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diff --git a/old/ytagn10.txt b/old/ytagn10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ebef0f8 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/ytagn10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6001 @@ +***The Project Gutenberg Etext of Yet Again, by Max Beerbohm*** +#8 in our series by Max Beerbohm + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This e-text was prepared by Tom Weiss (tom@iname.com) + + + + + +Yet Again + +by Max Beerbohm + + + + +Till I gave myself the task of making a little selection from what I +had written since last I formed a book of essays, I had no notion that +I had put, as it were, my eggs into so many baskets--The Saturday +Review, The New Quarterly, The New Liberal Review, Vanity Fair, The +Daily Mail, Literature, The Traveller, The Pall Mall Magazine, The May +Book, The Souvenir Book of Charing Cross Hospital Bazaar, The Cornhill +Magazine, Harper's Magazine, and The Anglo-Saxon Review...Ouf! But the +sigh of relief that I heave at the end of the list is accompanied by a +smile of thanks to the various authorities for letting me use here +what they were so good as to require. + +M. B. + + + +CONTENTS + +THE FIRE +SEEING PEOPLE OFF +A MEMORY OF A MIDNIGHT EXPRESS +PORRO UNUM... +A CLUB IN RUINS +`273' +A STUDY IN DEJECTION +A PATHETIC IMPOSTURE +THE DECLINE OF THE GRACES +WHISTLER'S WRITING +ICHABOD +GENERAL ELECTIONS +A PARALLEL +A MORRIS FOR MAY-DAY +THE HOUSE OF COMMONS MANNER +THE NAMING OF STREETS +ON SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHDAY +A HOME-COMING +`THE RAGGED REGIMENT' +THE HUMOUR OF THE PUBLIC +DULCEDO JUDICIORUM + + +WORDS FOR PICTURES + +`HARLEQUIN' +`THE GARDEN OF LOVE' +`ARIANE ET DIONYSE' +`PETER THE DOMINICAN' +`L' OISEAU BLEU' +`MACBETH AND THE WITCHES' +`CARLOTTA GRISI' +`HO-TEI' +`THE VISIT' + + + +THE FIRE + +If I were `seeing over' a house, and found in every room an iron cage +let into the wall, and were told by the caretaker that these cages +were for me to keep lions in, I think I should open my eyes rather +wide. Yet nothing seems to me more natural than a fire in the grate. + +Doubtless, when I began to walk, one of my first excursions was to the +fender, that I might gaze more nearly at the live thing roaring and +raging behind it; and I dare say I dimly wondered by what blessed +dispensation this creature was allowed in a domain so peaceful as my +nursery. I do not think I ever needed to be warned against scaling the +fender. I knew by instinct that the creature within it was dangerous-- +fiercer still than the cat which had once strayed into the room and +scratched me for my advances. As I grew older, I ceased to wonder at +the creature's presence and learned to call it `the fire,' quite +lightly. There are so many queer things in the world that we have no +time to go on wondering at the queerness of the things we see +habitually. It is not that these things are in themselves less queer +than they at first seemed to us. It is that our vision of them has +been dimmed. We are lucky when by some chance we see again, for a +fleeting moment, this thing or that as we saw it when it first came +within our ken. We are in the habit of saying that `first impressions +are best,' and that we must approach every question `with an open +mind'; but we shirk the logical conclusion that we were wiser in our +infancy than we are now. `Make yourself even as a little child' we +often say, but recommending the process on moral rather than on +intellectual grounds, and inwardly preening ourselves all the while on +having `put away childish things,' as though clarity of vision were +not one of them. + +I look around the room I am writing in--a pleasant room, and my own, +yet how irresponsive, how smug and lifeless! The pattern of the +wallpaper blamelessly repeats itself from wainscote to cornice; and +the pictures are immobile and changeless within their glazed frames-- +faint, flat mimicries of life. The chairs and tables are just as their +carpenter fashioned them, and stand with stiff obedience just where +they have been posted. On one side of the room, encased in coverings +of cloth and leather, are myriads of words, which to some people, but +not to me, are a fair substitute for human company. All around me, in +fact, are the products of modern civilisation. But in the whole room +there are but three things living: myself, my dog, and the fire in my +grate. And of these lives the third is very much the most intensely +vivid. My dog is descended, doubtless, from prehistoric wolves; but +you could hardly decipher his pedigree on his mild, domesticated face. +My dog is as tame as his master (in whose veins flows the blood of the +old cavemen). But time has not tamed fire. Fire is as wild a thing as +when Prometheus snatched it from the empyrean. Fire in my grate is as +fierce and terrible a thing as when it was lit by my ancestors, night +after night, at the mouths of their caves, to scare away the ancestors +of my dog. And my dog regards it with the old wonder and misgiving. +Even in his sleep he opens ever and again one eye to see that we are +in no danger. And the fire glowers and roars through its bars at him +with the scorn that a wild beast must needs have for a tame one. `You +are free,' it rages, `and yet you do not spring at that man's throat +and tear him limb from limb and make a meal of him! `and, gazing at +me, it licks its red lips; and I, laughing good-humouredly, rise and +give the monster a shovelful of its proper food, which it leaps at and +noisily devours. + +Fire is the only one of the elements that inspires awe. We breathe +air, tread earth, bathe in water. Fire alone we approach with +deference. And it is the only one of the elements that is always +alert, always good to watch. We do not see the air we breathe--except +sometimes in London, and who shall say that the sight is pleasant? We +do not see the earth revolving; and the trees and other vegetables +that are put forth by it come up so slowly that there is no fun in +watching them. One is apt to lose patience with the good earth, and to +hanker after a sight of those multitudinous fires whereover it is, +after all, but a thin and comparatively recent crust. Water, when we +get it in the form of a river, is pleasant to watch for a minute or +so, after which period the regularity of its movement becomes as +tedious as stagnation. It is only a whole seaful of water that can +rival fire in variety and in loveliness. But even the spectacle of sea +at its very best--say in an Atlantic storm--is less thrilling than the +spectacle of one building ablaze. And for the rest, the sea has its +hours of dulness and monotony, even when it is not wholly calm. +Whereas in the grate even a quite little fire never ceases to be +amusing and inspiring until you let it out. As much fire as would +correspond with a handful of earth or a tumblerful of water is yet a +joy to the eyes, and a lively suggestion of grandeur. The other +elements, even as presented in huge samples, impress us as less august +than fire. Fire alone, according to the legend, was brought down from +Heaven: the rest were here from the dim outset. When we call a thing +earthy we impute cloddishness; by `watery' we imply insipidness; +`airy' is for something trivial. `Fiery' has always a noble +significance. It denotes such things as faith, courage, genius. Earth +lies heavy, and air is void, and water flows down; but flames aspire, +flying back towards the heaven they came from. They typify for us the +spirit of man, as apart from aught that is gross in him. They are the +symbol of purity, of triumph over corruption. Water, air, earth, can +all harbour corruption; but where flames are, or have been, there is +innocence. Our love of fire comes partly, doubtless, from our natural +love of destruction for destruction's sake. Fire is savage, and so, +even after all these centuries, are we, at heart. Our civilisation is +but as the aforesaid crust that encloses the old planetary flames. To +destroy is still the strongest instinct of our nature. Nature is still +`red in tooth and claw,' though she has begun to make fine flourishes +with tooth-brush and nail-scissors. Even the mild dog on my hearth-rug +has been known to behave like a wolf to his own species. Scratch his +master and you will find the caveman. But the scratch must be a sharp +one: I am thickly veneered. Outwardly, I am as gentle as you, gentle +reader. And one reason for our delight in fire is that there is no +humbug about flames: they are frankly, primaevally savage. But this is +not, I am glad to say, the sole reason. We have a sense of good and +evil. I do not pretend that it carries us very far. It is but the +tooth-brush and nail-scissors that we flourish. Our innate instincts, +not this acquired sense, are what the world really hinges on. But this +acquired sense is an integral part of our minds. And we revere fire +because we have come to regard it as especially the foe of evil--as a +means for destroying weeds, not flowers; a destroyer of wicked cities, +not of good ones. + +The idea of hell, as inculcated in the books given to me when I was a +child, never really frightened me at all. I conceived the possibility +of a hell in which were eternal flames to destroy every one who had +not been good. But a hell whose flames were eternally impotent to +destroy these people, a hell where evil was to go on writhing yet +thriving for ever and ever, seemed to me, even at that age, too +patently absurd to be appalling. Nor indeed do I think that to the +more credulous children in England can the idea of eternal burning +have ever been quite so forbidding as their nurses meant it to be. +Credulity is but a form of incaution. I, as I have said, never had any +wish to play with fire; but most English children are strongly +attracted, and are much less afraid of fire than of the dark. Eternal +darkness, with a biting east-wind, were to the English fancy a far +more fearful prospect than eternal flames. The notion of these flames +arose in Italy, where heat is no luxury, and shadows are lurked in, +and breezes prayed for. In England the sun, even at its strongest, is +a weak vessel. True, we grumble whenever its radiance is a trifle less +watery than usual. But that is precisely because we are a people whose +nature the sun has not mellowed--a dour people, like all northerners, +ever ready to make the worst of things. Inwardly, we love the sun, and +long for it to come nearer to us, and to come more often. And it is +partly because this craving is unsatisfied that we cower so fondly +over our open hearths. Our fires are makeshifts for sunshine. Autumn +after autumn, `we see the swallows gathering in the sky, and in the +osier-isle we hear their noise,' and our hearts sink. Happy, selfish +little birds, gathering so lightly to fly whither we cannot follow +you, will you not, this once, forgo the lands of your desire? `Shall +not the grief of the old time follow?' Do winter with us, this once! +We will strew all England, every morning, with bread-crumbs for you, +will you but stay and help us to play at summer! But the delicate +cruel rogues pay no heed to us, skimming sharplier than ever in +pursuit of gnats, as the hour draws near for their long flight over +gnatless seas. + +Only one swallow have I ever known to relent. It had built its nest +under the eaves of a cottage that belonged to a friend of mine, a man +who loved birds. He had a power of making birds trust him. They would +come at his call, circling round him, perching on his shoulders, +eating from his hand. One of the swallows would come too, from his +nest under the eaves. As the summer wore on, he grew quite tame. And +when summer waned, and the other swallows flew away, this one +lingered, day after day, fluttering dubiously over the threshold of +the cottage. Presently, as the air grew chilly, he built a new nest +for himself, under the mantelpiece in my friend's study. And every +morning, so soon as the fire burned brightly, he would flutter down to +perch on the fender and bask in the light and warmth of the coals. But +after a few weeks he began to ail; possibly because the study was a +small one, and he could not get in it the exercise that he needed; +more probably because of the draughts. My friend's wife, who was very +clever with her needle, made for the swallow a little jacket of red +flannel, and sought to divert his mind by teaching him to perform a +few simple tricks. For a while he seemed to regain his spirits. But +presently he moped more than ever, crouching nearer than ever to the +fire, and, sidelong, blinking dim weak reproaches at his disappointed +master and mistress. One swallow, as the adage truly says, does not +make a summer. So this one's mistress hurriedly made for him a little +overcoat of sealskin, wearing which, in a muffled cage, he was +personally conducted by his master straight through to Sicily. There +he was nursed back to health, and liberated on a sunny plain. He never +returned to his English home; but the nest he built under the +mantelpiece is still preserved in case he should come at last. + +When the sun's rays slant down upon your grate, then the fire blanches +and blenches, cowers, crumbles, and collapses. It cannot compete with +its archetype. It cannot suffice a sun-steeped swallow, or ripen a +plum, or parch the carpet. Yet, in its modest way, it is to your room +what the sun is to the world; and where, during the greater part of +the year, would you be without it? I do not wonder that the poor, when +they have to choose between fuel and food, choose fuel. Food nourishes +the body; but fuel, warming the body, warms the soul too. I do not +wonder that the hearth has been regarded from time immemorial as the +centre, and used as the symbol, of the home. I like the social +tradition that we must not poke a fire in a friend's drawing-room +unless our friendship dates back full seven years. It rests evidently, +this tradition, on the sentiment that a fire is a thing sacred to the +members of the household in which it burns. I dare say the fender has +a meaning, as well as a use, and is as the rail round an altar. In +`The New Utopia' these hearths will all have been rased, of course, as +demoralising relics of an age when people went in for privacy and were +not always thinking exclusively about the State. Such heat as may be +needed to prevent us from catching colds (whereby our vitality would +be lowered, and our usefulness to the State impaired) will be supplied +through hot-water pipes (white-enamelled), the supply being strictly +regulated from the municipal water-works. Or has Mr. Wells arranged +that the sun shall always be shining on us? I have mislaid my copy of +the book. Anyhow, fires and hearths will have to go. Let us make the +most of them while we may. + +Personally, though I appreciate the radiance of a family fire, I give +preference to a fire that burns for myself alone. And dearest of all +to me is a fire that burns thus in the house of another. I find an +inalienable magic in my bedroom fire when I am staying with friends; +and it is at bedtime that the spell is strongest. `Good night,' says +my host, shaking my hand warmly on the threshold; you've everything +you want?' `Everything,' I assure him; `good night.' `Good night.' +`Good night,' and I close my door, close my eyes, heave a long sigh, +open my eyes, set down the candle, draw the armchair close to the fire +(my fire), sink down, and am at peace, with nothing to mar my +happiness except the feeling that it is too good to be true. + +At such moments I never see in my fire any likeness to a wild beast. +It roars me as gently as a sucking dove, and is as kind and cordial as +my host and hostess and the other people in the house. And yet I do +not have to say anything to it, I do not have to make myself agreeable +to it. It lavishes its warmth on me, asking nothing in return. For +fifteen mortal hours or so, with few and brief intervals, I have been +making myself agreeable, saying the right thing, asking the apt +question, exhibiting the proper shade of mild or acute surprise, +smiling the appropriate smile or laughing just so long and just so +loud as the occasion seemed to demand. If I were naturally a brilliant +and copious talker, I suppose that to stay in another's house would be +no strain on me. I should be able to impose myself on my host and +hostess and their guests without any effort, and at the end of the day +retire quite unfatigued, pleasantly flushed with the effect of my own +magnetism. Alas, there is no question of my imposing myself. I can +repay hospitality only by strict attention to the humble, arduous +process of making myself agreeable. When I go up to dress for dinner, +I have always a strong impulse to go to bed and sleep off my fatigue; +and it is only by exerting all my will-power that I can array myself +for the final labours: to wit, making myself agreeable to some man or +woman for a minute or two before dinner, to two women during dinner, +to men after dinner, then again to women in the drawing-room, and then +once more to men in the smoking-room. It is a dog's life. But one has +to have suffered before one gets the full savour out of joy. And I do +not grumble at the price I have to pay for the sensation of basking, +at length, in solitude and the glow of my own fireside. + +Too tired to undress, too tired to think, I am more than content to +watch the noble and ever-changing pageant of the fire. The finest part +of this spectacle is surely when the flames sink, and gradually the +red-gold caverns are revealed, gorgeous, mysterious, with inmost +recesses of white heat. It is often thus that my fire welcomes me when +the long day's task is done. After I have gazed long into its depths, +I close my eyes to rest them, opening them again, with a start, +whenever a coal shifts its place, or some belated little tongue of +flame spurts forth with a hiss.... Vaguely I liken myself to the +watchman one sees by night in London, wherever a road is up, huddled +half-awake in his tiny cabin of wood, with a cresset of live coal +before him.... I have come down in the world, and am a night-watchman, +and I find the life as pleasant as I had always thought it must be, +except when I let the fire out, and awake shivering.... Shivering I +awake, in the twilight of dawn. Ashes, white and grey, some rusty +cinders, a crag or so of coal, are all that is left over from last +night's splendour. Grey is the lawn beneath my window, and little +ghosts of rabbits are nibbling and hobbling there. But anon the east +will be red, and, ere I wake, the sky will be blue, and the grass +quite green again, and my fire will have arisen from its ashes, a +cackling and comfortable phoenix. + + +SEEING PEOPLE OFF + +I am not good at it. To do it well seems to me one of the most +difficult things in the world, and probably seems so to you, too. + +To see a friend off from Waterloo to Vauxhall were easy enough. But we +are never called on to perform that small feat. It is only when a +friend is going on a longish journey, and will be absent for a longish +time, that we turn up at the railway station. The dearer the friend, +and the longer the journey, and the longer the likely absence, the +earlier do we turn up, and the more lamentably do we fail. Our failure +is in exact ratio to the seriousness of the occasion, and to the depth +of our feeling. + +In a room, or even on a door-step, we can make the farewell quite +worthily. We can express in our faces the genuine sorrow we feel. Nor +do words fail us. There is no awkwardness, no restraint, on either +side. The thread of our intimacy has not been snapped. The leave- +taking is an ideal one. Why not, then, leave the leave-taking at that? +Always, departing friends implore us not to bother to come to the +railway station next morning. Always, we are deaf to these entreaties, +knowing them to be not quite sincere. The departing friends would +think it very odd of us if we took them at their word. Besides, they +really do want to see us again. And that wish is heartily +reciprocated. We duly turn up. And then, oh then, what a gulf yawns! +We stretch our arms vainly across it. We have utterly lost touch. We +have nothing at all to say. We gaze at each other as dumb animals gaze +at human beings. We `make conversation'--and such conversation! We +know that these are the friends from whom we parted overnight. They +know that we have not altered. Yet, on the surface, everything is +different; and the tension is such that we only long for the guard to +blow his whistle and put an end to the farce. + +On a cold grey morning of last week I duly turned up at Euston, to see +off an old friend who was starting for America. + +Overnight, we had given him a farewell dinner, in which sadness was +well mingled with festivity. Years probably would elapse before his +return. Some of us might never see him again. Not ignoring the shadow +of the future, we gaily celebrated the past. We were as thankful to +have known our guest as we were grieved to lose him; and both these +emotions were made evident. It was a perfect farewell. + +And now, here we were, stiff and self-conscious on the platform; and, +framed in the window of the railway-carriage, was the face of our +friend; but it was as the face of a stranger--a stranger anxious to +please, an appealing stranger, an awkward stranger. `Have you got +everything?' asked one of us, breaking a silence. `Yes, everything,' +said our friend, with a pleasant nod. `Everything,' he repeated, with +the emphasis of an empty brain. `You'll be able to lunch on the +train,' said I, though this prophecy had already been made more than +once. `Oh yes,' he said with conviction. He added that the train went +straight through to Liverpool. This fact seemed to strike us as rather +odd. We exchanged glances. `Doesn't it stop at Crewe?' asked one of +us. `No,' said our friend, briefly. He seemed almost disagreeable. +There was a long pause. One of us, with a nod and a forced smile at +the traveller, said `Well!' The nod, the smile, and the unmeaning +monosyllable, were returned conscientiously. Another pause was broken +by one of us with a fit of coughing. It was an obviously assumed fit, +but it served to pass the time. The bustle of the platform was +unabated. There was no sign of the train's departure. Release--ours, +and our friend's--was not yet. + +My wandering eye alighted on a rather portly middle-aged man who was +talking earnestly from the platform to a young lady at the next window +but one to ours. His fine profile was vaguely familiar to me. The +young lady was evidently American, and he was evidently English; +otherwise I should have guessed from his impressive air that he was +her father. I wished I could hear what he was saying. I was sure he +was giving the very best advice; and the strong tenderness of his gaze +was really beautiful. He seemed magnetic, as he poured out his final +injunctions. I could feel something of his magnetism even where I +stood. And the magnetism, like the profile, was vaguely familiar to +me. Where had I experienced it? + +In a flash I remembered. The man was Hubert le Ros. But how changed +since last I saw him! That was seven or eight years ago, in the +Strand. He was then (as usual) out of an engagement, and borrowed +half-a-crown. It seemed a privilege to lend anything to him. He was +always magnetic. And why his magnetism had never made him successful +on the London stage was always a mystery to me. He was an excellent +actor, and a man of sober habit. But, like many others of his kind, +Hubert le Ros (I do not, of course, give the actual name by which he +was known) drifted seedily away into the provinces; and I, like every +one else, ceased to remember him. + +It was strange to see him, after all these years, here on the platform +of Euston, looking so prosperous and solid. It was not only the flesh +that he had put on, but also the clothes, that made him hard to +recognise. In the old days, an imitation fur coat had seemed to be as +integral a part of him as were his ill-shorn lantern jaws. But now his +costume was a model of rich and sombre moderation, drawing, not +calling, attention to itself. He looked like a banker. Any one would +have been proud to be seen off by him. + +`Stand back, please.' The train was about to start, and I waved +farewell to my friend. Le Ros did not stand back. He stood clasping in +both hands the hands of the young American. `Stand back, sir, please!' +He obeyed, but quickly darted forward again to whisper some final +word. I think there were tears in her eyes. There certainly were tears +in his when, at length, having watched the train out of sight, he +turned round. He seemed, nevertheless, delighted to see me. He asked +me where I had been hiding all these years; and simultaneously repaid +me the half-crown as though it had been borrowed yesterday. He linked +his arm in mine, and walked me slowly along the platform, saying with +what pleasure he read my dramatic criticisms every Saturday. + +I told him, in return, how much he was missed on the stage. `Ah, yes,' +he said, `I never act on the stage nowadays.' He laid some emphasis on +the word `stage,' and I asked him where, then, he did act. `On the +platform,' he answered. `You mean,' said I, `that you recite at +concerts?' He smiled. `This,' he whispered, striking his stick on the +ground, `is the platform I mean.' Had his mysterious prosperity +unhinged him? He looked quite sane. I begged him to be more explicit. + +`I suppose,' he said presently, giving me a light for the cigar which +he had offered me, `you have been seeing a friend off?' I assented. He +asked me what I supposed he had been doing. I said that I had watched +him doing the same thing. `No,' he said gravely. `That lady was not a +friend of mine. I met her for the first time this morning, less than +half an hour ago, here,' and again he struck the platform with his +stick. + +I confessed that I was bewildered. He smiled. `You may,' he said, +`have heard of the Anglo-American Social Bureau?' I had not. He +explained to me that of the thousands of Americans who annually pass +through England there are many hundreds who have no English friends. +In the old days they used to bring letters of introduction. But the +English are so inhospitable that these letters are hardly worth the +paper they are written on. `Thus,' said Le Ros, `the A.A.S.B. supplies +a long-felt want. Americans are a sociable people, and most of them +have plenty of money to spend. The A.A.S.B. supplies them with English +friends. Fifty per cent. of the fees is paid over to the friends. The +other fifty is retained by the A.A.S.B. I am not, alas, a director. If +I were, I should be a very rich man indeed. I am only an employe'. But +even so I do very well. I am one of the seers-off.' + +Again I asked for enlightenment. `Many Americans,' he said, `cannot +afford to keep friends in England. But they can all afford to be seen +off. The fee is only five pounds (twenty-five dollars) for a single +traveller; and eight pounds (forty dollars) for a party of two or +more. They send that in to the Bureau, giving the date of their +departure, and a description by which the seer-off can identify them +on the platform. And then--well, then they are seen off.' + +`But is it worth it?' I exclaimed. `Of course it is worth it,' said Le +Ros. `It prevents them from feeling "out of it." It earns them the +respect of the guard. It saves them from being despised by their +fellow-passengers--the people who are going to be on the boat. It +gives them a footing for the whole voyage. Besides, it is a great +pleasure in itself. You saw me seeing that young lady off. Didn't you +think I did it beautifully?' `Beautifully,' I admitted. `I envied you. +There was I--' `Yes, I can imagine. There were you, shuffling from +foot to foot, staring blankly at your friend, trying to make +conversation. I know. That's how I used to be myself, before I +studied, and went into the thing professionally. I don't say I'm +perfect yet. I'm still a martyr to platform fright. A railway station +is the most difficult of all places to act in, as you have discovered +for yourself.' `But,' I said with resentment, `I wasn't trying to act. +I really felt.' `So did I, my boy,' said Le Ros. `You can't act +without feeling. What's his name, the Frenchman--Diderot, yes--said +you could; but what did he know about it? Didn't you see those tears +in my eyes when the train started? I hadn't forced them. I tell you I +was moved. So were you, I dare say. But you couldn't have pumped up a +tear to prove it. You can't express your feelings. In other words, you +can't act. At any rate,' he added kindly, `not in a railway station.' +`Teach me!' I cried. He looked thoughtfully at me. `Well,' he said at +length, `the seeing-off season is practically over. Yes, I'll give you +a course. I have a good many pupils on hand already; but yes,' he +said, consulting an ornate note-book, `I could give you an hour on +Tuesdays and Fridays.' + +His terms, I confess, are rather high. But I don't grudge the +investment. + + +A MEMORY OF A MIDNIGHT EXPRESS + +Often I have presentiments of evil; but, never having had one of them +fulfilled, I am beginning to ignore them. I find that I have always +walked straight, serenely imprescient, into whatever trap Fate has +laid for me. When I think of any horrible thing that has befallen me, +the horror is intensified by recollection of its suddenness. `But a +moment before, I had been quite happy, quite secure. A moment later--' +I shudder. Why be thus at Fate's mercy always, when with a little +ordinary second sight...Yet no! That is the worst of a presentiment: +it never averts evil, it does but unnerve the victim. Best, after all, +to have only false presentiments like mine. Bolts that cannot be +dodged strike us kindliest from the blue. + +And so let me be thankful that my sole emotion as I entered an empty +compartment at Holyhead was that craving for sleep which, after +midnight, overwhelms every traveller--especially the Saxon traveller +from tumultuous and quick-witted little Dublin. Mechanically, +comfortably, as I sank into a corner, I rolled my rug round me, laid +my feet against the opposite cushions, twitched up my coat collar +above my ears, twitched down my cap over my eyes. + +It was not the jerk of the starting train that half awoke me, but the +consciousness that some one had flung himself into the compartment +when the train was already in motion. I saw a small man putting +something in the rack--a large black hand-bag. Through the haze of my +sleep I saw him, vaguely resented him. He had no business to have +slammed the door like that, no business to have jumped into a moving +train, no business to put that huge hand-bag into a rack which was +`for light baggage only,' and no business to be wearing, at this hour +and in this place, a top-hat. These four peevish objections floated +sleepily together round my brain. It was not till the man turned +round, and I met his eye, that I awoke fully--awoke to danger. I had +never seen a murderer, but I knew that the man who was so steadfastly +peering at me now...I shut my eyes. I tried to think. Could I be +dreaming? In books I had read of people pinching themselves to see +whether they were really awake. But in actual life there never was any +doubt on that score. The great thing was that I should keep all my +wits about me. Everything might depend on presence of mind. Perhaps +this murderer was mad. If you fix a lunatic with your eye... + +Screwing up my courage, I fixed the man with my eye. I had never seen +such a horrible little eye as his. It was a sane eye, too. It radiated +a cold and ruthless sanity. It belonged not to a man who would kill +you wantonly, but to one who would not scruple to kill you for a +purpose, and who would do the job quickly and neatly, and not be found +out. Was he physically strong? Though he looked very wiry, he was +little and narrow, like his eyes. He could not overpower me by force, +I thought (and instinctively I squared my shoulders against the +cushions, that he might realise the impossibility of overpowering me), +but I felt he had enough `science' to make me less than a match for +him. I tried to look cunning and determined. I longed for a moustache +like his, to hide my somewhat amiable mouth. I was thankful I could +not see his mouth--could not know the worst of the face that was +staring at me in the lamplight. And yet what could be worse than his +eyes, gleaming from the deep shadow cast by the brim of his top-hat? +What deadlier than that square jaw, with the bone so sharply +delineated under the taut skin? + +The train rushed on, noisily swaying through the silence of the night. +I thought of the unseen series of placid landscapes that we were +passing through, of the unconscious cottagers snoring there in their +beds, of the safe people in the next compartment to mine--to his. Not +moving a muscle, we sat there, we two, watching each other, like two +hostile cats. Or rather, I thought, he watched me as a snake watches a +rabbit, and I, like a rabbit, could not look away. I seemed to hear my +heart beating time to the train. Suddenly my heart was at a +standstill, and the double beat of the train receded faintly. The man +was pointing upwards...I shook my head. He had asked me in a low +voice, whether he should pull the hood across the lamp. + +He was standing now with his back turned towards me, pulling his hand- +bag out of the rack. He had a furtive back--the back of a man who, in +his day, had borne many an alias. To this day I am ashamed that I did +not spring up and pinion him, there and then. Had I possessed one +ounce of physical courage, I should have done so. A coward, I let slip +the opportunity. I thought of the communication-cord, but how could I +move to it? He would be too quick for me. He would be very angry with +me. I would sit quite still and wait. Every moment was a long reprieve +to me now. Something might intervene to save me. There might be a +collision on the line. Perhaps he was a quite harmless man...I caught +his eyes, and shuddered... + +His bag was open on his knees. His right hand was groping in it. +(Thank Heaven he had not pulled the hood over the lamp!) I saw him +pull out something--a limp thing, made of black cloth, not unlike the +thing which a dentist places over your mouth when laughing-gas is to +be administered. `Laughing-gas, no laughing matter'--the irrelevant +and idiotic embryo of a pun dangled itself for an instant in my brain. +What other horrible thing would come out of the bag? Perhaps some +gleaming instrument?... He closed the bag with a snap, laid it beside +him. He took off his top-hat, laid that beside him. I was surprised (I +know not why) to see that he was bald. There was a gleaming high light +on his bald, round head. The limp, black thing was a cap, which he +slowly adjusted with both hands, drawing it down over the brow and +behind the ears. It seemed to me as though he were, after all, hooding +the lamp; in my feverish fancy the compartment grew darker when the +orb of his head was hidden. The shadow of another simile for his +action came surging up... He had put on the cap so gravely, so +judicially. Yes, that was it: he had assumed the black cap, that +decent symbol which indemnifies the taker of a life; and might the +Lord have mercy on my soul... Already he was addressing me... What had +he said? I asked him to repeat it. My voice sounded even further away +than his. He repeated that he thought we had met before. I heard my +voice saying politely, somewhere in the distance, that I thought not. +He suggested that I had been staying at some hotel in Colchester six +years ago. My voice, drawing a little nearer to me, explained that I +had never in my life been at Colchester. He begged my pardon and hoped +no offence would be taken where none had been meant. My voice, coming +right back to its own quarters, reassured him that of course I had +taken no offence at all, adding that I myself very often mistook one +face for another. He replied, rather inconsequently, that the world +was a small place. + +Evidently he must have prepared this remark to follow my expected +admission that I had been at that hotel in Colchester six years ago, +and have thought it too striking a remark to be thrown away. A +guileless creature evidently, and not a criminal at all. Then I +reflected that most of the successful criminals succeed rather through +the incomparable guilelessness of the police than through any devilish +cunning in themselves. Besides, this man looked the very incarnation +of ruthless cunning. Surely, he must but have dissembled. My +suspicions of him resurged. But somehow, I was no longer afraid of +him. Whatever crimes he might have been committing, and be going to +commit, I felt that he meant no harm to me. After all, why should I +have imagined myself to be in danger? Meanwhile, I would try to draw +the man out, pitting my wits against his. + +I proceeded to do so. He was very voluble in a quiet way. Before long +I was in possession of all the materials for an exhaustive biography +of him. And the strange thing was that I could not, with the best will +in the world, believe that he was lying to me. I had never heard a man +telling so obviously the truth. And the truth about any one, however +commonplace, must always be interesting. Indeed, it is the commonplace +truth--the truth of widest application--that is the most interesting +of all truths. + +I do not now remember many details of this man's story; I remember +merely that he was `travelling in lace,' that he had been born at +Boulogne (this was the one strange feature of the narrative), that +somebody had once left him œ100 in a will, and that he had a little +daughter who was `as pretty as a pink.' But at the time I was +enthralled. Besides, I liked the man immensely. He was a kind and +simple soul, utterly belying his appearance. I wondered how I ever +could have feared him and hated him. Doubtless, the reaction from my +previous state intensified the kindliness of my feelings. Anyhow, my +heart went out to him. I felt that we had known each other for many +years. While he poured out his recollections I felt that he was an old +crony, talking over old days which were mine as well as his. Little by +little, however, the slumber which he had scared from me came hovering +back. My eyelids drooped; my comments on his stories became few and +muffled. `There!' he said, `you're sleepy. I ought to have thought of +that.' I protested feebly. He insisted kindly. `You go to sleep,' he +said, rising and drawing the hood over the lamp. It was dawn when I +awoke. Some one in a top-hat was standing over me and saying `Euston.' +`Euston?' I repeated. `Yes, this is Euston. Good day to you.' `Good +day to you,' I repeated mechanically, in the grey dawn. + +Not till I was driving through the cold empty streets did I remember +the episode of the night, and who it was that had awoken me. I wished +I could see my friend again. It was horrible to think that perhaps I +should never see him again. I had liked him so much, and he had seemed +to like me. I should not have said that he was a happy man. There was +something melancholy about him. I hoped he would prosper. I had a +foreboding that some great calamity was in store for him, and wished I +could avert it. I thought of his little daughter who was `as pretty as +a pink.' Perhaps Fate was going to strike him through her. Perhaps +when he got home he would find that she was dead. There were tears in +my eyes when I alighted on my doorstep. + +Thus, within a little space of time, did I experience two deep +emotions, for neither of which was there any real justification. I +experienced terror, though there was nothing to be afraid of, and I +experienced sorrow, though there was nothing at all to be sorry about. +And both my terror and my sorrow were, at the time, overwhelming. + +You have no patience with me? Examine yourselves. Examine one another. +In every one of us the deepest emotions are constantly caused by some +absurdly trivial thing, or by nothing at all. Conversely, the great +things in our lives--the true occasions for wrath, anguish, rapture, +what not--very often leave us quite calm. We never can depend on any +right adjustment of emotion to circumstance. That is one of many +reasons which prevent the philosopher from taking himself and his +fellow-beings quite so seriously as he would wish. + + +PORRO UNUM... + +By graceful custom, every newcomer to a throne in Europe pays a round +of visits to his neighbours. When King Edward came back from seeing +the Tsar at Reval, his subjects seemed to think that he had fulfilled +the last demand on his civility. That was in the days of Abdul Hamid. +None of us wished the King to visit Turkey. Turkey is not +internationally powerful, nor had Abdul any Guelph blood in him; and +so we were able to assert, by ignoring her and him, our +humanitarianism and passion for liberty, quite safely, quite politely. +Now that Abdul is deposed from `his infernal throne,' it is taken as a +matter of course that the King will visit his successor. Well, let His +Majesty betake himself and his tact and a full cargo of Victorian +Orders to Constantinople, by all means. But, on the way, nestling in +the very heart of Europe, perfectly civilised and strifeless, jewelled +all over with freedom, is another country which he has not visited +since his accession--a country which, oddly enough, none but I seems +to expect him to visit. Why, I ask, should Switzerland be cold- +shouldered? + +I admit she does not appeal to the romantic imagination. She never +has, as a nation, counted for anything. Physically soaring out of +sight, morally and intellectually she has lain low and said nothing. +Not one idea, not one deed, has she to her credit. All that is worth +knowing of her history can be set forth without compression in a few +lines of a guide-book. Her one and only hero--William Tell--never, as +we now know, existed. He has been proved to be a myth. Also, he is the +one and only myth that Switzerland has managed to create. He exhausted +her poor little stock of imagination. Living as pigmies among the +blind excesses of Nature, living on sufferance there, animalculae, her +sons have been overwhelmed from the outset, have had no chance +whatsoever of development. Even if they had a language of their own, +they would have no literature. Not one painter, not one musician, have +they produced; only couriers, guides, waiters, and other parasites. A +smug, tame, sly, dull, mercenary little race of men, they exist by and +for the alien tripper. They are the fine flower of commercial +civilisation, the shining symbol of international comity, and have +never done anybody any harm. I cannot imagine why the King should not +give them the incomparable advertisement of a visit. + +Not that they are badly in need of advertisement over here. Every year +the British trippers to Switzerland vastly outnumber the British +trippers to any other land--a fact which shows how little the romantic +imagination tells as against cheapness and comfort of hotels and the +notion that a heart strained by climbing is good for the health. And +this fact does but make our Sovereign's abstention the more +remarkable. Switzerland is not `smart,' but a King is not the figure- +head merely of his entourage: he is the whole nation's figure-head. +Switzerland, alone among nations, is a British institution, and King +Edward ought not to snub her. That we expect him to do so without +protest from us, seems to me a rather grave symptom of flunkeyism. + +Fiercely resenting that imputation, you proceed to raise difficulties. +`Who,' you ask, `would there be to receive the King in the name of the +Swiss nation?' I promptly answer, `The President of the Swiss +Republic.' You did not expect that. You had quite forgotten, if indeed +you had ever heard, that there was any such person. For the life of +you, you could not tell me his name. Well, his name is not very widely +known