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diff --git a/2353-h/2353-h.htm b/2353-h/2353-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a4223c7 --- /dev/null +++ b/2353-h/2353-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3020 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Tea-Table Talk, by Jerome K. Jerome</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +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: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TEA-TABLE TALK*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1903 Hutchinson & Co. edition by +David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/coverb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Book cover" +title= +"Book cover" + src="images/covers.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/fpb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Who would be a chaperone?" +title= +"Who would be a chaperone?" + src="images/fps.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h1>TEA-TABLE TALK</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">By</span> +<b>JEROME K. JEROME</b><br /> +Author of “Paul Kelver” . . . .<br /> +“Three Men in a Boat,” etc., etc.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">WITH +ILLUSTRATIONS</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">ON PLATE PAPER BY</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">FRED PEGRAM . . .</span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="GutSmall">LONDON</span><br /> +HUTCHINSON & CO.<br /> +PATERNOSTER SQUARE<br /> +1903</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">PRINTED +BY</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,</span><br +/> +<span class="GutSmall">LONDON AND AYLESBURY.</span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Who would be a chaperone</span>?</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>Frontispiece</i></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">He would fling himself on his knees +before her, never noticing the dog</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image14">14</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">I left them at it</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image16">16</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">He went with her and made himself +ridiculous at the dressmaker’s</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image20">20</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Why should we seek to explain away all +the beautiful things of life</span>?</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image26">26</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Are we so sure that art does +elevate</span>?</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image38">38</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The artist knew precisely the sort of +girl that ought to be there</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image42">42</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">A man’s work ’tis till set +of sun, but a woman’s work is never done</span>!</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image52">52</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Does the lady out shopping ever fall +in love with the waiter at the bun-shop</span>?</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image56">56</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Woman has been appointed by Nature the +trustee of the children</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image58">58</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Comparing himself the while with +Molière reading to his cook</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image80">80</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The singer may be a heavy, fleshy man +with a taste for beer</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image84">84</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">It is the fool who imagines her +inhuman</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image100">100</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">It seized a natural human passion and +turned it to good uses</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image104">104</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">She suggested that poets and novelists +should take service for a year in any large drapery or millinery +establishment</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image106">106</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Who is it succeeds in escaping the law +of the hive</span>?</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image126">126</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2>I</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">They</span> are very pretty, some +of them,” said the Woman of the World; “not the sort +of letters I should have written myself.”</p> +<p>“I should like to see a love-letter of yours,” +interrupted the Minor Poet.</p> +<p>“It is very kind of you to say so,” replied the +Woman of the World. “It never occurred to me that you +would care for one.”</p> +<p>“It is what I have always maintained,” retorted +the Minor Poet; “you have never really understood +me.”</p> +<p>“I believe a volume of assorted love-letters would sell +well,” said the Girton Girl; “written by the same +hand, if you like, but to different correspondents at different +periods. To the same person one is bound, more or less, to +repeat oneself.”</p> +<p>“Or from different lovers to the same +correspondent,” suggested the Philosopher. “It +would be interesting to observe the response of various +temperaments exposed to an unvaried influence. It would +throw light on the vexed question whether the qualities that +adorn our beloved are her own, or ours lent to her for the +occasion. Would the same woman be addressed as ‘My +Queen!’ by one correspondent, and as ‘Dear Popsy +Wopsy!’ by another, or would she to all her lovers be +herself?”</p> +<p>“You might try it,” I suggested to the Woman of +the World, “selecting, of course, only the more +interesting.”</p> +<p>“It would cause so much unpleasantness, don’t you +think?” replied the Woman of the World. “Those +I left out would never forgive me. It is always so with +people you forget to invite to a funeral—they think it is +done with deliberate intention to slight them.”</p> +<p>“The first love-letter I ever wrote,” said the +Minor Poet, “was when I was sixteen. Her name was +Monica; she was the left-hand girl in the third joint of the +crocodile. I have never known a creature so ethereally +beautiful. I wrote the letter and sealed it, but I could +not make up my mind whether to slip it into her hand when we +passed them, as we usually did on Thursday afternoons, or to wait +for Sunday.”</p> +<p>“There can be no question,” murmured the Girton +Girl abstractedly, “the best time is just as one is coming +out of church. There is so much confusion; besides, one has +one’s Prayer-book—I beg your pardon.”</p> +<p>“I was saved the trouble of deciding,” continued +the Minor Poet. “On Thursday her place was occupied +by a fat, red-headed girl, who replied to my look of inquiry with +an idiotic laugh, and on Sunday I searched the Hypatia House pews +for her in vain. I learnt subsequently that she had been +sent home on the previous Wednesday, suddenly. It appeared +that I was not the only one. I left the letter where I had +placed it, at the bottom of my desk, and in course of time forgot +it. Years later I fell in love really. I sat down to +write her a love-letter that should imprison her as by some +subtle spell. I would weave into it the love of all the +ages. When I had finished it, I read it through and was +pleased with it. Then by an accident, as I was going to +seal it, I overturned my desk, and on to the floor fell that +other love-letter I had written seven years before, when a +boy. Out of idle curiosity I tore it open; I thought it +would afford me amusement. I ended by posting it instead of +the letter I had just completed. It carried precisely the +same meaning; but it was better expressed, with greater +sincerity, with more artistic simplicity.”</p> +<p>“After all,” said the Philosopher, “what can +a man do more than tell a woman that he loves her? All the +rest is mere picturesque amplification, on a par with the +‘Full and descriptive report from our Special +Correspondent,’ elaborated out of a three-line telegram of +Reuter’s.”</p> +<p>“Following that argument,” said the Minor Poet, +“you could reduce ‘Romeo and Juliet’ to a +two-line tragedy—</p> +<blockquote><p>Lass and lad, loved like mad;<br /> +Silly muddle, very sad.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“To be told that you are loved,” said the Girton +Girl, “is only the beginning of the theorem—its +proposition, so to speak.”</p> +<p>“Or the argument of the poem,” murmured the Old +Maid.</p> +<p>“The interest,” continued the Girton Girl, +“lies in proving it—why does he love me?”</p> +<p>“I asked a man that once,” said the Woman of the +World. “He said it was because he couldn’t help +it. It seemed such a foolish answer—the sort of thing +your housemaid always tells you when she breaks your favourite +teapot. And yet, I suppose it was as sensible as any +other.”</p> +<p>“More so,” commented the Philosopher. +“It is the only possible explanation.”</p> +<p>“I wish,” said the Minor Poet, “it were a +question one could ask of people without offence; I so often long +to put it. Why do men marry viragoes, pimply girls with +incipient moustaches? Why do beautiful heiresses choose +thick-lipped, little men who bully them? Why are old +bachelors, generally speaking, sympathetic, kind-hearted men; and +old maids, so many of them, sweet-looking and amiable?”</p> +<p>“I think,” said the Old Maid, “that +perhaps—” But there she stopped.</p> +<p>“Pray go on,” said the Philosopher. “I +shall be so interested to have your views.”</p> +<p>“It was nothing, really,” said the Old Maid; +“I have forgotten.”</p> +<p>“If only one could obtain truthful answers,” the +Minor Poet, “what a flood of light they might let fall on +the hidden half of life!”</p> +<p>“It seems to me,” said the Philosopher, +“that, if anything, Love is being exposed to too much +light. The subject is becoming vulgarised. Every year +a thousand problem plays and novels, poems and essays, tear the +curtain from Love’s Temple, drag it naked into the +market-place for grinning crowds to gape at. In a million +short stories, would-be comic, would-be serious, it is handled +more or less coarsely, more or less unintelligently, gushed over, +gibed and jeered at. Not a shred of self-respect is left to +it. It is made the central figure of every farce, danced +and sung round in every music-hall, yelled at by gallery, +guffawed at by stalls. It is the stock-in-trade of every +comic journal. Could any god, even a Mumbo Jumbo, so +treated, hold its place among its votaries? Every term of +endearment has become a catchword, every caress mocks us from the +hoardings. Every tender speech we make recalls to us even +while we are uttering it a hundred parodies. Every possible +situation has been spoilt for us in advance by the American +humorist.”</p> +<p>“I have sat out a good many parodies of +‘Hamlet,’” said the Minor Poet, “but the +play still interests me. I remember a walking tour I once +took in Bavaria. In some places the waysides are lined with +crucifixes that are either comic or repulsive. There is a +firm that turns them out by machinery. Yet, to the peasants +who pass by, the Christ is still beautiful. You can +belittle only what is already contemptible.”</p> +<p>“Patriotism is a great virtue,” replied the +Philosopher: “the Jingoes have made it +ridiculous.”</p> +<p>“On the contrary,” said the Minor Poet, +“they have taught us to distinguish between the true and +the false. So it is with love. The more it is +cheapened, ridiculed, employed for market purposes, the less the +inclination to affect it—to be in love with love, as Heine +admitted he was, for its own sake.”</p> +<p>“Is the necessity to love born in us,” said the +Girton Girl, “or do we practise to acquire it because it is +the fashion—make up our mind to love, as boys learn to +smoke, because every other fellow does it, and we do not like to +be peculiar?”</p> +<p>“The majority of men and women,” said the Minor +Poet, “are incapable of love. With most it is a mere +animal passion, with others a mild affection.”</p> +<p>“We talk about love,” said the Philosopher, +“as though it were a known quantity. After all, to +say that a man loves is like saying that he paints or plays the +violin; it conveys no meaning until we have witnessed his +performance. Yet to hear the subject discussed, one might +imagine the love of a Dante or a society Johnny, of a Cleopatra +or a Georges Sand, to be precisely the same thing.”</p> +<p>“It was always poor Susan’s trouble,” said +the Woman of the World; “she could never be persuaded that +Jim really loved her. It was very sad, because I am sure he +was devoted to her, in his way. But he could not do the +sort of things she wanted him to do; she was so romantic. +He did try. He used to go to all the poetical plays and +study them. But he hadn’t the knack of it and he was +naturally clumsy. He would rush into the room and fling +himself on his knees before her, never noticing the dog, so that, +instead of pouring out his heart as he had intended, he would +have to start off with, ‘So awfully sorry! Hope I +haven’t hurt the little beast?’ Which was +enough to put anybody out.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image14" href="images/p14b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"He would fling himself on his knees before her, never noticing +the dog" +title= +"He would fling himself on his knees before her, never noticing +the dog" + src="images/p14s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“Young girls are so foolish,” said the Old Maid; +“they run after what glitters, and do not see the gold +until it is too late. At first they are all eyes and no +heart.”</p> +<p>“I knew a girl,” I said, “or, rather, a +young married woman, who was cured of folly by the homoeopathic +method. Her great trouble was that her husband had ceased +to be her lover.”</p> +<p>“It seems to me so sad,” said the Old Maid. +“Sometimes it is the woman’s fault, sometimes the +man’s; more often both. The little courtesies, the +fond words, the tender nothings that mean so much to those that +love—it would cost so little not to forget them, and they +would make life so much more beautiful.”</p> +<p>“There is a line of common sense running through all +things,” I replied; “the secret of life consists in +not diverging far from it on either side. He had been the +most devoted wooer, never happy out of her eyes; but before they +had been married a year she found to her astonishment that he +could be content even away from her skirts, that he actually took +pains to render himself agreeable to other women. He would +spend whole afternoons at his club, slip out for a walk +occasionally by himself, shut himself up now and again in his +study. It went so far that one day he expressed a distinct +desire to leave her for a week and go a-fishing with some other +men. She never complained—at least, not to +him.”</p> +<p>“That is where she was foolish,” said the Girton +Girl. “Silence in such cases is a mistake. The +other party does not know what is the matter with you, and you +yourself—your temper bottled up within—become more +disagreeable every day.”