, +Pecksniff, with the disastrous result with which we are all acquainted. + +The more distant the tie of blood, the less reason, of course, there is +to consider it; yet it is strange to see how even sensible men will +welcome the Good-for-nothing, who chance to be 'of kin' to them, to the +exclusion of the Worthy, who lack that adventitious claim. The effect +of this is an absolute immorality, since it offers a premium to +unpleasant people, while it heavily handicaps those who desire to make +themselves agreeable. To give a particular example of this, though upon +a large scale, I might cite Scotland, where, making allowance for the +absence of that University system, which in England is so strong a +social tie, there are undoubtedly fewer friendships, in comparison, +than there are with us; this I have no hesitation in attributing to +clanship—the exaggeration of the family tie—which substitutes nearness +for dearness, and places a tenth cousin above the most charming of +companions, who labours under the disadvantage of being 'nae kin.' + +Again, what is more common than to hear it said, in apology for some +manifestly ill-conditioned and offensive person, that he is 'good to +his family'? The praise is probably only so far deserved that he does +not beat his wife nor starve his children; but, supposing even he +treated them as he should do, and, moreover, entertained his ten-times +removed cousins to dinner every Sunday, what is that to _me_ who do not +enjoy his unenviable hospitality? Let his cousins speak well of him by +all means; but let the rest of the world speak as they find. I protest +against the theory that the social virtues should limit themselves to +the home circle, and still more, that they should extend to the distant +branches of it to the exclusion of the world at large. + +Of Howard, the philanthropist, it is said—and, I notice, said with a +certain cynical pleasure—that, notwithstanding his universal +benevolence, he behaved with severity ta his own son. I have not that +intimate acquaintance with the circumstances which, to judge by the +confidence of their assertions, his traducers possess, but I should be +slow to believe, in the case of such a father, that the son did not +deserve all he got, or was not forgiven even to the seventy times +seventh offence. There is, however, no little want of reason in the +ordinary acceptation of the term, 'loving forgiveness.' He must be a +very morose man who does not forgive a personal injury, especially when +there has been an expression of repentance for it; but there are +offences which, quite independently of their personal sting, manifest +in the offender a cruel or bad heart, and 'loving forgiveness' is in +that case no more to be expected than that we should take a serpent who +has already stung us to our bosom. 'It is his nature to,' as the poet +expresses it, and if that serpent is my relative it is my misfortune, +and by no means impresses me with a sense of obligation. Indeed, in the +case of an offensive relation, so far from his having any claim to my +consideration, it seems to me I have a very substantial grievance in +the fact of his existence, and that he owes me reparation for it. + +It is perhaps from a natural reaction, and is a sort of unconscious +protest against the preposterous claims of kinship, that our +connections by marriage are so freely criticised, and, to say truth, +held in contempt. No one enjoins us to love our wife's relations, +indeed, our own kindred are generally dead against them, and especially +against her mother, to whom the poor woman very naturally clings. This +is as unreasonable in the way of prejudice, as the other line of +conduct is in the way of favouritism. It is, in short, my humble +opinion that, if everyone stood upon his or her own merits, and was +treated accordingly, this world of ours would be the better for it; and +of this I am quite sure—it would have fewer disagreeable people in it. +I am neither so patriotic nor so thorough-going as the American +citizen, who, during the late Civil War, came to President Lincoln, and +nobly offered to sacrifice on the altar of freedom 'all his able-bodied +relations;' but I think that most of us would be benefited if they were +weeded out a bit. + +[Illustration] + + + + +INVALID LITERATURE. + + +It has always struck me as a breach of faith in Charles Lamb to have +published the fact that dear, 'rigorous' Mrs. Battle's favourite suit +was Hearts: and is in my eyes, notwithstanding Mr. Carlyle's posthumous +outburst, the only blot on his character. His own confession, though +tendered with a blush, that there is such a thing as sick whist stands +on totally different grounds; it is not a relaxation of principle, but +an acknowledgment of a weakness common to human nature. One of the most +advanced thinkers and men of science of our time has frankly admitted +that his theological views are considerably modified by the state of +his health; and if one's ideas on futurity are thus affected, it is no +wonder that things of this world wear a different appearance when +viewed from a sick bed. It is not difficult to imagine that whist, for +example, played on the counterpane by three good Samaritans, to while +away the hours for an afflicted friend, differs from the game when +played on a club card-table. Common humanity prevents our saying what +we think of the play of an invalid who may be enjoying his last rubber; +and if the ace of trumps _is_ found under his pillow, we only smile and +hope it will not occur again. + +On the other hand, literary taste would, one would think, be the last +thing to vary with our physical condition; yet those who have had long +illnesses know better, and will, I am sure, bear me out in the +assertion that there are such things as sick books. I do not, of +course, speak of devotional works. I am picturing the poor man when he +is getting well after a long bout of illness; his mind clear, but +inert; his limbs painless, but so languid that they hardly seem to +belong to him; and when he regards their attenuated proportions with +the same sort of feeble interest that is evoked by eggshell china—they +are not useful, still it would be a pity if they broke. + +Then it is that one feels a loathing of the strong meats of literature, +and a liking for its milk diet. As to metaphysics, one has had enough +and to spare of _them_ when one was delirious; while the 'Fairy Tales +of Science' do not strike one just then as being quite so fairylike as +the poet represents them. As to science, indeed, there is but one thing +clear to us, namely, that the theory of evolution is a mistake; for +though one's getting better at all is undoubtedly a proof of the +survival of the fittest, we are well convinced that we have retrograded +from what we were. It would puzzle Darwin himself to fix our position +exactly, but though we lack the tenacity, and especially the colour, of +the sea-anemone, we seem to be there or thereabouts in the scale of +humanity. When last prostrated by rheumatic fever, or its remedies, I +remember, indeed, to have been inclined to mathematics. When very ill I +had suffered agonies in my dreams from the persecutions of an +impossible quantity, and perhaps the association of ideas suggested, as +I slowly gathered strength, a little problem in statics. It had been +taught me by my dear tutor at Cambridge, whom undergraduates have long +ceased to trouble, as a proof of the pathos that dwells in figures; and +I kept repeating it to myself, with the letters all misplaced, till I +became exhausted by tears and emotion. + +As a general rule, however, even mathematics fail to interest the +convalescent. 'Man delights not him; no, nor woman neither;' but +Literature, if light in the hand, and always provided that he has his +back to the window, is a pleasure to him only next to that of his new +found appetite and his first chicken. His taste 'has suffered a sick +change,' but that by no means implies it has deteriorated. On the +contrary, his critical faculty has fled (which is surely an immense +advantage), while he has recovered much of that power of appreciation +which rarely abides with us to maturity. He is not on the outlook for +mistakes, slips of style, anachronisms; he derives no pleasure from the +discovery of spots in the sun, but is content to bask in the rays of +it. He does not necessarily return to the favourites of his youth, +though he has a tendency that way, but the shackles of convention have +slipped away from him with his flesh, and he reads what he likes, and +not what he has been told he ought to like. He has been so long removed +from public opinion, that, like a shipwrecked crew in an open boat, it +has ceased to affect him; only, instead of taking to cannibalism, he +takes to what is nice. As his physical appetite is fastidious, so his +mental palate has a relish only for titbits. If ever there was a time +for a reasonable being to 'dip' into books, or to enjoy 'half-hours +with the best authors,' this is it; but weak as the patient is, he +commonly declines to have his tastes dictated to; perhaps there is an +unpleasant association in his mind, arising from Brand and Liebig, with +all 'extracts;' but, at all events, those literary compilations oppress +and bewilder him; he objects to the extraordinary fertility of 'Ibid,' +an author whose identity he cannot quite call to mind, and prefers to +choose for himself. + +Biography is out of the question. Long before he has got through that +account of the hero's great grandmother, from whom he inherited his +talents, which is, it seems, indispensable to such works, he yawns, and +devoutly wishing, notwithstanding its fatal consequences to the fourth +generation, that that old woman had never been born, falls into fitful +slumber. + +Travels are in the same condemnation; he has not the patience to watch +the traveller taking leave of his family at Pimlico, or to follow his +cab as he drives through the streets to the railway station, or to +share the discomforts of his cabin—all necessary, no doubt, to his +eventual arrival in Abyssinia, but hardly necessary to be described. +Moreover, the convalescent has probably travelled a good deal on his +own account during the last few weeks, for the bed of fever carries one +hither and thither with the velocity, though not the ease, of the +enchanted carpet in the 'Arabian Nights.' The desire of the sick man is +to escape from himself and all recent experiences. + +He thinks he will try a little History. Alison? No, certainly not +Alison. 'They will be proposing Lingard next,' he murmurs, and the +little irritation caused by the well-meant suggestion throws him back +for the next six hours. Presently he tries Macaulay, whom some +flatterer has fulsomely called 'as good as a novel,' but, though the +trial of Warren Hastings gives him a fillip, the rout of Sedgemoor does +away with the effect of it, and, happening upon the character of +Halifax, he suffers a severe relapse. As a bedfellow, Macaulay is too +declamatory, though, at the same time, strange to say, he does not +always succeed in keeping one awake. To the sick man Carlyle is +preferable; not his 'Frederick,' of course, and still less his 'Sartor +Resartus,' which has become a nightmare, without head or tail, but his +'French Revolution.' One lies and watches the amazing spectacle without +effort, as though it were represented on the stage. The sea of blood +rolls before our eyes, the roar of the mob sounds in our ears; we are +carried along with the unhappy Louis to the very frontier, and just on +the verge of escape are seized and brought back—King Coach—with him to +Paris, in a cold perspiration. + +Some people, when in health and of a sane mind (Mr. Matthew Arnold one +_knows_ of, and there may be others), take great delight in 'Paradise +Regained;' all we venture to say is that in sickness it does not +suggest its title. It is said that barley-water goes well with +everything; if so, the epic is the exception which proves the rule. +Milton is tedious after rheumatic fever, Spencer is worse. + +'"Not from the grand old masters, +Not from the bards sublime, +Whose distant footsteps echo +Through the corridors of Time,"' + +murmurs the invalid, 'I can't stand them.' He does not mean anything +depreciatory, but merely that— + +'Like strains of martial music +Their mighty thoughts suggest +Life's endless toil and endeavour,' + +which he is not fit even to think of. He cannot read Keats's +'Nightingale,' but for quite another reason. What arouses 'thoughts too +deep for tears' in the hale and strong is to the sick as the sinking +for an artesian well. 'The Chelsea Waterworks,' as Mr. Samuel Weller +observed of Mr. Job Trotter (at a time when the metropolitan water +supply would seem to have been more satisfactory than at present), 'are +nothing to him.' On the other hand, Shelley's 'Skylark,' and the +'Dramatic Fragments' of Browning, are as cordials to the invalid, while +the poems of Walter Scott are like breezes from the mountains and the +sea. In that admirable essay, 'Life in the Sick-room,' the authoress +justly remarks, speaking of the advantage of objectivity in sick books, +'Nothing can be better in this view than Macaulay's "Lays," which carry +us at full speed out of ourselves.' + +But it is not always that the invalid can read the poets at all; like +Mrs. Wititterley, his nerves are too delicately strung for the touch of +the muse. His chief enjoyment lies in fiction, to the producers of +which he can never feel too grateful. I remember, on one occasion when +I was very reduced indeed, taking up 'Northanger Abbey,' and reading, +with almost the same gusto as though I had been a novelist myself, Miss +Austen's defence of her profession. She says: + +'I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom, so common with +novel-writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very +performances to the number of which they are themselves adding, joining +with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such +works, and scarcely even permitting them to be read by their own +heroine, who, if she accidentally takes up a novel, is sure to turn +from its insipid pages with disgust. Let us not desert one another; we +are an injured body. Although our productions have afforded more +extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary +corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much +decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many +as our readers; and while the abilities of the +nine-hundred-and-ninety-ninth abridger of the history of England are +eulogised by a thousand pens, there seems a general agreement to slight +the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend +them.' + +I had quite forgotten till I came upon this passage that Miss Austen +had such 'a kick in her,' and I remember how I honoured her for it and +sympathised with her sentiments. 'When pain and anguish wring the +brow,' we all know who is the comforter; but next to her, and when the +brow is getting a little better, we welcome the novelist. + +With our face aslant on the pillow, we once more make acquaintance with +the characters that have been the delight of our youth, and find they +delight us still, but with a difference. The animal spirits of Smollett +and Fielding are a little too much for us; there is not sympathy enough +in them for our own condition; they seem to have been fellows who were +never ill. Perhaps 'Humphrey Clinker,' though it drags at the end, and +the political disquisitions are intolerable, is the funniest book that +ever was written; but the faculty of appreciation for it is not now in +us. We turn with relief to Scott, though not to 'Scott's Works,' in the +sense in which the phrase is generally used, as though they were a +foundry from which everything is issued of the same workmanship and +excellence; whereas there is as much difference between them as there +was in her Majesty's ships of old between the gallant seventy-four and +the crazy troopship. The invalid, however, as I have said, is far from +critical; he only knows what he likes. Judged by this fastidious +standard, he finds 'Waverley' somewhat wearisome, and, as to the first +part of it in particular, wonders, not that the Great Unknown should +have kept it in his desk for years as a comparative failure, but that +he should have ever taken it from that repository. 'The Antiquary,' +which in health he used to admire, or think he did, exceedingly, has +also a narcotic effect; but 'Rob Roy' revives him, and 'Ivanhoe' stirs +him like a trumpet-call. + +What is very curious, just as the favourite literature of a cripple is +almost always that which treats of force and action, so upon our +sick-bed we turn most gladly to scenes of heroism and adventure. The +famous ride in 'Geoffrey Hamlyn,' where the fate of the heroine, +threatened with worse than death from the bush-rangers, hangs upon the +horse's speed, seems to us, as we lie abed, one of the finest episodes +in fiction. 'Tom Cringle's Log,' too, becomes a great favourite, not +more from its buoyancy and freshness than from the melodramatic scenes +with which it is interspersed. + +In some moods of the sick man's mind, his morbid appetite tends, +strange to say, to horrors. He 'snatches a fearful joy' from the weird +and supernatural. I have known those terrible tales of Le Fanu, +entitled 'In a Glass Darkly,' which for dramatic power and eeriness no +other novelist has ever approached, devoured greedily by those whose +physical sustenance has been dry toast and arrowroot. + +The works of Thackeray are too cynical for the convalescent; he is for +the present in too good a humour with destiny and human nature to enjoy +them. He prefers the more cheerful aspects of life, and resents the +least failure of poetic justice. + +Taking the tenants of the sick ward all round, indeed, I have little +doubt that the large majority would give their vote for Dickens. His +pathos, it is true, is too much for them. Their hearts are as waxen as +though Mrs. Jarley herself had made them. They are just in the +condition to be melted by 'Little Nell,' and overcome by the death of +Paul Dombey. They read 'David Copperfield' with avidity, but are +careful to avoid the catastrophe of Dora and even the demise of her +four-footed favourite. The book that suits them best is 'Martin +Chuzzlewit.' Its genial comedy, quite different from the violent +delights of 'Pickwick,' is well adapted to their grasp; while its +tragedy, the murder of Montague Tigg—the finest description of the +breaking of the sixth commandment in the language—leaves nothing to be +desired in the way of excitement. But here we stray beyond our bounds, +for 'Martin Chuzzlewit' is not a 'sick book;' or rather, it is one of +the very few productions of human genius on the merits of which the +opinions of both Sick and Sound are at one. + + + + +WET HOLIDAYS. + + +Even poets when they are on their travels feel the depressing influence +of bad weather. Those lines of the Laureate— + +'But when we crossed the Lombard plain, +Remember what a plague of rain— +Of rain at Reggio, at Parma, +At Lodi rain, Piacenza rain,' + +are not among his best, but they evidently come from his very heart. +When he used prose upon that journey his language was probably +stronger. It is no wonder, then, that ordinary folks who have only a +limited time in which to enjoy themselves, free from the fetters of +toil, resent wet days. They are worst of all when we are touring on the +Continent, where it is a popular fallacy to suppose the skies are +always smiling, but at home they are bad enough. In Scotland, nobody +but a Scotchman believes in fine weather, and consequently there is no +disappointment; in England the Lake District is, perhaps, the most +unfortunate spot for folks to be caught in by rain, because if there is +no landscape there is nothing. _Spectare veniunt_, and when there are +only the ribs and lining of their umbrellas to look at, their lot is +hard indeed. + +Wastwater is a charming place in sunshine—almost the only locality in +England where things are still primitive and pastoral; but in rain! I +hate exhibitions, but rather than Wastdale in wet weather, give me a +panorama. Serious people may talk of 'the Devil's books,' but even a +pack of cards, with somebody to play with you, is better under such +circumstances than no book. + +There is no limit to what human beings may be driven to by stress of +weather, and especially by that 'clearing shower,' by which the +dwellers in Lakeland are wont euphemistically to describe its +continuous downpours. The Persians have another name for it—'the +grandmother of all buckets.' I was once in Wastdale with a dean of the +Church of England, respectable, sedate, and a D.D. It had poured for +days without ceasing; the roads were under water, the passes were +impassable, the mountains invisible; there was nothing to be seen but +waterfalls, and those in the wrong place; there was no literature; the +dean's guide-books were exhausted, and his Bible, it is but charitable +and reasonable to suppose, he knew by heart. As for me, I had found +three tourists who could play at whist, and was comparatively +independent of the elements; but that poor ecclesiastic! For the first +few days he occupied himself in remonstrating against our playing cards +by daylight; but on the fourth morning, when we sat down to them +immediately after breakfast, he began to take an enforced interest in +our proceedings. Like a dove above the dovecot, he circled for an hour +or two about the table—a deal one, such as thimble-riggers use, +borrowed, under protest, from his own humble bedroom—and then, with a +murmurous coo about the weather showing no signs of clearing up, he +took a hand. Constant dropping—and it was much worse than dropping—will +wear away a stone, and it is my belief if it had gone on much longer +his reverence would have played on Sunday. + +The spectacle that the roads of the district present at such a time is +most melancholy. Everyone is in a closed car—a cross between a bathing +machine and that convenient vehicle which carries both corpse and +mourners; all the windows seem made of bottle glass, a phenomenon +produced by the flattening of the noses of imprisoned tourists; and +nothing shines except an occasional traveller in oilskin. In such +seasons, indeed, oilskin (lined with patience) is your only wear. +Ordinary waterproofs in such a climate become mere blotting paper, and +with the best of them, without leggings and headgear to match, the poor +Londoner might, I do not say just as well be in London (for that is his +aspiration all day long), but just as well go to bed at once, and stop +there. 'But why does he not go home?' it may be asked: a question to +which there are several answers. In the first place (for one must take +the average in such cases) because he is a fool. Secondly, like the +rest of the well-to-do world, he has suffered the summer, wherein +warmth and sunshine are really to be had, to slip by, and has only the +fag end of it in which to take holiday. It is now or never—or at all +events now or next year—with him. All his friends, too, are out of +town, flattening _their_ noses against window panes; his club is under +repair, his house in brown holland, his servants on board wages. Like +the young gentleman in Locksley Hall, he is so absolutely at the end of +his resources, that an 'angry fancy' is all that is left to him. Of +course, under its influence he sits down and writes to the _Times_; +but, if the humblest of its correspondents may venture to say so +without offence, even that does not help him much. That suicides +increase in wet autumns is notorious; but that murders should in these +sequestered vales maintain the even tenor of their way is a feather in +the cap of human nature. In lodgings, where the pent-up tourist has no +one but his wife and family to speak to, where Dick and Tom _will_ romp +in his only sitting-room, and Eliza Jane practises all day on the crazy +piano, this forbearance is especially creditable. + +Even in hotels, however, there is great temptation. On the +north-eastern coast, in particular, when the weather has, as the phrase +goes, 'broken up,' and the sky and sea have both become one durable +drab, the best of women grow irritable, the men morose. At the _table +d'hôte_, which even the most exclusive are driven to frequent for +company, as sheep huddle together in storm, Dislike ripens to Hate with +frightful rapidity. Our neighbour, who always—for it seems always—gets +the last of the mushrooms at breakfast, or finishes the oyster sauce at +dinner before our very eyes, we are very far, indeed, from loving as +ourselves. Our _vis-à -vis_, the man on his honeymoon, is even still +more offensive. We resent his happiness, which is apparently +uninfluenced by the state of the weather, and our wife wonders what he +could have seen in that chit of a girl to attract his attention. To +ourselves she seems a great deal too good for him, and in our rare +intervals of human feeling we regard her with the tenderest +commiseration. The importance attached to meals, and the time we take +over them, have no parallel save among the Esquimaux. The least +incident that happens in the hotel is of more moment to us than the +overthrow of Empires. The whispered news that a fellow guest has been +taken seriously ill, and that a medical consultation has been held upon +the case, is a matter to be deplored, of course, but one which is not +without its consolations. 'Who is it? What is it? Nothing catching I do +hope?' (this last uttered with genuine anxiety) are questions that are +heard on every side. The general impression is that some lovely young +lady of fashion on the drawing-room floor has been seized with pains in +her limbs—and no wonder—from exposure to the elements. Her mother comes +down every morning and selects dainties for the sick-room from the +public breakfast table; those who are near enough to do so inquire in +dulcet tones, 'How is your invalid this morning?' The reply is, +'Better, much better,' which somehow falls short of expectation. Even +the most giddy and frivolous of girls has no excuse for frightening +people for nothing. + +At luncheon one day a very fat, strong boy makes his appearance, and is +supplied with soup. All his neighbours who have no soup are wild with +envy, though they are well acquainted with that soup at dinner, and +know that it is bad. 'What is the meaning of it? Why this favouritism?' +we inquire of the waiter furiously. 'Well, you see, sir, he is better +now; but that is the invalid.' The delicate, attractive creature we +have pictured to ourselves with pains in her limbs turns out, after +all, to be a hulking schoolboy, probably bilious from over-eating. The +public indignation is excessive, while the subject of it, quite +unconscious of the fact, has another plate of soup. + +The wild weather out of doors is not, of course, confined to the land, +and the sea would be a fine sight if it was not invisible. The waves, +indeed, are so high that the fishing-boats which have remained out all +night are often warned off, or, as it is locally termed, 'burned off,' +from the harbour bar. A tar barrel is lighted for this purpose on the +headland, and it is the only thing which the eternal rain cannot +utterly squelch and extinguish. Occasionally we venture down upon the +pier to see the boats make the harbour, which, not a little to our +disappointment, they never fail to do. There are huge buttresses of +stone against the pier-head, behind which the new comer imagines he may +crouch in perfect safety, till the third wave comes in and convinces +him to the contrary. No one ever dreams of 'burning' _him_ off—giving +him one word of warning of that unpleasant contingency; for to behold a +fellow creature more drenched and dripping than ourselves is very +soothing. As to the dangers of maritime life, we are all agreed that +they are greatly overrated; and some sceptics even go so far as to +suggest that the skeleton ship, half embedded in the sands, which so +impresses visitors in fine weather, is not a genuine wreck at all, but +has been placed there by the Town Corporation to delude the public. + +Now and then we splash down to the quay to see a few million of +herrings sold at four shillings a hundred, which will presently induce +philanthropic fishmongers in London to advertise 'a glut this morning,' +and to retail them at threepence apiece. At rare intervals we explore +the dripping town. It is amazing what a fascination the small +picture-shops, to which at home we should never give a glance, afford +us; even the frontispieces to popular music have unwonted attractions; +while the pottery-shops, full of ware made from clay 'peculiar to the +locality,' are only too seductive to our wives, who purchase largely +what they believe to be great bargains, till they find on their return +home the identical articles in Oxford Street, at half the price. In +London we never visit the British Museum itself, unless to escort some +country cousin, but at Barecliff-on-Sea, in wet weather, the miserable +little local Institute, with its specimens of strata, its calf with two +heads in spirits, and its petrified toad, is an irresistible +temptation. The great event of the day, however, is the wading down to +the railway-station (which is in a quagmire) to meet the express train +which brings more victims, 'unconscious of their doom,' to Barecliff, +and who evidently flatter themselves that the pouring rain is an +exceptional phenomenon; it also brings the London newspapers, for which +we fight and struggle (the demand being greatly in excess of the +supply) and think ourselves fortunate if we secure a supplement. It is +true there is a _Times_ in the smoking-room of the hotel, but it is +always engaged five deep, is the cause of terrible quarrels, and every +afternoon we expect to see it imbrued in gore. + +In the evening, when one does not mind the wet so much—'its tooth is +not so keen because it is not seen'—there are dissipations at 'the +Rooms by the Sea.' Amateur charitable concerts are given there, in +which it is whispered that this and that lady at the _table d'hôte_ +will take part, who become public characters and objects of immense +interest in consequence. Thither, too, come 'the inimitable Jones,' +from the Edgware Road Music Hall, with his 'unrivalled _répertoire_ of +comic songs;' the Spring Board Family, who have been 'pronounced by the +general consensus of the medical faculty in London to be unique,' as +having neither joints nor backbone; and Herr von Deft, 'who will repeat +the same astounding performances which have electrified the reigning +families of Europe.' The serious people (for whom 'the glee-singers of +Mesopotamia' are also suspected of dropping a line) are angled for by +white-cravatted lecturers, who enhance their statistics of conversion +by the exhibition of poisoned arrows, and of clubs, on which, with the +microscope, may be detected the hairs of missionary martyrs. In fine +weather, of course, these attractions would be advertised in vain; but +the fact is, our whole community has been reduced by the cruelty of the +elements to a sort of second childhood; the rain which permeates +everything is softening our brain. + +This is only too evident from the conversation in the hotel porch where +the men meet every morning to discuss the topic of the day—the weather. +A sullen gloom pervades them—the first symptom of mental aberration. +Those, on the other hand, who express their opinion that it 'really +seems to be clearing a little' are in more advanced stages. We who are +less afflicted shake our heads, and murmur painfully, but also with a +considerable touch of contempt, 'Poor fellows!' + +The piano in the ladies' drawing-room is always going, but it excites +no soothing influence; there is an impression in the hotel that the +performers are foreigners, and should be discouraged. But there is one +instrument hanging in the hall on which everyone plays, native or +alien, and every note is discord. It is the barometer. People talk of +the delicacy of scientific instruments; if they are right, the shocks +which that barometer survives proves it to be an exception. Batter it +as we may, and do, the faithful needle, with a determination worthy of +a better cause, maintains its position at 'Much Rain.' The manager is +appealed to vehemently, coarsely; he shrugs his shoulders, protests +with humility that he cannot help the weather, or affirms it is +unprecedented—which we do not believe. Other managers—in the Engadine, +for example—the papers say, are providing excellent weather; what does +he mean by it? + +At last one morning, wetter than ever, some noble spirit, the Tell of +our liberties, exclaims, 'Who would be free, himself must strike the +blow.' His actual words (if one was not writing history) are, 'Hang me +if I stand this any longer,' and they strike the keynote of everybody's +thought. He goes away by the next train, and his departure is followed +by the same effects as the tapping of a reservoir. The hotel company—I +mean the inmates; the company goes into bankruptcy—stream off at once +to their own homes. That journey through the pouring rain is the +happiest day of our wet holiday. How beautiful looms soaking, soppy, +smoky London! In that excellent town who cares for rain? + +'Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! +You cataracts and hurricanoes spout.' + +Pooh! pooh! Call a cab—call two! + + + + +TRAVELLING COMPANIONS. + + +It was held by wise men of old that adversity was the test of +friendship, but as his Excellency the Minister of the United States has +observed, _per_ Mr. Biglow, 'They did not know everything down in +Judee;' and among other subjects of which those ancient writers were +necessarily ignorant was that of Continental travel. The coming to +grief of a friend is unquestionably very inconvenient; as a millionaire +of my acquaintance observes (under the influence, as he confidently +believes, of benevolent emotion), 'One likes to see one's friends +prosperous;' but even when they are not so, it requires some effort to +follow the dictates of prudence and cast them off. And, after all, the +man, even though you may cut him, remains the same; as fit for the +purposes of friendship as ever, except for his pecuniary condition. +There is no such change in his relation to oneself as Emerson describes +in one of his essays; his words I forget, and his works are miles away, +but the man he has in his mind has in some way fallen short of +expectation—declined, perhaps, to lend the philosopher money. +'Yesterday,' he says, 'my friend was the illimitable ocean; to-day he +is a pond.' He had come to the end of him. And some friends, as my +little child complains as he strokes his black kitten, 'end so soon.' + +There are no circumstances, however, under which friendship comes so +often to a violent and sudden death as under the pressure of travel. It +is like the fate which the Scientific ascribe to a box sunk in the sea; +after a certain depth, which varies according to the strength of the +box, the weight of the superincumbent water bursts it up. It is merely +a question of how deep or how strong. Our travelling companion remains +our friend for a day, for a week, for even a month; but at the month's +end he is our friend no longer. Our relations have probably become what +the diplomatists term 'strained' long before that date, but a day comes +when the tension becomes intolerable; the cable parts and we lose him. +Unfortunately, not always, however; there are circumstances—such as +being on board ship, for example—when we thus part without parting +company. A long voyage is the most terrible trial to which friendship +can be subjected. It is like the old sentence of pressing to death, 'as +much as he can bear, and more.' It is doubtful, for example, whether +friendship has ever survived a voyage to Australia. I have sometimes +asked a man whether he knew So-and-So, who hails, like himself, from +Melbourne, and he has replied, 'We came over in the same ship'—'Only +that, and nothing more,' as the poet puts it; but his tone has an +unmistakable significance, and one perceives at once that the topic had +better not be pursued. + +A very dear friend of mine once proposed that we should go round the +world together; he offered to pay all my expenses, and painted the +expedition in rose-colour. But I had the good sense to decline the +proposal. I felt I should lose my friend. Even yachting is a very +dangerous pastime in this respect, especially when the vessel is +becalmed. In that case, like the sea itself, one's friend soon becomes +a pond. Conceive, then, what it must be to go round the world with him! +Is it possible, both being human, that we can still love one another +when we have got to Japan, for instance? And then we have to come back +together! How frightful must be that moment when he tells us the same +story he told at starting, and we feel that he has come to the end of +his tether, and is going to tell _all_ his stories over again! This is +why it so often happens that only one of two friends returns from any +long voyage they have undertaken together. What has become of the +other? A question that one should never put to the survivor. It is +certain that great travellers, and especially those who travel by sea, +have a very different code of morals from that which they conform to at +home. Human life is not so sacred to them. Perhaps it is in this +respect that travel is said to enlarge the mind. That it does not +sharpen it, however, whatever it may do for the temper, is tolerably +certain. In their habits travellers are singularly conventional. They +are compelled, of course, to suffer certain inconveniences, but they +endure others, and most serious ones, quite unnecessarily, merely +because it is the custom so to do. In crossing the Atlantic, for +example, a man of means will submit to be shut up in a close cupboard +for ten days with an utter stranger, though by paying double fare he +can get a cabin to himself. This arises from no desire for economy, but +simply because he does not think for himself; other travellers do the +like, and he follows their example. Yet what money could recompense him +for occupying for the same time _on land_ a double-bedded room—not to +say a mere china closet—with a man of whom he knows nothing except that +he is subject to chronic sickness? A pleasant sort of travelling +companion indeed, yet, strange to say, the commonest of all. Where +there is a slender purse this terrible state of things (supposing +travel under such circumstances to be compatible with pleasure at all, +which, for my part, I cannot imagine) is not a matter of choice; but +where it can be avoided why is it undergone? + +There is nothing that convinces me of the folly of mankind so much as +those advertisements we see in the summer months with respect to +travelling companions, from volunteers of both sexes: 'Wanted, a +travelling companion for a few months on the Continent, etc. The +highest references will be required.' The idea of going with a stranger +upon a tour of pleasure must surely originate in Hanwell, and the +adventurer may think himself fortunate if it does not end in Broadmoor. +References, indeed! Who can answer for a fellow-creature's temper, +patience, unselfishness, during such an ordeal as a protracted tour? No +one who has not travelled with him already; and one may be tolerably +certain his certificate does not come from _that_ quarter. It is true +some people are married to strangers by advertisement; but their +companionship, as I am given to understand, does not generally last for +months, or anything like it. + +Imagine two people, as utterly unknown to one another, except by letter +(and 'references'), as the _x_ and _y_ of an equation, meeting for the +first time at the railway-station! With what tremors must each regard +the other! What a relief it must be to X. to find that Y. is at least a +white man; on the other hand, it must rather dash his hopes, if they +are set on pedestrianism, to find that his _compagnon de voyage_ has a +wooden leg. Yet what are his mere colour and limbs compared with his +temperament and disposition? If one did not know the frightful risks +one's fellow-creatures incur every day for little pleasure and less +profit, one would certainly say these people must be mad. + +But if instead of X. and Y., it is even A. and B., men who have known +one another for years, and in every relation but as fellow-travellers, +there is risk enough in such a venture. One night, after dinner at the +club, they agree with effusion to take their autumn trip together; they +are warm with wine and with the remembrance of their college +friendship—which extended perhaps, when they afterwards come to think +about it, a very little way. What days they will have in Switzerland +together! What mornings (to see the sunrise) upon mountain-tops! What +evenings on Lucerne! What nights in Paris! A. thinks himself fortunate +indeed in having secured B.'s society for the next three months—a man +with such a reputation for conversation; even T., the cynic of the +club, has testified to his charm of manner. By-the-bye, what was +it—exactly—T. had said of B.? A. cannot remember it at the moment, but +recalls it on the night before they start together. 'B. is a charming +fellow, only he has this peculiarity—that if there is only one armchair +in a room, B. is sure to get it.' + +B., on the other hand, congratulates himself on A.'s excessive good +sense, which even T. had knowledged. What was it—exactly—T. had said of +A.? He cannot remember it at the moment, but recalls it on the night +before they start together. 'A. is such a thoroughly practical fellow; +he has committed many follies, and not a few crimes, but he can lay his +hand on the place where his heart should be, and honestly aver that he +has never given sixpence to anybody.' Full of misgivings, and with +demonstrations of satisfaction that are in themselves suspicious, they +meet at the terminus. A. has a little black bag, which contains his +all; it frees him from all trouble about luggage, and (especially) from +the necessity of paying a porter. He is resolved not to lose a moment, +nor spend a sixpence, in a Custom-house. To his horror, he perceives +that B., whose one idea is comfort, has a portmanteau specially +designed for him (apparently upon the model of Noah's Ark), and which +can scarcely be got into the luggage-van. This article delays them +twenty-four hours at every frontier, because the ordinary authorities +decline to open it upon the ground that it contains an infernal +machine, and have to telegraph to their Government for instructions. + +Again, B. is no doubt a charming conversationalist—in English; but he +does not know one single word of any other language. He requires every +observation of their alien fellow-travellers to be translated, and then +says 'Oh!' discontentedly, or 'It seems to me that foreigners have no +ideas.' And not for one moment can A. get rid of him. If there _is_ a +friend that sticketh closer than a brother, it is the Travelling +Companion who is dependent upon you for interpretation. It is needless +to say that under these circumstances the glass of Friendship falls +from 'Set Fair' to 'Stormy' with much rapidity. After A's fourth +quarrel with a waiter about half a franc, B. calls him a 'mean hound,' +and takes the opportunity of returning to his native land with a French +count, who speaks perfect English, and robs him of his watch and chain +and the contents of his pocket-book on board the steamer. A. and B. +meet one another daily at the club for years afterwards, but without +recognition. + +Their case, of course, is an extreme one; but that of C. and D. is +almost as bad. They are men of prudence, and persuade E. to go with +them, as a makeweight. 'If we should ever disagree,' they say, 'as to +what is to be done—which, however, is to the last degree improbable—the +majority of votes shall carry it'—an arrangement which only delays the +inevitable event— + +'Three little nigger boys went the world to view, +The third was left in Calais, and then there were two.' + +They find the makeweight intolerable before they have crossed the +Channel, and, having agreed to cut their cable from him, are from that +moment never in the same mind about anything else. It is a modern +version of the three brigands who stole the Communion plate. C. and D. +push E. over the precipice, and C. stabs D. at a supper for which D. +has purveyed poisoned wine. + +The only way to secure a really eligible travelling companion is to try +him first in short swallow-flights, or rather pigeon-flights, from +home. Take your bird with you for a few days' outing near home; then, +if he proves pleasant, for a week's tour in Cornwall; then for ten days +in Scotland, where, if you meet with the usual weather, and he still +keeps his temper and politeness, you may trust yourself to him +anywhere. Out of twenty failures there will, perhaps, be one success. +In this manner I have discovered in time, in my dearest and nearest +friends, the most undreamt of vices. One man, F., hitherto much +respected as a Chancery barrister, has, as it has turned out, been +intended by nature for a professional pedestrian. His true calling is +to walk 'laps' round the Agricultural Hall or at Lillie Bridge, with +nothing on to speak of save a handkerchief round his forehead. 'Let us +walk' is his one cry as soon as he becomes a travelling companion. And +he is not content to do this when he arrives at any place of interest, +but insists upon walking _there_—perhaps along a dusty road, or over +turnip-fields. I like walking myself in moderation—say a mile out and a +mile in; but not, certainly not, twenty miles at a stretch, and at a +speed which precludes conversation. This class of travelling companion +is very dangerous. If he does not get his walking he becomes malignant. +My barrister, at least, being denied the opportunity of drawing out +marriage-settlements, conveying land, or otherwise plundering the +community, took to practical jokes. Having a suspicion of his +pedestrian powers, from the extreme length of his legs, I took G. with +us, a man whom I could trust in that respect, and who fancied he had +heart complaint. G. and I took our exercise alone together in a fly. +One day we took a long drive—four miles or more—to a well-known bay. +The vehicle could not get down to the sea, so we descended on foot, +leaving it at the top of the cliff, with the strictest orders to the +man not to stir till we came back. When we returned the fly was gone. +How we reached our hotel, Heaven knows! but we did arrive there, in the +last stage of exhaustion. The driver of the carriage, whom we met next +day, informed us that a gentleman had been thrown from his horse on the +cliff-top and had broken his leg, and that, under the circumstances, he +had ventured to disobey our instructions and take the poor fellow home. +Years afterwards I discovered that nothing of the kind had happened, +but that the fiendish F. had given the driver a sovereign to play that +trick upon us. F. is a judge now, and has been lately trying election +cases. I wonder what he thinks of himself when he rebukes offenders for +the heinous crime of bribery! + +Again, I always thought H. a pleasant fellow till we went together to +Cornwall. He had gone through the first ordeal of a few days nearer +home to my satisfaction, but at Penzance he broke out. He was so +dreadfully particular about his food that nothing satisfied him—not +even pilchards three times a day; and the way he went on at the waiters +is not to be described by a decent pen. The attendant at Penzance was +not, I am bound to say, a good waiter. He said, though he habitually +put his thumb in every dish, he 'hadn't quite got his hand in,' and was +not used to the business.' 'Used! you know nothing about it!' exclaimed +H., viciously. Then the poor fellow burst into tears. 'Pray be patient +with me, good gentlemen,' he murmured. 'I do my best; but until last +Wednesday as ever was I was a pork-butcher.' One cannot stand a +travelling companion who makes the waiters cry. + +The worst kind of fellow-traveller is one who, to use his own +scientific phrase for his complaint, suffers from 'disorganisation of +the nervous centres.' At home his little weaknesses do not strike you. +You may not be on the spot when he flies across Piccadilly Circus, +pursued, as he fancies, by a Brompton omnibus which has not yet reached +St. James's Church, and is moving at a snail's pace; you may not have +been with him on that occasion when, in his eagerness to be in time for +the 'Flying Dutchman,' he arrives at Paddington an hour before it +starts, and is put into the parliamentary train which is shunted at +Slough to let the 'Dutchman' pass; but when you come to travel with him +you know what 'nerves' are to your cost. On the other hand, this is the +easiest kind of travelling companion to get rid of; for you have only +to feign a sore throat, with feverish symptoms, and off he flies on the +wings of terror, leaving you, as he thinks—if he _has_ a thought except +for his nervous centres—to the tender mercies of a foreign doctor, to +hireling nurses, and to a grave in the strangers' cemetery. + +THE END. + +BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD AND LONDON. + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Private Views, by James Payn + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13410 *** diff --git a/13410-h/13410-h.htm b/13410-h/13410-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ebb5148 --- /dev/null +++ b/13410-h/13410-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8247 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>Some Private Views, by James Payn</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.footnote {font-size: 90%; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +sup { vertical-align: top; font-size: 0.6em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +.quote {text-align: justify; + margin-left: 1.85em; + margin-right: 1.85em; + text-indent: 0em;} + +.poem {margin-left:8%; margin-right:8%; + margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: left;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem p {margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem p.i2 {margin-left: 1em;} + .poem p.i10 {margin-left: 5em;} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13410 ***</div> + +<h1>Some Private Views</h1> + +<h2>by JAMES PAYN</h2> + +<h5> +AUTHOR OF 'HIGH SPIRITS,' 'A CONFIDENTIAL AGENT,' ETC. +</h5> + +<h4> +A NEW EDITION +</h4> + +<h4>1881</h4> + +<h5> +London<br/> +CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY +</h5> + +<h4> +<small>TO</small><br/> +HORACE N. PYM<br/> +<small>THIS</small><br/> +<i>Book is Dedicated</i><br/> +<small>BY HIS FRIEND</small><br/> +</h4> + +<h4> +THE AUTHOR +</h4> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <b>FROM 'THE NINETEENTH CENTURY' REVIEW.</b></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">THE MIDWAY INN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">THE CRITIC ON THE HEARTH</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">SHAM ADMIRATION IN LITERATURE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">THE PINCH OF POVERTY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">THE LITERARY CALLING AND ITS FUTURE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">STORY-TELLING</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">PENNY FICTION</a><br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <b>FROM 'THE TIMES.'</b></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">HOTELS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">MAID-SERVANTS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">MEN-SERVANTS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">WHIST-PLAYERS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">RELATIONS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">INVALID LITERATURE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">WET HOLIDAYS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">TRAVELLING COMPANIONS</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>THE MIDWAY INN.</h2> + +<p class="center"> +'The hidden but the common thought of all.' +</p> + +<p> +The thoughts I am about to set down are not <i>my</i> +thoughts, for, as my friends say, I have given +up the practice of thinking, or it may be, as my +enemies say, I never had it. They are the thoughts +of an acquaintance who thinks for me. I call him an +acquaintance, though I pass as much of my time with +him as with my nearest and dearest; perhaps at the +club, perhaps at the office, perhaps in metaphysical +discussion, perhaps at billiards—what does it matter? +Thousands of men in town have such acquaintances, +in whose company they spend, by necessity or custom, +half the sum of their lives. It is not rational, doubtless; +but then 'Consider, sir,' said the great talking +philosopher, 'should we become purely rational, how +our friendships would be cut off. We form many such +with bad men because they have agreeable qualities, +or may be useful to us. We form many such by +mistake, imagining people to be different from what +they really are.' And he goes on complacently to +observe that we shall either have the satisfaction of +meeting these gentlemen in a future state, or be +satisfied without meeting them. +</p> + +<p> +For my part, I do not feel that the scheme of future +happiness, which ought by rights to be in preparation +for me, will be at all interfered with by my not +meeting again the man I have in my. mind. To have +seen him in the flesh is sufficient for me. In the spirit +I cannot imagine him; the consideration is too subtle; +for, unlike the little man who had (for certain) a little +soul,' I don't believe he has a soul at all. +</p> + +<p> +He is middle-aged, rich, lethargic, sententious, +dogmatic, and, in short, the quintessence of the +commonplace. I need not say, therefore, that he is +credited by the world with unlimited common-sense. +And for once the world is right. He has nothing-original +about him, save so much of sin as he may +have inherited from our first parents; there is no +more at the back of him than at the back of a looking-glass—indeed +less, for he has not a grain of quicksilver; +but, like the looking-glass, he reflects. Having +nothing else to do, he hangs, as it were, on the wall +of the world, and mirrors it for me as it unconsciously +passes by him—not, however, as in a glass darkly, +but with singular clearness. His vision is never disturbed +by passion or prejudice; he has no enthusiasm +and no illusions. Nor do I believe he has ever had +any. If the noblest study of mankind is man, my +friend has devoted himself to a high calling; the +living page of human life has been his favourite and +indeed, for these many years, his only reading. +And for this he has had exceptional opportunities. +Always a man of wealth and leisure, he has never +wasted himself in that superficial observation which is +often the only harvest of foreign travel. He despises +it, and in relation to travellers, is wont to quote the +famous parallel of the copper wire, 'which grows the +narrower by going further.' A confirmed stay-at-home, +he has mingled much in society of all sorts, and +exercised a keen but quite unsympathetic observation. +His very reserve in company (though, when he catches +you alone, he is a button-holder of great tenacity) +encourages free speech in others; they have no more +reticence in his presence than if he were the butler. +He has belonged to no cliques, and thereby escaped +the greatest peril which can beset the student of +human nature. A man of genius, indeed, in these +days is almost certain, sooner or later, to become the +centre of a mutual admiration society; but the person +I have in my mind is no genius, nor anything like +one, and he thanks Heaven for it. To an opinion of +his own he does not pretend, but his views upon the +opinions of other people he believes to be infallible. +I have called him dogmatic, but that does not at all +express the absolute certainty with which he delivers +judgment. 'I know no more,' he says, 'about the +problems of human life than you do' (taking me as +an illustration of the lowest prevailing ignorance), +'but I know what everybody is thinking about them.' +He is didactic, and therefore often dull, and will +eventually, no doubt, become one of the greatest bores +in Great Britain. At present, however, he is worth +knowing; and I propose to myself to be his Boswell, +and to introduce him—or, at least, his views—to other +people. I have entitled them the Midway Inn, partly +from my own inveterate habit of story-telling, but +chiefly from an image of his own, by which he once +described to me, in his fine egotistic rolling style, +the position he seemed to himself to occupy in the +world. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +When I was a boy, he said (which I don't believe +he ever was), I had a long journey to take between +home and school. Exactly midway there was a hill +with an Inn upon it, at which we changed horses. It +was a point to which I looked forward with very different +feelings when going and returning. In the one +case—for I hated school—it seemed to frown darkly +on me, and from that spot the remainder of the way +was dull and gloomy; in the other case, the sun +seemed always glinting on it, and the rest of the road +was as a fair avenue that leads to Paradise. The innkeeper +received us with equal hospitality on both +occasions, and it was quite evident did not care one +farthing in which direction we were tending. He +would stand in front of his house, jingling his money—<i>our</i> +money—in his pockets, and watch us depart +with the greatest serenity, whether we went east or +west. I thought him at one time the most genial of +Bonifaces (for it was his profession to wear a smile), +and at another a mere mocker of human woe. When +I grew up, I perceived that he was a philosopher. +</p> + +<p> +And now I keep the Midway Inn myself, and watch +from the hill-top the passengers come and go—some +loth, some willing, like myself of old—and listen to +their talk in the coffee-room; or sometimes in a private +parlour, where, though they speak low and gravely, +their converse is still unrestrained, because, you see, I +am the landlord. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes they speak of Death and the Hereafter, +of which the child they buried yesterday knows more +than the wisest of them, and more than Shakespeare +knew. The being totally ignorant of the subject does +not indeed (as you may perhaps have observed in +other matters) deter some of them from speaking of +it with great confidence; but the views of a minority +would quite surprise you, and this minority is growing—coming +to a majority. Every day I see an increase +of the doubters. It is not a question of the Orthodox +and the Infidel, you must understand, at all, though +<i>that</i> is assuming great proportions; but there is every +day more uncertainty among them, and, what is much +more noteworthy, more dissatisfaction. +</p> + +<p> +Years ago, when a hardy Cambridge scholar dared +to publish his doubts of an eternal punishment overtaking +the wicked, an orthodox professor of the same +college took him (theologically) by the throat. 'You +are destroying,' he cried, 'the hope of the Christian.' +But this is not the hope I speak of, as loosing, and +losing, its hold upon men's minds; I mean the real +hope, the hope of heaven. +</p> + +<p> +When I used to go to church—for my inn is too far +removed from it to admit of my attendance there +nowadays—matters were very different. Heaven and +Hell were, in the eyes not only of our congregation, +but of those who hung about the doors in the summer +sun, or even played leap-frog over the grave-stones, +as distinct alternatives as the east and west highways +on each side of my inn. If you did not go one way, +you must go the other; and not only so, but an immense +desire was felt by very many to go in the right +direction. Now I perceive it is not so. A considerable +number of highway passengers, though even they +are less numerous than of old, are still studious—that +is in their aspirations—to avoid taking (shall I say +delicately) the lower road; but only a few, comparatively, +are solicitous to reach the goal of the +upper. +</p> + +<p> +Let me once more observe that I am speaking of +the ordinary passengers—those who travel by the +mail. Of the persons who are convinced that there +never was an Architect of the Universe, and that Man +sprang from the Mollusc, I know little or nothing: +they mostly travel two and two, in gigs, and have +quarrelled so dreadfully on the way, that, at the Inn, +they don't speak to one another. The commonalty, +I repeat, are losing their hopes of heaven, just as the +grown-up schoolboy finds his paradise no more in +home. I can remember when divines were never +tired of painting the lily, of indulging in the most +glowing descriptions of the Elysian Fields. A popular +artist once drew a picture of them: 'The Plains of +Heaven' it was called, and the painter's name was +Martin. If he was to do so now, the public (who are +vulgar) would exclaim 'Betty Martin.' Not that they +disbelieve in it, but that the attractions of the place +are dying out, like those of Bath and Cheltenham. +</p> + +<p> +Of course some blame attaches to the divines themselves +that things have come to such a pass. 'I protest,' +says a great philosopher, 'that I never enter a +church, but the man in the pulpit talks so unlike a +man, as though he had never known what human +joys or sorrows are—so carefully avoids every subject +of interest save <i>one</i>, and paints that in colours at once +so misty and so meretricious—that I say to myself, I +will never sit under him again.' This may, of course, +be only an ingenious excuse of his for not going to +church; but there is really something in it. The +angels, with their harps, on clouds, are now presented +to the eyes, even of faith, in vain; they are still appreciated +on canvas by an old master, but to become +one of them is no longer the common aspiration. +There is a suspicion, partly owing, doubtless, to the +modern talk about the dignity and even the divinity +of Labour, that they ought to be doing something else +than (as the American poet puts it with characteristic +ii reverence) 'loafing about the throne;' that we ourselves, +with no ear perhaps for music, and with little +voice (alas!) for praise, should take no pleasure in +such avocations. It is not the sceptics—though their +influence is getting to be considerable—who have +wrought this change, but the conditions of modern +life. Notwithstanding the cheerful 'returns' as to +pauperism, and the glowing speeches of our Chancellors +of the Exchequer, these conditions are far +harder, among the thinking classes, than they were. +The question 'Is Life worth Living?' is one that +concerns philosophers and metaphysicians, and not +the persons I have in my mind at all; but the question, +'Do I wish to be out of it?' is one that is getting +answered very widely—and in the affirmative. This +was certainly not the case in the days of our grand-sires. +Which of them ever read those lines— +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,</p> +<p>This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned,</p> +<p>Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,</p> +<p>Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?'—</p></div></div> + +<p class="noindent"> +without a sympathetic complacency? This may not +have been the best of all possible worlds to them, but +none of them wished to exchange it, save at the proper +time, and for the proper place. Thanks to overwork, +and still more to over-worry, it is not so now. +There are many prosperous persons in rude health, of +course, who will ask (with a virtuous resolution that is +sometimes to be deplored), 'Do you suppose then that +I wish to cut my throat?' I certainly do not. Do +not let us talk of cutting throats; though, mind you, +the average of suicides, so admirably preserved by the +Registrar-General and other painstaking persons, is +not entirely to be depended upon. You should hear +the doctors at my Inn (in the intervals of their abuse +of their professional brethren) discourse upon this +topic—on that overdose of chloral which poor B. took, +and on that injudicious self-application of chloroform +which carried off poor C. With the law in such a +barbarous state in relation to self-destruction, and +taking into account the feelings of relatives, there was, +of course, only one way of wording the certificate, but—and +then they shake their heads as only doctors +can, and help themselves to port, though they know +it is poison to them. +</p> + +<p> +It is an old joke that annuitants live for ever, but no +annuity ever had the effect of prolonging life which the +present assurance companies have. How many a time, +I wonder, in these later years, has a hand been stayed, +with a pistol or 'a cup of cold poison' in it, by the +thought, 'If I do this, my family will lose the money +I am insured for, besides the premiums.' This feeling +is altogether different from that which causes Jeannette +and Jeannot in their Paris attic to light their charcoal +fire, stop up the chinks with their love-letters, and die +(very disreputably) 'clasped in one another's arms, +and silent in a last embrace.' There is not one halfpenny's +worth of sentiment about it in the Englishman's +case, nor are any such thoughts bred in his brain while +youth is in him. It is in our midway days, with old +age touching us here and there, as autumn 'lays its +fiery finger on the leaves' and withers them, that we +first think of it. When the weight of anxiety and +care is growing on us, while the shoulders are becoming +bowed (not in resignation, but in weakness) which +have to bear it; when our pains are more and more +constant, our pleasures few and fading, and when +whatever happens, we know, must needs be for the +worse—then it is that the praise of the silver hair and +length of days becomes a mockery indeed. +</p> + +<p> +Was it the prescience of such a state of thought, I +wonder (for it certainly did not exist in their time), +that caused good men of old to extol old age; as +though anything could reconcile the mind of man to +the time when the very sun is darkened to him, and +'the clouds return after the rain?' There is a noble +passage in 'Hyperion' which has always seemed to +me to repeat that sentiment in Ecclesiastes; it speaks +of an expression in a man's face: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'As though the vanward clouds of evil days</p> +<p>Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear</p> +<p>Was with its storied thunder labouring up.'</p></div></div> + +<p> +This is why poor Paterfamilias, sitting in the family +pew, is not so enamoured of that idea of accomplishing +those threescore years and ten which the young parson, +fresh from Cambridge, is describing as such a lucky +number in life's lottery. The attempt to paint it so +is well-meaning, no doubt, 'the vacant chaff well +meant for grain;' and it is touching to see how men +generally (knowing that they themselves have to go +through with it) are wont to portray it in cheerful +colours. +</p> + +<p> +A modern philosopher even goes so far as to say +that our memories in old age are always grateful to +us. Our pleasures are remembered, but our pains are +forgotten; 'if we try to recall a physical pain,' she +writes (for it is a female), 'we find it to be impossible,' +From which I gather only this for certain, that that +woman never had the gout. +</p> + +<p> +The folks who come my way, indeed, seem to remember +their physical ailments very distinctly, to +judge by the way they talk of them; and are exceedingly +apprehensive of their recurrence. Nay, it is +curious to see how some old men will resent the compliments +of their juniors on their state of health or +appearance. 'Stuff and nonsense!' cried old Sam +Rogers, grimly; 'I tell you there is no such thing as a +fine old man.' In a humbler walk of life I remember +to have heard a similar but more touching reply. It +was upon the great centenarian question raised by Mr. +Thorns. An old woman in a workhouse, said to be +a hundred years of age, was sent for by the Board of +Guardians, to decide the point by her personal testimony. +One can imagine the half-dozen portly prosperous +figures, and the contrast their appearance +offered to that of the bent and withered crone. 'Now, +Betty,' said the chairman with unctuous patronage, +'you look hale and hearty enough, yet they tell me +that you are a hundred years old; is this really true?' +'God Almighty knows, sir,' was her reply, 'but I feel +a thousand.' +</p> + +<p> +And there are so many people nowadays who 'feel +a thousand.' +</p> + +<p> +It is for this reason that the gift of old age is unwished +for, and the prospect of future life without +encouragement. It is the modern conviction that +there will be some kind of work in it; and even +though what we shall be set to do may be 'wrought +with tumult of acclaim,' we have had enough of work. +What follows, almost as a matter of course, is that the +thought of possible extinction has lost its terrors. +Heaven and its glories may have still their charms for +those who are not wearied out with toil in this life; +but the slave draws for himself a far other picture of +home. His is no passionate cry to be admitted into +the eternal city; he murmurs sullenly, 'Let me rest.' +</p> + +<p> +It was a favourite taunt with the sceptics of old—those +Early Fathers of infidelity, who used to occupy +themselves so laboriously with scraping at the rind of +the Christian Faith—that until the Cross arose men +were not afraid of Death. But that arrow has lost its +barb. The Fear of Death, even among professing +Christians, is now comparatively rare; I do not mean +merely among dying men—in whom those who have +had acquaintance with deathbeds tell us they see it +scarcely ever—but with the quick and hale. Even +with very ignorant persons, the idea that things may +be a great deal worse for us hereafter than even at +present is not generally entertained as respects themselves. +A clergyman who was attending a sick man +in his parish expressed a hope to the wife that she took +occasion to remind her husband of his spiritual condition. +'Oh yes, sir,' she replied, 'many and many a +time have I woke him up o' nights, and cried, "John, +John, you little know the torments as is preparing for +you."' But the good woman, it seems, was not disturbed +by any such dire imaginings upon her own +account. +</p> + +<p> +Higher in the social scale, the apprehension of a +Gehenna, or at all events of such a one as our forefathers +almost universally believed in, is rapidly dying +out. The mathematician tells us that even as a question +of numbers, 'about one in ten, my good sir, by +the most favourable computations,' the thing is incredible; +the philanthropist inquires indignantly, 'Is the +city Arab then, who grows to be thief and felon as +naturally as a tree puts forth its leaves, to be damned +in both worlds?' and I notice that even the clergy who +come my way, and take their weak glass of negus +while the coach changes horses, no longer insist upon +the point, but, at the worst, 'faintly trust the larger +hope.' +</p> + +<p> +Notwithstanding these comparatively cheerful views +upon a subject so important to all passengers on life's +highway, the general feeling is, as I have said, one of +profound dissatisfaction; the good old notion that +whatever is is right, is fast disappearing; and in its +place there is a doubt—rarely expressed except among +the philosophers, with whom, as I have said, I have +nothing to do—a secret, harassing, and unwelcome +doubt respecting the divine government of the world. +It is a question which the very philosophers are not +likely to settle even among themselves, but it has become +very obtrusive and important. Men raise their +eyebrows and shrug their shoulders when it is alluded +to, instead, as of old, of pulverising the audacious +questioner on the spot, or even (as would have happened +at a later date) putting him into Coventry; +they have no opinion to offer upon the subject, or at +all events do not wish to talk about it. But it is no +longer, be it observed, 'bad form' in a general way to +do so; it is only that the topic is personally distasteful. +</p> + +<p> +The once famous advocate of analogy threw a bitter +seed among mankind when he suggested, in all innocence, +and merely for the sake of his own argument, +that as the innocent suffered for the guilty in this +world, so it might be in the world to come; and it is +bearing bitter fruit. To feel aweary at the Midway +Inn is bad enough; but to be journeying to no home, +and perhaps even to some harsher school than we yet +wot of, is indeed a depressing reflection. +</p> + +<p> +Hence it comes, I think, or partly hence, that there +is now no fun in the world. Wit we have, and an +abundance of grim humour, which evokes anything +but mirth. Nothing would astonish us in the Midway +Inn so much as a peal of laughter. A great writer +(though it must be confessed scarcely an amusing +one), who has recently reached his journey's end, used +to describe his animal spirits depreciatingly, as being +at the best but vegetable spirits. And that is now the +way with us all. When Charles Dickens died, it was +confidently stated in a great literary journal that his +loss, so far from affecting 'the gaiety of nations,' +would scarcely be felt at all; the power of rousing +tears and laughter being (I suppose the writer thought) +so very common. That prophecy has been by no +means fulfilled. But, what is far worse than there +being no humorous writers amongst us, the faculty +of appreciating even the old ones is dying out. There +is no such thing as high spirits anywhere. It is +observable, too, how very much public entertainments +have increased of late—a tacit acknowledgment of +dulness at home—while, instead of the lively, if somewhat +boisterous, talk of our fathers, we have drawing-room +dissertations on art, and dandy drivel about blue +china. +</p> + +<p> +There is one pleasure only that takes more and +more root amongst us, and never seems to fail, and +that is making money. To hear the passengers at +the Midway Inn discourse upon this topic, you would +think they were all commercial travellers. It is most +curious how the desire for pecuniary gain has infected +even the idlest, who of course take the shortest cut to +it by way of the race-course. I see young gentlemen, +blond and beardless, telling the darkest secrets to one +another, affecting, one would think, the fate of Europe, +but which in reality relate to the state of the fetlock +of the brother to Boanerges. Their earnestness (which +is reserved for this enthralling topic) is quite appalling. +In their elders one has long been accustomed to it, +but these young people should really know better. +The interest excited in society by 'scratchings' has +never been equalled since the time of the Cock Lane +ghost. If men would only 'lose their money and +look pleasant' without talking about it, I shouldn't +mind; but they <i>will</i> make it a subject of conversation, +as though everyone who liked his glass of wine should +converse upon 'the vintages.' One looks for it in +business people and forgives it; but everyone is now +for business. +</p> + +<p> +The reverence that used to belong to Death is now +only paid to it in the case of immensely rich persons, +whose wealth is spoken of with bated breath. 'He +died, sir, worth two millions; a very warm man.' If +you happen to say, though with all reasonable probability +and even with Holy Writ to back you, 'He +is probably warmer by this time,' you are looked +upon as a Communist. What the man was is nothing, +what he made is everything. It is the gold alone that +we now value: the temple that might have sanctified +the gold is of no account. This worship of mere +wealth has, it is true, this advantage over the old +adoration of birth, that something may possibly be +got out of it; to cringe and fawn upon the people +that have blue blood is manifestly futile, since the +peculiarity is not communicable, but it is hoped that, +by being shaken up in the same social bag with +millionaires, something may be attained by what is +technically called the 'sweating' process. So far as +I have observed, however, the results are small, while +the operation is to the last degree disagreeable. +</p> + +<p> +What is very significant of this new sort of golden +age is that a literature of its own has arisen, though +of an anomalous kind. It is presided over by a sort +of male Miss Kilmansegge, who is also a model of +propriety. It is as though the dragon that guarded +the apples of Hesperides should be a dragon of virtue. +Under the pretence of extolling prudence and +perseverance, he paints money-making as the highest +good, and calls it thrift; and the popularity of this +class of book is enormous. The heroes are all 'self-made' +men who come to town with that proverbial +half-crown which has the faculty of accumulation that +used to be confined to snowballs. Like the daughters +of the horse-leech, their cry is 'Give, give,' only instead +of blood they want money; and I need hardly say +they get it from other people's pockets. Love and +friendship are names that have lost their meaning, if +they ever had any, with these gentry. They remind +one of the miser of old who could not hear a large +sum of money mentioned without an acceleration of +the action of the heart; and perhaps that is the use +of their hearts, which, otherwise, like that of the spleen +in other people, must be only a subject of vague conjecture. +They live abhorred and die respected; leaving +all their heaped-up wealth to some charitable institution, +the secretary of which levants with it eventually +to the United States. +</p> + +<p> +This last catastrophe, however, is not mentioned in +these biographies, the subjects of which are held up +as patterns of wisdom and prudence for the rising +generation. I shall have left the Midway Inn, thank +Heaven, for a residence of smaller dimensions, before +it has grown up. Conceive an England inhabited by +self-made men! +</p> + +<p> +Has it ever struck you how gloomy is the poetry of +the present day? This is not perhaps of very much +consequence, since everybody has a great deal too +much to do to permit them to read it; but how full +of sighs, and groans, and passionate bewailings it is! +And also how deuced difficult! It is almost as +inarticulate as an Æolian harp, and quite as melancholy. +There are one or two exceptions, of course, +as in the case of Mr. Calverley and Mr. Locker; but +even the latter is careful to insist upon the fact that, +like those who have gone before us, we must all quit +Piccadilly. 'At present,' as dear Charles Lamb writes, +'we have the advantage of them;' but there is no one +to remind us of that now, nor is it, as I have said, the +general opinion that it <i>is</i> an advantage. +</p> + +<p> +It is this prevailing gloom, I think, which accounts +for the enormous and increasing popularity of fiction. +Observe how story-telling creeps into the very newspapers +(along with their professional fibbing); and, +even in the magazines, how it lies down side by +side with 'burning questions,' like the weaned child +putting its hand into the cockatrice's den. For +your sake, my good fellow, who write stories [here +my friend glowered at me compassionately], I am +glad of it; but the fact is of melancholy significance. +It means that people are glad to find +themselves 'anywhere, anywhere, out of the world,' +and (I must be allowed to add) they are generally +gratified, for anything less like real life than what +some novelists portray it is difficult to imagine. +</p> + +<p> +[Here he stared at me so exceedingly hard, that +anyone with a less heavenly temper, or who had no +material reasons for putting up with it, would have +taken his remark as personal, and gone away. +</p> + +<p> +Another cause of the absence of good fellowship +amongst us (he went on) is the growth of education. +It sticks like a fungus to everybody, and though, it is +fair to say, mostly outside, does a great deal of +mischief. The scholastic interest has become so +powerful that nobody dares speak a word against +it; but the fact is, men are educated far beyond their +wits. You can't fill any cup beyond what it will hold, +and the little cups are exceedingly numerous. Boys +are now crammed (with information) like turkeys (but +unfortunately not killed at Christmas), and when they +grow up there is absolutely no room in them for a +joke. The prigs that frequent my Midway Inn are +as the sands in its hour-glass, only with no chance, +alas! of their running out. The wisdom of our +ancestors limited education, and very wisely, to the +three R's; that is all that is necessary for the great +mass of mankind: whereas the pick of them, with +those clamping irons well stuck to their heels, will win +their way to the topmost peaks of knowledge. +</p> + +<p> +At the very best—that is to say when it produces +<i>anything</i>—what does the most costly education in +this country produce in ordinary minds but the +deplorable habit of classical quotation? If it could +teach them to <i>think</i>—but that is a subject, my dear +friend, into which you will scarcly follow me. +</p> + +<p> +[I could have knocked his head off if he had not +been so exceptionally stout and strong, and as it was, +I took up my hat to go, when a thought struck me.] +</p> + +<p> +'Among your valuable remarks upon the ideas +entertained by society at present, you have said +nothing, my dear sir, about the ladies.' +</p> + +<p> +'I never speak of anything,' he replied with dignity, +'which I do not thoroughly understand. Man I do +know—down to his boots; but woman'—here he +sighed and hesitated—'no; I don't know nearly so +much of her.' +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>THE CRITIC ON THE HEARTH.</h2> + +<p> +It has often struck me that the relation of two +important members of the social body to one +another has never been sufficiently considered, or +treated of, so far as I know, either by the philosopher +or the poet. I allude to that which exists between +the omnibus driver and his conductor. Cultivating +literature as I do upon a little oatmeal, and driving, +when in a position to be driven at all, in that humble +vehicle, the 'bus, I have had, perhaps, exceptional +opportunities for observing their mutual position and +behaviour; and it is very peculiar. When the 'bus is +empty, these persons are sympathetic and friendly to +one another, almost to tenderness; but when there is +much traffic, a tone of severity is observable upon the +side of the conductor. 'What are yer a-driving on +for just as a party's getting in? Will nothing suit +but to break a party's neck?' 'Wake up, will yer? +or do yer want that ere Bayswater to pass us?' are +inquiries he will make in the most peremptory manner. +Or he will concentrate contempt in the laconic but +withering observation: 'Now then, stoopid!' +</p> + +<p> +When we consider that the driver is after all the +driver—that the 'bus is under his guidance and +management, and may be said <i>pro tem</i>, to be his +own—indeed, in case of collision or other serious +extremity, he calls it so: 'What the infernal regions +are yer banging into my 'bus for?' etc., etc.,—I say, +this being his exalted position, the injurious language +of the man on the step is, to say the least of it, disrespectful. +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, it is the conductor who fills the +'bus, and even entices into it, by lures and wiles, +persons who are not voluntarily going his way at all. +It is he who advertises its presence to the passers-by, +and spares neither lung nor limb in attracting passengers. +If the driver is lord and king, yet the conductor +has a good deal to do with the administration: +just as the Mikado of Japan, who sits above the +thunder and is almost divine, is understood to be +assisted and even 'conducted' by the Tycoon. The +connection between those potentates is perhaps the +most exact reproduction of that between the 'bus +driver and his cad; but even in England there is a +pretty close parallel to it in the mutual relation of the +author and the professional critic. +</p> + +<p> +While the former is in his spring-time, the analogy +is indeed almost complete. For example, however +much he may have plagiarised, the book does belong +to the author: he calls it, with pardonable pride (and +especially if anyone runs it down), 'my book.' He +has written it, and probably paid pretty handsomely +for getting it published. Even the right of translation, +if you will look at the bottom of the title-page, is +somewhat superfluously reserved to him. Yet nothing +can exceed the patronage which he suffers at the hands +of the critic, and is compelled to submit to in sullen +silence. When the book-trade is slack—that is, in +the summer season—the pair get on together pretty +amicably. 'This book,' says the critic, 'may be taken +down to the seaside, and lounged over not unprofitably;' +or, 'Readers may do worse than peruse this +unpretending little volume of fugitive verse;' or even, +'We hail this new aspirant to the laurels of Apollo.' +But in the thick of the publishing season, and when +books pour into the reviewer by the cartful, nothing +can exceed the violence, and indeed sometimes the virulence, +of his language. That 'Now then, stoopid!' of the +'bus conductor pales beside the lightnings of his scorn. +</p> + +<p> +'Among the lovers of sensation, it is possible that +some persons may be found with tastes so utterly +vitiated as to derive pleasure from this monstrous +production.' I cull these flowers of speech from a +wreath placed by a critic of the <i>Slasher</i> on my own +early brow. Ye gods, how I hated him! How I +pursued him with more than Corsican vengeance; +traduced him in public and private; and only when I +had thrust my knife (metaphorically) into his detested +carcase, discovered I had been attacking the wrong +man. It is a lesson I have never forgotten; and I +pray you, my younger brothers of the pen, to lay it to +heart. Believe rather that your unfriendly critic, like +the bee who is fabled to sting and die, has perished +after his attempt on your reputation; and let the +tomb be his asylum. For even supposing you get +the right sow by the ear—or rather, the wild boar with +the 'raging tooth'—what can it profit you? It is not +like that difference of opinion between yourself and +twelve of your fellow-countrymen which may have +such fatal results. You are not an Adonis (except in +outward form, perhaps), that you can be ripped up +with his tusk. His hard words do not break your +bones. If they are uncalled for, their cruelty, believe +me, can hurt only your vanity. While it is just +possible—though indeed in your case in the very highest +degree improbable—that the gentleman may have +been right. +</p> + +<p> +In the good old times we are told that a buffet from +the hand of an Edinburgh or Quarterly Reviewer +would lay a young author dead at his feet. If it was +so, he must have been naturally very deficient in +vitality. It certainly did not kill Byron, though it +was a knock-down blow; he rose from that combat +from earth, like Antæus, all the stronger for it. The +story of its having killed Keats, though embalmed in +verse, is apocryphal; and if such blows were not fatal +in those times, still less so are they nowadays. On +the other hand, if authors are difficult to slay, it is +infinitely harder work to give them life by what the +doctors term 'artificial respiration'—puffing. The +amount of breath expended in the days of 'the +Quarterlies' in this hopeless task would have moved +windmills. Not a single favourite of those critics—selected, +that is, from favouritism, and apart from +merit—now survives. They failed even to obtain +immortality for the writers in whom there was really +something of genius, but whom they extolled beyond +their deserts. Their pet idol, for example, was Samuel +Rogers. And who reads Rogers's poems now? We +remember something about them, and that is all; they +are very literally 'Pleasures of Memory.' +</p> + +<p> +And if these things are true of the past, how much +more so are they of the present! I venture to think, +in spite of some voices to the contrary, that criticism +is much more honest than it used to be: certainly +less influenced by political feeling, and by the interests +of publishing houses; more temperate, if not more +judicious, and—in the higher literary organs, at +least—unswayed by personal prejudice. But the result of +even the most favourable notices upon a book is now +but small. I can remember when a review in the +<i>Times</i> was calculated by the 'Row' to sell an entire +edition. Those halcyon days—if halcyon days they +were—are over. People read books for themselves +now; judge for themselves; and buy only when they +are absolutely compelled, and cannot get them from +the libraries. In the case of an author who has already +secured a public, it is indeed extraordinary what little +effect reviews, either good or bad, have upon his circulation. +Those who like his works continue to read +them, no matter what evil is written of them; and +those who don't like them are not to be persuaded +(alas!) to change their minds, though his latest effort +should be described as though it had dropped from +the heavens. I could give some statistics upon this +point not a little surprising, but statistics involve +comparisons—which are odious. As for fiction, its success +depends more upon what Mrs. Brown says to Mrs. +Jones as to the necessity of getting that charming +book from the library while there is yet time, than on +all the reviews in Christendom. +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>O Fame! if I e'er took delight in thy praises,</p> +<p>'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases</p> +<p>Than to see the bright eyes of those dear ones discover</p> +<p>They thought that I was not unworthy—</p></div></div> + +<p class="noindent"> +of a special messenger to Mr. Mudie's. +</p> + +<p> +Heaven bless them! for, when we get old and stupid, +they still stick by one, and are not to be seduced from +their allegiance by any blaring of trumpets, or clashing +of cymbals, that heralds a new arrival among the +story-tellers. +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, as respects his first venture, the +author is very dependent upon what the critics say of +him. It is the conductor, you know (I wouldn't call +him a 'cad,' even in fun, for ten thousand pounds), on +whom, to return to our metaphor, the driver is dependent +for the patronage of his vehicle, and even for +the announcement of its existence. A good review is +still the very best of advertisements to a new author; +and even a bad one is better than no review at all. +Indeed, I have heard it whispered that a review which +speaks unfavourably of a work of fiction, upon moral +grounds, is of very great use to it. This, however, the +same gossips say, is mainly confined to works of fiction +written by female authors for readers of their own +sex—'<i>by</i> ladies <i>for</i> ladies,' as a feminine <i>Pall Mall +Gazette</i> might describe itself. +</p> + +<p> +Nor would I be understood to say that even a well-established +author is not affected by what the critics +may say of him; I only state that his circulation is +not—albeit they may make his very blood curdle. +I have a popular writer in my mind, who never looks +at a newspaper unless it comes to him by a hand he +can trust, for fear his eyes should light upon an +unpleasant review. His argument is this: 'I have been +at this work for the last twelve months, thinking of +little else and putting my best intelligence (which is +considerable) at its service. Is it humanly probable +that a reviewer who has given his mind to it for a less +number of hours, can suggest anything in the way of +improvement worthy of my consideration? I am supposing +him to be endowed with ability and actuated +by good faith; that he has not failed in my own profession +and is not jealous of my popularity; yet even +thus, how is it possible that his opinion can be of +material advantage to me? If favourable, it gives me +pleasure, because it flatters my <i>amour propre</i>, and I am +even not quite sure that it does not afford a stimulating +encouragement; but if unfavourable, I own it gives +me considerable annoyance. [This is his euphemistic +phrase to express the feeling of being in a hornets' +nest without his clothes on.] On the other hand, if +the critic is a mere hireling, or a young gentleman +from the university who is trying his 'prentice hand at +a lowish rate of remuneration upon a veteran like +myself, how still more idle would it be to regard his +views!' +</p> + +<p> +And it appears to me that there is really something +in these arguments. As regards the latter part of +them, by-the-bye, I had the pleasure of seeing my +own last immortal story spoken of in an American +magazine—the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>—as the work of 'a +bright and prosperous young author.' The critic +(Heaven bless his young heart, and give him a happy +Whitsuntide) evidently imagined it to be my first +production. In another Transatlantic organ, a critic, +speaking of the last work of that literary veteran, the +late Mr. Le Fanu, observes: 'If this young writer +would only model himself upon the works of Mr. +William Black in his best days, we foresee a great +future before him.' +</p> + +<p> +There is one thing that I think should be set down +to the credit of the literary profession—that for the +most part they take their 'slatings' (which is the professional +term for them) with at least outward equanimity. +I have read things of late, written of an old +and popular writer, ten times more virulent than anything +Mr. Ruskin wrote of Mr. Whistler: yet neither +he, nor any other man of letters, thinks of flying to his +mother's apron-string, or of setting in motion old +Father Antic, the Law. Perhaps it is that we have +no money, or perhaps, like the judicious author of +whom I have spoken, we abstain from reading unpleasant +things. I wish to goodness we could abstain +from hearing of them; but the 'd——d good-natured +friend' is an eternal creation. He has altered, however, +since Sheridan's time in his method of proceeding. +He does not say, 'There is a very unpleasant +notice of you in the <i>Scorpion</i>, my dear fellow, which I +deplore.' The scoundrel now affects a more light-hearted +style. 'There is a review of your last book +in the <i>Scorpion</i>', he says, 'which will amuse you. It +is very malicious, and evidently the offspring of personal +spite, but it is very clever.' Then you go down +to your club, and take the thing up with the tongs, +when nobody is looking, and make yourself very +miserable; or you buy it, going home in the cab, and, +having spoilt your appetite for dinner with it, tear it +up very small, throw it out of window, and swear +you have never seen it. +</p> + +<p> +One forgives the critic—perhaps—but never the +good-natured friend. It is always possible—to the +wise man—to refrain from reading the lucubration of +the former, but he cannot avoid the latter: which +brings me to the main subject of this paper—the +Critic on the Hearth. One can be deaf to the voice +of the public hireling, but it is impossible to shut one's +ears to the private communications of one's friends +and family—all meant for our good, no doubt, but +which are nevertheless insufferable. +</p> + +<p> +In Miss Martineau's Autobiography there is a +passage expressing her surprise that whereas in all +other cases there is a certain modest reticence in +respect to other people's business when it is of a +special kind, the profession of literature is made +an exception. As there is no one but imagines that +he can poke a fire and drive a gig, so everyone believes +he can write a book, or at all events (like that +blasphemous person in connection with the Creation) +that he can give a wrinkle or two to the author. +</p> + +<p> +I wonder what a parson would say, if a man who +never goes to church save when his babies are christened, +or by accident to get out of a shower, should +volunteer his advice about sermon-making? or an +artist, to whom the man without arms, who is wheeled +about in the streets for coppers, should recommend a +greater delicacy of touch? Indeed, metaphor fails +me, and I gasp for mere breath when I think of the +astounding impudence of some people. If I possessed +a tithe of it, I should surely have made my fortune by +this time, and be in the enjoyment of the greatest +prosperity. It must be remembered, too, that the +opinion of the Critics on the Hearth is always volunteered +(indeed, one would as soon think of asking for +it as for a loan from the Sultan of Turkey), and in +nine cases out of ten it is unfavourable. One has no +objection to their praise, nor to any amount of it; +what is so abhorrent is their advice, and still more +their disapproval. It is like throwing 'half a brick' +at you, which, utterly valueless in itself, still hurts you +when it hits you. And the worst of it is that, apart +from their rubbishy opinions, one likes these people; +they are one's friends and relatives, and to cut one's +moorings from them altogether would be to sail over +the sea of life without a port to touch at. +</p> + +<p> +The early life of the author is especially embittered +by the utterances of these good folks. As a prophet +is of no honour in his own country, so it is with the +young aspirant for literary fame with his folks at +home. They not only disbelieve in him, but—generally, +however, with one or two exceptions, who are invaluable +to him in the way of encouragement—'make +hay' of him and his pretensions in the most heartless +style. If he produces a poem, it achieves immortality +in the sense of his 'never hearing the last of it;' it is +the jest of the family till they have all grown up. But +this he can bear, because his noble mind recognises +its own greatness; he regards his jeering brethren in +the same light as the philosophic writer beholds 'the +vapid and irreflective reader.' When they tell him +they 'can't make head or tail of his blessed poetry,' +he comforts himself with the reflection of the great +German (which he has read in a translation) that the +clearest handwriting cannot be read by twilight. It +is when his literary talents have received more or less +recognition from the public at large, that home criticism +becomes so painful to him. His brethren are +then boys no longer, but parsons, lawyers, and doctors; +and though they don't venture to interfere with one-another +as regards their individual professions, they +make no sort of scruple about interfering with <i>him</i>. +They write to him their unsolicited advice and strictures. +This is the parson's letter: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +'MY DEAR DICK,<br/> +    'I like your last book much better than the rest of +them; but I don't like your heroine. She strikes both Julia +and myself [Julia is his wife, who is acquainted with no +literature but the cookery-book] as rather namby-pamby. The +descriptions, however, are charming; we both recognised +dear old Ramsgate at once. [The original of the locality in +the novel being Dieppe.] The plot is also excellent, though +we think we have some recollection of it elsewhere; but it +must be so difficult to hit upon anything original in these +days. Thanks for your kind remembrance of us at Christmas: +the oysters were excellent. We were sorry to see that +ill-natured little notice in the <i>Scourge</i>. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +'Yours affectionately,<br/> +'BOB.' +</p> + +<p> +Jack the lawyer writes: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +'DEAR DICK,<br/> +    'You are really becoming ["Becoming?" he thinks <i>that</i> +becoming] quite a great man: we could hardly get your last +book from Mudie's, though I suppose he takes very small +quantities of copies, except from really popular authors. +Marion was charmed with your heroine [Dick rather likes +Marion; and doesn't think Jack treats her with the consideration +she deserves], and I have no doubt women in general +will admire her, but your hero—you know I always speak +my mind—is rather a duffer. You should go into the world +more, and sketch from life. The Vice-Chancellor gave me +great pleasure by speaking of your early poems very highly +the other day, and I assure you it was quite a drop down +for me, to find that he was referring to some other writer of +the same name. Of course I did not undeceive him. I +wish, my dear fellow, you would write stories in one volume +instead of three. You write a <i>short</i> story capitally. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +'Yours ever,<br/> +'JACK.' +</p> + +<p> +Tom the surgeon belongs to that very objectionable +class of humanity, called, by ancient writers, wags: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +'MY DEAR DICK,<br/> +    'I cannot help writing to thank you for the relief afforded +to me by the perusal of your last volume. I had +been suffering from neuralgia, and every prescription in the +Pharmacopæia for producing sleep had failed until I tried +<i>that</i>. Dear Maggie [an odious woman, who calls novels "light +literature," and affects to be blue] read it to me herself, so it +was given every chance; but I think you must acknowledge +that it was a little spun out. Maggie assures me—I have +not read them myself, for you know what little time I have +for such things—that the first two volumes, with the exception +of the characters of the hero and heroine, which she +pronounces to be rather feeble, are first-rate. Why don't +you write two-volume novels? There is always something +in analogy: reflect how seldom Nature herself produces three +at a birth: when she does, it is only two, at most, which +survive. We shall look forward to your next effort with +much interest, but we hope you will give more time and +pains to it. Remember what Horace says upon this subject +(He has no more knowledge of Horace than he has of +Sanscrit, but he has read the quotation in that vile review +in the <i>Scourge</i>.) Maggie thinks you live too luxuriously: if +your expenses were less you would not be compelled to write +so much, and you would do it better. Excuse this well-meant +advice from an elder brother. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +'Yours always,<br/> +'Tom.' +</p> + +<p> +'One's sisters, and one's cousins, and one's aunts' +also write in more or less the same style, though, to +do their sex justice, less offensively. 'If you were to +go abroad, my dear Dick,' says one, 'it would expand +your mind. There is nothing to blame in your last +production, which strikes me (what I could understand +of it at least, for some of it is a little Bohemian) as +very pleasing; but the fact is, that English subjects are +quite used up.' Others discover for themselves the +originals of Dick's characters in persons he has never +dreamt of describing, and otherwise exhibit a most +marvellous familiarity with his materials. 'Hennie, +who has just been here, is immensely delighted with +your satirical sketch of her husband. He, however, +as you may suppose, is <i>wild</i>, and says you had better +withdraw your name from the candidates' book at his +club. I don't know how many black balls exclude, +but he has a good many friends there.' Another +writes: 'Of course we all recognised Uncle George in +your Mr. Flibbertigibbet; but we try not to laugh; +indeed our sense of loss is too recent. Seriously, I +think you might have waited till the poor old man—who +was always kind to you, Dick—was cold in his +grave.' +</p> + +<p> +Some of these excellent creatures send incidents +of real life which they are sure will be useful to 'dear +Dick' for his next book—narratives of accidents in a +hansom cab, of missing the train by the Underground, +and of Mr. Jones being late for his own wedding, +'which, though nothing in themselves, actually did +happen, you know, and which, properly dressed up, +as you so well know how to do,' will, they are sure, +obtain for him a marked success. 'There is nothing +like reality,' they say, he may depend upon it, 'for +coming home to people.' +</p> + +<p> +After all, one need not read these abominable +letters. One's relatives (thank Heaven!) usually live +in the country. The real Critics on the Hearth are +one's personal acquaintances in town, whom one +cannot escape. +</p> + +<p> +'My dear friend,' said one to me the other day—a +most cordial and excellent fellow, by-the-bye (only too +frank)—'I like you, as you know, beyond everything, +personally, but I cannot read your books.' +</p> + +<p> +'My dear Jones,' replied I, 'I regret that exceedingly; +for it is you, and men like you, whose suffrages +I am most anxious to win. Of the approbation of all +intelligent and educated persons I am certain; but if +I could only obtain that of the million, I should be a +happy man.' +</p> + +<p> +But even when I have thus demolished Jones, I +still feel that I owe him a grudge. 'What the Deuce +is it to me whether Jones likes my books or +not? and why does he tell me he doesn't like +them?' +</p> + +<p> +Of the surpassing ignorance of these good people, +I have just heard an admirable anecdote. A friend +of a justly popular author meets him in the club and +congratulates him upon his last story in the <i>Slasher</i> +[in which he has never written a line]. It is so full of +farce and fun [the author is a grave writer]. 'Only +I don't see why it is not advertised under the same +title in the other newspapers.' The fact being that +the story in the <i>Slasher</i> is a parody—and not a very +good-natured one—upon the author's last work, and +resembles it only as a picture in <i>Vanity Fair</i> resembles +its original. +</p> + +<p> +Some Critics on the Hearth are not only good-natured, +but have rather too high, or, if that is impossible, +let us say too pronounced, an opinion of the +abilities of their literary friends. They wonder why +they do not employ their gigantic talents in some +enduring monument, such as a life of 'Alexander +the Great' or a popular history of the Visigoths. To +them literature is literature, and they do not concern +themselves with little niceties of style or differences +of subject. Others again, though extremely civil, are +apt to affect more enthusiasm than they feel. They +admire one's works without exception—'they are all +absolutely charming'—but they would be placed in a +position of great embarrassment if they were asked +to name their favourite: for, as a matter of fact, they +are ignorant of the very names of them. A novelist +of my acquaintance lent his last work to a lady +cousin because she 'really could not wait till she got +it from the library;' besides, 'she was ill, and wanted +some amusing literature.' After a month or so he +got his three volumes back, with a most gushing +letter. It 'had been the comfort of many a weary +hour of sleeplessness,' etc. The thought of having +'smoothed the pillow and soothed the pain' would, +she felt sure, be gratifying to him. Perhaps it would +have been, only she had omitted to cut the pages +even of the first volume. +</p> + +<p> +But, as a general rule, these volunteer censors +plume themselves on discovering defects and not +beauties. When any author is particularly popular +and has been long before the public, they have two +methods of discoursing upon him in relation to their +literary friend. In the first, they represent him as a +model of excellence, and recommend their friend to +study him, though without holding out much hope of +his ever becoming his rival; in the second, they +describe him as 'worked out,' and darkly hint that +sooner or later [they mean sooner] their friend will be +in the same unhappy condition. These, I need not +say, are among the most detestable specimens of their +class, and only to be equalled by those excellent +literary judges who are always appealing to posterity, +which, even if a little temporary success has crowned +you to-day, will relegate you to your proper position +to-morrow. If one were weak enough to argue with +these gentry, it would be easy to show that popular +authors are not 'worked out,' but only have the +appearance of being so from their taking their work +too easily. Those whose calling it is to depict human +nature in fiction are especially subject to this weakness; +they do not give themselves the trouble to study +new characters, or at first hand, as of old; they sit at +home and receive the congratulations of Society without +paying due attention to that somewhat changeful +lady, and they draw upon their memory, or their +imagination, instead of studying from the life. Otherwise, +when they do not give way to that temptation +of indolence which arises from competence and success, +there is no reason why their reputation should +suffer, since, though they may lack the vigour or high +spirits of those who would push them from their stools, +their experience and knowledge of the world are always +on the increase. +</p> + +<p> +As to the argument with regard to posterity which +is so popular with the Critic on the Hearth, I am +afraid he has no greater respect for the opinion of +posterity himself than for that of his possible great-great-granddaughter. +Indeed, he only uses it as +being a weapon the blow of which it is impossible to +parry, and with the object of being personally offensive. +It is, moreover, noteworthy that his position, which is +sometimes taken up by persons of far greater intelligence, +is inconsistent with itself. The praisers of +posterity are also always the praisers of the past; it is +only the present which is in their eyes contemptible. +Yet to the next generation this present will be <i>their</i> +past, and, however valueless may be the verdict of today, +how much more so, by the most obvious analogy, +will be that of to-morrow. It is probable, indeed, +though it is difficult to believe it, that the Critics on +the Hearth of the generation to come will make +themselves even more ridiculous than their immediate +predecessors. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>SHAM ADMIRATION IN LITERATURE.</h2> + +<p> +In all highly civilised communities Pretence is prominent, and sooner or later +invades the regions of Literature. In the beginning, this is not altogether to +be reprobated; it is the rude homage which Ignorance, conscious of its +disgrace, offers to Learning; but after awhile, Pretence becomes systematised, +gathers strength from numbers and impunity, and rears its head in such a manner +as to suggest it has some body and substance belonging to it. In England, +literary pretence is more universal than elsewhere from our method of +education. When young gentlemen from ten to sixteen are set to study poetry (a +subject for which not one in a hundred has the least taste or capability even +when he reads it in his own language) in Greek and Latin authors, it is only a +natural consequence that their views upon it should be slightly artificial. The +youth who objected to the alphabet that it seemed hardly worth while to have +gone through so much to have acquired so little, was exceptionally sagacious; +the more ordinary lad conceives that what has cost him so much time and +trouble, and entailed so many pains and penalties, must needs have something in +it, though it has never met his eye. Hence arises our public opinion upon the +ancient classics, which I am afraid is somewhat different from (what painters +term) the private view. If you take the ordinary admirer of Æschylus, for +example—not the scholar, but the man who has had what he believes to be +'a liberal education'—and appeal to his opinion upon some passage in a +British dramatist, say Shakespeare, it is ten to one that he shows not only +ignorance of the author (the odds are twenty to one about <i>that</i>), but +utter inability to grasp the point in question; it is too deep for him, and, +especially, too subtle. If you are cruel enough to press him, he will +unconsciously betray the fact that he has never felt a line of poetry in his +life. He honestly believes that the 'Seven against Thebes' is one of the +greatest works that ever were written, just as a child believes the same of the +'Seven Champions of Christendom.' A great wit once observed, when bored by the +praises of a man who spoke six languages, that he had known a man to speak a +dozen, and yet not say a word worth hearing in any one of them. The humour of +the remark, as sometimes happens, has caused its wisdom to be underrated; for +the fact is that, in very many cases, all the intelligence of which a mind is +capable is expended upon the mere acquisition of a foreign tongue. As to +getting anything out of it in the way of ideas, and especially of poetical +ones, that is almost never attained. There are, indeed, many who have a special +facility for languages, but in their case (with a few exceptions) one may say +without uncharity that the acquisition of ideas is not their object, though if +they did acquire them they would probably be new ones. The majority of us, +however, have much difficulty in surmounting the obstacle of an alien tongue; +and when we have done so we are naturally inclined to overrate the advantages +thus attained. Everyone knows the poor creature who quotes French on all +occasions with a certain stress on the accent, designed to arouse a doubt in +his hearers as to whether he was not actually born in Paris. <i>He</i>, of +course, is a low specimen of the class in question, but almost all of us derive +a certain intellectual gratification from the mastery of another language, and +as we gradually attain to it, whenever we find a meaning we are apt to mistake +it for a beauty.<a href="#fn-1" name="fnref-1" id="fnref-1"><sup>[1]</sup></a> +Nay, I am convinced that many admire this or that (even) British poet from the +fact that here and there his meaning has gleamed upon them with all the charm +that accompanies unexpectedness. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-1" id="fn-1"></a> <a href="#fnref-1">[1]</a> +Since the above was written, my attention has been called to the following +remark of De Quincey: 'As must ever be the case with readers not sufficiently +masters of a language to bring the true pretensions of a work to any test of +feeling, they are for ever mistaking for some pleasure conferred by the writer, +what is, in fact, the pleasure naturally attached to the sense of a difficulty +overcome.' +</p> + +<p> +Since classical learning is compulsory with us, this +bastard admiration is much more often excited with +respect to the Greek and Latin poets. Men may not +only go through the whole curriculum of a university +education, but take high honours in it, without the +least intellectual advantage beyond the acquisition +of a few quotations. This is not, of course (good +heavens!), because the classics have nothing to teach +us in the way of poetical ideas, but simply because to +the ordinary mind the acquisition of a poetical idea +is very difficult, and when conveyed in a foreign +language is impossible. If the same student had +given the same time—a monstrous thought, of course, +but not impracticable—to the cultivation of Shakespeare +and the old dramatists, or even to the more +modern English poets and thinkers, he would certainly +have got more out of them, though he would have +missed the delicate suggestiveness of the Greek aorist, +and the exquisite subtleties of the particle <i>de</i>. Having +acquired these last, however, and not for nothing, it is +not surprising that he should esteem them very highly, +and, being unable to popularise them at dinner-parties +and the like, he falls back upon praise of the classics +generally. +</p> + +<p> +Such are the circumstances which, more particularly +in this country, have led to a well-nigh universal habit +of literary lying—of a pretence of admiration for +certain works of which in reality we know very little, +and for which, if we knew more, we should perhaps +care even less. +</p> + +<p> +There are certain books which are standard, and as +it were planted in the British soil, before which the +great majority of us bow the knee and doff the cap +with a reverence that, in its ignorance, reminds one of +fetish worship, and, in its affectation, of the passion +for High Art. The works without which, we are told +at book auctions, 'no gentleman's library can be considered +complete,' are especially the objects of this +adoration. The 'Rambler,' for example, is one of them. +I was once shut up for a week of snowstorms in a +mountain inn, with the 'Rambler' and one other publication. +The latter was a Shepherd's Guide, with +illustrations of the way in which sheep are marked +by their various owners for the purpose of identification: +'Cropped near ear, upper key bitted far, a pop +on the head and another at the tail head, ritted, and +with two red strokes down both shoulders,' etc. It +was monotonous, but I confess that there were times +when I felt it some comfort in having that picture-book +to fall back upon, to alternate with the 'Rambler.' +</p> + +<p> +The essay, like port wine, I have noticed, requires +age for its due appreciation. Leigh Hunt's 'Indicator' +comprises some admirable essays, but the general public +have not a word to say for them; it may be urged +that that is because they had not read the 'Indicator' +But why then do they praise the 'Rambler' and +Montaigne? That comforting word, 'Mesopotamia,' +which has been so often alluded to in religious matters, +has many a parallel in profane literature. +</p> + +<p> +A good deal of this mock worship is of course due +to abject cowardice. A man who says he doesn't like +the 'Rambler,' runs, with some folks, the risk of being +thought a fool; but he is sure to be thought that, for +something or another, under any circumstances; and, +at all events, why should he not content himself, when +the 'Rambler' is belauded, with holding his tongue and +smiling acquiescence? It must be conceded that there +are a few persons who really have read the 'Rambler,' +a work, of course, I am merely using as a type of its +class. In their young days it was used as a schoolbook, +and thought necessary as a part of polite +education; and as they have read little or nothing +since, it is only reasonable that they should stick to +their colours. Indeed, the French satirist's boast that +he could predicate the views of any man with regard +to both worlds, if he were only supplied with the +simple data of his age and his income, is quite true in +the general with regard to literary taste. Given the +age of the ordinary individual—that is to say of the +gentleman 'fond of books, but who has really no time +for reading'—and it is easy enough to guess his +literary idols. They are the gods of his youth, and, +whether he has been 'suckled in a creed outworn' or +not, he knows no other. These persons, however, +rarely give their opinion about literary matters, except +on compulsion; they are harmless and truthful. The +tendency of society in general, on the other hand, is +not only to praise the 'Rambler' which they have not +read, but to express a noble scorn for those who have +read it and don't like it. +</p> + +<p> +I remember, as a young man, being greatly struck by +the independence of character exhibited by Miss Bronte +in a certain confession she made in respect to Miss +Austen's novels. It was at a period when everybody +professed to adore them, and especially the great-guns +of literature. Walter Scott thought more highly of the +genius of the author of 'Mansfield Park' even than +of that of his favourite, Miss Edgeworth. Macaulay +speaks of her as though she were the Eclipse of novelists—'first, +and the rest nowhere'—though his opinion, +it is true, lost something of its force from the contempt +he expressed for 'the rest,' among whom were +some much better ones. Dr. Whewell, a very different +type of mind, had 'Mansfield Park,' I believe, read to +him on his death-bed. And, indeed, up to the present +date, some highly-cultured persons of my acquaintance +take the same view. They may be very possibly +right, but that is no reason why the people who have +never read Miss Austen's novels—and very few have—should +ape the fashion. Now, the authoress of 'Jane +Eyre' did not derive much pleasure from the perusal +of the works of the other Jane. 'I know it's very +wrong,' she modestly said, 'but the fact is I can't read +them. They have not got story enough in them to +engage my attention. I don't want my blood curdled, +but I like it stirred. Miss Austen strikes me as milk-and-watery, +and, to say truth, as dull.' +</p> + +<p> +This opinion she has, in effect, repeated in her published +writings, but I had only heard her verbal expression +of it; and I admired her courage. If she +had been a man, struggling, as she then was, for a +position in literature, she would not have dared to say +half as much. For, what is very curious, the advocates +of the classic authors—those I mean whom antiquity +has more or less hallowed—instead of pitying those +unhappy wights who confess their want of appreciation +of them, fly at them with bludgeons, and dance upon +their prostrate bodies with clogs. +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'For who would rush on a benighted man,</p> +<p>And give him two black eyes for being blind?'</p></div></div> + +<p class="noindent"> +inquires the poet. I answer, 'lots of people,' and especially those who worship +the pagan divinities of literature. The same thing happens—but +<i>their</i> fury is more excusable, because they have less natural +intelligence—with the lovers of music. Instead of being sorry for the +poor folks who have 'no ear,' and whom 'a little music in the evening' bores to +extremity, they overwhelm them with reproaches for what is in fact a natural +infirmity. 'You Goth! you Vandal!' they exclaim, 'how contemptible is the +creature who has no music in his soul!' Which is really very rude. Even persons +who are not musical have their feelings. 'Hath not a Jew ears?'—that is +to say, though they have 'no ear,' they understand what is abusive language and +resent it. +</p> + +<p> +I am not saying one word against established reputations +in literature. The very fact of their being established +(even the 'Rambler,' for example, has its +merits) is in their favour; and, indeed, some of the +works I shall refer to are masterpieces. My objection +is to the sham admiration of them, which does their +authors no good (for their circulation is now of no +consequence to them), and is injurious not only to +modern writers (who are generally made the subject +of base comparison), but especially to the utterers of +this false coin themselves. One cannot tell falsehoods, +even about one's views in literature, without injury +to one's morals, yet to 'tell the truth and shame +the devil' is easy, as it would seem, compared with +telling the truth and defying the critics. +</p> + +<p> +I have alluded to the intrepidity of Miss Bronte in +this matter; and, curiously enough, it is women who +have the most courage in the expression of their literary +opinions. It may be said, of course, that this is +due to the audacity of ignorance, and a well-known +line may be quoted (for some people, as I have said, +are rude) in which certain angels (who are <i>not</i> women) +are represented as being afraid to tread in certain +places. But I am speaking of women who are great +readers. Miss Martineau once confessed to me that +she could see no beauties in 'Tom Jones.' 'Of course,' +she said, 'the coarseness disgusts me, but apart from +that, I see no sort of merit in it.' 'What?' I replied, +'no humour, no knowledge of human life?' 'No; to +me it is a wearisome book.' +</p> + +<p> +I disagreed with her very much upon that point, +and do so still; yet, apart from the coarseness (which +does not disgust everybody, let me tell you), there is a +good deal of tedious reading in 'Tom Jones.' At all +events that expression of opinion from such lips strikes +me as noteworthy. +</p> + +<p> +It may here be said that there are many English +authors of old date, some of whose beauties are unintelligible +except to those who are acquainted with the +classics; and 'Tom Jones' is one of them. Many of +the introductions to the chapters, not to mention a +certain travestie of an Homeric battle, must needs be +as wearisome to those who are not scholars, as the +spectacle of a burlesque is to those who have not seen +the original play. This is still more the case with our +old poets, especially Milton. I very much doubt, in +spite of the universal chorus to the contrary, whether +'Lycidas' is much admired by readers who are only +acquainted with English literature; I am quite sure it +never touched their hearts as, for example, 'In Memoriam' +does. +</p> + +<p> +I once beheld a young lady of great literary taste, +and of exquisite sensibility, torn to pieces (figuratively) +and trampled upon by a great scholar for venturing +to make a comparison between those two poems. +Its invocation to the Muses, and the general classical +air which pervades it, had destroyed for her the pathos +of 'Lycidas,' whereas to her antagonist those very imperfections +appeared to enhance its beauty. I did not +interfere, because the wretch was her husband, and it +would have been worse for her if I had, but my +sympathies were entirely with her. Her sad fate—for +the massacre took place in public—would, I was +well aware, have the effect of making people lie worse +than ever about Milton. On that same evening, while +some folks were talking about Mr. Morris's 'Earthly +Paradise,' I heard a scornful voice exclaim, 'Oh! give +ME "Paradise Lost,"' and with that gentleman I <i>did</i> +have it out. I promptly subjected him to cross-examination, +and drove him to that extremity that +he was compelled to admit he had never read a word +of Milton for forty years, and even then only in extracts +from 'Enfield's Speaker.' +</p> + +<p> +With Shakespeare—though there is a good deal of +lying about <i>him</i>—the case is different, and especially +with elderly people; for 'in their day,' as they +pathetically term it, Shakespeare was played everywhere, +and everyone went to the play. They do not +read him, but they recollect him; they are well +acquainted with his beauties—that is, with the better +known of them—and can quote him with manifest +appreciation. They are, intellectually, in a position +much superior to that of a fashionable lady of my +acquaintance who informed me that her daughters +were going to the theatre that night to see Shakespeare's +'Turning of the Screw.' +</p> + +<p> +The writer who has done most, without I suppose +intending it, to promote hypocrisy in literature +is Macaulay. His 'every schoolboy knows' has +frightened thousands into pretending to know authors +with whom they have not even a bowing acquaintance. +It is amazing that a man who had read so much should +have written so contemptuously of those who have read +but little; one would have thought that the consciousness +of superiority would have forbidden such insolence, +or that his reading would have been extensive enough +to teach him at least how little he had read of what +there was to read; since he read some things—works +of imagination and humour, for example—to such +very little purpose, he might really have bragged a +little less. One feels quite grateful to Macaulay, however, +for avowing his belief that he was the only man +who had read through the 'Faery Queen;' since that +exonerates everybody—I do not say from reading it, +because the supposition is preposterous—but from the +necessity of pretending to have read it. The pleasure +derived from that poem to most minds is, I am convinced, +analogous to that already spoken of as being +imparted by a foreign author: namely, the satisfaction +at finding it—in places—intelligible. For the few who +possess the poetic faculty it has great beauties, but I +observe, from the extracts that appear in Poetic +Selections and the like, that the most tedious and even +the most monstrous passages are those which are +generally offered for admiration. The case of Spenser +in this respect—which does not stand alone in ancient +English literature—has a curious parallel in art, where +people are positively found to go into ecstasies over a +distorted limb or a ludicrous inversion of perspective, +simply because it is the work of an old master, who +knew no better, or followed the fashion of his time. +</p> + +<p> +Leigh Hunt read the 'Faery Queen,' by-the-bye, as almost everything else that +has been written in the English tongue, and even Macaulay alludes with rare +commendation to his 'catholic taste.' Of all authors indeed, and probably of +all readers, Leigh Hunt had the keenest eye for merit and the warmest +appreciation of it wherever found. He was actively engaged in politics, yet was +never blind to the genius of an adversary; blameless himself in morals, he +could admire the wit of Wycherley; and a freethinker in religion, he could see +both wisdom and beauty in the divines. Moreover, it is immensely to his credit +that this universal knowledge, instead of puffing him up, only moved him to +impart it, and that next to the pleasure he took in books was that he derived +from teaching others to take pleasure in them. Witness his 'Wit and Humour' and +his 'Imagination and Fancy,' to my mind the greatest treasures in the way of +handbooks that have ever been offered to students of English literature, and +the completest antidotes to pretence in it. How many a time, as a boy, have I +pondered over this or that passage in the originals, from Shakespeare to +Suckling, and then compared it with the italicised lines in his two volumes, to +see whether I had hit upon the beauties; and how often, alas! I hit upon the +blots!<a href="#fn-2" name="fnref-2" id="fnref-2"><sup>[2]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-2" id="fn-2"></a> <a href="#fnref-2">[2]</a> +I remember (when 'I was but a little tiny boy') I thought that 'the fringed +curtains of thine eye advance,' addressed by Prospero to Miranda, must needs be +a very fine line; imagine then my confusion, on referring for corroboration to +my 'guide, philosopher, and friend,' as he truly was, to find this passage: +'Why Shakespeare should have condescended to the elaborate nothingness, not to +say nonsense, of this metaphor (for what is meant by "advancing curtains"?) I +cannot conceive. That is to say, if he did condescend: for it looks very like +the interpolation of some pompous declamatory player. Pope has put it into his +<i>Treatise on the Bathos</i>.' +</p> + +<p> +It is curious that Leigh Hunt, whose style has been so severely +handled (and, it must be owned, not without some justice) for its +affectations, should have been so genuine (although always generous) +in his criticisms. It was nothing to him whether an author was old or +new; nor did he shrink from any literary comparison between two +writers when he thought it appropriate (and he was generally right), +notwithstanding all the age and authority that might be at the back of +one of them. Thackeray, by the way, a very different writer and +thinker, had this same outspoken honesty in the expression of his +literary taste. In speaking of the hero of Cooper's five good +novels—Leather-Stocking, Hawkeye, etc.—he remarks with +quite a noble simplicity: 'I think he is better than any of Scott's +lot.' +</p> + +<p> +It is a 'far cry' from the 'Faery Queen' to 'Childe +Harold,' which, reckoning by years, is still a modern +poem; yet I wonder how many persons under thirty—even +of those who term it 'magnificent'—have ever +read 'Childe Harold.' At one time it was only people +under thirty who <i>had</i> read it; for poetry to the +ordinary reader is the poetry that was popular in his +youth—'no other is genuine.' +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'A dreary, weary poem called the <i>Excursion</i>,</p> +<p>Written in a manner which is my aversion,'</p></div></div> + +<p class="noindent"> +is a couplet the frankness of which has always recommended +itself to me (though I like the 'Excursion'); +but, except for the rhyme, it has a fatal facility +of application to other long poems. Heaven forbid +that I should 'with shadowed hint confuse' the faith +in a British classic; but, ye gods, how men have gaped +(in private) over 'Childe Harold!' +</p> + +<p> +'Gil Blas,' though not a native classic, is included +in the articles of the British literary faith; not as a +matter of pious opinion, but <i>de fide</i>; a necessity of +intellectual salvation. I remember an interview I +once had with a boy of letters concerning this immortal +work; he is a well-known writer now, but at +the time I speak of he was only budding and sprouting +in the magazines—a lad of promise, no doubt, but +given, if not to kick against authority, to question it, +and, what was worse, to question <i>me</i> about it, in an +embarrassing manner. The natural affability of my +disposition had caused him, I suppose, to treat me as +his Father Confessor in literature; and one of the sins +of omission he confided to me was in connection with +the divine Le Sage. +</p> + +<p> +'I say—about "Gil Blas," you know—Bias [a great +critic of that day] was saying last night that if he +were to be imprisoned for life with only one book to +read he would choose the Bible or "Gil Blas."' +</p> + +<p> +'It is very gratifying to me,' said I, wishing to +evade my young friend, and also because I had no +love for Bias, 'that he should have selected the Bible, +even as an alternative; and all the more so, since I +should never have expected it of him.' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, papa' (that was what the young dog was +wont to call me, though he was no son of mine—far +from it); 'but about "Gil Blas"? Is it <i>really</i> the next +best book? And after he had read it—say ten times—would +he not have been rather sorry that he had +not chosen—well, Shakespeare, for instance?' +</p> + +<p> +The picture of Bias with a long white beard, the +growth of twenty years, reading that tattered copy of +'Gil Blas' in his cell, almost affected me to tears; but +I made shift to answer gravely: 'Bias is a professional +critic; and persons of that class are apt to be a little +dogmatic and given to exaggeration. But "Gil Blas" +is a great work. As a picture of the seamy side of +human life—of its vices and its weaknesses at least—it +is unrivalled. The archbishop——' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! I know that archbishop—<i>well</i>,' interrupted +my young tormentor. 'I sometimes think, if it hadn't +been for that archbishop, we should never perhaps +have heard of "Gil Blas."' +</p> + +<p> +'Tchut, tchut!' said I; 'you talk like a child.' +</p> + +<p> +'But to read it <i>all through</i>, papa—three times, ten +times, for all one's life? Poor Mr. Bias!' +</p> + +<p> +'It is a matter of opinion, my dear boy,' I said. +'Bias has this great advantage over you in literary +matters, that he knows what he is talking about; and +if he was quite sure——' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! but he was not quite sure: he was rather +doubtful, he said, about one of the books.' +</p> + +<p> +'Not the Bible, I do hope?' said I fervently. +</p> + +<p> +'No, about the other. He was not quite sure but +that, instead of "Gil Blas," he ought to have selected +"Don Quixote." Now really that seems to me worse +than "Gil Blas." +</p> + +<p> +'You mean less excellent,' I rejoined; 'you are too +young to appreciate the full signification of "Don +Quixote."' +</p> + +<p> +The scoundrel murmured, 'Do you mean to tell +me people read it when they are old?' But I pretended +not to hear him. 'We do not all of us,' I +went on, 'know what is good for us. Sancho Panza's +physician——' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! I know that physician—<i>well</i>, papa. I sometimes +think, if it had not been for that physician, +perhaps——' +</p> + +<p> +'Hush!' I exclaimed authoritatively; 'let us have +no flippancy, I beg.' And so, with a dead lift as it +were, I got rid of him. He left the room muttering, +'But to read it through—three times, ten times, for +all one's life?' And I was obliged to confess to +myself that such a prolonged course of study, even of +'Don Quixote,' would have been wearisome. +</p> + +<p> +Rabelais is another article of our literary faith, that +is certainly subscribed to much more often than +believed in. In a certain poem of Mr. Browning's +(<i>I</i> call it the Burial of the Book, since the Latin name +he has given it is unpronounceable, even if it were +possible to recollect it), charmingly humorous, and +which is also remarkable for impersonating an inanimate +object in verse as Dickens does in prose, +there occur these lines: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'Then I went indoors, brought out a loaf,</p> +<p class="i2"> Half a cheese and a bottle of Chablis,</p> +<p>Lay on the grass, and forgot the oaf</p> +<p class="i2"> Over a jolly chapter of Rabelais.'</p></div></div> + +<p> +Yet I have known some wonder to be expressed (confidentially) +as to where he found the 'jolly chapter,' +and the looking for the beauties of Rabelais to be +likened to searching in a huge dung-heap for a few +heads of asparagus. +</p> + +<p> +I have no quarrel with Bias and Company (though +they stick at nothing, and will presently say that I +don't care for these books myself), but I venture to +think that they are wrong in making dogmas of what +are, after all, but matters of literary taste; it is their +vehemence and exaggeration which drive the weak to +take refuge in falsehood. +</p> + +<p> +A good woman in the country once complained of +her stepson, 'He will not love his learning, though +I beats him with a jack-chain;' and from the application +of similar aids to instruction, the same result takes +place in London. Only here we dissemble and pretend +to love it. It is partly in consequence of this +that works, not only of acknowledged but genuine +excellence, such as those I have been careful to select, +are, though so universally praised, so little read. The +poor student attempts them, but failing—from many +causes no doubt, but also sometimes from the fact of +their not being there—to find those unrivalled beauties +which he has been led to expect in every sentence, +he stops short, where he would otherwise have gone +on. He says to himself, 'I have been deceived,' or 'I +must be a born fool;' whereas he is wrong in both +suppositions. I am convinced that the want of popularity +of Walter Scott among the rising generation is +partly due to this extravagant laudation; and I am +much mistaken if another great author, more recently +deceased, will not in a few years be added to the +ranks of those who are more praised than read from +the same cause. +</p> + +<p> +The habit of mere adhesion to received opinion in +any matter is most mischievous, for it strikes at the +root of independence of thought; and in literature it +tends to make the public taste mechanical. It is very +seldom that what is called the verdict of posterity +(absurdly enough, for are not <i>we</i> posterity?) is ever +reversed; but it has chanced to happen in a certain +case quite lately. The production of 'The Iron +Chest' upon the stage has once more brought into +fashion 'Caleb Williams.' Now that is a work, though +by no means belonging to the same rank as those to +which I have referred, which has a fine old crusted +reputation. Time has hallowed it. The great world +of readers (who have never read it) used to echo the +remark of Bias and Company, that this and that +modern work of fiction reminded them—though at an +immense distance, of course—of Godwin's masterpiece. +I remember Le Fanu's 'Uncle Silas,' for example +(from some similarity, more fanciful perhaps than +real, in the isolation of its hero), being thus compared +with it. Now 'Caleb Williams' is founded on a very +fine conception—one that could only have occurred, +perhaps, to a man of genius; the first part of it is well +worked out, but towards the middle it grows feeble, +and it ends in tediousness and drivel; whereas 'Uncle +Silas' is good and strong from first to last. Le Fanu +has never been so popular as, in my humble judgment, +he deserves to be, but of course modern readers were +better acquainted with him than with Godwin. Yet +nine out of ten were always heard repeating this +cuckoo cry about the latter's superiority, until the +'Iron Chest' came out, and Fashion induced them to +read Godwin for themselves; which has very properly +changed their opinion. +</p> + +<p> +I remember, in my own case, that, from that +reverence for authority which I hope I share with my +neighbours, I used to speak of 'Headlong Hall' and +'Crotchet Castle'—both great favourites of our fore-fathers—with +much respect, until one wet day in the +country I found myself shut up with them. I won't +say what I suffered; better judges of literature than +myself admire them still, I know. I will only remark +that <i>I</i> don't admire them. I don't say they are the +dullest novels ever printed, because that would be invidious, +and might do wrong to works of even greater +pretensions; but to my mind they are dull. +</p> + +<p> +When Dr. Johnson is free to confess that he does not +admire Gray's 'Elegy,' and Macaulay to avow that he +sees little to praise in Dickens and Wordsworth, why +should not humbler folks have the courage of their +own opinions? They cannot possibly be more wrong +than Johnson and Macaulay were, and it is surely +better to be honest, though it may expose one to some +ridicule, than to lie. The more we agree with the verdict +of the generations before us on these matters, the +more, it is quite true, we are likely to be right; but +the agreement should be an honest one. At present +very extensive domains in literature are, as it were, +enclosed and denied to the public in respect to any +free expression of their opinion. 'They are splendid, +they are faultless,' cries the general voice, but the +general eye has not beheld them. Nothing, of course, +could be more futile than that, with every new generation, +our old authors who have won their fame should +be arraigned anew at the bar of public criticism; but, +on the other hand, there is no reason why the mouths +of us poor moderns should be muzzled, and still less +that we 'should praise with alien lips.' +</p> + +<p> +'Until Caldecott's charming illustrations of it made +me laugh so much,' said a young lady to me the other +day, 'I confess—though I know it's very stupid of me—I +never saw much fun in "John Gilpin."' She +evidently expected a reproof, and when I whispered +in her ear, 'Nor I,' her lovely features assumed a look +of positive enfranchisement. +</p> + +<p> +'But am I right?' she inquired. +</p> + +<p> +'You are certainly right, my dear young lady,' said +I, 'not to pretend admiration where you don't feel it; +as to liking "John Gilpin," that is a matter of taste. +It has, of course, simplicity to recommend it; but in +my own case, though I'm fond of fun, it has never +evoked a smile. It has always seemed to me like one +of Mr. Joe Miller's stories put into tedious verse.' +</p> + +<p> +I really almost thought (and hoped) that that young +lady would have kissed me. +</p> + +<p> +'Papa always says it is a free country,' she exclaimed, +'but I never felt it to be the case before this +moment.' +</p> + +<p> +For years this beautiful and accomplished creature +had locked this awful secret in her innocent breast—that +she didn't see much fun in 'John Gilpin.' 'You +have given me courage,' she said, 'to confess something +else. Mr. Caldecott has just been illustrating in +the same charming manner Goldsmith's "Elegy on a +Mad Dog," and—I'm very sorry—but I never laughed +at <i>that</i> before, either. I have pretended to laugh, you +know,' she added, hastily and apologetically, 'hundreds +of times.' +</p> + +<p> +'I don't doubt it,' I replied; 'this is not such a free +country as your father supposes.' +</p> + +<p> +'But am I right?' +</p> + +<p> +'I say nothing about "right,"' I answered, 'except +that everybody has a right to his own opinion. For +my part, however, I think the 'Mad Dog' better than +'John Gilpin' only because it is shorter.' +</p> + +<p> +Whether I was wrong or right in the matter is of +no consequence even to myself; the affection and +gratitude of that young creature would more than repay +me for a much greater mistake, if mistake it is. +She protests that I have emancipated her from slavery. +She has since talked to me about all sorts of authors, +from Sir Philip Sidney to Washington Irving, in a +way that would make some people's blood run cold; +but it has no such effect upon me—quite the reverse. +Of Irving she naïvely remarks that his strokes of +humour seem to her to owe much of their success to +the rarity of their occurrence; the flashes of fun are +spread over pages of dulness, which enhance them, +just as a dark night is propitious to fireworks, or the +atmosphere of the House cf Commons, or of a Court +of Law, to a joke. She is often in error, no doubt, but +how bright and wholesome such talk is as compared +with the platitudes and commonplaces which one hears +on all sides in connection with literature! +</p> + +<p> +As a rule, I suppose, even people in society ('the drawing-rooms and the +clubs') are not absolutely base and yet one would really think so, to judge by +the fear that is entertained by them of being natural. 'I vow to heaven,' says +the prince of letter-writers, 'that I think the Parrots of Society are more +intolerable and mischievous than its Birds of Prey. If ever I destroy myself, +it will be in the bitterness of having those infernal and damnable "good old +times" extolled.' One is almost tempted to say the same—when one hears +their praises come from certain mouths—of the good old books. It is not +everyone, of course, who has an opinion of his own upon any subject, far less +on that of literature, but everyone can abstain from expressing an opinion that +is not his own. If one has no voice, what possible compensation can there be in +becoming an echo? No one, I conclude, would wish to see literature discoursed +about in the same pinchbeck and affected style as are painting and music; +<a href="#fn-3" name="fnref-3" id="fnref-3"><sup>[3]</sup></a> yet that is what +will happen if this prolific weed of sham admiration is permitted to attain its +full growth. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-3" id="fn-3"></a> <a href="#fnref-3">[3]</a> +The slang of art-talk has reached the 'young men' in the furniture warehouses. +A friend of mine was recommended a sideboard the other day as not being a +Chippendale, but as 'having a Chippendale <i>feeling</i> in it.' +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/01.jpg" width="300" height="181" alt="[decoration]" /> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>THE PINCH OF POVERTY.</h2> + +<p> +In these days of reduction of rents, or of total abstinence +from rent-paying, it is, I am told, the +correct thing to be 'a little pressed for money.' It +is a sign of connection with the landed interest (like +the banker's ejaculation in 'Middlemarch') and suggests +family acres, and entails, and a position in the +county. (In which case I know a good many people +who are landlords on a very extensive scale, and have +made allowances for their tenants the generosity of +which may be described as Quixotic.) But as a general +rule, and in times less exceptionally hard, though +Shakespeare tells us 'How apt the poor are to be +proud,' they are not proud of being poor. +</p> + +<p> +'Poverty,' says the greatest of English divines, 'is +indeed despised and makes men contemptible; it exposes +a man to the influences of evil persons, and +leaves a man defenceless; it is always suspected; its +stories are accounted lies, and all its counsels follies; +it puts a man from all employment; it makes a man's +discourses tedious and his society troublesome. This +is the worst of it.' Even so poverty seems pretty bad, +but, begging Dr. Jeremy Taylor's pardon, what he has +stated is by no means 'the worst of it.' To be in +want of food at any time, and of firing in winter time, +is ever so much worse than the inconveniences he +enumerates; and to see those we love—delicate +women and children perhaps—in want, is worse still. +The fact is, the excellent bishop probably never knew +what it was to go without his meals, but took them +'reg'lar' (as Mrs. Gamp took her Brighton ale) as +bishops generally do. Moreover, since his day, Luxury +has so universally increased, and the value of Intelligence +has become so well recognised (by the publishers) +that even philosophers, who profess to despise such +things, have plenty to eat, and good of its kind too. +Hence it happens that, from all we hear to the contrary +from the greatest thinkers, the deprivation of +food is a small thing: indeed, as compared with the +great spiritual struggles of noble minds, and the doubts +that beset them as to the supreme government of the +universe, it seems hardly worth mentioning. +</p> + +<p> +In old times, when folks were not so 'cultured,' starvation +was thought more of. It is quite curious, indeed, +to contrast the high-flying morality of the present +day (when no one is permitted, either by Evolutionist +or Ritualist, however dire may be his necessity, so +much as to jar his conscience) with the shocking laxity +of the Holy Scriptures. 'Men do not despise a thief +if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry,' says +Solomon, after which stretch of charity, strange to say, +he goes on to speak of marital infidelity in terms that, +considering the number of wives he had himself, strike +one as severe. +</p> + +<p> +It is certain, indeed, that the sacred writers were +apt to make great allowances for people with empty +stomachs, and though I am well aware that the present +profane ones think this very reprehensible, I +venture to agree with the sacred writers. The sharpest +tooth of poverty is felt, after all, in the bite of hunger. +A very amusing and graphic writer once described his +experience of a whole night passed in the streets; the +exhaustion, the pain, the intolerable weariness of it, +were set forth in a very striking manner; the sketch +was called 'The Key of the Street,' and was thought +by many, as Browning puts it, to be 'the true Dickens.' +But what are even the pangs of sleeplessness and +fatigue compared with those of want? Of course +there have been fanatics who have fasted many days; +but they have been supported by the prospect of spiritual +reward. I confess I reserve my pity for those +who have no such golden dreams, and who fast perforce. +It is exceedingly difficult for mere worldlings—such +as most of us are—not to eat, if it is possible, +when we are hungry. I have known a great social +philosopher who flattered himself that he was giving +his sons an experience of High Thinking and Low +Living by restricting their pocket-money to two shillings +a day, out of which it was understood they were +to find their own meals. I don't know whether the +spirit in their case was willing, but the flesh was decidedly +weak, for one of them, on this very moderate +allowance, used to contrive to always have a pint of +dry champagne with his luncheon. The fact is, that +of the iron grip of poverty, people in general, by no +means excepting those who have written about it, have +had very little experience; whereas of the pinch of it +a good many people know something. It is the object +of this paper—and the question should be an interesting +one, considering how much it is talked about—to +inquire briefly where it lies. +</p> + +<p> +It is quite extraordinary how very various are the +opinions entertained on this point, and, before sifting +them, one must be careful in the first place to eliminate +from our inquiry the cases of that considerable +class of persons who pinch themselves. For, however +severely they do it, they may stop when they like and +the pain is cured. There is all the difference in the +world between pulling one's own tooth out, and even +the best and kindest of dentists doing it for one. How +gingerly one goes to work, and how often it strikes +one that the tooth is a good tooth, that it has been a +fast friend to us for ever so many years and never +'fallen out' before, and that after all it had better stop +where it is! +</p> + +<p> +To the truly benevolent mind, indeed, nothing is +more satisfactory than to hear of a miser denying himself +the necessaries of life a little too far and ridding +us of his presence altogether. Our confidence in the +average virtue of humanity assures us that his place +will be supplied by a better man. The details of his +penurious habits, the comfortless room, the scanty +bedding, the cheese-rinds on his table, and the fat +banking-book under his thin bolster, only inspire disgust: +if he were pinched to death he did it himself, +and so much the better for the world in general and +his heir in particular. +</p> + +<p> +Again, the people who have a thousand a year, and +who try to persuade the world that they have two +thousand, suffer a good deal of inconvenience, but it +can't be called the pinch of poverty. They may put +limits to their washing-bills, which persons of cleanlier +habits would consider unpleasantly narrow; they may +eat cold mutton in private for five days a week in +order to eat turtle and venison in public (and with the +air of eating them every day) on the sixth; and they +may immure themselves in their back rooms in London +throughout the autumn in order to persuade folks +that they are still at Trouville, where for ten days they +did really reside and in splendour; but all their stint +and self-incarceration, so far from awakening pity, only +fill us with contempt. I am afraid that even the complaining +tones of our City friend who tells us that in +consequence of 'the present unsettled state of the +markets' he has been obliged to make 'great retrenchments'—which +it seems on inquiry consist in putting +down one of his carriages and keeping three horses +instead of six—fail to draw the sympathising tear. +Indeed, to a poor man this pretence of suffering on +the part of the rich is perhaps even more offensive +than their boasts of their prosperity. +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, when the rich become really +poor their case is hard indeed; though, strange to say, +we hear little of it. It is like drowning; there is a +feeble cry, a little ineffectual assistance from the bystanders, +and then they go under. It is not a question +of pinch with <i>them</i>; they have fallen into the gaping +mouth of ruin, and it has devoured them. If we ever +see them again, it is in the second generation as +waiters (upon Providence), or governesses, and we say, +'Why, dear me, that was Bullion's son (or daughter), +wasn't it?' using the past tense, as if they were dead. +'I remember him when he lived in Eaton Square.' +This class of cases rarely comes under the head of +'genteel poverty.' They were at the top, and hey +presto! by some malignant stroke of fate they are at +the bottom; and there they stick. +</p> + +<p> +I don't believe in bachelors ever experiencing the +pinch of poverty; I have heard them complaining of +it at the club, while ordering Medina oysters instead +of Natives, but, after all, what does it signify even if +they were reduced to cockles? They have no appearances +to keep up, and if they cannot earn enough to +support themselves they must be poor creatures indeed. +</p> + +<p> +It is the large families of moderate income, who +are delicate, and have delicate tastes, that feel the +twinge: and especially the poor girls. I remember a +man, with little care for his personal appearance, of +small means but with a very rich sense of humour, +describing to me his experiences when staying at a +certain ducal house in the country, where his feelings +must have been very similar to those of Christopher +Sly. In particular he drew a charming picture of the +magnificent attendant who in the morning <i>would</i> put +out his clothes for him, which had not been made by +Mr. Poole, nor very recently by anybody. The contempt +which he well understood his Grace's gentleman +must have felt for him afforded him genuine enjoyment. +But with young ladies, in a similar position, +matters are very different; they have rarely a sense +of humour, and certainly none strong enough to +counteract the force of a personal humiliation. I +have known some very charming ones, compelled to +dress on a very small allowance, who, in certain +mansions where they have been occasionally guests, +have been afraid to put their boots outside their door, +because they were not of the newest, and have +trembled when the officious lady's-maid has meddled +with their scanty wardrobe. A philosopher may think +nothing of this, but, considering the tender skin of +the sufferer, it may be fairly called a pinch. +</p> + +<p> +In the investigation of this interesting subject, I +have had a good deal of conversation with young +ladies, who have given me the fullest information, and +in a manner so charming, that, if it were common in +witnesses generally, it would make Blue-Books very +pretty reading. +</p> + +<p> +'I consider it to be "a pinch,"' says one, 'when I am +obliged to put on black mittens on occasions when I +know other girls will have long white kid gloves.' I +must confess I have a prejudice myself against mittens; +they are, so to speak, 'gritty' to touch; so that the +pinch, if it be one, experienced by the wearer, is +shared by her ungloved friends. The same thing +may be said of that drawing-room fire which is lit so +late in the season for economical reasons, and so late +in the day at all times: the pinch is felt as much by +the visitors as by the members of the household. +These things, however, are mere nips, and may be +placed in the same category with the hardships +complained of by my friend Quiverfull's second boy. +'I don't mind having papa's clothes cut up for me,' he +says, 'but what I do think hard is getting Bob's +clothes' (Bob being his elder brother), 'which have +been papa's first; however, I am in great hopes that I +am out-growing Bob.' +</p> + +<p> +A much more severe example of the pinch of +poverty than these is to be found in railway travelling; +no lady of any sense or spirit objects to travel +by the second, or even the third class, if her means +do not justify her going by the first. But when she +meets with richer friends upon the platform, and +parts with them to journey in the same compartment +with their man-servant, she suffers as acutely as +though, when the guard slams the door of the carriage +with the vehemence proportioned to its humble +rank, her tender hand had been crushed in it. Of +course it is very foolish of her; but it demands democratic +opinions, such as almost no woman of birth and +breeding possesses, not to feel <i>that</i> pinch. Her knowledge +that it is also hard upon the man-servant, who +has never sat in her presence before, but only stooped +over her shoulder with ''Ock, miss,' serves but to increase +her pain. +</p> + +<p> +A great philosopher has stated that the worst evil +of poverty is, that it makes folks ridiculous; by which, +I hope, he only means that, as in the above case, it +places them in incongruous positions. The man, or +woman, who derives amusement from the lack of +means of a fellow-creature, would jeer at a natural +deformity, be cruel to children, and insult old age. +Such people should be whipped and then hanged. +Nevertheless there are certain little pinches of poverty +so slight, that they tickle almost as much as they hurt +the victim. A lady once told me (interrupting herself, +however, with pleasant bursts of merriment) that as a +young girl her allowance was so small that when +she went out to spend the evening at a friend's, her +promised pleasure was darkened by the presentiment +(always fulfilled) that the cabman was sure to charge +her more than the proper fare. The extra expense +was really of consequence to her, but she never dared +dispute it, because of the presence of the footman who +opened the door. +</p> + +<p> +Some young ladies—quite as lady-like as any who +roll in chariots—cannot even afford a cab. 'What <i>I</i> +call the pinch of poverty,' observed an example of this +class, 'is the waiting for omnibus after omnibus on a +wet afternoon and finding them all full.' +</p> + +<p> +'But surely,' I replied with gallantry, 'any man +would have given up his seat to you?' +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head with a smile that had very little fun in it. 'People in +omnibuses,' she said, 'don't give up their seats to others.' Nor, I am bound to +confess, do they do so elsewhere; if I had been in their place, perhaps I +should have been equally selfish; though I do think I should have made an +effort, in this instance at least, to make room for her close beside me. +<a href="#fn-4" name="fnref-4" id="fnref-4"><sup>[4]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-4" id="fn-4"></a> <a href="#fnref-4">[4]</a> +There is, however, some danger in this. I remember reading of some highly +respectable old gentleman in the City who thus accommodated on a wet day a very +nice young woman in humble circumstances. She was as full of apologies as of +rainwater, and he of good-natured rejoinders, intended to put her at her ease; +so that he became, in a Platonic and paternal way, quite friendly with her by +the time she arrived at her destination—which happened to be his own +door. She turned out to be his new cook, which was afterwards very +embarrassing. +</p> + +<p> +A young governess whom some wicked fairy endowed at her birth with the +sensitiveness often denied to princesses, has assured me that her +journeys by railway have sometimes been rendered miserable by the +thought that she had not even a few pence to spare for the porter who +would presently shoulder her little box on to the roof of her cab. +</p> + +<p> +It is people of this class, much more than those +beneath them, who are shut out from all amusements. +The mechanic goes to the play and to the music-hall, +and occasionally takes his 'old girl,' as he calls his +wife, and even 'a kid' or two, to the Crystal Palace. +But those I have in my mind have no such relaxation +from compulsory duty and importunate care. 'I know +it's very foolish, but I feel it sometimes to be a pinch,' +says one of these ill-fated ones, 'to see them all [the +daughters of her employer] going to the play, or +the opera, while I am expected to be satisfied with +a private view of their pretty dresses.' No doubt +it is the sense of comparison (especially with the +female) that sharpens the sting of poverty. It is not, +however, through envy that the 'prosperity of fools +destroys us,' so much as the knowledge of its unnecessariness +and waste. When a mother has a sick +child who needs sea air, which she cannot afford to +give it, the consciousness that her neighbour's family +(the head of which perhaps is a most successful +financier and market-rigger) are going to the Isle of +Wight for three months, though there is nothing at +all the matter with them, is an added bitterness. How +often it is said (no doubt with some well-intentioned +idea of consolation) that after all money cannot buy +life! I remember a curious instance to the contrary +of this. In the old days of sailing-packets a country +gentleman embarked for Ireland, and when a few +miles from land broke a bloodvessel through seasickness. +A doctor on board pronounced that he +would certainly die before the completion of the +voyage if it was continued; whereupon the sick man's +friends consulted with the captain, who convoked the +passengers, and persuaded them to accept compensation +in proportion to their needs for allowing the +vessel to be put back; which was accordingly done. +</p> + +<p> +One of the most popular fictions of our time was +even written with this very moral, that life is unpurchasable. +Yet nothing is more certain than that +life is often lost through want of money—that is, of +the obvious means to save it. In such a case how +truly has it been written that 'the destruction of the +poor is their poverty'! This, however, is scarcely a +pinch, but, to those who have hearts to feel it, a wrench +that 'divides asunder the joints and the marrow.' +</p> + +<p> +A nobler example, because a less personal one, of +the pinch of poverty, is when it prevents the accomplishment +of some cherished scheme for the benefit of +the human race. I have felt such a one myself when +in extreme youth I was unable, from a miserable +absence of means, to publish a certain poem in several +cantos. That the world may not have been much +better for it if I had had the means does not affect +the question. It is easy to be incredulous. Henry VII. +of England did not believe in the expectations of +Columbus, and suffered for it, and his case may have +been similar to that of the seven publishers to whom +I applied in vain. +</p> + +<p> +A man with an invention on which he has spent +his life, but has no means to get it developed for the +good of humanity—or even patented for himself—must +feel the pinch of poverty very acutely. +</p> + +<p> +To sum up the matter, the longer I live, the more +I am convinced that the general view in respect to +material means is a false one. That great riches are +a misfortune is quite true; the effect of them in the +moral sense (with here and there a glorious exception, +however) is deplorable: a shower of gold falling continuously +upon any body (or soul) is as the waters of +a petrifying spring. But, on the other hand, the +occasional and precarious dripping of coppers has by +no means a genial effect. If the one recipient becomes +hard as the nether millstone, the other (just as after +constant 'pinching' a limb becomes insensible) grows +callous, and also (though it seems like a contradiction +in terms) sometimes acquires a certain dreadful +suppleness. Nothing is more monstrous than the +generally received opinion with respect to a moderate +competence; that 'fatal gift,' as it is called, which +encourages idleness in youth by doing away with the +necessity for exertion. I never hear the same people +inveighing against great inheritances, which are much +more open to such objections. The fact is, if a young +man is naturally indolent, the spur of necessity will +drive him but a very little way, while the having +enough to live upon is often the means of preserving his +self-respect. One constantly hears what humiliating +things men will do for money, whereas the truth is +that they do them for the want of it. It is not the +temptation which induces them, but the pinch. 'Give +me neither poverty nor riches,' was Agur's prayer; +'feed me with food convenient for me, lest I be full +and deny Thee, and say, Who is the Lord? or lest I +be poor and steal.' And there are many things—flatteries, +disgraceful humiliations, hypocrisies—which +are almost as bad as stealing. One of the sharpest +pinches of poverty to some minds must be their inability +(because of their dependency on him and that +of others upon them) to tell a man what they think +of him. +</p> + +<p> +Riches and poverty are of course but relative terms; +but the happiest material position in which a man +can be placed is that of 'means with a margin.' Then, +however small his income may be, however it may +behove him to 'cut and contrive,' as the housekeepers +call it, he does not feel the pinch of poverty. I have +known a rich man say to an acquaintance of this +class, 'My good friend, if you only knew how very +small are the pleasures my money gives me which +you yourself cannot purchase!' And for once it was +not one of those cheap and empty consolations which +the wealthy are so ready to bestow upon their less +fortunate fellow-creatures. Dives was, in that instance, +quite right in his remark; only we must remember he +was not speaking to Lazarus. 'A dinner of herbs +where love is,' is doubtless quite sufficient for us; only +there must be enough of it, and the herbs should be +nicely cooked in an omelette. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/02.jpg" width="300" height="95" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>THE LITERARY CALLING AND ITS FUTURE.</h2> + +<p> +One would think that in writing about literary +men and matters there would be no difficulty +in finding a title for one's essay, or that any embarrassment +which might arise would be from excess of +material. I find this, however, far from being the +case. 'Men of Letters,' for example, is a heading too +classical and pretentious. I do indeed remember its +being used in these modern days by the sub-editor of +a country paper, who, having quarrelled with his proprietor, +and reduced him to silence by a violent kick +in the abdomen, thus addressed him: 'I leave you +and your dirty work for ever, and start to-night for +London, to take up my proper position as a Man of +Letters.' But this gentleman's case (and I hope that +of his proprietor) was an exceptional one. The term +in general is too ambitious and suggestive of the +author of 'Cato,' for my humble purpose. 'Literature +as a Profession,' again, is open to objection on the +question of fact. The professions do not admit literature +into their brotherhood. 'Literature, Science, and +Art' are all spoken of in the lump, and rather +contemptuously (like 'reading, writing, and arithmetic'), +and have no settled position whatever. In a book of +precedence, however—a charming class of work, and +much more full of humour than the peerage—I recently +found indicated for the first time the relative place +of Literature in the social scale. After a long list of +Eminent Personages and Notables, the mere perusal +of which was calculated to bring the flush of pride into +my British cheek, I found at the very bottom these +remarkable words, 'Burgesses, Literary Persons, and +others.' Lest haughtiness should still have any place +in the breasts of these penultimates of the human +race, the order was repeated in the same delightful +volume in still plainer fashion, 'Burgesses, Literary +Persons, etc.' It is something, of course, to take precedence—in +going down to dinner, for example—even +of an et cetera; but who are Burgesses? I have +a dreadful suspicion they are not gentlemen. Are +they ladies? Did I ever meet a Burgess, I wonder, +coming through the rye? At all events, after so +authoritative a statement of its social position, I feel +that to speak of Literature as a profession would be +an hyperbole. +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, 'The Literary Calling' is not a +title that satisfies me. For the word 'calling' implies +a certain fitness; in the religious sense it has even +more significance; and it cannot be denied that there +are a good many persons who devote—well, at least, +their time to literature, who can hardly be said to +have 'a call' in that direction, nor even so much as a +whisper. At the same time I will venture to observe, +notwithstanding a great deal of high-sounding twaddle +talked and written to the contrary, that it is not necessary +for a man to feel any miraculous or even extraordinary +attraction to this pursuit to succeed in it +very tolerably. I remember a now distinguished personage +(in another line) who had written a very successful +work, expressing his opinion to me that unless +a certain divine afflatus animated a man, he should +never take up his pen to address the public. The +writing for pay, he added (he had at least £5,000 a year +of his own), was the degradation of literature. As I +had written about a dozen books myself at the time, +and most decidedly with an eye to profit, and had +never experienced much afflatus, this remark discouraged +me very much. However, as the gentleman +in question did essay another volume, which +was so absolute and distinct a failure that he +promptly took up another line of business (far above +that of Burgesses), it is probable he altered his +views. +</p> + +<p> +Nature of course is the best guide in the matter of +choosing a pursuit. When she says 'This is your line, +stick to it,' she seldom or never makes a mistake. +But, on the other hand, her speech must be addressed +to mature ears. For my part, I do not much believe in +the predilections of boyhood. I was never so simple +as to wish to go to sea, but I do remember (when +between seven and eight) having a passionate longing +to become a merchant. I had no notion, however, of +the preliminary stages; the high stool in the close +street; luncheon at a counter, standing (I liked to +have my meals good, plentiful, often, and in comfort, +even then); and imprisonment at the office on the +eves of mail nights till the large hours p.m. Even the +full fruition of such aspirations—the large waistcoat +beginning to 'point,' (as it soon does in merchants), +heavy watchchain, and cheerful conviction of the +coming scarcity of necessaries for everybody else, would +have failed to please. The sort of merchant I wanted +to be was never found in 'Post Office Directory,' but +in the 'Arabian Nights,' trading to Bussorah, chiefly +in pearls and diamonds. When the Paterfamiliases +of my acquaintance instance certain stenches and +messes which their Toms and Harrys make with chemicals +all over their house, as a proof of 'their natural +turn for engineering,' I say, 'Very likely,' or 'A capital +thing,' but I <i>think</i> of that early attraction of my own +towards Bussorah. The young gentlemen never dream +of what I once heard described, in brief, as the real +business life of a scientific apprentice: 'To lie on your +back with a candle in your hand, while another fellow +knocks nails into a boiler.' +</p> + +<p> +Boys have rarely any special aptitude for anything +practical beyond punching each others' heads, or (and +these are the clever ones) for keeping their own heads +unpunched. As a rule, in short, Nature is not demonstrative +as respects our professional future. +</p> + +<p> +It must nevertheless be conceded that if the boy is +ever father to the man in this respect, it is in connection +with literature. Also, however prosaic their works +are fated to be, it is curious that the aspirants for the +profession below Burgesses always begin with Poetry. +Even Harriet Martineau wrote verses in early life bad +enough to comfort the soul of any respectable parent. +The approach to the Temple of Literary Fame is +almost always through double gates—couplets. And +yet I have known youthful poets, apparently bound +for Paternoster Row, bolt off the course in a year or +two, to the delight of their friends, and become, of +their own free will, drysalters. +</p> + +<p> +There is so much talk about the 'indications of +immortality in early childhood' (of a very different +kind from those referred to by Wordsworth), and it is +so much the habit of biographers to use magnifiers +when their subject is small, that it needs some courage +to avow my belief that the tastes of boys have very +little significance. A clever boy can be trained to +almost anything, and an ordinary boy will not do one +thing much better than another. With the Geniuses +I will allow (for the sake of peace and quietness) that +Nature is all-powerful, but with nine hundred and +ninety-nine out of a thousand of us, Second Nature, +Use, is the true mistress; and what will doubtless +strike some people as almost paradoxical, but is +nevertheless a fact, Literature is the calling in which +she has the greatest sway. +</p> + +<p> +It is the fashion with that enormous class of people +who don't know what they are talking about, and +who take up cuckoo-cries, to speak contemptuously +of modern literature, by which they mean (for they +are acquainted with little else) periodical literature. +However small may be its merits, it is at all events +ten times as good as ancient periodical literature used +to be. A very much better authority than myself on +such a subject has lately informed us that the majority +of the old essays in the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>, at the +very time when it was supposed to be most 'trenchant,' +'masterly,' 'exhaustive,' and a number of other splendid +epithets, are so dull and weak and ignorant, that it is +impossible that they or their congeners would now +find acceptance in any periodical of repute. And with +regard to all other classes of old magazine literature, +this verdict is certainly most just. +</p> + +<p> +Let us take what most people suppose to be 'the extreme case,' Magazine Poetry. +Of course there is to-day a great deal of rant and twaddle published under the +name of verse in magazines; yet I could point to scores and scores of poems +that have thus appeared during the last ten years,<a href="#fn-5" name="fnref-5" id="fnref-5"><sup>[5]</sup></a> +which half a century ago would have made—and deservedly have made—a +high reputation for their authors. Such phrases as 'universal necessity for +practical exertion,' 'prosaic character of the age,' etc., are, of course, +common enough; but those who are acquainted with such matters will, I am sure, +corroborate my assertion that there was never so much good poetry in our +general literature as exists at present. Persons of intelligence do not look +for such things perhaps, and certainly not in magazines, while persons of +'culture' are too much occupied with old china and high art; but to humble +folks, who take an interest in their fellow-creatures, it is very pleasant to +observe what high thoughts, and how poetically expressed, are now to be found +about our feet, and, as it were, in the literary gutter. I don't compare these +writers with Byrons and Shelleys; I don't speak of them as born poets at all. +On the contrary, my argument is that second nature (cultivation, opportunities +of publication, etc.) has made them what they are; and it is immensely +creditable to her. +</p> + +<p> +And what holds good of verse holds infinitely better +in respect to prose. The enormous improvement in +our prose writers (I am not speaking of geniuses, +remember, but of the generality), and their great +superiority over writers of the same class half a +century ago, is mainly due to use. Sir Walter Scott, +who, like most men of genuine power, had great +generosity, once observed to a brother author, 'You +and I came just in the nick of time.' He foresaw the +formidable competition that was about to take place, +though he had no cause to fear it. I think in these +days he would have had cause; not that I disbelieve +in his genius, but that I venture to think he diffused +it over too large an area. In such cases genius is +overpassed by the talent which husbands its resources; +in other words, Nature succumbs to second nature, as +the wife in the patriarchal days (when <i>she</i> grew +patriarchal) succumbed to the handmaid. And after +all, though we talk so glibly about genius, and profess +to feel, though we cannot express, in what it differs +from talent, are we quite so sure about this as we +would fain persuade ourselves? At all events, it cannot +surely be contended that a man of genius always +writes like one; and when he does not, his work is +often inferior to the first-rate production of a man of +talent. For my own part, I am not sure whether +(with the exception, perhaps, of the highest gifts of +song) the whole distinction is not fanciful. +</p> + +<p> +We are ready enough in ordinary matters to allow +that 'practice makes perfect,' and the limit of that +principle is yet to be found. Moreover, the vast +importance of exclusive application is almost unknown. +We see it, indeed, in men of science and in +lawyers, but without recognition; nay, socially, it is +even quoted against them. The mathematician may +be very eminent, but we find him dry; the lawyer may +be at the head of his profession, but we find him dull; +and it is observed on all sides how very little great A +and great B, notwithstanding the high position they +have earned for themselves in their calling, know of +matters out of their own line. On the other hand, the +man of whom it was said that 'science was his forte +and omniscience his foible,' has left no enduring +monument behind him; and so it must always be with +mortals who have only fifty years of thought allotted +to them at the very most, and who diffuse it. Everyone +admits the value of application, but very few are +aware how its force is wasted by diffusion: it is like a +volatile essence in a bottle without a cork. When, on +the other hand, it is concentrated—you may call it +'narrowed' if you please—there is hardly anything +within its own sphere of action of which it is not +capable. So many high motives (though also some +mean ones) prompt us to make broad the bases of +education, that any proposal to contract them must +needs be thankless and unpopular; but it is certain +that, among the upper classes at least, the reason why +so many men are unable to make their way in the +world, is because, thanks to a too liberal education, +they are Jacks of all trades and masters of none; and +even as Jacks they cut a very poor figure. +</p> + +<p> +How large and varied is the educational bill of fare +set before every young gentleman in Great Britain; +and to judge by the mental stamina it affords him in +most cases, what a waste of good food it is! The dishes +are so numerous and so quickly changed, that he has no +time to decide on which he likes best. Like an industrious +flea, rather than a bee, he hops from flower to +flower in the educational garden, without one penny-worth +of honey to show for it. And then—though I feel +how degrading it is to allude to so vulgar a matter—how +high is the price of admission to the feast in question! +Its purveyors do not pretend to have filled his stomach, +but only to have put him in the way of filling it for +himself, whereas, unhappily, Paterfamilias discovers +that that is the very thing that they have not done. +His young Hopeful at twenty-one is almost as unable +to run alone as when he first entered the nursery. To +discourse airily upon the beauties of classical education, +and on the social advantages of acquiring 'the tone' +at a public school at whatever cost, is an agreeable exercise +of the intelligence; but such arguments have been +taken too seriously, and the result is that our young +gentlemen are incapable of gaining their own living. +It is not only that 'all the gates are thronged with +suitors, all the markets overflow,' but even when the +candidates are so fortunate as to attain admittance, +they are still a burden upon their fathers for years, +from having had no especial preparation for the work +they have to do. Folks who can afford to spend +£250 a year on their sons at Eton or Harrow, and +to add another fifty or two for their support at the +universities, do not feel this; but those who have +done it without affording it—<i>i.e.</i>, by cutting and contriving, +if not by pinching and saving—feel their +position very bitterly. There are hundreds of clever +young men who are now living at home and doing +nothing—or work that pays nothing, and even costs +something for doing it—who might be earning very +tolerable incomes by their pen if they only knew how, +and had not wasted their young wits on Greek plays +and Latin verses; nor do I find that the attractions of +such objects of study are permanent, or afford the least +solace to these young gentlemen in their enforced +leisure. +</p> + +<p> +The idea of bringing young people up to Literature +is doubtless calculated to raise the eyebrows almost as +much as the suggestion of bringing them up to the +Stage. The notions of Paterfamilias in this respect +are very much what they were fifty years ago. 'What! +put my boy in Grub Street? I would rather see him +in his coffin.' In his mind's eye he beholds Savage on +his bunk and Chatterton on his deathbed. He does +not know that there are many hundreds of persons of +both sexes who have found out this vocation for themselves, +and are diligently pursuing it—under circumstances +of quite unnecessary difficulty—to their +material advantage. He is unaware that the conditions +of literature in England have been as completely +changed within a single generation as those of locomotion. +</p> + +<p> +There are, it is true, at present no great prizes in +literature such as are offered by the learned professions, +but there are quite as many small ones—competences; +while, on the other hand, it is not so much +of a lottery. It is not necessary to marry an attorney's +daughter, or a bishop's, to get on in it. The calling, as +it is termed (I know not why, for it is often heavy +enough), of 'light literature' is in such contempt, +through ignorance on the one hand, and arrogance on +the other, that one is almost afraid in such a connection +to speak of merit; yet merit, or, at all events, aptitude +with diligence, is certain of success in it. A great deal +has been said about editors being blind to the worth +of unknown authors; but if so, they must be also blind +(and this I have never heard said of them) to their own +interests. It would be just as reasonable to accuse a +recruiting sergeant of passing by the stout six-feet +fellows who wish to enlist with him, and for each of +whom—directly or indirectly—he receives head-money. +It is possible, of course, that one particular +sergeant may be drunken, or careless of his own +interests, but in that case the literary recruit has only +to apply next door. The opportunities for action in +the field of literature are now so very numerous that +it is impossible that any able volunteer should be long +shut out of it; and I have observed that the complaints +about want of employment come almost solely +from those unfit for service. Nay, in the ranks of the +literaryarmy there are very many who should have been +excluded. Few, if any, are there through favour; but +the fact is, the work to be done is so extensive and so +varied, that there is not a sufficiency of good candidates +to do it. And of what is called 'skilled labour' +among them there is scarcely any. +</p> + +<p> +The question 'What can you do?' put by an editor +to an aspirant, generally astonishes him very much. +The aspirant is ready to do anything, he says, which +the other will please to suggest. 'But what is your +line in literature? What can you do best—not +tragedies in blank verse, I hope?' Perhaps the +aspirant here hangs his head; he <i>has</i> written tragedies. +In which case there is good hope for him, +because it shows a natural bent. But he generally +replies that he has written nothing as yet except +that essay on the genius of Cicero (at which the +editor has already shaken his head), and that defence +of Mary Queen of Scots. Or perhaps he has +written some translations of Horace, which he is surprised +to find not a novelty; or some considerations +upon the value of a feudal system. At four-and-twenty, +in short, he is but an overgrown schoolboy. +He has been taught, indeed, to acquire knowledge of +a certain sort, but not the habit of acquiring; he has +been taught to observe nothing; he is ignorant upon +all the subjects that interest his fellow-creatures, and +in his new ambition is like one who endeavours to +attract an audience without having anything to tell +them. He knows some Latin, a little Greek, a very +little French, and a very very little of what are called +the English classics. He has read a few recent novels +perhaps, but of modern English literature, and of that +(to him at least) most important branch of it, English +journalism, he knows nothing. His views and opinions +are those of a public school, which are by no +means in accordance with those of the great world of +readers; or he is full of the class prejudices imbibed +at college. In short, he may be as vigorous as a Zulu, +with the materials of a first-rate soldier in him, but +his arms are only a club and an assegai, and are of +no service. Why should he not be fitted out in early +life with literary weapons of precision, and taught the +use of them? +</p> + +<p> +I say, again, that poor Paterfamilias looking hopelessly +about him, like Quintus Curtius in the riddle, +for 'a nice opening for a young man,' is totally ignorant +of the opportunities, if not for fame and fortune, +at least for competency and comfort, that Literature +now offers to a clever lad. He looks round him; he +sees the Church leading nowhere, with much greater +certainty of expense than income, and demanding a +huge sum for what is irreverently termed 'gate money;' +he sees the Bar, with its high road leading indeed to +the woolsack, but with a hundred by-ways leading +nowhere in particular, and full of turnpikes—legal +tutors, legal fees, rents of chambers, etc.—which he +has to defray; he sees Physic, at which Materfamilias +sniffs and turns her nose up. 'Her Jack, with such +agreeable manners, to become a saw-bones! Never!' +He sees the army, and thinks, since Jack has such +great abilities, it seems a pity to give him a red coat, +which costs also considerably more than a black one; +And how is Jack to live upon his pay? +</p> + +<p> +After all, indeed, however prettily one puts it, the +question is with him, not so much '<i>What</i> is my Jack to +be?' as '<i>How</i> is my Jack to live?' To one who has any +gift of humour there are few things more amusing +than to observe how this vulgar, but really rather important +inquiry, is ignored by those who take the +subject of modern education in hand. They are +chiefly schoolmasters, who are not so deep in their +books but that they can spare a glance or two in the +direction of their banker's account; or fellows of +colleges who have no children, and therefore never +feel the difficulties of supporting them. Heaven +forbid that so humble an individual as myself should +question their wisdom, or say anything about them +that should seem to smack of irreverence; but I do +believe that (with one or two exceptions I have in my +mind) the system they have introduced among us is the +Greatest Humbug in the universe. In the meantime +poor Paterfamilias (who is the last man, they flatter +themselves, to find this out) stands with his hands +(and very little else) in his pockets, regarding his +clever offspring, and wondering what he shall do with +him. He remembers to have read about a man on +his deathbed, who calls his children about him and +thanks God, though he has left them nothing to live +upon, he has given them a good education, and tries +to extract comfort from the reminiscence. That he +has spent money enough upon Jack's education is +certain; something between two or three thousand +pounds in all at least, the interest of which, it strikes +him, would be very convenient just now to keep him. +But unfortunately the principal is gone and Jack +isn't. +</p> + +<p> +Now suppose—for one may suppose anything, however +ridiculous—he had spent two or three hundred +pounds at the very most, and brought him up to the +Calling of Literature. He believes, perhaps, that it is +only geniuses that succeed in it (in which case I know +more geniuses than I had any idea of), and he doesn't +think Jack a genius, though Jack's mother does. Or, +as is more probable, he regards it as a hand-to-mouth +calling, which to-day gives its disciples a five-pound +note, and to-morrow five pence. He calls to mind a +saying about Literature being a good stick, but not a +good crutch—an excellent auxiliary, but no permanent +support; but he forgets the all-important fact that the +remark was made half a century ago. +</p> + +<p> +Poor blind Paterfamilias—shall I couch you? If +the operation is successful, I am sure you will thank +me for it; but, on the other hand, I foresee I shall +incur the greatest enmities. Should I encourage +clever Jack, and, what is worse, a thousand Jacks +who are not clever, to enter upon this vocation, what +will editors say to me? I shall have to go about, +perhaps, guarded with two policemen with revolvers, +like an Irish gentleman on his landed estate. 'Is not +the flood of rubbish to which we are already subjected,' +I hear them crying, 'bad enough, without your pulling +up the sluices of universal stupidity?' My suggestion, +however, is intended to benefit them by clearing away +the rubbish, and inducing a clearer and deeper stream +for the turning of their mills. At the same time I +confess that the lessening of Paterfamilias's difficulties +is my main object. What I would open his eyes to +is the fact that a calling, of the advantages of which he +has no knowledge, <i>does</i> present itself to clever Jack, +which will cost him nothing but pens, ink, and paper +to enter upon, and in which, if he has been well trained +for it, he will surely be successful, since so many succeed +in it without any training at all. Why should +not clever Jack have this in view as much as the +<i>ignes fatui</i> of woolsacks and mitres? If it has no +lord chancellorships, it has plenty of county court +appointments; if it has no bishoprics, it has plenty of +benefices—and really, as times go, some pretty fat +ones. +</p> + +<p> +On your breakfast-table, good Paterfamilias, there +lies, every morning, a newspaper, and on Saturday +perhaps there are two or three. When you go out in +the street, you are pestered to buy half a score more +of them. In your club reading-room there are a +hundred different journals. When you travel by the +railway you see at every station a provincial newspaper +of more or less extensive circulation. Has it +never struck you that to supply these publications +with their leading articles, there must be an immense +staff of persons called journalists, professing every +description of opinion, and advocating every conceivable +policy? And do you suppose these gentry +only get £70 a year for their work, like a curate; or +£60, like a sub-lieutenant; or that they have to pay +three times those sums for the privilege of belonging +to the press, as a barrister does for belonging to his +inn? Again, in London at least, there are as many +magazines as newspapers, containing every kind of +literature, the very contributors of which are so +numerous, that they form a public of themselves. +That seems at the first blush to militate against my +suggestion, but though contributors are so common, +and upon the whole so good—indeed, considering the +conditions under which they labour, so wonderfully +good—they are not (I have heard editors say) so good +as they might be, supposing (for example) they knew +a little of science, history, politics, English literature, +and especially of the art of composition, before they +volunteered their services. At present the ranks of +journalistic and periodical literature are largely recruited +from the failures in other professions. The +bright young barrister who can't get a brief takes to +literature as a calling, just as the man who has 'gone +a cropper' in the army takes to the wine-trade. And +what æons of time, and what millions of money, have +been wasted in the meanwhile! +</p> + +<p> +The announcement written on the gates of all the +recognised professions in England is the same that +would-be travellers read on the faces of the passengers +on the underground railway after office hours: 'Our +number is complete, and our room is limited.' In +literature, on the contrary, though its vehicles may +seem as tightly packed, substitution can be effected. +There may be persons travelling on that line in the +first-class who ought to be in the third, and indeed +have no reasonable pretext for being there at all. +And if clever Jack could show his ticket, he would +turn them out of it. +</p> + +<p> +Again, so far from the space being limited, it is +continually enlarging, and that out of all proportion +to those who have tickets. We hear from its enemies +that the Church is doomed, and from its friends that +it is in danger; there is a small but energetic party +who are bent on reducing the Army, and even on +doing away with it; nay, so wicked and presumptuous +has human nature grown, that mutterings are heard +and menaces uttered against the delay and exactions +of the Law itself; whereas Literature has no +foes, and is enlarging its boundaries in all directions. +It is all 'a-growing and a-blowing,' as the peripatetic +gardeners say of their plants; but, unlike their wares, +it has its roots deep in the soil and is an evergreen. +Its promise is golden, and its prospects are boundless +for every class of writer. +</p> + +<p> +In some excellent articles on Modern Literature in +<i>Blackwood's Magazine</i> the other day, this subject was +touched upon with respect to fiction, and might well +have filled a greater space, for the growth of that description +of literature of late years is simply marvellous. +Curiously enough, though France originated +the <i>feuilleton</i>, it was from America and our own +colonies that England seems to have taken the idea +of publishing novels in newspapers. It was a +common practice in Australia long before we adopted it; +and, what is also curious, it was first acclimatised +among us by our provincial papers. The custom is +rapidly gaining ground in London, but in the country +there is now scarcely any newspaper of repute which +does not enlist the aid of fiction to attract its readers. +Many of them are contented with very poor stuff, for +which they pay a proportional price; but others club +together with other newspapers—the operation has +even received the technical term of 'forming a syndicate'—and +are thereby enabled to secure the services +of popular authors; while the newspapers thus arranged +for are published at a good distance from one +another, so as not to interfere with each other's circulation. +Country journals, which are not so ambitious, +instead of using an inferior article, will often purchase +the 'serial right,' as it is called, of stories which have +already appeared elsewhere, or have passed through +the circulating libraries. Nay, the novelist who has +established a reputation has many more strings to his +bow: his novel, thus published in the country newspapers, +also appears coincidently in the same serial +shape in Australia, Canada, and other British colonies, +leaving the three-volume form and the cheap editions +'to the good.' And what is true of fiction is in a less +degree true of other kinds of literature. Travels are +'gutted,' and form articles in magazines, illustrated by +the original plates; lectures, after having served their +primary purpose, are published in a similar manner; +even scientific works now appear first in the magazines +which are devoted to science before performing their +mission of 'popularising' their subject. +</p> + +<p> +When speaking of the growth of readers, I have +purposely not mentioned America. For the present +the absence of copyright there is destroying both +author and publisher; but the wheels of justice, though +tardy, are making way there. In a few years that +great continent of readers will be legitimately added +to the audience of the English author, and those that +have stolen will steal no more. +</p> + +<p> +Nor, in our own country, must we fail to take notice +of the establishment of School Boards. A generation +hence we shall have a reading public almost as numerous +as in America; even the very lowest classes will +have acquired a certain culture which will beget demands +both for journalists and 'literary persons.' The +harvest will be plenteous indeed, but unless my advice +be followed in some shape or another, the labourers +will be comparatively few and superlatively inadequate. +</p> + +<p> +I am well aware how mischievous, as well as troublesome, +would be the encouragement of mediocrity; and +in stating these promising facts I have no such purpose +in my mind. On the contrary, there is an immense +amount of mediocrity already in literature, +which I think my proposition of training up 'clever +Jack' to that calling would discourage. I have no +expectation of establishing a manufactory for genius—and +indeed, for reasons it is not necessary to specify, +I would not do it if I could. But whereas all kinds +of 'culture' have been recommended to the youth of +Great Britain (and certainly with no limit as to the +expense of acquisition), the cultivation of such natural +faculties as imagination and humour (for example) +has never been suggested. The possibility of such a +thing will doubtless be denied. I am quite certain, +however, that they are capable of great development, +and that they may be brought to attain, if not perfection, +at all events a high degree of excellence. The +proof, to those who choose to look for it, is plain enough +even as matters stand. Use and opportunity are +already producing scores of examples of it; if supplemented +by early education they might surely produce +still more. +</p> + +<p> +There is so great and general a prejudice against +special studies, that I must humbly conclude there is +something in it. On the other hand, I know a large +number of highly—that is broadly—educated persons, +who are desperately dull. 'But would they have been +less dull,' it may be asked, 'if they were also ignorant?' +Yes, I believe they would. They have swallowed too +much for digestions naturally weak; they have become +inert, conceited, oppressive to themselves and +others—Prigs. And I think that even clever young +people suffer in a less degree from the same cause. +Some one has written, 'Information is always useful.' +This reminds me of the married lady, fond of bargains, +who once bought a door-plate at a sale with 'Mr. +Wilkins' on it. Her own name was Jones, but the doorplate +was very cheap, and her husband, she argued, +<i>might</i> die, and then she might marry a man of the +name of Wilkins. 'Depend upon it, everything comes +in useful,' she said, 'if you only keep it long enough.' +</p> + +<p> +This is what I venture to doubt. I have myself +purchased several door-plates (quite as burthensome, +but not so cheap as that good lady's), which have +been of no sort of use to me, and are still on hand. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-5" id="fn-5"></a> <a href="#fnref-5">[5]</a> +I take up a half-yearly volume of a magazine (price 1½d. weekly) +addressed to the middle classes, and find in it, at haphazard, the five +following pieces, the authors of which are anonymous: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>AGATHA.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'From under the shade of her simple straw hat</p> +<p class="i2">She smiles at you, only a little shamefaced:</p> +<p>Her gold-tinted hair m a long-braided plait</p> +<p class="i2">Reaches on either side down to her waist.</p> +<p>Her rosy complexion, a soft pink and white,</p> +<p class="i2">Except where the white has been warmed by the sun,</p> +<p>Is glowing with health and an eager delight,</p> +<p class="i2">As she pauses to speak to you after her run.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'See with what freedom, what beautiful ease,</p> +<p class="i2">She leaps over hollows and mounds in berrace;</p> +<p>Hear how she joyously laughs when the breeze</p> +<p class="i2">Tosses her hat off, and blows in her face!</p> +<p>It's only a play-gown of homeliest cotton</p> +<p class="i2">She wears, that her finer silk dress may be saved;</p> +<p>And happily, too, she has wholly forgotten</p> +<p class="i2">The nurse and her charge to be better behaved.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'Must a time come when this child's way of caring</p> +<p class="i2">For only the present enjoyment shall pass;</p> +<p>When she'll learn to take thought of the dress that she's wearing,</p> +<p class="i2">And grow rather fond of consulting the glass?</p> +<p>Well, never mind; nothing really can change her;</p> +<p class="i2">Fair childhood will grow to as fair maidenhood;</p> +<p>Her unselfish, sweet nature is safe from all danger;</p> +<p class="i2">I know she will always be charming and good.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'For when she takes care of a still younger brother,</p> +<p class="i2">You see her stop short in the midst of her mirth,</p> +<p>Gravely and tenderly playing the mother:</p> +<p class="i2">Can there be anything fairer on earth?</p> +<p>So proud of her charge she appears, so delighted;</p> +<p class="i2">Of all her perfections (indeed, they're a host),</p> +<p>This loving attention to others, united</p> +<p class="i2">With naive self-unconsciousness, charms me the most.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'What hearts that unthinkingly under short jackets</p> +<p class="i2">Are beating to-day in a wonderful wise</p> +<p>About racing, or jumping, or cricket, or rackets,</p> +<p class="i2">One day will beat at a smile from those eyes!</p> +<p>Ah, how I envy the one that shall win her,</p> +<p class="i2">And see that sweet smile no ill-humour shall damp,</p> +<p>Shining across the spread table at dinner,</p> +<p class="i2">Or cheerfully bright in the light of the lamp.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'Ah, little fairy! a very short while,</p> +<p class="i2">Just once or twice, in a brief country stay,</p> +<p>I saw you; but when will your innocent smile</p> +<p class="i2">That I keep in my mem'ry have faded away?</p> +<p>For when, in the midst of my trouble and doubt,</p> +<p class="i2">I remember your face with its laughter and light,</p> +<p>It's as if on a sudden the sun had shone out,</p> +<p class="i2">And scattered the shadow, and made the world bright.'</p></div></div> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>CHARTREUSE.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>(<i>Liqueur</i>.)</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'Who could refuse</p> +<p>Green-eyed Chartieuse?</p> +<p>Liquor for heretics,</p> +<p>Turks, Christians, or Jews</p> +<p>For beggar or queen,</p> +<p>For monk or for dean;</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Ripened and mellow</p> +<p>(The <i>green</i>, not the yellow),</p> +<p>Give it its dues,</p> +<p>Gay little fellow,</p> +<p>Dressed up in green!</p> +<p>I love thee too well, O</p> +<p>Laughing Chartreuse!</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'O the delicate hues</p> +<p>That thrill through the green!</p> +<p>Colours which Greuze</p> +<p>Would die to have seen!</p> +<p>With thee would De Musset</p> +<p>Sweeten his muse;</p> +<p>Use, not abuse,</p> +<p>Bright little fellow!</p> +<p>(The green, <i>not</i> the yellow.)</p> +<p>O the taste and the smell! O</p> +<p>Never refuse</p> +<p>A kiss on the lips from</p> +<p>Jealous Chartreuse!'</p></div></div> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>THE LIFE-LEDGER.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'Our sufferings we reckon o'er</p> +<p class="i2">With skill minute and formal;</p> +<p>The cheerful ease that fills the score</p> +<p class="i2">We treat as merely normal.</p> +<p>Our list of ills, how full, how great!</p> +<p class="i2">We mourn our lot should fall so;</p> +<p>I wonder, do we calculate</p> +<p class="i2">Our happinesses also?</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'Were it not best to keep account</p> +<p class="i2">Of all days, if of any?</p> +<p>Perhaps the dark ones might amount</p> +<p class="i2">To not so very many.</p> +<p>Men's looks are nigh as often gay</p> +<p class="i2">As sad, or even solemn:</p> +<p>Behold, my entry for to-day</p> +<p class="i2">Is in the "happy" column.'</p></div></div> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>OCTOBER.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'The year grows old; summer's wild crown of roses</p> +<p class="i2">Has fallen and faded in the woodland ways;</p> +<p>On all the earth a tranquil light reposes,</p> +<p class="i10">Through the still dreamy days.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'The dew lies heavy in the early morn,</p> +<p class="i2">On grass and mosses sparkling crystal-fair;</p> +<p>And shining threads of gossamer are borne</p> +<p class="i10">Floating upon the air,</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'Across the leaf-strewn lanes, from bough to bough</p> +<p class="i2">Like tissue woven in a fairy loom;</p> +<p>And crimson-berried bryony garlands glow</p> +<p class="i10">Through the leaf-tangled gloom.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'The woods are still, but for the sudden fall</p> +<p class="i2">Of cupless acorns dropping to the ground,</p> +<p>Or rabbit plunging through the fern-stems tall,</p> +<p class="i10">Half-startled by the sound.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'And from the garden lawn comes, soft and clear,</p> +<p class="i2">The robin's warble from the leafless spray,</p> +<p>The low sweet Angelus of the dying year,</p> +<p class="i10">Passing in light away.'</p></div></div> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>PROSPERITY.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'I doubt if the maxims the Stoic adduces</p> +<p class="i2">Be true in the main, when they state</p> +<p>That our nature's improved by adversity's uses,</p> +<p class="i2">And spoilt by a happier fate.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'The heart that is tried by misfortune and pain,</p> +<p class="i2">Self-reliance and patience may learn;</p> +<p>Yet worn by long waiting and wishing in vain,</p> +<p class="i2">It often grows callous and stern.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'But the heart that is softened by ease and contentment,</p> +<p class="i2">Feels warmly and kindly t'wards all;</p> +<p>And its charity, roused by no moody resentment,</p> +<p class="i2">Embraces alike great and small.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'So, although in the season of rain-storms and showers,</p> +<p class="i2">The tree may strike deeper its roots,</p> +<p>It needs the warm brightness of sunshiny hours</p> +<p class="i2">To ripen the blossoms and fruits.'</p></div></div> + +<p class="footnote"> +Observe, not only the genuine merit of these five pieces, but the +variety in the tones of thought: then compare them with similar +productions of the days, say, of the once famous L.E.L. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>STORY-TELLING.</h2> + +<p> +The most popular of English authors has given us an account of what +within his experience (and it was a large one) was the impression +among the public at large of the manner in which his work was done. +They pictured him, he says, +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +as a radiant personage whose whole time is devoted to idleness and +pastime; who keeps a prolific mind in a sort of corn-sieve and lightly +shakes a bushel of it out sometimes in an odd half-hour after +breakfast. It would amaze their incredulity beyond all measure to" be +told that such elements as patience, study, punctuality, +determination, self-denial, training of mind and body, hours of +application and seclusion to produce what they read in seconds, enter +in such a career … correction and recorrection in the blotted +manuscript; consideration; new observations; the patient massing of +many reflections, experiences, and imaginings for one minute purpose; +and the patient separation from the heap of all the fragments that +will unite to serve it—these would be unicorns and griffins to +them—fables altogether. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +And as it was, a quarter of a century ago, when those +words were written, so it is now: the phrase of 'light +literature' as applied to fiction having once been invented, +has stuck, with a vengeance, to those who profess +it. +</p> + +<p> +Yet to 'make the thing that is not as the thing that +is' is not (though it may seem to be the same thing) +so easy as lying. +</p> + +<p> +Among a host of letters received in connection +with an article published in the <i>Nineteenth Century</i>, +entitled 'The Literary Calling and its Future,' and +which testify in a remarkable manner to the pressing +need (therein alluded to) of some remunerative +vocation among the so-called educated classes, there +are many which are obviously written under the impression +that Dogberry's view of writing coming 'by +nature' is especially true of the writing of fiction. +Because I ventured to hint that the study of Greek +was not essential to the calling of a story-teller, or of +a contributor to the periodicals, or even of a journalist, +these gentlemen seem to jump to the conclusion that +the less they know of anything the better. Nay, some +of them, discarding all theories (in the fashion that +Mr. Carlyle's heroes are wont to discard all formulas), +proceed to the practical with quite an indecent rapidity; +they treat my modest hints for their instruction as +so much verbiage, and myself as a mere convenient +channel for the publication of their lucubrations. 'You +talk of a genuine literary talent being always appreciated +by editors,' they write (if not in so many words +by implication); 'well, here is an admirable specimen +of it (enclosed), and if your remarks are worth a +farthing you will get it published for us, somewhere or +another, <i>instanter</i>, and hand us over the cheque for it. +Nor are even these the most unreasonable of my +correspondents; for a few, with many acknowledgments +for my kindness in having provided a lucrative +profession for them, announce their intention of throwing +up their present less congenial callings, and coming +up to London (one very literally from the Land's End) +to live upon it, or, that failing (as there is considerable +reason to expect it will), upon <i>me</i>. +</p> + +<p> +With some of these correspondents, however, it is +impossible (independent of their needs) not to feel an +earnest sympathy; they have evidently not only aspirations, +but considerable mental gifts, though these +have unhappily been cultivated to such little purpose +for the object they have in view that they might +almost as well have been left untilled. In spite of +what I ventured to urge respecting the advantage of +knowing 'science, history, politics, English literature, +and the art of composition,' they 'don't see why' they +shouldn't get on without them. Especially with those +who aspire to write fiction (which, by its intrinsic attractiveness +no less than by the promise it affords of +golden grain, tempts the majority), it is quite pitiful to +note how they cling to that notion of 'the corn-sieve,' +and cannot be persuaded that story-telling requires an +apprenticeship like any other calling. They flatter +themselves that they can weave plots as the spider +spins his thread from (what let us delicately term) his +inner consciousness, and fondly hope that intuition +will supply the place of experience. Some of them, +with a simplicity that recalls the days of Dick Whittington, +think that 'coming up to London' is the essential +step to this line of business, as though the provinces +contained no fellow-creatures worthy to be depicted +by their pen, or as though, in the metropolis, Society +would at once exhibit itself to them without concealment, +as fashionable beauties bare themselves to the +photographers. +</p> + +<p> +This is, of course, the laughable side of the affair, +but, to me at least, it has also a serious one; for, to +my considerable embarrassment and distress, I find +that my well-meaning attempt to point out the advantages +of literature as a profession has received a +much too free translation, and implanted in many +minds hopes that are not only sanguine but Utopian. +</p> + +<p> +For what was written in the essay alluded to I have +nothing to reproach myself with, for I told no more +than the truth. Nor does the unsettlement of certain +young gentleman's futures (since by their own showing +they were to the last degree unstable to begin with) +affect me so much as their parents and guardians +appear to expect; but I am sorry to have shaken +however undesignedly, the 'pillars of domestic peace' +in any case, and desirous to make all the reparation in +my power. I regret most heartily that I am unable +to place all literary aspirants in places of emolument +and permanency out of hand; but really (with the +exception perhaps of the Universal Provider in Westbourne +Grove) this is hardly to be expected of any +man. The gentleman who raised the devil, and was +compelled to furnish occupation for him, affords in +fact the only appropriate parallel to my unhappy case. +'If you can do nothing to provide my son with another +place,' writes one indignant Paterfamilias, 'at least +you owe it to him' (as if I, and not Nature herself, +had made the lad dissatisfied with his high stool in a +solicitor's office!) 'to give him some practical hints by +which he may become a successful writer of fiction.' +</p> + +<p> +One would really think that this individual imagined +story-telling to be a sort of sleight-of-hand trick, and +that all that is necessary to the attainment of the art +is to learn 'how it's done.' I should not like to say +that I have known any members of my own profession +who are 'no conjurors,' but it is certainly not by conjuring +that they have succeeded in it. +</p> + +<p> +'You talk of the art of composition,' writes, on the +other hand, another angry correspondent, 'as though +it were one of the exact sciences; you might just as +well advise your "clever Jack" to study the art of +playing the violin.' So that one portion of the public +appears to consider the calling of literature mechanical, +while another holds it to be a soft of divine instinct! +</p> + +<p> +Since the interest in this subject proves to be so +wide-spread, I trust it will not be thought presumptuous +in me to offer my own humble experience in +this matter for what it is worth. To the public at +large a card of admission to my poor manufactory of +fiction—a 'very one-horse affair,' as an American +gentleman, with whom I had a little difficulty concerning +copyright, once described it—may not afford +the same satisfaction as a ticket for the private view +of the Royal Academy; but the stings of conscience +urge me to make to Paterfamilias what amends in the +way of 'practical hints' lie in my power, for the wrong +I have done to his offspring; and I therefore venture +to address to those whom it may concern, and to those +only, a few words on the Art of Story-telling. +</p> + +<p> +The chief essential for this line of business, yet one +that is much disregarded by many young writers, is +the having a story to tell. It is a common supposition +that the story will come if you only sit down with a +pen in your hand and wait long enough—a parallel +case to that which assigns one cow's tail as the measure +of distance between this planet and the moon. It is +no use 'throwing off' a few brilliant ideas at the commencement, +if they are only to be 'passages that lead +to nothing;' you must have distinctly in your mind at +first what you intend to say at last. 'Let it be granted,' +says a great writer (though not one distinguished in +fiction), 'that a straight line be drawn from any one +point to any other point;' only you must have the +'other point' to begin with, or you can't draw the line. +So far from being 'straight,' it goes wabbling aimlessly +about like a wire fastened at one end and not at +the other, which may dazzle, but cannot sustain; or +rather what it does sustain is so exceedingly minute, +that it reminds one of the minnow which the inexperienced +angler flatters himself he has caught, but +which the fisherman has in fact previously put on his +hook for bait. +</p> + +<p> +This class of writer is not altogether unconscious of +the absence of dramatic interest in his composition. +He writes to his editor (I have read a thousand such +letters): 'It has been my aim, in the enclosed contribution, +to steer clear of the faults of the sensational +school of fiction, and I have designedly abstained from +stimulating the unwholesome taste for excitement.' +In which high moral purpose he has undoubtedly succeeded; +but, unhappily, in nothing else. It is quite +true that some writers of fiction neglect 'story' almost +entirely, but then they are perhaps the greatest writers +of all. Their genius is so transcendent that they can +afford to dispense with 'plot;' their humour, their +pathos, and their delineation of human nature are +amply sufficient, without any such meretricious attraction; +whereas our too ambitious young friend is in +the position of the needy knife-grinder, who has not +only no story to tell, but in lieu of it only holds up +his coat and breeches 'torn in the scuffle'—the evidence +of his desperate and ineffectual struggles with +literary composition. I have known such an aspirant +to instance Miss Gaskell's 'Cranford' as a parallel +to the backboneless flesh-and-bloodless creation of +his own immature fancy, and to recommend the acceptance +of the latter upon the ground of their common +rejection of startling plot and dramatic situation. +The two compositions have certainly <i>that</i> in common; +and the flawless diamond has some things, such as +mere sharpness and smoothness, in common with the +broken beer-bottle. +</p> + +<p> +Many young authors of the class I have in my mind, while more modest as +respects their own merits, are even still less so as regards their expectations +from others. 'If you will kindly furnish me with a subject,' so runs a letter +now before me, 'I am sure I could do very well; my difficulty is that I never +can think of anything to write about. Would you be so good as to oblige me with +a plot for a novel?' It would have been infinitely more reasonable of course, +and much cheaper, for me to grant it, if the applicant had made a request for +my watch and chain;<a href="#fn-6" name="fnref-6" id="fnref-6"><sup>[6]</sup></a> +but the marvel is that folks should feel any attraction towards a calling for +which Nature has denied them even the raw materials. It is true that there are +some great talkers who have manifestly nothing to say, but they don't ask their +hearers to supply them with a topic of conversation in order to be set agoing. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-6" id="fn-6"></a> <a href="#fnref-6">[6]</a> +To compare small things with great, I remember Sir Walter Scott being thus +applied to for some philanthropic object. 'Money,' said the applicant, who had +some part proprietorship in a literary miscellany, 'I don't ask for, since I +know you have many claims upon your purse; but would you write us a little +paper gratuitously for the "Keepsake"?' +</p> + +<p> +'My great difficulty,' the would-be writer of fiction +often says, 'is how to begin;' whereas in fact the difficulty +arises rather from his not knowing how to end. +Before undertaking the management of a train, however +short, it is absolutely necessary to know its destination. +Nothing is more common than to hear it +said that an author 'does not know where to stop;' +but how much more deplorable is the position of the +passengers when there is no terminus whatsoever! +They feel their carriage 'slowing,' and put their heads +expectantly out of window, but there is no platform—no +station. When they took their tickets, they understood +that they were 'booked through' to the <i>dénouement</i>, +and certainly had no idea of having been brought +so far merely to admire the scenery, for which only a +very few care the least about. +</p> + +<p> +As a rule, anyone who can tell a good story can +write one, so there really need be no mistake about +his qualification; such a man will be careful not to be +wearisome, and to keep his point, or his catastrophe, +well in hand. Only, in writing, there is necessarily +greater art. <i>There</i> expansion is of course absolutely +necessary; but this is not to be done, like spreading +gold leaf, by flattening out good material. <i>That</i> is +'padding,' a device as dangerous as it is unworthy; it +is much better to make your story a pollard—to cut +it down to a mere anecdote—than to get it lost in a +forest of verbiage. No line of it, however seemingly +discursive, should be aimless, but should have some +relation to the matter in hand; and if you find the +story interesting to yourself notwithstanding that you +know the end of it, it will certainly interest the reader. +</p> + +<p> +The manner in which a good story grows under the +hand is so remarkable, that no tropic vegetation can +show the like of it. For, consider, when you have +got your germ—the mere idea, not half a dozen lines +perhaps—which is to form your plot, how small a +thing it is compared with, say, the thousand pages +which it has to occupy in the three-volume novel! +Yet to the story-teller the germ is everything. When +I was a very young man—a quarter of a century ago, +alas!