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diff --git a/old/angau10.txt b/old/angau10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..290ab21 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/angau10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5402 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext The Angel and the Author, by Jerome +#23 in our series by Jerome K. Jerome + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +The Angel and the Author - and others + +by Jerome K. 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If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon + University" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Carnegie-Mellon University". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk +from the 1908 Hurst and Blackett edition. + + + + + +THE ANGEL AND THE AUTHOR--AND OTHERS + +by Jerome K. Jerome + + + + +CHAPTER I + + + +I had a vexing dream one night, not long ago: it was about a +fortnight after Christmas. I dreamt I flew out of the window in my +nightshirt. I went up and up. I was glad that I was going up. +"They have been noticing me," I thought to myself. "If anything, I +have been a bit too good. A little less virtue and I might have +lived longer. But one cannot have everything." The world grew +smaller and smaller. The last I saw of London was the long line of +electric lamps bordering the Embankment; later nothing remained but a +faint luminosity buried beneath darkness. It was at this point of my +journey that I heard behind me the slow, throbbing sound of wings. + +I turned my head. It was the Recording Angel. He had a weary look; +I judged him to be tired. + +"Yes," he acknowledged, "it is a trying period for me, your Christmas +time." + +"I am sure it must be," I returned; "the wonder to me is how you get +through it all. You see at Christmas time," I went on, "all we men +and women become generous, quite suddenly. It is really a delightful +sensation." + +"You are to be envied," he agreed. + +"It is the first Christmas number that starts me off," I told him; +"those beautiful pictures--the sweet child looking so pretty in her +furs, giving Bovril with her own dear little hands to the shivering +street arab; the good old red-faced squire shovelling out plum +pudding to the crowd of grateful villagers. It makes me yearn to +borrow a collecting box and go round doing good myself. + +"And it is not only me--I should say I," I continued; "I don't want +you to run away with the idea that I am the only good man in the +world. That's what I like about Christmas, it makes everybody good. +The lovely sentiments we go about repeating! the noble deeds we do! +from a little before Christmas up to, say, the end of January! why +noting them down must be a comfort to you." + +"Yes," he admitted, "noble deeds are always a great joy to me." + +"They are to all of us," I said; "I love to think of all the good +deeds I myself have done. I have often thought of keeping a diary-- +jotting them down each day. It would be so nice for one's children." + +He agreed there was an idea in this. + +"That book of yours," I said, "I suppose, now, it contains all the +good actions that we men and women have been doing during the last +six weeks?" It was a bulky looking volume. + +Yes, he answered, they were all recorded in the book. + +[The Author tells of his Good Deeds.] + +It was more for the sake of talking of his than anything else that I +kept up with him. I did not really doubt his care and +conscientiousness, but it is always pleasant to chat about one's +self. "My five shillings subscription to the Daily Telegraph's +Sixpenny Fund for the Unemployed--got that down all right?" I asked +him. + +Yes, he replied, it was entered. + +"As a matter of fact, now I come to think of it," I added, "it was +ten shillings altogether. They spelt my name wrong the first time." + +Both subscriptions had been entered, he told me. + +"Then I have been to four charity dinners," I reminded him; "I forget +what the particular charity was about. I know I suffered the next +morning. Champagne never does agree with me. But, then, if you +don't order it people think you can't afford it. Not that I don't +like it. It's my liver, if you understand. If I take more--" + +He interrupted me with the assurance that my attendance had been +noted. + +"Last week I sent a dozen photographs of myself, signed, to a charity +bazaar." + +He said he remembered my doing so. + +"Then let me see," I continued, "I have been to two ordinary balls. +I don't care much about dancing, but a few of us generally play a +little bridge; and to one fancy dress affair. I went as Sir Walter +Raleigh. Some men cannot afford to show their leg. What I say is, +if a man can, why not? It isn't often that one gets the opportunity +of really looking one's best." + +He told me all three balls had been duly entered: and commented +upon. + +"And, of course, you remember my performance of Talbot Champneys in +Our Boys the week before last, in aid of the Fund for Poor Curates," +I went on. "I don't know whether you saw the notice in the Morning +Post, but--" + +He again interrupted me to remark that what the Morning Post man said +would be entered, one way or the other, to the critic of the Morning +Post, and had nothing to do with me. "Of course not," I agreed; "and +between ourselves, I don't think the charity got very much. +Expenses, when you come to add refreshments and one thing and +another, mount up. But I fancy they rather liked my Talbot +Champneys." + +He replied that he had been present at the performance, and had made +his own report. + +I also reminded him of the four balcony seats I had taken for the +monster show at His Majesty's in aid of the Fund for the Destitute +British in Johannesburg. Not all the celebrated actors and actresses +announced on the posters had appeared, but all had sent letters full +of kindly wishes; and the others--all the celebrities one had never +heard of--had turned up to a man. Still, on the whole, the show was +well worth the money. There was nothing to grumble at. + +There were other noble deeds of mine. I could not remember them at +the time in their entirety. I seemed to have done a good many. But +I did remember the rummage sale to which I sent all my old clothes, +including a coat that had got mixed up with them by accident, and +that I believe I could have worn again. + +And also the raffle I had joined for a motor-car. + +The Angel said I really need not be alarmed, that everything had been +noted, together with other matters I, may be, had forgotten. + +[The Angel appears to have made a slight Mistake.] + +I felt a certain curiosity. We had been getting on very well +together--so it had seemed to me. I asked him if he would mind my +seeing the book. He said there could be no objection. He opened it +at the page devoted to myself, and I flew a little higher, and looked +down over his shoulder. I can hardly believe it, even now--that I +could have dreamt anything so foolish: + +He had got it all down wrong! + +Instead of to the credit side of my account he had put the whole bag +of tricks to my debit. He had mixed them up with my sins--with my +acts of hypocrisy, vanity, self-indulgence. Under the head of +Charity he had but one item to my credit for the past six months: my +giving up my seat inside a tramcar, late one wet night, to a dismal- +looking old woman, who had not had even the politeness to say "thank +you," she seemed just half asleep. According to this idiot, all the +time and money I had spent responding to these charitable appeals had +been wasted. + +I was not angry with him, at first. I was willing to regard what he +had done as merely a clerical error. + +"You have got the items down all right," I said (I spoke quite +friendly), "but you have made a slight mistake--we all do now and +again; you have put them down on the wrong side of the book. I only +hope this sort of thing doesn't occur often." + +What irritated me as much as anything was the grave, passionless face +the Angel turned upon me. + +"There is no mistake," he answered. + +"No mistake!" I cried. "Why, you blundering--" + +He closed the book with a weary sigh. + +I felt so mad with him, I went to snatch it out of his hand. He did +not do anything that I was aware of, but at once I began falling. +The faint luminosity beneath me grew, and then the lights of London +seemed shooting up to meet me. I was coming down on the clock tower +at Westminster. I gave myself a convulsive twist, hoping to escape +it, and fell into the river. + +And then I awoke. + +But it stays with me: the weary sadness of the Angel's face. I +cannot shake remembrance from me. Would I have done better, had I +taken the money I had spent upon these fooleries, gone down with it +among the poor myself, asking nothing in return. Is this fraction of +our superfluity, flung without further thought or care into the +collection box, likely to satisfy the Impracticable Idealist, who +actually suggested--one shrugs one's shoulders when one thinks of it- +-that one should sell all one had and give to the poor? + +[The Author is troubled concerning his Investments.] + +Or is our charity but a salve to conscience--an insurance, at +decidedly moderate premium, in case, after all, there should happen +to be another world? Is Charity lending to the Lord something we can +so easily do without? + +I remember a lady tidying up her house, clearing it of rubbish. She +called it "Giving to the Fresh Air Fund." Into the heap of lumber +one of her daughters flung a pair of crutches that for years had been +knocking about the house. The lady picked them out again. + +"We won't give those away," she said, "they might come in useful +again. One never knows." + +Another lady, I remember coming downstairs one evening dressed for a +fancy ball. I forget the title of the charity, but I remember that +every lady who sold more than ten tickets received an autograph +letter of thanks from the Duchess who was the president. The tickets +were twelve and sixpence each and included light refreshments and a +very substantial supper. One presumes the odd sixpence reached the +poor--or at least the noisier portion of them. + +"A little decolletee, isn't it, my dear?" suggested a lady friend, as +the charitable dancer entered the drawing-room. + +"Perhaps it is--a little," she admitted, "but we all of us ought to +do all we can for the Cause. Don't you think so, dear?" + +Really, seeing the amount we give in charity, the wonder is there are +any poor left. It is a comfort that there are. What should we do +without them? Our fur-clad little girls! our jolly, red-faced +squires! we should never know how good they were, but for the poor? +Without the poor how could we be virtuous? We should have to go +about giving to each other. And friends expect such expensive +presents, while a shilling here and there among the poor brings to us +all the sensations of a good Samaritan. Providence has been very +thoughtful in providing us with poor. + +Dear Lady Bountiful! does it not ever occur to you to thank God for +the poor? The clean, grateful poor, who bob their heads and curtsey +and assure you that heaven is going to repay you a thousandfold. One +does hope you will not be disappointed. + +An East-End curate once told me, with a twinkle in his eye, of a +smart lady who called upon him in her carriage, and insisted on his +going round with her to show her where the poor hid themselves. They +went down many streets, and the lady distributed her parcels. Then +they came to one of the worst, a very narrow street. The coachman +gave it one glance. + +"Sorry, my lady," said the coachman, "but the carriage won't go +down." + +The lady sighed. + +"I am afraid we shall have to leave it," she said. + +So the gallant greys dashed past. + +Where the real poor creep I fear there is no room for Lady +Bountiful's fine coach. The ways are very narrow--wide enough only +for little Sister Pity, stealing softly. + +I put it to my friend, the curate: + +"But if all this charity is, as you say, so useless; if it touches +but the fringe; if it makes the evil worse, what would you do?" + +[And questions a Man of Thought] + +"I would substitute Justice," he answered; "there would be no need +for Charity." + + + "But it is so delightful to give," I answered. + +"Yes," he agreed. "It is better to give than to receive. I was +thinking of the receiver. And my ideal is a long way off. We shall +have to work towards it slowly." + + + +CHAPTER II + + + +[Philosophy and the Daemon] + +Philosophy, it has been said, is the art of bearing other people's +troubles. The truest philosopher I ever heard of was a woman. She +was brought into the London Hospital suffering from a poisoned leg. +The house surgeon made a hurried examination. He was a man of blunt +speech. + +"It will have to come off," he told her. + +"What, not all of it?" + +"The whole of it, I am sorry to say," growled the house surgeon. + +"Nothing else for it?" + +"No other chance for you whatever," explained the house surgeon. + +"Ah, well, thank Gawd it's not my 'ead," observed the lady. + +The poor have a great advantage over us better-off folk. Providence +provides them with many opportunities for the practice of philosophy. +I was present at a "high tea" given last winter by charitable folk to +a party of char-women. After the tables were cleared we sought to +amuse them. One young lady, who was proud of herself as a palmist, +set out to study their "lines." At sight of the first toil-worn hand +she took hold of her sympathetic face grew sad. + +"There is a great trouble coming to you," she informed the ancient +dame. + +The placid-featured dame looked up and smiled: + +"What, only one, my dear?" + +"Yes, only one," asserted the kind fortune-teller, much pleased, +"after that all goes smoothly." + +"Ah," murmured the old dame, quite cheerfully, "we was all of us a +short-lived family." + +Our skins harden to the blows of Fate. I was lunching one Wednesday +with a friend in the country. His son and heir, aged twelve, entered +and took his seat at the table. + +"Well," said his father, "and how did we get on at school today?" + +"Oh, all right," answered the youngster, settling himself down to his +dinner with evident appetite. + +"Nobody caned?" demanded his father, with--as I noticed--a sly +twinkle in his eye. + +"No," replied young hopeful, after reflection; "no, I don't think +so," adding as an afterthought, as he tucked into beef and potatoes, +"'cepting, o' course, me." + +[When the Daemon will not work] + +It is a simple science, philosophy. The idea is that it never +matters what happens to you provided you don't mind it. The weak +point in the argument is that nine times out of ten you can't help +minding it. + +"No misfortune can harm me," says Marcus Aurelius, "without the +consent of the daemon within me." + +The trouble is our daemon cannot always be relied upon. So often he +does not seem up to his work. + +"You've been a naughty boy, and I'm going to whip you," said nurse to +a four-year-old criminal. + +"You tant," retorted the young ruffian, gripping with both hands the +chair that he was occupying, "I'se sittin' on it." + +His daemon was, no doubt, resolved that misfortune, as personified by +nurse, should not hurt him. The misfortune, alas! proved stronger +than the daemon, and misfortune, he found did hurt him. + +The toothache cannot hurt us so long as the daemon within us (that is +to say, our will power) holds on to the chair and says it can't. +But, sooner or later, the daemon lets go, and then we howl. One sees +the idea: in theory it is excellent. One makes believe. Your bank +has suddenly stopped payment. You say to yourself. + +"This does not really matter." + +Your butcher and your baker say it does, and insist on making a row +in the passage. + +You fill yourself up with gooseberry wine. You tell yourself it is +seasoned champagne. Your liver next morning says it is not. + +The daemon within us means well, but forgets it is not the only thing +there. A man I knew was an enthusiast on vegetarianism. He argued +that if the poor would adopt a vegetarian diet the problem of +existence would be simpler for them, and maybe he was right. So one +day he assembled some twenty poor lads for the purpose of introducing +to them a vegetarian lunch. He begged them to believe that lentil +beans were steaks, that cauliflowers were chops. As a third course +he placed before them a mixture of carrots and savoury herbs, and +urged them to imagine they were eating saveloys. + +"Now, you all like saveloys," he said, addressing them, "and the +palate is but the creature of the imagination. Say to yourselves, 'I +am eating saveloys,' and for all practical purposes these things will +be saveloys." + +Some of the lads professed to have done it, but one disappointed- +looking youth confessed to failure. + +"But how can you be sure it was not a saveloy?" the host persisted. + +"Because," explained the boy, "I haven't got the stomach-ache." + +It appeared that saveloys, although a dish of which he was fond, +invariably and immediately disagreed with him. If only we were all +daemon and nothing else philosophy would be easier. Unfortunately, +there is more of us. + +Another argument much approved by philosophy is that nothing matters, +because a hundred years hence, say, at the outside, we shall be dead. +What we really want is a philosophy that will enable us to get along +while we are still alive. I am not worrying about my centenary; I am +worrying about next quarter-day. I feel that if other people would +only go away, and leave me--income-tax collectors, critics, men who +come round about the gas, all those sort of people--I could be a +philosopher myself. I am willing enough to make believe that nothing +matters, but they are not. They say it is going to be cut off, and +talk about judgment summonses. I tell them it won't trouble any of +us a hundred years hence. They answer they are not talking of a +hundred years hence, but of this thing that was due last April +twelvemonth. They won't listen to my daemon. He does not interest +them. Nor, to be candid, does it comfort myself very much, this +philosophical reflection that a hundred years later on I'll be sure +to be dead--that is, with ordinary luck. What bucks me up much more +is the hope that they will be dead. Besides, in a hundred years +things may have improved. I may not want to be dead. If I were sure +of being dead next morning, before their threat of cutting off that +water or that gas could by any possibility be carried out, before +that judgment summons they are bragging about could be made +returnable, I might--I don't say I should--be amused, thinking how I +was going to dish them. The wife of a very wicked man visited him +one evening in prison, and found him enjoying a supper of toasted +cheese. + +"How foolish of you, Edward," argued the fond lady, "to be eating +toasted cheese for supper. You know it always affects your liver. +All day long to-morrow you will be complaining." + +"No, I shan't," interrupted Edward; "not so foolish as you think me. +They are going to hang me to-morrow--early." + +There is a passage in Marcus Aurelius that used to puzzle me until I +hit upon the solution. A foot-note says the meaning is obscure. +Myself, I had gathered this before I read the foot-note. What it is +all about I defy any human being to explain. It might mean anything; +it might mean nothing. The majority of students incline to the +latter theory, though a minority maintain there is a meaning, if only +it could be discovered. My own conviction is that once in his life +Marcus Aurelius had a real good time. He came home feeling pleased +with himself without knowing quite why. + +"I will write it down," he said to himself, "now, while it is fresh +in my mind." + +It seemed to him the most wonderful thing that anybody had ever said. +Maybe he shed a tear or two, thinking of all the good he was doing, +and later on went suddenly to sleep. In the morning he had forgotten +all about it, and by accident it got mixed up with the rest of the +book. That is the only explanation that seems to me possible, and it +comforts me. + +We are none of us philosophers all the time. + +Philosophy is the science of suffering the inevitable, which most of +us contrive to accomplish without the aid of philosophy. Marcus +Aurelius was an Emperor of Rome, and Diogenes was a bachelor living +rent free. I want the philosophy of the bank clerk married on thirty +shillings a week, of the farm labourer bringing up a family of eight +on a precarious wage of twelve shillings. The troubles of Marcus +Aurelius were chiefly those of other people. + +"Taxes will have to go up, I am afraid," no doubt he