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diff --git a/2353-0.txt b/2353-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9a4f0ec --- /dev/null +++ b/2353-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2578 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Tea-Table Talk, by Jerome K. Jerome, +Illustrated by Fred Pegram + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Tea-Table Talk + + +Author: Jerome K. Jerome + + + +Release Date: March 11, 2015 [eBook #2353] +[This file was first posted on November 28, 1999] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TEA-TABLE TALK*** + + +Transcribed from the 1903 Hutchinson & Co. edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + [Picture: Book cover] + + [Picture: Who would be a chaperone?] + + + + + + TEA-TABLE TALK + + + BY JEROME K. JEROME + Author of “Paul Kelver” . . . . + “Three Men in a Boat,” etc., etc. + + * * * * * + + WITH ILLUSTRATIONS + ON PLATE PAPER BY + FRED PEGRAM . . . + + * * * * * + + LONDON + HUTCHINSON & CO. + PATERNOSTER SQUARE + 1903 + + * * * * * + + PRINTED BY + HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD., + LONDON AND AYLESBURY. + + * * * * * + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + PAGE +WHO WOULD BE A CHAPERONE? _Frontispiece_ +HE WOULD FLING HIMSELF ON HIS KNEES BEFORE HER, 14 +NEVER NOTICING THE DOG +I LEFT THEM AT IT 16 +HE WENT WITH HER AND MADE HIMSELF RIDICULOUS AT THE 20 +DRESSMAKER’S +WHY SHOULD WE SEEK TO EXPLAIN AWAY ALL THE 26 +BEAUTIFUL THINGS OF LIFE? +ARE WE SO SURE THAT ART DOES ELEVATE? 38 +THE ARTIST KNEW PRECISELY THE SORT OF GIRL THAT 42 +OUGHT TO BE THERE +A MAN’S WORK ’TIS TILL SET OF SUN, BUT A WOMAN’S 52 +WORK IS NEVER DONE! +DOES THE LADY OUT SHOPPING EVER FALL IN LOVE WITH 56 +THE WAITER AT THE BUN-SHOP? +WOMAN HAS BEEN APPOINTED BY NATURE THE TRUSTEE OF 58 +THE CHILDREN +COMPARING HIMSELF THE WHILE WITH MOLIÈRE READING TO 80 +HIS COOK +THE SINGER MAY BE A HEAVY, FLESHY MAN WITH A TASTE 84 +FOR BEER +IT IS THE FOOL WHO IMAGINES HER INHUMAN 100 +IT SEIZED A NATURAL HUMAN PASSION AND TURNED IT TO 104 +GOOD USES +SHE SUGGESTED THAT POETS AND NOVELISTS SHOULD TAKE 106 +SERVICE FOR A YEAR IN ANY LARGE DRAPERY OR +MILLINERY ESTABLISHMENT +WHO IS IT SUCCEEDS IN ESCAPING THE LAW OF THE HIVE? 126 + + + + +I + + +“THEY are very pretty, some of them,” said the Woman of the World; “not +the sort of letters I should have written myself.” + +“I should like to see a love-letter of yours,” interrupted the Minor +Poet. + +“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.” + +“It is what I have always maintained,” retorted the Minor Poet; “you have +never really understood me.” + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“You might try it,” I suggested to the Woman of the World, “selecting, of +course, only the more interesting.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Following that argument,” said the Minor Poet, “you could reduce ‘Romeo +and Juliet’ to a two-line tragedy— + + Lass and lad, loved like mad; + Silly muddle, very sad.” + +“To be told that you are loved,” said the Girton Girl, “is only the +beginning of the theorem—its proposition, so to speak.” + +“Or the argument of the poem,” murmured the Old Maid. + +“The interest,” continued the Girton Girl, “lies in proving it—why does +he love me?” + +“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.” + +“More so,” commented the Philosopher. “It is the only possible +explanation.” + +“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?” + +“I think,” said the Old Maid, “that perhaps—” But there she stopped. + +“Pray go on,” said the Philosopher. “I shall be so interested to have +your views.” + +“It was nothing, really,” said the Old Maid; “I have forgotten.” + +“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!” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Patriotism is a great virtue,” replied the Philosopher: “the Jingoes +have made it ridiculous.” + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + + [Picture: He would fling himself on his knees before her, never noticing + the dog] + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“She confided her trouble to a friend,” I explained. + +“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.” + +“How did you succeed?” asked the Old Maid, who appeared to be interested +in the recipe. + +“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.” + + [Picture: I left them at it] + +“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. + +“‘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.’ + +“Their mutual friend presented the problem differently.” + +“‘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?’ + +“‘You mean,’ he inquired, ‘that I should talk and act as her husband +exactly as I did when her lover?’ + +“‘Precisely,’ said the friend; ‘why not?’ + +“‘It seems to me a mistake,’ he grumbled. + +“‘Try it and see,’ said the friend. + +“‘All right,’ he said, ‘I will.’ And he went straight home and set to +work.” + +“Was it too late,” asked the Old Maid, “or did they come together again?” + +“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 _Patience_, the delight with which she would welcome an +occasional afternoon off.” + +“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.” + + [Picture: He went with her and made himself ridiculous at the + dressmaker’s] + +“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.” + +“For merely trying to agree with you?” I said. + +“For showing me I was a fool for ever having wanted his affection,” +replied the Girton Girl. + +“You can generally,” said the Philosopher, “make people ridiculous by +taking them at their word.” + +“Especially women,” murmured the Minor Poet. + +“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?” + +“Deny the contest between male and female, and you deprive life of half +its poetry,” urged the Minor Poet. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“In a woman’s argument,” I observed, “equality of the sexes invariably +does mean the superiority of woman.” + +“That is very curious,” added the Philosopher. “As you say, a woman +never can be logical.” + +“Are all men logical?” demanded the Girton Girl. + +“As a class,” replied the Minor Poet, “yes.” + + + + +II + + +“WHAT woman suffers from,” said the Philosopher, “is over-praise. It has +turned her head.” + +“You admit, then, that she has a head?” demanded the Girton Girl. + +“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.” + +“Why is it that the brainy girl invariably has straight hair?” asked the +Woman of the World. + +“Because she doesn’t curl it,” explained the Girton Girl. She spoke +somewhat snappishly, it seemed to me. + +“I never thought of that,” murmured the Woman of the World. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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.” + + [Picture: Why should we seek to explain away all the beautiful things of + life?] + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“I know,” said the Woman of the World; “I have heard it all so often. It +is nonsense; I can prove it to you.” + +“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.” + +“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.’” + +“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.” + +“She was a curious sort of young woman,” smiled the Girton Girl; “we used +to laugh at her.” + +“I can quite believe it,” commented the Philosopher. + +“It is so like shopping,” said the Old Maid. + +“Like shopping!” exclaimed the Girton Girl. + +The Old Maid blushed. “I was merely thinking,” she said. “It sounds +foolish. The idea occurred to me.” + +“You were thinking of the difficulty of choosing?” I suggested. + +“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—” + +“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.” + +“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—” + +The Old Maid stopped abruptly. “I beg your pardon,” she said, “I am +afraid I’ve interrupted.” + +“I am so glad you told us,” said the Philosopher. “Do you know that +seems to me an explanation?” + +“Of what?” asked the Girton Girl. + +“Of how so many of us choose our views,” returned the Philosopher; “we +don’t like to come out of the shop without something.” + +“But you were about to explain,” continued the Philosopher, turning to +the Woman of the World, “—to prove a point.” + +“That I had been talking nonsense,” reminded her the Minor Poet; “if you +are sure it will not weary you.” + +“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.” + +“You would look charming anyhow,” I murmured with conviction, “even—” + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“It has given us Art,” said the Girton Girl. + +“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?” + + [Picture: Are we so sure that Art does elevate?] + +“You are talking for the sake of talking,” told him the Girton Girl. + +“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.” + +“It works down,” maintained the Girton Girl. “From the few it spreads to +the many.” + +“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.” + +“What middleman?” demanded the Girton Girl. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + + [Picture: The artist knew precisely the sort of girl that ought to be + there] + +“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.” + +“You can hardly lay the blame for that upon civilisation,” pleaded the +Girton Girl. “The ancient Briton had a pretty taste in woads.” + +“Man’s first feeble steps upon the upward path of Art,” assented the +Minor Poet, “culminating in the rouge-pot and the hair-dye.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Oh! do let us hear it,” urged the Old Maid. “I love Grieg.” + +The Woman of the World rose and opened the piano. + +“Myself, I have always been of opinion—” I remarked. + +“Please don’t chatter,” said the Minor Poet. + + + + +III + + +“I NEVER liked her,” said the Old Maid; “I always knew she was +heartless.” + +“To my thinking,” said the Minor Poet, “she has shown herself a true +woman.” + +“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.” + +“It is the Irish blood flowing in his veins,” I told them. “He must +always be ‘agin the Government.’” + +“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.” + +“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 Cæsar?’” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Myself, I should hate a man who agreed with me,” said the Girton Girl. + +“My dear,” replied the Woman of the World, “I don’t think any would.” + +“Why not?” demanded the Girton Girl. + +“I was thinking more of you, dear,” replied the Woman of the World. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Who was it,” asked the Philosopher, “who said: ‘Before you can attack a +lie, you must strip it of its truth’?” + +“It sounds like Emerson,” I ventured. + +“Very possibly,” assented the Philosopher; “very possibly not. There is +much in reputation. Most poetry gets attributed to Shakespeare.” + +“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.” + +“I can’t help it,” said the Old Maid. “I shall always dislike a girl who +deliberately sells herself for money.” + +“But what else is there to sell herself for?” asked the Minor Poet. + +“She should not sell herself at all,” retorted the Old Maid, with warmth. +“She should give herself, for love.” + +“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’?” + +“It is you now who are playing with words,” asserted the Old Maid. “The +greater includes the less. Loving her, he would naturally desire—” + +“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.” + +“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— + + A man’s work ’tis till set of sun, + But a woman’s work is never done! + + [Picture: A man’s work ’tis till set of sun . . .] + +“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.’” + +“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.” + +“I have noticed her,” remarked the Philosopher. “Her manners strike me +as really quite