—and had very little experience in these matters, +I was reading on a coachbox (for I read everywhere +in those days) an account of some gigantic trees; one +of them was described as sound outside, but within, +for many feet, a mass of rottenness and decay. If a +boy should climb up birdsnesting into the fork of it, +thought I, he might go down feet first and hands overhead, +and never be heard of again. How inexplicable +too, as well as melancholy, such a disappearance would +be! Then, 'as when a great thought strikes along the +brain and flushes all the cheek,' it struck me what an +appropriate end it would be—with fear (lest he should +turn up again) instead of hope for the fulcrum to move +the reader—for a bad character of a novel. Before I +had left the coachbox I had thought out 'Lost Sir +Massingberd.' +</p> + +<p> +The character was drawn from life, but unfortunately +from hearsay; he had flourished—to the great terror +of his neighbours—two generations before me, so that +I had to be indebted to others for his portraiture, +which was a great disadvantage. It was necessary +that the lost man should be an immense scoundrel to +prevent pity being excited by the catastrophe, and at +that time I did not know any very wicked people. +The book was a successful one, but it needs no critic +to point out how much better the story might have +been told. The interest in the gentleman, buried upright +in his oak coffin, is inartistically weakened by +other sources of excitement; like an extravagant cook, +the young author is apt to be too lavish with his +materials, and in after days, when the larder is more +difficult to fill, he bitterly regrets it. The representation +of a past time I also found it very difficult to +compass, and I am convinced that for any writer to +attempt such a thing, when he can avoid it, is an error +in judgment. The author who undertakes to resuscitate +and clothe with flesh and blood the dry bones of +his ancestors, has indeed this advantage, that, however +unlifelike his characters may be, there is no one +in a position to prove it; it is not 'a difference of +opinion between himself and twelve of his fellow-countrymen,' +or a matter on which he can be condemned +by overwhelming evidence; but, on the other +hand, he creates for himself unnecessary difficulties. +I will add, for the benefit of those literary aspirants to +whom these remarks are especially addressed—a +circumstance which, I hope, will be taken as an excuse +for the writing of my own affairs at all, which would +otherwise be an unpardonable presumption—that these +difficulties are not the worst of it; for when the novel +founded on the Past has been written, it will not be +read by a tenth of those who would read it if it were +a novel of the Present. +</p> + +<p> +Even at the date I speak of, however, I was not so +young as to attempt to create the characters of a story +out of my own imagination, and I believe that the +whole of its <i>dramatis personæ</i> (except the chief personage) +were taken from the circle of my own acquaintance. +This is a matter, by-the-bye, on which +considerable judgment and good taste have to be +exercised; for if the likeness of the person depicted +is recognisable by his friends (he never recognises it by +any chance himself), or still more by his enemies, it is +no longer a sketch from life, but a lampoon. It will +naturally be asked by some: 'But if you draw the +man to the life, how can he fail to be known?' For +this there is the simplest remedy. You describe his +character, but under another skin; if he is tall you +make him short, if dark, fair; or you make such +alterations in his circumstances as shall prevent identification, +while retaining them to a sufficient extent +to influence his behaviour. In the framework which +most (though not all) skilled workmen draw of their +stories before they begin to furnish them with so much +even as a door-mat, the real name of each individual +to be described should be placed (as a mere aid to +memory) by the side of that under which he appears +in the drama; and I would strongly recommend the +builder to write his real names in cipher; for I have +known at least one instance in which the entire list of +the <i>dramatis personæ</i> of a novel was carried off by a +person more curious than conscientious, and afterwards +revealed to those concerned—a circumstance +which, though it increased the circulation of the story, +did not add to the personal popularity of the author. +</p> + +<p> +If a story-teller is prolific, the danger of his characters +coinciding with those of people in real life who +are unknown to him is much greater than would be +imagined; the mere similarity of name may of course +be disregarded; but when in addition to that there is +also a resemblance of circumstance, it is difficult to +persuade the man of flesh and blood that his portrait +is an undesigned one. The author of 'Vanity Fair' +fell, in at least one instance, into a most unfortunate +mistake of this kind; while a not less popular author +even gave his hero the same name and place in the +Ministry which were (subsequently) possessed by a +living politician. +</p> + +<p> +It is better, however, for his own reputation that +the story-teller should risk a few actions for libel on +account of these unfortunate coincidences than that he +should adopt the melancholy device of using blanks or +asterisks. With the minor novelists of a quarter of a +century ago it was quite common to introduce their +characters as Mr. A and Mr. B, and very difficult +their readers found it to interest themselves in the +fortunes and misfortunes of an initial: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +It was in the summer of the year 18—, and the sun was +setting behind the low western hills beneath which stands +the town of C; its dying gleams glistened on the +weather-cock of the little church, beneath whose tower two figures +were standing, so deep in shadow that little more could be +made out concerning them save that they were young persons +of the opposite sex. The elder and taller, however, was +the fascinating Lord B; the younger (presenting a strong +contrast to her companion in social position, but yet belonging +to the true nobility of nature) was no other than the +beautiful Patty G, the cobbler's daughter. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +This style of narrative should be avoided. +</p> + +<p> +Another difficulty of the story-teller, and one unhappily in which no advice +can be of much service to him, is how to describe the lapse of time and of +locomotion. To the dramatist nothing is easier than to print in the middle of +his playbill, 'Forty years are here supposed to have elapsed;' or 'Scene I.: A +drawing-room in Mayfair; Scene II.: Greenland.' But the story-teller has to +describe how these little changes are effected, without being able to take his +readers into his confidence.<a href="#fn-7" name="fnref-7" id="fnref-7"><sup>[7]</sup></a> +He can't say, 'Gentle reader, please to imagine that the winter is over, and +the summer has come round since the conclusion of our last chapter.' Curiously +enough, however, the lapse of years is far easier to suggest than that of +hours; and locomotion from Islington to India than the act, for instance, of +leaving the room. If passion enters into the scene, and your heroine can be +represented as banging the door behind her, and bringing down the plaster from +the ceiling, the thing is easy enough, and may be even made a dramatic +incident; but to describe, without baldness, Jones rising from the tea-table +and taking his departure in cold blood, is a much more difficult business than +you may imagine. When John the footman has to enter and interrupt a +conversation on the stage, the audience see him come and go, and think nothing +of it; but to inform the reader of your novel of a similar incident—and +especially of John's going—without spoiling the whole scene by the +introduction of the commonplace, requires (let me tell you) the touch of a +master. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-7" id="fn-7"></a> <a href="#fnref-7">[7]</a> +That last, indeed, is a thing which, with all deference to some great names in +fiction, should in my judgment never be done. It is hard enough for him as it +is to simulate real life, without the poor showman's reaching out from behind +the curtain to shake hands with his audience. +</p> + +<p> +When you have got the outline of your plot, and +the characters that seem appropriate to play in it, +you turn to that so-called 'commonplace book,' in +which, if you know your trade, you will have set +down anything noteworthy and illustrative of human +nature that has come under your notice, and single +out such instances as are most fitting; and finally you +will select your scene (or the opening one) in which +your drama is to be played. And here I may say, +that while it is indispensable that the persons represented +should be familiar to you, it is not necessary +that the places should be; you should have visited +them, of course, in person, but it is my experience +that for a description of the salient features of any +locality the less you stay there the better. The man +who has lived in Switzerland all his life can never +describe it (to the outsider) so graphically as the +(intelligent) tourist; just as the man who has science +at his fingers' ends does not succeed so well as the +man with whom science has not yet become second +nature, in making an abstruse subject popular. +</p> + +<p> +Nor is it to be supposed that a story with very +accurate local colouring cannot be written, the scenes +of which are placed in a country which the writer +has never beheld. This requires, of course, both +study and judgment, but it can be done so as to +deceive, if not the native, at least the Englishman +who has himself resided there. I never yet knew an +Australian who could be persuaded that the author of +'Never Too Late to Mend' had not visited the underworld, +or a sailor that he who wrote 'Hard Cash' had +never been to sea. The fact is, information, concerning +which dull folks make so much fuss, can be attained +by anybody who chooses to spend his time that +way; and by persons of intelligence (who are not so +solicitous to know how blacking is made) can be +turned, in a manner not dreamt of by cram-coaches, +to really good account. +</p> + +<p> +The general impression perhaps conveyed by the +above remarks will be that to those who go to work +in the manner described—for many writers of course +have quite other processes—story-telling must be a +mechanical trade. Yet nothing can be farther from +the fact. These preliminary arrangements have the +effect of so steeping the mind in the subject in hand, +that when the author begins his work he is already in +a world apart from his everyday one; the characters +of his story people it; and the events that occur to +them are as material, so far as the writer is concerned, +as though they happened under his roof. Indeed, it +is a question for the metaphysician whether the professional +story-teller has not a shorter lease of life +than his fellow-creatures, since, in addition to his +hours of sleep (of which he ought by rights to have +much more than the usual proportion), he passes a +large part of his sentient being outside the pale of +ordinary existence. The reference to sleep 'by rights' +may possibly suggest to the profane that the storyteller +has a claim to it on the ground of having induced +slumber in his fellow-creatures; but my meaning is +that the mental wear and tear caused by work of this +kind is infinitely greater than that produced by mere +application even to abstruse studies (as any doctor +will witness), and requires a proportionate degree of +recuperation. +</p> + +<p> +I do not pretend to quote the experience (any more than the mode of +composition) of other writers—though with that of most of my brethren and +superiors in the craft I am well acquainted—but I am convinced that to +work the brain at night in the way of imagination is little short of an act of +suicide. Dr. Treichler's recent warnings upon this subject are startling +enough, even as addressed to students, but in their application to poets and +novelists they have far greater significance. It may be said that journalists +(whose writings, it is whispered, have a close connection with fiction) always +write in the 'small hours,' but their mode of life is more or less shaped to +meet their exceptional requirements; whereas we storytellers live like other +people (only more purely), and if we consume the midnight oil, use perforce +another system of illumination also—we burn the candle at both ends. A +great novelist who adopted this baneful practice and indirectly lost his life +by it (through insomnia) notes what is very curious, that notwithstanding his +mind was so occupied, when awake, with the creatures of his imagination, he +never dreamt of them; which I think is also the general experience. But he does +not tell us for how many hours <i>before</i> he went to sleep, and tossed upon +his restless pillow till far into the morning, he was unable to get rid of +those whom his enchanter's wand had summoned.<a href="#fn-8" name="fnref-8" id="fnref-8"><sup>[8]</sup></a> +What is even more curious than the story-teller's never dreaming of the shadowy +beings who engross so much of his thoughts, is that (so far as my own +experience goes at least) when a story is once written and done with, no matter +how forcibly it may have interested and excited the writer during its progress, +it fades almost instantly from the mind, and leaves, by some benevolent +arrangement of nature, a <i>tabula rasa</i>—a blank space for the next +one. Everyone must recollect that anecdote of Walter Scott, who, on hearing one +of his own poems ('My hawk is tired of perch and hood') sung in a London +drawing-room, observed with innocent approbation, 'Byron's, of course;' and so +it is with us lesser folks. A very humorous sketch might be given (and it would +not be overdrawn) of some prolific novelist getting hold, under some strange +roof, of the 'library edition' of his own stories, and perusing them with great +satisfaction and many appreciative ejaculations, such as 'Now this <i>is</i> +good;' 'I wonder how it will end;' or 'George Eliot's, <i>of course</i>! +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-8" id="fn-8"></a> <a href="#fnref-8">[8]</a> +Speaking of dreams, the composition of Khubla Khan and of one or two other +literary fragments during sleep has led to the belief that dreams are often +useful to the writer of fiction; but in my own case, at least, I can recall but +a single instance of it, nor have I ever heard of their doing one pennyworth of +good to any of my contemporaries. +</p> + +<p> +Although a good allowance of sleep is absolutely +necessary for imaginative brain work, long holidays +are not so. I have noticed that those who let their +brains 'lie fallow,' as it is termed, for any considerable +time, are by no means the better for it; but, on the +other hand, some daily recreation, by which a genuine +interest is excited and maintained, is almost indispensable. +It is no use to 'take up a book,' and far +less to attempt 'to refresh the machine,' as poor Sir +Walter did, by trying another kind of composition; +what is needed is an altogether new object for the +intellectual energies, by which, though they are +stimulated, they shall not be strained. +</p> + +<p> +Advice such as I have ventured to offer may seem +'to the general' of small importance, but to those I +am especially addressing it is worthy of their attention, +if only as the result of a personal experience unusually +prolonged; and I have nothing unfortunately but +advice to offer. To the question addressed to me +with such <i>naïveté</i> by so many correspondents, 'How +do you make your plots?' (as if they were consulting +the Cook's Oracle), I can return no answer. I don't +know, myself; they are sometimes suggested by what +I hear or read, but more commonly they suggest +themselves unsought. +</p> + +<p> +I once heard two popular story-tellers, A who +writes seldom, but with much ingenuity of construction, +and B who is very prolific in pictures of everyday +life, discoursing on this subject. +</p> + +<p> +'Your fecundity,' said A, 'astounds me; I can't +think where you get your plots from.' +</p> + +<p> +'Plots?' replied B; 'oh! I don't trouble myself +about <i>them</i>. To tell you the truth, I generally take a +bit of one of yours, which is amply sufficient for my +purpose.' +</p> + +<p> +This was very wrong of B; and it is needless to +say I do not quote his system for imitation. A man +should tell his own story without plagiarism. As to +Truth being stranger than Fiction, that is all nonsense; +it is a proverb set about by Nature to conceal her own +want of originality. I am not like that pessimist +philosopher who assumed her malignity from the fact +of the obliquity of the ecliptic; but the truth is, Nature +is a pirate. She has not hesitated to plagiarise from +even so humble an individual as myself. Years after +I had placed my wicked baronet in his living tomb, +she starved to death a hunter in Mexico under precisely +similar circumstances; and so late as last month +she has done the same in a forest in Styria. Nay, on +my having found occasion in a certain story ('a small +thing, but my own') to get rid of the whole wicked +population of an island by suddenly submerging it +in the sea, what did Nature do? She waited for an +insultingly short time (if her idea was that the story +would be forgotten), and then reproduced the same circumstances +on her own account (and without the least +acknowledgment) in the Indian seas. My attention +was drawn to both these breaches of copyright by +several correspondents, but I had no redress, the +offender being beyond the jurisdiction of the Court of +Chancery. +</p> + +<p> +When the story-teller has finished his task and surmounted +every obstacle to his own satisfaction, he has +still a difficulty to face in the choice of a title. He +may invent indeed an eminently appropriate one, but +it is by no means certain he will be allowed to keep +it. Of course he has done his best to steer clear of +that borne by any other novel; but among the +thousands that have been brought out within the +last forty years, and which have been forgotten even +if they were ever known, how can he know whether +the same name has not been hit upon? He goes to +Stationers' Hall to make inquiries; but—mark the +usefulness of that institution—he finds that books are +only entered there under their authors' names. His +search is therefore necessarily futile, and he has to +publish his story under the apprehension (only too +well founded, as I have good cause to know) that the +High Court of Chancery will prohibit its sale upon +the ground of infringement of title. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/03.jpg" width="300" height="179" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>PENNY FICTION</h2> + +<p> +It is now nearly a quarter of a century ago since a +popular novelist revealed to the world in a well-known +periodical the existence of the 'Unknown +Public;' and a very curious revelation it was. He +showed us that the few thousands of persons who +had hitherto imagined themselves to be the public—so +far, at least, as their being the arbiters of popularity +in respect to writers of fiction was concerned—were +in fact nothing of the kind; that the subscribers to +the circulating libraries, the members of book clubs, +the purchasers of magazines and railway novels, +might indeed have their favourites, but that these +last were 'nowhere,' as respected the number of their +backers, in comparison with novelists whose names +and works appear in penny journals and nowhere +else. +</p> + +<p> +This class of literature was of considerable dimensions +even in the days when Mr. Wilkie Collins first +called attention to it; but the luxuriance of its growth +has since become tropical. His observations are drawn +from some half a dozen specimens of it only, whereas +I now hold in my hand—or rather in both hands— +nearly half a hundred of them. The population of +readers must be dense indeed in more than one sense +that can support such a crop. +</p> + +<p> +Doubtless the individual circulation of none of these +serials is equal to that of the most successful of them +at the date of their first discovery; but those who +read them must, from various causes, of which the +most obvious is the least important, have trebled in +number. Population, that is to say, has increased in +very small proportion as compared with the increase +of those who very literally run and read—the peripatetic +students, who study on their way to work or +even as they work, including, I am sorry to say, the +telegraph boy on his errand. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, notwithstanding its gigantic dimensions, +the Unknown Public remains practically as unknown +as ever. The literary wares that find such +favour with it do not meet the eye of the ordinary +observer. They are to be found neither at the bookseller's +nor on the railway stall. But in back streets, +in small dark shops, in the company of cheap tobacco, +hardbake (and, at the proper season, valentines), their +leaves lie thick as those in Vallombrosa. Early in +the week is their springtime, when they are put forth +from Heaven knows what printing-houses in courts +and alleys, to lie for a few days only on the counter +in huge piles. On Saturdays, albeit that is their +nominal publishing day, they have for the most part +disappeared. For this sort of literature has one +decidedly advanced feature, and possesses one virtue +of endurance—it comes out ever so long before the +date it bears upon its title-page, and 'when the world +shall have passed away' will, by a few days at least, +if faith is to be placed in figures, survive it. +</p> + +<p> +Why it should have any date at all no man can tell. +There is nothing in the contents that is peculiar to +one year—or, to say truth, of one era—rather than +another. As a rule, indeed, time and space are alike +annihilated in them, in order to make two lovers +happy. The general terms in which they are written +is one of their peculiar features. One would think +that, instead of being as unlike real life as stories professing +to deal with it can be, they were photographs of +it, and that the writers, as in the following instance, had +always the fear of the law of libel before their eyes: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +We must now request our readers to accompany us into +an obscure <i>cul de sac</i> opening into a narrow street branching +off Holborn. For many reasons we do not choose to be +more precise as to locality. +</p> + +<p> +Of course in this <i>cul de sac</i> is a Private Inquiry +Office, with a detective in it. But in defining even +him the novelist gives himself no trouble to arouse +excitement in his readers: they have paid their penny +for the history of this interesting person, and, that +being done, they may read about him or not, as they +please. One would really think that the author of the +story was also the proprietor of the periodical. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Those who desire (he says) to make the acquaintance of +this somewhat remarkable person have only to step with us +into the little dusky room where he is seated, and we shall +have much pleasure in introducing him to their notice. +</p> + +<p> +—A sentence which has certainly the air of saying, +'You may be introduced to him, or you may let it +alone.' +</p> + +<p> +The coolness with which everything is said and +done in penny fiction is indeed most remarkable, and +should greatly recommend it to that respectable class +who have a horror of 'sensation.' In a story, for +example, that purports to describe University life +(and is as much like it as the camel produced from +the German professor's self-consciousness must have +been to a real camel) there is an underplot of an +amazing kind. The wicked undergraduate, notwithstanding +that he has the advantage of being a baronet, +is foiled in his attempt to win the affections of a young +woman in humble life, and the virtuous hero of the +story recommends her to the consideration of his +negro servant: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +'Talk to her, Monday,' whispered Jack, 'and see if she +loves you.'<br/> +    For a short time Monday and Ada were in close conversation.<br/> +    Then Monday uttered a cry like a war-whoop.<br/> +    'It am come all right, sare. Missy Ada says she not really +care for Sir Sydney, and she will be my little wife,' he said.<br/> +    'I congratulate you, Monday,' answered Jack.<br/> +    In half an hour more they arrived at the house of John +Radford, plumber and glazier, who was Ada's father.<br/> +    Mr. and Mrs. Radford and their two sons received their +daughter and her companions with that unstudied civility +which contrasts so favourably with the stuck-up ceremony of +many in a higher position. They were not prejudiced against +Monday on account of his dark skin.<br/> +    It was enough for them that he was the man of Ada's +choice.<br/> +    Mrs. Radford even went so far as to say, 'Well, for a +coloured gentleman, he is very handsome and quite nice +mannered, though I think Ada's been a little sly in telling +us nothing about her engagement to the last.'<br/> +    They did not know all.<br/> +    Nor was it advisable that they should. +</p> + +<p> +Still they knew something—for example, that their +new son-in-law was a black man, which one would +have thought might have struck them as phenomenal. +They take it, however, quite quietly and as a matter +of course. Now, surely, even among plumbers and +glaziers, it must be thought as strange for one's +daughter to marry a black man as a lord. Yet, out +of this dramatic situation the author makes nothing +at all, but treats it as coolly as his <i>dramatis personæ</i> +do themselves. Now <i>my</i> notion would have been to +make the bridegroom a black lord, and then to +portray, with admirable skill, the conflicting emotions +of his mother-in-law, disgusted on the one hand by +his colour, attracted on the other by his rank. But +'sensation' is evidently out of the line of the penny +novelist: he gives his facts, which are certainly remarkable, +then leaves both his characters and his +readers to draw their own conclusions. +</p> + +<p> +The total absence of local scenery from these half +hundred romances is also curious, and becomes so +very marked when the novelists are so imprudent as +to take their <i>dramatis personæ</i> out of England, that +one can't help wondering whether these gentlemen +have ever been in foreign parts themselves, or even +read about them. Here is the conclusion of a romance +which leaves nothing to be desired in the way of +brevity, but is unquestionably a little abrupt and +vague: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +A year has passed away, and we are far from England and +the English climate. +</p> + +<p> +Whither 'we' have gone the author does not say, +nor even indicate the hemisphere. It will be imagined, +perhaps, that we shall find out where we are by the +indication of the flora and fauna. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +A lady and gentleman before the dawn of day have been +climbing up an arid road in the direction of a dark ridge. +</p> + +<p> +Observe, again, the ingenious vagueness of the +description: an 'arid road' which may mean Siberia, +and a 'dark ridge' which may mean the Himalayas. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +The dawn suddenly comes upon them in all its glory. +Birds twittered in their willow gorges, and it was a very +glorious day. Arthur and Emily had passed the night at +the ranche, and he had now taken her up to look at the +mine which at all events had introduced them. He had +previously taken her to see his mother's grave, the mother +whom he had so loved. The mine after some delay proved +more prosperous than ever. It was not sold, but is the +'appanage' of the younger sons of the house of Dacres. +</p> + +<p> +With the exception of the 'ranche,' it will be +remarked that there is not one word in the foregoing +description to fix locality. The mine and the ranche +together seem indeed to suggest South America. But—I +ask for information—do birds twitter there in +willow gorges? Younger sons of noble families proverbially +come off second best in this country, but if +one of them found his only 'appanage' was a mine, +he would surely with some justice make a remonstrance. +</p> + +<p> +The readers of this class of fiction will not have +Dumas at any price—or, at all events, not at a penny. +Mr. Collins tells us how 'Monte Christo' was once +spread before them, and how they turned from that +gorgeous feast with indifference, and fell back upon +their tripe and onions—their nameless authors. But +some of those who write for them have adopted one +peculiarity of Dumas. The short jerky sentences which +disfigure the 'Three Musketeers,' and indeed all that +great novelist's works, are very frequent with them, +which induces me to believe that they are paid by the +line. +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, some affect fashionable description +and conversation which are drawn out in 'passages +that lead to nothing' of an amazing length. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +'Where have I been,' replied Clyde with a carelessness +which was half forced 'Oh, I have been over to Higham +to see the dame.'<br/> +    'Ah, yes,' said Sir Edward, 'and how is the poor old +creature?'<br/> +    'Quite well,' said Clyde, as he sat down and took up the +menu of the elaborate dinner. 'Quite well, she sent her +best respects,' he added, but he said nothing of the lodger, +pretty Miss Mary Westlake.<br/> +    And when, a moment afterwards, the door opened and +Grace came flowing in with her lithe noiseless step, dressed +in one of Worth's masterpieces, a wonder of amber, satin, +and antique lace, he raised his eyes and looked at her with +an earnest scrutiny—so earnest that she paused with her +hand on his chair, and met his eyes with a questioning glance.<br/> +    'Do you like my new dress?' she said with a calm smile.<br/> +    'Your dress?' he said. 'Yes, yes, it is very pretty, very.' +But to himself he added, 'Yes, they are alike, strangely +alike.' +</p> + +<p> +Which last remark may be applied with justice to +the conversations of all our novelists. There appears +no necessity for their commencement, no reason for +their continuance, no object in their conclusion; the +reader finds himself in a forest of verbiage from which +he is extricated only at the end of the chapter, which +is always, however, 'to be continued.' +</p> + +<p> +It is true that these story-tellers for the million +generally keep 'a gallop for the avenue' (an incident +of a more or less exciting kind to finish up with), but +it is so brief and unsatisfactory that it hardly rises to +a canter; the author never seems to get into his stride. +The following is a fair example: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +But before we let the curtain fall, we must glance for a +moment at another picture—a sad and painful one. In one +of those retreats, worse than a living tomb, where reside those +whose reason is dead, though their bodies still live, is a small +spare cell. The sole occupant is a woman, young and very +beautiful. Sometimes she is quiet and gentle as a child; +sometimes her fits of frenzy are frightful to witness; but the +only word she utters is 'Revenge,' and on her hand she +always wears a plain gold band with a cross of black pearls. +</p> + +<p> +This conclusion, which I chanced upon before I read +the tale which preceded it, naturally interested me +immensely. Here, thought I, is at last an exciting +story; I shall now find one of those literary prizes in +hopes, perhaps, of hitting upon which the penny public +endures so many blanks. I was quite prepared to +have my blood curdled; my lips were ready for a full +draught of gore; yet, I give you my word, there was +nothing in the whole story worse than a bankruptcy. +</p> + +<p> +This is what makes the success of penny fiction so +remarkable; there is nothing whatever in the way of +dramatic interest to account for it; nor of impropriety +either. Like the lady friend of Dr. Johnson, who congratulated +him that there were no improper words in +his dictionary, and received from that unconciliatory +sage the reply, 'You have been looking for them, +have you?' I have carefully searched my fifty samples +of penny fiction for something wrong, and have not +found it. It is as pure as milk, or, at all events, as +milk-and-water. Unlike the Minerva Press, too, it +does not deal with eminent persons: wicked peers +are rare; fraud is usually confined within what +may be called its natural limits—the lawyer's office; +the attention paid to the heroines not only by their +heroes, but by their unsuccessful and objectionable +rivals, is generally of the most honourable kind; and +platitude and dulness hold undisputed sway. +</p> + +<p> +In one or two of these periodicals there is indeed an +example of the mediaeval melodrama; but 'Ralpho the +Mysterious' is by no means thrilling. Indeed, when +I remember that 'Ivanhoe' was once published in a +penny journal and proved a total failure, and then +contemplate the popularity of 'Ralpho,' I am more +at sea as to what it is that attracts the million than +ever. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +'Noble youth,' cried the King as he embraced Ralpho, +'to you we must entrust the training of our cavalry. I hold +here the list which has been made out of the troops which +will come at the signal. To certain of our nobles we have +entrusted certain of our <i>corps d'armée</i>, but unto you, Ralpho, +we must entrust our horse, for in that service you can display +that wonderful dexterity with the sword which has made your +name so famous.'<br/> +    'Sire,' cried our hero, as he dropped on one knee and took +the King's hand, pressing it to his lips, 'thou hast indeed +honoured me by such a reward, but I cannot accept it.'<br/> +    'How!' cried the King; 'hast thou so soon tired of my +service?'<br/> +    'Not so, sire. To serve you I would shed the last drop +of my blood. But if I were to accept this command, I +should cease to do the service for the cause which now it has +pleased you to say I have done. No, sire, let me remain +the guardian of my King—his secret agent. I, with my sword +alone, will defend my country and my King.'<br/> +    'Be not rash, Ralpho; already hast thou done more than +any man ever did before. Run no more danger.'<br/> +    'Sire, if I have served you, grant my request. Let it be +as I have said.'<br/> +    'It shall be so, mysterious youth. Thou shalt be my secret +agent. Take this ring, and wear it for my sake; and, hark +ye, gentlemen, when Ralpho shows that ring, obey him as if +he were ourselves.'<br/> +    'We will,' cried the nobles.<br/> +    Then the King took the Star of St. Stanislaus, and fixed it +on our hero's breast. +</p> + +<p> +Now, to my mind, though his preferring to be 'a +secret agent' to becoming a generalissimo of the +Polish cavalry is as modest as it is original, Ralpho is +too 'goody-goody' to be called 'the Mysterious.' He +reminds me, too, in his way of mixing chivalry with +self-interest, of those enterprising officers in fighting +regiments who send in applications for their own +V.C.s while their comrades remain in modest expectation +of them. +</p> + +<p> +I am inclined to think, however, from the following +advertisement, that some author has been +recently piling up the virtues of his hero too strongly +for the very delicate stomachs of the penny public, +who, it is evident, resent superlatives of all kinds, and +are commonplace and conventional to the marrow of +their bones: 'T.B. TIMMINS is informed that he +cannot be promised another story like "Mandragora," +since, in deciding the contents of our journal, the tastes +of readers have to be considered whose interest cannot +be aroused by the impossible deeds of impossible +creatures.' Alas! I wish from my heart I knew what +'deeds' or 'creatures' <i>do</i> arouse the interest of this +(to me) inexplicable public; for though I have before +me the stories they obviously take delight in, why they +do so I cannot tell. +</p> + +<p> +At the 'Answers to Correspondents,' indeed, which +form a leading feature in most of these penny journals, +one may exclaim, with the colonel in 'Woodstock,' +when, after many ghosts, he grapples with Wildrake: +'Thou at least art palpable.' Here we have the real +readers, asking questions upon matters that concern +them, and from these we shall surely get at the back +of their minds. But it is unfortunately not so certain +that these 'Answers to Correspondents' are not themselves +fictions, like all the rest—only invented by the +editor instead of the author, and coming in handy to +fill up a vacant page. It is, to my mind, incredible +that a public so every way different from that of the +Mechanic's Institute, and to whom mere information +is likely to be anything but attractive, should be +genuinely solicitous to learn that 'Needles were first +made in England in Cheapside, in the reign of Queen +Mary, by a negro from Spain;' or that 'The family +name of the Duke of Norfolk is Howard, although the +younger members of it call themselves Talbot.' +</p> + +<p> +Even the remonstrance of 'Our Correspondence +Editor' with a gentleman who wishes to learn 'How +to manufacture dynamite' seems to me artificial; as +though the idea of saying a few words in season +against explosive compounds had occurred to him, +without any particular opportunity having really +offered itself for the expression of his views. +</p> + +<p> +There are, however, one or two advertisements decidedly +genuine, and which prove that the readers of +penny fiction are not so immersed in romance but that +they have their eyes open to the main chance and +their material responsibilities. 'ANXIOUS TO KNOW,' +for example, is informed that 'The widow, unless +otherwise decreed, keeps possession of furniture on +her marriage, and the daughter cannot claim it;' while +SKIBBS is assured that 'After such a lapse of time +there will be no danger of a warrant being issued for +leaving his wife and family chargeable to the parish.' +</p> + +<p> +As when Mr. Wilkie Collins made his first voyage +of discovery into these unknown latitudes, the penny +journals are largely used for forming matrimonial engagements, +and for adjudicating upon all questions of +propriety in connection with the affections. 'It is +just bordering on folly,' 'NANCY BLAKE' is informed, +'to marry a man six years your junior.' In answer +to an inquiry from 'LOVING OLIVIA' whether 'an engaged +gentleman is at liberty to go to a theatre without +taking his young lady with him,' she is told 'Yes; +but we imagine he would not often do so.' +</p> + +<p> +Some tender questions are mixed up with others of +a more practical sort. 'LADY HILDA' is informed +that 'it is very seldom children are born healthy whose +father has married before he is three-and-twenty; that +long engagements are not only unnecessary but injurious; +and that washing the head will remove the +scurf.' 'LEONE' is assured that 'it is not necessary +to be married in two churches, one being quite sufficient;' +that 'there is no truth in the saying that it is +unlucky to marry a person of the same complexion;' +and that 'a gentle aperient will remove nettle-rash.' +</p> + +<p> +'VIRGINIE' (who, by the way, should surely be +VIRGINIUS) is thus tenderly sympathised with: +</p> + +<p> +'It does seem rather hard that you should be deprived +of all opportunity of having a <i>tête-à -tête</i> with +your betrothed, owing to her being obliged to entertain +other company, although there are others of the +family who can do so; still, as her mother insists +upon it, and will not let you enjoy the society of her +daughter uninterrupted, you might resort to a little +harmless strategy, and whenever your stated evenings +for calling are broken in on that way, ask the young +lady to take a walk with you, or go to a place of +amusement. She can then excuse herself to her +friends without a breach of etiquette, and you can +enjoy your <i>tête-à -tête</i> undisturbed.' +</p> + +<p> +The photographs of lady correspondents which are +received by the editors of most of these journals are +apparently very numerous, and, if we may believe their +description of them, all ravishingly beautiful. It is +no wonder they receive many applications of the following +nature: +</p> + +<p> +'CLYDE, a rising young doctor, twenty-two, fair, +with a nice house and servants; being tired of bachelor +life, wishes to receive the carte-de-visite of a dark, +fascinating young lady, of from seventeen to twenty +years of age; no money essential, but good birth indispensable. +She must be fond of music and children, +and very loving and affectionate.' +</p> + +<p> +Another doctor: +</p> + +<p> +'Twenty-nine, of a loving and amiable disposition, +and who has at present an income of £120 a year, is +desirous to make an immediate engagement with a +lady about his own age, who must be possessed of a +little money, so that by their united efforts he may +soon become a member of a lucrative and honourable +profession.' +</p> + +<p> +How the 'united efforts' of two young people, however +enthusiastic, can make a man an M.D. or an +M.R.C.S. (except that love conquers all things) is +more than one can understand. The last advertisement +I shall quote affects me nearly, for it is from an +eminent member of my own profession: +</p> + +<p> +'ALEXIS, a popular author in the prime of life, of +an affectionate disposition, and fond of home, and the +extent and pressing nature of whose work have prevented +him from mixing much in society, would be +glad to correspond with a young lady not above thirty. +She must be of a pleasing appearance, amiable, intelligent, +and domestic.' +</p> + +<p> +If it is with the readers of penny fiction that Alexis +has established his popularity, I would like to know +how he did it, and who he is. To discover this last +is, however, an impossibility. These novelists all +write anonymously, nor do their works ever appear +before the public in another guise. There is sometimes +a melancholy pretence to the contrary put forth +in the 'Answers to Correspondents.' 'PHOENIX,' for +example, is informed that 'The story about which he +inquires will not be published in book form at the +time he mentions.' But the fact is it will never be so +published at all. It has been written, like all its +congeners, for the unknown millions and for no one +else. +</p> + +<p> +Some years ago, in a certain great literary organ, it +was stated of one of these penny journals (which has +not forgotten to advertise the eulogy) that 'its novels, +are equal to the best works of fiction to be got at the +circulating libraries.' The critic who so expressed +himself must have done so in a moment of hilarity +which I trust was not produced by liquor; for 'the +best works of fiction to be got at the circulating libraries' +obviously include those of George Eliot, Trollope, +Reade, Black, and Blackmore, while the novels I am +discussing are inferior to the worst. They are as crude +and ineffective in their pictures of domestic life as +they are deficient in dramatic incident; they are vapid, +they are dull. Indeed, the total absence of humour, +and even of the least attempt at it, is most remarkable. +There is now and then a description of the +playing of some practical joke, such as tying two +Chinamen's tails together, the effect of the relation of +which is melancholy in the extreme, but there is no +approach to fun in the whole penny library. And yet +it attracts, it is calculated, four millions of readers—a +fact which makes my mouth water like that of +Tantalus. +</p> + +<p> +When Mr. Wilkie Collins wrote of the Unknown +Public it is clear he was still hopeful of them. He +thought it 'a question of time' only. 'The largest +audience,' he says, 'for periodical literature in this +age of periodicals must obey the universal law of +progress, and sooner or later learn to discriminate. +When that period comes the readers who rank by +millions will be the readers who give the widest +reputations, who return the richest rewards, and +who will therefore command the services of the best +writers of their time.' This prophecy has, curiously +enough, been fulfilled in a different direction from +that anticipated by him who uttered it. The penny +papers—that is, the provincial penny newspapers—<i>do</i> +now, under the syndicate system, command the +services of our most eminent novel writers; but +Penny Fiction proper—that is to say, the fiction published +in the penny literary journals—is just where it +was a quarter of a century ago. +</p> + +<p> +With the opportunity of comparison afforded to its +readers one would say this would be impossible, but +as a matter of fact, the opportunity is <i>not</i> offered. +The readers of Penny Fiction do not read newspapers; +political events do not interest them, nor +even social events, unless they are of the class +described in the <i>Police News</i>, which, I remark—and +the fact is not without significance—does not need to +add fiction to its varied attractions. +</p> + +<p> +But who, it will be asked, <i>are</i> the public who don't +read newspapers, and whose mental calibre is such +that they require to be told by a correspondence +editor that 'any number over the two thousand will +certainly be in the three thousand'? +</p> + +<p> +I believe, though the vendors of the commodity in +question profess to be unable to give any information +on the matter, that the majority are female domestic +servants. +</p> + +<p> +As to what attracts them in their favourite literature, +that is a much more knotty question. My own +theory is that, just as Mr. Tupper achieved his +immense popularity by never going over the heads +of his readers, and showing that poetry was, after +all, not such a difficult thing to be understood, +so the writers of Penny Fiction, in clothing very +conventional thoughts in rather high-faluting English, +have found the secret of success. Each reader says +to himself (or herself), 'That is <i>my</i> thought, which I +would have myself expressed in those identical words, +if I had only known how. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>HOTELS.</h2> + +<p> +The desire for cheap holidays—as concerns going +a long distance for little money—is no doubt +very general, but it is not universal. It demands, like +the bicycle, both youth and vigour. In mature years, +not only because we are more fastidious, but because +we are less robust, the element of cheapness, though +always agreeable, is subsidiary to that of comfort. +For my own part, if the chance were offered me to +travel night and day for forty-eight hours anywhere—though +it was to the Elysian Fields—and that in a +Pullman car, and for nothing, I would rather go to +Southend at my own expense from Saturday to +Monday. Suppose the former journey to be commenced +by a Channel passage and continued in a +third-class carriage, I would rather stop at home. +Or if, in addition to the other discomforts, I am to +be a unit among 100 excursionists, with a coupon +that insures my being lodged on the sixth floor everywhere, +I had rather take a month's quiet holiday in +London at the House of Detention. +</p> + +<p> +These things are matters of taste; but it is certain +that a very large number of people, who, like myself, +are neither rich nor in a position which justifies them +in giving themselves airs, consider quiet, comfort, and +the absence of petty cares the most essential conditions +of a holiday. These views necessitate some +expense and generally limit the excursions of those +who entertain them to their native land; but, on the +other hand, they have their advantages. They give +one, for example, a great experience in the matter of +hotels. +</p> + +<p> +As I idly flutter the yellow leaves of the advertisements +of inns in 'Bradshaw,' they call up pictures in +my mind quite undreamt of by the proprietors. I +have been a sojourner in almost all of these which are +described as 'situated in picturesque localities.' They +are all—it is in print and must be true—'first-class' +hotels; they have most of them 'unrivalled accommodation;' +not a few of them have been 'patronised +by Royalty,' and one of them even by 'the Rothschilds.' +These last, of course, are great caravanserais, with +'magnificent ladies' drawing-rooms' and 'replete' (a +word that seems to have taken service with the licensed +victuallers) 'with every luxury.' They make up (a +term unfortunately suggestive of transformation) +hundreds of beds; they have equipages and 'night +chamberlains;' '<i>On y parle français</i>;' '<i>Man spricht +Deutsch</i>.' Of some of these there is quite a little +biography, beginning with the year of their establishment +and narrating their happy union with other +agreeable premises, like a brick and mortar novel. I +remember them well: their 'romantic surroundings' +or 'their exclusive privilege of meeting trains upon the +platform;' their accurate resemblance to 'a gentleman's +own house' (with 'a reception-room 80 feet by +90 feet'); their 'douche and spray baths;' their 'unexceptionable +tariff;' and even their having undergone +those 'extensive alterations,' through which I also +underwent something, which they did not allow for in +the bill. +</p> + +<p> +These hotels are all more or less satisfactory as to +appearance; furnished, not, indeed, with such taste, +nor so lavishly, as their rivals on the Continent, but +handsomely enough; they are much cleaner than +foreign inns; and if their reference to 'every sanitary +improvement which science can suggest' is a little +tall, even for an advertisement, one never has cause +to shudder as happens in some places in France +proper and in Brittany everywhere. Though it must +be admitted that <i>tables d'hôte</i> abroad are not the +banquets which the travelling Briton believes them +to be, our own hotel public dinners are inferior to +their originals, and, what is very hard, those who pay +for an entertainment in private suffer from them. The +guest who happens to dine later than the <i>table d'hôte</i> +in his own apartment can hardly escape getting things +'warmed up;' and if he dines at the same time he has +nobody to wait on him. There is one thing that +presses with great severity on paterfamilias—the +charge which is made at many of the large hotels +of 1s. 6d. a day for attendance on each person. Half +a guinea a week for service is a high price even for a +bachelor; but when this has to be paid for every +member of the family, it is ruinous. Young ladies +who dine at the same table and do not give half the +trouble of 'single gentlemen' ought not to be taxed +in this way. It is urged by many that since attendance +is charged in the bill,' there should be no +other fees. But the lover of comfort will always +cheerfully pay for a little extra civility; nor do I +think that this practice—any more than that of +feeing our railway porters—is a public disadvantage. +The waiter does not know till the guest goes +whether he is a person of inflexible principles +or not, and, therefore, hope ameliorates his manners +and shapes his actions to all. As to getting +'attendance' out of the bill, now it has once got into +it, that I believe to be impossible. There it is, like the +moth in one's drawing-room sofa. And yet I am old +enough to remember how poor Albert Smith plumed +himself on the benefit he bestowed upon the public, +as he had imagined, by introducing a fixed charge for +all services and doing away with 'Please, sir, boots.' +In this country, and, to say truth, in most others, +'Please, sir, boots,' is indigenous and not to be done +away with. We did very much better under the +voluntary system, although a few people who did not +deserve it, but simply could not afford to be lavish, +were called in consequence 'screws.' +</p> + +<p> +To pay the wages of another man's servants is +absurd, and reminds one of the 'plate, glass, and +linen' that used to be charged for at the posting-house +on the Dover road with every threepenny-worth +of brandy-and-water, I have been asked 6d. +for an orange (when oranges were cheap) at a +London hotel, upon the ground that they never +charged less than 6d. for anything; and I have read +of 'an old established and family hotel' near Piccadilly, +where the charge for putting the <i>Times</i> upon a +guest's breakfast-table was 6d. up to this present year +of grace. 'Gentlemen and families had always been +supplied with it at that price,' said the landlord, +when remonstrated with, 'and it was his principle, +and his customers approved it, to keep things as +they were.' It must be admitted, however, that +matters have changed for the better in this respect +elsewhere; and, at all events, the printed tariff that +may now be consulted in every modern hotel enables +you to know what you are spending. +</p> + +<p> +Things are improved, too, in the way of light and +air; both the public and private rooms of our hotels +are far more cheerful and better appointed than they +used to be, and instead of the four-posters there are +French beds. The one great advantage that our new +system possesses over the old is, indeed, the sleeping +accommodation. The 'skimpy' mattress, the sheet +that used to come untucked through shortness, leaving +the feet tickled by the blanket, and the thin, limp +thing that called itself a feather bed, are only to be +found in ancient hostelries. +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, it must be confessed that the +food has deteriorated; the bill of fare, indeed, is more +pretentious, but the materials are inferior, and so is +the cooking. The well-browned fowl, with its rich +gravy and the bread-sauce that used to be its homely +but agreeable attendant, has disappeared. The bird +appears now under a French title, and is in other +respects unrecognisable; as an Irish gentleman once +explained it to me, it is not only that the thing +appears under an <i>alias</i>, but the <i>alias</i> comes up instead +of the thing. There is one essential which the old +hotel often omitted to serve with your chicken, and +which the new hotel supplies—the salad. This, however, +few hotel cooks in England—and far less hotel +waiters—can be trusted to prepare. Their simple +plan is to deluge the tender lettuce with some hateful +ingredient called 'salad mixture,' poured out of a +peculiarly shaped bottle, such as the law now compels +poisons to be sold in; and the jewel is deserving of +its casket—it is almost poison. Nor, alas! is security +always to be attained by making one's salad for +one's self. For supposing even that the lettuce is fresh +and white, and not manifestly a cabbage that is pretending +to be a lettuce, how about the oil? Charles +Dickens used to say that he could always tell the +character of an inn from its cruets; if they were dirty +and neglected, all was bad. The cruets are now +clean enough in all hotels of pretension; but alas for +that bottle which should contain (and perhaps did at +some remote period contain) the oil of Lucca! On +the fingers of one hand I could count all the hotels +in England which have not given me bad oil. Whether +it was never good, or whether it has gone bad, I leave +to those philosophers who investigate the origin of +evil. I only know that it tastes as hair-oil smells. +As to the soups, they are no worse than they used +to be, and no better; there is soup and there is hotel +soup. +</p> + +<p> +'Gravy soup, fried sole, <i>entrée</i>, leg of mutton, and +apple tart' used to be the unambitious <i>menu</i> of the +old-fashioned inn. The <i>entrée</i> was terrible, but the +fish, meat, and sweet were excellent. I will say +nothing of the <i>entrées</i> now; I am not in a position to +say anything, for not being of a sanguine temperament, +and having but a few years to live, I do not +venture upon them. But it is undeniable that our +bill of fare is greatly more varied than it used to be, +and that the way in which the table is arranged is +much more attractive. At the great hotels in the +neighbourhood of London where rich, or at all events +prodigal people, go to dine in the summer months, +this is especially the case. All these establishments +affect fine dinners, yet how seldom it is they give you +good ones! Their wines, though monstrously dear, +are very fair; indeed, of the champagnes at least you +may make certain by looking at the corks; but the +food! How many of their fancifully named dishes +might be included under the common title, Fiasco! +</p> + +<p> +It was once suggested to a decayed man of fashion +that an excellent profession for him to take up would +be the proprietorship of an hotel of this class. 'You +know what is really worth eating,' said an influential +friend of his, 'and these caterers for your own class +evidently don't; if you will undertake the management +of the <i>Mammoth</i> (naming an inn of very high +repute), I will furnish the funds.' But the man of +fashion, who had spent his all with very little to show +for it, had at least acquired some knowledge of his +fellow-creatures. 'I am deeply obliged to you,' he +said, 'but were I to accept your offer I should only +lose your money. There are but a very few people in +the world who know a good dinner when it is set +before them; and a very large class (including all the +ladies, who are only solicitous about its <i>looking</i> good) +do not care whether it is good or bad. In private life +if a dinner consists of many courses, is given at a fine +house, and is presumably expensive, nineteen-twentieths +of those who sit down to it are satisfied. +The twentieth alone says to himself, 'How much +better I should have dined at home!' I have been at +scores and scores of great dinner-parties where the +very plates were cold and nobody but myself has +observed it.' +</p> + +<p> +I have no doubt the gentleman of fashion was +right; delicate cooking would be entirely thrown +away upon the general palate. The fair sex, the +young, the hungry, the easy-going, the ignorant—how +large a majority of the 'frequenters' of hotels do these +classes embrace! And it must also be remarked that +to cook food (except whitebait) delicately in large +quantities is a very difficult operation indeed. +</p> + +<p> +Upon the whole, I think, our large hotels, 'arranged +on the Continental system,' are well adapted for those +who frequent them, and they show a readiness to adopt +improvements. An immense number of well-to-do +people go to Brighton, to Scarborough, and scores of +other places to get a change and fresh air, but also to +find the same amusements to which they have been +accustomed in London; and, on the whole, they get +what they want without paying very much too much +for it. But what drives many quiet folks abroad is +their disinclination to meet with all this gaiety and +public life; they do not mind it so much when it is +mixed with the foreign element, and they are also +under the impression that picturesque scenery is a +peculiarity of the Continent. I believe that more +English people have visited Switzerland than have +seen the Lake District and the Channel Islands, and +very many more than have travelled in North Devon +and Cornwall. The chief reason of their abstinence in +this respect is, however, their dread of the want of +'accommodation.' To the last two counties, with the +exception of some towns, such as Ilfracombe, approachable +by sea, or a direct railway route, folks never +go in crowds, and never will go. It is true there are +no mammoth hotels to be found there; but for +picturesque situation and a certain homely comfort, +that takes one not only into another world, but +another generation, there is nothing equal to certain +little inns in these out-of-the-way places. In Wales +also, and even in the Isle of Wight, there are perfect +bowers of bliss of this description, still undesecrated +by the excursionist. Not ten years ago, in a part of +North Devon which shall be nameless, I came, with +my wife and daughter, upon an inn of this description. +We were all enraptured with the exquisite beauty of +its situation, and were so imprudent as to express, in +the presence of the landlady, our wish to live and die +there. 'Well, indeed, sir,' she said, 'I am delighted to +see you, but I hope you are not going to stay very +long.' 'My dear madam,' I remonstrated, aghast at +this remark, 'are we, then, such very objectionable-looking +persons?' 'Bless your heart, no, sir, it isn't +that; but the fact is, we have only room for three, and +if parties come and come, and always find us full +(through your being here, you know), they will think +it is no use coming, and we shall lose our custom.' We +did stay on, however, a pretty long time—it was a +place of ineffable beauty, such as one parts from almost +with tears—and when on our departure I asked for my +bill, the landlady said, 'Dear me, sir, would you kindly +tell me what day you come upon, for I ha' lost my +account of it?' The life we led at that inn was purely +pastoral; the clotted cream was of that consistency +that it was meat and drink in one; but although the +fare was homely, it was good of its kind, and admirably +cooked. There was fresh fish every day—for +we were too far from railways for that Gargantuan +ogre, 'the London market,' to deprive us of it—and +tender fowls, and jams of all kinds such as no money +could buy. +</p> + +<p> +The landlady had a genius for making what she +called 'conserves,' and every cupboard in the queer +little house was filled with them. In the sitting-room +was a quantity of old china and knick-knacks, brought +by the sailors of the place from foreign lands; the +linen was white as snow, and smelt of lavender. Outside +the inn was a sea that stretched to Newfoundland, +and cliffs that caught the sunset—such scenery +as is not surpassed by that of the Tyrol (though, of +course, in a very different line), and be sure I was +afraid of no comparison between our 'Travellers' +Rest' and any Tyrolean inn. It is noteworthy that +this hostelry of ours was so peculiarly and picturesquely +placed that it could only be approached on +foot, which reminds me of another place of entertainment +for man, but not for beast. +</p> + +<p> +In appearance, 'The Strangers' Welcome' (as I will +take leave to term it) is more ambitious than 'The +Rest,' but it is of the same simple type. In some +respects it is even more primitive; no sign hangs over +its door, nor is any other symbol of its vocation visible, +'Liberty,' not 'License,' as one may say without much +metaphor, being its motto. It is on an island, so +insignificant in extent that horse exercise is impossible +on it. What it lacks in superficial area is more than +made up, however, in its stupendous height. From +the 'Welcome,' though it lies in a dell, one looks down +perhaps a hundred sheer feet upon the ocean. Its +solemn murmur, even in calm, always reaches the +place, and when in storm, its spray. As one watches +it from the lawn among the fuchsias, one scarcely +knows which mood becomes it best. The fuchsias +grow against our walls and tap at our window-panes +in the morning as though they were roses; they even +make their homes in the rocks, like the conies. The +island is a very garden of fuchsias, tall as trees; and +there are no other trees. The 'Welcome' itself is a +sort of farmhouse without the farm; there is a goat or +two and a donkey to be seen about it, which would account +for the milk having an alien flavour, if it had one. +But the 'Welcome' has excellent milk, so that there +must be some cows somewhere. From the cliff-top you +may see Alderney, for our inn is among the Channel +Islands. When a storm comes you must stop where +you are; for until the last waves of it have ceased +there is no approach to us from the world without. +To the stranger it seems probable at such seasons that +the little place will burst up from below, for beneath +it are caverns innumerable, filled with furious waves +like sea monsters roaring for our lives. The sea, in +short, has honeycombed it, and renews her vows to be +its ruin with every gale. Yet the 'Welcome' lasts our +time, and will last that of many generations, who will +continue, however, doubtless to believe that the sublimities +of Nature are unattainable short of Switzerland. +</p> + +<p> +My memory now transports me to a mountain district +in the north, but on this side of the border; and +here, again, the inn is signless, and has no appearance +of an inn at all. It is situated on the last of a great +chain of hills, with lakes among them. It has lawns +and shrubberies, but few flowers; Nature frowns on +every hand, even in sunshine, when the waterfalls flow +like silver, and the crags are decked with diamonds. +There are no 'trencher-scraping, napkin-carrying,' +waiters in the house, but country damsels attend upon +you, and a motherly dame, their mistress, expresses +her hope every morning that you have slept well. If +you have not, it is the fault of your conscience: you +have had a poet's recipe for it, for you have been +'within the hearing of a hundred streams' all night. +Will you go up the Fells, or will you row on the Lake? +These are your simple alternatives; there is no brass +band, no promenade, no pier, no anything that the +vulgar like. Yet once a week at least a great spectacle +can be promised you without crossing the inn threshold +(indeed, when the promise is kept it is better to +be on the right side of it)—a thunder-storm among the +hills. The arrangements for lighting the place, of +which you may have complained, not without reason, +are then in perfection, and the silence is broken with a +vengeance. It is difficult to imagine the grandeurs of +a sham-fight—a battle without corpses—but here you +have them. First the musketry, then the guns, with +the explosion of the powder-magazine—repeated about +forty times by the mountain echoes—at the end of it. +When all is over you sit down to such a supper as +Lucullus would have given a year of life for, and +which, in all probability—for he had no prudence—would +have shortened it for him. At the 'Retreat,' as +it is called, among other native delicacies, they give +you fresh char cooked to a turn. I like to think that +this was the fish that Monte Christo had sent him in +a tank to Paris on the occasion of a certain banquet; +but all the wealth of the Indies could not have accomplished +that; the char (in spite of its name) does not +travel. +</p> + +<p> +One more reminiscence of country inns; and, though +I have more of them in the picture-gallery of my +memory, I have done. I conjure up an ivy-covered +dwelling, long roofed but low, and sheltered by a lofty +hill. Its situation is quite solitary, and, save for the +cry of the seagull, there reigns about it an unbroken +silence. It is on the very highway of the world, but +the road is noiseless, for it is the sea. From the +windows, all day long, we can watch the ships pass by +that carry the pilgrims of the earth, for their freight +is chiefly human. It is here 'the first ray glitters on +the sail that brings our friends up from the under +world, and the last falls on that which sinks with all +we love below the verge.' Even at night there is no +cessation to this coming and going; only, a red light +or a white, and the distant strokes of a paddle-wheel +in the hush of the moonless void are then the sole +signs of all this motion. What hopes and fears contend +in unseen hearts under those moving stars! Is +it nothing to have the opportunity to watch them +from the ivied porch of the 'Outlook,' and to welcome +the thoughts they arouse within us? On land, too, +there are stars, not made in heaven, but their shining +is intermittent. As I lie in my bed I can see the +great revolving light on the farthest point of rock that +juts to sea. That is the 'Outlook's' watchman, not of +much use to it, indeed, in a practical way, but imparting +a marvellous sense of guardianship and security. +</p> + +<p> +The chief means of amusement at inns of this kind +is supplied by science in the telescope. You note +through it all that comes and goes, and after a day or +two can tell-for yourself whither each stately ship is +bound, or whence it comes. At the 'Outlook' the +food is plain, but good; the prawns in particular +(which the young people, by-the-bye, can catch for +themselves) are of an exquisite flavour, and in size +approach the lobster. Twice a week for four hours this +earthly Paradise is as a town taken by assault and +given over to pillage. An excursion steamer stops at +the little pier and discharges a cargo of excursionists. +But those to whom the happiness of their fellow-creatures +is intolerable can withdraw themselves at these +seasons to the neighbouring Downs and Bays, and on +their return they will find peace with folded wing +sitting as before on the 'Outlook's' flagstaff. +</p> + +<p> +Such are the inns which I have known, and there +are hundreds in beautiful England like them. On its +rivers in particular there are many charming little +inns, but, to say truth, although the gentlemen-fishermen +are as quiet as mice (from their habits of caution +in their calling), the disciples of the oar are noisy; +they get up too early and go to bed too late, and are +too much addicted to melody. Moreover, these houses +of entertainment often carry the principle of home +production to excess: their native fare is excellent; +but, spring mattresses not growing in the neighbourhood, +the stuffing of the beds is supplied, to judge by +results, from the turnip-field. For the purpose for +which they are intended, however, these little hostels +are well fitted and have a river charm that is indescribable. +</p> + +<p> +I could speak, too, of excellent hotels set in the +grounds of ruined castles or abbeys; but the attractions +of the latter interfere with the repose of the +visitor. Moreover, it has been my chief object, while +admitting the merits of the <i>Crown</i> (and) <i>Imperial</i>, to +paint the lily—to point out the violet half hid from +the eye. It seems to me a pity that so many persons +should leave their native land and spend their money +among foreigners through ignorance of the quiet resting-places +that await them at home. I have in no +way exaggerated their merits, but it must be confessed +that they have one serious drawback, which, however, +only affects bachelors; if Paterfamilias is troubled by +it he ought to be ashamed of himself. I allude to the +happy couples on their honeymoon whom one is wont +to meet with in these retired bowers. It is aggravating, +no doubt, to see how Angelina and Edwin devote +themselves to one another without the slightest regard +for the feelings of the solitary stranger. The poor +creature has no wish, of course, to thrust his company +upon them, still he would like to have his existence +acknowledged; and they ignore it. They have not a +word to throw to him, nor even a glance. Then there +are certain endearments, delightful, no doubt, to those +who exchange them, but which to the spectator are +distraction. What I would recommend to the bachelor +as a remedy is a wife of his own. The good Mussulman's +idea of future happiness is a perpetual honeymoon; +and these little Paradises are the very places +to spend it in. The customs of our own country forbid +the agreeable variety which has such charms for +the Faithful; but, even as it is, I have seen in these +pleasant inns a great deal of human happiness, such +as to the sober lover of his species only adds to their +attraction. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/04.jpg" width="300" height="180" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>MAID-SERVANTS.</h2> + +<p> +It is a common thing to hear the remark expressed +by much-tried mistresses that servants are not +'reasonable beings.' The observation may either +have been provoked by the misbehaviour of some +particular domestic, or by the injudicious defence of +the class by one of the male sex. For the gentlemen +have more to urge in favour of our domestics than the +ladies have, and, as the latter maintain, for a very +obvious reason—'they have much less to do with +them.' The statement is cynical, but correct. So +long as a man finds his clothes brushed and his meals +well and punctually cooked, he 'does not see much to +complain of,' nor does he give much thought to the +pains and trouble which even that moderate amount +of service entails upon his wife. Unless in great +households, where everything is delegated to a paid +housekeeper, it is, indeed, certain that ladies who are +resolved to keep a house as it should be have, now, +from various causes, a very hard time of it. The old +feeling of feudal service, though a few examples—both +mistresses and servants—may still exist of it, is +dead; and in its place we have the employer and the +hireling. There are faults, of course, on both sides; +mistresses are accustomed to look upon their servants +too much as machines, and in the working thereof do +not, perhaps, estimate sufficiently the advantages of +the use of sweet oil; while servants are more prone +to 'eye-service' than were ever the housemaids of +Ephesus. Which of the two began it I cannot tell, +but a certain antagonism has grown up between these +two classes which shakes the pillars of domestic peace. +At the root of it all, as at the root of most evils, lies +ignorance, and in the servants' case ignorance of a +stupendous nature. +</p> + +<p> +I have had in my household an under-nurse, who, +upon the family's leaving town for a short holiday, +was enjoined to see that the birds in the nursery +(canaries) were well supplied with sand. When we +came back we found them all starved to death. She +had given them sand, but, alas! no seed. This was a +girl from the country, who, one would think, would +have known what birds fed upon; otherwise one does +not expect much intelligence from Arcadia. When +our last importation (an under-housemaid) 'turned on +the gas' in the upper apartments as she was directed +to do, but omitted to light it, I thought it very excusable; +she had not been accustomed to gas. On the +other hand, when her mistress told her to 'look to the +fire' of a certain room, I contend we had a right to +expect that that fire should be kept in. It was not +so, however, and when the lady inquired, 'Why did +you not look to it, as I told you?' the girl replied, +'Well, I did, mum; the door was open and I looked +at the fire every time I passed.' She appeared to +attach some sort of igneous power to the human +eye. +</p> + +<p> +Each of these young ladies came to us very highly +recommended by the wife of the clergyman of her +native place. Surely, in the curriculum of the village +school, something else beside the catechism ought to +have been included; yet, of the things they were +certain to be set to do—the merest first principles of +domestic service—they had been taught nothing; and +in learning them at our expense they cost us ten +times their wages. +</p> + +<p> +It may be said, indeed, that when you employ a +young girl who has never been out to service before, +you secure honesty, chastity, and sobriety, and must +not look for the artificial virtues; but, unhappily, +things are not very much better when you engage an +experienced hand. The lady of the house should not, +of course, expect too much (in these days she must be +of a very sanguine temperament if she falls into <i>that</i> +error); she will think it necessary to warn the new +arrival—although she 'knows her place' and is 'a +thorough housemaid'—that a velvet pile carpet, for +example, should not be brushed backwards. But on +more obvious matters she will probably leave the +'thorough housemaid' to her own devices, the result +of which is that the boards beside the stair-carpets +are washed with soda the first morning, which takes +the dirt off effectually—and the paint also. An +hour or two before she was caught at this, she has, +perhaps, utterly spoilt a polished grate or two by +rubbing them with scouring paper instead of emery +powder. +</p> + +<p> +Paterfamilias feels these things when he has to pay +the bill, but his wife feels them in the meantime, and +it is more than is to be expected of human nature that +she can welcome cordially such an addition to her +household. A prejudice against the girl springs up +in her mind, which is very promptly responded to, and +the mutual respect that ought to grow up between +them is nipped in the bud. I am sorry to say that +good housewives are almost always opposed to having +servants well educated; they think that 'knowledge +puffs up,' blows them above their places, and encourages +a taste for light literature which is opposed +to the arts of brushing and cleaning. What the +'higher education' of domestic servants is to be under +the School Boards I know not; but I hope they will +not imagine, as the Universities do, that their duty is +only to teach their pupils how to educate themselves. +I confess I agree with the housewives, that, for young +persons intended for service, reading, writing, and +arithmetic, with the use of the scrubbing and hearth +brushes, are far preferable acquirements to those of +the same three great principles with the use of the +globes. Whether there are any handbooks in existence, +other than cookery books, to teach the duties of +servants I know not; but, even if there are, servants +will never read them of their own free will. Not one +in a hundred has a sufficiently strong desire to improve +herself for that. They must be taught like children, and +when they <i>are</i> children, if any good is to come of it. +</p> + +<p> +It is to me astounding, and certainly makes me +very suspicious of the advocates of women's rights, +that they have done little or nothing in this direction. +Why should not some of that immense energy which +is now expended on platforms be directed into this +less ambitious but more natural channel? There are +tens of thousands of persons of their own sex, not indeed +out of employment, but who are obtaining +employment on false pretences, who would do so +honestly enough if they had had but a little early +training. Unfortunately, the ladies of the platform +do not in general stoop to such small things as +domestic matters; they do not care about mere +comfort, they even perhaps resent it because it is so +dear to tyrannous man. If they would only turn +their attention to the education of their humbler +sisters, they would win over all their enemies and put +to shame the cynic who has associated Man's Lefts +with Women's Rights. +</p> + +<p> +The only School for Servants I am acquainted with +sent us the worst we ever had, and if it had not been +for the very handsome fee it charged both us and her +for our mutual introduction, I should not have recognised +it as an educational establishment at all. +</p> + +<p> +It will naturally be said by men (not by their wives, +for they know better), 'But surely self-interest will +cause a servant to qualify herself for a place, since, +having done so, she will command better wages.' +This is the mistake of the political economists, who, +right enough in the importance they attach to self-interest, +gravely err in supposing it to be always of a +material kind. They start with the idea that everybody +wants to make as much money as possible. So +they do; but with a large majority this desire is +subordinate to the wish for leisure and enjoyment. +Trades unionism, with all its faults, is founded on this +important fact in human nature—that many of us +prefer narrow means, with comparative leisure, to +affluence with toil. That this notion, if universal, +would destroy good work of all kinds and make perfection +impossible, is beside the question, or certainly +never enters into the minds of those chiefly concerned +in the matter. 'A good day's work for a good day's +wage' is a fine sentiment; but 'half a day's work for +half a day's wage' suits some people even better; +while 'half a day's work for a good day's wage' suits +them better still. In old times the sense of 'service +being no inheritance' begat habits of good conduct as +well as thrift, for in most well-conducted households, +servants' wages were made proportionate to their length +of service. But nowadays a lady's promise of raising +a servant's wages every year is quite superfluous, +since it is ten to one against her keeping her for the +first twelve months. It is no wonder, then, that while +the conviction of service being of a temporary character +is, at least, as strong as ever, the course of conduct it +now suggests is to make as much as possible out of it +while it lasts, in the way of perquisites, etc. With our +cooks, especially, it is not too much to say that wages +are often a secondary object as compared with the +opportunity of making a purse for themselves; and +the recognised privilege of selling the dripping affords +cover for a multitude of petty delinquencies which if +not positive thefts have a strong family resemblance +to them. +</p> + +<p> +Before leaving the subject of short terms of service, +it should be noted that the modern servant openly +avows her love of change. An excellent mistress, +and a very kind one, has told me that housemaids +and kitchenmaids have given her warning again and +again for no other cause than this. They have +avowed themselves quite happy and contented in +their place, but they want 'fresh woods and pastures +new.' When Jack Mytton was reminded by his +lawyer that a certain estate he was about to sell had +been in his family for 500 years, he replied, 'Then it's +high time it should go out of it;' and the same +reflection occurs to our Janes and Bessies. They +have been in their present situation a year perhaps, +or two at most—indeed, two years is considered in +the world below stairs the extreme point for any +person of spirit to remain under one roof—and it is +high time they should leave it. One would naturally +think that, in the case of young women at all events, +they would be slow to exchange even a moderately +comfortable place for a home among strangers; that +they would bear the ills they know of, even if ills +exist, rather than venture on those of which they +know nothing; but this is far from being the case. +Nor do they even quit their place in order 'to better +themselves.' They have absolutely no reason except +the love of change. Behaviour of this sort naturally +gives some colour to the remark already quoted that +servants are not 'reasonable beings.' I was almost a +convert to that opinion myself when, on one occasion, +having asked a female domestic to be good enough +to put my boots on the tree, she literally obeyed my +order. She hung all my boots on the tree in the +garden, and it was very wet weather. But to young +persons who come from the country everything is +pardonable—except 'temper.' +</p> + +<p> +The growth of this parasite in both town and +country is, however, quite alarming. Little as mistresses +dare to say to the disadvantage of servants +when leaving their employment, no matter for what +reason, they do sometimes remark of them that their +temper is 'uncertain.' When this happens and the +fact is communicated to Jane or Betsy by the lady to +whom they have proposed themselves, they have one +invariable method of self-defence: 'Temper, mum? +Well, I 'ave my faults, I daresay, but not <i>that</i>; all as +knows me knows my temper is 'eavenly. But the +fact is, mum, Mrs. Jones [her late mistress] was a bit +flighty.' And she touches her forehead, and even +sometimes winks, to indicate aberration of the intellect. +A really good-tempered servant is now rare; +and there are very few who will bear 'speaking to' +when their work is neglected or ill-done. +</p> + +<p> +What, however, always puts them in the highest +good humour is an expensive breakage. When Susan +comes to say, 'Oh, please, mum, I've 'ad a haccident +with the pier glass,' her face is wreathed in smiles. +To a mistress who cannot relieve her feelings by +strong language, as a man would do, this behaviour +is very aggravating. If servants do not actually +delight in these misfortunes, I am afraid not one +in twenty shows the least consideration for her employer's +purse. It is charitable to say, when Thomas +or Jane leaves the gas burning all night, or the sun-blinds +out in the pouring rain, that they have 'no +head;' but it is my experience that they are very +careful, and, indeed, take quite extraordinary precautions, +with respect to their own property. I am +afraid that the true reason of the waste and extravagance +among servants is that they have no attachment +to their employers, and of course it is less +troublesome to be lavish than to be economical. All +the education in the world cannot make selfish persons +unselfish; but it can surely implant in them some +sense of duty. At present, so long as a servant is +not absolutely dishonest, her conscience rarely +troubles her. This is especially the case with our +cooks, who also—that 'dripping' question making +their path so slippery—draw the line between honesty +and its contrary very fine indeed. +</p> + +<p> +Moreover, they know less of what they pretend to +know than any other class of servant. The proof of +this is in the fact that not one in a hundred of them +will cook you a dinner on trial. I have often said to +a cook, 'Your character is satisfactory enough in +other respects; but, before engaging you, will you +show what you can do by sending up one good +dinner, for which I will pay you at the ordinary rate +—namely, half-a-guinea?' She won't do it; she says +she can cook for a prince, and affects to be hurt at +the proposition. The consequence is that for a month, +at least, we are slowly poisoned. Once only I hired +a cook who accepted these terms. I am bound to say +she sent us up a most excellent dinner, but when I +sent for her to pay the half-guinea she was dead +drunk on the kitchen floor. She had taken a bottle +of port wine and one of stout while serving up that +entertainment, and afterwards confessed that during +her arduous duties she required 'constant support.' +Again, it is by no means unusual for cooks to succeed +to admiration for a week and then to begin to spoil +everything, the proverb respecting a 'new broom' +applying, curiously enough, even more to them than +to the 'housemaids.' +</p> + +<p> +These observations are no doubt severe, but they +are not unjust; nor do I for a moment imply that +servants are always to blame, and never mistresses. +There are faults on both sides. Ladies often show +themselves as 'unreasonable' as their female domestics. +For example, although very solicitous for the settlement +of their own daughters in life, they often do not +give sufficient opportunities for their maid-servants to +find husbands. A girl in service is quite as anxious +to get a husband as her young mistresses, and, indeed, +it is of much more consequence for her to do so. She +sees her youth slipping away from her in a place +where no 'followers' are allowed, and it is no wonder +that she 'wants a change.' She has a right to have +her holidays and her 'Sundays out,' and it is the +mistress's duty not only to grant them, but to make +some inquiry as to how she spends them. Many +ladies who go to church with much regularity never +take the smallest interest in the moral conduct of +those to whom they stand, morally if not legally, +<i>in loco parentis</i>, and who may, perhaps, have no other +adviser. +</p> + +<p> +Mistresses of all ranks, too, show a lamentable want +of principle in the matter of character-giving. It +wants, no doubt, a certain strength of mind to write +the truth. 'The girl is going, thank Heaven,' they +say to themselves, and they are glad to get rid of her, +without a row, at the easy price of a small falsehood. +They lay the flattering unction to their souls that +they are concealing certain facts in order 'not to +stand in the way of the poor girl's future.' What +they are really doing is an act of selfishness, cruel as +regards the lady who is trusting to their word, and +baneful as regards the public good. It is the good +characters which make the bad servants. In a certain +primitive district of England, where ministers are +'called' from parish to parish, one of the churchwardens +of X complained to the churchwardens of Y +that his late importation from the Y pulpit was not +very satisfactory. 'And yet,' he said, 'you all cracked +him up enormously.' 'Yes,' replied the churchwarden +of Y, 'and you will have to crack him up too before +you get rid of him.' +</p> + +<p> +Now, it is only ignorance which causes ladies to +believe that there is any necessity to 'crack up' the +character of a servant. They are not obliged (though, +of course, if the servant has behaved well it would be +infamous to withhold it) to give her any character at +all, and they may state the most unpleasant truth (if +they are quite certain of the fact and can prove it) +without the least fear of an action for libel. The law +does not punish them for telling the truth about their +servants, and in another matter also it is more just +than it is supposed to be. There is a superstition +among servants that when leaving their situations +before their time is out they have a right to claim +board wages, and that even when dismissed for gross +misconduct they have a right to their ordinary wages +for the remainder of the month; but these are mere +popular errors. The only case with which I am +acquainted where neither of these dues was demanded +was rather a curious one. A widow lady advertised +for a cook and a housemaid, and procured them by +the first cast of her net. They came together with an +open avowal of their previous acquaintanceship; they +were attached to one another, they said, and did not +wish to be in separate service, and wages were not +so much an object to them as opportunities of friendship. +The lady, who had an element of romance in +her, was touched with this expression of sentiment; +it was also a great convenience to her to be so quickly +suited; and, their characters being good, she engaged +them. They had come from a house of much greater +pretensions than her own, and had taken higher wages, +which might have attracted her suspicions; but she +had very little work for them to do, and she concluded +that 'an easy place' had had its attractions for them. +Her servants were well treated and well fed, and +were allowed to see their friends; but she objected +to evening visits, and required the back door to be +locked and the key placed in her possession at nine +o'clock every evening. If the front door was opened +she could hear it from every part of her modest residence +(and, being very nervous, she used often to +fancy that it opened when it did not), while a wire for +the use of the policeman connected the ground-floor +with an alarm bell in her own room in case of fire or +other contingency. The two servants had been six +days with her when this alarm bell was pealed one +night with great violence. She looked out of window, +and beheld a cab laden with luggage standing at her +door. She expected nobody; but whoever had come +was more welcome than 'thieves' or 'fire,' and she went +up to the maid's room to bid them answer the door. +She found to her great astonishment—for it was two +in the morning—the apartment empty, and while she +was there the alarm-bell sounded again with increased +fury. Looking over the balusters, she perceived a +light in the hall and inquired who was there. 'Well, +it's us two,' returned the cook, 'we're just agoin, so +good-bye. It ain't at all the sort o' place for us, and +you ain't the sort o' missis.' Then there was a shout +of laughter, the front door was opened and slammed +to, and the cab drove off with its tenants, leaving +their mistress to her lonely meditations. The two +friends had come on trial, it seemed, and had had +enough of it. +</p> + +<p> +That they made no claim for wages of any kind +seems quite curious when one considers what sort +of servants, and in what sort of circumstances, +do demand them. And, as a rule, masters and +mistresses give in to the extortion. Yet the law is +on their side, nor have they any reason to complain +of it in other respects. The improvement that is +needed is in themselves, and in their relations to those +in their employment. Our young ladies are so engaged +in their accomplishments and their amusements +that they have no time to acquire a knowledge of +domestic affairs, so that when they marry they know +no more of a housewife's duties than their husbands. +No wonder men of moderate means shrink from marriage +when wives have become a source of discomfort +and expense, instead of their contraries, and have +lost the name of helpmate. How can they be in a +position to teach their servants when they themselves +are grossly ignorant of what they would have them +learn? There are certain village schools, indeed, +which profess to train their pupils for domestic +service, but they only teach them to be maids-of-all-work, +the least remunerated and the hardest-worked +of all the daughters of toil. They offer no premium +to diligence and perfection. +</p> + +<p> +This state of things is very hard both upon mistresses +and servants, but it is not irremediable, and +the remedy must come from the upper of the two +classes. Schools are as necessary for servants as they +are for other people; they must be taught their +calling before they can practise it; and schools for +servants must therefore be instituted. With schools +will come certificates of merit, and servants will then +be paid for what they can really do, and not, as now, +in proportion to their powers of audacity of assertion. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>MEN-SERVANTS.</h2> + +<p> +The subject of men-servants is by no means of +such universal interest as that of maid-servants, +and those who suffer from them are not only less +numerous, but less deserving of pity; as a lady of +limited means once put it in my hearing, 'They can +better afford to be robbed and murdered' On the +other hand, whatever truth may be in the dogma that +where a woman is bad she is worse than a bad man, +it is certain that when a man-servant is bad he can +do more mischief than a bad maid-servant. In many +cases he is a necessity, not because folks are rich, but +because they have large families, and the service is +consequently too heavy to be undertaken solely by +women. I have known many householders who, +weary of the trouble and annoyance given by men-servants, +have resolved to engage only those of the +other sex, and who have had to resort to men-servants +again for what may be called physical +reasons. +</p> + +<p> +When this happens, however, both master and +mistress should agree to the arrangement, or at all +events be both informed that it has been made. +Only last autumn a lady friend of mine adopted it in +the absence of her husband abroad, and forgot to +apprise him of it by letter. He arrived home late at +night, and, letting himself in with a latch-key, took +the strange man for a burglar, and was almost the +death of him by strangulation before he could +explain that he was the new butler. +</p> + +<p> +No woman can bring up a luncheon or dinner tray +for a dozen people twice a day without sooner or +later coming to grief with it. And here it is appropriate +to say that in places where there is much +heavy work it is only reasonable that wages should +be higher than where the work is light. Whereas, +upon such irrational grounds is our whole system of +domestic service built, that this is hardly ever taken +into consideration. Since the servant is told beforehand +what he or she will have to do, it is taken for +granted that the conditions are acceptable to them; +whereas, the fact is that the capability of performing +their duties is the very last thing to enter their minds. +They cannot afford to remain 'out of a situation,' +and therefore take the first that offers itself as a stopgap, +with no more intention of permanently remaining +there than a European who accepts an appointment +in Turkey, and with the same object—namely, +to make as much as possible out of the Turks in the +meantime. +</p> + +<p> +In the case of a man-servant, especially in London, +no written character should ever be held sufficient. +A personal interview with his late master or mistress +is indispensable. This gives a little trouble, no +doubt, on both sides; but those who grudge it, for +such a purpose, must indeed be grossly selfish, and +when they engage a ticket-of-leave man for their +butler get no worse than they deserve. One of the +best butlers, however, I ever knew was a ticket-of-leave +man—engaged on the faith of a written +character, which was, of course, a forged one, and +who remained with his employer no less than eighteen +months. If his speculations on the turf had been +successful, he might have parted with him the best of +friends, and perhaps have purchased a residence in +the same square; but something went wrong with +the brother to Bucephalus, whom he had backed for +the Derby, and the poor man had to dispose of the +whole of his master's family plate to pay his own +debts of honour and defray his travelling expenses—probably +to some considerable distance, as the police +could never hear of him. The risk in taking a butler +without a personal guarantee of at least his honesty +and sobriety can indeed hardly be exaggerated. If a +clever fellow, his influence over his fellow-servants of +the other sex is very great, and it is a recognised +maxim of the class never 'to tell upon one another' +so long as they remain good friends. I have heard +an experienced housewife say there is nothing she +dreads so much as an unbroken harmony below stairs; +like silence in the nursery, it is ominous of all sorts +of mischief. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, the ticket-of-leave man was an extreme +case; but it is certain that some butlers who are not +thieves are always treading on the very confines of +roguery. They are like trustees who, though they +will not touch the principal entrusted to them, not +only omit to put it out to the best advantage, but will +sometimes even pocket a portion of the interest 'for +their trouble.' I remember reading a curious case of +this sort. A gentleman who had been with his +family in Switzerland for nine months was met by a +London acquaintance on his return, who expressed +his regret at his having been in trouble at home. +'Nay, I have been in no trouble,' he replied, 'and, +indeed, none of us have been at home.' 'But a month +ago when I was passing down your street I surely +saw a funeral standing at your door?' Nor had his +eyes deceived him. The butler in charge had let the +house for a couple of months, and but for his singular +ill-luck in one of his tenants happening to die during +their temporary occupation of it, he would have +pocketed the rent (<i>minus</i> the money requisite to keep +the maids' mouths shut) and his master would have +been none the wiser. It is said that it is only when +we have lost a friend that we come to value him at +his true worth; and it is certain that it is only when +one's butler has left us and the tongues of his fellow-servants +are loosened that we come to learn his +demerits—the difference between his real character +and his written one. If he is a rogue, his evil influence +remains behind him, and, next to the maidservants, +it is the page who suffers most from it. He +becomes—poor little fellow!—almost by necessity an +accessory to his delinquencies, plays pilot-fish to the +other's shark, and himself grows up to swell the host +of bad servants and that army of martyrs their +masters and mistresses. +</p> + +<p> +A common cause of a butler's ruin, and for which +he is much to be pitied, is his having married unfortunately. +I had once a good servant whom I was very +loth to lose, but whose departure became necessary +from his constantly being visited by a wife in advanced +stages of intoxication. Housewives generally prefer +a married man for their servant, for reasons that are +not inscrutable. I do not wish to differ from such +good authorities. But though I have no objection to +my butler being married, I do object to maintain his +wife, which, if he be on good terms with the cook, +there is a strong probability of my having to do. As +to his own eating, Heaven forbid that I should grudge +it to him; but it is curious and utterly subversive of +all medical dogma that both men-servants and maidservants, +who take, of course, comparatively little +exercise, should, nevertheless, contrive to eat more +apiece for dinner than two average Alpine climbers. +Four meals a day, and three of them meat meals, is +their usual rate of sustenance, and the food must not +only be frequent and plentiful, but very good. It is a +gratifying proof of the rapid influence of civilisation +that the daughter of a farm-labourer, accustomed at +home to consider bacon a treat and beef a windfall, +will, after a month's experience of her London place, +decline to eat cold meat of any kind, reject salt butter +as 'not fit for a Christian,' and become quite a <i>connoisseur</i> +as to the strength of bitter ale. Indeed, two of +our present female domestics are 'recommended' to +drink claret because beer makes them bilious. I do not +mind giving them claret, but I think it hard that under +such circumstances I should have had a butler give +me warning because the female domestics are 'not +select enough.' My own impression is, though I +scarcely like to mention it, because he was a married +man, that he considered them too plain. +</p> + +<p> +The reasons, or at all events the professed reasons, +which servants give for leaving their situations are +sometimes very curious. One man left a family of +my acquaintance because he said he was interfered +with by the young ladies. 'Good gracious, what do +you mean?' inquired his mistress. Her daughters, it +appears, were accustomed to arrange the flowers for +the dinner-table, whereas, as he imagined, he had a +peculiar gift for that kind of decoration himself. +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, it is sometimes difficult for a +sensitive master or mistress to give the true reason +for their parting with a servant. A friend of mine +had a footman who, through trick, or some defect in +his respiratory organs, used to blow like a grampus, +and indeed more like a whale, while waiting at table. +It was not a vice, of course, but it was very objectionable, +and guests who were bald especially objected +to it. My friend consulted with his butler, who +admitted that 'John did blow like a pauper' (meaning, +as I suppose, a porpoise), and undertook to +break the subject to him. It is quite common to find +candidates for service very deaf, and if they contrive +to pass their 'entrance examination' (for which no +doubt they sharpen their faculties), they stay with you +for a month at least with an excellent excuse for +making it a holiday, since, whatever you tell them +to do they cannot hear and do not do it, or do +something else which they like better. Mistresses +who are silent about moral disqualifications are much +more so, of course, about physical ones, and have no +scruples in ridding themselves of a deaf man. +</p> + +<p> +The worst class of men-servants, perhaps, are those +who are said to 'require a master;' which means that +when he happens to be not at home they neglect +everything. A friend of mine who happened to take +a week's holiday, alone, discovered on his return that +his family might almost as well have had no servant +at all as the man he left with them; he was generally +out, and when at home had not even troubled himself +to answer the drawing-room bell. Some men-servants +are always running out; they have 'just stepped round +the corner,' they say, 'to post a letter;' which in nine +cases out of ten means to have a dram at the public-house. +The servants who 'require a master' sometimes +retain their situation with a very selfish one by +devoting themselves to his service at the expense of +the rest of the family. 'John suits me very well,' he +says, 'and thoroughly understands his duties,' which +in this case means the length of the master's foot. +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, there are some men-servants +who, one would think, ought to belong to the other +sex, so utterly ignorant they are of that branch of +their duty which they call 'valeting.' A lady blessed +with a scientific husband, who certainly did not take +much notice whether he was 'valeted' or not, once +complained to his man of his neglect in this particular. +'When your master comes in, William, you should look +after him, and see to his hat and coat, and pay him +little attentions.' So the next time the man of science +came in he was not a little surprised by William (who, +it is fair to say, came from the country) running up +and taking his hat off his head, like some highly-trained +retriever. Happy the master to whom a +worse thing has never happened at the hands of his +retainer! +</p> + +<p> +The main thing to be dreaded in men-servants—next +to downright dishonesty—is, of course, intoxication. +If a man has been long in one's service and gets +drunk for once and away, it may well be forgiven +him; but when your new servant gets drunk, wait +till he is sober enough to receive his wages, and then +dismiss him—if you can. Not long ago I had occasion +to discharge a butler for habitual intoxication; +he was never quite drunk, but also never quite sober; +he was a sot. I made him fetch a cab, and saw his +luggage put upon it, and I tendered him his month's +wages. But he refused to leave the house without board +wages. Of course, I declined to pay him any such +thing; and, as he persisted in leaning against the +dining-room door murmuring at intervals, 'I wants my +board wages,' I sent for a policeman. 'Be so good,' I +said,' as to turn this drunken person out of my house.' +'I daren't do it, sir,' was the reply; 'that would be to +exceed my duty.' 'Then, why are you here?' 'I am +here, sir, to see that you turn the man out yourself +without using unnecessary violence.' 'The man' was +six feet high and as stout as a beer-barrel. I could +no more have moved him than Skiddaw, and he knew +it. 'I stays here,' he chanted in his maudlin way, +'till I gets my board wages.' Fortunately, two Oxford +undergraduates happened to be in the house, to whom +I mentioned my difficulty, and I shall not easily forget +the delighted promptitude with which they seized +upon the offender and 'ran him out' into the street. +He fled down the area steps at once with a celerity +that convinced me he was accustomed to being turned +out of houses, and tried to obtain re-admission at the +back-door. It was fortunately locked, but when I +said to the policeman, '<i>Now</i>, please to remove that +man,' he answered, 'No, sir; that would be to exceed +my duty; he is still upon your premises and a member +of your household.' As it was raining heavily, the +delinquent, though sympathised with by a great crowd +round the area railings, presently got tired of his +position and went away. But supposing my young +Oxford friends had not been in the house and he had +fallen upon me (a little man) in the act of expulsion; +or supposing I had been a widow lady with no protector, +would that too faithful retainer have remained +in my establishment for ever? +</p> + +<p> +I have purposely addressed myself to that large +class of the community only who are said 'to keep a +man-servant'—that is, one man, assisted, perhaps, by +a page. Those who keep butler, footman, coachman, +grooms, and valets are comparatively few in number, +and know nothing of the inconveniences which their +less wealthy fellow-countrymen endure. In large +establishments, if William is drunk, John is sober, +and the work is done for the rich man by somebody; +especially, too, if William is drunk, there are +John and Thomas to turn him out of the house and +have done with him. But it is certain that the +lower Ten Thousand are not in a satisfactory condition +as respects their men-servants; hardly more so, +in fact, than the Hundred Thousand are in regard to +their maids. The men-servants, however, are not so +ignorant of their duties as are the latter, and if only +their masters would have the courage to tell the truth +when giving them their 'characters,' there would be a +great improvement in them. Against the masters +themselves (unlike the mistresses) I have never heard +much complaint. Most of them object to be 'bothered' +and 'troubled,' and are willing enough to put +everything into their man's hands, including the key +of the Cellar, if only they could trust him; but at +present, alas! this is a very large 'If.' +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/05.jpg" width="300" height="139" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>WHIST-PLAYERS.</h2> + +<p> +If cards are the Devil's books, Whist is the <i>édition +de luxe</i> of them. Whist-playing is one of the +few vices of the upper classes that has not in time +descended to the lower, with whom the ingenious and +attractive game of 'All Fours' has always held its own +against it. I have known but two men not belonging +to the upper ten thousand who played well at whist. +One was a well-known jockey in the South of +England, who was also, by the way, an admirable +billiard-player. He called himself an amateur, but +those who played with him used to complain that his +proceedings were even ultra-professional. On the Turf +men are almost as equal as they are under it, and +this ornament of the pigskin would on certain occasions +(race meetings) take his place at the card-table +with some who were very literally his betters, while +others who had more self-respect contented themselves +with backing him. The other example I have +in my mind was an ancient Cumberland yeoman, +who, having lost the use of his limbs in middle life +from having been tossed by a bull, pursued the science +under considerable difficulties. A sort of card-rack +(such as Psycho uses at the Egyptian Hall) was placed +in front of him, and behind him stood his little granddaughter +who played the cards for him by verbal +direction. Both these men played a very good game +of the old-fashioned kind, for though the jockey used +subtleties, they were not of the Clay or Cavendish +sort. The asking for trumps was a device unknown +to him, though there were folks who whispered he +would take them under certain circumstances without +asking, and of the leading of the penultimate with +five in the suit it could be said of him, for once, that +he was as innocent as a babe. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, many persons join the 'upper ten' who +come from the lower twenty (or even thirty), and it +need not be said that they are by no means inferior +in sagacity to their new acquaintances; yet they +rarely make first-rate players. Whist, like the +classics, must be learnt young for any excellence to +be attained in it. Of this Metternich was a striking +example. If benevolent Nature ever intended a +man for a whist-player one would have supposed that +she had done so in his case, but had been baffled by +some malign Destiny which had degraded him to that +class by whom, in conjunction with Kings, it was fondly +believed, previously to the recent general election, +that 'the world was governed.' Until late in life he +never took to whist, when he grew wildly fond of it, +and played incessantly, till it is said a certain memorable +event took place which caused him never to +touch a card again. The story goes that, rapt in the +enjoyment of the game, he suffered a special messenger +to wait for hours, to whom if he had given his +attention more promptly a massacre of many hundred +persons would have been prevented. Humanity may +drop a tear, but whist had nothing to regret in the +circumstance; for in Metternich it did not lose a +good player, and, what redeems his intelligence, he +knew it. 'I learnt my whist too late,' he would say, +with more pathos and solemnity, perhaps, than he +would have used when speaking of more momentous +matters of omission. +</p> + +<p> +He must be a wise man indeed who, being an +habitual whist-player, is aware that he is a bad one. +In games of pure skill, such as chess, and, in a less +degree, billiards, a man must be a fool who deceives +himself upon such a point; but in whist there is a +sufficient amount of chance to enable him to preserve +his self-complacency for some time—let us say, his +lifetime. If he loses, he ascribes it to his 'infernal +luck,' which always fills his hands with twos and +threes; and if he wins, though it is by a succession +of four by honours as long as the string of four-in-hands +when the Coaching Club meets in Hyde Park, +he ascribes it to his skill. 'If I hadn't played trumps +just when I did,' he modestly observes to his partner, +'all would have been over with us;' though the result +would have been exactly the same had he played +blindfold. To an observer of human nature, who is +not himself a loser 'on the day,' there are few things +more charming than the genial, gentle self-approval +of two players of this class who have just defeated +two experts, and proved, to their own satisfaction, +that if fortune gives them 'a fair chance' or 'something +like equal cards,' as they term the conditions of +their late performance, they can play as well as other +people. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, the term 'good-play' is a relative one; +the player who wins applause in the drawing-room is +often thought but little of in places where the rigour of +the game is observed; and the 'good, steady player' of +the University Clubs is not a star of the first magnitude +at the Portland. The best players used to be +men of mature years; they are now the middle-aged, +who, with sufficient practical experience, have derived +their skill in early life from the best books. 'It is +difficult to teach an old dog new tricks,' and for the +most part the old dogs despise them. When I hear +my partner boast that he is 'none of your book-players,' +I smile courteously, and tremble. I know +what will become of him and me if fortune does +not give him his 'fair chance,' and I seek comfort +from the calculation which tells me it is two to one +against my cutting with him again. How marvellous +it is, when one comes to consider the matter, that a man +should decline to receive instruction on a technical +subject from those who have eminently distinguished +themselves in it, and have systematised for the benefit +of others the results of the experience of a lifetime! +With books or no books, it is quite true, however, that +some men, otherwise of great intelligence, can never +be taught whist; they may have had every opportunity +of learning it—have been born, as it were, with the +ace of spades in their mouth instead of a silver spoon—but +the gift of understanding is denied them; and +though it is ungallant to say so, I have never known a +lady to play whist well. +</p> + +<p> +In the case of the fair sex, however, it may be urged +that they have not the same chances; they have no +whist clubs, and the majority of them entertain the +extraordinary delusion that it is wrong to play at whist +in the afternoon. One may talk scandal over kettle-drums, +and go to morning performances at the theatre, +but one may not play at cards till after dinner. There +is even quite a large set of male persons who, 'on +principle,' do not play at whist in the afternoon. In +seasons of great adversity, when fortune has not given +me my 'fair chance' for many days, I have sometimes +'gone on strike,' as it is termed, and joined them; but +anything more deplorable than such a state of affairs +it is impossible to imagine. After their day's work is +over, these good people can't conceive what to do with +themselves, and, between ourselves, it is my experience, +drawn from these occasional 'intervals of business,' +that this practice of not playing whist in the afternoon +generally leads to dissipation. +</p> + +<p> +It is sometimes advanced by this unhappy class, by +way of apology, that they play at night; which may +very possibly be the case, but they don't play well. +There is no such thing, except in the sense in which +after-dinner speaking is called 'good,' as good whist +after dinner. It may seem otherwise, even to the +spectators; but having themselves dined like the rest, +they are not in a position to give an opinion. The +keenness of observation is blunted by food and wine; +the delicate perceptions are gone; and what is left of +the intelligence is generally devoted to finding faults +in your partner's play. The consciousness of mistakes +on your own part, which he is in no condition to discern, +instead of suggesting charity, induces irritation, +and you are persuaded, till you get the next man, that +you are mated with the worst player in all Christendom. +Moreover, that 'one more rubber' with which you propose +to finish is generally elastic (<i>Indian</i> rubber), and +you sit up into the small hours and find them disagree +with you. If I ever write that new series of the +'Chesterfield Letters' which I have long had in my +mind, and for which I feel myself eminently qualified, +my most earnest advice to young gentlemen of fashion +will be found in the golden rule, 'Never sit down to +whist after dinner;' it is a mistake, and almost an +immorality. If they must play cards, let them play +Napoleon. +</p> + +<p> +With regard to finding fault with one's partner, I +have no apology to offer for it under any circumstances; +but it must be remembered that this does not +always arise from ill-temper, or the sense of loss that +might have been gain. There are many lovers of +whist for its own sake to whom bad play, even in an +adversary, excites a certain distress of mind; when a +good hand is thrown away by it, they experience +the same sort of emotion that a gourmand feels who +sees a haunch of venison spoilt in the carving. In +such a case a gentle expression of disapproval is surely +pardonable. And I have observed that, with one or +two exceptions (<i>non Angli sed angeli</i>, men of angelic +temper rather than ordinary Englishmen), the good +players who never find fault are not socially the +pleasantest. They are men who 'play to win,' and +who think it very injudicious to educate a bad partner +who will presently join the ranks of the Opposition. +</p> + +<p> +What is rather curious—and I speak with some +experience, for I have played with all classes, from +the prince to the gentleman farmer—the best whist-players +are not, as a rule, those who are the most +highly educated or intellectual. Men of letters, for +example (I am speaking, of course, very generally), +are inferior to the doctors and the warriors. Both the +late Lord Lytton and Charles Lever had, it is true, +a considerable reputation at the whist-table, but +though they were good players, they were not in the +first class; while the author of 'Guy Livingstone,' +though devoted to the game, was scarcely to be +placed in the second. The best players are, one must +confess, what irreverent persons, ignorant of the importance +of this noble pursuit, would term 'idlers'—men +of mere nominal occupation, or of none, to whom +the game has been familiar from their youth, and who +have had little else to do than to play it. +</p> + +<p> +While some men, as I have said, can never be +taught whist, a few are born with a genius for the +game, and move up 'from high to higher,' through all +the grades of excellence, with a miraculous rapidity; +but, whether good, bad, or indifferent, I have not known +half a dozen whist-players who were not superstitious. +Their credulity is, indeed, proverbial, but no one who +does not mix with them can conceive the extent of +it; it reminds one of the African fetish. The country +apothecary's wife who puts the ivory 'fish' on the +candlestick 'for luck,' and her partner, the undertaker, +who turns his chair in hopes to realise more +'silver threepences,' are in no way more ridiculous +than the grave and reverend seigneurs of the Clubs +who are attracted to 'the winning seats' or 'the winning +cards.' The idea of going on because 'the run of +luck' is in your favour, or of leaving off because it +has declared itself against you, is logically of course +unworthy of Cetywayo. The only modicum of reason +that underlies it is the fact that the play of some men +becomes demoralised by ill-fortune, and may, possibly, +be improved by success. Yet the belief in this +absurdity is universal, and bids fair to be eternal. +'If I am not in a draught, and my chair is comfortable, +you may put me anywhere,' is a remark I have +heard but once, and the effect of it on the company +was much the same as if in the House of +Convocation some reverend gentleman had announced +his acceptance of the religious programme of M. +Comte. +</p> + +<p> +With the few exceptions I have mentioned, whist-players +not only stop very far short of excellence in +the game, but very soon reach their tether. I cannot +say of any man that he has gone on improving +for years; his mark is fixed, and he knows it—though +he is exceptionally sagacious if he knows where it is +drawn as respects others—and there he stays till he +begins to deteriorate. The first warning of decadence +is the loss of memory, after which it is a +question of time (and good sense) when he shall withdraw +from the ranks of the fighting men and become +a mere spectator of the combat. It was said by a great +gambler that the next pleasure in life to that of winning +was that of losing; and to the real lover of +whist, the next pleasure to that of playing a good +game is that of looking on at one. +</p> + +<p> +Whist has been extolled, and justly, upon many +accounts; but the peculiar advantage of the game is, +perhaps, that it utilises socially many persons who +would not otherwise be attractive. Unless a player +is positively disagreeable, he is as good to play whist +with as a conversational Crichton. Moreover, though +the poet has hinted of the evanescent character of +'friendships made in wine,' such is not the case with +those made at whist. The phrase, 'my friend and +partner,' used by a well-known lady in fiction, in +speaking of another lady, is one that is particularly +applicable to this social science, and holds good, as it +does, alas, in no other case, even when the partner +becomes an adversary. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/06.jpg" width="300" height="128" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>RELATIONS.</h2> + +<p> +It is a favourite utterance of a much 'put-upon' +Paterfamilias of my acquaintance, when he finds +his family more than usually too much for him, and +cynically confesses his own shortcomings, that 'children +cannot be too particular in their choice of their +parents, or begin their education too early.' +</p> + +<p> +But not only are children a necessity—that is, if +the world of men and women is to be kept going, +concerning the advantage of which there seems, however, +just now, to be some doubt,—but when they +have arrived, they cannot, except in very early life, +be easily got rid of. In this respect they differ from +the relations whose case I am about to consider, and +also possess a certain claim upon us over and above +the mere tie of blood, since we are responsible for +their existence. The obligation on the other side is, +I venture to think, a little exaggerated. If there is +such a thing as natural piety, which, even in these +days, few are found to deny, it is the reverence, it is +true, with which children regard their parents; but +their moral indebtedness to them as the authors of +their being is open to doubt. That theory, indeed, +appears to be founded upon false premises; for, +unless in the case of an ancestral estate, I am not +aware that the existence of children is much premeditated. +On the contrary, their arrival is often looked +upon, from pecuniary reasons, with much apprehension, +or, at best, till they do arrive, they may be +described, in common phrase, as 'neither born nor +thought of.' I am a father myself, but I wish to be +fair and to take a just view of matters. If a mother +leaves her child on a doorstep, for example, the filial +bond can hardly be expected to be very strong. In +such a case, indeed, the infant seems to me to have a +very distinct grievance against its female parent, and +to be under no very overwhelming obligation to its +father. 'Handsome is as handsome does' is a principle +that applies to all relations of life, including +the nearest; and if duty never absolutely ceases to +exist, it is, at all events, greatly moulded by circumstances. +</p> + +<p> +Patriotism, for instance, is very commendable, but +your country must be worth something to make you +love it. It is next to impossible that an inhabitant of +Monaco, for example, should be patriotic. He can at +most be only parochial. The love of one's mother is +probably the purest and noblest of all human affections; +but some people's mothers are habitual drunkards, +and others professional thieves. Even filial +reverence, it is plain, must stop somewhere. That is +one of the objections which, with all humility, I feel +to the religion of M. Comte. The worship of my +grandmother would be impossible to me, unless I had +reason to believe her to have been a respectable +person. Her relationship, unless I had had the +advantage of her personal acquaintance, would weigh +I fear, but little with me, and that of my great-grandmother +nothing at all. The whole notion of ancestry—unless +one's ancestors have been distinguished +people—seems to me ridiculous. If they have <i>not</i> +been distinguished people—folks, that is, of whom +some record has been preserved—how is one to know +that they have been worthy persons, whose mission +has been to increase the sum of human happiness? +If, on the other hand, they have been only notorious, +and done their best to decrease it, I should be most +heartily ashamed of them. The pride of birth from +this point of view—which seems to me a very reasonable +one—is not only absurd, but often very reprehensible. +We may be exulting, by proxy, in successful +immorality, or even crime. Our boastfulness of our +progenitors is necessarily in most cases very vague, +because we know so little about them. When we +come to the particular, the record stops very short +indeed—generally at one's grandmother, who, by the +way, plays a part in the dream-drama of ancestry +little superior to that of that 'rank outsider,' a mother-in-law. +'Tell that to your grandmother' is a phrase +that certainly did not originate in reverence; and +even when that lady is proverbially alluded to in a +complimentary sense, her intelligence is only eulogised +in connection with the 'sucking of eggs.' +</p> + +<p> +It so happens that I have quite a considerable line +of ancestors myself, but only one of them ever distinguished +himself, and that (he was an Attorney-General) +in a doubtful way; and I confess I don't take +the slightest interest in them. I prefer the pleasant +companion with whom I came up in the train yesterday, +and whose name I forgot to ask, to the whole lot +of them. +</p> + +<p> +And if I don't care about ancestors on canvas (for +their pictures, of course, are all we have seen of them), I +have good cause to be offended with them on paper. +My favourite biographies—such as that of Walter +Scott, for example—are disfigured by them. When +men sit down to write a great man's life, why should +they weary us with an epitome of that of his grandfather +and grandmother? Of course, the book has to +be a certain length. No one is more sensible than +myself of the difficulty of providing 'copy' sufficient +for two octavo volumes; but I do think biographers +should confine themselves to two generations. +For my part, I could do with one, but there is the +favourite theory of a great man's inheriting his greatness +from the maternal parent, which I am well aware +cannot be dispensed with. It is like the white horse, +or rather the grey mare, in Wouvermanns's pictures; +you can't get rid of it any more than Mr. Dick could get +Charles I. out of his memorial. For my part, I always +begin biographies at the fourteenth chapter (or thereabouts)—'The +subject of this memoir was born,' etc.; +and even so I find I get quite enough of them. In +novels the introduction of ancestry is absolutely +intolerable. When I see that hateful chapter headed +'Retrospective,' I pass over to the other side, like the +Levite, only quicker. What do I care whether our hero's +grandfather was Archbishop of Canterbury or a +professional body-snatcher? I don't even care which of the +two was my own personal friend's grandfather, and how +much less can I take an interest in this imaginary progenitor +of the creation of an author's brain? The +introduction of such a colourless shadow is, to my +mind, the height of impertinence. If I were Mr. Mudie, +I would put my foot down resolutely and stamp out +this literary plague. As George III., who had an +objection to commerce, is said to have observed, when +asked to confer a baronetcy on one of the Broadwood +family, 'Are you sure there is not a piano in it?' so +should Mr. M. inquire of the publisher before taking +copies of any novel, 'Are you sure there is not a grandfather +in it?' +</p> + +<p> +Again, what a nuisance is ancestry in our social life! +It cannot, unhappily, be done away with as a fact, but +surely it need not be a topic. How often have I been +asked by some fair neighbour at a dinner-table, 'Is +that Mr. Jones opposite one of the Joneses of Bedfordshire?' +One's first impulse is naturally to ask, 'What +on earth is that to you or me?' But experience teaches +prudence, and I reply with reverence, 'Yes, of Bedfordshire,' +which, at all events, puts a stop to argument +upon the matter. Moreover, she seems to derive some +sort of mysterious satisfaction from the information, +and it is always well to give pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +A well-known wit was once in company with one +of the Cavendishes, who had lately been to America, +and was recounting his experiences. 'These Republican +people have such funny names,' he said. 'I met +there a man of the name of Birdseye.' 'Well, and is +not that just as good as Cavendish?' replied the wit, +who was also a smoker. But the remark was not +appreciated. +</p> + +<p> +Ancestral people do not, as a rule, appreciate wit; +but, on the other hand, it must be admitted that this +is not a defect peculiar to them alone. I once knew +a man of letters who, though he had risen to wealth +and eminence, was of humble descent, and had a weakness +for avoiding allusion to it. His daughter married +a man of good birth, but whose literary talents were +not of a high order. This gentleman wrote a letter +applying for a certain Government appointment, and +expressed a wish for his father-in-law's opinion upon +the composition. 'It's a very bad letter,' was the +frank criticism the other made upon it. 'The writing +is bad, the spelling is indifferent, the style is abominable. +Good heavens! where are your relatives and +antecedents?' 'If it comes to that,' was the reply, +'where are yours? For I never hear you speak about +them.' Nor did he ever hear him, for his father-in-law +never spoke another word to him. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing, of course, can be more contemptible than +to neglect one's poor relations on account of their +poverty; but it is very doubtful whether the sum of +human happiness is increased by our having so much +respect for the mere tie of kindred, unaccompanied by +merit. Other things being equal, it is obviously +natural that one's near relatives should be the best of +friends. But other things are not always equal. +Indeed, a certain high authority (which looks on both +sides of most questions) admits as much. 'There is +a friend,' it says, 'that sticketh closer than a brother. +The connection, with its consequences, is somewhat +similar to a partnership in commercial life. If +partners pull together, and are sympathetic, nothing +can be more delightful than such an arrangement. +The tie of business clenches the tie of social attraction. +For myself, I am not commercial; but I envy the +old firm of Beaumont and Fletcher, and the modern +one of Erckmann and Chatrian. But if the members +of the firm do <i>not</i> pull together? Then, surely the +bond between them is most deplorable, and a divorce +<i>a vinculo</i> should be obtained as soon as possible. +</p> + +<p> +One of the greatest mistakes—and there are many—that +we fall into from a too ready acknowledgment +of the tie of kindred is the obligation we feel +under to consort with relations with whom we have +nothing in common. You may take such persons to +the waters of affection, but you cannot make them +drink; and the more you see of them the less they are +likely to agree with you. Not once, nor twice, but +fifty times, in a life experience that is becoming protracted, +I have seen this forcible bringing together of +incongruous elements, and the result has been always +unfortunate. I say 'forcible,' because it has been +rarely voluntary; now and then a strong, though, I +venture to think, a mistaken sense of duty may lead a +man to seek the society of one with whom he has +nothing in common save the bond of race; but for +the most part they are obeying the wishes of another +—the sacred injunction, perhaps, of a parent on his +death-bed. 'Be good friends,' he murmurs, 'my +children,' not reflecting, in that supreme and farewell +hour, how little things, such as prejudice, difference of +political or religious opinions, conflicting interests, +and the like, affect us while we are in this world, and +how perilous it is to attempt to link like with unlike. +I am quite certain that when relations do not, in +common phrase, 'get on well with one another,' the +best chance of their remaining friends is for them to +keep apart. This is gradually becoming recognised by +'the common sense of most,' as we see by the falling-off +in those family gatherings at Christmas, which only +too often partook of the character of that assembly +which met under the roof of Mr, Pecksniff, with the +disastrous result with which we are all acquainted. +</p> + +<p> +The more distant the tie of blood, the less reason, +of course, there is to consider it; yet it is strange to +see how even sensible men will welcome the Good-for-nothing, +who chance to be 'of kin' to them, to the +exclusion of the Worthy, who lack that adventitious +claim. The effect of this is an absolute immorality, +since it offers a premium to unpleasant people, while +it heavily handicaps those who desire to make themselves +agreeable. To give a particular example of +this, though upon a large scale, I might cite Scotland, +where, making allowance for the absence of that University +system, which in England is so strong a social +tie, there are undoubtedly fewer friendships, in comparison, +than there are with us; this I have no hesitation +in attributing to clanship—the exaggeration of +the family tie—which substitutes nearness for dearness, +and places a tenth cousin above the most +charming of companions, who labours under the disadvantage +of being 'nae kin.' +</p> + +<p> +Again, what is more common than to hear it said, +in apology for some manifestly ill-conditioned and +offensive person, that he is 'good to his family'? The +praise is probably only so far deserved that he does +not beat his wife nor starve his children; but, supposing +even he treated them as he should do, and, +moreover, entertained his ten-times removed cousins to +dinner every Sunday, what is that to <i>me</i> who do not +enjoy his unenviable hospitality? Let his cousins +speak well of him by all means; but let the rest of +the world speak as they find. I protest against the +theory that the social virtues should limit themselves +to the home circle, and still more, that they should +extend to the distant branches of it to the exclusion +of the world at large. +</p> + +<p> +Of Howard, the philanthropist, it is said—and, I +notice, said with a certain cynical pleasure—that, notwithstanding +his universal benevolence, he behaved +with severity ta his own son. I have not that intimate +acquaintance with the circumstances which, to +judge by the confidence of their assertions, his traducers +possess, but I should be slow to believe, in the +case of such a father, that the son did not deserve +all he got, or was not forgiven even to the seventy +times seventh offence. There is, however, no little +want of reason in the ordinary acceptation of the +term, 'loving forgiveness.' He must be a very +morose man who does not forgive a personal injury, +especially when there has been an expression of repentance +for it; but there are offences which, quite +independently of their personal sting, manifest in the +offender a cruel or bad heart, and 'loving forgiveness' +is in that case no more to be expected than that we +should take a serpent who has already stung us to +our bosom. 'It is his nature to,' as the poet expresses +it, and if that serpent is my relative it is my misfortune, +and by no means impresses me with a sense of +obligation. Indeed, in the case of an offensive relation, +so far from his having any claim to my consideration, +it seems to me I have a very substantial +grievance in the fact of his existence, and that he +owes me reparation for it. +</p> + +<p> +It is perhaps from a natural reaction, and is a sort +of unconscious protest against the preposterous claims +of kinship, that our connections by marriage are so +freely criticised, and, to say truth, held in contempt. +No one enjoins us to love our wife's relations, indeed, +our own kindred are generally dead against them, +and especially against her mother, to whom the poor +woman very naturally clings. This is as unreasonable +in the way of prejudice, as the other line of conduct is +in the way of favouritism. It is, in short, my humble +opinion that, if everyone stood upon his or her own +merits, and was treated accordingly, this world of ours +would be the better for it; and of this I am quite +sure—it would have fewer disagreeable people in it. +I am neither so patriotic nor so thorough-going as +the American citizen, who, during the late Civil War, +came to President Lincoln, and nobly offered to sacrifice +on the altar of freedom 'all his able-bodied relations;' +but I think that most of us would be benefited +if they were weeded out a bit. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/07.jpg" width="300" height="53" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>INVALID LITERATURE.</h2> + +<p> +It has always struck me as a breach of faith in +Charles Lamb to have published the fact that +dear, 'rigorous' Mrs. Battle's favourite suit was +Hearts: and is in my eyes, notwithstanding Mr. +Carlyle's posthumous outburst, the only blot on his +character. His own confession, though tendered with +a blush, that there is such a thing as sick whist stands +on totally different grounds; it is not a relaxation of +principle, but an acknowledgment of a weakness +common to human nature. One of the most advanced +thinkers and men of science of our time has frankly +admitted that his theological views are considerably +modified by the state of his health; and if one's ideas +on futurity are thus affected, it is no wonder that +things of this world wear a different appearance when +viewed from a sick bed. It is not difficult to imagine +that whist, for example, played on the counterpane +by three good Samaritans, to while away the hours +for an afflicted friend, differs from the game when +played on a club card-table. Common humanity +prevents our saying what we think of the play of an +invalid who may be enjoying his last rubber; and if +the ace of trumps <i>is</i> found under his pillow, we only +smile and hope it will not occur again. +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, literary taste would, one would +think, be the last thing to vary with our physical +condition; yet those who have had long illnesses +know better, and will, I am sure, bear me out in the +assertion that there are such things as sick books. I +do not, of course, speak of devotional works. I am +picturing the poor man when he is getting well after +a long bout of illness; his mind clear, but inert; his +limbs painless, but so languid that they hardly seem +to belong to him; and when he regards their attenuated +proportions with the same sort of feeble interest +that is evoked by eggshell china—they are not useful, +still it would be a pity if they broke. +</p> + +<p> +Then it is that one feels a loathing of the strong +meats of literature, and a liking for its milk diet. As +to metaphysics, one has had enough and to spare of +<i>them</i> when one was delirious; while the 'Fairy Tales +of Science' do not strike one just then as being quite +so fairylike as the poet represents them. As to science, +indeed, there is but one thing clear to us, namely, +that the theory of evolution is a mistake; for though +one's getting better at all is undoubtedly a proof of +the survival of the fittest, we are well convinced that we +have retrograded from what we were. It would puzzle +Darwin himself to fix our position exactly, but though +we lack the tenacity, and especially the colour, of the +sea-anemone, we seem to be there or thereabouts in +the scale of humanity. When last prostrated by rheumatic +fever, or its remedies, I remember, indeed, to +have been inclined to mathematics. When very ill I +had suffered agonies in my dreams from the persecutions +of an impossible quantity, and perhaps the +association of ideas suggested, as I slowly gathered +strength, a little problem in statics. It had been +taught me by my dear tutor at Cambridge, whom +undergraduates have long ceased to trouble, as a +proof of the pathos that dwells in figures; and I kept +repeating it to myself, with the letters all misplaced, +till I became exhausted by tears and emotion. +</p> + +<p> +As a general rule, however, even mathematics fail +to interest the convalescent. 'Man delights not him; +no, nor woman neither;' but Literature, if light in the +hand, and always provided that he has his back to +the window, is a pleasure to him only next to that of +his new found appetite and his first chicken. His +taste 'has suffered a sick change,' but that by no +means implies it has deteriorated. On the contrary, +his critical faculty has fled (which is surely an +immense advantage), while he has recovered much of +that power of appreciation which rarely abides with us +to maturity. He is not on the outlook for mistakes, +slips of style, anachronisms; he derives no pleasure +from the discovery of spots in the sun, but is content +to bask in the rays of it. He does not necessarily +return to the favourites of his youth, though he has a +tendency that way, but the shackles of convention have +slipped away from him with his flesh, and he reads +what he likes, and not what he has been told he ought +to like. He has been so long removed from public +opinion, that, like a shipwrecked crew in an open boat, +it has ceased to affect him; only, instead of taking to +cannibalism, he takes to what is nice. As his physical +appetite is fastidious, so his mental palate has a relish +only for titbits. If ever there was a time for a reasonable +being to 'dip' into books, or to enjoy 'half-hours with +the best authors,' this is it; but weak as the patient is, +he commonly declines to have his tastes dictated to; +perhaps there is an unpleasant association in his mind, +arising from Brand and Liebig, with all 'extracts;' but, +at all events, those literary compilations oppress and +bewilder him; he objects to the extraordinary fertility +of 'Ibid,' an author whose identity he cannot quite call +to mind, and prefers to choose for himself. +</p> + +<p> +Biography is out of the question. Long before he +has got through that account of the hero's great grandmother, +from whom he inherited his talents, which is, +it seems, indispensable to such works, he yawns, and +devoutly wishing, notwithstanding its fatal consequences +to the fourth generation, that that old woman +had never been born, falls into fitful slumber. +</p> + +<p> +Travels are in the same condemnation; he has not +the patience to watch the traveller taking leave of his +family at Pimlico, or to follow his cab as he drives +through the streets to the railway station, or to share +the discomforts of his cabin—all necessary, no doubt, to +his eventual arrival in Abyssinia, but hardly necessary +to be described. Moreover, the convalescent has probably +travelled a good deal on his own account during +the last few weeks, for the bed of fever carries one hither +and thither with the velocity, though not the ease, of +the enchanted carpet in the 'Arabian Nights.' The +desire of the sick man is to escape from himself and +all recent experiences. +</p> + +<p> +He thinks he will try a little History. Alison? No, +certainly not Alison. 'They will be proposing Lingard +next,' he murmurs, and the little irritation caused by +the well-meant suggestion throws him back for the +next six hours. Presently he tries Macaulay, whom +some flatterer has fulsomely called 'as good as a novel,' +but, though the trial of Warren Hastings gives him a +fillip, the rout of Sedgemoor does away with the effect +of it, and, happening upon the character of Halifax, he +suffers a severe relapse. As a bedfellow, Macaulay +is too declamatory, though, at the same time, strange +to say, he does not always succeed in keeping one +awake. To the sick man Carlyle is preferable; not +his 'Frederick,' of course, and still less his 'Sartor +Resartus,' which has become a nightmare, without +head or tail, but his 'French Revolution.' One lies +and watches the amazing spectacle without effort, as +though it were represented on the stage. The sea of +blood rolls before our eyes, the roar of the mob sounds +in our ears; we are carried along with the unhappy +Louis to the very frontier, and just on the verge of +escape are seized and brought back—King Coach—with +him to Paris, in a cold perspiration. +</p> + +<p> +Some people, when in health and of a sane mind +(Mr. Matthew Arnold one <i>knows</i> of, and there may be +others), take great delight in 'Paradise Regained;' all +we venture to say is that in sickness it does not suggest +its title. It is said that barley-water goes well +with everything; if so, the epic is the exception which +proves the rule. Milton is tedious after rheumatic fever, +Spencer is worse. +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'"Not from the grand old masters,</p> +<p class="i2">Not from the bards sublime,</p> +<p>Whose distant footsteps echo</p> +<p class="i2">Through the corridors of Time,"'</p></div></div> + +<p class="noindent"> +murmurs the invalid, 'I can't stand them.' He does +not mean anything depreciatory, but merely that— +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'Like strains of martial music</p> +<p class="i2">Their mighty thoughts suggest</p> +<p>Life's endless toil and endeavour,'</p></div></div> + +<p class="noindent">which he is not fit even to think of. He cannot read +Keats's 'Nightingale,' but for quite another reason. +What arouses 'thoughts too deep for tears' in the hale +and strong is to the sick as the sinking for an artesian +well. 'The Chelsea Waterworks,' as Mr. Samuel +Weller observed of Mr. Job Trotter (at a time when +the metropolitan water supply would seem to have +been more satisfactory than at present), 'are nothing +to him.' On the other hand, Shelley's 'Skylark,' and +the 'Dramatic Fragments' of Browning, are as cordials +to the invalid, while the poems of Walter Scott are +like breezes from the mountains and the sea. In that +admirable essay, 'Life in the Sick-room,' the authoress +justly remarks, speaking of the advantage of objectivity +in sick books, 'Nothing can be better in this +view than Macaulay's "Lays," which carry us at full +speed out of ourselves.' +</p> + +<p> +But it is not always that the invalid can read the +poets at all; like Mrs. Wititterley, his nerves are too +delicately strung for the touch of the muse. His chief +enjoyment lies in fiction, to the producers of which he +can never feel too grateful. I remember, on one +occasion when I was very reduced indeed, taking up +'Northanger Abbey,' and reading, with almost the +same gusto as though I had been a novelist myself, +Miss Austen's defence of her profession. She says: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +'I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom, so common with +novel-writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances +to the number of which they are themselves adding, joining with their greatest +enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely even +permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally takes +up a novel, is sure to turn from its insipid pages with disgust. Let us not +desert one another; we are an injured body. Although our productions have +afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other +literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much +decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our +readers; and while the abilities of the nine-hundred-and-ninety-ninth abridger +of the history of England are eulogised by a thousand pens, there seems a +general agreement to slight the performances which have only genius, wit, and +taste to recommend them.' +</p> + +<p> +I had quite forgotten till I came upon this passage that +Miss Austen had such 'a kick in her,' and I remember +how I honoured her for it and sympathised with +her sentiments. 'When pain and anguish wring the +brow,' we all know who is the comforter; but next to +her, and when the brow is getting a little better, we +welcome the novelist. +</p> + +<p> +With our face aslant on the pillow, we once more +make acquaintance with the characters that have been +the delight of our youth, and find they delight us still, +but with a difference. The animal spirits of Smollett +and Fielding are a little too much for us; there is not +sympathy enough in them for our own condition; they +seem to have been fellows who were never ill. Perhaps +'Humphrey Clinker,' though it drags at the end, and +the political disquisitions are intolerable, is the funniest +book that ever was written; but the faculty of +appreciation for it is not now in us. We turn with +relief to Scott, though not to 'Scott's Works,' in the +sense in which the phrase is generally used, as though +they were a foundry from which everything is issued +of the same workmanship and excellence; whereas +there is as much difference between them as there was in +her Majesty's ships of old between the gallant seventy-four +and the crazy troopship. The invalid, however, as +I have said, is far from critical; he only knows what +he likes. Judged by this fastidious standard, he finds +'Waverley' somewhat wearisome, and, as to the first +part of it in particular, wonders, not that the Great +Unknown should have kept it in his desk for years as +a comparative failure, but that he should have ever +taken it from that repository. 'The Antiquary,' which +in health he used to admire, or think he did, exceedingly, +has also a narcotic effect; but 'Rob Roy' +revives him, and 'Ivanhoe' stirs him like a trumpet-call. +</p> + +<p> +What is very curious, just as the favourite literature +of a cripple is almost always that which treats of force +and action, so upon our sick-bed we turn most gladly +to scenes of heroism and adventure. The famous ride +in 'Geoffrey Hamlyn,' where the fate of the heroine, +threatened with worse than death from the bush-rangers, +hangs upon the horse's speed, seems to us, as +we lie abed, one of the finest episodes in fiction. 'Tom +Cringle's Log,' too, becomes a great favourite, not +more from its buoyancy and freshness than from the +melodramatic scenes with which it is interspersed. +</p> + +<p> +In some moods of the sick man's mind, his morbid +appetite tends, strange to say, to horrors. He +'snatches a fearful joy' from the weird and supernatural. +I have known those terrible tales of Le +Fanu, entitled 'In a Glass Darkly,' which for dramatic +power and eeriness no other novelist has ever +approached, devoured greedily by those whose physical +sustenance has been dry toast and arrowroot. +</p> + +<p> +The works of Thackeray are too cynical for the +convalescent; he is for the present in too good a +humour with destiny and human nature to enjoy +them. He prefers the more cheerful aspects of life, +and resents the least failure of poetic justice. +</p> + +<p> +Taking the tenants of the sick ward all round, +indeed, I have little doubt that the large majority +would give their vote for Dickens. His pathos, it is +true, is too much for them. Their hearts are as waxen +as though Mrs. Jarley herself had made them. They +are just in the condition to be melted by 'Little Nell,' +and overcome by the death of Paul Dombey. They +read 'David Copperfield' with avidity, but are careful +to avoid the catastrophe of Dora and even the demise +of her four-footed favourite. The book that suits +them best is 'Martin Chuzzlewit.' Its genial comedy, +quite different from the violent delights of 'Pickwick,' +is well adapted to their grasp; while its tragedy, the +murder of Montague Tigg—the finest description of +the breaking of the sixth commandment in the +language—leaves nothing to be desired in the way of +excitement. But here we stray beyond our bounds, +for 'Martin Chuzzlewit' is not a 'sick book;' or +rather, it is one of the very few productions of human +genius on the merits of which the opinions of both +Sick and Sound are at one. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>WET HOLIDAYS.</h2> + +<p> +Even poets when they are on their travels feel +the depressing influence of bad weather. +Those lines of the Laureate— +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'But when we crossed the Lombard plain,</p> +<p>Remember what a plague of rain—</p> +<p>Of rain at Reggio, at Parma,</p> +<p>At Lodi rain, Piacenza rain,'</p></div></div> + +<p class="noindent"> +are not among his best, but they evidently come from +his very heart. When he used prose upon that +journey his language was probably stronger. It is no +wonder, then, that ordinary folks who have only a +limited time in which to enjoy themselves, free from +the fetters of toil, resent wet days. They are worst +of all when we are touring on the Continent, where it +is a popular fallacy to suppose the skies are always +smiling, but at home they are bad enough. In Scotland, +nobody but a Scotchman believes in fine +weather, and consequently there is no disappointment; +in England the Lake District is, perhaps, the +most unfortunate spot for folks to be caught in by +rain, because if there is no landscape there is nothing. +<i>Spectare veniunt</i>, and when there are only the ribs +and lining of their umbrellas to look at, their lot is +hard indeed. +</p> + +<p> +Wastwater is a charming place in sunshine—almost +the only locality in England where things are +still primitive and pastoral; but in rain! I hate exhibitions, +but rather than Wastdale in wet weather, +give me a panorama. Serious people may talk of +'the Devil's books,' but even a pack of cards, with +somebody to play with you, is better under such circumstances +than no book. +</p> + +<p> +There is no limit to what human beings may be +driven to by stress of weather, and especially by that +'clearing shower,' by which the dwellers in Lakeland +are wont euphemistically to describe its continuous +downpours. The Persians have another name for it—'the +grandmother of all buckets.' I was once in +Wastdale with a dean of the Church of England, respectable, +sedate, and a D.D. It had poured for days +without ceasing; the roads were under water, the +passes were impassable, the mountains invisible; +there was nothing to be seen but waterfalls, and those +in the wrong place; there was no literature; the +dean's guide-books were exhausted, and his Bible, it +is but charitable and reasonable to suppose, he knew +by heart. As for me, I had found three tourists who +could play at whist, and was comparatively independent +of the elements; but that poor ecclesiastic! +For the first few days he occupied himself in remonstrating +against our playing cards by daylight; but +on the fourth morning, when we sat down to them +immediately after breakfast, he began to take an +enforced interest in our proceedings. Like a dove +above the dovecot, he circled for an hour or two about +the table—a deal one, such as thimble-riggers use, +borrowed, under protest, from his own humble bedroom—and +then, with a murmurous coo about the +weather showing no signs of clearing up, he took a +hand. Constant dropping—and it was much worse +than dropping—will wear away a stone, and it is my +belief if it had gone on much longer his reverence +would have played on Sunday. +</p> + +<p> +The spectacle that the roads of the district present +at such a time is most melancholy. Everyone is in a +closed car—a cross between a bathing machine and +that convenient vehicle which carries both corpse and +mourners; all the windows seem made of bottle glass, +a phenomenon produced by the flattening of the +noses of imprisoned tourists; and nothing shines +except an occasional traveller in oilskin. In such +seasons, indeed, oilskin (lined with patience) is your +only wear. Ordinary waterproofs in such a climate +become mere blotting paper, and with the best of +them, without leggings and headgear to match, the +poor Londoner might, I do not say just as well be in +London (for that is his aspiration all day long), but +just as well go to bed at once, and stop there. 'But +why does he not go home?' it may be asked: a +question to which there are several answers. In the +first place (for one must take the average in such +cases) because he is a fool. Secondly, like the rest of +the well-to-do world, he has suffered the summer, +wherein warmth and sunshine are really to be had, to +slip by, and has only the fag end of it in which to +take holiday. It is now or never—or at all events now +or next year—with him. All his friends, too, are out +of town, flattening <i>their</i> noses against window panes; +his club is under repair, his house in brown holland, +his servants on board wages. Like the young gentleman +in Locksley Hall, he is so absolutely at the +end of his resources, that an 'angry fancy' is all that +is left to him. Of course, under its influence he +sits down and writes to the <i>Times</i>; but, if the +humblest of its correspondents may venture to say so +without offence, even that does not help him much. +That suicides increase in wet autumns is notorious; +but that murders should in these sequestered vales +maintain the even tenor of their way is a feather in +the cap of human nature. In lodgings, where the +pent-up tourist has no one but his wife and family to +speak to, where Dick and Tom <i>will</i> romp in his only +sitting-room, and Eliza Jane practises all day on the +crazy piano, this forbearance is especially creditable. +</p> + +<p> +Even in hotels, however, there is great temptation. +On the north-eastern coast, in particular, when the +weather has, as the phrase goes, 'broken up,' and the +sky and sea have both become one durable drab, the +best of women grow irritable, the men morose. At +the <i>table d'hôte</i>, which even the most exclusive are +driven to frequent for company, as sheep huddle +together in storm, Dislike ripens to Hate with frightful +rapidity. Our neighbour, who always—for it seems +always—gets the last of the mushrooms at breakfast, +or finishes the oyster sauce at dinner before our very +eyes, we are very far, indeed, from loving as ourselves. +Our <i>vis-à -vis</i>, the man on his honeymoon, is even still +more offensive. We resent his happiness, which is +apparently uninfluenced by the state of the weather, +and our wife wonders what he could have seen in that +chit of a girl to attract his attention. To ourselves +she seems a great deal too good for him, and in our +rare intervals of human feeling we regard her with the +tenderest commiseration. The importance attached +to meals, and the time we take over them, have no +parallel save among the Esquimaux. The least incident +that happens in the hotel is of more moment to +us than the overthrow of Empires. The whispered +news that a fellow guest has been taken seriously ill, +and that a medical consultation has been held upon +the case, is a matter to be deplored, of course, but one +which is not without its consolations. 'Who is it? +What is it? Nothing catching I do hope?' (this last +uttered with genuine anxiety) are questions that are +heard on every side. The general impression is that +some lovely young lady of fashion on the drawing-room +floor has been seized with pains in her limbs—and +no wonder—from exposure to the elements. Her +mother comes down every morning and selects dainties +for the sick-room from the public breakfast table; +those who are near enough to do so inquire in dulcet +tones, 'How is your invalid this morning?' The reply +is, 'Better, much better,' which somehow falls short of +expectation. Even the most giddy and frivolous of +girls has no excuse for frightening people for nothing. +</p> + +<p> +At luncheon one day a very fat, strong boy makes +his appearance, and is supplied with soup. All his +neighbours who have no soup are wild with envy, +though they are well acquainted with that soup at +dinner, and know that it is bad. 'What is the +meaning of it? Why this favouritism?' we inquire +of the waiter furiously. 'Well, you see, sir, he is +better now; but that is the invalid.' The delicate, +attractive creature we have pictured to ourselves with +pains in her limbs turns out, after all, to be a hulking +schoolboy, probably bilious from over-eating. The +public indignation is excessive, while the subject of +it, quite unconscious of the fact, has another plate of +soup. +</p> + +<p> +The wild weather out of doors is not, of course, +confined to the land, and the sea would be a fine sight +if it was not invisible. The waves, indeed, are so +high that the fishing-boats which have remained out +all night are often warned off, or, as it is locally +termed, 'burned off,' from the harbour bar. A tar +barrel is lighted for this purpose on the headland, and +it is the only thing which the eternal rain cannot +utterly squelch and extinguish. Occasionally we +venture down upon the pier to see the boats make +the harbour, which, not a little to our disappointment, +they never fail to do. There are huge buttresses of +stone against the pier-head, behind which the new +comer imagines he may crouch in perfect safety, till +the third wave comes in and convinces him to the +contrary. No one ever dreams of 'burning' <i>him</i> off—giving +him one word of warning of that unpleasant +contingency; for to behold a fellow creature more +drenched and dripping than ourselves is very soothing. +As to the dangers of maritime life, we are all +agreed that they are greatly overrated; and some +sceptics even go so far as to suggest that the skeleton +ship, half embedded in the sands, which so impresses +visitors in fine weather, is not a genuine wreck at all, +but has been placed there by the Town Corporation +to delude the public. +</p> + +<p> +Now and then we splash down to the quay to see a +few million of herrings sold at four shillings a hundred, +which will presently induce philanthropic fishmongers +in London to advertise 'a glut this morning,' and to +retail them at threepence apiece. At rare intervals +we explore the dripping town. It is amazing what a +fascination the small picture-shops, to which at home +we should never give a glance, afford us; even the +frontispieces to popular music have unwonted attractions; +while the pottery-shops, full of ware made +from clay 'peculiar to the locality,' are only too +seductive to our wives, who purchase largely what they +believe to be great bargains, till they find on their +return home the identical articles in Oxford Street, at +half the price. In London we never visit the British +Museum itself, unless to escort some country cousin, +but at Barecliff-on-Sea, in wet weather, the miserable +little local Institute, with its specimens of strata, its calf +with two heads in spirits, and its petrified toad, is an +irresistible temptation. The great event of the day, +however, is the wading down to the railway-station +(which is in a quagmire) to meet the express train +which brings more victims, 'unconscious of their +doom,' to Barecliff, and who evidently flatter themselves +that the pouring rain is an exceptional phenomenon; +it also brings the London newspapers, for +which we fight and struggle (the demand being +greatly in excess of the supply) and think ourselves +fortunate if we secure a supplement. It is true there +is a <i>Times</i> in the smoking-room of the hotel, but it is +always engaged five deep, is the cause of terrible +quarrels, and every afternoon we expect to see it +imbrued in gore. +</p> + +<p> +In the evening, when one does not mind the wet so +much—'its tooth is not so keen because it is not seen'—there +are dissipations at 'the Rooms by the Sea.' +Amateur charitable concerts are given there, in which +it is whispered that this and that lady at the <i>table +d'hôte</i> will take part, who become public characters and +objects of immense interest in consequence. Thither, +too, come 'the inimitable Jones,' from the Edgware +Road Music Hall, with his 'unrivalled <i>répertoire</i> of +comic songs;' the Spring Board Family, who have +been 'pronounced by the general consensus of the +medical faculty in London to be unique,' as having +neither joints nor backbone; and Herr von Deft, 'who +will repeat the same astounding performances which +have electrified the reigning families of Europe.' The +serious people (for whom 'the glee-singers of Mesopotamia' +are also suspected of dropping a line) are +angled for by white-cravatted lecturers, who enhance +their statistics of conversion by the exhibition of +poisoned arrows, and of clubs, on which, with the +microscope, may be detected the hairs of missionary +martyrs. In fine weather, of course, these attractions +would be advertised in vain; but the fact is, our whole +community has been reduced by the cruelty of the +elements to a sort of second childhood; the rain which +permeates everything is softening our brain. +</p> + +<p> +This is only too evident from the conversation in +the hotel porch where the men meet every morning +to discuss the topic of the day—the weather. A sullen +gloom pervades them—the first symptom of mental +aberration. Those, on the other hand, who express +their opinion that it 'really seems to be clearing a +little' are in more advanced stages. We who are less +afflicted shake our heads, and murmur painfully, but +also with a considerable touch of contempt, 'Poor +fellows!' +</p> + +<p> +The piano in the ladies' drawing-room is always +going, but it excites no soothing influence; there is +an impression in the hotel that the performers are +foreigners, and should be discouraged. But there is +one instrument hanging in the hall on which everyone +plays, native or alien, and every note is discord. It is +the barometer. People talk of the delicacy of scientific +instruments; if they are right, the shocks which that +barometer survives proves it to be an exception. Batter +it as we may, and do, the faithful needle, with a determination +worthy of a better cause, maintains its position +at 'Much Rain.' The manager is appealed to +vehemently, coarsely; he shrugs his shoulders, protests +with humility that he cannot help the weather, or +affirms it is unprecedented—which we do not believe. +Other managers—in the Engadine, for example—the +papers say, are providing excellent weather; what does +he mean by it? +</p> + +<p> +At last one morning, wetter than ever, some noble +spirit, the Tell of our liberties, exclaims, 'Who would +be free, himself must strike the blow.' His actual +words (if one was not writing history) are, 'Hang me +if I stand this any longer,' and they strike the keynote +of everybody's thought. He goes away by the next +train, and his departure is followed by the same effects +as the tapping of a reservoir. The hotel company—I +mean the inmates; the company goes into bankruptcy—stream +off at once to their own homes. That journey +through the pouring rain is the happiest day of +our wet holiday. How beautiful looms soaking, soppy, +smoky London! In that excellent town who cares +for rain? +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!</p> +<p>You cataracts and hurricanoes spout.'</p></div></div> + +<p> +Pooh! pooh! Call a cab—call two! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>TRAVELLING COMPANIONS.</h2> + +<p> +It was held by wise men of old that adversity was +the test of friendship, but as his Excellency the +Minister of the United States has observed, <i>per</i> +Mr. Biglow, 'They did not know everything down in +Judee;' and among other subjects of which those +ancient writers were necessarily ignorant was that of +Continental travel. The coming to grief of a friend is +unquestionably very inconvenient; as a millionaire of +my acquaintance observes (under the influence, as he +confidently believes, of benevolent emotion), 'One likes +to see one's friends prosperous;' but even when they are +not so, it requires some effort to follow the dictates of +prudence and cast them off. And, after all, the man, even +though you may cut him, remains the same; as fit for the +purposes of friendship as ever, except for his pecuniary +condition. There is no such change in his relation to +oneself as Emerson describes in one of his essays; his +words I forget, and his works are miles away, but the +man he has in his mind has in some way fallen short +of expectation—declined, perhaps, to lend the philosopher +money. 'Yesterday,' he says, 'my friend was the +illimitable ocean; to-day he is a pond.' He had come +to the end of him. And some friends, as my little +child complains as he strokes his black kitten, 'end so +soon.' +</p> + +<p> +There are no circumstances, however, under which +friendship comes so often to a violent and sudden +death as under the pressure of travel. It is like the +fate which the Scientific ascribe to a box sunk in the +sea; after a certain depth, which varies according to +the strength of the box, the weight of the superincumbent +water bursts it up. It is merely a question +of how deep or how strong. Our travelling companion +remains our friend for a day, for a week, for even a +month; but at the month's end he is our friend no +longer. Our relations have probably become what the +diplomatists term 'strained' long before that date, but +a day comes when the tension becomes intolerable; +the cable parts and we lose him. Unfortunately, not +always, however; there are circumstances—such as +being on board ship, for example—when we thus part +without parting company. A long voyage is the most +terrible trial to which friendship can be subjected. It +is like the old sentence of pressing to death, 'as much +as he can bear, and more.' It is doubtful, for example, +whether friendship has ever survived a voyage to +Australia. I have sometimes asked a man whether +he knew So-and-So, who hails, like himself, from +Melbourne, and he has replied, 'We came over in the +same ship'—'Only that, and nothing more,' as the poet +puts it; but his tone has an unmistakable significance, +and one perceives at once that the topic had better not +be pursued. +</p> + +<p> +A very dear friend of mine once proposed that we +should go round the world together; he offered to pay +all my expenses, and painted the expedition in rose-colour. +But I had the good sense to decline the proposal. +I felt I should lose my friend. Even yachting is a +very dangerous pastime in this respect, especially when +the vessel is becalmed. In that case, like the sea itself, +one's friend soon becomes a pond. Conceive, then, +what it must be to go round the world with him! Is +it possible, both being human, that we can still love one +another when we have got to Japan, for instance? +And then we have to come back together! How +frightful must be that moment when he tells us the +same story he told at starting, and we feel that he +has come to the end of his tether, and is going to +tell <i>all</i> his stories over again! This is why it so often +happens that only one of two friends returns from +any long voyage they have undertaken together. What +has become of the other? A question that one should +never put to the survivor. It is certain that great +travellers, and especially those who travel by sea, have +a very different code of morals from that which they +conform to at home. Human life is not so sacred to +them. Perhaps it is in this respect that travel is said +to enlarge the mind. That it does not sharpen it, however, +whatever it may do for the temper, is tolerably +certain. In their habits travellers are singularly conventional. +They are compelled, of course, to suffer +certain inconveniences, but they endure others, and +most serious ones, quite unnecessarily, merely because +it is the custom so to do. In crossing the Atlantic, for +example, a man of means will submit to be shut up in +a close cupboard for ten days with an utter stranger, +though by paying double fare he can get a cabin to +himself. This arises from no desire for economy, but +simply because he does not think for himself; other +travellers do the like, and he follows their example. +Yet what money could recompense him for occupying +for the same time <i>on land</i> a double-bedded room—not +to say a mere china closet—with a man of whom he +knows nothing except that he is subject to chronic +sickness? A pleasant sort of travelling companion +indeed, yet, strange to say, the commonest of all. +Where there is a slender purse this terrible state of +things (supposing travel under such circumstances to +be compatible with pleasure at all, which, for my part, +I cannot imagine) is not a matter of choice; but where +it can be avoided why is it undergone? +</p> + +<p> +There is nothing that convinces me of the folly of +mankind so much as those advertisements we see in +the summer months with respect to travelling companions, +from volunteers of both sexes: 'Wanted, a +travelling companion for a few months on the Continent, +etc. The highest references will be required.' +The idea of going with a stranger upon a tour of +pleasure must surely originate in Hanwell, and the +adventurer may think himself fortunate if it does not +end in Broadmoor. References, indeed! Who can +answer for a fellow-creature's temper, patience, unselfishness, +during such an ordeal as a protracted tour? +No one who has not travelled with him already; and +one may be tolerably certain his certificate does not +come from <i>that</i> quarter. It is true some people are +married to strangers by advertisement; but their +companionship, as I am given to understand, does not +generally last for months, or anything like it. +</p> + +<p> +Imagine two people, as utterly unknown to one +another, except by letter (and 'references'), as the +<i>x</i> and <i>y</i> of an equation, meeting for the first time at +the railway-station! With what tremors must each +regard the other! What a relief it must be to X. to +find that Y. is at least a white man; on the other hand, +it must rather dash his hopes, if they are set on +pedestrianism, to find that his <i>compagnon de voyage</i> has +a wooden leg. Yet what are his mere colour and +limbs compared with his temperament and disposition? +If one did not know the frightful risks one's +fellow-creatures incur every day for little pleasure and +less profit, one would certainly say these people must +be mad. +</p> + +<p> +But if instead of X. and Y., it is even A. and B., men +who have known one another for years, and in every +relation but as fellow-travellers, there is risk enough +in such a venture. One night, after dinner at the +club, they agree with effusion to take their autumn +trip together; they are warm with wine and with the +remembrance of their college friendship—which extended +perhaps, when they afterwards come to think +about it, a very little way. What days they will have +in Switzerland together! What mornings (to see the +sunrise) upon mountain-tops! What evenings on +Lucerne! What nights in Paris! A. thinks himself +fortunate indeed in having secured B.'s society for the +next three months—a man with such a reputation for +conversation; even T., the cynic of the club, has testified +to his charm of manner. By-the-bye, what was +it—exactly—T. had said of B.? A. cannot remember +it at the moment, but recalls it on the night before +they start together. 'B. is a charming fellow, only he +has this peculiarity—that if there is only one armchair +in a room, B. is sure to get it.' +</p> + +<p> +B., on the other hand, congratulates himself on A.'s +excessive good sense, which even T. had knowledged. +What was it—exactly—T. had said of A.? He cannot +remember it at the moment, but recalls it on the night +before they start together. 'A. is such a thoroughly +practical fellow; he has committed many follies, and +not a few crimes, but he can lay his hand on the place +where his heart should be, and honestly aver that he +has never given sixpence to anybody.' Full of misgivings, +and with demonstrations of satisfaction that +are in themselves suspicious, they meet at the terminus. +A. has a little black bag, which contains his all; it +frees him from all trouble about luggage, and (especially) +from the necessity of paying a porter. He is +resolved not to lose a moment, nor spend a sixpence, +in a Custom-house. To his horror, he perceives +that B., whose one idea is comfort, has a portmanteau +specially designed for him (apparently upon the model +of Noah's Ark), and which can scarcely be got into the +luggage-van. This article delays them twenty-four +hours at every frontier, because the ordinary authorities +decline to open it upon the ground that it contains +an infernal machine, and have to telegraph to their +Government for instructions. +</p> + +<p> +Again, B. is no doubt a charming conversationalist—in English; +but he does not know one single word +of any other language. He requires every observation +of their alien fellow-travellers to be translated, and +then says 'Oh!' discontentedly, or 'It seems to me +that foreigners have no ideas.' And not for one +moment can A. get rid of him. If there <i>is</i> a friend +that sticketh closer than a brother, it is the Travelling +Companion who is dependent upon you for interpretation. +It is needless to say that under these circumstances +the glass of Friendship falls from 'Set +Fair' to 'Stormy' with much rapidity. After A's +fourth quarrel with a waiter about half a franc, B. +calls him a 'mean hound,' and takes the opportunity +of returning to his native land with a French count, +who speaks perfect English, and robs him of his +watch and chain and the contents of his pocket-book +on board the steamer. A. and B. meet one another +daily at the club for years afterwards, but without +recognition. +</p> + +<p> +Their case, of course, is an extreme one; but that +of C. and D. is almost as bad. They are men of +prudence, and persuade E. to go with them, as a +makeweight. 'If we should ever disagree,' they say, +'as to what is to be done—which, however, is to the +last degree improbable—the majority of votes shall +carry it'—an arrangement which only delays the +inevitable event— +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'Three little nigger boys went the world to view,</p> +<p>The third was left in Calais, and then there were two.'</p></div></div> + +<p> +They find the makeweight intolerable before they +have crossed the Channel, and, having agreed to cut +their cable from him, are from that moment never in +the same mind about anything else. It is a modern +version of the three brigands who stole the Communion +plate. C. and D. push E. over the precipice, +and C. stabs D. at a supper for which D. has purveyed +poisoned wine. +</p> + +<p> +The only way to secure a really eligible travelling +companion is to try him first in short swallow-flights, +or rather pigeon-flights, from home. Take your bird +with you for a few days' outing near home; then, if +he proves pleasant, for a week's tour in Cornwall; +then for ten days in Scotland, where, if you meet with +the usual weather, and he still keeps his temper and +politeness, you may trust yourself to him anywhere. +Out of twenty failures there will, perhaps, be one +success. In this manner I have discovered in time, +in my dearest and nearest friends, the most undreamt +of vices. One man, F., hitherto much respected as a +Chancery barrister, has, as it has turned out, been intended +by nature for a professional pedestrian. His +true calling is to walk 'laps' round the Agricultural +Hall or at Lillie Bridge, with nothing on to speak of +save a handkerchief round his forehead. 'Let us +walk' is his one cry as soon as he becomes a travelling +companion. And he is not content to do this when +he arrives at any place of interest, but insists upon +walking <i>there</i>—perhaps along a dusty road, or over +turnip-fields. I like walking myself in moderation—say +a mile out and a mile in; but not, certainly not, +twenty miles at a stretch, and at a speed which precludes +conversation. This class of travelling companion is very +dangerous. If he does not get his +walking he becomes malignant. My barrister, at +least, being denied the opportunity of drawing out +marriage-settlements, conveying land, or otherwise +plundering the community, took to practical jokes. +Having a suspicion of his pedestrian powers, from the +extreme length of his legs, I took G. with us, a man +whom I could trust in that respect, and who fancied +he had heart complaint. G. and I took our exercise +alone together in a fly. One day we took a long +drive—four miles or more—to a well-known bay. +The vehicle could not get down to the sea, so we descended +on foot, leaving it at the top of the cliff, with +the strictest orders to the man not to stir till we came +back. When we returned the fly was gone. How +we reached our hotel, Heaven knows! but we did +arrive there, in the last stage of exhaustion. The +driver of the carriage, whom we met next day, informed +us that a gentleman had been thrown from +his horse on the cliff-top and had broken his leg, and +that, under the circumstances, he had ventured to +disobey our instructions and take the poor fellow +home. Years afterwards I discovered that nothing +of the kind had happened, but that the fiendish F. +had given the driver a sovereign to play that trick +upon us. F. is a judge now, and has been lately +trying election cases. I wonder what he thinks of +himself when he rebukes offenders for the heinous +crime of bribery! +</p> + +<p> +Again, I always thought H. a pleasant fellow till +we went together to Cornwall. He had gone through +the first ordeal of a few days nearer home to my +satisfaction, but at Penzance he broke out. He was +so dreadfully particular about his food that nothing +satisfied him—not even pilchards three times a day; +and the way he went on at the waiters is not to be +described by a decent pen. The attendant at Penzance +was not, I am bound to say, a good waiter. +He said, though he habitually put his thumb in every +dish, he 'hadn't quite got his hand in,' and was not +used to the business.' 'Used! you know nothing +about it!' exclaimed H., viciously. Then the poor +fellow burst into tears. 'Pray be patient with me, +good gentlemen,' he murmured. 'I do my best; but +until last Wednesday as ever was I was a pork-butcher.' +One cannot stand a travelling companion +who makes the waiters cry. +</p> + +<p> +The worst kind of fellow-traveller is one who, to +use his own scientific phrase for his complaint, suffers +from 'disorganisation of the nervous centres.' At +home his little weaknesses do not strike you. You +may not be on the spot when he flies across Piccadilly +Circus, pursued, as he fancies, by a Brompton omnibus +which has not yet reached St. James's Church, +and is moving at a snail's pace; you may not have +been with him on that occasion when, in his eagerness +to be in time for the 'Flying Dutchman,' he arrives +at Paddington an hour before it starts, and is put +into the parliamentary train which is shunted at +Slough to let the 'Dutchman' pass; but when you +come to travel with him you know what 'nerves' are +to your cost. On the other hand, this is the easiest +kind of travelling companion to get rid of; for you +have only to feign a sore throat, with feverish +symptoms, and off he flies on the wings of terror, +leaving you, as he thinks—if he <i>has</i> a thought except +for his nervous centres—to the tender mercies of a +foreign doctor, to hireling nurses, and to a grave in +the strangers' cemetery. +</p> + +<h5>THE END.</h5> + +<hr /> + +<h5>BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD AND LONDON.</h5> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13410 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/13410-h/images/01.jpg b/13410-h/images/01.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..aa01588 --- /dev/null +++ b/13410-h/images/01.jpg diff --git a/13410-h/images/02.jpg b/13410-h/images/02.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f38d087 --- /dev/null +++ b/13410-h/images/02.jpg diff --git a/13410-h/images/03.jpg b/13410-h/images/03.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d76ce43 --- /dev/null +++ b/13410-h/images/03.jpg diff --git a/13410-h/images/04.jpg b/13410-h/images/04.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..02923c6 --- /dev/null +++ b/13410-h/images/04.jpg diff --git a/13410-h/images/05.jpg b/13410-h/images/05.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..91639e5 --- /dev/null +++ b/13410-h/images/05.jpg diff --git a/13410-h/images/06.jpg b/13410-h/images/06.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..fba3cdf --- /dev/null +++ b/13410-h/images/06.jpg diff --git a/13410-h/images/07.jpg b/13410-h/images/07.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..65acc7f --- /dev/null +++ b/13410-h/images/07.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4892765 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #13410 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13410) diff --git a/old/13410-0.txt b/old/13410-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..76adc64 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13410-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6206 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Private Views, by James Payn + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + +Title: Some Private Views + +Author: James Payn + +Release Date: September 9, 2004 [EBook #13410] +[Most recently updated: June 21, 2020] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME PRIVATE VIEWS *** + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst and the Online Distributed Proofreading +Team. + + + + +Some Private Views + +by JAMES PAYN + +AUTHOR OF 'HIGH SPIRITS,' 'A CONFIDENTIAL AGENT,' ETC. + +A NEW EDITION + +1881 + +London + +CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY + + +TO + +HORACE N. PYM + +THIS + +_Book is Dedicated_ + +BY HIS FRIEND + +THE AUTHOR + +Contents + + FROM 'THE NINETEENTH CENTURY' REVIEW. + THE MIDWAY INN + THE CRITIC ON THE HEARTH + SHAM ADMIRATION IN LITERATURE + THE PINCH OF POVERTY + THE LITERARY CALLING AND ITS FUTURE + STORY-TELLING + PENNY FICTION + + FROM 'THE TIMES.' + HOTELS + MAID-SERVANTS + MEN-SERVANTS + WHIST-PLAYERS + RELATIONS + INVALID LITERATURE + WET HOLIDAYS + TRAVELLING COMPANIONS + + + + +THE MIDWAY INN. + + +'The hidden but the common thought of all.' + +The thoughts I am about to set down are not _my_ thoughts, for, as my +friends say, I have given up the practice of thinking, or it may be, as +my enemies say, I never had it. They are the thoughts of an +acquaintance who thinks for me. I call him an acquaintance, though I +pass as much of my time with him as with my nearest and dearest; +perhaps at the club, perhaps at the office, perhaps in metaphysical +discussion, perhaps at billiards—what does it matter? Thousands of men +in town have such acquaintances, in whose company they spend, by +necessity or custom, half the sum of their lives. It is not rational, +doubtless; but then 'Consider, sir,' said the great talking +philosopher, 'should we become purely rational, how our friendships +would be cut off. We form many such with bad men because they have +agreeable qualities, or may be useful to us. We form many such by +mistake, imagining people to be different from what they really are.' +And he goes on complacently to observe that we shall either have the +satisfaction of meeting these gentlemen in a future state, or be +satisfied without meeting them. + +For my part, I do not feel that the scheme of future happiness, which +ought by rights to be in preparation for me, will be at all interfered +with by my not meeting again the man I have in my. mind. To have seen +him in the flesh is sufficient for me. In the spirit I cannot imagine +him; the consideration is too subtle; for, unlike the little man who +had (for certain) a little soul,' I don't believe he has a soul at all. + +He is middle-aged, rich, lethargic, sententious, dogmatic, and, in +short, the quintessence of the commonplace. I need not say, therefore, +that he is credited by the world with unlimited common-sense. And for +once the world is right. He has nothing-original about him, save so +much of sin as he may have inherited from our first parents; there is +no more at the back of him than at the back of a looking-glass—indeed +less, for he has not a grain of quicksilver; but, like the +looking-glass, he reflects. Having nothing else to do, he hangs, as it +were, on the wall of the world, and mirrors it for me as it +unconsciously passes by him—not, however, as in a glass darkly, but +with singular clearness. His vision is never disturbed by passion or +prejudice; he has no enthusiasm and no illusions. Nor do I believe he +has ever had any. If the noblest study of mankind is man, my friend has +devoted himself to a high calling; the living page of human life has +been his favourite and indeed, for these many years, his only reading. +And for this he has had exceptional opportunities. Always a man of +wealth and leisure, he has never wasted himself in that superficial +observation which is often the only harvest of foreign travel. He +despises it, and in relation to travellers, is wont to quote the famous +parallel of the copper wire, 'which grows the narrower by going +further.' A confirmed stay-at-home, he has mingled much in society of +all sorts, and exercised a keen but quite unsympathetic observation. +His very reserve in company (though, when he catches you alone, he is a +button-holder of great tenacity) encourages free speech in others; they +have no more reticence in his presence than if he were the butler. He +has belonged to no cliques, and thereby escaped the greatest peril +which can beset the student of human nature. A man of genius, indeed, +in these days is almost certain, sooner or later, to become the centre +of a mutual admiration society; but the person I have in my mind is no +genius, nor anything like one, and he thanks Heaven for it. To an +opinion of his own he does not pretend, but his views upon the opinions +of other people he believes to be infallible. I have called him +dogmatic, but that does not at all express the absolute certainty with +which he delivers judgment. 'I know no more,' he says, 'about the +problems of human life than you do' (taking me as an illustration of +the lowest prevailing ignorance), 'but I know what everybody is +thinking about them.' He is didactic, and therefore often dull, and +will eventually, no doubt, become one of the greatest bores in Great +Britain. At present, however, he is worth knowing; and I propose to +myself to be his Boswell, and to introduce him—or, at least, his +views—to other people. I have entitled them the Midway Inn, partly from +my own inveterate habit of story-telling, but chiefly from an image of +his own, by which he once described to me, in his fine egotistic +rolling style, the position he seemed to himself to occupy in the +world. + +When I was a boy, he said (which I don't believe he ever was), I had a +long journey to take between home and school. Exactly midway there was +a hill with an Inn upon it, at which we changed horses. It was a point +to which I looked forward with very different feelings when going and +returning. In the one case—for I hated school—it seemed to frown darkly +on me, and from that spot the remainder of the way was dull and gloomy; +in the other case, the sun seemed always glinting on it, and the rest +of the road was as a fair avenue that leads to Paradise. The innkeeper +received us with equal hospitality on both occasions, and it was quite +evident did not care one farthing in which direction we were tending. +He would stand in front of his house, jingling his money—_our_ money—in +his pockets, and watch us depart with the greatest serenity, whether we +went east or west. I thought him at one time the most genial of +Bonifaces (for it was his profession to wear a smile), and at another a +mere mocker of human woe. When I grew up, I perceived that he was a +philosopher. + +And now I keep the Midway Inn myself, and watch from the hill-top the +passengers come and go—some loth, some willing, like myself of old—and +listen to their talk in the coffee-room; or sometimes in a private +parlour, where, though they speak low and gravely, their converse is +still unrestrained, because, you see, I am the landlord. + +Sometimes they speak of Death and the Hereafter, of which the child +they buried yesterday knows more than the wisest of them, and more than +Shakespeare knew. The being totally ignorant of the subject does not +indeed (as you may perhaps have observed in other matters) deter some +of them from speaking of it with great confidence; but the views of a +minority would quite surprise you, and this minority is growing—coming +to a majority. Every day I see an increase of the doubters. It is not a +question of the Orthodox and the Infidel, you must understand, at all, +though _that_ is assuming great proportions; but there is every day +more uncertainty among them, and, what is much more noteworthy, more +dissatisfaction. + +Years ago, when a hardy Cambridge scholar dared to publish his doubts +of an eternal punishment overtaking the wicked, an orthodox professor +of the same college took him (theologically) by the throat. 'You are +destroying,' he cried, 'the hope of the Christian.' But this is not the +hope I speak of, as loosing, and losing, its hold upon men's minds; I +mean the real hope, the hope of heaven. + +When I used to go to church—for my inn is too far removed from it to +admit of my attendance there nowadays—matters were very different. +Heaven and Hell were, in the eyes not only of our congregation, but of +those who hung about the doors in the summer sun, or even played +leap-frog over the grave-stones, as distinct alternatives as the east +and west highways on each side of my inn. If you did not go one way, +you must go the other; and not only so, but an immense desire was felt +by very many to go in the right direction. Now I perceive it is not so. +A considerable number of highway passengers, though even they are less +numerous than of old, are still studious—that is in their +aspirations—to avoid taking (shall I say delicately) the lower road; +but only a few, comparatively, are solicitous to reach the goal of the +upper. + +Let me once more observe that I am speaking of the ordinary +passengers—those who travel by the mail. Of the persons who are +convinced that there never was an Architect of the Universe, and that +Man sprang from the Mollusc, I know little or nothing: they mostly +travel two and two, in gigs, and have quarrelled so dreadfully on the +way, that, at the Inn, they don't speak to one another. The commonalty, +I repeat, are losing their hopes of heaven, just as the grown-up +schoolboy finds his paradise no more in home. I can remember when +divines were never tired of painting the lily, of indulging in the most +glowing descriptions of the Elysian Fields. A popular artist once drew +a picture of them: 'The Plains of Heaven' it was called, and the +painter's name was Martin. If he was to do so now, the public (who are +vulgar) would exclaim 'Betty Martin.' Not that they disbelieve in it, +but that the attractions of the place are dying out, like those of Bath +and Cheltenham. + +Of course some blame attaches to the divines themselves that things +have come to such a pass. 'I protest,' says a great philosopher, 'that +I never enter a church, but the man in the pulpit talks so unlike a +man, as though he had never known what human joys or sorrows are—so +carefully avoids every subject of interest save _one_, and paints that +in colours at once so misty and so meretricious—that I say to myself, I +will never sit under him again.' This may, of course, be only an +ingenious excuse of his for not going to church; but there is really +something in it. The angels, with their harps, on clouds, are now +presented to the eyes, even of faith, in vain; they are still +appreciated on canvas by an old master, but to become one of them is no +longer the common aspiration. There is a suspicion, partly owing, +doubtless, to the modern talk about the dignity and even the divinity +of Labour, that they ought to be doing something else than (as the +American poet puts it with characteristic ii reverence) 'loafing about +the throne;' that we ourselves, with no ear perhaps for music, and with +little voice (alas!) for praise, should take no pleasure in such +avocations. It is not the sceptics—though their influence is getting to +be considerable—who have wrought this change, but the conditions of +modern life. Notwithstanding the cheerful 'returns' as to pauperism, +and the glowing speeches of our Chancellors of the Exchequer, these +conditions are far harder, among the thinking classes, than they were. +The question 'Is Life worth Living?' is one that concerns philosophers +and metaphysicians, and not the persons I have in my mind at all; but +the question, 'Do I wish to be out of it?' is one that is getting +answered very widely—and in the affirmative. This was certainly not the +case in the days of our grand-sires. Which of them ever read those +lines— + +'For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, +This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned, +Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, +Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?'— + +without a sympathetic complacency? This may not have been the best of +all possible worlds to them, but none of them wished to exchange it, +save at the proper time, and for the proper place. Thanks to overwork, +and still more to over-worry, it is not so now. There are many +prosperous persons in rude health, of course, who will ask (with a +virtuous resolution that is sometimes to be deplored), 'Do you suppose +then that I wish to cut my throat?' I certainly do not. Do not let us +talk of cutting throats; though, mind you, the average of suicides, so +admirably preserved by the Registrar-General and other painstaking +persons, is not entirely to be depended upon. You should hear the +doctors at my Inn (in the intervals of their abuse of their +professional brethren) discourse upon this topic—on that overdose of +chloral which poor B. took, and on that injudicious self-application of +chloroform which carried off poor C. With the law in such a barbarous +state in relation to self-destruction, and taking into account the +feelings of relatives, there was, of course, only one way of wording +the certificate, but—and then they shake their heads as only doctors +can, and help themselves to port, though they know it is poison to +them. + +It is an old joke that annuitants live for ever, but no annuity ever +had the effect of prolonging life which the present assurance companies +have. How many a time, I wonder, in these later years, has a hand been +stayed, with a pistol or 'a cup of cold poison' in it, by the thought, +'If I do this, my family will lose the money I am insured for, besides +the premiums.' This feeling is altogether different from that which +causes Jeannette and Jeannot in their Paris attic to light their +charcoal fire, stop up the chinks with their love-letters, and die +(very disreputably) 'clasped in one another's arms, and silent in a +last embrace.' There is not one halfpenny's worth of sentiment about it +in the Englishman's case, nor are any such thoughts bred in his brain +while youth is in him. It is in our midway days, with old age touching +us here and there, as autumn 'lays its fiery finger on the leaves' and +withers them, that we first think of it. When the weight of anxiety and +care is growing on us, while the shoulders are becoming bowed (not in +resignation, but in weakness) which have to bear it; when our pains are +more and more constant, our pleasures few and fading, and when whatever +happens, we know, must needs be for the worse—then it is that the +praise of the silver hair and length of days becomes a mockery indeed. + +Was it the prescience of such a state of thought, I wonder (for it +certainly did not exist in their time), that caused good men of old to +extol old age; as though anything could reconcile the mind of man to +the time when the very sun is darkened to him, and 'the clouds return +after the rain?' There is a noble passage in 'Hyperion' which has +always seemed to me to repeat that sentiment in Ecclesiastes; it speaks +of an expression in a man's face: + +'As though the vanward clouds of evil days +Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear +Was with its storied thunder labouring up.' + +This is why poor Paterfamilias, sitting in the family pew, is not so +enamoured of that idea of accomplishing those threescore years and ten +which the young parson, fresh from Cambridge, is describing as such a +lucky number in life's lottery. The attempt to paint it so is +well-meaning, no doubt, 'the vacant chaff well meant for grain;' and it +is touching to see how men generally (knowing that they themselves have +to go through with it) are wont to portray it in cheerful colours. + +A modern philosopher even goes so far as to say that our memories in +old age are always grateful to us. Our pleasures are remembered, but +our pains are forgotten; 'if we try to recall a physical pain,' she +writes (for it is a female), 'we find it to be impossible,' From which +I gather only this for certain, that that woman never had the gout. + +The folks who come my way, indeed, seem to remember their physical +ailments very distinctly, to judge by the way they talk of them; and +are exceedingly apprehensive of their recurrence. Nay, it is curious to +see how some old men will resent the compliments of their juniors on +their state of health or appearance. 'Stuff and nonsense!' cried old +Sam Rogers, grimly; 'I tell you there is no such thing as a fine old +man.' In a humbler walk of life I remember to have heard a similar but +more touching reply. It was upon the great centenarian question raised +by Mr. Thorns. An old woman in a workhouse, said to be a hundred years +of age, was sent for by the Board of Guardians, to decide the point by +her personal testimony. One can imagine the half-dozen portly +prosperous figures, and the contrast their appearance offered to that +of the bent and withered crone. 'Now, Betty,' said the chairman with +unctuous patronage, 'you look hale and hearty enough, yet they tell me +that you are a hundred years old; is this really true?' 'God Almighty +knows, sir,' was her reply, 'but I feel a thousand.' + +And there are so many people nowadays who 'feel a thousand.' + +It is for this reason that the gift of old age is unwished for, and the +prospect of future life without encouragement. It is the modern +conviction that there will be some kind of work in it; and even though +what we shall be set to do may be 'wrought with tumult of acclaim,' we +have had enough of work. What follows, almost as a matter of course, is +that the thought of possible extinction has lost its terrors. Heaven +and its glories may have still their charms for those who are not +wearied out with toil in this life; but the slave draws for himself a +far other picture of home. His is no passionate cry to be admitted into +the eternal city; he murmurs sullenly, 'Let me rest.' + +It was a favourite taunt with the sceptics of old—those Early Fathers +of infidelity, who used to occupy themselves so laboriously with +scraping at the rind of the Christian Faith—that until the Cross arose +men were not afraid of Death. But that arrow has lost its barb. The +Fear of Death, even among professing Christians, is now comparatively +rare; I do not mean merely among dying men—in whom those who have had +acquaintance with deathbeds tell us they see it scarcely ever—but with +the quick and hale. Even with very ignorant persons, the idea that +things may be a great deal worse for us hereafter than even at present +is not generally entertained as respects themselves. A clergyman who +was attending a sick man in his parish expressed a hope to the wife +that she took occasion to remind her husband of his spiritual +condition. 'Oh yes, sir,' she replied, 'many and many a time have I +woke him up o' nights, and cried, "John, John, you little know the +torments as is preparing for you."' But the good woman, it seems, was +not disturbed by any such dire imaginings upon her own account. + +Higher in the social scale, the apprehension of a Gehenna, or at all +events of such a one as our forefathers almost universally believed in, +is rapidly dying out. The mathematician tells us that even as a +question of numbers, 'about one in ten, my good sir, by the most +favourable computations,' the thing is incredible; the philanthropist +inquires indignantly, 'Is the city Arab then, who grows to be thief and +felon as naturally as a tree puts forth its leaves, to be damned in +both worlds?' and I notice that even the clergy who come my way, and +take their weak glass of negus while the coach changes horses, no +longer insist upon the point, but, at the worst, 'faintly trust the +larger hope.' + +Notwithstanding these comparatively cheerful views upon a subject so +important to all passengers on life's highway, the general feeling is, +as I have said, one of profound dissatisfaction; the good old notion +that whatever is is right, is fast disappearing; and in its place there +is a doubt—rarely expressed except among the philosophers, with whom, +as I have said, I have nothing to do—a secret, harassing, and unwelcome +doubt respecting the divine government of the world. It is a question +which the very philosophers are not likely to settle even among +themselves, but it has become very obtrusive and important. Men raise +their eyebrows and shrug their shoulders when it is alluded to, +instead, as of old, of pulverising the audacious questioner on the +spot, or even (as would have happened at a later date) putting him into +Coventry; they have no opinion to offer upon the subject, or at all +events do not wish to talk about it. But it is no longer, be it +observed, 'bad form' in a general way to do so; it is only that the +topic is personally distasteful. + +The once famous advocate of analogy threw a bitter seed among mankind +when he suggested, in all innocence, and merely for the sake of his own +argument, that as the innocent suffered for the guilty in this world, +so it might be in the world to come; and it is bearing bitter fruit. To +feel aweary at the Midway Inn is bad enough; but to be journeying to no +home, and perhaps even to some harsher school than we yet wot of, is +indeed a depressing reflection. + +Hence it comes, I think, or partly hence, that there is now no fun in +the world. Wit we have, and an abundance of grim humour, which evokes +anything but mirth. Nothing would astonish us in the Midway Inn so much +as a peal of laughter. A great writer (though it must be confessed +scarcely an amusing one), who has recently reached his journey's end, +used to describe his animal spirits depreciatingly, as being at the +best but vegetable spirits. And that is now the way with us all. When +Charles Dickens died, it was confidently stated in a great literary +journal that his loss, so far from affecting 'the gaiety of nations,' +would scarcely be felt at all; the power of rousing tears and laughter +being (I suppose the writer thought) so very common. That prophecy has +been by no means fulfilled. But, what is far worse than there being no +humorous writers amongst us, the faculty of appreciating even the old +ones is dying out. There is no such thing as high spirits anywhere. It +is observable, too, how very much public entertainments have increased +of late—a tacit acknowledgment of dulness at home—while, instead of the +lively, if somewhat boisterous, talk of our fathers, we have +drawing-room dissertations on art, and dandy drivel about blue china. + +There is one pleasure only that takes more and more root amongst us, +and never seems to fail, and that is making money. To hear the +passengers at the Midway Inn discourse upon this topic, you would think +they were all commercial travellers. It is most curious how the desire +for pecuniary gain has infected even the idlest, who of course take the +shortest cut to it by way of the race-course. I see young gentlemen, +blond and beardless, telling the darkest secrets to one another, +affecting, one would think, the fate of Europe, but which in reality +relate to the state of the fetlock of the brother to Boanerges. Their +earnestness (which is reserved for this enthralling topic) is quite +appalling. In their elders one has long been accustomed to it, but +these young people should really know better. The interest excited in +society by 'scratchings' has never been equalled since the time of the +Cock Lane ghost. If men would only 'lose their money and look pleasant' +without talking about it, I shouldn't mind; but they _will_ make it a +subject of conversation, as though everyone who liked his glass of wine +should converse upon 'the vintages.' One looks for it in business +people and forgives it; but everyone is now for business. + +The reverence that used to belong to Death is now only paid to it in +the case of immensely rich persons, whose wealth is spoken of with +bated breath. 'He died, sir, worth two millions; a very warm man.' If +you happen to say, though with all reasonable probability and even with +Holy Writ to back you, 'He is probably warmer by this time,' you are +looked upon as a Communist. What the man was is nothing, what he made +is everything. It is the gold alone that we now value: the temple that +might have sanctified the gold is of no account. This worship of mere +wealth has, it is true, this advantage over the old adoration of birth, +that something may possibly be got out of it; to cringe and fawn upon +the people that have blue blood is manifestly futile, since the +peculiarity is not communicable, but it is hoped that, by being shaken +up in the same social bag with millionaires, something may be attained +by what is technically called the 'sweating' process. So far as I have +observed, however, the results are small, while the operation is to the +last degree disagreeable. + +What is very significant of this new sort of golden age is that a +literature of its own has arisen, though of an anomalous kind. It is +presided over by a sort of male Miss Kilmansegge, who is also a model +of propriety. It is as though the dragon that guarded the apples of +Hesperides should be a dragon of virtue. Under the pretence of +extolling prudence and perseverance, he paints money-making as the +highest good, and calls it thrift; and the popularity of this class of +book is enormous. The heroes are all 'self-made' men who come to town +with that proverbial half-crown which has the faculty of accumulation +that used to be confined to snowballs. Like the daughters of the +horse-leech, their cry is 'Give, give,' only instead of blood they want +money; and I need hardly say they get it from other people's pockets. +Love and friendship are names that have lost their meaning, if they +ever had any, with these gentry. They remind one of the miser of old +who could not hear a large sum of money mentioned without an +acceleration of the action of the heart; and perhaps that is the use of +their hearts, which, otherwise, like that of the spleen in other +people, must be only a subject of vague conjecture. They live abhorred +and die respected; leaving all their heaped-up wealth to some +charitable institution, the secretary of which levants with it +eventually to the United States. + +This last catastrophe, however, is not mentioned in these biographies, +the subjects of which are held up as patterns of wisdom and prudence +for the rising generation. I shall have left the Midway Inn, thank +Heaven, for a residence of smaller dimensions, before it has grown up. +Conceive an England inhabited by self-made men! + +Has it ever struck you how gloomy is the poetry of the present day? +This is not perhaps of very much consequence, since everybody has a +great deal too much to do to permit them to read it; but how full of +sighs, and groans, and passionate bewailings it is! And also how deuced +difficult! It is almost as inarticulate as an Æolian harp, and quite as +melancholy. There are one or two exceptions, of course, as in the case +of Mr. Calverley and Mr. Locker; but even the latter is careful to +insist upon the fact that, like those who have gone before us, we must +all quit Piccadilly. 'At present,' as dear Charles Lamb writes, 'we +have the advantage of them;' but there is no one to remind us of that +now, nor is it, as I have said, the general opinion that it _is_ an +advantage. + +It is this prevailing gloom, I think, which accounts for the enormous +and increasing popularity of fiction. Observe how story-telling creeps +into the very newspapers (along with their professional fibbing); and, +even in the magazines, how it lies down side by side with 'burning +questions,' like the weaned child putting its hand into the +cockatrice's den. For your sake, my good fellow, who write stories +[here my friend glowered at me compassionately], I am glad of it; but +the fact is of melancholy significance. It means that people are glad +to find themselves 'anywhere, anywhere, out of the world,' and (I must +be allowed to add) they are generally gratified, for anything less like +real life than what some novelists portray it is difficult to imagine. + +[Here he stared at me so exceedingly hard, that anyone with a less +heavenly temper, or who had no material reasons for putting up with it, +would have taken his remark as personal, and gone away. + +Another cause of the absence of good fellowship amongst us (he went on) +is the growth of education. It sticks like a fungus to everybody, and +though, it is fair to say, mostly outside, does a great deal of +mischief. The scholastic interest has become so powerful that nobody +dares speak a word against it; but the fact is, men are educated far +beyond their wits. You can't fill any cup beyond what it will hold, and +the little cups are exceedingly numerous. Boys are now crammed (with +information) like turkeys (but unfortunately not killed at Christmas), +and when they grow up there is absolutely no room in them for a joke. +The prigs that frequent my Midway Inn are as the sands in its +hour-glass, only with no chance, alas! of their running out. The wisdom +of our ancestors limited education, and very wisely, to the three R's; +that is all that is necessary for the great mass of mankind: whereas +the pick of them, with those clamping irons well stuck to their heels, +will win their way to the topmost peaks of knowledge. + +At the very best—that is to say when it produces _anything_—what does +the most costly education in this country produce in ordinary minds but +the deplorable habit of classical quotation? If it could teach them to +_think_—but that is a subject, my dear friend, into which you will +scarcly follow me. + +[I could have knocked his head off if he had not been so exceptionally +stout and strong, and as it was, I took up my hat to go, when a thought +struck me.] + +'Among your valuable remarks upon the ideas entertained by society at +present, you have said nothing, my dear sir, about the ladies.' + +'I never speak of anything,' he replied with dignity, 'which I do not +thoroughly understand. Man I do know—down to his boots; but woman'—here +he sighed and hesitated—'no; I don't know nearly so much of her.' + + + + +THE CRITIC ON THE HEARTH. + + +It has often struck me that the relation of two important members of +the social body to one another has never been sufficiently considered, +or treated of, so far as I know, either by the philosopher or the poet. +I allude to that which exists between the omnibus driver and his +conductor. Cultivating literature as I do upon a little oatmeal, and +driving, when in a position to be driven at all, in that humble +vehicle, the 'bus, I have had, perhaps, exceptional opportunities for +observing their mutual position and behaviour; and it is very peculiar. +When the 'bus is empty, these persons are sympathetic and friendly to +one another, almost to tenderness; but when there is much traffic, a +tone of severity is observable upon the side of the conductor. 'What +are yer a-driving on for just as a party's getting in? Will nothing +suit but to break a party's neck?' 'Wake up, will yer? or do yer want +that ere Bayswater to pass us?' are inquiries he will make in the most +peremptory manner. Or he will concentrate contempt in the laconic but +withering observation: 'Now then, stoopid!' + +When we consider that the driver is after all the driver—that the 'bus +is under his guidance and management, and may be said _pro tem_, to be +his own—indeed, in case of collision or other serious extremity, he +calls it so: 'What the infernal regions are yer banging into my 'bus +for?' etc., etc.,—I say, this being his exalted position, the injurious +language of the man on the step is, to say the least of it, +disrespectful. + +On the other hand, it is the conductor who fills the 'bus, and even +entices into it, by lures and wiles, persons who are not voluntarily +going his way at all. It is he who advertises its presence to the +passers-by, and spares neither lung nor limb in attracting passengers. +If the driver is lord and king, yet the conductor has a good deal to do +with the administration: just as the Mikado of Japan, who sits above +the thunder and is almost divine, is understood to be assisted and even +'conducted' by the Tycoon. The connection between those potentates is +perhaps the most exact reproduction of that between the 'bus driver and +his cad; but even in England there is a pretty close parallel to it in +the mutual relation of the author and the professional critic. + +While the former is in his spring-time, the analogy is indeed almost +complete. For example, however much he may have plagiarised, the book +does belong to the author: he calls it, with pardonable pride (and +especially if anyone runs it down), 'my book.' He has written it, and +probably paid pretty handsomely for getting it published. Even the +right of translation, if you will look at the bottom of the title-page, +is somewhat superfluously reserved to him. Yet nothing can exceed the +patronage which he suffers at the hands of the critic, and is compelled +to submit to in sullen silence. When the book-trade is slack—that is, +in the summer season—the pair get on together pretty amicably. 'This +book,' says the critic, 'may be taken down to the seaside, and lounged +over not unprofitably;' or, 'Readers may do worse than peruse this +unpretending little volume of fugitive verse;' or even, 'We hail this +new aspirant to the laurels of Apollo.' But in the thick of the +publishing season, and when books pour into the reviewer by the +cartful, nothing can exceed the violence, and indeed sometimes the +virulence, of his language. That 'Now then, stoopid!' of the 'bus +conductor pales beside the lightnings of his scorn. + +'Among the lovers of sensation, it is possible that some persons may be +found with tastes so utterly vitiated as to derive pleasure from this +monstrous production.' I cull these flowers of speech from a wreath +placed by a critic of the _Slasher_ on my own early brow. Ye gods, how +I hated him! How I pursued him with more than Corsican vengeance; +traduced him in public and private; and only when I had thrust my knife +(metaphorically) into his detested carcase, discovered I had been +attacking the wrong man. It is a lesson I have never forgotten; and I +pray you, my younger brothers of the pen, to lay it to heart. Believe +rather that your unfriendly critic, like the bee who is fabled to sting +and die, has perished after his attempt on your reputation; and let the +tomb be his asylum. For even supposing you get the right sow by the +ear—or rather, the wild boar with the 'raging tooth'—what can it profit +you? It is not like that difference of opinion between yourself and +twelve of your fellow-countrymen which may have such fatal results. You +are not an Adonis (except in outward form, perhaps), that you can be +ripped up with his tusk. His hard words do not break your bones. If +they are uncalled for, their cruelty, believe me, can hurt only your +vanity. While it is just possible—though indeed in your case in the +very highest degree improbable—that the gentleman may have been right. + +In the good old times we are told that a buffet from the hand of an +Edinburgh or Quarterly Reviewer would lay a young author dead at his +feet. If it was so, he must have been naturally very deficient in +vitality. It certainly did not kill Byron, though it was a knock-down +blow; he rose from that combat from earth, like Antæus, all the +stronger for it. The story of its having killed Keats, though embalmed +in verse, is apocryphal; and if such blows were not fatal in those +times, still less so are they nowadays. On the other hand, if authors +are difficult to slay, it is infinitely harder work to give them life +by what the doctors term 'artificial respiration'—puffing. The amount +of breath expended in the days of 'the Quarterlies' in this hopeless +task would have moved windmills. Not a single favourite of those +critics—selected, that is, from favouritism, and apart from merit—now +survives. They failed even to obtain immortality for the writers in +whom there was really something of genius, but whom they extolled +beyond their deserts. Their pet idol, for example, was Samuel Rogers. +And who reads Rogers's poems now? We remember something about them, and +that is all; they are very literally 'Pleasures of Memory.' + +And if these things are true of the past, how much more so are they of +the present! I venture to think, in spite of some voices to the +contrary, that criticism is much more honest than it used to be: +certainly less influenced by political feeling, and by the interests of +publishing houses; more temperate, if not more judicious, and—in the +higher literary organs, at least—unswayed by personal prejudice. But +the result of even the most favourable notices upon a book is now but +small. I can remember when a review in the _Times_ was calculated by +the 'Row' to sell an entire edition. Those halcyon days—if halcyon days +they were—are over. People read books for themselves now; judge for +themselves; and buy only when they are absolutely compelled, and cannot +get them from the libraries. In the case of an author who has already +secured a public, it is indeed extraordinary what little effect +reviews, either good or bad, have upon his circulation. Those who like +his works continue to read them, no matter what evil is written of +them; and those who don't like them are not to be persuaded (alas!) to +change their minds, though his latest effort should be described as +though it had dropped from the heavens. I could give some statistics +upon this point not a little surprising, but statistics involve +comparisons—which are odious. As for fiction, its success depends more +upon what Mrs. Brown says to Mrs. Jones as to the necessity of getting +that charming book from the library while there is yet time, than on +all the reviews in Christendom. + +O Fame! if I e'er took delight in thy praises, +'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases +Than to see the bright eyes of those dear ones discover +They thought that I was not unworthy— + +of a special messenger to Mr. Mudie's. + +Heaven bless them! for, when we get old and stupid, they still stick by +one, and are not to be seduced from their allegiance by any blaring of +trumpets, or clashing of cymbals, that heralds a new arrival among the +story-tellers. + +On the other hand, as respects his first venture, the author is very +dependent upon what the critics say of him. It is the conductor, you +know (I wouldn't call him a 'cad,' even in fun, for ten thousand +pounds), on whom, to return to our metaphor, the driver is dependent +for the patronage of his vehicle, and even for the announcement of its +existence. A good review is still the very best of advertisements to a +new author; and even a bad one is better than no review at all. Indeed, +I have heard it whispered that a review which speaks unfavourably of a +work of fiction, upon moral grounds, is of very great use to it. This, +however, the same gossips say, is mainly confined to works of fiction +written by female authors for readers of their own sex—'_by_ ladies +_for_ ladies,' as a feminine _Pall Mall Gazette_ might describe itself. + +Nor would I be understood to say that even a well-established author is +not affected by what the critics may say of him; I only state that his +circulation is not—albeit they may make his very blood curdle. I have a +popular writer in my mind, who never looks at a newspaper unless it +comes to him by a hand he can trust, for fear his eyes should light +upon an unpleasant review. His argument is this: 'I have been at this +work for the last twelve months, thinking of little else and putting my +best intelligence (which is considerable) at its service. Is it humanly +probable that a reviewer who has given his mind to it for a less number +of hours, can suggest anything in the way of improvement worthy of my +consideration? I am supposing him to be endowed with ability and +actuated by good faith; that he has not failed in my own profession and +is not jealous of my popularity; yet even thus, how is it possible that +his opinion can be of material advantage to me? If favourable, it gives +me pleasure, because it flatters my _amour propre_, and I am even not +quite sure that it does not afford a stimulating encouragement; but if +unfavourable, I own it gives me considerable annoyance. [This is his +euphemistic phrase to express the feeling of being in a hornets' nest +without his clothes on.] On the other hand, if the critic is a mere +hireling, or a young gentleman from the university who is trying his +'prentice hand at a lowish rate of remuneration upon a veteran like +myself, how still more idle would it be to regard his views!' + +And it appears to me that there is really something in these arguments. +As regards the latter part of them, by-the-bye, I had the pleasure of +seeing my own last immortal story spoken of in an American magazine—the +_Atlantic Monthly_—as the work of 'a bright and prosperous young +author.' The critic (Heaven bless his young heart, and give him a happy +Whitsuntide) evidently imagined it to be my first production. In +another Transatlantic organ, a critic, speaking of the last work of +that literary veteran, the late Mr. Le Fanu, observes: 'If this young +writer would only model himself upon the works of Mr. William Black in +his best days, we foresee a great future before him.' + +There is one thing that I think should be set down to the credit of the +literary profession—that for the most part they take their 'slatings' +(which is the professional term for them) with at least outward +equanimity. I have read things of late, written of an old and popular +writer, ten times more virulent than anything Mr. Ruskin wrote of Mr. +Whistler: yet neither he, nor any other man of letters, thinks of +flying to his mother's apron-string, or of setting in motion old Father +Antic, the Law. Perhaps it is that we have no money, or perhaps, like +the judicious author of whom I have spoken, we abstain from reading +unpleasant things. I wish to goodness we could abstain from hearing of +them; but the 'd——d good-natured friend' is an eternal creation. He has +altered, however, since Sheridan's time in his method of proceeding. He +does not say, 'There is a very unpleasant notice of you in the +_Scorpion_, my dear fellow, which I deplore.' The scoundrel now affects +a more light-hearted style. 