even in Switzerland. A friend of mine, who was there lately, +tells me that he asked one Swiss after another what was the name of +the President, and that they all sought refuge in polite astonishment +at such ignorance, and, when pressed for the name, could only screw up +their eyes, snap their fingers, and feverishly declare that they had +it on the tips of their tongues. This is just as it should be. In an +ideal republic there should be no one whose name might not at any +moment slip the memory of his fellows. Some sort of foreman there must +be, for the State's convenience; but the more obscure he be, and the +more automatic, the better for the ideal of equality. In the Republics +of France and of America the President is of an extrusive kind. His +office has been fashioned on the monarchic model, and his whole +position is anomalous. He has to try to be ornamental as well as +useful, a symbol as well as a pivot. Obviously, it is absurd to single +out one man as a symbol of the equality of all men. And not less +unreasonable is it to expect him to be inspiring as a patriotic +symbol, an incarnation of his country. Only an anointed king, whose +forefathers were kings too, can be that. In France, where kings have +been, no one can get up the slightest pretence of emotion for the +President. If the President is modest and unassuming, and doesn't, as +did the late M. Faure, make an ass of himself by behaving in a kingly +manner, he is safe from ridicule: the amused smiles that follow him +are not unkind. But in no case is any one proud of him. Never does any +one see France in him. In America, where no kings have been, they are +able to make a pretence of enthusiasm for a President. But no real +chord of national sentiment is touched by this eminent gentleman who +has no past or future eminence, who has been shoved forward for a +space and will anon be sent packing in favour of some other upstart. +Let some princeling of a foreign State set foot in America, and lo! +all the inhabitants are tumbling over one another in their desire for +a glimpse of him--a desire which is the natural and pathetic outcome +of their unsatisfied inner craving for a dynasty of their own. Human +nature being what it is, a monarchy is the best expedient, all the +world over. But, given a republic, let the thing be done thoroughly, +let the appearance be well kept up, as in Switzerland. Let the +President be, as there, a furtive creature and insignificant, not +merely coming no man knows whence, nor merely passing no man knows +whither, but existing no man knows where; and existing not even as a +name--except on the tip of the tongue. National dignity, as well as +the republican ideal, is served better thus. Besides, it is less +trying for the President. + +And yet, stronger than all my sense of what is right and proper is the +desire in me that the President of the Swiss Republic should, just for +once, be dragged forth, blinking, from his burrow in Berne (Berne is +the capital of Switzerland), into the glare of European publicity, and +be driven in a landau to the railway station, there to await the King +of England and kiss him on either cheek when he dismounts from the +train, while the massed orchestras of all the principal hotels play +our national anthem--and also a Swiss national anthem, hastily +composed for the occasion. I want him to entertain the King, that +evening, at a great banquet, whereat His Majesty will have the +President's wife on his right hand, and will make a brief but graceful +speech in the Swiss language (English, French, German, and Italian, +consecutively) referring to the glorious and never-to-be-forgotten +name of William Tell (embarrassed silence), and to the vast number of +his subjects who annually visit Switzerland (loud and prolonged +cheers). Next morning, let there be a review of twenty thousand +waiters from all parts of the country, all the head-waiters receiving +a modest grade of the Victorian Order. Later in the day, let the King +visit the National Gallery--a hall filled with picture post-cards of +the most picturesque spots in Switzerland; and thence let him be +conducted to the principal factory of cuckoo-clocks, and, after some +of the clocks have been made to strike, be heard remarking to the +President, with a hearty laugh, that the sound is like that of the +cuckoo. How the second day of the visit would be filled up, I do not +know; I leave that to the President's discretion. Before his departure +to the frontier, the King will of course be made honorary manager of +one of the principal hotels. + +I hope to be present in Berne during these great days in the +President's life. But, if anything happen to keep me here, I shall +content myself with the prospect of his visit to London. I long to see +him and his wife driving past, with the proper escort of Life Guards, +under a vista of quadrilingual mottoes, bowing acknowledgments to us. +I wonder what he is like. I picture him as a small spare man, with a +slightly grizzled beard, and pleasant though shifty eyes behind a +pince-nez. I picture him frock-coated, bowler-hatted, and evidently +nervous. His wife I cannot at all imagine. + + +A CLUB IN RUINS + +An antique ruin has its privileges. The longer the period of its +crumbling, the more do the owls build their nests in it, the more do +the excursionists munch in it their sandwiches. Thus, year by year, +its fame increases, till it looks back with contempt on the days when +it was a mere upright waterproof. Local guide-books pander more and +more slavishly to its pride; leader-writers in need of a pathetic +metaphor are more and more frequently supplied by it. If there be any +sordid question of clearing it away to make room for something else, +the public outcry is positively deafening. + +Not that we are still under the sway of that peculiar cult which beset +us in the earlier part of the nineteenth century. A bad poet or +painter can no longer reap the reward of genius merely by turning his +attention to ruins under moonlight. Nor does any one cause to be built +in his garden a broken turret, for the evocation of sensibility in +himself and his guests. There used to be one such turret near the +summit of Campden Hill; but that familiar imposture was rased a year +or two ago, no one protesting. Fuit the frantic factitious +sentimentalism for ruins. On the other hand, the sentiment for them is +as strong as ever it was. Decrepit Carisbrooke and its rivals annually +tighten their hold on Britannia's heart. + +I do not grudge them their success. But the very fact that they are so +successful inclines me to reserve my own personal sentiment rather for +those unwept, unsung ruins which so often confront me, here and there, +in the streets of this aggressive metropolis. The ruins made, not by +Time, but by the ruthless skill of Labour, the ruins of houses not old +enough to be sacrosanct nor new enough to keep pace with the demands +of a gasping and plethoric community--these are the ruins that move me +to tears. No owls flutter in them. No trippers lunch in them. In no +guide-book or leading-article will you find them mentioned. Their +pathetic interiors gape to the sky and to the street, but nor gods nor +men hold out a hand to save them. The patterns of bedroom wall-papers, +(chosen with what care, after how long discussion! only a few short +years or months ago) stare out their obvious, piteous appeal to us for +mercy. And their dumb agony is echoed dumbly by the places where doors +have been--doors that lately were tapped at by respectful knuckles; or +the places where staircases have been--staircases down whose banisters +lately slid little children, laughing. Exposed, humiliated, doomed, +the home throws out a hundred pleas to us. And the Pharisaic community +passes by on the other side of the way, in fear of a falling brick. +Down come the walls of the home, as quickly as pickaxes can send them. +Down they crumble, piecemeal, into the foundations, and are carted +away. Soon other walls will be rising--red-brick `residential' walls, +more in harmony with the Zeitgeist. None but I pays any heed to the +ruins. I am their only friend. Me they attract so irresistibly that I +haunt the door of the hoarding that encloses them, and am frequently +mistaken for the foreman. + +A few summers ago, I was watching, with more than usual emotion, the +rasure of a great edifice at a corner of Hanover Square. There were +two reasons why this rasure especially affected me. I had known the +edifice so well, by sight, ever since I was a small boy, and I had +always admired it as a fine example of that kind of architecture which +is the most suitable to London's atmosphere. Though I must have passed +it thousands of times, I had never passed without an upward smile of +approval that gaunt and sombre fa‡ade, with its long straight windows, +its well-spaced columns, its long straight coping against the London +sky. My eyes deplored that these noble and familiar things must +perish. For sake of what they had sheltered, my heart deplored that +they must perish. The falling edifice had not been exactly a home. It +had been even more than that. It had been a refuge from many homes. It +had been a club. + +Certainly it had not been a particularly distinguished club. Its +demolition could not have been stayed on the plea that Charles James +Fox had squandered his substance in its card-room, or that Lord +Melbourne had loved to doze on the bench in its hall. Nothing sublime +had happened in it. No sublime person had belonged to it. Persons +without the vaguest pretensions to sublimity had always, I believe, +found quick and easy entrance into it. It had been a large nondescript +affair. But (to adapt Byron) a club's a club tho' every one's in it. +The ceremony of election gives it a cachet which not even the smartest +hotel has. And then there is the note-paper, and there are the news- +papers, and the cigars at wholesale prices, and the not-to-be-tipped +waiters, and other blessings for mankind. If the members of this club +had but migrated to some other building, taking their effects and +their constitution with them, the ruin would have been pathetic +enough. But alas! the outward wreck was a symbol, a result, of inner +dissolution. Through the door of the hoarding the two pillars of the +front door told a sorry tale. Pasted on either of them was a dingy +bill, bearing the sinister imprimatur of an auctioneer, and offering +(in capitals of various sizes) Bedroom Suites (Walnut and Mahogany), +Turkey, Indian and Wilton Pile Carpets, Two Full-sized Billiard- +Tables, a Remington Type-writer, a Double Door (Fire-Proof), and other +objects not less useful and delightful. The club, then, had gone to +smash. The members had been disbanded, driven out of this Eden by the +fiery sword of the Law, driven back to their homes. Sighing over the +marcescibility of human happiness, I peered between the pillars into +the excavated and chaotic hall. The porter's hatch was still there, in +the wall. There it was, wondering why no inquiries were made through +it now, or, may be, why it had not been sold into bondage with the +double-door and the rest of the fixtures. A melancholy relic of past +glories! I crossed over to the other side of the road, and passed my +eye over the whole ruin. The roof, the ceilings, most of the inner +walls, had already fallen. Little remained but the grim, familiar +fa‡ade--a thin husk. I noted (that which I had never noted before) two +iron grills in the masonry. Miserable travesties of usefulness, +ventilating the open air! Through the gaping windows, against the wall +of the next building, I saw in mid-air the greenish Lincrusta Walton +of what I guessed to have been the billiard-room--the billiard-room +that had boasted two full-sized tables. Above it ran a frieze of white +and gold. It was interspersed with flat Corinthian columns. The +gilding of the capitals was very fresh, and glittered gaily under the +summer sunbeams. + +And hardly a day of the next autumn and winter passed but I was drawn +back to the ruin by a kind of lugubrious magnetism. The strangest +thing was that the ruin seemed to remain in practically the same state +as when first I had come upon it: the fa‡ade still stood high. This +might have been due to the proverbial laziness of British workmen, but +I did not think it could be. The workmen were always plying their +pick-axes, with apparent gusto and assiduity, along the top of the +building; bricks and plaster were always crashing down into the depths +and sending up clouds of dust. I preferred to think the building +renewed itself, by some magical process, every night. I preferred to +think it was prepared thus to resist its aggressors for so long a time +that in the end there would be an intervention from other powers. +Perhaps from this site no `residential' affair was destined to scrape +the sky? Perhaps that saint to whom the club had dedicated itself +would reappear, at length, glorious equestrian, to slay the dragons +who had infested and desecrated his premises? I wondered whether he +would then restore the ruins, reinstating the club, and setting it for +ever on a sound commercial basis, or would leave them just as they +were, a fixed signal to sensibility. + +But, when first I saw the poor fa‡ade being pick-axed, I did not +`give' it more than a fortnight. I had no feeling but of hopeless awe +and pity. The workmen on the coping seemed to me ministers of +inexorable Olympus, executing an Olympian decree. And the building +seemed to me a live victim, a scapegoat suffering sullenly for sins it +had not committed. To me it seemed to be flinching under every +rhythmic blow of those well-wielded weapons, praying for the hour when +sunset should bring it surcease from that daily ordeal. I caught +myself nodding to it--a nod of sympathy, of hortation to endurance. +Immediately, I was ashamed of my lapse into anthropomorphism. I told +myself that my pity ought to be kept for the real men who had been +frequenters of the building, who now were waifs. I reviewed the +gaping, glassless windows through which they had been wont to watch +the human comedy. There they had stood, puffing their smoke and +cracking their jests, and tearing women's reputations to shreds. + +Not that I, personally, have ever heard a woman's reputation torn to +shreds in a club window. A constant reader of lady-novelists, I have +always been hoping for this excitement, but somehow it has never come +my way. I am beginning to suspect that it never will, and am inclined +to regard it as a figment. Such conversation as I have heard in clubs +has been always of a very mild, perfunctory kind. A social club (even +though it be a club with a definite social character) is a collection +of heterogeneous creatures, and its aim is perfect harmony and good- +fellowship. Thus any definite expression of opinion by any member is +regarded as dangerous. The ideal clubman is he who looks genial and +says nothing at all. Most Englishmen find little difficulty in +conforming with this ideal. They belong to a silent race. Social clubs +flourish, therefore, in England. Intelligent foreigners, seeing them, +recognise their charm, and envy us them, and try to reproduce them at +home. But the Continent is too loquacious. On it social clubs quickly +degenerate into bear-gardens, and the basic ideal of good-fellowship +goes by the board. In Paris, Petersburg, Vienna, the only social clubs +that prosper are those which are devoted to games of chance--those +which induce silence by artificial means. Were I a foreign visitor, +taking cursory glances, I should doubtless be delighted with the clubs +of London. Had I the honour to be an Englishman, I should doubtless +love them. But being a foreign resident, I am somewhat oppressed by +them. I crave in them a little freedom of speech, even though such +freedom were their ruin. I long for their silence to be broken here +and there, even though such breakage broke them with it. It is not +enough for me to hear a hushed exchange of mild jokes about the +weather, or of comparisons between what the Times says and what the +Standard says. I pine for a little vivacity, a little boldness, a +little variety, a few gestures. A London club, as it is conducted, +seems to me very like a catacomb. It is tolerable so long as you do +not actually belong to it. But when you do belong to it, when you have +outlived the fleeting gratification at having been elected, when +you...but I ought not to have fallen into the second person plural. +You, readers, are free-born Englishmen. These clubs `come natural' to +you. You love them. To them you slip eagerly from your homes. As for +me, poor alien, had I been a member of the club whose demolition has +been my theme, I should have grieved for it not one whit the more +bitterly. Indeed, my tears would have been a trifle less salt. It was +my detachment that enabled me to be so prodigal of pity. + +The poor waifs! Long did I stand, in the sunshine of that day when +first I saw the ruin, wondering and distressed, ruthful, indignant +that such things should be. I forgot on what errand I had come out. I +recalled it. Once or twice I walked away, bent on its fulfilment. But +I could not proceed further than a few yards. I halted, looked over my +shoulder, was drawn back to the spot, drawn by the crude, insistent +anthem of the pick-axes. The sun slanted towards Notting Hill. Still I +loitered, spellbound... I was aware of some one at my side, some one +asking me a question. `I beg your pardon?' I said. The stranger was a +tall man, bronzed and bearded. He repeated his question. In answer, I +pointed silently to the ruin. `That?' he gasped. He stared vacantly. I +saw that his face had become pale under its sunburn. He looked from +the ruin to me. `You're not joking with me?' he said thickly. I +assured him that I was not. I assured him that this was indeed the +club to which he had asked to be directed. `But,' he stammered, `but-- +but--' `You were a member?' I suggested. `I am a member,' he cried. +`And what's more, I'm going to write to the Committee.' I suggested +that there was one fatal objection to such a course. I spoke to him +calmly, soothed him with words of reason, elicited from him, little by +little, his sad story. It appeared that he had been a member of the +club for ten years, but had never (except once, as a guest) been +inside it. He had been elected on the very day on which (by compulsion +of his father) he set sail for Australia. He was a mere boy at the +time. Bitterly he hated leaving old England; nor did he ever find the +life of a squatter congenial. The one thing which enabled him to +endure those ten years of unpleasant exile was the knowledge that he +was a member of a London club. Year by year, it was a keen pleasure to +him to send his annual subscription. It kept him in touch with +civilisation, in touch with Home. He loved to know that when, at +length, he found himself once again in the city of his birth he would +have a firm foothold on sociability. The friends of his youth might +die, or might forget him. But, as member of a club, he would find +substitutes for them in less than no time. Herding bullocks, all day +long, on the arid plains of Central Australia, he used to keep up his +spirits by thinking of that first whisky-and-soda which he would order +from a respectful waiter as he entered his club. All night long, +wrapped in his blanket beneath the stars, he used to dream of that +drink to come, that first symbol of an unlost grip on civilisation... +He had arrived in London this very afternoon. Depositing his luggage +at an hotel, he had come straight to his club. `And now...' He filled +up his aposiopesis with an uncouth gesture, signifying `I may as well +get back to Australia.' + +I was on the point of offering to take him to my own club and give him +his first whisky-and-soda therein. But I refrained. The sight of an +extant club might have maddened the man. It certainly was very hard +for him, to have belonged to a club for ten years, to have loved it so +passionately from such a distance, and then to find himself destined +never to cross its threshold. Why, after all, should he not cross its +threshold? I asked him if he would like to. `What,' he growled, `would +be the good?' I appealed, not in vain, to the imaginative side of his +nature. I went to the door of the hoarding, and explained matters to +the foreman; and presently, nodding to me solemnly, he passed with the +foreman through the gap between the doorposts. I saw him crossing the +excavated hall, crossing it along a plank, slowly and cautiously. His +attitude was very like Blondin's, but it had a certain tragic dignity +which Blondin's lacked. And that was the last I saw of him. I hailed a +cab and drove away. What became of the poor fellow I do not know. +Often as I returned to the ruin, and long as I loitered by it, him I +never saw again. Perhaps he really did go straight back to Australia. +Or perhaps he induced the workmen to bury him alive in the +foundations. His fate, whatever it was, haunts me. + + +`273' + +This is an age of prescriptions. Morning after morning, from the back- +page of your newspaper, quick and uncostly cures for every human ill +thrust themselves wildly on you. The age of miracles is not past. But +I would raise no false hopes of myself. I am no thaumaturgist. Do +you awake with a sinking sensation in the stomach? Have you lost the +power of assimilating food? Are you oppressed with an indescribable +lassitude? Can you no longer follow the simplest train of thought? Are +you troubled throughout the night with a hacking cough? Are you--in +fine, are you but a tissue of all the most painful symptoms of all the +most malignant maladies ancient and modern? If so, skip this essay, +and try Somebody's Elixir. The cure that I offer is but a cure for +overwrought nerves--a substitute for the ordinary `rest-cure.' Nor is +it absurdly cheap. Nor is it instant. It will take a week or so of +your time. But then, the `rest-cure' takes at least a month. The scale +of payment for board and lodging may be, per diem, hardly lower than +in the `rest-cure'; but you will save all but a pound or so of the +very heavy fees that you would have to pay to your doctor and your +nurse (or nurses). And certainly, my cure is the more pleasant of the +two. My patient does not have to cease from life. He is not undressed +and tucked into bed and forbidden to stir hand or foot during his +whole term. He is not forbidden to receive letters, or to read books, +or to look on any face but his nurse's (or nurses'). Nor, above all, +is he condemned to the loathsome necessity of eating so much food as +to make him dread the sight of food. Doubtless, the grim, inexorable +process of the `rest-cure' is very good for him who is strong enough +and brave enough to bear it, and rich enough to pay for it. I address +myself to the frailer, cowardlier, needier man. Instead of ceasing +from life, and entering purgatory, he need but essay a variation in +life. He need but go and stay by himself in one of those vast modern +hotels which abound along the South and East coasts. + +You are disappointed? All simple ideas are disappointing. And all good +cures spring from simple ideas. + +The right method of treating overwrought nerves is to get the patient +away from himself--to make a new man of him; and this trick can be +done only by switching him off from his usual environment, his usual +habits. The ordinary rest-cure, by its very harshness, intensifies a +man's personality at first, drives him miserably within himself; and +only by its long duration does it gradually wear him down and build +him up anew. There is no harshness in the vast hotels which I have +recommended. You may eat there as little as you like, especially if +you are en pension. Letters may be forwarded to you there; though, +unless your case is a very mild one, I would advise you not to leave +your address at home. There are reading-rooms where you can see all +the newspapers; though I advise you to ignore them. You suffer under +no sense of tyranny. And yet, no sooner have you signed your name in +the visitors' book, and had your bedroom allotted to you, than you +feel that you have surrendered yourself irrepleviably. It is not +necessary to this illusion that you should pass under an assumed name, +unless you happen to be a very eminent actor, or cricketer, or other +idol of the nation, whose presence would flutter the young persons at +the bureau. If your nervous breakdown be (as it more likely is) due to +merely intellectual distinction, these young persons will mete out to +you no more than the bright callous civility which they mete out +impartially to all (but those few) who come before them. To them you +will be a number, and to yourself you will have suddenly become a +number--the number graven on the huge brass label that depends +clanking from the key put into the hand of the summoned chambermaid. +You are merely (let us say) 273. + +Up you go in the lift, realising, as for the first time, your +insignificance in infinity, and rather proud to be even a number. You +recognise your double on the door that has been unlocked for you. No +prisoner, clapped into his cell, could feel less personal, less +important. A notice on the wall, politely requesting you to leave your +key at the bureau (as though you were strong enough or capacious +enough to carry it about with you) comes as a pleasant reminder of +your freedom. You remember joyously that you are even free from +yourself. You have begun a new life, have forgotten the old. This +mantelpiece, so strangely and brightly bare of photographs or +`knickknacks,' is meaning in its meaninglessness. And these blank, +fresh walls, that you have never seen, and that never were seen by any +one whom you know...their pattern is of poppies and mandragora, +surely. Poppies and mandragora are woven, too, on the brand-new +Axminster beneath your elastic step. `Come in!' A porter bears in your +trunk, deposits it on a trestle at the foot of the bed, unstraps it, +leaves you alone with it. It seems to be trying to remind you of some- +thing or other. You do not listen. You laugh as you open it. You know +that if you examined these shirts you would find them marked `273.' +Before dressing for dinner, you take a hot bath. There are patent +taps, some for fresh water, others for sea water. You hesitate. Yet +you know that whichever you touch will effuse but the water of Lethe, +after all. You dress before your fire. The coals have burnt now to a +lovely glow. Once and again, you eye them suspiciously. But no, there +are no faces in them. All's well. + +Sleek and fresh, you sit down to dinner in the `Grande Salle a` +Manger.' Graven on your wine-glasses, emblazoned on your soup-plate, +are the armorial bearings of the company that shelters you. The +College of Arms might sneer at them, be down on them, but to you they +are a joy, in their grand lack of links with history. They are a +sympathetic symbol of your own newness, your own impersonality. You +glance down the endless menu. It has been composed for a community. +None of your favourite dishes (you once had favourite dishes) appears +in it, thank heaven! You will work your way through it, steadily, +unquestioningly, gladly, with a communal palate. And the wine? All +wines are alike here, surely. You scour the list vaguely, and order a +pint of 273. Your eye roves over the adjacent tables. + +You behold a galaxy of folk evidently born, like yourself, anew. Some, +like yourself, are solitary. Others are with wives, with children--but +with new wives, new children. The associations of home have been +forgotten, even though home's actual appendages be here. The members +of the little domestic circles are using company manners. They are +actually making conversation, `breaking the ice.' They are new here to +one another. They are new to themselves. How much newer to you! You +cannot `place' them. That paterfamilias with the red moustache--is he +a soldier, a solicitor, a stockbroker, what? You play vaguely, vainly, +at the game of attributions, while the little orchestra in yonder +bower of artificial palm-trees plays new, or seemingly new, cake- +walks. Who are they, these minstrels in the shadow? They seem not to +be the Red Hungarians, nor the Blue, nor the Hungarians of any other +colour of the spectrum. You set them down as the Colourless +Hungarians, and resume your study of the tables. They fascinate you, +these your fellow-diners. You fascinate them, doubtless. They, +doubtless, are cudgelling their brains to `spot' your state in life-- +your past, which now has escaped you. Next day, some of them are gone; +and you miss them, almost bitterly. But others succeed them, not less +detached and enigmatic than they. You must never speak to one of them. +You must never lapse into those casual acquaintances of the `lounge' +or the smoking-room. Nor is it hard to avoid them. No Englishman, how +gregarious and garrulous soever, will dare address another Englishman +in whose eye is no spark of invitation. There must be no such spark in +yours. Silence is part of the cure for you, and a very important part. +It is mainly through unaccustomed silence that your nerves are made +trim again. Usually, you are giving out in talk all that you receive +through your senses of perception. Keep silence now. Its gold will +accumulate in you at compound interest. You will realise the joy of +being full of reflections and ideas. You will begin to hoard them +proudly, like a miser. You will gloat over your own cleverness--you, +who but a few days since, were feeling so stupid. Solitude in a crowd, +silence among chatterboxes--these are the best ministers to a mind +diseased. And with the restoration of the mind, the body will be +restored too. You, who were physically so limp and pallid, will be a +ruddy Hercules now. And when, at the moment of departure, you pass +through the hall, shyly distributing to the servants that largesse +which is so slight in comparison with what your doctor and nurse (or +nurses) would have levied on you, you will feel that you are more than +fit to resume that burden of personality whereunder you had sunk. You +will be victoriously yourself again. + +Yet I think you will look back a little wistfully on the period of +your obliteration. People--for people are very nice, really, most of +them--will tell you that they have missed you. You will reply that you +did not miss yourself. And you will go the more strenuously to your +work and pleasure, so as to have the sooner an excuse for a good +riddance. + + +A STUDY IN DEJECTION + +Riderless the horse was, and with none to hold his bridle. But he +waited patiently, submissively, there where I saw him, at the shabby +corner of a certain shabby little street in Chelsea. `My beautiful, my +beautiful, thou standest meekly by,' sang Mrs. Norton of her Arab +steed, `with thy proudly-arched and glossy neck, thy dark and fiery +eye.' Catching the eye of this other horse, I saw that such fire as +might once have blazed there had long smouldered away. Chestnut though +he was, he had no mettle. His chestnut coat was all dull and rough, +unkempt as that of an inferior cab-horse. Of his once luxuriant mane +there were but a few poor tufts now. His saddle was torn and weather- +stained. The one stirrup that dangled therefrom was red with rust. + +I never saw in any creature a look of such unutterable dejection. +Dejection, in the most literal sense of the word, indeed was his. He +had been cast down. He had fallen from higher and happier things. With +his `arched neck,' and with other points which not neglect nor ill- +usage could rob of their old grace, he had kept something of his +fallen day about him. In the window of the little shop outside which +he stood were things that seemed to match him--things appealing to the +sense that he appealed to. A tarnished French mirror, a strip of faded +carpet, some rows of battered, tattered books, a few cups and saucers +that had erst been riveted and erst been dusted--all these, in a +gallimaufry of other languid odds and ends, seen through this mud- +splashed window, silently echoed the silent misery of the horse. They +were remembering Zion. They had been beautiful once, and expensive, +and well cared for, and admired, and coveted. And now... + +They had, at least, the consolation of being indoors. Public laughing- +stock though they were, they had a barrier of glass between themselves +and the irreverent world. To be warm and dry, too, was something. +Piteous, they could yet afford to pity the horse. He was more +ludicrously, more painfully, misplaced than they. A real blood-horse +that has done his work is rightly left in the open air--turned out +into some sweet meadow or paddock. It would be cruel to make him spend +his declining years inside a house, where no grass is. Is it less +cruel that a fine old rocking-horse should be thrust from the nursery +out into the open air, upon the pavement? + +Perhaps some child had just given the horse a contemptuous shove in +passing. For he was rocking gently when I chanced to see him. Nor did +he cease to rock, with a slight creak upon the pavement, so long as I +watched him. A particularly black and bitter north wind was blowing +round the corner of the street. Perhaps it was this that kept the +horse in motion. Boreas himself, invisible to my mortal eyes, may have +been astride the saddle, lashing the tired old horse to this futile +activity. But no, I think rather that the poor thing was rocking of +his own accord, rocking to attract my attention. He saw in me a +possible purchaser. He wanted to show me that he was still sound in +wind and limb. Had I a small son at home? If so, here was the very +mount for him. None of your frisky, showy, first-hand young brutes, on +which no fond parent ought to risk his offspring's bones; but a sound, +steady-going, well-mannered old hack with never a spark of vice in +him! Such was the message that I read in the glassy eye fixed on me. +The nostril of faded scarlet seemed for a moment to dilate and quiver. +At last, at last, was some one going to inquire his price? + +Once upon a time, in a far-off fashionable toy-shop, his price had +been prohibitive; and he, the central attraction behind the gleaming +shop-window, had plumed himself on his expensiveness. He had been in +no hurry to be bought. It had seemed to him a good thing to stand +there motionless, majestic, day after day, far beyond the reach of +average purses, and having in his mien something of the frigid +nobility of the horses on the Parthenon frieze, with nothing at all of +their unreality. A coat of real chestnut hair, glossy, glorious! From +end to end of the Parthenon frieze not one of the horses had that. +>From end to end of the toy-shop that exhibited him not one of the +horses was thus graced. Their flanks were mere wood, painted white, +with arbitrary blotches of grey here and there. Miserable creatures! +It was difficult to believe that they had souls. No wonder they were +cheap, and `went off,' as the shopman said, so quickly, whilst he +stayed grandly on, cynosure of eyes that dared not hope for him. Into +bondage they went off, those others, and would be worked to death, +doubtless, by brutal little boys. + +When, one fine day, a lady was actually not shocked by the price +demanded for him, his pride was hurt. And when, that evening, he was +packed in brown paper and hoisted to the roof of a four-wheeler, he +faced the future fiercely. Who was this lady that her child should +dare bestride him? With a biblical `ha, ha,' he vowed that the child +should not stay long in saddle: he must be thrown--badly--even though +it was his seventh birthday. But this wicked intention vanished while +the child danced around him in joy and wonder. Never yet had so many +compliments been showered on him. Here, surely, was more the manner of +a slave than of a master. And how lightly the child rode him, with +never a tug or a kick! And oh, how splendid it was to be flying thus +through the air! Horses were made to be ridden; and he had never +before savoured the true joy of life, for he had never known his own +strength and fleetness. Forward! Backward! Faster, faster! To floor! +To ceiling! Regiments of leaden soldiers watched his wild career. +Noah's quiet sedentary beasts gaped up at him in wonderment--as tiny +to him as the gaping cows in the fields are to you when you pass by in +an express train. This was life indeed! He remembered Katafalto-- +remembered Eclipse and the rest nowhere. Aye, thought he, and even +thus must Black Bess have rejoiced along the road to York. And +Bucephalus, skimming under Alexander the plains of Asia, must have had +just this glorious sense of freedom. Only less so! Not Pegasus himself +can have flown more swiftly. Pegasus, at last, became a constellation +in the sky. `Some day,' reflected the rocking-horse, when the ride was +over, `I, too, shall die; and five stars will appear on the nursery +ceiling.' + +Alas for the vanity of equine ambition! I wonder by what stages this +poor beast came down in the world. Did the little boy's father go +bankrupt, leaving it to be sold in a `lot' with the other toys? Or was +it merely given away, when the little boy grew up, to a poor but +procreative relation, who anon became poorer? I should like to think +that it had been mourned. But I fear that whatever mourning there may +have been for it must have been long ago discarded. The creature did +not look as if it had been ridden in any recent decade. It looked as +if it had almost abandoned the hope of ever being ridden again. It was +but hoping against hope now, as it stood rocking there in the bleak +twilight. Bright warm nurseries were for younger, happier horses. +Still it went on rocking, to show me that it could rock. + +The more sentimental a man is, the less is he helpful; the more loth +is he to cancel the cause of his emotion. I did not buy the horse. + +A few days later, passing that way, I wished to renew my emotion; but +lo! the horse was gone. Had some finer person than I bought it?--towed +it to the haven where it would be? Likelier, it had but been relegated +to some mirky recess of the shop... I hope it has room to rock there. + + +A PATHETIC IMPOSTURE + +Lord Rosebery once annoyed the Press by declaring that his ideal +newspaper was one which should give its news without comment. +Doubtless he was thinking of the commonweal. Yet a plea for no +comments might be made, with equal force, in behalf of the +commentators themselves. Occupations that are injurious to the persons +engaged in them ought not to be encouraged. The writing of `leaders' +and `notes' is one of these occupations. The practice of it, more than +of any other, depends on, and fosters hypocrisy, worst of vices. In a +sense, every kind of writing is hypocritical. It has to be done with +an air of gusto, though no one ever yet enjoyed the act of writing. +Even a man with a specific gift for writing, with much to express, +with perfect freedom in choice of subject and manner of expression, +with indefinite leisure, does not write with real gusto. But in him +the pretence is justified: he has enjoyed thinking out his subject, he +will delight in his work when it is done. Very different is the +pretence of one who writes at top-speed, on a set subject, what he +thinks the editor thinks the proprietor thinks the public thinks nice. +If he happen to have a talent for writing, his work will be but the +more painful, and his hypocrisy the greater. The chances are, though, +that the talent has already been sucked out of him by Journalism, that +vampire. To her, too, he will have forfeited any fervour he may have +had, any learning, any gaiety. How can he, the jaded interpreter, hold +any opinion, feel any enthusiasm?--without leisure, keep his mind in +cultivation?