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diff --git a/15762.txt b/15762.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..19742f7 --- /dev/null +++ b/15762.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6700 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Side Lights, by James Runciman + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + + +Title: Side Lights + +Author: James Runciman + +Release Date: May 3, 2005 [EBook #15762] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIDE LIGHTS *** + + + + +Produced by Steven Gibbs and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + +SIDE LIGHTS + + +By JAMES RUNCIMAN + + + +_WITH MEMOIR BY GRANT ALLEN, +AND INTRODUCTION BY W.T. STEAD. +EDITED BY JOHN F. RUNCIMAN_ + + +London +T. FISHER UNWIN +PATERNOSTER SQUARE +MDCCCXCIII + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR. BY GRANT ALLEN + +AN INTRODUCTORY WORD ABOUT THE BOOK. BY W.T. STEAD + + I. LETTER-WRITERS + + II. ON WRITING ONESELF OUT + + III. THE DECLINE OF LITERATURE + + IV. COLOUR-BLINDNESS IN LITERATURE + + V. THE SURFEIT OF BOOKS + + VI. PEOPLE WHO ARE "DOWN" + + VII. ILL-ASSORTED MARRIAGES + + VIII. HAPPY MARRIAGES + + IX. SHREWS + + X. ARE WE WEALTHY + + XI. THE VALUES OF LABOUR + + XII. THE HOPELESS POOR + + XIII. WAIFS AND STRAYS + + XIV. STAGE-CHILDREN + + XV. PUBLIC AND PRIVATE MORALITY: PAST AND PRESENT + + XVI. "RAISING THE LEVEL OF AMUSEMENTS" + + XVII. A LITTLE SERMON ON FAILURES + +XVIII. "VANITY OF VANITIES" + + XIX. GAMBLERS + + XX. SCOUNDRELS + + XXI. QUIET OLD TOWNS + + XXII. THE SEA + +XXIII. SORROW + + XXIV. DEATH + + XXV. JOURNALISM + + + + +A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR. + +BY GRANT ALLEN. + + +I knew James Runciman but little, and that little for the most part +in the way of business. But no one could know that ardent and eager +soul at all, no matter how slightly, without admiring and respecting +much that was powerful and vigorous in his strangely-compounded +personality. His very look attracted. He had human weaknesses not +a few, but all of the more genial and humane sort; for he was +essentially and above everything a lovable man, a noble, interesting, +and unique specimen of genuine, sincere, whole-hearted manhood. + +He was a Northumbrian by birth, "and knew the Northumbrian coast," +says one of his North-Country friends, "like his mother's face." His +birthplace was at Cresswell, a little village near Morpeth, where he +was born in August, 1852, so that he was not quite thirty-nine when he +finally wore himself out with his ceaseless exertions. He had a true +North-Country education, too, among the moors and cliffs, and there +drank in to the full that love of nature, and especially of the sea, +which forms so conspicuous a note in his later writings. Heather and +wave struck the keynotes. A son of the people, he went first, in his +boyhood, to the village school at Ellington; but on his eleventh +birthday he was removed from the wild north to a new world at +Greenwich. There he spent two years in the naval school; and +straightway began his first experiences of life on his own account as +a pupil teacher at North Shields Ragged School, not far from his +native hamlet. + +"A worse place of training for a youth," says a writer in _The +Schoolmaster_, "it would be hard to discover. The building was +unsuitable, the children rough, and the neighbourhood vile--and the +long tramp over the moors to Cresswell and back at week ends was, +perhaps, what enabled the young apprentice to preserve his health of +mind and body. His education was very much in his own hands. He +managed in a few weeks to study enough to pass his examinations with +credit. The rest of his time was spent in reading everything which +came in his way, so that when he entered Borough-road in January, +1871, he was not only almost at the top of the list, but he was the +best informed man of his year. His fellow candidates remember even now +his appearance during scholarship week. Like David, he was ruddy of +countenance, like Saul he towered head and shoulders above the rest, +and a mass of fair hair fell over his forehead. Whene'er he took his +walks abroad he wore a large soft hat, and a large soft scarf, and +carried a stick that was large but not soft." + +To this graphic description I will add a second one. "He was a +splendid all-round athlete," says another friend, who knew him at this +time, in the British and Foreign School Society's London college. "Six +feet two or three in height, and with a fine muscular development, he +could box, wrestle, fence, or row with all comers, and beat them with +ridiculous ease. No one could have been made to believe that he would +die, physically worn out, before he was forty. His intellectual +mastery was as unquestioned as his physical superiority; he always +topped the examination lists, to the chagrin of some of the lecturers, +whom he teased sadly by protesting against injustice the moment it +peeped out, by teaching all the good young men to smoke prodigiously, +by scattering revolutionary verses about the college, and finally by +collecting and burning in one grand bonfire every copy of an obnoxious +text-book under which the students had long suffered." + +This was indeed the germ of the man as we all knew him long afterwards. + +Runciman left the college to take up the mastership of a London Board +School in a low part of Deptford; and here he soon gained an +extraordinary influence over the population of one of the worst slums +in London. Mr. Thomas Wright, the "Journeyman Engineer," has already +told in print elsewhere the story of Runciman's descent into the +depths of Deptford, how he set about humanising the shoeless, +starving, conscience-little waifs who were drafted into his school, +and how, before many months had passed, he never walked through the +squalid streets of his own quarter without two or three loving little +fellows all in tatters trying to touch the hem of his garment, while a +group of the more timid followed him admiringly afar off. From the +children, his good influence extended to the parents; and it was an +almost every-day occurrence for visitors from the slums to burst into +the school to fetch the master to some coster who was "a-killin' his +woman." The brawny young giant would dive into the courts where the +police go in couples, clamber ricketty stairs, and "interview" the +fighting pair. "His plan was to appeal to the manliness of the +offender, and make him ashamed of himself; often such a visit ended in +a loan, whereby the 'barrer' was replenished and the surly husband set +to work; but if all efforts at peacemaking were useless, this new +apostle had methods beyond the reach of the ordinary missionary--he +would (the case deserving it) drop his mild, insinuating, persuasive +tones, and not only threaten to pulp the incorrigible blackguard into +a jelly, but proceed to do it." + +Runciman, however, was much more in fibre than a mere schoolmaster. He +worked hard at his classes by day; he worked equally hard by night at +his own education, and at his first attempts at journalism. He +matriculated at London University, and passed his first B.Sc. +examination. At one and the same time he was carrying on his own +school, in the far East End, contributing largely to an educational +paper, _The Teacher_, and writing two or three pages a week in +_Vanity Fair_, which he long sub-edited. His powers of work were +enormous, and he systematically overtaxed them. + +It is not surprising that, under this strain and stress, even that +magnificent physique showed signs of breaking down, like every other +writer's. A long holiday on the Mediterranean, and another at Torquay, +restored him happily to his wonted health; but he saw he must now +choose between schoolmastering and journalism. To run the two abreast +was too much, even for James Runciman's gigantic powers. Permanent +work on _Vanity Fair_ being offered to him on his return, he decided +to accept it; and thenceforth he plunged with all the strength and +ardour of his fervid nature into his new profession. + +"It was during this period of insatiable greed for work," says the +correspondent of a Nottingham journal, "that I first knew him. You may +wonder how he could possibly get through the tasks which he set +himself. You would not wonder if you had seen him, when he was in the +humour, tramp round the room and pour out a stream of talk on men and +books which might have gone direct into print at a high marketable +value. The London correspondent of a Nottingham paper says that +Runciman was justly vain of the speed of his pen. That is true. He +considered that a journalist ought to be able to dictate an article at +the rate of 150 words a minute to a shorthand writer. I doubt whether +anybody can do that, but Runciman certainly thought he could. He loved +to settle a thing off on the instant with one huge effort. Here is an +authentic story that shows his method. It is a physical performance, +but he tackled journalistic obstacles in the same spirit: + +"A parent, who fancied he had a grievance, burst furiously into the +schoolroom one day, and startled its quietness with a string of oaths. +'That isn't how we talk here,' said Runciman, in his quiet way. 'Will +you step into my room if you have anything to discuss?' Another volley +of oaths was the reply, and the unwary parent added that he wasn't +going out, and nobody could put him out. Runciman was not the man to +allow such a challenge of his authority and prowess to be issued +before his scholars and to go unanswered. Without another word, he +took the man by the coat-collar with one hand, by the most convenient +part of his breeches with the other hand, carried him to the door, +gave him a half-a-dozen admonitory shakings, and chucked him down +outside. Then he returned and made this cool entry in the school +log-book: 'Father of the boy ---- came into the school to-day, and was +very disorderly. I carried him out and chastised him.'" + +It was while he was engaged on _Vanity Fair_ that I first met +Runciman--I should think somewhere about the year 1880. He then edited +(or sub-edited) for a short time that clever but abortive little +journal, _London_, started by Mr. W.E. Henley, and contributed to +by Andrew Lang, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edmund Gosse, and half a dozen +more of us. Here we met not infrequently. I was immensely impressed by +Runciman's vigorous personality, and by his profound sympathy with the +troubles and trials and poverty of the real people. He called himself +a Conservative, it is true, while I called myself a Radical; but, +except in name, I could not see much difference between our democratic +tendencies. Runciman appeared to me a most earnest and able thinker, +full of North-country grit, and overflowing with energy. + +His later literary work is well known to the world. He contributed to +the _St. James's Gazette_ an admirable series of seafaring sketches, +afterwards reprinted as "The Romance of the North Coast." He also +wrote "special" articles for the _Standard_ and the _Pall Mall_, as +well as essays on social and educational topics for the _Contemporary_ +and the _Fortnightly_. The humour and pathos of pupil-teaching were +exquisitely brought out in his "School Board Idylls" and "Schools and +Scholars"; his knowledge of the sea and his experience of fishermen +supplied him with materials for "Skippers and Shellbacks" and for +"Past and Present." He was always a lover of his kind, so his work has +almost invariably a strong sympathetic note; and perhaps his +best-known book, "A Dream of the North Sea," was written in support of +the Mission to Fishermen. He produced but one novel, "Grace Balmaign's +Sweetheart"; but his latest work, "Joints in our Social Armour," +returned once more to that happier vein of picturesque description +which sat most easily and naturally upon him. + +The essays which compose the present volume were contributed to the +columns of the _Family Herald_. And this is their history:--For +many years I had answered the correspondence and written the social +essays in that excellent little journal--a piece of work on which I +am not ashamed to say that I always look back with affectionate +pleasure. Several years since, however, I found myself compelled by +health to winter abroad, and therefore unable to continue my weekly +contributions. Who could fill up the gap? Who answer my dear old +friends and questioners? The proprietor asked me to recommend a +substitute. I bethought me instinctively at once of Runciman. The work +was, indeed, not an easy one for which to find a competent workman. It +needed a writer sufficiently well educated to answer a wide range of +questions on the most varied topics, yet sufficiently acquainted with +the habits, ideas, and social codes of the lower middle class and the +labouring people to throw himself readily into their point of view on +endless matters of life and conduct. Above all, it needed a man who +could sympathise genuinely with the simplest of his fellows. The love +troubles of housemaids, the perplexities as to etiquette, or as to +practical life among shop-girls and footmen, must strike him, not as +ludicrous, but as subjects for friendly advice and assistance. The +fine-gentleman journalist would clearly have been useless for such a +post as that. Runciman was just cut out for it. I suggested the work +to him, and he took to it kindly. The editor was delighted with the +way he buckled up to his new task, and thanked me warmly afterwards +for recommending so admirable and so gentle a workman. Those who do +not know the nature of the task may smile; but the man who answers the +_Family Herald_ correspondence, stands in the position of confidant +and father-confessor to tens of thousands of troubled and anxious souls +among his fellow-countrymen, and still more his fellow-countrywomen. +It is, indeed, a _sacerdoce_. The essays are usually contributed by +the same person who answers the correspondence; and the collection of +Runciman's papers reprinted in this little volume will show that they +have often no mean literary value. + +For many years, however, Runciman had systematically overworked, and +in other ways abused, his magnificent constitution. The seeds of +consumption were gradually developed. But the crash came suddenly. +Early in the summer of 1891, he broke down altogether. He was sent to +a hydropathic establishment at Matlock; but the doctors discovered he +was already in a most critical condition, and four weeks later advised +his wife to take him back to his own home at Kingston. His splendid +physique seemed to run down with a rush, and when a month was over, he +died, on July --th, a victim to his own devouring energy--perhaps, +too, to the hardships of a life of journalism. + +"This was a man," said his friendly biographer, whom I have already +quoted. No sentence could more justly sum up the feeling of all who +knew James Runciman. "Bare power and tenderness, and such sadly human +weakness"--that is the verdict of one who well knew him. I cannot +claim to have known him well myself; but it is an honour to be +permitted to add a memorial stone to the lonely cairn of a +fellow-worker for humanity. + +G.A. + + + + +AN INTRODUCTORY WORD ABOUT THE BOOK. + +BY W.T. STEAD. + + +James Runciman was a remarkably gifted man who died just about the +time when he ought to have been getting into harness for his life's +work. He had in him, more than most men, the materials out of which +an English Zola might have been made. And as we badly need an English +Zola, and have very few men out of whom such a genius could be +fashioned, I have not ceased to regret the death of the author of +this volume. For Zola is the supreme type in our day of the +novelist-journalist, the man who begins by getting up his facts at +first-hand with the care and the exhaustiveness of a first-rate +journalist, and who then works them up with the dramatic and literary +skill of a great novelist. Charles Reade was something of the kind in +his day; but he has left no successor. + +James Runciman might have been such an one, if he had lived. He had +the tireless industry, the iron constitution, the journalist's keen +eye for facts, the novelist's inexhaustible fund of human sympathy. He +was a literary artist who could use his pen as a brush with brilliant +effect, and he had an amazing facility in turning out "copy." He had +lived to suffer, and felt all that he wrote. There was a marvellous +range in his interests. He had read much, he improvised magnificently, +and there was hardly anything that he could not have done if only--but, +alas! it is idle mooning in the land of Might-Have-Beens! + +The collected essays included in this volume were contributed by Mr. +Runciman to the pages of _The Family Herald_. In the superfine +circles of the Sniffy, this fact is sufficient to condemn them unread. +For of all fools the most incorrigible is surely the conventional +critic who judges literary wares not by their intrinsic merit or +demerit, but by the periodical in which they first saw the light. The +same author may write in the same day two articles, putting his best +work and thought into each, but if he sends one to _The Saturday +Review_ and the other to _The Family Herald_, those who relish +and admire his writing in-the former would regard it as little less +than a _betise_ to suggest that the companion article in _The +Family Herald_ could be anything but miserable commonplace, which +no one with any reputation to lose in "literary circles" would venture +to read. The same arrogance of ignorance is observable in the +supercilious way in which many men speak of the articles appearing in +other penny miscellanies of popular literature. They richly deserve +the punishment which Mr. Runciman reminds us Sir Walter Scott +inflicted upon some blatant snobs who were praising Coleridge's poetry +in Coleridge's presence. "One gentleman had been extravagantly +extolling Coleridge, until many present felt a little uncomfortable. +Scott said, 'Well, I have lately read in a provincial paper some +verses which I think better than most of their sort.' He then recited +the lines 'Fire, Famine, and Slaughter' which are now so famous. The +eulogist of Coleridge refused to allow the verses any merit. To Scott +he addressed a series of questions--'Surely you must own that this is +bad?' 'Surely you cannot call this anything but poor?' At length +Coleridge quietly broke in, 'For Heaven's sake, leave Mr. Scott alone! +I wrote the poem'" (p. 39). + +Such lessons are more needed now than ever. Only by stripes can the +vulgar pseudo-cultured be taught their folly. + +The post of father-confessor and general director to the readers of +_The Family Herald_ which Mr. Runciman filled in succession to +Mr. Grant Allen is one which any student of human nature might envy. +There is no dissecting-room of the soul like the Confessional, where +the priest is quite impalpable and impersonal and the penitent secure +in the privacy of an anonymous communication. The ordinary man and +woman have just as much of the stuff of tragedy and comedy in their +lives as the Lord Tomnoddy or Lady Fitzboodle, and as there are many +more of them--thank Heaven!--than the lords and ladies, the masses +afford a far more fertile field for the psychological student of life +and character than the classes. They are, besides, much less +artificial. There are fewer apes and more men and women among people +who don't pay income tax than among those who do. As Director-General +of the Answers to Correspondents column of _The Family Herald_ +Mr. Runciman was brought into more vitalising touch with the broad and +solid realities of the average life of the average human being, with +all its wretched pettiness and its pathetic anxieties, its carking +cares and its wild, irrational aspirations, than he would have been if +he had spent his nights in dining out in Mayfair and lounged all day +in the clubs of Pall Mall. + +The essays which he contributed to _The Family Herald_ were therefore +adjusted to the note which every week was sounded by his innumerable +correspondents. He was in touch with his public. He did not write above +their heads. His contributions were eminently readable, bright, +sensible, and interesting. He always had something to say, and he said +it, as was his wont, crisply, deftly, and well. And through the chinks +and crevices of the smoothly written essay you catch every now and then +glimpses of the Northumbrian genius whose life burnt itself out at the +early age of thirty-nine. + +For James Runciman was anything but a smug, smooth, sermonical +essayist. He was a Berserker of the true Northern breed, whose fiery +soul glowed none the less fiercely because he wore a large soft hat +instead of the Viking's helmet and wielded a pen rather than sword or +spear. Like the war-horse in Job, he smelled the battle afar off, the +thunder of the captains and the shouting. His soul rejoiced in +conflict, in the storm and the stress of the struggle both of nature +and of man. It was born in his blood, and what was lacking at birth +came to him in the north-easter which hurled the waves of the Northern +Sea in unavailing fury against the Northumbrian coast. He lived at a +tension too great to be maintained without incessant stimulus. It was +an existence like that of the heroes of Valhalla, who recruited at +night the energies dissipated in the battles of the day by quaffing +bumpers of inexhaustible mead. In these essays we have the Berserker +in his milder moods, his savagery all laid aside, with but here and +there a glint, as of sun-ray on harness, to remind us of the sinking +in the glory and pride of his strength. + +The essays abound with traces of that consummate mastery of English +which distinguished all his writings. He, better than any man of our +time, could use such subtle magic of woven words as to make the green +water of the ocean surge and boil into white foam on the printed page. +As befitted a dweller on the north-east coast, he passionately loved +the sea. The sea and the sky are the two exits by which dwellers in +the slums of Deptford and in North Shields can escape from the inferno +of life. He was a close observer of nature and of men. In his pictures +of life in the depths he was a grim and uncompromising realist, who, +however, was kept from pessimism by his faith in good women and his +knowledge of worse men in the past than even "the Squire" and the +valet-keeping prize-fighters of our time. + +There was a sensible optimism about James Runciman, Conservative +though he styled himself,--although there are probably few who would +suspect that from such an essay as the bitter description of English +life in "Quiet Old Towns" or his lamentation over the unequal +distribution of wealth. His sympathy with the suffering of the +poor--of the real poor--was a constant passion, and he showed it quite +as much by his somewhat Carlylean denunciation of the reprobate as by +his larger advocacy of measures that seemed to him best calculated to +prevent the waste of child-life. + +More than anything else there is in these essays the oozing through of +the bitter but kindly cynicism of a disillusionised man of the world. +His essay, for instance, entitled "Vanity of Vanities," is full of the +sense of vanity of human effort. And yet against the whole current of +this tendency to despondency and despair, we have such an essay as +"Are we Wealthy?" in which he declared the day of declamation has +passed, but that all things are possible to organisation. "In many +respects it is a good world, but it might be made better, nobler, +finer in every quarter, if the poor would only recognise wise and +silent leaders, and use the laws which men have made in order to +repair the havoc which other men have also made." But he reverts to +the note of sad and kindly cynicism as he contemplates this supreme +ironic procession of life with the laughter of gods in the background, +even although he hastens to remind us that much may be made of it if +we are wise. + +These prose sermons by a tamed Berserker remind us somewhat of a +leopard in harness. But they are good sermons for all that, veritable +_tours de force_ considering who is their author and how alien to +him was the practice of preaching. His essay entitled "A Little Sermon +on Failures" might be read with profit in many a pulpit, and "Vanity +of Vanities" would serve as an admirable discourse on Ecclesiastes. +They illustrate the manysidedness of their gifted author not less than +his sympathetic treatment of distress and want in "Men who are Down." + +These fragments snatched from the mass of his literary output need no +introduction from me. Mr. Grant Allen has written with friendly +appreciation of the man. I gladly join him in paying a tribute of +posthumous respect and admiration to James Runciman and his work. + +W.T.S. + + + + +SIDE LIGHTS. + + +I. + +LETTER-WRITERS. + + +Since old Leisure died, we have come to think ourselves altogether too +fine and too busy to cultivate the delightful art of correspondence. +Dickens seems to have been almost the last man among us who gave his +mind to letter-writing; and his letters contain some of his very best +work, for he plunged into his subject with that high-spirited +abandonment which we see in "Pickwick," and the full geniality of his +mind came out delightfully. The letter in which he describes a certain +infant schoolboy who lost himself at the Great Exhibition is one of +the funniest things in literature, but it is equalled in positive +value by some of the more serious letters which the great man sent off +in the intervals of his heavy labour. Dickens could do nothing by +halves, and thus, at times when he could have earned forty pounds a +day by sheer literary work, he would spend hours in answering people +whom he had never seen, and, what is more remarkable, these +"task"-letters were marked by all the brilliant strength and +spontaneity of his finest chapters. He was the last of the true +correspondents, and we shall not soon look upon his like again. With +all the contrivances for increasing our speed of communication, and +for enabling us to cram more varied action into a single life, we have +less and less time to spare for salutary human intercourse. The +post-card symbolises the tendency of the modern mind. We have come to +find out so many things which ought to be done that we make up our +minds to do nothing whatever thoroughly; and the day may come when the +news of a tragedy ruining a life or a triumph crowning a career will +be conveyed by a sixpenny telegram. In the bad old days, when postage +was dear and the means of conveyance slow, people who could afford to +correspond at all sat down to begin a letter as though they were about +to engage in some solemn rite. Every patch of the paper was covered, +and every word was weighed, so that the writer screwed the utmost +possible value for his money out of the post-office. The letters +written in the last century resembled the deliberate and lengthy +communications of Roman gentlemen like Cicero: and there is little +wonder that the good folk made the most of their paper and their time. +We find Godwin casually mentioning the fact that he paid twenty-one +shillings and eightpence for the postage of a letter from Shelley; +readers of _The Antiquary_ will remember that Lovel paid twenty-five +shillings postage for one epistle, besides half a guinea for the +express rider. _Certes_ a man had good need to drive a hard bargain +with the Post Office in those pinching times! Of course the "lower +orders"--poor benighted souls--were not supposed to have any +correspondence at all, and the game was kept up by gentlemen of +fortune, by merchants, by eager and moneyed lovers, and by stray +persons of literary tastes, who could manage to beg franks from +members of Parliament and other dignitaries. One gentleman, not of +literary tastes, once franked a cow and sent her by post; but this +kind of postal communication was happily rare. The best of the +letter-writers felt themselves bound to give their friends good worth +for their money, and thus we find the long chatty letters of the +eighteenth century purely delightful. I do not care much for Lord +Chesterfield's correspondence; he was eternally posing with an eye on +the future--perhaps on the very immediate future. As Johnson sternly +said, "Lord Chesterfield wrote as a dancing-master might write," and +he spoke the truth. Fancy a man sending such stuff as this to a raw +boy--"You will observe the manners of the people of the best fashion +there; not that they are--it may be--the best manners in the world, +but because they are the best manners of the place where you are, to +which a man of sense always conforms. The nature of things is always +and everywhere the same; but the modes of them vary more or less in +every country, and an easy and genteel conformity to them, or rather +the assuming of them at proper times and proper places, is what +particularly constitutes a man of the world, and a well-bred man!" All +true enough, but how shallow, and how ineffably conceited! Here is +another absurd fragment--"My dear boy, let us resume our reflections +upon men, their character, their manners--in a word, our reflections +upon the World." It is quite like Mr. Pecksniff's finest vein. There +is not a touch of nature or vital truth in the Chesterfield letters, +and the most that can be said of them is that they are the work of a +fairly clever man who was flattered until he lost all sense of his +real size. If we take the whole bunch of finikin sermons and compare +them with the one tremendous knock-down letter which Johnson sent to +the dandy earl, we can easily see who was the Man of the pair. When we +return to Walpole, the case is different. Horace never posed at all; +he was a natural gentleman, and anything like want of simplicity was +odious to him. The age lives in his charming letters; after going +through them we feel as though we had been on familiar terms with that +wicked, corrupt, outwardly delightful society that gambled and drank, +and scandalised the grave spirits of the nation, in the days when +George III. was young. Horace Walpole was the letter-writer of +letter-writers; his gossip carries the impress of truth with it; and, +though he had no style, no brilliancy, no very superior ability, yet, +by using his faculties in a natural way, he was able to supply +material for two of the finest literary fragments of modern times. I +take it that the most stirring and profoundly wise piece of modern +history is Carlyle's brief account of William Pitt, given in the "Life +of Frederick the Great." Once we have read it we feel as though the +great commoner had stood before us for a while under a searching +light; his figure is imprinted on the very nerves, and no man who has +read carefully can ever shake off an impression that seems burnt into +the fibre of the mind. This superlatively fine historic portrait was +painted by Carlyle solely from Walpole's material--for we cannot +reckon chance newspaper scraps as counting for much--and thus the +gossip of Strawberry Hill conferred immortality on himself and on our +own Titanic statesman. But Walpole's influence did not end there. +Whoever wants to read a very good and charming work should not miss +seeing Sir George Trevelyan's "Life of Charles James Fox." To praise +this book is almost an impertinence. I content myself with saying that +those who once taste its fascination go back to it again and again, +and usually end by placing it with the books that are "the bosom +friends" of men. Now the grim Scotchman lit up Horace's letters with +the lurid furnace-glow of his genius; Sir George held the serene lamp +of the scholar above the same letters, and lo, we have two pieces that +can only die when the language dies! What a feat for a mere +letter-writer to achieve! Let ambitious correspondents take example by +Horace Walpole, and learn that simplicity is the first, best--nay, the +only--object to be aimed at by the letter-writer. + +We have forgotten the easy style of Walpole; we do not any longer care +much for Johnson, though his letters are indeed models; we have no +time for lovely whimsical elaborations like those of Cowper or Charles +Lamb; but still some of us--persons of inferior mind perhaps--do +attempt to write letters. To these I have a word to say. So far as I +can judge, after passing many, many hundreds and thousands of letters +through my hands, the best correspondents nowadays are either those +who have been educated to the finest point, and who therefore dare not +be affected, or those who have no education at all. A little while ago +I went through a terrific letter from a young man, who took up +seventeen enormous double sheets of paper in trying to tell me +something about himself. The handwriting was good, the air of educated +assurance breathed from the style was quite impassive, and the total +amount of six thousand eight hundred words was sufficient to say +anything in reason. Yet this voluminous writer managed to say nothing +in particular excepting that he thought himself very like Lord Byron, +that he was fond of courting, and that his own talents were supreme. +Now a simple honest narrative of youthful struggles would have held me +attentive, but I found much difficulty in keeping a judicial mind on +this enormous effusion. Why? Because the writer was a bad +correspondent; he was so wrapped up in himself that he could not help +fancying that every one else must be in the same humour, and thus he +produced a dull, windy letter in spite of his tolerable smattering of +education. On the other hand, I often study simple letters which err +in the matter of spelling and grammar, but which are enthralling in +interest. A domestic servant modestly tells her troubles and gives the +truth about her life; every word burns with significance--and +Shakespeare himself could do no more than give music of style and +grave coherence to the narrative. The servant writes well because she +keeps clear of high-sounding phrases, and writes with entire +sincerity. It is the sincerity that attracts the judicious reader, and +it is only by sincerity that any letter-writer can please other human +creatures. Beauty of style counts for a great deal; I would not +sacrifice the exquisite daintiness of epistolary style in Lamb or +Coleridge or Thackeray or Macaulay for gold. But style is not +everything, and the very best letter I ever read--the letter which +stands first in my opinion as a model of what written communications +should be--is without grammar or form or elegance. It is simply a +document in which the writer suppresses himself, and conveys all the +intelligence possible in a limited space. To all letter-writers I +would say, "Let your written words come direct from your own mind. The +moment you try to reproduce any thought or any cadence of language +which you have learned from books you become a bore, and no sane man +can put up with you. But, if you resolve that the thought set down +shall be yours and yours alone, that the turns of phrase shall be such +as you would use in talking with your intimates, that each word shall +be prompted by your own knowledge or your belief, then it does not +matter a pin if you are ignorant of spelling, grammar, and all the +graces; you will be a pleasing correspondent." Look at the letters of +Lady Sarah Lennox, who afterwards became the mother of the brilliant +Napiers. This lady did not know how to put in a single stop, and her +spelling is more wildly eccentric than words can describe, yet her +letters are enthralling, and natural fire and fun actually seem to +derive piquancy from the schoolgirlish errors. If you sit down to +write with the intention of being impressive, you may not make a fool +of yourself, but the chances are all in that direction; whereas, if +you resolve with rigid determination to say something essential about +some fact and to say it in your own way, you will produce a piece of +valuable literature. Of course there are times when dignity and +gravity are necessary in correspondence, but even dignity cannot be +divorced from simplicity. Supposing that, by an evil chance, a person +finds himself bound to inflict an epistolary rebuff on another, the +rebuff entirely fails if a single affected word is inserted. The most +perfect example of a courteous snub with which I am acquainted was +sent by a master of measured and ornamental prose. Gibbon, the +historian, received a very lengthy and sarcastic letter from the +famous Doctor Priestley, of Birmingham. Priestley blamed Gibbon for +his covert mode of attacking Christianity, and observed that Servetus +was more to be admired for his courage as a martyr than for his +services as a scientific discoverer. Now Gibbon knew by instinct that +the historic style would at once become ludicrous if used to answer +such a letter; so he deserted his ordinary majestic manner, and wrote +thus-- + + "SIR--As I do not pretend to judge of the sentiments or intentions + of another, I shall not inquire how far you are inclined to suffer + or inflict martyrdom. It only becomes me to say that the style + and temper of your last letter have satisfied me of the propriety + of declining all further correspondence, whether public or private, + with such an adversary." + +A perfect sneer, a perfectly guarded and telling rebuff. But I do not +care to speak about the literature of quarrels; my concern is mainly +with those readers who have relatives scattered here and there, and +who try to keep up communications with the said relatives. Judging +from the countless letters which I see, only a small percentage of +people understand that the duty of a correspondent is to say something. +As a general rule, it may be taken for granted that abstract +reflections are a bore; and I am certain that an exiled Englishman +would be far more delighted with the letter of a child who told him +about the farm or the cows, or the people in the street, or the +marriages and christenings and engagements, than he would be with +miles of sentiment from an adult, no matter how noble might be the +language in which the sentiment was couched. Partly, then, as a hint +to the good folk who load the foreign-bound mails, partly as a hint to +my own army of correspondents,[1] I have given a fragment of the +fruits of wide experience. Remember that stately Sir William Temple is +all but forgotten; chatty Pepys is immortal. Windy Philip de Commines +is unread; Montaigne is the delight of leisurely men all the world +over. The mighty Doctor Robertson is crowned chief of bores; the +despised Boswell is likely to be the delight of ages to come. The +lesson is--be simple, be natural, be truthful; and let style, grace, +grammar, and everything else take care of themselves. I spoke just now +of the best letter I have ever read, and I venture to give a piece of +it-- + + [1] Written when Mr. Runciman answered correspondents of the + _Family Herald_. + + "DEAR MADAM,--No doubt you and Frank's friends have heard the sad + fact of his death here, through his uncle or the lady who took his + things. I will write you a few lines, as a casual friend that sat + by his death-bed. Your son, Corporal Frank H. ----, was wounded + near Fort Fisher. The wound was in the left knee, pretty bad. On + the 4th of April the leg was amputated a little above the knee; + the operation was performed by Dr. Bliss, one of the best surgeons + in the Army--he did the whole operation himself. The bullet was + found in the knee. I visited and sat by him frequently, as he was + fond of having me. The last ten or twelve days of April I saw that + his case was critical. The last week in April he was much of the + time flighty, but always mild and gentle. He died 1st of May. + Frank, as far as I saw, had everything requisite in surgical + treatment, nursing, &c. He had watchers most of the time--he was + so good and well-behaved and affectionate. I myself liked him very + much. I was in the habit of coming in afternoons and sitting by + him and soothing him; and he liked to have me--liked to put his + arm out and lay his hand on my knee--would keep it so a long + while. Towards the last he was more restless and flighty at + night--often fancied himself with his regiment, by his talk + sometimes seemed as if his feelings were hurt by being blamed by + his officers for something he was entirely innocent of--said, 'I + never in my life was thought capable of such a thing, and never + was.' At other times he would fancy himself talking, as it seemed, + to children and such like--his relatives, I suppose--and giving + them good advice--would talk to them a long while. All the time he + was out of his head not one single bad word or idea escaped him. + It was remarked that many a man's conversation in his senses was + not half so good as Frank's delirium. He seemed quite willing to + die--he had become weak and had suffered a good deal, and was + quite resigned, poor boy! I do not know his past life, but I feel + as if it must have been good; at any rate, what I saw of him here + under the most trying circumstances, with a painful wound, and + among strangers, I can say that he behaved so brave, so composed, + and so sweet and affectionate, it could not be surpassed.... I + thought perhaps a few words, though from a stranger, about your + son, from one who was with him at the last, might be worth while, + for I loved the young man, though I but saw him immediately to + lose him." + +The grammar here is all wrong, but observe the profound goodness of +the writer; he hides nothing he knows that bereaved mother wants to +know about her Frank, her boy; and he tells her everything essential +with rude and noble tenderness, just as though the woman's sorrowing +eyes were on his face. It is a beautiful letter, bald as it is, and I +commend the style to writers on all subjects, even though a +schoolmaster could pick the syntax to pieces. + + + + +II. + +ON WRITING ONESELF OUT. + + +Lord Beaconsfield once compared his opponents on the Treasury Bench to +a line of exhausted volcanoes. They had taken office when they were +full of mighty aspirations; they had poured forth measures of all +sorts with prodigal vigour; and at last they were reduced to wait, +supine and helpless, for the inevitable swing of the political +pendulum. A similar process of exhaustion goes on among literary men; +and there are certain symptoms which cause expert persons to say, "Ah, +poor Blank seems to have written himself out!" I have occasionally +alluded to this most distressing topic, but I have never discussed it +fully. + +The subject of brain-exhaustion has a very peculiar interest for the +public as well as for the professional penman; half the slovenly prose +which ordinary men use in their correspondence is due to the bad +models set by written-out men, and the agonising exhibitions made by +some thousands of public speakers in this devoted and long-suffering +land are also due to the purblind weakness of the exhausted man. The +wrought-out writer is not permitted to cease from work; he goes on +droning out his fixed quantity of mortal dreariness day by day and +week by week until his mind spins along a particular groove, and he +probably repeats himself every day of his life without being aware +that he is anything but brilliantly original. I am obliged to study +many novels, and I know many most successful workers who at this +present time are turning out the same fiction under varied names with +monotonous regularity. They are not quite like an old hand whom I knew +long ago, who used to promote the characters in novelettes of his own +and turn them on to the market again and again; the effusions of this +genius were not of sufficient importance to attract attention from +folk with clear memories, and I believe that he escaped detection in a +miraculous way. His untitled country gentleman became a baronet, the +injured heroine was similarly moved up on the social scale, and the +noble effort came forth with a fresh name, while the knowing old +impostor chuckled in his garret and pouched his pittance. I believe +the funny soul has passed away; but really there are many very +pretentious persons who do little more than vary his methods +unconsciously. Poor James Grant delighted many a schoolboy, and +perhaps his best work was never quite so much appreciated as it ought +to have been. "The Black Dragoons," "The Queen's Own," and "The +Romance of War" all contained good work, and many gallant lads +delighted their hearts with them; I know that one youth at least +learned "The Black Dragoons" by heart, and amused the people in a +lonely farm-house by reciting whole chapters on winter nights, and I +have some reason to believe that the book gave the boy a taste for +literature which ended in his becoming a novelist. But, as Grant went +on with machine-like regularity, how curiously similar to each other +his books became! Narvaez Cifuentes, in "The Romance of War," is the +type of all the villains; the young dragoons were all alike; the +wooden heroines might have been chopped out by a literary carpenter +from one model; the charges, the escapes, the perils of the hero never +varied very much from volume to volume; and the fact was obvious that +the brain had ceased to develop any strikingly original ideas and only +the busy hand worked on. A very sarcastic personage once observed that +"it is better for literary men to read a little occasionally." To +outsiders the advice may seem like a piece of grotesque fun; but those +who know much of literary work are well aware that a writer may very +easily become possessed by a sick disgust of books which never leaves +him. He will look at volumes of extracts, he will skim poetry, he will +read eagerly for a few days or weeks in order to get up a subject; but +the pure delight in literature for its own sake has left him, and he +is as decidedly prosaic a tradesman as his own hosier. Such a man soon +joins the written-out division, and, unless he travels much or has a +keenly humorous eye for the things about him, he runs a very good +chance of becoming an intolerable bore. He forgets that the substance +of his brain is constantly fading, and that he needs not only to +replenish the physical substance of the organ by constant care, but to +replenish all his dwindling stores of knowledge, ideas, and even of +verbal resources. Among the older authors there were some who offered +melancholy spectacles of mental exhaustion; and the practised reader +knows how to look for particular features in their work, just as he +looks for Wouvermans' white horse and Beaumont's brown tree. These +literary spinners forget the example of Macaulay, who was quite +contented if he turned out two foolscap pages as his actual completed +task in mere writing for one day. He was never tired of laying in new +stores, and he persistently refreshed his memory by running over books +which he had read oftentimes before. The books and manuscripts which +Gibbon read in twenty years reached such an enormous number that, when +he attempted to form a catalogue of them, he was compelled to give up +the task in despair; he was constantly adding to the enormous +reservoir of knowledge which he had at command, and thus his work +never grew stale, and he was ready instantly with a hundred +illustrative lights on any point which chanced to crop up either in +conversation or in the course of his reading. The cheap and flashy +writer is inclined to disdain the men who are thorough in their +studies; but, while his work grows thin and poor, the judicious +reader's becomes marked by more and more of richness and fulness. + +Burke kept his vast accumulations of knowledge perfectly fresh; and I +notice in him that, instead of growing more staid and commonplace in +his style as he increased in years, he grew more vigorous, until he +actually slid into the excess of gaudy redundancy. I am sorry that his +prose ever became Asiatic in its splendour; but even that fact shows +how steadfast effort may prevent a man from writing away his +originality and his freshness of manner. Observe the sad results of an +antagonistic proceeding for even the mightiest of brains. Sir Walter +Scott was building up his brain until he was forty years old; then we +had the Homeric strength of "Marmion," the perfect art of the +"Antiquary," the unequalled romantic interest of "Guy Mannering," "Rob +Roy," "Ivanhoe," "Quentin Durward." The long years of steady +production drained that most noble flood of knowledge and skill until +we reached the obvious fatuity of "Count Robert" and the imbecilities +of "Castle Dangerous." Any half-dozen of such books as "Redgauntlet," +"The Pirate," and "Kenilworth" were sufficient to give a man the +reputation of being great--and yet even that overwhelming opulence was +at last worn down into mental