often sighed. +"But, after all, what are taxes? A thing in conformity with the +nature of man--a little thing that Zeus approves of, one feels sure. +The daemon within me says taxes don't really matter." + +Maybe the paterfamilias of the period, who did the paying, worried +about new sandals for the children, his wife insisting she hadn't a +frock fit to be seen in at the amphitheatre; that, if there was one +thing in the world she fancied, it was seeing a Christian eaten by a +lion, but now she supposed the children would have to go without her, +found that philosophy came to his aid less readily. + +"Bother these barbarians," Marcus Aurelius may have been tempted, in +an unphilosophical moment, to exclaim; "I do wish they would not burn +these poor people's houses over their heads, toss the babies about on +spears, and carry off the older children into slavery. Why don't +they behave themselves?" + +But philosophy in Marcus Aurelius would eventually triumph over +passing fretfulness. + +"But how foolish of me to be angry with them," he would argue with +himself. "One is not vexed with the fig-tree for yielding figs, with +the cucumber for being bitter! One must expect barbarians to behave +barbariously." + +Marcus Aurelius would proceed to slaughter the barbarians, and then +forgive them. We can most of us forgive our brother his +transgressions, having once got even with him. In a tiny Swiss +village, behind the angle of the school-house wall, I came across a +maiden crying bitterly, her head resting on her arm. I asked her +what had happened. Between her sobs she explained that a school +companion, a little lad about her own age, having snatched her hat +from her head, was at that moment playing football with it the other +side of the wall. I attempted to console her with philosophy. I +pointed out to her that boys would be boys--that to expect from them +at that age reverence for feminine headgear was to seek what was not +conformable with the nature of boy. But she appeared to have no +philosophy in her. She said he was a horrid boy, and that she hated +him. It transpired it was a hat she rather fancied herself in. He +peeped round the corner while we were talking, the hat in his hand. +He held it out to her, but she took no notice of him. I gathered the +incident was closed, and went my way, but turned a few steps further +on, curious to witness the end. Step by step he approached nearer, +looking a little ashamed of himself; but still she wept, her face +hidden in her arm. + +He was not expecting it: to all seeming she stood there the +personification of the grief that is not to be comforted, oblivious +to all surroundings. Incautiously he took another step. In an +instant she had "landed" him over the head with a long narrow wooden +box containing, one supposes, pencils and pens. He must have been a +hard-headed youngster, the sound of the compact echoed through the +valley. I met her again on my way back. + +"Hat much damaged?" I inquired. + +"Oh, no," she answered, smiling; "besides, it was only an old hat. +I've got a better one for Sundays." + +I often feel philosophical myself; generally over a good cigar after +a satisfactory dinner. At such times I open my Marcus Aurelius, my +pocket Epicurus, my translation of Plato's "Republic." At such times +I agree with them. Man troubles himself too much about the +unessential. Let us cultivate serenity. Nothing can happen to us +that we have not been constituted by Nature to sustain. That foolish +farm labourer, on his precarious wage of twelve shillings a week: +let him dwell rather on the mercies he enjoys. Is he not spared all +anxiety concerning safe investment of capital yielding four per +cent.? Is not the sunrise and the sunset for him also? Many of us +never see the sunrise. So many of our so-termed poorer brethen are +privileged rarely to miss that early morning festival. Let the +daemon within them rejoice. Why should he fret when the children cry +for bread? Is it not in the nature of things that the children of +the poor should cry for bread? The gods in their wisdom have +arranged it thus. Let the daemon within him reflect upon the +advantage to the community of cheap labour. Let the farm labourer +contemplate the universal good. + + + +CHAPTER III + + + +[Literature and the Middle Classes.] + +I am sorry to be compelled to cast a slur upon the Literary +profession, but observation shows me that it still contains within +its ranks writers born and bred in, and moving amidst--if, without +offence, one may put it bluntly--a purely middle-class environment: +men and women to whom Park Lane will never be anything than the +shortest route between Notting Hill and the Strand; to whom Debrett's +Peerage --gilt-edged and bound in red, a tasteful-looking volume-- +ever has been and ever will remain a drawing-room ornament and not a +social necessity. Now what is to become of these writers--of us, if +for the moment I may be allowed to speak as representative of this +rapidly-diminishing yet nevertheless still numerous section of the +world of Art and Letters? Formerly, provided we were masters of +style, possessed imagination and insight, understood human nature, +had sympathy with and knowledge of life, and could express ourselves +with humour and distinction, our pathway was, comparatively speaking, +free from obstacle. We drew from the middle-class life around us, +passed it through our own middle-class individuality, and presented +it to a public composed of middle-class readers. + +But the middle-class public, for purposes of Art, has practically +disappeared. The social strata from which George Eliot and Dickens +drew their characters no longer interests the great B. P. Hetty +Sorrell, Little Em'ly, would be pronounced "provincial;" a Deronda or +a Wilfer Family ignored as "suburban." + +I confess that personally the terms "provincial" and "suburban," as +epithets of reproach, have always puzzled me. I never met anyone +more severe on what she termed the "suburban note" in literature than +a thin lady who lived in a semi-detached villa in a by-street of +Hammersmith. Is Art merely a question of geography, and if so what +is the exact limit? Is it the four-mile cab radius from Charing +Cross? Is the cheesemonger of Tottenham Court Road of necessity a +man of taste, and the Oxford professor of necessity a Philistine? I +want to understand this thing. I once hazarded the direct question +to a critical friend: + +"You say a book is suburban," I put it to him, "and there is an end +to the matter. But what do you mean by suburban?" + +"Well," he replied, "I mean it is the sort of book likely to appeal +to the class that inhabits the suburbs." He lived himself in +Chancery Lane. + +[May a man of intelligence live, say, in Surbiton?] + +"But there is Jones, the editor of The Evening Gentleman," I argued; +"he lives at Surbiton. It is just twelve miles from Waterloo. He +comes up every morning by the eight-fifteen and returns again by the +five-ten. Would you say that a book is bound to be bad because it +appeals to Jones? Then again, take Tomlinson: he lives, as you are +well aware, at Forest Gate which is Epping way, and entertains you on +Kakemonos whenever you call upon him. You know what I mean, of +course. I think 'Kakemono' is right. They are long things; they +look like coloured hieroglyphics printed on brown paper. He gets +behind them and holds them up above his head on the end of a stick so +that you can see the whole of them at once; and he tells you the name +of the Japanese artist who painted them in the year 1500 B.C., and +what it is all about. He shows them to you by the hour and forgets +to give you dinner. There isn't an easy chair in the house. To put +it vulgarly, what is wrong with Tomlinson from a high art point of +view? + +"There's a man I know who lives in Birmingham: you must have heard +of him. He is the great collector of Eighteenth Century caricatures, +the Rowlandson and Gilray school of things. I don't call them +artistic myself; they make me ill to look at them; but people who +understand Art rave about them. Why can't a man be artistic who has +got a cottage in the country?" + +"You don't understand me," retorted my critical friend, a little +irritably, as I thought. + +"I admit it," I returned. "It is what I am trying to do." + +"Of course artistic people live in the suburbs," he admitted. "But +they are not of the suburbs." + +"Though they may dwell in Wimbledon or Hornsey," I suggested, "they +sing with the Scotch bard: 'My heart is in the South-West postal +district. My heart is not here.'" + +"You can put it that way if you like," he growled. + +"I will, if you have no objection," I agreed. "It makes life easier +for those of us with limited incomes." + +The modern novel takes care, however, to avoid all doubt upon the +subject. Its personages, one and all, reside within the half-mile +square lying between Bond Street and the Park--a neighbourhood that +would appear to be somewhat densely populated. True, a year or two +ago there appeared a fairly successful novel the heroine of which +resided in Onslow Gardens. An eminent critic observed of it that: +"It fell short only by a little way of being a serious contribution +to English literature." Consultation with the keeper of the cabman's +shelter at Hyde Park Corner suggested to me that the "little way" the +critic had in mind measures exactly eleven hundred yards. When the +nobility and gentry of the modern novel do leave London they do not +go into the provinces: to do that would be vulgar. They make +straight for "Barchester Towers," or what the Duke calls "his little +place up north"--localities, one presumes, suspended somewhere in +mid-air. + +In every social circle exist great souls with yearnings towards +higher things. Even among the labouring classes one meets with +naturally refined natures, gentlemanly persons to whom the loom and +the plough will always appear low, whose natural desire is towards +the dignities and graces of the servants' hall. So in Grub Street we +can always reckon upon the superior writer whose temperament will +prompt him to make respectful study of his betters. A reasonable +supply of high-class novels might always have been depended upon; the +trouble is that the public now demands that all stories must be of +the upper ten thousand. Auld Robin Grey must be Sir Robert Grey, +South African millionaire; and Jamie, the youngest son of the old +Earl, otherwise a cultured public can take no interest in the ballad. +A modern nursery rhymester to succeed would have to write of Little +Lord Jack and Lady Jill ascending one of the many beautiful eminences +belonging to the ancestral estates of their parents, bearing between +them, on a silver rod, an exquisitely painted Sevres vase filled with +ottar of roses. + +I take up my fourpenny-halfpenny magazine. The heroine is a youthful +Duchess; her husband gambles with thousand-pound notes, with the +result that they are reduced to living on the first floor of the +Carlton Hotel. The villain is a Russian Prince. The Baronet of a +simpler age has been unable, poor fellow, to keep pace with the +times. What self-respecting heroine would abandon her husband and +children for sin and a paltry five thousand a year? To the heroine +of the past--to the clergyman's daughter or the lady artist--he was +dangerous. The modern heroine misbehaves herself with nothing below +Cabinet rank. + +I turn to something less pretentious, a weekly periodical that my +wife tells me is the best authority she has come across on blouses. +I find in it what once upon a time would have been called a farce. +It is now a "drawing-room comedietta. All rights reserved." The +dramatis personae consist of the Earl of Danbury, the Marquis of +Rottenborough (with a past), and an American heiress--a character +that nowadays takes with lovers of the simple the place formerly +occupied by "Rose, the miller's daughter." + +I sometimes wonder, is it such teaching as that of Carlyle and +Tennyson that is responsible for this present tendency of literature? +Carlyle impressed upon us that the only history worth consideration +was the life of great men and women, and Tennyson that we "needs must +love the highest." So literature, striving ever upward, ignores +plain Romola for the Lady Ponsonby de Tompkins; the provincialisms of +a Charlotte Bronte for what a certain critic, born before his time, +would have called the "doin's of the hupper succles." + +The British Drama has advanced by even greater bounds. It takes +place now exclusively within castle walls, and--what Messrs. Lumley & +Co.'s circular would describe as--"desirable town mansions, suitable +for gentlemen of means." A living dramatist, who should know, tells +us that drama does not occur in the back parlour. Dramatists have, +it has been argued, occasionally found it there, but such may have +been dramatists with eyes capable of seeing through clothes. + +I once wrote a play which I read to a distinguished Manager. He said +it was a most interesting play: they always say that. I waited, +wondering to what other manager he would recommend me to take it. To +my surprise he told me he would like it for himself--but with +alterations. + +"The whole thing wants lifting up," was his opinion. "Your hero is a +barrister: my public take no interest in plain barristers. Make him +the Solicitor General." + +"But he's got to be amusing," I argued. "A Solicitor General is +never amusing." + +My Manager pondered for a moment. "Let him be Solicitor General for +Ireland," he suggested. + +I made a note of it. + +"Your heroine," he continued, "is the daughter of a seaside lodging- +house keeper. My public do not recognize seaside lodgings. Why not +the daughter of an hotel proprietor? Even that will be risky, but we +might venture it." An inspiration came to him. "Or better still, +let the old man be the Managing Director of an hotel Trust: that +would account for her clothes." + +Unfortunately I put the thing aside for a few months, and when I was +ready again the public taste had still further advanced. The doors +of the British Drama were closed for the time being on all but +members of the aristocracy, and I did not see my comic old man as a +Marquis, which was the lowest title that just then one dared to offer +to a low comedian. + +Now how are we middle-class novelists and dramatists to continue to +live? I am aware of the obvious retort, but to us it absolutely is +necessary. We know only parlours: we call them drawing-rooms. At +the bottom of our middle-class hearts we regard them fondly: the +folding-doors thrown back, they make rather a fine apartment. The +only drama that we know takes place in such rooms: the hero sitting +in the gentleman's easy chair, of green repp: the heroine in the +lady's ditto, without arms--the chair, I mean. The scornful glances, +the bitter words of our middle-class world are hurled across these +three-legged loo-tables, the wedding-cake ornament under its glass +case playing the part of white ghost. + +In these days, when "Imperial cement" is at a premium, who would dare +suggest that the emotions of a parlour can by any possibility be the +same as those exhibited in a salon furnished in the style of Louis +Quatorze; that the tears of Bayswater can possibly be compared for +saltness with the lachrymal fluid distilled from South Audley Street +glands; that the laughter of Clapham can be as catching as the +cultured cackle of Curzon Street? But we, whose best clothes are +exhibited only in parlours, what are we to do? How can we lay bare +the souls of Duchesses, explain the heart-throbs of peers of the +realm? Some of my friends who, being Conservative, attend Primrose +"tourneys" (or is it "Courts of love"? I speak as an outsider. +Something mediaeval, I know it is) do, it is true, occasionally +converse with titled ladies. But the period for conversation is +always limited owing to the impatience of the man behind; and I doubt +if the interview is ever of much practical use to them, as conveying +knowledge of the workings of the aristocratic mind. Those of us who +are not Primrose Knights miss even this poor glimpse into the world +above us. We know nothing, simply nothing, concerning the deeper +feelings of the upper ten. Personally, I once received a letter from +an Earl, but that was in connection with a dairy company of which his +lordship was chairman, and spoke only of his lordship's views +concerning milk and the advantages of the cash system. Of what I +really wished to know--his lordship's passions, yearnings and general +attitude to life--the circular said nothing. + +Year by year I find myself more and more in a minority. One by one +my literary friends enter into this charmed aristocratic circle; +after which one hears no more from them regarding the middle-classes. +At once they set to work to describe the mental sufferings of Grooms +of the Bed-chamber, the hidden emotions of Ladies in their own right, +the religious doubts of Marquises. I want to know how they do it-- +"how the devil they get there." They refuse to tell me. + +Meanwhile, I see nothing before me but the workhouse. Year by year +the public grows more impatient of literature dealing merely with the +middle-classes. I know nothing about any other class. What am I to +do? + +Commonplace people--friends of mine without conscience, counsel me in +flippant phrase to "have a shot at it." + +"I expect, old fellow, you know just as much about it as these other +Johnnies do." (I am not defending their conversation either as +regards style or matter: I am merely quoting.) "And even if you +don't, what does it matter? The average reader knows less. How is +he to find you out?" + +But, as I explain to them, it is the law of literature never to write +except about what you really know. I want to mix with the +aristocracy, study them, understand them; so that I may earn my +living in the only way a literary man nowadays can earn his living, +namely, by writing about the upper circles. + +I want to know how to get there. + + + +CHAPTER IV + + + +[Man and his Master.] + +There is one thing that the Anglo-Saxon does better than the "French, +or Turk, or Rooshian," to which add the German or the Belgian. When +the Anglo-Saxon appoints an official, he appoints a servant: when +the others put a man in uniform, they add to their long list of +masters. If among your acquaintances you can discover an American, +or Englishman, unfamiliar with the continental official, it is worth +your while to accompany him, the first time he goes out to post a +letter, say. He advances towards the post-office a breezy, self- +confident gentleman, borne up by pride of race. While mounting the +steps he talks airily of "just getting this letter off his mind, and +then picking up Jobson and going on to Durand's for lunch." + +He talks as if he had the whole day before him. At the top of the +steps he attempts to push open the door. It will not move. He looks +about him, and discovers that is the door of egress, not of ingress. +It does not seem to him worth while redescending the twenty steps and +climbing another twenty. So far as he is concerned he is willing to +pull the door, instead of pushing it. But a stern official bars his +way, and haughtily indicates the proper entrance. "Oh, bother," he +says, and down he trots again, and up the other flight. + +"I shall not be a minute," he remarks over his shoulder. "You can +wait for me outside." + +But if you know your way about, you follow him in. There are seats +within, and you have a newspaper in your pocket: the time will pass +more pleasantly. Inside he looks round, bewildered. The German +post-office, generally speaking, is about the size of the Bank of +England. Some twenty different windows confront your troubled +friend, each one bearing its own particular legend. Starting with +number one, he sets to work to spell them out. It appears to him +that the posting of letters is not a thing that the German post- +office desires to encourage. Would he not like a dog licence +instead? is what one window suggests to him. "Oh, never mind that +letter of yours; come and talk about bicycles," pleads another. At +last he thinks he has found the right hole: the word "Registration" +he distinctly recognizes. He taps at the glass. + +Nobody takes any notice of him. The foreign official is a man whose +life is saddened by a public always wanting something. You read it +in his face wherever you go. The man who sells you tickets for the +theatre! He is eating sandwiches when you knock at his window. He +turns to his companion: + +"Good Lord!" you can see him say, "here's another of 'em. If there +has been one man worrying me this morning there have been a hundred. +Always the same story: all of 'em want to come and see the play. +You listen now; bet you anything he's going to bother me for tickets. +Really, it gets on my nerves sometimes." + +At the railway station it is just the same. + +"Another man who wants to go to Antwerp! Don't seem to care for +rest, these people: flying here, flying there, what's the sense of +it?" It is this absurd craze on the part of the public for letter- +writing that is spoiling the temper of the continental post-office +official. He does his best to discourage it. + +"Look at them," he says to his assistant--the thoughtful German +Government is careful to provide every official with another official +for company, lest by sheer force of ennui he might be reduced to +taking interest in his work--"twenty of 'em, all in a row! Some of +'em been there for the last quarter of an hour.'' + +"Let 'em wait another quarter of an hour," advises the assistant; +"perhaps they'll go away." + +"My dear fellow," he answers, "do you think I haven't tried that? +There's simply no getting rid of 'em. And it's always the same cry: +'Stamps! stamps! stamps!' 