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diff --git a/old/ttalk10h.htm b/old/ttalk10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..afd0785 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/ttalk10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2296 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Tea-table Talk</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Tea-table Talk, by Jerome K. Jerome</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tea-table Talk, by Jerome K. Jerome +(#21 in our series by Jerome K. Jerome) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Tea-table Talk + +Author: Jerome K. Jerome + +Release Date: October, 2000 [EBook #2353] +[This file was first posted on November 28, 1999] +[Most recently updated: November 28, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1903 Hutchinson & Co. edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h1>TEA-TABLE TALK</h1> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>“They are very pretty, some of them,” said the Woman +of the World; “not the sort of letters I should have written myself.”</p> +<p>“I should like to see a love-letter of yours,” interrupted +the Minor Poet.</p> +<p>“It is very kind of you to say so,” replied the Woman +of the World. “It never occurred to me that you would care +for one.”</p> +<p>“It is what I have always maintained,” retorted the Minor +Poet; “you have never really understood me.”</p> +<p>“I believe a volume of assorted love-letters would sell well,” +said the Girton Girl; “written by the same hand, if you like, +but to different correspondents at different periods. To the same +person one is bound, more or less, to repeat oneself.”</p> +<p>“Or from different lovers to the same correspondent,” +suggested the Philosopher. “It would be interesting to observe +the response of various temperaments exposed to an unvaried influence. +It would throw light on the vexed question whether the qualities that +adorn our beloved are her own, or ours lent to her for the occasion. +Would the same woman be addressed as ‘My Queen!’ by one +correspondent, and as ‘Dear Popsy Wopsy!’ by another, or +would she to all her lovers be herself?”</p> +<p>“You might try it,” I suggested to the Woman of the World, +“selecting, of course, only the more interesting.”</p> +<p>“It would cause so much unpleasantness, don’t you think?” +replied the Woman of the World. “Those I left out would +never forgive me. It is always so with people you forget to invite +to a funeral - they think it is done with deliberate intention to slight +them.”</p> +<p>“The first love-letter I ever wrote,” said the Minor +Poet, “was when I was sixteen. Her name was Monica; she +was the left-hand girl in the third joint of the crocodile. I +have never known a creature so ethereally beautiful. I wrote the +letter and sealed it, but I could not make up my mind whether to slip +it into her hand when we passed them, as we usually did on Thursday +afternoons, or to wait for Sunday.”</p> +<p>“There can be no question,” murmured the Girton Girl +abstractedly, “the best time is just as one is coming out of church. +There is so much confusion; besides, one has one’s Prayer-book +- I beg your pardon.”</p> +<p>“I was saved the trouble of deciding,” continued the +Minor Poet. “On Thursday her place was occupied by a fat, +red-headed girl, who replied to my look of inquiry with an idiotic laugh, +and on Sunday I searched the Hypatia House pews for her in vain. +I learnt subsequently that she had been sent home on the previous Wednesday, +suddenly. It appeared that I was not the only one. I left +the letter where I had placed it, at the bottom of my desk, and in course +of time forgot it. Years later I fell in love really. I +sat down to write her a love-letter that should imprison her as by some +subtle spell. I would weave into it the love of all the ages. +When I had finished it, I read it through and was pleased with it. +Then by an accident, as I was going to seal it, I overturned my desk, +and on to the floor fell that other love-letter I had written seven +years before, when a boy. Out of idle curiosity I tore it open; +I thought it would afford me amusement. I ended by posting it +instead of the letter I had just completed. It carried precisely +the same meaning; but it was better expressed, with greater sincerity, +with more artistic simplicity.”</p> +<p>“After all,” said the Philosopher, “what can a +man do more than tell a woman that he loves her? All the rest +is mere picturesque amplification, on a par with the ‘Full and +descriptive report from our Special Correspondent,’ elaborated +out of a three-line telegram of Reuter’s.”</p> +<p>“Following that argument,” said the Minor Poet, “you +could reduce ‘Romeo and Juliet’ to a two-line tragedy -</p> +<p>Lass and lad, loved like mad;</p> +<p>Silly muddle, very sad.”</p> +<p>“To be told that you are loved,” said the Girton Girl, +“is only the beginning of the theorem - its proposition, so to +speak.”</p> +<p>“Or the argument of the poem,” murmured the Old Maid.</p> +<p>“The interest,” continued the Girton Girl, “lies +in proving it - why does he love me?”</p> +<p>“I asked a man that once,” said the Woman of the World. +“He said it was because he couldn’t help it. It seemed +such a foolish answer - the sort of thing your housemaid always tells +you when she breaks your favourite teapot. And yet, I suppose +it was as sensible as any other.”</p> +<p>“More so,” commented the Philosopher. “It +is the only possible explanation.”</p> +<p>“I wish,” said the Minor Poet, “it were a question +one could ask of people without offence; I so often long to put it. +Why do men marry viragoes, pimply girls with incipient moustaches? +Why do beautiful heiresses choose thick-lipped, little men who bully +them? Why are old bachelors, generally speaking, sympathetic, +kind-hearted men; and old maids, so many of them, sweet-looking and +amiable?”</p> +<p>“I think,” said the Old Maid, “that perhaps - ” +But there she stopped.</p> +<p>“Pray go on,” said the Philosopher. “I shall +be so interested to have your views.”</p> +<p>“It was nothing, really,” said the Old Maid; “I +have forgotten.”</p> +<p>“If only one could obtain truthful answers,” the Minor +Poet, “what a flood of light they might let fall on the hidden +half of life!”</p> +<p>“It seems to me,” said the Philosopher, “that, +if anything, Love is being exposed to too much light. The subject +is becoming vulgarised. Every year a thousand problem plays and +novels, poems and essays, tear the curtain from Love’s Temple, +drag it naked into the market-place for grinning crowds to gape at. +In a million short stories, would-be comic, would-be serious, it is +handled more or less coarsely, more or less unintelligently, gushed +over, gibed and jeered at. Not a shred of self-respect is left +to it. It is made the central figure of every farce, danced and +sung round in every music-hall, yelled at by gallery, guffawed at by +stalls. It is the stock-in-trade of every comic journal. +Could any god, even a Mumbo Jumbo, so treated, hold its place among +its votaries? Every term of endearment has become a catchword, +every caress mocks us from the hoardings. Every tender speech +we make recalls to us even while we are uttering it a hundred parodies. +Every possible situation has been spoilt for us in advance by the American +humorist.”</p> +<p>“I have sat out a good many parodies of ‘Hamlet,’” +said the Minor Poet, “but the play still interests me. I +remember a walking tour I once took in Bavaria. In some places +the waysides are lined with crucifixes that are either comic or repulsive. +There is a firm that turns them out by machinery. Yet, to the +peasants who pass by, the Christ is still beautiful. You can belittle +only what is already contemptible.”</p> +<p>“Patriotism is a great virtue,” replied the Philosopher: +“the Jingoes have made it ridiculous.”</p> +<p>“On the contrary,” said the Minor Poet, “they have +taught us to distinguish between the true and the false. So it +is with love. The more it is cheapened, ridiculed, employed for +market purposes, the less the inclination to affect it - to be in love +with love, as Heine admitted he was, for its own sake.”</p> +<p>“Is the necessity to love born in us,” said the Girton +Girl, “or do we practise to acquire it because it is the fashion +- make up our mind to love, as boys learn to smoke, because every other +fellow does it, and we do not like to be peculiar?”</p> +<p>“The majority of men and women,” said the Minor Poet, +“are incapable of love. With most it is a mere animal passion, +with others a mild affection.”</p> +<p>“We talk about love,” said the Philosopher, “as +though it were a known quantity. After all, to say that a man +loves is like saying that he paints or plays the violin; it conveys +no meaning until we have witnessed his performance. Yet to hear +the subject discussed, one might imagine the love of a Dante or a society +Johnny, of a Cleopatra or a Georges Sand, to be precisely the same thing.”</p> +<p>“It was always poor Susan’s trouble,” said the +Woman of the World; “she could never be persuaded that Jim really +loved her. It was very sad, because I am sure he was devoted to +her, in his way. But he could not do the sort of things she wanted +him to do; she was so romantic. He did try. He used to go +to all the poetical plays and study them. But he hadn’t +the knack of it and he was naturally clumsy. He would rush into +the room and fling himself on his knees before her, never noticing the +dog, so that, instead of pouring out his heart as he had intended, he +would have to start off with, ‘So awfully sorry! Hope I +haven’t hurt the little beast?’ Which was enough to +put anybody out.”</p> +<p>“Young girls are so foolish,” said the Old Maid; “they +run after what glitters, and do not see the gold until it is too late. +At first they are all eyes and no heart.”</p> +<p>“I knew a girl,” I said, “or, rather, a young married +woman, who was cured of folly by the homoeopathic method. Her +great trouble was that her husband had ceased to be her lover.”</p> +<p>“It seems to me so sad,” said the Old Maid. “Sometimes +it is the woman’s fault, sometimes the man’s; more often +both. The little courtesies, the fond words, the tender nothings +that mean so much to those that love - it would cost so little not to +forget them, and they would make life so much more beautiful.”</p> +<p>“There is a line of common sense running through all things,” +I replied; “the secret of life consists in not diverging far from +it on either side. He had been the most devoted wooer, never happy +out of her eyes; but before they had been married a year she found to +her astonishment that he could be content even away from her skirts, +that he actually took pains to render himself agreeable to other women. +He would spend whole afternoons at his club, slip out for a walk occasionally +by himself, shut himself up now and again in his study. It went +so far that one day he expressed a distinct desire to leave her for +a week and go a-fishing with some other men. She never complained +- at least, not to him.”</p> +<p>“That is where she was foolish,” said the Girton Girl. +“Silence in such cases is a mistake. The other party does +not know what is the matter with you, and you yourself - your temper +bottled up within - become more disagreeable every day.”</p> +<p>“She confided her trouble to a friend,” I explained.</p> +<p>“I so dislike people who do that,” said the Woman of +the World. “Emily never would speak to George; she would +come and complain about him to me, as if I were responsible for him: +I wasn’t even his mother. When she had finished, George +would come along, and I had to listen to the whole thing over again +from his point of view. I got so tired of it at last that I determined +to stop it.”</p> +<p>“How did you succeed?” asked the Old Maid, who appeared +to be interested in the recipe.</p> +<p>“I knew George was coming one afternoon,” explained the +Woman of the World, “so I persuaded Emily to wait in the conservatory. +She thought I was going to give him good advice; instead of that I sympathised +with him and encouraged him to speak his mind freely, which he did. +It made her so mad that she came out and told him what she thought of +him. I left them at it. They were both of them the better +for it; and so was I.”</p> +<p>“In my case,” I said, “it came about differently. +Her friend explained to him just what was happening. She pointed +out to him how his neglect and indifference were slowly alienating his +wife’s affections from him. He argued the subject.</p> +<p>“‘But a lover and a husband are not the same,’ +he contended; ‘the situation is entirely different. You +run after somebody you want to overtake; but when you have caught him +up, you settle down quietly and walk beside him; you don’t continue +shouting and waving your handkerchief after you have gained him.’</p> +<p>“Their mutual friend presented the problem differently.”</p> +<p>“’You must hold what you have won,’ she said, ‘or +it will slip away from you. By a certain course of conduct and +behaviour you gained a sweet girl’s regard; show yourself other +than you were, how can you expect her to think the same of you?’</p> +<p>“‘You mean,’ he inquired, ‘that I should +talk and act as her husband exactly as I did when her lover?’</p> +<p>“’Precisely,’ said the friend ‘why not?’</p> +<p>“‘It seems to me a mistake,’ he grumbled.</p> +<p>“‘Try it and see,’ said the friend.</p> +<p>“‘All right,’ he said, ‘I will.’ +And he went straight home and set to work.”</p> +<p>“Was it too late,” asked the Old Maid, “or did +they come together again?”</p> +<p>“For the next mouth,” I answered, “they were together +twenty-four hours of the day. And then it was the wife who suggested, +like the poet in Gilbert’s <i>Patience</i>, the delight with which +she would welcome an occasional afternoon off.”