poverty. Poor Scott never gave himself +time to recover when once his descent of the last perilous slope had +begun, and he suffered for his folly in not resting. + +In Lord Tennyson's case we see how wisdom may preserve a man's power. +The poet who gave us "Ulysses" so long ago, the poet who brought forth +such a magnificent work as "Maud," retained his power so fully that +thirty years after "Maud" he gave us "Rizpah." This continued +freshness, lasting nearly threescore years, is simply due to economy +of physical and mental resource, which is far more important than any +economy of money. Charles Dickens cannot be said to have been fairly +written out at any time; but he was often perilously near that +condition; only his power of throwing himself with eagerness into any +scheme of relaxation saved him; and, but for the readings and the +unhappy Sittingbourne railway accident, he might be with us now full +of years and honours. When he did suffer himself to be worked to a low +ebb for a time, his writing was very bad. Even in the flush of his +youth, when he was persuaded to write "Oliver Twist" in a hurry, he +fell far below his own standard. I have lately read the book after +many years, and while I find nearly all the comic parts admirable, +some of the serious portions strike me as being so curiously stilted +and bad that I can hardly bring myself to believe that Dickens touched +them. An affectionate student of his books can almost always account +for the bad patches in Dickens by collating the novels with the +letters and diary. Much of the totally nauseating gush of the Brothers +Cheeryble must have been turned out only by way of stop-gap; and there +are passages in "Little Dorrit" which may have been done speedily +enough by the author, but which no one of my acquaintance can reckon +as bearable. Dickens saw the danger of exhausting himself before he +reached fifty-four years of age, and tried to repair damages inflicted +by past excesses; but he was too late, and though "Edwin Drood" was +quite in his best manner, he could not keep up the effort--and we lost +him. + +As for the dismal hacks who sometimes call themselves journalists, I +cannot grow angry with them; but they do test the patience of the most +stolid of men. To call them writers--_ecrivains_--would be worse than +flattery; they are paper-stainers, and every fresh dribble of their +incompetence shows how utterly written out they are. Let them have a +noble action to describe, or let them have a world-shaking event given +them as subject for comment, the same deadly mechanical dulness marks +the description and the article. Look at an article by Forbes or +McGahan or Burleigh--an article wherein the words seem alive--and then +run over a doleful production of some complacent hack, and the +astounding range that divides the zenith of journalism from the nadir +may at once be seen. The poor hack has all his little bundle of +phrases tied up ready to his hand; but he has no brain left, and he +cannot rearrange his verbal stock-in-trade in fresh and vivid +combinations. The old, old sentences trickle out in the old, old way. +Our friends, "the breach than the observance," "the cynosure of all +eyes," "the light fantastic toe," "beauty when unadorned," "the poor +Indian," and all the venerable army come out on parade. The weariful +writer fills up his allotted space; but he does not give one single +new idea, and we forget within a few minutes what the article +pretended to say--in an hour we have forgotten even the name of the +subject treated. + +As one looks around on the corps of writers now living, one feels +inclined to ask the old stale question, "And pray what time do you +give yourself for thinking?" The hurrying reporter or special +correspondent needs only to describe in good prose the pictures that +pass before his eye; but what is required of the man who stays at home +and spins out his thoughts as the spider spins his thread? He must +take means to preserve his own freshness, or he grows more and more +unreadable with a rapidity which lands him at last among the helpless, +hopeless dullards; if he persists in expending the last remnants of +his ideas, he may at last be reduced to such extremities that he will +be forced to fill up his allotted space by describing the interesting +vagaries of his own liver. Scores of written-out men pretend to +instruct the public daily or weekly; the supply of rank commonplace is +pumped up, but the public rush away to buy some cheap story which has +signs of life in it. My impression is that it is not good for writers +to consort too much with men of their own class; the slang of +literature is detestable, and a man soon begins to use it at all +seasons if he lives in the literary atmosphere. The actor who works in +the theatre at night, and lives only among his peers during the day, +ends by becoming a mummer even in private life; a teacher who does not +systematically shake off the taint of the school is among the most +tiresome of creatures; the man who hurries from race-meeting to +race-meeting seems to lose the power of talking about anything save +horses and bets; and the literary man cannot hope to escape the usual +fate of those who narrow their horizon. When a man once settles down +as "literary" and nothing else, he does not take long in reaching +complete nullity. His power of emitting strings of grammatical +sentences remains; but the sentences are only exudations from an awful +blankness--he is written out. The rush after money has latterly +brought some of our most exquisite writers of fiction into a condition +which is truly lamentable; the very beauties which marked their early +work have become garish and vulgarised, and, in running through the +early chapters of a new novel, a reader of fair intelligence discovers +that he could close the book and tell the story for himself. One +artist cannot get away from sentimental merchant-seamen and lovely +lady-passengers; another must always bring in an infant that is cast +on shore near a primitive village; another must have for characters a +roguish trainer of race-horses, an honest jockey, a dark villain who +tampers with race-horses, and a dashing young man who is saved from +ruin by betting on a race; another drags in a surprisingly +lofty-minded damsel who grows up pure and noble amid the most +repulsive surroundings; another can never forget the lost will; +another depends on a mock-modest braggart who kills scores of people +in a humorous way. The mould remains the same in each case, although +there may be casual variations in the hue of the material poured out +and moulded. All these forlorn folk are either verging toward the +written-out condition or have reached the last level of flatness. Like +the great painters who work for Manchester or New York millionaires, +these novelists produce stuff which is only shoddy; they lower their +high calling, and they prepare themselves to pass away into the ranks +of the nameless millions whose works are ranged along miles of +untouched shelves in the great public libraries. Fame may not be +greatly worth trying for; but at least a man may try to turn out the +very best work of which he is capable. Some of our brightest refuse to +aim at the highest, and they land in the dim masses of the +written-out. + + + + +III. + +THE DECLINE OF LITERATURE. + + +It may seem almost an impertinence to use such a word as "decline" in +connection with literature at a date when every crossing-sweeper can +read, when free libraries are multiplied, when a new novel is +published every day all the year round, and when thousands and tens of +thousands of books--scientific, historical, critical--are poured out +from the presses. We have several weekly journals devoted almost +entirely to the work of criticising the new volumes which appear, and +the literary caste in society is both numerous and powerful. In the +face of all this I assert that the true literary spirit is declining, +and that the pure enthusiasm of other days is passing away. + +I emphatically deny that the actual literary artists in any line are +inferior to the men of the past, and never cease to contemn the +impudent talk of those who shake their heads and allude to the giants +who are supposed to have lived in some unspecified era of our history. +Lord Salisbury is greater than Dean Swift as a political writer; the +author of "John Inglesant" is a finer stylist than any man of the last +two centuries; as a writer of prose no man known in the world's +history can be compared to Mr. Ruskin; with Messrs. Froude, Gardiner, +Lecky, Trevelyan, Bishop Stubbs, and Mr. Freeman we can hold our own +against the historian of any date; the late Lord Tennyson and Mr. +Arnold have written poetry that must live. Then in science we have a +set of men who present the most momentous theories, the most +profoundly thrilling facts in language which is lucid and attractive +as that of a pretty fairy-tale. If we turn to our popular journals, we +find learning, humour, consummate skill in style from writers who do +not even sign their names. Day by day the stream of wit, logic, +artistic power flows on, and for all these literary wares there must +be a steady sale; and yet I am constrained to declare that literature +is declining. This may sound like juggling with words in the fashion +approved by Dr. Johnson when he was in his whimsical humour; but I am +serious, and my meaning will shortly appear. We have more readers and +fewer students. The person known as "the general reader" is nowadays +fond of literary dram-drinking--he wants small pleasant doses of a +stimulant that will act swiftly on his nerves; and, if he can get +nothing better, he will contentedly batten on the tiny paragraphs of +detached gossip which form the main delight of many fairly intelligent +people. Books are cheap and easily procured, and the circulating +library renders it almost unnecessary for any one to buy books at all. +In myriads of houses in town or country the weekly or monthly box of +books comes as regularly as the supplies of provisions; the contents +are devoured, the dram-drinkers crave for further stimulant, and one +book chases another out of memory. Literature is as good as and better +than ever it was in the fabulous palmy days, but it is not so precious +now; and a great work, so far from being treated as a priceless +possession and a companion, is regarded only as an item in the _menu_ +furnished for a sort of literary debauch. A laborious historian spends +ten years in studying an important period; he contrives to set forth +his facts in a brilliant and exhilarating style, whereupon the word is +passed that the history must be read. People meet, and the usual +inquiries are exchanged--"Have you read Brown on the Union of 1707?" +"Yes--skimmed it through last week. But have you seen Thomson's attack +on the Apocrypha?" And so the two go on exchanging notes on their +respective bundles of literary lumber, but without endeavouring to +gain the least understanding of any author's meaning, and without +tasting in the smallest degree any one of the ennobling properties of +ripe thought or beautiful workmanship. The main thing is to be able to +say that you have read a book. What you have got out of it is quite +another thing with which no one is concerned; so that in some +societies where the pretence of being "literary" is kept up the +bewildered outsider feels as though he were listening to the +discussion of a library catalogue at a sale. Timid persons think that +they would be looked on lightly if they failed to show an acquaintance +with the name at least of any new work; and the consequences of this +silly ambition would be very droll did we not know how much loose +thought, sham culture, lowering deceit arise from it. A young man +lately made a great success in literature. For his first book he +gained nothing, but lost a good deal; for his second he obtained +twenty pounds, after he had lost his eyesight for a time, owing to his +toiling by night and day; his third work brought him fame and a +fortune. He happened to be in a bookseller's shop when a lady entered +and said, "What is the price of Mr. Blank's works?" "Thirty shillings, +madam." "Oh, that is far too much! I have to dine with him to-night, +and I wanted to skim the books. But he isn't worth thirty shillings!" +Twenty discourses could not exhaust the full significance of that +little speech. The lady was typical of a class, and her mode of +getting ready her table talk is the same which produces confusion, +mean sciolism, and mental poverty among too many of those who set up +as arbiters of taste. A somewhat cruel man of letters is said to have +led on one of the shallow pretenders in a heartless way until the +victim confidently affected knowledge of a plot, descriptions, and +characters which had no existence. The trick was heartless and +somewhat dishonest; but the mere fact that it could be played at all +shows how far the game of literary racing has done harm. + +Let us turn from the book-clubs, the libraries, and the swarming cheap +editions of our own days, and hark back for about seventy-seven years. +The great Sheriff was then in the flush of his glorious manhood, and +it is amazing to discover the national interest that was felt in his +works as they came rapidly out. When "Rokeby" appeared, only one copy +reached Cambridge, and the happy student who secured that was followed +by an eager crowd demanding that the poem should be read aloud to +them. When "Marmion" was sent out to the Peninsula, parties of +officers were made up nightly in the lines of Torres Vedras to hear +and revel in the new marvel. Sir Adam Fergusson and his company of men +were sheltered in a hollow at the battle of Talavera. Sir Adam read +the battle-scene from "Marmion" aloud to pass away the time; and the +reclining men cheered lustily, though at intervals the screech of the +French shells sounded overhead. It may be said that the publication of +a new work by Dickens was a national event only a quarter of a century +ago. True; but somehow even Dickens was not regarded with that grave +critical interest which private citizens of the previous generation +bestowed on Scott. The incomparable Sir Walter at that time was +dwelling far away amid the swamps and grim hills and shaggy thickets +of Ashestiel. Town-life was not for him, and he grudged the hours +spent in musty law-courts. Before dawn he went joyously to his work, +and long before the household was astir he had made good progress. At +noon he was free to lead the life of a country farmer and sportsman; +the ponies were saddled, the greyhounds uncoupled, and a merry company +set off across the hills. The talk was refined and gladsome, and +visitors came back refreshed and improved to the cottage. And now +comes the strange part of the story--this healthy retired sporting +farmer was in correspondence with the greatest and cleverest men in +the British Isles, and the most masterly criticisms of literature were +exchanged with a lavish freedom which seems impossible to us in the +days of the post-card and the hurried gasping telegram. In our day +there is absolutely no time for that leisurely conscientious study +which was usual in the time when men bought their books and paid +heavily for them. Even Mr. Ruskin, in his retirement on the shores of +Coniston, cannot carry on that graceful and ineffably instructive +correspondence which was so easy to Southey, Coleridge, and the others +of that fine company who dwelt in the Lake District. Marvellous it is +to observe the splendid quality of the literary criticisms which were +sent to the great ones by men who had no intention of writing or +selling a line. In studying the memoirs of the century we find that, +long before the education movement began, there were scores of men and +women who had no need to make literature a profession, but who were +nevertheless skilled and cultured as the writers who worked for bread. +Who now talks of Mr. Morritt of Rokeby? Yet Morritt carried on a +voluminous correspondence with Scott and the rest of that brilliant +school. Who ever thinks of George Ellis? But Ellis was the most +learned of antiquaries, and devoid of the pedantry which so often +makes antiquarian discourses repellent. His polished expositions have +the charm that comes from a gentle soul and an exquisite intellect, +while his criticism is so luminous and just that even Mr. Ruskin +could hardly improve upon it. Then there were Mr. Skene, Joanna +Baillie--alas, poor forgotten Joanna!--Erskine, the Shepherd, the +Duke of Buccleuch, Wilson, and so many more that we grow amazed to +think that even Scott was able to rear his head above them. All the +school were alike in their love and enthusiasm for literature; and +really they seemed to have had a better mode of living and thinking +than have the smart gentlemen who think that earnest and conscientious +study is only a heavy species of frivolity. And let it be marked that +this wide-spread company of private citizens and public writers by no +means formed a mutual admiration society, for they criticised each +other sharply and wisely; and the criticism was taken in good part by +all concerned. When Ellis wrote a sort of treatise to Scott in +epistolary form, and complained of the poet's monotonous use of the +eight-syllable line, Scott replied with equanimity, and took as much +pains to convince his friend as though he were discussing a thesis for +some valuable prize. On one occasion a few of the really great men +found themselves in the midst of a society where the practice of +mutual admiration was beginning to creep in. The way in which two of +the most eminent guests snubbed the mutual admirers was at once +delightful and effective. One gentleman had been extravagantly +extolling Coleridge, until many present felt a little uncomfortable. +Scott said, "Well, I have lately read in a provincial paper some +verses which I think better than most of their sort." He then recited +the lines "Fire, Famine, and Slaughter" which are now so famous. The +eulogist of Coleridge refused to allow the verses any merit. To Scott +he addressed a series of questions--"Surely you must own that this is +bad?" "Surely you cannot call this anything but poor?" At length +Coleridge quietly broke in, "For Heaven's sake, leave Mr. Scott alone! +I wrote the poem." This cruel blow put an end to mutual admiration in +that quarter for some time. + +Byron, Southey, Wordsworth, Jeffrey--all in their several +fashions--regarded literature as a serious pursuit, and they were +followed by the "illustrious obscure" ones whose names are now sunk in +the night. How the whirligig of time sweeps us through change after +change! Any of us can buy for shillings books which would have cost +our predecessors pounds; we can have access to all the wit, poetry, +and learning of our generation at a cost of three guineas a year. For +little more than a shilling per week any reader who lives far away in +the country can have relays of books sent him at the rate of fifteen +volumes per relay. Very satisfactory. Most satisfactory too are the +Board-school libraries, from which a million children obtain the best +and noblest of literature without money and without price. Still there +remains the fact that any man who sat down and wrote long letters on +literary subjects would be looked upon as light-headed. We are too +clever to be in earnest, and the expenditure of earnestness on such a +subject as literature is regarded as evidence of pedantry or folly, or +both. Those men of former days knew their few books thoroughly and +loved them wisely; we know our many books only in a smattering way, +and we do not love them at all. When Mr. Mark Pattison suggested that +a well-to-do man reasonably expend 10 per cent. of his income on +books, he roused a burst of kindly laughter, and it was suggested that +solitary confinement would do him a great deal of good. That was a +fine trenchant mode of looking at the matter. When, in meditative +hours, I compare the two generations of readers, I think that the +mental health of the old school and the new school may be compared +respectively with the bodily health of sober sturdy countrymen and +effete satiated gourmands of the town. The countrymen has no great +variety of good cheer, but he assimilates all that is best of his +fare, and he grows powerful, calm, able to endure heavy tasks. The +jaded creature of the clubs and the race-courses and the ball-room has +swift incessant variety until all things pall upon him. In time he +must begin with damaging stimulants before he can go on with the +interesting pursuits of each day. Every device is tried to tickle his +dead palate; but the succession of dainties is of no avail, for the +man cannot assimilate what is set before him, and he becomes soft of +muscle, devoid of nerve--a weed of civilisation. Are not the cases +analogous to those of the sound reverent student and the weary _blase_ +skimmer of books? So, in sum, I say that, even if our enormous output +of printed matter goes on increasing, and if the number of readers +increases by millions, yet, so long as men read the thoughts of other +men not to search for instruction and high pleasure, but to search for +distraction and vain delirious excitement, then we are justified in +talking of the decline of literature. Far be it from me to say that +people should neglect the study of men and women and devote themselves +to the strained study of books alone. The mere bookman is always more +or less a dolt; but the wise reader who learns from the living voice +and visible actions of his fellow-creatures as well as from the dead +printed pages is on the way to placidity and strength and true wisdom. +Thus much I will say--the flippant devourer of books can neither be +wise nor strong nor useful; and it is his tribe who have discredited a +pursuit which once was noble and of good report. + + + + +IV. + +COLOUR-BLINDNESS IN LITERATURE. + + +The singular phrase at the head of this Essay came to me from a +correspondent who wrote in great perplexity. This unhappy man was +quite miserable because he found that his own views of the +masterpieces of literature differed from those generally expressed; +his modesty prevented him from setting himself up in opposition to the +opinions of others, and he frankly asked, "Is there anything answering +to colour-blindness which may exist in the mind as regards +literature?" The absurd but felicitous inquiry took my fancy greatly, +and I resolved to examine the problem with care. In particular my +perturbed friend alluded to certain movements in modern criticism. He +cannot admire Shelley, yet he finds Shelley placed above Byron and +next to Shakspere; he reads a political poem by a modern master, and +discovers to his horror that he fails to understand what it is all +about. Moreover, this very free critic cannot abide Browning and the +later works of Tennyson; nor can he admire Mr. Swinburne. This is +dreadful; but worse remains behind. With grief and terror this +penitent declares that he cannot tolerate "The Pilgrim's Progress" or +"Don Quixote"; and he goes on to say, "How much of Milton seems trash, +also Butler, very much of Wordsworth, and all Southey's Epics!" Then, +with a wail of despair, he says, "These works have stood the test of +time. Am I colour-blind?" Now this gentleman's state of mind is far +more common than he supposes; only few people care to confess even to +their bosom-friends that they do not accept public opinion--or rather +the opinions of authority. The age has grown contemptible from cant, +and traditions which are perhaps highly respectable in their place are +thrust upon us in season and out of season. Regarding matters of fact +there is no room for differences of opinion when once the fact is +established; and regarding problems in elementary morality we perceive +the same surety. No one in his senses thinks of denying that America +exists; no one would think of saying that it is wrong to do unto +others as we would they should do unto us; but, when we come to +questions of taste, we have to deal with subtleties so complex that we +are forced to deny any one's right to dogmatise. If a man says, "I +enjoy this book," that is well; but if he adds, "You are a fool if you +do not enjoy it too," he is guilty of folly and impertinence. These +dogmatists have given rise to much hypocrisy. By all means let them +hold their opinions; but at the same time let them make no claims upon +us. Our beloved old friend Doctor Johnson had many views about +literature which now appear to us cramped and strange, but we should +examine his sayings with respect. When however it is found that the +old man used to foam and bellow at persons who did not approve of his +paradoxes, one is slightly inclined--in spite of reverence for his +moral strength--to set him down as a nuisance, and to wonder how +people managed to put up with him at times. In reading the +conversations and essays of the moralist we constantly meet with +passages which we should think over temperately were it not that we +are informed by the critic or his biographer that only fools would +venture to question Johnson's wisdom and insight. + +Take the famous article on Milton. Speaking of "Lycidas," Johnson +coolly observes, "In this poem there is no nature, for there is no +truth; there is no art, for there is nothing new. Its form is that of +a pastoral--easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting; whatever images it +can supply are easily exhausted, and its inherent improbability always +forces dissatisfaction on the mind. He who thus grieves will excite no +sympathy; he who thus praises will confer no honour." Now this is +blunt, positive speech, and no one would mind it much if it were left +alone by ignorant persons; but it is a trifle exasperating when +Johnson's authority is brought forward at second hand in order to +convince us that a poem in which many people delight is disgusting. +Again, the dictator said that a passage in Congreve's "Morning Bride" +was finer than anything in Shakspere. Very good; let Johnson's opinion +stand so far as he is concerned, but let us also consider the passage-- + + "How reverend is the face of this tall pile, + Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads + To bear aloft its arched and ponderous roof, + By its own weight made steadfast and immovable, + Looking tranquillity! It strikes an awe + And terror on my aching sight." + +This is the stuff which is called "noble" and "magnificent" and +"impressive" by people who fail to see that Johnson was merely amusing +himself, as he often did, by upholding a fallacy. The lines from +Congreve are bald and utterly commonplace; they have no positive +quality; and when some of us think of such gems as "When daisies pied +and violets blue," or, "To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow," or +even the description of the Dover cliff, not to mention the thousands +of other gems in Shakspere's great dramas, we feel inclined to be +angry when we are asked to admire Congreve's stilted nonsense. There +is much to be objected to in Shakspere. I hold that a man who wrote +such a dull play as "Pericles" would nowadays be scouted; but the +incomparable poet should not be belittled by even a momentary +comparison with Congreve. + +I can readily imagine a man of real good sense and cultured taste +objecting to "The Pilgrim's Progress." Why should he not? Millions of +people have read the book, but millions have not; and the fact that +many of the best judges of style love Bunyan offers no reason why the +good tinker should be loved by everybody. As for "Don Quixote," a fine +critic once remarked that he would choose that book if he were to be +imprisoned for life, and if he were also allowed to choose one volume. +Doubtless this gentleman has thrust his dictum concerning the value of +Cervantes's work down the throats of many people who would have liked +to contradict him. If his example were followed by critics +universally, it would doubtless be hard to find in Britain a man +pretending to culture who durst assert that he did not care for "Don +Quixote." In spite of this, the grave terror with which my +correspondent regards his own inability to appreciate a famous book is +more than funny. + +Regarding Browning I can only say that, although his worshippers are +aggressive enough, one readily pardons any person who flies from his +poems in disgust. A learned and enthusiastic editor actually gave +"Sordello" up in despair; and even the late Dean Church averred that +he did not understand the poem, though he wrote lengthy studies on it. +To my own knowledge there are men and women who do derive intense +pleasure from Browning, and they are quite right in expressing their +feelings; but they are wrong in attempting to bully the general public +into acquiescence. Certain members of the public say, "Your poet +capers round us in a sort of war-dance; he flicks off our hats with +some muddled paradox, he leaves a line unfinished and hurts us with a +projecting conjunction. We want him to stop capering and grimacing, +and then we shall tell him whether he is good-looking or not." I hold +that the dissenters are right. People with the necessary metaphysical +faculty may understand and passionately enjoy their Browning, but only +too many simple souls have inflicted miserable suffering on themselves +by trying to unravel the meaning of verses at which they never should +have looked. + +The fact is that we persistently neglect all true educational +principles in our treatment of literature. Young minds have to be +directed; but in literature, as in mechanics, the tendency of the +force is to move along the lines of least resistance. A dexterous +tutor should watch carefully the slightest tendencies and endeavour to +find out what kind of discipline his charge can best receive. As the +mind gains power it is certain to exhibit particular aptitudes, and +these must be fostered. In the case of a student who is self-taught +the same method must be observed, and a clever reader will soon find +out what is most likely to improve him. + +To my thinking some of the attempts made to force certain books on +young folk are shocking and deplorable; for it must be remembered that +in literature, as in the case of bodily nutriment, different foods are +required at different times of life. I have known boys and girls who +were forced to read "Rasselas." Now that allegorical production came +from the mind of a mature, powerful, most melancholy man, and it is +intended to show the barren vanity of human wishes. What an absurd +thing to put in the hands of a buoyant youth! The parents however had +heard that "Rasselas" was a great and moral book, whereupon the +children must be subjected to unavailing torture. It maybe said, +"Would not your hints tend to make people frivolous?" Certainly not, +if my hints are wisely used. Let it be observed that I merely wish to +do away with hypocritical conventions whereby timid men like my +correspondent are subjected to extreme misery and a vast waste of +intellectual power is inflicted on the world. Suppose that some +ridiculous guardian had taken up the modern notions about scientific +culture, and had forced Macaulay to read science alone; should we not +have lost the Essays and the History? + +That one consideration alone vividly illustrates my correspondent's +quaint and pregnant inquiry. Macaulay was "colour-blind" to science, +and the most painful times in his happy life were the hours devoted at +Cambridge to mathematical and mechanical formulae. The genuinely +cultured person is the one who thinks nothing of fashion and yields to +his natural bent as directed by his unerring instinct. A certain +modern celebrity has told us how his early days were wasted; he was +first of all forced to learn Latin and Greek, though his powers fitted +him to be a scientific student, and he was next forced to impart his +own fatal facility to others. Thus his fame came to him late, and the +most precious years of his life were thrown away. He was colour-blind +to certain departments of literature which have gained a mighty +reputation, yet he was obliged by sacred use and wont to act as though +he relished things which he really abhorred. In a minor degree the +same process of lavish waste is going on all around us. The most +utterly incompetent persons of both sexes are those who, in obedience +to convention, have tried to read everything that was sufficiently +bepraised instead of choosing for themselves; in conversation they are +objectionable bores, and it would puzzle the best of thinkers to +discover their precise use in life. Take it once and for all for +granted that no human creature attains fruitful culture unless he +learns his own powers and then resolves to apply them only in the +directions where they tell best; without so much of self-knowledge he +is no more a complete man than he would be were he deficient in +self-reverence and self-control. He must dare to think for himself, or +he will assuredly become a mediocrity, and probably more or less +offensive. All his possible influence on his fellow-creatures must +depart unless he thinks for himself; and he cannot think for himself +unless he is released from insincerity--the insincerity imposed by +usage. + + + + +V. + +THE SURFEIT OF BOOKS. + + +Sir John Lubbock once spoke to a company of working-men, and gave them +some advice on the subject of reading. Sir John is the very type of +the modern cultured man; he has managed to learn something of +everything. Finance is of course his strong point; but he stands in +the first rank of scientific workers; he is a profound political +student; and his knowledge of literature would suffice to make a great +reputation for any one who chose to stand before the world as a mere +literary specialist alone. This consummate all-round scholar picked +out one hundred books which he thought might be read with profit, and, +after reciting his appalling list, he cheerfully remarked that any +reader who got through the whole set might consider himself a +well-read man. I most fervently agree with this opinion. If any +student in the known world contrived to read, mark, learn, and +inwardly digest Sir John's hundred works, he would be equipped at all +points; but the trouble is that so few of us have time in the course +of our brief pilgrimage to master even a dozen of the greatest books +that the mind of man has put forth. Moreover, if we could swallow the +whole hundred prescribed by our gracious philosopher, we should really +be very little the better after performing the feat. A sort of +literary indigestion would ensue, and the mind of the learned sufferer +would rest under a perpetual nightmare until charitable oblivion +dulled the memory of the enormous mass of talk. Sir John thinks we +should read Confucius, the Hindoo religious poetry, some Persian +poetry, Thucydides, Tacitus, Cicero, Homer, Virgil, a little--a very +little--Voltaire, Moliere, Sheridan, Locke, Berkeley, George Lewes, +Hume, Shakspere, Bunyan, Spenser, Pope, Fielding, Macaulay, +Marivaux--Alas, is there any need to pursue the catalogue to the +bitter end? Need I mention Gibbon, or Froude, or Lingard, or Freeman, +or the novelists? To my mind the terrific task shadowed forth by the +genial orator was enough to scare the last remnant of resolution from +the souls of his toil-worn audience. A man of leisure might skim the +series of books recommended; but what about the striving citizens +whose scanty leisure leaves hardly enough time for the bare recreation +of the body? Is it not a little cruel to tell them that such and such +books are necessary to perfect culture, when we know all the while +that, even if they went without sleep, they could hardly cover such an +immense range of study? Many men and women yearn after the higher +mental life and are eager for guidance; but their yearnings are apt to +be frozen into the stupor of despair if we raise before them a +standard which is hopelessly unattainable by them. I should not dream +of approving the saying of Lord Beaconsfield: "Books are fatal; they +are the curse of the human race. Nine-tenths of existing books are +nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense." +Lord Beaconsfield did not believe in the slap-dash words which he put +into the mouth of Mr. Phoebus, nor did he believe that the greatness +of the English aristocracy arises from the facts that "they don't read +books, and they live in the open air." The great scoffer once read for +twelve hours every day during an entire year, and his general +knowledge of useful literature was quite remarkable. But, while +rejecting epigrammatic fireworks, I am bound to say that the habit of +reading has become harmful in many cases; it is a sort of intellectual +dram-drinking, and it enervates the mind as alcohol enervates the +body. If a man's function in life is to learn, then by all means let +him be learned. When Macaulay took the trouble to master thousands of +rubbishy pamphlets, poems, plays, and fictions, in order that he might +steep his mind in the atmosphere of a particular period in history, he +was quite justified. The results of his research were boiled down into +a few vivid emphatic pages, and we had the benefit of his labour. When +Carlyle spent thirteen mortal years in grubbing among musty German +histories that nearly drove him mad with their dulness, the world +reaped the fruit of his dreary toil, and we rejoiced in the witty, +incomparable life of Frederick II. When poor Emanuel Deutsch gave up +his brilliant life to the study of the obscurest chapters in the +Talmud, he did good service to the human race, for he placed before us +in the most lucid way a summary of the entire learning of a wondrous +people. It was good that these men should fulfil their function; it +was right on their part to read widely, because reading was their +trade. But there must be division of labour in the vast society of +human beings, and any man who endeavours to neglect this principle, +and who tries to fill two places in the social economy, does so at his +peril. + +Living cheek by jowl with us, there are hundreds and thousands of +persons who are ruining their minds by a kind of literary debauch. +They endeavour to follow on the footsteps of the specialists; they +struggle to learn a little of everything, and they end by knowing +nothing. They commit mental suicide: and, although no disgrace +attaches to this species of self-murder, yet disgrace is not the only +thing we have to fear in the course of our brief pilgrimage. We emerge +from eternity, we plunge into eternity; we have but a brief space to +poise ourselves in the light ere we drop into the gulf of doom, and +our duty is to be miserly over every moment and every faculty that is +vouchsafed to us. The essentials of thought and knowledge are +contained in a very few books, and the most toilsome drudge who ever +preached a sermon, drove a rivet, or swept a floor may become +perfectly educated by exercising a wise self-restraint, by resolutely +refusing to be guided by the ambitious advice of airy cultured +persons, and by mastering a few good books to the last syllable. Mr. +Ruskin is one of our greatest masters of English, and his supremacy as +a thinker is sufficiently indicated by Mazzini's phrase--"Ruskin has +the most analytic mind in Europe." No truer word was ever spoken than +this last, for, in spite of his dogmatic disposition, Mr. Ruskin does +utter the very transcendencies of wisdom. Now this glorious writer of +English, this subtlest of thinkers, was rigidly kept to a very few +books until he reached manhood. Under the eye of his mother he went +six times through the Bible, and learned most of the Book by heart. +This in itself was a discipline of the most perfect kind, for the +translators of the Bible had command of the English tongue at the time +when it was at its noblest. Then Mr. Ruskin read Pope again and again, +thus unconsciously acquiring the art of expressing meaning with a +complete economy of words. In the evening he heard the Waverley Novels +read aloud until he knew the plot, the motive, the ultimate lesson of +all those beautiful books. When he was fourteen years old, he read one +or two second-rate novels over and over again; and even this was good +training, in that it showed him the faults to be avoided. Before his +boyhood was over, he read his Byron with minute attention, and once +more he was introduced to a master of expression. Byron is a little +out of fashion now, alas! and yet what a thinker the man was! His +lightning eye pierced to the very heart of things, and his intense +grip on the facts of life makes his style seem alive. No wonder that +the young Ruskin learned to think daringly under such a master! Now +many people fancy that our great critic must be a man of universal +knowledge. What do they think of this narrow early training? The use +and purport of it all are plain enough to us, for we see that the +gentle student's intellect was kept clear of lumber; his thoughts were +not battened down under mountains of other men's, and, when he wanted +to fix an idea, he was not obliged to grope for it in a rubbish heap +of second-hand notions. Of course he read many other authors by slow +degrees; but, until his manhood came, his range was restricted. The +flawless perfection of his work is due mainly to his mother's sedulous +insistence on perfection within strict bounds. Again, and keeping +still to authors, Charles Dickens knew very little about books. His +keen business-like intellect perceived that the study of life and of +the world's forces is worth more than the study of letters, and he +also kept himself clear of scholarly lumber. He read Fielding, +Smollett, Gibbon, and, in his later life, he was passionately fond of +Tennyson's poetry; but his greatest charm as a writer and his success +as a social reformer were both gained through his simple power of +looking at things for himself without interposing the dimness that +falls like a darkening shadow on a mind that is crammed with the +conceptions of other folk. Look at the practical men! Nasmyth scarcely +read at all; Napoleon always spoke of literary persons as +"ideologists;" Stephenson was nineteen before he mastered his Bible; +Mahomet was totally uneducated; Gordon was content with the Bible, +"Pilgrim's Progress," and Thomas a Kempis; Hugh Miller became an +admirable editor without having read twoscore books in his lifetime. +Go right through the names on the roll of history, and it will be +found that in all walks of life the men who most influenced their +generation despised superfluous knowledge. They learned thoroughly all +that they thought it necessary to learn within a very limited compass; +they learned, above all, to think; and they then were ready to speak +or act without reference to any authority save their own intellect. If +we turn to the great book-men, we find mostly a deplorable record of +failure and futility. Their lives were passed in making useless +comments on the works of others. Look at the one hundred and eighty +volumes of the huge catalogue in which are inscribed the names of +Shakspere's commentators. Most of these poor laborious creatures were +learned in the extreme, and yet their work is humiliating to read, so +gross is its pettiness, so foolish is its wire-drawn scholarship. Over +all the crowd of his interpreters the royal figure of the poet towers +in grand unlearned simplicity. He knew Plutarch, and he thought for +himself; his commentators knew everything, and did not think at all. +Compare the supreme poet's ignorance with the other men's extravagant +erudition! Think of the men whom I may call book-eaters! Dr. Parr was +a driveller; Porson was a sort of learned pig who routed up truffles +in the classic garden; poor Buckle became, through stress of books, a +shallow thinker; Mezzofanti, with his sixty-four languages and +dialects, was perilously like a fool; and more than one modern +professor may be counted as nothing else but a vain, over-educated +boor. + +Another word, which may seem like heresy. I contend that the main +object of reading--after a basis of solid culture has been +acquired--is to gain amusement. No one was ever the worse for reading +good novels, for human fortunes will always interest human beings. I +would say keep clear of Sir John Lubbock's terrific library, and seek +a little for pleasure. You have authoritative examples before you. +Prince Bismarck, once the arbiter of the world, reads Miss Braddon and +Gaboriau; Professor Huxley, the greatest living biologist, reads +novels wholesale; the grim Moltke read French and English romances; +Macaulay used fairly to revel in the hundreds of stories that he read +till he knew them by heart. With these and a hundred other examples +before us, the humblest and most laborious in the community may +without scruple read the harmless tales of fictitious joys and +sorrows, after they have secured that narrow minute training which +alone gives grasp and security to the intellect. + + + + +VI. + +PEOPLE WHO ARE "DOWN" + + +If any one happens to feel ashamed when he notices the far-off +resemblances between the lower animals and man's august self, he will +probably feel the most acute humiliation should he take an occasional +walk through a great rookery, such as that in Richmond Park. The black +cloud of birds sweeps round and round, casting a shadow as it goes; +the air is full of a solemn bass music softened by distance, and the +twirling fleets of strange creatures sail about in answer to obvious +signals. They are an orderly community, subject to recognised law, and +we might take them for the mildest and most amusing of all birds; but +wait, and we shall see something fit to make us think. Far off on the +clear gray sky appears a wavering speck which rises and falls and +sways from side to side in an extraordinary way. Nearer and nearer the +speck comes, until at last we find ourselves standing under a rook +which flies with great difficulty. The poor rascal looks most +disreputable, for his tail has evidently been shot away, and he is +wounded. He drops on to a perch, but not before he has run the +gauntlet of several lines of sharp eyes. The poor bird sits on his +branch swinging weakly to and fro, humping up his shoulders in +woebegone style. There is a rustle among the flock, a sharp exchange +of caws, and one may almost imagine the questions and answers which +pass. Circumstances prevent us from knowing the rookish system of +nomenclature; but we may suppose the wounded fellow to be called +Ishmael. Caw number one says, "Did you notice anything queer about +Ishmael as he passed?" "Yes. Why, he's got no tail!" "He'll be rather +a disgrace to the family if he tries to go with us into Sussex on +Tuesday." "Frightful! He's been fooling about within range of some +farming lout's gun. The lazy, useless wretch never did know the +difference between a gun and a broom!" "Serves him right! Let's speak +to the chief about him." The chief considers the matter solemnly and +sorrowfully, and then may be understood to say, "Sorry Ishmael's in +trouble, but we can't acknowledge him. There's an end of the matter. +You Surrey crow, take a dozen of our mates, and drive that Ishmael +away." The wounded bird knows his doom. He fumbles his way through the +branches, and flies off zig-zag and low; but the flight soon mob him. +They laugh at him, and one can positively tell that they are +chattering in derision. Presently one of them buffets him; and that is +the signal for a general assault. Quick as lightning, one of the black +cowards makes a vicious drive with his iron beak, and flies off with a +triumphant caw; another and another squawk at the wretch, and then +stab him, until at last, like a draggled kite, Ishmael sinks among the +ferns and passes away, while the assassins fly back and tell how they +settled the fool who could not keep the shot out of his carcass. If +the observer sees this often, his disposition to moralise may become +very importunate, for he sees an allegory of human life written in +black specks on that sky that broods so softly, like a benediction, +over the fair world. One may easily bring forward half a score of +similar instances from the animal kingdom. A buffalo falls sick, and +his companions soon gore and trample him to death; the herds of deer +act in the same way; and even domestic cattle will ill-treat one of +their number that seems ailing. The terrible "rogue" elephant is +always one that has been driven from his herd; the injury rankles in +him, and he ends by killing any weaker living creature that may cross +his path. Again, watch a poor crow that is blown out to sea. So long +as his flight is strong and even, he is unmolested; but let him show +signs of wavering, or, above all, let him try to catch up with a +steamship that is going in the