'Pon my word, I think they live on stamps, +some of 'em." + +"Well let 'em have their stamps?" suggests the assistant, with a +burst of inspiration; "perhaps it will get rid of 'em." + +[Why the Man in Uniform has, generally, sad Eyes.] + +"What's the use?" wearily replies the older man. "There will only +come a fresh crowd when those are gone." + +"Oh, well," argues the other, "that will be a change, anyhow. I'm +tired of looking at this lot." + +I put it to a German post-office clerk once--a man I had been boring +for months. I said: + +"You think I write these letters--these short stories, these three- +act plays--on purpose to annoy you. Do let me try to get the idea +out of your head. Personally, I hate work--hate it as much as you +do. This is a pleasant little town of yours: given a free choice, I +could spend the whole day mooning round it, never putting pen to +paper. But what am I to do? I have a wife and children. You know +what it is yourself: they clamour for food, boots--all sorts of +things. I have to prepare these little packets for sale and bring +them to you to send off. You see, you are here. If you were not +here--if there were no post-office in this town, maybe I'd have to +train pigeons, or cork the thing up in a bottle, fling it into the +river, and trust to luck and the Gulf Stream. But, you being here, +and calling yourself a post-office--well, it's a temptation to a +fellow." + +I think it did good. Anyhow, after that he used to grin when I +opened the door, instead of greeting me as formerly with a face the +picture of despair. But to return to our inexperienced friend. + +At last the wicket is suddenly opened. A peremptory official demands +of him "name and address." Not expecting the question, he is a +little doubtful of his address, and has to correct himself once or +twice. The official eyes him suspiciously. + +"Name of mother?" continues the official. + +"Name of what?" + +"Mother!" repeats the official. "Had a mother of some sort, I +suppose." + +He is a man who loved his mother sincerely while she lived, but she +has been dead these twenty years, and, for the life of him he cannot +recollect her name. He thinks it was Margaret Henrietta, but is not +at all sure. Besides, what on earth has his mother got to do with +this registered letter that he wants to send to his partner in New +York? + +"When did it die?" asks the official. + +"When did what die? Mother?" + +"No, no, the child." + +"What child?" The indignation of the official is almost picturesque. + +"All I want to do," explains your friend, "is to register a letter." + +"A what?" + +"This letter, I want--" + +The window is slammed in his face. When, ten minutes later he does +reach the right wicket--the bureau for the registration of letters, +and not the bureau for the registration of infantile deaths--it is +pointed out to him that the letter either is sealed or that it is not +sealed. + +I have never been able yet to solve this problem. If your letter is +sealed, it then appears that it ought not to have been sealed. + +If, on the other hand, you have omitted to seal it, that is your +fault. In any case, the letter cannot go as it is. The continental +official brings up the public on the principle of the nurse who sent +the eldest girl to see what Tommy was doing and tell him he mustn't. +Your friend, having wasted half an hour and mislaid his temper for +the day, decides to leave this thing over and talk to the hotel +porter about it. Next to the Burgomeister, the hotel porter is the +most influential man in the continental town: maybe because he can +swear in seven different languages. But even he is not omnipotent. + +[The Traveller's one Friend.] + +Three of us, on the point of starting for a walking tour through the +Tyrol, once sent on our luggage by post from Constance to Innsbruck. +Our idea was that, reaching Innsbruck in the height of the season, +after a week's tramp on two flannel shirts and a change of socks, we +should be glad to get into fresh clothes before showing ourselves in +civilized society. Our bags were waiting for us in the post-office: +we could see them through the grating. But some informality--I have +never been able to understand what it was--had occurred at Constance. +The suspicion of the Swiss postal authorities had been aroused, and +special instructions had been sent that the bags were to be delivered +up only to their rightful owners. + +It sounds sensible enough. Nobody wants his bag delivered up to +anyone else. But it had not been explained to the authorities at +Innsbruck how they were to know the proper owners. Three wretched- +looking creatures crawled into the post-office and said they wanted +those three bags--"those bags, there in the corner"--which happened +to be nice, clean, respectable-looking bags, the sort of bags that +anyone might want. One of them produced a bit of paper, it is true, +which he said had been given to him as a receipt by the post-office +people at Constance. But in the lonely passes of the Tyrol one man, +set upon by three, might easily be robbed of his papers, and his body +thrown over a precipice. The chief clerk shook his head. He would +like us to return accompanied by someone who could identify us. The +hotel porter occurred to us, as a matter of course. Keeping to the +back streets, we returned to the hotel and fished him out of his box. + +"I am Mr. J.," I said: "this is my friend Mr. B. and this is Mr. S." + +The porter bowed and said he was delighted. + +"I want you to come with us to the post-office," I explained, "and +identify us." + +The hotel porter is always a practical man: his calling robs him of +all sympathy with the hide-bound formality of his compatriots. He +put on his cap and accompanied us back to the office. He did his +best: no one could say he did not. He told them who we were: they +asked him how he knew. For reply he asked them how they thought he +knew his mother: he just knew us: it was second nature with him. +He implied that the question was a silly one, and suggested that, as +his time was valuable, they should hand us over the three bags and +have done with their nonsense. + +They asked him how long he had known us. He threw up his hands with +an eloquent gesture: memory refused to travel back such distance. +It appeared there was never a time when he had not known us. We had +been boys together. + +Did he know anybody else who knew us? The question appeared to him +almost insulting. Everybody in Innsbruck knew us, honoured us, +respected us--everybody, that is, except a few post-office officials, +people quite out of society. + +Would he kindly bring along, say; one undoubtedly respectable citizen +who could vouch for our identity? The request caused him to forget +us and our troubles. The argument became a personal quarrel between +the porter and the clerk. If he, the porter, was not a respectable +citizen of Innsbruck, where was such an one to be found? + +[The disadvantage of being an unknown Person.] + +Both gentlemen became excited, and the discussion passed beyond my +understanding. But I gathered dimly from what the clerk said, that +ill-natured remarks relative to the porter's grandfather and a +missing cow had never yet been satisfactorily replied to: and, from +observations made by the porter, that stories were in circulation +about the clerk's aunt and a sergeant of artillery that should +suggest to a discreet nephew of the lady the inadvisability of +talking about other people's grandfathers. + +Our sympathies were naturally with the porter: he was our man, but +he did not seem to be advancing our cause much. We left them +quarrelling, and persuaded the head waiter that evening to turn out +the gas at our end of the table d'hote. + +The next morning we returned to the post-office by ourselves. The +clerk proved a reasonable man when treated in a friendly spirit. He +was a bit of a climber himself. He admitted the possibility of our +being the rightful owners. His instructions were only not to DELIVER +UP the bags, and he himself suggested a way out of the difficulty. +We might come each day and dress in the post-office, behind the +screen. It was an awkward arrangement, even although the clerk +allowed us the use of the back door. And occasionally, in spite of +the utmost care, bits of us would show outside the screen. But for a +couple of days, until the British Consul returned from Salzburg, the +post-office had to be our dressing room. The continental official, I +am inclined to think, errs on the side of prudence. + + + +CHAPTER V + + + +[If only we had not lost our Tails!] + +A friend of mine thinks it a pity that we have lost our tails. He +argues it would be so helpful if, like the dog, we possessed a tail +that wagged when we were pleased, that stuck out straight when we +were feeling mad. + +"Now, do come and see us again soon," says our hostess; "don't wait +to be asked. Drop in whenever you are passing." + +We take her at her word. The servant who answers our knocking says +she "will see." There is a scuffling of feet, a murmur of hushed +voices, a swift opening and closing of doors. We are shown into the +drawing-room, the maid, breathless from her search, one supposes, +having discovered that her mistress IS at home. We stand upon the +hearthrug, clinging to our hat and stick as to things friendly and +sympathetic: the suggestion forcing itself upon us is that of a +visit to the dentist. + +Our hostess enters wreathed in smiles. Is she really pleased to see +us, or is she saying to herself, "Drat the man! Why must he choose +the very morning I had intended to fix up the clean curtains?" + +But she has to pretend to be delighted, and ask us to stay to lunch. +It would save us hours of anxiety could we look beyond her smiling +face to her tail peeping out saucily from a placket-hole. Is it +wagging, or is it standing out rigid at right angles from her skirt? + +But I fear by this time we should have taught our tails polite +behaviour. We should have schooled them to wag enthusiastically the +while we were growling savagely to ourselves. Man put on insincerity +to hide his mind when he made himself a garment of fig-leaves to hide +his body. + +One sometimes wonders whether he has gained so very much. A small +acquaintance of mine is being brought up on strange principles. +Whether his parents are mad or not is a matter of opinion. Their +ideas are certainly peculiar. They encourage him rather than +otherwise to tell the truth on all occasions. I am watching the +experiment with interest. If you ask him what he thinks of you, he +tells you. Some people don't ask him a second time. They say: + +"What a very rude little boy you are!" + +"But you insisted upon it," he explains; "I told you I'd rather not +say." + +It does not comfort them in the least. Yet the result is, he is +already an influence. People who have braved the ordeal, and emerged +successfully, go about with swelled head. + +[And little Boys would always tell the Truth!] + +Politeness would seem to have been invented for the comfort of the +undeserving. We let fall our rain of compliments upon the unjust and +the just without distinction. Every hostess has provided us with the +most charming evening of our life. Every guest has conferred a like +blessing upon us by accepting our invitation. I remember a dear good +lady in a small south German town organizing for one winter's day a +sleighing party to the woods. A sleighing party differs from a +picnic. The people who want each other cannot go off together and +lose themselves, leaving the bores to find only each other. You are +in close company from early morn till late at night. We were to +drive twenty miles, six in a sledge, dine together in a lonely +Wirtschaft, dance and sing songs, and afterwards drive home by +moonlight. Success depends on every member of the company fitting +into his place and assisting in the general harmony. Our +chieftainess was fixing the final arrangements the evening before in +the drawing-room of the pension. One place was still to spare. + +"Tompkins!" + +Two voices uttered the name simultaneously; three others immediately +took up the refrain. Tompkins was our man--the cheeriest, merriest +companion imaginable. Tompkins alone could be trusted to make the +affair a success. Tompkins, who had only arrived that afternoon, was +pointed out to our chieftainess. We could hear his good-tempered +laugh from where we sat, grouped together at the other end of the +room. Our chieftainess rose, and made for him direct. + +Alas! she was a short-sighted lady--we had not thought of that. She +returned in triumph, followed by a dismal-looking man I had met the +year before in the Black Forest, and had hoped never to meet again. +I drew her aside. + +"Whatever you do," I said, "don't ask -- " (I forget his name. One +of these days I'll forget him altogether, and be happier. I will +call him Johnson.) "He would turn the whole thing into a funeral +before we were half-way there. I climbed a mountain with him once. +He makes you forget all your other troubles; that is the only thing +he is good for." + +"But who is Johnson?" she demanded. "Why, that's Johnson," I +explained--"the thing you've brought over. Why on earth didn't you +leave it alone? Where's your woman's instinct?" + +"Great heavens!" she cried, "I thought it was Tompkins. I've invited +him, and he's accepted." + +She was a stickler for politeness, and would not hear of his being +told that he had been mistaken for an agreeable man, but that the +error, most fortunately, had been discovered in time. He started a +row with the driver of the sledge, and devoted the journey outwards +to an argument on the fiscal question. He told the proprietor of the +hotel what he thought of German cooking, and insisted on having the +windows open. One of our party--a German student--sang, +"Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles,"--which led to a heated +discussion on the proper place of sentiment in literature, and a +general denunciation by Johnson of Teutonic characteristics in +general. We did not dance. Johnson said that, of course, he spoke +only for himself, but the sight of middle-aged ladies and gentlemen +catching hold of each other round the middle and jigging about like +children was to him rather a saddening spectacle, but to the young +such gambolling was natural. Let the young ones indulge themselves. +Only four of our party could claim to be under thirty with any hope +of success. They were kind enough not to impress the fact upon us. +Johnson enlivened the journey back by a searching analysis of +enjoyment: Of what did it really consist? + +Yet, on wishing him "Good-night," our chieftainess thanked him for +his company in precisely the same terms she would have applied to +Tompkins, who, by unflagging good humour and tact, would have made +the day worth remembering to us all for all time. + +[And everyone obtained his just Deserts!] + +We pay dearly for our want of sincerity. We are denied the payment +of praise: it has ceased to have any value. People shake me warmly +by the hand and tell me that they like my books. It only bores me. +Not that I am superior to compliment--nobody is--but because I cannot +be sure that they mean it. They would say just the same had they +never read a line I had written. If I visit a house and find a book +of mine open face downwards on the window-seat, it sends no thrill of +pride through my suspicious mind. As likely as not, I tell myself, +the following is the conversation that has taken place between my +host and hostess the day before my arrival: + +"Don't forget that man J-- is coming down tomorrow." + +"To-morrow! I wish you would tell me of these things a little +earlier." + +"I did tell you--told you last week. Your memory gets worse every +day." + +"You certainly never told me, or I should have remembered it. Is he +anybody important?" + +"Oh, no; writes books." + +"What sort of books?--I mean, is he quite respectable?" + +"Of course, or I should not have invited him. These sort of people +go everywhere nowadays. By the by, have we got any of his books +about the house?" + +"I don't think so. I'll look and see. If you had let me know in +time I could have ordered one from Mudie's." + +"Well, I've got to go to town; I'll make sure of it, and buy one." + +"Seems a pity to waste money. Won't you be going anywhere near +Mudie's?" + +"Looks more appreciative to have bought a copy. It will do for a +birthday present for someone." + +On the other hand, the conversation may have been very different. My +hostess may have said: + +"Oh, I AM glad he's coming. I have been longing to meet him for +years." + +She may have bought my book on the day of publication, and be reading +it through for the second time. She may, by pure accident, have left +it on her favourite seat beneath the window. The knowledge that +insincerity is our universal garment has reduced all compliment to +meaningless formula. A lady one evening at a party drew me aside. +The chief guest--a famous writer--had just arrived. + +"Tell me," she said, "I have so little time for reading, what has he +done?" + +I was on the point of replying when an inveterate wag, who had +overheard her, interposed between us. + +"'The Cloister and the Hearth,'" he told her, "and 'Adam Bede.'" + +He happened to know the lady well. She has a good heart, but was +ever muddle-headed. She thanked that wag with a smile, and I heard +her later in the evening boring most evidently that literary lion +with elongated praise of the "Cloister and the Hearth" and "Adam +Bede." They were among the few books she had ever read, and talking +about them came easily to her. She told me afterwards that she had +found that literary lion a charming man, but - + +"Well," she laughed, "he has got a good opinion of himself. He told +me he considered both books among the finest in the English +language." + +It is as well always to make a note of the author's name. Some +people never do--more particularly playgoers. A well-known dramatic +author told me he once took a couple of colonial friends to a play of +his own. It was after a little dinner at Kettner's; they suggested +the theatre, and he thought he would give them a treat. He did not +mention to them that he was the author, and they never looked at the +programme. Their faces as the play proceeded lengthened; it did not +seem to be their school of comedy. At the end of the first act they +sprang to their feet. + +"Let's chuck this rot," suggested one. + +"Let's go to the Empire," suggested the other. The well-known +dramatist followed them out. He thinks the fault must have been with +the dinner. + +A young friend of mine--a man of good family--contracted a +mesalliance: that is, he married the daughter of a Canadian farmer, +a frank, amiable girl, bewitchingly pretty, with more character in +her little finger than some girls possess in their whole body. I met +him one day, some three months after his return to London. + +[And only people would do Parlour Tricks who do them well!] + +"Well," I asked him, "how is it shaping?" + +"She is the dearest girl in the world," he answered. "She has only +got one fault; she believes what people say." + +"She will get over that," I suggested. + +"I hope she does," he replied; "it's awkward at present." + +"I can see it leading her into difficulty," I agreed. + +"She is not accomplished," he continued. He seemed to wish to talk +about it to a sympathetic listener. "She never pretended to be +accomplished. I did not marry her for her accomplishments. But now +she is beginning to think she must have been accomplished all the +time, without knowing it. She plays the piano