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diff --git a/1915-0.txt b/1915-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..515169b --- /dev/null +++ b/1915-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6958 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, by +Jerome K. Jerome + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: The Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow + + +Author: Jerome K. Jerome + + + +Release Date: May 20, 2015 [eBook #1915] +[This file was first posted in February 17, 1999] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECOND THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE +FELLOW*** + + +This etext was prepared by Les Bowler from the 1899 Hurst and Blackett +edition. + + [Picture: Book cover] + + + + + + The Second Thoughts + of + An Idle Fellow + + + * * * * * + + BY + JEROME K. JEROME + AUTHOR OF + ‘THREE MEN IN A BOAT,’ ‘IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW,’ + ‘STAGELAND,’ ‘JOHN INGERFIELD,’ ETC. + + * * * * * + + LONDON + HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED + 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET + 1899 + _All rights reserved_ + + * * * * * + + First printing published August 17, 1898. + Second printing published September 2, 1898. + Third printing published November 1, 1898. + Fourth printing published January 1, 1899. + + * * * * * + + RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, LONDON & BUNGAY. + + * * * * * + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE +ON THE ART OF MAKING UP ONE’S MIND 1 +ON THE DISADVANTAGE OF NOT GETTING WHAT ONE WANTS 29 +ON THE EXCEPTIONAL MERIT ATTACHING TO THE THINGS WE MEANT 53 +TO DO +ON THE PREPARATION AND EMPLOYMENT OF LOVE PHILTRES 91 +ON THE DELIGHTS AND BENEFITS OF SLAVERY 119 +ON THE CARE AND MANAGEMENT OF WOMEN 149 +ON THE MINDING OF OTHER PEOPLE’S BUSINESS 175 +ON THE TIME WASTED IN LOOKING BEFORE ONE LEAPS 215 +ON THE NOBILITY OF OURSELVES 245 +ON THE MOTHERLINESS OF MAN 271 +ON THE INADVISABILITY OF FOLLOWING ADVICE 301 +ON THE PLAYING OF MARCHES AT THE FUNERALS OF MARIONETTES 335 + + + +ON THE ART OF MAKING UP ONE’S MIND + + +“NOW, which would you advise, dear? You see, with the red I shan’t be +able to wear my magenta hat.” + +“Well then, why not have the grey?” + +“Yes—yes, I think the grey will be _more useful_.” + +“It’s a good material.” + +“Yes, and it’s a _pretty_ grey. You know what I mean, dear; not a +_common_ grey. Of course grey is always an _uninteresting_ colour.” + +“It’s quiet.” + +“And then again, what I feel about the red is that it is so warm-looking. +Red makes you _feel_ warm even when you’re _not_ warm. You know what I +mean, dear!” + +“Well then, why not have the red? It suits you—red.” + +“No; do you really think so?” + +“Well, when you’ve got a colour, I mean, of course!” + +“Yes, that is the drawback to red. No, I think, on the whole, the grey +is _safer_.” + +“Then you will take the grey, madam?” + +“Yes, I think I’d better; don’t you, dear?” + +“I like it myself very much.” + +“And it is good wearing stuff. I shall have it trimmed with— Oh! you +haven’t cut it off, have you?” + +“I was just about to, madam.” + +“Well, don’t for a moment. Just let me have another look at the red. +You see, dear, it has just occurred to me—that chinchilla would look so +well on the red!” + +“So it would, dear!” + +“And, you see, I’ve _got_ the chinchilla.” + +“Then have the red. Why not?” + +“Well, there is the hat I’m thinking of.” + +“You haven’t anything else you could wear with that?” + +“Nothing at all, and it would go so _beautifully_ with the grey.—Yes, I +think I’ll have the grey. It’s always a safe colour—grey.” + +“Fourteen yards I think you said, madam?” + +“Yes, fourteen yards will be enough; because I shall mix it with—One +minute. You see, dear, if I take the grey I shall have nothing to wear +with my black jacket.” + +“Won’t it go with grey?” + +“Not well—not so well as with red.” + +“I should have the red then. You evidently fancy it yourself.” + +“No, personally I prefer the grey. But then one must think of +_everything_, and—Good gracious! that’s surely not the right time?” + +“No, madam, it’s ten minutes slow. We always keep our clocks a little +slow!” + +“And we were too have been at Madame Jannaway’s at a quarter past twelve. +How long shopping does take! Why, whatever time did we start?” + +“About eleven, wasn’t it?” + +“Half-past ten. I remember now; because, you know, we said we’d start at +half-past nine. We’ve been two hours already!” + +“And we don’t seem to have done much, do we?” + +“Done literally nothing, and I meant to have done so much. I _must_ go +to Madame Jannaway’s. Have you got my purse, dear? Oh, it’s all right, +I’ve got it.” + +“Well, now you haven’t decided whether you’re going to have the grey or +the red.” + +“I’m sure I don’t know what I _do_ want now. I had made up my mind a +minute ago, and now it’s all gone again—oh yes, I remember, the red. +Yes, I’ll have the red. No, I don’t mean the red, I mean the grey.” + +“You were talking about the red last time, if you remember, dear.” + +“Oh, so I was, you’re quite right. That’s the worst of shopping. Do you +know I get quite confused sometimes.” + +“Then you will decide on the red, madam?” + +“Yes—yes, I shan’t do any better, shall I, dear? What do _you_ think? +You haven’t got any other shades of red, have you? This is such an +_ugly_ red.” + +The shopman reminds her that she has seen all the other reds, and that +this is the particular shade she selected and admired. + +“Oh, very well,” she replies, with the air of one from whom all earthly +cares are falling, “I must take that then, I suppose. I can’t be worried +about it any longer. I’ve wasted half the morning already.” + +Outside she recollects three insuperable objections to the red, and four +unanswerable arguments why she should have selected the grey. She +wonders would they change it, if she went back and asked to see the +shop-walker? Her friend, who wants her lunch, thinks not. + +“That is what I hate about shopping,” she says. “One never has time to +really _think_.” + +She says she shan’t go to that shop again. + +We laugh at her, but are we so very much better? Come, my superior male +friend, have you never stood, amid your wardrobe, undecided whether, in +her eyes, you would appear more imposing, clad in the rough tweed suit +that so admirably displays your broad shoulders; or in the orthodox black +frock, that, after all, is perhaps more suitable to the figure of a man +approaching—let us say, the nine-and-twenties? Or, better still, why not +riding costume? Did we not hear her say how well Jones looked in his +top-boots and breeches, and, “hang it all,” we have a better leg than +Jones. What a pity riding-breeches are made so baggy nowadays. Why is +it that male fashions tend more and more to hide the male leg? As women +have become less and less ashamed of theirs, we have become more and more +reticent of ours. Why are the silken hose, the tight-fitting pantaloons, +the neat kneebreeches of our forefathers impossible to-day? Are we grown +more modest—or has there come about a falling off, rendering concealment +advisable? + +I can never understand, myself, why women love us. It must be our honest +worth, our sterling merit, that attracts them—certainly not our +appearance, in a pair of tweed “dittos,” black angora coat and vest, +stand-up collar, and chimney-pot hat! No, it must be our sheer force of +character that compels their admiration. + +What a good time our ancestors must have had was borne in upon me when, +on one occasion, I appeared in character at a fancy dress ball. What I +represented I am unable to say, and I don’t particularly care. I only +know it was something military. I also remember that the costume was two +sizes too small for me in the chest, and thereabouts; and three sizes too +large for me in the hat. I padded the hat, and dined in the middle of +the day off a chop and half a glass of soda-water. I have gained prizes +as a boy for mathematics, also for scripture history—not often, but I +have done it. A literary critic, now dead, once praised a book of mine. +I know there have been occasions when my conduct has won the approbation +of good men; but never—never in my whole life, have I felt more proud, +more satisfied with myself than on that evening when, the last hook +fastened, I gazed at my full-length Self in the cheval glass. I was a +dream. I say it who should not; but I am not the only one who said it. +I was a glittering dream. The groundwork was red, trimmed with gold +braid wherever there was room for gold braid; and where there was no more +possible room for gold braid there hung gold cords, and tassels, and +straps. Gold buttons and buckles fastened me, gold embroidered belts and +sashes caressed me, white horse-hair plumes waved o’er me. I am not sure +that everything was in its proper place, but I managed to get everything +on somehow, and I looked well. It suited me. My success was a +revelation to me of female human nature. Girls who had hitherto been +cold and distant gathered round me, timidly solicitous of notice. Girls +on whom I smiled lost their heads and gave themselves airs. Girls who +were not introduced to me sulked and were rude to girls that had been. +For one poor child, with whom I sat out two dances (at least she sat, +while I stood gracefully beside her—I had been advised, by the costumier, +_not_ to sit), I was sorry. He was a worthy young fellow, the son of a +cotton broker, and he would have made her a good husband, I feel sure. +But he was foolish to come as a beer-bottle. + +Perhaps, after all, it is as well those old fashions have gone out. A +week in that suit might have impaired my natural modesty. + +One wonders that fancy dress balls are not more popular in this grey age +of ours. The childish instinct to “dress up,” to “make believe,” is with +us all. We grow so tired of being always ourselves. A tea-table +discussion, at which I once assisted, fell into this:—Would any one of +us, when it came to the point, change with anybody else, the poor man +with the millionaire, the governess with the princess—change not only +outward circumstances and surroundings, but health and temperament, +heart, brain, and soul; so that not one mental or physical particle of +one’s original self one would retain, save only memory? The general +opinion was that we would not, but one lady maintained the affirmative. + +“Oh no, you wouldn’t really, dear,” argued a friend; “you _think_ you +would.” + +“Yes, I would,” persisted the first lady; “I am tired of myself. I’d +even be you, for a change.” + +In my youth, the question chiefly important to me was—What sort of man +shall I decide to be? At nineteen one asks oneself this question; at +thirty-nine we say, “I wish Fate hadn’t made me this sort of man.” + +In those days I was a reader of much well-meant advice to young men, and +I gathered that, whether I should become a Sir Lancelot, a Herr +Teufelsdrockh, or an Iago was a matter for my own individual choice. +Whether I should go through life gaily or gravely was a question the pros +and cons of which I carefully considered. For patterns I turned to +books. Byron was then still popular, and many of us made up our minds to +be gloomy, saturnine young men, weary with the world, and prone to +soliloquy. I determined to join them. + +For a month I rarely smiled, or, when I did, it was with a weary, bitter +smile, concealing a broken heart—at least that was the intention. +Shallow-minded observers misunderstood. + +“I know exactly how it feels,” they would say, looking at me +sympathetically, “I often have it myself. It’s the sudden change in the +weather, I think;” and they would press neat brandy upon me, and suggest +ginger. + +Again, it is distressing to the young man, busy burying his secret sorrow +under a mound of silence, to be slapped on the back by commonplace people +and asked—“Well, how’s ‘the hump’ this morning?” and to hear his mood of +dignified melancholy referred to, by those who should know better, as +“the sulks.” + +There are practical difficulties also in the way of him who would play +the Byronic young gentleman. He must be supernaturally wicked—or rather +must _have been_; only, alas! in the unliterary grammar of life, where +the future tense stands first, and the past is formed, not from the +indefinite, but from the present indicative, “to have been” is “to be”; +and to be wicked on a small income is impossible. The ruin of even the +simplest of maidens costs money. In the Courts of Love one cannot sue in +_formâ pauperis_; nor would it be the Byronic method. + +“To drown remembrance in the cup” sounds well, but then the “cup,” to be +fitting, should be of some expensive brand. To drink deep of old Tokay +or Asti is poetical; but when one’s purse necessitates that the draught, +if it is to be deep enough to drown anything, should be of thin beer at +five-and-nine the four and a half gallon cask, or something similar in +price, sin is robbed of its flavour. + +Possibly also—let me think it—the conviction may have been within me that +Vice, even at its daintiest, is but an ugly, sordid thing, repulsive in +the sunlight; that though—as rags and dirt to art—it may afford +picturesque material to Literature, it is an evil-smelling garment to the +wearer; one that a good man, by reason of poverty of will, may come down +to, but one to be avoided with all one’s effort, discarded with returning +mental prosperity. + +Be this as it may, I grew weary of training for a saturnine young man; +and, in the midst of my doubt, I chanced upon a book the hero of which +was a debonnaire young buck, own cousin to Tom and Jerry. He attended +fights, both of cocks and men, flirted with actresses, wrenched off +door-knockers, extinguished street lamps, played many a merry jest upon +many an unappreciative night watch-man. For all the which he was much +beloved by the women of the book. Why should not I flirt with actresses, +put out street lamps, play pranks on policemen, and be beloved? London +life was changed since the days of my hero, but much remained, and the +heart of woman is eternal. If no longer prizefighting was to be had, at +least there were boxing competitions, so called, in dingy back parlours +out Whitechapel way. Though cockfighting was a lost sport, were there +not damp cellars near the river where for twopence a gentleman might back +mongrel terriers to kill rats against time, and feel himself indeed a +sportsman? True, the atmosphere of reckless gaiety, always surrounding +my hero, I missed myself from these scenes, finding in its place an +atmosphere more suggestive of gin, stale tobacco, and nervous +apprehension of the police; but the essentials must have been the same, +and the next morning I could exclaim in the very words of my +prototype—“Odds crickets, but I feel as though the devil himself were in +my head. Peste take me for a fool.” + +But in this direction likewise my fatal lack of means opposed me. (It +affords much food to the philosophic mind, this influence of income upon +character.) Even fifth-rate “boxing competitions,” organized by +“friendly leads,” and ratting contests in Rotherhithe slums, become +expensive, when you happen to be the only gentleman present possessed of +a collar, and are expected to do the honours of your class in dog’s-nose. +True, climbing lamp-posts and putting out the gas is fairly cheap, +providing always you are not caught in the act, but as a recreation it +lacks variety. Nor is the modern London lamp-post adapted to sport. +Anything more difficult to grip—anything with less “give” in it—I have +rarely clasped. The disgraceful amount of dirt allowed to accumulate +upon it is another drawback from the climber’s point of view. By the +time you have swarmed up your third post a positive distaste for “gaiety” +steals over you. Your desire is towards arnica and a bath. + +Nor in jokes at the expense of policemen is the fun entirely on your +side. Maybe I did not proceed with judgment. It occurs to me now, +looking back, that the neighbourhoods of Covent Garden and Great +Marlborough Street were ill-chosen for sport of this nature. To bonnet a +fat policeman is excellent fooling. While he is struggling with his +helmet you can ask him comic questions, and by the time he has got his +head free you are out of sight. But the game should be played in a +district where there is not an average of three constables to every dozen +square yards. When two other policemen, who have had their eye on you +for the past ten minutes, are watching the proceedings from just round +the next corner, you have little or no leisure for due enjoyment of the +situation. By the time you have run the whole length of Great Titchfield +Street and twice round Oxford Market, you are of opinion that a joke +should never be prolonged beyond the point at which there is danger of +its becoming wearisome; and that the time has now arrived for home and +friends. The “Law,” on the other hand, now raised by reinforcements to a +strength of six or seven men, is just beginning to enjoy the chase. You +picture to yourself, while doing Hanover Square, the scene in Court the +next morning. You will be accused of being drunk and disorderly. It +will be idle for you to explain to the magistrate (or to your relations +afterwards) that you were only trying to live up to a man who did this +sort of thing in a book and was admired for it. You will be fined the +usual forty shillings; and on the next occasion of your calling at the +Mayfields’ the girls will be out, and Mrs. Mayfield, an excellent lady, +who has always taken a motherly interest in you, will talk seriously to +you and urge you to sign the pledge. + +Thanks to your youth and constitution you shake off the pursuit at +Notting Hill; and, to avoid any chance of unpleasant _contretemps_ on the +return journey, walk home to Bloomsbury by way of Camden Town and +Islington. + +I abandoned sportive tendencies as the result of a vow made by myself to +Providence, during the early hours of a certain Sunday morning, while +clinging to the waterspout of an unpretentious house situate in a side +street off Soho. I put it to Providence as man to man. “Let me only get +out of this,” I think were the muttered words I used, “and no more +‘sport’ for me.” Providence closed on the offer, and did let me get out +of it. True, it was a complicated “get out,” involving a broken skylight +and three gas globes, two hours in a coal cellar, and a sovereign to a +potman for the loan of an ulster; and when at last, secure in my chamber, +I took stock of myself—what was left of me,—I could not but reflect that +Providence might have done the job neater. Yet I experienced no desire +to escape the terms of the covenant; my inclining for the future was +towards a life of simplicity. + +Accordingly, I cast about for a new character, and found one to suit me. +The German professor was becoming popular as a hero about this period. +He wore his hair long and was otherwise untidy, but he had “a heart of +steel,” occasionally of gold. The majority of folks in the book, judging +him from his exterior together with his conversation—in broken English, +dealing chiefly with his dead mother and his little sister Lisa,—dubbed +him uninteresting, but then they did not know about the heart. His chief +possession was a lame dog which he had rescued from a brutal mob; and +when he was not talking broken English he was nursing this dog. + +But his speciality was stopping runaway horses, thereby saving the +heroine’s life. This, combined with the broken English and the dog, +rendered him irresistible. + +He seemed a peaceful, amiable sort of creature, and I decided to try him. +I could not of course be a German professor, but I could, and did, wear +my hair long in spite of much public advice to the contrary, voiced +chiefly by small boys. I endeavoured to obtain possession of a lame dog, +but failed. A one-eyed dealer in Seven Dials, to whom, as a last +resource, I applied, offered to lame one for me for an extra five +shillings, but this suggestion I declined. I came across an +uncanny-looking mongrel late one night. He was not lame, but he seemed +pretty sick; and, feeling I was not robbing anybody of anything very +valuable, I lured him home and nursed him. I fancy I must have +over-nursed him. He got so healthy in the end, there was no doing +anything with him. He was an ill-conditioned cur, and he was too old to +be taught. He became the curse of the neighbourhood. His idea of sport +was killing chickens and sneaking rabbits from outside poulterers’ shops. +For recreation he killed cats and frightened small children by yelping +round their legs. There were times when I could have lamed him myself, +if only I could have got hold of him. I made nothing by running that +dog—nothing whatever. People, instead of admiring me for nursing him +back to life, called me a fool, and said that if I didn’t drown the brute +they would. He spoilt my character utterly—I mean my character at this +period. It is difficult to pose as a young man with a heart of gold, +when discovered in the middle of the road throwing stones at your own +dog. And stones were the only things that would reach and influence him. + +I was also hampered by a scarcity in runaway horses. The horse of our +suburb was not that type of horse. Once and only once did an opportunity +offer itself for practice. It was a good opportunity, inasmuch as he was +not running away very greatly. Indeed, I doubt if he knew himself that +he was running away. It transpired afterwards that it was a habit of +his, after waiting for his driver outside the Rose and Crown for what he +considered to be a reasonable period, to trot home on his own account. +He passed me going about seven miles an hour, with the reins dragging +conveniently beside him. He was the very thing for a beginner, and I +prepared myself. At the critical moment, however, a couple of officious +policemen pushed me aside and did it themselves. + +There was nothing for me to regret, as the matter turned out. I should +only have rescued a bald-headed commercial traveller, very drunk, who +swore horribly, and pelted the crowd with empty collar-boxes. + +From the window of a very high flat I once watched three men, resolved to +stop a runaway horse. Each man marched deliberately into the middle of +the road and took up his stand. My window was too far away for me to see +their faces, but their attitude suggested heroism unto death. The first +man, as the horse came charging towards him, faced it with his arms +spread out. He never flinched until the horse was within about twenty +yards of him. Then, as the animal was evidently determined to continue +its wild career, there was nothing left for him to do but to retire again +to the kerb, where he stood looking after it with evident sorrow, as +though saying to himself—“Oh, well, if you are going to be headstrong I +have done with you.” + +The second man, on the catastrophe being thus left clear for him, without +a moment’s hesitation, walked up a bye street and disappeared. The third +man stood his ground, and, as the horse passed him, yelled at it. I +could not hear what he said. I have not the slightest doubt it was +excellent advice, but the animal was apparently too excited even to +listen. The first and the third man met afterwards, and discussed the +matter sympathetically. I judged they were regretting the pig-headedness +of runaway horses in general, and hoping that nobody had been hurt. + +I forget the other characters I assumed about this period. One, I know, +that got me into a good deal of trouble was that of a downright, honest, +hearty, outspoken young man who always said what he meant. + +I never knew but one man who made a real success of speaking his mind. I +have heard him slap the table with his open hand and exclaim— + +“You want me to flatter you—to stuff you up with a pack of lies. That’s +not me, that’s not Jim Compton. But if you care for my honest opinion, +all I can say is, that child is the most marvellous performer on the +piano I’ve ever heard. I don’t say she is a genius, but I have heard +Liszt and Metzler and all the crack players, and I prefer _her_. That’s +my opinion. I speak my mind, and I can’t help it if you’re offended.” + +“How refreshing,” the parents would say, “to come across a man who is not +afraid to say what he really thinks. Why are we not all outspoken?” + +The last character I attempted I thought would be easy to assume. It was +that of a much admired and beloved young man, whose great charm lay in +the fact that he was always just—himself. Other people posed and acted. +He never made any effort to be anything but his own natural, simple self. + +I thought I also would be my own natural, simple self. But then the +question arose—What was my own natural, simple self? + +That was the preliminary problem I had to solve; I have not solved it to +this day. What am I? I am a great gentleman, walking through the world +with dauntless heart and head erect, scornful of all meanness, impatient +of all littleness. I am a mean-thinking, little-daring man—the type of +man that I of the dauntless heart and the erect head despise +greatly—crawling to a poor end by devious ways, cringing to the strong, +timid of all pain. I—but, dear reader, I will not sadden your sensitive +ears with details I could give you, showing how contemptible a creature +this wretched I happens to be. Nor would you understand me. You would +only be astonished, discovering that such disreputable specimens of +humanity contrive to exist in this age. It is best, my dear sir, or +madam, you should remain ignorant of these evil persons. Let me not +trouble you with knowledge. + +I am a philosopher, greeting alike the thunder and the sunshine with +frolic welcome. Only now and then, when all things do not fall exactly +as I wish them, when foolish, wicked people will persist in doing +foolish, wicked acts, affecting my comfort and happiness, I rage and fret +a goodish deal. + +As Heine said of himself, I am knight, too, of the Holy Grail, valiant +for the Truth, reverent of all women, honouring all men, eager to yield +life to the service of my great Captain. + +And next moment, I find myself in the enemy’s lines, fighting under the +black banner. (It must be confusing to these opposing Generals, all +their soldiers being deserters from both armies.) What are women but +men’s playthings! Shall there be no more cakes and ale for me because +thou art virtuous! What are men but hungry dogs, contending each against +each for a limited supply of bones! Do others lest thou be done. What +is the Truth but an unexploded lie! + +I am a lover of all living things. You, my poor sister, struggling with +your heavy burden on your lonely way, I would kiss the tears from your +worn cheeks, lighten with my love the darkness around your feet. You, my +patient brother, breathing hard as round and round you tramp the trodden +path, like some poor half-blind gin-horse, stripes your only +encouragement, scanty store of dry chaff in your manger! I would jog +beside you, taking the strain a little from your aching shoulders; and we +would walk nodding, our heads side by side, and you, remembering, should +tell me of the fields where long ago you played, of the gallant races +that you ran and won. And you, little pinched brats, with wondering +eyes, looking from dirt-encrusted faces, I would take you in my arms and +tell you fairy stories. Into the sweet land of make-believe we would +wander, leaving the sad old world behind us for a time, and you should be +Princes and Princesses, and know Love. + +But again, a selfish, greedy man comes often, and sits in my clothes. A +man who frets away his life, planning how to get more money—more food, +more clothes, more pleasures for himself; a man so busy thinking of the +many things he needs he has no time to dwell upon the needs of others. +He deems himself the centre of the universe. You would imagine, hearing +him grumbling, that the world had been created and got ready against the +time when he should come to take his pleasure in it. He would push and +trample, heedless, reaching towards these many desires of his; and when, +grabbing, he misses, he curses Heaven for its injustice, and men and +women for getting in his path. He is not a nice man, in any way. I +wish, as I say, he would not come so often and sit in my clothes. He +persists that he is I, and that I am only a sentimental fool, spoiling +his chances. Sometimes, for a while, I get rid of him, but he always +comes back; and then he gets rid of me and I become him. It is very +confusing. Sometimes I wonder if I really am myself. + + + + +ON THE DISADVANTAGE OF NOT GETTING WHAT ONE WANTS + + +LONG, long ago, when you and I, dear Reader, were young, when the fairies +dwelt in the hearts of the roses, when the moonbeams bent each night +beneath the weight of angels’ feet, there lived a good, wise man. Or +rather, I should say, there had lived, for at the time of which I speak +the poor old gentleman lay dying. Waiting each moment the dread summons, +he fell a-musing on the life that stretched far back behind him. How +full it seemed to him at that moment of follies and mistakes, bringing +bitter tears not to himself alone but to others also. How much brighter +a road might it have been, had he been wiser, had he known! + +“Ah, me!” said the good old gentleman, “if only I could live my life +again in the light of experience.” + +Now as he spoke these words he felt the drawing near to him of a +Presence, and thinking it was the One whom he expected, raising himself a +little from his bed, he feebly cried, + +“I am ready.” + +But a hand forced him gently back, a voice saying, “Not yet; I bring +life, not death. Your wish shall be granted. You shall live your life +again, and the knowledge of the past shall be with you to guide you. See +you use it. I will come again.” + +Then a sleep fell upon the good man, and when he awoke, he was again a +little child, lying in his mother’s arms; but, locked within his brain +was the knowledge of the life that he had lived already. + +So once more he lived and loved and laboured. So a second time he lay an +old, worn man with life behind him. And the angel stood again beside his +bed; and the voice said, + +“Well, are you content now?” + +“I am well content,” said the old gentleman. “Let Death come.” + +“And have you understood?” asked the angel. + +“I think so,” was the answer; “that experience is but as of the memory of +the pathways he has trod to a traveller journeying ever onward into an +unknown land. I have been wise only to reap the reward of folly. +Knowledge has ofttimes kept me from my good. I have avoided my old +mistakes only to fall into others that I knew not of. I have reached the +old errors by new roads. Where I have escaped sorrow I have lost joy. +Where I have grasped happiness I have plucked pain also. Now let me go +with Death that I may learn..” + +Which was so like the angel of that period, the giving of a gift, +bringing to a man only more trouble. Maybe I am overrating my coolness +of judgment under somewhat startling circumstances, but I am inclined to +think that, had I lived in those days, and had a fairy or an angel come +to me, wanting to give me something—my soul’s desire, or the sum of my +ambition, or any trifle of that kind I should have been short with him. + +“You pack up that precious bag of tricks of yours,” I should have said to +him (it would have been rude, but that is how I should have felt), “and +get outside with it. I’m not taking anything in your line to-day. I +don’t require any supernatural aid to get me into trouble. All the worry +I want I can get down here, so it’s no good your calling. You take that +little joke of yours,—I don’t know what it is, but I know enough not to +want to know,—and run it off on some other idiot. I’m not priggish. I +have no objection to an innocent game of ‘catch-questions’ in the +ordinary way, and when I get a turn myself. But if I’ve got to pay every +time, and the stakes are to be my earthly happiness plus my future +existence—why, I don’t play. There was the case of Midas; a nice, shabby +trick you fellows played off upon him! making pretence you did not +understand him, twisting round the poor old fellow’s words, just for all +the world as though you were a pack of Old Bailey lawyers, trying to trip +up a witness; I’m ashamed of the lot of you, and I tell you so—coming +down here, fooling poor unsuspecting mortals with your nonsense, as +though we had not enough to harry us as it was. Then there was that +other case of the poor old peasant couple to whom you promised three +wishes, the whole thing ending in a black pudding. And they never got +even that. You thought that funny, I suppose. That was your fairy +humour! A pity, I say, you have not, all of you, something better to do +with your time. As I said before, you take that celestial ‘Joe Miller’ +of yours and work it off on somebody else. I have read my fairy lore, +and I have read my mythology, and I don’t want any of your blessings. +And what’s more, I’m not going to have them. When I want blessings I +will put up with the usual sort we are accustomed to down here. You know +the ones I mean, the disguised brand—the blessings that no human being +would think were blessings, if he were not told; the blessings that don’t +look like blessings, that don’t feel like blessings; that, as a matter of +fact, are not blessings, practically speaking; the blessings that other +people think are blessings for us and that we don’t. They’ve got their +drawbacks, but they are better than yours, at any rate, and they are +sooner over. I don’t want your blessings at any price. If you leave one +here I shall simply throw it out after you.” + +I feel confident I should have answered in that strain, and I feel it +would have done good. Somebody ought to have spoken plainly, because +with fairies and angels of that sort fooling about, no one was ever safe +for a moment. Children could hardly have been allowed outside the door. +One never could have told what silly trick some would-be funny fairy +might be waiting to play off on them. The poor child would not know, and +would think it was getting something worth having. The wonder to me is +that some of those angels didn’t get tarred and feathered. + +I am doubtful whether even Cinderella’s luck was quite as satisfying as +we are led to believe. After the carpetless kitchen and the black +beetles, how beautiful the palace must have seemed—for the first year, +perhaps for the first two. And the Prince! how loving, how gallant, how +tender—for the first year, perhaps for the first two. And after? You +see he was a Prince, brought up in a Court, the atmosphere of which is +not conducive to the development of the domestic virtues; and she—was +Cinderella. And then the marriage altogether was rather a hurried +affair. Oh yes, she is a good, loving little woman; but perhaps our +Royal Highness-ship did act too much on the impulse of the moment. It +was her dear, dainty feet that danced their way into our heart. How they +flashed and twinkled, eased in those fairy slippers. How like a lily +among tulips she moved that night amid the over-gorgeous Court dames. +She was so sweet, so fresh, so different to all the others whom we knew +so well. How happy she looked as she put her trembling little hand in +ours. What possibilities might lie behind those drooping lashes. And we +were in amorous mood that night, the music in our feet, the flash and +glitter in our eyes. And then, to pique us further, she disappeared as +suddenly and strangely as she had come. Who was she? Whence came she? +What was the mystery surrounding her? Was she only a delicious dream, a +haunting phantasy that we should never look upon again, never clasp again +within our longing arms? Was our heart to be for ever hungry, haunted by +the memory of—No, by heavens, she is real, and a woman. Here is her dear +slipper, made surely to be kissed. Of a size too that a man may well +wear within the breast of his doublet. Had any woman—nay, fairy, angel, +such dear feet! Search the whole kingdom through, but find her, find +her. The gods have heard our prayers, and given us this clue. “Suppose +she be not all she seemed. Suppose she be not of birth fit to mate with +our noble house!” Out upon thee, for an earth-bound, blind curmudgeon of +a Lord High Chancellor. How could a woman, whom such slipper fitted, be +but of the noblest and the best, as far above us, mere Princelet that we +are, as the stars in heaven are brighter than thy dull old eyes! Go, +search the kingdom, we tell thee, from east to west, from north to south, +and see to it that thou findest her, or it shall go hard with thee. By +Venus, be she a swineherd’s daughter, she shall be our Queen—an she deign +to accept of us, and of our kingdom. + +Ah well, of course, it was not a wise piece of business, that goes +without saying; but we were young, and Princes are only human. Poor +child, she could not help her education, or rather her lack of it. Dear +little thing, the wonder is that she has contrived to be no more ignorant +than she is, dragged up as she was, neglected and overworked. Nor does +life in a kitchen, amid the companionship of peasants and menials, tend +to foster the intellect. Who can blame her for being shy and somewhat +dull of thought? not we, generous-minded, kind-hearted Prince that we +are. And she is very affectionate. The family are trying, certainly; +father-in-law not a bad sort, though a little prosy when upon the subject +of his domestic troubles, and a little too fond of his glass; +mamma-in-law, and those two ugly, ill-mannered sisters, decidedly a +nuisance about the palace. Yet what can we do? they are our relations +now, and they do not forget to let us know it. Well, well, we had to +expect that, and things might have been worse. Anyhow she is not +jealous—thank goodness. + +So the day comes when poor little Cinderella sits alone of a night in the +beautiful palace. The courtiers have gone home in their carriages. The +Lord High Chancellor has bowed himself out backwards. The +Gold-Stick-in-Waiting and the Grooms of the Chamber have gone to their +beds. The Maids of Honour have said “Good-night,” and drifted out of the +door, laughing and whispering among themselves. The clock strikes +twelve—one—two, and still no footstep creaks upon the stair. Once it +followed swiftly upon the “good-night” of the maids, who did not laugh or +whisper then. + +At last the door opens, and the Prince enters, none too pleased at +finding Cinderella still awake. “So sorry I’m late, my love—detained on +affairs of state. Foreign policy very complicated, dear. Have only just +this moment left the Council Chamber.” + +And little Cinderella, while the Prince sleeps, lies sobbing out her poor +sad heart into the beautiful royal pillow, embroidered with the royal +arms and edged with the royal monogram in lace. “Why did he ever marry +me? I should have been happier in the old kitchen. The black beetles +did frighten me a little, but there was always the dear old cat; and +sometimes, when mother and the girls were out, papa would call softly +down the kitchen stairs for me to come up, and we would have such a merry +evening together, and sup off sausages: dear old dad, I hardly ever see +him now. And then, when my work was done, how pleasant it was to sit in +front of the fire, and dream of the wonderful things that would come to +me some day. I was always going to be a Princess, even in my dreams, and +live in a palace, but it was so different to this. Oh, how I hate it, +this beastly palace where everybody sneers at me—I know they do, though +they bow and scrape, and pretend to be so polite. And I’m not clever and +smart as they are. I hate them. I hate these bold-faced women who are +always here. That is the worst of a palace, everybody can come in. Oh, +I hate everybody and everything. Oh, god-mamma, god-mamma, come and take +me away. Take me back to my old kitchen. Give me back my old poor +frock. Let me dance again with the fire-tongs for a partner, and be +happy, dreaming.” + +Poor little Cinderella, perhaps it would have been better had god-mamma +been less ambitious for you, dear; had you married some good, honest +yeoman, who would never have known that you were not brilliant, who would +have loved you because you were just amiable and pretty; had your kingdom +been only a farmhouse, where your knowledge of domestic economy, gained +so hardly, would have been useful; where you would have shone instead of +being overshadowed; where Papa would have dropped in of an evening to +smoke his pipe and escape from his domestic wrangles; where you would +have been _real_ Queen. + +But then you know, dear, you would not have been content. Ah yes, with +your present experience—now you know that Queens as well as little +drudges have their troubles; but _without_ that experience? You would +have looked in the glass when you were alone; you would have looked at +your shapely hands and feet, and the shadows would have crossed your +pretty face. “Yes,” you would have said to yourself—“John is a dear, +kind fellow, and I love him very much, and all that, but—” and the old +dreams, dreamt in the old low-ceilinged kitchen before the dying fire, +would have come back to you, and you would have been discontented then as +now, only in a different way. Oh yes, you would, Cinderella, though you +gravely shake your gold-crowned head. And let me tell you why. It is +because you are a woman, and the fate of all us, men and women alike, is +to be for ever wanting what we have not, and to be finding, when we have +it, that it is not what we wanted. That is the law of life, dear. Do +you think as you lie upon the floor with your head upon your arms, that +you are the only woman whose tears are soaking into the hearthrug at that +moment? My dear Princess, if you could creep unseen about your City, +peeping at will through the curtain-shielded windows, you would come to +think that all the world was little else than a big nursery full of +crying children with none to comfort them. The doll is broken: no longer +it sweetly squeaks in answer to our pressure, “I love you, kiss me.” The +drum lies silent with the drumstick inside; no longer do we make a brave +noise in the nursery. The box of tea-things we have clumsily put our +foot upon; there will be no more merry parties around the three-legged +stool. The tin trumpet will not play the note we want to sound; the +wooden bricks keep falling down; the toy cannon has exploded and burnt +our fingers. Never mind, little man, little woman, we will try and mend +things to-morrow. + +And after all, Cinderella dear, you do live in a fine palace, and you +have jewels and grand dresses and—No, no, do not be indignant with _me_. +Did not you dream of these things _as well as_ of love? Come now, be +honest. It was always a prince, was it not, or, at the least, an +exceedingly well-to-do party, that handsome young gentleman who bowed to +you so gallantly from the red embers? He was never a virtuous young +commercial traveller, or cultured clerk, earning a salary of three pounds +a week, was he, Cinderella? Yet there are many charming commercial +travellers, many delightful clerks with limited incomes, quite +sufficient, however, to a sensible man and woman desiring but each +other’s love. Why was it always a prince, Cinderella? Had the palace +and the liveried servants, and the carriages and horses, and the jewels +and the dresses, _nothing_ to do with the dream? + +No, Cinderella, you were human, that is all. The artist, shivering in +his conventional attic, dreaming of Fame!