teeth of the wind, and the fierce gulls +slay him at once. + +Do we not observe something analogous taking place in the terrible +crush of civilised human life? To thoughtful minds there is no surer +sign of the progress that humanity is slowly making than the fact that +among our race the weak are succoured. Were it not for the sights of +helpfulness and pity that we can always see, many of us would give way +to despair, and think that man is indeed no more than a two-legged +brute without feathers. The savage even now kills aged people without +remorse, just as the Sardinian islanders did in the ancient days; and +there are certain tribes which think nothing of destroying an +unfortunate being who may have grown weakly. Among us, the merest +lazar that crawls is sure of some succour if he can only contrive to +let his evil case be known; and even the criminal, let him be never so +vile, may always be taken up and aided by kindly friends for the bare +trouble of asking. + +But there are still symptoms of the animal disposition to be seen, and +only too many people conspire to show that human nature is much the +same as it was in the days when Job called in his agony for comfort +and found none. Wonderful and disquieting it is to see how the noblest +of minds have been driven in all ages to mourn over the disposition of +men to strike at the unfortunate! The Book of Job is the finest piece +of literary work known to the world, and it is mainly taken up with a +picture of the treatment which the Arabian patriarch met with at the +hands of his friends. People do not look for sarcasm in the Bible, but +the unconscious lofty sarcasm of Job is so terrible, that it shows how +a mighty intellect may be driven by bitter wrong into transcendencies +of wrath and scorn. "Ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with +you." The old desert-prince will not succumb even in his worst +extremity, and he lashes his tormentors with wild but strong bursts of +withering satire. But Job was down, and his cool friends went on +imperturbably, probing his weakness, sneering at his excuses, and, I +suspect, rejoicing not a little in his wild outbreaks of pain and +despair. The book is one of the world's monuments, and it has been +placed there to remind all people that dwell on earth of their own +innate meanness; it has been placed before us as a lesson against +cruelty, treachery, ingratitude. Have we gone very far in the +direction since Job raged and mourned? Those who look around them may +answer the question in their own way. + +The world had not progressed much in Shakspere's time, at any rate. +Like all of us, Shakspere was able to look on the work of beautiful +and kind souls--no one has ever spoken more nobly of the benefactions +conferred on their brethren by the righteous; but that calm immortal +soul had in it depths of awful scorn and anger, which bubbled up only +a very few times. Few people read "Timon of Athens"; and I do not +blame the neglect, for it is a spirit-crushing play, and a man must be +bold if he cares to look at it twice. But in it it is plain to me that +Shakspere lets us see a gleam from the boiling flood of scorn that +raged far under his serene exterior. The words bite; the abandonment +of the satirist is complete. He puts into the mouth of the man who is +down a whole acrid and scurrilous philosophy of success and failure; +and there is not a passage in Swift which can equal for venom and +emphasis the ferocious words of the Athenian misanthrope. We know +nothing of Shakspere's mood while he was writing this cruel piece, but +I should imagine he must have been ready to quit the world in a +veritable ecstasy of wild passion and contempt. + +If we take away the literature of love and the literature of fear, we +have but little left save the endless works that harp on one +theme--the remorseless savagery of civilised men toward those who +fail, or are supposed to fail, in life's grim warfare. + + "Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, + That dost not bite so nigh + As benefits forgot! + Though thou the waters warp, + Thy tooth is not so sharp + As friend remembered not!" + +Those lines are hackneyed until every poetaster can quote them or +parody them at will; but very few readers consider that the bitter +verse summarises a whole literature. From Homer to Tennyson the ugly +tune has been played on all strings; and mankind have such a vivid +perception of the truth uttered by the satirists, that they read the +whole story with gusto whenever it is put into a fresh form--and each +man thinks that he at least is not one of those for whom the poet's +lash is meant. Novel, essay, poem, play, and sermon--all recur with +steady persistence to one ancient topic; and yet men try their best to +bring themselves low, as they might if Job, Shakspere, Congreve, and +Tennyson had never written at all, and as though no warnings were +being actually enacted all round, as on a stage. + +Sometimes I wonder whether the majority of men ever really try to +conceive what it is to be down until their fate is upon them. I can +hardly think it. It has been well said that all of us know we shall +die, but none of us believe it. The idea of the dark plunge is +unfamiliar to the healthy imagination; and the majority of our race go +on as if the great change were only a fable devised by foolish poets +to scare children. I believe that, if all men were vouchsafed a sudden +comprehension of the real meaning of death, sin would cease. +Furthermore, I am persuaded that if every man could see in a flash the +burning history of the one who is down, the whole of our reasonable +population would take thought for the morrow--drink-shops would be +closed, the dice-box would rattle no more, and the sight of a genuine +idler would be unknown. Not a few of us have seen tragedies enough in +the course of our pilgrimage, and have learned to regard the doomed +weaklings--the wreckage of civilisation, the folk who are down--with +mingled compassion and dismay. I have found in such cases that the +miserable mortals never knew to what they were coming; and the most +notable feature in their attitude was the wild and almost tearful +surprise with which they regarded the conduct of their friends. The +pictures of these forlorn wastrels people a certain corner of the +mind, and one can make the ragged brigade start out in lines of deadly +and lurid fire at a moment's warning, until there is a whole Inferno +before one. But I shall speak no more at present of the degraded ones; +I wish to gain a thought of pity for those who are blameless; and I +want to stir up the blameless ones, who are generally ignorant +creatures, so that they may exercise a little of the wisdom of the +serpent in time. Be it remembered that, although the ruined and +blameless man is not subjected to such moral scorn as falls to the lot +of the wastrel, the practical consequences of being down are much the +same for him as for the victim of sloth or sin. He feels the pinch of +physical misery, and, however lofty his spirit may be, it can never be +lofty enough to relieve the gnawing pains of bodily privation. +Moreover, he will meet with persecution just as if he were a villain +or a cheat, and that too from men who know that he is honest. The hard +lawyer will pursue him as a stoat pursues a hare; and, if he asks for +time or mercy, the iron answer will be, "We have nothing to do with +your private affairs; business is business, and our client's interests +must not suffer merely because you are a well-meaning man." Even our +dear Walter Scott, the soul of honour, one of the purest and brightest +of all the spirits that make our joy, the gallant struggler--even that +delight of the world was hounded to death by a firm of bill-discounters +at the very time when he was breaking his gallant heart in the effort +to retrieve disaster. No! The world is pitiful so far as its kindest +hearts are concerned, but the army of commonplace people are all +pitiless. See what follows when a man goes "down." Suppose that he +invests in bank shares. The directors are all men of substance, and +most of them are even lights of religion; the leading spirit attends +the same church as our investor, and he is a light of sanctity--so +pure of heart is he, that he will not so much as look at Monday's +newspapers, because their production entailed Sabbath labour. Indeed, +one wonders how such a man could bring himself to eat or sleep on +Sunday, because his food must be carried up for him, and, I presume, +his bed must be made. All the directors are free in their gifts to +churches and chapels--for that is part of a wise director's +policy--and all of them live sumptuously. But surely our investor +should guess that all this lavish expenditure must come out of +somebody's pocket; and surely he has skill enough to analyse a +balance-sheet! The good soul goes on trusting, until one fine morning +he wakes up and finds that his means of subsistence are gone. Then +comes the bitter ordeal; his friends are grieved, the public are +enraged, the sanctified men go to gaol, and the investor faces an +altered world. His oldest friend says, "Well, Tom, it's a bitter bad +business, and if a hundred is of any use to you, it is at your +service; but you know, with my family," &c. The unhappy defrauded +fellow finds it hard to get work of any sort; begins to show those +pathetic signs of privation which are so easily read by the careful +observer; hat, boots, coat, grow shabby; the knees seem to have a +pathetic bend. Friends are not unkind, but they have their own burdens +to bear, and if he inflicts his company and his sorrows too much on +any one of them, he is apt to receive a hint--probably from a +woman--that his presence can be spared; so the downward road trends +towards utter deprivation, and then to extinction. A young man may +recover from almost any blow that does not affect his character; and +this was strikingly proved in the case of that brilliant man of +science, R.A. Proctor, who was afterwards stricken out of life +untimely. He lost his fortune in the crash of Overend and Gurney's +company, and he immediately forgot his luxurious habits and turned to +work with blithe courage. How he worked only those who knew him can +tell, for no four men of merely ordinary power could have achieved +such bewildering success as he did. But a man who is on the downward +slope of life cannot fare like the lamented Proctor; he must endure +the pangs of neglect, until death comes and relieves him of the dire +torture of being down. + +And the harmless widows who are suddenly robbed of their protector. +Ah, how some of them are made to suffer! Little Amelia Sedley, in +"Vanity Fair," has her sufferings and indignities painted by a +master-hand, and there is not a line thickened or darkened overmuch. +The miserable tale of the cheap lodgings, and the insults which the +poor girl had flung at her because, in the passion of her love, she +spent trifling sums on her boy--how actual it all seems! The widow who +may have held her head high in her days of prosperity, soon receives +lessons from women: they call it teaching her what is her proper +place. Those good and discreet ladies have a notion that their conduct +is full of propriety and discretion and sound sense; but how they make +their sisters suffer--ah, how they make the poor things suffer! I +believe that, if any improvident man could see, in a keenly vivid +dream, a vision of his wife's future after his death, he would stint +himself of anything rather than run the risk of having to reflect on +his death-bed that he had failed to do his best for those who loved +him. Women sometimes out of pure wantonness try to exasperate a man so +that he falls into courses which bring his end swiftly. Could those +foolish ones only see their own fate when the doom of being down in +the world came upon them, they would strain every nerve in their +bodies so that their husband's life and powers of work might be spared +to the last possible hour. + +What can the man do who is down? Frankly, nothing, unless his strength +holds. I advise such a one never to seek for help from any one but +himself, and never to try for any of the employments which are +supposed to be "easy." Cool neglect, insulting compassion, lying +promises, evasive and complimentary nothings--these will be his +portion. If he cannot perform any skilled labour, let him run the risk +of seeming degraded; and, if he has to push a trade in matches or +flowers, let him rather do that than bear the more or less kindly +flouts which meet the supplicant. To all who are young and strong I +would say, "Live to-day as though to-morrow you might be ruined--or +dead." + + + + +VII. + +ILL-ASSORTED MARRIAGES. + + +The people who joke and talk lightly about marriage do not seem to +have the faintest rational conception of the awful nature of the +subject. Awful it is; and, as serious men go through life, they become +more and more impressed with the momentous results which depend on the +choice made by a man or woman. A lad of nineteen lightly engages +himself; he knows nothing of the gloom, the terror, the sordid horror +of the fate that lies before him; and the unhappy girl is equally +ignorant. In fourteen years the actual substance of that young +fellow's very body is twice completely changed; he is a man utterly +different from the boy who contracted the marriage; there is not a +muscle or a thought in common between the boy and the man--yet the man +takes all the consequences of the boy's act. Supposing that the pair +are well matched, life goes on happily enough for them; but, alas, if +the man or the woman has to wake up and face the ghastly results of a +mistake, then there is a tragedy of the direst order! Let us suppose +that the lad is cultured and ambitious, and that he is attracted at +first by a rosy face or pretty figure only; supposing that he is thus +early bound to a vulgar commonplace woman, the consequences when the +woman happens to have a powerful will and an unscrupulous tongue are +almost too dreadful to be pictured in words. + +Let no young folk fancy that mind counts for nothing in marriage. A +man must have congenial company, or he will fly to company that is +uncongenial; he must have joy of some kind, or he will fall into +despair. The company and the joy can best be supplied by the wife to +the husband, and by the husband to the wife. If the woman is dull and +trivial, then her husband soon begins to neglect her; if she is meek +and submissive, the neglect does not rouse her, and there are no +violent consequences; but it is awful to think of the poor creature +who sits at home and dimly wonders in the depth of her simple soul +what can have happened to change the man who loved her. She has no +resources--she can only love; she is perhaps kindly enough--yet she is +punished only because she and her lad made a blundering choice before +their judgments were formed. But, if the woman is spirited and +aggressive, then the lookers-on see part of a hideous game which might +well frighten the bravest into celibacy. She is self-assertive, she +desires--very rightly--to be first, and at the first symptom of a +slight from her husband she begins the process of nagging. The man is +refined, and the coarseness which he did not perceive before marriage +strikes him like a venomed point now; he replies fiercely, and perhaps +shows contempt; then the woman tries the effect of weeping. Unhappily +the tears are more exasperating than the scolding, and the quarrel +ends by the man rushing from the house. Then for the first time the +pair find that they have to deal with the whole forces of society; in +their rage they would gladly part and meet no more--or they think +so--but inexorable society steps in and declares that the alliance is +fixed until death or rascality looses it. For a little while the +estrangement lasts, and then there is a reconciliation, after which +all goes well for a time. But the shocking thing about the +ill-assorted marriage is that the estrangements grow longer and longer +and the quarrels ever more bitter. Even children do but little to +reconcile the jarring claims of man and wife, for they are a sign of +the lasting shackle which each of the miserable beings wants to break. + +Worst of all in the whole terrible affair is the fact that it matters +not who gets the mastery--both are made more wretched. If the man has +an indomitable will and conquers the woman, he becomes a morose and +sarcastic tyrant, who makes her tremble at his scowl, while she +becomes a beaten drudge who makes up for long spells of submission by +shrill outbursts of casual defiance. If the woman gains the mastery, I +honestly believe that the cause of strict morality is better served; +but the sight of the man's gradual degradation is so sickening that +most people prefer keeping out of the house where a henpecked +individual lives. As time goes by, it matters not which wins in the +odious contest: both undergo a subtle loss of self-respect. In an +ordinary quarrel between men reason may possibly come in to some +degree; but in a quarrel between man and wife reason is utterly +excluded. The man becomes feminine, the woman grows masculine, and the +effect of this change of nature is disgusting and ludicrous to an +outsider, but serious in the extreme to the parties principally +concerned. By degrees indifference and rage give way to sullen, secret +hatred, which finds a vent usually in poisonous sarcasm. + +Matters are not much better when the superiority is on the woman's +side. It is delightful to see a husband who is proud of his wife's +cleverness, and good-natured men are pleased by his innocent boasting. +The most pleasant of households may be found in cases where a clever, +good-humoured, dexterous woman rules over a sweet-tempered but +somewhat stupid man. She respects his manhood, he adores her as a +superior being, and they live a life of pure happiness. But, sad to +say, the husband is not usually good-humouredly willing to acknowledge +his partner's superiority, and in that case the girl's doom is a cruel +one. She may marry a gross, stupid lout, who begins by yawning away +his time in leisure hours, and ends by going out to meet companions of +his own sort. By and by comes the time when the ruffian grows +aggressive, and then the proud girl has to bear brutalities which rack +her very soul. Steadily the work of degradation goes on, and at last +the brutal man becomes a capricious bully, while the refined lady +sinks into a careless draggletail. + +I have traversed many lands and seen men and cities, and know that the +cruel work which I have described goes on in too many quarters. The +ill-assorted marriage is made more wretched by the occasional glimpses +which the man and woman get of happy homes. The loveliest sight that +can be watched on earth is the daily life of a well-matched couple. +They need not be even in intellect, but each must have some quality +which gives superiority; such people, even if they have to struggle +hard, lead a life which is almost ideally happy. The great thing which +gives happiness is mutual confidence, and, when we see man and wife +exhibiting quiet and mutually respectful familiarity, we may be fairly +certain that they are to be looked on as most fortunate in the world. +By an exquisite natural law it happens that mentally a woman is the +exact complement of the man who is her proper mate, and her intellect +has qualities far finer and more subtle than the man's. Among hard +City men it is a common saying that no one would ever make a bad debt +if he took his customer home to dinner first. That means that the wife +would instantly measure the guest's character with that +lightning-footed tact which women possess. No man ever yet was +completely successful in life unless he took women's counsel in great +affairs; and, when a man has a wife with whom he can consult, his +chance is bettered a thousandfold. + +To see a household where love and unity reign drives ill-matched folk +to madness. The man declares that his friend's wife makes the +felicity; the woman praises the other husband; and the unhappy souls +grow jealous together, and hate each other more cordially by reason of +the joy which they have seen. All sorts of evil ends come to these +wretched unions--in every workhouse, asylum, and prison the traces of +the social catastrophe may be seen; and, even when the misery is +hidden from general view, the tragedy is shocking to those who can +peep behind the scenes and look at the bad play. A very wise man has +said that "success is a constitutional trait." The phrase is a +profound one. A man who is born with "constitutional" power of +choosing the right mate is all but assured of success, and a woman has +the same fortune; but, in addition to the power of choosing, both man +and woman need training; and we cannot call a civilised being properly +trained unless he has some idea of the way to set about his choice. + +The cases in which idleness, or pique, or dulness drives a man or +woman to take alcohol are numerous and loathsome. Women who start +married life as bright, merry, hopeful creatures become mere degraded +animals; and the odd thing about the matter is that the husband is +always the last to see the turn that his affairs are taking. A woman's +name may be in the mouths of scores of people before the party most +concerned wakes up to a sense of his position and is faced by a +picture of helpless and lost womanhood. If the man falls into the +alcoholic death-trap, we have once more a spectacle of dull misery +which may be indicated but which cannot be accurately described. The +victim grows hateful--his symptoms have been scientifically described +by one of the finest of modern physiologists--he is uncertain in mind, +and vengeful and revengeful. His wife is obliged to live with him, +under his rule and power, but she finds it hopeless to meet his +wishes, desires, fancies, and fantasies, however much she may study +and do her best to oblige, conciliate, and concede. To persons of this +class everything must be conceded, and yet they are neither pacified +nor satisfied; they cannot agree even with themselves, and their homes +are, literally speaking, hells on earth. + +Then we have the cases wherein a poetic and artistic spirit is allied +to a gross and worldly soul of the lowest type. One of the most +brilliant artists and poets of his generation was informed by his wife +that she did not care for art and poetry and that sort of stuff. "It's +all high-falutin' nonsense," remarked this gifted and confident dame; +and the shock of surprise which thrilled her husband will be +transmitted to generations of readers. Hitherto we have dwelt upon +mere brutalities; but those who know the world best know that the most +acute forms of agony may be inflicted without any outward show of +brutality being visible. A generous high-souled girl with a passion +for truth and justice is often tied to a fellow whose "company" +manners are polished, but who is at heart a cruel boor. He can stab +her with a sneer which only she can understand; he can delicately hint +to her that she is in subjection, and he can assume an air of cool +triumph as he watches her writhe. I have often observed passages of +domestic drama which looked very like comedy at first sight, but which +were really quivering, torturing tragedy. + +It is strange that the jars of married life have been so constantly +made the subject for joking. The attitude of the ordinary witling is +well known; but even great men have made fun out of a subject which is +the most momentous of all that can engage the attention of the +children of men. In running through Thackeray's works lately I was +struck by the flippancy with which some of the most heartbreaking +stories in literature are treated. Thackeray was one of the sweetest +and tenderest beings that ever lived, and no doubt his jocularity was +assumed; but minor men take him seriously, and imitate him. Look at +the stories of Frank Berry, of Rawdon Crawley, of Clive and Rosie +Newcome, and of General Baynes--they are sad indeed, but the tragic +element in them is only shadowed forth by the great master. There is +nothing droll in the history of mistaken marriages. At the very best +each error leads to the ruin or deterioration of one soul, and that is +no laughing matter. + + + + +VIII. + +HAPPY MARRIAGES. + +Although a strong modern school of writers care only to talk of misery +and gloom and frustration, I retain a taste for joy and sweetness and +kindliness. Life has so many sharp crosses, so many inexplicable +sorrows for us all, that I hold it good to snatch at every moment of +gladness, and to keep my eyes on beautiful things whenever they can be +seen. During the days when I was pondering the subject of tragic +marriages, I read the letters of the great Lord Chatham. The mighty +statesman was not distinguished as a letter-writer; like Themistocles, +he might have boasted that, though he was inapt where small +accomplishments were concerned, he converted a small state into a +great empire. John Wilkes called our great man "the worst +letter-writer of his age." Yet to my mind the correspondence of +Chatham with his wife is among the most charming work that we know. +Here is one fragment which is delightful enough in its way. He had +been out riding with his son William, who afterwards ruled England, +becoming Prime Minister at an age when other lads are leaving the +University. His elder son stayed at home to study, and this is the +fashion in which Chatham writes about his boys--"It is a delight to +let William see nature in her free and wild compositions, and I tell +myself, as we go, that the General Mother is not ashamed of her child. +The particular loved mother of our promising tribe has sent the +sweetest and most encouraging of letters to the young Vauban. His +assiduous application to his profession did not allow him to accompany +us in learning to defend the happy land we were enjoying. Indeed, my +life, the promise of our dear children does me more good than the +purest of pure air." Observe how this pompous and formal statement is +framed so as to please the mother. The writer does not say much about +himself; but he knows that his wife is longing to hear of her +darlings, and he tells her the news in his high-flown manner. He was +not often apart from the lady whom he loved so well; but I am glad +that they were sometimes separated, since the separations give us the +delicate and tender letters every phrase of which tells a long story +of love and confidence and mutual pride. That unequalled man who had +made England practically the mistress of the world, the man who gained +for us Canada and India, the man whom the King of Prussia regarded as +our strongest and noblest, could spend his time in writing pretty +babble about a couple of youngsters in order to delight their mother. +If he had gone to London, the people would have taken the horses out +of his carriage, and dragged him to his destination. He was far more +powerful than the king, and he was almost worshipped by every officer +and man in the Army and Navy. Excepting the Duke of Wellington, it is +probable that no subject ever was the object of such fervent +enthusiasm; and many men would have lived amidst the whirl of +adulation. But Chatham liked best to remain in the sweet quiet +country; and the story of his life at Lyme Regis is in reality a +beautiful poem. + +Why did this imperial, overbearing, all-powerful man love to stay in +retirement when all Europe was waiting for his word? Why did he spend +days in sauntering in country lanes, and chatting during quiet +evenings with one loved friend alone? That question goes to the root +of my subject. Chatham was happily married; when he was torn by bitter +rage and disappointment, when his sovereign repulsed him, and when not +even the passionate love of an entire nation availed to further the +ends on which the Titan had set his heart, he carried his sorrow with +him, and drew comfort from the goodness of the sweet soul who was his +true mate. It is a very sweet picture; and we see in history how the +softening home influence finally converted the, awful, imposing, +tyrannical Chatham into a yielding, fascinating man. + +From the world's arbiter to the bricklayer's labourer, the same +general law holds; the man who makes a happy marriage lives out his +life at its best--he may fail in some things, but in the essential +direction he is successful. The woman who makes a happy marriage may +have trials and suffering to bear, but she also gains the best of +life; and some of the purest and most joyous creatures I have known +were women who had suffered in their day. When I think of some +marriages whereof I know the full history, I am tempted to believe in +human perfectibility; and at chance times there come to me vague +dreams of a day when the majority of human beings will find life +joyous and tranquil. What one wise and well-matched couple achieve in +life may be achieved by others as the days go on. Surely jarring and +misery are not necessary in the great world of nations or in the +little world of the family? Confidence, generosity, and complete +unselfishness on both sides are needed to make the life of a married +pair serene and happy. I know that the demand is a heavy one; but, ah, +when it is adequately met, is not the gain worth all the sacrifices a +thousand times over? There may be petty and amusing differences of +opinion, quiet banter, and an occasional grave conflict of judgment; +but, so long as three central requirements--confidence, generosity, +and unselfishness--are met, there can be no serious break in the +procession of placid, happy days. I abhor the gushing talk sometimes +heard about "married lovers;" the people who dignify life and honour +the community are those who are lovers and something more. Of course +we can all feel sympathy with Fanny Kemble when she says that the +poetry of "Romeo and Juliet" went into her blood as she spoke on the +stage; but there is something needed beyond wild Italian raptures +before the ideal match is secured. Some of us are almost glad that +Juliet passed away in swift fashion when the cup of life foamed most +exquisitely at her lips. How would she have fared had that changeable +firebrand Romeo taken to wandering once more? It is a grievously +flippant question to ask when the most glorious of all love-poems is +in question; yet I ask it very seriously, and merely in a symbolic +way. Romeo is a shadow, the adored Juliet is a shadow; but the two +immortal shades represent for all time the mad lovers whose lives end +in bitterness. I say again that only reasonable and calm love brings +happy marriages. It is as true as any other law of nature that "he +never loved who loved not at first sight;" but the frantic, dissolute +man of genius who wrote that line did not care to go further and speak +of matters which wise men of the world cannot disregard. The first +blinding shock of the supreme passion comes in the course of nature; +but wise people live through the unspeakable tumult of the soul, and +use their reason after they have resisted and subdued into calm +strength the fierce impulse which has wrecked so many human creatures. + When writing on "Ill-Assorted Marriages," I urged that men and women +who are about to take the terribly momentous steps towards marriage +must be guided by reason, and I repeat my adjuration here. When Lord +Beaconsfield said, "I observe those of my friends who married for +love--some of them beat their wives, and the remainder are divorced," +he knew that he was uttering a piece of mockery which would have been +blasphemous had it been set down in all seriousness. He meant to say +that headlong marriages--marriages contracted in purblind +passion--always end in misery. No marriage can bring a spark of +happiness unless cool reason guides the choice of the contracting +parties. A hot-headed stripling marries a handsome termagant--her +brilliant face, her grace, and rude health attract him, and he does +not quietly notice the ebullitions of her temper. She is divine to +him; and, though she snarls at her younger brother, insults her +mother, and to outsiders plainly exhibits all sorts of petty +selfishness, yet the stripling rushes on to his fate; and at the end +of a few miserable years he is either a broken and hen-pecked creature +or a mean and ferocious squabbler. + +How different is the case of those who are not precipitate! Take the +case of the splendid cynic whose words we have quoted. With his usual +sagacity, Lord Beaconsfield waited, watched, and finally succeeded in +making an ideally happy marriage in circumstances which would have +affrighted an ordinary person. All the world knows the story now. The +brilliant young statesman dared not risk the imputation of +fortune-hunting; but the lady knew his worth; she knew that she could +aid him, and she frankly threw over all the traditions of her sex and +of society and offered herself to him. No one in England who is +interested in this matter can fail to know every detail of a bargain +which makes one proud of one's species, for Lord Ronald Gower has told +us about the married life of the brilliant Hebrew who mastered +England. The two kindred souls were bound up in each other. The lady +was not learned or clever, and indeed her husband said, "She was the +best of creatures; but she never could tell which came first--the +Greeks or the Romans." But she had something more than cleverness--she +had the confidence, generosity, and unselfishness which I have set +forth as the main conditions of happiness. I must repeat an old story; +for it cannot too often be repeated. Think of the woman who gathered +all her resolution and uttered no sound, although the end of her +finger was smashed by the closing of the carriage-door! Mr. D'Israeli +was about to make a great speech; so his wife would not disturb him on +his way to Westminster, though flesh and bone of her finger were +crushed. She fainted when the orator had gone to his task; but her +fortitude did not forsake her until her beloved was out of danger of +being perturbed. That one authentic story is worth a hundred dramatic +tales of stagey heroism. And we must remember how the statesman repaid +the simple devotion of his wife. All his spare time was passed in her +company, and the quaint pair wandered in the woods like happy boy and +girl. Then, when the indomitable man had raised himself to be head of +the State, and was offered a peerage, he declined; but he begged that +his wife might be created countess in her own right. Could anything be +more graceful and courtly? "You are the superior," the first man in +England seemed to say; "and I am content to rejoice in your honours +without rivalling them." All the fanciful rhymes of the troubadours +cannot furnish anything prettier than that. + +If we leave the Beaconsfields and the Chathams and come among less +exalted folk, we find that the same laws regulate happy marriages. +Confidence, generosity, unselfishness--that is all. In this beautiful +England of ours there are happy households which are almost +numberless. The good folk do not care for fame or power; their +happiness is rounded off and completed within their own walls, and +they live as the lordly Chatham lived when he was free from the ties +of place and Parliament. On summer days, when the quiet evening is +closing, the wayfarer may obtain chance glimpses of such happy homes +here and there. Some are inhabited by wealthy men, some by poor +workmen; but the essential happiness of both classes is arrived at in +the same way. + +A young man wisely waits until his judgment is matured, and then +proceeds to choose his mate; he does not blunder into heroic fooleries +in the way of self-abnegation; for, if his choice is judicious, the +lady will prevent him from hurting his own prospects. Whether he be +aristocrat or plebeian, he knows the worth of money, and he knows how +to despise the foolish beings who talk of "dross" and "filthy lucre" +and the rest. Mere craving for money he despises; but he knows that +the amount of "dross" in a man's possession roughly indicates his +resources in the way of energy, ability, and self-control. When he +marries, his wife is reasonably free from sordid cares. It may be that +he has only seventy pounds in a building society, it may be that his +cheque for fifty thousand pounds would be honoured; but the principle +is the same. When the woman settles in her new home, she is free from +sordid anxieties, and she can give the graces of her mind play. How +beautiful some such households are! An old railway-guard once said to +me--"Ah, there's no talk like your own wife's when she understands +you, and you sit one side of the fire, and she the other! It don't +matter what kind of day you've had, she puts all right." The man was +right--the most delightful conversation that can be held is between a +rational man and woman who love each other, who understand each other, +and who have sufficient worldly keenness to keep clear of lowering +cares. A man rightly mated feels it an absolute delight to confide the +innermost secrets of life to his wife; and the woman would feel almost +criminal if she kept the pettiest of petty secrets from her partner. +They are friends, gloriously mated, and all the glories of birth and +state ever imagined cannot equal their simple but perfect joy. When +the tired mechanic comes home at night and meets one whom he has +wisely chosen, he forgets his sharp day of labour as soon as his +overalls are off. No snappish word greets him; and he is incapable of +being ill-natured with the kind soul whom he worships in his rough +way. I have always found that the merriest and most profitable +evenings were passed in houses where neither of the principal parties +strove for mastery, and where the woman had the art of coaxing +imperceptibly and discreetly. I reject the suggestion made by cynic +men that no married pair can live without quarrelling. No married pair +who were fools before marriage can avoid dissension; but, when man and +wife make their choice wisely and cautiously, the notion of a quarrel +is too horrible to dream of. + + + + +IX. + +SHREWS. + + +The greatest masters who ever made studies of the shrew in fiction or +in history have never, after all, given us a strictly scientific +definition of the creature. They let her exhibit herself in all her +drollery or her hatefulness, but they act in somewhat lordly fashion +by leaving us to frame our definition from the picturesque data which +they supply. Mrs. Mackenzie, in "The Newcomes," is repulsive to an +awful degree, but the figure is as true as true can be, and most of +us, no doubt, have seen the type in all its loathsomeness only too +many times. Mrs. Mackenzie is a shrew of one sort, but we could not +take her vile personality as the basis of a classification. Mrs. +Raddle is one of that lower middle-class which Dickens knew so well, +still she is not hateful or vile, or anything but droll. I know how +maddening that kind of woman can be in real life to those immediately +about her, but onlookers find her purely funny; they never think of +poor Bob Sawyer's cruel humiliation; they only laugh themselves +helpless over the screeching little woman on the stairs, who humbles +her wretched consort and routs the party with such consummate +strategy. Mrs. Raddle and Mrs. Mackenzie are as far apart as two +creatures may be; nevertheless they are veritable specimens of the +British shrew, and it should be within the resources of civilisation +to find a definition capable of fitting both of them. As for Queen +Elizabeth--that splendid, false, able, cruel, and inexorable +shrew--she requires the space of volumes to give even the shadow of +her personality and powers. She has puzzled some of the wisest and +most learned of men. She was truly royal, and wholly deceitful; +self-controlled at times, and madly passionate at others; a lover of +pure literature, and yet terribly free in her own writings; kind to +her dependants, yet capable of aiming a violent blow at some courtier +whom she had caressed a moment before the blow came; an icy virgin, +and a confirmed and audacious flirt; a generous mistress, and an +odious miser; a free giver to those near her, and a skinflint who let +the sailors who saved her country lie rotting to death in the open +streets of Ramsgate because she could not find in her heart to give +them either medical attendance or shelter. Was there ever such another +being known beneath the glimpses of the moon? Some might call her +superhuman; I am more inclined to regard her as inhuman, for her +blending of characteristics is not like anything ever seen before or +since among the children of men. She was a shrew--a magnificent, +enigmatic shrew, who was perhaps the more fitted to rule a kingdom +which was in a state of transition in that she was lacking in all +sense of pity, shame, or remorse. She was the apotheosis of the shrew, +and no one of the tribe can ever be like unto her again. Carlyle's +Termagant of Spain is a shadowy figure that flits through all the +note-books on Frederick, but we never get so near to her as we do to +Elizabeth, and she remains to us as a vast shape that gibbers and +threatens and gesticulates in the realms of the dead. Jael, the wife +of Heber the Kenite, must have been a terrible shrew, and I should +think that Heber was not master in the house where Sisera died. The +calm deliberation, the preliminary coaxing, the quick, cool +determination, and the final shrill exultation which was reflected in +Deborah's song all speak of the shrew. Thackeray had a morbid delight +in dwelling on the species, and we know that all of his portraits were +taken from real life. If he really was intimate with all of the cruel +figures that he draws, then I could pardon him for manifesting the +most ferocious of cynicisms even if he had been a cynic--which he was +not. The Campaigner, Mrs. Clapp, the landlady in "Vanity Fair," Mrs. +Baynes, and all the rest of the deplorable bevy rest like nightmares +upon our memory. Dickens always made the shrew laughable, so that we +can hardly spare pity for the poor Snagsbys and Raddles and Crupps, or +any of her victims in that wonderful gallery; but Thackeray's, +Trollope's, Charles Reade's, Mrs. Oliphant's, and even Miss +Broughton's shrews are always odious, and they all seem to start from +the page alive. + +But I am not minded to deal with the special instances of shrewism +which have been pronounced enough to claim attention from powerful +masters of fiction and history; I am rather interested in the swarms +of totally commonplace shrews who live around us, and who do their +very best--or worst--to make the earth a miserable place. I can laugh +as heartily as anybody at Dickens's "scolds" and female bullies; none +the less however am I ready in all seriousness to reckon the shrew as +an evil influence, as bad as some of the most subtle and malevolent +scourges inflicted by physical nature. All of us have but a little +span on earth, and we should be able to economise every minute, so as +to extract the maximum of joy from existence; yet how many frail lives +are embittered by the shrew! How many men, women, and children has she +not forced to wish almost for death as a relief from morbid pain and +keen humiliation! Our social conditions tend to foster shrewish +temperament, for we are gradually changing the subjection of woman to +the enslavement of man; gentle chivalry is developing into maudlin +self-advertising self-abnegation on the part of the males who favour +the new movement. The sweet and equable lady remains the same in all +ages; Imogen and Desdemona and Rosalind and the Roaring Girl have +their modern counterparts. The lady never takes advantage of the just +homage bestowed on her; she never asserts herself; her good breeding +is so absolute that she would not be uncontrolledly familiar with her +nearest and dearest, and her thoughts are all for others. But the +shrew must always be thrusting herself forward; her cankered nature +turns kindness into poison; she resents a benefit conferred as though +it were an insult; and yet, if she is not constantly noticed and made, +at the least, the recipient of kindly offers, she contrives to cause +every one within reach of her to feel the sting of her enraged vanity. +When I think of some women who are to be met with in various quarters, +from the "slum" to the drawing-room, I am driven to wonder--shocking +as it may seem--that crimes of violence are not more frequent than +they are. It is most melancholy to notice how well the shrew fares +compared with some poor creatures of gentler nature. In the lower +classes a meek, toil-worn, obliging woman is most foully ill-used by a +vagabond of a husband in only too many cases; while a screaming +selfish wretch who, in trying to madden her miserable husband, +succeeds in maddening all within earshot, escapes unhurt, and +continues to lead her odious life, setting a bad example to +impressionable young girls, and perhaps corrupting a neighbourhood. +England is the happy hunting-ground for the shrew at present; for in +America the average social relation between the sexes has come to be +so frank and even that a shrew would be as severely treated as a +discourteous man. In England a sham sentiment reigns which gives +license to the vilest of women without protecting the martyrs, who, in +all conscience, need protection. The scoundrel who maltreats a woman +receives far less punishment than is inflicted on a teacher who gives +a young Clerkenwell ruffian a stripe with a switch; while the howling +shrew who spends a man's money in drink, empties his house, screeches +at him by the hour together, is not censured at all--nay, the ordinary +"gusher" would say that "the agonised woman vents the feelings of her +overcharged heart." + +Now let us glance at the various sorts of these awful scourges who +dwell in our midst. It may be well to classify them at once, because, +unless I mistake many symptoms, the stubborn English may shortly snuff +out the sentimentalists who have raised up a plague among us. I may +say as a preliminary that in my opinion a shrew may be fairly defined +as "a female who takes advantage of the noblest impulses of men and +the kindliest laws of nations in order that she may claim the social +privileges of both sexes and vent her most wicked temper with +freedom." First, consider the doleful shrew. This is a person not +usually found among the classes which lack leisure; she is an +exasperating and most entirely selfish woman, and she cannot very well +invent her refinements of whining cruelty unless she has a little time +on hand; her speciality is to moan incessantly over the ingratitude of +people for whom she has done some trivial service; and, as she always +moans by choice in presence of the person whom she has afflicted by +her generosity, the result is merely distracting. If the victim says, +"I allow that you have been very kind, and I am grateful," he commits +an error in tactics, for the torturer is upon him at once. "Oh, you do +own it then, and yet see how you behave!"