like a schoolgirl on a +parents' visiting-day. She told them she did not play--not worth +listening to--at least, she began by telling them so. They insisted +that she did, that they had heard about her playing, and were +thirsting to enjoy it. She is good nature itself. She would stand +on her head if she thought it would give real joy to anyone. She +took it they really wanted to hear her, and so let 'em have it. They +tell her that her touch is something quite out of the common--which +is the truth, if only she could understand it--why did she never +think of taking up music as a profession? By this time she is +wondering herself that she never did. They are not satisfied with +hearing her once. They ask for more, and they get it. The other +evening I had to keep quiet on my chair while she thumped through +four pieces one after the other, including the Beethoven Sonata. We +knew it was the Beethoven Sonata. She told us before she started it +was going to be the Beethoven Sonata, otherwise, for all any of us +could have guessed, it might have been the 'Battle of Prague.' We +all sat round with wooden faces, staring at our boots. Afterwards +those of them that couldn't get near enough to her to make a fool of +her crowded round me. Wanted to know why I had never told them I had +discovered a musical prodigy. I'll lose my temper one day and pull +somebody's nose, I feel I shall. She's got a recitation; whether +intended to be serious or comic I had never been able to make up my +mind. The way she gives it confers upon it all the disadvantages of +both. It is chiefly concerned with an angel and a child. But a dog +comes into it about the middle, and from that point onward it is +impossible to tell who is talking--sometimes you think it is the +angel, and then it sounds more like the dog. The child is the +easiest to follow: it talks all the time through its nose. If I +have heard that recitation once I have heard it fifty times; and now +she is busy learning an encore. + +[And all the World had Sense!] + +"What hurts me most," he went on, "is having to watch her making +herself ridiculous. Yet what am I to do? If I explain things to her +she will be miserable and ashamed of herself; added to which her +frankness--perhaps her greatest charm--will be murdered. The trouble +runs through everything. She won't take my advice about her frocks. +She laughs, and repeats to me--well, the lies that other women tell a +girl who is spoiling herself by dressing absurdly; especially when +she is a pretty girl and they are anxious she should go on spoiling +herself. She bought a hat last week, one day when I was not with +her. It only wants the candles to look like a Christmas tree. They +insist on her taking it off so they may examine it more closely, with +the idea of having one built like it for themselves; and she sits by +delighted, and explains to them the secret of the thing. We get to +parties half an hour before the opening time; she is afraid of being +a minute late. They have told her that the party can't begin without +her--isn't worth calling a party till she's there. We are always the +last to go. The other people don't matter, but if she goes they will +feel the whole thing has been a failure. She is dead for want of +sleep, and they are sick and tired of us; but if I look at my watch +they talk as if their hearts were breaking, and she thinks me a brute +for wanting to leave friends so passionately attached to us. + +"Why do we all play this silly game; what is the sense of it?" he +wanted to know. + +I could not tell him. + + + +CHAPTER VI + + + +[Fire and the Foreigner.] + +They are odd folk, these foreigners. There are moments of despair +when I almost give them up--feel I don't care what becomes of them-- +feel as if I could let them muddle on in their own way--wash my hands +of them, so to speak, and attend exclusively to my own business: we +all have our days of feebleness. They will sit outside a cafe on a +freezing night, with an east wind blowing, and play dominoes. They +will stand outside a tramcar, rushing through the icy air at fifteen +miles an hour, and refuse to go inside, even to oblige a lady. Yet +in railway carriages, in which you could grill a bloater by the +simple process of laying it underneath the seat, they will insist on +the window being closed, light cigars to keep their noses warm, and +sit with the collars of their fur coats buttoned up around their +necks. + +In their houses they keep the double windows hermetically sealed for +three or four months at a time: and the hot air quivering about the +stoves scorches your face if you venture nearer to it than a yard. +Travel can broaden the mind. It can also suggest to the Britisher +that in some respects his countrymen are nothing near so silly as +they are supposed to be. There was a time when I used to sit with my +legs stretched out before the English coal fire and listen with +respectful attention while people who I thought knew all about it +explained to me how wicked and how wasteful were our methods. + +All the heat from that fire, they told me, was going up the chimney. +I did not like to answer them that notwithstanding I felt warm and +cosy. I feared it might be merely British stupidity that kept me +warm and cosy, not the fire at all. How could it be the fire? The +heat from the fire was going up the chimney. It was the glow of +ignorance that was making my toes tingle. Besides, if by sitting +close in front of the fire and looking hard at it, I did contrive, by +hypnotic suggestion, maybe, to fancy myself warm, what should I feel +like at the other end of the room? + +It seemed like begging the question to reply that I had no particular +use for the other end of the room, that generally speaking there was +room enough about the fire for all the people I really cared for, +that sitting altogether round the fire seemed quite as sensible as +sulking by one's self in a corner the other end of the room, that the +fire made a cheerful and convenient focus for family and friends. +They pointed out to me how a stove, blocking up the centre of the +room, with a dingy looking fluepipe wandering round the ceiling, +would enable us to sit ranged round the walls, like patients in a +hospital waiting-room, and use up coke and potato-peelings. + +Since then I have had practical experience of the scientific stove. +I want the old-fashioned, unsanitary, wasteful, illogical, open +fireplace. I want the heat to go up the chimney, instead of stopping +in the room and giving me a headache, and making everything go round. +When I come in out of the snow I want to see a fire--something that +says to me with a cheerful crackle, "Hallo, old man, cold outside, +isn't it? Come and sit down. Come quite close and warm your hands. +That's right, put your foot under him and persuade him to move a yard +or two. That's all he's been doing for the last hour, lying there +roasting himself, lazy little devil. He'll get softening of the +spine, that's what will happen to him. Put your toes on the fender. +The tea will be here in a minute." + +[My British Stupidity.] + +I want something that I can toast my back against, while standing +with coat tails tucked up and my hands in my pockets, explaining +things to people. I don't want a comfortless, staring, white thing, +in a corner of the room, behind the sofa--a thing that looks and +smells like a family tomb. It may be hygienic, and it may be hot, +but it does not seem to do me any good. It has its advantages: it +contains a cupboard into which you can put things to dry. You can +also forget them, and leave them there. Then people complain of a +smell of burning, and hope the house is not on fire, and you ease +their mind by explaining to them that it is probably only your boots. +Complicated internal arrangements are worked by a key. If you put on +too much fuel, and do not work this key properly, the thing explodes. +And if you do not put on any coal at all and the fire goes out +suddenly, then likewise it explodes. That is the only way it knows +of calling attention to itself. On the Continent you know when the +fire wants seeing to merely by listening: + +"Sounded like the dining-room, that last explosion," somebody +remarks. + +"I think not," observes another, "I distinctly felt the shock behind +me--my bedroom, I expect." + +Bits of ceiling begin to fall, and you notice that the mirror over +the sideboard is slowly coming towards you. + +"Why it must be this stove," you say; "curious how difficult it is to +locate sound." + +You snatch up the children and hurry out of the room. After a while, +when things have settled down, you venture to look in again. Maybe +it was only a mild explosion. A ten-pound note and a couple of +plumbers in the house for a week will put things right again. They +tell me they are economical, these German stoves, but you have got to +understand them. I think I have learnt the trick of them at last: +and I don't suppose, all told, it has cost me more than fifty pounds. +And now I am trying to teach the rest of the family. What I complain +about the family is that they do not seem anxious to learn. + +"You do it," they say, pressing the coal scoop into my hand: "it +makes us nervous." + +It is a pretty, patriarchal idea: I stand between the trusting, +admiring family and these explosive stoves that are the terror of +their lives. They gather round me in a group and watch me, the +capable, all-knowing Head who fears no foreign stove. But there are +days when I get tired of going round making up fires. + +Nor is it sufficient to understand only one particular stove. The +practical foreigner prides himself upon having various stoves, +adapted to various work. Hitherto I have been speaking only of the +stove supposed to be best suited to reception rooms and bedrooms. +The hall is provided with another sort of stove altogether: an iron +stove this, that turns up its nose at coke and potato-peelings. If +you give it anything else but the best coal it explodes. It is like +living surrounded by peppery old colonels, trying to pass a peaceful +winter among these passionate stoves. There is a stove in the +kitchen to be used only for roasting: this one will not look at +anything else but wood. Give it a bit of coal, meaning to be kind, +and before you are out of the room it has exploded. + +Then there is a trick stove specially popular in Belgium. It has a +little door at the top and another little door at the bottom, and +looks like a pepper-caster. Whether it is happy or not depends upon +those two little doors. There are times when it feels it wants the +bottom door shut and the top door open, or vice versa, or both open +at the same time, or both shut--it is a fussy little stove. + +Ordinary intelligence does not help you much with this stove. You +want to be bred in the country. It is a question of instinct: you +have to have Belgian blood in your veins to get on comfortably with +it. On the whole, it is a mild little stove, this Belgian pet. It +does not often explode: it only gets angry, and throws its cover +into the air, and flings hot coals about the room. It lives, +generally speaking, inside an iron cupboard with two doors. When you +want it, you open these doors, and pull it out into the room. It +works on a swivel. And when you don't want it you try to push it +back again, and then the whole thing tumbles over, and the girl +throws her hands up to Heaven and says, "Mon Dieu!" and screams for +the cook and the femme journee, and they all three say "Mon Dieu!" +and fall upon it with buckets of water. By the time everything has +been extinguished you have made up your mind to substitute for it +just the ordinary explosive stove to which you are accustomed. + +[I am considered Cold and Mad.] + +In your own house you can, of course, open the windows, and thus +defeat the foreign stove. The rest of the street thinks you mad, but +then the Englishman is considered by all foreigners to be always mad. +It is his privilege to be mad. The street thinks no worse of you +than it did before, and you can breathe in comfort. But in the +railway carriage they don't allow you to be mad. In Europe, unless +you are prepared to draw at sight upon the other passengers, throw +the conductor out of the window, and take the train in by yourself, +it is useless arguing the question of fresh air. The rule abroad is +that if any one man objects to the window being open, the window +remains closed. He does not quarrel with you: he rings the bell, +and points out to the conductor that the temperature of the carriage +has sunk to little more than ninety degrees, Fahrenheit. He thinks a +window must be open. + +The conductor is generally an old soldier: he understands being +shot, he understands being thrown out of window, but not the laws of +sanitation. If, as I have explained, you shoot him, or throw him out +on the permanent way, that convinces him. He leaves you to discuss +the matter with the second conductor, who, by your action, has now, +of course, become the first conductor. As there are generally half a +dozen of these conductors scattered about the train, the process of +educating them becomes monotonous. You generally end by submitting +to the law. + +Unless you happen to be an American woman. Never did my heart go out +more gladly to America as a nation than one spring day travelling +from Berne to Vevey. We had been sitting for an hour in an +atmosphere that would have rendered a Dante disinclined to notice +things. Dante, after ten minutes in that atmosphere, would have lost +all interest in the show. He would not have asked questions. He +would have whispered to Virgil: + +"Get me out of this, old man, there's a good fellow!" + +[Sometimes I wish I were an American Woman.] + +The carriage was crowded, chiefly with Germans. Every window was +closed, every ventilator shut. The hot air quivered round our feet +Seventeen men and four women were smoking, two children were sucking +peppermints, and an old married couple were eating their lunch, +consisting chiefly of garlic. At a junction, the door was thrown +open. The foreigner opens the door a little way, glides in, and +closes it behind him. This was not a foreigner, but an American +lady, en voyage, accompanied by five other American ladies. They +marched in carrying packages. They could not find six seats +together, so they scattered up and down the carriage. The first +thing that each woman did, the moment she could get her hands free, +was to dash for the nearest window and haul it down. + +"Astonishes me," said the first woman, "that somebody is not dead in +this carriage." + +Their idea, I think, was that through asphyxiation we had become +comatose, and, but for their entrance, would have died unconscious. + +"It is a current of air that is wanted," said another of the ladies. + +So they opened the door at the front of the carriage and four of them +stood outside on the platform, chatting pleasantly and admiring the +scenery, while two of them opened the door at the other end, and took +photographs of the Lake of Geneva. The carriage rose and cursed them +in six languages. Bells were rung: conductors came flying in. It +was all of no use. Those American ladies were cheerful but firm. +They argued with volubility: they argued standing in the open +doorway. The conductors, familiar, no doubt, with the American lady +and her ways, shrugged their shoulders and retired. The other +passengers undid their bags and bundles, and wrapped themselves up in +shawls and Jaeger nightshirts. + +I met the ladies afterwards in Lausanne. They told me they had been +condemned to a fine of forty francs apiece. They also explained to +me that they had not the slightest intention of paying it. + + + +CHAPTER VII + + + +[Too much Postcard.] + +The postcard craze is dying out in Germany--the land of its birth--I +am told. In Germany they do things thoroughly, or not at all. The +German when he took to sending postcards abandoned almost every other +pursuit in life. The German tourist never knew where he had been +until on reaching home again he asked some friend or relation to +allow him to look over the postcards he had sent. Then it was he +began to enjoy his trip. + +"What a charming old town!" the German tourist would exclaim. "I +wish I could have found time while I was there to have gone outside +the hotel and have had a look round. Still, it is pleasant to think +one has been there." + +"I suppose you did not have much time?" his friend would suggest. + +"We did not get there till the evening," the tourist would explain. +"We were busy till dark buying postcards, and then in the morning +there was the writing and addressing to be done, and when that was +over, and we had had our breakfast, it was time to leave again." + +He would take up another card showing the panorama from a mountain +top. + +"Sublime! colossal!" he would cry enraptured. "If I had known it was +anything like that, I'd have stopped another day and had a look at +it." + +It was always worth seeing, the arrival of a party of German tourists +in a Schwartzwald village. Leaping from the coach they would surge +round the solitary gendarme. + +"Where is the postcard shop?" "Tell us--we have only two hours-- +where do we get postcards?" + +The gendarme, scenting Trinkgeld, would head them at the double- +quick: stout old gentlemen unaccustomed to the double-quick, stouter +Frauen gathering up their skirts with utter disregard to all +propriety, slim Fraulein clinging to their beloved would run after +him. Nervous pedestrians would fly for safety into doorways, +careless loiterers would be swept into the gutter. + +In the narrow doorway of the postcard shop trouble would begin. The +cries of suffocated women and trampled children, the curses of strong +men, would rend the air. The German is a peaceful, law-abiding +citizen, but in the hunt for postcards he was a beast. A woman would +pounce on a tray of cards, commence selecting, suddenly the tray +would be snatched from her. She would burst into tears, and hit the +person nearest to her with her umbrella. The cunning and the strong +would secure the best cards. The weak and courteous be left with +pictures of post offices and railway stations. Torn and dishevelled, +the crowd would rush back to the hotel, sweep crockery from the +table, and--sucking stumpy pencils--write feverishly. A hurried meal +would follow. Then the horses would be put to again, the German +tourists would climb back to their places and be driven away, asking +of the coachman what the name of the place they had just left might +happen to be. + +[The Postcard as a Family Curse.] + +One presumes that even to the patient German the thing grew tiresome. +In the Fliegende Blatter two young clerks were represented discussing +the question of summer holidays. + +"Where are you going?" asks A of B. + +"Nowhere," answers B. + +"Can't you afford it?" asks the sympathetic A. + +"Only been able to save up enough for the postcards," answers B, +gloomily; "no money left for the trip." + +Men and women carried bulky volumes containing the names and +addresses of the people to whom they had promised to send cards. +Everywhere, through winding forest glade, by silver sea, on mountain +pathway, one met with prematurely aged looking tourists muttering as +they walked: + +"Did I send Aunt Gretchen a postcard from that last village that we +stopped at, or did I address two to Cousin Lisa?" + +Then, again, maybe, the picture postcard led to disappointment. +Uninteresting towns clamoured, as ill-favoured spinsters in a +photographic studio, to be made beautiful. + +"I want," says the lady, "a photograph my friends will really like. +Some of these second-rate photographers make one look quite plain. I +don't want you to flatter me, if you understand, I merely want +something nice." + +The obliging photographer does his best. The nose is carefully toned +down, the wart becomes a dimple, her own husband doesn't know her. +The postcard artist has ended by imagining everything as it might +have been. + +"If it were not for the houses," says the postcard artist to himself, +"this might have been a picturesque old High street of mediaeval +aspect." + +So he draws a picture of the High street as it might have been. The +lover of quaint architecture travels out of his way to see it, and +when he finds it and contrasts it with the picture postcard he gets +mad. I bought a postcard myself once representing the market place +of a certain French town. It seemed to me, looking at the postcard, +that I hadn't really seen France--not yet. I travelled nearly a +hundred miles to see that market place. I was careful to arrive on +market day and to get there at the right time. I reached the market +square and looked at it. Then