exceptional.” + +“I never could stand any one about me with carroty hair,” remarked the +Girton Girl. + +“I should hardly call it carroty,” contended the Philosopher. “There is +a golden tint of much richness underlying, when you look closely.” + +“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.” + +“Do you know whether she is engaged or not?” demanded the Minor Poet. + +“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—” + +“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?” + +“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?” + +“Let me ask you one,” chimed in the Girton Girl. “Would a bricklayer +hesitate any longer between a duchess and a scullery-maid?” + +“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?” + +[Picture: Does the lady out shopping ever fall in love with the waiter at + the bun-shop?] + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“You mean,” persisted the Minor Poet, “you would have her think also of +her dinner, of her clothes, her necessities, luxuries.” + +“It is not only for herself,” answered the Old Maid. + +“For whom?” demanded the Minor Poet. + +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. + +“There are the children to be considered,” I explained. “A woman feels +it even without knowing. It is her instinct.” + +The Old Maid smiled on me her thanks. + +“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.” + +[Picture: Woman has been appointed by Nature the trustee of the children] + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“Please don’t suggest the possibility,” I begged the Woman of the World; +“the thought is too bewildering.” + +“You were never imaginative,” replied the Woman of the World. + +“Not to that extent,” I admitted. + +“‘The best mothers make the worst children,’” quoted the Girton Girl. “I +intend to bear that in mind.” + +“Your mother was a very beautiful character—one of the most beautiful I +ever knew,” remarked the Old Maid. + +“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—” + +“Please don’t go on,” said the Woman of the World. “I was up late last +night.” + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“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 _dot_ is considered of almost more importance than +the bride.” + +“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.” + +“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 _dot_. 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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“My dear lady,” cried the Minor Poet, “you help me!” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“You would have us marry without love?” asked the Girton Girl. + +“With love, if possible,” answered the Minor Poet; “without, rather than +not at all. It is the fulfilment of the woman’s law.” + +“You would make of us goods and chattels,” cried the Girton Girl. + +“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.” + +“She may be a nice enough girl from Nature’s point of view,” said the Old +Maid; “personally, I shall never like her.” + + + + +IV + + +“WHAT is the time?” asked the Girton Girl. + +I looked at my watch. “Twenty past four,” I answered. + +“Exactly?” demanded the Girton Girl. + +“Precisely,” I replied. + +“Strange,” murmured the Girton Girl. “There is no accounting for it, yet +it always is so.” + +“What is there no accounting for?” I inquired. “What is strange?” + +“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.” + +“Why do we talk so much?” demanded the Minor Poet. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“There would be that advantage about it,” agreed the Philosopher. + +“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?” + +“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 _are_ +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.” + +“I think I know the man you mean,” said the Philosopher. “I had +forgotten his name.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Of all my friends,” said the Woman of the World, “the one who has the +most trouble with her servants is poor Jane Meredith.” + +“I am exceedingly sorry to hear it,” observed the Philosopher, after a +slight pause. “But forgive me, I really do not see—” + +“I beg your pardon,” answered the Woman of the World. “I thought +everybody knew ‘Jane Meredith.’ She writes ‘The Perfect Home’ column for +_The Woman’s World_.” + +“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—” + +“Don’t,” pleaded the Old Maid, with a smile; “please don’t.” + +“Don’t what?” demanded the Minor Poet. + +“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. + +“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.” + +“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 _dot_. 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 _Hausfrau_, 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. + +“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 _hôtel_, 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. + +“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 +_littérateure_. Even she had her ambition, her dream. + +“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.” + + [Picture: Comparing himself the while with Molière reading to his cook] + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“I really do not think he will complain,” I interrupted. The Woman of +the World possesses, I should explain, the daintiest of feet. + +“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.” + +“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.’” + +“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.” + + [Picture: The singer may be a heavy, fleshy man with a taste for beer] + +“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.” + +“But,” added the Minor Poet, turning to me, “you were speaking of a man +named Longrush, a great talker.” + +“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.’” + +“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?” + +“I remember a parrot story,” I said, “but I forget who told it to me.” + +“Maybe one of us will remember as you go on,” suggested the Philosopher. + +“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!’” + +“A friend of mine,” said the Philosopher, “once had a parrot—” + +“Won’t you come into the garden?” said the Woman of the World, rising and +leading the way. + + + + +V + + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“I remember him distinctly,” said the Minor Poet. “A charming man.” + +“He was equally charmed with you,” replied the Woman of the World. + +“I can credit it easily,” murmured the Minor Poet. “One of the most +intelligent men I ever met.