</p> +<p>“He hung about her while she was dressing in the morning. +Just as she had got her hair fixed he would kiss it passionately and +it would come down again. All meal-time he would hold her hand +under the table and insist on feeding her with a fork. Before +marriage he had behaved once or twice in this sort of way at picnics; +and after marriage, when at breakfast-time he had sat at the other end +of the table reading the paper or his letters, she had reminded him +of it reproachfully. The entire day he never left her side. +She could never read a book; instead, he would read to her aloud, generally +Browning’ poems or translations from Goethe. Reading aloud +was not an accomplishment of his, but in their courting days she had +expressed herself pleased at his attempts, and of this he took care, +in his turn, to remind her. It was his idea that if the game were +played at all, she should take a hand also. If he was to blither, +it was only fair that she should bleat back. As he explained, +for the future they would both be lovers all their life long; and no +logical argument in reply could she think of. If she tried to +write a letter, he would snatch away the paper her dear hands were pressing +and fall to kissing it - and, of course, smearing it. When he +wasn’t giving her pins and needles by sitting on her feet he was +balancing himself on the arm of her chair and occasionally falling over +on top of her. If she went shopping, he went with her and made +himself ridiculous at the dressmaker’s. In society he took +no notice of anybody but of her, and was hurt if she spoke to anybody +but to him. Not that it was often, during that month, that they +did see any society; most invitations he refused for them both, reminding +her how once upon a time she had regarded an evening alone with him +as an entertainment superior to all others. He called her ridiculous +names, talked to her in baby language; while a dozen times a day it +became necessary for her to take down her back hair and do it up afresh. +At the end of a month, as I have said, it was she who suggested a slight +cessation of affection.”</p> +<p>“Had I been in her place,” said the Girton Girl, “it +would have been a separation I should have suggested. I should +have hated him for the rest of my life.”</p> +<p>“For merely trying to agree with you?” I said.</p> +<p>“For showing me I was a fool for ever having wanted his affection,” +replied the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“You can generally,” said the Philosopher, “make +people ridiculous by taking them at their word.”</p> +<p>“Especially women,” murmured the Minor Poet.</p> +<p>“I wonder,” said the Philosopher, “is there really +so much difference between men and women as we think? What there +is, may it not be the result of Civilisation rather than of Nature, +of training rather than of instinct?”</p> +<p>“Deny the contest between male and female, and you deprive +life of half its poetry,” urged the Minor Poet.</p> +<p>“Poetry,” returned the Philosopher, “was made for +man, not man for poetry. I am inclined to think that the contest +you speak of is somewhat in the nature of a ‘put-up job’ +on the part of you poets. In the same way newspapers will always +advocate war; it gives them something to write about, and is not altogether +unconnected with sales. To test Nature’s original intentions, +it is always safe to study our cousins the animals. There we see +no sign of this fundamental variation; the difference is merely one +of degree.”</p> +<p>“I quite agree with you,” said the Girton Girl. +“Man, acquiring cunning, saw the advantage of using his one superiority, +brute strength, to make woman his slave. In all other respects +she is undoubtedly his superior.”</p> +<p>“In a woman’s argument,” I observed, “equality +of the sexes invariably does mean the superiority of woman.”</p> +<p>“That is very curious,” added the Philosopher. +“As you say, a woman never can be logical.”</p> +<p>“Are all men logical?” demanded the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“As a class,” replied the Minor Poet, “yes.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>“What woman suffers from,” said the Philosopher, “is +over-praise. It has turned her head.”</p> +<p>“You admit, then, that she has a head?” demanded the +Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“It has always been a theory of mine,” returned the Philosopher, +“that by Nature she was intended to possess one. It is her +admirers who have always represented her as brainless.”</p> +<p>“Why is it that the brainy girl invariably has straight hair?” +asked the Woman of the World.</p> +<p>“Because she doesn’t curl it,” explained the Girton +Girl. She spoke somewhat snappishly, it seemed to me.</p> +<p>“I never thought of that,” murmured the Woman of the +World.</p> +<p>“It is to be noted in connection with the argument,” +I ventured to remark, “that we hear but little concerning the +wives of intellectual men. When we do, as in the case of the Carlyles, +it is to wish we did not.”</p> +<p>“When I was younger even than I am now,” said the Minor +Poet, “I thought a good deal of marriage - very young men do. +My wife, I told myself, must be a woman of mind. Yet, curiously, +of all the women I have ever loved, no single one has been remarkable +for intellect - present company, as usual, of course excepted.”</p> +<p>“Why is it,” sighed the Philosopher, “that in the +most serious business of our life, marriage, serious considerations +count for next to nothing? A dimpled chin can, and often does, +secure for a girl the best of husbands; while virtue and understanding +combined cannot be relied upon to obtain her even one of the worst.”</p> +<p>“I think the explanation is,” replied the Minor Poet, +“that as regards, let us say, the most natural business of our +life, marriage, our natural instincts alone are brought into play. +Marriage - clothe the naked fact in what flowers of rhetoric we will +- has to do with the purely animal part of our being. The man +is drawn towards it by his primeval desires; the woman by her inborn +craving towards motherhood.”</p> +<p>The thin, white hands of the Old Maid fluttered, troubled, where +they lay upon her lap. “Why should we seek to explain away +all the beautiful things of life?” she said. She spoke with +a heat unusual to her. “The blushing lad, so timid, so devotional, +worshipping as at the shrine of some mystic saint; the young girl moving +spell-bound among dreams! They think of nothing but of one another.”</p> +<p>“Tracing a mountain stream to its sombre source need not mar +its music for us as it murmurs through the valley,” expounded +the Philosopher. “The hidden law of our being feeds each +leaf of our life as sap runs through the tree. The transient blossom, +the ripened fruit, is but its changing outward form.”</p> +<p>“I hate going to the roots of things,” said the Woman +of the World. “Poor, dear papa was so fond of doing that. +He would explain to us the genesis of oysters just when we were enjoying +them. Poor mamma could never bring herself to touch them after +that. While in the middle of dessert he would stop to argue with +my Uncle Paul whether pig’s blood or bullock’s was the best +for grape vines. I remember the year before Emily came out her +favourite pony died; I have never known her so cut up about anything +before or since. She asked papa if he would mind her having the +poor creature buried in the garden. Her idea was that she would +visit now and then its grave and weep awhile. Papa was awfully +nice about it and stroked her hair. ‘Certainly, my dear,’ +he said, ‘we will have him laid to rest in the new strawberry +bed.’ Just then old Pardoe, the head gardener, came up to +us and touched his hat. ‘Well, I was just going to inquire +of Miss Emily,’ he said, ‘if she wouldn’t rather have +the poor thing buried under one of the nectarine-trees. They ain’t +been doing very well of late.’ He said it was a pretty spot, +and that he would put up a sort of stone. Poor Emily didn’t +seem to care much where the animal was buried by that time, so we left +them arguing the question. I forget how it was settled; but I +know we neither of us ate either strawberries or nectarines for the +next two years.”</p> +<p>“There is a time for everything,” agreed the Philosopher. +“With the lover, penning poetry to the wondrous red and white +upon his mistress’ cheek, we do not discuss the subject of pigment +in the blood, its cause and probable duration. Nevertheless, the +subject is interesting.”</p> +<p>“We men and women,” continued the Minor Poet, “we +are Nature’s favourites, her hope, for whom she has made sacrifice, +putting aside so many of her own convictions, telling herself she is +old-fashioned. She has let us go from her to the strange school +where they laugh at all her notions. We have learnt new, strange +ideas that bewilder the good dame. Yet, returning home it is curious +to notice how little, in the few essential things of life, we differ +from her other children, who have never wandered from her side. +Our vocabulary has been extended and elaborated, yet face to face with +the realities of existence it is unavailing. Clasping the living, +standing beside the dead, our language still is but a cry. Our +wants have grown more complicated; the ten-course banquet, with all +that it involves, has substituted itself for the handful of fruits and +nuts gathered without labour; the stalled ox and a world of trouble +for the dinner of herbs and leisure therewith. Are we so far removed +thereby above our little brother, who, having swallowed his simple, +succulent worm, mounts a neighbouring twig and with easy digestion carols +thanks to God? The square brick box about which we move, hampered +at every step by wooden lumber, decked with many rags and strips of +coloured paper, cumbered with odds and ends of melted flint and moulded +clay, has replaced the cheap, convenient cave. We clothe ourselves +in the skins of other animals instead of allowing our own to develop +into a natural protection. We hang about us bits of stone and +metal, but underneath it all we are little two-legged animals, struggling +with the rest to live and breed. Beneath each hedgerow in the +springtime we can read our own romances in the making - the first faint +stirring of the blood, the roving eye, the sudden marvellous discovery +of the indispensable She, the wooing, the denial, hope, coquetry, despair, +contention, rivalry, hate, jealousy, love, bitterness, victory, and +death. Our comedies, our tragedies, are being played upon each +blade of grass. In fur and feather we run epitomised.”</p> +<p>“I know,” said the Woman of the World; “I have +heard it all so often. It is nonsense; I can prove it to you.”</p> +<p>“That is easy,” observed the Philosopher. “The +Sermon on the Mount itself has been proved nonsense - among others, +by a bishop. Nonsense is the reverse side of the pattern - the +tangled ends of the thread that Wisdom weaves.”</p> +<p>“There was a Miss Askew at the College,” said the Girton +Girl. “She agreed with every one. With Marx she was +a Socialist, with Carlyle a believer in benevolent despotism, with Spinoza +a materialist, with Newman a fanatic. I had a long talk with her +before she left, and tried to understand her; she was an interesting +girl. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘I could choose among +them if only they would answer one another. But they don’t. +They won’t listen to one another. They only repeat their +own case.’”</p> +<p>“There never is an answer,” explained the Philosopher. +“The kernel of every sincere opinion is truth. This life +contains only the questions - the solutions to be published in a future +issue.”</p> +<p>“She was a curious sort of young woman,” smiled the Girton +Girl; “we used to laugh at her.”</p> +<p>“I can quite believe it,” commented the Philosopher.</p> +<p>“It is so like shopping,” said the Old Maid.</p> +<p>“Like shopping!” exclaimed the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>The Old Maid blushed. “I was merely thinking,” +she said. “It sounds foolish. The idea occurred to +me.”</p> +<p>“You were thinking of the difficulty of choosing?” I +suggested.</p> +<p>“Yes,” answered the Old Maid. “They will +show you so many different things, one is quite unable - at least, I +know it is so in my own case. I get quite angry with myself. +It seems so weak-minded, but I cannot help it. This very dress +I have on now - ”<br />“It is very charming,” said +the Woman of the World, “in itself. I have been admiring +it. Though I confess I think you look even better in dark colours.”</p> +<p>“You are quite right,” replied the Old Maid; “myself, +I hate it. But you know how it is. I seemed to have been +all the morning in the shop. I felt so tired. If only - +”</p> +<p>The Old Maid stopped abruptly. “I beg your pardon,” +she said, “I am afraid I’ve interrupted.”</p> +<p>“I am so glad you told us,” said the Philosopher. +“Do you know that seems to me an explanation?”</p> +<p>“Of what?” asked the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“Of how so many of us choose our views,” returned the +Philosopher; “we don’t like to come out of the shop without +something.”</p> +<p>“But you were about to explain,” continued the Philosopher, +turning to the Woman of the World, “ - to prove a point.”</p> +<p>“That I had been talking nonsense,” reminded her the +Minor Poet; “if you are sure it will not weary you.”</p> +<p>“Not at all,” answered the Woman of the World; “it +is quite simple. The gifts of civilisation cannot be the meaningless +rubbish you advocates of barbarism would make out. I remember +Uncle Paul’s bringing us home a young monkey he had caught in +Africa. With the aid of a few logs we fitted up a sort of stage-tree +for this little brother of mine, as I suppose you would call him, in +the gun-room. It was an admirable imitation of the thing to which +he and his ancestors must have been for thousands of years accustomed; +and for the first two nights he slept perched among its branches. +On the third the little brute turned the poor cat out of its basket +and slept on the eiderdown, after which no more tree for him, real or +imitation. At the end of the three months, if we offered him monkey-nuts, +he would snatch them from our hand and throw them at our head. +He much preferred gingerbread and weak tea with plenty of sugar; and +when we wanted him to leave the kitchen fire and enjoy a run in the +garden, we had to carry him out swearing - I mean he was swearing, of +course. I quite agree with him. I much prefer this chair +on which I am sitting - this ‘wooden lumber,’ as you term +it - to the most comfortable lump of old red sandstone that the best +furnished cave could possibly afford; and I am degenerate enough to +fancy that I look very nice in this frock - much nicer than my brothers +or sisters to whom it originally belonged: they didn’t know how +to make the best of it.”