'There is a review of your last book in the +_Scorpion_', he says, 'which will amuse you. It is very malicious, and +evidently the offspring of personal spite, but it is very clever.' Then +you go down to your club, and take the thing up with the tongs, when +nobody is looking, and make yourself very miserable; or you buy it, +going home in the cab, and, having spoilt your appetite for dinner with +it, tear it up very small, throw it out of window, and swear you have +never seen it. + +One forgives the critic—perhaps—but never the good-natured friend. It +is always possible—to the wise man—to refrain from reading the +lucubration of the former, but he cannot avoid the latter: which brings +me to the main subject of this paper—the Critic on the Hearth. One can +be deaf to the voice of the public hireling, but it is impossible to +shut one's ears to the private communications of one's friends and +family—all meant for our good, no doubt, but which are nevertheless +insufferable. + +In Miss Martineau's Autobiography there is a passage expressing her +surprise that whereas in all other cases there is a certain modest +reticence in respect to other people's business when it is of a special +kind, the profession of literature is made an exception. As there is no +one but imagines that he can poke a fire and drive a gig, so everyone +believes he can write a book, or at all events (like that blasphemous +person in connection with the Creation) that he can give a wrinkle or +two to the author. + +I wonder what a parson would say, if a man who never goes to church +save when his babies are christened, or by accident to get out of a +shower, should volunteer his advice about sermon-making? or an artist, +to whom the man without arms, who is wheeled about in the streets for +coppers, should recommend a greater delicacy of touch? Indeed, metaphor +fails me, and I gasp for mere breath when I think of the astounding +impudence of some people. If I possessed a tithe of it, I should surely +have made my fortune by this time, and be in the enjoyment of the +greatest prosperity. It must be remembered, too, that the opinion of +the Critics on the Hearth is always volunteered (indeed, one would as +soon think of asking for it as for a loan from the Sultan of Turkey), +and in nine cases out of ten it is unfavourable. One has no objection +to their praise, nor to any amount of it; what is so abhorrent is their +advice, and still more their disapproval. It is like throwing 'half a +brick' at you, which, utterly valueless in itself, still hurts you when +it hits you. And the worst of it is that, apart from their rubbishy +opinions, one likes these people; they are one's friends and relatives, +and to cut one's moorings from them altogether would be to sail over +the sea of life without a port to touch at. + +The early life of the author is especially embittered by the utterances +of these good folks. As a prophet is of no honour in his own country, +so it is with the young aspirant for literary fame with his folks at +home. They not only disbelieve in him, but—generally, however, with one +or two exceptions, who are invaluable to him in the way of +encouragement—'make hay' of him and his pretensions in the most +heartless style. If he produces a poem, it achieves immortality in the +sense of his 'never hearing the last of it;' it is the jest of the +family till they have all grown up. But this he can bear, because his +noble mind recognises its own greatness; he regards his jeering +brethren in the same light as the philosophic writer beholds 'the vapid +and irreflective reader.' When they tell him they 'can't make head or +tail of his blessed poetry,' he comforts himself with the reflection of +the great German (which he has read in a translation) that the clearest +handwriting cannot be read by twilight. It is when his literary talents +have received more or less recognition from the public at large, that +home criticism becomes so painful to him. His brethren are then boys no +longer, but parsons, lawyers, and doctors; and though they don't +venture to interfere with one-another as regards their individual +professions, they make no sort of scruple about interfering with _him_. +They write to him their unsolicited advice and strictures. This is the +parson's letter: + +'MY DEAR DICK, + 'I like your last book much better than the rest of them; but I + don't like your heroine. She strikes both Julia and myself [Julia + is his wife, who is acquainted with no literature but the + cookery-book] as rather namby-pamby. The descriptions, however, are + charming; we both recognised dear old Ramsgate at once. [The + original of the locality in the novel being Dieppe.] The plot is + also excellent, though we think we have some recollection of it + elsewhere; but it must be so difficult to hit upon anything + original in these days. Thanks for your kind remembrance of us at + Christmas: the oysters were excellent. We were sorry to see that + ill-natured little notice in the _Scourge_. + +'Yours affectionately, +'BOB.' + +Jack the lawyer writes: + +'DEAR DICK, + 'You are really becoming ["Becoming?" he thinks _that_ becoming] + quite a great man: we could hardly get your last book from Mudie's, + though I suppose he takes very small quantities of copies, except + from really popular authors. Marion was charmed with your heroine + [Dick rather likes Marion; and doesn't think Jack treats her with + the consideration she deserves], and I have no doubt women in + general will admire her, but your hero—you know I always speak my + mind—is rather a duffer. You should go into the world more, and + sketch from life. The Vice-Chancellor gave me great pleasure by + speaking of your early poems very highly the other day, and I + assure you it was quite a drop down for me, to find that he was + referring to some other writer of the same name. Of course I did + not undeceive him. I wish, my dear fellow, you would write stories + in one volume instead of three. You write a _short_ story + capitally. + +'Yours ever, +'JACK.' + +Tom the surgeon belongs to that very objectionable class of humanity, +called, by ancient writers, wags: + +'MY DEAR DICK, + 'I cannot help writing to thank you for the relief afforded to me + by the perusal of your last volume. I had been suffering from + neuralgia, and every prescription in the Pharmacopæia for producing + sleep had failed until I tried _that_. Dear Maggie [an odious + woman, who calls novels "light literature," and affects to be blue] + read it to me herself, so it was given every chance; but I think + you must acknowledge that it was a little spun out. Maggie assures + me—I have not read them myself, for you know what little time I + have for such things—that the first two volumes, with the exception + of the characters of the hero and heroine, which she pronounces to + be rather feeble, are first-rate. Why don't you write two-volume + novels? There is always something in analogy: reflect how seldom + Nature herself produces three at a birth: when she does, it is only + two, at most, which survive. We shall look forward to your next + effort with much interest, but we hope you will give more time and + pains to it. Remember what Horace says upon this subject (He has no + more knowledge of Horace than he has of Sanscrit, but he has read + the quotation in that vile review in the _Scourge_.) Maggie thinks + you live too luxuriously: if your expenses were less you would not + be compelled to write so much, and you would do it better. Excuse + this well-meant advice from an elder brother. + +'Yours always, +'Tom.' + +'One's sisters, and one's cousins, and one's aunts' also write in more +or less the same style, though, to do their sex justice, less +offensively. 'If you were to go abroad, my dear Dick,' says one, 'it +would expand your mind. There is nothing to blame in your last +production, which strikes me (what I could understand of it at least, +for some of it is a little Bohemian) as very pleasing; but the fact is, +that English subjects are quite used up.' Others discover for +themselves the originals of Dick's characters in persons he has never +dreamt of describing, and otherwise exhibit a most marvellous +familiarity with his materials. 'Hennie, who has just been here, is +immensely delighted with your satirical sketch of her husband. He, +however, as you may suppose, is _wild_, and says you had better +withdraw your name from the candidates' book at his club. I don't know +how many black balls exclude, but he has a good many friends there.' +Another writes: 'Of course we all recognised Uncle George in your Mr. +Flibbertigibbet; but we try not to laugh; indeed our sense of loss is +too recent. Seriously, I think you might have waited till the poor old +man—who was always kind to you, Dick—was cold in his grave.' + +Some of these excellent creatures send incidents of real life which +they are sure will be useful to 'dear Dick' for his next +book—narratives of accidents in a hansom cab, of missing the train by +the Underground, and of Mr. Jones being late for his own wedding, +'which, though nothing in themselves, actually did happen, you know, +and which, properly dressed up, as you so well know how to do,' will, +they are sure, obtain for him a marked success. 'There is nothing like +reality,' they say, he may depend upon it, 'for coming home to people.' + +After all, one need not read these abominable letters. One's relatives +(thank Heaven!) usually live in the country. The real Critics on the +Hearth are one's personal acquaintances in town, whom one cannot +escape. + +'My dear friend,' said one to me the other day—a most cordial and +excellent fellow, by-the-bye (only too frank)—'I like you, as you know, +beyond everything, personally, but I cannot read your books.' + +'My dear Jones,' replied I, 'I regret that exceedingly; for it is you, +and men like you, whose suffrages I am most anxious to win. Of the +approbation of all intelligent and educated persons I am certain; but +if I could only obtain that of the million, I should be a happy man.' + +But even when I have thus demolished Jones, I still feel that I owe him +a grudge. 'What the Deuce is it to me whether Jones likes my books or +not? and why does he tell me he doesn't like them?' + +Of the surpassing ignorance of these good people, I have just heard an +admirable anecdote. A friend of a justly popular author meets him in +the club and congratulates him upon his last story in the _Slasher_ [in +which he has never written a line]. It is so full of farce and fun [the +author is a grave writer]. 'Only I don't see why it is not advertised +under the same title in the other newspapers.' The fact being that the +story in the _Slasher_ is a parody—and not a very good-natured one—upon +the author's last work, and resembles it only as a picture in _Vanity +Fair_ resembles its original. + +Some Critics on the Hearth are not only good-natured, but have rather +too high, or, if that is impossible, let us say too pronounced, an +opinion of the abilities of their literary friends. They wonder why +they do not employ their gigantic talents in some enduring monument, +such as a life of 'Alexander the Great' or a popular history of the +Visigoths. To them literature is literature, and they do not concern +themselves with little niceties of style or differences of subject. +Others again, though extremely civil, are apt to affect more enthusiasm +than they feel. They admire one's works without exception—'they are all +absolutely charming'—but they would be placed in a position of great +embarrassment if they were asked to name their favourite: for, as a +matter of fact, they are ignorant of the very names of them. A novelist +of my acquaintance lent his last work to a lady cousin because she +'really could not wait till she got it from the library;' besides, 'she +was ill, and wanted some amusing literature.' After a month or so he +got his three volumes back, with a most gushing letter. It 'had been +the comfort of many a weary hour of sleeplessness,' etc. The thought of +having 'smoothed the pillow and soothed the pain' would, she felt sure, +be gratifying to him. Perhaps it would have been, only she had omitted +to cut the pages even of the first volume. + +But, as a general rule, these volunteer censors plume themselves on +discovering defects and not beauties. When any author is particularly +popular and has been long before the public, they have two methods of +discoursing upon him in relation to their literary friend. In the +first, they represent him as a model of excellence, and recommend their +friend to study him, though without holding out much hope of his ever +becoming his rival; in the second, they describe him as 'worked out,' +and darkly hint that sooner or later [they mean sooner] their friend +will be in the same unhappy condition. These, I need not say, are among +the most detestable specimens of their class, and only to be equalled +by those excellent literary judges who are always appealing to +posterity, which, even if a little temporary success has crowned you +to-day, will relegate you to your proper position to-morrow. If one +were weak enough to argue with these gentry, it would be easy to show +that popular authors are not 'worked out,' but only have the appearance +of being so from their taking their work too easily. Those whose +calling it is to depict human nature in fiction are especially subject +to this weakness; they do not give themselves the trouble to study new +characters, or at first hand, as of old; they sit at home and receive +the congratulations of Society without paying due attention to that +somewhat changeful lady, and they draw upon their memory, or their +imagination, instead of studying from the life. Otherwise, when they do +not give way to that temptation of indolence which arises from +competence and success, there is no reason why their reputation should +suffer, since, though they may lack the vigour or high spirits of those +who would push them from their stools, their experience and knowledge +of the world are always on the increase. + +As to the argument with regard to posterity which is so popular with +the Critic on the Hearth, I am afraid he has no greater respect for the +opinion of posterity himself than for that of his possible +great-great-granddaughter. Indeed, he only uses it as being a weapon +the blow of which it is impossible to parry, and with the object of +being personally offensive. It is, moreover, noteworthy that his +position, which is sometimes taken up by persons of far greater +intelligence, is inconsistent with itself. The praisers of posterity +are also always the praisers of the past; it is only the present which +is in their eyes contemptible. Yet to the next generation this present +will be _their_ past, and, however valueless may be the verdict of +today, how much more so, by the most obvious analogy, will be that of +to-morrow. It is probable, indeed, though it is difficult to believe +it, that the Critics on the Hearth of the generation to come will make +themselves even more ridiculous than their immediate predecessors. + + + + +SHAM ADMIRATION IN LITERATURE. + + +In all highly civilised communities Pretence is prominent, and sooner +or later invades the regions of Literature. In the beginning, this is +not altogether to be reprobated; it is the rude homage which Ignorance, +conscious of its disgrace, offers to Learning; but after awhile, +Pretence becomes systematised, gathers strength from numbers and +impunity, and rears its head in such a manner as to suggest it has some +body and substance belonging to it. In England, literary pretence is +more universal than elsewhere from our method of education. When young +gentlemen from ten to sixteen are set to study poetry (a subject for +which not one in a hundred has the least taste or capability even when +he reads it in his own language) in Greek and Latin authors, it is only +a natural consequence that their views upon it should be slightly +artificial. The youth who objected to the alphabet that it seemed +hardly worth while to have gone through so much to have acquired so +little, was exceptionally sagacious; the more ordinary lad conceives +that what has cost him so much time and trouble, and entailed so many +pains and penalties, must needs have something in it, though it has +never met his eye. Hence arises our public opinion upon the ancient +classics, which I am afraid is somewhat different from (what painters +term) the private view. If you take the ordinary admirer of Æschylus, +for example—not the scholar, but the man who has had what he believes +to be 'a liberal education'—and appeal to his opinion upon some passage +in a British dramatist, say Shakespeare, it is ten to one that he shows +not only ignorance of the author (the odds are twenty to one about +_that_), but utter inability to grasp the point in question; it is too +deep for him, and, especially, too subtle. If you are cruel enough to +press him, he will unconsciously betray the fact that he has never felt +a line of poetry in his life. He honestly believes that the 'Seven +against Thebes' is one of the greatest works that ever were written, +just as a child believes the same of the 'Seven Champions of +Christendom.' A great wit once observed, when bored by the praises of a +man who spoke six languages, that he had known a man to speak a dozen, +and yet not say a word worth hearing in any one of them. The humour of +the remark, as sometimes happens, has caused its wisdom to be +underrated; for the fact is that, in very many cases, all the +intelligence of which a mind is capable is expended upon the mere +acquisition of a foreign tongue. As to getting anything out of it in +the way of ideas, and especially of poetical ones, that is almost never +attained. There are, indeed, many who have a special facility for +languages, but in their case (with a few exceptions) one may say +without uncharity that the acquisition of ideas is not their object, +though if they did acquire them they would probably be new ones. The +majority of us, however, have much difficulty in surmounting the +obstacle of an alien tongue; and when we have done so we are naturally +inclined to overrate the advantages thus attained. Everyone knows the +poor creature who quotes French on all occasions with a certain stress +on the accent, designed to arouse a doubt in his hearers as to whether +he was not actually born in Paris. _He_, of course, is a low specimen +of the class in question, but almost all of us derive a certain +intellectual gratification from the mastery of another language, and as +we gradually attain to it, whenever we find a meaning we are apt to +mistake it for a beauty.[1] Nay, I am convinced that many admire this +or that (even) British poet from the fact that here and there his +meaning has gleamed upon them with all the charm that accompanies +unexpectedness. + + [1] Since the above was written, my attention has been called to the + following remark of De Quincey: 'As must ever be the case with readers + not sufficiently masters of a language to bring the true pretensions + of a work to any test of feeling, they are for ever mistaking for some + pleasure conferred by the writer, what is, in fact, the pleasure + naturally attached to the sense of a difficulty overcome.' + +Since classical learning is compulsory with us, this bastard admiration +is much more often excited with respect to the Greek and Latin poets. +Men may not only go through the whole curriculum of a university +education, but take high honours in it, without the least intellectual +advantage beyond the acquisition of a few quotations. This is not, of +course (good heavens!), because the classics have nothing to teach us +in the way of poetical ideas, but simply because to the ordinary mind +the acquisition of a poetical idea is very difficult, and when conveyed +in a foreign language is impossible. If the same student had given the +same time—a monstrous thought, of course, but not impracticable—to the +cultivation of Shakespeare and the old dramatists, or even to the more +modern English poets and thinkers, he would certainly have got more out +of them, though he would have missed the delicate suggestiveness of the +Greek aorist, and the exquisite subtleties of the particle _de_. Having +acquired these last, however, and not for nothing, it is not surprising +that he should esteem them very highly, and, being unable to popularise +them at dinner-parties and the like, he falls back upon praise of the +classics generally. + +Such are the circumstances which, more particularly in this country, +have led to a well-nigh universal habit of literary lying—of a pretence +of admiration for certain works of which in reality we know very +little, and for which, if we knew more, we should perhaps care even +less. + +There are certain books which are standard, and as it were planted in +the British soil, before which the great majority of us bow the knee +and doff the cap with a reverence that, in its ignorance, reminds one +of fetish worship, and, in its affectation, of the passion for High +Art. The works without which, we are told at book auctions, 'no +gentleman's library can be considered complete,' are especially the +objects of this adoration. The 'Rambler,' for example, is one of them. +I was once shut up for a week of snowstorms in a mountain inn, with the +'Rambler' and one other publication. The latter was a Shepherd's Guide, +with illustrations of the way in which sheep are marked by their +various owners for the purpose of identification: 'Cropped near ear, +upper key bitted far, a pop on the head and another at the tail head, +ritted, and with two red strokes down both shoulders,' etc. It was +monotonous, but I confess that there were times when I felt it some +comfort in having that picture-book to fall back upon, to alternate +with the 'Rambler.' + +The essay, like port wine, I have noticed, requires age for its due +appreciation. Leigh Hunt's 'Indicator' comprises some admirable essays, +but the general public have not a word to say for them; it may be urged +that that is because they had not read the 'Indicator' But why then do +they praise the 'Rambler' and Montaigne? That comforting word, +'Mesopotamia,' which has been so often alluded to in religious matters, +has many a parallel in profane literature. + +A good deal of this mock worship is of course due to abject cowardice. +A man who says he doesn't like the 'Rambler,' runs, with some folks, +the risk of being thought a fool; but he is sure to be thought that, +for something or another, under any circumstances; and, at all events, +why should he not content himself, when the 'Rambler' is belauded, with +holding his tongue and smiling acquiescence? It must be conceded that +there are a few persons who really have read the 'Rambler,' a work, of +course, I am merely using as a type of its class. In their young days +it was used as a schoolbook, and thought necessary as a part of polite +education; and as they have read little or nothing since, it is only +reasonable that they should stick to their colours. Indeed, the French +satirist's boast that he could predicate the views of any man with +regard to both worlds, if he were only supplied with the simple data of +his age and his income, is quite true in the general with regard to +literary taste. Given the age of the ordinary individual—that is to say +of the gentleman 'fond of books, but who has really no time for +reading'—and it is easy enough to guess his literary idols. They are +the gods of his youth, and, whether he has been 'suckled in a creed +outworn' or not, he knows no other. These persons, however, rarely give +their opinion about literary matters, except on compulsion; they are +harmless and truthful. The tendency of society in general, on the other +hand, is not only to praise the 'Rambler' which they have not read, but +to express a noble scorn for those who have read it and don't like it. + +I remember, as a young man, being greatly struck by the independence of +character exhibited by Miss Bronte in a certain confession she made in +respect to Miss Austen's novels. It was at a period when everybody +professed to adore them, and especially the great-guns of literature. +Walter Scott thought more highly of the genius of the author of +'Mansfield Park' even than of that of his favourite, Miss Edgeworth. +Macaulay speaks of her as though she were the Eclipse of +novelists—'first, and the rest nowhere'—though his opinion, it is true, +lost something of its force from the contempt he expressed for 'the +rest,' among whom were some much better ones. Dr. Whewell, a very +different type of mind, had 'Mansfield Park,' I believe, read to him on +his death-bed. And, indeed, up to the present date, some +highly-cultured persons of my acquaintance take the same view. They may +be very possibly right, but that is no reason why the people who have +never read Miss Austen's novels—and very few have—should ape the +fashion. Now, the authoress of 'Jane Eyre' did not derive much pleasure +from the perusal of the works of the other Jane. 'I know it's very +wrong,' she modestly said, 'but the fact is I can't read them. They +have not got story enough in them to engage my attention. I don't want +my blood curdled, but I like it stirred. Miss Austen strikes me as +milk-and-watery, and, to say truth, as dull.' + +This opinion she has, in effect, repeated in her published writings, +but I had only heard her verbal expression of it; and I admired her +courage. If she had been a man, struggling, as she then was, for a +position in literature, she would not have dared to say half as much. +For, what is very curious, the advocates of the classic authors—those I +mean whom antiquity has more or less hallowed—instead of pitying those +unhappy wights who confess their want of appreciation of them, fly at +them with bludgeons, and dance upon their prostrate bodies with clogs. + +'For who would rush on a benighted man, +And give him two black eyes for being blind?' + +inquires the poet. I answer, 'lots of people,' and especially those who +worship the pagan divinities of literature. The same thing happens—but +_their_ fury is more excusable, because they have less natural +intelligence—with the lovers of music. Instead of being sorry for the +poor folks who have 'no ear,' and whom 'a little music in the evening' +bores to extremity, they overwhelm them with reproaches for what is in +fact a natural infirmity. 'You Goth! you Vandal!' they exclaim, 'how +contemptible is the creature who has no music in his soul!' Which is +really very rude. Even persons who are not musical have their feelings. +'Hath not a Jew ears?'—that is to say, though they have 'no ear,' they +understand what is abusive language and resent it. + +I am not saying one word against established reputations in literature. +The very fact of their being established (even the 'Rambler,' for +example, has its merits) is in their favour; and, indeed, some of the +works I shall refer to are masterpieces. My objection is to the sham +admiration of them, which does their authors no good (for their +circulation is now of no consequence to them), and is injurious not +only to modern writers (who are generally made the subject of base +comparison), but especially to the utterers of this false coin +themselves. One cannot tell falsehoods, even about one's views in +literature, without injury to one's morals, yet to 'tell the truth and +shame the devil' is easy, as it would seem, compared with telling the +truth and defying the critics. + +I have alluded to the intrepidity of Miss Bronte in this matter; and, +curiously enough, it is women who have the most courage in the +expression of their literary opinions. It may be said, of course, that +this is due to the audacity of ignorance, and a well-known line may be +quoted (for some people, as I have said, are rude) in which certain +angels (who are _not_ women) are represented as being afraid to tread +in certain places. But I am speaking of women who are great readers. +Miss Martineau once confessed to me that she could see no beauties in +'Tom Jones.' 'Of course,' she said, 'the coarseness disgusts me, but +apart from that, I see no sort of merit in it.' 'What?' I replied, 'no +humour, no knowledge of human life?' 'No; to me it is a wearisome +book.' + +I disagreed with her very much upon that point, and do so still; yet, +apart from the coarseness (which does not disgust everybody, let me +tell you), there is a good deal of tedious reading in 'Tom Jones.' At +all events that expression of opinion from such lips strikes me as +noteworthy. + +It may here be said that there are many English authors of old date, +some of whose beauties are unintelligible except to those who are +acquainted with the classics; and 'Tom Jones' is one of them. Many of +the introductions to the chapters, not to mention a certain travestie +of an Homeric battle, must needs be as wearisome to those who are not +scholars, as the spectacle of a burlesque is to those who have not seen +the original play. This is still more the case with our old poets, +especially Milton. I very much doubt, in spite of the universal chorus +to the contrary, whether 'Lycidas' is much admired by readers who are +only acquainted with English literature; I am quite sure it never +touched their hearts as, for example, 'In Memoriam' does. + +I once beheld a young lady of great literary taste, and of exquisite +sensibility, torn to pieces (figuratively) and trampled upon by a great +scholar for venturing to make a comparison between those two poems. Its +invocation to the Muses, and the general classical air which pervades +it, had destroyed for her the pathos of 'Lycidas,' whereas to her +antagonist those very imperfections appeared to enhance its beauty. I +did not interfere, because the wretch was her husband, and it would +have been worse for her if I had, but my sympathies were entirely with +her. Her sad fate—for the massacre took place in public—would, I was +well aware, have the effect of making people lie worse than ever about +Milton. On that same evening, while some folks were talking about Mr. +Morris's 'Earthly Paradise,' I heard a scornful voice exclaim, 'Oh! +give ME "Paradise Lost,"' and with that gentleman I _did_ have it out. +I promptly subjected him to cross-examination, and drove him to that +extremity that he was compelled to admit he had never read a word of +Milton for forty years, and even then only in extracts from 'Enfield's +Speaker.' + +With Shakespeare—though there is a good deal of lying about _him_—the +case is different, and especially with elderly people; for 'in their +day,' as they pathetically term it, Shakespeare was played everywhere, +and everyone went to the play. They do not read him, but they recollect +him; they are well acquainted with his beauties—that is, with the +better known of them—and can quote him with manifest appreciation. They +are, intellectually, in a position much superior to that of a +fashionable lady of my acquaintance who informed me that her daughters +were going to the theatre that night to see Shakespeare's 'Turning of +the Screw.' + +The writer who has done most, without I suppose intending it, to +promote hypocrisy in literature is Macaulay. His 'every schoolboy +knows' has frightened thousands into pretending to know authors with +whom they have not even a bowing acquaintance. It is amazing that a man +who had read so much should have written so contemptuously of those who +have read but little; one would have thought that the consciousness of +superiority would have forbidden such insolence, or that his reading +would have been extensive enough to teach him at least how little he +had read of what there was to read; since he read some things—works of +imagination and humour, for example—to such very little purpose, he +might really have bragged a little less. One feels quite grateful to +Macaulay, however, for avowing his belief that he was the only man who +had read through the 'Faery Queen;' since that exonerates everybody—I +do not say from reading it, because the supposition is preposterous—but +from the necessity of pretending to have read it. The pleasure derived +from that poem to most minds is, I am convinced, analogous to that +already spoken of as being imparted by a foreign author: namely, the +satisfaction at finding it—in places—intelligible. For the few who +possess the poetic faculty it has great beauties, but I observe, from +the extracts that appear in Poetic Selections and the like, that the +most tedious and even the most monstrous passages are those which are +generally offered for admiration. The case of Spenser in this +respect—which does not stand alone in ancient English literature—has a +curious parallel in art, where people are positively found to go into +ecstasies over a distorted limb or a ludicrous inversion of +perspective, simply because it is the work of an old master, who knew +no better, or followed the fashion of his time. + +Leigh Hunt read the 'Faery Queen,' by-the-bye, as almost everything +else that has been written in the English tongue, and even Macaulay +alludes with rare commendation to his 'catholic taste.' Of all authors +indeed, and probably of all readers, Leigh Hunt had the keenest eye for +merit and the warmest appreciation of it wherever found. He was +actively engaged in politics, yet was never blind to the genius of an +adversary; blameless himself in morals, he could admire the wit of +Wycherley; and a freethinker in religion, he could see both wisdom and +beauty in the divines. Moreover, it is immensely to his credit that +this universal knowledge, instead of puffing him up, only moved him to +impart it, and that next to the pleasure he took in books was that he +derived from teaching others to take pleasure in them. Witness his 'Wit +and Humour' and his 'Imagination and Fancy,' to my mind the greatest +treasures in the way of handbooks that have ever been offered to +students of English literature, and the completest antidotes to +pretence in it. How many a time, as a boy, have I pondered over this or +that passage in the originals, from Shakespeare to Suckling, and then +compared it with the italicised lines in his two volumes, to see +whether I had hit upon the beauties; and how often, alas! I hit upon +the blots![2] + + [2] I remember (when 'I was but a little tiny boy') I thought that + 'the fringed curtains of thine eye advance,' addressed by Prospero to + Miranda, must needs be a very fine line; imagine then my confusion, on + referring for corroboration to my 'guide, philosopher, and friend,' as + he truly was, to find this passage: 'Why Shakespeare should have + condescended to the elaborate nothingness, not to say nonsense, of + this metaphor (for what is meant by "advancing curtains"?) I cannot + conceive. That is to say, if he did condescend: for it looks very like + the interpolation of some pompous declamatory player. Pope has put it + into his _Treatise on the Bathos_.' + +It is curious that Leigh Hunt, whose style has been so severely handled +(and, it must be owned, not without some justice) for its affectations, +should have been so genuine (although always generous) in his +criticisms. It was nothing to him whether an author was old or new; nor +did he shrink from any literary comparison between two writers when he +thought it appropriate (and he was generally right), notwithstanding +all the age and authority that might be at the back of one of them. +Thackeray, by the way, a very different writer and thinker, had this +same outspoken honesty in the expression of his literary taste. In +speaking of the hero of Cooper's five good novels—Leather-Stocking, +Hawkeye, etc.—he remarks with quite a noble simplicity: 'I think he is +better than any of Scott's lot.' + +It is a 'far cry' from the 'Faery Queen' to 'Childe Harold,' which, +reckoning by years, is still a modern poem; yet I wonder how many +persons under thirty—even of those who term it 'magnificent'—have ever +read 'Childe Harold.' At one time it was only people under thirty who +_had_ read it; for poetry to the ordinary reader is the poetry that was +popular in his youth—'no other is genuine.' + +'A dreary, weary poem called the _Excursion_, +Written in a manner which is my aversion,' + +is a couplet the frankness of which has always recommended itself to me +(though I like the 'Excursion'); but, except for the rhyme, it has a +fatal facility of application to other long poems. Heaven forbid that I +should 'with shadowed hint confuse' the faith in a British classic; +but, ye gods, how men have gaped (in private) over 'Childe Harold!' + +'Gil Blas,' though not a native classic, is included in the articles of +the British literary faith; not as a matter of pious opinion, but _de +fide_; a necessity of intellectual salvation. I remember an interview I +once had with a boy of letters concerning this immortal work; he is a +well-known writer now, but at the time I speak of he was only budding +and sprouting in the magazines—a lad of promise, no doubt, but given, +if not to kick against authority, to question it, and, what was worse, +to question _me_ about it, in an embarrassing manner. The natural +affability of my disposition had caused him, I suppose, to treat me as +his Father Confessor in literature; and one of the sins of omission he +confided to me was in connection with the divine Le Sage. + +'I say—about "Gil Blas," you know—Bias [a great critic of that day] was +saying last night that if he were to be imprisoned for life with only +one book to read he would choose the Bible or "Gil Blas."' + +'It is very gratifying to me,' said I, wishing to evade my young +friend, and also because I had no love for Bias, 'that he should have +selected the Bible, even as an alternative; and all the more so, since +I should never have expected it of him.' + +'Yes, papa' (that was what the young dog was wont to call me, though he +was no son of mine—far from it); 'but about "Gil Blas"? Is it _really_ +the next best book? And after he had read it—say ten times—would he not +have been rather sorry that he had not chosen—well, Shakespeare, for +instance?' + +The picture of Bias with a long white beard, the growth of twenty +years, reading that tattered copy of 'Gil Blas' in his cell, almost +affected me to tears; but I made shift to answer gravely: 'Bias is a +professional critic; and persons of that class are apt to be a little +dogmatic and given to exaggeration. But "Gil Blas" is a great work. As +a picture of the seamy side of human life—of its vices and its +weaknesses at least—it is unrivalled. The archbishop——' + +'Oh! I know that archbishop—_well_,' interrupted my young tormentor. 'I +sometimes think, if it hadn't been for that archbishop, we should never +perhaps have heard of "Gil Blas."' + +'Tchut, tchut!' said I; 'you talk like a child.' + +'But to read it _all through_, papa—three times, ten times, for all +one's life? Poor Mr. Bias!' + +'It is a matter of opinion, my dear boy,' I said. 'Bias has this great +advantage over you in literary matters, that he knows what he is +talking about; and if he was quite sure——' + +'Oh! but he was not quite sure: he was rather doubtful, he said, about +one of the books.' + +'Not the Bible, I do hope?' said I fervently. + +'No, about the other. He was not quite sure but that, instead of "Gil +Blas," he ought to have selected "Don Quixote." Now really that seems +to me worse than "Gil Blas." + +'You mean less excellent,' I rejoined; 'you are too young to appreciate +the full signification of "Don Quixote."' + +The scoundrel murmured, 'Do you mean to tell me people read it when +they are old?' But I pretended not to hear him. 'We do not all of us,' +I went on, 'know what is good for us. Sancho Panza's physician——' + +'Oh! I know that physician—_well_, papa. I sometimes think, if it had +not been for that physician, perhaps——' + +'Hush!' I exclaimed authoritatively; 'let us have no flippancy, I beg.' +And so, with a dead lift as it were, I got rid of him. He left the room +muttering, 'But to read it through—three times, ten times, for all +one's life?' And I was obliged to confess to myself that such a +prolonged course of study, even of 'Don Quixote,' would have been +wearisome. + +Rabelais is another article of our literary faith, that is certainly +subscribed to much more often than believed in. In a certain poem of +Mr. Browning's (_I_ call it the Burial of the Book, since the Latin +name he has given it is unpronounceable, even if it were possible to +recollect it), charmingly humorous, and which is also remarkable for +impersonating an inanimate object in verse as Dickens does in prose, +there occur these lines: + +'Then I went indoors, brought out a loaf, + Half a cheese and a bottle of Chablis, +Lay on the grass, and forgot the oaf + Over a jolly chapter of Rabelais.' + +Yet I have known some wonder to be expressed (confidentially) as to +where he found the 'jolly chapter,' and the looking for the beauties of +Rabelais to be likened to searching in a huge dung-heap for a few heads +of asparagus. + +I have no quarrel with Bias and Company (though they stick at nothing, +and will presently say that I don't care for these books myself), but I +venture to think that they are wrong in making dogmas of what are, +after all, but matters of literary taste; it is their vehemence and +exaggeration which drive the weak to take refuge in falsehood. + +A good woman in the country once complained of her stepson, 'He will +not love his learning, though I beats him with a jack-chain;' and from +the application of similar aids to instruction, the same result takes +place in London. Only here we dissemble and pretend to love it. It is +partly in consequence of this that works, not only of acknowledged but +genuine excellence, such as those I have been careful to select, are, +though so universally praised, so little read. The poor student +attempts them, but failing—from many causes no doubt, but also +sometimes from the fact of their not being there—to find those +unrivalled beauties which he has been led to expect in every sentence, +he stops short, where he would otherwise have gone on. He says to +himself, 'I have been deceived,' or 'I must be a born fool;' whereas he +is wrong in both suppositions. I am convinced that the want of +popularity of Walter Scott among the rising generation is partly due to +this extravagant laudation; and I am much mistaken if another great +author, more recently deceased, will not in a few years be added to the +ranks of those who are more praised than read from the same cause. + +The habit of mere adhesion to received opinion in any matter is most +mischievous, for it strikes at the root of independence of thought; and +in literature it tends to make the public taste mechanical. It is very +seldom that what is called the verdict of posterity (absurdly enough, +for are not _we_ posterity?) is ever reversed; but it has chanced to +happen in a certain case quite lately. The production of 'The Iron +Chest' upon the stage has once more brought into fashion 'Caleb +Williams.' Now that is a work, though by no means belonging to the same +rank as those to which I have referred, which has a fine old crusted +reputation. Time has hallowed it. The great world of readers (who have +never read it) used to echo the remark of Bias and Company, that this +and that modern work of fiction reminded them—though at an immense +distance, of course—of Godwin's masterpiece. I remember Le Fanu's +'Uncle Silas,' for example (from some similarity, more fanciful perhaps +than real, in the isolation of its hero), being thus compared with it. +Now 'Caleb Williams' is founded on a very fine conception—one that +could only have occurred, perhaps, to a man of genius; the first part +of it is well worked out, but towards the middle it grows feeble, and +it ends in tediousness and drivel; whereas 'Uncle Silas' is good and +strong from first to last. Le Fanu has never been so popular as, in my +humble judgment, he deserves to be, but of course modern readers were +better acquainted with him than with Godwin. Yet nine out of ten were +always heard repeating this cuckoo cry about the latter's superiority, +until the 'Iron Chest' came out, and Fashion induced them to read +Godwin for themselves; which has very properly changed their opinion. + +I remember, in my own case, that, from that reverence for authority +which I hope I share with my neighbours, I used to speak of 'Headlong +Hall' and 'Crotchet Castle'—both great favourites of our +fore-fathers—with much respect, until one wet day in the country I +found myself shut up with them. I won't say what I suffered; better +judges of literature than myself admire them still, I know. I will only +remark that _I_ don't admire them. I don't say they are the dullest +novels ever printed, because that would be invidious, and might do +wrong to works of even greater pretensions; but to my mind they are +dull. + +When Dr. Johnson is free to confess that he does not admire Gray's +'Elegy,' and Macaulay to avow that he sees little to praise in Dickens +and Wordsworth, why should not humbler folks have the courage of their +own opinions? They cannot possibly be more wrong than Johnson and +Macaulay were, and it is surely better to be honest, though it may +expose one to some ridicule, than to lie. The more we agree with the +verdict of the generations before us on these matters, the more, it is +quite true, we are likely to be right; but the agreement should be an +honest one. At present very extensive domains in literature are, as it +were, enclosed and denied to the public in respect to any free +expression of their opinion. 'They are splendid, they are faultless,' +cries the general voice, but the general eye has not beheld them. +Nothing, of course, could be more futile than that, with every new +generation, our old authors who have won their fame should be arraigned +anew at the bar of public criticism; but, on the other hand, there is +no reason why the mouths of us poor moderns should be muzzled, and +still less that we 'should praise with alien lips.' + +'Until Caldecott's charming illustrations of it made me laugh so much,' +said a young lady to me the other day, 'I confess—though I know it's +very stupid of me—I never saw much fun in "John Gilpin."' She evidently +expected a reproof, and when I whispered in her ear, 'Nor I,' her +lovely features assumed a look of positive enfranchisement. + +'But am I right?' she inquired. + +'You are certainly right, my dear young lady,' said I, 'not to pretend +admiration where you don't feel it; as to liking "John Gilpin," that is +a matter of taste. It has, of course, simplicity to recommend it; but +in my own case, though I'm fond of fun, it has never evoked a smile. It +has always seemed to me like one of Mr. Joe Miller's stories put into +tedious verse.' + +I really almost thought (and hoped) that that young lady would have +kissed me. + +'Papa always says it is a free country,' she exclaimed, 'but I never +felt it to be the case before this moment.' + +For years this beautiful and accomplished creature had locked this +awful secret in her innocent breast—that she didn't see much fun in +'John Gilpin.' 'You have given me courage,' she said, 'to confess +something else. Mr. Caldecott has just been illustrating in the same +charming manner Goldsmith's "Elegy on a Mad Dog," and—I'm very +sorry—but I never laughed at _that_ before, either. I have pretended to +laugh, you know,' she added, hastily and apologetically, 'hundreds of +times.' + +'I don't doubt it,' I replied; 'this is not such a free country as your +father supposes.' + +'But am I right?' + +'I say nothing about "right,"' I answered, 'except that everybody has a +right to his own opinion. For my part, however, I think the 'Mad Dog' +better than 'John Gilpin' only because it is shorter.' + +Whether I was wrong or right in the matter is of no consequence even to +myself; the affection and gratitude of that young creature would more +than repay me for a much greater mistake, if mistake it is. She +protests that I have emancipated her from slavery. She has since talked +to me about all sorts of authors, from Sir Philip Sidney to Washington +Irving, in a way that would make some people's blood run cold; but it +has no such effect upon me—quite the reverse. Of Irving she naïvely +remarks that his strokes of humour seem to her to owe much of their +success to the rarity of their occurrence; the flashes of fun are +spread over pages of dulness, which enhance them, just as a dark night +is propitious to fireworks, or the atmosphere of the House cf Commons, +or of a Court of Law, to a joke. She is often in error, no doubt, but +how bright and wholesome such talk is as compared with the platitudes +and commonplaces which one hears on all sides in connection with +literature! + +As a rule, I suppose, even people in society ('the drawing-rooms and +the clubs') are not absolutely base and yet one would really think so, +to judge by the fear that is entertained by them of being natural. 'I +vow to heaven,' says the prince of letter-writers, 'that I think the +Parrots of Society are more intolerable and mischievous than its Birds +of Prey. If ever I destroy myself, it will be in the bitterness of +having those infernal and damnable "good old times" extolled.' One is +almost tempted to say the same—when one hears their praises come from +certain mouths—of the good old books. It is not everyone, of course, +who has an opinion of his own upon any subject, far less on that of +literature, but everyone can abstain from expressing an opinion that is +not his own. If one has no voice, what possible compensation can there +be in becoming an echo? No one, I conclude, would wish to see +literature discoursed about in the same pinchbeck and affected style as +are painting and music; [3] yet that is what will happen if this +prolific weed of sham admiration is permitted to attain its full +growth. + + [3] The slang of art-talk has reached the 'young men' in the furniture + warehouses. A friend of mine was recommended a sideboard the other day + as not being a Chippendale, but as 'having a Chippendale _feeling_ in + it.' + +[decoration] + + + + +THE PINCH OF POVERTY. + + +In these days of reduction of rents, or of total abstinence from +rent-paying, it is, I am told, the correct thing to be 'a little +pressed for money.' It is a sign of connection with the landed interest +(like the banker's ejaculation in 'Middlemarch') and suggests family +acres, and entails, and a position in the county. (In which case I know +a good many people who are landlords on a very extensive scale, and +have made allowances for their tenants the generosity of which may be +described as Quixotic.) But as a general rule, and in times less +exceptionally hard, though Shakespeare tells us 'How apt the poor are +to be proud,' they are not proud of being poor. + +'Poverty,' says the greatest of English divines, 'is indeed despised +and makes men contemptible; it exposes a man to the influences of evil +persons, and leaves a man defenceless; it is always suspected; its +stories are accounted lies, and all its counsels follies; it puts a man +from all employment; it makes a man's discourses tedious and his +society troublesome. This is the worst of it.' Even so poverty seems +pretty bad, but, begging Dr. Jeremy Taylor's pardon, what he has stated +is by no means 'the worst of it.' To be in want of food at any time, +and of firing in winter time, is ever so much worse than the +inconveniences he enumerates; and to see those we love—delicate women +and children perhaps—in want, is worse still. The fact is, the +excellent bishop probably never knew what it was to go without his +meals, but took them 'reg'lar' (as Mrs. Gamp took her Brighton ale) as +bishops generally do. Moreover, since his day, Luxury has so +universally increased, and the value of Intelligence has become so well +recognised (by the publishers) that even philosophers, who profess to +despise such things, have plenty to eat, and good of its kind too. +Hence it happens that, from all we hear to the contrary from the +greatest thinkers, the deprivation of food is a small thing: indeed, as +compared with the great spiritual struggles of noble minds, and the +doubts that beset them as to the supreme government of the universe, it +seems hardly worth mentioning. + +In old times, when folks were not so 'cultured,' starvation was thought +more of. It is quite curious, indeed, to contrast the high-flying +morality of the present day (when no one is permitted, either by +Evolutionist or Ritualist, however dire may be his necessity, so much +as to jar his conscience) with the shocking laxity of the Holy +Scriptures. 'Men do not despise a thief if he steal to satisfy his soul +when he is hungry,' says Solomon, after which stretch of charity, +strange to say, he goes on to speak of marital infidelity in terms +that, considering the number of wives he had himself, strike one as +severe. + +It is certain, indeed, that the sacred writers were apt to make great +allowances for people with empty stomachs, and though I am well aware +that the present profane ones think this very reprehensible, I venture +to agree with the sacred writers. The sharpest tooth of poverty is +felt, after all, in the bite of hunger. A very amusing and graphic +writer once described his experience of a whole night passed in the +streets; the exhaustion, the pain, the intolerable weariness of it, +were set forth in a very striking manner; the sketch was called 'The +Key of the Street,' and was thought by many, as Browning puts it, to be +'the true Dickens.' But what are even the pangs of sleeplessness and +fatigue compared with those of want? Of course there have been fanatics +who have fasted many days; but they have been supported by the prospect +of spiritual reward. I confess I reserve my pity for those who have no +such golden dreams, and who fast perforce. It is exceedingly difficult +for mere worldlings—such as most of us are—not to eat, if it is +possible, when we are hungry. I have known a great social philosopher +who flattered himself that he was giving his sons an experience of High +Thinking and Low Living by restricting their pocket-money to two +shillings a day, out of which it was understood they were to find their +own meals. I don't know whether the spirit in their case was willing, +but the flesh was decidedly weak, for one of them, on this very +moderate allowance, used to contrive to always have a pint of dry +champagne with his luncheon. The fact is, that of the iron grip of +poverty, people in general, by no means excepting those who have +written about it, have had very little experience; whereas of the pinch +of it a good many people know something. It is the object of this +paper—and the question should be an interesting one, considering how +much it is talked about—to inquire briefly where it lies. + +It is quite extraordinary how very various are the opinions entertained +on this point, and, before sifting them, one must be careful in the +first place to eliminate from our inquiry the cases of that +considerable class of persons who pinch themselves. For, however +severely they do it, they may stop when they like and the pain is +cured. There is all the difference in the world between pulling one's +own tooth out, and even the best and kindest of dentists doing it for +one. How gingerly one goes to work, and how often it strikes one that +the tooth is a good tooth, that it has been a fast friend to us for +ever so many years and never 'fallen out' before, and that after all it +had better stop where it is! + +To the truly benevolent mind, indeed, nothing is more satisfactory than +to hear of a miser denying himself the necessaries of life a little too +far and ridding us of his presence altogether. Our confidence in the +average virtue of humanity assures us that his place will be supplied +by a better man. The details of his penurious habits, the comfortless +room, the scanty bedding, the cheese-rinds on his table, and the fat +banking-book under his thin bolster, only inspire disgust: if he were +pinched to death he did it himself, and so much the better for the +world in general and his heir in particular. + +Again, the people who have a thousand a year, and who try to persuade +the world that they have two thousand, suffer a good deal of +inconvenience, but it can't be called the pinch of poverty. They may +put limits to their washing-bills, which persons of cleanlier habits +would consider unpleasantly narrow; they may eat cold mutton in private +for five days a week in order to eat turtle and venison in public (and +with the air of eating them every day) on the sixth; and they may +immure themselves in their back rooms in London throughout the autumn +in order to persuade folks that they are still at Trouville, where for +ten days they did really reside and in splendour; but all their stint +and self-incarceration, so far from awakening pity, only fill us with +contempt. I am afraid that even the complaining tones of our City +friend who tells us that in consequence of 'the present unsettled state +of the markets' he has been obliged to make 'great retrenchments'—which +it seems on inquiry consist in putting down one of his carriages and +keeping three horses instead of six—fail to draw the sympathising tear. +Indeed, to a poor man this pretence of suffering on the part of the +rich is perhaps even more offensive than their boasts of their +prosperity. + +On the other hand, when the rich become really poor their case is hard +indeed; though, strange to say, we hear little of it. It is like +drowning; there is a feeble cry, a little ineffectual assistance from +the bystanders, and then they go under. It is not a question of pinch +with _them_; they have fallen into the gaping mouth of ruin, and it has +devoured them. If we ever see them again, it is in the second +generation as waiters (upon Providence), or governesses, and we say, +'Why, dear me, that was Bullion's son (or daughter), wasn't it?' using +the past tense, as if they were dead. 'I remember him when he lived in +Eaton Square.' This class of cases rarely comes under the head of +'genteel poverty.' They were at the top, and hey presto! by some +malignant stroke of fate they are at the bottom; and there they stick. + +I don't believe in bachelors ever experiencing the pinch of poverty; I +have heard them complaining of it at the club, while ordering Medina +oysters instead of Natives, but, after all, what does it signify even +if they were reduced to cockles? They have no appearances to keep up, +and if they cannot earn enough to support themselves they must be poor +creatures indeed. + +It is the large families of moderate income, who are delicate, and have +delicate tastes, that feel the twinge: and especially the poor girls. I +remember a man, with little care for his personal appearance, of small +means but with a very rich sense of humour, describing to me his +experiences when staying at a certain ducal house in the country, where +his feelings must have been very similar to those of Christopher Sly. +In particular he drew a charming picture of the magnificent attendant +who in the morning _would_ put out his clothes for him, which had not +been made by Mr. Poole, nor very recently by anybody. The contempt +which he well understood his Grace's gentleman must have felt for him +afforded him genuine enjoyment. But with young ladies, in a similar +position, matters are very different; they have rarely a sense of +humour, and certainly none strong enough to counteract the force of a +personal humiliation. I have known some very charming ones, compelled +to dress on a very small allowance, who, in certain mansions where they +have been occasionally guests, have been afraid to put their boots +outside their door, because they were not of the newest, and have +trembled when the officious lady's-maid has meddled with their scanty +wardrobe. A philosopher may think nothing of this, but, considering the +tender skin of the sufferer, it may be fairly called a pinch. + +In the investigation of this interesting subject, I have had a good +deal of conversation with young ladies, who have given me the fullest +information, and in a manner so charming, that, if it were common in +witnesses generally, it would make Blue-Books very pretty reading. + +'I consider it to be "a pinch,"' says one, 'when I am obliged to put on +black mittens on occasions when I know other girls will have long white +kid gloves.' I must confess I have a prejudice myself against mittens; +they are, so to speak, 'gritty' to touch; so that the pinch, if it be +one, experienced by the wearer, is shared by her ungloved friends. The +same thing may be said of that drawing-room fire which is lit so late +in the season for economical reasons, and so late in the day at all +times: the pinch is felt as much by the visitors as by the members of +the household. These things, however, are mere nips, and may be placed +in the same category with the hardships complained of by my friend +Quiverfull's second boy. 'I don't mind having papa's clothes cut up for +me,' he says, 'but what I do think hard is getting Bob's clothes' (Bob +being his elder brother), 'which have been papa's first; however, I am +in great hopes that I am out-growing Bob.' + +A much more severe example of the pinch of poverty than these is to be +found in railway travelling; no lady of any sense or spirit objects to +travel by the second, or even the third class, if her means do not +justify her going by the first. But when she meets with richer friends +upon the platform, and parts with them to journey in the same +compartment with their man-servant, she suffers as acutely as though, +when the guard slams the door of the carriage with the vehemence +proportioned to its humble rank, her tender hand had been crushed in +it. Of course it is very foolish of her; but it demands democratic +opinions, such as almost no woman of birth and breeding possesses, not +to feel _that_ pinch. Her knowledge that it is also hard upon the +man-servant, who has never sat in her presence before, but only stooped +over her shoulder with ''Ock, miss,' serves but to increase her pain. + +A great philosopher has stated that the worst evil of poverty is, that +it makes folks ridiculous; by which, I hope, he only means that, as in +the above case, it places them in incongruous positions. The man, or +woman, who derives amusement from the lack of means of a +fellow-creature, would jeer at a natural deformity, be cruel to +children, and insult old age. Such people should be whipped and then +hanged. Nevertheless there are certain little pinches of poverty so +slight, that they tickle almost as much as they hurt the victim. A lady +once told me (interrupting herself, however, with pleasant bursts of +merriment) that as a young girl her allowance was so small that when +she went out to spend the evening at a friend's, her promised pleasure +was darkened by the presentiment (always fulfilled) that the cabman was +sure to charge her more than the proper fare. The extra expense was +really of consequence to her, but she never dared dispute it, because +of the presence of the footman who opened the door. + +Some young ladies—quite as lady-like as any who roll in chariots—cannot +even afford a cab. 'What _I_ call the pinch of poverty,' observed an +example of this class, 'is the waiting for omnibus after omnibus on a +wet afternoon and finding them all full.' + +'But surely,' I replied with gallantry, 'any man would have given up +his seat to you?' + +She shook her head with a smile that had very little fun in it. 'People +in omnibuses,' she said, 'don't give up their seats to others.' Nor, I +am bound to confess, do they do so elsewhere; if I had been in their +place, perhaps I should have been equally selfish; though I do think I +should have made an effort, in this instance at least, to make room for +her close beside me. [4] + + [4] There is, however, some danger in this. I remember reading of some + highly respectable old gentleman in the City who thus accommodated on + a wet day a very nice young woman in humble circumstances. She was as + full of apologies as of rainwater, and he of good-natured rejoinders, + intended to put her at her ease; so that he became, in a Platonic and + paternal way, quite friendly with her by the time she arrived at her + destination—which happened to be his own door. She turned out to be + his new cook, which was afterwards very embarrassing. + +A young governess whom some wicked fairy endowed at her birth with the +sensitiveness often denied to princesses, has assured me that her +journeys by railway have sometimes been rendered miserable by the +thought that she had not even a few pence to spare for the porter who +would presently shoulder her little box on to the roof of her cab. + +It is people of this class, much more than those beneath them, who are +shut out from all amusements. The mechanic goes to the play and to the +music-hall, and occasionally takes his 'old girl,' as he calls his +wife, and even 'a kid' or two, to the Crystal Palace. But those I have +in my mind have no such relaxation from compulsory duty and importunate +care. 'I know it's very foolish, but I feel it sometimes to be a +pinch,' says one of these ill-fated ones, 'to see them all [the +daughters of her employer] going to the play, or the opera, while I am +expected to be satisfied with a private view of their pretty dresses.' +No doubt it is the sense of comparison (especially with the female) +that sharpens the sting of poverty. It is not, however, through envy +that the 'prosperity of fools destroys us,' so much as the knowledge of +its unnecessariness and waste. When a mother has a sick child who needs +sea air, which she cannot afford to give it, the consciousness that her +neighbour's family (the head of which perhaps is a most successful +financier and market-rigger) are going to the Isle of Wight for three +months, though there is nothing at all the matter with them, is an +added bitterness. How often it is said (no doubt with some +well-intentioned idea of consolation) that after all money cannot buy +life! I remember a curious instance to the contrary of this. In the old +days of sailing-packets a country gentleman embarked for Ireland, and +when a few miles from land broke a bloodvessel through seasickness. A +doctor on board pronounced that he would certainly die before the +completion of the voyage if it was continued; whereupon the sick man's +friends consulted with the captain, who convoked the passengers, and +persuaded them to accept compensation in proportion to their needs for +allowing the vessel to be put back; which was accordingly done. + +One of the most popular fictions of our time was even written with this +very moral, that life is unpurchasable. Yet nothing is more certain +than that life is often lost through want of money—that is, of the +obvious means to save it. In such a case how truly has it been written +that 'the destruction of the poor is their poverty'! This, however, is +scarcely a pinch, but, to those who have hearts to feel it, a wrench +that 'divides asunder the joints and the marrow.' + +A nobler example, because a less personal one, of the pinch of poverty, +is when it prevents the accomplishment of some cherished scheme for the +benefit of the human race. I have felt such a one myself when in +extreme youth I was unable, from a miserable absence of means, to +publish a certain poem in several cantos. That the world may not have +been much better for it if I had had the means does not affect the +question. It is easy to be incredulous. Henry VII. of England did not +believe in the expectations of Columbus, and suffered for it, and his +case may have been similar to that of the seven publishers to whom I +applied in vain. + +A man with an invention on which he has spent his life, but has no +means to get it developed for the good of humanity—or even patented for +himself—must feel the pinch of poverty very acutely. + +To sum up the matter, the longer I live, the more I am convinced that +the general view in respect to material means is a false one. That +great riches are a misfortune is quite true; the effect of them in the +moral sense (with here and there a glorious exception, however) is +deplorable: a shower of gold falling continuously upon any body (or +soul) is as the waters of a petrifying spring. But, on the other hand, +the occasional and precarious dripping of coppers has by no means a +genial effect. If the one recipient becomes hard as the nether +millstone, the other (just as after constant 'pinching' a limb becomes +insensible) grows callous, and also (though it seems like a +contradiction in terms) sometimes acquires a certain dreadful +suppleness. Nothing is more monstrous than the generally received +opinion with respect to a moderate competence; that 'fatal gift,' as it +is called, which encourages idleness in youth by doing away with the +necessity for exertion. I never hear the same people inveighing against +great inheritances, which are much more open to such objections. The +fact is, if a young man is naturally indolent, the spur of necessity +will drive him but a very little way, while the having enough to live +upon is often the means of preserving his self-respect. One constantly +hears what humiliating things men will do for money, whereas the truth +is that they do them for the want of it. It is not the temptation which +induces them, but the pinch. 'Give me neither poverty nor riches,' was +Agur's prayer; 'feed me with food convenient for me, lest I be full and +deny Thee, and say, Who is the Lord? or lest I be poor and steal.' And +there are many things—flatteries, disgraceful humiliations, +hypocrisies—which are almost as bad as stealing. One of the sharpest +pinches of poverty to some minds must be their inability (because of +their dependency on him and that of others upon them) to tell a man +what they think of him. + +Riches and poverty are of course but relative terms; but the happiest +material position in which a man can be placed is that of 'means with a +margin.' Then, however small his income may be, however it may behove +him to 'cut and contrive,' as the housekeepers call it, he does not +feel the pinch of poverty. I have known a rich man say to an +acquaintance of this class, 'My good friend, if you only knew how very +small are the pleasures my money gives me which you yourself cannot +purchase!' And for once it was not one of those cheap and empty +consolations which the wealthy are so ready to bestow upon their less +fortunate fellow-creatures. Dives was, in that instance, quite right in +his remark; only we must remember he was not speaking to Lazarus. 'A +dinner of herbs where love is,' is doubtless quite sufficient for us; +only there must be enough of it, and the herbs should be nicely cooked +in an omelette. + +[Illustration] + + + + +THE LITERARY CALLING AND ITS FUTURE. + + +One would think that in writing about literary men and matters there +would be no difficulty in finding a title for one's essay, or that any +embarrassment which might arise would be from excess of material. I +find this, however, far from being the case. 'Men of Letters,' for +example, is a heading too classical and pretentious. I do indeed +remember its being used in these modern days by the sub-editor of a +country paper, who, having quarrelled with his proprietor, and reduced +him to silence by a violent kick in the abdomen, thus addressed him: 'I +leave you and your dirty work for ever, and start to-night for London, +to take up my proper position as a Man of Letters.' But this +gentleman's case (and I hope that of his proprietor) was an exceptional +one. The term in general is too ambitious and suggestive of the author +of 'Cato,' for my humble purpose. 'Literature as a Profession,' again, +is open to objection on the question of fact. The professions do not +admit literature into their brotherhood. 'Literature, Science, and Art' +are all spoken of in the lump, and rather contemptuously (like +'reading, writing, and arithmetic'), and have no settled position +whatever. In a book of precedence, however—a charming class of work, +and much more full of humour than the peerage—I recently found +indicated for the first time the relative place of Literature in the +social scale. After a long list of Eminent Personages and Notables, the +mere perusal of which was calculated to bring the flush of pride into +my British cheek, I found at the very bottom these remarkable words, +'Burgesses, Literary Persons, and others.' Lest haughtiness should +still have any place in the breasts of these penultimates of the human +race, the order was repeated in the same delightful volume in still +plainer fashion, 'Burgesses, Literary Persons, etc.' It is something, +of course, to take precedence—in going down to dinner, for example—even +of an et cetera; but who are Burgesses? I have a dreadful suspicion +they are not gentlemen. Are they ladies? Did I ever meet a Burgess, I +wonder, coming through the rye? At all events, after so authoritative a +statement of its social position, I feel that to speak of Literature as +a profession would be an hyperbole. + +On the other hand, 'The Literary Calling' is not a title that satisfies +me. For the word 'calling' implies a certain fitness; in the religious +sense it has even more significance; and it cannot be denied that there +are a good many persons who devote—well, at least, their time to +literature, who can hardly be said to have 'a call' in that direction, +nor even so much as a whisper. At the same time I will venture to +observe, notwithstanding a great deal of high-sounding twaddle talked +and written to the contrary, that it is not necessary for a man to feel +any miraculous or even extraordinary attraction to this pursuit to +succeed in it very tolerably. I remember a now distinguished personage +(in another line) who had written a very successful work, expressing +his opinion to me that unless a certain divine afflatus animated a man, +he should never take up his pen to address the public. The writing for +pay, he added (he had at least £5,000 a year of his own), was the +degradation of literature. As I had written about a dozen books myself +at the time, and most decidedly with an eye to profit, and had never +experienced much afflatus, this remark discouraged me very much. +However, as the gentleman in question did essay another volume, which +was so absolute and distinct a failure that he promptly took up another +line of business (far above that of Burgesses), it is probable he +altered his views. + +Nature of course is the best guide in the matter of choosing a pursuit. +When she says 'This is your line, stick to it,' she seldom or never +makes a mistake. But, on the other hand, her speech must be addressed +to mature ears. For my part, I do not much believe in the predilections +of boyhood. I was never so simple as to wish to go to sea, but I do +remember (when between seven and eight) having a passionate longing to +become a merchant. I had no notion, however, of the preliminary stages; +the high stool in the close street; luncheon at a counter, standing (I +liked to have my meals good, plentiful, often, and in comfort, even +then); and imprisonment at the office on the eves of mail nights till +the large hours p.m. Even the full fruition of such aspirations—the +large waistcoat beginning to 'point,' (as it soon does in merchants), +heavy watchchain, and cheerful conviction of the coming scarcity of +necessaries for everybody else, would have failed to please. The sort +of merchant I wanted to be was never found in 'Post Office Directory,' +but in the 'Arabian Nights,' trading to Bussorah, chiefly in pearls and +diamonds. When the Paterfamiliases of my acquaintance instance certain +stenches and messes which their Toms and Harrys make with chemicals all +over their house, as a proof of 'their natural turn for engineering,' I +say, 'Very likely,' or 'A capital thing,' but I _think_ of that early +attraction of my own towards Bussorah. The young gentlemen never dream +of what I once heard described, in brief, as the real business life of +a scientific apprentice: 'To lie on your back with a candle in your +hand, while another fellow knocks nails into a boiler.' + +Boys have rarely any special aptitude for anything practical beyond +punching each others' heads, or (and these are the clever ones) for +keeping their own heads unpunched. As a rule, in short, Nature is not +demonstrative as respects our professional future. + +It must nevertheless be conceded that if the boy is ever father to the +man in this respect, it is in connection with literature. Also, however +prosaic their works are fated to be, it is curious that the aspirants +for the profession below Burgesses always begin with Poetry. Even +Harriet Martineau wrote verses in early life bad enough to comfort the +soul of any respectable parent. The approach to the Temple of Literary +Fame is almost always through double gates—couplets. And yet I have +known youthful poets, apparently bound for Paternoster Row, bolt off +the course in a year or two, to the delight of their friends, and +become, of their own free will, drysalters. + +There is so much talk about the 'indications of immortality in early +childhood' (of a very different kind from those referred to by +Wordsworth), and it is so much the habit of biographers to use +magnifiers when their subject is small, that it needs some courage to +avow my belief that the tastes of boys have very little significance. A +clever boy can be trained to almost anything, and an ordinary boy will +not do one thing much better than another. With the Geniuses I will +allow (for the sake of peace and quietness) that Nature is +all-powerful, but with nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand +of us, Second Nature, Use, is the true mistress; and what will +doubtless strike some people as almost paradoxical, but is nevertheless +a fact, Literature is the calling in which she has the greatest sway. + +It is the fashion with that enormous class of people who don't know +what they are talking about, and who take up cuckoo-cries, to speak +contemptuously of modern literature, by which they mean (for they are +acquainted with little else) periodical literature. However small may +be its merits, it is at all events ten times as good as ancient +periodical literature used to be. A very much better authority than +myself on such a subject has lately informed us that the majority of +the old essays in the _Edinburgh Review_, at the very time when it was +supposed to be most 'trenchant,' 'masterly,' 'exhaustive,' and a number +of other splendid epithets, are so dull and weak and ignorant, that it +is impossible that they or their congeners would now find acceptance in +any periodical of repute. And with regard to all other classes of old +magazine literature, this verdict is certainly most just. + +Let us take what most people suppose to be 'the extreme case,' Magazine +Poetry. Of course there is to-day a great deal of rant and twaddle +published under the name of verse in magazines; yet I could point to +scores and scores of poems that have thus appeared during the last ten +years,[5] which half a century ago would have made—and deservedly have +made—a high reputation for their authors. Such phrases as 'universal +necessity for practical exertion,' 'prosaic character of the age,' +etc., are, of course, common enough; but those who are acquainted with +such matters will, I am sure, corroborate my assertion that there was +never so much good poetry in our general literature as exists at +present. Persons of intelligence do not look for such things perhaps, +and certainly not in magazines, while persons of 'culture' are too much +occupied with old china and high art; but to humble folks, who take an +interest in their fellow-creatures, it is very pleasant to observe what +high thoughts, and how poetically expressed, are now to be found about +our feet, and, as it were, in the literary gutter. I don't compare +these writers with Byrons and Shelleys; I don't speak of them as born +poets at all. On the contrary, my argument is that second nature +(cultivation, opportunities of publication, etc.) has made them what +they are; and it is immensely creditable to her. + +And what holds good of verse holds infinitely better in respect to +prose. The enormous improvement in our prose writers (I am not speaking +of geniuses, remember, but of the generality), and their great +superiority over writers of the same class half a century ago, is +mainly due to use. Sir Walter Scott, who, like most men of genuine +power, had great generosity, once observed to a brother author, 'You +and I came just in the nick of time.' He foresaw the formidable +competition that was about to take place, though he had no cause to +fear it. I think in these days he would have had cause; not that I +disbelieve in his genius, but that I venture to think he diffused it +over too large an area. In such cases genius is overpassed by the +talent which husbands its resources; in other words, Nature succumbs to +second nature, as the wife in the patriarchal days (when _she_ grew +patriarchal) succumbed to the handmaid. And after all, though we talk +so glibly about genius, and profess to feel, though we cannot express, +in what it differs from talent, are we quite so sure about this as we +would fain persuade ourselves? At all events, it cannot surely be +contended that a man of genius always writes like one; and when he does +not, his work is often inferior to the first-rate production of a man +of talent. For my own part, I am not sure whether (with the exception, +perhaps, of the highest gifts of song) the whole distinction is not +fanciful. + +We are ready enough in ordinary matters to allow that 'practice makes +perfect,' and the limit of that principle is yet to be found. Moreover, +the vast importance of exclusive application is almost unknown. We see +it, indeed, in men of science and in lawyers, but without recognition; +nay, socially, it is even quoted against them. The mathematician may be +very eminent, but we find him dry; the lawyer may be at the head of his +profession, but we find him dull; and it is observed on all sides how +very little great A and great B, notwithstanding the high position they +have earned for themselves in their calling, know of matters out of +their own line. On the other hand, the man of whom it was said that +'science was his forte and omniscience his foible,' has left no +enduring monument behind him; and so it must always be with mortals who +have only fifty years of thought allotted to them at the very most, and +who diffuse it. Everyone admits the value of application, but very few +are aware how its force is wasted by diffusion: it is like a volatile +essence in a bottle without a cork. When, on the other hand, it is +concentrated—you may call it 'narrowed' if you please—there is hardly +anything within its own sphere of action of which it is not capable. So +many high motives (though also some mean ones) prompt us to make broad +the bases of education, that any proposal to contract them must needs +be thankless and unpopular; but it is certain that, among the upper +classes at least, the reason why so many men are unable to make their +way in the world, is because, thanks to a too liberal education, they +are Jacks of all trades and masters of none; and even as Jacks they cut +a very poor figure. + +How large and varied is the educational bill of fare set before every +young gentleman in Great Britain; and to judge by the mental stamina it +affords him in most cases, what a waste of good food it is! The dishes +are so numerous and so quickly changed, that he has no time to decide +on which he likes best. Like an industrious flea, rather than a bee, he +hops from flower to flower in the educational garden, without one +penny-worth of honey to show for it. And then—though I feel how +degrading it is to allude to so vulgar a matter—how high is the price +of admission to the feast in question! Its purveyors do not pretend to +have filled his stomach, but only to have put him in the way of filling +it for himself, whereas, unhappily, Paterfamilias discovers that that +is the very thing that they have not done. His young Hopeful at +twenty-one is almost as unable to run alone as when he first entered +the nursery. To discourse airily upon the beauties of classical +education, and on the social advantages of acquiring 'the tone' at a +public school at whatever cost, is an agreeable exercise of the +intelligence; but such arguments have been taken too seriously, and the +result is that our young gentlemen are incapable of gaining their own +living. It is not only that 'all the gates are thronged with suitors, +all the markets overflow,' but even when the candidates are so +fortunate as to attain admittance, they are still a burden upon their +fathers for years, from having had no especial preparation for the work +they have to do. Folks who can afford to spend £250 a year on their +sons at Eton or Harrow, and to add another fifty or two for their +support at the universities, do not feel this; but those who have done +it without affording it—_i.e._, by cutting and contriving, if not by +pinching and saving—feel their position very bitterly. There are +hundreds of clever young men who are now living at home and doing +nothing—or work that pays nothing, and even costs something for doing +it—who might be earning very tolerable incomes by their pen if they +only knew how, and had not wasted their young wits on Greek plays and +Latin verses; nor do I find that the attractions of such objects of +study are permanent, or afford the least solace to these young +gentlemen in their enforced leisure. + +The idea of bringing young people up to Literature is doubtless +calculated to raise the eyebrows almost as much as the suggestion of +bringing them up to the Stage. The notions of Paterfamilias in this +respect are very much what they were fifty years ago. 'What! put my boy +in Grub Street? I would rather see him in his coffin.' In his mind's +eye he beholds Savage on his bunk and Chatterton on his deathbed. He +does not know that there are many hundreds of persons of both sexes who +have found out this vocation for themselves, and are diligently +pursuing it—under circumstances of quite unnecessary difficulty—to +their material advantage. He is unaware that the conditions of +literature in England have been as completely changed within a single +generation as those of locomotion. + +There are, it is true, at present no great prizes in literature such as +are offered by the learned professions, but there are quite as many +small ones—competences; while, on the other hand, it is not so much of +a lottery. It is not necessary to marry an attorney's daughter, or a +bishop's, to get on in it. The calling, as it is termed (I know not +why, for it is often heavy enough), of 'light literature' is in such +contempt, through ignorance on the one hand, and arrogance on the +other, that one is almost afraid in such a connection to speak of +merit; yet merit, or, at all events, aptitude with diligence, is +certain of success in it. A great deal has been said about editors +being blind to the worth of unknown authors; but if so, they must be +also blind (and this I have never heard said of them) to their own +interests. It would be just as reasonable to accuse a recruiting +sergeant of passing by the stout six-feet fellows who wish to enlist +with him, and for each of whom—directly or indirectly—he receives +head-money. It is possible, of course, that one particular sergeant may +be drunken, or careless of his own interests, but in that case the +literary recruit has only to apply next door. The opportunities for +action in the field of literature are now so very numerous that it is +impossible that any able volunteer should be long shut out of it; and I +have observed that the complaints about want of employment come almost +solely from those unfit for service. Nay, in the ranks of the +literaryarmy there are very many who should have been excluded. Few, if +any, are there through favour; but the fact is, the work to be done is +so extensive and so varied, that there is not a sufficiency of good +candidates to do it. And of what is called 'skilled labour' among them +there is scarcely any. + +The question 'What can you do?' put by an editor to an aspirant, +generally astonishes him very much. The aspirant is ready to do +anything, he says, which the other will please to suggest. 'But what is +your line in literature? What can you do best—not tragedies in blank +verse, I hope?' Perhaps the aspirant here hangs his head; he _has_ +written tragedies. In which case there is good hope for him, because it +shows a natural bent. But he generally replies that he has written +nothing as yet except that essay on the genius of Cicero (at which the +editor has already shaken his head), and that defence of Mary Queen of +Scots. Or perhaps he has written some translations of Horace, which he +is surprised to find not a novelty; or some considerations upon the +value of a feudal system. At four-and-twenty, in short, he is but an +overgrown schoolboy. He has been taught, indeed, to acquire knowledge +of a certain sort, but not the habit of acquiring; he has been taught +to observe nothing; he is ignorant upon all the subjects that interest +his fellow-creatures, and in his new ambition is like one who +endeavours to attract an audience without having anything to tell them. +He knows some Latin, a little Greek, a very little French, and a very +very little of what are called the English classics. He has read a few +recent novels perhaps, but of modern English literature, and of that +(to him at least) most important branch of it, English journalism, he +knows nothing. His views and opinions are those of a public school, +which are by no means in accordance with those of the great world of +readers; or he is full of the class prejudices imbibed at college. In +short, he may be as vigorous as a Zulu, with the materials of a +first-rate soldier in him, but his arms are only a club and an assegai, +and are of no service. Why should he not be fitted out in early life +with literary weapons of precision, and taught the use of them? + +I say, again, that poor Paterfamilias looking hopelessly about him, +like Quintus Curtius in the riddle, for 'a nice opening for a young +man,' is totally ignorant of the opportunities, if not for fame and +fortune, at least for competency and comfort, that Literature now +offers to a clever lad. He looks round him; he sees the Church leading +nowhere, with much greater certainty of expense than income, and +demanding a huge sum for what is irreverently termed 'gate money;' he +sees the Bar, with its high road leading indeed to the woolsack, but +with a hundred by-ways leading nowhere in particular, and full of +turnpikes—legal tutors, legal fees, rents of chambers, etc.—which he +has to defray; he sees Physic, at which Materfamilias sniffs and turns +her nose up. 'Her Jack, with such agreeable manners, to become a +saw-bones! Never!' He sees the army, and thinks, since Jack has such +great abilities, it seems a pity to give him a red coat, which costs +also considerably more than a black one; And how is Jack to live upon +his pay? + +After all, indeed, however prettily one puts it, the question is with +him, not so much '_What_ is my Jack to be?' as '_How_ is my Jack to +live?' To one who has any gift of humour there are few things more +amusing than to observe how this vulgar, but really rather important +inquiry, is ignored by those who take the subject of modern education +in hand. They are chiefly schoolmasters, who are not so deep in their +books but that they can spare a glance or two in the direction of their +banker's account; or fellows of colleges who have no children, and +therefore never feel the difficulties of supporting them. Heaven forbid +that so humble an individual as myself should question their wisdom, or +say anything about them that should seem to smack of irreverence; but I +do believe that (with one or two exceptions I have in my mind) the +system they have introduced among us is the Greatest Humbug in the +universe. In the meantime poor Paterfamilias (who is the last man, they +flatter themselves, to find this out) stands with his hands (and very +little else) in his pockets, regarding his clever offspring, and +wondering what he shall do with him. He remembers to have read about a +man on his deathbed, who calls his children about him and thanks God, +though he has left them nothing to live upon, he has given them a good +education, and tries to extract comfort from the reminiscence. That he +has spent money enough upon Jack's education is certain; something +between two or three thousand pounds in all at least, the interest of +which, it strikes him, would be very convenient just now to keep him. +But unfortunately the principal is gone and Jack isn't. + +Now suppose—for one may suppose anything, however ridiculous—he had +spent two or three hundred pounds at the very most, and brought him up +to the Calling of Literature. He believes, perhaps, that it is only +geniuses that succeed in it (in which case I know more geniuses than I +had any idea of), and he doesn't think Jack a genius, though Jack's +mother does. Or, as is more probable, he regards it as a hand-to-mouth +calling, which to-day gives its disciples a five-pound note, and +to-morrow five pence. He calls to mind a saying about Literature being +a good stick, but not a good crutch—an excellent auxiliary, but no +permanent support; but he forgets the all-important fact that the +remark was made half a century ago. + +Poor blind Paterfamilias—shall I couch you? If the operation is +successful, I am sure you will thank me for it; but, on the other hand, +I foresee I shall incur the greatest enmities. Should I encourage +clever Jack, and, what is worse, a thousand Jacks who are not clever, +to enter upon this vocation, what will editors say to me? I shall have +to go about, perhaps, guarded with two policemen with revolvers, like +an Irish gentleman on his landed estate. 'Is not the flood of rubbish +to which we are already subjected,' I hear them crying, 'bad enough, +without your pulling up the sluices of universal stupidity?' My +suggestion, however, is intended to benefit them by clearing away the +rubbish, and inducing a clearer and deeper stream for the turning of +their mills. At the same time I confess that the lessening of +Paterfamilias's difficulties is my main object. What I would open his +eyes to is the fact that a calling, of the advantages of which he has +no knowledge, _does_ present itself to clever Jack, which will cost him +nothing but pens, ink, and paper to enter upon, and in which, if he has +been well trained for it, he will surely be successful, since so many +succeed in it without any training at all. Why should not clever Jack +have this in view as much as the _ignes fatui_ of woolsacks and mitres? +If it has no lord chancellorships, it has plenty of county court +appointments; if it has no bishoprics, it has plenty of benefices—and +really, as times go, some pretty fat ones. + +On your breakfast-table, good Paterfamilias, there lies, every morning, +a newspaper, and on Saturday perhaps there are two or three. When you +go out in the street, you are pestered to buy half a score more of +them. In your club reading-room there are a hundred different journals. +When you travel by the railway you see at every station a provincial +newspaper of more or less extensive circulation. Has it never struck +you that to supply these publications with their leading articles, +there must be an immense staff of persons called journalists, +professing every description of opinion, and advocating every +conceivable policy? And do you suppose these gentry only get £70 a year +for their work, like a curate; or £60, like a sub-lieutenant; or that +they have to pay three times those sums for the privilege of belonging +to the press, as a barrister does for belonging to his inn? Again, in +London at least, there are as many magazines as newspapers, containing +every kind of literature, the very contributors of which are so +numerous, that they form a public of themselves. That seems at the +first blush to militate against my suggestion, but though contributors +are so common, and upon the whole so good—indeed, considering the +conditions under which they labour, so wonderfully good—they are not (I +have heard editors say) so good as they might be, supposing (for +example) they knew a little of science, history, politics, English +literature, and especially of the art of composition, before they +volunteered their services. At present the ranks of journalistic and +periodical literature are largely recruited from the failures in other +professions. The bright young barrister who can't get a brief takes to +literature as a calling, just as the man who has 'gone a cropper' in +the army takes to the wine-trade. And what æons of time, and what +millions of money, have been wasted in the meanwhile! + +The announcement written on the gates of all the recognised professions +in England is the same that would-be travellers read on the faces of +the passengers on the underground railway after office hours: 'Our +number is complete, and our room is limited.' In literature, on the +contrary, though its vehicles may seem as tightly packed, substitution +can be effected. There may be persons travelling on that line in the +first-class who ought to be in the third, and indeed have no reasonable +pretext for being there at all. And if clever Jack could show his +ticket, he would turn them out of it. + +Again, so far from the space being limited, it is continually +enlarging, and that out of all proportion to those who have tickets. We +hear from its enemies that the Church is doomed, and from its friends +that it is in danger; there is a small but energetic party who are bent +on reducing the Army, and even on doing away with it; nay, so wicked +and presumptuous has human nature grown, that mutterings are heard and +menaces uttered against the delay and exactions of the Law itself; +whereas Literature has no foes, and is enlarging its boundaries in all +directions. It is all 'a-growing and a-blowing,' as the peripatetic +gardeners say of their plants; but, unlike their wares, it has its +roots deep in the soil and is an evergreen. Its promise is golden, and +its prospects are boundless for every class of writer. + +In some excellent articles on Modern Literature in _Blackwood's +Magazine_ the other day, this subject was touched upon with respect to +fiction, and might well have filled a greater space, for the growth of +that description of literature of late years is simply marvellous. +Curiously enough, though France originated the _feuilleton_, it was +from America and our own colonies that England seems to have taken the +idea of publishing novels in newspapers. It was a common practice in +Australia long before we adopted it; and, what is also curious, it was +first acclimatised among us by our provincial papers. The custom is +rapidly gaining ground in London, but in the country there is now +scarcely any newspaper of repute which does not enlist the aid of +fiction to attract its readers. Many of them are contented with very +poor stuff, for which they pay a proportional price; but others club +together with other newspapers—the operation has even received the +technical term of 'forming a syndicate'—and are thereby enabled to +secure the services of popular authors; while the newspapers thus +arranged for are published at a good distance from one another, so as +not to interfere with each other's circulation. Country journals, which +are not so ambitious, instead of using an inferior article, will often +purchase the 'serial right,' as it is called, of stories which have +already appeared elsewhere, or have passed through the circulating +libraries. Nay, the novelist who has established a reputation has many +more strings to his bow: his novel, thus published in the country +newspapers, also appears coincidently in the same serial shape in +Australia, Canada, and other British colonies, leaving the three-volume +form and the cheap editions 'to the good.' And what is true of fiction +is in a less degree true of other kinds of literature. Travels are +'gutted,' and form articles in magazines, illustrated by the original +plates; lectures, after having served their primary purpose, are +published in a similar manner; even scientific works now appear first +in the magazines which are devoted to science before performing their +mission of 'popularising' their subject. + +When speaking of the growth of readers, I have purposely not mentioned +America. For the present the absence of copyright there is destroying +both author and publisher; but the wheels of justice, though tardy, are +making way there. In a few years that great continent of readers will +be legitimately added to the audience of the English author, and those +that have stolen will steal no more. + +Nor, in our own country, must we fail to take notice of the +establishment of School Boards. A generation hence we shall have a +reading public almost as numerous as in America; even the very lowest +classes will have acquired a certain culture which will beget demands +both for journalists and 'literary persons.' The harvest will be +plenteous indeed, but unless my advice be followed in some shape or +another, the labourers will be comparatively few and superlatively +inadequate. + +I am well aware how mischievous, as well as troublesome, would be the +encouragement of mediocrity; and in stating these promising facts I +have no such purpose in my mind. On the contrary, there is an immense +amount of mediocrity already in literature, which I think my +proposition of training up 'clever Jack' to that calling would +discourage. I have no expectation of establishing a manufactory for +genius—and indeed, for reasons it is not necessary to specify, I would +not do it if I could. But whereas all kinds of 'culture' have been +recommended to the youth of Great Britain (and certainly with no limit +as to the expense of acquisition), the cultivation of such natural +faculties as imagination and humour (for example) has never been +suggested. The possibility of such a thing will doubtless be denied. I +am quite certain, however, that they are capable of great development, +and that they may be brought to attain, if not perfection, at all +events a high degree of excellence. The proof, to those who choose to +look for it, is plain enough even as matters stand. Use and opportunity +are already producing scores of examples of it; if supplemented by +early education they might surely produce still more. + +There is so great and general a prejudice against special studies, that +I must humbly conclude there is something in it. On the other hand, I +know a large number of highly—that is broadly—educated persons, who are +desperately dull. 'But would they have been less dull,' it may be +asked, 'if they were also ignorant?' Yes, I believe they would. They +have swallowed too much for digestions naturally weak; they have become +inert, conceited, oppressive to themselves and others—Prigs. And I +think that even clever young people suffer in a less degree from the +same cause. Some one has written, 'Information is always useful.' This +reminds me of the married lady, fond of bargains, who once bought a +door-plate at a sale with 'Mr. Wilkins' on it. Her own name was Jones, +but the doorplate was very cheap, and her husband, she argued, _might_ +die, and then she might marry a man of the name of Wilkins. 'Depend +upon it, everything comes in useful,' she said, 'if you only keep it +long enough.' + +This is what I venture to doubt. I have myself purchased several +door-plates (quite as burthensome, but not so cheap as that good +lady's), which have been of no sort of use to me, and are still on +hand. + + [5] I take up a half-yearly volume of a magazine (price 1½d. weekly) + addressed to the middle classes, and find in it, at haphazard, the + five following pieces, the authors of which are anonymous: + +AGATHA. + +'From under the shade of her simple straw hat +She smiles at you, only a little shamefaced: +Her gold-tinted hair m a long-braided plait +Reaches on either side down to her waist. +Her rosy complexion, a soft pink and white, +Except where the white has been warmed by the sun, +Is glowing with health and an eager delight, +As she pauses to speak to you after her run. + +'See with what freedom, what beautiful ease, +She leaps over hollows and mounds in berrace; +Hear how she joyously laughs when the breeze +Tosses her hat off, and blows in her face! +It's only a play-gown of homeliest cotton +She wears, that her finer silk dress may be saved; +And happily, too, she has wholly forgotten +The nurse and her charge to be better behaved. + +'Must a time come when this child's way of caring +For only the present enjoyment shall pass; +When she'll learn to take thought of the dress that she's wearing, +And grow rather fond of consulting the glass? +Well, never mind; nothing really can change her; +Fair childhood will grow to as fair maidenhood; +Her unselfish, sweet nature is safe from all danger; +I know she will always be charming and good. + +'For when she takes care of a still younger brother, +You see her stop short in the midst of her mirth, +Gravely and tenderly playing the mother: +Can there be anything fairer on earth? +So proud of her charge she appears, so delighted; +Of all her perfections (indeed, they're a host), +This loving attention to others, united +With naive self-unconsciousness, charms me the most. + +'What hearts that unthinkingly under short jackets +Are beating to-day in a wonderful wise +About racing, or jumping, or cricket, or rackets, +One day will beat at a smile from those eyes! +Ah, how I envy the one that shall win her, +And see that sweet smile no ill-humour shall damp, +Shining across the spread table at dinner, +Or cheerfully bright in the light of the lamp. + +'Ah, little fairy! a very short while, +Just once or twice, in a brief country stay, +I saw you; but when will your innocent smile +That I keep in my mem'ry have faded away? +For when, in the midst of my trouble and doubt, +I remember your face with its laughter and light, +It's as if on a sudden the sun had shone out, +And scattered the shadow, and made the world bright.' + +CHARTREUSE. + +(_Liqueur_.) + +'Who could refuse +Green-eyed Chartieuse? +Liquor for heretics, +Turks, Christians, or Jews +For beggar or queen, +For monk or for dean; + +Ripened and mellow +(The _green_, not the yellow), +Give it its dues, +Gay little fellow, +Dressed up in green! +I love thee too well, O +Laughing Chartreuse! + +'O the delicate hues +That thrill through the green! +Colours which Greuze +Would die to have seen! +With thee would De Musset +Sweeten his muse; +Use, not abuse, +Bright little fellow! +(The green, _not_ the yellow.) +O the taste and the smell! O +Never refuse +A kiss on the lips from +Jealous Chartreuse!' + +THE LIFE-LEDGER. + +'Our sufferings we reckon o'er +With skill minute and formal; +The cheerful ease that fills the score +We treat as merely normal. +Our list of ills, how full, how great! +We mourn our lot should fall so; +I wonder, do we calculate +Our happinesses also? + +'Were it not best to keep account +Of all days, if of any? +Perhaps the dark ones might amount +To not so very many. +Men's looks are nigh as often gay +As sad, or even solemn: +Behold, my entry for to-day +Is in the "happy" column.' + +OCTOBER. + +'The year grows old; summer's wild crown of roses +Has fallen and faded in the woodland ways; +On all the earth a tranquil light reposes, +Through the still dreamy days. + +'The dew lies heavy in the early morn, +On grass and mosses sparkling crystal-fair; +And shining threads of gossamer are borne +Floating upon the air, + +'Across the leaf-strewn lanes, from bough to bough +Like tissue woven in a fairy loom; +And crimson-berried bryony garlands glow +Through the leaf-tangled gloom. + +'The woods are still, but for the sudden fall +Of cupless acorns dropping to the ground, +Or rabbit plunging through the fern-stems tall, +Half-startled by the sound. + +'And from the garden lawn comes, soft and clear, +The robin's warble from the leafless spray, +The low sweet Angelus of the dying year, +Passing in light away.' + +PROSPERITY. + +'I doubt if the maxims the Stoic adduces +Be true in the main, when they state +That our nature's improved by adversity's uses, +And spoilt by a happier fate. + +'The heart that is tried by misfortune and pain, +Self-reliance and patience may learn; +Yet worn by long waiting and wishing in vain, +It often grows callous and stern. + +'But the heart that is softened by ease and contentment, +Feels warmly and kindly t'wards all; +And its charity, roused by no moody resentment, +Embraces alike great and small. + +'So, although in the season of rain-storms and showers, +The tree may strike deeper its roots, +It needs the warm brightness of sunshiny hours +To ripen the blossoms and fruits.' + +Observe, not only the genuine merit of these five pieces, but the +variety in the tones of thought: then compare them with similar +productions of the days, say, of the once famous L.E.L. + + + + +STORY-TELLING. + + +The most popular of English authors has given us an account of what +within his experience (and it was a large one) was the impression among +the public at large of the manner in which his work was done. They +pictured him, he says, + +as a radiant personage whose whole time is devoted to idleness and +pastime; who keeps a prolific mind in a sort of corn-sieve and lightly +shakes a bushel of it out sometimes in an odd half-hour after +breakfast. It would amaze their incredulity beyond all measure to" be +told that such elements as patience, study, punctuality, determination, +self-denial, training of mind and body, hours of application and +seclusion to produce what they read in seconds, enter in such a career +… correction and recorrection in the blotted manuscript; consideration; +new observations; the patient massing of many reflections, experiences, +and imaginings for one minute purpose; and the patient separation from +the heap of all the fragments that will unite to serve it—these would +be unicorns and griffins to them—fables altogether. + +And as it was, a quarter of a century ago, when those words were +written, so it is now: the phrase of 'light literature' as applied to +fiction having once been invented, has stuck, with a vengeance, to +those who profess it. + +Yet to 'make the thing that is not as the thing that is' is not (though +it may seem to be the same thing) so easy as lying. + +Among a host of letters received in connection with an article +published in the _Nineteenth Century_, entitled 'The Literary Calling +and its Future,' and which testify in a remarkable manner to the +pressing need (therein alluded to) of some remunerative vocation among +the so-called educated classes, there are many which are obviously +written under the impression that Dogberry's view of writing coming 'by +nature' is especially true of the writing of fiction. Because I +ventured to hint that the study of Greek was not essential to the +calling of a story-teller, or of a contributor to the periodicals, or +even of a journalist, these gentlemen seem to jump to the conclusion +that the less they know of anything the better. Nay, some of them, +discarding all theories (in the fashion that Mr. Carlyle's heroes are +wont to discard all formulas), proceed to the practical with quite an +indecent rapidity; they treat my modest hints for their instruction as +so much verbiage, and myself as a mere convenient channel for the +publication of their lucubrations. 'You talk of a genuine literary +talent being always appreciated by editors,' they write (if not in so +many words by implication); 'well, here is an admirable specimen of it +(enclosed), and if your remarks are worth a farthing you will get it +published for us, somewhere or another, _instanter_, and hand us over +the cheque for it. Nor are even these the most unreasonable of my +correspondents; for a few, with many acknowledgments for my kindness in +having provided a lucrative profession for them, announce their +intention of throwing up their present less congenial callings, and +coming up to London (one very literally from the Land's End) to live +upon it, or, that failing (as there is considerable reason to expect it +will), upon _me_. + +With some of these correspondents, however, it is impossible +(independent of their needs) not to feel an earnest sympathy; they have +evidently not only aspirations, but considerable mental gifts, though +these have unhappily been cultivated to such little purpose for the +object they have in view that they might almost as well have been left +untilled. In spite of what I ventured to urge respecting the advantage +of knowing 'science, history, politics, English literature, and the art +of composition,' they 'don't see why' they shouldn't get on without +them. Especially with those who aspire to write fiction (which, by its +intrinsic attractiveness no less than by the promise it affords of +golden grain, tempts the majority), it is quite pitiful to note how +they cling to that notion of 'the corn-sieve,' and cannot be persuaded +that story-telling requires an apprenticeship like any other calling. +They flatter themselves that they can weave plots as the spider spins +his thread from (what let us delicately term) his inner consciousness, +and fondly hope that intuition will supply the place of experience. +Some of them, with a simplicity that recalls the days of Dick +Whittington, think that 'coming up to London' is the essential step to +this line of business, as though the provinces contained no +fellow-creatures worthy to be depicted by their pen, or as though, in +the metropolis, Society would at once exhibit itself to them without +concealment, as fashionable beauties bare themselves to the +photographers. + +This is, of course, the laughable side of the affair, but, to me at +least, it has also a serious one; for, to my considerable embarrassment +and distress, I find that my well-meaning attempt to point out the +advantages of literature as a profession has received a much too free +translation, and implanted in many minds hopes that are not only +sanguine but Utopian. + +For what was written in the essay alluded to I have nothing to reproach +myself with, for I told no more than the truth. Nor does the +unsettlement of certain young gentleman's futures (since by their own +showing they were to the last degree unstable to begin with) affect me +so much as their parents and guardians appear to expect; but I am sorry +to have shaken however undesignedly, the 'pillars of domestic peace' in +any case, and desirous to make all the reparation in my power. I regret +most heartily that I am unable to place all literary aspirants in +places of emolument and permanency out of hand; but really (with the +exception perhaps of the Universal Provider in Westbourne Grove) this +is hardly to be expected of any man. The gentleman who raised the +devil, and was compelled to furnish occupation for him, affords in fact +the only appropriate parallel to my unhappy case. 'If you can do +nothing to provide my son with another place,' writes one indignant +Paterfamilias, 'at least you owe it to him' (as if I, and not Nature +herself, had made the lad dissatisfied with his high stool in a +solicitor's office!) 'to give him some practical hints by which he may +become a successful writer of fiction.' + +One would really think that this individual imagined story-telling to +be a sort of sleight-of-hand trick, and that all that is necessary to +the attainment of the art is to learn 'how it's done.' I should not +like to say that I have known any members of my own profession who are +'no conjurors,' but it is certainly not by conjuring that they have +succeeded in it. + +'You talk of the art of composition,' writes, on the other hand, +another angry correspondent, 'as though it were one of the exact +sciences; you might just as well advise your "clever Jack" to study the +art of playing the violin.' So that one portion of the public appears +to consider the calling of literature mechanical, while another holds +it to be a soft of divine instinct! + +Since the interest in this subject proves to be so wide-spread, I trust +it will not be thought presumptuous in me to offer my own humble +experience in this matter for what it is worth. To the public at large +a card of admission to my poor manufactory of fiction—a 'very one-horse +affair,' as an American gentleman, with whom I had a little difficulty +concerning copyright, once described it—may not afford the same +satisfaction as a ticket for the private view of the Royal Academy; but +the stings of conscience urge me to make to Paterfamilias what amends +in the way of 'practical hints' lie in my power, for the wrong I have +done to his offspring; and I therefore venture to address to those whom +it may concern, and to those only, a few words on the Art of +Story-telling. + +The chief essential for this line of business, yet one that is much +disregarded by many young writers, is the having a story to tell. It is +a common supposition that the story will come if you only sit down with +a pen in your hand and wait long enough—a parallel case to that which +assigns one cow's tail as the measure of distance between this planet +and the moon. It is no use 'throwing off' a few brilliant ideas at the +commencement, if they are only to be 'passages that lead to nothing;' +you must have distinctly in your mind at first what you intend to say +at last. 'Let it be granted,' says a great writer (though not one +distinguished in fiction), 'that a straight line be drawn from any one +point to any other point;' only you must have the 'other point' to +begin with, or you can't draw the line. So far from being 'straight,' +it goes wabbling aimlessly about like a wire fastened at one end and +not at the other, which may dazzle, but cannot sustain; or rather what +it does sustain is so exceedingly minute, that it reminds one of the +minnow which the inexperienced angler flatters himself he has caught, +but which the fisherman has in fact previously put on his hook for +bait. + +This class of writer is not altogether unconscious of the absence of +dramatic interest in his composition. He writes to his editor (I have +read a thousand such letters): 'It has been my aim, in the enclosed +contribution, to steer clear of the faults of the sensational school of +fiction, and I have designedly abstained from stimulating the +unwholesome taste for excitement.' In which high moral purpose he has +undoubtedly succeeded; but, unhappily, in nothing else. It is quite +true that some writers of fiction neglect 'story' almost entirely, but +then they are perhaps the greatest writers of all. Their genius is so +transcendent that they can afford to dispense with 'plot;' their +humour, their pathos, and their delineation of human nature are amply +sufficient, without any such meretricious attraction; whereas our too +ambitious young friend is in the position of the needy knife-grinder, +who has not only no story to tell, but in lieu of it only holds up his +coat and breeches 'torn in the scuffle'—the evidence of his desperate +and ineffectual struggles with literary composition. I have known such +an aspirant to instance Miss Gaskell's 'Cranford' as a parallel to the +backboneless flesh-and-bloodless creation of his own immature fancy, +and to recommend the acceptance of the latter upon the ground of their +common rejection of startling plot and dramatic situation. The two +compositions have certainly _that_ in common; and the flawless diamond +has some things, such as mere sharpness and smoothness, in common with +the broken beer-bottle. + +Many young authors of the class I have in my mind, while more modest as +respects their own merits, are even still less so as regards their +expectations from others. 'If you will kindly furnish me with a +subject,' so runs a letter now before me, 'I am sure I could do very +well; my difficulty is that I never can think of anything to write +about. Would you be so good as to oblige me with a plot for a novel?' +It would have been infinitely more reasonable of course, and much +cheaper, for me to grant it, if the applicant had made a request for my +watch and chain;[6] but the marvel is that folks should feel any +attraction towards a calling for which Nature has denied them even the +raw materials. It is true that there are some great talkers who have +manifestly nothing to say, but they don't ask their hearers to supply +them with a topic of conversation in order to be set agoing. + + [6] To compare small things with great, I remember Sir Walter Scott + being thus applied to for some philanthropic object. 'Money,' said the + applicant, who had some part proprietorship in a literary miscellany, + 'I don't ask for, since I know you have many claims upon your purse; + but would you write us a little paper gratuitously for the + "Keepsake"?' + +'My great difficulty,' the would-be writer of fiction often says, 'is +how to begin;' whereas in fact the difficulty arises rather from his +not knowing how to end. Before undertaking the management of a train, +however short, it is absolutely necessary to know its destination. +Nothing is more common than to hear it said that an author 'does not +know where to stop;' but how much more deplorable is the position of +the passengers when there is no terminus whatsoever! They feel their +carriage 'slowing,' and put their heads expectantly out of window, but +there is no platform—no station. When they took their tickets, they +understood that they were 'booked through' to the _dénouement_, and +certainly had no idea of having been brought so far merely to admire +the scenery, for which only a very few care the least about. + +As a rule, anyone who can tell a good story can write one, so there +really need be no mistake about his qualification; such a man will be +careful not to be wearisome, and to keep his point, or his catastrophe, +well in hand. Only, in writing, there is necessarily greater art. +_There_ expansion is of course absolutely necessary; but this is not to +be done, like spreading gold leaf, by flattening out good material. +_That_ is 'padding,' a device as dangerous as it is unworthy; it is +much better to make your story a pollard—to cut it down to a mere +anecdote—than to get it lost in a forest of verbiage. No line of it, +however seemingly discursive, should be aimless, but should have some +relation to the matter in hand; and if you find the story interesting +to yourself notwithstanding that you know the end of it, it will +certainly interest the reader. + +The manner in which a good story grows under the hand is so remarkable, +that no tropic vegetation can show the like of it. For, consider, when +you have got your germ—the mere idea, not half a dozen lines +perhaps—which is to form your plot, how small a thing it is compared +with, say, the thousand pages which it has to occupy in the +three-volume novel! Yet to the story-teller the germ is everything. +When I was a very young man—a quarter of a century ago, alas!—and had +very little experience in these matters, I was reading on a coachbox +(for I read everywhere in those days) an account of some gigantic +trees; one of them was described as sound outside, but within, for many +feet, a mass of rottenness and decay. If a boy should climb up +birdsnesting into the fork of it, thought I, he might go down feet +first and hands overhead, and never be heard of again. How inexplicable +too, as well as melancholy, such a disappearance would be! Then, 'as +when a great thought strikes along the brain and flushes all the +cheek,' it struck me what an appropriate end it would be—with fear +(lest he should turn up again) instead of hope for the fulcrum to move +the reader—for a bad character of a novel. Before I had left the +coachbox I had thought out 'Lost Sir Massingberd.' + +The character was drawn from life, but unfortunately from hearsay; he +had flourished—to the great terror of his neighbours—two generations +before me, so that I had to be indebted to others for his portraiture, +which was a great disadvantage. It was necessary that the lost man +should be an immense scoundrel to prevent pity being excited by the +catastrophe, and at that time I did not know any very wicked people. +The book was a successful one, but it needs no critic to point out how +much better the story might have been told. The interest in the +gentleman, buried upright in his oak coffin, is inartistically weakened +by other sources of excitement; like an extravagant cook, the young +author is apt to be too lavish with his materials, and in after days, +when the larder is more difficult to fill, he bitterly regrets it. The +representation of a past time I also found it very difficult to +compass, and I am convinced that for any writer to attempt such a +thing, when he can avoid it, is an error in judgment. The author who +undertakes to resuscitate and clothe with flesh and blood the dry bones +of his ancestors, has indeed this advantage, that, however unlifelike +his characters may be, there is no one in a position to prove it; it is +not 'a difference of opinion between himself and twelve of his +fellow-countrymen,' or a matter on which he can be condemned by +overwhelming evidence; but, on the other hand, he creates for himself +unnecessary difficulties. I will add, for the benefit of those literary +aspirants to whom these remarks are especially addressed—a circumstance +which, I hope, will be taken as an excuse for the writing of my own +affairs at all, which would otherwise be an unpardonable +presumption—that these difficulties are not the worst of it; for when +the novel founded on the Past has been written, it will not be read by +a tenth of those who would read it if it were a novel of the Present. + +Even at the date I speak of, however, I was not so young as to attempt +to create the characters of a story out of my own imagination, and I +believe that the whole of its _dramatis personæ_ (except the chief +personage) were taken from the circle of my own acquaintance. This is a +matter, by-the-bye, on which considerable judgment and good taste have +to be exercised; for if the likeness of the person depicted is +recognisable by his friends (he never recognises it by any chance +himself), or still more by his enemies, it is no longer a sketch from +life, but a lampoon. It will naturally be asked by some: 'But if you +draw the man to the life, how can he fail to be known?' For this there +is the simplest remedy. You describe his character, but under another +skin; if he is tall you make him short, if dark, fair; or you make such +alterations in his circumstances as shall prevent identification, while +retaining them to a sufficient extent to influence his behaviour. In +the framework which most (though not all) skilled workmen draw of their +stories before they begin to furnish them with so much even as a +door-mat, the real name of each individual to be described should be +placed (as a mere aid to memory) by the side of that under which he +appears in the drama; and I would strongly recommend the builder to +write his real names in cipher; for I have known at least one instance +in which the entire list of the _dramatis personæ_ of a novel was +carried off by a person more curious than conscientious, and afterwards +revealed to those concerned—a circumstance which, though it increased +the circulation of the story, did not add to the personal popularity of +the author. + +If a story-teller is prolific, the danger of his characters coinciding +with those of people in real life who are unknown to him is much +greater than would be imagined; the mere similarity of name may of +course be disregarded; but when in addition to that there is also a +resemblance of circumstance, it is difficult to persuade the man of +flesh and blood that his portrait is an undesigned one. The author of +'Vanity Fair' fell, in at least one instance, into a most unfortunate +mistake of this kind; while a not less popular author even gave his +hero the same name and place in the Ministry which were (subsequently) +possessed by a living politician. + +It is better, however, for his own reputation that the story-teller +should risk a few actions for libel on account of these unfortunate +coincidences than that he should adopt the melancholy device of using +blanks or asterisks. With the minor novelists of a quarter of a century +ago it was quite common to introduce their characters as Mr. A and Mr. +B, and very difficult their readers found it to interest themselves in +the fortunes and misfortunes of an initial: + +It was in the summer of the year 18—, and the sun was setting behind +the low western hills beneath which stands the town of C; its dying +gleams glistened on the weather-cock of the little church, beneath +whose tower two figures were standing, so deep in shadow that little +more could be made out concerning them save that they were young +persons of the opposite sex. The elder and taller, however, was the +fascinating Lord B; the younger (presenting a strong contrast to her +companion in social position, but yet belonging to the true nobility of +nature) was no other than the beautiful Patty G, the cobbler's +daughter. + +This style of narrative should be avoided. + +Another difficulty of the story-teller, and one unhappily in which no +advice can be of much service to him, is how to describe the lapse of +time and of locomotion. To the dramatist nothing is easier than to +print in the middle of his playbill, 'Forty years are here supposed to +have elapsed;' or 'Scene I.: A drawing-room in Mayfair; Scene II.: +Greenland.' But the story-teller has to describe how these little +changes are effected, without being able to take his readers into his +confidence.[7] He can't say, 'Gentle reader, please to imagine that the +winter is over, and the summer has come round since the conclusion of +our last chapter.' Curiously enough, however, the lapse of years is far +easier to suggest than that of hours; and locomotion from Islington to +India than the act, for instance, of leaving the room. If passion +enters into the scene, and your heroine can be represented as banging +the door behind her, and bringing down the plaster from the ceiling, +the thing is easy enough, and may be even made a dramatic incident; but +to describe, without baldness, Jones rising from the tea-table and +taking his departure in cold blood, is a much more difficult business +than you may imagine. When John the footman has to enter and interrupt +a conversation on the stage, the audience see him come and go, and +think nothing of it; but to inform the reader of your novel of a +similar incident—and especially of John's going—without spoiling the +whole scene by the introduction of the commonplace, requires (let me +tell you) the touch of a master. + + [7] That last, indeed, is a thing which, with all deference to some + great names in fiction, should in my judgment never be done. It is + hard enough for him as it is to simulate real life, without the poor + showman's reaching out from behind the curtain to shake hands with his + audience. + +When you have got the outline of your plot, and the characters that +seem appropriate to play in it, you turn to that so-called 'commonplace +book,' in which, if you know your trade, you will have set down +anything noteworthy and illustrative of human nature that has come +under your notice, and single out such instances as are most fitting; +and finally you will select your scene (or the opening one) in which +your drama is to be played. And here I may say, that while it is +indispensable that the persons represented should be familiar to you, +it is not necessary that the places should be; you should have visited +them, of course, in person, but it is my experience that for a +description of the salient features of any locality the less you stay +there the better. The man who has lived in Switzerland all his life can +never describe it (to the outsider) so graphically as the (intelligent) +tourist; just as the man who has science at his fingers' ends does not +succeed so well as the man with whom science has not yet become second +nature, in making an abstruse subject popular. + +Nor is it to be supposed that a story with very accurate local +colouring cannot be written, the scenes of which are placed in a +country which the writer has never beheld. This requires, of course, +both study and judgment, but it can be done so as to deceive, if not +the native, at least the Englishman who has himself resided there. I +never yet knew an Australian who could be persuaded that the author of +'Never Too Late to Mend' had not visited the underworld, or a sailor +that he who wrote 'Hard Cash' had never been to sea. The fact is, +information, concerning which dull folks make so much fuss, can be +attained by anybody who chooses to spend his time that way; and by +persons of intelligence (who are not so solicitous to know how blacking +is made) can be turned, in a manner not dreamt of by cram-coaches, to +really good account. + +The general impression perhaps conveyed by the above remarks will be +that to those who go to work in the manner described—for many writers +of course have quite other processes—story-telling must be a mechanical +trade. Yet nothing can be farther from the fact. These preliminary +arrangements have the effect of so steeping the mind in the subject in +hand, that when the author begins his work he is already in a world +apart from his everyday one; the characters of his story people it; and +the events that occur to them are as material, so far as the writer is +concerned, as though they happened under his roof. Indeed, it is a +question for the metaphysician whether the professional story-teller +has not a shorter lease of life than his fellow-creatures, since, in +addition to his hours of sleep (of which he ought by rights to have +much more than the usual proportion), he passes a large part of his +sentient being outside the pale of ordinary existence. The reference to +sleep 'by rights' may possibly suggest to the profane that the +storyteller has a claim to it on the ground of having induced slumber +in his fellow-creatures; but my meaning is that the mental wear and +tear caused by work of this kind is infinitely greater than that +produced by mere application even to abstruse studies (as any doctor +will witness), and requires a proportionate degree of recuperation. + +I do not pretend to quote the experience (any more than the mode of +composition) of other writers—though with that of most of my brethren +and superiors in the craft I am well acquainted—but I am convinced that +to work the brain at night in the way of imagination is little short of +an act of suicide. Dr. Treichler's recent warnings upon this subject +are startling enough, even as addressed to students, but in their +application to poets and novelists they have far greater significance. +It may be said that journalists (whose writings, it is whispered, have +a close connection with fiction) always write in the 'small hours,' but +their mode of life is more or less shaped to meet their exceptional +requirements; whereas we storytellers live like other people (only more +purely), and if we consume the midnight oil, use perforce another +system of illumination also—we burn the candle at both ends. A great +novelist who adopted this baneful practice and indirectly lost his life +by it (through insomnia) notes what is very curious, that +notwithstanding his mind was so occupied, when awake, with the +creatures of his imagination, he never dreamt of them; which I think is +also the general experience. But he does not tell us for how many hours +_before_ he went to sleep, and tossed upon his restless pillow till far +into the morning, he was unable to get rid of those whom his +enchanter's wand had summoned.[8] What is even more curious than the +story-teller's never dreaming of the shadowy beings who engross so much +of his thoughts, is that (so far as my own experience goes at least) +when a story is once written and done with, no matter how forcibly it +may have interested and excited the writer during its progress, it +fades almost instantly from the mind, and leaves, by some benevolent +arrangement of nature, a _tabula rasa_—a blank space for the next one. +Everyone must recollect that anecdote of Walter Scott, who, on hearing +one of his own poems ('My hawk is tired of perch and hood') sung in a +London drawing-room, observed with innocent approbation, 'Byron's, of +course;' and so it is with us lesser folks. A very humorous sketch +might be given (and it would not be overdrawn) of some prolific +novelist getting hold, under some strange roof, of the 'library +edition' of his own stories, and perusing them with great satisfaction +and many appreciative ejaculations, such as 'Now this _is_ good;' 'I +wonder how it will end;' or 'George Eliot's, _of course_! + + [8] Speaking of dreams, the composition of Khubla Khan and of one or + two other literary fragments during sleep has led to the belief that + dreams are often useful to the writer of fiction; but in my own case, + at least, I can recall but a single instance of it, nor have I ever + heard of their doing one pennyworth of good to any of my + contemporaries. + +Although a good allowance of sleep is absolutely necessary for +imaginative brain work, long holidays are not so. I have noticed that +those who let their brains 'lie fallow,' as it is termed, for any +considerable time, are by no means the better for it; but, on the other +hand, some daily recreation, by which a genuine interest is excited and +maintained, is almost indispensable. It is no use to 'take up a book,' +and far less to attempt 'to refresh the machine,' as poor Sir Walter +did, by trying another kind of composition; what is needed is an +altogether new object for the intellectual energies, by which, though +they are stimulated, they shall not be strained. + +Advice such as I have ventured to offer may seem 'to the general' of +small importance, but to those I am especially addressing it is worthy +of their attention, if only as the result of a personal experience +unusually prolonged; and I have nothing unfortunately but advice to +offer. To the question addressed to me with such _naïveté_ by so many +correspondents, 'How do you make your plots?' (as if they were +consulting the Cook's Oracle), I can return no answer. I don't know, +myself; they are sometimes suggested by what I hear or read, but more +commonly they suggest themselves unsought. + +I once heard two popular story-tellers, A who writes seldom, but with +much ingenuity of construction, and B who is very prolific in pictures +of everyday life, discoursing on this subject. + +'Your fecundity,' said A, 'astounds me; I can't think where you get +your plots from.' + +'Plots?' replied B; 'oh! I don't trouble myself about _them_. To tell +you the truth, I generally take a bit of one of yours, which is amply +sufficient for my purpose.' + +This was very wrong of B; and it is needless to say I do not quote his +system for imitation. A man should tell his own story without +plagiarism. As to Truth being stranger than Fiction, that is all +nonsense; it is a proverb set about by Nature to conceal her own want +of originality. I am not like that pessimist philosopher who assumed +her malignity from the fact of the obliquity of the ecliptic; but the +truth is, Nature is a pirate. She has not hesitated to plagiarise from +even so humble an individual as myself. Years after I had placed my +wicked baronet in his living tomb, she starved to death a hunter in +Mexico under precisely similar circumstances; and so late as last month +she has done the same in a forest in Styria. Nay, on my having found +occasion in a certain story ('a small thing, but my own') to get rid of +the whole wicked population of an island by suddenly submerging it in +the sea, what did Nature do? She waited for an insultingly short time +(if her idea was that the story would be forgotten), and then +reproduced the same circumstances on her own account (and without the +least acknowledgment) in the Indian seas. My attention was drawn to +both these breaches of copyright by several correspondents, but I had +no redress, the offender being beyond the jurisdiction of the Court of +Chancery. + +When the story-teller has finished his task and surmounted every +obstacle to his own satisfaction, he has still a difficulty to face in +the choice of a title. He may invent indeed an eminently appropriate +one, but it is by no means certain he will be allowed to keep it. Of +course he has done his best to steer clear of that borne by any other +novel; but among the thousands that have been brought out within the +last forty years, and which have been forgotten even if they were ever +known, how can he know whether the same name has not been hit upon? He +goes to Stationers' Hall to make inquiries; but—mark the usefulness of +that institution—he finds that books are only entered there under their +authors' names. His search is therefore necessarily futile, and he has +to publish his story under the apprehension (only too well founded, as +I have good cause to know) that the High Court of Chancery will +prohibit its sale upon the ground of infringement of title. + +[Illustration] + + + + +PENNY FICTION + + +It is now nearly a quarter of a century ago since a popular novelist +revealed to the world in a well-known periodical the existence of the +'Unknown Public;' and a very curious revelation it was. He showed us +that the few thousands of persons who had hitherto imagined themselves +to be the public—so far, at least, as their being the arbiters of +popularity in respect to writers of fiction was concerned—were in fact +nothing of the kind; that the subscribers to the circulating libraries, +the members of book clubs, the purchasers of magazines and railway +novels, might indeed have their favourites, but that these last were +'nowhere,' as respected the number of their backers, in comparison with +novelists whose names and works appear in penny journals and nowhere +else. + +This class of literature was of considerable dimensions even in the +days when Mr. Wilkie Collins first called attention to it; but the +luxuriance of its growth has since become tropical. His observations +are drawn from some half a dozen specimens of it only, whereas I now +hold in my hand—or rather in both hands— nearly half a hundred of them. +The population of readers must be dense indeed in more than one sense +that can support such a crop. + +Doubtless the individual circulation of none of these serials is equal +to that of the most successful of them at the date of their first +discovery; but those who read them must, from various causes, of which +the most obvious is the least important, have trebled in number. +Population, that is to say, has increased in very small proportion as +compared with the increase of those who very literally run and read—the +peripatetic students, who study on their way to work or even as they +work, including, I am sorry to say, the telegraph boy on his errand. + +Nevertheless, notwithstanding its gigantic dimensions, the Unknown +Public remains practically as unknown as ever. The literary wares that +find such favour with it do not meet the eye of the ordinary observer. +They are to be found neither at the bookseller's nor on the railway +stall. But in back streets, in small dark shops, in the company of +cheap tobacco, hardbake (and, at the proper season, valentines), their +leaves lie thick as those in Vallombrosa. Early in the week is their +springtime, when they are put forth from Heaven knows what +printing-houses in courts and alleys, to lie for a few days only on the +counter in huge piles. On Saturdays, albeit that is their nominal +publishing day, they have for the most part disappeared. For this sort +of literature has one decidedly advanced feature, and possesses one +virtue of endurance—it comes out ever so long before the date it bears +upon its title-page, and 'when the world shall have passed away' will, +by a few days at least, if faith is to be placed in figures, survive +it. + +Why it should have any date at all no man can tell. There is nothing in +the contents that is peculiar to one year—or, to say truth, of one +era—rather than another. As a rule, indeed, time and space are alike +annihilated in them, in order to make two lovers happy. The general +terms in which they are written is one of their peculiar features. One +would think that, instead of being as unlike real life as stories +professing to deal with it can be, they were photographs of it, and +that the writers, as in the following instance, had always the fear of +the law of libel before their eyes: + +We must now request our readers to accompany us into an obscure _cul de +sac_ opening into a narrow street branching off Holborn. For many +reasons we do not choose to be more precise as to locality. + +Of course in this _cul de sac_ is a Private Inquiry Office, with a +detective in it. But in defining even him the novelist gives himself no +trouble to arouse excitement in his readers: they have paid their penny +for the history of this interesting person, and, that being done, they +may read about him or not, as they please. One would really think that +the author of the story was also the proprietor of the periodical. + +Those who desire (he says) to make the acquaintance of this somewhat +remarkable person have only to step with us into the little dusky room +where he is seated, and we shall have much pleasure in introducing him +to their notice. + +—A sentence which has certainly the air of saying, 'You may be +introduced to him, or you may let it alone.' + +The coolness with which everything is said and done in penny fiction is +indeed most remarkable, and should greatly recommend it to that +respectable class who have a horror of 'sensation.' In a story, for +example, that purports to describe University life (and is as much like +it as the camel produced from the German professor's self-consciousness +must have been to a real camel) there is an underplot of an amazing +kind. The wicked undergraduate, notwithstanding that he has the +advantage of being a baronet, is foiled in his attempt to win the +affections of a young woman in humble life, and the virtuous hero of +the story recommends her to the consideration of his negro servant: + +'Talk to her, Monday,' whispered Jack, 'and see if she loves you.' + For a short time Monday and Ada were in close conversation. + Then Monday uttered a cry like a war-whoop. + 'It am come all right, sare. Missy Ada says she not really care for + Sir Sydney, and she will be my little wife,' he said. + 'I congratulate you, Monday,' answered Jack. + In half an hour more they arrived at the house of John Radford, + plumber and glazier, who was Ada's father. + Mr. and Mrs. Radford and their two sons received their daughter and + her companions with that unstudied civility which contrasts so + favourably with the stuck-up ceremony of many in a higher position. + They were not prejudiced against Monday on account of his dark + skin. + It was enough for them that he was the man of Ada's choice. + Mrs. Radford even went so far as to say, 'Well, for a coloured + gentleman, he is very handsome and quite nice mannered, though I + think Ada's been a little sly in telling us nothing about her + engagement to the last.' + They did not know all. + Nor was it advisable that they should. + +Still they knew something—for example, that their new son-in-law was a +black man, which one would have thought might have struck them as +phenomenal. They take it, however, quite quietly and as a matter of +course. Now, surely, even among plumbers and glaziers, it must be +thought as strange for one's daughter to marry a black man as a lord. +Yet, out of this dramatic situation the author makes nothing at all, +but treats it as coolly as his _dramatis personæ_ do themselves. Now +_my_ notion would have been to make the bridegroom a black lord, and +then to portray, with admirable skill, the conflicting emotions of his +mother-in-law, disgusted on the one hand by his colour, attracted on +the other by his rank. But 'sensation' is evidently out of the line of +the penny novelist: he gives his facts, which are certainly remarkable, +then leaves both his characters and his readers to draw their own +conclusions. + +The total absence of local scenery from these half hundred romances is +also curious, and becomes so very marked when the novelists are so +imprudent as to take their _dramatis personæ_ out of England, that one +can't help wondering whether these gentlemen have ever been in foreign +parts themselves, or even read about them. Here is the conclusion of a +romance which leaves nothing to be desired in the way of brevity, but +is unquestionably a little abrupt and vague: + +A year has passed away, and we are far from England and the English +climate. + +Whither 'we' have gone the author does not say, nor even indicate the +hemisphere. It will be imagined, perhaps, that we shall find out where +we are by the indication of the flora and fauna. + +A lady and gentleman before the dawn of day have been climbing up an +arid road in the direction of a dark ridge. + +Observe, again, the ingenious vagueness of the description: an 'arid +road' which may mean Siberia, and a 'dark ridge' which may mean the +Himalayas. + +The dawn suddenly comes upon them in all its glory. Birds twittered in +their willow gorges, and it was a very glorious day. Arthur and Emily +had passed the night at the ranche, and he had now taken her up to look +at the mine which at all events had introduced them. He had previously +taken her to see his mother's grave, the mother whom he had so loved. +The mine after some delay proved more prosperous than ever. It was not +sold, but is the 'appanage' of the younger sons of the house of Dacres. + +With the exception of the 'ranche,' it will be remarked that there is +not one word in the foregoing description to fix locality. The mine and +the ranche together seem indeed to suggest South America. But—I ask for +information—do birds twitter there in willow gorges? Younger sons of +noble families proverbially come off second best in this country, but +if one of them found his only 'appanage' was a mine, he would surely +with some justice make a remonstrance. + +The readers of this class of fiction will not have Dumas at any +price—or, at all events, not at a penny. Mr. Collins tells us how +'Monte Christo' was once spread before them, and how they turned from +that gorgeous feast with indifference, and fell back upon their tripe +and onions—their nameless authors. But some of those who write for them +have adopted one peculiarity of Dumas. The short jerky sentences which +disfigure the 'Three Musketeers,' and indeed all that great novelist's +works, are very frequent with them, which induces me to believe that +they are paid by the line. + +On the other hand, some affect fashionable description and conversation +which are drawn out in 'passages that lead to nothing' of an amazing +length. + +'Where have I been,' replied Clyde with a carelessness which was half +forced 'Oh, I have been over to Higham to see the dame.' + 'Ah, yes,' said Sir Edward, 'and how is the poor old creature?' + 'Quite well,' said Clyde, as he sat down and took up the menu of + the elaborate dinner. 'Quite well, she sent her best respects,' he + added, but he said nothing of the lodger, pretty Miss Mary + Westlake. + And when, a moment afterwards, the door opened and Grace came + flowing in with her lithe noiseless step, dressed in one of Worth's + masterpieces, a wonder of amber, satin, and antique lace, he raised + his eyes and looked at her with an earnest scrutiny—so earnest that + she paused with her hand on his chair, and met his eyes with a + questioning glance. + 'Do you like my new dress?' she said with a calm smile. + 'Your dress?' he said. 'Yes, yes, it is very pretty, very.' But to + himself he added, 'Yes, they are alike, strangely alike.' + +Which last remark may be applied with justice to the conversations of +all our novelists. There appears no necessity for their commencement, +no reason for their continuance, no object in their conclusion; the +reader finds himself in a forest of verbiage from which he is +extricated only at the end of the chapter, which is always, however, +'to be continued.' + +It is true that these story-tellers for the million generally keep 'a +gallop for the avenue' (an incident of a more or less exciting kind to +finish up with), but it is so brief and unsatisfactory that it hardly +rises to a canter; the author never seems to get into his stride. The +following is a fair example: + +But before we let the curtain fall, we must glance for a moment at +another picture—a sad and painful one. In one of those retreats, worse +than a living tomb, where reside those whose reason is dead, though +their bodies still live, is a small spare cell. The sole occupant is a +woman, young and very beautiful. Sometimes she is quiet and gentle as a +child; sometimes her fits of frenzy are frightful to witness; but the +only word she utters is 'Revenge,' and on her hand she always wears a +plain gold band with a cross of black pearls. + +This conclusion, which I chanced upon before I read the tale which +preceded it, naturally interested me immensely. Here, thought I, is at +last an exciting story; I shall now find one of those literary prizes +in hopes, perhaps, of hitting upon which the penny public endures so +many blanks. I was quite prepared to have my blood curdled; my lips +were ready for a full draught of gore; yet, I give you my word, there +was nothing in the whole story worse than a bankruptcy. + +This is what makes the success of penny fiction so remarkable; there is +nothing whatever in the way of dramatic interest to account for it; nor +of impropriety either. Like the lady friend of Dr. Johnson, who +congratulated him that there were no improper words in his dictionary, +and received from that unconciliatory sage the reply, 'You have been +looking for them, have you?' I have carefully searched my fifty samples +of penny fiction for something wrong, and have not found it. It is as +pure as milk, or, at all events, as milk-and-water. Unlike the Minerva +Press, too, it does not deal with eminent persons: wicked peers are +rare; fraud is usually confined within what may be called its natural +limits—the lawyer's office; the attention paid to the heroines not only +by their heroes, but by their unsuccessful and objectionable rivals, is +generally of the most honourable kind; and platitude and dulness hold +undisputed sway. + +In one or two of these periodicals there is indeed an example of the +mediaeval melodrama; but 'Ralpho the Mysterious' is by no means +thrilling. Indeed, when I remember that 'Ivanhoe' was once published in +a penny journal and proved a total failure, and then contemplate the +popularity of 'Ralpho,' I am more at sea as to what it is that attracts +the million than ever. + +'Noble youth,' cried the King as he embraced Ralpho, 'to you we must +entrust the training of our cavalry. I hold here the list which has +been made out of the troops which will come at the signal. To certain +of our nobles we have entrusted certain of our _corps d'armée_, but +unto you, Ralpho, we must entrust our horse, for in that service you +can display that wonderful dexterity with the sword which has made your +name so famous.' + 'Sire,' cried our hero, as he dropped on one knee and took the + King's hand, pressing it to his lips, 'thou hast indeed honoured me + by such a reward, but I cannot accept it.' + 'How!' cried the King; 'hast thou so soon tired of my service?' + 'Not so, sire. To serve you I would shed the last drop of my blood. + But if I were to accept this command, I should cease to do the + service for the cause which now it has pleased you to say I have + done. No, sire, let me remain the guardian of my King—his secret + agent. I, with my sword alone, will defend my country and my King.' + 'Be not rash, Ralpho; already hast thou done more than any man ever + did before. Run no more danger.' + 'Sire, if I have served you, grant my request. Let it be as I have + said.' + 'It shall be so, mysterious youth. Thou shalt be my secret agent. + Take this ring, and wear it for my sake; and, hark ye, gentlemen, + when Ralpho shows that ring, obey him as if he were ourselves.' + 'We will,' cried the nobles. + Then the King took the Star of St. Stanislaus, and fixed it on our + hero's breast. + +Now, to my mind, though his preferring to be 'a secret agent' to +becoming a generalissimo of the Polish cavalry is as modest as it is +original, Ralpho is too 'goody-goody' to be called 'the Mysterious.' He +reminds me, too, in his way of mixing chivalry with self-interest, of +those enterprising officers in fighting regiments who send in +applications for their own V.C.s while their comrades remain in modest +expectation of them. + +I am inclined to think, however, from the following advertisement, that +some author has been recently piling up the virtues of his hero too +strongly for the very delicate stomachs of the penny public, who, it is +evident, resent superlatives of all kinds, and are commonplace and +conventional to the marrow of their bones: 'T.B. TIMMINS is informed +that he cannot be promised another story like "Mandragora," since, in +deciding the contents of our journal, the tastes of readers have to be +considered whose interest cannot be aroused by the impossible deeds of +impossible creatures.' Alas! I wish from my heart I knew what 'deeds' +or 'creatures' _do_ arouse the interest of this (to me) inexplicable +public; for though I have before me the stories they obviously take +delight in, why they do so I cannot tell. + +At the 'Answers to Correspondents,' indeed, which form a leading +feature in most of these penny journals, one may exclaim, with the +colonel in 'Woodstock,' when, after many ghosts, he grapples with +Wildrake: 'Thou at least art palpable.' Here we have the real readers, +asking questions upon matters that concern them, and from these we +shall surely get at the back of their minds. But it is unfortunately +not so certain that these 'Answers to Correspondents' are not +themselves fictions, like all the rest—only invented by the editor +instead of the author, and coming in handy to fill up a vacant page. It +is, to my mind, incredible that a public so every way different from +that of the Mechanic's Institute, and to whom mere information is +likely to be anything but attractive, should be genuinely solicitous to +learn that 'Needles were first made in England in Cheapside, in the +reign of Queen Mary, by a negro from Spain;' or that 'The family name +of the Duke of Norfolk is Howard, although the younger members of it +call themselves Talbot.' + +Even the remonstrance of 'Our Correspondence Editor' with a gentleman +who wishes to learn 'How to manufacture dynamite' seems to me +artificial; as though the idea of saying a few words in season against +explosive compounds had occurred to him, without any particular +opportunity having really offered itself for the expression of his +views. + +There are, however, one or two advertisements decidedly genuine, and +which prove that the readers of penny fiction are not so immersed in +romance but that they have their eyes open to the main chance and their +material responsibilities. 'ANXIOUS TO KNOW,' for example, is informed +that 'The widow, unless otherwise decreed, keeps possession of +furniture on her marriage, and the daughter cannot claim it;' while +SKIBBS is assured that 'After such a lapse of time there will be no +danger of a warrant being issued for leaving his wife and family +chargeable to the parish.' + +As when Mr. Wilkie Collins made his first voyage of discovery into +these unknown latitudes, the penny journals are largely used for +forming matrimonial engagements, and for adjudicating upon all +questions of propriety in connection with the affections. 'It is just +bordering on folly,' 'NANCY BLAKE' is informed, 'to marry a man six +years your junior.' In answer to an inquiry from 'LOVING OLIVIA' +whether 'an engaged gentleman is at liberty to go to a theatre without +taking his young lady with him,' she is told 'Yes; but we imagine he +would not often do so.' + +Some tender questions are mixed up with others of a more practical +sort. 'LADY HILDA' is informed that 'it is very seldom children are +born healthy whose father has married before he is three-and-twenty; +that long engagements are not only unnecessary but injurious; and that +washing the head will remove the scurf.' 'LEONE' is assured that 'it is +not necessary to be married in two churches, one being quite +sufficient;' that 'there is no truth in the saying that it is unlucky +to marry a person of the same complexion;' and that 'a gentle aperient +will remove nettle-rash.' + +'VIRGINIE' (who, by the way, should surely be VIRGINIUS) is thus +tenderly sympathised with: + +'It does seem rather hard that you should be deprived of all +opportunity of having a _tête-à -tête_ with your betrothed, owing to her +being obliged to entertain other company, although there are others of +the family who can do so; still, as her mother insists upon it, and +will not let you enjoy the society of her daughter uninterrupted, you +might resort to a little harmless strategy, and whenever your stated +evenings for calling are broken in on that way, ask the young lady to +take a walk with you, or go to a place of amusement. She can then +excuse herself to her friends without a breach of etiquette, and you +can enjoy your _tête-à -tête_ undisturbed.' + +The photographs of lady correspondents which are received by the +editors of most of these journals are apparently very numerous, and, if +we may believe their description of them, all ravishingly beautiful. It +is no wonder they receive many applications of the following nature: + +'CLYDE, a rising young doctor, twenty-two, fair, with a nice house and +servants; being tired of bachelor life, wishes to receive the +carte-de-visite of a dark, fascinating young lady, of from seventeen to +twenty years of age; no money essential, but good birth indispensable. +She must be fond of music and children, and very loving and +affectionate.' + +Another doctor: + +'Twenty-nine, of a loving and amiable disposition, and who has at +present an income of £120 a year, is desirous to make an immediate +engagement with a lady about his own age, who must be possessed of a +little money, so that by their united efforts he may soon become a +member of a lucrative and honourable profession.' + +How the 'united efforts' of two young people, however enthusiastic, can +make a man an M.D. or an M.R.C.S. (except that love conquers all +things) is more than one can understand. The last advertisement I shall +quote affects me nearly, for it is from an eminent member of my own +profession: + +'ALEXIS, a popular author in the prime of life, of an affectionate +disposition, and fond of home, and the extent and pressing nature of +whose work have prevented him from mixing much in society, would be +glad to correspond with a young lady not above thirty. She must be of a +pleasing appearance, amiable, intelligent, and domestic.' + +If it is with the readers of penny fiction that Alexis has established +his popularity, I would like to know how he did it, and who he is. To +discover this last is, however, an impossibility. These novelists all +write anonymously, nor do their works ever appear before the public in +another guise. There is sometimes a melancholy pretence to the contrary +put forth in the 'Answers to Correspondents.' 'PHOENIX,' for example, +is informed that 'The story about which he inquires will not be +published in book form at the time he mentions.' But the fact is it +will never be so published at all. It has been written, like all its +congeners, for the unknown millions and for no one else. + +Some years ago, in a certain great literary organ, it was stated of one +of these penny journals (which has not forgotten to advertise the +eulogy) that 'its novels, are equal to the best works of fiction to be +got at the circulating libraries.' The critic who so expressed himself +must have done so in a moment of hilarity which I trust was not +produced by liquor; for 'the best works of fiction to be got at the +circulating libraries' obviously include those of George Eliot, +Trollope, Reade, Black, and Blackmore, while the novels I am discussing +are inferior to the worst. They are as crude and ineffective in their +pictures of domestic life as they are deficient in dramatic incident; +they are vapid, they are dull. Indeed, the total absence of humour, and +even of the least attempt at it, is most remarkable. There is now and +then a description of the playing of some practical joke, such as tying +two Chinamen's tails together, the effect of the relation of which is +melancholy in the extreme, but there is no approach to fun in the whole +penny library. And yet it attracts, it is calculated, four millions of +readers—a fact which makes my mouth water like that of Tantalus. + +When Mr. Wilkie Collins wrote of the Unknown Public it is clear he was +still hopeful of them. He thought it 'a question of time' only. 'The +largest audience,' he says, 'for periodical literature in this age of +periodicals must obey the universal law of progress, and sooner or +later learn to discriminate. When that period comes the readers who +rank by millions will be the readers who give the widest reputations, +who return the richest rewards, and who will therefore command the +services of the best writers of their time.' This prophecy has, +curiously enough, been fulfilled in a different direction from that +anticipated by him who uttered it. The penny papers—that is, the +provincial penny newspapers—_do_ now, under the syndicate system, +command the services of our most eminent novel writers; but Penny +Fiction proper—that is to say, the fiction published in the penny +literary journals—is just where it was a quarter of a century ago. + +With the opportunity of comparison afforded to its readers one would +say this would be impossible, but as a matter of fact, the opportunity +is _not_ offered. The readers of Penny Fiction do not read newspapers; +political events do not interest them, nor even social events, unless +they are of the class described in the _Police News_, which, I +remark—and the fact is not without significance—does not need to add +fiction to its varied attractions. + +But who, it will be asked, _are_ the public who don't read newspapers, +and whose mental calibre is such that they require to be told by a +correspondence editor that 'any number over the two thousand will +certainly be in the three thousand'? + +I believe, though the vendors of the commodity in question profess to +be unable to give any information on the matter, that the majority are +female domestic servants. + +As to what attracts them in their favourite literature, that is a much +more knotty question. My own theory is that, just as Mr. Tupper +achieved his immense popularity by never going over the heads of his +readers, and showing that poetry was, after all, not such a difficult +thing to be understood, so the writers of Penny Fiction, in clothing +very conventional thoughts in rather high-faluting English, have found +the secret of success. Each reader says to himself (or herself), 'That +is _my_ thought, which I would have myself expressed in those identical +words, if I had only known how. + + + + +HOTELS. + + +The desire for cheap holidays—as concerns going a long distance for +little money—is no doubt very general, but it is not universal. It +demands, like the bicycle, both youth and vigour. In mature years, not +only because we are more fastidious, but because we are less robust, +the element of cheapness, though always agreeable, is subsidiary to +that of comfort. For my own part, if the chance were offered me to +travel night and day for forty-eight hours anywhere—though it was to +the Elysian Fields—and that in a Pullman car, and for nothing, I would +rather go to Southend at my own expense from Saturday to Monday. +Suppose the former journey to be commenced by a Channel passage and +continued in a third-class carriage, I would rather stop at home. Or +if, in addition to the other discomforts, I am to be a unit among 100 +excursionists, with a coupon that insures my being lodged on the sixth +floor everywhere, I had rather take a month's quiet holiday in London +at the House of Detention. + +These things are matters of taste; but it is certain that a very large +number of people, who, like myself, are neither rich nor in a position +which justifies them in giving themselves airs, consider quiet, +comfort, and the absence of petty cares the most essential conditions +of a holiday. These views necessitate some expense and generally limit +the excursions of those who entertain them to their native land; but, +on the other hand, they have their advantages. They give one, for +example, a great experience in the matter of hotels. + +As I idly flutter the yellow leaves of the advertisements of inns in +'Bradshaw,' they call up pictures in my mind quite undreamt of by the +proprietors. I have been a sojourner in almost all of these which are +described as 'situated in picturesque localities.' They are all—it is +in print and must be true—'first-class' hotels; they have most of them +'unrivalled accommodation;' not a few of them have been 'patronised by +Royalty,' and one of them even by 'the Rothschilds.' These last, of +course, are great caravanserais, with 'magnificent ladies' +drawing-rooms' and 'replete' (a word that seems to have taken service +with the licensed victuallers) 'with every luxury.' They make up (a +term unfortunately suggestive of transformation) hundreds of beds; they +have equipages and 'night chamberlains;' '_On y parle français_;' '_Man +spricht Deutsch_.' Of some of these there is quite a little biography, +beginning with the year of their establishment and narrating their +happy union with other agreeable premises, like a brick and mortar +novel. I remember them well: their 'romantic surroundings' or 'their +exclusive privilege of meeting trains upon the platform;' their +accurate resemblance to 'a gentleman's own house' (with 'a +reception-room 80 feet by 90 feet'); their 'douche and spray baths;' +their 'unexceptionable tariff;' and even their having undergone those +'extensive alterations,' through which I also underwent something, +which they did not allow for in the bill. + +These hotels are all more or less satisfactory as to appearance; +furnished, not, indeed, with such taste, nor so lavishly, as their +rivals on the Continent, but handsomely enough; they are much cleaner +than foreign inns; and if their reference to 'every sanitary +improvement which science can suggest' is a little tall, even for an +advertisement, one never has cause to shudder as happens in some places +in France proper and in Brittany everywhere. Though it must be admitted +that _tables d'hôte_ abroad are not the banquets which the travelling +Briton believes them to be, our own hotel public dinners are inferior +to their originals, and, what is very hard, those who pay for an +entertainment in private suffer from them. The guest who happens to +dine later than the _table d'hôte_ in his own apartment can hardly +escape getting things 'warmed up;' and if he dines at the same time he +has nobody to wait on him. There is one thing that presses with great +severity on paterfamilias—the charge which is made at many of the large +hotels of 1s. 6d. a day for attendance on each person. Half a guinea a +week for service is a high price even for a bachelor; but when this has +to be paid for every member of the family, it is ruinous. Young ladies +who dine at the same table and do not give half the trouble of 'single +gentlemen' ought not to be taxed in this way. It is urged by many that +since attendance is charged in the bill,' there should be no other +fees. But the lover of comfort will always cheerfully pay for a little +extra civility; nor do I think that this practice—any more than that of +feeing our railway porters—is a public disadvantage. The waiter does +not know till the guest goes whether he is a person of inflexible +principles or not, and, therefore, hope ameliorates his manners and +shapes his actions to all. As to getting 'attendance' out of the bill, +now it has once got into it, that I believe to be impossible. There it +is, like the moth in one's drawing-room sofa. And yet I am old enough +to remember how poor Albert Smith plumed himself on the benefit he +bestowed upon the public, as he had imagined, by introducing a fixed +charge for all services and doing away with 'Please, sir, boots.' In +this country, and, to say truth, in most others, 'Please, sir, boots,' +is indigenous and not to be done away with. We did very much better +under the voluntary system, although a few people who did not deserve +it, but simply could not afford to be lavish, were called in +consequence 'screws.' + +To pay the wages of another man's servants is absurd, and reminds one +of the 'plate, glass, and linen' that used to be charged for at the +posting-house on the Dover road with every threepenny-worth of +brandy-and-water, I have been asked 6d. for an orange (when oranges +were cheap) at a London hotel, upon the ground that they never charged +less than 6d. for anything; and I have read of 'an old established and +family hotel' near Piccadilly, where the charge for putting the _Times_ +upon a guest's breakfast-table was 6d. up to this present year of +grace. 'Gentlemen and families had always been supplied with it at that +price,' said the landlord, when remonstrated with, 'and it was his +principle, and his customers approved it, to keep things as they were.' +It must be admitted, however, that matters have changed for the better +in this respect elsewhere; and, at all events, the printed tariff that +may now be consulted in every modern hotel enables you to know what you +are spending. + +Things are improved, too, in the way of light and air; both the public +and private rooms of our hotels are far more cheerful and better +appointed than they used to be, and instead of the four-posters there +are French beds. The one great advantage that our new system possesses +over the old is, indeed, the sleeping accommodation. The 'skimpy' +mattress, the sheet that used to come untucked through shortness, +leaving the feet tickled by the blanket, and the thin, limp thing that +called itself a feather bed, are only to be found in ancient +hostelries. + +On the other hand, it must be confessed that the food has deteriorated; +the bill of fare, indeed, is more pretentious, but the materials are +inferior, and so is the cooking. The well-browned fowl, with its rich +gravy and the bread-sauce that used to be its homely but agreeable +attendant, has disappeared. The bird appears now under a French title, +and is in other respects unrecognisable; as an Irish gentleman once +explained it to me, it is not only that the thing appears under an +_alias_, but the _alias_ comes up instead of the thing. There is one +essential which the old hotel often omitted to serve with your chicken, +and which the new hotel supplies—the salad. This, however, few hotel +cooks in England—and far less hotel waiters—can be trusted to prepare. +Their simple plan is to deluge the tender lettuce with some hateful +ingredient called 'salad mixture,' poured out of a peculiarly shaped +bottle, such as the law now compels poisons to be sold in; and the +jewel is deserving of its casket—it is almost poison. Nor, alas! is +security always to be attained by making one's salad for one's self. +For supposing even that the lettuce is fresh and white, and not +manifestly a cabbage that is pretending to be a lettuce, how about the +oil? Charles Dickens used to say that he could always tell the +character of an inn from its cruets; if they were dirty and neglected, +all was bad. The cruets are now clean enough in all hotels of +pretension; but alas for that bottle which should contain (and perhaps +did at some remote period contain) the oil of Lucca! On the fingers of +one hand I could count all the hotels in England which have not given +me bad oil. Whether it was never good, or whether it has gone bad, I +leave to those philosophers who investigate the origin of evil. I only +know that it tastes as hair-oil smells. As to the soups, they are no +worse than they used to be, and no better; there is soup and there is +hotel soup. + +'Gravy soup, fried sole, _entrée_, leg of mutton, and apple tart' used +to be the unambitious _menu_ of the old-fashioned inn. The _entrée_ was +terrible, but the fish, meat, and sweet were excellent. I will say +nothing of the _entrées_ now; I am not in a position to say anything, +for not being of a sanguine temperament, and having but a few years to +live, I do not venture upon them. But it is undeniable that our bill of +fare is greatly more varied than it used to be, and that the way in +which the table is arranged is much more attractive. At the great +hotels in the neighbourhood of London where rich, or at all events +prodigal people, go to dine in the summer months, this is especially +the case. All these establishments affect fine dinners, yet how seldom +it is they give you good ones! Their wines, though monstrously dear, +are very fair; indeed, of the champagnes at least you may make certain +by looking at the corks; but the food! How many of their fancifully +named dishes might be included under the common title, Fiasco! + +It was once suggested to a decayed man of fashion that an excellent +profession for him to take up would be the proprietorship of an hotel +of this class. 'You know what is really worth eating,' said an +influential friend of his, 'and these caterers for your own class +evidently don't; if you will undertake the management of the _Mammoth_ +(naming an inn of very high repute), I will furnish the funds.' But the +man of fashion, who had spent his all with very little to show for it, +had at least acquired some knowledge of his fellow-creatures. 'I am +deeply obliged to you,' he said, 'but were I to accept your offer I +should only lose your money. There are but a very few people in the +world who know a good dinner when it is set before them; and a very +large class (including all the ladies, who are only solicitous about +its _looking_ good) do not care whether it is good or bad. In private +life if a dinner consists of many courses, is given at a fine house, +and is presumably expensive, nineteen-twentieths of those who sit down +to it are satisfied. The twentieth alone says to himself, 'How much +better I should have dined at home!' I have been at scores and scores +of great dinner-parties where the very plates were cold and nobody but +myself has observed it.' + +I have no doubt the gentleman of fashion was right; delicate cooking +would be entirely thrown away upon the general palate. The fair sex, +the young, the hungry, the easy-going, the ignorant—how large a +majority of the 'frequenters' of hotels do these classes embrace! And +it must also be remarked that to cook food (except whitebait) +delicately in large quantities is a very difficult operation indeed. + +Upon the whole, I think, our large hotels, 'arranged on the Continental +system,' are well adapted for those who frequent them, and they show a +readiness to adopt improvements. An immense number of well-to-do people +go to Brighton, to Scarborough, and scores of other places to get a +change and fresh air, but also to find the same amusements to which +they have been accustomed in London; and, on the whole, they get what +they want without paying very much too much for it. But what drives +many quiet folks abroad is their disinclination to meet with all this +gaiety and public life; they do not mind it so much when it is mixed +with the foreign element, and they are also under the impression that +picturesque scenery is a peculiarity of the Continent. I believe that +more English people have visited Switzerland than have seen the Lake +District and the Channel Islands, and very many more than have +travelled in North Devon and Cornwall. The chief reason of their +abstinence in this respect is, however, their dread of the want of +'accommodation.' To the last two counties, with the exception of some +towns, such as Ilfracombe, approachable by sea, or a direct railway +route, folks never go in crowds, and never will go. It is true there +are no mammoth hotels to be found there; but for picturesque situation +and a certain homely comfort, that takes one not only into another +world, but another generation, there is nothing equal to certain little +inns in these out-of-the-way places. In Wales also, and even in the +Isle of Wight, there are perfect bowers of bliss of this description, +still undesecrated by the excursionist. Not ten years ago, in a part of +North Devon which shall be nameless, I came, with my wife and daughter, +upon an inn of this description. We were all enraptured with the +exquisite beauty of its situation, and were so imprudent as to express, +in the presence of the landlady, our wish to live and die there. 'Well, +indeed, sir,' she said, 'I am delighted to see you, but I hope you are +not going to stay very long.' 'My dear madam,' I remonstrated, aghast +at this remark, 'are we, then, such very objectionable-looking +persons?' 'Bless your heart, no, sir, it isn't that; but the fact is, +we have only room for three, and if parties come and come, and always +find us full (through your being here, you know), they will think it is +no use coming, and we shall lose our custom.' We did stay on, however, +a pretty long time—it was a place of ineffable beauty, such as one +parts from almost with tears—and when on our departure I asked for my +bill, the landlady said, 'Dear me, sir, would you kindly tell me what +day you come upon, for I ha' lost my account of it?' The life we led at +that inn was purely pastoral; the clotted cream was of that consistency +that it was meat and drink in one; but although the fare was homely, it +was good of its kind, and admirably cooked. There was fresh fish every +day—for we were too far from railways for that Gargantuan ogre, 'the +London market,' to deprive us of it—and tender fowls, and jams of all +kinds such as no money could buy. + +The landlady had a genius for making what she called 'conserves,' and +every cupboard in the queer little house was filled with them. In the +sitting-room was a quantity of old china and knick-knacks, brought by +the sailors of the place from foreign lands; the linen was white as +snow, and smelt of lavender. Outside the inn was a sea that stretched +to Newfoundland, and cliffs that caught the sunset—such scenery as is +not surpassed by that of the Tyrol (though, of course, in a very +different line), and be sure I was afraid of no comparison between our +'Travellers' Rest' and any Tyrolean inn. It is noteworthy that this +hostelry of ours was so peculiarly and picturesquely placed that it +could only be approached on foot, which reminds me of another place of +entertainment for man, but not for beast. + +In appearance, 'The Strangers' Welcome' (as I will take leave to term +it) is more ambitious than 'The Rest,' but it is of the same simple +type. In some respects it is even more primitive; no sign hangs over +its door, nor is any other symbol of its vocation visible, 'Liberty,' +not 'License,' as one may say without much metaphor, being its motto. +It is on an island, so insignificant in extent that horse exercise is +impossible on it. What it lacks in superficial area is more than made +up, however, in its stupendous height. From the 'Welcome,' though it +lies in a dell, one looks down perhaps a hundred sheer feet upon the +ocean. Its solemn murmur, even in calm, always reaches the place, and +when in storm, its spray. As one watches it from the lawn among the +fuchsias, one scarcely knows which mood becomes it best. The fuchsias +grow against our walls and tap at our window-panes in the morning as +though they were roses; they even make their homes in the rocks, like +the conies. The island is a very garden of fuchsias, tall as trees; and +there are no other trees. The 'Welcome' itself is a sort of farmhouse +without the farm; there is a goat or two and a donkey to be seen about +it, which would account for the milk having an alien flavour, if it had +one. But the 'Welcome' has excellent milk, so that there must be some +cows somewhere. From the cliff-top you may see Alderney, for our inn is +among the Channel Islands. When a storm comes you must stop where you +are; for until the last waves of it have ceased there is no approach to +us from the world without. To the stranger it seems probable at such +seasons that the little place will burst up from below, for beneath it +are caverns innumerable, filled with furious waves like sea monsters +roaring for our lives. The sea, in short, has honeycombed it, and +renews her vows to be its ruin with every gale. Yet the 'Welcome' lasts +our time, and will last that of many generations, who will continue, +however, doubtless to believe that the sublimities of Nature are +unattainable short of Switzerland. + +My memory now transports me to a mountain district in the north, but on +this side of the border; and here, again, the inn is signless, and has +no appearance of an inn at all. It is situated on the last of a great +chain of hills, with lakes among them. It has lawns and shrubberies, +but few flowers; Nature frowns on every hand, even in sunshine, when +the waterfalls flow like silver, and the crags are decked with +diamonds. There are no 'trencher-scraping, napkin-carrying,' waiters in +the house, but country damsels attend upon you, and a motherly dame, +their mistress, expresses her hope every morning that you have slept +well. If you have not, it is the fault of your conscience: you have had +a poet's recipe for it, for you have been 'within the hearing of a +hundred streams' all night. Will you go up the Fells, or will you row +on the Lake? These are your simple alternatives; there is no brass +band, no promenade, no pier, no anything that the vulgar like. Yet once +a week at least a great spectacle can be promised you without crossing +the inn threshold (indeed, when the promise is kept it is better to be +on the right side of it)—a thunder-storm among the hills. The +arrangements for lighting the place, of which you may have complained, +not without reason, are then in perfection, and the silence is broken +with a vengeance. It is difficult to imagine the grandeurs of a +sham-fight—a battle without corpses—but here you have them. First the +musketry, then the guns, with the explosion of the +powder-magazine—repeated about forty times by the mountain echoes—at +the end of it. When all is over you sit down to such a supper as +Lucullus would have given a year of life for, and which, in all +probability—for he had no prudence—would have shortened it for him. At +the 'Retreat,' as it is called, among other native delicacies, they +give you fresh char cooked to a turn. I like to think that this was the +fish that Monte Christo had sent him in a tank to Paris on the occasion +of a certain banquet; but all the wealth of the Indies could not have +accomplished that; the char (in spite of its name) does not travel. + +One more reminiscence of country inns; and, though I have more of them +in the picture-gallery of my memory, I have done. I conjure up an +ivy-covered dwelling, long roofed but low, and sheltered by a lofty +hill. Its situation is quite solitary, and, save for the cry of the +seagull, there reigns about it an unbroken silence. It is on the very +highway of the world, but the road is noiseless, for it is the sea. +From the windows, all day long, we can watch the ships pass by that +carry the pilgrims of the earth, for their freight is chiefly human. It +is here 'the first ray glitters on the sail that brings our friends up +from the under world, and the last falls on that which sinks with all +we love below the verge.' Even at night there is no cessation to this +coming and going; only, a red light or a white, and the distant strokes +of a paddle-wheel in the hush of the moonless void are then the sole +signs of all this motion. What hopes and fears contend in unseen hearts +under those moving stars! Is it nothing to have the opportunity to +watch them from the ivied porch of the 'Outlook,' and to welcome the +thoughts they arouse within us? On land, too, there are stars, not made +in heaven, but their shining is intermittent. As I lie in my bed I can +see the great revolving light on the farthest point of rock that juts +to sea. That is the 'Outlook's' watchman, not of much use to it, +indeed, in a practical way, but imparting a marvellous sense of +guardianship and security. + +The chief means of amusement at inns of this kind is supplied by +science in the telescope. You note through it all that comes and goes, +and after a day or two can tell-for yourself whither each stately ship +is bound, or whence it comes. At the 'Outlook' the food is plain, but +good; the prawns in particular (which the young people, by-the-bye, can +catch for themselves) are of an exquisite flavour, and in size approach +the lobster. Twice a week for four hours this earthly Paradise is as a +town taken by assault and given over to pillage. An excursion steamer +stops at the little pier and discharges a cargo of excursionists. But +those to whom the happiness of their fellow-creatures is intolerable +can withdraw themselves at these seasons to the neighbouring Downs and +Bays, and on their return they will find peace with folded wing sitting +as before on the 'Outlook's' flagstaff. + +Such are the inns which I have known, and there are hundreds in +beautiful England like them. On its rivers in particular there are many +charming little inns, but, to say truth, although the +gentlemen-fishermen are as quiet as mice (from their habits of caution +in their calling), the disciples of the oar are noisy; they get up too +early and go to bed too late, and are too much addicted to melody. +Moreover, these houses of entertainment often carry the principle of +home production to excess: their native fare is excellent; but, spring +mattresses not growing in the neighbourhood, the stuffing of the beds +is supplied, to judge by results, from the turnip-field. For the +purpose for which they are intended, however, these little hostels are +well fitted and have a river charm that is indescribable. + +I could speak, too, of excellent hotels set in the grounds of ruined +castles or abbeys; but the attractions of the latter interfere with the +repose of the visitor. Moreover, it has been my chief object, while +admitting the merits of the _Crown_ (and) _Imperial_, to paint the +lily—to point out the violet half hid from the eye. It seems to me a +pity that so many persons should leave their native land and spend +their money among foreigners through ignorance of the quiet +resting-places that await them at home. I have in no way exaggerated +their merits, but it must be confessed that they have one serious +drawback, which, however, only affects bachelors; if Paterfamilias is +troubled by it he ought to be ashamed of himself. I allude to the happy +couples on their honeymoon whom one is wont to meet with in these +retired bowers. It is aggravating, no doubt, to see how Angelina and +Edwin devote themselves to one another without the slightest regard for +the feelings of the solitary stranger. The poor creature has no wish, +of course, to thrust his company upon them, still he would like to have +his existence acknowledged; and they ignore it. They have not a word to +throw to him, nor even a glance. Then there are certain endearments, +delightful, no doubt, to those who exchange them, but which to the +spectator are distraction. What I would recommend to the bachelor as a +remedy is a wife of his own. The good Mussulman's idea of future +happiness is a perpetual honeymoon; and these little Paradises are the +very places to spend it in. The customs of our own country forbid the +agreeable variety which has such charms for the Faithful; but, even as +it is, I have seen in these pleasant inns a great deal of human +happiness, such as to the sober lover of his species only adds to their +attraction. + +[Illustration] + + + + +MAID-SERVANTS. + + +It is a common thing to hear the remark expressed by much-tried +mistresses that servants are not 'reasonable beings.' The observation +may either have been provoked by the misbehaviour of some particular +domestic, or by the injudicious defence of the class by one of the male +sex. For the gentlemen have more to urge in favour of our domestics +than the ladies have, and, as the latter maintain, for a very obvious +reason—'they have much less to do with them.' The statement is cynical, +but correct. So long as a man finds his clothes brushed and his meals +well and punctually cooked, he 'does not see much to complain of,' nor +does he give much thought to the pains and trouble which even that +moderate amount of service entails upon his wife. Unless in great +households, where everything is delegated to a paid housekeeper, it is, +indeed, certain that ladies who are resolved to keep a house as it +should be have, now, from various causes, a very hard time of it. The +old feeling of feudal service, though a few examples—both mistresses +and servants—may still exist of it, is dead; and in its place we have +the employer and the hireling. There are faults, of course, on both +sides; mistresses are accustomed to look upon their servants too much +as machines, and in the working thereof do not, perhaps, estimate +sufficiently the advantages of the use of sweet oil; while servants are +more prone to 'eye-service' than were ever the housemaids of Ephesus. +Which of the two began it I cannot tell, but a certain antagonism has +grown up between these two classes which shakes the pillars of domestic +peace. At the root of it all, as at the root of most evils, lies +ignorance, and in the servants' case ignorance of a stupendous nature. + +I have had in my household an under-nurse, who, upon the family's +leaving town for a short holiday, was enjoined to see that the birds in +the nursery (canaries) were well supplied with sand. When we came back +we found them all starved to death. She had given them sand, but, alas! +no seed. This was a girl from the country, who, one would think, would +have known what birds fed upon; otherwise one does not expect much +intelligence from Arcadia. When our last importation (an +under-housemaid) 'turned on the gas' in the upper apartments as she was +directed to do, but omitted to light it, I thought it very excusable; +she had not been accustomed to gas. On the other hand, when her +mistress told her to 'look to the fire' of a certain room, I contend we +had a right to expect that that fire should be kept in. It was not so, +however, and when the lady inquired, 'Why did you not look to it, as I +told you?' the girl replied, 'Well, I did, mum; the door was open and I +looked at the fire every time I passed.' She appeared to attach some +sort of igneous power to the human eye. + +Each of these young ladies came to us very highly recommended by the +wife of the clergyman of her native place. Surely, in the curriculum of +the village school, something else beside the catechism ought to have +been included; yet, of the things they were certain to be set to do—the +merest first principles of domestic service—they had been taught +nothing; and in learning them at our expense they cost us ten times +their wages. + +It may be said, indeed, that when you employ a young girl who has never +been out to service before, you secure honesty, chastity, and sobriety, +and must not look for the artificial virtues; but, unhappily, things +are not very much better when you engage an experienced hand. The lady +of the house should not, of course, expect too much (in these days she +must be of a very sanguine temperament if she falls into _that_ error); +she will think it necessary to warn the new arrival—although she 'knows +her place' and is 'a thorough housemaid'—that a velvet pile carpet, for +example, should not be brushed backwards. But on more obvious matters +she will probably leave the 'thorough housemaid' to her own devices, +the result of which is that the boards beside the stair-carpets are +washed with soda the first morning, which takes the dirt off +effectually—and the paint also. An hour or two before she was caught at +this, she has, perhaps, utterly spoilt a polished grate or two by +rubbing them with scouring paper instead of emery powder. + +Paterfamilias feels these things when he has to pay the bill, but his +wife feels them in the meantime, and it is more than is to be expected +of human nature that she can welcome cordially such an addition to her +household. A prejudice against the girl springs up in her mind, which +is very promptly responded to, and the mutual respect that ought to +grow up between them is nipped in the bud. I am sorry to say that good +housewives are almost always opposed to having servants well educated; +they think that 'knowledge puffs up,' blows them above their places, +and encourages a taste for light literature which is opposed to the +arts of brushing and cleaning. What the 'higher education' of domestic +servants is to be under the School Boards I know not; but I hope they +will not imagine, as the Universities do, that their duty is only to +teach their pupils how to educate themselves. I confess I agree with +the housewives, that, for young persons intended for service, reading, +writing, and arithmetic, with the use of the scrubbing and hearth +brushes, are far preferable acquirements to those of the same three +great principles with the use of the globes. Whether there are any +handbooks in existence, other than cookery books, to teach the duties +of servants I know not; but, even if there are, servants will never +read them of their own free will. Not one in a hundred has a +sufficiently strong desire to improve herself for that. They must be +taught like children, and when they _are_ children, if any good is to +come of it. + +It is to me astounding, and certainly makes me very suspicious of the +advocates of women's rights, that they have done little or nothing in +this direction. Why should not some of that immense energy which is now +expended on platforms be directed into this less ambitious but more +natural channel? There are tens of thousands of persons of their own +sex, not indeed out of employment, but who are obtaining employment on +false pretences, who would do so honestly enough if they had had but a +little early training. Unfortunately, the ladies of the platform do not +in general stoop to such small things as domestic matters; they do not +care about mere comfort, they even perhaps resent it because it is so +dear to tyrannous man. If they would only turn their attention to the +education of their humbler sisters, they would win over all their +enemies and put to shame the cynic who has associated Man's Lefts with +Women's Rights. + +The only School for Servants I am acquainted with sent us the worst we +ever had, and if it had not been for the very handsome fee it charged +both us and her for our mutual introduction, I should not have +recognised it as an educational establishment at all. + +It will naturally be said by men (not by their wives, for they know +better), 'But surely self-interest will cause a servant to qualify +herself for a place, since, having done so, she will command better +wages.' This is the mistake of the political economists, who, right +enough in the importance they attach to self-interest, gravely err in +supposing it to be always of a material kind. They start with the idea +that everybody wants to make as much money as possible. So they do; but +with a large majority this desire is subordinate to the wish for +leisure and enjoyment. Trades unionism, with all its faults, is founded +on this important fact in human nature—that many of us prefer narrow +means, with comparative leisure, to affluence with toil. That this +notion, if universal, would destroy good work of all kinds and make +perfection impossible, is beside the question, or certainly never +enters into the minds of those chiefly concerned in the matter. 'A good +day's work for a good day's wage' is a fine sentiment; but 'half a +day's work for half a day's wage' suits some people even better; while +'half a day's work for a good day's wage' suits them better still. In +old times the sense of 'service being no inheritance' begat habits of +good conduct as well as thrift, for in most well-conducted households, +servants' wages were made proportionate to their length of service. But +nowadays a lady's promise of raising a servant's wages every year is +quite superfluous, since it is ten to one against her keeping her for +the first twelve months. It is no wonder, then, that while the +conviction of service being of a temporary character is, at least, as +strong as ever, the course of conduct it now suggests is to make as +much as possible out of it while it lasts, in the way of perquisites, +etc. With our cooks, especially, it is not too much to say that wages +are often a secondary object as compared with the opportunity of making +a purse for themselves; and the recognised privilege of selling the +dripping affords cover for a multitude of petty delinquencies which if +not positive thefts have a strong family resemblance to them. + +Before leaving the subject of short terms of service, it should be +noted that the modern servant openly avows her love of change. An +excellent mistress, and a very kind one, has told me that housemaids +and kitchenmaids have given her warning again and again for no other +cause than this. They have avowed themselves quite happy and contented +in their place, but they want 'fresh woods and pastures new.' When Jack +Mytton was reminded by his lawyer that a certain estate he was about to +sell had been in his family for 500 years, he replied, 'Then it's high +time it should go out of it;' and the same reflection occurs to our +Janes and Bessies. They have been in their present situation a year +perhaps, or two at most—indeed, two years is considered in the world +below stairs the extreme point for any person of spirit to remain under +one roof—and it is high time they should leave it. One would naturally +think that, in the case of young women at all events, they would be +slow to exchange even a moderately comfortable place for a home among +strangers; that they would bear the ills they know of, even if ills +exist, rather than venture on those of which they know nothing; but +this is far from being the case. Nor do they even quit their place in +order 'to better themselves.' They have absolutely no reason except the +love of change. Behaviour of this sort naturally gives some colour to +the remark already quoted that servants are not 'reasonable beings.' I +was almost a convert to that opinion myself when, on one occasion, +having asked a female domestic to be good enough to put my boots on the +tree, she literally obeyed my order. She hung all my boots on the tree +in the garden, and it was very wet weather. But to young persons who +come from the country everything is pardonable—except 'temper.' + +The growth of this parasite in both town and country is, however, quite +alarming. Little as mistresses dare to say to the disadvantage of +servants when leaving their employment, no matter for what reason, they +do sometimes remark of them that their temper is 'uncertain.' When this +happens and the fact is communicated to Jane or Betsy by the lady to +whom they have proposed themselves, they have one invariable method of +self-defence: 'Temper, mum? Well, I 'ave my faults, I daresay, but not +_that_; all as knows me knows my temper is 'eavenly. But the fact is, +mum, Mrs. Jones [her late mistress] was a bit flighty.' And she touches +her forehead, and even sometimes winks, to indicate aberration of the +intellect. A really good-tempered servant is now rare; and there are +very few who will bear 'speaking to' when their work is neglected or +ill-done. + +What, however, always puts them in the highest good humour is an +expensive breakage. When Susan comes to say, 'Oh, please, mum, I've 'ad +a haccident with the pier glass,' her face is wreathed in smiles. To a +mistress who cannot relieve her feelings by strong language, as a man +would do, this behaviour is very aggravating. If servants do not +actually delight in these misfortunes, I am afraid not one in twenty +shows the least consideration for her employer's purse. It is +charitable to say, when Thomas or Jane leaves the gas burning all +night, or the sun-blinds out in the pouring rain, that they have 'no +head;' but it is my experience that they are very careful, and, indeed, +take quite extraordinary precautions, with respect to their own +property. I am afraid that the true reason of the waste and +extravagance among servants is that they have no attachment to their +employers, and of course it is less troublesome to be lavish than to be +economical. All the education in the world cannot make selfish persons +unselfish; but it can surely implant in them some sense of duty. At +present, so long as a servant is not absolutely dishonest, her +conscience rarely troubles her. This is especially the case with our +cooks, who also—that 'dripping' question making their path so +slippery—draw the line between honesty and its contrary very fine +indeed. + +Moreover, they know less of what they pretend to know than any other +class of servant. The proof of this is in the fact that not one in a +hundred of them will cook you a dinner on trial. I have often said to a +cook, 'Your character is satisfactory enough in other respects; but, +before engaging you, will you show what you can do by sending up one +good dinner, for which I will pay you at the ordinary rate —namely, +half-a-guinea?' She won't do it; she says she can cook for a prince, +and affects to be hurt at the proposition. The consequence is that for +a month, at least, we are slowly poisoned. Once only I hired a cook who +accepted these terms. I am bound to say she sent us up a most excellent +dinner, but when I sent for her to pay the half-guinea she was dead +drunk on the kitchen floor. She had taken a bottle of port wine and one +of stout while serving up that entertainment, and afterwards confessed +that during her arduous duties she required 'constant support.' Again, +it is by no means unusual for cooks to succeed to admiration for a week +and then to begin to spoil everything, the proverb respecting a 'new +broom' applying, curiously enough, even more to them than to the +'housemaids.' + +These observations are no doubt severe, but they are not unjust; nor do +I for a moment imply that servants are always to blame, and never +mistresses. There are faults on both sides. Ladies often show +themselves as 'unreasonable' as their female domestics. For example, +although very solicitous for the settlement of their own daughters in +life, they often do not give sufficient opportunities for their +maid-servants to find husbands. A girl in service is quite as anxious +to get a husband as her young mistresses, and, indeed, it is of much +more consequence for her to do so. She sees her youth slipping away +from her in a place where no 'followers' are allowed, and it is no +wonder that she 'wants a change.' She has a right to have her holidays +and her 'Sundays out,' and it is the mistress's duty not only to grant +them, but to make some inquiry as to how she spends them. Many ladies +who go to church with much regularity never take the smallest interest +in the moral conduct of those to whom they stand, morally if not +legally, _in loco parentis_, and who may, perhaps, have no other +adviser. + +Mistresses of all ranks, too, show a lamentable want of principle in +the matter of character-giving. It wants, no doubt, a certain strength +of mind to write the truth. 'The girl is going, thank Heaven,' they say +to themselves, and they are glad to get rid of her, without a row, at +the easy price of a small falsehood. They lay the flattering unction to +their souls that they are concealing certain facts in order 'not to +stand in the way of the poor girl's future.' What they are really doing +is an act of selfishness, cruel as regards the lady who is trusting to +their word, and baneful as regards the public good. It is the good +characters which make the bad servants. In a certain primitive district +of England, where ministers are 'called' from parish to parish, one of +the churchwardens of X complained to the churchwardens of Y that his +late importation from the Y pulpit was not very satisfactory. 'And +yet,' he said, 'you all cracked him up enormously.' 'Yes,' replied the +churchwarden of Y, 'and you will have to crack him up too before you +get rid of him.' + +Now, it is only ignorance which causes ladies to believe that there is +any necessity to 'crack up' the character of a servant. They are not +obliged (though, of course, if the servant has behaved well it would be +infamous to withhold it) to give her any character at all, and they may +state the most unpleasant truth (if they are quite certain of the fact +and can prove it) without the least fear of an action for libel. The +law does not punish them for telling the truth about their servants, +and in another matter also it is more just than it is supposed to be. +There is a superstition among servants that when leaving their +situations before their time is out they have a right to claim board +wages, and that even when dismissed for gross misconduct they have a +right to their ordinary wages for the remainder of the month; but these +are mere popular errors. The only case with which I am acquainted where +neither of these dues was demanded was rather a curious one. A widow +lady advertised for a cook and a housemaid, and procured them by the +first cast of her net. They came together with an open avowal of their +previous acquaintanceship; they were attached to one another, they +said, and did not wish to be in separate service, and wages were not so +much an object to them as opportunities of friendship. The lady, who +had an element of romance in her, was touched with this expression of +sentiment; it was also a great convenience to her to be so quickly +suited; and, their characters being good, she engaged them. They had +come from a house of much greater pretensions than her own, and had +taken higher wages, which might have attracted her suspicions; but she +had very little work for them to do, and she concluded that 'an easy +place' had had its attractions for them. Her servants were well treated +and well fed, and were allowed to see their friends; but she objected +to evening visits, and required the back door to be locked and the key +placed in her possession at nine o'clock every evening. If the front +door was opened she could hear it from every part of her modest +residence (and, being very nervous, she used often to fancy that it +opened when it did not), while a wire for the use of the policeman +connected the ground-floor with an alarm bell in her own room in case +of fire or other contingency. The two servants had been six days with +her when this alarm bell was pealed one night with great violence. She +looked out of window, and beheld a cab laden with luggage standing at +her door. She expected nobody; but whoever had come was more welcome +than 'thieves' or 'fire,' and she went up to the maid's room to bid +them answer the door. She found to her great astonishment—for it was +two in the morning—the apartment empty, and while she was there the +alarm-bell sounded again with increased fury. Looking over the +balusters, she perceived a light in the hall and inquired who was +there. 'Well, it's us two,' returned the cook, 'we're just agoin, so +good-bye. It ain't at all the sort o' place for us, and you ain't the +sort o' missis.' Then there was a shout of laughter, the front door was +opened and slammed to, and the cab drove off with its tenants, leaving +their mistress to her lonely meditations. The two friends had come on +trial, it seemed, and had had enough of it. + +That they made no claim for wages of any kind seems quite curious when +one considers what sort of servants, and in what sort of circumstances, +do demand them. And, as a rule, masters and mistresses give in to the +extortion. Yet the law is on their side, nor have they any reason to +complain of it in other respects. The improvement that is needed is in +themselves, and in their relations to those in their employment. Our +young ladies are so engaged in their accomplishments and their +amusements that they have no time to acquire a knowledge of domestic +affairs, so that when they marry they know no more of a housewife's +duties than their husbands. No wonder men of moderate means shrink from +marriage when wives have become a source of discomfort and expense, +instead of their contraries, and have lost the name of helpmate. How +can they be in a position to teach their servants when they themselves +are grossly ignorant of what they would have them learn? There are +certain village schools, indeed, which profess to train their pupils +for domestic service, but they only teach them to be maids-of-all-work, +the least remunerated and the hardest-worked of all the daughters of +toil. They offer no premium to diligence and perfection. + +This state of things is very hard both upon mistresses and servants, +but it is not irremediable, and the remedy must come from the upper of +the two classes. Schools are as necessary for servants as they are for +other people; they must be taught their calling before they can +practise it; and schools for servants must therefore be instituted. +With schools will come certificates of merit, and servants will then be +paid for what they can really do, and not, as now, in proportion to +their powers of audacity of assertion. + + + + +MEN-SERVANTS. + + +The subject of men-servants is by no means of such universal interest +as that of maid-servants, and those who suffer from them are not only +less numerous, but less deserving of pity; as a lady of limited means +once put it in my hearing, 'They can better afford to be robbed and +murdered' On the other hand, whatever truth may be in the dogma that +where a woman is bad she is worse than a bad man, it is certain that +when a man-servant is bad he can do more mischief than a bad +maid-servant. In many cases he is a necessity, not because folks are +rich, but because they have large families, and the service is +consequently too heavy to be undertaken solely by women. I have known +many householders who, weary of the trouble and annoyance given by +men-servants, have resolved to engage only those of the other sex, and +who have had to resort to men-servants again for what may be called +physical reasons. + +When this happens, however, both master and mistress should agree to +the arrangement, or at all events be both informed that it has been +made. Only last autumn a lady friend of mine adopted it in the absence +of her husband abroad, and forgot to apprise him of it by letter. He +arrived home late at night, and, letting himself in with a latch-key, +took the strange man for a burglar, and was almost the death of him by +strangulation before he could explain that he was the new butler. + +No woman can bring up a luncheon or dinner tray for a dozen people +twice a day without sooner or later coming to grief with it. And here +it is appropriate to say that in places where there is much heavy work +it is only reasonable that wages should be higher than where the work +is light. Whereas, upon such irrational grounds is our whole system of +domestic service built, that this is hardly ever taken into +consideration. Since the servant is told beforehand what he or she will +have to do, it is taken for granted that the conditions are acceptable +to them; whereas, the fact is that the capability of performing their +duties is the very last thing to enter their minds. They cannot afford +to remain 'out of a situation,' and therefore take the first that +offers itself as a stopgap, with no more intention of permanently +remaining there than a European who accepts an appointment in Turkey, +and with the same object—namely, to make as much as possible out of the +Turks in the meantime. + +In the case of a man-servant, especially in London, no written +character should ever be held sufficient. A personal interview with his +late master or mistress is indispensable. This gives a little trouble, +no doubt, on both sides; but those who grudge it, for such a purpose, +must indeed be grossly selfish, and when they engage a ticket-of-leave +man for their butler get no worse than they deserve. One of the best +butlers, however, I ever knew was a ticket-of-leave man—engaged on the +faith of a written character, which was, of course, a forged one, and +who remained with his employer no less than eighteen months. If his +speculations on the turf had been successful, he might have parted with +him the best of friends, and perhaps have purchased a residence in the +same square; but something went wrong with the brother to Bucephalus, +whom he had backed for the Derby, and the poor man had to dispose of +the whole of his master's family plate to pay his own debts of honour +and defray his travelling expenses—probably to some considerable +distance, as the police could never hear of him. The risk in taking a +butler without a personal guarantee of at least his honesty and +sobriety can indeed hardly be exaggerated. If a clever fellow, his +influence over his fellow-servants of the other sex is very great, and +it is a recognised maxim of the class never 'to tell upon one another' +so long as they remain good friends. I have heard an experienced +housewife say there is nothing she dreads so much as an unbroken +harmony below stairs; like silence in the nursery, it is ominous of all +sorts of mischief. + +Of course, the ticket-of-leave man was an extreme case; but it is +certain that some butlers who are not thieves are always treading on +the very confines of roguery. They are like trustees who, though they +will not touch the principal entrusted to them, not only omit to put it +out to the best advantage, but will sometimes even pocket a portion of +the interest 'for their trouble.' I remember reading a curious case of +this sort. A gentleman who had been with his family in Switzerland for +nine months was met by a London acquaintance on his return, who +expressed his regret at his having been in trouble at home. 'Nay, I +have been in no trouble,' he replied, 'and, indeed, none of us have +been at home.' 'But a month ago when I was passing down your street I +surely saw a funeral standing at your door?' Nor had his eyes deceived +him. The butler in charge had let the house for a couple of months, and +but for his singular ill-luck in one of his tenants happening to die +during their temporary occupation of it, he would have pocketed the +rent (_minus_ the money requisite to keep the maids' mouths shut) and +his master would have been none the wiser. It is said that it is only +when we have lost a friend that we come to value him at his true worth; +and it is certain that it is only when one's butler has left us and the +tongues of his fellow-servants are loosened that we come to learn his +demerits—the difference between his real character and his written one. +If he is a rogue, his evil influence remains behind him, and, next to +the maidservants, it is the page who suffers most from it. He +becomes—poor little fellow!—almost by necessity an accessory to his +delinquencies, plays pilot-fish to the other's shark, and himself grows +up to swell the host of bad servants and that army of martyrs their +masters and mistresses. + +A common cause of a butler's ruin, and for which he is much to be +pitied, is his having married unfortunately. I had once a good servant +whom I was very loth to lose, but whose departure became necessary from +his constantly being visited by a wife in advanced stages of +intoxication. Housewives generally prefer a married man for their +servant, for reasons that are not inscrutable. I do not wish to differ +from such good authorities. But though I have no objection to my butler +being married, I do object to maintain his wife, which, if he be on +good terms with the cook, there is a strong probability of my having to +do. As to his own eating, Heaven forbid that I should grudge it to him; +but it is curious and utterly subversive of all medical dogma that both +men-servants and maidservants, who take, of course, comparatively +little exercise, should, nevertheless, contrive to eat more apiece for +dinner than two average Alpine climbers. Four meals a day, and three of +them meat meals, is their usual rate of sustenance, and the food must +not only be frequent and plentiful, but very good. It is a gratifying +proof of the rapid influence of civilisation that the daughter of a +farm-labourer, accustomed at home to consider bacon a treat and beef a +windfall, will, after a month's experience of her London place, decline +to eat cold meat of any kind, reject salt butter as 'not fit for a +Christian,' and become quite a _connoisseur_ as to the strength of +bitter ale. Indeed, two of our present female domestics are +'recommended' to drink claret because beer makes them bilious. I do not +mind giving them claret, but I think it hard that under such +circumstances I should have had a butler give me warning because the +female domestics are 'not select enough.' My own impression is, though +I scarcely like to mention it, because he was a married man, that he +considered them too plain. + +The reasons, or at all events the professed reasons, which servants +give for leaving their situations are sometimes very curious. One man +left a family of my acquaintance because he said he was interfered with +by the young ladies. 'Good gracious, what do you mean?' inquired his +mistress. Her daughters, it appears, were accustomed to arrange the +flowers for the dinner-table, whereas, as he imagined, he had a +peculiar gift for that kind of decoration himself. + +On the other hand, it is sometimes difficult for a sensitive master or +mistress to give the true reason for their parting with a servant. A +friend of mine had a footman who, through trick, or some defect in his +respiratory organs, used to blow like a grampus, and indeed more like a +whale, while waiting at table. It was not a vice, of course, but it was +very objectionable, and guests who were bald especially objected to it. +My friend consulted with his butler, who admitted that 'John did blow +like a pauper' (meaning, as I suppose, a porpoise), and undertook to +break the subject to him. It is quite common to find candidates for +service very deaf, and if they contrive to pass their 'entrance +examination' (for which no doubt they sharpen their faculties), they +stay with you for a month at least with an excellent excuse for making +it a holiday, since, whatever you tell them to do they cannot hear and +do not do it, or do something else which they like better. Mistresses +who are silent about moral disqualifications are much more so, of +course, about physical ones, and have no scruples in ridding themselves +of a deaf man. + +The worst class of men-servants, perhaps, are those who are said to +'require a master;' which means that when he happens to be not at home +they neglect everything. A friend of mine who happened to take a week's +holiday, alone, discovered on his return that his family might almost +as well have had no servant at all as the man he left with them; he was +generally out, and when at home had not even troubled himself to answer +the drawing-room bell. Some men-servants are always running out; they +have 'just stepped round the corner,' they say, 'to post a letter;' +which in nine cases out of ten means to have a dram at the +public-house. The servants who 'require a master' sometimes retain +their situation with a very selfish one by devoting themselves to his +service at the expense of the rest of the family. 'John suits me very +well,' he says, 'and thoroughly understands his duties,' which in this +case means the length of the master's foot. + +On the other hand, there are some men-servants who, one would think, +ought to belong to the other sex, so utterly ignorant they are of that +branch of their duty which they call 'valeting.' A lady blessed with a +scientific husband, who certainly did not take much notice whether he +was 'valeted' or not, once complained to his man of his neglect in this +particular. 