--and then the torrent flows +on with swift persistence. If, on the contrary, the sufferer cries, +"Why on earth do you go on repeating what you have done? I owned your +kindness once, and I do not intend to talk any more about it!" he is +still more clearly delivered into the enemy's hands. He lays himself +open to a charge of ingratitude, and the charge is pressed home with +relentless fluency. Then, as to the doleful one's influence on +children--the general modern tendency is towards making children +happy, but the doleful one is a survival from some bad type, and takes +a secret malign delight in wantonly inflicting pain on the minds or +bodies of the young. Some dense people perhaps imagine that children +cannot suffer mental agony; yet the merest mite may carry a whole +tragedy in its innocent soul. We all know the wheedling ways of +children; we know how they will coax little luxuries and privileges +out of "papa" and "mamma," and most of us rather like to submit with +simulated reluctance to the harmless extortion. If I had heard a +certain tiny youth say, "Papa, when I'm a big man, and you're a little +boy, I shall ask you to have some jam," I should have failed entirely +to smother my laughter. Do you think the doleful one would have seen +the fun of the remark if she had any power over the body or soul of +that devoted child? Nay. She would have whined about slyness, and +cunning hints, and greediness, and the probabilities of utter ruin and +disgrace overtaking underhand schemers, until that child would have +been stunned, puzzled, deprived of self-respect, and rendered entirely +wretched. Long ago I heard of a doleful one who turned suddenly on a +merry boy who was playing on the floor. "You're going straight to +perdition!" observed the dolorous one; and the light went out of that +boy's life for a time. A gladsome party of young folk may be instantly +wrecked by the doleful shrew's entrance; and, if she cannot attract +attention to herself amid a gathering even of sensible, cheerful +adults, she will probably break up the evening by dint of a well-timed +fit of spasms or something similar. Dickens made Mrs. Gummidge very +funny; but the Gummidge of real life is not merely a limp, "lorn" +creature--she is a woman who began by being unhealthily vain, and ends +by being venomously malignant. I do not think that many people have +passed through life very far without meeting with a specimen of the +dolorous shrew, and I hope in all charity that the creature is not in +the immediate circle of any one who reads this. In impassioned +moments, when I have reckoned up all the misery caused by this +species, I have been inclined to wish that every peculiarly malign +specimen could be secured at the public expense in a safe asylum. + +The aggressive shrew is usually the wife of some phlegmatic man; she +insults him at all hours and on all subjects, and she establishes +complete domination over him until she happens to touch his conscience +fairly, and then he probably crushes her by the sudden exertion of +latent moral force. Shall I talk of the drunken shrew? No--not that! +My task is unlovely enough already, and I cannot inflict that last +horror on those who will read this. Thus much will I say--if ever you +know a man tied to a creature whose cheeks are livid purple in the +morning and flushed at night, a creature who speaks thick at night and +is ready with a villainous word for the most courteous and gentle of +all whom she may meet, pray for that man. + +The blue-blooded shrew is by no means uncommon. Watch one of this kind +yelling on a racecourse in tearful and foul-mouthed rage and you will +have a few queer thoughts about human nature. Then there is the +ladylike shrew. Ah, that being! What has she to answer for? She is +neat, low-spoken, precise; she can purr like a cat, and she has the +feline scratch always ready too. Pity the governess, the servant, the +poor flunkey whom she has at her mercy, for their bread is earned in +bitterness. "My lady" does not raise her voice; she can give orders +for the perpetration of the meanest of deeds without varying the +silken flow of her acrid tongue; but she is bad--very bad; and I think +that, if Dante and Swedenborg were at all near being true prophets, +there would be a special quarter in regions dire for the lady-like +shrew. + + * * * * * + +I must distinctly own that the genuine shrew endeavours to make life +more or less unhappy for both sexes. Usually we are apt to think of +the shrew as resembling the village scolds who used to be promptly +ducked in horse-ponds in the unregenerate days; but the scold was an +individual who was usually chastised for making a dead-set at her +husband alone. The real shrew is like the puff-adder or the +whip-snake--she tries to bite impartially all round; and she is often +able to bite in comparative silence, but with a most deadly effect. +The vulgar shrieker is a deplorable source of mischief, but she cannot +match the reticent stabber who is always ready, out of sheer +wickedness, to thrust a venomed point into man, woman, or child. I +shall give my readers an extreme instance towards which they may +probably find it hard to extend belief. I am right however, and have +fullest warrant for my statement. I learn on good authority, and with +plenitude of proof, that trained nurses are rather too frequently +subjected to the tender mercies of the shrew. Nothing is more grateful +to a cankered woman than the chance of humiliating some one who +possesses superior gifts of any description, and a well-bred lady who +has taken to the profession of nursing is excellent "game." Thus I +find that delicate young women of gentle nurture have been sent away +to sleep in damp cellars at the back of great town-houses; they have +had to stay their necessarily fastidious appetites with cold broken +food--and this too after a weary vigil in the sick-room. Greatest +triumph of all, the nurses have been compelled to go as strangers to +the servants' table and make friends as best they could. It is not +easy to form any clear notion of a mind capable of devising such +useless indignities, because the shrew ought to know that her conduct +is contrasted with that of good and considerate people. The nurse +bears with composure all that is imposed on her, but she despises the +shabby woman, and she compares the behaviour of the acrid tyrant with +that of the majority of warm-hearted and generous ladies who think +nothing too good for their hired guests. I quote this extreme example +just to show how far the shrew is ready to go, and I wish it were not +all true. + +Next let me deal with the mean shrew, who has one servant or more +under her control. The records of the servants' aid societies will +show plainly that there are women against whose names a significant +mark must be put, and the reason is that they turn away one girl after +another with incredible rapidity, or that despairing girls leave them +after finding life unendurable. I know that there are insolent, +sluttish, lazy, and incompetent servants, and I certainly wish to be +fair toward the mistresses; but I also know that too many of the +persons who send wild and whirling words to the newspapers belong +without doubt to the class of mean shrews. Whenever I see one of those +periodical letters which tell of the writer's lifelong tribulation, I +like to refresh my mind by repeating certain golden utterances of the +man whom we regard as one of the wisest of living Englishmen--"There +is only one way to have good servants--that is, to be worthy of being +well served. All nature and all humanity will serve a good master and +rebel against an ignoble one. And there is no surer test of the +quality of a nation than the quality of its servants, for they are +their masters' shadows and distort their faults in a flattened +mimicry. A wise nation will have philosophers in its servants'-hall, a +knavish nation will have knaves there, and a kindly nation will have +friends there. Only let it be remembered that 'kindness' means, as +with your child, not indulgence, but care." Substitute "mistress" for +"master" in this passage of John Ruskin's, and we have a little lesson +which the mean shrew might possibly take to heart--if she had any +heart. What is the kind of "care" which the mean one bestows on her +dependants? "That's my little woman a-giving it to 'Tilda," pensively +observed Mr. Snagsby; and I suspect that a very great many little +women employ a trifle too much of their time in "giving it to 'Tilda." +That is the "care" which poor 'Tilda gets. Consider the kind of life +which a girl leads when she comes for a time under the domination of +the mean shrew. Say that her father is a decent cottager; then she has +probably been used to plain and sufficient food, dressed in rough +country fashion, and she has at all events had a fairly warm place to +sleep in. When she enters her situation, she finds herself placed in a +bare chill garret; she has not a scrap of carpet on the floor, and +very likely she is bitterly cold at nights. She is expected to be +astir and alert from six in the morning until ten or later at night; +she is required to show almost preternatural activity and +intelligence, and she is not supposed to have any of the ordinary +human being's desire for recreation or leisure. When her Sunday out +comes--ah, that Sunday out, what a tragic farce it is!--she does not +know exactly where to go. If she is near a park or heath, she may fall +in with other girls and pass a little time in giggling and chattering; +but of rational pleasure she knows nothing. Then her home is the bare +dismal kitchen, with the inevitable deal table, frowsy cloth, and +rickety chairs. The walls of this interesting apartment are possibly +decked with a few tradesmen's almanacs, whereon Grace Darling is +depicted with magnificent bluish hair, pink cheeks, and fashionable +dress; or his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales assumes a heroic +attitude, and poses as a field-marshal of the most stern and lofty +description. Thus are 'Tilda's aesthetic tastes developed. The mean +shrew cannot give servants such expensive company as a cat; but the +beetles are there, and a girl of powerful imagination may possibly +come to regard them as eligible pets. Then the food--the breakfast of +weak tea and scanty bread; the mid-day meal of horrid scraps measured +out with eager care to the due starvation limit; the tasteless, +dreadful "tea" once more at six o'clock, and the bread and water for +supper! And the incessant scold, scold, scold, the cunning inquiries +after missing morsels of meat or potatoes, the exasperating orders! It +is too depressing; and, when I see some of the virtuous letters from +ill-used mistresses, I smile a little sardonically, and wish that the +servants could air their eloquence in the columns of great newspapers. +Some time ago there was a case in which a perfectly rich shrew went +away from home from Saturday morning till Monday night, leaving one +shilling to provide all food for two young women. This person of +course needed fresh servants every month, and was no doubt surprised +at the ingratitude of the starvelings who perpetually left her. I call +up memories of homes, refuges, emigration-agencies, and so forth, and +do most sternly and bitterly blame the mean shrew for mischief which +well-nigh passes credence. There is nothing more delightful than to +watch the dexterous, healthy, cheerful maids in well-ordered +households where the mistress is the mother; but there is very little +of the mother about the mean shrew--she is rather more like the +slave-driver. "Stinted means," observes some tender apologist. What +ineffable rubbish! If a woman is married to a man of limited means, +does that give her any right to starve and bully a fellow-creature? +How many brave women have done all necessary housework and despised +ignoble "gentility"! No, I cannot quite accept the "stinted means" +excuse; the fact is that the mean shrew is hard on her dependants +solely because her nature is not good; and we need not beat about the +bush any longer for reasons. A domestic servant under a wise, +dignified, and kind mistress or housekeeper may live a healthy and +happy life; the servant of the mean shrew does not live at all in any +true sense of the word. No rational man can blame girls for preferring +the freedom of shop or factory to the thraldom of certain kinds of +domestic service. If we consider only the case of well-managed houses, +then we may wonder why any girl should enter a factory; but, on the +other hand, there is that dire vision of the mean shrew with gimlet +eye and bitter tongue! What would the mean shrew have made of Margaret +Catchpole, the Suffolk girl who was transported about one hundred +years ago? There is a problem. That girl's letters to her mistress are +simply throbbing with passionate love and gratitude; and the phrases +"My beloved mistress," "My dear, dear mistress," recur like sobs. +Margaret would have become a fiend under the mean shrew; but the holy +influence of a good lady made a noble woman of her, and she became a +pattern of goodness long after one rash but blameless freak was +forgotten. All Margaret's race now rise up and call her blessed, and +her spirit must have rejoiced when she saw her brilliant descendant +appearing in England two years ago as representative of a mighty +colony. + +What shall I say about the literary shrew? Let no one be mistaken--we +have a good many of them, and we shall have more and more of them. +There are kind and charming lady-novelists in plenty, and we all owe +them fervent thanks for happy hours; there are deeply-cultured ladies +who make the joy of placid English homes; there are hundreds on +hundreds of honest literary workers who never set down an impure or +ungentle line. I am grateful in reason to all these; but there is +another sort of literary woman towards whom I pretend to feel no +gratitude whatever, and that is the downright literary shrew, who +usually writes, so to speak, in a scream, and whose sentences resemble +bursting packets of pins and needles. She is what the Americans would +call "death on man," and she likes to emphasize her invectives by +always printing "Men" with a capital "M." She is however rigidly +impartial in her distribution of abuse, and she finds out at frequent +intervals that English women and girls are going year by year from bad +to worse. That the earth does not hold a daintier, purer, more +exquisitely lovable being than the well-educated, well-bred English +girl, is an opinion held even by some very cynical males; but the +literary shrew rattles out her libels, and, in order to show how very +virtuous she is, she usually makes her articles unfit to be brought +within the doors of any respectable house. Not that she is ribald--she +is merely so slangy, so audacious, and so bitter that no "prudent" man +would let his daughters glance at a single article turned out by our +emphatic shrew. As to men--well, those ignoble beings fare very badly +at her hands. I do not know exactly what she wants to do with the poor +things, but on paper and on the platform she insists that they shall +practically give up their political power entirely, for women, being +in an immense majority, would naturally outvote the inferior sex. +Sometimes, when the shrew is more than usually capricious and enraged +with her own sex, she may magnanimously propose to disfranchise huge +numbers of women; but, as a rule, she is bent on mastering the +enemy--Man. If you happen to remark that it would be rather awkward if +a majority of women should happen to bring about a war in which +myriads of men would destroy each other, we rather pity you; that +argument always beats the shrew, and she resorts to the literary +equivalent for hysterics. If the controversialist ventures to ask some +questions about the share which women have had in bringing about the +great wars known to history, he draws on himself more and more +hysterical abuse. What a strange being is this! Her life is one long +squabble, she is the most reckless and violent of fighters, and yet +she is always crying out that Men are brutal and bloodthirsty, and +that she and her sisters would introduce the elements of peace and +goodwill to political relations. We may have a harmless laugh at the +literary shrew so long as she confines herself to haphazard +scribbling, because no one is forced to read; but it is no laughing +matter when she transfers her literary powers to some public body, and +inflicts essays on the members. Her life on a School Board may be +summarised as consisting of a battle and a screech; she has the bliss +of abusing individual Men rudely--nay, even savagely--and she knows +that chivalry prevents them from replying. But she is worst when she +rises to read an essay; then the affrighted males flee away and rest +in corners while the shrew denounces things in general. It is +terrible. Among the higher products of civilisation the literary shrew +is about the most disconcerting, and, if any man wants to know what +the most gloomy possible view of life is like, I advise him to attend +some large board-meeting during a whole afternoon while the literary +shrew gets through her series of fights and reads her inevitable +essay. He will not come away much wiser perhaps, but he will be +appreciably sadder. + +And so this long procession of shrews passes before us, scolding and +gibbering and dispensing miseries. Is there no way of appealing to +reason so that they may be led to see that inflicting pain can never +bring them anything but a low degree of pleasure? No human creature +was ever made better or more useful by a shrew, for the very means by +which the acrid woman tries to secure notice or power only serves to +belittle her. Take the case of a vulgar schoolmistress who is +continually scolding. What happens in her school? She is mocked, +hated, tricked, and despised; real discipline is non-existent; the +bullied assistants go about their work without heart; and the whole +organisation--or rather disorganisation--gradually crumbles, until a +place which should be the home of order and happiness becomes an ugly +nest of anarchy. But look at one of the lovely high schools which are +now so common; read Miss Kingsley's most fervent and accurate +description of the scholars, and observe how poorly the scolding +teacher fares in the comparison. Who ever heard of a girl being +scolded or punished in a good modern high school? Such a catastrophe +is hardly conceivable, for one quiet look of reproach from a good +teacher is quite sufficient to render the average girl inconsolable +until forgiveness is granted. This illustrates my point--the shrew +never succeeds in doing anything but intensifying the fault or evil +which she pretends to remove. The shrew who shrieks at a drunkard only +makes him dive further into the gulf in search of oblivion; the shrew +who snaps constantly at a servant makes the girl dull, fierce, and +probably wicked; the shrew who tortures a patient man ends by making +him desperate and morose; the shrew who weeps continually out of +spite, and hopes to earn pity or attention in that fashion, ends by +being despised by men and women, abhorred by children, and left in the +region of entire neglect. Perhaps if public teachers could only show +again and again that the shrew makes herself more unhappy, if +possible, than she makes other people, then the selfish instinct which +is dominant might answer to the appeal; but, though I make the +suggestion I have no great hope of its being very fruitful. + +After all, I fear the odious individual whose existence and attributes +we have discussed must be accepted as a scourge sent to punish us for +past sins of the race. Certainly women had a very bad time in days +gone by--they were slaves; and at odd moments I am tempted to conclude +that the slave instinct survives in some of them, and they take their +revenge in true servile fashion. This line of thought would carry me +back over more ages than I care to traverse; I am content with knowing +that the shrews are in a minority, and that the majority of my +countrywomen are sweet and benign. + + + + +X. + +ARE WE WEALTHY? + + +Among the working-classes shrewd men are now going about putting some +very awkward questions which seem paradoxical at first sight, but +which are quite understood by many intelligent men to whom they are +addressed. The query "Are we wealthy?" seems easy enough to answer; +and of course a rapid and superficial observer gives an affirmative in +reply. It seems so obvious! Our income is a thousand millions per +year; our railways and merchant fleets can hardly be valued without +putting a strain on the imagination; and it seems as if the atmosphere +were reeking with the very essence of riches. A millionaire gives +nearly one thousand pounds for a puppy; he buys seventeen baby horses +for about three thousand pounds apiece; he gives four thousand guineas +for a foal, and bids twenty thousand pounds for one two-year-old +filly; his house costs a million or thereabouts. Minor plutocrats +swarm among us, and they all exhibit their wealth with every available +kind of ostentation; yet that obstinate question remains to be +answered--"Are we wealthy?" We may give the proletarians good advice +and recommend them to employ no extreme talk and no extreme measures; +but there is the new disposition, and we cannot get away from it. I +take no side; the poor have my sympathy, but I endeavour to understand +the rich, and also to face facts in a quiet way. Supposing that a ball +is being given that costs one thousand pounds, and that within sound +of the carriages there are twenty seamstresses working who never in +all their lives know what it is to have sufficient food--is not that a +rather curious position? The seamstresses are the children of mighty +Britain, and it seems that their mother cannot give them sustenance. +The excessive luxury of the ball shows that some one has wealth, but +does it not also seem to show that some one has too much? The clever +lecturers who talk to the populace now will not be content with the +old-fashioned answer, and an awkward deadlock is growing more nearly +imminent daily. Suppose we take the case of the sporting-man again, +and find that he pays three guineas per week for the training of each +of his fifty racers, we certainly have a picture of lavish display; +but, when we see, on the other hand, that nearly half the children in +some London districts never know what it is to have breakfast before +they go to school, we cannot help thinking of the palaces in which the +horses are stabled and the exquisite quality of the animal's food. +There is not a good horse that mother England does not care for, and +there are half a million children who rarely can satisfy their hunger, +and who are quartered in dens which would kill the horses in a week. +These crude considerations are not-presented by us as being +satisfactory statements in economics; but, when the smart mob orator +says, "What kind of parent would keep horses in luxury and leave +children to hunger?" "Is this wealthy England?" his audience reply in +a fashion of their own. Reasoning does not avail against hunger and +privation. I am forced to own that, for my part, the awful problem of +poverty seems insoluble by any logical agent; but the man of the mob +does not now care for logic than ever he did before, and he has +advisers who state to him the problems of life and society with +passionate rhetoric which eludes reason. + +The whole world hangs together, and Chicago may be called a mere +suburb of London. English people did not understand the true history +of the genesis of poverty until the developments of society in America +showed us with terrific rapidity the historical development of our own +poverty. The fearful state of things in American cities was brought +about in a very few years, whereas the gradual extension of our +poverty-stricken classes has been going on for centuries. To us +poverty, besides being a horror, was more or less of a mystery; but +America exhibited the development of the gruesome monster with lurid +distinctness. In the old countries the men who first were able to +seize the land gradually sublet portions either for money or warlike +service; the growth of manufactures occupied a thousand years before +it reached its present extent; and with the rising of manufacturing +centres came enormous new populations which were finally obliged to +barter their labour for next to nothing--and thus we have the +appalling and desolating spectacle of our slums. All that took place +in America with the swiftness of a series of stage-scenes; so that men +now living have watched the inception and growth of all the most +harrowing forms of poverty and the vices arising from poverty. And now +the cry is, "Go back to the Land--the Land for the Nation!" Matters +have reached a strange pass when such a political watchword should be +chosen by thousands in grave and stolid England, and we shall be +obliged to compromise in the end with those by whom the cry is raised. +I believe that a compromise may be arranged in time, but the leaders +of the poor will have to teach their followers wisdom, self-restraint, +and even a little unselfishness, impossible as the teaching of that +last may seem to be. We have begun a great labour war, in which +battles are being lost and won by opposing sides around us every day. +The fighting was very terrible at the beginning; but we shall be +forced at last to adopt a system of truces, and then the question "Are +we wealthy?" may find its answer. At this moment, however much an +optimist may point to our wealth, the logical opponent of established +things can always point to the ghastly sights that seem to make the +very name of wealth a cynical mockery. + +We have to take up a totally new method of meeting and dealing with +the poor; and rich and poor alike must learn to think--which is an +accomplishment not possessed by many of either class. In the early +part of the century, when the ideas of the Revolution were still very +vital, there was hope that a time might come when wealth and power +would be shared so as to secure genuine human existence to the whole +population. Then came the mad hopes that followed the Reform Bill, +when grave Parliamentary men wept and huzzaed like schoolboys on +seeing that remarkable measure passed. People thought that the good +days had at last come, and even the workers who were still left out in +the cold fancied that in some vague way they were to receive benefits +worth having. The history of human delusions is a very sad one, as sad +almost as the history of human wickedness; and all those poor +enthusiasts had a sad awakening, for they found that the barren fights +of placemen would still go on, that the people would continue to be +shorn, and that the condition of the poor was uncommonly likely to be +worse than ever. The hour of hopefulness passed away, and there +succeeded bitter years of savage despair. The unhappy Chartists +struggled hard; and there is something pathetic in thinking how good +men were treated for preaching political commonplaces which are now +deemed almost Conservative. The wild time in which every crown in +Europe tottered was followed by another period of optimism; for the +great religious revival had begun, and the Church resumed her ancient +power over the people, despite the shock given by Newman's secession. +Then once again the query "Are we wealthy?" was answered with +enthusiasm; and even the poor were told that they were wealthy, for +had they not the reversion of complete felicity to crown their entry +into a future world? We must believe that there is some compensation +for this life's ills, or else existence would become no longer +bearable; but it was hard for people in general to think that +everything was for the best on this earth. Soon came the day of doubt +and bitterness, which assailed eager philanthropists and mere ordinary +people as well. The poor folk did not feel the effects of Darwin's +work, but those effects were terrible in certain quarters, for many +precipitate thinkers became convinced that we must perish like the +dumb beasts. Wherefore came the question, "Why should the poor go +without their share of the good things of this world, since there is +nothing for them in the next?" A very ugly query it is too, because, +when the question of number arises, rash spirits may say, as it was +said long ago, "Are we not many, and are you not few?" + +I have not any fine theories, and I do not want to stir up enmities; +and I therefore say to the instructors of the poor, "Instead of egging +your men on to warfare, why not teach them how to use the laws which +they already have? No new laws are wanted; every rational and +necessary reform may be achieved by dint of measures now on the +statute-book--measures which seem to slumber as soon as the agitation +raised in passing them has glorified a certain number of placemen." +Every year we have the outcry, to which we have so often alluded, +about disgraceful dwellings; yet there is not a bad case in London or +elsewhere which could not be cured if the law were quietly set in +motion by men of business. As a matter of fact, a very great portion +of the wealth of the country is now at the service of the poor; but +they do not choose to take it--or, at any rate, they know nothing +about it. Look at the School Board elections, and see how many +exercise the right to vote. Yet, if the majority elected their own +School Board, they could divert enough charities to educate our whole +population, and they could do as they chose in their own schools. +Again, the Local Government Act renders it possible for the populace +to secure any public institutions that they may want, and in the main +they can order their own social life to their liking. What is the use +of incessant declamation? Organisation would be a thousand times +better. Let quiet men who do not want mere self-advertisement tell the +people what is their property and how to get it, and there will be no +need of the outcry of one class against another. It is a bitter grief +for all thinking men to observe the inequalities that continue to make +life positively accursed in many quarters, and the sights of shame +that abound ought to be seen no more; but rage can do nothing, while +wise teaching can do everything. The population question must be dealt +with by the people themselves; they must resolve to crush their masses +no more into slums; they must choose for themselves a nobler and a +purer life--and that can be accomplished by the laws which they may +set in action at once. Then they will be able to say, "England is +wealthy, and we have our share." + +Some excellent articles have been turned out by the brilliant +professor of biology who inspects our fisheries for us. He has done +rare service for the people in his own way--no one better, for he was +one of the first who eagerly advocated the education of the masses; +but I fear he is now becoming "disillusionised." He talked once about +erecting a Jacob's Ladder from the gutter to the university; and he +has found that the ladder--such as it is--has merely been used to +connect the tradesman's shop and the artisan's dwelling with the +exalted place of education. The poor gutter-child cannot climb the +ladder; he is too hungry, too thin, too weak for the feat, and hence +the professor's famous epigram has become one of the things at which +scientific students of the human race smile sadly and kindly. And now +the professor grows savage and so wildly Conservative that we fear he +may denounce Magna Charta next as a gross error. I know very well that +all men are not equal, and the professor's keenest logic cannot make +me see that point any more clearly than at present. But suppose that +one fine day some awkward leader of the people says, "You tell us, +professor, that we are wealthy, and that it is right that some men +should be gorged while we are bitten with famine. If Britain is so +wealthy, how is it that eleven million acres of good agricultural land +are now out of cultivation, while the people whom the land used to +feed are crushed in the slums of the towns in the case of labourers, +or gone beyond the sea in the case of the farmers?" I want to be +impartial, but freely own that I should not like to answer that +question, and I do not believe the professor could. The men who used +to supply our fighting force are now becoming extinct. If they go into +the town and pick up some kind of work, then the second generation are +weaklings and a burden to us; while, if they go abroad, they are still +removed from the Mother of Nations, who needs her sons of the soil, +even though she may feel proud of the gallant new States which they +are rearing. And, while rats and mice and obscure vermin are gradually +taking possession of the land on which Britons were bred, the signs of +bursting wealth are thick among us. Is a nation rich that cannot +afford even to keep the kind of men who once defended her? To me the +gradual return of the land to its primitive wildness is more than +depressing. There are districts on the borders of Hertford and Essex +which might make a sentimental traveller sit down and cry. It all +seems strange; it looks so poverty-stricken, so filthy, so sordid, so +like the site of a slum after all the houses have been levelled for a +dozen years; and this in the midst of our England! I say nothing about +land-laws and so forth, but I will say that those who fancy the towns +can survive when the farms are deserted are much mistaken. "Are we +wealthy?" "Yes," and "No." We are wealthy in the wrong places, and we +are poor in the wrong places; and the combination will end in mischief +unless we are very soon prepared to make an alteration in most of our +ways of living. In many respects it is a good world; but it might be +made better, nobler, finer in every quarter, if the poor would only +recognise wise and silent leaders, and use the laws which men have +made in order to repair the havoc which other men have also made. + + + + +XI. + +THE VALUES OF LABOUR. + + +Only about a quarter-century ago unlearned men of ability would often +sigh and say, "Ah, if I was only a scholar!" Admirers of a clever and +illiterate workman often said, "Why, if he was a scholar, he would +make a fortune in business for himself!" Women mourned the lack of +learning in the same way, and I have heard good dames deplore the fact +that they could not read. I pity most profoundly those on whom the +light of knowledge has never shone kindly; and yet I have a comic sort +of misgiving lest in a short time a common cry may be, "Ah, if I was +only not a scholar!" The matchless topsy-turvydom which has marked the +passage of the last ten years, the tremendously accelerated velocity +with which labour is moving towards emancipation from all control, +have so confused things in general that an observer must stand back +and get a new focus before he can allow his mind to dwell on the +things that he sees. One day's issue of any good newspaper is enough +to show what a revolution is upon us, for we merely need to run the +eye down columns at random to pick out suggestive little scraps. At +present we cannot get that "larger view" about which Dr. W.B. +Carpenter used to talk; he was wont to study hundreds and thousands of +soundings and measurements piecemeal, and the chaos of figures +gradually took form until at length the doctor had in his mind a +complete picture of enormous ocean depths. In somewhat the same way we +can by slow degrees form a picture of a changed state of society, and +we find that the faculties of body or mind which used to bring their +possessor gain are now nearly worthless. In one column of a journal I +find that a trained schoolmistress is required to take charge of a +village school. The salary is sixteen pounds per annum; but, if the +lady is fortunate enough to have a husband, work can be procured for +him daily on the farm. This is just a little disconcerting. The +teacher must see to the mental and moral training of fifty children; +she must have spent at least seven years in learning before she was +allowed to take charge of a school; then she remained two more years +on probation, and all the time her expenses were not light. As the +final reward of her exertions, she is offered six shillings per week, +out of which she must dress neatly--for a slatternly schoolmistress +would be a dreadful object--buy sufficient food, and hold her own in +rural society! The reverend man who advertises this delectable +situation must have a peculiar idea regarding the class into which an +educated lady like the teacher whom he requires would likely to marry. +An agricultural labourer may be an honest fellow enough, but, as the +husband of an educated woman, he might be out of place; and I fancy +that a schoolmistress whose husband pulled turnips and wore corduroys +might not secure the maximum of deference from her scholars. In +contrast to this grotesque advertisement I run down a list of cooks +required, and I find that the average wage of the cook is not far from +three times that of the teacher, while the domestic has her food +provided for liberality. The village schoolmistress in the old days +was never well paid; but then she was a private speculator; we never +expected to see the specialised product of training and time reckoned +at the same value as the old dame's, who was able to read and knit, +but who could do little more. While we are comparing the wages of +teachers and cooks, I may point out that the _chef_, whose training +lasts seven years, earns, as we calculate, one hundred and thirty +pounds per year more than the average English schoolmaster. This is +perhaps as it should be, for the value of a good _chef_ is hardly to +be reckoned in money; and yet the figures look funny when we first +study them. And now we may turn to the wages of dustmen, who are, it +must be admitted, a most estimable class of men and most useful. I +find that the London dustman earns more than an assistant master under +the Salford School Board, and, besides his wages, he picks up many +trifles. The dustman may dwell with his family in two rooms at +three-and-sixpence per week; his equipment consists of a slop, +corduroys, and a sou'-wester hat, which are sufficient to last many a +day with little washing. But the assistant, whose education alone cost +the nation one hundred pounds cash down, not to speak of his own +private expenditure, must live in a respectable locality, dress +neatly, and keep clear of that ugly soul-killing worry which is +inflicted by trouble about money. Decidedly the dustman has the best +of the bargain all round, for, to say the least, he does not need to +labour very much harder than the professional man. This instance tends +to throw a very sinister and significant flash on the way things are +tending. Again, some of the gangs of Shipping Federation men have full +board and lodging, two changes of clothes free, beer and rum in +moderate quantities, and thirty shillings per week. Does anybody in +England know a curate who has a salary like that? I do not think it +would be possible to find one on the Clergy List. No one grudges the +labourers their extra food and high wages; I am only taking note of a +significant social circumstance. The curate earns nothing until he is +about three-and-twenty; if he goes through one of the older +universities, his education costs, up to the time of his going out +into the world, something very like two thousand pounds; yet, with all +his mental equipment, such as it is, he cannot earn so much as a +labourer of his own age. Certainly the humbler classes had their day +of bondage when the middleman bore heavily on them; they got clear by +a mighty effort which dislocated commerce, but we hardly expected to +find them claiming, and obtaining, payments higher than many made to +the most refined products of the universities! It is the way of the +world; we are bound for change, change, and yet more change; and no +man may say how the cycles will widen. Luxury has grown on us since +the thousands of wealthy idlers who draw their money from trade began +to make the stream of lavish expenditure turn into a series of rushing +rapids. The flow of wasted wealth is no longer like the equable +gliding of the full Thames; it is like the long deadly flurry of the +waters that bears toward Niagara. These newly-enriched people cause +the rise of the usual crop of parasites, and it is the study of the +parasites which forces on the mind hundreds of reflections concerning +the values of different kinds of labour. A little while ago, for +example, an exquisitely comic paragraph was printed with all innocence +in many journals. It appeared that two of the revived species of +parasites known as professional pugilists were unable to dress +properly before they began knocking each other about, "because their +valets were not on the spot." I hope that the foul old days of the +villainous "ring" may never be recalled by anything seen in our day, +for there never were any "palmy days," though there were some ruffians +who could not be bought. Yet the worst things that happened in the +bygone times were not so much fitted to make a man think solemnly as +that one delicious phrase--"their valets were not on the spot." In the +noble days, when England was so very merry, it often happened that a +man who has been battered out of all resemblance to humanity was left +to dress himself as best he could on a bleak marsh, and his chivalrous +friends made the best of their way home, while the defeated gladiator +was reckoned at a dog's value. Now-a-days those sorely-entreated +creatures would have their valets. In one department of industry +assuredly the value of labour has altered. The very best of the brutal +old school once fought desperately for four hours, though it was +thought that he must be killed, and his reason was that, if he lost, +he would have to beg his bread. Now-a-days he would have a valet, a +secretary, a manager, and a crowd of plutocratic admirers who would +load him with money and luxuries. I was tickled to the verge of +laughter by finding that one of these gentry was paid thirty pounds +per night for exhibiting his skill, and my amusement was increased +when it turned out that one of those who paid him thirty pounds +strongly objected on learning that the hero appeared at two other +places, from each of which he received the same sum. Thus for +thirty-six minutes of exertion per day the man was drawing five +hundred and forty pounds per week. All these things appeared in the +public prints; but no public writer took any serious notice of a +symptom which is as significant as any ever observed in the history of +mankind. It is almost awe-striking to contemplate these parasites, and +think what their rank luxurious existence portends. Here we see a man +of vast wealth, whereof every pound was squeezed from the blood and +toil of working-men; he passes his time now in the company of these +fellows who have earned a reputation by pounding each other. The +wealthy bully and his hangers-on are dangerous to the public peace; +their language is too foul for even men of the world to endure it, and +the whole crew lord it in utter contempt of law and decency. That is +the kind of spectacle to be seen in our central city almost every +night. Consider a story which accidently came out a few weeks ago +owing to legal proceedings and kept pleasure-seeking and +scandalmongering London laughing for a while, and say whether any +revelation ever gave us a picture of a more unspeakable society. A +rich man, A., keeps a prizefighter, B., to "mind" him, as the quaint +phrase goes. Mr. A. is offended by another prizefighter, C., and he +offers B. the sum of five hundred pounds if he will give C. a beating +in public. B. goes to C., and says, "I will give you ten pounds if you +will let me thrash you, and I won't hurt you much." C. gladly +consents, so B. pockets four hundred and ninety pounds for himself, +and the noble patron's revenge is satisfied. There is a true tale of +rogues and a fool--a tale to make one brood and brood until the sense +of fun passes into black melancholy. Five hundred men worked for sixty +hours per week before that money was earned--and think of the value +received for the whole sum when it was spent! Truly the parasite's +exertions are lucrative to himself! + +As for the market-price of book-learning or clerkly skill, it is not +worth so much as naming. The clerk was held to be a wondrous person in +times when the "neck-verse" would save a man from the gallows; but +"clerk" has far altered its meaning, and the modern being of that name +is in sorrowful case. So contemptibly cheap are his poor services that +he in person is not looked upon as a man, but rather as a lump of raw +material which is at present on sale in a glutted market. All the +walks of life wherein men proceed as though they belonged to the +leisured class are becoming no fit places for self-respecting people. +Gradually the ornamental sort of workers are being displaced; the idle +rich are too plentiful, but I question whether even the idle rich have +done, so much harm as the genteel poor who are ashamed of labour. I do +not like to see wages going downward, but there are exceptions, and I +am almost disposed to feel glad that the searchers after "genteel" +employment are now very much like the birds during a long frost. The +enormous lounging class who earn nothing do not offer an agreeable +subject for contemplation, and their parasites are horrible--there is +no other word. Yet we may gather a little consolation when we think +that the tendency is to raise the earnings of those who do something +or produce something. It is not good to know that a dustman makes more +money than hundreds of hard-worked and well-educated men, for this is +a grotesque state of things brought about by imbecile Government +officials. Neither do I quite like to know that a lady whose education +occupied nine years of her life is offered less wages than a good +housemaid. But I do assuredly like to hear how the higher class of +manual labourers flourish; they are the salt of the earth, and I +rejoice that they are no longer held down and regarded as in some way +inferior to men who do nothing for two hundred pounds a year, except +try to look as if they had two thousand pounds. The quiet man who does +the delicate work on the monster engines of a great ocean steamer is +worthy of his hire, costly as his hire may be. On his eye, his +judgment of materials, his nerve, and his dexterity of hand depend +precious lives. For three thousand miles those vast masses of +machinery must force a huge hull through huge seas; the mighty and +shapely fabrics of metal must work with the ease of a child's toy +locomotive, and they must bear a strain that is never relaxed though +all the most tremendous forces of Nature may threaten. What a charge +for a man! His earnings could hardly be raised high enough if we +consider the momentous nature of the duty he fulfils; he is an +aristocrat of labour, and we do not know that there is not something +grotesque in measuring and arguing over the money-payment made to him. +Then there are the specially skilled hands who in their monkish +seclusion work at the instruments wherewith scientific wonders are +wrought. The rewards of their toil would have seemed fabulous to such +men as Harrison the watchmaker; but they also form an aristocracy, and +they win the aristocrat's guerdon without practising his idleness. The +mathematician who makes the calculations for a machine is not so well +paid as the man who finishes it; the observatory calculator who +calculates the time of occulation for a planet cannot earn so much as +the one who grinds a reflector. In all our life the same tendency is +to be seen: the work of the hand outdoes in value the work of the +brain. + + + + +XII. + +THE HOPELESS POOR. + + +By fits and starts the public wake up and own with much clamour that +there is a great deal of poverty in our midst. While each new fit +lasts the enthusiasm of good people is quite impressive in its +intensity; all the old hackneyed signatures appear by scores in the +newspapers, and "Pro Bono Publico," "Audi Alteram Partem," "X.Y.Z.," +"Paterfamilias," "An Inquirer," have their theories quite pat and +ready. Picturesque writers pile horror on horror, and strive, with the +delightful emulation of their class, to outdo each other; far-fetched +accounts of oppression, robbery, injustice, are framed, and the more +drastic reformers invariably conclude that "Somebody" must be hanged. +We never find out which "Somebody" we should suspend from the dismal +tree; but none the less the virtuous reformers go on claiming victims +for the sacrifice, while, as each discoverer solemnly proclaims his +bloodthirsty remedy, he looks round for applause, and seems to say, +"Did you ever hear of stern and audacious statesmanship like mine? Was +there ever such a practical man?" + +The farce is supremely funny in essentials, and yet I cannot laugh at +it, for I know that the drolleries are played out amid sombre +surroundings that should make the heart quake. While the hysterical +newspaper people are venting abuse and coining theories, there are +quiet workers in thousands who go on in uncomplaining steadfastness +striving to remove a deadly shame from our civilisation, and smiling +softly at the furious cries of folk who know so little and vociferate +so much. After each whirlwind of sympathy has reached its full +strength, there is generally a strong disposition among the +sentimentalists to do something. No mere words for the genuine +sentimentalist; he packs his sentimental self into a cab, he engages +the services of a policeman, and he plunges into the nasty deeps of +the City's misery. He treats each court and alley as a department of a +menagerie, and he gazes with mild interest on the animals that he +views. To the sentimentalist they are only animals; and he is kind to +them as he would be to an ailing dog at home. If the sentimentalist's +womenfolk go with him, the tour is made still more pleasing. The +ladies shudder with terror as they trail their dainty skirts up +noisome stairs; but their genteel cackle never ceases. "And you earn +six shillings per week? How very surprising! And the landlord takes +four shillings for your one room? How very mean! And you have--let me +see--four from six leaves two--yes--you have two shillings a week to +keep you and your