</p> +<p>“You would look charming anyhow,” I murmured with conviction, +“even - ”</p> +<p>“I know what you are going to say,” interrupted the Woman +of the World; “please don’t. It’s very shocking, +and, besides, I don’t agree with you. I should have had +a thick, coarse skin, with hair all over me and nothing by way of a +change.”</p> +<p>“I am contending,” said the Minor Poet, “that what +we choose to call civilisation has done little beyond pandering to our +animal desires. Your argument confirms my theory. Your evidence +in support of civilisation comes to this - that it can succeed in tickling +the appetites of a monkey. You need not have gone back so far. +The noble savage of today flings aside his clear spring water to snatch +at the missionary’s gin. He will even discard his feathers, +which at least were picturesque, for a chimney-pot hat innocent of nap. +Plaid trousers and cheap champagne follow in due course. Where +is the advancement? Civilisation provides us with more luxuries +for our bodies. That I grant you. Has it brought us any +real improvement that could not have been arrived at sooner by other +roads?”</p> +<p>“It has given us Art,” said the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“When you say ‘us,’” replied the Minor Poet, +“I presume you are referring to the one person in half a million +to whom Art is anything more than a name. Dismissing the countless +hordes who have absolutely never heard the word, and confining attention +to the few thousands scattered about Europe and America who prate of +it, how many of even these do you think it really influences, entering +into their lives, refining, broadening them? Watch the faces of +the thin but conscientious crowd streaming wearily through our miles +of picture galleries and art museums; gaping, with guide-book in hand, +at ruined temple or cathedral tower; striving, with the spirit of the +martyr, to feel enthusiasm for Old Masters at which, left to themselves, +they would enjoy a good laugh - for chipped statues which, uninstructed, +they would have mistaken for the damaged stock of a suburban tea-garden. +Not more than one in twelve enjoys what he is looking at, and he by +no means is bound to be the best of the dozen. Nero was a genuine +lover of Art; and in modern times August the Strong, of Saxony, ‘the +man of sin,’ as Carlyle calls him, has left undeniable proof behind +him that he was a connoisseur of the first water. One recalls +names even still more recent. Are we so sure that Art does elevate?”</p> +<p>“You are talking for the sake of talking,” told him the +Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“One can talk for the sake of thinking also,” reminded +her the Minor Poet. “The argument is one that has to be +faced. But admitting that Art has been of service to mankind on +the whole, that it possesses one-tenth of the soul-forming properties +claimed for it in the advertisement - which I take to be a generous +estimate - its effect upon the world at large still remains infinitesimal.”</p> +<p>“It works down,” maintained the Girton Girl. “From +the few it spreads to the many.”</p> +<p>“The process appears to be somewhat slow,” answered the +Minor Poet. “The result, for whatever it may be worth, we +might have obtained sooner by doing away with the middleman.”</p> +<p>“What middleman?” demanded the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“The artist,” explained the Minor Poet; “the man +who has turned the whole thing into a business, the shopman who sells +emotions over the counter. A Corot, a Turner is, after all, but +a poor apology compared with a walk in spring through the Black Forest +or the view from Hampstead Heath on a November afternoon. Had +we been less occupied acquiring ‘the advantages of civilisation,’ +working upward through the weary centuries to the city slum, the corrugated-iron-roofed +farm, we might have found time to learn to love the beauty of the world. +As it is, we have been so busy ‘civilising’ ourselves that +we have forgotten to live. We are like an old lady I once shared +a carriage with across the Simplon Pass.”</p> +<p>“By the way,” I remarked, “one is going to be saved +all that bother in the future. They have nearly completed the +new railway line. One will be able to go from Domo d’Orsola +to Brieg in a little over the two hours. They tell me the tunnelling +is wonderful.”</p> +<p>“It will be very charming,” sighed the Minor Poet. +“I am looking forward to a future when, thanks to ‘civilisation,’ +travel will be done away with altogether. We shall be sewn up +in a sack and shot there. At the time I speak of we still had +to be content with the road winding through some of the most magnificent +scenery in Switzerland. I rather enjoyed the drive myself, but +my companion was quite unable to appreciate it. Not because she +did not care for scenery. As she explained to me, she was passionately +fond of it. But her luggage claimed all her attention. There +were seventeen pieces of it altogether, and every time the ancient vehicle +lurched or swayed, which on an average was once every thirty seconds, +she was in terror lest one or more of them should be jerked out. +Half her day was taken up in counting them and re-arranging them, and +the only view in which she was interested was the cloud of dust behind +us. One bonnet-box did contrive during the course of the journey +to make its escape, after which she sat with her arms round as many +of the remaining sixteen articles as she could encompass, and sighed.”</p> +<p>“I knew an Italian countess,” said the Woman of the World; +“she had been at school with mamma. She never would go half +a mile out of her way for scenery. ‘Why should I?’ +she would say. ‘What are the painters for? If there +is anything good, let them bring it to me and I will look at it. +She said she preferred the picture to the real thing, it was so much +more artistic. In the landscape itself, she complained, there +was sure to be a chimney in the distance, or a restaurant in the foreground, +that spoilt the whole effect. The artist left it out. If +necessary, he could put in a cow or a pretty girl to help the thing. +The actual cow, if it happened to be there at all, would probably be +standing the wrong way round; the girl, in all likelihood, would be +fat and plain, or be wearing the wrong hat. The artist knew precisely +the sort of girl that ought to be there, and saw to it that she was +there, with just the right sort of hat. She said she had found +it so all through life - the poster was always an improvement on the +play.”</p> +<p>“It is rapidly coming to that,” answered the Minor Poet. +“Nature, as a well known painter once put it, is not ‘creeping +up’ fast enough to keep pace with our ideals. In advanced +Germany they improve the waterfalls and ornament the rocks. In +Paris they paint the babies’ faces.”</p> +<p>“You can hardly lay the blame for that upon civilisation,” +pleaded the Girton Girl. “The ancient Briton had a pretty +taste in woads.”</p> +<p>“Man’s first feeble steps upon the upward path of Art,” +assented the Minor Poet, “culminating in the rouge-pot and the +hair-dye.”</p> +<p>“Come!” laughed the Old Maid, “you are narrow-minded. +Civilisation has given us music. Surely you will admit that has +been of help to us?”</p> +<p>“My dear lady,” replied the Minor Poet, “you speak +of the one accomplishment with which Civilisation has had little or +nothing to do, the one art that Nature has bestowed upon man in common +with the birds and insects, the one intellectual enjoyment we share +with the entire animal creation, excepting only the canines; and even +the howling of the dog - one cannot be sure - may be an honest, however +unsatisfactory, attempt towards a music of his own. I had a fox +terrier once who invariably howled in tune. Jubal hampered, not +helped us. He it was who stifled music with the curse of professionalism; +so that now, like shivering shop-boys paying gate-money to watch games +they cannot play, we sit mute in our stalls listening to the paid performer. +But for the musician, music might have been universal. The human +voice is still the finest instrument that we possess. We have +allowed it to rust, the better to hear clever manipulators blow through +tubes and twang wires. The musical world might have been a literal +expression. Civilisation has contracted it to designate a coterie.”</p> +<p>“By the way,” said the Woman of the World, “talking +of music, have you heard that last symphony of Grieg’s? +It came in the last parcel. I have been practising it.”</p> +<p>“Oh! do let us hear it,” urged the Old Maid. “I +love Grieg.”</p> +<p>The Woman of the World rose and opened the piano.</p> +<p>“Myself, I have always been of opinion - ” I remarked.</p> +<p>“Please don’t chatter,” said the Minor Poet.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>“I never liked her,” said the Old Maid; “I always +knew she was heartless.”</p> +<p>“To my thinking,” said the Minor Poet, “she has +shown herself a true woman.”</p> +<p>“Really,” said the Woman of the World, laughing, “I +shall have to nickname you Dr. Johnson Redivivus. I believe, +were the subject under discussion, you would admire the coiffure of +the Furies. It would occur to you that it must have been naturally +curly.”</p> +<p>“It is the Irish blood flowing in his veins,” I told +them. “He must always be ‘agin the Government.’”</p> +<p>“We ought to be grateful to him,” remarked the Philosopher. +“What can be more uninteresting than an agreeable conversation +I mean, a conversation - where everybody is in agreement? Disagreement, +on the other hand, is stimulating.”</p> +<p>“Maybe that is the reason,” I suggested, “why modern +society is so tiresome an affair. By tabooing all difference of +opinion we have eliminated all zest from our intercourse. Religion, +sex, politics - any subject on which man really thinks, is scrupulously +excluded from all polite gatherings. Conversation has become a +chorus; or, as a writer wittily expressed it, the pursuit of the obvious +to no conclusion. When not occupied with mumbling, ‘I quite +agree with you’ - ‘As you say’ - ‘That is precisely +my opinion’ - we sit about and ask each other riddles: ‘What +did the Pro-Boer?’ ‘Why did Julius Caesar?’”</p> +<p>“Fashion has succeeded where Force for centuries has failed,” +added the Philosopher. “One notices the tendency even in +public affairs. It is bad form nowadays to belong to the Opposition. +The chief aim of the Church is to bring itself into line with worldly +opinion. The Nonconformist Conscience grows every day a still +smaller voice.”</p> +<p>“I believe,” said the Woman of the World, “that +was the reason why Emily never got on with poor dear George. He +agreed with her in everything. She used to say it made her feel +such a fool.”</p> +<p>“Man is a fighting animal,” explained the Philosopher. +“An officer who had been through the South African War was telling +me only the other day: he was with a column, and news came in that a +small commando was moving in the neighbourhood. The column set +off in the highest of spirits, and after three days’ trying work +through a difficult country came up with, as they thought, the enemy. +As a matter of fact, it was not the enemy, but a troop of Imperial Yeomanry +that had lost its way. My friend informs me that the language +with which his column greeted those unfortunate Yeomen - their fellow +countrymen, men of their own blood - was most unsympathetic.”</p> +<p>“Myself, I should hate a man who agreed with me,” said +the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“My dear,” replied the Woman of the World, “I don’t +think any would.”</p> +<p>“Why not?” demanded the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“I was thinking more of you, dear,” replied the Woman +of the World.</p> +<p>“I am glad you all concur with me,” murmured the Minor +Poet. “I have always myself regarded the Devil’s Advocate +as the most useful officer in the Court of Truth.”</p> +<p>“I remember being present one evening,” I observed, “at +a dinner-party where an eminent judge met an equally eminent K. +C.; whose client the judge that very afternoon had condemned to be hanged. +‘It is always a satisfaction,’ remarked to him genially +the judge, ‘condemning any prisoner defended by you. One +feels so absolutely certain he was guilty.’ The K. C. responded +that he should always remember the judge’s words with pride.”</p> +<p>“Who was it,” asked the Philosopher, “who said: +‘Before you can attack a lie, you must strip it of its truth’?”</p> +<p>“It sounds like Emerson,” I ventured.</p> +<p>“Very possibly,” assented the Philosopher; “very +possibly not. There is much in reputation. Most poetry gets +attributed to Shakespeare.”</p> +<p>“I entered a certain drawing-room about a week ago,” +I said. “‘We were just speaking about you,’ +exclaimed my hostess. ‘Is not this yours?’ She +pointed to an article in a certain magazine lying open on the table. +‘No,’ I replied; ‘one or two people have asked me +that same question. It seems to me rather an absurd article,’ +I added. ‘I cannot say I thought very much of it,’ +agreed my hostess.”</p> +<p>“I can’t help it,” said the Old Maid. “I +shall always dislike a girl who deliberately sells herself for money.”</p> +<p>“But what else is there to sell herself for?” asked the +Minor Poet.</p> +<p>“She should not sell herself at all,” retorted the Old +Maid, with warmth. “She should give herself, for love.”</p> +<p>“Are we not in danger of drifting into a difference of opinion +concerning the meaning of words merely?” replied the Minor Poet. +“We have all of us, I suppose, heard the story of the Jew clothier +remonstrated with by the Rabbi for doing business on the Sabbath. +‘Doing bithness!’ retorted the accused with indignation; +‘you call thelling a thuit like that for eighteen shillings doing +bithness! By, ith’s tharity!’ This ‘love’ +for which the maiden gives herself - let us be a little more exact - +does it not include, as a matter of course, material more tangible? +Would not the adored one look somewhat astonished on discovering that, +having given herself for ‘love,’ love was all that her lover +proposed to give for her. Would she not naturally exclaim: ‘But +where’s the house, to say nothing of the fittings? And what +are we to live on’?”