'When your master comes in, William, you should look after +him, and see to his hat and coat, and pay him little attentions.' So +the next time the man of science came in he was not a little surprised +by William (who, it is fair to say, came from the country) running up +and taking his hat off his head, like some highly-trained retriever. +Happy the master to whom a worse thing has never happened at the hands +of his retainer! + +The main thing to be dreaded in men-servants—next to downright +dishonesty—is, of course, intoxication. If a man has been long in one's +service and gets drunk for once and away, it may well be forgiven him; +but when your new servant gets drunk, wait till he is sober enough to +receive his wages, and then dismiss him—if you can. Not long ago I had +occasion to discharge a butler for habitual intoxication; he was never +quite drunk, but also never quite sober; he was a sot. I made him fetch +a cab, and saw his luggage put upon it, and I tendered him his month's +wages. But he refused to leave the house without board wages. Of +course, I declined to pay him any such thing; and, as he persisted in +leaning against the dining-room door murmuring at intervals, 'I wants +my board wages,' I sent for a policeman. 'Be so good,' I said,' as to +turn this drunken person out of my house.' 'I daren't do it, sir,' was +the reply; 'that would be to exceed my duty.' 'Then, why are you here?' +'I am here, sir, to see that you turn the man out yourself without +using unnecessary violence.' 'The man' was six feet high and as stout +as a beer-barrel. I could no more have moved him than Skiddaw, and he +knew it. 'I stays here,' he chanted in his maudlin way, 'till I gets my +board wages.' Fortunately, two Oxford undergraduates happened to be in +the house, to whom I mentioned my difficulty, and I shall not easily +forget the delighted promptitude with which they seized upon the +offender and 'ran him out' into the street. He fled down the area steps +at once with a celerity that convinced me he was accustomed to being +turned out of houses, and tried to obtain re-admission at the +back-door. It was fortunately locked, but when I said to the policeman, +'_Now_, please to remove that man,' he answered, 'No, sir; that would +be to exceed my duty; he is still upon your premises and a member of +your household.' As it was raining heavily, the delinquent, though +sympathised with by a great crowd round the area railings, presently +got tired of his position and went away. But supposing my young Oxford +friends had not been in the house and he had fallen upon me (a little +man) in the act of expulsion; or supposing I had been a widow lady with +no protector, would that too faithful retainer have remained in my +establishment for ever? + +I have purposely addressed myself to that large class of the community +only who are said 'to keep a man-servant'—that is, one man, assisted, +perhaps, by a page. Those who keep butler, footman, coachman, grooms, +and valets are comparatively few in number, and know nothing of the +inconveniences which their less wealthy fellow-countrymen endure. In +large establishments, if William is drunk, John is sober, and the work +is done for the rich man by somebody; especially, too, if William is +drunk, there are John and Thomas to turn him out of the house and have +done with him. But it is certain that the lower Ten Thousand are not in +a satisfactory condition as respects their men-servants; hardly more +so, in fact, than the Hundred Thousand are in regard to their maids. +The men-servants, however, are not so ignorant of their duties as are +the latter, and if only their masters would have the courage to tell +the truth when giving them their 'characters,' there would be a great +improvement in them. Against the masters themselves (unlike the +mistresses) I have never heard much complaint. Most of them object to +be 'bothered' and 'troubled,' and are willing enough to put everything +into their man's hands, including the key of the Cellar, if only they +could trust him; but at present, alas! this is a very large 'If.' + +[Illustration] + + + + +WHIST-PLAYERS. + + +If cards are the Devil's books, Whist is the _édition de luxe_ of them. +Whist-playing is one of the few vices of the upper classes that has not +in time descended to the lower, with whom the ingenious and attractive +game of 'All Fours' has always held its own against it. I have known +but two men not belonging to the upper ten thousand who played well at +whist. One was a well-known jockey in the South of England, who was +also, by the way, an admirable billiard-player. He called himself an +amateur, but those who played with him used to complain that his +proceedings were even ultra-professional. On the Turf men are almost as +equal as they are under it, and this ornament of the pigskin would on +certain occasions (race meetings) take his place at the card-table with +some who were very literally his betters, while others who had more +self-respect contented themselves with backing him. The other example I +have in my mind was an ancient Cumberland yeoman, who, having lost the +use of his limbs in middle life from having been tossed by a bull, +pursued the science under considerable difficulties. A sort of +card-rack (such as Psycho uses at the Egyptian Hall) was placed in +front of him, and behind him stood his little granddaughter who played +the cards for him by verbal direction. Both these men played a very +good game of the old-fashioned kind, for though the jockey used +subtleties, they were not of the Clay or Cavendish sort. The asking for +trumps was a device unknown to him, though there were folks who +whispered he would take them under certain circumstances without +asking, and of the leading of the penultimate with five in the suit it +could be said of him, for once, that he was as innocent as a babe. + +Of course, many persons join the 'upper ten' who come from the lower +twenty (or even thirty), and it need not be said that they are by no +means inferior in sagacity to their new acquaintances; yet they rarely +make first-rate players. Whist, like the classics, must be learnt young +for any excellence to be attained in it. Of this Metternich was a +striking example. If benevolent Nature ever intended a man for a +whist-player one would have supposed that she had done so in his case, +but had been baffled by some malign Destiny which had degraded him to +that class by whom, in conjunction with Kings, it was fondly believed, +previously to the recent general election, that 'the world was +governed.' Until late in life he never took to whist, when he grew +wildly fond of it, and played incessantly, till it is said a certain +memorable event took place which caused him never to touch a card +again. The story goes that, rapt in the enjoyment of the game, he +suffered a special messenger to wait for hours, to whom if he had given +his attention more promptly a massacre of many hundred persons would +have been prevented. Humanity may drop a tear, but whist had nothing to +regret in the circumstance; for in Metternich it did not lose a good +player, and, what redeems his intelligence, he knew it. 'I learnt my +whist too late,' he would say, with more pathos and solemnity, perhaps, +than he would have used when speaking of more momentous matters of +omission. + +He must be a wise man indeed who, being an habitual whist-player, is +aware that he is a bad one. In games of pure skill, such as chess, and, +in a less degree, billiards, a man must be a fool who deceives himself +upon such a point; but in whist there is a sufficient amount of chance +to enable him to preserve his self-complacency for some time—let us +say, his lifetime. If he loses, he ascribes it to his 'infernal luck,' +which always fills his hands with twos and threes; and if he wins, +though it is by a succession of four by honours as long as the string +of four-in-hands when the Coaching Club meets in Hyde Park, he ascribes +it to his skill. 'If I hadn't played trumps just when I did,' he +modestly observes to his partner, 'all would have been over with us;' +though the result would have been exactly the same had he played +blindfold. To an observer of human nature, who is not himself a loser +'on the day,' there are few things more charming than the genial, +gentle self-approval of two players of this class who have just +defeated two experts, and proved, to their own satisfaction, that if +fortune gives them 'a fair chance' or 'something like equal cards,' as +they term the conditions of their late performance, they can play as +well as other people. + +Of course, the term 'good-play' is a relative one; the player who wins +applause in the drawing-room is often thought but little of in places +where the rigour of the game is observed; and the 'good, steady player' +of the University Clubs is not a star of the first magnitude at the +Portland. The best players used to be men of mature years; they are now +the middle-aged, who, with sufficient practical experience, have +derived their skill in early life from the best books. 'It is difficult +to teach an old dog new tricks,' and for the most part the old dogs +despise them. When I hear my partner boast that he is 'none of your +book-players,' I smile courteously, and tremble. I know what will +become of him and me if fortune does not give him his 'fair chance,' +and I seek comfort from the calculation which tells me it is two to one +against my cutting with him again. How marvellous it is, when one comes +to consider the matter, that a man should decline to receive +instruction on a technical subject from those who have eminently +distinguished themselves in it, and have systematised for the benefit +of others the results of the experience of a lifetime! With books or no +books, it is quite true, however, that some men, otherwise of great +intelligence, can never be taught whist; they may have had every +opportunity of learning it—have been born, as it were, with the ace of +spades in their mouth instead of a silver spoon—but the gift of +understanding is denied them; and though it is ungallant to say so, I +have never known a lady to play whist well. + +In the case of the fair sex, however, it may be urged that they have +not the same chances; they have no whist clubs, and the majority of +them entertain the extraordinary delusion that it is wrong to play at +whist in the afternoon. One may talk scandal over kettle-drums, and go +to morning performances at the theatre, but one may not play at cards +till after dinner. There is even quite a large set of male persons who, +'on principle,' do not play at whist in the afternoon. In seasons of +great adversity, when fortune has not given me my 'fair chance' for +many days, I have sometimes 'gone on strike,' as it is termed, and +joined them; but anything more deplorable than such a state of affairs +it is impossible to imagine. After their day's work is over, these good +people can't conceive what to do with themselves, and, between +ourselves, it is my experience, drawn from these occasional 'intervals +of business,' that this practice of not playing whist in the afternoon +generally leads to dissipation. + +It is sometimes advanced by this unhappy class, by way of apology, that +they play at night; which may very possibly be the case, but they don't +play well. There is no such thing, except in the sense in which +after-dinner speaking is called 'good,' as good whist after dinner. It +may seem otherwise, even to the spectators; but having themselves dined +like the rest, they are not in a position to give an opinion. The +keenness of observation is blunted by food and wine; the delicate +perceptions are gone; and what is left of the intelligence is generally +devoted to finding faults in your partner's play. The consciousness of +mistakes on your own part, which he is in no condition to discern, +instead of suggesting charity, induces irritation, and you are +persuaded, till you get the next man, that you are mated with the worst +player in all Christendom. Moreover, that 'one more rubber' with which +you propose to finish is generally elastic (_Indian_ rubber), and you +sit up into the small hours and find them disagree with you. If I ever +write that new series of the 'Chesterfield Letters' which I have long +had in my mind, and for which I feel myself eminently qualified, my +most earnest advice to young gentlemen of fashion will be found in the +golden rule, 'Never sit down to whist after dinner;' it is a mistake, +and almost an immorality. If they must play cards, let them play +Napoleon. + +With regard to finding fault with one's partner, I have no apology to +offer for it under any circumstances; but it must be remembered that +this does not always arise from ill-temper, or the sense of loss that +might have been gain. There are many lovers of whist for its own sake +to whom bad play, even in an adversary, excites a certain distress of +mind; when a good hand is thrown away by it, they experience the same +sort of emotion that a gourmand feels who sees a haunch of venison +spoilt in the carving. In such a case a gentle expression of +disapproval is surely pardonable. And I have observed that, with one or +two exceptions (_non Angli sed angeli_, men of angelic temper rather +than ordinary Englishmen), the good players who never find fault are +not socially the pleasantest. They are men who 'play to win,' and who +think it very injudicious to educate a bad partner who will presently +join the ranks of the Opposition. + +What is rather curious—and I speak with some experience, for I have +played with all classes, from the prince to the gentleman farmer—the +best whist-players are not, as a rule, those who are the most highly +educated or intellectual. Men of letters, for example (I am speaking, +of course, very generally), are inferior to the doctors and the +warriors. Both the late Lord Lytton and Charles Lever had, it is true, +a considerable reputation at the whist-table, but though they were good +players, they were not in the first class; while the author of 'Guy +Livingstone,' though devoted to the game, was scarcely to be placed in +the second. The best players are, one must confess, what irreverent +persons, ignorant of the importance of this noble pursuit, would term +'idlers'—men of mere nominal occupation, or of none, to whom the game +has been familiar from their youth, and who have had little else to do +than to play it. + +While some men, as I have said, can never be taught whist, a few are +born with a genius for the game, and move up 'from high to higher,' +through all the grades of excellence, with a miraculous rapidity; but, +whether good, bad, or indifferent, I have not known half a dozen +whist-players who were not superstitious. Their credulity is, indeed, +proverbial, but no one who does not mix with them can conceive the +extent of it; it reminds one of the African fetish. The country +apothecary's wife who puts the ivory 'fish' on the candlestick 'for +luck,' and her partner, the undertaker, who turns his chair in hopes to +realise more 'silver threepences,' are in no way more ridiculous than +the grave and reverend seigneurs of the Clubs who are attracted to 'the +winning seats' or 'the winning cards.' The idea of going on because +'the run of luck' is in your favour, or of leaving off because it has +declared itself against you, is logically of course unworthy of +Cetywayo. The only modicum of reason that underlies it is the fact that +the play of some men becomes demoralised by ill-fortune, and may, +possibly, be improved by success. Yet the belief in this absurdity is +universal, and bids fair to be eternal. 'If I am not in a draught, and +my chair is comfortable, you may put me anywhere,' is a remark I have +heard but once, and the effect of it on the company was much the same +as if in the House of Convocation some reverend gentleman had announced +his acceptance of the religious programme of M. Comte. + +With the few exceptions I have mentioned, whist-players not only stop +very far short of excellence in the game, but very soon reach their +tether. I cannot say of any man that he has gone on improving for +years; his mark is fixed, and he knows it—though he is exceptionally +sagacious if he knows where it is drawn as respects others—and there he +stays till he begins to deteriorate. The first warning of decadence is +the loss of memory, after which it is a question of time (and good +sense) when he shall withdraw from the ranks of the fighting men and +become a mere spectator of the combat. It was said by a great gambler +that the next pleasure in life to that of winning was that of losing; +and to the real lover of whist, the next pleasure to that of playing a +good game is that of looking on at one. + +Whist has been extolled, and justly, upon many accounts; but the +peculiar advantage of the game is, perhaps, that it utilises socially +many persons who would not otherwise be attractive. Unless a player is +positively disagreeable, he is as good to play whist with as a +conversational Crichton. Moreover, though the poet has hinted of the +evanescent character of 'friendships made in wine,' such is not the +case with those made at whist. The phrase, 'my friend and partner,' +used by a well-known lady in fiction, in speaking of another lady, is +one that is particularly applicable to this social science, and holds +good, as it does, alas, in no other case, even when the partner becomes +an adversary. + +[Illustration] + + + + +RELATIONS. + + +It is a favourite utterance of a much 'put-upon' Paterfamilias of my +acquaintance, when he finds his family more than usually too much for +him, and cynically confesses his own shortcomings, that 'children +cannot be too particular in their choice of their parents, or begin +their education too early.' + +But not only are children a necessity—that is, if the world of men and +women is to be kept going, concerning the advantage of which there +seems, however, just now, to be some doubt,—but when they have arrived, +they cannot, except in very early life, be easily got rid of. In this +respect they differ from the relations whose case I am about to +consider, and also possess a certain claim upon us over and above the +mere tie of blood, since we are responsible for their existence. The +obligation on the other side is, I venture to think, a little +exaggerated. If there is such a thing as natural piety, which, even in +these days, few are found to deny, it is the reverence, it is true, +with which children regard their parents; but their moral indebtedness +to them as the authors of their being is open to doubt. That theory, +indeed, appears to be founded upon false premises; for, unless in the +case of an ancestral estate, I am not aware that the existence of +children is much premeditated. On the contrary, their arrival is often +looked upon, from pecuniary reasons, with much apprehension, or, at +best, till they do arrive, they may be described, in common phrase, as +'neither born nor thought of.' I am a father myself, but I wish to be +fair and to take a just view of matters. If a mother leaves her child +on a doorstep, for example, the filial bond can hardly be expected to +be very strong. In such a case, indeed, the infant seems to me to have +a very distinct grievance against its female parent, and to be under no +very overwhelming obligation to its father. 'Handsome is as handsome +does' is a principle that applies to all relations of life, including +the nearest; and if duty never absolutely ceases to exist, it is, at +all events, greatly moulded by circumstances. + +Patriotism, for instance, is very commendable, but your country must be +worth something to make you love it. It is next to impossible that an +inhabitant of Monaco, for example, should be patriotic. He can at most +be only parochial. The love of one's mother is probably the purest and +noblest of all human affections; but some people's mothers are habitual +drunkards, and others professional thieves. Even filial reverence, it +is plain, must stop somewhere. That is one of the objections which, +with all humility, I feel to the religion of M. Comte. The worship of +my grandmother would be impossible to me, unless I had reason to +believe her to have been a respectable person. Her relationship, unless +I had had the advantage of her personal acquaintance, would weigh I +fear, but little with me, and that of my great-grandmother nothing at +all. The whole notion of ancestry—unless one's ancestors have been +distinguished people—seems to me ridiculous. If they have _not_ been +distinguished people—folks, that is, of whom some record has been +preserved—how is one to know that they have been worthy persons, whose +mission has been to increase the sum of human happiness? If, on the +other hand, they have been only notorious, and done their best to +decrease it, I should be most heartily ashamed of them. The pride of +birth from this point of view—which seems to me a very reasonable +one—is not only absurd, but often very reprehensible. We may be +exulting, by proxy, in successful immorality, or even crime. Our +boastfulness of our progenitors is necessarily in most cases very +vague, because we know so little about them. When we come to the +particular, the record stops very short indeed—generally at one's +grandmother, who, by the way, plays a part in the dream-drama of +ancestry little superior to that of that 'rank outsider,' a +mother-in-law. 'Tell that to your grandmother' is a phrase that +certainly did not originate in reverence; and even when that lady is +proverbially alluded to in a complimentary sense, her intelligence is +only eulogised in connection with the 'sucking of eggs.' + +It so happens that I have quite a considerable line of ancestors +myself, but only one of them ever distinguished himself, and that (he +was an Attorney-General) in a doubtful way; and I confess I don't take +the slightest interest in them. I prefer the pleasant companion with +whom I came up in the train yesterday, and whose name I forgot to ask, +to the whole lot of them. + +And if I don't care about ancestors on canvas (for their pictures, of +course, are all we have seen of them), I have good cause to be offended +with them on paper. My favourite biographies—such as that of Walter +Scott, for example—are disfigured by them. When men sit down to write a +great man's life, why should they weary us with an epitome of that of +his grandfather and grandmother? Of course, the book has to be a +certain length. No one is more sensible than myself of the difficulty +of providing 'copy' sufficient for two octavo volumes; but I do think +biographers should confine themselves to two generations. For my part, +I could do with one, but there is the favourite theory of a great man's +inheriting his greatness from the maternal parent, which I am well +aware cannot be dispensed with. It is like the white horse, or rather +the grey mare, in Wouvermanns's pictures; you can't get rid of it any +more than Mr. Dick could get Charles I. out of his memorial. For my +part, I always begin biographies at the fourteenth chapter (or +thereabouts)—'The subject of this memoir was born,' etc.; and even so I +find I get quite enough of them. In novels the introduction of ancestry +is absolutely intolerable. When I see that hateful chapter headed +'Retrospective,' I pass over to the other side, like the Levite, only +quicker. What do I care whether our hero's grandfather was Archbishop +of Canterbury or a professional body-snatcher? I don't even care which +of the two was my own personal friend's grandfather, and how much less +can I take an interest in this imaginary progenitor of the creation of +an author's brain? The introduction of such a colourless shadow is, to +my mind, the height of impertinence. If I were Mr. Mudie, I would put +my foot down resolutely and stamp out this literary plague. As George +III., who had an objection to commerce, is said to have observed, when +asked to confer a baronetcy on one of the Broadwood family, 'Are you +sure there is not a piano in it?' so should Mr. M. inquire of the +publisher before taking copies of any novel, 'Are you sure there is not +a grandfather in it?' + +Again, what a nuisance is ancestry in our social life! It cannot, +unhappily, be done away with as a fact, but surely it need not be a +topic. How often have I been asked by some fair neighbour at a +dinner-table, 'Is that Mr. Jones opposite one of the Joneses of +Bedfordshire?' One's first impulse is naturally to ask, 'What on earth +is that to you or me?' But experience teaches prudence, and I reply +with reverence, 'Yes, of Bedfordshire,' which, at all events, puts a +stop to argument upon the matter. Moreover, she seems to derive some +sort of mysterious satisfaction from the information, and it is always +well to give pleasure. + +A well-known wit was once in company with one of the Cavendishes, who +had lately been to America, and was recounting his experiences. 'These +Republican people have such funny names,' he said. 'I met there a man +of the name of Birdseye.' 'Well, and is not that just as good as +Cavendish?' replied the wit, who was also a smoker. But the remark was +not appreciated. + +Ancestral people do not, as a rule, appreciate wit; but, on the other +hand, it must be admitted that this is not a defect peculiar to them +alone. I once knew a man of letters who, though he had risen to wealth +and eminence, was of humble descent, and had a weakness for avoiding +allusion to it. His daughter married a man of good birth, but whose +literary talents were not of a high order. This gentleman wrote a +letter applying for a certain Government appointment, and expressed a +wish for his father-in-law's opinion upon the composition. 'It's a very +bad letter,' was the frank criticism the other made upon it. 'The +writing is bad, the spelling is indifferent, the style is abominable. +Good heavens! where are your relatives and antecedents?' 'If it comes +to that,' was the reply, 'where are yours? For I never hear you speak +about them.' Nor did he ever hear him, for his father-in-law never +spoke another word to him. + +Nothing, of course, can be more contemptible than to neglect one's poor +relations on account of their poverty; but it is very doubtful whether +the sum of human happiness is increased by our having so much respect +for the mere tie of kindred, unaccompanied by merit. Other things being +equal, it is obviously natural that one's near relatives should be the +best of friends. But other things are not always equal. Indeed, a +certain high authority (which looks on both sides of most questions) +admits as much. 'There is a friend,' it says, 'that sticketh closer +than a brother. The connection, with its consequences, is somewhat +similar to a partnership in commercial life. If partners pull together, +and are sympathetic, nothing can be more delightful than such an +arrangement. The tie of business clenches the tie of social attraction. +For myself, I am not commercial; but I envy the old firm of Beaumont +and Fletcher, and the modern one of Erckmann and Chatrian. But if the +members of the firm do _not_ pull together? Then, surely the bond +between them is most deplorable, and a divorce _a vinculo_ should be +obtained as soon as possible. + +One of the greatest mistakes—and there are many—that we fall into from +a too ready acknowledgment of the tie of kindred is the obligation we +feel under to consort with relations with whom we have nothing in +common. You may take such persons to the waters of affection, but you +cannot make them drink; and the more you see of them the less they are +likely to agree with you. Not once, nor twice, but fifty times, in a +life experience that is becoming protracted, I have seen this forcible +bringing together of incongruous elements, and the result has been +always unfortunate. I say 'forcible,' because it has been rarely +voluntary; now and then a strong, though, I venture to think, a +mistaken sense of duty may lead a man to seek the society of one with +whom he has nothing in common save the bond of race; but for the most +part they are obeying the wishes of another —the sacred injunction, +perhaps, of a parent on his death-bed. 'Be good friends,' he murmurs, +'my children,' not reflecting, in that supreme and farewell hour, how +little things, such as prejudice, difference of political or religious +opinions, conflicting interests, and the like, affect us while we are +in this world, and how perilous it is to attempt to link like with +unlike. I am quite certain that when relations do not, in common +phrase, 'get on well with one another,' the best chance of their +remaining friends is for them to keep apart. This is gradually becoming +recognised by 'the common sense of most,' as we see by the falling-off +in those family gatherings at Christmas, which only too often partook +of the character of that assembly which met under the roof of Mr, +Pecksniff, with the disastrous result with which we are all acquainted. + +The more distant the tie of blood, the less reason, of course, there is +to consider it; yet it is strange to see how even sensible men will +welcome the Good-for-nothing, who chance to be 'of kin' to them, to the +exclusion of the Worthy, who lack that adventitious claim. The effect +of this is an absolute immorality, since it offers a premium to +unpleasant people, while it heavily handicaps those who desire to make +themselves agreeable. To give a particular example of this, though upon +a large scale, I might cite Scotland, where, making allowance for the +absence of that University system, which in England is so strong a +social tie, there are undoubtedly fewer friendships, in comparison, +than there are with us; this I have no hesitation in attributing to +clanship—the exaggeration of the family tie—which substitutes nearness +for dearness, and places a tenth cousin above the most charming of +companions, who labours under the disadvantage of being 'nae kin.' + +Again, what is more common than to hear it said, in apology for some +manifestly ill-conditioned and offensive person, that he is 'good to +his family'? The praise is probably only so far deserved that he does +not beat his wife nor starve his children; but, supposing even he +treated them as he should do, and, moreover, entertained his ten-times +removed cousins to dinner every Sunday, what is that to _me_ who do not +enjoy his unenviable hospitality? Let his cousins speak well of him by +all means; but let the rest of the world speak as they find. I protest +against the theory that the social virtues should limit themselves to +the home circle, and still more, that they should extend to the distant +branches of it to the exclusion of the world at large. + +Of Howard, the philanthropist, it is said—and, I notice, said with a +certain cynical pleasure—that, notwithstanding his universal +benevolence, he behaved with severity ta his own son. I have not that +intimate acquaintance with the circumstances which, to judge by the +confidence of their assertions, his traducers possess, but I should be +slow to believe, in the case of such a father, that the son did not +deserve all he got, or was not forgiven even to the seventy times +seventh offence. There is, however, no little want of reason in the +ordinary acceptation of the term, 'loving forgiveness.' He must be a +very morose man who does not forgive a personal injury, especially when +there has been an expression of repentance for it; but there are +offences which, quite independently of their personal sting, manifest +in the offender a cruel or bad heart, and 'loving forgiveness' is in +that case no more to be expected than that we should take a serpent who +has already stung us to our bosom. 'It is his nature to,' as the poet +expresses it, and if that serpent is my relative it is my misfortune, +and by no means impresses me with a sense of obligation. Indeed, in the +case of an offensive relation, so far from his having any claim to my +consideration, it seems to me I have a very substantial grievance in +the fact of his existence, and that he owes me reparation for it. + +It is perhaps from a natural reaction, and is a sort of unconscious +protest against the preposterous claims of kinship, that our +connections by marriage are so freely criticised, and, to say truth, +held in contempt. No one enjoins us to love our wife's relations, +indeed, our own kindred are generally dead against them, and especially +against her mother, to whom the poor woman very naturally clings. This +is as unreasonable in the way of prejudice, as the other line of +conduct is in the way of favouritism. It is, in short, my humble +opinion that, if everyone stood upon his or her own merits, and was +treated accordingly, this world of ours would be the better for it; and +of this I am quite sure—it would have fewer disagreeable people in it. +I am neither so patriotic nor so thorough-going as the American +citizen, who, during the late Civil War, came to President Lincoln, and +nobly offered to sacrifice on the altar of freedom 'all his able-bodied +relations;' but I think that most of us would be benefited if they were +weeded out a bit. + +[Illustration] + + + + +INVALID LITERATURE. + + +It has always struck me as a breach of faith in Charles Lamb to have +published the fact that dear, 'rigorous' Mrs. Battle's favourite suit +was Hearts: and is in my eyes, notwithstanding Mr. Carlyle's posthumous +outburst, the only blot on his character. His own confession, though +tendered with a blush, that there is such a thing as sick whist stands +on totally different grounds; it is not a relaxation of principle, but +an acknowledgment of a weakness common to human nature. One of the most +advanced thinkers and men of science of our time has frankly admitted +that his theological views are considerably modified by the state of +his health; and if one's ideas on futurity are thus affected, it is no +wonder that things of this world wear a different appearance when +viewed from a sick bed. It is not difficult to imagine that whist, for +example, played on the counterpane by three good Samaritans, to while +away the hours for an afflicted friend, differs from the game when +played on a club card-table. Common humanity prevents our saying what +we think of the play of an invalid who may be enjoying his last rubber; +and if the ace of trumps _is_ found under his pillow, we only smile and +hope it will not occur again. + +On the other hand, literary taste would, one would think, be the last +thing to vary with our physical condition; yet those who have had long +illnesses know better, and will, I am sure, bear me out in the +assertion that there are such things as sick books. I do not, of +course, speak of devotional works. I am picturing the poor man when he +is getting well after a long bout of illness; his mind clear, but +inert; his limbs painless, but so languid that they hardly seem to +belong to him; and when he regards their attenuated proportions with +the same sort of feeble interest that is evoked by eggshell china—they +are not useful, still it would be a pity if they broke. + +Then it is that one feels a loathing of the strong meats of literature, +and a liking for its milk diet. As to metaphysics, one has had enough +and to spare of _them_ when one was delirious; while the 'Fairy Tales +of Science' do not strike one just then as being quite so fairylike as +the poet represents them. As to science, indeed, there is but one thing +clear to us, namely, that the theory of evolution is a mistake; for +though one's getting better at all is undoubtedly a proof of the +survival of the fittest, we are well convinced that we have retrograded +from what we were. It would puzzle Darwin himself to fix our position +exactly, but though we lack the tenacity, and especially the colour, of +the sea-anemone, we seem to be there or thereabouts in the scale of +humanity. When last prostrated by rheumatic fever, or its remedies, I +remember, indeed, to have been inclined to mathematics. When very ill I +had suffered agonies in my dreams from the persecutions of an +impossible quantity, and perhaps the association of ideas suggested, as +I slowly gathered strength, a little problem in statics. It had been +taught me by my dear tutor at Cambridge, whom undergraduates have long +ceased to trouble, as a proof of the pathos that dwells in figures; and +I kept repeating it to myself, with the letters all misplaced, till I +became exhausted by tears and emotion. + +As a general rule, however, even mathematics fail to interest the +convalescent. 'Man delights not him; no, nor woman neither;' but +Literature, if light in the hand, and always provided that he has his +back to the window, is a pleasure to him only next to that of his new +found appetite and his first chicken. His taste 'has suffered a sick +change,' but that by no means implies it has deteriorated. On the +contrary, his critical faculty has fled (which is surely an immense +advantage), while he has recovered much of that power of appreciation +which rarely abides with us to maturity. He is not on the outlook for +mistakes, slips of style, anachronisms; he derives no pleasure from the +discovery of spots in the sun, but is content to bask in the rays of +it. He does not necessarily return to the favourites of his youth, +though he has a tendency that way, but the shackles of convention have +slipped away from him with his flesh, and he reads what he likes, and +not what he has been told he ought to like. He has been so long removed +from public opinion, that, like a shipwrecked crew in an open boat, it +has ceased to affect him; only, instead of taking to cannibalism, he +takes to what is nice. As his physical appetite is fastidious, so his +mental palate has a relish only for titbits. If ever there was a time +for a reasonable being to 'dip' into books, or to enjoy 'half-hours +with the best authors,' this is it; but weak as the patient is, he +commonly declines to have his tastes dictated to; perhaps there is an +unpleasant association in his mind, arising from Brand and Liebig, with +all 'extracts;' but, at all events, those literary compilations oppress +and bewilder him; he objects to the extraordinary fertility of 'Ibid,' +an author whose identity he cannot quite call to mind, and prefers to +choose for himself. + +Biography is out of the question. Long before he has got through that +account of the hero's great grandmother, from whom he inherited his +talents, which is, it seems, indispensable to such works, he yawns, and +devoutly wishing, notwithstanding its fatal consequences to the fourth +generation, that that old woman had never been born, falls into fitful +slumber. + +Travels are in the same condemnation; he has not the patience to watch +the traveller taking leave of his family at Pimlico, or to follow his +cab as he drives through the streets to the railway station, or to +share the discomforts of his cabin—all necessary, no doubt, to his +eventual arrival in Abyssinia, but hardly necessary to be described. +Moreover, the convalescent has probably travelled a good deal on his +own account during the last few weeks, for the bed of fever carries one +hither and thither with the velocity, though not the ease, of the +enchanted carpet in the 'Arabian Nights.' The desire of the sick man is +to escape from himself and all recent experiences. + +He thinks he will try a little History. Alison? No, certainly not +Alison. 'They will be proposing Lingard next,' he murmurs, and the +little irritation caused by the well-meant suggestion throws him back +for the next six hours. Presently he tries Macaulay, whom some +flatterer has fulsomely called 'as good as a novel,' but, though the +trial of Warren Hastings gives him a fillip, the rout of Sedgemoor does +away with the effect of it, and, happening upon the character of +Halifax, he suffers a severe relapse. As a bedfellow, Macaulay is too +declamatory, though, at the same time, strange to say, he does not +always succeed in keeping one awake. To the sick man Carlyle is +preferable; not his 'Frederick,' of course, and still less his 'Sartor +Resartus,' which has become a nightmare, without head or tail, but his +'French Revolution.' One lies and watches the amazing spectacle without +effort, as though it were represented on the stage. The sea of blood +rolls before our eyes, the roar of the mob sounds in our ears; we are +carried along with the unhappy Louis to the very frontier, and just on +the verge of escape are seized and brought back—King Coach—with him to +Paris, in a cold perspiration. + +Some people, when in health and of a sane mind (Mr. Matthew Arnold one +_knows_ of, and there may be others), take great delight in 'Paradise +Regained;' all we venture to say is that in sickness it does not +suggest its title. It is said that barley-water goes well with +everything; if so, the epic is the exception which proves the rule. +Milton is tedious after rheumatic fever, Spencer is worse. + +'"Not from the grand old masters, +Not from the bards sublime, +Whose distant footsteps echo +Through the corridors of Time,"' + +murmurs the invalid, 'I can't stand them.' He does not mean anything +depreciatory, but merely that— + +'Like strains of martial music +Their mighty thoughts suggest +Life's endless toil and endeavour,' + +which he is not fit even to think of. He cannot read Keats's +'Nightingale,' but for quite another reason. What arouses 'thoughts too +deep for tears' in the hale and strong is to the sick as the sinking +for an artesian well. 'The Chelsea Waterworks,' as Mr. Samuel Weller +observed of Mr. Job Trotter (at a time when the metropolitan water +supply would seem to have been more satisfactory than at present), 'are +nothing to him.' On the other hand, Shelley's 'Skylark,' and the +'Dramatic Fragments' of Browning, are as cordials to the invalid, while +the poems of Walter Scott are like breezes from the mountains and the +sea. In that admirable essay, 'Life in the Sick-room,' the authoress +justly remarks, speaking of the advantage of objectivity in sick books, +'Nothing can be better in this view than Macaulay's "Lays," which carry +us at full speed out of ourselves.' + +But it is not always that the invalid can read the poets at all; like +Mrs. Wititterley, his nerves are too delicately strung for the touch of +the muse. His chief enjoyment lies in fiction, to the producers of +which he can never feel too grateful. I remember, on one occasion when +I was very reduced indeed, taking up 'Northanger Abbey,' and reading, +with almost the same gusto as though I had been a novelist myself, Miss +Austen's defence of her profession. She says: + +'I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom, so common with +novel-writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very +performances to the number of which they are themselves adding, joining +with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such +works, and scarcely even permitting them to be read by their own +heroine, who, if she accidentally takes up a novel, is sure to turn +from its insipid pages with disgust. Let us not desert one another; we +are an injured body. Although our productions have afforded more +extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary +corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much +decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many +as our readers; and while the abilities of the +nine-hundred-and-ninety-ninth abridger of the history of England are +eulogised by a thousand pens, there seems a general agreement to slight +the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend +them.' + +I had quite forgotten till I came upon this passage that Miss Austen +had such 'a kick in her,' and I remember how I honoured her for it and +sympathised with her sentiments. 'When pain and anguish wring the +brow,' we all know who is the comforter; but next to her, and when the +brow is getting a little better, we welcome the novelist. + +With our face aslant on the pillow, we once more make acquaintance with +the characters that have been the delight of our youth, and find they +delight us still, but with a difference. The animal spirits of Smollett +and Fielding are a little too much for us; there is not sympathy enough +in them for our own condition; they seem to have been fellows who were +never ill. Perhaps 'Humphrey Clinker,' though it drags at the end, and +the political disquisitions are intolerable, is the funniest book that +ever was written; but the faculty of appreciation for it is not now in +us. We turn with relief to Scott, though not to 'Scott's Works,' in the +sense in which the phrase is generally used, as though they were a +foundry from which everything is issued of the same workmanship and +excellence; whereas there is as much difference between them as there +was in her Majesty's ships of old between the gallant seventy-four and +the crazy troopship. The invalid, however, as I have said, is far from +critical; he only knows what he likes. Judged by this fastidious +standard, he finds 'Waverley' somewhat wearisome, and, as to the first +part of it in particular, wonders, not that the Great Unknown should +have kept it in his desk for years as a comparative failure, but that +he should have ever taken it from that repository. 'The Antiquary,' +which in health he used to admire, or think he did, exceedingly, has +also a narcotic effect; but 'Rob Roy' revives him, and 'Ivanhoe' stirs +him like a trumpet-call. + +What is very curious, just as the favourite literature of a cripple is +almost always that which treats of force and action, so upon our +sick-bed we turn most gladly to scenes of heroism and adventure. The +famous ride in 'Geoffrey Hamlyn,' where the fate of the heroine, +threatened with worse than death from the bush-rangers, hangs upon the +horse's speed, seems to us, as we lie abed, one of the finest episodes +in fiction. 'Tom Cringle's Log,' too, becomes a great favourite, not +more from its buoyancy and freshness than from the melodramatic scenes +with which it is interspersed. + +In some moods of the sick man's mind, his morbid appetite tends, +strange to say, to horrors. He 'snatches a fearful joy' from the weird +and supernatural. I have known those terrible tales of Le Fanu, +entitled 'In a Glass Darkly,' which for dramatic power and eeriness no +other novelist has ever approached, devoured greedily by those whose +physical sustenance has been dry toast and arrowroot. + +The works of Thackeray are too cynical for the convalescent; he is for +the present in too good a humour with destiny and human nature to enjoy +them. He prefers the more cheerful aspects of life, and resents the +least failure of poetic justice. + +Taking the tenants of the sick ward all round, indeed, I have little +doubt that the large majority would give their vote for Dickens. His +pathos, it is true, is too much for them. Their hearts are as waxen as +though Mrs. Jarley herself had made them. They are just in the +condition to be melted by 'Little Nell,' and overcome by the death of +Paul Dombey. They read 'David Copperfield' with avidity, but are +careful to avoid the catastrophe of Dora and even the demise of her +four-footed favourite. The book that suits them best is 'Martin +Chuzzlewit.' Its genial comedy, quite different from the violent +delights of 'Pickwick,' is well adapted to their grasp; while its +tragedy, the murder of Montague Tigg—the finest description of the +breaking of the sixth commandment in the language—leaves nothing to be +desired in the way of excitement. But here we stray beyond our bounds, +for 'Martin Chuzzlewit' is not a 'sick book;' or rather, it is one of +the very few productions of human genius on the merits of which the +opinions of both Sick and Sound are at one. + + + + +WET HOLIDAYS. + + +Even poets when they are on their travels feel the depressing influence +of bad weather. Those lines of the Laureate— + +'But when we crossed the Lombard plain, +Remember what a plague of rain— +Of rain at Reggio, at Parma, +At Lodi rain, Piacenza rain,' + +are not among his best, but they evidently come from his very heart. +When he used prose upon that journey his language was probably +stronger. It is no wonder, then, that ordinary folks who have only a +limited time in which to enjoy themselves, free from the fetters of +toil, resent wet days. They are worst of all when we are touring on the +Continent, where it is a popular fallacy to suppose the skies are +always smiling, but at home they are bad enough. In Scotland, nobody +but a Scotchman believes in fine weather, and consequently there is no +disappointment; in England the Lake District is, perhaps, the most +unfortunate spot for folks to be caught in by rain, because if there is +no landscape there is nothing. _Spectare veniunt_, and when there are +only the ribs and lining of their umbrellas to look at, their lot is +hard indeed. + +Wastwater is a charming place in sunshine—almost the only locality in +England where things are still primitive and pastoral; but in rain! I +hate exhibitions, but rather than Wastdale in wet weather, give me a +panorama. Serious people may talk of 'the Devil's books,' but even a +pack of cards, with somebody to play with you, is better under such +circumstances than no book. + +There is no limit to what human beings may be driven to by stress of +weather, and especially by that 'clearing shower,' by which the +dwellers in Lakeland are wont euphemistically to describe its +continuous downpours. The Persians have another name for it—'the +grandmother of all buckets.' I was once in Wastdale with a dean of the +Church of England, respectable, sedate, and a D.D. It had poured for +days without ceasing; the roads were under water, the passes were +impassable, the mountains invisible; there was nothing to be seen but +waterfalls, and those in the wrong place; there was no literature; the +dean's guide-books were exhausted, and his Bible, it is but charitable +and reasonable to suppose, he knew by heart. As for me, I had found +three tourists who could play at whist, and was comparatively +independent of the elements; but that poor ecclesiastic! For the first +few days he occupied himself in remonstrating against our playing cards +by daylight; but on the fourth morning, when we sat down to them +immediately after breakfast, he began to take an enforced interest in +our proceedings. Like a dove above the dovecot, he circled for an hour +or two about the table—a deal one, such as thimble-riggers use, +borrowed, under protest, from his own humble bedroom—and then, with a +murmurous coo about the weather showing no signs of clearing up, he +took a hand. Constant dropping—and it was much worse than dropping—will +wear away a stone, and it is my belief if it had gone on much longer +his reverence would have played on Sunday. + +The spectacle that the roads of the district present at such a time is +most melancholy. Everyone is in a closed car—a cross between a bathing +machine and that convenient vehicle which carries both corpse and +mourners; all the windows seem made of bottle glass, a phenomenon +produced by the flattening of the noses of imprisoned tourists; and +nothing shines except an occasional traveller in oilskin. In such +seasons, indeed, oilskin (lined with patience) is your only wear. +Ordinary waterproofs in such a climate become mere blotting paper, and +with the best of them, without leggings and headgear to match, the poor +Londoner might, I do not say just as well be in London (for that is his +aspiration all day long), but just as well go to bed at once, and stop +there. 'But why does he not go home?' it may be asked: a question to +which there are several answers. In the first place (for one must take +the average in such cases) because he is a fool. Secondly, like the +rest of the well-to-do world, he has suffered the summer, wherein +warmth and sunshine are really to be had, to slip by, and has only the +fag end of it in which to take holiday. It is now or never—or at all +events now or next year—with him. All his friends, too, are out of +town, flattening _their_ noses against window panes; his club is under +repair, his house in brown holland, his servants on board wages. Like +the young gentleman in Locksley Hall, he is so absolutely at the end of +his resources, that an 'angry fancy' is all that is left to him. Of +course, under its influence he sits down and writes to the _Times_; +but, if the humblest of its correspondents may venture to say so +without offence, even that does not help him much. That suicides +increase in wet autumns is notorious; but that murders should in these +sequestered vales maintain the even tenor of their way is a feather in +the cap of human nature. In lodgings, where the pent-up tourist has no +one but his wife and family to speak to, where Dick and Tom _will_ romp +in his only sitting-room, and Eliza Jane practises all day on the crazy +piano, this forbearance is especially creditable. + +Even in hotels, however, there is great temptation. On the +north-eastern coast, in particular, when the weather has, as the phrase +goes, 'broken up,' and the sky and sea have both become one durable +drab, the best of women grow irritable, the men morose. At the _table +d'hôte_, which even the most exclusive are driven to frequent for +company, as sheep huddle together in storm, Dislike ripens to Hate with +frightful rapidity. Our neighbour, who always—for it seems always—gets +the last of the mushrooms at breakfast, or finishes the oyster sauce at +dinner before our very eyes, we are very far, indeed, from loving as +ourselves. Our _vis-à -vis_, the man on his honeymoon, is even still +more offensive. We resent his happiness, which is apparently +uninfluenced by the state of the weather, and our wife wonders what he +could have seen in that chit of a girl to attract his attention. To +ourselves she seems a great deal too good for him, and in our rare +intervals of human feeling we regard her with the tenderest +commiseration. The importance attached to meals, and the time we take +over them, have no parallel save among the Esquimaux. The least +incident that happens in the hotel is of more moment to us than the +overthrow of Empires. The whispered news that a fellow guest has been +taken seriously ill, and that a medical consultation has been held upon +the case, is a matter to be deplored, of course, but one which is not +without its consolations. 'Who is it? What is it? Nothing catching I do +hope?' (this last uttered with genuine anxiety) are questions that are +heard on every side. The general impression is that some lovely young +lady of fashion on the drawing-room floor has been seized with pains in +her limbs—and no wonder—from exposure to the elements. Her mother comes +down every morning and selects dainties for the sick-room from the +public breakfast table; those who are near enough to do so inquire in +dulcet tones, 'How is your invalid this morning?' The reply is, +'Better, much better,' which somehow falls short of expectation. Even +the most giddy and frivolous of girls has no excuse for frightening +people for nothing. + +At luncheon one day a very fat, strong boy makes his appearance, and is +supplied with soup. All his neighbours who have no soup are wild with +envy, though they are well acquainted with that soup at dinner, and +know that it is bad. 'What is the meaning of it? Why this favouritism?' +we inquire of the waiter furiously. 'Well, you see, sir, he is better +now; but that is the invalid.' The delicate, attractive creature we +have pictured to ourselves with pains in her limbs turns out, after +all, to be a hulking schoolboy, probably bilious from over-eating. The +public indignation is excessive, while the subject of it, quite +unconscious of the fact, has another plate of soup. + +The wild weather out of doors is not, of course, confined to the land, +and the sea would be a fine sight if it was not invisible. The waves, +indeed, are so high that the fishing-boats which have remained out all +night are often warned off, or, as it is locally termed, 'burned off,' +from the harbour bar. A tar barrel is lighted for this purpose on the +headland, and it is the only thing which the eternal rain cannot +utterly squelch and extinguish. Occasionally we venture down upon the +pier to see the boats make the harbour, which, not a little to our +disappointment, they never fail to do. There are huge buttresses of +stone against the pier-head, behind which the new comer imagines he may +crouch in perfect safety, till the third wave comes in and convinces +him to the contrary. No one ever dreams of 'burning' _him_ off—giving +him one word of warning of that unpleasant contingency; for to behold a +fellow creature more drenched and dripping than ourselves is very +soothing. As to the dangers of maritime life, we are all agreed that +they are greatly overrated; and some sceptics even go so far as to +suggest that the skeleton ship, half embedded in the sands, which so +impresses visitors in fine weather, is not a genuine wreck at all, but +has been placed there by the Town Corporation to delude the public. + +Now and then we splash down to the quay to see a few million of +herrings sold at four shillings a hundred, which will presently induce +philanthropic fishmongers in London to advertise 'a glut this morning,' +and to retail them at threepence apiece. At rare intervals we explore +the dripping town. It is amazing what a fascination the small +picture-shops, to which at home we should never give a glance, afford +us; even the frontispieces to popular music have unwonted attractions; +while the pottery-shops, full of ware made from clay 'peculiar to the +locality,' are only too seductive to our wives, who purchase largely +what they believe to be great bargains, till they find on their return +home the identical articles in Oxford Street, at half the price. In +London we never visit the British Museum itself, unless to escort some +country cousin, but at Barecliff-on-Sea, in wet weather, the miserable +little local Institute, with its specimens of strata, its calf with two +heads in spirits, and its petrified toad, is an irresistible +temptation. The great event of the day, however, is the wading down to +the railway-station (which is in a quagmire) to meet the express train +which brings more victims, 'unconscious of their doom,' to Barecliff, +and who evidently flatter themselves that the pouring rain is an +exceptional phenomenon; it also brings the London newspapers, for which +we fight and struggle (the demand being greatly in excess of the +supply) and think ourselves fortunate if we secure a supplement. It is +true there is a _Times_ in the smoking-room of the hotel, but it is +always engaged five deep, is the cause of terrible quarrels, and every +afternoon we expect to see it imbrued in gore. + +In the evening, when one does not mind the wet so much—'its tooth is +not so keen because it is not seen'—there are dissipations at 'the +Rooms by the Sea.' Amateur charitable concerts are given there, in +which it is whispered that this and that lady at the _table d'hôte_ +will take part, who become public characters and objects of immense +interest in consequence. Thither, too, come 'the inimitable Jones,' +from the Edgware Road Music Hall, with his 'unrivalled _répertoire_ of +comic songs;' the Spring Board Family, who have been 'pronounced by the +general consensus of the medical faculty in London to be unique,' as +having neither joints nor backbone; and Herr von Deft, 'who will repeat +the same astounding performances which have electrified the reigning +families of Europe.' The serious people (for whom 'the glee-singers of +Mesopotamia' are also suspected of dropping a line) are angled for by +white-cravatted lecturers, who enhance their statistics of conversion +by the exhibition of poisoned arrows, and of clubs, on which, with the +microscope, may be detected the hairs of missionary martyrs. In fine +weather, of course, these attractions would be advertised in vain; but +the fact is, our whole community has been reduced by the cruelty of the +elements to a sort of second childhood; the rain which permeates +everything is softening our brain. + +This is only too evident from the conversation in the hotel porch where +the men meet every morning to discuss the topic of the day—the weather. +A sullen gloom pervades them—the first symptom of mental aberration. +Those, on the other hand, who express their opinion that it 'really +seems to be clearing a little' are in more advanced stages. We who are +less afflicted shake our heads, and murmur painfully, but also with a +considerable touch of contempt, 'Poor fellows!' + +The piano in the ladies' drawing-room is always going, but it excites +no soothing influence; there is an impression in the hotel that the +performers are foreigners, and should be discouraged. But there is one +instrument hanging in the hall on which everyone plays, native or +alien, and every note is discord. It is the barometer. People talk of +the delicacy of scientific instruments; if they are right, the shocks +which that barometer survives proves it to be an exception. Batter it +as we may, and do, the faithful needle, with a determination worthy of +a better cause, maintains its position at 'Much Rain.' The manager is +appealed to vehemently, coarsely; he shrugs his shoulders, protests +with humility that he cannot help the weather, or affirms it is +unprecedented—which we do not believe. Other managers—in the Engadine, +for example—the papers say, are providing excellent weather; what does +he mean by it? + +At last one morning, wetter than ever, some noble spirit, the Tell of +our liberties, exclaims, 'Who would be free, himself must strike the +blow.' His actual words (if one was not writing history) are, 'Hang me +if I stand this any longer,' and they strike the keynote of everybody's +thought. He goes away by the next train, and his departure is followed +by the same effects as the tapping of a reservoir. The hotel company—I +mean the inmates; the company goes into bankruptcy—stream off at once +to their own homes. That journey through the pouring rain is the +happiest day of our wet holiday. How beautiful looms soaking, soppy, +smoky London! In that excellent town who cares for rain? + +'Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! +You cataracts and hurricanoes spout.' + +Pooh! pooh! Call a cab—call two! + + + + +TRAVELLING COMPANIONS. + + +It was held by wise men of old that adversity was the test of +friendship, but as his Excellency the Minister of the United States has +observed, _per_ Mr. Biglow, 'They did not know everything down in +Judee;' and among other subjects of which those ancient writers were +necessarily ignorant was that of Continental travel. The coming to +grief of a friend is unquestionably very inconvenient; as a millionaire +of my acquaintance observes (under the influence, as he confidently +believes, of benevolent emotion), 'One likes to see one's friends +prosperous;' but even when they are not so, it requires some effort to +follow the dictates of prudence and cast them off. And, after all, the +man, even though you may cut him, remains the same; as fit for the +purposes of friendship as ever, except for his pecuniary condition. +There is no such change in his relation to oneself as Emerson describes +in one of his essays; his words I forget, and his works are miles away, +but the man he has in his mind has in some way fallen short of +expectation—declined, perhaps, to lend the philosopher money. +'Yesterday,' he says, 'my friend was the illimitable ocean; to-day he +is a pond.' He had come to the end of him. And some friends, as my +little child complains as he strokes his black kitten, 'end so soon.' + +There are no circumstances, however, under which friendship comes so +often to a violent and sudden death as under the pressure of travel. It +is like the fate which the Scientific ascribe to a box sunk in the sea; +after a certain depth, which varies according to the strength of the +box, the weight of the superincumbent water bursts it up. It is merely +a question of how deep or how strong. Our travelling companion remains +our friend for a day, for a week, for even a month; but at the month's +end he is our friend no longer. Our relations have probably become what +the diplomatists term 'strained' long before that date, but a day comes +when the tension becomes intolerable; the cable parts and we lose him. +Unfortunately, not always, however; there are circumstances—such as +being on board ship, for example—when we thus part without parting +company. A long voyage is the most terrible trial to which friendship +can be subjected. It is like the old sentence of pressing to death, 'as +much as he can bear, and more.' It is doubtful, for example, whether +friendship has ever survived a voyage to Australia. I have sometimes +asked a man whether he knew So-and-So, who hails, like himself, from +Melbourne, and he has replied, 'We came over in the same ship'—'Only +that, and nothing more,' as the poet puts it; but his tone has an +unmistakable significance, and one perceives at once that the topic had +better not be pursued. + +A very dear friend of mine once proposed that we should go round the +world together; he offered to pay all my expenses, and painted the +expedition in rose-colour. But I had the good sense to decline the +proposal. I felt I should lose my friend. Even yachting is a very +dangerous pastime in this respect, especially when the vessel is +becalmed. In that case, like the sea itself, one's friend soon becomes +a pond. Conceive, then, what it must be to go round the world with him! +Is it possible, both being human, that we can still love one another +when we have got to Japan, for instance? And then we have to come back +together! How frightful must be that moment when he tells us the same +story he told at starting, and we feel that he has come to the end of +his tether, and is going to tell _all_ his stories over again! This is +why it so often happens that only one of two friends returns from any +long voyage they have undertaken together. What has become of the +other? A question that one should never put to the survivor. It is +certain that great travellers, and especially those who travel by sea, +have a very different code of morals from that which they conform to at +home. Human life is not so sacred to them. Perhaps it is in this +respect that travel is said to enlarge the mind. That it does not +sharpen it, however, whatever it may do for the temper, is tolerably +certain. In their habits travellers are singularly conventional. They +are compelled, of course, to suffer certain inconveniences, but they +endure others, and most serious ones, quite unnecessarily, merely +because it is the custom so to do. In crossing the Atlantic, for +example, a man of means will submit to be shut up in a close cupboard +for ten days with an utter stranger, though by paying double fare he +can get a cabin to himself. This arises from no desire for economy, but +simply because he does not think for himself; other travellers do the +like, and he follows their example. Yet what money could recompense him +for occupying for the same time _on land_ a double-bedded room—not to +say a mere china closet—with a man of whom he knows nothing except that +he is subject to chronic sickness? A pleasant sort of travelling +companion indeed, yet, strange to say, the commonest of all. Where +there is a slender purse this terrible state of things (supposing +travel under such circumstances to be compatible with pleasure at all, +which, for my part, I cannot imagine) is not a matter of choice; but +where it can be avoided why is it undergone? + +There is nothing that convinces me of the folly of mankind so much as +those advertisements we see in the summer months with respect to +travelling companions, from volunteers of both sexes: 'Wanted, a +travelling companion for a few months on the Continent, etc. The +highest references will be required.' The idea of going with a stranger +upon a tour of pleasure must surely originate in Hanwell, and the +adventurer may think himself fortunate if it does not end in Broadmoor. +References, indeed! Who can answer for a fellow-creature's temper, +patience, unselfishness, during such an ordeal as a protracted tour? No +one who has not travelled with him already; and one may be tolerably +certain his certificate does not come from _that_ quarter. It is true +some people are married to strangers by advertisement; but their +companionship, as I am given to understand, does not generally last for +months, or anything like it. + +Imagine two people, as utterly unknown to one another, except by letter +(and 'references'), as the _x_ and _y_ of an equation, meeting for the +first time at the railway-station! With what tremors must each regard +the other! What a relief it must be to X. to find that Y. is at least a +white man; on the other hand, it must rather dash his hopes, if they +are set on pedestrianism, to find that his _compagnon de voyage_ has a +wooden leg. Yet what are his mere colour and limbs compared with his +temperament and disposition? If one did not know the frightful risks +one's fellow-creatures incur every day for little pleasure and less +profit, one would certainly say these people must be mad. + +But if instead of X. and Y., it is even A. and B., men who have known +one another for years, and in every relation but as fellow-travellers, +there is risk enough in such a venture. One night, after dinner at the +club, they agree with effusion to take their autumn trip together; they +are warm with wine and with the remembrance of their college +friendship—which extended perhaps, when they afterwards come to think +about it, a very little way. What days they will have in Switzerland +together! What mornings (to see the sunrise) upon mountain-tops! What +evenings on Lucerne! What nights in Paris! A. thinks himself fortunate +indeed in having secured B.'s society for the next three months—a man +with such a reputation for conversation; even T., the cynic of the +club, has testified to his charm of manner. By-the-bye, what was +it—exactly—T. had said of B.? A. cannot remember it at the moment, but +recalls it on the night before they start together. 'B. is a charming +fellow, only he has this peculiarity—that if there is only one armchair +in a room, B. is sure to get it.' + +B., on the other hand, congratulates himself on A.'s excessive good +sense, which even T. had knowledged. What was it—exactly—T. had said of +A.? He cannot remember it at the moment, but recalls it on the night +before they start together. 'A. is such a thoroughly practical fellow; +he has committed many follies, and not a few crimes, but he can lay his +hand on the place where his heart should be, and honestly aver that he +has never given sixpence to anybody.' Full of misgivings, and with +demonstrations of satisfaction that are in themselves suspicious, they +meet at the terminus. A. has a little black bag, which contains his +all; it frees him from all trouble about luggage, and (especially) from +the necessity of paying a porter. He is resolved not to lose a moment, +nor spend a sixpence, in a Custom-house. To his horror, he perceives +that B., whose one idea is comfort, has a portmanteau specially +designed for him (apparently upon the model of Noah's Ark), and which +can scarcely be got into the luggage-van. This article delays them +twenty-four hours at every frontier, because the ordinary authorities +decline to open it upon the ground that it contains an infernal +machine, and have to telegraph to their Government for instructions. + +Again, B. is no doubt a charming conversationalist—in English; but he +does not know one single word of any other language. He requires every +observation of their alien fellow-travellers to be translated, and then +says 'Oh!' discontentedly, or 'It seems to me that foreigners have no +ideas.' And not for one moment can A. get rid of him. If there _is_ a +friend that sticketh closer than a brother, it is the Travelling +Companion who is dependent upon you for interpretation. It is needless +to say that under these circumstances the glass of Friendship falls +from 'Set Fair' to 'Stormy' with much rapidity. After A's fourth +quarrel with a waiter about half a franc, B. calls him a 'mean hound,' +and takes the opportunity of returning to his native land with a French +count, who speaks perfect English, and robs him of his watch and chain +and the contents of his pocket-book on board the steamer. A. and B. +meet one another daily at the club for years afterwards, but without +recognition. + +Their case, of course, is an extreme one; but that of C. and D. is +almost as bad. They are men of prudence, and persuade E. to go with +them, as a makeweight. 'If we should ever disagree,' they say, 'as to +what is to be done—which, however, is to the last degree improbable—the +majority of votes shall carry it'—an arrangement which only delays the +inevitable event— + +'Three little nigger boys went the world to view, +The third was left in Calais, and then there were two.' + +They find the makeweight intolerable before they have crossed the +Channel, and, having agreed to cut their cable from him, are from that +moment never in the same mind about anything else. It is a modern +version of the three brigands who stole the Communion plate. C. and D. +push E. over the precipice, and C. stabs D. at a supper for which D. +has purveyed poisoned wine. + +The only way to secure a really eligible travelling companion is to try +him first in short swallow-flights, or rather pigeon-flights, from +home. Take your bird with you for a few days' outing near home; then, +if he proves pleasant, for a week's tour in Cornwall; then for ten days +in Scotland, where, if you meet with the usual weather, and he still +keeps his temper and politeness, you may trust yourself to him +anywhere. Out of twenty failures there will, perhaps, be one success. +In this manner I have discovered in time, in my dearest and nearest +friends, the most undreamt of vices. One man, F., hitherto much +respected as a Chancery barrister, has, as it has turned out, been +intended by nature for a professional pedestrian. His true calling is +to walk 'laps' round the Agricultural Hall or at Lillie Bridge, with +nothing on to speak of save a handkerchief round his forehead. 'Let us +walk' is his one cry as soon as he becomes a travelling companion. And +he is not content to do this when he arrives at any place of interest, +but insists upon walking _there_—perhaps along a dusty road, or over +turnip-fields. I like walking myself in moderation—say a mile out and a +mile in; but not, certainly not, twenty miles at a stretch, and at a +speed which precludes conversation. This class of travelling companion +is very dangerous. If he does not get his walking he becomes malignant. +My barrister, at least, being denied the opportunity of drawing out +marriage-settlements, conveying land, or otherwise plundering the +community, took to practical jokes. Having a suspicion of his +pedestrian powers, from the extreme length of his legs, I took G. with +us, a man whom I could trust in that respect, and who fancied he had +heart complaint. G. and I took our exercise alone together in a fly. +One day we took a long drive—four miles or more—to a well-known bay. +The vehicle could not get down to the sea, so we descended on foot, +leaving it at the top of the cliff, with the strictest orders to the +man not to stir till we came back. When we returned the fly was gone. +How we reached our hotel, Heaven knows! but we did arrive there, in the +last stage of exhaustion. The driver of the carriage, whom we met next +day, informed us that a gentleman had been thrown from his horse on the +cliff-top and had broken his leg, and that, under the circumstances, he +had ventured to disobey our instructions and take the poor fellow home. +Years afterwards I discovered that nothing of the kind had happened, +but that the fiendish F. had given the driver a sovereign to play that +trick upon us. F. is a judge now, and has been lately trying election +cases. I wonder what he thinks of himself when he rebukes offenders for +the heinous crime of bribery! + +Again, I always thought H. a pleasant fellow till we went together to +Cornwall. He had gone through the first ordeal of a few days nearer +home to my satisfaction, but at Penzance he broke out. He was so +dreadfully particular about his food that nothing satisfied him—not +even pilchards three times a day; and the way he went on at the waiters +is not to be described by a decent pen. The attendant at Penzance was +not, I am bound to say, a good waiter. He said, though he habitually +put his thumb in every dish, he 'hadn't quite got his hand in,' and was +not used to the business.' 'Used! you know nothing about it!' exclaimed +H., viciously. Then the poor fellow burst into tears. 'Pray be patient +with me, good gentlemen,' he murmured. 'I do my best; but until last +Wednesday as ever was I was a pork-butcher.' One cannot stand a +travelling companion who makes the waiters cry. + +The worst kind of fellow-traveller is one who, to use his own +scientific phrase for his complaint, suffers from 'disorganisation of +the nervous centres.' At home his little weaknesses do not strike you. +You may not be on the spot when he flies across Piccadilly Circus, +pursued, as he fancies, by a Brompton omnibus which has not yet reached +St. James's Church, and is moving at a snail's pace; you may not have +been with him on that occasion when, in his eagerness to be in time for +the 'Flying Dutchman,' he arrives at Paddington an hour before it +starts, and is put into the parliamentary train which is shunted at +Slough to let the 'Dutchman' pass; but when you come to travel with him +you know what 'nerves' are to your cost. On the other hand, this is the +easiest kind of travelling companion to get rid of; for you have only +to feign a sore throat, with feverish symptoms, and off he flies on the +wings of terror, leaving you, as he thinks—if he _has_ a thought except +for his nervous centres—to the tender mercies of a foreign doctor, to +hireling nurses, and to a grave in the strangers' cemetery. + +THE END. + +BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD AND LONDON. + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Private Views, by James Payn + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME PRIVATE VIEWS *** + +***** This file should be named 13410-0.txt or 13410-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/1/13410/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst and the Online Distributed Proofreading +Team. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Some Private Views + +Author: James Payn + +Release Date: September 9, 2004 [EBook #13410] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME PRIVATE VIEWS *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst and the Online Distributed Proofreading +Team. + + + + + +SOME PRIVATE VIEWS + + +By + +JAMES PAYN + +Author of 'High Spirits,' 'A Confidential Agent,' Etc. + + +_A NEW EDITION_ + +1881 + +London +CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY + + + TO + HORACE N. PYM + THIS +_Book is Dedicated_ + BY HIS FRIEND + + THE AUTHOR + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +FROM _'THE NINETEENTH CENTURY' REVIEW_. + + +THE MIDWAY INN 1 + +THE CRITIC ON THE HEARTH 20 + +SHAM ADMIRATION IN LITERATURE 37 + +THE PINCH OF POVERTY 59 + +THE LITERARY CALLING AND ITS FUTURE 72 + +STORY-TELLING 96 + +PENNY FICTION 116 + + + + +FROM '_THE TIMES_.' + + +HOTELS 133 + +MAID-SERVANTS 149 + +MEN-SERVANTS 163 + +WHIST-PLAYERS 173 + +RELATIONS 182 + +INVALID LITERATURE 192 + +WET HOLIDAYS 201 + +TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 211 + + + + +_THE MIDWAY INN_. + +'The hidden but the common thought of all.' + + +The thoughts I am about to set down are not _my_ thoughts, for, as my +friends say, I have given up the practice of thinking, or it may be, +as my enemies say, I never had it. They are the thoughts of an +acquaintance who thinks for me. I call him an acquaintance, though I +pass as much of my time with him as with my nearest and dearest; +perhaps at the club, perhaps at the office, perhaps in metaphysical +discussion, perhaps at billiards--what does it matter? Thousands of +men in town have such acquaintances, in whose company they spend, by +necessity or custom, half the sum of their lives. It is not rational, +doubtless; but then 'Consider, sir,' said the great talking +philosopher, 'should we become purely rational, how our friendships +would be cut off. We form many such with bad men because they have +agreeable qualities, or may be useful to us. We form many such by +mistake, imagining people to be different from what they really are.' +And he goes on complacently to observe that we shall either have the +satisfaction of meeting these gentlemen in a future state, or be +satisfied without meeting them. + +For my part, I do not feel that the scheme of future happiness, which +ought by rights to be in preparation for me, will be at all interfered +with by my not meeting again the man I have in my. mind. To have seen +him in the flesh is sufficient for me. In the spirit I cannot imagine +him; the consideration is too subtle; for, unlike the little man who +had (for certain) a little soul,' I don't believe he has a soul at +all. + +He is middle-aged, rich, lethargic, sententious, dogmatic, and, in +short, the quintessence of the commonplace. I need not say, therefore, +that he is credited by the world with unlimited common-sense. And for +once the world is right. He has nothing-original about him, save so +much of sin as he may have inherited from our first parents; there is +no more at the back of him than at the back of a looking-glass--indeed +less, for he has not a grain of quicksilver; but, like the +looking-glass, he reflects. Having nothing else to do, he hangs, as it +were, on the wall of the world, and mirrors it for me as it +unconsciously passes by him--not, however, as in a glass darkly, but +with singular clearness. His vision is never disturbed by passion or +prejudice; he has no enthusiasm and no illusions. Nor do I believe he +has ever had any. If the noblest study of mankind is man, my friend +has devoted himself to a high calling; the living page of human life +has been his favourite and indeed, for these many years, his only +reading. And for this he has had exceptional opportunities. Always a +man of wealth and leisure, he has never wasted himself in that +superficial observation which is often the only harvest of foreign +travel. He despises it, and in relation to travellers, is wont to +quote the famous parallel of the copper wire, 'which grows the +narrower by going further.' A confirmed stay-at-home, he has mingled +much in society of all sorts, and exercised a keen but quite +unsympathetic observation. His very reserve in company (though, when +he catches you alone, he is a button-holder of great tenacity) +encourages free speech in others; they have no more reticence in his +presence than if he were the butler. He has belonged to no cliques, +and thereby escaped the greatest peril which can beset the student of +human nature. A man of genius, indeed, in these days is almost +certain, sooner or later, to become the centre of a mutual admiration +society; but the person I have in my mind is no genius, nor anything +like one, and he thanks Heaven for it. To an opinion of his own he +does not pretend, but his views upon the opinions of other people he +believes to be infallible. I have called him dogmatic, but that does +not at all express the absolute certainty with which he delivers +judgment. 'I know no more,' he says, 'about the problems of human life +than you do' (taking me as an illustration of the lowest prevailing +ignorance), 'but I know what everybody is thinking about them.' He is +didactic, and therefore often dull, and will eventually, no doubt, +become one of the greatest bores in Great Britain. At present, +however, he is worth knowing; and I propose to myself to be his +Boswell, and to introduce him--or, at least, his views--to other +people. I have entitled them the Midway Inn, partly from my own +inveterate habit of story-telling, but chiefly from an image of his +own, by which he once described to me, in his fine egotistic rolling +style, the position he seemed to himself to occupy in the world. + + When I was a boy, he said (which I don't believe he ever was), I + had a long journey to take between home and school. Exactly midway + there was a hill with an Inn upon it, at which we changed horses. + It was a point to which I looked forward with very different + feelings when going and returning. In the one case--for I hated + school--it seemed to frown darkly on me, and from that spot the + remainder of the way was dull and gloomy; in the other case, the + sun seemed always glinting on it, and the rest of the road was as a + fair avenue that leads to Paradise. The innkeeper received us with + equal hospitality on both occasions, and it was quite evident did + not care one farthing in which direction we were tending. He would + stand in front of his house, jingling his money--_our_ money--in + his pockets, and watch us depart with the greatest serenity, + whether we went east or west. I thought him at one time the most + genial of Bonifaces (for it was his profession to wear a smile), + and at another a mere mocker of human woe. When I grew up, I + perceived that he was a philosopher. + + And now I keep the Midway Inn myself, and watch from the hill-top + the passengers come and go--some loth, some willing, like myself of + old--and listen to their talk in the coffee-room; or sometimes in a + private parlour, where, though they speak low and gravely, their + converse is still unrestrained, because, you see, I am the + landlord. + + Sometimes they speak of Death and the Hereafter, of which the child + they buried yesterday knows more than the wisest of them, and more + than Shakespeare knew. The being totally ignorant of the subject + does not indeed (as you may perhaps have observed in other matters) + deter some of them from speaking of it with great confidence; but + the views of a minority would quite surprise you, and this minority + is growing--coming to a majority. Every day I see an increase of + the doubters. It is not a question of the Orthodox and the Infidel, + you must understand, at all, though _that_ is assuming great + proportions; but there is every day more uncertainty among them, + and, what is much more noteworthy, more dissatisfaction. + + Years ago, when a hardy Cambridge scholar dared to publish his + doubts of an eternal punishment overtaking the wicked, an orthodox + professor of the same college took him (theologically) by the + throat. 'You are destroying,' he cried, 'the hope of the + Christian.' But this is not the hope I speak of, as loosing, and + losing, its hold upon men's minds; I mean the real hope, the hope + of heaven. + + When I used to go to church--for my inn is too far removed from it + to admit of my attendance there nowadays--matters were very + different. Heaven and Hell were, in the eyes not only of our + congregation, but of those who hung about the doors in the summer + sun, or even played leap-frog over the grave-stones, as distinct + alternatives as the east and west highways on each side of my inn. + If you did not go one way, you must go the other; and not only so, + but an immense desire was felt by very many to go in the right + direction. Now I perceive it is not so. A considerable number of + highway passengers, though even they are less numerous than of old, + are still studious--that is in their aspirations--to avoid taking + (shall I say delicately) the lower road; but only a few, + comparatively, are solicitous to reach the goal of the upper. + + Let me once more observe that I am speaking of the ordinary + passengers--those who travel by the mail. Of the persons who are + convinced that there never was an Architect of the Universe, and + that Man sprang from the Mollusc, I know little or nothing: they + mostly travel two and two, in gigs, and have quarrelled so + dreadfully on the way, that, at the Inn, they don't speak to one + another. The commonalty, I repeat, are losing their hopes of + heaven, just as the grown-up schoolboy finds his paradise no more + in home. I can remember when divines were never tired of painting + the lily, of indulging in the most glowing descriptions of the + Elysian Fields. A popular artist once drew a picture of them: 'The + Plains of Heaven' it was called, and the painter's name was Martin. + If he was to do so now, the public (who are vulgar) would exclaim + 'Betty Martin.' Not that they disbelieve in it, but that the + attractions of the place are dying out, like those of Bath and + Cheltenham. + + Of course some blame attaches to the divines themselves that things + have come to such a pass. 'I protest,' says a great philosopher, + 'that I never enter a church, but the man in the pulpit talks so + unlike a man, as though he had never known what human joys or + sorrows are--so carefully avoids every subject of interest save + _one_, and paints that in colours at once so misty and so + meretricious--that I say to myself, I will never sit under him + again.' This may, of course, be only an ingenious excuse of his for + not going to church; but there is really something in it. The + angels, with their harps, on clouds, are now presented to the eyes, + even of faith, in vain; they are still appreciated on canvas by an + old master, but to become one of them is no longer the common + aspiration. There is a suspicion, partly owing, doubtless, to the + modern talk about the dignity and even the divinity of Labour, that + they ought to be doing something else than (as the American poet + puts it with characteristic ii reverence) 'loafing about the + throne;' that we ourselves, with no ear perhaps for music, and with + little voice (alas!) for praise, should take no pleasure in such + avocations. It is not the sceptics--though their influence is + getting to be considerable--who have wrought this change, but the + conditions of modern life. Notwithstanding the cheerful 'returns' + as to pauperism, and the glowing speeches of our Chancellors of the + Exchequer, these conditions are far harder, among the thinking + classes, than they were. The question 'Is Life worth Living?' is + one that concerns philosophers and metaphysicians, and not the + persons I have in my mind at all; but the question, 'Do I wish to + be out of it?' is one that is getting answered very widely--and in + the affirmative. This was certainly not the case in the days of our + grand-sires. Which of them ever read those lines-- + + 'For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, + This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned, + Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, + Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?'-- + + without a sympathetic complacency? This may not have been the best + of all possible worlds to them, but none of them wished to exchange + it, save at the proper time, and for the proper place. Thanks to + overwork, and still more to over-worry, it is not so now. There are + many prosperous persons in rude health, of course, who will ask (with + a virtuous resolution that is sometimes to be deplored), 'Do you + suppose then that I wish to cut my throat?' I certainly do not. + Do not let us talk of cutting throats; though, mind you, the + average of suicides, so admirably preserved by the Registrar-General + and other painstaking persons, is not entirely to be depended upon. + You should hear the doctors at my Inn (in the intervals of their + abuse of their professional brethren) discourse upon this topic--on + that overdose of chloral which poor B. took, and on that injudicious + self-application of chloroform which carried off poor C. With the + law in such a barbarous state in relation to self-destruction, and + taking into account the feelings of relatives, there was, of course, + only one way of wording the certificate, but--and then they shake + their heads as only doctors can, and help themselves to port, though + they know it is poison to them. + + It is an old joke that annuitants live for ever, but no annuity + ever had the effect of prolonging life which the present assurance + companies have. How many a time, I wonder, in these later years, + has a hand been stayed, with a pistol or 'a cup of cold poison' in + it, by the thought, 'If I do this, my family will lose the money I + am insured for, besides the premiums.' This feeling is altogether + different from that which causes Jeannette and Jeannot in their + Paris attic to light their charcoal fire, stop up the chinks with + their love-letters, and die (very disreputably) 'clasped in one + another's arms, and silent in a last embrace.' There is not one + halfpenny's worth of sentiment about it in the Englishman's case, + nor are any such thoughts bred in his brain while youth is in him. + It is in our midway days, with old age touching us here and there, + as autumn 'lays its fiery finger on the leaves' and withers them, + that we first think of it. When the weight of anxiety and care is + growing on us, while the shoulders are becoming bowed (not in + resignation, but in weakness) which have to bear it; when our pains + are more and more constant, our pleasures few and fading, and when + whatever happens, we know, must needs be for the worse--then it is + that the praise of the silver hair and length of days becomes a + mockery indeed. + + Was it the prescience of such a state of thought, I wonder (for it + certainly did not exist in their time), that caused good men of old + to extol old age; as though anything could reconcile the mind of + man to the time when the very sun is darkened to him, and 'the + clouds return after the rain?' There is a noble passage in + 'Hyperion' which has always seemed to me to repeat that sentiment + in Ecclesiastes; it speaks of an expression in a man's face: + + 'As though the vanward clouds of evil days + Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear + Was with its storied thunder labouring up.' + + This is why poor Paterfamilias, sitting in the family pew, is not + so enamoured of that idea of accomplishing those threescore years + and ten which the young parson, fresh from Cambridge, is describing + as such a lucky number in life's lottery. The attempt to paint it + so is well-meaning, no doubt, 'the vacant chaff well meant for + grain;' and it is touching to see how men generally (knowing that + they themselves have to go through with it) are wont to portray it + in cheerful colours. + + A modern philosopher even goes so far as to say that our memories + in old age are always grateful to us. Our pleasures are remembered, + but our pains are forgotten; 'if we try to recall a physical pain,' + she writes (for it is a female), 'we find it to be impossible,' + From which I gather only this for certain, that that woman never + had the gout. + + The folks who come my way, indeed, seem to remember their physical + ailments very distinctly, to judge by the way they talk of them; + and are exceedingly apprehensive of their recurrence. Nay, it is + curious to see how some old men will resent the compliments of + their juniors on their state of health or appearance. 'Stuff and + nonsense!' cried old Sam Rogers, grimly; 'I tell you there is no + such thing as a fine old man.' In a humbler walk of life I remember + to have heard a similar but more touching reply. It was upon the + great centenarian question raised by Mr. Thorns. An old woman in a + workhouse, said to be a hundred years of age, was sent for by the + Board of Guardians, to decide the point by her personal testimony. + One can imagine the half-dozen portly prosperous figures, and the + contrast their appearance offered to that of the bent and withered + crone. 'Now, Betty,' said the chairman with unctuous patronage, + 'you look hale and hearty enough, yet they tell me that you are a + hundred years old; is this really true?' 'God Almighty knows, sir,' + was her reply, 'but I feel a thousand.' + + And there are so many people nowadays who 'feel a thousand.' + + It is for this reason that the gift of old age is unwished for, and + the prospect of future life without encouragement. It is the modern + conviction that there will be some kind of work in it; and even + though what we shall be set to do may be 'wrought with tumult of + acclaim,' we have had enough of work. What follows, almost as a + matter of course, is that the thought of possible extinction has + lost its terrors. Heaven and its glories may have still their + charms for those who are not wearied out with toil in this life; + but the slave draws for himself a far other picture of home. His is + no passionate cry to be admitted into the eternal city; he murmurs + sullenly, 'Let me rest.' + + It was a favourite taunt with the sceptics of old--those Early + Fathers of infidelity, who used to occupy themselves so laboriously + with scraping at the rind of the Christian Faith--that until the + Cross arose men were not afraid of Death. But that arrow has lost + its barb. The Fear of Death, even among professing Christians, is + now comparatively rare; I do not mean merely among dying men--in + whom those who have had acquaintance with deathbeds tell us they + see it scarcely ever--but with the quick and hale. Even with very + ignorant persons, the idea that things may be a great deal worse + for us hereafter than even at present is not generally entertained + as respects themselves. A clergyman who was attending a sick man in + his parish expressed a hope to the wife that she took occasion to + remind her husband of his spiritual condition. 'Oh yes, sir,' she + replied, 'many and many a time have I woke him up o' nights, and + cried, "John, John, you little know the torments as is preparing + for you."' But the good woman, it seems, was not disturbed by any + such dire imaginings upon her own account. + + Higher in the social scale, the apprehension of a Gehenna, or at + all events of such a one as our forefathers almost universally + believed in, is rapidly dying out. The mathematician tells us that + even as a question of numbers, 'about one in ten, my good sir, by + the most favourable computations,' the thing is incredible; the + philanthropist inquires indignantly, 'Is the city Arab then, who + grows to be thief and felon as naturally as a tree puts forth its + leaves, to be damned in both worlds?' and I notice that even the + clergy who come my way, and take their weak glass of negus while + the coach changes horses, no longer insist upon the point, but, at + the worst, 'faintly trust the larger hope.' + + Notwithstanding these comparatively cheerful views upon a subject + so important to all passengers on life's highway, the general + feeling is, as I have said, one of profound dissatisfaction; the + good old notion that whatever is is right, is fast disappearing; + and in its place there is a doubt--rarely expressed except among + the philosophers, with whom, as I have said, I have nothing to + do--a secret, harassing, and unwelcome doubt respecting the divine + government of the world. It is a question which the very + philosophers are not likely to settle even among themselves, but it + has become very obtrusive and important. Men raise their eyebrows + and shrug their shoulders when it is alluded to, instead, as of + old, of pulverising the audacious questioner on the spot, or even + (as would have happened at a later date) putting him into Coventry; + they have no opinion to offer upon the subject, or at all events do + not wish to talk about it. But it is no longer, be it observed, + 'bad form' in a general way to do so; it is only that the topic is + personally distasteful. + + The once famous advocate of analogy threw a bitter seed among + mankind when he suggested, in all innocence, and merely for the + sake of his own argument, that as the innocent suffered for the + guilty in this world, so it might be in the world to come; and it + is bearing bitter fruit. To feel aweary at the Midway Inn is bad + enough; but to be journeying to no home, and perhaps even to some + harsher school than we yet wot of, is indeed a depressing + reflection. + + Hence it comes, I think, or partly hence, that there is now no fun + in the world. Wit we have, and an abundance of grim humour, which + evokes anything but mirth. Nothing would astonish us in the Midway + Inn so much as a peal of laughter. A great writer (though it must + be confessed scarcely an amusing one), who has recently reached his + journey's end, used to describe his animal spirits depreciatingly, + as being at the best but vegetable spirits. And that is now the way + with us all. When Charles Dickens died, it was confidently stated + in a great literary journal that his loss, so far from affecting + 'the gaiety of nations,' would scarcely be felt at all; the power + of rousing tears and laughter being (I suppose the writer thought) + so very common. That prophecy has been by no means fulfilled. But, + what is far worse than there being no humorous writers amongst us, + the faculty of appreciating even the old ones is dying out. There + is no such thing as high spirits anywhere. It is observable, too, + how very much public entertainments have increased of late--a tacit + acknowledgment of dulness at home--while, instead of the lively, if + somewhat boisterous, talk of our fathers, we have drawing-room + dissertations on art, and dandy drivel about blue china. + + There is one pleasure only that takes more and more root amongst + us, and never seems to fail, and that is making money. To hear the + passengers at the Midway Inn discourse upon this topic, you would + think they were all commercial travellers. It is most curious how + the desire for pecuniary gain has infected even the idlest, who of + course take the shortest cut to it by way of the race-course. I see + young gentlemen, blond and beardless, telling the darkest secrets + to one another, affecting, one would think, the fate of Europe, but + which in reality relate to the state of the fetlock of the brother + to Boanerges. Their earnestness (which is reserved for this + enthralling topic) is quite appalling. In their elders one has long + been accustomed to it, but these young people should really know + better. The interest excited in society by 'scratchings' has never + been equalled since the time of the Cock Lane ghost. If men would + only 'lose their money and look pleasant' without talking about it, + I shouldn't mind; but they _will_ make it a subject of + conversation, as though everyone who liked his glass of wine should + converse upon 'the vintages.' One looks for it in business people + and forgives it; but everyone is now for business. + + The reverence that used to belong to Death is now only paid to it + in the case of immensely rich persons, whose wealth is spoken of + with bated breath. 'He died, sir, worth two millions; a very warm + man.' If you happen to say, though with all reasonable probability + and even with Holy Writ to back you, 'He is probably warmer by this + time,' you are looked upon as a Communist. What the man was is + nothing, what he made is everything. It is the gold alone that we + now value: the temple that might have sanctified the gold is of no + account. This worship of mere wealth has, it is true, this + advantage over the old adoration of birth, that something may + possibly be got out of it; to cringe and fawn upon the people that + have blue blood is manifestly futile, since the peculiarity is not + communicable, but it is hoped that, by being shaken up in the same + social bag with millionaires, something may be attained by what is + technically called the 'sweating' process. So far as I have + observed, however, the results are small, while the operation is to + the last degree disagreeable. + + What is very significant of this new sort of golden age is that a + literature of its own has arisen, though of an anomalous kind. It + is presided over by a sort of male Miss Kilmansegge, who is also a + model of propriety. It is as though the dragon that guarded the + apples of Hesperides should be a dragon of virtue. Under the + pretence of extolling prudence and perseverance, he paints + money-making as the highest good, and calls it thrift; and the + popularity of this class of book is enormous. The heroes are all + 'self-made' men who come to town with that proverbial half-crown + which has the faculty of accumulation that used to be confined to + snowballs. Like the daughters of the horse-leech, their cry is + 'Give, give,' only instead of blood they want money; and I need + hardly say they get it from other people's pockets. Love and + friendship are names that have lost their meaning, if they ever + had any, with these gentry. They remind one of the miser of old who + could not hear a large sum of money mentioned without an acceleration + of the action of the heart; and perhaps that is the use of their + hearts, which, otherwise, like that of the spleen in other people, + must be only a subject of vague conjecture. They live abhorred and + die respected; leaving all their heaped-up wealth to some charitable + institution, the secretary of which levants with it eventually to + the United States. + + This last catastrophe, however, is not mentioned in these + biographies, the subjects of which are held up as patterns of + wisdom and prudence for the rising generation. I shall have left + the Midway Inn, thank Heaven, for a residence of smaller + dimensions, before it has grown up. Conceive an England inhabited + by self-made men! + + Has it ever struck you how gloomy is the poetry of the present day? + This is not perhaps of very much consequence, since everybody has a + great deal too much to do to permit them to read it; but how full + of sighs, and groans, and passionate bewailings it is! And also how + deuced difficult! It is almost as inarticulate as an Æolian harp, + and quite as melancholy. There are one or two exceptions, of + course, as in the case of Mr. Calverley and Mr. Locker; but even + the latter is careful to insist upon the fact that, like those who + have gone before us, we must all quit Piccadilly. 'At present,' as + dear Charles Lamb writes, 'we have the advantage of them;' but + there is no one to remind us of that now, nor is it, as I have + said, the general opinion that it _is_ an advantage. + + It is this prevailing gloom, I think, which accounts for the + enormous and increasing popularity of fiction. Observe how + story-telling creeps into the very newspapers (along with their + professional fibbing); and, even in the magazines, how it lies down + side by side with 'burning questions,' like the weaned child + putting its hand into the cockatrice's den. For your sake, my good + fellow, who write stories [here my friend glowered at me + compassionately], I am glad of it; but the fact is of melancholy + significance. It means that people are glad to find themselves + 'anywhere, anywhere, out of the world,' and (I must be allowed to + add) they are generally gratified, for anything less like real life + than what some novelists portray it is difficult to imagine. + +[Here he stared at me so exceedingly hard, that anyone with a less +heavenly temper, or who had no material reasons for putting up with +it, would have taken his remark as personal, and gone away.] + + Another cause of the absence of good fellowship amongst us (he went + on) is the growth of education. It sticks like a fungus to + everybody, and though, it is fair to say, mostly outside, does a + great deal of mischief. The scholastic interest has become so + powerful that nobody dares speak a word against it; but the fact + is, men are educated far beyond their wits. You can't fill any cup + beyond what it will hold, and the little cups are exceedingly + numerous. Boys are now crammed (with information) like turkeys (but + unfortunately not killed at Christmas), and when they grow up there + is absolutely no room in them for a joke. The prigs that frequent + my Midway Inn are as the sands in its hour-glass, only with no + chance, alas! of their running out. The wisdom of our ancestors + limited education, and very wisely, to the three R's; that is all + that is necessary for the great mass of mankind: whereas the pick + of them, with those clamping irons well stuck to their heels, will + win their way to the topmost peaks of knowledge. + + At the very best--that is to say when it produces _anything_--what + does the most costly education in this country produce in ordinary + minds but the deplorable habit of classical quotation? If it could + teach them to _think_--but that is a subject, my dear friend, into + which you will scarcly follow me. + +[I could have knocked his head off if he had not been so exceptionally +stout and strong, and as it was, I took up my hat to go, when a +thought struck me.] + +'Among your valuable remarks upon the ideas entertained by society at +present, you have said nothing, my dear sir, about the ladies.' + +'I never speak of anything,' he replied with dignity, 'which I do not +thoroughly understand. Man I do know--down to his boots; but +woman'--here he sighed and hesitated--'no; I don't know nearly so much +of her.' + + + + +_THE CRITIC ON THE HEARTH._ + + +It has often struck me that the relation of two important members of +the social body to one another has never been sufficiently considered, +or treated of, so far as I know, either by the philosopher or the +poet. I allude to that which exists between the omnibus driver and his +conductor. Cultivating literature as I do upon a little oatmeal, and +driving, when in a position to be driven at all, in that humble +vehicle, the 'bus, I have had, perhaps, exceptional opportunities for +observing their mutual position and behaviour; and it is very +peculiar. When the 'bus is empty, these persons are sympathetic and +friendly to one another, almost to tenderness; but when there is much +traffic, a tone of severity is observable upon the side of the +conductor. 'What are yer a-driving on for just as a party's getting +in? Will nothing suit but to break a party's neck?' 'Wake up, will +yer? or do yer want that ere Bayswater to pass us?' are inquiries he +will make in the most peremptory manner. Or he will concentrate +contempt in the laconic but withering observation: 'Now then, +stoopid!' + +When we consider that the driver is after all the driver--that the +'bus is under his guidance and management, and may be said _pro tem_, +to be his own--indeed, in case of collision or other serious +extremity, he calls it so: 'What the infernal regions are yer banging +into my 'bus for?' etc., etc.,--I say, this being his exalted +position, the injurious language of the man on the step is, to say the +least of it, disrespectful. + +On the other hand, it is the conductor who fills the 'bus, and even +entices into it, by lures and wiles, persons who are not voluntarily +going his way at all. It is he who advertises its presence to the +passers-by, and spares neither lung nor limb in attracting passengers. +If the driver is lord and king, yet the conductor has a good deal to +do with the administration: just as the Mikado of Japan, who sits +above the thunder and is almost divine, is understood to be assisted +and even 'conducted' by the Tycoon. The connection between those +potentates is perhaps the most exact reproduction of that between the +'bus driver and his cad; but even in England there is a pretty close +parallel to it in the mutual relation of the author and the +professional critic. + +While the former is in his spring-time, the analogy is indeed almost +complete. For example, however much he may have plagiarised, the book +does belong to the author: he calls it, with pardonable pride (and +especially if anyone runs it down), 'my book.' He has written it, and +probably paid pretty handsomely for getting it published. Even the +right of translation, if you will look at the bottom of the +title-page, is somewhat superfluously reserved to him. Yet nothing can +exceed the patronage which he suffers at the hands of the critic, and +is compelled to submit to in sullen silence. When the book-trade is +slack--that is, in the summer season--the pair get on together pretty +amicably. 'This book,' says the critic, 'may be taken down to the +seaside, and lounged over not unprofitably;' or, 'Readers may do worse +than peruse this unpretending little volume of fugitive verse;' or +even, 'We hail this new aspirant to the laurels of Apollo.' But in the +thick of the publishing season, and when books pour into the reviewer +by the cartful, nothing can exceed the violence, and indeed sometimes +the virulence, of his language. That 'Now then, stoopid!' of the 'bus +conductor pales beside the lightnings of his scorn. + +'Among the lovers of sensation, it is possible that some persons may +be found with tastes so utterly vitiated as to derive pleasure from +this monstrous production.' I cull these flowers of speech from a +wreath placed by a critic of the _Slasher_ on my own early brow. Ye +gods, how I hated him! How I pursued him with more than Corsican +vengeance; traduced him in public and private; and only when I had +thrust my knife (metaphorically) into his detested carcase, discovered +I had been attacking the wrong man. It is a lesson I have never +forgotten; and I pray you, my younger brothers of the pen, to lay it +to heart. Believe rather that your unfriendly critic, like the bee who +is fabled to sting and die, has perished after his attempt on your +reputation; and let the tomb be his asylum. For even supposing you get +the right sow by the ear--or rather, the wild boar with the 'raging +tooth'--what can it profit you? It is not like that difference of +opinion between yourself and twelve of your fellow-countrymen which +may have such fatal results. You are not an Adonis (except in outward +form, perhaps), that you can be ripped up with his tusk. His hard +words do not break your bones. If they are uncalled for, their +cruelty, believe me, can hurt only your vanity. While it is just +possible--though indeed in your case in the very highest degree +improbable--that the gentleman may have been right. + +In the good old times we are told that a buffet from the hand of an +Edinburgh or Quarterly Reviewer would lay a young author dead at his +feet. If it was so, he must have been naturally very deficient in +vitality. It certainly did not kill Byron, though it was a knock-down +blow; he rose from that combat from earth, like Antæus, all the +stronger for it. The story of its having killed Keats, though embalmed +in verse, is apocryphal; and if such blows were not fatal in those +times, still less so are they nowadays. On the other hand, if authors +are difficult to slay, it is infinitely harder work to give them life +by what the doctors term 'artificial respiration'--puffing. The amount +of breath expended in the days of 'the Quarterlies' in this hopeless +task would have moved windmills. Not a single favourite of those +critics--selected, that is, from favouritism, and apart from +merit--now survives. They failed even to obtain immortality for the +writers in whom there was really something of genius, but whom they +extolled beyond their deserts. Their pet idol, for example, was Samuel +Rogers. And who reads Rogers's poems now? We remember something about +them, and that is all; they are very literally 'Pleasures of Memory.' + +And if these things are true of the past, how much more so are they of +the present! I venture to think, in spite of some voices to the +contrary, that criticism is much more honest than it used to be: +certainly less influenced by political feeling, and by the interests +of publishing houses; more temperate, if not more judicious, and--in +the higher literary organs, at least--unswayed by personal prejudice. +But the result of even the most favourable notices upon a book is now +but small. I can remember when a review in the _Times_ was calculated +by the 'Row' to sell an entire edition. Those halcyon days--if halcyon +days they were--are over. People read books for themselves now; judge +for themselves; and buy only when they are absolutely compelled, and +cannot get them from the libraries. In the case of an author who has +already secured a public, it is indeed extraordinary what little +effect reviews, either good or bad, have upon his circulation. Those +who like his works continue to read them, no matter what evil is +written of them; and those who don't like them are not to be persuaded +(alas!) to change their minds, though his latest effort should be +described as though it had dropped from the heavens. I could give some +statistics upon this point not a little surprising, but statistics +involve comparisons--which are odious. As for fiction, its success +depends more upon what Mrs. Brown says to Mrs. Jones as to the +necessity of getting that charming book from the library while there +is yet time, than on all the reviews in Christendom. + + O Fame! if I e'er took delight in thy praises, + 'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases + Than to see the bright eyes of those dear ones discover + They thought that I was not unworthy-- + +of a special messenger to Mr. Mudie's. + +Heaven bless them! for, when we get old and stupid, they still stick by +one, and are not to be seduced from their allegiance by any blaring of +trumpets, or clashing of cymbals, that heralds a new arrival among the +story-tellers. + +On the other hand, as respects his first venture, the author is very +dependent upon what the critics say of him. It is the conductor, you +know (I wouldn't call him a 'cad,' even in fun, for ten thousand +pounds), on whom, to return to our metaphor, the driver is dependent +for the patronage of his vehicle, and even for the announcement of its +existence. A good review is still the very best of advertisements to a +new author; and even a bad one is better than no review at all. Indeed, +I have heard it whispered that a review which speaks unfavourably of a +work of fiction, upon moral grounds, is of very great use to it. This, +however, the same gossips say, is mainly confined to works of fiction +written by female authors for readers of their own sex--'_by_ ladies +_for_ ladies,' as a feminine _Pall Mall Gazette_ might describe itself. + +Nor would I be understood to say that even a well-established author is +not affected by what the critics may say of him; I only state that his +circulation is not--albeit they may make his very blood curdle. I have +a popular writer in my mind, who never looks at a newspaper unless it +comes to him by a hand he can trust, for fear his eyes should light +upon an unpleasant review. His argument is this: 'I have been at this +work for the last twelve months, thinking of little else and putting my +best intelligence (which is considerable) at its service. Is it humanly +probable that a reviewer who has given his mind to it for a less number +of hours, can suggest anything in the way of improvement worthy of my +consideration? I am supposing him to be endowed with ability and +actuated by good faith; that he has not failed in my own profession and +is not jealous of my popularity; yet even thus, how is it possible that +his opinion can be of material advantage to me? If favourable, it gives +me pleasure, because it flatters my _amour propre_, and I am even not +quite sure that it does not afford a stimulating encouragement; but if +unfavourable, I own it gives me considerable annoyance. [This is his +euphemistic phrase to express the feeling of being in a hornets' nest +without his clothes on.] On the other hand, if the critic is a mere +hireling, or a young gentleman from the university who is trying his +'prentice hand at a lowish rate of remuneration upon a veteran like +myself, how still more idle would it be to regard his views!' + +And it appears to me that there is really something in these arguments. +As regards the latter part of them, by-the-bye, I had the pleasure of +seeing my own last immortal story spoken of in an American +magazine--the _Atlantic Monthly_--as the work of 'a bright and +prosperous young author.' The critic (Heaven bless his young heart, and +give him a happy Whitsuntide) evidently imagined it to be my first +production. In another Transatlantic organ, a critic, speaking of the +last work of that literary veteran, the late Mr. Le Fanu, observes: 'If +this young writer would only model himself upon the works of Mr. +William Black in his best days, we foresee a great future before him.' + +There is one thing that I think should be set down to the credit of the +literary profession--that for the most part they take their 'slatings' +(which is the professional term for them) with at least outward +equanimity. I have read things of late, written of an old and popular +writer, ten times more virulent than anything Mr. Ruskin wrote of Mr. +Whistler: yet neither he, nor any other man of letters, thinks of +flying to his mother's apron-string, or of setting in motion old Father +Antic, the Law. Perhaps it is that we have no money, or perhaps, like +the judicious author of whom I have spoken, we abstain from reading +unpleasant things. I wish to goodness we could abstain from hearing of +them; but the 'd----d good-natured friend' is an eternal creation. He +has altered, however, since Sheridan's time in his method of +proceeding. He does not say, 'There is a very unpleasant notice of you +in the _Scorpion_, my dear fellow, which I deplore.' The scoundrel now +affects a more light-hearted style. 'There is a review of your last +book in the _Scorpion_', he says, 'which will amuse you. It is very +malicious, and evidently the offspring of personal spite, but it is +very clever.' Then you go down to your club, and take the thing up with +the tongs, when nobody is looking, and make yourself very miserable; or +you buy it, going home in the cab, and, having spoilt your appetite for +dinner with it, tear it up very small, throw it out of window, and +swear you have never seen it. + +One forgives the critic--perhaps--but never the good-natured friend. It +is always possible--to the wise man--to refrain from reading the +lucubration of the former, but he cannot avoid the latter: which brings +me to the main subject of this paper--the Critic on the Hearth. One can +be deaf to the voice of the public hireling, but it is impossible to +shut one's ears to the private communications of one's friends and +family--all meant for our good, no doubt, but which are nevertheless +insufferable. + +In Miss Martineau's Autobiography there is a passage expressing her +surprise that whereas in all other cases there is a certain modest +reticence in respect to other people's business when it is of a special +kind, the profession of literature is made an exception. As there is no +one but imagines that he can poke a fire and drive a gig, so everyone +believes he can write a book, or at all events (like that blasphemous +person in connection with the Creation) that he can give a wrinkle or +two to the author. + +I wonder what a parson would say, if a man who never goes to church +save when his babies are christened, or by accident to get out of a +shower, should volunteer his advice about sermon-making? or an artist, +to whom the man without arms, who is wheeled about in the streets for +coppers, should recommend a greater delicacy of touch? Indeed, metaphor +fails me, and I gasp for mere breath when I think of the astounding +impudence of some people. If I possessed a tithe of it, I should surely +have made my fortune by this time, and be in the enjoyment of the +greatest prosperity. It must be remembered, too, that the opinion of +the Critics on the Hearth is always volunteered (indeed, one would as +soon think of asking for it as for a loan from the Sultan of Turkey), +and in nine cases out of ten it is unfavourable. One has no objection +to their praise, nor to any amount of it; what is so abhorrent is their +advice, and still more their disapproval. It is like throwing 'half a +brick' at you, which, utterly valueless in itself, still hurts you when +it hits you. And the worst of it is that, apart from their rubbishy +opinions, one likes these people; they are one's friends and relatives, +and to cut one's moorings from them altogether would be to sail over +the sea of life without a port to touch at. + +The early life of the author is especially embittered by the utterances +of these good folks. As a prophet is of no honour in his own country, +so it is with the young aspirant for literary fame with his folks at +home. They not only disbelieve in him, but--generally, however, with +one or two exceptions, who are invaluable to him in the way of +encouragement--'make hay' of him and his pretensions in the most +heartless style. If he produces a poem, it achieves immortality in the +sense of his 'never hearing the last of it;' it is the jest of the +family till they have all grown up. But this he can bear, because his +noble mind recognises its own greatness; he regards his jeering +brethren in the same light as the philosophic writer beholds 'the vapid +and irreflective reader.' When they tell him they 'can't make head or +tail of his blessed poetry,' he comforts himself with the reflection of +the great German (which he has read in a translation) that the clearest +handwriting cannot be read by twilight. It is when his literary talents +have received more or less recognition from the public at large, that +home criticism becomes so painful to him. His brethren are then boys no +longer, but parsons, lawyers, and doctors; and though they don't +venture to interfere with one-another as regards their individual +professions, they make no sort of scruple about interfering with _him_. +They write to him their unsolicited advice and strictures. This is the +parson's letter: + + 'MY DEAR DICK, + + 'I like your last book much better than the rest of them; but I don't + like your heroine. She strikes both Julia and myself [Julia is his + wife, who is acquainted with no literature but the cookery-book] as + rather namby-pamby. The descriptions, however, are charming; we both + recognised dear old Ramsgate at once. [The original of the locality + in the novel being Dieppe.] The plot is also excellent, though we + think we have some recollection of it elsewhere; but it must be so + difficult to hit upon anything original in these days. Thanks for + your kind remembrance of us at Christmas: the oysters were excellent. + We were sorry to see that ill-natured little notice in the _Scourge_. + + 'Yours affectionately, + + 'BOB.' + +Jack the lawyer writes: + + 'DEAR DICK, + + 'You are really becoming ["Becoming?" he thinks _that_ becoming] + quite a great man: we could hardly get your last book from Mudie's, + though I suppose he takes very small quantities of copies, except + from really popular authors. Marion was charmed with your heroine + [Dick rather likes Marion; and doesn't think Jack treats her with the + consideration she deserves], and I have no doubt women in general + will admire her, but your hero--you know I always speak my + mind--is rather a duffer. You should go into the world more, and + sketch from life. The Vice-Chancellor gave me great pleasure by + speaking of your early poems very highly the other day, and I assure + you it was quite a drop down for me, to find that he was referring to + some other writer of the same name. Of course I did not undeceive + him. I wish, my dear fellow, you would write stories in one volume + instead of three. You write a _short_ story capitally. + + 'Yours ever, + + 'JACK.' + +Tom the surgeon belongs to that very objectionable class of humanity, +called, by ancient writers, wags: + + 'MY DEAR DICK, + + 'I cannot help writing to thank you for the relief afforded to me by + the perusal of your last volume. I had been suffering from neuralgia, + and every prescription in the Pharmacopæia for producing sleep had + failed until I tried _that_. Dear Maggie [an odious woman, who calls + novels "light literature," and affects to be blue] read it to me + herself, so it was given every chance; but I think you must + acknowledge that it was a little spun out. Maggie assures me--I have + not read them myself, for you know what little time I have for such + things--that the first two volumes, with the exception of the + characters of the hero and heroine, which she pronounces to be rather + feeble, are first-rate. Why don't you write two-volume novels? There + is always something in analogy: reflect how seldom Nature herself + produces three at a birth: when she does, it is only two, at most, + which survive. We shall look forward to your next effort with much + interest, but we hope you will give more time and pains to it. + Remember what Horace says upon this subject (He has no more knowledge + of Horace than he has of Sanscrit, but he has read the quotation in + that vile review in the _Scourge_.) Maggie thinks you live too + luxuriously: if your expenses were less you would not be compelled to + write so much, and you would do it better. Excuse this well-meant + advice from an elder brother. + + 'Yours always, + + 'Tom.' + +'One's sisters, and one's cousins, and one's aunts' also write in more +or less the same style, though, to do their sex justice, less +offensively. 'If you were to go abroad, my dear Dick,' says one, 'it +would expand your mind. There is nothing to blame in your last +production, which strikes me (what I could understand of it at least, +for some of it is a little Bohemian) as very pleasing; but the fact is, +that English subjects are quite used up.' Others discover for themselves +the originals of Dick's characters in persons he has never dreamt of +describing, and otherwise exhibit a most marvellous familiarity with his +materials. 'Hennie, who has just been here, is immensely delighted with +your satirical sketch of her husband. He, however, as you may suppose, +is _wild_, and says you had better withdraw your name from the +candidates' book at his club. I don't know how many black balls exclude, +but he has a good many friends there.' Another writes: 'Of course we all +recognised Uncle George in your Mr. Flibbertigibbet; but we try not to +laugh; indeed our sense of loss is too recent. Seriously, I think you +might have waited till the poor old man--who was always kind to you, +Dick--was cold in his grave.' + +Some of these excellent creatures send incidents of real life which they +are sure will be useful to 'dear Dick' for his next book--narratives of +accidents in a hansom cab, of missing the train by the Underground, and +of Mr. Jones being late for his own wedding, 'which, though nothing in +themselves, actually did happen, you know, and which, properly dressed +up, as you so well know how to do,' will, they are sure, obtain for him +a marked success. 'There is nothing like reality,' they say, he may +depend upon it, 'for coming home to people.' + +After all, one need not read these abominable letters. One's relatives +(thank Heaven!) usually live in the country. The real Critics on the +Hearth are one's personal acquaintances in town, whom one cannot +escape. + +'My dear friend,' said one to me the other day--a most cordial and +excellent fellow, by-the-bye (only too frank)--'I like you, as you +know, beyond everything, personally, but I cannot read your books.' + +'My dear Jones,' replied I, 'I regret that exceedingly; for it is you, +and men like you, whose suffrages I am most anxious to win. Of the +approbation of all intelligent and educated persons I am certain; but +if I could only obtain that of the million, I should be a happy man.' + +But even when I have thus demolished Jones, I still feel that I owe him +a grudge. 'What the Deuce is it to me whether Jones likes my books or +not? and why does he tell me he doesn't like them?' + +Of the surpassing ignorance of these good people, I have just heard an +admirable anecdote. A friend of a justly popular author meets him in +the club and congratulates him upon his last story in the _Slasher_ [in +which he has never written a line]. It is so full of farce and fun [the +author is a grave writer]. 'Only I don't see why it is not advertised +under the same title in the other newspapers.' The fact being that the +story in the _Slasher_ is a parody--and not a very good-natured +one--upon the author's last work, and resembles it only as a picture in +_Vanity Fair_ resembles its original. + +Some Critics on the Hearth are not only good-natured, but have rather +too high, or, if that is impossible, let us say too pronounced, an +opinion of the abilities of their literary friends. They wonder why +they do not employ their gigantic talents in some enduring monument, +such as a life of 'Alexander the Great' or a popular history of the +Visigoths. To them literature is literature, and they do not concern +themselves with little niceties of style or differences of subject. +Others again, though extremely civil, are apt to affect more enthusiasm +than they feel. They admire one's works without exception--'they are +all absolutely charming'--but they would be placed in a position of +great embarrassment if they were asked to name their favourite: for, as +a matter of fact, they are ignorant of the very names of them. A +novelist of my acquaintance lent his last work to a lady cousin because +she 'really could not wait till she got it from the library;' besides, +'she was ill, and wanted some amusing literature.' After a month or so +he got his three volumes back, with a most gushing letter. It 'had been +the comfort of many a weary hour of sleeplessness,' etc. The thought of +having 'smoothed the pillow and soothed the pain' would, she felt sure, +be gratifying to him. Perhaps it would have been, only she had omitted +to cut the pages even of the first volume. + +But, as a general rule, these volunteer censors plume themselves on +discovering defects and not beauties. When any author is particularly +popular and has been long before the public, they have two methods of +discoursing upon him in relation to their literary friend. In the +first, they represent him as a model of excellence, and recommend their +friend to study him, though without holding out much hope of his ever +becoming his rival; in the second, they describe him as 'worked out,' +and darkly hint that sooner or later [they mean sooner] their friend +will be in the same unhappy condition. These, I need not say, are among +the most detestable specimens of their class, and only to be equalled +by those excellent literary judges who are always appealing to +posterity, which, even if a little temporary success has crowned you +to-day, will relegate you to your proper position to-morrow. If one +were weak enough to argue with these gentry, it would be easy to show +that popular authors are not 'worked out,' but only have the appearance +of being so from their taking their work too easily. Those whose +calling it is to depict human nature in fiction are especially subject +to this weakness; they do not give themselves the trouble to study new +characters, or at first hand, as of old; they sit at home and receive +the congratulations of Society without paying due attention to that +somewhat changeful lady, and they draw upon their memory, or their +imagination, instead of studying from the life. Otherwise, when they do +not give way to that temptation of indolence which arises from +competence and success, there is no reason why their reputation should +suffer, since, though they may lack the vigour or high spirits of those +who would push them from their stools, their experience and knowledge +of the world are always on the increase. + +As to the argument with regard to posterity which is so popular with +the Critic on the Hearth, I am afraid he has no greater respect for the +opinion of posterity himself than for that of his possible +great-great-granddaughter. Indeed, he only uses it as being a weapon +the blow of which it is impossible to parry, and with the object of +being personally offensive. It is, moreover, noteworthy that his +position, which is sometimes taken up by persons of far greater +intelligence, is inconsistent with itself. The praisers of posterity +are also always the praisers of the past; it is only the present which +is in their eyes contemptible. Yet to the next generation this present +will be _their_ past, and, however valueless may be the verdict of +today, how much more so, by the most obvious analogy, will be that of +to-morrow. It is probable, indeed, though it is difficult to believe +it, that the Critics on the Hearth of the generation to come will make +themselves even more ridiculous than their immediate predecessors. + + + + +_SHAM ADMIRATION IN LITERATURE._ + + +In all highly civilised communities Pretence is prominent, and sooner +or later invades the regions of Literature. In the beginning, this is +not altogether to be reprobated; it is the rude homage which Ignorance, +conscious of its disgrace, offers to Learning; but after awhile, +Pretence becomes systematised, gathers strength from numbers and +impunity, and rears its head in such a manner as to suggest it has some +body and substance belonging to it. In England, literary pretence is +more universal than elsewhere from our method of education. When young +gentlemen from ten to sixteen are set to study poetry (a subject for +which not one in a hundred has the least taste or capability even when +he reads it in his own language) in Greek and Latin authors, it is only +a natural consequence that their views upon it should be slightly +artificial. The youth who objected to the alphabet that it seemed +hardly worth while to have gone through so much to have acquired so +little, was exceptionally sagacious; the more ordinary lad conceives +that what has cost him so much time and trouble, and entailed so many +pains and penalties, must needs have something in it, though it has +never met his eye. Hence arises our public opinion upon the ancient +classics, which I am afraid is somewhat different from (what painters +term) the private view. If you take the ordinary admirer of Æschylus, +for example--not the scholar, but the man who has had what he believes +to be 'a liberal education'--and appeal to his opinion upon some +passage in a British dramatist, say Shakespeare, it is ten to one that +he shows not only ignorance of the author (the odds are twenty to one +about _that_), but utter inability to grasp the point in question; it +is too deep for him, and, especially, too subtle. If you are cruel +enough to press him, he will unconsciously betray the fact that he has +never felt a line of poetry in his life. He honestly believes that the +'Seven against Thebes' is one of the greatest works that ever were +written, just as a child believes the same of the 'Seven Champions of +Christendom.' A great wit once observed, when bored by the praises of a +man who spoke six languages, that he had known a man to speak a dozen, +and yet not say a word worth hearing in any one of them. The humour of +the remark, as sometimes happens, has caused its wisdom to be +underrated; for the fact is that, in very many cases, all the +intelligence of which a mind is capable is expended upon the mere +acquisition of a foreign tongue. As to getting anything out of it in +the way of ideas, and especially of poetical ones, that is almost never +attained. There are, indeed, many who have a special facility for +languages, but in their case (with a few exceptions) one may say +without uncharity that the acquisition of ideas is not their object, +though if they did acquire them they would probably be new ones. The +majority of us, however, have much difficulty in surmounting the +obstacle of an alien tongue; and when we have done so we are naturally +inclined to overrate the advantages thus attained. Everyone knows the +poor creature who quotes French on all occasions with a certain stress +on the accent, designed to arouse a doubt in his hearers as to whether +he was not actually born in Paris. _He_, of course, is a low specimen +of the class in question, but almost all of us derive a certain +intellectual gratification from the mastery of another language, and as +we gradually attain to it, whenever we find a meaning we are apt to +mistake it for a beauty.[1] Nay, I am convinced that many admire this +or that (even) British poet from the fact that here and there his +meaning has gleamed upon them with all the charm that accompanies +unexpectedness. + + [1] Since the above was written, my attention has been called to + the following remark of De Quincey: 'As must ever be the case with + readers not sufficiently masters of a language to bring the true + pretensions of a work to any test of feeling, they are for ever + mistaking for some pleasure conferred by the writer, what is, in + fact, the pleasure naturally attached to the sense of a difficulty + overcome.' + +Since classical learning is compulsory with us, this bastard admiration +is much more often excited with respect to the Greek and Latin poets. +Men may not only go through the whole curriculum of a university +education, but take high honours in it, without the least intellectual +advantage beyond the acquisition of a few quotations. This is not, of +course (good heavens!), because the classics have nothing to teach us +in the way of poetical ideas, but simply because to the ordinary mind +the acquisition of a poetical idea is very difficult, and when conveyed +in a foreign language is impossible. If the same student had given the +same time--a monstrous thought, of course, but not impracticable--to +the cultivation of Shakespeare and the old dramatists, or even to the +more modern English poets and thinkers, he would certainly have got +more out of them, though he would have missed the delicate +suggestiveness of the Greek aorist, and the exquisite subtleties of the +particle _de_. Having acquired these last, however, and not for +nothing, it is not surprising that he should esteem them very highly, +and, being unable to popularise them at dinner-parties and the like, he +falls back upon praise of the classics generally. + +Such are the circumstances which, more particularly in this country, +have led to a well-nigh universal habit of literary lying--of a +pretence of admiration for certain works of which in reality we know +very little, and for which, if we knew more, we should perhaps care +even less. + +There are certain books which are standard, and as it were planted in +the British soil, before which the great majority of us bow the knee +and doff the cap with a reverence that, in its ignorance, reminds one +of fetish worship, and, in its affectation, of the passion for High +Art. The works without which, we are told at book auctions, 'no +gentleman's library can be considered complete,' are especially the +objects of this adoration. The 'Rambler,' for example, is one of them. +I was once shut up for a week of snowstorms in a mountain inn, with the +'Rambler' and one other publication. The latter was a Shepherd's Guide, +with illustrations of the way in which sheep are marked by their +various owners for the purpose of identification: 'Cropped near ear, +upper key bitted far, a pop on the head and another at the tail head, +ritted, and with two red strokes down both shoulders,' etc. It was +monotonous, but I confess that there were times when I felt it some +comfort in having that picture-book to fall back upon, to alternate +with the 'Rambler.' + +The essay, like port wine, I have noticed, requires age for its due +appreciation. Leigh Hunt's 'Indicator' comprises some admirable essays, +but the general public have not a word to say for them; it may be urged +that that is because they had not read the 'Indicator' But why then do +they praise the 'Rambler' and Montaigne? That comforting word, +'Mesopotamia,' which has been so often alluded to in religious matters, +has many a parallel in profane literature. + +A good deal of this mock worship is of course due to abject cowardice. +A man who says he doesn't like the 'Rambler,' runs, with some folks, +the risk of being thought a fool; but he is sure to be thought that, +for something or another, under any circumstances; and, at all events, +why should he not content himself, when the 'Rambler' is belauded, with +holding his tongue and smiling acquiescence? It must be conceded that +there are a few persons who really have read the 'Rambler,' a work, of +course, I am merely using as a type of its class. In their young days +it was used as a schoolbook, and thought necessary as a part of polite +education; and as they have read little or nothing since, it is only +reasonable that they should stick to their colours. Indeed, the French +satirist's boast that he could predicate the views of any man with +regard to both worlds, if he were only supplied with the simple data of +his age and his income, is quite true in the general with regard to +literary taste. Given the age of the ordinary individual--that is to +say of the gentleman 'fond of books, but who has really no time for +reading'--and it is easy enough to guess his literary idols. They are +the gods of his youth, and, whether he has been 'suckled in a creed +outworn' or not, he knows no other. These persons, however, rarely give +their opinion about literary matters, except on compulsion; they are +harmless and truthful. The tendency of society in general, on the other +hand, is not only to praise the 'Rambler' which they have not read, but +to express a noble scorn for those who have read it and don't like it. + +I remember, as a young man, being greatly struck by the independence of +character exhibited by Miss Bronte in a certain confession she made in +respect to Miss Austen's novels. It was at a period when everybody +professed to adore them, and especially the great-guns of literature. +Walter Scott thought more highly of the genius of the author of +'Mansfield Park' even than of that of his favourite, Miss Edgeworth. +Macaulay speaks of her as though she were the Eclipse of +novelists--'first, and the rest nowhere'--though his opinion, it is +true, lost something of its force from the contempt he expressed for +'the rest,' among whom were some much better ones. Dr. Whewell, a very +different type of mind, had 'Mansfield Park,' I believe, read to him on +his death-bed. And, indeed, up to the present date, some +highly-cultured persons of my acquaintance take the same view. They may +be very possibly right, but that is no reason why the people who have +never read Miss Austen's novels--and very few have--should ape the +fashion. Now, the authoress of 'Jane Eyre' did not derive much pleasure +from the perusal of the works of the other Jane. 'I know it's very +wrong,' she modestly said, 'but the fact is I can't read them. They +have not got story enough in them to engage my attention. I don't want +my blood curdled, but I like it stirred. Miss Austen strikes me as +milk-and-watery, and, to say truth, as dull.' + +This opinion she has, in effect, repeated in her published writings, +but I had only heard her verbal expression of it; and I admired her +courage. If she had been a man, struggling, as she then was, for a +position in literature, she would not have dared to say half as much. +For, what is very curious, the advocates of the classic authors--those +I mean whom antiquity has more or less hallowed--instead of pitying +those unhappy wights who confess their want of appreciation of them, +fly at them with bludgeons, and dance upon their prostrate bodies with +clogs. + + 'For who would rush on a benighted man, + And give him two black eyes for being blind?' + +inquires the poet. I answer, 'lots of people,' and especially those who +worship the pagan divinities of literature. The same thing happens--but +_their_ fury is more excusable, because they have less natural +intelligence--with the lovers of music. Instead of being sorry for the +poor folks who have 'no ear,' and whom 'a little music in the evening' +bores to extremity, they overwhelm them with reproaches for what is in +fact a natural infirmity. 'You Goth! you Vandal!' they exclaim, 'how +contemptible is the creature who has no music in his soul!' Which is +really very rude. Even persons who are not musical have their feelings. +'Hath not a Jew ears?'--that is to say, though they have 'no ear,' they +understand what is abusive language and resent it. + +I am not saying one word against established reputations in literature. +The very fact of their being established (even the 'Rambler,' for +example, has its merits) is in their favour; and, indeed, some of the +works I shall refer to are masterpieces. My objection is to the sham +admiration of them, which does their authors no good (for their +circulation is now of no consequence to them), and is injurious not +only to modern writers (who are generally made the subject of base +comparison), but especially to the utterers of this false coin +themselves. One cannot tell falsehoods, even about one's views in +literature, without injury to one's morals, yet to 'tell the truth and +shame the devil' is easy, as it would seem, compared with telling the +truth and defying the critics. + +I have alluded to the intrepidity of Miss Bronte in this matter; and, +curiously enough, it is women who have the most courage in the +expression of their literary opinions. It may be said, of course, that +this is due to the audacity of ignorance, and a well-known line may be +quoted (for some people, as I have said, are rude) in which certain +angels (who are _not_ women) are represented as being afraid to tread +in certain places. But I am speaking of women who are great readers. +Miss Martineau once confessed to me that she could see no beauties in +'Tom Jones.' 'Of course,' she said, 'the coarseness disgusts me, but +apart from that, I see no sort of merit in it.' 'What?' I replied, 'no +humour, no knowledge of human life?' 'No; to me it is a wearisome +book.' + +I disagreed with her very much upon that point, and do so still; yet, +apart from the coarseness (which does not disgust everybody, let me +tell you), there is a good deal of tedious reading in 'Tom Jones.' At +all events that expression of opinion from such lips strikes me as +noteworthy. + +It may here be said that there are many English authors of old date, +some of whose beauties are unintelligible except to those who are +acquainted with the classics; and 'Tom Jones' is one of them. Many of +the introductions to the chapters, not to mention a certain travestie +of an Homeric battle, must needs be as wearisome to those who are not +scholars, as the spectacle of a burlesque is to those who have not seen +the original play. This is still more the case with our old poets, +especially Milton. I very much doubt, in spite of the universal chorus +to the contrary, whether 'Lycidas' is much admired by readers who are +only acquainted with English literature; I am quite sure it never +touched their hearts as, for example, 'In Memoriam' does. + +I once beheld a young lady of great literary taste, and of exquisite +sensibility, torn to pieces (figuratively) and trampled upon by a great +scholar for venturing to make a comparison between those two poems. Its +invocation to the Muses, and the general classical air which pervades +it, had destroyed for her the pathos of 'Lycidas,' whereas to her +antagonist those very imperfections appeared to enhance its beauty. I +did not interfere, because the wretch was her husband, and it would +have been worse for her if I had, but my sympathies were entirely with +her. Her sad fate--for the massacre took place in public--would, I was +well aware, have the effect of making people lie worse than ever about +Milton. On that same evening, while some folks were talking about Mr. +Morris's 'Earthly Paradise,' I heard a scornful voice exclaim, 'Oh! +give ME "Paradise Lost,"' and with that gentleman I _did_ have it out. +I promptly subjected him to cross-examination, and drove him to that +extremity that he was compelled to admit he had never read a word of +Milton for forty years, and even then only in extracts from 'Enfield's +Speaker.' + +With Shakespeare--though there is a good deal of lying about _him_--the +case is different, and especially with elderly people; for 'in their +day,' as they pathetically term it, Shakespeare was played everywhere, +and everyone went to the play. They do not read him, but they recollect +him; they are well acquainted with his beauties--that is, with the +better known of them--and can quote him with manifest appreciation. +They are, intellectually, in a position much superior to that of a +fashionable lady of my acquaintance who informed me that her daughters +were going to the theatre that night to see Shakespeare's 'Turning of +the Screw.' + +The writer who has done most, without I suppose intending it, to promote +hypocrisy in literature is Macaulay. His 'every schoolboy knows' has +frightened thousands into pretending to know authors with whom they have +not even a bowing acquaintance. It is amazing that a man who had read so +much should have written so contemptuously of those who have read but +little; one would have thought that the consciousness of superiority +would have forbidden such insolence, or that his reading would have been +extensive enough to teach him at least how little he had read of what +there was to read; since he read some things--works of imagination and +humour, for example--to such very little purpose, he might really have +bragged a little less. One feels quite grateful to Macaulay, however, for +avowing his belief that he was the only man who had read through the +'Faery Queen;' since that exonerates everybody--I do not say from reading +it, because the supposition is preposterous--but from the necessity of +pretending to have read it. The pleasure derived from that poem to most +minds is, I am convinced, analogous to that already spoken of as being +imparted by a foreign author: namely, the satisfaction at finding it--in +places--intelligible. For the few who possess the poetic faculty it has +great beauties, but I observe, from the extracts that appear in Poetic +Selections and the like, that the most tedious and even the most +monstrous passages are those which are generally offered for admiration. +The case of Spenser in this respect--which does not stand alone in +ancient English literature--has a curious parallel in art, where people +are positively found to go into ecstasies over a distorted limb or a +ludicrous inversion of perspective, simply because it is the work of an +old master, who knew no better, or followed the fashion of his time. + +Leigh Hunt read the 'Faery Queen,' by-the-bye, as almost everything +else that has been written in the English tongue, and even Macaulay +alludes with rare commendation to his 'catholic taste.' Of all authors +indeed, and probably of all readers, Leigh Hunt had the keenest eye for +merit and the warmest appreciation of it wherever found. He was +actively engaged in politics, yet was never blind to the genius of an +adversary; blameless himself in morals, he could admire the wit of +Wycherley; and a freethinker in religion, he could see both wisdom and +beauty in the divines. Moreover, it is immensely to his credit that +this universal knowledge, instead of puffing him up, only moved him to +impart it, and that next to the pleasure he took in books was that he +derived from teaching others to take pleasure in them. Witness his 'Wit +and Humour' and his 'Imagination and Fancy,' to my mind the greatest +treasures in the way of handbooks that have ever been offered to +students of English literature, and the completest antidotes to +pretence in it. How many a time, as a boy, have I pondered over this or +that passage in the originals, from Shakespeare to Suckling, and then +compared it with the italicised lines in his two volumes, to see +whether I had hit upon the beauties; and how often, alas! I hit upon +the blots![2] + + [2] I remember (when 'I was but a little tiny boy') I thought that + 'the fringed curtains of thine eye advance,' addressed by Prospero + to Miranda, must needs be a very fine line; imagine then my + confusion, on referring for corroboration to my 'guide, + philosopher, and friend,' as he truly was, to find this passage: + 'Why Shakespeare should have condescended to the elaborate + nothingness, not to say nonsense, of this metaphor (for what is + meant by "advancing curtains"?) I cannot conceive. That is to say, + if he did condescend: for it looks very like the interpolation of + some pompous declamatory player. Pope has put it into his + _Treatise on the Bathos_.' + +It is curious that Leigh Hunt, whose style has been so severely handled +(and, it must be owned, not without some justice) for its affectations, +should have been so genuine (although always generous) in his +criticisms. It was nothing to him whether an author was old or new; nor +did he shrink from any literary comparison between two writers when he +thought it appropriate (and he was generally right), notwithstanding all +the age and authority that might be at the back of one of them. +Thackeray, by the way, a very different writer and thinker, had this +same outspoken honesty in the expression of his literary taste. In +speaking of the hero of Cooper's five good novels--Leather-Stocking, +Hawkeye, etc.--he remarks with quite a noble simplicity: 'I think he is +better than any of Scott's lot.' + +It is a 'far cry' from the 'Faery Queen' to 'Childe Harold,' which, +reckoning by years, is still a modern poem; yet I wonder how many +persons under thirty--even of those who term it 'magnificent'--have ever +read 'Childe Harold.' At one time it was only people under thirty who +_had_ read it; for poetry to the ordinary reader is the poetry that was +popular in his youth--'no other is genuine.' + + 'A dreary, weary poem called the _Excursion_, + Written in a manner which is my aversion,' + +is a couplet the frankness of which has always recommended itself to me +(though I like the 'Excursion'); but, except for the rhyme, it has a +fatal facility of application to other long poems. Heaven forbid that I +should 'with shadowed hint confuse' the faith in a British classic; but, +ye gods, how men have gaped (in private) over 'Childe Harold!' + +'Gil Blas,' though not a native classic, is included in the articles of +the British literary faith; not as a matter of pious opinion, but _de +fide_; a necessity of intellectual salvation. I remember an interview I +once had with a boy of letters concerning this immortal work; he is a +well-known writer now, but at the time I speak of he was only budding +and sprouting in the magazines--a lad of promise, no doubt, but given, +if not to kick against authority, to question it, and, what was worse, +to question _me_ about it, in an embarrassing manner. The natural +affability of my disposition had caused him, I suppose, to treat me as +his Father Confessor in literature; and one of the sins of omission he +confided to me was in connection with the divine Le Sage. + +'I say--about "Gil Blas," you know--Bias [a great critic of that day] +was saying last night that if he were to be imprisoned for life with +only one book to read he would choose the Bible or "Gil Blas."' + +'It is very gratifying to me,' said I, wishing to evade my young friend, +and also because I had no love for Bias, 'that he should have selected +the Bible, even as an alternative; and all the more so, since I should +never have expected it of him.' + +'Yes, papa' (that was what the young dog was wont to call me, though he +was no son of mine--far from it); 'but about "Gil Blas"? Is it _really_ +the next best book? And after he had read it--say ten times--would he +not have been rather sorry that he had not chosen--well, Shakespeare, +for instance?' + +The picture of Bias with a long white beard, the growth of twenty years, +reading that tattered copy of 'Gil Blas' in his cell, almost affected me +to tears; but I made shift to answer gravely: 'Bias is a professional +critic; and persons of that class are apt to be a little dogmatic and +given to exaggeration. But "Gil Blas" is a great work. As a picture of +the seamy side of human life--of its vices and its weaknesses at +least--it is unrivalled. The archbishop----' + +'Oh! I know that archbishop--_well_,' interrupted my young tormentor. 'I +sometimes think, if it hadn't been for that archbishop, we should never +perhaps have heard of "Gil Blas."' + +'Tchut, tchut!' said I; 'you talk like a child.' + +'But to read it _all through_, papa--three times, ten times, for all +one's life? Poor Mr. Bias!' + +'It is a matter of opinion, my dear boy,' I said. 'Bias has this great +advantage over you in literary matters, that he knows what he is talking +about; and if he was quite sure----' + +'Oh! but he was not quite sure: he was rather doubtful, he said, about +one of the books.' + +'Not the Bible, I do hope?' said I fervently. + +'No, about the other. He was not quite sure but that, instead of "Gil +Blas," he ought to have selected "Don Quixote." Now really that seems to +me worse than "Gil Blas." + +'You mean less excellent,' I rejoined; 'you are too young to appreciate +the full signification of "Don Quixote."' + +The scoundrel murmured, 'Do you mean to tell me people read it when they +are old?' But I pretended not to hear him. 'We do not all of us,' I went +on, 'know what is good for us. Sancho Panza's physician----' + +'Oh! I know that physician--_well_, papa. I sometimes think, if it had +not been for that physician, perhaps----' + +'Hush!' I exclaimed authoritatively; 'let us have no flippancy, I beg.' +And so, with a dead lift as it were, I got rid of him. He left the room +muttering, 'But to read it through--three times, ten times, for all +one's life?' And I was obliged to confess to myself that such a +prolonged course of study, even of 'Don Quixote,' would have been +wearisome. + +Rabelais is another article of our literary faith, that is certainly +subscribed to much more often than believed in. In a certain poem of Mr. +Browning's (_I_ call it the Burial of the Book, since the Latin name he +has given it is unpronounceable, even if it were possible to recollect +it), charmingly humorous, and which is also remarkable for impersonating +an inanimate object in verse as Dickens does in prose, there occur these +lines: + + 'Then I went indoors, brought out a loaf, + Half a cheese and a bottle of Chablis, + Lay on the grass, and forgot the oaf + Over a jolly chapter of Rabelais.' + +Yet I have known some wonder to be expressed (confidentially) as to +where he found the 'jolly chapter,' and the looking for the beauties of +Rabelais to be likened to searching in a huge dung-heap for a few heads +of asparagus. + +I have no quarrel with Bias and Company (though they stick at nothing, +and will presently say that I don't care for these books myself), but I +venture to think that they are wrong in making dogmas of what are, after +all, but matters of literary taste; it is their vehemence and +exaggeration which drive the weak to take refuge in falsehood. + +A good woman in the country once complained of her stepson, 'He will not +love his learning, though I beats him with a jack-chain;' and from the +application of similar aids to instruction, the same result takes place +in London. Only here we dissemble and pretend to love it. It is partly +in consequence of this that works, not only of acknowledged but genuine +excellence, such as those I have been careful to select, are, though so +universally praised, so little read. The poor student attempts them, but +failing--from many causes no doubt, but also sometimes from the fact of +their not being there--to find those unrivalled beauties which he has +been led to expect in every sentence, he stops short, where he would +otherwise have gone on. He says to himself, 'I have been deceived,' or +'I must be a born fool;' whereas he is wrong in both suppositions. I am +convinced that the want of popularity of Walter Scott among the rising +generation is partly due to this extravagant laudation; and I am much +mistaken if another great author, more recently deceased, will not in a +few years be added to the ranks of those who are more praised than read +from the same cause. + +The habit of mere adhesion to received opinion in any matter is most +mischievous, for it strikes at the root of independence of thought; and +in literature it tends to make the public taste mechanical. It is very +seldom that what is called the verdict of posterity (absurdly enough, +for are not _we_ posterity?) is ever reversed; but it has chanced to +happen in a certain case quite lately. The production of 'The Iron +Chest' upon the stage has once more brought into fashion 'Caleb +Williams.' Now that is a work, though by no means belonging to the same +rank as those to which I have referred, which has a fine old crusted +reputation. Time has hallowed it. The great world of readers (who have +never read it) used to echo the remark of Bias and Company, that this +and that modern work of fiction reminded them--though at an immense +distance, of course--of Godwin's masterpiece. I remember Le Fanu's +'Uncle Silas,' for example (from some similarity, more fanciful perhaps +than real, in the isolation of its hero), being thus compared with it. +Now 'Caleb Williams' is founded on a very fine conception--one that +could only have occurred, perhaps, to a man of genius; the first part of +it is well worked out, but towards the middle it grows feeble, and it +ends in tediousness and drivel; whereas 'Uncle Silas' is good and strong +from first to last. Le Fanu has never been so popular as, in my humble +judgment, he deserves to be, but of course modern readers were better +acquainted with him than with Godwin. Yet nine out of ten were always +heard repeating this cuckoo cry about the latter's superiority, until +the 'Iron Chest' came out, and Fashion induced them to read Godwin for +themselves; which has very properly changed their opinion. + +I remember, in my own case, that, from that reverence for authority +which I hope I share with my neighbours, I used to speak of 'Headlong +Hall' and 'Crotchet Castle'--both great favourites of our +fore-fathers--with much respect, until one wet day in the country I +found myself shut up with them. I won't say what I suffered; better +judges of literature than myself admire them still, I know. I will only +remark that _I_ don't admire them. I don't say they are the dullest +novels ever printed, because that would be invidious, and might do wrong +to works of even greater pretensions; but to my mind they are dull. + +When Dr. Johnson is free to confess that he does not admire Gray's +'Elegy,' and Macaulay to avow that he sees little to praise in Dickens +and Wordsworth, why should not humbler folks have the courage of their +own opinions? They cannot possibly be more wrong than Johnson and +Macaulay were, and it is surely better to be honest, though it may +expose one to some ridicule, than to lie. The more we agree with the +verdict of the generations before us on these matters, the more, it is +quite true, we are likely to be right; but the agreement should be an +honest one. At present very extensive domains in literature are, as it +were, enclosed and denied to the public in respect to any free +expression of their opinion. 'They are splendid, they are faultless,' +cries the general voice, but the general eye has not beheld them. +Nothing, of course, could be more futile than that, with every new +generation, our old authors who have won their fame should be arraigned +anew at the bar of public criticism; but, on the other hand, there is no +reason why the mouths of us poor moderns should be muzzled, and still +less that we 'should praise with alien lips.' + +'Until Caldecott's charming illustrations of it made me laugh so much,' +said a young lady to me the other day, 'I confess--though I know it's +very stupid of me--I never saw much fun in "John Gilpin."' She evidently +expected a reproof, and when I whispered in her ear, 'Nor I,' her lovely +features assumed a look of positive enfranchisement. + +'But am I right?' she inquired. + +'You are certainly right, my dear young lady,' said I, 'not to pretend +admiration where you don't feel it; as to liking "John Gilpin," that is +a matter of taste. It has, of course, simplicity to recommend it; but in +my own case, though I'm fond of fun, it has never evoked a smile. It has +always seemed to me like one of Mr. Joe Miller's stories put into +tedious verse.' + +I really almost thought (and hoped) that that young lady would have +kissed me. + +'Papa always says it is a free country,' she exclaimed, 'but I never +felt it to be the case before this moment.' + +For years this beautiful and accomplished creature had locked this awful +secret in her innocent breast--that she didn't see much fun in 'John +Gilpin.' 'You have given me courage,' she said, 'to confess something +else. Mr. Caldecott has just been illustrating in the same charming +manner Goldsmith's "Elegy on a Mad Dog," and--I'm very sorry--but I +never laughed at _that_ before, either. I have pretended to laugh, you +know,' she added, hastily and apologetically, 'hundreds of times.' + +'I don't doubt it,' I replied; 'this is not such a free country as your +father supposes.' + +'But am I right?' + +'I say nothing about "right,"' I answered, 'except that everybody has a +right to his own opinion. For my part, however, I think the 'Mad Dog' +better than 'John Gilpin' only because it is shorter.' + +Whether I was wrong or right in the matter is of no consequence even to +myself; the affection and gratitude of that young creature would more +than repay me for a much greater mistake, if mistake it is. She protests +that I have emancipated her from slavery. She has since talked to me +about all sorts of authors, from Sir Philip Sidney to Washington Irving, +in a way that would make some people's blood run cold; but it has no +such effect upon me--quite the reverse. Of Irving she naïvely remarks +that his strokes of humour seem to her to owe much of their success to +the rarity of their occurrence; the flashes of fun are spread over pages +of dulness, which enhance them, just as a dark night is propitious to +fireworks, or the atmosphere of the House cf Commons, or of a Court of +Law, to a joke. She is often in error, no doubt, but how bright and +wholesome such talk is as compared with the platitudes and commonplaces +which one hears on all sides in connection with literature! + +As a rule, I suppose, even people in society ('the drawing-rooms and the +clubs') are not absolutely base and yet one would really think so, to +judge by the fear that is entertained by them of being natural. 'I vow +to heaven,' says the prince of letter-writers, 'that I think the Parrots +of Society are more intolerable and mischievous than its Birds of Prey. +If ever I destroy myself, it will be in the bitterness of having those +infernal and damnable "good old times" extolled.' One is almost tempted +to say the same--when one hears their praises come from certain +mouths--of the good old books. It is not everyone, of course, who has an +opinion of his own upon any subject, far less on that of literature, but +everyone can abstain from expressing an opinion that is not his own. If +one has no voice, what possible compensation can there be in becoming an +echo? No one, I conclude, would wish to see literature discoursed about +in the same pinchbeck and affected style as are painting and music;[3] +yet that is what will happen if this prolific weed of sham admiration is +permitted to attain its full growth. + + [3] The slang of art-talk has reached the 'young men' in the + furniture warehouses. A friend of mine was recommended a sideboard + the other day as not being a Chippendale, but as 'having a + Chippendale _feeling_ in it.' + + + + +_THE PINCH OF POVERTY_. + + +In these days of reduction of rents, or of total abstinence from +rent-paying, it is, I am told, the correct thing to be 'a little pressed +for money.' It is a sign of connection with the landed interest (like +the banker's ejaculation in 'Middlemarch') and suggests family acres, +and entails, and a position in the county. (In which case I know a good +many people who are landlords on a very extensive scale, and have made +allowances for their tenants the generosity of which may be described as +Quixotic.) But as a general rule, and in times less exceptionally hard, +though Shakespeare tells us 'How apt the poor are to be proud,' they are +not proud of being poor. + +'Poverty,' says the greatest of English divines, 'is indeed despised and +makes men contemptible; it exposes a man to the influences of evil +persons, and leaves a man defenceless; it is always suspected; its +stories are accounted lies, and all its counsels follies; it puts a man +from all employment; it makes a man's discourses tedious and his society +troublesome. This is the worst of it.' Even so poverty seems pretty bad, +but, begging Dr. Jeremy Taylor's pardon, what he has stated is by no +means 'the worst of it.' To be in want of food at any time, and of +firing in winter time, is ever so much worse than the inconveniences he +enumerates; and to see those we love--delicate women and children +perhaps--in want, is worse still. The fact is, the excellent bishop +probably never knew what it was to go without his meals, but took them +'reg'lar' (as Mrs. Gamp took her Brighton ale) as bishops generally do. +Moreover, since his day, Luxury has so universally increased, and the +value of Intelligence has become so well recognised (by the publishers) +that even philosophers, who profess to despise such things, have plenty +to eat, and good of its kind too. Hence it happens that, from all we +hear to the contrary from the greatest thinkers, the deprivation of food +is a small thing: indeed, as compared with the great spiritual struggles +of noble minds, and the doubts that beset them as to the supreme +government of the universe, it seems hardly worth mentioning. + +In old times, when folks were not so 'cultured,' starvation was thought +more of. It is quite curious, indeed, to contrast the high-flying +morality of the present day (when no one is permitted, either by +Evolutionist or Ritualist, however dire may be his necessity, so much as +to jar his conscience) with the shocking laxity of the Holy Scriptures. +'Men do not despise a thief if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is +hungry,' says Solomon, after which stretch of charity, strange to say, +he goes on to speak of marital infidelity in terms that, considering the +number of wives he had himself, strike one as severe. + +It is certain, indeed, that the sacred writers were apt to make great +allowances for people with empty stomachs, and though I am well aware +that the present profane ones think this very reprehensible, I venture +to agree with the sacred writers. The sharpest tooth of poverty is felt, +after all, in the bite of hunger. A very amusing and graphic writer once +described his experience of a whole night passed in the streets; the +exhaustion, the pain, the intolerable weariness of it, were set forth in +a very striking manner; the sketch was called 'The Key of the Street,' +and was thought by many, as Browning puts it, to be 'the true Dickens.' +But what are even the pangs of sleeplessness and fatigue compared with +those of want? Of course there have been fanatics who have fasted many +days; but they have been supported by the prospect of spiritual reward. +I confess I reserve my pity for those who have no such golden dreams, +and who fast perforce. It is exceedingly difficult for mere +worldlings--such as most of us are--not to eat, if it is possible, when +we are hungry. I have known a great social philosopher who flattered +himself that he was giving his sons an experience of High Thinking and +Low Living by restricting their pocket-money to two shillings a day, out +of which it was understood they were to find their own meals. I don't +know whether the spirit in their case was willing, but the flesh was +decidedly weak, for one of them, on this very moderate allowance, used +to contrive to always have a pint of dry champagne with his luncheon. +The fact is, that of the iron grip of poverty, people in general, by no +means excepting those who have written about it, have had very little +experience; whereas of the pinch of it a good many people know +something. It is the object of this paper--and the question should be an +interesting one, considering how much it is talked about--to inquire +briefly where it lies. + +It is quite extraordinary how very various are the opinions entertained +on this point, and, before sifting them, one must be careful in the +first place to eliminate from our inquiry the cases of that considerable +class of persons who pinch themselves. For, however severely they do it, +they may stop when they like and the pain is cured. There is all the +difference in the world between pulling one's own tooth out, and even +the best and kindest of dentists doing it for one. How gingerly one goes +to work, and how often it strikes one that the tooth is a good tooth, +that it has been a fast friend to us for ever so many years and never +'fallen out' before, and that after all it had better stop where it is! + +To the truly benevolent mind, indeed, nothing is more satisfactory than +to hear of a miser denying himself the necessaries of life a little too +far and ridding us of his presence altogether. Our confidence in the +average virtue of humanity assures us that his place will be supplied by +a better man. The details of his penurious habits, the comfortless room, +the scanty bedding, the cheese-rinds on his table, and the fat +banking-book under his thin bolster, only inspire disgust: if he were +pinched to death he did it himself, and so much the better for the world +in general and his heir in particular. + +Again, the people who have a thousand a year, and who try to persuade +the world that they have two thousand, suffer a good deal of +inconvenience, but it can't be called the pinch of poverty. They may put +limits to their washing-bills, which persons of cleanlier habits would +consider unpleasantly narrow; they may eat cold mutton in private for +five days a week in order to eat turtle and venison in public (and with +the air of eating them every day) on the sixth; and they may immure +themselves in their back rooms in London throughout the autumn in order +to persuade folks that they are still at Trouville, where for ten days +they did really reside and in splendour; but all their stint and +self-incarceration, so far from awakening pity, only fill us with +contempt. I am afraid that even the complaining tones of our City friend +who tells us that in consequence of 'the present unsettled state of the +markets' he has been obliged to make 'great retrenchments'--which it +seems on inquiry consist in putting down one of his carriages and +keeping three horses instead of six--fail to draw the sympathising tear. +Indeed, to a poor man this pretence of suffering on the part of the rich +is perhaps even more offensive than their boasts of their prosperity. + +On the other hand, when the rich become really poor their case is hard +indeed; though, strange to say, we hear little of it. It is like +drowning; there is a feeble cry, a little ineffectual assistance from +the bystanders, and then they go under. It is not a question of pinch +with _them_; they have fallen into the gaping mouth of ruin, and it has +devoured them. If we ever see them again, it is in the second generation +as waiters (upon Providence), or governesses, and we say, 'Why, dear me, +that was Bullion's son (or daughter), wasn't it?' using the past tense, +as if they were dead. 'I remember him when he lived in Eaton Square.' +This class of cases rarely comes under the head of 'genteel poverty.' +They were at the top, and hey presto! by some malignant stroke of fate +they are at the bottom; and there they stick. + +I don't believe in bachelors ever experiencing the pinch of poverty; I +have heard them complaining of it at the club, while ordering Medina +oysters instead of Natives, but, after all, what does it signify even if +they were reduced to cockles? They have no appearances to keep up, and +if they cannot earn enough to support themselves they must be poor +creatures indeed. + +It is the large families of moderate income, who are delicate, and have +delicate tastes, that feel the twinge: and especially the poor girls. I +remember a man, with little care for his personal appearance, of small +means but with a very rich sense of humour, describing to me his +experiences when staying at a certain ducal house in the country, where +his feelings must have been very similar to those of Christopher Sly. In +particular he drew a charming picture of the magnificent attendant who +in the morning _would_ put out his clothes for him, which had not been +made by Mr. Poole, nor very recently by anybody. The contempt which he +well understood his Grace's gentleman must have felt for him afforded +him genuine enjoyment. But with young ladies, in a similar position, +matters are very different; they have rarely a sense of humour, and +certainly none strong enough to counteract the force of a personal +humiliation. I have known some very charming ones, compelled to dress on +a very small allowance, who, in certain mansions where they have been +occasionally guests, have been afraid to put their boots outside their +door, because they were not of the newest, and have trembled when the +officious lady's-maid has meddled with their scanty wardrobe. A +philosopher may think nothing of this, but, considering the tender skin +of the sufferer, it may be fairly called a pinch. + +In the investigation of this interesting subject, I have had a good deal +of conversation with young ladies, who have given me the fullest +information, and in a manner so charming, that, if it were common in +witnesses generally, it would make Blue-Books very pretty reading. + +'I consider it to be "a pinch,"' says one, 'when I am obliged to put on +black mittens on occasions when I know other girls will have long white +kid gloves.' I must confess I have a prejudice myself against mittens; +they are, so to speak, 'gritty' to touch; so that the pinch, if it be +one, experienced by the wearer, is shared by her ungloved friends. The +same thing may be said of that drawing-room fire which is lit so late in +the season for economical reasons, and so late in the day at all times: +the pinch is felt as much by the visitors as by the members of the +household. These things, however, are mere nips, and may be placed in +the same category with the hardships complained of by my friend +Quiverfull's second boy. 'I don't mind having papa's clothes cut up for +me,' he says, 'but what I do think hard is getting Bob's clothes' (Bob +being his elder brother), 'which have been papa's first; however, I am +in great hopes that I am out-growing Bob.' + +A much more severe example of the pinch of poverty than these is to be +found in railway travelling; no lady of any sense or spirit objects to +travel by the second, or even the third class, if her means do not +justify her going by the first. But when she meets with richer friends +upon the platform, and parts with them to journey in the same +compartment with their man-servant, she suffers as acutely as though, +when the guard slams the door of the carriage with the vehemence +proportioned to its humble rank, her tender hand had been crushed in it. +Of course it is very foolish of her; but it demands democratic opinions, +such as almost no woman of birth and breeding possesses, not to feel +_that_ pinch. Her knowledge that it is also hard upon the man-servant, +who has never sat in her presence before, but only stooped over her +shoulder with ''Ock, miss,' serves but to increase her pain. + +A great philosopher has stated that the worst evil of poverty is, that +it makes folks ridiculous; by which, I hope, he only means that, as in +the above case, it places them in incongruous positions. The man, or +woman, who derives amusement from the lack of means of a +fellow-creature, would jeer at a natural deformity, be cruel to +children, and insult old age. Such people should be whipped and then +hanged. Nevertheless there are certain little pinches of poverty so +slight, that they tickle almost as much as they hurt the victim. A lady +once told me (interrupting herself, however, with pleasant bursts of +merriment) that as a young girl her allowance was so small that when she +went out to spend the evening at a friend's, her promised pleasure was +darkened by the presentiment (always fulfilled) that the cabman was sure +to charge her more than the proper fare. The extra expense was really of +consequence to her, but she never dared dispute it, because of the +presence of the footman who opened the door. + +Some young ladies--quite as lady-like as any who roll in +chariots--cannot even afford a cab. 'What _I_ call the pinch of +poverty,' observed an example of this class, 'is the waiting for omnibus +after omnibus on a wet afternoon and finding them all full.' + +'But surely,' I replied with gallantry, 'any man would have given up his +seat to you?' + +She shook her head with a smile that had very little fun in it. 'People +in omnibuses,' she said, 'don't give up their seats to others.' Nor, I +am bound to confess, do they do so elsewhere; if I had been in their +place, perhaps I should have been equally selfish; though I do think I +should have made an effort, in this instance at least, to make room for +her close beside me.[4] + + [4] There is, however, some danger in this. I remember reading of + some highly respectable old gentleman in the City who thus + accommodated on a wet day a very nice young woman in humble + circumstances. She was as full of apologies as of rainwater, and + he of good-natured rejoinders, intended to put her at her ease; so + that he became, in a Platonic and paternal way, quite friendly + with her by the time she arrived at her destination--which + happened to be his own door. She turned out to be his new cook, + which was afterwards very embarrassing. + +A young governess whom some wicked fairy endowed at her birth with +the sensitiveness often denied to princesses, has assured me that +her journeys by railway have sometimes been rendered miserable by +the thought that she had not even a few pence to spare for the +porter who would presently shoulder her little box on to the roof +of her cab. + +It is people of this class, much more than those beneath them, who are +shut out from all amusements. The mechanic goes to the play and to the +music-hall, and occasionally takes his 'old girl,' as he calls his wife, +and even 'a kid' or two, to the Crystal Palace. But those I have in my +mind have no such relaxation from compulsory duty and importunate care. +'I know it's very foolish, but I feel it sometimes to be a pinch,' says +one of these ill-fated ones, 'to see them all [the daughters of her +employer] going to the play, or the opera, while I am expected to be +satisfied with a private view of their pretty dresses.' No doubt it is +the sense of comparison (especially with the female) that sharpens the +sting of poverty. It is not, however, through envy that the 'prosperity +of fools destroys us,' so much as the knowledge of its unnecessariness +and waste. When a mother has a sick child who needs sea air, which she +cannot afford to give it, the consciousness that her neighbour's family +(the head of which perhaps is a most successful financier and +market-rigger) are going to the Isle of Wight for three months, though +there is nothing at all the matter with them, is an added bitterness. +How often it is said (no doubt with some well-intentioned idea of +consolation) that after all money cannot buy life! I remember a curious +instance to the contrary of this. In the old days of sailing-packets a +country gentleman embarked for Ireland, and when a few miles from land +broke a bloodvessel through seasickness. A doctor on board pronounced +that he would certainly die before the completion of the voyage if it +was continued; whereupon the sick man's friends consulted with the +captain, who convoked the passengers, and persuaded them to accept +compensation in proportion to their needs for allowing the vessel to be +put back; which was accordingly done. + +One of the most popular fictions of our time was even written with this +very moral, that life is unpurchasable. Yet nothing is more certain than +that life is often lost through want of money--that is, of the obvious +means to save it. In such a case how truly has it been written that 'the +destruction of the poor is their poverty'! This, however, is scarcely a +pinch, but, to those who have hearts to feel it, a wrench that 'divides +asunder the joints and the marrow.' + +A nobler example, because a less personal one, of the pinch of poverty, +is when it prevents the accomplishment of some cherished scheme for the +benefit of the human race. I have felt such a one myself when in extreme +youth I was unable, from a miserable absence of means, to publish a +certain poem in several cantos. That the world may not have been much +better for it if I had had the means does not affect the question. It is +easy to be incredulous. Henry VII. of England did not believe in the +expectations of Columbus, and suffered for it, and his case may have +been similar to that of the seven publishers to whom I applied in vain. + +A man with an invention on which he has spent his life, but has no means +to get it developed for the good of humanity--or even patented for +himself--must feel the pinch of poverty very acutely. + +To sum up the matter, the longer I live, the more I am convinced that +the general view in respect to material means is a false one. That great +riches are a misfortune is quite true; the effect of them in the moral +sense (with here and there a glorious exception, however) is deplorable: +a shower of gold falling continuously upon any body (or soul) is as the +waters of a petrifying spring. But, on the other hand, the occasional +and precarious dripping of coppers has by no means a genial effect. If +the one recipient becomes hard as the nether millstone, the other (just +as after constant 'pinching' a limb becomes insensible) grows callous, +and also (though it seems like a contradiction in terms) sometimes +acquires a certain dreadful suppleness. Nothing is more monstrous than +the generally received opinion with respect to a moderate competence; +that 'fatal gift,' as it is called, which encourages idleness in youth +by doing away with the necessity for exertion. I never hear the same +people inveighing against great inheritances, which are much more open +to such objections. The fact is, if a young man is naturally indolent, +the spur of necessity will drive him but a very little way, while the +having enough to live upon is often the means of preserving his +self-respect. One constantly hears what humiliating things men will do +for money, whereas the truth is that they do them for the want of it. +It is not the temptation which induces them, but the pinch. 'Give +me neither poverty nor riches,' was Agur's prayer; 'feed me with +food convenient for me, lest I be full and deny Thee, and say, Who +is the Lord? or lest I be poor and steal.' And there are many +things--flatteries, disgraceful humiliations, hypocrisies--which are +almost as bad as stealing. One of the sharpest pinches of poverty to +some minds must be their inability (because of their dependency on him +and that of others upon them) to tell a man what they think of him. + +Riches and poverty are of course but relative terms; but the happiest +material position in which a man can be placed is that of 'means with a +margin.' Then, however small his income may be, however it may behove +him to 'cut and contrive,' as the housekeepers call it, he does not feel +the pinch of poverty. I have known a rich man say to an acquaintance of +this class, 'My good friend, if you only knew how very small are the +pleasures my money gives me which you yourself cannot purchase!' And for +once it was not one of those cheap and empty consolations which the +wealthy are so ready to bestow upon their less fortunate +fellow-creatures. Dives was, in that instance, quite right in his +remark; only we must remember he was not speaking to Lazarus. 'A dinner +of herbs where love is,' is doubtless quite sufficient for us; only +there must be enough of it, and the herbs should be nicely cooked in an +omelette. + + + + +_THE LITERARY CALLING AND ITS FUTURE._ + + +One would think that in writing about literary men and matters there +would be no difficulty in finding a title for one's essay, or that any +embarrassment which might arise would be from excess of material. I find +this, however, far from being the case. 'Men of Letters,' for example, +is a heading too classical and pretentious. I do indeed remember its +being used in these modern days by the sub-editor of a country paper, +who, having quarrelled with his proprietor, and reduced him to silence +by a violent kick in the abdomen, thus addressed him: 'I leave you and +your dirty work for ever, and start to-night for London, to take up my +proper position as a Man of Letters.' But this gentleman's case (and I +hope that of his proprietor) was an exceptional one. The term in general +is too ambitious and suggestive of the author of 'Cato,' for my humble +purpose. 'Literature as a Profession,' again, is open to objection on +the question of fact. The professions do not admit literature into their +brotherhood. 'Literature, Science, and Art' are all spoken of in the +lump, and rather contemptuously (like 'reading, writing, and +arithmetic'), and have no settled position whatever. In a book of +precedence, however--a charming class of work, and much more full of +humour than the peerage--I recently found indicated for the first time +the relative place of Literature in the social scale. After a long list +of Eminent Personages and Notables, the mere perusal of which was +calculated to bring the flush of pride into my British cheek, I found at +the very bottom these remarkable words, 'Burgesses, Literary Persons, +and others.' Lest haughtiness should still have any place in the breasts +of these penultimates of the human race, the order was repeated in the +same delightful volume in still plainer fashion, 'Burgesses, Literary +Persons, etc.' It is something, of course, to take precedence--in going +down to dinner, for example--even of an et cetera; but who are +Burgesses? I have a dreadful suspicion they are not gentlemen. Are they +ladies? Did I ever meet a Burgess, I wonder, coming through the rye? At +all events, after so authoritative a statement of its social position, I +feel that to speak of Literature as a profession would be an hyperbole. + +On the other hand, 'The Literary Calling' is not a title that satisfies +me. For the word 'calling' implies a certain fitness; in the religious +sense it has even more significance; and it cannot be denied that there +are a good many persons who devote--well, at least, their time to +literature, who can hardly be said to have 'a call' in that direction, +nor even so much as a whisper. At the same time I will venture to +observe, notwithstanding a great deal of high-sounding twaddle talked +and written to the contrary, that it is not necessary for a man to feel +any miraculous or even extraordinary attraction to this pursuit to +succeed in it very tolerably. I remember a now distinguished personage +(in another line) who had written a very successful work, expressing his +opinion to me that unless a certain divine afflatus animated a man, he +should never take up his pen to address the public. The writing for pay, +he added (he had at least £5,000 a year of his own), was the degradation +of literature. As I had written about a dozen books myself at the time, +and most decidedly with an eye to profit, and had never experienced much +afflatus, this remark discouraged me very much. However, as the +gentleman in question did essay another volume, which was so absolute +and distinct a failure that he promptly took up another line of business +(far above that of Burgesses), it is probable he altered his views. + +Nature of course is the best guide in the matter of choosing a pursuit. +When she says 'This is your line, stick to it,' she seldom or never +makes a mistake. But, on the other hand, her speech must be addressed to +mature ears. For my part, I do not much believe in the predilections of +boyhood. I was never so simple as to wish to go to sea, but I do +remember (when between seven and eight) having a passionate longing to +become a merchant. I had no notion, however, of the preliminary stages; +the high stool in the close street; luncheon at a counter, standing (I +liked to have my meals good, plentiful, often, and in comfort, even +then); and imprisonment at the office on the eves of mail nights till +the large hours p.m. Even the full fruition of such aspirations--the +large waistcoat beginning to 'point,' (as it soon does in merchants), +heavy watchchain, and cheerful conviction of the coming scarcity of +necessaries for everybody else, would have failed to please. The sort of +merchant I wanted to be was never found in 'Post Office Directory,' but +in the 'Arabian Nights,' trading to Bussorah, chiefly in pearls and +diamonds. When the Paterfamiliases of my acquaintance instance certain +stenches and messes which their Toms and Harrys make with chemicals all +over their house, as a proof of 'their natural turn for engineering,' I +say, 'Very likely,' or 'A capital thing,' but I _think_ of that early +attraction of my own towards Bussorah. The young gentlemen never dream +of what I once heard described, in brief, as the real business life of a +scientific apprentice: 'To lie on your back with a candle in your hand, +while another fellow knocks nails into a boiler.' + +Boys have rarely any special aptitude for anything practical beyond +punching each others' heads, or (and these are the clever ones) for +keeping their own heads unpunched. As a rule, in short, Nature is not +demonstrative as respects our professional future. + +It must nevertheless be conceded that if the boy is ever father to the +man in this respect, it is in connection with literature. Also, however +prosaic their works are fated to be, it is curious that the aspirants +for the profession below Burgesses always begin with Poetry. Even +Harriet Martineau wrote verses in early life bad enough to comfort the +soul of any respectable parent. The approach to the Temple of Literary +Fame is almost always through double gates--couplets. And yet I have +known youthful poets, apparently bound for Paternoster Row, bolt off the +course in a year or two, to the delight of their friends, and become, of +their own free will, drysalters. + +There is so much talk about the 'indications of immortality in early +childhood' (of a very different kind from those referred to by +Wordsworth), and it is so much the habit of biographers to use +magnifiers when their subject is small, that it needs some courage to +avow my belief that the tastes of boys have very little significance. A +clever boy can be trained to almost anything, and an ordinary boy will +not do one thing much better than another. With the Geniuses I will +allow (for the sake of peace and quietness) that Nature is all-powerful, +but with nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand of us, Second +Nature, Use, is the true mistress; and what will doubtless strike some +people as almost paradoxical, but is nevertheless a fact, Literature is +the calling in which she has the greatest sway. + +It is the fashion with that enormous class of people who don't know what +they are talking about, and who take up cuckoo-cries, to speak +contemptuously of modern literature, by which they mean (for they are +acquainted with little else) periodical literature. However small may be +its merits, it is at all events ten times as good as ancient periodical +literature used to be. A very much better authority than myself on such +a subject has lately informed us that the majority of the old essays in +the _Edinburgh Review_, at the very time when it was supposed to be most +'trenchant,' 'masterly,' 'exhaustive,' and a number of other splendid +epithets, are so dull and weak and ignorant, that it is impossible that +they or their congeners would now find acceptance in any periodical of +repute. And with regard to all other classes of old magazine literature, +this verdict is certainly most just. + +Let us take what most people suppose to be 'the extreme case,' Magazine +Poetry. Of course there is to-day a great deal of rant and twaddle +published under the name of verse in magazines; yet I could point to +scores and scores of poems that have thus appeared during the last ten +years,[5] which half a century ago would have made--and deservedly have +made--a high reputation for their authors. Such phrases as 'universal +necessity for practical exertion,' 'prosaic character of the age,' etc., +are, of course, common enough; but those who are acquainted with such +matters will, I am sure, corroborate my assertion that there was never +so much good poetry in our general literature as exists at present. +Persons of intelligence do not look for such things perhaps, and +certainly not in magazines, while persons of 'culture' are too much +occupied with old china and high art; but to humble folks, who take an +interest in their fellow-creatures, it is very pleasant to observe what +high thoughts, and how poetically expressed, are now to be found about +our feet, and, as it were, in the literary gutter. I don't compare these +writers with Byrons and Shelleys; I don't speak of them as born poets at +all. On the contrary, my argument is that second nature (cultivation, +opportunities of publication, etc.) has made them what they are; and it +is immensely creditable to her. + + [5] I take up a half-yearly volume of a magazine (price 1-1/2d. + weekly) addressed to the middle classes, and find in it, at + haphazard, the five following pieces, the authors of which are + anonymous: + + AGATHA. + + 'From under the shade of her simple straw hat + She smiles at you, only a little shamefaced: + Her gold-tinted hair m a long-braided plait + Reaches on either side down to her waist. + Her rosy complexion, a soft pink and white, + Except where the white has been warmed by the sun, + Is glowing with health and an eager delight, + As she pauses to speak to you after her run. + + 'See with what freedom, what beautiful ease, + She leaps over hollows and mounds in berrace; + Hear how she joyously laughs when the breeze + Tosses her hat off, and blows in her face! + It's only a play-gown of homeliest cotton + She wears, that her finer silk dress may be saved; + And happily, too, she has wholly forgotten + The nurse and her charge to be better behaved. + + 'Must a time come when this child's way of caring + For only the present enjoyment shall pass; + When she'll learn to take thought of the dress that she's wearing, + And grow rather fond of consulting the glass? + Well, never mind; nothing really can change her; + Fair childhood will grow to as fair maidenhood; + Her unselfish, sweet nature is safe from all danger; + I know she will always be charming and good. + + 'For when she takes care of a still younger brother, + You see her stop short in the midst of her mirth, + Gravely and tenderly playing the mother: + Can there be anything fairer on earth? + So proud of her charge she appears, so delighted; + Of all her perfections (indeed, they're a host), + This loving attention to others, united + With naive self-unconsciousness, charms me the most. + + 'What hearts that unthinkingly under short jackets + Are beating to-day in a wonderful wise + About racing, or jumping, or cricket, or rackets, + One day will beat at a smile from those eyes! + Ah, how I envy the one that shall win her, + And see that sweet smile no ill-humour shall damp, + Shining across the spread table at dinner, + Or cheerfully bright in the light of the lamp. + + 'Ah, little fairy! a very short while, + Just once or twice, in a brief country stay, + I saw you; but when will your innocent smile + That I keep in my mem'ry have faded away? + For when, in the midst of my trouble and doubt, + I remember your face with its laughter and light, + It's as if on a sudden the sun had shone out, + And scattered the shadow, and made the world bright.' + + + CHARTREUSE. + + (_Liqueur_.) + + 'Who could refuse + Green-eyed Chartieuse? + Liquor for heretics, + Turks, Christians, or Jews + For beggar or queen, + For monk or for dean; + + Ripened and mellow + (The _green_, not the yellow), + Give it its dues, + Gay little fellow, + Dressed up in green! + I love thee too well, O + Laughing Chartreuse! + + 'O the delicate hues + That thrill through the green! + Colours which Greuze + Would die to have seen! + With thee would De Musset + Sweeten his muse; + Use, not abuse, + Bright little fellow! + (The green, _not_ the yellow.) + O the taste and the smell! O + Never refuse + A kiss on the lips from + Jealous Chartreuse!' + + + THE LIFE-LEDGER. + + 'Our sufferings we reckon o'er + With skill minute and formal; + The cheerful ease that fills the score + We treat as merely normal. + Our list of ills, how full, how great! + We mourn our lot should fall so; + I wonder, do we calculate + Our happinesses also? + + 'Were it not best to keep account + Of all days, if of any? + Perhaps the dark ones might amount + To not so very many. + Men's looks are nigh as often gay + As sad, or even solemn: + Behold, my entry for to-day + Is in the "happy" column.' + + + OCTOBER. + + 'The year grows old; summer's wild crown of roses + Has fallen and faded in the woodland ways; + On all the earth a tranquil light reposes, + Through the still dreamy days. + + 'The dew lies heavy in the early morn, + On grass and mosses sparkling crystal-fair; + And shining threads of gossamer are borne + Floating upon the air, + + 'Across the leaf-strewn lanes, from bough to bough + Like tissue woven in a fairy loom; + And crimson-berried bryony garlands glow + Through the leaf-tangled gloom. + + 'The woods are still, but for the sudden fall + Of cupless acorns dropping to the ground, + Or rabbit plunging through the fern-stems tall, + Half-startled by the sound. + + 'And from the garden lawn comes, soft and clear, + The robin's warble from the leafless spray, + The low sweet Angelus of the dying year, + Passing in light away.' + + + PROSPERITY. + + 'I doubt if the maxims the Stoic adduces + Be true in the main, when they state + That our nature's improved by adversity's uses, + And spoilt by a happier fate. + + 'The heart that is tried by misfortune and pain, + Self-reliance and patience may learn; + Yet worn by long waiting and wishing in vain, + It often grows callous and stern. + + 'But the heart that is softened by ease and contentment, + Feels warmly and kindly t'wards all; + And its charity, roused by no moody resentment, + Embraces alike great and small. + + 'So, although in the season of rain-storms and showers, + The tree may strike deeper its roots, + It needs the warm brightness of sunshiny hours + To ripen the blossoms and fruits.' + + Observe, not only the genuine merit of these five pieces, but the + variety in the tones of thought: then compare them with similar + productions of the days, say, of the once famous L.E.L. + +And what holds good of verse holds infinitely better in respect to +prose. The enormous improvement in our prose writers (I am not speaking +of geniuses, remember, but of the generality), and their great +superiority over writers of the same class half a century ago, is mainly +due to use. Sir Walter Scott, who, like most men of genuine power, had +great generosity, once observed to a brother author, 'You and I came +just in the nick of time.' He foresaw the formidable competition that +was about to take place, though he had no cause to fear it. I think in +these days he would have had cause; not that I disbelieve in his genius, +but that I venture to think he diffused it over too large an area. In +such cases genius is overpassed by the talent which husbands its +resources; in other words, Nature succumbs to second nature, as the wife +in the patriarchal days (when _she_ grew patriarchal) succumbed to the +handmaid. And after all, though we talk so glibly about genius, and +profess to feel, though we cannot express, in what it differs from +talent, are we quite so sure about this as we would fain persuade +ourselves? At all events, it cannot surely be contended that a man of +genius always writes like one; and when he does not, his work is often +inferior to the first-rate production of a man of talent. For my own +part, I am not sure whether (with the exception, perhaps, of the highest +gifts of song) the whole distinction is not fanciful. + +We are ready enough in ordinary matters to allow that 'practice makes +perfect,' and the limit of that principle is yet to be found. Moreover, +the vast importance of exclusive application is almost unknown. We see +it, indeed, in men of science and in lawyers, but without recognition; +nay, socially, it is even quoted against them. The mathematician may be +very eminent, but we find him dry; the lawyer may be at the head of his +profession, but we find him dull; and it is observed on all sides how +very little great A and great B, notwithstanding the high position they +have earned for themselves in their calling, know of matters out of +their own line. On the other hand, the man of whom it was said that +'science was his forte and omniscience his foible,' has left no enduring +monument behind him; and so it must always be with mortals who have only +fifty years of thought allotted to them at the very most, and who +diffuse it. Everyone admits the value of application, but very few are +aware how its force is wasted by diffusion: it is like a volatile +essence in a bottle without a cork. When, on the other hand, it is +concentrated--you may call it 'narrowed' if you please--there is hardly +anything within its own sphere of action of which it is not capable. So +many high motives (though also some mean ones) prompt us to make broad +the bases of education, that any proposal to contract them must needs be +thankless and unpopular; but it is certain that, among the upper classes +at least, the reason why so many men are unable to make their way in the +world, is because, thanks to a too liberal education, they are Jacks of +all trades and masters of none; and even as Jacks they cut a very poor +figure. + +How large and varied is the educational bill of fare set before every +young gentleman in Great Britain; and to judge by the mental stamina it +affords him in most cases, what a waste of good food it is! The dishes +are so numerous and so quickly changed, that he has no time to decide on +which he likes best. Like an industrious flea, rather than a bee, he +hops from flower to flower in the educational garden, without one +penny-worth of honey to show for it. And then--though I feel how +degrading it is to allude to so vulgar a matter--how high is the price +of admission to the feast in question! Its purveyors do not pretend to +have filled his stomach, but only to have put him in the way of filling +it for himself, whereas, unhappily, Paterfamilias discovers that that is +the very thing that they have not done. His young Hopeful at twenty-one +is almost as unable to run alone as when he first entered the nursery. +To discourse airily upon the beauties of classical education, and on the +social advantages of acquiring 'the tone' at a public school at whatever +cost, is an agreeable exercise of the intelligence; but such arguments +have been taken too seriously, and the result is that our young +gentlemen are incapable of gaining their own living. It is not only that +'all the gates are thronged with suitors, all the markets overflow,' but +even when the candidates are so fortunate as to attain admittance, they +are still a burden upon their fathers for years, from having had no +especial preparation for the work they have to do. Folks who can afford +to spend £250 a year on their sons at Eton or Harrow, and to add another +fifty or two for their support at the universities, do not feel this; +but those who have done it without affording it--_i.e._, by cutting and +contriving, if not by pinching and saving--feel their position very +bitterly. There are hundreds of clever young men who are now living at +home and doing nothing--or work that pays nothing, and even costs +something for doing it--who might be earning very tolerable incomes by +their pen if they only knew how, and had not wasted their young wits on +Greek plays and Latin verses; nor do I find that the attractions of such +objects of study are permanent, or afford the least solace to these +young gentlemen in their enforced leisure. + +The idea of bringing young people up to Literature is doubtless +calculated to raise the eyebrows almost as much as the suggestion of +bringing them up to the Stage. The notions of Paterfamilias in this +respect are very much what they were fifty years ago. 'What! put my boy +in Grub Street? I would rather see him in his coffin.' In his mind's eye +he beholds Savage on his bunk and Chatterton on his deathbed. He does +not know that there are many hundreds of persons of both sexes who have +found out this vocation for themselves, and are diligently pursuing +it--under circumstances of quite unnecessary difficulty--to their +material advantage. He is unaware that the conditions of literature in +England have been as completely changed within a single generation as +those of locomotion. + +There are, it is true, at present no great prizes in literature such as +are offered by the learned professions, but there are quite as many +small ones--competences; while, on the other hand, it is not so much of +a lottery. It is not necessary to marry an attorney's daughter, or a +bishop's, to get on in it. The calling, as it is termed (I know not why, +for it is often heavy enough), of 'light literature' is in such +contempt, through ignorance on the one hand, and arrogance on the other, +that one is almost afraid in such a connection to speak of merit; yet +merit, or, at all events, aptitude with diligence, is certain of success +in it. A great deal has been said about editors being blind to the worth +of unknown authors; but if so, they must be also blind (and this I have +never heard said of them) to their own interests. It would be just as +reasonable to accuse a recruiting sergeant of passing by the stout +six-feet fellows who wish to enlist with him, and for each of +whom--directly or indirectly--he receives head-money. It is possible, of +course, that one particular sergeant may be drunken, or careless of his +own interests, but in that case the literary recruit has only to apply +next door. The opportunities for action in the field of literature are +now so very numerous that it is impossible that any able volunteer +should be long shut out of it; and I have observed that the complaints +about want of employment come almost solely from those unfit for +service. Nay, in the ranks of the literaryarmy there are very many who +should have been excluded. Few, if any, are there through favour; but +the fact is, the work to be done is so extensive and so varied, that +there is not a sufficiency of good candidates to do it. And of what is +called 'skilled labour' among them there is scarcely any. + +The question 'What can you do?' put by an editor to an aspirant, +generally astonishes him very much. The aspirant is ready to do +anything, he says, which the other will please to suggest. 'But what is +your line in literature? What can you do best--not tragedies in blank +verse, I hope?' Perhaps the aspirant here hangs his head; he _has_ +written tragedies. In which case there is good hope for him, because it +shows a natural bent. But he generally replies that he has written +nothing as yet except that essay on the genius of Cicero (at which the +editor has already shaken his head), and that defence of Mary Queen of +Scots. Or perhaps he has written some translations of Horace, which he +is surprised to find not a novelty; or some considerations upon the +value of a feudal system. At four-and-twenty, in short, he is but an +overgrown schoolboy. He has been taught, indeed, to acquire knowledge of +a certain sort, but not the habit of acquiring; he has been taught to +observe nothing; he is ignorant upon all the subjects that interest his +fellow-creatures, and in his new ambition is like one who endeavours to +attract an audience without having anything to tell them. He knows some +Latin, a little Greek, a very little French, and a very very little of +what are called the English classics. He has read a few recent novels +perhaps, but of modern English literature, and of that (to him at least) +most important branch of it, English journalism, he knows nothing. His +views and opinions are those of a public school, which are by no means +in accordance with those of the great world of readers; or he is full of +the class prejudices imbibed at college. In short, he may be as vigorous +as a Zulu, with the materials of a first-rate soldier in him, but his +arms are only a club and an assegai, and are of no service. Why should +he not be fitted out in early life with literary weapons of precision, +and taught the use of them? + +I say, again, that poor Paterfamilias looking hopelessly about him, like +Quintus Curtius in the riddle, for 'a nice opening for a young man,' is +totally ignorant of the opportunities, if not for fame and fortune, at +least for competency and comfort, that Literature now offers to a clever +lad. He looks round him; he sees the Church leading nowhere, with much +greater certainty of expense than income, and demanding a huge sum for +what is irreverently termed 'gate money;' he sees the Bar, with its high +road leading indeed to the woolsack, but with a hundred by-ways leading +nowhere in particular, and full of turnpikes--legal tutors, legal fees, +rents of chambers, etc.--which he has to defray; he sees Physic, at +which Materfamilias sniffs and turns her nose up. 'Her Jack, with such +agreeable manners, to become a saw-bones! Never!' He sees the army, and +thinks, since Jack has such great abilities, it seems a pity to give him +a red coat, which costs also considerably more than a black one; And how +is Jack to live upon his pay? + +After all, indeed, however prettily one puts it, the question is with +him, not so much '_What_ is my Jack to be?' as '_How_ is my Jack to +live?' To one who has any gift of humour there are few things more +amusing than to observe how this vulgar, but really rather important +inquiry, is ignored by those who take the subject of modern education in +hand. They are chiefly schoolmasters, who are not so deep in their books +but that they can spare a glance or two in the direction of their +banker's account; or fellows of colleges who have no children, and +therefore never feel the difficulties of supporting them. Heaven forbid +that so humble an individual as myself should question their wisdom, or +say anything about them that should seem to smack of irreverence; but I +do believe that (with one or two exceptions I have in my mind) the +system they have introduced among us is the Greatest Humbug in the +universe. In the meantime poor Paterfamilias (who is the last man, they +flatter themselves, to find this out) stands with his hands (and very +little else) in his pockets, regarding his clever offspring, and +wondering what he shall do with him. He remembers to have read about a +man on his deathbed, who calls his children about him and thanks God, +though he has left them nothing to live upon, he has given them a good +education, and tries to extract comfort from the reminiscence. That he +has spent money enough upon Jack's education is certain; something +between two or three thousand pounds in all at least, the interest of +which, it strikes him, would be very convenient just now to keep him. +But unfortunately the principal is gone and Jack isn't. + +Now suppose--for one may suppose anything, however ridiculous--he had +spent two or three hundred pounds at the very most, and brought him up +to the Calling of Literature. He believes, perhaps, that it is only +geniuses that succeed in it (in which case I know more geniuses than I +had any idea of), and he doesn't think Jack a genius, though Jack's +mother does. Or, as is more probable, he regards it as a hand-to-mouth +calling, which to-day gives its disciples a five-pound note, and +to-morrow five pence. He calls to mind a saying about Literature being a +good stick, but not a good crutch--an excellent auxiliary, but no +permanent support; but he forgets the all-important fact that the remark +was made half a century ago. + +Poor blind Paterfamilias--shall I couch you? If the operation is +successful, I am sure you will thank me for it; but, on the other hand, +I foresee I shall incur the greatest enmities. Should I encourage clever +Jack, and, what is worse, a thousand Jacks who are not clever, to enter +upon this vocation, what will editors say to me? I shall have to go +about, perhaps, guarded with two policemen with revolvers, like an Irish +gentleman on his landed estate. 'Is not the flood of rubbish to which we +are already subjected,' I hear them crying, 'bad enough, without your +pulling up the sluices of universal stupidity?' My suggestion, however, +is intended to benefit them by clearing away the rubbish, and inducing a +clearer and deeper stream for the turning of their mills. At the same +time I confess that the lessening of Paterfamilias's difficulties is my +main object. What I would open his eyes to is the fact that a calling, +of the advantages of which he has no knowledge, _does_ present itself to +clever Jack, which will cost him nothing but pens, ink, and paper to +enter upon, and in which, if he has been well trained for it, he will +surely be successful, since so many succeed in it without any training +at all. Why should not clever Jack have this in view as much as the +_ignes fatui_ of woolsacks and mitres? If it has no lord +chancellorships, it has plenty of county court appointments; if it has +no bishoprics, it has plenty of benefices--and really, as times go, some +pretty fat ones. + +On your breakfast-table, good Paterfamilias, there lies, every morning, +a newspaper, and on Saturday perhaps there are two or three. When you go +out in the street, you are pestered to buy half a score more of them. In +your club reading-room there are a hundred different journals. When you +travel by the railway you see at every station a provincial newspaper of +more or less extensive circulation. Has it never struck you that to +supply these publications with their leading articles, there must be an +immense staff of persons called journalists, professing every +description of opinion, and advocating every conceivable policy? And do +you suppose these gentry only get £70 a year for their work, like a +curate; or £60, like a sub-lieutenant; or that they have to pay three +times those sums for the privilege of belonging to the press, as a +barrister does for belonging to his inn? Again, in London at least, +there are as many magazines as newspapers, containing every kind of +literature, the very contributors of which are so numerous, that they +form a public of themselves. That seems at the first blush to militate +against my suggestion, but though contributors are so common, and upon +the whole so good--indeed, considering the conditions under which they +labour, so wonderfully good--they are not (I have heard editors say) so +good as they might be, supposing (for example) they knew a little of +science, history, politics, English literature, and especially of the +art of composition, before they volunteered their services. At present +the ranks of journalistic and periodical literature are largely +recruited from the failures in other professions. The bright young +barrister who can't get a brief takes to literature as a calling, just +as the man who has 'gone a cropper' in the army takes to the wine-trade. +And what æons of time, and what millions of money, have been wasted in +the meanwhile! + +The announcement written on the gates of all the recognised professions +in England is the same that would-be travellers read on the faces of the +passengers on the underground railway after office hours: 'Our number is +complete, and our room is limited.' In literature, on the contrary, +though its vehicles may seem as tightly packed, substitution can be +effected. There may be persons travelling on that line in the +first-class who ought to be in the third, and indeed have no reasonable +pretext for being there at all. And if clever Jack could show his +ticket, he would turn them out of it. + +Again, so far from the space being limited, it is continually enlarging, +and that out of all proportion to those who have tickets. We hear from +its enemies that the Church is doomed, and from its friends that it is +in danger; there is a small but energetic party who are bent on reducing +the Army, and even on doing away with it; nay, so wicked and +presumptuous has human nature grown, that mutterings are heard and +menaces uttered against the delay and exactions of the Law itself; +whereas Literature has no foes, and is enlarging its boundaries in all +directions. It is all 'a-growing and a-blowing,' as the peripatetic +gardeners say of their plants; but, unlike their wares, it has its roots +deep in the soil and is an evergreen. Its promise is golden, and its +prospects are boundless for every class of writer. + +In some excellent articles on Modern Literature in _Blackwood's +Magazine_ the other day, this subject was touched upon with respect to +fiction, and might well have filled a greater space, for the growth of +that description of literature of late years is simply marvellous. +Curiously enough, though France originated the _feuilleton_, it was from +America and our own colonies that England seems to have taken the idea +of publishing novels in newspapers. It was a common practice in +Australia long before we adopted it; and, what is also curious, it was +first acclimatised among us by our provincial papers. The custom is +rapidly gaining ground in London, but in the country there is now +scarcely any newspaper of repute which does not enlist the aid of +fiction to attract its readers. Many of them are contented with very +poor stuff, for which they pay a proportional price; but others club +together with other newspapers--the operation has even received the +technical term of 'forming a syndicate'--and are thereby enabled to +secure the services of popular authors; while the newspapers thus +arranged for are published at a good distance from one another, so as +not to interfere with each other's circulation. Country journals, which +are not so ambitious, instead of using an inferior article, will often +purchase the 'serial right,' as it is called, of stories which have +already appeared elsewhere, or have passed through the circulating +libraries. Nay, the novelist who has established a reputation has many +more strings to his bow: his novel, thus published in the country +newspapers, also appears coincidently in the same serial shape in +Australia, Canada, and other British colonies, leaving the three-volume +form and the cheap editions 'to the good.' And what is true of fiction +is in a less degree true of other kinds of literature. Travels are +'gutted,' and form articles in magazines, illustrated by the original +plates; lectures, after having served their primary purpose, are +published in a similar manner; even scientific works now appear first in +the magazines which are devoted to science before performing their +mission of 'popularising' their subject. + +When speaking of the growth of readers, I have purposely not mentioned +America. For the present the absence of copyright there is destroying +both author and publisher; but the wheels of justice, though tardy, are +making way there. In a few years that great continent of readers will be +legitimately added to the audience of the English author, and those that +have stolen will steal no more. + +Nor, in our own country, must we fail to take notice of the +establishment of School Boards. A generation hence we shall have a +reading public almost as numerous as in America; even the very lowest +classes will have acquired a certain culture which will beget demands +both for journalists and 'literary persons.' The harvest will be +plenteous indeed, but unless my advice be followed in some shape or +another, the labourers will be comparatively few and superlatively +inadequate. + +I am well aware how mischievous, as well as troublesome, would be the +encouragement of mediocrity; and in stating these promising facts I have +no such purpose in my mind. On the contrary, there is an immense amount +of mediocrity already in literature, which I think my proposition of +training up 'clever Jack' to that calling would discourage. I have no +expectation of establishing a manufactory for genius--and indeed, for +reasons it is not necessary to specify, I would not do it if I could. +But whereas all kinds of 'culture' have been recommended to the youth of +Great Britain (and certainly with no limit as to the expense of +acquisition), the cultivation of such natural faculties as imagination +and humour (for example) has never been suggested. The possibility of +such a thing will doubtless be denied. I am quite certain, however, that +they are capable of great development, and that they may be brought to +attain, if not perfection, at all events a high degree of excellence. +The proof, to those who choose to look for it, is plain enough even as +matters stand. Use and opportunity are already producing scores of +examples of it; if supplemented by early education they might surely +produce still more. + +There is so great and general a prejudice against special studies, that +I must humbly conclude there is something in it. On the other hand, I +know a large number of highly--that is broadly--educated persons, who +are desperately dull. 