--be sprightly to order, at unearthly hours in a whir-r- +ring office? To order! Yes, sprightliness is compulsory there; so are +weightiness, and fervour, and erudition. He must seem to abound in +these advantages, or another man will take his place. He must disguise +himself at all costs. But disguises are not easy to make; they require +time and care, which he cannot afford. So he must snatch up ready-made +disguises--unhook them, rather. He must know all the cant-phrases, the +cant-references. There are very, very many of them, and belike it is +hard to keep them all at one's finger-tips. But, at least, there is no +difficulty in collecting them. Plod through the `leaders' and `notes' +in half-a-dozen of the daily papers, and you will bag whole coveys of +them. + +Most of the morning papers still devote much space to the old- +fashioned kind of `leader,' in which the pretence is of weightiness, +rather than of fervour, sprightliness, or erudition. The effect of +weightiness is obtained simply by a stupendous disproportion of +language to sense. The longest and most emphatic words are used for +the simplest and most trivial statements, and they are always so +elaborately qualified as to leave the reader with a vague impression +that a very difficult matter, which he himself cannot make head or +tail of, has been dealt with in a very judicial and exemplary manner. + +A leader-writer would not, for instance, say-- + +Lord Rosebery has made a paradox. + +He would say:-- + +Lord Rosebery + +whether intentionally or otherwise, we leave our readers to decide, +or, with seeming conviction, +or, doubtless giving rein to the playful humour which is +characteristic of him, + +has + +expressed a sentiment, +or, taken on himself to enunciate a theory, +or, made himself responsible for a dictum, + +which, + +we venture to assert, +or, we have little hesitation in declaring, +or, we may be pardoned for thinking, +or, we may say without fear of contradiction, + +is + +nearly akin to +or, not very far removed from + +the paradoxical. + +But I will not examine further the trick of weightiness--it takes up +too much of my space. Besides, these long `leaders' are a mere +survival, and will soon disappear altogether. The `notes' are the +characteristic feature of the modern newspaper, and it is in them that +the modern journalist displays his fervour, sprightliness, and +erudition. `Note'-writing, like chess, has certain recognised +openings, e.g.:-- + +There is no new thing under the sun. +It is always the unexpected that happens. +Nature, as we know, abhors a vacuum. +The late Lord Coleridge once electrified his court by inquiring `Who +is Connie Gilchrist?' + +And here are some favourite methods of conclusion:-- + +A mad world, my masters! +'Tis true 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true. +There is much virtue in that `if.' +But that, as Mr. Kipling would say, is another story. +Si non e` vero, etc. + +or (lighter style) + +We fancy we recognise here the hand of Mr. Benjamin Trovato. + +Not less inevitable are such parallelisms as:-- + +Like Topsy, perhaps it `growed.' +Like the late Lord Beaconsfield on a famous occasion, `on the side of +the angels.' +Like Brer Rabbit, `To lie low and say nuffin.' +Like Oliver Twist, `To ask for more.' +Like Sam Weller's knowledge of London, `extensive and peculiar.' +Like Napoleon, a believer in `the big battalions.' + +Nor let us forget Pyrrhic victory, Parthian dart, and Homeric +laughter; quos deus vult and nil de mortuis; Sturm und Drang; masterly +inactivity, unctuous rectitude, mute inglorious Miltons, and damned +good-natured friends; the sword of Damocles, the thin edge of the +wedge, the long arm of coincidence, and the soul of goodness in things +evil; Hobson's choice, Frankenstein's monster, Macaulay's schoolboy, +Lord Burleigh's nod, Sir Boyle Roche's bird, Mahomed's coffin, and +Davy Jones's locker. + +A melancholy catalogue, is it not? But it is less melancholy for you +who read it here, than for them whose existence depends on it, who +draw from it a desperate means of seeming to accomplish what is +impossible. And yet these are the men who shrank in horror from Lord +Rosebery's merciful idea. They ought to be saved despite themselves. +Might not a short Act of Parliament be passed, making all comment in +daily newspapers illegal? In a way, of course, it would be hard on the +commentators. Having lost the power of independent thought, having +sunk into a state of chronic dulness, apathy and insincerity, they +could hardly, be expected to succeed in any of the ordinary ways of +life. They could not compete with their fellow-creatures; no door but +would be bolted if they knocked on it. What would become of them? +Probably they would have to perish in what they would call `what the +late Lord Goschen would have called "splendid isolation."' But such an +end were sweeter, I suggest to them, than the life they are leading. + + +THE DECLINE OF THE GRACES + +Have you read The Young Lady's Book? You have had plenty of time to do +so, for it was published in 1829. It was described by the two +anonymous Gentlewomen who compiled it as `A Manual for Elegant +Recreations, Exercises, and Pursuits.' You wonder they had nothing +better to think of? You suspect them of having been triflers? They +were not, believe me. They were careful to explain, at the outset, +that the Virtues of Character were what a young lady should most +assiduously cultivate. They, in their day, labouring under the shadow +of the eighteenth century, had somehow in themselves that high moral +fervour which marks the opening of the twentieth century, and is said +to have come in with Mr. George Bernard Shaw. But, unlike us, they +were not concerned wholly with the inward and spiritual side of life. +They cared for the material surface, too. They were learned in the +frills and furbelows of things. They gave, indeed, a whole chapter to +`Embroidery.' Another they gave to `Archery,' another to `The Aviary,' +another to `The Escrutoire.' Young ladies do not now keep birds, nor +shoot with bow and arrow; but they do still, in some measure, write +letters; and so, for sake of historical comparison, let me give you a +glance at `The Escrutoire.' It is not light reading. + +`For careless scrawls ye boast of no pretence; +Fair Russell wrote, as well as spoke, with sense.' + +Thus is the chapter headed, with a delightful little wood engraving of +`Fair Russell,' looking pre-eminently sensible, at her desk, to +prepare the reader for the imminent welter of rules for `decorous +composition.' Not that pedantry is approved. `Ease and simplicity, an +even flow of unlaboured diction, and an artless arrangement of obvious +sentiments' is the ideal to be striven for. `A metaphor may be used +with advantage' by any young lady, but only `if it occur naturally.' +And `allusions are elegant,' but only `when introduced with ease, and +when they are well understood by those to whom they are addressed.' +`An antithesis renders a passage piquant'; but the dire results of a +too-frequent indulgence in it are relentlessly set forth. Pages and +pages are devoted to a minute survey of the pit-falls of punctuation. +But when the young lady of that period had skirted all these, and had +observed all the manifold rules of caligraphy that were here laid down +for her, she was not, even then, out of the wood. Very special stress +was laid on `the use of the seal.' Bitter scorn was poured on young +ladies who misused the seal. `It is a habit of some to thrust the wax +into the flame of the candle, and the moment a morsel of it is melted, +to daub it on the paper; and when an unsightly mass is gathered +together, to pass the seal over the tongue with ridiculous haste-- +press it with all the strength which the sealing party possesses--and +the result is, an impression which raises a blush on her cheek.' + +Well! The young ladies of that day were ever expected to exhibit +sensibility, and used to blush, just as they wept or fainted, for very +slight causes. Their tears and their swoons did not necessarily +betoken much grief or agitation; nor did a rush of colour to the cheek +mean necessarily that they were overwhelmed with shame. To exhibit +various emotions in the drawing-room was one of the Elegant Exercises +in which these young ladies were drilled thoroughly. And their habit +of simulation was so rooted in sense of duty that it merged into +sincerity. If a young lady did not swoon at the breakfast-table when +her Papa read aloud from The Times that the Duke of Wellington was +suffering from a slight chill, the chances were that she would swoon +quite unaffectedly when she realised her omission. Even so, we may be +sure that a young lady whose cheek burned not at sight of the letter +she had sealed untidily--`unworthily' the Manual calls it--would anon +be blushing for her shamelessness. Such a thing as the blurring of the +family crest, or as the pollution of the profile of Pallas Athene with +the smoke of the taper, was hardly, indeed, one of those `very slight +causes' to which I have referred. The Georgian young lady was imbued +through and through with the sense that it was her duty to be +gracefully efficient in whatsoever she set her hand to. To the young +lady of to-day, belike, she will seem accordingly ridiculous--seem +poor-spirited, and a pettifogger. True, she set her hand to no +grandiose tasks. She was not allowed to become a hospital nurse, for +example, or an actress. The young lady of to-day, when she hears in +herself a `vocation' for tending the sick, would willingly, without an +instant's preparation, assume responsibility for the lives of a whole +ward at St. Thomas's. This responsibility is not, however, thrust on +her. She has to submit to a long and tedious course of training before +she may do so much as smooth a pillow. The boards of the theatre are +less jealously hedged in than those of the hospital. If our young lady +have a wealthy father, and retain her schoolroom faculty for learning +poetry by heart, there is no power on earth to prevent her from making +her de'but, somewhere, as Juliet--if she be so inclined; and such is +usually her inclination. That her voice is untrained, that she cannot +scan blank-verse, that she cannot gesticulate with grace and +propriety, nor move with propriety and grace across the stage, matters +not a little bit--to our young lady. `Feeling,' she will say, `is +everything'; and, of course, she, at the age of eighteen, has more +feeling than Juliet, that `flapper,' could have had. All those other +things--those little technical tricks--`can be picked up,' or `will +come.' But no; I misrepresent our young lady. If she be conscious that +there are such tricks to be played, she despises them. When, later, +she finds the need to learn them, she still despises them. It seems to +her ridiculous that one should not speak and comport oneself as +artlessly on the stage as one does off it. The notion of speaking or +comporting oneself with conscious art in real life would seem to her +quite monstrous. It would puzzle her as much as her grandmother would +have been puzzled by the contrary notion. + +Personally, I range myself on the grandmother's side. I take my stand +shoulder to shoulder with the Graces. On the banner that I wave is +embroidered a device of prunes and prisms. + +I am no blind fanatic, however. I admit that artlessness is a charming +idea. I admit that it is sometimes charming as a reality. I applaud it +(all the more heartily because it is rare) in children. But then, +children, like the young of all animals whatsoever, have a natural +grace. As a rule, they begin to show it in their third year, and to +lose it in their ninth. Within that span of six years they can be +charming without intention; and their so frequent failure in charm is +due to their voluntary or enforced imitation of the ways of their +elders. In Georgian and Early Victorian days the imitation was always +enforced. Grown-up people had good manners, and wished to see them +reflected in the young. Nowadays, the imitation is always voluntary. +Grown-up people have no manners at all; whereas they certainly have a +very keen taste for the intrinsic charm of children. They wish +children to be perfectly natural. That is (aesthetically at least) an +admirable wish. My complaint against these grown-up people is, that +they themselves, whom time has robbed of their natural grace as surely +as it robs the other animals, are content to be perfectly natural. +This contentment I deplore, and am keen to disturb. + +I except from my indictment any young lady who may read these words. I +will assume that she differs from the rest of the human race, and has +not, never had, anything to learn in the art of conversing prettily, +of entering or leaving a room or a vehicle gracefully, of writing +appropriate letters, et patati et patata. I will assume that all these +accomplishments came naturally to her. She will now be in a mood to +accept my proposition that of her contemporaries none seems to have +been so lucky as herself. She will agree with me that other girls need +training. She will not deny that grace in the little affairs of life +is a thing which has to be learned. Some girls have a far greater +aptitude for learning it than others; but, with one exception, no +girls have it in them from the outset. It is a not less complicated +thing than is the art of acting, or of nursing the sick, and needs for +the acquirement of it a not less laborious preparation. + +Is it worth the trouble? Certainly the trouble is not taken. The +`finishing school,' wherein young ladies were taught to be graceful, +is a thing of the past. It must have been a dismal place; but the +dismalness of it--the strain of it--was the measure of its +indispensability. There I beg the question. Is grace itself +indispensable? Certainly, it has been dispensed with. It isn't +reckoned with. To sit perfectly mute `in company,' or to chatter on at +the top of one's voice; to shriek with laughter; to fling oneself into +a room and dash oneself out of it; to collapse on chairs or sofas; to +sprawl across tables; to slam doors; to write, without punctuation, +notes that only an expert in handwriting could read, and only an +expert in mis-spelling could understand; to hustle, to bounce, to go +straight ahead--to be, let us say, perfectly natural in the midst of +an artificial civilisation, is an ideal which the young ladies of to- +day are neither publicly nor privately discouraged from cherishing. +The word `cherishing' implies a softness of which they are not guilty. +I hasten to substitute `pursuing.' If these young ladies were not in +the aforesaid midst of an artificial civilisation, I should be the +last to discourage their pursuit. If they were Amazons, for example, +spending their lives beneath the sky, in tilth of stubborn fields, and +in armed conflict with fierce men, it would be unreasonable to expect +of them any sacrifice to the Graces. But they are exposed to no such +hardships. They have a really very comfortable sort of life. They are +not expected to be useful. (I am writing all the time, of course, +about the young ladies in the affluent classes.) And it seems to me +that they, in payment of their debt to Fate, ought to occupy the time +that is on their hands by becoming ornamental, and increasing the +world's store of beauty. In a sense, certainly, they are ornamental. +It is a strange fact, and an ironic, that they spend quite five times +the annual amount that was spent by their grandmothers on personal +adornment. If they can afford it, well and good: let us have no +sumptuary law. But plenty of pretty dresses will not suffice. Pretty +manners are needed with them, and are prettier than they. + +I had forgotten men. Every defect that I had noted in the modern young +woman is not less notable in the modern young man. Briefly, he is a +boor. If it is true that `manners makyth man,' one doubts whether the +British race can be perpetuated. The young Englishman of to-day is +inferior to savages and to beasts of the field in that they are eager +to show themselves in an agreeable and seductive light to the females +of their kind, whilst he regards any such effort as beneath his +dignity. Not that he cultivates dignity in demeanour. He merely +slouches. Unlike his feminine counterpart, he lets his raiment match +his manners. Observe him any afternoon, as he passes down Piccadilly, +sullenly, with his shoulders humped, and his hat clapped to the back +of his head, and his cigarette dangling almost vertically from his +lips. It seems only appropriate that his hat is a billy-cock, and his +shirt a flannel one, and that his boots are brown ones. Thus attired, +he is on his way to pay a visit of ceremony to some house at which he +has recently dined. No; that is the sort of visit he never pays. (I +must confess I don't myself.) But one remembers the time when no self- +respecting youth would have shown himself in Piccadilly without the +vesture appropriate to that august highway. Nowadays there is no care +for appearances. Comfort is the one aim. Any care for appearances is +regarded rather as a sign of effeminacy. Yet never, in any other age +of the world's history, has it been regarded so. Indeed, elaborate +dressing used to be deemed by philosophers an outcome of the sex- +instinct. It was supposed that men dressed themselves finely in order +to attract the admiration of women, just as peacocks spread their +plumage with a similar purpose. Nor do I jettison the old theory. The +declension of masculine attire in England began soon after the time +when statistics were beginning to show the great numerical +preponderance of women over men; and is it fanciful to trace the one +fact to the other? Surely not. I do not say that either sex is +attracted to the other by elaborate attire. But I believe that each +sex, consciously or unconsciously, uses this elaboration for this very +purpose. Thus the over-dressed girl of to-day and the ill-dressed +youth are but symbols of the balance of our population. The one is +pleading, the other scorning. `Take me!' is the message borne by the +furs and the pearls and the old lace. `I'll see about that when I've +had a look round!' is the not pretty answer conveyed by the billy-cock +and the flannel shirt. + +I dare say that fine manners, like fine clothes, are one of the +stratagems of sex. This theory squares at once with the modern young +man's lack of manners. But how about the modern young woman's not less +obvious lack? Well, the theory will square with that, too. The modern +young woman's gracelessness may be due to her conviction that men like +a girl to be thoroughly natural. She knows that they have a very high +opinion of themselves; and what, thinks she, more natural than that +they should esteem her in proportion to her power of reproducing the +qualities that are most salient in themselves? Men, she perceives, are +clumsy, and talk loud, and have no drawing-room accomplishments, and +are rude; and she proceeds to model herself on them. Let us not blame +her. Let us blame rather her parents or guardians, who, though they +well know that a masculine girl attracts no man, leave her to the +devices of her own inexperience. Girls ought not to be allowed, as +they are, to run wild. So soon as they have lost the natural grace of +childhood, they should be initiated into that course of artificial +training through which their grandmothers passed before them, and in +virtue of which their grandmothers were pleasing. This will not, of +course, ensure husbands for them all; but it will certainly tend to +increase the number of marriages. Nor is it primarily for that +sociological reason that I plead for a return to the old system of +education. I plead for it, first and last, on aesthetic grounds. Let +the Graces be cultivated for their own sweet sake. + +The difficulty is how to begin. The mothers of the rising generation +were brought up in the unregenerate way. Their scraps of oral +tradition will need to be supplemented by much research. I advise them +to start their quest by reading The Young Lady's Book. Exactly the +right spirit is therein enshrined, though of the substance there is +much that could not be well applied to our own day. That chapter on +`The Escrutoire,' for example, belongs to a day that cannot be +recalled. We can get rid of bad manners, but we cannot substitute the +Sedan-chair for the motor-car; and the penny post, with telephones and +telegrams, has, in our own beautiful phrase, `come to stay,' and has +elbowed the art of letter-writing irrevocably from among us. But notes +are still written; and there is no reason why they should not be +written well. Has the mantle of those anonymous gentlewomen who wrote +The Young Lady's Book fallen on no one? Will no one revise that +`Manual of Elegant Recreations, Exercises, and Pursuits,' adapting it +to present needs?... A few hints as to Deportment in the Motor-Car; +the exact Angle whereat to hold the Receiver of a Telephone, and the +exact Key wherein to pitch the Voice; the Conduct of a Cigarette... I +see a wide and golden vista. + + +WHISTLER'S WRITING + +No book-lover, I. Give me an uninterrupted view of my fellow- +creatures. The most tedious of them pleases me better than the best +book. You see, I admit that some of them are tedious. I do not deem +alien from myself nothing that is human: I discriminate my fellow- +creatures according to their contents. And in that respect I am not +more different in my way from the true humanitarian than from the true +bibliophile in his. To him the content of a book matters not at all. +He loves books because they are books, and discriminates them only by +the irrelevant standard of their rarity. A rare book is not less dear +to him because it is unreadable, even as to the snob a dull duke is as +good as a bright one. Indeed, why should he bother about readableness? +He doesn't want to read. `Uncut edges' for him, when he can get them; +and, even when he can't, the notion of reading a rare edition would +seem to him quite uncouth and preposterous The aforesaid snob would as +soon question His Grace about the state of His Grace's soul. I, on the +other hand, whenever human company is denied me, have often a desire +to read. Reading, I prefer cut edges, because a paper-knife is one of +the things that have the gift of invisibility whenever they are +wanted; and because one's thumb, in prising open the pages, so often +affects the text. Many volumes have I thus mutilated, and I hope that +in the sale-rooms of a sentimental posterity they may fetch higher +prices than their duly uncut duplicates. So long as my thumb tatters +merely the margin, I am quite equanimous. If I were reading a First +Folio Shakespeare by my fireside, and if the matchbox were ever so +little beyond my reach, I vow I would light my cigarette with a spill +made from the margin of whatever page I were reading. I am neat, +scrupulously neat, in regard to the things I care about; but a book, +as a book, is not one of these things. + +Of course, a book may happen to be in itself a beautiful object. Such +a book I treat tenderly, as one would a flower. And such a book is, in +its brown-papered boards, whereon gleam little gilt italics and a +little gilt butterfly, Whistler's Gentle Art of Making Enemies. It +happens to be also a book which I have read again and again--a book +that has often travelled with me. Yet its cover is as fresh as when +first, some twelve years since, it came into my possession. A flower +freshly plucked, one would say--a brown-and-yellow flower, with a +little gilt butterfly fluttering over it. And its inner petals, its +delicately proportioned pages, are as white and undishevelled as +though they never had been opened. The book lies open before me, as I +write. I must be careful of my pen's transit from inkpot to MS. + +Yet, I know, many worthy folk would like the book blotted out of +existence. These are they who understand and love the art of painting, +but neither love nor understand writing as an art. For them The Gentle +Art of Making Enemies is but something unworthy of a great man. +Certainly, it is a thing incongruous with a great hero. And for most +people it is painful not to regard a great man as also a great hero; +hence all the efforts to explain away the moral characteristics +deducible from The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, and to prove that +Whistler, beneath a prickly surface, was saturated through and through +with the quintessence of the Sermon on the Mount. + +Well! hero-worship is a very good thing. It is a wholesome exercise +which we ought all to take, now and again. Only, let us not strain +ourselves by overdoing it. Let us not indulge in it too constantly. +Let hero-worship be reserved for heroes. And there was nothing heroic +about Whistler, except his unfaltering devotion to his own ideals in +art. No saint was he, and none would have been more annoyed than he by +canonisation; would he were here to play, as he would have played +incomparably, the devil's advocate! So far as he possessed the +Christian virtues, his faith was in himself, his hope was for the +immortality of his own works, and his charity was for the defects in +those works. He is known to have been an affectionate son, an +affectionate husband; but, for the rest, all the tenderness in him +seems to have been absorbed into his love for such things in nature as +were expressible through terms of his own art. As a man in relation to +his fellow-men, he cannot, from any purely Christian standpoint, be +applauded. He was inordinately vain and cantankerous. Enemies, as he +has wittily implied, were a necessity to his nature; and he seems to +have valued friendship (a thing never really valuable, in itself, to a +really vain man) as just the needful foundation for future enmity. +Quarrelling and picking quarrels, he went his way through life +blithely. Most of these quarrels were quite trivial and tedious. In +the ordinary way, they would have been forgotten long ago, as the +trivial and tedious details in the lives of other great men are +forgotten. But Whistler was great not merely in painting, not merely +as a wit and dandy in social life. He had, also, an extraordinary +talent for writing. He was a born writer. He wrote, in his way, +perfectly; and his way was his own, and the secret of it has died with +him. Thus, conducting them through the Post Office, he has conducted +his squabbles to immortality. + +Immortality is a big word. I do not mean by it that so long as this +globe shall endure, the majority of the crawlers round it will spend +the greater part of their time in reading The Gentle Art of Making +Enemies. Even the pre-eminently immortal works of Shakespeare are read +very little. The average of time devoted to them by Englishmen cannot +(even though one assess Mr. Frank Harris at eight hours per diem, and +Mr. Sidney Lee at twenty-four) tot up to more than a small fraction of +a second in a lifetime reckoned by the Psalmist's limit. When I dub +Whistler an immortal writer, I do but mean that so long as there are a +few people interested in the subtler ramifications of English prose as +an art-form, so long will there be a few constantly-recurring readers +of The Gentle Art. + +There are in England, at this moment, a few people to whom prose +appeals as an art; but none of them, I think, has yet done justice to +Whistler's prose. None has taken it with the seriousness it deserves. +I am not surprised. When a man can express himself through two media, +people tend to take him lightly in his use of the medium to which he +devotes the lesser time and energy, even though he use that medium not +less admirably than the other, and even though they themselves care +about it more than they care about the other. Perhaps this very +preference in them creates a prejudice against the man who does not +share it, and so makes them sceptical of his power. Anyhow, if +Disraeli had been unable to express himself through the medium of +political life, Disraeli's novels would long ago have had the due +which the expert is just beginning to give them. Had Rossetti not been +primarily a poet, the expert in painting would have acquired long ago +his present penetration into the peculiar value of Rossetti's +painting. Likewise, if Whistler had never painted a picture, and, even +so, had written no more than he actually did write, this essay in +appreciation would have been forestalled again and again. As it is, I +am a sort of herald. And, however loudly I shall blow my trumpet, not +many people will believe my message. For many years to come, it will +be the fashion among literary critics to pooh-pooh Whistler, the +writer, as an amateur. For Whistler was primarily a painter--not less +than was Rossetti primarily a poet, and Disraeli a statesman. And he +will not live down quicklier than they the taunt of amateurishness in +his secondary art. Nevertheless, I will, for my own pleasure, blow the +trumpet. + +I grant you, Whistler was an amateur. But you do not dispose of a man +by proving him to be an amateur. On the contrary, an amateur with real +innate talent may do, must do, more exquisite work than he could do if +he were a professional. His very ignorance and tentativeness may be, +must be, a means of especial grace. Not knowing `how to do things,' +having no ready-made and ready-working apparatus, and being in +constant fear of failure, he has to grope always in the recesses of +his own soul for the best way to express his soul's meaning. He has to +shift for himself, and to do his very best. Consequently, his work has +a more personal and fresher quality, and a more exquisite `finish,' +than that of a professional, howsoever finely endowed. All of the much +that we admire in Walter Pater's prose comes of the lucky chance that +he was an amateur, and never knew his business. Had Fate thrown him +out of Oxford upon the world, the world would have been the richer for +the prose of another John Addington Symonds, and would have forfeited +Walter Pater's prose. In other words, we should have lost a half-crown +and found a shilling. Had Fate withdrawn from Whistler his vision for +form and colour, leaving him only his taste for words and phrases and +cadences, Whistler would have settled solidly down to the art of +writing, and would have mastered it, and, mastering it, have lost that +especial quality which the Muse grants only to them who approach her +timidly, bashfully, as suitors. + +Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps Whistler would never, in any case, have +acquired the professional touch in writing. For we know that he never +acquired it in the art to which he dedicated all but the surplus of +his energy. Compare him with the other painters of his day. He was a +child in comparison with them. They, with sure science, solved roughly +and readily problems of modelling and drawing and what not that he +never dared to meddle with. It has often been said that his art was an +art of evasion. But the reason of the evasion was reverence. He kept +himself reverently at a distance. He knew how much he could not do, +nor was he ever confident even of the things that he could do; and +these things, therefore, he did superlatively well, having to grope +for the means in the recesses of his soul. The particular quality of +exquisiteness and freshness that gives to all his work, whether on +canvas or on stone or on copper, a distinction from and above any +contemporary work, and makes it dearer to our eyes and hearts, is a +quality that came to him because he was an amateur, and that abided +with him because he never ceased to be an amateur. He was a master +through his lack of mastery. In the art of writing, too, he was a +master through his lack of mastery. There is an almost exact parallel +between the two sides of his genius. Nothing could be more absurd than +the general view of him as a masterly professional on the one side and +a trifling amateur on the other. He was, certainly, a painter who +wrote; but, by the slightest movement of Fate's little finger, he +might have been a writer who painted, and this essay have been written +not by me from my standpoint, but by some painter, eager to suggest +that Whistler's painting was a quite serious thing. + +Yes, that painting and that writing are marvellously akin; and such +differences as you will see in them are superficial merely. I spoke of +Whistler's vanity in life, and I spoke of his timidity and reverence +in art. That contradiction is itself merely superficial. Bob Acres was +timid, but he was also vain. His swagger was not an empty assumption +to cloak his fears; he really did regard himself as a masterful and +dare-devil fellow, except when he was actually fighting. Similarly, +except when he was at his work, Whistler, doubtless, really did think +of himself as a brilliant effortless butterfly. The pose was, +doubtless a quite sincere one, a necessary reaction of feeling. Well, +in his writing he displays to us his vanity; whilst in his Painting we +discern only his reverence. In his writing, too, he displays his +harshness--swoops hither and thither a butterfly equipped with sharp +little beak and talons; whereas in his painting we are conscious only +of his caressing sense of beauty. But look from the writer, as shown +by himself, to the means by which himself is shown. You will find that +for words as for colour-tones he has the same reverent care, and for +phrases as for forms the same caressing sense of beauty. +Fastidiousness--`daintiness,' as he would have said--dandyishness, as +we might well say: by just that which marks him as a painter is he +marked as a writer too. His meaning was ever ferocious; but his +method, how delicate and tender! The portrait of his mother, whom he +loved, was not wrought with a more loving hand than were his portraits +of Mr. Harry Quilter for The World. + +His style never falters. The silhouette of no sentence is ever +blurred. Every sentence is ringing with a clear vocal cadence. There, +after all, in that vocal quality, is the chief test of good writing. +Writing, as a means of expression, has to compete with talking. The +talker need not rely wholly on what he says. He has the help of his +mobile face and hands, and of his voice, with its various inflexions +and its variable pace, whereby he may insinuate fine shades of +meaning, qualifying or strengthening at will, and clothing naked words +with colour, and making dead words live. But the writer? He can +express a certain amount through his handwriting, if he write in a +properly elastic way. But his writing is not printed in facsimile. It +is printed in cold, mechanical, monotonous type. For his every effect +he must rely wholly on the words that he chooses, and on the order in +which he ranges them, and on his choice among the few hard-and-fast +symbols of punctuation. He must so use those slender means that they +shall express all that he himself can express through his voice and +face and hands, or all that he would thus express if he were a good +talker. Usually, the good talker is a dead failure when he tries to +express himself in writing. For that matter, so is the bad talker. But +the bad talker has the better chance of success, inasmuch as the +inexpressiveness of his voice and face and hands will have sharpened +his scent for words and phrases that shall in themselves convey such +meanings as he has to express. Whistler was that rare phenomenon, the +good talker who could write as well as he talked. Read any page of The +Gentle Art of Making Enemies, and you will hear a voice in it, and see +a face in it, and see gestures in it. And none of these is quite like +any other known to you. It matters not that you never knew Whistler, +never even set eyes on him. You see him and know him here. The voice +drawls slowly, quickening to a kind of snap at the end of every +sentence, and sometimes rising to a sudden screech of laughter; and, +all the while, the fine fierce eyes of the talker are flashing out at +you, and his long nervous fingers are tracing extravagant arabesques +in the air. No! you need never have seen Whistler to know what he was +like. He projected through printed words the clean-cut image and +clear-ringing echo of himself. He was a born writer, achieving +perfection through pains which must have been infinite for that we see +at first sight no trace of them at all. + +Like himself, necessarily, his style was cosmopolitan and eccentric. +It comprised Americanisms and Cockneyisms and Parisian argot, with +constant reminiscences of the authorised version of the Old Testament, +and with chips off Molie`re, and with shreds and tags of what-not +snatched from a hundred-and-one queer corners. It was, in fact, an +Autolycine style. It was a style of the maddest motley, but of motley +so deftly cut and fitted to the figure, and worn with such an air, as +to become a gracious harmony for all beholders. + +After all, what matters is not so much the vocabulary as the manner in +which the vocabulary is used. Whistler never failed to find right +words, and the right cadence for a dignified meaning, when dignity was +his aim. `And when the evening mist clothes the riverside with poetry, +as with a veil, and the poor buildings lose themselves in the dim sky, +and the tall chimneys become campanili, and the warehouses are palaces +in the night, and the whole city hangs in the heavens, and fairyland +is before us...' That is as perfect, in its dim and delicate beauty, +as any of his painted `nocturnes.' But his aim was more often to pour +ridicule and contempt. And herein the weirdness of his natural +vocabulary and the patchiness of his reading were of very real value +to him. Take the opening words of his letter to Tom Taylor: `Dead for +a ducat, dead! my dear Tom: and the rattle has reached me by post. +Sans rancune, say you? Bah! you scream unkind threats and die +badly...' And another letter to the same unfortunate man: `Why, my +dear old Tom, I never was serious with you, even when you were among +us. Indeed, I killed you quite, as who should say, without +seriousness, "A rat! A rat!" you know, rather cursorily...' There the +very lack of coherence in the style, as of a man gasping and choking +with laughter, drives the insults home with a horrible precision. +Notice the technical skill in the placing of `you know, rather +cursorily' at the end of the sentence. Whistler was full of such +tricks--tricks that could never have been played by him, could never +have occurred to him, had he acquired the professional touch And not a +letter in the book but has some such little sharp felicity of cadence +or construction. + +The letters, of course, are the best thing in the book, and the best +of the letters are the briefest. An exquisite talent like Whistler's, +whether in painting or in writing, is always at its best on a small +scale. On a large scale it strays and is distressed. Thus the `Ten +o'Clock,' from which I took that passage about the evening mist and +the riverside, does not leave me with a sense of artistic +satisfaction. It lacks structure. It is not a roundly conceived whole: +it is but a row of fragments. Were it otherwise, Whistler could never +have written so perfectly the little letters. For no man who can +finely grasp a big theme can play exquisitely round a little one. + +Nor can any man who excels in scoffing at his fellows excel also in +taking abstract subjects seriously. Certainly, the little letters are +Whistler's passport among the elect of literature. Luckily, I can +judge them without prejudice. Whether in this or that case Whistler +was in the right or in the wrong is not a question which troubles me +at all. I read the letters simply from the literary standpoint. As +controversial essays, certainly, they were often in very bad taste. An +urchin scribbling insults upon somebody's garden-wall would not go +further than Whistler often went. Whistler's mode of controversy +reminds me, in another sense, of the writing on the wall. They who +were so foolish as to oppose him really did have their souls required +of them. After an encounter with him they never again were quite the +same men in the eyes of their fellows. Whistler's insults always +stuck--stuck and spread round the insulted, who found themselves at +length encased in them, like flies in amber. + +You may shed a tear over the flies, if you will. For myself, I am +content to laud the amber. + + +ICHABOD + +It is not cast from any obvious mould of sentiment. It is not a +memorial urn, nor a ruined tower, nor any of those things which he who +runs may weep over. Though not less really deplorable than they, it +needs, I am well aware, some sort of explanation to enable my reader +to mourn with me. For it is merely a hat-box. + +It is nothing but that--an ordinary affair of pig-skin, with a brass +lock. As I write, it stands on a table near me. It is of the kind that +accommodates two hats, one above the other. It has had many tenants, +and is sun-tanned, rain-soiled, scarred and dented by collision with +trucks and what not other accessories to the moving scenes through +which it has been bandied. Yes! it has known the stress of many +journeys; yet has it never (you would say, seeing it) received its +baptism of paste: it has not one label on it. And there, indeed, is +the tragedy that I shall unfold. + +For many years this hat-box had been my travelling companion, and was, +but a few days since, a dear record of all the big and little journeys +I had made. It was much more to me than a mere receptacle for hats. It +was my one collection, my collection of labels. Well! last week its +lock was broken. I sent it to the trunk-makers, telling them to take +the greatest care of it. It came back yesterday. The idiots, the +accursed idots! had carefully removed every label from its surface. I +wrote to them--it matters not what I said. My fury has burnt itself +out. I have reached the stage of craving general sympathy. So I have +sat down to write, in the shadow of a tower which stands bleak, bare, +prosaic, all the ivy of its years stripped from it; in the shadow of +an urn commemorating nothing. + +I think that every one who is or ever has been a collector will pity +me in this dark hour of mine. In other words, I think that nearly +every one will pity me. For few are they who have not, at some time, +come under the spell of the collecting spirit and known the joy of +accumulating specimens of something or other. The instinct has its +corner, surely, in every breast. Of course, hobby-horses are of many +different breeds; but all their riders belong to one great cavalcade, +and when they know that one of their company has had his steed shot +under him, they will not ride on without a backward glance of +sympathy. Lest my fall be unnoted by them, I write this essay. I want +that glance. + +Do not, reader, suspect that because I am choosing my words nicely, +and playing with metaphor, and putting my commas in their proper +places, my sorrow is not really and truly poignant. I write +elaborately, for that is my habit, and habits are less easily broken +than hearts. I could no more `dash off' this my cri de coeur than I +could an elegy on a broomstick I had never seen. Therefore, reader, +bear with me, despite my sable plumes and purple; and weep with me, +though my prose be, like those verses which Mr. Beamish wrote over +Chloe"'s grave, `of a character to cool emotion.' For indeed my +anguish is very real. The collection I had amassed so carefully, +during so many years, the collection I loved and revelled in, has been +obliterated, swept away, destroyed utterly by a pair of ruthless, +impious, well-meaning, idiotic, unseen hands. It cannot be restored to +me. Nothing can compensate me for it gone. It was part and parcel of +my life. + +Orchids, jade, majolica, wines, mezzotints, old silver, first +editions, harps, copes, hookahs, cameos, enamels, black-letter folios, +scarabaei--such things are beautiful and fascinating in themselves. +Railway-labels are not, I admit. For the most part, they are crudely +coloured, crudely printed, without sense of margin or spacing; in +fact, quite worthless as designs. No one would be a connoisseur in +them. No one could be tempted to make a general collection of them. My +own collection of them was strictly personal: I wanted none that was +not a symbol of some journey made by myself, even as the hunter of big +game cares not to possess the tusks, and the hunter of women covets +not the photographs, of other people's victims. My collection was one +of those which result from man's tendency to preserve some obvious +record of his pleasures--the points he has scored in the game. To +Nimrod, his tusks; to Lothario, his photographs; to me (who cut no +dash in either of those veneries, and am not greedy enough to preserve +menus nor silly enough to preserve press-cuttings, but do delight in +travelling from place to place), my railway-labels. Had nomady been my +business, had I been a commercial traveller or a King's Messenger, +such labels would have held for me no charming significance. But I am +only by instinct a nomad. I have a tether, known as the four-mile +radius. To slip it is for me always an event, an excitement. To come +to a new place, to awaken in a strange bed, to be among strangers! To +have dispelled, as by sudden magic, the old environment! It is on the +scoring of such points as these that I preen myself, and my memory is +always ringing the `changes' I have had, complacently, as a man +jingles silver in his pocket. The noise of a great terminus is no jar +to me. It is music. I prick up my ears to it, and paw the platform. +Dear to me as the bugle-note to any war-horse, as the first twittering +of the birds in the hedgerows to the light-sleeping vagabond, that cry +of `Take your seats please!' or--better still--`En voiture!' or +`Partenza!' Had I the knack of rhyme, I would write a sonnet-sequence +of the journey to Newhaven or Dover--a sonnet for every station one +does not stop at. I await that poet who shall worthily celebrate the +iron road. There is one who describes, with accuracy and gusto, the +insides of engines; but he will not do at all. I look for another, who +shall show us the heart of the passenger, the exhilaration of +travelling by day, the exhilaration and romance and self-importance of +travelling by night. + +`Paris!' How it thrills me when, on a night in spring, in the hustle +and glare of Victoria, that label is slapped upon my hat-box! Here, +standing in the very heart of London, I am by one sweep of a paste- +brush transported instantly into that white-grey city across the sea. +To all intents and purposes I am in Paris already. Strange, that the +porter does not say, `V'la`, M'sieu'!' Strange, that the evening +papers I buy at the bookstall are printed in the English language. +Strange, that London still holds my body, when a corduroyed magician +has whisked my soul verily into Paris. The engine is hissing as I +hurry my body along the platform, eager to reunite it with my soul... +Over the windy quay the stars are shining as I pass down the gangway, +hat-box in hand. They twinkle brightly over the deck I am now pacing-- +amused, may be, at my excitement. The machinery grunts and creaks. The +little boat quakes in the excruciating throes of its departure. At +last!... One by one, the stars take their last look at me, and the sky +grows pale, and the sea blanches mysteriously with it. Through the +delicate cold air of the dawn, across the grey waves of the sea, the +outlines of Dieppe grow and grow. The quay is lined with its blue- +bloused throng. These porters are as excited by us as though they were +the aborigines of some unknown island. (And yet, are they not here, at +this hour, in these circumstances, every day of their lives?) These +gestures! These voices, hoarse with passion! The dear music of French, +rippling up clear for me through all this hoarse confusion of its +utterance, and making me happy!... I drink my cup of steaming coffee-- +true coffee!--and devour more than one roll. At the tables around me, +pale and dishevelled from the night, sit the people whom I saw--years +ago!