</p> +<p>“It is you now who are playing with words,” asserted +the Old Maid. “The greater includes the less. Loving +her, he would naturally desire - ”</p> +<p>“With all his worldly goods her to endow,” completed +for her the Minor Poet. “In other words, he pays a price +for her. So far as love is concerned, they are quits. In +marriage, the man gives himself to the woman as the woman gives herself +to the man. Man has claimed, I am aware, greater liberty for himself; +but the claim has always been vehemently repudiated by woman. +She has won her case. Legally and morally now husband and wife +are bound by the same laws. This being so, her contention that +she gives herself falls to the ground. She exchanges herself. +Over and above, she alone of the twain claims a price.”</p> +<p>“Say a living wage,” corrected the Philosopher. +“Lazy rubbish lolls in petticoats, and idle stupidity struts in +trousers. But, class for class, woman does her share of the world’s +work. Among the poor, of the two it is she who labours the longer. +There is a many-versed ballad popular in country districts. Often +I have heard it sung in shrill, piping voice at harvest supper or barn +dance. The chorus runs -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>A man’s work ’tis till set of sun,<br />But a woman’s +work is never done!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“My housekeeper came to me a few months ago,” said the +Woman of the World, “to tell me that my cook had given notice. +‘I am sorry to hear it,’ I answered; ‘has she found +a better place?’ ‘I am not so sure about that,’ +answered Markham; ‘she’s going as general servant.’ +‘As general servant!’ I exclaimed. ‘To old Hudson, +at the coal wharf,’ answered Markham. ‘His wife died +last year, if you remember. He’s got seven children, poor +man, and no one to look after them.’ ‘I suppose you +mean,’ I said, ‘that she’s marrying him.’ +‘Well, that’s the way she puts it,’ laughed Markham. +‘What I tell her is, she’s giving up a good home and fifty +pounds a year, to be a general servant on nothing a week. But +they never see it.’”</p> +<p>“I recollect her,” answered the Minor Poet, “a +somewhat depressing lady. Let me take another case. You +possess a remarkably pretty housemaid - Edith, if I have it rightly.”</p> +<p>“I have noticed her,” remarked the Philosopher. +“Her manners strike me as really quite exceptional.”</p> +<p>“I never could stand any one about me with carroty hair,” +remarked the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“I should hardly call it carroty,” contended the Philosopher. +“There is a golden tint of much richness underlying, when you +look closely.”</p> +<p>“She is a very good girl,” agreed the Woman of the World; +“but I am afraid I shall have to get rid of her. The other +woman servants don’t get on with her.”</p> +<p>“Do you know whether she is engaged or not?” demanded +the Minor Poet.</p> +<p>“At the present moment,” answered the Woman of the World, +“she is walking out, I believe, with the eldest son of the ‘Blue +Lion.’ But she is never adverse to a change. If you +are really in earnest about the matter - ”</p> +<p>“I was not thinking of myself,” said the Minor Poet. +“But suppose some young gentleman of personal attractions equal +to those of the ‘Blue Lion,’ or even not quite equal, possessed +of two or three thousand a year, were to enter the lists, do you think +the ‘Blue Lion’ would stand much chance?”</p> +<p>“Among the Upper Classes,” continued the Minor Poet, +“opportunity for observing female instinct hardly exists. +The girl’s choice is confined to lovers able to pay the price +demanded, if not by the beloved herself, by those acting on her behalf. +But would a daughter of the Working Classes ever hesitate, other things +being equal, between Mayfair and Seven Dials?”</p> +<p>“Let me ask you one,” chimed in the Girton Girl. +“Would a bricklayer hesitate any longer between a duchess and +a scullery-maid?”</p> +<p>“But duchesses don’t fall in love with bricklayers,” +returned the Minor Poet. “Now, why not? The stockbroker +flirts with the barmaid - cases have been known; often he marries her. +Does the lady out shopping ever fall in love with the waiter at the +bun-shop? Hardly ever. Lordlings marry ballet girls, but +ladies rarely put their heart and fortune at the feet of the Lion Comique. +Manly beauty and virtue are not confined to the House of Lords and its +dependencies. How do you account for the fact that while it is +common enough for the man to look beneath him, the woman will almost +invariably prefer her social superior, and certainly never tolerate +her inferior? Why should King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid appear +to us a beautiful legend, while Queen Cophetua and the Tramp would be +ridiculous?”</p> +<p>“The simple explanation is,” expounded the Girton Girl, +“woman is so immeasurably man’s superior that only by weighting +him more or less heavily with worldly advantages can any semblance of +balance be obtained.”</p> +<p>“Then,” answered the Minor Poet, “you surely agree +with me that woman is justified in demanding this ‘make-weight.’ +The woman gives her love, if you will. It is the art treasure, +the gilded vase thrown in with the pound of tea; but the tea has to +be paid for.”</p> +<p>“It all sounds very clever,” commented the Old Maid; +“yet I fail to see what good comes of ridiculing a thing one’s +heart tells one is sacred.”</p> +<p>“Do not be so sure I am wishful to ridicule,” answered +the Minor Poet. “Love is a wondrous statue God carved with +His own hands and placed in the Garden of Life, long ago. And +man, knowing not sin, worshipped her, seeing her beautiful. Till +the time came when man learnt evil; then saw that the statue was naked, +and was ashamed of it. Since when he has been busy, draping it, +now in the fashion of this age, now in the fashion of that. We +have shod her in dainty bottines, regretting the size of her feet. +We employ the best artistes to design for her cunning robes that shall +disguise her shape. Each season we fix fresh millinery upon her +changeless head. We hang around her robes of woven words. +Only the promise of her ample breasts we cannot altogether hide, shocking +us not a little; only that remains to tell us that beneath the tawdry +tissues still stands the changeless statue God carved with His own hands.”</p> +<p>“I like you better when you talk like that,” said the +Old Maid; “but I never feel quite sure of you. All I mean, +of course, is that money should not be her first consideration. +Marriage for money - it is not marriage; one cannot speak of it. +Of course, one must be reasonable.”</p> +<p>“You mean,” persisted the Minor Poet, “you would +have her think also of her dinner, of her clothes, her necessities, +luxuries.”</p> +<p>“It is not only for herself,” answered the Old Maid.</p> +<p>“For whom?” demanded the Minor Poet.</p> +<p>The white hands of the Old Maid fluttered on her lap, revealing her +trouble; for of the old school is this sweet friend of mine.</p> +<p>“There are the children to be considered,” I explained. +“A woman feels it even without knowing. It is her instinct.”</p> +<p>The Old Maid smiled on me her thanks.</p> +<p>“It is where I was leading,” said the Minor Poet. +“Woman has been appointed by Nature the trustee of the children. +It is her duty to think of them, to plan for them. If in marriage +she does not take the future into consideration, she is untrue to her +trust.”</p> +<p>“Before you go further,” interrupted the Philosopher, +“there is an important point to be considered. Are children +better or worse for a pampered upbringing? Is not poverty often +the best school?”</p> +<p>“It is what I always tell George,” remarked the Woman +of the World, “when he grumbles at the tradesmen’s books. +If Papa could only have seen his way to being a poor man, I feel I should +have been a better wife.”</p> +<p>“Please don’t suggest the possibility,” I begged +the Woman of the World; “the thought is too bewildering.”</p> +<p>“You were never imaginative,” replied the Woman of the +World.</p> +<p>“Not to that extent,” I admitted.</p> +<p>“‘The best mothers make the worst children,’” +quoted the Girton Girl. “I intend to bear that in mind.”</p> +<p>“Your mother was a very beautiful character - one of the most +beautiful I ever knew,” remarked the Old Maid.</p> +<p>“There is some truth in the saying,” agreed the Minor +Poet, “but only because it is the exception; and Nature invariably +puts forth all her powers to counteract the result of deviation from +her laws. Were it the rule, then the bad mother would be the good +mother and the good mother the bad mother. And - ”</p> +<p>“Please don’t go on,” said the Woman of the World. +“I was up late last night.”</p> +<p>“I was merely going to show,” explained the Minor Poet, +“that all roads lead to the law that the good mother is the best +mother. Her duty is to her children, to guard their infancy, to +take thought for their equipment.”</p> +<p>“Do you seriously ask us to believe,” demanded the Old +Maid, “that the type of woman who does marry for money considers +for a single moment any human being but herself?”</p> +<p>“Not consciously, perhaps,” admitted the Minor Poet. +“Our instincts, that they may guide us easily, are purposely made +selfish. The flower secretes honey for its own purposes, not with +any sense of charity towards the bee. Man works, as he thinks, +for beer and baccy; in reality, for the benefit of unborn generations. +The woman, in acting selfishly, is assisting Nature’s plans. +In olden days she chose her mate for his strength. She, possibly +enough, thought only of herself; he could best provide for her then +simple wants, best guard her from the disagreeable accidents of nomadic +life. But Nature, unseen, directing her, was thinking of the savage +brood needing still more a bold protector. Wealth now is the substitute +for strength. The rich man is the strong man. The woman’s +heart unconsciously goes out to him.”</p> +<p>“Do men never marry for money?” inquired the Girton Girl. +“I ask merely for information. Maybe I have been misinformed, +but I have heard of countries where the <i>dot</i> is considered of +almost more importance than the bride.”</p> +<p>“The German officer,” I ventured to strike in, “is +literally on sale. Young lieutenants are most expensive, and even +an elderly colonel costs a girl a hundred thousand marks.”</p> +<p>“You mean,” corrected the Minor Poet, “costs her +father. The Continental husband demands a dowry with his wife, +and sees that he gets it. He in his turn has to save and scrape +for years to provide each of his daughters with the necessary <i>dot</i>. +It comes to the same thing precisely. Your argument could only +apply were woman equally with man a wealth producer. As it is, +a woman’s wealth is invariably the result of a marriage, either +her own or that of some shrewd ancestress. And as regards the +heiress, the principle of sale and purchase, if I may be forgiven the +employment of common terms, is still more religiously enforced. +It is not often that the heiress is given away; stolen she may be occasionally, +much to the indignation of Lord Chancellors and other guardians of such +property; the thief is very properly punished - imprisoned, if need +be. If handed over legitimately, her price is strictly exacted, +not always in money - that she possesses herself, maybe in sufficiency; +it enables her to bargain for other advantages no less serviceable to +her children - for title, place, position. In the same way the +Neolithic woman, herself of exceptional strength and ferocity, may have +been enabled to bestow a thought upon her savage lover’s beauty, +his prehistoric charm of manner; thus in other directions no less necessary +assisting the development of the race.”</p> +<p>“I cannot argue with you,” said the Old Maid. “I +know one case. They were both poor; it would have made no difference +to her, but it did to him. Maybe I am wrong, but it seems to me +that, as you say, our instincts are given us to guide us. I do +not know. The future is not in our hands; it does not belong to +us. Perhaps it were wiser to listen to the voices that are sent +to us.”</p> +<p>“I remember a case, also,” said the Woman of the World. +She had risen to prepare the tea, and was standing with her back to +us. “Like the woman you speak of, she was poor, but one +of the sweetest creatures I have ever known. I cannot help thinking +it would have been good for the world had she been a mother.”</p> +<p>“My dear lady,” cried the Minor Poet, “you help +me!”</p> +<p>“I always do, according to you,” laughed the Woman of +the World. “I appear to resemble the bull that tossed the +small boy high into the apple-tree he had been trying all the afternoon +to climb.”</p> +<p>“It is very kind of you,” answered the Minor Poet. +“My argument is that woman is justified in regarding marriage +as the end of her existence, the particular man as but a means. +The woman you speak of acted selfishly, rejecting the crown of womanhood +because not tendered to her by hands she had chosen.”</p> +<p>“You would have us marry without love?” asked the Girton +Girl.</p> +<p>“With love, if possible,” answered the Minor Poet; “without, +rather than not at all. It is the fulfilment of the woman’s +law.”</p> +<p>“You would make of us goods and chattels,” cried the +Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“I would make of you what you are,” returned the Minor +Poet, “the priestesses of Nature’s temple, leading man to +the worship of her mysteries. An American humorist has described +marriage as the craving of some young man to pay for some young woman’s +board and lodging. There is no escaping from this definition; +let us accept it. It is beautiful - so far as the young man is +concerned. He sacrifices himself, deprives himself, that he may +give. That is love. But from the woman’s point of +view? If she accept thinking only of herself, then it is a sordid +bargain on her part. To understand her, to be just to her, we +must look deeper. Not sexual, but maternal love is her kingdom. +She gives herself not to her lover, but through her lover to the great +Goddess of the Myriad Breasts that shadows ever with her guardian wings +Life from the outstretched hand of Death.”</p> +<p>“She may be a nice enough girl from Nature’s point of +view,” said the Old Maid; “personally, I shall never like +her.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>“What is the time?” asked the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>I looked at my watch. “Twenty past four,” I answered.