'But would they have been less dull,' it may be +asked, 'if they were also ignorant?' Yes, I believe they would. They +have swallowed too much for digestions naturally weak; they have become +inert, conceited, oppressive to themselves and others--Prigs. And I +think that even clever young people suffer in a less degree from the +same cause. Some one has written, 'Information is always useful.' This +reminds me of the married lady, fond of bargains, who once bought a +door-plate at a sale with 'Mr. Wilkins' on it. Her own name was Jones, +but the doorplate was very cheap, and her husband, she argued, _might_ +die, and then she might marry a man of the name of Wilkins. 'Depend upon +it, everything comes in useful,' she said, 'if you only keep it long +enough.' + +This is what I venture to doubt. I have myself purchased several +door-plates (quite as burthensome, but not so cheap as that good +lady's), which have been of no sort of use to me, and are still on hand. + + + + +_STORY-TELLING._ + + +The most popular of English authors has given us an account of what +within his experience (and it was a large one) was the impression among +the public at large of the manner in which his work was done. They +pictured him, he says, + + as a radiant personage whose whole time is devoted to idleness and + pastime; who keeps a prolific mind in a sort of corn-sieve and lightly + shakes a bushel of it out sometimes in an odd half-hour after + breakfast. It would amaze their incredulity beyond all measure to + be told that such elements as patience, study, punctuality, + determination, self-denial, training of mind and body, hours of + application and seclusion to produce what they read in seconds, + enter in such a career ... correction and recorrection in the blotted + manuscript; consideration; new observations; the patient massing of + many reflections, experiences, and imaginings for one minute purpose; + and the patient separation from the heap of all the fragments that + will unite to serve it--these would be unicorns and griffins to + them--fables altogether. + +And as it was, a quarter of a century ago, when those words were +written, so it is now: the phrase of 'light literature' as applied to +fiction having once been invented, has stuck, with a vengeance, to those +who profess it. + +Yet to 'make the thing that is not as the thing that is' is not (though +it may seem to be the same thing) so easy as lying. + +Among a host of letters received in connection with an article published +in the _Nineteenth Century_, entitled 'The Literary Calling and its +Future,' and which testify in a remarkable manner to the pressing need +(therein alluded to) of some remunerative vocation among the so-called +educated classes, there are many which are obviously written under the +impression that Dogberry's view of writing coming 'by nature' is +especially true of the writing of fiction. Because I ventured to hint +that the study of Greek was not essential to the calling of a +story-teller, or of a contributor to the periodicals, or even of a +journalist, these gentlemen seem to jump to the conclusion that the less +they know of anything the better. Nay, some of them, discarding all +theories (in the fashion that Mr. Carlyle's heroes are wont to discard +all formulas), proceed to the practical with quite an indecent rapidity; +they treat my modest hints for their instruction as so much verbiage, +and myself as a mere convenient channel for the publication of their +lucubrations. 'You talk of a genuine literary talent being always +appreciated by editors,' they write (if not in so many words by +implication); 'well, here is an admirable specimen of it (enclosed), and +if your remarks are worth a farthing you will get it published for us, +somewhere or another, _instanter_, and hand us over the cheque for it. +Nor are even these the most unreasonable of my correspondents; for a +few, with many acknowledgments for my kindness in having provided a +lucrative profession for them, announce their intention of throwing up +their present less congenial callings, and coming up to London (one very +literally from the Land's End) to live upon it, or, that failing (as +there is considerable reason to expect it will), upon _me_. + +With some of these correspondents, however, it is impossible +(independent of their needs) not to feel an earnest sympathy; they have +evidently not only aspirations, but considerable mental gifts, though +these have unhappily been cultivated to such little purpose for the +object they have in view that they might almost as well have been left +untilled. In spite of what I ventured to urge respecting the advantage +of knowing 'science, history, politics, English literature, and the art +of composition,' they 'don't see why' they shouldn't get on without +them. Especially with those who aspire to write fiction (which, by its +intrinsic attractiveness no less than by the promise it affords of +golden grain, tempts the majority), it is quite pitiful to note how they +cling to that notion of 'the corn-sieve,' and cannot be persuaded that +story-telling requires an apprenticeship like any other calling. They +flatter themselves that they can weave plots as the spider spins his +thread from (what let us delicately term) his inner consciousness, and +fondly hope that intuition will supply the place of experience. Some of +them, with a simplicity that recalls the days of Dick Whittington, think +that 'coming up to London' is the essential step to this line of +business, as though the provinces contained no fellow-creatures worthy +to be depicted by their pen, or as though, in the metropolis, Society +would at once exhibit itself to them without concealment, as fashionable +beauties bare themselves to the photographers. + +This is, of course, the laughable side of the affair, but, to me at +least, it has also a serious one; for, to my considerable embarrassment +and distress, I find that my well-meaning attempt to point out the +advantages of literature as a profession has received a much too free +translation, and implanted in many minds hopes that are not only +sanguine but Utopian. + +For what was written in the essay alluded to I have nothing to reproach +myself with, for I told no more than the truth. Nor does the +unsettlement of certain young gentleman's futures (since by their own +showing they were to the last degree unstable to begin with) affect me +so much as their parents and guardians appear to expect; but I am sorry +to have shaken however undesignedly, the 'pillars of domestic peace' in +any case, and desirous to make all the reparation in my power. I regret +most heartily that I am unable to place all literary aspirants in places +of emolument and permanency out of hand; but really (with the exception +perhaps of the Universal Provider in Westbourne Grove) this is hardly to +be expected of any man. The gentleman who raised the devil, and was +compelled to furnish occupation for him, affords in fact the only +appropriate parallel to my unhappy case. 'If you can do nothing to +provide my son with another place,' writes one indignant Paterfamilias, +'at least you owe it to him' (as if I, and not Nature herself, had made +the lad dissatisfied with his high stool in a solicitor's office!) 'to +give him some practical hints by which he may become a successful writer +of fiction.' + +One would really think that this individual imagined story-telling to be +a sort of sleight-of-hand trick, and that all that is necessary to the +attainment of the art is to learn 'how it's done.' I should not like to +say that I have known any members of my own profession who are 'no +conjurors,' but it is certainly not by conjuring that they have +succeeded in it. + +'You talk of the art of composition,' writes, on the other hand, another +angry correspondent, 'as though it were one of the exact sciences; you +might just as well advise your "clever Jack" to study the art of playing +the violin.' So that one portion of the public appears to consider the +calling of literature mechanical, while another holds it to be a soft of +divine instinct! + +Since the interest in this subject proves to be so wide-spread, I trust +it will not be thought presumptuous in me to offer my own humble +experience in this matter for what it is worth. To the public at large a +card of admission to my poor manufactory of fiction--a 'very one-horse +affair,' as an American gentleman, with whom I had a little difficulty +concerning copyright, once described it--may not afford the same +satisfaction as a ticket for the private view of the Royal Academy; but +the stings of conscience urge me to make to Paterfamilias what amends in +the way of 'practical hints' lie in my power, for the wrong I have done +to his offspring; and I therefore venture to address to those whom it +may concern, and to those only, a few words on the Art of Story-telling. + +The chief essential for this line of business, yet one that is much +disregarded by many young writers, is the having a story to tell. It is +a common supposition that the story will come if you only sit down with +a pen in your hand and wait long enough--a parallel case to that which +assigns one cow's tail as the measure of distance between this planet +and the moon. It is no use 'throwing off' a few brilliant ideas at the +commencement, if they are only to be 'passages that lead to nothing;' +you must have distinctly in your mind at first what you intend to say at +last. 'Let it be granted,' says a great writer (though not one +distinguished in fiction), 'that a straight line be drawn from any one +point to any other point;' only you must have the 'other point' to begin +with, or you can't draw the line. So far from being 'straight,' it goes +wabbling aimlessly about like a wire fastened at one end and not at the +other, which may dazzle, but cannot sustain; or rather what it does +sustain is so exceedingly minute, that it reminds one of the minnow +which the inexperienced angler flatters himself he has caught, but which +the fisherman has in fact previously put on his hook for bait. + +This class of writer is not altogether unconscious of the absence of +dramatic interest in his composition. He writes to his editor (I have +read a thousand such letters): 'It has been my aim, in the enclosed +contribution, to steer clear of the faults of the sensational school of +fiction, and I have designedly abstained from stimulating the +unwholesome taste for excitement.' In which high moral purpose he has +undoubtedly succeeded; but, unhappily, in nothing else. It is quite true +that some writers of fiction neglect 'story' almost entirely, but then +they are perhaps the greatest writers of all. Their genius is so +transcendent that they can afford to dispense with 'plot;' their humour, +their pathos, and their delineation of human nature are amply +sufficient, without any such meretricious attraction; whereas our too +ambitious young friend is in the position of the needy knife-grinder, +who has not only no story to tell, but in lieu of it only holds up his +coat and breeches 'torn in the scuffle'--the evidence of his desperate +and ineffectual struggles with literary composition. I have known such +an aspirant to instance Miss Gaskell's 'Cranford' as a parallel to the +backboneless flesh-and-bloodless creation of his own immature fancy, and +to recommend the acceptance of the latter upon the ground of their +common rejection of startling plot and dramatic situation. The two +compositions have certainly _that_ in common; and the flawless diamond +has some things, such as mere sharpness and smoothness, in common with +the broken beer-bottle. + +Many young authors of the class I have in my mind, while more modest as +respects their own merits, are even still less so as regards their +expectations from others. 'If you will kindly furnish me with a +subject,' so runs a letter now before me, 'I am sure I could do very +well; my difficulty is that I never can think of anything to write +about. Would you be so good as to oblige me with a plot for a novel?' It +would have been infinitely more reasonable of course, and much cheaper, +for me to grant it, if the applicant had made a request for my watch and +chain;[6] but the marvel is that folks should feel any attraction +towards a calling for which Nature has denied them even the raw +materials. It is true that there are some great talkers who have +manifestly nothing to say, but they don't ask their hearers to supply +them with a topic of conversation in order to be set agoing. + + [6] To compare small things with great, I remember Sir Walter + Scott being thus applied to for some philanthropic object. + 'Money,' said the applicant, who had some part proprietorship in a + literary miscellany, 'I don't ask for, since I know you have many + claims upon your purse; but would you write us a little paper + gratuitously for the "Keepsake"?' + +'My great difficulty,' the would-be writer of fiction often says, 'is +how to begin;' whereas in fact the difficulty arises rather from his not +knowing how to end. Before undertaking the management of a train, +however short, it is absolutely necessary to know its destination. +Nothing is more common than to hear it said that an author 'does not +know where to stop;' but how much more deplorable is the position of the +passengers when there is no terminus whatsoever! They feel their +carriage 'slowing,' and put their heads expectantly out of window, but +there is no platform--no station. When they took their tickets, they +understood that they were 'booked through' to the _dénouement_, and +certainly had no idea of having been brought so far merely to admire the +scenery, for which only a very few care the least about. + +As a rule, anyone who can tell a good story can write one, so there +really need be no mistake about his qualification; such a man will be +careful not to be wearisome, and to keep his point, or his catastrophe, +well in hand. Only, in writing, there is necessarily greater art. +_There_ expansion is of course absolutely necessary; but this is not to +be done, like spreading gold leaf, by flattening out good material. +_That_ is 'padding,' a device as dangerous as it is unworthy; it is much +better to make your story a pollard--to cut it down to a mere +anecdote--than to get it lost in a forest of verbiage. No line of it, +however seemingly discursive, should be aimless, but should have some +relation to the matter in hand; and if you find the story interesting to +yourself notwithstanding that you know the end of it, it will certainly +interest the reader. + +The manner in which a good story grows under the hand is so remarkable, +that no tropic vegetation can show the like of it. For, consider, when +you have got your germ--the mere idea, not half a dozen lines +perhaps--which is to form your plot, how small a thing it is compared +with, say, the thousand pages which it has to occupy in the three-volume +novel! Yet to the story-teller the germ is everything. When I was a very +young man--a quarter of a century ago, alas!--and had very little +experience in these matters, I was reading on a coachbox (for I read +everywhere in those days) an account of some gigantic trees; one of them +was described as sound outside, but within, for many feet, a mass of +rottenness and decay. If a boy should climb up birdsnesting into the +fork of it, thought I, he might go down feet first and hands overhead, +and never be heard of again. How inexplicable too, as well as +melancholy, such a disappearance would be! Then, 'as when a great +thought strikes along the brain and flushes all the cheek,' it struck me +what an appropriate end it would be--with fear (lest he should turn up +again) instead of hope for the fulcrum to move the reader--for a bad +character of a novel. Before I had left the coachbox I had thought out +'Lost Sir Massingberd.' + +The character was drawn from life, but unfortunately from hearsay; he +had flourished--to the great terror of his neighbours--two generations +before me, so that I had to be indebted to others for his portraiture, +which was a great disadvantage. It was necessary that the lost man +should be an immense scoundrel to prevent pity being excited by the +catastrophe, and at that time I did not know any very wicked people. The +book was a successful one, but it needs no critic to point out how much +better the story might have been told. The interest in the gentleman, +buried upright in his oak coffin, is inartistically weakened by other +sources of excitement; like an extravagant cook, the young author is apt +to be too lavish with his materials, and in after days, when the larder +is more difficult to fill, he bitterly regrets it. The representation of +a past time I also found it very difficult to compass, and I am +convinced that for any writer to attempt such a thing, when he can avoid +it, is an error in judgment. The author who undertakes to resuscitate +and clothe with flesh and blood the dry bones of his ancestors, has +indeed this advantage, that, however unlifelike his characters may be, +there is no one in a position to prove it; it is not 'a difference of +opinion between himself and twelve of his fellow-countrymen,' or a +matter on which he can be condemned by overwhelming evidence; but, on +the other hand, he creates for himself unnecessary difficulties. I will +add, for the benefit of those literary aspirants to whom these remarks +are especially addressed--a circumstance which, I hope, will be taken as +an excuse for the writing of my own affairs at all, which would +otherwise be an unpardonable presumption--that these difficulties are +not the worst of it; for when the novel founded on the Past has been +written, it will not be read by a tenth of those who would read it if it +were a novel of the Present. + +Even at the date I speak of, however, I was not so young as to attempt +to create the characters of a story out of my own imagination, and I +believe that the whole of its _dramatis personae_ (except the chief +personage) were taken from the circle of my own acquaintance. This is a +matter, by-the-bye, on which considerable judgment and good taste have +to be exercised; for if the likeness of the person depicted is +recognisable by his friends (he never recognises it by any chance +himself), or still more by his enemies, it is no longer a sketch from +life, but a lampoon. It will naturally be asked by some: 'But if you +draw the man to the life, how can he fail to be known?' For this there +is the simplest remedy. You describe his character, but under another +skin; if he is tall you make him short, if dark, fair; or you make such +alterations in his circumstances as shall prevent identification, while +retaining them to a sufficient extent to influence his behaviour. In the +framework which most (though not all) skilled workmen draw of their +stories before they begin to furnish them with so much even as a +door-mat, the real name of each individual to be described should be +placed (as a mere aid to memory) by the side of that under which he +appears in the drama; and I would strongly recommend the builder to +write his real names in cipher; for I have known at least one instance +in which the entire list of the _dramatis personae_ of a novel was +carried off by a person more curious than conscientious, and afterwards +revealed to those concerned--a circumstance which, though it increased +the circulation of the story, did not add to the personal popularity of +the author. + +If a story-teller is prolific, the danger of his characters coinciding +with those of people in real life who are unknown to him is much greater +than would be imagined; the mere similarity of name may of course be +disregarded; but when in addition to that there is also a resemblance of +circumstance, it is difficult to persuade the man of flesh and blood +that his portrait is an undesigned one. The author of 'Vanity Fair' +fell, in at least one instance, into a most unfortunate mistake of this +kind; while a not less popular author even gave his hero the same name +and place in the Ministry which were (subsequently) possessed by a +living politician. + +It is better, however, for his own reputation that the story-teller +should risk a few actions for libel on account of these unfortunate +coincidences than that he should adopt the melancholy device of using +blanks or asterisks. With the minor novelists of a quarter of a century +ago it was quite common to introduce their characters as Mr. A and Mr. +B, and very difficult their readers found it to interest themselves in +the fortunes and misfortunes of an initial: + + It was in the summer of the year 18--, and the sun was setting behind + the low western hills beneath which stands the town of C; its dying + gleams glistened on the weather-cock of the little church, beneath + whose tower two figures were standing, so deep in shadow that little + more could be made out concerning them save that they were young + persons of the opposite sex. The elder and taller, however, was the + fascinating Lord B; the younger (presenting a strong contrast to her + companion in social position, but yet belonging to the true nobility + of nature) was no other than the beautiful Patty G, the cobbler's + daughter. + +This style of narrative should be avoided. + +Another difficulty of the story-teller, and one unhappily in which no +advice can be of much service to him, is how to describe the lapse of +time and of locomotion. To the dramatist nothing is easier than to print +in the middle of his playbill, 'Forty years are here supposed to have +elapsed;' or 'Scene I.: A drawing-room in Mayfair; Scene II.: +Greenland.' But the story-teller has to describe how these little +changes are effected, without being able to take his readers into his +confidence.[7] He can't say, 'Gentle reader, please to imagine that the +winter is over, and the summer has come round since the conclusion of +our last chapter.' Curiously enough, however, the lapse of years is far +easier to suggest than that of hours; and locomotion from Islington to +India than the act, for instance, of leaving the room. If passion enters +into the scene, and your heroine can be represented as banging the door +behind her, and bringing down the plaster from the ceiling, the thing is +easy enough, and may be even made a dramatic incident; but to describe, +without baldness, Jones rising from the tea-table and taking his +departure in cold blood, is a much more difficult business than you may +imagine. When John the footman has to enter and interrupt a conversation +on the stage, the audience see him come and go, and think nothing of it; +but to inform the reader of your novel of a similar incident--and +especially of John's going--without spoiling the whole scene by the +introduction of the commonplace, requires (let me tell you) the touch of +a master. + + [7] That last, indeed, is a thing which, with all deference to + some great names in fiction, should in my judgment never be done. + It is hard enough for him as it is to simulate real life, without + the poor showman's reaching out from behind the curtain to shake + hands with his audience. + +When you have got the outline of your plot, and the characters that seem +appropriate to play in it, you turn to that so-called 'commonplace +book,' in which, if you know your trade, you will have set down anything +noteworthy and illustrative of human nature that has come under your +notice, and single out such instances as are most fitting; and finally +you will select your scene (or the opening one) in which your drama is +to be played. And here I may say, that while it is indispensable that +the persons represented should be familiar to you, it is not necessary +that the places should be; you should have visited them, of course, in +person, but it is my experience that for a description of the salient +features of any locality the less you stay there the better. The man who +has lived in Switzerland all his life can never describe it (to the +outsider) so graphically as the (intelligent) tourist; just as the man +who has science at his fingers' ends does not succeed so well as the man +with whom science has not yet become second nature, in making an +abstruse subject popular. + +Nor is it to be supposed that a story with very accurate local colouring +cannot be written, the scenes of which are placed in a country which the +writer has never beheld. This requires, of course, both study and +judgment, but it can be done so as to deceive, if not the native, at +least the Englishman who has himself resided there. I never yet knew an +Australian who could be persuaded that the author of 'Never Too Late to +Mend' had not visited the underworld, or a sailor that he who wrote +'Hard Cash' had never been to sea. The fact is, information, concerning +which dull folks make so much fuss, can be attained by anybody who +chooses to spend his time that way; and by persons of intelligence (who +are not so solicitous to know how blacking is made) can be turned, in a +manner not dreamt of by cram-coaches, to really good account. + +The general impression perhaps conveyed by the above remarks will be +that to those who go to work in the manner described--for many writers +of course have quite other processes--story-telling must be a mechanical +trade. Yet nothing can be farther from the fact. These preliminary +arrangements have the effect of so steeping the mind in the subject in +hand, that when the author begins his work he is already in a world +apart from his everyday one; the characters of his story people it; and +the events that occur to them are as material, so far as the writer is +concerned, as though they happened under his roof. Indeed, it is a +question for the metaphysician whether the professional story-teller has +not a shorter lease of life than his fellow-creatures, since, in +addition to his hours of sleep (of which he ought by rights to have much +more than the usual proportion), he passes a large part of his sentient +being outside the pale of ordinary existence. The reference to sleep 'by +rights' may possibly suggest to the profane that the storyteller has a +claim to it on the ground of having induced slumber in his +fellow-creatures; but my meaning is that the mental wear and tear caused +by work of this kind is infinitely greater than that produced by mere +application even to abstruse studies (as any doctor will witness), and +requires a proportionate degree of recuperation. + +I do not pretend to quote the experience (any more than the mode of +composition) of other writers--though with that of most of my brethren +and superiors in the craft I am well acquainted--but I am convinced that +to work the brain at night in the way of imagination is little short of +an act of suicide. Dr. Treichler's recent warnings upon this subject are +startling enough, even as addressed to students, but in their +application to poets and novelists they have far greater significance. +It may be said that journalists (whose writings, it is whispered, have a +close connection with fiction) always write in the 'small hours,' but +their mode of life is more or less shaped to meet their exceptional +requirements; whereas we storytellers live like other people (only more +purely), and if we consume the midnight oil, use perforce another system +of illumination also--we burn the candle at both ends. A great novelist +who adopted this baneful practice and indirectly lost his life by it +(through insomnia) notes what is very curious, that notwithstanding his +mind was so occupied, when awake, with the creatures of his imagination, +he never dreamt of them; which I think is also the general experience. +But he does not tell us for how many hours _before_ he went to sleep, +and tossed upon his restless pillow till far into the morning, he was +unable to get rid of those whom his enchanter's wand had summoned.[8] +What is even more curious than the story-teller's never dreaming of the +shadowy beings who engross so much of his thoughts, is that (so far as +my own experience goes at least) when a story is once written and done +with, no matter how forcibly it may have interested and excited the +writer during its progress, it fades almost instantly from the mind, and +leaves, by some benevolent arrangement of nature, a _tabula rasa_--a +blank space for the next one. Everyone must recollect that anecdote of +Walter Scott, who, on hearing one of his own poems ('My hawk is tired of +perch and hood') sung in a London drawing-room, observed with innocent +approbation, 'Byron's, of course;' and so it is with us lesser folks. A +very humorous sketch might be given (and it would not be overdrawn) of +some prolific novelist getting hold, under some strange roof, of the +'library edition' of his own stories, and perusing them with great +satisfaction and many appreciative ejaculations, such as 'Now this _is_ +good;' 'I wonder how it will end;' or 'George Eliot's, _of course_! + + [8] Speaking of dreams, the composition of Khubla Khan and of one + or two other literary fragments during sleep has led to the belief + that dreams are often useful to the writer of fiction; but in my + own case, at least, I can recall but a single instance of it, nor + have I ever heard of their doing one pennyworth of good to any of + my contemporaries. + +Although a good allowance of sleep is absolutely necessary for +imaginative brain work, long holidays are not so. I have noticed that +those who let their brains 'lie fallow,' as it is termed, for any +considerable time, are by no means the better for it; but, on the other +hand, some daily recreation, by which a genuine interest is excited and +maintained, is almost indispensable. It is no use to 'take up a book,' +and far less to attempt 'to refresh the machine,' as poor Sir Walter +did, by trying another kind of composition; what is needed is an +altogether new object for the intellectual energies, by which, though +they are stimulated, they shall not be strained. + +Advice such as I have ventured to offer may seem 'to the general' of +small importance, but to those I am especially addressing it is worthy +of their attention, if only as the result of a personal experience +unusually prolonged; and I have nothing unfortunately but advice to +offer. To the question addressed to me with such _naïveté_ by so many +correspondents, 'How do you make your plots?' (as if they were +consulting the Cook's Oracle), I can return no answer. I don't know, +myself; they are sometimes suggested by what I hear or read, but more +commonly they suggest themselves unsought. + +I once heard two popular story-tellers, A who writes seldom, but with +much ingenuity of construction, and B who is very prolific in pictures +of everyday life, discoursing on this subject. + +'Your fecundity,' said A, 'astounds me; I can't think where you get your +plots from.' + +'Plots?' replied B; 'oh! I don't trouble myself about _them_. To tell +you the truth, I generally take a bit of one of yours, which is amply +sufficient for my purpose.' + +This was very wrong of B; and it is needless to say I do not quote his +system for imitation. A man should tell his own story without +plagiarism. As to Truth being stranger than Fiction, that is all +nonsense; it is a proverb set about by Nature to conceal her own want of +originality. I am not like that pessimist philosopher who assumed her +malignity from the fact of the obliquity of the ecliptic; but the truth +is, Nature is a pirate. She has not hesitated to plagiarise from even so +humble an individual as myself. Years after I had placed my wicked +baronet in his living tomb, she starved to death a hunter in Mexico +under precisely similar circumstances; and so late as last month she has +done the same in a forest in Styria. Nay, on my having found occasion in +a certain story ('a small thing, but my own') to get rid of the whole +wicked population of an island by suddenly submerging it in the sea, +what did Nature do? She waited for an insultingly short time (if her +idea was that the story would be forgotten), and then reproduced the +same circumstances on her own account (and without the least +acknowledgment) in the Indian seas. My attention was drawn to both these +breaches of copyright by several correspondents, but I had no redress, +the offender being beyond the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery. + +When the story-teller has finished his task and surmounted every +obstacle to his own satisfaction, he has still a difficulty to face in +the choice of a title. He may invent indeed an eminently appropriate +one, but it is by no means certain he will be allowed to keep it. Of +course he has done his best to steer clear of that borne by any other +novel; but among the thousands that have been brought out within the +last forty years, and which have been forgotten even if they were ever +known, how can he know whether the same name has not been hit upon? He +goes to Stationers' Hall to make inquiries; but--mark the usefulness of +that institution--he finds that books are only entered there under their +authors' names. His search is therefore necessarily futile, and he has +to publish his story under the apprehension (only too well founded, as I +have good cause to know) that the High Court of Chancery will prohibit +its sale upon the ground of infringement of title. + + + + +_PENNY FICTION._ + + +It is now nearly a quarter of a century ago since a popular novelist +revealed to the world in a well-known periodical the existence of the +'Unknown Public;' and a very curious revelation it was. He showed us +that the few thousands of persons who had hitherto imagined themselves +to be the public--so far, at least, as their being the arbiters of +popularity in respect to writers of fiction was concerned--were in fact +nothing of the kind; that the subscribers to the circulating libraries, +the members of book clubs, the purchasers of magazines and railway +novels, might indeed have their favourites, but that these last were +'nowhere,' as respected the number of their backers, in comparison with +novelists whose names and works appear in penny journals and nowhere +else. + +This class of literature was of considerable dimensions even in the days +when Mr. Wilkie Collins first called attention to it; but the luxuriance +of its growth has since become tropical. His observations are drawn from +some half a dozen specimens of it only, whereas I now hold in my +hand--or rather in both hands--nearly half a hundred of them. The +population of readers must be dense indeed in more than one sense that +can support such a crop. + +Doubtless the individual circulation of none of these serials is equal +to that of the most successful of them at the date of their first +discovery; but those who read them must, from various causes, of which +the most obvious is the least important, have trebled in number. +Population, that is to say, has increased in very small proportion as +compared with the increase of those who very literally run and read--the +peripatetic students, who study on their way to work or even as they +work, including, I am sorry to say, the telegraph boy on his errand. + +Nevertheless, notwithstanding its gigantic dimensions, the Unknown +Public remains practically as unknown as ever. The literary wares that +find such favour with it do not meet the eye of the ordinary observer. +They are to be found neither at the bookseller's nor on the railway +stall. But in back streets, in small dark shops, in the company of cheap +tobacco, hardbake (and, at the proper season, valentines), their leaves +lie thick as those in Vallombrosa. Early in the week is their +springtime, when they are put forth from Heaven knows what +printing-houses in courts and alleys, to lie for a few days only on the +counter in huge piles. On Saturdays, albeit that is their nominal +publishing day, they have for the most part disappeared. For this sort +of literature has one decidedly advanced feature, and possesses one +virtue of endurance--it comes out ever so long before the date it bears +upon its title-page, and 'when the world shall have passed away' will, +by a few days at least, if faith is to be placed in figures, survive it. + +Why it should have any date at all no man can tell. There is nothing in +the contents that is peculiar to one year--or, to say truth, of one +era--rather than another. As a rule, indeed, time and space are alike +annihilated in them, in order to make two lovers happy. The general +terms in which they are written is one of their peculiar features. One +would think that, instead of being as unlike real life as stories +professing to deal with it can be, they were photographs of it, and that +the writers, as in the following instance, had always the fear of the +law of libel before their eyes: + + We must now request our readers to accompany us into an obscure _cul + de sac_ opening into a narrow street branching off Holborn. For many + reasons we do not choose to be more precise as to locality. + +Of course in this _cul de sac_ is a Private Inquiry Office, with a +detective in it. But in defining even him the novelist gives himself no +trouble to arouse excitement in his readers: they have paid their penny +for the history of this interesting person, and, that being done, they +may read about him or not, as they please. One would really think that +the author of the story was also the proprietor of the periodical. + + Those who desire (he says) to make the acquaintance of this somewhat + remarkable person have only to step with us into the little dusky room + where he is seated, and we shall have much pleasure in introducing + him to their notice. + +--A sentence which has certainly the air of saying, 'You may be +introduced to him, or you may let it alone.' + +The coolness with which everything is said and done in penny fiction is +indeed most remarkable, and should greatly recommend it to that +respectable class who have a horror of 'sensation.' In a story, for +example, that purports to describe University life (and is as much like +it as the camel produced from the German professor's self-consciousness +must have been to a real camel) there is an underplot of an amazing +kind. The wicked undergraduate, notwithstanding that he has the +advantage of being a baronet, is foiled in his attempt to win the +affections of a young woman in humble life, and the virtuous hero of +the story recommends her to the consideration of his negro servant: + + 'Talk to her, Monday,' whispered Jack, 'and see if she loves you.' + + For a short time Monday and Ada were in close conversation. + + Then Monday uttered a cry like a war-whoop. + + 'It am come all right, sare. Missy Ada says she not really care for + Sir Sydney, and she will be my little wife,' he said. + + 'I congratulate you, Monday,' answered Jack. + + In half an hour more they arrived at the house of John Radford, + plumber and glazier, who was Ada's father. + + Mr. and Mrs. Radford and their two sons received their daughter and + her companions with that unstudied civility which contrasts so + favourably with the stuck-up ceremony of many in a higher position. + They were not prejudiced against Monday on account of his dark skin. + + It was enough for them that he was the man of Ada's choice. + + Mrs. Radford even went so far as to say, 'Well, for a coloured + gentleman, he is very handsome and quite nice mannered, though I think + Ada's been a little sly in telling us nothing about her engagement to + the last.' + + They did not know all. + + Nor was it advisable that they should. + +Still they knew something--for example, that their new son-in-law was a +black man, which one would have thought might have struck them as +phenomenal. They take it, however, quite quietly and as a matter of +course. Now, surely, even among plumbers and glaziers, it must be +thought as strange for one's daughter to marry a black man as a lord. +Yet, out of this dramatic situation the author makes nothing at all, but +treats it as coolly as his _dramatis personae_ do themselves. Now _my_ +notion would have been to make the bridegroom a black lord, and then to +portray, with admirable skill, the conflicting emotions of his +mother-in-law, disgusted on the one hand by his colour, attracted on the +other by his rank. But 'sensation' is evidently out of the line of the +penny novelist: he gives his facts, which are certainly remarkable, then +leaves both his characters and his readers to draw their own +conclusions. + +The total absence of local scenery from these half hundred romances is +also curious, and becomes so very marked when the novelists are so +imprudent as to take their _dramatis personae_ out of England, that one +can't help wondering whether these gentlemen have ever been in foreign +parts themselves, or even read about them. Here is the conclusion of a +romance which leaves nothing to be desired in the way of brevity, but is +unquestionably a little abrupt and vague: + + A year has passed away, and we are far from England and the English + climate. + +Whither 'we' have gone the author does not say, nor even indicate the +hemisphere. It will be imagined, perhaps, that we shall find out where +we are by the indication of the flora and fauna. + + A lady and gentleman before the dawn of day have been climbing up an + arid road in the direction of a dark ridge. + +Observe, again, the ingenious vagueness of the description: an 'arid +road' which may mean Siberia, and a 'dark ridge' which may mean the +Himalayas. + + The dawn suddenly comes upon them in all its glory. Birds twittered in + their willow gorges, and it was a very glorious day. Arthur and Emily + had passed the night at the ranche, and he had now taken her up to + look at the mine which at all events had introduced them. He had + previously taken her to see his mother's grave, the mother whom he had + so loved. The mine after some delay proved more prosperous than ever. + It was not sold, but is the 'appanage' of the younger sons of the + house of Dacres. + +With the exception of the 'ranche,' it will be remarked that there is +not one word in the foregoing description to fix locality. The mine and +the ranche together seem indeed to suggest South America. But--I ask for +information--do birds twitter there in willow gorges? Younger sons of +noble families proverbially come off second best in this country, but if +one of them found his only 'appanage' was a mine, he would surely with +some justice make a remonstrance. + +The readers of this class of fiction will not have Dumas at any +price--or, at all events, not at a penny. Mr. Collins tells us how +'Monte Christo' was once spread before them, and how they turned from +that gorgeous feast with indifference, and fell back upon their tripe +and onions--their nameless authors. But some of those who write for them +have adopted one peculiarity of Dumas. The short jerky sentences which +disfigure the 'Three Musketeers,' and indeed all that great novelist's +works, are very frequent with them, which induces me to believe that +they are paid by the line. + +On the other hand, some affect fashionable description and conversation +which are drawn out in 'passages that lead to nothing' of an amazing +length. + + 'Where have I been,' replied Clyde with a carelessness which was half + forced 'Oh, I have been over to Higham to see the dame.' + + 'Ah, yes,' said Sir Edward, 'and how is the poor old creature?' + + 'Quite well,' said Clyde, as he sat down and took up the menu of the + elaborate dinner. 'Quite well, she sent her best respects,' he added, + but he said nothing of the lodger, pretty Miss Mary Westlake. + + And when, a moment afterwards, the door opened and Grace came flowing + in with her lithe noiseless step, dressed in one of Worth's + masterpieces, a wonder of amber, satin, and antique lace, he raised + his eyes and looked at her with an earnest scrutiny--so earnest that + she paused with her hand on his chair, and met his eyes with a + questioning glance. + + 'Do you like my new dress?' she said with a calm smile. + + 'Your dress?' he said. 'Yes, yes, it is very pretty, very.' But to + himself he added, 'Yes, they are alike, strangely alike.' + +Which last remark may be applied with justice to the conversations of +all our novelists. There appears no necessity for their commencement, no +reason for their continuance, no object in their conclusion; the reader +finds himself in a forest of verbiage from which he is extricated only +at the end of the chapter, which is always, however, 'to be continued.' + +It is true that these story-tellers for the million generally keep 'a +gallop for the avenue' (an incident of a more or less exciting kind to +finish up with), but it is so brief and unsatisfactory that it hardly +rises to a canter; the author never seems to get into his stride. The +following is a fair example: + + But before we let the curtain fall, we must glance for a moment at + another picture--a sad and painful one. In one of those retreats, + worse than a living tomb, where reside those whose reason is dead, + though their bodies still live, is a small spare cell. The sole + occupant is a woman, young and very beautiful. Sometimes she is quiet + and gentle as a child; sometimes her fits of frenzy are frightful to + witness; but the only word she utters is 'Revenge,' and on her hand + she always wears a plain gold band with a cross of black pearls. + +This conclusion, which I chanced upon before I read the tale which +preceded it, naturally interested me immensely. Here, thought I, is at +last an exciting story; I shall now find one of those literary prizes in +hopes, perhaps, of hitting upon which the penny public endures so many +blanks. I was quite prepared to have my blood curdled; my lips were +ready for a full draught of gore; yet, I give you my word, there was +nothing in the whole story worse than a bankruptcy. + +This is what makes the success of penny fiction so remarkable; there is +nothing whatever in the way of dramatic interest to account for it; nor +of impropriety either. Like the lady friend of Dr. Johnson, who +congratulated him that there were no improper words in his dictionary, +and received from that unconciliatory sage the reply, 'You have been +looking for them, have you?' I have carefully searched my fifty samples +of penny fiction for something wrong, and have not found it. It is as +pure as milk, or, at all events, as milk-and-water. Unlike the Minerva +Press, too, it does not deal with eminent persons: wicked peers are +rare; fraud is usually confined within what may be called its natural +limits--the lawyer's office; the attention paid to the heroines not only +by their heroes, but by their unsuccessful and objectionable rivals, is +generally of the most honourable kind; and platitude and dulness hold +undisputed sway. + +In one or two of these periodicals there is indeed an example of the +mediaeval melodrama; but 'Ralpho the Mysterious' is by no means +thrilling. Indeed, when I remember that 'Ivanhoe' was once published in +a penny journal and proved a total failure, and then contemplate the +popularity of 'Ralpho,' I am more at sea as to what it is that attracts +the million than ever. + + 'Noble youth,' cried the King as he embraced Ralpho, 'to you we must + entrust the training of our cavalry. I hold here the list which has + been made out of the troops which will come at the signal. To certain + of our nobles we have entrusted certain of our _corps d'armée_, but + unto you, Ralpho, we must entrust our horse, for in that service you + can display that wonderful dexterity with the sword which has made + your name so famous.' + + 'Sire,' cried our hero, as he dropped on one knee and took the King's + hand, pressing it to his lips, 'thou hast indeed honoured me by such + a reward, but I cannot accept it.' + + 'How!' cried the King; 'hast thou so soon tired of my service?' + + 'Not so, sire. To serve you I would shed the last drop of my blood. + But if I were to accept this command, I should cease to do the + service for the cause which now it has pleased you to say I have + done. No, sire, let me remain the guardian of my King--his secret + agent. I, with my sword alone, will defend my country and my King.' + + 'Be not rash, Ralpho; already hast thou done more than any man + ever did before. Run no more danger.' + + 'Sire, if I have served you, grant my request. Let it be as I have + said.' + + 'It shall be so, mysterious youth. Thou shalt be my secret agent. + Take this ring, and wear it for my sake; and, hark ye, gentlemen, + when Ralpho shows that ring, obey him as if he were ourselves.' + + 'We will,' cried the nobles. + + Then the King took the Star of St. Stanislaus, and fixed it on our + hero's breast. + +Now, to my mind, though his preferring to be 'a secret agent' to +becoming a generalissimo of the Polish cavalry is as modest as it is +original, Ralpho is too 'goody-goody' to be called 'the Mysterious.' He +reminds me, too, in his way of mixing chivalry with self-interest, of +those enterprising officers in fighting regiments who send in +applications for their own V.C.s while their comrades remain in modest +expectation of them. + +I am inclined to think, however, from the following advertisement, that +some author has been recently piling up the virtues of his hero too +strongly for the very delicate stomachs of the penny public, who, it is +evident, resent superlatives of all kinds, and are commonplace and +conventional to the marrow of their bones: 'T.B. TIMMINS is informed +that he cannot be promised another story like "Mandragora," since, in +deciding the contents of our journal, the tastes of readers have to be +considered whose interest cannot be aroused by the impossible deeds of +impossible creatures.' Alas! I wish from my heart I knew what 'deeds' or +'creatures' _do_ arouse the interest of this (to me) inexplicable +public; for though I have before me the stories they obviously take +delight in, why they do so I cannot tell. + +At the 'Answers to Correspondents,' indeed, which form a leading feature +in most of these penny journals, one may exclaim, with the colonel in +'Woodstock,' when, after many ghosts, he grapples with Wildrake: 'Thou +at least art palpable.' Here we have the real readers, asking questions +upon matters that concern them, and from these we shall surely get at +the back of their minds. But it is unfortunately not so certain that +these 'Answers to Correspondents' are not themselves fictions, like all +the rest--only invented by the editor instead of the author, and coming +in handy to fill up a vacant page. It is, to my mind, incredible that a +public so every way different from that of the Mechanic's Institute, and +to whom mere information is likely to be anything but attractive, should +be genuinely solicitous to learn that 'Needles were first made in +England in Cheapside, in the reign of Queen Mary, by a negro from +Spain;' or that 'The family name of the Duke of Norfolk is Howard, +although the younger members of it call themselves Talbot.' + +Even the remonstrance of 'Our Correspondence Editor' with a gentleman +who wishes to learn 'How to manufacture dynamite' seems to me +artificial; as though the idea of saying a few words in season against +explosive compounds had occurred to him, without any particular +opportunity having really offered itself for the expression of his +views. + +There are, however, one or two advertisements decidedly genuine, and +which prove that the readers of penny fiction are not so immersed in +romance but that they have their eyes open to the main chance and their +material responsibilities. 'ANXIOUS TO KNOW,' for example, is informed +that 'The widow, unless otherwise decreed, keeps possession of furniture +on her marriage, and the daughter cannot claim it;' while SKIBBS is +assured that 'After such a lapse of time there will be no danger of a +warrant being issued for leaving his wife and family chargeable to the +parish.' + +As when Mr. Wilkie Collins made his first voyage of discovery into these +unknown latitudes, the penny journals are largely used for forming +matrimonial engagements, and for adjudicating upon all questions of +propriety in connection with the affections. 'It is just bordering on +folly,' 'NANCY BLAKE' is informed, 'to marry a man six years your +junior.' In answer to an inquiry from 'LOVING OLIVIA' whether 'an +engaged gentleman is at liberty to go to a theatre without taking his +young lady with him,' she is told 'Yes; but we imagine he would not +often do so.' + +Some tender questions are mixed up with others of a more practical sort. +'LADY HILDA' is informed that 'it is very seldom children are born +healthy whose father has married before he is three-and-twenty; that +long engagements are not only unnecessary but injurious; and that +washing the head will remove the scurf.' 'LEONE' is assured that 'it is +not necessary to be married in two churches, one being quite +sufficient;' that 'there is no truth in the saying that it is unlucky to +marry a person of the same complexion;' and that 'a gentle aperient will +remove nettle-rash.' + +'VIRGINIE' (who, by the way, should surely be VIRGINIUS) is thus +tenderly sympathised with: + +'It does seem rather hard that you should be deprived of all opportunity +of having a _tête-à-tête_ with your betrothed, owing to her being +obliged to entertain other company, although there are others of the +family who can do so; still, as her mother insists upon it, and will not +let you enjoy the society of her daughter uninterrupted, you might +resort to a little harmless strategy, and whenever your stated evenings +for calling are broken in on that way, ask the young lady to take a walk +with you, or go to a place of amusement. She can then excuse herself to +her friends without a breach of etiquette, and you can enjoy your +_tête-à-tête_ undisturbed.' + +The photographs of lady correspondents which are received by the editors +of most of these journals are apparently very numerous, and, if we may +believe their description of them, all ravishingly beautiful. It is no +wonder they receive many applications of the following nature: + +'CLYDE, a rising young doctor, twenty-two, fair, with a nice house and +servants; being tired of bachelor life, wishes to receive the +carte-de-visite of a dark, fascinating young lady, of from seventeen to +twenty years of age; no money essential, but good birth indispensable. +She must be fond of music and children, and very loving and +affectionate.' + +Another doctor: + +'Twenty-nine, of a loving and amiable disposition, and who has at +present an income of £120 a year, is desirous to make an immediate +engagement with a lady about his own age, who must be possessed of a +little money, so that by their united efforts he may soon become a +member of a lucrative and honourable profession.' + +How the 'united efforts' of two young people, however enthusiastic, can +make a man an M.D. or an M.R.C.S. (except that love conquers all things) +is more than one can understand. The last advertisement I shall quote +affects me nearly, for it is from an eminent member of my own +profession: + +'ALEXIS, a popular author in the prime of life, of an affectionate +disposition, and fond of home, and the extent and pressing nature of +whose work have prevented him from mixing much in society, would be glad +to correspond with a young lady not above thirty. She must be of a +pleasing appearance, amiable, intelligent, and domestic.' + +If it is with the readers of penny fiction that Alexis has established +his popularity, I would like to know how he did it, and who he is. To +discover this last is, however, an impossibility. These novelists all +write anonymously, nor do their works ever appear before the public in +another guise. There is sometimes a melancholy pretence to the contrary +put forth in the 'Answers to Correspondents.' 'PHOENIX,' for example, is +informed that 'The story about which he inquires will not be published +in book form at the time he mentions.' But the fact is it will never be +so published at all. It has been written, like all its congeners, for +the unknown millions and for no one else. + +Some years ago, in a certain great literary organ, it was stated of one +of these penny journals (which has not forgotten to advertise the +eulogy) that 'its novels, are equal to the best works of fiction to be +got at the circulating libraries.' The critic who so expressed himself +must have done so in a moment of hilarity which I trust was not produced +by liquor; for 'the best works of fiction to be got at the circulating +libraries' obviously include those of George Eliot, Trollope, Reade, +Black, and Blackmore, while the novels I am discussing are inferior to +the worst. They are as crude and ineffective in their pictures of +domestic life as they are deficient in dramatic incident; they are +vapid, they are dull. Indeed, the total absence of humour, and even of +the least attempt at it, is most remarkable. There is now and then a +description of the playing of some practical joke, such as tying two +Chinamen's tails together, the effect of the relation of which is +melancholy in the extreme, but there is no approach to fun in the whole +penny library. And yet it attracts, it is calculated, four millions of +readers--a fact which makes my mouth water like that of Tantalus. + +When Mr. Wilkie Collins wrote of the Unknown Public it is clear he was +still hopeful of them. He thought it 'a question of time' only. 'The +largest audience,' he says, 'for periodical literature in this age of +periodicals must obey the universal law of progress, and sooner or later +learn to discriminate. When that period comes the readers who rank by +millions will be the readers who give the widest reputations, who return +the richest rewards, and who will therefore command the services of the +best writers of their time.' This prophecy has, curiously enough, been +fulfilled in a different direction from that anticipated by him who +uttered it. The penny papers--that is, the provincial penny +newspapers--_do_ now, under the syndicate system, command the services +of our most eminent novel writers; but Penny Fiction proper--that is to +say, the fiction published in the penny literary journals--is just where +it was a quarter of a century ago. + +With the opportunity of comparison afforded to its readers one would say +this would be impossible, but as a matter of fact, the opportunity is +_not_ offered. The readers of Penny Fiction do not read newspapers; +political events do not interest them, nor even social events, unless +they are of the class described in the _Police News_, which, I +remark--and the fact is not without significance--does not need to add +fiction to its varied attractions. + +But who, it will be asked, _are_ the public who don't read newspapers, +and whose mental calibre is such that they require to be told by a +correspondence editor that 'any number over the two thousand will +certainly be in the three thousand'? + +I believe, though the vendors of the commodity in question profess to +be unable to give any information on the matter, that the majority are +female domestic servants. + +As to what attracts them in their favourite literature, that is a much +more knotty question. My own theory is that, just as Mr. Tupper achieved +his immense popularity by never going over the heads of his readers, +and showing that poetry was, after all, not such a difficult thing to +be understood, so the writers of Penny Fiction, in clothing very +conventional thoughts in rather high-faluting English, have found the +secret of success. Each reader says to himself (or herself), 'That is +_my_ thought, which I would have myself expressed in those identical +words, if I had only known how. + + + + +_HOTELS._ + + +The desire for cheap holidays--as concerns going a long distance for +little money--is no doubt very general, but it is not universal. It +demands, like the bicycle, both youth and vigour. In mature years, not +only because we are more fastidious, but because we are less robust, +the element of cheapness, though always agreeable, is subsidiary to +that of comfort. For my own part, if the chance were offered me to +travel night and day for forty-eight hours anywhere--though it was to +the Elysian Fields--and that in a Pullman car, and for nothing, I would +rather go to Southend at my own expense from Saturday to Monday. +Suppose the former journey to be commenced by a Channel passage and +continued in a third-class carriage, I would rather stop at home. Or +if, in addition to the other discomforts, I am to be a unit among 100 +excursionists, with a coupon that insures my being lodged on the sixth +floor everywhere, I had rather take a month's quiet holiday in London +at the House of Detention. + +These things are matters of taste; but it is certain that a very large +number of people, who, like myself, are neither rich nor in a position +which justifies them in giving themselves airs, consider quiet, +comfort, and the absence of petty cares the most essential conditions +of a holiday. These views necessitate some expense and generally limit +the excursions of those who entertain them to their native land; but, +on the other hand, they have their advantages. They give one, for +example, a great experience in the matter of hotels. + +As I idly flutter the yellow leaves of the advertisements of inns in +'Bradshaw,' they call up pictures in my mind quite undreamt of by the +proprietors. I have been a sojourner in almost all of these which are +described as 'situated in picturesque localities.' They are all--it is +in print and must be true--'first-class' hotels; they have most of them +'unrivalled accommodation;' not a few of them have been 'patronised by +Royalty,' and one of them even by 'the Rothschilds.' These last, of +course, are great caravanserais, with 'magnificent ladies' +drawing-rooms' and 'replete' (a word that seems to have taken service +with the licensed victuallers) 'with every luxury.' They make up (a +term unfortunately suggestive of transformation) hundreds of beds; they +have equipages and 'night chamberlains;' '_On y parle français_;' '_Man +spricht Deutsch_.' Of some of these there is quite a little biography, +beginning with the year of their establishment and narrating their +happy union with other agreeable premises, like a brick and mortar +novel. I remember them well: their 'romantic surroundings' or 'their +exclusive privilege of meeting trains upon the platform;' their +accurate resemblance to 'a gentleman's own house' (with 'a +reception-room 80 feet by 90 feet'); their 'douche and spray baths;' +their 'unexceptionable tariff;' and even their having undergone those +'extensive alterations,' through which I also underwent something, +which they did not allow for in the bill. + +These hotels are all more or less satisfactory as to appearance; +furnished, not, indeed, with such taste, nor so lavishly, as their +rivals on the Continent, but handsomely enough; they are much cleaner +than foreign inns; and if their reference to 'every sanitary +improvement which science can suggest' is a little tall, even for an +advertisement, one never has cause to shudder as happens in some places +in France proper and in Brittany everywhere. Though it must be admitted +that _tables d'hôte_ abroad are not the banquets which the travelling +Briton believes them to be, our own hotel public dinners are inferior +to their originals, and, what is very hard, those who pay for an +entertainment in private suffer from them. The guest who happens to +dine later than the _table d'hôte_ in his own apartment can hardly +escape getting things 'warmed up;' and if he dines at the same time he +has nobody to wait on him. There is one thing that presses with great +severity on paterfamilias--the charge which is made at many of the +large hotels of 1s. 6d. a day for attendance on each person. Half a +guinea a week for service is a high price even for a bachelor; but when +this has to be paid for every member of the family, it is ruinous. +Young ladies who dine at the same table and do not give half the +trouble of 'single gentlemen' ought not to be taxed in this way. It is +urged by many that since attendance is charged in the bill,' there +should be no other fees. But the lover of comfort will always +cheerfully pay for a little extra civility; nor do I think that this +practice--any more than that of feeing our railway porters--is a public +disadvantage. The waiter does not know till the guest goes whether he +is a person of inflexible principles or not, and, therefore, hope +ameliorates his manners and shapes his actions to all. As to getting +'attendance' out of the bill, now it has once got into it, that I +believe to be impossible. There it is, like the moth in one's +drawing-room sofa. And yet I am old enough to remember how poor Albert +Smith plumed himself on the benefit he bestowed upon the public, as he +had imagined, by introducing a fixed charge for all services and doing +away with 'Please, sir, boots.' In this country, and, to say truth, in +most others, 'Please, sir, boots,' is indigenous and not to be done +away with. We did very much better under the voluntary system, although +a few people who did not deserve it, but simply could not afford to be +lavish, were called in consequence 'screws.' + +To pay the wages of another man's servants is absurd, and reminds one +of the 'plate, glass, and linen' that used to be charged for at the +posting-house on the Dover road with every threepenny-worth of +brandy-and-water, I have been asked 6d. for an orange (when oranges +were cheap) at a London hotel, upon the ground that they never charged +less than 6d. for anything; and I have read of 'an old established and +family hotel' near Piccadilly, where the charge for putting the _Times_ +upon a guest's breakfast-table was 6d. up to this present year of +grace. 'Gentlemen and families had always been supplied with it at that +price,' said the landlord, when remonstrated with, 'and it was his +principle, and his customers approved it, to keep things as they were.' +It must be admitted, however, that matters have changed for the better +in this respect elsewhere; and, at all events, the printed tariff that +may now be consulted in every modern hotel enables you to know what you +are spending. + +Things are improved, too, in the way of light and air; both the public +and private rooms of our hotels are far more cheerful and better +appointed than they used to be, and instead of the four-posters there +are French beds. The one great advantage that our new system possesses +over the old is, indeed, the sleeping accommodation. The 'skimpy' +mattress, the sheet that used to come untucked through shortness, +leaving the feet tickled by the blanket, and the thin, limp thing that +called itself a feather bed, are only to be found in ancient +hostelries. + +On the other hand, it must be confessed that the food has deteriorated; +the bill of fare, indeed, is more pretentious, but the materials are +inferior, and so is the cooking. The well-browned fowl, with its rich +gravy and the bread-sauce that used to be its homely but agreeable +attendant, has disappeared. The bird appears now under a French title, +and is in other respects unrecognisable; as an Irish gentleman once +explained it to me, it is not only that the thing appears under an +_alias_, but the _alias_ comes up instead of the thing. There is one +essential which the old hotel often omitted to serve with your chicken, +and which the new hotel supplies--the salad. This, however, few hotel +cooks in England--and far less hotel waiters--can be trusted to +prepare. Their simple plan is to deluge the tender lettuce with some +hateful ingredient called 'salad mixture,' poured out of a peculiarly +shaped bottle, such as the law now compels poisons to be sold in; and +the jewel is deserving of its casket--it is almost poison. Nor, alas! +is security always to be attained by making one's salad for one's self. +For supposing even that the lettuce is fresh and white, and not +manifestly a cabbage that is pretending to be a lettuce, how about the +oil? Charles Dickens used to say that he could always tell the +character of an inn from its cruets; if they were dirty and neglected, +all was bad. The cruets are now clean enough in all hotels of +pretension; but alas for that bottle which should contain (and perhaps +did at some remote period contain) the oil of Lucca! On the fingers of +one hand I could count all the hotels in England which have not given +me bad oil. Whether it was never good, or whether it has gone bad, I +leave to those philosophers who investigate the origin of evil. I only +know that it tastes as hair-oil smells. As to the soups, they are no +worse than they used to be, and no better; there is soup and there is +hotel soup. + +'Gravy soup, fried sole, _entrée_, leg of mutton, and apple tart' used +to be the unambitious _menu_ of the old-fashioned inn. The _entrée_ was +terrible, but the fish, meat, and sweet were excellent. I will say +nothing of the _entrées_ now; I am not in a position to say anything, +for not being of a sanguine temperament, and having but a few years to +live, I do not venture upon them. But it is undeniable that our bill of +fare is greatly more varied than it used to be, and that the way in +which the table is arranged is much more attractive. At the great +hotels in the neighbourhood of London where rich, or at all events +prodigal people, go to dine in the summer months, this is especially +the case. All these establishments affect fine dinners, yet how seldom +it is they give you good ones! Their wines, though monstrously dear, +are very fair; indeed, of the champagnes at least you may make certain +by looking at the corks; but the food! How many of their fancifully +named dishes might be included under the common title, Fiasco! + +It was once suggested to a decayed man of fashion that an excellent +profession for him to take up would be the proprietorship of an hotel +of this class. 'You know what is really worth eating,' said an +influential friend of his, 'and these caterers for your own class +evidently don't; if you will undertake the management of the _Mammoth_ +(naming an inn of very high repute), I will furnish the funds.' But the +man of fashion, who had spent his all with very little to show for it, +had at least acquired some knowledge of his fellow-creatures. 'I am +deeply obliged to you,' he said, 'but were I to accept your offer I +should only lose your money. There are but a very few people in the +world who know a good dinner when it is set before them; and a very +large class (including all the ladies, who are only solicitous about +its _looking_ good) do not care whether it is good or bad. In private +life if a dinner consists of many courses, is given at a fine house, +and is presumably expensive, nineteen-twentieths of those who sit down +to it are satisfied. The twentieth alone says to himself, 'How much +better I should have dined at home!' I have been at scores and scores +of great dinner-parties where the very plates were cold and nobody but +myself has observed it.' + +I have no doubt the gentleman of fashion was right; delicate cooking +would be entirely thrown away upon the general palate. The fair sex, +the young, the hungry, the easy-going, the ignorant--how large a +majority of the 'frequenters' of hotels do these classes embrace! And +it must also be remarked that to cook food (except whitebait) +delicately in large quantities is a very difficult operation indeed. + +Upon the whole, I think, our large hotels, 'arranged on the Continental +system,' are well adapted for those who frequent them, and they show a +readiness to adopt improvements. An immense number of well-to-do people +go to Brighton, to Scarborough, and scores of other places to get a +change and fresh air, but also to find the same amusements to which +they have been accustomed in London; and, on the whole, they get what +they want without paying very much too much for it. But what drives +many quiet folks abroad is their disinclination to meet with all this +gaiety and public life; they do not mind it so much when it is mixed +with the foreign element, and they are also under the impression that +picturesque scenery is a peculiarity of the Continent. I believe that +more English people have visited Switzerland than have seen the Lake +District and the Channel Islands, and very many more than have +travelled in North Devon and Cornwall. The chief reason of their +abstinence in this respect is, however, their dread of the want of +'accommodation.' To the last two counties, with the exception of some +towns, such as Ilfracombe, approachable by sea, or a direct railway +route, folks never go in crowds, and never will go. It is true there +are no mammoth hotels to be found there; but for picturesque situation +and a certain homely comfort, that takes one not only into another +world, but another generation, there is nothing equal to certain little +inns in these out-of-the-way places. In Wales also, and even in the +Isle of Wight, there are perfect bowers of bliss of this description, +still undesecrated by the excursionist. Not ten years ago, in a part of +North Devon which shall be nameless, I came, with my wife and daughter, +upon an inn of this description. We were all enraptured with the +exquisite beauty of its situation, and were so imprudent as to express, +in the presence of the landlady, our wish to live and die there. 'Well, +indeed, sir,' she said, 'I am delighted to see you, but I hope you are +not going to stay very long.' 'My dear madam,' I remonstrated, aghast +at this remark, 'are we, then, such very objectionable-looking +persons?' 'Bless your heart, no, sir, it isn't that; but the fact is, +we have only room for three, and if parties come and come, and always +find us full (through your being here, you know), they will think it is +no use coming, and we shall lose our custom.' We did stay on, however, +a pretty long time--it was a place of ineffable beauty, such as one +parts from almost with tears--and when on our departure I asked for my +bill, the landlady said, 'Dear me, sir, would you kindly tell me what +day you come upon, for I ha' lost my account of it?' The life we led at +that inn was purely pastoral; the clotted cream was of that consistency +that it was meat and drink in one; but although the fare was homely, it +was good of its kind, and admirably cooked. There was fresh fish every +day--for we were too far from railways for that Gargantuan ogre, 'the +London market,' to deprive us of it--and tender fowls, and jams of all +kinds such as no money could buy. + +The landlady had a genius for making what she called 'conserves,' and +every cupboard in the queer little house was filled with them. In the +sitting-room was a quantity of old china and knick-knacks, brought by +the sailors of the place from foreign lands; the linen was white as +snow, and smelt of lavender. Outside the inn was a sea that stretched +to Newfoundland, and cliffs that caught the sunset--such scenery as is +not surpassed by that of the Tyrol (though, of course, in a very +different line), and be sure I was afraid of no comparison between our +'Travellers' Rest' and any Tyrolean inn. It is noteworthy that this +hostelry of ours was so peculiarly and picturesquely placed that it +could only be approached on foot, which reminds me of another place of +entertainment for man, but not for beast. + +In appearance, 'The Strangers' Welcome' (as I will take leave to term +it) is more ambitious than 'The Rest,' but it is of the same simple +type. In some respects it is even more primitive; no sign hangs over +its door, nor is any other symbol of its vocation visible, 'Liberty,' +not 'License,' as one may say without much metaphor, being its motto. +It is on an island, so insignificant in extent that horse exercise is +impossible on it. What it lacks in superficial area is more than made +up, however, in its stupendous height. From the 'Welcome,' though it +lies in a dell, one looks down perhaps a hundred sheer feet upon the +ocean. Its solemn murmur, even in calm, always reaches the place, and +when in storm, its spray. As one watches it from the lawn among the +fuchsias, one scarcely knows which mood becomes it best. The fuchsias +grow against our walls and tap at our window-panes in the morning as +though they were roses; they even make their homes in the rocks, like +the conies. The island is a very garden of fuchsias, tall as trees; and +there are no other trees. The 'Welcome' itself is a sort of farmhouse +without the farm; there is a goat or two and a donkey to be seen about +it, which would account for the milk having an alien flavour, if it had +one. But the 'Welcome' has excellent milk, so that there must be some +cows somewhere. From the cliff-top you may see Alderney, for our inn is +among the Channel Islands. When a storm comes you must stop where you +are; for until the last waves of it have ceased there is no approach to +us from the world without. To the stranger it seems probable at such +seasons that the little place will burst up from below, for beneath it +are caverns innumerable, filled with furious waves like sea monsters +roaring for our lives. The sea, in short, has honeycombed it, and +renews her vows to be its ruin with every gale. Yet the 'Welcome' lasts +our time, and will last that of many generations, who will continue, +however, doubtless to believe that the sublimities of Nature are +unattainable short of Switzerland. + +My memory now transports me to a mountain district in the north, but on +this side of the border; and here, again, the inn is signless, and has +no appearance of an inn at all. It is situated on the last of a great +chain of hills, with lakes among them. It has lawns and shrubberies, +but few flowers; Nature frowns on every hand, even in sunshine, when +the waterfalls flow like silver, and the crags are decked with diamonds. +There are no 'trencher-scraping, napkin-carrying,' waiters in the house, +but country damsels attend upon you, and a motherly dame, their mistress, +expresses her hope every morning that you have slept well. If you have +not, it is the fault of your conscience: you have had a poet's recipe +for it, for you have been 'within the hearing of a hundred streams' +all night. Will you go up the Fells, or will you row on the Lake? +These are your simple alternatives; there is no brass band, no +promenade, no pier, no anything that the vulgar like. Yet once a week +at least a great spectacle can be promised you without crossing the +inn threshold (indeed, when the promise is kept it is better to be on +the right side of it)--a thunder-storm among the hills. The arrangements +for lighting the place, of which you may have complained, not without +reason, are then in perfection, and the silence is broken with a +vengeance. It is difficult to imagine the grandeurs of a sham-fight--a +battle without corpses--but here you have them. First the musketry, then +the guns, with the explosion of the powder-magazine--repeated about +forty times by the mountain echoes--at the end of it. When all is over +you sit down to such a supper as Lucullus would have given a year of +life for, and which, in all probability--for he had no prudence--would +have shortened it for him. At the 'Retreat,' as it is called, among +other native delicacies, they give you fresh char cooked to a turn. I +like to think that this was the fish that Monte Christo had sent him in +a tank to Paris on the occasion of a certain banquet; but all the wealth +of the Indies could not have accomplished that; the char (in spite of +its name) does not travel. + +One more reminiscence of country inns; and, though I have more of them +in the picture-gallery of my memory, I have done. I conjure up an +ivy-covered dwelling, long roofed but low, and sheltered by a lofty +hill. Its situation is quite solitary, and, save for the cry of the +seagull, there reigns about it an unbroken silence. It is on the very +highway of the world, but the road is noiseless, for it is the sea. +From the windows, all day long, we can watch the ships pass by that +carry the pilgrims of the earth, for their freight is chiefly human. It +is here 'the first ray glitters on the sail that brings our friends up +from the under world, and the last falls on that which sinks with all +we love below the verge.' Even at night there is no cessation to this +coming and going; only, a red light or a white, and the distant strokes +of a paddle-wheel in the hush of the moonless void are then the sole +signs of all this motion. What hopes and fears contend in unseen hearts +under those moving stars! Is it nothing to have the opportunity to +watch them from the ivied porch of the 'Outlook,' and to welcome the +thoughts they arouse within us? On land, too, there are stars, not made +in heaven, but their shining is intermittent. As I lie in my bed I can +see the great revolving light on the farthest point of rock that juts +to sea. That is the 'Outlook's' watchman, not of much use to it, +indeed, in a practical way, but imparting a marvellous sense of +guardianship and security. + +The chief means of amusement at inns of this kind is supplied by +science in the telescope. You note through it all that comes and goes, +and after a day or two can tell-for yourself whither each stately ship +is bound, or whence it comes. At the 'Outlook' the food is plain, but +good; the prawns in particular (which the young people, by-the-bye, can +catch for themselves) are of an exquisite flavour, and in size approach +the lobster. Twice a week for four hours this earthly Paradise is as a +town taken by assault and given over to pillage. An excursion steamer +stops at the little pier and discharges a cargo of excursionists. But +those to whom the happiness of their fellow-creatures is intolerable +can withdraw themselves at these seasons to the neighbouring Downs and +Bays, and on their return they will find peace with folded wing sitting +as before on the 'Outlook's' flagstaff. + +Such are the inns which I have known, and there are hundreds in beautiful +England like them. On its rivers in particular there are many charming +little inns, but, to say truth, although the gentlemen-fishermen are as +quiet as mice (from their habits of caution in their calling), the +disciples of the oar are noisy; they get up too early and go to bed too +late, and are too much addicted to melody. Moreover, these houses of +entertainment often carry the principle of home production to excess: +their native fare is excellent; but, spring mattresses not growing in +the neighbourhood, the stuffing of the beds is supplied, to judge by +results, from the turnip-field. For the purpose for which they are +intended, however, these little hostels are well fitted and have a river +charm that is indescribable. + +I could speak, too, of excellent hotels set in the grounds of ruined +castles or abbeys; but the attractions of the latter interfere with the +repose of the visitor. Moreover, it has been my chief object, while +admitting the merits of the _Crown_ (and) _Imperial_, to paint the +lily--to point out the violet half hid from the eye. It seems to me a +pity that so many persons should leave their native land and spend +their money among foreigners through ignorance of the quiet +resting-places that await them at home. I have in no way exaggerated +their merits, but it must be confessed that they have one serious +drawback, which, however, only affects bachelors; if Paterfamilias is +troubled by it he ought to be ashamed of himself. I allude to the happy +couples on their honeymoon whom one is wont to meet with in these +retired bowers. It is aggravating, no doubt, to see how Angelina and +Edwin devote themselves to one another without the slightest regard for +the feelings of the solitary stranger. The poor creature has no wish, +of course, to thrust his company upon them, still he would like to have +his existence acknowledged; and they ignore it. They have not a word to +throw to him, nor even a glance. Then there are certain endearments, +delightful, no doubt, to those who exchange them, but which to the +spectator are distraction. What I would recommend to the bachelor as a +remedy is a wife of his own. The good Mussulman's idea of future +happiness is a perpetual honeymoon; and these little Paradises are the +very places to spend it in. The customs of our own country forbid the +agreeable variety which has such charms for the Faithful; but, even as +it is, I have seen in these pleasant inns a great deal of human +happiness, such as to the sober lover of his species only adds to their +attraction. + + + + +_MAID-SERVANTS._ + + +It is a common thing to hear the remark expressed by much-tried +mistresses that servants are not 'reasonable beings.' The observation +may either have been provoked by the misbehaviour of some particular +domestic, or by the injudicious defence of the class by one of the male +sex. For the gentlemen have more to urge in favour of our domestics +than the ladies have, and, as the latter maintain, for a very obvious +reason--'they have much less to do with them.' The statement is +cynical, but correct. So long as a man finds his clothes brushed and +his meals well and punctually cooked, he 'does not see much to complain +of,' nor does he give much thought to the pains and trouble which even +that moderate amount of service entails upon his wife. Unless in great +households, where everything is delegated to a paid housekeeper, it is, +indeed, certain that ladies who are resolved to keep a house as it +should be have, now, from various causes, a very hard time of it. The +old feeling of feudal service, though a few examples--both mistresses +and servants--may still exist of it, is dead; and in its place we have +the employer and the hireling. There are faults, of course, on both +sides; mistresses are accustomed to look upon their servants too much +as machines, and in the working thereof do not, perhaps, estimate +sufficiently the advantages of the use of sweet oil; while servants are +more prone to 'eye-service' than were ever the housemaids of Ephesus. +Which of the two began it I cannot tell, but a certain antagonism has +grown up between these two classes which shakes the pillars of domestic +peace. At the root of it all, as at the root of most evils, lies +ignorance, and in the servants' case ignorance of a stupendous nature. + +I have had in my household an under-nurse, who, upon the family's +leaving town for a short holiday, was enjoined to see that the birds in +the nursery (canaries) were well supplied with sand. When we came back +we found them all starved to death. She had given them sand, but, alas! +no seed. This was a girl from the country, who, one would think, would +have known what birds fed upon; otherwise one does not expect much +intelligence from Arcadia. When our last importation (an +under-housemaid) 'turned on the gas' in the upper apartments as she was +directed to do, but omitted to light it, I thought it very excusable; +she had not been accustomed to gas. On the other hand, when her +mistress told her to 'look to the fire' of a certain room, I contend we +had a right to expect that that fire should be kept in. It was not so, +however, and when the lady inquired, 'Why did you not look to it, as I +told you?' the girl replied, 'Well, I did, mum; the door was open and I +looked at the fire every time I passed.' She appeared to attach some +sort of igneous power to the human eye. + +Each of these young ladies came to us very highly recommended by the +wife of the clergyman of her native place. Surely, in the curriculum of +the village school, something else beside the catechism ought to have +been included; yet, of the things they were certain to be set to +do--the merest first principles of domestic service--they had been +taught nothing; and in learning them at our expense they cost us ten +times their wages. + +It may be said, indeed, that when you employ a young girl who has never +been out to service before, you secure honesty, chastity, and sobriety, +and must not look for the artificial virtues; but, unhappily, things +are not very much better when you engage an experienced hand. The lady +of the house should not, of course, expect too much (in these days she +must be of a very sanguine temperament if she falls into _that_ error); +she will think it necessary to warn the new arrival--although she +'knows her place' and is 'a thorough housemaid'--that a velvet pile +carpet, for example, should not be brushed backwards. But on more +obvious matters she will probably leave the 'thorough housemaid' to her +own devices, the result of which is that the boards beside the +stair-carpets are washed with soda the first morning, which takes the +dirt off effectually--and the paint also. An hour or two before she was +caught at this, she has, perhaps, utterly spoilt a polished grate or +two by rubbing them with scouring paper instead of emery powder. + +Paterfamilias feels these things when he has to pay the bill, but his +wife feels them in the meantime, and it is more than is to be expected +of human nature that she can welcome cordially such an addition to her +household. A prejudice against the girl springs up in her mind, which +is very promptly responded to, and the mutual respect that ought to +grow up between them is nipped in the bud. I am sorry to say that good +housewives are almost always opposed to having servants well educated; +they think that 'knowledge puffs up,' blows them above their places, +and encourages a taste for light literature which is opposed to the +arts of brushing and cleaning. What the 'higher education' of domestic +servants is to be under the School Boards I know not; but I hope they +will not imagine, as the Universities do, that their duty is only to +teach their pupils how to educate themselves. I confess I agree with +the housewives, that, for young persons intended for service, reading, +writing, and arithmetic, with the use of the scrubbing and hearth +brushes, are far preferable acquirements to those of the same three +great principles with the use of the globes. Whether there are any +handbooks in existence, other than cookery books, to teach the duties +of servants I know not; but, even if there are, servants will never +read them of their own free will. Not one in a hundred has a +sufficiently strong desire to improve herself for that. They must be +taught like children, and when they _are_ children, if any good is to +come of it. + +It is to me astounding, and certainly makes me very suspicious of the +advocates of women's rights, that they have done little or nothing in +this direction. Why should not some of that immense energy which is now +expended on platforms be directed into this less ambitious but more +natural channel? There are tens of thousands of persons of their own +sex, not indeed out of employment, but who are obtaining employment on +false pretences, who would do so honestly enough if they had had but a +little early training. Unfortunately, the ladies of the platform do not +in general stoop to such small things as domestic matters; they do not +care about mere comfort, they even perhaps resent it because it is so +dear to tyrannous man. If they would only turn their attention to the +education of their humbler sisters, they would win over all their +enemies and put to shame the cynic who has associated Man's Lefts with +Women's Rights. + +The only School for Servants I am acquainted with sent us the worst we +ever had, and if it had not been for the very handsome fee it charged +both us and her for our mutual introduction, I should not have +recognised it as an educational establishment at all. + +It will naturally be said by men (not by their wives, for they know +better), 'But surely self-interest will cause a servant to qualify +herself for a place, since, having done so, she will command better +wages.' This is the mistake of the political economists, who, right +enough in the importance they attach to self-interest, gravely err in +supposing it to be always of a material kind. They start with the idea +that everybody wants to make as much money as possible. So they do; but +with a large majority this desire is subordinate to the wish for +leisure and enjoyment. Trades unionism, with all its faults, is founded +on this important fact in human nature--that many of us prefer narrow +means, with comparative leisure, to affluence with toil. That this +notion, if universal, would destroy good work of all kinds and make +perfection impossible, is beside the question, or certainly never +enters into the minds of those chiefly concerned in the matter. 'A good +day's work for a good day's wage' is a fine sentiment; but 'half a +day's work for half a day's wage' suits some people even better; while +'half a day's work for a good day's wage' suits them better still. In +old times the sense of 'service being no inheritance' begat habits of +good conduct as well as thrift, for in most well-conducted households, +servants' wages were made proportionate to their length of service. But +nowadays a lady's promise of raising a servant's wages every year is +quite superfluous, since it is ten to one against her keeping her for +the first twelve months. It is no wonder, then, that while the +conviction of service being of a temporary character is, at least, as +strong as ever, the course of conduct it now suggests is to make as +much as possible out of it while it lasts, in the way of perquisites, +etc. With our cooks, especially, it is not too much to say that wages +are often a secondary object as compared with the opportunity of making +a purse for themselves; and the recognised privilege of selling the +dripping affords cover for a multitude of petty delinquencies which if +not positive thefts have a strong family resemblance to them. + +Before leaving the subject of short terms of service, it should be +noted that the modern servant openly avows her love of change. An +excellent mistress, and a very kind one, has told me that housemaids +and kitchenmaids have given her warning again and again for no other +cause than this. They have avowed themselves quite happy and contented +in their place, but they want 'fresh woods and pastures new.' When Jack +Mytton was reminded by his lawyer that a certain estate he was about to +sell had been in his family for 500 years, he replied, 'Then it's high +time it should go out of it;' and the same reflection occurs to our +Janes and Bessies. They have been in their present situation a year +perhaps, or two at most--indeed, two years is considered in the world +below stairs the extreme point for any person of spirit to remain under +one roof--and it is high time they should leave it. One would naturally +think that, in the case of young women at all events, they would be +slow to exchange even a moderately comfortable place for a home among +strangers; that they would bear the ills they know of, even if ills +exist, rather than venture on those of which they know nothing; but +this is far from being the case. Nor do they even quit their place in +order 'to better themselves.' They have absolutely no reason except the +love of change. Behaviour of this sort naturally gives some colour to +the remark already quoted that servants are not 'reasonable beings.' I +was almost a convert to that opinion myself when, on one occasion, +having asked a female domestic to be good enough to put my boots on the +tree, she literally obeyed my order. She hung all my boots on the tree +in the garden, and it was very wet weather. But to young persons who +come from the country everything is pardonable--except 'temper.' + +The growth of this parasite in both town and country is, however, quite +alarming. Little as mistresses dare to say to the disadvantage of +servants when leaving their employment, no matter for what reason, they +do sometimes remark of them that their temper is 'uncertain.' When this +happens and the fact is communicated to Jane or Betsy by the lady to +whom they have proposed themselves, they have one invariable method of +self-defence: 'Temper, mum? Well, I 'ave my faults, I daresay, but not +_that_; all as knows me knows my temper is 'eavenly. But the fact is, +mum, Mrs. Jones [her late mistress] was a bit flighty.' And she touches +her forehead, and even sometimes winks, to indicate aberration of the +intellect. A really good-tempered servant is now rare; and there are +very few who will bear 'speaking to' when their work is neglected or +ill-done. + +What, however, always puts them in the highest good humour is an +expensive breakage. When Susan comes to say, 'Oh, please, mum, I've 'ad +a haccident with the pier glass,' her face is wreathed in smiles. To a +mistress who cannot relieve her feelings by strong language, as a man +would do, this behaviour is very aggravating. If servants do not +actually delight in these misfortunes, I am afraid not one in twenty +shows the least consideration for her employer's purse. It is +charitable to say, when Thomas or Jane leaves the gas burning all +night, or the sun-blinds out in the pouring rain, that they have 'no +head;' but it is my experience that they are very careful, and, indeed, +take quite extraordinary precautions, with respect to their own +property. I am afraid that the true reason of the waste and +extravagance among servants is that they have no attachment to their +employers, and of course it is less troublesome to be lavish than to be +economical. All the education in the world cannot make selfish persons +unselfish; but it can surely implant in them some sense of duty. At +present, so long as a servant is not absolutely dishonest, her +conscience rarely troubles her. This is especially the case with our +cooks, who also--that 'dripping' question making their path so +slippery--draw the line between honesty and its contrary very fine +indeed. + +Moreover, they know less of what they pretend to know than any other +class of servant. The proof of this is in the fact that not one in a +hundred of them will cook you a dinner on trial. I have often said to a +cook, 'Your character is satisfactory enough in other respects; but, +before engaging you, will you show what you can do by sending up one +good dinner, for which I will pay you at the ordinary rate--namely, +half-a-guinea?' She won't do it; she says she can cook for a prince, +and affects to be hurt at the proposition. The consequence is that for +a month, at least, we are slowly poisoned. Once only I hired a cook who +accepted these terms. I am bound to say she sent us up a most excellent +dinner, but when I sent for her to pay the half-guinea she was dead +drunk on the kitchen floor. She had taken a bottle of port wine and one +of stout while serving up that entertainment, and afterwards confessed +that during her arduous duties she required 'constant support.' Again, +it is by no means unusual for cooks to succeed to admiration for a week +and then to begin to spoil everything, the proverb respecting a 'new +broom' applying, curiously enough, even more to them than to the +'housemaids.' + +These observations are no doubt severe, but they are not unjust; nor do +I for a moment imply that servants are always to blame, and never +mistresses. There are faults on both sides. Ladies often show +themselves as 'unreasonable' as their female domestics. For example, +although very solicitous for the settlement of their own daughters in +life, they often do not give sufficient opportunities for their +maid-servants to find husbands. A girl in service is quite as anxious +to get a husband as her young mistresses, and, indeed, it is of much +more consequence for her to do so. She sees her youth slipping away +from her in a place where no 'followers' are allowed, and it is no +wonder that she 'wants a change.' She has a right to have her holidays +and her 'Sundays out,' and it is the mistress's duty not only to grant +them, but to make some inquiry as to how she spends them. Many ladies +who go to church with much regularity never take the smallest interest +in the moral conduct of those to whom they stand, morally if not +legally, _in loco parentis_, and who may, perhaps, have no other +adviser. + +Mistresses of all ranks, too, show a lamentable want of principle in +the matter of character-giving. It wants, no doubt, a certain strength +of mind to write the truth. 'The girl is going, thank Heaven,' they say +to themselves, and they are glad to get rid of her, without a row, at +the easy price of a small falsehood. They lay the flattering unction to +their souls that they are concealing certain facts in order 'not to +stand in the way of the poor girl's future.' What they are really doing +is an act of selfishness, cruel as regards the lady who is trusting to +their word, and baneful as regards the public good. It is the good +characters which make the bad servants. In a certain primitive district +of England, where ministers are 'called' from parish to parish, one of +the churchwardens of X complained to the churchwardens of Y that his +late importation from the Y pulpit was not very satisfactory. 'And +yet,' he said, 'you all cracked him up enormously.' 'Yes,' replied the +churchwarden of Y, 'and you will have to crack him up too before you +get rid of him.' + +Now, it is only ignorance which causes ladies to believe that there is +any necessity to 'crack up' the character of a servant. They are not +obliged (though, of course, if the servant has behaved well it would be +infamous to withhold it) to give her any character at all, and they may +state the most unpleasant truth (if they are quite certain of the fact +and can prove it) without the least fear of an action for libel. The +law does not punish them for telling the truth about their servants, +and in another matter also it is more just than it is supposed to be. +There is a superstition among servants that when leaving their +situations before their time is out they have a right to claim board +wages, and that even when dismissed for gross misconduct they have a +right to their ordinary wages for the remainder of the month; but these +are mere popular errors. The only case with which I am acquainted where +neither of these dues was demanded was rather a curious one. A widow +lady advertised for a cook and a housemaid, and procured them by the +first cast of her net. They came together with an open avowal of their +previous acquaintanceship; they were attached to one another, they +said, and did not wish to be in separate service, and wages were not so +much an object to them as opportunities of friendship. The lady, who +had an element of romance in her, was touched with this expression of +sentiment; it was also a great convenience to her to be so quickly +suited; and, their characters being good, she engaged them. They had +come from a house of much greater pretensions than her own, and had +taken higher wages, which might have attracted her suspicions; but she +had very little work for them to do, and she concluded that 'an easy +place' had had its attractions for them. Her servants were well treated +and well fed, and were allowed to see their friends; but she objected +to evening visits, and required the back door to be locked and the key +placed in her possession at nine o'clock every evening. If the front +door was opened she could hear it from every part of her modest +residence (and, being very nervous, she used often to fancy that it +opened when it did not), while a wire for the use of the policeman +connected the ground-floor with an alarm bell in her own room in case +of fire or other contingency. The two servants had been six days with +her when this alarm bell was pealed one night with great violence. She +looked out of window, and beheld a cab laden with luggage standing at +her door. She expected nobody; but whoever had come was more welcome +than 'thieves' or 'fire,' and she went up to the maid's room to bid +them answer the door. She found to her great astonishment--for it was +two in the morning--the apartment empty, and while she was there the +alarm-bell sounded again with increased fury. Looking over the +balusters, she perceived a light in the hall and inquired who was +there. 'Well, it's us two,' returned the cook, 'we're just agoin, so +good-bye. It ain't at all the sort o' place for us, and you ain't the +sort o' missis.' Then there was a shout of laughter, the front door was +opened and slammed to, and the cab drove off with its tenants, leaving +their mistress to her lonely meditations. The two friends had come on +trial, it seemed, and had had enough of it. + +That they made no claim for wages of any kind seems quite curious when +one considers what sort of servants, and in what sort of circumstances, +do demand them. And, as a rule, masters and mistresses give in to the +extortion. Yet the law is on their side, nor have they any reason to +complain of it in other respects. The improvement that is needed is in +themselves, and in their relations to those in their employment. Our +young ladies are so engaged in their accomplishments and their +amusements that they have no time to acquire a knowledge of domestic +affairs, so that when they marry they know no more of a housewife's +duties than their husbands. No wonder men of moderate means shrink from +marriage when wives have become a source of discomfort and expense, +instead of their contraries, and have lost the name of helpmate. How +can they be in a position to teach their servants when they themselves +are grossly ignorant of what they would have them learn? There are +certain village schools, indeed, which profess to train their pupils +for domestic service, but they only teach them to be maids-of-all-work, +the least remunerated and the hardest-worked of all the daughters of +toil. They offer no premium to diligence and perfection. + +This state of things is very hard both upon mistresses and servants, +but it is not irremediable, and the remedy must come from the upper of +the two classes. Schools are as necessary for servants as they are for +other people; they must be taught their calling before they can +practise it; and schools for servants must therefore be instituted. +With schools will come certificates of merit, and servants will then be +paid for what they can really do, and not, as now, in proportion to +their powers of audacity of assertion. + + + + +_MEN-SERVANTS._ + + +The subject of men-servants is by no means of such universal interest +as that of maid-servants, and those who suffer from them are not only +less numerous, but less deserving of pity; as a lady of limited means +once put it in my hearing, 'They can better afford to be robbed and +murdered' On the other hand, whatever truth may be in the dogma that +where a woman is bad she is worse than a bad man, it is certain that +when a man-servant is bad he can do more mischief than a bad +maid-servant. In many cases he is a necessity, not because folks are +rich, but because they have large families, and the service is +consequently too heavy to be undertaken solely by women. I have known +many householders who, weary of the trouble and annoyance given by +men-servants, have resolved to engage only those of the other sex, and +who have had to resort to men-servants again for what may be called +physical reasons. + +When this happens, however, both master and mistress should agree to +the arrangement, or at all events be both informed that it has been +made. Only last autumn a lady friend of mine adopted it in the absence +of her husband abroad, and forgot to apprise him of it by letter. He +arrived home late at night, and, letting himself in with a latch-key, +took the strange man for a burglar, and was almost the death of him by +strangulation before he could explain that he was the new butler. + +No woman can bring up a luncheon or dinner tray for a dozen people +twice a day without sooner or later coming to grief with it. And here +it is appropriate to say that in places where there is much heavy work +it is only reasonable that wages should be higher than where the work +is light. Whereas, upon such irrational grounds is our whole system of +domestic service built, that this is hardly ever taken into +consideration. Since the servant is told beforehand what he or she will +have to do, it is taken for granted that the conditions are acceptable +to them; whereas, the fact is that the capability of performing their +duties is the very last thing to enter their minds. They cannot afford +to remain 'out of a situation,' and therefore take the first that +offers itself as a stopgap, with no more intention of permanently +remaining there than a European who accepts an appointment in Turkey, +and with the same object--namely, to make as much as possible out of +the Turks in the meantime. + +In the case of a man-servant, especially in London, no written +character should ever be held sufficient. A personal interview with his +late master or mistress is indispensable. This gives a little trouble, +no doubt, on both sides; but those who grudge it, for such a purpose, +must indeed be grossly selfish, and when they engage a ticket-of-leave +man for their butler get no worse than they deserve. One of the best +butlers, however, I ever knew was a ticket-of-leave man--engaged on the +faith of a written character, which was, of course, a forged one, and +who remained with his employer no less than eighteen months. If his +speculations on the turf had been successful, he might have parted with +him the best of friends, and perhaps have purchased a residence in the +same square; but something went wrong with the brother to Bucephalus, +whom he had backed for the Derby, and the poor man had to dispose of +the whole of his master's family plate to pay his own debts of honour +and defray his travelling expenses--probably to some considerable +distance, as the police could never hear of him. The risk in taking a +butler without a personal guarantee of at least his honesty and +sobriety can indeed hardly be exaggerated. If a clever fellow, his +influence over his fellow-servants of the other sex is very great, and +it is a recognised maxim of the class never 'to tell upon one another' +so long as they remain good friends. I have heard an experienced +housewife say there is nothing she dreads so much as an unbroken +harmony below stairs; like silence in the nursery, it is ominous of all +sorts of mischief. + +Of course, the ticket-of-leave man was an extreme case; but it is +certain that some butlers who are not thieves are always treading on +the very confines of roguery. They are like trustees who, though they +will not touch the principal entrusted to them, not only omit to put it +out to the best advantage, but will sometimes even pocket a portion of +the interest 'for their trouble.' I remember reading a curious case of +this sort. A gentleman who had been with his family in Switzerland for +nine months was met by a London acquaintance on his return, who +expressed his regret at his having been in trouble at home. 'Nay, I +have been in no trouble,' he replied, 'and, indeed, none of us have +been at home.' 'But a month ago when I was passing down your street I +surely saw a funeral standing at your door?' Nor had his eyes deceived +him. The butler in charge had let the house for a couple of months, and +but for his singular ill-luck in one of his tenants happening to die +during their temporary occupation of it, he would have pocketed the +rent (_minus_ the money requisite to keep the maids' mouths shut) and +his master would have been none the wiser. It is said that it is only +when we have lost a friend that we come to value him at his true worth; +and it is certain that it is only when one's butler has left us and the +tongues of his fellow-servants are loosened that we come to learn his +demerits--the difference between his real character and his written +one. If he is a rogue, his evil influence remains behind him, and, next +to the maidservants, it is the page who suffers most from it. He +becomes--poor little fellow!--almost by necessity an accessory to his +delinquencies, plays pilot-fish to the other's shark, and himself grows +up to swell the host of bad servants and that army of martyrs their +masters and mistresses. + +A common cause of a butler's ruin, and for which he is much to be +pitied, is his having married unfortunately. I had once a good servant +whom I was very loth to lose, but whose departure became necessary from +his constantly being visited by a wife in advanced stages of +intoxication. Housewives generally prefer a married man for their +servant, for reasons that are not inscrutable. I do not wish to differ +from such good authorities. But though I have no objection to my butler +being married, I do object to maintain his wife, which, if he be on +good terms with the cook, there is a strong probability of my having to +do. As to his own eating, Heaven forbid that I should grudge it to him; +but it is curious and utterly subversive of all medical dogma that both +men-servants and maidservants, who take, of course, comparatively +little exercise, should, nevertheless, contrive to eat more apiece for +dinner than two average Alpine climbers. Four meals a day, and three of +them meat meals, is their usual rate of sustenance, and the food must +not only be frequent and plentiful, but very good. It is a gratifying +proof of the rapid influence of civilisation that the daughter of a +farm-labourer, accustomed at home to consider bacon a treat and beef a +windfall, will, after a month's experience of her London place, decline +to eat cold meat of any kind, reject salt butter as 'not fit for a +Christian,' and become quite a _connoisseur_ as to the strength of +bitter ale. Indeed, two of our present female domestics are +'recommended' to drink claret because beer makes them bilious. I do not +mind giving them claret, but I think it hard that under such +circumstances I should have had a butler give me warning because the +female domestics are 'not select enough.' My own impression is, though +I scarcely like to mention it, because he was a married man, that he +considered them too plain. + +The reasons, or at all events the professed reasons, which servants +give for leaving their situations are sometimes very curious. One man +left a family of my acquaintance because he said he was interfered with +by the young ladies. 'Good gracious, what do you mean?' inquired his +mistress. Her daughters, it appears, were accustomed to arrange the +flowers for the dinner-table, whereas, as he imagined, he had a +peculiar gift for that kind of decoration himself. + +On the other hand, it is sometimes difficult for a sensitive master or +mistress to give the true reason for their parting with a servant. A +friend of mine had a footman who, through trick, or some defect in his +respiratory organs, used to blow like a grampus, and indeed more like a +whale, while waiting at table. It was not a vice, of course, but it was +very objectionable, and guests who were bald especially objected to it. +My friend consulted with his butler, who admitted that 'John did blow +like a pauper' (meaning, as I suppose, a porpoise), and undertook to +break the subject to him. It is quite common to find candidates for +service very deaf, and if they contrive to pass their 'entrance +examination' (for which no doubt they sharpen their faculties), they +stay with you for a month at least with an excellent excuse for making +it a holiday, since, whatever you tell them to do they cannot hear and +do not do it, or do something else which they like better. Mistresses +who are silent about moral disqualifications are much more so, of +course, about physical ones, and have no scruples in ridding themselves +of a deaf man. + +The worst class of men-servants, perhaps, are those who are said to +'require a master;' which means that when he happens to be not at home +they neglect everything. A friend of mine who happened to take a week's +holiday, alone, discovered on his return that his family might almost +as well have had no servant at all as the man he left with them; he was +generally out, and when at home had not even troubled himself to answer +the drawing-room bell. Some men-servants are always running out; they +have 'just stepped round the corner,' they say, 'to post a letter;' +which in nine cases out of ten means to have a dram at the +public-house. The servants who 'require a master' sometimes retain +their situation with a very selfish one by devoting themselves to his +service at the expense of the rest of the family. 'John suits me very +well,' he says, 'and thoroughly understands his duties,' which in this +case means the length of the master's foot. + +On the other hand, there are some men-servants who, one would think, +ought to belong to the other sex, so utterly ignorant they are of that +branch of their duty which they call 'valeting.' A lady blessed with a +scientific husband, who certainly did not take much notice whether he +was 'valeted' or not, once complained to his man of his neglect in this +particular. 'When your master comes in, William, you should look after +him, and see to his hat and coat, and pay him little attentions.' So +the next time the man of science came in he was not a little surprised +by William (who, it is fair to say, came from the country) running up +and taking his hat off his head, like some highly-trained retriever. +Happy the master to whom a worse thing has never happened at the hands +of his retainer! + +The main thing to be dreaded in men-servants--next to downright +dishonesty--is, of course, intoxication. If a man has been long in +one's service and gets drunk for once and away, it may well be forgiven +him; but when your new servant gets drunk, wait till he is sober enough +to receive his wages, and then dismiss him--if you can. Not long ago I +had occasion to discharge a butler for habitual intoxication; he was +never quite drunk, but also never quite sober; he was a sot. I made him +fetch a cab, and saw his luggage put upon it, and I tendered him his +month's wages. But he refused to leave the house without board wages. +Of course, I declined to pay him any such thing; and, as he persisted +in leaning against the dining-room door murmuring at intervals, 'I +wants my board wages,' I sent for a policeman. 'Be so good,' I said,' +as to turn this drunken person out of my house.' 'I daren't do it, +sir,' was the reply; 'that would be to exceed my duty.' 'Then, why are +you here?' 'I am here, sir, to see that you turn the man out yourself +without using unnecessary violence.' 'The man' was six feet high and as +stout as a beer-barrel. I could no more have moved him than Skiddaw, +and he knew it. 'I stays here,' he chanted in his maudlin way, 'till I +gets my board wages.' Fortunately, two Oxford undergraduates happened +to be in the house, to whom I mentioned my difficulty, and I shall not +easily forget the delighted promptitude with which they seized upon the +offender and 'ran him out' into the street. He fled down the area steps +at once with a celerity that convinced me he was accustomed to being +turned out of houses, and tried to obtain re-admission at the +back-door. It was fortunately locked, but when I said to the policeman, +'_Now_, please to remove that man,' he answered, 'No, sir; that would +be to exceed my duty; he is still upon your premises and a member of +your household.' As it was raining heavily, the delinquent, though +sympathised with by a great crowd round the area railings, presently +got tired of his position and went away. But supposing my young Oxford +friends had not been in the house and he had fallen upon me (a little +man) in the act of expulsion; or supposing I had been a widow lady with +no protector, would that too faithful retainer have remained in my +establishment for ever? + +I have purposely addressed myself to that large class of the community +only who are said 'to keep a man-servant'--that is, one man, assisted, +perhaps, by a page. Those who keep butler, footman, coachman, grooms, +and valets are comparatively few in number, and know nothing of the +inconveniences which their less wealthy fellow-countrymen endure. In +large establishments, if William is drunk, John is sober, and the work +is done for the rich man by somebody; especially, too, if William is +drunk, there are John and Thomas to turn him out of the house and have +done with him. But it is certain that the lower Ten Thousand are not in +a satisfactory condition as respects their men-servants; hardly more +so, in fact, than the Hundred Thousand are in regard to their maids. +The men-servants, however, are not so ignorant of their duties as are +the latter, and if only their masters would have the courage to tell +the truth when giving them their 'characters,' there would be a great +improvement in them. Against the masters themselves (unlike the +mistresses) I have never heard much complaint. Most of them object to +be 'bothered' and 'troubled,' and are willing enough to put everything +into their man's hands, including the key of the Cellar, if only they +could trust him; but at present, alas! this is a very large 'If.' + + + + +_WHIST-PLAYERS._ + + +If cards are the Devil's books, Whist is the _édition de luxe_ of them. +Whist-playing is one of the few vices of the upper classes that has not +in time descended to the lower, with whom the ingenious and attractive +game of 'All Fours' has always held its own against it. I have known +but two men not belonging to the upper ten thousand who played well at +whist. One was a well-known jockey in the South of England, who was +also, by the way, an admirable billiard-player. He called himself an +amateur, but those who played with him used to complain that his +proceedings were even ultra-professional. On the Turf men are almost as +equal as they are under it, and this ornament of the pigskin would on +certain occasions (race meetings) take his place at the card-table with +some who were very literally his betters, while others who had more +self-respect contented themselves with backing him. The other example I +have in my mind was an ancient Cumberland yeoman, who, having lost the +use of his limbs in middle life from having been tossed by a bull, +pursued the science under considerable difficulties. A sort of +card-rack (such as Psycho uses at the Egyptian Hall) was placed in +front of him, and behind him stood his little granddaughter who played +the cards for him by verbal direction. Both these men played a very +good game of the old-fashioned kind, for though the jockey used +subtleties, they were not of the Clay or Cavendish sort. The asking for +trumps was a device unknown to him, though there were folks who +whispered he would take them under certain circumstances without +asking, and of the leading of the penultimate with five in the suit it +could be said of him, for once, that he was as innocent as a babe. + +Of course, many persons join the 'upper ten' who come from the lower +twenty (or even thirty), and it need not be said that they are by no +means inferior in sagacity to their new acquaintances; yet they rarely +make first-rate players. Whist, like the classics, must be learnt young +for any excellence to be attained in it. Of this Metternich was a +striking example. If benevolent Nature ever intended a man for a +whist-player one would have supposed that she had done so in his case, +but had been baffled by some malign Destiny which had degraded him to +that class by whom, in conjunction with Kings, it was fondly believed, +previously to the recent general election, that 'the world was +governed.' Until late in life he never took to whist, when he grew +wildly fond of it, and played incessantly, till it is said a certain +memorable event took place which caused him never to touch a card +again. The story goes that, rapt in the enjoyment of the game, he +suffered a special messenger to wait for hours, to whom if he had given +his attention more promptly a massacre of many hundred persons would +have been prevented. Humanity may drop a tear, but whist had nothing to +regret in the circumstance; for in Metternich it did not lose a good +player, and, what redeems his intelligence, he knew it. 'I learnt my +whist too late,' he would say, with more pathos and solemnity, perhaps, +than he would have used when speaking of more momentous matters of +omission. + +He must be a wise man indeed who, being an habitual whist-player, is +aware that he is a bad one. In games of pure skill, such as chess, and, +in a less degree, billiards, a man must be a fool who deceives himself +upon such a point; but in whist there is a sufficient amount of chance +to enable him to preserve his self-complacency for some time--let us +say, his lifetime. If he loses, he ascribes it to his 'infernal luck,' +which always fills his hands with twos and threes; and if he wins, +though it is by a succession of four by honours as long as the string +of four-in-hands when the Coaching Club meets in Hyde Park, he ascribes +it to his skill. 'If I hadn't played trumps just when I did,' he +modestly observes to his partner, 'all would have been over with us;' +though the result would have been exactly the same had he played +blindfold. To an observer of human nature, who is not himself a loser +'on the day,' there are few things more charming than the genial, +gentle self-approval of two players of this class who have just +defeated two experts, and proved, to their own satisfaction, that if +fortune gives them 'a fair chance' or 'something like equal cards,' as +they term the conditions of their late performance, they can play as +well as other people. + +Of course, the term 'good-play' is a relative one; the player who wins +applause in the drawing-room is often thought but little of in places +where the rigour of the game is observed; and the 'good, steady player' +of the University Clubs is not a star of the first magnitude at the +Portland. The best players used to be men of mature years; they are now +the middle-aged, who, with sufficient practical experience, have +derived their skill in early life from the best books. 'It is difficult +to teach an old dog new tricks,' and for the most part the old dogs +despise them. When I hear my partner boast that he is 'none of your +book-players,' I smile courteously, and tremble. I know what will +become of him and me if fortune does not give him his 'fair chance,' +and I seek comfort from the calculation which tells me it is two to one +against my cutting with him again. How marvellous it is, when one comes +to consider the matter, that a man should decline to receive +instruction on a technical subject from those who have eminently +distinguished themselves in it, and have systematised for the benefit +of others the results of the experience of a lifetime! With books or no +books, it is quite true, however, that some men, otherwise of great +intelligence, can never be taught whist; they may have had every +opportunity of learning it--have been born, as it were, with the ace of +spades in their mouth instead of a silver spoon--but the gift of +understanding is denied them; and though it is ungallant to say so, I +have never known a lady to play whist well. + +In the case of the fair sex, however, it may be urged that they have +not the same chances; they have no whist clubs, and the majority of +them entertain the extraordinary delusion that it is wrong to play at +whist in the afternoon. One may talk scandal over kettle-drums, and go +to morning performances at the theatre, but one may not play at cards +till after dinner. There is even quite a large set of male persons who, +'on principle,' do not play at whist in the afternoon. In seasons of +great adversity, when fortune has not given me my 'fair chance' for +many days, I have sometimes 'gone on strike,' as it is termed, and +joined them; but anything more deplorable than such a state of affairs +it is impossible to imagine. After their day's work is over, these good +people can't conceive what to do with themselves, and, between +ourselves, it is my experience, drawn from these occasional 'intervals +of business,' that this practice of not playing whist in the afternoon +generally leads to dissipation. + +It is sometimes advanced by this unhappy class, by way of apology, that +they play at night; which may very possibly be the case, but they don't +play well. There is no such thing, except in the sense in which +after-dinner speaking is called 'good,' as good whist after dinner. It +may seem otherwise, even to the spectators; but having themselves dined +like the rest, they are not in a position to give an opinion. The +keenness of observation is blunted by food and wine; the delicate +perceptions are gone; and what is left of the intelligence is generally +devoted to finding faults in your partner's play. The consciousness of +mistakes on your own part, which he is in no condition to discern, +instead of suggesting charity, induces irritation, and you are +persuaded, till you get the next man, that you are mated with the worst +player in all Christendom. Moreover, that 'one more rubber' with which +you propose to finish is generally elastic (_Indian_ rubber), and you +sit up into the small hours and find them disagree with you. If I ever +write that new series of the 'Chesterfield Letters' which I have long +had in my mind, and for which I feel myself eminently qualified, my +most earnest advice to young gentlemen of fashion will be found in the +golden rule, 'Never sit down to whist after dinner;' it is a mistake, +and almost an immorality. If they must play cards, let them play +Napoleon. + +With regard to finding fault with one's partner, I have no apology to +offer for it under any circumstances; but it must be remembered that +this does not always arise from ill-temper, or the sense of loss that +might have been gain. There are many lovers of whist for its own sake +to whom bad play, even in an adversary, excites a certain distress of +mind; when a good hand is thrown away by it, they experience the same +sort of emotion that a gourmand feels who sees a haunch of venison +spoilt in the carving. In such a case a gentle expression of +disapproval is surely pardonable. And I have observed that, with one or +two exceptions (_non Angli sed angeli_, men of angelic temper rather +than ordinary Englishmen), the good players who never find fault are +not socially the pleasantest. They are men who 'play to win,' and who +think it very injudicious to educate a bad partner who will presently +join the ranks of the Opposition. + +What is rather curious--and I speak with some experience, for I have +played with all classes, from the prince to the gentleman farmer--the +best whist-players are not, as a rule, those who are the most highly +educated or intellectual. Men of letters, for example (I am speaking, +of course, very generally), are inferior to the doctors and the +warriors. Both the late Lord Lytton and Charles Lever had, it is true, +a considerable reputation at the whist-table, but though they were good +players, they were not in the first class; while the author of 'Guy +Livingstone,' though devoted to the game, was scarcely to be placed in +the second. The best players are, one must confess, what irreverent +persons, ignorant of the importance of this noble pursuit, would term +'idlers'--men of mere nominal occupation, or of none, to whom the game +has been familiar from their youth, and who have had little else to do +than to play it. + +While some men, as I have said, can never be taught whist, a few are +born with a genius for the game, and move up 'from high to higher,' +through all the grades of excellence, with a miraculous rapidity; but, +whether good, bad, or indifferent, I have not known half a dozen +whist-players who were not superstitious. Their credulity is, indeed, +proverbial, but no one who does not mix with them can conceive the +extent of it; it reminds one of the African fetish. The country +apothecary's wife who puts the ivory 'fish' on the candlestick 'for +luck,' and her partner, the undertaker, who turns his chair in hopes to +realise more 'silver threepences,' are in no way more ridiculous than +the grave and reverend seigneurs of the Clubs who are attracted to 'the +winning seats' or 'the winning cards.' The idea of going on because +'the run of luck' is in your favour, or of leaving off because it has +declared itself against you, is logically of course unworthy of +Cetywayo. The only modicum of reason that underlies it is the fact that +the play of some men becomes demoralised by ill-fortune, and may, +possibly, be improved by success. Yet the belief in this absurdity is +universal, and bids fair to be eternal. 'If I am not in a draught, and +my chair is comfortable, you may put me anywhere,' is a remark I have +heard but once, and the effect of it on the company was much the same +as if in the House of Convocation some reverend gentleman had announced +his acceptance of the religious programme of M. Comte. + +With the few exceptions I have mentioned, whist-players not only stop +very far short of excellence in the game, but very soon reach their +tether. I cannot say of any man that he has gone on improving for +years; his mark is fixed, and he knows it--though he is exceptionally +sagacious if he knows where it is drawn as respects others--and there +he stays till he begins to deteriorate. The first warning of decadence +is the loss of memory, after which it is a question of time (and good +sense) when he shall withdraw from the ranks of the fighting men and +become a mere spectator of the combat. It was said by a great gambler +that the next pleasure in life to that of winning was that of losing; +and to the real lover of whist, the next pleasure to that of playing a +good game is that of looking on at one. + +Whist has been extolled, and justly, upon many accounts; but the +peculiar advantage of the game is, perhaps, that it utilises socially +many persons who would not otherwise be attractive. Unless a player is +positively disagreeable, he is as good to play whist with as a +conversational Crichton. Moreover, though the poet has hinted of the +evanescent character of 'friendships made in wine,' such is not the +case with those made at whist. The phrase, 'my friend and partner,' +used by a well-known lady in fiction, in speaking of another lady, is +one that is particularly applicable to this social science, and holds +good, as it does, alas, in no other case, even when the partner becomes +an adversary. + + + + +_RELATIONS._ + + +It is a favourite utterance of a much 'put-upon' Paterfamilias of my +acquaintance, when he finds his family more than usually too much for +him, and cynically confesses his own shortcomings, that 'children +cannot be too particular in their choice of their parents, or begin +their education too early.' + +But not only are children a necessity--that is, if the world of men and +women is to be kept going, concerning the advantage of which there +seems, however, just now, to be some doubt,--but when they have +arrived, they cannot, except in very early life, be easily got rid of. +In this respect they differ from the relations whose case I am about to +consider, and also possess a certain claim upon us over and above the +mere tie of blood, since we are responsible for their existence. The +obligation on the other side is, I venture to think, a little +exaggerated. If there is such a thing as natural piety, which, even in +these days, few are found to deny, it is the reverence, it is true, +with which children regard their parents; but their moral indebtedness +to them as the authors of their being is open to doubt. That theory, +indeed, appears to be founded upon false premises; for, unless in the +case of an ancestral estate, I am not aware that the existence of +children is much premeditated. On the contrary, their arrival is often +looked upon, from pecuniary reasons, with much apprehension, or, at +best, till they do arrive, they may be described, in common phrase, as +'neither born nor thought of.' I am a father myself, but I wish to be +fair and to take a just view of matters. If a mother leaves her child +on a doorstep, for example, the filial bond can hardly be expected to +be very strong. In such a case, indeed, the infant seems to me to have +a very distinct grievance against its female parent, and to be under no +very overwhelming obligation to its father. 'Handsome is as handsome +does' is a principle that applies to all relations of life, including +the nearest; and if duty never absolutely ceases to exist, it is, at +all events, greatly moulded by circumstances. + +Patriotism, for instance, is very commendable, but your country must be +worth something to make you love it. It is next to impossible that an +inhabitant of Monaco, for example, should be patriotic. He can at most +be only parochial. The love of one's mother is probably the purest and +noblest of all human affections; but some people's mothers are habitual +drunkards, and others professional thieves. Even filial reverence, it +is plain, must stop somewhere. That is one of the objections which, +with all humility, I feel to the religion of M. Comte. The worship of +my grandmother would be impossible to me, unless I had reason to +believe her to have been a respectable person. Her relationship, unless +I had had the advantage of her personal acquaintance, would weigh I +fear, but little with me, and that of my great-grandmother nothing at +all. The whole notion of ancestry--unless one's ancestors have been +distinguished people--seems to me ridiculous. If they have _not_ been +distinguished people--folks, that is, of whom some record has been +preserved--how is one to know that they have been worthy persons, whose +mission has been to increase the sum of human happiness? If, on the +other hand, they have been only notorious, and done their best to +decrease it, I should be most heartily ashamed of them. The pride of +birth from this point of view--which seems to me a very reasonable +one--is not only absurd, but often very reprehensible. We may be +exulting, by proxy, in successful immorality, or even crime. Our +boastfulness of our progenitors is necessarily in most cases very +vague, because we know so little about them. When we come to the +particular, the record stops very short indeed--generally at one's +grandmother, who, by the way, plays a part in the dream-drama of +ancestry little superior to that of that 'rank outsider,' a +mother-in-law. 'Tell that to your grandmother' is a phrase that +certainly did not originate in reverence; and even when that lady is +proverbially alluded to in a complimentary sense, her intelligence is +only eulogised in connection with the 'sucking of eggs.' + +It so happens that I have quite a considerable line of ancestors +myself, but only one of them ever distinguished himself, and that (he +was an Attorney-General) in a doubtful way; and I confess I don't take +the slightest interest in them. I prefer the pleasant companion with +whom I came up in the train yesterday, and whose name I forgot to ask, +to the whole lot of them. + +And if I don't care about ancestors on canvas (for their pictures, of +course, are all we have seen of them), I have good cause to be offended +with them on paper. My favourite biographies--such as that of Walter +Scott, for example--are disfigured by them. When men sit down to write +a great man's life, why should they weary us with an epitome of that of +his grandfather and grandmother? Of course, the book has to be a +certain length. No one is more sensible than myself of the difficulty +of providing 'copy' sufficient for two octavo volumes; but I do think +biographers should confine themselves to two generations. For my part, +I could do with one, but there is the favourite theory of a great man's +inheriting his greatness from the maternal parent, which I am well +aware cannot be dispensed with. It is like the white horse, or rather +the grey mare, in Wouvermanns's pictures; you can't get rid of it any +more than Mr. Dick could get Charles I. out of his memorial. For my +part, I always begin biographies at the fourteenth chapter (or +thereabouts)--'The subject of this memoir was born,' etc.; and even so +I find I get quite enough of them. In novels the introduction of +ancestry is absolutely intolerable. When I see that hateful chapter +headed 'Retrospective,' I pass over to the other side, like the Levite, +only quicker. What do I care whether our hero's grandfather was +Archbishop of Canterbury or a professional body-snatcher? I don't even +care which of the two was my own personal friend's grandfather, and how +much less can I take an interest in this imaginary progenitor of the +creation of an author's brain? The introduction of such a colourless +shadow is, to my mind, the height of impertinence. If I were Mr. Mudie, +I would put my foot down resolutely and stamp out this literary plague. +As George III., who had an objection to commerce, is said to have +observed, when asked to confer a baronetcy on one of the Broadwood +family, 'Are you sure there is not a piano in it?' so should Mr. M. +inquire of the publisher before taking copies of any novel, 'Are you +sure there is not a grandfather in it?' + +Again, what a nuisance is ancestry in our social life! It cannot, +unhappily, be done away with as a fact, but surely it need not be a +topic. How often have I been asked by some fair neighbour at a +dinner-table, 'Is that Mr. Jones opposite one of the Joneses of +Bedfordshire?' One's first impulse is naturally to ask, 'What on earth +is that to you or me?' But experience teaches prudence, and I reply +with reverence, 'Yes, of Bedfordshire,' which, at all events, puts a +stop to argument upon the matter. Moreover, she seems to derive some +sort of mysterious satisfaction from the information, and it is always +well to give pleasure. + +A well-known wit was once in company with one of the Cavendishes, who +had lately been to America, and was recounting his experiences. 'These +Republican people have such funny names,' he said. 'I met there a man +of the name of Birdseye.' 'Well, and is not that just as good as +Cavendish?' replied the wit, who was also a smoker. But the remark was +not appreciated. + +Ancestral people do not, as a rule, appreciate wit; but, on the other +hand, it must be admitted that this is not a defect peculiar to them +alone. I once knew a man of letters who, though he had risen to wealth +and eminence, was of humble descent, and had a weakness for avoiding +allusion to it. His daughter married a man of good birth, but whose +literary talents were not of a high order. This gentleman wrote a +letter applying for a certain Government appointment, and expressed a +wish for his father-in-law's opinion upon the composition. 'It's a very +bad letter,' was the frank criticism the other made upon it. 'The +writing is bad, the spelling is indifferent, the style is abominable. +Good heavens! where are your relatives and antecedents?' 'If it comes +to that,' was the reply, 'where are yours? For I never hear you speak +about them.' Nor did he ever hear him, for his father-in-law never +spoke another word to him. + +Nothing, of course, can be more contemptible than to neglect one's poor +relations on account of their poverty; but it is very doubtful whether +the sum of human happiness is increased by our having so much respect +for the mere tie of kindred, unaccompanied by merit. Other things being +equal, it is obviously natural that one's near relatives should be the +best of friends. But other things are not always equal. Indeed, a +certain high authority (which looks on both sides of most questions) +admits as much. 'There is a friend,' it says, 'that sticketh closer +than a brother. The connection, with its consequences, is somewhat +similar to a partnership in commercial life. If partners pull together, +and are sympathetic, nothing can be more delightful than such an +arrangement. The tie of business clenches the tie of social attraction. +For myself, I am not commercial; but I envy the old firm of Beaumont +and Fletcher, and the modern one of Erckmann and Chatrian. But if the +members of the firm do _not_ pull together? Then, surely the bond +between them is most deplorable, and a divorce _a vinculo_ should be +obtained as soon as possible. + +One of the greatest mistakes--and there are many--that we fall into +from a too ready acknowledgment of the tie of kindred is the obligation +we feel under to consort with relations with whom we have nothing in +common. You may take such persons to the waters of affection, but you +cannot make them drink; and the more you see of them the less they are +likely to agree with you. Not once, nor twice, but fifty times, in a +life experience that is becoming protracted, I have seen this forcible +bringing together of incongruous elements, and the result has been +always unfortunate. I say 'forcible,' because it has been rarely +voluntary; now and then a strong, though, I venture to think, a +mistaken sense of duty may lead a man to seek the society of one with +whom he has nothing in common save the bond of race; but for the most +part they are obeying the wishes of another--the sacred injunction, +perhaps, of a parent on his death-bed. 'Be good friends,' he murmurs, +'my children,' not reflecting, in that supreme and farewell hour, how +little things, such as prejudice, difference of political or religious +opinions, conflicting interests, and the like, affect us while we are +in this world, and how perilous it is to attempt to link like with +unlike. I am quite certain that when relations do not, in common +phrase, 'get on well with one another,' the best chance of their +remaining friends is for them to keep apart. This is gradually becoming +recognised by 'the common sense of most,' as we see by the falling-off +in those family gatherings at Christmas, which only too often partook +of the character of that assembly which met under the roof of Mr, +Pecksniff, with the disastrous result with which we are all acquainted. + +The more distant the tie of blood, the less reason, of course, there is +to consider it; yet it is strange to see how even sensible men will +welcome the Good-for-nothing, who chance to be 'of kin' to them, to the +exclusion of the Worthy, who lack that adventitious claim. The effect +of this is an absolute immorality, since it offers a premium to +unpleasant people, while it heavily handicaps those who desire to make +themselves agreeable. To give a particular example of this, though upon +a large scale, I might cite Scotland, where, making allowance for the +absence of that University system, which in England is so strong a +social tie, there are undoubtedly fewer friendships, in comparison, +than there are with us; this I have no hesitation in attributing to +clanship--the exaggeration of the family tie--which substitutes +nearness for dearness, and places a tenth cousin above the most +charming of companions, who labours under the disadvantage of being +'nae kin.' + +Again, what is more common than to hear it said, in apology for some +manifestly ill-conditioned and offensive person, that he is 'good to +his family'? The praise is probably only so far deserved that he does +not beat his wife nor starve his children; but, supposing even he +treated them as he should do, and, moreover, entertained his ten-times +removed cousins to dinner every Sunday, what is that to _me_ who do not +enjoy his unenviable hospitality? Let his cousins speak well of him by +all means; but let the rest of the world speak as they find. I protest +against the theory that the social virtues should limit themselves to +the home circle, and still more, that they should extend to the distant +branches of it to the exclusion of the world at large. + +Of Howard, the philanthropist, it is said--and, I notice, said with a +certain cynical pleasure--that, notwithstanding his universal +benevolence, he behaved with severity ta his own son. I have not that +intimate acquaintance with the circumstances which, to judge by the +confidence of their assertions, his traducers possess, but I should be +slow to believe, in the case of such a father, that the son did not +deserve all he got, or was not forgiven even to the seventy times +seventh offence. There is, however, no little want of reason in the +ordinary acceptation of the term, 'loving forgiveness.' He must be a +very morose man who does not forgive a personal injury, especially when +there has been an expression of repentance for it; but there are +offences which, quite independently of their personal sting, manifest +in the offender a cruel or bad heart, and 'loving forgiveness' is in +that case no more to be expected than that we should take a serpent who +has already stung us to our bosom. 'It is his nature to,' as the poet +expresses it, and if that serpent is my relative it is my misfortune, +and by no means impresses me with a sense of obligation. Indeed, in the +case of an offensive relation, so far from his having any claim to my +consideration, it seems to me I have a very substantial grievance in +the fact of his existence, and that he owes me reparation for it. + +It is perhaps from a natural reaction, and is a sort of unconscious +protest against the preposterous claims of kinship, that our +connections by marriage are so freely criticised, and, to say truth, +held in contempt. No one enjoins us to love our wife's relations, +indeed, our own kindred are generally dead against them, and especially +against her mother, to whom the poor woman very naturally clings. This +is as unreasonable in the way of prejudice, as the other line of +conduct is in the way of favouritism. It is, in short, my humble +opinion that, if everyone stood upon his or her own merits, and was +treated accordingly, this world of ours would be the better for it; and +of this I am quite sure--it would have fewer disagreeable people in it. +I am neither so patriotic nor so thorough-going as the American +citizen, who, during the late Civil War, came to President Lincoln, and +nobly offered to sacrifice on the altar of freedom 'all his able-bodied +relations;' but I think that most of us would be benefited if they were +weeded out a bit. + + + + +_INVALID LITERATURE._ + + +It has always struck me as a breach of faith in Charles Lamb to have +published the fact that dear, 'rigorous' Mrs. Battle's favourite suit +was Hearts: and is in my eyes, notwithstanding Mr. Carlyle's posthumous +outburst, the only blot on his character. His own confession, though +tendered with a blush, that there is such a thing as sick whist stands +on totally different grounds; it is not a relaxation of principle, but +an acknowledgment of a weakness common to human nature. One of the most +advanced thinkers and men of science of our time has frankly admitted +that his theological views are considerably modified by the state of +his health; and if one's ideas on futurity are thus affected, it is no +wonder that things of this world wear a different appearance when +viewed from a sick bed. It is not difficult to imagine that whist, for +example, played on the counterpane by three good Samaritans, to while +away the hours for an afflicted friend, differs from the game when +played on a club card-table. Common humanity prevents our saying what +we think of the play of an invalid who may be enjoying his last rubber; +and if the ace of trumps _is_ found under his pillow, we only smile and +hope it will not occur again. + +On the other hand, literary taste would, one would think, be the last +thing to vary with our physical condition; yet those who have had long +illnesses know better, and will, I am sure, bear me out in the +assertion that there are such things as sick books. I do not, of +course, speak of devotional works. I am picturing the poor man when he +is getting well after a long bout of illness; his mind clear, but +inert; his limbs painless, but so languid that they hardly seem to +belong to him; and when he regards their attenuated proportions with +the same sort of feeble interest that is evoked by eggshell china--they +are not useful, still it would be a pity if they broke. + +Then it is that one feels a loathing of the strong meats of literature, +and a liking for its milk diet. As to metaphysics, one has had enough +and to spare of _them_ when one was delirious; while the 'Fairy Tales +of Science' do not strike one just then as being quite so fairylike as +the poet represents them. As to science, indeed, there is but one thing +clear to us, namely, that the theory of evolution is a mistake; for +though one's getting better at all is undoubtedly a proof of the +survival of the fittest, we are well convinced that we have retrograded +from what we were. It would puzzle Darwin himself to fix our position +exactly, but though we lack the tenacity, and especially the colour, of +the sea-anemone, we seem to be there or thereabouts in the scale of +humanity. When last prostrated by rheumatic fever, or its remedies, I +remember, indeed, to have been inclined to mathematics. When very ill I +had suffered agonies in my dreams from the persecutions of an +impossible quantity, and perhaps the association of ideas suggested, as +I slowly gathered strength, a little problem in statics. It had been +taught me by my dear tutor at Cambridge, whom undergraduates have long +ceased to trouble, as a proof of the pathos that dwells in figures; and +I kept repeating it to myself, with the letters all misplaced, till I +became exhausted by tears and emotion. + +As a general rule, however, even mathematics fail to interest the +convalescent. 'Man delights not him; no, nor woman neither;' but +Literature, if light in the hand, and always provided that he has his +back to the window, is a pleasure to him only next to that of his new +found appetite and his first chicken. His taste 'has suffered a sick +change,' but that by no means implies it has deteriorated. On the +contrary, his critical faculty has fled (which is surely an immense +advantage), while he has recovered much of that power of appreciation +which rarely abides with us to maturity. He is not on the outlook for +mistakes, slips of style, anachronisms; he derives no pleasure from the +discovery of spots in the sun, but is content to bask in the rays of +it. He does not necessarily return to the favourites of his youth, +though he has a tendency that way, but the shackles of convention have +slipped away from him with his flesh, and he reads what he likes, and +not what he has been told he ought to like. He has been so long removed +from public opinion, that, like a shipwrecked crew in an open boat, it +has ceased to affect him; only, instead of taking to cannibalism, he +takes to what is nice. As his physical appetite is fastidious, so his +mental palate has a relish only for titbits. If ever there was a time +for a reasonable being to 'dip' into books, or to enjoy 'half-hours +with the best authors,' this is it; but weak as the patient is, he +commonly declines to have his tastes dictated to; perhaps there is an +unpleasant association in his mind, arising from Brand and Liebig, with +all 'extracts;' but, at all events, those literary compilations oppress +and bewilder him; he objects to the extraordinary fertility of 'Ibid,' +an author whose identity he cannot quite call to mind, and prefers to +choose for himself. + +Biography is out of the question. Long before he has got through that +account of the hero's great grandmother, from whom he inherited his +talents, which is, it seems, indispensable to such works, he yawns, and +devoutly wishing, notwithstanding its fatal consequences to the fourth +generation, that that old woman had never been born, falls into fitful +slumber. + +Travels are in the same condemnation; he has not the patience to watch +the traveller taking leave of his family at Pimlico, or to follow his +cab as he drives through the streets to the railway station, or to +share the discomforts of his cabin--all necessary, no doubt, to his +eventual arrival in Abyssinia, but hardly necessary to be described. +Moreover, the convalescent has probably travelled a good deal on his +own account during the last few weeks, for the bed of fever carries one +hither and thither with the velocity, though not the ease, of the +enchanted carpet in the 'Arabian Nights.' The desire of the sick man is +to escape from himself and all recent experiences. + +He thinks he will try a little History. Alison? No, certainly not +Alison. 'They will be proposing Lingard next,' he murmurs, and the +little irritation caused by the well-meant suggestion throws him back +for the next six hours. Presently he tries Macaulay, whom some +flatterer has fulsomely called 'as good as a novel,' but, though the +trial of Warren Hastings gives him a fillip, the rout of Sedgemoor does +away with the effect of it, and, happening upon the character of +Halifax, he suffers a severe relapse. As a bedfellow, Macaulay is too +declamatory, though, at the same time, strange to say, he does not +always succeed in keeping one awake. To the sick man Carlyle is +preferable; not his 'Frederick,' of course, and still less his 'Sartor +Resartus,' which has become a nightmare, without head or tail, but his +'French Revolution.' One lies and watches the amazing spectacle without +effort, as though it were represented on the stage. The sea of blood +rolls before our eyes, the roar of the mob sounds in our ears; we are +carried along with the unhappy Louis to the very frontier, and just on +the verge of escape are seized and brought back--King Coach--with him +to Paris, in a cold perspiration. + +Some people, when in health and of a sane mind (Mr. Matthew Arnold one +_knows_ of, and there may be others), take great delight in 'Paradise +Regained;' all we venture to say is that in sickness it does not +suggest its title. It is said that barley-water goes well with +everything; if so, the epic is the exception which proves the rule. +Milton is tedious after rheumatic fever, Spencer is worse. + + '"Not from the grand old masters, + Not from the bards sublime, + Whose distant footsteps echo + Through the corridors of Time,"' + +murmurs the invalid, 'I can't stand them.' He does not mean anything +depreciatory, but merely that-- + + 'Like strains of martial music + Their mighty thoughts suggest + Life's endless toil and endeavour,' + +which he is not fit even to think of. He cannot read Keats's +'Nightingale,' but for quite another reason. What arouses 'thoughts too +deep for tears' in the hale and strong is to the sick as the sinking +for an artesian well. 'The Chelsea Waterworks,' as Mr. Samuel Weller +observed of Mr. Job Trotter (at a time when the metropolitan water +supply would seem to have been more satisfactory than at present), 'are +nothing to him.' On the other hand, Shelley's 'Skylark,' and the +'Dramatic Fragments' of Browning, are as cordials to the invalid, while +the poems of Walter Scott are like breezes from the mountains and the +sea. In that admirable essay, 'Life in the Sick-room,' the authoress +justly remarks, speaking of the advantage of objectivity in sick books, +'Nothing can be better in this view than Macaulay's "Lays," which carry +us at full speed out of ourselves.' + +But it is not always that the invalid can read the poets at all; like +Mrs. Wititterley, his nerves are too delicately strung for the touch of +the muse. His chief enjoyment lies in fiction, to the producers of +which he can never feel too grateful. I remember, on one occasion when +I was very reduced indeed, taking up 'Northanger Abbey,' and reading, +with almost the same gusto as though I had been a novelist myself, Miss +Austen's defence of her profession. She says: + + 'I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom, so common + with novel-writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the + very performances to the number of which they are themselves + adding, joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the + harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely even permitting them + to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally takes up + a novel, is sure to turn from its insipid pages with disgust. Let + us not desert one another; we are an injured body. Although our + productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure + than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no + species of composition has been so much decried. From pride, + ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers; + and while the abilities of the nine-hundred-and-ninety-ninth + abridger of the history of England are eulogised by a thousand + pens, there seems a general agreement to slight the performances + which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them.' + +I had quite forgotten till I came upon this passage that Miss Austen +had such 'a kick in her,' and I remember how I honoured her for it and +sympathised with her sentiments. 'When pain and anguish wring the +brow,' we all know who is the comforter; but next to her, and when the +brow is getting a little better, we welcome the novelist. + +With our face aslant on the pillow, we once more make acquaintance with +the characters that have been the delight of our youth, and find they +delight us still, but with a difference. The animal spirits of Smollett +and Fielding are a little too much for us; there is not sympathy enough +in them for our own condition; they seem to have been fellows who were +never ill. Perhaps 'Humphrey Clinker,' though it drags at the end, and +the political disquisitions are intolerable, is the funniest book that +ever was written; but the faculty of appreciation for it is not now in +us. We turn with relief to Scott, though not to 'Scott's Works,' in the +sense in which the phrase is generally used, as though they were a +foundry from which everything is issued of the same workmanship and +excellence; whereas there is as much difference between them as there +was in her Majesty's ships of old between the gallant seventy-four and +the crazy troopship. The invalid, however, as I have said, is far from +critical; he only knows what he likes. Judged by this fastidious +standard, he finds 'Waverley' somewhat wearisome, and, as to the first +part of it in particular, wonders, not that the Great Unknown should +have kept it in his desk for years as a comparative failure, but that +he should have ever taken it from that repository. 'The Antiquary,' +which in health he used to admire, or think he did, exceedingly, has +also a narcotic effect; but 'Rob Roy' revives him, and 'Ivanhoe' stirs +him like a trumpet-call. + +What is very curious, just as the favourite literature of a cripple is +almost always that which treats of force and action, so upon our +sick-bed we turn most gladly to scenes of heroism and adventure. The +famous ride in 'Geoffrey Hamlyn,' where the fate of the heroine, +threatened with worse than death from the bush-rangers, hangs upon the +horse's speed, seems to us, as we lie abed, one of the finest episodes +in fiction. 'Tom Cringle's Log,' too, becomes a great favourite, not +more from its buoyancy and freshness than from the melodramatic scenes +with which it is interspersed. + +In some moods of the sick man's mind, his morbid appetite tends, +strange to say, to horrors. He 'snatches a fearful joy' from the weird +and supernatural. I have known those terrible tales of Le Fanu, +entitled 'In a Glass Darkly,' which for dramatic power and eeriness no +other novelist has ever approached, devoured greedily by those whose +physical sustenance has been dry toast and arrowroot. + +The works of Thackeray are too cynical for the convalescent; he is for +the present in too good a humour with destiny and human nature to enjoy +them. He prefers the more cheerful aspects of life, and resents the +least failure of poetic justice. + +Taking the tenants of the sick ward all round, indeed, I have little +doubt that the large majority would give their vote for Dickens. His +pathos, it is true, is too much for them. Their hearts are as waxen as +though Mrs. Jarley herself had made them. They are just in the +condition to be melted by 'Little Nell,' and overcome by the death of +Paul Dombey. They read 'David Copperfield' with avidity, but are +careful to avoid the catastrophe of Dora and even the demise of her +four-footed favourite. The book that suits them best is 'Martin +Chuzzlewit.' Its genial comedy, quite different from the violent +delights of 'Pickwick,' is well adapted to their grasp; while its +tragedy, the murder of Montague Tigg--the finest description of the +breaking of the sixth commandment in the language--leaves nothing to be +desired in the way of excitement. But here we stray beyond our bounds, +for 'Martin Chuzzlewit' is not a 'sick book;' or rather, it is one of +the very few productions of human genius on the merits of which the +opinions of both Sick and Sound are at one. + + + + +_WET HOLIDAYS._ + + +Even poets when they are on their travels feel the depressing influence +of bad weather. Those lines of the Laureate-- + + 'But when we crossed the Lombard plain, + Remember what a plague of rain-- + Of rain at Reggio, at Parma, + At Lodi rain, Piacenza rain,' + +are not among his best, but they evidently come from his very heart. +When he used prose upon that journey his language was probably +stronger. It is no wonder, then, that ordinary folks who have only a +limited time in which to enjoy themselves, free from the fetters of +toil, resent wet days. They are worst of all when we are touring on the +Continent, where it is a popular fallacy to suppose the skies are +always smiling, but at home they are bad enough. In Scotland, nobody +but a Scotchman believes in fine weather, and consequently there is no +disappointment; in England the Lake District is, perhaps, the most +unfortunate spot for folks to be caught in by rain, because if there is +no landscape there is nothing. _Spectare veniunt_, and when there are +only the ribs and lining of their umbrellas to look at, their lot is +hard indeed. + +Wastwater is a charming place in sunshine--almost the only locality in +England where things are still primitive and pastoral; but in rain! I +hate exhibitions, but rather than Wastdale in wet weather, give me a +panorama. Serious people may talk of 'the Devil's books,' but even a +pack of cards, with somebody to play with you, is better under such +circumstances than no book. + +There is no limit to what human beings may be driven to by stress of +weather, and especially by that 'clearing shower,' by which the +dwellers in Lakeland are wont euphemistically to describe its +continuous downpours. The Persians have another name for it--'the +grandmother of all buckets.' I was once in Wastdale with a dean of the +Church of England, respectable, sedate, and a D.D. It had poured for +days without ceasing; the roads were under water, the passes were +impassable, the mountains invisible; there was nothing to be seen but +waterfalls, and those in the wrong place; there was no literature; the +dean's guide-books were exhausted, and his Bible, it is but charitable +and reasonable to suppose, he knew by heart. As for me, I had found +three tourists who could play at whist, and was comparatively +independent of the elements; but that poor ecclesiastic! For the first +few days he occupied himself in remonstrating against our playing cards +by daylight; but on the fourth morning, when we sat down to them +immediately after breakfast, he began to take an enforced interest in +our proceedings. Like a dove above the dovecot, he circled for an hour +or two about the table--a deal one, such as thimble-riggers use, +borrowed, under protest, from his own humble bedroom--and then, with a +murmurous coo about the weather showing no signs of clearing up, he +took a hand. Constant dropping--and it was much worse than +dropping--will wear away a stone, and it is my belief if it had gone on +much longer his reverence would have played on Sunday. + +The spectacle that the roads of the district present at such a time is +most melancholy. Everyone is in a closed car--a cross between a bathing +machine and that convenient vehicle which carries both corpse and +mourners; all the windows seem made of bottle glass, a phenomenon +produced by the flattening of the noses of imprisoned tourists; and +nothing shines except an occasional traveller in oilskin. In such +seasons, indeed, oilskin (lined with patience) is your only wear. +Ordinary waterproofs in such a climate become mere blotting paper, and +with the best of them, without leggings and headgear to match, the poor +Londoner might, I do not say just as well be in London (for that is his +aspiration all day long), but just as well go to bed at once, and stop +there. 'But why does he not go home?' it may be asked: a question to +which there are several answers. In the first place (for one must take +the average in such cases) because he is a fool. Secondly, like the +rest of the well-to-do world, he has suffered the summer, wherein +warmth and sunshine are really to be had, to slip by, and has only the +fag end of it in which to take holiday. It is now or never--or at all +events now or next year--with him. All his friends, too, are out of +town, flattening _their_ noses against window panes; his club is under +repair, his house in brown holland, his servants on board wages. Like +the young gentleman in Locksley Hall, he is so absolutely at the end of +his resources, that an 'angry fancy' is all that is left to him. Of +course, under its influence he sits down and writes to the _Times_; +but, if the humblest of its correspondents may venture to say so +without offence, even that does not help him much. That suicides +increase in wet autumns is notorious; but that murders should in these +sequestered vales maintain the even tenor of their way is a feather in +the cap of human nature. In lodgings, where the pent-up tourist has no +one but his wife and family to speak to, where Dick and Tom _will_ romp +in his only sitting-room, and Eliza Jane practises all day on the crazy +piano, this forbearance is especially creditable. + +Even in hotels, however, there is great temptation. On the +north-eastern coast, in particular, when the weather has, as the phrase +goes, 'broken up,' and the sky and sea have both become one durable +drab, the best of women grow irritable, the men morose. At the _table +d'hôte_, which even the most exclusive are driven to frequent for +company, as sheep huddle together in storm, Dislike ripens to Hate with +frightful rapidity. Our neighbour, who always--for it seems +always--gets the last of the mushrooms at breakfast, or finishes the +oyster sauce at dinner before our very eyes, we are very far, indeed, +from loving as ourselves. Our _vis-à-vis_, the man on his honeymoon, is +even still more offensive. We resent his happiness, which is apparently +uninfluenced by the state of the weather, and our wife wonders what he +could have seen in that chit of a girl to attract his attention. To +ourselves she seems a great deal too good for him, and in our rare +intervals of human feeling we regard her with the tenderest +commiseration. The importance attached to meals, and the time we take +over them, have no parallel save among the Esquimaux. The least +incident that happens in the hotel is of more moment to us than the +overthrow of Empires. The whispered news that a fellow guest has been +taken seriously ill, and that a medical consultation has been held upon +the case, is a matter to be deplored, of course, but one which is not +without its consolations. 'Who is it? What is it? Nothing catching I do +hope?' (this last uttered with genuine anxiety) are questions that are +heard on every side. The general impression is that some lovely young +lady of fashion on the drawing-room floor has been seized with pains in +her limbs--and no wonder--from exposure to the elements. Her mother +comes down every morning and selects dainties for the sick-room from +the public breakfast table; those who are near enough to do so inquire +in dulcet tones, 'How is your invalid this morning?' The reply is, +'Better, much better,' which somehow falls short of expectation. Even +the most giddy and frivolous of girls has no excuse for frightening +people for nothing. + +At luncheon one day a very fat, strong boy makes his appearance, and is +supplied with soup. All his neighbours who have no soup are wild with +envy, though they are well acquainted with that soup at dinner, and +know that it is bad. 'What is the meaning of it? Why this favouritism?' +we inquire of the waiter furiously. 'Well, you see, sir, he is better +now; but that is the invalid.' The delicate, attractive creature we +have pictured to ourselves with pains in her limbs turns out, after +all, to be a hulking schoolboy, probably bilious from over-eating. The +public indignation is excessive, while the subject of it, quite +unconscious of the fact, has another plate of soup. + +The wild weather out of doors is not, of course, confined to the land, +and the sea would be a fine sight if it was not invisible. The waves, +indeed, are so high that the fishing-boats which have remained out all +night are often warned off, or, as it is locally termed, 'burned off,' +from the harbour bar. A tar barrel is lighted for this purpose on the +headland, and it is the only thing which the eternal rain cannot +utterly squelch and extinguish. Occasionally we venture down upon the +pier to see the boats make the harbour, which, not a little to our +disappointment, they never fail to do. There are huge buttresses of +stone against the pier-head, behind which the new comer imagines he may +crouch in perfect safety, till the third wave comes in and convinces +him to the contrary. No one ever dreams of 'burning' _him_ off--giving +him one word of warning of that unpleasant contingency; for to behold a +fellow creature more drenched and dripping than ourselves is very +soothing. As to the dangers of maritime life, we are all agreed that +they are greatly overrated; and some sceptics even go so far as to +suggest that the skeleton ship, half embedded in the sands, which so +impresses visitors in fine weather, is not a genuine wreck at all, but +has been placed there by the Town Corporation to delude the public. + +Now and then we splash down to the quay to see a few million of +herrings sold at four shillings a hundred, which will presently induce +philanthropic fishmongers in London to advertise 'a glut this morning,' +and to retail them at threepence apiece. At rare intervals we explore +the dripping town. It is amazing what a fascination the small +picture-shops, to which at home we should never give a glance, afford +us; even the frontispieces to popular music have unwonted attractions; +while the pottery-shops, full of ware made from clay 'peculiar to the +locality,' are only too seductive to our wives, who purchase largely +what they believe to be great bargains, till they find on their return +home the identical articles in Oxford Street, at half the price. In +London we never visit the British Museum itself, unless to escort some +country cousin, but at Barecliff-on-Sea, in wet weather, the miserable +little local Institute, with its specimens of strata, its calf with two +heads in spirits, and its petrified toad, is an irresistible +temptation. The great event of the day, however, is the wading down to +the railway-station (which is in a quagmire) to meet the express train +which brings more victims, 'unconscious of their doom,' to Barecliff, +and who evidently flatter themselves that the pouring rain is an +exceptional phenomenon; it also brings the London newspapers, for which +we fight and struggle (the demand being greatly in excess of the +supply) and think ourselves fortunate if we secure a supplement. It is +true there is a _Times_ in the smoking-room of the hotel, but it is +always engaged five deep, is the cause of terrible quarrels, and every +afternoon we expect to see it imbrued in gore. + +In the evening, when one does not mind the wet so much--'its tooth is +not so keen because it is not seen'--there are dissipations at 'the +Rooms by the Sea.' Amateur charitable concerts are given there, in +which it is whispered that this and that lady at the _table d'hôte_ +will take part, who become public characters and objects of immense +interest in consequence. Thither, too, come 'the inimitable Jones,' +from the Edgware Road Music Hall, with his 'unrivalled _répertoire_ of +comic songs;' the Spring Board Family, who have been 'pronounced by the +general consensus of the medical faculty in London to be unique,' as +having neither joints nor backbone; and Herr von Deft, 'who will repeat +the same astounding performances which have electrified the reigning +families of Europe.' The serious people (for whom 'the glee-singers of +Mesopotamia' are also suspected of dropping a line) are angled for by +white-cravatted lecturers, who enhance their statistics of conversion +by the exhibition of poisoned arrows, and of clubs, on which, with the +microscope, may be detected the hairs of missionary martyrs. In fine +weather, of course, these attractions would be advertised in vain; but +the fact is, our whole community has been reduced by the cruelty of the +elements to a sort of second childhood; the rain which permeates +everything is softening our brain. + +This is only too evident from the conversation in the hotel porch where +the men meet every morning to discuss the topic of the day--the +weather. A sullen gloom pervades them--the first symptom of mental +aberration. Those, on the other hand, who express their opinion that it +'really seems to be clearing a little' are in more advanced stages. We +who are less afflicted shake our heads, and murmur painfully, but also +with a considerable touch of contempt, 'Poor fellows!' + +The piano in the ladies' drawing-room is always going, but it excites +no soothing influence; there is an impression in the hotel that the +performers are foreigners, and should be discouraged. But there is one +instrument hanging in the hall on which everyone plays, native or +alien, and every note is discord. It is the barometer. People talk of +the delicacy of scientific instruments; if they are right, the shocks +which that barometer survives proves it to be an exception. Batter it +as we may, and do, the faithful needle, with a determination worthy of +a better cause, maintains its position at 'Much Rain.' The manager is +appealed to vehemently, coarsely; he shrugs his shoulders, protests +with humility that he cannot help the weather, or affirms it is +unprecedented--which we do not believe. Other managers--in the +Engadine, for example--the papers say, are providing excellent weather; +what does he mean by it? + +At last one morning, wetter than ever, some noble spirit, the Tell of +our liberties, exclaims, 'Who would be free, himself must strike the +blow.' His actual words (if one was not writing history) are, 'Hang me +if I stand this any longer,' and they strike the keynote of everybody's +thought. He goes away by the next train, and his departure is followed +by the same effects as the tapping of a reservoir. The hotel company--I +mean the inmates; the company goes into bankruptcy--stream off at once +to their own homes. That journey through the pouring rain is the +happiest day of our wet holiday. How beautiful looms soaking, soppy, +smoky London! In that excellent town who cares for rain? + + 'Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! + You cataracts and hurricanoes spout.' + +Pooh! pooh! Call a cab--call two! + + + + +_TRAVELLING COMPANIONS._ + + +It was held by wise men of old that adversity was the test of +friendship, but as his Excellency the Minister of the United States has +observed, _per_ Mr. Biglow, 'They did not know everything down in +Judee;' and among other subjects of which those ancient writers were +necessarily ignorant was that of Continental travel. The coming to +grief of a friend is unquestionably very inconvenient; as a millionaire +of my acquaintance observes (under the influence, as he confidently +believes, of benevolent emotion), 'One likes to see one's friends +prosperous;' but even when they are not so, it requires some effort to +follow the dictates of prudence and cast them off. And, after all, the +man, even though you may cut him, remains the same; as fit for the +purposes of friendship as ever, except for his pecuniary condition. +There is no such change in his relation to oneself as Emerson describes +in one of his essays; his words I forget, and his works are miles away, +but the man he has in his mind has in some way fallen short of +expectation--declined, perhaps, to lend the philosopher money. +'Yesterday,' he says, 'my friend was the illimitable ocean; to-day he +is a pond.' He had come to the end of him. And some friends, as my +little child complains as he strokes his black kitten, 'end so soon.' + +There are no circumstances, however, under which friendship comes so +often to a violent and sudden death as under the pressure of travel. It +is like the fate which the Scientific ascribe to a box sunk in the sea; +after a certain depth, which varies according to the strength of the +box, the weight of the superincumbent water bursts it up. It is merely +a question of how deep or how strong. Our travelling companion remains +our friend for a day, for a week, for even a month; but at the month's +end he is our friend no longer. Our relations have probably become what +the diplomatists term 'strained' long before that date, but a day comes +when the tension becomes intolerable; the cable parts and we lose him. +Unfortunately, not always, however; there are circumstances--such as +being on board ship, for example--when we thus part without parting +company. A long voyage is the most terrible trial to which friendship +can be subjected. It is like the old sentence of pressing to death, 'as +much as he can bear, and more.' It is doubtful, for example, whether +friendship has ever survived a voyage to Australia. I have sometimes +asked a man whether he knew So-and-So, who hails, like himself, from +Melbourne, and he has replied, 'We came over in the same ship'--'Only +that, and nothing more,' as the poet puts it; but his tone has an +unmistakable significance, and one perceives at once that the topic had +better not be pursued. + +A very dear friend of mine once proposed that we should go round the +world together; he offered to pay all my expenses, and painted the +expedition in rose-colour. But I had the good sense to decline the +proposal. I felt I should lose my friend. Even yachting is a very +dangerous pastime in this respect, especially when the vessel is +becalmed. In that case, like the sea itself, one's friend soon becomes +a pond. Conceive, then, what it must be to go round the world with him! +Is it possible, both being human, that we can still love one another +when we have got to Japan, for instance? And then we have to come back +together! How frightful must be that moment when he tells us the same +story he told at starting, and we feel that he has come to the end of +his tether, and is going to tell _all_ his stories over again! This is +why it so often happens that only one of two friends returns from any +long voyage they have undertaken together. What has become of the +other? A question that one should never put to the survivor. It is +certain that great travellers, and especially those who travel by sea, +have a very different code of morals from that which they conform to at +home. Human life is not so sacred to them. Perhaps it is in this +respect that travel is said to enlarge the mind. That it does not +sharpen it, however, whatever it may do for the temper, is tolerably +certain. In their habits travellers are singularly conventional. They +are compelled, of course, to suffer certain inconveniences, but they +endure others, and most serious ones, quite unnecessarily, merely +because it is the custom so to do. In crossing the Atlantic, for +example, a man of means will submit to be shut up in a close cupboard +for ten days with an utter stranger, though by paying double fare he +can get a cabin to himself. This arises from no desire for economy, but +simply because he does not think for himself; other travellers do the +like, and he follows their example. Yet what money could recompense him +for occupying for the same time _on land_ a double-bedded room--not to +say a mere china closet--with a man of whom he knows nothing except +that he is subject to chronic sickness? A pleasant sort of travelling +companion indeed, yet, strange to say, the commonest of all. Where +there is a slender purse this terrible state of things (supposing +travel under such circumstances to be compatible with pleasure at all, +which, for my part, I cannot imagine) is not a matter of choice; but +where it can be avoided why is it undergone? + +There is nothing that convinces me of the folly of mankind so much as +those advertisements we see in the summer months with respect to +travelling companions, from volunteers of both sexes: 'Wanted, a +travelling companion for a few months on the Continent, etc. The +highest references will be required.' The idea of going with a stranger +upon a tour of pleasure must surely originate in Hanwell, and the +adventurer may think himself fortunate if it does not end in Broadmoor. +References, indeed! Who can answer for a fellow-creature's temper, +patience, unselfishness, during such an ordeal as a protracted tour? No +one who has not travelled with him already; and one may be tolerably +certain his certificate does not come from _that_ quarter. It is true +some people are married to strangers by advertisement; but their +companionship, as I am given to understand, does not generally last for +months, or anything like it. + +Imagine two people, as utterly unknown to one another, except by letter +(and 'references'), as the _x_ and _y_ of an equation, meeting for the +first time at the railway-station! With what tremors must each regard +the other! What a relief it must be to X. to find that Y. is at least a +white man; on the other hand, it must rather dash his hopes, if they +are set on pedestrianism, to find that his _compagnon de voyage_ has a +wooden leg. Yet what are his mere colour and limbs compared with his +temperament and disposition? If one did not know the frightful risks +one's fellow-creatures incur every day for little pleasure and less +profit, one would certainly say these people must be mad. + +But if instead of X. and Y., it is even A. and B., men who have known +one another for years, and in every relation but as fellow-travellers, +there is risk enough in such a venture. One night, after dinner at the +club, they agree with effusion to take their autumn trip together; they +are warm with wine and with the remembrance of their college +friendship--which extended perhaps, when they afterwards come to think +about it, a very little way. What days they will have in Switzerland +together! What mornings (to see the sunrise) upon mountain-tops! What +evenings on Lucerne! What nights in Paris! A. thinks himself fortunate +indeed in having secured B.'s society for the next three months--a man +with such a reputation for conversation; even T., the cynic of the +club, has testified to his charm of manner. By-the-bye, what was +it--exactly--T. had said of B.? A. cannot remember it at the moment, +but recalls it on the night before they start together. 'B. is a +charming fellow, only he has this peculiarity--that if there is only +one armchair in a room, B. is sure to get it.' + +B., on the other hand, congratulates himself on A.'s excessive good +sense, which even T. had knowledged. What was it--exactly--T. had said +of A.? He cannot remember it at the moment, but recalls it on the night +before they start together. 'A. is such a thoroughly practical fellow; +he has committed many follies, and not a few crimes, but he can lay his +hand on the place where his heart should be, and honestly aver that he +has never given sixpence to anybody.' Full of misgivings, and with +demonstrations of satisfaction that are in themselves suspicious, they +meet at the terminus. A. has a little black bag, which contains his +all; it frees him from all trouble about luggage, and (especially) from +the necessity of paying a porter. He is resolved not to lose a moment, +nor spend a sixpence, in a Custom-house. To his horror, he perceives +that B., whose one idea is comfort, has a portmanteau specially +designed for him (apparently upon the model of Noah's Ark), and which +can scarcely be got into the luggage-van. This article delays them +twenty-four hours at every frontier, because the ordinary authorities +decline to open it upon the ground that it contains an infernal +machine, and have to telegraph to their Government for instructions. + +Again, B. is no doubt a charming conversationalist--in English; but he +does not know one single word of any other language. He requires every +observation of their alien fellow-travellers to be translated, and then +says 'Oh!' discontentedly, or 'It seems to me that foreigners have no +ideas.' And not for one moment can A. get rid of him. If there _is_ a +friend that sticketh closer than a brother, it is the Travelling +Companion who is dependent upon you for interpretation. It is needless +to say that under these circumstances the glass of Friendship falls +from 'Set Fair' to 'Stormy' with much rapidity. After A's fourth +quarrel with a waiter about half a franc, B. calls him a 'mean hound,' +and takes the opportunity of returning to his native land with a French +count, who speaks perfect English, and robs him of his watch and chain +and the contents of his pocket-book on board the steamer. A. and B. +meet one another daily at the club for years afterwards, but without +recognition. + +Their case, of course, is an extreme one; but that of C. and D. is +almost as bad. They are men of prudence, and persuade E. to go with +them, as a makeweight. 'If we should ever disagree,' they say, 'as to +what is to be done--which, however, is to the last degree improbable--the +majority of votes shall carry it'--an arrangement which only delays the +inevitable event-- + + 'Three little nigger boys went the world to view, + The third was left in Calais, and then there were two.' + +They find the makeweight intolerable before they have crossed the +Channel, and, having agreed to cut their cable from him, are from that +moment never in the same mind about anything else. It is a modern +version of the three brigands who stole the Communion plate. C. and D. +push E. over the precipice, and C. stabs D. at a supper for which D. +has purveyed poisoned wine. + +The only way to secure a really eligible travelling companion is to try +him first in short swallow-flights, or rather pigeon-flights, from +home. Take your bird with you for a few days' outing near home; then, +if he proves pleasant, for a week's tour in Cornwall; then for ten days +in Scotland, where, if you meet with the usual weather, and he still +keeps his temper and politeness, you may trust yourself to him +anywhere. Out of twenty failures there will, perhaps, be one success. +In this manner I have discovered in time, in my dearest and nearest +friends, the most undreamt of vices. One man, F., hitherto much +respected as a Chancery barrister, has, as it has turned out, been +intended by nature for a professional pedestrian. His true calling is +to walk 'laps' round the Agricultural Hall or at Lillie Bridge, with +nothing on to speak of save a handkerchief round his forehead. 'Let us +walk' is his one cry as soon as he becomes a travelling companion. And +he is not content to do this when he arrives at any place of interest, +but insists upon walking _there_--perhaps along a dusty road, or over +turnip-fields. I like walking myself in moderation--say a mile out and +a mile in; but not, certainly not, twenty miles at a stretch, and at a +speed which precludes conversation. This class of travelling companion +is very dangerous. If he does not get his walking he becomes malignant. +My barrister, at least, being denied the opportunity of drawing out +marriage-settlements, conveying land, or otherwise plundering the +community, took to practical jokes. Having a suspicion of his +pedestrian powers, from the extreme length of his legs, I took G. with +us, a man whom I could trust in that respect, and who fancied he had +heart complaint. G. and I took our exercise alone together in a fly. +One day we took a long drive--four miles or more--to a well-known bay. +The vehicle could not get down to the sea, so we descended on foot, +leaving it at the top of the cliff, with the strictest orders to the +man not to stir till we came back. When we returned the fly was gone. +How we reached our hotel, Heaven knows! but we did arrive there, in the +last stage of exhaustion. The driver of the carriage, whom we met next +day, informed us that a gentleman had been thrown from his horse on the +cliff-top and had broken his leg, and that, under the circumstances, he +had ventured to disobey our instructions and take the poor fellow home. +Years afterwards I discovered that nothing of the kind had happened, +but that the fiendish F. had given the driver a sovereign to play that +trick upon us. F. is a judge now, and has been lately trying election +cases. I wonder what he thinks of himself when he rebukes offenders for +the heinous crime of bribery! + +Again, I always thought H. a pleasant fellow till we went together to +Cornwall. He had gone through the first ordeal of a few days nearer +home to my satisfaction, but at Penzance he broke out. He was so +dreadfully particular about his food that nothing satisfied him--not +even pilchards three times a day; and the way he went on at the waiters +is not to be described by a decent pen. The attendant at Penzance was +not, I am bound to say, a good waiter. He said, though he habitually +put his thumb in every dish, he 'hadn't quite got his hand in,' and was +not used to the business.' 'Used! you know nothing about it!' exclaimed +H., viciously. Then the poor fellow burst into tears. 'Pray be patient +with me, good gentlemen,' he murmured. 'I do my best; but until last +Wednesday as ever was I was a pork-butcher.' One cannot stand a +travelling companion who makes the waiters cry. + +The worst kind of fellow-traveller is one who, to use his own +scientific phrase for his complaint, suffers from 'disorganisation of +the nervous centres.' At home his little weaknesses do not strike you. +You may not be on the spot when he flies across Piccadilly Circus, +pursued, as he fancies, by a Brompton omnibus which has not yet reached +St. James's Church, and is moving at a snail's pace; you may not have +been with him on that occasion when, in his eagerness to be in time for +the 'Flying Dutchman,' he arrives at Paddington an hour before it +starts, and is put into the parliamentary train which is shunted at +Slough to let the 'Dutchman' pass; but when you come to travel with him +you know what 'nerves' are to your cost. On the other hand, this is the +easiest kind of travelling companion to get rid of; for you have only +to feign a sore throat, with feverish symptoms, and off he flies on the +wings of terror, leaving you, as he thinks--if he _has_ a thought +except for his nervous centres--to the tender mercies of a foreign +doctor, to hireling nurses, and to a grave in the strangers' cemetery. + + +THE END. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Private Views, by James Payn + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME PRIVATE VIEWS *** + +***** This file should be named 13410-8.txt or 13410-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/1/13410/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst and the Online Distributed Proofreading +Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + +Title: Some Private Views + +Author: James Payn + +Release Date: September 9, 2004 [EBook #13410] +[Most recently updated: June 21, 2020] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME PRIVATE VIEWS *** + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst and the Online Distributed Proofreading +Team. + + + + +</pre> + +<h1>Some Private Views</h1> + +<h2>by JAMES PAYN</h2> + +<h5> +AUTHOR OF 'HIGH SPIRITS,' 'A CONFIDENTIAL AGENT,' ETC. +</h5> + +<h4> +A NEW EDITION +</h4> + +<h4>1881</h4> + +<h5> +London<br/> +CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY +</h5> + +<h4> +<small>TO</small><br/> +HORACE N. PYM<br/> +<small>THIS</small><br/> +<i>Book is Dedicated</i><br/> +<small>BY HIS FRIEND</small><br/> +</h4> + +<h4> +THE AUTHOR +</h4> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <b>FROM 'THE NINETEENTH CENTURY' REVIEW.</b></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">THE MIDWAY INN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">THE CRITIC ON THE HEARTH</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">SHAM ADMIRATION IN LITERATURE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">THE PINCH OF POVERTY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">THE LITERARY CALLING AND ITS FUTURE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">STORY-TELLING</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">PENNY FICTION</a><br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <b>FROM 'THE TIMES.'</b></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">HOTELS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">MAID-SERVANTS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">MEN-SERVANTS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">WHIST-PLAYERS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">RELATIONS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">INVALID LITERATURE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">WET HOLIDAYS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">TRAVELLING COMPANIONS</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>THE MIDWAY INN.</h2> + +<p class="center"> +'The hidden but the common thought of all.' +</p> + +<p> +The thoughts I am about to set down are not <i>my</i> +thoughts, for, as my friends say, I have given +up the practice of thinking, or it may be, as my +enemies say, I never had it. They are the thoughts +of an acquaintance who thinks for me. I call him an +acquaintance, though I pass as much of my time with +him as with my nearest and dearest; perhaps at the +club, perhaps at the office, perhaps in metaphysical +discussion, perhaps at billiards—what does it matter? +Thousands of men in town have such acquaintances, +in whose company they spend, by necessity or custom, +half the sum of their lives. It is not rational, doubtless; +but then 'Consider, sir,' said the great talking +philosopher, 'should we become purely rational, how +our friendships would be cut off. We form many such +with bad men because they have agreeable qualities, +or may be useful to us. We form many such by +mistake, imagining people to be different from what +they really are.' And he goes on complacently to +observe that we shall either have the satisfaction of +meeting these gentlemen in a future state, or be +satisfied without meeting them. +</p> + +<p> +For my part, I do not feel that the scheme of future +happiness, which ought by rights to be in preparation +for me, will be at all interfered with by my not +meeting again the man I have in my. mind. To have +seen him in the flesh is sufficient for me. In the spirit +I cannot imagine him; the consideration is too subtle; +for, unlike the little man who had (for certain) a little +soul,' I don't believe he has a soul at all. +</p> + +<p> +He is middle-aged, rich, lethargic, sententious, +dogmatic, and, in short, the quintessence of the +commonplace. I need not say, therefore, that he is +credited by the world with unlimited common-sense. +And for once the world is right. He has nothing-original +about him, save so much of sin as he may +have inherited from our first parents; there is no +more at the back of him than at the back of a looking-glass—indeed +less, for he has not a grain of quicksilver; +but, like the looking-glass, he reflects. Having +nothing else to do, he hangs, as it were, on the wall +of the world, and mirrors it for me as it unconsciously +passes by him—not, however, as in a glass darkly, +but with singular clearness. His vision is never disturbed +by passion or prejudice; he has no enthusiasm +and no illusions. Nor do I believe he has ever had +any. If the noblest study of mankind is man, my +friend has devoted himself to a high calling; the +living page of human life has been his favourite and +indeed, for these many years, his only reading. +And for this he has had exceptional opportunities. +Always a man of wealth and leisure, he has never +wasted himself in that superficial observation which is +often the only harvest of foreign travel. He despises +it, and in relation to travellers, is wont to quote the +famous parallel of the copper wire, 'which grows the +narrower by going further.' A confirmed stay-at-home, +he has mingled much in society of all sorts, and +exercised a keen but quite unsympathetic observation. +His very reserve in company (though, when he catches +you alone, he is a button-holder of great tenacity) +encourages free speech in others; they have no more +reticence in his presence than if he were the butler. +He has belonged to no cliques, and thereby escaped +the greatest peril which can beset the student of +human nature. A man of genius, indeed, in these +days is almost certain, sooner or later, to become the +centre of a mutual admiration society; but the person +I have in my mind is no genius, nor anything like +one, and he thanks Heaven for it. To an opinion of +his own he does not pretend, but his views upon the +opinions of other people he believes to be infallible. +I have called him dogmatic, but that does not at all +express the absolute certainty with which he delivers +judgment. 'I know no more,' he says, 'about the +problems of human life than you do' (taking me as +an illustration of the lowest prevailing ignorance), +'but I know what everybody is thinking about them.' +He is didactic, and therefore often dull, and will +eventually, no doubt, become one of the greatest bores +in Great Britain. At present, however, he is worth +knowing; and I propose to myself to be his Boswell, +and to introduce him—or, at least, his views—to other +people. I have entitled them the Midway Inn, partly +from my own inveterate habit of story-telling, but +chiefly from an image of his own, by which he once +described to me, in his fine egotistic rolling style, +the position he seemed to himself to occupy in the +world. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +When I was a boy, he said (which I don't believe +he ever was), I had a long journey to take between +home and school. Exactly midway there was a hill +with an Inn upon it, at which we changed horses. It +was a point to which I looked forward with very different +feelings when going and returning. In the one +case—for I hated school—it seemed to frown darkly +on me, and from that spot the remainder of the way +was dull and gloomy; in the other case, the sun +seemed always glinting on it, and the rest of the road +was as a fair avenue that leads to Paradise. The innkeeper +received us with equal hospitality on both +occasions, and it was quite evident did not care one +farthing in which direction we were tending. He +would stand in front of his house, jingling his money—<i>our</i> +money—in his pockets, and watch us depart +with the greatest serenity, whether we went east or +west. I thought him at one time the most genial of +Bonifaces (for it was his profession to wear a smile), +and at another a mere mocker of human woe. When +I grew up, I perceived that he was a philosopher. +</p> + +<p> +And now I keep the Midway Inn myself, and watch +from the hill-top the passengers come and go—some +loth, some willing, like myself of old—and listen to +their talk in the coffee-room; or sometimes in a private +parlour, where, though they speak low and gravely, +their converse is still unrestrained, because, you see, I +am the landlord. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes they speak of Death and the Hereafter, +of which the child they buried yesterday knows more +than the wisest of them, and more than Shakespeare +knew. The being totally ignorant of the subject does +not indeed (as you may perhaps have observed in +other matters) deter some of them from speaking of +it with great confidence; but the views of a minority +would quite surprise you, and this minority is growing—coming +to a majority. Every day I see an increase +of the doubters. It is not a question of the Orthodox +and the Infidel, you must understand, at all, though +<i>that</i> is assuming great proportions; but there is every +day more uncertainty among them, and, what is much +more noteworthy, more dissatisfaction. +</p> + +<p> +Years ago, when a hardy Cambridge scholar dared +to publish his doubts of an eternal punishment overtaking +the wicked, an orthodox professor of the same +college took him (theologically) by the throat. 'You +are destroying,' he cried, 'the hope of the Christian.' +But this is not the hope I speak of, as loosing, and +losing, its hold upon men's minds; I mean the real +hope, the hope of heaven. +</p> + +<p> +When I used to go to church—for my inn is too far +removed from it to admit of my attendance there +nowadays—matters were very different. Heaven and +Hell were, in the eyes not only of our congregation, +but of those who hung about the doors in the summer +sun, or even played leap-frog over the grave-stones, +as distinct alternatives as the east and west highways +on each side of my inn. If you did not go one way, +you must go the other; and not only so, but an immense +desire was felt by very many to go in the right +direction. Now I perceive it is not so. A considerable +number of highway passengers, though even they +are less numerous than of old, are still studious—that +is in their aspirations—to avoid taking (shall I say +delicately) the lower road; but only a few, comparatively, +are solicitous to reach the goal of the +upper. +</p> + +<p> +Let me once more observe that I am speaking of +the ordinary passengers—those who travel by the +mail. Of the persons who are convinced that there +never was an Architect of the Universe, and that Man +sprang from the Mollusc, I know little or nothing: +they mostly travel two and two, in gigs, and have +quarrelled so dreadfully on the way, that, at the Inn, +they don't speak to one another. The commonalty, +I repeat, are losing their hopes of heaven, just as the +grown-up schoolboy finds his paradise no more in +home. I can remember when divines were never +tired of painting the lily, of indulging in the most +glowing descriptions of the Elysian Fields. A popular +artist once drew a picture of them: 'The Plains of +Heaven' it was called, and the painter's name was +Martin. If he was to do so now, the public (who are +vulgar) would exclaim 'Betty Martin.' Not that they +disbelieve in it, but that the attractions of the place +are dying out, like those of Bath and Cheltenham. +</p> + +<p> +Of course some blame attaches to the divines themselves +that things have come to such a pass. 'I protest,' +says a great philosopher, 'that I never enter a +church, but the man in the pulpit talks so unlike a +man, as though he had never known what human +joys or sorrows are—so carefully avoids every subject +of interest save <i>one</i>, and paints that in colours at once +so misty and so meretricious—that I say to myself, I +will never sit under him again.' This may, of course, +be only an ingenious excuse of his for not going to +church; but there is really something in it. The +angels, with their harps, on clouds, are now presented +to the eyes, even of faith, in vain; they are still appreciated +on canvas by an old master, but to become +one of them is no longer the common aspiration. +There is a suspicion, partly owing, doubtless, to the +modern talk about the dignity and even the divinity +of Labour, that they ought to be doing something else +than (as the American poet puts it with characteristic +ii reverence) 'loafing about the throne;' that we ourselves, +with no ear perhaps for music, and with little +voice (alas!) for praise, should take no pleasure in +such avocations. It is not the sceptics—though their +influence is getting to be considerable—who have +wrought this change, but the conditions of modern +life. Notwithstanding the cheerful 'returns' as to +pauperism, and the glowing speeches of our Chancellors +of the Exchequer, these conditions are far +harder, among the thinking classes, than they were. +The question 'Is Life worth Living?' is one that +concerns philosophers and metaphysicians, and not +the persons I have in my mind at all; but the question, +'Do I wish to be out of it?' is one that is getting +answered very widely—and in the affirmative. This +was certainly not the case in the days of our grand-sires. +Which of them ever read those lines— +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,</p> +<p>This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned,</p> +<p>Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,</p> +<p>Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?'—</p></div></div> + +<p class="noindent"> +without a sympathetic complacency? This may not +have been the best of all possible worlds to them, but +none of them wished to exchange it, save at the proper +time, and for the proper place. Thanks to overwork, +and still more to over-worry, it is not so now. +There are many prosperous persons in rude health, of +course, who will ask (with a virtuous resolution that is +sometimes to be deplored), 'Do you suppose then that +I wish to cut my throat?' I certainly do not. Do +not let us talk of cutting throats; though, mind you, +the average of suicides, so admirably preserved by the +Registrar-General and other painstaking persons, is +not entirely to be depended upon. You should hear +the doctors at my Inn (in the intervals of their abuse +of their professional brethren) discourse upon this +topic—on that overdose of chloral which poor B. took, +and on that injudicious self-application of chloroform +which carried off poor C. With the law in such a +barbarous state in relation to self-destruction, and +taking into account the feelings of relatives, there was, +of course, only one way of wording the certificate, but—and +then they shake their heads as only doctors +can, and help themselves to port, though they know +it is poison to them. +</p> + +<p> +It is an old joke that annuitants live for ever, but no +annuity ever had the effect of prolonging life which the +present assurance companies have. How many a time, +I wonder, in these later years, has a hand been stayed, +with a pistol or 'a cup of cold poison' in it, by the +thought, 'If I do this, my family will lose the money +I am insured for, besides the premiums.' This feeling +is altogether different from that which causes Jeannette +and Jeannot in their Paris attic to light their charcoal +fire, stop up the chinks with their love-letters, and die +(very disreputably) 'clasped in one another's arms, +and silent in a last embrace.' There is not one halfpenny's +worth of sentiment about it in the Englishman's +case, nor are any such thoughts bred in his brain while +youth is in him. It is in our midway days, with old +age touching us here and there, as autumn 'lays its +fiery finger on the leaves' and withers them, that we +first think of it. When the weight of anxiety and +care is growing on us, while the shoulders are becoming +bowed (not in resignation, but in weakness) which +have to bear it; when our pains are more and more +constant, our pleasures few and fading, and when +whatever happens, we know, must needs be for the +worse—then it is that the praise of the silver hair and +length of days becomes a mockery indeed. +</p> + +<p> +Was it the prescience of such a state of thought, I +wonder (for it certainly did not exist in their time), +that caused good men of old to extol old age; as +though anything could reconcile the mind of man to +the time when the very sun is darkened to him, and +'the clouds return after the rain?' There is a noble +passage in 'Hyperion' which has always seemed to +me to repeat that sentiment in Ecclesiastes; it speaks +of an expression in a man's face: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'As though the vanward clouds of evil days</p> +<p>Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear</p> +<p>Was with its storied thunder labouring up.'</p></div></div> + +<p> +This is why poor Paterfamilias, sitting in the family +pew, is not so enamoured of that idea of accomplishing +those threescore years and ten which the young parson, +fresh from Cambridge, is describing as such a lucky +number in life's lottery. The attempt to paint it so +is well-meaning, no doubt, 'the vacant chaff well +meant for grain;' and it is touching to see how men +generally (knowing that they themselves have to go +through with it) are wont to portray it in cheerful +colours. +</p> + +<p> +A modern philosopher even goes so far as to say +that our memories in old age are always grateful to +us. Our pleasures are remembered, but our pains are +forgotten; 'if we try to recall a physical pain,' she +writes (for it is a female), 'we find it to be impossible,' +From which I gather only this for certain, that that +woman never had the gout. +</p> + +<p> +The folks who come my way, indeed, seem to remember +their physical ailments very distinctly, to +judge by the way they talk of them; and are exceedingly +apprehensive of their recurrence. Nay, it is +curious to see how some old men will resent the compliments +of their juniors on their state of health or +appearance. 'Stuff and nonsense!' cried old Sam +Rogers, grimly; 'I tell you there is no such thing as a +fine old man.' In a humbler walk of life I remember +to have heard a similar but more touching reply. It +was upon the great centenarian question raised by Mr. +Thorns. An old woman in a workhouse, said to be +a hundred years of age, was sent for by the Board of +Guardians, to decide the point by her personal testimony. +One can imagine the half-dozen portly prosperous +figures, and the contrast their appearance +offered to that of the bent and withered crone. 'Now, +Betty,' said the chairman with unctuous patronage, +'you look hale and hearty enough, yet they tell me +that you are a hundred years old; is this really true?' +'God Almighty knows, sir,' was her reply, 'but I feel +a thousand.' +</p> + +<p> +And there are so many people nowadays who 'feel +a thousand.' +</p> + +<p> +It is for this reason that the gift of old age is unwished +for, and the prospect of future life without +encouragement. It is the modern conviction that +there will be some kind of work in it; and even +though what we shall be set to do may be 'wrought +with tumult of acclaim,' we have had enough of work. +What follows, almost as a matter of course, is that the +thought of possible extinction has lost its terrors. +Heaven and its glories may have still their charms for +those who are not wearied out with toil in this life; +but the slave draws for himself a far other picture of +home. His is no passionate cry to be admitted into +the eternal city; he murmurs sullenly, 'Let me rest.' +</p> + +<p> +It was a favourite taunt with the sceptics of old—those +Early Fathers of infidelity, who used to occupy +themselves so laboriously with scraping at the rind of +the Christian Faith—that until the Cross arose men +were not afraid of Death. But that arrow has lost its +barb. The Fear of Death, even among professing +Christians, is now comparatively rare; I do not mean +merely among dying men—in whom those who have +had acquaintance with deathbeds tell us they see it +scarcely ever—but with the quick and hale. Even +with very ignorant persons, the idea that things may +be a great deal worse for us hereafter than even at +present is not generally entertained as respects themselves. +A clergyman who was attending a sick man +in his parish expressed a hope to the wife that she took +occasion to remind her husband of his spiritual condition. +'Oh yes, sir,' she replied, 'many and many a +time have I woke him up o' nights, and cried, "John, +John, you little know the torments as is preparing for +you."' But the good woman, it seems, was not disturbed +by any such dire imaginings upon her own +account. +</p> + +<p> +Higher in the social scale, the apprehension of a +Gehenna, or at all events of such a one as our forefathers +almost universally believed in, is rapidly dying +out. The mathematician tells us that even as a question +of numbers, 'about one in ten, my good sir, by +the most favourable computations,' the thing is incredible; +the philanthropist inquires indignantly, 'Is the +city Arab then, who grows to be thief and felon as +naturally as a tree puts forth its leaves, to be damned +in both worlds?' and I notice that even the clergy who +come my way, and take their weak glass of negus +while the coach changes horses, no longer insist upon +the point, but, at the worst, 'faintly trust the larger +hope.' +</p> + +<p> +Notwithstanding these comparatively cheerful views +upon a subject so important to all passengers on life's +highway, the general feeling is, as I have said, one of +profound dissatisfaction; the good old notion that +whatever is is right, is fast disappearing; and in its +place there is a doubt—rarely expressed except among +the philosophers, with whom, as I have said, I have +nothing to do—a secret, harassing, and unwelcome +doubt respecting the divine government of the world. +It is a question which the very philosophers are not +likely to settle even among themselves, but it has become +very obtrusive and important. Men raise their +eyebrows and shrug their shoulders when it is alluded +to, instead, as of old, of pulverising the audacious +questioner on the spot, or even (as would have happened +at a later date) putting him into Coventry; +they have no opinion to offer upon the subject, or at +all events do not wish to talk about it. But it is no +longer, be it observed, 'bad form' in a general way to +do so; it is only that the topic is personally distasteful. +</p> + +<p> +The once famous advocate of analogy threw a bitter +seed among mankind when he suggested, in all innocence, +and merely for the sake of his own argument, +that as the innocent suffered for the guilty in this +world, so it might be in the world to come; and it is +bearing bitter fruit. To feel aweary at the Midway +Inn is bad enough; but to be journeying to no home, +and perhaps even to some harsher school than we yet +wot of, is indeed a depressing reflection. +</p> + +<p> +Hence it comes, I think, or partly hence, that there +is now no fun in the world. Wit we have, and an +abundance of grim humour, which evokes anything +but mirth. Nothing would astonish us in the Midway +Inn so much as a peal of laughter. A great writer +(though it must be confessed scarcely an amusing +one), who has recently reached his journey's end, used +to describe his animal spirits depreciatingly, as being +at the best but vegetable spirits. And that is now the +way with us all. When Charles Dickens died, it was +confidently stated in a great literary journal that his +loss, so far from affecting 'the gaiety of nations,' +would scarcely be felt at all; the power of rousing +tears and laughter being (I suppose the writer thought) +so very common. That prophecy has been by no +means fulfilled. But, what is far worse than there +being no humorous writers amongst us, the faculty +of appreciating even the old ones is dying out. There +is no such thing as high spirits anywhere. It is +observable, too, how very much public entertainments +have increased of late—a tacit acknowledgment of +dulness at home—while, instead of the lively, if somewhat +boisterous, talk of our fathers, we have drawing-room +dissertations on art, and dandy drivel about blue +china. +</p> + +<p> +There is one pleasure only that takes more and +more root amongst us, and never seems to fail, and +that is making money. To hear the passengers at +the Midway Inn discourse upon this topic, you would +think they were all commercial travellers. It is most +curious how the desire for pecuniary gain has infected +even the idlest, who of course take the shortest cut to +it by way of the race-course. I see young gentlemen, +blond and beardless, telling the darkest secrets to one +another, affecting, one would think, the fate of Europe, +but which in reality relate to the state of the fetlock +of the brother to Boanerges. Their earnestness (which +is reserved for this enthralling topic) is quite appalling. +In their elders one has long been accustomed to it, +but these young people should really know better. +The interest excited in society by 'scratchings' has +never been equalled since the time of the Cock Lane +ghost. If men would only 'lose their money and +look pleasant' without talking about it, I shouldn't +mind; but they <i>will</i> make it a subject of conversation, +as though everyone who liked his glass of wine should +converse upon 'the vintages.' One looks for it in +business people and forgives it; but everyone is now +for business. +</p> + +<p> +The reverence that used to belong to Death is now +only paid to it in the case of immensely rich persons, +whose wealth is spoken of with bated breath. 'He +died, sir, worth two millions; a very warm man.' If +you happen to say, though with all reasonable probability +and even with Holy Writ to back you, 'He +is probably warmer by this time,' you are looked +upon as a Communist. What the man was is nothing, +what he made is everything. It is the gold alone that +we now value: the temple that might have sanctified +the gold is of no account. This worship of mere +wealth has, it is true, this advantage over the old +adoration of birth, that something may possibly be +got out of it; to cringe and fawn upon the people +that have blue blood is manifestly futile, since the +peculiarity is not communicable, but it is hoped that, +by being shaken up in the same social bag with +millionaires, something may be attained by what is +technically called the 'sweating' process. So far as +I have observed, however, the results are small, while +the operation is to the last degree disagreeable. +</p> + +<p> +What is very significant of this new sort of golden +age is that a literature of its own has arisen, though +of an anomalous kind. It is presided over by a sort +of male Miss Kilmansegge, who is also a model of +propriety. It is as though the dragon that guarded +the apples of Hesperides should be a dragon of virtue. +Under the pretence of extolling prudence and +perseverance, he paints money-making as the highest +good, and calls it thrift; and the popularity of this +class of book is enormous. The heroes are all 'self-made' +men who come to town with that proverbial +half-crown which has the faculty of accumulation that +used to be confined to snowballs. Like the daughters +of the horse-leech, their cry is 'Give, give,' only instead +of blood they want money; and I need hardly say +they get it from other people's pockets. Love and +friendship are names that have lost their meaning, if +they ever had any, with these gentry. They remind +one of the miser of old who could not hear a large +sum of money mentioned without an acceleration of +the action of the heart; and perhaps that is the use +of their hearts, which, otherwise, like that of the spleen +in other people, must be only a subject of vague conjecture. +They live abhorred and die respected; leaving +all their heaped-up wealth to some charitable institution, +the secretary of which levants with it eventually +to the United States. +</p> + +<p> +This last catastrophe, however, is not mentioned in +these biographies, the subjects of which are held up +as patterns of wisdom and prudence for the rising +generation. I shall have left the Midway Inn, thank +Heaven, for a residence of smaller dimensions, before +it has grown up. Conceive an England inhabited by +self-made men! +</p> + +<p> +Has it ever struck you how gloomy is the poetry of +the present day? This is not perhaps of very much +consequence, since everybody has a great deal too +much to do to permit them to read it; but how full +of sighs, and groans, and passionate bewailings it is! +And also how deuced difficult! It is almost as +inarticulate as an Æolian harp, and quite as melancholy. +There are one or two exceptions, of course, +as in the case of Mr. Calverley and Mr. Locker; but +even the latter is careful to insist upon the fact that, +like those who have gone before us, we must all quit +Piccadilly. 