three children? How charmingly shocking!" The honest +poor go out to work; the wastrels stay at home and invent tales of +woe; then, when the dusk falls on the foul court and all the +sentimentalists have gone home to dinner, the woe-stricken tellers of +harrowing tales creep out to the grimy little public-house at the top +of the row; they spend the gifts of the sentimentalist; and, when the +landlord draws out his brimming tills at midnight, he blesses the kind +people who help to earn a snug income for him. I have seen forty-eight +drunken people come out of a tavern between half-past eleven and +half-past twelve in one night during the time when sentiment ran mad; +there never were such roaring times for lazy and dissolute scoundrels; +and nearly all the money given by the sentimentalists was spent in +sowing crops of liver complaint or _delirium tremens_, and in filling +the workhouses and the police-cells. Then the fit of charity died out; +the clergyman and the "sisters" went on as usual in their sacredly +secret fashion until a new outburst came. It seems strange to talk of +Charity "raging"--it reminds us of Mr. Mantalini's savage lamb--but I +can use no other word but "rage" to express these frantic gushes of +affection for the poor. During one October month I carefully preserved +and collated all the suggestions which were so liberally put forth in +various London and provincial newspapers; and I observed that +something like four hundred of these suggestions resolve themselves +into a very few definite classes. The most sensible of these follow +the lines laid down by Charles Dickens, and the writers say, "If you +do not want the poor to behave like hogs, why do you house them like +hogs? Clear away the rookeries; buy up the sites; pay reasonable +compensation to those now interested in the miserable buildings, and +then erect decent dwellings." + +Now I do not want to confuse my readers by taking first a bead-roll of +proposals, and then a bead-roll of arguments for and against, so I +shall deal with each reformer's idea in the order of its importance. +Before beginning, I must say that I differ from all the purveyors of +the cheaper sort of sentiment; I differ from many ladies and gentlemen +who talk about abstractions; and I differ most of all from the +feather-brained persons who set up as authorities after they have paid +flying visits in cabs to ugly neighbourhoods. When a specialist like +Miss Octavia Hill speaks, we hear her with respect; but Miss Hill is +not a sentimentalist; she is a keen, cool woman who has put her +emotions aside, and who has gone to work in the dark regions in a kind +of Napoleonic fashion. No fine phrases for her--nothing but fact, +fact, fact. Miss Hill feels quite as keenly as the gushing persons; +but she has regulated her feelings according to the environment in +which her energies had to be exercised, and she has done more good +than all the poetic creatures that ever raked up "cases" or made +pretty phrases. I leave Miss Hill out of my reckoning, and I deal with +the others. My conclusions may seem hard, and even cruel, but they are +based on what I believe to be the best kindness, and they are +supported by a somewhat varied experience. I shall waive the charge of +cruelty in advance, and proceed to plain downright business. + +You want to clear away rookeries and erect decent dwellings in their +place? Good and beautiful! I sympathise with the intention, and I wish +that it could be carried into effect instantly. Unhappily reforms of +that sort cannot by any means be arranged on the instant, and +certainly they cannot be arranged so as to suit the case of the +Hopeless Poor. Shall I tell you, dear sentimentalist, that the +Hopeless brigade would not accept your kindness if they could? I shall +stagger many people when I say that the Hopeless division like the +free abominable life of the rookery, and that any kind of restraint +would only send them swarming off to some other centre from which they +would have to be dislodged by degrees according to the means and the +time of the authorities. Hard, is it not? But it is true. Certain +kinds of cultured men like the life which they call "Bohemian." The +Hopeless class like their peculiar Bohemianism, and they like it with +all the gusto and content of their cultured brethren. Suppose you +uproot a circle of rookeries. The inhabitants are scattered here and +there, and they proceed to gain their living by means which may or may +not be lawful. The decent law-abiding citizens who are turned out of +house and home during the progress of reform suffer most. They are not +inclined to become predatory animals; and, although they may have been +used to live according to a very low human standard, they cannot all +at once begin to live merely up to the standard of pigs. No writer +dare tell in our English tongue the consequences of evicting the +denizens of a genuine rookery for the purpose of substituting +improvements; and I know only one French writer who would be bold +enough to furnish cogent details to any civilised community. But, for +argument's sake, let me suppose that your "rooks" are transferred from +their nests to your model dwellings. I shall allow you to do all that +philanthropy can dictate; I shall grant you the utmost powers that a +government can bestow; and I shall give six months for your +experiment. What will be found at the end of that time? Alas, your +fine model dwellings will be in worse condition than the wigwam that +the Apache and his squaw inhabit! Let a colony of "rooks" take +possession of a sound, well-fitted building, and it will be found that +not even the most stringent daily visitation will prevent utter wreck +from being wrought. The pipes needed for all sanitary purposes will be +cut and sold; the handles of doors and the brass-work of taps will be +cut away; every scrap of wood-work available for fire-wood will be +stolen sooner or later, and the people will relapse steadily into a +state of filth and recklessness to be paralleled only among Australian +and North American aborigines. Which of the sentimentalists has ever +travelled to America with a few hundreds of Russian and Polish Jews, +Saxon peasants, and Irish peasants from the West? That is the only +experience capable of giving an idea of what happens when a +fairly-fitted house is handed over to the tender mercies of a +selection from the British "residuum." I shall be accused of talking +the language of despair. I have never done that. I should like to see +the time come when the poor may no more dwell in hovels like swine, +and when a poverty-stricken inhabitant of London may not be brought up +with ideas and habits coarser than those of a pig; I merely say that +shrieking, impetuous sentimentalists go to work in the wrong way. They +are the kind of people who would provide pigeon-cotes and dog-collars +for the use of ferrets. I grant that the condition of many London +streets is appalling; but make a house-to-house visitation, and see +how the desolation is caused. Wanton, brutish destructiveness has been +at work everywhere. The cistern which should supply a building cannot +be fed because the spring, the hinge, and the last few yards of pipe +have been chopped away and carried to a marine-store dealer; the +landings and the floors are strewn with dirt which a smart, cleanly +countrywoman would have cleared away without ten minutes' trouble. The +very windows are robbed; and the whole set of inhabitants rests in +contented, unspeakable squalor. No--something more is required than +delicate, silky-handed reform; something more is required than +ready-made blocks of neat dwellings; and something more is required +than sighing sentimentalism, which looks at miserable effects without +scrutinising causes. Let the sentimentalist mark this. If you +transplant a colony of "rooks" into good quarters, you will have +another rookery on your hands; if you remove a drove of brutes into +reasonable human dwelling-places, you will soon have a set of homes +fit for brutes and for brutes alone. Bricks and mortar and whitewash +will not change the nature of human vermin; phrases about beauty and +duty and loveliness will not affect the maker of slums, any more than +perfumes or pretty colours would affect the rats that squirm under the +foundations of the city. Does the sentimentalist imagine that the +brick-and-mortar structures about which he wails were always centres +of festering ugliness? If he has that fancy, let him take a glance at +some of the quaint old houses of Southwark. They were clean and +beautiful in their day, but the healthy human plant can no longer +flourish in them, and the weed creeps in, the crawling parasite +befouls their walls, and the structures which were lovely when +Chaucer's pilgrims started from the "Tabard" are abominable now. If +English folk of gentle and cleanly breeding had lived on in those +ancient places, they would have been wholesome and sound like many +another house erected in days gone by; but the weed gradually took +root, and now the ugliest dens in London are found in the places where +knights and trim clerks and gracious dames once lived. In the face of +all these things, how strangely unwise it is to fancy that ever the +Forlorn Army can be saved by bricks and mortar! + +Education? Ah, there comes a pinch--and a very severe pinch it is! +About five or six years since some of the most important thoroughfares +in London, Liverpool, and many great towns have been rendered totally +impassable by the savage proceedings of gangs of young roughs. Certain +districts in Liverpool could not be traversed after dark, and the +reason was simply this--any man or woman of decent appearance was +liable to be first of all surrounded by a carefully-picked company of +blackguards; then came the clever trip-up from behind; then the victim +was left to be robbed; and then the authorities wrung their hands and +said that it was a pity, and that everything should be done. The +Liverpool youths went a little too far, and one peculiarly obnoxious +set of rascals were sent to penal servitude, while the leader of a +gang of murderers went to the gallows. But in London we have such +sights every night as never were matched in the most turbulent Italian +cities at times when the hot Southern blood was up; our great English +capital can match Venice, Rome, Palermo, Turin, or Milan in the matter +of stabbing; and, for mere wanton cruelty and thievishness, I imagine +that Hackney Road or Gray's Inn Road may equal any thoroughfare of +Francois Villon's Paris. These turbulent London mobs that make night +hideous are made up of youths who have tasted the full blessings of +our educational system; they were mostly mere infants when the great +measure was passed which was to regenerate all things, and yet the +London of Swift's time was not much worse than the Southwark or +Hackney of our own day. I never for an instant dispute the general +advance which our modern society has made, and I dislike the gruesome +rubbish talked of the good old times; but I must nevertheless point +out that "fancy" building and education are not the main factors which +have aided in making us better and more seemly. The brutal rough +remains, and the gangs of scamps who infest London in various spots +are quite as bad as the beings whom Hogarth drew. They have all been +forced into the Government schools; all of them have learned to read +and write, and not one was suffered to leave school until he had +reached the age of fourteen years or passed a moderately high standard +according to the Code. Still, we have this monstrous army of the +Hopeless Poor, and they are usually massed with the Hopeful Poor--the +poor who attend the People's Palaces, and institutes, and so forth. +Alas, the Hopeless Poor are not to be dismissed with a light +phrase--they are not to be dealt with by mere pretty words! They are +creatures who remain poor and villainous because they choose to be +poor and villainous; so pity and nice theories will not cure them. The +best of us yearn toward the good poor folk, and we find a healthful +joy in aiding them; but we have a set of very different feelings +towards the Evil Brigade. + + + + +XIII. + +WAIFS AND STRAYS. + + +When I talked[2] of the hopeless poor and of degraded men, I had in my +mind only the feeble or detestable adults who degrade our +civilisation; but I have by no means forgotten the unhappy little +souls who develop into wastrels unless they are taken away from +hideous surroundings which cramp vitality, destroy all childish +happiness, and turn into brutes poor young creatures who bear the +human image. Lately I heard one or two little stories which are +amongst the most pathetic that ever came before me in the course of +some small experience of life among the forsaken classes--or rather +let me say, the classes that used to be forsaken. These little stories +have prompted me to endeavour to deal carefully with a matter which +has cost me many sad thoughts. + + [2] Essay XII. + +A stray child was rescued from the streets by a society which is +extending its operations very rapidly, and the little creature was +placed as a boarder with a cottager in the country. To the utter +amazement of the good rustic folk, their queer little guest showed +complete ignorance of the commonest plants and animals; she had never +seen any pretty thing, and she was quite used to being hungry and to +satisfying her appetite with scraps of garbage. When she first saw a +daisy on the green, she gazed longingly, and then asked plaintively, +"Please, might I touch that?" When she was told that she might pluck a +few daisies she was much delighted. After her first experiences in the +botanising line she formally asked permission to pluck many wild +flowers; but she always seemed to have a dread of transgressing +against some dim law which had been hitherto represented to her mind +by the man in blue who used to watch over her miserable alley. Before +she became accustomed to receiving food at regular intervals, she +fairly touched the hearts of her foster-parents by one queer request. +The housewife was washing some Brussels sprouts, when the little stray +said timidly, "Please, may I eat a bit of that stalk?" Of course the +stringy mass was uneatable; but it turned out that the forlorn child +had been very glad to worry at the stalks from the gutter as a dog +does at an unclean bone. Another little girl was taken from the den +which she knew as home, after her parents had been sent to prison for +treating her with unspeakable cruelty. The matron of the country home +found that the child's body was scarred from neck to ankle in a +fashion which no lapse of years could efface. The explanation of the +disfigurement was very simple. "If I didn't bring in any money mother +beat me first; and then, when father came in drunk, she tied my hands +behind my back and told him to give me the buckle. Then they strapped +me on the bed and fastened my feet, and he whacked me with the +buckle-end of his strap." It sounds very horrible, does it not? +Nevertheless, the facts remain that the wretched parents were caught +in the act and convicted, and that the child must carry her scars to +her grave. No one who has not seen these lost children can form an +idea of their darkness and helplessness of mind. We all know the story +of the South Sea islanders, who said, "What a big pig!" when they +first saw a horse; one little London savage quite equalled this by +remarking, "What a little cow!" when she saw a tiny Maltese terrier +brought by a lady missionary. The child had some vague conception +regarding a cow; but, like others of her class, her notions of size, +form, and colour, were quite cloudy. Another of these city phenomena +did not know how to blow out a candle; and in many cases it is most +difficult to persuade those newly reclaimed to go to bed without +keeping their boots on. We cannot call such beings barbarians, because +"barbarian" implies something wild, strong, and even noble; yet, to +our shame, we must call them savages, and we must own that they are +born and bred within easy gunshot distance of our centres of culture, +enlightenment, and luxury. They swarm, do these children of suffering: +and easy-going people have no idea of the density of the savagery amid +which such scions of our noble English race are reared. A gentleman +once offered sixpence to a little girl who appeared before him dressed +in a single garment which seemed to have been roughly made from some +sort of sacking. He expected to see her snatch at the coin with all +the eagerness of the ordinary hardy street-arab; but she showed her +jagged brown teeth, and said huskily, "No! Big money!" A lady, +divining with the rapid feminine instinct what was meant by the +enigmatic muttering, explained, "She does not know the sixpence. She +has had coppers to spend before." And so it turned out to be. + +Perhaps comfortable, satisfied readers may be startled, or even +offended, if I say that there are young creatures in our great cities +who rarely see even the light of day, save when the beams are filtered +through the reek of a court; and these same infants resemble the black +fellows of Western Australia or the Troglodytes of Africa in general +intelligence. I have little heart to speak of the parents who are +answerable for such horrors of crass neglect and cruelty. By laying a +set of dry police reports before any sensitive person I could make +that person shudder without adding a word of rhetoric; for it would be +seen that the popular picture of a fiend represents rather a mild and +harmless entity if we compare it with the foul-souled human beings who +dwell in our benighted places. What is to be done? It is best to +grapple swiftly with an ugly question; and I do not hesitate to attack +deliberately one of the most delicate puzzles that ever came before +the world. Wise emotionless men may say, and do say, "Are you going to +relieve male and female idlers and drunkards of all anxiety regarding +their offspring? Do you mean to discourage the honest but +poverty-stricken parents who do their best for their children? What +kind of world will you make for us all if you give your aid to the +worst and neglect the good folk?" Those are very awkward questions, +and I can answer them only by a sort of expedient which must not be +mistaken for intellectual conjuring; I drop ordinary logic and +theories of probability and go at once to facts. At first sight it +seems like rank folly for any man or body of men to take charge of a +child which has been neglected by shameless parents; but, on the other +hand, let us consider our own self-interest, and leave sentiment alone +for a while. We cannot put the benighted starvelings into a lethal +chamber and dispose of their brief lives in that fashion; we are bound +to maintain them in some way or other--and the ratepayers of St. +George's-in-the-East know to some trifling extent what that means. If +the waifs grow up to be predatory animals, we must maintain them first +of all in reformatories, and afterwards, at intervals during their +lives, in prisons. If they grow up without shaking off the terrible +mental darkness of their starveling childhood, we must provide for +them in asylums. A thoroughly neglected waif costs this happy country +something like fifteen pounds per year for the term of his natural +life. Very good. At this point some hard-headed person says, "What +about the workhouses?" This brings us face to face with another +astounding problem to solve which at all satisfactorily requires no +little research and thought. I know that there are good workhouses; +but I happen to know that there are also bad ones. In many a ship and +fishing-vessel fine fellows may be met with who were sent out early +from workhouse-schools and wrought their way onward until they became +brave and useful seamen; there are also many industrious +well-conducted girls who came originally from the great Union schools. +But, when I take another side of the picture, I am inclined to say +very fervently, "Anything rather than the workhouse system for +children! Anything short of complete neglect!" Observe that in one of +the overgrown schools the young folk are scarcely treated as human; +their individuality--if they have any to begin with--is soon lost; +they are known only by a number, and they are passed into the outer +world like bundles of shot rubbish. There are seamen who have never +cast off the peculiar workhouse taint--and no worse shipmates ever +afflicted any capable and honourable soul: for these Union weeds carry +the vices of Rob the Grinder and Noah Claypole on to blue water, and +show themselves to be hounds who would fawn or snarl, steal or talk +saintliness, lie or sneak just as interest suited them. Then the +workhouse girls: I have said sharp words about cruel mistresses; but I +frankly own that the average lady who is saddled with the average +workhouse servant has some slight reasons for showing acerbity, though +she has none for practising cruelty. How could anybody expect a girl +to turn out well after the usual course of workhouse training? The +life of the soul is too often quenched; the flame of life in the poor +body is dim and low; and the mechanical morality, the dull, +meaningless round of useless lessons, the habit of herding in +unhealthy rooms with unhealthy companions, all tend to develop a +creature which can be regarded only as one of Nature's failures, if I +may parody a phrase of the superlative Beau Brummel's. + +There is another and darker side to the workhouse question, but I +shall skim it lightly. The women whose conversation the young girls +hear are often wicked, and thus a dull, under-fed, inept child may +have a great deal too much knowledge of evil. Can we expect such a +collection to contain a large percentage of seemly and useful +children? Is it a fact that the Unions usually supply domestics worth +keeping? Ask the mistresses, and the answer will not be encouraging. +No; the workhouse will not quite suffice. What we want to do is to +take the waifs and strays into places where they may lead a natural +and healthy life. Get them clear of the horror of the slums, let them +breathe pure air and learn pure and simple habits, and then, instead +of odious and costly human weeds, we may have wholesome, useful +fellow-citizens, who not only will cost us nothing, but who will be a +distinct source of solid profit to the empire. The thing has been and +is being done steadily by good men and women who defy prejudice and go +to work in a vigorous practical way. The most miserable and apparently +hopeless little creatures from the filthy purlieus of great towns +become gradually bright and healthy and intelligent when they are +taken to their natural home--the country--and cut adrift from the +congested centres of population. The cost of their maintenance is at +first a little over the workhouse figure; but then the article +produced for the money is far and away superior to anything turned out +by any workhouse. The rescued children are eagerly sought after in the +Colonies; and I am not aware of any case in which one of the young +emigrants has expressed discontent. How much better it is to see these +poor waifs changed into useful, profitable colonists than to have them +sullenly, uselessly starving in the dens of London and Liverpool and +Manchester! The work of rescuing and training the lost children has +not been fully developed yet; but enough has been done to show that in +a few years we shall have a large number of prosperous Colonial +farmers who will indirectly contribute to the wealth of mighty +Britain. Had the trained emigrants never been snatched away from the +verge of the pit, we should have been obliged to maintain them until +their wretched lives ended with sordid deaths, and the very cost of +their burial would have come from the pockets of pinched workers. I +fancy that I have shown the advisability of neglecting strict economic +canons in this instance. I abhor the pestilent beings who swarm in +certain quarters, and I should never dream of removing any burden from +their shoulders if I thought that it would only leave the rascals with +more money to expend on brutish pleasures; but I desire to look far +ahead, and I can see that, when the present generation of adult +wastrels dies out, it will be a very good thing for all of us if there +are few or none of the same stamp ready to take their places. By +resolutely removing the children of vice and sorrow, we clear the road +for a better race. Let it be understood that I have a truly orthodox +dread of "pauperisation," and I watch very jealously the doings of +those who are anxious to feed all sorts and conditions of men; but +pauperising men by maintaining them in laziness is very different from +rearing useful subjects of the empire, whose trained labour is a +source of profit and whose developed morality is a fund of security. +We cannot take Chinese methods of lessening the pressure of +population, and we must at once decide on the wisest way of dealing +with our waifs and strays; if we do not, then the chances are that +they will deal unpleasantly with us. The locust, the lemming, the +phylloxera, are all very insignificant creatures; but, when they act +together in numbers, they can very soon devastate a district. The +parable is not by any means inapt. + + + + +XIV. + +STAGE-CHILDREN. + + +The Modern Legislator is a most terrible creature. When he is not +engaged in obstructing public business, he must needs be meddling with +other people's private affairs--and some of us want to know where he +is going to stop. The Legislator has decreed that no children who are +less than ten years of age shall henceforth be allowed to perform on +the stage. Much of the talk which came from those who carried the +measure was kindly and sensible; but some of the acrid party foisted +mere misleading rubbish on the public. Henceforth the infantile player +will be seen no more. Mr. Crummles will wave a stern hand from the +shades where the children of dreams dwell, and the Phenomenon will be +glad that she has passed from a prosaic earth. Had the stern +law-makers had their way thirty years ago, how many pretty sights +should we have missed! Little Marie Wilton would not have romped about +the stage in her childish glee (she enjoyed the work from the first, +and even liked playing in a draughty booth when the company of roaming +"artists" could get no better accommodation). Little Ellen Terry, too, +would not have played in the Castle scene in "King John," and crowds +of worthy matrons would have missed having that "good cry" which they +enjoy so keenly. We are happy who saw all the Terrys, and Marie the +witty who charmed Charles Dickens, and all the pretty mites who did so +delight us when Mme. Katti Lanner marshalled them. Does any reader +wish to have a perfectly pleasant half-hour? Let that reader get the +number of "Fors Clavigera" which contains Mr. Ruskin's description of +the children who performed in the Drury Lane pantomime. The kind +critic was in ecstasies--as well he might be--and he talked with +enthusiasm about the cleanliness, the grace, the perfectly happy +discipline of the tiny folk. Then, again, in "Time and Tide," the +great writer gives us the following exquisite passage about a little +dancer who especially pleased him--"She did it beautifully and simply, +as a child ought to dance. She was not an infant prodigy; there was no +evidence in the finish and strength of her motion that she had been +put to continual torture during half of her eight or nine years. She +did nothing more than any child--well taught, but painlessly--might +do; she caricatured no older person, attempted no curious or fantastic +skill; she was dressed decently, she moved decently, she looked and +behaved innocently, and she danced her joyful dance with perfect +grace, spirit, sweetness, and self-forgetfulness." How perfect! There +is not much suggestion of torture or premature wickedness in all this; +and I wish that the wise and good man's opinion might have been +considered for a little while by some of the reformers. For my part, I +venture to offer a few remarks about the whole matter; for there are +several considerations which were neglected by the debaters on both +sides during the discussion. + +First, then, I must solemnly say that I cannot advise any grown girl +or young man to go upon the stage; and yet I see no harm in teaching +little children to perform concerted movements in graceful ways. This +sounds like a paradox; but it is not paradoxical at all to those who +have studied the question from the inside. If a girl waits until she +is eighteen before going on the stage, she has a good chance of being +thrown into the company of women who do not dream of respecting her. +If she enters a provincial travelling company, she has constant +discomfort and constant danger; some of her companions are certain to +be coarse--and a brutal actor whose professional vanity prevents him +from understanding his own brutality is among the most horrible of +living creatures. After a lady has made her mark as an actress, she +can secure admirable lodging at good hotels; but a poor girl with a +pound per week must put up with such squalor as only actors can +fittingly describe. Amid all this the girl is left to take care of +herself--observe that point. A little child is taken care of; whereas +the adolescent or adult must fight her way through a grimy and +repulsive environment as best she can. There is not a man in the world +who would dare to introduce himself informally to any lady who is +employed under Mr. W.S. Gilbert's superintendence; but what can we say +about the thousands who travel from town to town unguided save by the +curt directions of the stage manager? Let it be understood that when I +speak of the theatre I have not in mind the beautiful refined places +in central London where cultured people in the audience are +entertained by cultured people on the stage; I am thinking grimly of +the squalor, the degradation, the wretched hand-to-mouth existence of +poor souls who work in the casual companies that spend the better part +of their existence in railway carriages. Not long ago a young actress +who can now command two thousand pounds per year was obliged to remain +dinnerless on Christmas Day because she could not afford to pay a +shilling for a hamper which was sent her from home. Her success in the +lottery arrived by a strange chance; but how many bear all the poverty +and trouble without even having one gleam of success in their +miserable dangerous lives? There are theatres and theatres--there are +managers and managers; but in some places the common conversation of +the women is not edifying--and a good girl must insensibly lose her +finer nature if she has to associate with such persons. + +In the case of the little children there are none, or few, at any +rate, of the drawbacks. Not one in fifty goes on the stage; the mites +are engaged only at certain seasons; and their harvest-time enables +poor people to obtain many little comforts and necessaries. Further, +there is one curious thing which may not be known to the highly +particular sect--no manager, actor, or actress would use a profane or +coarse word among the children; such an offender would be scouted by +the roughest member of any company and condemned by the very +stage-carpenters. I own that I have sometimes wished that a child here +and there could be warm asleep on a chilly night, especially when the +young creature was perilously suspended from a wire; but that is very +nearly the furthest extent of my pity. So long as the youngsters are +not required to perform dangerous or unnatural feats, they need no +pity. Instead of being inured to brutalities, they are actually taken +away from brutality--for no man or woman would sully their minds. We +have heard it said that the stage-children who return to school after +their spell of pantomime corrupt the others. This is a gross and +stupid falsehood which is calculated to injure a cause that has many +good points. I earnestly sympathise with the well-meaning people who +desire to succour the little ones; but I beseech them not to be led +away by misstatements which are concocted for sensational purposes. So +far from corrupting other children, the young actors invariably act as +a good influence in a school. The experienced observer can almost make +certain of picking out the boys and girls who have had a +stage-training. They like to be smart and cleanly, their deportment +and general manners are improved, and they are almost invariably +superior in intelligence to the ordinary school-trained child. Imagine +Mme. Katti Lanner having a corrupt influence! Imagine those delightful +beings who play "Alice in Wonderland" corrupting anybody or anything! +I have always been struck by the pretty manners of the trained +children--and the advance in refinement is especially noticeable among +those who have been speaking or singing parts. The most pleasing set +of youths that I ever met were the members of a comic-opera troupe. +Some of them, without an approach to freedom of manner, would converse +with good sense on many topics, and their drill had been so extended +as to include a knowledge of polite salutes. Not one of the boys or +girls would have been ill at ease in a drawing-room; and I found their +educational standard quite up to that of any Board school known to me. +These nice little folk were certainly in no wise pallid or distraught; +and, when they danced on the stage, the performance was a beautiful +and delightful romp which suggested no idea of pain. To see the "prima +donna" of the company trundling her hoop on a bright morning was as +pretty a sight as one would care to see. The little lady was neither +forward nor unhealthy, nor anything else that is objectionable--and it +was plain that she enjoyed her life. Is it in the least likely that +any sane manager would ill-treat a little child that was required to +be pleasing? One or two acrobats have been known to be stern with +their apprentices; but the rudest circus-man would not venture to +exhibit a pupil who looked unhappy. The rascally "Arabs" who entrapped +so many boys in years gone by were fiends who met with very +appropriate retribution; but such villains are not common. + +I am always haunted by the argument about late hours--and give it +every weight. As aforesaid, I used sometimes to wish that some wee +creature could only be wrapped in a night-gown and sent to rest. But, +for the benefit of those who cannot well imagine what the horrors of a +city slum are like, let me describe the nightly scene in a typical +city alley. It is cold in the pantomime season; but the folk in that +alley have not much fire. Joe, the costermonger, Bill, the +market-labourer, Tom, the fish-porter, and the rest come home in a +straggling way; and, if they can buy a pennyworth of coal, they boil +the little kettle. Then one of the children runs to the chandler's and +gets a halfpennyworth of tea, a scrap of bread, and perhaps a penny +slice of sausage. The men stint themselves in food and firing; but +they always have a little to spare for gin and beer and tobacco. There +is no light in the evil-smelling room; but there is a place at the +corner of the alley where the gas is burning as cheerily as the foul +wreaths of smoke will permit. The men go out and squat on barrels in +the hideous bar; then they call for some liquor which may be warranted +to take speedy effect; then they smoke, and try to forget. + +What is the little child to do? Go to bed? Why, it has no bed! If it +were earning a little money, its parents might be able to provide a +flock or straw bed with some sort of covering; but the poverty of +these people is so gnawing and dire that very few lodgings contain +anything which could possibly be pawned for twopence. Usually the +child seeks the streets; and in the dim and filthy haze he or she +sports at large with other ragged companions. Then the women--the +match-box makers, trouser-makers, and such like--begin to troop +in--and they gravitate towards the gin-shop. The darkness deepens; the +bleared lamps blare in the dirty mist; the hoarse roar from the +public-house comes forth accompanied by choking wafts of reek; the +abominable tramps move towards the lodging-house and pollute the +polluted air further with the foulness of their language; the drink +mounts into unstable heads; and presently--especially on Saturday +nights--there are hoarse growls as from rough-throated beasts, shrill +shrieks, and a running chorus of indescribable grossness. Drunken men +are quarrelling in the street, drunken women yell and stagger, and the +hideous discord fills the night on all sides. No item of corruption is +spared the children; and the vile hurly-burly ceases only at midnight. +The children will always try to sneak through the swinging doors of +the gin _inferno_ when the cold becomes too severe; and they will +remain crouched like rats until some capricious guest sends them out +with an oath and a kick. There is not one imaginable horror that does +not become familiar to these children of despair--and they sometimes +have a very good chance of seeing murder. When the last hour comes, +and the father and mother return to their dusky den, the child +crouches anywhere on the floor; undressing is not practised; and, if +any sentimental person will first of all go into a common Board school +in a non-theatrical quarter on a wet afternoon, and if he will then +drive on and pass through a few hundreds of the theatrical children, +his "olfactories" will teach him a lesson which may make him think a +good deal. + +Now let me put a question or two in the name of common sense. We must +balance good and evil; and, granting that the theatre has a tendency +to make children light-minded, is it worse than the horror of the +slums and the stench and darkness of the single room where a family +herd together? The youngster who is engaged at the theatre can set off +home at the very latest as soon as the harlequinade is over. Very +well; suppose it is late. Would he or she be early if the night were +spent in the alley? Not at all! Then the child from the theatre is +bathed, fed, taught, clothed nicely, and it gives its parents a little +money which procures food. Some say the extra money goes for extra +gin--and that may happen in some cases; but, at any rate, the child's +earnings usually purchase a share of food as well as of drink; for the +worst blackguard in the world dares not send a starveling to meet the +stage-manager. In sum, then, making every possible allowance for the +good intentions of those who wish to rescue children from the theatre, +I am inclined to fear that they have been hasty. I am not without some +knowledge of the various details of the subject; and I have tried to +give my judgment as fairly as I could--for I also pity and love the +children. + + + + +XV. + +PUBLIC AND PRIVATE MORALITY: PAST AND PRESENT. + + +Certain enterprising persons have contributed of late years to make +English newspapers somewhat unpleasant reading, and mournful men are +given to moaning over the growth of national corruption. So persistent +have the mournful folk been, that many good simple people are in a +state of grievous alarm, for they are persuaded that the nation is +bound towards the pit of Doom. When doleful men and women cry out +concerning abstract evils, it is always best to meet them with hard +facts, and I therefore propose to show that we ought really to be very +grateful for the undoubted advance of the nation toward righteousness. +Hideous blots there are--ugly cankers amid our civilisation--but we +grow better year by year, and the general movement is towards honesty, +helpfulness, goodness, purity. Whenever any croaker begins speaking +about the golden age that is gone, I advise my readers to try a system +of cross-examination. Ask the sorrowful man to fix the precise period +of the golden age, and pin him to direct and definite statements. Was +it when labourers in East Anglia lived like hogs around the houses of +their lords? Was it when the starving and utterly wretched thousands +marched on London under Tyler and John Ball? Was it when the +press-gangs kidnapped good citizens in broad daylight? Was it when a +score of burning ricks might be seen in a night by one observer? Was +it when imbecile rulers had set all the world against us--when the +French threatened Ireland, and the maddened, hunger-bitten sailors +were in wild rebellion, and the Funds were not considered as safe for +investors? The croaker is always securely indefinite, and a strict, +vigorous series of questions reduces him to rage and impotence. + +Now let us go back, say, one hundred and twenty years, and let us see +how the sovereign, the legislators, the aristocracy, and the people +fared then; the facts may perchance be instructive. The King had +resolved to be absolute, and his main energies were devoted to bribing +Parliament. With his own royal hand he was not ashamed to write, +enclosing what he called "gold pills," which were to be used in +corrupting his subjects. He was a most moral, industrious, cleanly man +in private life; yet when the Duke of Grafton, his Prime Minister, +appeared near the royal box of the theatre, accompanied by a woman of +disreputable character, his Majesty made no sign. He was satisfied if +he could keep the mighty Burke, the high-souled Rockingham, the +brilliant Charles James Fox, out of his counsels, and he did not care +at all about the morals or the general behaviour of his Ministers. +About a quarter of a million was spent by the Crown in buying votes +and organising corruption, and King George III. was never ashamed to +appear before his Parliament in the character of an insolvent debtor +when he needed money to sap the morals of his people. A movement in +the direction of purity began even in George III.'s own lifetime; he +was obliged to be cautious, and he ended by coming under the iron +domination of William Pitt. Thus, instead of being remembered as the +dangerous, obstinate, purblind man who made Parliament a sink of +foulness, and who lost America, he is mentioned as a comfortable +simple gentleman of the farmer sort. Before we can half understand the +vast purification that has been wrought, we must study the history of +the reign from 1765 to 1784, and then we may feel happy as we compare +our gentle, beneficent Sovereign with the unscrupulous blunderer who +fought the Colonists and all but lost the Empire. + +Then consider the Ministers who carried out the Sovereign's behest. +There was "Jemmy Twitcher," as Lord Sandwich was called. This man was +so utterly bad, that in later life he never cared to conceal his +infamies, because he knew that his character could not possibly be +worse blackened. Sandwich belonged to the unspeakable Medmenham Abbey +set. The lovely ruin had been bought and renovated by a gang of rakes, +who converted it into an abode of drunkenness and grossness; they +defaced the sacred trees and the grey walls with inscriptions which +the indignation of a purer age has caused to be removed; they carried +on nightly revels which no historian could describe, and in their +wicked buffoonery mocked the Creator with burlesque religious rites. +Such an unholy place would be pulled down by the mob nowadays, and the +gang of debauchees would figure in the police-court; but in those +"good old times" the Prime Minister and the Secretary to the Admiralty +were merry members of a crew that disgraced humanity. Just six weeks +after Lord Sandwich had joined the Medmenham Abbey gang, he put +himself forward for election to the High Stewardship of Cambridge +University. Here was a pretty position! The man had been thus +described by a poet-- + + "Too infamous to have a friend, + Too bad for bad men to commend + Or good to name; beneath whose weight + Earth groans; who hath been spared by fate + Only to show on mercy's plan + How far and long God bears with man"-- + +and this superb piece of truculence was received with applause by all +that was upright and noble in England. This indescribable villain +presented himself as worthy to preside over the place where the flower +of English youth were educated. A pleasing example he offered to young +and ardent souls! Worst of all, he was elected. He adroitly gained the +votes of country clergymen; he begged his friends to solicit the votes +of their private chaplains; he dodged and manoeuvred until he gained +his position. One voter came from a lunatic asylum, another was +brought from the Isle of Man, others were bribed in lavish +fashion--and Sandwich presided over Cambridge. The students rose in a +body and walked out when he came among them; but that mattered little +to the brazen fellow. To complete the ghastly comedy, it happened that +four years later the Chancellorship fell vacant, and the Duke of +Grafton, who was only second to "Jemmy Twitcher" in wickedness, was +chosen for the high office. + +Now I ask plainly, "Can the croakers declare that England was better +under Grafton and 'Jemmy Twitcher' than she now is?" It is nonsense! +The crew of bacchanals and blackguards who then flaunted in high +places would not now be tolerated for a day. I look on our governing +class now,[3] and I may safely declare that not more than one Cabinet +Minister during the past twenty years has been regarded as otherwise +than stainless in character. What is the meaning of this +transformation? It means that good, pure women have gained their +rightful influence, that men have grown purer, and that the elevation +of the general body of society has been reflected in the character of +the men chosen to rule. Vice is all too powerful, and the dark corners +of our cities are awful to see; but the worst of the "fast" men in +modern England are not so bad as were the governors of a mighty empire +when George III. was king. + + [3] 1886. + +If we look at the society that diced and drank and squandered health +and fortune in the times which we mention, we are more than ever +struck with the advance made. It is a literal fact that the +correspondence of the young men mainly refers to drink and gaming, the +correspondence of the middle-aged men to gout. There were few of the +educated classes who reached middle age, and a country squire was +reckoned quite a remarkable person if he could still walk and ride +when he attained to fifty years. The quiet, steady middle-class +certainly lived more temperately; but the intemperance of the +aristocracy was indescribable. The leader of the House of Lords +imbibed until six every morning, was carried to bed, and came down +about two in the afternoon; two noblemen declared that they drank a +gallon and a half of Champagne and Burgundy at one sitting; in some +coffee-houses it was the custom, when the night's drinking ended, for +the company to burn their wigs. Some of Horace Walpole's letters prove +plainly enough that great gentlemen conducted themselves occasionally +very much as wild seamen would do in Shadwell or the Highway. What +would be thought if Lord Salisbury reeled into the House in a totally +drunken condition? The imagination cannot conceive the situation, and +the fact that the very thought is laughable shows how much we have +improved in essentials. In bygone days, a man who became a Minister +proceeded to secure his own fortune; then he provided for all his +relatives, his hangers-on, his very jockeys and footmen. One lord held +eight sinecure offices, and was besides colonel of two regiments. A +Chancellor of the Exchequer cleared four hundred thousand on a new +loan, and the bulk of this large sum remained in his own pocket, for +he had but few associates to bribe. When patrols were set to guard the +Treasury at night, an epigram ran-- + + "From the night till the morning 'tis true all is right; + But who will secure it from morning till night?" + +There was a perfect carnival of robbery and corruption, and the people +paid for all. Money gathered by public corruption was squandered in +private debauchery, while a sullen and helpless nation looked on. +Think of the change! A Minister now toils during seventeen hours per +day, and receives less than a successful barrister. He must give up +all the ordinary pleasures of life; and, in recompense for the +sacrifice, he can claim but little patronage. By most of the men in +office the work is undertaken on purely patriotic grounds; so that a +duke with a quarter of a million per year is content to labour like an +attorney's clerk. + +If we think about the ladies of the old days, we are more than ever +driven to reflection. It is impossible to imagine a more insensate +collection of gamblers than the women of Horace Walpole's society. +Well-bred harpies won and lost fortunes, and the vice became a raging +pest. A young politician could not further his own prospects better +than by letting some high-born dame win his money; if the youth won +the lady's money, then a discreet forgetfulness of the debt was +profitable to him. The rattle of dice and the shuffle of cards sounded +wherever two or three fashionable persons were gathered together; men +and women quarrelled, and society became a mere jumble of people who +suspected and hated and thought to rob each other. It is horrible, +even at this distance of time, to think of those rapacious beings who +forgot literature, art, friendship, and family affection for the sake +of high play. One weary, witty debauchee said, "Play wastes time, +health, money, and friendship;" yet he went on pitting his skill +against that of unsexed women and polished rogues. + +The morality of the fair gamblers was more than loose. It was taken +for granted in the whole set that every female member of it must +inevitably be divorced, if the catastrophe had not occurred already; +and one man asked Walpole, "Who's your proctor?" just as he would have +asked, "Who's your tailor?" An unspeakable society--a hollow, +heartless, callous, wicked brood. Compare that crew of furious +money-grabbers with our modern gentlemen and ladies! We have our +faults--crime and vice flourish; but, from the Court down to the +simplest middle-class society in our provincial towns, the spread of +seemliness and purity is distinctly marked. Some insatiable grumblers +will have it that our girls and women are deteriorating, and we are +informed that the taste for objectionable literature is keener than it +used to be. It is a distinct libel. No one save a historian would now +read the corrupting works of Mrs. Aphra Behn; and yet it is a fact +that those novels were read aloud among companies of ladies. A man +winces now if he is obliged to turn to them; the girls in the "good +old times" heard them with never a blush. Wherever we turn we find the +same steady advance. Can any creature be more dainty, more sweet, more +pure, than the ordinary English girl of our day? Will any one bring +evidence to show that the girls of the last century, or of any other, +were superior to our own maidens? No evidence has been produced from +literature, from journals, from family correspondence, and I am pretty +certain that no evidence exists. Practically speaking, the complaints +of the decline of morality are merely uttered as a mode of showing the +talker's own superiority. + + + + +XVI. + +"RAISING THE LEVEL OF AMUSEMENTS." + + +It is really most kind on the part of certain good people to +reorganise the amusements of the people; but, as each reorganiser +fancies himself to be the only man who has the right notion, it +follows that matters are becoming more and more complicated. For +example, to begin with literature, a simple person who has no taste +for profundities likes to read the old sort of stories about love's +pretty fever; the simple person wants to hear about the trials and +crosses of true lovers, the defeat of villains--to enjoy the kindly +finish where faith and virtue are rewarded, and where the unambitious +imagination may picture the coming of a long life of homely toil and +homely pleasure. Perhaps the simple personage has a taste for dukes--I +know of one young person aged thirteen who will not write a romance of +her own without putting her hero at the very summit of the peerage--or +wicked baronets, or marble halls. These tastes are by no means +confined to women; sailors in far-away seas most persistently beguile +their scanty leisure by studying tales of sentiment, and soldiers are, +if possible, more eager than seamen for that sort of reading. The +righteous organiser comes on the scene, and says, "We must not let +these poor souls fritter away any portion of their lives on +frivolities. Let us give them less of light literature and more of the +serious work which may lead them to strive toward higher things." The +aggressively righteous individual has a most eccentric notion of what +constitutes "light" literature; he never thinks that Shakspere is +decidedly "light," and I rather fancy that he would regard +Aristophanes as heavy. If one were to suggest, on his proposing to +place the Irving Shakspere on the shelves of a free library, that the +poet is often foolish, often a buffoon of a low type, often a mere +quibbler, and often ribald, he might perhaps have a fit, or he might +inquire if the speaker were mad--assuredly he would do something +impressive; but he would not scruple to deliver an oration of the +severest type if some sweet and innocent story of love and tenderness +and old-fashioned sentiment were proposed. As for the lady who +dislikes "light" literature, she is a subject for laughter among the +gods. To see such an one present a sensible workman with a pamphlet +entitled "Who Paid for the Mangle?