</p> +<p>“Exactly?” demanded the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“Precisely,” I replied.</p> +<p>“Strange,” murmured the Girton Girl. “There +is no accounting for it, yet it always is so.”</p> +<p>“What is there no accounting for?” I inquired. +“What is strange?”</p> +<p>“It is a German superstition,” explained the Girton Girl, +“I learnt it at school. Whenever complete silence falls +upon any company, it is always twenty minutes past the hour.”</p> +<p>“Why do we talk so much?” demanded the Minor Poet.</p> +<p>“As a matter of fact,” observed the Woman of the World, +“I don’t think we do - not we, personally, not much. +Most of our time we appear to be listening to you.”</p> +<p>“Then why do I talk so much, if you prefer to put it that way?” +continued the Minor Poet. “If I talked less, one of you +others would have to talk more.”</p> +<p>“There would be that advantage about it,” agreed the +Philosopher.</p> +<p>“In all probability, you,” returned to him the Minor +Poet. “Whether as a happy party we should gain or lose by +the exchange, it is not for me to say, though I have my own opinion. +The essential remains - that the stream of chatter must be kept perpetually +flowing. Why?”</p> +<p>“There is a man I know,” I said; “you may have +met him, a man named Longrush. He is not exactly a bore. +A bore expects you to listen to him. This man is apparently unaware +whether you are listening to him or not. He is not a fool. +A fool is occasionally amusing - Longrush never. No subject comes +amiss to him. Whatever the topic, he has something uninteresting +to say about it. He talks as a piano-organ grinds out music steadily, +strenuously, tirelessly. The moment you stand or sit him down +he begins, to continue ceaselessly till wheeled away in cab or omnibus +to his next halting-place. As in the case of his prototype, his +rollers are changed about once a month to suit the popular taste. +In January he repeats to you Dan Leno’s jokes, and gives you other +people’s opinions concerning the Old Masters at the Guild-hall. +In June he recounts at length what is generally thought concerning the +Academy, and agrees with most people on most points connected with the +Opera. If forgetful for a moment - as an Englishman may be excused +for being - whether it be summer or winter, one may assure oneself by +waiting to see whether Longrush is enthusing over cricket or football. +He is always up-to-date. The last new Shakespeare, the latest +scandal, the man of the hour, the next nine days’ wonder - by +the evening Longrush has his roller ready. In my early days of +journalism I had to write each evening a column for a provincial daily, +headed ‘What People are Saying.’ The editor was precise +in his instructions. ‘I don’t want your opinions; +I don’t want you to be funny; never mind whether the thing appears +to you to be interesting or not. I want it to be real, the things +people <i>are</i> saying.’ I tried to be conscientious. +Each paragraph began with ‘That.’ I wrote the column +because I wanted the thirty shillings. Why anybody ever read it, +I fail to understand to this day; but I believe it was one of the popular +features of the paper. Longrush invariably brings back to my mind +the dreary hours I spent penning that fatuous record.”</p> +<p>“I think I know the man you mean,” said the Philosopher. +“I had forgotten his name.”</p> +<p>“I thought it possible you might have met him,” I replied. +“Well, my cousin Edith was arranging a dinner-party the other +day, and, as usual, she did me the honour to ask my advice. Generally +speaking, I do not give advice nowadays. As a very young man I +was generous with it. I have since come to the conclusion that +responsibility for my own muddles and mistakes is sufficient. +However, I make an exception in Edith’s case, knowing that never +by any chance will she follow it.”</p> +<p>“Speaking of editors,” said the Philosopher, “Bates +told me at the club the other night that he had given up writing the +‘Answers to Correspondents’ personally, since discovery +of the fact that he had been discussing at some length the attractive +topic, ‘Duties of a Father,’ with his own wife, who is somewhat +of a humorist.”</p> +<p>“There was the wife of a clergyman my mother used to tell of,” +said the Woman of the World, “who kept copies of her husband’s +sermons. She would read him extracts from them in bed, in place +of curtain lectures. She explained it saved her trouble. +Everything she felt she wanted to say to him he had said himself so +much more forcibly.”</p> +<p>“The argument always appears to me weak,” said the Philosopher. +“If only the perfect may preach, our pulpits would remain empty. +Am I to ignore the peace that slips into my soul when perusing the Psalms, +to deny myself all benefit from the wisdom of the Proverbs, because +neither David nor Solomon was a worthy casket of the jewels that God +had placed in them? Is a temperance lecturer never to quote the +self-reproaches of poor Cassio because Master Will Shakespeare, there +is evidence to prove, was a gentleman, alas! much too fond of the bottle? +The man that beats the drum may be himself a coward. It is the +drum that is the important thing to us, not the drummer.”</p> +<p>“Of all my friends,” said the Woman of the World, “the +one who has the most trouble with her servants is poor Jane Meredith.”</p> +<p>“I am exceedingly sorry to hear it,” observed the Philosopher, +after a slight pause. “But forgive me, I really do not see +- ”</p> +<p>“I beg your pardon,” answered the Woman of the World. +“I thought everybody knew ‘Jane Meredith.’ She +writes ‘The Perfect Home’ column for <i>The Woman’s +World</i>.”</p> +<p>“It will always remain a riddle, one supposes,” said +the Minor Poet. “Which is the real ego - I, the author of +‘The Simple Life,’ fourteenth edition, three and sixpence +net - ”</p> +<p>“Don’t,” pleaded the Old Maid, with a smile; “please +don’t.”</p> +<p>“Don’t what?” demanded the Minor Poet.</p> +<p>“Don’t ridicule it - make fun of it, even though it may +happen to be your own. There are parts of it I know by heart. +I say them over to myself when - Don’t spoil it for me.” +The Old Maid laughed, but nervously.</p> +<p>“My dear lady,” reassured her the Minor Poet, “do +not be afraid. No one regards that poem with more reverence than +do I. You can have but small conception what a help it is to me +also. I, too, so often read it to myself; and when - We +understand. As one who turns his back on scenes of riot to drink +the moonlight in quiet ways, I go to it for sweetness and for peace. +So much do I admire the poem, I naturally feel desire and curiosity +to meet its author, to know him. I should delight, drawing him +aside from the crowded room, to grasp him by the hand, to say to him: +‘My dear - my very dear Mr. Minor Poet, I am so glad to meet you! +I would I could tell you how much your beautiful work has helped me. +This, my dear sir - this is indeed privilege!’ But I can +picture so vividly the bored look with which he would receive my gush. +I can imagine the contempt with which he, the pure liver, would regard +me did he know me - me, the liver of the fool’s hot days.”</p> +<p>“A short French story I once read somewhere,” I said, +“rather impressed me. A poet or dramatist - I am not sure +which - had married the daughter of a provincial notary. There +was nothing particularly attractive about her except her <i>dot</i>. +He had run through his own small fortune and was in some need. +She worshipped him and was, as he used to boast to his friends, the +ideal wife for a poet. She cooked admirably - a useful accomplishment +during the first half-dozen years of their married life; and afterwards, +when fortune came to him, managed his affairs to perfection, by her +care and economy keeping all worldly troubles away from his study door. +An ideal <i>Hausfrau</i>, undoubtedly, but of course no companion for +our poet. So they went their ways; till, choosing as in all things +the right moment, when she could best be spared, the good lady died +and was buried.</p> +<p>“And here begins the interest of the story, somewhat late. +One article of furniture, curiously out of place among the rich appointments +of their fine <i>hôtel</i>, the woman had insisted on retaining, +a heavy, clumsily carved oak desk her father had once used in his office, +and which he had given to her for her own as a birthday present back +in the days of her teens.</p> +<p>“You must read the story for yourselves if you would enjoy +the subtle sadness that surrounds it, the delicate aroma of regret through +which it moves. The husband finding after some little difficulty +the right key, fits it into the lock of the bureau. As a piece +of furniture, plain, solid, squat, it has always jarred upon his artistic +sense. She too, his good, affectionate Sara, had been plain, solid, +a trifle squat. Perhaps that was why the poor woman had clung +so obstinately to the one thing in the otherwise perfect house that +was quite out of place there. Ah, well! she is gone now, the good +creature. And the bureau - no, the bureau shall remain. +Nobody will need to come into this room, no one ever did come there +but the woman herself. Perhaps she had not been altogether so +happy as she might have been. A husband less intellectual - one +from whom she would not have lived so far apart - one who could have +entered into her simple, commonplace life! it might have been better +for both of them. He draws down the lid, pulls out the largest +drawer. It is full of manuscripts, folded and tied neatly with +ribbons once gay, now faded. He thinks at first they are his own +writings - things begun and discarded, reserved by her with fondness. +She thought so much of him, the good soul! Really, she could not have +been so dull as he had deemed her. The power to appreciate rightly +- this, at least, she must have possessed. He unties the ribbon. +No, the writing is her own, corrected, altered, underlined. He +opens a second, a third. Then with a smile he sits down to read. +What can they be like, these poems, these stories? He laughs, +smoothing the crumpled paper, foreseeing the trite commonness, the shallow +sentiment. The poor child! So she likewise would have been +a <i>littérateure</i>. Even she had her ambition, her dream.</p> +<p>“The sunshine climbs the wall behind him, creeps stealthily +across the ceiling of the room, slips out softly by the window, leaving +him alone. All these years he had been living with a fellow poet. +They should have been comrades, and they had never spoken. Why +had she hidden herself? Why had she left him, never revealing +herself? Years ago, when they were first married - he remembers +now - she had slipped little blue-bound copy-books into his pocket, +laughing, blushing, asking him to read them. How could he have +guessed? Of course, he had forgotten them. Later, they had +disappeared again; it had never occurred to him to think. Often +in the earlier days she had tried to talk to him about his work. +Had he but looked into her eyes, he might have understood. But +she had always been so homely-seeming, so good. Who would have +suspected? Then suddenly the blood rushes into his face. +What must have been her opinion of his work? All these years he +had imagined her the amazed devotee, uncomprehending but admiring. +He had read to her at times, comparing himself the while with Molière +reading to his cook. What right had she to play this trick upon +him? The folly of it! The pity of it! He would have +been so glad of her.”</p> +<p>“What becomes, I wonder,” mused the Philosopher, “of +the thoughts that are never spoken? We know that in Nature nothing +is wasted; the very cabbage is immortal, living again in altered form. +A thought published or spoken we can trace, but such must only be a +small percentage. It often occurs to me walking down the street. +Each man and woman that I pass by, each silently spinning his silken +thought, short or long, fine or coarse. What becomes of it?”</p> +<p>“I heard you say once,” remarked the Old Maid to the +Minor Poet, “that ‘thoughts are in the air,’ that +the poet but gathers them as a child plucks wayside blossoms to shape +them into nosegays.”</p> +<p>“It was in confidence,” replied the Minor Poet. +“Please do not let it get about, or my publisher will use it as +an argument for cutting down my royalties.”</p> +<p>“I have always remembered it,” answered the Old Maid. +“It seemed so true. A thought suddenly comes to you. +I think of them sometimes, as of little motherless babes creeping into +our brains for shelter.”</p> +<p>“It is a pretty idea,” mused the Minor Poet. “I +shall see them in the twilight: pathetic little round-eyed things of +goblin shape, dimly luminous against the darkening air. Whence +come you, little tender Thought, tapping at my brain? From the +lonely forest, where the peasant mother croons above the cradle while +she knits? Thought of Love and Longing: lies your gallant father +with his boyish eyes unblinking underneath some tropic sun? Thought +of Life and Thought of Death: are you of patrician birth, cradled by +some high-born maiden, pacing slowly some sweet garden? Or did +you spring to life amid the din of loom or factory? Poor little +nameless foundlings! I shall feel myself in future quite a philanthropist, +taking them in, adopting them.”</p> +<p>“You have not yet decided,” reminded him the Woman of +the World, “which you really are: the gentleman we get for three +and sixpence net, or the one we are familiar with, the one we get for +nothing.”</p> +<p>“Please don’t think I am suggesting any comparison,” +continued the Woman of the World, “but I have been interested +in the question since George joined a Bohemian club and has taken to +bringing down minor celebrities from Saturday to Monday. I hope +I am not narrow-minded, but there is one gentleman I have been compelled +to put my foot down on.”</p> +<p>“I really do not think he will complain,” I interrupted. +The Woman of the World possesses, I should explain, the daintiest of +feet.</p> +<p>“It is heavier than you think,” replied the Woman of +the World. “George persists I ought to put up with him because +he is a true poet. I cannot admit the argument. The poet +I honestly admire. I like to have him about the place. He +lies on my drawing-room table in white vellum, and helps to give tone +to the room. For the poet I am quite prepared to pay the four-and-six +demanded; the man I don’t want. To be candid, he is not +worth his own discount.”