'At present,' as dear Charles Lamb writes, +'we have the advantage of them;' but there is no one +to remind us of that now, nor is it, as I have said, the +general opinion that it <i>is</i> an advantage. +</p> + +<p> +It is this prevailing gloom, I think, which accounts +for the enormous and increasing popularity of fiction. +Observe how story-telling creeps into the very newspapers +(along with their professional fibbing); and, +even in the magazines, how it lies down side by +side with 'burning questions,' like the weaned child +putting its hand into the cockatrice's den. For +your sake, my good fellow, who write stories [here +my friend glowered at me compassionately], I am +glad of it; but the fact is of melancholy significance. +It means that people are glad to find +themselves 'anywhere, anywhere, out of the world,' +and (I must be allowed to add) they are generally +gratified, for anything less like real life than what +some novelists portray it is difficult to imagine. +</p> + +<p> +[Here he stared at me so exceedingly hard, that +anyone with a less heavenly temper, or who had no +material reasons for putting up with it, would have +taken his remark as personal, and gone away. +</p> + +<p> +Another cause of the absence of good fellowship +amongst us (he went on) is the growth of education. +It sticks like a fungus to everybody, and though, it is +fair to say, mostly outside, does a great deal of +mischief. The scholastic interest has become so +powerful that nobody dares speak a word against +it; but the fact is, men are educated far beyond their +wits. You can't fill any cup beyond what it will hold, +and the little cups are exceedingly numerous. Boys +are now crammed (with information) like turkeys (but +unfortunately not killed at Christmas), and when they +grow up there is absolutely no room in them for a +joke. The prigs that frequent my Midway Inn are +as the sands in its hour-glass, only with no chance, +alas! of their running out. The wisdom of our +ancestors limited education, and very wisely, to the +three R's; that is all that is necessary for the great +mass of mankind: whereas the pick of them, with +those clamping irons well stuck to their heels, will win +their way to the topmost peaks of knowledge. +</p> + +<p> +At the very best—that is to say when it produces +<i>anything</i>—what does the most costly education in +this country produce in ordinary minds but the +deplorable habit of classical quotation? If it could +teach them to <i>think</i>—but that is a subject, my dear +friend, into which you will scarcly follow me. +</p> + +<p> +[I could have knocked his head off if he had not +been so exceptionally stout and strong, and as it was, +I took up my hat to go, when a thought struck me.] +</p> + +<p> +'Among your valuable remarks upon the ideas +entertained by society at present, you have said +nothing, my dear sir, about the ladies.' +</p> + +<p> +'I never speak of anything,' he replied with dignity, +'which I do not thoroughly understand. Man I do +know—down to his boots; but woman'—here he +sighed and hesitated—'no; I don't know nearly so +much of her.' +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>THE CRITIC ON THE HEARTH.</h2> + +<p> +It has often struck me that the relation of two +important members of the social body to one +another has never been sufficiently considered, or +treated of, so far as I know, either by the philosopher +or the poet. I allude to that which exists between +the omnibus driver and his conductor. Cultivating +literature as I do upon a little oatmeal, and driving, +when in a position to be driven at all, in that humble +vehicle, the 'bus, I have had, perhaps, exceptional +opportunities for observing their mutual position and +behaviour; and it is very peculiar. When the 'bus is +empty, these persons are sympathetic and friendly to +one another, almost to tenderness; but when there is +much traffic, a tone of severity is observable upon the +side of the conductor. 'What are yer a-driving on +for just as a party's getting in? Will nothing suit +but to break a party's neck?' 'Wake up, will yer? +or do yer want that ere Bayswater to pass us?' are +inquiries he will make in the most peremptory manner. +Or he will concentrate contempt in the laconic but +withering observation: 'Now then, stoopid!' +</p> + +<p> +When we consider that the driver is after all the +driver—that the 'bus is under his guidance and +management, and may be said <i>pro tem</i>, to be his +own—indeed, in case of collision or other serious +extremity, he calls it so: 'What the infernal regions +are yer banging into my 'bus for?' etc., etc.,—I say, +this being his exalted position, the injurious language +of the man on the step is, to say the least of it, disrespectful. +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, it is the conductor who fills the +'bus, and even entices into it, by lures and wiles, +persons who are not voluntarily going his way at all. +It is he who advertises its presence to the passers-by, +and spares neither lung nor limb in attracting passengers. +If the driver is lord and king, yet the conductor +has a good deal to do with the administration: +just as the Mikado of Japan, who sits above the +thunder and is almost divine, is understood to be +assisted and even 'conducted' by the Tycoon. The +connection between those potentates is perhaps the +most exact reproduction of that between the 'bus +driver and his cad; but even in England there is a +pretty close parallel to it in the mutual relation of the +author and the professional critic. +</p> + +<p> +While the former is in his spring-time, the analogy +is indeed almost complete. For example, however +much he may have plagiarised, the book does belong +to the author: he calls it, with pardonable pride (and +especially if anyone runs it down), 'my book.' He +has written it, and probably paid pretty handsomely +for getting it published. Even the right of translation, +if you will look at the bottom of the title-page, is +somewhat superfluously reserved to him. Yet nothing +can exceed the patronage which he suffers at the hands +of the critic, and is compelled to submit to in sullen +silence. When the book-trade is slack—that is, in +the summer season—the pair get on together pretty +amicably. 'This book,' says the critic, 'may be taken +down to the seaside, and lounged over not unprofitably;' +or, 'Readers may do worse than peruse this +unpretending little volume of fugitive verse;' or even, +'We hail this new aspirant to the laurels of Apollo.' +But in the thick of the publishing season, and when +books pour into the reviewer by the cartful, nothing +can exceed the violence, and indeed sometimes the virulence, +of his language. That 'Now then, stoopid!' of the +'bus conductor pales beside the lightnings of his scorn. +</p> + +<p> +'Among the lovers of sensation, it is possible that +some persons may be found with tastes so utterly +vitiated as to derive pleasure from this monstrous +production.' I cull these flowers of speech from a +wreath placed by a critic of the <i>Slasher</i> on my own +early brow. Ye gods, how I hated him! How I +pursued him with more than Corsican vengeance; +traduced him in public and private; and only when I +had thrust my knife (metaphorically) into his detested +carcase, discovered I had been attacking the wrong +man. It is a lesson I have never forgotten; and I +pray you, my younger brothers of the pen, to lay it to +heart. Believe rather that your unfriendly critic, like +the bee who is fabled to sting and die, has perished +after his attempt on your reputation; and let the +tomb be his asylum. For even supposing you get +the right sow by the ear—or rather, the wild boar with +the 'raging tooth'—what can it profit you? It is not +like that difference of opinion between yourself and +twelve of your fellow-countrymen which may have +such fatal results. You are not an Adonis (except in +outward form, perhaps), that you can be ripped up +with his tusk. His hard words do not break your +bones. If they are uncalled for, their cruelty, believe +me, can hurt only your vanity. While it is just +possible—though indeed in your case in the very highest +degree improbable—that the gentleman may have +been right. +</p> + +<p> +In the good old times we are told that a buffet from +the hand of an Edinburgh or Quarterly Reviewer +would lay a young author dead at his feet. If it was +so, he must have been naturally very deficient in +vitality. It certainly did not kill Byron, though it +was a knock-down blow; he rose from that combat +from earth, like Antæus, all the stronger for it. The +story of its having killed Keats, though embalmed in +verse, is apocryphal; and if such blows were not fatal +in those times, still less so are they nowadays. On +the other hand, if authors are difficult to slay, it is +infinitely harder work to give them life by what the +doctors term 'artificial respiration'—puffing. The +amount of breath expended in the days of 'the +Quarterlies' in this hopeless task would have moved +windmills. Not a single favourite of those critics—selected, +that is, from favouritism, and apart from +merit—now survives. They failed even to obtain +immortality for the writers in whom there was really +something of genius, but whom they extolled beyond +their deserts. Their pet idol, for example, was Samuel +Rogers. And who reads Rogers's poems now? We +remember something about them, and that is all; they +are very literally 'Pleasures of Memory.' +</p> + +<p> +And if these things are true of the past, how much +more so are they of the present! I venture to think, +in spite of some voices to the contrary, that criticism +is much more honest than it used to be: certainly +less influenced by political feeling, and by the interests +of publishing houses; more temperate, if not more +judicious, and—in the higher literary organs, at +least—unswayed by personal prejudice. But the result of +even the most favourable notices upon a book is now +but small. I can remember when a review in the +<i>Times</i> was calculated by the 'Row' to sell an entire +edition. Those halcyon days—if halcyon days they +were—are over. People read books for themselves +now; judge for themselves; and buy only when they +are absolutely compelled, and cannot get them from +the libraries. In the case of an author who has already +secured a public, it is indeed extraordinary what little +effect reviews, either good or bad, have upon his circulation. +Those who like his works continue to read +them, no matter what evil is written of them; and +those who don't like them are not to be persuaded +(alas!) to change their minds, though his latest effort +should be described as though it had dropped from +the heavens. I could give some statistics upon this +point not a little surprising, but statistics involve +comparisons—which are odious. As for fiction, its success +depends more upon what Mrs. Brown says to Mrs. +Jones as to the necessity of getting that charming +book from the library while there is yet time, than on +all the reviews in Christendom. +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>O Fame! if I e'er took delight in thy praises,</p> +<p>'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases</p> +<p>Than to see the bright eyes of those dear ones discover</p> +<p>They thought that I was not unworthy—</p></div></div> + +<p class="noindent"> +of a special messenger to Mr. Mudie's. +</p> + +<p> +Heaven bless them! for, when we get old and stupid, +they still stick by one, and are not to be seduced from +their allegiance by any blaring of trumpets, or clashing +of cymbals, that heralds a new arrival among the +story-tellers. +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, as respects his first venture, the +author is very dependent upon what the critics say of +him. It is the conductor, you know (I wouldn't call +him a 'cad,' even in fun, for ten thousand pounds), on +whom, to return to our metaphor, the driver is dependent +for the patronage of his vehicle, and even for +the announcement of its existence. A good review is +still the very best of advertisements to a new author; +and even a bad one is better than no review at all. +Indeed, I have heard it whispered that a review which +speaks unfavourably of a work of fiction, upon moral +grounds, is of very great use to it. This, however, the +same gossips say, is mainly confined to works of fiction +written by female authors for readers of their own +sex—'<i>by</i> ladies <i>for</i> ladies,' as a feminine <i>Pall Mall +Gazette</i> might describe itself. +</p> + +<p> +Nor would I be understood to say that even a well-established +author is not affected by what the critics +may say of him; I only state that his circulation is +not—albeit they may make his very blood curdle. +I have a popular writer in my mind, who never looks +at a newspaper unless it comes to him by a hand he +can trust, for fear his eyes should light upon an +unpleasant review. His argument is this: 'I have been +at this work for the last twelve months, thinking of +little else and putting my best intelligence (which is +considerable) at its service. Is it humanly probable +that a reviewer who has given his mind to it for a less +number of hours, can suggest anything in the way of +improvement worthy of my consideration? I am supposing +him to be endowed with ability and actuated +by good faith; that he has not failed in my own profession +and is not jealous of my popularity; yet even +thus, how is it possible that his opinion can be of +material advantage to me? If favourable, it gives me +pleasure, because it flatters my <i>amour propre</i>, and I am +even not quite sure that it does not afford a stimulating +encouragement; but if unfavourable, I own it gives +me considerable annoyance. [This is his euphemistic +phrase to express the feeling of being in a hornets' +nest without his clothes on.] On the other hand, if +the critic is a mere hireling, or a young gentleman +from the university who is trying his 'prentice hand at +a lowish rate of remuneration upon a veteran like +myself, how still more idle would it be to regard his +views!' +</p> + +<p> +And it appears to me that there is really something +in these arguments. As regards the latter part of +them, by-the-bye, I had the pleasure of seeing my +own last immortal story spoken of in an American +magazine—the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>—as the work of 'a +bright and prosperous young author.' The critic +(Heaven bless his young heart, and give him a happy +Whitsuntide) evidently imagined it to be my first +production. In another Transatlantic organ, a critic, +speaking of the last work of that literary veteran, the +late Mr. Le Fanu, observes: 'If this young writer +would only model himself upon the works of Mr. +William Black in his best days, we foresee a great +future before him.' +</p> + +<p> +There is one thing that I think should be set down +to the credit of the literary profession—that for the +most part they take their 'slatings' (which is the professional +term for them) with at least outward equanimity. +I have read things of late, written of an old +and popular writer, ten times more virulent than anything +Mr. Ruskin wrote of Mr. Whistler: yet neither +he, nor any other man of letters, thinks of flying to his +mother's apron-string, or of setting in motion old +Father Antic, the Law. Perhaps it is that we have +no money, or perhaps, like the judicious author of +whom I have spoken, we abstain from reading unpleasant +things. I wish to goodness we could abstain +from hearing of them; but the 'd——d good-natured +friend' is an eternal creation. He has altered, however, +since Sheridan's time in his method of proceeding. +He does not say, 'There is a very unpleasant +notice of you in the <i>Scorpion</i>, my dear fellow, which I +deplore.' The scoundrel now affects a more light-hearted +style. 'There is a review of your last book +in the <i>Scorpion</i>', he says, 'which will amuse you. It +is very malicious, and evidently the offspring of personal +spite, but it is very clever.' Then you go down +to your club, and take the thing up with the tongs, +when nobody is looking, and make yourself very +miserable; or you buy it, going home in the cab, and, +having spoilt your appetite for dinner with it, tear it +up very small, throw it out of window, and swear +you have never seen it. +</p> + +<p> +One forgives the critic—perhaps—but never the +good-natured friend. It is always possible—to the +wise man—to refrain from reading the lucubration of +the former, but he cannot avoid the latter: which +brings me to the main subject of this paper—the +Critic on the Hearth. One can be deaf to the voice +of the public hireling, but it is impossible to shut one's +ears to the private communications of one's friends +and family—all meant for our good, no doubt, but +which are nevertheless insufferable. +</p> + +<p> +In Miss Martineau's Autobiography there is a +passage expressing her surprise that whereas in all +other cases there is a certain modest reticence in +respect to other people's business when it is of a +special kind, the profession of literature is made +an exception. As there is no one but imagines that +he can poke a fire and drive a gig, so everyone believes +he can write a book, or at all events (like that +blasphemous person in connection with the Creation) +that he can give a wrinkle or two to the author. +</p> + +<p> +I wonder what a parson would say, if a man who +never goes to church save when his babies are christened, +or by accident to get out of a shower, should +volunteer his advice about sermon-making? or an +artist, to whom the man without arms, who is wheeled +about in the streets for coppers, should recommend a +greater delicacy of touch? Indeed, metaphor fails +me, and I gasp for mere breath when I think of the +astounding impudence of some people. If I possessed +a tithe of it, I should surely have made my fortune by +this time, and be in the enjoyment of the greatest +prosperity. It must be remembered, too, that the +opinion of the Critics on the Hearth is always volunteered +(indeed, one would as soon think of asking for +it as for a loan from the Sultan of Turkey), and in +nine cases out of ten it is unfavourable. One has no +objection to their praise, nor to any amount of it; +what is so abhorrent is their advice, and still more +their disapproval. It is like throwing 'half a brick' +at you, which, utterly valueless in itself, still hurts you +when it hits you. And the worst of it is that, apart +from their rubbishy opinions, one likes these people; +they are one's friends and relatives, and to cut one's +moorings from them altogether would be to sail over +the sea of life without a port to touch at. +</p> + +<p> +The early life of the author is especially embittered +by the utterances of these good folks. As a prophet +is of no honour in his own country, so it is with the +young aspirant for literary fame with his folks at +home. They not only disbelieve in him, but—generally, +however, with one or two exceptions, who are invaluable +to him in the way of encouragement—'make +hay' of him and his pretensions in the most heartless +style. If he produces a poem, it achieves immortality +in the sense of his 'never hearing the last of it;' it is +the jest of the family till they have all grown up. But +this he can bear, because his noble mind recognises +its own greatness; he regards his jeering brethren in +the same light as the philosophic writer beholds 'the +vapid and irreflective reader.' When they tell him +they 'can't make head or tail of his blessed poetry,' +he comforts himself with the reflection of the great +German (which he has read in a translation) that the +clearest handwriting cannot be read by twilight. It +is when his literary talents have received more or less +recognition from the public at large, that home criticism +becomes so painful to him. His brethren are +then boys no longer, but parsons, lawyers, and doctors; +and though they don't venture to interfere with one-another +as regards their individual professions, they +make no sort of scruple about interfering with <i>him</i>. +They write to him their unsolicited advice and strictures. +This is the parson's letter: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +'MY DEAR DICK,<br/> +    'I like your last book much better than the rest of +them; but I don't like your heroine. She strikes both Julia +and myself [Julia is his wife, who is acquainted with no +literature but the cookery-book] as rather namby-pamby. The +descriptions, however, are charming; we both recognised +dear old Ramsgate at once. [The original of the locality in +the novel being Dieppe.] The plot is also excellent, though +we think we have some recollection of it elsewhere; but it +must be so difficult to hit upon anything original in these +days. Thanks for your kind remembrance of us at Christmas: +the oysters were excellent. We were sorry to see that +ill-natured little notice in the <i>Scourge</i>. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +'Yours affectionately,<br/> +'BOB.' +</p> + +<p> +Jack the lawyer writes: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +'DEAR DICK,<br/> +    'You are really becoming ["Becoming?" he thinks <i>that</i> +becoming] quite a great man: we could hardly get your last +book from Mudie's, though I suppose he takes very small +quantities of copies, except from really popular authors. +Marion was charmed with your heroine [Dick rather likes +Marion; and doesn't think Jack treats her with the consideration +she deserves], and I have no doubt women in general +will admire her, but your hero—you know I always speak +my mind—is rather a duffer. You should go into the world +more, and sketch from life. The Vice-Chancellor gave me +great pleasure by speaking of your early poems very highly +the other day, and I assure you it was quite a drop down +for me, to find that he was referring to some other writer of +the same name. Of course I did not undeceive him. I +wish, my dear fellow, you would write stories in one volume +instead of three. You write a <i>short</i> story capitally. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +'Yours ever,<br/> +'JACK.' +</p> + +<p> +Tom the surgeon belongs to that very objectionable +class of humanity, called, by ancient writers, wags: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +'MY DEAR DICK,<br/> +    'I cannot help writing to thank you for the relief afforded +to me by the perusal of your last volume. I had +been suffering from neuralgia, and every prescription in the +Pharmacopæia for producing sleep had failed until I tried +<i>that</i>. Dear Maggie [an odious woman, who calls novels "light +literature," and affects to be blue] read it to me herself, so it +was given every chance; but I think you must acknowledge +that it was a little spun out. Maggie assures me—I have +not read them myself, for you know what little time I have +for such things—that the first two volumes, with the exception +of the characters of the hero and heroine, which she +pronounces to be rather feeble, are first-rate. Why don't +you write two-volume novels? There is always something +in analogy: reflect how seldom Nature herself produces three +at a birth: when she does, it is only two, at most, which +survive. We shall look forward to your next effort with +much interest, but we hope you will give more time and +pains to it. Remember what Horace says upon this subject +(He has no more knowledge of Horace than he has of +Sanscrit, but he has read the quotation in that vile review +in the <i>Scourge</i>.) Maggie thinks you live too luxuriously: if +your expenses were less you would not be compelled to write +so much, and you would do it better. Excuse this well-meant +advice from an elder brother. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +'Yours always,<br/> +'Tom.' +</p> + +<p> +'One's sisters, and one's cousins, and one's aunts' +also write in more or less the same style, though, to +do their sex justice, less offensively. 'If you were to +go abroad, my dear Dick,' says one, 'it would expand +your mind. There is nothing to blame in your last +production, which strikes me (what I could understand +of it at least, for some of it is a little Bohemian) as +very pleasing; but the fact is, that English subjects are +quite used up.' Others discover for themselves the +originals of Dick's characters in persons he has never +dreamt of describing, and otherwise exhibit a most +marvellous familiarity with his materials. 'Hennie, +who has just been here, is immensely delighted with +your satirical sketch of her husband. He, however, +as you may suppose, is <i>wild</i>, and says you had better +withdraw your name from the candidates' book at his +club. I don't know how many black balls exclude, +but he has a good many friends there.' Another +writes: 'Of course we all recognised Uncle George in +your Mr. Flibbertigibbet; but we try not to laugh; +indeed our sense of loss is too recent. Seriously, I +think you might have waited till the poor old man—who +was always kind to you, Dick—was cold in his +grave.' +</p> + +<p> +Some of these excellent creatures send incidents +of real life which they are sure will be useful to 'dear +Dick' for his next book—narratives of accidents in a +hansom cab, of missing the train by the Underground, +and of Mr. Jones being late for his own wedding, +'which, though nothing in themselves, actually did +happen, you know, and which, properly dressed up, +as you so well know how to do,' will, they are sure, +obtain for him a marked success. 'There is nothing +like reality,' they say, he may depend upon it, 'for +coming home to people.' +</p> + +<p> +After all, one need not read these abominable +letters. One's relatives (thank Heaven!) usually live +in the country. The real Critics on the Hearth are +one's personal acquaintances in town, whom one +cannot escape. +</p> + +<p> +'My dear friend,' said one to me the other day—a +most cordial and excellent fellow, by-the-bye (only too +frank)—'I like you, as you know, beyond everything, +personally, but I cannot read your books.' +</p> + +<p> +'My dear Jones,' replied I, 'I regret that exceedingly; +for it is you, and men like you, whose suffrages +I am most anxious to win. Of the approbation of all +intelligent and educated persons I am certain; but if +I could only obtain that of the million, I should be a +happy man.' +</p> + +<p> +But even when I have thus demolished Jones, I +still feel that I owe him a grudge. 'What the Deuce +is it to me whether Jones likes my books or +not? and why does he tell me he doesn't like +them?' +</p> + +<p> +Of the surpassing ignorance of these good people, +I have just heard an admirable anecdote. A friend +of a justly popular author meets him in the club and +congratulates him upon his last story in the <i>Slasher</i> +[in which he has never written a line]. It is so full of +farce and fun [the author is a grave writer]. 'Only +I don't see why it is not advertised under the same +title in the other newspapers.' The fact being that +the story in the <i>Slasher</i> is a parody—and not a very +good-natured one—upon the author's last work, and +resembles it only as a picture in <i>Vanity Fair</i> resembles +its original. +</p> + +<p> +Some Critics on the Hearth are not only good-natured, +but have rather too high, or, if that is impossible, +let us say too pronounced, an opinion of the +abilities of their literary friends. They wonder why +they do not employ their gigantic talents in some +enduring monument, such as a life of 'Alexander +the Great' or a popular history of the Visigoths. To +them literature is literature, and they do not concern +themselves with little niceties of style or differences +of subject. Others again, though extremely civil, are +apt to affect more enthusiasm than they feel. They +admire one's works without exception—'they are all +absolutely charming'—but they would be placed in a +position of great embarrassment if they were asked +to name their favourite: for, as a matter of fact, they +are ignorant of the very names of them. A novelist +of my acquaintance lent his last work to a lady +cousin because she 'really could not wait till she got +it from the library;' besides, 'she was ill, and wanted +some amusing literature.' After a month or so he +got his three volumes back, with a most gushing +letter. It 'had been the comfort of many a weary +hour of sleeplessness,' etc. The thought of having +'smoothed the pillow and soothed the pain' would, +she felt sure, be gratifying to him. Perhaps it would +have been, only she had omitted to cut the pages +even of the first volume. +</p> + +<p> +But, as a general rule, these volunteer censors +plume themselves on discovering defects and not +beauties. When any author is particularly popular +and has been long before the public, they have two +methods of discoursing upon him in relation to their +literary friend. In the first, they represent him as a +model of excellence, and recommend their friend to +study him, though without holding out much hope of +his ever becoming his rival; in the second, they +describe him as 'worked out,' and darkly hint that +sooner or later [they mean sooner] their friend will be +in the same unhappy condition. These, I need not +say, are among the most detestable specimens of their +class, and only to be equalled by those excellent +literary judges who are always appealing to posterity, +which, even if a little temporary success has crowned +you to-day, will relegate you to your proper position +to-morrow. If one were weak enough to argue with +these gentry, it would be easy to show that popular +authors are not 'worked out,' but only have the +appearance of being so from their taking their work +too easily. Those whose calling it is to depict human +nature in fiction are especially subject to this weakness; +they do not give themselves the trouble to study +new characters, or at first hand, as of old; they sit at +home and receive the congratulations of Society without +paying due attention to that somewhat changeful +lady, and they draw upon their memory, or their +imagination, instead of studying from the life. Otherwise, +when they do not give way to that temptation +of indolence which arises from competence and success, +there is no reason why their reputation should +suffer, since, though they may lack the vigour or high +spirits of those who would push them from their stools, +their experience and knowledge of the world are always +on the increase. +</p> + +<p> +As to the argument with regard to posterity which +is so popular with the Critic on the Hearth, I am +afraid he has no greater respect for the opinion of +posterity himself than for that of his possible great-great-granddaughter. +Indeed, he only uses it as +being a weapon the blow of which it is impossible to +parry, and with the object of being personally offensive. +It is, moreover, noteworthy that his position, which is +sometimes taken up by persons of far greater intelligence, +is inconsistent with itself. The praisers of +posterity are also always the praisers of the past; it is +only the present which is in their eyes contemptible. +Yet to the next generation this present will be <i>their</i> +past, and, however valueless may be the verdict of today, +how much more so, by the most obvious analogy, +will be that of to-morrow. It is probable, indeed, +though it is difficult to believe it, that the Critics on +the Hearth of the generation to come will make +themselves even more ridiculous than their immediate +predecessors. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>SHAM ADMIRATION IN LITERATURE.</h2> + +<p> +In all highly civilised communities Pretence is prominent, and sooner or later +invades the regions of Literature. In the beginning, this is not altogether to +be reprobated; it is the rude homage which Ignorance, conscious of its +disgrace, offers to Learning; but after awhile, Pretence becomes systematised, +gathers strength from numbers and impunity, and rears its head in such a manner +as to suggest it has some body and substance belonging to it. In England, +literary pretence is more universal than elsewhere from our method of +education. When young gentlemen from ten to sixteen are set to study poetry (a +subject for which not one in a hundred has the least taste or capability even +when he reads it in his own language) in Greek and Latin authors, it is only a +natural consequence that their views upon it should be slightly artificial. The +youth who objected to the alphabet that it seemed hardly worth while to have +gone through so much to have acquired so little, was exceptionally sagacious; +the more ordinary lad conceives that what has cost him so much time and +trouble, and entailed so many pains and penalties, must needs have something in +it, though it has never met his eye. Hence arises our public opinion upon the +ancient classics, which I am afraid is somewhat different from (what painters +term) the private view. If you take the ordinary admirer of Æschylus, for +example—not the scholar, but the man who has had what he believes to be +'a liberal education'—and appeal to his opinion upon some passage in a +British dramatist, say Shakespeare, it is ten to one that he shows not only +ignorance of the author (the odds are twenty to one about <i>that</i>), but +utter inability to grasp the point in question; it is too deep for him, and, +especially, too subtle. If you are cruel enough to press him, he will +unconsciously betray the fact that he has never felt a line of poetry in his +life. He honestly believes that the 'Seven against Thebes' is one of the +greatest works that ever were written, just as a child believes the same of the +'Seven Champions of Christendom.' A great wit once observed, when bored by the +praises of a man who spoke six languages, that he had known a man to speak a +dozen, and yet not say a word worth hearing in any one of them. The humour of +the remark, as sometimes happens, has caused its wisdom to be underrated; for +the fact is that, in very many cases, all the intelligence of which a mind is +capable is expended upon the mere acquisition of a foreign tongue. As to +getting anything out of it in the way of ideas, and especially of poetical +ones, that is almost never attained. There are, indeed, many who have a special +facility for languages, but in their case (with a few exceptions) one may say +without uncharity that the acquisition of ideas is not their object, though if +they did acquire them they would probably be new ones. The majority of us, +however, have much difficulty in surmounting the obstacle of an alien tongue; +and when we have done so we are naturally inclined to overrate the advantages +thus attained. Everyone knows the poor creature who quotes French on all +occasions with a certain stress on the accent, designed to arouse a doubt in +his hearers as to whether he was not actually born in Paris. <i>He</i>, of +course, is a low specimen of the class in question, but almost all of us derive +a certain intellectual gratification from the mastery of another language, and +as we gradually attain to it, whenever we find a meaning we are apt to mistake +it for a beauty.<a href="#fn-1" name="fnref-1" id="fnref-1"><sup>[1]</sup></a> +Nay, I am convinced that many admire this or that (even) British poet from the +fact that here and there his meaning has gleamed upon them with all the charm +that accompanies unexpectedness. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-1" id="fn-1"></a> <a href="#fnref-1">[1]</a> +Since the above was written, my attention has been called to the following +remark of De Quincey: 'As must ever be the case with readers not sufficiently +masters of a language to bring the true pretensions of a work to any test of +feeling, they are for ever mistaking for some pleasure conferred by the writer, +what is, in fact, the pleasure naturally attached to the sense of a difficulty +overcome.' +</p> + +<p> +Since classical learning is compulsory with us, this +bastard admiration is much more often excited with +respect to the Greek and Latin poets. Men may not +only go through the whole curriculum of a university +education, but take high honours in it, without the +least intellectual advantage beyond the acquisition +of a few quotations. This is not, of course (good +heavens!), because the classics have nothing to teach +us in the way of poetical ideas, but simply because to +the ordinary mind the acquisition of a poetical idea +is very difficult, and when conveyed in a foreign +language is impossible. If the same student had +given the same time—a monstrous thought, of course, +but not impracticable—to the cultivation of Shakespeare +and the old dramatists, or even to the more +modern English poets and thinkers, he would certainly +have got more out of them, though he would have +missed the delicate suggestiveness of the Greek aorist, +and the exquisite subtleties of the particle <i>de</i>. Having +acquired these last, however, and not for nothing, it is +not surprising that he should esteem them very highly, +and, being unable to popularise them at dinner-parties +and the like, he falls back upon praise of the classics +generally. +</p> + +<p> +Such are the circumstances which, more particularly +in this country, have led to a well-nigh universal habit +of literary lying—of a pretence of admiration for +certain works of which in reality we know very little, +and for which, if we knew more, we should perhaps +care even less. +</p> + +<p> +There are certain books which are standard, and as +it were planted in the British soil, before which the +great majority of us bow the knee and doff the cap +with a reverence that, in its ignorance, reminds one of +fetish worship, and, in its affectation, of the passion +for High Art. The works without which, we are told +at book auctions, 'no gentleman's library can be considered +complete,' are especially the objects of this +adoration. The 'Rambler,' for example, is one of them. +I was once shut up for a week of snowstorms in a +mountain inn, with the 'Rambler' and one other publication. +The latter was a Shepherd's Guide, with +illustrations of the way in which sheep are marked +by their various owners for the purpose of identification: +'Cropped near ear, upper key bitted far, a pop +on the head and another at the tail head, ritted, and +with two red strokes down both shoulders,' etc. It +was monotonous, but I confess that there were times +when I felt it some comfort in having that picture-book +to fall back upon, to alternate with the 'Rambler.' +</p> + +<p> +The essay, like port wine, I have noticed, requires +age for its due appreciation. Leigh Hunt's 'Indicator' +comprises some admirable essays, but the general public +have not a word to say for them; it may be urged +that that is because they had not read the 'Indicator' +But why then do they praise the 'Rambler' and +Montaigne? That comforting word, 'Mesopotamia,' +which has been so often alluded to in religious matters, +has many a parallel in profane literature. +</p> + +<p> +A good deal of this mock worship is of course due +to abject cowardice. A man who says he doesn't like +the 'Rambler,' runs, with some folks, the risk of being +thought a fool; but he is sure to be thought that, for +something or another, under any circumstances; and, +at all events, why should he not content himself, when +the 'Rambler' is belauded, with holding his tongue and +smiling acquiescence? It must be conceded that there +are a few persons who really have read the 'Rambler,' +a work, of course, I am merely using as a type of its +class. In their young days it was used as a schoolbook, +and thought necessary as a part of polite +education; and as they have read little or nothing +since, it is only reasonable that they should stick to +their colours. Indeed, the French satirist's boast that +he could predicate the views of any man with regard +to both worlds, if he were only supplied with the +simple data of his age and his income, is quite true in +the general with regard to literary taste. Given the +age of the ordinary individual—that is to say of the +gentleman 'fond of books, but who has really no time +for reading'—and it is easy enough to guess his +literary idols. They are the gods of his youth, and, +whether he has been 'suckled in a creed outworn' or +not, he knows no other. These persons, however, +rarely give their opinion about literary matters, except +on compulsion; they are harmless and truthful. The +tendency of society in general, on the other hand, is +not only to praise the 'Rambler' which they have not +read, but to express a noble scorn for those who have +read it and don't like it. +</p> + +<p> +I remember, as a young man, being greatly struck by +the independence of character exhibited by Miss Bronte +in a certain confession she made in respect to Miss +Austen's novels. It was at a period when everybody +professed to adore them, and especially the great-guns +of literature. Walter Scott thought more highly of the +genius of the author of 'Mansfield Park' even than +of that of his favourite, Miss Edgeworth. Macaulay +speaks of her as though she were the Eclipse of novelists—'first, +and the rest nowhere'—though his opinion, +it is true, lost something of its force from the contempt +he expressed for 'the rest,' among whom were +some much better ones. Dr. Whewell, a very different +type of mind, had 'Mansfield Park,' I believe, read to +him on his death-bed. And, indeed, up to the present +date, some highly-cultured persons of my acquaintance +take the same view. They may be very possibly +right, but that is no reason why the people who have +never read Miss Austen's novels—and very few have—should +ape the fashion. Now, the authoress of 'Jane +Eyre' did not derive much pleasure from the perusal +of the works of the other Jane. 'I know it's very +wrong,' she modestly said, 'but the fact is I can't read +them. They have not got story enough in them to +engage my attention. I don't want my blood curdled, +but I like it stirred. Miss Austen strikes me as milk-and-watery, +and, to say truth, as dull.' +</p> + +<p> +This opinion she has, in effect, repeated in her published +writings, but I had only heard her verbal expression +of it; and I admired her courage. If she +had been a man, struggling, as she then was, for a +position in literature, she would not have dared to say +half as much. For, what is very curious, the advocates +of the classic authors—those I mean whom antiquity +has more or less hallowed—instead of pitying those +unhappy wights who confess their want of appreciation +of them, fly at them with bludgeons, and dance upon +their prostrate bodies with clogs. +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'For who would rush on a benighted man,</p> +<p>And give him two black eyes for being blind?'</p></div></div> + +<p class="noindent"> +inquires the poet. I answer, 'lots of people,' and especially those who worship +the pagan divinities of literature. The same thing happens—but +<i>their</i> fury is more excusable, because they have less natural +intelligence—with the lovers of music. Instead of being sorry for the +poor folks who have 'no ear,' and whom 'a little music in the evening' bores to +extremity, they overwhelm them with reproaches for what is in fact a natural +infirmity. 'You Goth! you Vandal!' they exclaim, 'how contemptible is the +creature who has no music in his soul!' Which is really very rude. Even persons +who are not musical have their feelings. 'Hath not a Jew ears?'—that is +to say, though they have 'no ear,' they understand what is abusive language and +resent it. +</p> + +<p> +I am not saying one word against established reputations +in literature. The very fact of their being established +(even the 'Rambler,' for example, has its +merits) is in their favour; and, indeed, some of the +works I shall refer to are masterpieces. My objection +is to the sham admiration of them, which does their +authors no good (for their circulation is now of no +consequence to them), and is injurious not only to +modern writers (who are generally made the subject +of base comparison), but especially to the utterers of +this false coin themselves. One cannot tell falsehoods, +even about one's views in literature, without injury +to one's morals, yet to 'tell the truth and shame +the devil' is easy, as it would seem, compared with +telling the truth and defying the critics. +</p> + +<p> +I have alluded to the intrepidity of Miss Bronte in +this matter; and, curiously enough, it is women who +have the most courage in the expression of their literary +opinions. It may be said, of course, that this is +due to the audacity of ignorance, and a well-known +line may be quoted (for some people, as I have said, +are rude) in which certain angels (who are <i>not</i> women) +are represented as being afraid to tread in certain +places. But I am speaking of women who are great +readers. Miss Martineau once confessed to me that +she could see no beauties in 'Tom Jones.' 'Of course,' +she said, 'the coarseness disgusts me, but apart from +that, I see no sort of merit in it.' 'What?' I replied, +'no humour, no knowledge of human life?' 'No; to +me it is a wearisome book.' +</p> + +<p> +I disagreed with her very much upon that point, +and do so still; yet, apart from the coarseness (which +does not disgust everybody, let me tell you), there is a +good deal of tedious reading in 'Tom Jones.' At all +events that expression of opinion from such lips strikes +me as noteworthy. +</p> + +<p> +It may here be said that there are many English +authors of old date, some of whose beauties are unintelligible +except to those who are acquainted with the +classics; and 'Tom Jones' is one of them. Many of +the introductions to the chapters, not to mention a +certain travestie of an Homeric battle, must needs be +as wearisome to those who are not scholars, as the +spectacle of a burlesque is to those who have not seen +the original play. This is still more the case with our +old poets, especially Milton. I very much doubt, in +spite of the universal chorus to the contrary, whether +'Lycidas' is much admired by readers who are only +acquainted with English literature; I am quite sure it +never touched their hearts as, for example, 'In Memoriam' +does. +</p> + +<p> +I once beheld a young lady of great literary taste, +and of exquisite sensibility, torn to pieces (figuratively) +and trampled upon by a great scholar for venturing +to make a comparison between those two poems. +Its invocation to the Muses, and the general classical +air which pervades it, had destroyed for her the pathos +of 'Lycidas,' whereas to her antagonist those very imperfections +appeared to enhance its beauty. I did not +interfere, because the wretch was her husband, and it +would have been worse for her if I had, but my +sympathies were entirely with her. Her sad fate—for +the massacre took place in public—would, I was +well aware, have the effect of making people lie worse +than ever about Milton. On that same evening, while +some folks were talking about Mr. Morris's 'Earthly +Paradise,' I heard a scornful voice exclaim, 'Oh! give +ME "Paradise Lost,"' and with that gentleman I <i>did</i> +have it out. I promptly subjected him to cross-examination, +and drove him to that extremity that +he was compelled to admit he had never read a word +of Milton for forty years, and even then only in extracts +from 'Enfield's Speaker.' +</p> + +<p> +With Shakespeare—though there is a good deal of +lying about <i>him</i>—the case is different, and especially +with elderly people; for 'in their day,' as they +pathetically term it, Shakespeare was played everywhere, +and everyone went to the play. They do not +read him, but they recollect him; they are well +acquainted with his beauties—that is, with the better +known of them—and can quote him with manifest +appreciation. They are, intellectually, in a position +much superior to that of a fashionable lady of my +acquaintance who informed me that her daughters +were going to the theatre that night to see Shakespeare's +'Turning of the Screw.' +</p> + +<p> +The writer who has done most, without I suppose +intending it, to promote hypocrisy in literature +is Macaulay. His 'every schoolboy knows' has +frightened thousands into pretending to know authors +with whom they have not even a bowing acquaintance. +It is amazing that a man who had read so much should +have written so contemptuously of those who have read +but little; one would have thought that the consciousness +of superiority would have forbidden such insolence, +or that his reading would have been extensive enough +to teach him at least how little he had read of what +there was to read; since he read some things—works +of imagination and humour, for example—to such +very little purpose, he might really have bragged a +little less. One feels quite grateful to Macaulay, however, +for avowing his belief that he was the only man +who had read through the 'Faery Queen;' since that +exonerates everybody—I do not say from reading it, +because the supposition is preposterous—but from the +necessity of pretending to have read it. The pleasure +derived from that poem to most minds is, I am convinced, +analogous to that already spoken of as being +imparted by a foreign author: namely, the satisfaction +at finding it—in places—intelligible. For the few who +possess the poetic faculty it has great beauties, but I +observe, from the extracts that appear in Poetic +Selections and the like, that the most tedious and even +the most monstrous passages are those which are +generally offered for admiration. The case of Spenser +in this respect—which does not stand alone in ancient +English literature—has a curious parallel in art, where +people are positively found to go into ecstasies over a +distorted limb or a ludicrous inversion of perspective, +simply because it is the work of an old master, who +knew no better, or followed the fashion of his time. +</p> + +<p> +Leigh Hunt read the 'Faery Queen,' by-the-bye, as almost everything else that +has been written in the English tongue, and even Macaulay alludes with rare +commendation to his 'catholic taste.' Of all authors indeed, and probably of +all readers, Leigh Hunt had the keenest eye for merit and the warmest +appreciation of it wherever found. He was actively engaged in politics, yet was +never blind to the genius of an adversary; blameless himself in morals, he +could admire the wit of Wycherley; and a freethinker in religion, he could see +both wisdom and beauty in the divines. Moreover, it is immensely to his credit +that this universal knowledge, instead of puffing him up, only moved him to +impart it, and that next to the pleasure he took in books was that he derived +from teaching others to take pleasure in them. Witness his 'Wit and Humour' and +his 'Imagination and Fancy,' to my mind the greatest treasures in the way of +handbooks that have ever been offered to students of English literature, and +the completest antidotes to pretence in it. How many a time, as a boy, have I +pondered over this or that passage in the originals, from Shakespeare to +Suckling, and then compared it with the italicised lines in his two volumes, to +see whether I had hit upon the beauties; and how often, alas! I hit upon the +blots!<a href="#fn-2" name="fnref-2" id="fnref-2"><sup>[2]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-2" id="fn-2"></a> <a href="#fnref-2">[2]</a> +I remember (when 'I was but a little tiny boy') I thought that 'the fringed +curtains of thine eye advance,' addressed by Prospero to Miranda, must needs be +a very fine line; imagine then my confusion, on referring for corroboration to +my 'guide, philosopher, and friend,' as he truly was, to find this passage: +'Why Shakespeare should have condescended to the elaborate nothingness, not to +say nonsense, of this metaphor (for what is meant by "advancing curtains"?) I +cannot conceive. That is to say, if he did condescend: for it looks very like +the interpolation of some pompous declamatory player. Pope has put it into his +<i>Treatise on the Bathos</i>.' +</p> + +<p> +It is curious that Leigh Hunt, whose style has been so severely +handled (and, it must be owned, not without some justice) for its +affectations, should have been so genuine (although always generous) +in his criticisms. It was nothing to him whether an author was old or +new; nor did he shrink from any literary comparison between two +writers when he thought it appropriate (and he was generally right), +notwithstanding all the age and authority that might be at the back of +one of them. Thackeray, by the way, a very different writer and +thinker, had this same outspoken honesty in the expression of his +literary taste. In speaking of the hero of Cooper's five good +novels—Leather-Stocking, Hawkeye, etc.—he remarks with +quite a noble simplicity: 'I think he is better than any of Scott's +lot.' +</p> + +<p> +It is a 'far cry' from the 'Faery Queen' to 'Childe +Harold,' which, reckoning by years, is still a modern +poem; yet I wonder how many persons under thirty—even +of those who term it 'magnificent'—have ever +read 'Childe Harold.' At one time it was only people +under thirty who <i>had</i> read it; for poetry to the +ordinary reader is the poetry that was popular in his +youth—'no other is genuine.' +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'A dreary, weary poem called the <i>Excursion</i>,</p> +<p>Written in a manner which is my aversion,'</p></div></div> + +<p class="noindent"> +is a couplet the frankness of which has always recommended +itself to me (though I like the 'Excursion'); +but, except for the rhyme, it has a fatal facility +of application to other long poems. Heaven forbid +that I should 'with shadowed hint confuse' the faith +in a British classic; but, ye gods, how men have gaped +(in private) over 'Childe Harold!' +</p> + +<p> +'Gil Blas,' though not a native classic, is included +in the articles of the British literary faith; not as a +matter of pious opinion, but <i>de fide</i>; a necessity of +intellectual salvation. I remember an interview I +once had with a boy of letters concerning this immortal +work; he is a well-known writer now, but at +the time I speak of he was only budding and sprouting +in the magazines—a lad of promise, no doubt, but +given, if not to kick against authority, to question it, +and, what was worse, to question <i>me</i> about it, in an +embarrassing manner. The natural affability of my +disposition had caused him, I suppose, to treat me as +his Father Confessor in literature; and one of the sins +of omission he confided to me was in connection with +the divine Le Sage. +</p> + +<p> +'I say—about "Gil Blas," you know—Bias [a great +critic of that day] was saying last night that if he +were to be imprisoned for life with only one book to +read he would choose the Bible or "Gil Blas."' +</p> + +<p> +'It is very gratifying to me,' said I, wishing to +evade my young friend, and also because I had no +love for Bias, 'that he should have selected the Bible, +even as an alternative; and all the more so, since I +should never have expected it of him.' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, papa' (that was what the young dog was +wont to call me, though he was no son of mine—far +from it); 'but about "Gil Blas"? Is it <i>really</i> the next +best book? And after he had read it—say ten times—would +he not have been rather sorry that he had +not chosen—well, Shakespeare, for instance?' +</p> + +<p> +The picture of Bias with a long white beard, the +growth of twenty years, reading that tattered copy of +'Gil Blas' in his cell, almost affected me to tears; but +I made shift to answer gravely: 'Bias is a professional +critic; and persons of that class are apt to be a little +dogmatic and given to exaggeration. But "Gil Blas" +is a great work. As a picture of the seamy side of +human life—of its vices and its weaknesses at least—it +is unrivalled. The archbishop——' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! I know that archbishop—<i>well</i>,' interrupted +my young tormentor. 'I sometimes think, if it hadn't +been for that archbishop, we should never perhaps +have heard of "Gil Blas."' +</p> + +<p> +'Tchut, tchut!' said I; 'you talk like a child.' +</p> + +<p> +'But to read it <i>all through</i>, papa—three times, ten +times, for all one's life? Poor Mr. Bias!' +</p> + +<p> +'It is a matter of opinion, my dear boy,' I said. +'Bias has this great advantage over you in literary +matters, that he knows what he is talking about; and +if he was quite sure——' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! but he was not quite sure: he was rather +doubtful, he said, about one of the books.' +</p> + +<p> +'Not the Bible, I do hope?' said I fervently. +</p> + +<p> +'No, about the other. He was not quite sure but +that, instead of "Gil Blas," he ought to have selected +"Don Quixote." Now really that seems to me worse +than "Gil Blas." +</p> + +<p> +'You mean less excellent,' I rejoined; 'you are too +young to appreciate the full signification of "Don +Quixote."' +</p> + +<p> +The scoundrel murmured, 'Do you mean to tell +me people read it when they are old?' But I pretended +not to hear him. 'We do not all of us,' I +went on, 'know what is good for us. Sancho Panza's +physician——' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! I know that physician—<i>well</i>, papa. I sometimes +think, if it had not been for that physician, +perhaps——' +</p> + +<p> +'Hush!' I exclaimed authoritatively; 'let us have +no flippancy, I beg.' And so, with a dead lift as it +were, I got rid of him. He left the room muttering, +'But to read it through—three times, ten times, for +all one's life?' And I was obliged to confess to +myself that such a prolonged course of study, even of +'Don Quixote,' would have been wearisome. +</p> + +<p> +Rabelais is another article of our literary faith, that +is certainly subscribed to much more often than +believed in. In a certain poem of Mr. Browning's +(<i>I</i> call it the Burial of the Book, since the Latin name +he has given it is unpronounceable, even if it were +possible to recollect it), charmingly humorous, and +which is also remarkable for impersonating an inanimate +object in verse as Dickens does in prose, +there occur these lines: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'Then I went indoors, brought out a loaf,</p> +<p class="i2"> Half a cheese and a bottle of Chablis,</p> +<p>Lay on the grass, and forgot the oaf</p> +<p class="i2"> Over a jolly chapter of Rabelais.'</p></div></div> + +<p> +Yet I have known some wonder to be expressed (confidentially) +as to where he found the 'jolly chapter,' +and the looking for the beauties of Rabelais to be +likened to searching in a huge dung-heap for a few +heads of asparagus. +</p> + +<p> +I have no quarrel with Bias and Company (though +they stick at nothing, and will presently say that I +don't care for these books myself), but I venture to +think that they are wrong in making dogmas of what +are, after all, but matters of literary taste; it is their +vehemence and exaggeration which drive the weak to +take refuge in falsehood. +</p> + +<p> +A good woman in the country once complained of +her stepson, 'He will not love his learning, though +I beats him with a jack-chain;' and from the application +of similar aids to instruction, the same result takes +place in London. Only here we dissemble and pretend +to love it. It is partly in consequence of this +that works, not only of acknowledged but genuine +excellence, such as those I have been careful to select, +are, though so universally praised, so little read. The +poor student attempts them, but failing—from many +causes no doubt, but also sometimes from the fact of +their not being there—to find those unrivalled beauties +which he has been led to expect in every sentence, +he stops short, where he would otherwise have gone +on. He says to himself, 'I have been deceived,' or 'I +must be a born fool;' whereas he is wrong in both +suppositions. I am convinced that the want of popularity +of Walter Scott among the rising generation is +partly due to this extravagant laudation; and I am +much mistaken if another great author, more recently +deceased, will not in a few years be added to the +ranks of those who are more praised than read from +the same cause. +</p> + +<p> +The habit of mere adhesion to received opinion in +any matter is most mischievous, for it strikes at the +root of independence of thought; and in literature it +tends to make the public taste mechanical. It is very +seldom that what is called the verdict of posterity +(absurdly enough, for are not <i>we</i> posterity?) is ever +reversed; but it has chanced to happen in a certain +case quite lately. The production of 'The Iron +Chest' upon the stage has once more brought into +fashion 'Caleb Williams.' Now that is a work, though +by no means belonging to the same rank as those to +which I have referred, which has a fine old crusted +reputation. Time has hallowed it. The great world +of readers (who have never read it) used to echo the +remark of Bias and Company, that this and that +modern work of fiction reminded them—though at an +immense distance, of course—of Godwin's masterpiece. +I remember Le Fanu's 'Uncle Silas,' for example +(from some similarity, more fanciful perhaps than +real, in the isolation of its hero), being thus compared +with it. Now 'Caleb Williams' is founded on a very +fine conception—one that could only have occurred, +perhaps, to a man of genius; the first part of it is well +worked out, but towards the middle it grows feeble, +and it ends in tediousness and drivel; whereas 'Uncle +Silas' is good and strong from first to last. Le Fanu +has never been so popular as, in my humble judgment, +he deserves to be, but of course modern readers were +better acquainted with him than with Godwin. Yet +nine out of ten were always heard repeating this +cuckoo cry about the latter's superiority, until the +'Iron Chest' came out, and Fashion induced them to +read Godwin for themselves; which has very properly +changed their opinion. +</p> + +<p> +I remember, in my own case, that, from that +reverence for authority which I hope I share with my +neighbours, I used to speak of 'Headlong Hall' and +'Crotchet Castle'—both great favourites of our fore-fathers—with +much respect, until one wet day in the +country I found myself shut up with them. I won't +say what I suffered; better judges of literature than +myself admire them still, I know. I will only remark +that <i>I</i> don't admire them. I don't say they are the +dullest novels ever printed, because that would be invidious, +and might do wrong to works of even greater +pretensions; but to my mind they are dull. +</p> + +<p> +When Dr. Johnson is free to confess that he does not +admire Gray's 'Elegy,' and Macaulay to avow that he +sees little to praise in Dickens and Wordsworth, why +should not humbler folks have the courage of their +own opinions? They cannot possibly be more wrong +than Johnson and Macaulay were, and it is surely +better to be honest, though it may expose one to some +ridicule, than to lie. The more we agree with the verdict +of the generations before us on these matters, the +more, it is quite true, we are likely to be right; but +the agreement should be an honest one. At present +very extensive domains in literature are, as it were, +enclosed and denied to the public in respect to any +free expression of their opinion. 'They are splendid, +they are faultless,' cries the general voice, but the +general eye has not beheld them. Nothing, of course, +could be more futile than that, with every new generation, +our old authors who have won their fame should +be arraigned anew at the bar of public criticism; but, +on the other hand, there is no reason why the mouths +of us poor moderns should be muzzled, and still less +that we 'should praise with alien lips.' +</p> + +<p> +'Until Caldecott's charming illustrations of it made +me laugh so much,' said a young lady to me the other +day, 'I confess—though I know it's very stupid of me—I +never saw much fun in "John Gilpin."' She +evidently expected a reproof, and when I whispered +in her ear, 'Nor I,' her lovely features assumed a look +of positive enfranchisement. +</p> + +<p> +'But am I right?' she inquired. +</p> + +<p> +'You are certainly right, my dear young lady,' said +I, 'not to pretend admiration where you don't feel it; +as to liking "John Gilpin," that is a matter of taste. +It has, of course, simplicity to recommend it; but in +my own case, though I'm fond of fun, it has never +evoked a smile. It has always seemed to me like one +of Mr. Joe Miller's stories put into tedious verse.' +</p> + +<p> +I really almost thought (and hoped) that that young +lady would have kissed me. +</p> + +<p> +'Papa always says it is a free country,' she exclaimed, +'but I never felt it to be the case before this +moment.' +</p> + +<p> +For years this beautiful and accomplished creature +had locked this awful secret in her innocent breast—that +she didn't see much fun in 'John Gilpin.' 'You +have given me courage,' she said, 'to confess something +else. Mr. Caldecott has just been illustrating in +the same charming manner Goldsmith's "Elegy on a +Mad Dog," and—I'm very sorry—but I never laughed +at <i>that</i> before, either. I have pretended to laugh, you +know,' she added, hastily and apologetically, 'hundreds +of times.' +</p> + +<p> +'I don't doubt it,' I replied; 'this is not such a free +country as your father supposes.' +</p> + +<p> +'But am I right?' +</p> + +<p> +'I say nothing about "right,"' I answered, 'except +that everybody has a right to his own opinion. For +my part, however, I think the 'Mad Dog' better than +'John Gilpin' only because it is shorter.' +</p> + +<p> +Whether I was wrong or right in the matter is of +no consequence even to myself; the affection and +gratitude of that young creature would more than repay +me for a much greater mistake, if mistake it is. +She protests that I have emancipated her from slavery. +She has since talked to me about all sorts of authors, +from Sir Philip Sidney to Washington Irving, in a +way that would make some people's blood run cold; +but it has no such effect upon me—quite the reverse. +Of Irving she naïvely remarks that his strokes of +humour seem to her to owe much of their success to +the rarity of their occurrence; the flashes of fun are +spread over pages of dulness, which enhance them, +just as a dark night is propitious to fireworks, or the +atmosphere of the House cf Commons, or of a Court +of Law, to a joke. She is often in error, no doubt, but +how bright and wholesome such talk is as compared +with the platitudes and commonplaces which one hears +on all sides in connection with literature! +</p> + +<p> +As a rule, I suppose, even people in society ('the drawing-rooms and the +clubs') are not absolutely base and yet one would really think so, to judge by +the fear that is entertained by them of being natural. 'I vow to heaven,' says +the prince of letter-writers, 'that I think the Parrots of Society are more +intolerable and mischievous than its Birds of Prey. If ever I destroy myself, +it will be in the bitterness of having those infernal and damnable "good old +times" extolled.' One is almost tempted to say the same—when one hears +their praises come from certain mouths—of the good old books. It is not +everyone, of course, who has an opinion of his own upon any subject, far less +on that of literature, but everyone can abstain from expressing an opinion that +is not his own. If one has no voice, what possible compensation can there be in +becoming an echo? No one, I conclude, would wish to see literature discoursed +about in the same pinchbeck and affected style as are painting and music; +<a href="#fn-3" name="fnref-3" id="fnref-3"><sup>[3]</sup></a> yet that is what +will happen if this prolific weed of sham admiration is permitted to attain its +full growth. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-3" id="fn-3"></a> <a href="#fnref-3">[3]</a> +The slang of art-talk has reached the 'young men' in the furniture warehouses. +A friend of mine was recommended a sideboard the other day as not being a +Chippendale, but as 'having a Chippendale <i>feeling</i> in it.' +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/01.jpg" width="300" height="181" alt="[decoration]" /> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>THE PINCH OF POVERTY.</h2> + +<p> +In these days of reduction of rents, or of total abstinence +from rent-paying, it is, I am told, the +correct thing to be 'a little pressed for money.' It +is a sign of connection with the landed interest (like +the banker's ejaculation in 'Middlemarch') and suggests +family acres, and entails, and a position in the +county. (In which case I know a good many people +who are landlords on a very extensive scale, and have +made allowances for their tenants the generosity of +which may be described as Quixotic.) But as a general +rule, and in times less exceptionally hard, though +Shakespeare tells us 'How apt the poor are to be +proud,' they are not proud of being poor. +</p> + +<p> +'Poverty,' says the greatest of English divines, 'is +indeed despised and makes men contemptible; it exposes +a man to the influences of evil persons, and +leaves a man defenceless; it is always suspected; its +stories are accounted lies, and all its counsels follies; +it puts a man from all employment; it makes a man's +discourses tedious and his society troublesome. This +is the worst of it.' Even so poverty seems pretty bad, +but, begging Dr. Jeremy Taylor's pardon, what he has +stated is by no means 'the worst of it.' To be in +want of food at any time, and of firing in winter time, +is ever so much worse than the inconveniences he +enumerates; and to see those we love—delicate +women and children perhaps—in want, is worse still. +The fact is, the excellent bishop probably never knew +what it was to go without his meals, but took them +'reg'lar' (as Mrs. Gamp took her Brighton ale) as +bishops generally do. Moreover, since his day, Luxury +has so universally increased, and the value of Intelligence +has become so well recognised (by the publishers) +that even philosophers, who profess to despise such +things, have plenty to eat, and good of its kind too. +Hence it happens that, from all we hear to the contrary +from the greatest thinkers, the deprivation of +food is a small thing: indeed, as compared with the +great spiritual struggles of noble minds, and the doubts +that beset them as to the supreme government of the +universe, it seems hardly worth mentioning. +</p> + +<p> +In old times, when folks were not so 'cultured,' starvation +was thought more of. It is quite curious, indeed, +to contrast the high-flying morality of the present +day (when no one is permitted, either by Evolutionist +or Ritualist, however dire may be his necessity, so +much as to jar his conscience) with the shocking laxity +of the Holy Scriptures. 'Men do not despise a thief +if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry,' says +Solomon, after which stretch of charity, strange to say, +he goes on to speak of marital infidelity in terms that, +considering the number of wives he had himself, strike +one as severe. +</p> + +<p> +It is certain, indeed, that the sacred writers were +apt to make great allowances for people with empty +stomachs, and though I am well aware that the present +profane ones think this very reprehensible, I +venture to agree with the sacred writers. The sharpest +tooth of poverty is felt, after all, in the bite of hunger. +A very amusing and graphic writer once described his +experience of a whole night passed in the streets; the +exhaustion, the pain, the intolerable weariness of it, +were set forth in a very striking manner; the sketch +was called 'The Key of the Street,' and was thought +by many, as Browning puts it, to be 'the true Dickens.' +But what are even the pangs of sleeplessness and +fatigue compared with those of want? Of course +there have been fanatics who have fasted many days; +but they have been supported by the prospect of spiritual +reward. I confess I reserve my pity for those +who have no such golden dreams, and who fast perforce. +It is exceedingly difficult for mere worldlings—such +as most of us are—not to eat, if it is possible, +when we are hungry. I have known a great social +philosopher who flattered himself that he was giving +his sons an experience of High Thinking and Low +Living by restricting their pocket-money to two shillings +a day, out of which it was understood they were +to find their own meals. I don't know whether the +spirit in their case was willing, but the flesh was decidedly +weak, for one of them, on this very moderate +allowance, used to contrive to always have a pint of +dry champagne with his luncheon. The fact is, that +of the iron grip of poverty, people in general, by no +means excepting those who have written about it, have +had very little experience; whereas of the pinch of it +a good many people know something. It is the object +of this paper—and the question should be an interesting +one, considering how much it is talked about—to +inquire briefly where it lies. +</p> + +<p> +It is quite extraordinary how very various are the +opinions entertained on this point, and, before sifting +them, one must be careful in the first place to eliminate +from our inquiry the cases of that considerable +class of persons who pinch themselves. For, however +severely they do it, they may stop when they like and +the pain is cured. There is all the difference in the +world between pulling one's own tooth out, and even +the best and kindest of dentists doing it for one. How +gingerly one goes to work, and how often it strikes +one that the tooth is a good tooth, that it has been a +fast friend to us for ever so many years and never +'fallen out' before, and that after all it had better stop +where it is! +</p> + +<p> +To the truly benevolent mind, indeed, nothing is +more satisfactory than to hear of a miser denying himself +the necessaries of life a little too far and ridding +us of his presence altogether. Our confidence in the +average virtue of humanity assures us that his place +will be supplied by a better man. The details of his +penurious habits, the comfortless room, the scanty +bedding, the cheese-rinds on his table, and the fat +banking-book under his thin bolster, only inspire disgust: +if he were pinched to death he did it himself, +and so much the better for the world in general and +his heir in particular. +</p> + +<p> +Again, the people who have a thousand a year, and +who try to persuade the world that they have two +thousand, suffer a good deal of inconvenience, but it +can't be called the pinch of poverty. They may put +limits to their washing-bills, which persons of cleanlier +habits would consider unpleasantly narrow; they may +eat cold mutton in private for five days a week in +order to eat turtle and venison in public (and with the +air of eating them every day) on the sixth; and they +may immure themselves in their back rooms in London +throughout the autumn in order to persuade folks +that they are still at Trouville, where for ten days they +did really reside and in splendour; but all their stint +and self-incarceration, so far from awakening pity, only +fill us with contempt. I am afraid that even the complaining +tones of our City friend who tells us that in +consequence of 'the present unsettled state of the +markets' he has been obliged to make 'great retrenchments'—which +it seems on inquiry consist in putting +down one of his carriages and keeping three horses +instead of six—fail to draw the sympathising tear. +Indeed, to a poor man this pretence of suffering on +the part of the rich is perhaps even more offensive +than their boasts of their prosperity. +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, when the rich become really +poor their case is hard indeed; though, strange to say, +we hear little of it. It is like drowning; there is a +feeble cry, a little ineffectual assistance from the bystanders, +and then they go under. It is not a question +of pinch with <i>them</i>; they have fallen into the gaping +mouth of ruin, and it has devoured them. If we ever +see them again, it is in the second generation as +waiters (upon Providence), or governesses, and we say, +'Why, dear me, that was Bullion's son (or daughter), +wasn't it?' using the past tense, as if they were dead. +'I remember him when he lived in Eaton Square.' +This class of cases rarely comes under the head of +'genteel poverty.' They were at the top, and hey +presto! by some malignant stroke of fate they are at +the bottom; and there they stick. +</p> + +<p> +I don't believe in bachelors ever experiencing the +pinch of poverty; I have heard them complaining of +it at the club, while ordering Medina oysters instead +of Natives, but, after all, what does it signify even if +they were reduced to cockles? They have no appearances +to keep up, and if they cannot earn enough to +support themselves they must be poor creatures indeed. +</p> + +<p> +It is the large families of moderate income, who +are delicate, and have delicate tastes, that feel the +twinge: and especially the poor girls. I remember a +man, with little care for his personal appearance, of +small means but with a very rich sense of humour, +describing to me his experiences when staying at a +certain ducal house in the country, where his feelings +must have been very similar to those of Christopher +Sly. In particular he drew a charming picture of the +magnificent attendant who in the morning <i>would</i> put +out his clothes for him, which had not been made by +Mr. Poole, nor very recently by anybody. The contempt +which he well understood his Grace's gentleman +must have felt for him afforded him genuine enjoyment. +But with young ladies, in a similar position, +matters are very different; they have rarely a sense +of humour, and certainly none strong enough to +counteract the force of a personal humiliation. I +have known some very charming ones, compelled to +dress on a very small allowance, who, in certain +mansions where they have been occasionally guests, +have been afraid to put their boots outside their door, +because they were not of the newest, and have +trembled when the officious lady's-maid has meddled +with their scanty wardrobe. A philosopher may think +nothing of this, but, considering the tender skin of +the sufferer, it may be fairly called a pinch. +</p> + +<p> +In the investigation of this interesting subject, I +have had a good deal of conversation with young +ladies, who have given me the fullest information, and +in a manner so charming, that, if it were common in +witnesses generally, it would make Blue-Books very +pretty reading. +</p> + +<p> +'I consider it to be "a pinch,"' says one, 'when I am +obliged to put on black mittens on occasions when I +know other girls will have long white kid gloves.' I +must confess I have a prejudice myself against mittens; +they are, so to speak, 'gritty' to touch; so that the +pinch, if it be one, experienced by the wearer, is +shared by her ungloved friends. The same thing +may be said of that drawing-room fire which is lit so +late in the season for economical reasons, and so late +in the day at all times: the pinch is felt as much by +the visitors as by the members of the household. +These things, however, are mere nips, and may be +placed in the same category with the hardships +complained of by my friend Quiverfull's second boy. +'I don't mind having papa's clothes cut up for me,' he +says, 'but what I do think hard is getting Bob's +clothes' (Bob being his elder brother), 'which have +been papa's first; however, I am in great hopes that I +am out-growing Bob.' +</p> + +<p> +A much more severe example of the pinch of +poverty than these is to be found in railway travelling; +no lady of any sense or spirit objects to travel +by the second, or even the third class, if her means +do not justify her going by the first. But when she +meets with richer friends upon the platform, and +parts with them to journey in the same compartment +with their man-servant, she suffers as acutely as +though, when the guard slams the door of the carriage +with the vehemence proportioned to its humble +rank, her tender hand had been crushed in it. Of +course it is very foolish of her; but it demands democratic +opinions, such as almost no woman of birth and +breeding possesses, not to feel <i>that</i> pinch. Her knowledge +that it is also hard upon the man-servant, who +has never sat in her presence before, but only stooped +over her shoulder with ''Ock, miss,' serves but to increase +her pain. +</p> + +<p> +A great philosopher has stated that the worst evil +of poverty is, that it makes folks ridiculous; by which, +I hope, he only means that, as in the above case, it +places them in incongruous positions. The man, or +woman, who derives amusement from the lack of +means of a fellow-creature, would jeer at a natural +deformity, be cruel to children, and insult old age. +Such people should be whipped and then hanged. +Nevertheless there are certain little pinches of poverty +so slight, that they tickle almost as much as they hurt +the victim. A lady once told me (interrupting herself, +however, with pleasant bursts of merriment) that as a +young girl her allowance was so small that when +she went out to spend the evening at a friend's, her +promised pleasure was darkened by the presentiment +(always fulfilled) that the cabman was sure to charge +her more than the proper fare. The extra expense +was really of consequence to her, but she never dared +dispute it, because of the presence of the footman who +opened the door. +</p> + +<p> +Some young ladies—quite as lady-like as any who +roll in chariots—cannot even afford a cab. 'What <i>I</i> +call the pinch of poverty,' observed an example of this +class, 'is the waiting for omnibus after omnibus on a +wet afternoon and finding them all full.' +</p> + +<p> +'But surely,' I replied with gallantry, 'any man +would have given up his seat to you?' +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head with a smile that had very little fun in it. 'People in +omnibuses,' she said, 'don't give up their seats to others.' Nor, I am bound to +confess, do they do so elsewhere; if I had been in their place, perhaps I +should have been equally selfish; though I do think I should have made an +effort, in this instance at least, to make room for her close beside me. +<a href="#fn-4" name="fnref-4" id="fnref-4"><sup>[4]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-4" id="fn-4"></a> <a href="#fnref-4">[4]</a> +There is, however, some danger in this. I remember reading of some highly +respectable old gentleman in the City who thus accommodated on a wet day a very +nice young woman in humble circumstances. She was as full of apologies as of +rainwater, and he of good-natured rejoinders, intended to put her at her ease; +so that he became, in a Platonic and paternal way, quite friendly with her by +the time she arrived at her destination—which happened to be his own +door. She turned out to be his new cook, which was afterwards very +embarrassing. +</p> + +<p> +A young governess whom some wicked fairy endowed at her birth with the +sensitiveness often denied to princesses, has assured me that her +journeys by railway have sometimes been rendered miserable by the +thought that she had not even a few pence to spare for the porter who +would presently shoulder her little box on to the roof of her cab. +</p> + +<p> +It is people of this class, much more than those +beneath them, who are shut out from all amusements. +The mechanic goes to the play and to the music-hall, +and occasionally takes his 'old girl,' as he calls his +wife, and even 'a kid' or two, to the Crystal Palace. +But those I have in my mind have no such relaxation +from compulsory duty and importunate care. 'I know +it's very foolish, but I feel it sometimes to be a pinch,' +says one of these ill-fated ones, 'to see them all [the +daughters of her employer] going to the play, or +the opera, while I am expected to be satisfied with +a private view of their pretty dresses.' No doubt +it is the sense of comparison (especially with the +female) that sharpens the sting of poverty. It is not, +however, through envy that the 'prosperity of fools +destroys us,' so much as the knowledge of its unnecessariness +and waste. When a mother has a sick +child who needs sea air, which she cannot afford to +give it, the consciousness that her neighbour's family +(the head of which perhaps is a most successful +financier and market-rigger) are going to the Isle of +Wight for three months, though there is nothing at +all the matter with them, is an added bitterness. How +often it is said (no doubt with some well-intentioned +idea of consolation) that after all money cannot buy +life! I remember a curious instance to the contrary +of this. In the old days of sailing-packets a country +gentleman embarked for Ireland, and when a few +miles from land broke a bloodvessel through seasickness. +A doctor on board pronounced that he +would certainly die before the completion of the +voyage if it was continued; whereupon the sick man's +friends consulted with the captain, who convoked the +passengers, and persuaded them to accept compensation +in proportion to their needs for allowing the +vessel to be put back; which was accordingly done. +</p> + +<p> +One of the most popular fictions of our time was +even written with this very moral, that life is unpurchasable. +Yet nothing is more certain than that +life is often lost through want of money—that is, of +the obvious means to save it. In such a case how +truly has it been written that 'the destruction of the +poor is their poverty'! This, however, is scarcely a +pinch, but, to those who have hearts to feel it, a wrench +that 'divides asunder the joints and the marrow.' +</p> + +<p> +A nobler example, because a less personal one, of +the pinch of poverty, is when it prevents the accomplishment +of some cherished scheme for the benefit of +the human race. I have felt such a one myself when +in extreme youth I was unable, from a miserable +absence of means, to publish a certain poem in several +cantos. That the world may not have been much +better for it if I had had the means does not affect +the question. It is easy to be incredulous. Henry VII. +of England did not believe in the expectations of +Columbus, and suffered for it, and his case may have +been similar to that of the seven publishers to whom +I applied in vain. +</p> + +<p> +A man with an invention on which he has spent +his life, but has no means to get it developed for the +good of humanity—or even patented for himself—must +feel the pinch of poverty very acutely. +</p> + +<p> +To sum up the matter, the longer I live, the more +I am convinced that the general view in respect to +material means is a false one. That great riches are +a misfortune is quite true; the effect of them in the +moral sense (with here and there a glorious exception, +however) is deplorable: a shower of gold falling continuously +upon any body (or soul) is as the waters of +a petrifying spring. But, on the other hand, the +occasional and precarious dripping of coppers has by +no means a genial effect. If the one recipient becomes +hard as the nether millstone, the other (just as after +constant 'pinching' a limb becomes insensible) grows +callous, and also (though it seems like a contradiction +in terms) sometimes acquires a certain dreadful +suppleness. Nothing is more monstrous than the +generally received opinion with respect to a moderate +competence; that 'fatal gift,' as it is called, which +encourages idleness in youth by doing away with the +necessity for exertion. I never hear the same people +inveighing against great inheritances, which are much +more open to such objections. The fact is, if a young +man is naturally indolent, the spur of necessity will +drive him but a very little way, while the having +enough to live upon is often the means of preserving his +self-respect. One constantly hears what humiliating +things men will do for money, whereas the truth is +that they do them for the want of it. It is not the +temptation which induces them, but the pinch. 'Give +me neither poverty nor riches,' was Agur's prayer; +'feed me with food convenient for me, lest I be full +and deny Thee, and say, Who is the Lord? or lest I +be poor and steal.' And there are many things—flatteries, +disgraceful humiliations, hypocrisies—which +are almost as bad as stealing. One of the sharpest +pinches of poverty to some minds must be their inability +(because of their dependency on him and that +of others upon them) to tell a man what they think +of him. +</p> + +<p> +Riches and poverty are of course but relative terms; +but the happiest material position in which a man +can be placed is that of 'means with a margin.' Then, +however small his income may be, however it may +behove him to 'cut and contrive,' as the housekeepers +call it, he does not feel the pinch of poverty. I have +known a rich man say to an acquaintance of this +class, 'My good friend, if you only knew how very +small are the pleasures my money gives me which +you yourself cannot purchase!' And for once it was +not one of those cheap and empty consolations which +the wealthy are so ready to bestow upon their less +fortunate fellow-creatures. Dives was, in that instance, +quite right in his remark; only we must remember he +was not speaking to Lazarus. 'A dinner of herbs +where love is,' is doubtless quite sufficient for us; only +there must be enough of it, and the herbs should be +nicely cooked in an omelette. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/02.jpg" width="300" height="95" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>THE LITERARY CALLING AND ITS FUTURE.</h2> + +<p> +One would think that in writing about literary +men and matters there would be no difficulty +in finding a title for one's essay, or that any embarrassment +which might arise would be from excess of +material. I find this, however, far from being the +case. 'Men of Letters,' for example, is a heading too +classical and pretentious. I do indeed remember its +being used in these modern days by the sub-editor of +a country paper, who, having quarrelled with his proprietor, +and reduced him to silence by a violent kick +in the abdomen, thus addressed him: 'I leave you +and your dirty work for ever, and start to-night for +London, to take up my proper position as a Man of +Letters.' But this gentleman's case (and I hope that +of his proprietor) was an exceptional one. The term +in general is too ambitious and suggestive of the +author of 'Cato,' for my humble purpose. 'Literature +as a Profession,' again, is open to objection on the +question of fact. The professions do not admit literature +into their brotherhood. 'Literature, Science, and +Art' are all spoken of in the lump, and rather +contemptuously (like 'reading, writing, and arithmetic'), +and have no settled position whatever. In a book of +precedence, however—a charming class of work, and +much more full of humour than the peerage—I recently +found indicated for the first time the relative place +of Literature in the social scale. After a long list of +Eminent Personages and Notables, the mere perusal +of which was calculated to bring the flush of pride into +my British cheek, I found at the very bottom these +remarkable words, 'Burgesses, Literary Persons, and +others.' Lest haughtiness should still have any place +in the breasts of these penultimates of the human +race, the order was repeated in the same delightful +volume in still plainer fashion, 'Burgesses, Literary +Persons, etc.' It is something, of course, to take precedence—in +going down to dinner, for example—even +of an et cetera; but who are Burgesses? I have +a dreadful suspicion they are not gentlemen. Are +they ladies? Did I ever meet a Burgess, I wonder, +coming through the rye? At all events, after so +authoritative a statement of its social position, I feel +that to speak of Literature as a profession would be +an hyperbole. +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, 'The Literary Calling' is not a +title that satisfies me. For the word 'calling' implies +a certain fitness; in the religious sense it has even +more significance; and it cannot be denied that there +are a good many persons who devote—well, at least, +their time to literature, who can hardly be said to +have 'a call' in that direction, nor even so much as a +whisper. At the same time I will venture to observe, +notwithstanding a great deal of high-sounding twaddle +talked and written to the contrary, that it is not necessary +for a man to feel any miraculous or even extraordinary +attraction to this pursuit to succeed in it +very tolerably. I remember a now distinguished personage +(in another line) who had written a very successful +work, expressing his opinion to me that unless +a certain divine afflatus animated a man, he should +never take up his pen to address the public. The +writing for pay, he added (he had at least £5,000 a year +of his own), was the degradation of literature. As I +had written about a dozen books myself at the time, +and most decidedly with an eye to profit, and had +never experienced much afflatus, this remark discouraged +me very much. However, as the gentleman +in question did essay another volume, which +was so absolute and distinct a failure that he +promptly took up another line of business (far above +that of Burgesses), it is probable he altered his +views. +</p> + +<p> +Nature of course is the best guide in the matter of +choosing a pursuit. When she says 'This is your line, +stick to it,' she seldom or never makes a mistake. +But, on the other hand, her speech must be addressed +to mature ears. For my part, I do not much believe in +the predilections of boyhood. I was never so simple +as to wish to go to sea, but I do remember (when +between seven and eight) having a passionate longing +to become a merchant. I had no notion, however, of +the preliminary stages; the high stool in the close +street; luncheon at a counter, standing (I liked to +have my meals good, plentiful, often, and in comfort, +even then); and imprisonment at the office on the +eves of mail nights till the large hours p.m. Even the +full fruition of such aspirations—the large waistcoat +beginning to 'point,' (as it soon does in merchants), +heavy watchchain, and cheerful conviction of the +coming scarcity of necessaries for everybody else, would +have failed to please. The sort of merchant I wanted +to be was never found in 'Post Office Directory,' but +in the 'Arabian Nights,' trading to Bussorah, chiefly +in pearls and diamonds. When the Paterfamiliases +of my acquaintance instance certain stenches and +messes which their Toms and Harrys make with chemicals +all over their house, as a proof of 'their natural +turn for engineering,' I say, 'Very likely,' or 'A capital +thing,' but I <i>think</i> of that early attraction of my own +towards Bussorah. The young gentlemen never dream +of what I once heard described, in brief, as the real +business life of a scientific apprentice: 'To lie on your +back with a candle in your hand, while another fellow +knocks nails into a boiler.' +</p> + +<p> +Boys have rarely any special aptitude for anything +practical beyond punching each others' heads, or (and +these are the clever ones) for keeping their own heads +unpunched. As a rule, in short, Nature is not demonstrative +as respects our professional future. +</p> + +<p> +It must nevertheless be conceded that if the boy is +ever father to the man in this respect, it is in connection +with literature. Also, however prosaic their works +are fated to be, it is curious that the aspirants for the +profession below Burgesses always begin with Poetry. +Even Harriet Martineau wrote verses in early life bad +enough to comfort the soul of any respectable parent. +The approach to the Temple of Literary Fame is +almost always through double gates—couplets. And +yet I have known youthful poets, apparently bound +for Paternoster Row, bolt off the course in a year or +two, to the delight of their friends, and become, of +their own free will, drysalters. +</p> + +<p> +There is so much talk about the 'indications of +immortality in early childhood' (of a very different +kind from those referred to by Wordsworth), and it is +so much the habit of biographers to use magnifiers +when their subject is small, that it needs some courage +to avow my belief that the tastes of boys have very +little significance. A clever boy can be trained to +almost anything, and an ordinary boy will not do one +thing much better than another. With the Geniuses +I will allow (for the sake of peace and quietness) that +Nature is all-powerful, but with nine hundred and +ninety-nine out of a thousand of us, Second Nature, +Use, is the true mistress; and what will doubtless +strike some people as almost paradoxical, but is +nevertheless a fact, Literature is the calling in which +she has the greatest sway. +</p> + +<p> +It is the fashion with that enormous class of people +who don't know what they are talking about, and +who take up cuckoo-cries, to speak contemptuously +of modern literature, by which they mean (for they +are acquainted with little else) periodical literature. +However small may be its merits, it is at all events +ten times as good as ancient periodical literature used +to be. A very much better authority than myself on +such a subject has lately informed us that the majority +of the old essays in the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>, at the +very time when it was supposed to be most 'trenchant,' +'masterly,' 'exhaustive,' and a number of other splendid +epithets, are so dull and weak and ignorant, that it is +impossible that they or their congeners would now +find acceptance in any periodical of repute. And with +regard to all other classes of old magazine literature, +this verdict is certainly most just. +</p> + +<p> +Let us take what most people suppose to be 'the extreme case,' Magazine Poetry. +Of course there is to-day a great deal of rant and twaddle published under the +name of verse in magazines; yet I could point to scores and scores of poems +that have thus appeared during the last ten years,<a href="#fn-5" name="fnref-5" id="fnref-5"><sup>[5]</sup></a> +which half a century ago would have made—and deservedly have made—a +high reputation for their authors. Such phrases as 'universal necessity for +practical exertion,' 'prosaic character of the age,' etc., are, of course, +common enough; but those who are acquainted with such matters will, I am sure, +corroborate my assertion that there was never so much good poetry in our +general literature as exists at present. Persons of intelligence do not look +for such things perhaps, and certainly not in magazines, while persons of +'culture' are too much occupied with old china and high art; but to humble +folks, who take an interest in their fellow-creatures, it is very pleasant to +observe what high thoughts, and how poetically expressed, are now to be found +about our feet, and, as it were, in the literary gutter. I don't compare these +writers with Byrons and Shelleys; I don't speak of them as born poets at all. +On the contrary, my argument is that second nature (cultivation, opportunities +of publication, etc.) has made them what they are; and it is immensely +creditable to her. +</p> + +<p> +And what holds good of verse holds infinitely better +in respect to prose. The enormous improvement in +our prose writers (I am not speaking of geniuses, +remember, but of the generality), and their great +superiority over writers of the same class half a +century ago, is mainly due to use. Sir Walter Scott, +who, like most men of genuine power, had great +generosity, once observed to a brother author, 'You +and I came just in the nick of time.' He foresaw the +formidable competition that was about to take place, +though he had no cause to fear it. I think in these +days he would have had cause; not that I disbelieve +in his genius, but that I venture to think he diffused +it over too large an area. In such cases genius is +overpassed by the talent which husbands its resources; +in other words, Nature succumbs to second nature, as +the wife in the patriarchal days (when <i>she</i> grew +patriarchal) succumbed to the handmaid. And after +all, though we talk so glibly about genius, and profess +to feel, though we cannot express, in what it differs +from talent, are we quite so sure about this as we +would fain persuade ourselves? At all events, it cannot +surely be contended that a man of genius always +writes like one; and when he does not, his work is +often inferior to the first-rate production of a man of +talent. For my own part, I am not sure whether +(with the exception, perhaps, of the highest gifts of +song) the whole distinction is not fanciful. +</p> + +<p> +We are ready enough in ordinary matters to allow +that 'practice makes perfect,' and the limit of that +principle is yet to be found. Moreover, the vast +importance of exclusive application is almost unknown. +We see it, indeed, in men of science and in +lawyers, but without recognition; nay, socially, it is +even quoted against them. The mathematician may +be very eminent, but we find him dry; the lawyer may +be at the head of his profession, but we find him dull; +and it is observed on all sides how very little great A +and great B, notwithstanding the high position they +have earned for themselves in their calling, know of +matters out of their own line. On the other hand, the +man of whom it was said that 'science was his forte +and omniscience his foible,' has left no enduring +monument behind him; and so it must always be with +mortals who have only fifty years of thought allotted +to them at the very most, and who diffuse it. Everyone +admits the value of application, but very few are +aware how its force is wasted by diffusion: it is like a +volatile essence in a bottle without a cork. When, on +the other hand, it is concentrated—you may call it +'narrowed' if you please—there is hardly anything +within its own sphere of action of which it is not +capable. So many high motives (though also some +mean ones) prompt us to make broad the bases of +education, that any proposal to contract them must +needs be thankless and unpopular; but it is certain +that, among the upper classes at least, the reason why +so many men are unable to make their way in the +world, is because, thanks to a too liberal education, +they are Jacks of all trades and masters of none; and +even as Jacks they cut a very poor figure. +</p> + +<p> +How large and varied is the educational bill of fare +set before every young gentleman in Great Britain; +and to judge by the mental stamina it affords him in +most cases, what a waste of good food it is! The dishes +are so numerous and so quickly changed, that he has no +time to decide on which he likes best. Like an industrious +flea, rather than a bee, he hops from flower to +flower in the educational garden, without one penny-worth +of honey to show for it. And then—though I feel +how degrading it is to allude to so vulgar a matter—how +high is the price of admission to the feast in question! +Its purveyors do not pretend to have filled his stomach, +but only to have put him in the way of filling it for +himself, whereas, unhappily, Paterfamilias discovers +that that is the very thing that they have not done. +His young Hopeful at twenty-one is almost as unable +to run alone as when he first entered the nursery. To +discourse airily upon the beauties of classical education, +and on the social advantages of acquiring 'the tone' +at a public school at whatever cost, is an agreeable exercise +of the intelligence; but such arguments have been +taken too seriously, and the result is that our young +gentlemen are incapable of gaining their own living. +It is not only that 'all the gates are thronged with +suitors, all the markets overflow,' but even when the +candidates are so fortunate as to attain admittance, +they are still a burden upon their fathers for years, +from having had no especial preparation for the work +they have to do. Folks who can afford to spend +£250 a year on their sons at Eton or Harrow, and +to add another fifty or two for their support at the +universities, do not feel this; but those who have +done it without affording it—<i>i.e.</i>, by cutting and contriving, +if not by pinching and saving—feel their +position very bitterly. There are hundreds of clever +young men who are now living at home and doing +nothing—or work that pays nothing, and even costs +something for doing it—who might be earning very +tolerable incomes by their pen if they only knew how, +and had not wasted their young wits on Greek plays +and Latin verses; nor do I find that the attractions of +such objects of study are permanent, or afford the least +solace to these young gentlemen in their enforced +leisure. +</p> + +<p> +The idea of bringing young people up to Literature +is doubtless calculated to raise the eyebrows almost as +much as the suggestion of bringing them up to the +Stage. The notions of Paterfamilias in this respect +are very much what they were fifty years ago. 'What! +put my boy in Grub Street? I would rather see him +in his coffin.' In his mind's eye he beholds Savage on +his bunk and Chatterton on his deathbed. He does +not know that there are many hundreds of persons of +both sexes who have found out this vocation for themselves, +and are diligently pursuing it—under circumstances +of quite unnecessary difficulty—to their +material advantage. He is unaware that the conditions +of literature in England have been as completely +changed within a single generation as those of locomotion. +</p> + +<p> +There are, it is true, at present no great prizes in +literature such as are offered by the learned professions, +but there are quite as many small ones—competences; +while, on the other hand, it is not so much +of a lottery. It is not necessary to marry an attorney's +daughter, or a bishop's, to get on in it. The calling, as +it is termed (I know not why, for it is often heavy +enough), of 'light literature' is in such contempt, +through ignorance on the one hand, and arrogance on +the other, that one is almost afraid in such a connection +to speak of merit; yet merit, or, at all events, aptitude +with diligence, is certain of success in it. A great deal +has been said about editors being blind to the worth +of unknown authors; but if so, they must be also blind +(and this I have never heard said of them) to their own +interests. It would be just as reasonable to accuse a +recruiting sergeant of passing by the stout six-feet +fellows who wish to enlist with him, and for each of +whom—directly or indirectly—he receives head-money. +It is possible, of course, that one particular +sergeant may be drunken, or careless of his own +interests, but in that case the literary recruit has only +to apply next door. The opportunities for action in +the field of literature are now so very numerous that +it is impossible that any able volunteer should be long +shut out of it; and I have observed that the complaints +about want of employment come almost solely +from those unfit for service. Nay, in the ranks of the +literaryarmy there are very many who should have been +excluded. Few, if any, are there through favour; but +the fact is, the work to be done is so extensive and so +varied, that there is not a sufficiency of good candidates +to do it. And of what is called 'skilled labour' +among them there is scarcely any. +</p> + +<p> +The question 'What can you do?' put by an editor +to an aspirant, generally astonishes him very much. +The aspirant is ready to do anything, he says, which +the other will please to suggest. 'But what is your +line in literature? What can you do best—not +tragedies in blank verse, I hope?' Perhaps the +aspirant here hangs his head; he <i>has</i> written tragedies. +In which case there is good hope for him, +because it shows a natural bent. But he generally +replies that he has written nothing as yet except +that essay on the genius of Cicero (at which the +editor has already shaken his head), and that defence +of Mary Queen of Scots. Or perhaps he has +written some translations of Horace, which he is surprised +to find not a novelty; or some considerations +upon the value of a feudal system. At four-and-twenty, +in short, he is but an overgrown schoolboy. +He has been taught, indeed, to acquire knowledge of +a certain sort, but not the habit of acquiring; he has +been taught to observe nothing; he is ignorant upon +all the subjects that interest his fellow-creatures, and +in his new ambition is like one who endeavours to +attract an audience without having anything to tell +them. He knows some Latin, a little Greek, a very +little French, and a very very little of what are called +the English classics. He has read a few recent novels +perhaps, but of modern English literature, and of that +(to him at least) most important branch of it, English +journalism, he knows nothing. His views and opinions +are those of a public school, which are by no +means in accordance with those of the great world of +readers; or he is full of the class prejudices imbibed +at college. In short, he may be as vigorous as a Zulu, +with the materials of a first-rate soldier in him, but +his arms are only a club and an assegai, and are of +no service. Why should he not be fitted out in early +life with literary weapons of precision, and taught the +use of them? +</p> + +<p> +I say, again, that poor Paterfamilias looking hopelessly +about him, like Quintus Curtius in the riddle, +for 'a nice opening for a young man,' is totally ignorant +of the opportunities, if not for fame and fortune, +at least for competency and comfort, that Literature +now offers to a clever lad. He looks round him; he +sees the Church leading nowhere, with much greater +certainty of expense than income, and demanding a +huge sum for what is irreverently termed 'gate money;' +he sees the Bar, with its high road leading indeed to +the woolsack, but with a hundred by-ways leading +nowhere in particular, and full of turnpikes—legal +tutors, legal fees, rents of chambers, etc.—which he +has to defray; he sees Physic, at which Materfamilias +sniffs and turns her nose up. 'Her Jack, with such +agreeable manners, to become a saw-bones! Never!' +He sees the army, and thinks, since Jack has such +great abilities, it seems a pity to give him a red coat, +which costs also considerably more than a black one; +And how is Jack to live upon his pay? +</p> + +<p> +After all, indeed, however prettily one puts it, the +question is with him, not so much '<i>What</i> is my Jack to +be?' as '<i>How</i> is my Jack to live?' To one who has any +gift of humour there are few things more amusing +than to observe how this vulgar, but really rather important +inquiry, is ignored by those who take the +subject of modern education in hand. They are +chiefly schoolmasters, who are not so deep in their +books but that they can spare a glance or two in the +direction of their banker's account; or fellows of +colleges who have no children, and therefore never +feel the difficulties of supporting them. Heaven +forbid that so humble an individual as myself should +question their wisdom, or say anything about them +that should seem to smack of irreverence; but I do +believe that (with one or two exceptions I have in my +mind) the system they have introduced among us is the +Greatest Humbug in the universe. In the meantime +poor Paterfamilias (who is the last man, they flatter +themselves, to find this out) stands with his hands +(and very little else) in his pockets, regarding his +clever offspring, and wondering what he shall do with +him. He remembers to have read about a man on +his deathbed, who calls his children about him and +thanks God, though he has left them nothing to live +upon, he has given them a good education, and tries +to extract comfort from the reminiscence. That he +has spent money enough upon Jack's education is +certain; something between two or three thousand +pounds in all at least, the interest of which, it strikes +him, would be very convenient just now to keep him. +But unfortunately the principal is gone and Jack +isn't. +</p> + +<p> +Now suppose—for one may suppose anything, however +ridiculous—he had spent two or three hundred +pounds at the very most, and brought him up to the +Calling of Literature. He believes, perhaps, that it is +only geniuses that succeed in it (in which case I know +more geniuses than I had any idea of), and he doesn't +think Jack a genius, though Jack's mother does. Or, +as is more probable, he regards it as a hand-to-mouth +calling, which to-day gives its disciples a five-pound +note, and to-morrow five pence. He calls to mind a +saying about Literature being a good stick, but not a +good crutch—an excellent auxiliary, but no permanent +support; but he forgets the all-important fact that the +remark was made half a century ago. +</p> + +<p> +Poor blind Paterfamilias—shall I couch you? If +the operation is successful, I am sure you will thank +me for it; but, on the other hand, I foresee I shall +incur the greatest enmities. Should I encourage +clever Jack, and, what is worse, a thousand Jacks +who are not clever, to enter upon this vocation, what +will editors say to me? I shall have to go about, +perhaps, guarded with two policemen with revolvers, +like an Irish gentleman on his landed estate. 'Is not +the flood of rubbish to which we are already subjected,' +I hear them crying, 'bad enough, without your pulling +up the sluices of universal stupidity?' My suggestion, +however, is intended to benefit them by clearing away +the rubbish, and inducing a clearer and deeper stream +for the turning of their mills. At the same time I +confess that the lessening of Paterfamilias's difficulties +is my main object. What I would open his eyes to +is the fact that a calling, of the advantages of which he +has no knowledge, <i>does</i> present itself to clever Jack, +which will cost him nothing but pens, ink, and paper +to enter upon, and in which, if he has been well trained +for it, he will surely be successful, since so many succeed +in it without any training at all. Why should +not clever Jack have this in view as much as the +<i>ignes fatui</i> of woolsacks and mitres? If it has no +lord chancellorships, it has plenty of county court +appointments; if it has no bishoprics, it has plenty of +benefices—and really, as times go, some pretty fat +ones. +</p> + +<p> +On your breakfast-table, good Paterfamilias, there +lies, every morning, a newspaper, and on Saturday +perhaps there are two or three. When you go out in +the street, you are pestered to buy half a score more +of them. In your club reading-room there are a +hundred different journals. When you travel by the +railway you see at every station a provincial newspaper +of more or less extensive circulation. Has it +never struck you that to supply these publications +with their leading articles, there must be an immense +staff of persons called journalists, professing every +description of opinion, and advocating every conceivable +policy? And do you suppose these gentry +only get £70 a year for their work, like a curate; or +£60, like a sub-lieutenant; or that they have to pay +three times those sums for the privilege of belonging +to the press, as a barrister does for belonging to his +inn? Again, in London at least, there are as many +magazines as newspapers, containing every kind of +literature, the very contributors of which are so +numerous, that they form a public of themselves. +That seems at the first blush to militate against my +suggestion, but though contributors are so common, +and upon the whole so good—indeed, considering the +conditions under which they labour, so wonderfully +good—they are not (I have heard editors say) so good +as they might be, supposing (for example) they knew +a little of science, history, politics, English literature, +and especially of the art of composition, before they +volunteered their services. At present the ranks of +journalistic and periodical literature are largely recruited +from the failures in other professions. The +bright young barrister who can't get a brief takes to +literature as a calling, just as the man who has 'gone +a cropper' in the army takes to the wine-trade. And +what æons of time, and what millions of money, have +been wasted in the meanwhile! +</p> + +<p> +The announcement written on the gates of all the +recognised professions in England is the same that +would-be travellers read on the faces of the passengers +on the underground railway after office hours: 'Our +number is complete, and our room is limited.' In +literature, on the contrary, though its vehicles may +seem as tightly packed, substitution can be effected. +There may be persons travelling on that line in the +first-class who ought to be in the third, and indeed +have no reasonable pretext for being there at all. +And if clever Jack could show his ticket, he would +turn them out of it. +</p> + +<p> +Again, so far from the space being limited, it is +continually enlarging, and that out of all proportion +to those who have tickets. We hear from its enemies +that the Church is doomed, and from its friends that +it is in danger; there is a small but energetic party +who are bent on reducing the Army, and even on +doing away with it; nay, so wicked and presumptuous +has human nature grown, that mutterings are heard +and menaces uttered against the delay and exactions +of the Law itself; whereas Literature has no +foes, and is enlarging its boundaries in all directions. +It is all 'a-growing and a-blowing,' as the peripatetic +gardeners say of their plants; but, unlike their wares, +it has its roots deep in the soil and is an evergreen. +Its promise is golden, and its prospects are boundless +for every class of writer. +</p> + +<p> +In some excellent articles on Modern Literature in +<i>Blackwood's Magazine</i> the other day, this subject was +touched upon with respect to fiction, and might well +have filled a greater space, for the growth of that description +of literature of late years is simply marvellous. +Curiously enough, though France originated +the <i>feuilleton</i>, it was from America and our own +colonies that England seems to have taken the idea +of publishing novels in newspapers. It was a +common practice in Australia long before we adopted it; +and, what is also curious, it was first acclimatised +among us by our provincial papers. The custom is +rapidly gaining ground in London, but in the country +there is now scarcely any newspaper of repute which +does not enlist the aid of fiction to attract its readers. +Many of them are contented with very poor stuff, for +which they pay a proportional price; but others club +together with other newspapers—the operation has +even received the technical term of 'forming a syndicate'—and +are thereby enabled to secure the services +of popular authors; while the newspapers thus arranged +for are published at a good distance from one +another, so as not to interfere with each other's circulation. +Country journals, which are not so ambitious, +instead of using an inferior article, will often purchase +the 'serial right,' as it is called, of stories which have +already appeared elsewhere, or have passed through +the circulating libraries. Nay, the novelist who has +established a reputation has many more strings to his +bow: his novel, thus published in the country newspapers, +also appears coincidently in the same serial +shape in Australia, Canada, and other British colonies, +leaving the three-volume form and the cheap editions +'to the good.' And what is true of fiction is in a less +degree true of other kinds of literature. Travels are +'gutted,' and form articles in magazines, illustrated by +the original plates; lectures, after having served their +primary purpose, are published in a similar manner; +even scientific works now appear first in the magazines +which are devoted to science before performing their +mission of 'popularising' their subject. +</p> + +<p> +When speaking of the growth of readers, I have +purposely not mentioned America. For the present +the absence of copyright there is destroying both +author and publisher; but the wheels of justice, though +tardy, are making way there. In a few years that +great continent of readers will be legitimately added +to the audience of the English author, and those that +have stolen will steal no more. +</p> + +<p> +Nor, in our own country, must we fail to take notice +of the establishment of School Boards. A generation +hence we shall have a reading public almost as numerous +as in America; even the very lowest classes will +have acquired a certain culture which will beget demands +both for journalists and 'literary persons.' The +harvest will be plenteous indeed, but unless my advice +be followed in some shape or another, the labourers +will be comparatively few and superlatively inadequate. +</p> + +<p> +I am well aware how mischievous, as well as troublesome, +would be the encouragement of mediocrity; and +in stating these promising facts I have no such purpose +in my mind. On the contrary, there is an immense +amount of mediocrity already in literature, +which I think my proposition of training up 'clever +Jack' to that calling would discourage. I have no +expectation of establishing a manufactory for genius—and +indeed, for reasons it is not necessary to specify, +I would not do it if I could. But whereas all kinds +of 'culture' have been recommended to the youth of +Great Britain (and certainly with no limit as to the +expense of acquisition), the cultivation of such natural +faculties as imagination and humour (for example) +has never been suggested. The possibility of such a +thing will doubtless be denied. I am quite certain, +however, that they are capable of great development, +and that they may be brought to attain, if not perfection, +at all events a high degree of excellence. The +proof, to those who choose to look for it, is plain enough +even as matters stand. Use and opportunity are +already producing scores of examples of it; if supplemented +by early education they might surely produce +still more. +</p> + +<p> +There is so great and general a prejudice against +special studies, that I must humbly conclude there is +something in it. On the other hand, I know a large +number of highly—that is broadly—educated persons, +who are desperately dull. 'But would they have been +less dull,' it may be asked, 'if they were also ignorant?' +Yes, I believe they would. They have swallowed too +much for digestions naturally weak; they have become +inert, conceited, oppressive to themselves and +others—Prigs. And I think that even clever young +people suffer in a less degree from the same cause. +Some one has written, 'Information is always useful.' +This reminds me of the married lady, fond of bargains, +who once bought a door-plate at a sale with 'Mr. +Wilkins' on it. Her own name was Jones, but the doorplate +was very cheap, and her husband, she argued, +<i>might</i> die, and then she might marry a man of the +name of Wilkins. 'Depend upon it, everything comes +in useful,' she said, 'if you only keep it long enough.' +</p> + +<p> +This is what I venture to doubt. I have myself +purchased several door-plates (quite as burthensome, +but not so cheap as that good lady's), which have +been of no sort of use to me, and are still on hand. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-5" id="fn-5"></a> <a href="#fnref-5">[5]</a> +I take up a half-yearly volume of a magazine (price 1½d. weekly) +addressed to the middle classes, and find in it, at haphazard, the five +following pieces, the authors of which are anonymous: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>AGATHA.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'From under the shade of her simple straw hat</p> +<p class="i2">She smiles at you, only a little shamefaced:</p> +<p>Her gold-tinted hair m a long-braided plait</p> +<p class="i2">Reaches on either side down to her waist.</p> +<p>Her rosy complexion, a soft pink and white,</p> +<p class="i2">Except where the white has been warmed by the sun,</p> +<p>Is glowing with health and an eager delight,</p> +<p class="i2">As she pauses to speak to you after her run.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'See with what freedom, what beautiful ease,</p> +<p class="i2">She leaps over hollows and mounds in berrace;</p> +<p>Hear how she joyously laughs when the breeze</p> +<p class="i2">Tosses her hat off, and blows in her face!</p> +<p>It's only a play-gown of homeliest cotton</p> +<p class="i2">She wears, that her finer silk dress may be saved;</p> +<p>And happily, too, she has wholly forgotten</p> +<p class="i2">The nurse and her charge to be better behaved.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'Must a time come when this child's way of caring</p> +<p class="i2">For only the present enjoyment shall pass;</p> +<p>When she'll learn to take thought of the dress that she's wearing,</p> +<p class="i2">And grow rather fond of consulting the glass?</p> +<p>Well, never mind; nothing really can change her;</p> +<p class="i2">Fair childhood will grow to as fair maidenhood;</p> +<p>Her unselfish, sweet nature is safe from all danger;</p> +<p class="i2">I know she will always be charming and good.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'For when she takes care of a still younger brother,</p> +<p class="i2">You see her stop short in the midst of her mirth,</p> +<p>Gravely and tenderly playing the mother:</p> +<p class="i2">Can there be anything fairer on earth?</p> +<p>So proud of her charge she appears, so delighted;</p> +<p class="i2">Of all her perfections (indeed, they're a host),</p> +<p>This loving attention to others, united</p> +<p class="i2">With naive self-unconsciousness, charms me the most.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'What hearts that unthinkingly under short jackets</p> +<p class="i2">Are beating to-day in a wonderful wise</p> +<p>About racing, or jumping, or cricket, or rackets,</p> +<p class="i2">One day will beat at a smile from those eyes!</p> +<p>Ah, how I envy the one that shall win her,</p> +<p class="i2">And see that sweet smile no ill-humour shall damp,</p> +<p>Shining across the spread table at dinner,</p> +<p class="i2">Or cheerfully bright in the light of the lamp.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'Ah, little fairy! a very short while,</p> +<p class="i2">Just once or twice, in a brief country stay,</p> +<p>I saw you; but when will your innocent smile</p> +<p class="i2">That I keep in my mem'ry have faded away?</p> +<p>For when, in the midst of my trouble and doubt,</p> +<p class="i2">I remember your face with its laughter and light,</p> +<p>It's as if on a sudden the sun had shone out,</p> +<p class="i2">And scattered the shadow, and made the world bright.'</p></div></div> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>CHARTREUSE.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>(<i>Liqueur</i>.)</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'Who could refuse</p> +<p>Green-eyed Chartieuse?</p> +<p>Liquor for heretics,</p> +<p>Turks, Christians, or Jews</p> +<p>For beggar or queen,</p> +<p>For monk or for dean;</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Ripened and mellow</p> +<p>(The <i>green</i>, not the yellow),</p> +<p>Give it its dues,</p> +<p>Gay little fellow,</p> +<p>Dressed up in green!</p> +<p>I love thee too well, O</p> +<p>Laughing Chartreuse!</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'O the delicate hues</p> +<p>That thrill through the green!</p> +<p>Colours which Greuze</p> +<p>Would die to have seen!</p> +<p>With thee would De Musset</p> +<p>Sweeten his muse;</p> +<p>Use, not abuse,</p> +<p>Bright little fellow!</p> +<p>(The green, <i>not</i> the yellow.)</p> +<p>O the taste and the smell! O</p> +<p>Never refuse</p> +<p>A kiss on the lips from</p> +<p>Jealous Chartreuse!'</p></div></div> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>THE LIFE-LEDGER.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'Our sufferings we reckon o'er</p> +<p class="i2">With skill minute and formal;</p> +<p>The cheerful ease that fills the score</p> +<p class="i2">We treat as merely normal.</p> +<p>Our list of ills, how full, how great!</p> +<p class="i2">We mourn our lot should fall so;</p> +<p>I wonder, do we calculate</p> +<p class="i2">Our happinesses also?</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'Were it not best to keep account</p> +<p class="i2">Of all days, if of any?</p> +<p>Perhaps the dark ones might amount</p> +<p class="i2">To not so very many.</p> +<p>Men's looks are nigh as often gay</p> +<p class="i2">As sad, or even solemn:</p> +<p>Behold, my entry for to-day</p> +<p class="i2">Is in the "happy" column.'</p></div></div> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>OCTOBER.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'The year grows old; summer's wild crown of roses</p> +<p class="i2">Has fallen and faded in the woodland ways;</p> +<p>On all the earth a tranquil light reposes,</p> +<p class="i10">Through the still dreamy days.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'The dew lies heavy in the early morn,</p> +<p class="i2">On grass and mosses sparkling crystal-fair;</p> +<p>And shining threads of gossamer are borne</p> +<p class="i10">Floating upon the air,</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'Across the leaf-strewn lanes, from bough to bough</p> +<p class="i2">Like tissue woven in a fairy loom;</p> +<p>And crimson-berried bryony garlands glow</p> +<p class="i10">Through the leaf-tangled gloom.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'The woods are still, but for the sudden fall</p> +<p class="i2">Of cupless acorns dropping to the ground,</p> +<p>Or rabbit plunging through the fern-stems tall,</p> +<p class="i10">Half-startled by the sound.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'And from the garden lawn comes, soft and clear,</p> +<p class="i2">The robin's warble from the leafless spray,</p> +<p>The low sweet Angelus of the dying year,</p> +<p class="i10">Passing in light away.'</p></div></div> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>PROSPERITY.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'I doubt if the maxims the Stoic adduces</p> +<p class="i2">Be true in the main, when they state</p> +<p>That our nature's improved by adversity's uses,</p> +<p class="i2">And spoilt by a happier fate.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'The heart that is tried by misfortune and pain,</p> +<p class="i2">Self-reliance and patience may learn;</p> +<p>Yet worn by long waiting and wishing in vain,</p> +<p class="i2">It often grows callous and stern.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'But the heart that is softened by ease and contentment,</p> +<p class="i2">Feels warmly and kindly t'wards all;</p> +<p>And its charity, roused by no moody resentment,</p> +<p class="i2">Embraces alike great and small.</p></div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'So, although in the season of rain-storms and showers,</p> +<p class="i2">The tree may strike deeper its roots,</p> +<p>It needs the warm brightness of sunshiny hours</p> +<p class="i2">To ripen the blossoms and fruits.'</p></div></div> + +<p class="footnote"> +Observe, not only the genuine merit of these five pieces, but the +variety in the tones of thought: then compare them with similar +productions of the days, say, of the once famous L.E.L. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>STORY-TELLING.</h2> + +<p> +The most popular of English authors has given us an account of what +within his experience (and it was a large one) was the impression +among the public at large of the manner in which his work was done. +They pictured him, he says, +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +as a radiant personage whose whole time is devoted to idleness and +pastime; who keeps a prolific mind in a sort of corn-sieve and lightly +shakes a bushel of it out sometimes in an odd half-hour after +breakfast. It would amaze their incredulity beyond all measure to" be +told that such elements as patience, study, punctuality, +determination, self-denial, training of mind and body, hours of +application and seclusion to produce what they read in seconds, enter +in such a career … correction and recorrection in the blotted +manuscript; consideration; new observations; the patient massing of +many reflections, experiences, and imaginings for one minute purpose; +and the patient separation from the heap of all the fragments that +will unite to serve it—these would be unicorns and griffins to +them—fables altogether. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +And as it was, a quarter of a century ago, when those +words were written, so it is now: the phrase of 'light +literature' as applied to fiction having once been invented, +has stuck, with a vengeance, to those who profess +it. +</p> + +<p> +Yet to 'make the thing that is not as the thing that +is' is not (though it may seem to be the same thing) +so easy as lying. +</p> + +<p> +Among a host of letters received in connection +with an article published in the <i>Nineteenth Century</i>, +entitled 'The Literary Calling and its Future,' and +which testify in a remarkable manner to the pressing +need (therein alluded to) of some remunerative +vocation among the so-called educated classes, there +are many which are obviously written under the impression +that Dogberry's view of writing coming 'by +nature' is especially true of the writing of fiction. +Because I ventured to hint that the study of Greek +was not essential to the calling of a story-teller, or of +a contributor to the periodicals, or even of a journalist, +these gentlemen seem to jump to the conclusion that +the less they know of anything the better. Nay, some +of them, discarding all theories (in the fashion that +Mr. Carlyle's heroes are wont to discard all formulas), +proceed to the practical with quite an indecent rapidity; +they treat my modest hints for their instruction as +so much verbiage, and myself as a mere convenient +channel for the publication of their lucubrations. 'You +talk of a genuine literary talent being always appreciated +by editors,' they write (if not in so many words +by implication); 'well, here is an admirable specimen +of it (enclosed), and if your remarks are worth a +farthing you will get it published for us, somewhere or +another, <i>instanter</i>, and hand us over the cheque for it. +Nor are even these the most unreasonable of my +correspondents; for a few, with many acknowledgments +for my kindness in having provided a lucrative +profession for them, announce their intention of throwing +up their present less congenial callings, and coming +up to London (one very literally from the Land's End) +to live upon it, or, that failing (as there is considerable +reason to expect it will), upon <i>me</i>. +</p> + +<p> +With some of these correspondents, however, it is +impossible (independent of their needs) not to feel an +earnest sympathy; they have evidently not only aspirations, +but considerable mental gifts, though these +have unhappily been cultivated to such little purpose +for the object they have in view that they might +almost as well have been left untilled. In spite of +what I ventured to urge respecting the advantage of +knowing 'science, history, politics, English literature, +and the art of composition,' they 'don't see why' they +shouldn't get on without them. Especially with those +who aspire to write fiction (which, by its intrinsic attractiveness +no less than by the promise it affords of +golden grain, tempts the majority), it is quite pitiful to +note how they cling to that notion of 'the corn-sieve,' +and cannot be persuaded that story-telling requires an +apprenticeship like any other calling. They flatter +themselves that they can weave plots as the spider +spins his thread from (what let us delicately term) his +inner consciousness, and fondly hope that intuition +will supply the place of experience. Some of them, +with a simplicity that recalls the days of Dick Whittington, +think that 'coming up to London' is the essential +step to this line of business, as though the provinces +contained no fellow-creatures worthy to be depicted +by their pen, or as though, in the metropolis, Society +would at once exhibit itself to them without concealment, +as fashionable beauties bare themselves to the +photographers. +</p> + +<p> +This is, of course, the laughable side of the affair, +but, to me at least, it has also a serious one; for, to +my considerable embarrassment and distress, I find +that my well-meaning attempt to point out the advantages +of literature as a profession has received a +much too free translation, and implanted in many +minds hopes that are not only sanguine but Utopian. +</p> + +<p> +For what was written in the essay alluded to I have +nothing to reproach myself with, for I told no more +than the truth. Nor does the unsettlement of certain +young gentleman's futures (since by their own showing +they were to the last degree unstable to begin with) +affect me so much as their parents and guardians +appear to expect; but I am sorry to have shaken +however undesignedly, the 'pillars of domestic peace' +in any case, and desirous to make all the reparation in +my power. I regret most heartily that I am unable +to place all literary aspirants in places of emolument +and permanency out of hand; but really (with the +exception perhaps of the Universal Provider in Westbourne +Grove) this is hardly to be expected of any +man. The gentleman who raised the devil, and was +compelled to furnish occupation for him, affords in +fact the only appropriate parallel to my unhappy case. +'If you can do nothing to provide my son with another +place,' writes one indignant Paterfamilias, 'at least +you owe it to him' (as if I, and not Nature herself, +had made the lad dissatisfied with his high stool in a +solicitor's office!) 'to give him some practical hints by +which he may become a successful writer of fiction.' +</p> + +<p> +One would really think that this individual imagined +story-telling to be a sort of sleight-of-hand trick, and +that all that is necessary to the attainment of the art +is to learn 'how it's done.' I should not like to say +that I have known any members of my own profession +who are 'no conjurors,' but it is certainly not by conjuring +that they have succeeded in it. +</p> + +<p> +'You talk of the art of composition,' writes, on the +other hand, another angry correspondent, 'as though +it were one of the exact sciences; you might just as +well advise your "clever Jack" to study the art of +playing the violin.' So that one portion of the public +appears to consider the calling of literature mechanical, +while another holds it to be a soft of divine instinct! +</p> + +<p> +Since the interest in this subject proves to be so +wide-spread, I trust it will not be thought presumptuous +in me to offer my own humble experience in +this matter for what it is worth. To the public at +large a card of admission to my poor manufactory of +fiction—a 'very one-horse affair,' as an American +gentleman, with whom I had a little difficulty concerning +copyright, once described it—may not afford +the same satisfaction as a ticket for the private view +of the Royal Academy; but the stings of conscience +urge me to make to Paterfamilias what amends in the +way of 'practical hints' lie in my power, for the wrong +I have done to his offspring; and I therefore venture +to address to those whom it may concern, and to those +only, a few words on the Art of Story-telling. +</p> + +<p> +The chief essential for this line of business, yet one +that is much disregarded by many young writers, is +the having a story to tell. It is a common supposition +that the story will come if you only sit down with a +pen in your hand and wait long enough—a parallel +case to that which assigns one cow's tail as the measure +of distance between this planet and the moon. It is +no use 'throwing off' a few brilliant ideas at the commencement, +if they are only to be 'passages that lead +to nothing;' you must have distinctly in your mind at +first what you intend to say at last. 'Let it be granted,' +says a great writer (though not one distinguished in +fiction), 'that a straight line be drawn from any one +point to any other point;' only you must have the +'other point' to begin with, or you can't draw the line. +So far from being 'straight,' it goes wabbling aimlessly +about like a wire fastened at one end and not at +the other, which may dazzle, but cannot sustain; or +rather what it does sustain is so exceedingly minute, +that it reminds one of the minnow which the inexperienced +angler flatters himself he has caught, but +which the fisherman has in fact previously put on his +hook for bait. +</p> + +<p> +This class of writer is not altogether unconscious of +the absence of dramatic interest in his composition. +He writes to his editor (I have read a thousand such +letters): 'It has been my aim, in the enclosed contribution, +to steer clear of the faults of the sensational +school of fiction, and I have designedly abstained from +stimulating the unwholesome taste for excitement.' +In which high moral purpose he has undoubtedly succeeded; +but, unhappily, in nothing else. It is quite +true that some writers of fiction neglect 'story' almost +entirely, but then they are perhaps the greatest writers +of all. Their genius is so transcendent that they can +afford to dispense with 'plot;' their humour, their +pathos, and their delineation of human nature are +amply sufficient, without any such meretricious attraction; +whereas our too ambitious young friend is in +the position of the needy knife-grinder, who has not +only no story to tell, but in lieu of it only holds up +his coat and breeches 'torn in the scuffle'—the evidence +of his desperate and ineffectual struggles with +literary composition. I have known such an aspirant +to instance Miss Gaskell's 'Cranford' as a parallel +to the backboneless flesh-and-bloodless creation of +his own immature fancy, and to recommend the acceptance +of the latter upon the ground of their common +rejection of startling plot and dramatic situation. +The two compositions have certainly <i>that</i> in common; +and the flawless diamond has some things, such as +mere sharpness and smoothness, in common with the +broken beer-bottle. +</p> + +<p> +Many young authors of the class I have in my mind, while more modest as +respects their own merits, are even still less so as regards their expectations +from others. 'If you will kindly furnish me with a subject,' so runs a letter +now before me, 'I am sure I could do very well; my difficulty is that I never +can think of anything to write about. Would you be so good as to oblige me with +a plot for a novel?' It would have been infinitely more reasonable of course, +and much cheaper, for me to grant it, if the applicant had made a request for +my watch and chain;<a href="#fn-6" name="fnref-6" id="fnref-6"><sup>[6]</sup></a> +but the marvel is that folks should feel any attraction towards a calling for +which Nature has denied them even the raw materials. It is true that there are +some great talkers who have manifestly nothing to say, but they don't ask their +hearers to supply them with a topic of conversation in order to be set agoing. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-6" id="fn-6"></a> <a href="#fnref-6">[6]</a> +To compare small things with great, I remember Sir Walter Scott being thus +applied to for some philanthropic object. 'Money,' said the applicant, who had +some part proprietorship in a literary miscellany, 'I don't ask for, since I +know you have many claims upon your purse; but would you write us a little +paper gratuitously for the "Keepsake"?' +</p> + +<p> +'My great difficulty,' the would-be writer of fiction +often says, 'is how to begin;' whereas in fact the difficulty +arises rather from his not knowing how to end. +Before undertaking the management of a train, however +short, it is absolutely necessary to know its destination. +Nothing is more common than to hear it +said that an author 'does not know where to stop;' +but how much more deplorable is the position of the +passengers when there is no terminus whatsoever! +They feel their carriage 'slowing,' and put their heads +expectantly out of window, but there is no platform—no +station. When they took their tickets, they understood +that they were 'booked through' to the <i>dénouement</i>, +and certainly had no idea of having been brought +so far merely to admire the scenery, for which only a +very few care the least about. +</p> + +<p> +As a rule, anyone who can tell a good story can +write one, so there really need be no mistake about +his qualification; such a man will be careful not to be +wearisome, and to keep his point, or his catastrophe, +well in hand. Only, in writing, there is necessarily +greater art. <i>There</i> expansion is of course absolutely +necessary; but this is not to be done, like spreading +gold leaf, by flattening out good material. <i>That</i> is +'padding,' a device as dangerous as it is unworthy; it +is much better to make your story a pollard—to cut +it down to a mere anecdote—than to get it lost in a +forest of verbiage. No line of it, however seemingly +discursive, should be aimless, but should have some +relation to the matter in hand; and if you find the +story interesting to yourself notwithstanding that you +know the end of it, it will certainly interest the reader. +</p> + +<p> +The manner in which a good story grows under the +hand is so remarkable, that no tropic vegetation can +show the like of it. For, consider, when you have +got your germ—the mere idea, not half a dozen lines +perhaps—which is to form your plot, how small a +thing it is compared with, say, the thousand pages +which it has to occupy in the three-volume novel! +Yet to the story-teller the germ is everything. When +I was a very young man—a quarter of a century ago, +alas!—and had very little experience in these matters, +I was reading on a coachbox (for I read everywhere +in those days) an account of some gigantic trees; one +of them was described as sound outside, but within, +for many feet, a mass of rottenness and decay. If a +boy should climb up birdsnesting into the fork of it, +thought I, he might go down feet first and hands overhead, +and never be heard of again. How inexplicable +too, as well as melancholy, such a disappearance would +be! Then, 'as when a great thought strikes along the +brain and flushes all the cheek,' it struck me what an +appropriate end it would be—with fear (lest he should +turn up again) instead of hope for the fulcrum to move +the reader—for a bad character of a novel. Before I +had left the coachbox I had thought out 'Lost Sir +Massingberd.' +</p> + +<p> +The character was drawn from life, but unfortunately +from hearsay; he had flourished—to the great terror +of his neighbours—two generations before me, so that +I had to be indebted to others for his portraiture, +which was a great disadvantage. It was necessary +that the lost man should be an immense scoundrel to +prevent pity being excited by the catastrophe, and at +that time I did not know any very wicked people. +The book was a successful one, but it needs no critic +to point out how much better the story might have +been told. The interest in the gentleman, buried upright +in his oak coffin, is inartistically weakened by +other sources of excitement; like an extravagant cook, +the young author is apt to be too lavish with his +materials, and in after days, when the larder is more +difficult to fill, he bitterly regrets it. The representation +of a past time I also found it very difficult to +compass, and I am convinced that for any writer to +attempt such a thing, when he can avoid it, is an error +in judgment. The author who undertakes to resuscitate +and clothe with flesh and blood the dry bones of +his ancestors, has indeed this advantage, that, however +unlifelike his characters may be, there is no one +in a position to prove it; it is not 'a difference of +opinion between himself and twelve of his fellow-countrymen,' +or a matter on which he can be condemned +by overwhelming evidence; but, on the other +hand, he creates for himself unnecessary difficulties. +I will add, for the benefit of those literary aspirants to +whom these remarks are especially addressed—a +circumstance which, I hope, will be taken as an excuse +for the writing of my own affairs at all, which would +otherwise be an unpardonable presumption—that these +difficulties are not the worst of it; for when the novel +founded on the Past has been written, it will not be +read by a tenth of those who would read it if it were +a novel of the Present. +</p> + +<p> +Even at the date I speak of, however, I was not so +young as to attempt to create the characters of a story +out of my own imagination, and I believe that the +whole of its <i>dramatis personæ</i> (except the chief personage) +were taken from the circle of my own acquaintance. +This is a matter, by-the-bye, on which +considerable judgment and good taste have to be +exercised; for if the likeness of the person depicted +is recognisable by his friends (he never recognises it by +any chance himself), or still more by his enemies, it is +no longer a sketch from life, but a lampoon. It will +naturally be asked by some: 'But if you draw the +man to the life, how can he fail to be known?' For +this there is the simplest remedy. You describe his +character, but under another skin; if he is tall you +make him short, if dark, fair; or you make such +alterations in his circumstances as shall prevent identification, +while retaining them to a sufficient extent +to influence his behaviour. In the framework which +most (though not all) skilled workmen draw of their +stories before they begin to furnish them with so much +even as a door-mat, the real name of each individual +to be described should be placed (as a mere aid to +memory) by the side of that under which he appears +in the drama; and I would strongly recommend the +builder to write his real names in cipher; for I have +known at least one instance in which the entire list of +the <i>dramatis personæ</i> of a novel was carried off by a +person more curious than conscientious, and afterwards +revealed to those concerned—a circumstance +which, though it increased the circulation of the story, +did not add to the personal popularity of the author. +</p> + +<p> +If a story-teller is prolific, the danger of his characters +coinciding with those of people in real life who +are unknown to him is much greater than would be +imagined; the mere similarity of name may of course +be disregarded; but when in addition to that there is +also a resemblance of circumstance, it is difficult to +persuade the man of flesh and blood that his portrait +is an undesigned one. The author of 'Vanity Fair' +fell, in at least one instance, into a most unfortunate +mistake of this kind; while a not less popular author +even gave his hero the same name and place in the +Ministry which were (subsequently) possessed by a +living politician. +</p> + +<p> +It is better, however, for his own reputation that +the story-teller should risk a few actions for libel on +account of these unfortunate coincidences than that he +should adopt the melancholy device of using blanks or +asterisks. With the minor novelists of a quarter of a +century ago it was quite common to introduce their +characters as Mr. A and Mr. B, and very difficult +their readers found it to interest themselves in the +fortunes and misfortunes of an initial: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +It was in the summer of the year 18—, and the sun was +setting behind the low western hills beneath which stands +the town of C; its dying gleams glistened on the +weather-cock of the little church, beneath whose tower two figures +were standing, so deep in shadow that little more could be +made out concerning them save that they were young persons +of the opposite sex. The elder and taller, however, was +the fascinating Lord B; the younger (presenting a strong +contrast to her companion in social position, but yet belonging +to the true nobility of nature) was no other than the +beautiful Patty G, the cobbler's daughter. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +This style of narrative should be avoided. +</p> + +<p> +Another difficulty of the story-teller, and one unhappily in which no advice +can be of much service to him, is how to describe the lapse of time and of +locomotion. To the dramatist nothing is easier than to print in the middle of +his playbill, 'Forty years are here supposed to have elapsed;' or 'Scene I.: A +drawing-room in Mayfair; Scene II.: Greenland.' But the story-teller has to +describe how these little changes are effected, without being able to take his +readers into his confidence.<a href="#fn-7" name="fnref-7" id="fnref-7"><sup>[7]</sup></a> +He can't say, 'Gentle reader, please to imagine that the winter is over, and +the summer has come round since the conclusion of our last chapter.' Curiously +enough, however, the lapse of years is far easier to suggest than that of +hours; and locomotion from Islington to India than the act, for instance, of +leaving the room. If passion enters into the scene, and your heroine can be +represented as banging the door behind her, and bringing down the plaster from +the ceiling, the thing is easy enough, and may be even made a dramatic +incident; but to describe, without baldness, Jones rising from the tea-table +and taking his departure in cold blood, is a much more difficult business than +you may imagine. When John the footman has to enter and interrupt a +conversation on the stage, the audience see him come and go, and think nothing +of it; but to inform the reader of your novel of a similar incident—and +especially of John's going—without spoiling the whole scene by the +introduction of the commonplace, requires (let me tell you) the touch of a +master. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-7" id="fn-7"></a> <a href="#fnref-7">[7]</a> +That last, indeed, is a thing which, with all deference to some great names in +fiction, should in my judgment never be done. It is hard enough for him as it +is to simulate real life, without the poor showman's reaching out from behind +the curtain to shake hands with his audience. +</p> + +<p> +When you have got the outline of your plot, and +the characters that seem appropriate to play in it, +you turn to that so-called 'commonplace book,' in +which, if you know your trade, you will have set +down anything noteworthy and illustrative of human +nature that has come under your notice, and single +out such instances as are most fitting; and finally you +will select your scene (or the opening one) in which +your drama is to be played. And here I may say, +that while it is indispensable that the persons represented +should be familiar to you, it is not necessary +that the places should be; you should have visited +them, of course, in person, but it is my experience +that for a description of the salient features of any +locality the less you stay there the better. The man +who has lived in Switzerland all his life can never +describe it (to the outsider) so graphically as the +(intelligent) tourist; just as the man who has science +at his fingers' ends does not succeed so well as the +man with whom science has not yet become second +nature, in making an abstruse subject popular. +</p> + +<p> +Nor is it to be supposed that a story with very +accurate local colouring cannot be written, the scenes +of which are placed in a country which the writer +has never beheld. This requires, of course, both +study and judgment, but it can be done so as to +deceive, if not the native, at least the Englishman +who has himself resided there. I never yet knew an +Australian who could be persuaded that the author of +'Never Too Late to Mend' had not visited the underworld, +or a sailor that he who wrote 'Hard Cash' had +never been to sea. The fact is, information, concerning +which dull folks make so much fuss, can be attained +by anybody who chooses to spend his time that +way; and by persons of intelligence (who are not so +solicitous to know how blacking is made) can be +turned, in a manner not dreamt of by cram-coaches, +to really good account. +</p> + +<p> +The general impression perhaps conveyed by the +above remarks will be that to those who go to work +in the manner described—for many writers of course +have quite other processes—story-telling must be a +mechanical trade. Yet nothing can be farther from +the fact. These preliminary arrangements have the +effect of so steeping the mind in the subject in hand, +that when the author begins his work he is already in +a world apart from his everyday one; the characters +of his story people it; and the events that occur to +them are as material, so far as the writer is concerned, +as though they happened under his roof. Indeed, it +is a question for the metaphysician whether the professional +story-teller has not a shorter lease of life +than his fellow-creatures, since, in addition to his +hours of sleep (of which he ought by rights to have +much more than the usual proportion), he passes a +large part of his sentient being outside the pale of +ordinary existence. The reference to sleep 'by rights' +may possibly suggest to the profane that the storyteller +has a claim to it on the ground of having induced +slumber in his fellow-creatures; but my meaning is +that the mental wear and tear caused by work of this +kind is infinitely greater than that produced by mere +application even to abstruse studies (as any doctor +will witness), and requires a proportionate degree of +recuperation. +</p> + +<p> +I do not pretend to quote the experience (any more than the mode of +composition) of other writers—though with that of most of my brethren and +superiors in the craft I am well acquainted—but I am convinced that to +work the brain at night in the way of imagination is little short of an act of +suicide. Dr. Treichler's recent warnings upon this subject are startling +enough, even as addressed to students, but in their application to poets and +novelists they have far greater significance. It may be said that journalists +(whose writings, it is whispered, have a close connection with fiction) always +write in the 'small hours,' but their mode of life is more or less shaped to +meet their exceptional requirements; whereas we storytellers live like other +people (only more purely), and if we consume the midnight oil, use perforce +another system of illumination also—we burn the candle at both ends. A +great novelist who adopted this baneful practice and indirectly lost his life +by it (through insomnia) notes what is very curious, that notwithstanding his +mind was so occupied, when awake, with the creatures of his imagination, he +never dreamt of them; which I think is also the general experience. But he does +not tell us for how many hours <i>before</i> he went to sleep, and tossed upon +his restless pillow till far into the morning, he was unable to get rid of +those whom his enchanter's wand had summoned.<a href="#fn-8" name="fnref-8" id="fnref-8"><sup>[8]</sup></a> +What is even more curious than the story-teller's never dreaming of the shadowy +beings who engross so much of his thoughts, is that (so far as my own +experience goes at least) when a story is once written and done with, no matter +how forcibly it may have interested and excited the writer during its progress, +it fades almost instantly from the mind, and leaves, by some benevolent +arrangement of nature, a <i>tabula rasa</i>—a blank space for the next +one. Everyone must recollect that anecdote of Walter Scott, who, on hearing one +of his own poems ('My hawk is tired of perch and hood') sung in a London +drawing-room, observed with innocent approbation, 'Byron's, of course;' and so +it is with us lesser folks. A very humorous sketch might be given (and it would +not be overdrawn) of some prolific novelist getting hold, under some strange +roof, of the 'library edition' of his own stories, and perusing them with great +satisfaction and many appreciative ejaculations, such as 'Now this <i>is</i> +good;' 'I wonder how it will end;' or 'George Eliot's, <i>of course</i>! +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-8" id="fn-8"></a> <a href="#fnref-8">[8]</a> +Speaking of dreams, the composition of Khubla Khan and of one or two other +literary fragments during sleep has led to the belief that dreams are often +useful to the writer of fiction; but in my own case, at least, I can recall but +a single instance of it, nor have I ever heard of their doing one pennyworth of +good to any of my contemporaries. +</p> + +<p> +Although a good allowance of sleep is absolutely +necessary for imaginative brain work, long holidays +are not so. I have noticed that those who let their +brains 'lie fallow,' as it is termed, for any considerable +time, are by no means the better for it; but, on the +other hand, some daily recreation, by which a genuine +interest is excited and maintained, is almost indispensable. +It is no use to 'take up a book,' and far +less to attempt 'to refresh the machine,' as poor Sir +Walter did, by trying another kind of composition; +what is needed is an altogether new object for the +intellectual energies, by which, though they are +stimulated, they shall not be strained. +</p> + +<p> +Advice such as I have ventured to offer may seem +'to the general' of small importance, but to those I +am especially addressing it is worthy of their attention, +if only as the result of a personal experience unusually +prolonged; and I have nothing unfortunately but +advice to offer. To the question addressed to me +with such <i>naïveté</i> by so many correspondents, 'How +do you make your plots?' (as if they were consulting +the Cook's Oracle), I can return no answer. I don't +know, myself; they are sometimes suggested by what +I hear or read, but more commonly they suggest +themselves unsought. +</p> + +<p> +I once heard two popular story-tellers, A who +writes seldom, but with much ingenuity of construction, +and B who is very prolific in pictures of everyday +life, discoursing on this subject. +</p> + +<p> +'Your fecundity,' said A, 'astounds me; I can't +think where you get your plots from.' +</p> + +<p> +'Plots?' replied B; 'oh! I don't trouble myself +about <i>them</i>. To tell you the truth, I generally take a +bit of one of yours, which is amply sufficient for my +purpose.' +</p> + +<p> +This was very wrong of B; and it is needless to +say I do not quote his system for imitation. A man +should tell his own story without plagiarism. As to +Truth being stranger than Fiction, that is all nonsense; +it is a proverb set about by Nature to conceal her own +want of originality. I am not like that pessimist +philosopher who assumed her malignity from the fact +of the obliquity of the ecliptic; but the truth is, Nature +is a pirate. She has not hesitated to plagiarise from +even so humble an individual as myself. Years after +I had placed my wicked baronet in his living tomb, +she starved to death a hunter in Mexico under precisely +similar circumstances; and so late as last month +she has done the same in a forest in Styria. Nay, on +my having found occasion in a certain story ('a small +thing, but my own') to get rid of the whole wicked +population of an island by suddenly submerging it +in the sea, what did Nature do? She waited for an +insultingly short time (if her idea was that the story +would be forgotten), and then reproduced the same circumstances +on her own account (and without the least +acknowledgment) in the Indian seas. My attention +was drawn to both these breaches of copyright by +several correspondents, but I had no redress, the +offender being beyond the jurisdiction of the Court of +Chancery. +</p> + +<p> +When the story-teller has finished his task and surmounted +every obstacle to his own satisfaction, he has +still a difficulty to face in the choice of a title. He +may invent indeed an eminently appropriate one, but +it is by no means certain he will be allowed to keep +it. Of course he has done his best to steer clear of +that borne by any other novel; but among the +thousands that have been brought out within the +last forty years, and which have been forgotten even +if they were ever known, how can he know whether +the same name has not been hit upon? He goes to +Stationers' Hall to make inquiries; but—mark the +usefulness of that institution—he finds that books are +only entered there under their authors' names. His +search is therefore necessarily futile, and he has to +publish his story under the apprehension (only too +well founded, as I have good cause to know) that the +High Court of Chancery will prohibit its sale upon +the ground of infringement of title. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/03.jpg" width="300" height="179" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>PENNY FICTION</h2> + +<p> +It is now nearly a quarter of a century ago since a +popular novelist revealed to the world in a well-known +periodical the existence of the 'Unknown +Public;' and a very curious revelation it was. He +showed us that the few thousands of persons who +had hitherto imagined themselves to be the public—so +far, at least, as their being the arbiters of popularity +in respect to writers of fiction was concerned—were +in fact nothing of the kind; that the subscribers to +the circulating libraries, the members of book clubs, +the purchasers of magazines and railway novels, +might indeed have their favourites, but that these +last were 'nowhere,' as respected the number of their +backers, in comparison with novelists whose names +and works appear in penny journals and nowhere +else. +</p> + +<p> +This class of literature was of considerable dimensions +even in the days when Mr. Wilkie Collins first +called attention to it; but the luxuriance of its growth +has since become tropical. His observations are drawn +from some half a dozen specimens of it only, whereas +I now hold in my hand—or rather in both hands— +nearly half a hundred of them. The population of +readers must be dense indeed in more than one sense +that can support such a crop. +</p> + +<p> +Doubtless the individual circulation of none of these +serials is equal to that of the most successful of them +at the date of their first discovery; but those who +read them must, from various causes, of which the +most obvious is the least important, have trebled in +number. Population, that is to say, has increased in +very small proportion as compared with the increase +of those who very literally run and read—the peripatetic +students, who study on their way to work or +even as they work, including, I am sorry to say, the +telegraph boy on his errand. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, notwithstanding its gigantic dimensions, +the Unknown Public remains practically as unknown +as ever. The literary wares that find such +favour with it do not meet the eye of the ordinary +observer. They are to be found neither at the bookseller's +nor on the railway stall. But in back streets, +in small dark shops, in the company of cheap tobacco, +hardbake (and, at the proper season, valentines), their +leaves lie thick as those in Vallombrosa. Early in +the week is their springtime, when they are put forth +from Heaven knows what printing-houses in courts +and alleys, to lie for a few days only on the counter +in huge piles. On Saturdays, albeit that is their +nominal publishing day, they have for the most part +disappeared. For this sort of literature has one +decidedly advanced feature, and possesses one virtue +of endurance—it comes out ever so long before the +date it bears upon its title-page, and 'when the world +shall have passed away' will, by a few days at least, +if faith is to be placed in figures, survive it. +</p> + +<p> +Why it should have any date at all no man can tell. +There is nothing in the contents that is peculiar to +one year—or, to say truth, of one era—rather than +another. As a rule, indeed, time and space are alike +annihilated in them, in order to make two lovers +happy. The general terms in which they are written +is one of their peculiar features. One would think +that, instead of being as unlike real life as stories professing +to deal with it can be, they were photographs of +it, and that the writers, as in the following instance, had +always the fear of the law of libel before their eyes: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +We must now request our readers to accompany us into +an obscure <i>cul de sac</i> opening into a narrow street branching +off Holborn. For many reasons we do not choose to be +more precise as to locality. +</p> + +<p> +Of course in this <i>cul de sac</i> is a Private Inquiry +Office, with a detective in it. But in defining even +him the novelist gives himself no trouble to arouse +excitement in his readers: they have paid their penny +for the history of this interesting person, and, that +being done, they may read about him or not, as they +please. One would really think that the author of the +story was also the proprietor of the periodical. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Those who desire (he says) to make the acquaintance of +this somewhat remarkable person have only to step with us +into the little dusky room where he is seated, and we shall +have much pleasure in introducing him to their notice. +</p> + +<p> +—A sentence which has certainly the air of saying, +'You may be introduced to him, or you may let it +alone.' +</p> + +<p> +The coolness with which everything is said and +done in penny fiction is indeed most remarkable, and +should greatly recommend it to that respectable class +who have a horror of 'sensation.' In a story, for +example, that purports to describe University life +(and is as much like it as the camel produced from +the German professor's self-consciousness must have +been to a real camel) there is an underplot of an +amazing kind. The wicked undergraduate, notwithstanding +that he has the advantage of being a baronet, +is foiled in his attempt to win the affections of a young +woman in humble life, and the virtuous hero of the +story recommends her to the consideration of his +negro servant: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +'Talk to her, Monday,' whispered Jack, 'and see if she +loves you.'<br/> +    For a short time Monday and Ada were in close conversation.<br/> +    Then Monday uttered a cry like a war-whoop.<br/> +    'It am come all right, sare. Missy Ada says she not really +care for Sir Sydney, and she will be my little wife,' he said.<br/> +    'I congratulate you, Monday,' answered Jack.<br/> +    In half an hour more they arrived at the house of John +Radford, plumber and glazier, who was Ada's father.<br/> +    Mr. and Mrs. Radford and their two sons received their +daughter and her companions with that unstudied civility +which contrasts so favourably with the stuck-up ceremony of +many in a higher position. They were not prejudiced against +Monday on account of his dark skin.<br/> +    It was enough for them that he was the man of Ada's +choice.<br/> +    Mrs. Radford even went so far as to say, 'Well, for a +coloured gentleman, he is very handsome and quite nice +mannered, though I think Ada's been a little sly in telling +us nothing about her engagement to the last.'<br/> +    They did not know all.<br/> +    Nor was it advisable that they should. +</p> + +<p> +Still they knew something—for example, that their +new son-in-law was a black man, which one would +have thought might have struck them as phenomenal. +They take it, however, quite quietly and as a matter +of course. Now, surely, even among plumbers and +glaziers, it must be thought as strange for one's +daughter to marry a black man as a lord. Yet, out +of this dramatic situation the author makes nothing +at all, but treats it as coolly as his <i>dramatis personæ</i> +do themselves. Now <i>my</i> notion would have been to +make the bridegroom a black lord, and then to +portray, with admirable skill, the conflicting emotions +of his mother-in-law, disgusted on the one hand by +his colour, attracted on the other by his rank. But +'sensation' is evidently out of the line of the penny +novelist: he gives his facts, which are certainly remarkable, +then leaves both his characters and his +readers to draw their own conclusions. +</p> + +<p> +The total absence of local scenery from these half +hundred romances is also curious, and becomes so +very marked when the novelists are so imprudent as +to take their <i>dramatis personæ</i> out of England, that +one can't help wondering whether these gentlemen +have ever been in foreign parts themselves, or even +read about them. Here is the conclusion of a romance +which leaves nothing to be desired in the way of +brevity, but is unquestionably a little abrupt and +vague: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +A year has passed away, and we are far from England and +the English climate. +</p> + +<p> +Whither 'we' have gone the author does not say, +nor even indicate the hemisphere. It will be imagined, +perhaps, that we shall find out where we are by the +indication of the flora and fauna. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +A lady and gentleman before the dawn of day have been +climbing up an arid road in the direction of a dark ridge. +</p> + +<p> +Observe, again, the ingenious vagueness of the +description: an 'arid road' which may mean Siberia, +and a 'dark ridge' which may mean the Himalayas. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +The dawn suddenly comes upon them in all its glory. +Birds twittered in their willow gorges, and it was a very +glorious day. Arthur and Emily had passed the night at +the ranche, and he had now taken her up to look at the +mine which at all events had introduced them. He had +previously taken her to see his mother's grave, the mother +whom he had so loved. The mine after some delay proved +more prosperous than ever. It was not sold, but is the +'appanage' of the younger sons of the house of Dacres. +</p> + +<p> +With the exception of the 'ranche,' it will be +remarked that there is not one word in the foregoing +description to fix locality. The mine and the ranche +together seem indeed to suggest South America. But—I +ask for information—do birds twitter there in +willow gorges? Younger sons of noble families proverbially +come off second best in this country, but if +one of them found his only 'appanage' was a mine, +he would surely with some justice make a remonstrance. +</p> + +<p> +The readers of this class of fiction will not have +Dumas at any price—or, at all events, not at a penny. +Mr. Collins tells us how 'Monte Christo' was once +spread before them, and how they turned from that +gorgeous feast with indifference, and fell back upon +their tripe and onions—their nameless authors. But +some of those who write for them have adopted one +peculiarity of Dumas. The short jerky sentences which +disfigure the 'Three Musketeers,' and indeed all that +great novelist's works, are very frequent with them, +which induces me to believe that they are paid by the +line. +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, some affect fashionable description +and conversation which are drawn out in 'passages +that lead to nothing' of an amazing length. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +'Where have I been,' replied Clyde with a carelessness +which was half forced 'Oh, I have been over to Higham +to see the dame.'<br/> +    'Ah, yes,' said Sir Edward, 'and how is the poor old +creature?'<br/> +    'Quite well,' said Clyde, as he sat down and took up the +menu of the elaborate dinner. 'Quite well, she sent her +best respects,' he added, but he said nothing of the lodger, +pretty Miss Mary Westlake.<br/> +    And when, a moment afterwards, the door opened and +Grace came flowing in with her lithe noiseless step, dressed +in one of Worth's masterpieces, a wonder of amber, satin, +and antique lace, he raised his eyes and looked at her with +an earnest scrutiny—so earnest that she paused with her +hand on his chair, and met his eyes with a questioning glance.<br/> +    'Do you like my new dress?' she said with a calm smile.<br/> +    'Your dress?' he said. 'Yes, yes, it is very pretty, very.' +But to himself he added, 'Yes, they are alike, strangely +alike.' +</p> + +<p> +Which last remark may be applied with justice to +the conversations of all our novelists. There appears +no necessity for their commencement, no reason for +their continuance, no object in their conclusion; the +reader finds himself in a forest of verbiage from which +he is extricated only at the end of the chapter, which +is always, however, 'to be continued.' +</p> + +<p> +It is true that these story-tellers for the million +generally keep 'a gallop for the avenue' (an incident +of a more or less exciting kind to finish up with), but +it is so brief and unsatisfactory that it hardly rises to +a canter; the author never seems to get into his stride. +The following is a fair example: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +But before we let the curtain fall, we must glance for a +moment at another picture—a sad and painful one. In one +of those retreats, worse than a living tomb, where reside those +whose reason is dead, though their bodies still live, is a small +spare cell. The sole occupant is a woman, young and very +beautiful. Sometimes she is quiet and gentle as a child; +sometimes her fits of frenzy are frightful to witness; but the +only word she utters is 'Revenge,' and on her hand she +always wears a plain gold band with a cross of black pearls. +</p> + +<p> +This conclusion, which I chanced upon before I read +the tale which preceded it, naturally interested me +immensely. Here, thought I, is at last an exciting +story; I shall now find one of those literary prizes in +hopes, perhaps, of hitting upon which the penny public +endures so many blanks. I was quite prepared to +have my blood curdled; my lips were ready for a full +draught of gore; yet, I give you my word, there was +nothing in the whole story worse than a bankruptcy. +</p> + +<p> +This is what makes the success of penny fiction so +remarkable; there is nothing whatever in the way of +dramatic interest to account for it; nor of impropriety +either. Like the lady friend of Dr. Johnson, who congratulated +him that there were no improper words in +his dictionary, and received from that unconciliatory +sage the reply, 'You have been looking for them, +have you?' I have carefully searched my fifty samples +of penny fiction for something wrong, and have not +found it. It is as pure as milk, or, at all events, as +milk-and-water. Unlike the Minerva Press, too, it +does not deal with eminent persons: wicked peers +are rare; fraud is usually confined within what +may be called its natural limits—the lawyer's office; +the attention paid to the heroines not only by their +heroes, but by their unsuccessful and objectionable +rivals, is generally of the most honourable kind; and +platitude and dulness hold undisputed sway. +</p> + +<p> +In one or two of these periodicals there is indeed an +example of the mediaeval melodrama; but 'Ralpho the +Mysterious' is by no means thrilling. Indeed, when +I remember that 'Ivanhoe' was once published in a +penny journal and proved a total failure, and then +contemplate the popularity of 'Ralpho,' I am more +at sea as to what it is that attracts the million than +ever. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +'Noble youth,' cried the King as he embraced Ralpho, +'to you we must entrust the training of our cavalry. I hold +here the list which has been made out of the troops which +will come at the signal. To certain of our nobles we have +entrusted certain of our <i>corps d'armée</i>, but unto you, Ralpho, +we must entrust our horse, for in that service you can display +that wonderful dexterity with the sword which has made your +name so famous.'<br/> +    'Sire,' cried our hero, as he dropped on one knee and took +the King's hand, pressing it to his lips, 'thou hast indeed +honoured me by such a reward, but I cannot accept it.'<br/> +    'How!' cried the King; 'hast thou so soon tired of my +service?'<br/> +    'Not so, sire. To serve you I would shed the last drop +of my blood. But if I were to accept this command, I +should cease to do the service for the cause which now it has +pleased you to say I have done. No, sire, let me remain +the guardian of my King—his secret agent. I, with my sword +alone, will defend my country and my King.'<br/> +    'Be not rash, Ralpho; already hast thou done more than +any man ever did before. Run no more danger.'<br/> +    'Sire, if I have served you, grant my request. Let it be +as I have said.'<br/> +    'It shall be so, mysterious youth. Thou shalt be my secret +agent. Take this ring, and wear it for my sake; and, hark +ye, gentlemen, when Ralpho shows that ring, obey him as if +he were ourselves.'<br/> +    'We will,' cried the nobles.<br/> +    Then the King took the Star of St. Stanislaus, and fixed it +on our hero's breast. +</p> + +<p> +Now, to my mind, though his preferring to be 'a +secret agent' to becoming a generalissimo of the +Polish cavalry is as modest as it is original, Ralpho is +too 'goody-goody' to be called 'the Mysterious.' He +reminds me, too, in his way of mixing chivalry with +self-interest, of those enterprising officers in fighting +regiments who send in applications for their own +V.C.s while their comrades remain in modest expectation +of them. +</p> + +<p> +I am inclined to think, however, from the following +advertisement, that some author has been +recently piling up the virtues of his hero too strongly +for the very delicate stomachs of the penny public, +who, it is evident, resent superlatives of all kinds, and +are commonplace and conventional to the marrow of +their bones: 'T.B. TIMMINS is informed that he +cannot be promised another story like "Mandragora," +since, in deciding the contents of our journal, the tastes +of readers have to be considered whose interest cannot +be aroused by the impossible deeds of impossible +creatures.' Alas! I wish from my heart I knew what +'deeds' or 'creatures' <i>do</i> arouse the interest of this +(to me) inexplicable public; for though I have before +me the stories they obviously take delight in, why they +do so I cannot tell. +</p> + +<p> +At the 'Answers to Correspondents,' indeed, which +form a leading feature in most of these penny journals, +one may exclaim, with the colonel in 'Woodstock,' +when, after many ghosts, he grapples with Wildrake: +'Thou at least art palpable.' Here we have the real +readers, asking questions upon matters that concern +them, and from these we shall surely get at the back +of their minds. But it is unfortunately not so certain +that these 'Answers to Correspondents' are not themselves +fictions, like all the rest—only invented by the +editor instead of the author, and coming in handy to +fill up a vacant page. It is, to my mind, incredible +that a public so every way different from that of the +Mechanic's Institute, and to whom mere information +is likely to be anything but attractive, should be +genuinely solicitous to learn that 'Needles were first +made in England in Cheapside, in the reign of Queen +Mary, by a negro from Spain;' or that 'The family +name of the Duke of Norfolk is Howard, although the +younger members of it call themselves Talbot.' +</p> + +<p> +Even the remonstrance of 'Our Correspondence +Editor' with a gentleman who wishes to learn 'How +to manufacture dynamite' seems to me artificial; as +though the idea of saying a few words in season +against explosive compounds had occurred to him, +without any particular opportunity having really +offered itself for the expression of his views. +</p> + +<p> +There are, however, one or two advertisements decidedly +genuine, and which prove that the readers of +penny fiction are not so immersed in romance but that +they have their eyes open to the main chance and +their material responsibilities. 'ANXIOUS TO KNOW,' +for example, is informed that 'The widow, unless +otherwise decreed, keeps possession of furniture on +her marriage, and the daughter cannot claim it;' while +SKIBBS is assured that 'After such a lapse of time +there will be no danger of a warrant being issued for +leaving his wife and family chargeable to the parish.' +</p> + +<p> +As when Mr. Wilkie Collins made his first voyage +of discovery into these unknown latitudes, the penny +journals are largely used for forming matrimonial engagements, +and for adjudicating upon all questions of +propriety in connection with the affections. 'It is +just bordering on folly,' 'NANCY BLAKE' is informed, +'to marry a man six years your junior.' In answer +to an inquiry from 'LOVING OLIVIA' whether 'an engaged +gentleman is at liberty to go to a theatre without +taking his young lady with him,' she is told 'Yes; +but we imagine he would not often do so.' +</p> + +<p> +Some tender questions are mixed up with others of +a more practical sort. 'LADY HILDA' is informed +that 'it is very seldom children are born healthy whose +father has married before he is three-and-twenty; that +long engagements are not only unnecessary but injurious; +and that washing the head will remove the +scurf.' 'LEONE' is assured that 'it is not necessary +to be married in two churches, one being quite sufficient;' +that 'there is no truth in the saying that it is +unlucky to marry a person of the same complexion;' +and that 'a gentle aperient will remove nettle-rash.' +</p> + +<p> +'VIRGINIE' (who, by the way, should surely be +VIRGINIUS) is thus tenderly sympathised with: +</p> + +<p> +'It does seem rather hard that you should be deprived +of all opportunity of having a <i>tête-à -tête</i> with +your betrothed, owing to her being obliged to entertain +other company, although there are others of the +family who can do so; still, as her mother insists +upon it, and will not let you enjoy the society of her +daughter uninterrupted, you might resort to a little +harmless strategy, and whenever your stated evenings +for calling are broken in on that way, ask the young +lady to take a walk with you, or go to a place of +amusement. She can then excuse herself to her +friends without a breach of etiquette, and you can +enjoy your <i>tête-à -tête</i> undisturbed.' +</p> + +<p> +The photographs of lady correspondents which are +received by the editors of most of these journals are +apparently very numerous, and, if we may believe their +description of them, all ravishingly beautiful. It is +no wonder they receive many applications of the following +nature: +</p> + +<p> +'CLYDE, a rising young doctor, twenty-two, fair, +with a nice house and servants; being tired of bachelor +life, wishes to receive the carte-de-visite of a dark, +fascinating young lady, of from seventeen to twenty +years of age; no money essential, but good birth indispensable. +She must be fond of music and children, +and very loving and affectionate.' +</p> + +<p> +Another doctor: +</p> + +<p> +'Twenty-nine, of a loving and amiable disposition, +and who has at present an income of £120 a year, is +desirous to make an immediate engagement with a +lady about his own age, who must be possessed of a +little money, so that by their united efforts he may +soon become a member of a lucrative and honourable +profession.' +</p> + +<p> +How the 'united efforts' of two young people, however +enthusiastic, can make a man an M.D. or an +M.R.C.S. (except that love conquers all things) is +more than one can understand. The last advertisement +I shall quote affects me nearly, for it is from an +eminent member of my own profession: +</p> + +<p> +'ALEXIS, a popular author in the prime of life, of +an affectionate disposition, and fond of home, and the +extent and pressing nature of whose work have prevented +him from mixing much in society, would be +glad to correspond with a young lady not above thirty. +She must be of a pleasing appearance, amiable, intelligent, +and domestic.' +</p> + +<p> +If it is with the readers of penny fiction that Alexis +has established his popularity, I would like to know +how he did it, and who he is. To discover this last +is, however, an impossibility. These novelists all +write anonymously, nor do their works ever appear +before the public in another guise. There is sometimes +a melancholy pretence to the contrary put forth +in the 'Answers to Correspondents.' 'PHOENIX,' for +example, is informed that 'The story about which he +inquires will not be published in book form at the +time he mentions.' But the fact is it will never be so +published at all. It has been written, like all its +congeners, for the unknown millions and for no one +else. +</p> + +<p> +Some years ago, in a certain great literary organ, it +was stated of one of these penny journals (which has +not forgotten to advertise the eulogy) that 'its novels, +are equal to the best works of fiction to be got at the +circulating libraries.' The critic who so expressed +himself must have done so in a moment of hilarity +which I trust was not produced by liquor; for 'the +best works of fiction to be got at the circulating libraries' +obviously include those of George Eliot, Trollope, +Reade, Black, and Blackmore, while the novels I am +discussing are inferior to the worst. They are as crude +and ineffective in their pictures of domestic life as +they are deficient in dramatic incident; they are vapid, +they are dull. Indeed, the total absence of humour, +and even of the least attempt at it, is most remarkable. +There is now and then a description of the +playing of some practical joke, such as tying two +Chinamen's tails together, the effect of the relation of +which is melancholy in the extreme, but there is no +approach to fun in the whole penny library. And yet +it attracts, it is calculated, four millions of readers—a +fact which makes my mouth water like that of +Tantalus. +</p> + +<p> +When Mr. Wilkie Collins wrote of the Unknown +Public it is clear he was still hopeful of them. He +thought it 'a question of time' only. 'The largest +audience,' he says, 'for periodical literature in this +age of periodicals must obey the universal law of +progress, and sooner or later learn to discriminate. +When that period comes the readers who rank by +millions will be the readers who give the widest +reputations, who return the richest rewards, and +who will therefore command the services of the best +writers of their time.' This prophecy has, curiously +enough, been fulfilled in a different direction from +that anticipated by him who uttered it. The penny +papers—that is, the provincial penny newspapers—<i>do</i> +now, under the syndicate system, command the +services of our most eminent novel writers; but +Penny Fiction proper—that is to say, the fiction published +in the penny literary journals—is just where it +was a quarter of a century ago. +</p> + +<p> +With the opportunity of comparison afforded to its +readers one would say this would be impossible, but +as a matter of fact, the opportunity is <i>not</i> offered. +The readers of Penny Fiction do not read newspapers; +political events do not interest them, nor +even social events, unless they are of the class +described in the <i>Police News</i>, which, I remark—and +the fact is not without significance—does not need to +add fiction to its varied attractions. +</p> + +<p> +But who, it will be asked, <i>are</i> the public who don't +read newspapers, and whose mental calibre is such +that they require to be told by a correspondence +editor that 'any number over the two thousand will +certainly be in the three thousand'? +</p> + +<p> +I believe, though the vendors of the commodity in +question profess to be unable to give any information +on the matter, that the majority are female domestic +servants. +</p> + +<p> +As to what attracts them in their favourite literature, +that is a much more knotty question. My own +theory is that, just as Mr. Tupper achieved his +immense popularity by never going over the heads +of his readers, and showing that poetry was, after +all, not such a difficult thing to be understood, +so the writers of Penny Fiction, in clothing very +conventional thoughts in rather high-faluting English, +have found the secret of success. Each reader says +to himself (or herself), 'That is <i>my</i> thought, which I +would have myself expressed in those identical words, +if I had only known how. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>HOTELS.</h2> + +<p> +The desire for cheap holidays—as concerns going +a long distance for little money—is no doubt +very general, but it is not universal. It demands, like +the bicycle, both youth and vigour. In mature years, +not only because we are more fastidious, but because +we are less robust, the element of cheapness, though +always agreeable, is subsidiary to that of comfort. +For my own part, if the chance were offered me to +travel night and day for forty-eight hours anywhere—though +it was to the Elysian Fields—and that in a +Pullman car, and for nothing, I would rather go to +Southend at my own expense from Saturday to +Monday. Suppose the former journey to be commenced +by a Channel passage and continued in a +third-class carriage, I would rather stop at home. +Or if, in addition to the other discomforts, I am to +be a unit among 100 excursionists, with a coupon +that insures my being lodged on the sixth floor everywhere, +I had rather take a month's quiet holiday in +London at the House of Detention. +</p> + +<p> +These things are matters of taste; but it is certain +that a very large number of people, who, like myself, +are neither rich nor in a position which justifies them +in giving themselves airs, consider quiet, comfort, and +the absence of petty cares the most essential conditions +of a holiday. These views necessitate some +expense and generally limit the excursions of those +who entertain them to their native land; but, on the +other hand, they have their advantages. They give +one, for example, a great experience in the matter of +hotels. +</p> + +<p> +As I idly flutter the yellow leaves of the advertisements +of inns in 'Bradshaw,' they call up pictures in +my mind quite undreamt of by the proprietors. I +have been a sojourner in almost all of these which are +described as 'situated in picturesque localities.' They +are all—it is in print and must be true—'first-class' +hotels; they have most of them 'unrivalled accommodation;' +not a few of them have been 'patronised +by Royalty,' and one of them even by 'the Rothschilds.' +These last, of course, are great caravanserais, with +'magnificent ladies' drawing-rooms' and 'replete' (a +word that seems to have taken service with the licensed +victuallers) 'with every luxury.' They make up (a +term unfortunately suggestive of transformation) +hundreds of beds; they have equipages and 'night +chamberlains;' '<i>On y parle français</i>;' '<i>Man spricht +Deutsch</i>.' Of some of these there is quite a little +biography, beginning with the year of their establishment +and narrating their happy union with other +agreeable premises, like a brick and mortar novel. I +remember them well: their 'romantic surroundings' +or 'their exclusive privilege of meeting trains upon the +platform;' their accurate resemblance to 'a gentleman's +own house' (with 'a reception-room 80 feet by +90 feet'); their 'douche and spray baths;' their 'unexceptionable +tariff;' and even their having undergone +those 'extensive alterations,' through which I also +underwent something, which they did not allow for in +the bill. +</p> + +<p> +These hotels are all more or less satisfactory as to +appearance; furnished, not, indeed, with such taste, +nor so lavishly, as their rivals on the Continent, but +handsomely enough; they are much cleaner than +foreign inns; and if their reference to 'every sanitary +improvement which science can suggest' is a little +tall, even for an advertisement, one never has cause +to shudder as happens in some places in France +proper and in Brittany everywhere. Though it must +be admitted that <i>tables d'hôte</i> abroad are not the +banquets which the travelling Briton believes them +to be, our own hotel public dinners are inferior to +their originals, and, what is very hard, those who pay +for an entertainment in private suffer from them. The +guest who happens to dine later than the <i>table d'hôte</i> +in his own apartment can hardly escape getting things +'warmed up;' and if he dines at the same time he has +nobody to wait on him. There is one thing that +presses with great severity on paterfamilias—the +charge which is made at many of the large hotels +of 1s. 6d. a day for attendance on each person. Half +a guinea a week for service is a high price even for a +bachelor; but when this has to be paid for every +member of the family, it is ruinous. Young ladies +who dine at the same table and do not give half the +trouble of 'single gentlemen' ought not to be taxed +in this way. It is urged by many that since attendance +is charged in the bill,' there should be no +other fees. But the lover of comfort will always +cheerfully pay for a little extra civility; nor do I +think that this practice—any more than that of +feeing our railway porters—is a public disadvantage. +The waiter does not know till the guest goes +whether he is a person of inflexible principles +or not, and, therefore, hope ameliorates his manners +and shapes his actions to all. As to getting +'attendance' out of the bill, now it has once got into +it, that I believe to be impossible. There it is, like the +moth in one's drawing-room sofa. And yet I am old +enough to remember how poor Albert Smith plumed +himself on the benefit he bestowed upon the public, +as he had imagined, by introducing a fixed charge for +all services and doing away with 'Please, sir, boots.' +In this country, and, to say truth, in most others, +'Please, sir, boots,' is indigenous and not to be done +away with. We did very much better under the +voluntary system, although a few people who did not +deserve it, but simply could not afford to be lavish, +were called in consequence 'screws.' +</p> + +<p> +To pay the wages of another man's servants is +absurd, and reminds one of the 'plate, glass, and +linen' that used to be charged for at the posting-house +on the Dover road with every threepenny-worth +of brandy-and-water, I have been asked 6d. +for an orange (when oranges were cheap) at a +London hotel, upon the ground that they never +charged less than 6d. for anything; and I have read +of 'an old established and family hotel' near Piccadilly, +where the charge for putting the <i>Times</i> upon a +guest's breakfast-table was 6d. up to this present year +of grace. 'Gentlemen and families had always been +supplied with it at that price,' said the landlord, +when remonstrated with, 'and it was his principle, +and his customers approved it, to keep things as +they were.' It must be admitted, however, that +matters have changed for the better in this respect +elsewhere; and, at all events, the printed tariff that +may now be consulted in every modern hotel enables +you to know what you are spending. +</p> + +<p> +Things are improved, too, in the way of light and +air; both the public and private rooms of our hotels +are far more cheerful and better appointed than they +used to be, and instead of the four-posters there are +French beds. The one great advantage that our new +system possesses over the old is, indeed, the sleeping +accommodation. The 'skimpy' mattress, the sheet +that used to come untucked through shortness, leaving +the feet tickled by the blanket, and the thin, limp +thing that called itself a feather bed, are only to be +found in ancient hostelries. +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, it must be confessed that the +food has deteriorated; the bill of fare, indeed, is more +pretentious, but the materials are inferior, and so is +the cooking. The well-browned fowl, with its rich +gravy and the bread-sauce that used to be its homely +but agreeable attendant, has disappeared. The bird +appears now under a French title, and is in other +respects unrecognisable; as an Irish gentleman once +explained it to me, it is not only that the thing +appears under an <i>alias</i>, but the <i>alias</i> comes up instead +of the thing. There is one essential which the old +hotel often omitted to serve with your chicken, and +which the new hotel supplies—the salad. This, however, +few hotel cooks in England—and far less hotel +waiters—can be trusted to prepare. Their simple +plan is to deluge the tender lettuce with some hateful +ingredient called 'salad mixture,' poured out of a +peculiarly shaped bottle, such as the law now compels +poisons to be sold in; and the jewel is deserving of +its casket—it is almost poison. Nor, alas! is security +always to be attained by making one's salad for +one's self. For supposing even that the lettuce is fresh +and white, and not manifestly a cabbage that is pretending +to be a lettuce, how about the oil? Charles +Dickens used to say that he could always tell the +character of an inn from its cruets; if they were dirty +and neglected, all was bad. The cruets are now +clean enough in all hotels of pretension; but alas for +that bottle which should contain (and perhaps did at +some remote period contain) the oil of Lucca! On +the fingers of one hand I could count all the hotels +in England which have not given me bad oil. Whether +it was never good, or whether it has gone bad, I leave +to those philosophers who investigate the origin of +evil. I only know that it tastes as hair-oil smells. +As to the soups, they are no worse than they used +to be, and no better; there is soup and there is hotel +soup. +</p> + +<p> +'Gravy soup, fried sole, <i>entrée</i>, leg of mutton, and +apple tart' used to be the unambitious <i>menu</i> of the +old-fashioned inn. The <i>entrée</i> was terrible, but the +fish, meat, and sweet were excellent. I will say +nothing of the <i>entrées</i> now; I am not in a position to +say anything, for not being of a sanguine temperament, +and having but a few years to live, I do not +venture upon them. But it is undeniable that our +bill of fare is greatly more varied than it used to be, +and that the way in which the table is arranged is +much more attractive. At the great hotels in the +neighbourhood of London where rich, or at all events +prodigal people, go to dine in the summer months, +this is especially the case. All these establishments +affect fine dinners, yet how seldom it is they give you +good ones! Their wines, though monstrously dear, +are very fair; indeed, of the champagnes at least you +may make certain by looking at the corks; but the +food! How many of their fancifully named dishes +might be included under the common title, Fiasco! +</p> + +<p> +It was once suggested to a decayed man of fashion +that an excellent profession for him to take up would +be the proprietorship of an hotel of this class. 'You +know what is really worth eating,' said an influential +friend of his, 'and these caterers for your own class +evidently don't; if you will undertake the management +of the <i>Mammoth</i> (naming an inn of very high +repute), I will furnish the funds.' But the man of +fashion, who had spent his all with very little to show +for it, had at least acquired some knowledge of his +fellow-creatures. 'I am deeply obliged to you,' he +said, 'but were I to accept your offer I should only +lose your money. There are but a very few people in +the world who know a good dinner when it is set +before them; and a very large class (including all the +ladies, who are only solicitous about its <i>looking</i> good) +do not care whether it is good or bad. In private life +if a dinner consists of many courses, is given at a fine +house, and is presumably expensive, nineteen-twentieths +of those who sit down to it are satisfied. +The twentieth alone says to himself, 'How much +better I should have dined at home!' I have been at +scores and scores of great dinner-parties where the +very plates were cold and nobody but myself has +observed it.' +</p> + +<p> +I have no doubt the gentleman of fashion was +right; delicate cooking would be entirely thrown +away upon the general palate. The fair sex, the +young, the hungry, the easy-going, the ignorant—how +large a majority of the 'frequenters' of hotels do these +classes embrace! And it must also be remarked that +to cook food (except whitebait) delicately in large +quantities is a very difficult operation indeed. +</p> + +<p> +Upon the whole, I think, our large hotels, 'arranged +on the Continental system,' are well adapted for those +who frequent them, and they show a readiness to adopt +improvements. An immense number of well-to-do +people go to Brighton, to Scarborough, and scores of +other places to get a change and fresh air, but also to +find the same amusements to which they have been +accustomed in London; and, on the whole, they get +what they want without paying very much too much +for it. But what drives many quiet folks abroad is +their disinclination to meet with all this gaiety and +public life; they do not mind it so much when it is +mixed with the foreign element, and they are also +under the impression that picturesque scenery is a +peculiarity of the Continent. I believe that more +English people have visited Switzerland than have +seen the Lake District and the Channel Islands, and +very many more than have travelled in North Devon +and Cornwall. The chief reason of their abstinence in +this respect is, however, their dread of the want of +'accommodation.' To the last two counties, with the +exception of some towns, such as Ilfracombe, approachable +by sea, or a direct railway route, folks never +go in crowds, and never will go. It is true there are +no mammoth hotels to be found there; but for +picturesque situation and a certain homely comfort, +that takes one not only into another world, but +another generation, there is nothing equal to certain +little inns in these out-of-the-way places. In Wales +also, and even in the Isle of Wight, there are perfect +bowers of bliss of this description, still undesecrated +by the excursionist. Not ten years ago, in a part of +North Devon which shall be nameless, I came, with +my wife and daughter, upon an inn of this description. +We were all enraptured with the exquisite beauty of +its situation, and were so imprudent as to express, in +the presence of the landlady, our wish to live and die +there. 'Well, indeed, sir,' she said, 'I am delighted to +see you, but I hope you are not going to stay very +long.' 'My dear madam,' I remonstrated, aghast at +this remark, 'are we, then, such very objectionable-looking +persons?' 'Bless your heart, no, sir, it isn't +that; but the fact is, we have only room for three, and +if parties come and come, and always find us full +(through your being here, you know), they will think +it is no use coming, and we shall lose our custom.' We +did stay on, however, a pretty long time—it was a +place of ineffable beauty, such as one parts from almost +with tears—and when on our departure I asked for my +bill, the landlady said, 'Dear me, sir, would you kindly +tell me what day you come upon, for I ha' lost my +account of it?' The life we led at that inn was purely +pastoral; the clotted cream was of that consistency +that it was meat and drink in one; but although the +fare was homely, it was good of its kind, and admirably +cooked. There was fresh fish every day—for +we were too far from railways for that Gargantuan +ogre, 'the London market,' to deprive us of it—and +tender fowls, and jams of all kinds such as no money +could buy. +</p> + +<p> +The landlady had a genius for making what she +called 'conserves,' and every cupboard in the queer +little house was filled with them. In the sitting-room +was a quantity of old china and knick-knacks, brought +by the sailors of the place from foreign lands; the +linen was white as snow, and smelt of lavender. Outside +the inn was a sea that stretched to Newfoundland, +and cliffs that caught the sunset—such scenery +as is not surpassed by that of the Tyrol (though, of +course, in a very different line), and be sure I was +afraid of no comparison between our 'Travellers' +Rest' and any Tyrolean inn. It is noteworthy that +this hostelry of ours was so peculiarly and picturesquely +placed that it could only be approached on +foot, which reminds me of another place of entertainment +for man, but not for beast. +</p> + +<p> +In appearance, 'The Strangers' Welcome' (as I will +take leave to term it) is more ambitious than 'The +Rest,' but it is of the same simple type. In some +respects it is even more primitive; no sign hangs over +its door, nor is any other symbol of its vocation visible, +'Liberty,' not 'License,' as one may say without much +metaphor, being its motto. It is on an island, so +insignificant in extent that horse exercise is impossible +on it. What it lacks in superficial area is more than +made up, however, in its stupendous height. From +the 'Welcome,' though it lies in a dell, one looks down +perhaps a hundred sheer feet upon the ocean. Its +solemn murmur, even in calm, always reaches the +place, and when in storm, its spray. As one watches +it from the lawn among the fuchsias, one scarcely +knows which mood becomes it best. The fuchsias +grow against our walls and tap at our window-panes +in the morning as though they were roses; they even +make their homes in the rocks, like the conies. The +island is a very garden of fuchsias, tall as trees; and +there are no other trees. The 'Welcome' itself is a +sort of farmhouse without the farm; there is a goat or +two and a donkey to be seen about it, which would account +for the milk having an alien flavour, if it had one. +But the 'Welcome' has excellent milk, so that there +must be some cows somewhere. From the cliff-top you +may see Alderney, for our inn is among the Channel +Islands. When a storm comes you must stop where +you are; for until the last waves of it have ceased +there is no approach to us from the world without. +To the stranger it seems probable at such seasons that +the little place will burst up from below, for beneath +it are caverns innumerable, filled with furious waves +like sea monsters roaring for our lives. The sea, in +short, has honeycombed it, and renews her vows to be +its ruin with every gale. Yet the 'Welcome' lasts our +time, and will last that of many generations, who will +continue, however, doubtless to believe that the sublimities +of Nature are unattainable short of Switzerland. +</p> + +<p> +My memory now transports me to a mountain district +in the north, but on this side of the border; and +here, again, the inn is signless, and has no appearance +of an inn at all. It is situated on the last of a great +chain of hills, with lakes among them. It has lawns +and shrubberies, but few flowers; Nature frowns on +every hand, even in sunshine, when the waterfalls flow +like silver, and the crags are decked with diamonds. +There are no 'trencher-scraping, napkin-carrying,' +waiters in the house, but country damsels attend upon +you, and a motherly dame, their mistress, expresses +her hope every morning that you have slept well. If +you have not, it is the fault of your conscience: you +have had a poet's recipe for it, for you have been +'within the hearing of a hundred streams' all night. +Will you go up the Fells, or will you row on the Lake? +These are your simple alternatives; there is no brass +band, no promenade, no pier, no anything that the +vulgar like. Yet once a week at least a great spectacle +can be promised you without crossing the inn threshold +(indeed, when the promise is kept it is better to +be on the right side of it)—a thunder-storm among the +hills. The arrangements for lighting the place, of +which you may have complained, not without reason, +are then in perfection, and the silence is broken with a +vengeance. It is difficult to imagine the grandeurs of +a sham-fight—a battle without corpses—but here you +have them. First the musketry, then the guns, with +the explosion of the powder-magazine—repeated about +forty times by the mountain echoes—at the end of it. +When all is over you sit down to such a supper as +Lucullus would have given a year of life for, and +which, in all probability—for he had no prudence—would +have shortened it for him. At the 'Retreat,' as +it is called, among other native delicacies, they give +you fresh char cooked to a turn. I like to think that +this was the fish that Monte Christo had sent him in +a tank to Paris on the occasion of a certain banquet; +but all the wealth of the Indies could not have accomplished +that; the char (in spite of its name) does not +travel. +</p> + +<p> +One more reminiscence of country inns; and, though +I have more of them in the picture-gallery of my +memory, I have done. I conjure up an ivy-covered +dwelling, long roofed but low, and sheltered by a lofty +hill. Its situation is quite solitary, and, save for the +cry of the seagull, there reigns about it an unbroken +silence. It is on the very highway of the world, but +the road is noiseless, for it is the sea. From the +windows, all day long, we can watch the ships pass by +that carry the pilgrims of the earth, for their freight +is chiefly human. It is here 'the first ray glitters on +the sail that brings our friends up from the under +world, and the last falls on that which sinks with all +we love below the verge.' Even at night there is no +cessation to this coming and going; only, a red light +or a white, and the distant strokes of a paddle-wheel +in the hush of the moonless void are then the sole +signs of all this motion. What hopes and fears contend +in unseen hearts under those moving stars! Is +it nothing to have the opportunity to watch them +from the ivied porch of the 'Outlook,' and to welcome +the thoughts they arouse within us? On land, too, +there are stars, not made in heaven, but their shining +is intermittent. As I lie in my bed I can see the +great revolving light on the farthest point of rock that +juts to sea. That is the 'Outlook's' watchman, not of +much use to it, indeed, in a practical way, but imparting +a marvellous sense of guardianship and security. +</p> + +<p> +The chief means of amusement at inns of this kind +is supplied by science in the telescope. You note +through it all that comes and goes, and after a day or +two can tell-for yourself whither each stately ship is +bound, or whence it comes. At the 'Outlook' the +food is plain, but good; the prawns in particular +(which the young people, by-the-bye, can catch for +themselves) are of an exquisite flavour, and in size +approach the lobster. Twice a week for four hours this +earthly Paradise is as a town taken by assault and +given over to pillage. An excursion steamer stops at +the little pier and discharges a cargo of excursionists. +But those to whom the happiness of their fellow-creatures +is intolerable can withdraw themselves at these +seasons to the neighbouring Downs and Bays, and on +their return they will find peace with folded wing +sitting as before on the 'Outlook's' flagstaff. +</p> + +<p> +Such are the inns which I have known, and there +are hundreds in beautiful England like them. On its +rivers in particular there are many charming little +inns, but, to say truth, although the gentlemen-fishermen +are as quiet as mice (from their habits of caution +in their calling), the disciples of the oar are noisy; +they get up too early and go to bed too late, and are +too much addicted to melody. Moreover, these houses +of entertainment often carry the principle of home +production to excess: their native fare is excellent; +but, spring mattresses not growing in the neighbourhood, +the stuffing of the beds is supplied, to judge by +results, from the turnip-field. For the purpose for +which they are intended, however, these little hostels +are well fitted and have a river charm that is indescribable. +</p> + +<p> +I could speak, too, of excellent hotels set in the +grounds of ruined castles or abbeys; but the attractions +of the latter interfere with the repose of the +visitor. Moreover, it has been my chief object, while +admitting the merits of the <i>Crown</i> (and) <i>Imperial</i>, to +paint the lily—to point out the violet half hid from +the eye. It seems to me a pity that so many persons +should leave their native land and spend their money +among foreigners through ignorance of the quiet resting-places +that await them at home. I have in no +way exaggerated their merits, but it must be confessed +that they have one serious drawback, which, however, +only affects bachelors; if Paterfamilias is troubled by +it he ought to be ashamed of himself. I allude to the +happy couples on their honeymoon whom one is wont +to meet with in these retired bowers. It is aggravating, +no doubt, to see how Angelina and Edwin devote +themselves to one another without the slightest regard +for the feelings of the solitary stranger. The poor +creature has no wish, of course, to thrust his company +upon them, still he would like to have his existence +acknowledged; and they ignore it. They have not a +word to throw to him, nor even a glance. Then there +are certain endearments, delightful, no doubt, to those +who exchange them, but which to the spectator are +distraction. What I would recommend to the bachelor +as a remedy is a wife of his own. The good Mussulman's +idea of future happiness is a perpetual honeymoon; +and these little Paradises are the very places +to spend it in. The customs of our own country forbid +the agreeable variety which has such charms for +the Faithful; but, even as it is, I have seen in these +pleasant inns a great deal of human happiness, such +as to the sober lover of his species only adds to their +attraction. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/04.jpg" width="300" height="180" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>MAID-SERVANTS.</h2> + +<p> +It is a common thing to hear the remark expressed +by much-tried mistresses that servants are not +'reasonable beings.' The observation may either +have been provoked by the misbehaviour of some +particular domestic, or by the injudicious defence of +the class by one of the male sex. For the gentlemen +have more to urge in favour of our domestics than the +ladies have, and, as the latter maintain, for a very +obvious reason—'they have much less to do with +them.' The statement is cynical, but correct. So +long as a man finds his clothes brushed and his meals +well and punctually cooked, he 'does not see much to +complain of,' nor does he give much thought to the +pains and trouble which even that moderate amount +of service entails upon his wife. Unless in great +households, where everything is delegated to a paid +housekeeper, it is, indeed, certain that ladies who are +resolved to keep a house as it should be have, now, +from various causes, a very hard time of it. The old +feeling of feudal service, though a few examples—both +mistresses and servants—may still exist of it, is +dead; and in its place we have the employer and the +hireling. There are faults, of course, on both sides; +mistresses are accustomed to look upon their servants +too much as machines, and in the working thereof do +not, perhaps, estimate sufficiently the advantages of +the use of sweet oil; while servants are more prone +to 'eye-service' than were ever the housemaids of +Ephesus. Which of the two began it I cannot tell, +but a certain antagonism has grown up between these +two classes which shakes the pillars of domestic peace. +At the root of it all, as at the root of most evils, lies +ignorance, and in the servants' case ignorance of a +stupendous nature. +</p> + +<p> +I have had in my household an under-nurse, who, +upon the family's leaving town for a short holiday, +was enjoined to see that the birds in the nursery +(canaries) were well supplied with sand. When we +came back we found them all starved to death. She +had given them sand, but, alas! no seed. This was a +girl from the country, who, one would think, would +have known what birds fed upon; otherwise one does +not expect much intelligence from Arcadia. When +our last importation (an under-housemaid) 'turned on +the gas' in the upper apartments as she was directed +to do, but omitted to light it, I thought it very excusable; +she had not been accustomed to gas. On the +other hand, when her mistress told her to 'look to the +fire' of a certain room, I contend we had a right to +expect that that fire should be kept in. It was not +so, however, and when the lady inquired, 'Why did +you not look to it, as I told you?' the girl replied, +'Well, I did, mum; the door was open and I looked +at the fire every time I passed.' She appeared to +attach some sort of igneous power to the human +eye. +</p> + +<p> +Each of these young ladies came to us very highly +recommended by the wife of the clergyman of her +native place. Surely, in the curriculum of the village +school, something else beside the catechism ought to +have been included; yet, of the things they were +certain to be set to do—the merest first principles of +domestic service—they had been taught nothing; and +in learning them at our expense they cost us ten +times their wages. +</p> + +<p> +It may be said, indeed, that when you employ a +young girl who has never been out to service before, +you secure honesty, chastity, and sobriety, and must +not look for the artificial virtues; but, unhappily, +things are not very much better when you engage an +experienced hand. The lady of the house should not, +of course, expect too much (in these days she must be +of a very sanguine temperament if she falls into <i>that</i> +error); she will think it necessary to warn the new +arrival—although she 'knows her place' and is 'a +thorough housemaid'—that a velvet pile carpet, for +example, should not be brushed backwards. But on +more obvious matters she will probably leave the +'thorough housemaid' to her own devices, the result +of which is that the boards beside the stair-carpets +are washed with soda the first morning, which takes +the dirt off effectually—and the paint also. An +hour or two before she was caught at this, she has, +perhaps, utterly spoilt a polished grate or two by +rubbing them with scouring paper instead of emery +powder. +</p> + +<p> +Paterfamilias feels these things when he has to pay +the bill, but his wife feels them in the meantime, and +it is more than is to be expected of human nature that +she can welcome cordially such an addition to her +household. A prejudice against the girl springs up +in her mind, which is very promptly responded to, and +the mutual respect that ought to grow up between +them is nipped in the bud. I am sorry to say that +good housewives are almost always opposed to having +servants well educated; they think that 'knowledge +puffs up,' blows them above their places, and encourages +a taste for light literature which is opposed +to the arts of brushing and cleaning. What the +'higher education' of domestic servants is to be under +the School Boards I know not; but I hope they will +not imagine, as the Universities do, that their duty is +only to teach their pupils how to educate themselves. +I confess I agree with the housewives, that, for young +persons intended for service, reading, writing, and +arithmetic, with the use of the scrubbing and hearth +brushes, are far preferable acquirements to those of +the same three great principles with the use of the +globes. Whether there are any handbooks in existence, +other than cookery books, to teach the duties of +servants I know not; but, even if there are, servants +will never read them of their own free will. Not one +in a hundred has a sufficiently strong desire to improve +herself for that. They must be taught like children, and +when they <i>are</i> children, if any good is to come of it. +</p> + +<p> +It is to me astounding, and certainly makes me +very suspicious of the advocates of women's rights, +that they have done little or nothing in this direction. +Why should not some of that immense energy which +is now expended on platforms be directed into this +less ambitious but more natural channel? There are +tens of thousands of persons of their own sex, not indeed +out of employment, but who are obtaining +employment on false pretences, who would do so +honestly enough if they had had but a little early +training. Unfortunately, the ladies of the platform +do not in general stoop to such small things as +domestic matters; they do not care about mere +comfort, they even perhaps resent it because it is so +dear to tyrannous man. If they would only turn +their attention to the education of their humbler +sisters, they would win over all their enemies and put +to shame the cynic who has associated Man's Lefts +with Women's Rights. +</p> + +<p> +The only School for Servants I am acquainted with +sent us the worst we ever had, and if it had not been +for the very handsome fee it charged both us and her +for our mutual introduction, I should not have recognised +it as an educational establishment at all. +</p> + +<p> +It will naturally be said by men (not by their wives, +for they know better), 'But surely self-interest will +cause a servant to qualify herself for a place, since, +having done so, she will command better wages.' +This is the mistake of the political economists, who, +right enough in the importance they attach to self-interest, +gravely err in supposing it to be always of a +material kind. They start with the idea that everybody +wants to make as much money as possible. So +they do; but with a large majority this desire is +subordinate to the wish for leisure and enjoyment. +Trades unionism, with all its faults, is founded on this +important fact in human nature—that many of us +prefer narrow means, with comparative leisure, to +affluence with toil. That this notion, if universal, +would destroy good work of all kinds and make perfection +impossible, is beside the question, or certainly +never enters into the minds of those chiefly concerned +in the matter. 