I asked a gendarme where it was. + +He said it was there--that I was in it. + +I said, "I don't mean this one, I want the other one, the picturesque +one." + +He said it was the only market square they had. I took the postcard +from my pocket. + +"Where are all the girls?" I asked him. + +"What girls?" he demanded. + +[The Artist's Dream.] + +"Why, these girls;" I showed him the postcard, there ought to have +been about a hundred of them. There was not a plain one among the +lot. Many of them I should have called beautiful. They were selling +flowers and fruit, all kinds of fruit--cherries, strawberries, rosy- +cheeked apples, luscious grapes--all freshly picked and sparkling +with dew. The gendarme said he had never seen any girls--not in this +particular square. Referring casually to the blood of saints and +martyrs, he said he would like to see a few girls in that town worth +looking at. In the square itself sat six motherly old souls round a +lamp-post. One of them had a moustache, and was smoking a pipe, but +in other respects, I have no doubt, was all a woman should be. Two +of them were selling fish. That is they would have sold fish, no +doubt, had anyone been there to buy fish. The gaily clad thousands +of eager purchasers pictured in the postcard were represented by two +workmen in blue blouses talking at a corner, mostly with their +fingers; a small boy walking backwards, with the idea apparently of +not missing anything behind him, and a yellow dog that sat on the +kerb, and had given up all hope--judging from his expression--of +anything ever happening again. With the gendarme and myself, these +four were the only living creatures in the square. The rest of the +market consisted of eggs and a few emaciated fowls hanging from a +sort of broom handle. + +"And where's the cathedral?" I asked the gendarme. It was a Gothic +structure in the postcard of evident antiquity. He said there had +once been a cathedral. It was now a brewery; he pointed it out to +me. He said he thought some portion of the original south wall had +been retained. He thought the manager of the brewery might be +willing to show it to me. + +"And the fountain?" I demanded, "and all these doves!" + +He said there had been talk of a fountain. He believed the design +had already been prepared. + +I took the next train back. I do not now travel much out of my way +to see the original of the picture postcard. Maybe others have had +like experience and the picture postcard as a guide to the Continent +has lost its value. + +The dealer has fallen back upon the eternal feminine. The postcard +collector is confined to girls. Through the kindness of +correspondents I possess myself some fifty to a hundred girls, or +perhaps it would be more correct to say one girl in fifty to a +hundred different hats. I have her in big hats, I have her in small +hats, I have her in no hat at all. I have her smiling, and I have +her looking as if she had lost her last sixpence. I have her +overdressed, I have her decidedly underdressed, but she is much the +same girl. Very young men cannot have too many of her, but myself I +am getting tired of her. I suppose it is the result of growing old. + +[Why not the Eternal Male for a change?] + +Girls of my acquaintance are also beginning to grumble at her. I +often think it hard on girls that the artist so neglects the eternal +male. Why should there not be portraits of young men in different +hats; young men in big hats, young men in little hats, young men +smiling archly, young men looking noble. Girls don't want to +decorate their rooms with pictures of other girls, they want rows of +young men beaming down upon them. + +But possibly I am sinning my mercies. A father hears what young men +don't. The girl in real life is feeling it keenly: the impossible +standard set for her by the popular artist. + +"Real skirts don't hang like that," she grumbles, "it's not in the +nature of skirts. You can't have feet that size. It isn't our +fault, they are not made. Look at those waists! There would be no +room to put anything?" + +"Nature, in fashioning woman, has not yet crept up to the artistic +ideal. The young man studies the picture on the postcard; on the +coloured almanack given away at Christmas by the local grocer; on the +advertisement of Jones' soap, and thinks with discontent of Polly +Perkins, who in a natural way is as pretty a girl as can be looked +for in this imperfect world. Thus it is that woman has had to take +to shorthand and typewriting. Modern woman is being ruined by the +artist. + +[How Women are ruined by Art.] + +Mr. Anstey tells a story of a young barber who fell in love with his +own wax model. All day he dreamed of the impossible. She--the young +lady of wax-like complexion, with her everlasting expression of +dignity combined with amiability. No girl of his acquaintance could +compete with her. If I remember rightly he died a bachelor, still +dreaming of wax-like perfection. Perhaps it is as well we men are +not handicapped to the same extent. If every hoarding, if every +picture shop window, if every illustrated journal teemed with +illustrations of the ideal young man in perfect fitting trousers that +never bagged at the knees! Maybe it would result in our cooking our +own breakfasts and making our own beds to the end of our lives. + +The novelist and playwright, as it is, have made things difficult +enough for us. In books and plays the young man makes love with a +flow of language, a wealth of imagery, that must have taken him years +to acquire. What does the novel-reading girl think, I wonder, when +the real young man proposes to her! He has not called her anything +in particular. Possibly he has got as far as suggesting she is a +duck or a daisy, or hinting shyly that she is his bee or his +honeysuckle: in his excitement he is not quite sure which. In the +novel she has been reading the hero has likened the heroine to half +the vegetable kingdom. Elementary astronomy has been exhausted in +his attempt to describe to her the impression her appearance leaves +on him. Bond Street has been sacked in his endeavour to get it +clearly home to her what different parts of her are like--her eyes, +her teeth, her heart, her hair, her ears. Delicacy alone prevents +his extending the catalogue. A Fiji Island lover might possibly go +further. We have not yet had the Fiji Island novel. By the time he +is through with it she must have a somewhat confused notion of +herself--a vague conviction that she is a sort of condensed South +Kensington Museum. + +[Difficulty of living up to the Poster.] + +Poor Angelina must feel dissatisfied with the Edwin of real life. I +am not sure that art and fiction have not made life more difficult +for us than even it was intended to be. The view from the mountain +top is less extensive than represented by the picture postcard. The +play, I fear me, does not always come up to the poster. Polly +Perkins is pretty enough as girls go; but oh for the young lady of +the grocer's almanack! Poor dear John is very nice and loves us--so +he tells us, in his stupid, halting way; but how can we respond when +we remember how the man loved in the play! The "artist has fashioned +his dream of delight," and the workaday world by comparison seems +tame to us. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + + +[The Lady and the Problem.] + +She is a good woman, the Heroine of the Problem Play, but accidents +will happen, and other people were to blame. + +Perhaps that is really the Problem: who was responsible for the +heroine's past? Was it her father? She does not say so--not in so +many words. That is not her way. It is not for her, the silently- +suffering victim of complicated antecedent incidents, to purchase +justice for herself by pointing the finger of accusation against him +who, whatever his faults may be, was once, at all events, her father. +That one fact in his favour she can never forget. Indeed she would +not if she could. That one asset, for whatever it may be worth by +the time the Day of Judgment arrives, he shall retain. It shall not +be taken from him. "After all he was my father." She admits it, +with the accent on the "was." That he is so no longer, he has only +himself to blame. His subsequent behaviour has apparently rendered +it necessary for her to sever the relationship. + +"I love you," she has probably said to him, paraphrasing Othello's +speech to Cassio; "it is my duty, and--as by this time you must be +aware--it is my keen if occasionally somewhat involved, sense of duty +that is the cause of almost all our troubles in this play. You will +always remain the object of what I cannot help feeling is misplaced +affection on my part, mingled with contempt. But never more be +relative of mine." + +Certain it is that but for her father she would never have had a +past. Failing anyone else on whom to lay the blame for whatever the +lady may have done, we can generally fall back upon the father. He +becomes our sheet-anchor, so to speak. There are plays in which at +first sight it would almost appear there was nobody to blame--nobody, +except the heroine herself. It all seems to happen just because she +is no better than she ought to be: clearly, the father's fault! for +ever having had a daughter no better than she ought to be. As the +Heroine of a certain Problem Play once put it neatly and succinctly +to the old man himself: "It is you parents that make us children +what we are." She had him there. He had not a word to answer for +himself, but went off centre, leaving his hat behind him. + +Sometimes, however, the father is merely a "Scientist"--which in +Stageland is another term for helpless imbecile. In Stageland, if a +gentleman has not got to have much brain and you do not know what +else to make of him, you let him be a scientist--and then, of course, +he is only to blame in a minor degree. If he had not been a +scientist--thinking more of his silly old stars or beetles than of +his intricate daughter, he might have done something. The heroine +does not say precisely what: perhaps have taken her up stairs now +and again, while she was still young and susceptible of improvement, +and have spanked some sense into her. + +[The Stage Hero who, for once, had Justice done to him.] + +I remember witnessing long ago, in a country barn, a highly moral +play. It was a Problem Play, now I come to think of it. At least, +that is, it would have been a Problem Play but that the party with +the past happened in this case to be merely a male thing. Stage life +presents no problems to the man. The hero of the Problem Play has +not got to wonder what to do; he has got to wonder only what the +heroine will do next. The hero--he was not exactly the hero; he +would have been the hero had he not been hanged in the last act. But +for that he was rather a nice young man, full of sentiment and not +ashamed of it. From the scaffold he pleaded for leave to embrace his +mother just once more before he died. It was a pretty idea. The +hangman himself was touched. The necessary leave was granted him. +He descended the steps and flung his arms round the sobbing old lady, +and--bit off her nose. After that he told her why he had bitten off +her nose. It appeared that when he was a boy, he had returned home +one evening with a rabbit in his pocket. Instead of putting him +across her knee, and working into him the eighth commandment, she had +said nothing; but that it seemed to be a fairly useful sort of +rabbit, and had sent him out into the garden to pick onions. If she +had done her duty by him then, he would not have been now in his +present most unsatisfactory position, and she would still have had +her nose. The fathers and mothers in the audience applauded, but the +children, scenting addition to precedent, looked glum. + +Maybe it is something of this kind the heroine is hinting at. +Perhaps the Problem has nothing to do with the heroine herself, but +with the heroine's parents: what is the best way of bringing up a +daughter who shows the slightest sign of developing a tendency +towards a Past? Can it be done by kindness? And, if not, how much? + +Occasionally the parents attempt to solve the Problem, so far as they +are concerned, by dying young--shortly after the heroine's birth. No +doubt they argue to themselves this is their only chance of avoiding +future blame. But they do not get out of it so easily. + +"Ah, if I had only had a mother--or even a father!" cries the +heroine: one feels how mean it was of them to slip away as they did. + +The fact remains, however, that they are dead. One despises them for +dying, but beyond that it is difficult to hold them personally +responsible for the heroine's subsequent misdeeds. The argument +takes to itself new shape. Is it Fate that is to blame? The lady +herself would seem to favour this suggestion. It has always been her +fate, she explains, to bring suffering and misery upon those she +loves. At first, according to her own account, she rebelled against +this cruel Fate--possibly instigated thereto by the people +unfortunate enough to he loved by her. But of late she has come to +accept this strange destiny of hers with touching resignation. It +grieves her, when she thinks of it, that she is unable to imbue those +she loves with her own patient spirit. They seem to be a fretful +little band. + +Considered as a scapegoat, Fate, as compared with the father, has +this advantage: it is always about: it cannot slip away and die +before the real trouble begins: it cannot even plead a scientific +head; it is there all the time. With care one can blame it for most +everything. The vexing thing about it is, that it does not mind +being blamed. One cannot make Fate feel small and mean. It affords +no relief to our harrowed feelings to cry out indignantly to Fate: +"look here, what you have done. Look at this sweet and well- +proportioned lady, compelled to travel first-class, accompanied by an +amount of luggage that must be a perpetual nightmare to her maid, +from one fashionable European resort to another; forced to exist on a +well-secured income of, apparently, five thousand a year, most of +which has to go in clothes; beloved by only the best people in the +play; talked about by everybody incessantly to the exclusion of +everybody else--all the neighbours interested in her and in nobody +else much; all the women envying her; all the men tumbling over one +another after her--looks, in spite of all her worries, not a day +older than twenty-three; and has discovered a dressmaker never yet +known to have been an hour behind her promise! And all your fault, +yours, Fate. Will nothing move you to shame?" + +[She has a way of mislaying her Husband.] + +It brings no satisfaction with it, speaking out one's mind to Fate. +We want to see him before us, the thing of flesh and blood that has +brought all this upon her. Was it that early husband--or rather the +gentleman she thought was her husband. As a matter of fact, he was a +husband. Only he did not happen to be hers. That naturally confused +her. "Then who is my husband?" she seems to have said to herself; "I +had a husband: I remember it distinctly." + +"Difficult to know them apart from one another," says the lady with +the past, "the way they dress them all alike nowadays. I suppose it +does not really matter. They are much the same as one another when +you get them home. Doesn't do to be too fussy." + +She is a careless woman. She is always mislaying that early husband. +And she has an unfortunate knack of finding him at the wrong moment. +Perhaps that is the Problem: What is a lady to do with a husband for +whom she has no further use? If she gives him away he is sure to +come back, like the clever dog that is sent in a hamper to the other +end of the kingdom, and three days afterwards is found gasping on the +doorstep. If she leaves him in the middle of South Africa, with most +of the heavy baggage and all the debts, she may reckon it a certainty +that on her return from her next honeymoon he will be the first to +greet her. + +Her surprise at meeting him again is a little unreasonable. She +seems to be under the impression that because she has forgotten him, +he is for all practical purposes dead. + +"Why I forgot all about him," she seems to be arguing to herself, +"seven years ago at least. According to the laws of Nature there +ought to be nothing left of him but just his bones." + +She is indignant at finding he is still alive, and lets him know it-- +tells him he is a beast for turning up at his sister's party, and +pleads to him for one last favour: that he will go away where +neither she nor anybody else of any importance will ever see him or +hear of him again. That's all she asks of him. If he make a point +of it she will--though her costume is ill adapted to the exercise--go +down upon her knees to ask it of him. + +He brutally retorts that he doesn't know where to "get." The lady +travels round a good deal and seems to be in most places. She +accepts week-end invitations to the houses of his nearest relatives. +She has married his first cousin, and is now getting up a bazaar with +the help of his present wife. How he is to avoid her he does not +quite see. + +Perhaps, by the by, that is really the Problem: where is the early +husband to disappear to? Even if every time he saw her coming he +were to duck under the table, somebody would be sure to notice it and +make remarks. Ought he to take himself out one dark night, tie a +brick round his neck, and throw himself into a pond? + +[What is a Lady to do with a Husband when she has finished with him?] + +But men are so selfish. The idea does not even occur to him; and the +lady herself is too generous to do more than just hint at it. + +Maybe it is Society that is to blame. There comes a luminous moment +when it is suddenly revealed to the Heroine of the Problem Play that +it is Society that is at the bottom of this thing. She has felt all +along there was something the matter. Why has she never thought of +it before? Here all these years has she been going about blaming her +poor old father; her mother for dying too soon; the remarkable +circumstances attending her girlhood; that dear old stupid husband +she thought was hers; and all the while the really culpable party has +been existing unsuspected under her very nose. She clears away the +furniture a bit, and tells Society exactly what she thinks of it--she +is always good at that, telling people what she thinks of them. +Other people's failings do not escape her, not for long. If Society +would only step out for a moment, and look at itself with her eyes, +something might be done. If Society, now that the thing has been +pointed out to it, has still any lingering desire to live, let it +look at her. This, that she is, Society has made her! Let Society +have a walk round her, and then go home and reflect. + +[Could she--herself--have been to blame?] + +It lifts a load from us, fixing the blame on Society. There were +periods in the play when we hardly knew what to think. The +scientific father, the dead mother, the early husband! it was +difficult to grasp the fact that they alone were to blame. One felt +there was something to be said for even them. Ugly thoughts would +cross our mind that perhaps the Heroine herself was not altogether +irreproachable--that possibly there would have been less Problem, if, +thinking a little less about her clothes, yearning a little less to +do nothing all day long and be perfectly happy, she had pulled +herself together, told herself that the world was not built +exclusively for her, and settled down to the existence of an ordinary +decent woman. + +Looking at the thing all round, that is perhaps the best solution of +the Problem: it is Society that is to blame. We had better keep to +that. + + + +CHAPTER IX + + + +[Civilization and the Unemployed.] + +Where Civilization fails is in not providing men and women with +sufficient work. In the Stone Age man was, one imagines, kept busy. +When he was not looking for his dinner, or eating his dinner, or +sleeping off the effects of his dinner, he was hard at work with a +club, clearing the neighbourhood of what one doubts not he would have +described as aliens. The healthy Palaeolithic man would have had a +contempt for Cobden rivalling that of Mr. Chamberlain himself. He +did not take the incursion of the foreigner "lying down." One +pictures him in the mind's eye: unscientific, perhaps, but active to +a degree difficult to conceive in these degenerate days. Now up a +tree hurling cocoa-nuts, the next moment on the ground flinging roots +and rocks. Both having tolerably hard heads, the argument would of +necessity be long and heated. Phrases that have since come to be +meaningless had, in those