</p> +<p>“She confided her trouble to a friend,” I +explained.</p> +<p>“I so dislike people who do that,” said the Woman +of the World. “Emily never would speak to George; she +would come and complain about him to me, as if I were responsible +for him: I wasn’t even his mother. When she had +finished, George would come along, and I had to listen to the +whole thing over again from his point of view. I got so +tired of it at last that I determined to stop it.”</p> +<p>“How did you succeed?” asked the Old Maid, who +appeared to be interested in the recipe.</p> +<p>“I knew George was coming one afternoon,” +explained the Woman of the World, “so I persuaded Emily to +wait in the conservatory. She thought I was going to give +him good advice; instead of that I sympathised with him and +encouraged him to speak his mind freely, which he did. It +made her so mad that she came out and told him what she thought +of him. I left them at it. They were both of them the +better for it; and so was I.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image16" href="images/p16b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"I left them at it" +title= +"I left them at it" + src="images/p16s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“In my case,” I said, “it came about +differently. Her friend explained to him just what was +happening. She pointed out to him how his neglect and +indifference were slowly alienating his wife’s affections +from him. He argued the subject.</p> +<p>“‘But a lover and a husband are not the +same,’ he contended; ‘the situation is entirely +different. You run after somebody you want to overtake; but +when you have caught him up, you settle down quietly and walk +beside him; you don’t continue shouting and waving your +handkerchief after you have gained him.’</p> +<p>“Their mutual friend presented the problem +differently.”</p> +<p>“‘You must hold what you have won,’ she +said, ‘or it will slip away from you. By a certain +course of conduct and behaviour you gained a sweet girl’s +regard; show yourself other than you were, how can you expect her +to think the same of you?’</p> +<p>“‘You mean,’ he inquired, ‘that I +should talk and act as her husband exactly as I did when her +lover?’</p> +<p>“‘Precisely,’ said the friend; ‘why +not?’</p> +<p>“‘It seems to me a mistake,’ he +grumbled.</p> +<p>“‘Try it and see,’ said the friend.</p> +<p>“‘All right,’ he said, ‘I +will.’ And he went straight home and set to +work.”</p> +<p>“Was it too late,” asked the Old Maid, “or +did they come together again?”</p> +<p>“For the next mouth,” I answered, “they were +together twenty-four hours of the day. And then it was the +wife who suggested, like the poet in Gilbert’s +<i>Patience</i>, the delight with which she would welcome an +occasional afternoon off.”</p> +<p>“He hung about her while she was dressing in the +morning. Just as she had got her hair fixed he would kiss +it passionately and it would come down again. All meal-time +he would hold her hand under the table and insist on feeding her +with a fork. Before marriage he had behaved once or twice +in this sort of way at picnics; and after marriage, when at +breakfast-time he had sat at the other end of the table reading +the paper or his letters, she had reminded him of it +reproachfully. The entire day he never left her side. +She could never read a book; instead, he would read to her aloud, +generally Browning’ poems or translations from +Goethe. Reading aloud was not an accomplishment of his, but +in their courting days she had expressed herself pleased at his +attempts, and of this he took care, in his turn, to remind +her. It was his idea that if the game were played at all, +she should take a hand also. If he was to blither, it was +only fair that she should bleat back. As he explained, for +the future they would both be lovers all their life long; and no +logical argument in reply could she think of. If she tried +to write a letter, he would snatch away the paper her dear hands +were pressing and fall to kissing it—and, of course, +smearing it. When he wasn’t giving her pins and +needles by sitting on her feet he was balancing himself on the +arm of her chair and occasionally falling over on top of +her. If she went shopping, he went with her and made +himself ridiculous at the dressmaker’s. In society he +took no notice of anybody but of her, and was hurt if she spoke +to anybody but to him. Not that it was often, during that +month, that they did see any society; most invitations he refused +for them both, reminding her how once upon a time she had +regarded an evening alone with him as an entertainment superior +to all others. He called her ridiculous names, talked to +her in baby language; while a dozen times a day it became +necessary for her to take down her back hair and do it up +afresh. At the end of a month, as I have said, it was she +who suggested a slight cessation of affection.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image20" href="images/p20b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"He went with her and made himself ridiculous at the +dressmaker’s" +title= +"He went with her and made himself ridiculous at the +dressmaker’s" + src="images/p20s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“Had I been in her place,” said the Girton Girl, +“it would have been a separation I should have +suggested. I should have hated him for the rest of my +life.”</p> +<p>“For merely trying to agree with you?” I said.</p> +<p>“For showing me I was a fool for ever having wanted his +affection,” replied the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“You can generally,” said the Philosopher, +“make people ridiculous by taking them at their +word.”</p> +<p>“Especially women,” murmured the Minor Poet.</p> +<p>“I wonder,” said the Philosopher, “is there +really so much difference between men and women as we +think? What there is, may it not be the result of +Civilisation rather than of Nature, of training rather than of +instinct?”</p> +<p>“Deny the contest between male and female, and you +deprive life of half its poetry,” urged the Minor Poet.</p> +<p>“Poetry,” returned the Philosopher, “was +made for man, not man for poetry. I am inclined to think +that the contest you speak of is somewhat in the nature of a +‘put-up job’ on the part of you poets. In the +same way newspapers will always advocate war; it gives them +something to write about, and is not altogether unconnected with +sales. To test Nature’s original intentions, it is +always safe to study our cousins the animals. There we see +no sign of this fundamental variation; the difference is merely +one of degree.”</p> +<p>“I quite agree with you,” said the Girton +Girl. “Man, acquiring cunning, saw the advantage of +using his one superiority, brute strength, to make woman his +slave. In all other respects she is undoubtedly his +superior.”</p> +<p>“In a woman’s argument,” I observed, +“equality of the sexes invariably does mean the superiority +of woman.”</p> +<p>“That is very curious,” added the +Philosopher. “As you say, a woman never can be +logical.”</p> +<p>“Are all men logical?” demanded the Girton +Girl.</p> +<p>“As a class,” replied the Minor Poet, +“yes.”</p> +<h2>II</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">What</span> woman suffers +from,” said the Philosopher, “is over-praise. +It has turned her head.”</p> +<p>“You admit, then, that she has a head?” demanded +the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“It has always been a theory of mine,” returned +the Philosopher, “that by Nature she was intended to +possess one. It is her admirers who have always represented +her as brainless.”</p> +<p>“Why is it that the brainy girl invariably has straight +hair?” asked the Woman of the World.</p> +<p>“Because she doesn’t curl it,” explained the +Girton Girl. She spoke somewhat snappishly, it seemed to +me.</p> +<p>“I never thought of that,” murmured the Woman of +the World.</p> +<p>“It is to be noted in connection with the +argument,” I ventured to remark, “that we hear but +little concerning the wives of intellectual men. When we +do, as in the case of the Carlyles, it is to wish we did +not.”</p> +<p>“When I was younger even than I am now,” said the +Minor Poet, “I thought a good deal of marriage—very +young men do. My wife, I told myself, must be a woman of +mind. Yet, curiously, of all the women I have ever loved, +no single one has been remarkable for intellect—present +company, as usual, of course excepted.”</p> +<p>“Why is it,” sighed the Philosopher, “that +in the most serious business of our life, marriage, serious +considerations count for next to nothing? A dimpled chin +can, and often does, secure for a girl the best of husbands; +while virtue and understanding combined cannot be relied upon to +obtain her even one of the worst.”</p> +<p>“I think the explanation is,” replied the Minor +Poet, “that as regards, let us say, the most natural +business of our life, marriage, our natural instincts alone are +brought into play. Marriage—clothe the naked fact in +what flowers of rhetoric we will—has to do with the purely +animal part of our being. The man is drawn towards it by +his primeval desires; the woman by her inborn craving towards +motherhood.”</p> +<p>The thin, white hands of the Old Maid fluttered, troubled, +where they lay upon her lap. “Why should we seek to +explain away all the beautiful things of life?” she +said. She spoke with a heat unusual to her. +“The blushing lad, so timid, so devotional, worshipping as +at the shrine of some mystic saint; the young girl moving +spell-bound among dreams! They think of nothing but of one +another.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image26" href="images/p26b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Why should we seek to explain away all the beautiful things of +life?" +title= +"Why should we seek to explain away all the beautiful things of +life?" + src="images/p26s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“Tracing a mountain stream to its sombre source need not +mar its music for us as it murmurs through the valley,” +expounded the Philosopher. “The hidden law of our +being feeds each leaf of our life as sap runs through the +tree. The transient blossom, the ripened fruit, is but its +changing outward form.”</p> +<p>“I hate going to the roots of things,” said the +Woman of the World. “Poor, dear papa was so fond of +doing that. He would explain to us the genesis of oysters +just when we were enjoying them. Poor mamma could never +bring herself to touch them after that. While in the middle +of dessert he would stop to argue with my Uncle Paul whether +pig’s blood or bullock’s was the best for grape +vines. I remember the year before Emily came out her +favourite pony died; I have never known her so cut up about +anything before or since. She asked papa if he would mind +her having the poor creature buried in the garden. Her idea +was that she would visit now and then its grave and weep +awhile. Papa was awfully nice about it and stroked her +hair. ‘Certainly, my dear,’ he said, ‘we +will have him laid to rest in the new strawberry +bed.’ Just then old Pardoe, the head gardener, came +up to us and touched his hat. ‘Well, I was just going +to inquire of Miss Emily,’ he said, ‘if she +wouldn’t rather have the poor thing buried under one of the +nectarine-trees. They ain’t been doing very well of +late.’ He said it was a pretty spot, and that he +would put up a sort of stone. Poor Emily didn’t seem +to care much where the animal was buried by that time, so we left +them arguing the question. I forget how it was settled; but +I know we neither of us ate either strawberries or nectarines for +the next two years.”</p> +<p>“There is a time for everything,” agreed the +Philosopher. “With the lover, penning poetry to the +wondrous red and white upon his mistress’ cheek, we do not +discuss the subject of pigment in the blood, its cause and +probable duration. Nevertheless, the subject is +interesting.”</p> +<p>“We men and women,” continued the Minor Poet, +“we are Nature’s favourites, her hope, for whom she +has made sacrifice, putting aside so many of her own convictions, +telling herself she is old-fashioned. She has let us go +from her to the strange school where they laugh at all her +notions. We have learnt new, strange ideas that bewilder +the good dame. Yet, returning home it is curious to notice +how little, in the few essential things of life, we differ from +her other children, who have never wandered from her side. +Our vocabulary has been extended and elaborated, yet face to face +with the realities of existence it is unavailing. Clasping +the living, standing beside the dead, our language still is but a +cry. Our wants have grown more complicated; the ten-course +banquet, with all that it involves, has substituted itself for +the handful of fruits and nuts gathered without labour; the +stalled ox and a world of trouble for the dinner of herbs and +leisure therewith. Are we so far removed thereby above our +little brother, who, having swallowed his simple, succulent worm, +mounts a neighbouring twig and with easy digestion carols thanks +to God? The square brick box about which we move, hampered +at every step by wooden lumber, decked with many rags and strips +of coloured paper, cumbered with odds and ends of melted flint +and moulded clay, has replaced the cheap, convenient cave. +We clothe ourselves in the skins of other animals instead of +allowing our own to develop into a natural protection. We +hang about us bits of stone and metal, but underneath it all we +are little two-legged animals, struggling with the rest to live +and breed. Beneath each hedgerow in the springtime we can +read our own romances in the making—the first faint +stirring of the blood, the roving eye, the sudden marvellous +discovery of the indispensable She, the wooing, the denial, hope, +coquetry, despair, contention, rivalry, hate, jealousy, love, +bitterness, victory, and death. Our comedies, our +tragedies, are being played upon each blade of grass. In +fur and feather we run epitomised.”</p> +<p>“I know,” said the Woman of the World; “I +have heard it all so often. It is nonsense; I can prove it +to you.”</p> +<p>“That is easy,” observed the Philosopher. +“The Sermon on the Mount itself has been proved +nonsense—among others, by a bishop. Nonsense is the +reverse side of the pattern—the tangled ends of the thread +that Wisdom weaves.”</p> +<p>“There was a Miss Askew at the College,” said the +Girton Girl. “She agreed with every one. With +Marx she was a Socialist, with Carlyle a believer in benevolent +despotism, with Spinoza a materialist, with Newman a +fanatic. I had a long talk with her before she left, and +tried to understand her; she was an interesting girl. +‘I think,’ she said, ‘I could choose among them +if only they would answer one another. But they +don’t. They won’t listen to one another. +They only repeat their own case.’”</p> +<p>“There never is an answer,” explained the +Philosopher. “The kernel of every sincere opinion is +truth. This life contains only the questions—the +solutions to be published in a future issue.”</p> +<p>“She was a curious sort of young woman,” smiled +the Girton Girl; “we used to laugh at her.”</p> +<p>“I can quite believe it,” commented the +Philosopher.</p> +<p>“It is so like shopping,” said the Old Maid.</p> +<p>“Like shopping!” exclaimed the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>The Old Maid blushed. “I was merely +thinking,” she said. “It sounds foolish. +The idea occurred to me.”