—do you think he is not hoping +she will come to his loving arms in the form Jove came to Danae? Do you +think he is not reckoning also upon the good dinners and the big cigars, +the fur coat and the diamond studs, that her visits will enable him to +purchase? + +There is a certain picture very popular just now. You may see it, +Cinderella, in many of the shop-windows of the town. It is called “The +Dream of Love,” and it represents a beautiful young girl, sleeping in a +very beautiful but somewhat disarranged bed. Indeed, one hopes, for the +sleeper’s sake, that the night is warm, and that the room is fairly free +from draughts. A ladder of light streams down from the sky into the +room, and upon this ladder crowd and jostle one another a small army of +plump Cupids, each one laden with some pledge of love. Two of the Imps +are emptying a sack of jewels upon the floor. Four others are bearing, +well displayed, a magnificent dress (a “confection,” I believe, is the +proper term) cut somewhat low, but making up in train what is lacking +elsewhere. Others bear bonnet boxes from which peep stylish toques and +bewitching hoods. Some, representing evidently wholesale houses, stagger +under silks and satins in the piece. Cupids are there from the +shoemakers with the daintiest of _bottines_. Stockings, garters, and +even less mentionable articles, are not forgotten. Caskets, mirrors, +twelve-buttoned gloves, scent-bottles and handkerchiefs, hair-pins, and +the gayest of parasols, has the God of Love piled into the arms of his +messengers. Really a most practical, up-to-date God of Love, moving with +the times! One feels that the modern Temple of Love must be a sort of +Swan and Edgar’s; the god himself a kind of celestial shop-walker; while +his mother, Venus, no doubt superintends the costume department. Quite +an Olympian Whiteley, this latter-day Eros; he has forgotten nothing, +for, at the back of the picture, I notice one Cupid carrying a rather fat +heart at the end of a string. + +You, Cinderella, could give good counsel to that sleeping child. You +would say to her—“Awake from such dreams. The contents of a pawnbroker’s +store-room will not bring you happiness. Dream of love if you will; that +is a wise dream, even if it remain ever a dream. But these coloured +beads, these Manchester goods! are you then—you, heiress of all the +ages—still at heart only as some poor savage maiden but little removed +above the monkeys that share the primeval forest with her? Will you sell +your gold to the first trader that brings you _this_ barter? These +things, child, will only dazzle your eyes for a few days. Do you think +the Burlington Arcade is the gate of Heaven?” + +Ah, yes, I too could talk like that—I, writer of books, to the young lad, +sick of his office stool, dreaming of a literary career leading to fame +and fortune. “And do you think, lad, that by that road you will reach +Happiness sooner than by another? Do you think interviews with yourself +in penny weeklies will bring you any satisfaction after the first +halfdozen? Do you think the gushing female who has read all your books, +and who wonders what it must feel like to be so clever, will be welcome +to you the tenth time you meet her? Do you think press cuttings will +always consist of wondering admiration of your genius, of paragraphs +about your charming personal appearance under the heading, ‘Our +Celebrities’? Have you thought of the Uncomplimentary criticisms, of the +spiteful paragraphs, of the everlasting fear of slipping a few inches +down the greasy pole called ‘popular taste,’ to which you are condemned +to cling for life, as some lesser criminal to his weary tread-mill, +struggling with no hope but not to fall! Make a home, lad, for the woman +who loves you; gather one or two friends about you; work, think, and +play, that will bring you happiness. Shun this roaring gingerbread fair +that calls itself, forsooth, the ‘World of art and letters.’ Let its +clowns and its contortionists fight among themselves for the plaudits and +the halfpence of the mob. Let it be with its shouting and its surging, +its blare and its cheap flare. Come away, the summer’s night is just the +other side of the hedge, with its silence and its stars.” + +You and I, Cinderella, are experienced people, and can therefore offer +good advice, but do you think we should be listened to? + +“Ah, no, my Prince is not as yours. Mine will love me always, and I am +peculiarly fitted for the life of a palace. I have the instinct and the +ability for it. I am sure I was made for a princess. Thank you, +Cinderella, for your well-meant counsel, but there is much difference +between you and me.” + +That is the answer you would receive, Cinderella; and my young friend +would say to me, “Yes, I can understand _your_ finding disappointment in +the literary career; but then, you see, our cases are not quite similar. +_I_ am not likely to find much trouble in keeping my position. _I_ shall +not fear reading what the critics say of _me_. No doubt there are +disadvantages, when you are among the ruck, but there is always plenty of +room at the top. So thank you, and goodbye.” + +Besides, Cinderella dear, we should not quite mean it—this excellent +advice. We have grown accustomed to these gew-gaws, and we should miss +them in spite of our knowledge of their trashiness: you, your palace and +your little gold crown; I, my mountebank’s cap, and the answering laugh +that goes up from the crowd when I shake my bells. We want everything. +All the happiness that earth and heaven are capable of bestowing. +Creature comforts, and heart and soul comforts also; and, proud-spirited +beings that we are, we will not be put off with a part. Give us only +everything, and we will be content. And, after all, Cinderella, you have +had your day. Some little dogs never get theirs. You must not be +greedy. You have _known_ happiness. The palace was Paradise for those +few months, and the Prince’s arms were about you, Cinderella, the +Prince’s kisses on your lips; the gods themselves cannot take _that_ from +you. + +The cake cannot last for ever if we will eat of it so greedily. There +must come the day when we have picked hungrily the last crumb—when we sit +staring at the empty board, nothing left of the feast, Cinderella, but +the pain that comes of feasting. + +It is a naïve confession, poor Human Nature has made to itself, in +choosing, as it has, this story of Cinderella for its leading moral:—Be +good, little girl. Be meek under your many trials. Be gentle and kind, +in spite of your hard lot, and one day—you shall marry a prince and ride +in your own carriage. Be brave and true, little boy. Work hard and wait +with patience, and in the end, with God’s blessing, you shall earn riches +enough to come back to London town and marry your master’s daughter. + +You and I, gentle Reader, could teach these young folks a truer lesson, +an we would. We know, alas! that the road of all the virtues does not +lead to wealth, rather the contrary; else how explain our limited +incomes? But would it be well, think you, to tell them bluntly the +truth—that honesty is the most expensive luxury a man can indulge in; +that virtue, if persisted in, leads, generally speaking, to a six-roomed +house in an outlying suburb? Maybe the world is wise: the fiction has +its uses. + +I am acquainted with a fairly intelligent young lady. She can read and +write, knows her tables up to six times, and can argue. I regard her as +representative of average Humanity in its attitude towards Fate; and this +is a dialogue I lately overheard between her and an older lady who is +good enough to occasionally impart to her the wisdom of the world— + +“I’ve been good this morning, haven’t I?” + +“Yes—oh yes, fairly good, for you.” + +“You think Papa _will_ take me to the circus to-night?” + +“Yes, if you keep good. If you don’t get naughty this afternoon.” + +A pause. + +“I was good on Monday, you may remember, nurse.” + +“Tolerably good.” + +“_Very_ good, you said, nurse.” + +“Well, yes, you weren’t bad.” + +“And I was to have gone to the pantomime, and I didn’t.” + +“Well, that was because your aunt came up suddenly, and your Papa +couldn’t get another seat. Poor auntie wouldn’t have gone at all if she +hadn’t gone then.” + +“Oh, wouldn’t she?” + +“No.” + +Another pause. + +“Do you think she’ll come up suddenly to-day?” + +“Oh no, I don’t think so.” + +“No, I hope she doesn’t. I want to go to the circus to-night. Because, +you see, nurse, if I don’t it will discourage me.” + + * * * * * + +So, perhaps the world is wise in promising us the circus. We believe her +at first. But after a while, I fear, we grow discouraged. + + + + +ON THE EXCEPTIONAL MERIT ATTACHING TO THE THINGS WE MEANT TO DO + + +I CAN remember—but then I can remember a long time ago. You, gentle +Reader, just entering upon the prime of life, that age by thoughtless +youth called middle, I cannot, of course, expect to follow me—when there +was in great demand a certain periodical ycleped _The Amateur_. Its aim +was noble. It sought to teach the beautiful lesson of independence, to +inculcate the fine doctrine of self-help. One chapter explained to a man +how he might make flower-pots out of Australian meat cans; another how he +might turn butter-tubs into music-stools; a third how he might utilize +old bonnet boxes for Venetian blinds: that was the principle of the whole +scheme, you made everything from something not intended for it, and as +ill-suited to the purpose as possible. + +Two pages, I distinctly recollect, were devoted to the encouragement of +the manufacture of umbrella stands out of old gaspiping. Anything less +adapted to the receipt of hats and umbrellas than gas-piping I cannot +myself conceive: had there been, I feel sure the author would have +thought of it, and would have recommended it. + +Picture-frames you fashioned out of ginger-beer corks. You saved your +ginger-beer corks, you found a picture—and the thing was complete. How +much ginger-beer it would be necessary to drink, preparatory to the +making of each frame; and the effect of it upon the frame-maker’s +physical, mental and moral well-being, did not concern _The Amateur_. I +calculate that for a fair-sized picture sixteen dozen bottles might +suffice. Whether, after sixteen dozen of ginger-beer, a man would take +any interest in framing a picture—whether he would retain any pride in +the picture itself, is doubtful. But this, of course, was not the point. + +One young gentleman of my acquaintance—the son of the gardener of my +sister, as friend Ollendorff would have described him—did succeed in +getting through sufficient ginger-beer to frame his grandfather, but the +result was not encouraging. Indeed, the gardener’s wife herself was but +ill satisfied. + +“What’s all them corks round father?” was her first question. + +“Can’t you see,” was the somewhat indignant reply, “that’s the frame.” + +“Oh! but why corks?” + +“Well, the book said corks.” + +Still the old lady remained unimpressed. + +“Somehow it don’t look like father now,” she sighed. + +Her eldest born grew irritable: none of us appreciate criticism! + +“What does it look like, then?” he growled. + +“Well, I dunno. Seems to me to look like nothing but corks.” + +The old lady’s view was correct. Certain schools of art possibly lend +themselves to this method of framing. I myself have seen a funeral card +improved by it; but, generally speaking, the consequence was a +predominance of frame at the expense of the thing framed. The more +honest and tasteful of the framemakers would admit as much themselves. + +“Yes, it is ugly when you look at it,” said one to me, as we stood +surveying it from the centre of the room. “But what one feels about it +is that one has done it oneself.” + +Which reflection, I have noticed, reconciles us to many other things +beside cork frames. + +Another young gentleman friend of mine—for I am bound to admit it was +youth that profited most by the advice and counsel of _The Amateur_: I +suppose as one grows older one grows less daring, less industrious—made a +rocking-chair, according to the instructions of this book, out of a +couple of beer barrels. From every practical point of view it was a bad +rocking-chair. It rocked too much, and it rocked in too many directions +at one and the same time. I take it, a man sitting on a rocking-chair +does not want to be continually rocking. There comes a time when he says +to himself—“Now I have rocked sufficiently for the present; now I will +sit still for a while, lest a worse thing befall me.” But this was one +of those headstrong rocking-chairs that are a danger to humanity, and a +nuisance to themselves. Its notion was that it was made to rock, and +that when it was not rocking, it was wasting its time. Once started +nothing could stop it—nothing ever did stop it, until it found itself +topsy turvy on its own occupant. That was the only thing that ever +sobered it. + +I had called, and had been shown into the empty drawing-room. The +rocking-chair nodded invitingly at me. I never guessed it was an amateur +rocking-chair. I was young in those days, with faith in human nature, +and I imagined that, whatever else a man might attempt without knowledge +or experience, no one would be fool enough to experiment upon a +rocking-chair. + +I threw myself into it lightly and carelessly. I immediately noticed the +ceiling. I made an instinctive movement forward. The window and a +momentary glimpse of the wooded hills beyond shot upwards and +disappeared. The carpet flashed across my eyes, and I caught sight of my +own boots vanishing beneath me at the rate of about two hundred miles an +hour. I made a convulsive effort to recover them. I suppose I over-did +it. I saw the whole of the room at once, the four walls, the ceiling, +and the floor at the same moment. It was a sort of vision. I saw the +cottage piano upside down, and I again saw my own boots flash past me, +this time over my head, soles uppermost. Never before had I been in a +position where my own boots had seemed so all-pervading. The next moment +I lost my boots, and stopped the carpet with my head just as it was +rushing past me. At the same instant something hit me violently in the +small of the back. Reason, when recovered, suggested that my assailant +must be the rocking-chair. + +Investigation proved the surmise correct. Fortunately I was still alone, +and in consequence was able, a few minutes later, to meet my hostess with +calm and dignity. I said nothing about the rocking-chair. As a matter +of fact, I was hoping to have the pleasure, before I went, of seeing some +other guest arrive and sample it: I had purposely replaced it in the most +prominent and convenient position. But though I felt capable of +schooling myself to silence, I found myself unable to agree with my +hostess when she called for my admiration of the thing. My recent +experiences had too deeply embittered me. + +“Willie made it himself,” explained the fond mother. “Don’t you think it +was very clever of him?” + +“Oh yes, it was clever,” I replied, “I am willing to admit that.” + +“He made it out of some old beer barrels,” she continued; she seemed +proud of it. + +My resentment, though I tried to keep it under control, was mounting +higher. + +“Oh! did he?” I said; “I should have thought he might have found +something better to do with them.” + +“What?” she asked. + +“Oh! well, many things,” I retorted. “He might have filled them again +with beer.” + +My hostess looked at me astonished. I felt some reason for my tone was +expected. + +“You see,” I explained, “it is not a well-made chair. These rockers are +too short, and they are too curved, and one of them, if you notice, is +higher than the other and of a smaller radius; the back is at too obtuse +an angle. When it is occupied the centre of gravity becomes—” + +My hostess interrupted me. + +“You have been sitting on it,” she said. + +“Not for long,” I assured her. + +Her tone changed. She became apologetic. + +“I am so sorry,” she said. “It looks all right.” + +“It does,” I agreed; “that is where the dear lad’s cleverness displays +itself. Its appearance disarms suspicion. With judgment that chair +might be made to serve a really useful purpose. There are mutual +acquaintances of ours—I mention no names, you will know them—pompous, +self-satisfied, superior persons who would be improved by that chair. If +I were Willie I should disguise the mechanism with some artistic drapery, +bait the thing with a couple of exceptionally inviting cushions, and +employ it to inculcate modesty and diffidence. I defy any human being to +get out of that chair, feeling as important as when he got into it. What +the dear boy has done has been to construct an automatic exponent of the +transitory nature of human greatness. As a moral agency that chair +should prove a blessing in disguise.” + +My hostess smiled feebly; more, I fear, from politeness than genuine +enjoyment. + +“I think you are too severe,” she said. “When you remember that the boy +has never tried his hand at anything of the kind before, that he has no +knowledge and no experience, it really is not so bad.” + +Considering the matter from that point of view I was bound to concur. I +did not like to suggest to her that before entering upon a difficult task +it would be better for young men to _acquire_ knowledge and experience: +that is so unpopular a theory. + +But the thing that _The Amateur_ put in the front and foremost of its +propaganda was the manufacture of household furniture out of egg-boxes. +Why egg-boxes I have never been able to understand, but egg-boxes, +according to the prescription of _The Amateur_, formed the foundation of +household existence. With a sufficient supply of egg-boxes, and what +_The Amateur_ termed a “natural deftness,” no young couple need hesitate +to face the furnishing problem. Three egg-boxes made a writing-table; on +another egg-box you sat to write; your books were ranged in egg-boxes +around you—and there was your study, complete. + +For the dining-room two egg-boxes made an overmantel; four egg-boxes and +a piece of looking-glass a sideboard; while six egg-boxes, with some +wadding and a yard or so of cretonne, constituted a so-called “cosy +corner.” About the “corner” there could be no possible doubt. You sat +on a corner, you leant against a corner; whichever way you moved you +struck a fresh corner. The “cosiness,” however, I deny. Egg-boxes I +admit can be made useful; I am even prepared to imagine them ornamental; +but “cosy,” no. I have sampled egg-boxes in many shapes. I speak of +years ago, when the world and we were younger, when our fortune was the +Future; secure in which, we hesitated not to set up house upon incomes +folks with lesser expectations might have deemed insufficient. Under +such circumstances, the sole alternative to the egg-box, or similar +school of furniture, would have been the strictly classical, consisting +of a doorway joined to architectural proportions. + +I have from Saturday to Monday, as honoured guest, hung my clothes in +egg-boxes. + +I have sat on an egg-box at an egg-box to take my dish of tea. I have +made love on egg-boxes.—Aye, and to feel again the blood running through +my veins as then it ran, I would be content to sit only on egg-boxes till +the time should come when I could be buried in an egg-box, with an +egg-box reared above me as tombstone.—I have spent many an evening on an +egg-box; I have gone to bed in egg-boxes. They have their points—I am +intending no pun—but to claim for them cosiness would be but to deceive. + +How quaint they were, those home-made rooms! They rise out of the +shadows and shape themselves again before my eyes. I see the knobbly +sofa; the easy-chairs that might have been designed by the Grand +Inquisitor himself; the dented settle that was a bed by night; the few +blue plates, purchased in the slums off Wardour Street; the enamelled +stool to which one always stuck; the mirror framed in silk; the two +Japanese fans crossed beneath each cheap engraving; the piano cloth +embroidered in peacock’s feathers by Annie’s sister; the tea-cloth worked +by Cousin Jenny. We dreamt, sitting on those egg-boxes—for we were young +ladies and gentlemen with artistic taste—of the days when we would eat in +Chippendale dining-rooms; sip our coffee in Louis Quatorze drawing-rooms; +and be happy. Well, we have got on, some of us, since then, as Mr. +Bumpus used to say; and I notice, when on visits, that some of us have +contrived so that we do sit on Chippendale chairs, at Sheraton +dining-tables, and are warmed from Adam’s fireplaces; but, ah me, where +are the dreams, the hopes, the enthusiasms that clung like the scent of a +March morning about those gim-crack second floors? In the dustbin, I +fear, with the cretonne-covered egg-boxes and the penny fans. Fate is so +terribly even-handed. As she gives she ever takes away. She flung us a +few shillings and hope, where now she doles us out pounds and fears. Why +did not we know how happy we were, sitting crowned with sweet conceit +upon our egg-box thrones? + +Yes, Dick, you have climbed well. You edit a great newspaper. You +spread abroad the message—well, the message that Sir Joseph Goldbug, your +proprietor, instructs you to spread abroad. You teach mankind the +lessons that Sir Joseph Goldbug wishes them to learn. They say he is to +have a peerage next year. I am sure he has earned it; and perhaps there +may be a knighthood for you, Dick. + +Tom, you are getting on now. You have abandoned those unsaleable +allegories. What rich art patron cares to be told continually by his own +walls that Midas had ass’s ears; that Lazarus sits ever at the gate? You +paint portraits now, and everybody tells me you are the coming man. That +“Impression” of old Lady Jezebel was really wonderful. The woman looks +quite handsome, and yet it is her ladyship. Your touch is truly +marvellous. + +But into your success, Tom—Dick, old friend, do not there creep moments +when you would that we could fish up those old egg-boxes from the past, +refurnish with them the dingy rooms in Camden Town, and find there our +youth, our loves, and our beliefs? + +An incident brought back to my mind, the other day, the thought of all +these things. I called for the first time upon a man, an actor, who had +asked me to come and see him in the little home where he lives with his +old father. To my astonishment—for the craze, I believe, has long since +died out—I found the house half furnished out of packing cases, butter +tubs, and egg-boxes. My friend earns his twenty pounds a week, but it +was the old father’s hobby, so he explained to me, the making of these +monstrosities; and of them he was as proud as though they were specimen +furniture out of the South Kensington Museum. + +He took me into the dining-room to show me the latest outrage—a new +book-case. A greater disfigurement to the room, which was otherwise +prettily furnished, could hardly be imagined. There was no need for him +to assure me, as he did, that it had been made out of nothing but +egg-boxes. One could see at a glance that it was made out of egg-boxes, +and badly constructed egg-boxes at that—egg-boxes that were a disgrace to +the firm that had turned them out; egg-boxes not worthy the storage of +“shop ’uns” at eighteen the shilling. + +We went upstairs to my friend’s bedroom. He opened the door as a man +might open the door of a museum of gems. + +“The old boy,” he said, as he stood with his hand upon the door-knob, +“made everything you see here, everything,” and we entered. He drew my +attention to the wardrobe. “Now I will hold it up,” he said, “while you +pull the door open; I think the floor must be a bit uneven, it wobbles if +you are not careful.” It wobbled notwithstanding, but by coaxing and +humouring we succeeded without mishap. I was surprised to notice a very +small supply of clothes within, although my friend is a dressy man. + +“You see,” he explained, “I dare not use it more than I can help. I am a +clumsy chap, and as likely as not, if I happened to be in a hurry, I’d +have the whole thing over:” which seemed probable. + +I asked him how he contrived. “I dress in the bath-room as a rule,” he +replied; “I keep most of my things there. Of course the old boy doesn’t +know.” + +He showed me a chest of drawers. One drawer stood half open. + +“I’m bound to leave that drawer open,” he said; “I keep the things I use +in that. They don’t shut quite easily, these drawers; or rather, they +shut all right, but then they won’t open. It is the weather, I think. +They will open and shut all right in the summer, I dare say.” He is of a +hopeful disposition. + +But the pride of the room was the washstand. + +“What do you think of this?” cried he enthusiastically, “real marble +top—” + +He did not expatiate further. In his excitement he had laid his hand +upon the thing, with the natural result that it collapsed. More by +accident than design I caught the jug in my arms. I also caught the +water it contained. The basin rolled on its edge and little damage was +done, except to me and the soap-box. + +I could not pump up much admiration for this washstand; I was feeling too +wet. + +“What do you do when you want to wash?” I asked, as together we reset the +trap. + +There fell upon him the manner of a conspirator revealing secrets. He +glanced guiltily round the room; then, creeping on tip-toe, he opened a +cupboard behind the bed. Within was a tin basin and a small can. + +“Don’t tell the old boy,” he said. “I keep these things here, and wash +on the floor.” + +That was the best thing I myself ever got out of egg-boxes—that picture +of a deceitful son stealthily washing himself upon the floor behind the +bed, trembling at every footstep lest it might be the “old boy” coming to +the door. + +One wonders whether the Ten Commandments are so all-sufficient as we good +folk deem them—whether the eleventh is not worth the whole pack of them: +“that ye love one another” with just a common-place, human, practical +love. Could not the other ten be comfortably stowed away into a corner +of that! One is inclined, in one’s anarchic moments, to agree with Louis +Stevenson, that to be amiable and cheerful is a good religion for a +work-a-day world. We are so busy _not_ killing, _not_ stealing, _not_ +coveting our neighbour’s wife, we have not time to be even just to one +another for the little while we are together here. Need we be so +cocksure that our present list of virtues and vices is the only possibly +correct and complete one? Is the kind, unselfish man necessarily a +villain because he does not always succeed in suppressing his natural +instincts? Is the narrow-hearted, sour-souled man, incapable of a +generous thought or act, necessarily a saint because he has none? Have +we not—we unco guid—arrived at a wrong method of estimating our frailer +brothers and sisters? We judge them, as critics judge books, not by the +good that is in them, but by their faults. Poor King David! What would +the local Vigilance Society have had to say to him? Noah, according to +our plan, would be denounced from every teetotal platform in the country, +and Ham would head the Local Vestry poll as a reward for having exposed +him. And St. Peter! weak, frail St. Peter, how lucky for him that his +fellow-disciples and their Master were not as strict in their notions of +virtue as are we to-day. + +Have we not forgotten the meaning of the word “virtue”? Once it stood +for the good that was in a man, irrespective of the evil that might lie +there also, as tares among the wheat. We have abolished virtue, and for +it substituted virtues. Not the hero—he was too full of faults—but the +blameless valet; not the man who does any good, but the man who has not +been found out in any evil, is our modern ideal. The most virtuous thing +in nature, according to this new theory, should be the oyster. He is +always at home, and always sober. He is not noisy. He gives no trouble +to the police. I cannot think of a single one of the Ten Commandments +that he ever breaks. He never enjoys himself, and he never, so long as +he lives, gives a moment’s pleasure to any other living thing. + +I can imagine the oyster lecturing a lion on the subject of morality. + +“You never hear me,” the oyster might say, “howling round camps and +villages, making night hideous, frightening quiet folk out of their +lives. Why don’t you go to bed early, as I do? I never prowl round the +oyster-bed, fighting other gentlemen oysters, making love to lady oysters +already married. I never kill antelopes or missionaries. Why can’t you +live as I do on salt water and germs, or whatever it is that I do live +on? Why don’t you try to be more like me?” + +An oyster has no evil passions, therefore we say he is a virtuous fish. +We never ask ourselves—“Has he any good passions?” A lion’s behaviour is +often such as no just man could condone. Has he not his good points +also? + +Will the fat, sleek, “virtuous” man be as Welcome at the gate of heaven +as he supposes? + +“Well,” St. Peter may say to him, opening the door a little way and +looking him up and down, “what is it now?” + +“It’s me,” the virtuous man will reply, with an oily, self-satisfied +smile; “I should say, I—I’ve come.” + +“Yes, I see you have come; but what is your claim to admittance? What +have you done with your three score years and ten?” + +“Done!” the virtuous man will answer, “I have done nothing, I assure +you.” + +“Nothing!” + +“Nothing; that is my strong point; that is why I am here. I have never +done any wrong.” + +“And what good have you done?” + +“What good!” + +“Aye, what good? Do not you even know the meaning of the word? What +human creature is the better for your having eaten and drunk and slept +these years? You have done no harm—no harm to yourself. Perhaps, if you +had you might have done some good with it; the two are generally to be +found together down below, I remember. What good have you done that you +should enter here? This is no mummy chamber; this is the place of men +and women who have lived, who have wrought good—and evil also, alas!—for +the sinners who fight for the right, not the righteous who run with their +souls from the fight.” + +It was not, however, to speak of these things that I remembered _The +Amateur_ and its lessons. My intention was but to lead up to the story +of a certain small boy, who in the doing of tasks not required of him was +exceedingly clever. I wish to tell you his story, because, as do most +true tales, it possesses a moral, and stories without a moral I deem to +be but foolish literature, resembling roads that lead to nowhere, such as +sick folk tramp for exercise. + +I have known this little boy to take an expensive eight-day clock to +pieces, and make of it a toy steamboat. True, it was not, when made, +very much of a steamboat; but taking into consideration all the +difficulties—the inadaptability of eight-day clock machinery to steamboat +requirements, the necessity of getting the work accomplished quickly, +before conservatively-minded people with no enthusiasm for science could +interfere—a good enough steamboat. With merely an ironing-board and a +few dozen meat-skewers, he would—provided the ironing-board was not +missed in time—turn out quite a practicable rabbit-hutch. He could make +a gun out of an umbrella and a gas-bracket, which, if not so accurate as +a Martini-Henry, was, at all events, more deadly. With half the +garden-hose, a copper scalding-pan out of the dairy, and a few Dresden +china ornaments off the drawing-room mantelpiece, he would build a +fountain for the garden. He could make bookshelves out of kitchen +tables, and crossbows out of crinolines. He could dam you a stream so +that all the water would flow over the croquet lawn. He knew how to make +red paint and oxygen gas, together with many other suchlike commodities +handy to have about a house. Among other things he learned how to make +fireworks, and after a few explosions of an unimportant character, came +to make them very well indeed. The boy who can play a good game of +cricket is liked. The boy who can fight well is respected. The boy who +can cheek a master is loved. But the boy who can make fireworks is +revered above all others as a boy belonging to a superior order of +beings. The fifth of November was at hand, and with the consent of an +indulgent mother, he determined to give to the world a proof of his +powers. A large party of friends, relatives, and school-mates was +invited, and for a fortnight beforehand the scullery was converted into a +manufactory for fireworks. The female servants went about in hourly +terror of their lives, and the villa, did we judge exclusively by smell, +one might have imagined had been taken over by Satan, his main premises +being inconveniently crowded, as an annex. By the evening of the fourth +all was in readiness, and samples were tested to make sure that no +contretemps should occur the following night. All was found to be +perfect. + +The rockets rushed heavenward and descended in stars, the Roman candles +tossed their fiery balls into the darkness, the Catherine wheels sparkled +and whirled, the crackers cracked, and the squibs banged. That night he +went to bed a proud and happy boy, and dreamed of fame. He stood +surrounded by blazing fireworks, and the vast crowd cheered him. His +relations, most of whom, he knew, regarded him as the coming idiot of the +family, were there to witness his triumph; so too was Dickey Bowles, who +laughed at him because he could not throw straight. The girl at the +bun-shop, she also was there, and saw that he was clever. + +The night of the festival arrived, and with it the guests. They sat, +wrapped up in shawls and cloaks, outside the hall door—uncles, cousins, +aunts, little boys and big boys, little girls and big girls, with, as the +theatre posters say, villagers and retainers, some forty of them in all, +and waited. + +But the fireworks did not go off. Why they did not go off I cannot +explain; nobody ever _could_ explain. The laws of nature seemed to be +suspended for that night only. The rockets fell down and died where they +stood. No human agency seemed able to ignite the squibs. The crackers +gave one bang and collapsed. The Roman candles might have been English +rushlights. The Catherine wheels became mere revolving glow-worms. The +fiery serpents could not collect among them the spirit of a tortoise. +The set piece, a ship at sea, showed one mast and the captain, and then +went out. One or two items did their duty, but this only served to +render the foolishness of the whole more striking. The little girls +giggled, the little boys chaffed, the aunts and cousins said it was +beautiful, the uncles inquired if it was all over, and talked about +supper and trains, the “villagers and retainers” dispersed laughing, the +indulgent mother said “never mind,” and explained how well everything had +gone off yesterday; the clever little boy crept upstairs to his room, and +blubbered his heart out in the dark. + +Hours later, when the crowd had forgotten him, he stole out again into +the garden. He sat down amid the ruins of his hope, and wondered what +could have caused the fiasco. Still puzzled, he drew from his pocket a +box of matches, and, lighting one, he held it to the seared end of a +rocket he had tried in vain to light four hours ago. It smouldered for +an instant, then shot with a swish into the air and broke into a hundred +points of fire. He tried another and another with the same result. He +made a fresh attempt to fire the set piece. Point by point the whole +picture—minus the captain and one mast—came out of the night, and stood +revealed in all the majesty of flame. Its sparks fell upon the piled-up +heap of candles, wheels, and rockets that a little while before had +obstinately refused to burn, and that, one after another, had been thrown +aside as useless. Now with the night frost upon them, they leaped to +light in one grand volcanic eruption. And in front of the gorgeous +spectacle he stood with only one consolation—his mother’s hand in his. + +The whole thing was a mystery to him at the time, but, as he learned to +know life better, he came to understand that it was only one example of a +solid but inexplicable fact, ruling all human affairs—_your fireworks +won’t go off while the crowd is around_. + +Our brilliant repartees do not occur to us till the door is closed upon +us and we are alone in the street, or, as the French would say, are +coming down the stairs. Our after-dinner oratory, that sounded so +telling as we delivered it before the looking-glass, falls strangely flat +amidst the clinking of the glasses. The passionate torrent of words we +meant to pour into her ear becomes a halting rigmarole, at which—small +blame to her—she only laughs. + +I would, gentle Reader, you could hear the stories that I meant to tell +you. You judge me, of course, by the stories of mine that you have +read—by this sort of thing, perhaps; but that is not just to me. The +stories I have not told you, that I am going to tell you one day, I would +that you judge me by those. + +They are so beautiful; you will say so; over them, you will laugh and cry +with me. + +They come into my brain unbidden, they clamour to be written, yet when I +take my pen in hand they are gone. It is as though they were shy of +publicity, as though they would say to me—“You alone, you shall read us, +but you must not write us; we are too real, too true. We are like the +thoughts you cannot speak. Perhaps a little later, when you know more of +life, then you shall tell us.” + +Next to these in merit I would place, were I writing a critical essay on +myself, the stories I have begun to write and that remain unfinished, why +I cannot explain to myself. They are good stories, most of them; better +far than the stories I have accomplished. Another time, perhaps, if you +care to listen, I will tell you the beginning of one or two and you shall +judge. Strangely enough, for I have always regarded myself as a +practical, commonsensed man, so many of these still-born children of my +mind I find, on looking through the cupboard where their thin bodies lie, +are ghost stories. I suppose the hope of ghosts is with us all. The +world grows somewhat interesting to us heirs of all the ages. Year by +year, Science with broom and duster tears down the moth-worn tapestry, +forces the doors of the locked chambers, lets light into the secret +stairways, cleans out the dungeons, explores the hidden passages—finding +everywhere only dust. This echoing old castle, the world, so full of +mystery in the days when we were children, is losing somewhat its charm +for us as we grow older. The king sleeps no longer in the hollow of the +hills. We have tunnelled through his mountain chamber. We have shivered +his beard with our pick. We have driven the gods from Olympus. No +wanderer through the moonlit groves now fears or hopes the sweet, +death-giving gleam of Aphrodite’s face. Thor’s hammer echoes not among +the peaks—’tis but the thunder of the excursion train. We have swept the +woods of the fairies. We have filtered the sea of its nymphs. Even the +ghosts are leaving us, chased by the Psychical Research Society. + +Perhaps of all, they are the least, however, to be regretted. They were +dull old fellows, clanking their rusty chains and groaning and sighing. +Let them go. + +And yet how interesting they might be, if only they would. The old +gentleman in the coat of mail, who lived in King John’s reign, who was +murdered, so they say, on the outskirts of the very wood I can see from +my window as I write—stabbed in the back, poor gentleman, as he was +riding home, his body flung into the moat that to this day is called +Tor’s tomb. Dry enough it is now, and the primroses love its steep +banks; but a gloomy enough place in those days, no doubt, with its twenty +feet of stagnant water. Why does he haunt the forest paths at night, as +they tell me he does, frightening the children out of their wits, +blanching the faces and stilling the laughter of the peasant lads and +lasses, slouching home from the village dance? Instead, why does he not +come up here and talk to me? He should have my easy-chair and welcome, +would he only be cheerful and companionable. + +What brave tales could he not tell me. He fought in the first Crusade, +heard the clarion voice of Peter, met the great Godfrey face to face, +stood, hand on sword-hilt, at Runny-mede, perhaps. Better than a whole +library of historical novels would an evening’s chat be with such a +ghost. What has he done with his eight hundred years of death? where has +he been? what has he seen? Maybe he has visited Mars; has spoken to the +strange spirits who can live in the liquid fires of Jupiter. What has he +learned of the great secret? Has he found the truth? or is he, even as +I, a wanderer still seeking the unknown? + +You, poor, pale, grey nun—they tell me that of midnights one may see your +white face peering from the ruined belfry window, hear the clash of sword +and shield among the cedar-trees beneath. + +It was very sad, I quite understand, my dear lady. Your lovers both were +killed, and you retired to a convent. Believe me, I am sincerely sorry +for you, but why waste every night renewing the whole painful experience? +Would it not be better forgotten? Good Heavens, madam, suppose we living +folk were to spend our lives wailing and wringing our hands because of +the wrongs done to us when we were children? It is all over now. Had he +lived, and had you married him, you might not have been happy. I do not +wish to say anything unkind, but marriages founded upon the sincerest +mutual love have sometimes turned out unfortunately, as you must surely +know. + +Do take my advice. Talk the matter over with the young men themselves. +Persuade them to shake hands and be friends. Come in, all of you, out of +the cold, and let us have some reasonable talk. + +Why seek you to trouble us, you poor pale ghosts? Are we not your +children? Be our wise friends. Tell me, how loved the young men in your +young days? how answered the maidens? Has the world changed much, do you +think? Had you not new women even then? girls who hated the everlasting +tapestry frame and spinning-wheel? Your father’s servants, were they so +much worse off than the freemen who live in our East-end slums and sew +slippers for fourteen hours a day at a wage of nine shillings a week? Do +you think Society much improved during the last thousand years? Is it +worse? is it better? or is it, on the whole, about the same, save that we +call things by other names? Tell me, what have _you_ learned? + +Yet might not familiarity breed contempt, even for ghosts. + +One has had a tiring day’s shooting. One is looking forward to one’s +bed. As one opens the door, however, a ghostly laugh comes from behind +the bed-curtains, and one groans inwardly, knowing what is in store for +one: a two or three hours’ talk with rowdy old Sir Lanval—he of the +lance. We know all his tales by heart, and he will shout them. Suppose +our aunt, from whom we have expectations, and who sleeps in the next +room, should wake and overhear! They were fit and proper enough stories, +no doubt, for the Round Table, but we feel sure our aunt would not +appreciate them:—that story about Sir Agravain and the cooper’s wife! and +he always will tell that story. + +Or imagine the maid entering after dinner to say— + +“Oh, if you please, sir, here is the veiled lady.” + +“What, again!” says your wife, looking up from her work. + +“Yes, ma’am; shall I show her up into the bedroom?” + +“You had better ask your master,” is the reply. The tone is suggestive +of an unpleasant five minutes so soon as the girl shall have withdrawn, +but what are you to do? + +“Yes, yes, show her up,” you say, and the girl goes out, closing the +door. + +Your wife gathers her work together, and rises. + +“Where are you going?” you ask. + +“To sleep with the children,” is the frigid answer. + +“It will look so rude,” you urge. “We must be civil to the poor thing; +and you see it really is her room, as one might say. She has always +haunted it.” + +“It is very curious,” returns the wife of your bosom, still more icily, +“that she never haunts it except when you are down here. Where she goes +when you are in town I’m sure I don’t know.” + +This is unjust. You cannot restrain your indignation. + +“What nonsense you talk, Elizabeth,” you reply; “I am only barely polite +to her.” + +“Some men have