days, a real significance. + +When a Palaeolithic politician claimed to have "crushed his critic," +he meant that he had succeeded in dropping a tree or a ton of earth +upon him. When it was said that one bright and intelligent member of +that early sociology had "annihilated his opponent," that opponent's +friends and relations took no further interest in him. It meant that +he was actually annihilated. Bits of him might be found, but the +most of him would be hopelessly scattered. When the adherents of any +particular Cave Dweller remarked that their man was wiping the floor +with his rival, it did not mean that he was talking himself red in +the face to a bored audience of sixteen friends and a reporter. It +meant that he was dragging that rival by the legs round the enclosure +and making the place damp and untidy with him. + +[Early instances of "Dumping."] + +Maybe the Cave Dweller, finding nuts in his own neighbourhood growing +scarce, would emigrate himself: for even in that age the politician +was not always logical. Thus roles became reversed. The defender of +his country became the alien, dumping himself where he was not +wanted. The charm of those early political arguments lay in their +simplicity. A child could have followed every point. There could +never have been a moment's doubt, even among his own followers, as to +what a Palaeolithic statesman really meant to convey. At the close +of the contest the party who considered it had won the moral victory +would be cleared away, or buried neatly on the spot, according to +taste: and the discussion, until the arrival of the next generation, +was voted closed. + +All this must have been harassing, but it did serve to pass away the +time. Civilization has brought into being a section of the community +with little else to do but to amuse itself. For youth to play is +natural; the young barbarian plays, the kitten plays, the colt +gambols, the lamb skips. But man is the only animal that gambols and +jumps and skips after it has reached maturity. Were we to meet an +elderly bearded goat, springing about in the air and behaving, +generally speaking, like a kid, we should say it had gone mad. Yet +we throng in our thousands to watch elderly ladies and gentlemen +jumping about after a ball, twisting themselves into strange shapes, +rushing, racing, falling over one another; and present them with +silver-backed hair-brushes and gold-handled umbrellas as a reward to +them for doing so. + +Imagine some scientific inhabitant of one of the larger fixed stars +examining us through a magnifying-glass as we examine ants. Our +amusements would puzzle him. The ball of all sorts and sizes, from +the marble to the pushball, would lead to endless scientific +argument. + +"What is it? Why are these men and women always knocking it about, +seizing it wherever and whenever they find it and worrying it?" + +The observer from that fixed star would argue that the Ball must be +some malignant creature of fiendish power, the great enemy of the +human race. Watching our cricket-fields, our tennis-courts, our golf +links, he would conclude that a certain section of mankind had been +told off to do battle with the "Ball" on behalf of mankind in +general. + +"As a rule," so he would report, "it is a superior class of insect to +which this special duty has been assigned. They are a friskier, +gaudier species than their fellows. + +[Cricket, as viewed from the fixed Stars.] + +"For this one purpose they appear to be kept and fed. They do no +other work, so far as I have been able to ascertain. Carefully +selected and trained, their mission is to go about the world looking +for Balls. Whenever they find a Ball they set to work to kill it. +But the vitality of these Balls is extraordinary. There is a medium- +sized, reddish species that, on an average, takes three days to kill. +When one of these is discovered, specially trained champions are +summoned from every corner of the country. They arrive in hot haste, +eager for the battle, which takes place in the presence of the entire +neighbourhood. The number of champions for some reason or another is +limited to twenty-two. Each one seizing in turn a large piece of +wood, rushes at the Ball as it flies along the ground, or through the +air, and strikes at it with all his force. When, exhausted, he can +strike no longer, he throws down his weapon and retires into a tent, +where he is restored to strength by copious draughts of a drug the +nature of which I have been unable to discover. Meanwhile, another +has picked up the fallen weapon, and the contest is continued without +a moment's interruption. The Ball makes frantic efforts to escape +from its tormentors, but every time it is captured and flung back. +So far as can be observed, it makes no attempt at retaliation, its +only object being to get away; though, occasionally--whether by +design or accident--it succeeds in inflicting injury upon one or +other of its executioners, or more often upon one of the spectators, +striking him either on the head or about the region of the waist, +which, judging by results, would appear, from the Ball's point of +view, to be the better selection. These small reddish Balls are +quickened into life evidently by the heat of the sun; in the cold +season they disappear, and their place is taken by a much larger +Ball. This Ball the champions kill by striking it with their feet +and with their heads. But sometimes they will attempt to suffocate +it by falling on it, some dozen of them at a time. + +"Another of these seemingly harmless enemies of the human race is a +small white Ball of great cunning and resource. It frequents sandy +districts by the sea coast and open spaces near the large towns. It +is pursued with extraordinary animosity by a florid-faced insect of +fierce aspect and rotundity of figure. The weapon he employs is a +long stick loaded with metal. With one blow he will send the +creature through the air sometimes to a distance of nearly a quarter +of a mile; yet so vigorous is the constitution of these Balls that it +will fall to earth apparently but little damaged. It is followed by +the rotund man accompanied by a smaller insect carrying spare clubs. +Though hampered by the prominent whiteness of its skin, the extreme +smallness of this Ball often enables it to defy re-discovery, and at +such times the fury of the little round man is terrible to +contemplate. He dances round the spot where the ball has +disappeared, making frenzied passes at the surrounding vegetation +with his club, uttering the while the most savage and bloodcurdling +growls. Occasionally striking at the small creature in fury, he will +miss it altogether, and, having struck merely the air, will sit down +heavily upon the ground, or, striking the solid earth, will shatter +his own club. Then a curious thing takes place: all the other +insects standing round place their right hand before their mouth, +and, turning away their faces, shake their bodies to and fro, +emitting a strange crackling sound. Whether this is to be regarded +as a mere expression of their grief that the blow of their comrade +should have miscarried, or whether one may assume it to be a +ceremonious appeal to their gods for better luck next time, I have +not as yet made up my mind. The striker, meanwhile, raises both +arms, the hands tightly clenched, towards the heavens, and utters +what is probably a prayer, prepared expressly for the occasion. + +[The Heir of all Ages. His Inheritance.] + +In similar manner he, the Celestial Observer, proceeds to describe +our billiard matches, our tennis tournaments, our croquet parties. +Maybe it never occurs to him that a large section of our race +surrounded by Eternity, would devote its entire span of life to sheer +killing of time. A middle-aged friend of mine, a cultured gentleman, +a M.A. of Cambridge, assured me the other day that, notwithstanding +all his experiences of life, the thing that still gave him the +greatest satisfaction was the accomplishment of a successful drive to +leg. Rather a quaint commentary on our civilization, is it not? +"The singers have sung, and the builders have builded. The artists +have fashioned their dreams of delight." The martyrs for thought and +freedom have died their death; knowledge has sprung from the bones of +ignorance; civilization for ten thousand years has battled with +brutality to this result--that a specimen gentleman of the Twentieth +Century, the heir of all the ages, finds his greatest joy in life the +striking of a ball with a chunk of wood! + +Human energy, human suffering, has been wasted. Such crown of +happiness for a man might surely have been obtained earlier and at +less cost. Was it intended? Are we on the right track? The child's +play is wiser. The battered doll is a princess. Within the sand +castle dwells an ogre. It is with imagination that he plays. His +games have some relation to life. It is the man only who is content +with this everlasting knocking about of a ball. The majority of +mankind is doomed to labour so constant, so exhausting, that no +opportunity is given it to cultivate its brain. Civilization has +arranged that a small privileged minority shall alone enjoy that +leisure necessary to the development of thought. And what is the +answer of this leisured class? It is: + +"We will do nothing for the world that feeds us, clothes us, keeps us +in luxury. We will spend our whole existence knocking balls about, +watching other people knocking balls about, arguing with one another +as to the best means of knocking balls about." + +[Is it "Playing the Game?"] + +Is it--to use their own jargon--"playing the game?" + +And the queer thing is this over-worked world, that stints itself to +keep them in idleness, approves of the answer. "The flannelled +fool," "The muddied oaf," is the pet of the people; their hero, their +ideal. + +But maybe all this is mere jealousy. Myself, I have never been +clever at knocking balls about. + + + +CHAPTER X + + + +[Patience and the Waiter.] + +The slowest waiter I know is the British railway refreshment-room +waiter. + +His very breathing--regular, harmonious, penetrating, instinct as it +is with all the better attributes of a well-preserved grandfather's +clock--conveys suggestion of dignity and peace. He is a huge, +impressive person. There emanates from him an atmosphere of +Lotusland. The otherwise unattractive refreshment-room becomes an +oasis of repose amid the turmoil of a fretful world. All things +conspire to aid him: the ancient joints, ranged side by side like +corpses in a morgue, each one decently hidden under its white muslin +shroud, whispering of death and decay; the dish of dead flies, +thoughtfully placed in the centre of the table; the framed +advertisements extolling the virtues of heavy beers and stouts, of +weird champagnes, emanating from haunted-looking chateaux, situate-- +if one may judge from the illustration--in the midst of desert lands; +the sleep-inviting buzz of the bluebottles. + +The spirit of the place steals over you. On entering, with a quarter +of an hour to spare, your idea was a cutlet and a glass of claret. +In the face of the refreshment-room waiter, the notion appears +frivolous, not to say un-English. You order cold beef and pickles, +with a pint of bitter in a tankard. To win the British waiter's +approval, you must always order beer in a tankard. The British +waiter, in his ideals, is mediaeval. There is a Shakespearean touch +about a tankard. A soapy potato will, of course, be added. +Afterwards a ton of cheese and a basin of rabbit's food floating in +water (the British salad) will be placed before you. You will work +steadily through the whole, anticipating the somnolence that will +subsequently fall upon you with a certain amount of satisfaction. It +will serve to dispel the last lingering regret at the reflection that +you will miss your appointment, and suffer thereby serious +inconvenience if not positive loss. These things are of the world-- +the noisy, tiresome world you have left without. + +To the English traveller, the foreign waiter in the earlier stages of +his career is a burden and a trial. When he is complete--when he +really can talk English I rejoice in him. When I object to him is +when his English is worse than my French or German, and when he will, +for his own educational purposes, insist, nevertheless, that the +conversation shall be entirely in English. I would he came to me +some other time. I would so much rather make it after dinner or, +say, the next morning. I hate giving lessons during meal times. + +Besides, to a man with feeble digestion, this sort of thing can lead +to trouble. One waiter I met at an hotel in Dijon knew very little +English--about as much as a poll parrot. The moment I entered the +salle-a-manger he started to his feet. + +"Ah! You English!" he cried. + +"Well, what about us?" I answered. It was during the period of the +Boer War. I took it he was about to denounce the English nation +generally. I was looking for something to throw at him. + +"You English--you Englishman, yes," he repeated. + +And then I understood he had merely intended a question. I owned up +that I was, and accused him in turn of being a Frenchman. He +admitted it. Introductions, as it were, thus over, I thought I would +order dinner. I ordered it in French. I am not bragging of my +French, I never wanted to learn French. Even as a boy, it was more +the idea of others than of myself. I learnt as little as possible. +But I have learnt enough to live in places where they can't, or +won't, speak anything else. Left to myself, I could have enjoyed a +very satisfactory dinner. I was tired with a long day's journey, and +hungry. They cook well at this hotel. I had been looking forward to +my dinner for hours and hours. I had sat down in my imagination to a +consomme bisque, sole au gratin, a poulet saute, and an omelette au +fromage. + +[Waiterkind in the making.] + +It is wrong to let one's mind dwell upon carnal delights; I see that +now. At the time I was mad about it. The fool would not even listen +to me. He had got it into his garlic-sodden brain that all +Englishmen live on beef, and nothing but beef. He swept aside all my +suggestions as though they had been the prattlings of a foolish +child. + +"You haf nice biftek. Not at all done. Yes?" + +"No, I don't," I answered. "I don't want what the cook of a French +provincial hotel calls a biftek. I want something to eat. I want--" +Apparently, he understood neither English nor French. + +"Yes, yes," he interrupted cheerfully, "with pottitoes." + +"With what?" I asked. I thought for the moment he was suggesting +potted pigs' feet in the nearest English he could get to it. + +"Pottito," he repeated; "boil pottito. Yes? And pell hell." + +I felt like telling him to go there; I suppose he meant "pale ale." +It took me about five minutes to get that beefsteak out of his head. +By the time I had done it, I did not care what I had for dinner. I +took pot-du-jour and veal. He added, on his own initiative, a thing +that looked like a poultice. I did not try the taste of it. He +explained it was "plum poodeen." I fancy he had made it himself. + +This fellow is typical; you meet him everywhere abroad. He +translates your bill into English for you, calls ten centimes a +penny, calculates twelve francs to the pound, and presses a handful +of sous affectionately upon you as change for a napoleon. + +The cheating waiter is common to all countries, though in Italy and +Belgium he flourishes, perhaps, more than elsewhere. But the British +waiter, when detected, becomes surly--does not take it nicely. The +foreign waiter is amiable about it--bears no malice. He is grieved, +maybe, at your language, but that is because he is thinking of you-- +the possible effect of it upon your future. To try and stop you, he +offers you another four sous. The story is told of a Frenchman who, +not knowing the legal fare, adopted the plan of doling out pennies to +a London cabman one at a time, continuing until the man looked +satisfied. Myself, I doubt the story. From what I know of the +London cabman, I can see him leaning down still, with out-stretched +hand, the horse between the shafts long since dead, the cab chockfull +of coppers, and yet no expression of satiety upon his face. + +But the story would appear to have crossed the Channel, and to have +commended itself to the foreign waiter--especially to the railway +refreshment-room waiter. He doles out sous to the traveller, one at +a time, with the air of a man who is giving away the savings of a +lifetime. If, after five minutes or so, you still appear +discontented he goes away quite suddenly. You think he has gone to +open another chest of half-pence, but when a quarter of an hour has +passed and he does not reappear, you inquire about him amongst the +other waiters. + +A gloom at once falls upon them. You have spoken of the very thing +that has been troubling them. He used to be a waiter here once--one +might almost say until quite recently. As to what has become of him- +-ah! there you have them. If in the course of their chequered career +they ever come across him, they will mention to him that you are +waiting for him. Meanwhile a stentorian-voiced official is shouting +that your train is on the point of leaving. You console yourself +with the reflection that it might have been more. It always might +have been more; sometimes it is. + +[His Little Mistakes.] + +A waiter at the Gare du Nord, in Brussels, on one occasion pressed +upon me a five-franc piece, a small Turkish coin the value of which +was unknown to me, and remains so to this day, a distinctly bad two +francs, and from a quarter of a pound to six ounces of centimes, as +change for a twenty-franc note, after deducting the price of a cup of +coffee. He put it down with the air of one subscribing to a charity. +We looked at one another. I suppose I must have conveyed to him the +impression of being discontented. He drew a purse from his pocket. +The action suggested that, for the purpose of satisfying my +inordinate demands, he would be compelled to draw upon his private +resources; but it did not move me. Abstracting reluctantly a fifty- +centime piece, he added it to the heap upon the table. + +I suggested his taking a seat, as at this rate it seemed likely we +should be doing business together for some time. I think he gathered +I was not a fool. Hitherto he had been judging, I suppose, purely +from appearances. But he was not in the least offended. + +"Ah!" he cried, with a cheery laugh, "Monsieur comprend!" He swept +the whole nonsense back into his bag and gave me the right change. I +slipped my arm through his and insisted upon the pleasure of his +society, until I had examined each and every coin. He went away +chuckling, and told another waiter all about it. They both of them +bowed to me as I went out, and wished me a pleasant journey. I left +them still chuckling. A British waiter would have been sulky all the +afternoon. + +The waiter who insists upon mistaking you for the heir of all the +Rothschilds used to cost me dear when I was younger. I find the best +plan is to take him in hand at the beginning and disillusion him; +sweep aside his talk of '84 Perrier Jouet, followed by a '79 Chateau +Lafite, and ask him, as man to man, if he can conscientiously +recommend the Saint Julien at two-and-six. After that he settles +down to his work and talks sense. + +The fatherly waiter is sometimes a comfort. You feel that he knows +best. Your instinct is to address him as "Uncle." But you remember +yourself in time. When you are dining a lady, however, and wish to +appear important, he is apt to be in the way. It seems, somehow, to +be his dinner. You have a sense almost of being de trop. + +The greatest insult you can offer a waiter is to mistake him for your +waiter. You think he is your waiter--there is the bald head, the +black side-whiskers, the Roman nose. But your waiter had blue eyes, +this man soft hazel. You had forgotten to notice the eyes. You bar +his progress and ask him for the red pepper. The haughty contempt +with which he regards you is painful to bear. It is as if you had +insulted a lady. He appears to be saying the same thing: + +"I think you have made a mistake. You are possibly confusing me with +somebody else; I have not the honour of your acquaintance." + +[How to insult him.] + +I do not wish it to be understood that I am in the habit of insulting +ladies, but occasionally I have made an innocent mistake, and have +met with some such response. The wrong waiter conveys to me +precisely the same feeling of humiliation. + +"I will send your waiter to you," he answers. His tone implies that +there are waiters and waiters; some may not mind what