'A good day's work for a good day's +wage' is a fine sentiment; but 'half a day's work for +half a day's wage' suits some people even better; +while 'half a day's work for a good day's wage' suits +them better still. In old times the sense of 'service +being no inheritance' begat habits of good conduct as +well as thrift, for in most well-conducted households, +servants' wages were made proportionate to their length +of service. But nowadays a lady's promise of raising +a servant's wages every year is quite superfluous, +since it is ten to one against her keeping her for the +first twelve months. It is no wonder, then, that while +the conviction of service being of a temporary character +is, at least, as strong as ever, the course of conduct it +now suggests is to make as much as possible out of it +while it lasts, in the way of perquisites, etc. With our +cooks, especially, it is not too much to say that wages +are often a secondary object as compared with the +opportunity of making a purse for themselves; and +the recognised privilege of selling the dripping affords +cover for a multitude of petty delinquencies which if +not positive thefts have a strong family resemblance +to them. +</p> + +<p> +Before leaving the subject of short terms of service, +it should be noted that the modern servant openly +avows her love of change. An excellent mistress, +and a very kind one, has told me that housemaids +and kitchenmaids have given her warning again and +again for no other cause than this. They have +avowed themselves quite happy and contented in +their place, but they want 'fresh woods and pastures +new.' When Jack Mytton was reminded by his +lawyer that a certain estate he was about to sell had +been in his family for 500 years, he replied, 'Then it's +high time it should go out of it;' and the same +reflection occurs to our Janes and Bessies. They +have been in their present situation a year perhaps, +or two at most—indeed, two years is considered in +the world below stairs the extreme point for any +person of spirit to remain under one roof—and it is +high time they should leave it. One would naturally +think that, in the case of young women at all events, +they would be slow to exchange even a moderately +comfortable place for a home among strangers; that +they would bear the ills they know of, even if ills +exist, rather than venture on those of which they +know nothing; but this is far from being the case. +Nor do they even quit their place in order 'to better +themselves.' They have absolutely no reason except +the love of change. Behaviour of this sort naturally +gives some colour to the remark already quoted that +servants are not 'reasonable beings.' I was almost a +convert to that opinion myself when, on one occasion, +having asked a female domestic to be good enough +to put my boots on the tree, she literally obeyed my +order. She hung all my boots on the tree in the +garden, and it was very wet weather. But to young +persons who come from the country everything is +pardonable—except 'temper.' +</p> + +<p> +The growth of this parasite in both town and +country is, however, quite alarming. Little as mistresses +dare to say to the disadvantage of servants +when leaving their employment, no matter for what +reason, they do sometimes remark of them that their +temper is 'uncertain.' When this happens and the +fact is communicated to Jane or Betsy by the lady to +whom they have proposed themselves, they have one +invariable method of self-defence: 'Temper, mum? +Well, I 'ave my faults, I daresay, but not <i>that</i>; all as +knows me knows my temper is 'eavenly. But the +fact is, mum, Mrs. Jones [her late mistress] was a bit +flighty.' And she touches her forehead, and even +sometimes winks, to indicate aberration of the intellect. +A really good-tempered servant is now rare; +and there are very few who will bear 'speaking to' +when their work is neglected or ill-done. +</p> + +<p> +What, however, always puts them in the highest +good humour is an expensive breakage. When Susan +comes to say, 'Oh, please, mum, I've 'ad a haccident +with the pier glass,' her face is wreathed in smiles. +To a mistress who cannot relieve her feelings by +strong language, as a man would do, this behaviour +is very aggravating. If servants do not actually +delight in these misfortunes, I am afraid not one +in twenty shows the least consideration for her employer's +purse. It is charitable to say, when Thomas +or Jane leaves the gas burning all night, or the sun-blinds +out in the pouring rain, that they have 'no +head;' but it is my experience that they are very +careful, and, indeed, take quite extraordinary precautions, +with respect to their own property. I am +afraid that the true reason of the waste and extravagance +among servants is that they have no attachment +to their employers, and of course it is less +troublesome to be lavish than to be economical. All +the education in the world cannot make selfish persons +unselfish; but it can surely implant in them some +sense of duty. At present, so long as a servant is +not absolutely dishonest, her conscience rarely +troubles her. This is especially the case with our +cooks, who also—that 'dripping' question making +their path so slippery—draw the line between honesty +and its contrary very fine indeed. +</p> + +<p> +Moreover, they know less of what they pretend to +know than any other class of servant. The proof of +this is in the fact that not one in a hundred of them +will cook you a dinner on trial. I have often said to +a cook, 'Your character is satisfactory enough in +other respects; but, before engaging you, will you +show what you can do by sending up one good +dinner, for which I will pay you at the ordinary rate +—namely, half-a-guinea?' She won't do it; she says +she can cook for a prince, and affects to be hurt at +the proposition. The consequence is that for a month, +at least, we are slowly poisoned. Once only I hired +a cook who accepted these terms. I am bound to say +she sent us up a most excellent dinner, but when I +sent for her to pay the half-guinea she was dead +drunk on the kitchen floor. She had taken a bottle +of port wine and one of stout while serving up that +entertainment, and afterwards confessed that during +her arduous duties she required 'constant support.' +Again, it is by no means unusual for cooks to succeed +to admiration for a week and then to begin to spoil +everything, the proverb respecting a 'new broom' +applying, curiously enough, even more to them than +to the 'housemaids.' +</p> + +<p> +These observations are no doubt severe, but they +are not unjust; nor do I for a moment imply that +servants are always to blame, and never mistresses. +There are faults on both sides. Ladies often show +themselves as 'unreasonable' as their female domestics. +For example, although very solicitous for the settlement +of their own daughters in life, they often do not +give sufficient opportunities for their maid-servants to +find husbands. A girl in service is quite as anxious +to get a husband as her young mistresses, and, indeed, +it is of much more consequence for her to do so. She +sees her youth slipping away from her in a place +where no 'followers' are allowed, and it is no wonder +that she 'wants a change.' She has a right to have +her holidays and her 'Sundays out,' and it is the +mistress's duty not only to grant them, but to make +some inquiry as to how she spends them. Many +ladies who go to church with much regularity never +take the smallest interest in the moral conduct of +those to whom they stand, morally if not legally, +<i>in loco parentis</i>, and who may, perhaps, have no other +adviser. +</p> + +<p> +Mistresses of all ranks, too, show a lamentable want +of principle in the matter of character-giving. It +wants, no doubt, a certain strength of mind to write +the truth. 'The girl is going, thank Heaven,' they +say to themselves, and they are glad to get rid of her, +without a row, at the easy price of a small falsehood. +They lay the flattering unction to their souls that +they are concealing certain facts in order 'not to +stand in the way of the poor girl's future.' What +they are really doing is an act of selfishness, cruel as +regards the lady who is trusting to their word, and +baneful as regards the public good. It is the good +characters which make the bad servants. In a certain +primitive district of England, where ministers are +'called' from parish to parish, one of the churchwardens +of X complained to the churchwardens of Y +that his late importation from the Y pulpit was not +very satisfactory. 'And yet,' he said, 'you all cracked +him up enormously.' 'Yes,' replied the churchwarden +of Y, 'and you will have to crack him up too before +you get rid of him.' +</p> + +<p> +Now, it is only ignorance which causes ladies to +believe that there is any necessity to 'crack up' the +character of a servant. They are not obliged (though, +of course, if the servant has behaved well it would be +infamous to withhold it) to give her any character at +all, and they may state the most unpleasant truth (if +they are quite certain of the fact and can prove it) +without the least fear of an action for libel. The law +does not punish them for telling the truth about their +servants, and in another matter also it is more just +than it is supposed to be. There is a superstition +among servants that when leaving their situations +before their time is out they have a right to claim +board wages, and that even when dismissed for gross +misconduct they have a right to their ordinary wages +for the remainder of the month; but these are mere +popular errors. The only case with which I am +acquainted where neither of these dues was demanded +was rather a curious one. A widow lady advertised +for a cook and a housemaid, and procured them by +the first cast of her net. They came together with an +open avowal of their previous acquaintanceship; they +were attached to one another, they said, and did not +wish to be in separate service, and wages were not +so much an object to them as opportunities of friendship. +The lady, who had an element of romance in +her, was touched with this expression of sentiment; +it was also a great convenience to her to be so quickly +suited; and, their characters being good, she engaged +them. They had come from a house of much greater +pretensions than her own, and had taken higher wages, +which might have attracted her suspicions; but she +had very little work for them to do, and she concluded +that 'an easy place' had had its attractions for them. +Her servants were well treated and well fed, and +were allowed to see their friends; but she objected +to evening visits, and required the back door to be +locked and the key placed in her possession at nine +o'clock every evening. If the front door was opened +she could hear it from every part of her modest residence +(and, being very nervous, she used often to +fancy that it opened when it did not), while a wire for +the use of the policeman connected the ground-floor +with an alarm bell in her own room in case of fire or +other contingency. The two servants had been six +days with her when this alarm bell was pealed one +night with great violence. She looked out of window, +and beheld a cab laden with luggage standing at her +door. She expected nobody; but whoever had come +was more welcome than 'thieves' or 'fire,' and she went +up to the maid's room to bid them answer the door. +She found to her great astonishment—for it was two +in the morning—the apartment empty, and while she +was there the alarm-bell sounded again with increased +fury. Looking over the balusters, she perceived a +light in the hall and inquired who was there. 'Well, +it's us two,' returned the cook, 'we're just agoin, so +good-bye. It ain't at all the sort o' place for us, and +you ain't the sort o' missis.' Then there was a shout +of laughter, the front door was opened and slammed +to, and the cab drove off with its tenants, leaving +their mistress to her lonely meditations. The two +friends had come on trial, it seemed, and had had +enough of it. +</p> + +<p> +That they made no claim for wages of any kind +seems quite curious when one considers what sort +of servants, and in what sort of circumstances, +do demand them. And, as a rule, masters and +mistresses give in to the extortion. Yet the law is +on their side, nor have they any reason to complain +of it in other respects. The improvement that is +needed is in themselves, and in their relations to those +in their employment. Our young ladies are so engaged +in their accomplishments and their amusements +that they have no time to acquire a knowledge of +domestic affairs, so that when they marry they know +no more of a housewife's duties than their husbands. +No wonder men of moderate means shrink from marriage +when wives have become a source of discomfort +and expense, instead of their contraries, and have +lost the name of helpmate. How can they be in a +position to teach their servants when they themselves +are grossly ignorant of what they would have them +learn? There are certain village schools, indeed, +which profess to train their pupils for domestic +service, but they only teach them to be maids-of-all-work, +the least remunerated and the hardest-worked +of all the daughters of toil. They offer no premium +to diligence and perfection. +</p> + +<p> +This state of things is very hard both upon mistresses +and servants, but it is not irremediable, and +the remedy must come from the upper of the two +classes. Schools are as necessary for servants as they +are for other people; they must be taught their +calling before they can practise it; and schools for +servants must therefore be instituted. With schools +will come certificates of merit, and servants will then +be paid for what they can really do, and not, as now, +in proportion to their powers of audacity of assertion. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>MEN-SERVANTS.</h2> + +<p> +The subject of men-servants is by no means of +such universal interest as that of maid-servants, +and those who suffer from them are not only less +numerous, but less deserving of pity; as a lady of +limited means once put it in my hearing, 'They can +better afford to be robbed and murdered' On the +other hand, whatever truth may be in the dogma that +where a woman is bad she is worse than a bad man, +it is certain that when a man-servant is bad he can +do more mischief than a bad maid-servant. In many +cases he is a necessity, not because folks are rich, but +because they have large families, and the service is +consequently too heavy to be undertaken solely by +women. I have known many householders who, +weary of the trouble and annoyance given by men-servants, +have resolved to engage only those of the +other sex, and who have had to resort to men-servants +again for what may be called physical +reasons. +</p> + +<p> +When this happens, however, both master and +mistress should agree to the arrangement, or at all +events be both informed that it has been made. +Only last autumn a lady friend of mine adopted it in +the absence of her husband abroad, and forgot to +apprise him of it by letter. He arrived home late at +night, and, letting himself in with a latch-key, took +the strange man for a burglar, and was almost the +death of him by strangulation before he could +explain that he was the new butler. +</p> + +<p> +No woman can bring up a luncheon or dinner tray +for a dozen people twice a day without sooner or +later coming to grief with it. And here it is appropriate +to say that in places where there is much +heavy work it is only reasonable that wages should +be higher than where the work is light. Whereas, +upon such irrational grounds is our whole system of +domestic service built, that this is hardly ever taken +into consideration. Since the servant is told beforehand +what he or she will have to do, it is taken for +granted that the conditions are acceptable to them; +whereas, the fact is that the capability of performing +their duties is the very last thing to enter their minds. +They cannot afford to remain 'out of a situation,' +and therefore take the first that offers itself as a stopgap, +with no more intention of permanently remaining +there than a European who accepts an appointment +in Turkey, and with the same object—namely, +to make as much as possible out of the Turks in the +meantime. +</p> + +<p> +In the case of a man-servant, especially in London, +no written character should ever be held sufficient. +A personal interview with his late master or mistress +is indispensable. This gives a little trouble, no +doubt, on both sides; but those who grudge it, for +such a purpose, must indeed be grossly selfish, and +when they engage a ticket-of-leave man for their +butler get no worse than they deserve. One of the +best butlers, however, I ever knew was a ticket-of-leave +man—engaged on the faith of a written +character, which was, of course, a forged one, and +who remained with his employer no less than eighteen +months. If his speculations on the turf had been +successful, he might have parted with him the best of +friends, and perhaps have purchased a residence in +the same square; but something went wrong with +the brother to Bucephalus, whom he had backed for +the Derby, and the poor man had to dispose of the +whole of his master's family plate to pay his own +debts of honour and defray his travelling expenses—probably +to some considerable distance, as the police +could never hear of him. The risk in taking a butler +without a personal guarantee of at least his honesty +and sobriety can indeed hardly be exaggerated. If a +clever fellow, his influence over his fellow-servants of +the other sex is very great, and it is a recognised +maxim of the class never 'to tell upon one another' +so long as they remain good friends. I have heard +an experienced housewife say there is nothing she +dreads so much as an unbroken harmony below stairs; +like silence in the nursery, it is ominous of all sorts +of mischief. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, the ticket-of-leave man was an extreme +case; but it is certain that some butlers who are not +thieves are always treading on the very confines of +roguery. They are like trustees who, though they +will not touch the principal entrusted to them, not +only omit to put it out to the best advantage, but will +sometimes even pocket a portion of the interest 'for +their trouble.' I remember reading a curious case of +this sort. A gentleman who had been with his +family in Switzerland for nine months was met by a +London acquaintance on his return, who expressed +his regret at his having been in trouble at home. +'Nay, I have been in no trouble,' he replied, 'and, +indeed, none of us have been at home.' 'But a month +ago when I was passing down your street I surely +saw a funeral standing at your door?' Nor had his +eyes deceived him. The butler in charge had let the +house for a couple of months, and but for his singular +ill-luck in one of his tenants happening to die during +their temporary occupation of it, he would have +pocketed the rent (<i>minus</i> the money requisite to keep +the maids' mouths shut) and his master would have +been none the wiser. It is said that it is only when +we have lost a friend that we come to value him at +his true worth; and it is certain that it is only when +one's butler has left us and the tongues of his fellow-servants +are loosened that we come to learn his +demerits—the difference between his real character +and his written one. If he is a rogue, his evil influence +remains behind him, and, next to the maidservants, +it is the page who suffers most from it. He +becomes—poor little fellow!—almost by necessity an +accessory to his delinquencies, plays pilot-fish to the +other's shark, and himself grows up to swell the host +of bad servants and that army of martyrs their +masters and mistresses. +</p> + +<p> +A common cause of a butler's ruin, and for which +he is much to be pitied, is his having married unfortunately. +I had once a good servant whom I was very +loth to lose, but whose departure became necessary +from his constantly being visited by a wife in advanced +stages of intoxication. Housewives generally prefer +a married man for their servant, for reasons that are +not inscrutable. I do not wish to differ from such +good authorities. But though I have no objection to +my butler being married, I do object to maintain his +wife, which, if he be on good terms with the cook, +there is a strong probability of my having to do. As +to his own eating, Heaven forbid that I should grudge +it to him; but it is curious and utterly subversive of +all medical dogma that both men-servants and maidservants, +who take, of course, comparatively little +exercise, should, nevertheless, contrive to eat more +apiece for dinner than two average Alpine climbers. +Four meals a day, and three of them meat meals, is +their usual rate of sustenance, and the food must not +only be frequent and plentiful, but very good. It is a +gratifying proof of the rapid influence of civilisation +that the daughter of a farm-labourer, accustomed at +home to consider bacon a treat and beef a windfall, +will, after a month's experience of her London place, +decline to eat cold meat of any kind, reject salt butter +as 'not fit for a Christian,' and become quite a <i>connoisseur</i> +as to the strength of bitter ale. Indeed, two of +our present female domestics are 'recommended' to +drink claret because beer makes them bilious. I do not +mind giving them claret, but I think it hard that under +such circumstances I should have had a butler give +me warning because the female domestics are 'not +select enough.' My own impression is, though I +scarcely like to mention it, because he was a married +man, that he considered them too plain. +</p> + +<p> +The reasons, or at all events the professed reasons, +which servants give for leaving their situations are +sometimes very curious. One man left a family of +my acquaintance because he said he was interfered +with by the young ladies. 'Good gracious, what do +you mean?' inquired his mistress. Her daughters, it +appears, were accustomed to arrange the flowers for +the dinner-table, whereas, as he imagined, he had a +peculiar gift for that kind of decoration himself. +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, it is sometimes difficult for a +sensitive master or mistress to give the true reason +for their parting with a servant. A friend of mine +had a footman who, through trick, or some defect in +his respiratory organs, used to blow like a grampus, +and indeed more like a whale, while waiting at table. +It was not a vice, of course, but it was very objectionable, +and guests who were bald especially objected +to it. My friend consulted with his butler, who +admitted that 'John did blow like a pauper' (meaning, +as I suppose, a porpoise), and undertook to +break the subject to him. It is quite common to find +candidates for service very deaf, and if they contrive +to pass their 'entrance examination' (for which no +doubt they sharpen their faculties), they stay with you +for a month at least with an excellent excuse for +making it a holiday, since, whatever you tell them +to do they cannot hear and do not do it, or do +something else which they like better. Mistresses +who are silent about moral disqualifications are much +more so, of course, about physical ones, and have no +scruples in ridding themselves of a deaf man. +</p> + +<p> +The worst class of men-servants, perhaps, are those +who are said to 'require a master;' which means that +when he happens to be not at home they neglect +everything. A friend of mine who happened to take +a week's holiday, alone, discovered on his return that +his family might almost as well have had no servant +at all as the man he left with them; he was generally +out, and when at home had not even troubled himself +to answer the drawing-room bell. Some men-servants +are always running out; they have 'just stepped round +the corner,' they say, 'to post a letter;' which in nine +cases out of ten means to have a dram at the public-house. +The servants who 'require a master' sometimes +retain their situation with a very selfish one by +devoting themselves to his service at the expense of +the rest of the family. 'John suits me very well,' he +says, 'and thoroughly understands his duties,' which +in this case means the length of the master's foot. +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, there are some men-servants +who, one would think, ought to belong to the other +sex, so utterly ignorant they are of that branch of +their duty which they call 'valeting.' A lady blessed +with a scientific husband, who certainly did not take +much notice whether he was 'valeted' or not, once +complained to his man of his neglect in this particular. +'When your master comes in, William, you should look +after him, and see to his hat and coat, and pay him +little attentions.' So the next time the man of science +came in he was not a little surprised by William (who, +it is fair to say, came from the country) running up +and taking his hat off his head, like some highly-trained +retriever. Happy the master to whom a +worse thing has never happened at the hands of his +retainer! +</p> + +<p> +The main thing to be dreaded in men-servants—next +to downright dishonesty—is, of course, intoxication. +If a man has been long in one's service and gets +drunk for once and away, it may well be forgiven +him; but when your new servant gets drunk, wait +till he is sober enough to receive his wages, and then +dismiss him—if you can. Not long ago I had occasion +to discharge a butler for habitual intoxication; +he was never quite drunk, but also never quite sober; +he was a sot. I made him fetch a cab, and saw his +luggage put upon it, and I tendered him his month's +wages. But he refused to leave the house without board +wages. Of course, I declined to pay him any such +thing; and, as he persisted in leaning against the +dining-room door murmuring at intervals, 'I wants my +board wages,' I sent for a policeman. 'Be so good,' I +said,' as to turn this drunken person out of my house.' +'I daren't do it, sir,' was the reply; 'that would be to +exceed my duty.' 'Then, why are you here?' 'I am +here, sir, to see that you turn the man out yourself +without using unnecessary violence.' 'The man' was +six feet high and as stout as a beer-barrel. I could +no more have moved him than Skiddaw, and he knew +it. 'I stays here,' he chanted in his maudlin way, +'till I gets my board wages.' Fortunately, two Oxford +undergraduates happened to be in the house, to whom +I mentioned my difficulty, and I shall not easily forget +the delighted promptitude with which they seized +upon the offender and 'ran him out' into the street. +He fled down the area steps at once with a celerity +that convinced me he was accustomed to being turned +out of houses, and tried to obtain re-admission at the +back-door. It was fortunately locked, but when I +said to the policeman, '<i>Now</i>, please to remove that +man,' he answered, 'No, sir; that would be to exceed +my duty; he is still upon your premises and a member +of your household.' As it was raining heavily, the +delinquent, though sympathised with by a great crowd +round the area railings, presently got tired of his +position and went away. But supposing my young +Oxford friends had not been in the house and he had +fallen upon me (a little man) in the act of expulsion; +or supposing I had been a widow lady with no protector, +would that too faithful retainer have remained +in my establishment for ever? +</p> + +<p> +I have purposely addressed myself to that large +class of the community only who are said 'to keep a +man-servant'—that is, one man, assisted, perhaps, by +a page. Those who keep butler, footman, coachman, +grooms, and valets are comparatively few in number, +and know nothing of the inconveniences which their +less wealthy fellow-countrymen endure. In large +establishments, if William is drunk, John is sober, +and the work is done for the rich man by somebody; +especially, too, if William is drunk, there are +John and Thomas to turn him out of the house and +have done with him. But it is certain that the +lower Ten Thousand are not in a satisfactory condition +as respects their men-servants; hardly more so, +in fact, than the Hundred Thousand are in regard to +their maids. The men-servants, however, are not so +ignorant of their duties as are the latter, and if only +their masters would have the courage to tell the truth +when giving them their 'characters,' there would be a +great improvement in them. Against the masters +themselves (unlike the mistresses) I have never heard +much complaint. Most of them object to be 'bothered' +and 'troubled,' and are willing enough to put +everything into their man's hands, including the key +of the Cellar, if only they could trust him; but at +present, alas! this is a very large 'If.' +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/05.jpg" width="300" height="139" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>WHIST-PLAYERS.</h2> + +<p> +If cards are the Devil's books, Whist is the <i>édition +de luxe</i> of them. Whist-playing is one of the +few vices of the upper classes that has not in time +descended to the lower, with whom the ingenious and +attractive game of 'All Fours' has always held its own +against it. I have known but two men not belonging +to the upper ten thousand who played well at whist. +One was a well-known jockey in the South of +England, who was also, by the way, an admirable +billiard-player. He called himself an amateur, but +those who played with him used to complain that his +proceedings were even ultra-professional. On the Turf +men are almost as equal as they are under it, and +this ornament of the pigskin would on certain occasions +(race meetings) take his place at the card-table +with some who were very literally his betters, while +others who had more self-respect contented themselves +with backing him. The other example I have +in my mind was an ancient Cumberland yeoman, +who, having lost the use of his limbs in middle life +from having been tossed by a bull, pursued the science +under considerable difficulties. A sort of card-rack +(such as Psycho uses at the Egyptian Hall) was placed +in front of him, and behind him stood his little granddaughter +who played the cards for him by verbal +direction. Both these men played a very good game +of the old-fashioned kind, for though the jockey used +subtleties, they were not of the Clay or Cavendish +sort. The asking for trumps was a device unknown +to him, though there were folks who whispered he +would take them under certain circumstances without +asking, and of the leading of the penultimate with +five in the suit it could be said of him, for once, that +he was as innocent as a babe. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, many persons join the 'upper ten' who +come from the lower twenty (or even thirty), and it +need not be said that they are by no means inferior +in sagacity to their new acquaintances; yet they +rarely make first-rate players. Whist, like the +classics, must be learnt young for any excellence to +be attained in it. Of this Metternich was a striking +example. If benevolent Nature ever intended a +man for a whist-player one would have supposed that +she had done so in his case, but had been baffled by +some malign Destiny which had degraded him to that +class by whom, in conjunction with Kings, it was fondly +believed, previously to the recent general election, +that 'the world was governed.' Until late in life he +never took to whist, when he grew wildly fond of it, +and played incessantly, till it is said a certain memorable +event took place which caused him never to +touch a card again. The story goes that, rapt in the +enjoyment of the game, he suffered a special messenger +to wait for hours, to whom if he had given his +attention more promptly a massacre of many hundred +persons would have been prevented. Humanity may +drop a tear, but whist had nothing to regret in the +circumstance; for in Metternich it did not lose a +good player, and, what redeems his intelligence, he +knew it. 'I learnt my whist too late,' he would say, +with more pathos and solemnity, perhaps, than he +would have used when speaking of more momentous +matters of omission. +</p> + +<p> +He must be a wise man indeed who, being an +habitual whist-player, is aware that he is a bad one. +In games of pure skill, such as chess, and, in a less +degree, billiards, a man must be a fool who deceives +himself upon such a point; but in whist there is a +sufficient amount of chance to enable him to preserve +his self-complacency for some time—let us say, his +lifetime. If he loses, he ascribes it to his 'infernal +luck,' which always fills his hands with twos and +threes; and if he wins, though it is by a succession +of four by honours as long as the string of four-in-hands +when the Coaching Club meets in Hyde Park, +he ascribes it to his skill. 'If I hadn't played trumps +just when I did,' he modestly observes to his partner, +'all would have been over with us;' though the result +would have been exactly the same had he played +blindfold. To an observer of human nature, who is +not himself a loser 'on the day,' there are few things +more charming than the genial, gentle self-approval +of two players of this class who have just defeated +two experts, and proved, to their own satisfaction, +that if fortune gives them 'a fair chance' or 'something +like equal cards,' as they term the conditions of +their late performance, they can play as well as other +people. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, the term 'good-play' is a relative one; +the player who wins applause in the drawing-room is +often thought but little of in places where the rigour of +the game is observed; and the 'good, steady player' of +the University Clubs is not a star of the first magnitude +at the Portland. The best players used to be +men of mature years; they are now the middle-aged, +who, with sufficient practical experience, have derived +their skill in early life from the best books. 'It is +difficult to teach an old dog new tricks,' and for the +most part the old dogs despise them. When I hear +my partner boast that he is 'none of your book-players,' +I smile courteously, and tremble. I know +what will become of him and me if fortune does +not give him his 'fair chance,' and I seek comfort +from the calculation which tells me it is two to one +against my cutting with him again. How marvellous +it is, when one comes to consider the matter, that a man +should decline to receive instruction on a technical +subject from those who have eminently distinguished +themselves in it, and have systematised for the benefit +of others the results of the experience of a lifetime! +With books or no books, it is quite true, however, that +some men, otherwise of great intelligence, can never +be taught whist; they may have had every opportunity +of learning it—have been born, as it were, with the +ace of spades in their mouth instead of a silver spoon—but +the gift of understanding is denied them; and +though it is ungallant to say so, I have never known a +lady to play whist well. +</p> + +<p> +In the case of the fair sex, however, it may be urged +that they have not the same chances; they have no +whist clubs, and the majority of them entertain the +extraordinary delusion that it is wrong to play at whist +in the afternoon. One may talk scandal over kettle-drums, +and go to morning performances at the theatre, +but one may not play at cards till after dinner. There +is even quite a large set of male persons who, 'on +principle,' do not play at whist in the afternoon. In +seasons of great adversity, when fortune has not given +me my 'fair chance' for many days, I have sometimes +'gone on strike,' as it is termed, and joined them; but +anything more deplorable than such a state of affairs +it is impossible to imagine. After their day's work is +over, these good people can't conceive what to do with +themselves, and, between ourselves, it is my experience, +drawn from these occasional 'intervals of business,' +that this practice of not playing whist in the afternoon +generally leads to dissipation. +</p> + +<p> +It is sometimes advanced by this unhappy class, by +way of apology, that they play at night; which may +very possibly be the case, but they don't play well. +There is no such thing, except in the sense in which +after-dinner speaking is called 'good,' as good whist +after dinner. It may seem otherwise, even to the +spectators; but having themselves dined like the rest, +they are not in a position to give an opinion. The +keenness of observation is blunted by food and wine; +the delicate perceptions are gone; and what is left of +the intelligence is generally devoted to finding faults +in your partner's play. The consciousness of mistakes +on your own part, which he is in no condition to discern, +instead of suggesting charity, induces irritation, +and you are persuaded, till you get the next man, that +you are mated with the worst player in all Christendom. +Moreover, that 'one more rubber' with which you propose +to finish is generally elastic (<i>Indian</i> rubber), and +you sit up into the small hours and find them disagree +with you. If I ever write that new series of the +'Chesterfield Letters' which I have long had in my +mind, and for which I feel myself eminently qualified, +my most earnest advice to young gentlemen of fashion +will be found in the golden rule, 'Never sit down to +whist after dinner;' it is a mistake, and almost an +immorality. If they must play cards, let them play +Napoleon. +</p> + +<p> +With regard to finding fault with one's partner, I +have no apology to offer for it under any circumstances; +but it must be remembered that this does not +always arise from ill-temper, or the sense of loss that +might have been gain. There are many lovers of +whist for its own sake to whom bad play, even in an +adversary, excites a certain distress of mind; when a +good hand is thrown away by it, they experience +the same sort of emotion that a gourmand feels who +sees a haunch of venison spoilt in the carving. In +such a case a gentle expression of disapproval is surely +pardonable. And I have observed that, with one or +two exceptions (<i>non Angli sed angeli</i>, men of angelic +temper rather than ordinary Englishmen), the good +players who never find fault are not socially the +pleasantest. They are men who 'play to win,' and +who think it very injudicious to educate a bad partner +who will presently join the ranks of the Opposition. +</p> + +<p> +What is rather curious—and I speak with some +experience, for I have played with all classes, from +the prince to the gentleman farmer—the best whist-players +are not, as a rule, those who are the most +highly educated or intellectual. Men of letters, for +example (I am speaking, of course, very generally), +are inferior to the doctors and the warriors. Both the +late Lord Lytton and Charles Lever had, it is true, +a considerable reputation at the whist-table, but +though they were good players, they were not in the +first class; while the author of 'Guy Livingstone,' +though devoted to the game, was scarcely to be +placed in the second. The best players are, one must +confess, what irreverent persons, ignorant of the importance +of this noble pursuit, would term 'idlers'—men +of mere nominal occupation, or of none, to whom +the game has been familiar from their youth, and who +have had little else to do than to play it. +</p> + +<p> +While some men, as I have said, can never be +taught whist, a few are born with a genius for the +game, and move up 'from high to higher,' through all +the grades of excellence, with a miraculous rapidity; +but, whether good, bad, or indifferent, I have not known +half a dozen whist-players who were not superstitious. +Their credulity is, indeed, proverbial, but no one who +does not mix with them can conceive the extent of +it; it reminds one of the African fetish. The country +apothecary's wife who puts the ivory 'fish' on the +candlestick 'for luck,' and her partner, the undertaker, +who turns his chair in hopes to realise more +'silver threepences,' are in no way more ridiculous +than the grave and reverend seigneurs of the Clubs +who are attracted to 'the winning seats' or 'the winning +cards.' The idea of going on because 'the run of +luck' is in your favour, or of leaving off because it +has declared itself against you, is logically of course +unworthy of Cetywayo. The only modicum of reason +that underlies it is the fact that the play of some men +becomes demoralised by ill-fortune, and may, possibly, +be improved by success. Yet the belief in this +absurdity is universal, and bids fair to be eternal. +'If I am not in a draught, and my chair is comfortable, +you may put me anywhere,' is a remark I have +heard but once, and the effect of it on the company +was much the same as if in the House of +Convocation some reverend gentleman had announced +his acceptance of the religious programme of M. +Comte. +</p> + +<p> +With the few exceptions I have mentioned, whist-players +not only stop very far short of excellence in +the game, but very soon reach their tether. I cannot +say of any man that he has gone on improving +for years; his mark is fixed, and he knows it—though +he is exceptionally sagacious if he knows where it is +drawn as respects others—and there he stays till he +begins to deteriorate. The first warning of decadence +is the loss of memory, after which it is a +question of time (and good sense) when he shall withdraw +from the ranks of the fighting men and become +a mere spectator of the combat. It was said by a great +gambler that the next pleasure in life to that of winning +was that of losing; and to the real lover of +whist, the next pleasure to that of playing a good +game is that of looking on at one. +</p> + +<p> +Whist has been extolled, and justly, upon many +accounts; but the peculiar advantage of the game is, +perhaps, that it utilises socially many persons who +would not otherwise be attractive. Unless a player +is positively disagreeable, he is as good to play whist +with as a conversational Crichton. Moreover, though +the poet has hinted of the evanescent character of +'friendships made in wine,' such is not the case with +those made at whist. The phrase, 'my friend and +partner,' used by a well-known lady in fiction, in +speaking of another lady, is one that is particularly +applicable to this social science, and holds good, as it +does, alas, in no other case, even when the partner +becomes an adversary. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/06.jpg" width="300" height="128" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>RELATIONS.</h2> + +<p> +It is a favourite utterance of a much 'put-upon' +Paterfamilias of my acquaintance, when he finds +his family more than usually too much for him, and +cynically confesses his own shortcomings, that 'children +cannot be too particular in their choice of their +parents, or begin their education too early.' +</p> + +<p> +But not only are children a necessity—that is, if +the world of men and women is to be kept going, +concerning the advantage of which there seems, however, +just now, to be some doubt,—but when they +have arrived, they cannot, except in very early life, +be easily got rid of. In this respect they differ from +the relations whose case I am about to consider, and +also possess a certain claim upon us over and above +the mere tie of blood, since we are responsible for +their existence. The obligation on the other side is, +I venture to think, a little exaggerated. If there is +such a thing as natural piety, which, even in these +days, few are found to deny, it is the reverence, it is +true, with which children regard their parents; but +their moral indebtedness to them as the authors of +their being is open to doubt. That theory, indeed, +appears to be founded upon false premises; for, +unless in the case of an ancestral estate, I am not +aware that the existence of children is much premeditated. +On the contrary, their arrival is often looked +upon, from pecuniary reasons, with much apprehension, +or, at best, till they do arrive, they may be +described, in common phrase, as 'neither born nor +thought of.' I am a father myself, but I wish to be +fair and to take a just view of matters. If a mother +leaves her child on a doorstep, for example, the filial +bond can hardly be expected to be very strong. In +such a case, indeed, the infant seems to me to have a +very distinct grievance against its female parent, and +to be under no very overwhelming obligation to its +father. 'Handsome is as handsome does' is a principle +that applies to all relations of life, including +the nearest; and if duty never absolutely ceases to +exist, it is, at all events, greatly moulded by circumstances. +</p> + +<p> +Patriotism, for instance, is very commendable, but +your country must be worth something to make you +love it. It is next to impossible that an inhabitant of +Monaco, for example, should be patriotic. He can at +most be only parochial. The love of one's mother is +probably the purest and noblest of all human affections; +but some people's mothers are habitual drunkards, +and others professional thieves. Even filial +reverence, it is plain, must stop somewhere. That is +one of the objections which, with all humility, I feel +to the religion of M. Comte. The worship of my +grandmother would be impossible to me, unless I had +reason to believe her to have been a respectable +person. Her relationship, unless I had had the +advantage of her personal acquaintance, would weigh +I fear, but little with me, and that of my great-grandmother +nothing at all. The whole notion of ancestry—unless +one's ancestors have been distinguished +people—seems to me ridiculous. If they have <i>not</i> +been distinguished people—folks, that is, of whom +some record has been preserved—how is one to know +that they have been worthy persons, whose mission +has been to increase the sum of human happiness? +If, on the other hand, they have been only notorious, +and done their best to decrease it, I should be most +heartily ashamed of them. The pride of birth from +this point of view—which seems to me a very reasonable +one—is not only absurd, but often very reprehensible. +We may be exulting, by proxy, in successful +immorality, or even crime. Our boastfulness of our +progenitors is necessarily in most cases very vague, +because we know so little about them. When we +come to the particular, the record stops very short +indeed—generally at one's grandmother, who, by the +way, plays a part in the dream-drama of ancestry +little superior to that of that 'rank outsider,' a mother-in-law. +'Tell that to your grandmother' is a phrase +that certainly did not originate in reverence; and +even when that lady is proverbially alluded to in a +complimentary sense, her intelligence is only eulogised +in connection with the 'sucking of eggs.' +</p> + +<p> +It so happens that I have quite a considerable line +of ancestors myself, but only one of them ever distinguished +himself, and that (he was an Attorney-General) +in a doubtful way; and I confess I don't take +the slightest interest in them. I prefer the pleasant +companion with whom I came up in the train yesterday, +and whose name I forgot to ask, to the whole lot +of them. +</p> + +<p> +And if I don't care about ancestors on canvas (for +their pictures, of course, are all we have seen of them), I +have good cause to be offended with them on paper. +My favourite biographies—such as that of Walter +Scott, for example—are disfigured by them. When +men sit down to write a great man's life, why should +they weary us with an epitome of that of his grandfather +and grandmother? Of course, the book has to +be a certain length. No one is more sensible than +myself of the difficulty of providing 'copy' sufficient +for two octavo volumes; but I do think biographers +should confine themselves to two generations. +For my part, I could do with one, but there is the +favourite theory of a great man's inheriting his greatness +from the maternal parent, which I am well aware +cannot be dispensed with. It is like the white horse, +or rather the grey mare, in Wouvermanns's pictures; +you can't get rid of it any more than Mr. Dick could get +Charles I. out of his memorial. For my part, I always +begin biographies at the fourteenth chapter (or thereabouts)—'The +subject of this memoir was born,' etc.; +and even so I find I get quite enough of them. In +novels the introduction of ancestry is absolutely +intolerable. When I see that hateful chapter headed +'Retrospective,' I pass over to the other side, like the +Levite, only quicker. What do I care whether our hero's +grandfather was Archbishop of Canterbury or a +professional body-snatcher? I don't even care which of the +two was my own personal friend's grandfather, and how +much less can I take an interest in this imaginary progenitor +of the creation of an author's brain? The +introduction of such a colourless shadow is, to my +mind, the height of impertinence. If I were Mr. Mudie, +I would put my foot down resolutely and stamp out +this literary plague. As George III., who had an +objection to commerce, is said to have observed, when +asked to confer a baronetcy on one of the Broadwood +family, 'Are you sure there is not a piano in it?' so +should Mr. M. inquire of the publisher before taking +copies of any novel, 'Are you sure there is not a grandfather +in it?' +</p> + +<p> +Again, what a nuisance is ancestry in our social life! +It cannot, unhappily, be done away with as a fact, but +surely it need not be a topic. How often have I been +asked by some fair neighbour at a dinner-table, 'Is +that Mr. Jones opposite one of the Joneses of Bedfordshire?' +One's first impulse is naturally to ask, 'What +on earth is that to you or me?' But experience teaches +prudence, and I reply with reverence, 'Yes, of Bedfordshire,' +which, at all events, puts a stop to argument +upon the matter. Moreover, she seems to derive some +sort of mysterious satisfaction from the information, +and it is always well to give pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +A well-known wit was once in company with one +of the Cavendishes, who had lately been to America, +and was recounting his experiences. 'These Republican +people have such funny names,' he said. 'I met +there a man of the name of Birdseye.' 'Well, and is +not that just as good as Cavendish?' replied the wit, +who was also a smoker. But the remark was not +appreciated. +</p> + +<p> +Ancestral people do not, as a rule, appreciate wit; +but, on the other hand, it must be admitted that this +is not a defect peculiar to them alone. I once knew +a man of letters who, though he had risen to wealth +and eminence, was of humble descent, and had a weakness +for avoiding allusion to it. His daughter married +a man of good birth, but whose literary talents were +not of a high order. This gentleman wrote a letter +applying for a certain Government appointment, and +expressed a wish for his father-in-law's opinion upon +the composition. 'It's a very bad letter,' was the +frank criticism the other made upon it. 'The writing +is bad, the spelling is indifferent, the style is abominable. +Good heavens! where are your relatives and +antecedents?' 'If it comes to that,' was the reply, +'where are yours? For I never hear you speak about +them.' Nor did he ever hear him, for his father-in-law +never spoke another word to him. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing, of course, can be more contemptible than +to neglect one's poor relations on account of their +poverty; but it is very doubtful whether the sum of +human happiness is increased by our having so much +respect for the mere tie of kindred, unaccompanied by +merit. Other things being equal, it is obviously +natural that one's near relatives should be the best of +friends. But other things are not always equal. +Indeed, a certain high authority (which looks on both +sides of most questions) admits as much. 'There is +a friend,' it says, 'that sticketh closer than a brother. +The connection, with its consequences, is somewhat +similar to a partnership in commercial life. If +partners pull together, and are sympathetic, nothing +can be more delightful than such an arrangement. +The tie of business clenches the tie of social attraction. +For myself, I am not commercial; but I envy the +old firm of Beaumont and Fletcher, and the modern +one of Erckmann and Chatrian. But if the members +of the firm do <i>not</i> pull together? Then, surely the +bond between them is most deplorable, and a divorce +<i>a vinculo</i> should be obtained as soon as possible. +</p> + +<p> +One of the greatest mistakes—and there are many—that +we fall into from a too ready acknowledgment +of the tie of kindred is the obligation we feel +under to consort with relations with whom we have +nothing in common. You may take such persons to +the waters of affection, but you cannot make them +drink; and the more you see of them the less they are +likely to agree with you. Not once, nor twice, but +fifty times, in a life experience that is becoming protracted, +I have seen this forcible bringing together of +incongruous elements, and the result has been always +unfortunate. I say 'forcible,' because it has been +rarely voluntary; now and then a strong, though, I +venture to think, a mistaken sense of duty may lead a +man to seek the society of one with whom he has +nothing in common save the bond of race; but for +the most part they are obeying the wishes of another +—the sacred injunction, perhaps, of a parent on his +death-bed. 'Be good friends,' he murmurs, 'my +children,' not reflecting, in that supreme and farewell +hour, how little things, such as prejudice, difference of +political or religious opinions, conflicting interests, +and the like, affect us while we are in this world, and +how perilous it is to attempt to link like with unlike. +I am quite certain that when relations do not, in +common phrase, 'get on well with one another,' the +best chance of their remaining friends is for them to +keep apart. This is gradually becoming recognised by +'the common sense of most,' as we see by the falling-off +in those family gatherings at Christmas, which only +too often partook of the character of that assembly +which met under the roof of Mr, Pecksniff, with the +disastrous result with which we are all acquainted. +</p> + +<p> +The more distant the tie of blood, the less reason, +of course, there is to consider it; yet it is strange to +see how even sensible men will welcome the Good-for-nothing, +who chance to be 'of kin' to them, to the +exclusion of the Worthy, who lack that adventitious +claim. The effect of this is an absolute immorality, +since it offers a premium to unpleasant people, while +it heavily handicaps those who desire to make themselves +agreeable. To give a particular example of +this, though upon a large scale, I might cite Scotland, +where, making allowance for the absence of that University +system, which in England is so strong a social +tie, there are undoubtedly fewer friendships, in comparison, +than there are with us; this I have no hesitation +in attributing to clanship—the exaggeration of +the family tie—which substitutes nearness for dearness, +and places a tenth cousin above the most +charming of companions, who labours under the disadvantage +of being 'nae kin.' +</p> + +<p> +Again, what is more common than to hear it said, +in apology for some manifestly ill-conditioned and +offensive person, that he is 'good to his family'? The +praise is probably only so far deserved that he does +not beat his wife nor starve his children; but, supposing +even he treated them as he should do, and, +moreover, entertained his ten-times removed cousins to +dinner every Sunday, what is that to <i>me</i> who do not +enjoy his unenviable hospitality? Let his cousins +speak well of him by all means; but let the rest of +the world speak as they find. I protest against the +theory that the social virtues should limit themselves +to the home circle, and still more, that they should +extend to the distant branches of it to the exclusion +of the world at large. +</p> + +<p> +Of Howard, the philanthropist, it is said—and, I +notice, said with a certain cynical pleasure—that, notwithstanding +his universal benevolence, he behaved +with severity ta his own son. I have not that intimate +acquaintance with the circumstances which, to +judge by the confidence of their assertions, his traducers +possess, but I should be slow to believe, in the +case of such a father, that the son did not deserve +all he got, or was not forgiven even to the seventy +times seventh offence. There is, however, no little +want of reason in the ordinary acceptation of the +term, 'loving forgiveness.' He must be a very +morose man who does not forgive a personal injury, +especially when there has been an expression of repentance +for it; but there are offences which, quite +independently of their personal sting, manifest in the +offender a cruel or bad heart, and 'loving forgiveness' +is in that case no more to be expected than that we +should take a serpent who has already stung us to +our bosom. 'It is his nature to,' as the poet expresses +it, and if that serpent is my relative it is my misfortune, +and by no means impresses me with a sense of +obligation. Indeed, in the case of an offensive relation, +so far from his having any claim to my consideration, +it seems to me I have a very substantial +grievance in the fact of his existence, and that he +owes me reparation for it. +</p> + +<p> +It is perhaps from a natural reaction, and is a sort +of unconscious protest against the preposterous claims +of kinship, that our connections by marriage are so +freely criticised, and, to say truth, held in contempt. +No one enjoins us to love our wife's relations, indeed, +our own kindred are generally dead against them, +and especially against her mother, to whom the poor +woman very naturally clings. This is as unreasonable +in the way of prejudice, as the other line of conduct is +in the way of favouritism. It is, in short, my humble +opinion that, if everyone stood upon his or her own +merits, and was treated accordingly, this world of ours +would be the better for it; and of this I am quite +sure—it would have fewer disagreeable people in it. +I am neither so patriotic nor so thorough-going as +the American citizen, who, during the late Civil War, +came to President Lincoln, and nobly offered to sacrifice +on the altar of freedom 'all his able-bodied relations;' +but I think that most of us would be benefited +if they were weeded out a bit. +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/07.jpg" width="300" height="53" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>INVALID LITERATURE.</h2> + +<p> +It has always struck me as a breach of faith in +Charles Lamb to have published the fact that +dear, 'rigorous' Mrs. Battle's favourite suit was +Hearts: and is in my eyes, notwithstanding Mr. +Carlyle's posthumous outburst, the only blot on his +character. His own confession, though tendered with +a blush, that there is such a thing as sick whist stands +on totally different grounds; it is not a relaxation of +principle, but an acknowledgment of a weakness +common to human nature. One of the most advanced +thinkers and men of science of our time has frankly +admitted that his theological views are considerably +modified by the state of his health; and if one's ideas +on futurity are thus affected, it is no wonder that +things of this world wear a different appearance when +viewed from a sick bed. It is not difficult to imagine +that whist, for example, played on the counterpane +by three good Samaritans, to while away the hours +for an afflicted friend, differs from the game when +played on a club card-table. Common humanity +prevents our saying what we think of the play of an +invalid who may be enjoying his last rubber; and if +the ace of trumps <i>is</i> found under his pillow, we only +smile and hope it will not occur again. +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, literary taste would, one would +think, be the last thing to vary with our physical +condition; yet those who have had long illnesses +know better, and will, I am sure, bear me out in the +assertion that there are such things as sick books. I +do not, of course, speak of devotional works. I am +picturing the poor man when he is getting well after +a long bout of illness; his mind clear, but inert; his +limbs painless, but so languid that they hardly seem +to belong to him; and when he regards their attenuated +proportions with the same sort of feeble interest +that is evoked by eggshell china—they are not useful, +still it would be a pity if they broke. +</p> + +<p> +Then it is that one feels a loathing of the strong +meats of literature, and a liking for its milk diet. As +to metaphysics, one has had enough and to spare of +<i>them</i> when one was delirious; while the 'Fairy Tales +of Science' do not strike one just then as being quite +so fairylike as the poet represents them. As to science, +indeed, there is but one thing clear to us, namely, +that the theory of evolution is a mistake; for though +one's getting better at all is undoubtedly a proof of +the survival of the fittest, we are well convinced that we +have retrograded from what we were. It would puzzle +Darwin himself to fix our position exactly, but though +we lack the tenacity, and especially the colour, of the +sea-anemone, we seem to be there or thereabouts in +the scale of humanity. When last prostrated by rheumatic +fever, or its remedies, I remember, indeed, to +have been inclined to mathematics. When very ill I +had suffered agonies in my dreams from the persecutions +of an impossible quantity, and perhaps the +association of ideas suggested, as I slowly gathered +strength, a little problem in statics. It had been +taught me by my dear tutor at Cambridge, whom +undergraduates have long ceased to trouble, as a +proof of the pathos that dwells in figures; and I kept +repeating it to myself, with the letters all misplaced, +till I became exhausted by tears and emotion. +</p> + +<p> +As a general rule, however, even mathematics fail +to interest the convalescent. 'Man delights not him; +no, nor woman neither;' but Literature, if light in the +hand, and always provided that he has his back to +the window, is a pleasure to him only next to that of +his new found appetite and his first chicken. His +taste 'has suffered a sick change,' but that by no +means implies it has deteriorated. On the contrary, +his critical faculty has fled (which is surely an +immense advantage), while he has recovered much of +that power of appreciation which rarely abides with us +to maturity. He is not on the outlook for mistakes, +slips of style, anachronisms; he derives no pleasure +from the discovery of spots in the sun, but is content +to bask in the rays of it. He does not necessarily +return to the favourites of his youth, though he has a +tendency that way, but the shackles of convention have +slipped away from him with his flesh, and he reads +what he likes, and not what he has been told he ought +to like. He has been so long removed from public +opinion, that, like a shipwrecked crew in an open boat, +it has ceased to affect him; only, instead of taking to +cannibalism, he takes to what is nice. As his physical +appetite is fastidious, so his mental palate has a relish +only for titbits. If ever there was a time for a reasonable +being to 'dip' into books, or to enjoy 'half-hours with +the best authors,' this is it; but weak as the patient is, +he commonly declines to have his tastes dictated to; +perhaps there is an unpleasant association in his mind, +arising from Brand and Liebig, with all 'extracts;' but, +at all events, those literary compilations oppress and +bewilder him; he objects to the extraordinary fertility +of 'Ibid,' an author whose identity he cannot quite call +to mind, and prefers to choose for himself. +</p> + +<p> +Biography is out of the question. Long before he +has got through that account of the hero's great grandmother, +from whom he inherited his talents, which is, +it seems, indispensable to such works, he yawns, and +devoutly wishing, notwithstanding its fatal consequences +to the fourth generation, that that old woman +had never been born, falls into fitful slumber. +</p> + +<p> +Travels are in the same condemnation; he has not +the patience to watch the traveller taking leave of his +family at Pimlico, or to follow his cab as he drives +through the streets to the railway station, or to share +the discomforts of his cabin—all necessary, no doubt, to +his eventual arrival in Abyssinia, but hardly necessary +to be described. Moreover, the convalescent has probably +travelled a good deal on his own account during +the last few weeks, for the bed of fever carries one hither +and thither with the velocity, though not the ease, of +the enchanted carpet in the 'Arabian Nights.' The +desire of the sick man is to escape from himself and +all recent experiences. +</p> + +<p> +He thinks he will try a little History. Alison? No, +certainly not Alison. 'They will be proposing Lingard +next,' he murmurs, and the little irritation caused by +the well-meant suggestion throws him back for the +next six hours. Presently he tries Macaulay, whom +some flatterer has fulsomely called 'as good as a novel,' +but, though the trial of Warren Hastings gives him a +fillip, the rout of Sedgemoor does away with the effect +of it, and, happening upon the character of Halifax, he +suffers a severe relapse. As a bedfellow, Macaulay +is too declamatory, though, at the same time, strange +to say, he does not always succeed in keeping one +awake. To the sick man Carlyle is preferable; not +his 'Frederick,' of course, and still less his 'Sartor +Resartus,' which has become a nightmare, without +head or tail, but his 'French Revolution.' One lies +and watches the amazing spectacle without effort, as +though it were represented on the stage. The sea of +blood rolls before our eyes, the roar of the mob sounds +in our ears; we are carried along with the unhappy +Louis to the very frontier, and just on the verge of +escape are seized and brought back—King Coach—with +him to Paris, in a cold perspiration. +</p> + +<p> +Some people, when in health and of a sane mind +(Mr. Matthew Arnold one <i>knows</i> of, and there may be +others), take great delight in 'Paradise Regained;' all +we venture to say is that in sickness it does not suggest +its title. It is said that barley-water goes well +with everything; if so, the epic is the exception which +proves the rule. Milton is tedious after rheumatic fever, +Spencer is worse. +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'"Not from the grand old masters,</p> +<p class="i2">Not from the bards sublime,</p> +<p>Whose distant footsteps echo</p> +<p class="i2">Through the corridors of Time,"'</p></div></div> + +<p class="noindent"> +murmurs the invalid, 'I can't stand them.' He does +not mean anything depreciatory, but merely that— +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'Like strains of martial music</p> +<p class="i2">Their mighty thoughts suggest</p> +<p>Life's endless toil and endeavour,'</p></div></div> + +<p class="noindent">which he is not fit even to think of. He cannot read +Keats's 'Nightingale,' but for quite another reason. +What arouses 'thoughts too deep for tears' in the hale +and strong is to the sick as the sinking for an artesian +well. 'The Chelsea Waterworks,' as Mr. Samuel +Weller observed of Mr. Job Trotter (at a time when +the metropolitan water supply would seem to have +been more satisfactory than at present), 'are nothing +to him.' On the other hand, Shelley's 'Skylark,' and +the 'Dramatic Fragments' of Browning, are as cordials +to the invalid, while the poems of Walter Scott are +like breezes from the mountains and the sea. In that +admirable essay, 'Life in the Sick-room,' the authoress +justly remarks, speaking of the advantage of objectivity +in sick books, 'Nothing can be better in this +view than Macaulay's "Lays," which carry us at full +speed out of ourselves.' +</p> + +<p> +But it is not always that the invalid can read the +poets at all; like Mrs. Wititterley, his nerves are too +delicately strung for the touch of the muse. His chief +enjoyment lies in fiction, to the producers of which he +can never feel too grateful. I remember, on one +occasion when I was very reduced indeed, taking up +'Northanger Abbey,' and reading, with almost the +same gusto as though I had been a novelist myself, +Miss Austen's defence of her profession. She says: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +'I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom, so common with +novel-writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances +to the number of which they are themselves adding, joining with their greatest +enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely even +permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally takes +up a novel, is sure to turn from its insipid pages with disgust. Let us not +desert one another; we are an injured body. Although our productions have +afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other +literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much +decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our +readers; and while the abilities of the nine-hundred-and-ninety-ninth abridger +of the history of England are eulogised by a thousand pens, there seems a +general agreement to slight the performances which have only genius, wit, and +taste to recommend them.' +</p> + +<p> +I had quite forgotten till I came upon this passage that +Miss Austen had such 'a kick in her,' and I remember +how I honoured her for it and sympathised with +her sentiments. 'When pain and anguish wring the +brow,' we all know who is the comforter; but next to +her, and when the brow is getting a little better, we +welcome the novelist. +</p> + +<p> +With our face aslant on the pillow, we once more +make acquaintance with the characters that have been +the delight of our youth, and find they delight us still, +but with a difference. The animal spirits of Smollett +and Fielding are a little too much for us; there is not +sympathy enough in them for our own condition; they +seem to have been fellows who were never ill. Perhaps +'Humphrey Clinker,' though it drags at the end, and +the political disquisitions are intolerable, is the funniest +book that ever was written; but the faculty of +appreciation for it is not now in us. We turn with +relief to Scott, though not to 'Scott's Works,' in the +sense in which the phrase is generally used, as though +they were a foundry from which everything is issued +of the same workmanship and excellence; whereas +there is as much difference between them as there was in +her Majesty's ships of old between the gallant seventy-four +and the crazy troopship. The invalid, however, as +I have said, is far from critical; he only knows what +he likes. Judged by this fastidious standard, he finds +'Waverley' somewhat wearisome, and, as to the first +part of it in particular, wonders, not that the Great +Unknown should have kept it in his desk for years as +a comparative failure, but that he should have ever +taken it from that repository. 'The Antiquary,' which +in health he used to admire, or think he did, exceedingly, +has also a narcotic effect; but 'Rob Roy' +revives him, and 'Ivanhoe' stirs him like a trumpet-call. +</p> + +<p> +What is very curious, just as the favourite literature +of a cripple is almost always that which treats of force +and action, so upon our sick-bed we turn most gladly +to scenes of heroism and adventure. The famous ride +in 'Geoffrey Hamlyn,' where the fate of the heroine, +threatened with worse than death from the bush-rangers, +hangs upon the horse's speed, seems to us, as +we lie abed, one of the finest episodes in fiction. 'Tom +Cringle's Log,' too, becomes a great favourite, not +more from its buoyancy and freshness than from the +melodramatic scenes with which it is interspersed. +</p> + +<p> +In some moods of the sick man's mind, his morbid +appetite tends, strange to say, to horrors. He +'snatches a fearful joy' from the weird and supernatural. +I have known those terrible tales of Le +Fanu, entitled 'In a Glass Darkly,' which for dramatic +power and eeriness no other novelist has ever +approached, devoured greedily by those whose physical +sustenance has been dry toast and arrowroot. +</p> + +<p> +The works of Thackeray are too cynical for the +convalescent; he is for the present in too good a +humour with destiny and human nature to enjoy +them. He prefers the more cheerful aspects of life, +and resents the least failure of poetic justice. +</p> + +<p> +Taking the tenants of the sick ward all round, +indeed, I have little doubt that the large majority +would give their vote for Dickens. His pathos, it is +true, is too much for them. Their hearts are as waxen +as though Mrs. Jarley herself had made them. They +are just in the condition to be melted by 'Little Nell,' +and overcome by the death of Paul Dombey. They +read 'David Copperfield' with avidity, but are careful +to avoid the catastrophe of Dora and even the demise +of her four-footed favourite. The book that suits +them best is 'Martin Chuzzlewit.' Its genial comedy, +quite different from the violent delights of 'Pickwick,' +is well adapted to their grasp; while its tragedy, the +murder of Montague Tigg—the finest description of +the breaking of the sixth commandment in the +language—leaves nothing to be desired in the way of +excitement. But here we stray beyond our bounds, +for 'Martin Chuzzlewit' is not a 'sick book;' or +rather, it is one of the very few productions of human +genius on the merits of which the opinions of both +Sick and Sound are at one. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>WET HOLIDAYS.</h2> + +<p> +Even poets when they are on their travels feel +the depressing influence of bad weather. +Those lines of the Laureate— +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'But when we crossed the Lombard plain,</p> +<p>Remember what a plague of rain—</p> +<p>Of rain at Reggio, at Parma,</p> +<p>At Lodi rain, Piacenza rain,'</p></div></div> + +<p class="noindent"> +are not among his best, but they evidently come from +his very heart. When he used prose upon that +journey his language was probably stronger. It is no +wonder, then, that ordinary folks who have only a +limited time in which to enjoy themselves, free from +the fetters of toil, resent wet days. They are worst +of all when we are touring on the Continent, where it +is a popular fallacy to suppose the skies are always +smiling, but at home they are bad enough. In Scotland, +nobody but a Scotchman believes in fine +weather, and consequently there is no disappointment; +in England the Lake District is, perhaps, the +most unfortunate spot for folks to be caught in by +rain, because if there is no landscape there is nothing. +<i>Spectare veniunt</i>, and when there are only the ribs +and lining of their umbrellas to look at, their lot is +hard indeed. +</p> + +<p> +Wastwater is a charming place in sunshine—almost +the only locality in England where things are +still primitive and pastoral; but in rain! I hate exhibitions, +but rather than Wastdale in wet weather, +give me a panorama. Serious people may talk of +'the Devil's books,' but even a pack of cards, with +somebody to play with you, is better under such circumstances +than no book. +</p> + +<p> +There is no limit to what human beings may be +driven to by stress of weather, and especially by that +'clearing shower,' by which the dwellers in Lakeland +are wont euphemistically to describe its continuous +downpours. The Persians have another name for it—'the +grandmother of all buckets.' I was once in +Wastdale with a dean of the Church of England, respectable, +sedate, and a D.D. It had poured for days +without ceasing; the roads were under water, the +passes were impassable, the mountains invisible; +there was nothing to be seen but waterfalls, and those +in the wrong place; there was no literature; the +dean's guide-books were exhausted, and his Bible, it +is but charitable and reasonable to suppose, he knew +by heart. As for me, I had found three tourists who +could play at whist, and was comparatively independent +of the elements; but that poor ecclesiastic! +For the first few days he occupied himself in remonstrating +against our playing cards by daylight; but +on the fourth morning, when we sat down to them +immediately after breakfast, he began to take an +enforced interest in our proceedings. Like a dove +above the dovecot, he circled for an hour or two about +the table—a deal one, such as thimble-riggers use, +borrowed, under protest, from his own humble bedroom—and +then, with a murmurous coo about the +weather showing no signs of clearing up, he took a +hand. Constant dropping—and it was much worse +than dropping—will wear away a stone, and it is my +belief if it had gone on much longer his reverence +would have played on Sunday. +</p> + +<p> +The spectacle that the roads of the district present +at such a time is most melancholy. Everyone is in a +closed car—a cross between a bathing machine and +that convenient vehicle which carries both corpse and +mourners; all the windows seem made of bottle glass, +a phenomenon produced by the flattening of the +noses of imprisoned tourists; and nothing shines +except an occasional traveller in oilskin. In such +seasons, indeed, oilskin (lined with patience) is your +only wear. Ordinary waterproofs in such a climate +become mere blotting paper, and with the best of +them, without leggings and headgear to match, the +poor Londoner might, I do not say just as well be in +London (for that is his aspiration all day long), but +just as well go to bed at once, and stop there. 'But +why does he not go home?' it may be asked: a +question to which there are several answers. In the +first place (for one must take the average in such +cases) because he is a fool. Secondly, like the rest of +the well-to-do world, he has suffered the summer, +wherein warmth and sunshine are really to be had, to +slip by, and has only the fag end of it in which to +take holiday. It is now or never—or at all events now +or next year—with him. All his friends, too, are out +of town, flattening <i>their</i> noses against window panes; +his club is under repair, his house in brown holland, +his servants on board wages. Like the young gentleman +in Locksley Hall, he is so absolutely at the +end of his resources, that an 'angry fancy' is all that +is left to him. Of course, under its influence he +sits down and writes to the <i>Times</i>; but, if the +humblest of its correspondents may venture to say so +without offence, even that does not help him much. +That suicides increase in wet autumns is notorious; +but that murders should in these sequestered vales +maintain the even tenor of their way is a feather in +the cap of human nature. In lodgings, where the +pent-up tourist has no one but his wife and family to +speak to, where Dick and Tom <i>will</i> romp in his only +sitting-room, and Eliza Jane practises all day on the +crazy piano, this forbearance is especially creditable. +</p> + +<p> +Even in hotels, however, there is great temptation. +On the north-eastern coast, in particular, when the +weather has, as the phrase goes, 'broken up,' and the +sky and sea have both become one durable drab, the +best of women grow irritable, the men morose. At +the <i>table d'hôte</i>, which even the most exclusive are +driven to frequent for company, as sheep huddle +together in storm, Dislike ripens to Hate with frightful +rapidity. Our neighbour, who always—for it seems +always—gets the last of the mushrooms at breakfast, +or finishes the oyster sauce at dinner before our very +eyes, we are very far, indeed, from loving as ourselves. +Our <i>vis-à -vis</i>, the man on his honeymoon, is even still +more offensive. We resent his happiness, which is +apparently uninfluenced by the state of the weather, +and our wife wonders what he could have seen in that +chit of a girl to attract his attention. To ourselves +she seems a great deal too good for him, and in our +rare intervals of human feeling we regard her with the +tenderest commiseration. The importance attached +to meals, and the time we take over them, have no +parallel save among the Esquimaux. The least incident +that happens in the hotel is of more moment to +us than the overthrow of Empires. The whispered +news that a fellow guest has been taken seriously ill, +and that a medical consultation has been held upon +the case, is a matter to be deplored, of course, but one +which is not without its consolations. 'Who is it? +What is it? Nothing catching I do hope?' (this last +uttered with genuine anxiety) are questions that are +heard on every side. The general impression is that +some lovely young lady of fashion on the drawing-room +floor has been seized with pains in her limbs—and +no wonder—from exposure to the elements. Her +mother comes down every morning and selects dainties +for the sick-room from the public breakfast table; +those who are near enough to do so inquire in dulcet +tones, 'How is your invalid this morning?' The reply +is, 'Better, much better,' which somehow falls short of +expectation. Even the most giddy and frivolous of +girls has no excuse for frightening people for nothing. +</p> + +<p> +At luncheon one day a very fat, strong boy makes +his appearance, and is supplied with soup. All his +neighbours who have no soup are wild with envy, +though they are well acquainted with that soup at +dinner, and know that it is bad. 'What is the +meaning of it? Why this favouritism?' we inquire +of the waiter furiously. 'Well, you see, sir, he is +better now; but that is the invalid.' The delicate, +attractive creature we have pictured to ourselves with +pains in her limbs turns out, after all, to be a hulking +schoolboy, probably bilious from over-eating. The +public indignation is excessive, while the subject of +it, quite unconscious of the fact, has another plate of +soup. +</p> + +<p> +The wild weather out of doors is not, of course, +confined to the land, and the sea would be a fine sight +if it was not invisible. The waves, indeed, are so +high that the fishing-boats which have remained out +all night are often warned off, or, as it is locally +termed, 'burned off,' from the harbour bar. A tar +barrel is lighted for this purpose on the headland, and +it is the only thing which the eternal rain cannot +utterly squelch and extinguish. Occasionally we +venture down upon the pier to see the boats make +the harbour, which, not a little to our disappointment, +they never fail to do. There are huge buttresses of +stone against the pier-head, behind which the new +comer imagines he may crouch in perfect safety, till +the third wave comes in and convinces him to the +contrary. No one ever dreams of 'burning' <i>him</i> off—giving +him one word of warning of that unpleasant +contingency; for to behold a fellow creature more +drenched and dripping than ourselves is very soothing. +As to the dangers of maritime life, we are all +agreed that they are greatly overrated; and some +sceptics even go so far as to suggest that the skeleton +ship, half embedded in the sands, which so impresses +visitors in fine weather, is not a genuine wreck at all, +but has been placed there by the Town Corporation +to delude the public. +</p> + +<p> +Now and then we splash down to the quay to see a +few million of herrings sold at four shillings a hundred, +which will presently induce philanthropic fishmongers +in London to advertise 'a glut this morning,' and to +retail them at threepence apiece. At rare intervals +we explore the dripping town. It is amazing what a +fascination the small picture-shops, to which at home +we should never give a glance, afford us; even the +frontispieces to popular music have unwonted attractions; +while the pottery-shops, full of ware made +from clay 'peculiar to the locality,' are only too +seductive to our wives, who purchase largely what they +believe to be great bargains, till they find on their +return home the identical articles in Oxford Street, at +half the price. In London we never visit the British +Museum itself, unless to escort some country cousin, +but at Barecliff-on-Sea, in wet weather, the miserable +little local Institute, with its specimens of strata, its calf +with two heads in spirits, and its petrified toad, is an +irresistible temptation. The great event of the day, +however, is the wading down to the railway-station +(which is in a quagmire) to meet the express train +which brings more victims, 'unconscious of their +doom,' to Barecliff, and who evidently flatter themselves +that the pouring rain is an exceptional phenomenon; +it also brings the London newspapers, for +which we fight and struggle (the demand being +greatly in excess of the supply) and think ourselves +fortunate if we secure a supplement. It is true there +is a <i>Times</i> in the smoking-room of the hotel, but it is +always engaged five deep, is the cause of terrible +quarrels, and every afternoon we expect to see it +imbrued in gore. +</p> + +<p> +In the evening, when one does not mind the wet so +much—'its tooth is not so keen because it is not seen'—there +are dissipations at 'the Rooms by the Sea.' +Amateur charitable concerts are given there, in which +it is whispered that this and that lady at the <i>table +d'hôte</i> will take part, who become public characters and +objects of immense interest in consequence. Thither, +too, come 'the inimitable Jones,' from the Edgware +Road Music Hall, with his 'unrivalled <i>répertoire</i> of +comic songs;' the Spring Board Family, who have +been 'pronounced by the general consensus of the +medical faculty in London to be unique,' as having +neither joints nor backbone; and Herr von Deft, 'who +will repeat the same astounding performances which +have electrified the reigning families of Europe.' The +serious people (for whom 'the glee-singers of Mesopotamia' +are also suspected of dropping a line) are +angled for by white-cravatted lecturers, who enhance +their statistics of conversion by the exhibition of +poisoned arrows, and of clubs, on which, with the +microscope, may be detected the hairs of missionary +martyrs. In fine weather, of course, these attractions +would be advertised in vain; but the fact is, our whole +community has been reduced by the cruelty of the +elements to a sort of second childhood; the rain which +permeates everything is softening our brain. +</p> + +<p> +This is only too evident from the conversation in +the hotel porch where the men meet every morning +to discuss the topic of the day—the weather. A sullen +gloom pervades them—the first symptom of mental +aberration. Those, on the other hand, who express +their opinion that it 'really seems to be clearing a +little' are in more advanced stages. We who are less +afflicted shake our heads, and murmur painfully, but +also with a considerable touch of contempt, 'Poor +fellows!' +</p> + +<p> +The piano in the ladies' drawing-room is always +going, but it excites no soothing influence; there is +an impression in the hotel that the performers are +foreigners, and should be discouraged. But there is +one instrument hanging in the hall on which everyone +plays, native or alien, and every note is discord. It is +the barometer. People talk of the delicacy of scientific +instruments; if they are right, the shocks which that +barometer survives proves it to be an exception. Batter +it as we may, and do, the faithful needle, with a determination +worthy of a better cause, maintains its position +at 'Much Rain.' The manager is appealed to +vehemently, coarsely; he shrugs his shoulders, protests +with humility that he cannot help the weather, or +affirms it is unprecedented—which we do not believe. +Other managers—in the Engadine, for example—the +papers say, are providing excellent weather; what does +he mean by it? +</p> + +<p> +At last one morning, wetter than ever, some noble +spirit, the Tell of our liberties, exclaims, 'Who would +be free, himself must strike the blow.' His actual +words (if one was not writing history) are, 'Hang me +if I stand this any longer,' and they strike the keynote +of everybody's thought. He goes away by the next +train, and his departure is followed by the same effects +as the tapping of a reservoir. The hotel company—I +mean the inmates; the company goes into bankruptcy—stream +off at once to their own homes. That journey +through the pouring rain is the happiest day of +our wet holiday. How beautiful looms soaking, soppy, +smoky London! In that excellent town who cares +for rain? +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!</p> +<p>You cataracts and hurricanoes spout.'</p></div></div> + +<p> +Pooh! pooh! Call a cab—call two! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>TRAVELLING COMPANIONS.</h2> + +<p> +It was held by wise men of old that adversity was +the test of friendship, but as his Excellency the +Minister of the United States has observed, <i>per</i> +Mr. Biglow, 'They did not know everything down in +Judee;' and among other subjects of which those +ancient writers were necessarily ignorant was that of +Continental travel. The coming to grief of a friend is +unquestionably very inconvenient; as a millionaire of +my acquaintance observes (under the influence, as he +confidently believes, of benevolent emotion), 'One likes +to see one's friends prosperous;' but even when they are +not so, it requires some effort to follow the dictates of +prudence and cast them off. And, after all, the man, even +though you may cut him, remains the same; as fit for the +purposes of friendship as ever, except for his pecuniary +condition. There is no such change in his relation to +oneself as Emerson describes in one of his essays; his +words I forget, and his works are miles away, but the +man he has in his mind has in some way fallen short +of expectation—declined, perhaps, to lend the philosopher +money. 'Yesterday,' he says, 'my friend was the +illimitable ocean; to-day he is a pond.' He had come +to the end of him. And some friends, as my little +child complains as he strokes his black kitten, 'end so +soon.' +</p> + +<p> +There are no circumstances, however, under which +friendship comes so often to a violent and sudden +death as under the pressure of travel. It is like the +fate which the Scientific ascribe to a box sunk in the +sea; after a certain depth, which varies according to +the strength of the box, the weight of the superincumbent +water bursts it up. It is merely a question +of how deep or how strong. Our travelling companion +remains our friend for a day, for a week, for even a +month; but at the month's end he is our friend no +longer. Our relations have probably become what the +diplomatists term 'strained' long before that date, but +a day comes when the tension becomes intolerable; +the cable parts and we lose him. Unfortunately, not +always, however; there are circumstances—such as +being on board ship, for example—when we thus part +without parting company. A long voyage is the most +terrible trial to which friendship can be subjected. It +is like the old sentence of pressing to death, 'as much +as he can bear, and more.' It is doubtful, for example, +whether friendship has ever survived a voyage to +Australia. I have sometimes asked a man whether +he knew So-and-So, who hails, like himself, from +Melbourne, and he has replied, 'We came over in the +same ship'—'Only that, and nothing more,' as the poet +puts it; but his tone has an unmistakable significance, +and one perceives at once that the topic had better not +be pursued. +</p> + +<p> +A very dear friend of mine once proposed that we +should go round the world together; he offered to pay +all my expenses, and painted the expedition in rose-colour. +But I had the good sense to decline the proposal. +I felt I should lose my friend. Even yachting is a +very dangerous pastime in this respect, especially when +the vessel is becalmed. In that case, like the sea itself, +one's friend soon becomes a pond. Conceive, then, +what it must be to go round the world with him! Is +it possible, both being human, that we can still love one +another when we have got to Japan, for instance? +And then we have to come back together! How +frightful must be that moment when he tells us the +same story he told at starting, and we feel that he +has come to the end of his tether, and is going to +tell <i>all</i> his stories over again! This is why it so often +happens that only one of two friends returns from +any long voyage they have undertaken together. What +has become of the other? A question that one should +never put to the survivor. It is certain that great +travellers, and especially those who travel by sea, have +a very different code of morals from that which they +conform to at home. Human life is not so sacred to +them. Perhaps it is in this respect that travel is said +to enlarge the mind. That it does not sharpen it, however, +whatever it may do for the temper, is tolerably +certain. In their habits travellers are singularly conventional. +They are compelled, of course, to suffer +certain inconveniences, but they endure others, and +most serious ones, quite unnecessarily, merely because +it is the custom so to do. In crossing the Atlantic, for +example, a man of means will submit to be shut up in +a close cupboard for ten days with an utter stranger, +though by paying double fare he can get a cabin to +himself. This arises from no desire for economy, but +simply because he does not think for himself; other +travellers do the like, and he follows their example. +Yet what money could recompense him for occupying +for the same time <i>on land</i> a double-bedded room—not +to say a mere china closet—with a man of whom he +knows nothing except that he is subject to chronic +sickness? A pleasant sort of travelling companion +indeed, yet, strange to say, the commonest of all. +Where there is a slender purse this terrible state of +things (supposing travel under such circumstances to +be compatible with pleasure at all, which, for my part, +I cannot imagine) is not a matter of choice; but where +it can be avoided why is it undergone? +</p> + +<p> +There is nothing that convinces me of the folly of +mankind so much as those advertisements we see in +the summer months with respect to travelling companions, +from volunteers of both sexes: 'Wanted, a +travelling companion for a few months on the Continent, +etc. The highest references will be required.' +The idea of going with a stranger upon a tour of +pleasure must surely originate in Hanwell, and the +adventurer may think himself fortunate if it does not +end in Broadmoor. References, indeed! Who can +answer for a fellow-creature's temper, patience, unselfishness, +during such an ordeal as a protracted tour? +No one who has not travelled with him already; and +one may be tolerably certain his certificate does not +come from <i>that</i> quarter. It is true some people are +married to strangers by advertisement; but their +companionship, as I am given to understand, does not +generally last for months, or anything like it. +</p> + +<p> +Imagine two people, as utterly unknown to one +another, except by letter (and 'references'), as the +<i>x</i> and <i>y</i> of an equation, meeting for the first time at +the railway-station! With what tremors must each +regard the other! What a relief it must be to X. to +find that Y. is at least a white man; on the other hand, +it must rather dash his hopes, if they are set on +pedestrianism, to find that his <i>compagnon de voyage</i> has +a wooden leg. Yet what are his mere colour and +limbs compared with his temperament and disposition? +If one did not know the frightful risks one's +fellow-creatures incur every day for little pleasure and +less profit, one would certainly say these people must +be mad. +</p> + +<p> +But if instead of X. and Y., it is even A. and B., men +who have known one another for years, and in every +relation but as fellow-travellers, there is risk enough +in such a venture. One night, after dinner at the +club, they agree with effusion to take their autumn +trip together; they are warm with wine and with the +remembrance of their college friendship—which extended +perhaps, when they afterwards come to think +about it, a very little way. What days they will have +in Switzerland together! What mornings (to see the +sunrise) upon mountain-tops! What evenings on +Lucerne! What nights in Paris! A. thinks himself +fortunate indeed in having secured B.'s society for the +next three months—a man with such a reputation for +conversation; even T., the cynic of the club, has testified +to his charm of manner. By-the-bye, what was +it—exactly—T. had said of B.? A. cannot remember +it at the moment, but recalls it on the night before +they start together. 'B. is a charming fellow, only he +has this peculiarity—that if there is only one armchair +in a room, B. is sure to get it.' +</p> + +<p> +B., on the other hand, congratulates himself on A.'s +excessive good sense, which even T. had knowledged. +What was it—exactly—T. had said of A.? He cannot +remember it at the moment, but recalls it on the night +before they start together. 'A. is such a thoroughly +practical fellow; he has committed many follies, and +not a few crimes, but he can lay his hand on the place +where his heart should be, and honestly aver that he +has never given sixpence to anybody.' Full of misgivings, +and with demonstrations of satisfaction that +are in themselves suspicious, they meet at the terminus. +A. has a little black bag, which contains his all; it +frees him from all trouble about luggage, and (especially) +from the necessity of paying a porter. He is +resolved not to lose a moment, nor spend a sixpence, +in a Custom-house. To his horror, he perceives +that B., whose one idea is comfort, has a portmanteau +specially designed for him (apparently upon the model +of Noah's Ark), and which can scarcely be got into the +luggage-van. This article delays them twenty-four +hours at every frontier, because the ordinary authorities +decline to open it upon the ground that it contains +an infernal machine, and have to telegraph to their +Government for instructions. +</p> + +<p> +Again, B. is no doubt a charming conversationalist—in English; +but he does not know one single word +of any other language. He requires every observation +of their alien fellow-travellers to be translated, and +then says 'Oh!' discontentedly, or 'It seems to me +that foreigners have no ideas.' And not for one +moment can A. get rid of him. If there <i>is</i> a friend +that sticketh closer than a brother, it is the Travelling +Companion who is dependent upon you for interpretation. +It is needless to say that under these circumstances +the glass of Friendship falls from 'Set +Fair' to 'Stormy' with much rapidity. After A's +fourth quarrel with a waiter about half a franc, B. +calls him a 'mean hound,' and takes the opportunity +of returning to his native land with a French count, +who speaks perfect English, and robs him of his +watch and chain and the contents of his pocket-book +on board the steamer. A. and B. meet one another +daily at the club for years afterwards, but without +recognition. +</p> + +<p> +Their case, of course, is an extreme one; but that +of C. and D. is almost as bad. They are men of +prudence, and persuade E. to go with them, as a +makeweight. 'If we should ever disagree,' they say, +'as to what is to be done—which, however, is to the +last degree improbable—the majority of votes shall +carry it'—an arrangement which only delays the +inevitable event— +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'Three little nigger boys went the world to view,</p> +<p>The third was left in Calais, and then there were two.'</p></div></div> + +<p> +They find the makeweight intolerable before they +have crossed the Channel, and, having agreed to cut +their cable from him, are from that moment never in +the same mind about anything else. It is a modern +version of the three brigands who stole the Communion +plate. C. and D. push E. over the precipice, +and C. stabs D. at a supper for which D. has purveyed +poisoned wine. +</p> + +<p> +The only way to secure a really eligible travelling +companion is to try him first in short swallow-flights, +or rather pigeon-flights, from home. Take your bird +with you for a few days' outing near home; then, if +he proves pleasant, for a week's tour in Cornwall; +then for ten days in Scotland, where, if you meet with +the usual weather, and he still keeps his temper and +politeness, you may trust yourself to him anywhere. +Out of twenty failures there will, perhaps, be one +success. In this manner I have discovered in time, +in my dearest and nearest friends, the most undreamt +of vices. One man, F., hitherto much respected as a +Chancery barrister, has, as it has turned out, been intended +by nature for a professional pedestrian. His +true calling is to walk 'laps' round the Agricultural +Hall or at Lillie Bridge, with nothing on to speak of +save a handkerchief round his forehead. 'Let us +walk' is his one cry as soon as he becomes a travelling +companion. And he is not content to do this when +he arrives at any place of interest, but insists upon +walking <i>there</i>—perhaps along a dusty road, or over +turnip-fields. I like walking myself in moderation—say +a mile out and a mile in; but not, certainly not, +twenty miles at a stretch, and at a speed which precludes +conversation. This class of travelling companion is very +dangerous. If he does not get his +walking he becomes malignant. My barrister, at +least, being denied the opportunity of drawing out +marriage-settlements, conveying land, or otherwise +plundering the community, took to practical jokes. +Having a suspicion of his pedestrian powers, from the +extreme length of his legs, I took G. with us, a man +whom I could trust in that respect, and who fancied +he had heart complaint. G. and I took our exercise +alone together in a fly. One day we took a long +drive—four miles or more—to a well-known bay. +The vehicle could not get down to the sea, so we descended +on foot, leaving it at the top of the cliff, with +the strictest orders to the man not to stir till we came +back. When we returned the fly was gone. How +we reached our hotel, Heaven knows! but we did +arrive there, in the last stage of exhaustion. The +driver of the carriage, whom we met next day, informed +us that a gentleman had been thrown from +his horse on the cliff-top and had broken his leg, and +that, under the circumstances, he had ventured to +disobey our instructions and take the poor fellow +home. Years afterwards I discovered that nothing +of the kind had happened, but that the fiendish F. +had given the driver a sovereign to play that trick +upon us. F. is a judge now, and has been lately +trying election cases. I wonder what he thinks of +himself when he rebukes offenders for the heinous +crime of bribery! +</p> + +<p> +Again, I always thought H. a pleasant fellow till +we went together to Cornwall. He had gone through +the first ordeal of a few days nearer home to my +satisfaction, but at Penzance he broke out. He was +so dreadfully particular about his food that nothing +satisfied him—not even pilchards three times a day; +and the way he went on at the waiters is not to be +described by a decent pen. The attendant at Penzance +was not, I am bound to say, a good waiter. +He said, though he habitually put his thumb in every +dish, he 'hadn't quite got his hand in,' and was not +used to the business.' 'Used! you know nothing +about it!' exclaimed H., viciously. Then the poor +fellow burst into tears. 'Pray be patient with me, +good gentlemen,' he murmured. 'I do my best; but +until last Wednesday as ever was I was a pork-butcher.' +One cannot stand a travelling companion +who makes the waiters cry. +</p> + +<p> +The worst kind of fellow-traveller is one who, to +use his own scientific phrase for his complaint, suffers +from 'disorganisation of the nervous centres.' At +home his little weaknesses do not strike you. You +may not be on the spot when he flies across Piccadilly +Circus, pursued, as he fancies, by a Brompton omnibus +which has not yet reached St. James's Church, +and is moving at a snail's pace; you may not have +been with him on that occasion when, in his eagerness +to be in time for the 'Flying Dutchman,' he arrives +at Paddington an hour before it starts, and is put +into the parliamentary train which is shunted at +Slough to let the 'Dutchman' pass; but when you +come to travel with him you know what 'nerves' are +to your cost. On the other hand, this is the easiest +kind of travelling companion to get rid of; for you +have only to feign a sore throat, with feverish +symptoms, and off he flies on the wings of terror, +leaving you, as he thinks—if he <i>has</i> a thought except +for his nervous centres—to the tender mercies of a +foreign doctor, to hireling nurses, and to a grave in +the strangers' cemetery. +</p> + +<h5>THE END.</h5> + +<hr /> + +<h5>BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD AND LONDON.</h5> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Private Views, by James Payn + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME PRIVATE VIEWS *** + +***** This file should be named 13410-h.htm or 13410-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/1/13410/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst and the Online Distributed Proofreading +Team. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Some Private Views + +Author: James Payn + +Release Date: September 9, 2004 [EBook #13410] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME PRIVATE VIEWS *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst and the Online Distributed Proofreading +Team. + + + + + +SOME PRIVATE VIEWS + + +By + +JAMES PAYN + +Author of 'High Spirits,' 'A Confidential Agent,' Etc. + + +_A NEW EDITION_ + +1881 + +London +CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY + + + TO + HORACE N. PYM + THIS +_Book is Dedicated_ + BY HIS FRIEND + + THE AUTHOR + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +FROM _'THE NINETEENTH CENTURY' REVIEW_. + + +THE MIDWAY INN 1 + +THE CRITIC ON THE HEARTH 20 + +SHAM ADMIRATION IN LITERATURE 37 + +THE PINCH OF POVERTY 59 + +THE LITERARY CALLING AND ITS FUTURE 72 + +STORY-TELLING 96 + +PENNY FICTION 116 + + + + +FROM '_THE TIMES_.' + + +HOTELS 133 + +MAID-SERVANTS 149 + +MEN-SERVANTS 163 + +WHIST-PLAYERS 173 + +RELATIONS 182 + +INVALID LITERATURE 192 + +WET HOLIDAYS 201 + +TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 211 + + + + +_THE MIDWAY INN_. + +'The hidden but the common thought of all.' + + +The thoughts I am about to set down are not _my_ thoughts, for, as my +friends say, I have given up the practice of thinking, or it may be, +as my enemies say, I never had it. They are the thoughts of an +acquaintance who thinks for me. I call him an acquaintance, though I +pass as much of my time with him as with my nearest and dearest; +perhaps at the club, perhaps at the office, perhaps in metaphysical +discussion, perhaps at billiards--what does it matter? Thousands of +men in town have such acquaintances, in whose company they spend, by +necessity or custom, half the sum of their lives. It is not rational, +doubtless; but then 'Consider, sir,' said the great talking +philosopher, 'should we become purely rational, how our friendships +would be cut off. We form many such with bad men because they have +agreeable qualities, or may be useful to us. We form many such by +mistake, imagining people to be different from what they really are.' +And he goes on complacently to observe that we shall either have the +satisfaction of meeting these gentlemen in a future state, or be +satisfied without meeting them. + +For my part, I do not feel that the scheme of future happiness, which +ought by rights to be in preparation for me, will be at all interfered +with by my not meeting again the man I have in my. mind. To have seen +him in the flesh is sufficient for me. In the spirit I cannot imagine +him; the consideration is too subtle; for, unlike the little man who +had (for certain) a little soul,' I don't believe he has a soul at +all. + +He is middle-aged, rich, lethargic, sententious, dogmatic, and, in +short, the quintessence of the commonplace. I need not say, therefore, +that he is credited by the world with unlimited common-sense. And for +once the world is right. He has nothing-original about him, save so +much of sin as he may have inherited from our first parents; there is +no more at the back of him than at the back of a looking-glass--indeed +less, for he has not a grain of quicksilver; but, like the +looking-glass, he reflects. Having nothing else to do, he hangs, as it +were, on the wall of the world, and mirrors it for me as it +unconsciously passes by him--not, however, as in a glass darkly, but +with singular clearness. His vision is never disturbed by passion or +prejudice; he has no enthusiasm and no illusions. Nor do I believe he +has ever had any. If the noblest study of mankind is man, my friend +has devoted himself to a high calling; the living page of human life +has been his favourite and indeed, for these many years, his only +reading. And for this he has had exceptional opportunities. Always a +man of wealth and leisure, he has never wasted himself in that +superficial observation which is often the only harvest of foreign +travel. He despises it, and in relation to travellers, is wont to +quote the famous parallel of the copper wire, 'which grows the +narrower by going further.' A confirmed stay-at-home, he has mingled +much in society of all sorts, and exercised a keen but quite +unsympathetic observation. His very reserve in company (though, when +he catches you alone, he is a button-holder of great tenacity) +encourages free speech in others; they have no more reticence in his +presence than if he were the butler. He has belonged to no cliques, +and thereby escaped the greatest peril which can beset the student of +human nature. A man of genius, indeed, in these days is almost +certain, sooner or later, to become the centre of a mutual admiration +society; but the person I have in my mind is no genius, nor anything +like one, and he thanks Heaven for it. To an opinion of his own he +does not pretend, but his views upon the opinions of other people he +believes to be infallible. I have called him dogmatic, but that does +not at all express the absolute certainty with which he delivers +judgment. 'I know no more,' he says, 'about the problems of human life +than you do' (taking me as an illustration of the lowest prevailing +ignorance), 'but I know what everybody is thinking about them.' He is +didactic, and therefore often dull, and will eventually, no doubt, +become one of the greatest bores in Great Britain. At present, +however, he is worth knowing; and I propose to myself to be his +Boswell, and to introduce him--or, at least, his views--to other +people. I have entitled them the Midway Inn, partly from my own +inveterate habit of story-telling, but chiefly from an image of his +own, by which he once described to me, in his fine egotistic rolling +style, the position he seemed to himself to occupy in the world. + + When I was a boy, he said (which I don't believe he ever was), I + had a long journey to take between home and school. Exactly midway + there was a hill with an Inn upon it, at which we changed horses. + It was a point to which I looked forward with very different + feelings when going and returning. In the one case--for I hated + school--it seemed to frown darkly on me, and from that spot the + remainder of the way was dull and gloomy; in the other case, the + sun seemed always glinting on it, and the rest of the road was as a + fair avenue that leads to Paradise. The innkeeper received us with + equal hospitality on both occasions, and it was quite evident did + not care one farthing in which direction we were tending. He would + stand in front of his house, jingling his money--_our_ money--in + his pockets, and watch us depart with the greatest serenity, + whether we went east or west. I thought him at one time the most + genial of Bonifaces (for it was his profession to wear a smile), + and at another a mere mocker of human woe. When I grew up, I + perceived that he was a philosopher. + + And now I keep the Midway Inn myself, and watch from the hill-top + the passengers come and go--some loth, some willing, like myself of + old--and listen to their talk in the coffee-room; or sometimes in a + private parlour, where, though they speak low and gravely, their + converse is still unrestrained, because, you see, I am the + landlord. + + Sometimes they speak of Death and the Hereafter, of which the child + they buried yesterday knows more than the wisest of them, and more + than Shakespeare knew. The being totally ignorant of the subject + does not indeed (as you may perhaps have observed in other matters) + deter some of them from speaking of it with great confidence; but + the views of a minority would quite surprise you, and this minority + is growing--coming to a majority. Every day I see an increase of + the doubters. It is not a question of the Orthodox and the Infidel, + you must understand, at all, though _that_ is assuming great + proportions; but there is every day more uncertainty among them, + and, what is much more noteworthy, more dissatisfaction. + + Years ago, when a hardy Cambridge scholar dared to publish his + doubts of an eternal punishment overtaking the wicked, an orthodox + professor of the same college took him (theologically) by the + throat. 'You are destroying,' he cried, 'the hope of the + Christian.' But this is not the hope I speak of, as loosing, and + losing, its hold upon men's minds; I mean the real hope, the hope + of heaven. + + When I used to go to church--for my inn is too far removed from it + to admit of my attendance there nowadays--matters were very + different. Heaven and Hell were, in the eyes not only of our + congregation, but of those who hung about the doors in the summer + sun, or even played leap-frog over the grave-stones, as distinct + alternatives as the east and west highways on each side of my inn. + If you did not go one way, you must go the other; and not only so, + but an immense desire was felt by very many to go in the right + direction. Now I perceive it is not so. A considerable number of + highway passengers, though even they are less numerous than of old, + are still studious--that is in their aspirations--to avoid taking + (shall I say delicately) the lower road; but only a few, + comparatively, are solicitous to reach the goal of the upper. + + Let me once more observe that I am speaking of the ordinary + passengers--those who travel by the mail. Of the persons who are + convinced that there never was an Architect of the Universe, and + that Man sprang from the Mollusc, I know little or nothing: they + mostly travel two and two, in gigs, and have quarrelled so + dreadfully on the way, that, at the Inn, they don't speak to one + another. The commonalty, I repeat, are losing their hopes of + heaven, just as the grown-up schoolboy finds his paradise no more + in home. I can remember when divines were never tired of painting + the lily, of indulging in the most glowing descriptions of the + Elysian Fields. A popular artist once drew a picture of them: 'The + Plains of Heaven' it was called, and the painter's name was Martin. + If he was to do so now, the public (who are vulgar) would exclaim + 'Betty Martin.' Not that they disbelieve in it, but that the + attractions of the place are dying out, like those of Bath and + Cheltenham. + + Of course some blame attaches to the divines themselves that things + have come to such a pass. 'I protest,' says a great philosopher, + 'that I never enter a church, but the man in the pulpit talks so + unlike a man, as though he had never known what human joys or + sorrows are--so carefully avoids every subject of interest save + _one_, and paints that in colours at once so misty and so + meretricious--that I say to myself, I will never sit under him + again.' This may, of course, be only an ingenious excuse of his for + not going to church; but there is really something in it. The + angels, with their harps, on clouds, are now presented to the eyes, + even of faith, in vain; they are still appreciated on canvas by an + old master, but to become one of them is no longer the common + aspiration. There is a suspicion, partly owing, doubtless, to the + modern talk about the dignity and even the divinity of Labour, that + they ought to be doing something else than (as the American poet + puts it with characteristic ii reverence) 'loafing about the + throne;' that we ourselves, with no ear perhaps for music, and with + little voice (alas!) for praise, should take no pleasure in such + avocations. It is not the sceptics--though their influence is + getting to be considerable--who have wrought this change, but the + conditions of modern life. Notwithstanding the cheerful 'returns' + as to pauperism, and the glowing speeches of our Chancellors of the + Exchequer, these conditions are far harder, among the thinking + classes, than they were. The question 'Is Life worth Living?' is + one that concerns philosophers and metaphysicians, and not the + persons I have in my mind at all; but the question, 'Do I wish to + be out of it?' is one that is getting answered very widely--and in + the affirmative. This was certainly not the case in the days of our + grand-sires. Which of them ever read those lines-- + + 'For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, + This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned, + Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, + Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?'-- + + without a sympathetic complacency? This may not have been the best + of all possible worlds to them, but none of them wished to exchange + it, save at the proper time, and for the proper place. Thanks to + overwork, and still more to over-worry, it is not so now. There are + many prosperous persons in rude health, of course, who will ask (with + a virtuous resolution that is sometimes to be deplored), 'Do you + suppose then that I wish to cut my throat?' I certainly do not. + Do not let us talk of cutting throats; though, mind you, the + average of suicides, so admirably preserved by the Registrar-General + and other painstaking persons, is not entirely to be depended upon. + You should hear the doctors at my Inn (in the intervals of their + abuse of their professional brethren) discourse upon this topic--on + that overdose of chloral which poor B. took, and on that injudicious + self-application of chloroform which carried off poor C. With the + law in such a barbarous state in relation to self-destruction, and + taking into account the feelings of relatives, there was, of course, + only one way of wording the certificate, but--and then they shake + their heads as only doctors can, and help themselves to port, though + they know it is poison to them. + + It is an old joke that annuitants live for ever, but no annuity + ever had the effect of prolonging life which the present assurance + companies have. How many a time, I wonder, in these later years, + has a hand been stayed, with a pistol or 'a cup of cold poison' in + it, by the thought, 'If I do this, my family will lose the money I + am insured for, besides the premiums.' This feeling is altogether + different from that which causes Jeannette and Jeannot in their + Paris attic to light their charcoal fire, stop up the chinks with + their love-letters, and die (very disreputably) 'clasped in one + another's arms, and silent in a last embrace.' There is not one + halfpenny's worth of sentiment about it in the Englishman's case, + nor are any such thoughts bred in his brain while youth is in him. + It is in our midway days, with old age touching us here and there, + as autumn 'lays its fiery finger on the leaves' and withers them, + that we first think of it. When the weight of anxiety and care is + growing on us, while the shoulders are becoming bowed (not in + resignation, but in weakness) which have to bear it; when our pains + are more and more constant, our pleasures few and fading, and when + whatever happens, we know, must needs be for the worse--then it is + that the praise of the silver hair and length of days becomes a + mockery indeed. + + Was it the prescience of such a state of thought, I wonder (for it + certainly did not exist in their time), that caused good men of old + to extol old age; as though anything could reconcile the mind of + man to the time when the very sun is darkened to him, and 'the + clouds return after the rain?' There is a noble passage in + 'Hyperion' which has always seemed to me to repeat that sentiment + in Ecclesiastes; it speaks of an expression in a man's face: + + 'As though the vanward clouds of evil days + Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear + Was with its storied thunder labouring up.' + + This is why poor Paterfamilias, sitting in the family pew, is not + so enamoured of that idea of accomplishing those threescore years + and ten which the young parson, fresh from Cambridge, is describing + as such a lucky number in life's lottery. The attempt to paint it + so is well-meaning, no doubt, 'the vacant chaff well meant for + grain;' and it is touching to see how men generally (knowing that + they themselves have to go through with it) are wont to portray it + in cheerful colours. + + A modern philosopher even goes so far as to say that our memories + in old age are always grateful to us. Our pleasures are remembered, + but our pains are forgotten; 'if we try to recall a physical pain,' + she writes (for it is a female), 'we find it to be impossible,' + From which I gather only this for certain, that that woman never + had the gout. + + The folks who come my way, indeed, seem to remember their physical + ailments very distinctly, to judge by the way they talk of them; + and are exceedingly apprehensive of their recurrence. Nay, it is + curious to see how some old men will resent the compliments of + their juniors on their state of health or appearance. 'Stuff and + nonsense!' cried old Sam Rogers, grimly; 'I tell you there is no + such thing as a fine old man.' In a humbler walk of life I remember + to have heard a similar but more touching reply. It was upon the + great centenarian question raised by Mr. Thorns. An old woman in a + workhouse, said to be a hundred years of age, was sent for by the + Board of Guardians, to decide the point by her personal testimony. + One can imagine the half-dozen portly prosperous figures, and the + contrast their appearance offered to that of the bent and withered + crone. 'Now, Betty,' said the chairman with unctuous patronage, + 'you look hale and hearty enough, yet they tell me that you are a + hundred years old; is this really true?' 'God Almighty knows, sir,' + was her reply, 'but I feel a thousand.' + + And there are so many people nowadays who 'feel a thousand.' + + It is for this reason that the gift of old age is unwished for, and + the prospect of future life without encouragement. It is the modern + conviction that there will be some kind of work in it; and even + though what we shall be set to do may be 'wrought with tumult of + acclaim,' we have had enough of work. What follows, almost as a + matter of course, is that the thought of possible extinction has + lost its terrors. Heaven and its glories may have still their + charms for those who are not wearied out with toil in this life; + but the slave draws for himself a far other picture of home. His is + no passionate cry to be admitted into the eternal city; he murmurs + sullenly, 'Let me rest.' + + It was a favourite taunt with the sceptics of old--those Early + Fathers of infidelity, who used to occupy themselves so laboriously + with scraping at the rind of the Christian Faith--that until the + Cross arose men were not afraid of Death. But that arrow has lost + its barb. The Fear of Death, even among professing Christians, is + now comparatively rare; I do not mean merely among dying men--in + whom those who have had acquaintance with deathbeds tell us they + see it scarcely ever--but with the quick and hale. Even with very + ignorant persons, the idea that things may be a great deal worse + for us hereafter than even at present is not generally entertained + as respects themselves. A clergyman who was attending a sick man in + his parish expressed a hope to the wife that she took occasion to + remind her husband of his spiritual condition. 'Oh yes, sir,' she + replied, 'many and many a time have I woke him up o' nights, and + cried, "John, John, you little know the torments as is preparing + for you."' But the good woman, it seems, was not disturbed by any + such dire imaginings upon her own account. + + Higher in the social scale, the apprehension of a Gehenna, or at + all events of such a one as our forefathers almost universally + believed in, is rapidly dying out. The mathematician tells us that + even as a question of numbers, 'about one in ten, my good sir, by + the most favourable computations,' the thing is incredible; the + philanthropist inquires indignantly, 'Is the city Arab then, who + grows to be thief and felon as naturally as a tree puts forth its + leaves, to be damned in both worlds?' and I notice that even the + clergy who come my way, and take their weak glass of negus while + the coach changes horses, no longer insist upon the point, but, at + the worst, 'faintly trust the larger hope.' + + Notwithstanding these comparatively cheerful views upon a subject + so important to all passengers on life's highway, the general + feeling is, as I have said, one of profound dissatisfaction; the + good old notion that whatever is is right, is fast disappearing; + and in its place there is a doubt--rarely expressed except among + the philosophers, with whom, as I have said, I have nothing to + do--a secret, harassing, and unwelcome doubt respecting the divine + government of the world. It is a question which the very + philosophers are not likely to settle even among themselves, but it + has become very obtrusive and important. Men raise their eyebrows + and shrug their shoulders when it is alluded to, instead, as of + old, of pulverising the audacious questioner on the spot, or even + (as would have happened at a later date) putting him into Coventry; + they have no opinion to offer upon the subject, or at all events do + not wish to talk about it. But it is no longer, be it observed, + 'bad form' in a general way to do so; it is only that the topic is + personally distasteful. + + The once famous advocate of analogy threw a bitter seed among + mankind when he suggested, in all innocence, and merely for the + sake of his own argument, that as the innocent suffered for the + guilty in this world, so it might be in the world to come; and it + is bearing bitter fruit. To feel aweary at the Midway Inn is bad + enough; but to be journeying to no home, and perhaps even to some + harsher school than we yet wot of, is indeed a depressing + reflection. + + Hence it comes, I think, or partly hence, that there is now no fun + in the world. Wit we have, and an abundance of grim humour, which + evokes anything but mirth. Nothing would astonish us in the Midway + Inn so much as a peal of laughter. A great writer (though it must + be confessed scarcely an amusing one), who has recently reached his + journey's end, used to describe his animal spirits depreciatingly, + as being at the best but vegetable spirits. And that is now the way + with us all. When Charles Dickens died, it was confidently stated + in a great literary journal that his loss, so far from affecting + 'the gaiety of nations,' would scarcely be felt at all; the power + of rousing tears and laughter being (I suppose the writer thought) + so very common. That prophecy has been by no means fulfilled. But, + what is far worse than there being no humorous writers amongst us, + the faculty of appreciating even the old ones is dying out. There + is no such thing as high spirits anywhere. It is observable, too, + how very much public entertainments have increased of late--a tacit + acknowledgment of dulness at home--while, instead of the lively, if + somewhat boisterous, talk of our fathers, we have drawing-room + dissertations on art, and dandy drivel about blue china. + + There is one pleasure only that takes more and more root amongst + us, and never seems to fail, and that is making money. To hear the + passengers at the Midway Inn discourse upon this topic, you would + think they were all commercial travellers. It is most curious how + the desire for pecuniary gain has infected even the idlest, who of + course take the shortest cut to it by way of the race-course. I see + young gentlemen, blond and beardless, telling the darkest secrets + to one another, affecting, one would think, the fate of Europe, but + which in reality relate to the state of the fetlock of the brother + to Boanerges. Their earnestness (which is reserved for this + enthralling topic) is quite appalling. In their elders one has long + been accustomed to it, but these young people should really know + better. The interest excited in society by 'scratchings' has never + been equalled since the time of the Cock Lane ghost. If men would + only 'lose their money and look pleasant' without talking about it, + I shouldn't mind; but they _will_ make it a subject of + conversation, as though everyone who liked his glass of wine should + converse upon 'the vintages.' One looks for it in business people + and forgives it; but everyone is now for business. + + The reverence that used to belong to Death is now only paid to it + in the case of immensely rich persons, whose wealth is spoken of + with bated breath. 'He died, sir, worth two millions; a very warm + man.' If you happen to say, though with all reasonable probability + and even with Holy Writ to back you, 'He is probably warmer by this + time,' you are looked upon as a Communist. What the man was is + nothing, what he made is everything. It is the gold alone that we + now value: the temple that might have sanctified the gold is of no + account. This worship of mere wealth has, it is true, this + advantage over the old adoration of birth, that something may + possibly be got out of it; to cringe and fawn upon the people that + have blue blood is manifestly futile, since the peculiarity is not + communicable, but it is hoped that, by being shaken up in the same + social bag with millionaires, something may be attained by what is + technically called the 'sweating' process. So far as I have + observed, however, the results are small, while the operation is to + the last degree disagreeable. + + What is very significant of this new sort of golden age is that a + literature of its own has arisen, though of an anomalous kind. It + is presided over by a sort of male Miss Kilmansegge, who is also a + model of propriety. It is as though the dragon that guarded the + apples of Hesperides should be a dragon of virtue. Under the + pretence of extolling prudence and perseverance, he paints + money-making as the highest good, and calls it thrift; and the + popularity of this class of book is enormous. The heroes are all + 'self-made' men who come to town with that proverbial half-crown + which has the faculty of accumulation that used to be confined to + snowballs. Like the daughters of the horse-leech, their cry is + 'Give, give,' only instead of blood they want money; and I need + hardly say they get it from other people's pockets. Love and + friendship are names that have lost their meaning, if they ever + had any, with these gentry. They remind one of the miser of old who + could not hear a large sum of money mentioned without an acceleration + of the action of the heart; and perhaps that is the use of their + hearts, which, otherwise, like that of the spleen in other people, + must be only a subject of vague conjecture. They live abhorred and + die respected; leaving all their heaped-up wealth to some charitable + institution, the secretary of which levants with it eventually to + the United States. + + This last catastrophe, however, is not mentioned in these + biographies, the subjects of which are held up as patterns of + wisdom and prudence for the rising generation. I shall have left + the Midway Inn, thank Heaven, for a residence of smaller + dimensions, before it has grown up. Conceive an England inhabited + by self-made men! + + Has it ever struck you how gloomy is the poetry of the present day? + This is not perhaps of very much consequence, since everybody has a + great deal too much to do to permit them to read it; but how full + of sighs, and groans, and passionate bewailings it is! And also how + deuced difficult! It is almost as inarticulate as an AEolian harp, + and quite as melancholy. There are one or two exceptions, of + course, as in the case of Mr. Calverley and Mr. Locker; but even + the latter is careful to insist upon the fact that, like those who + have gone before us, we must all quit Piccadilly. 'At present,' as + dear Charles Lamb writes, 'we have the advantage of them;' but + there is no one to remind us of that now, nor is it, as I have + said, the general opinion that it _is_ an advantage. + + It is this prevailing gloom, I think, which accounts for the + enormous and increasing popularity of fiction. Observe how + story-telling creeps into the very newspapers (along with their + professional fibbing); and, even in the magazines, how it lies down + side by side with 'burning questions,' like the weaned child + putting its hand into the cockatrice's den. For your sake, my good + fellow, who write stories [here my friend glowered at me + compassionately], I am glad of it; but the fact is of melancholy + significance. It means that people are glad to find themselves + 'anywhere, anywhere, out of the world,' and (I must be allowed to + add) they are generally gratified, for anything less like real life + than what some novelists portray it is difficult to imagine. + +[Here he stared at me so exceedingly hard, that anyone with a less +heavenly temper, or who had no material reasons for putting up with +it, would have taken his remark as personal, and gone away.] + + Another cause of the absence of good fellowship amongst us (he went + on) is the growth of education. It sticks like a fungus to + everybody, and though, it is fair to say, mostly outside, does a + great deal of mischief. The scholastic interest has become so + powerful that nobody dares speak a word against it; but the fact + is, men are educated far beyond their wits. You can't fill any cup + beyond what it will hold, and the little cups are exceedingly + numerous. Boys are now crammed (with information) like turkeys (but + unfortunately not killed at Christmas), and when they grow up there + is absolutely no room in them for a joke. The prigs that frequent + my Midway Inn are as the sands in its hour-glass, only with no + chance, alas! of their running out. The wisdom of our ancestors + limited education, and very wisely, to the three R's; that is all + that is necessary for the great mass of mankind: whereas the pick + of them, with those clamping irons well stuck to their heels, will + win their way to the topmost peaks of knowledge. + + At the very best--that is to say when it produces _anything_--what + does the most costly education in this country produce in ordinary + minds but the deplorable habit of classical quotation? If it could + teach them to _think_--but that is a subject, my dear friend, into + which you will scarcly follow me. + +[I could have knocked his head off if he had not been so exceptionally +stout and strong, and as it was, I took up my hat to go, when a +thought struck me.] + +'Among your valuable remarks upon the ideas entertained by society at +present, you have said nothing, my dear sir, about the ladies.' + +'I never speak of anything,' he replied with dignity, 'which I do not +thoroughly understand. Man I do know--down to his boots; but +woman'--here he sighed and hesitated--'no; I don't know nearly so much +of her.' + + + + +_THE CRITIC ON THE HEARTH._ + + +It has often struck me that the relation of two important members of +the social body to one another has never been sufficiently considered, +or treated of, so far as I know, either by the philosopher or the +poet. I allude to that which exists between the omnibus driver and his +conductor. Cultivating literature as I do upon a little oatmeal, and +driving, when in a position to be driven at all, in that humble +vehicle, the 'bus, I have had, perhaps, exceptional opportunities for +observing their mutual position and behaviour; and it is very +peculiar. When the 'bus is empty, these persons are sympathetic and +friendly to one another, almost to tenderness; but when there is much +traffic, a tone of severity is observable upon the side of the +conductor. 'What are yer a-driving on for just as a party's getting +in? Will nothing suit but to break a party's neck?' 'Wake up, will +yer? or do yer want that ere Bayswater to pass us?' are inquiries he +will make in the most peremptory manner. Or he will concentrate +contempt in the laconic but withering observation: 'Now then, +stoopid!' + +When we consider that the driver is after all the driver--that the +'bus is under his guidance and management, and may be said _pro tem_, +to be his own--indeed, in case of collision or other serious +extremity, he calls it so: 'What the infernal regions are yer banging +into my 'bus for?' etc., etc.,--I say, this being his exalted +position, the injurious language of the man on the step is, to say the +least of it, disrespectful. + +On the other hand, it is the conductor who fills the 'bus, and even +entices into it, by lures and wiles, persons who are not voluntarily +going his way at all. It is he who advertises its presence to the +passers-by, and spares neither lung nor limb in attracting passengers. +If the driver is lord and king, yet the conductor has a good deal to +do with the administration: just as the Mikado of Japan, who sits +above the thunder and is almost divine, is understood to be assisted +and even 'conducted' by the Tycoon. The connection between those +potentates is perhaps the most exact reproduction of that between the +'bus driver and his cad; but even in England there is a pretty close +parallel to it in the mutual relation of the author and the +professional critic. + +While the former is in his spring-time, the analogy is indeed almost +complete. For example, however much he may have plagiarised, the book +does belong to the author: he calls it, with pardonable pride (and +especially if anyone runs it down), 'my book.' He has written it, and +probably paid pretty handsomely for getting it published. Even the +right of translation, if you will look at the bottom of the +title-page, is somewhat superfluously reserved to him. Yet nothing can +exceed the patronage which he suffers at the hands of the critic, and +is compelled to submit to in sullen silence. When the book-trade is +slack--that is, in the summer season--the pair get on together pretty +amicably. 'This book,' says the critic, 'may be taken down to the +seaside, and lounged over not unprofitably;' or, 'Readers may do worse +than peruse this unpretending little volume of fugitive verse;' or +even, 'We hail this new aspirant to the laurels of Apollo.' But in the +thick of the publishing season, and when books pour into the reviewer +by the cartful, nothing can exceed the violence, and indeed sometimes +the virulence, of his language. That 'Now then, stoopid!' of the 'bus +conductor pales beside the lightnings of his scorn. + +'Among the lovers of sensation, it is possible that some persons may +be found with tastes so utterly vitiated as to derive pleasure from +this monstrous production.' I cull these flowers of speech from a +wreath placed by a critic of the _Slasher_ on my own early brow. Ye +gods, how I hated him! How I pursued him with more than Corsican +vengeance; traduced him in public and private; and only when I had +thrust my knife (metaphorically) into his detested carcase, discovered +I had been attacking the wrong man. It is a lesson I have never +forgotten; and I pray you, my younger brothers of the pen, to lay it +to heart. Believe rather that your unfriendly critic, like the bee who +is fabled to sting and die, has perished after his attempt on your +reputation; and let the tomb be his asylum. For even supposing you get +the right sow by the ear--or rather, the wild boar with the 'raging +tooth'--what can it profit you? It is not like that difference of +opinion between yourself and twelve of your fellow-countrymen which +may have such fatal results. You are not an Adonis (except in outward +form, perhaps), that you can be ripped up with his tusk. His hard +words do not break your bones. If they are uncalled for, their +cruelty, believe me, can hurt only your vanity. While it is just +possible--though indeed in your case in the very highest degree +improbable--that the gentleman may have been right. + +In the good old times we are told that a buffet from the hand of an +Edinburgh or Quarterly Reviewer would lay a young author dead at his +feet. If it was so, he must have been naturally very deficient in +vitality. It certainly did not kill Byron, though it was a knock-down +blow; he rose from that combat from earth, like Antaeus, all the +stronger for it. The story of its having killed Keats, though embalmed +in verse, is apocryphal; and if such blows were not fatal in those +times, still less so are they nowadays. On the other hand, if authors +are difficult to slay, it is infinitely harder work to give them life +by what the doctors term 'artificial respiration'--puffing. The amount +of breath expended in the days of 'the Quarterlies' in this hopeless +task would have moved windmills. Not a single favourite of those +critics--selected, that is, from favouritism, and apart from +merit--now survives. They failed even to obtain immortality for the +writers in whom there was really something of genius, but whom they +extolled beyond their deserts. Their pet idol, for example, was Samuel +Rogers. And who reads Rogers's poems now? We remember something about +them, and that is all; they are very literally 'Pleasures of Memory.' + +And if these things are true of the past, how much more so are they of +the present! I venture to think, in spite of some voices to the +contrary, that criticism is much more honest than it used to be: +certainly less influenced by political feeling, and by the interests +of publishing houses; more temperate, if not more judicious, and--in +the higher literary organs, at least--unswayed by personal prejudice. +But the result of even the most favourable notices upon a book is now +but small. I can remember when a review in the _Times_ was calculated +by the 'Row' to sell an entire edition. Those halcyon days--if halcyon +days they were--are over. People read books for themselves now; judge +for themselves; and buy only when they are absolutely compelled, and +cannot get them from the libraries. In the case of an author who has +already secured a public, it is indeed extraordinary what little +effect reviews, either good or bad, have upon his circulation. Those +who like his works continue to read them, no matter what evil is +written of them; and those who don't like them are not to be persuaded +(alas!) to change their minds, though his latest effort should be +described as though it had dropped from the heavens. I could give some +statistics upon this point not a little surprising, but statistics +involve comparisons--which are odious. As for fiction, its success +depends more upon what Mrs. Brown says to Mrs. Jones as to the +necessity of getting that charming book from the library while there +is yet time, than on all the reviews in Christendom. + + O Fame! if I e'er took delight in thy praises, + 'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases + Than to see the bright eyes of those dear ones discover + They thought that I was not unworthy-- + +of a special messenger to Mr. Mudie's. + +Heaven bless them! for, when we get old and stupid, they still stick by +one, and are not to be seduced from their allegiance by any blaring of +trumpets, or clashing of cymbals, that heralds a new arrival among the +story-tellers. + +On the other hand, as respects his first venture, the author is very +dependent upon what the critics say of him. It is the conductor, you +know (I wouldn't call him a 'cad,' even in fun, for ten thousand +pounds), on whom, to return to our metaphor, the driver is dependent +for the patronage of his vehicle, and even for the announcement of its +existence. A good review is still the very best of advertisements to a +new author; and even a bad one is better than no review at all. Indeed, +I have heard it whispered that a review which speaks unfavourably of a +work of fiction, upon moral grounds, is of very great use to it. This, +however, the same gossips say, is mainly confined to works of fiction +written by female authors for readers of their own sex--'_by_ ladies +_for_ ladies,' as a feminine _Pall Mall Gazette_ might describe itself. + +Nor would I be understood to say that even a well-established author is +not affected by what the critics may say of him; I only state that his +circulation is not--albeit they may make his very blood curdle. I have +a popular writer in my mind, who never looks at a newspaper unless it +comes to him by a hand he can trust, for fear his eyes should light +upon an unpleasant review. His argument is this: 'I have been at this +work for the last twelve months, thinking of little else and putting my +best intelligence (which is considerable) at its service. Is it humanly +probable that a reviewer who has given his mind to it for a less number +of hours, can suggest anything in the way of improvement worthy of my +consideration? I am supposing him to be endowed with ability and +actuated by good faith; that he has not failed in my own profession and +is not jealous of my popularity; yet even thus, how is it possible that +his opinion can be of material advantage to me? If favourable, it gives +me pleasure, because it flatters my _amour propre_, and I am even not +quite sure that it does not afford a stimulating encouragement; but if +unfavourable, I own it gives me considerable annoyance. [This is his +euphemistic phrase to express the feeling of being in a hornets' nest +without his clothes on.] On the other hand, if the critic is a mere +hireling, or a young gentleman from the university who is trying his +'prentice hand at a lowish rate of remuneration upon a veteran like +myself, how still more idle would it be to regard his views!' + +And it appears to me that there is really something in these arguments. +As regards the latter part of them, by-the-bye, I had the pleasure of +seeing my own last immortal story spoken of in an American +magazine--the _Atlantic Monthly_--as the work of 'a bright and +prosperous young author.' The critic (Heaven bless his young heart, and +give him a happy Whitsuntide) evidently imagined it to be my first +production. In another Transatlantic organ, a critic, speaking of the +last work of that literary veteran, the late Mr. Le Fanu, observes: 'If +this young writer would only model himself upon the works of Mr. +William Black in his best days, we foresee a great future before him.' + +There is one thing that I think should be set down to the credit of the +literary profession--that for the most part they take their 'slatings' +(which is the professional term for them) with at least outward +equanimity. I have read things of late, written of an old and popular +writer, ten times more virulent than anything Mr. Ruskin wrote of Mr. +Whistler: yet neither he, nor any other man of letters, thinks of +flying to his mother's apron-string, or of setting in motion old Father +Antic, the Law. Perhaps it is that we have no money, or perhaps, like +the judicious author of whom I have spoken, we abstain from reading +unpleasant things. I wish to goodness we could abstain from hearing of +them; but the 'd----d good-natured friend' is an eternal creation. He +has altered, however, since Sheridan's time in his method of +proceeding. He does not say, 'There is a very unpleasant notice of you +in the _Scorpion_, my dear fellow, which I deplore.' The scoundrel now +affects a more light-hearted style. 'There is a review of your last +book in the _Scorpion_', he says, 'which will amuse you. It is very +malicious, and evidently the offspring of personal spite, but it is +very clever.' Then you go down to your club, and take the thing up with +the tongs, when nobody is looking, and make yourself very miserable; or +you buy it, going home in the cab, and, having spoilt your appetite for +dinner with it, tear it up very small, throw it out of window, and +swear you have never seen it. + +One forgives the critic--perhaps--but never the good-natured friend. It +is always possible--to the wise man--to refrain from reading the +lucubration of the former, but he cannot avoid the latter: which brings +me to the main subject of this paper--the Critic on the Hearth. One can +be deaf to the voice of the public hireling, but it is impossible to +shut one's ears to the private communications of one's friends and +family--all meant for our good, no doubt, but which are nevertheless +insufferable. + +In Miss Martineau's Autobiography there is a passage expressing her +surprise that whereas in all other cases there is a certain modest +reticence in respect to other people's business when it is of a special +kind, the profession of literature is made an exception. As there is no +one but imagines that he can poke a fire and drive a gig, so everyone +believes he can write a book, or at all events (like that blasphemous +person in connection with the Creation) that he can give a wrinkle or +two to the author. + +I wonder what a parson would say, if a man who never goes to church +save when his babies are christened, or by accident to get out of a +shower, should volunteer his advice about sermon-making? or an artist, +to whom the man without arms, who is wheeled about in the streets for +coppers, should recommend a greater delicacy of touch? Indeed, metaphor +fails me, and I gasp for mere breath when I think of the astounding +impudence of some people. If I possessed a tithe of it, I should surely +have made my fortune by this time, and be in the enjoyment of the +greatest prosperity. It must be remembered, too, that the opinion of +the Critics on the Hearth is always volunteered (indeed, one would as +soon think of asking for it as for a loan from the Sultan of Turkey), +and in nine cases out of ten it is unfavourable. One has no objection +to their praise, nor to any amount of it; what is so abhorrent is their +advice, and still more their disapproval. It is like throwing 'half a +brick' at you, which, utterly valueless in itself, still hurts you when +it hits you. And the worst of it is that, apart from their rubbishy +opinions, one likes these people; they are one's friends and relatives, +and to cut one's moorings from them altogether would be to sail over +the sea of life without a port to touch at. + +The early life of the author is especially embittered by the utterances +of these good folks. As a prophet is of no honour in his own country, +so it is with the young aspirant for literary fame with his folks at +home. They not only disbelieve in him, but--generally, however, with +one or two exceptions, who are invaluable to him in the way of +encouragement--'make hay' of him and his pretensions in the most +heartless style. If he produces a poem, it achieves immortality in the +sense of his 'never hearing the last of it;' it is the jest of the +family till they have all grown up. But this he can bear, because his +noble mind recognises its own greatness; he regards his jeering +brethren in the same light as the philosophic writer beholds 'the vapid +and irreflective reader.' When they tell him they 'can't make head or +tail of his blessed poetry,' he comforts himself with the reflection of +the great German (which he has read in a translation) that the clearest +handwriting cannot be read by twilight. It is when his literary talents +have received more or less recognition from the public at large, that +home criticism becomes so painful to him. His brethren are then boys no +longer, but parsons, lawyers, and doctors; and though they don't +venture to interfere with one-another as regards their individual +professions, they make no sort of scruple about interfering with _him_. +They write to him their unsolicited advice and strictures. This is the +parson's letter: + + 'MY DEAR DICK, + + 'I like your last book much better than the rest of them; but I don't + like your heroine. She strikes both Julia and myself [Julia is his + wife, who is acquainted with no literature but the cookery-book] as + rather namby-pamby. The descriptions, however, are charming; we both + recognised dear old Ramsgate at once. [The original of the locality + in the novel being Dieppe.] The plot is also excellent, though we + think we have some recollection of it elsewhere; but it must be so + difficult to hit upon anything original in these days. Thanks for + your kind remembrance of us at Christmas: the oysters were excellent. + We were sorry to see that ill-natured little notice in the _Scourge_. + + 'Yours affectionately, + + 'BOB.' + +Jack the lawyer writes: + + 'DEAR DICK, + + 'You are really becoming ["Becoming?" he thinks _that_ becoming] + quite a great man: we could hardly get your last book from Mudie's, + though I suppose he takes very small quantities of copies, except + from really popular authors. Marion was charmed with your heroine + [Dick rather likes Marion; and doesn't think Jack treats her with the + consideration she deserves], and I have no doubt women in general + will admire her, but your hero--you know I always speak my + mind--is rather a duffer. You should go into the world more, and + sketch from life. The Vice-Chancellor gave me great pleasure by + speaking of your early poems very highly the other day, and I assure + you it was quite a drop down for me, to find that he was referring to + some other writer of the same name. Of course I did not undeceive + him. I wish, my dear fellow, you would write stories in one volume + instead of three. You write a _short_ story capitally. + + 'Yours ever, + + 'JACK.' + +Tom the surgeon belongs to that very objectionable class of humanity, +called, by ancient writers, wags: + + 'MY DEAR DICK, + + 'I cannot help writing to thank you for the relief afforded to me by + the perusal of your last volume. I had been suffering from neuralgia, + and every prescription in the Pharmacopaeia for producing sleep had + failed until I tried _that_. Dear Maggie [an odious woman, who calls + novels "light literature," and affects to be blue] read it to me + herself, so it was given every chance; but I think you must + acknowledge that it was a little spun out. Maggie assures me--I have + not read them myself, for you know what little time I have for such + things--that the first two volumes, with the exception of the + characters of the hero and heroine, which she pronounces to be rather + feeble, are first-rate. Why don't you write two-volume novels? There + is always something in analogy: reflect how seldom Nature herself + produces three at a birth: when she does, it is only two, at most, + which survive. We shall look forward to your next effort with much + interest, but we hope you will give more time and pains to it. + Remember what Horace says upon this subject (He has no more knowledge + of Horace than he has of Sanscrit, but he has read the quotation in + that vile review in the _Scourge_.) Maggie thinks you live too + luxuriously: if your expenses were less you would not be compelled to + write so much, and you would do it better. Excuse this well-meant + advice from an elder brother. + + 'Yours always, + + 'Tom.' + +'One's sisters, and one's cousins, and one's aunts' also write in more +or less the same style, though, to do their sex justice, less +offensively. 'If you were to go abroad, my dear Dick,' says one, 'it +would expand your mind. There is nothing to blame in your last +production, which strikes me (what I could understand of it at least, +for some of it is a little Bohemian) as very pleasing; but the fact is, +that English subjects are quite used up.' Others discover for themselves +the originals of Dick's characters in persons he has never dreamt of +describing, and otherwise exhibit a most marvellous familiarity with his +materials. 'Hennie, who has just been here, is immensely delighted with +your satirical sketch of her husband. He, however, as you may suppose, +is _wild_, and says you had better withdraw your name from the +candidates' book at his club. I don't know how many black balls exclude, +but he has a good many friends there.' Another writes: 'Of course we all +recognised Uncle George in your Mr. Flibbertigibbet; but we try not to +laugh; indeed our sense of loss is too recent. Seriously, I think you +might have waited till the poor old man--who was always kind to you, +Dick--was cold in his grave.' + +Some of these excellent creatures send incidents of real life which they +are sure will be useful to 'dear Dick' for his next book--narratives of +accidents in a hansom cab, of missing the train by the Underground, and +of Mr. Jones being late for his own wedding, 'which, though nothing in +themselves, actually did happen, you know, and which, properly dressed +up, as you so well know how to do,' will, they are sure, obtain for him +a marked success. 'There is nothing like reality,' they say, he may +depend upon it, 'for coming home to people.' + +After all, one need not read these abominable letters. One's relatives +(thank Heaven!) usually live in the country. The real Critics on the +Hearth are one's personal acquaintances in town, whom one cannot +escape. + +'My dear friend,' said one to me the other day--a most cordial and +excellent fellow, by-the-bye (only too frank)--'I like you, as you +know, beyond everything, personally, but I cannot read your books.' + +'My dear Jones,' replied I, 'I regret that exceedingly; for it is you, +and men like you, whose suffrages I am most anxious to win. Of the +approbation of all intelligent and educated persons I am certain; but +if I could only obtain that of the million, I should be a happy man.' + +But even when I have thus demolished Jones, I still feel that I owe him +a grudge. 'What the Deuce is it to me whether Jones likes my books or +not? and why does he tell me he doesn't like them?' + +Of the surpassing ignorance of these good people, I have just heard an +admirable anecdote. A friend of a justly popular author meets him in +the club and congratulates him upon his last story in the _Slasher_ [in +which he has never written a line]. It is so full of farce and fun [the +author is a grave writer]. 'Only I don't see why it is not advertised +under the same title in the other newspapers.' The fact being that the +story in the _Slasher_ is a parody--and not a very good-natured +one--upon the author's last work, and resembles it only as a picture in +_Vanity Fair_ resembles its original. + +Some Critics on the Hearth are not only good-natured, but have rather +too high, or, if that is impossible, let us say too pronounced, an +opinion of the abilities of their literary friends. They wonder why +they do not employ their gigantic talents in some enduring monument, +such as a life of 'Alexander the Great' or a popular history of the +Visigoths. To them literature is literature, and they do not concern +themselves with little niceties of style or differences of subject. +Others again, though extremely civil, are apt to affect more enthusiasm +than they feel. They admire one's works without exception--'they are +all absolutely charming'--but they would be placed in a position of +great embarrassment if they were asked to name their favourite: for, as +a matter of fact, they are ignorant of the very names of them. A +novelist of my acquaintance lent his last work to a lady cousin because +she 'really could not wait till she got it from the library;' besides, +'she was ill, and wanted some amusing literature.' After a month or so +he got his three volumes back, with a most gushing letter. It 'had been +the comfort of many a weary hour of sleeplessness,' etc. The thought of +having 'smoothed the pillow and soothed the pain' would, she felt sure, +be gratifying to him. Perhaps it would have been, only she had omitted +to cut the pages even of the first volume. + +But, as a general rule, these volunteer censors plume themselves on +discovering defects and not beauties. When any author is particularly +popular and has been long before the public, they have two methods of +discoursing upon him in relation to their literary friend. In the +first, they represent him as a model of excellence, and recommend their +friend to study him, though without holding out much hope of his ever +becoming his rival; in the second, they describe him as 'worked out,' +and darkly hint that sooner or later [they mean sooner] their friend +will be in the same unhappy condition. These, I need not say, are among +the most detestable specimens of their class, and only to be equalled +by those excellent literary judges who are always appealing to +posterity, which, even if a little temporary success has crowned you +to-day, will relegate you to your proper position to-morrow. If one +were weak enough to argue with these gentry, it would be easy to show +that popular authors are not 'worked out,' but only have the appearance +of being so from their taking their work too easily. Those whose +calling it is to depict human nature in fiction are especially subject +to this weakness; they do not give themselves the trouble to study new +characters, or at first hand, as of old; they sit at home and receive +the congratulations of Society without paying due attention to that +somewhat changeful lady, and they draw upon their memory, or their +imagination, instead of studying from the life. Otherwise, when they do +not give way to that temptation of indolence which arises from +competence and success, there is no reason why their reputation should +suffer, since, though they may lack the vigour or high spirits of those +who would push them from their stools, their experience and knowledge +of the world are always on the increase. + +As to the argument with regard to posterity which is so popular with +the Critic on the Hearth, I am afraid he has no greater respect for the +opinion of posterity himself than for that of his possible +great-great-granddaughter. Indeed, he only uses it as being a weapon +the blow of which it is impossible to parry, and with the object of +being personally offensive. It is, moreover, noteworthy that his +position, which is sometimes taken up by persons of far greater +intelligence, is inconsistent with itself. The praisers of posterity +are also always the praisers of the past; it is only the present which +is in their eyes contemptible. Yet to the next generation this present +will be _their_ past, and, however valueless may be the verdict of +today, how much more so, by the most obvious analogy, will be that of +to-morrow. It is probable, indeed, though it is difficult to believe +it, that the Critics on the Hearth of the generation to come will make +themselves even more ridiculous than their immediate predecessors. + + + + +_SHAM ADMIRATION IN LITERATURE._ + + +In all highly civilised communities Pretence is prominent, and sooner +or later invades the regions of Literature. In the beginning, this is +not altogether to be reprobated; it is the rude homage which Ignorance, +conscious of its disgrace, offers to Learning; but after awhile, +Pretence becomes systematised, gathers strength from numbers and +impunity, and rears its head in such a manner as to suggest it has some +body and substance belonging to it. In England, literary pretence is +more universal than elsewhere from our method of education. When young +gentlemen from ten to sixteen are set to study poetry (a subject for +which not one in a hundred has the least taste or capability even when +he reads it in his own language) in Greek and Latin authors, it is only +a natural consequence that their views upon it should be slightly +artificial. The youth who objected to the alphabet that it seemed +hardly worth while to have gone through so much to have acquired so +little, was exceptionally sagacious; the more ordinary lad conceives +that what has cost him so much time and trouble, and entailed so many +pains and penalties, must needs have something in it, though it has +never met his eye. Hence arises our public opinion upon the ancient +classics, which I am afraid is somewhat different from (what painters +term) the private view. If you take the ordinary admirer of AEschylus, +for example--not the scholar, but the man who has had what he believes +to be 'a liberal education'--and appeal to his opinion upon some +passage in a British dramatist, say Shakespeare, it is ten to one that +he shows not only ignorance of the author (the odds are twenty to one +about _that_), but utter inability to grasp the point in question; it +is too deep for him, and, especially, too subtle. If you are cruel +enough to press him, he will unconsciously betray the fact that he has +never felt a line of poetry in his life. He honestly believes that the +'Seven against Thebes' is one of the greatest works that ever were +written, just as a child believes the same of the 'Seven Champions of +Christendom.' A great wit once observed, when bored by the praises of a +man who spoke six languages, that he had known a man to speak a dozen, +and yet not say a word worth hearing in any one of them. The humour of +the remark, as sometimes happens, has caused its wisdom to be +underrated; for the fact is that, in very many cases, all the +intelligence of which a mind is capable is expended upon the mere +acquisition of a foreign tongue. As to getting anything out of it in +the way of ideas, and especially of poetical ones, that is almost never +attained. There are, indeed, many who have a special facility for +languages, but in their case (with a few exceptions) one may say +without uncharity that the acquisition of ideas is not their object, +though if they did acquire them they would probably be new ones. The +majority of us, however, have much difficulty in surmounting the +obstacle of an alien tongue; and when we have done so we are naturally +inclined to overrate the advantages thus attained. Everyone knows the +poor creature who quotes French on all occasions with a certain stress +on the accent, designed to arouse a doubt in his hearers as to whether +he was not actually born in Paris. _He_, of course, is a low specimen +of the class in question, but almost all of us derive a certain +intellectual gratification from the mastery of another language, and as +we gradually attain to it, whenever we find a meaning we are apt to +mistake it for a beauty.[1] Nay, I am convinced that many admire this +or that (even) British poet from the fact that here and there his +meaning has gleamed upon them with all the charm that accompanies +unexpectedness. + + [1] Since the above was written, my attention has been called to + the following remark of De Quincey: 'As must ever be the case with + readers not sufficiently masters of a language to bring the true + pretensions of a work to any test of feeling, they are for ever + mistaking for some pleasure conferred by the writer, what is, in + fact, the pleasure naturally attached to the sense of a difficulty + overcome.' + +Since classical learning is compulsory with us, this bastard admiration +is much more often excited with respect to the Greek and Latin poets. +Men may not only go through the whole curriculum of a university +education, but take high honours in it, without the least intellectual +advantage beyond the acquisition of a few quotations. This is not, of +course (good heavens!), because the classics have nothing to teach us +in the way of poetical ideas, but simply because to the ordinary mind +the acquisition of a poetical idea is very difficult, and when conveyed +in a foreign language is impossible. If the same student had given the +same time--a monstrous thought, of course, but not impracticable--to +the cultivation of Shakespeare and the old dramatists, or even to the +more modern English poets and thinkers, he would certainly have got +more out of them, though he would have missed the delicate +suggestiveness of the Greek aorist, and the exquisite subtleties of the +particle _de_. Having acquired these last, however, and not for +nothing, it is not surprising that he should esteem them very highly, +and, being unable to popularise them at dinner-parties and the like, he +falls back upon praise of the classics generally. + +Such are the circumstances which, more particularly in this country, +have led to a well-nigh universal habit of literary lying--of a +pretence of admiration for certain works of which in reality we know +very little, and for which, if we knew more, we should perhaps care +even less. + +There are certain books which are standard, and as it were planted in +the British soil, before which the great majority of us bow the knee +and doff the cap with a reverence that, in its ignorance, reminds one +of fetish worship, and, in its affectation, of the passion for High +Art. The works without which, we are told at book auctions, 'no +gentleman's library can be considered complete,' are especially the +objects of this adoration. The 'Rambler,' for example, is one of them. +I was once shut up for a week of snowstorms in a mountain inn, with the +'Rambler' and one other publication. The latter was a Shepherd's Guide, +with illustrations of the way in which sheep are marked by their +various owners for the purpose of identification: 'Cropped near ear, +upper key bitted far, a pop on the head and another at the tail head, +ritted, and with two red strokes down both shoulders,' etc. It was +monotonous, but I confess that there were times when I felt it some +comfort in having that picture-book to fall back upon, to alternate +with the 'Rambler.' + +The essay, like port wine, I have noticed, requires age for its due +appreciation. Leigh Hunt's 'Indicator' comprises some admirable essays, +but the general public have not a word to say for them; it may be urged +that that is because they had not read the 'Indicator' But why then do +they praise the 'Rambler' and Montaigne? That comforting word, +'Mesopotamia,' which has been so often alluded to in religious matters, +has many a parallel in profane literature. + +A good deal of this mock worship is of course due to abject cowardice. +A man who says he doesn't like the 'Rambler,' runs, with some folks, +the risk of being thought a fool; but he is sure to be thought that, +for something or another, under any circumstances; and, at all events, +why should he not content himself, when the 'Rambler' is belauded, with +holding his tongue and smiling acquiescence? It must be conceded that +there are a few persons who really have read the 'Rambler,' a work, of +course, I am merely using as a type of its class. In their young days +it was used as a schoolbook, and thought necessary as a part of polite +education; and as they have read little or nothing since, it is only +reasonable that they should stick to their colours. Indeed, the French +satirist's boast that he could predicate the views of any man with +regard to both worlds, if he were only supplied with the simple data of +his age and his income, is quite true in the general with regard to +literary taste. Given the age of the ordinary individual--that is to +say of the gentleman 'fond of books, but who has really no time for +reading'--and it is easy enough to guess his literary idols. They are +the gods of his youth, and, whether he has been 'suckled in a creed +outworn' or not, he knows no other. These persons, however, rarely give +their opinion about literary matters, except on compulsion; they are +harmless and truthful. The tendency of society in general, on the other +hand, is not only to praise the 'Rambler' which they have not read, but +to express a noble scorn for those who have read it and don't like it. + +I remember, as a young man, being greatly struck by the independence of +character exhibited by Miss Bronte in a certain confession she made in +respect to Miss Austen's novels. It was at a period when everybody +professed to adore them, and especially the great-guns of literature. +Walter Scott thought more highly of the genius of the author of +'Mansfield Park' even than of that of his favourite, Miss Edgeworth. +Macaulay speaks of her as though she were the Eclipse of +novelists--'first, and the rest nowhere'--though his opinion, it is +true, lost something of its force from the contempt he expressed for +'the rest,' among whom were some much better ones. Dr. Whewell, a very +different type of mind, had 'Mansfield Park,' I believe, read to him on +his death-bed. And, indeed, up to the present date, some +highly-cultured persons of my acquaintance take the same view. They may +be very possibly right, but that is no reason why the people who have +never read Miss Austen's novels--and very few have--should ape the +fashion. Now, the authoress of 'Jane Eyre' did not derive much pleasure +from the perusal of the works of the other Jane. 'I know it's very +wrong,' she modestly said, 'but the fact is I can't read them. They +have not got story enough in them to engage my attention. I don't want +my blood curdled, but I like it stirred. Miss Austen strikes me as +milk-and-watery, and, to say truth, as dull.' + +This opinion she has, in effect, repeated in her published writings, +but I had only heard her verbal expression of it; and I admired her +courage. If she had been a man, struggling, as she then was, for a +position in literature, she would not have dared to say half as much. +For, what is very curious, the advocates of the classic authors--those +I mean whom antiquity has more or less hallowed--instead of pitying +those unhappy wights who confess their want of appreciation of them, +fly at them with bludgeons, and dance upon their prostrate bodies with +clogs. + + 'For who would rush on a benighted man, + And give him two black eyes for being blind?' + +inquires the poet. I answer, 'lots of people,' and especially those who +worship the pagan divinities of literature. The same thing happens--but +_their_ fury is more excusable, because they have less natural +intelligence--with the lovers of music. Instead of being sorry for the +poor folks who have 'no ear,' and whom 'a little music in the evening' +bores to extremity, they overwhelm them with reproaches for what is in +fact a natural infirmity. 'You Goth! you Vandal!' they exclaim, 'how +contemptible is the creature who has no music in his soul!' Which is +really very rude. Even persons who are not musical have their feelings. +'Hath not a Jew ears?'--that is to say, though they have 'no ear,' they +understand what is abusive language and resent it. + +I am not saying one word against established reputations in literature. +The very fact of their being established (even the 'Rambler,' for +example, has its merits) is in their favour; and, indeed, some of the +works I shall refer to are masterpieces. My objection is to the sham +admiration of them, which does their authors no good (for their +circulation is now of no consequence to them), and is injurious not +only to modern writers (who are generally made the subject of base +comparison), but especially to the utterers of this false coin +themselves. One cannot tell falsehoods, even about one's views in +literature, without injury to one's morals, yet to 'tell the truth and +shame the devil' is easy, as it would seem, compared with telling the +truth and defying the critics. + +I have alluded to the intrepidity of Miss Bronte in this matter; and, +curiously enough, it is women who have the most courage in the +expression of their literary opinions. It may be said, of course, that +this is due to the audacity of ignorance, and a well-known line may be +quoted (for some people, as I have said, are rude) in which certain +angels (who are _not_ women) are represented as being afraid to tread +in certain places. But I am speaking of women who are great readers. +Miss Martineau once confessed to me that she could see no beauties in +'Tom Jones.' 'Of course,' she said, 'the coarseness disgusts me, but +apart from that, I see no sort of merit in it.' 'What?' I replied, 'no +humour, no knowledge of human life?' 'No; to me it is a wearisome +book.' + +I disagreed with her very much upon that point, and do so still; yet, +apart from the coarseness (which does not disgust everybody, let me +tell you), there is a good deal of tedious reading in 'Tom Jones.' At +all events that expression of opinion from such lips strikes me as +noteworthy. + +It may here be said that there are many English authors of old date, +some of whose beauties are unintelligible except to those who are +acquainted with the classics; and 'Tom Jones' is one of them. Many of +the introductions to the chapters, not to mention a certain travestie +of an Homeric battle, must needs be as wearisome to those who are not +scholars, as the spectacle of a burlesque is to those who have not seen +the original play. This is still more the case with our old poets, +especially Milton. I very much doubt, in spite of the universal chorus +to the contrary, whether 'Lycidas' is much admired by readers who are +only acquainted with English literature; I am quite sure it never +touched their hearts as, for example, 'In Memoriam' does. + +I once beheld a young lady of great literary taste, and of exquisite +sensibility, torn to pieces (figuratively) and trampled upon by a great +scholar for venturing to make a comparison between those two poems. Its +invocation to the Muses, and the general classical air which pervades +it, had destroyed for her the pathos of 'Lycidas,' whereas to her +antagonist those very imperfections appeared to enhance its beauty. I +did not interfere, because the wretch was her husband, and it would +have been worse for her if I had, but my sympathies were entirely with +her. Her sad fate--for the massacre took place in public--would, I was +well aware, have the effect of making people lie worse than ever about +Milton. On that same evening, while some folks were talking about Mr. +Morris's 'Earthly Paradise,' I heard a scornful voice exclaim, 'Oh! +give ME "Paradise Lost,"' and with that gentleman I _did_ have it out. +I promptly subjected him to cross-examination, and drove him to that +extremity that he was compelled to admit he had never read a word of +Milton for forty years, and even then only in extracts from 'Enfield's +Speaker.' + +With Shakespeare--though there is a good deal of lying about _him_--the +case is different, and especially with elderly people; for 'in their +day,' as they pathetically term it, Shakespeare was played everywhere, +and everyone went to the play. They do not read him, but they recollect +him; they are well acquainted with his beauties--that is, with the +better known of them--and can quote him with manifest appreciation. +They are, intellectually, in a position much superior to that of a +fashionable lady of my acquaintance who informed me that her daughters +were going to the theatre that night to see Shakespeare's 'Turning of +the Screw.' + +The writer who has done most, without I suppose intending it, to promote +hypocrisy in literature is Macaulay. His 'every schoolboy knows' has +frightened thousands into pretending to know authors with whom they have +not even a bowing acquaintance. It is amazing that a man who had read so +much should have written so contemptuously of those who have read but +little; one would have thought that the consciousness of superiority +would have forbidden such insolence, or that his reading would have been +extensive enough to teach him at least how little he had read of what +there was to read; since he read some things--works of imagination and +humour, for example--to such very little purpose, he might really have +bragged a little less. One feels quite grateful to Macaulay, however, for +avowing his belief that he was the only man who had read through the +'Faery Queen;' since that exonerates everybody--I do not say from reading +it, because the supposition is preposterous--but from the necessity of +pretending to have read it. The pleasure derived from that poem to most +minds is, I am convinced, analogous to that already spoken of as being +imparted by a foreign author: namely, the satisfaction at finding it--in +places--intelligible. For the few who possess the poetic faculty it has +great beauties, but I observe, from the extracts that appear in Poetic +Selections and the like, that the most tedious and even the most +monstrous passages are those which are generally offered for admiration. +The case of Spenser in this respect--which does not stand alone in +ancient English literature--has a curious parallel in art, where people +are positively found to go into ecstasies over a distorted limb or a +ludicrous inversion of perspective, simply because it is the work of an +old master, who knew no better, or followed the fashion of his time. + +Leigh Hunt read the 'Faery Queen,' by-the-bye, as almost everything +else that has been written in the English tongue, and even Macaulay +alludes with rare commendation to his 'catholic taste.' Of all authors +indeed, and probably of all readers, Leigh Hunt had the keenest eye for +merit and the warmest appreciation of it wherever found. He was +actively engaged in politics, yet was never blind to the genius of an +adversary; blameless himself in morals, he could admire the wit of +Wycherley; and a freethinker in religion, he could see both wisdom and +beauty in the divines. Moreover, it is immensely to his credit that +this universal knowledge, instead of puffing him up, only moved him to +impart it, and that next to the pleasure he took in books was that he +derived from teaching others to take pleasure in them. Witness his 'Wit +and Humour' and his 'Imagination and Fancy,' to my mind the greatest +treasures in the way of handbooks that have ever been offered to +students of English literature, and the completest antidotes to +pretence in it. How many a time, as a boy, have I pondered over this or +that passage in the originals, from Shakespeare to Suckling, and then +compared it with the italicised lines in his two volumes, to see +whether I had hit upon the beauties; and how often, alas! I hit upon +the blots![2] + + [2] I remember (when 'I was but a little tiny boy') I thought that + 'the fringed curtains of thine eye advance,' addressed by Prospero + to Miranda, must needs be a very fine line; imagine then my + confusion, on referring for corroboration to my 'guide, + philosopher, and friend,' as he truly was, to find this passage: + 'Why Shakespeare should have condescended to the elaborate + nothingness, not to say nonsense, of this metaphor (for what is + meant by "advancing curtains"?) I cannot conceive. That is to say, + if he did condescend: for it looks very like the interpolation of + some pompous declamatory player. Pope has put it into his + _Treatise on the Bathos_.' + +It is curious that Leigh Hunt, whose style has been so severely handled +(and, it must be owned, not without some justice) for its affectations, +should have been so genuine (although always generous) in his +criticisms. It was nothing to him whether an author was old or new; nor +did he shrink from any literary comparison between two writers when he +thought it appropriate (and he was generally right), notwithstanding all +the age and authority that might be at the back of one of them. +Thackeray, by the way, a very different writer and thinker, had this +same outspoken honesty in the expression of his literary taste. In +speaking of the hero of Cooper's five good novels--Leather-Stocking, +Hawkeye, etc.--he remarks with quite a noble simplicity: 'I think he is +better than any of Scott's lot.' + +It is a 'far cry' from the 'Faery Queen' to 'Childe Harold,' which, +reckoning by years, is still a modern poem; yet I wonder how many +persons under thirty--even of those who term it 'magnificent'--have ever +read 'Childe Harold.' At one time it was only people under thirty who +_had_ read it; for poetry to the ordinary reader is the poetry that was +popular in his youth--'no other is genuine.' + + 'A dreary, weary poem called the _Excursion_, + Written in a manner which is my aversion,' + +is a couplet the frankness of which has always recommended itself to me +(though I like the 'Excursion'); but, except for the rhyme, it has a +fatal facility of application to other long poems. Heaven forbid that I +should 'with shadowed hint confuse' the faith in a British classic; but, +ye gods, how men have gaped (in private) over 'Childe Harold!' + +'Gil Blas,' though not a native classic, is included in the articles of +the British literary faith; not as a matter of pious opinion, but _de +fide_; a necessity of intellectual salvation. I remember an interview I +once had with a boy of letters concerning this immortal work; he is a +well-known writer now, but at the time I speak of he was only budding +and sprouting in the magazines--a lad of promise, no doubt, but given, +if not to kick against authority, to question it, and, what was worse, +to question _me_ about it, in an embarrassing manner. The natural +affability of my disposition had caused him, I suppose, to treat me as +his Father Confessor in literature; and one of the sins of omission he +confided to me was in connection with the divine Le Sage. + +'I say--about "Gil Blas," you know--Bias [a great critic of that day] +was saying last night that if he were to be imprisoned for life with +only one book to read he would choose the Bible or "Gil Blas."' + +'It is very gratifying to me,' said I, wishing to evade my young friend, +and also because I had no love for Bias, 'that he should have selected +the Bible, even as an alternative; and all the more so, since I should +never have expected it of him.' + +'Yes, papa' (that was what the young dog was wont to call me, though he +was no son of mine--far from it); 'but about "Gil Blas"? Is it _really_ +the next best book? And after he had read it--say ten times--would he +not have been rather sorry that he had not chosen--well, Shakespeare, +for instance?' + +The picture of Bias with a long white beard, the growth of twenty years, +reading that tattered copy of 'Gil Blas' in his cell, almost affected me +to tears; but I made shift to answer gravely: 'Bias is a professional +critic; and persons of that class are apt to be a little dogmatic and +given to exaggeration. But "Gil Blas" is a great work. As a picture of +the seamy side of human life--of its vices and its weaknesses at +least--it is unrivalled. The archbishop----' + +'Oh! I know that archbishop--_well_,' interrupted my young tormentor. 'I +sometimes think, if it hadn't been for that archbishop, we should never +perhaps have heard of "Gil Blas."' + +'Tchut, tchut!' said I; 'you talk like a child.' + +'But to read it _all through_, papa--three times, ten times, for all +one's life? Poor Mr. Bias!' + +'It is a matter of opinion, my dear boy,' I said. 'Bias has this great +advantage over you in literary matters, that he knows what he is talking +about; and if he was quite sure----' + +'Oh! but he was not quite sure: he was rather doubtful, he said, about +one of the books.' + +'Not the Bible, I do hope?' said I fervently. + +'No, about the other. He was not quite sure but that, instead of "Gil +Blas," he ought to have selected "Don Quixote." Now really that seems to +me worse than "Gil Blas." + +'You mean less excellent,' I rejoined; 'you are too young to appreciate +the full signification of "Don Quixote."' + +The scoundrel murmured, 'Do you mean to tell me people read it when they +are old?' But I pretended not to hear him. 'We do not all of us,' I went +on, 'know what is good for us. Sancho Panza's physician----' + +'Oh! I know that physician--_well_, papa. I sometimes think, if it had +not been for that physician, perhaps----' + +'Hush!' I exclaimed authoritatively; 'let us have no flippancy, I beg.' +And so, with a dead lift as it were, I got rid of him. He left the room +muttering, 'But to read it through--three times, ten times, for all +one's life?' And I was obliged to confess to myself that such a +prolonged course of study, even of 'Don Quixote,' would have been +wearisome. + +Rabelais is another article of our literary faith, that is certainly +subscribed to much more often than believed in. In a certain poem of Mr. +Browning's (_I_ call it the Burial of the Book, since the Latin name he +has given it is unpronounceable, even if it were possible to recollect +it), charmingly humorous, and which is also remarkable for impersonating +an inanimate object in verse as Dickens does in prose, there occur these +lines: + + 'Then I went indoors, brought out a loaf, + Half a cheese and a bottle of Chablis, + Lay on the grass, and forgot the oaf + Over a jolly chapter of Rabelais.' + +Yet I have known some wonder to be expressed (confidentially) as to +where he found the 'jolly chapter,' and the looking for the beauties of +Rabelais to be likened to searching in a huge dung-heap for a few heads +of asparagus. + +I have no quarrel with Bias and Company (though they stick at nothing, +and will presently say that I don't care for these books myself), but I +venture to think that they are wrong in making dogmas of what are, after +all, but matters of literary taste; it is their vehemence and +exaggeration which drive the weak to take refuge in falsehood. + +A good woman in the country once complained of her stepson, 'He will not +love his learning, though I beats him with a jack-chain;' and from the +application of similar aids to instruction, the same result takes place +in London. Only here we dissemble and pretend to love it. It is partly +in consequence of this that works, not only of acknowledged but genuine +excellence, such as those I have been careful to select, are, though so +universally praised, so little read. The poor student attempts them, but +failing--from many causes no doubt, but also sometimes from the fact of +their not being there--to find those unrivalled beauties which he has +been led to expect in every sentence, he stops short, where he would +otherwise have gone on. He says to himself, 'I have been deceived,' or +'I must be a born fool;' whereas he is wrong in both suppositions. I am +convinced that the want of popularity of Walter Scott among the rising +generation is partly due to this extravagant laudation; and I am much +mistaken if another great author, more recently deceased, will not in a +few years be added to the ranks of those who are more praised than read +from the same cause. + +The habit of mere adhesion to received opinion in any matter is most +mischievous, for it strikes at the root of independence of thought; and +in literature it tends to make the public taste mechanical. It is very +seldom that what is called the verdict of posterity (absurdly enough, +for are not _we_ posterity?) is ever reversed; but it has chanced to +happen in a certain case quite lately. The production of 'The Iron +Chest' upon the stage has once more brought into fashion 'Caleb +Williams.' Now that is a work, though by no means belonging to the same +rank as those to which I have referred, which has a fine old crusted +reputation. Time has hallowed it. The great world of readers (who have +never read it) used to echo the remark of Bias and Company, that this +and that modern work of fiction reminded them--though at an immense +distance, of course--of Godwin's masterpiece. I remember Le Fanu's +'Uncle Silas,' for example (from some similarity, more fanciful perhaps +than real, in the isolation of its hero), being thus compared with it. +Now 'Caleb Williams' is founded on a very fine conception--one that +could only have occurred, perhaps, to a man of genius; the first part of +it is well worked out, but towards the middle it grows feeble, and it +ends in tediousness and drivel; whereas 'Uncle Silas' is good and strong +from first to last. Le Fanu has never been so popular as, in my humble +judgment, he deserves to be, but of course modern readers were better +acquainted with him than with Godwin. Yet nine out of ten were always +heard repeating this cuckoo cry about the latter's superiority, until +the 'Iron Chest' came out, and Fashion induced them to read Godwin for +themselves; which has very properly changed their opinion. + +I remember, in my own case, that, from that reverence for authority +which I hope I share with my neighbours, I used to speak of 'Headlong +Hall' and 'Crotchet Castle'--both great favourites of our +fore-fathers--with much respect, until one wet day in the country I +found myself shut up with them. I won't say what I suffered; better +judges of literature than myself admire them still, I know. I will only +remark that _I_ don't admire them. I don't say they are the dullest +novels ever printed, because that would be invidious, and might do wrong +to works of even greater pretensions; but to my mind they are dull. + +When Dr. Johnson is free to confess that he does not admire Gray's +'Elegy,' and Macaulay to avow that he sees little to praise in Dickens +and Wordsworth, why should not humbler folks have the courage of their +own opinions? They cannot possibly be more wrong than Johnson and +Macaulay were, and it is surely better to be honest, though it may +expose one to some ridicule, than to lie. The more we agree with the +verdict of the generations before us on these matters, the more, it is +quite true, we are likely to be right; but the agreement should be an +honest one. At present very extensive domains in literature are, as it +were, enclosed and denied to the public in respect to any free +expression of their opinion. 'They are splendid, they are faultless,' +cries the general voice, but the general eye has not beheld them. +Nothing, of course, could be more futile than that, with every new +generation, our old authors who have won their fame should be arraigned +anew at the bar of public criticism; but, on the other hand, there is no +reason why the mouths of us poor moderns should be muzzled, and still +less that we 'should praise with alien lips.' + +'Until Caldecott's charming illustrations of it made me laugh so much,' +said a young lady to me the other day, 'I confess--though I know it's +very stupid of me--I never saw much fun in "John Gilpin."' She evidently +expected a reproof, and when I whispered in her ear, 'Nor I,' her lovely +features assumed a look of positive enfranchisement. + +'But am I right?' she inquired. + +'You are certainly right, my dear young lady,' said I, 'not to pretend +admiration where you don't feel it; as to liking "John Gilpin," that is +a matter of taste. It has, of course, simplicity to recommend it; but in +my own case, though I'm fond of fun, it has never evoked a smile. It has +always seemed to me like one of Mr. Joe Miller's stories put into +tedious verse.' + +I really almost thought (and hoped) that that young lady would have +kissed me. + +'Papa always says it is a free country,' she exclaimed, 'but I never +felt it to be the case before this moment.' + +For years this beautiful and accomplished creature had locked this awful +secret in her innocent breast--that she didn't see much fun in 'John +Gilpin.' 'You have given me courage,' she said, 'to confess something +else. Mr. Caldecott has just been illustrating in the same charming +manner Goldsmith's "Elegy on a Mad Dog," and--I'm very sorry--but I +never laughed at _that_ before, either. I have pretended to laugh, you +know,' she added, hastily and apologetically, 'hundreds of times.' + +'I don't doubt it,' I replied; 'this is not such a free country as your +father supposes.' + +'But am I right?' + +'I say nothing about "right,"' I answered, 'except that everybody has a +right to his own opinion. For my part, however, I think the 'Mad Dog' +better than 'John Gilpin' only because it is shorter.' + +Whether I was wrong or right in the matter is of no consequence even to +myself; the affection and gratitude of that young creature would more +than repay me for a much greater mistake, if mistake it is. She protests +that I have emancipated her from slavery. She has since talked to me +about all sorts of authors, from Sir Philip Sidney to Washington Irving, +in a way that would make some people's blood run cold; but it has no +such effect upon me--quite the reverse. Of Irving she naively remarks +that his strokes of humour seem to her to owe much of their success to +the rarity of their occurrence; the flashes of fun are spread over pages +of dulness, which enhance them, just as a dark night is propitious to +fireworks, or the atmosphere of the House cf Commons, or of a Court of +Law, to a joke. She is often in error, no doubt, but how bright and +wholesome such talk is as compared with the platitudes and commonplaces +which one hears on all sides in connection with literature! + +As a rule, I suppose, even people in society ('the drawing-rooms and the +clubs') are not absolutely base and yet one would really think so, to +judge by the fear that is entertained by them of being natural. 'I vow +to heaven,' says the prince of letter-writers, 'that I think the Parrots +of Society are more intolerable and mischievous than its Birds of Prey. +If ever I destroy myself, it will be in the bitterness of having those +infernal and damnable "good old times" extolled.' One is almost tempted +to say the same--when one hears their praises come from certain +mouths--of the good old books. It is not everyone, of course, who has an +opinion of his own upon any subject, far less on that of literature, but +everyone can abstain from expressing an opinion that is not his own. If +one has no voice, what possible compensation can there be in becoming an +echo? No one, I conclude, would wish to see literature discoursed about +in the same pinchbeck and affected style as are painting and music;[3] +yet that is what will happen if this prolific weed of sham admiration is +permitted to attain its full growth. + + [3] The slang of art-talk has reached the 'young men' in the + furniture warehouses. A friend of mine was recommended a sideboard + the other day as not being a Chippendale, but as 'having a + Chippendale _feeling_ in it.' + + + + +_THE PINCH OF POVERTY_. + + +In these days of reduction of rents, or of total abstinence from +rent-paying, it is, I am told, the correct thing to be 'a little pressed +for money.' It is a sign of connection with the landed interest (like +the banker's ejaculation in 'Middlemarch') and suggests family acres, +and entails, and a position in the county. (In which case I know a good +many people who are landlords on a very extensive scale, and have made +allowances for their tenants the generosity of which may be described as +Quixotic.) But as a general rule, and in times less exceptionally hard, +though Shakespeare tells us 'How apt the poor are to be proud,' they are +not proud of being poor. + +'Poverty,' says the greatest of English divines, 'is indeed despised and +makes men contemptible; it exposes a man to the influences of evil +persons, and leaves a man defenceless; it is always suspected; its +stories are accounted lies, and all its counsels follies; it puts a man +from all employment; it makes a man's discourses tedious and his society +troublesome. This is the worst of it.' Even so poverty seems pretty bad, +but, begging Dr. Jeremy Taylor's pardon, what he has stated is by no +means 'the worst of it.' To be in want of food at any time, and of +firing in winter time, is ever so much worse than the inconveniences he +enumerates; and to see those we love--delicate women and children +perhaps--in want, is worse still. The fact is, the excellent bishop +probably never knew what it was to go without his meals, but took them +'reg'lar' (as Mrs. Gamp took her Brighton ale) as bishops generally do. +Moreover, since his day, Luxury has so universally increased, and the +value of Intelligence has become so well recognised (by the publishers) +that even philosophers, who profess to despise such things, have plenty +to eat, and good of its kind too. Hence it happens that, from all we +hear to the contrary from the greatest thinkers, the deprivation of food +is a small thing: indeed, as compared with the great spiritual struggles +of noble minds, and the doubts that beset them as to the supreme +government of the universe, it seems hardly worth mentioning. + +In old times, when folks were not so 'cultured,' starvation was thought +more of. It is quite curious, indeed, to contrast the high-flying +morality of the present day (when no one is permitted, either by +Evolutionist or Ritualist, however dire may be his necessity, so much as +to jar his conscience) with the shocking laxity of the Holy Scriptures. +'Men do not despise a thief if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is +hungry,' says Solomon, after which stretch of charity, strange to say, +he goes on to speak of marital infidelity in terms that, considering the +number of wives he had himself, strike one as severe. + +It is certain, indeed, that the sacred writers were apt to make great +allowances for people with empty stomachs, and though I am well aware +that the present profane ones think this very reprehensible, I venture +to agree with the sacred writers. The sharpest tooth of poverty is felt, +after all, in the bite of hunger. A very amusing and graphic writer once +described his experience of a whole night passed in the streets; the +exhaustion, the pain, the intolerable weariness of it, were set forth in +a very striking manner; the sketch was called 'The Key of the Street,' +and was thought by many, as Browning puts it, to be 'the true Dickens.' +But what are even the pangs of sleeplessness and fatigue compared with +those of want? Of course there have been fanatics who have fasted many +days; but they have been supported by the prospect of spiritual reward. +I confess I reserve my pity for those who have no such golden dreams, +and who fast perforce. It is exceedingly difficult for mere +worldlings--such as most of us are--not to eat, if it is possible, when +we are hungry. I have known a great social philosopher who flattered +himself that he was giving his sons an experience of High Thinking and +Low Living by restricting their pocket-money to two shillings a day, out +of which it was understood they were to find their own meals. I don't +know whether the spirit in their case was willing, but the flesh was +decidedly weak, for one of them, on this very moderate allowance, used +to contrive to always have a pint of dry champagne with his luncheon. +The fact is, that of the iron grip of poverty, people in general, by no +means excepting those who have written about it, have had very little +experience; whereas of the pinch of it a good many people know +something. It is the object of this paper--and the question should be an +interesting one, considering how much it is talked about--to inquire +briefly where it lies. + +It is quite extraordinary how very various are the opinions entertained +on this point, and, before sifting them, one must be careful in the +first place to eliminate from our inquiry the cases of that considerable +class of persons who pinch themselves. For, however severely they do it, +they may stop when they like and the pain is cured. There is all the +difference in the world between pulling one's own tooth out, and even +the best and kindest of dentists doing it for one. How gingerly one goes +to work, and how often it strikes one that the tooth is a good tooth, +that it has been a fast friend to us for ever so many years and never +'fallen out' before, and that after all it had better stop where it is! + +To the truly benevolent mind, indeed, nothing is more satisfactory than +to hear of a miser denying himself the necessaries of life a little too +far and ridding us of his presence altogether. Our confidence in the +average virtue of humanity assures us that his place will be supplied by +a better man. The details of his penurious habits, the comfortless room, +the scanty bedding, the cheese-rinds on his table, and the fat +banking-book under his thin bolster, only inspire disgust: if he were +pinched to death he did it himself, and so much the better for the world +in general and his heir in particular. + +Again, the people who have a thousand a year, and who try to persuade +the world that they have two thousand, suffer a good deal of +inconvenience, but it can't be called the pinch of poverty. They may put +limits to their washing-bills, which persons of cleanlier habits would +consider unpleasantly narrow; they may eat cold mutton in private for +five days a week in order to eat turtle and venison in public (and with +the air of eating them every day) on the sixth; and they may immure +themselves in their back rooms in London throughout the autumn in order +to persuade folks that they are still at Trouville, where for ten days +they did really reside and in splendour; but all their stint and +self-incarceration, so far from awakening pity, only fill us with +contempt. I am afraid that even the complaining tones of our City friend +who tells us that in consequence of 'the present unsettled state of the +markets' he has been obliged to make 'great retrenchments'--which it +seems on inquiry consist in putting down one of his carriages and +keeping three horses instead of six--fail to draw the sympathising tear. +Indeed, to a poor man this pretence of suffering on the part of the rich +is perhaps even more offensive than their boasts of their prosperity. + +On the other hand, when the rich become really poor their case is hard +indeed; though, strange to say, we hear little of it. It is like +drowning; there is a feeble cry, a little ineffectual assistance from +the bystanders, and then they go under. It is not a question of pinch +with _them_; they have fallen into the gaping mouth of ruin, and it has +devoured them. If we ever see them again, it is in the second generation +as waiters (upon Providence), or governesses, and we say, 'Why, dear me, +that was Bullion's son (or daughter), wasn't it?' using the past tense, +as if they were dead. 'I remember him when he lived in Eaton Square.' +This class of cases rarely comes under the head of 'genteel poverty.' +They were at the top, and hey presto! by some malignant stroke of fate +they are at the bottom; and there they stick. + +I don't believe in bachelors ever experiencing the pinch of poverty; I +have heard them complaining of it at the club, while ordering Medina +oysters instead of Natives, but, after all, what does it signify even if +they were reduced to cockles? They have no appearances to keep up, and +if they cannot earn enough to support themselves they must be poor +creatures indeed. + +It is the large families of moderate income, who are delicate, and have +delicate tastes, that feel the twinge: and especially the poor girls. I +remember a man, with little care for his personal appearance, of small +means but with a very rich sense of humour, describing to me his +experiences when staying at a certain ducal house in the country, where +his feelings must have been very similar to those of Christopher Sly. In +particular he drew a charming picture of the magnificent attendant who +in the morning _would_ put out his clothes for him, which had not been +made by Mr. Poole, nor very recently by anybody. The contempt which he +well understood his Grace's gentleman must have felt for him afforded +him genuine enjoyment. But with young ladies, in a similar position, +matters are very different; they have rarely a sense of humour, and +certainly none strong enough to counteract the force of a personal +humiliation. I have known some very charming ones, compelled to dress on +a very small allowance, who, in certain mansions where they have been +occasionally guests, have been afraid to put their boots outside their +door, because they were not of the newest, and have trembled when the +officious lady's-maid has meddled with their scanty wardrobe. A +philosopher may think nothing of this, but, considering the tender skin +of the sufferer, it may be fairly called a pinch. + +In the investigation of this interesting subject, I have had a good deal +of conversation with young ladies, who have given me the fullest +information, and in a manner so charming, that, if it were common in +witnesses generally, it would make Blue-Books very pretty reading. + +'I consider it to be "a pinch,"' says one, 'when I am obliged to put on +black mittens on occasions when I know other girls will have long white +kid gloves.' I must confess I have a prejudice myself against mittens; +they are, so to speak, 'gritty' to touch; so that the pinch, if it be +one, experienced by the wearer, is shared by her ungloved friends. The +same thing may be said of that drawing-room fire which is lit so late in +the season for economical reasons, and so late in the day at all times: +the pinch is felt as much by the visitors as by the members of the +household. These things, however, are mere nips, and may be placed in +the same category with the hardships complained of by my friend +Quiverfull's second boy. 'I don't mind having papa's clothes cut up for +me,' he says, 'but what I do think hard is getting Bob's clothes' (Bob +being his elder brother), 'which have been papa's first; however, I am +in great hopes that I am out-growing Bob.' + +A much more severe example of the pinch of poverty than these is to be +found in railway travelling; no lady of any sense or spirit objects to +travel by the second, or even the third class, if her means do not +justify her going by the first. But when she meets with richer friends +upon the platform, and parts with them to journey in the same +compartment with their man-servant, she suffers as acutely as though, +when the guard slams the door of the carriage with the vehemence +proportioned to its humble rank, her tender hand had been crushed in it. +Of course it is very foolish of her; but it demands democratic opinions, +such as almost no woman of birth and breeding possesses, not to feel +_that_ pinch. Her knowledge that it is also hard upon the man-servant, +who has never sat in her presence before, but only stooped over her +shoulder with ''Ock, miss,' serves but to increase her pain. + +A great philosopher has stated that the worst evil of poverty is, that +it makes folks ridiculous; by which, I hope, he only means that, as in +the above case, it places them in incongruous positions. The man, or +woman, who derives amusement from the lack of means of a +fellow-creature, would jeer at a natural deformity, be cruel to +children, and insult old age. Such people should be whipped and then +hanged. Nevertheless there are certain little pinches of poverty so +slight, that they tickle almost as much as they hurt the victim. A lady +once told me (interrupting herself, however, with pleasant bursts of +merriment) that as a young girl her allowance was so small that when she +went out to spend the evening at a friend's, her promised pleasure was +darkened by the presentiment (always fulfilled) that the cabman was sure +to charge her more than the proper fare. The extra expense was really of +consequence to her, but she never dared dispute it, because of the +presence of the footman who opened the door. + +Some young ladies--quite as lady-like as any who roll in +chariots--cannot even afford a cab. 'What _I_ call the pinch of +poverty,' observed an example of this class, 'is the waiting for omnibus +after omnibus on a wet afternoon and finding them all full.' + +'But surely,' I replied with gallantry, 'any man would have given up his +seat to you?' + +She shook her head with a smile that had very little fun in it. 'People +in omnibuses,' she said, 'don't give up their seats to others.' Nor, I +am bound to confess, do they do so elsewhere; if I had been in their +place, perhaps I should have been equally selfish; though I do think I +should have made an effort, in this instance at least, to make room for +her close beside me.[4] + + [4] There is, however, some danger in this. I remember reading of + some highly respectable old gentleman in the City who thus + accommodated on a wet day a very nice young woman in humble + circumstances. She was as full of apologies as of rainwater, and + he of good-natured rejoinders, intended to put her at her ease; so + that he became, in a Platonic and paternal way, quite friendly + with her by the time she arrived at her destination--which + happened to be his own door. She turned out to be his new cook, + which was afterwards very embarrassing. + +A young governess whom some wicked fairy endowed at her birth with +the sensitiveness often denied to princesses, has assured me that +her journeys by railway have sometimes been rendered miserable by +the thought that she had not even a few pence to spare for the +porter who would presently shoulder her little box on to the roof +of her cab. + +It is people of this class, much more than those beneath them, who are +shut out from all amusements. The mechanic goes to the play and to the +music-hall, and occasionally takes his 'old girl,' as he calls his wife, +and even 'a kid' or two, to the Crystal Palace. But those I have in my +mind have no such relaxation from compulsory duty and importunate care. +'I know it's very foolish, but I feel it sometimes to be a pinch,' says +one of these ill-fated ones, 'to see them all [the daughters of her +employer] going to the play, or the opera, while I am expected to be +satisfied with a private view of their pretty dresses.' No doubt it is +the sense of comparison (especially with the female) that sharpens the +sting of poverty. It is not, however, through envy that the 'prosperity +of fools destroys us,' so much as the knowledge of its unnecessariness +and waste. When a mother has a sick child who needs sea air, which she +cannot afford to give it, the consciousness that her neighbour's family +(the head of which perhaps is a most successful financier and +market-rigger) are going to the Isle of Wight for three months, though +there is nothing at all the matter with them, is an added bitterness. +How often it is said (no doubt with some well-intentioned idea of +consolation) that after all money cannot buy life! I remember a curious +instance to the contrary of this. In the old days of sailing-packets a +country gentleman embarked for Ireland, and when a few miles from land +broke a bloodvessel through seasickness. A doctor on board pronounced +that he would certainly die before the completion of the voyage if it +was continued; whereupon the sick man's friends consulted with the +captain, who convoked the passengers, and persuaded them to accept +compensation in proportion to their needs for allowing the vessel to be +put back; which was accordingly done. + +One of the most popular fictions of our time was even written with this +very moral, that life is unpurchasable. Yet nothing is more certain than +that life is often lost through want of money--that is, of the obvious +means to save it. In such a case how truly has it been written that 'the +destruction of the poor is their poverty'! This, however, is scarcely a +pinch, but, to those who have hearts to feel it, a wrench that 'divides +asunder the joints and the marrow.' + +A nobler example, because a less personal one, of the pinch of poverty, +is when it prevents the accomplishment of some cherished scheme for the +benefit of the human race. I have felt such a one myself when in extreme +youth I was unable, from a miserable absence of means, to publish a +certain poem in several cantos. That the world may not have been much +better for it if I had had the means does not affect the question. It is +easy to be incredulous. Henry VII. of England did not believe in the +expectations of Columbus, and suffered for it, and his case may have +been similar to that of the seven publishers to whom I applied in vain. + +A man with an invention on which he has spent his life, but has no means +to get it developed for the good of humanity--or even patented for +himself--must feel the pinch of poverty very acutely. + +To sum up the matter, the longer I live, the more I am convinced that +the general view in respect to material means is a false one. That great +riches are a misfortune is quite true; the effect of them in the moral +sense (with here and there a glorious exception, however) is deplorable: +a shower of gold falling continuously upon any body (or soul) is as the +waters of a petrifying spring. But, on the other hand, the occasional +and precarious dripping of coppers has by no means a genial effect. If +the one recipient becomes hard as the nether millstone, the other (just +as after constant 'pinching' a limb becomes insensible) grows callous, +and also (though it seems like a contradiction in terms) sometimes +acquires a certain dreadful suppleness. Nothing is more monstrous than +the generally received opinion with respect to a moderate competence; +that 'fatal gift,' as it is called, which encourages idleness in youth +by doing away with the necessity for exertion. I never hear the same +people inveighing against great inheritances, which are much more open +to such objections. The fact is, if a young man is naturally indolent, +the spur of necessity will drive him but a very little way, while the +having enough to live upon is often the means of preserving his +self-respect. One constantly hears what humiliating things men will do +for money, whereas the truth is that they do them for the want of it. +It is not the temptation which induces them, but the pinch. 'Give +me neither poverty nor riches,' was Agur's prayer; 'feed me with +food convenient for me, lest I be full and deny Thee, and say, Who +is the Lord? or lest I be poor and steal.' And there are many +things--flatteries, disgraceful humiliations, hypocrisies--which are +almost as bad as stealing. One of the sharpest pinches of poverty to +some minds must be their inability (because of their dependency on him +and that of others upon them) to tell a man what they think of him. + +Riches and poverty are of course but relative terms; but the happiest +material position in which a man can be placed is that of 'means with a +margin.' Then, however small his income may be, however it may behove +him to 'cut and contrive,' as the housekeepers call it, he does not feel +the pinch of poverty. I have known a rich man say to an acquaintance of +this class, 'My good friend, if you only knew how very small are the +pleasures my money gives me which you yourself cannot purchase!' And for +once it was not one of those cheap and empty consolations which the +wealthy are so ready to bestow upon their less fortunate +fellow-creatures. Dives was, in that instance, quite right in his +remark; only we must remember he was not speaking to Lazarus. 'A dinner +of herbs where love is,' is doubtless quite sufficient for us; only +there must be enough of it, and the herbs should be nicely cooked in an +omelette. + + + + +_THE LITERARY CALLING AND ITS FUTURE._ + + +One would think that in writing about literary men and matters there +would be no difficulty in finding a title for one's essay, or that any +embarrassment which might arise would be from excess of material. I find +this, however, far from being the case. 'Men of Letters,' for example, +is a heading too classical and pretentious. I do indeed remember its +being used in these modern days by the sub-editor of a country paper, +who, having quarrelled with his proprietor, and reduced him to silence +by a violent kick in the abdomen, thus addressed him: 'I leave you and +your dirty work for ever, and start to-night for London, to take up my +proper position as a Man of Letters.' But this gentleman's case (and I +hope that of his proprietor) was an exceptional one. The term in general +is too ambitious and suggestive of the author of 'Cato,' for my humble +purpose. 'Literature as a Profession,' again, is open to objection on +the question of fact. The professions do not admit literature into their +brotherhood. 