such curious notions of politeness,” returns Elizabeth. +“But pray do not let us quarrel. I am only anxious not to disturb you. +Two are company, you know. I don’t choose to be the third, that’s all.” +With which she goes out. + +And the veiled lady is still waiting for you up-stairs. You wonder how +long she will stop, also what will happen after she is gone. + +I fear there is no room for you, ghosts, in this our world. You remember +how they came to Hiawatha—the ghosts of the departed loved ones. He had +prayed to them that they would come back to him to comfort him, so one +day they crept into his wigwam, sat in silence round his fireside, +chilled the air for Hiawatha, froze the smiles of Laughing Water. + +There is no room for you, oh you poor pale ghosts, in this our world. Do +not trouble us. Let us forget. You, stout elderly matron, your thin +locks turning grey, your eyes grown weak, your chin more ample, your +voice harsh with much scolding and complaining, needful, alas! to +household management, I pray you leave me. I loved you while you lived. +How sweet, how beautiful you were. I see you now in your white frock +among the apple-blossom. But you are dead, and your ghost disturbs my +dreams. I would it haunted me not. + +You, dull old fellow, looking out at me from the glass at which I shave, +why do you haunt me? You are the ghost of a bright lad I once knew well. +He might have done much, had he lived. I always had faith in him. Why +do you haunt me? I would rather think of him as I remember him. I never +imagined he would make such a poor ghost. + + + + +ON THE PREPARATION AND EMPLOYMENT OF LOVE PHILTRES + + +OCCASIONALLY a friend will ask me some such question as this, Do you +prefer dark women or fair? Another will say, Do you like tall women or +short? A third, Do you think light-hearted women, or serious, the more +agreeable company? I find myself in the position that, once upon a time, +overtook a certain charming young lady of taste who was asked by an +anxious parent, the years mounting, and the family expenditure not +decreasing, which of the numerous and eligible young men, then paying +court to her, she liked the best. She replied, that was her difficulty. +She could not make up her mind which she liked the best. They were all +so nice. She could not possibly select one to the exclusion of all the +others. What she would have liked would have been to marry the lot, but +that, she presumed, was impracticable. + +I feel I resemble that young lady, not so much, perhaps, in charm and +beauty as indecision of mind, when questions such as the above are put to +me. It is as if one were asked one’s favourite food. There are times +when one fancies an egg with one’s tea. On other occasions one dreams of +a kipper. To-day one clamours for lobsters. To-morrow one feels one +never wishes to see a lobster again; one determines to settle down, for a +time, to a diet of bread and milk and rice-pudding. Asked suddenly to +say whether I preferred ices to soup, or beefsteaks to caviare, I should +be nonplussed. + +I like tall women and short, dark women and fair, merry women and grave. + +Do not blame me, Ladies, the fault lies with you. Every right-thinking +man is an universal lover; how could it be otherwise? You are so +diverse, yet each so charming of your kind; and a man’s heart is large. +You have no idea, fair Reader, how large a man’s heart is: that is his +trouble—sometimes yours. + +May I not admire the daring tulip, because I love also the modest lily? +May I not press a kiss upon the sweet violet, because the scent of the +queenly rose is precious to me? + +“Certainly not,” I hear the Rose reply. “If you can see anything in her, +you shall have nothing to do with me.” + +“If you care for that bold creature,” says the Lily, trembling, “you are +not the man I took you for. Good-bye.” + +“Go to your baby-faced Violet,” cries the Tulip, with a toss of her +haughty head. “You are just fitted for each other.” + +And when I return to the Lily, she tells me that she cannot trust me. +She has watched me with those others. She knows me for a gad-about. Her +gentle face is full of pain. + +So I must live unloved merely because I love too much. + +My wonder is that young men ever marry. The difficulty of selection must +be appalling. I walked the other evening in Hyde Park. The band of the +Life Guards played heart-lifting music, and the vast crowd were basking +in a sweet enjoyment such as rarely woos the English toiler. I strolled +among them, and my attention was chiefly drawn towards the women. The +great majority of them were, I suppose, shop-girls, milliners, and others +belonging to the lower middle-class. They had put on their best frocks, +their bonniest hats, their newest gloves. They sat or walked in twos and +threes, chattering and preening, as happy as young sparrows on a clothes +line. And what a handsome crowd they made! I have seen German crowds, I +have seen French crowds, I have seen Italian crowds; but nowhere do you +find such a proportion of pretty women as among the English middle-class. +Three women out of every four were worth looking at, every other woman +was pretty, while every fourth, one might say without exaggeration, was +beautiful. As I passed to and fro the idea occurred to me: suppose I +were an unprejudiced young bachelor, free from predilection, looking for +a wife; and let me suppose—it is only a fancy—that all these girls were +ready and willing to accept me. I have only to choose! I grew +bewildered. There were fair girls, to look at whom was fatal; dark girls +that set one’s heart aflame; girls with red gold hair and grave grey +eyes, whom one would follow to the confines of the universe; baby-faced +girls that one longed to love and cherish; girls with noble faces, whom a +man might worship; laughing girls, with whom one could dance through life +gaily; serious girls, with whom life would be sweet and good, +domestic-looking girls—one felt such would make delightful wives; they +would cook, and sew, and make of home a pleasant, peaceful place. Then +wicked-looking girls came by, at the stab of whose bold eyes all orthodox +thoughts were put to a flight, whose laughter turned the world into a mad +carnival; girls one could mould; girls from whom one could learn; sad +girls one wanted to comfort; merry girls who would cheer one; little +girls, big girls, queenly girls, fairy-like girls. + +Suppose a young man had to select his wife in this fashion from some +twenty or thirty thousand; or that a girl were suddenly confronted with +eighteen thousand eligible young bachelors, and told to take the one she +wanted and be quick about it? Neither boy nor girl would ever marry. +Fate is kinder to us. She understands, and assists us. In the hall of a +Paris hotel I once overheard one lady asking another to recommend her a +milliner’s shop. + +“Go to the Maison Nouvelle,” advised the questioned lady, with +enthusiasm. “They have the largest selection there of any place in +Paris.” + +“I know they have,” replied the first lady, “that is just why I don’t +mean to go there. It confuses me. If I see six bonnets I can tell the +one I want in five minutes. If I see six hundred I come away without any +bonnet at all. Don’t you know a little shop?” + +Fate takes the young man or the young woman aside. + +“Come into this village, my dear,” says Fate; “into this by-street of +this salubrious suburb, into this social circle, into this church, into +this chapel. Now, my dear boy, out of these seventeen young ladies, +which will you have?—out of these thirteen young men, which would you +like for your very own, my dear?” + +“No, miss, I am sorry, but I am not able to show you our up-stairs +department to-day, the lift is not working. But I am sure we shall be +able to find something in this room to suit you. Just look round, my +dear, perhaps you will see something.” + +“No, sir, I cannot show you the stock in the next room, we never take +that out except for our very special customers. We keep our most +expensive goods in that room. (Draw that curtain, Miss Circumstance, +please. I have told you of that before.) Now, sir, wouldn’t you like +this one? This colour is quite the rage this season; we are getting rid +of quite a lot of these.” + +“_No_, sir! Well, of course, it would not do for every one’s taste to be +the same. Perhaps something dark would suit you better. Bring out those +two brunettes, Miss Circumstance. Charming girls both of them, don’t you +think so, sir? I should say the taller one for you, sir. Just one +moment, sir, allow me. Now, what do you think of that, sir? might have +been made to fit you, I’m sure. _You prefer the shorter one_. +Certainly, sir, no difference to us at all. Both are the same price. +There’s nothing like having one’s own fancy, I always say. _No_, sir, I +cannot put her aside for you, we never do that. Indeed, there’s rather a +run on brunettes just at present. I had a gentleman in only this +morning, looking at this particular one, and he is going to call again +to-night. Indeed, I am not at all sure—Oh, of course, sir, if you like +to settle on this one now, that ends the matter. (Put those others away, +Miss Circumstance, please, and mark this one sold.) I feel sure you’ll +like her, sir, when you get her home. Thank _you_, sir. Good-morning!” + +“Now, miss, have _you_ seen anything you fancy? _Yes_, miss, this is all +we have at anything near your price. (Shut those other cupboards, Miss +Circumstance; never show more stock than you are obliged to, it only +confuses customers. How often am I to tell you that?) _Yes_, miss, you +are quite right, there _is_ a slight blemish. They all have some slight +flaw. The makers say they can’t help it—it’s in the material. It’s not +once in a season we get a perfect specimen; and when we do ladies don’t +seem to care for it. Most of our customers prefer a little faultiness. +They say it gives character. Now, look at this, miss. This sort of +thing wears very well, warm and quiet. You’d like one with more colour +in it? Certainly. Miss Circumstance, reach me down the art patterns. +_No_, miss, we don’t guarantee any of them over the year, so much depends +on how you use them. _Oh yes_, miss, they’ll stand a fair amount of +wear. People do tell you the quieter patterns last longer; but my +experience is that one is much the same as another. There’s really no +telling any of them until you come to try them. We never recommend one +more than another. There’s a lot of chance about these goods, it’s in +the nature of them. What I always say to ladies is—‘Please yourself, +it’s you who have got to wear it; and it’s no good having an article you +start by not liking.’ _Yes_, miss, it _is_ pretty and it looks well +against you: it does indeed. Thank you, miss. Put that one aside, Miss +Circumstance, please. See that it doesn’t get mixed up with the unsold +stock.” + +It is a useful philtre, the juice of that small western flower, that +Oberon drops upon our eyelids as we sleep. It solves all difficulties in +a trice. Why of course Helena is the fairer. Compare her with Hermia! +Compare the raven with the dove! How could we ever have doubted for a +moment? Bottom is an angel, Bottom is as wise as he is handsome. Oh, +Oberon, we thank you for that drug. Matilda Jane is a goddess; Matilda +Jane is a queen; no woman ever born of Eve was like Matilda Jane. The +little pimple on her nose—her little, sweet, tip-tilted nose—how +beautiful it is. Her bright eyes flash with temper now and then; how +piquant is a temper in a woman. William is a dear old stupid, how +lovable stupid men can be—especially when wise enough to love us. +William does not shine in conversation; how we hate a magpie of a man. +William’s chin is what is called receding, just the sort of chin a beard +looks well on. Bless you, Oberon darling, for that drug; rub it on our +eyelids once again. Better let us have a bottle, Oberon, to keep by us. + +Oberon, Oberon, what are you thinking of? You have given the bottle to +Puck. Take it away from him, quick. Lord help us all if that Imp has +the bottle. Lord save us from Puck while we sleep. + +Or may we, fairy Oberon, regard your lotion as an eye-opener, rather than +as an eye-closer? You remember the story the storks told the children, +of the little girl who was a toad by day, only her sweet dark eyes being +left to her. But at night, when the Prince clasped her close to his +breast, lo! again she became the king’s daughter, fairest and fondest of +women. There be many royal ladies in Marshland, with bad complexion and +thin straight hair, and the silly princes sneer and ride away to woo some +kitchen wench decked out in queen’s apparel. Lucky the prince upon whose +eyelids Oberon has dropped the magic philtre. + +In the gallery of a minor Continental town I have forgotten, hangs a +picture that lives with me. The painting I cannot recall, whether good +or bad; artists must forgive me for remembering only the subject. It +shows a man, crucified by the roadside. No martyr he. If ever a man +deserved hanging it was this one. So much the artist has made clear. +The face, even under its mask of agony, is an evil, treacherous face. A +peasant girl clings to the cross; she stands tip-toe upon a patient +donkey, straining her face upward for the half-dead man to stoop and kiss +her lips. + +Thief, coward, blackguard, they are stamped upon his face, but _under_ +the face, under the evil outside? Is there no remnant of manhood—nothing +tender, nothing, true? A woman has crept to the cross to kiss him: no +evidence in his favour, my Lord? Love is blind-aye, to our faults. +Heaven help us all; Love’s eyes would be sore indeed if it were not so. +But for the good that is in us her eyes are keen. You, crucified +blackguard, stand forth. A hundred witnesses have given their evidence +against you. Are there none to give evidence for him? A woman, great +Judge, who loved him. Let her speak. + +But I am wandering far from Hyde Park and its show of girls. + +They passed and re-passed me, laughing, smiling, talking. Their eyes +were bright with merry thoughts; their voices soft and musical. They +were pleased, and they wanted to please. Some were married, some had +evidently reasonable expectations of being married; the rest hoped to be. +And we, myself, and some ten thousand other young men. I repeat +it—myself and some ten thousand other young men; for who among us ever +thinks of himself but as a young man? It is the world that ages, not we. +The children cease their playing and grow grave, the lasses’ eyes are +dimmer. The hills are a little steeper, the milestones, surely, further +apart. The songs the young men sing are less merry than the songs we +used to sing. The days have grown a little colder, the wind a little +keener. The wine has lost its flavour somewhat; the new humour is not +like the old. The other boys are becoming dull and prosy; but we are not +changed. It is the world that is growing old. Therefore, I brave your +thoughtless laughter, youthful Reader, and repeat that we, myself and +some ten thousand other young men, walked among these sweet girls; and, +using our boyish eyes, were fascinated, charmed, and captivated. How +delightful to spend our lives with them, to do little services for them +that would call up these bright smiles. How pleasant to jest with them, +and hear their flute-like laughter, to console them and read their +grateful eyes. Really life is a pleasant thing, and the idea of marriage +undoubtedly originated in the brain of a kindly Providence. + +We smiled back at them, and we made way for them; we rose from our chairs +with a polite, “Allow me, miss,” “Don’t mention it, I prefer standing.” +“It is a delightful evening, is it not?” And perhaps—for what harm was +there?—we dropped into conversation with these chance fellow-passengers +upon the stream of life. There were those among us—bold daring +spirits—who even went to the length of mild flirtation. Some of us knew +some of them, and in such happy case there followed interchange of pretty +pleasantries. Your English middle-class young man and woman are not +adepts at the game of flirtation. I will confess that our methods were, +perhaps, elephantine, that we may have grown a trifle noisy as the +evening wore on. But we meant no evil; we did but our best to enjoy +ourselves, to give enjoyment, to make the too brief time, pass gaily. + +And then my thoughts travelled to small homes in distant suburbs, and +these bright lads and lasses round me came to look older and more +careworn. But what of that? Are not old faces sweet when looked at by +old eyes a little dimmed by love, and are not care and toil but the +parents of peace and joy? + +But as I drew nearer, I saw that many of the faces were seared with sour +and angry looks, and the voices that rose round me sounded surly and +captious. The pretty compliment and praise had changed to sneers and +scoldings. The dimpled smile had wrinkled to a frown. There seemed so +little desire to please, so great a determination not to be pleased. + +And the flirtations! Ah me, they had forgotten how to flirt! Oh, the +pity of it! All the jests were bitter, all the little services were +given grudgingly. The air seemed to have grown chilly. A darkness had +come over all things. + +And then I awoke to reality, and found I had been sitting in my chair +longer than I had intended. The band-stand was empty, the sun had set; I +rose and made my way home through the scattered crowd. + +Nature is so callous. The Dame irritates one at times by her devotion to +her one idea, the propagation of the species. + +“Multiply and be fruitful; let my world be ever more and more peopled.” + +For this she trains and fashions her young girls, models them with +cunning hand, paints them with her wonderful red and white, crowns them +with her glorious hair, teaches them to smile and laugh, trains their +voices into music, sends them out into the world to captivate, to enslave +us. + +“See how beautiful she is, my lad,” says the cunning old woman. “Take +her; build your little nest with her in your pretty suburb; work for her +and live for her; enable her to keep the little ones that I will send.” + +And to her, old hundred-breasted Artemis whispers, “Is he not a bonny +lad? See how he loves you, how devoted he is to you! He will work for +you and make you happy; he will build your home for you. You will be the +mother of his children.” + +So we take each other by the hand, full of hope and love, and from that +hour Mother Nature has done with us. Let the wrinkles come; let our +voices grow harsh; let the fire she lighted in our hearts die out; let +the foolish selfishness we both thought we had put behind us for ever +creep back to us, bringing unkindness and indifference, angry thoughts +and cruel words into our lives. What cares she? She has caught us, and +chained us to her work. She is our universal mother-in-law. She has +done the match-making; for the rest, she leaves it to ourselves. We can +love or we can fight; it is all one to her, confound her. + +I wonder sometimes if good temper might not be taught. In business we +use no harsh language, say no unkind things to one another. The +shopkeeper, leaning across the counter, is all smiles and affability, he +might put up his shutters were he otherwise. The commercial gent, no +doubt, thinks the ponderous shopwalker an ass, but refrains from telling +him so. Hasty tempers are banished from the City. Can we not see that +it is just as much to our interest to banish them from Tooting and +Hampstead? + +The young man who sat in the chair next to me, how carefully he wrapped +the cloak round the shoulders of the little milliner beside him. And +when she said she was tired of sitting still, how readily he sprang from +his chair to walk with her, though it was evident he was very comfortable +where he was. And she! She had laughed at his jokes; they were not very +clever jokes, they were not very new. She had probably read them herself +months before in her own particular weekly journal. Yet the harmless +humbug made him happy. I wonder if ten years hence she will laugh at +such old humour, if ten years hence he will take such clumsy pains to put +her cape about her. Experience shakes her head, and is amused at my +question. + +I would have evening classes for the teaching of temper to married +couples, only I fear the institution would languish for lack of pupils. +The husbands would recommend their wives to attend, generously offering +to pay the fee as a birthday present. The wife would be indignant at the +suggestion of good money being thus wasted. “No, John, dear,” she would +unselfishly reply, “you need the lessons more than I do. It would be a +shame for me to take them away from you,” and they would wrangle upon the +subject for the rest of the day. + +Oh! the folly of it. We pack our hamper for life’s picnic with such +pains. We spend so much, we work so hard. We make choice pies, we cook +prime joints, we prepare so carefully the mayonnaise, we mix with loving +hands the salad, we cram the basket to the lid with every delicacy we can +think of. Everything to make the picnic a success is there except the +salt. Ah! woe is me, we forget the salt. We slave at our desks, in our +workshops, to make a home for those we love; we give up our pleasures, we +give up our rest. We toil in our kitchen from morning till night, and we +render the whole feast tasteless for want of a ha’porth of salt—for want +of a soupcon of amiability, for want of a handful of kindly words, a +touch of caress, a pinch of courtesy. + +Who does not know that estimable housewife, working from eight till +twelve to keep the house in what she calls order? She is so good a +woman, so untiring, so unselfish, so conscientious, so irritating. Her +rooms are so clean, her servants so well managed, her children so well +dressed, her dinners so well cooked; the whole house so uninviting. +Everything about her is in apple-pie order, and everybody wretched. + +My good Madam, you polish your tables, you scour your kettles, but the +most valuable piece of furniture in the whole house you are letting to +rack and ruin for want of a little pains. You will find it in your own +room, my dear Lady, in front of your own mirror. It is getting shabby +and dingy, old-looking before its time; the polish is rubbed off it, +Madam, it is losing its brightness and charm. Do you remember when he +first brought it home, how proud he was of it? Do you think you have +used it well, knowing how he valued it? A little less care of your pots +and your pans, Madam, a little more of yourself were wiser. Polish +yourself up, Madam; you had a pretty wit once, a pleasant laugh, a +conversation that was not confined exclusively to the short-comings of +servants, the wrong-doings of tradesmen. My dear Madam, we do not live +on spotless linen, and crumbless carpets. Hunt out that bundle of old +letters you keep tied up in faded ribbon at the back of your bureau +drawer—a pity you don’t read them oftener. He did not enthuse about your +cuffs and collars, gush over the neatness of your darning. It was your +tangled hair he raved about, your sunny smile (we have not seen it for +some years, Madam—the fault of the Cook and the Butcher, I presume), your +little hands, your rosebud mouth—it has lost its shape, Madam, of late. +Try a little less scolding of Mary Ann, and practise a laugh once a day: +you might get back the dainty curves. It would be worth trying. It was +a pretty mouth once. + +Who invented that mischievous falsehood that the way to a man’s heart was +through his stomach? How many a silly woman, taking it for truth, has +let love slip out of the parlour, while she was busy in the kitchen. Of +course, if you were foolish enough to marry a pig, I suppose you must be +content to devote your life to the preparation of hog’s-wash. But are +you sure that he _is_ a pig? If by any chance he be not?—then, Madam, +you are making a grievous mistake. My dear Lady, you are too modest. If +I may say so without making you unduly conceited, even at the +dinner-table itself, you are of much more importance than the mutton. +Courage, Madam, be not afraid to tilt a lance even with your own cook. +You can be more piquant than the sauce _à la Tartare_, more soothing +surely than the melted butter. There was a time when he would not have +known whether he was eating beef or pork with you the other side of the +table. Whose fault is it? Don’t think so poorly of us. We are not +ascetics, neither are we all gourmets: most of us plain men, fond of our +dinner, as a healthy man should be, but fonder still of our sweethearts +and wives, let us hope. Try us. A moderately-cooked dinner—let us even +say a not-too-well-cooked dinner, with you looking your best, laughing +and talking gaily and cleverly—as you can, you know—makes a pleasanter +meal for us, after the day’s work is done, than that same dinner, cooked +to perfection, with you silent, jaded, and anxious, your pretty hair +untidy, your pretty face wrinkled with care concerning the sole, with +anxiety regarding the omelette. + +My poor Martha, be not troubled about so many things. _You_ are the one +thing needful—if the bricks and mortar are to be a home. See to it that +_you_ are well served up, that _you_ are done to perfection, that _you_ +are tender and satisfying, that _you_ are worth sitting down to. We +wanted a wife, a comrade, a friend; not a cook and a nurse on the cheap. + +But of what use is it to talk? the world will ever follow its own folly. +When I think of all the good advice that I have given it, and of the +small result achieved, I confess I grow discouraged. I was giving good +advice to a lady only the other day. I was instructing her as to the +proper treatment of aunts. She was sucking a lead-pencil, a thing I am +always telling her not to do. She took it out of her mouth to speak. + +“I suppose you know how everybody ought to do everything,” she said. + +There are times when it is necessary to sacrifice one’s modesty to one’s +duty. + +“Of course I do,” I replied. + +“And does Mama know how everybody ought to do everything?” was the second +question. + +My conviction on this point was by no means so strong, but for domestic +reasons I again sacrificed myself to expediency. + +“Certainly,” I answered; “and take that pencil out of your mouth. I’ve +told you of that before. You’ll swallow it one day, and then you’ll get +perichondritis and die.” + +She appeared to be solving a problem. + +“All grown-up people seem to know everything,” she summarized. + +There are times when I doubt if children are as simple as they look. If +it be sheer stupidity that prompts them to make remarks of this +character, one should pity them, and seek to improve them. But if it be +not stupidity? well then, one should still seek to improve them, but by a +different method. + +The other morning I overheard the nurse talking to this particular +specimen. The woman is a most worthy creature, and she was imparting to +the child some really sound advice. She was in the middle of an +unexceptional exhortation concerning the virtue of silence, when Dorothea +interrupted her with— + +“Oh, do be quiet, Nurse. I never get a moment’s peace from your +chatter.” + +Such an interruption discourages a woman who is trying to do her duty. + +Last Tuesday evening she was unhappy. Myself, I think that rhubarb +should never be eaten before April, and then never with lemonade. Her +mother read her a homily upon the subject of pain. It was impressed upon +her that we must be patient, that we must put up with the trouble that +God sends us. Dorothea would descend to details, as children will. + +“Must we put up with the cod-liver oil that God sends us?” + +“Yes, decidedly.” + +“And with the nurses that God sends us?” + +“Certainly; and be thankful that you’ve got them, some little girls +haven’t any nurse. And don’t talk so much.” + +On Friday I found the mother in tears. + +“What’s the matter?” I asked. + +“Oh, nothing,” was the answer; “only Baby. She’s such a strange child. +I can’t make her out at all.” + +“What has she been up to now?” + +“Oh, she will argue, you know.” + +She has that failing. I don’t know where she gets it from, but she’s got +it. + +“Well?” + +“Well, she made me cross; and, to punish her, I told her she shouldn’t +take her doll’s perambulator out with her.” + +“Yes?” + +“Well, she didn’t say anything then, but so soon as I was outside the +door, I heard her talking to herself—you know her way?” + +“Yes?” + +“She said—” + +“Yes, she said?” + +“She said, ‘I must be patient. I must put up with the mother God has +sent me.’” + +She lunches down-stairs on Sundays. We have her with us once a week to +give her the opportunity of studying manners and behaviour. Milson had +dropped in, and we were discussing politics. I was interested, and, +pushing my plate aside, leant forward with my elbows on the table. +Dorothea has a habit of talking to herself in a high-pitched whisper +capable of being heard above an Adelphi love scene. I heard her say— + +“I must sit up straight. I mustn’t sprawl with my elbows on the table. +It is only common, vulgar people behave that way.” + +I looked across at her; she was sitting most correctly, and appeared to +be contemplating something a thousand miles away. We had all of us been +lounging! We sat up stiffly, and conversation flagged. + +Of course we made a joke of it after the child was gone. But somehow it +didn’t seem to be _our_ joke. + +I wish I could recollect my childhood. I should so like to know if +children are as simple as they can look. + + + + +ON THE DELIGHTS AND BENEFITS OF SLAVERY + + +MY study window looks down upon Hyde Park, and often, to quote the +familiar promise of each new magazine, it amuses and instructs me to +watch from my tower the epitome of human life that passes to and fro +beneath. At the opening of the gates, creeps in the woman of the +streets. Her pitiful work for the time being is over. Shivering in the +chill dawn, she passes to her brief rest. Poor Slave! Lured to the +galley’s lowest deck, then chained there. Civilization, tricked fool, +they say has need of such. You serve as the dogs of Eastern towns. But +at least, it seems to me, we need not spit on you. Home to your kennel! +Perchance, if the Gods be kind, they may send you dreams of a cleanly +hearth, where you lie with a silver collar round your neck. + +Next comes the labourer—the hewer of wood, the drawer of water—slouching +wearily to his toil; sleep clinging still about his leaden eyes, his +pittance of food carried tied up in a dish-clout. The first stroke of +the hour clangs from Big Ben. Haste thee, fellow-slave, lest the +overseer’s whip, “Out, we will have no lie-a-beds here,” descend upon thy +patient back. + +Later, the artisan, with his bag of tools across his shoulder. He, too, +listens fearfully to the chiming of the bells. For him also there hangs +ready the whip. + +After him, the shop boy and the shop girl, making love as they walk, not +to waste time. And after these the slaves of the desk and of the +warehouse, employers and employed, clerks and tradesmen, office boys and +merchants. To your places, slaves of all ranks. Get you unto your +burdens. + +Now, laughing and shouting as they run, the children, the sons and +daughters of the slaves. Be industrious, little children, and learn your +lessons, that when the time comes you may be ready to take from our hands +the creaking oar, to slip into our seat at the roaring loom. For we +shall not be slaves for ever, little children. It is the good law of the +land. So many years in the galleys, so many years in the fields; then we +can claim our freedom. Then we shall go, little children, back to the +land of our birth. And you we must leave behind us to take up the tale +of our work. So, off to your schools, little children, and learn to be +good little slaves. + +Next, pompous and sleek, come the educated slaves—journalists, doctors, +judges, and poets; the attorney, the artist, the player, the priest. +They likewise scurry across the Park, looking anxiously from time to time +at their watches, lest they be late for their appointments; thinking of +the rates and taxes to be earned, of the bonnets to be paid for, the +bills to be met. The best scourged, perhaps, of all, these slaves. The +cat reserved for them has fifty tails in place of merely two or three. +Work, you higher middle-class slave, or you shall come down to the +smoking of twopenny cigars; harder yet, or you shall drink shilling +claret; harder, or you shall lose your carriage and ride in a penny bus; +your wife’s frocks shall be of last year’s fashion; your trousers shall +bag at the knees; from Kensington you shall be banished to Kilburn, if +the tale of your bricks run short. Oh, a many-thonged whip is yours, my +genteel brother. + +The slaves of fashion are the next to pass beneath me in review. They +are dressed and curled with infinite pains. The liveried, pampered +footman these, kept more for show than use; but their senseless tasks +none the less labour to them. Here must they come every day, merry or +sad. By this gravel path and no other must they walk; these phrases +shall they use when they speak to one another. For an hour they must go +slowly up and down upon a bicycle from Hyde Park Corner to the Magazine +and back. And these clothes must they wear; their gloves of this colour, +their neck-ties of this pattern. In the afternoon they must return +again, this time in a carriage, dressed in another livery, and for an +hour they must pass slowly to and fro in foolish procession. For dinner +they must don yet another livery, and after dinner they must stand about +at dreary social functions till with weariness and boredom their heads +feel dropping from their shoulders. + +With the evening come the slaves back from their work: barristers, +thinking out their eloquent appeals; school-boys, conning their dog-eared +grammars; City men, planning their schemes; the wearers of motley, +cudgelling their poor brains for fresh wit with which to please their +master; shop boys and shop girls, silent now as, together, they plod +homeward; the artisan; the labourer. Two or three hours you shall have +to yourselves, slaves, to think and love and play, if you be not too +tired to think, or love, or play. Then to your litter, that you may be +ready for the morrow’s task. + +The twilight deepens into dark; there comes back the woman of the +streets. As the shadows, she rounds the City’s day. Work strikes its +tent. Evil creeps from its peering place. + +So we labour, driven by the whip of necessity, an army of slaves. If we +do not our work, the whip descends upon us; only the pain we feel in our +stomach instead of on our back. And because of that, we call ourselves +free men. + +Some few among us bravely struggle to be really free: they are our tramps +and outcasts. We well-behaved slaves shrink from them, for the wages of +freedom in this world are vermin and starvation. We can live lives worth +living only by placing the collar round our neck. + +There are times when one asks oneself: Why this endless labour? Why this +building of houses, this cooking of food, this making of clothes? Is the +ant so much more to be envied than the grasshopper, because she spends +her life in grubbing and storing, and can spare no time for singing? Why +this complex instinct, driving us to a thousand labours to satisfy a +thousand desires? We have turned the world into a workshop to provide +ourselves with toys. To purchase luxury we have sold our ease. + +Oh, Children of Israel! why were ye not content in your wilderness? It +seems to have been a pattern wilderness. For you, a simple wholesome +food, ready cooked, was provided. You took no thought for rent and +taxes; you had no poor among you—no poor-rate collectors. You suffered +not from indigestion, nor the hundred ills that follow over-feeding; an +omer for every man was your portion, neither more nor less. You knew not +you had a liver. Doctors wearied you not with their theories, their +physics, and their bills. You were neither landowners nor leaseholders, +neither shareholders nor debenture holders. The weather and the market +reports troubled you not. The lawyer was unknown to you; you wanted no +advice; you had nought to quarrel about with your neighbour. No riches +were yours for the moth and rust to damage. Your yearly income and +expenditure you knew would balance to a fraction. Your wife and children +were provided for. Your old age caused you no anxiety; you knew you +would always have enough to live upon in comfort. Your funeral, a simple +and tasteful affair, would be furnished by the tribe. And yet, poor, +foolish child, fresh from the Egyptian brickfield, you could not rest +satisfied. You hungered for the fleshpots, knowing well what flesh-pots +entail: the cleaning of the flesh-pots, the forging of the flesh-pots, +the hewing of wood to make the fires for the boiling of the flesh-pots, +the breeding of beasts to fill the pots, the growing of fodder to feed +the beasts to fill the pots. + +All the labour of our life is centred round our flesh-pots. On the altar +of the flesh-pot we sacrifice our leisure, our peace of mind. For a mess +of pottage we sell our birthright. + +Oh! Children of Israel, saw you not the long punishment you were +preparing for yourselves, when in your wilderness you set up the image of +the Calf, and fell before it, crying—“This shall be our God.” + +You would have veal. Thought you never of the price man pays for Veal? +The servants of the Golden Calf! I see them, stretched before my eyes, a +weary, endless throng. I see them toiling in the mines, the black sweat +on their faces. I see them in sunless cities, silent, and grimy, and +bent. I see them, ague-twisted, in the rain-soaked fields. I see them, +panting by the furnace doors. I see them, in loin-cloth and necklace, +the load upon their head. I see them in blue coats and red coats, +marching to pour their blood as an offering on the altar of the Calf. I +see them in homespun and broadcloth, I see them in smock and gaiters, I +see them in cap and apron, the servants of the Calf. They swarm on the +land and they dot the sea. They are chained to the anvil and counter; +they are chained to the bench and the desk. They make ready the soil, +they till the fields where the Golden Calf is born. They build the ship, +and they sail the ship that carries the Golden Calf. They fashion the +pots, they mould the pans, they carve the tables, they turn the chairs, +they dream of the sauces, they dig for the salt, they weave the damask, +they mould the dish to serve the Golden Calf. + +The work of the world is to this end, that we eat of the Calf. War and +Commerce, Science and Law! what are they but the four pillars supporting +the Golden Calf? He is our God. It is on his back that we have +journeyed from the primeval forest, where our ancestors ate nuts and +fruit. He is our God. His temple is in every street. His blue-robed +priest stands ever at the door, calling to the people to worship. Hark! +his voice rises on the gas-tainted air—“Now’s your time! Now’s your +time! Buy! Buy! ye people. Bring hither the sweat of your brow, the +sweat of your brain, the ache of your heart, buy Veal with it. Bring me +the best years of your life. Bring me your thoughts, your hopes, your +loves; ye shall have Veal for them. Now’s your time! Now’s your time! +Buy! Buy!” + +Oh! Children of Israel, was Veal, even with all its trimmings, quite +worth the price? + +And we! what wisdom have we learned, during the centuries? I talked with +a rich man only the other evening. He calls himself a Financier, +whatever that may mean. He leaves his beautiful house, some twenty miles +out of London, at a quarter to eight, summer and winter, after a hurried +breakfast by himself, while his guests still sleep, and he gets back just +in time to dress for an elaborate dinner he himself is too weary or too +preoccupied to more than touch. If ever he is persuaded to give himself +a holiday it is for a fortnight in Ostend, when it is most crowded and +uncomfortable. He takes his secretary with him, receives and despatches +a hundred telegrams a day, and has a private telephone, through which he +can speak direct to London, brought up into his bedroom. + +I suppose the telephone is really a useful invention. Business men tell +me they wonder how they contrived to conduct their affairs without it. +My own wonder always is, how any human being with the ordinary passions +of his race can conduct his business, or even himself, creditably, within +a hundred yards of the invention. I can imagine Job, or Griselda, or +Socrates liking to have a telephone about them as exercise. Socrates, in +particular, would have made quite a reputation for himself out of a three +months’ subscription to a telephone. Myself, I am, perhaps, too +sensitive. I once lived for a month in an office with a telephone, if +one could call it life. I was told that if I had stuck to the thing for +two or three months longer, I should have got used to it. I know friends +of mine, men once fearless and high-spirited, who now stand in front of +their own telephone for a quarter of an hour at a time, and never so much +as answer it back. They tell me that at first they used to swear and +shout at it as I did; but now their spirit seems crushed. That is what +happens: you either break the telephone, or the telephone breaks you. +You want to see a man two streets off. You might put on your hat, and be +round at his office in five minutes. You are on the point of starting +when the telephone catches your eye. You think you will ring him up to +make sure he is in. You commence by ringing up some half-dozen times +before anybody takes any notice of you whatever. You are burning with +indignation at this neglect, and have left the instrument to sit down and +pen a stinging letter of complaint to the Company when the ring-back +re-calls you. You seize the ear trumpets, and shout— + +“How is it that I can never get an answer when I ring? Here have I been +ringing for the last half-hour. I have rung twenty times.” (This is a +falsehood. You have rung only six times, and the “half-hour” is an +absurd exaggeration; but you feel the mere truth would not be adequate to +the occasion.) “I think it disgraceful,” you continue, “and I shall +complain to the Company. What is the use of my having a telephone if I +can’t get any answer when I ring? Here I pay a large sum for having this +thing, and I can’t get any notice taken. I’ve been ringing all the +morning. Why is it?” + +Then you wait for the answer. + +“What—what do you say? I can’t hear what you say.” + +“I say I’ve been ringing here for over an hour, and I can’t get any +reply,” you call back. “I shall complain to the Company.” + +“You want what? Don’t stand so near the tube. I can’t hear what you +say. What number?” + +“Bother the number; I say why is it I don’t get an answer when I ring?” + +“Eight hundred and what?” + +You can’t argue any more, after that. The machine would give way under +the language you want to make use of. Half of what you feel would +probably cause an explosion at some point where the wire was weak. +Indeed, mere language of any kind would fall short of the requirements of +the case. A hatchet and a gun are the only intermediaries through which +you could convey your meaning by this time. So you give up all attempt +to answer back, and meekly mention that you want to be put in +communication with four-five-seven-six. + +“Four-nine-seven-six?” says the girl. + +“No; four-five-seven-six.” + +“Did you say seven-six or six-seven?” + +“Six-seven—no! I mean seven-six: no—wait a minute. I don’t know what I +do mean now.” + +“Well, I wish you’d find out,” says the young lady severely. “You are +keeping me here all the morning.” + +So you look up the number in the book again, and at last she tells you +that you are in connection; and then, ramming the trumpet tight against +your ear, you stand waiting. + +And if there is one thing more than another likely to make a man feel +ridiculous it is standing