class of person +they serve: others, though poor, have their self-respect. It is +clear to you now why your waiter is keeping away from you; the man is +ashamed of being your waiter. He is watching, probably, for an +opportunity to approach you when nobody is looking. The other waiter +finds him for you. He was hiding behind a screen. + +"Table forty-two wants you," the other tells him. The tone of voice +adds: + +"If you like to encourage this class of customer that is your +business; but don't ask me to have anything to do with him." + +Even the waiter has his feelings. + + + +CHAPTER XI + + + +[The everlasting Newness of Woman.] + +An Oriental visitor was returning from our shores to his native land. + +"Well," asked the youthful diplomatist who had been told off to show +him round, as on the deck of the steamer they shook hands, "what do +you now think of England?" + +"Too much woman," answered the grave Orientalist, and descended to +his cabin. + +The young diplomatist returned to the shore thoughtful, and later in +the day a few of us discussed the matter in a far-off, dimly-lighted +corner of the club smoking-room. + +Has the pendulum swung too far the other way? Could there be truth +in our Oriental friend's terse commentary? The eternal feminine! +The Western world has been handed over to her. The stranger from +Mars or Jupiter would describe us as a hive of women, the sober-clad +male being retained apparently on condition of its doing all the hard +work and making itself generally useful. Formerly it was the man who +wore the fine clothes who went to the shows. To-day it is the woman +gorgeously clad for whom the shows are organized. The man dressed in +a serviceable and unostentatious, not to say depressing, suit of +black accompanies her for the purpose of carrying her cloak and +calling her carriage. Among the working classes life, of necessity, +remains primitive; the law of the cave is still, with slight +modification, the law of the slum. But in upper and middle-class +circles the man is now the woman's servant. + +I remember being present while a mother of my acquaintance was +instilling into the mind of her little son the advantages of being +born a man. A little girl cousin was about to spend a week with him. +It was impressed upon him that if she showed a liking for any of his +toys, he was at once to give them up to her. + +"But why, mamma?" he demanded, evidently surprised. + +"Because, my dear, you are a little man." + +Should she break them, he was not to smack her head or kick her--as +his instinct might prompt him to do. He was just to say: + +"Oh, it is of no consequence at all," and to look as if he meant it. + +[Doctor says she is not to be bothered.] + +She was always to choose the game--to have the biggest apple. There +was much more of a similar nature. It was all because he was a +little man and she was a little woman. At the end he looked up, +puzzled: + +"But don't she do anything, 'cos she's a little girl?" + +It was explained to him that she didn't. By right of being born a +little girl she was exempt from all duty. + +Woman nowadays is not taking any duty. She objects to housekeeping; +she calls it domestic slavery, and feels she was intended for higher +things. What higher things she does not condescend to explain. One +or two wives of my acquaintance have persuaded their husbands that +these higher things are all-important. The home has been given up. +In company with other strivers after higher things, they live now in +dismal barracks differing but little from a glorified Bloomsbury +lodging-house. But they call them "Mansions" or "Courts," and seem +proud of the address. They are not bothered with servants--with +housekeeping. The idea of the modern woman is that she is not to be +bothered with anything. I remember the words with which one of these +ladies announced her departure from her bothering home. + +"Oh, well, I'm tired of trouble," she confided to another lady, "so +I've made up my mind not to have any more of it." + +Artemus Ward tells us of a man who had been in prison for twenty +years. Suddenly a bright idea occurred to him; he opened the window +and got out. Here have we poor, foolish mortals been imprisoned in +this troublesome world for Lord knows how many millions of years. We +have got so used to trouble we thought there was no help for it. We +have told ourselves that "Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly +upwards." We imagined the only thing to be done was to bear it +philosophically. Why did not this bright young creature come along +before--show us the way out. All we had to do was to give up the +bothering home and the bothering servants, and go into a "Mansion" or +a "Court." + +It seems that you leave trouble outside--in charge of the hall- +porter, one supposes. He ties it up for you as the Commissionaire of +the Army and Navy Stores ties up your dog. If you want it again, you +ask for it as you come out. Small wonder that the "Court" and +"Mansion" are growing in popularity every day. + +[That "Higher Life."] + +They have nothing to do now all day long, these soaring wives of whom +I am speaking. They would scorn to sew on a shirt-button even. Are +there not other women--of an inferior breed--specially fashioned by +Providence for the doing of such slavish tasks? They have no more +bothers of any kind. They are free to lead the higher life. What I +am waiting for is a glimpse of the higher life. One of them, it is +true, has taken up the violin. Another of them is devoting her +emancipation to poker work. A third is learning skirt-dancing. Are +these the "higher things" for which women are claiming freedom from +all duty? And, if so, is there not danger that the closing of our +homes may lead to the crowding up of the world with too much higher +things? + +May there not, by the time all bothers have been removed from woman's +path, be too many amateur violinists in the world, too many skirt- +dancers, too much poker work? If not, what are they? these "higher +things," for which so many women are demanding twenty-four hours a +day leisure. I want to know. + +One lady of my acquaintance is a Poor Law Guardian and secretary to a +labour bureau. But then she runs a house with two servants, four +children, and a husband, and appears to be so used to bothers that +she would feel herself lost without them. You can do this kind of +work apparently even when you are bothered with a home. It is the +skirt-dancing and the poker work that cannot brook rivalry. The +modern woman has begun to find children a nuisance; they interfere +with her development. The mere man, who has written his poems, +painted his pictures, composed his melodies, fashioned his +philosophies, in the midst of life's troubles and bothers, grows +nervous thinking what this new woman must be whose mind is so +tremendous that the whole world must be shut up, so to speak, sent to +do its business out of her sight and hearing, lest her attention +should be distracted. + +An optimistic friend of mine tells me not to worry myself; tells me +that it is going to come out all right in the end. Woman just now, +he contends, is passing through her college period. The school life +of strict surveillance is for ever done with. She is now the young +Freshwoman. The bothering lessons are over, the bothering +schoolmaster she has said good-bye to. She has her latchkey and is +"on her own." There are still some bothering rules about being in at +twelve o'clock, and so many attendances each term at chapel. She is +indignant. This interferes with her idea that life is to be one long +orgie of self-indulgence, of pleasure. The college period will pass- +-is passing. Woman will go out into the world, take her place there, +discover that bothers were not left behind in the old schoolhouse, +will learn that life has duties, responsibilities, will take up her +burden side by side with man, will accomplish her destiny. + +[Is there anything left for her to learn?] + +Meanwhile, however, she is having a good time--some people think too +good a time. She wants the best of both. She demands the joys of +independence together with freedom from all work--slavery she calls +it. The servants are not to be allowed to bother her, the children +are not to be allowed to bother her, her husband is not to be allowed +to bother her. She is to be free to lead the higher life. My dear +lady, we all want to lead the higher life. I don't want to write +these articles. I want somebody else to bother about my rates and +taxes, my children's boots, while I sit in an easy-chair and dream +about the wonderful books I am going to write, if only a stupid +public would let me. Tommy Smith of Brixton feels that he was +intended for higher things. He does not want to be wasting his time +in an office from nine to six adding up figures. His proper place in +life is that of Prime Minister or Field Marshal: he feels it. Do +you think the man has no yearning for higher things? Do you think we +like the office, the shop, the factory? We ought to be writing +poetry, painting pictures, the whole world admiring us. You seem to +imagine your man goes off every morning to a sort of City picnic, has +eight hours' fun--which he calls work--and then comes home to annoy +you with chatter about dinner. + +It is the old fable reversed; man said woman had nothing to do all +day but to enjoy herself. Making a potato pie! What sort of work +was that? Making a potato pie was a lark; anybody could make a +potato pie. + +So the woman said, "Try it," and took the man's spade and went out +into the field, and left him at home to make that pie. + +The man discovered that potato pies took a bit more making than he +had reckoned--found that running the house and looking after the +children was not quite the merry pastime he had argued. Man was a +fool. + +Now it is the woman who talks without thinking. How did she like +hoeing the potato patch? Hard work, was it not, my dear lady? Made +your back ache? It came on to rain and you got wet. + +I don't see that it very much matters which of you hoes the potato +patch, which of you makes the potato pie. Maybe the hoeing of the +patch demands more muscle--is more suited to the man. Maybe the +making of the pie may be more in your department. But, as I have +said, I cannot see that this matter is of importance. The patch has +to be hoed, the pie to be cooked; the one cannot do the both. Settle +it between you, and, having settled it, agree to do each your own +work free from this everlasting nagging. + +I know, personally, three ladies who have exchanged the woman's work +for the man's. One was deserted by her husband, and left with two +young children. She hired a capable woman to look after the house, +and joined a ladies' orchestra as pianist at two pounds a week. She +now earns four, and works twelve hours a day. The husband of the +second fell ill. She set him to write letters and run errands, which +was light work that he could do, and started a dressmaker's business. +The third was left a widow without means. She sent her three +children to boarding-school, and opened a tea-room. I don't know how +they talked before, but I know that they do not talk now as though +earning the income was a sort of round game. + +[When they have tried it the other way round.] + +On the Continent they have gone deliberately to work, one would +imagine, to reverse matters. Abroad woman is always where man ought +to be, and man where most ladies would prefer to meet with women. +The ladies garde-robe is superintended by a superannuated sergeant of +artillery. When I want to curl my moustache, say, I have to make +application to a superb golden-haired creature, who stands by and +watches me with an interested smile. I would be much happier waited +on by the superannuated sergeant, and my wife tells me she could very +well spare him. But it is the law of the land. I remember the first +time I travelled with my daughter on the Continent. In the morning I +was awakened by a piercing scream from her room. I struggled into my +pyjamas, and rushed to her assistance. I could not see her. I could +see nothing but a muscular-looking man in a blue blouse with a can of +hot water in one hand and a pair of boots in the other. He appeared +to be equally bewildered with myself at the sight of the empty bed. +From a cupboard in the corner came a wail of distress: + +"Oh, do send that horrid man away. What's he doing in my room?" + +I explained to her afterwards that the chambermaid abroad is always +an active and willing young man. The foreign girl fills in her time +bricklaying and grooming down the horses. It is a young and charming +lady who serves you when you enter the tobacconist's. She doesn't +understand tobacco, is unsympathetic; with Mr. Frederic Harrison, +regards smoking as a degrading and unclean habit; cannot see, +herself, any difference between shag and Mayblossom, seeing that they +are both the same price; thinks you fussy. The corset shop is run by +a most presentable young man in a Vandyck beard. The wife runs the +restaurant; the man does the cooking, and yet the woman has not +reached freedom from bother. + +[A brutal suggestion] + +It sounds brutal, but perhaps woman was not intended to live free +from all bothers. Perhaps even the higher life--the skirt-dancing +and the poker work--has its bothers. Perhaps woman was intended to +take her share of the world's work--of the world's bothers. + + + +CHAPTER XII + + + +[Why I hate Heroes] + +When I was younger, reading the popular novel used to make me sad. I +find it vexes others also. I was talking to a bright young girl upon +the subject not so very long ago. + +"I just hate the girl in the novel," she confessed. "She makes me +feel real bad. If I don't think of her I feel pleased with myself, +and good; but when I read about her--well, I'm crazy. I would not +mind her being smart, sometimes. We can all of us say the right +thing, now and then. This girl says them straight away, all the +time. She don't have to dig for them even; they come crowding out of +her. There never happens a time when she stands there feeling like a +fool and knowing that she looks it. As for her hair: 'pon my word, +there are days when I believe it is a wig. I'd like to get behind +her and give it just one pull. It curls of its own accord. She +don't seem to have any trouble with it. Look at this mop of mine. +I've been working at it for three-quarters of an hour this morning; +and now I would not laugh, not if you were to tell me the funniest +thing, you'd ever heard, for fear it would come down again. As for +her clothes, they make me tired. She don't possess a frock that does +not fit her to perfection; she doesn't have to think about them. You +would imagine she went into the garden and picked them off a tree. +She just slips it on and comes down, and then--my stars! All the +other women in the room may just as well go to bed and get a good +night's rest for all the chance they've got. It isn't that she's +beautiful. From what they tell you about her, you might fancy her a +freak. Looks don't appear to matter to her; she gets there anyhow. +I tell you she just makes me boil." + +Allowing for the difference between the masculine and feminine +outlook, this is precisely how I used to feel when reading of the +hero. He was not always good; sometimes he hit the villain harder +than he had intended, and then he was sorry--when it was too late, +blamed himself severely, and subscribed towards the wreath. Like the +rest of us, he made mistakes; occasionally married the wrong girl. +But how well he did everything!--does still for the matter of that, I +believe. Take it that he condescends to play cricket! He never +scores less than a hundred--does not know how to score less than a +hundred, wonders how it could be done, supposing, for example, you +had an appointment and wanted to catch an early train. I used to +play cricket myself, but I could always stop at ten or twenty. There +have been times when I have stopped at even less. + +It is the same with everything he puts his hand to. Either he does +not care for boating at all, or, as a matter of course, he pulls +stroke in the University Boat-race; and then takes the train on to +Henley and wins the Diamond Sculls so easily that it hardly seems +worth while for the other fellow to have started. Were I living in +Novel-land, and had I entered for the Diamond Sculls, I should put it +to my opponent before the word was given to us to go. + +"One minute!" I should have called out to him. "Are you the hero of +this novel, or, like myself, only one of the minor characters? +Because, if you are the hero you go on; don't you wait for me. I +shall just pull as far as the boathouse and get myself a cup of tea." + +[Because it always seems to be his Day.] + +There is no sense of happy medium about the hero of the popular +novel. He cannot get astride a horse without its going off and +winning a steeplechase against the favourite. The crowd in Novel- +land appears to have no power of observation. It worries itself +about the odds, discusses records, reads the nonsense published by +the sporting papers. Were I to find myself on a racecourse in Novel- +land I should not trouble about the unessential; I should go up to +the bookie who looked as if he had the most money, and should say to +him: + +"Don't shout so loud; you are making yourself hoarse. Just listen to +me. Who's the hero of this novel? Oh, that's he, is it? The heavy- +looking man on the little brown horse that keeps coughing and is +suffering apparently from bone spavin? Well, what are the odds +against his winning by ten lengths? A thousand to one! Very well! +Have you got a bag?