--or, Maria's Pennies," is to know +what overpowering joy means. Yet the severe and strait-laced censors +are not perhaps so much of a nuisance as the sternly-cultured and +emotional persons who "yearn" a great deal. The "yearnest" man or +woman always has an ideal which is usually the vaguest thing in the +cloudland of metaphysics. I fancy it means that one must always be +hankering after something which one has not and keeping a look of +sorrow when one's hankering is fruitless. The feeling of pity with +which a "yearnest" one regards somebody who cares only for pleasant +and simple or pathetic books is very creditable; but it weighs on the +average human being. Why on earth should a girl leave the tenderness +of "The Mill on the Floss" and rise to "Daniel Deronda's" elevated but +barren and abhorrent level? There are people capable of advising girls +to read such a literary production as "Robert Elsmere"; and this +advice reveals a capacity for cruelty worthy of an inquisitor. Then we +are bidden to leave the unpolished utterances of frank love and +jealousy and fear and anger in order that we may enjoy the peculiar +works of art which have come from America of late. In these +enthralling fictions all the characters are so exceedingly refined +that they can talk only by hints, and sometimes the hints are very +long. But the explanations of the reasons for giving the said hints +are still longer; and, when once the author starts off to tell why +Crespigny Conyers of Conyers Magna, England, stumbled against the +music-stool prepared for the reception of Selina Fogg, Bones Co., +Mass., one never knows whether the fifth, the twelfth, or the fortieth +page of the explanation will bring him up. There is no doubt but that +these things are refined in their way. The British peer and the +beautiful American girl hint away freely through three volumes; and it +is understood that they either go through the practical ceremony of +getting married at the finish, or decline into the most +delicately-finished melancholy that resignation, or more properly, +renunciation can produce. Yet the atmosphere in which they dwell is +sickly to the sound soul. It is as if one were placed in an orchid +house full of dainty and rare plants, and kept there until the quiet +air and the light scents overpowered every faculty. In all the doings +of these superfine Americans and Frenchmen and Britons and Italians +there is something almost inhuman; the record of a strong speech, a +blow, a kiss would be a relief, and one young and unorthodox person +has been known to express an opinion to the effect that a naughty word +would be quite luxurious. The lovers whom we love kiss when they meet +or part, they talk plainly--unless the girls play the natural and +delightful trick of being coy--and they behave in a manner which human +beings understand. Supposing that the duke uses a language which +ordinary dukes do not affect save in moments of extreme emotion, it is +not tiresome, and, at the worst, it satisfies a convention which has +not done very much harm. Now on what logical ground can we expect +people who were nourished on a literature which is at all events +hearty even when it chances to be stupid--on what grounds can the +organisers of improvement expect an English man or woman to take a +sudden fancy to the diaphanous ghosts of the new American fiction? I +dislike out-of-the-way words, and so perhaps, instead of "diaphanous +ghosts," I had better say "transparent wraiths," or "marionettes of +superfine manufacture," or anything the reader likes that implies +frailty and want of human resemblance. It all comes to the same thing; +the individuals who recommend a change of literature as they might +recommend a change of air do not know the constitutions of the +patients for whom they prescribe. It has occurred to me that a +delightful comedy scene might be witnessed if one of the badgered folk +who are to be "raised" were to say on a sudden, "In the name of +goodness, how do you know that my literature is not better than yours? +Why should I not raise you? When you tell me that these nicely-dressed +ladies and gentlemen, who only half say anything they want to say and +who never half do anything, are polished and delightful, and so on, I +grant that they are so to you, and I do not try to upset your +judgment. But your judgment and my taste are two very different +things; and, when I use my taste, I find your heroes and heroines very +consummate bores; so I shall keep to my own old favourites." Who could +blame the person who uttered those very awkward protests? The question +to me is--Who need most to be dealt with--those who are asked to learn +some new thing, or those who have learned the new thing and show signs +that they would be better if they could forget it? I should not have +much hesitation in giving an answer. + +Then, as to public amusements, we have to look quite as closely and +distrustfully at the action of the reformers as we have at the action +of the kind gentlefolk who are going to give us "Daniel Deronda" and +the highly entertaining works of Mr. William Deans Howells in place of +the dear welcome stories that pass away the long hours. Let it be +understood that I do not wish to say one word likely to be construed +into a jeer at real culture; but I must, as a matter of mercy, say +something in defence of those who cannot understand or win emotions +from such things as classical music or the "advanced" drama. Pray, in +pity's name, what is to be said against the commonplace man who hears +an accomplished musician play Beethoven, Bach, or Chopin in his--the +commonplace one's--drawing-room, and who says in agony, "Very fine! +Very deep! Very profound--profound indeed, sir! Full of breadth and +symmetry and that sort of thing! Now do you think we might vary that +noble masterpiece with a waltz?" Can we blame the poor fellow? Wagner +represents a noise to him, and the awful scorn and despair of the +first movement in the "Moonlight Sonata" only lead him to say, "Heavy +play with that left hand. Can't he go faster over the treble, or +whatever they call it?" He wants intelligible musical ideas, and we +have no right to begin "level-raising" with the unhappy and +remonstrant man. The music halls in London are now under strict +supervision, and some of them used to need it very much in days gone +by. Personally I should suppress the male comic singer who tries to +win a laugh from degraded listeners by unseemly means, and I should +not scruple to draft a short Act ensuring imprisonment for such as he; +but, so long as the entertainment remains inoffensive to the general +good sense of the community, we need not weep greatly if it is +sometimes just a trifle stupid. No one who does not know the inner +life of the working-classes can imagine how restricted are their +interests. Moreover, I shall venture on making a somewhat startling +statement which may surprise those who look on the surface of things +as indicated in the newspapers. The working-classes of a certain grade +cherish a certain convention regarding themselves, but they do not +understand their own set at all. If they heard a real mechanic or +labourer spouting sentiment in the shop or the club, they would +silence him very summarily; but the stage working-man, the stage +hawker, the stage tinker may utter any claptrap that he likes, and the +audience try to believe that they might possibly have been able to +talk in the same way but for circumstances. It is not at any time +pleasant to see people going on under a delusion; but, supposing the +delusion is no worse than that of the man who thinks himself handsome +or witty or fascinating while he is really plain or silly or a bore, +what can the mistake matter to anybody? We smile at the little vanity, +and perhaps pride ourselves a little on our own remarkable +superiority, and there the business may very well end. The men of the +music hall live, as I have said, entirely in a dull convention; and, +if a set of thorough artists were to portray them exactly, no one +would be more surprised than the folk whose portraits were taken. The +gentlemen who are resolved to regenerate the music-hall stage persist +in not considering the audience; and yet, when all is said and done, +the poor stupid audience should be considered a little. If we played +Browning's "Strafford" for them, how much would they be "raised"? They +would not laugh, they would not yawn; they would be stupefied, and a +trifle insulted. Give them a good silly swinging chorus about some +subject connected with the tender affections, and let the refrain run +to a waltz rhythm or to a striking drawl, and they are satisfied in +mind and rejoice exceedingly. The finer class of people in the +East-end of London seem to enjoy the very noblest and even the most +abstruse of sacred music at the Sunday concerts; but it will be long +before the music-hall audiences are educated up even to the standard +of those crowds who come off the Whitechapel pavements to hear Handel. +We cannot hurry them: why try? Their lives are very hard, and, when +the brief gleam comes on the evening of evenings in the week, we +should be content with ensuring them decency, safety, order, and let +them enjoy their own entertainment in their own way. A thoroughly +prosaic and logical preacher might say to those poor souls with +perfect truth, "Why do you waste time in coming here to see things +which are done much better in the streets? You roar and cheer and +stamp when you see a real cab-horse come across from the wings, and +yet in an hour you might watch a hundred cabs pass you in the street +and you would not cheer the least bit. You hear a costermonger on the +stage say, 'Give me my 'umble fireside, and let my good old missus +'and me my cup o' tea and my 'ard-earned bit o' bread, and all the +dooks and lords in Hengland ain't nothin' to me!'--you hear that, and +you know quite well that no costermonger on this goodly earth ever +talked in that way, and still you cheer. You like only what is unreal, +and, when you are shown a character which is supposed in some +mysterious way to resemble you, you are more than delighted, and you +applaud a thing which is either a silly caricature or an utterly +foolish libel." The poor and lowly personage thus hailed with cutting +denunciation and logic might say, "Please mind your own business. Do +you pay my sixpence for the gallery? No; I find it myself, and I come +to have my bit of fun with my own money, in my own place, at my own +price. I have enough of workshops and streets and what you call real +things; so, when I come out to the play, I want them all unreal, and +as unreal as possible. Monday morning's time enough to go back to +reality." As often as ever fussy reformers try to do more than ensure +propriety in theatres, so often will they be beaten; and I am quite +sure that, if any attempt is made to go too far, we may have on any +day a repetition of the O.P. riots, which almost ended in the wrecking +of the patent playhouses. Let us be treated like grown beings, and not +as if we were still in short baby-frocks. Men resent many things, but +they resent being made ridiculous more than all. The committees before +which many theatrical managers were obliged to appear a few years +since have done good in a few instances; but they have often played +the most ridiculous pranks, and they have roused grave fears in minds +unused to know fear of any kind. The peculiar prying questions, the +successful attempts made to interfere with concerns which should not +on any account be public property, the disposition to treat the +people, whose mature wisdom is proclaimed from all political +platforms, as little children, all combine to make the aspect of the +general question not a little alarming. Would it not be better then, +in sum, to abstain from raising levels to such a mighty extent, and to +strive after improving all the amusements on a less heroic scale? + + + + +XVII. + +A LITTLE SERMON ON FAILURES. + + +If we study the history of men with patience, it becomes evident that +no great work has ever been done in the world save by those who have +met with bitter rebuffs and severe trials at the beginning of their +career. It seems as though the ruling powers imposed an ordeal on +every human being, in order to single out the strong and the worthy +from the cowardly and worthless. The weakling who meets with trouble +uplifts his voice in complaint and ceases to struggle against +obstacles; the strong man or woman remains silent and strives on +indomitably until success is achieved. It is strange to see how many +complaining weaklings are living around us at this day, and how +querulous and unjust are the outcries addressed to Fate, Fortune, and +Providence. We are the heirs of the ages; we know all about the brave +souls that suffered and strove and conquered in days gone by, and yet +many who possess this knowledge, and who have the gift of expression +at its highest, spend their time in one long tiresome whimper. Half +the poetry of our time is rhythmic complaint; young men who have +hardly had time to look round on the splendid panorama of life profess +to crave for death, and young women who should be thinking only of +work and love and brightness prefer to sink into languor. There is no +curing a poet when once he takes to being mournful, for he hugs his +own woe with positive pleasure, and all his musical pathos is simply +self-pity. + +When Napoleon said, "You must not fear Death, my lads. Defy him, and +you drive him into the enemy's ranks!" he uttered a truth which +applies in the moral world as on the battle-field. The sudden panic +which causes battalions of troops to hesitate and break up in +confusion is paralleled by the numbing despair which seems to seize on +the forces of the soul at times. Brave men gaze calmly on the trouble +and think within themselves, "Now is the hour of trial; it is needful +to be strong and audacious;" weak men drop into hopeless lassitude, +and the few who happen to be foolish as well as weak rid themselves of +life. I dare say that hardly one of those who read these lines has +escaped that one awful moment when effort appears vain, when life is +one long ache, and when Time is a creeping horror that seems to lag as +if to torture the suffering heart. We need only turn to the vivid +chapter of modern life to see the utter folly of "giving in." Let us +look at the life-history of a statesman who died some years ago in our +country, after wielding supreme power and earning the homage of +millions. When young Benjamin D'Israeli first entered society in +London, he found that the proud aristocrats looked askance at him. He +came of a despised race, he had no fortune, his modes of acting and +speaking were strange to the cold, self-contained Northerners among +whom he cast his lot, and his chances looked far from promising. He +waited and worked, but all things seemed to go wrong with him; he +published a poem which was laughed at all over the country; he strove +to enter Parliament, and failed again and again; middle age crept on +him, and the shadows of failure seemed to compass him round. In one +terrible passage which he wrote in a flippant novel called "The Young +Duke" he speaks about the woful fate of a man who feels himself full +of strength and ability, and who is nevertheless compelled to live in +obscurity. The bitter sadness of this startling page catches the +reader by the throat, for it is a sudden revelation of a strong man's +agony. At last the toiler obtained his chance, and rose to make his +first speech in the House of Commons. He was then long past thirty +years of age; but he had the exuberance and daring of a boy. All the +best judges in the Commons admired the opening of the oration; but the +coarser members were stimulated to laughter by the speaker's strange +appearance. D'Israeli had dressed himself in utter defiance of all +conventions; he wore a dark green coat which came closely up to his +chin, a gaudy vest festooned with chains, and glittering rings. His +ringlets were combed in a heavy mass over his right shoulder; and it +is said that he looked like some strange actor. The noise grew as he +went on; his finest periods were lost amid howls of derision, and at +last he raised his arms above his head, and shouted, "I sit down now; +but the time will come when you will hear me!" A few good men consoled +him; but most of his friends advised him to get away out of the +country that his great failure might be forgotten. Now here was cause +for despair in all conscience; the brilliant man had failed +disastrously in the very assembly which he had sworn to master, and +the sound of mockery pursued him everywhere. His hopes seemed +blighted; his future was dim, he was desperately and dangerously in +debt, and he had broken down more completely than any speaker within +living memory. Take heart, all sufferers, when you hear what follows. +For eleven long years the gallant orator steadily endeavoured to +repair his early failure; he spoke frequently, asserted himself +without caring for the jeers of his enemies, and finally he won the +leadership of the House by dint of perseverance, tact, and intellect. +We cannot tell how often his heart sank within him during those weary +years; we know nothing of his forebodings; we only know that outwardly +he always appeared alert, vigorous, strenuously hopeful. At last his +name was known all over the world, and, after his death, a traveller +who rode across Asia Minor was again and again questioned by the wild +nomads--"Is your great Sheikh dead?" they asked. The rumour of our +statesman's power had traversed the earth. Men of all parties +acknowledge the indomitable courage of this man who refused to resign +the struggle even when the very Fates seemed to have decreed his ruin. + +Take a man of another stamp, and observe how he met the first blows of +Fortune. Thomas Carlyle had dwelt on a lonely moorland for six years. +He came to London and employed himself with feverish energy on a book +which he thought would win him bread, even if it did not gain him +fame. Writing was painful to him, and he never set down a sentence +without severe labour. With infinite pains he sought out the history +of the French Revolution and obtained a clear picture of that +tremendous event. Piece by piece he put his first volume together and +satisfied himself that he had done something which would live. He +handed his precious manuscript to Stuart Mill, and Mill's servant lit +the fire with it. Carlyle had exhausted his means, and his great work +was really his only capital. Like all men who write at high pressure, +he was unable to recall anything that he had once set down, and, so +far as his priceless volume went, his mind was a blank. Years of toil +were thrown away; time was fleeting, and the world was careless of the +matchless historian. The first news of his loss stunned him, and, had +he been a weak man, he would have collapsed under the blow. He saw +nothing but bitter poverty for himself and his wife, and he had some +thoughts of betaking himself to the Far West; but he conquered his +weakness, forgot his despair in labour, and doggedly re-wrote the +masterpiece which raised him to instant fame and caused him to be +regarded as one of the first men in Britain. In the whole wide history +of human trials I cannot recall a more shining instance of fortitude +and triumphant victory over obstacles. Let those who are cast down by +some petty trouble think of the lonely, poverty-stricken student +bending himself to his task after the very light of his life had been +dimmed for a while. + +There is nothing like an array of instances for driving home an +argument, so I mention the case of a man about whom much debate goes +on even to this day. Napoleon starved in the streets of Paris; one by +one he sold his books to buy bread; he was without light or fire on +nights of iron frost, and his clothing was too scanty to keep out the +cold. He arrived at that pass which induces some men to end all their +woes by one swift plunge into the river; but he was not of the +despairful stamp, and he stood his term of misery bravely until the +light came for him. Leave his splendid, chequered career of glory and +crime out of reckoning, and remember only that he became emperor +because he had courage to endure starvation; that lesson at least from +his career can harm no one. Choose the example of a woman, for +variety's sake. George Eliot was quite content to scrub furniture, +make cheese and butter, and sweep carpets until she arrived at ripe +womanhood. She felt her own extraordinary power; but she never repined +at the prospect of spending her life in what is lightly called +domestic drudgery. The Shining Ones oftenest walk in lowly places and +utter no sound of mourning. She was nearing middle age before she had +an opportunity of gaining that astonishing erudition which amazed +professed students, and, had she not chanced to meet Mr. Spencer, our +greatest philosopher, she would have lived and died unknown. She never +questioned the decrees of the Power that rules us all, and, when she +suddenly took her place as one of the first living novelists, she +accepted her fame and her wealth humbly and simply. Till her last day +she remembered her bitter years of frustration and failure, and the +meanest of mortals had a share of her holy sympathy; she gained her +unexampled conquest by resolutely treading down despair, and her brave +story should cheer the many girls who find life bleak and joyless. +George Eliot was prepared to bear the worst that could befall her, and +it was her frank and gentle acceptance of the facts of life that +brought her joy in the end. We must also remember such people as +Arkwright, Stephenson, Thomas Edwards the naturalist, and Heine the +poet. Arkwright saw his best machinery smashed again and again; but +his bull-dog courage brought him through his trouble, and he +surmounted opposition that would have driven a weakling to exile and +death. Stephenson feared that he would never conquer the great morass +at Chat Moss, and he knew that, if he failed, his reputation would +perish. He never allowed himself to show a tremor, and he won. Poor +Edwards toiled on, in spite of hunger, poverty, and chill despair; he +received one knock-down blow after another with cheery gallantry, and +old age had clutched him before his relief from grinding penury came; +but nothing could daunt him, and he is now secure. Heine lay for seven +years in his "mattress grave;" he was torn from head to foot by the +pangs of neuralgia; one of his eyes was closed, and at times the lid +of the other had to be raised in order that he might see those who +visited him. Let those who have ever felt the aching of a single tooth +imagine what it must have been to suffer the same kind of pain over +the whole body. Surely this poor tortured wretch might have been +pardoned had he esteemed his life a failure! His spirit never flagged, +and he wrote the brightest, lightest mockeries that ever were framed +by the wit of man; his poems will be the delight of Europe for years +to come, and his memory can no more perish than that of Shakspere. + +Enough of examples; the main fact is that to men and women who refuse +to accept failure all life is open, and there is something to hope for +even up to the verge of the grave. When the sullen storm-cloud of +misfortune lowers and life seems dim and dreary, that is the hour to +summon up courage, and to look persistently beyond the bounds of the +mournful present. Why should we uplift our voices in pettish +questioning? The blows that cut most cruelly are meant for our better +discipline, and, if we steel every nerve against the onset of despair, +the battle is half won even before we put forth a conscious effort. +There never yet was a misfortune or an array of misfortunes, there +never was an entanglement wound by malign chance from which a man +could not escape by dint of his own unaided energy. By all means let +us pity those who are sore beset amid the keen sorrows that haunt the +world, look with tenderness on their pain, soothe them in their +perplexities; but, before all things, incite them to struggle against +the numbing influence of despondency. The early failures are the raw +material of the finest successes; and the general who loses a battle, +the mechanic who fails to find work, the writer who pines for the +approach of tardy fame, the forsaken lover who looks out on a dark +universe, and the servant who meets only censure and coldness, despite +her attempts to fulfil her duty, all come under the same law. If they +consent to drift away into the limbo of failures, they have only to +resign themselves, and their existence will soon end in futility and +disaster; but, if they refuse to cringe under the lash of +circumstances, if they toil on as though a bright goal were +immediately before them, the result is almost assured; and, even if +they do succumb, they have the blessed knowledge that they have failed +gallantly. Half the misfortunes which crush the children of men into +insignificance are more or less magnified by imagination, and the +swollen bulk of trouble dwindles before an effort of the human will. +Read over the dismal record of a year's suicides, and you will find +that in nine cases out of ten the causes which lead unhappy men and +women to quench their own light of life are absolutely trivial to the +sane and steadfast soul. Let those who are heavy of heart when +ill-fortune seems to have mastered them remember that our Master is +before all things just. He lays no burden that ought not to be borne +on any one of His children, and those who give way to despair are +guilty of sheer impiety. The same Power that sends the affliction +gives also the capability of endurance, and, if we refuse to exert +that capability, we are sinful. When once the first inclination toward +weakness and doubt is overcome, every effort becomes easier, and the +sense of strength waxes keener day by day. Who are the most serene and +sympathetic of all people that even the most obscure among us meet? +The men and women who have come through the Valley of the Shadow of +Tribulation. By a benign ordinance which is uniform in action, it so +falls out that the conquerors derive enhanced pleasure from the memory +of difficulties beaten down and sorrows vanquished. Where then is the +use of craven shrinking? Let us rather welcome our early failures as +we would welcome the health-giving rigour of some stern physician. +Think of the heroes and heroines who have conquered, and think +joyfully also of those who have wrought out their strenuous day in +seeming failure. There are four lines of poetry which every +English-speaking man and woman should learn by heart, and I shall +close this address with them. They were written on the memorial stone +of certain Italian martyrs-- + + "Of all Time's words, this is the noblest one + That ever spoke to souls and left them blest; + Gladly we would have rested had we won + Freedom. We have lost, and very gladly rest." + + + + +XVIII. + +"VANITY OF VANITIES." + + +Those who have leisure to explore the history of the past, to peer +into the dark backward and abysm of Time, must of necessity become +smitten with a kind of sad and kindly cynicism. When one has travelled +over a wide tract of history, and when, above all, he has mused much +on the minor matters which dignified historians neglect, he feels much +inclined to say to those whom he sees struggling vainly after what +they call fame, "Why are you striving thus to make your voice heard +amid the derisive silence of eternity? You are fretting and frowning, +with your eyes fixed on your own petty fortunes, while all the +gigantic ages mock you. Day by day you give pain to your own mind and +body; you hope against hope; you trust to be remembered, and you fancy +that you may perchance hear what men will say of you when you are +gone. All in vain. Be satisfied with the love of those about you; if +you can get but a dog to love you during your little life, cherish +that portion of affection. Work in your own petty sphere strenuously, +bravely, but without thought of what men may say of you. Perhaps you +are agonised by the thought of powers that are hidden in you--powers +that may never be known while you live. What matters it? So long as +you have the love of a faithful few among those dear to you, all the +fame that the earth can give counts for nothing. Take that which is +near to you, and value as naught the praises of a vague monstrous +world through which you pass as a shadow. Look at that squirrel who +twirls and twirls in his cage. He wears his heart out in his ceaseless +efforts at progression, and all the while his mocking prison whirls +under him without letting him progress one inch. How much happier he +would be if he stayed in his hutch and enjoyed his nuts! You are like +the restless squirrel; you make a great show of movement and some +noise, but you do not get forward at all. Rest quietly when your +necessary labour is done, and be sure that more than half the things +men struggle for and fail to attain would not be worth the having even +if the strugglers succeeded. Do not waste one moment; do not neglect +one duty, for a duty lost is the deadliest loss of all; snatch every +rational pleasure that comes within your reach; earn all the love you +can, for that is the most precious of all possessions, and leave the +search for fame to those who are petty and vain." + +Such a cold and chilling speech would be a very good medicine for +uneasy vanity, but the best medicine of all is the contemplation of +the history of men who have flourished and loomed large before their +fellows, and who now have sunk into the night. How many mighty +warriors have made the earth tremble, filling the mouths of men with +words of fear or praise! They have passed away, and the only record of +their lives is a chance carving on a stone, a brief line written by +some curt historian. The glass of the years was brittle wherein they +gazed for a span; the glass is broken and all is gone. In the wastes +of Asia we find mighty ruins that even now are like symbols of +power--vast walls that impose on the imagination by their bulk, +enormous statues, temples that seem to mock at time and destruction. +The men who built those structures must have had supreme confidence in +themselves, they must have possessed incalculable resources, they must +have been masters of their world. Where are they now? What were their +names? They have sunk like a spent flame, and we have not even the +mark on a stone to tell us how they lived or loved or struggled. Far +in that moaning desert lie the remains of a city so great that even +the men who know the greatest of modern cities can hardly conceive the +original appearance and dimensions of the tremendous pile. Travellers +from Europe and America go there and stand speechless before works +that dwarf all the efforts of modern men. The woman who ruled in that +strong city was an imposing figure in her time, but she died in a +petty Roman villa as an exile, and Palmyra, after her departure, soon +perished from off the face of the earth. One pathetic little record +enables us to guess what became of the population over whom the queen +Zenobia ruled. A stone was dug up on the northern border of England, +and the inscription puzzled all the antiquarians until an Oriental +scholar found that the words were Syriac. "Barates of Palmyra erects +this stone to the memory of his wife, the Catavallaunian woman who +died aged thirty-three." That is a rude translation. Poor Barates was +brought to Britain, married a Norfolk woman of the British race, and +spent his life on the wild frontier. So the powerful queen passed away +as a prisoner, her subjects were scattered over the earth, and her +city, which was once renowned, is now haunted by lizard and antelope. +Alas for fame! Alas for the stability of earthly things! The +conquerors of Zenobia fared but little better. How strong must those +emperors have been whose very name kept the world in awe! If a man +were proscribed by Rome, he was as good as dead; no fastness could +hide him, no place in the known world could give him refuge, and his +fate was regarded as so inevitable that no one was foolhardy enough to +try at staving off the evil day. How coolly and contemptuously the +lordly proconsuls and magistrates regarded the early Christians. Pliny +did not so much as deign to notice their existence, and Pontius +Pilate, who had to deal with the first twelve, seems to have looked +upon them as mere pestilent malefactors who created a disturbance. For +many years those scornful Roman lords mocked the new sectarians and +refused to take them seriously. One scoffing magistrate asked the +Christians who came before him why they gave him the trouble to punish +them. Were there no ropes and precipices handy, he asked, for those +who wished to commit suicide? Those Romans had great names in their +day--names as great as the names of Ellenborough and Wellesley and +Gordon and Dalhousie and Bartle Frere, yet one would be puzzled to +write down a list of six of the omnipotent sub-emperors. They fought, +they made laws, they ruled empires, they fancied themselves only a +little less than the gods, and now not a man outside the circle of a +dozen scholars knows or cares anything about them. The wise lawgivers, +the dread administrators, the unconquerable soldiers have gone with +the snows, and their very names seem to have been writ in water. + +If we come nearer our own time, we find it partly droll, partly +pathetic to see how the bubble reputations have been pricked one by +one. "Who now reads Bolingbroke?" asked Burke. Yes--who? The brilliant +many-sided man who once held the fortunes of the empire in his hand, +the specious philosopher, the unequalled orator is forgotten. How +large he loomed while his career lasted! He was one of the men who +ruled great England, and now he is away in the dark, and his books rot +in the recesses of dusty libraries. Where is the great Mr. Hayley? He +was arbiter of taste in literature; he thought himself a very much +greater man than Blake, and an admiring public bowed down to him. +Probably few living men have ever read a poem of Hayley's, and +certainly we cannot advise anybody to try unless his nerve is good. Go +a little farther back, and consider the fate of the distinguished +literary persons who were famous during the period which affected +writers call the Augustan era of our literature. The great poet who +wrote-- + + "Behold three thousand gentlemen at least, + Each safely mounted on his capering beast"-- + +what has become of that bard's inspired productions? They have gone +the way of Donne and Cowley and Waller and Denham, and nobody cares +very much. Take even the great Cham of literature, the good Johnson. +His fame is undying, but his works would not have saved his reputation +in vigour during so many generations. To all intents and purposes his +books are dead; the laboured writings which he turned out during his +years of starvation are not looked into, and our most eminent modern +novelist declares that, if he were snowed up in a remote inn with +"Bradshaw's Railway Guide" and the "Rambler" as the only books within +reach, he would assuredly not read the "Rambler." Perhaps hardly one +hundred students know how admirably good Johnson's preface to +Shakspere really is, and the "Lives of the Poets" are read only in +fragmentary fashion. Strange, is it not, that the man who made his +reputation by literature, the man who dominated the literary world of +his time with absolute sovereignty, should be saved from sinking out +of human memory only by means of the record of his lighter talk which +was kept by his faithful henchman? But for the wise pertinacity of +poor Boswell, the giant would have been forgotten even by the +generation which immediately followed him. His gallant and strenuous +efforts to gain fame really failed; his chance gossip and the amusing +tale of his eccentricities kept his name alive. Surely the irony of +fate was never better shown. Even this Titan would have had only a +bubble reputation but for the lucky accident which brought that +obscure Scotch laird to London. + +Most piteous is the story of the poor souls who have sought to achieve +their share of immortality by literature. Go to our noble Museum and +look at the appalling expanse of books piled up yard upon yard to the +ceiling of the immense dome. Tons upon tons--Pelion on Ossa--of +literature meet the eye and stun the imagination. Every book was +wrought out by eager labour of some hopeful mortal; joy, anguish, +despair, mad ambition, placid assurance, wild conceit, proud courage +once possessed the breasts of those myriad writers, according to their +several dispositions. The piles rest in stately silence, and the +reputations of the authors are entombed. + +As for the fighters who sought the bubble reputation even at the +cannon's mouth, who recks of their fierce struggles, their bitter +wounds, their brief success? Who knows the leaders of the superb host +that poured like a torrent from Torres Vedras to the Pyrenees, and +smote Napoleon to the earth? Who can name the leaders of the doomed +host that crossed the Beresina, and left their bones under the Russian +snows? High of heart the soldiers were when they set out on their wild +pilgrimage under their terrible leader, but soon they were lying by +thousands on the red field of Borodino, and the sound of their moaning +filled the night like the calling of some mighty ocean. And now they +are utterly gone, and the reputation for which they strove avails +nothing; they are mixed in the dim twilight story of old unhappy +far-off things and battles long ago. + +Critics say that our modern poetry is all sad; and so it is, save when +the dainty muse of Mr. Austin Dobson smiles upon us. The reason is not +far to seek--we know so much, and the sense of the vanity of human +effort is more keenly impressed upon us than ever it was on men of +more careless and more ignorant ages. We see what toys men set store +by, we see what shadows we are and what shadows we pursue, so there is +no wonder that we are mournful. The sweetest of our poets, the most +humorous of our many writers cannot keep the thought of death and +futility away. His loveliest lyric begins-- + + "Oh, fair maids Maying + In gardens green, + Through deep dells straying, + What end hath been. + + Two Mays between + Of the flow'rs that shone + And your own sweet queen? + They are dead and gone." + +There is the burden--"dead and gone." Another singer chants to us +thus-- + + "Merely a round of shadow shows + Shadow shapes that are born to die + Like a light that sinks, like a wind that goes, + Vanishing on to the By-and-by. + + Life, sweet life, as she flutters nigh, + 'Minishing, failing night and day, + Cries with a loud and bitter cry, + 'Ev'rything passes, passes away.' + + * * * * * + + Who has lived as long as he chose? + Who so confident as to defy + Time, the fellest of mortals' foes? + Joints in his armour who can spy? + Where's the foot will nor flinch nor fly? + Where's the heart that aspires the fray? + His battle wager 'tis vain to try-- + Ev'rything passes, passes away." + +The age is diseased. Why should men be mournful because what they call +their aspirations--precious aspirations--are frustrated? They seek the +bubble reputation, and they whimper when the bubble is burst; but how +much better would it be to cleave to lowly duties, to do the thing +that lies next to hand, to accept cheerfully the bounteous harvest of +joys vouchsafed to the humble? Since we all end alike--since the +warrior, the statesman, the poet alike leave no name on earth save in +the case of the few Titans--what use is there in fretting ourselves +into green-sickness simply because we cannot quite get our own way? To +the wise man every moment of life may be made fruitful of rich +pleasure, and the pleasure can be bought without heartache, without +struggling painfully, without risking envy and uncharitableness. +Better the immediate love of children and of friends than the hazy +respect of generations that must assuredly forget us soon, no matter +how prominent we may seem to be for a time. I have read a sermon to my +readers, but the sermon is not doleful; it is merely hard truth. Life +may be a supreme ironic procession, with laughter of gods in the +background, but at any rate much may be made of it by those who refuse +to seek the bubble reputation. + + + + +XIX. + +GAMBLERS. + + +The great English carnival of gamblers is over for a month or two; the +bookmakers have retired to winter quarters after having waxed fat +during the year on the money risked by arrant simpletons. The +bookmaker's habits are peculiar; he cannot do without gambling, and he +contrives to indulge himself all the year round in some way or other. +When the Newmarket Houghton meeting is over, Mr. Bookmaker bethinks +him of billiards, and he goes daily and nightly among interesting +gatherings of his brotherhood. Handicaps are arranged day by day and +week by week, and the luxurious, loud, vulgar crew contrive to pass +away the time pleasantly until the spring race meetings begin. But +hundreds of the sporting gentry have souls above the British +billiard-room, and for them a veritable paradise is ready. The +Mediterranean laps the beautiful shore at Monte Carlo and all along +the exquisite Eiviera--the palms and ferns are lovely--the air is soft +and exhilarating, and the gambler pursues his pleasing pastime amid +the sweetest spots on earth. From every country in the world the +flights of restless gamblers come like strange flocks of migrant +birds. The Russian gentleman escapes from the desolate plains of his +native land and luxuriates in the beautiful garden of Europe; the +queer inflections of the American's quiet drawl are heard everywhere +as he strolls round the tables; Roumanian boyards, Parisian swindlers, +Austrian soldiers, Hungarian plutocrats, flashy and foolish young +Englishmen--all gather in a motley crowd; and the British bookmaker's +interesting presence is obtrusive. His very accent--strident, coarse, +impudent, unspeakably low--gives a kind of ground-note to the hum of +talk that rises in all places of public resort, and he recruits his +delicate health in anticipation of the time when he will be able to +howl once more in English betting-rings. + +But I am not so much concerned with the personality of the various +sorts of gamblers, and I assuredly have no pity to spare for the +gentry who lose their money. A great deal of good useful compassion is +wasted on the victims who are fleeced in the gambling places. Victims! +What do they go to the rooms for? Is it not to amuse themselves and to +pass away time amid false exhilaration? Is it not to gain money +without working for it? The dupe has in him all the raw material of a +scoundrel; and even when he blows his stupid brains out I cannot pity +him so much as I pity the dogged labourer who toils on and starves +until his time comes for going to the workhouse. I am rather more +inclined to study the general manifestations of the gambling spirit. I +have in my mind's eye vivid images of the faces, the figures, the +gestures of hundreds of gamblers, and I might make an appalling +picture-gallery if I chose; but such a nightmare in prose would not do +much good to any one, and I prefer to proceed in a less exciting but +more profitable manner. We please ourselves by calling to mind the +days when "society" gambled openly and constantly; and we like to +fancy that we are all very good and spotless now-a-days and free from +the desire for unnatural excitement. Well, I grant that most European +societies in the last century were sufficiently hideous in many +respects. The English aristocrat, male or female, cared only for +cards, and no noble lady dreamed of remaining long in an assembly +where _piquet_ and _ecarte_ were not going on. The French seigneur +gambled away an estate in an evening; the Russian landowner staked a +hundred serfs