</p> +<p>“You were thinking of the difficulty of choosing?” +I suggested.</p> +<p>“Yes,” answered the Old Maid. “They +will show you so many different things, one is quite +unable—at least, I know it is so in my own case. I +get quite angry with myself. It seems so weak-minded, but I +cannot help it. This very dress I have on +now—”</p> +<p>“It is very charming,” said the Woman of the +World, “in itself. I have been admiring it. +Though I confess I think you look even better in dark +colours.”</p> +<p>“You are quite right,” replied the Old Maid; +“myself, I hate it. But you know how it is. I +seemed to have been all the morning in the shop. I felt so +tired. If only—”</p> +<p>The Old Maid stopped abruptly. “I beg your +pardon,” she said, “I am afraid I’ve +interrupted.”</p> +<p>“I am so glad you told us,” said the +Philosopher. “Do you know that seems to me an +explanation?”</p> +<p>“Of what?” asked the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“Of how so many of us choose our views,” returned +the Philosopher; “we don’t like to come out of the +shop without something.”</p> +<p>“But you were about to explain,” continued the +Philosopher, turning to the Woman of the World, “—to +prove a point.”</p> +<p>“That I had been talking nonsense,” reminded her +the Minor Poet; “if you are sure it will not weary +you.”</p> +<p>“Not at all,” answered the Woman of the World; +“it is quite simple. The gifts of civilisation cannot +be the meaningless rubbish you advocates of barbarism would make +out. I remember Uncle Paul’s bringing us home a young +monkey he had caught in Africa. With the aid of a few logs +we fitted up a sort of stage-tree for this little brother of +mine, as I suppose you would call him, in the gun-room. It +was an admirable imitation of the thing to which he and his +ancestors must have been for thousands of years accustomed; and +for the first two nights he slept perched among its +branches. On the third the little brute turned the poor cat +out of its basket and slept on the eiderdown, after which no more +tree for him, real or imitation. At the end of the three +months, if we offered him monkey-nuts, he would snatch them from +our hand and throw them at our head. He much preferred +gingerbread and weak tea with plenty of sugar; and when we wanted +him to leave the kitchen fire and enjoy a run in the garden, we +had to carry him out swearing—I mean he was swearing, of +course. I quite agree with him. I much prefer this +chair on which I am sitting—this ‘wooden +lumber,’ as you term it—to the most comfortable lump +of old red sandstone that the best furnished cave could possibly +afford; and I am degenerate enough to fancy that I look very nice +in this frock—much nicer than my brothers or sisters to +whom it originally belonged: they didn’t know how to make +the best of it.”</p> +<p>“You would look charming anyhow,” I murmured with +conviction, “even—”</p> +<p>“I know what you are going to say,” interrupted +the Woman of the World; “please don’t. +It’s very shocking, and, besides, I don’t agree with +you. I should have had a thick, coarse skin, with hair all +over me and nothing by way of a change.”</p> +<p>“I am contending,” said the Minor Poet, +“that what we choose to call civilisation has done little +beyond pandering to our animal desires. Your argument +confirms my theory. Your evidence in support of +civilisation comes to this—that it can succeed in tickling +the appetites of a monkey. You need not have gone back so +far. The noble savage of today flings aside his clear +spring water to snatch at the missionary’s gin. He +will even discard his feathers, which at least were picturesque, +for a chimney-pot hat innocent of nap. Plaid trousers and +cheap champagne follow in due course. Where is the +advancement? Civilisation provides us with more luxuries +for our bodies. That I grant you. Has it brought us +any real improvement that could not have been arrived at sooner +by other roads?”</p> +<p>“It has given us Art,” said the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“When you say ‘us,’” replied the Minor +Poet, “I presume you are referring to the one person in +half a million to whom Art is anything more than a name. +Dismissing the countless hordes who have absolutely never heard +the word, and confining attention to the few thousands scattered +about Europe and America who prate of it, how many of even these +do you think it really influences, entering into their lives, +refining, broadening them? Watch the faces of the thin but +conscientious crowd streaming wearily through our miles of +picture galleries and art museums; gaping, with guide-book in +hand, at ruined temple or cathedral tower; striving, with the +spirit of the martyr, to feel enthusiasm for Old Masters at +which, left to themselves, they would enjoy a good +laugh—for chipped statues which, uninstructed, they would +have mistaken for the damaged stock of a suburban +tea-garden. Not more than one in twelve enjoys what he is +looking at, and he by no means is bound to be the best of the +dozen. Nero was a genuine lover of Art; and in modern times +August the Strong, of Saxony, ‘the man of sin,’ as +Carlyle calls him, has left undeniable proof behind him that he +was a connoisseur of the first water. One recalls names +even still more recent. Are we so sure that Art does +elevate?”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image38" href="images/p38b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Are we so sure that Art does elevate?" +title= +"Are we so sure that Art does elevate?" + src="images/p38s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“You are talking for the sake of talking,” told +him the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“One can talk for the sake of thinking also,” +reminded her the Minor Poet. “The argument is one +that has to be faced. But admitting that Art has been of +service to mankind on the whole, that it possesses one-tenth of +the soul-forming properties claimed for it in the +advertisement—which I take to be a generous +estimate—its effect upon the world at large still remains +infinitesimal.”</p> +<p>“It works down,” maintained the Girton Girl. +“From the few it spreads to the many.”</p> +<p>“The process appears to be somewhat slow,” +answered the Minor Poet. “The result, for whatever it +may be worth, we might have obtained sooner by doing away with +the middleman.”</p> +<p>“What middleman?” demanded the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“The artist,” explained the Minor Poet; “the +man who has turned the whole thing into a business, the shopman +who sells emotions over the counter. A Corot, a Turner is, +after all, but a poor apology compared with a walk in spring +through the Black Forest or the view from Hampstead Heath on a +November afternoon. Had we been less occupied acquiring +‘the advantages of civilisation,’ working upward +through the weary centuries to the city slum, the +corrugated-iron-roofed farm, we might have found time to learn to +love the beauty of the world. As it is, we have been so +busy ‘civilising’ ourselves that we have forgotten to +live. We are like an old lady I once shared a carriage with +across the Simplon Pass.”</p> +<p>“By the way,” I remarked, “one is going to +be saved all that bother in the future. They have nearly +completed the new railway line. One will be able to go from +Domo d’Orsola to Brieg in a little over the two +hours. They tell me the tunnelling is wonderful.”</p> +<p>“It will be very charming,” sighed the Minor +Poet. “I am looking forward to a future when, thanks +to ‘civilisation,’ travel will be done away with +altogether. We shall be sewn up in a sack and shot +there. At the time I speak of we still had to be content +with the road winding through some of the most magnificent +scenery in Switzerland. I rather enjoyed the drive myself, +but my companion was quite unable to appreciate it. Not +because she did not care for scenery. As she explained to +me, she was passionately fond of it. But her luggage +claimed all her attention. There were seventeen pieces of +it altogether, and every time the ancient vehicle lurched or +swayed, which on an average was once every thirty seconds, she +was in terror lest one or more of them should be jerked +out. Half her day was taken up in counting them and +re-arranging them, and the only view in which she was interested +was the cloud of dust behind us. One bonnet-box did +contrive during the course of the journey to make its escape, +after which she sat with her arms round as many of the remaining +sixteen articles as she could encompass, and sighed.”</p> +<p>“I knew an Italian countess,” said the Woman of +the World; “she had been at school with mamma. She +never would go half a mile out of her way for scenery. +‘Why should I?’ she would say. ‘What are +the painters for? If there is anything good, let them bring +it to me and I will look at it. She said she preferred the +picture to the real thing, it was so much more artistic. In +the landscape itself, she complained, there was sure to be a +chimney in the distance, or a restaurant in the foreground, that +spoilt the whole effect. The artist left it out. If +necessary, he could put in a cow or a pretty girl to help the +thing. The actual cow, if it happened to be there at all, +would probably be standing the wrong way round; the girl, in all +likelihood, would be fat and plain, or be wearing the wrong +hat. The artist knew precisely the sort of girl that ought +to be there, and saw to it that she was there, with just the +right sort of hat. She said she had found it so all through +life—the poster was always an improvement on the +play.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image42" href="images/p42b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The artist knew precisely the sort of girl that ought to be +there" +title= +"The artist knew precisely the sort of girl that ought to be +there" + src="images/p42s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“It is rapidly coming to that,” answered the Minor +Poet. “Nature, as a well known painter once put it, +is not ‘creeping up’ fast enough to keep pace with +our ideals. In advanced Germany they improve the waterfalls +and ornament the rocks. In Paris they paint the +babies’ faces.”</p> +<p>“You can hardly lay the blame for that upon +civilisation,” pleaded the Girton Girl. “The +ancient Briton had a pretty taste in woads.”</p> +<p>“Man’s first feeble steps upon the upward path of +Art,” assented the Minor Poet, “culminating in the +rouge-pot and the hair-dye.”</p> +<p>“Come!” laughed the Old Maid, “you are +narrow-minded. Civilisation has given us music. +Surely you will admit that has been of help to us?”</p> +<p>“My dear lady,” replied the Minor Poet, “you +speak of the one accomplishment with which Civilisation has had +little or nothing to do, the one art that Nature has bestowed +upon man in common with the birds and insects, the one +intellectual enjoyment we share with the entire animal creation, +excepting only the canines; and even the howling of the +dog—one cannot be sure—may be an honest, however +unsatisfactory, attempt towards a music of his own. I had a +fox terrier once who invariably howled in tune. Jubal +hampered, not helped us. He it was who stifled music with +the curse of professionalism; so that now, like shivering +shop-boys paying gate-money to watch games they cannot play, we +sit mute in our stalls listening to the paid performer. But +for the musician, music might have been universal. The +human voice is still the finest instrument that we possess. +We have allowed it to rust, the better to hear clever +manipulators blow through tubes and twang wires. The +musical world might have been a literal expression. +Civilisation has contracted it to designate a coterie.”</p> +<p>“By the way,” said the Woman of the World, +“talking of music, have you heard that last symphony of +Grieg’s? It came in the last parcel. I have +been practising it.”</p> +<p>“Oh! do let us hear it,” urged the Old Maid. +“I love Grieg.”</p> +<p>The Woman of the World rose and opened the piano.</p> +<p>“Myself, I have always been of opinion—” I +remarked.</p> +<p>“Please don’t chatter,” said the Minor +Poet.</p> +<h2>III</h2> +<p>“I <span class="smcap">never</span> liked her,” +said the Old Maid; “I always knew she was +heartless.”</p> +<p>“To my thinking,” said the Minor Poet, “she +has shown herself a true woman.”</p> +<p>“Really,” said the Woman of the World, laughing, +“I shall have to nickname you Dr. Johnson Redivivus. +I believe, were the subject under discussion, you would admire +the coiffure of the Furies. It would occur to you that it +must have been naturally curly.”</p> +<p>“It is the Irish blood flowing in his veins,” I +told them. “He must always be ‘agin the +Government.’”</p> +<p>“We ought to be grateful to him,” remarked the +Philosopher. “What can be more uninteresting than an +agreeable conversation I mean, a conversation—where +everybody is in agreement? Disagreement, on the other hand, +is stimulating.”</p> +<p>“Maybe that is the reason,” I suggested, +“why modern society is so tiresome an affair. By +tabooing all difference of opinion we have eliminated all zest +from our intercourse. Religion, sex, politics—any +subject on which man really thinks, is scrupulously excluded from +all polite gatherings. Conversation has become a chorus; +or, as a writer wittily expressed it, the pursuit of the obvious +to no conclusion. When not occupied with mumbling, ‘I +quite agree with you’—‘As you +say’—‘That is precisely my +opinion’—we sit about and ask each other riddles: +‘What did the Pro-Boer?’ ‘Why did Julius +Cæsar?’”</p> +<p>“Fashion has succeeded where Force for centuries has +failed,” added the Philosopher. “One notices +the tendency even in public affairs. It is bad form +nowadays to belong to the Opposition. The chief aim of the +Church is to bring itself into line with worldly opinion. +The Nonconformist Conscience grows every day a still smaller +voice.”</p> +<p>“I believe,” said the Woman of the World, +“that was the reason why Emily never got on with poor dear +George. He agreed with her in everything. She used to +say it made her feel such a fool.”</p> +<p>“Man is a fighting animal,” explained the +Philosopher. “An officer who had been through the +South African War was telling me only the other day: he was with +a column, and news came in that a small commando was moving in +the neighbourhood. The column set off in the highest of +spirits, and after three days’ trying work through a +difficult country came up with, as they thought, the enemy. +As a matter of fact, it was not the enemy, but a troop of +Imperial Yeomanry that had lost its way. My friend informs +me that the language with which his column greeted those +unfortunate Yeomen—their fellow countrymen, men of their +own blood—was most unsympathetic.”</p> +<p>“Myself, I should hate a man who agreed with me,” +said the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“My dear,” replied the Woman of the World, +“I don’t think any would.”</p> +<p>“Why not?” demanded the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“I was thinking more of you, dear,” replied the +Woman of the World.</p> +<p>“I am glad you all concur with me,” murmured the +Minor Poet. “I have always myself regarded the +Devil’s Advocate as the most useful officer in the Court of +Truth.”