on tip-toe in a corner, holding a machine to +his head, and listening intently to nothing. Your back aches and your +head aches, your very hair aches. You hear the door open behind you and +somebody enter the room. You can’t turn your head. You swear at them, +and hear the door close with a bang. It immediately occurs to you that +in all probability it was Henrietta. She promised to call for you at +half-past twelve: you were to take her to lunch. It was twelve o’clock +when you were fool enough to mix yourself up with this infernal machine, +and it probably is half-past twelve by now. Your past life rises before +you, accompanied by dim memories of your grandmother. You are wondering +how much longer you can bear the strain of this attitude, and whether +after all you do really want to see the man in the next street but two, +when the girl in the exchange-room calls up to know if you’re done. + +“Done!” you retort bitterly; “why, I haven’t begun yet.” + +“Well, be quick,” she says, “because you’re wasting time.” + +Thus admonished, you attack the thing again. “_Are_ you there?” you cry +in tones that ought to move the heart of a Charity Commissioner; and +then, oh joy! oh rapture! you hear a faint human voice replying— + +“Yes, what is it?” + +“Oh! Are you four-five-seven-six?” + +“What?” + +“Are you four-five-seven-six, Williamson?” + +“What! who are you?” + +“Eight-one-nine, Jones.” + +“Bones?” + +“No, _J_ones. Are you four-five-seven-six?” + +“Yes; what is it?” + +“Is Mr. Williamson in?” + +“Will I what—who are you?” + +“Jones! Is Mr. Williamson in?” + +“Who?” + +“Williamson. Will-i-am-son!” + +“You’re the son of what? I can’t hear what you say.” + +Then you gather yourself for one final effort, and succeed, by superhuman +patience, in getting the fool to understand that you wish to know if Mr. +Williamson is in, and he says, so it sounds to you, “Be in all the +morning.” + +So you snatch up your hat and run round. + +“Oh, I’ve come to see Mr. Williamson,” you say. + +“Very sorry, sir,” is the polite reply, “but he’s out.” + +“Out? Why, you just now told me through the telephone that he’d be in +all the morning.” + +“No, I said, he ‘_won’t_ be in all the morning.’” + +You go back to the office, and sit down in front of that telephone and +look at it. There it hangs, calm and imperturbable. Were it an ordinary +instrument, that would be its last hour. You would go straight +down-stairs, get the coal-hammer and the kitchen-poker, and divide it +into sufficient pieces to give a bit to every man in London. But you +feel nervous of these electrical affairs, and there is a something about +that telephone, with its black hole and curly wires, that cows you. You +have a notion that if you don’t handle it properly something may come and +shock you, and then there will be an inquest, and bother of that sort, so +you only curse it. + +That is what happens when you want to use the telephone from your end. +But that is not the worst that the telephone can do. A sensible man, +after a little experience, can learn to leave the thing alone. Your +worst troubles are not of your own making. You are working against time; +you have given instructions not to be disturbed. Perhaps it is after +lunch, and you are thinking with your eyes closed, so that your thoughts +shall not be distracted by the objects about the room. In either case +you are anxious not to leave your chair, when off goes that telephone +bell and you spring from your chair, uncertain, for the moment, whether +you have been shot, or blown up with dynamite. It occurs to you in your +weakness that if you persist in taking no notice, they will get tired, +and leave you alone. But that is not their method. The bell rings +violently at ten-second intervals. You have nothing to wrap your head up +in. You think it will be better to get this business over and done with. +You go to your fate and call back savagely— + +“What is it? What do you want?” + +No answer, only a confused murmur, prominent out of which come the voices +of two men swearing at one another. The language they are making use of +is disgraceful. The telephone seems peculiarly adapted for the +conveyance of blasphemy. Ordinary language sounds indistinct through it; +but every word those two men are saying can be heard by all the telephone +subscribers in London. + +It is useless attempting to listen till they have done. When they are +exhausted, you apply to the tube again. No answer is obtainable. You +get mad, and become sarcastic; only being sarcastic when you are not sure +that anybody is at the other end to hear you is unsatisfying. + +At last, after a quarter of an hour or so of saying, “Are you there?” +“Yes, I’m here,” “Well?” the young lady at the Exchange asks what you +want. + +“I don’t want anything,” you reply. + +“Then why do you keep talking?” she retorts; “you mustn’t play with the +thing.” + +This renders you speechless with indignation for a while, upon recovering +from which you explain that somebody rang you up. + +“_Who_ rang you up?” she asks. + +“I don’t know.” + +“I wish you did,” she observes. + +Generally disgusted, you slam the trumpet up and return to your chair. +The instant you are seated the bell clangs again; and you fly up and +demand to know what the thunder they want, and who the thunder they are. + +“Don’t speak so loud, we can’t hear you. What do you want?” is the +answer. + +“I don’t want anything. What do you want? Why do you ring me up, and +then not answer me? Do leave me alone, if you can!” + +“We can’t get Hong Kongs at seventy-four.” + +“Well, I don’t care if you can’t.” + +“Would you like Zulus?” + +“What are you talking about?” you reply; “I don’t know what you mean.” + +“Would you like Zulus—Zulus at seventy-three and a half?” + +“I wouldn’t have ’em at six a penny. What are you talking about?” + +“Hong Kongs—we can’t get them at seventy-four. Oh, half-a-minute” (the +half-a-minute passes). “Are you there?” + +“Yes, but you are talking to the wrong man.” + +“We can get you Hong Kongs at seventy-four and seven-eights.” + +“Bother Hong Kongs, and you too. I tell you, you are talking to the +wrong man. I’ve told you once.” + +“Once what?” + +“Why, that I am the wrong man—I mean that you are talking to the wrong +man.” + +“Who are you?” + +“Eight-one-nine, Jones.” + +“Oh, aren’t you one-nine-eight?” + +“No.” + +“Oh, good-bye.” + +“Good-bye.” + +How can a man after that sit down and write pleasantly of the European +crisis? And, if it were needed, herein lies another indictment against +the telephone. I was engaged in an argument, which, if not in itself +serious, was at least concerned with a serious enough subject, the +unsatisfactory nature of human riches; and from that highly moral +discussion have I been lured, by the accidental sight of the word +“telephone,” into the writing of matter which can have the effect only of +exciting to frenzy all critics of the New Humour into whose hands, for +their sins, this book may come. Let me forget my transgression and +return to my sermon, or rather to the sermon of my millionaire +acquaintance. + +It was one day after dinner, we sat together in his magnificently +furnished dining-room. We had lighted our cigars at the silver lamp. +The butler had withdrawn. + +“These cigars we are smoking,” my friend suddenly remarked, _à propos_ +apparently of nothing, “they cost me five shillings apiece, taking them +by the thousand.” + +“I can quite believe it,” I answered; “they are worth it.” + +“Yes, to you,” he replied, almost savagely. “What do you usually pay for +your cigars?” + +We had known each other years ago. When I first met him his offices +consisted of a back room up three flights of stairs in a dingy by-street +off the Strand, which has since disappeared. We occasionally dined +together, in those days, at a restaurant in Great Portland Street, for +one and nine. Our acquaintanceship was of sufficient standing to allow +of such a question. + +“Threepence,” I answered. “They work out at about twopence +three-farthings by the box.” + +“Just so,” he growled; “and your twopenny-three-farthing weed gives you +precisely the same amount of satisfaction that this five shilling cigar +affords me. That means four and ninepence farthing wasted every time I +smoke. I pay my cook two hundred a year. I don’t enjoy my dinner as +much as when it cost me four shillings, including a quarter flask of +Chianti. What is the difference, personally, to me whether I drive to my +office in a carriage and pair, or in an omnibus? I often do ride in a +bus: it saves trouble. It is absurd wasting time looking for one’s +coachman, when the conductor of an omnibus that passes one’s door is +hailing one a few yards off. Before I could afford even buses—when I +used to walk every morning to the office from Hammersmith—I was +healthier. It irritates me to think how hard I work for no earthly +benefit to myself. My money pleases a lot of people I don’t care two +straws about, and who are only my friends in the hope of making something +out of me. If I could eat a hundred-guinea dinner myself every night, +and enjoy it four hundred times as much as I used to enjoy a +five-shilling dinner, there would be some sense in it. Why do I do it?” + +I had never heard him talk like this before. In his excitement he rose +from the table, and commenced pacing the room. + +“Why don’t I invest my money in the two and a half per cents?” he +continued. “At the very worst I should be safe for five thousand a year. +What, in the name of common sense, does a man want with more? I am +always saying to myself, I’ll do it; why don’t I? + +“Well, why not?” I echoed. + +“That’s what I want you to tell me,” he returned. “You set up for +understanding human nature, it’s a mystery to me. In my place, you would +do as I do; you know that. If somebody left you a hundred thousand +pounds to-morrow, you would start a newspaper, or build a theatre—some +damn-fool trick for getting rid of the money and giving yourself +seventeen hours’ anxiety a day; you know you would.” + +I hung my head in shame. I felt the justice of the accusation. It has +always been my dream to run a newspaper and own a theatre. + +“If we worked only for what we could spend,” he went on, “the City might +put up its shutters to-morrow morning. What I want to get at the bottom +of is this instinct that drives us to work apparently for work’s own +sake. What is this strange thing that gets upon our back and spurs us?” + +A servant entered at that moment with a cablegram from the manager of one +of his Austrian mines, and he had to leave me for his study. But, +walking home, I fell to pondering on his words. _Why_ this endless work? +Why each morning do we get up and wash and dress ourselves, to undress +ourselves at night and go to bed again? Why do we work merely to earn +money to buy food; and eat food so as to gain strength that we may work? +Why do we live, merely in the end to say good-bye to one another? Why do +we labour to bring children into the world that they may die and be +buried? + +Of what use our mad striving, our passionate desire? Will it matter to +the ages whether, once upon a time, the Union Jack or the Tricolour +floated over the battlements of Badajoz? Yet we poured our blood into +its ditches to decide the question. Will it matter, in the days when the +glacial period shall have come again, to clothe the earth with silence, +whose foot first trod the Pole? Yet, generation after generation, we +mile its roadway with our whitening bones. So very soon the worms come +to us; does it matter whether we love, or hate? Yet the hot blood rushes +through our veins, we wear out heart and brain for shadowy hopes that +ever fade as we press forward. + +The flower struggles up from seed-pod, draws the sweet sap from the +ground, folds its petals each night, and sleeps. Then love comes to it +in a strange form, and it longs to mingle its pollen with the pollen of +some other flower. So it puts forth its gay blossoms, and the wandering +insect bears the message from seed-pod to seed-pod. And the seasons +pass, bringing with them the sunshine and the rain, till the flower +withers, never having known the real purpose for which it lived, thinking +the garden was made for it, not it for the garden. The coral insect +dreams in its small soul, which is possibly its small stomach, of home +and food. So it works and strives deep down in the dark waters, never +knowing of the continents it is fashioning. + +But the question still remains: for what purpose is it all? Science +explains it to us. By ages of strife and effort we improve the race; +from ether, through the monkey, man is born. So, through the labour of +the coming ages, he will free himself still further from the brute. +Through sorrow and through struggle, by the sweat of brain and brow, he +will lift himself towards the angels. He will come into his kingdom. + +But why the building? Why the passing of the countless ages? Why should +he not have been born the god he is to be, imbued at birth with all the +capabilities his ancestors have died acquiring? Why the Pict and Hun +that _I_ may be? Why _I_, that a descendant of my own, to whom I shall +seem a savage, shall come after me? Why, if the universe be ordered by a +Creator to whom all things are possible, the protoplasmic cell? Why not +the man that is to be? Shall all the generations be so much human waste +that he may live? Am I but another layer of the soil preparing for him? + +Or, if our future be in other spheres, then why the need of this planet? +Are we labouring at some Work too vast for us to perceive? Are our +passions and desires mere whips and traces by the help of which we are +driven? Any theory seems more hopeful than the thought that all our +eager, fretful lives are but the turning of a useless prison crank. +Looking back the little distance that our dim eyes can penetrate the +past, what do we find? Civilizations, built up with infinite care, swept +aside and lost. Beliefs for which men lived and died, proved to be +mockeries. Greek Art crushed to the dust by Gothic bludgeons. Dreams of +fraternity, drowned in blood by a Napoleon. What is left to us, but the +hope that the work itself, not the result, is the real monument? Maybe, +we are as children, asking, “Of what use are these lessons? What good +will they ever be to us?” But there comes a day when the lad understands +why he learnt grammar and geography, when even dates have a meaning for +him. But this is not until he has left school, and gone out into the +wider world. So, perhaps, when we are a little more grown up, we too may +begin to understand the reason for our living. + + + + +ON THE CARE AND MANAGEMENT OF WOMEN + + +I TALKED to a woman once on the subject of honeymoons. I said, “Would +you recommend a long honeymoon, or a Saturday to Monday somewhere?” A +silence fell upon her. I gathered she was looking back rather than +forward to her answer. + +“I would advise a long honeymoon,” she replied at length, “the +old-fashioned month.” + +“Why,” I persisted, “I thought the tendency of the age was to cut these +things shorter and shorter.” + +“It is the tendency of the age,” she answered, “to seek escape from many +things it would be wiser to face. I think myself that, for good or evil, +the sooner it is over—the sooner both the man and the woman know—the +better.” + +“The sooner what is over?” I asked. + +If she had a fault, this woman, about which I am not sure, it was an +inclination towards enigma. + +She crossed to the window and stood there, looking out. + +“Was there not a custom,” she said, still gazing down into the wet, +glistening street, “among one of the ancient peoples, I forget which, +ordaining that when a man and woman, loving one another, or thinking that +they loved, had been joined together, they should go down upon their +wedding night to the temple? And into the dark recesses of the temple, +through many winding passages, the priest led them until they came to the +great chamber where dwelt the voice of their god. There the priest left +them, clanging-to the massive door behind him, and there, alone in +silence, they made their sacrifice; and in the night the Voice spoke to +them, showing them their future life—whether they had chosen well; +whether their love would live or die. And in the morning the priest +returned and led them back into the day; and they dwelt among their +fellows. But no one was permitted to question them, nor they to answer +should any do so. Well, do you know, our nineteenth-century honeymoon at +Brighton, Switzerland, or Ramsgate, as the choice or necessity may be, +always seems to me merely another form of that night spent alone in the +temple before the altar of that forgotten god. Our young men and women +marry, and we kiss them and congratulate them; and, standing on the +doorstep, throw rice and old slippers, and shout good wishes after them; +and he waves his gloved hand to us, and she flutters her little +handkerchief from the carriage window; and we watch their smiling faces +and hear their laughter until the corner hides them from our view. Then +we go about our own business, and a short time passes by; and one day we +meet them again, and their faces have grown older and graver; and I +always wonder what the Voice has told them during that little while that +they have been absent from our sight. But of course it would not do to +ask them. Nor would they answer truly if we did.” + +My friend laughed, and, leaving the window, took her place beside the +tea-things, and other callers dropping in, we fell to talk of pictures, +plays, and people. + +But I felt it would be unwise to act on her sole advice, much as I have +always valued her opinion. + +A woman takes life too seriously. It is a serious affair to most of us, +the Lord knows. That is why it is well not to take it more seriously +than need be. + +Little Jack and little Jill fall down the hill, hurting their little +knees, and their little noses, spilling the hard-earned water. We are +very philosophical. + +“Oh, don’t cry!” we tell them, “that is babyish. Little boys and little +girls must learn to bear pain. Up you get, fill the pail again, and try +once more.” + +Little Jack and little Jill rub their dirty knuckles into their little +eyes, looking ruefully at their bloody little knees, and trot back with +the pail. We laugh at them, but not ill-naturedly. + +“Poor little souls,” we say; “how they did hullabaloo. One might have +thought they were half-killed. And it was only a broken crown, after +all. What a fuss children make!” We bear with much stoicism the fall of +little Jack and little Jill. + +But when _we_—grown-up Jack with moustache turning grey; grown-up Jill +with the first faint “crow’s feet” showing—when _we_ tumble down the +hill, and _our_ pail is spilt. Ye Heavens! what a tragedy has happened. +Put out the stars, turn off the sun, suspend the laws of nature. Mr. +Jack and Mrs. Jill, coming down the hill—what they were doing on the hill +we will not inquire—have slipped over a stone, placed there surely by the +evil powers of the universe. Mr. Jack and Mrs. Jill have bumped their +silly heads. Mr. Jack and Mrs. Jill have hurt their little hearts, and +stand marvelling that the world can go about its business in the face of +such disaster. + +Don’t take the matter quite so seriously, Jack and Jill. You have +spilled your happiness, you must toil up the hill again and refill the +pail. Carry it more carefully next time. What were you doing? Playing +some fool’s trick, I’ll be bound. + +A laugh and a sigh, a kiss and good-bye, is our life. Is it worth so +much fretting? It is a merry life on the whole. Courage, comrade. A +campaign cannot be all drum and fife and stirrup-cup. The marching and +the fighting must come into it somewhere. There are pleasant bivouacs +among the vineyards, merry nights around the camp fires. White hands +wave a welcome to us; bright eyes dim at our going. Would you run from +the battle-music? What have you to complain of? Forward: the medal to +some, the surgeon’s knife to others; to all of us, sooner or later, six +feet of mother earth. What are you afraid of? Courage, comrade. + +There is a mean between basking through life with the smiling contentment +of the alligator, and shivering through it with the aggressive +sensibility of the Lama determined to die at every cross word. To bear +it as a man we must also feel it as a man. My philosophic friend, seek +not to comfort a brother standing by the coffin of his child with the +cheery suggestion that it will be all the same a hundred years hence, +because, for one thing, the observation is not true: the man is changed +for all eternity—possibly for the better, but don’t add that. A soldier +with a bullet in his neck is never quite the man he was. But he can +laugh and he can talk, drink his wine and ride his horse. Now and again, +towards evening, when the weather is trying, the sickness will come upon +him. You will find him on a couch in a dark corner. + +“Hallo! old fellow, anything up?” + +“Oh, just a twinge, the old wound, you know. I will be better in a +little while.” + +Shut the door of the dark room quietly. I should not stay even to +sympathize with him if I were you. The men will be coming to screw the +coffin down soon. I think he would like to be alone with it till then. +Let us leave him. He will come back to the club later on in the season. +For a while we may have to give him another ten points or so, but he will +soon get back his old form. Now and again, when he meets the other +fellows’ boys shouting on the towing-path; when Brown rushes up the +drive, paper in hand, to tell him how that young scapegrace Jim has won +his Cross; when he is congratulating Jones’s eldest on having passed with +honours, the old wound may give him a nasty twinge. But the pain will +pass away. He will laugh at our stories and tell us his own; eat his +dinner, play his rubber. It is only a wound. + +Tommy can never be ours, Jenny does not love us. We cannot afford +claret, so we will have to drink beer. Well, what would you have us do? +Yes, let us curse Fate by all means—some one to curse is always useful. +Let us cry and wring our hands—for how long? The dinner-bell will ring +soon, and the Smiths are coming. We shall have to talk about the opera +and the picture-galleries. Quick, where is the eau-de-Cologne? where are +the curling-tongs? Or would you we committed suicide? Is it worth +while? Only a few more years—perhaps to-morrow, by aid of a piece of +orange peel or a broken chimney-pot—and Fate will save us all that +trouble. + +Or shall we, as sulky children, mope day after day? We are a +broken-hearted little Jack—little Jill. We will never smile again; we +will pine away and die, and be buried in the spring. The world is sad, +and life so cruel, and heaven so cold. Oh dear! oh dear! we have hurt +ourselves. + +We whimper and whine at every pain. In old strong days men faced real +dangers, real troubles every hour; they had no time to cry. Death and +disaster stood ever at the door. Men were contemptuous of them. Now in +each snug protected villa we set to work to make wounds out of scratches. +Every head-ache becomes an agony, every heart-ache a tragedy. It took a +murdered father, a drowned sweetheart, a dishonoured mother, a ghost, and +a slaughtered Prime Minister to produce the emotions in Hamlet that a +modern minor poet obtains from a chorus girl’s frown, or a temporary +slump on the Stock Exchange. Like Mrs. Gummidge, we feel it more. The +lighter and easier life gets the more seriously we go out to meet it. +The boatmen of Ulysses faced the thunder and the sunshine alike with +frolic welcome. We modern sailors have grown more sensitive. The +sunshine scorches us, the rain chills us. We meet both with loud +self-pity. + +Thinking these thoughts, I sought a second friend—a man whose breezy +common-sense has often helped me, and him likewise I questioned on this +subject of honeymoons. + +“My dear boy,” he replied; “take my advice, if ever you get married, +arrange it so that the honeymoon shall only last a week, and let it be a +bustling week into the bargain. Take a Cook’s circular tour. Get +married on the Saturday morning, cut the breakfast and all that +foolishness, and catch the eleven-ten from Charing Cross to Paris. Take +her up the Eiffel Tower on Sunday. Lunch at Fontainebleau. Dine at the +Maison Doree, and show her the Moulin Rouge in the evening. Take the +night train for Lucerne. Devote Monday and Tuesday to doing Switzerland, +and get into Rome by Thursday morning, taking the Italian lakes _en +route_. On Friday cross to Marseilles, and from there push along to +Monte Carlo. Let her have a flutter at the tables. Start early Saturday +morning for Spain, cross the Pyrenees on mules, and rest at Bordeaux on +Sunday. Get back to Paris on Monday (Monday is always a good day for the +opera), and on Tuesday evening you will be at home, and glad to get +there. Don’t give her time to criticize you until she has got used to +you. No man will bear unprotected exposure to a young girl’s eyes. The +honeymoon is the matrimonial microscope. Wobble it. Confuse it with +many objects. Cloud it with other interests. Don’t sit still to be +examined. Besides, remember that a man always appears at his best when +active, and a woman at her worst. Bustle her, my dear boy, bustle her: I +don’t care who she may be. Give her plenty of luggage to look after; +make her catch trains. Let her see the average husband sprawling +comfortably over the railway cushions, while his wife has to sit bolt +upright in the corner left to her. Let her hear how other men swear. +Let her smell other men’s tobacco. Hurry up, and get her accustomed +quickly to the sight of mankind. Then she will be less surprised and +shocked as she grows to know you. One of the best fellows I ever knew +spoilt his married life beyond repair by a long quiet honeymoon. They +went off for a month to a lonely cottage in some heaven-forsaken spot, +where never a soul came near them, and never a thing happened but +morning, afternoon, and night. There for thirty days she overhauled him. +When he yawned—and he yawned pretty often, I guess, during that month—she +thought of the size of his mouth, and when he put his heels upon the +fender she sat and brooded upon the shape of his feet. At meal-time, not +feeling hungry herself, having nothing to do to make her hungry, she +would occupy herself with watching him eat; and at night, not feeling +sleepy for the same reason, she would lie awake and listen to his +snoring. After the first day or two he grew tired of talking nonsense, +and she of listening to it (it sounded nonsense now they could speak it +aloud; they had fancied it poetry when they had had to whisper it); and +having no other subject, as yet, of common interest, they would sit and +stare in front of them in silence. One day some trifle irritated him and +he swore. On a busy railway platform, or in a crowded hotel, she would +have said, ‘Oh!’ and they would both have laughed. From that echoing +desert the silly words rose up in widening circles towards the sky, and +that night she cried herself to sleep. Bustle them, my dear boy, bustle +them. We all like each other better the less we think about one another, +and the honeymoon is an exceptionally critical time. Bustle her, my dear +boy, bustle her.” + +My very worst honeymoon experience took place in the South of England in +eighteen hundred and—well, never mind the exact date, let us say a few +years ago. I was a shy young man at that time. Many complain of my +reserve to this day, but then some girls expect too much from a man. We +all have our shortcomings. Even then, however, I was not so shy as she. +We had to travel from Lyndhurst in the New Forest to Ventnor, an awkward +bit of cross-country work in those days. + +“It’s so fortunate you are going too,” said her aunt to me on the +Tuesday; “Minnie is always nervous travelling alone. You will be able to +look after her, and I shan’t be anxious.” + +I said it would be a pleasure, and at the time I honestly thought it. On +the Wednesday I went down to the coach office, and booked two places for +Lymington, from where we took the steamer. I had not a suspicion of +trouble. + +The booking-clerk was an elderly man. He said— + +“I’ve got the box seat, and the end place on the back bench.” + +I said— + +“Oh, can’t I have two together?” + +He was a kindly-looking old fellow. He winked at me. I wondered all the +way home why he had winked at me. He said— + +“I’ll manage it somehow.” + +I said— + +“It’s very kind of you, I’m sure.” + +He laid his hand on my shoulder. He struck me as familiar, but +well-intentioned. He said— + +“We have all of us been there.” + +I thought he was alluding to the Isle of Wight. I said— + +“And this is the best time of the year for it, so I’m told.” It was +early summer time. + +He said—“It’s all right in summer, and it’s good enough in winter—_while +it lasts_. You make the most of it, young ’un;” and he slapped me on the +back and laughed. + +He would have irritated me in another minute. I paid for the seats and +left him. + +At half-past eight the next morning Minnie and I started for the +coach-office. I call her Minnie, not with any wish to be impertinent, +but because I have forgotten her surname. It must be ten years since I +last saw her. She was a pretty girl, too, with those brown eyes that +always cloud before they laugh. Her aunt did not drive down with us as +she had intended, in consequence of a headache. She was good enough to +say she felt every confidence in me. + +The old booking-clerk caught sight of us when we were about a quarter of +a mile away, and drew to us the attention of the coachman, who +communicated the fact of our approach to the gathered passengers. +Everybody left off talking, and waited for us. The boots seized his +horn, and blew—one could hardly call it a blast; it would be difficult to +say what he blew. He put his heart into it, but not sufficient wind. I +think his intention was to welcome us, but it suggested rather a feeble +curse. We learnt subsequently that he was a beginner on the instrument. + +In some mysterious way the whole affair appeared to be our party. The +booking-clerk bustled up and helped Minnie from the cart. I feared, for +a moment, he was going to kiss her. The coachman grinned when I said +good-morning to him. The passengers grinned, the boots grinned. Two +chamber-maids and a waiter came out from the hotel, and they grinned. I +drew Minnie aside, and whispered to her. I said— + +“There’s something funny about us. All these people are grinning.” + +She walked round me, and I walked round her, but we could neither of us +discover anything amusing about the other. The booking-clerk said— + +“It’s all right. I’ve got you young people two places just behind the +box-seat. We’ll have to put five of you on that seat. You won’t mind +sitting a bit close, will you?” + +The booking-clerk winked at the coachman, the coachman winked at the +passengers, the passengers winked at one another—those of them who could +wink—and everybody laughed. The two chamber-maids became hysterical, and +had to cling to each other for support. With the exception of Minnie and +myself, it seemed to be the merriest coach party ever assembled at +Lyndhurst. + +We had taken our places, and I was still busy trying to fathom the joke, +when a stout lady appeared on the scene, and demanded to know her place. + +The clerk explained to her that it was in the middle behind the driver. + +“We’ve had to put five of you on that seat,” added the clerk. + +The stout lady looked at the seat. + +“Five of us can’t squeeze into that,” she said. + +Five of her certainly could not. Four ordinary sized people with her +would find it tight. + +“Very well then,” said the clerk, “you can have the end place on the back +seat.” + +“Nothing of the sort,” said the stout lady. “I booked my seat on Monday, +and you told me any of the front places were vacant. + +“_I’ll_ take the back place,” I said, “I don’t mind it. + +“You stop where you are, young ’un,” said the clerk, firmly, “and don’t +be a fool. I’ll fix _her_.” + +I objected to his language, but his tone was kindness itself. + +“Oh, let _me_ have the back seat,” said Minnie, rising, “I’d so like it.” + +For answer the coachman put both his hands on her shoulders. He was a +heavy man, and she sat down again. + +“Now then, mum,” said the clerk, addressing the stout lady, “are you +going up there in the middle, or are you coming up here at the back?” + +“But why not let one of them take the back seat?” demanded the stout +lady, pointing her reticule at Minnie and myself; “they say they’d like +it. Let them have it.” + +The coachman rose, and addressed his remarks generally. + +“Put her up at the back, or leave her behind,” he directed. “Man and +wife have never been separated on this coach since I started running it +fifteen year ago, and they ain’t going to be now.” + +A general cheer greeted this sentiment. The stout lady, now regarded as +a would-be blighter of love’s young dream, was hustled into the back +seat, the whip cracked, and away we rolled. + +So here was the explanation. We were in a honeymoon district, in +June—the most popular month in the whole year for marriage. Every two +out of three couples found wandering about the New Forest in June are +honeymoon couples; the third are going to be. When they travel anywhere +it is to the Isle of Wight. We both had on new clothes. Our bags +happened to be new. By some evil chance our very umbrellas were new. +Our united ages were thirty-seven. The wonder would have been had we +_not_ been mistaken for a young married couple. + +A day of greater misery I have rarely passed. To Minnie, so her aunt +informed me afterwards, the journey was the most terrible experience of +her life, but then her experience, up to that time, had been limited. +She was engaged, and devotedly attached, to a young clergyman; I was +madly in love with a somewhat plump girl named Cecilia who lived with her +mother at Hampstead. I am positive as to her living at Hampstead. I +remember so distinctly my weekly walk down the hill from Church Row to +the Swiss Cottage station. When walking down a steep hill all the weight +of the body is forced into the toe of the boot, and when the boot is two +sizes too small for you, and you have been living in it since the early +afternoon, you remember a thing like that. But all my recollections of +Cecilia are painful, and it is needless to pursue them. + +Our coach-load was a homely party, and some of the jokes were +broad—harmless enough in themselves, had Minnie and I really been the +married couple we were supposed to be, but even in that case unnecessary. +I can only hope that Minnie did not understand them. Anyhow, she looked +as if she didn’t. + +I forget where we stopped for lunch, but I remember that lamb and mint +sauce was on the table, and that the circumstance afforded the greatest +delight to all the party, with the exception of the stout lady, who was +still indignant, Minnie and myself. About my behaviour as a bridegroom +opinion appeared to be divided. “He’s a bit standoffish with her,” I +overheard one lady remark to her husband; “I like to see ’em a bit +kittenish myself.” A young waitress, on the other hand, I am happy to +say, showed more sense of natural reserve. “Well, I respect him for it,” +she was saying to the barmaid, as we passed through the hall; “I’d just +hate to be fuzzled over with everybody looking on.” Nobody took the +trouble to drop their voices for our benefit. We might have been a pair +of prize love birds on exhibition, the way we were openly discussed. By +the majority we were clearly regarded as a sulky young couple who would +not go through their tricks. + +I have often wondered since how a real married couple would have faced +the situation. Possibly, had we consented to give a short display of +marital affection, “by desire,” we might have been left in peace for the +remainder of the journey. + +Our reputation preceded us on to the steamboat. Minnie begged and prayed +me to let it be known we were not married. How I was to let it be known, +except by requesting the captain to summon the whole ship’s company on +deck, and then making them a short speech, I could not think. Minnie +said she could not bear it any longer, and retired to the ladies’ cabin. +She went off crying. Her trouble was attributed by crew and passengers +to my coldness. One fool planted himself opposite me with his legs +apart, and shook his head at me. + +“Go down and comfort her,” he began. “Take an old man’s advice. Put +your arms around her.” (He was one of those sentimental idiots.) “Tell +her that you love her.” + +I told him to go and hang himself, with so much vigour that he all but +fell overboard. He was saved by a poultry crate: I had no luck that day. + +At Ryde the guard, by superhuman effort, contrived to keep us a carriage +to ourselves. I gave him a shilling, because I did not know what else to +do. I would have made it half-a-sovereign if he had put eight other +passengers in with us. At every station people came to the window to +look in at us. + +I handed Minnie over to her father on Ventnor platform; and I took the +first train the next morning, to London. I felt I did not want to see +her again for a little while; and I felt convinced she could do without a +visit from me. Our next meeting took place the week before her marriage. + +“Where are you going to spend your honeymoon?” I asked her; “in the New +Forest?” + +“No,” she replied; “nor in the Isle of Wight.” + +To enjoy the humour of an incident one must be at some distance from it +either in time or relationship. I remember watching an amusing scene in +Whitefield Street, just off Tottenham Court Road, one winter’s Saturday +night. A woman—a rather respectable looking woman, had her hat only been +on straight—had just been shot out of a public-house. She was very +dignified, and very drunk. A policeman requested her to move on. She +called him “Fellow,” and demanded to know of him if he considered that +was the proper tone in which to address a lady. She threatened to report +him to her cousin, the Lord Chancellor. + +“Yes; this way to the Lord Chancellor,” retorted the policeman. “You +come along with me;” and he caught hold of her by the arm. + +She gave a lurch, and nearly fell. To save her the man put his arm round +her waist. She clasped him round the neck, and together they spun round +two or three times; while at the very moment a piano-organ at the +opposite corner struck up a waltz. + +“Choose your partners, gentlemen, for the next dance,” shouted a wag, and +the crowd roared. + +I was laughing myself, for the situation was undeniably comical, the +constable’s expression of disgust being quite Hogarthian, when the sight +of a child’s face beneath the gas-lamp stayed me. Her look was so full +of terror that I tried to comfort her. + +“It’s only a drunken woman,” I said; “he’s not going to hurt her.” + +“Please, sir,” was the answer, “it’s my mother.” + +Our joke is generally another’s pain. The man who sits down on the +tin-tack rarely joins in the laugh. + + + + +ON THE MINDING OF OTHER PEOPLE’S BUSINESS + + +I WALKED one bright September morning in the Strand. I love London best +in the autumn. Then only can one see the gleam of its white pavements, +the bold, unbroken outline of its streets. I love the cool vistas one +comes across of mornings in the parks, the soft twilights that linger in +the empty bye-streets. In June the restaurant manager is off-hand with +me; I feel I am but in his way. In August he spreads for me the table by +the window, pours out for me my wine with his own fat hands. I cannot +doubt his regard for me: my foolish jealousies are stilled. Do I care +for a drive after dinner through the caressing night air, I can climb the +omnibus stair without a preliminary fight upon the curb, can sit with +easy conscience and unsquashed body, not feeling I have deprived some +hot, tired woman of a seat. Do I desire the play, no harsh, forbidding +“House full” board repels me from the door. During her season, London, a +harassed hostess, has no time for us, her intimates. Her rooms are +overcrowded, her servants overworked, her dinners hurriedly cooked, her +tone insincere. In the spring, to be truthful, the great lady +condescends to be somewhat vulgar—noisy and ostentatious. Not till the +guests are departed is she herself again, the London that we, her +children, love. + +Have you, gentle Reader, ever seen London—not the London of the waking +day, coated with crawling life, as a blossom with blight, but the London +of the morning, freed from her rags, the patient city, clad in mists? +Get you up with the dawn one Sunday in summer time. Wake none else, but +creep down stealthily into the kitchen, and make your own tea and toast. + +Be careful you stumble not over the cat. She will worm herself +insidiously between your legs. It is her way; she means it in +friendship. Neither bark your shins against the coal-box. Why the +kitchen coal-box has its fixed place in the direct line between the +kitchen door and the gas-bracket I cannot say. I merely know it as an +universal law; and I would that you escaped that coal-box, lest the frame +of mind I desire for you on this Sabbath morning be dissipated. + +A spoon to stir your tea, I fear you must dispense with. Knives and +forks you will discover in plenty; blacking brushes you will put your +hand upon in every drawer; of emery paper, did one require it, there are +reams; but it is a point with every housekeeper that the spoons be hidden +in a different place each night. If anybody excepting herself can find +them in the morning, it is a slur upon her. No matter, a stick of +firewood, sharpened at one end, makes an excellent substitute. + +Your breakfast done, turn out the gas, remount the stairs quietly, open +gently the front door and slip out. You will find yourself in an unknown +land. A strange city grown round you in the night. + +The sweet long streets lie silent in sunlight. Not a living thing is to +be seen save some lean Tom that slinks from his gutter feast as you +approach. From some tree there will sound perhaps a fretful chirp: but +the London sparrow is no early riser; he is but talking in his sleep. +The slow tramp of unseen policeman draws near or dies away. The clatter +of your own footsteps goes with you, troubling you. You find yourself +trying to walk softly, as one does in echoing cathedrals. A voice is +everywhere about you whispering to you “Hush.” Is this million-breasted +City then some tender Artemis, seeking to keep her babes asleep? “Hush, +you careless wayfarer; do not waken them. Walk lighter; they are so +tired, these myriad children of mine, sleeping in my thousand arms. They +are over-worked and over-worried; so many of them are sick, so many +fretful, many of them, alas, so full of naughtiness. But all of them so +tired. Hush! they worry me with their noise and riot when they are +awake. They are so good now they are asleep. Walk lightly, let them +rest.” + +Where the ebbing tide flows softly through worn arches to the sea, you +may hear the stone-faced City talking to the restless waters: “Why will +you never stay with me? Why come but to go?” + +“I cannot say, I do not understand. From the deep sea I come, but only +as a bird loosed from a child’s hand with a cord. When she calls I must +return.” + +“It is so with these children of mine. They come to me, I know not +whence. I nurse them for a little while, till a hand I do not see plucks +them back. And others take their place.” + +Through the still air there passes a ripple of sound. The sleeping City +stirs with a faint sigh. A distant milk-cart rattling by raises a +thousand echoes; it is the vanguard of a yoked army. Soon from every +street there rises the soothing cry, “Mee’hilk—mee’hilk.” + +London like some Gargantuan babe, is awake, crying for its milk. These +be the white-smocked nurses hastening with its morning nourishment. The +early church bells ring. “You have had your milk, little London. Now +come and say your prayers. Another week has just begun, baby London. +God knows what will happen, say your prayers.” + +One by one the little creatures creep from behind the blinds into the +streets. The brooding tenderness is vanished from the City’s face. The +fretful noises of the day have come again. Silence, her lover of the +night, kisses her stone lips, and steals away. And you, gentle Reader, +return home, garlanded with the self-sufficiency of the early riser. + +But it was of a certain week-day morning, in the Strand that I was +thinking. I was standing outside Gatti’s Restaurant, where I had just +breakfasted, listening leisurely to an argument between an indignant lady +passenger, presumably of Irish extraction, and an omnibus conductor. + +“For what d’ye want thin to paint Putney on ye’r bus, if ye don’t _go_ to +Putney?” said the lady. + +“We _do_ go to Putney,” said the conductor. + +“Thin why did ye put me out here?” + +“I didn’t put you out, yer got out.” + +“Shure, didn’t the gintleman in the corner tell me I was comin’ further +away from Putney ivery minit?” + +“Wal, and so yer was.” + +“Thin whoy didn’t you tell me?” + +“How was I to know yer wanted to go to Putney? Yer sings out Putney, and +I stops and in yer jumps.” + +“And for what d’ye think I called out Putney thin?” + +“’Cause it’s my name, or rayther the bus’s name. This ’ere _is_ a +Putney.” + +“How can it be a Putney whin it isn’t goin’ to Putney, ye gomerhawk?” + +“Ain’t you an Hirishwoman?” retorted the conductor. “Course yer are. +But yer aren’t always goin’ to Ireland. We’re goin’ to Putney in time, +only we’re a-going to Liverpool Street fust. ’Igher up, Jim.” + +The bus moved on, and I was about cross the road, when a man, muttering +savagely to himself, walked into me. He would have swept past me had I +not, recognizing him, arrested him. It was my friend B—, a busy editor +of magazines and journals. It was some seconds before he appeared able +to struggle out of his abstraction, and remember himself. “Halloo,” he +then said, “who would have thought of seeing _you_ here?” + +“To judge by the way you were walking,” I replied, “one would imagine the +Strand the last place in which you expected to see any human being. Do +you ever walk into a short-tempered, muscular man?” + +“Did I walk into you?” he asked surprised. + +“Well, not right in,” I answered, “I if we are to be literal. You walked +on to me; if I had not stopped you, I suppose you would have walked over +me.” + +“It is this confounded Christmas business,” he explained. “It drives me +off my head.” + +“I have heard Christmas advanced as an excuse for many things,” I +replied, “but not early in September.” + +“Oh, you know what I mean,” he answered, “we are in the middle of our +Christmas number. I am working day and night upon it. By the bye,” he +added, “that puts me in mind. I am arranging a symposium, and I want you +to join. ‘Should Christmas,’”—I interrupted him. + +“My dear fellow,” I said, “I commenced my journalistic career when I was +eighteen, and I have continued it at intervals ever since. I have +written about Christmas from the sentimental point of view; I have +analyzed it from the philosophical point of view; and I have scarified it +from the sarcastic standpoint. I have treated Christmas humorously for +the Comics, and sympathetically for the Provincial Weeklies. I have said +all that is worth saying on the subject of Christmas—maybe a trifle more. +I have told the new-fashioned Christmas story—you know the sort of thing: +your heroine tries to understand herself, and, failing, runs off with the +man who began as the hero; your good woman turns out to be really bad +when one comes to know her; while the villain, the only decent person in +the story, dies with an enigmatic sentence on his lips that looks as if +it meant something, but which you yourself would be sorry to have to +explain. I have also written the old-fashioned Christmas story—you know +that also: you begin with a good old-fashioned snowstorm; you have a good +old-fashioned squire, and he lives in a good old-fashioned Hall; you work +in a good old-fashioned murder; and end up with a good old-fashioned +Christmas dinner. I have gathered Christmas guests together round the +crackling logs to tell ghost stories to each other on Christmas Eve, +while without the wind howled, as it always does on these occasions, at +its proper cue. I have sent children to Heaven on Christmas Eve—it must +be quite a busy time for St. Peter, Christmas morning, so many good +children die on Christmas Eve. It has always been a popular night with +them.