and their lives and fortunes on the turn of a card; +little German princelings would play quite cheerfully for regiments of +soldiers. The pictures which we are gradually getting from memoirs and +letters are almost too grotesque for belief, and there is some little +excuse for the hearty optimists who look back with complacency on the +past, and thank their stars that they have escaped from the domain of +evil. For my own part, when I see the mode of life now generally +followed by most of our European aristocracies, I am quite ready to be +grateful for a beneficent change, and I have again and again made +light of the wailings of persons who persist in chattering about the +good old times. But I am talking now about the spirit of the gambler; +and I cannot say that the human propensity to gamble has in any way +died out. Its manifestations may in some respects be more decorous +than they used to be; but the deep, masterful, subtle tendency is +there, and its force is by no means diminished by the advance of a +complicated civilisation. Often and often I have mused quietly amid +scenes where gamblers of various sorts were disporting themselves--in +village inns where solemn yokels played shove-halfpenny with +statesmanlike gravity; in sunny Italian streets where lazy loungers +played their queer guessing game with beans; in noisy racing-clubs +where the tape clicks all day long; on crowded steamboats when +Tynesiders and Cockneys yelled and cursed and shouted their offers as +the slim skiffs stole over the water and the straining athletes bent +to their work; on Atlantic liners when hundreds of pounds depended on +the result of the day's run; on the breezy heath where half a million +gazers watched as the sleek Derby horses thundered round. As I have +gazed on these spectacles, I have been forced to let the mind wander +into regions far away from the chatter of the gamesters. Again and +again I have been compelled to think with a kind of melancholy over +the fact that man is not content until he is taken out of himself. Our +wondrous bodies, our miraculous power of looking before and after, our +infinite capacities for enjoyment, are not enough for us, and the poor +feeble human creature spends a great part of his life in trying to +forget that he is himself. At the best, our days pass as in the dim +swiftness of a dream. The young man suddenly thinks, "It is but +yesterday that I was a child;" the middle-aged man finds the gray +hairs streaking his head before he has realised that his youth is +gone; the old man lives so completely in the past that he is taken +only by a gentle shock of surprise when he finds that the end is upon +him. Swiftly, like some wild hunt of shadows, the generations fleet +away--nothing stays their frantic speed; and to the true observer no +fictitious flight of spirits on the Brocken could be half so weird as +the passage of one generation of the children of men. As we grow old, +the appalling brevity of time impresses itself more and more on the +consciousness of calm and thoughtful men; yet nine-tenths of our race +spend the best part of their days in trying to make their ghostly +sweeping flight from eternity to eternity seem more rapid than it +really is. That hot and fevered youth who stands in the betting-ring +and nervously pencils his race-card never thinks that the time of +weakness and sadness and weariness is coming on; that gray and +tremulous old man who bends over the roulette-table never thinks that +he will speedily drop into a profundity deeper than ever plummet +sounded. The gliding ball does not swing round in its groove faster +than the old man's soul fares towards the darkness; and yet he +clenches his jaw and engages in the most trivial of pursuits as if he +had an eternity before him. The youth and the dotard have alike +succeeded in passing out of themselves, and their very souls will not +return to the body until the delirious spell has ceased to act. All +men alike seem to have, more or less, this craving for oblivion. Long +ago I remember seeing a company of farmers who had come to market in +the prosperous times; they were among the wildest of their set, and +they settled down to cards when business was done. Day after day those +bucolic gentlemen sat on; when one of them lay down on a settle to +snatch a nap, his place was taken by another, and at the end of the +week some of the original company were still in the parlour, having +gambled furiously all the while without ever washing or undressing. +Time was non-existent for them, and their consciousness was exercised +only in watching the faces of the cards and counting up points. But +the dull-witted farmers were quite equalled by the polished scholar, +the great orator, the brilliant wit, Charles Fox. It was nothing to +Fox if he sat for three days and three nights at a stretch over the +board of green cloth. His fortune went; he might lose at the rate of +ten thousand pounds in the twenty-four hours; but he had succeeded in +forgetting himself, and his loss of time and fortune counted as +nothing. The light, careless gipsy shares the disposition of the +matchless orator and the dull farmer. You may see a gipsy enter the +tossing-ring at a fair; he loses all his money, but he goes on staking +everything he possesses, and, if the luck remains adverse, he will +continue tossing until his pony, his cart, his lurcher-dog, his very +clothes are all gone. The Chinaman will play for his life; the Red +Indian recklessly piles all he owns in the world upon the rough heap +of goods which his tribe wager on the result of a pony race. Look +high, look low, and we see that the gamblers actually form the +majority of the world's inhabitants; and we must go among the men of +abstractions--the men who can achieve oblivion by dint of their own +thinking power--before we find any class untouched by the strange +taint. Observe that venerable looking man who slowly paces about in +one of the luxurious dwelling-places which are sacred to leisure; you +may see his type at Bath, Buxton, Leamington, Scarborough, Brighton, +Torquay, all places, indeed, whither flock the men whose life-work is +done. That venerable gentleman has fulfilled his task in the world, +his desires have been gratified so far as fortune would allow, and one +would think that most pursuits of the competitive sort must have lost +interest for him. Yet he--even he--cannot get rid of the tendency to +gamble; and he studies the financial news with the eagerness of a boy +who follows the fortunes of Quentin Durward or D'Artagnan or Rebecca. +If English railway shares fall, he is exultant or depressed, according +to the operations of his broker; he may be roused into almost +hysterical delight by a rise in "Nitrates" or "Chilians," or any of +the thousands of securities in which stockbrokers deal. What is it to +the old man if Death smiles gently on him, and will soon touch his +heart with ice? There is no past for him; he has forgotten the +raptures of youth, the strength of manhood, the depression of failure, +the gladness of success, and he drugs his soul into forgetfulness by +dwelling on a gambler's chances. So long as the one doubtful boon of +forgetfulness is secured, it seems to matter very little what may be +the stake at disposal. The English racing-man picks out a promising +colt or filly; he finds that he has a swift and good animal, and he +resolves to bring off some vast gambling _coup_. Patiently, cunningly, +month after month, the steps in the plan are matured; the horse runs +badly until the official handicappers think it is worthless, and the +gambler at last finds that he has some great prize almost at his +mercy. Then with slow dexterity the horse is backed to win. If the +owner shows any eagerness, his purpose is balked once and for all; he +may have to employ half-a-dozen agents to bet for him, until at last +he succeeds in wagering so much money that he will gain, say, one +hundred thousand pounds by winning his race. The fluttering jackets +come nearer and nearer to the judge's box; some of the jockeys are +using their whips and riding desperately; the horse on which so much +depends draws to the front; but the owner never moves a muscle. Of +course we have seen men shrieking themselves almost into apoplexy at +the close of a race; but the hardened gambler is deadly cool. In the +last stride the animal so carefully--and fraudulently--prepared is +beaten by a matter of a few inches, and the chance of picking up a +hundred thousand pounds is gone; but the owner remains impassive, and +as soon as settling-day is over, he endeavours to forget the matter. I +have seen an old man watching a race on which he had planned to win +sixty thousand pounds; his horse was beaten in the last two strides, +and the old gentleman never so much as stirred or spoke. No doubt he +was really transported out of himself; but nothing in the world seemed +capable of altering the composure of his wizened features. On the +other hand, there is one man who is known to possess some four +millions in cash, besides an immense property; this man never bets +more than two pounds at a time, yet from his wild fits of excitement +it might be supposed that his colossal wealth was at stake. + +So the whole army of the gamblers pass in their mad whirlwind march +toward the region of night; they are delirious, they are creatures of +contradictions--they are fiercely greedy, lavishly generous, wary in +many things, reckless of life, ready to take any advantage, yet +possessed by a diseased sense of honour. Some of them think that a man +is better and happier when he feels all his faculties working rather +than when he goes off into blind transports of excitement or fear or +doubt. I think that the man who is conscious to his very finger-tips +is better than the wild creature whose senses are all blurred. I hold +that the student or thinker who faces life with a calm and calculated +desire for true knowledge is better off than the insensate being whose +hours are passed in a sordid nightmare. But I see little chance of +ever making men care little for the gambler's pleasure, and I humbly +own to the existence of an ugly mystery which only adds yet another to +the number of dark puzzles whereby we are surrounded. I observe that +desperate efforts are made to put down gambling by law rather than by +culture, religion, true and gentle morality. As well try to put down +the passions of love and fear--as well try to interdict the beat of +the pulses! We may deplore the gambler's existence as much as we like; +but it is a fact, and we must accept it. + + + + +XX. + +SCOUNDRELS. + + +Byron very often flung out profound truths in his easy, careless way, +but the theatrical vein in his composition sometimes prompted him to +say dashing things, not because he regarded them as true, but because +he wanted to make people stare. Speaking of one interesting and +homicidal gentleman, the poet observes-- + + "He knew himself a villain, and he deemed + The rest no better than the thing he seemed." + +Now I take leave to say that the rawest of fifth-form lads never +uttered a more school-boyish sentiment than that; and I wonder how a +man of the world came to make such a blunder. Byron had lived in the +degraded London of the Regency, when Europe's rascality flocked +towards St. James's as belated birds flock towards a light; and he +should have known some villains if any one did. Ephraim Bond, the +abominable moneylender and sportsman, was swaggering round town in +Byron's later days; Crockford, that incarnate fiend, had his nets +open; and ruined men--men ruined body and soul--left the gambling +palace where the satanic spider sat spinning his webs. Byron must have +known Crockford, and he had there a chance of studying a being who was +indeed a villain, but who fancied himself to be a highly respectable +person. From the time when "Crocky" started money-lending in the back +parlour of his little fish-shop up to his last ghastly appearance on +earth, he was a cheat and a consummate rascal; and even after death +his hideous corpse was made to serve a deception. He was engaged in a +Turf swindle, and it was necessary that he should be regarded as alive +on the evening of the Derby day; but he died in the morning, and, to +deceive the betting-men, the lifeless carcass of the old robber was +put upright in a club window, and a daring sharper caused the dead +hand to wave as if in greeting to the shouting crowd--a fit end to a +bad life. Crockford's delusion was that his character was marked by +honesty and general benevolence; and those who wished to please him +pretended to accept his own comfortable theory. He regarded himself as +a really good fellow, and in his own person he was a living +confutation of Byron's dashing paradox. Then there was Renton +Nicholson, a specimen of social vermin if ever there was one. This +fellow earned a sordid livelihood by presiding over a club where men +met nightly in orgies that stagger the power of belief. His huge +figure and his raffish face were seen wherever rogues most did +congregate; he showed young men "life"--and sometimes his work as +cicerone led them to death; his style of conversation would nowadays +lead to a speedy prosecution; he was always seen by the ringside when +unhappy brutes met to pound each other, and his stock of evil stories +entertained the interesting noblemen and gentlemen who patronised the +manly British sport. I could not describe this man's baseness in +adequate terms, nor could I so much as give an idea of his ordinary +round of roguery without arousing some incredulity. This unspeakable +creature was fond of describing himself as "Jolly old Renton," or +"Good old John Bull Nicholson"; he really fancied himself to be a +good, genial fellow, and he appeared to fancy that the crowds who +usually collected to hear his abominations were attracted by his +_bonhomie_ and his estimable intellectual qualities. Byron must have +known this striking example of the scoundrel species, but he appears +to have forgotten him when he propounded his theory of villainy. Then +there was Pea-green Haynes, who was also a fine sample of folly and +rascality mingled. Haynes regarded himself as the most injured man on +earth; he never performed an unselfish action, it is true, and he +flung away a fine patrimony on his own pleasures, yet he whined and +held himself up as an example of suffering virtue. Then there was the +precious Regent. What a creature! Good men and bad men unite in saying +that he was absolutely without a virtue; the shrewd, calculating +Greville described him in words that burn; the great Duke, his chief +subject, uses language of dry scorn--"The king could only act the part +of a gentleman for ten minutes at a time"; and we find that the +commonest satellites of the Court despised the wicked fribble who wore +the crown of England. Faithless to women, faithless to men, a coward, +a liar, a mean and grovelling cheat, George IV. nevertheless clung to +a belief in his own virtues; and, if we study the account of his +farcical progress through Scotland, we find that he imagined himself +to be a useful and genuinely kingly personage. No man, except, +perhaps, Philippe Egalite, was ever so contemned and hated; and until +his death he imagined himself to be a good man. In all that wild set +who disgraced England and disgraced human nature in those gay days of +Byron's youth, I can discover only one thoroughly manly and estimable +individual, and that was Gentleman Jackson, the boxer; yet, with such +a marvellously wide range of villainy to study, Byron never seems to +have observed one ethical fact of the deepest importance--a villain +never knows that he is villainous; if he did, he would cease to be a +villain. + +Perhaps Byron's own peculiar disposition--his constitution--prevented +him from understanding the undoubted truth which I have stated. Like +all other men, he possessed a dual nature; there was bad in him and +good, and his force was such that the bad was very bad indeed, and the +good was as powerful in its way as the evil. During the brief time +that Byron employed in behaving as a bad man, his conduct reached +almost epic heights--or depths--of misdoing; but he never in his heart +seemed to recognise the fact that he had been a bad man. At any rate, +he was wrong; and the commonest knowledge of our wild world suffices +to show any reasoning man the gravity of the error propounded in my +quotation. As we study the history of the frivolous race of men, it +sometimes seems hard to disbelieve the theory of Descartes. The great +Frenchman held that man and other animals are automata; and, were it +not that such a theory strikes at the root of morals, we might almost +be tempted to accept it in moments of weakness, when the riddle of the +unintelligible earth weighs heavily on the tired spirit. I find that +every prominent scoundrel known to us pursued his work of sin with an +absolute unconsciousness of all moral law until pain or death drew +near; then the scoundrel cringed like a cur under the scourges of +remorse. Thackeray, in a fit of spasmodic courage, painted the +archetypal scoundrel once and for all in "Barry Lyndon," and he +practically said the last word on the subject; for no grave analysis, +no reasoning, can ever improve on that immortal and most moving +picture of a wicked man. Observe the masterpiece. Lyndon goes on with +his narrative from one horror to another; he exposes his inmost soul +with cool deliberation; and the author's art is so consummate that we +never for a moment sympathise with the fiend who talks so +mellifluously--the narrative of ill-doing unfolds itself with all the +inevitable precision of an operation of nature, and we see the human +soul at its worst. But Thackeray did not make Byron's mistake; and +throughout the book the Chevalier harps with deadly persistence on his +own virtues. He does not exactly whine, but he lets you know that he +regards himself as being very much wronged by the envious caprices of +his fellow-men. His tongue is the tongue of a saint, and, even when he +owns to any doubtful transaction, he takes care to let you know that +he was actuated by the sweetest and purest motives. Many people cannot +read "Barry Lyndon" a second time; but those who are nervous should +screw their courage to the sticking-place, and give grave attention to +that awful moral lesson, for all of us have a little of Barry in our +composition. Thackeray's sudden inspiration enabled him to plumb the +deeps of the scoundrel nature, and he saw with the eye of genius that +the very quality which makes a bad man dangerous is his belief in his +own goodness. If you look at the appalling narrative of Lyndon's life +in this country, you see, with a shudder, that the man regards his +cruelty to his wife, his villainy towards his step-son, as the +inevitable outcome of stern virtue; he tells you things that make you +long to stamp on the inanimate pages; for he rouses such a passion of +wild scorn and wrath as we feel against no other artistic creation. +Yet all the while, like a low under-song, goes on his monotonous +assertion of his own goodness and his own injuries. No sermon could +teach more than that hateful book; if it is read aright, it will +supply men or women with an armoury of warnings, and enable them to +start away from the semblance of self-deception as they would from a +rearing cobra when the hood is up, and the murderous head flattened +ready to strike. Thackeray worked on the same theme in his story of +little Stubbs. Lyndon is the Lucifer of rascals; Stubbs--well, Stubbs +beggars the English vocabulary; he is too low, too mean for adjectives +to describe him, and I could almost find it in my heart to wish that +his portraiture had never been placed before the horrified eyes of +men. Yet this Stubbs--a being who was drawn from life--has a profound +belief in the rectitude of everything that he does. Even when he tells +us how he invited his gang of unspeakables home, to drink away his +mother's substance, he takes credit to himself for his fine display of +British hospitality. How Thackeray contrived to live through the +ordeal of composing those two books I cannot tell; he must have had a +nerve of steel, with all his softness of heart and benevolence. At all +events, he did live to complete his gruesome feat; and he has given +us, in a vivid pictorial way, such a picture of scoundreldom as should +serve as a beacon to all men. It may seem like a paradox; but I am +inclined to think that our non-success in putting down actual crime +and wickedness which do not come within range of the law arises from +the fact that our jurists have not made a proper study of the criminal +nature. Grod made the cobra, the cruel wolverine, and the +thrice-cruel tiger; we study the animals and deal with them +adequately; but some of us do not study our human cobras and +wolverines and tigers. I scarcely ever knew of a case of a convict who +would not moan about his own injuries and his own innocence. Even when +these men, whose criminality is ingrained, are willing to own their +guilt, they will always contrive to blame the world in general and +society in particular. It is almost amusing to hear a desperate thief, +who seems no more able to prevent himself from rushing on plunder than +a greyhound can prevent itself from rushing on a hare, complaining +that employers will not trust him. It is useless to say, "What can you +expect?" The scoundrel persists in crying out against a hard world +which drove him to be what he is. + +Some ten years ago the arch-rascal among English thieves was living +quietly in a London suburb; he used to solace himself with high-class +music, and he was very fond of poetry. This dreadful creature was a +curious compound of wild beast and artist. During the day he went +about with an innocent air; and the very police who were destined to +take him and hang him learned to greet him cordially as he passed them +in his walks. They thought he was "a sort of high-class tradesman." +Now, when this cheery little man with the decent frock-coat and the +clean respectable air was sauntering on the margin of the breezy heath +or walking up by-streets with measured sobriety, he was really marking +down the places which he intended to plunder. Here his trained pony +should stand; here he would make his entrance; that bedroom door +should be fastened inside; this lock should be picked. The wild +predatory beast drove the police to despair, for it seemed as if no +human being could have performed the feats which came easy to the +robber. The hard earning of good men went to the rascal's store; the +cherished household gods, the valued keepsakes of innocent women were +transferred callously to the melting-pot. He went coolly into bedrooms +where the inmates were asleep; had any one awaked, there would have +been murder, and the murderer would have decamped long before the door +could be broken open. Now my point is this--the wretch whom I have +described never ceased to inveigh against the wrongs of society. Two +unhappy women served him faithfully and followed him like dogs; but he +did not apply his theories in his treatment of them, for they were +never without the marks of his brutality. In the very presence of his +bruised and beaten slaves he talked of his own virtues, of social +inequality, of the tyranny of the rich, and he held to his belief in +his own innate goodness after he had committed depredations to the +extent of thousands of pounds, and even after he was answerable for +two murders. That man never knew himself a villain, and it was only +when the rope was gradually closing round his neck that the keen +sleuth-hound remorse found him out, and he had the grace to save an +innocent man from a living death. This monstrous hypocrite was another +typical scoundrel, and his like people every prison in the country. + +The scoundrels who are called great do not usually come under the +gallows-tree, and their last dying speeches are somewhat rare; but we +may be pretty certain, from the little we know, that each one of them +fancies himself an estimable person. Ivan of Russia, the ferocious +ruler, who had men torn to pieces before his eyes, the being who had +forty thousand men, women, and children massacred in cold blood, +regarded himself as the deputy of the Supreme Being. The mad Capet, +who fired the signal which started tho massacre of St. Bartholomew, +believed that he was fulfilling the demands of goodness and orthodoxy. +The deadly inquisitors who roasted unhappy fellow mortals wholesale +believed--or pretended to believe--that they were putting their +victims through a benign ordeal. The heretic was a naughty child; +roast him, and his sin was purged; while the frosty-blooded old men +who murdered him looked to heaven and returned thanks for their own +special allowance of virtue. Conqueror and inquisitor, burglar and +murderer, forger and wife-beater, brutal sea-captain and prowling +thief--all the scoundrels go about their business with a full faith in +their own blamelessness. I do not like to class them as automata, +though the wise and genial Mr. Huxley would undoubtedly do so. What +shall we do with them? Is it fair that a wearied world and a toil-worn +society should maintain them? My own idea is that sentiment, softness, +regrets for severity should be banished, and we should say to the +scoundrel, "Attend, rascal! You say that you are wronged, and that you +are driven to harm your fellow-creatures by the force of external +circumstances; that may be so, but we have nothing to do with the +matter. Take notice that you shall eat bitter bread on earth, no +matter how you may whine, when our just grip is on you; if you persist +in practising scoundrelism, we shall make your lot harder and harder +for you; and, if in the end we find that you will go on working evil, +we shall treat you as a dangerous wild beast, and put you out of the +world altogether." + + + + +XXI. + +QUIET OLD TOWNS. + + +A rather popular writer, who first came into notice by dint of naming +a book of essays, "Is Life worth Living?" gave us not long ago a very +sweet description of an English country town; and he worked himself up +to quite a moving pitch of rapture as he described the admirable +social arrangements which may be perceived on a market-day. This +enthusiast tells us how the members of the great county families drive +in to do their shopping. The stately great horses paw and champ at +their bits, the neat servants bustle about in deft attendance, and the +shopkeeper, who has a feudal sort of feeling towards his betters, +comes out to do proper homage. The great landowner brings his wealth +into the High Street or the market place, and the tradesmen raise +their voices to bless him. We have all heard of institutions called +"stores"; but still it is a pity to carp at a pretty picture drawn by +a literary artist. I know that rebellious tradesmen in many of the +shires use violent language as they describe the huge packing-cases +which are deposited at various mansions by the railway vans. I know +also that the regulation saddler who airs his apron at the door of his +shop on market-days will inform the stranger that the gentry get +saddles, harness, and everything else nowadays from the abominable +"stores"; but I must not leave my artist, and shall let the saddler +growl to himself for the present. The polished writer goes on to speak +of the ruddy farmer who strolls round in elephantine fashion and hooks +out sample-bags from his plethoric and prosperous pockets; the dealers +drive a brisk trade, the small shopkeepers are encouraged by their +neighbours from the country, and everything is extremely idyllic and +pure and pretty and representative of England at her best. The old +church rears its quaint height above the quainter houses that cluster +near. In the churchyard the generations of natives sleep sound; one +may trace some families back for hundreds of years, and thus perceive +how firmly the love of the true townsman clings to his native place. +Perhaps a castle looms over the modest streets and squares--it is +converted into a prison in all probability; but the sight of it brings +memories of haughty nobles, or of untitled personages whose pride of +race would put monarchs to the blush. The river flows sweetly past the +sleepy lovely town, and sober citizens walk solemnly beside the +rippling watery highway when the day's toil is over. On Sunday, when +the bells chime their invitation, all sorts and conditions of men meet +in the dim romantic precincts of the ancient church, and there is much +pleasant gossiping when morning and evening worship are ended. Good +old solid England is put before us in miniature when we glance at such +of the community as choose to show themselves before the artistic +observer, and, as we drive away along the sound level roads, we +say--if we are very literary and enthusiastic--"Happy little town! +Happy little nation!" Now that is all very pretty; and yet the +conscientious philosopher is bound to admit that there is another +side--nay, several other sides--to the charming picture. I do not want +any students of the modern French school to prove that rural life in +small towns may be as base and horrible as the life of crowded +cities--I do not want any minute analysis of degradation; but I may +prick a windbag of conceit and do some little service if I try to show +that the state of things in some scores of these delightful old places +is base and corrupt enough to warm the heart of the most exacting +cynic that ever thought evil of his fellow-creatures. + +Let us go behind the scenes and see what the idyllic prospect looks +like from the rear. We must proceed with great deliberation, and we +must take our rustic society stratum by stratum. First, then, there +are the idle men who have inherited or earned fortunes, and who like +to settle in luxurious houses away from great centres of population. +Such men are always in great force on the skirts of quiet old towns, +and they are much revered by the tradesmen. I cannot help thinking +that the fate of the average "retired" man must be not a little +dolorous, for I find that the typical member of that class conducts +himself in much the same way no matter where he pitches his habitation +in broad England. He is saved if he has a hobby; but, without a hobby, +he is a very poor creature, and his ways of living on from day to day +are the reverse of admirable. If such a revolutionary institution as a +club has been established in the town, he may begin his morning's +round there; or, in default of a club, there is the "select" room in +the principal hotel. If he is catholic in his tastes and hungry for +conversation, he may wander from one house of call to another, and he +meets a large and well-chosen assortment of hucksters who come to bind +bargains with the inevitable "drink"; he meets the gossip who knows +all the secrets of the township, he meets flashy persons who have a +manly thirst which requires perpetual assuagement. Then he converses +to his heart's content; and, alas, what conversation it is--what +intellectual exertion is expended by these forlorn gossips in the +morning round that takes up the time of many men in a quiet town! +There is a little slander, a good deal of peeping out of windows, a +little discussion of the financial prospects ascribed to various men +in the neighbourhood, and an impartial examination of everybody's +private affairs. The regular crew of gossips hold it as a duty to know +and talk about the most minute details of each other's lives, and, +when a man leaves any given room where the piquant chatter is going +on, he is quite aware that he leaves his character behind him. The +state of his banking account is guessed at, the disposition of his +will is courageously foretold, the amounts which he paid to various +shopkeepers are added up with reverence or scorn according to the +amount--and the company revel in their mean babble until it is time to +go to another place and pull the character and the financial accounts +of somebody else to pieces. By luncheon time most of these useful +beings are a little affected in complexion and speech by the trifling +potations which wash down the scandal; but no one is intoxicated. To +be seen mastered by "drink" in the morning would cause a man to lose +caste; and, besides, if he said too much while his tongue was loose, +he would not be believed when next he set down a savoury mess for the +benefit of the company. Through all the talk of these wretched +entities, be it observed that money, money runs as a species of +key-note; the men may be coarse and servile, but a shrewd eye can +detect every sign of purse-pride. Let a gentleman of some standing +walk past a window where the grievous crew are wine-bibbing and +blabbing, and some one will say, "Carries hisself high enough, don't +he? He ain't got a thousand to fly with. I bet a bottle on it! Why, +me, or Jimmy there, or even old Billy Spinks, leaving out Harry, and +let alone the Doctor--any one on us could buy him out twelve times +over, and then have a bit of roast or biled for Sunday's dinner!" This +remark is received as a wise and trenchant tribute to the power of the +assembly, and they have more "drink" by way of self-gratulation. Those +poor "retired" men, and "independent" men, often go deeper and deeper +down the incline towards mental and moral degradation until they +become surprisingly repulsive specimens of humanity. In all their +dreary perambulations they rarely speak or hear an intelligent word; +they are amazingly ignorant concerning their country's affairs, and +their conceptions of politics are mostly limited to a broad general +belief that some particular statesman ought to be hanged. + +As to the government of these quiet old places, there is much to be +said that is depressing. While men prate about the decay of trade and +the advance of poverty, how few people reflect on the snug fortunes +which are amassed in out-of-the-way corners! We hear of jobbery in the +metropolis, and jobbery in Government departments, but I take it that +the corporations of some little towns could give lessons in jobbery to +any corrupt official that ever plundered his countrymen. Some town +councils may be very briefly and accurately described as nests of +thieves. The thieves wear good clothes, go to church, and do not go to +prison--at least, the cases of detection are rare--but they are +thieves all the same. As a rule, no matter what a man's trade or +profession may be, he contrives to gather profit pretty freely when +once he joins the happy band who handle the community's purse. In some +cases the robbery is so barefaced and open that the particulars might +as well be painted on a monster board and hung up at the town cross; +but tradesmen, workmen, and others who have their living to make in +the town are terrorised, and they preserve a discreet silence in +public however much they may speak evil of dignities in private. As a +general rule, a show of decorum is kept up; yet I should think it +hardly possible for the average vestry or council to meet without an +interchange of winks among the members. John favours Tommy's tender +when Tommy contracts to horse all the corporation's water-carts, +dust-carts, and so forth; then Tommy is friendly when John wants to +sell his row of cottages to the municipality. If Tommy employs two +horses on a certain work and charges for twenty, then John and some +other backers support the transaction. Billy buys land to a heavy +extent, and refuses to build on it; houses are risky property, and +Billy can wait. An astute company meet at William's house and take +supper in luxurious Roman style; then James casually suggests that the +east end of the town is a disgrace to the council. Until the block of +houses in Blank Street is pulled down and a broad road is run straight +to join the main street, the place will be the laughingstock of +strangers. James is eloquent. How curious it is that the new road +which is to redeem the town from shame must run right over Billy's +building plots, and how very remarkable it is to think that the +corporation pays a swinging price for the precious land! Billy looks +more prosperous than ever; he sets up another horse, reduces rivals to +silence by driving forth in a new victoria, and becomes more and more +the familiar bosom friend of the bank manager. I might go on to give a +score of examples showing how innocent rate-payers are fleeced by +barefaced robbers, but the catalogue would be only wearisome. Let any +man of probity venture to force his way into one of these dens of +thieves and see how he will fare! It is a comic thing that the gangs +of jobbers consider that they have a prescriptive right to plunder at +large, and their air of aggrieved virtue when they are challenged by a +person whom they call an "interloper" is among the most droll and +humiliating farces that may be seen in life. The whole crew will make +a ferocious dead set at the intruder who threatens to pull their +quarry away from them; he will be coughed down or interrupted by +insulting noises, and he may esteem himself highly fortunate if he is +not asked to step outside and engage in single combat. Everything that +mean malignity can do to balk him will be done, and, unless he is a +very strong man physically and morally, the opposition will tire him +out. There is usually one dominant family in such towns--for the +possibility of making a heavy fortune by a brewery or tannery or +factory in these quiet places is far greater than any outsider might +fancy. The members of the ruling family and their henchmen arise in +their might to crush the insolent upstart who wants to see accounts +and vouchers: the chairman will rise and say, "Let me tell Mr. X. that +me and my family were old established inhabitants in this ancient +borough long before he came, and we'll be here long after he has gone +bankrupt. We don't require no strangers: the people in this borough +has always managed their own affairs, and by the help of Providence +they'll go on in the good old way in spite of any swell that comes +a-sniffin' and a-smellin' and a-pryin' and a-askin' for accounts about +this and that and the other; and I tell the gentleman plain, the +sooner this council sees his back the better they'll be pleased; so, +if he's not too thick in the skin, let him take a friendly hint and +take himself off." A withering onslaught like this is received with +tumultuous applause, and other speakers follow suit. It is seldom that +a man has nerve enough to stand such brutality from his hoggish +assailants, and the ring of jobbers are too often left to work their +will unchecked. Are such people fit for political power? Ask the +wretched rich man who indirectly buys the seat, and hear his record of +dull misery if he is inclined to be confidential. He does not like to +leave Parliament, and yet he knows he is merely a mark for the +licensed pickpocket; he is not regarded as a politician--he is a donor +of sundry subscriptions, and nothing more. The men in manufacturing +centres will return a poor politician and pay his expenses; but the +people in some quiet towns have about as much sentiment or loyalty as +they have knowledge; and they treat their member of Parliament as a +gentleman whose function it is to be bled, and bled copiously. A sorry +sight it is! + +One very remarkable thing in these homes of quietness is the +marvellous power possessed by drink-sellers. These gentry form the +main links in a very tough chain, and they hang together with touching +fidelity; their houses are turned into scandal-shops, and they prosper +so long as they are ready to cringe with due self-abasement before the +magistrates. No refined gentleman who keeps himself to his own class +and refrains from meddling with politics could ever by any chance +imagine the airs of broad-blown impudence which are sometimes assumed +by ignorant and stupid boors who have been endowed with a license; and +assuredly no one would guess the extent of their political power +unless he had something to do with election business. The landlord of +fiction hardly exists in the quiet towns; there is seldom a smiling, +suave, and fawning Boniface to be seen; the influential drink-seller +is often an insolent familiar harpy who will speak of his own member +of Parliament as "Old Tom," and who airily ventures to call gentlemen +by their surnames. The man is probably so benighted in mind that he +knows nothing positive about the world he lives in; his manners are +hideous, his familiarity is loathsome, his assumptions of manly +independence are almost comic in their impudence; but he has his uses, +and he can influence votes of several descriptions. Thus he asserts +himself in detestable fashion; and people who should know better +submit to him. One electioneering campaign in a quiet town would give +a salutary lesson to any politician who resolutely set himself to +penetrate into the secret life of the society whose suffrages he +sought; he would learn why it is that the agents of all the factions +treat the drink-seller with deference. + +So the queer existence of the tranquil place moves on; petty scandal, +petty thieving, petty jobbery, petty jealousy employ the energies of +the beings who inhabit the "good old town"--the borough is always good +and old--and a man with a soul who really tried to dwell in the moral +atmosphere of the community would infallibly be asphyxiated. Nowhere +are appearances so deceptive; nowhere do the glamour of antiquity and +the beauty of natural scenery draw the attention away from so vile a +centre. I could excuse any man who became a pessimist after a long +course of conversations in a sleepy old borough, for he would see that +a mildew may attack the human intelligence, and that the manners of a +puffy well-clad citizen may be worse than those of a Zulu Kaffir. The +indescribable coarseness and rudeness of the social intercourse, the +detestable forms of humour which obtain applause, the low distrust and +trickery are quite sufficient to make a sensitive man want to hide +himself away. If any one thinks I am too hard, he should try spending +six whole weeks in any town which is called good and old; if he does +not begin to agree with me about the end of the fifth week I am much +in error. + + + + +XXII. + +THE SEA. + + +Is there anything new to say about it? Alas, have not all the poets +done their uttermost; and how should a poor prose-writer fare when he +enters a region where the monarchs of rhythm have proudly trodden? It +is audacious; and yet I must say that our beloved poets seem somehow +to fail in strict accuracy. Tennyson wanders and gazes and thinks; he +strikes out some immortal word of love or despair when the awful +influence of the ocean touches his soul; and yet he is not the poet +that we want. One or two of his phrases are pictorial and decisive--no +one can better them--and the only fault which we find with them is +that they are perhaps a little too exquisite. When he says, "And white +sails flying on the yellow sea," he startles us; but his picture done +in seven words is absolutely accurate. When he writes of "the scream +of the maddened beach," he uses the pathetic fallacy; but his science +is quite correct, for the swift whirling of myriads of pebbles does +produce a clear shrill note as the backdraught streams from the shore. +But, when he writes the glorious passion beginning, "Is that enchanted +moan only the swell Of the long waves that roll-in yonder bay?" we +feel the note of falsity at once--the swell does not moan, and the +poet only wanted to lead up to the expression of a mysterious ecstasy +of love. Again, the most magnificent piece of word-weaving in English +is an attempted description of the sea by a man whose command of a +certain kind of verse is marvellous. Here is the passage-- + + "The sea shone + And shivered like spread wings of angels blown + By the sun's breath before him, and a low + Sweet gale shook all the foam-flowers of thin snow + As into rainfall of sea-roses, shed + Leaf by wild leaf in the green garden bed + That tempests still and sea-winds turn and plough; + For rosy and fiery round the running prow + Fluttered the flakes and feathers of the spray + And bloomed like blossoms cast by God away + To waste on the ardent water; the wan moon + Withered to westward as a face in swoon + Death-stricken by glad tidings; and the height + Throbbed and the centre quivered with delight + And the deep quailed with passion as of love, + Till, like the heart of a new-mated dove, + Air, light, and wave seemed full of burning rest"-- + +and so on. Superb, is it not? And yet that noble strain of music gives +us no true picture of our dear, commonplace, terrible sea; it reminds +us rather of some gaudy canvas painted for the theatre. The lines are +glorious, the sense of movement and swing is conveyed, and yet--and +yet it is not the sea. We fancy that only the prose-poets truly +succeed; and the chief of them all--the matchless Mr. Clark +Russell--gets his most moving effects by portraying the commonplace +aspects of the water in a way that reminds people of things which they +noticed but failed to admire promptly. Mr. Russell's gospel is plain +enough; he watches minutely, and there is not a flaw of wind or a +cross-drift of spray that does not offer some new emotion to his quick +and sensitive soul. + +I want all those who are now dwelling amid the shrewd sweetness of the +sea-air to learn how to gain simple pleasure from gazing on the +incessant changes that mark the face of the sea. The entertainment is +so cheap, so fruitful of lovely thought, so exhilarating, that I can +hardly keep my patience when I see those wretched men who carry a +newspaper to the beach on a glad summer morning, and yawn in the face +of the Divine spectacle of wave and cloud and limpid sky. Let no one +think that I picture the sea as always gladsome. Ah, no! I have seen +too much of storm and stress for that. On one awful night long ago, I +waited for hours watching waves that reared and thundered as if they +would charge headlong through the streets of the town. The white +crests nickered like flame, and below the crests the dreadful inky +bulge of each monster rolled on like doom--like death. Throughout the +mad night of tempest the guns from many distressed vessels rang out, +and I could see the violent sweep of the ships' lights as they were +hurled in wild arcs from crest to crest. Many and many a corpse lay +out on those sands in the morning; the bold, bronzed men stared with +awful glassy stare at the lowering sky; the little cabin-boy clasped +his fragment of wreckage as though it had been a toy, and smiled--oh, +so sweetly!--in spite of the cruel sand that filled his dead eyes. +There was turmoil enough out at sea, for the steadily northerly drift +was crossed by a violent roll from the east, and these two currents +were complicated in their movement by a rush of water that came like a +mill-race from the southward. Imagine a great city tossed about by a +monstrous earthquake that first dashes the streets against each other, +and then flings up the ruins in vast rolls; that may give some idea of +that memorable storm. One poor, pretty girl saw her husband gallantly +trying to make the harbour. Long, long had she waited for him, and day +by day had she tried to track the vessel's course; the smart barque +had gone round the Horn, and escaped from the perils of the Western +Ocean in dead winter, and now she was heaving convulsively as she +strove to run into harbour at home. Right and left the grey billows +hit her, and we could see her keel sometimes when the wan light of the +morning broke. The girl stared steadily, and her face was like that of +a corpse. The barque swung southward, and with the speed of a railway +engine rushed on to the stones; the pretty girl moaned, "Oh me!