</p> +<p>“I remember being present one evening,” I +observed, “at a dinner-party where an eminent judge met an +equally eminent K. C.; whose client the judge that very afternoon +had condemned to be hanged. ‘It is always a +satisfaction,’ remarked to him genially the judge, +‘condemning any prisoner defended by you. One feels +so absolutely certain he was guilty.’ The K. C. +responded that he should always remember the judge’s words +with pride.”</p> +<p>“Who was it,” asked the Philosopher, “who +said: ‘Before you can attack a lie, you must strip it of +its truth’?”</p> +<p>“It sounds like Emerson,” I ventured.</p> +<p>“Very possibly,” assented the Philosopher; +“very possibly not. There is much in +reputation. Most poetry gets attributed to +Shakespeare.”</p> +<p>“I entered a certain drawing-room about a week +ago,” I said. “‘We were just speaking +about you,’ exclaimed my hostess. ‘Is not this +yours?’ She pointed to an article in a certain +magazine lying open on the table. ‘No,’ I +replied; ‘one or two people have asked me that same +question. It seems to me rather an absurd article,’ I +added. ‘I cannot say I thought very much of +it,’ agreed my hostess.”</p> +<p>“I can’t help it,” said the Old Maid. +“I shall always dislike a girl who deliberately sells +herself for money.”</p> +<p>“But what else is there to sell herself for?” +asked the Minor Poet.</p> +<p>“She should not sell herself at all,” retorted the +Old Maid, with warmth. “She should give herself, for +love.”</p> +<p>“Are we not in danger of drifting into a difference of +opinion concerning the meaning of words merely?” replied +the Minor Poet. “We have all of us, I suppose, heard +the story of the Jew clothier remonstrated with by the Rabbi for +doing business on the Sabbath. ‘Doing +bithness!’ retorted the accused with indignation; +‘you call thelling a thuit like that for eighteen shillings +doing bithness! By, ith’s tharity!’ This +‘love’ for which the maiden gives herself—let +us be a little more exact—does it not include, as a matter +of course, material more tangible? Would not the adored one +look somewhat astonished on discovering that, having given +herself for ‘love,’ love was all that her lover +proposed to give for her. Would she not naturally exclaim: +‘But where’s the house, to say nothing of the +fittings? And what are we to live on’?”</p> +<p>“It is you now who are playing with words,” +asserted the Old Maid. “The greater includes the +less. Loving her, he would naturally +desire—”</p> +<p>“With all his worldly goods her to endow,” +completed for her the Minor Poet. “In other words, he +pays a price for her. So far as love is concerned, they are +quits. In marriage, the man gives himself to the woman as +the woman gives herself to the man. Man has claimed, I am +aware, greater liberty for himself; but the claim has always been +vehemently repudiated by woman. She has won her case. +Legally and morally now husband and wife are bound by the same +laws. This being so, her contention that she gives herself +falls to the ground. She exchanges herself. Over and +above, she alone of the twain claims a price.”</p> +<p>“Say a living wage,” corrected the +Philosopher. “Lazy rubbish lolls in petticoats, and +idle stupidity struts in trousers. But, class for class, +woman does her share of the world’s work. Among the +poor, of the two it is she who labours the longer. There is +a many-versed ballad popular in country districts. Often I +have heard it sung in shrill, piping voice at harvest supper or +barn dance. The chorus runs—</p> +<p class="poetry">A man’s work ’tis till set of +sun,<br /> +But a woman’s work is never done!</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image52" href="images/p52b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"A man’s work ’tis till set of sun . . ." +title= +"A man’s work ’tis till set of sun . . ." + src="images/p52s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“My housekeeper came to me a few months ago,” said +the Woman of the World, “to tell me that my cook had given +notice. ‘I am sorry to hear it,’ I answered; +‘has she found a better place?’ ‘I am not +so sure about that,’ answered Markham; ‘she’s +going as general servant.’ ‘As general +servant!’ I exclaimed. ‘To old Hudson, at the +coal wharf,’ answered Markham. ‘His wife died +last year, if you remember. He’s got seven children, +poor man, and no one to look after them.’ ‘I +suppose you mean,’ I said, ‘that she’s marrying +him.’ ‘Well, that’s the way she puts +it,’ laughed Markham. ‘What I tell her is, +she’s giving up a good home and fifty pounds a year, to be +a general servant on nothing a week. But they never see +it.’”</p> +<p>“I recollect her,” answered the Minor Poet, +“a somewhat depressing lady. Let me take another +case. You possess a remarkably pretty +housemaid—Edith, if I have it rightly.”</p> +<p>“I have noticed her,” remarked the +Philosopher. “Her manners strike me as really quite +exceptional.”</p> +<p>“I never could stand any one about me with carroty +hair,” remarked the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“I should hardly call it carroty,” contended the +Philosopher. “There is a golden tint of much richness +underlying, when you look closely.”</p> +<p>“She is a very good girl,” agreed the Woman of the +World; “but I am afraid I shall have to get rid of +her. The other woman servants don’t get on with +her.”</p> +<p>“Do you know whether she is engaged or not?” +demanded the Minor Poet.</p> +<p>“At the present moment,” answered the Woman of the +World, “she is walking out, I believe, with the eldest son +of the ‘Blue Lion.’ But she is never adverse to +a change. If you are really in earnest about the +matter—”</p> +<p>“I was not thinking of myself,” said the Minor +Poet. “But suppose some young gentleman of personal +attractions equal to those of the ‘Blue Lion,’ or +even not quite equal, possessed of two or three thousand a year, +were to enter the lists, do you think the ‘Blue Lion’ +would stand much chance?”</p> +<p>“Among the Upper Classes,” continued the Minor +Poet, “opportunity for observing female instinct hardly +exists. The girl’s choice is confined to lovers able +to pay the price demanded, if not by the beloved herself, by +those acting on her behalf. But would a daughter of the +Working Classes ever hesitate, other things being equal, between +Mayfair and Seven Dials?”</p> +<p>“Let me ask you one,” chimed in the Girton +Girl. “Would a bricklayer hesitate any longer between +a duchess and a scullery-maid?”</p> +<p>“But duchesses don’t fall in love with +bricklayers,” returned the Minor Poet. “Now, +why not? The stockbroker flirts with the +barmaid—cases have been known; often he marries her. +Does the lady out shopping ever fall in love with the waiter at +the bun-shop? Hardly ever. Lordlings marry ballet +girls, but ladies rarely put their heart and fortune at the feet +of the Lion Comique. Manly beauty and virtue are not +confined to the House of Lords and its dependencies. How do +you account for the fact that while it is common enough for the +man to look beneath him, the woman will almost invariably prefer +her social superior, and certainly never tolerate her +inferior? Why should King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid +appear to us a beautiful legend, while Queen Cophetua and the +Tramp would be ridiculous?”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image56" href="images/p56b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Does the lady out shopping ever fall in love with the waiter at +the bun-shop?" +title= +"Does the lady out shopping ever fall in love with the waiter at +the bun-shop?" + src="images/p56s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“The simple explanation is,” expounded the Girton +Girl, “woman is so immeasurably man’s superior that +only by weighting him more or less heavily with worldly +advantages can any semblance of balance be obtained.”</p> +<p>“Then,” answered the Minor Poet, “you surely +agree with me that woman is justified in demanding this +‘make-weight.’ The woman gives her love, if you +will. It is the art treasure, the gilded vase thrown in +with the pound of tea; but the tea has to be paid for.”</p> +<p>“It all sounds very clever,” commented the Old +Maid; “yet I fail to see what good comes of ridiculing a +thing one’s heart tells one is sacred.”</p> +<p>“Do not be so sure I am wishful to ridicule,” +answered the Minor Poet. “Love is a wondrous statue +God carved with His own hands and placed in the Garden of Life, +long ago. And man, knowing not sin, worshipped her, seeing +her beautiful. Till the time came when man learnt evil; +then saw that the statue was naked, and was ashamed of it. +Since when he has been busy, draping it, now in the fashion of +this age, now in the fashion of that. We have shod her in +dainty bottines, regretting the size of her feet. We employ +the best artistes to design for her cunning robes that shall +disguise her shape. Each season we fix fresh millinery upon +her changeless head. We hang around her robes of woven +words. Only the promise of her ample breasts we cannot +altogether hide, shocking us not a little; only that remains to +tell us that beneath the tawdry tissues still stands the +changeless statue God carved with His own hands.”</p> +<p>“I like you better when you talk like that,” said +the Old Maid; “but I never feel quite sure of you. +All I mean, of course, is that money should not be her first +consideration. Marriage for money—it is not marriage; +one cannot speak of it. Of course, one must be +reasonable.”</p> +<p>“You mean,” persisted the Minor Poet, “you +would have her think also of her dinner, of her clothes, her +necessities, luxuries.”</p> +<p>“It is not only for herself,” answered the Old +Maid.</p> +<p>“For whom?” demanded the Minor Poet.</p> +<p>The white hands of the Old Maid fluttered on her lap, +revealing her trouble; for of the old school is this sweet friend +of mine.</p> +<p>“There are the children to be considered,” I +explained. “A woman feels it even without +knowing. It is her instinct.”</p> +<p>The Old Maid smiled on me her thanks.</p> +<p>“It is where I was leading,” said the Minor +Poet. “Woman has been appointed by Nature the trustee +of the children. It is her duty to think of them, to plan +for them. If in marriage she does not take the future into +consideration, she is untrue to her trust.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image58" href="images/p58b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Woman has been appointed by Nature the trustee of the children" +title= +"Woman has been appointed by Nature the trustee of the children" + src="images/p58s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“Before you go further,” interrupted the +Philosopher, “there is an important point to be +considered. Are children better or worse for a pampered +upbringing? Is not poverty often the best +school?”</p> +<p>“It is what I always tell George,” remarked the +Woman of the World, “when he grumbles at the +tradesmen’s books. If Papa could only have seen his +way to being a poor man, I feel I should have been a better +wife.”</p> +<p>“Please don’t suggest the possibility,” I +begged the Woman of the World; “the thought is too +bewildering.”</p> +<p>“You were never imaginative,” replied the Woman of +the World.</p> +<p>“Not to that extent,” I admitted.</p> +<p>“‘The best mothers make the worst +children,’” quoted the Girton Girl. “I +intend to bear that in mind.”</p> +<p>“Your mother was a very beautiful character—one of +the most beautiful I ever knew,” remarked the Old Maid.</p> +<p>“There is some truth in the saying,” agreed the +Minor Poet, “but only because it is the exception; and +Nature invariably puts forth all her powers to counteract the +result of deviation from her laws. Were it the rule, then +the bad mother would be the good mother and the good mother the +bad mother. And—”</p> +<p>“Please don’t go on,” said the Woman of the +World. “I was up late last night.”</p> +<p>“I was merely going to show,” explained the Minor +Poet, “that all roads lead to the law that the good mother +is the best mother. Her duty is to her children, to guard +their infancy, to take thought for their equipment.”</p> +<p>“Do you seriously ask us to believe,” demanded the +Old Maid, “that the type of woman who does marry for money +considers for a single moment any human being but +herself?”</p> +<p>“Not consciously, perhaps,” admitted the Minor +Poet. “Our instincts, that they may guide us easily, +are purposely made selfish. The flower secretes honey for +its own purposes, not with any sense of charity towards the +bee. Man works, as he thinks, for beer and baccy; in +reality, for the benefit of unborn generations. The woman, +in acting selfishly, is assisting Nature’s plans. In +olden days she chose her mate for his strength. She, +possibly enough, thought only of herself; he could best provide +for her then simple wants, best guard her from the disagreeable +accidents of nomadic life. But Nature, unseen, directing +her, was thinking of the savage brood needing still more a bold +protector. Wealth now is the substitute for strength. +The rich man is the strong man. The woman’s heart +unconsciously goes out to him.”</p> +<p>“Do men never marry for money?” inquired the +Girton Girl. “I ask merely for information. +Maybe I have been misinformed, but I have heard of countries +where the <i>dot</i> is considered of almost more importance than +the bride.”</p> +<p>“The German officer,” I ventured to strike in, +“is literally on sale. Young lieutenants are most +expensive, and even an elderly colonel costs a girl a hundred +thousand marks.”</p> +<p>“You mean,” corrected the Minor Poet, “costs +her father. The Continental husband demands a dowry with +his wife, and sees that he gets it. He in his turn has to +save and scrape for years to provide each of his daughters with +the necessary <i>dot</i>. It comes to the same thing +precisely. Your argument could only apply were woman +equally with man a wealth producer. As it is, a +woman’s wealth is invariably the result of a marriage, +either her own or that of some shrewd ancestress. And as +regards the heiress, the principle of sale and purchase, if I may +be forgiven the employment of common terms, is still more +religiously enforced. It is not often that the heiress is +given away; stolen she may be occasionally, much to the +indignation of Lord Chancellors and other guardians of such +property; the thief is very properly punished—imprisoned, +if need be. If handed over legitimately, her price is +strictly exacted, not always in money—that she possesses +herself, maybe in sufficiency; it enables her to bargain for +other advantages no less serviceable to her children—for +title, place, position. In the same way the Neolithic +woman, herself of exceptional strength and ferocity, may have +been enabled to bestow a thought upon her savage lover’s +beauty, his prehistoric charm of manner; thus in other directions +no less necessary assisting the development of the +race.”</p> +<p>“I cannot argue with you,” said the Old +Maid. “I know one case. They were both poor; it +would have made no difference to her, but it did to him. +Maybe I am wrong, but it seems to me that, as you say, our +instincts are given us to guide us. I do not know. +The future is not in our hands; it does not belong to us. +Perhaps it were wiser to listen to the voices that are sent to +us.”</p> +<p>“I remember a case, also,” said the Woman of the +World. She had risen to prepare the tea, and was standing +with her back to us. “Like the woman you speak of, +she was poor, but one of the sweetest creatures I have ever +known. I cannot help thinking it would have been good for +the world had she been a mother.”