—I have revivified dead lovers and brought them back well and jolly, +just in time to sit down to the Christmas dinner. I am not ashamed of +having done these things. At the time I thought them good. I once loved +currant wine and girls with towzley hair. One’s views change as one +grows older. I have discussed Christmas as a religious festival. I have +arraigned it as a social incubus. If there be any joke connected with +Christmas that I have not already made I should be glad to hear it. I +have trotted out the indigestion jokes till the sight of one of them +gives me indigestion myself. I have ridiculed the family gathering. I +have scoffed at the Christmas present. I have made witty use of +paterfamilias and his bills. I have—” + +“Did I ever show you,” I broke off to ask as we were crossing the +Haymarket, “that little parody of mine on Poe’s poem of ‘The Bells’? It +begins—” He interrupted me in his turn— + +“Bills, bills, bills,” he repeated. + +“You are quite right,” I admitted. “I forgot I ever showed it to you.” + +“You never did,” he replied. + +“Then how do you know how it begins?” I asked. + +“I don’t know for certain,” he admitted, “but I get, on an average, +sixty-five a year submitted to me, and they all begin that way. I +thought, perhaps, yours did also.” + +“I don’t see how else it could begin,” I retorted. He had rather annoyed +me. “Besides, it doesn’t matter how a poem begins, it is how it goes on +that is the important thing and anyhow, I’m not going to write you +anything about Christmas. Ask me to make you a new joke about a plumber; +suggest my inventing something original and not too shocking for a child +to say about heaven; propose my running you off a dog story that can be +believed by a man of average determination and we may come to terms. But +on the subject of Christmas I am taking a rest.” + +By this time we had reached Piccadilly Circus. + +“I don’t blame you,” he said, “if you are as sick of the subject as I am. +So soon as these Christmas numbers are off my mind, and Christmas is over +till next June at the office, I shall begin it at home. The housekeeping +is gone up a pound a week already. I know what that means. The dear +little woman is saving up to give me an expensive present that I don’t +want. I think the presents are the worst part of Christmas. Emma will +give me a water-colour that she has painted herself. She always does. +There would be no harm in that if she did not expect me to hang it in the +drawing room. Have you ever seen my cousin Emma’s water-colours?” he +asked. + +“I think I have,” I replied. + +“There’s no thinking about it,” he retorted angrily. “They’re not the +sort of water-colours you forget.” + +He apostrophized the Circus generally. + +“Why do people do these things?” he demanded. “Even an amateur artist +must have _some_ sense. Can’t they see what is happening? There’s that +thing of hers hanging in the passage. I put it in the passage because +there’s not much light in the passage. She’s labelled it Reverie. If +she had called it Influenza I could have understood it. I asked her +where she got the idea from, and she said she saw the sky like that one +evening in Norfolk. Great Heavens! then why didn’t she shut her eyes or +go home and hide behind the bed-curtains? If I had seen a sky like that +in Norfolk I should have taken the first train back to London. I suppose +the poor girl can’t help seeing these things, but why paint them?” + +I said, “I suppose painting is a necessity to some natures.” + +“But why give the things to me?” he pleaded. + +I could offer him no adequate reason. + +“The idiotic presents that people give you!” he continued. “I said I’d +like Tennyson’s poems one year. They had worried me to know what I did +want. I didn’t want anything really; that was the only thing I could +think of that I wasn’t dead sure I didn’t want. Well, they clubbed +together, four of them, and gave me Tennyson in twelve volumes, +illustrated with coloured photographs. They meant kindly, of course. If +you suggest a tobacco-pouch they give you a blue velvet bag capable of +holding about a pound, embroidered with flowers, life-size. The only way +one could use it would be to put a strap to it and wear it as a satchel. +Would you believe it, I have got a velvet smoking-jacket, ornamented with +forget-me-nots and butterflies in coloured silk; I’m not joking. And +they ask me why I never wear it. I’ll bring it down to the Club one of +these nights and wake the place up a bit: it needs it.” + +We had arrived by this at the steps of the ‘Devonshire.’ + +“And I’m just as bad,” he went on, “when I give presents. I never give +them what they want. I never hit upon anything that is of any use to +anybody. If I give Jane a chinchilla tippet, you may be certain +chinchilla is the most out-of-date fur that any woman could wear. ‘Oh! +that is nice of you,’ she says; ‘now that is just the very thing I +wanted. I will keep it by me till chinchilla comes in again.’ I give +the girls watch-chains when nobody is wearing watch-chains. When +watch-chains are all the rage I give them ear-rings, and they thank me, +and suggest my taking them to a fancy-dress ball, that being their only +chance to wear the confounded things. I waste money on white gloves with +black backs, to find that white gloves with black backs stamp a woman as +suburban. I believe all the shop-keepers in London save their old stock +to palm it off on me at Christmas time. And why does it always take +half-a-dozen people to serve you with a pair of gloves, I’d like to know? +Only last week Jane asked me to get her some gloves for that last Mansion +House affair. I was feeling amiable, and I thought I would do the thing +handsomely. I hate going into a draper’s shop; everybody stares at a man +as if he were forcing his way into the ladies’ department of a Turkish +bath. One of those marionette sort of men came up to me and said it was +a fine morning. What the devil did I want to talk about the morning to +him for? I said I wanted some gloves. I described them to the best of +my recollection. I said, ‘I want them four buttons, but they are not to +be button-gloves; the buttons are in the middle and they reach up to the +elbow, if you know what I mean.’ He bowed, and said he understood +exactly what I meant, which was a damned sight more than I did. I told +him I wanted three pair cream and three pair fawn-coloured, and the +fawn-coloured were to be swedes. He corrected me. He said I meant +‘Suede.’ I dare say he was right, but the interruption put me off, and I +had to begin over again. He listened attentively until I had finished. +I guess I was about five minutes standing with him there close to the +door. He said, ‘Is that all you require, sir, this morning?’ I said it +was. + +“‘Thank you, sir,’ he replied. ‘This way, please, sir.’ + +“He took me into another room, and there we met a man named Jansen, to +whom he briefly introduced me as a gentleman who ‘desired gloves.’ ‘Yes, +sir,’ said Mr. Jansen; and what sort of gloves do you desire?’ + +“I told him I wanted six pairs altogether—three suede, fawn-coloured, and +three cream-coloured—kids. + +“He said, ‘Do you mean kid gloves, sir, or gloves for children?’ + +“He made me angry by that. I told him I was not in the habit of using +slang. Nor am I when buying gloves. He said he was sorry. I explained +to him about the buttons, so far as I could understand it myself, and +about the length. I asked him to see to it that the buttons were sewn on +firmly, and that the stitching everywhere was perfect, adding that the +last gloves my wife had had of his firm had been most unsatisfactory. +Jane had impressed upon me to add that. She said it would make them more +careful. + +“He listened to me in rapt ecstacy. I might have been music. + +“‘And what size, sir?’ he asked. + +“I had forgotten that. ‘Oh, sixes,’ I answered, ‘unless they are very +stretchy indeed, in which case they had better be five and +three-quarter.’ + +“‘Oh, and the stitching on the cream is to be black,’ I added. That was +another thing I had forgotten. + +“‘Thank you very much,’ said Mr. Jansen; ‘is there anything else that you +require this morning?’ + +“‘No, thank you,’ I replied, ‘not this morning.’ I was beginning to like +the man. + +“He took me for quite a walk, and wherever we went everybody left off +what they were doing to stare at me. I was getting tired when we reached +the glove department. He marched me up to a young man who was sticking +pins into himself. He said ‘Gloves,’ and disappeared through a curtain. +The young man left off sticking pins into himself, and leant across the +counter. + +“‘Ladies’ gloves or gentlemen’s gloves?’ he said. + +“Well, I was pretty mad by this time, as you can guess. It is funny when +you come to think of it afterwards, but the wonder then was that I didn’t +punch his head. + +“I said, ‘Are you ever busy in this shop? Does there ever come a time +when you feel you would like to get your work done, instead of lingering +over it and spinning it out for pure love of the thing?’ + +“He did not appear to understand me. I said, ‘I met a man at your door a +quarter of an hour ago, and we talked about these gloves that I want, and +I told him all my ideas on the subject. He took me to your Mr. Jansen, +and Mr. Jansen and I went over the whole business again. Now Mr. Jansen +leaves it with you—you who do not even know whether I want ladies’ or +gentlemen’s gloves. Before I go over this story for the third time, I +want to know whether you are the man who is going to serve me, or whether +you are merely a listener, because personally I am tired of the subject?’ + +“Well, this was the right man at last, and I got my gloves from him. But +what is the explanation—what is the idea? I was in that shop from first +to last five-and-thirty minutes. And then a fool took me out the wrong +way to show me a special line in sleeping-socks. I told him I was not +requiring any. He said he didn’t want me to buy, he only wanted me to +see them. No wonder the drapers have had to start luncheon and +tea-rooms. They’ll fix up small furnished flats soon, where a woman can +live for a week.” + +I said it was very trying, shopping. I also said, as he invited me, and +as he appeared determined to go on talking, that I would have a +brandy-and-soda. We were in the smoke-room by this time. + +“There ought to be an association,” he continued, “a kind of +clearing-house for the collection and distribution of Christmas presents. +One would give them a list of the people from whom to collect presents, +and of the people to whom to send. Suppose they collected on my account +twenty Christmas presents, value, say, ten pounds, while on the other +hand they sent out for me thirty presents at a cost of fifteen pounds. +They would debit me with the balance of five pounds, together with a +small commission. I should pay it cheerfully, and there would be no +further trouble. Perhaps one might even make a profit. The idea might +include birthdays and weddings. A firm would do the business thoroughly. +They would see that all your friends paid up—I mean sent presents; and +they would not forget to send to your most important relative. There is +only one member of our family capable of leaving a shilling; and of +course if I forget to send to any one it is to him. When I remember him +I generally make a muddle of the business. Two years ago I gave him a +bath—I don’t mean I washed him—an india-rubber thing, that he could pack +in his portmanteau. I thought he would find it useful for travelling. +Would you believe it, he took it as a personal affront, and wouldn’t +speak to me for a month, the snuffy old idiot.” + +“I suppose the children enjoy it,” I said. + +“Enjoy what?” he asked. + +“Why, Christmas,” I explained. + +“I don’t believe they do,” he snapped; “nobody enjoys it. We excite them +for three weeks beforehand, telling them what a good time they are going +to have, over-feed them for two or three days, take them to something +they do not want to see, but which we do, and then bully them for a +fortnight to get them back into their normal condition. I was always +taken to the Crystal Palace and Madame Tussaud’s when I was a child, I +remember. How I did hate that Crystal Palace! Aunt used to superintend. +It was always a bitterly cold day, and we always got into the wrong +train, and travelled half the day before we got there. We never had any +dinner. It never occurs to a woman that anybody can want their meals +while away from home. She seems to think that nature is in suspense from +the time you leave the house till the time you get back to it. A bun and +a glass of milk was her idea of lunch for a school-boy. Half her time +was taken up in losing us, and the other half in slapping us when she had +found us. The only thing we really enjoyed was the row with the cabman +coming home.” + +I rose to go. + +“Then you won’t join that symposium?” said B—. “It would be an easy +enough thing to knock off—‘Why Christmas should be abolished.’” + +“It sounds simple,” I answered. “But how do you propose to abolish it?” +The lady editor of an “advanced” American magazine once set the +discussion—“Should sex be abolished?” and eleven ladies and gentlemen +seriously argued the question. + +“Leave it to die of inanition,” said B—; “the first step is to arouse +public opinion. Convince the public that it should be abolished.” + +“But why should it be abolished?” I asked. + +“Great Scott! man,” he exclaimed; “don’t you want it abolished?” + +“I’m not sure that I do,” I replied. + +“Not sure,” he retorted; “you call yourself a journalist, and admit there +is a subject under Heaven of which you are not sure!” + +“It has come over me of late years,” I replied. “It used not to be my +failing, as you know.” + +He glanced round to make sure we were out of earshot, then sunk his voice +to a whisper. + +“Between ourselves,” he said, “I’m not so sure of everything myself as I +used to be. Why is it?” + +“Perhaps we are getting older,” I suggested. + +He said—“I started golf last year, and the first time I took the club in +my hand I sent the ball a furlong. ‘It seems an easy game,’ I said to +the man who was teaching me. ‘Yes, most people find it easy at the +beginning,’ he replied dryly. He was an old golfer himself; I thought he +was jealous. I stuck well to the game, and for about three weeks I was +immensely pleased with myself. Then, gradually, I began to find out the +difficulties. I feel I shall never make a good player. Have you ever +gone through that experience?” + +“Yes,” I replied; “I suppose that is the explanation. The game seems so +easy at the beginning.” + +I left him to his lunch, and strolled westward, musing on the time when I +should have answered that question of his about Christmas, or any other +question, off-hand. That good youth time when I knew everything, when +life presented no problems, dangled no doubts before me! + +In those days, wishful to give the world the benefit of my wisdom, and +seeking for a candle-stick wherefrom my brilliancy might be visible and +helpful unto men, I arrived before a dingy portal in Chequers Street, St. +Luke’s, behind which a conclave of young men, together with a few old +enough to have known better, met every Friday evening for the purpose of +discussing and arranging the affairs of the universe. “Speaking members” +were charged ten-and-sixpence per annum, which must have worked out at an +extremely moderate rate per word; and “gentlemen whose subscriptions were +more than three months in arrear,” became, by Rule seven, powerless for +good or evil. We called ourselves “The Stormy Petrels,” and, under the +sympathetic shadow of those wings, I laboured two seasons towards the +reformation of the human race; until, indeed, our treasurer, an earnest +young man, and a tireless foe of all that was conventional, departed for +the East, leaving behind him a balance sheet, showing that the club owed +forty-two pounds fifteen and fourpence, and that the subscriptions for +the current year, amounting to a little over thirty-eight pounds, had +been “carried forward,” but as to where, the report afforded no +indication. Whereupon our landlord, a man utterly without ideals, seized +our furniture, offering to sell it back to us for fifteen pounds. We +pointed out to him that this was an extravagant price, and tendered him +five. + +The negotiations terminated with ungentlemanly language on his part, and +“The Stormy Petrels” scattered, never to be foregathered together again +above the troubled waters of humanity. Now-a-days, listening to the +feeble plans of modern reformers, I cannot help but smile, remembering +what was done in Chequers Street, St. Luke’s, in an age when Mrs. Grundy +still gave the law to literature, while yet the British matron was the +guide to British art. I am informed that there is abroad the question of +abolishing the House of Lords! Why, “The Stormy Petrels” abolished the +aristocracy and the Crown in one evening, and then only adjourned for the +purpose of appointing a committee to draw up and have ready a Republican +Constitution by the following Friday evening. They talk of Empire +lounges! We closed the doors of every music-hall in London eighteen +years ago by twenty-nine votes to seventeen. They had a patient hearing, +and were ably defended; but we found that the tendency of such amusements +was anti-progressive, and against the best interests of an intellectually +advancing democracy. I met the mover of the condemnatory resolution at +the old “Pav” the following evening, and we continued the discussion over +a bottle of Bass. He strengthened his argument by persuading me to sit +out the whole of the three songs sung by the “Lion Comique”; but I +subsequently retorted successfully, by bringing under his notice the +dancing of a lady in blue tights and flaxen hair. I forget her name but +never shall I cease to remember her exquisite charm and beauty. Ah, me! +how charming and how beautiful “artistes” were in those golden days! +Whence have they vanished? Ladies in blue tights and flaxen hair dance +before my eyes to-day, but move me not, unless it be towards boredom. +Where be the tripping witches of twenty years ago, whom to see once was +to dream of for a week, to touch whose white hand would have been joy, to +kiss whose red lips would have been to foretaste Heaven. I heard only +the other day that the son of an old friend of mine had secretly married +a lady from the front row of the ballet, and involuntarily I exclaimed, +“Poor devil!” There was a time when my first thought would have been, +“Lucky beggar! is he worthy of her?” For then the ladies of the ballet +were angels. How could one gaze at them—from the shilling pit—and doubt +it? They danced to keep a widowed mother in comfort, or to send a +younger brother to school. Then they were glorious creatures a young man +did well to worship; but now-a-days— + +It is an old jest. The eyes of youth see through rose-tinted glasses. +The eyes of age are dim behind smoke-clouded spectacles. My flaxen +friend, you are not the angel I dreamed you, nor the exceptional sinner +some would paint you; but under your feathers, just a woman—a bundle of +follies and failings, tied up with some sweetness and strength. You keep +a brougham I am sure you cannot afford on your thirty shillings a week. +There are ladies I know, in Mayfair, who have paid an extravagant price +for theirs. You paint and you dye, I am told: it is even hinted you pad. +Don’t we all of us deck ourselves out in virtues that are not our own? +When the paint and the powder, my sister, is stripped both from you and +from me, we shall know which of us is entitled to look down on the other +in scorn. + +Forgive me, gentle Reader, for digressing. The lady led me astray. I +was speaking of “The Stormy Petrels,” and of the reforms they +accomplished, which were many. We abolished, I remember, capital +punishment and war; we were excellent young men at heart. Christmas we +reformed altogether, along with Bank Holidays, by a majority of twelve. +I never recollect any proposal to abolish anything ever being lost when +put to the vote. There were few things that we “Stormy Petrels” did not +abolish. We attacked Christmas on grounds of expediency, and killed it +by ridicule. We exposed the hollow mockery of Christmas sentiment; we +abused the indigestible Christmas dinner, the tiresome Christmas party, +the silly Christmas pantomime. Our funny member was side-splitting on +the subject of Christmas Waits; our social reformer bitter upon Christmas +drunkenness; our economist indignant upon Christmas charities. Only one +argument of any weight with us was advanced in favour of the festival, +and that was our leading cynic’s suggestion that it was worth enduring +the miseries of Christmas, to enjoy the soul-satisfying comfort of the +after reflection that it was all over, and could not occur again for +another year. + +But since those days when I was prepared to put this old world of ours to +rights upon all matters, I have seen many sights and heard many sounds, +and I am not quite so sure as I once was that my particular views are the +only possibly correct ones. Christmas seems to me somewhat meaningless; +but I have looked through windows in poverty-stricken streets, and have +seen dingy parlours gay with many chains of coloured paper. They +stretched from corner to corner of the smoke-grimed ceiling, they fell in +clumsy festoons from the cheap gasalier, they framed the fly-blown mirror +and the tawdry pictures; and I know tired hands and eyes worked many +hours to fashion and fix those foolish chains, saying, “It will please +him—she will like to see the room look pretty;” and as I have looked at +them they have grown, in some mysterious manner, beautiful to me. The +gaudy-coloured child and dog irritates me, I confess; but I have watched +a grimy, inartistic personage, smoothing it affectionately with +toil-stained hand, while eager faces crowded round to admire and wonder +at its blatant crudity. It hangs to this day in its cheap frame above +the chimney-piece, the one bright spot relieving those damp-stained +walls; dull eyes stare and stare again at it, catching a vista, through +its flashy tints, of the far-off land of art. Christmas Waits annoy me, +and I yearn to throw open the window and fling coal at them—as once from +the window of a high flat in Chelsea I did. I doubted their being +genuine Waits. I was inclined to the opinion they were young men seeking +excuse for making a noise. One of them appeared to know a hymn with a +chorus, another played the concertina, while a third accompanied with a +step dance. Instinctively I felt no respect for them; they disturbed me +in my work, and the desire grew upon me to injure them. It occurred to +me it would be good sport if I turned out the light, softly opened the +window, and threw coal at them. It would be impossible for them to tell +from which window in the block the coal came, and thus subsequent +unpleasantness would be avoided. They were a compact little group, and +with average luck I was bound to hit one of them. + +I adopted the plan. I could not see them very clearly. I aimed rather +at the noise; and I had thrown about twenty choice lumps without effect, +and was feeling somewhat discouraged, when a yell, followed by language +singularly unappropriate to the season, told me that Providence had aided +my arm. The music ceased suddenly, and the party dispersed, apparently +in high glee—which struck me as curious. + +One man I noticed remained behind. He stood under the lamp-post, and +shook his fist at the block generally. + +“Who threw that lump of coal?” he demanded in stentorian tones. + +To my horror, it was the voice of the man at Eighty-eight, an Irish +gentleman, a journalist like myself. I saw it all, as the unfortunate +hero always exclaims, too late, in the play. He—number Eighty-eight—also +disturbed by the noise, had evidently gone out to expostulate with the +rioters. Of course my lump of coal had hit him—him the innocent, the +peaceful (up till then), the virtuous. That is the justice Fate deals +out to us mortals here below. There were ten to fourteen young men in +that crowd, each one of whom fully deserved that lump of coal; he, the +one guiltless, got it—seemingly, so far as the dim light from the gas +lamp enabled me to judge, full in the eye. + +As the block remained silent in answer to his demand, he crossed the road +and mounted the stairs. On each landing he stopped and shouted— + +“Who threw that lump of coal? I want the man who threw that lump of +coal. Out you come.” + +Now a good man in my place would have waited till number Eighty-eight +arrived on his landing, and then, throwing open the door would have said +with manly candour— + +“_I_ threw that lump of coal. I was—,” He would not have got further, +because at that point, I feel confident, number Eighty—eight would have +punched his head. There would have been an unseemly fracas on the +staircase, to the annoyance of all the other tenants and later, there +would have issued a summons and a cross-summons. Angry passions would +have been roused, bitter feeling engendered which might have lasted for +years. + +I do not pretend to be a good man. I doubt if the pretence would be of +any use were I to try: I am not a sufficiently good actor. I said to +myself, as I took off my boots in the study, preparatory to retiring to +my bedroom—“Number Eighty-eight is evidently not in a frame of mind to +listen to my story. It will be better to let him shout himself cool; +after which he will return to his own flat, bathe his eye, and obtain +some refreshing sleep. In the morning, when we shall probably meet as +usual on our way to Fleet Street, I will refer to the incident casually, +and sympathize with him. I will suggest to him the truth—that in all +probability some fellow-tenant, irritated also by the noise, had aimed +coal at the Waits, hitting him instead by a regrettable but pure +accident. With tact I may even be able to make him see the humour of the +incident. Later on, in March or April, choosing my moment with judgment, +I will, perhaps, confess that I was that fellow-tenant, and over a +friendly brandy-and-soda we will laugh the whole trouble away.” + +As a matter of fact, that is what happened. Said number Eighty-eight—he +was a big man, as good a fellow at heart as ever lived, but +impulsive—“Damned lucky for you, old man, you did not tell me at the +time.” + +“I felt,” I replied, “instinctively that it was a case for delay.” + +There are times when one should control one’s passion for candour; and as +I was saying, Christmas waits excite no emotion in my breast save that of +irritation. But I have known “Hark, the herald angels sing,” wheezily +chanted by fog-filled throats, and accompanied, hopelessly out of tune, +by a cornet and a flute, bring a great look of gladness to a work-worn +face. To her it was a message of hope and love, making the hard life +taste sweet. The mere thought of family gatherings, so customary at +Christmas time, bores us superior people; but I think of an incident told +me by a certain man, a friend of mine. One Christmas, my friend, +visiting in the country, came face to face with a woman whom in town he +had often met amid very different surroundings. The door of the little +farmhouse was open; she and an older woman were ironing at a table, and +as her soft white hands passed to and fro, folding and smoothing the +rumpled heap, she laughed and talked, concerning simple homely things. +My friend’s shadow fell across her work, and she looking up, their eyes +met; but her face said plainly, “I do not know you here, and here you do +not know me. Here I am a woman loved and respected.” My friend passed +in and spoke to the older woman, the wife of one of his host’s tenants, +and she turned towards, and introduced the younger—“My daughter, sir. We +do not see her very often. She is in a place in London, and cannot get +away. But she always spends a few days with us at Christmas.” + +“It is the season for family re-unions,” answered my friend with just the +suggestion of a sneer, for which he hated himself. + +“Yes, sir,” said the woman, not noticing; “she has never missed her +Christmas with us, have you, Bess?” + +“No, mother,” replied the girl simply, and bent her head again over her +work. + +So for these few days every year this woman left her furs and jewels, her +fine clothes and dainty foods, behind her, and lived for a little space +with what was clean and wholesome. It was the one anchor holding her to +womanhood; and one likes to think that it was, perhaps, in the end strong +enough to save her from the drifting waters. All which arguments in +favour of Christmas and of Christmas customs are, I admit, purely +sentimental ones, but I have lived long enough to doubt whether sentiment +has not its legitimate place in the economy of life. + + + + +ON THE TIME WASTED IN LOOKING BEFORE ONE LEAPS + + +HAVE you ever noticed the going out of a woman? + +When a man goes out, he says—“I’m going out, shan’t be long.” + +“Oh, George,” cries his wife from the other end of the house, “don’t go +for a moment. I want you to—” She hears a falling of hats, followed by +the slamming of the front door. + +“Oh, George, you’re not gone!” she wails. It is but the voice of +despair. As a matter of fact, she knows he is gone. She reaches the +hall, breathless. + +“He might have waited a minute,” she mutters to herself, as she picks up +the hats, “there were so many things I wanted him to do.” + +She does not open the door and attempt to stop him, she knows he is +already half-way down the street. It is a mean, paltry way of going out, +she thinks; so like a man. + +When a woman, on the other hand, goes out, people know about it. She +does not sneak out. She says she is going out. She says it, generally, +on the afternoon of the day before; and she repeats it, at intervals, +until tea-time. At tea, she suddenly decides that she won’t, that she +will leave it till the day after to-morrow instead. An hour later she +thinks she will go to-morrow, after all, and makes arrangements to wash +her hair overnight. For the next hour or so she alternates between fits +of exaltation, during which she looks forward to going out, and moments +of despondency, when a sense of foreboding falls upon her. At dinner she +persuades some other woman to go with her; the other woman, once +persuaded, is enthusiastic about going, until she recollects that she +cannot. The first woman, however, convinces her that she can. + +“Yes,” replies the second woman, “but then, how about you, dear? You are +forgetting the Joneses.” + +“So I was,” answers the first woman, completely non-plussed. “How very +awkward, and I can’t go on Wednesday. I shall have to leave it till +Thursday, now.” + +“But _I_ can’t go Thursday,” says the second woman. + +“Well, you go without me, dear,” says the first woman, in the tone of one +who is sacrificing a life’s ambition. + +“Oh no, dear, I should not think of it,” nobly exclaims the second woman. +“We will wait and go together, Friday!” + +“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” says the first woman. “We will start +early” (this is an inspiration), “and be back before the Joneses arrive.” + +They agree to sleep together; there is a lurking suspicion in both their +minds that this may be their last sleep on earth. They retire early with +a can of hot water. At intervals, during the night, one overhears them +splashing water, and talking. + +They come down very late for breakfast, and both very cross. Each seems +to have argued herself into the belief that she has been lured into this +piece of nonsense, against her better judgment, by the persistent folly +of the other one. During the meal each one asks the other, every five +minutes, if she is quite ready. Each one, it appears, has only her hat +to put on. They talk about the weather, and wonder what it is going to +do. They wish it would make up its mind, one way or the other. They are +very bitter on weather that cannot make up its mind. After breakfast it +still looks cloudy, and they decide to abandon the scheme altogether. +The first woman then remembers that it is absolutely necessary for her, +at all events, to go. + +“But there is no need for you to come, dear,” she says. + +Up to that point the second woman was evidently not sure whether she +wished to go or whether she didn’t. Now she knows. + +“Oh yes, I’ll come,” she says, “then it will be over!” + +“I am sure you don’t want to go,” urges the first woman, “and I shall be +quicker by myself. I am ready to start now.” + +The second woman bridles. + +“_I_ shan’t be a couple of minutes,” she retorts. “You know, dear, it’s +generally _I_ who have to wait for _you_.” + +“But you’ve not got your boots on,” the first woman reminds her. + +“Well, they won’t take _any_ time,” is the answer. “But of course, dear, +if you’d really rather I did not come, say so.” By this time she is on +the verge of tears. + +“Of course, I would like you to come, dear,” explains the first in a +resigned tone. “I thought perhaps you were only coming to please me.” + +“Oh no, I’d _like_ to come,” says the second woman. + +“Well, we must hurry up,” says the first; “I shan’t be more than a minute +myself, I’ve merely got to change my skirt.” + +Half-an-hour later you hear them calling to each other, from different +parts of the house, to know if the other one is ready. It appears they +have both been ready for quite a long while, waiting only for the other +one. + +“I’m afraid,” calls out the one whose turn it is to be down-stairs, “it’s +going to rain.” + +“Oh, don’t say that,” calls back the other one. + +“Well, it looks very like it.” + +“What a nuisance,” answers the up-stairs woman; “shall we put it off?” + +“Well, what do _you_ think, dear?” replies the down-stairs. + +They decide they will go, only now they will have to change their boots, +and put on different hats. + +For the next ten minutes they are still shouting and running about. Then +it seems as if they really were ready, nothing remaining but for them to +say “Good-bye,” and go. + +They begin by kissing the children. A woman never leaves her house +without secret misgivings that she will never return to it alive. One +child cannot be found. When it is found it wishes it hadn’t been. It +has to be washed, preparatory to being kissed. After that, the dog has +to be found and kissed, and final instructions given to the cook. + +Then they open the front door. + +“Oh, George,” calls out the first woman, turning round again. “Are you +there?” + +“Hullo,” answers a voice from the distance. “Do you want me?” + +“No, dear, only to say good-bye. I’m going.” + +“Oh, good-bye.” + +“Good-bye, dear. Do you think it’s going to rain?” + +“Oh no, I should not say so.” + +“George.” + +“Yes.” + +“Have you got any money?” + +Five minutes later they come running back; the one has forgotten her +parasol, the other her purse. + +And speaking of purses, reminds one of another essential difference +between the male and female human animal. A man carries his money in his +pocket. When he wants to use it, he takes it out and lays it down. This +is a crude way of doing things, a woman displays more subtlety. Say she +is standing in the street, and wants fourpence to pay for a bunch of +violets she has purchased from a flower-girl. She has two parcels in one +hand, and a parasol in the other. With the remaining two fingers of the +left hand she secures the violets. The question then arises, how to pay +the girl? She flutters for a few minutes, evidently not quite +understanding why it is she cannot do it. The reason then occurs to her: +she has only two hands and both these are occupied. First she thinks she +will put the parcels and the flowers into her right hand, then she thinks +she will put the parasol into her left. Then she looks round for a table +or even a chair, but there is not such a thing in the whole street. Her +difficulty is solved by her dropping the parcels and the flowers. The +girl picks them up for her and holds them. This enables her to feel for +her pocket with her right hand, while waving her open parasol about with +her left. She knocks an old gentleman’s hat off into the gutter, and +nearly blinds the flower-girl before it occurs to her to close it. This +done, she leans it up against the flower-girl’s basket, and sets to work +in earnest with both hands. She seizes herself firmly by the back, and +turns the upper part of her body round till her hair is in front and her +eyes behind. Still holding herself firmly with her left hand—did she let +herself go, goodness knows where she would spin to;—with her right she +prospects herself. The purse is there, she can feel it, the problem is +how to get at it. The quickest way would, of course, be to take off the +skirt, sit down on the kerb, turn it inside out, and work from the bottom +of the pocket upwards. But this simple idea never seems to occur to her. +There are some thirty folds at the back of the dress, between two of +these folds commences the secret passage. At last, purely by chance, she +suddenly discovers it, nearly upsetting herself in the process, and the +purse is brought up to the surface. The difficulty of opening it still +remains. She knows it opens with a spring, but the secret of that spring +she has never mastered, and she never will. Her plan is to worry it +generally until it does open. Five minutes will always do it, provided +she is not flustered. + +At last it does open. It would be incorrect to say that she opens it. +It opens because it is sick of being mauled about; and, as likely as not, +it opens at the moment when she is holding it upside down. If you happen +to be near enough to look over her shoulder, you will notice that the +gold and silver lies loose within it. In an inner sanctuary, carefully +secured with a second secret spring, she keeps her coppers, together with +a postage-stamp and a draper’s receipt, nine months old, for elevenpence +three-farthings. + +I remember the indignation of an old Bus-conductor, once. Inside we were +nine women and two men. I sat next the door, and his remarks therefore +he addressed to me. It was certainly taking him some time to collect the +fares, but I think he would have got on better had he been less bustling; +he worried them, and made them nervous. + +“Look at that,” he said, drawing my attention to a poor lady opposite, +who was diving in the customary manner for her purse, “they sit on their +money, women do. Blest if you wouldn’t think they was trying to ’atch +it.” + +At length the lady drew from underneath herself an exceedingly fat purse. + +“Fancy riding in a bumpby bus, perched up on that thing,” he continued. +“Think what a stamina they must have.” He grew confidential. “I’ve seen +one woman,” he said, “pull out from underneath ’er a street doorkey, a +tin box of lozengers, a pencil-case, a whopping big purse, a packet of +hair-pins, and a smelling-bottle. Why, you or me would be wretched, +sitting on a plain door-knob, and them women goes about like that all +day. I suppose they gets used to it. Drop ’em on an eider-down pillow, +and they’d scream. The time it takes me to get tuppence out of them, +why, it’s ’eart-breaking. First they tries one side, then they tries the +other. Then they gets up and shakes theirselves till the bus jerks them +back again, and there they are, a more ’opeless ’eap than ever. If I ’ad +my way I’d make every bus carry a female searcher as could over’aul ’em +one at a