--at Charing Cross. How they have changed! The coffee sends a glow +throughout my body. I am fulfilled with a sense of material well- +being. The queer ethereal exaltation of the dawn has vanished. I climb +up into the train, and dispose myself in the dun-cushioned coupe'. +`Chemins de Fer de l'Ouest' is perforated on the white antimacassars. +Familiar and strange inscription! I murmur its impressive iambs over +and over again. They become the refrain to which the train vibrates on +its way. I smoke cigarettes, a little drowsily gazing out of the +window at the undulating French scenery that flies past me, at the +silver poplars. Row after slanted row of these incomparably gracious +trees flies past me, their foliage shimmering in the unawoken +landscape Soon I shall be rattling over the cobbles of unawoken Paris, +through the wide white-grey streets with their unopened jalousies. And +when, later, I awake in the unnatural little bedroom of walnut-wood +and crimson velvet, in the bed whose curtains are white with that +whiteness which Paris alone can give to linen, a Parisian sun will be +glittering for me in a Parisian sky. + +Yes! In my whole collection the Paris specimens were dearest to me, +meant most to me, I think. But there was none that had not some +tendrils on sentiment. All of them I prized, more or less. Of the +Aberdeen specimens I was immensely fond. Who can resist the thought of +that express by which, night after night, England is torn up its +centre? I love well that cab-drive in the chill autumnal night through +the desert of Bloomsbury, the dead leaves rustling round the horse's +hoofs as we gallop through the Squares. Ah, I shall be across the +Border before these doorsteps are cleaned, before the coming of the +milk-carts. Anon, I descry the cavernous open jaws of Euston. The +monster swallows me, and soon I am being digested into Scotland. I sit +ensconced in a corner of a compartment. The collar of my ulster is +above my ears, my cap is pulled over my eyes, my feet are on a hot- +water tin, and my rug snugly envelops most of me. Sleeping-cars are +for the strange beings who love not the act of travelling. Them I +should spurn even if I could not sleep a wink in an ordinary +compartment. I would liefer forfeit sleep than the consciousness of +travelling. But it happens that I, in an ordinary compartment, am +blest both with the sleep and with the consciousness, all through the +long night. To be asleep and to know that you are sleeping, and to +know, too, that even as you sleep you are being borne away through +darkness into distance--that, surely, is to go two better than +Endymion. Surely, nothing is more mysteriously delightful than this +joint consciousness of sleep and movement. Pitiable they to whom it is +denied. All through the night the vibration of the train keeps one- +third of me awake, while the other two parts of me profoundly slumber. +Whenever the train stops, and the vibration ceases, then the one-third +of me falls asleep, and the other two parts stir. I am awake just +enough to hear the hollow-echoing cry of `Crewe' or `York,' and to +blink up at the green-hooded lamp in the ceiling. May be, I raise a +corner of the blind, and see through the steam-dim window the +mysterious, empty station. A solitary porter shuffles along the +platform. Yonder, those are the lights of the refreshment room, where, +all night long, a barmaid is keeping her lonely vigil over the beer- +handles and the Bath-buns in glass cases. I see long rows of +glimmering milk-cans, and wonder drowsily whether they contain forty +modern thieves. The engine snorts angrily in the benighted silence. +Far away is the faint, familiar sound--clink-clank, clink-clank--of +the man who tests the couplings. Nearer and nearer the sound comes. It +passes, recedes It is rather melancholy.... A whistle, a jerk, and the +two waking parts of me are asleep again, while the third wakes up to +mount guard over them, and keeps me deliciously aware of the rhythmic +dream they are dreaming about the hot bath and the clean linen, and +the lovely breakfast that I am to have at Aberdeen; and of the Scotch +air, crisp and keen, that is to escort me, later along the Deeside. + +Little journeys, as along the Deeside, have a charm of their own. +Little journeys from London to places up the river, or to places on +the coast of Kent--journeys so brief that you lunch at one end and +have tea at the other--I love them all, and loved the labels that +recalled them to me. But the labels of long journeys, of course, took +precedence in my heart. Here and there on my hat-box were labels that +recalled to me long journeys in which frontiers were crossed at dead +of night--dim memories of small, crazy stations where I shivered half- +awake, and was sleepily conscious of a strange tongue and strange +uniforms, of my jingling bunch of keys, of ruthless arms diving into +the nethermost recesses of my trunks, of suspicious grunts and +glances, and of grudging hieroglyphics chalked on the slammed lids. +These were things more or less painful and resented in the moment of +experience, yet even then fraught with a delicious glamour. I +suffered, but gladly. In the night, when all things are mysteriously +magnified, I have never crossed a frontier without feeling some of the +pride of conquest. And, indeed, were these conquests mere illusions? +Was I not actually extending the frontiers of my mind, adding new +territories to it? Every crossed frontier, every crossed sea, meant +for me a definite success--an expansion and enrichment of my soul. +When, after seven days and nights of sea traversed, I caught my first +glimpse of Sandy Hook, was there no comparison between Columbus and +myself? To see what one has not seen before, is not that almost as +good as to see what no one has ever seen? + +Romance, exhilaration, self-importance these are what my labels +symbolised and recalled to me. That lost collection was a running +record of all my happiest hours; a focus, a monument, a diary. It was +my humble Odyssey, wrought in coloured paper on pig-skin, and the one +work I never, never was weary of. If the distinguished Ithacan had +travelled with a hat-box, how finely and minutely Homer would have +described it--its depth and girth, its cunningly fashioned lock and +fair lining withal! And in how interminable a torrent of hexameters +would he have catalogued all the labels on it, including those +attractive views of the Ho^tel Circe, the Ho^tel Calypso, and other +high-class resorts. Yet no! Had such a hat-box existed and had it been +preserved in his day, Homer would have seen in it a sufficient record, +a better record than even he could make, of Odysseus' wanderings. We +should have had nothing from him but the Iliad. I, certainly never +felt any need of commemorating my journeys till my labels were lost to +me. And I am conscious how poor and chill is the substitute. + +My collection like most collections, began imperceptibly. A man does +not say to himself, `I am going to collect' this thing or that. True, +the schoolboy says so; but his are not, in the true sense of the word, +collections. He seeks no set autobiographic symbols, for boys never +look back--there is too little to look back on, too much in front. Nor +have the objects of his collection any intrinsic charm for him. He +starts a collection merely that he may have a plausible excuse for +doing something he ought not to do. He goes in for birds' eggs merely +that he may be allowed to risk his bones and tear his clothes in +climbing; for butterflies, that he may be encouraged to poison and +impale; for stamps...really, I do not know why he, why any sane +creature goes in for stamps. It follows that he has no real love of +his collection and soon abandons it for something else. The sincere +collector, how different! His hobby has a solid basis of personal +preference. Some one gives him (say) a piece of jade. He admires it. +He sees another piece in a shop, and buys it; later, he buys another. +He does not regard these pieces of jade as distinct from the rest of +his possessions; he has no idea of collecting jade. It is not till he +has acquired several other pieces that he ceases to regard them as +mere items in the decoration of his room, and gives them a little +table, or a tray of a cabinet, all to themselves. How well they look +there! How they intensify one another! He really must get some one to +give him that little pedestalled Cupid which he saw yesterday in +Wardour Street. Thus awakes in him, quite gradually, the spirit of the +collector. Or take the case of one whose collection is not of +beautiful things, but of autobiographic symbols: take the case of the +glutton. He will have pocketed many menus before it occurs to him to +arrange them in an album. Even so, it was not until a fair number of +labels had been pasted on my hat-box that I saw them as souvenirs, and +determined that in future my hat-box should always travel with me and +so commemorate my every darling escape. + +In the path of every collector are strewn obstacles of one kind or +another; which, to overleap, is part of the fun. As a collector of +labels I had my pleasant difficulties. On any much-belabelled piece of +baggage the porter always pastes the new label over that which looks +most recent; else the thing might miss its destination. Now, paste +dries before the end of the briefest journey; and one of my canons was +that, though two labels might overlap, none must efface the +inscription of another. On the other hand, I did not wish to lose my +hat-box, for this would have entailed inquiries, and descriptions, and +telegraphing up the line, and all manner of agitation. What, then, was +I to do? I might have taken my hat-box with me in the carriage? That, +indeed, is what I always did. But, unless a thing is to go in the van, +it receives no label at all. So I had to use a mild stratagem. `Yes,' +I would say, `everything in the van!' The labels would be duly +affixed. `Oh,' I would cry, seizing the hat-box quickly, `I forgot. I +want this with me in the carriage.' (I learned to seize it quickly, +because some porters are such martinets that they will whisk the label +off and confiscate it.) Then, when the man was not looking, I would +remove the label from the place he had chosen for it and press it on +some unoccupied part of the surface. You cannot think how much I +enjoyed these manoeuvres. There was the moral pleasure of having both +outwitted a railway company and secured another specimen for my +collection; and there was the physical pleasure of making a limp slip +of paper stick to a hard substance--that simple pleasure which appeals +to all of us and is, perhaps, the missing explanation of philately. +Pressed for time, I could not, of course, have played my trick. Nor +could I have done so--it would have seemed heartless--if any one had +come to see me off and be agitated at parting. Therefore, I was always +very careful to arrive in good time for my train, and to insist that +all farewells should be made on my own doorstep. + +Only in one case did I break the rule that no label must be +obliterated by another. It is a long story; but I propose to tell it. +You must know that I loved my labels not only for the meanings they +conveyed to me, but also, more than a little, for the effect they +produced on other people. Travelling in a compartment, with my hat-box +beside me, I enjoyed the silent interest which my labels aroused in my +fellow-passengers. If the compartment was so full that my hat-box had +to be relegated to the rack, I would always, in the course of the +journey, take it down and unlock it, and pretend to be looking for +something I had put into it. It pleased me to see from beneath my +eyelids the respectful wonder and envy evoked by it. Of course, there +was no suspicion that the labels were a carefully formed collection; +they were taken as the wild-flowers of an exquisite restlessness, of +an unrestricted range in life. Many of them signified beautiful or +famous places. There was one point at which Oxford, Newmarket, and +Assisi converged, and I was always careful to shift my hat-box round +in such a way that this purple patch should be lost on none of my +fellow-passengers. The many other labels, English or alien, they, too, +gave their hints of a life spent in fastidious freedom, hints that I +had seen and was seeing all that is best to be seen of men and cities +and country-houses. I was respected, accordingly, and envied. And I +had keen delight in this ill-gotten homage. A despicable delight, you +say? But is not yours, too, a fallen nature? The love of impressing +strangers falsely, is it not implanted in all of us? To be sure, it is +an inevitable outcome of the conditions in which we exist. It is a +result of the struggle for life. Happiness, as you know, is our aim in +life; we are all struggling to be happy. And, alas! for every one of +us, it is the things he does not possess which seem to him most +desirable, most conducive to happiness. For instance, the poor +nobleman covets wealth, because wealth would bring him comfort, +whereas the nouveau riche covets a pedigree, because a pedigree would +make him of what he is merely in. The rich nobleman who is an invalid +covets health, on the assumption that health would enable him to enjoy +his wealth and position. The rich, robust nobleman hankers after an +intellect. The rich, robust, intellectual nobleman is (be sure of it) +as discontented, somehow, as the rest of them. No man possesses all he +wants. No man is ever quite happy. But, by producing an impression +that he has what he wants--in fact, by `bluffing'--a man can gain some +of the advantages that he would gain by really having it. Thus, the +poor nobleman can, by concealing his `balance' and keeping up +appearances, coax more or less unlimited credit from his tradesman. +The nouveau riche, by concealing his origin and trafficking with the +College of Heralds, can intercept some of the homage paid to high +birth. And (though the rich nobleman who is an invalid can make no +tangible gain by pretending to be robust, since robustness is an +advantage only from within) the rich, robust nobleman can, by +employing a clever private secretary to write public speeches and +magazine articles for him, intercept some of the homage which is paid +to intellect. + +These are but a few typical cases, taken at random from a small area. +But consider the human race at large, and you will find that +`bluffing' is indeed one of the natural functions of the human animal. +Every man pretends to have what (not having it) he covets, in order +that he may gain some of the advantages of having it. And thus it +comes that he makes his pretence, also, by force of habit, when there +is nothing tangible to be gained by it. The poor nobleman wishes to be +thought rich even by people who will not benefit him in their +delusion; and the nouveau riche likes to be thought well-born even by +people who set no store on good birth; and so forth. But pretences, +whether they be an end or a means, cannot be made successfully among +our intimate friends. These wretches know all about us--have seen +through us long ago. With them we are, accordingly, quite natural. +That is why we find their company so restful. Among acquaintances the +pretence is worth making. But those who know anything at all about us +are apt to find us out. That is why we find acquaintances such a +nuisance. Among perfect strangers, who know nothing at all about us, +we start with a clean slate. If our pretence do not come off, we have +only ourselves to blame. And so we `bluff' these strangers, blithely, +for all we are worth, whether there be anything to gain or nothing. We +all do it. Let us despise ourselves for doing it, but not one another. +By which I mean, reader, do not be hard on me for making a show of my +labels in railway-carriages. After all, the question is whether a man +`bluff' well or ill. If he brag vulgarly before his strangers, away +with him! by all means. He does not know how to play the game. He is a +failure. But, if he convey subtly (and, therefore, successfully) the +fine impression he wishes to convey, then you should stifle your +wrath, and try to pick up a few hints. When I saw my fellow-passengers +eyeing my hat-box, I did not, of course, say aloud to them, `Yes, mine +is a delightful life! Any amount of money, any amount of leisure! And, +what's more, I know how to make the best use of them both!' Had I done +so, they would have immediately seen through me as an impostor. But I +did nothing of the sort. I let my labels proclaim distinction for me, +quietly, in their own way. And they made their proclamation with +immense success. But there came among them, in course of time, one +label that would not harmonise with them. Came, at length, one label +that did me actual discredit. I happened to have had influenza, and my +doctor had ordered me to make my convalescence in a place which, +according to him, was better than any other for my particular +condition. He had ordered me to Ramsgate, and to Ramsgate I had gone. +A label on my hat-box duly testified to my obedience. At the time, I +had thought nothing of it. But, in subsequent journeys, I noticed that +my hat-box did not make its old effect, somehow. My fellow-passengers +looked at it, were interested in it; but I had a subtle sense that +they were not reverencing me as of yore. Something was the matter. I +was not long in tracing what it was. The discord struck by Ramsgate +was the more disastrous because, in my heedlessness, I had placed that +ignoble label within an inch of my point d'appui--the trinity of +Oxford, Newmarket and Assisi. What was I to do? I could not explain to +my fellow-passengers, as I have explained to you, my reason for +Ramsgate. So long as the label was there, I had to rest under the +hideous suspicion of having gone there for pleasure, gone of my own +free will. I did rest under it during the next two or three journeys. +But the injustice of my position maddened me. At length, a too obvious +sneer on the face of a fellow-passenger steeled me to a resolve that I +would, for once, break my rule against obliteration. On the return +journey, I obliterated Ramsgate with the new label, leaving visible +merely the final TE, which could hardly compromise me. + +Steterunt those two letters because I was loth to destroy what was, +primarily, a symbol for myself: I wished to remember Ramsgate, even +though I had to keep it secret. Only in a secondary, accidental way +was my collection meant for the public eye. Else, I should not have +hesitated to deck the hat-box with procured symbols of Seville, Simla, +St. Petersburg and other places which I had not (and would have liked +to be supposed to have) visited. But my collection was, first of all, +a private autobiography, a record of my scores of Fate; and thus +positively to falsify it would have been for me as impossible as +cheating at `Patience.' From that to which I would not add I hated to +subtract anything--even Ramsgate. After all, Ramsgate was not London; +to have been in it was a kind of score. Besides, it had restored me to +health. I had no right to rase it utterly. + +But such tendresse was not my sole reason for sparing those two +letters. Already I was reaching that stage where the collector loves +his specimens not for their single sakes, but as units in the sum- +total. To every collector comes, at last, a time when he does but +value his collection--how shall I say?--collectively. He who goes in +for beautiful things begins, at last, to value his every acquisition +not for its beauty, but because it enhances the worth of the rest. +Likewise, he who goes in for autobiographic symbols begins, at last, +to care not for the symbolism of another event in his life, but for +the addition to the objects already there. He begins to value every +event less for its own sake than because it swells his collection. +Thus there came for me a time when I looked forward to a journey less +because it meant movement and change for myself than because it meant +another label for my hat-box. A strange state to fall into? Yes, +collecting is a mania, a form of madness. And it is the most pleasant +form of madness in the whole world. It can bring us nearer to real +happiness than can any form of sanity. The normal, eclectic man is +never happy, because he is always craving something of another kind +than what he has got. The collector, in his mad concentration, wants +only more and more of what he has got already; and what he has got +already he cherishes with a passionate joy. I cherished my gallimaufry +of rainbow-coloured labels almost as passionately as the miser his +hoard of gold. Why do we call the collector of current coin a miser? +Wretched? He? True, he denies himself all the reputed pleasures of +life; but does he not do so of his own accord, gladly? He sacrifices +everything to his mania; but that merely proves how intense his mania +is. In that the nature of his collection cuts him off from all else, +he is the perfect type of the collector. He is above all other +collectors. And he is the truly happiest of them all. It is only when, +by some merciless stroke of Fate, he is robbed of his hoard, that he +becomes wretched. Then, certainly, he suffers. He suffers +proportionately to his joy. He is smitten with sorrow more awful than +any sorrow to be conceived by the sane. I whose rainbow-coloured hoard +has been swept from me, seem to taste the full savour of his anguish. + +I sit here thinking of the misers who, in life or in fiction, have +been despoiled. Three only do I remember: Melanippus of Sicyon, Pierre +Baudouin of Limoux, Silas Marner. Melanippus died of a broken heart. +Pierre Baudouin hanged himself. The case of Silas Marner is more +cheerful. He, coming into his cottage one night, saw by the dim light +of the hearth, that which seemed to be his gold restored, but was +really nothing but the golden curls of a little child, whom he was +destined to rear under his own roof, finding in her more than solace +for his bereavement. But then, he was a character in fiction: the +other two really existed. What happened to him will not happen to me. +Even if little children with rainbow-coloured hair were so common that +one of them might possibly be left on my hearth-rug, I know well that +I should not feel recompensed by it, even if it grew up to be as +fascinating a paragon as Eppie herself. Had Silas Marner really +existed (nay! even had George Eliot created him in her maturity) +neither would he have felt recompensed. Far likelier, he would have +been turned to stone, in the first instance, as was poor Niobe when +the divine arrows destroyed that unique collection on which she had +lavished so many years. Or, may be, had he been a very strong man, he +would have found a bitter joy in saving up for a new hoard. Like +Carlyle, when the MS. of his masterpiece was burned by the housemaid +of John Stuart Mill, he might have begun all over again, and builded a +still nobler monument on the tragic ashes. + +That is a fine, heartening example! I will be strong enough to follow +it. I will forget all else. I will begin all over again. There stands +my hat-box! Its glory is departed, but I vow that a greater glory +awaits it. Bleak, bare and prosaic it is now, but--ten years hence! +Its career, like that of the Imperial statesman in the moment of his +downfall, `is only just beginning.' + +There is a true Anglo-Saxon ring in this conclusion. May it appease +whomever my tears have been making angry. + + +GENERAL ELECTIONS + +I admire detachment. I commend a serene indifference to hubbub. I like +Archimedes, Leonardo da Vinci, Goethe, Balzac, Darwin, and other +sages, for having been so concentrated on this or that eternal verity +in art or science or philosophy, that they paid no heed to alarums and +excursions which were sweeping all other folk off their feet. It is +with some shame that I haunt the tape-machine whenever a General +Election is going on. + +Of politics I know nothing. My mind is quite open on the subject of +fiscal reform, and quite empty; and the void is not an aching one: I +have no desire to fill it. The idea of the British Empire leaves me +quite cold. If this or that subject race threw off our yoke, I should +feel less vexation than if one comma were misplaced in the printing of +this essay. The only feeling that our Colonies inspire in me is a +determination not to visit them. Socialism neither affrights nor +attracts me--or, rather, it has both these effects equally. When I +think of poverty and misery crushing the greater part of humanity, and +most of all when I hear of some specific case of distress, I become a +socialist indeed. But I am not less an artist than a human being, and +when I think of Demos, that chin-bearded god, flushed with victory, +crowned with leaflets of the Social Democratic League, quaffing +temperance beverages in a world all drab; when I think of model +lodging-houses in St. James's Park, and trams running round and round +St. James's Square--the mighty fallen, and the lowly swollen, and, in +Elysium, the shade of Matthew Arnold shedding tears on the shoulder of +a shade so different as George Brummell's--tears, idle tears, at sight +of the Barbarians, whom he had mocked and loved, now annihilated by +those others whom he had mocked and hated; when such previsions as +these come surging up in me, I do deem myself well content with the +present state of things, dishonourable though it is. As to socialism, +then, you see, my mind is evenly divided. It is with no political bias +that I go and hover around the tape-machine. My interest in General +Elections is a merely `sporting' interest. I do not mean that I lay +bets. A bad fairy decreed over my cradle that I should lose every bet +that I might make; and, in course of time, I abandoned a practice +which took away from coming events the pleasing element of +uncertainty. `A merely dramatic interest' is less equivocal, and more +accurate. + +`This,' you say, `is rank incivism.' I assume readily that you are an +ardent believer in one political party or another, and that, having +studied thoroughly all the questions at issue, you could give cogent +reasons for all the burning faith that is in you. But how about your +friends and acquaintances? How many of them can cope with you in +discussion? How many of them show even a desire to cope with you? +Travel, I beg you, on the Underground Railway, or in a Tube. Such +places are supposed to engender in their passengers a taste for +political controversy. Yet how very elementary are such arguments as +you will hear there! It is obvious that these gentlemen know and care +very little about `burning questions.' What they do know and care +about is the purely personal side of politics. They have their likes +and their dislikes for a few picturesque and outstanding figures. +These they will attack or defend with fervour. But you will be lucky +if you overhear any serious discussion of policy. Emerge from the +nether world. Range over the whole community--from the costermonger +who says `Good Old Winston!' to the fashionable woman who says `I do +think Mr. Balfour is rather wonderful!'--and you will find the same +plentiful lack of interest in the impersonal side of polities. You +will find that almost every one is interested in politics only as a +personal conflict between certain interesting men--as a drama, in +fact. Frown not, then, on me alone. + +Whenever a General Election occurs, the conflict becomes sharper and +more obvious--the play more exciting--the audience more tense. The +stage is crowded with supernumeraries, not interesting in themselves, +but adding a new interest to the merely personal interest. There is +the stronger `side,' here the weaker, ranged against each other. Which +will be vanquished? It rests with the audience to decide. And, as +human nature is human nature, of course the audience decides that the +weaker side shall be victorious. That is what politicians call `the +swing of the pendulum.' They believe that the country is alienated by +the blunders of the Government, and is disappointed by the +unfulfilment of promises, and is anxious for other methods of policy. +Bless them! the country hardly noticed their blunders, has quite +forgotten their promises, and cannot distinguish between one set of +methods and another. When the man in the street sees two other men in +the street fighting, he doesn't care to know the cause of the combat: +he simply wants the smaller man to punish the bigger, and to punish +him with all possible severity. When a party with a large majority +appeals to the country, its appeal falls, necessarily, on deaf ears. +Some years ago there happened an exception to this rule. But then the +circumstances were exceptional. A small nation was fighting a big +nation, and, as the big nation happened to be yourselves, your +sympathy was transferred to the big nation. As the little party was +suspected of favouring the little nation, your sympathy was +transferred likewise to the big party. Barring `khaki,' sympathy takes +its usual course in General Elections. The bigger the initial +majority, the bigger the collapse. It is not enough that Goliath shall +fall: he must bite the dust, and bite plenty of it. It is not enough +that David shall have done what he set out to do: a throne must be +found for this young man. Away with the giant's body! Hail, King +David! + +I should like to think that chivalry was the sole motive of our zeal. +I am afraid that the mere craving for excitement has something to do +with it. Pelion has never been piled on Ossa; and no really useful +purpose could be served by the superimposition. But we should like to +see the thing done. It would appeal to our sense of the grandiose--our +hankering after the unlimited. When the man of science shows us a drop +of water in a test-tube, and tells us that this tiny drop contains +more than fifteen billions of infusoria, we are subtly gratified, and +cherish a secret hope that the number of infusoria is very much more +than fifteen billions. In the same way, we hope that the number of +seats gained by the winning party will be even greater to-morrow than +it is to-day. `We are sweeping the country,' exclaims (say) the +professed Liberal; and at the word `sweeping' there is in his eyes a +gleam that no mere party feeling could have lit there. It is a gleam +that comes from the very depths of his soul--a reflection of the +innate human passion for breaking records, or seeing them broken, no +matter how or why. `Yes,' says the professed Tory, `you certainly are +sweeping the country.' He tries to put a note of despondency into his +voice; but hark how he rolls the word `sweeping' over his tongue! He, +too, though he may not admit it, is longing to creep into the smoking- +room of the National Liberal Club and feast his eyes on the blazing +galaxy of red seals affixed to the announcements of the polling. He +turns to his evening paper, and reads again the list of ex-Cabinet +ministers who have been unseated. He feels, in his heart of hearts, +what fun it would be if they had all been unseated. He grudges the +exceptions. For political bias is one thing; human nature another. + + +A PARALLEL + +The club-room looked very like the auditorium of a music-hall. Indeed, +that is what it must once have been. But now there were tiers of +benches on the stage; and on these was packed a quarter or so of the +members and their friends. The other three-quarters or so were packed +opposite the proscenium and down either side of the hall. And in the +middle of this human oblong was a raised platform, roped around. +Therefrom, just as I was ushered to my place, a stout man in evening +dress was making some announcement. I did not catch its import; but it +was loudly applauded. The stout man--most of the audience indeed, +seemed to have put on flesh--bowed himself off, and disappeared from +my ken in the clouds of tobacco-smoke that hung about the hall. Almost +immediately, two young people, nimbly insinuating themselves through +the rope fence, leapt upon the platform. One was a man of about twenty +years of age; the other, a girl of about seventeen. She was very +pretty; he was very handsome; both were becomingly dressed, with +evident aim at attractiveness. They proceeded to opposite corners of +the platform. At a signal from some one, they advanced to the middle; +and each made a hideous grimace at the other. The grimace, strange in +itself, was stranger still in the light of what followed. For the +young man began to make passionate protestations of love, to which the +girl responded with equal ardour. The young man fell to his knees; the +girl raised him, and clung to his breast. His language became more and +more lyrical, his eyes more and more ecstatic. Suddenly in the middle +of a pretty sentence, wherein his love was likened to a flight of +doves, a bell rang; whereat, not less abruptly, the couple separated, +retiring to the aforesaid corners of the platform and sinking back on +their chairs with every manifestation of fatigue. Their friends or +attendants, however, rallied round them, counselling them, cooling +them with fans, heartening them to fresh endeavour; and when, at the +end of a minute, the signal was sounded for a second tryst, the two +young people seemed fresher and more eager than ever. This time, most +of the love-making was done by the girl; the young man joyously +drinking in her words, and now and then interpolating a few of his +own. There were four trysts in all, with three intervals for +recuperation. At the fourth sound of the bell, the lovers, stepping +asunder, repeated their hideous mutual grimace, and disappeared from +the platform as suddenly as they had come. Their place was soon taken +by another, a more mature, and heavier, but not less personable, +couple, who proceeded to make love in their own somewhat different +way. The lyrical notes seemed to be missing in them. But maturity, +though it had stripped away magic, had not blunted their passion--had, +rather, sharpened the edge of it, and made it a stronger and more +formidable instrument. Throughout the evening, indeed, in the long +succession that there was of amorous encounters, it seemed to be the +encounters of mature couples that excited in the smoke-laden audience +the keenest interest. It was evidently not etiquette to interrupt the +lovers while they were talking; but, whenever the bell sounded, there +was a frantic outburst of sympathy, straight from the heart; and +sometimes, even while a love-scene was proceeding, this or that stout +gentleman would snatch the cigar from his lips and emit a heart-cry. +Now and again, it seemed to be thought that the lovers were +insufficiently fervid--were but dallying with passion; and then there +were stentorian grunts of disapproval and hortation. I did not gather +that the audience itself was composed mainly of active lovers. I +guessed that the greater number consisted of men who do but take an +active interest in other people's love affairs--men who, vigilant from +a detached position, have developed in themselves an extraordinarily +sound critical knowledge of what is due to Venus. `Plaisir d'amour ne +dure qu'un moment,' I murmured; `chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie. +And wise are ye who, immune from all love's sorrow, win incessant joy +in surveying Cythara through telescopes. Suave mari magno,' I +murmured. And this second tag caused me to awake from my dream +shivering. + +A strange dream? Yet a precisely parallel reality had inspired it. I +had been taken over-night--my first visit--to the National Sporting +Club. + +The instinct to fight, like the instinct to love, is a quite natural +instinct. To fight and to love are the primary instincts of primitive +man. I know that people with strongly amorous natures are not trained +and paid to make love ceremoniously, in accordance to certain rules +laid down for them by certain authorities, and for the delectation of +highly critical audiences. But, if this custom prevailed, it would not +seem to me stranger than the custom of training and paying pugnacious +people to hit one another on the face and breast, with the greatest +possible skill and violence, for the delectation of highly critical +audiences. I do not say that a glove-fight is in itself a visually +disgusting exhibition. I saw no blood spilt, the other night, and no +bruises expressed, by either the `light-weights' or the `heavy- +weights.' I dare say, too, that the fighters enjoy their profession, +on the whole. But I contend that it is a very lamentable profession, +in that it depends on the calculated prostitution of good natural +energies. A declaration of love prefaced by a grimace, such as I saw +in my dream, seems to me not one whit more monstrous than a violent +onslaught prefaced by a hand-shake. If two men are angry with each +other, let them fight it out (provided I be not one of them) in the +good old English fashion, by all means. But prize-fighting is to be +deplored as an offence against the soul of man. And this offence is +committed, not by the fighters themselves, but by us soft and +sedentary gentlemen who set them on to fight. Looking back at ancient +Rome, no one blames the poor gladiators in the arena. Every one +reserves his pious horror for the citizens in the amphitheatre. Yet +how are we superior to them? Are we not even as they--suspended at +exactly their point between barbarism and civilisation. In course of +time, doubtless, `the ring'will die out. For either we shall become so +civilised that we shall not rejoice in the sight of painful violence, +or we shall relapse into barbarism and go into the mauling business on +our own account. Our present stage--the stage of our transition--is +not pretty, I think. + + +A MORRIS FOR MAY-DAY + +Not long ago a prospectus was issued by some more or less aesthetic +ladies and gentlemen who, deeming modern life not so cheerful as it +should be, had laid their cheerless heads together and decided that +they would meet once every month and dance old-fashioned dances in a +hall hired for the purpose. Thus would they achieve a renascence--I am +sure they called it a renascence--of `Merrie England.' I know not +whether subscriptions came pouring in. I know not even whether the +society ever met. If it ever did meet, I conceive that its meetings +must have been singularly dismal. If you are depressed by modern life, +you are unlikely to find an anodyne in the self-appointed task of +cutting certain capers which your ancestors used to cut because they, +in their day, were happy. If you think modern life so pleasant a thing +that you involuntarily prance, rather than walk, down the street, I +dare say your prancing will intensify your joy. Though I happen never +to have met him out-of-doors, I am sure my friend Mr. Gilbert +Chesterton always prances thus--prances in some wild way symbolical of +joy in modern life. His steps, and the movements of his arms and body, +may seem to you crude, casual, and disconnected at first sight; but +that is merely because they are spontaneous. If you studied them +carefully, you would begin to discern a certain rhythm, a certain +harmony. You would at length be able to compose from them a specific +dance--a dance not quite like any other--a dance formally expressive +of new English optimism. If you are not optimistic, don't hope to +become so by practising the steps. But practise them assiduously if +you are; and get your fellow-optimists to practise them with you. You +will grow all the happier through ceremonious expression of a light +heart. And your children and your children's children will dance `The +Chesterton' when you are no more. May be, a few of them will still be +dancing it now and then, on this or that devious green, even when +optimism shall have withered for ever from the land. Nor will any man +mock at the survival. The dance will have lost nothing of its old +grace, and will have gathered that quality of pathos which makes even +unlovely relics dear to us--that piteousness which Time gives ever to +things robbed of their meaning and their use. Spectators will love it +for its melancholy not less than for its beauty. And I hope no mere +spectator will be so foolish as to say, `Let us do it' with a view to +reviving cheerfulness at large. I hope it will be held sacred to those +in whom it will be a tradition--a familiar thing handed down from +father to son. None but they will be worthy of it. Others would ruin +it. Be sure I trod no measure with the Morris-dancers whom I saw last +May-day. + +It was in the wide street of a tiny village near Oxford that I saw +them. Fantastic--high-fantastical--figures they did cut in their +finery. But in demeanour they were quite simple, quite serious, these +eight English peasants. They had trudged hither from the neighbouring +village that was their home. And they danced quite simply, quite +seriously. One of them, I learned, was a cobbler, another a baker, and +the rest were farm-labourers. And their fathers and their fathers' +fathers had danced here before them, even so, every May-day morning. +They were as deeply rooted in antiquity as the elm outside the inn. +They were here always in their season as surely as the elm put forth +its buds. And the elm, knowing them, approving them, let its green- +flecked branches dance in unison with them. + +The first dance was in full swing when I approached. Only six of the +men were dancers. Of the others, one was the `minstrel,' the other the +`dysard.' The minstrel was playing a flute; and the dysard I knew by +the wand and leathern bladder which he brandished as he walked around, +keeping a space for the dancers, and chasing and buffeting merrily any +man or child who ventured too near. He, like the others, wore a white +smock decked with sundry ribands, and a top-hat that must have +belonged to his grandfather. Its antiquity of form and texture +contrasted strangely with the freshness of the garland of paper roses +that wreathed it. I was told that the wife or sweetheart of every +Morris-dancer takes special pains to deck her man out more gaily than +his fellows. But this pious endeavour had defeated its own end. So +bewildering was the amount of brand-new bunting attached to all these +eight men that no matron or maiden could for the life of her have +determined which was the most splendid of them all. Besides his +adventitious finery, every dancer, of course, had in his hands the +scarves which are as necessary to his performance of the Morris as are +the bells strapped about the calves of his legs. Waving these scarves +and jangling these bells with a stolid rhythm, the six peasants danced +facing one another, three on either side, while the minstrel fluted +and the dysard strutted around. That minstrel's tune runs in my head +even now--a queer little stolid tune that recalls vividly to me the +aspect of the dance. It is the sort of tune Bottom the Weaver must +often have danced to in his youth. I wish I could hum it for you on +paper. I wish I could set down for you on paper the sight that it +conjures up. But what writer that ever lived has been able to write +adequately about a dance? Even a slow, simple dance, such as these +peasants were performing, is a thing that not the cunningest writer +could fix in words. Did not Flaubert say that if he could describe a +valse he would die happy? I am sure he would have said this if it had +occurred to him. + +Unable to make you see the Morris, how can I make you feel as I felt +in seeing it? I cannot explain even to myself the effect it had on me. +My critics have often complained of me that I lack `heart'--presumably +the sort of heart that is pronounced with a rolling of the r; and I +suppose they are right. I remember having read the death of Little +Nell on more than one occasion without floods of tears. How can I +explain to myself the tears that came into my eyes at sight of the +Morris? They are not within the rubric of the tears drawn by mere +contemplation of visual beauty. The Morris, as I saw it, was curious, +antique, racy, what you will: not beautiful. Nor was there any obvious +pathos in it. Often, in London, passing through some slum where a tune +was