</p> +<p>“My dear lady,” cried the Minor Poet, “you +help me!”</p> +<p>“I always do, according to you,” laughed the Woman +of the World. “I appear to resemble the bull that +tossed the small boy high into the apple-tree he had been trying +all the afternoon to climb.”</p> +<p>“It is very kind of you,” answered the Minor +Poet. “My argument is that woman is justified in +regarding marriage as the end of her existence, the particular +man as but a means. The woman you speak of acted selfishly, +rejecting the crown of womanhood because not tendered to her by +hands she had chosen.”</p> +<p>“You would have us marry without love?” asked the +Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“With love, if possible,” answered the Minor Poet; +“without, rather than not at all. It is the +fulfilment of the woman’s law.”</p> +<p>“You would make of us goods and chattels,” cried +the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“I would make of you what you are,” returned the +Minor Poet, “the priestesses of Nature’s temple, +leading man to the worship of her mysteries. An American +humorist has described marriage as the craving of some young man +to pay for some young woman’s board and lodging. +There is no escaping from this definition; let us accept +it. It is beautiful—so far as the young man is +concerned. He sacrifices himself, deprives himself, that he +may give. That is love. But from the woman’s +point of view? If she accept thinking only of herself, then +it is a sordid bargain on her part. To understand her, to +be just to her, we must look deeper. Not sexual, but +maternal love is her kingdom. She gives herself not to her +lover, but through her lover to the great Goddess of the Myriad +Breasts that shadows ever with her guardian wings Life from the +outstretched hand of Death.”</p> +<p>“She may be a nice enough girl from Nature’s point +of view,” said the Old Maid; “personally, I shall +never like her.”</p> +<h2>IV</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">What</span> is the time?” +asked the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>I looked at my watch. “Twenty past four,” I +answered.</p> +<p>“Exactly?” demanded the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“Precisely,” I replied.</p> +<p>“Strange,” murmured the Girton Girl. +“There is no accounting for it, yet it always is +so.”</p> +<p>“What is there no accounting for?” I +inquired. “What is strange?”</p> +<p>“It is a German superstition,” explained the +Girton Girl, “I learnt it at school. Whenever +complete silence falls upon any company, it is always twenty +minutes past the hour.”</p> +<p>“Why do we talk so much?” demanded the Minor +Poet.</p> +<p>“As a matter of fact,” observed the Woman of the +World, “I don’t think we do—not we, personally, +not much. Most of our time we appear to be listening to +you.”</p> +<p>“Then why do I talk so much, if you prefer to put it +that way?” continued the Minor Poet. “If I +talked less, one of you others would have to talk +more.”</p> +<p>“There would be that advantage about it,” agreed +the Philosopher.</p> +<p>“In all probability, you,” returned to him the +Minor Poet. “Whether as a happy party we should gain +or lose by the exchange, it is not for me to say, though I have +my own opinion. The essential remains—that the stream +of chatter must be kept perpetually flowing. +Why?”</p> +<p>“There is a man I know,” I said; “you may +have met him, a man named Longrush. He is not exactly a +bore. A bore expects you to listen to him. This man +is apparently unaware whether you are listening to him or +not. He is not a fool. A fool is occasionally +amusing—Longrush never. No subject comes amiss to +him. Whatever the topic, he has something uninteresting to +say about it. He talks as a piano-organ grinds out music +steadily, strenuously, tirelessly. The moment you stand or +sit him down he begins, to continue ceaselessly till wheeled away +in cab or omnibus to his next halting-place. As in the case +of his prototype, his rollers are changed about once a month to +suit the popular taste. In January he repeats to you Dan +Leno’s jokes, and gives you other people’s opinions +concerning the Old Masters at the Guild-hall. In June he +recounts at length what is generally thought concerning the +Academy, and agrees with most people on most points connected +with the Opera. If forgetful for a moment—as an +Englishman may be excused for being—whether it be summer or +winter, one may assure oneself by waiting to see whether Longrush +is enthusing over cricket or football. He is always +up-to-date. The last new Shakespeare, the latest scandal, +the man of the hour, the next nine days’ wonder—by +the evening Longrush has his roller ready. In my early days +of journalism I had to write each evening a column for a +provincial daily, headed ‘What People are +Saying.’ The editor was precise in his +instructions. ‘I don’t want your opinions; I +don’t want you to be funny; never mind whether the thing +appears to you to be interesting or not. I want it to be +real, the things people <i>are</i> saying.’ I tried +to be conscientious. Each paragraph began with +‘That.’ I wrote the column because I wanted the +thirty shillings. Why anybody ever read it, I fail to +understand to this day; but I believe it was one of the popular +features of the paper. Longrush invariably brings back to +my mind the dreary hours I spent penning that fatuous +record.”</p> +<p>“I think I know the man you mean,” said the +Philosopher. “I had forgotten his name.”</p> +<p>“I thought it possible you might have met him,” I +replied. “Well, my cousin Edith was arranging a +dinner-party the other day, and, as usual, she did me the honour +to ask my advice. Generally speaking, I do not give advice +nowadays. As a very young man I was generous with it. +I have since come to the conclusion that responsibility for my +own muddles and mistakes is sufficient. However, I make an +exception in Edith’s case, knowing that never by any chance +will she follow it.”</p> +<p>“Speaking of editors,” said the Philosopher, +“Bates told me at the club the other night that he had +given up writing the ‘Answers to Correspondents’ +personally, since discovery of the fact that he had been +discussing at some length the attractive topic, ‘Duties of +a Father,’ with his own wife, who is somewhat of a +humorist.”</p> +<p>“There was the wife of a clergyman my mother used to +tell of,” said the Woman of the World, “who kept +copies of her husband’s sermons. She would read him +extracts from them in bed, in place of curtain lectures. +She explained it saved her trouble. Everything she felt she +wanted to say to him he had said himself so much more +forcibly.”</p> +<p>“The argument always appears to me weak,” said the +Philosopher. “If only the perfect may preach, our +pulpits would remain empty. Am I to ignore the peace that +slips into my soul when perusing the Psalms, to deny myself all +benefit from the wisdom of the Proverbs, because neither David +nor Solomon was a worthy casket of the jewels that God had placed +in them? Is a temperance lecturer never to quote the +self-reproaches of poor Cassio because Master Will Shakespeare, +there is evidence to prove, was a gentleman, alas! much too fond +of the bottle? The man that beats the drum may be himself a +coward. It is the drum that is the important thing to us, +not the drummer.”</p> +<p>“Of all my friends,” said the Woman of the World, +“the one who has the most trouble with her servants is poor +Jane Meredith.”</p> +<p>“I am exceedingly sorry to hear it,” observed the +Philosopher, after a slight pause. “But forgive me, I +really do not see—”</p> +<p>“I beg your pardon,” answered the Woman of the +World. “I thought everybody knew ‘Jane +Meredith.’ She writes ‘The Perfect Home’ +column for <i>The Woman’s World</i>.”</p> +<p>“It will always remain a riddle, one supposes,” +said the Minor Poet. “Which is the real ego—I, +the author of ‘The Simple Life,’ fourteenth edition, +three and sixpence net—”</p> +<p>“Don’t,” pleaded the Old Maid, with a smile; +“please don’t.”</p> +<p>“Don’t what?” demanded the Minor Poet.</p> +<p>“Don’t ridicule it—make fun of it, even +though it may happen to be your own. There are parts of it +I know by heart. I say them over to myself +when— Don’t spoil it for me.” The +Old Maid laughed, but nervously.</p> +<p>“My dear lady,” reassured her the Minor Poet, +“do not be afraid. No one regards that poem with more +reverence than do I. You can have but small conception what +a help it is to me also. I, too, so often read it to +myself; and when— We understand. As one who +turns his back on scenes of riot to drink the moonlight in quiet +ways, I go to it for sweetness and for peace. So much do I +admire the poem, I naturally feel desire and curiosity to meet +its author, to know him. I should delight, drawing him +aside from the crowded room, to grasp him by the hand, to say to +him: ‘My dear—my very dear Mr. Minor Poet, I am so +glad to meet you! I would I could tell you how much your +beautiful work has helped me. This, my dear sir—this +is indeed privilege!’ But I can picture so vividly +the bored look with which he would receive my gush. I can +imagine the contempt with which he, the pure liver, would regard +me did he know me—me, the liver of the fool’s hot +days.”</p> +<p>“A short French story I once read somewhere,” I +said, “rather impressed me. A poet or +dramatist—I am not sure which—had married the +daughter of a provincial notary. There was nothing +particularly attractive about her except her <i>dot</i>. He +had run through his own small fortune and was in some need. +She worshipped him and was, as he used to boast to his friends, +the ideal wife for a poet. She cooked admirably—a +useful accomplishment during the first half-dozen years of their +married life; and afterwards, when fortune came to him, managed +his affairs to perfection, by her care and economy keeping all +worldly troubles away from his study door. An ideal +<i>Hausfrau</i>, undoubtedly, but of course no companion for our +poet. So they went their ways; till, choosing as in all +things the right moment, when she could best be spared, the good +lady died and was buried.</p> +<p>“And here begins the interest of the story, somewhat +late. One article of furniture, curiously out of place +among the rich appointments of their fine <i>hôtel</i>, the +woman had insisted on retaining, a heavy, clumsily carved oak +desk her father had once used in his office, and which he had +given to her for her own as a birthday present back in the days +of her teens.</p> +<p>“You must read the story for yourselves if you would +enjoy the subtle sadness that surrounds it, the delicate aroma of +regret through which it moves. The husband finding after +some little difficulty the right key, fits it into the lock of +the bureau. As a piece of furniture, plain, solid, squat, +it has always jarred upon his artistic sense. She too, his +good, affectionate Sara, had been plain, solid, a trifle +squat. Perhaps that was why the poor woman had clung so +obstinately to the one thing in the otherwise perfect house that +was quite out of place there. Ah, well! she is gone now, +the good creature. And the bureau—no, the bureau +shall remain. Nobody will need to come into this room, no +one ever did come there but the woman herself. Perhaps she +had not been altogether so happy as she might have been. A +husband less intellectual—one from whom she would not have +lived so far apart—one who could have entered into her +simple, commonplace life! it might have been better for both of +them. He draws down the lid, pulls out the largest +drawer. It is full of manuscripts, folded and tied neatly +with ribbons once gay, now faded. He thinks at first they +are his own writings—things begun and discarded, reserved +by her with fondness. She thought so much of him, the good +soul! Really, she could not have been so dull as he had deemed +her. The power to appreciate rightly—this, at least, +she must have possessed. He unties the ribbon. No, +the writing is her own, corrected, altered, underlined. He +opens a second, a third. Then with a smile he sits down to +read. What can they be like, these poems, these +stories? He laughs, smoothing the crumpled paper, +foreseeing the trite commonness, the shallow sentiment. The +poor child! So she likewise would have been a +<i>littérateure</i>. Even she had her ambition, her +dream.</p> +<p>“The sunshine climbs the wall behind him, creeps +stealthily across the ceiling of the room, slips out softly by +the window, leaving him alone. All these years he had been +living with a fellow poet. They should have been comrades, +and they had never spoken. Why had she hidden +herself? Why had she left him, never revealing +herself? Years ago, when they were first married—he +remembers now—she had slipped little blue-bound copy-books +into his pocket, laughing, blushing, asking him to read +them. How could he have guessed? Of course, he had +forgotten them. Later, they had disappeared again; it had +never occurred to him to think. Often in the earlier days +she had tried to talk to him about his work. Had he but +looked into her eyes, he might have understood. But she had +always been so homely-seeming, so good. Who would have +suspected? Then suddenly the blood rushes into his +face. What must have been her opinion of his work? +All these years he had imagined her the amazed devotee, +uncomprehending but admiring. He had read to her at times, +comparing himself the while with Molière reading to his +cook. What right had she to play this trick upon him? +The folly of it! The pity of it! He would have been +so glad of her.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image80" href="images/p80b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Comparing himself the while with Molière reading to his +cook" +title= +"Comparing himself the while with Molière reading to his +cook" + src="images/p80s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“What becomes, I wonder,” mused the Philosopher, +“of the thoughts that are never spoken? We know that +in Nature nothing is wasted; the very cabbage is immortal, living +again in altered form. A thought published or spoken we can +trace, but such must only be a small percentage. It often +occurs to me walking down the street. Each man and woman +that I pass by, each silently spinning his silken thought, short +or long, fine or coarse. What becomes of it?”</p> +<p>“I heard you say once,” remarked the Old Maid to +the Minor Poet, “that ‘thoughts are in the +air,’ that the poet but gathers them as a child plucks +wayside blossoms to shape them into nosegays.”</p> +<p>“It was in confidence,” replied the Minor +Poet. “Please do not let it get about, or my +publisher will use it as an argument for cutting down my +royalties.”</p> +<p>“I have always remembered it,” answered the Old +Maid. “It seemed so true. A thought suddenly +comes to you. I think of them sometimes, as of little +motherless babes creeping into our brains for shelter.”