--oh +me!" She never saw her lad again until his battered body was in the +dead-house of the pier. A commonplace red-haired woman was in a +dreadful state of mind when she saw a large fishing-boat trying to run +for the harbour. Her husband and two sons were aboard, she said, so +she had reasons for anxiety. The boat was pitched about like a cork; +and presently one fearful sea fairly smashed her. The red-haired woman +fell down upon the sand, and lay there moaning. + +Assuredly I am not inclined to imitate the Cockney frivolity of Barry +Cornwall, who never went to sea in his life, but who nevertheless +carolled the most absurdly joyous lays regarding the ocean, which made +him ill even when he merely looked at it. No; the true sea-lover knows +that there are terror and mystery and horror as well as joyousness in +the varied moods of the treacherous, remorseless, magnificent ocean. +Those who read this may see the unspeakable beauty of the opaline and +ruby tints that flame on the water when the sunset sinks behind the +Isle of Thanet. The bay at Westgate will shine like mother-of-pearl, +and the glassy rollers at the horizon will be incarnardined. That is a +splendid sight! Then those who are in Devon may pass sleepy days in +gazing on a vivid piercing blue that is pure and brilliant as the blue +of the Bay of Naples. In the lochs to the West of Scotland the +swarming tourists watch that riot of colour that marks the times of +sunrise and sunset. All these spectacles of suave magnificence are +imposing; but, for my own part, I love the grey water on the East +Coast, and I like the low level dunes where the bent grass gleams and +the sea-wind comes whispering "Forget!" All the gay days of the +holiday-places, all the gorgeous sunsets, the imperial noondays, the +solemn, glittering midnights are imposing, but the wise traveller +learns to see the beauty of all the moods of the wild changing sea. +Observe the commonplace man's attitude on a grey cheerless day, when +the sky hangs low and the rollers are leaden. "A beast of a day!" he +remarks in his elegant fashion; and he goes and grumbles in the vile +parlour of his lodging-house, where the stuffy odour of aged chairs +and the acrid smell of clumsy cookery contend for mastery. Yet outside +on the moaning levels of the dim sea there are mysterious and ghostly +sights that might move the heart of the veriest stockbroker if he +would but force his mind to consider them. Look at that dark tremulous +stream that seems to flow over the sullen sea. It is but a cat's-paw +of wind, and yet it looks like a river flowing in silence from some +fairy region. The boats start out of the haze and glide away into +dimness after having shown their phantom shadows for a few seconds; +the cry of the gull rings weirdly; the simulated agony of the staunch +bird's scream makes one somehow think of tortured souls; you think of +dim strange years, you feel the dim strange weather, you remember the +still strange land unvexed of sun or stars, "where Lancelot rides +clanking through the haze." Ah, who dares talk of a commonplace or +disagreeable sea? I used the phrase once, but I well know that the +"commonplace" day offers sights of sober grandeur to the eyes of the +wise man. Happy those who have royal, serene days, lovely sunsets, +quiet gloamings full of stars; happy also those who see but the +enormous hurly-burly of mixed grey waves, and hear the harsh song of +the wild wind that blows from the fields at night! + +Autumn is a great time for the wild Sea Rovers who gather at Cowes and +Southampton. The Rover may always be recognised on shore--and, +by-the-way, he stays ashore a good deal--for his nautical clothing is +spick and span new, the rake of his glossy cap is unspeakably jaunty, +and the dignity of his gesture when he scans the offing with a trusty +telescope is without parallel in history. When the Rover walks, you +observe a slight roll which no doubt is acquired during long +experience of tempestuous weather. The tailors and bootmakers gaze on +the gallant Rover with joy and admiration, for does he not carry the +triumphs of their art on his person? He roughs it, does this bold +sea-dog--none of your fine living for him! His saucy barque lies at +her moorings amid the wild breakers of Cowes or "the Water," and he +sleeps rocked in the cradle of the deep, when he is not tempted to +sojourn in his frugal hotel. The hard life on the briny ocean suits +him, and he leaves all luxuries to the swabs who stay on shore. If the +water is not in a violent humour, the Rover enjoys his humble +breakfast about nine. He tries kidneys, bloaters, brawn, and other +rude fare; he never uses a gold coffee-pot--humble silver suffices; +and even the urn is made of cheap metal. At eleven the hardy fellow +recruits his strength with a simple draught of champagne, for which he +never pays more than twelve pounds a dozen, and then four stalwart +seamen row him to the landing-place. He criticises the mighty ocean +from the balcony of the club until the middle of the afternoon, and +then he prepares for a desperate deed of daring. The Rover goes to the +landing-place and scans the gulf that yawns between him and his +vessel. Two hundred yards at least must be covered before the Rover +can bound on to the deck of his taut craft. Two hundred yards! And +there is a current that might almost sweep a tea-chest out to sea! But +the Rover's steady eye takes in the whole view, and his very nautical +mind enables him to lay plans with wisdom. He looks sternly at his gig +with the four stout oarsmen; his simple carpets are all right; his +cushions, his pillows, his cigar-box, his silken rudder-lines are all +as they should be. The Rover takes his determination, and a dark look +settles on his manly countenance. For one brief instant he thinks of +all he leaves behind him; his dear home rises before his eyes, the +voices of his loved ones thrill in his ear, and his bronzed hand is +raised to dash away the tear that starts unbidden. But there must be +no weakness. Rovers have their feelings, but they must subdue them +when two hundred yards have to be traversed over waves that are nearly +two inches high. The Rover steps into his boat, resolved to do or die. +Now or never! He puts one cushion behind his athletic back, he lights +a Regalia--so cool are genuine heroes in peril--and shoots away over +the yeasty billows. For forty seconds the fierce struggle lasts; the +bow of the boat is wetted to a height of four inches; but +dauntlessness and skill conquer all difficulties, and in forty seconds +and a half the unscathed Rover stands on his quarter-deck. + +Sometimes when the captain is in a good humour, the Rover goes for a +sail, and he takes as many as three ladies with him. This statement +may be doubted, but only by those who do not know what British courage +is really like. Yes, the Rover sometimes sails as much as ten miles in +the course of one trip, and he may be as much as three hours away from +his moorings. Moreover, I have known a good-natured skipper who +allowed the roving proprietor of a yacht to take as many as six trips +in the course of a single season. Observe the cheapness of this +amusement, and reflect thankfully on the simplicity of taste which now +distinguishes the wealthy Rovers of the South Coast. The yacht costs +about two thousand pounds to begin with, and one thousand pounds per +year is paid to keep her up. Thus it seems that a Rover may have six +sails at the rate of one hundred and sixty-six pounds thirteen +shillings and fourpence per sail! So long as the breed of Cowes Rovers +exists we need have no fears concerning our naval supremacy. Indeed +competent nautical men think that, if any band of enemies, no matter +how ferocious they might be, happened to see a thorough-bred Cowes +Rover equipped for his perilous afternoon voyage of two hundred yards, +they would instantly lose heart and flee in terror. Such is the +majesty of a true seaman. I hope that all my readers may respect the +Rover when they see him. Remember that his dinner rarely numbers more +than six courses, and he cannot always ice his champagne owing to the +commotion of the elements. If such privations do not win pity from +judicious readers, then, alas, I have written in vain! Those who read +this will often be surrounded by strolling Rovers. Treat the reckless +daring salts with respect, for they live hard and risk much. + + + + +XXIII. + +SORROW. + + +I have never been disposed to be niggard of cheerfulness; for it has +always seemed to me that one of the duties of a writer is to supply +solace in a world where, amid all the beauty, so many things seem to +go wrong. But, while I would fain banish cankered melancholy, sour +ill-humour, cynicism, and petty complaining, I have never sought to +disturb those who are mastered for a time by the sacred sorrow which +takes possession of the greatest and purest and gentlest souls at +times. There have been great men who were joyous--and they bore their +part very bravely on earth; but the greatest of all have gained their +strength in Sorrow's service. It matters not which of the kings +amongst men we choose, we find that his kingship was only gained and +kept after he had passed through the school of grief. It is a glad +world for most of us--else indeed we might wish that one cataclysm +would overwhelm us all; but our masters, those who teach us and guide +us, have all been under the dominion of a nameless something which we +can hardly call Melancholy, but which is a kind of divine sad sister +to Melancholy. There is no discontent in the sorrow of the great ones; +they are not querulous, and none of them ever sought to avenge their +subdued grief on the persons of their fellow-creatures. The kings bear +their burden with dignity; they love to see their human kindred light +of heart; but they cannot be light-hearted in turn; for the burden and +mystery of the world are ever with them, and their energy is all +needed to help them in conquering pettiness of soul, so that by no +weak example may they dishearten those who are weak. I am almost +convinced that the man who composed the inscription on the emerald +which is said to have reached Tiberius must have seen the Founder of +our religion--or, at least, must have known some one who had seen Him. +"None hath seen Him smile; but many have seen Him weep." It is so like +what we should have expected! The days of the joyous pagan gods were +passing away, the shadows of tedium and of life-weariness were +drooping over a world that was once filled with thoughtless +merriment--and then came One who preached the Gospel of Sorrow. He +preached that gospel, and a faithless world at first refused to hear +Him; but the Divine depth of sorrow drew the highest of souls; and +soon the world left the religion of pride and vainglory and pleasure +to embrace the religion of Pity. + +The sorrow of the weary King Ecclesiast has never seemed to me +altogether noble; it is piercing in its insight--and I understand how +youths who are coming to manhood find in the awful chapters a savage +contrast to the joys of existence. Young men who have reached the +strange time of discontent through which all of us pass are always +profoundly affected by the Preacher; and they are too apt to pervert +the most poignant of his words; but men who have really thought and +suffered can never help feeling that there is a species of ingratitude +in all his splendid lamentations. Why should the mighty king have +bidden the youth to rejoice after so many awful words had been penned +to show the end of all rejoicing? Every pleasure on earth the king had +enjoyed, and he had drained life's chalice so far down that he tasted +the bitterness of the lees. But had he not savoured joy to the full? +Was there one gift showered by the lavish bounty of God which had not +fallen on the chosen of fortune? We revere the intellect of the man +who chastens our souls with his sombre discourse; but I could wish he +had veiled his despair, and had told us of the ravishing delights +which he had known. No; the Preacher is great, but his sorrow is not +the highest. I give my chief reverence to the men who let their sorrow +pass into central fire that blazes into deeds; I revere the men and +women who bear their yoke and utter never a word of complaint; on them +sorrow falls like a pure soft snow that leaves no stain. + +Of late, the nations of the world have been thrilled by the deeds of +one humble man who embraced Sorrow and let her claim him for the best +part of his life. I cannot bear to think much of the tragedy of +Damien's life--and I shall not dream of endeavouring to find excuses, +or of declaring that life an essentially happy one. The good Father +chose Grief and clave to her as a bride; he chose the sights and +sounds of grief as his surroundings and he wrought on silently under +his fearful burden of holy sorrow until the release was given. He +spoke no boastful words of contentment save when he thought of the +rest that was coming for him; he gallantly accepted the crudest and +foulest conditions of his dreadful environment, and he uttered no +craving for sympathy, no wish for personal aid. If we think of that +immortal priest's choice, we understand, perhaps for the first time, +what the religion of Sorrow truly means. On the lonely rock the meek, +strong soul spent its forces; joy, friendly faces, laughter of sweet +children, healthy and kindly companions--there were none of these. The +sea moaned round with many voices, and the sky bent over the lonely +disciple; the melancholy of the sea, the melancholy of the changeless +sky, the monotony of silence, must all have weighed on his heart. In +the daytime there were only sights whereat strong men might swoon +away--pain, pain, pain all round, and every complication of horror; +but the Child of Sorrow bore all. Then came the sentence of death. For +ten weary years the hero had to wait in loneliness while the Destroyer +slowly enfolded him in its arms. We pity the monster who dies a swift +death after his life of wickedness has been forfeited; we are vexed if +a criminal endures one minute of suffering; but the noble one on that +sad isle watched his doom coming for ten years, and never flinched +from his task during that harrowing time. It makes the heart grow +chill, despite the pride we feel in our lost brother. The religion of +Sorrow has indeed conquered; and Father Damien has set the seal to its +triumph. + +But around us there are others who have composedly accepted sorrow as +their portion. We have, it may be, felt so much joy in living, we have +been so pierced through and through in every nerve and every faculty +of the mind with pure rapture during our pilgrimage, that we would +fain let all dwellers on earth share the blessedness that we have +known. It is not to be; the gospel of pity must needs claim some of +its disciples wholly--and sorrow is their portion. Perhaps under all +their sadness there lurks a joy that passes all known to slighter +souls--I hope so; I hope that they cannot be permitted to endure what +Dante endured. In the purlieus of our cities these resigned, resolute +spirits expend their forces, and their unostentatious figures, passing +from home to home where poor men lie, offer a lesson to the petty +souls of some whose riches and worldly powers are by no means petty. +Ah, it is lovely to see those merciful sisters of the fallen or +falling--good to see the men who help them! Need we pity them? They +would say "No"; but we must, for they live hard. A delicate lady +quietly sets to work in a filthy tenement; her white hands raise up +and cleanse the foulest of the poor little infants who swarm in the +slums; she calmly performs menial offices for the basest and most +ungrateful of the poor--and no one who has not lived among those +degraded folk can tell what ingratitude is really like. Day after day +that lady toils; and the only word of thanks she receives is perhaps a +whine from some woman who wishes to cajole her into bestowing some +gift. These sisters of Sorrow do not need thanks any more than they +need pity; they frankly recognise the baseness of ill-reared human +nature, and they go on trustfully in the hope that maybe things may +grow slowly better. They meet death calmly; they hide their own +sorrow, and even their pity is disciplined into usefulness. The men of +the good company are the same. They have resigned all the lighter joys +of earth, they are calm, and they let the unutterable sadness of the +world spur them on only to quiet efforts after righteousness. Think +what it must be for a man to leave the warm encompassment of the +cheerful day and pass composedly to a gloom which is relieved only by +the inner light that shines from the soul! Were not the hearts of the +heroes pure, they must grow cynical as they looked on the evil mass of +roguery, idleness, foulness, and cunning that seethes around them. But +they have passed the portal beyond which peace is found; and the +sorrow wherewith they gaze on their hapless fellow-men is tinctured +neither by scorn nor weariness. If there is no reward for them, then +we all of us have cause for bitter disappointment. But the forlorn +hope of goodness never trouble themselves about rewards; they face the +shadows of doom only as they face the squalor of their daily +martyrdom. A certain philosopher said that he could not endure so +sombre an existence because his nerves and sinews were frail and the +pain would have mastered him; but he gladly owned that the enthusiasts +had conquered his admiration and taken it for their permanent +possession. The cool keen eye of the scoffer divined the strength of +sorrow, and he admired the men whom he durst not imitate. + +There are others who pass through life enwrapped by the veil of a +noble sorrow; and, when I see them, I am minded to wonder whether any +one was ever the worse for encountering the touch of the chilly +Mistress whom most children of earth dread. When I think the matter +over I become convinced that no one who has once felt a noble and +gentle sorrow can ever become wholly bad; and I fancy that even the +bad, when once a real sorrow has pierced them, have a chance of +becoming good. So in strange ways the things that seem hard to bear +steadily tend to make the world better. When the bell tolls and the +brown earth gapes and the form of the loved one is passed from sight +for ever, it is bitter--ah, how bitter! But the chastening touch of +Time takes away the bitterness, and there is left only an intense +gentleness which seeks to soothe those who suffer; and the mother +whose babe seemed to take her very heart away when it went into the +Darkness can pity the other bereaved ones; so that her soul is exalted +through its grief. The poet is thought by some to have uttered a mere +aimless whim in words when he said-- + + "To Sorrow + I bade good-morrow, + And thought to leave her far away behind; + But cheerly, cheerly, + She loves me dearly-- + She is so constant to me and so kind. + I would deceive her, + And so leave her; + But, ah, she is so constant and so kind!" + +It sounds like a whim; but it is more than that to those who have been +in the depths of grief; for they know that out of their affliction +grew either a solemn scorn of worldly ills or a keen wish to be +helpful to others. + +I have no desire to utter a paradox when I say that all the world +holds of best has sprung from sorrow. Shakspere smiles and is still. I +love the smiles of his wiser years; but they would never have been so +calmly content, so cheering with all their inscrutable depth, had not +the man been weighed down with some dark sorrow before his soul was +rescued and purified. I do not care for him when he is grinning and +merry. He could play the buffoon when he willed--and a very unpleasant +buffoon he was in his day; but Sorrow claimed him, and he came forth +purified to speak to us by Prospero's lips. He had his struggle to +compass resignation, he even seems to have felt himself degraded, and +there is almost a weak complaint in that terrible sonnet, "No longer +mourn for me when I am dead;" but his heart-strings held; he kept his +dignity at the last, and he gave us the splendours of "The Tempest." I +have no manner of superstition about the great poet--indeed I feel +sure that at one time of his life he was what we call a bad man, his +self-reproaches hinting all too plainly at forms of wickedness, moral +wickedness, which pass far beyond the ordinary vice which society +condemns--but I am sure that he became as good as he was serene; and I +like to trace the phases of his sorrow up to the time of his triumph. + +Of late it has been the fashion to talk about Byron's theatrical +sorrow. One much-advertised critic went so far as to speak of "Byron's +vulgar selfishness." It might have been supposed that incontestable +evidence had come before him; but a careful perusal of the documents +will prove that, though Byron was as selfish as most other men during +his mad misguided youth, yet, after sorrow had blanched his noble +head, he cast off all that was vile in him and emerged from the +fire-discipline as the most helpful and utterly unselfish of men. His +last calm gentle letter to the woman who drove him out of England is +simply perfect in its dignified humility; and the poorest creature +that ever snarled may see from that letter that grief had turned the +wayward fierce poet into a gentle and forbearing man who had suffered +so much that he could not find it in his heart to inflict suffering on +his worst enemy. I call the Byron of the Abbey a bad man; the Byron +whose home became the home of pure charity--charity done in +secret--was a good man. + +Sorrow may appear repulsive and men bid her "Avaunt!" Yet out of +sorrow all that is noblest and highest in poesy and art has arisen; +and all that is noblest in life has been achieved by the +sorrow-stricken. Joy has given us much; and those who have once known +what real earthly joy means should be content to pass unrepining to +the Shades; but Sorrow's gifts are priceless, and no man can appraise +their worth. Even poor Carlyle's sorrow, which was oftentimes aught +but noble, if all tales be true, was sufficient to endow us with the +most splendid of modern books. It is strange to see how that crabbed +man with the passionately-loving heart keeps harping on the +beneficence of sorrow. Once he spoke of "Sorrow's fire-whips"; but +usually his strain is far, far different. He cleaves to the noble and +sorrowful figures that crowd his sombre galleries; and I do not know +that he ever gives more than a light and careless word of praise to +any but his melancholy heroes. Cromwell, Abbot Sampson, the bold +Ziethen, Danton, Mirabeau, Mahomet, Burns, "the great, melancholy +Johnson," and even Napoleon and Luther--all are sorrowful, all are +beautiful. Peace to them, and peace to the strong soul that made them +all live again for the world! + + + + +XXIV. + +DEATH. + + +The air of mystery which most of us assume when we speak about the +great change that marks the bound of our mortal progress has +engendered a kind of paralysing terror which makes ordinary people +shudder at the notion of bodily extinction. We are glad enough to +enjoy the beautiful things of life, we welcome the rapture of love, +the delight of the sun, the promise of spring, the glory of strength; +and yet forsooth we must needs tremble at the grand beneficent close +which rounds off our earthly strivings and completes one stage in our +everlasting progress. Why should we not speak as frankly of Death as +we do of love and life? If men would only be content to let their +minds play freely around all the facts that concern our entrance, our +progress, our exit, then existence would be relieved from the presence +of terror. The Greeks were more rational than we are; they took the +joys of life with serenity and gladness, and they accepted the mighty +transformation with the same serenity. On their memorial-stones there +is no note of mourning. A young man calmly bids adieu to his friends +and prepares to pass with dignity from their presence; a gallant +horseman exults in the knowledge that he once rejoiced in life--"Great +joy had I on earth, and now I that came from the earth return to the +earth." Such are the carvings and inscriptions that show the wise, +brave spirit of the ancients. But we, with our civilisation, behave +somewhat like those Indian tribes who keep one mysterious word in +their minds, and try to avoid mentioning it throughout their lives. +Even in familiar conversation it is amusing to hear the desperate +attempts made to paraphrase the word which should come naturally to +the lips of all steadfast mortals. "If anything should happen to me," +says the timid citizen, when he means, "If I should die"; and it would +be possible to collect a score more of roundabout phrases with which +men try to cheat themselves. It is right that we should be in love +with life, for that is the supreme gift; but it is wrong to think with +abhorrence of the close of life, for the same Being who gave us the +thrilling rapture of consciousness bestows the boon of rest upon the +temple of the soul. "He giveth His beloved sleep," and therein He +proves His mighty tenderness. + +Strange it is to see how inevitably men and women are drawn to think +and speak of the great Terror when they are forced to muse in +solitude. We flirt with melancholy; we try all kinds of dismal +coquetries to avoid dwelling on our inexorable and beneficent doom; +yet, if we look over the written thoughts of men, we find that more +has been said about Death than even about love. The stone-cold +comforter attracts the poets, and most of them, like Keats, are half +in love with easeful death. The word that causes a shudder when it is +spoken in a drawing-room gives a sombre and satisfying pleasure when +we dwell upon it in our hours of solitude. Sometimes the poets are +palpably guilty of hypocrisy, for they pretend to crave for the +passage into the shades. That is unreal and unhealthy; the wise man +neither longs for death nor dreads it, and the fool who begs for +extinction before the Omnipotent has willed that it should come is a +mere silly blasphemer. But, though the men who put the thoughts of +humanity into musical words are sometimes insincere, they are more +often grave and consoling. I know of two supreme expressions of dread, +and one of these was written by the wisest and calmest man that ever +dwelt beneath the sun. Marvellous it is to think that our most sane +and contented poet should have condensed all the terror of our race +into one long and awful sentence. Perhaps Shakspere was stricken with +momentary pity for the cowardice of his fellows, and, out of pure +compassion, gave their agony a voice. That may be; at any rate, the +fragment of "Measure for Measure" in which the cry of loathing and +fear is uttered stands as the most striking and unforgettable saying +that ever was conceived in the brain of man. Everybody knows the +lines, yet we may once more touch our souls with solemnity by quoting +them: + + "Ay, but to die, and go we know not where; + To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot; + This sensible warm motion to become + A kneaded clod, and the delighted spirit + To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside + In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice; + To be imprisoned in the viewless winds + And blown with restless violence round about + The pendent world; or to be worse than worst + Of those that lawless and incertain thoughts + Imagine howling!--'tis too horrible! + The weariest and most loathed worldly life + That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment + Can lay on nature is a paradise + To what we fear of death." + +There is no more to be said in that particular line of reflection; the +speech is flawless in its gruesome power, and every piercing word +seems to leap from a shuddering soul. The other utterance which is fit +to be matched with Shakspere's was written by Charles Lamb. +"Whatsoever thwarts or puts me out of my way brings death into my +mind. All partial evils, like humours, run into that capital +plague-sore. I have heard some profess an indifference to life. Such +hail the end of their existence as a port of refuge, and speak of the +grave as of some soft arms in which they may slumber as on a pillow. +Some have wooed death--but 'Out upon thee,' I say, 'thou foul, ugly +phantom! I detest, abhor, execrate thee, as in no instance to be +excused or tolerated, but shunned as a universal viper, to be branded, +proscribed, and spoken evil of! In no way can I be brought to digest +thee, thou thin, melancholy _Privation_. Those antidotes prescribed +against the fear of thee are altogether frigid and insulting, like +thyself.'" + +Poor Charles's wild humour flickers over this page like lambent flame; +yet he was serious at heart without a doubt, and his whirling words +rouse an echo in many a breast to this day. But both Shakspere and +Lamb had their higher moments. Turn to "Cymbeline," and observe the +glorious triumph of the dirge which rings like the magnificent +exultation of Beethoven's Funeral March-- + + "Fear no more the heat o' the sun, + Nor the furious winter's rages; + Thou thy worldly task hast done, + Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages; + Golden lads and girls all must, + As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. + + Fear no more the frown o' the great-- + Thou art past the tyrant's stroke; + Care no more to clothe and eat-- + To thee the reed is as the oak; + The sceptre, learning, physic, must + All follow this, and come to dust." + +Here in rhythmic form we have the thought of the mighty apostle--"O +Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory?" Shakspere +was too intensely human to be absolved from mortal weakness; but, in +the main, he took the one view which I should be glad to see cherished +by all. His words sometimes make us pause, as we pause when the violet +flashes of summer lightning fleet across the lowering dome of the sky; +but, in the end, he always has his words of cheer, and we gather heart +from reading the strongest and most perfect writer the earth has +known. Turn where we will, we find that all of our race--emperor, +warrior, poet, clown, fair lady, innocent child--are given to dwelling +on the same thought. It is our business to seek out those who have +spoken with resignation and dauntlessness, and to leave aside all +those who have only affectations of bravery or affectations of horror +to give us. Here is a beautiful word:-- + + "The ways of Death are soothing and serene, + And all the words of Death are grave and sweet; + Approaching ever, soft of hands and feet, + She beckons us, and strife and song have been. + A summer night, descending cool and green + And dark on daytime's dust and stress and heat, + The ways of Death are soothing and serene, + And all the words of Death are grave and sweet. + O glad and sorrowful, with triumphant mien + And hopeful fancies look upon and greet + This last of all your lovers, and to meet + Her kiss mysterious all your spirit lean! + The ways of Death are soothing and serene!" + +Even Shakspere hardly bettered that! + +I should not like to see men begin to encourage the recklessness of +the desperado, nor should I like to see women affect the brazen +abandonment of the Amazon. I only care to see our fellow-creatures +rise above pettiness, so that they may accept all God's ordinances +with unvarying gratitude. Is it not pitiful to see a grown man +trembling and waving his hand with angry disgust when the holy course +of Nature is spoken of with gravity and composed resolution? I have +seen a stout, strong man who had amassed enormous wealth fly into +pettish rage like a spoiled child when a friend spoke to him about the +final disposal of his riches. Like a silly girl, this powerful +millionaire went into tremors when the inevitable was named in his +ear, for he had imbibed all the cowardly conventions that tend to +poison our existence. He died a hundred deaths in his time, and much +of his life was passed in such misery as only cultivated poltroonery +can breed. Wicked wags knew that they could frighten him at any +moment; they would greet him cordially, and then suddenly assume an +air of deep concern. The poor plutocrat's face changed instantly, and +he would ask, "What is the matter?" The joker then made answer, "You +are a little flushed. You should rest." This was enough. The truant +imagination of the unhappy butt went far afield in search of terrors; +neither food, nor wine, nor the pleasures of the theatre could tempt +him, and he remained in a state of limpness until the natural buoyancy +of his spirits asserted itself. What a life! How much better would it +have been for this rich man had he trained himself to preserve General +Gordon's composure, even if he had bought that composure at the price +of his whole colossal fortune! Riches were useless to him, the sun +failed to cheer him, and his end was in truth a release from one +incessant torture. + +Turn from this hare-hearted citizen, and think of our hero, the pride +of England, the flower of the human race--Charles Gordon. With his +exquisite simplicity, Gordon confesses in one of his letters that he +used to feel frightened when he went under fire, for the superstitious +dread of death had been grafted on his mind when he was young. But he +learned the fear of God and lost all other fear; he accustomed himself +to the idea of parting with the world and its hopes and labours, and +in all the long series of letters which he sent home from the Soudan +during his period of rule we find him constantly speaking quietly, +joyously about the event which carries horror to the hearts of weak +men--"My Master will lay me aside and use some other instrument when I +have fulfilled His purpose. I have no fear of death, for I know I +shall exchange much weariness for perfect peace." So spoke the hero, +the just and faithful Knight of God. He was simple, with the +simplicity of a flawless diamond; he was reverent, he was faithful +even to the end, and he was incredibly dauntless. Why? Because he had +faced the last great problem with all the force of his noble manhood, +and the thought of his translation to another world woke in his +gallant soul images of beauty and holiness. Why should the meanest and +most unlearned of us all not strive to follow in the footsteps of the +hero? Millions on millions have passed away, and they now know all +things; the cessation of human life is as common and natural as the +drawing of our breath; why then should we invest a natural, blessed, +beautiful event with murky lines of wrath and dread? The pitiful +wretch who flaunts his braggart defiance before the eyes of men and +shrieks his feeble contempt of the inevitable is worthy only of our +quiet scorn; but the grateful soul that bows humbly to the stroke of +fate and accepts death as thankfully as life is in all ways worthy of +admiration and vivid respect. We are prone to talk of our "rights," +and some of us have a very exalted idea of the range which those +precious "rights" should cover. One of our poets goes so far as to +inquire in an amiable way, "What have we done to thee, O Death?" He +insinuates that Death is very unkind to ply the abhorred shears over +such nice, harmless creatures as we are. Let us, for manhood's sake, +have done with puerility; let us recognise that our "rights" have no +existence, and that we must perforce accept the burdens of life, +labour, and death that are laid upon us. We can do no good by +nourishing fears, by encouraging silly conventionalities, by shirking +the bald facts of life; and we should gently, joyfully, trustfully +look our fate in the face and fear nothing. Life will never be the +joyous pilgrimage that it ought to be until men have learned to crush +their pride, their doubts, their terrors, and have also learned to +regard the beautiful sleep as a holy and fitting reward only to be +rightly enjoyed by those who live purely, righteously, hopefully in +the sight of God and man. + + + + +XXV. + +JOURNALISM. + + +When the mystic midnight passes, the bustle of Fleet Street slackens; +but on each side of the thoroughfare hundreds of workers with hand and +brain are toiling with eager intensity. In tall buildings here and +there the lights glitter on every floor, and throw their long shafts +through the gloom; not much activity is plainly visible, and yet +somehow the merest novice feels that there is a throb in the air, and +that some mysterious forces are working around him. Hurrying +messengers dash by, stray cabs rush along with a low rumble and sharp +clash of hoofs. But it is not in the street that the minds and bodies +of men are obviously in action; go inside one of the mighty palatial +offices, and you find yourself in the midst of such a hive of +marvellous industry as the world has never seen before. On one journal +as many as four hundred and fifty or five hundred men are all +labouring for dear life; every one is at high pressure, from the +silent leader-writer to the fussy swift-footed messenger. In that one +building is concentrated a great estate, which yields a revenue that +exceeds that of some principalities; it is a large nerve-centre, and +myriads of fibres connect it with every part of the globe; or, say, it +is like some miraculous eye, which sees in all directions and is +indifferent to distance. Go into one quiet, soft-carpeted room, and +certain small glittering machines flash in the bright light. "Click, +click--click, click!"--long strips of tape are softly unwound and fall +in slack twisted piles. One of those machines is printing off a long +letter from Berlin, another is registering news from Vienna, and by a +third news from Paris comes as easily and rapidly as from Shoreditch; +subdued men take the tapes, expand and make fluent the curt, halting +phrases of the foreign correspondents, and pass the messages swiftly +away to the printers. From America, Australia, India, China, the items +of news pour in, and are scrutinised by severe sub-editors; and those +experts calculate to a fraction of an inch what space can be +judiciously spared for each item. If Parliament is sitting, the relays +of messengers arrive with batches of manuscript; and, when an +important debate is proceeding, the steady influx of hundreds of +scribbled sheets is enormous. A four hours' speech from such an orator +as Mr. Gladstone or Mr. Chamberlain contains, say, thirty thousand +words. Imagine the area of paper covered by the reporters! But such a +speech would rarely come in late at night, and the men can usually +handle an important oration by an eminent speaker in a way that is +leisurely by comparison. The slips are distributed with lightning +rapidity; each man puts his little batch into type, the fragments are +placed in their queer frame, and presently the readers are poring over +the long, damp, and odorous proof-sheets. There is no very great hurry +in the early part of the evening; but, as the small hours wear away, +the strain is feverish in its poignancy. There is no noise, no +confusion; each man knows his office, and fulfils it deftly. But such +great issues are involved, that the nervousness of managers, printers, +sub-editors--every one--may easily be understood. Suppose that a very +important division is to be taken in Parliament; the minutes roll by, +and the news is still delayed. Some kind of comment must be made on +the result of the debate, and an able, swift writer scrawls off his +column of phrases with furious speed. Then that article must be put +into type; a model of the type must be taken on a sheet of +papier-mache, the melted metal must be poured into the paper mould, +the resulting curved block must be clamped on to a cylinder of the +waiting machine, and all this must be done with strict regard to the +value of seconds. A delay of half a minute might prevent the manager +from sending his piles of journals away by the early train, and that +would be a calamity too fearful to be dreamed of. In one great +newspaper-office ten machines are all set going together, and an +eleventh is kept ready in case of accident. The ten whizzing cylinders +print off the papers, and an impression of a quarter of a million is +soon thrown out, folded, and piled ready for distribution. But imagine +what a loss of one minute means! Truly the agitation of the officials +at an awkward pinch is singularly excusable, and many a hard word is +levelled at pertinacious talkers who insist on thrusting themselves +upon the House at a time when the country is waiting with wild +eagerness for momentous tidings. The long line of carts waits in the +street, the speedy ponies rattle off, and soon the immense building is +all but still. Comfortable people who have their journal punctually +handed in at a convenient hour in the morning are apt to think lightly +of the raging effort, the inconceivably complicated organisation, the +colossal expense needed to produce that sheet which is flung away at +the close of each day. A blunder of the most trivial kind might throw +everything out of gear; but stern discipline and ubiquitous precaution +render the blunder almost an impossibility. Sometimes you may observe +in a paper like the _Times_ one column which bristles with +typographical errors. All the slips are clustered in one place, and +the reason is that the few minutes necessary for proper revision could +not be spared. Good workmen are set on at the last moment, and an +attempt is made to set up the final scraps of matter with as few +errors as possible; but little mistakes will creep in, and people who +do not know the startling exigencies of the printer's trade are apt to +express scornful wonder. Very comic have been the errors made during +the recent furious and prolonged debates, for the frantic conflicts in +the House were extended far into the small hours. One excited orator, +in closing a debate, dropped into poetry, and remarked that a certain +catastrophe came "like a bolt from the blue"; a daily journal of vast +circulation described the event as coming "like a bolt from the +flue"--which was a very sad instance of bathos. The amazing thing is +that such blunders should be so rare as to be memorable. + +What a strange population who toil thus at night for our pleasure and +instruction, and who reverse the order of ordinary people's lives! +They are worth knowing, these swift, dexterous, laborious people. +First of all comes the great personage--the editor. In old days simple +persons imagined the conductor of the _Times_ perched upon a majestic +throne, whence he hurled his bolts in the most light-hearted manner. +We know better now; yet it must be owned that the editor of a great +journal is a very important personage indeed. The true editor is born +to his function; if he has not the gift, no amount of drilling will +ever make him efficient. Many of the outside public still picture the +editor as wielding his pen valiantly, and stabbing enemies or +heartening friends with his own hands. As a matter of fact, the +editor's function is not to write; the best of the profession never +touch a pen, excepting to write a brief note of instruction or to send +a private letter. The editor is the brain of the journal; and, in the +case of a daily paper, his business is not so much to instruct the +public as to find out what the public want to say, and say it for them +in the clearest and most forcible way possible. Imagine a general +commanding amid the din of a great battle. He must remember the number +of his forces, the exact disposition of every battalion, the peculiar +capabilities of his principal subordinates, and he must also note +every yard of the ground. He hears that a battalion has been repulsed +with heavy slaughter at a point one mile away, and the officer in +command cannot repeat his assault without reinforcements. He must +instantly decide as to whether the foiled battalion is merely to hold +its ground or to advance once more. Orderlies reach him from all +points of the compass; he must note where the enemy's fire slackens or +gains power; he must be ready to use the field-telegraph with +unhesitating decision, for a minute's hesitation may lose the battle +and ruin his force. In short, the general plays a vast game which +makes the complications of chess seem simple. The editor, in his +peaceful way, has to perform daily a mental feat almost equal in +complexity to that of the warrior. Public opinion usually has strong +general tendencies; but there are hundreds of cross-currents, and the +editor must allow for all. Suppose that a public agitation is begun, +and that a great national movement seems to be in progress; then the +editor must be able to tell instinctively how far the movement is +likely to be strong and lasting. If he errs seriously, and regards an +agitation as trivial which is really momentous, then his journal +receives a blow which may cripple its influence during months. One +great paper was ruined some twenty years ago by a blunder, and about +one hundred thousand pounds were deliberately thrown away through +obstinate folly. The perfect editor, like the great general, seizes +every clue that can guide him, and makes his final movement with alert +decision. No wonder that the work of editing wears men out early. The +great _Times_ editor, Mr. Delane, went about much in society; he +always appeared to be calm, untroubled, inscrutable, though the +factions were warring fiercely and bitterness had reached its height. +He scarcely ever missed his mark; and, when he strolled into his +office late in the evening, his plan was ready for the morrow's +battle. At five the next morning his well-known figure, wrapped in the +queer long coat, was to be seen coming from the square; he might have +destroyed a government, or altered a war policy, or ruined a +statesman--all was one to him; and he went away ready to lay his plans +for the next day's conflict. Delane's power at one time was almost +incalculable, and he gained it by unerringly finding out exactly what +England wanted. England might be wrong or right--that was none of +Delane's business; he cared only to discover what his country wished +for from day to day. An amazing function is that of an editor. + +Then we have the leader-writer. The British public have decided that +their newspaper shall furnish them daily with three or four little +addresses on various topics of current interest; and these grave or +gay sermons are composed by practised hands who must be ready to write +on almost any subject under the sun at a minute's notice. In a certain +class of old-fashioned literature the newspaper-writer is represented +as a careless, dissipated Bohemian, who lived with rackety +inconsequence. That tribe of writers has long vanished from the face +of the earth. The last of the sort that I remember was a miserable old +man who haunted the British Museum. No one knew where he lived; but +his work, such as it was, usually went in with punctuality, and he +drank the proceeds. He died in a stall of a low public-house, and was +buried by the parish. No one but his editor and one or two cronies +knew his real name, and he appeared to be utterly friendless. But the +modern leader-writer must beware of strong liquors. Usually he is a +keen, reposeful man who has his brain cool at all hours. The immense +drinking-bouts of old times could never be indulged in now; and +indeed, if a journalist once begins to take stimulants as stimulants, +his end is not far off. Let us mention the kind of feats which must be +performed. A powerful minister makes a speech after eleven o'clock at +night; the leader-writer receives proof-sheets; he must grasp the +whole scope of the speech in a flash, and then proceed with the mere +mechanical work of writing. Twelve hundred words will take about an +hour and twenty minutes to set down, and then the MS. must be rushed +piece by piece to the composing-room. Again, supposing that news of +some great disaster arrives late. An article must be swiftly done, and +the writer must have a theory ready that will hold water. Work like +this needs a quick wit, a copious vocabulary, and an absolutely steady +hand. Moreover, the leader-writer must unhappily be invariably ready +to write "nothings" so that they may look like "somethings." News is +scarce, foreign nations show a culpable lack of desire to kill each +other, no moving accident has occurred--and the paper must be filled. +Then the leader-writer must take some trivial subject and weave round +it a web of graceful and amusing phrases. One brilliant scholar once +wrote a most charming and learned article about pigs; and I have seen +a column of grave nonsense spun out on the subject of an unhappy cat +which fixed its head in a salmon-tin! + +This hurried writing on trifling matters brings on a certain looseness +of style and thought; but the public will have it, and the demand +creates the supply of a flimsy, pleasant, literary article. The best +leaders are now written by fine scholars. In travelling over the +country I have been amused by simple people who imagined that the +articles in a journal were produced by one secret and utterly +mysterious being. These good folk are mightily surprised on finding +that the admired leaders are done by a troop of men who are not +exactly commonplace, but who are not much wiser or better than their +fellows. + + +UNWIN BROTHERS PRINTERS CHILWORTH AND LONDON. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Side Lights, by James Runciman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIDE LIGHTS *** + +***** This file should be named 15762.txt or 15762.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/7/6/15762/ + +Produced by Steven Gibbs 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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