being ground from an organ, I have paused to watch the little +girls dancing. In the swaying dances of these wan, dishevelled, dim +little girls I have discerned authentic beauty, and have wondered +where they had learned the grace of their movements, and where the +certainty with which they did such strange and complicated steps. +Surely, I have thought, this is no trick of to-day or yesterday: here, +surely, is the remainder of some old tradition; here, may be, is +Merrie England, run to seed. There is an obvious pathos in the dances +of these children of the gutter--an obvious symbolism of sadness, of a +wistful longing for freedom and fearlessness, for wind and sunshine. +No wonder that at sight of it even so heartless a person as the +present writer is a little touched. But why at sight of those +rubicund, full-grown, eupeptic Morris-dancers on the vernal highroad? +No obvious pathos was diffusing itself from them. They were Merrie +England in full flower. In part, I suppose, my tears were tears of joy +for the very joyousness of these men; in part, of envy for their fine +simplicity; in part, of sorrow in the thought that they were a +survival of the past, not types of the present, and that their knell +would soon be tolled, and the old elm see their like no more. + +After they had drunk some ale, they formed up for the second dance--a +circular dance. And anon, above the notes of the flute and the +jangling of the bells and the stamping of the boots, I seemed to hear +the knell actually tolling, Hoot! Hoot! Hoot! A motor came fussing and +fuming in itscloud of dust. Hoot! Hoot! The dysard ran to meet it, +brandishing his wand of office. He had to stand aside. Hoot! The +dancers had just time to get out of the way. The scowling motorists +vanished. Dancers and dysard, presently visible through the subsiding +dust, looked rather foolish and crestfallen. And all the branches of +the conservative old elm above them seemed to be quivering with +indignation. + +In a sense this elm was a mere parvenu as compared with its beloved +dancers. True, it had been no mere sapling in the reign of the seventh +Henry, and so could remember distinctly the first Morris danced here. +But the first Morris danced on English soil was not, by a long chalk, +the first Morris. Scarves such as these were waved, and bells such as +these were jangled, and some such measure as this was trodden, in the +mists of a very remote antiquity. Spanish buccaneers, long before the +dawn of the fifteenth century, had seen the Moors dancing somewhat +thus to the glory of Allah. Home-coming, they had imitated that +strange and savage dance, expressive, for them, of the joy of being on +firm native land again. The `Morisco' they called it; and it was much +admired; and the fashion of it spread throughout Spain--scaled the +very Pyrenees, and invaded France. To the `Maurisce' succumbed `tout +Paris' as quickly as in recent years it succumbed to the cake-walk. A +troupe of French dancers braved the terrors of the sea, and, with +their scarves and their bells, danced for the delectation of the +English court. `The Kynge,' it seems, `was pleased by the bels and +sweet dauncing.' Certain of his courtiers `did presentlie daunce so in +open playces.' No one with any knowledge of the English nature will be +surprised to hear that the cits soon copied the courtiers. But `the +Morrice was not for longe practysed in the cittie. It went to countrie +playces.' London, apparently, even in those days, did not breed joy in +life. The Morris sought and found its proper home in the fields and by +the wayside. Happy carles danced it to the glory of God, even as it +had erst been danced to the glory of Allah. + +It was no longer, of course, an explicitly religious dance. But +neither can its origin have been explicitly religious. Every dance, +however formal it become later, begins as a mere ebullition of high +spirits. The Dionysiac dances began in the same way as `the +Chesterton.' Some Thessalian vintner, say, suddenly danced for sheer +joy that the earth was so bounteous; and his fellow vintners, sharing +his joy, danced with him; and ere their breath was spent they +remembered who it was that had given them such cause for merry-making, +and they caught leaves from the vine and twined them in their hair, +and from the fig-tree and the fir-tree they snatched branches, and +waved them this way and that, as they danced, in honour of him who was +lord of these trees and of this wondrous vine. Thereafter this dance +of joy became a custom, ever to be observed at certain periods of the +year. It took on, beneath its joyousness, a formal solemnity. It was +danced slowly around an altar of stone, whereon wood and salt were +burning--burning with little flames that were pale in the sunlight. +Formal hymns were chanted around this altar. And some youth, clad in +leopard's skin and wreathed with ivy, masqueraded as the god himself, +and spoke words appropriate to that august character. It was from +these beginnings that sprang the art-form of drama. The Greeks never +hid the origin of this their plaything. Always in the centre of the +theatre was the altar to Dionysus; and the chorus, circling around it, +were true progeny of those old agrestic singers; and the mimes had +never been but for that masquerading youth. It is hard to realise, yet +it is true, that we owe to the worship of Dionysus so dreary a thing +as the modern British drama. Strange that through him who gave us the +juice of the grape, `fiery, venerable, divine,' came this gift too! +Yet I dare say the chorus of a musical comedy would not be awestruck-- +would, indeed, `bridle'--if one unrolled to them their illustrious +pedigree. + +The history of the Dionysiac dance has a fairly exact parallel in that +of the `Morisco.' Each dance has travelled far, and survives, shorn of +its explicitly religious character, and in many other ways `diablement +change' en route.' The `Morisco,' of course, has changed the less of +the two. Besides the scarves and the bells, it seemed to me last May- +day that the very steps danced and figures formed were very like to +those of which I had read, and which I had seen illustrated in old +English and French engravings. Above all, the dancers seemed to +retain, despite their seriousness, something of the joy in which the +dance originated. They frowned as they footed it, but they were +evidently happy. Their frowns did but betoken determination to do well +and rightly a thing that they loved doing--were proud of doing. The +smiles of the chorus in a musical comedy seem but to express +depreciation of a rather tedious and ridiculous exercise. The +coryphe'es are quite evidently bored and ashamed. But these eight be- +ribanded sons of the soil were hardly less glad in dancing than was +that antique Moor who, having slain beneath the stars some long-feared +and long-hated enemy, danced wildly on the desert sand, and, to make +music, tore strips of bells from his horse's saddle and waved them in +either hand while he danced, and made so great a noise in the night +air that other Moors came riding to see what had happened, and +marvelled at the sight and sound of the dance, and, praising Allah, +leapt down and tore strips of bells from their own saddles, and danced +as nearly as they could in mimicry of that glad conqueror, to Allah's +glory. + +As this scene is mobled in the aforesaid mists of antiquity, I cannot +vouch for the details. Nor can I say just when the Moors found that +they could make a finer and more rhythmic jangle by attaching the +bells to their legs than by swinging them in their hands. Nor can I +fix the day when they tore strips from their turbans for their idle +hands to wave. I cannot say how long the rite's mode had been set when +first the adventurers from Spain beheld it with their keen wondering +eyes and fixed it for ever in their memories. + +In Spain, and then in France, and then in London, the dance was +secular. But perhaps I ought not to have said that it was `not +explicitly religious' in the English countryside. The cult for Robin +Hood was veritably a religion throughout the Midland Counties. Rites +in his honour were performed on certain days of the year with a not +less hearty reverence, a not less quaint elaboration, than was infused +into the rustic Greek rites for Dionysus. The English carles danced, +not indeed around an altar, but around a bunt pole crowned with such +flowers as were in season; and one of them, like the youth who in the +Dionysiac dance masqueraded as the god, was decked out duly as Robin +Hood--`with a magpye's plume to hys capp,' we are told, and sometimes +`a russat bearde compos'd of horses hair.' The most famous of the +dances for Robin Hood was the `pageant.' Herein appeared, besides the +hero himself and various tabours and pipers, a `dysard' or fool, and +Friar Tuck, and Maid Marian--`in a white kyrtele and her hair all +unbrayded, but with blossoms thereyn.' This `pageant' was performed at +Whitsun, at Easter, on New-Year's day, and on May-day. The Morris, +when it had become known in the villages, was very soon incorporated +in the `pageant.' The Morris scarves and bells, the Morris steps and +figures, were all pressed into the worship of Robin Hood. In most +villages the properties for the `pageant' had always rested in the +custody of the church-wardens. The properties for the Morris were now +kept with them. In the Kingston accounts for 1537-8 are enumerated `a +fryers cote of russat, and a kyrtele weltyd with red cloth, a Mowrens +cote of buckram, and four morres daunsars cotes of white fustian +spangelid, and two gryne saten cotes, and disarddes cote of cotton, +and six payre of garters with belles.' The `pageant' itself fell, +little by little, into disuse; the Morris, which had been affiliated +to it, superseded it. Of the `pageant' nothing remained but the +minstrel and the dysard and an occasional Maid Marian. In the original +Morris there had been no music save that of the bells. But now there +was always a flute or tabor. The dysard, with his rod and leathern +bladder, was promoted to a sort of leadership. He did not dance, but +gave the signal for the dance, and distributed praise or blame among +the performers, and had power to degrade from the troupe any man who +did not dance with enough skill or enough heartiness. Often there were +in one village two rival troupes of dancers, and a prize was awarded +to whichever acquitted itself the more admirably. But not only the +`ensemble' was considered. A sort of `star system' seems to have crept +in. Often a prize would be awarded to some one dancer who had excelled +his fellows. There were, I suppose, `born' Morris-dancers. Now and +again, one of them, flushed with triumph, would secern himself from +his troupe, and would `star' round the country for his livelihood. + +Such a one was Mr. William Kemp, who, at the age of seventeen, and in +the reign of Queen Elizabeth, danced from his native village to +London, where he educated himself and became an actor. Perhaps he was +not a good actor, for he presently reverted to the Morris. He danced +all the way from London to Norwich, and wrote a pamphlet about it-- +`Kemp's Nine Dajes' Wonder, performed in a daunce from London to +Norwich. Containing the pleasures, paines, and kind entertainment of +William Kemp betweene London and that Citty, in his late Morrice.' He +seems to have encountered more pleasures than `paines.' Gentle and +simple, all the way, were very cordial. The gentle entertained him in +their mansions by night. The simple danced with him by day. In Sudbury +`there came a lusty tall fellow, a butcher by his profession, that +would in a Morice keepe me company to Bury. I gave him thankes, and +forward wee did set; but ere ever wee had measur'd halfe a mile of our +way, he gave me over in the plain field, protesting he would not hold +out with me; for, indeed, my pace in dauncing is not ordinary. As he +and I were parting, a lusty country lasse being among the people, +cal'd him faint-hearted lout, saying, "If I had begun to daunce, I +would have held out one myle, though it had cost my life." At which +words many laughed. "Nay," saith she, "if the dauncer will lend me a +leash of his belles, I'le venter to treade one myle with him myself." +I lookt upon her, saw mirth in her eies, heard boldness in her words, +and beheld her ready to tucke up her russat petticoate; and I fitted +her with bels, which she merrily taking garnisht her thicke short +legs, and with a smooth brow bad the tabur begin. The drum strucke; +forward marcht I with my merry Mayde Marian, who shook her stout +sides, and footed it merrily to Melford, being a long myle. There +parting with her (besides her skinfull of drinke), and English crowne +to buy more drinke; for, good wench, she was in a pittious heate; my +kindness she requited with dropping a dozen good courtsies, and +bidding God blesse the dauncer. I bade her adieu; and, to give her her +due, she had a good eare, daunst truly, and wee parted friends.' Kemp, +you perceive, wrote as well as he danced. I wish he had danced less +and written more. It seems that he never wrote anything but this one +delightful pamphlet. He died three years later, in the thirtieth year +of his age--died dancing, with his bells on his legs, in the village +of Ockley. + +John Thorndrake, another professional Morris-dancer, was not so +brilliant a personage as poor Kemp; but was of tougher fibre, it would +seem. He died in his native town, Canterbury, at the age of seventy- +eight; and had danced--never less than a mile, seldom less than five +miles--every day, except Sunday, for sixty years. But even his record +pales beside the account of a Morris that was danced by eight men, in +Hereford, one May-day in the reign of James I. The united ages of +these dancers, according to a contemporary pamphleteer, exceeded eight +hundred years. The youngest of them was seventy-nine, and the ages of +the rest ranged between ninety-five and a hundred and nine. `And they +daunced right well.' Of the hold that the Morris had on England, could +there be stronger proof than in the feat of these indomitable dotards? +The Morris ceased not even during the Civil Wars. Some of King +Charles's men (according to Groby, the Puritan) danced thus on the eve +of Naseby. Not even the Protectorate could stamp the Morris out, +though we are told that Groby and other preachers throughout the land +inveighed against it as `lewde' and `ungodlie.' The Restoration was in +many places celebrated by special Morrises. The perihelion of this +dance seems, indeed, to have been in the reign of Charles II. Georgian +writers treated it somewhat as a survival, and were not always even +tender to it. Says a writer in Bladud's Courier, describing a `soire'e +de beaute'' given by Lady Jersey, `Mrs. -- (la belle) looked as silly +and gaudy, I do vow, as one of the old Morris Dancers.' And many other +writers--from Horace Walpole to Captain Harver--have their sneer at +the Morris. Its rusticity did not appeal to the polite Georgian mind; +and its Moorishness, which would have appealed strongly, was +overlooked. Still, the Morris managed to survive urban disdain--was +still dear to the carles whose fathers had taught it them. + +And long may it linger! + + +THE HOUSE OF COMMONS MANNER + +A grave and beautiful place, the Palace of Westminster. I sometimes go +to that little chamber of it wherein the Commons sit sprawling or +stand spouting. I am a constant reader of the `graphic reports' of +what goes on in the House of Commons; and the writers of these things +always strive to give one the impression that nowhere is the human +comedy so fast and furious, nowhere played with such skill and brio, +as at St. Stephen's; and I am rather easily influenced by anything +that appears in daily print, for I have a burning faith in the +sagacity and uprightness of sub-editors; and so, when the memory of my +last visit to the House has lost its edge, and when there is a crucial +debate in prospect, to the House I go, full of hope that this time I +really shall be edified or entertained. With an open mind I go, +reeking naught of the pro's and con's of the subject of the debate. I +go as to a gladiatorial show, eager to applaud any man who shall wield +his sword brilliantly. If a `stranger' indulge in applause, he is +tapped on the shoulder by one of those courteous, magpie-like +officials, and conducted beyond the precincts of the Palace of +Westminster. I speak from hearsay. I do not think I have ever seen a +`stranger' applauding. My own hands, certainly, never have offended. + +Years ago, when to be a member of the House of Commons was to be (or +to deem oneself) a personage of great importance, the debates were +conducted with a keen eye to effect. Members who had a sense of beauty +made their speeches beautiful, and even those to whom it was denied +did their best. Grace of ample gesture was cultivated, and sonorous +elocution, and lucid ordering of ideas, and noble language. In fact, +there was a school of oratory. This is no mere superstition, bred of +man's innate tendency to exalt the past above the present. It is a +fact that can easily be verified through contemporary records. It is a +fact which I myself have verified in the House with my own eyes and +ears. More than once, I heard there--and it was a pleasure and +privilege to hear--a speech made by Sir William Harcourt. And from his +speeches I was able to deduce the manner of his coevals and his +forerunners. Long past his prime he was, and bearing up with very +visible effort against his years. An almost extinct volcano! But +sufficient to imagination these glimpses of the glow that had been, +and the sight of these last poor rivulets of the old lava. An almost +extinct volcano, but majestic among mole-hills! Assuredly, the old +school was a fine one. It had its faults, of course--floridness, +pomposity, too much histrionism. It was, indeed, very like the old +school of acting, in its defects as in its qualities. With all his +defects, what a relief it is to see one of the old actors among a cast +of new ones! How he takes the stage, making himself felt--and heard! +How surely he achieves his effects in the grand manner! Robustious? +Yes. But it is better to exaggerate a style than to have no style at +all. That is what is the matter with these others--these quiet, +shifty, shamefaced others they have no style at all. And as is the +difference between the old actor and them, so, precisely was the +difference between Sir William Harcourt and the modern members. + +I do not desire the new actors to model themselves on the old, whose +manner is quite incongruous with the character of modern drama. All I +would have them do is to achieve the manner for which they are darkly +fumbling. Even so, I do not demand oratory of the modern senators. +Oratory I love, but I admit that the time for it is bygone. It +belonged to the age of port. On plenty of port the orator spoke, and +on plenty of port his audience listened to him. A diet-bound +generation can hardly produce an orator; and if, by some mysterious +throw-back, an orator actually is produced, he falls very flat. There +was in my college at Oxford a little `Essay Society,' to which I found +myself belonging. We used to meet every Thursday evening in the room +of this or that member; and, when coffee had been handed round, one of +us read an essay--a calm little mild essay on one of those vast themes +that no undergraduate can resist. After this, we had a calm little +mild discussion `It seems to me that the reader of the paper has +hardly laid enough stress on...' One of these evenings I can recall +most distinctly. A certain freshman had been elected. The man who was +to have read an essay had fallen ill, and the freshman had been asked +to step into the breach. This he did, with an essay on `The Ideals of +Mazzini,' and with strange and terrific effect. During the exordium we +raised our eyebrows. Presently we were staring open-mouthed. Where +were we? In what wild dream were we drifting? To this day I can recite +the peroration. Mazzini is dead. But his spirit lives, and can never +be crushed. And his motto--the motto that he planted on the gallant +banner of the Italian Republic, and sealed with his life's blood, +remains, and shall remain, till, through the eternal ages, the +universal air re-echoes to the inspired shout--`GOD AND THE PEOPLE!' + +The freshman had begun to read his essay in a loud, declamatory style; +but gradually, knowing with an orator's instinct, I suppose, that his +audience was not `with' him, he had quieted down, and become rather +nervous--too nervous to skip, as I am sure he wished to skip, the +especially conflagrant passages. But, as the end hove in sight, his +confidence was renewed. A wave of emotion rose to sweep him ashore +upon its crest. He gave the peroration for all it was worth. Mazzini +is dead. I can hear now the hushed tone in which he spoke those words; +the pause that followed them; and the gradual rising of his voice to a +culmination at the words `inspired shout'; and then another pause +before that husky whisper `GOD AND THE PEOPLE.' There was no +discussion. We were petrified. We sat like stones; and presently, like +shadows, we drifted out into the evening air. The little society met +once or twice again; but any activity it still had was but the faint +convulsion of a murdered thing. Old wine had been poured into a new +bottle, with the usual result. Broken even so, belike, would be the +glass roof of the Commons if a member spouted up to it such words as +we heard that evening in Oxford. At any rate, the member would be +howled down. So strong is the modern distaste for oratory. The day for +oratory, as for toping, is past beyond redemption. `Debating' is the +best that can be done and appreciated by so abstemious a generation as +ours. You will find a very decent level of `debating' in the Oxford +Union, in the Balham Ethical Society, in the Pimlico Parliament, and +elsewhere. But not, I regret to say, in the House of Commons. + +No one supposes that in a congeries of--how many?--six hundred and +seventy men, chosen by the British public, there will be a very high +average of mental capacity. If any one were so sanguine, a glance at +the faces of our Conscript Fathers along the benches would soon bleed +him. (I have no doubt that the custom of wearing hats in the House +originated in the members' unwillingness to let strangers spy down on +the shapes of their heads.) But it is not unreasonable to expect that +the more active of these gentlemen will, through constant practice, +not only in the senate, but also at elections and public dinners and +so forth, have acquired a rough-and-ready professionalism in the art +of speaking. It is not unreasonable to expect that they will be fairly +fluent--fairly capable of arranging in logical sequence such ideas as +they may have formed, and of reeling out words more or less expressive +of these ideas. Well! certain of the Irishmen, certain of the +Welshmen, proceed easily enough. But oh! those Saxon others! Look at +them, hark at them, poor dears! See them clutching at their coats, and +shuffling from foot to foot in travail, while their ideas--ridiculous +mice, for the most part--get jerked painfully out somehow and anyhow. +`It seems to me that the Right--the honourable member for--er--er (the +speaker dives to be prompted)--yes, of course--South Clapham--er-- +(temporising) the Southern division of Clapham--(long pause; his lips +form the words `Where was I?')--oh yes, the honourable gentleman the +member for South Clapham seems to me to me--to be--in the position of +one who, whilst the facts on which his propo--supposition are based-- +er-- may or may not be in themselves acc--correct (gasps)--yet +inasmuch--because--nevertheless...I should say rather--er--what it +comes to is this: the honourable member for North--South Clapham seems +to be labouring under a total, an entire, a complete (emphatic +gesture, which throws him off his tack)--a contire--a complete disill- +-misunderstanding of the things which he himself relies on as--as--as +a backing-up of the things that he would have us take or--er--accept +and receive as the right sort of reduction--deduction from the facts +of...in fact, from the facts of the case.' Then the poor dear heaves a +deep sigh of relief, which is drowned by other members in a hideous +cachinnation meant to express mirth. + +And the odd thing is that the mirth is quite sincere and quite +friendly. The speaker has just scored a point, though you mightn't +think it. He has just scored a point in the true House of Commons +manner. Possibly you have never been to the House of Commons, and +suspect that I have caricatured its manner. Not at all. Indeed, to +save space in these pages, I have rather improved it. If a phonograph +were kept in the house, you would learn from it that the average +sentence of the average speaker is an even more grotesque abortion +than I have adumbrated. Happily for the prestige of the House, +phonographs are excluded. Certain skilled writers--modestly dubbing +themselves `reporters'--are admitted, and by them cosmos is conjured +out of chaos. `The member for South Clapham appeared to be labouring +under a misapprehension of the nature of the facts on which his +argument was based (Laughter).' That is the finished article that your +morning paper offers to you. And you, enjoying the delicious epigram +over your tea and toast, are as unconscious of the toil that went to +make it, and of the crises through which it passed, as you are of +those poor sowers and reapers, planters and sailors and colliers, but +for whom there would be no fragrant tea and toast for you. + +The English are a naturally silent race. The most popular type of +national hero is the `strong silent man.' And most of the members of +the House of Commons are, at any rate, silent members. Mercifully +silent. Seeing the level attained by such members as have an impulse +to speak, I shudder to conceive an oration by one of those unimpelled +members... Perhaps I am too nervous. Surely I am too nervous. Surely +the House of Commons manner cannot be a natural growth. Such perfect +virtuosity in dufferdom can be acquired only by constant practice. But +how comes it to be practised? I can only repeat that the English are a +naturally silent race. They are apt to mistrust fluency. `Glibness' +they call it, and scent behind it the adventurer, the player of the +confidence trick or the three-card trick, the robber of the widow and +the orphan. Be smooth-tongued, and the Englishman will withdraw from +you as quickly as may be, walking sideways like a crab, and looking +askance at you with panic in his eyes. But stammer and blurt to him, +and he will fall straight under the spell of your transparent honesty. +A silly superstition; but there it is, ineradicable; and through it, +undoubtedly, has come the house of Commons manner. Sometimes, through +sheer nervousness, a new member achieves something like that manner; +insomuch that his maiden speech is adjudged rich in promise, and `the +ear of the House' is assured to him when next he rises. Then is the +dangerous time for him. He has conquered his nervousness now, but has +not yet acquired that complex and delicate technique whereby a man can +produce the illusion that he is striving hopelessly to utter something +which, really, he could say with perfect ease. Thus he forfeits the +sympathy of the House. Members stroll listlessly out. There is a buzz +of conversation along the benches--perhaps the horrific refrain +`'Vide, 'Vide, 'Vide.' But the time will come when they shall hear +him. Years hence--a beacon to show the heights that can be sealed by +perseverance--he shall stand fumbling and floundering in a rapt +senate. + +Well! I take off my hat to virtuosity in any form. I admire +Demosthenes, for whom pebbles in the mouth were a means to the end of +oratory. I admire the Demosthenes de nos jours, for whom oratory is a +means to the end of pebbles in the mouth. But I desire that the +intelligent foreigner and the intelligent country cousin be not +disappointed when they visit the House of Commons. Hitherto, strangers +have expected to find there an exhibition of the art of speaking. That +is the fault partly of those reporters to whom I have paid a well- +deserved tribute. But it is more especially the fault of those other +`graphic' reporters, who write their lurid impressions of the debates. +These gentlemen are most wildly misleading. I don't think they mislead +you intentionally. If a man criticises one kind of ill-done thing +exclusively, he cannot but, in course of time, lower his standard. +Seeing nothing good, he will gradually forget what goodness is; and +will accept as good that which is least bad. So it is with the graphic +reporter in Parliament. He really does imagine that Hob `raked the +Treasury Bench with a merciless fire of raillery,' and that Nob `went, +as is his way, straight to the root of the subject,' and that +Chittabob `struck a deep note of pathos that will linger long in the +memory of all who heard him.' If Hob, Nob, and Chittabob happen to be +in opposition to the politics of the newspaper which he adorns, he +will perhaps tell the truth about their respective performances. But +he will tell it without believing it. All his geese are swans--bless +him!--even when he won't admit it. The moral is that no man should be +employed as graphic reporter for more than one session. Then the +public would begin to learn the truth about St. Stephen's. Nor need +the editors flinch from such a consummation. They used to entertain a +theory that it was safest to have the productions at every theatre +praised, in case any manager should withdraw his advertisements. But +there need be no such fear in regard to St. Stephen's. That +establishment does not advertise itself in the press as a place of +amusement. Why should the press advertise it gratuitously? + +For utility's sake, as well as for truth's, I would have the public +enlightened. Exposed to ruthless criticism, our Commons might be +shamed into an attempt at proficiency in the art of speaking. Then the +sessions would be comparatively brief. After all, it is on the nation +itself that falls the cost of lighting, warming, and ventilating St. +Stephen's during the session. All the aforesaid dufferdom, therefore, +increases the burden of the taxpayer. All those hum's and ha's mean so +many pence from the pockets of you, reader, and me. + + +THE NAMING OF STREETS + +`The Rebuilding of London' proceeds ruthlessly apace. The humble old +houses that dare not scrape the sky are being duly punished for their +timidity. Down they come; and in their place are shot up new +tenements, quick and high as rockets. And the little old streets, so +narrow and exclusive, so shy and crooked--we are making an example of +them, too. We lose our way in them, do we?--we whose time is money. +Our omnibuses can't trundle through them, can't they? Very well, then. +Down with them! We have no use for them. This is the age of `noble +arteries.' + +`The Rebuilding of London' is a source of much pride and pleasure to +most of London's citizens, especially to them who are county +councillors, builders, contractors, navvies, glaziers, decorators, and +so forth. There is but a tiny residue of persons who do not swell and +sparkle. And of these glum bystanders at the carnival I am one. Our +aloofness is mainly irrational, I suppose. It is due mainly to +temperamental Toryism. We say `The old is better.' This we say to +ourselves, every one of us feeling himself thereby justified in his +attitude. But we are quite aware that such a postulate would not be +accepted by time majority. For the majority, then, let us make some +show of ratiocination. Let us argue that, forasmuch as London is an +historic city, with many phases and periods behind her, and forasmuch +as many of these phases and periods are enshrined in the aspect of her +buildings, the constant rasure of these buildings is a disservice to +the historian not less than to the mere sentimentalist, and that it +will moreover (this is a more telling argument) filch from Englishmen +the pleasant power of crowing over Americans, and from Americans the +unpleasant necessity of balancing their pity for our present with envy +of our past. After all, our past is our point d'appui. Our present is +merely a bad imitation of what the Americans can do much better. + +Ignoring as mere scurrility this criticism of London's present, but +touched by my appeal to his pride in its history, the average citizen +will reply, reasonably enough, to this effect: `By all means let us +have architectural evidence of our epochs--Caroline, Georgian, +Victorian, what you will. But why should the Edvardian be ruled out? +London is packed full of architecture already. Only by rasing much of +its present architecture can we find room for commemorating duly the +glorious epoch which we have just entered. To this reply there are two +rejoinders: (1) let special suburbs be founded for Edvardian +buildings; (2) there are no really Edvardian buildings, and there +won't be any. Long before the close of the Victorian Era our +architects had ceased to be creative. They could not express in their +work the spirit of their time. They could but evolve a medley of old +styles, some foreign, some native, all inappropriate. Take the case of +Mayfair. Mayfair has for some years been in a state of transition. The +old Mayfair, grim and sombre, with its air of selfish privacy and +hauteur and leisure, its plain bricked fa‡ades, so disdainful of show- +-was it not redolent of the century in which it came to being? Its +wide pavements and narrow roads between--could not one see in them the +time when by day gentlemen and ladies went out afoot, needing no +vehicle to whisk them to a destination, and walked to and fro amply, +needing elbow-room for their dignity and their finery, and by night +were borne in chairs, singly? And those queer little places of +worship, those stucco chapels, with their very secular little columns, +their ample pews, and their negligible altars over which one saw the +Lion and the Unicorn fighting, as who should say, for the Cross--did +they not breathe all the inimitable Erastianism of their period? In +qua te qaero proseucha, my Lady Powderbox? Alas! every one of your +tabernacles is dust now--dust turned to mud by the tears of the ghost +of the Rev. Charles Honeyman, and by my own tears.... I have strayed +again into sentiment. Back to the point--which is that the new houses +and streets in Mayfair mean nothing. Let me show you Mount Street. Let +me show you that airy stretch of sham antiquity, and defy you to say +that it symbolises, how remotely soever, the spirit of its time. Mount +Street is typical of the new Mayfair. And the new Mayfair is typical +of the new London. In the height of these new houses, in the width of +these new roads, future students will find, doubtless, something +characteristic of this pressing and bustling age. But from the style +of the houses he will learn nothing at all. The style might mean +anything; and means, therefore, nothing. Original architecture is a +lost art in England; and an art that is once lost is never found +again. The Edvardian Era cannot be commemorated in its architecture. + +Erection of new buildings robs us of the past and gives us in exchange +nothing of the present. Consequently, the excuse put by me into the +gaping mouth of the average Londoner cannot be accepted. I had no idea +that my case was such a good one. Having now vindicated on grounds of +patriotic utility that which I took to be a mere sentimental +prejudice, I may be pardoned for dragging `beauty' into the question. +The new buildings are not only uninteresting through lack of temporal +and local significance: they are also hideous. With all his learned +eclecticism, the new architect seems unable to evolve a fake that +shall be pleasing to the eye. Not at all pleasing is a mad hotch-potch +of early Victorian hospital, Jacobean manor-house, Venetian palace, +and bride-cake in Gunter's best manner. Yet that, apparently, is the +modern English architect's pet ideal. Even when he confines himself to +one manner, the result (even if it be in itself decent) is made +horrible by vicinity to the work of a rival who has been dabbling in +some other manner. Every street in London is being converted into a +battlefield of styles, all shrieking at one another, all murdering one +another. The tumult may be exciting, especially to the architects, but +it is not beautiful. It is not good to live in. + +However, I am no propagandist. I am not sanguine enough to suppose +that I could do anything to stop either the adulteration or the +demolition of old streets. I do not wish to infect the public with my +own misgivings. On the contrary, my motive for this essay is to +inoculate the public with my own placid indifference in a certain +matter which seems always to cause them painful anxiety. Whenever a +new highway is about to be opened, the newspapers are filled with +letters suggesting that it ought to be called by this or that +beautiful name, or by the name of this or that national hero. Well, in +point of fact, a name cannot (in the long-run) make any shadow of +difference in our sentiment for the street that bears it, for our +sentiment is solely according to the character of the street itself; +and, further, a street does nothing at all to keep green the memory of +one whose name is given to it. + +For a street one name is as good as another. To prove this +proposition, let us proceed by analogy of the names borne by human +beings. Surnames and Christian names may alike be divided into two +classes: (1) those which, being identical with words in the +dictionary, connote some definite thing; (2) those which, connoting +nothing, may or may not suggest something by their sound. Instances of +Christian names in the first class are Rose, Faith; of surnames, +Lavender, Badger; of Christian names in the second class, Celia, Mary; +of surnames, Jones, Vavasour. Let us consider the surnames in the +first class. You will say, off-hand, that Lavender sounds pretty, and +that Badger sounds ugly. Very well. Now, suppose that Christian names +connoting unpleasant things were sometimes conferred at baptisms. +Imagine two sisters named Nettle and Envy. Off-hand, you will say that +these names sound ugly, whilst Rose and Faith sound pretty. Yet, +believe me, there is not, in point of actual sound, one pin to choose +either between Badger and Lavender, or between Rose and Nettle, or +between Faith and Envy. There is no such thing as a singly euphonious +or a singly cacophonous name. There is no word which, by itself, +sounds ill or well. In combination, names or words may be made to +sound ill or well. A sentence can be musical or unmusical. But in +detachment words are no more preferable one to another in their sound +than are single notes of music. What you take to be beauty or ugliness +of sound is indeed nothing but beauty or ugliness of meaning. You are +pleased by the sound of such words as gondola, vestments, chancel, +ermine, manor-house. They seem to be fraught with a subtle +onomatopoeia, severally suggesting by their sounds the grace or +sanctity or solid comfort of the things which they connote. You murmur +them luxuriously, dreamily. Prepare for a slight shock. Scrofula, +investments, cancer, vermin, warehouse. Horrible words, are they not? +But say gondola--scrofula, vestments--investments, and so on; and then +lay your hand on your heart, and declare that the words in the first +list are in mere sound nicer than the words in the second. Of course +they are not. If gondola were a disease, and if a scrofula were a +beautiful boat peculiar to a beautiful city, the effect of each word +would be exactly the reverse of what it is. This rule may be applied +to all the other words in the two lists. And these lists might, of +course, be extended to infinity. The appropriately beautiful or ugly +sound of any word is an illusion wrought on us by what the word +connotes. Beauty sounds as ugly as ugliness sounds beautiful. Neither +of them has by itself any quality in sound. + +It follows, then, that the Christian names and surnames in my first +class sound beautiful or ugly according to what they connote. The +sound of those in the second class depends on the extent to which it +suggests any known word more than another. Of course, there might be a +name hideous in itself. There might, for example, be a Mr. +Griggsbiggmiggs. But there is not. And the fact that I, after +prolonged study of a Postal Directory, have been obliged to use my +imagination as factory for a name that connotes nothing and is ugly in +itself may be taken as proof that such names do not exist actually. +You cannot stump me by citing Mr. Matthew Arnold's citation of the +words `Ragg is in custody,' and his comment that `there was no Ragg by +the Ilyssus.' `Ragg' has not an ugly sound in itself. Mr. Arnold was +jarred merely by its suggestion of something ugly, a rag, and by the +cold brutality of the police-court reporter in withholding the prefix +`Miss' from a poor girl who had got into trouble. If `Ragg' had been +brought to his notice as the name of some illustrious old family, Mr. +Arnold would never have dragged in the Ilyssus. The name would have +had for him a savour of quaint distinction. The suggestion of a rag +would never have struck him. For it is a fact that whatever thing may +be connoted or suggested by a name is utterly overshadowed by the +name's bearer (unless, as in the case of poor `Ragg,' there is seen to +be some connexion between the bearer and the thing implied by the +name). Roughly, it may be said that all names connote their bearers, +and them only. + +To have a `beautiful' name is no advantage. To have an `ugly' name is +no drawback. I am aware that this is a heresy. In a famous passage, +Bulwer Lytton propounded through one of his characters a theory that +`it is not only the effect that the sound of a name has on others +which is to be thoughtfully considered; the effect that his name +produces on the man himself is perhaps still more important. Some +names stimulate and encourage the owner, others deject and paralyse +him.' + +Bulwer himself, I doubt not, believed that there was something in this +theory. It is natural that a novelist should. He is always at great +pains to select for his every puppet a name that suggests to himself +the character which he has ordained for that puppet. In real life a +baby gets its surname by blind heredity, its other names by the blind +whim of its parents, who know not at all what sort of a person it will +eventually become. And yet, when these babies grow up, their names +seem every whit as appropriate as do the names of the romantic +puppets. `Obviously,' thinks the novelist, `these human beings must +"grow to" their names; or else, we must be viewing them in the light +of their names.' And the quiet ordinary people, who do not write +novels, incline to his conjectures. How else can they explain the fact +that every name seems to fit its bearer so exactly, to sum him or her +up in a flash? The true explanation, missed by them, is that a name +derives its whole quality from its bearer, even as does a word from +its meaning. The late Sir Redvers Buller, taure^don hupoblepsas +[spelled in Greek, from Plato's Phaedo 117b], was thought to be +peculiarly well fitted with his name. Yet had it belonged not to him, +but to (say) some gentle and thoughtful ecclesiastic, it would have +seemed quite as inevitable. `Gore' is quite as taurine as `Buller,' +and yet does it not seem to us the right name for the author of Lux +Mundi? In connection with him, who is struck by its taurinity? What +hint of ovinity would there have been for us if Sir Redvers' surname +had happened to be that of him who wrote the Essays of Elia? +Conversely, `Charles Buller' seems to us now an impossible nom de vie +for Elia; yet it would have done just as well, really. Even `Redvers +Buller' would have done just as well. `Walter Pater' means for us--how +perfectly!