</p> +<p>“It is a pretty idea,” mused the Minor Poet. +“I shall see them in the twilight: pathetic little +round-eyed things of goblin shape, dimly luminous against the +darkening air. Whence come you, little tender Thought, +tapping at my brain? From the lonely forest, where the +peasant mother croons above the cradle while she knits? +Thought of Love and Longing: lies your gallant father with his +boyish eyes unblinking underneath some tropic sun? Thought +of Life and Thought of Death: are you of patrician birth, cradled +by some high-born maiden, pacing slowly some sweet garden? +Or did you spring to life amid the din of loom or factory? +Poor little nameless foundlings! I shall feel myself in +future quite a philanthropist, taking them in, adopting +them.”</p> +<p>“You have not yet decided,” reminded him the Woman +of the World, “which you really are: the gentleman we get +for three and sixpence net, or the one we are familiar with, the +one we get for nothing.”</p> +<p>“Please don’t think I am suggesting any +comparison,” continued the Woman of the World, “but I +have been interested in the question since George joined a +Bohemian club and has taken to bringing down minor celebrities +from Saturday to Monday. I hope I am not narrow-minded, but +there is one gentleman I have been compelled to put my foot down +on.”</p> +<p>“I really do not think he will complain,” I +interrupted. The Woman of the World possesses, I should +explain, the daintiest of feet.</p> +<p>“It is heavier than you think,” replied the Woman +of the World. “George persists I ought to put up with +him because he is a true poet. I cannot admit the +argument. The poet I honestly admire. I like to have +him about the place. He lies on my drawing-room table in +white vellum, and helps to give tone to the room. For the +poet I am quite prepared to pay the four-and-six demanded; the +man I don’t want. To be candid, he is not worth his +own discount.”</p> +<p>“It is hardly fair,” urged the Minor Poet, +“to confine the discussion to poets. A friend of mine +some years ago married one of the most charming women in New +York, and that is saying a good deal. Everybody +congratulated him, and at the outset he was pleased enough with +himself. I met him two years later in Geneva, and we +travelled together as far as Rome. He and his wife scarcely +spoke to one another the whole journey, and before I left him he +was good enough to give me advice which to another man might be +useful. ‘Never marry a charming woman,’ he +counselled me. ‘Anything more unutterably dull than +“the charming woman” outside business hours you +cannot conceive.’”</p> +<p>“I think we must agree to regard the preacher,” +concluded the Philosopher, “merely as a brother +artist. The singer may be a heavy, fleshy man with a taste +for beer, but his voice stirs our souls. The preacher holds +aloft his banner of purity. He waves it over his own head +as much as over the heads of those around him. He does not +cry with the Master, ‘Come to Me,’ but ‘Come +with me, and be saved.’ The prayer ‘Forgive +them’ was the prayer not of the Priest, but of the +God. The prayer dictated to the Disciples was +‘Forgive us,’ ‘Deliver us.’ Not +that he should be braver, not that he should be stronger than +they that press behind him, is needed of the leader, but that he +should know the way. He, too, may faint, he, too, may fall; +only he alone must never turn his back.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image84" href="images/p84b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The singer may be a heavy, fleshy man with a taste for beer" +title= +"The singer may be a heavy, fleshy man with a taste for beer" + src="images/p84s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“It is quite comprehensible, looked at from one point of +view,” remarked the Minor Poet, “that he who gives +most to others should himself be weak. The professional +athlete pays, I believe, the price of central weakness. It +is a theory of mine that the charming, delightful people one +meets with in society are people who have dishonestly kept to +themselves gifts entrusted to them by Nature for the benefit of +the whole community. Your conscientious, hard-working +humorist is in private life a dull dog. The dishonest +trustee of laughter, on the other hand, robbing the world of wit +bestowed upon him for public purposes, becomes a brilliant +conversationalist.”</p> +<p>“But,” added the Minor Poet, turning to me, +“you were speaking of a man named Longrush, a great +talker.”</p> +<p>“A long talker,” I corrected. “My +cousin mentioned him third in her list of invitations. +‘Longrush,’ she said with conviction, ‘we must +have Longrush.’ ‘Isn’t he rather +tiresome?’ I suggested. ‘He is tiresome,’ +she agreed, ‘but then he’s so useful. He never +lets the conversation drop.’”</p> +<p>“Why is it?” asked the Minor Poet. +“Why, when we meet together, must we chatter like a mob of +sparrows? Why must every assembly to be successful sound +like the parrot-house of a zoological garden?”</p> +<p>“I remember a parrot story,” I said, “but I +forget who told it to me.”</p> +<p>“Maybe one of us will remember as you go on,” +suggested the Philosopher.</p> +<p>“A man,” I said—“an old farmer, if I +remember rightly—had read a lot of parrot stories, or had +heard them at the club. As a result he thought he would +like himself to be the owner of a parrot, so journeyed to a +dealer and, according to his own account, paid rather a long +price for a choice specimen. A week later he re-entered the +shop, the parrot borne behind him by a boy. ‘This +bird,’ said the farmer, ‘this bird you sold me last +week ain’t worth a sovereign!’ +‘What’s the matter with it?’ demanded the +dealer. ‘How do I know what’s the matter with +the bird?’ answered the farmer. ‘What I tell +you is that it ain’t worth a +sovereign—’tain’t worth a half a +sovereign!’ ‘Why not?’ persisted the +dealer; ‘it talks all right, don’t it?’ +‘Talks!’ retorted the indignant farmer, ‘the +damn thing talks all day, but it never says anything +funny!’”</p> +<p>“A friend of mine,” said the Philosopher, +“once had a parrot—”</p> +<p>“Won’t you come into the garden?” said the +Woman of the World, rising and leading the way.</p> +<h2>V</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Myself</span>,” said the +Minor Poet, “I read the book with the most intense +enjoyment. I found it inspiring—so inspiring, I fear +I did not give it sufficient attention. I must read it +again.”</p> +<p>“I understand you,” said the Philosopher. +“A book that really interests us makes us forget that we +are reading. Just as the most delightful conversation is +when nobody in particular appears to be talking.”</p> +<p>“Do you remember meeting that Russian man George brought +down here about three months ago?” asked the Woman of the +World, turning to the Minor Poet. “I forget his +name. As a matter of fact, I never knew it. It was +quite unpronounceable and, except that it ended, of course, with +a double f, equally impossible to spell. I told him frankly +at the beginning I should call him by his Christian name, which +fortunately was Nicholas. He was very nice about +it.”</p> +<p>“I remember him distinctly,” said the Minor +Poet. “A charming man.”</p> +<p>“He was equally charmed with you,” replied the +Woman of the World.</p> +<p>“I can credit it easily,” murmured the Minor +Poet. “One of the most intelligent men I ever +met.”</p> +<p>“You talked together for two hours in a corner,” +said the Woman of the World. “I asked him when you +had gone what he thought of you. ‘Ah! what a +talker!’ he exclaimed, making a gesture of admiration with +his hands. ‘I thought maybe you would notice +it,’ I answered him. ‘Tell me, what did he talk +about?’ I was curious to know; you had been so +absorbed in yourselves and so oblivious to the rest of us. +‘Upon my word,’ he replied, ‘I really cannot +tell you. Do you know, I am afraid, now I come to think of +it, that I must have monopolised the conversation.’ I +was glad to be able to ease his mind on that point. +‘I really don’t think you did,’ I assured +him. I should have felt equally confident had I not been +present.”</p> +<p>“You were quite correct,” returned the Minor +Poet. “I have a distinct recollection of having made +one or two observations myself. Indeed, if I may say so, I +talked rather well.”</p> +<p>“You may also recollect,” continued the Woman of +the World, “that the next time we met I asked you what he +had said, and that your mind was equally a blank on the +subject. You admitted you had found him interesting. +I was puzzled at the time, but now I begin to understand. +Both of you, no doubt, found the conversation so brilliant, each +of you felt it must have been your own.”</p> +<p>“A good book,” I added—“a good talk is +like a good dinner: one assimilates it. The best dinner is +the dinner you do not know you have eaten.”</p> +<p>“A thing will often suggest interesting thought,” +observed the Old Maid, “without being interesting. +Often I find the tears coming into my eyes as I witness some +stupid melodrama—something said, something hinted at, will +stir a memory, start a train of thought.”</p> +<p>“I once,” I said, “sat next to a country-man +in the pit of a music-hall some years ago. He enjoyed +himself thoroughly up to half-past ten. Songs about +mothers-in-law, drunken wives, and wooden legs he roared at +heartily. At ten-thirty entered a well-known <i>artiste</i> +who was then giving a series of what he called ‘Condensed +Tragedies in Verse.’ At the first two my country +friend chuckled hugely. The third ran: ‘Little boy; +pair of skates: broken ice; heaven’s gates.’ My +friend turned white, rose hurriedly, and pushed his way +impatiently out of the house. I left myself some ten +minutes later, and by chance ran against him again in the bar of +the ‘Criterion,’ where he was drinking whisky rather +copiously. ‘I couldn’t stand that fool,’ +he explained to me in a husky voice. ‘Truth is, my +youngest kid got drowned last winter skating. Don’t +see any sense making fun of real trouble.’”</p> +<p>“I can cap your story with another,” said the +Philosopher. “Jim sent me a couple of seats for one +of his first nights a month or two ago. They did not reach +me till four o’clock in the afternoon. I went down to +the club to see if I could pick up anybody. The only man +there I knew at all was a rather quiet young fellow, a new +member. He had just taken Bates’s chambers in Staple +Inn—you have met him, I think. He didn’t know +many people then and was grateful for my invitation. The +play was one of those Palais Royal farces—it cannot matter +which, they are all exactly alike. The fun consists of +somebody’s trying to sin without being found out. It +always goes well. The British public invariably welcomes +the theme, provided it be dealt with in a merry fashion. It +is only the serious discussion of evil that shocks us. +There was the usual banging of doors and the usual +screaming. Everybody was laughing around us. My young +friend sat with rather a curious fixed smile upon his face. +‘Fairly well constructed,’ I said to him, as the +second curtain fell amid yells of delight. +‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘I suppose it’s very +funny.’ I looked at him; he was little more than a +boy. ‘You are rather young,’ I said, ‘to +be a moralist.’ He gave a short laugh. +‘Oh! I shall grow out of it in time,’ he said. +He told me his story later, when I came to know him better. +He had played the farce himself over in Melbourne—he was an +Australian. Only the third act had ended differently. +His girl wife, of whom he was passionately fond, had taken it +quite seriously and had committed suicide. A foolish thing +to do.”</p> +<p>“Man is a beast!” said the Girton Girl, who was +prone to strong expression.</p> +<p>“I thought so myself when I was younger,” said the +Woman of the World.</p> +<p>“And don’t you now, when you hear a thing like +that?” suggested the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“Certainly, my dear,” replied the Woman of the +World; “there is a deal of the animal in man; +but—well, I was myself expressing that same particular view +of him, the brute, to a very old lady with whom I was spending a +winter in Brussels, many years ago now, when I was quite a +girl. She had been a friend of my father’s, and was +one of the sweetest and kindest—I was almost going to say +the most perfect woman I have ever met; though as a celebrated +beauty, stories, dating from the early Victorian era, were told +about her. But myself I never believed them. Her +calm, gentle, passionless face, crowned with its soft, silver +hair—I remember my first sight of the Matterhorn on a +summer’s evening; somehow it at once reminded me of +her.”</p> +<p>“My dear,” laughed the Old Maid, “your +anecdotal method is becoming as jerky as a +cinematograph.”</p> +<p>“I have noticed it myself,” replied the Woman of +the World; “I try to get in too much.”</p> +<p>“The art of the <i>raconteur</i>,” observed the +Philosopher, “consists in avoiding the unessential. I +have a friend who never yet to my knowledge reached the end of a +story. It is intensely unimportant whether the name of the +man who said the thing or did the deed be Brown or Jones or +Robinson. But she will worry herself into a fever trying to +recollect. ‘Dear, dear me!’ she will leave off +to exclaim; ‘I know his name so well. How stupid of +me!’ She will tell you why she ought to recollect his +name, how she always has recollected his name till this precise +moment. She will appeal to half the people in the room to +help her. It is hopeless to try and induce her to proceed, +the idea has taken possession of her mind. After a world of +unnecessary trouble she recollects that it was Tomkins, and is +delighted; only to be plunged again into despair on discovery +that she has forgotten his address. This makes her so +ashamed of herself she declines to continue, and full of +self-reproach she retires to her own room. Later she +re-enters, beaming, with the street and number pat. But by +that time she has forgotten the anecdote.”</p> +<p>“Well, tell us about your old lady, and what it was you +said to her,” spoke impatiently the Girton Girl, who is +always eager when the subject under discussion happens to be the +imbecility or criminal tendency of the opposite sex.</p> +<p>“I was at the age,” continued the Woman of the +World, “when a young girl tiring of fairy stories puts down +the book and looks round her at the world, and naturally feels +indignant at what she notices. I was very severe upon both +the shortcomings and the overgoings of man—our natural +enemy. My old friend used to laugh, and that made me think +her callous and foolish. One day our +<i>bonne</i>—like all servants, a lover of +gossip—came to us delighted with a story which proved to me +how just had been my estimate of the male animal. The +grocer at the corner of our <i>rue</i>, married only four years +to a charming and devoted little wife, had run away and left +her.</p> +<p>“‘He never gave her even a hint, the pretty +angel!’<b> </b>so Jeanne informed us. ‘Had had +his box containing his clothes and everything he wanted ready +packed for a week, waiting for him at the railway +station—just told her he was going to play a game of +dominoes, and that she was not to sit up for him; kissed her and +the child good-night, and—well, that was the last she ever +saw of him. Did Madame ever hear the like of it?’ +concluded Jeanne, throwing up her hands to heaven. ‘I +am sorry to say, Jeanne, that I have,’ replied my sweet +Madame with a sigh, and led the conversation by slow degrees back +to the subject of dinner. I turned to her when Jeanne had +left the room. I can remember still the burning indignation +of my face. I had often spoken to the man myself, and had +thought what a delightful husband he was—so kind, so +attentive, so proud, seemingly, of his dainty <i>femme</i>. +‘Doesn’t that prove what I say,’ I cried, +‘that men are beasts?’ ‘I am afraid it +helps in that direction,’ replied my old friend. +‘And yet you defend them,’ I answered. +‘At my age, my dear,’ she replied, ‘one neither +defends nor blames; one tries to understand.’ She put +her thin white hand upon my head. ‘Shall we hear a +little more of the story?’ she said. ‘It is not +a pleasant one, but it may be useful to us.’ ‘I +don’t want to hear any more of it,’ I answered; +‘I have heard enough.’ ‘It is sometimes +well,’ she persisted, ‘to hear the whole of a case +before forming our judgment.’ And she rang the bell +for Jeanne. ‘That story about our little grocer +friend,’ she said—‘it is rather interesting to +me. Why did he leave her and run away—do you +know?’ Jeanne shrugged her ample shoulders. +‘Oh! the old story, Madame,’ she answered, with a +short laugh. ‘Who was she?’ asked my +friend. ‘The wife of Monsieur Savary, the +wheelwright, as good a husband as ever a woman had. +It’s been going on for months, the hussy!’ +‘Thank you, that will do, Jeanne.’ She turned +again to me so soon as Jeanne had left the room. ‘My +dear,’ she said, ‘whenever I see a bad man, I peep +round the corner for the woman. Whenever I see a bad woman, +I follow her eyes; I know she is looking for her mate. +Nature never makes odd samples.’”</p> +<p>“I cannot help thinking,” said the Philosopher, +“that a good deal of harm is being done to the race as a +whole by the overpraise of women.”</p> +<p>“Who overpraises them?” demanded the Girton +Girl. “Men may talk nonsense to us—I +don’t know whether any of us are foolish enough to believe +it—but I feel perfectly sure that when they are alone most +of their time is occupied in abusing us.”</p> +<p>“That is hardly fair,” interrupted the Old +Maid. “I doubt if they do talk about us among +themselves as much as we think. Besides, it is always +unwise to go behind the verdict. Some very beautiful things +have been said about women by men.”</p> +<p>“Well, ask them,” said the Girton Girl. +“Here are three of them present. Now, honestly, when +you talk about us among yourselves, do you gush about our virtue, +and goodness, and wisdom?”</p> +<p>“‘Gush,’” said the Philosopher, +reflecting, “‘gush’ would hardly be the correct +word.”</p> +<p>“In justice to the truth,” I said, “I must +admit our Girton friend is to a certain extent correct. +Every man at some time of his life esteems to excess some one +particular woman. Very young men, lacking in experience, +admire perhaps indiscriminately. To them, anything in a +petticoat is adorable: the milliner makes the angel. And +very old men, so I am told, return to the delusions of their +youth; but as to this I cannot as yet speak positively. The +rest of us—well, when we are alone, it must be confessed, +as our Philosopher says, that ‘gush’ is not the +correct word.”</p> +<p>“I told you so,” chortled the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“Maybe,” I added, “it is merely the result +of reaction. Convention insists that to her face we show +her a somewhat exaggerated deference. Her very follies we +have to regard as added charms—the poets have decreed +it. Maybe it comes as a relief to let the pendulum swing +back.”</p> +<p>“But is it not a fact,” asked the Old Maid, +“that the best men and even the wisest are those who have +held women in most esteem? Do we not gauge civilization by +the position a nation accords to its women?”</p> +<p>“In the same way as we judge them by the mildness of +their laws, their tenderness for the weak. Uncivilised man +killed off the useless numbers of the tribe; we provide for them +hospitals, almshouses. Man’s attitude towards woman +proves the extent to which he has conquered his own selfishness, +the distance he has travelled from the law of the ape: might is +right.</p> +<p>“Please don’t misunderstand me,” pleaded the +Philosopher, with a nervous glance towards the lowering eyebrows +of the Girton Girl. “I am not saying for a moment +woman is not the equal of man; indeed, it is my belief that she +is. I am merely maintaining she is not his superior. +The wise man honours woman as his friend, his fellow-labourer, +his complement. It is the fool who imagines her +unhuman.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image100" href="images/p100b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"It is the fool who imagines her inhuman" +title= +"It is the fool who imagines her inhuman" + src="images/p100s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“But are we not better,” persisted the Old Maid, +“for our ideals? I don’t say we women are +perfect—please don’t think that. You are not +more alive to our faults than we are. Read the women +novelists from George Eliot downwards. But for your own +sake—is it not well man should have something to look up +to, and failing anything better—?”</p> +<p>“I draw a very wide line,” answered the +Philosopher, “between ideals and delusions. The ideal +has always helped man; but that belongs to the land of his +dreams, his most important kingdom, the kingdom of his +future. Delusions are earthly structures, that sooner or +later fall about his ears, blinding him with dust and dirt. +The petticoat-governed country has always paid dearly for its +folly.”</p> +<p>“Elizabeth!” cried the Girton Girl. +“Queen Victoria!”</p> +<p>“Were ideal sovereigns,” returned the Philosopher, +“leaving the government of the country to its ablest +men. France under its Pompadours, the Byzantine Empire +under its Theodoras, are truer examples of my argument. I +am speaking of the unwisdom of assuming all women to be +perfect. Belisarius ruined himself and his people by +believing his own wife to be an honest woman.”</p> +<p>“But chivalry,” I argued, “has surely been +of service to mankind?”</p> +<p>“To an immense extent,” agreed the +Philosopher. “It seized a natural human passion and +turned it to good uses. Then it was a reality. So +once was the divine right of kings, the infallibility of the +Church, for cumbering the ground with the lifeless bodies of +which mankind has paid somewhat dearly. Not its upstanding +lies—they can be faced and defeated—but its dead +truths are the world’s stumbling-blocks. To the man +of war and rapine, trained in cruelty and injustice, the woman +was the one thing that spoke of the joy of yielding. Woman, +as compared with man, was then an angel: it was no mere form of +words. All the tender offices of life were in her +hands. To the warrior, his life divided between fighting +and debauchery, his womenfolk tending the sick, helping the weak, +comforting the sorrowing, must have moved with white feet across +a world his vices had made dark. Her mere subjection to the +priesthood, her inborn feminine delight in form and +ceremony—now an influence narrowing her charity—must +then, to his dim eyes, trained to look upon dogma as the living +soul of his religion, have seemed a halo, deifying her. +Woman was then the servant. It was naturally to her +advantage to excite tenderness and mercy in man. Since she +has become the mistress of the world. It is no longer her +interested mission to soften his savage instincts. +Nowadays, it is the women who make war, the women who exalt brute +force. Today, it is the woman who, happy herself, turns a +deaf ear to the world’s low cry of pain; holding that man +honoured who would ignore the good of the species to augment the +comforts of his own particular family; holding in despite as a +bad husband and father the man whose sense of duty extends beyond +the circle of the home. One recalls Lady Nelson’s +reproach to her lord after the battle of the Nile. ‘I +have married a wife, and therefore cannot come,’ is the +answer to his God that many a woman has prompted to her +lover’s tongue. I was speaking to a woman only the +other day about the cruelty of skinning seals alive. +‘I feel so sorry for the poor creatures,’ she +murmured; ‘but they say it gives so much more depth of +colour to the fur.’ Her own jacket was certainly a +very beautiful specimen.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image104" href="images/p104b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"It seized a natural human passion and turned it to good uses" +title= +"It seized a natural human passion and turned it to good uses" + src="images/p104s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“When I was editing a paper,” I said, “I +opened my columns to a correspondence on this very subject. +Many letters were sent to me—most of them trite, many of +them foolish. One, a genuine document, I remember. It +came from a girl who for six years had been assistant to a +fashionable dressmaker. She was rather tired of the axiom +that all women, at all times, are perfection. She suggested +that poets and novelists should take service for a year in any +large drapery or millinery establishment where they would have an +opportunity of studying woman in her natural state, so to +speak.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image106" href="images/p106b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"She suggested that poets and novelists should take service for a +year in any large drapery or millinery establishment" +title= +"She suggested that poets and novelists should take service for a +year in any large drapery or millinery establishment" + src="images/p106s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“It is unfair to judge us by what, I confess, is our +chief weakness,” argued the Woman of the World. +“Woman in pursuit of clothes ceases to be human—she +reverts to the original brute. Besides, dressmakers can be +very trying. The fault is not entirely on one +side.”</p> +<p>“I still fail to be convinced,” remarked the +Girton Girl, “that woman is over-praised. Not even +the present conversation, so far as it has gone, altogether +proves your point.”</p> +<p>“I am not saying it is the case among intelligent +thinkers,” explained the Philosopher, “but in popular +literature the convention still lingers. To woman’s +face no man cares to protest against it; and woman, to her harm, +has come to accept it as a truism. ‘What are little +girls made of? Sugar and spice and all that’s +nice.’ In more or less varied form the idea has +entered into her blood, shutting out from her hope of +improvement. The girl is discouraged from asking herself +the occasionally needful question: Am I on the way to becoming a +sound, useful member of society? Or am I in danger of +degenerating into a vain, selfish, lazy piece of good-for-nothing +rubbish? She is quite content so long as she can detect in +herself no tendency to male vices, forgetful that there are also +feminine vices. Woman is the spoilt child of the age. +No one tells her of her faults. The World with its thousand +voices flatters her. Sulks, bad temper, and pig-headed +obstinacy are translated as ‘pretty Fanny’s wilful +ways.’ Cowardice, contemptible in man or woman, she +is encouraged to cultivate as a charm. Incompetence to pack +her own bag or find her own way across a square and round a +corner is deemed an attraction. Abnormal ignorance and +dense stupidity entitle her to pose as the poetical ideal. +If she give a penny to a street beggar, selecting generally the +fraud, or kiss a puppy’s nose, we exhaust the language of +eulogy, proclaiming her a saint. The marvel to me is that, +in spite of the folly upon which they are fed, so many of them +grow to be sensible women.”</p> +<p>“Myself,” remarked the Minor Poet, “I find +much comfort in the conviction that talk, as talk, is responsible +for much less good and much less harm in the world than we who +talk are apt to imagine. Words to grow and bear fruit must +fall upon the earth of fact.”</p> +<p>“But you hold it right to fight against folly?” +demanded the Philosopher.</p> +<p>“Heavens, yes!” cried the Minor Poet. +“That is how one knows it is Folly—if we can kill +it. Against the Truth our arrows rattle +harmlessly.”</p> +<h2>VI</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">But</span> what is her +reason?” demanded the Old Maid.</p> +<p>“Reason! I don’t believe any of them have +any reason.” The Woman of the World showed sign of +being short of temper, a condition of affairs startlingly unusual +to her. “Says she hasn’t enough work to +do.”</p> +<p>“She must be an extraordinary woman,” commented +the Old Maid.</p> +<p>“The trouble I have put myself to in order to keep that +woman, just because George likes her savouries, no one would +believe,” continued indignantly the Woman of the +World. “We have had a dinner party regularly once a +week for the last six months, entirely for her benefit. Now +she wants me to give two. I won’t do it!”</p> +<p>“If I could be of any service?” offered the Minor +Poet. “My digestion is not what it once was, but I +could make up in quality—a <i>recherché</i> little +banquet twice a week, say on Wednesdays and Saturdays, I would +make a point of eating with you. If you think that would +content her!”</p> +<p>“It is really thoughtful of you,” replied the +Woman of the World, “but I cannot permit it. Why +should you be dragged from the simple repast suitable to a poet +merely to oblige my cook? It is not reason.”</p> +<p>“I was thinking rather of you,” continued the +Minor Poet.</p> +<p>“I’ve half a mind,” said the Woman of the +World, “to give up housekeeping altogether and go into an +hotel. I don’t like the idea, but really servants are +becoming impossible.”</p> +<p>“It is very interesting,” said the Minor Poet.</p> +<p>“I am glad you find it so!” snapped the Woman of +the World.</p> +<p>“What is interesting?” I asked the Minor Poet.</p> +<p>“That the tendency of the age,” he replied, +“should be slowly but surely driving us into the practical +adoption of a social state that for years we have been denouncing +the Socialists for merely suggesting. Everywhere the +public-houses are multiplying, the private dwellings +diminishing.”</p> +<p>“Can you wonder at it?” commented the Woman of the +World. “You men talk about ‘the joys of +home.’ Some of you write poetry—generally +speaking, one of you who lives in chambers, and spends two-thirds +of his day at a club.” We were sitting in the +garden. The attention of the Minor Poet became riveted upon +the sunset. “‘Ethel and I by the +fire.’ Ethel never gets a chance of sitting by the +fire. So long as you are there, comfortable, you do not +notice that she has left the room to demand explanation why the +drawing-room scuttle is always filled with slack, and the best +coal burnt in the kitchen range. Home to us women is our +place of business that we never get away from.”</p> +<p>“I suppose,” said the Girton Girl—to my +surprise she spoke with entire absence of indignation. As a +rule, the Girton Girl stands for what has been termed +“divine discontent” with things in general. In +the course of time she will outlive her surprise at finding the +world so much less satisfactory an abode than she had been led to +suppose—also her present firm conviction that, given a free +hand, she could put the whole thing right in a quarter of an +hour. There are times even now when her tone suggests less +certainty of her being the first person who has ever thought +seriously about the matter. “I suppose,” said +the Girton Girl, “it comes of education. Our +grandmothers were content to fill their lives with these small +household duties. They rose early, worked with their +servants, saw to everything with their own eyes. Nowadays +we demand time for self-development, for reading, for thinking, +for pleasure. Household drudgery, instead of being the +object of our life, has become an interference to it. We +resent it.”