time, and take the money from ’em. Talk about the poor +pickpocket. What I say is, that a man as finds his way into a woman’s +pocket—well, he deserves what he gets.” + +But it was the thought of more serious matters that lured me into +reflections concerning the over-carefulness of women. It is a theory of +mine—wrong possibly; indeed I have so been informed—that we pick our way +through life with too much care. We are for ever looking down upon the +ground. Maybe, we do avoid a stumble or two over a stone or a brier, but +also we miss the blue of the sky, the glory of the hills. These books +that good men write, telling us that what they call “success” in life +depends on our flinging aside our youth and wasting our manhood in order +that we may have the means when we are eighty of spending a rollicking +old age, annoy me. We save all our lives to invest in a South Sea +Bubble; and in skimping and scheming, we have grown mean, and narrow, and +hard. We will put off the gathering of the roses till to-morrow, to-day +it shall be all work, all bargain-driving, all plotting. Lo, when +to-morrow comes, the roses are blown; nor do we care for roses, idle +things of small marketable value; cabbages are more to our fancy by the +time to-morrow comes. + +Life is a thing to be lived, not spent, to be faced, not ordered. Life +is not a game of chess, the victory to the most knowing; it is a game of +cards, one’s hand by skill to be made the best of. Is it the wisest who +is always the most successful? I think not. The luckiest whist-player I +ever came across was a man who was never _quite_ certain what were +trumps, and whose most frequent observation during the game was “I really +beg your pardon,” addressed to his partner; a remark which generally +elicited the reply, “Oh, don’t apologize. All’s well that ends well.” +The man I knew who made the most rapid fortune was a builder in the +outskirts of Birmingham, who could not write his name, and who, for +thirty years of his life, never went to bed sober. I do not say that +forgetfulness of trumps should be cultivated by whist-players. I think +my builder friend might have been even more successful had he learned to +write his name, and had he occasionally—not overdoing it—enjoyed a sober +evening. All I wish to impress is, that virtue is not the road to +success—of the kind we are dealing with. We must find other reasons for +being virtuous; maybe, there are some. The truth is, life is a gamble +pure and simple, and the rules we lay down for success are akin to the +infallible systems with which a certain class of idiot goes armed each +season to Monte Carlo. We can play the game with coolness and judgment, +decide when to plunge and when to stake small; but to think that wisdom +will decide it, is to imagine that we have discovered the law of chance. +Let us play the game of life as sportsmen, pocketing our winnings with a +smile, leaving our losings with a shrug. Perhaps that is why we have +been summoned to the board and the cards dealt round: that we may learn +some of the virtues of the good gambler; his self-control, his courage +under misfortune, his modesty under the strain of success, his firmness, +his alertness, his general indifference to fate. Good lessons these, all +of them. If by the game we learn some of them our time on the green +earth has not been wasted. If we rise from the table having learned only +fretfulness and self-pity I fear it has been. + +The grim Hall Porter taps at the door: “Number Five hundred billion and +twenty-eight, your boatman is waiting, sir.” + +So! is it time already? We pick up our counters. Of what use are they? +In the country the other side of the river they are no tender. The +blood-red for gold, and the pale-green for love, to whom shall we fling +them? Here is some poor beggar longing to play, let us give them to him +as we pass out. Poor devil! the game will amuse him—for a while. + +Keep your powder dry, and trust in Providence, is the motto of the wise. +Wet powder could never be of any possible use to you. Dry, it may be, +_with_ the help of Providence. We will call it Providence, it is a +prettier name than Chance—perhaps also a truer. + +Another mistake we make when we reason out our lives is this: we reason +as though we were planning for reasonable creatures. It is a big +mistake. Well-meaning ladies and gentlemen make it when they picture +their ideal worlds. When marriage is reformed, and the social problem +solved, when poverty and war have been abolished by acclamation, and sin +and sorrow rescinded by an overwhelming parliamentary majority! Ah, then +the world will be worthy of our living in it. You need not wait, ladies +and gentlemen, so long as you think for that time. No social revolution +is needed, no slow education of the people is necessary. It would all +come about to-morrow, _if only we were reasonable creatures_. + +Imagine a world of reasonable beings! The Ten Commandments would be +unnecessary: no reasoning being sins, no reasoning creature makes +mistakes. There would be no rich men, for what reasonable man cares for +luxury and ostentation? There would be no poor: that I should eat enough +for two while my brother in the next street, as good a man as I, starves, +is not reasonable. There would be no difference of opinion on any two +points: there is only one reason. You, dear Reader, would find, that on +all subjects you were of the same opinion as I. No novels would be +written, no plays performed; the lives of reasonable creatures do not +afford drama. No mad loves, no mad laughter, no scalding tears, no +fierce unreasoning, brief-lived joys, no sorrows, no wild dreams—only +reason, reason everywhere. + +But for the present we remain unreasonable. If I eat this mayonnaise, +drink this champagne, I shall suffer in my liver. Then, why do I eat it? +Julia is a charming girl, amiable, wise, and witty; also she has a share +in a brewery. Then, why does John marry Ann? who is short-tempered, to +say the least of it, who, he feels, will not make him so good a +house-wife, who has extravagant notions, who has no little fortune. +There is something about Ann’s chin that fascinates him—he could not +explain to you what. On the whole, Julia is the better-looking of the +two. But the more he thinks of Julia, the more he is drawn towards Ann. +So Tom marries Julia and the brewery fails, and Julia, on a holiday, +contracts rheumatic fever, and is a helpless invalid for life; while Ann +comes in for ten thousand pounds left to her by an Australian uncle no +one had ever heard of. + +I have been told of a young man, who chose his wife with excellent care. +Said he to himself, very wisely, “In the selection of a wife a man cannot +be too circumspect.” He convinced himself that the girl was everything a +helpmate should be. She had every virtue that could be expected in a +woman, no faults, but such as are inseparable from a woman. Speaking +practically, she was perfection. He married her, and found she was all +he had thought her. Only one thing could he urge against her—that he did +not like her. And that, of course, was not her fault. + +How easy life would be did we know ourselves. Could we always be sure +that to-morrow we should think as we do to-day. We fall in love during a +summer holiday; she is fresh, delightful, altogether charming; the blood +rushes to our head every time we think of her. Our ideal career is one +of perpetual service at her feet. It seems impossible that Fate could +bestow upon us any greater happiness than the privilege of cleaning her +boots, and kissing the hem of her garment—if the hem be a little muddy +that will please us the more. We tell her our ambition, and at that +moment every word we utter is sincere. But the summer holiday passes, +and with it the holiday mood, and winter finds us wondering how we are +going to get out of the difficulty into which we have landed ourselves. +Or worse still, perhaps, the mood lasts longer than is usual. We become +formally engaged. We marry—I wonder how many marriages are the result of +a passion that is burnt out before the altar-rails are reached?—and three +months afterwards the little lass is broken-hearted to find that we +consider the lacing of her boots a bore. Her feet seem to have grown +bigger. There is no excuse for us, save that we are silly children, +never sure of what we are crying for, hurting one another in our play, +crying very loudly when hurt ourselves. + +I knew an American lady once who used to bore me with long accounts of +the brutalities exercised upon her by her husband. She had instituted +divorce proceedings against him. The trial came on, and she was highly +successful. We all congratulated her, and then for some months she +dropped out of my life. But there came a day when we again found +ourselves together. One of the problems of social life is to know what +to say to one another when we meet; every man and woman’s desire is to +appear sympathetic and clever, and this makes conversation difficult, +because, taking us all round, we are neither sympathetic nor clever—but +this by the way. + +Of course, I began to talk to her about her former husband. I asked her +how he was getting on. She replied that she thought he was very +comfortable. + +“Married again?” I suggested. + +“Yes,” she answered. + +“Serve him right,” I exclaimed, “and his wife too.” She was a pretty, +bright-eyed little woman, my American friend, and I wished to ingratiate +myself. “A woman who would marry such a man, knowing what she must have +known of him, is sure to make him wretched, and we may trust him to be a +curse to her.” + +My friend seemed inclined to defend him. + +“I think he is greatly improved,” she argued. + +“Nonsense!” I returned, “a man never improves. Once a villain, always a +villain.” + +“Oh, hush!” she pleaded, “you mustn’t call him that.” + +“Why not?” I answered. “I have heard you call him a villain yourself.” + +“It was wrong of me,” she said, flushing. “I’m afraid he was not the +only one to be blamed; we were both foolish in those days, but I think we +have both learned a lesson.” + +I remained silent, waiting for the necessary explanation. + +“You had better come and see him for yourself,” she added, with a little +laugh; “to tell the truth, I am the woman who has married him. Tuesday +is my day, Number 2, K— Mansions,” and she ran off, leaving me staring +after her. + +I believe an enterprising clergyman who would set up a little church in +the Strand, just outside the Law Courts, might do quite a trade, +re-marrying couples who had just been divorced. A friend of mine, a +respondent, told me he had never loved his wife more than on two +occasions—the first when she refused him, the second when she came into +the witness-box to give evidence against him. + +“You are curious creatures, you men,” remarked a lady once to another man +in my presence. “You never seem to know your own mind.” + +She was feeling annoyed with men generally. I do not blame her, I feel +annoyed with them myself sometimes. There is one man in particular I am +always feeling intensely irritated against. He says one thing, and acts +another. He will talk like a saint and behave like a fool, knows what is +right and does what is wrong. But we will not speak further of him. He +will be all he should be one day, and then we will pack him into a nice, +comfortably-lined box, and screw the lid down tight upon him, and put him +away in a quiet little spot near a church I know of, lest he should get +up and misbehave himself again. + +The other man, who is a wise man as men go, looked at his fair critic +with a smile. + +“My dear madam,” he replied, “you are blaming the wrong person. I +confess I do not know my mind, and what little I do know of it I do not +like. I did not make it, I did not select it. I am more dissatisfied +with it than you can possibly be. It is a greater mystery to me than it +is to you, and I have to live with it. You should pity not blame me.” + +There are moods in which I fall to envying those old hermits who frankly, +and with courageous cowardice, shirked the problem of life. There are +days when I dream of an existence unfettered by the thousand petty +strings with which our souls lie bound to Lilliputia land. I picture +myself living in some Norwegian sater, high above the black waters of a +rockbound fiord. No other human creature disputes with me my kingdom. I +am alone with the whispering fir forests and the stars. How I live I am +not quite sure. Once a month I could journey down into the villages and +return laden. I should not need much. For the rest, my gun and +fishing-rod would supply me. I would have with me a couple of big dogs, +who would talk to me with their eyes, so full of dumb thought, and +together we would wander over the uplands, seeking our dinner, after the +old primitive fashion of the men who dreamt not of ten-course dinners and +Savoy suppers. I would cook the food myself, and sit down to the meal +with a bottle of good wine, such as starts a man’s thoughts (for I am +inconsistent, as I acknowledge, and that gift of civilization I would +bear with me into my hermitage). Then in the evening, with pipe in +mouth, beside my log-wood fire, I would sit and think, until new +knowledge came to me. Strengthened by those silent voices that are +drowned in the roar of Streetland, I might, perhaps, grow into something +nearer to what it was intended that a man should be—might catch a +glimpse, perhaps, of the meaning of life. + +No, no, my dear lady, into this life of renunciation I would not take a +companion, certainly not of the sex you are thinking of, even would she +care to come, which I doubt. There are times when a man is better +without the woman, when a woman is better without the man. Love drags us +from the depths, makes men and women of us, but if we would climb a +little nearer to the stars we must say good-bye to it. We men and women +do not show ourselves to each other at our best; too often, I fear, at +our worst. The woman’s highest ideal of man is the lover; to a man the +woman is always the possible beloved. We see each other’s hearts, but +not each other’s souls. In each other’s presence we never shake +ourselves free from the earth. Match-making mother Nature is always at +hand to prompt us. A woman lifts us up into manhood, but there she would +have us stay. “Climb up to me,” she cries to the lad, walking with +soiled feet in muddy ways; “be a true man that you may be worthy to walk +by my side; be brave to protect me, kind and tender, and true; but climb +no higher, stay here by my side.” The martyr, the prophet, the leader of +the world’s forlorn hopes, she would wake from his dream. Her arms she +would fling about his neck holding him down. + +To the woman the man says, “You are my wife. Here is your America, +within these walls, here is your work, your duty.” True, in nine hundred +and ninety-nine cases out of every thousand, but men and women are not +made in moulds, and the world’s work is various. Sometimes to her +sorrow, a woman’s work lies beyond the home. The duty of Mary was not to +Joseph. + +The hero in the popular novel is the young man who says, “I love you +better than my soul.” Our favourite heroine in fiction is the woman who +cries to her lover, “I would go down into Hell to be with you.” There are +men and women who cannot answer thus—the men who dream dreams, the women +who see visions—impracticable people from the Bayswater point of view. +But Bayswater would not be the abode of peace it is had it not been for +such. + +Have we not placed sexual love on a pedestal higher than it deserves? It +is a noble passion, but it is not the noblest. There is a wider love by +the side of which it is but as the lamp illumining the cottage, to the +moonlight bathing the hills and valleys. There were two women once. +This is a play I saw acted in the daylight. They had been friends from +girlhood, till there came between them the usual trouble—a man. A weak, +pretty creature not worth a thought from either of them; but women love +the unworthy; there would be no over-population problem did they not; and +this poor specimen, ill-luck had ordained they should contend for. + +Their rivalry brought out all that was worst in both of them. It is a +mistake to suppose love only elevates; it can debase. It was a mean +struggle for what to an onlooker must have appeared a remarkably +unsatisfying prize. The loser might well have left the conqueror to her +poor triumph, even granting it had been gained unfairly. But the old, +ugly, primeval passions had been stirred in these women, and the +wedding-bells closed only the first act. + +The second is not difficult to guess. It would have ended in the Divorce +Court had not the deserted wife felt that a finer revenge would be +secured to her by silence. + +In the third, after an interval of only eighteen months, the man died—the +first piece of good fortune that seems to have occurred to him personally +throughout the play. His position must have been an exceedingly anxious +one from the beginning. Notwithstanding his flabbiness, one cannot but +regard him with a certain amount of pity—not unmixed with amusement. +Most of life’s dramas can be viewed as either farce or tragedy according +to the whim of the spectator. The actors invariably play them as +tragedy; but then that is the essence of good farce acting. + +Thus was secured the triumph of legal virtue and the punishment of +irregularity, and the play might be dismissed as uninterestingly orthodox +were it not for the fourth act, showing how the wronged wife came to the +woman she had once wronged to ask and grant forgiveness. Strangely as it +may sound, they found their love for one another unchanged. They had +been long parted: it was sweet to hold each other’s hands again. Two +lonely women, they agreed to live together. Those who knew them well in +this later time say that their life was very beautiful, filled with +graciousness and nobility. + +I do not say that such a story could ever be common, but it is more +probable than the world might credit. Sometimes the man is better +without the woman, the woman without the man. + + + + +ON THE NOBILITY OF OURSELVES + + +AN old Anglicized Frenchman, I used to meet often in my earlier +journalistic days, held a theory, concerning man’s future state, that has +since come to afford me more food for reflection than, at the time, I +should have deemed possible. He was a bright-eyed, eager little man. +One felt no Lotus land could be Paradise to him. We build our heaven of +the stones of our desires: to the old, red-bearded Norseman, a foe to +fight and a cup to drain; to the artistic Greek, a grove of animated +statuary; to the Red Indian, his happy hunting ground; to the Turk, his +harem; to the Jew, his New Jerusalem, paved with gold; to others, +according to their taste, limited by the range of their imagination. + +Few things had more terrors for me, when a child, than Heaven—as pictured +for me by certain of the good folks round about me. I was told that if I +were a good lad, kept my hair tidy, and did not tease the cat, I would +probably, when I died, go to a place where all day long I would sit still +and sing hymns. (Think of it! as reward to a healthy boy for being +good.) There would be no breakfast and no dinner, no tea and no supper. +One old lady cheered me a little with a hint that the monotony might be +broken by a little manna; but the idea of everlasting manna palled upon +me, and my suggestions, concerning the possibilities of sherbet or +jumbles, were scouted as irreverent. There would be no school, but also +there would be no cricket and no rounders. I should feel no desire, so I +was assured, to do another angel’s “dags” by sliding down the heavenly +banisters. My only joy would be to sing. + +“Shall we start singing the moment we get up in the morning?” I asked. + +“There won’t be any morning,” was the answer. “There will be no day and +no night. It will all be one long day without end.” + +“And shall we always be singing?” I persisted. + +“Yes, you will be so happy, you will always want to sing.” + +“Shan’t I ever get tired?” + +“No, you will never get tired, and you will never get sleepy or hungry or +thirsty.” + +“And does it go on like that for ever?” + +“Yes, for ever and ever.” + +“Will it go on for a million years?” + +“Yes, a million years, and then another million years, and then another +million years after that. There will never be any end to it.” + +I can remember to this day the agony of those nights, when I would lie +awake, thinking of this endless heaven, from which there seemed to be no +possible escape. For the other place was equally eternal, or I might +have been tempted to seek refuge there. + +We grown-up folk, our brains dulled by the slowly acquired habit of not +thinking, do wrong to torture children with these awful themes. +Eternity, Heaven, Hell are meaningless words to us. We repeat them, as +we gabble our prayers, telling our smug, self-satisfied selves that we +are miserable sinners. But to the child, the “intelligent stranger” in +the land, seeking to know, they are fearful realities. If you doubt me, +Reader, stand by yourself, beneath the stars, one night, and _solve_ this +thought, Eternity. Your next address shall be the County Lunatic Asylum. + +My actively inclined French friend held cheerier views than are common of +man’s life beyond the grave. His belief was that we were destined to +constant change, to everlasting work. We were to pass through the older +planets, to labour in the greater suns. + +But for such advanced career a more capable being was needed. No one of +us was sufficient, he argued, to be granted a future existence all to +himself. His idea was that two or three or four of us, according to our +intrinsic value, would be combined to make a new and more important +individuality, fitted for a higher existence. Man, he pointed out, was +already a collection of the beasts. “You and I,” he would say, tapping +first my chest and then his own, “we have them all here—the ape, the +tiger, the pig, the motherly hen, the gamecock, the good ant; we are all, +rolled into one. So the man of the future, he will be made up of many +men—the courage of one, the wisdom of another, the kindliness of a +third.” + +“Take a City man,” he would continue, “say the Lord Mayor; add to him a +poet, say Swinburne; mix them with a religious enthusiast, say General +Booth. There you will have the man fit for the higher life.” + +Garibaldi and Bismarck, he held, should make a very fine mixture, +correcting one another; if needful, extract of Ibsen might be added, as +seasoning. He thought that Irish politicians would mix admirably with +Scotch divines; that Oxford Dons would go well with lady novelists. He +was convinced that Count Tolstoi, a few Gaiety Johnnies (we called them +“mashers” in those days), together with a humourist—he was kind enough to +suggest myself—would produce something very choice. Queen Elizabeth, he +fancied, was probably being reserved to go—let us hope in the long +distant future—with Ouida. It sounds a whimsical theory, set down here +in my words, not his; but the old fellow was so much in earnest that few +of us ever thought to laugh as he talked. Indeed, there were moments on +starry nights, as walking home from the office, we would pause on +Waterloo Bridge to enjoy the witchery of the long line of the Embankment +lights, when I could almost believe, as I listened to him, in the not +impossibility of his dreams. + +Even as regards this world, it would often be a gain, one thinks, and no +loss, if some half-dozen of us were rolled together, or boiled down, or +whatever the process necessary might be, and something made out of us in +that way. + +Have not you, my fair Reader, sometimes thought to yourself what a +delightful husband Tom this, plus Harry that, plus Dick the other, would +make? Tom is always so cheerful and good-tempered, yet you feel that in +the serious moments of life he would be lacking. A delightful hubby when +you felt merry, yes; but you would not go to him for comfort and strength +in your troubles, now would you? No, in your hour of sorrow, how good it +would be to have near you grave, earnest Harry. He is a “good sort,” +Harry. Perhaps, after all, he is the best of the three—solid, staunch, +and true. What a pity he is just a trifle commonplace and unambitious. +Your friends, not knowing his sterling hidden qualities, would hardly +envy you; and a husband that no other girl envies you—well, that would +hardly be satisfactory, would it? Dick, on the other hand, is clever and +brilliant. He will make his way; there will come a day, you are +convinced, when a woman will be proud to bear his name. If only he were +not so self-centred, if only he were more sympathetic. + +But a combination of the three, or rather of the best qualities of the +three—Tom’s good temper, Harry’s tender strength, Dick’s brilliant +masterfulness: that is the man who would be worthy of you. + +The woman David Copperfield wanted was Agnes and Dora rolled into one. +He had to take them one after the other, which was not so nice. And did +he really love Agnes, Mr. Dickens; or merely feel he ought to? Forgive +me, but I am doubtful concerning that second marriage of Copperfield’s. +Come, strictly between ourselves, Mr. Dickens, was not David, good human +soul! now and again a wee bit bored by the immaculate Agnes? She made +him an excellent wife, I am sure. _She_ never ordered oysters by the +barrel, unopened. It would, on any day, have been safe to ask Traddles +home to dinner; in fact, Sophie and the whole rose-garden might have +accompanied him, Agnes would have been equal to the occasion. The dinner +would have been perfectly cooked and served, and Agnes’ sweet smile would +have pervaded the meal. But _after_ the dinner, when David and Traddles +sat smoking alone, while from the drawing-room drifted down the notes of +high-class, elevating music, played by the saintly Agnes, did they never, +glancing covertly towards the empty chair between them, see the laughing, +curl-framed face of a very foolish little woman—one of those foolish +little women that a wise man thanks God for making—and wish, in spite of +all, that it were flesh and blood, not shadow? + +Oh, you foolish wise folk, who would remodel human nature! Cannot you +see how great is the work given unto childish hands? Think you that in +well-ordered housekeeping and high-class conversation lies the whole +making of a man? Foolish Dora, fashioned by clever old magician Nature, +who knows that weakness and helplessness are as a talisman calling forth +strength and tenderness in man, trouble yourself not unduly about those +oysters nor the underdone mutton, little woman. Good plain cooks at +twenty pounds a year will see to these things for us; and, now and then, +when a windfall comes our way, we will dine together at a moderate-priced +restaurant where these things are managed even better. Your work, Dear, +is to teach us gentleness and kindliness. Lay your curls here, child. +It is from such as you that we learn wisdom. Foolish wise folk sneer at +you; foolish wise folk would pull up the useless lilies, the needless +roses, from the garden, would plant in their places only serviceable +wholesome cabbage. But the Gardener knowing better, plants the silly +short-lived flowers; foolish wise folk, asking for what purpose. + +As for Agnes, Mr. Dickens, do you know what she always makes me think of? +You will not mind my saying?—the woman one reads about. Frankly, I don’t +believe in her. I do not refer to Agnes in particular, but the woman of +whom she is a type, the faultless woman we read of. Women have many +faults, but, thank God, they have one redeeming virtue—they are none of +them faultless. + +But the heroine of fiction! oh, a terrible dragon of virtue is she. May +heaven preserve us poor men, undeserving though we be, from a life with +the heroine of fiction. She is all soul, and heart, and intellect, with +never a bit of human nature to catch hold of her by. Her beauty, it +appals one, it is so painfully indescribable. Whence comes she, whither +goes she, why do we never meet her like? Of women I know a goodish few, +and I look among them for her prototype; but I find it not. They are +charming, they are beautiful, all these women that I know. It would not +be right for me to tell you, Ladies, the esteem and veneration with which +I regard you all. You yourselves, blushing, would be the first to cheek +my ardour. But yet, dear Ladies, seen even through my eyes, you come not +near the ladies that I read about. You are not—if I may be permitted an +expressive vulgarism—in the same street with them. Your beauty I can +look upon, and retain my reason—for whatever value that may be to me. +Your conversation, I admit, is clever and brilliant in the extreme; your +knowledge vast and various; your culture quite Bostonian; yet you do +not—I hardly know how to express it—you do not shine with the sixteen +full-moon-power of the heroine of fiction. You do not—and I thank you +for it—impress me with the idea that you are the only women on earth. +You, even you, possess tempers of your own. I am inclined to think you +take an interest in your clothes. I would not be sure, even, that you do +not mingle a little of “your own hair” (you know what I mean) with the +hair of your head. There is in your temperament a vein of vanity, a +suggestion of selfishness, a spice of laziness. I have known you a +trifle unreasonable, a little inconsiderate, slightly exacting. Unlike +the heroine of fiction, you have a certain number of human appetites and +instincts; a few human follies, perhaps, a human fault, or shall we say +two? In short, dear Ladies, you also, even as we men, are the children +of Adam and Eve. Tell me, if you know, where I may meet with this +supernatural sister of yours, this woman that one reads about. She never +keeps any one waiting while she does her back hair, she is never +indignant with everybody else in the house because she cannot find her +own boots, she never scolds the servants, she is never cross with the +children, she never slams the door, she is never jealous of her younger +sister, she never lingers at the gate with any cousin but the right one. + +Dear me, where _do_ they keep them, these women that one reads about? I +suppose where they keep the pretty girl of Art. You have seen her, have +you not, Reader, the pretty girl in the picture? She leaps the +six-barred gate with a yard and a half to spare, turning round in her +saddle the while to make some smiling remark to the comic man behind, +who, of course, is standing on his head in the ditch. She floats +gracefully off Dieppe on stormy mornings. Her _baigneuse_—generally of +chiffon and old point lace—has not lost a curve. The older ladies, +bathing round her, look wet. Their dress clings damply to their limbs. +But the pretty girl of Art dives, and never a curl of her hair is +disarranged. The pretty girl of Art stands lightly on tip-toe and +volleys a tennis-ball six feet above her head. The pretty girl of Art +keeps the head of the punt straight against a stiff current and a strong +wind. _She_ never gets the water up her sleeve, and down her back, and +all over the cushions. _Her_ pole never sticks in the mud, with the +steam launch ten yards off and the man looking the other way. The pretty +girl of Art skates in high-heeled French shoes at an angle of forty-five +to the surface of the ice, both hands in her muff. _She_ never sits down +plump, with her feet a yard apart, and says “Ough.” The pretty girl of +Art drives tandem down Piccadilly, during the height of the season, at +eighteen miles an hour. It never occurs to _her_ leader that the time +has now arrived for him to turn round and get into the cart. The pretty +girl of Art rides her bicycle through the town on market day, carrying a +basket of eggs, and smiling right and left. _She_ never throws away both +her handles and runs into a cow. The pretty girl of Art goes trout +fishing in open-work stockings, under a blazing sun, with a bunch of +dew-bespangled primroses in her hair; and every time she gracefully +flicks her rod she hauls out a salmon. _She_ never ties herself up to a +tree, or hooks the dog. _She_ never comes home, soaked and disagreeable, +to tell you that she caught six, but put them all back again, because +they were merely two or three-pounders, and not worth the trouble of +carrying. The pretty girl of Art plays croquet with one hand, and looks +as if she enjoyed the game. _She_ never tries to accidentally kick her +ball into position when nobody is noticing, or stands it out that she is +through a hoop that she knows she isn’t. + +She is a good, all-round sportswoman, is the pretty girl in the picture. +The only thing I have to say against her is that she makes one +dissatisfied with the girl out of the picture—the girl who mistakes a +punt for a teetotum, so that you land feeling as if you had had a day in +the Bay of Biscay; and who, every now and again, stuns you with the thick +end of the pole: the girl who does not skate with her hands in her muff; +but who, throwing them up to heaven, says, “I’m going,” and who goes, +taking care that you go with her: the girl who, as you brush her down, +and try to comfort her, explains to you indignantly that the horse took +the corner too sharply and never noticed the mile-stone; the girl whose +hair sea water does _not_ improve. + +There can be no doubt about it: that is where they keep the good woman of +Fiction, where they keep the pretty girl of Art. + +Does it not occur to you, _Messieurs les Auteurs_, that you are sadly +disturbing us? These women that are a combination of Venus, St. Cecilia, +and Elizabeth Fry! you paint them for us in your glowing pages: it is not +kind of you, knowing, as you must, the women we have to put up with. + +Would we not be happier, we men and women, were we to idealize one +another less? My dear young lady, you have nothing whatever to complain +to Fate about, I assure you. Unclasp those pretty hands of yours, and +come away from the darkening window. Jack is as good a fellow as you +deserve; don’t yearn so much. Sir Galahad, my dear—Sir Galahad rides and +fights in the land that lies beyond the sunset, far enough away from this +noisy little earth where you and I spend much of our time +tittle-tattling, flirting, wearing fine clothes, and going to shows. And +besides, you must remember, Sir Galahad was a bachelor: as an idealist he +was wise. Your Jack is by no means a bad sort of knight, as knights go +nowadays in this un-idyllic world. There is much solid honesty about +him, and he does not pose. He is not exceptional, I grant you; but, my +dear, have you ever tried the exceptional man? Yes, he is very nice in a +drawing-room, and it is interesting to read about him in the Society +papers: you will find most of his good qualities _there_: take my advice, +don’t look into him too closely. You be content with Jack, and thank +heaven he is no worse. We are not saints, we men—none of us, and our +beautiful thoughts, I fear, we write in poetry not action. The White +Knight, my dear young lady, with his pure soul, his heroic heart, his +life’s devotion to a noble endeavour, does not live down here to any +great extent. They have tried it, one or two of them, and the world—you +and I: the world is made up of you and I—has generally starved, and +hooted them. There are not many of them left now: do you think you would +care to be the wife of one, supposing one were to be found for you? +Would you care to live with him in two furnished rooms in Clerkenwell, +die with him on a chair bedstead? A century hence they will put up a +statue to him, and you may be honoured as the wife who shared with him +his sufferings. Do you think you are woman enough for that? If not, +thank your stars you have secured, for your own exclusive use, one of us +_un_exceptional men, who knows no better than to admire you. _You_ are +not exceptional. + +And in us ordinary men there is some good. It wants finding, that is +all. We are not so commonplace as you think us. Even your Jack, fond of +his dinner, his conversation four-cornered by the Sporting Press—yes, I +agree he is not interesting, as he sits snoring in the easy-chair; but, +believe it or not, there are the makings of a great hero in Jack, if Fate +would but be kinder to him, and shake him out of his ease. + +Dr. Jekyll contained beneath his ample waist-coat not two egos, but +three—not only Hyde but another, a greater than Jekyll—a man as near to +the angels as Hyde was to the demons. These well-fed City men, these +Gaiety Johnnies, these plough-boys, apothecaries, thieves! within each +one lies hidden the hero, did Fate, the sculptor, choose to use his +chisel. That little drab we have noticed now and then, our way taking us +often past the end of the court, there was nothing by which to +distinguish her. She was not over-clean, could use coarse language on +occasion—just the spawn of the streets: take care lest the cloak of our +child should brush her. + +One morning the district Coroner, not, generally speaking, a poet +himself, but an adept at discovering poetry buried under unlikely +rubbish-heaps, tells us more about her. She earned six shillings a week, +and upon it supported a bed-ridden mother and three younger children. +She was housewife, nurse, mother, breadwinner, rolled into one. Yes, +there are heroines _out_ of fiction. + +So loutish Tom has won the Victoria Cross—dashed out under a storm of +bullets and rescued the riddled flag. Who would have thought it of +loutish Tom? The village alehouse one always deemed the goal of his +endeavours. Chance comes to Tom and we find him out. To Harry the Fates +were less kind. A ne’er-do-well was Harry—drank, knocked his wife about, +they say. Bury him, we are well rid of him, he was good for nothing. +Are we sure? + +Let us acknowledge we are sinners. We know, those of us who dare to +examine ourselves, that we are capable of every meanness, of every wrong +under the sun. It is by the accident of circumstance, aided by the +helpful watchfulness of the policeman, that our possibilities of crime +are known only to ourselves. But having acknowledged our evil, let us +also acknowledge that we are capable of greatness. The martyrs who faced +death and torture unflinchingly for conscience’ sake, were men and women +like ourselves. They had their wrong side. Before the small trials of +daily life they no doubt fell as we fall. By no means were they the pick +of humanity. Thieves many of them had been, and murderers, evil-livers, +and evil-doers. But the nobility was there also, lying dormant, and +their day came. Among them must have been men who had cheated their +neighbours over the counter; men who had been cruel to their wives and +children; selfish, scandal-mongering women. In easier times their virtue +might never have been known to any but their Maker. + +In every age and in every period, when and where Fate has called upon men +and women to play the man, human nature has not been found wanting. They +were a poor lot, those French aristocrats that the Terror seized: +cowardly, selfish, greedy had been their lives. Yet there must have been +good, even in them. When the little things that in their little lives +they had thought so great were swept away from them, when they found +themselves face to face with the realities; then even they played the +man. Poor shuffling Charles the First, crusted over with weakness and +folly, deep down in him at last we find the great gentleman. + +I like to hear stories of the littleness of great men. I like to think +that Shakespeare was fond of his glass. I even cling to the tale of that +disgraceful final orgie with friend Ben Jonson. Possibly the story may +not be true, but I hope it was. I like to think of him as poacher, as +village ne’er-do-well, denounced by the local grammar-school master, +preached at by the local J. P. of the period. I like to reflect that +Cromwell had a wart on his nose; the thought makes me more contented with +my own features. I like to think that he put sweets upon the chairs, to +see finely-dressed ladies spoil their frocks; to tell myself that he +roared with laughter at the silly jest, like any East End ’Arry with his +Bank Holiday squirt of dirty water. I like to read that Carlyle threw +bacon at his wife and occasionally made himself highly ridiculous over +small annoyances, that would have been smiled at by a man of +well-balanced mind. I think of the fifty foolish things a week _I_ do, +and say to myself, “I, too, am a literary man.” + +I like to think that even Judas had his moments of nobility, his good +hours when he would willingly have laid down his life for his Master. +Perhaps even to him there came, before the journey’s end, the memory of a +voice saying—“Thy sins be forgiven thee.” There must have been good, +even in Judas. + +Virtue lies like the gold in quartz, there is not very much of it, and +much pains has to be spent on the extracting of it. But Nature seems to +think it worth her while to fashion these huge useless stones, if in them +she may hide away her precious metals. Perhaps, also, in human nature, +she cares little for the mass of dross, provided that by crushing and +cleansing she can extract from it a little gold, sufficient to repay her +for the labour of the world. We wonder why she troubles to make the +stone. Why cannot the gold lie in nuggets on the surface? But her +methods are secrets to us. Perchance there is a reason for the quartz. +Perchance there is a reason for the evil and folly, through which run, +unseen to the careless eye, the tiny veins of virtue. + +Aye, the stone predominates, but the gold is there. We claim to have it +valued. The evil that there is in man no tongue can tell. We are vile +among the vile, a little evil people. But we are great. Pile up the +bricks of our sins till the tower knocks at Heaven’s gate, calling for +vengeance, yet we are great—with a greatness and a virtue that the +untempted angels may not reach to. The written history of the human +race, it is one long record of cruelty, of falsehood, of oppression. +Think you the world would be spinning round the sun unto this day, if +that written record were all? Sodom, God would have spared had there +been found ten righteous men within its walls. The world is saved by its +just men. History sees them not; she is but the newspaper, a report of +accidents. Judge you life by that? Then you shall believe that the true +Temple of Hymen is the Divorce Court; that men are of two classes only, +the thief and the policeman; that all noble thought is but a politician’s +catchword. History sees only the destroying conflagrations, she takes no +thought of the sweet fire-sides. History notes the wrong; but the +patient suffering, the heroic endeavour, that, slowly and silently, as +the soft processes of Nature re-clothing with verdure the passion-wasted +land, obliterate that wrong, she has no eyes for. In the days of cruelty +and oppression—not altogether yet of the past, one fears—must have lived +gentle-hearted men and women, healing with their help and sympathy the +wounds that else the world had died of. After the thief, riding with +jingle of sword and spur, comes, mounted on his ass, the good Samaritan. +The pyramid of the world’s evil—God help us! it rises high, shutting out +almost the sun. But the record of man’s good deeds, it lies written in +the laughter of the children, in the light of lovers’ eyes, in the dreams +of the young men; it shall not be forgotten. The fires of persecution +served as torches to show Heaven the heroism that was in man. From the +soil of tyranny sprang self-sacrifice, and daring for the Right. +Cruelty! what is it but the vile manure, making the ground ready for the +flowers of tenderness and pity? Hate and Anger shriek to one another +across the ages, but the voices of Love and Comfort are none the less +existent that they speak in whispers, lips to ear. + +We have done wrong, oh, ye witnessing Heavens, but we have done good. We +claim justice. We have laid down our lives for our friends: greater love +hath no man than this. We have fought for the Right. We have died for +the Truth—as the Truth seemed to us. We have done noble deeds; we have +lived noble lives; we have comforted the sorrowful; we have succoured the +weak. Failing, falling, making in our blindness many a false step, yet +we have striven. For the sake of the army of just men and true, for the +sake of the myriads of patient, loving women, for the sake of the pitiful +and helpful, for the sake of the good that lies hidden within us,—spare +us, O Lord. + + + + +ON THE MOTHERLINESS OF MAN + + +IT was only a piece of broken glass. From its shape and colour, I should +say it had, in its happier days, formed portion of a cheap scent-bottle. +Lying isolated on the grass, shone upon by the early morning sun, it +certainly appeared at its best. It attracted him. + +He cocked his head, and looked at it with his right eye. Then he hopped +round to the other side, and looked at it with his left eye. With either +optic it seemed equally desirable. + +That he was an inexperienced young rook goes without saying. An older +bird would not have given a second glance to the thing. Indeed, one +would have thought his own instinct might have told him that broken glass +would be a mistake in a bird’s nest. But its glitter drew him too +strongly for resistance. I am inclined to suspect that at some time, +during the growth of his family tree, there must have occurred a +_mésalliance_, perhaps worse. Possibly a strain of magpie blood?