--the author of Marius the Epicurean, whilst the author of +All Sorts and Conditions of Men was summed up for us, not less +absolutely, in `Walter Besant.' And yet, if the surnames of these two +opposite Walters had been changed at birth, what difference would have +been made? `Walter Besant' would have signified a prose style sensuous +in its severity, an exquisitely patient scholarship, an exquisitely +sympathetic way of criticism. `Walter Pater' would have signified no +style, but an unslakable thirst for information, and a bustling human +sympathy, and power of carrying things through. Or take two names +often found in conjunction--Johnson and Boswell. Had the dear great +oracle been named Boswell, and had the sitter-at-his-feet been named +Johnson, would the two names seem to us less appropriate than they do? +Should we suffer any greater loss than if Salmon were Gluckstein, and +Gluckstein Salmon? Finally, take a case in which the same name was +borne by two very different characters. What name could seem more +descriptive of a certain illustrious Archbishop of Westminster than +`Manning'? It seems the very epitome of saintly astuteness. But for +`Cardinal' substitute `Mrs.' as its prefix, and, presto! it is equally +descriptive of that dreadful medio-Victorian murderess who in the dock +of the Old Bailey wore a black satin gown, and thereby created against +black satin a prejudice which has but lately died. In itself black +satin is a beautiful thing. Yet for many years, by force of +association, it was accounted loathsome. Conversely, one knows that +many quite hideous fashions in costume have been set by beautiful +women. Such instances of the subtle power of association will make +clear to you how very easily a name (being neither beautiful nor +hideous in itself) can be made hideous or beautiful by its bearer--how +inevitably it becomes for us a symbol of its bearer's most salient +qualities or defects, be they physical, moral, or intellectual. + +Streets are not less characteristic than human beings. `Look!' cried a +friend of mine, whom lately I found studying a map of London, `isn't +it appalling? All these streets--thousands of them--in this tiny +compass! Think of the miles and miles of drab monotony this map +contains! I pointed out to him (it is a thinker's penalty to be always +pointing things out to people) that his words were nonsense. I told +him that the streets on this map were no more monotonous than the +rivers on the map of England. Just as there were no two rivers alike, +every one of them having its own speed, its own windings, depths, and +shallows, its own way with the reeds and grasses, so had every street +its own claim to an especial nymph, forasmuch as no two streets had +exactly the same proportions, the same habitual traffic, the same type +of shops or houses, the same inhabitants. In some cases, of course, +the difference between the `atmosphere' of two streets is a subtle +difference. But it is always there, not less definite to any one who +searches for it than the difference between (say) Hill Street and Pont +Street, High Street Kensington and High Street Notting Hill, Fleet +Street and the Strand. I have here purposely opposed to each other +streets that have obvious points of likeness. But what a yawning gulf +of difference is between each couple! Hill Street, with its staid +distinction, and Pont Street, with its eager, pushful `smartness,' its +air de petit parvenu, its obvious delight in having been `taken up'; +High Street Notting Hill, down-at-heels and unashamed, with a placid +smile on its broad ugly face, and High Street Kensington, with its +traces of former beauty, and its air of neatness and self-respect, as +befits one who in her day has been caressed by royalty; Fleet Street, +that seething channel of business, and the Strand, that swollen river +of business, on whose surface float so many aimless and unsightly +objects. In every one of these thoroughfares my mood and my manner are +differently affected. In Hill Street, instinctively, I walk very +slowly--sometimes, even with a slight limp, as one recovering from an +accident in the hunting-field. I feel very well-bred there, and, +though not clever, very proud, and quick to resent any familiarity +from those whom elsewhere I should regard as my equals. In Pont Street +my demeanour is not so calm and measured. I feel less sure of myself, +and adopt a slight swagger. In High Street, Kensington, I find myself +dapper and respectable, with a timid leaning to the fine arts. In High +Street, Notting Hill, I become frankly common. Fleet Street fills me +with a conviction that if I don't make haste I shall be jeopardising +the national welfare. The Strand utterly unmans me, leaving me with +only two sensations: (1) a regret that I have made such a mess of my +life; (2) a craving for alcohol. These are but a few instances. If I +had time, I could show you that every street known to me in London has +a definite effect on me, and that no two streets have exactly the same +effect. For the most part, these effects differ in kind according only +to the different districts and their different modes of life; but they +differ in detail according to such specific little differences as +exist between such cognate streets as Bruton Street and Curzon Street, +Doughty Street and Great Russell Street. Every one of my readers, +doubtless, realises that he, too, is thus affected by the character of +streets. And I doubt not that for him, as for me, the mere sound or +sight of a street's name conjures up the sensation he feels when he +passes through that street. For him, probably, the name of every +street has hitherto seemed to be also its exact, inevitable symbol, a +perfect suggestion of its character. He has believed that the grand or +beautiful streets have grand or beautiful names, the mean or ugly +streets mean or ugly names. Let me assure him that this is a delusion. +The name of a street, as of a human being, derives its whole quality +from its bearer. + +`Oxford Street' sounds harsh and ugly. `Manchester Street' sounds +rather charming. Yet `Oxford' sounds beautiful, and `Manchester' +sounds odious. `Oxford' turns our thoughts to that `adorable dreamer, +whispering from her spires the last enchantments of the Middle Age.' +An uproarious monster, belching from its factory-chimneys the latest +exhalations of Hell--that is the image evoked by `Manchester.' But +neither in `Manchester Street' is there for us any hint of that +monster, nor in `Oxford Street' of that dreamer. The names have become +part and parcel of the streets. You see, then, that it matters not +whether the name given to a new street be one which in itself suggests +beauty, or one which suggests ugliness. In point of fact, it is +generally the most pitiable little holes and corners that bear the +most ambitiously beautiful names. To any one who has studied London, +such a title as `Paradise Court' conjures up a dark fetid alley, with +untidy fat women gossiping in it, untidy thin women quarrelling across +it, a host of haggard and shapeless children sprawling in its mud, and +one or two drunken men propped against its walls. Thus, were there an +official nomenclator of streets, he might be tempted to reject such +names as in themselves signify anything beautiful. But his main +principle would be to bestow whatever name first occurred to him, in +order that he might save time for thinking about something that really +mattered. + +I have yet to fulfil the second part of my promise: show the futility +of trying to commemorate a hero by making a street his namesake. By +implication I have done this already. But, for the benefit of the less +nimble among my readers, let me be explicit. Who, passing through the +Cromwell Road, ever thinks of Cromwell, except by accident? What +journalist ever thinks of Wellington in Wellington Street? In +Marlborough Street, what policeman remembers Marlborough? In St. +James's Street, has any one ever fancied he saw the ghost of a pilgrim +wrapped in a cloak, leaning on a staff? Other ghosts are there in +plenty. The phantom chariot of Lord Petersham dashes down the slope +nightly. Nightly Mr. Ball Hughes appears in the bow-window of White's. +At cock-crow Charles James Fox still emerges from Brooks's. Such men +as these were indigenous to the street. Nothing will ever lay their +ghosts there. But the ghost of St. James--what should it do in that +galley?... Of all the streets that have been named after famous men, I +know but one whose namesake is suggested by it. In Regent Street you +do sometimes think of the Regent; and that is not because the street +is named after him, but because it was conceived by him, and was +designed and built under his auspices, and is redolent of his +character and his time. When a national hero is to be commemorated by +a street, he must be allowed to design the street himself. The mere +plastering-up of his name is no mnemonic. + + +ON SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHDAY + +My florist has standing orders to deliver early on the morning of this +day a chaplet of laurel. With it in my hand, I reach by a step-ladder +the nobly arched embrasure that is above my central book-case, and +crown there the marble brow of him whose name is the especial glory of +our literature--of all literature. The greater part of the morning is +spent by me in contemplation of that brow, and in silent meditation. +And, year by year, always there intrudes itself into this meditation +the hope that Shakespeare's name will, one day, be swept into +oblivion. + +I am not--you will have perceived that I certainly am not--a +`Baconian.' So far as I have examined the evidence in the controversy, +I do not feel myself tempted to secede from the side on which +(rightly, inasmuch as it is the obviously authoritative side) every +ignorant person ranges himself. Even the hottest Baconian, filled with +the stubbornest conviction, will, I fancy, admit in confidence that +the utmost thing that could, at present, be said for his conclusions +by a judicial investigator is that they are `not proven.' To be +convinced of a thing without being able to establish it is the surest +recipe for making oneself ridiculous. The Baconians have thus made +themselves very ridiculous; and that alone is reason enough for not +wishing to join them. And yet my heart is with them, and my voice +urges them to carry on the fight. It is a good fight, in my opinion, +and I hope they will win it. + +I do not at all understand the furious resentment they rouse in the +bosoms of the majority. Mistaken they may be; but why yell them down +as knavish blasphemers? Our reverence, after all, is given not to an +Elizabethan named William Shakespeare, who was born at Stratford, and +married, and migrated to London, and became a second-rate actor, and +afterwards returned to Stratford, and made a will, and composed a few +lines of doggerel for the tombstone under which he was buried. Our +reverence is given to the writer of certain plays and sonnets. To that +second-rate actor, because we believe he wrote those plays and +sonnets, we give that reverence. But our belief is not such as we give +to the proposition that one and two make three. It is a belief that +has to be upheld by argument when it is assailed. When a man says to +us that one and two make four, we smile and are silent. But when he +argues, point by point, that in Bacon's life and writings there is +nothing to show that Bacon might not have written the plays and +sonnets, and that there is much to show that he did write them, and +that in what we know about Shakespeare there is little evidence that +Shakespeare wrote those works, and much evidence that he did not write +them, then we pull ourselves together, marshalling all our facts and +all out literary discernment, so as to convince our interlocutor of +his error. But why should we not do our task urbanely? The cyphers, +certainly, are stupid and tedious things, deserving no patience. But +the more intelligent Baconians spurn them as airily as do you or I. +Our case is not so strong that the arguments of these gentlemen can be +ignored; and naughty temper does but hamper us in the task of +demolition. If Bacon were proved to have written Shakespeare's plays +and sonnets, would mankind be robbed of one of those illusions which +are necessary to its happiness and welfare? If so, we have a good +excuse for browbeating the poor Baconians. But it isn't so, really and +truly. + +Suppose that one fine morning, Mr. Blank, an ardent Baconian, stumbled +across some long-sought document which proved irrefragably that Bacon +was the poet, and Shakespeare an impostor. What would be our +sentiments? For the second-rate actor we should have not a moment's +sneaking kindness or pity. On the other hand, should we not experience +an everlasting thrill of pride and gladness in the thought that he who +had been the mightiest of our philosophers had been also, by some +unimaginable grace of heaven, the mightiest of our poets? Our pleasure +in the plays and sonnets would be, of course, not one whit greater +than it is now. But the pleasure of hero-worship for their author +would be more than reduplicated. The Greeks revelled in reverence of +Heracles by reason of his twelve labours. They would have been +disappointed had it been proved to them that six of those labours had +been performed by some quite obscure person. The divided reverence +would have seemed tame. Conversely, it is pleasant to revere Bacon, as +we do now, and to revere Shakespeare, as we do now; but a wildest +ecstasy of worship were ours could we concentrate on one of those two +demigods all that reverence which now we apportion to each apart. + +It is for this reason, mainly, that I wish success to the Baconians. +But there is another reason, less elevated perhaps, but not less +strong for me. I should like to watch the multifarious comedies which +would spring from the downfall of an idol to which for three centuries +a whole world had been kneeling. Glad fancy makes for me a few +extracts from the issue of a morning paper dated a week after the +publication of Mr. Blank's discovery. This from a column of Literary +Notes: + +>From Baiham, Sydenham, Lewisham, Clapham, Herne Hill and Peckham comes +news that the local Shakespeare Societies have severally met and +decided to dissolve. Other suburbs are expected to follow. + +This from the same column: + +Mr. Sidney Lee is now busily engaged on a revised edition of his +monumental biography of Shakespeare. Yesterday His Majesty the King +graciously visited Mr. Lee's library in order to personally inspect +the progress of the work, which, in its complete form, is awaited with +the deepest interest in all quarters. + +And this, a leaderette: + +Yesterday at a meeting of the Parks Committee of the London County +Council it was unanimously resolved to recommend at the next meeting +of the Council that the statue of Shakespeare in Leicester Square +should be removed. This decision was arrived at in view of the fact +that during the past few days the well-known effigy has been the +centre of repeated disturbances, and is already considerably damaged. +We are surprised to learn that there are in our midst persons capable +of doing violence to a noble work of art merely because its subject is +distasteful to them. But even the most civilised communities have +their fits of vandalism. `'Tis true, 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis +true.' + +And this from a page of advertisements: + +To be let or sold. A commodious and desirable Mansion at Stratford-on- +Avon. Delightful flower and kitchen gardens. Hot and cold water on +every floor. Within easy drive of station. Hitherto home of Miss Marie +Corelli. + +And this, again from the Literary Notes: + +Mr. Hall Caine is in town. Yesterday, at the Authors' Club, he passed +almost unrecognised by his many friends, for he has shaved his beard +and moustache, and has had his hair cropped quite closely to the head. +This measure he has taken, he says, owing to the unusually hot weather +prevailing. + +A sonnet, too, printed in large type on the middle page, entitled `To +Shakespeare,' signed by the latest fashionable poet, and beginning +thus: + +O undetected during so long years, +O irrepleviably infamous, +Stand forth! + +A cable, too, from `Our Own Correspondent' in New York: + +This afternoon the Carmania came into harbour. Among the passengers +was Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, who had come over in personal charge of +Anne Hathaway's Cottage, his purchase of which for œ2,000,000 excited +so much attention on your side a few weeks ago. Mr. Blank's +sensational revelations not having been published to the world till +two days after the Carmania left Liverpool, the millionaire collector +had, of course, no cognisance of the same. On disembarking he +proceeded straight to the Customs Office and inquired how much duty +was to be imposed on the cottage. On being courteously informed that +the article would be passed into the country free of charge, he +evinced considerable surprise. I then ventured to approach Mr. Morgan +and to hand him a journal containing the cabled summary of Mr. Blank's +disclosures, which he proceeded to peruse. His comments I must reserve +for the next mail, the cable clerks here demurring to their +transmission. + +Only a dream? But a sweet one. Bustle about, Baconians, and bring it +true. Don't listen to my florist. + + +A HOME-COMING + +Belike, returning from a long pilgrimage, in which you have seen many +strange men and strange cities, and have had your imagination stirred +by marvellous experiences, you have never, at the very end of your +journey, almost in sight of your home, felt suddenly that all you had +been seeing and learning was as naught--a pack of negligible +illusions, faint and forgotten. From me, however, this queer sensation +has not been withheld. It befell me a few days ago; in a cold grey +dawn, and in the Buffet of Dover Harbour. + +I had spent two months far away, wandering and wondering; and now I +had just fulfilled two thirds of the little tripartite journey from +Paris to London. I was sleepy, as one always is after that brief and +twice broken slumber. I was chilly, for is not the dawn always bleak +at Dover, and perforated always with a bleak and drizzling rain? I was +sad, for I had watched from the deck the white cliffs of Albion coming +nearer and nearer to me, towering over me, and in the familiar drizzle +looking to me more than ever ghastly for that I had been so long and +so far away from them. Often though that harsh, chalky coast had thus +borne down on me, I had never yet felt so exactly and lamentably like +a criminal arrested on an extradition warrant. + +In its sleepy, chilly shell my soul was still shuddering and +whimpering. Piteously it conjured me not to take it back into this +cruel hum-drum. It rose up and fawned on me. `Down, Sir, down!' said I +sternly. I pointed out to it that needs must when the devil drives, +and that it ought to think itself a very lucky soul for having had two +happy, sunny months of fresh and curious adventure. `A sorrow's crown +of sorrow,' it murmured, `is remembering happier things.' I declared +the sentiment to be as untrue as was the quotation trite, and told my +soul that I looked keenly forward to the pleasure of writing, in +collaboration with it, that book of travel for which I had been so +sedulously amassing notes and photographs by the way. + +This colloquy was held at a table in the Buffet. I was sorry, for my +soul's sake, to be sitting there. Britannia owns nothing more crudely +and inalienably Britannic than her Buffets. The barmaids are but +incarnations of her own self, thinly disguised. The stale buns and the +stale sponge-cakes must have been baked, one fancies, by her own heavy +hand. Of her everything is redolent. She it is that has cut the thick +stale sandwiches, bottled the bitter beer, brewed the unpalatable +coffee. Cold and hungry though I was, one sip of this coffee was one +sip too much for me. I would not mortify my body by drinking more of +it, although I had to mortify my soul by lingering over it till one of +the harassed waiters would pause to be paid for it. I was somewhat +comforted by the aspect of my fellow-travellers at the surrounding +tables. Dank, dishevelled, dismal, they seemed to be resenting as much +as I the return to the dear home-land. I suppose it was the contrast +between them and him that made me stare so hard at the large young man +who was standing on the threshold and surveying the scene. + +He looked, as himself would undoubtedly have said, `fit as a fiddle,' +or `right as rain.' His cheeks were rosy, his eyes sparkling. He had +his arms akimbo, and his feet planted wide apart. His grey bowler +rested on the back of his head, to display a sleek coating of hair +plastered down over his brow. In his white satin tie shone a dubious +but large diamond, and there was the counter-attraction of geraniums +and maidenhair fern in his button-hole. So fresh was the nosegay that +he must have kept it in water during the passage! Or perhaps these +vegetables had absorbed by mere contact with his tweeds, the subtle +secret of his own immarcescibility. I remembered now that I had seen +him, without realising him, on the platform of the Gare du Nord. `Gay +Paree' was still written all over him. But evidently he was no +repiner. + +Unaccountable though he was, I had no suspicion of what he was about +to do. I think you will hardly believe me when I tell you what he did. +`A traveller's tale' you will say, with a shrug. Yet I swear to you +that it is the plain and solemn truth. If you still doubt me, you have +the excuse that I myself hardly believed the evidence of my eyes. In +the Buffet of Dover Harbour, in the cold grey dawn, in the brief +interval between boat and train, the large young man, shooting his +cuffs, strode forward, struck a confidential attitude across the +counter, and began to flirt with the barmaid. + +Open-mouthed, fascinated, appalled, I watched this monstrous and +unimaginable procedure. I was not near enough to overhear what was +said. But I knew by the respective attitudes that the time-honoured +ritual was being observed strictly by both parties. I could see the +ice of haughty indifference thawing, little by little, under the fire +of gallant raillery. I could fix the exact moment when `Indeed?' +became `I daresay,' and when `Well, I must say' gave place to `Go +along,' and when `Oh, I don't mind you--not particularly' was +succeeded by `Who gave you them flowers?'... All in the cold grey +dawn... + +The cry of `Take your places, please!' startled me into realisation +that all the other passengers had vanished. I hurried away, leaving +the young man still in the traditional attitude which he had assumed +from the first--one elbow sprawling on the counter, one foot cocked +over the other. My porter had put my things into a compartment exactly +opposite the door of the Buffet. I clambered in. + +Just as the guard blew his whistle, the young man or monster came +hurrying out. He winked at me. I did not return his wink. + +I suppose I ought really to have raised my hat to him. Pre-eminently, +he was one of those who have made England what it is. But they are the +very men whom one does not care to meet just after long truancy in +preferable lands. He was the backbone of the nation. But ought +backbones to be exposed? + +Though I would rather not have seen him then and there, I did realise, +nevertheless, the overwhelming interest of him. I knew him to be a +stranger sight, a more memorable and instructive, than any of the fair +sights I had been seeing. He made them all seem nebulous and unreal to +me. Beside me lay my despatch-box. I unlocked it, drew from it all the +notes and all the photographs I had brought back with me. These, one +by one, methodically, I tore up, throwing their fragments out of the +window, not grudging them to the wind. + + +`THE RAGGED REGIMENT' + +--`commonly called "Longshanks" on account of his great height he was +the first king crowned in the Abbey as it now appears and was interred +with great pomp on St. Simon's and St. Jude's Day October 28th 1307 in +1774 the tomb was opened when the king's body was found almost entire +in the right hand was a richly embossed sceptre and in the left'-- + +So much I gather as I pass one of the tombs on my way to the Chapel of +Abbot Islip. Anon the verger will have stepped briskly forward, +drawing a deep breath, with his flock well to heel, and will be +telling the secrets of the next tomb on his tragic beat. + +To be a verger in Westminster Abbey--what life could be more +unutterably tragic? We are, all of us, more or less enslaved to +sameness; but not all of us are saying, every day, hour after hour, +exactly the same thing, in exactly the same place, in exactly the same +tone of voice, to people who hear it for the first time and receive it +with a gasp of respectful interest. In the name of humanity, I suggest +to the Dean and Chapter that they should relieve these sad-faced men +of their intolerable mission, and purchase parrots. On every tomb, by +every bust or statue, under every memorial window, let a parrot be +chained by the ankle to a comfortable perch, therefrom to enlighten +the rustic and the foreigner. There can be no objection on the ground +of expense; for parrots live long. Vergers do not, I am sure. + +It is only the rustic and the foreigner who go to Westminster Abbey +for general enlightenment. If you pause beside any one of the verger- +led groups, and analyse the murmur emitted whenever the verger has +said his say, you will find the constituent parts of the sound to be +such phrases as `Lor!' `Ach so!' `Deary me!' `Tiens!' and `My!' `My!' +preponderates; for antiquities appeal with greatest force to the one +race that has none of them; and it is ever the Americans who hang the +most tenaciously, in the greatest numbers, on the vergers' tired lips. +We of the elder races are capable of taking antiquities as a matter of +course. Certainly, such of us as reside in London take Westminster +Abbey as a matter of course. A few of us will be buried in it, but +meanwhile we don't go to it, even as we don't go to the Tower, or the +Mint, or the Monument. Only for some special purpose do we go--as to +hear a sensational bishop preaching, or to see a monarch anointed. And +on these rare occasions we cast but a casual glance at the Abbey--that +close-packed chaos of beautiful things and worthless vulgar things. +That the Abbey should be thus chaotic does not seem strange to us; for +lack of orderliness and discrimination is an essential characteristic +of the English genius. But to the Frenchman, with his passion for +symmetry and harmony, how very strange it must all seem! How very +whole-hearted a generalising `Tiens! must he utter when he leaves the +edifice! + +My own special purpose in coming is to see certain old waxen effigies +that are here. [In its original form this essay had the good fortune +to accompany two very romantic drawings by William Nicholson--one of +Queen Elizabeth's effigy, the other of Charles II.'s.] A key grates in +the lock of a little door in the wall of (what I am told is) the North +Ambulatory; and up a winding wooden staircase I am ushered into a tiny +paven chamber. The light is dim, through the deeply embrased and +narrow window, and the space is so obstructed that I must pick my way +warily. All around are deep wooden cupboards, faced with glass; and I +become dimly aware that through each glass some one is watching me. +Like sentinels in sentry-boxes, they fix me with their eyes, seeming +as though they would challenge me. How shall I account to them for my +presence? I slip my note-book into my pocket, and try, in the dim +light, to look as unlike a spy as possible. But I cannot, try as I +will, acquit myself of impertinence. Who am I that I should review +this `ragged regiment'? Who am I that I should come peering in upon +this secret conclave of the august dead? Immobile and dark, very gaunt +and withered, these personages peer out at me with a malign dignity, +through the ages which separate me from them, through the twilight in +which I am so near to them. Their eyes... Come, sir, their eyes are +made of glass. It is quite absurd to take wax-works seriously. Wax- +works are not a serious form of art. The aim of art is so to imitate +life as to produce in the spectator an illusion of life. Wax-works, at +best, can produce no such illusion. Don't pretend to be illuded. For +its power to illude, an art depends on its limitations. Art never can +be life, but it may seem to be so if it do but keep far enough away +from life. A statue may seem to live. A painting may seem to live. +That is because each is so far away from life that you do not apply +the test of life to it. A statue is of bronze or marble, than either +of which nothing could be less flesh-like. A painting is a thing in +two dimensions, whereas man is in three. If sculptor or painter tried +to dodge these conventions, his labour would be undone. If a painter +swelled his canvas out and in according to the convexities and +concavities of his model, or if a sculptor overlaid his material with +authentic flesh-tints, then you would demand that the painted or +sculptured figure should blink, or stroke its chin, or kick its foot +in the air. That it could do none of these things would rob it of all +power to illude you. An art that challenges life at close quarters is +defeated through the simple fact that it is not life. Wax-works, being +so near to life, having the exact proportions of men and women, having +the exact texture of skin and hair and habiliments, must either be +made animate or continue to be grotesque and pitiful failures. +Lifelike? They? Rather do they give you the illusion of death. They +are akin to photographs seen through stereoscopic lenses--those +photographs of persons who seem horribly to be corpses, or, at least, +catalepts; and... You see, I have failed to cheer myself up. Having +taken up a strong academic line, and set bravely out to prove to +myself the absurdity of wax-works, I find myself at the point where I +started, irrefutably arguing to myself that I have good reason to be +frightened, here in the Chapel of Abbot Islip, in the midst of these, +the Abbot's glowering and ghastly tenants. Catalepsy! death! that is +the atmosphere I am breathing. + +If I were writing in the past tense, I might pause here to consider +whether this emotion was a genuine one or a mere figment for literary +effect. As I am writing in the present tense, such a pause would be +inartistic, and shall not be made. I must seem not to be writing, but +to be actually on the spot, suffering. But then, you may well ask, why +should I stay here, to suffer? why not beat a hasty retreat? The +answer is that my essay would then seem skimpy; and that you, +moreover, would know hardly anything about the wax-works. So I must +ask you to imagine me fighting down my fears, and consoling myself +with the reflection that here, after all, a sense of awe and +oppression is just what one ought to feel--just what one comes for. At +Madame Tussaud's exhibition, by which I was similarly afflicted some +years ago, I had no such consolation. There my sense of fitness was +outraged. The place was meant to be cheerful. It was brilliantly lit. +A band was playing popular tunes. Downstairs there was even a +restaurant. (Let fancy fondly dwell, for a moment, on the thought of a +dinner at Madame Tussaud's: a few carefully-selected guests, and a +menu well thought out; conversation becoming general; corks popping; +quips flying; a sense of bien-e^tre; `thank you for a most delightful +evening.') Madame's figures were meant to be agreeable and lively +presentments. Her visitors were meant to have a thoroughly good time. +But the Islip Chapel has no cheerful intent. It is, indeed, a place +set aside, with all reverence, to preserve certain relics of a grim, +yet not unlovely, old custom. These fearful images are no stock-in- +trade of a showman; we are not invited to `walk-up' to them. They were +fashioned with a solemn and wistful purpose. The reason of them lies +in a sentiment which is as old as the world--lies in man's vain revolt +from the prospect of death. If the soul must perish from the body, may +not at least the body itself be preserved, somewhat in the semblance +of life, and, for at least a while, on the face of the earth? By +subtle art, with far-fetched spices, let the body survive its day and +be (even though hidden beneath the earth) for ever. Nay more, since +death cause it straightway to dwindle somewhat from the true semblance +of life, let cunning artificers fashion it anew--fashion it as it was. +Thus, in the earliest days of England, the kings, as they died, were +embalmed, and their bodies were borne aloft upon their biers, to a +sepulture long delayed after death. In later days, an image of every +king that died was forthwith carved in wood, and painted according to +his remembered aspect, and decked in his own robes; and, when they had +sealed his tomb, the mourners, humouring, to the best of their power, +his hatred of extinction, laid this image upon the tomb's slab, and +left it so. In yet later days, the pretence became more realistic. The +hands and the face were modelled in wax; and the figure stood upright, +in some commanding posture, on a valanced platform above the tomb. Nor +were only the kings thus honoured. Every one who was interred in the +Abbey, whether in virtue of lineage or of achievements, was honoured +thus. It was the fashion for every great lady to write in her will +minute instructions as to the posture in which her image was to be +modelled, and which of her gowns it was to be clad in, and with what +of her jewellery it was to glitter. Men, too, used to indulge in such +precautions. Of all the images thus erected in the Abbey, there remain +but a few. The images had to take their chance, in days that were +without benefit of police. Thieves, we may suppose, stripped the +finery from many of them. Rebels, we know, broke in, less ignobly, and +tore many of them limb from limb, as a protest against the governing +classes. So only a poor remnant, a `ragged regiment,' has been +rallied, at length, into the sanctuary of Islip's Chapel. Perhaps, if +they were not so few, these images would not be so fascinating. + +Yes, I am fascinated by them now. Terror has been toned to wonder. I +am filled with a kind of wondering pity. My academic theory about wax- +works has broken down utterly. These figures--kings, princes, +duchesses, queens--all are real to me now, and all are infinitely +pathetic, in the dignity of their fallen and forgotten greatness. With +what inalienable majesty they wear their rusty velvets and faded +silks, flaunting sere ruffles of point-lace, which at a touch now +would be shivered like cobwebs! My heart goes out to them through the +glass that divides us. I wish I could stay with them, bear them +company, always. I think they like me. I am afraid they will miss me. +Perhaps it would be better for us never to have met. Even Queen +Elizabeth, beholding whom, as she stands here, gaunt and imperious and +appalling, I echo the words spoken by Philip's envoy, `This woman is +possessed of a hundred thousand devils'--even she herself, though she +gazes askance into the air, seems to be conscious of my presence, and +to be willing me to stay. It is a relief to meet the friendly +bourgeois eye of good Queen Anne. It has restored my common sense. +`These figures really are most curious, most interesting...' and anon +I am asking intelligent questions about the contents of a big press, +which, by special favour, has been unlocked for me. + +Perhaps the most romantic thing in the Islip Chapel is this press. +Herein, huddled one against another in dark recesses, lie the battered +and disjected remains of the earlier effigies--the primitive wooden +ones. Edward I. and Eleanor are known to be among them; and Henry VII. +and Elizabeth of York; and others not less illustrious. Which is +which? By size and shape you can distinguish the men from the women; +but beyond that is mere guesswork, be you never so expert. Time has +broken and shuffled these erst so significant effigies till they have +become as unmeaning for us as the bones in one of the old plague-pits. +I feel that I ought to be more deeply moved than I am by this sad +state of things. But I seem to have exhausted my capacity for +sentiment; and I cannot rise to the level of my opportunity. Would +that I were Thackeray! Dear gentleman, how promptly and copiously he +would have wept and moralised here, in his grandest manner, with that +perfect technical mastery which makes even now his tritest and +shallowest sermons sound remarkable, his hollowest sentiment ring +true! What a pity he never came to beat the muffled drum, on which he +was so supreme a performer, around the Islip Chapel! As I make my way +down the stairs, I am trying to imagine what would have been the +cadence of the final sentence in this essay by Thackeray. And, as I +pass along the North Ambulatory, lo! there is the same verger with a +new party; and I catch the words `was interred with great pomp on St. +Simon's and St. Jude's Day October 28 1307 in 1774 the tomb was opened +when-- + + +THE HUMOUR OF THE PUBLIC + +They often tell me that So-and-so has no sense of humour. Lack of this +sense is everywhere held to be a horrid disgrace, nullifying any +number of delightful qualities. Perhaps the most effective means of +disparaging an enemy is to lay stress on his integrity, his erudition, +his amiability, his courage, the fineness of his head, the grace of +his figure, his strength of purpose, which has overleaped all +obstacles, his goodness to his parents, the kind word that he has for +every one, his musical voice, his freedom from aught that in human +nature is base; and then to say what a pity it is that he has no sense +of humour. The more highly you extol any one, the more eagerly will +your audience accept anything you may have to say against him. +Perfection is unloved in this imperfect world, but for imperfection +comes instant sympathy. Any excuse is good enough for exalting the bad +or stupid brother of us, but any stick is a valued weapon against him +who has the effrontery to have been by Heaven better graced than we. +And what could match for deadliness the imputation of being without +sense of humour? To convict a man of that lack is to strike him with +one blow to a level with the beasts of the field--to kick him, once +and for all, outside the human pale. What is it that mainly +distinguishes us from the brute creation? That we walk erect? Some +brutes are bipeds. That we do not slay one another? We do. That we +build houses? So do they. That we remember and reason? So, again, do +they. That we converse? They are chatterboxes, whose lingo we are not +sharp enough to master. On no possible point of superiority can we +preen ourselves save this: that we can laugh, and that they, with one +notable exception, cannot. They (so, at least, we assert) have no +sense of humour. We have. Away with any one of us who hasn't! + +Belief in the general humorousness of the human race is the more deep- +rooted for that every man is certain that he himself is not without +sense of humour. A man will admit cheerfully that he does not know one +tune from another, or that he cannot discriminate the vintages of +wines. The blind beggar does not seek to benumb sympathy by telling +his patrons how well they are looking. The deaf and dumb do not +scruple to converse in signals. `Have you no sense of beauty?' I said +to a friend who in the Accademia of Florence suggested that we had +stood long enough in front of the `Primavera.' `No!' was his simple, +straightforward, quite unanswerable answer. But I have never heard a +man assert that he had no sense of humour. And I take it that no such +assertion ever was made. Moreover, were it made, it would be a lie. +Every man laughs. Frequently or infrequently, the corners of his mouth +are drawn up into his cheeks, and through his parted lips comes his +own particular variety, soft or loud, of that noise which is called +laughter. Frequently or infrequently, every man is amused by +something. Every man has a sense of humour, but not every man the same +sense. A may be incapable of smiling at what has convulsed B, and B +may stare blankly when he hears what has rolled A off his chair. Jokes +are so diverse that no one man can see them all. The very fact that he +can see one kind is proof positive that certain other kinds will be +invisible to him. And so egoistic in his judgment is the average man +that he is apt to suspect of being humourless any one whose sense of +humour squares not with his own. But the suspicion is always false, +incomparably useful though it is in the form of an accusation. + +Having no love for the public, I have often accused that body of +having no sense of humour. Conscience pricks me to atonement. Let me +withdraw my oft-made imputation, and show its hollowness by examining +with you, reader (who are, of course, no more a member of the public +than I am), what are the main features of that sense of humour which +the public does undoubtedly possess. + +The word `public' must, like all collective words, be used with +caution. When we speak of our hair, we should remember not only that +the hairs on our heads are all numbered, but also that there is a +catalogue raisonne' in which every one of those hairs is shown to be +in some respect unique. Similarly, let us not forget that `public' +denotes a collection not of identical units, but of units separable +and (under close scrutiny) distinguishable one from another. I have +said that not every man has the same sense of humour. I might have +said truly that no two men have the same sense of humour, for that no +two men have the same brain and heart and experience, by which things +the sense of humour is formed and directed. One joke may go round the +world, tickling myriads, but not two persons will be tickled in +precisely the same way, to precisely the same degree. If the +vibrations of inward or outward laughter could be (as some day, +perhaps, they will be) scientifically registered, differences between +them all would be made apparent to us. `Oh,' is your cry, whenever you +hear something that especially amuses you, `I must tell that to' +whomever you credit with a sense of humour most akin to your own. And +the chances are that you will be disappointed by his reception of the +joke. Either he will laugh less loudly than you hoped, or he will say +something which reveals to you that it amuses him and you not in quite +the same way. Or perhaps he will laugh so long and loudly that you are +irritated by the suspicion that you have not yourself gauged the full +beauty of it. In one of his books (I do not remember which, though +they, too, I suppose, are all numbered) Mr. Andrew Lang tells a story +that has always delighted and always will delight me. He was in a +railway-carriage, and his travelling-companions were two strangers, +two silent ladies, middle-aged. The train stopped at Nuneaton. The two +ladies exchanged a glance. One of them sighed, and said, `Poor Eliza! +She had reason to remember Nuneaton!'