</p> +<p>“It is hardly fair,” urged the Minor Poet, “to +confine the discussion to poets. A friend of mine some years ago +married one of the most charming women in New York, and that is saying +a good deal. Everybody congratulated him, and at the outset he +was pleased enough with himself. I met him two years later in +Geneva, and we travelled together as far as Rome. He and his wife +scarcely spoke to one another the whole journey, and before I left him +he was good enough to give me advice which to another man might be useful. +‘Never marry a charming woman,’ he counselled me. +‘Anything more unutterably dull than “the charming woman” +outside business hours you cannot conceive.’”</p> +<p>“I think we must agree to regard the preacher,” concluded +the Philosopher, “merely as a brother artist. The singer +may be a heavy, fleshy man with a taste for beer, but his voice stirs +our souls. The preacher holds aloft his banner of purity. +He waves it over his own head as much as over the heads of those around +him. He does not cry with the Master, ‘Come to Me,’ +but ‘Come with me, and be saved.’ The prayer ‘Forgive +them’ was the prayer not of the Priest, but of the God. +The prayer dictated to the Disciples was ‘Forgive us,’ ‘Deliver +us.’ Not that he should be braver, not that he should be +stronger than they that press behind him, is needed of the leader, but +that he should know the way. He, too, may faint, he, too, may +fall; only he alone must never turn his back.”</p> +<p>“It is quite comprehensible, looked at from one point of view,” +remarked the Minor Poet, “that he who gives most to others should +himself be weak. The professional athlete pays, I believe, the +price of central weakness. It is a theory of mine that the charming, +delightful people one meets with in society are people who have dishonestly +kept to themselves gifts entrusted to them by Nature for the benefit +of the whole community. Your conscientious, hard-working humorist +is in private life a dull dog. The dishonest trustee of laughter, +on the other hand, robbing the world of wit bestowed upon him for public +purposes, becomes a brilliant conversationalist.”</p> +<p>“But,” added the Minor Poet, turning to me, “you +were speaking of a man named Longrush, a great talker.”</p> +<p>“A long talker,” I corrected. “My cousin +mentioned him third in her list of invitations. ‘Longrush,’ +she said with conviction, ‘we must have Longrush.’ +‘Isn’t he rather tiresome?’ I suggested. ‘He +is tiresome,’ she agreed, ‘but then he’s so useful. +He never lets the conversation drop.’”</p> +<p>“Why is it?” asked the Minor Poet. “Why, +when we meet together, must we chatter like a mob of sparrows? +Why must every assembly to be successful sound like the parrot-house +of a zoological garden?”</p> +<p>“I remember a parrot story,” I said, “but I forget +who told it to me.”</p> +<p>“Maybe one of us will remember as you go on,” suggested +the Philosopher.</p> +<p>“A man,” I said - “an old farmer, if I remember +rightly - had read a lot of parrot stories, or had heard them at the +club. As a result he thought he would like himself to be the owner +of a parrot, so journeyed to a dealer and, according to his own account, +paid rather a long price for a choice specimen. A week later he +re-entered the shop, the parrot borne behind him by a boy. ‘This +bird,’ said the farmer, ‘this bird you sold me last week +ain’t worth a sovereign!’ ‘What’s the +matter with it?’ demanded the dealer. ‘How do I know +what’s the matter with the bird?’ answered the farmer. +‘What I tell you is that it ain’t worth a sovereign - ‘tain’ +t worth a half a sovereign!’ ‘Why not?’ persisted +the dealer; ‘it talks all right, don’t it?’ +‘Talks!’ retorted the indignant farmer, ‘the damn +thing talks all day, but it never says anything funny!’”</p> +<p>“A friend of mine,” said the Philosopher, “once +had a parrot - ”</p> +<p>“Won’t you come into the garden?” said the Woman +of the World, rising and leading the way.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>“Myself,” said the Minor Poet, “I read the book +with the most intense enjoyment. I found it inspiring - so inspiring, +I fear I did not give it sufficient attention. I must read it +again.”</p> +<p>“I understand you,” said the Philosopher. “A +book that really interests us makes us forget that we are reading. +Just as the most delightful conversation is when nobody in particular +appears to be talking.”</p> +<p>“Do you remember meeting that Russian man George brought down +here about three months ago?” asked the Woman of the World, turning +to the Minor Poet. “I forget his name. As a matter +of fact, I never knew it. It was quite unpronounceable and, except +that it ended, of course, with a double f, equally impossible to spell. +I told him frankly at the beginning I should call him by his Christian +name, which fortunately was Nicholas. He was very nice about it.”</p> +<p>“I remember him distinctly,” said the Minor Poet. +“A charming man.”</p> +<p>“He was equally charmed with you,” replied the Woman +of the World.</p> +<p>“I can credit it easily,” murmured the Minor Poet. +“One of the most intelligent men I ever met.”</p> +<p>“You talked together for two hours in a corner,” said +the Woman of the World. “I asked him when you had gone what +he thought of you. ‘Ah! what a talker!’ he exclaimed, +making a gesture of admiration with his hands. ‘I thought +maybe you would notice it,’ I answered him. ‘Tell +me, what did he talk about?’ I was curious to know; you +had been so absorbed in yourselves and so oblivious to the rest of us. +‘Upon my word,’ he replied, ‘I really cannot tell +you. Do you know, I am afraid, now I come to think of it, that +I must have monopolised the conversation.’ I was glad to +be able to ease his mind on that point. ‘I really don’t +think you did,’ I assured him. I should have felt equally +confident had I not been present.”</p> +<p>“You were quite correct,” returned the Minor Poet. +“I have a distinct recollection of having made one or two observations +myself. Indeed, if I may say so, I talked rather well.”</p> +<p>“You may also recollect,” continued the Woman of the +World, “that the next time we met I asked you what he had said, +and that your mind was equally a blank on the subject. You admitted +you had found him interesting. I was puzzled at the time, but +now I begin to understand. Both of you, no doubt, found the conversation +so brilliant, each of you felt it must have been your own.”</p> +<p>“A good book,” I added - “a good talk is like a +good dinner: one assimilates it. The best dinner is the dinner +you do not know you have eaten.”</p> +<p>“A thing will often suggest interesting thought,” observed +the Old Maid, “without being interesting. Often I find the +tears coming into my eyes as I witness some stupid melodrama - something +said, something hinted at, will stir a memory, start a train of thought.”</p> +<p>“I once,” I said, “sat next to a country-man in +the pit of a music-hall some years ago. He enjoyed himself thoroughly +up to half-past ten. Songs about mothers-in-law, drunken wives, +and wooden legs he roared at heartily. At ten-thirty entered a +well-known <i>artiste</i> who was then giving a series of what he called +‘Condensed Tragedies in Verse.’ At the first two my +country friend chuckled hugely. The third ran: ‘Little boy; +pair of skates: broken ice; heaven’s gates.’ My friend +turned white, rose hurriedly, and pushed his way impatiently out of +the house. I left myself some ten minutes later, and by chance +ran against him again in the bar of the ‘Criterion,’ where +he was drinking whisky rather copiously. ‘I couldn’t +stand that fool,’ he explained to me in a husky voice. ‘Truth +is, my youngest kid got drowned last winter skating. Don’t +see any sense making fun of real trouble.’”</p> +<p>“I can cap your story with another,” said the Philosopher. +“Jim sent me a couple of seats for one of his first nights a month +or two ago. They did not reach me till four o’clock in the +afternoon. I went down to the club to see if I could pick up anybody. +The only man there I knew at all was a rather quiet young fellow, a +new member. He had just taken Bates’s chambers in Staple +Inn - you have met him, I think. He didn’t know many people +then and was grateful for my invitation. The play was one of those +Palais Royal farces - it cannot matter which, they are all exactly alike. +The fun consists of somebody’s trying to sin without being found +out. It always goes well. The British public invariably +welcomes the theme, provided it be dealt with in a merry fashion. +It is only the serious discussion of evil that shocks us. There +was the usual banging of doors and the usual screaming. Everybody +was laughing around us. My young friend sat with rather a curious +fixed smile upon his face. ‘Fairly well constructed,’ +I said to him, as the second curtain fell amid yells of delight. +‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘I suppose it’s very funny.’ +I looked at him; he was little more than a boy. ‘You are +rather young,’ I said, ‘to be a moralist.’ He +gave a short laugh. ‘Oh! I shall grow out of it in time,’ +he said. He told me his story later, when I came to know him better. +He had played the farce himself over in Melbourne - he was an Australian. +Only the third act had ended differently. His girl wife, of whom +he was passionately fond, had taken it quite seriously and had committed +suicide. A foolish thing to do.”</p> +<p>“Man is a beast!” said the Girton Girl, who was prone +to strong expression.</p> +<p>“I thought so myself when I was younger,” said the Woman +of the World.</p> +<p>“And don’t you now, when you hear a thing like that?” +suggested the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“Certainly, my dear,” replied the Woman of the World; +“there is a deal of the animal in man; but - well, I was myself +expressing that same particular view of him, the brute, to a very old +lady with whom I was spending a winter in Brussels, many years ago now, +when I was quite a girl. She had been a friend of my father’s, +and was one of the sweetest and kindest - I was almost going to say +the most perfect woman I have ever met; though as a celebrated beauty, +stories, dating from the early Victorian era, were told about her. +But myself I never believed them. Her calm, gentle, passionless +face, crowned with its soft, silver hair - I remember my first sight +of the Matterhorn on a summer’s evening; somehow it at once reminded +me of her.”</p> +<p>“My dear,” laughed the Old Maid, “your anecdotal +method is becoming as jerky as a cinematograph.”</p> +<p>“I have noticed it myself,” replied the Woman of the +World; “I try to get in too much.”</p> +<p>“The art of the <i>raconteur</i>,” observed the Philosopher, +“consists in avoiding the unessential. I have a friend who +never yet to my knowledge reached the end of a story. It is intensely +unimportant whether the name of the man who said the thing or did the +deed be Brown or Jones or Robinson. But she will worry herself +into a fever trying to recollect. ‘Dear, dear me!’ +she will leave off to exclaim; ‘I know his name so well. +How stupid of me!’ She will tell you why she ought to recollect +his name, how she always has recollected his name till this precise +moment. She will appeal to half the people in the room to help +her. It is hopeless to try and induce her to proceed, the idea +has taken possession of her mind. After a world of unnecessary +trouble she recollects that it was Tomkins, and is delighted; only to +be plunged again into despair on discovery that she has forgotten his +address. This makes her so ashamed of herself she declines to +continue, and full of self-reproach she retires to her own room. +Later she re-enters, beaming, with the street and number pat. +But by that time she has forgotten the anecdote.”</p> +<p>“Well, tell us about your old lady, and what it was you said +to her,” spoke impatiently the Girton Girl, who is always eager +when the subject under discussion happens to be the imbecility or criminal +tendency of the opposite sex.</p> +<p>“I was at the age,” continued the Woman of the World, +“when a young girl tiring of fairy stories puts down the book +and looks round her at the world, and naturally feels indignant at what +she notices. I was very severe upon both the shortcomings and +the overgoings of man - our natural enemy. My old friend used +to laugh, and that made me think her callous and foolish. One +day our <i>bonne</i> - like all servants, a lover of gossip - came to +us delighted with a story which proved to me how just had been my estimate +of the male animal. The grocer at the corner of our <i>rue</i>, +married only four years to a charming and devoted little wife, had run +away and left her.</p> +<p>“‘He never gave her even a hint, the pretty angel!’<b> +</b>so Jeanne informed us. ‘Had had his box containing his +clothes and everything he wanted ready packed for a week, waiting for +him at the railway station - just told her he was going to play a game +of dominoes, and that she was not to sit up for him; kissed her and +the child good-night, and - well, that was the last she ever saw of +him. Did Madame ever hear the like of it?’ concluded Jeanne, +throwing up her hands to heaven. ‘I am sorry to say, Jeanne, +that I have,’ replied my sweet Madame with a sigh, and led the +conversation by slow degrees back to the subject of dinner. I +turned to her when Jeanne had left the room. I can remember still +the burning indignation of my face. I had often spoken to the +man myself, and had thought what a delightful husband he was - so kind, +so attentive, so proud, seemingly, of his dainty <i>femme</i>. +‘Doesn’t that prove what I say,’ I cried, ‘that +men are beasts?’ ‘I am afraid it helps in that direction,’ +replied my old friend. ‘And yet you defend them,’ +I answered. ‘At my age, my dear,’ she replied, ‘one +neither defends nor blames; one tries to understand.’ She +put her thin white hand upon my head. ‘Shall we hear a little +more of the story?’ she said. ‘It is not a pleasant +one, but it may be useful to us.’ ‘I don’t want +to hear any more of it,’ I answered; ‘I have heard enough.’ +‘It is sometimes well,’ she persisted, ‘to hear the +whole of a case before forming our judgment.’ And she rang +the bell for Jeanne. ‘That story about our little grocer +friend,’ she said - ‘it is rather interesting to me. +Why did he leave her and run away - do you know?’ Jeanne +shrugged her ample shoulders. ‘Oh! the old story, Madame,’ +she answered, with a short laugh. ‘Who was she?’ asked +my friend. ‘The wife of Monsieur Savary, the wheelwright, +as good a husband as ever a woman had. It’s been going on +for months, the hussy!’ ‘Thank you, that will do, +Jeanne.’ She turned again to me so soon as Jeanne had left +the room. ‘My dear,’ she said, ‘whenever I see +a bad man, I peep round the corner for the woman. Whenever I see +a bad woman, I follow her eyes; I know she is looking for her mate. +Nature never makes odd samples.’”</p> +<p>“I cannot help thinking,” said the Philosopher, “that +a good deal of harm is being done to the race as a whole by the overpraise +of women.”</p> +<p>“Who overpraises them?” demanded the Girton Girl. +“Men may talk nonsense to us - I don’t know whether any +of us are foolish enough to believe it - but I feel perfectly sure that +when they are alone most of their time is occupied in abusing us.”</p> +<p>“That is hardly fair,” interrupted the Old Maid. +“I doubt if they do talk about us among themselves as much as +we think. Besides, it is always unwise to go behind the verdict. +Some very beautiful things have been said about women by men.”</p> +<p>“Well, ask them,” said the Girton Girl. “Here +are three of them present. Now, honestly, when you talk about +us among yourselves, do you gush about our virtue, and goodness, and +wisdom?”</p> +<p>“‘Gush,’” said the Philosopher, reflecting, +“‘gush’ would hardly be the correct word.”</p> +<p>“In justice to the truth,” I said, “I must admit +our Girton friend is to a certain extent correct. Every man at +some time of his life esteems to excess some one particular woman. +Very young men, lacking in experience, admire perhaps indiscriminately. +To them, anything in a petticoat is adorable: the milliner makes the +angel. And very old men, so I am told, return to the delusions +of their youth; but as to this I cannot as yet speak positively. +The rest of us - well, when we are alone, it must be confessed, as our +Philosopher says, that ‘gush’ is not the correct word.”</p> +<p>“I told you so,” chortled the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“Maybe,” I added, “it is merely the result of reaction. +Convention insists that to her face we show her a somewhat exaggerated +deference. Her very follies we have to regard as added charms +- the poets have decreed it. Maybe it comes as a relief to let +the pendulum swing back.”</p> +<p>“But is it not a fact,” asked the Old Maid, “that +the best men and even the wisest are those who have held women in most +esteem? Do we not gauge civilization by the position a nation +accords to its women?”</p> +<p>“In the same way as we judge them by the mildness of their +laws, their tenderness for the weak. Uncivilised man killed off +the useless numbers of the tribe; we provide for them hospitals, almshouses. +Man’s attitude towards woman proves the extent to which he has +conquered his own selfishness, the distance he has travelled from the +law of the ape: might is right.</p> +<p>“Please don’t misunderstand me,” pleaded the Philosopher, +with a nervous glance towards the lowering eyebrows of the Girton Girl. +“I am not saying for a moment woman is not the equal of man; indeed, +it is my belief that she is. I am merely maintaining she is not +his superior. The wise man honours woman as his friend, his fellow-labourer, +his complement. It is the fool who imagines her unhuman.”</p> +<p>“But are we not better,” persisted the Old Maid, “for +our ideals? I don’t say we women are perfect - please don’t +think that. You are not more alive to our faults than we are. +Read the women novelists from George Eliot downwards. But for +your own sake - is it not well man should have something to look up +to, and failing anything better - ?”</p> +<p>“I draw a very wide line,” answered the Philosopher, +“between ideals and delusions. The ideal has always helped +man; but that belongs to the land of his dreams, his most important +kingdom, the kingdom of his future. Delusions are earthly structures, +that sooner or later fall about his ears, blinding him with dust and +dirt. The petticoat-governed country has always paid dearly for +its folly.”</p> +<p>“Elizabeth!” cried the Girton Girl. “Queen +Victoria!”</p> +<p>“Were ideal sovereigns,” returned the Philosopher, “leaving +the government of the country to its ablest men. France under +its Pompadours, the Byzantine Empire under its Theodoras, are truer +examples of my argument. I am speaking of the unwisdom of assuming +all women to be perfect. Belisarius ruined himself and his people +by believing his own wife to be an honest woman.”</p> +<p>“But chivalry,” I argued, “has surely been of service +to mankind?”</p> +<p>“To an immense extent,” agreed the Philosopher. +“It seized a natural human passion and turned it to good uses. +Then it was a reality. So once was the divine right of kings, +the infallibility of the Church, for cumbering the ground with the lifeless +bodies of which mankind has paid somewhat dearly. Not its upstanding +lies - they can be faced and defeated - but its dead truths are the +world’s stumbling-blocks. To the man of war and rapine, +trained in cruelty and injustice, the woman was the one thing that spoke +of the joy of yielding. Woman, as compared with man, was then +an angel: it was no mere form of words. All the tender offices +of life were in her hands. To the warrior, his life divided between +fighting and debauchery, his womenfolk tending the sick, helping the +weak, comforting the sorrowing, must have moved with white feet across +a world his vices had made dark. Her mere subjection to the priesthood, +her inborn feminine delight in form and ceremony - now an influence +narrowing her charity - must then, to his dim eyes, trained to look +upon dogma as the living soul of his religion, have seemed a halo, deifying +her. Woman was then the servant. It was naturally to her +advantage to excite tenderness and mercy in man. Since she has +become the mistress of the world. It is no longer her interested +mission to soften his savage instincts. Nowadays, it is the women +who make war, the women who exalt brute force. Today, it is the +woman who, happy herself, turns a deaf ear to the world’s low +cry of pain; holding that man honoured who would ignore the good of +the species to augment the comforts of his own particular family; holding +in despite as a bad husband and father the man whose sense of duty extends +beyond the circle of the home. One recalls Lady Nelson’s +reproach to her lord after the battle of the Nile. ‘I have +married a wife, and therefore cannot come,’ is the answer to his +God that many a woman has prompted to her lover’s tongue. +I was speaking to a woman only the other day about the cruelty of skinning +seals alive. ‘I feel so sorry for the poor creatures,’ +she murmured; ‘but they say it gives so much more depth of colour +to the fur.’ Her own jacket was certainly a very beautiful +specimen.”</p> +<p>“When I was editing a paper,” I said, “I opened +my columns to a correspondence on this very subject. Many letters +were sent to me - most of them trite, many of them foolish. One, +a genuine document, I remember. It came from a girl who for six +years had been assistant to a fashionable dressmaker. She was +rather tired of the axiom that all women, at all times, are perfection. +She suggested that poets and novelists should take service for a year +in any large drapery or millinery establishment where they would have +an opportunity of studying woman in her natural state, so to speak.”</p> +<p>“It is unfair to judge us by what, I confess, is our chief +weakness,” argued the Woman of the World. “Woman in +pursuit of clothes ceases to be human - she reverts to the original +brute. Besides, dressmakers can be very trying. The fault +is not entirely on one side.”</p> +<p>“I still fail to be convinced,” remarked the Girton Girl, +“that woman is over-praised. Not even the present conversation, +so far as it has gone, altogether proves your point.”</p> +<p>“I am not saying it is the case among intelligent thinkers,” +explained the Philosopher, “but in popular literature the convention +still lingers. To woman’s face no man cares to protest against +it; and woman, to her harm, has come to accept it as a truism. +‘What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice and all +that’s nice.’ In more or less varied form the idea +has entered into her blood, shutting out from her hope of improvement. +The girl is discouraged from asking herself the occasionally needful +question: Am I on the way to becoming a sound, useful member of society? +Or am I in danger of degenerating into a vain, selfish, lazy piece of +good-for-nothing rubbish? She is quite content so long as she +can detect in herself no tendency to male vices, forgetful that there +are also feminine vices. Woman is the spoilt child of the age. +No one tells her of her faults. The World with its thousand voices +flatters her. Sulks, bad temper, and pig-headed obstinacy are +translated as ‘pretty Fanny’s wilful ways.’ +Cowardice, contemptible in man or woman, she is encouraged to cultivate +as a charm. Incompetence to pack her own bag or find her own way +across a square and round a corner is deemed an attraction. Abnormal +ignorance and dense stupidity entitle her to pose as the poetical ideal. +If she give a penny to a street beggar, selecting generally the fraud, +or kiss a puppy’s nose, we exhaust the language of eulogy, proclaiming +her a saint. The marvel to me is that, in spite of the folly upon +which they are fed, so many of them grow to be sensible women.”</p> +<p>“Myself,” remarked the Minor Poet, “I find much +comfort in the conviction that talk, as talk, is responsible for much +less good and much less harm in the world than we who talk are apt to +imagine. Words to grow and bear fruit must fall upon the earth +of fact.”</p> +<p>“But you hold it right to fight against folly?” demanded +the Philosopher.</p> +<p>“Heavens, yes!” cried the Minor Poet. “That +is how one knows it is Folly - if we can kill it. Against the +Truth our arrows rattle harmlessly.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>“But what is her reason?” demanded the Old Maid.</p> +<p>“Reason! I don’t believe any of them have any reason.” +The Woman of the World showed sign of being short of temper, a condition +of affairs startlingly unusual to her. “Says she hasn’t +enough work to do.”</p> +<p>“She must be an extraordinary woman,” commented the Old +Maid.</p> +<p>“The trouble I have put myself to in order to keep that woman, +just because George likes her savouries, no one would believe,” +continued indignantly the Woman of the World. “We have had +a dinner party regularly once a week for the last six months, entirely +for her benefit. Now she wants me to give two. I won’t +do it!”</p> +<p>“If I could be of any service?” offered the Minor Poet. +“My digestion is not what it once was, but I could make up in +quality - a <i>recherché</i> little banquet twice a week, say +on Wednesdays and Saturdays, I would make a point of eating with you. +If you think that would content her!”</p> +<p>“It is really thoughtful of you,” replied the Woman of +the World, “but I cannot permit it. Why should you be dragged +from the simple repast suitable to a poet merely to oblige my cook? +It is not reason.”</p> +<p>“I was thinking rather of you,” continued the Minor Poet.</p> +<p>“I’ve half a mind,” said the Woman of the World, +“to give up housekeeping altogether and go into an hotel. +I don’t like the idea, but really servants are becoming impossible.”</p> +<p>“It is very interesting,” said the Minor Poet.</p> +<p>“I am glad you find it so!” snapped the Woman of the +World.</p> +<p>“What is interesting?” I asked the Minor Poet.</p> +<p>“That the tendency of the age,” he replied, “should +be slowly but surely driving us into the practical adoption of a social +state that for years we have been denouncing the Socialists for merely +suggesting. Everywhere the public-houses are multiplying, the +private dwellings diminishing.”</p> +<p>“Can you wonder at it?” commented the Woman of the World. +“You men talk about ‘the joys of home.’ Some +of you write poetry - generally speaking, one of you who lives in chambers, +and spends two-thirds of his day at a club.” We were sitting +in the garden. The attention of the Minor Poet became riveted +upon the sunset. “‘Ethel and I by the fire.’ +Ethel never gets a chance of sitting by the fire. So long as you +are there, comfortable, you do not notice that she has left the room +to demand explanation why the drawing-room scuttle is always filled +with slack, and the best coal burnt in the kitchen range. Home +to us women is our place of business that we never get away from.”</p> +<p>“I suppose,” said the Girton Girl - to my surprise she +spoke with entire absence of indignation. As a rule, the Girton +Girl stands for what has been termed “divine discontent” +with things in general. In the course of time she will outlive +her surprise at finding the world so much less satisfactory an abode +than she had been led to suppose - also her present firm conviction +that, given a free hand, she could put the whole thing right in a quarter +of an hour. There are times even now when her tone suggests less +certainty of her being the first person who has ever thought seriously +about the matter. “I suppose,” said the Girton Girl, +“it comes of education. Our grandmothers were content to +fill their lives with these small household duties. They rose +early, worked with their servants, saw to everything with their own +eyes. Nowadays we demand time for self-development, for reading, +for thinking, for pleasure. Household drudgery, instead of being +the object of our life, has become an interference to it. We resent +it.”