</p> +<p>“The present revolt of woman,” continued the Minor +Poet, “will be looked back upon by the historian of the +future as one of the chief factors in our social evolution. +The ‘home’—the praises of which we still sing, +but with gathering misgiving—depended on her willingness to +live a life of practical slavery. When Adam delved and Eve +span—Adam confining his delving to the space within his own +fence, Eve staying her spinning-wheel the instant the family +hosiery was complete—then the home rested upon the solid +basis of an actual fact. Its foundations were shaken when +the man became a citizen and his interests expanded beyond the +domestic circle. Since that moment woman alone has +supported the institution. Now she, in her turn, is +claiming the right to enter the community, to escape from the +solitary confinement of the lover’s castle. The +‘mansions,’ with common dining-rooms, reading-rooms, +their system of common service, are springing up in every +quarter; the house, the villa, is disappearing. The story +is the same in every country. The separate dwelling, where +it remains, is being absorbed into a system. In America, +the experimental laboratory of the future, the houses are warmed +from a common furnace. You do not light the fire, you turn +on the hot air. Your dinner is brought round to you in a +travelling oven. You subscribe for your valet or your +lady’s maid. Very soon the private establishment, +with its staff of unorganised, quarrelling servants, of necessity +either over or underworked, will be as extinct as the lake +dwelling or the sandstone cave.”</p> +<p>“I hope,” said the Woman of the World, “that +I may live to see it.”</p> +<p>“In all probability,” replied the Minor Poet, +“you will. I would I could feel as hopeful for +myself.”</p> +<p>“If your prophecy be likely of fulfilment,” +remarked the Philosopher, “I console myself with the +reflection that I am the oldest of the party. Myself; I +never read these full and exhaustive reports of the next century +without revelling in the reflection that before they can be +achieved I shall be dead and buried. It may be a selfish +attitude, but I should be quite unable to face any of the +machine-made futures our growing guild of seers +prognosticate. You appear to me, most of you, to ignore a +somewhat important consideration—namely, that mankind is +alive. You work out your answers as if he were a sum in +rule-of-three: ‘If man in so many thousands of years has +done so much in such a direction at this or that rate of speed, +what will he be doing—?’ and so on. You forget +he is swayed by impulses that can enter into no +calculation—drawn hither and thither by powers that can +never be represented in your algebra. In one generation +Christianity reduced Plato’s republic to an +absurdity. The printing-press has upset the unanswerable +conclusions of Machiavelli.”</p> +<p>“I disagree with you,” said the Minor Poet.</p> +<p>“The fact does not convince me of my error,” +retorted the Philosopher.</p> +<p>“Christianity,” continued the Minor Poet, +“gave merely an added force to impulses the germs of which +were present in the infant race. The printing-press, +teaching us to think in communities, has nonplussed to a certain +extent the aims of the individual as opposed to those of +humanity. Without prejudice, without sentiment, cast your +eye back over the panorama of the human race. What is the +picture that presents itself? Scattered here and there over +the wild, voiceless desert, first the holes and caves, next the +rude-built huts, the wigwams, the lake dwellings of primitive +man. Lonely, solitary, followed by his dam and brood, he +creeps through the tall grass, ever with watchful, terror-haunted +eyes; satisfies his few desires; communicates, by means of a few +grunts and signs, his tiny store of knowledge to his offspring; +then, crawling beneath a stone, or into some tangled corner of +the jungle, dies and disappears. We look again. A +thousand centuries have flashed and faded. The surface of +the earth is flecked with strange quivering patches: here, where +the sun shines on the wood and sea, close together, almost +touching one another; there, among the shadows, far apart. +The Tribe has formed itself. The whole tiny mass moves +forward, halts, runs backwards, stirred always by one common +impulse. Man has learnt the secret of combination, of +mutual help. The City rises. From its stone centre +spreads its power; the Nation leaps to life; civilisation springs +from leisure; no longer is each man’s life devoted to his +mere animal necessities. The artificer, the +thinker—his fellows shall protect him. Socrates +dreams, Phidias carves the marble, while Pericles maintains the +law and Leonidas holds the Barbarian at bay. Europe annexes +piece by piece the dark places of the earth, gives to them her +laws. The Empire swallows the small State; Russia stretches +her arm round Asia. In London we toast the union of the +English-speaking peoples; in Berlin and Vienna we rub a +salamander to the <i>deutscher Bund</i>; in Paris we whisper of a +communion of the Latin races. In great things so in +small. The stores, the huge Emporium displaces the small +shopkeeper; the Trust amalgamates a hundred firms; the Union +speaks for the worker. The limits of country, of language, +are found too narrow for the new Ideas. German, American, +or English—let what yard of coloured cotton you choose +float from the mizzenmast, the business of the human race is +their captain. One hundred and fifty years ago old Sam +Johnson waited in a patron’s anteroom; today the entire +world invites him to growl his table talk the while it takes its +dish of tea. The poet, the novelist, speak in twenty +languages. Nationality—it is the County Council of +the future. The world’s high roads run turnpike-free +from pole to pole. One would be blind not to see the goal +towards which we are rushing. At the outside it is but a +generation or two off. It is one huge murmuring +Hive—one universal Hive just the size of the round +earth. The bees have been before us; they have solved the +riddle towards which we in darkness have been groping.”</p> +<p>The Old Maid shuddered visibly. “What a terrible +idea!” she said.</p> +<p>“To us,” replied the Minor Poet; “not to +those who will come after us. The child dreads +manhood. To Abraham, roaming the world with his flocks, the +life of your modern City man, chained to his office from ten to +four, would have seemed little better than penal +servitude.”</p> +<p>“My sympathies are with the Abrahamitical ideal,” +observed the Philosopher.</p> +<p>“Mine also,” agreed the Minor Poet. +“But neither you nor I represent the tendency of the +age. We are its curiosities. We, and such as we, +serve as the brake regulating the rate of progress. The +genius of species shows itself moving in the direction of the +organised community—all life welded together, controlled by +one central idea. The individual worker is drawn into the +factory. Chippendale today would have been employed +sketching designs; the chair would have been put together by +fifty workers, each one trained to perfection in his own +particular department. Why does the hotel, with its five +hundred servants, its catering for three thousand mouths, work +smoothly, while the desirable family residence, with its two or +three domestics, remains the scene of waste, confusion, and +dispute? We are losing the talent of living alone; the +instinct of living in communities is driving it out.”</p> +<p>“So much the worse for the community,” was the +comment of the Philosopher. “Man, as Ibsen has said, +will always be at his greatest when he stands alone. To +return to our friend Abraham, surely he, wandering in the +wilderness, talking with his God, was nearer the ideal than the +modern citizen, thinking with his morning paper, applauding silly +shibboleths from a theatre pit, guffawing at coarse jests, one of +a music-hall crowd? In the community it is the lowest +always leads. You spoke just now of all the world inviting +Samuel Johnson to its dish of tea. How many read him as +compared to the number of subscribers to the <i>Ha’penny +Joker</i>? This ‘thinking in communities,’ as +it is termed, to what does it lead? To mafficking and +Dreyfus scandals. What crowd ever evolved a noble +idea? If Socrates and Galileo, Confucius and Christ had +‘thought in communities,’ the world would indeed be +the ant-hill you appear to regard as its destiny.”</p> +<p>“In balancing the books of life one must have regard to +both sides of the ledger,” responded the Minor Poet. +“A crowd, I admit, of itself creates nothing; on the other +hand, it receives ideals into its bosom and gives them needful +shelter. It responds more readily to good than to +evil. What greater stronghold of virtue than your sixpenny +gallery? Your burglar, arrived fresh from jumping on his +mother, finds himself applauding with the rest stirring appeals +to the inborn chivalry of man. Suggestion that it was right +or proper under any circumstances to jump upon one’s mother +he would at such moment reject with horror. ‘Thinking +in communities’ is good for him. The hooligan, whose +patriotism finds expression in squirting dirty water into the +face of his coster sweetheart: the <i>boulevardière</i>, +primed with absinth, shouting ‘<i>Conspuez les +Juifs</i>!’—the motive force stirring them in its +origin was an ideal. Even into making a fool of itself, a +crowd can be moved only by incitement of its finer +instincts. The service of Prometheus to mankind must not be +judged by the statistics of the insurance office. The world +as a whole has gained by community, will attain its goal only +through community. From the nomadic savage by the winding +road of citizenship we have advanced far. The way winds +upward still, hidden from us by the mists, but along its tortuous +course lies our track into the Promised Land. Not the +development of the individual—that is his own +concern—but the uplifting of the race would appear to be +the law. The lonely great ones, they are the shepherds of +the flock—the servants, not the masters of the world. +Moses shall die and be buried in the wilderness, seeing only from +afar the resting-place of man’s tired feet. It is +unfortunate that the <i>Ha’penny Joker</i> and its kind +should have so many readers. Maybe it teaches those to read +who otherwise would never read at all. We are impatient, +forgetting that the coming and going of our generations are but +as the swinging of the pendulum of Nature’s clock. +Yesterday we booked our seats for gladiatorial shows, for the +burning of Christians, our windows for Newgate hangings. +Even the musical farce is an improvement upon that—at +least, from the humanitarian point of view.”</p> +<p>“In the Southern States of America,” observed the +Philosopher, sticking to his guns, “they run excursion +trains to lynching exhibitions. The bull-fight is spreading +to France, and English newspapers are advocating the +reintroduction of bear-baiting and cock-fighting. Are we +not moving in a circle?<b>”</b></p> +<p>“The road winds, as I have allowed,” returned the +Minor Poet; “the gradient is somewhat steep. Just +now, maybe, we are traversing a backward curve. I gain my +faith by pausing now and then to look behind. I see the +weary way with many a downward sweep. But we are climbing, +my friend, we are climbing.”</p> +<p>“But to such a very dismal goal, according to your +theory,” grumbled the Old Maid. “I should hate +to feel myself an insect in a hive, my little round of duties +apportioned to me, my every action regulated by a fixed law, my +place assigned to me, my very food and drink, I suppose, +apportioned to me. Do think of something more +cheerful.”</p> +<p>The Minor Poet laughed. “My dear lady,” he +replied, “it is too late. The thing is already +done. The hive already covers us, the cells are in +building. Who leads his own life? Who is master of +himself? What can you do but live according to your income +in, I am sure, a very charming little cell; buzz about your +little world with your cheerful, kindly song, helping these your +fellow insects here, doing day by day the useful offices +apportioned to you by your temperament and means, seeing the same +faces, treading ever the same narrow circle? Why do I write +poetry? I am not to blame. I must live. It is +the only thing I can do. Why does one man live and die upon +the treeless rocks of Iceland, another labour in the vineyards of +the Apennines? Why does one woman make matches, ride in a +van to Epping Forest, drink gin, and change hats with her lover +on the homeward journey; another pant through a dinner-party and +half a dozen receptions every night from March to June, rush from +country house to fashionable Continental resort from July to +February, dress as she is instructed by her milliner, say the +smart things that are expected of her? Who would be a sweep +or a chaperon, were all roads free? Who is it succeeds in +escaping the law of the hive? The loafer, the tramp. +On the other hand, who is the man we respect and envy? The +man who works for the community, the public-spirited man, as we +call him; the unselfish man, the man who labours for the +labour’s sake and not for the profit, devoting his days and +nights to learning Nature’s secrets, to acquiring knowledge +useful to the race. Is he not the happiest, the man who has +conquered his own sordid desires, who gives himself to the public +good? The hive was founded in dark days before man knew; it +has been built according to false laws. This man will have +a cell bigger than any other cell; all the other little men shall +envy him; a thousand fellow-crawling mites shall slave for him, +wear out their lives in wretchedness for him and him alone; all +their honey they shall bring to him; he shall gorge while they +shall starve. Of what use? He has slept no sounder in +his foolishly fanciful cell. Sleep is to tired eyes, not to +silken coverlets. We dream in Seven Dials as in Park +Lane. His stomach, distend it as he will—it is very +small—resents being distended. The store of honey +rots. The hive was conceived in the dark days of ignorance, +stupidity, brutality. A new hive shall arise.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image126" href="images/p126b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Who is it succeeds in escaping the law of the hive?" +title= +"Who is it succeeds in escaping the law of the hive?" + src="images/p126s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“I had no idea,” said the Woman of the World, +“you were a Socialist.”</p> +<p>“Nor had I,” agreed the Minor Poet, “before +I began talking.”</p> +<p>“And next Wednesday,” laughed the Woman of the +World; “you will be arguing in favour of +individualism.”</p> +<p>“Very likely,” agreed the Minor Poet. +“‘The deep moans round with many +voices.’”</p> +<p>“I’ll take another cup of tea,” said the +Philosopher.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> + +<div class="gapmediumline"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Printed by Hazell</i>, <i>Watson +& Viney</i>, <i>Ld.</i>, <i>London and Aylesbury</i>.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TEA-TABLE TALK***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 2353-h.htm or 2353-h.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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