... That is all. But how much! +how deliciously and memorably much! How infinite a span of conjecture +is in those dots which I have just made! And yet, would you believe +me? some of my most intimate friends, the people most like to myself, +see little or nothing of the loveliness of that pearl of price. +Perhaps you would believe me. That is the worst of it: one never +knows. The most sensitive intelligence cannot predict how will be +appraised its any treasure by its how near soever kin. + +This sentence, which I admit to be somewhat mannered, has the merit of +bringing me straight to the point at which I have been aiming; that, +though the public is composed of distinct units, it may roughly be +regarded as a single entity. Precisely because you and I have +sensitive intelligences, we cannot postulate certainly anything about +each other. The higher an animal be in grade, the more numerous and +recondite are the points in which its organism differs from that of +its peers. The lower the grade, the more numerous and obvious the +points of likeness. By `the public' I mean that vast number of human +animals who are in the lowest grade of intelligence. (Of course, this +classification is made without reference to social `classes.' The +public is recruited from the upper, the middle, and the lower class. +That the recruits come mostly from the lower class is because the +lower class is still the least well-educated. That they come in as +high proportion from the middle class as from the less well-educated +upper class, is because the `young Barbarians,' reared in a more +gracious environment, often acquire a grace of mind which serves them +as well as would mental keenness.) Whereas in the highest grade, to +which you and I belong, the fact that a thing affects you in one way +is no guarantee that it will not affect me in another, a thing which +affects one man of the lowest grade in a particular way is likely to +affect all the rest very similarly. The public's sense of humour may +be regarded roughly as one collective sense. + +It would be impossible for any one of us to define what are the things +that amuse him. For him the wind of humour bloweth where it listeth. +He finds his jokes in the unlikeliest places. Indeed, it is only there +that he finds them at all. A thing that is labelled `comic' chills his +sense of humour instantly--perceptibly lengthens his face. A joke that +has not a serious background, or some serious connexion, means nothing +to him. Nothing to him, the crude jape of the professional jester. +Nothing to him, the jangle of the bells in the wagged cap, the thud of +the swung bladder. Nothing, the joke that hits him violently in the +eye, or pricks him with a sharp point. The jokes that he loves are +those quiet jokes which have no apparent point--the jokes which never +can surrender their secret, and so can never pall. His humour is an +indistinguishable part of his soul, and the things that stir it are +indistinguishable from the world around him. But to the primitive and +untutored public, humour is a harshly definite affair. The public can +achieve no delicate process of discernment in humour. Unless a joke +hits in the eye, drawing forth a shower of illuminative sparks, all is +darkness. Unless a joke be labelled `Comic. Come! why don't you +laugh?' the public is quite silent. Violence and obviousness are thus +the essential factors. The surest way of making a thing obvious is to +provide it in some special place, at some special time. It is thus +that humour is provided for the public, and thus that it is easy for +the student to lay his hand on materials for an analysis of the +public's sense of humour. The obviously right plan for the student is +to visit the music-halls from time to time, and to buy the comic +papers. Neither these halls nor these papers will amuse him directly +through their art, but he will instruct himself quicklier and +soundlier from them than from any other source, for they are the +authentic sources of the public's laughter. Let him hasten to +patronise them. + +He will find that I have been there before him. The music-halls I have +known for many years. I mean, of course, the real old-fashioned music- +halls, not those depressing palaces where you see by grace of a +biograph things that you have seen much better, and without a +headache, in the street, and pitiable animals being forced to do +things which Nature has forbidden them to do--things which we can do +so very much better than they, without any trouble. Heaven defend me +from those meaningless palaces! But the little old music-halls have +always attracted me by their unpretentious raciness, their quaint +monotony, the reality of the enjoyment on all those stolidly rapt +faces in the audience. Without that monotony there would not be the +same air of general enjoyment, the same constant guffaws. That +monotony is the secret of the success of music-halls. It is not enough +for the public to know that everything is meant to be funny, that +laughter is craved for every point in every `turn.' A new kind of +humour, however obvious and violent, might take the public unawares, +and be received in silence. The public prefers always that the old +well-tested and well-seasoned jokes be cracked for it. Or rather, not +the same old jokes, but jokes on the same old subjects. The quality of +the joke is of slight import in comparison with its subject. It is the +matter, rather than the treatment, that counts, in the art of the +music-hall. Some subjects have come to be recognised as funny. Two or +three of them crop up in every song, and before the close of the +evening all of them will have cropped up many times. I speak with +authority, as an earnest student of the music-halls. Of comic papers I +know less. They have never allured me. They are not set to music--an +art for whose cheaper and more primitive forms I have a very real +sensibility; and I am not, as I peruse one of them, privy to the +public's delight: my copy cannot be shared with me by hundreds of +people whose mirth is wonderful to see and hear. And the bare contents +are not such as to enchant me. However, for the purpose of this essay, +I did go to a bookstall and buy as many of these papers as I could +see--a terrific number, a terrific burden to stagger away with. + +I have gone steadily through them, one by one. My main impression is +of wonder and horror at the amount of hebdomadal labour implicit in +them. Who writes for them? Who does the drawings for them--those +thousands of little drawings, week by week, so neatly executed? To +think that daily and nightly, in so many an English home, in a room +sacred to the artist, sits a young man inventing and executing designs +for Chippy Snips! To think how many a proud mother must be boasting to +her friends: `Yes, Edward is doing wonderfully well--more than +fulfilling the hopes we always had of him. Did I tell you that the +editor of Natty Tips has written asking him to contribute to his +paper? I believe I have the letter on me. Yes, here it is,' etc., +etc.! The awful thing is that many of the drawings in these comic +papers are done with very real skill. Nothing is sadder than to see +the hand of an artist wasted by alliance to a vacant mind, a common +spirit. I look through these drawings, conceived all so tritely and +stupidly, so hopelessly and helplessly, yet executed--many of them--so +very well indeed, and I sigh over the haphazard way in which mankind +is made. However, my concern is not with the tragedy of these +draughtsmen, but with the specific forms taken by their humour. Some +of them deal in a broad spirit with the world-comedy, limiting +themselves to no set of funny subjects, finding inspiration in the +habits and manners of men and women at large. `HE WON HER' is the +title appended to a picture of a young lady and gentleman seated in a +drawing-room, and the libretto runs thus: `Mabel: Last night I dreamt +of a most beautiful woman. Harold: Rather a coincidence. I dreamt of +you, too, last night.' I have selected this as a typical example of +the larger style. This style, however, occupies but a small space in +the bulk of the papers that lie before me. As in the music-halls, so +in these papers, the entertainment consists almost entirely of +variations on certain ever-recurring themes. I have been at pains to +draw up a list of these themes. I think it is exhaustive. If any +fellow-student detect an omission, let him communicate with me. +Meanwhile, here is my list:-- + +Mothers-in-law +Hen-pecked husbands +Twins +Old maids +Jews +Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, Niggers (not Russians, or other +foreigners of any denomination) +Fatness +Thinness +Long hair (worn by a man) +Baldness +Sea-sickness +Stuttering +Bad cheese +`Shooting the moon' (slang expression for leaving a lodging-house +without paying the bill). + +You might argue that one week's budget of comic papers is no real +criterion--that the recurrence of these themes may be fortuitous. My +answer to that objection is that this list coincides exactly with a +list which (before studying these papers) I had made of the themes +commonest, during the past few years, in the music-halls. This twin +list, which results from separate study of the two chief forms of +public entertainment, may be taken as a sure guide to the goal of our +inquiry. + +Let us try to find some unifying principle, or principles, among the +variegated items. Take the first item--Mothers-in-law. Why should the +public roar, as roar it does, at the mere mention of that +relationship? There is nothing intrinsically absurd in the notion of a +woman with a married daughter. It is probable that she will sympathise +with her daughter in any quarrel that may arise between husband and +wife. It is probable, also, that she will, as a mother, demand for her +daughter more unselfish devotion than the daughter herself expects. +But this does not make her ridiculous. The public laughs not at her, +surely. It always respects a tyrant. It laughs at the implied concept +of the oppressed son-in-law, who has to wage unequal warfare against +two women. It is amused by the notion of his embarrassment. It is +amused by suffering. This explanation covers, of course, the second +item on my list--Hen-pecked husbands. It covers, also, the third and +fourth items. The public is amused by the notion of a needy man put to +double expense, and of a woman who has had no chance of fulfilling her +destiny. The laughter at Jews, too, may be a survival of the old Jew- +baiting spirit (though one would have thought that even the British +public must have begun to realise, and to reflect gloomily, that the +whirligig of time has so far revolved as to enable the Jews to bait +the Gentiles). Or this laughter may be explained by the fact which +alone can explain why the public laughs at Frenchmen, Germans, +Italians, Niggers. Jews, after all, are foreigners, strangers. The +British public has never got used to them, to their faces and tricks +of speech. The only apparent reason why it laughs at the notion of +Frenchmen, etc., is that they are unlike itself. (At the mention of +Russians and other foreigners it does not laugh, because it has no +idea what they are like: it has seen too few samples of them.) + +So far, then, we have found two elements in the public's humour: +delight in suffering, contempt for the unfamiliar. The former motive +is the more potent. It accounts for the popularity of all these other +items: extreme fatness, extreme thinness, baldness, sea-sickness, +stuttering, and (as entailing distress for the landlady) `shooting the +moon.' The motive of contempt for the unfamiliar accounts for long +hair (worn by a man). Remains one item unexplained. How can mirth +possibly be evoked by the notion of bad cheese? Having racked my +brains for the solution, I can but conjecture that it must be the mere +ugliness of the thing. Why any one should be amused by mere ugliness I +cannot conceive. Delight in cruelty, contempt for the unfamiliar, I +can understand, though I cannot admire them. They are invariable +elements in children's sense of humour, and it is natural that the +public, as being unsophisticated, should laugh as children laugh. But +any nurse will tell you that children are frightened by ugliness. Why, +then, is the public amused by it? I know not. The laughter at bad +cheese I abandon as a mystery. I pitch it among such other insoluble +problems, as Why does the public laugh when an actor and actress in a +quite serious play kiss each other? Why does it laugh when a meal is +eaten on the stage? Why does it laugh when any actor has to say +`damn'? + +If they cannot be solved soon, such problems never will be solved. For +Mr. Forster's Act will soon have had time to make apparent its +effects; and the public will proudly display a sense of humour as +sophisticated as our own. + + +DULCEDO JUDICIORUM + +When a `sensational' case is being tried, the court is well filled by +lay persons in need of a thrill. Their presence seems to be rather +resented as a note of frivolity, a discord in the solemnity of the +function, even a possible distraction for the judge and jury. I am not +a lawyer, nor a professionally solemn person, and I cannot work myself +up into a state of indignation against the interlopers. I am, indeed, +one of them myself. And I am worse than one of them. I do not merely +go to this or that court on this or that special occasion. I frequent +the courts whenever I have nothing better to do. And it is rarely +that, as one who cares to study his fellow-creatures, I have anything +better to do. I greatly wonder that the courts are frequented by so +few other people who have no special business there. + +I can understand the glamour of the theatre. You find yourself in a +queerly-shaped place, cut off from the world, with plenty of gilding +and red velvet or blue satin. An orchestra plays tunes calculated to +promote suppressed excitement. Presently up goes a curtain, revealing +to you a mimic world, with ladies and gentlemen painted and padded to +appear different from what they are. It is precisely the people most +susceptible to the glamour of the theatre who are the greatest +hindrances to serious dramatic art. They will stand anything, no +matter how silly, in a theatre. Fortunately, there seems to be a +decline in the number of people who are acutely susceptible to the +theatre's glamour. I rather think the reason for this is that the +theatre has been over-exploited by the press. Quite old people will +describe to you their early playgoings with a sense of wonder, an +enthusiasm, which--leaving a wide margin for the charm that past +things must always have--will not be possible to us when we babble to +our grandchildren. Quite young people, people ranging between the ages +of four and five, who have seen but one or two pantomimes, still seem +to have the glamour of the theatre full on them. But adolescents, and +people in the prime of life, do merely, for the most part, grumble +about the quality of the plays. Yet the plays of our time are somewhat +better than the plays that were written for our elders. Certainly the +glamour of the theatre has waned. And so much the better for the +drama's future. + +It is a matter of concern, that future, to me who have for so long a +time been a dramatic critic. A man soon comes to care, quite +unselfishly, about the welfare of the thiing in which he has +specialised. Of course, I care selfishly too. For, though it is just +as easy for a critic to write interestingly about bad things as about +good things, he would rather, for choice, be in contact with good +things. It is always nice to combine business and pleasure. But one +regrets, even then, the business. If I were a forensic critic, my +delight in attending the courts would still be great; but less than it +is in my irresponsibility. In the courts I find satisfied in me just +those senses which in the theatre, nearly always, are starved. Nay, I +find them satisfied more fully than they ever could be, at best, in +any theatre. I do not merely fall back on the courts, in disgust of +the theatre as it is. I love the courts better than the theatre as it +ideally might be. And, I say again, I marvel that you leave me so much +elbow-room there. + +No artificial light is needed, no scraping of fiddles, to excite or +charm me as I pass from the echoing corridor, through the swing-doors, +into the well of this or that court. It matters not much to me what +case I shall hear, so it be of the human kind, with a jury and with +witnesses. I care little for Chancery cases. There is a certain +intellectual pleasure in hearing a mass of facts subtly wrangled over. +The mind derives therefrom something of the satisfaction that the eye +has in watching acrobats in a music-hall. One wonders at the +ingenuity, the agility, the perfect training. Like acrobats, these +Chancery lawyers are a relief from the average troupe of actors and +actresses, by reason of their exquisite alertness, their thorough +mastery (seemingly exquisite and thorough, at any rate, to the dazzled +layman). And they have a further advantage in their material. The +facts they deal with are usually dull, but seldom so dull as facts +become through the fancies of the average playwright. It is seldom +that an evening in a theatre can be so pleasantly and profitably spent +as a day in a Chancery court. But it is ever into one or another of +the courts of King's Bench that I betake myself, for choice. Criminal +trials, of which I have seen a few, I now eschew absolutely. I cannot +stomach them. I know that it is necessary for the good of the +community that such persons as infringe that community's laws should +be punished. But, even were the mode of punishment less barbarous than +it is, I should still prefer not to be brought in sight of a prisoner +in the dock. Perhaps because I have not a strongly developed +imagination, I have little or no public spirit. I cannot see the +commonweal. On the other hand, I have plenty of personal feeling. And +I have enough knowledge of men and women to know that very often the +best people are guilty of the worst things. Is the prisoner in the +dock guilty or not guilty of the offence with which he is charged? +That is the question in the mind of the court. What sort of man is he? +That is the question in my own mind. And the answer to the other +question has no bearing whatsoever on the answer to this one. The +English law assumes the prisoner innocent until he shall have been +proved guilty. And, seeing him there a prisoner, a man who happens to +have been caught, while others (myself included) are pleasantly at +large after doing, unbeknown, innumerable deeds worse in the eyes of +heaven than the deed with which this man is charged--deeds that do not +prevent us from regarding our characters as quite fine really--I +cannot but follow in my heart the example of the English law and +assume (pending proof, which cannot be forthcoming) that the prisoner +in the dock has a character at any rate as fine as my own. The war +that this assumption wages in my breast against the fact that the man +will perhaps be sentenced is too violent a war not to discommode me. +Let justice be done. Or rather, let our rough-and-ready, well-meant +endeavours towards justice go on being made. But I won't be there to +see, thank you very much. + +It is the natural wish of every writer to be liked by his readers. But +how exasperating, how detestable, the writer who obviously touts for +our affection, arranging himself for us in a mellow light, and +inviting us, with gentle persistence, to note how lovable he is! Many +essayists have made themselves quite impossible through their +determination to remind us of Charles Lamb--`St. Charles,' as they +invariably call him. And the foregoing paragraph, though not at all +would-be-Lamb-like in expression, looks to me horribly like a blatant +bid for your love. I hasten to add, therefore, that no absolutely +kind-hearted person could bear, as I rejoice, to go and hear cases +even in the civil courts. If it be true that the instinct of cruelty +is at the root of our pleasure in theatrical drama, how much more is +there of savagery in our going to look on at the throes of actual +litigation--real men and women struggling not in make-believe, but in +dreadful earnest! I mention this aspect merely as a corrective to what +I had written. I do not pretend that I am ever conscious, as I enter a +court, that I am come to gratify an evil instinct. I am but conscious +of being glad to be there, on tiptoe of anticipation, whether it be to +hear tried some particular case of whose matter I know already +something, or to hear at hazard whatever case happen to be down for +hearing. I never tire of the aspect of a court, the ways of a court. +Familiarity does but spice them. I love the cold comfort of the pale +oak panelling, the scurrying-in-and-out of lawyers' clerks, the +eagerness and ominousness of it all, the rustle of silk as a K.C. +edges his way to his seat and twists his head round for a quick +whispered parley with his junior, while his client, at the solicitors' +table, twists his head round to watch feverishly the quick mechanical +nods of the great man's wig--the wig that covers the skull that +contains the brain that so awfully much depends on. I love the mystery +of those dark-green curtains behind the exalted Bench. One of them +will anon be plucked aside, with a stentorian `Silence!' Thereat up we +jump, all of us as though worked by one spring; and in shuffles +swiftly My Lord, in a robe well-fashioned for sitting in, but not for +walking in anywhere except to a bath-room. He bows, and we bow; +subsides, and we subside; and up jumps some grizzled junior--`My Lord, +may I mention to your Lordship the case of "Brown v. Robinson and +Another"?' It is music to me ever, the cadence of that formula. I +watch the judge as he listens to the application, peering over his +glasses with the lack-lustre eyes that judges have, eyes that stare +dimly out through the mask of wax or parchment that judges wear. My +Lord might be the mummy of some high tyrant revitalised after +centuries of death and resuming now his sway over men. Impassive he +sits, aloof and aloft, ramparted by his desk, ensconced between +curtains to keep out the draught--for might not a puff of wind scatter +the animated dust that he consists of? No creature of flesh and blood +could impress us quite as he does, with a sense of puissance quite so +dispassionate, so supernal. He crouches over us in such manner that we +are all of us levelled one with another, shorn of aught that elsewhere +differentiates us. The silk-gownsmen, as soon as he appears, fade to +the semblance of juniors, of lawyers' clerks, of jurymen, of oneself. +Always, indeed, in any public place devoted to some special purpose, +one finds it hard to differentiate the visitors, hard to credit them +with any private existence. Cast your eye around the tables of a +cafe': how subtly similar all the people seem! How like a swarm of +gregarious insects, in their unity of purpose and of aspect! Above +all, how homeless! Cast your eye around the tables of a casino's +gambling-room. What an uniform and abject herd, huddled together with +one despondent impulse! Here and there, maybe, a person whom we know +to be vastly rich; yet we cannot conceive his calm as not the calm of +inward desperation; cannot conceive that he has anything to bless +himself with except the roll of bank-notes that he has just produced +from his breast-pocket. One and all, the players are levelled by the +invisible presence of the goddess they are courting. Well, the visible +presence of the judge in a court of law oppresses us with a yet keener +sense of lowliness and obliteration. He crouches over us, visible +symbol of the majesty of the law, and we wilt to nothingness beneath +him. And when I say `him' I include the whole judicial bench. Judges +vary, no doubt. Some are young, others old, by the calendar. But the +old ones have an air of physical incorruptibility--are `well- +preserved,' as by swathes and spices; and the young ones are just as +mummified as they. Some of them are pleased to crack jokes; jokes of +the sarcophagus, that twist our lips to obsequious laughter, but send +a chill through our souls. There are `strong' judges and weak ones (so +barristers will tell you). Perhaps--who knows?--Minos was a strong +judge, and Aeacus and Rhadamanthus were weak ones. But all three seem +equally terrible to us. And so seem, in virtue of their position, and +of the manner and aspect it invests them with, all the judges of our +own high courts. + +I hearken in awe to the toneless murmur in which My Lord comments on +the application in the case of `Brown v. Robinson and Another.' He +says something about the Court of Crown Cases Reserved... Ah, what +place on this earth bears a name so mystically majestic? Even in the +commonest forensic phrases there is often this solemnity of cadence, +always a quaintness, that stirs the imagination... The grizzled junior +dares interject something `with submission,' and is finally advised to +see `my learned brother in chambers.' `As your Lordship pleases.'... +We pass to the business of the day. I settle myself to enjoy the +keenest form of aesthetic pleasure that is known to me. + +Aesthetic, yes. In the law-courts one finds an art-form, as surely as +in the theatre. What is drama? Its theme is the actions of certain +opposed persons, historical or imagined, within a certain period of +time; and these actions, these characters, must be shown to us in a +succinct manner, must be so arranged that we know just what in them is +essential to our understanding of them. Very similar is the art-form +practised in the law-courts. The theme of a law-suit is the actions of +certain actual opposed persons within a certain period of time; and +these actions, these characters, must be set forth succinctly, in +such-wise that we shall know just as much as is essential to our +understanding of them. In drama, the presentment is, in a sense, more +vivid. It is not--not usually, at least--retrospective. We see the +actions being committed, hear the words as they are uttered. But how +often do we have an illusion of their reality? Seldom. It is seldom +that a masterpiece in drama is performed perfectly by an ideal cast. +In a law-court, on the other hand, it is always in perfect form that +the matter is presented to us. First the outline of the story, in the +speech for the plaintiff; then this outline filled in by the +examination of the plaintiff himself; then the other side of the story +adumbrated by his cross-examination. Think of the various further +stages of a law-suit, culminating in the judge's summing up; and you +will agree with me that the whole thing is a perfect art-form. Drama, +at its best, is clumsy, arbitrary, unsatisfying, by comparison. But +what makes a law-suit the most fascinating, to me, of all art-forms, +is that not merely its material, but the chief means of its +expression, is life itself. Here, cited before us, are the actual +figures in the actual story that has been told to us. Here they are, +not as images to be evoked through the medium of printed page, or of +painted canvas, or of disinterested ladies and gentlemen behind +footlights. Actual, authentic, they stand before us, one by one, in +the harsh light of day, to be made to reveal all that we need to know +of them. + +The most interesting witnesses, I admit, are they who are determined +not to accommodate us--not to reveal themselves as they are, but to +make us suppose them something quite different. All witnesses are more +or less interesting. As I have suggested, there is no such thing as a +dull law-suit. Nothing that has happened is negligible. And, even so, +every human being repays attention--especially so when he stands forth +on his oath. The strangeness of his position, and his consciousness of +it, suffice in themselves to make him interesting. But it is +disingenuousness that makes him delightful. And the greatest of all +delights that a law-court can give us is a disingenuous witness who is +quick-minded, resourceful, thoroughly master of himself and his story, +pitted against a counsel as well endowed as himself. The most vivid +and precious of my memories is of a case in which a gentleman, now +dead, was sued for breach of promise, and was cross-examined +throughout a whole hot day in midsummer by the late Mr. Candy. The +lady had averred that she had known him for many years. She called +various witnesses, who testified to having seen him repeatedly in her +company. She produced stacks of letters in a handwriting which no +expert could distinguish from his. The defence was that these letters +were written by the defendant's secretary, a man who was able to +imitate exactly his employer's handwriting, and who was, moreover, +physically a replica of his employer. He was dead now; and the +defendant, though he was a very well-known man, with many friends, was +unable to adduce any one who had seen that secretary dead or alive. +Not a soul in court believed the story. As it was a complicated story, +extending over many years, to demolish it seemed child's play. Mr. +Candy was no child. His performance was masterly. But it was not so +masterly as the defendant's; and the suit was dismissed. In the light +of common sense, the defendant hadn't a leg to stand on. Technically, +his case was proved. I doubt whether I shall ever have a day of such +acute mental enjoyment as was the day of that cross-examination. + +I suppose that the most famous cross-examination in our day was Sir +Charles Russell's of Pigott. It outstands by reason of the magnitude +of the issue, and the flight and suicide of the witness. Had Pigott +been of the stuff to stand up to Russell, and make a fight of it, I +should regret far more keenly than I do that I was not in court. As it +is, my regret is keen enough. I was reading again, only the other day, +the verbatim report of Pigott's evidence, in one of the series of +little paper volumes published by The Times; and I was revelling again +in the large perfection with which Russell accomplished his too easy +task. Especially was I amazed to find how vividly Russell, as I +remember him, lived again, and could be seen and heard, through the +medium of that little paper volume. It was not merely as though I had +been in court, and were now recalling the inflections of that deep, +intimidating voice, the steadfast gaze of those dark, intimidating +eyes, and were remembering just at what points the snuff-box was +produced, and just how long the pause was before the pinch was taken +and the bandana came into play. It was almost as though these effects +were proceeding before my very eyes--these sublime effects of the +finest actor I have ever seen. Expressed through a perfect technique, +his personality was overwhelming. `Come, Mr. Pigott,' he is reported +as saying, at a crucial moment, `try to do yourself justice. Remember! +you are face to face with My Lords.' How well do I hear, in that awful +hortation, Russell's pause after the word `remember,' and the lowered +voice in which the subsequent words were uttered slowly, and the +richness of solemnity that was given to the last word of all, ere the +thin lips snapped together--those lips that were so small, yet so +significant, a feature of that large, white, luminous and inauspicious +face. It is an hortation which, by whomsoever delivered, would tend to +dispirit the bravest and most honest of witnesses. The presence of a +judge is always, as I have said, oppressive. The presence of three is +trebly so. Yet not a score of them serried along the bench could have +outdone in oppressiveness Sir Charles Russell. He alone, among the +counsel I have seen, was an exception to the rule that by a judge +every one in court is levelled. On the bench, in his last years, he +was not notably more predominant than he ever had been. And the reason +of his predominance at the Bar was not so much in the fact that he had +no rival in swiftness, in subtlety, in grasp, as in the passionate +strength of his nature, the intensity that in him was at the root of +the grand manner. + +In the courts, as in parliament and in the theatre, the grand manner +is a thing of the past. Mr. Lloyd-George is not, in style and method, +more remote from Gladstone, nor Mr. George Alexander from Macready, +than is Mr. Rufus Isaacs, the type of modern advocate, from Russell. +Strength, passion, sonorousness, magnificence of phrasing, are things +which the present generation vaguely approves in retrospect; but it +would titter at a contemporary demonstration of them. While I was +reading Pigott's cross-examination, an idea struck me; why do not the +managers of our theatres, always querulous about the dearth of plays, +fall back on scenes from famous trials? A trial-scene in a play, +though usually absurd, is almost always popular. Why not give us +actual trial-scenes? They could not, of course, be nearly so exciting +as the originals, for the simple reason that they would not be real; +but they would certainly be more exciting than the average play. Thus +I mused, hopefully. But I was brought up sharp by the reflection that +it were hopeless to look for an actor who could impersonate Russell-- +could fit his manner to Russell's words, or indeed to the words of any +of those orotund advocates. To reproduce recent trials would be a +hardly warrantable thing. The actual participators in them would have +a right to object (delighted though many of them would be). Vain, +then, is my dream of theatres invigorated by the leavings of the law- +courts. On the other hand, for the profit of the law-courts, I have a +quite practicable notion. They provide the finest amusement in London, +for nothing. Why for nothing? Let some scale of prices for admission +be drawn up--half-a-guinea, say, for a seat in the well of the court, +a shilling for a seat in the gallery, five pounds for a seat on the +bench. +Then, I dare swear, people would begin to realise how fine the +amusement is. + + +WORDS FOR PICTURES + +`HARLEQUIN' +A SIGN-BOARD, PAINTED ON COPPER, SIGNED +`W. EVANS, LONDON' CIRCA 1820 + +Harlequin dances, and, over the park he dances in, surely there is +thunder brooding. His figure stands out, bright, large, and fantastic. +But all around him is sultry twilight, and the clouds, pregnant with +thunder, lower over him as he dances, and the elms are dim with +unusual shadow. There is a tiny river in the dim distance. Under one +of the nearest elms you may descry a square tomb, topped with an urn. +What lord or lady underlies it? I know not. Harlequin dances. Sheathed +in his gay suit of red and green and yellow lozenges, he ambles +lightly over the gravel. At his feet lie a tambourine and a mask. +Brown ferns fringe his pathway. With one hand he clasps the baton to +his hip, with the other he points mischievously to his forehead. He +wears a flat, loose cap of yellow. There is a ruff about his neck, and +a pair of fine buckles to his shoes, and he always dances. He has his +back to the thunderclouds, but there is that in his eyes which tells +us that he has seen them, and that he knows their presage. He is +afraid. Yet he dances. Never, howsoever slightly, swerves he, see! +from his right posture, nor fail his feet in their pirouette. All a` +merveille! Nor fades the smile from his face, though he smiles through +the tarnished air of a sultry twilight, under the shadow of impending +storm. + + +`THE GARDEN OF LOVE' +A PAINTING BY RUBENS, IN THE PRADO + +Here they are met. + +Here, by the balustrade, these lords and lusty ladies are met to romp +and wanton in the fulness of love, under the solstice of a noon in +midsummer. Water gushes in fantastic arcs from the grotto, making a +cold music to the emblazoned air, while a breeze swells the sun-shot +satin of every lady's skirt, and tosses the ringlets that hang like +bunches of yellow grapes on either side of her brow, and stirs the +plumes of her gallant. But the very breeze is laden with heat, and the +fountain's noise does but whet the thirst of the grass, the flowers, +the trees. The earth sulks under the burden of the unmerciful sun. +Love itself, one had said, would be languid here, pale and supine, +and, faintly sighing for things past or for future things, would sink +into siesta. But behold! these are no ordinary lovers. The gushing +fountains are likelier to run dry there in the grotto than they to +falter in their redundant energy. These sanguine lords and ladies +crave not an instant's surcease. They are tyrants and termagants of +love. + +If they are thus at noon, here under the sun's rays, what, one +wonders, must be their manner in the banqueting hall, when the tapers +gleam adown the long tables, and the fruits are stripped of their +rinds, and the wine brims over the goblets, all to the music of the +viols? Somehow, one cannot imagine them anywhere but in this sunlight. +To it they belong. They are creatures of Nature, pagans untamed, +lawless and unabashed. For all they are robed in crimson and saffron, +and are with such fine pearls necklaced, these dames do exhale from +their exuberant bodies the essence of a quite primitive and simple +era; but for the ease of their deportment in their frippery, they +might be Maenads in masquerade. They have nothing of the coyness that +civilisation fosters in women, are as fearless and unsophisticated as +men. A `wooing' were wasted on them, for they have no sense of +antagonism, and seek not by any means to elude men. They meet men even +as rivers meet the sea. Even as, when fresh water meets salt water in +the estuary, the two tides revolve in eddies and leap up in foam, so +do these men and women laugh and wrestle in the rapture of +concurrence. How different from the first embrace which marks the +close of a wooing! that moment when the man seeks to conceal his +triumph under a semblance of humility, and the woman her humiliation +under a pretty air of patronage. Here, in the Garden of Love, they +have none of those spiritual reservations and pretences. Nor is here +any savour of fine romance. Nothing is here but the joy of satisfying +a physical instinct--a joy that expresses itself not in any exaltation +of words or thoughts, but in mere romping. See! Some of the women are +chasing one another through the grotto. They are rushing headlong +under the fountain. What though their finery be soaked? Anon they will +come out and throw themselves on the grass, and the sun will quickly +dry them. + +Leave them, then, to their riot. Look upon these others who sit and +stand here in a voluptuous bevy, hand in hand under the brazen sun, or +flaunt to and fro, lolling in one another's arms and laughing in one +another's faces. And see how closely above them hover the winged +loves! One, upside down in the air, sprinkles them with rose-leaves; +another waves over them a blazing torch; another tries to frighten +them with his unarrowed bow. Another yet has dared to descend into the +group; he nestles his fat cheek on a lady's lap, and is not rebuked. +These little chubby Cythareans know they are privileged to play any +pranks here. Doubtless they love to be on duty in this garden, for +here they are patted and petted, and have no real work to do. At close +of day, when they fly back to their mother, there is never an unmated +name in the report they bring her; and she, belike, being pleased with +them, allows them to sit up late, and to have each a slice of ambrosia +and a sip of nectar. But elsewhere they have hard work, and often fly +back in dread of Venus' anger. At that other balustrade, where +Watteau, remembering this one, painted for us the `Plaisirs du Bal,' +how often they have lain in ambush, knowing that were one of them to +show but the tip of his wings those sedate and migniard masqueraders +would faint for very shame; yet ever hoping that they might, by their +unseen presence, turn that punctilio of flirtation into love. And +always they have flown back from Dulwich unrequited for all the pains +they had taken, and pouting that Venus should ever send them on so +hard an errand. But a day in this garden is always for them a dear +holiday. They live in dread lest Venus discover how superfluous they +are here. And so, knowing that the hypocrite's first dupe must be +himself, they are always pretending to themselves that they are of +some use. See that child yonder, perched on the balustrade, reading +aloud from a scroll the praise of love as earnestly as though his +congregation were of infidels. And that other, to the side, pushing +two lovers along as though they were the veriest laggarts. The torch- +bearer, too, and the archer, and the sprinkler of the rose-leaves-- +they are all, after their kind, trying to persuade themselves that +they are needed. All but he who leans over and nestles his fat cheek +on a lady's lap, as fondly and confidingly as though she were his +mother... And truly, the lady is very like his mother. So, indeed, are +all the other ladies. Strange! In all their faces is an uniformity of +divine splendour. Can it be that Venus, impatient of mere sequences of +lovers, has obtained leave of Jove to multiply herself, and that to- +day by a wild coincidence her every incarnation has trysted an adorer +to this same garden? Look closely! It must be so... + +Hush! Let us keep her secret. + + +`ARIANE ET DIONYSE' +A PAINTING BY PAUL BERGERON, 1740 + +PAUVRETTE! no wonder she is startled. All came on her so suddenly. A +moment since, she was alone on this island. Theseus had left her. Her +lover had crept from her couch as she lay sleeping, and had sailed +away with his comrades, noiselessly, before the sun rose and woke her. +>From the top of yonder hillock she had seen the last sail of his +argosy fading over the sea-line. Vainly she had waved her arms, and +vainly her cries had echoed through all the island. She had run +distraught through the valleys, the goats scampering before her to +their own rocks. She had strayed, wildly weeping, along the shore, and +the very sky had seemed to mock her. At length, spent with sorrow and +wan with her tears, she had lain upon the sand. Above her the cliff +sloped gently down to the shore, and all around her was the hot +noontide, and no sound save the rustling of the sea over the sand. +Theseus had left her. The sea had taken him from her. Let the sea take +her in its tide.... Suddenly--what was that?