—one +knows the character of magpies, or rather their lack of character—and +such things have happened. But I will not pursue further so painful a +train: I throw out the suggestion as a possible explanation, that is all. + +He hopped nearer. Was it a sweet illusion, this flashing fragment of +rainbow; a beautiful vision to fade upon approach, typical of so much +that is un-understandable in rook life? He made a dart forward and +tapped it with his beak. No, it was real—as fine a lump of jagged green +glass as any newly-married rook could desire, and to be had for the +taking. _She_ would be pleased with it. He was a well-meaning bird; the +mere upward inclination of his tail suggested earnest though possibly +ill-directed endeavour. + +He turned it over. It was an awkward thing to carry; it had so very many +corners. But he succeeded at last in getting it firmly between his beak, +and in haste, lest some other bird should seek to dispute with him its +possession, at once flew off with it. + +A second rook who had been watching the proceedings from the lime tree, +called to a third who was passing. Even with my limited knowledge of the +language I found it easy to follow the conversation: it was so obvious. + +“Issachar!” + +“Hallo!” + +“What do you think? Zebulan’s found a piece of broken bottle. He’s +going to line his nest with it.” + +“No!” + +“God’s truth. Look at him. There he goes, he’s got it in his beak.” + +“Well, I’m—!” + +And they both burst into a laugh. + +But Zebulan heeded them not. If he overheard, he probably put down the +whole dialogue to jealousy. He made straight for his tree. By standing +with my left cheek pressed close against the window-pane, I was able to +follow him. He is building in what we call the Paddock elms—a suburb +commenced only last season, but rapidly growing. I wanted to see what +his wife would say. + +At first she said nothing. He laid it carefully down on the branch near +the half-finished nest, and she stretched up her head and looked at it. + +Then she looked at him. For about a minute neither spoke. I could see +that the situation was becoming strained. When she did open her beak, it +was with a subdued tone, that had a vein of weariness running through it. + +“What is it?” she asked. + +He was evidently chilled by her manner. As I have explained, he is an +inexperienced young rook. This is clearly his first wife, and he stands +somewhat in awe of her. + +“Well, I don’t exactly know what it’s _called_,” he answered. + +“Oh.” + +“No. But it’s pretty, isn’t it?” he added. He moved it, trying to get +it where the sun might reach it. It was evident he was admitting to +himself that, seen in the shade, it lost much of its charm. + +“Oh, yes; very pretty,” was the rejoinder; “perhaps you’ll tell me what +you’re going to do with it.” + +The question further discomforted him. It was growing upon him that this +thing was not going to be the success he had anticipated. It would be +necessary to proceed warily. + +“Of course, it’s not a twig,” he began. + +“I see it isn’t.” + +“No. You see, the nest is nearly all twigs as it is, and I thought—” + +“Oh, you did think.” + +“Yes, my dear. I thought—unless you are of opinion that it’s too showy—I +thought we might work it in somewhere.” + +Then she flared out. + +“Oh, did you? You thought that a good idea. An A1 prize idiot I seem to +have married, I do. You’ve been gone twenty minutes, and you bring me +back an eight-cornered piece of broken glass, which you think we might +‘work into’ the nest. You’d like to see me sitting on it for a month, +you would. You think it would make a nice bed for the children to lie +on. You don’t think you could manage to find a packet of mixed pins if +you went down again, I suppose. They’d look pretty ‘worked in’ +somewhere, don’t you think?—Here, get out of my way. I’ll finish this +nest by myself.” She always had been short with him. + +She caught up the offending object—it was a fairly heavy lump of +glass—and flung it out of the tree with all her force. I heard it crash +through the cucumber frame. That makes the seventh pane of glass broken +in that cucumber frame this week. The couple in the branch above are the +worst. Their plan of building is the most extravagant, the most absurd I +ever heard of. They hoist up ten times as much material as they can +possibly use; you might think they were going to build a block, and let +it out in flats to the other rooks. Then what they don’t want they fling +down again. Suppose we built on such a principle? Suppose a human +husband and wife were to start erecting their house in Piccadilly Circus, +let us say; and suppose the man spent all the day steadily carrying +bricks up the ladder while his wife laid them, never asking her how many +she wanted, whether she didn’t think he had brought up sufficient, but +just accumulating bricks in a senseless fashion, bringing up every brick +he could find. And then suppose, when evening came, and looking round, +they found they had some twenty cart-loads of bricks lying unused upon +the scaffold, they were to commence flinging them down into Waterloo +Place. They would get themselves into trouble; somebody would be sure to +speak to them about it. Yet that is precisely what those birds do, and +nobody says a word to them. They are supposed to have a President. He +lives by himself in the yew tree outside the morning-room window. What I +want to know is what he is supposed to be good for. This is the sort of +thing I want him to look into. I would like him to be worming underneath +one evening when those two birds are tidying up: perhaps he would do +something then. I have done all I can. I have thrown stones at them, +that, in the course of nature, have returned to earth again, breaking +more glass. I have blazed at them with a revolver; but they have come to +regard this proceeding as a mere expression of light-heartedness on my +part, possibly confusing me with the Arab of the Desert, who, I am given +to understand, expresses himself thus in moments of deep emotion. They +merely retire to a safe distance to watch me; no doubt regarding me as a +poor performer, inasmuch as I do not also dance and shout between each +shot. I have no objection to their building there, if they only would +build sensibly. I want somebody to speak to them to whom they will pay +attention. + +You can hear them in the evening, discussing the matter of this surplus +stock. + +“Don’t you work any more,” he says, as he comes up with the last load, +“you’ll tire yourself.” + +“Well, I am feeling a bit done up,” she answers, as she hops out of the +nest and straightens her back. + +“You’re a bit peckish, too, I expect,” he adds sympathetically. “I know +I am. We will have a scratch down, and be off.” + +“What about all this stuff?” she asks, while titivating herself; “we’d +better not leave it about, it looks so untidy.” + +“Oh, we’ll soon get rid of that,” he answers. “I’ll have that down in a +jiffy.” + +To help him, she seizes a stick and is about to drop it. He darts +forward and snatches it from her. + +“Don’t you waste that one,” he cries, “that’s a rare one, that is. You +see me hit the old man with it.” + +And he does. What the gardener says, I will leave you to imagine. + +Judged from its structure, the rook family is supposed to come next in +intelligence to man himself. Judging from the intelligence displayed by +members of certain human families with whom I have come in contact, I can +quite believe it. That rooks talk I am positive. No one can spend +half-an-hour watching a rookery without being convinced of this. Whether +the talk be always wise and witty, I am not prepared to maintain; but +that there is a good deal of it is certain. A young French gentleman of +my acquaintance, who visited England to study the language, told me that +the impression made upon him by his first social evening in London was +that of a parrot-house. Later on, when he came to comprehend, he, of +course, recognized the brilliancy and depth of the average London +drawing-room talk; but that is how, not comprehending, it impressed him +at first. Listening to the riot of a rookery is much the same +experience. The conversation to us sounds meaningless; the rooks +themselves would probably describe it as sparkling. + +There is a Misanthrope I know who hardly ever goes into Society. I +argued the question with him one day. “Why should I?” he replied; “I +know, say, a dozen men and women with whom intercourse is a pleasure; +they have ideas of their own which they are not afraid to voice. To rub +brains with such is a rare and goodly thing, and I thank Heaven for their +friendship; but they are sufficient for my leisure. What more do I +require? What is this ‘Society’ of which you all make so much ado? I +have sampled it, and I find it unsatisfying. Analyze it into its +elements, what is it? Some person I know very slightly, who knows me +very slightly, asks me to what you call an ‘At Home.’ The evening comes, +I have done my day’s work and I have dined. I have been to a theatre or +concert, or I have spent a pleasant hour or so with a friend. I am more +inclined for bed than anything else, but I pull myself together, dress, +and drive to the house. While I am taking off my hat and coat in the +hall, a man enters I met a few hours ago at the Club. He is a man I have +very little opinion of, and he, probably, takes a similar view of me. +Our minds have no thought in common, but as it is necessary to talk, I +tell him it is a warm evening. Perhaps it is a warm evening, perhaps it +isn’t; in either case he agrees with me. I ask him if he is going to +Ascot. I do not care a straw whether he is going to Ascot or not. He +says he is not quite sure, but asks me what chance Passion Flower has for +the Thousand Guineas. I know he doesn’t value my opinion on the subject +at a brass farthing—he would be a fool if he did, but I cudgel my brains +to reply to him, as though he were going to stake his shirt on my advice. +We reach the first floor, and are mutually glad to get rid of one +another. I catch my hostess’ eye. She looks tired and worried; she +would be happier in bed, only she doesn’t know it. She smiles sweetly, +but it is clear she has not the slightest idea who I am, and is waiting +to catch my name from the butler. I whisper it to him. Perhaps he will +get it right, perhaps he won’t; it is quite immaterial. They have asked +two hundred and forty guests, some seventy-five of whom they know by +sight, for the rest, any chance passer-by, able, as the theatrical +advertisements say, ‘to dress and behave as a gentleman,’ would do every +bit as well. Indeed, I sometimes wonder why people go to the trouble and +expense of invitation cards at all. A sandwich-man outside the door +would answer the purpose. ‘Lady Tompkins, At Home, this afternoon from +three to seven; Tea and Music. Ladies and Gentlemen admitted on +presentation of visiting card. Afternoon dress indispensable.’ The +crowd is the thing wanted; as for the items, well, tell me, what is the +difference, from the Society point of view, between one man in a black +frock-coat and another? + +“I remember being once invited to a party at a house in Lancaster Gate. +I had met the woman at a picnic. In the same green frock and parasol I +might have recognized her the next time I saw her. In any other clothes +I did not expect to. My cabman took me to the house opposite, where they +were also giving a party. It made no difference to any of us. The +hostess—I never learnt her name—said it was very good of me to come, and +then shunted me off on to a Colonial Premier (I did not catch his name, +and he did not catch mine, which was not extraordinary, seeing that my +hostess did not know it) who, she whispered to me, had come over, from +wherever it was (she did not seem to be very sure) principally to make my +acquaintance. Half through the evening, and by accident, I discovered my +mistake, but judged it too late to say anything then. I met a couple of +people I knew, had a little supper with them, and came away. The next +afternoon I met my right hostess—the lady who should have been my +hostess. She thanked me effusively for having sacrificed the previous +evening to her and her friends; she said she knew how seldom I went out: +that made her feel my kindness all the more. She told me that the +Brazilian Minister’s wife had told her that I was the cleverest man she +had ever met. I often think I should like to meet that man, whoever he +may be, and thank him. + +“But perhaps the butler does pronounce my name rightly, and perhaps my +hostess actually does recognize me. She smiles, and says she was so +afraid I was not coming. She implies that all the other guests are but +as a feather in her scales of joy compared with myself. I smile in +return, wondering to myself how I look when I do smile. I have never had +the courage to face my own smile in the looking-glass. I notice the +Society smile of other men, and it is not reassuring. I murmur something +about my not having been likely to forget this evening; in my turn, +seeking to imply that I have been looking forward to it for weeks. A few +men shine at this sort of thing, but they are a small percentage, and +without conceit I regard myself as no bigger a fool than the average +male. Not knowing what else to say, I tell her also that it is a warm +evening. She smiles archly as though there were some hidden witticism in +the remark, and I drift away, feeling ashamed of myself. To talk as an +idiot when you _are_ an idiot brings no discomfort; to behave as an idiot +when you have sufficient sense to know it, is painful. I hide myself in +the crowd, and perhaps I’ll meet a woman I was introduced to three weeks +ago at a picture gallery. We don’t know each other’s names, but, both of +us feeling lonesome, we converse, as it is called. If she be the +ordinary type of woman, she asks me if I am going on to the Johnsons’. I +tell her no. We stand silent for a moment, both thinking what next to +say. She asks me if I was at the Thompsons’ the day before yesterday. I +again tell her no. I begin to feel dissatisfied with myself that I was +not at the Thompsons’. Trying to get even with her, I ask her if she is +going to the Browns’ next Monday. (There are no Browns, she will have to +say, No.) She is not, and her tone suggests that a social stigma rests +upon the Browns. I ask her if she has been to Barnum’s Circus; she +hasn’t, but is going. I give her my impressions of Barnum’s Circus, +which are precisely the impressions of everybody else who has seen the +show. + +“Or if luck be against me, she is possibly a smart woman, that is to say, +her conversation is a running fire of spiteful remarks at the expense of +every one she knows, and of sneers at the expense of every one she +doesn’t. I always feel I could make a better woman myself, out of a +bottle of vinegar and a penn’orth of mixed pins. Yet it usually takes +one about ten minutes to get away from her. + +“Even when, by chance, one meets a flesh-and-blood man or woman at such +gatherings, it is not the time or place for real conversation; and as for +the shadows, what person in their senses would exhaust a single brain +cell upon such? I remember a discussion once concerning Tennyson, +considered as a social item. The dullest and most densely-stupid bore I +ever came across was telling how he had sat next to Tennyson at dinner. +‘I found him a most uninteresting man,’ so he confided to us; ‘he had +nothing to say for himself—absolutely nothing.’ I should like to +resuscitate Dr. Samuel Johnson for an evening, and throw him into one of +these ‘At Homes’ of yours.” + +My friend is an admitted misanthrope, as I have explained; but one cannot +dismiss him as altogether unjust. That there is a certain mystery about +Society’s craving for Society must be admitted. I stood one evening +trying to force my way into the supper room of a house in Berkeley +Square. A lady, hot and weary, a few yards in front of me was struggling +to the same goal. + +“Why,” remarked she to her companion, “why do we come to these places, +and fight like a Bank Holiday crowd for eighteenpenny-worth of food?” + +“We come here,” replied the man, whom I judged to be a philosopher, “to +say we’ve been here.” + +I met A— the other evening, and asked him to dine with me on Monday. I +don’t know why I ask A— to dine with me, but about once a month I do. He +is an uninteresting man. + +“I can’t,” he said, “I’ve got to go to the B—s’; confounded nuisance, it +will be infernally dull.” + +“Why go?” I asked. + +“I really don’t know,” he replied. + +A little later B— met me, and asked me to dine with him on Monday. + +“I can’t,” I answered, “some friends are coming to us that evening. It’s +a duty dinner, you know the sort of thing.” + +“I wish you could have managed it,” he said, “I shall have no one to talk +to. The A—s are coming, and they bore me to death.” + +“Why do you ask him?” I suggested. + +“Upon my word, I really don’t know,” he replied. + +But to return to our rooks. We were speaking of their social instincts. +Some dozen of them—the “scallywags” and bachelors of the community, I +judge them to be—have started a Club. For a month past I have been +trying to understand what the affair was. Now I know: it is a Club. + +And for their Club House they have chosen, of course, the tree nearest my +bedroom window. I can guess how that came about; it was my own fault, I +never thought of it. About two months ago, a single rook—suffering from +indigestion or an unhappy marriage, I know not—chose this tree one night +for purposes of reflection. He woke me up: I felt angry. I opened the +window, and threw an empty soda-water bottle at him. Of course it did +not hit him, and finding nothing else to throw, I shouted at him, +thinking to frighten him away. He took no notice, but went on talking to +himself. I shouted louder, and woke up my own dog. The dog barked +furiously, and woke up most things within a quarter of a mile. I had to +go down with a boot-jack—the only thing I could find handy—to soothe the +dog. Two hours later I fell asleep from exhaustion. I left the rook +still cawing. + +The next night he came again. I should say he was a bird with a sense of +humour. Thinking this might happen, I had, however, taken the precaution +to have a few stones ready. I opened the window wide, and fired them one +after another into the tree. After I had closed the window, he hopped +down nearer, and cawed louder than ever. I think he wanted me to throw +more stones at him: he appeared to regard the whole proceeding as a game. +On the third night, as I heard nothing of him, I flattered myself that, +in spite of his bravado, I had discouraged him. I might have known rooks +better. + +What happened when the Club was being formed, I take it, was this: + +“Where shall we fix upon for our Club House?” said the secretary, all +other points having been disposed of. One suggested this tree, another +suggested that. Then up spoke this particular rook: + +“I’ll tell you where,” said he, “in the yew tree opposite the porch. And +I’ll tell you for why. Just about an hour before dawn a man comes to the +window over the porch, dressed in the most comical costume you ever set +eyes upon. I’ll tell you what he reminds me of—those little statues that +men use for decorating fields. He opens the window, and throws a lot of +things out upon the lawn, and then he dances and sings. It’s awfully +interesting, and you can see it all from the yew tree.” + +That, I am convinced, is how the Club came to fix upon the tree next my +window. I have had the satisfaction of denying them the exhibition they +anticipated, and I cheer myself with the hope that they have visited +their disappointment upon their misleader. + +There is a difference between Rook Clubs and ours. In our clubs the +respectable members arrive early, and leave at a reasonable hour; in Rook +Clubs, it would appear, this principle is reversed. The Mad Hatter would +have liked this Club—it would have been a club after his own heart. It +opens at half-past two in the morning, and the first to arrive are the +most disreputable members. In Rook-land the rowdy-dowdy, randy-dandy, +rollicky-ranky boys get up very early in the morning and go to bed in the +afternoon. Towards dawn, the older, more orderly members drop in for +reasonable talk, and the Club becomes more respectable. The tree closes +about six. For the first two hours, however, the goings-on are +disgraceful. The proceedings, as often as not, open with a fight. If no +two gentlemen can be found to oblige with a fight, the next noisiest +thing to fall back upon is held to be a song. It is no satisfaction to +me to be told that rooks cannot sing. _I_ know that, without the trouble +of referring to the natural history book. It is the rook who does not +know it; _he_ thinks he can; and as a matter of fact, he does. You can +criticize his singing, you can call it what you like, but you can’t stop +it—at least, that is my experience. The song selected is sure to be one +with a chorus. Towards the end it becomes mainly chorus, unless the +soloist be an extra powerful bird, determined to insist upon his rights. + +The President knows nothing of this Club. He gets up himself about +seven—three hours after all the others have finished breakfast—and then +fusses round under the impression that he is waking up the colony, the +fat-headed old fool. He is the poorest thing in Presidents I have ever +heard of. A South American Republic would supply a better article. The +rooks themselves, the married majority, fathers of families, respectable +nestholders, are as indignant as I am. I hear complaints from all +quarters. + +Reflection comes to one as, towards the close of these chill afternoons +in early spring, one leans upon the paddock gate watching the noisy +bustling in the bare elms. + +So the earth is growing green again, and love is come again unto the +hearts of us old sober-coated fellows. Oh, Madam, your feathers gleam +wondrous black, and your bonnie bright eye stabs deep. Come, sit by our +side, and we’ll tell you a tale such as rook never told before. It’s the +tale of a nest in a topmost bough, that sways in the good west wind. +It’s strong without, but it’s soft within, where the little green eggs +lie safe. And there sits in that nest a lady sweet, and she caws with +joy, for, afar, she sees the rook she loves the best. Oh, he has been +east, and he has been west, and his crop it is full of worms and slugs, +and they are all for her. + +We are old, old rooks, so many of us. The white is mingling with the +purple black upon our breasts. We have seen these tall elms grow from +saplings; we have seen the old trees fall and die. Yet each season come +to us again the young thoughts. So we mate and build and gather that +again our old, old hearts may quiver to the thin cry of our newborn. + +Mother Nature has but one care, the children. We talk of Love as the +Lord of Life: it is but the Minister. Our novels end where Nature’s tale +begins. The drama that our curtain falls upon, is but the prologue to +her play. How the ancient Dame must laugh as she listens to the prattle +of her children. “Is Marriage a Failure?” “Is Life worth Living?” “The +New Woman _versus_ the Old.” So, perhaps, the waves of the Atlantic +discuss vehemently whether they shall flow east or west. + +Motherhood is the law of the Universe. The whole duty of man is to be a +mother. We labour: to what end? the children—the woman in the home, the +man in the community. The nation takes thought for its future: why? In +a few years its statesmen, its soldiers, its merchants, its toilers, will +be gathered unto their fathers. Why trouble we ourselves about the +future? The country pours its blood and treasure into the earth that the +children may reap. Foolish Jacques Bonhomie, his addled brain full of +dreams, rushes with bloody hands to give his blood for Liberty, Equality, +Fraternity. He will not live to see, except in vision, the new world he +gives his bones to build—even his spinning word-whipped head knows that. +But the children! they shall live sweeter lives. The peasant leaves his +fireside to die upon the battle-field. What is it to him, a grain in the +human sand, that Russia should conquer the East, that Germany should be +united, that the English flag should wave above new lands? the heritage +his fathers left him shall be greater for his sons. Patriotism! what is +it but the mother instinct of a people? + +Take it that the decree has gone forth from Heaven: There shall be no +more generations, with this life the world shall die. Think you we +should move another hand? The ships would rot in the harbours, the grain +would rot in the ground. Should we paint pictures, write books, make +music? hemmed in by that onward creeping sea of silence. Think you with +what eyes husband and wife would look on one another. Think you of the +wooing—the spring of Love dried up; love only a pool of stagnant water. + +How little we seem to realize this foundation of our life. Herein, if +nowhere else, lies our eternity. This Ego shall never die—unless the +human race from beginning to end be but a passing jest of the Gods, to be +swept aside when wearied of, leaving room for new experiments. These +features of mine—we will not discuss their æsthetic value—shall never +disappear; modified, varied, but in essential the same, they shall +continue in ever increasing circles to the end of Time. This temperament +of mine—this good and evil that is in me, it shall grow with every age, +spreading ever wider, combining, amalgamating. I go into my children and +my children’s children, I am eternal. I am they, they are I. The tree +withers and you clear the ground, thankful if out of its dead limbs you +can make good firewood; but its spirit, its life, is in fifty saplings. +The tree dies not, it changes. + +These men and women that pass me in the street, this one hurrying to his +office, this one to his club, another to his love, they are the mothers +of the world to come. + +This greedy trickster in stocks and shares, he cheats, he lies, he wrongs +all men—for what? Follow him to his luxurious home in the suburbs: what +do you find? A man with children on his knee, telling them stories, +promising them toys. His anxious, sordid life, for what object is it +lived? That these children may possess the things that he thinks good +for them. Our very vices, side by side with our virtues, spring from +this one root, Motherhood. It is the one seed of the Universe. The +planets are but children of the sun, the moon but an offspring of the +earth, stone of her stone, iron of her iron. What is the Great Centre of +us all, life animate and inanimate—if any life _be_ inanimate? Is the +eternal universe one dim figure, Motherhood, filling all space? + +This scheming Mother of Mayfair, angling for a rich son-in-law! Not a +pleasing portrait to look upon, from one point of view. Let us look at +it, for a moment, from another. How weary she must be! This is her +third “function” to-night; the paint is running off her poor face. She +has been snubbed a dozen times by her social superiors, openly insulted +by a Duchess; yet she bears it with a patient smile. It is a pitiful +ambition, hers: it is that her child shall marry money, shall have +carriages and many servants, live in Park Lane, wear diamonds, see her +name in the Society Papers. At whatever cost to herself, her daughter +shall, if possible, enjoy these things. She could so much more +comfortably go to bed, and leave the child to marry some well-to-do +commercial traveller. Justice, Reader, even for such. Her sordid +scheming is but the deformed child of Motherhood. + +Motherhood! it is the gamut of God’s orchestra, savageness and cruelty at +the one end, tenderness and self-sacrifice at the other. + +The sparrow-hawk fights the hen: he seeking food for his brood, she +defending hers with her life. The spider sucks the fly to feed its +myriad young; the cat tortures the mouse to give its still throbbing +carcase to her kittens, and man wrongs man for children’s sake. Perhaps +when the riot of the world reaches us whole, not broken, we shall learn +it is a harmony, each jangling discord fallen into its place around the +central theme, Motherhood. + + + + +ON THE INADVISABILITY OF FOLLOWING ADVICE + + +I WAS pacing the Euston platform late one winter’s night, waiting for the +last train to Watford, when I noticed a man cursing an automatic machine. +Twice he shook his fist at it. I expected every moment to see him strike +it. Naturally curious, I drew near softly. I wanted to catch what he +was saying. However, he heard my approaching footsteps, and turned on +me. “Are you the man,” said he, “who was here just now?” + +“Just where?” I replied. I had been pacing up and down the platform for +about five minutes. + +“Why here, where we are standing,” he snapped out. “Where do you think +‘here’ is—over there?” He seemed irritable. + +“I may have passed this spot in the course of my peregrinations, if that +is what you mean,” I replied. I spoke with studied politeness; my idea +was to rebuke his rudeness. + +“I mean,” he answered, “are you the man that spoke to me, just a minute +ago?” + +“I am not that man,” I said; “good-night.” + +“Are you sure?” he persisted. + +“One is not likely to forget talking to you,” I retorted. + +His tone had been most offensive. “I beg your pardon,” he replied +grudgingly. “I thought you looked like the man who spoke to me a minute +or so ago.” + +I felt mollified; he was the only other man on the platform, and I had a +quarter of an hour to wait. “No, it certainly wasn’t me,” I returned +genially, but ungrammatically. “Why, did you want him?” + +“Yes, I did,” he answered. “I put a penny in the slot here,” he +continued, feeling apparently the need of unburdening himself: “wanted a +box of matches. I couldn’t get anything put, and I was shaking the +machine, and swearing at it, as one does, when there came along a man, +about your size, and—you’re _sure_ it wasn’t you?” + +“Positive,” I again ungrammatically replied; “I would tell you if it had +been. What did he do?” + +“Well, he saw what had happened, or guessed it. He said, ‘They are +troublesome things, those machines; they want understanding.’ I said, +‘They want taking up and flinging into the sea, that’s what they want!’ +I was feeling mad because I hadn’t a match about me, and I use a lot. He +said, ‘They stick sometimes; the thing to do is to put another penny in; +the weight of the first penny is not always sufficient. The second penny +loosens the drawer and tumbles out itself; so that you get your purchase +together with your first penny back again. I have often succeeded that +way.’ Well, it seemed a silly explanation, but he talked as if he had +been weaned by an automatic machine, and I was sawney enough to listen to +him. I dropped in what I thought was another penny. I have just +discovered it was a two-shilling piece. The fool was right to a certain +extent; I have got something out. I have got this.” + +He held it towards me; I looked at it. It was a packet of Everton +toffee. + +“Two and a penny,” he remarked, bitterly. “I’ll sell it for a third of +what it cost me.” + +“You have put your money into the wrong machine,” I suggested. + +“Well, I know that!” he answered, a little crossly, as it seemed to me—he +was not a nice man: had there been any one else to talk to I should have +left him. “It isn’t losing the money I mind so much; it’s getting this +damn thing, that annoys me. If I could find that idiot Id ram it down +his throat.” + +We walked to the end of the platform, side by side, in silence. + +“There are people like that,” he broke out, as we turned, “people who +will go about, giving advice. I’ll be getting six months over one of +them, I’m always afraid. I remember a pony I had once.” (I judged the +man to be a small farmer; he talked in a wurzelly tone. I don’t know if +you understand what I mean, but an atmosphere of wurzels was the thing +that somehow he suggested.) “It was a thoroughbred Welsh pony, as sound +a little beast as ever stepped. I’d had him out to grass all the winter, +and one day in the early spring I thought I’d take him for a run. I had +to go to Amersham on business. I put him into the cart, and drove him +across; it is just ten miles from my place. He was a bit uppish, and had +lathered himself pretty freely by the time we reached the town. + +“A man was at the door of the hotel. He says, ‘That’s a good pony of +yours.’ + +“‘Pretty middling,’ I says. + +“‘It doesn’t do to over-drive ’em, when they’re young,’ he says. + +“I says, ‘He’s done ten miles, and I’ve done most of the pulling. I +reckon I’m a jolly sight more exhausted than he is. + +“I went inside and did my business, and when I came out the man was still +there. ‘Going back up the hill?’ he says to me. + +“Somehow, I didn’t cotton to him from the beginning. ‘Well, I’ve got to +get the other side of it,’ I says, ‘and unless you know any patent way of +getting over a hill without going up it, I reckon I am.’ + +“He says, ‘You take my advice: give him a pint of old ale before you +start.’ + +“‘Old ale,’ I says; ‘why he’s a teetotaler.’ + +“‘Never you mind that,’ he answers; ‘you give him a pint of old ale. I +know these ponies; he’s a good ’un, but he ain’t set. A pint of old ale, +and he’ll take you up that hill like a cable tramway, and not hurt +himself.’ + +“I don’t know what it is about this class of man. One asks oneself +afterwards why one didn’t knock his hat over his eyes and run his head +into the nearest horse-trough. But at the time one listens to them. I +got a pint of old ale in a hand-bowl, and brought it out. About +half-a-dozen chaps were standing round, and of course there was a good +deal of chaff. + +“‘You’re starting him on the downward course, Jim,’ says one of them. +‘He’ll take to gambling, rob a bank, and murder his mother. That’s +always the result of a glass of ale, ’cording to the tracts.’ + +“‘He won’t drink it like that,’ says another; ‘it’s as flat as ditch +water. Put a head on it for him.’ + +“‘Ain’t you got a cigar for him?’ says a third. + +“‘A cup of coffee and a round of buttered toast would do him a sight more +good, a cold day like this,’ says a fourth. + +“I’d half a mind then to throw the stuff away, or drink it myself; it +seemed a piece of bally nonsense, giving good ale to a four-year-old +pony; but the moment the beggar smelt the bowl he reached out his head, +and lapped it up as though he’d been a Christian; and I jumped into the +cart and started off, amid cheers. We got up the hill pretty steady. +Then the liquor began to work into his head. I’ve taken home a drunken +man more than once and there’s pleasanter jobs than that. I’ve seen a +drunken woman, and they’re worse. But a drunken Welsh pony I never want +to have anything more to do with so long as I live. Having four legs he +managed to hold himself up; but as to guiding himself, he couldn’t; and +as for letting me do it, he wouldn’t. First we were one side of the +road, and then we were the other. When we were not either side, we were +crossways in the middle. I heard a bicycle bell behind me, but I dared +not turn my head. All I could do was to shout to the fellow to keep +where he was. + +“‘I want to pass you,’ he sang out, so soon as he was near enough. + +“‘Well, you can’t do it,’ I called back. + +“‘Why can’t I?’ he answered. ‘How much of the road do _you_ want?’ + +“‘All of it and a bit over,’ I answered him, ‘for this job, and nothing +in the way.’ + +“He followed me for half-a-mile, abusing me; and every time he thought he +saw a chance he tried to pass me. But the pony was always a bit too +smart for him. You might have thought the brute was doing it on purpose. + +“‘You’re not fit to be driving,’ he shouted. He was quite right; I +wasn’t. I was feeling just about dead beat. + +“‘What do you think you are?’ he continued, ‘the charge of the Light +Brigade?’ (He was a common sort of fellow.) ‘Who sent _you_ home with +the washing?’ + +“Well, he was making me wild by this time. ‘What’s the good of talking +to me?’ I shouted back. ‘Come and blackguard the pony if you want to +blackguard anybody. I’ve got all I can do without the help of that alarm +clock of yours. Go away, you’re only making him worse.’ + +“‘What’s the matter with the pony?’ he called out. + +“‘Can’t you see?’ I answered. ‘He’s drunk.’ + +“Well, of course it sounded foolish; the truth often does. + +“‘One of you’s drunk,’ he retorted; ‘for two pins I’d come and haul you +out of the cart.’ + +“I wish to goodness he had; I’d have given something to be out of that +cart. But he didn’t have the chance. At that moment the pony gave a +sudden swerve; and I take it he must have been a bit too close. I heard +a yell and a curse, and at the same instant I was splashed from head to +foot with ditch water. Then the brute bolted. A man was coming along, +asleep on the top of a cart-load of windsor chairs. It’s disgraceful the +way those wagoners go to sleep; I wonder there are not more accidents. I +don’t think he ever knew what had happened to him. I couldn’t look round +to see what became of him; I only saw him start. Half-way down the hill +a policeman holla’d to me to stop. I heard him shouting out something +about furious driving. Half-a-mile this side of Chesham we came upon a +girls’ school walking two and two—a ‘crocodile’ they call it, I think. I +bet you those girls are still talking about it. It must have taken the +old woman a good hour to collect them together again. + +“It was market-day in Chesham; and I guess there has not been a busier +market-day in Chesham before or since. We went through the town at about +thirty miles an hour. I’ve never seen Chesham so lively—it’s a sleepy +hole as a rule. A mile outside the town I sighted the High Wycombe +coach. I didn’t feel I minded much; I had got to that pass when it +didn’t seem to matter to me what happened; I only felt curious. A dozen +yards off the coach the pony stopped dead; that jerked me off the seat to +the bottom of the cart. I couldn’t get up, because the seat was on top +of me. I could see nothing but the sky, and occasionally the head of the +pony, when he stood upon his hind legs. But I could hear what the driver +of the coach said, and I judged he was having trouble also. + +“‘Take that damn circus out of the road,’ he shouted. If he’d had any +sense he’d have seen how helpless I was. I could hear his cattle +plunging about; they are like that, horses—if they see one fool, then +they all want to be fools. + +“‘Take it home, and tie it up to its organ,’ shouted the guard. + +“Then an old woman went into hysterics, and began laughing like an hyena. +That started the pony off again, and, as far as I could calculate by +watching the clouds, we did about another four miles at the gallop. Then +he thought he’d try to jump a gate, and finding, I suppose, that the cart +hampered him, he started kicking it to pieces. I’d never have thought a +cart could have been separated into so many pieces, if I hadn’t seen it +done. When he had got rid of everything but half a wheel and the +splashboard he bolted again. I remained behind with the other ruins, and +glad I was to get a little rest. He came back later in the afternoon, +and I was pleased to sell him the next week for a five-pound-note: it +cost me about another ten to repair myself. + +“To this day I am chaffed about that pony, and the local temperance +society made a lecture out of me. That’s what comes of following +advice.” + +I sympathized with him. I have suffered from advice myself. I have a +friend, a City man, whom I meet occasionally. One of his most ardent +passions in life is to make my fortune. He button-holes me in +Threadneedle Street. “The very man I wanted to see,” he says; “I’m going +to let you in for a good thing. We are getting up a little syndicate.” +He is for ever “getting up” a little syndicate, and for every hundred +pounds you put into it you take a thousand out. Had I gone into all his +little syndicates, I could have been worth at the present moment, I +reckon, two million five hundred thousand pounds. But I have not gone +into all his little syndicates. I went into one, years ago, when I was +younger. I am still in it; my friend is confident that my holding, later +on, will yield me thousands. Being, however, hard-up for ready money, I +am willing to part with my share to any deserving person at a genuine +reduction, upon a cash basis. Another friend of mine knows another man +who is “in the know” as regards racing matters. I suppose most people +possess a friend of this type. He is generally very popular just before +a race, and extremely unpopular immediately afterwards. A third +benefactor of mine is an enthusiast upon the subject of diet. One day he +brought me something in a packet, and pressed it into my hand with the +air of a man who is relieving you of all your troubles. + +“What is it?” I asked. + +“Open it and see,” he answered, in the tone of a pantomime fairy. + +I opened it and looked, but I was no wiser. + +“It’s tea,” he explained. + +“Oh!” I replied; “I was wondering if it could be snuff.” + +“Well, it’s not exactly tea,” he continued, “it’s a sort of tea. You +take one cup of that—one cup, and you will never care for any other kind +of tea again.” + +He was quite right, I took one cup. After drinking it I felt I didn’t +care for any other tea. I felt I didn’t care for anything, except to die +quietly and inoffensively. He called on me a week later. + +“You remember that tea I gave you?” he said. + +“Distinctly,” I answered; “I’ve got the taste of it in my mouth now.” + +“Did it upset you?” he asked. + +“It annoyed me at the time,” I answered; “but that’s all over now.” + +He seemed thoughtful. “You were quite correct,” he answered; “it _was_ +snuff, a very special snuff, sent me all the way from India.” + +“I can’t say I liked it,” I replied. + +“A stupid mistake of mine,” he went on—“I must have mixed up the +packets!” + +“Oh, accidents will happen,” I said, “and you won’t make another mistake, +I feel sure; so far as I am concerned.” + +We can all give advice. I had the honour once of serving an old +gentleman whose profession it was to give legal advice, and excellent +legal advice he always gave. In common with most men who know the law, +he had little respect for it. I have heard him say to a would-be +litigant— + +“My dear sir, if a villain stopped me in the street and demanded of me my +watch and chain, I should refuse to give it to him. If he thereupon +said, ‘Then I shall take it from you by brute force,’ I should, old as I +am, I feel convinced, reply to him, ‘Come on.’ But if, on the other +hand, he were to say to me, ‘Very well, then I shall take proceedings +against you in the Court of Queen’s Bench to compel you to give it up to +me,’ I should at once take it from my pocket, press it into his hand, and +beg of him to say no more about the matter. And I should consider I was +getting off cheaply.” + +Yet that same old gentleman went to law himself with his next-door +neighbour over a dead poll parrot that wasn’t worth sixpence to anybody, +and spent from first to last a hundred pounds, if he spent a penny. + +“I know I’m a fool,” he confessed. “I have no positive proof that it +_was_ his cat; but I’ll make him pay for calling me an Old Bailey +Attorney, hanged if I don’t!” + +We all know how the pudding _ought_ to be made. We do not profess to be +able to make it: that is not our business. Our business is to criticize +the cook. It seems our business to criticize so many things that it is +not our business to do. We are all critics nowadays. I have my opinion +of you, Reader, and you possibly have your own opinion of me. I do not +seek to know it; personally, I prefer the man who says what he has to say +of me behind my back. I remember, when on a lecturing tour, the +ground-plan of the hall often necessitated my mingling with the audience +as they streamed out. This never happened but I would overhear somebody +in front of me whisper to his or her companion—“Take care, he’s just +behind you.” I always felt so grateful to that whisperer. + +At a Bohemian Club, I was once drinking coffee with a Novelist, who +happened to be a broad-shouldered, athletic man. A fellow-member, +joining us, said to the Novelist, “I have just finished that last book of +yours; I’ll tell you my candid opinion of it.” Promptly replied the +Novelist, “I give you fair warning—if you do, I shall punch your head.” +We never heard that candid opinion. + +Most of our leisure time we spend sneering at one another. It is a +wonder, going about as we do with our noses so high in the air, we do not +walk off this little round world into space, all of us. The Masses sneer +at the Classes. The morals of the Classes are shocking. If only the +Classes would consent as a body to be taught behaviour by a Committee of +the Masses, how very much better it would be for them. If only the +Classes would neglect their own interests and devote themselves to the +welfare of the Masses, the Masses would be more pleased with them. + +The Classes sneer at the Masses. If only the Masses would follow the +advice given them by the Classes; if only they would be thrifty on their +ten shillings a week; if only they would all be teetotalers, or drink old +claret, which is not intoxicating; if only all the girls would be +domestic servants on five pounds a year, and not waste their money on +feathers; if only the men would be content to work for fourteen hours a +day, and to sing in tune, “God bless the Squire and his relations,” and +would consent to be kept in their proper stations, all things would go +swimmingly—for the Classes. + +The New Woman pooh-poohs the Old; the Old Woman is indignant with the +New. The Chapel denounces the Stage; the Stage ridicules Little Bethel; +the Minor Poet sneers at the world; the world laughs at the Minor Poet. + +Man criticizes Woman. We are not altogether pleased with woman. We +discuss her shortcomings, we advise her for her good. If only English +wives would dress as French wives, talk as American wives, cook as German +wives! if only women would be precisely what we want them to be—patient +and hard-working, brilliantly witty and exhaustively domestic, +bewitching, amenable, and less suspicious; how very much better it would +be for them—also for us. We work so hard to teach them, but they will +not listen. Instead of paying attention to our wise counsel, the +tiresome creatures are wasting their time criticizing us. It is a +popular game, this game of school. All that is needful is a doorstep, a +cane, and six other children. The difficulty is the six other children. +Every child wants to be the schoolmaster; they will keep jumping up, +saying it is their turn. + +Woman wants to take the stick now, and put man on the doorstep. There +are one or two things she has got to say to him. He is not at all the +man she approves of. He must begin by getting rid of all his natural +desires and propensities; that done, she will take him in hand and make +of him—not a man, but something very much superior. + +It would be the best of all possible worlds if everybody would only +follow our advice. I wonder, would Jerusalem have been the cleanly city +it is reported, if, instead of troubling himself concerning his own +twopenny-halfpenny doorstep, each citizen had gone out into the road and +given eloquent lectures to all the other inhabitants on the subject of +sanitation? + +We have taken to criticizing the Creator Himself of late. The world is +wrong, we are wrong. If only He had taken our advice, during those first +six days! + +Why do I seem to have been scooped out and filled up with lead? Why do I +hate the smell of bacon, and feel that nobody cares for me? It is +because champagne and lobsters have been made wrong. + +Why do Edwin and Angelina quarrel? It is because Edwin has been given a +fine, high-spirited nature that will not brook contradiction; while +Angelina, poor girl, has been cursed with contradictory instincts. + +Why is excellent Mr. Jones brought down next door to beggary? Mr. Jones +had an income of a thousand a year, secured by the Funds. But there came +along a wicked Company promoter (why are wicked Company promoters +permitted?) with a prospectus, telling good Mr. Jones how to obtain a +hundred per cent. for his money by investing it in some scheme for the +swindling of Mr. Jones’s fellow-citizens. + +The scheme does not succeed; the people swindled turn out, contrary to +the promise of the prospectus, to be Mr. Jones and his fellow-investors. +Why does Heaven allow these wrongs? + +Why does Mrs. Brown leave her husband and children, to run off with the +New Doctor? It is because an ill-advised Creator has given Mrs. Brown +and the New Doctor unduly strong emotions. Neither Mrs. Brown nor the +New Doctor are to be blamed. If any human being be answerable it is, +probably, Mrs. Brown’s grandfather, or some early ancestor of the New +Doctor’s. + +We shall criticize Heaven when we get there. I doubt if any of us will +be pleased with the arrangements; we have grown so exceedingly critical. + +It was once said of a very superior young man that he seemed to be under +the impression that God Almighty had made the universe chiefly to hear +what he would say about it. Consciously or unconsciously, most of us are +of this way of thinking. It is an age of mutual improvement societies—a +delightful idea, everybody’s business being to improve everybody else; of +amateur parliaments, of literary councils, of playgoers’ clubs. + +First Night criticism seems to have died out of late, the Student of the +Drama having come to the conclusion, possibly, that plays are not worth +criticizing. But in my young days we were very earnest at this work. We +went to the play, less with the selfish desire of enjoying our evening, +than with the noble aim of elevating the Stage. Maybe we did good, maybe +we were needed—let us think so. Certain it is, many of the old +absurdities have disappeared from the Theatre, and our rough-and-ready +criticism may have helped the happy dispatch. A folly is often served by +an unwise remedy. + +The dramatist in those days had to reckon with his audience. Gallery and +Pit took an interest in his work such as Galleries and Pits no longer +take. I recollect witnessing the production of a very blood-curdling +melodrama at, I think, the old Queen’s Theatre. The heroine had been +given by the author a quite unnecessary amount of conversation, so we +considered. The woman, whenever she appeared on the stage, talked by the +yard; she could not do a simple little thing like cursing the Villain +under about twenty lines. When the hero asked her if she loved him she +stood up and made a speech about it that lasted three minutes by the +watch. One dreaded to see her open her mouth. In the Third Act, +somebody got hold of her and shut her up in a dungeon. He was not a nice +man, speaking generally, but we felt he was the man for the situation, +and the house cheered him to the echo. We flattered ourselves we had got +rid of her for the rest of the evening. Then some fool of a turnkey came +along, and she appealed to him, through the grating, to let her out for a +few minutes. The turnkey, a good but soft-hearted man, hesitated. + +“Don’t you do it,” shouted one earnest Student of the Drama, from the +Gallery; “she’s all right. Keep her there!” + +The old idiot paid no attention to our advice; he argued the matter to +himself. “’Tis but a trifling request,” he remarked; “and it will make +her happy.” + +“Yes, but what about us?” replied the same voice from the Gallery. “You +don’t know her. You’ve only just come on; we’ve been listening to her +all the evening. She’s quiet now, you let her be.” + +“Oh, let me out, if only for one moment!” shrieked the poor woman. “I +have something that I must say to my child.” + +“Write it on a bit of paper, and pass it out,” suggested a voice from the +Pit. “We’ll see that he gets it.” + +“Shall I keep a mother from her dying child?” mused the turnkey. “No, it +would be inhuman.” + +“No, it wouldn’t,” persisted the voice of the Pit; “not in this instance. +It’s too much talk that has made the poor child ill.” + +The turnkey would not be guided by us. He opened the cell door amidst +the execrations of the whole house. She talked to her child for about +five minutes, at the end of which time it died. + +“Ah, he is dead!” shrieked the distressed parent. + +“Lucky beggar!” was the unsympathetic rejoinder of the house. + +Sometimes the criticism of the audience would take the form of remarks, +addressed by one gentleman to another. We had been listening one night +to a play in which action seemed to be unnecessarily subordinated to +dialogue, and somewhat poor dialogue at that. Suddenly, across the +wearying talk from the stage, came the stentorian whisper— + +“Jim!” + +“Hallo!” + +“Wake me up when the play begins.” + +This was followed by an ostentatious sound as of snoring. Then the voice +of the second speaker was heard— + +“Sammy!” + +His friend appeared to awake. + +“Eh? Yes? What’s up? Has anything happened?” + +“Wake you up at half-past eleven in any event, I suppose?” + +“Thanks, do, sonny.” And the critic slept again. + +Yes, we took an interest in our plays then. I wonder shall I ever enjoy +the British Drama again as I enjoyed it in those days? Shall I ever +enjoy a supper again as I enjoyed the tripe and onions washed down with +bitter beer at the bar of the old Albion? I have tried many suppers +after the theatre since then, and some, when friends have been in +generous mood, have been expensive and elaborate. The cook may have come +from Paris, his portrait may be in the illustrated papers, his salary may +be reckoned by hundreds; but there is something wrong with his art, for +all that, I miss a flavour in his meats. There is a sauce lacking. + +Nature has her coinage, and demands payment in her own currency. At +Nature’s shop it is you yourself must pay. Your unearned increment, your +inherited fortune, your luck, are not legal tenders across her counter. + +You want a good appetite. Nature is quite willing to supply you. +“Certainly, sir,” she replies, “I can do you a very excellent article +indeed. I have here a real genuine hunger and thirst that will make your +meal a delight to you. You shall eat heartily and with zest, and you +shall rise from the table refreshed, invigorated, and cheerful.” + +“Just the very thing I want,” exclaims the gourmet delightedly. “Tell me +the price.” + +“The price,” answers Mrs. Nature, “is one long day’s hard work.” + +The customer’s face falls; he handles nervously his heavy purse. + +“Cannot I pay for it in money?” he asks. “I don’t like work, but I am a +rich man, I can afford to keep French cooks, to purchase old wines.” + +Nature shakes her head. + +“I cannot take your cheques, tissue and nerve are my charges. For these +I can give you an appetite that will make a rump-steak and a tankard of +ale more delicious to you than any dinner that the greatest _chef_ in +Europe could put before you. I can even promise you that a hunk of bread +and cheese shall be a banquet to you; but you must pay my price in my +money; I do not deal in yours.” + +And next the Dilettante enters, demanding a taste for Art and Literature, +and this also Nature is quite prepared to supply. + +“I can give you true delight in all these things,” she answers. “Music +shall be as wings to you, lifting you above the turmoil of the world. +Through Art you shall catch a glimpse of Truth. Along the pleasant paths +of Literature you shall walk as beside still waters.” + +“And your charge?” cries the delighted customer. + +“These things are somewhat expensive,” replies Nature. “I want from you +a life lived simply, free from all desire of worldly success, a life from +which passion has been lived out; a life to which appetite has been +subdued.” + +“But you mistake, my dear lady,” replies the Dilettante; “I have many +friends, possessed of taste, and they are men who do not pay this price +for it. Their houses are full of beautiful pictures, they rave about +‘nocturnes’ and ‘symphonies,’ their shelves are packed with first +editions. Yet they are men of luxury and wealth and fashion. They +trouble much concerning the making of money, and Society is their heaven. +Cannot I be as one of these?” + +“I do not deal in the tricks of apes,” answers Nature coldly; “the +culture of these friends of yours is a mere pose, a fashion of the hour, +their talk mere parrot chatter. Yes, you can purchase such culture as +this, and pretty cheaply, but a passion for skittles would be of more +service to you, and bring you more genuine enjoyment. My goods are of a +different class. I fear we waste each other’s time.” + +And next comes the boy, asking with a blush for love, and Nature’s +motherly old heart goes out to him, for it is an article she loves to +sell, and she loves those who come to purchase it of her. So she leans +across the counter, smiling, and tells him that she has the very thing he +wants, and he, trembling with excitement, likewise asks the figure. + +“It costs a good deal,” explains Nature, but in no discouraging tone; “it +is the most expensive thing in all my shop.” + +“I am rich,” replies the lad. “My father worked hard and saved, and he +has left me all his wealth. I have stocks and shares, and lands and +factories; and will pay any price in reason for this thing.” + +But Nature, looking graver, lays her hand upon his arm. + +“Put by your purse, boy,” she says, “my price is not a price in reason, +nor is gold the metal that I deal in. There are many shops in various +streets where your bank-notes will be accepted. But if you will take an +old woman’s advice, you will not go to them. The thing they will sell +you will bring sorrow and do evil to you. It is cheap enough, but, like +all things cheap, it is not worth the buying. No man purchases it, only +the fool.” + +“And what is the cost of the thing _you_ sell then?” asks the lad. + +“Self-forgetfulness, tenderness, strength,” answers the old Dame; “the +love of all things that are of good repute, the hate of all things +evil—courage, sympathy, self-respect, these things purchase love. Put by +your purse, lad, it will serve you in other ways, but it will not buy for +you the goods upon my shelves.” + +“Then am I no better off than the poor man?” demands the lad. + +“I know not wealth or poverty as you understand it,” answers Nature. +“Here I exchange realities only for realities. You ask for my treasures, +I ask for your brain and heart in exchange—yours, boy, not your father’s, +not another’s.” + +“And this price,” he argues, “how shall I obtain it?” + +“Go about the world,” replies the great Lady. “Labour, suffer, help. +Come back to me when you have earned your wages, and according to how +much you bring me so we will do business.” + +Is real wealth so unevenly distributed as we think? Is not Fate the true +Socialist? Who is the rich man, who the poor? Do we know? Does even +the man himself know? Are we not striving for the shadow, missing the +substance? Take life at its highest; which was the happier man, rich +Solomon or poor Socrates? Solomon seems to have had most things that +most men most desire—maybe too much of some for his own comfort. +Socrates had little beyond what he carried about with him, but that was a +good deal. According to our scales, Solomon should have been one of the +happiest men that ever lived, Socrates one of the most wretched. But was +it so? + +Or taking life at its lowest, with pleasure its only goal. Is my lord +Tom Noddy, in the stalls, so very much jollier than ’Arry in the gallery? +Were beer ten shillings the bottle, and champagne fourpence a quart, +which, think you, we should clamour for? If every West End Club had its +skittle alley, and billiards could only be played in East End pubs, which +game, my lord, would you select? Is the air of Berkeley Square so much +more joy-giving than the atmosphere of Seven Dials? I find myself a +piquancy in the air of Seven Dials, missing from Berkeley Square. Is +there so vast a difference between horse-hair and straw, when you are +tired? Is happiness multiplied by the number of rooms in one’s house? +Are Lady Ermintrude’s lips so very much sweeter than Sally’s of the +Alley? What _is_ success in life? + + + + +ON THE PLAYING OF MARCHES AT THE FUNERALS OF MARIONETTES + + +HE began the day badly. He took me out and lost me. It would be so much +better, would he consent to the usual arrangement, and allow me to take +him out. I am far the abler leader: I say it without conceit. I am +older than he is, and I am less excitable. I do not stop and talk with +every person I meet, and then forget where I am. I do less to distract +myself: I rarely fight, I never feel I want to run after cats, I take but +little pleasure in frightening children. I have nothing to think about +but the walk, and the getting home again. If, as I say, he would give up +taking me out, and let me take him out, there would be less trouble all +round. But into this I have never been able to persuade him. + +He had mislaid me once or twice, but in Sloane Square he lost me +entirely. When he loses me, he stands and barks for me. If only he +would remain where he first barked, I might find my way to him; but, +before I can cross the road, he is barking half-way down the next street. +I am not so young as I was and I sometimes think he exercises me more +than is good for me. I could see him from where I was standing in the +King’s Road. Evidently he was most indignant. I was too far off to +distinguish the barks, but I could guess what he was saying— + +“Damn that man, he’s off again.” + +He made inquiries of a passing dog— + +“You haven’t smelt my man about anywhere, have you?” + +(A dog, of course, would never speak of _seeing_ anybody or anything, +smell being his leading sense. Reaching the top of a hill, he would say +to his companion—“Lovely smell from here, I always think; I could sit and +sniff here all the afternoon.” Or, proposing a walk, he would say—“I +like the road by the canal, don’t you? There’s something interesting to +catch your nose at every turn.”) + +“No, I haven’t smelt any man in particular,” answered the other dog. +“What sort of a smelling man is yours?” + +“Oh, an egg-and-bacony sort of a man, with a dash of soap about him.” + +“That’s nothing to go by,” retorted the other; “most men would answer to +that description, this time of the morning. Where were you when you last +noticed him?” + +At this moment he caught sight of me, and came up, pleased to find me, +but vexed with me for having got lost. + +“Oh, here you are,” he barked; “didn’t you see me go round the corner? +Do keep closer. Bothered if half my time isn’t taken up, finding you and +losing you again.” + +The incident appeared to have made him bad-tempered; he was just in the +humour for a row of any sort. At the top of Sloane Street a stout +military-looking gentleman started running after the Chelsea bus. With a +“Hooroo” William Smith was after him. Had the old gentleman taken no +notice, all would have been well. A butcher boy, driving just behind, +would—I could read it in his eye—have caught Smith a flick as he darted +into the road, which would have served him right; the old gentleman would +have captured his bus; and the affair would have been ended. +Unfortunately, he was that type of retired military man all gout and +curry and no sense. He stopped to swear at the dog. That, of course, +was what Smith wanted. It is not often he gets a scrimmage with a +full-grown man. “They’re a poor-spirited lot, most of them,” he thinks; +“they won’t even answer you back. I like a man who shows a bit of +pluck.” He was frenzied with delight at his success. He flew round his +victim, weaving whooping circles and curves that paralyzed the old +gentleman as though they had been the mystic figures of a Merlin. The +colonel clubbed his umbrella, and attempted to defend himself. I called +to the dog, I gave good advice to the colonel (I judged him to be a +colonel; the louder he spoke, the less one could understand him), but +both were too excited to listen to me. A sympathetic bus driver leaned +over, and whispered hoarse counsel. + +“Ketch ’im by the tail, sir,” he advised the old gentleman; “don’t you be +afraid of him; you ketch ’im firmly by the tail.” + +A milkman, on the other hand, sought rather to encourage Smith, shouting +as he passed— + +“Good dog, kill him!” + +A child, brained within an inch by the old gentleman’s umbrella, began to +cry. The nurse told the old gentleman he was a fool—a remark which +struck me as singularly apt The old gentleman gasped back that +perambulators were illegal on the pavement; and, between his exercises, +inquired after myself. A crowd began to collect; and a policeman +strolled up. + +It was not the right thing: I do not defend myself; but, at this point, +the temptation came to me to desert William Smith. He likes a street +row, I don’t. These things are matters of temperament. I have also +noticed that he has the happy instinct of knowing when to disappear from +a crisis, and the ability to do so; mysteriously turning up, quarter of a +mile off, clad in a peaceful and pre-occupied air, and to all appearances +another and a better dog. + +Consoling myself with the reflection that I could be of no practical +assistance to him and remembering with some satisfaction that, by a +fortunate accident, he was without his collar, which bears my name and +address, I slipped round the off side of a Vauxhall bus, making no +attempt at ostentation, and worked my way home through Lowndes Square and +the Park. + +Five minutes after I had sat down to lunch, he flung open the dining-room +door, and marched in. It is his customary “entrance.” In a previous +state of existence, his soul was probably that of an Actor-Manager. + +From his exuberant self-satisfaction, I was inclined to think he must +have succeeded in following the milkman’s advice; at all events, I have +not seen the colonel since. His bad temper had disappeared, but his +“uppishness” had, if possible, increased. Previous to his return, I had +given The O’Shannon a biscuit. The O’Shannon had been insulted; he did +not want a dog biscuit; if he could not have a grilled kidney he did not +want anything. He had thrown the biscuit on the floor. Smith saw it and +made for it. Now Smith never eats biscuits. I give him one +occasionally, and he at once proceeds to hide it. He is a thrifty dog; +he thinks of the future. “You never know what may happen,” he says; +“suppose the Guv’nor dies, or goes mad, or bankrupt, I may be glad even +of this biscuit; I’ll put it under the door-mat—no, I won’t, somebody +will find it there. I’ll scratch a hole in the tennis lawn, and bury it +there. That’s a good idea; perhaps it’ll grow!” Once I caught him +hiding it in my study, behind the shelf devoted to my own books. It +offended me, his doing that; the argument was so palpable. Generally, +wherever he hides it somebody finds it. We find it under our +pillows—inside our boots; no place seems safe. This time he had said to +himself—“By Jove! a whole row of the Guv’nor’s books. Nobody will ever +want to take these out; I’ll hide it here.” One feels a thing like that +from one’s own dog. + +But The O’Shannon’s biscuit was another matter. Honesty is the best +policy; but dishonesty is the better fun. He made a dash for it, and +commenced to devour it greedily; you might have thought he had not tasted +food for a week. + +The indignation of The O’Shannon was a sight for the gods. He has the +good-nature of his race: had Smith asked him for the biscuit he would +probably have given it to him; it was the insult—the immorality of the +proceeding, that maddened The O’Shannon. + +For a moment he was paralyzed. + +“Well, of all the— Did ye see that now?” he said to me with his eyes. +Then he made a rush and snatched the biscuit out of Smith’s very jaws. +“Ye onprincipled black Saxon thief,” growled The O’Shannon; “how dare ye +take my biscuit?” + +“You miserable Irish cur,” growled Smith; “how was I to know it was your +biscuit? Does everything on the floor belong to you? Perhaps you think +I belong to you, I’m on the floor. I don’t believe it is your biscuit, +you long-eared, snubbed-nosed bog-trotter; give it me back.” + +“I don’t require any of your argument, you flop-eared son of a tramp with +half a tail,” replied The O’Shannon. “You come and take it, if you think +you are dog enough.” + +He did think he was dog enough. He is half the size of The O’Shannon, +but such considerations weigh not with him. His argument is, if a dog is +too big for you to fight the whole of him, take a bit of him and fight +that. He generally gets licked, but what is left of him invariably +swaggers about afterwards under the impression it is the victor. When he +is dead, he will say to himself, as he settles himself in his +grave—“Well, I flatter myself I’ve laid out that old world at last. It +won’t trouble _me_ any more, I’m thinking.” + +On this occasion, _I_ took a hand in the fight. It becomes necessary at +intervals to remind Master Smith that the man, as the useful and faithful +friend of dog, has his rights. I deemed such interval had arrived. He +flung himself on to the sofa, muttering. It sounded like—“Wish I’d never +got up this morning. Nobody understands me.” + +Nothing, however, sobers him for long. Half-an-hour later, he was +killing the next-door cat. He will never learn sense; he has been +killing that cat for the last three months. Why the next morning his +nose is invariably twice its natural size, while for the next week he can +see objects on one side of his head only, he never seems to grasp; I +suppose he attributes it to change in the weather. + +He ended up the afternoon with what he no doubt regarded as a complete +and satisfying success. Dorothea had invited a lady to take tea with her +that day. I heard the sound of laughter, and, being near the nursery, I +looked in to see what was the joke. Smith was worrying a doll. I have +rarely seen a more worried-looking doll. Its head was off, and its +sawdust strewed the floor. Both the children were crowing with delight; +Dorothea, in particular, was in an ecstasy of amusement. + +“Whose doll is it?” I asked. + +“Eva’s,” answered Dorothea, between her peals of laughter. + +“Oh no, it isn’t,” explained Eva, in a tone of sweet content; “here’s my +doll.” She had been sitting on it, and now drew it forth, warm but whole. +“That’s Dorry’s doll.” + +The change from joy to grief on the part of Dorothea was distinctly +dramatic. Even Smith, accustomed to storm, was nonplussed at the +suddenness of the attack upon him. + +Dorothea’s sorrow lasted longer than I had expected. I promised her +another doll. But it seemed she did not want another; that was the only +doll she would ever care for so long as life lasted; no other doll could +ever take its place; no other doll would be to her what that doll had +been. These little people are so absurd: as if it could matter whether +you loved one doll or another, when all are so much alike! They have +curly hair, and pink-and-white complexions, big eyes that open and shut, +a little red mouth, two little hands. Yet these foolish little people! +they will love one, while another they will not look upon. I find the +best plan is not to reason with them, but to sympathize. Later on—but +not too soon—introduce to them another doll. They will not care for it +at first, but in time they will come to take an interest in it. Of +course, it cannot make them forget the first doll; no doll ever born in +Lowther Arcadia could be as that, but still— It is many weeks before +they forget entirely the first love. + +We buried Dolly in the country under the yew tree. A friend of mine who +plays the fiddle came down on purpose to assist. We buried her in the +hot spring sunshine, while the birds from shady nooks sang joyously of +life and love. And our chief mourner cried real tears, just for all the +world as though it were not the fate of dolls, sooner or later, to get +broken—the little fragile things, made for an hour, to be dressed and +kissed; then, paintless and stript, to be thrown aside on the nursery +floor. Poor little dolls! I wonder do they take themselves seriously, +not knowing the springs that stir their sawdust bosoms are but clockwork, +not seeing the wires to which they dance? Poor little marionettes! do +they talk together, I wonder, when the lights of the booth are out? + +You, little sister doll, were the heroine. You lived in the white-washed +cottage, all honeysuckle and clematis without—earwiggy and damp within, +maybe. How pretty you always looked in your simple, neatly-fitting print +dress. How good you were! How nobly you bore your poverty. How patient +you were under your many wrongs. You never harboured an evil thought, a +revengeful wish—never, little doll? Were there never moments when you +longed to play the wicked woman’s part, live in a room with many doors, +be-clad in furs and jewels, with lovers galore at your feet? In those +long winter evenings? the household work is done—the greasy dishes +washed, the floor scrubbed; the excellent child is asleep in the corner; +the one-and-elevenpenny lamp sheds its dismal light on the darned +table-cloth; you sit, busy at your coarse sewing, waiting for Hero Dick, +knowing—guessing, at least, where he is—! Yes, dear, I remember your +fine speeches, when you told her, in stirring language the gallery +cheered to the echo, what you thought of her and of such women as she; +when, lifting your hand to heaven, you declared you were happier in your +attic, working your fingers to the bone, than she in her gilded salon—I +think “gilded salon” was the term, was it not?—furnished by sin. But +speaking of yourself, weak little sister doll, not of your fine speeches, +the gallery listening, did you not, in your secret heart, envy her? Did +you never, before blowing out the one candle, stand for a minute in front +of the cracked glass, and think to yourself that you, too, would look +well in low-cut dresses from Paris, the diamonds flashing on your white +smooth skin? Did you never, toiling home through the mud, bearing your +bundle of needlework, feel bitter with the wages of virtue, as she +splashed you, passing by in her carriage? Alone, over your cup of weak +tea, did you never feel tempted to pay the price for champagne suppers, +and gaiety, and admiration? Ah, yes, it is easy for folks who have had +their good time, to prepare copybooks for weary little inkstained +fingers, longing for play. The fine maxims sound such cant when we are +in that mood, do they not? You, too, were young and handsome: did the +author of the play think you were never hungry for the good things of +life? Did he think that reading tracts to crotchety old women was joy to +a full-blooded girl in her twenties? Why should _she_ have all the love, +and all the laughter? How fortunate that the villain, the Wicked +Baronet, never opened the cottage door at that moment, eh, dear! He +always came when you were strong, when you felt that you could denounce +him, and scorn his temptations. Would that the villain came to all of us +at such time; then we would all, perhaps, be heroes and heroines. + +Ah well, it was only a play: it is over now. You and I, little tired +dolls, lying here side by side, waiting to know our next part, we can +look back and laugh. Where is she, this wicked dolly, that made such a +stir on our tiny stage? Ah, here you are, Madam; I thought you could not +be far; they have thrown us all into this corner together. But how +changed you are, Dolly: your paint rubbed off, your golden hair worn to a +wisp. No wonder; it was a trying part you had to play. How tired you +must have grown of the glare and the glitter! And even hope was denied +you. The peace you so longed for you knew you had lost the power to +enjoy. Like the girl bewitched in the fairy tale, you knew you must +dance ever faster and faster, with limbs growing palsied, with face +growing ashen, and hair growing grey, till Death should come to release +you; and your only prayer was he might come ere your dancing grew comic. + +Like the smell of the roses to Nancy, hawking them through the hot +streets, must the stifling atmosphere of love have been to you. The song +of passion, how monotonous in your ears, sung now by the young and now by +the old; now shouted, now whined, now shrieked; but ever the one strident +tune. Do you remember when first you heard it? You dreamt it the +morning hymn of Heaven. You came to think it the dance music of Hell, +ground from a cracked hurdy-gurdy, lent out by the Devil on hire. + +An evil race we must have seemed to you, Dolly Faustine, as to some Old +Bailey lawyer. You saw but one side of us. You lived in a world upside +down, where the leaves and the blossoms were hidden, and only the roots +saw your day. You imagined the worm-beslimed fibres the plant, and all +things beautiful you deemed cant. Chivalry, love, honour! how you +laughed at the lying words. You knew the truth—as you thought: aye, half +the truth. We were swine while your spell was upon us, Daughter of +Circe, and you, not knowing your island secret, deemed it our natural +shape. + +No wonder, Dolly, your battered waxen face is stamped with an angry +sneer. The Hero, who eventually came into his estates amid the plaudits +of the Pit, while you were left to die in the streets! you remembered, +but the house had forgotten those earlier scenes in always wicked Paris. +The good friend of the family, the breezy man of the world, the _Deus ex +Machina_ of the play, who was so good to everybody, whom everybody loved! +aye, _you_ loved him once—but that was in the Prologue. In the Play +proper, he was respectable. (How you loathed that word, that meant to +you all you vainly longed for!) To him the Prologue was a period past +and dead; a memory, giving flavour to his life. To you, it was the First +Act of the Play, shaping all the others. His sins the house had +forgotten: at yours, they held up their hands in horror. No wonder the +sneer lies on your waxen lips. + +Never mind, Dolly; it was a stupid house. Next time, perhaps, you will +play a better part; and then they will cheer, instead of hissing you. +You were wasted, I am inclined to think, on modern comedy. You should +have been cast for the heroine of some old-world tragedy. The strength +of character, the courage, the power of self-forgetfulness, the +enthusiasm were yours: it was the part that was lacking. You might have +worn the mantle of a Judith, a Boadicea, or a Jeanne d’Arc, had such +plays been popular in your time. Perhaps they, had they played in your +day, might have had to be content with such a part as yours. They could +not have played the meek heroine, and what else would there have been for +them in modern drama? Catherine of Russia! had she been a waiter’s +daughter in the days of the Second Empire, should we have called her +Great? The Magdalene! had her lodging in those days been in some +bye-street of Rome instead of in Jerusalem, should we mention her name in +our churches? + +You were necessary, you see, Dolly, to the piece. We cannot all play +heroes and heroines. There must be wicked people in the play, or it +would not interest. Think of it, Dolly, a play where all the women were +virtuous, all the men honest! We might close the booth; the world would +be as dull as an oyster-bed. Without you wicked folk there would be no +good. How should we have known and honoured the heroine’s worth, but by +contrast with your worthlessness? Where would have been her fine +speeches, but for you to listen to them? Where lay the hero’s strength, +but in resisting temptation of you? Had not you and the Wicked Baronet +between you robbed him of his estates, falsely accused him of crime, he +would have lived to the end of the play an idle, unheroic, incomplete +existence. You brought him down to poverty; you made him earn his own +bread—a most excellent thing for him; gave him the opportunity to play +the man. But for your conduct in the Prologue, of what value would have +been that fine scene at the end of the Third Act, that stirred the house +to tears and laughter? You and your accomplice, the Wicked Baronet, made +the play possible. How would Pit and Gallery have known they were +virtuous, but for the indignation that came to them, watching your +misdeeds? Pity, sympathy, excitement, all that goes to the making of a +play, you were necessary for. It was ungrateful of the house to hiss +you. + +And you, Mr. Merryman, the painted grin worn from your pale lips, you too +were dissatisfied, if I remember rightly, with your part. You wanted to +make the people cry, not laugh. Was it a higher ambition? The poor +tired people! so much happens in their life to make them weep, is it not +good sport to make them merry for awhile? Do you remember that old soul +in the front row of the Pit? How she laughed when you sat down on the +pie! I thought she would have to be carried out. I heard her talking to +her companion as they passed the stage-door on their way home. “I have +not laughed, my dear, till to-night,” she was saying, the good, gay tears +still in her eyes, “since the day poor Sally died.” Was not that alone +worth the old stale tricks you so hated? Aye, they were commonplace and +conventional, those antics of yours that made us laugh; are not the +antics that make us weep commonplace and conventional also? Are not all +the plays, played since the booth was opened, but of one pattern, the +plot old-fashioned now, the scenes now commonplace? Hero, villain, +cynic—are their parts so much the fresher? The love duets, are they so +very new? The death-bed scenes, would you call them _un_commonplace? +Hate, and Evil, and Wrong—are _their_ voices new to the booth? What are +you waiting for, people? a play with a plot that is novel, with +characters that have never strutted before? It will be ready for you, +perhaps, when you are ready for it, with new tears and new laughter. + +You, Mr. Merryman, were the true philosopher. You saved us from +forgetting the reality when the fiction grew somewhat strenuous. How we +all applauded your gag in answer to the hero, when, bewailing his sad +fate, he demanded of Heaven how much longer he was to suffer evil +fortune. “Well, there cannot be much more of it in store for you,” you +answered him; “it’s nearly nine o’clock already, and the show closes at +ten.” And true to your prophecy the curtain fell at the time appointed, +and his troubles were of the past. You showed us the truth behind the +mask. When pompous Lord Shallow, in ermine and wig, went to take his +seat amid the fawning crowd, you pulled the chair from under him, and +down he sat plump on the floor. His robe flew open, his wig flew off. +No longer he awed us. His aped dignity fell from him; we saw him a +stupid-eyed, bald little man; he imposed no longer upon us. It is your +fool who is the only true wise man. + +Yours was the best part in the play, Brother Merryman, had you and the +audience but known it. But you dreamt of a showier part, where you loved +and fought. I have heard you now and again, when you did not know I was +near, shouting with sword in hand before your looking-glass. You had +thrown your motley aside to don a dingy red coat; you were the hero of +the play, you performed the gallant deeds, you made the noble speeches. +I wonder what the play would be like, were we all to write our own parts. +There would be no clowns, no singing chambermaids. We would all be +playing lead in the centre of the stage, with the lime-light exclusively +devoted to ourselves. Would it not be so? + +What grand acting parts they are, these characters we write for ourselves +alone in our dressing-rooms. We are always brave and noble—wicked +sometimes, but if so, in a great, high-minded way; never in a mean or +little way. What wondrous deeds we do, while the house looks on and +marvels. Now we are soldiers, leading armies to victory. What if we +die: it is in the hour of triumph, and a nation is left to mourn. Not in +some forgotten skirmish do we ever fall; not for some “affair of +outposts” do we give our blood, our very name unmentioned in the +dispatches home. Now we are passionate lovers, well losing a world for +love—a very different thing to being a laughter-provoking co-respondent +in a sordid divorce case. + +And the house is always crowded when we play. Our fine speeches always +fall on sympathetic ears, our brave deeds are noted and applauded. It is +so different in the real performance. So often we play our parts to +empty benches, or if a thin house be present, they misunderstand, and +laugh at the pathetic passages. And when our finest opportunity comes, +the royal box, in which _he_ or _she_ should be present to watch us, is +vacant. + +Poor little dolls, how seriously we take ourselves, not knowing the +springs that stir our bosoms are but clockwork, not seeing the wires to +which we dance. Poor little marionettes, shall we talk together, I +wonder, when the lights of the booth are out? + +We are little wax dollies with hearts. We are little tin soldiers with +souls. Oh, King of many toys, are you merely playing with us? _Is_ it +only clockwork within us, this thing that throbs and aches? Have you +wound us up but to let us run down? Will you wind us again to-morrow, or +leave us here to rust? _Is_ it only clockwork to which we respond and +quiver? Now we laugh, now we cry, now we dance; our little arms go out +to clasp one another, our little lips kiss, then say good-bye. We +strive, and we strain, and we struggle. We reach now for gold, now for +laurel. We call it desire and ambition: are they only wires that you +play? Will you throw the clockwork aside, or use it again, O Master? + +The lights of the booth grow dim. The springs are broken that kept our +eyes awake. The wire that held us erect is snapped, and helpless we fall +in a heap on the stage. Oh, brother and sister dollies we played beside, +where are you? Why is it so dark and silent? Why are we being put into +this black box? And hark! the little doll orchestra—how far away the +music sounds! what is it they are playing:— + + [Picture: First few bars of Gounod’s Funeral March of a Marionette] + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECOND THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE +FELLOW*** + + +******* This file should be named 1915-0.txt or 1915-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/1/1915 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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