</p> +<p>“The present revolt of woman,” continued the Minor Poet, +“will be looked back upon by the historian of the future as one +of the chief factors in our social evolution. The ‘home’ +- the praises of which we still sing, but with gathering misgiving - +depended on her willingness to live a life of practical slavery. +When Adam delved and Eve span - Adam confining his delving to the space +within his own fence, Eve staying her spinning-wheel the instant the +family hosiery was complete - then the home rested upon the solid basis +of an actual fact. Its foundations were shaken when the man became +a citizen and his interests expanded beyond the domestic circle. +Since that moment woman alone has supported the institution. Now +she, in her turn, is claiming the right to enter the community, to escape +from the solitary confinement of the lover’s castle. The +‘mansions,’ with common dining-rooms, reading-rooms, their +system of common service, are springing up in every quarter; the house, +the villa, is disappearing. The story is the same in every country. +The separate dwelling, where it remains, is being absorbed into a system. +In America, the experimental laboratory of the future, the houses are +warmed from a common furnace. You do not light the fire, you turn +on the hot air. Your dinner is brought round to you in a travelling +oven. You subscribe for your valet or your lady’s maid. +Very soon the private establishment, with its staff of unorganised, +quarrelling servants, of necessity either over or underworked, will +be as extinct as the lake dwelling or the sandstone cave.”</p> +<p>“I hope,” said the Woman of the World, “that I +may live to see it.”</p> +<p>“In all probability,” replied the Minor Poet, “you +will. I would I could feel as hopeful for myself.”</p> +<p>“If your prophecy be likely of fulfilment,” remarked +the Philosopher, “I console myself with the reflection that I +am the oldest of the party. Myself; I never read these full and +exhaustive reports of the next century without revelling in the reflection +that before they can be achieved I shall be dead and buried. It +may be a selfish attitude, but I should be quite unable to face any +of the machine-made futures our growing guild of seers prognosticate. +You appear to me, most of you, to ignore a somewhat important consideration +- namely, that mankind is alive. You work out your answers as +if he were a sum in rule-of-three: ‘If man in so many thousands +of years has done so much in such a direction at this or that rate of +speed, what will he be doing - ?’ and so on. You forget +he is swayed by impulses that can enter into no calculation - drawn +hither and thither by powers that can never be represented in your algebra. +In one generation Christianity reduced Plato’s republic to an +absurdity. The printing-press has upset the unanswerable conclusions +of Machiavelli.”</p> +<p>“I disagree with you,” said the Minor Poet.</p> +<p>“The fact does not convince me of my error,” retorted +the Philosopher.</p> +<p>“Christianity,” continued the Minor Poet, “gave +merely an added force to impulses the germs of which were present in +the infant race. The printing-press, teaching us to think in communities, +has nonplussed to a certain extent the aims of the individual as opposed +to those of humanity. Without prejudice, without sentiment, cast +your eye back over the panorama of the human race. What is the +picture that presents itself? Scattered here and there over the +wild, voiceless desert, first the holes and caves, next the rude-built +huts, the wigwams, the lake dwellings of primitive man. Lonely, +solitary, followed by his dam and brood, he creeps through the tall +grass, ever with watchful, terror-haunted eyes; satisfies his few desires; +communicates, by means of a few grunts and signs, his tiny store of +knowledge to his offspring; then, crawling beneath a stone, or into +some tangled corner of the jungle, dies and disappears. We look +again. A thousand centuries have flashed and faded. The +surface of the earth is flecked with strange quivering patches: here, +where the sun shines on the wood and sea, close together, almost touching +one another; there, among the shadows, far apart. The Tribe has +formed itself. The whole tiny mass moves forward, halts, runs +backwards, stirred always by one common impulse. Man has learnt +the secret of combination, of mutual help. The City rises. +From its stone centre spreads its power; the Nation leaps to life; civilisation +springs from leisure; no longer is each man’s life devoted to +his mere animal necessities. The artificer, the thinker - his +fellows shall protect him. Socrates dreams, Phidias carves the +marble, while Pericles maintains the law and Leonidas holds the Barbarian +at bay. Europe annexes piece by piece the dark places of the earth, +gives to them her laws. The Empire swallows the small State; Russia +stretches her arm round Asia. In London we toast the union of +the English-speaking peoples; in Berlin and Vienna we rub a salamander +to the <i>deutscher Bund</i>; in Paris we whisper of a communion of +the Latin races. In great things so in small. The stores, +the huge Emporium displaces the small shopkeeper; the Trust amalgamates +a hundred firms; the Union speaks for the worker. The limits of +country, of language, are found too narrow for the new Ideas. +German, American, or English - let what yard of coloured cotton you +choose float from the mizzenmast, the business of the human race is +their captain. One hundred and fifty years ago old Sam Johnson +waited in a patron’s anteroom; today the entire world invites +him to growl his table talk the while it takes its dish of tea. +The poet, the novelist, speak in twenty languages. Nationality +- it is the County Council of the future. The world’s high +roads run turnpike-free from pole to pole. One would be blind +not to see the goal towards which we are rushing. At the outside +it is but a generation or two off. It is one huge murmuring Hive +- one universal Hive just the size of the round earth. The bees +have been before us; they have solved the riddle towards which we in +darkness have been groping.</p> +<p>The Old Maid shuddered visibly. “What a terrible idea!” +she said.</p> +<p>“To us,” replied the Minor Poet; “not to those +who will come after us. The child dreads manhood. To Abraham, +roaming the world with his flocks, the life of your modern City man, +chained to his office from ten to four, would have seemed little better +than penal servitude.”</p> +<p>“My sympathies are with the Abrahamitical ideal,” observed +the Philosopher.</p> +<p>“Mine also,” agreed the Minor Poet. “But +neither you nor I represent the tendency of the age. We are its +curiosities. We, and such as we, serve as the brake regulating +the rate of progress. The genius of species shows itself moving +in the direction of the organised community - all life welded together, +controlled by one central idea. The individual worker is drawn +into the factory. Chippendale today would have been employed sketching +designs; the chair would have been put together by fifty workers, each +one trained to perfection in his own particular department. Why +does the hotel, with its five hundred servants, its catering for three +thousand mouths, work smoothly, while the desirable family residence, +with its two or three domestics, remains the scene of waste, confusion, +and dispute? We are losing the talent of living alone; the instinct +of living in communities is driving it out.”</p> +<p>“So much the worse for the community,” was the comment +of the Philosopher. “Man, as Ibsen has said, will always +be at his greatest when he stands alone. To return to our friend +Abraham, surely he, wandering in the wilderness, talking with his God, +was nearer the ideal than the modern citizen, thinking with his morning +paper, applauding silly shibboleths from a theatre pit, guffawing at +coarse jests, one of a music-hall crowd? In the community it is +the lowest always leads. You spoke just now of all the world inviting +Samuel Johnson to its dish of tea. How many read him as compared +to the number of subscribers to the <i>Ha’penny Joker</i>? +This ‘thinking in communities,’ as it is termed, to what +does it lead? To mafficking and Dreyfus scandals. What crowd +ever evolved a noble idea? If Socrates and Galileo, Confucius +and Christ had ‘thought in communities,’ the world would +indeed be the ant-hill you appear to regard as its destiny.”</p> +<p>“In balancing the books of life one must have regard to both +sides of the ledger,” responded the Minor Poet. “A +crowd, I admit, of itself creates nothing; on the other hand, it receives +ideals into its bosom and gives them needful shelter. It responds +more readily to good than to evil. What greater stronghold of +virtue than your sixpenny gallery? Your burglar, arrived fresh +from jumping on his mother, finds himself applauding with the rest stirring +appeals to the inborn chivalry of man. Suggestion that it was +right or proper under any circumstances to jump upon one’s mother +he would at such moment reject with horror. ‘Thinking in +communities’ is good for him. The hooligan, whose patriotism +finds expression in squirting dirty water into the face of his coster +sweetheart: the <i>boulevardière</i>, primed with absinth, shouting +<i>‘Conspuez les Juifs</i>!’ - the motive force stirring +them in its origin was an ideal. Even into making a fool of itself, +a crowd can be moved only by incitement of its finer instincts. +The service of Prometheus to mankind must not be judged by the statistics +of the insurance office. The world as a whole has gained by community, +will attain its goal only through community. From the nomadic +savage by the winding road of citizenship we have advanced far. +The way winds upward still, hidden from us by the mists, but along its +tortuous course lies our track into the Promised Land. Not the +development of the individual - that is his own concern - but the uplifting +of the race would appear to be the law. The lonely great ones, +they are the shepherds of the flock - the servants, not the masters +of the world. Moses shall die and be buried in the wilderness, +seeing only from afar the resting-place of man’s tired feet. +It is unfortunate that the <i>Ha’penny Joker</i> and its kind +should have so many readers. Maybe it teaches those to read who +otherwise would never read at all. We are impatient, forgetting +that the coming and going of our generations are but as the swinging +of the pendulum of Nature’s clock. Yesterday we booked our +seats for gladiatorial shows, for the burning of Christians, our windows +for Newgate hangings. Even the musical farce is an improvement +upon that - at least, from the humanitarian point of view.”</p> +<p>“In the Southern States of America,” observed the Philosopher, +sticking to his guns, “they run excursion trains to lynching exhibitions. +The bull-fight is spreading to France, and English newspapers are advocating +the reintroduction of bear-baiting and cock-fighting. Are we not +moving in a circle?<b>”</b></p> +<p>“The road winds, as I have allowed,” returned the Minor +Poet; “the gradient is somewhat steep. Just now, maybe, +we are traversing a backward curve. I gain my faith by pausing +now and then to look behind. I see the weary way with many a downward +sweep. But we are climbing, my friend, we are climbing.”</p> +<p>“But to such a very dismal goal, according to your theory,” +grumbled the Old Maid. “I should hate to feel myself an +insect in a hive, my little round of duties apportioned to me, my every +action regulated by a fixed law, my place assigned to me, my very food +and drink, I suppose, apportioned to me. Do think of something +more cheerful.”</p> +<p>The Minor Poet laughed. “My dear lady,” he replied, +“it is too late. The thing is already done. The hive +already covers us, the cells are in building. Who leads his own +life? Who is master of himself? What can you do but live +according to your income in, I am sure, a very charming little cell; +buzz about your little world with your cheerful, kindly song, helping +these your fellow insects here, doing day by day the useful offices +apportioned to you by your temperament and means, seeing the same faces, +treading ever the same narrow circle? Why do I write poetry? +I am not to blame. I must live. It is the only thing I can +do. Why does one man live and die upon the treeless rocks of Iceland, +another labour in the vineyards of the Apennines? Why does one +woman make matches, ride in a van to Epping Forest, drink gin, and change +hats with her lover on the homeward journey; another pant through a +dinner-party and half a dozen receptions every night from March to June, +rush from country house to fashionable Continental resort from July +to February, dress as she is instructed by her milliner, say the smart +things that are expected of her? Who would be a sweep or a chaperon, +were all roads free? Who is it succeeds in escaping the law of +the hive? The loafer, the tramp. On the other hand, who +is the man we respect and envy? The man who works for the community, +the public-spirited man, as we call him; the unselfish man, the man +who labours for the labour’s sake and not for the profit, devoting +his days and nights to learning Nature’s secrets, to acquiring +knowledge useful to the race. Is he not the happiest, the man +who has conquered his own sordid desires, who gives himself to the public +good? The hive was founded in dark days before man knew; it has +been built according to false laws. This man will have a cell +bigger than any other cell; all the other little men shall envy him; +a thousand fellow-crawling mites shall slave for him, wear out their +lives in wretchedness for him and him alone; all their honey they shall +bring to him; he shall gorge while they shall starve. Of what +use? He has slept no sounder in his foolishly fanciful cell. +Sleep is to tired eyes, not to silken coverlets. We dream in Seven +Dials as in Park Lane. His stomach, distend it as he will - it +is very small - resents being distended. The store of honey rots. +The hive was conceived in the dark days of ignorance, stupidity, brutality. +A new hive shall arise.”</p> +<p>“I had no idea,” said the Woman of the World, “you +were a Socialist.”</p> +<p>“Nor had I,” agreed the Minor Poet, “before I began +talking.”</p> +<p>“And next Wednesday,” laughed the Woman of the World; +“you will be arguing in favour of individualism.”</p> +<p>“Very likely,” agreed the Minor Poet. “‘The +deep moans round with many voices.’”</p> +<p>“I’ll take another cup of tea,” said the Philosopher.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, TEA-TABLE TALK ***</p> +<pre> + +******This file should be named ttalk10h.htm or ttalk10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, ttalk11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, ttalk10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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