'Literature, Science, and Art' are all spoken of in the +lump, and rather contemptuously (like 'reading, writing, and +arithmetic'), and have no settled position whatever. In a book of +precedence, however--a charming class of work, and much more full of +humour than the peerage--I recently found indicated for the first time +the relative place of Literature in the social scale. After a long list +of Eminent Personages and Notables, the mere perusal of which was +calculated to bring the flush of pride into my British cheek, I found at +the very bottom these remarkable words, 'Burgesses, Literary Persons, +and others.' Lest haughtiness should still have any place in the breasts +of these penultimates of the human race, the order was repeated in the +same delightful volume in still plainer fashion, 'Burgesses, Literary +Persons, etc.' It is something, of course, to take precedence--in going +down to dinner, for example--even of an et cetera; but who are +Burgesses? I have a dreadful suspicion they are not gentlemen. Are they +ladies? Did I ever meet a Burgess, I wonder, coming through the rye? At +all events, after so authoritative a statement of its social position, I +feel that to speak of Literature as a profession would be an hyperbole. + +On the other hand, 'The Literary Calling' is not a title that satisfies +me. For the word 'calling' implies a certain fitness; in the religious +sense it has even more significance; and it cannot be denied that there +are a good many persons who devote--well, at least, their time to +literature, who can hardly be said to have 'a call' in that direction, +nor even so much as a whisper. At the same time I will venture to +observe, notwithstanding a great deal of high-sounding twaddle talked +and written to the contrary, that it is not necessary for a man to feel +any miraculous or even extraordinary attraction to this pursuit to +succeed in it very tolerably. I remember a now distinguished personage +(in another line) who had written a very successful work, expressing his +opinion to me that unless a certain divine afflatus animated a man, he +should never take up his pen to address the public. The writing for pay, +he added (he had at least L5,000 a year of his own), was the degradation +of literature. As I had written about a dozen books myself at the time, +and most decidedly with an eye to profit, and had never experienced much +afflatus, this remark discouraged me very much. However, as the +gentleman in question did essay another volume, which was so absolute +and distinct a failure that he promptly took up another line of business +(far above that of Burgesses), it is probable he altered his views. + +Nature of course is the best guide in the matter of choosing a pursuit. +When she says 'This is your line, stick to it,' she seldom or never +makes a mistake. But, on the other hand, her speech must be addressed to +mature ears. For my part, I do not much believe in the predilections of +boyhood. I was never so simple as to wish to go to sea, but I do +remember (when between seven and eight) having a passionate longing to +become a merchant. I had no notion, however, of the preliminary stages; +the high stool in the close street; luncheon at a counter, standing (I +liked to have my meals good, plentiful, often, and in comfort, even +then); and imprisonment at the office on the eves of mail nights till +the large hours p.m. Even the full fruition of such aspirations--the +large waistcoat beginning to 'point,' (as it soon does in merchants), +heavy watchchain, and cheerful conviction of the coming scarcity of +necessaries for everybody else, would have failed to please. The sort of +merchant I wanted to be was never found in 'Post Office Directory,' but +in the 'Arabian Nights,' trading to Bussorah, chiefly in pearls and +diamonds. When the Paterfamiliases of my acquaintance instance certain +stenches and messes which their Toms and Harrys make with chemicals all +over their house, as a proof of 'their natural turn for engineering,' I +say, 'Very likely,' or 'A capital thing,' but I _think_ of that early +attraction of my own towards Bussorah. The young gentlemen never dream +of what I once heard described, in brief, as the real business life of a +scientific apprentice: 'To lie on your back with a candle in your hand, +while another fellow knocks nails into a boiler.' + +Boys have rarely any special aptitude for anything practical beyond +punching each others' heads, or (and these are the clever ones) for +keeping their own heads unpunched. As a rule, in short, Nature is not +demonstrative as respects our professional future. + +It must nevertheless be conceded that if the boy is ever father to the +man in this respect, it is in connection with literature. Also, however +prosaic their works are fated to be, it is curious that the aspirants +for the profession below Burgesses always begin with Poetry. Even +Harriet Martineau wrote verses in early life bad enough to comfort the +soul of any respectable parent. The approach to the Temple of Literary +Fame is almost always through double gates--couplets. And yet I have +known youthful poets, apparently bound for Paternoster Row, bolt off the +course in a year or two, to the delight of their friends, and become, of +their own free will, drysalters. + +There is so much talk about the 'indications of immortality in early +childhood' (of a very different kind from those referred to by +Wordsworth), and it is so much the habit of biographers to use +magnifiers when their subject is small, that it needs some courage to +avow my belief that the tastes of boys have very little significance. A +clever boy can be trained to almost anything, and an ordinary boy will +not do one thing much better than another. With the Geniuses I will +allow (for the sake of peace and quietness) that Nature is all-powerful, +but with nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand of us, Second +Nature, Use, is the true mistress; and what will doubtless strike some +people as almost paradoxical, but is nevertheless a fact, Literature is +the calling in which she has the greatest sway. + +It is the fashion with that enormous class of people who don't know what +they are talking about, and who take up cuckoo-cries, to speak +contemptuously of modern literature, by which they mean (for they are +acquainted with little else) periodical literature. However small may be +its merits, it is at all events ten times as good as ancient periodical +literature used to be. A very much better authority than myself on such +a subject has lately informed us that the majority of the old essays in +the _Edinburgh Review_, at the very time when it was supposed to be most +'trenchant,' 'masterly,' 'exhaustive,' and a number of other splendid +epithets, are so dull and weak and ignorant, that it is impossible that +they or their congeners would now find acceptance in any periodical of +repute. And with regard to all other classes of old magazine literature, +this verdict is certainly most just. + +Let us take what most people suppose to be 'the extreme case,' Magazine +Poetry. Of course there is to-day a great deal of rant and twaddle +published under the name of verse in magazines; yet I could point to +scores and scores of poems that have thus appeared during the last ten +years,[5] which half a century ago would have made--and deservedly have +made--a high reputation for their authors. Such phrases as 'universal +necessity for practical exertion,' 'prosaic character of the age,' etc., +are, of course, common enough; but those who are acquainted with such +matters will, I am sure, corroborate my assertion that there was never +so much good poetry in our general literature as exists at present. +Persons of intelligence do not look for such things perhaps, and +certainly not in magazines, while persons of 'culture' are too much +occupied with old china and high art; but to humble folks, who take an +interest in their fellow-creatures, it is very pleasant to observe what +high thoughts, and how poetically expressed, are now to be found about +our feet, and, as it were, in the literary gutter. I don't compare these +writers with Byrons and Shelleys; I don't speak of them as born poets at +all. On the contrary, my argument is that second nature (cultivation, +opportunities of publication, etc.) has made them what they are; and it +is immensely creditable to her. + + [5] I take up a half-yearly volume of a magazine (price 1-1/2d. + weekly) addressed to the middle classes, and find in it, at + haphazard, the five following pieces, the authors of which are + anonymous: + + AGATHA. + + 'From under the shade of her simple straw hat + She smiles at you, only a little shamefaced: + Her gold-tinted hair m a long-braided plait + Reaches on either side down to her waist. + Her rosy complexion, a soft pink and white, + Except where the white has been warmed by the sun, + Is glowing with health and an eager delight, + As she pauses to speak to you after her run. + + 'See with what freedom, what beautiful ease, + She leaps over hollows and mounds in berrace; + Hear how she joyously laughs when the breeze + Tosses her hat off, and blows in her face! + It's only a play-gown of homeliest cotton + She wears, that her finer silk dress may be saved; + And happily, too, she has wholly forgotten + The nurse and her charge to be better behaved. + + 'Must a time come when this child's way of caring + For only the present enjoyment shall pass; + When she'll learn to take thought of the dress that she's wearing, + And grow rather fond of consulting the glass? + Well, never mind; nothing really can change her; + Fair childhood will grow to as fair maidenhood; + Her unselfish, sweet nature is safe from all danger; + I know she will always be charming and good. + + 'For when she takes care of a still younger brother, + You see her stop short in the midst of her mirth, + Gravely and tenderly playing the mother: + Can there be anything fairer on earth? + So proud of her charge she appears, so delighted; + Of all her perfections (indeed, they're a host), + This loving attention to others, united + With naive self-unconsciousness, charms me the most. + + 'What hearts that unthinkingly under short jackets + Are beating to-day in a wonderful wise + About racing, or jumping, or cricket, or rackets, + One day will beat at a smile from those eyes! + Ah, how I envy the one that shall win her, + And see that sweet smile no ill-humour shall damp, + Shining across the spread table at dinner, + Or cheerfully bright in the light of the lamp. + + 'Ah, little fairy! a very short while, + Just once or twice, in a brief country stay, + I saw you; but when will your innocent smile + That I keep in my mem'ry have faded away? + For when, in the midst of my trouble and doubt, + I remember your face with its laughter and light, + It's as if on a sudden the sun had shone out, + And scattered the shadow, and made the world bright.' + + + CHARTREUSE. + + (_Liqueur_.) + + 'Who could refuse + Green-eyed Chartieuse? + Liquor for heretics, + Turks, Christians, or Jews + For beggar or queen, + For monk or for dean; + + Ripened and mellow + (The _green_, not the yellow), + Give it its dues, + Gay little fellow, + Dressed up in green! + I love thee too well, O + Laughing Chartreuse! + + 'O the delicate hues + That thrill through the green! + Colours which Greuze + Would die to have seen! + With thee would De Musset + Sweeten his muse; + Use, not abuse, + Bright little fellow! + (The green, _not_ the yellow.) + O the taste and the smell! O + Never refuse + A kiss on the lips from + Jealous Chartreuse!' + + + THE LIFE-LEDGER. + + 'Our sufferings we reckon o'er + With skill minute and formal; + The cheerful ease that fills the score + We treat as merely normal. + Our list of ills, how full, how great! + We mourn our lot should fall so; + I wonder, do we calculate + Our happinesses also? + + 'Were it not best to keep account + Of all days, if of any? + Perhaps the dark ones might amount + To not so very many. + Men's looks are nigh as often gay + As sad, or even solemn: + Behold, my entry for to-day + Is in the "happy" column.' + + + OCTOBER. + + 'The year grows old; summer's wild crown of roses + Has fallen and faded in the woodland ways; + On all the earth a tranquil light reposes, + Through the still dreamy days. + + 'The dew lies heavy in the early morn, + On grass and mosses sparkling crystal-fair; + And shining threads of gossamer are borne + Floating upon the air, + + 'Across the leaf-strewn lanes, from bough to bough + Like tissue woven in a fairy loom; + And crimson-berried bryony garlands glow + Through the leaf-tangled gloom. + + 'The woods are still, but for the sudden fall + Of cupless acorns dropping to the ground, + Or rabbit plunging through the fern-stems tall, + Half-startled by the sound. + + 'And from the garden lawn comes, soft and clear, + The robin's warble from the leafless spray, + The low sweet Angelus of the dying year, + Passing in light away.' + + + PROSPERITY. + + 'I doubt if the maxims the Stoic adduces + Be true in the main, when they state + That our nature's improved by adversity's uses, + And spoilt by a happier fate. + + 'The heart that is tried by misfortune and pain, + Self-reliance and patience may learn; + Yet worn by long waiting and wishing in vain, + It often grows callous and stern. + + 'But the heart that is softened by ease and contentment, + Feels warmly and kindly t'wards all; + And its charity, roused by no moody resentment, + Embraces alike great and small. + + 'So, although in the season of rain-storms and showers, + The tree may strike deeper its roots, + It needs the warm brightness of sunshiny hours + To ripen the blossoms and fruits.' + + Observe, not only the genuine merit of these five pieces, but the + variety in the tones of thought: then compare them with similar + productions of the days, say, of the once famous L.E.L. + +And what holds good of verse holds infinitely better in respect to +prose. The enormous improvement in our prose writers (I am not speaking +of geniuses, remember, but of the generality), and their great +superiority over writers of the same class half a century ago, is mainly +due to use. Sir Walter Scott, who, like most men of genuine power, had +great generosity, once observed to a brother author, 'You and I came +just in the nick of time.' He foresaw the formidable competition that +was about to take place, though he had no cause to fear it. I think in +these days he would have had cause; not that I disbelieve in his genius, +but that I venture to think he diffused it over too large an area. In +such cases genius is overpassed by the talent which husbands its +resources; in other words, Nature succumbs to second nature, as the wife +in the patriarchal days (when _she_ grew patriarchal) succumbed to the +handmaid. And after all, though we talk so glibly about genius, and +profess to feel, though we cannot express, in what it differs from +talent, are we quite so sure about this as we would fain persuade +ourselves? At all events, it cannot surely be contended that a man of +genius always writes like one; and when he does not, his work is often +inferior to the first-rate production of a man of talent. For my own +part, I am not sure whether (with the exception, perhaps, of the highest +gifts of song) the whole distinction is not fanciful. + +We are ready enough in ordinary matters to allow that 'practice makes +perfect,' and the limit of that principle is yet to be found. Moreover, +the vast importance of exclusive application is almost unknown. We see +it, indeed, in men of science and in lawyers, but without recognition; +nay, socially, it is even quoted against them. The mathematician may be +very eminent, but we find him dry; the lawyer may be at the head of his +profession, but we find him dull; and it is observed on all sides how +very little great A and great B, notwithstanding the high position they +have earned for themselves in their calling, know of matters out of +their own line. On the other hand, the man of whom it was said that +'science was his forte and omniscience his foible,' has left no enduring +monument behind him; and so it must always be with mortals who have only +fifty years of thought allotted to them at the very most, and who +diffuse it. Everyone admits the value of application, but very few are +aware how its force is wasted by diffusion: it is like a volatile +essence in a bottle without a cork. When, on the other hand, it is +concentrated--you may call it 'narrowed' if you please--there is hardly +anything within its own sphere of action of which it is not capable. So +many high motives (though also some mean ones) prompt us to make broad +the bases of education, that any proposal to contract them must needs be +thankless and unpopular; but it is certain that, among the upper classes +at least, the reason why so many men are unable to make their way in the +world, is because, thanks to a too liberal education, they are Jacks of +all trades and masters of none; and even as Jacks they cut a very poor +figure. + +How large and varied is the educational bill of fare set before every +young gentleman in Great Britain; and to judge by the mental stamina it +affords him in most cases, what a waste of good food it is! The dishes +are so numerous and so quickly changed, that he has no time to decide on +which he likes best. Like an industrious flea, rather than a bee, he +hops from flower to flower in the educational garden, without one +penny-worth of honey to show for it. And then--though I feel how +degrading it is to allude to so vulgar a matter--how high is the price +of admission to the feast in question! Its purveyors do not pretend to +have filled his stomach, but only to have put him in the way of filling +it for himself, whereas, unhappily, Paterfamilias discovers that that is +the very thing that they have not done. His young Hopeful at twenty-one +is almost as unable to run alone as when he first entered the nursery. +To discourse airily upon the beauties of classical education, and on the +social advantages of acquiring 'the tone' at a public school at whatever +cost, is an agreeable exercise of the intelligence; but such arguments +have been taken too seriously, and the result is that our young +gentlemen are incapable of gaining their own living. It is not only that +'all the gates are thronged with suitors, all the markets overflow,' but +even when the candidates are so fortunate as to attain admittance, they +are still a burden upon their fathers for years, from having had no +especial preparation for the work they have to do. Folks who can afford +to spend L250 a year on their sons at Eton or Harrow, and to add another +fifty or two for their support at the universities, do not feel this; +but those who have done it without affording it--_i.e._, by cutting and +contriving, if not by pinching and saving--feel their position very +bitterly. There are hundreds of clever young men who are now living at +home and doing nothing--or work that pays nothing, and even costs +something for doing it--who might be earning very tolerable incomes by +their pen if they only knew how, and had not wasted their young wits on +Greek plays and Latin verses; nor do I find that the attractions of such +objects of study are permanent, or afford the least solace to these +young gentlemen in their enforced leisure. + +The idea of bringing young people up to Literature is doubtless +calculated to raise the eyebrows almost as much as the suggestion of +bringing them up to the Stage. The notions of Paterfamilias in this +respect are very much what they were fifty years ago. 'What! put my boy +in Grub Street? I would rather see him in his coffin.' In his mind's eye +he beholds Savage on his bunk and Chatterton on his deathbed. He does +not know that there are many hundreds of persons of both sexes who have +found out this vocation for themselves, and are diligently pursuing +it--under circumstances of quite unnecessary difficulty--to their +material advantage. He is unaware that the conditions of literature in +England have been as completely changed within a single generation as +those of locomotion. + +There are, it is true, at present no great prizes in literature such as +are offered by the learned professions, but there are quite as many +small ones--competences; while, on the other hand, it is not so much of +a lottery. It is not necessary to marry an attorney's daughter, or a +bishop's, to get on in it. The calling, as it is termed (I know not why, +for it is often heavy enough), of 'light literature' is in such +contempt, through ignorance on the one hand, and arrogance on the other, +that one is almost afraid in such a connection to speak of merit; yet +merit, or, at all events, aptitude with diligence, is certain of success +in it. A great deal has been said about editors being blind to the worth +of unknown authors; but if so, they must be also blind (and this I have +never heard said of them) to their own interests. It would be just as +reasonable to accuse a recruiting sergeant of passing by the stout +six-feet fellows who wish to enlist with him, and for each of +whom--directly or indirectly--he receives head-money. It is possible, of +course, that one particular sergeant may be drunken, or careless of his +own interests, but in that case the literary recruit has only to apply +next door. The opportunities for action in the field of literature are +now so very numerous that it is impossible that any able volunteer +should be long shut out of it; and I have observed that the complaints +about want of employment come almost solely from those unfit for +service. Nay, in the ranks of the literaryarmy there are very many who +should have been excluded. Few, if any, are there through favour; but +the fact is, the work to be done is so extensive and so varied, that +there is not a sufficiency of good candidates to do it. And of what is +called 'skilled labour' among them there is scarcely any. + +The question 'What can you do?' put by an editor to an aspirant, +generally astonishes him very much. The aspirant is ready to do +anything, he says, which the other will please to suggest. 'But what is +your line in literature? What can you do best--not tragedies in blank +verse, I hope?' Perhaps the aspirant here hangs his head; he _has_ +written tragedies. In which case there is good hope for him, because it +shows a natural bent. But he generally replies that he has written +nothing as yet except that essay on the genius of Cicero (at which the +editor has already shaken his head), and that defence of Mary Queen of +Scots. Or perhaps he has written some translations of Horace, which he +is surprised to find not a novelty; or some considerations upon the +value of a feudal system. At four-and-twenty, in short, he is but an +overgrown schoolboy. He has been taught, indeed, to acquire knowledge of +a certain sort, but not the habit of acquiring; he has been taught to +observe nothing; he is ignorant upon all the subjects that interest his +fellow-creatures, and in his new ambition is like one who endeavours to +attract an audience without having anything to tell them. He knows some +Latin, a little Greek, a very little French, and a very very little of +what are called the English classics. He has read a few recent novels +perhaps, but of modern English literature, and of that (to him at least) +most important branch of it, English journalism, he knows nothing. His +views and opinions are those of a public school, which are by no means +in accordance with those of the great world of readers; or he is full of +the class prejudices imbibed at college. In short, he may be as vigorous +as a Zulu, with the materials of a first-rate soldier in him, but his +arms are only a club and an assegai, and are of no service. Why should +he not be fitted out in early life with literary weapons of precision, +and taught the use of them? + +I say, again, that poor Paterfamilias looking hopelessly about him, like +Quintus Curtius in the riddle, for 'a nice opening for a young man,' is +totally ignorant of the opportunities, if not for fame and fortune, at +least for competency and comfort, that Literature now offers to a clever +lad. He looks round him; he sees the Church leading nowhere, with much +greater certainty of expense than income, and demanding a huge sum for +what is irreverently termed 'gate money;' he sees the Bar, with its high +road leading indeed to the woolsack, but with a hundred by-ways leading +nowhere in particular, and full of turnpikes--legal tutors, legal fees, +rents of chambers, etc.--which he has to defray; he sees Physic, at +which Materfamilias sniffs and turns her nose up. 'Her Jack, with such +agreeable manners, to become a saw-bones! Never!' He sees the army, and +thinks, since Jack has such great abilities, it seems a pity to give him +a red coat, which costs also considerably more than a black one; And how +is Jack to live upon his pay? + +After all, indeed, however prettily one puts it, the question is with +him, not so much '_What_ is my Jack to be?' as '_How_ is my Jack to +live?' To one who has any gift of humour there are few things more +amusing than to observe how this vulgar, but really rather important +inquiry, is ignored by those who take the subject of modern education in +hand. They are chiefly schoolmasters, who are not so deep in their books +but that they can spare a glance or two in the direction of their +banker's account; or fellows of colleges who have no children, and +therefore never feel the difficulties of supporting them. Heaven forbid +that so humble an individual as myself should question their wisdom, or +say anything about them that should seem to smack of irreverence; but I +do believe that (with one or two exceptions I have in my mind) the +system they have introduced among us is the Greatest Humbug in the +universe. In the meantime poor Paterfamilias (who is the last man, they +flatter themselves, to find this out) stands with his hands (and very +little else) in his pockets, regarding his clever offspring, and +wondering what he shall do with him. He remembers to have read about a +man on his deathbed, who calls his children about him and thanks God, +though he has left them nothing to live upon, he has given them a good +education, and tries to extract comfort from the reminiscence. That he +has spent money enough upon Jack's education is certain; something +between two or three thousand pounds in all at least, the interest of +which, it strikes him, would be very convenient just now to keep him. +But unfortunately the principal is gone and Jack isn't. + +Now suppose--for one may suppose anything, however ridiculous--he had +spent two or three hundred pounds at the very most, and brought him up +to the Calling of Literature. He believes, perhaps, that it is only +geniuses that succeed in it (in which case I know more geniuses than I +had any idea of), and he doesn't think Jack a genius, though Jack's +mother does. Or, as is more probable, he regards it as a hand-to-mouth +calling, which to-day gives its disciples a five-pound note, and +to-morrow five pence. He calls to mind a saying about Literature being a +good stick, but not a good crutch--an excellent auxiliary, but no +permanent support; but he forgets the all-important fact that the remark +was made half a century ago. + +Poor blind Paterfamilias--shall I couch you? If the operation is +successful, I am sure you will thank me for it; but, on the other hand, +I foresee I shall incur the greatest enmities. Should I encourage clever +Jack, and, what is worse, a thousand Jacks who are not clever, to enter +upon this vocation, what will editors say to me? I shall have to go +about, perhaps, guarded with two policemen with revolvers, like an Irish +gentleman on his landed estate. 'Is not the flood of rubbish to which we +are already subjected,' I hear them crying, 'bad enough, without your +pulling up the sluices of universal stupidity?' My suggestion, however, +is intended to benefit them by clearing away the rubbish, and inducing a +clearer and deeper stream for the turning of their mills. At the same +time I confess that the lessening of Paterfamilias's difficulties is my +main object. What I would open his eyes to is the fact that a calling, +of the advantages of which he has no knowledge, _does_ present itself to +clever Jack, which will cost him nothing but pens, ink, and paper to +enter upon, and in which, if he has been well trained for it, he will +surely be successful, since so many succeed in it without any training +at all. Why should not clever Jack have this in view as much as the +_ignes fatui_ of woolsacks and mitres? If it has no lord +chancellorships, it has plenty of county court appointments; if it has +no bishoprics, it has plenty of benefices--and really, as times go, some +pretty fat ones. + +On your breakfast-table, good Paterfamilias, there lies, every morning, +a newspaper, and on Saturday perhaps there are two or three. When you go +out in the street, you are pestered to buy half a score more of them. In +your club reading-room there are a hundred different journals. When you +travel by the railway you see at every station a provincial newspaper of +more or less extensive circulation. Has it never struck you that to +supply these publications with their leading articles, there must be an +immense staff of persons called journalists, professing every +description of opinion, and advocating every conceivable policy? And do +you suppose these gentry only get L70 a year for their work, like a +curate; or L60, like a sub-lieutenant; or that they have to pay three +times those sums for the privilege of belonging to the press, as a +barrister does for belonging to his inn? Again, in London at least, +there are as many magazines as newspapers, containing every kind of +literature, the very contributors of which are so numerous, that they +form a public of themselves. That seems at the first blush to militate +against my suggestion, but though contributors are so common, and upon +the whole so good--indeed, considering the conditions under which they +labour, so wonderfully good--they are not (I have heard editors say) so +good as they might be, supposing (for example) they knew a little of +science, history, politics, English literature, and especially of the +art of composition, before they volunteered their services. At present +the ranks of journalistic and periodical literature are largely +recruited from the failures in other professions. The bright young +barrister who can't get a brief takes to literature as a calling, just +as the man who has 'gone a cropper' in the army takes to the wine-trade. +And what aeons of time, and what millions of money, have been wasted in +the meanwhile! + +The announcement written on the gates of all the recognised professions +in England is the same that would-be travellers read on the faces of the +passengers on the underground railway after office hours: 'Our number is +complete, and our room is limited.' In literature, on the contrary, +though its vehicles may seem as tightly packed, substitution can be +effected. There may be persons travelling on that line in the +first-class who ought to be in the third, and indeed have no reasonable +pretext for being there at all. And if clever Jack could show his +ticket, he would turn them out of it. + +Again, so far from the space being limited, it is continually enlarging, +and that out of all proportion to those who have tickets. We hear from +its enemies that the Church is doomed, and from its friends that it is +in danger; there is a small but energetic party who are bent on reducing +the Army, and even on doing away with it; nay, so wicked and +presumptuous has human nature grown, that mutterings are heard and +menaces uttered against the delay and exactions of the Law itself; +whereas Literature has no foes, and is enlarging its boundaries in all +directions. It is all 'a-growing and a-blowing,' as the peripatetic +gardeners say of their plants; but, unlike their wares, it has its roots +deep in the soil and is an evergreen. Its promise is golden, and its +prospects are boundless for every class of writer. + +In some excellent articles on Modern Literature in _Blackwood's +Magazine_ the other day, this subject was touched upon with respect to +fiction, and might well have filled a greater space, for the growth of +that description of literature of late years is simply marvellous. +Curiously enough, though France originated the _feuilleton_, it was from +America and our own colonies that England seems to have taken the idea +of publishing novels in newspapers. It was a common practice in +Australia long before we adopted it; and, what is also curious, it was +first acclimatised among us by our provincial papers. The custom is +rapidly gaining ground in London, but in the country there is now +scarcely any newspaper of repute which does not enlist the aid of +fiction to attract its readers. Many of them are contented with very +poor stuff, for which they pay a proportional price; but others club +together with other newspapers--the operation has even received the +technical term of 'forming a syndicate'--and are thereby enabled to +secure the services of popular authors; while the newspapers thus +arranged for are published at a good distance from one another, so as +not to interfere with each other's circulation. Country journals, which +are not so ambitious, instead of using an inferior article, will often +purchase the 'serial right,' as it is called, of stories which have +already appeared elsewhere, or have passed through the circulating +libraries. Nay, the novelist who has established a reputation has many +more strings to his bow: his novel, thus published in the country +newspapers, also appears coincidently in the same serial shape in +Australia, Canada, and other British colonies, leaving the three-volume +form and the cheap editions 'to the good.' And what is true of fiction +is in a less degree true of other kinds of literature. Travels are +'gutted,' and form articles in magazines, illustrated by the original +plates; lectures, after having served their primary purpose, are +published in a similar manner; even scientific works now appear first in +the magazines which are devoted to science before performing their +mission of 'popularising' their subject. + +When speaking of the growth of readers, I have purposely not mentioned +America. For the present the absence of copyright there is destroying +both author and publisher; but the wheels of justice, though tardy, are +making way there. In a few years that great continent of readers will be +legitimately added to the audience of the English author, and those that +have stolen will steal no more. + +Nor, in our own country, must we fail to take notice of the +establishment of School Boards. A generation hence we shall have a +reading public almost as numerous as in America; even the very lowest +classes will have acquired a certain culture which will beget demands +both for journalists and 'literary persons.' The harvest will be +plenteous indeed, but unless my advice be followed in some shape or +another, the labourers will be comparatively few and superlatively +inadequate. + +I am well aware how mischievous, as well as troublesome, would be the +encouragement of mediocrity; and in stating these promising facts I have +no such purpose in my mind. On the contrary, there is an immense amount +of mediocrity already in literature, which I think my proposition of +training up 'clever Jack' to that calling would discourage. I have no +expectation of establishing a manufactory for genius--and indeed, for +reasons it is not necessary to specify, I would not do it if I could. +But whereas all kinds of 'culture' have been recommended to the youth of +Great Britain (and certainly with no limit as to the expense of +acquisition), the cultivation of such natural faculties as imagination +and humour (for example) has never been suggested. The possibility of +such a thing will doubtless be denied. I am quite certain, however, that +they are capable of great development, and that they may be brought to +attain, if not perfection, at all events a high degree of excellence. +The proof, to those who choose to look for it, is plain enough even as +matters stand. Use and opportunity are already producing scores of +examples of it; if supplemented by early education they might surely +produce still more. + +There is so great and general a prejudice against special studies, that +I must humbly conclude there is something in it. On the other hand, I +know a large number of highly--that is broadly--educated persons, who +are desperately dull. 'But would they have been less dull,' it may be +asked, 'if they were also ignorant?' Yes, I believe they would. They +have swallowed too much for digestions naturally weak; they have become +inert, conceited, oppressive to themselves and others--Prigs. And I +think that even clever young people suffer in a less degree from the +same cause. Some one has written, 'Information is always useful.' This +reminds me of the married lady, fond of bargains, who once bought a +door-plate at a sale with 'Mr. Wilkins' on it. Her own name was Jones, +but the doorplate was very cheap, and her husband, she argued, _might_ +die, and then she might marry a man of the name of Wilkins. 'Depend upon +it, everything comes in useful,' she said, 'if you only keep it long +enough.' + +This is what I venture to doubt. I have myself purchased several +door-plates (quite as burthensome, but not so cheap as that good +lady's), which have been of no sort of use to me, and are still on hand. + + + + +_STORY-TELLING._ + + +The most popular of English authors has given us an account of what +within his experience (and it was a large one) was the impression among +the public at large of the manner in which his work was done. They +pictured him, he says, + + as a radiant personage whose whole time is devoted to idleness and + pastime; who keeps a prolific mind in a sort of corn-sieve and lightly + shakes a bushel of it out sometimes in an odd half-hour after + breakfast. It would amaze their incredulity beyond all measure to + be told that such elements as patience, study, punctuality, + determination, self-denial, training of mind and body, hours of + application and seclusion to produce what they read in seconds, + enter in such a career ... correction and recorrection in the blotted + manuscript; consideration; new observations; the patient massing of + many reflections, experiences, and imaginings for one minute purpose; + and the patient separation from the heap of all the fragments that + will unite to serve it--these would be unicorns and griffins to + them--fables altogether. + +And as it was, a quarter of a century ago, when those words were +written, so it is now: the phrase of 'light literature' as applied to +fiction having once been invented, has stuck, with a vengeance, to those +who profess it. + +Yet to 'make the thing that is not as the thing that is' is not (though +it may seem to be the same thing) so easy as lying. + +Among a host of letters received in connection with an article published +in the _Nineteenth Century_, entitled 'The Literary Calling and its +Future,' and which testify in a remarkable manner to the pressing need +(therein alluded to) of some remunerative vocation among the so-called +educated classes, there are many which are obviously written under the +impression that Dogberry's view of writing coming 'by nature' is +especially true of the writing of fiction. Because I ventured to hint +that the study of Greek was not essential to the calling of a +story-teller, or of a contributor to the periodicals, or even of a +journalist, these gentlemen seem to jump to the conclusion that the less +they know of anything the better. Nay, some of them, discarding all +theories (in the fashion that Mr. Carlyle's heroes are wont to discard +all formulas), proceed to the practical with quite an indecent rapidity; +they treat my modest hints for their instruction as so much verbiage, +and myself as a mere convenient channel for the publication of their +lucubrations. 'You talk of a genuine literary talent being always +appreciated by editors,' they write (if not in so many words by +implication); 'well, here is an admirable specimen of it (enclosed), and +if your remarks are worth a farthing you will get it published for us, +somewhere or another, _instanter_, and hand us over the cheque for it. +Nor are even these the most unreasonable of my correspondents; for a +few, with many acknowledgments for my kindness in having provided a +lucrative profession for them, announce their intention of throwing up +their present less congenial callings, and coming up to London (one very +literally from the Land's End) to live upon it, or, that failing (as +there is considerable reason to expect it will), upon _me_. + +With some of these correspondents, however, it is impossible +(independent of their needs) not to feel an earnest sympathy; they have +evidently not only aspirations, but considerable mental gifts, though +these have unhappily been cultivated to such little purpose for the +object they have in view that they might almost as well have been left +untilled. In spite of what I ventured to urge respecting the advantage +of knowing 'science, history, politics, English literature, and the art +of composition,' they 'don't see why' they shouldn't get on without +them. Especially with those who aspire to write fiction (which, by its +intrinsic attractiveness no less than by the promise it affords of +golden grain, tempts the majority), it is quite pitiful to note how they +cling to that notion of 'the corn-sieve,' and cannot be persuaded that +story-telling requires an apprenticeship like any other calling. They +flatter themselves that they can weave plots as the spider spins his +thread from (what let us delicately term) his inner consciousness, and +fondly hope that intuition will supply the place of experience. Some of +them, with a simplicity that recalls the days of Dick Whittington, think +that 'coming up to London' is the essential step to this line of +business, as though the provinces contained no fellow-creatures worthy +to be depicted by their pen, or as though, in the metropolis, Society +would at once exhibit itself to them without concealment, as fashionable +beauties bare themselves to the photographers. + +This is, of course, the laughable side of the affair, but, to me at +least, it has also a serious one; for, to my considerable embarrassment +and distress, I find that my well-meaning attempt to point out the +advantages of literature as a profession has received a much too free +translation, and implanted in many minds hopes that are not only +sanguine but Utopian. + +For what was written in the essay alluded to I have nothing to reproach +myself with, for I told no more than the truth. Nor does the +unsettlement of certain young gentleman's futures (since by their own +showing they were to the last degree unstable to begin with) affect me +so much as their parents and guardians appear to expect; but I am sorry +to have shaken however undesignedly, the 'pillars of domestic peace' in +any case, and desirous to make all the reparation in my power. I regret +most heartily that I am unable to place all literary aspirants in places +of emolument and permanency out of hand; but really (with the exception +perhaps of the Universal Provider in Westbourne Grove) this is hardly to +be expected of any man. The gentleman who raised the devil, and was +compelled to furnish occupation for him, affords in fact the only +appropriate parallel to my unhappy case. 'If you can do nothing to +provide my son with another place,' writes one indignant Paterfamilias, +'at least you owe it to him' (as if I, and not Nature herself, had made +the lad dissatisfied with his high stool in a solicitor's office!) 'to +give him some practical hints by which he may become a successful writer +of fiction.' + +One would really think that this individual imagined story-telling to be +a sort of sleight-of-hand trick, and that all that is necessary to the +attainment of the art is to learn 'how it's done.' I should not like to +say that I have known any members of my own profession who are 'no +conjurors,' but it is certainly not by conjuring that they have +succeeded in it. + +'You talk of the art of composition,' writes, on the other hand, another +angry correspondent, 'as though it were one of the exact sciences; you +might just as well advise your "clever Jack" to study the art of playing +the violin.' So that one portion of the public appears to consider the +calling of literature mechanical, while another holds it to be a soft of +divine instinct! + +Since the interest in this subject proves to be so wide-spread, I trust +it will not be thought presumptuous in me to offer my own humble +experience in this matter for what it is worth. To the public at large a +card of admission to my poor manufactory of fiction--a 'very one-horse +affair,' as an American gentleman, with whom I had a little difficulty +concerning copyright, once described it--may not afford the same +satisfaction as a ticket for the private view of the Royal Academy; but +the stings of conscience urge me to make to Paterfamilias what amends in +the way of 'practical hints' lie in my power, for the wrong I have done +to his offspring; and I therefore venture to address to those whom it +may concern, and to those only, a few words on the Art of Story-telling. + +The chief essential for this line of business, yet one that is much +disregarded by many young writers, is the having a story to tell. It is +a common supposition that the story will come if you only sit down with +a pen in your hand and wait long enough--a parallel case to that which +assigns one cow's tail as the measure of distance between this planet +and the moon. It is no use 'throwing off' a few brilliant ideas at the +commencement, if they are only to be 'passages that lead to nothing;' +you must have distinctly in your mind at first what you intend to say at +last. 'Let it be granted,' says a great writer (though not one +distinguished in fiction), 'that a straight line be drawn from any one +point to any other point;' only you must have the 'other point' to begin +with, or you can't draw the line. So far from being 'straight,' it goes +wabbling aimlessly about like a wire fastened at one end and not at the +other, which may dazzle, but cannot sustain; or rather what it does +sustain is so exceedingly minute, that it reminds one of the minnow +which the inexperienced angler flatters himself he has caught, but which +the fisherman has in fact previously put on his hook for bait. + +This class of writer is not altogether unconscious of the absence of +dramatic interest in his composition. He writes to his editor (I have +read a thousand such letters): 'It has been my aim, in the enclosed +contribution, to steer clear of the faults of the sensational school of +fiction, and I have designedly abstained from stimulating the +unwholesome taste for excitement.' In which high moral purpose he has +undoubtedly succeeded; but, unhappily, in nothing else. It is quite true +that some writers of fiction neglect 'story' almost entirely, but then +they are perhaps the greatest writers of all. Their genius is so +transcendent that they can afford to dispense with 'plot;' their humour, +their pathos, and their delineation of human nature are amply +sufficient, without any such meretricious attraction; whereas our too +ambitious young friend is in the position of the needy knife-grinder, +who has not only no story to tell, but in lieu of it only holds up his +coat and breeches 'torn in the scuffle'--the evidence of his desperate +and ineffectual struggles with literary composition. I have known such +an aspirant to instance Miss Gaskell's 'Cranford' as a parallel to the +backboneless flesh-and-bloodless creation of his own immature fancy, and +to recommend the acceptance of the latter upon the ground of their +common rejection of startling plot and dramatic situation. The two +compositions have certainly _that_ in common; and the flawless diamond +has some things, such as mere sharpness and smoothness, in common with +the broken beer-bottle. + +Many young authors of the class I have in my mind, while more modest as +respects their own merits, are even still less so as regards their +expectations from others. 'If you will kindly furnish me with a +subject,' so runs a letter now before me, 'I am sure I could do very +well; my difficulty is that I never can think of anything to write +about. Would you be so good as to oblige me with a plot for a novel?' It +would have been infinitely more reasonable of course, and much cheaper, +for me to grant it, if the applicant had made a request for my watch and +chain;[6] but the marvel is that folks should feel any attraction +towards a calling for which Nature has denied them even the raw +materials. It is true that there are some great talkers who have +manifestly nothing to say, but they don't ask their hearers to supply +them with a topic of conversation in order to be set agoing. + + [6] To compare small things with great, I remember Sir Walter + Scott being thus applied to for some philanthropic object. + 'Money,' said the applicant, who had some part proprietorship in a + literary miscellany, 'I don't ask for, since I know you have many + claims upon your purse; but would you write us a little paper + gratuitously for the "Keepsake"?' + +'My great difficulty,' the would-be writer of fiction often says, 'is +how to begin;' whereas in fact the difficulty arises rather from his not +knowing how to end. Before undertaking the management of a train, +however short, it is absolutely necessary to know its destination. +Nothing is more common than to hear it said that an author 'does not +know where to stop;' but how much more deplorable is the position of the +passengers when there is no terminus whatsoever! They feel their +carriage 'slowing,' and put their heads expectantly out of window, but +there is no platform--no station. When they took their tickets, they +understood that they were 'booked through' to the _denouement_, and +certainly had no idea of having been brought so far merely to admire the +scenery, for which only a very few care the least about. + +As a rule, anyone who can tell a good story can write one, so there +really need be no mistake about his qualification; such a man will be +careful not to be wearisome, and to keep his point, or his catastrophe, +well in hand. Only, in writing, there is necessarily greater art. +_There_ expansion is of course absolutely necessary; but this is not to +be done, like spreading gold leaf, by flattening out good material. +_That_ is 'padding,' a device as dangerous as it is unworthy; it is much +better to make your story a pollard--to cut it down to a mere +anecdote--than to get it lost in a forest of verbiage. No line of it, +however seemingly discursive, should be aimless, but should have some +relation to the matter in hand; and if you find the story interesting to +yourself notwithstanding that you know the end of it, it will certainly +interest the reader. + +The manner in which a good story grows under the hand is so remarkable, +that no tropic vegetation can show the like of it. For, consider, when +you have got your germ--the mere idea, not half a dozen lines +perhaps--which is to form your plot, how small a thing it is compared +with, say, the thousand pages which it has to occupy in the three-volume +novel! Yet to the story-teller the germ is everything. When I was a very +young man--a quarter of a century ago, alas!--and had very little +experience in these matters, I was reading on a coachbox (for I read +everywhere in those days) an account of some gigantic trees; one of them +was described as sound outside, but within, for many feet, a mass of +rottenness and decay. If a boy should climb up birdsnesting into the +fork of it, thought I, he might go down feet first and hands overhead, +and never be heard of again. How inexplicable too, as well as +melancholy, such a disappearance would be! Then, 'as when a great +thought strikes along the brain and flushes all the cheek,' it struck me +what an appropriate end it would be--with fear (lest he should turn up +again) instead of hope for the fulcrum to move the reader--for a bad +character of a novel. Before I had left the coachbox I had thought out +'Lost Sir Massingberd.' + +The character was drawn from life, but unfortunately from hearsay; he +had flourished--to the great terror of his neighbours--two generations +before me, so that I had to be indebted to others for his portraiture, +which was a great disadvantage. It was necessary that the lost man +should be an immense scoundrel to prevent pity being excited by the +catastrophe, and at that time I did not know any very wicked people. The +book was a successful one, but it needs no critic to point out how much +better the story might have been told. The interest in the gentleman, +buried upright in his oak coffin, is inartistically weakened by other +sources of excitement; like an extravagant cook, the young author is apt +to be too lavish with his materials, and in after days, when the larder +is more difficult to fill, he bitterly regrets it. The representation of +a past time I also found it very difficult to compass, and I am +convinced that for any writer to attempt such a thing, when he can avoid +it, is an error in judgment. The author who undertakes to resuscitate +and clothe with flesh and blood the dry bones of his ancestors, has +indeed this advantage, that, however unlifelike his characters may be, +there is no one in a position to prove it; it is not 'a difference of +opinion between himself and twelve of his fellow-countrymen,' or a +matter on which he can be condemned by overwhelming evidence; but, on +the other hand, he creates for himself unnecessary difficulties. I will +add, for the benefit of those literary aspirants to whom these remarks +are especially addressed--a circumstance which, I hope, will be taken as +an excuse for the writing of my own affairs at all, which would +otherwise be an unpardonable presumption--that these difficulties are +not the worst of it; for when the novel founded on the Past has been +written, it will not be read by a tenth of those who would read it if it +were a novel of the Present. + +Even at the date I speak of, however, I was not so young as to attempt +to create the characters of a story out of my own imagination, and I +believe that the whole of its _dramatis personae_ (except the chief +personage) were taken from the circle of my own acquaintance. This is a +matter, by-the-bye, on which considerable judgment and good taste have +to be exercised; for if the likeness of the person depicted is +recognisable by his friends (he never recognises it by any chance +himself), or still more by his enemies, it is no longer a sketch from +life, but a lampoon. It will naturally be asked by some: 'But if you +draw the man to the life, how can he fail to be known?' For this there +is the simplest remedy. You describe his character, but under another +skin; if he is tall you make him short, if dark, fair; or you make such +alterations in his circumstances as shall prevent identification, while +retaining them to a sufficient extent to influence his behaviour. In the +framework which most (though not all) skilled workmen draw of their +stories before they begin to furnish them with so much even as a +door-mat, the real name of each individual to be described should be +placed (as a mere aid to memory) by the side of that under which he +appears in the drama; and I would strongly recommend the builder to +write his real names in cipher; for I have known at least one instance +in which the entire list of the _dramatis personae_ of a novel was +carried off by a person more curious than conscientious, and afterwards +revealed to those concerned--a circumstance which, though it increased +the circulation of the story, did not add to the personal popularity of +the author. + +If a story-teller is prolific, the danger of his characters coinciding +with those of people in real life who are unknown to him is much greater +than would be imagined; the mere similarity of name may of course be +disregarded; but when in addition to that there is also a resemblance of +circumstance, it is difficult to persuade the man of flesh and blood +that his portrait is an undesigned one. The author of 'Vanity Fair' +fell, in at least one instance, into a most unfortunate mistake of this +kind; while a not less popular author even gave his hero the same name +and place in the Ministry which were (subsequently) possessed by a +living politician. + +It is better, however, for his own reputation that the story-teller +should risk a few actions for libel on account of these unfortunate +coincidences than that he should adopt the melancholy device of using +blanks or asterisks. With the minor novelists of a quarter of a century +ago it was quite common to introduce their characters as Mr. A and Mr. +B, and very difficult their readers found it to interest themselves in +the fortunes and misfortunes of an initial: + + It was in the summer of the year 18--, and the sun was setting behind + the low western hills beneath which stands the town of C; its dying + gleams glistened on the weather-cock of the little church, beneath + whose tower two figures were standing, so deep in shadow that little + more could be made out concerning them save that they were young + persons of the opposite sex. The elder and taller, however, was the + fascinating Lord B; the younger (presenting a strong contrast to her + companion in social position, but yet belonging to the true nobility + of nature) was no other than the beautiful Patty G, the cobbler's + daughter. + +This style of narrative should be avoided. + +Another difficulty of the story-teller, and one unhappily in which no +advice can be of much service to him, is how to describe the lapse of +time and of locomotion. To the dramatist nothing is easier than to print +in the middle of his playbill, 'Forty years are here supposed to have +elapsed;' or 'Scene I.: A drawing-room in Mayfair; Scene II.: +Greenland.' But the story-teller has to describe how these little +changes are effected, without being able to take his readers into his +confidence.[7] He can't say, 'Gentle reader, please to imagine that the +winter is over, and the summer has come round since the conclusion of +our last chapter.' Curiously enough, however, the lapse of years is far +easier to suggest than that of hours; and locomotion from Islington to +India than the act, for instance, of leaving the room. If passion enters +into the scene, and your heroine can be represented as banging the door +behind her, and bringing down the plaster from the ceiling, the thing is +easy enough, and may be even made a dramatic incident; but to describe, +without baldness, Jones rising from the tea-table and taking his +departure in cold blood, is a much more difficult business than you may +imagine. When John the footman has to enter and interrupt a conversation +on the stage, the audience see him come and go, and think nothing of it; +but to inform the reader of your novel of a similar incident--and +especially of John's going--without spoiling the whole scene by the +introduction of the commonplace, requires (let me tell you) the touch of +a master. + + [7] That last, indeed, is a thing which, with all deference to + some great names in fiction, should in my judgment never be done. + It is hard enough for him as it is to simulate real life, without + the poor showman's reaching out from behind the curtain to shake + hands with his audience. + +When you have got the outline of your plot, and the characters that seem +appropriate to play in it, you turn to that so-called 'commonplace +book,' in which, if you know your trade, you will have set down anything +noteworthy and illustrative of human nature that has come under your +notice, and single out such instances as are most fitting; and finally +you will select your scene (or the opening one) in which your drama is +to be played. And here I may say, that while it is indispensable that +the persons represented should be familiar to you, it is not necessary +that the places should be; you should have visited them, of course, in +person, but it is my experience that for a description of the salient +features of any locality the less you stay there the better. The man who +has lived in Switzerland all his life can never describe it (to the +outsider) so graphically as the (intelligent) tourist; just as the man +who has science at his fingers' ends does not succeed so well as the man +with whom science has not yet become second nature, in making an +abstruse subject popular. + +Nor is it to be supposed that a story with very accurate local colouring +cannot be written, the scenes of which are placed in a country which the +writer has never beheld. This requires, of course, both study and +judgment, but it can be done so as to deceive, if not the native, at +least the Englishman who has himself resided there. I never yet knew an +Australian who could be persuaded that the author of 'Never Too Late to +Mend' had not visited the underworld, or a sailor that he who wrote +'Hard Cash' had never been to sea. The fact is, information, concerning +which dull folks make so much fuss, can be attained by anybody who +chooses to spend his time that way; and by persons of intelligence (who +are not so solicitous to know how blacking is made) can be turned, in a +manner not dreamt of by cram-coaches, to really good account. + +The general impression perhaps conveyed by the above remarks will be +that to those who go to work in the manner described--for many writers +of course have quite other processes--story-telling must be a mechanical +trade. Yet nothing can be farther from the fact. These preliminary +arrangements have the effect of so steeping the mind in the subject in +hand, that when the author begins his work he is already in a world +apart from his everyday one; the characters of his story people it; and +the events that occur to them are as material, so far as the writer is +concerned, as though they happened under his roof. Indeed, it is a +question for the metaphysician whether the professional story-teller has +not a shorter lease of life than his fellow-creatures, since, in +addition to his hours of sleep (of which he ought by rights to have much +more than the usual proportion), he passes a large part of his sentient +being outside the pale of ordinary existence. The reference to sleep 'by +rights' may possibly suggest to the profane that the storyteller has a +claim to it on the ground of having induced slumber in his +fellow-creatures; but my meaning is that the mental wear and tear caused +by work of this kind is infinitely greater than that produced by mere +application even to abstruse studies (as any doctor will witness), and +requires a proportionate degree of recuperation. + +I do not pretend to quote the experience (any more than the mode of +composition) of other writers--though with that of most of my brethren +and superiors in the craft I am well acquainted--but I am convinced that +to work the brain at night in the way of imagination is little short of +an act of suicide. Dr. Treichler's recent warnings upon this subject are +startling enough, even as addressed to students, but in their +application to poets and novelists they have far greater significance. +It may be said that journalists (whose writings, it is whispered, have a +close connection with fiction) always write in the 'small hours,' but +their mode of life is more or less shaped to meet their exceptional +requirements; whereas we storytellers live like other people (only more +purely), and if we consume the midnight oil, use perforce another system +of illumination also--we burn the candle at both ends. A great novelist +who adopted this baneful practice and indirectly lost his life by it +(through insomnia) notes what is very curious, that notwithstanding his +mind was so occupied, when awake, with the creatures of his imagination, +he never dreamt of them; which I think is also the general experience. +But he does not tell us for how many hours _before_ he went to sleep, +and tossed upon his restless pillow till far into the morning, he was +unable to get rid of those whom his enchanter's wand had summoned.[8] +What is even more curious than the story-teller's never dreaming of the +shadowy beings who engross so much of his thoughts, is that (so far as +my own experience goes at least) when a story is once written and done +with, no matter how forcibly it may have interested and excited the +writer during its progress, it fades almost instantly from the mind, and +leaves, by some benevolent arrangement of nature, a _tabula rasa_--a +blank space for the next one. Everyone must recollect that anecdote of +Walter Scott, who, on hearing one of his own poems ('My hawk is tired of +perch and hood') sung in a London drawing-room, observed with innocent +approbation, 'Byron's, of course;' and so it is with us lesser folks. A +very humorous sketch might be given (and it would not be overdrawn) of +some prolific novelist getting hold, under some strange roof, of the +'library edition' of his own stories, and perusing them with great +satisfaction and many appreciative ejaculations, such as 'Now this _is_ +good;' 'I wonder how it will end;' or 'George Eliot's, _of course_! + + [8] Speaking of dreams, the composition of Khubla Khan and of one + or two other literary fragments during sleep has led to the belief + that dreams are often useful to the writer of fiction; but in my + own case, at least, I can recall but a single instance of it, nor + have I ever heard of their doing one pennyworth of good to any of + my contemporaries. + +Although a good allowance of sleep is absolutely necessary for +imaginative brain work, long holidays are not so. I have noticed that +those who let their brains 'lie fallow,' as it is termed, for any +considerable time, are by no means the better for it; but, on the other +hand, some daily recreation, by which a genuine interest is excited and +maintained, is almost indispensable. It is no use to 'take up a book,' +and far less to attempt 'to refresh the machine,' as poor Sir Walter +did, by trying another kind of composition; what is needed is an +altogether new object for the intellectual energies, by which, though +they are stimulated, they shall not be strained. + +Advice such as I have ventured to offer may seem 'to the general' of +small importance, but to those I am especially addressing it is worthy +of their attention, if only as the result of a personal experience +unusually prolonged; and I have nothing unfortunately but advice to +offer. To the question addressed to me with such _naivete_ by so many +correspondents, 'How do you make your plots?' (as if they were +consulting the Cook's Oracle), I can return no answer. I don't know, +myself; they are sometimes suggested by what I hear or read, but more +commonly they suggest themselves unsought. + +I once heard two popular story-tellers, A who writes seldom, but with +much ingenuity of construction, and B who is very prolific in pictures +of everyday life, discoursing on this subject. + +'Your fecundity,' said A, 'astounds me; I can't think where you get your +plots from.' + +'Plots?' replied B; 'oh! I don't trouble myself about _them_. To tell +you the truth, I generally take a bit of one of yours, which is amply +sufficient for my purpose.' + +This was very wrong of B; and it is needless to say I do not quote his +system for imitation. A man should tell his own story without +plagiarism. As to Truth being stranger than Fiction, that is all +nonsense; it is a proverb set about by Nature to conceal her own want of +originality. I am not like that pessimist philosopher who assumed her +malignity from the fact of the obliquity of the ecliptic; but the truth +is, Nature is a pirate. She has not hesitated to plagiarise from even so +humble an individual as myself. Years after I had placed my wicked +baronet in his living tomb, she starved to death a hunter in Mexico +under precisely similar circumstances; and so late as last month she has +done the same in a forest in Styria. Nay, on my having found occasion in +a certain story ('a small thing, but my own') to get rid of the whole +wicked population of an island by suddenly submerging it in the sea, +what did Nature do? She waited for an insultingly short time (if her +idea was that the story would be forgotten), and then reproduced the +same circumstances on her own account (and without the least +acknowledgment) in the Indian seas. My attention was drawn to both these +breaches of copyright by several correspondents, but I had no redress, +the offender being beyond the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery. + +When the story-teller has finished his task and surmounted every +obstacle to his own satisfaction, he has still a difficulty to face in +the choice of a title. He may invent indeed an eminently appropriate +one, but it is by no means certain he will be allowed to keep it. Of +course he has done his best to steer clear of that borne by any other +novel; but among the thousands that have been brought out within the +last forty years, and which have been forgotten even if they were ever +known, how can he know whether the same name has not been hit upon? He +goes to Stationers' Hall to make inquiries; but--mark the usefulness of +that institution--he finds that books are only entered there under their +authors' names. His search is therefore necessarily futile, and he has +to publish his story under the apprehension (only too well founded, as I +have good cause to know) that the High Court of Chancery will prohibit +its sale upon the ground of infringement of title. + + + + +_PENNY FICTION._ + + +It is now nearly a quarter of a century ago since a popular novelist +revealed to the world in a well-known periodical the existence of the +'Unknown Public;' and a very curious revelation it was. He showed us +that the few thousands of persons who had hitherto imagined themselves +to be the public--so far, at least, as their being the arbiters of +popularity in respect to writers of fiction was concerned--were in fact +nothing of the kind; that the subscribers to the circulating libraries, +the members of book clubs, the purchasers of magazines and railway +novels, might indeed have their favourites, but that these last were +'nowhere,' as respected the number of their backers, in comparison with +novelists whose names and works appear in penny journals and nowhere +else. + +This class of literature was of considerable dimensions even in the days +when Mr. Wilkie Collins first called attention to it; but the luxuriance +of its growth has since become tropical. His observations are drawn from +some half a dozen specimens of it only, whereas I now hold in my +hand--or rather in both hands--nearly half a hundred of them. The +population of readers must be dense indeed in more than one sense that +can support such a crop. + +Doubtless the individual circulation of none of these serials is equal +to that of the most successful of them at the date of their first +discovery; but those who read them must, from various causes, of which +the most obvious is the least important, have trebled in number. +Population, that is to say, has increased in very small proportion as +compared with the increase of those who very literally run and read--the +peripatetic students, who study on their way to work or even as they +work, including, I am sorry to say, the telegraph boy on his errand. + +Nevertheless, notwithstanding its gigantic dimensions, the Unknown +Public remains practically as unknown as ever. The literary wares that +find such favour with it do not meet the eye of the ordinary observer. +They are to be found neither at the bookseller's nor on the railway +stall. But in back streets, in small dark shops, in the company of cheap +tobacco, hardbake (and, at the proper season, valentines), their leaves +lie thick as those in Vallombrosa. Early in the week is their +springtime, when they are put forth from Heaven knows what +printing-houses in courts and alleys, to lie for a few days only on the +counter in huge piles. On Saturdays, albeit that is their nominal +publishing day, they have for the most part disappeared. For this sort +of literature has one decidedly advanced feature, and possesses one +virtue of endurance--it comes out ever so long before the date it bears +upon its title-page, and 'when the world shall have passed away' will, +by a few days at least, if faith is to be placed in figures, survive it. + +Why it should have any date at all no man can tell. There is nothing in +the contents that is peculiar to one year--or, to say truth, of one +era--rather than another. As a rule, indeed, time and space are alike +annihilated in them, in order to make two lovers happy. The general +terms in which they are written is one of their peculiar features. One +would think that, instead of being as unlike real life as stories +professing to deal with it can be, they were photographs of it, and that +the writers, as in the following instance, had always the fear of the +law of libel before their eyes: + + We must now request our readers to accompany us into an obscure _cul + de sac_ opening into a narrow street branching off Holborn. For many + reasons we do not choose to be more precise as to locality. + +Of course in this _cul de sac_ is a Private Inquiry Office, with a +detective in it. But in defining even him the novelist gives himself no +trouble to arouse excitement in his readers: they have paid their penny +for the history of this interesting person, and, that being done, they +may read about him or not, as they please. One would really think that +the author of the story was also the proprietor of the periodical. + + Those who desire (he says) to make the acquaintance of this somewhat + remarkable person have only to step with us into the little dusky room + where he is seated, and we shall have much pleasure in introducing + him to their notice. + +--A sentence which has certainly the air of saying, 'You may be +introduced to him, or you may let it alone.' + +The coolness with which everything is said and done in penny fiction is +indeed most remarkable, and should greatly recommend it to that +respectable class who have a horror of 'sensation.' In a story, for +example, that purports to describe University life (and is as much like +it as the camel produced from the German professor's self-consciousness +must have been to a real camel) there is an underplot of an amazing +kind. The wicked undergraduate, notwithstanding that he has the +advantage of being a baronet, is foiled in his attempt to win the +affections of a young woman in humble life, and the virtuous hero of +the story recommends her to the consideration of his negro servant: + + 'Talk to her, Monday,' whispered Jack, 'and see if she loves you.' + + For a short time Monday and Ada were in close conversation. + + Then Monday uttered a cry like a war-whoop. + + 'It am come all right, sare. Missy Ada says she not really care for + Sir Sydney, and she will be my little wife,' he said. + + 'I congratulate you, Monday,' answered Jack. + + In half an hour more they arrived at the house of John Radford, + plumber and glazier, who was Ada's father. + + Mr. and Mrs. Radford and their two sons received their daughter and + her companions with that unstudied civility which contrasts so + favourably with the stuck-up ceremony of many in a higher position. + They were not prejudiced against Monday on account of his dark skin. + + It was enough for them that he was the man of Ada's choice. + + Mrs. Radford even went so far as to say, 'Well, for a coloured + gentleman, he is very handsome and quite nice mannered, though I think + Ada's been a little sly in telling us nothing about her engagement to + the last.' + + They did not know all. + + Nor was it advisable that they should. + +Still they knew something--for example, that their new son-in-law was a +black man, which one would have thought might have struck them as +phenomenal. They take it, however, quite quietly and as a matter of +course. Now, surely, even among plumbers and glaziers, it must be +thought as strange for one's daughter to marry a black man as a lord. +Yet, out of this dramatic situation the author makes nothing at all, but +treats it as coolly as his _dramatis personae_ do themselves. Now _my_ +notion would have been to make the bridegroom a black lord, and then to +portray, with admirable skill, the conflicting emotions of his +mother-in-law, disgusted on the one hand by his colour, attracted on the +other by his rank. But 'sensation' is evidently out of the line of the +penny novelist: he gives his facts, which are certainly remarkable, then +leaves both his characters and his readers to draw their own +conclusions. + +The total absence of local scenery from these half hundred romances is +also curious, and becomes so very marked when the novelists are so +imprudent as to take their _dramatis personae_ out of England, that one +can't help wondering whether these gentlemen have ever been in foreign +parts themselves, or even read about them. Here is the conclusion of a +romance which leaves nothing to be desired in the way of brevity, but is +unquestionably a little abrupt and vague: + + A year has passed away, and we are far from England and the English + climate. + +Whither 'we' have gone the author does not say, nor even indicate the +hemisphere. It will be imagined, perhaps, that we shall find out where +we are by the indication of the flora and fauna. + + A lady and gentleman before the dawn of day have been climbing up an + arid road in the direction of a dark ridge. + +Observe, again, the ingenious vagueness of the description: an 'arid +road' which may mean Siberia, and a 'dark ridge' which may mean the +Himalayas. + + The dawn suddenly comes upon them in all its glory. Birds twittered in + their willow gorges, and it was a very glorious day. Arthur and Emily + had passed the night at the ranche, and he had now taken her up to + look at the mine which at all events had introduced them. He had + previously taken her to see his mother's grave, the mother whom he had + so loved. The mine after some delay proved more prosperous than ever. + It was not sold, but is the 'appanage' of the younger sons of the + house of Dacres. + +With the exception of the 'ranche,' it will be remarked that there is +not one word in the foregoing description to fix locality. The mine and +the ranche together seem indeed to suggest South America. But--I ask for +information--do birds twitter there in willow gorges? Younger sons of +noble families proverbially come off second best in this country, but if +one of them found his only 'appanage' was a mine, he would surely with +some justice make a remonstrance. + +The readers of this class of fiction will not have Dumas at any +price--or, at all events, not at a penny. Mr. Collins tells us how +'Monte Christo' was once spread before them, and how they turned from +that gorgeous feast with indifference, and fell back upon their tripe +and onions--their nameless authors. But some of those who write for them +have adopted one peculiarity of Dumas. The short jerky sentences which +disfigure the 'Three Musketeers,' and indeed all that great novelist's +works, are very frequent with them, which induces me to believe that +they are paid by the line. + +On the other hand, some affect fashionable description and conversation +which are drawn out in 'passages that lead to nothing' of an amazing +length. + + 'Where have I been,' replied Clyde with a carelessness which was half + forced 'Oh, I have been over to Higham to see the dame.' + + 'Ah, yes,' said Sir Edward, 'and how is the poor old creature?' + + 'Quite well,' said Clyde, as he sat down and took up the menu of the + elaborate dinner. 'Quite well, she sent her best respects,' he added, + but he said nothing of the lodger, pretty Miss Mary Westlake. + + And when, a moment afterwards, the door opened and Grace came flowing + in with her lithe noiseless step, dressed in one of Worth's + masterpieces, a wonder of amber, satin, and antique lace, he raised + his eyes and looked at her with an earnest scrutiny--so earnest that + she paused with her hand on his chair, and met his eyes with a + questioning glance. + + 'Do you like my new dress?' she said with a calm smile. + + 'Your dress?' he said. 'Yes, yes, it is very pretty, very.' But to + himself he added, 'Yes, they are alike, strangely alike.' + +Which last remark may be applied with justice to the conversations of +all our novelists. There appears no necessity for their commencement, no +reason for their continuance, no object in their conclusion; the reader +finds himself in a forest of verbiage from which he is extricated only +at the end of the chapter, which is always, however, 'to be continued.' + +It is true that these story-tellers for the million generally keep 'a +gallop for the avenue' (an incident of a more or less exciting kind to +finish up with), but it is so brief and unsatisfactory that it hardly +rises to a canter; the author never seems to get into his stride. The +following is a fair example: + + But before we let the curtain fall, we must glance for a moment at + another picture--a sad and painful one. In one of those retreats, + worse than a living tomb, where reside those whose reason is dead, + though their bodies still live, is a small spare cell. The sole + occupant is a woman, young and very beautiful. Sometimes she is quiet + and gentle as a child; sometimes her fits of frenzy are frightful to + witness; but the only word she utters is 'Revenge,' and on her hand + she always wears a plain gold band with a cross of black pearls. + +This conclusion, which I chanced upon before I read the tale which +preceded it, naturally interested me immensely. Here, thought I, is at +last an exciting story; I shall now find one of those literary prizes in +hopes, perhaps, of hitting upon which the penny public endures so many +blanks. I was quite prepared to have my blood curdled; my lips were +ready for a full draught of gore; yet, I give you my word, there was +nothing in the whole story worse than a bankruptcy. + +This is what makes the success of penny fiction so remarkable; there is +nothing whatever in the way of dramatic interest to account for it; nor +of impropriety either. Like the lady friend of Dr. Johnson, who +congratulated him that there were no improper words in his dictionary, +and received from that unconciliatory sage the reply, 'You have been +looking for them, have you?' I have carefully searched my fifty samples +of penny fiction for something wrong, and have not found it. It is as +pure as milk, or, at all events, as milk-and-water. Unlike the Minerva +Press, too, it does not deal with eminent persons: wicked peers are +rare; fraud is usually confined within what may be called its natural +limits--the lawyer's office; the attention paid to the heroines not only +by their heroes, but by their unsuccessful and objectionable rivals, is +generally of the most honourable kind; and platitude and dulness hold +undisputed sway. + +In one or two of these periodicals there is indeed an example of the +mediaeval melodrama; but 'Ralpho the Mysterious' is by no means +thrilling. Indeed, when I remember that 'Ivanhoe' was once published in +a penny journal and proved a total failure, and then contemplate the +popularity of 'Ralpho,' I am more at sea as to what it is that attracts +the million than ever. + + 'Noble youth,' cried the King as he embraced Ralpho, 'to you we must + entrust the training of our cavalry. I hold here the list which has + been made out of the troops which will come at the signal. To certain + of our nobles we have entrusted certain of our _corps d'armee_, but + unto you, Ralpho, we must entrust our horse, for in that service you + can display that wonderful dexterity with the sword which has made + your name so famous.' + + 'Sire,' cried our hero, as he dropped on one knee and took the King's + hand, pressing it to his lips, 'thou hast indeed honoured me by such + a reward, but I cannot accept it.' + + 'How!' cried the King; 'hast thou so soon tired of my service?' + + 'Not so, sire. To serve you I would shed the last drop of my blood. + But if I were to accept this command, I should cease to do the + service for the cause which now it has pleased you to say I have + done. No, sire, let me remain the guardian of my King--his secret + agent. I, with my sword alone, will defend my country and my King.' + + 'Be not rash, Ralpho; already hast thou done more than any man + ever did before. Run no more danger.' + + 'Sire, if I have served you, grant my request. Let it be as I have + said.' + + 'It shall be so, mysterious youth. Thou shalt be my secret agent. + Take this ring, and wear it for my sake; and, hark ye, gentlemen, + when Ralpho shows that ring, obey him as if he were ourselves.' + + 'We will,' cried the nobles. + + Then the King took the Star of St. Stanislaus, and fixed it on our + hero's breast. + +Now, to my mind, though his preferring to be 'a secret agent' to +becoming a generalissimo of the Polish cavalry is as modest as it is +original, Ralpho is too 'goody-goody' to be called 'the Mysterious.' He +reminds me, too, in his way of mixing chivalry with self-interest, of +those enterprising officers in fighting regiments who send in +applications for their own V.C.s while their comrades remain in modest +expectation of them. + +I am inclined to think, however, from the following advertisement, that +some author has been recently piling up the virtues of his hero too +strongly for the very delicate stomachs of the penny public, who, it is +evident, resent superlatives of all kinds, and are commonplace and +conventional to the marrow of their bones: 'T.B. TIMMINS is informed +that he cannot be promised another story like "Mandragora," since, in +deciding the contents of our journal, the tastes of readers have to be +considered whose interest cannot be aroused by the impossible deeds of +impossible creatures.' Alas! I wish from my heart I knew what 'deeds' or +'creatures' _do_ arouse the interest of this (to me) inexplicable +public; for though I have before me the stories they obviously take +delight in, why they do so I cannot tell. + +At the 'Answers to Correspondents,' indeed, which form a leading feature +in most of these penny journals, one may exclaim, with the colonel in +'Woodstock,' when, after many ghosts, he grapples with Wildrake: 'Thou +at least art palpable.' Here we have the real readers, asking questions +upon matters that concern them, and from these we shall surely get at +the back of their minds. But it is unfortunately not so certain that +these 'Answers to Correspondents' are not themselves fictions, like all +the rest--only invented by the editor instead of the author, and coming +in handy to fill up a vacant page. It is, to my mind, incredible that a +public so every way different from that of the Mechanic's Institute, and +to whom mere information is likely to be anything but attractive, should +be genuinely solicitous to learn that 'Needles were first made in +England in Cheapside, in the reign of Queen Mary, by a negro from +Spain;' or that 'The family name of the Duke of Norfolk is Howard, +although the younger members of it call themselves Talbot.' + +Even the remonstrance of 'Our Correspondence Editor' with a gentleman +who wishes to learn 'How to manufacture dynamite' seems to me +artificial; as though the idea of saying a few words in season against +explosive compounds had occurred to him, without any particular +opportunity having really offered itself for the expression of his +views. + +There are, however, one or two advertisements decidedly genuine, and +which prove that the readers of penny fiction are not so immersed in +romance but that they have their eyes open to the main chance and their +material responsibilities. 'ANXIOUS TO KNOW,' for example, is informed +that 'The widow, unless otherwise decreed, keeps possession of furniture +on her marriage, and the daughter cannot claim it;' while SKIBBS is +assured that 'After such a lapse of time there will be no danger of a +warrant being issued for leaving his wife and family chargeable to the +parish.' + +As when Mr. Wilkie Collins made his first voyage of discovery into these +unknown latitudes, the penny journals are largely used for forming +matrimonial engagements, and for adjudicating upon all questions of +propriety in connection with the affections. 'It is just bordering on +folly,' 'NANCY BLAKE' is informed, 'to marry a man six years your +junior.' In answer to an inquiry from 'LOVING OLIVIA' whether 'an +engaged gentleman is at liberty to go to a theatre without taking his +young lady with him,' she is told 'Yes; but we imagine he would not +often do so.' + +Some tender questions are mixed up with others of a more practical sort. +'LADY HILDA' is informed that 'it is very seldom children are born +healthy whose father has married before he is three-and-twenty; that +long engagements are not only unnecessary but injurious; and that +washing the head will remove the scurf.' 'LEONE' is assured that 'it is +not necessary to be married in two churches, one being quite +sufficient;' that 'there is no truth in the saying that it is unlucky to +marry a person of the same complexion;' and that 'a gentle aperient will +remove nettle-rash.' + +'VIRGINIE' (who, by the way, should surely be VIRGINIUS) is thus +tenderly sympathised with: + +'It does seem rather hard that you should be deprived of all opportunity +of having a _tete-a-tete_ with your betrothed, owing to her being +obliged to entertain other company, although there are others of the +family who can do so; still, as her mother insists upon it, and will not +let you enjoy the society of her daughter uninterrupted, you might +resort to a little harmless strategy, and whenever your stated evenings +for calling are broken in on that way, ask the young lady to take a walk +with you, or go to a place of amusement. She can then excuse herself to +her friends without a breach of etiquette, and you can enjoy your +_tete-a-tete_ undisturbed.' + +The photographs of lady correspondents which are received by the editors +of most of these journals are apparently very numerous, and, if we may +believe their description of them, all ravishingly beautiful. It is no +wonder they receive many applications of the following nature: + +'CLYDE, a rising young doctor, twenty-two, fair, with a nice house and +servants; being tired of bachelor life, wishes to receive the +carte-de-visite of a dark, fascinating young lady, of from seventeen to +twenty years of age; no money essential, but good birth indispensable. +She must be fond of music and children, and very loving and +affectionate.' + +Another doctor: + +'Twenty-nine, of a loving and amiable disposition, and who has at +present an income of L120 a year, is desirous to make an immediate +engagement with a lady about his own age, who must be possessed of a +little money, so that by their united efforts he may soon become a +member of a lucrative and honourable profession.' + +How the 'united efforts' of two young people, however enthusiastic, can +make a man an M.D. or an M.R.C.S. (except that love conquers all things) +is more than one can understand. The last advertisement I shall quote +affects me nearly, for it is from an eminent member of my own +profession: + +'ALEXIS, a popular author in the prime of life, of an affectionate +disposition, and fond of home, and the extent and pressing nature of +whose work have prevented him from mixing much in society, would be glad +to correspond with a young lady not above thirty. She must be of a +pleasing appearance, amiable, intelligent, and domestic.' + +If it is with the readers of penny fiction that Alexis has established +his popularity, I would like to know how he did it, and who he is. To +discover this last is, however, an impossibility. These novelists all +write anonymously, nor do their works ever appear before the public in +another guise. There is sometimes a melancholy pretence to the contrary +put forth in the 'Answers to Correspondents.' 'PHOENIX,' for example, is +informed that 'The story about which he inquires will not be published +in book form at the time he mentions.' But the fact is it will never be +so published at all. It has been written, like all its congeners, for +the unknown millions and for no one else. + +Some years ago, in a certain great literary organ, it was stated of one +of these penny journals (which has not forgotten to advertise the +eulogy) that 'its novels, are equal to the best works of fiction to be +got at the circulating libraries.' The critic who so expressed himself +must have done so in a moment of hilarity which I trust was not produced +by liquor; for 'the best works of fiction to be got at the circulating +libraries' obviously include those of George Eliot, Trollope, Reade, +Black, and Blackmore, while the novels I am discussing are inferior to +the worst. They are as crude and ineffective in their pictures of +domestic life as they are deficient in dramatic incident; they are +vapid, they are dull. Indeed, the total absence of humour, and even of +the least attempt at it, is most remarkable. There is now and then a +description of the playing of some practical joke, such as tying two +Chinamen's tails together, the effect of the relation of which is +melancholy in the extreme, but there is no approach to fun in the whole +penny library. And yet it attracts, it is calculated, four millions of +readers--a fact which makes my mouth water like that of Tantalus. + +When Mr. Wilkie Collins wrote of the Unknown Public it is clear he was +still hopeful of them. He thought it 'a question of time' only. 'The +largest audience,' he says, 'for periodical literature in this age of +periodicals must obey the universal law of progress, and sooner or later +learn to discriminate. When that period comes the readers who rank by +millions will be the readers who give the widest reputations, who return +the richest rewards, and who will therefore command the services of the +best writers of their time.' This prophecy has, curiously enough, been +fulfilled in a different direction from that anticipated by him who +uttered it. The penny papers--that is, the provincial penny +newspapers--_do_ now, under the syndicate system, command the services +of our most eminent novel writers; but Penny Fiction proper--that is to +say, the fiction published in the penny literary journals--is just where +it was a quarter of a century ago. + +With the opportunity of comparison afforded to its readers one would say +this would be impossible, but as a matter of fact, the opportunity is +_not_ offered. The readers of Penny Fiction do not read newspapers; +political events do not interest them, nor even social events, unless +they are of the class described in the _Police News_, which, I +remark--and the fact is not without significance--does not need to add +fiction to its varied attractions. + +But who, it will be asked, _are_ the public who don't read newspapers, +and whose mental calibre is such that they require to be told by a +correspondence editor that 'any number over the two thousand will +certainly be in the three thousand'? + +I believe, though the vendors of the commodity in question profess to +be unable to give any information on the matter, that the majority are +female domestic servants. + +As to what attracts them in their favourite literature, that is a much +more knotty question. My own theory is that, just as Mr. Tupper achieved +his immense popularity by never going over the heads of his readers, +and showing that poetry was, after all, not such a difficult thing to +be understood, so the writers of Penny Fiction, in clothing very +conventional thoughts in rather high-faluting English, have found the +secret of success. Each reader says to himself (or herself), 'That is +_my_ thought, which I would have myself expressed in those identical +words, if I had only known how. + + + + +_HOTELS._ + + +The desire for cheap holidays--as concerns going a long distance for +little money--is no doubt very general, but it is not universal. It +demands, like the bicycle, both youth and vigour. In mature years, not +only because we are more fastidious, but because we are less robust, +the element of cheapness, though always agreeable, is subsidiary to +that of comfort. For my own part, if the chance were offered me to +travel night and day for forty-eight hours anywhere--though it was to +the Elysian Fields--and that in a Pullman car, and for nothing, I would +rather go to Southend at my own expense from Saturday to Monday. +Suppose the former journey to be commenced by a Channel passage and +continued in a third-class carriage, I would rather stop at home. Or +if, in addition to the other discomforts, I am to be a unit among 100 +excursionists, with a coupon that insures my being lodged on the sixth +floor everywhere, I had rather take a month's quiet holiday in London +at the House of Detention. + +These things are matters of taste; but it is certain that a very large +number of people, who, like myself, are neither rich nor in a position +which justifies them in giving themselves airs, consider quiet, +comfort, and the absence of petty cares the most essential conditions +of a holiday. These views necessitate some expense and generally limit +the excursions of those who entertain them to their native land; but, +on the other hand, they have their advantages. They give one, for +example, a great experience in the matter of hotels. + +As I idly flutter the yellow leaves of the advertisements of inns in +'Bradshaw,' they call up pictures in my mind quite undreamt of by the +proprietors. I have been a sojourner in almost all of these which are +described as 'situated in picturesque localities.' They are all--it is +in print and must be true--'first-class' hotels; they have most of them +'unrivalled accommodation;' not a few of them have been 'patronised by +Royalty,' and one of them even by 'the Rothschilds.' These last, of +course, are great caravanserais, with 'magnificent ladies' +drawing-rooms' and 'replete' (a word that seems to have taken service +with the licensed victuallers) 'with every luxury.' They make up (a +term unfortunately suggestive of transformation) hundreds of beds; they +have equipages and 'night chamberlains;' '_On y parle francais_;' '_Man +spricht Deutsch_.' Of some of these there is quite a little biography, +beginning with the year of their establishment and narrating their +happy union with other agreeable premises, like a brick and mortar +novel. I remember them well: their 'romantic surroundings' or 'their +exclusive privilege of meeting trains upon the platform;' their +accurate resemblance to 'a gentleman's own house' (with 'a +reception-room 80 feet by 90 feet'); their 'douche and spray baths;' +their 'unexceptionable tariff;' and even their having undergone those +'extensive alterations,' through which I also underwent something, +which they did not allow for in the bill. + +These hotels are all more or less satisfactory as to appearance; +furnished, not, indeed, with such taste, nor so lavishly, as their +rivals on the Continent, but handsomely enough; they are much cleaner +than foreign inns; and if their reference to 'every sanitary +improvement which science can suggest' is a little tall, even for an +advertisement, one never has cause to shudder as happens in some places +in France proper and in Brittany everywhere. Though it must be admitted +that _tables d'hote_ abroad are not the banquets which the travelling +Briton believes them to be, our own hotel public dinners are inferior +to their originals, and, what is very hard, those who pay for an +entertainment in private suffer from them. The guest who happens to +dine later than the _table d'hote_ in his own apartment can hardly +escape getting things 'warmed up;' and if he dines at the same time he +has nobody to wait on him. There is one thing that presses with great +severity on paterfamilias--the charge which is made at many of the +large hotels of 1s. 6d. a day for attendance on each person. Half a +guinea a week for service is a high price even for a bachelor; but when +this has to be paid for every member of the family, it is ruinous. +Young ladies who dine at the same table and do not give half the +trouble of 'single gentlemen' ought not to be taxed in this way. It is +urged by many that since attendance is charged in the bill,' there +should be no other fees. But the lover of comfort will always +cheerfully pay for a little extra civility; nor do I think that this +practice--any more than that of feeing our railway porters--is a public +disadvantage. The waiter does not know till the guest goes whether he +is a person of inflexible principles or not, and, therefore, hope +ameliorates his manners and shapes his actions to all. As to getting +'attendance' out of the bill, now it has once got into it, that I +believe to be impossible. There it is, like the moth in one's +drawing-room sofa. And yet I am old enough to remember how poor Albert +Smith plumed himself on the benefit he bestowed upon the public, as he +had imagined, by introducing a fixed charge for all services and doing +away with 'Please, sir, boots.' In this country, and, to say truth, in +most others, 'Please, sir, boots,' is indigenous and not to be done +away with. We did very much better under the voluntary system, although +a few people who did not deserve it, but simply could not afford to be +lavish, were called in consequence 'screws.' + +To pay the wages of another man's servants is absurd, and reminds one +of the 'plate, glass, and linen' that used to be charged for at the +posting-house on the Dover road with every threepenny-worth of +brandy-and-water, I have been asked 6d. for an orange (when oranges +were cheap) at a London hotel, upon the ground that they never charged +less than 6d. for anything; and I have read of 'an old established and +family hotel' near Piccadilly, where the charge for putting the _Times_ +upon a guest's breakfast-table was 6d. up to this present year of +grace. 'Gentlemen and families had always been supplied with it at that +price,' said the landlord, when remonstrated with, 'and it was his +principle, and his customers approved it, to keep things as they were.' +It must be admitted, however, that matters have changed for the better +in this respect elsewhere; and, at all events, the printed tariff that +may now be consulted in every modern hotel enables you to know what you +are spending. + +Things are improved, too, in the way of light and air; both the public +and private rooms of our hotels are far more cheerful and better +appointed than they used to be, and instead of the four-posters there +are French beds. The one great advantage that our new system possesses +over the old is, indeed, the sleeping accommodation. The 'skimpy' +mattress, the sheet that used to come untucked through shortness, +leaving the feet tickled by the blanket, and the thin, limp thing that +called itself a feather bed, are only to be found in ancient +hostelries. + +On the other hand, it must be confessed that the food has deteriorated; +the bill of fare, indeed, is more pretentious, but the materials are +inferior, and so is the cooking. The well-browned fowl, with its rich +gravy and the bread-sauce that used to be its homely but agreeable +attendant, has disappeared. The bird appears now under a French title, +and is in other respects unrecognisable; as an Irish gentleman once +explained it to me, it is not only that the thing appears under an +_alias_, but the _alias_ comes up instead of the thing. There is one +essential which the old hotel often omitted to serve with your chicken, +and which the new hotel supplies--the salad. This, however, few hotel +cooks in England--and far less hotel waiters--can be trusted to +prepare. Their simple plan is to deluge the tender lettuce with some +hateful ingredient called 'salad mixture,' poured out of a peculiarly +shaped bottle, such as the law now compels poisons to be sold in; and +the jewel is deserving of its casket--it is almost poison. Nor, alas! +is security always to be attained by making one's salad for one's self. +For supposing even that the lettuce is fresh and white, and not +manifestly a cabbage that is pretending to be a lettuce, how about the +oil? Charles Dickens used to say that he could always tell the +character of an inn from its cruets; if they were dirty and neglected, +all was bad. The cruets are now clean enough in all hotels of +pretension; but alas for that bottle which should contain (and perhaps +did at some remote period contain) the oil of Lucca! On the fingers of +one hand I could count all the hotels in England which have not given +me bad oil. Whether it was never good, or whether it has gone bad, I +leave to those philosophers who investigate the origin of evil. I only +know that it tastes as hair-oil smells. As to the soups, they are no +worse than they used to be, and no better; there is soup and there is +hotel soup. + +'Gravy soup, fried sole, _entree_, leg of mutton, and apple tart' used +to be the unambitious _menu_ of the old-fashioned inn. The _entree_ was +terrible, but the fish, meat, and sweet were excellent. I will say +nothing of the _entrees_ now; I am not in a position to say anything, +for not being of a sanguine temperament, and having but a few years to +live, I do not venture upon them. But it is undeniable that our bill of +fare is greatly more varied than it used to be, and that the way in +which the table is arranged is much more attractive. At the great +hotels in the neighbourhood of London where rich, or at all events +prodigal people, go to dine in the summer months, this is especially +the case. All these establishments affect fine dinners, yet how seldom +it is they give you good ones! Their wines, though monstrously dear, +are very fair; indeed, of the champagnes at least you may make certain +by looking at the corks; but the food! How many of their fancifully +named dishes might be included under the common title, Fiasco! + +It was once suggested to a decayed man of fashion that an excellent +profession for him to take up would be the proprietorship of an hotel +of this class. 'You know what is really worth eating,' said an +influential friend of his, 'and these caterers for your own class +evidently don't; if you will undertake the management of the _Mammoth_ +(naming an inn of very high repute), I will furnish the funds.' But the +man of fashion, who had spent his all with very little to show for it, +had at least acquired some knowledge of his fellow-creatures. 'I am +deeply obliged to you,' he said, 'but were I to accept your offer I +should only lose your money. There are but a very few people in the +world who know a good dinner when it is set before them; and a very +large class (including all the ladies, who are only solicitous about +its _looking_ good) do not care whether it is good or bad. In private +life if a dinner consists of many courses, is given at a fine house, +and is presumably expensive, nineteen-twentieths of those who sit down +to it are satisfied. The twentieth alone says to himself, 'How much +better I should have dined at home!' I have been at scores and scores +of great dinner-parties where the very plates were cold and nobody but +myself has observed it.' + +I have no doubt the gentleman of fashion was right; delicate cooking +would be entirely thrown away upon the general palate. The fair sex, +the young, the hungry, the easy-going, the ignorant--how large a +majority of the 'frequenters' of hotels do these classes embrace! And +it must also be remarked that to cook food (except whitebait) +delicately in large quantities is a very difficult operation indeed. + +Upon the whole, I think, our large hotels, 'arranged on the Continental +system,' are well adapted for those who frequent them, and they show a +readiness to adopt improvements. An immense number of well-to-do people +go to Brighton, to Scarborough, and scores of other places to get a +change and fresh air, but also to find the same amusements to which +they have been accustomed in London; and, on the whole, they get what +they want without paying very much too much for it. But what drives +many quiet folks abroad is their disinclination to meet with all this +gaiety and public life; they do not mind it so much when it is mixed +with the foreign element, and they are also under the impression that +picturesque scenery is a peculiarity of the Continent. I believe that +more English people have visited Switzerland than have seen the Lake +District and the Channel Islands, and very many more than have +travelled in North Devon and Cornwall. The chief reason of their +abstinence in this respect is, however, their dread of the want of +'accommodation.' To the last two counties, with the exception of some +towns, such as Ilfracombe, approachable by sea, or a direct railway +route, folks never go in crowds, and never will go. It is true there +are no mammoth hotels to be found there; but for picturesque situation +and a certain homely comfort, that takes one not only into another +world, but another generation, there is nothing equal to certain little +inns in these out-of-the-way places. In Wales also, and even in the +Isle of Wight, there are perfect bowers of bliss of this description, +still undesecrated by the excursionist. Not ten years ago, in a part of +North Devon which shall be nameless, I came, with my wife and daughter, +upon an inn of this description. We were all enraptured with the +exquisite beauty of its situation, and were so imprudent as to express, +in the presence of the landlady, our wish to live and die there. 'Well, +indeed, sir,' she said, 'I am delighted to see you, but I hope you are +not going to stay very long.' 'My dear madam,' I remonstrated, aghast +at this remark, 'are we, then, such very objectionable-looking +persons?' 'Bless your heart, no, sir, it isn't that; but the fact is, +we have only room for three, and if parties come and come, and always +find us full (through your being here, you know), they will think it is +no use coming, and we shall lose our custom.' We did stay on, however, +a pretty long time--it was a place of ineffable beauty, such as one +parts from almost with tears--and when on our departure I asked for my +bill, the landlady said, 'Dear me, sir, would you kindly tell me what +day you come upon, for I ha' lost my account of it?' The life we led at +that inn was purely pastoral; the clotted cream was of that consistency +that it was meat and drink in one; but although the fare was homely, it +was good of its kind, and admirably cooked. There was fresh fish every +day--for we were too far from railways for that Gargantuan ogre, 'the +London market,' to deprive us of it--and tender fowls, and jams of all +kinds such as no money could buy. + +The landlady had a genius for making what she called 'conserves,' and +every cupboard in the queer little house was filled with them. In the +sitting-room was a quantity of old china and knick-knacks, brought by +the sailors of the place from foreign lands; the linen was white as +snow, and smelt of lavender. Outside the inn was a sea that stretched +to Newfoundland, and cliffs that caught the sunset--such scenery as is +not surpassed by that of the Tyrol (though, of course, in a very +different line), and be sure I was afraid of no comparison between our +'Travellers' Rest' and any Tyrolean inn. It is noteworthy that this +hostelry of ours was so peculiarly and picturesquely placed that it +could only be approached on foot, which reminds me of another place of +entertainment for man, but not for beast. + +In appearance, 'The Strangers' Welcome' (as I will take leave to term +it) is more ambitious than 'The Rest,' but it is of the same simple +type. In some respects it is even more primitive; no sign hangs over +its door, nor is any other symbol of its vocation visible, 'Liberty,' +not 'License,' as one may say without much metaphor, being its motto. +It is on an island, so insignificant in extent that horse exercise is +impossible on it. What it lacks in superficial area is more than made +up, however, in its stupendous height. From the 'Welcome,' though it +lies in a dell, one looks down perhaps a hundred sheer feet upon the +ocean. Its solemn murmur, even in calm, always reaches the place, and +when in storm, its spray. As one watches it from the lawn among the +fuchsias, one scarcely knows which mood becomes it best. The fuchsias +grow against our walls and tap at our window-panes in the morning as +though they were roses; they even make their homes in the rocks, like +the conies. The island is a very garden of fuchsias, tall as trees; and +there are no other trees. The 'Welcome' itself is a sort of farmhouse +without the farm; there is a goat or two and a donkey to be seen about +it, which would account for the milk having an alien flavour, if it had +one. But the 'Welcome' has excellent milk, so that there must be some +cows somewhere. From the cliff-top you may see Alderney, for our inn is +among the Channel Islands. When a storm comes you must stop where you +are; for until the last waves of it have ceased there is no approach to +us from the world without. To the stranger it seems probable at such +seasons that the little place will burst up from below, for beneath it +are caverns innumerable, filled with furious waves like sea monsters +roaring for our lives. The sea, in short, has honeycombed it, and +renews her vows to be its ruin with every gale. Yet the 'Welcome' lasts +our time, and will last that of many generations, who will continue, +however, doubtless to believe that the sublimities of Nature are +unattainable short of Switzerland. + +My memory now transports me to a mountain district in the north, but on +this side of the border; and here, again, the inn is signless, and has +no appearance of an inn at all. It is situated on the last of a great +chain of hills, with lakes among them. It has lawns and shrubberies, +but few flowers; Nature frowns on every hand, even in sunshine, when +the waterfalls flow like silver, and the crags are decked with diamonds. +There are no 'trencher-scraping, napkin-carrying,' waiters in the house, +but country damsels attend upon you, and a motherly dame, their mistress, +expresses her hope every morning that you have slept well. If you have +not, it is the fault of your conscience: you have had a poet's recipe +for it, for you have been 'within the hearing of a hundred streams' +all night. Will you go up the Fells, or will you row on the Lake? +These are your simple alternatives; there is no brass band, no +promenade, no pier, no anything that the vulgar like. Yet once a week +at least a great spectacle can be promised you without crossing the +inn threshold (indeed, when the promise is kept it is better to be on +the right side of it)--a thunder-storm among the hills. The arrangements +for lighting the place, of which you may have complained, not without +reason, are then in perfection, and the silence is broken with a +vengeance. It is difficult to imagine the grandeurs of a sham-fight--a +battle without corpses--but here you have them. First the musketry, then +the guns, with the explosion of the powder-magazine--repeated about +forty times by the mountain echoes--at the end of it. When all is over +you sit down to such a supper as Lucullus would have given a year of +life for, and which, in all probability--for he had no prudence--would +have shortened it for him. At the 'Retreat,' as it is called, among +other native delicacies, they give you fresh char cooked to a turn. I +like to think that this was the fish that Monte Christo had sent him in +a tank to Paris on the occasion of a certain banquet; but all the wealth +of the Indies could not have accomplished that; the char (in spite of +its name) does not travel. + +One more reminiscence of country inns; and, though I have more of them +in the picture-gallery of my memory, I have done. I conjure up an +ivy-covered dwelling, long roofed but low, and sheltered by a lofty +hill. Its situation is quite solitary, and, save for the cry of the +seagull, there reigns about it an unbroken silence. It is on the very +highway of the world, but the road is noiseless, for it is the sea. +From the windows, all day long, we can watch the ships pass by that +carry the pilgrims of the earth, for their freight is chiefly human. It +is here 'the first ray glitters on the sail that brings our friends up +from the under world, and the last falls on that which sinks with all +we love below the verge.' Even at night there is no cessation to this +coming and going; only, a red light or a white, and the distant strokes +of a paddle-wheel in the hush of the moonless void are then the sole +signs of all this motion. What hopes and fears contend in unseen hearts +under those moving stars! Is it nothing to have the opportunity to +watch them from the ivied porch of the 'Outlook,' and to welcome the +thoughts they arouse within us? On land, too, there are stars, not made +in heaven, but their shining is intermittent. As I lie in my bed I can +see the great revolving light on the farthest point of rock that juts +to sea. That is the 'Outlook's' watchman, not of much use to it, +indeed, in a practical way, but imparting a marvellous sense of +guardianship and security. + +The chief means of amusement at inns of this kind is supplied by +science in the telescope. You note through it all that comes and goes, +and after a day or two can tell-for yourself whither each stately ship +is bound, or whence it comes. At the 'Outlook' the food is plain, but +good; the prawns in particular (which the young people, by-the-bye, can +catch for themselves) are of an exquisite flavour, and in size approach +the lobster. Twice a week for four hours this earthly Paradise is as a +town taken by assault and given over to pillage. An excursion steamer +stops at the little pier and discharges a cargo of excursionists. But +those to whom the happiness of their fellow-creatures is intolerable +can withdraw themselves at these seasons to the neighbouring Downs and +Bays, and on their return they will find peace with folded wing sitting +as before on the 'Outlook's' flagstaff. + +Such are the inns which I have known, and there are hundreds in beautiful +England like them. On its rivers in particular there are many charming +little inns, but, to say truth, although the gentlemen-fishermen are as +quiet as mice (from their habits of caution in their calling), the +disciples of the oar are noisy; they get up too early and go to bed too +late, and are too much addicted to melody. Moreover, these houses of +entertainment often carry the principle of home production to excess: +their native fare is excellent; but, spring mattresses not growing in +the neighbourhood, the stuffing of the beds is supplied, to judge by +results, from the turnip-field. For the purpose for which they are +intended, however, these little hostels are well fitted and have a river +charm that is indescribable. + +I could speak, too, of excellent hotels set in the grounds of ruined +castles or abbeys; but the attractions of the latter interfere with the +repose of the visitor. Moreover, it has been my chief object, while +admitting the merits of the _Crown_ (and) _Imperial_, to paint the +lily--to point out the violet half hid from the eye. It seems to me a +pity that so many persons should leave their native land and spend +their money among foreigners through ignorance of the quiet +resting-places that await them at home. I have in no way exaggerated +their merits, but it must be confessed that they have one serious +drawback, which, however, only affects bachelors; if Paterfamilias is +troubled by it he ought to be ashamed of himself. I allude to the happy +couples on their honeymoon whom one is wont to meet with in these +retired bowers. It is aggravating, no doubt, to see how Angelina and +Edwin devote themselves to one another without the slightest regard for +the feelings of the solitary stranger. The poor creature has no wish, +of course, to thrust his company upon them, still he would like to have +his existence acknowledged; and they ignore it. They have not a word to +throw to him, nor even a glance. Then there are certain endearments, +delightful, no doubt, to those who exchange them, but which to the +spectator are distraction. What I would recommend to the bachelor as a +remedy is a wife of his own. The good Mussulman's idea of future +happiness is a perpetual honeymoon; and these little Paradises are the +very places to spend it in. The customs of our own country forbid the +agreeable variety which has such charms for the Faithful; but, even as +it is, I have seen in these pleasant inns a great deal of human +happiness, such as to the sober lover of his species only adds to their +attraction. + + + + +_MAID-SERVANTS._ + + +It is a common thing to hear the remark expressed by much-tried +mistresses that servants are not 'reasonable beings.' The observation +may either have been provoked by the misbehaviour of some particular +domestic, or by the injudicious defence of the class by one of the male +sex. For the gentlemen have more to urge in favour of our domestics +than the ladies have, and, as the latter maintain, for a very obvious +reason--'they have much less to do with them.' The statement is +cynical, but correct. So long as a man finds his clothes brushed and +his meals well and punctually cooked, he 'does not see much to complain +of,' nor does he give much thought to the pains and trouble which even +that moderate amount of service entails upon his wife. Unless in great +households, where everything is delegated to a paid housekeeper, it is, +indeed, certain that ladies who are resolved to keep a house as it +should be have, now, from various causes, a very hard time of it. The +old feeling of feudal service, though a few examples--both mistresses +and servants--may still exist of it, is dead; and in its place we have +the employer and the hireling. There are faults, of course, on both +sides; mistresses are accustomed to look upon their servants too much +as machines, and in the working thereof do not, perhaps, estimate +sufficiently the advantages of the use of sweet oil; while servants are +more prone to 'eye-service' than were ever the housemaids of Ephesus. +Which of the two began it I cannot tell, but a certain antagonism has +grown up between these two classes which shakes the pillars of domestic +peace. At the root of it all, as at the root of most evils, lies +ignorance, and in the servants' case ignorance of a stupendous nature. + +I have had in my household an under-nurse, who, upon the family's +leaving town for a short holiday, was enjoined to see that the birds in +the nursery (canaries) were well supplied with sand. When we came back +we found them all starved to death. She had given them sand, but, alas! +no seed. This was a girl from the country, who, one would think, would +have known what birds fed upon; otherwise one does not expect much +intelligence from Arcadia. When our last importation (an +under-housemaid) 'turned on the gas' in the upper apartments as she was +directed to do, but omitted to light it, I thought it very excusable; +she had not been accustomed to gas. On the other hand, when her +mistress told her to 'look to the fire' of a certain room, I contend we +had a right to expect that that fire should be kept in. It was not so, +however, and when the lady inquired, 'Why did you not look to it, as I +told you?' the girl replied, 'Well, I did, mum; the door was open and I +looked at the fire every time I passed.' She appeared to attach some +sort of igneous power to the human eye. + +Each of these young ladies came to us very highly recommended by the +wife of the clergyman of her native place. Surely, in the curriculum of +the village school, something else beside the catechism ought to have +been included; yet, of the things they were certain to be set to +do--the merest first principles of domestic service--they had been +taught nothing; and in learning them at our expense they cost us ten +times their wages. + +It may be said, indeed, that when you employ a young girl who has never +been out to service before, you secure honesty, chastity, and sobriety, +and must not look for the artificial virtues; but, unhappily, things +are not very much better when you engage an experienced hand. The lady +of the house should not, of course, expect too much (in these days she +must be of a very sanguine temperament if she falls into _that_ error); +she will think it necessary to warn the new arrival--although she +'knows her place' and is 'a thorough housemaid'--that a velvet pile +carpet, for example, should not be brushed backwards. But on more +obvious matters she will probably leave the 'thorough housemaid' to her +own devices, the result of which is that the boards beside the +stair-carpets are washed with soda the first morning, which takes the +dirt off effectually--and the paint also. An hour or two before she was +caught at this, she has, perhaps, utterly spoilt a polished grate or +two by rubbing them with scouring paper instead of emery powder. + +Paterfamilias feels these things when he has to pay the bill, but his +wife feels them in the meantime, and it is more than is to be expected +of human nature that she can welcome cordially such an addition to her +household. A prejudice against the girl springs up in her mind, which +is very promptly responded to, and the mutual respect that ought to +grow up between them is nipped in the bud. I am sorry to say that good +housewives are almost always opposed to having servants well educated; +they think that 'knowledge puffs up,' blows them above their places, +and encourages a taste for light literature which is opposed to the +arts of brushing and cleaning. What the 'higher education' of domestic +servants is to be under the School Boards I know not; but I hope they +will not imagine, as the Universities do, that their duty is only to +teach their pupils how to educate themselves. I confess I agree with +the housewives, that, for young persons intended for service, reading, +writing, and arithmetic, with the use of the scrubbing and hearth +brushes, are far preferable acquirements to those of the same three +great principles with the use of the globes. Whether there are any +handbooks in existence, other than cookery books, to teach the duties +of servants I know not; but, even if there are, servants will never +read them of their own free will. Not one in a hundred has a +sufficiently strong desire to improve herself for that. They must be +taught like children, and when they _are_ children, if any good is to +come of it. + +It is to me astounding, and certainly makes me very suspicious of the +advocates of women's rights, that they have done little or nothing in +this direction. Why should not some of that immense energy which is now +expended on platforms be directed into this less ambitious but more +natural channel? There are tens of thousands of persons of their own +sex, not indeed out of employment, but who are obtaining employment on +false pretences, who would do so honestly enough if they had had but a +little early training. Unfortunately, the ladies of the platform do not +in general stoop to such small things as domestic matters; they do not +care about mere comfort, they even perhaps resent it because it is so +dear to tyrannous man. If they would only turn their attention to the +education of their humbler sisters, they would win over all their +enemies and put to shame the cynic who has associated Man's Lefts with +Women's Rights. + +The only School for Servants I am acquainted with sent us the worst we +ever had, and if it had not been for the very handsome fee it charged +both us and her for our mutual introduction, I should not have +recognised it as an educational establishment at all. + +It will naturally be said by men (not by their wives, for they know +better), 'But surely self-interest will cause a servant to qualify +herself for a place, since, having done so, she will command better +wages.' This is the mistake of the political economists, who, right +enough in the importance they attach to self-interest, gravely err in +supposing it to be always of a material kind. They start with the idea +that everybody wants to make as much money as possible. So they do; but +with a large majority this desire is subordinate to the wish for +leisure and enjoyment. Trades unionism, with all its faults, is founded +on this important fact in human nature--that many of us prefer narrow +means, with comparative leisure, to affluence with toil. That this +notion, if universal, would destroy good work of all kinds and make +perfection impossible, is beside the question, or certainly never +enters into the minds of those chiefly concerned in the matter. 'A good +day's work for a good day's wage' is a fine sentiment; but 'half a +day's work for half a day's wage' suits some people even better; while +'half a day's work for a good day's wage' suits them better still. In +old times the sense of 'service being no inheritance' begat habits of +good conduct as well as thrift, for in most well-conducted households, +servants' wages were made proportionate to their length of service. But +nowadays a lady's promise of raising a servant's wages every year is +quite superfluous, since it is ten to one against her keeping her for +the first twelve months. It is no wonder, then, that while the +conviction of service being of a temporary character is, at least, as +strong as ever, the course of conduct it now suggests is to make as +much as possible out of it while it lasts, in the way of perquisites, +etc. With our cooks, especially, it is not too much to say that wages +are often a secondary object as compared with the opportunity of making +a purse for themselves; and the recognised privilege of selling the +dripping affords cover for a multitude of petty delinquencies which if +not positive thefts have a strong family resemblance to them. + +Before leaving the subject of short terms of service, it should be +noted that the modern servant openly avows her love of change. An +excellent mistress, and a very kind one, has told me that housemaids +and kitchenmaids have given her warning again and again for no other +cause than this. They have avowed themselves quite happy and contented +in their place, but they want 'fresh woods and pastures new.' When Jack +Mytton was reminded by his lawyer that a certain estate he was about to +sell had been in his family for 500 years, he replied, 'Then it's high +time it should go out of it;' and the same reflection occurs to our +Janes and Bessies. They have been in their present situation a year +perhaps, or two at most--indeed, two years is considered in the world +below stairs the extreme point for any person of spirit to remain under +one roof--and it is high time they should leave it. One would naturally +think that, in the case of young women at all events, they would be +slow to exchange even a moderately comfortable place for a home among +strangers; that they would bear the ills they know of, even if ills +exist, rather than venture on those of which they know nothing; but +this is far from being the case. Nor do they even quit their place in +order 'to better themselves.' They have absolutely no reason except the +love of change. Behaviour of this sort naturally gives some colour to +the remark already quoted that servants are not 'reasonable beings.' I +was almost a convert to that opinion myself when, on one occasion, +having asked a female domestic to be good enough to put my boots on the +tree, she literally obeyed my order. She hung all my boots on the tree +in the garden, and it was very wet weather. But to young persons who +come from the country everything is pardonable--except 'temper.' + +The growth of this parasite in both town and country is, however, quite +alarming. Little as mistresses dare to say to the disadvantage of +servants when leaving their employment, no matter for what reason, they +do sometimes remark of them that their temper is 'uncertain.' When this +happens and the fact is communicated to Jane or Betsy by the lady to +whom they have proposed themselves, they have one invariable method of +self-defence: 'Temper, mum? Well, I 'ave my faults, I daresay, but not +_that_; all as knows me knows my temper is 'eavenly. But the fact is, +mum, Mrs. Jones [her late mistress] was a bit flighty.' And she touches +her forehead, and even sometimes winks, to indicate aberration of the +intellect. A really good-tempered servant is now rare; and there are +very few who will bear 'speaking to' when their work is neglected or +ill-done. + +What, however, always puts them in the highest good humour is an +expensive breakage. When Susan comes to say, 'Oh, please, mum, I've 'ad +a haccident with the pier glass,' her face is wreathed in smiles. To a +mistress who cannot relieve her feelings by strong language, as a man +would do, this behaviour is very aggravating. If servants do not +actually delight in these misfortunes, I am afraid not one in twenty +shows the least consideration for her employer's purse. It is +charitable to say, when Thomas or Jane leaves the gas burning all +night, or the sun-blinds out in the pouring rain, that they have 'no +head;' but it is my experience that they are very careful, and, indeed, +take quite extraordinary precautions, with respect to their own +property. I am afraid that the true reason of the waste and +extravagance among servants is that they have no attachment to their +employers, and of course it is less troublesome to be lavish than to be +economical. All the education in the world cannot make selfish persons +unselfish; but it can surely implant in them some sense of duty. At +present, so long as a servant is not absolutely dishonest, her +conscience rarely troubles her. This is especially the case with our +cooks, who also--that 'dripping' question making their path so +slippery--draw the line between honesty and its contrary very fine +indeed. + +Moreover, they know less of what they pretend to know than any other +class of servant. The proof of this is in the fact that not one in a +hundred of them will cook you a dinner on trial. I have often said to a +cook, 'Your character is satisfactory enough in other respects; but, +before engaging you, will you show what you can do by sending up one +good dinner, for which I will pay you at the ordinary rate--namely, +half-a-guinea?' She won't do it; she says she can cook for a prince, +and affects to be hurt at the proposition. The consequence is that for +a month, at least, we are slowly poisoned. Once only I hired a cook who +accepted these terms. I am bound to say she sent us up a most excellent +dinner, but when I sent for her to pay the half-guinea she was dead +drunk on the kitchen floor. She had taken a bottle of port wine and one +of stout while serving up that entertainment, and afterwards confessed +that during her arduous duties she required 'constant support.' Again, +it is by no means unusual for cooks to succeed to admiration for a week +and then to begin to spoil everything, the proverb respecting a 'new +broom' applying, curiously enough, even more to them than to the +'housemaids.' + +These observations are no doubt severe, but they are not unjust; nor do +I for a moment imply that servants are always to blame, and never +mistresses. There are faults on both sides. Ladies often show +themselves as 'unreasonable' as their female domestics. For example, +although very solicitous for the settlement of their own daughters in +life, they often do not give sufficient opportunities for their +maid-servants to find husbands. A girl in service is quite as anxious +to get a husband as her young mistresses, and, indeed, it is of much +more consequence for her to do so. She sees her youth slipping away +from her in a place where no 'followers' are allowed, and it is no +wonder that she 'wants a change.' She has a right to have her holidays +and her 'Sundays out,' and it is the mistress's duty not only to grant +them, but to make some inquiry as to how she spends them. Many ladies +who go to church with much regularity never take the smallest interest +in the moral conduct of those to whom they stand, morally if not +legally, _in loco parentis_, and who may, perhaps, have no other +adviser. + +Mistresses of all ranks, too, show a lamentable want of principle in +the matter of character-giving. It wants, no doubt, a certain strength +of mind to write the truth. 'The girl is going, thank Heaven,' they say +to themselves, and they are glad to get rid of her, without a row, at +the easy price of a small falsehood. They lay the flattering unction to +their souls that they are concealing certain facts in order 'not to +stand in the way of the poor girl's future.' What they are really doing +is an act of selfishness, cruel as regards the lady who is trusting to +their word, and baneful as regards the public good. It is the good +characters which make the bad servants. In a certain primitive district +of England, where ministers are 'called' from parish to parish, one of +the churchwardens of X complained to the churchwardens of Y that his +late importation from the Y pulpit was not very satisfactory. 'And +yet,' he said, 'you all cracked him up enormously.' 'Yes,' replied the +churchwarden of Y, 'and you will have to crack him up too before you +get rid of him.' + +Now, it is only ignorance which causes ladies to believe that there is +any necessity to 'crack up' the character of a servant. They are not +obliged (though, of course, if the servant has behaved well it would be +infamous to withhold it) to give her any character at all, and they may +state the most unpleasant truth (if they are quite certain of the fact +and can prove it) without the least fear of an action for libel. The +law does not punish them for telling the truth about their servants, +and in another matter also it is more just than it is supposed to be. +There is a superstition among servants that when leaving their +situations before their time is out they have a right to claim board +wages, and that even when dismissed for gross misconduct they have a +right to their ordinary wages for the remainder of the month; but these +are mere popular errors. The only case with which I am acquainted where +neither of these dues was demanded was rather a curious one. A widow +lady advertised for a cook and a housemaid, and procured them by the +first cast of her net. They came together with an open avowal of their +previous acquaintanceship; they were attached to one another, they +said, and did not wish to be in separate service, and wages were not so +much an object to them as opportunities of friendship. The lady, who +had an element of romance in her, was touched with this expression of +sentiment; it was also a great convenience to her to be so quickly +suited; and, their characters being good, she engaged them. They had +come from a house of much greater pretensions than her own, and had +taken higher wages, which might have attracted her suspicions; but she +had very little work for them to do, and she concluded that 'an easy +place' had had its attractions for them. Her servants were well treated +and well fed, and were allowed to see their friends; but she objected +to evening visits, and required the back door to be locked and the key +placed in her possession at nine o'clock every evening. If the front +door was opened she could hear it from every part of her modest +residence (and, being very nervous, she used often to fancy that it +opened when it did not), while a wire for the use of the policeman +connected the ground-floor with an alarm bell in her own room in case +of fire or other contingency. The two servants had been six days with +her when this alarm bell was pealed one night with great violence. She +looked out of window, and beheld a cab laden with luggage standing at +her door. She expected nobody; but whoever had come was more welcome +than 'thieves' or 'fire,' and she went up to the maid's room to bid +them answer the door. She found to her great astonishment--for it was +two in the morning--the apartment empty, and while she was there the +alarm-bell sounded again with increased fury. Looking over the +balusters, she perceived a light in the hall and inquired who was +there. 'Well, it's us two,' returned the cook, 'we're just agoin, so +good-bye. It ain't at all the sort o' place for us, and you ain't the +sort o' missis.' Then there was a shout of laughter, the front door was +opened and slammed to, and the cab drove off with its tenants, leaving +their mistress to her lonely meditations. The two friends had come on +trial, it seemed, and had had enough of it. + +That they made no claim for wages of any kind seems quite curious when +one considers what sort of servants, and in what sort of circumstances, +do demand them. And, as a rule, masters and mistresses give in to the +extortion. Yet the law is on their side, nor have they any reason to +complain of it in other respects. The improvement that is needed is in +themselves, and in their relations to those in their employment. Our +young ladies are so engaged in their accomplishments and their +amusements that they have no time to acquire a knowledge of domestic +affairs, so that when they marry they know no more of a housewife's +duties than their husbands. No wonder men of moderate means shrink from +marriage when wives have become a source of discomfort and expense, +instead of their contraries, and have lost the name of helpmate. How +can they be in a position to teach their servants when they themselves +are grossly ignorant of what they would have them learn? There are +certain village schools, indeed, which profess to train their pupils +for domestic service, but they only teach them to be maids-of-all-work, +the least remunerated and the hardest-worked of all the daughters of +toil. They offer no premium to diligence and perfection. + +This state of things is very hard both upon mistresses and servants, +but it is not irremediable, and the remedy must come from the upper of +the two classes. Schools are as necessary for servants as they are for +other people; they must be taught their calling before they can +practise it; and schools for servants must therefore be instituted. +With schools will come certificates of merit, and servants will then be +paid for what they can really do, and not, as now, in proportion to +their powers of audacity of assertion. + + + + +_MEN-SERVANTS._ + + +The subject of men-servants is by no means of such universal interest +as that of maid-servants, and those who suffer from them are not only +less numerous, but less deserving of pity; as a lady of limited means +once put it in my hearing, 'They can better afford to be robbed and +murdered' On the other hand, whatever truth may be in the dogma that +where a woman is bad she is worse than a bad man, it is certain that +when a man-servant is bad he can do more mischief than a bad +maid-servant. In many cases he is a necessity, not because folks are +rich, but because they have large families, and the service is +consequently too heavy to be undertaken solely by women. I have known +many householders who, weary of the trouble and annoyance given by +men-servants, have resolved to engage only those of the other sex, and +who have had to resort to men-servants again for what may be called +physical reasons. + +When this happens, however, both master and mistress should agree to +the arrangement, or at all events be both informed that it has been +made. Only last autumn a lady friend of mine adopted it in the absence +of her husband abroad, and forgot to apprise him of it by letter. He +arrived home late at night, and, letting himself in with a latch-key, +took the strange man for a burglar, and was almost the death of him by +strangulation before he could explain that he was the new butler. + +No woman can bring up a luncheon or dinner tray for a dozen people +twice a day without sooner or later coming to grief with it. And here +it is appropriate to say that in places where there is much heavy work +it is only reasonable that wages should be higher than where the work +is light. Whereas, upon such irrational grounds is our whole system of +domestic service built, that this is hardly ever taken into +consideration. Since the servant is told beforehand what he or she will +have to do, it is taken for granted that the conditions are acceptable +to them; whereas, the fact is that the capability of performing their +duties is the very last thing to enter their minds. They cannot afford +to remain 'out of a situation,' and therefore take the first that +offers itself as a stopgap, with no more intention of permanently +remaining there than a European who accepts an appointment in Turkey, +and with the same object--namely, to make as much as possible out of +the Turks in the meantime. + +In the case of a man-servant, especially in London, no written +character should ever be held sufficient. A personal interview with his +late master or mistress is indispensable. This gives a little trouble, +no doubt, on both sides; but those who grudge it, for such a purpose, +must indeed be grossly selfish, and when they engage a ticket-of-leave +man for their butler get no worse than they deserve. One of the best +butlers, however, I ever knew was a ticket-of-leave man--engaged on the +faith of a written character, which was, of course, a forged one, and +who remained with his employer no less than eighteen months. If his +speculations on the turf had been successful, he might have parted with +him the best of friends, and perhaps have purchased a residence in the +same square; but something went wrong with the brother to Bucephalus, +whom he had backed for the Derby, and the poor man had to dispose of +the whole of his master's family plate to pay his own debts of honour +and defray his travelling expenses--probably to some considerable +distance, as the police could never hear of him. The risk in taking a +butler without a personal guarantee of at least his honesty and +sobriety can indeed hardly be exaggerated. If a clever fellow, his +influence over his fellow-servants of the other sex is very great, and +it is a recognised maxim of the class never 'to tell upon one another' +so long as they remain good friends. I have heard an experienced +housewife say there is nothing she dreads so much as an unbroken +harmony below stairs; like silence in the nursery, it is ominous of all +sorts of mischief. + +Of course, the ticket-of-leave man was an extreme case; but it is +certain that some butlers who are not thieves are always treading on +the very confines of roguery. They are like trustees who, though they +will not touch the principal entrusted to them, not only omit to put it +out to the best advantage, but will sometimes even pocket a portion of +the interest 'for their trouble.' I remember reading a curious case of +this sort. A gentleman who had been with his family in Switzerland for +nine months was met by a London acquaintance on his return, who +expressed his regret at his having been in trouble at home. 'Nay, I +have been in no trouble,' he replied, 'and, indeed, none of us have +been at home.' 'But a month ago when I was passing down your street I +surely saw a funeral standing at your door?' Nor had his eyes deceived +him. The butler in charge had let the house for a couple of months, and +but for his singular ill-luck in one of his tenants happening to die +during their temporary occupation of it, he would have pocketed the +rent (_minus_ the money requisite to keep the maids' mouths shut) and +his master would have been none the wiser. It is said that it is only +when we have lost a friend that we come to value him at his true worth; +and it is certain that it is only when one's butler has left us and the +tongues of his fellow-servants are loosened that we come to learn his +demerits--the difference between his real character and his written +one. If he is a rogue, his evil influence remains behind him, and, next +to the maidservants, it is the page who suffers most from it. He +becomes--poor little fellow!--almost by necessity an accessory to his +delinquencies, plays pilot-fish to the other's shark, and himself grows +up to swell the host of bad servants and that army of martyrs their +masters and mistresses. + +A common cause of a butler's ruin, and for which he is much to be +pitied, is his having married unfortunately. I had once a good servant +whom I was very loth to lose, but whose departure became necessary from +his constantly being visited by a wife in advanced stages of +intoxication. Housewives generally prefer a married man for their +servant, for reasons that are not inscrutable. I do not wish to differ +from such good authorities. But though I have no objection to my butler +being married, I do object to maintain his wife, which, if he be on +good terms with the cook, there is a strong probability of my having to +do. As to his own eating, Heaven forbid that I should grudge it to him; +but it is curious and utterly subversive of all medical dogma that both +men-servants and maidservants, who take, of course, comparatively +little exercise, should, nevertheless, contrive to eat more apiece for +dinner than two average Alpine climbers. Four meals a day, and three of +them meat meals, is their usual rate of sustenance, and the food must +not only be frequent and plentiful, but very good. It is a gratifying +proof of the rapid influence of civilisation that the daughter of a +farm-labourer, accustomed at home to consider bacon a treat and beef a +windfall, will, after a month's experience of her London place, decline +to eat cold meat of any kind, reject salt butter as 'not fit for a +Christian,' and become quite a _connoisseur_ as to the strength of +bitter ale. Indeed, two of our present female domestics are +'recommended' to drink claret because beer makes them bilious. I do not +mind giving them claret, but I think it hard that under such +circumstances I should have had a butler give me warning because the +female domestics are 'not select enough.' My own impression is, though +I scarcely like to mention it, because he was a married man, that he +considered them too plain. + +The reasons, or at all events the professed reasons, which servants +give for leaving their situations are sometimes very curious. One man +left a family of my acquaintance because he said he was interfered with +by the young ladies. 'Good gracious, what do you mean?' inquired his +mistress. Her daughters, it appears, were accustomed to arrange the +flowers for the dinner-table, whereas, as he imagined, he had a +peculiar gift for that kind of decoration himself. + +On the other hand, it is sometimes difficult for a sensitive master or +mistress to give the true reason for their parting with a servant. A +friend of mine had a footman who, through trick, or some defect in his +respiratory organs, used to blow like a grampus, and indeed more like a +whale, while waiting at table. It was not a vice, of course, but it was +very objectionable, and guests who were bald especially objected to it. +My friend consulted with his butler, who admitted that 'John did blow +like a pauper' (meaning, as I suppose, a porpoise), and undertook to +break the subject to him. It is quite common to find candidates for +service very deaf, and if they contrive to pass their 'entrance +examination' (for which no doubt they sharpen their faculties), they +stay with you for a month at least with an excellent excuse for making +it a holiday, since, whatever you tell them to do they cannot hear and +do not do it, or do something else which they like better. Mistresses +who are silent about moral disqualifications are much more so, of +course, about physical ones, and have no scruples in ridding themselves +of a deaf man. + +The worst class of men-servants, perhaps, are those who are said to +'require a master;' which means that when he happens to be not at home +they neglect everything. A friend of mine who happened to take a week's +holiday, alone, discovered on his return that his family might almost +as well have had no servant at all as the man he left with them; he was +generally out, and when at home had not even troubled himself to answer +the drawing-room bell. Some men-servants are always running out; they +have 'just stepped round the corner,' they say, 'to post a letter;' +which in nine cases out of ten means to have a dram at the +public-house. The servants who 'require a master' sometimes retain +their situation with a very selfish one by devoting themselves to his +service at the expense of the rest of the family. 'John suits me very +well,' he says, 'and thoroughly understands his duties,' which in this +case means the length of the master's foot. + +On the other hand, there are some men-servants who, one would think, +ought to belong to the other sex, so utterly ignorant they are of that +branch of their duty which they call 'valeting.' A lady blessed with a +scientific husband, who certainly did not take much notice whether he +was 'valeted' or not, once complained to his man of his neglect in this +particular. 'When your master comes in, William, you should look after +him, and see to his hat and coat, and pay him little attentions.' So +the next time the man of science came in he was not a little surprised +by William (who, it is fair to say, came from the country) running up +and taking his hat off his head, like some highly-trained retriever. +Happy the master to whom a worse thing has never happened at the hands +of his retainer! + +The main thing to be dreaded in men-servants--next to downright +dishonesty--is, of course, intoxication. If a man has been long in +one's service and gets drunk for once and away, it may well be forgiven +him; but when your new servant gets drunk, wait till he is sober enough +to receive his wages, and then dismiss him--if you can. Not long ago I +had occasion to discharge a butler for habitual intoxication; he was +never quite drunk, but also never quite sober; he was a sot. I made him +fetch a cab, and saw his luggage put upon it, and I tendered him his +month's wages. But he refused to leave the house without board wages. +Of course, I declined to pay him any such thing; and, as he persisted +in leaning against the dining-room door murmuring at intervals, 'I +wants my board wages,' I sent for a policeman. 'Be so good,' I said,' +as to turn this drunken person out of my house.' 'I daren't do it, +sir,' was the reply; 'that would be to exceed my duty.' 'Then, why are +you here?' 'I am here, sir, to see that you turn the man out yourself +without using unnecessary violence.' 'The man' was six feet high and as +stout as a beer-barrel. I could no more have moved him than Skiddaw, +and he knew it. 'I stays here,' he chanted in his maudlin way, 'till I +gets my board wages.' Fortunately, two Oxford undergraduates happened +to be in the house, to whom I mentioned my difficulty, and I shall not +easily forget the delighted promptitude with which they seized upon the +offender and 'ran him out' into the street. He fled down the area steps +at once with a celerity that convinced me he was accustomed to being +turned out of houses, and tried to obtain re-admission at the +back-door. It was fortunately locked, but when I said to the policeman, +'_Now_, please to remove that man,' he answered, 'No, sir; that would +be to exceed my duty; he is still upon your premises and a member of +your household.' As it was raining heavily, the delinquent, though +sympathised with by a great crowd round the area railings, presently +got tired of his position and went away. But supposing my young Oxford +friends had not been in the house and he had fallen upon me (a little +man) in the act of expulsion; or supposing I had been a widow lady with +no protector, would that too faithful retainer have remained in my +establishment for ever? + +I have purposely addressed myself to that large class of the community +only who are said 'to keep a man-servant'--that is, one man, assisted, +perhaps, by a page. Those who keep butler, footman, coachman, grooms, +and valets are comparatively few in number, and know nothing of the +inconveniences which their less wealthy fellow-countrymen endure. In +large establishments, if William is drunk, John is sober, and the work +is done for the rich man by somebody; especially, too, if William is +drunk, there are John and Thomas to turn him out of the house and have +done with him. But it is certain that the lower Ten Thousand are not in +a satisfactory condition as respects their men-servants; hardly more +so, in fact, than the Hundred Thousand are in regard to their maids. +The men-servants, however, are not so ignorant of their duties as are +the latter, and if only their masters would have the courage to tell +the truth when giving them their 'characters,' there would be a great +improvement in them. Against the masters themselves (unlike the +mistresses) I have never heard much complaint. Most of them object to +be 'bothered' and 'troubled,' and are willing enough to put everything +into their man's hands, including the key of the Cellar, if only they +could trust him; but at present, alas! this is a very large 'If.' + + + + +_WHIST-PLAYERS._ + + +If cards are the Devil's books, Whist is the _edition de luxe_ of them. +Whist-playing is one of the few vices of the upper classes that has not +in time descended to the lower, with whom the ingenious and attractive +game of 'All Fours' has always held its own against it. I have known +but two men not belonging to the upper ten thousand who played well at +whist. One was a well-known jockey in the South of England, who was +also, by the way, an admirable billiard-player. He called himself an +amateur, but those who played with him used to complain that his +proceedings were even ultra-professional. On the Turf men are almost as +equal as they are under it, and this ornament of the pigskin would on +certain occasions (race meetings) take his place at the card-table with +some who were very literally his betters, while others who had more +self-respect contented themselves with backing him. The other example I +have in my mind was an ancient Cumberland yeoman, who, having lost the +use of his limbs in middle life from having been tossed by a bull, +pursued the science under considerable difficulties. A sort of +card-rack (such as Psycho uses at the Egyptian Hall) was placed in +front of him, and behind him stood his little granddaughter who played +the cards for him by verbal direction. Both these men played a very +good game of the old-fashioned kind, for though the jockey used +subtleties, they were not of the Clay or Cavendish sort. The asking for +trumps was a device unknown to him, though there were folks who +whispered he would take them under certain circumstances without +asking, and of the leading of the penultimate with five in the suit it +could be said of him, for once, that he was as innocent as a babe. + +Of course, many persons join the 'upper ten' who come from the lower +twenty (or even thirty), and it need not be said that they are by no +means inferior in sagacity to their new acquaintances; yet they rarely +make first-rate players. Whist, like the classics, must be learnt young +for any excellence to be attained in it. Of this Metternich was a +striking example. If benevolent Nature ever intended a man for a +whist-player one would have supposed that she had done so in his case, +but had been baffled by some malign Destiny which had degraded him to +that class by whom, in conjunction with Kings, it was fondly believed, +previously to the recent general election, that 'the world was +governed.' Until late in life he never took to whist, when he grew +wildly fond of it, and played incessantly, till it is said a certain +memorable event took place which caused him never to touch a card +again. The story goes that, rapt in the enjoyment of the game, he +suffered a special messenger to wait for hours, to whom if he had given +his attention more promptly a massacre of many hundred persons would +have been prevented. Humanity may drop a tear, but whist had nothing to +regret in the circumstance; for in Metternich it did not lose a good +player, and, what redeems his intelligence, he knew it. 'I learnt my +whist too late,' he would say, with more pathos and solemnity, perhaps, +than he would have used when speaking of more momentous matters of +omission. + +He must be a wise man indeed who, being an habitual whist-player, is +aware that he is a bad one. In games of pure skill, such as chess, and, +in a less degree, billiards, a man must be a fool who deceives himself +upon such a point; but in whist there is a sufficient amount of chance +to enable him to preserve his self-complacency for some time--let us +say, his lifetime. If he loses, he ascribes it to his 'infernal luck,' +which always fills his hands with twos and threes; and if he wins, +though it is by a succession of four by honours as long as the string +of four-in-hands when the Coaching Club meets in Hyde Park, he ascribes +it to his skill. 'If I hadn't played trumps just when I did,' he +modestly observes to his partner, 'all would have been over with us;' +though the result would have been exactly the same had he played +blindfold. To an observer of human nature, who is not himself a loser +'on the day,' there are few things more charming than the genial, +gentle self-approval of two players of this class who have just +defeated two experts, and proved, to their own satisfaction, that if +fortune gives them 'a fair chance' or 'something like equal cards,' as +they term the conditions of their late performance, they can play as +well as other people. + +Of course, the term 'good-play' is a relative one; the player who wins +applause in the drawing-room is often thought but little of in places +where the rigour of the game is observed; and the 'good, steady player' +of the University Clubs is not a star of the first magnitude at the +Portland. The best players used to be men of mature years; they are now +the middle-aged, who, with sufficient practical experience, have +derived their skill in early life from the best books. 'It is difficult +to teach an old dog new tricks,' and for the most part the old dogs +despise them. When I hear my partner boast that he is 'none of your +book-players,' I smile courteously, and tremble. I know what will +become of him and me if fortune does not give him his 'fair chance,' +and I seek comfort from the calculation which tells me it is two to one +against my cutting with him again. How marvellous it is, when one comes +to consider the matter, that a man should decline to receive +instruction on a technical subject from those who have eminently +distinguished themselves in it, and have systematised for the benefit +of others the results of the experience of a lifetime! With books or no +books, it is quite true, however, that some men, otherwise of great +intelligence, can never be taught whist; they may have had every +opportunity of learning it--have been born, as it were, with the ace of +spades in their mouth instead of a silver spoon--but the gift of +understanding is denied them; and though it is ungallant to say so, I +have never known a lady to play whist well. + +In the case of the fair sex, however, it may be urged that they have +not the same chances; they have no whist clubs, and the majority of +them entertain the extraordinary delusion that it is wrong to play at +whist in the afternoon. One may talk scandal over kettle-drums, and go +to morning performances at the theatre, but one may not play at cards +till after dinner. There is even quite a large set of male persons who, +'on principle,' do not play at whist in the afternoon. In seasons of +great adversity, when fortune has not given me my 'fair chance' for +many days, I have sometimes 'gone on strike,' as it is termed, and +joined them; but anything more deplorable than such a state of affairs +it is impossible to imagine. After their day's work is over, these good +people can't conceive what to do with themselves, and, between +ourselves, it is my experience, drawn from these occasional 'intervals +of business,' that this practice of not playing whist in the afternoon +generally leads to dissipation. + +It is sometimes advanced by this unhappy class, by way of apology, that +they play at night; which may very possibly be the case, but they don't +play well. There is no such thing, except in the sense in which +after-dinner speaking is called 'good,' as good whist after dinner. It +may seem otherwise, even to the spectators; but having themselves dined +like the rest, they are not in a position to give an opinion. The +keenness of observation is blunted by food and wine; the delicate +perceptions are gone; and what is left of the intelligence is generally +devoted to finding faults in your partner's play. The consciousness of +mistakes on your own part, which he is in no condition to discern, +instead of suggesting charity, induces irritation, and you are +persuaded, till you get the next man, that you are mated with the worst +player in all Christendom. Moreover, that 'one more rubber' with which +you propose to finish is generally elastic (_Indian_ rubber), and you +sit up into the small hours and find them disagree with you. If I ever +write that new series of the 'Chesterfield Letters' which I have long +had in my mind, and for which I feel myself eminently qualified, my +most earnest advice to young gentlemen of fashion will be found in the +golden rule, 'Never sit down to whist after dinner;' it is a mistake, +and almost an immorality. If they must play cards, let them play +Napoleon. + +With regard to finding fault with one's partner, I have no apology to +offer for it under any circumstances; but it must be remembered that +this does not always arise from ill-temper, or the sense of loss that +might have been gain. There are many lovers of whist for its own sake +to whom bad play, even in an adversary, excites a certain distress of +mind; when a good hand is thrown away by it, they experience the same +sort of emotion that a gourmand feels who sees a haunch of venison +spoilt in the carving. In such a case a gentle expression of +disapproval is surely pardonable. And I have observed that, with one or +two exceptions (_non Angli sed angeli_, men of angelic temper rather +than ordinary Englishmen), the good players who never find fault are +not socially the pleasantest. They are men who 'play to win,' and who +think it very injudicious to educate a bad partner who will presently +join the ranks of the Opposition. + +What is rather curious--and I speak with some experience, for I have +played with all classes, from the prince to the gentleman farmer--the +best whist-players are not, as a rule, those who are the most highly +educated or intellectual. Men of letters, for example (I am speaking, +of course, very generally), are inferior to the doctors and the +warriors. Both the late Lord Lytton and Charles Lever had, it is true, +a considerable reputation at the whist-table, but though they were good +players, they were not in the first class; while the author of 'Guy +Livingstone,' though devoted to the game, was scarcely to be placed in +the second. The best players are, one must confess, what irreverent +persons, ignorant of the importance of this noble pursuit, would term +'idlers'--men of mere nominal occupation, or of none, to whom the game +has been familiar from their youth, and who have had little else to do +than to play it. + +While some men, as I have said, can never be taught whist, a few are +born with a genius for the game, and move up 'from high to higher,' +through all the grades of excellence, with a miraculous rapidity; but, +whether good, bad, or indifferent, I have not known half a dozen +whist-players who were not superstitious. Their credulity is, indeed, +proverbial, but no one who does not mix with them can conceive the +extent of it; it reminds one of the African fetish. The country +apothecary's wife who puts the ivory 'fish' on the candlestick 'for +luck,' and her partner, the undertaker, who turns his chair in hopes to +realise more 'silver threepences,' are in no way more ridiculous than +the grave and reverend seigneurs of the Clubs who are attracted to 'the +winning seats' or 'the winning cards.' The idea of going on because +'the run of luck' is in your favour, or of leaving off because it has +declared itself against you, is logically of course unworthy of +Cetywayo. The only modicum of reason that underlies it is the fact that +the play of some men becomes demoralised by ill-fortune, and may, +possibly, be improved by success. Yet the belief in this absurdity is +universal, and bids fair to be eternal. 'If I am not in a draught, and +my chair is comfortable, you may put me anywhere,' is a remark I have +heard but once, and the effect of it on the company was much the same +as if in the House of Convocation some reverend gentleman had announced +his acceptance of the religious programme of M. Comte. + +With the few exceptions I have mentioned, whist-players not only stop +very far short of excellence in the game, but very soon reach their +tether. I cannot say of any man that he has gone on improving for +years; his mark is fixed, and he knows it--though he is exceptionally +sagacious if he knows where it is drawn as respects others--and there +he stays till he begins to deteriorate. The first warning of decadence +is the loss of memory, after which it is a question of time (and good +sense) when he shall withdraw from the ranks of the fighting men and +become a mere spectator of the combat. It was said by a great gambler +that the next pleasure in life to that of winning was that of losing; +and to the real lover of whist, the next pleasure to that of playing a +good game is that of looking on at one. + +Whist has been extolled, and justly, upon many accounts; but the +peculiar advantage of the game is, perhaps, that it utilises socially +many persons who would not otherwise be attractive. Unless a player is +positively disagreeable, he is as good to play whist with as a +conversational Crichton. Moreover, though the poet has hinted of the +evanescent character of 'friendships made in wine,' such is not the +case with those made at whist. The phrase, 'my friend and partner,' +used by a well-known lady in fiction, in speaking of another lady, is +one that is particularly applicable to this social science, and holds +good, as it does, alas, in no other case, even when the partner becomes +an adversary. + + + + +_RELATIONS._ + + +It is a favourite utterance of a much 'put-upon' Paterfamilias of my +acquaintance, when he finds his family more than usually too much for +him, and cynically confesses his own shortcomings, that 'children +cannot be too particular in their choice of their parents, or begin +their education too early.' + +But not only are children a necessity--that is, if the world of men and +women is to be kept going, concerning the advantage of which there +seems, however, just now, to be some doubt,--but when they have +arrived, they cannot, except in very early life, be easily got rid of. +In this respect they differ from the relations whose case I am about to +consider, and also possess a certain claim upon us over and above the +mere tie of blood, since we are responsible for their existence. The +obligation on the other side is, I venture to think, a little +exaggerated. If there is such a thing as natural piety, which, even in +these days, few are found to deny, it is the reverence, it is true, +with which children regard their parents; but their moral indebtedness +to them as the authors of their being is open to doubt. That theory, +indeed, appears to be founded upon false premises; for, unless in the +case of an ancestral estate, I am not aware that the existence of +children is much premeditated. On the contrary, their arrival is often +looked upon, from pecuniary reasons, with much apprehension, or, at +best, till they do arrive, they may be described, in common phrase, as +'neither born nor thought of.' I am a father myself, but I wish to be +fair and to take a just view of matters. If a mother leaves her child +on a doorstep, for example, the filial bond can hardly be expected to +be very strong. In such a case, indeed, the infant seems to me to have +a very distinct grievance against its female parent, and to be under no +very overwhelming obligation to its father. 'Handsome is as handsome +does' is a principle that applies to all relations of life, including +the nearest; and if duty never absolutely ceases to exist, it is, at +all events, greatly moulded by circumstances. + +Patriotism, for instance, is very commendable, but your country must be +worth something to make you love it. It is next to impossible that an +inhabitant of Monaco, for example, should be patriotic. He can at most +be only parochial. The love of one's mother is probably the purest and +noblest of all human affections; but some people's mothers are habitual +drunkards, and others professional thieves. Even filial reverence, it +is plain, must stop somewhere. That is one of the objections which, +with all humility, I feel to the religion of M. Comte. The worship of +my grandmother would be impossible to me, unless I had reason to +believe her to have been a respectable person. Her relationship, unless +I had had the advantage of her personal acquaintance, would weigh I +fear, but little with me, and that of my great-grandmother nothing at +all. The whole notion of ancestry--unless one's ancestors have been +distinguished people--seems to me ridiculous. If they have _not_ been +distinguished people--folks, that is, of whom some record has been +preserved--how is one to know that they have been worthy persons, whose +mission has been to increase the sum of human happiness? If, on the +other hand, they have been only notorious, and done their best to +decrease it, I should be most heartily ashamed of them. The pride of +birth from this point of view--which seems to me a very reasonable +one--is not only absurd, but often very reprehensible. We may be +exulting, by proxy, in successful immorality, or even crime. Our +boastfulness of our progenitors is necessarily in most cases very +vague, because we know so little about them. When we come to the +particular, the record stops very short indeed--generally at one's +grandmother, who, by the way, plays a part in the dream-drama of +ancestry little superior to that of that 'rank outsider,' a +mother-in-law. 'Tell that to your grandmother' is a phrase that +certainly did not originate in reverence; and even when that lady is +proverbially alluded to in a complimentary sense, her intelligence is +only eulogised in connection with the 'sucking of eggs.' + +It so happens that I have quite a considerable line of ancestors +myself, but only one of them ever distinguished himself, and that (he +was an Attorney-General) in a doubtful way; and I confess I don't take +the slightest interest in them. I prefer the pleasant companion with +whom I came up in the train yesterday, and whose name I forgot to ask, +to the whole lot of them. + +And if I don't care about ancestors on canvas (for their pictures, of +course, are all we have seen of them), I have good cause to be offended +with them on paper. My favourite biographies--such as that of Walter +Scott, for example--are disfigured by them. When men sit down to write +a great man's life, why should they weary us with an epitome of that of +his grandfather and grandmother? Of course, the book has to be a +certain length. No one is more sensible than myself of the difficulty +of providing 'copy' sufficient for two octavo volumes; but I do think +biographers should confine themselves to two generations. For my part, +I could do with one, but there is the favourite theory of a great man's +inheriting his greatness from the maternal parent, which I am well +aware cannot be dispensed with. It is like the white horse, or rather +the grey mare, in Wouvermanns's pictures; you can't get rid of it any +more than Mr. Dick could get Charles I. out of his memorial. For my +part, I always begin biographies at the fourteenth chapter (or +thereabouts)--'The subject of this memoir was born,' etc.; and even so +I find I get quite enough of them. In novels the introduction of +ancestry is absolutely intolerable. When I see that hateful chapter +headed 'Retrospective,' I pass over to the other side, like the Levite, +only quicker. What do I care whether our hero's grandfather was +Archbishop of Canterbury or a professional body-snatcher? I don't even +care which of the two was my own personal friend's grandfather, and how +much less can I take an interest in this imaginary progenitor of the +creation of an author's brain? The introduction of such a colourless +shadow is, to my mind, the height of impertinence. If I were Mr. Mudie, +I would put my foot down resolutely and stamp out this literary plague. +As George III., who had an objection to commerce, is said to have +observed, when asked to confer a baronetcy on one of the Broadwood +family, 'Are you sure there is not a piano in it?' so should Mr. M. +inquire of the publisher before taking copies of any novel, 'Are you +sure there is not a grandfather in it?' + +Again, what a nuisance is ancestry in our social life! It cannot, +unhappily, be done away with as a fact, but surely it need not be a +topic. How often have I been asked by some fair neighbour at a +dinner-table, 'Is that Mr. Jones opposite one of the Joneses of +Bedfordshire?' One's first impulse is naturally to ask, 'What on earth +is that to you or me?' But experience teaches prudence, and I reply +with reverence, 'Yes, of Bedfordshire,' which, at all events, puts a +stop to argument upon the matter. Moreover, she seems to derive some +sort of mysterious satisfaction from the information, and it is always +well to give pleasure. + +A well-known wit was once in company with one of the Cavendishes, who +had lately been to America, and was recounting his experiences. 'These +Republican people have such funny names,' he said. 'I met there a man +of the name of Birdseye.' 'Well, and is not that just as good as +Cavendish?' replied the wit, who was also a smoker. But the remark was +not appreciated. + +Ancestral people do not, as a rule, appreciate wit; but, on the other +hand, it must be admitted that this is not a defect peculiar to them +alone. I once knew a man of letters who, though he had risen to wealth +and eminence, was of humble descent, and had a weakness for avoiding +allusion to it. His daughter married a man of good birth, but whose +literary talents were not of a high order. This gentleman wrote a +letter applying for a certain Government appointment, and expressed a +wish for his father-in-law's opinion upon the composition. 'It's a very +bad letter,' was the frank criticism the other made upon it. 'The +writing is bad, the spelling is indifferent, the style is abominable. +Good heavens! where are your relatives and antecedents?' 'If it comes +to that,' was the reply, 'where are yours? For I never hear you speak +about them.' Nor did he ever hear him, for his father-in-law never +spoke another word to him. + +Nothing, of course, can be more contemptible than to neglect one's poor +relations on account of their poverty; but it is very doubtful whether +the sum of human happiness is increased by our having so much respect +for the mere tie of kindred, unaccompanied by merit. Other things being +equal, it is obviously natural that one's near relatives should be the +best of friends. But other things are not always equal. Indeed, a +certain high authority (which looks on both sides of most questions) +admits as much. 'There is a friend,' it says, 'that sticketh closer +than a brother. The connection, with its consequences, is somewhat +similar to a partnership in commercial life. If partners pull together, +and are sympathetic, nothing can be more delightful than such an +arrangement. The tie of business clenches the tie of social attraction. +For myself, I am not commercial; but I envy the old firm of Beaumont +and Fletcher, and the modern one of Erckmann and Chatrian. But if the +members of the firm do _not_ pull together? Then, surely the bond +between them is most deplorable, and a divorce _a vinculo_ should be +obtained as soon as possible. + +One of the greatest mistakes--and there are many--that we fall into +from a too ready acknowledgment of the tie of kindred is the obligation +we feel under to consort with relations with whom we have nothing in +common. You may take such persons to the waters of affection, but you +cannot make them drink; and the more you see of them the less they are +likely to agree with you. Not once, nor twice, but fifty times, in a +life experience that is becoming protracted, I have seen this forcible +bringing together of incongruous elements, and the result has been +always unfortunate. I say 'forcible,' because it has been rarely +voluntary; now and then a strong, though, I venture to think, a +mistaken sense of duty may lead a man to seek the society of one with +whom he has nothing in common save the bond of race; but for the most +part they are obeying the wishes of another--the sacred injunction, +perhaps, of a parent on his death-bed. 'Be good friends,' he murmurs, +'my children,' not reflecting, in that supreme and farewell hour, how +little things, such as prejudice, difference of political or religious +opinions, conflicting interests, and the like, affect us while we are +in this world, and how perilous it is to attempt to link like with +unlike. I am quite certain that when relations do not, in common +phrase, 'get on well with one another,' the best chance of their +remaining friends is for them to keep apart. This is gradually becoming +recognised by 'the common sense of most,' as we see by the falling-off +in those family gatherings at Christmas, which only too often partook +of the character of that assembly which met under the roof of Mr, +Pecksniff, with the disastrous result with which we are all acquainted. + +The more distant the tie of blood, the less reason, of course, there is +to consider it; yet it is strange to see how even sensible men will +welcome the Good-for-nothing, who chance to be 'of kin' to them, to the +exclusion of the Worthy, who lack that adventitious claim. The effect +of this is an absolute immorality, since it offers a premium to +unpleasant people, while it heavily handicaps those who desire to make +themselves agreeable. To give a particular example of this, though upon +a large scale, I might cite Scotland, where, making allowance for the +absence of that University system, which in England is so strong a +social tie, there are undoubtedly fewer friendships, in comparison, +than there are with us; this I have no hesitation in attributing to +clanship--the exaggeration of the family tie--which substitutes +nearness for dearness, and places a tenth cousin above the most +charming of companions, who labours under the disadvantage of being +'nae kin.' + +Again, what is more common than to hear it said, in apology for some +manifestly ill-conditioned and offensive person, that he is 'good to +his family'? The praise is probably only so far deserved that he does +not beat his wife nor starve his children; but, supposing even he +treated them as he should do, and, moreover, entertained his ten-times +removed cousins to dinner every Sunday, what is that to _me_ who do not +enjoy his unenviable hospitality? Let his cousins speak well of him by +all means; but let the rest of the world speak as they find. I protest +against the theory that the social virtues should limit themselves to +the home circle, and still more, that they should extend to the distant +branches of it to the exclusion of the world at large. + +Of Howard, the philanthropist, it is said--and, I notice, said with a +certain cynical pleasure--that, notwithstanding his universal +benevolence, he behaved with severity ta his own son. I have not that +intimate acquaintance with the circumstances which, to judge by the +confidence of their assertions, his traducers possess, but I should be +slow to believe, in the case of such a father, that the son did not +deserve all he got, or was not forgiven even to the seventy times +seventh offence. There is, however, no little want of reason in the +ordinary acceptation of the term, 'loving forgiveness.' He must be a +very morose man who does not forgive a personal injury, especially when +there has been an expression of repentance for it; but there are +offences which, quite independently of their personal sting, manifest +in the offender a cruel or bad heart, and 'loving forgiveness' is in +that case no more to be expected than that we should take a serpent who +has already stung us to our bosom. 'It is his nature to,' as the poet +expresses it, and if that serpent is my relative it is my misfortune, +and by no means impresses me with a sense of obligation. Indeed, in the +case of an offensive relation, so far from his having any claim to my +consideration, it seems to me I have a very substantial grievance in +the fact of his existence, and that he owes me reparation for it. + +It is perhaps from a natural reaction, and is a sort of unconscious +protest against the preposterous claims of kinship, that our +connections by marriage are so freely criticised, and, to say truth, +held in contempt. No one enjoins us to love our wife's relations, +indeed, our own kindred are generally dead against them, and especially +against her mother, to whom the poor woman very naturally clings. This +is as unreasonable in the way of prejudice, as the other line of +conduct is in the way of favouritism. It is, in short, my humble +opinion that, if everyone stood upon his or her own merits, and was +treated accordingly, this world of ours would be the better for it; and +of this I am quite sure--it would have fewer disagreeable people in it. +I am neither so patriotic nor so thorough-going as the American +citizen, who, during the late Civil War, came to President Lincoln, and +nobly offered to sacrifice on the altar of freedom 'all his able-bodied +relations;' but I think that most of us would be benefited if they were +weeded out a bit. + + + + +_INVALID LITERATURE._ + + +It has always struck me as a breach of faith in Charles Lamb to have +published the fact that dear, 'rigorous' Mrs. Battle's favourite suit +was Hearts: and is in my eyes, notwithstanding Mr. Carlyle's posthumous +outburst, the only blot on his character. His own confession, though +tendered with a blush, that there is such a thing as sick whist stands +on totally different grounds; it is not a relaxation of principle, but +an acknowledgment of a weakness common to human nature. One of the most +advanced thinkers and men of science of our time has frankly admitted +that his theological views are considerably modified by the state of +his health; and if one's ideas on futurity are thus affected, it is no +wonder that things of this world wear a different appearance when +viewed from a sick bed. It is not difficult to imagine that whist, for +example, played on the counterpane by three good Samaritans, to while +away the hours for an afflicted friend, differs from the game when +played on a club card-table. Common humanity prevents our saying what +we think of the play of an invalid who may be enjoying his last rubber; +and if the ace of trumps _is_ found under his pillow, we only smile and +hope it will not occur again. + +On the other hand, literary taste would, one would think, be the last +thing to vary with our physical condition; yet those who have had long +illnesses know better, and will, I am sure, bear me out in the +assertion that there are such things as sick books. I do not, of +course, speak of devotional works. I am picturing the poor man when he +is getting well after a long bout of illness; his mind clear, but +inert; his limbs painless, but so languid that they hardly seem to +belong to him; and when he regards their attenuated proportions with +the same sort of feeble interest that is evoked by eggshell china--they +are not useful, still it would be a pity if they broke. + +Then it is that one feels a loathing of the strong meats of literature, +and a liking for its milk diet. As to metaphysics, one has had enough +and to spare of _them_ when one was delirious; while the 'Fairy Tales +of Science' do not strike one just then as being quite so fairylike as +the poet represents them. As to science, indeed, there is but one thing +clear to us, namely, that the theory of evolution is a mistake; for +though one's getting better at all is undoubtedly a proof of the +survival of the fittest, we are well convinced that we have retrograded +from what we were. It would puzzle Darwin himself to fix our position +exactly, but though we lack the tenacity, and especially the colour, of +the sea-anemone, we seem to be there or thereabouts in the scale of +humanity. When last prostrated by rheumatic fever, or its remedies, I +remember, indeed, to have been inclined to mathematics. When very ill I +had suffered agonies in my dreams from the persecutions of an +impossible quantity, and perhaps the association of ideas suggested, as +I slowly gathered strength, a little problem in statics. It had been +taught me by my dear tutor at Cambridge, whom undergraduates have long +ceased to trouble, as a proof of the pathos that dwells in figures; and +I kept repeating it to myself, with the letters all misplaced, till I +became exhausted by tears and emotion. + +As a general rule, however, even mathematics fail to interest the +convalescent. 'Man delights not him; no, nor woman neither;' but +Literature, if light in the hand, and always provided that he has his +back to the window, is a pleasure to him only next to that of his new +found appetite and his first chicken. His taste 'has suffered a sick +change,' but that by no means implies it has deteriorated. On the +contrary, his critical faculty has fled (which is surely an immense +advantage), while he has recovered much of that power of appreciation +which rarely abides with us to maturity. He is not on the outlook for +mistakes, slips of style, anachronisms; he derives no pleasure from the +discovery of spots in the sun, but is content to bask in the rays of +it. He does not necessarily return to the favourites of his youth, +though he has a tendency that way, but the shackles of convention have +slipped away from him with his flesh, and he reads what he likes, and +not what he has been told he ought to like. He has been so long removed +from public opinion, that, like a shipwrecked crew in an open boat, it +has ceased to affect him; only, instead of taking to cannibalism, he +takes to what is nice. As his physical appetite is fastidious, so his +mental palate has a relish only for titbits. If ever there was a time +for a reasonable being to 'dip' into books, or to enjoy 'half-hours +with the best authors,' this is it; but weak as the patient is, he +commonly declines to have his tastes dictated to; perhaps there is an +unpleasant association in his mind, arising from Brand and Liebig, with +all 'extracts;' but, at all events, those literary compilations oppress +and bewilder him; he objects to the extraordinary fertility of 'Ibid,' +an author whose identity he cannot quite call to mind, and prefers to +choose for himself. + +Biography is out of the question. Long before he has got through that +account of the hero's great grandmother, from whom he inherited his +talents, which is, it seems, indispensable to such works, he yawns, and +devoutly wishing, notwithstanding its fatal consequences to the fourth +generation, that that old woman had never been born, falls into fitful +slumber. + +Travels are in the same condemnation; he has not the patience to watch +the traveller taking leave of his family at Pimlico, or to follow his +cab as he drives through the streets to the railway station, or to +share the discomforts of his cabin--all necessary, no doubt, to his +eventual arrival in Abyssinia, but hardly necessary to be described. +Moreover, the convalescent has probably travelled a good deal on his +own account during the last few weeks, for the bed of fever carries one +hither and thither with the velocity, though not the ease, of the +enchanted carpet in the 'Arabian Nights.' The desire of the sick man is +to escape from himself and all recent experiences. + +He thinks he will try a little History. Alison? No, certainly not +Alison. 'They will be proposing Lingard next,' he murmurs, and the +little irritation caused by the well-meant suggestion throws him back +for the next six hours. Presently he tries Macaulay, whom some +flatterer has fulsomely called 'as good as a novel,' but, though the +trial of Warren Hastings gives him a fillip, the rout of Sedgemoor does +away with the effect of it, and, happening upon the character of +Halifax, he suffers a severe relapse. As a bedfellow, Macaulay is too +declamatory, though, at the same time, strange to say, he does not +always succeed in keeping one awake. To the sick man Carlyle is +preferable; not his 'Frederick,' of course, and still less his 'Sartor +Resartus,' which has become a nightmare, without head or tail, but his +'French Revolution.' One lies and watches the amazing spectacle without +effort, as though it were represented on the stage. The sea of blood +rolls before our eyes, the roar of the mob sounds in our ears; we are +carried along with the unhappy Louis to the very frontier, and just on +the verge of escape are seized and brought back--King Coach--with him +to Paris, in a cold perspiration. + +Some people, when in health and of a sane mind (Mr. Matthew Arnold one +_knows_ of, and there may be others), take great delight in 'Paradise +Regained;' all we venture to say is that in sickness it does not +suggest its title. It is said that barley-water goes well with +everything; if so, the epic is the exception which proves the rule. +Milton is tedious after rheumatic fever, Spencer is worse. + + '"Not from the grand old masters, + Not from the bards sublime, + Whose distant footsteps echo + Through the corridors of Time,"' + +murmurs the invalid, 'I can't stand them.' He does not mean anything +depreciatory, but merely that-- + + 'Like strains of martial music + Their mighty thoughts suggest + Life's endless toil and endeavour,' + +which he is not fit even to think of. He cannot read Keats's +'Nightingale,' but for quite another reason. What arouses 'thoughts too +deep for tears' in the hale and strong is to the sick as the sinking +for an artesian well. 'The Chelsea Waterworks,' as Mr. Samuel Weller +observed of Mr. Job Trotter (at a time when the metropolitan water +supply would seem to have been more satisfactory than at present), 'are +nothing to him.' On the other hand, Shelley's 'Skylark,' and the +'Dramatic Fragments' of Browning, are as cordials to the invalid, while +the poems of Walter Scott are like breezes from the mountains and the +sea. In that admirable essay, 'Life in the Sick-room,' the authoress +justly remarks, speaking of the advantage of objectivity in sick books, +'Nothing can be better in this view than Macaulay's "Lays," which carry +us at full speed out of ourselves.' + +But it is not always that the invalid can read the poets at all; like +Mrs. Wititterley, his nerves are too delicately strung for the touch of +the muse. His chief enjoyment lies in fiction, to the producers of +which he can never feel too grateful. I remember, on one occasion when +I was very reduced indeed, taking up 'Northanger Abbey,' and reading, +with almost the same gusto as though I had been a novelist myself, Miss +Austen's defence of her profession. She says: + + 'I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom, so common + with novel-writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the + very performances to the number of which they are themselves + adding, joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the + harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely even permitting them + to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally takes up + a novel, is sure to turn from its insipid pages with disgust. Let + us not desert one another; we are an injured body. Although our + productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure + than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no + species of composition has been so much decried. From pride, + ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers; + and while the abilities of the nine-hundred-and-ninety-ninth + abridger of the history of England are eulogised by a thousand + pens, there seems a general agreement to slight the performances + which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them.' + +I had quite forgotten till I came upon this passage that Miss Austen +had such 'a kick in her,' and I remember how I honoured her for it and +sympathised with her sentiments. 'When pain and anguish wring the +brow,' we all know who is the comforter; but next to her, and when the +brow is getting a little better, we welcome the novelist. + +With our face aslant on the pillow, we once more make acquaintance with +the characters that have been the delight of our youth, and find they +delight us still, but with a difference. The animal spirits of Smollett +and Fielding are a little too much for us; there is not sympathy enough +in them for our own condition; they seem to have been fellows who were +never ill. Perhaps 'Humphrey Clinker,' though it drags at the end, and +the political disquisitions are intolerable, is the funniest book that +ever was written; but the faculty of appreciation for it is not now in +us. We turn with relief to Scott, though not to 'Scott's Works,' in the +sense in which the phrase is generally used, as though they were a +foundry from which everything is issued of the same workmanship and +excellence; whereas there is as much difference between them as there +was in her Majesty's ships of old between the gallant seventy-four and +the crazy troopship. The invalid, however, as I have said, is far from +critical; he only knows what he likes. Judged by this fastidious +standard, he finds 'Waverley' somewhat wearisome, and, as to the first +part of it in particular, wonders, not that the Great Unknown should +have kept it in his desk for years as a comparative failure, but that +he should have ever taken it from that repository. 'The Antiquary,' +which in health he used to admire, or think he did, exceedingly, has +also a narcotic effect; but 'Rob Roy' revives him, and 'Ivanhoe' stirs +him like a trumpet-call. + +What is very curious, just as the favourite literature of a cripple is +almost always that which treats of force and action, so upon our +sick-bed we turn most gladly to scenes of heroism and adventure. The +famous ride in 'Geoffrey Hamlyn,' where the fate of the heroine, +threatened with worse than death from the bush-rangers, hangs upon the +horse's speed, seems to us, as we lie abed, one of the finest episodes +in fiction. 'Tom Cringle's Log,' too, becomes a great favourite, not +more from its buoyancy and freshness than from the melodramatic scenes +with which it is interspersed. + +In some moods of the sick man's mind, his morbid appetite tends, +strange to say, to horrors. He 'snatches a fearful joy' from the weird +and supernatural. I have known those terrible tales of Le Fanu, +entitled 'In a Glass Darkly,' which for dramatic power and eeriness no +other novelist has ever approached, devoured greedily by those whose +physical sustenance has been dry toast and arrowroot. + +The works of Thackeray are too cynical for the convalescent; he is for +the present in too good a humour with destiny and human nature to enjoy +them. He prefers the more cheerful aspects of life, and resents the +least failure of poetic justice. + +Taking the tenants of the sick ward all round, indeed, I have little +doubt that the large majority would give their vote for Dickens. His +pathos, it is true, is too much for them. Their hearts are as waxen as +though Mrs. Jarley herself had made them. They are just in the +condition to be melted by 'Little Nell,' and overcome by the death of +Paul Dombey. They read 'David Copperfield' with avidity, but are +careful to avoid the catastrophe of Dora and even the demise of her +four-footed favourite. The book that suits them best is 'Martin +Chuzzlewit.' Its genial comedy, quite different from the violent +delights of 'Pickwick,' is well adapted to their grasp; while its +tragedy, the murder of Montague Tigg--the finest description of the +breaking of the sixth commandment in the language--leaves nothing to be +desired in the way of excitement. But here we stray beyond our bounds, +for 'Martin Chuzzlewit' is not a 'sick book;' or rather, it is one of +the very few productions of human genius on the merits of which the +opinions of both Sick and Sound are at one. + + + + +_WET HOLIDAYS._ + + +Even poets when they are on their travels feel the depressing influence +of bad weather. Those lines of the Laureate-- + + 'But when we crossed the Lombard plain, + Remember what a plague of rain-- + Of rain at Reggio, at Parma, + At Lodi rain, Piacenza rain,' + +are not among his best, but they evidently come from his very heart. +When he used prose upon that journey his language was probably +stronger. It is no wonder, then, that ordinary folks who have only a +limited time in which to enjoy themselves, free from the fetters of +toil, resent wet days. They are worst of all when we are touring on the +Continent, where it is a popular fallacy to suppose the skies are +always smiling, but at home they are bad enough. In Scotland, nobody +but a Scotchman believes in fine weather, and consequently there is no +disappointment; in England the Lake District is, perhaps, the most +unfortunate spot for folks to be caught in by rain, because if there is +no landscape there is nothing. _Spectare veniunt_, and when there are +only the ribs and lining of their umbrellas to look at, their lot is +hard indeed. + +Wastwater is a charming place in sunshine--almost the only locality in +England where things are still primitive and pastoral; but in rain! I +hate exhibitions, but rather than Wastdale in wet weather, give me a +panorama. Serious people may talk of 'the Devil's books,' but even a +pack of cards, with somebody to play with you, is better under such +circumstances than no book. + +There is no limit to what human beings may be driven to by stress of +weather, and especially by that 'clearing shower,' by which the +dwellers in Lakeland are wont euphemistically to describe its +continuous downpours. The Persians have another name for it--'the +grandmother of all buckets.' I was once in Wastdale with a dean of the +Church of England, respectable, sedate, and a D.D. It had poured for +days without ceasing; the roads were under water, the passes were +impassable, the mountains invisible; there was nothing to be seen but +waterfalls, and those in the wrong place; there was no literature; the +dean's guide-books were exhausted, and his Bible, it is but charitable +and reasonable to suppose, he knew by heart. As for me, I had found +three tourists who could play at whist, and was comparatively +independent of the elements; but that poor ecclesiastic! For the first +few days he occupied himself in remonstrating against our playing cards +by daylight; but on the fourth morning, when we sat down to them +immediately after breakfast, he began to take an enforced interest in +our proceedings. Like a dove above the dovecot, he circled for an hour +or two about the table--a deal one, such as thimble-riggers use, +borrowed, under protest, from his own humble bedroom--and then, with a +murmurous coo about the weather showing no signs of clearing up, he +took a hand. Constant dropping--and it was much worse than +dropping--will wear away a stone, and it is my belief if it had gone on +much longer his reverence would have played on Sunday. + +The spectacle that the roads of the district present at such a time is +most melancholy. Everyone is in a closed car--a cross between a bathing +machine and that convenient vehicle which carries both corpse and +mourners; all the windows seem made of bottle glass, a phenomenon +produced by the flattening of the noses of imprisoned tourists; and +nothing shines except an occasional traveller in oilskin. In such +seasons, indeed, oilskin (lined with patience) is your only wear. +Ordinary waterproofs in such a climate become mere blotting paper, and +with the best of them, without leggings and headgear to match, the poor +Londoner might, I do not say just as well be in London (for that is his +aspiration all day long), but just as well go to bed at once, and stop +there. 'But why does he not go home?' it may be asked: a question to +which there are several answers. In the first place (for one must take +the average in such cases) because he is a fool. Secondly, like the +rest of the well-to-do world, he has suffered the summer, wherein +warmth and sunshine are really to be had, to slip by, and has only the +fag end of it in which to take holiday. It is now or never--or at all +events now or next year--with him. All his friends, too, are out of +town, flattening _their_ noses against window panes; his club is under +repair, his house in brown holland, his servants on board wages. Like +the young gentleman in Locksley Hall, he is so absolutely at the end of +his resources, that an 'angry fancy' is all that is left to him. Of +course, under its influence he sits down and writes to the _Times_; +but, if the humblest of its correspondents may venture to say so +without offence, even that does not help him much. That suicides +increase in wet autumns is notorious; but that murders should in these +sequestered vales maintain the even tenor of their way is a feather in +the cap of human nature. In lodgings, where the pent-up tourist has no +one but his wife and family to speak to, where Dick and Tom _will_ romp +in his only sitting-room, and Eliza Jane practises all day on the crazy +piano, this forbearance is especially creditable. + +Even in hotels, however, there is great temptation. On the +north-eastern coast, in particular, when the weather has, as the phrase +goes, 'broken up,' and the sky and sea have both become one durable +drab, the best of women grow irritable, the men morose. At the _table +d'hote_, which even the most exclusive are driven to frequent for +company, as sheep huddle together in storm, Dislike ripens to Hate with +frightful rapidity. Our neighbour, who always--for it seems +always--gets the last of the mushrooms at breakfast, or finishes the +oyster sauce at dinner before our very eyes, we are very far, indeed, +from loving as ourselves. Our _vis-a-vis_, the man on his honeymoon, is +even still more offensive. We resent his happiness, which is apparently +uninfluenced by the state of the weather, and our wife wonders what he +could have seen in that chit of a girl to attract his attention. To +ourselves she seems a great deal too good for him, and in our rare +intervals of human feeling we regard her with the tenderest +commiseration. The importance attached to meals, and the time we take +over them, have no parallel save among the Esquimaux. The least +incident that happens in the hotel is of more moment to us than the +overthrow of Empires. The whispered news that a fellow guest has been +taken seriously ill, and that a medical consultation has been held upon +the case, is a matter to be deplored, of course, but one which is not +without its consolations. 'Who is it? What is it? Nothing catching I do +hope?' (this last uttered with genuine anxiety) are questions that are +heard on every side. The general impression is that some lovely young +lady of fashion on the drawing-room floor has been seized with pains in +her limbs--and no wonder--from exposure to the elements. Her mother +comes down every morning and selects dainties for the sick-room from +the public breakfast table; those who are near enough to do so inquire +in dulcet tones, 'How is your invalid this morning?' The reply is, +'Better, much better,' which somehow falls short of expectation. Even +the most giddy and frivolous of girls has no excuse for frightening +people for nothing. + +At luncheon one day a very fat, strong boy makes his appearance, and is +supplied with soup. All his neighbours who have no soup are wild with +envy, though they are well acquainted with that soup at dinner, and +know that it is bad. 'What is the meaning of it? Why this favouritism?' +we inquire of the waiter furiously. 'Well, you see, sir, he is better +now; but that is the invalid.' The delicate, attractive creature we +have pictured to ourselves with pains in her limbs turns out, after +all, to be a hulking schoolboy, probably bilious from over-eating. The +public indignation is excessive, while the subject of it, quite +unconscious of the fact, has another plate of soup. + +The wild weather out of doors is not, of course, confined to the land, +and the sea would be a fine sight if it was not invisible. The waves, +indeed, are so high that the fishing-boats which have remained out all +night are often warned off, or, as it is locally termed, 'burned off,' +from the harbour bar. A tar barrel is lighted for this purpose on the +headland, and it is the only thing which the eternal rain cannot +utterly squelch and extinguish. Occasionally we venture down upon the +pier to see the boats make the harbour, which, not a little to our +disappointment, they never fail to do. There are huge buttresses of +stone against the pier-head, behind which the new comer imagines he may +crouch in perfect safety, till the third wave comes in and convinces +him to the contrary. No one ever dreams of 'burning' _him_ off--giving +him one word of warning of that unpleasant contingency; for to behold a +fellow creature more drenched and dripping than ourselves is very +soothing. As to the dangers of maritime life, we are all agreed that +they are greatly overrated; and some sceptics even go so far as to +suggest that the skeleton ship, half embedded in the sands, which so +impresses visitors in fine weather, is not a genuine wreck at all, but +has been placed there by the Town Corporation to delude the public. + +Now and then we splash down to the quay to see a few million of +herrings sold at four shillings a hundred, which will presently induce +philanthropic fishmongers in London to advertise 'a glut this morning,' +and to retail them at threepence apiece. At rare intervals we explore +the dripping town. It is amazing what a fascination the small +picture-shops, to which at home we should never give a glance, afford +us; even the frontispieces to popular music have unwonted attractions; +while the pottery-shops, full of ware made from clay 'peculiar to the +locality,' are only too seductive to our wives, who purchase largely +what they believe to be great bargains, till they find on their return +home the identical articles in Oxford Street, at half the price. In +London we never visit the British Museum itself, unless to escort some +country cousin, but at Barecliff-on-Sea, in wet weather, the miserable +little local Institute, with its specimens of strata, its calf with two +heads in spirits, and its petrified toad, is an irresistible +temptation. The great event of the day, however, is the wading down to +the railway-station (which is in a quagmire) to meet the express train +which brings more victims, 'unconscious of their doom,' to Barecliff, +and who evidently flatter themselves that the pouring rain is an +exceptional phenomenon; it also brings the London newspapers, for which +we fight and struggle (the demand being greatly in excess of the +supply) and think ourselves fortunate if we secure a supplement. It is +true there is a _Times_ in the smoking-room of the hotel, but it is +always engaged five deep, is the cause of terrible quarrels, and every +afternoon we expect to see it imbrued in gore. + +In the evening, when one does not mind the wet so much--'its tooth is +not so keen because it is not seen'--there are dissipations at 'the +Rooms by the Sea.' Amateur charitable concerts are given there, in +which it is whispered that this and that lady at the _table d'hote_ +will take part, who become public characters and objects of immense +interest in consequence. Thither, too, come 'the inimitable Jones,' +from the Edgware Road Music Hall, with his 'unrivalled _repertoire_ of +comic songs;' the Spring Board Family, who have been 'pronounced by the +general consensus of the medical faculty in London to be unique,' as +having neither joints nor backbone; and Herr von Deft, 'who will repeat +the same astounding performances which have electrified the reigning +families of Europe.' The serious people (for whom 'the glee-singers of +Mesopotamia' are also suspected of dropping a line) are angled for by +white-cravatted lecturers, who enhance their statistics of conversion +by the exhibition of poisoned arrows, and of clubs, on which, with the +microscope, may be detected the hairs of missionary martyrs. In fine +weather, of course, these attractions would be advertised in vain; but +the fact is, our whole community has been reduced by the cruelty of the +elements to a sort of second childhood; the rain which permeates +everything is softening our brain. + +This is only too evident from the conversation in the hotel porch where +the men meet every morning to discuss the topic of the day--the +weather. A sullen gloom pervades them--the first symptom of mental +aberration. Those, on the other hand, who express their opinion that it +'really seems to be clearing a little' are in more advanced stages. We +who are less afflicted shake our heads, and murmur painfully, but also +with a considerable touch of contempt, 'Poor fellows!' + +The piano in the ladies' drawing-room is always going, but it excites +no soothing influence; there is an impression in the hotel that the +performers are foreigners, and should be discouraged. But there is one +instrument hanging in the hall on which everyone plays, native or +alien, and every note is discord. It is the barometer. People talk of +the delicacy of scientific instruments; if they are right, the shocks +which that barometer survives proves it to be an exception. Batter it +as we may, and do, the faithful needle, with a determination worthy of +a better cause, maintains its position at 'Much Rain.' The manager is +appealed to vehemently, coarsely; he shrugs his shoulders, protests +with humility that he cannot help the weather, or affirms it is +unprecedented--which we do not believe. Other managers--in the +Engadine, for example--the papers say, are providing excellent weather; +what does he mean by it? + +At last one morning, wetter than ever, some noble spirit, the Tell of +our liberties, exclaims, 'Who would be free, himself must strike the +blow.' His actual words (if one was not writing history) are, 'Hang me +if I stand this any longer,' and they strike the keynote of everybody's +thought. He goes away by the next train, and his departure is followed +by the same effects as the tapping of a reservoir. The hotel company--I +mean the inmates; the company goes into bankruptcy--stream off at once +to their own homes. That journey through the pouring rain is the +happiest day of our wet holiday. How beautiful looms soaking, soppy, +smoky London! In that excellent town who cares for rain? + + 'Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! + You cataracts and hurricanoes spout.' + +Pooh! pooh! Call a cab--call two! + + + + +_TRAVELLING COMPANIONS._ + + +It was held by wise men of old that adversity was the test of +friendship, but as his Excellency the Minister of the United States has +observed, _per_ Mr. Biglow, 'They did not know everything down in +Judee;' and among other subjects of which those ancient writers were +necessarily ignorant was that of Continental travel. The coming to +grief of a friend is unquestionably very inconvenient; as a millionaire +of my acquaintance observes (under the influence, as he confidently +believes, of benevolent emotion), 'One likes to see one's friends +prosperous;' but even when they are not so, it requires some effort to +follow the dictates of prudence and cast them off. And, after all, the +man, even though you may cut him, remains the same; as fit for the +purposes of friendship as ever, except for his pecuniary condition. +There is no such change in his relation to oneself as Emerson describes +in one of his essays; his words I forget, and his works are miles away, +but the man he has in his mind has in some way fallen short of +expectation--declined, perhaps, to lend the philosopher money. +'Yesterday,' he says, 'my friend was the illimitable ocean; to-day he +is a pond.' He had come to the end of him. And some friends, as my +little child complains as he strokes his black kitten, 'end so soon.' + +There are no circumstances, however, under which friendship comes so +often to a violent and sudden death as under the pressure of travel. It +is like the fate which the Scientific ascribe to a box sunk in the sea; +after a certain depth, which varies according to the strength of the +box, the weight of the superincumbent water bursts it up. It is merely +a question of how deep or how strong. Our travelling companion remains +our friend for a day, for a week, for even a month; but at the month's +end he is our friend no longer. Our relations have probably become what +the diplomatists term 'strained' long before that date, but a day comes +when the tension becomes intolerable; the cable parts and we lose him. +Unfortunately, not always, however; there are circumstances--such as +being on board ship, for example--when we thus part without parting +company. A long voyage is the most terrible trial to which friendship +can be subjected. It is like the old sentence of pressing to death, 'as +much as he can bear, and more.' It is doubtful, for example, whether +friendship has ever survived a voyage to Australia. I have sometimes +asked a man whether he knew So-and-So, who hails, like himself, from +Melbourne, and he has replied, 'We came over in the same ship'--'Only +that, and nothing more,' as the poet puts it; but his tone has an +unmistakable significance, and one perceives at once that the topic had +better not be pursued. + +A very dear friend of mine once proposed that we should go round the +world together; he offered to pay all my expenses, and painted the +expedition in rose-colour. But I had the good sense to decline the +proposal. I felt I should lose my friend. Even yachting is a very +dangerous pastime in this respect, especially when the vessel is +becalmed. In that case, like the sea itself, one's friend soon becomes +a pond. Conceive, then, what it must be to go round the world with him! +Is it possible, both being human, that we can still love one another +when we have got to Japan, for instance? And then we have to come back +together! How frightful must be that moment when he tells us the same +story he told at starting, and we feel that he has come to the end of +his tether, and is going to tell _all_ his stories over again! This is +why it so often happens that only one of two friends returns from any +long voyage they have undertaken together. What has become of the +other? A question that one should never put to the survivor. It is +certain that great travellers, and especially those who travel by sea, +have a very different code of morals from that which they conform to at +home. Human life is not so sacred to them. Perhaps it is in this +respect that travel is said to enlarge the mind. That it does not +sharpen it, however, whatever it may do for the temper, is tolerably +certain. In their habits travellers are singularly conventional. They +are compelled, of course, to suffer certain inconveniences, but they +endure others, and most serious ones, quite unnecessarily, merely +because it is the custom so to do. In crossing the Atlantic, for +example, a man of means will submit to be shut up in a close cupboard +for ten days with an utter stranger, though by paying double fare he +can get a cabin to himself. This arises from no desire for economy, but +simply because he does not think for himself; other travellers do the +like, and he follows their example. Yet what money could recompense him +for occupying for the same time _on land_ a double-bedded room--not to +say a mere china closet--with a man of whom he knows nothing except +that he is subject to chronic sickness? A pleasant sort of travelling +companion indeed, yet, strange to say, the commonest of all. Where +there is a slender purse this terrible state of things (supposing +travel under such circumstances to be compatible with pleasure at all, +which, for my part, I cannot imagine) is not a matter of choice; but +where it can be avoided why is it undergone? + +There is nothing that convinces me of the folly of mankind so much as +those advertisements we see in the summer months with respect to +travelling companions, from volunteers of both sexes: 'Wanted, a +travelling companion for a few months on the Continent, etc. The +highest references will be required.' The idea of going with a stranger +upon a tour of pleasure must surely originate in Hanwell, and the +adventurer may think himself fortunate if it does not end in Broadmoor. +References, indeed! Who can answer for a fellow-creature's temper, +patience, unselfishness, during such an ordeal as a protracted tour? No +one who has not travelled with him already; and one may be tolerably +certain his certificate does not come from _that_ quarter. It is true +some people are married to strangers by advertisement; but their +companionship, as I am given to understand, does not generally last for +months, or anything like it. + +Imagine two people, as utterly unknown to one another, except by letter +(and 'references'), as the _x_ and _y_ of an equation, meeting for the +first time at the railway-station! With what tremors must each regard +the other! What a relief it must be to X. to find that Y. is at least a +white man; on the other hand, it must rather dash his hopes, if they +are set on pedestrianism, to find that his _compagnon de voyage_ has a +wooden leg. Yet what are his mere colour and limbs compared with his +temperament and disposition? If one did not know the frightful risks +one's fellow-creatures incur every day for little pleasure and less +profit, one would certainly say these people must be mad. + +But if instead of X. and Y., it is even A. and B., men who have known +one another for years, and in every relation but as fellow-travellers, +there is risk enough in such a venture. One night, after dinner at the +club, they agree with effusion to take their autumn trip together; they +are warm with wine and with the remembrance of their college +friendship--which extended perhaps, when they afterwards come to think +about it, a very little way. What days they will have in Switzerland +together! What mornings (to see the sunrise) upon mountain-tops! What +evenings on Lucerne! What nights in Paris! A. thinks himself fortunate +indeed in having secured B.'s society for the next three months--a man +with such a reputation for conversation; even T., the cynic of the +club, has testified to his charm of manner. By-the-bye, what was +it--exactly--T. had said of B.? A. cannot remember it at the moment, +but recalls it on the night before they start together. 'B. is a +charming fellow, only he has this peculiarity--that if there is only +one armchair in a room, B. is sure to get it.' + +B., on the other hand, congratulates himself on A.'s excessive good +sense, which even T. had knowledged. What was it--exactly--T. had said +of A.? He cannot remember it at the moment, but recalls it on the night +before they start together. 'A. is such a thoroughly practical fellow; +he has committed many follies, and not a few crimes, but he can lay his +hand on the place where his heart should be, and honestly aver that he +has never given sixpence to anybody.' Full of misgivings, and with +demonstrations of satisfaction that are in themselves suspicious, they +meet at the terminus. A. has a little black bag, which contains his +all; it frees him from all trouble about luggage, and (especially) from +the necessity of paying a porter. He is resolved not to lose a moment, +nor spend a sixpence, in a Custom-house. To his horror, he perceives +that B., whose one idea is comfort, has a portmanteau specially +designed for him (apparently upon the model of Noah's Ark), and which +can scarcely be got into the luggage-van. This article delays them +twenty-four hours at every frontier, because the ordinary authorities +decline to open it upon the ground that it contains an infernal +machine, and have to telegraph to their Government for instructions. + +Again, B. is no doubt a charming conversationalist--in English; but he +does not know one single word of any other language. He requires every +observation of their alien fellow-travellers to be translated, and then +says 'Oh!' discontentedly, or 'It seems to me that foreigners have no +ideas.' And not for one moment can A. get rid of him. If there _is_ a +friend that sticketh closer than a brother, it is the Travelling +Companion who is dependent upon you for interpretation. It is needless +to say that under these circumstances the glass of Friendship falls +from 'Set Fair' to 'Stormy' with much rapidity. After A's fourth +quarrel with a waiter about half a franc, B. calls him a 'mean hound,' +and takes the opportunity of returning to his native land with a French +count, who speaks perfect English, and robs him of his watch and chain +and the contents of his pocket-book on board the steamer. A. and B. +meet one another daily at the club for years afterwards, but without +recognition. + +Their case, of course, is an extreme one; but that of C. and D. is +almost as bad. They are men of prudence, and persuade E. to go with +them, as a makeweight. 'If we should ever disagree,' they say, 'as to +what is to be done--which, however, is to the last degree improbable--the +majority of votes shall carry it'--an arrangement which only delays the +inevitable event-- + + 'Three little nigger boys went the world to view, + The third was left in Calais, and then there were two.' + +They find the makeweight intolerable before they have crossed the +Channel, and, having agreed to cut their cable from him, are from that +moment never in the same mind about anything else. It is a modern +version of the three brigands who stole the Communion plate. C. and D. +push E. over the precipice, and C. stabs D. at a supper for which D. +has purveyed poisoned wine. + +The only way to secure a really eligible travelling companion is to try +him first in short swallow-flights, or rather pigeon-flights, from +home. Take your bird with you for a few days' outing near home; then, +if he proves pleasant, for a week's tour in Cornwall; then for ten days +in Scotland, where, if you meet with the usual weather, and he still +keeps his temper and politeness, you may trust yourself to him +anywhere. Out of twenty failures there will, perhaps, be one success. +In this manner I have discovered in time, in my dearest and nearest +friends, the most undreamt of vices. One man, F., hitherto much +respected as a Chancery barrister, has, as it has turned out, been +intended by nature for a professional pedestrian. His true calling is +to walk 'laps' round the Agricultural Hall or at Lillie Bridge, with +nothing on to speak of save a handkerchief round his forehead. 'Let us +walk' is his one cry as soon as he becomes a travelling companion. And +he is not content to do this when he arrives at any place of interest, +but insists upon walking _there_--perhaps along a dusty road, or over +turnip-fields. I like walking myself in moderation--say a mile out and +a mile in; but not, certainly not, twenty miles at a stretch, and at a +speed which precludes conversation. This class of travelling companion +is very dangerous. If he does not get his walking he becomes malignant. +My barrister, at least, being denied the opportunity of drawing out +marriage-settlements, conveying land, or otherwise plundering the +community, took to practical jokes. Having a suspicion of his +pedestrian powers, from the extreme length of his legs, I took G. with +us, a man whom I could trust in that respect, and who fancied he had +heart complaint. G. and I took our exercise alone together in a fly. +One day we took a long drive--four miles or more--to a well-known bay. +The vehicle could not get down to the sea, so we descended on foot, +leaving it at the top of the cliff, with the strictest orders to the +man not to stir till we came back. When we returned the fly was gone. +How we reached our hotel, Heaven knows! but we did arrive there, in the +last stage of exhaustion. The driver of the carriage, whom we met next +day, informed us that a gentleman had been thrown from his horse on the +cliff-top and had broken his leg, and that, under the circumstances, he +had ventured to disobey our instructions and take the poor fellow home. +Years afterwards I discovered that nothing of the kind had happened, +but that the fiendish F. had given the driver a sovereign to play that +trick upon us. F. is a judge now, and has been lately trying election +cases. I wonder what he thinks of himself when he rebukes offenders for +the heinous crime of bribery! + +Again, I always thought H. a pleasant fellow till we went together to +Cornwall. He had gone through the first ordeal of a few days nearer +home to my satisfaction, but at Penzance he broke out. He was so +dreadfully particular about his food that nothing satisfied him--not +even pilchards three times a day; and the way he went on at the waiters +is not to be described by a decent pen. The attendant at Penzance was +not, I am bound to say, a good waiter. He said, though he habitually +put his thumb in every dish, he 'hadn't quite got his hand in,' and was +not used to the business.' 'Used! you know nothing about it!' exclaimed +H., viciously. Then the poor fellow burst into tears. 'Pray be patient +with me, good gentlemen,' he murmured. 'I do my best; but until last +Wednesday as ever was I was a pork-butcher.' One cannot stand a +travelling companion who makes the waiters cry. + +The worst kind of fellow-traveller is one who, to use his own +scientific phrase for his complaint, suffers from 'disorganisation of +the nervous centres.' At home his little weaknesses do not strike you. +You may not be on the spot when he flies across Piccadilly Circus, +pursued, as he fancies, by a Brompton omnibus which has not yet reached +St. James's Church, and is moving at a snail's pace; you may not have +been with him on that occasion when, in his eagerness to be in time for +the 'Flying Dutchman,' he arrives at Paddington an hour before it +starts, and is put into the parliamentary train which is shunted at +Slough to let the 'Dutchman' pass; but when you come to travel with him +you know what 'nerves' are to your cost. On the other hand, this is the +easiest kind of travelling companion to get rid of; for you have only +to feign a sore throat, with feverish symptoms, and off he flies on the +wings of terror, leaving you, as he thinks--if he _has_ a thought +except for his nervous centres--to the tender mercies of a foreign +doctor, to hireling nurses, and to a grave in the strangers' cemetery. + + +THE END. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Private Views, by James Payn + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME PRIVATE VIEWS *** + +***** This file should be named 13410.txt or 13410.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/1/13410/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst and the Online Distributed Proofreading +Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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