--she leapt up and +listened. Voices, voices, the loud clash of cymbals! She looked round +for some place to hide in. Too late! Some man (goat or man) came +bounding towards her down the cliff. Another came after him. Then +others, a whole company, and with them many naked, abominable women, +laughing and shrieking and waving leafy wands, as they rushed down +towards her. And in their midst, in a brazen chariot drawn by +panthers, sped one whose yellow hair streamed far behind him in the +wind. And from his chariot he sprang and stood before her. + +But she shrinks from his smile. She shrinks from the riot and ribaldry +that encompass her. She is but a young bride whom the bridegroom has +betrayed, and she would fain be alone in the bitterness of her anguish +and her humiliation. Why have they come, these creatures who are +stamping and reeling round her, these flushed women who clap the +cymbals, and these wild men with the hoofs and the horns of goats? How +should they comfort her? She is not of their race; no! nor even of +their time. She stands among them, just as Bergeron saw her, a +delicate, timid figurine du dix-huitie`me sie`cle. With her powdered +hair and her hooped skirt and her stiff bodice of rose silk, she seems +more fit for the consolations of some old Monsignore than for the +homage of these frenzied Pagans and the amorous regard of their +master. At him, pressing her shut fan to her lips, she is gazing +across her shoulder. With one hand she seems to ward him from her. Her +whole body is bent to flight, but she is `affear'd of her own feet.' +She is well enough educated to know that he who smiles at her is no +mortal, but Bacchus himself, the very lord of Naxos. He stands before +her, the divine debauchee racemiferis frontem circumdatus uvis; and +all around her, a waif on his territory, are the symbols of his +majesty and his power. It is in his honour that the ivy trails down +the cliff, and are not the yews and the firs and the fig-trees that +overshadow the cliff's edge all sacred to him? and the vines beyond, +are they not all his? His four panthers are clawing the sand, and four +tipsy Satyrs hold them, the impatient beasts, by their bridles. +Another Satyr drags to execution a goat that he has caught cropping +the vine; and in his slanted eyes one can see thirst for the blood of +his poor cousin. The Maenads are dancing in one another's arms, and +their tresses are coiled and crowned with tiny serpents. One of them +kneels apart, sucking a great wine-skin. And yonder, that old cupster, +Silenus, that horrible old favourite, wobbles along on a donkey, and +would tumble off, you may be sure, were he not upheld by two fairly +sober Satyrs. But the eyes of Ariadne are fixed only on the smooth- +faced god. See how he smiles back at her with that lascivious +condescension which is all that a god's love can be for a mortal girl! +In his hand he holds a long thyrsus. Behind him is borne aloft a +chaplet of seven gold stars. + +Ariadne is but a little waif in the god's power. Not Theseus himself +could protect her. One tap of the god's wand, and, lo! she, too, would +be filled with the frenzy of worship, and, with a wild cry, would join +the dancers, his for ever. But the god is not unscrupulous. He would +fain win her by gentle and fair means, even by wedlock. That chaplet +of seven stars is his bridal offering. Why should not she accept it? +Why should she be coy of his desire? It is true that he drinks. But in +time, may be, a wife might be able to wean him from the wine-skin, and +from the low company he affects. That will be for time to show. And, +meanwhile, how brilliant a match! Not even Pasiphae", her mother, ever +contemplated for her such splendour. In her great love, Ariadne risked +her whole future by eloping with Theseus. For her--the daughter of a +far mightier king than Aegeus, and, on the distaff side, the +granddaughter of Apollo--even marriage with Theseus would have been a +me'salliance. And now, here is a chance, a chance most marvellous, of +covering her silly escapade. She will be sensible, I think, though she +is still a little frightened. She will accept this god's suit, if only +to pique Theseus--Theseus, who, for all his long, tedious anecdotes of +how he slew Procrustes and the bull of Marathon and the sow of +Cromyon, would even now lie slain or starving in her father's +labyrinth, had she not taken pity on him. Yes, it was pity she felt +for him. She never loved him. And then, to think that he, a mere +mortal, dared to cast her off--oh, it is too absurd, it is too +monstrous! + + +`PETER THE DOMINICAN' +A PAINTING BY GIOVANNI BELLINI, IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY + +`Credo in Dominum' were the words this monk wrote in the dust of the +high-road, as he lay a-dying there of Cavina's dagger; and they, +according to the Dominican record, were presently washed away by his +own blood--`rapida profusio sui sanguinis delevit professionem suoe +fidei.' Yet they had not been written in vain. On Cavina himself their +impression was less delible, for did he not submit himself to the +Church, and was he not, after absolution, received into that monastery +which his own victim had founded? Here, before this picture by +Bellini, one looks instinctively for the three words in the dust. They +are not yet written there; for scarcely, indeed, has the dagger been +planted in the Saint's breast. But here, to the right, on this little +scroll of parchment that hangs from a fence of osiers, there are some +words written, and one stoops to decipher them... JOANNES BELLINUS +FECIT. + +Now, had the Saint and his brother Dominican not been waylaid on their +journey, they would have passed by this very fence, and would have +stooped, as we do, to decipher the scroll, and would have very much +wondered who was Bellinus, and what it was that he had done. The +woodmen and the shepherd in the olive-grove by the roadside, the +cowherds by the well, yonder--they have seen the scroll, I dare say, +but they are not scholars enough to have read its letters. Cavina and +his comrade in arms, lying in wait here, probably did not observe it, +so intent were they for that pious and terrible Inquisitor who was to +pass by. How their hearts must have leapt when they saw him, at +length, with his companion, coming across that little arched bridge +from the town--a conspicuous, unmistakable figure, clad in the pied +frock of his brotherhood and wearing the familiar halo above his +closely-shorn pate. + +Cavina stands now over the fallen Saint, planting the short dagger in +his heart. The other Dominican is being chased by Cavina's comrade, +his face wreathed in a bland smile, his hands stretched childishly +before him. Evidently he is quite unconscious how grave his situation +is. He seems to think that this pursuit is merely a game, and that if +he touch the wood of the olive-trees first, he will have won, and that +then it will be his turn to run after this man in the helmet. Or does +he know perhaps that this is but a painting, and that his pursuer will +never be able to strike him, though the chase be kept up for many +centuries? In any case, his smile is not at all seemly or dramatic. +And even more extraordinary is the behaviour of the woodmen and the +shepherd and the cowherds. Murder is being done within a yard or two +of them, and they pay absolutely no attention. How Tacitus would have +delighted in this example of the `inertia rusticorum'! It is a great +mistake to imagine that dwellers in quiet districts are more easily +excited by any event than are dwellers in packed cities. On the +contrary, the very absence of `sensations' produces an atrophy of the +senses. It is the constant supply of `sensations' which creates a real +demand for them in cities. Suppose that in our day some specially +unpopular clergyman were martyred `at the corner of Fenchurch Street,' +how the `same old crush' would be intensified! But here, in this quiet +glade 'twixt Milan and Como, on this quiet, sun-steeped afternoon in +early Spring, with a horrible outrage being committed under their very +eyes, these callous clowns pursue their absurd avocations, without so +much as resting for one moment to see what is going on. + +Cavina plants the dagger methodically, and the Inquisitor himself is +evidently filled with that intense self-consciousness which sustains +all martyrs in their supreme hour and makes them, it may be, +insensible to actual pain. One feels that this martyr will write his +motto in the dust with a firm hand. His whole comportment is quite +exemplary. What irony that he should be unobserved! Even we, +posterity, think far less of St. Peter than of Bellini when we see +this picture; St. Peter is no more to us than the blue harmony of +those little hills beyond, or than that little sparrow perched on a +twig in the foreground. After all, there have been so many martyrs-- +and so many martyrs named Peter--but so few great painters. The little +screed on the fence is no mere vain anachronism. It is a sly, rather +malicious symbol. PERIIT PETRUS: BILLINUS FECIT, as who should say. + + +`L'OISEAU BLEU' +A PAINTING ON SILK BY CHARLES CONDER + +Over them, ever over them, floats the Blue Bird; and they, the +ennuye'es and the ennuyants, the ennuyantes and the ennuye's, these +Parisians of 1830, are lolling in a charmed, charming circle, whilst +two of their order, the young Duc de Belhabit et Profil-Perdu with the +girl to whom he has but recently been married, move hither or thither +vaguely, their faces upturned, making vain efforts to lure down the +elusive creature. The haze of very early morning pervades the garden +which is the scene of their faint aspiration. One cannot see very +clearly there. The ladies' furbelows are blurred against the foliage, +and the lilac-bushes loom through the air as though they were white +clouds full of rain. One cannot see the ladies' faces very clearly. +One guesses them, though, to be supercilious and smiling, all with the +curved lips and the raised eyebrows of Experience. For, in their time, +all these ladies, and all their lovers with them, have tried to catch +this same Blue Bird, and have been full of hope that it would come +fluttering down to them at last. Now they are tired of trying, knowing +that to try were foolish and of no avail. Yet it is pleasant for them +to see, as here, others intent on the old pastime. Perhaps--who +knows?--some day the bird will be trapped... Ah, look! Monsieur Le Duc +almost touched its wing! Well for him, after all, that he did not more +than that! Had he caught it and caged it, and hung the gilt cage in +the boudoir of Madame la Duchesse, doubtless the bird would have +turned out to be but a moping, drooping, moulting creature, with not a +song to its little throat; doubtless the blue colour is but dye, and +would soon have faded from wings and breast. And see! Madame la +Duchesse looks a shade fatigued. She must not exert herself too much. +Also, the magic hour is all but over. Soon there will be sunbeams to +dispel the dawn's vapour; and the Blue Bird, with the sun sparkling on +its wings, will have soared away out of sight. Allons! The little +rogue is still at large. + + +`MACBETH AND THE WITCHES' +A PAINTING BY COROT, IN THE HERTFORD HOUSE COLLECTION + +Look! Across the plain yonder, those three figures, dark and gaunt +against the sky.... Who are they? What are they? One of them is +pointing with rigid arm towards the gnarled trees that from the +hillside stretch out their storm-broken boughs and ragged leaves +against the sky. Shifting thither, my eye discerns through the shadows +two horsemen, riding slowly down the incline. Hush! I hold up a +warning finger to my companion, lest he move. On what strange and +secret tryst have we stumbled? They must not know they are observed. +Could we creep closer up to them? Nay, the plain is so silent: they +would hear us; and so barren: they would surely see us. Here, under +cover of this rock, we can crouch and watch them.... We discern now +more clearly those three expectants. One of them has a cloak of faded +blue; it is fluttering in the wind. Women or men are they? Scarcely +human they seem: inauspicious beings from some world of shadows, +magically arisen through that platform of broken rock whereon they +stand. The air around, even the fair sky above, is fraught by them +with I know not what of subtle bale. One would say they had been +waiting here for many days, motionless, eager but not impatient, +knowing that at this hour the two horsemen would come. And we--it is +strange--have we not ere now beheld them waiting? In some waking +dream, surely, we have seen them, and now dimly recognise them. And +the two horsemen, forcing their steeds down the slope--them, too, we +have seen, even so. The light through a break in the trees faintly +reveals them to us. They are accoutred in black armour. They seem not +to be yet aware of the weird figures confronting them across the +plain. But the horses, with some sharper instinct, are aware and +afraid, straining, quivering. One of them throws back its head, but +dares not whinny. As though under some evil spell, all nature seems to +be holding its breath. Stealthily, noiselessly, I turn the leaves of +my catalogue... `Macbeth and the Witches.' Why, of course! + +Of the two horsemen, which is Macbeth, which Banquo? Though we peer +intently, we cannot in those distant shadows distinguish which is he +that shall be king hereafter, which is he that shall merely beget +kings. It is mainly in virtue of this very vagueness and mystery of +manner that the picture is so impressive. An illustration should stir +our fancy, leaving it scope and freedom. Most illustrations, being +definite, do but affront us. Usually, Shakespeare is illustrated by +some Englishman overawed by the poet's repute, and incapable of +treating him, as did Corot, vaguely and offhand. Shakespeare expressed +himself through human and superhuman characters; therefore in England +none but a painter of figures would dare illustrate him. Had Corot +been an Englishman, this landscape would have had nothing to do with +Shakespeare. Luckily, as an alien, he was untrammelled by piety to the +poet. He could turn Shakespeare to his own account. In this picture, +obviously, he was creating, and only in a secondary sense +illustrating. For him the landscape was the thing. Indeed, the five +little figures may have been inserted by him as an afterthought, to +point and balance the composition. Vaguely he remembered hearing of +Macbeth, or reading it in some translation. Ce Sac-espe`re...un beau +talent...ne' romantique. Hugo he would not have attempted to +illustrate. But Sac-espe`re--why not? And so the little figures came +upon the canvas, dim sketches. Charles Lamb disliked theatrical +productions of Shakespeare's plays, because of the constraint thus +laid on his imagination. But in the theatre, at least, we are diverted +by movement, recompensed by the sound of the poet's words and (may be) +by human intelligence interpreting his thoughts; whereas from a +definite painting of Shakespearean figures we get nothing but an +equivalent for the mimes' appearance: nothing but the painter's bare +notion (probably quite incongruous with our notion) of what these +figures ought to look like. Take Macbeth as an instance. From a +definite painting of him what do we get? At worst, the impression of a +kilted man with a red beard and red knees, brandishing a claymore. At +best, a sombre barbarian doing nothing in particular. In either case, +all the atmosphere, all the character, all the poetry, all that makes +Macbeth live for us, is lost utterly. If these definite illustrations +of Shakespeare's human figures affront us, how much worse is it when +an artist tries his hand at the figures that are superhuman! Imagine +an English illustrator's projection of the weird sisters--with long +grey beards duly growing on their chins, and belike one of them duly +holding in her hand a pilot's thumb. It is because Corot had no +reverence for Shakespeare's text--because he was able to create in his +own way, with scarcely a thought of Shakespeare, an independent +masterpiece--that this picture is worthy of its theme. The largeness +of the landscape in proportion to the figures seems to show us the +tragedy in its essential relation to the universe. We see the heath +lying under infinity, under true sky and winds. No hint of the theatre +is there. All is as the poet may have conceived it in his soul. And +for us Corot's brush-work fills the place of Shakespeare's music. Time +has tessellated the surface of the canvas; but beauty, intangible and +immortal, dwells in its depths safely--dwells there even as it dwells +in the works of Shakespeare, though the folios be foxed and seared. + +The longer we gaze, the more surely does the picture illude us and +enthral us, steeping us in that tragedy of `the fruitless crown and +barren sceptre.' We forget all else, watching the unkind witches as +they await him whom they shall undo, driving him to deeds he dreams +not of, and beguiling him, at length, to his doom. Against `the set of +sun' they stand forth, while he who shall be king hereafter, with the +comrade whom he shall murder, rides down to them, guileless of aught +that shall be. Privy to his fate, we experience a strange compassion. +Anon the fateful colloquy will begin. `All hail, Macbeth' the +unearthly voices will be crying across the heath. Can nothing be done? +Can we stand quietly here while... Nay, hush! We are powerless. These +witches, if we tried to thwart them, would swiftly blast us. There are +things with which no mortal must meddle. There are things which no +mortal must behold. Come away! + +So, casting one last backward look across the heath, we, under cover +of the rock, steal fearfully away across the parquet floor of the +gallery. + + +`CARLOTTA GRISI' +A COLOURED PRINT + +It is not among the cardboard glades of the King's Theatre, nor, +indeed, behind any footlights, but in a real and twilit garden that +Grisi, gimp-waisted sylphid, here skips for posterity. To her right, +the roses on the trellis are not paper roses--one guesses them quite +fragrant. And that is a real lake in the distance; and those delicate +pale trees around it, they too are quite real. Yes! surely this is the +garden of Grisi's villa at Uxbridge; and her guests, quoting Lord +Byron's `al fresco, nothing more delicious,' have tempted her to a +daring by-show of her genius. To her left there is a stone cross, +which has been draped by one of the guests with a scarf bearing the +legend GISELLE. It is Sunday evening, I fancy, after dinner. Cannot +one see the guests, a group entranced by its privilege--the ladies +with bandeaux and with little shawls to ward the dew from their +shoulders; the gentlemen, D'Orsayesque all, forgetting to puff the +cigars which the ladies, `this once,' have suffered them to light? One +sees them there; but they are only transparent phantoms between us and +Grisi, not interrupting our vision. As she dances--the peerless +Grisi!--one fancies that she is looking through them at us, looking +across the ages to us who stand looking back at her. Her smile is but +the formal Cupid's-bow of the ballerina; but I think there is a +clairvoyance of posterity in the large eyes, and, in the pose, a self- +consciousness subtler than merely that of one who, dancing, leads all +men by the heart-strings. A something is there which is almost +shyness. Clearly, she knows it to be thus that she will be remembered; +feels this to be the moment of her immortality. Her form is all but in +profile, swaying far forward, but her face is full-turned to us. Her +arms float upon the air. Below the stark ruff of muslin about her +waist, her legs are as a tilted pair of compasses; one point in the +air, the other impinging the ground. One tiptoe poised ever so lightly +upon the earth, as though the muslin wings at her shoulders were not +quite strong enough to bear her up into the sky! So she remains, +hovering betwixt two elements; a creature exquisitely ambiguous, being +neither aerial nor of the earth. She knows that she is mortal, yet is +conscious of apotheosis. She knows that she, though herself must +perish, is imperishable; for she sees us, her posterity, gazing fondly +back at her. She is touched. And we, a little envious of those who did +once see Grisi plain, always shall find solace in this pretty picture +of her; holding it to be, for all the artificiality of its convention, +as much more real as it is prettier than the stringent ballet-girls of +Degas. + + +`HO-TEI' +A COLOURED DRAWING BY HOKUSAI + +What monster have we here? Who is he that sprawls thus, ventrirotund, +against the huge oozing wine-skin? Wide his nose, narrowly-slit his +eyes, and with little teeth he smiles at us through a beard of bright +russet--a beard soft as the russet coat of a squirrel, and sprouting +in several tiers according to the several chins that ascend behind it +from his chest. Nude he is but for a few dark twists of drapery. One +dimpled foot is tucked under him, the other cocked before him. With a +bifurcated fist (such is his hand) he pillows the bald dome of his +head. He seems to be very happy, sprawling here in the twilight. The +wine oozes from the wine-skin; but he, replete, takes no heed of it. +On the ground before him are a few almond-blossoms, blown there by the +wind. He is snuffing their fragrance, I think. + +Who is he? `Ho-Tei,' you tell me; `god of increase, god of the corn- +fields and rice-fields, patron of all little children in Japan--a +blend of Dionysus and Santa Claus.' So? Then his look belies him. He +is far too fat to care for humanity, too gross to be divine. I suspect +he is but some self-centred sage, whom Hokusai beheld with his own +eyes in a devious corner of Yedo. A hermit he is, surely; one not more +affable than Diogenes, yet wiser than he, being at peace with himself +and finding (as it were) the honest man without emerging from his own +tub; a complacent Diogenes; a Diogenes who has put on flesh. Looking +at him, one is reminded of that over-swollen monster gourd which to +young Nevil Beauchamp and his Marquise, as they saw it from their +river-boat, `hanging heavily down the bank on one greenish yellow +cheek, in prolonged contemplation of its image in the mirror below,' +so sinisterly recalled Monsieur le Marquis. But to us this `self- +adored, gross bald Cupid' has no such symbolism, and we revel as +whole-heartedly as he in his monstrous contours. `I am very +beautiful,' he seems to murmur. And we endorse the boast. At the same +time, we transfer to Hokusai the credit which this glutton takes all +to himself. It is Hokusai who made him, delineating his paunch in that +one soft summary curve, and echoing it in the curve of the wine-skin +that swells around him. Himself, as a living man, were too loathsome +for words; but here, thanks to Hokusai, he is not less admirable than +Pheidias' Hermes, or the Discobolus himself. Yes! Swathed in his +abominable surplusage of bulk, he is as fair as any statue of +astricted god or athlete that would suffer not by incarnation... + +Presently, we forget again that he is unreal. He seems alive to us, +and somehow he is still beautiful. `It is a beauty,' like that of Mona +Lisa, `wrought out from within upon the flesh, the' adipose `deposit, +little cell by cell, of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and +exquisite passions.' It is the beauty of real fatness--that fatness +which comes from within, and reacts on the soul that made it, until +soul and body are one deep harmony of fat; that fatness which gave us +the geniality of Silenus, of the late Major O'Gorman; which soothes +all nerves in its owner, and creates the earthy, truistic wisdom of +Sancho Pauza, of Fran‡isque Sarcey; which makes a man selfish, because +there is so much of him, and venerable because he seems to be a knoll +of the very globe we live on, and lazy inasmuch as the form of +government under which he lives is an absolute gastrocracy--the belly +tyrannising over the members whom it used to serve, and wielding its +power as unscrupulously as none but a promoted slave could. + +Such is the true fatness. It is not to be confounded with mere +stoutness. Contrast with this Japanese sage that orgulous hidalgo who, +in black velvet, defies modern Prussia from one of Velasquez's +canvases in Berlin. Huge is that other, and gross; and, so puffed his +cheeks are that the light, cast up from below, strives vainly to creep +over them to his eyes, like a tourist vainly striving to creep over a +boulder on a mountainside. Yet is he not of the hierarchy of true +fatness. He bears his bulk proudly, and would sit well any charger +that were strong enough to bear him, and, if such a steed were not in +stables, would walk the distance swingingly. He is a man of action, a +fighter, an insolent dominator of men and women. In fact, he is merely +a stout man--uniform with Porthos, and Arthur Orton, and Sir John +Falstaff; spiced, like them, with charlatanism and braggadocio, and +not the less a fine fellow for that. Indeed, such bulk as his and +theirs is in the same kind as that bulk which, lesser in degree, is +indispensable to greatness in practical affairs. No man, as Prince +Bismarck declared, is to be trusted in state-craft until he can show a +stomach. A lack of stomach betokens lack of mental solidity, of +humanity, of capacity for going through with things; and these three +qualities are essential to statesmanship. Poets and philosophers can +afford to be thin--cannot, indeed, afford to be otherwise; inasmuch as +poetry and philosophy thrive but in the clouds aloft, and a stomach +ballasts you to earth. Such ballast the statesman must have. Thin +statesmen may destroy, but construct they cannot; have achieved chaos, +but cosmos never. + +But why prate history, why evoke phantoms of the past, when we can +gaze on this exquisitely concrete thing--this glad and simple creature +of Hokusai? Let us emulate his calm, enjoy his enjoyment as he sprawls +before us--pinguis, iners, placidus--in the pale twilight. Let us not +seek to identify him as god or mortal, nor guess his character from +his form. Rather, let us take him as he is; for all time the perfect +type of fatness. + +Lovely and excessive monster! Monster immensurable! What belt could +inclip you? What blade were long enough to prick the heart of you? + + +`THE VISIT' +A PAINTING BY GEORGE MORLAND, IN THE HERTFORD HOUSE COLLECTION + +Never, I suppose, was a painter less maladif in his work than Morland, +that lover of simple and sun-bright English scenes. Probably, this +picture of his is all cheerful in intention. Yet the effect of it is +saddening. + +Superficially, the scene is cheerful enough. Our first impression is +of a happy English home, of childish high-spirits and pretty manners. +We note how genial a lady is the visitor, and how eager the children +are to please. One of them trips respectfully forward--a wave of +yellow curls fresh and crisp from the brush, a rustle of white muslin +fresh and crisp from the wash. She is supported on one side by her +grown-up sister, on the other by her little brother, who displays the +nectarine already given to him by the kind lady. Splendid in far- +reaching furbelows, that kind lady holds out both her hands, beaming +encouragement. On her ample lap is a little open basket with other +ripe nectarines in it--one for every child. + +Modest, demure, the girl trips forward as though she were dancing a +quadrille. In the garden, just beyond the threshold, stand two smaller +sisters, shyly awaiting their turn. They, too, are in their Sunday- +best, and on the tiptoe of excitement--infant coryphe'es, in whom, as +they stand at the wings, stage-fright is overborne by the desire to be +seen and approved. I fancy they are rehearsing under their breath the +`Yes, ma' am,' and the `No, ma'am,' and the `I thank you, ma'am, very +much,' which their grown-up sister has been drilling into them during +the hurried toilet they have just been put through in honour of this +sudden call. + +How anxious their mother is during the ceremony of introduction! How +keenly, as she sits there, she keeps her eyes fixed on the visitor's +face! Maternal anxiety, in that gaze, seems to be intensified by +social humility. For this is no ordinary visitor. It is some great +lady of the county, very rich, of high fashion, come from a great +mansion in a great park, bringing fruit from one of her own many hot- +houses. That she has come at all is an act of no slight condescension, +and the mother feels it. Even so did homely Mrs. Fairchild look up to +Lady Noble. Indeed, I suspect that this visitor is Lady Noble herself, +and that the Fairchilds themselves are neighbours of this family. +These children have been coached to say `Yes, my lady,' and `No, my +lady,' and `I thank you, my lady, very much'; and their mother has +already been hoping that Mrs. Fairchild will haply pass through the +lane and see the emblazoned yellow chariot at the wicket. But just now +she is all maternal--`These be my jewels.' See with what pride she +fingers the sampler embroidered by one of her girls, knowing well that +`spoilt' Miss Augusta Noble could not do such embroidery to save her +life--that life which, through her Promethean naughtiness in playing +with fire, she was so soon to lose. + +Other exemplary samplers hang on the wall yonder. On the mantelshelf +stands a slate, with an ink-pot and a row of tattered books, and other +tokens of industry. The schoolroom, beyond a doubt. Lady Noble has +expressed a wish to see the children here, in their own haunt, and her +hostess has led the way hither, somewhat flustered, gasping many +apologies for the plainness of the apartment. A plain apartment it is: +dark, bare-boarded, dingy-walled. And not merely a material gloom +pervades it. There is a spiritual gloom, also--the subtly oppressive +atmosphere of a room where life has not been lived happily. + +Though these children are cheerful now, it is borne in on us by the +atmosphere (as preserved for us by Morland's master-hand) that their +life is a life of appalling dismalness. Even if we had nothing else to +go on, this evidence of our senses were enough. But we have other +things to go on. We know well the way in which children of this period +were brought up. We remember the life of `The Fairchild Family,' those +putative neighbours of this family--in any case, its obvious +contemporaries; and we know that the life of those hapless little +prigs was typical of child-life in the dawn of the nineteenth century. +Depend on it, this family (whatever its name may be: the Thompsons, I +conjecture) is no exception to the dismal rule. In this schoolroom, +every day is a day of oppression, of forced endeavour to reach an +impossible standard of piety and good conduct--a day of tears and +texts, of texts quoted and tears shed, incessantly, from morning unto +evening prayers. After morning prayers (read by Papa), breakfast. The +bread-and-butter of which, for the children, this meal consists, must +be eaten (slowly) in a silence by them unbroken except with prompt +answers to such scriptural questions as their parents (who have ham- +and-eggs) may, now and again, address to them. After breakfast, the +Catechism (heard by Mamma). After the Catechism, a hymn to be learnt. +After the repetition of this hymn, arithmetic, caligraphy, the use of +the globes. At noon, a decorous walk with Papa, who for their benefit +discourses on the General Depravity of Mankind in all Countries after +the Fall, occasionally pausing by the way to point for them some moral +of Nature. After a silent dinner, the little girls sew, under the +supervision of Mamma, or of the grown-up sister, or of both these +authorities, till the hour in which (if they have sewn well) they reap +permission to play (quietly) with their doll. A silent supper, after +which they work samplers. Another hymn to be learnt and repeated. +Evening prayers. Bedtime: `Good-night, dear Papa; good-night, dear +Mamma.' + +Such, depend on it, is the Thompsons' curriculum. What a painful +sequence of pictures a genre-painter might have made of it! Let us be +thankful that we see the Thompsons only in this brief interlude of +their life, tearless and unpinafored, in this hour of strange +excitement, glorying in that Sunday-best which on Sundays is to them +but a symbol of intenser gloom. + +But their very joy is in itself tragic. It reveals to us, in a flash, +the tragedy of their whole existence. That so much joy should result +from mere suspension of the usual re'gime, the sight of Lady Noble, +the anticipation of a nectarine! For us there is no comfort in the +knowledge that their present degree of joy is proportionate to their +usual degree of gloom, that for them the Law of Compensation drops +into the scale of these few moments an exact counter-weight of joy to +the misery accumulated in the scale of all their other moments. We, +who do not live their life, who regard Lady Noble as a mere Hecuba, +and who would accept one of her nectarines only in sheer politeness, +cannot rejoice with them that do rejoice thus, can but pity them for +all that has led up to their joy. We may reflect that the harsh system +on which they are reared will enable them to enjoy life with infinite +gusto when they are grown up, and that it is, therefore, a better +system than the indulgent modern one. We may reflect, further, that it +produces a finer type of man or woman, less selfish, better-mannered, +more capable and useful. The pretty grown-up daughter here, leading +her little sister by the hand, so gracious and modest in her mien, so +sunny and affectionate, so obviously wholesome and high-principled--is +she not a walking testimonial to the system? Yet to us the system is +not the less repulsive in itself. Its results may be what you please, +but its practice were impossible. We are too tender, too sentimental. +We have not the nerve to do our duty to children, nor can we bear to +think of any one else doing it. To children we can do nothing but +`spoil' them, nothing but bless their hearts and coddle their souls, +taking no thought for their future welfare. And we are justified, +maybe, in our flight to this opposite extreme. Nobody can read one +line ahead in the book of fate. No child is guaranteed to become an +adult. Any child may die to-morrow. How much greater for us the sting +of its death if its life shall not have been made as pleasant as +possible! What if its short life shall have been made as unpleasant as +possible? Conceive the remorse of Mrs. Thompson here if one of her +children were to die untimely--if one of them were stricken down now, +before her eyes, by this surfeit of too sudden joy! + +However, we do not fancy that Mrs. Thompson is going to be thus +afflicted. We believe that there is a saving antidote in the cup of +her children's joy. There is something, we feel, that even now +prevents them from utter ecstasy. Some shadow, even now, hovers over +them. What is it? It is not the mere atmosphere of the room, so +oppressive to us. It is something more definite than that, and even +more sinister. It looms aloft, monstrously, like one of those +grotesque actual shadows which a candle may cast athwart walls and +ceiling. Whose shadow is it? we wonder, and, wondering, become sure +that it is Mr. Thompson's--Papa's. + +The papa of Georgian children! We know him well, that awfully massive +and mysterious personage, who seemed ever to his offspring so remote +when they were in his presence, so frighteningly near when they were +out of it. In Mrs. Turner's Cautionary Stories in Verse he occurs +again and again. Mr. Fairchild was a perfect type of him. Mr. Bennet, +when the Misses Lizzie, Jane and Lydia were in pinafores, must have +been another perfect type: we can reconstruct him as he was then from +the many fragments of his awfulness which still clung to him when the +girls had grown up. John Ruskin's father, too, if we read between the +lines of Praeterita, seems to have had much of the authentic monster +about him. He, however, is disqualified as a type by the fact that he +was `an entirely honest merchant.' For one of the most salient +peculiarities in the true Georgian Papa was his having apparently no +occupation whatever--his being simply and solely a Papa. Even in +social life he bore no part: we never hear of him calling on a +neighbour or being called on. Even in his own household he was seldom +visible. Except at their meals, and when he took them for their walk, +and when they were sent to him to be reprimanded, his children never +beheld him in the flesh. Mamma, poor lady, careful of many other +things, superintended her children unremittingly, to keep them in the +thorny way they should go. Hers the burden and heat of every day, hers +to double the ro^les of Martha and Cornelia, that her husband might be +left ever calmly aloof in that darkened room, the Study. There, in a +high armchair, with one stout calf crossed over the other, immobile +throughout the long hours sate he, propping a marble brow on a dexter +finger of the same material. On the table beside him was a vase of +flowers, daily replenished by the children, and a closed volume. It is +remarkable that in none of the many woodcuts in which he has been +handed down to us do we see him reading; he is always meditating on +something he has just read. Occasionally, he is fingering a portfolio +of engravings, or leaning aside to examine severely a globe of the +world. That is the nearest he ever gets to physical activity. In him +we see the static embodiment of perfect wisdom and perfect +righteousness. We take him at his own valuation, humbly. Yet we have a +queer instinct that there was a time when he did not diffuse all this +cold radiance of good example. Something tells us that he has been a +sinner in his day--a rattler of the ivories at Almack's, and an ogler +of wenches in the gardens of Vauxhall, a sanguine backer of the Negro +against the Suffolk Bantam, and a devil of a fellow at boxing the +watch and wrenching the knockers when Bow Bells were chiming the small +hours. Nor do we feel that he is a penitent. He is too Olympian for +that. He has merely put these things behind him--has calmly, as a +matter of business, transferred his account from the worldly bank to +the heavenly. He has seen fit to become `Papa.' As such, strong in the +consciousness of his own perfection, he has acquired, gradually, +quasi-divine powers over his children. Himself invisible, we know that +he can always see them. Himself remote, we know that he is always with +them, and that always they feel his presence. He prevents them in all +their ways. The Mormon Eye is not more direly inevitable than he. +Whenever they offend in word or deed, he knows telepathically, and +fixes their punishment, long before they are arraigned at his +judgment-seat. + +At this moment, as at all others, Mr. Thompson has his inevitable eye +on his children, and they know that it is on them. He is well enough +pleased with them at this moment. But alas! we feel that ere the sun +sets they will have incurred his wrath. Presently Lady Noble will have +finished her genial inspection, and have sailed back, under convoy of +the mother and the grown-up daughter, to the parlour, there to partake +of that special dish of tea which is even now being brewed for her. +When the children are left alone, their pent excitement will overflow +and wash them into disgrace. Belike, they will quarrel over the +nectarines. There will be bitter words, and a pinch, and a scratch, +and a blow, screams, a scrimmage. The rout will be heard afar in the +parlour. The grown-up sister will hasten back and be beheld suddenly, +a quelling figure, on the threshold: `For shame, Clara! Mary, I wonder +at you! Henry, how dare you, sir? Silence, Ethel! Papa shall hear of +this.' Flushed and rumpled, the guilty four will hang their heads, +cowed by authority and by it perversely reconciled one with another. +Authority will bid them go upstairs `this instant,' there to shed +their finery and resume the drab garb of every day. From the bedroom- +windows they will see Lady Noble step into her yellow chariot and +drive away. Envy--an inarticulate, impotent envy--will possess their +hearts: why cannot they be rich, and grown-up, and bowed to by every +one? When the chariot is out of sight, envy will be superseded by the +play-instinct. Silently, in their hearts, the children will play at +being Lady Noble.... Mamma's voice will be heard on the stairs, +rasping them back to the realities. Sullenly they will go down to the +schoolroom, and resume their tasks. But they will not be able to +concentrate their unsettled minds. The girls will make false stitches +in the pillow-slips which they had been hemming so neatly when the +yellow chariot drove up to the front-door; and Master Harry will be +merely dazed by that page of the Delectus which he had almost got by +heart. Their discontent will be inspissated by the knowledge that they +are now worse-off than ever--are in dire disgrace, and that even now +the grown-up sister is `telling Papa' (who knows already, and has but +awaited the formal complaint). Presently the grown-up sister will come +into the schoolroom, looking very grave: `Children, Papa has something +to say to you.' In the Study, to which, quaking, they will proceed, an +endless sermon awaits them. The sin of Covetousness will be expatiated +on, and the sins of Discord and Hatred, and the eternal torment in +store for every child who is guilty of them. All four culprits will be +in tears soon after the exordium. Before the peroration (a graphic +description of the Lake of Fire) they will have become hysterical. +They will be sent supperless to bed. On the morrow they will have to +learn and repeat the chapter about Cain and Abel. A week, at least, +will have elapsed before they are out of disgrace. Such are the +inevitable consequences of joy in a joyless life. It were well for +these children had `The Visit' never been paid. + +Morland, I suppose, discerned naught of all this tragedy in his +picture. To him, probably, the thing was an untainted idyll, was but +one of those placid homely scenes which he loved as dearly as could +none but the brawler and vagabond that he was. And yet... and yet... +perhaps he did intend something of what we discern here. He may have +been thinking, bitterly, of his own childhood, and of the home he ran +away from. + + +`YET AGAIN' + +SOME CRITICISMS OF THE FIRST EDITION + +Mr. Edmund Gosse, in THE WORLD: `We may find it hard to realise that +Max may become a classic, but I see no other essayist who seems to +have more chance of it.... There is no question of "reserved places" +on Parnassus, but it is my individual conviction that where La +Bruye`re and Addison and Stevenson are, there Max will be.... It is +perhaps his final charm as an essayist that, underneath a ceremonious +style, an exquisite demeanour and advance, a low voice, a graceful +hearing, a polished cadence, there exists a powerful, sometimes what +almost seems a furious independence of character.' + +THE TIMES: `So few men can trifle without being silly or be intimate +without being tiresome, so few have either the mental power or the +unity of vision necessary for a decent transition from mood to mood, +that essayists fit to be ranked with Steele, Addison, Stevenson, are +still few. Mr. Max Beerbohm has proved his title.... There, where +every idea is the author's, and every phrase is scrupulously adapted +to the best expression by the author of his own idea, we get the true +originality in art. Through all the play of fancy, the wit and humour, +the swift transitions, the caprice and jesting, that ultimate +sincerity shines; and it is that which lights Mr. Beerbohm's fine +taste and knowledge of his craft to beauty.' + +THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: `As an artist whose medium is the essay, Mr. Max +Beerbohm should stand for this generation as Lamb stands for the first +generation of the nineteenth century.' + +THE DAILY NEWS: `He has wit, and charm, and good humour--and these are +the qualities which characterise this completely delightful volume of +essays.' + +THE MORNING LEADER: `Max sees himself in a hundred different ways. In +any capacity he is unique. He remains our best essayist.' + +THE OBSERVER: `Charles Lamb a` la Max is never obtrusive. It is only +the ghost of him that stalks in and about. We soon fall away from the +reminiscence; and the caricaturist becomes a personality.' + +Mr. Sidney Dark in THE DAILY EXPRESS: `Max is always delightful in his +dainty, leisurely tolerance of everybody and everything. No other +living writer could have produced "Yet Again." It is individual--and +thoroughly good to read.' + +THE EVENING STANDARD: `Mr. Beerbohm is always in holiday mood; and +this we gradually catch from him. We begin by enjoying him; we end by +enjoying life and ourselves.' + +THE NATION: `Blessed are they who possess the gift of extracting +sunbeams from cucumbers.... The simplicity of Mr. Beerbohm's themes +serves but to enhance the elegance of his mind.' + +Mr. G. S. Street in THE ENGLISHWOMAN: `I trust sincerely I shall not +damage his reputation if I say that the play of his fancy is never +inconsistent with two strong qualities of his mind and temperament, a +sound judgment and a kindly heart.' + +Mr. W. H. Chesson in THE DAILY CHRONICLE: `He is undoubtedly one of +our benefactors. He excels in the humour which creates humour.' + +THE GLOBE: `In their different ways, all these essays will delight the +appreciative reader, and we can only bid him or her buy, beg, borrow, +or steal Max's latest volume immediately.' + +Mr. James Douglas in LONDON OPINION: `The style of these essays is not +eccentric, and yet it is dyed with the hues of a personality as rich +and rare as Elia's own, There is no contemporary prose which is so +uncorrupted by current influences, and which is so sure to defy the +corrosion of time. In a hundred years it will not be a dated or +derelict thing. Its colour and its cadence will delight the +connoisseur then as the colour and cadence of Lamb's prose delights +him now.' + +THE MORNING POST: `He is naturally gifted with something that is +called talent in life and genius after death.' + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Yet Again, by Max Beerbohm + |