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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 _artiste_ 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.’” + +“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.” + +“Man is a beast!” said the Girton Girl, who was prone to strong +expression. + +“I thought so myself when I was younger,” said the Woman of the World. + +“And don’t you now, when you hear a thing like that?” suggested the +Girton Girl. + +“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.” + +“My dear,” laughed the Old Maid, “your anecdotal method is becoming as +jerky as a cinematograph.” + +“I have noticed it myself,” replied the Woman of the World; “I try to get +in too much.” + +“The art of the _raconteur_,” 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.” + +“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. + +“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 _bonne_—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 +_rue_, married only four years to a charming and devoted little wife, had +run away and left her. + +“‘He never gave her even a hint, the pretty angel!’ 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 _femme_. ‘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.’” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“‘Gush,’” said the Philosopher, reflecting, “‘gush’ would hardly be the +correct word.” + +“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.” + +“I told you so,” chortled the Girton Girl. + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“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. + +“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.” + + [Picture: It is the fool who imagines her inhuman] + +“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—?” + +“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.” + +“Elizabeth!” cried the Girton Girl. “Queen Victoria!” + +“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.” + +“But chivalry,” I argued, “has surely been of service to mankind?” + +“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.” + + [Picture: It seized a natural human passion and turned it to good uses] + +“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.” + + [Picture: She suggested that poets and novelists should take service for + a year in any large drapery or millinery establishment] + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“But you hold it right to fight against folly?” demanded the Philosopher. + +“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.” + + + + +VI + + +“BUT what is her reason?” demanded the Old Maid. + +“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.” + +“She must be an extraordinary woman,” commented the Old Maid. + +“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!” + +“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 _recherché_ 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!” + +“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.” + +“I was thinking rather of you,” continued the Minor Poet. + +“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.” + +“It is very interesting,” said the Minor Poet. + +“I am glad you find it so!” snapped the Woman of the World. + +“What is interesting?” I asked the Minor Poet. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“I hope,” said the Woman of the World, “that I may live to see it.” + +“In all probability,” replied the Minor Poet, “you will. I would I could +feel as hopeful for myself.” + +“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.” + +“I disagree with you,” said the Minor Poet. + +“The fact does not convince me of my error,” retorted the Philosopher. + +“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 _deutscher +Bund_; 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.” + +The Old Maid shuddered visibly. “What a terrible idea!” she said. + +“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.” + +“My sympathies are with the Abrahamitical ideal,” observed the +Philosopher. + +“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.” + +“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 +_Ha’penny Joker_? 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.” + +“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 _boulevardière_, primed with absinth, shouting ‘_Conspuez +les Juifs_!’—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 _Ha’penny Joker_ 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.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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.” + + [Picture: Who is it succeeds in escaping the law of the hive?] + +“I had no idea,” said the Woman of the World, “you were a Socialist.” + +“Nor had I,” agreed the Minor Poet, “before I began talking.” + +“And next Wednesday,” laughed the Woman of the World; “you will be +arguing in favour of individualism.” + +“Very likely,” agreed the Minor Poet. “‘The deep moans round with many +voices.’” + +“I’ll take another cup of tea,” said the Philosopher. + + * * * * * + + * * * * * + + _Printed by Hazell_, _Watson & Viney_, _Ld._, _London and Aylesbury_. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TEA-TABLE TALK*** + + +******* This file should be named 2353-0.txt or 2353-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/5/2353 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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