--Good. Here's twenty-seven pounds in gold and +eighteen shillings in silver. Coat and waistcoat, say another ten +shillings. Shirt and trousers--it's all right, I've got my pyjamas +on underneath--say seven and six. Boots--we won't quarrel--make it +five bob. That's twenty-nine pounds and sixpence, isn't it? In +addition here's a mortgage on the family estate, which I've had made +out in blank, an I O U for fourteen pounds which has been owing to me +now for some time, and this bundle of securities which, strictly +speaking, belong to my Aunt Jane. You keep that little lot till +after the race, and we will call it in round figures, five hundred +pounds." + +That single afternoon would thus bring me in five hundred thousand +pounds--provided the bookie did not blow his brains out. + +Backers in Novel-land do not seem to me to know their way about. If +the hero of the popular novel swims at all, it is not like an +ordinary human being that he does it. You never meet him in a +swimming-bath; he never pays ninepence, like the rest of us, for a +machine. He goes out at uncanny hours, generally accompanied by a +lady friend, with whom the while swimming he talks poetry and cracks +jokes. Some of us, when we try to talk in the sea, fill ourselves up +with salt water. This chap lies on his back and carols, and the wild +waves, seeing him, go round the other way. At billiards he can give +the average sharper forty in a hundred. He does not really want to +play; he does it to teach these bad men a lesson. He has not handled +a cue for years. He picked up the game when a young man in +Australia, and it seems to have lingered with him. + +He does not have to get up early and worry dumb-bells in his +nightshirt; he just lies on a sofa in an elegant attitude and muscle +comes to him. If his horse declines to jump a hedge, he slips down +off the animal's back and throws the poor thing over; it saves +argument. If he gets cross and puts his shoulder to the massive +oaken door, we know there is going to be work next morning for the +carpenter. Maybe he is a party belonging to the Middle Ages. Then +when he reluctantly challenges the crack fencer of Europe to a duel, +our instinct is to call out and warn his opponent. + +"You silly fool," one feels one wants to say; "why, it is the hero of +the novel! You take a friend's advice while you are still alive, and +get out of it anyway--anyhow. Apologize--hire a horse and cart, do +something. You're not going to fight a duel, you're going to commit +suicide." + +If the hero is a modern young man, and has not got a father, or has +only something not worth calling a father, then he comes across a +library--anybody's library does for him. He passes Sir Walter Scott +and the "Arabian Nights," and makes a bee-line for Plato; it seems to +be an instinct with him. By help of a dictionary he worries it out +in the original Greek. This gives him a passion for Greek. + +When he has romped through the Greek classics he plays about among +the Latins. He spends most of his spare time in that library, and +forgets to go to tea. + +[Because he always "gets there," without any trouble.] + +That is the sort of boy he is. How I used to hate him! If he has a +proper sort of father, then he goes to college. He does no work: +there is no need for him to work: everything seems to come to him. +That was another grievance of mine against him. I always had to work +a good deal, and very little came of it. He fools around doing +things that other men would be sent down for; but in his case the +professors love him for it all the more. He is the sort of man who +can't do wrong. A fortnight before the examination he ties a wet +towel round his head. That is all we hear about it. It seems to be +the towel that does it. Maybe, if the towel is not quite up to its +work, he will help things on by drinking gallons of strong tea. The +tea and the towel combined are irresistible: the result is always +the senior wranglership. + +I used to believe in that wet towel and that strong tea. Lord! the +things I used to believe when I was young. They would make an +Encyclopaedia of Useless Knowledge. I wonder if the author of the +popular novel has ever tried working with a wet towel round his or +her head: I have. It is difficult enough to move a yard, balancing +a dry towel. A heathen Turk may have it in his blood to do so: the +ordinary Christian has not got the trick of it. To carry about a wet +towel twisted round one's head needs a trained acrobat. Every few +minutes the wretched thing works loose. In darkness and in misery, +you struggle to get your head out of a clammy towel that clings to +you almost with passion. Brain power is wasted in inventing names +for that towel--names expressive of your feelings with regard to it. +Further time is taken up before the glass, fixing the thing afresh. + +You return to your books in the wrong temper, the water trickles down +your nose, runs in rivulets down your back. Until you have finally +flung the towel out of the window and rubbed yourself dry, work is +impossible. The strong tea always gave me indigestion, and made me +sleepy. Until I had got over the effects of the tea, attempts at +study were useless. + +[Because he's so damned clever.] + +But the thing that still irritates me most against the hero of the +popular novel is the ease with which he learns a modern foreign +language. Were he a German waiter, a Swiss barber, or a Polish +photographer, I would not envy him; these people do not have to learn +a language. My idea is that they boil down a dictionary, and take +two table-spoonsful each night before going to bed. By the time the +bottle is finished they have the language well into their system. +But he is not. He is just an ordinary Anglo-Saxon, and I don't +believe in him. I walk about for years with dictionaries in my +pocket. Weird-looking ladies and gentlemen gesticulate and rave at +me for months. I hide myself in lonely places, repeating idioms to +myself out loud, in the hope that by this means they will come +readily to me if ever I want them, which I never do. And, after all +this, I don't seem to know very much. This irritating ass, who has +never left his native suburb, suddenly makes up his mind to travel on +the Continent. I find him in the next chapter engaged in complicated +psychological argument with French or German savants. It appears-- +the author had forgotten to mention it before--that one summer a +French, or German, or Italian refugee, as the case may happen to be, +came to live in the hero's street: thus it is that the hero is able +to talk fluently in the native language of that unhappy refugee. + +I remember a melodrama visiting a country town where I was staying. +The heroine and child were sleeping peacefully in the customary +attic. For some reason not quite clear to me, the villain had set +fire to the house. He had been complaining through the three +preceding acts of the heroine's coldness; maybe it was with some idea +of warming her. Escape by way of the staircase was impossible. Each +time the poor girl opened the door a flame came in and nearly burned +her hair off. It seemed to have been waiting for her. + +"Thank God!" said the lady, hastily wrapping the child in a sheet, +"that I was brought up a wire walker." + +Without a moment's hesitation she opened the attic window and took +the nearest telegraph wire to the opposite side of the street. + +In the same way, apparently, the hero of the popular novel, finding +himself stranded in a foreign land, suddenly recollects that once +upon a time he met a refugee, and at once begins to talk. I have met +refugees myself. The only thing they have ever taught me is not to +leave my brandy flask about. + +[And, finally, because I don't believe he's true.] + +I don't believe in these heroes and heroines that cannot keep quiet +in a foreign language they have taught themselves in an old-world +library. My fixed idea is that they muddle along like the rest of +us, surprised that so few people understand them, begging everyone +they meet not to talk so quickly. These brilliant conversations with +foreign philosophers! These passionate interviews with foreign +countesses! They fancy they have had them. + +I crossed once with an English lady from Boulogne to Folkestone. At +Folkestone a little French girl--anxious about her train--asked us a +simple question. My companion replied to it with an ease that +astonished herself. The little French girl vanished; my companion +sighed. + +"It's so odd," said my companion, "but I seem to know quite a lot of +French the moment I get back to England." + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + + +[How to be Healthy and Unhappy.] + +"They do say," remarked Mrs. Wilkins, as she took the cover off the +dish and gave a finishing polish to my plate with the cleanest corner +of her apron, "that 'addicks, leastways in May, ain't, strictly +speaking, the safest of food. But then, if you listen to all they +say, it seems to me, we'd have to give up victuals altogether." + +"The haddock, Mrs. Wilkins," I replied, "is a savoury and nourishing +dish, the 'poor man's steak' I believe it is commonly called. When I +was younger, Mrs. Wilkins, they were cheaper. For twopence one could +secure a small specimen, for fourpence one of generous proportions. +In the halcyon days of youth, when one's lexicon contained not the +word failure (it has crept into later editions, Mrs. Wilkins, the +word it was found was occasionally needful), the haddock was of much +comfort and support to me, a very present help in time of trouble. +In those days a kind friend, without intending it, nearly brought +about my death by slow starvation. I had left my umbrella in an +omnibus, and the season was rainy. The kind rich friend gave me a +new umbrella; it was a rich man's umbrella; we made an ill-assorted +pair. Its handle was of ivory, imposing in appearance, ornamented +with a golden snake. + +[The unsympathetic Umbrella.] + +"Following my own judgment I should have pawned that umbrella, +purchased one more suited to my state in life, and 'blued' the +difference. But I was fearful of offending my one respectable +acquaintance, and for weeks struggled on, hampered by this +plutocratic appendage. The humble haddock was denied to me. Tied to +this imposing umbrella, how could I haggle with fishmongers for +haddocks. At first sight of me--or, rather, of my umbrella--they +flew to icy cellars, brought up for my inspection soles at +eighteenpence a pound, recommended me prime parts of salmon, which my +landlady would have fried in a pan reeking with the mixed remains of +pork chops, rashers of bacon and cheese. It was closed to me, the +humble coffee shop, where for threepence I could have strengthened my +soul with half a pint of cocoa and four "doorsteps"--satisfactory +slices of bread smeared with a yellow grease that before the days of +County Council inspectors they called butter. You know of them, Mrs. +Wilkins? At sight of such nowadays I should turn up my jaded nose. +But those were the days of my youth, Mrs. Wilkins. The scent of a +thousand hopes was in my nostrils: so they smelt good to me. The +fourpenny beefsteak pie, satisfying to the verge of repletion; the +succulent saveloy, were not for the owner of the ivory-handled +umbrella. On Mondays and Tuesdays, perhaps, I could enjoy life at +the rate of five hundred a year--clean serviette a penny extra, and +twopence to the waiter, whose income must have been at least four +times my own. But from Wednesday to Saturday I had to wander in the +wilderness of back streets and silent squares dinnerless, where there +were not even to be found locusts and wild honey. + +"It was, as I have said, a rainy season, and an umbrella of some sort +was a necessity. Fortunately--or I might not be sitting here, Mrs. +Wilkins, talking to you now--my one respectable acquaintance was +called away to foreign lands, and that umbrella I promptly put 'up +the spout.' You understand me?" + +Mrs. Wilkins admitted she did, but was of opinion that twenty-five +per cent., to say nothing of the halfpenny for the ticket every time, +was a wicked imposition. + +"It did not trouble me, Mrs. Wilkins," I replied, "in this particular +instance. It was my determination never to see that umbrella again. +The young man behind the counter seemed suspicious, and asked where I +got it from. I told him that a friend had given it to me." + +"'Did he know that he had given it to you?" demanded the young man. + +"Upon which I gave him a piece of my mind concerning the character of +those who think evil of others, and he gave me five and six, and said +he should know me again; and I purchased an umbrella suited to my +rank and station, and as fine a haddock as I have ever tasted with +the balance, which was sevenpence, for I was feeling hungry. + +"The haddock is an excellent fish, Mrs. Wilkins," I said, "and if, as +you observe, we listened to all that was said we'd be hungrier at +forty, with a balance to our credit at the bank, than ever we were at +twenty, with 'no effects' beyond a sound digestion." + +[A Martyr to Health.] + +"There was a gent in Middle Temple Lane," said Mrs. Wilkins, "as I +used to do for. It's my belief as 'e killed 'imself worrying twenty- +four hours a day over what 'e called 'is 'ygiene. Leastways 'e's +dead and buried now, which must be a comfort to 'imself, feeling as +at last 'e's out of danger. All 'is time 'e spent taking care of +'imself--didn't seem to 'ave a leisure moment in which to live. For +'alf an hour every morning 'e'd lie on 'is back on the floor, which +is a draughty place, I always 'old, at the best of times, with +nothing on but 'is pyjamas, waving 'is arms and legs about, and +twisting 'imself into shapes unnatural to a Christian. Then 'e found +out that everything 'e'd been doing on 'is back was just all wrong, +so 'e turned over and did tricks on 'is stomach--begging your pardon +for using the word--that you'd 'ave thought more fit and proper to a +worm than to a man. Then all that was discovered to be a mistake. +There don't seem nothing certain in these matters. That's the +awkward part of it, so it seems to me. 'E got 'imself a machine, by +means of which 'e'd 'ang 'imself up to the wall, and behave for all +the world like a beetle with a pin stuck through 'im, poor thing. It +used to give me the shudders to catch sight of 'im through the 'alf- +open door. For that was part of the game: you 'ad to 'ave a current +of air through the room, the result of which was that for six months +out of the year 'e'd be coughing and blowing 'is nose from morning to +night. It was the new treatment, so 'e'd explain to me. You got +yourself accustomed to draughts so that they didn't 'urt you, and if +you died in the process that only proved that you never ought to 'ave +been born. + +"Then there came in this new Japanese business, and 'e'd 'ire a +little smiling 'eathen to chuck 'im about 'is room for 'alf an hour +every morning after breakfast. It got on my nerves after a while +'earing 'im being bumped on the floor every minute, or flung with 'is +'ead into the fire-place. But 'e always said it was doing 'im good. +'E'd argue that it freshened up 'is liver. It was 'is liver that 'e +seemed to live for--didn't appear to 'ave any other interest in life. +It was the same with 'is food. One year it would be nothing but +meat, and next door to raw at that. One of them medical papers 'ad +suddenly discovered that we were intended to be a sort of wild beast. +The wonder to me is that 'e didn't go out 'unting chickens with a +club, and bring 'em 'ome and eat 'em on the mat without any further +fuss. For drink it would be boiling water that burnt my fingers +merely 'andling the glass. Then some other crank came out with the +information that every other crank was wrong--which, taken by itself, +sounds natural enough--that meat was fatal to the 'uman system. Upon +that 'e becomes all at once a raging, tearing vegetarian, and trouble +enough I 'ad learning twenty different ways of cooking beans, which +didn't make, so far as I could ever see, the slightest difference-- +beans they were, and beans they tasted like, whether you called them +ragout a la maison, or cutlets a la Pompadour. But it seemed to +please 'im. + +[He was never pig-headed.] + +"Then vegetarianism turned out to be the mistake of our lives. It +seemed we made an error giving up monkeys' food. That was our +natural victuals; nuts with occasional bananas. As I used to tell +'im, if that was so, then for all we 'ad got out of it we might just +as well have stopped up a tree--saved rent and shoe leather. But 'e +was one of that sort that don't seem able to 'elp believing +everything they read in print. If one of those papers 'ad told 'im +to live on the shells and throw away the nuts, 'e'd have made a +conscientious endeavour to do so, contending that 'is failure to +digest them was merely the result of vicious training--didn't seem to +'ave any likes or dislikes of 'is own. You might 'ave thought 'e was +just a bit of public property made to be experimented upon. + +"One of the daily papers interviewed an old gent, as said 'e was a +'undred, and I will say from 'is picture as any'ow 'e looked it. 'E +said it was all the result of never 'aving swallowed anything 'ot, +upon which my gentleman for a week lives on cold porridge, if you'll +believe me; although myself I'd rather 'ave died at fifty and got it +over. Then another paper dug up from somewhere a sort of animated +corpse that said was a 'undred and two, and attributed the +unfortunate fact to 'is always 'aving 'ad 'is food as 'ot as 'e could +swallow it. A bit of sense did begin to dawn upon 'im then, but too +late in the day, I take it. 'E'd played about with 'imself too long. +'E died at thirty-two, looking to all appearance sixty, and you can't +say as 'ow it was the result of not taking advice." + +[Only just in time.] + +"On this subject of health we are much too ready to follow advice," I +agreed. "A cousin of mine, Mrs. Wilkins, had a wife who suffered +occasionally from headache. No medicine relieved her of them--not +altogether. And one day by chance she met a friend who said: 'Come +straight with me to Dr. Blank,' who happened to be a specialist +famous for having invented a new disease that nobody until the year +before had ever heard of. She accompanied her friend to Dr. Blank, +and in less than ten minutes he had persuaded her that she had got +this new disease, and got it badly; and that her only chance was to +let him cut her open and have it out. She was a tolerably healthy +woman, with the exception of these occasional headaches, but from +what that specialist said it was doubtful whether she would get home +alive, unless she let him operate on her then and there, and her +friend, who appeared delighted, urged her not to commit suicide, as +it were, by missing her turn. + +"The result was she consented, and afterwards went home in a four- +wheeled cab, and put herself to bed. Her husband, when he returned +in the evening and was told, was furious. He said it was all humbug, +and by this time she was ready to agree with him. He put on his hat, +and started to give that specialist a bit of his mind. The +specialist was out, and he had to bottle up his rage until the +morning. By then, his wife now really ill for the first time in her +life, his indignation had reached boiling point. He was at that +specialist's door at half-past nine o clock. At half-past eleven he +came back, also in a four-wheeled cab, and day and night nurses for +both of them were wired for. He also, it appeared, had arrived at +that specialist's door only just in time. + +"There's this appendy--whatever they call it," commented Mrs. +Wilkins, "why a dozen years ago one poor creature out of ten thousand +may possibly 'ave 'ad something wrong with 'is innards. To-day you +ain't 'ardly considered respectable unless you've got it, or 'ave 'ad +it. I 'ave no patience with their talk. To listen to some of them +you'd think as Nature 'adn't made a man--not yet: would never +understand the principle of the thing till some of these young chaps +'ad shown 'er 'ow to do it." + +[How to avoid Everything.] + +"They have now discovered, Mrs. Wilkins," I said, "the germ of old +age. They are going to inoculate us for it in early youth, with the +result that the only chance of ever getting rid of our friends will +be to give them a motor-car. And maybe it will not do to trust to +that for long. They will discover that some men's tendency towards +getting themselves into trouble is due to some sort of a germ. The +man of the future, Mrs. Wilkins, will be inoculated against all +chance of gas explosions, storms at sea, bad oysters, and thin ice. +Science may eventually discover the germ prompting to ill-assorted +marriages, proneness to invest in the wrong stock, uncontrollable +desire to recite poetry at evening parties. Religion, politics, +education--all these things are so much wasted energy. To live happy +and good for ever and ever, all we have to do is to hunt out these +various germs and wring their necks for them--or whatever the proper +treatment may be. Heaven, I gather from medical science, is merely a +place that is free from germs." + +"We talk a lot about it," thought Mrs. Wilkins, "but it does not seem +to me that we are very much better off than before we took to +worrying ourselves for twenty-four 'ours a day about 'ow we are going +to live. Lord! to read the advertisements in the papers you would +think as 'ow flesh and blood was never intended to 'ave any natural +ills. 'Do you ever 'ave a pain in your back?' because, if so, +there's a picture of a kind gent who's willing for one and sixpence +halfpenny to take it quite away from you--make you look forward to +scrubbing floors, and standing over the wash-tub six 'ours at a +stretch like to a beanfeast. 'Do you ever feel as though you don't +want to get out of bed in the morning?' that's all to be cured by a +bottle of their stuff--or two at the outside. Four children to keep, +and a sick 'usband on your 'ands used to get me over it when I was +younger. I used to fancy it was just because I was tired. + +[The one Cure-All.] + +"There's some of them seem to think," continued Mrs. Wilkins, "that +if you don't get all you want out of this world, and ain't so 'appy +as you've persuaded yourself you ought to be, that it's all because +you ain't taking the right medicine. Appears to me there's only one +doctor as can do for you, all the others talk as though they could, +and 'e only comes to each of us once, and then 'e makes no charge." + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + + +[Europe and the bright American Girl.] + +"How does she do it?" + +That is what the European girl wants to know. The American girl! +She comes over here, and, as a British matron, reduced to slang by +force of indignation, once exclaimed to me: "You'd think the whole +blessed show belonged to her." The European girl is hampered by her +relatives. She has to account for her father: to explain away, if +possible, her grandfather. The American girl sweeps them aside: + +"Don't you worry about them," she says to the Lord Chamberlain. +"It's awfully good of you, but don't you fuss yourself. I'm looking +after my old people. That's my department. What I want you to do is +just to listen to what I am saying and then hustle around. I can +fill up your time all right by myself." + +Her father may be a soap-boiler, her grandmother may have gone out +charing. + +"That's all right," she says to her Ambassador: "They're not coming. +You just take my card and tell the King that when he's got a few +minutes to spare I'll be pleased to see him." + +And the extraordinary thing is that, a day or two afterwards, the +invitation arrives. + +A modern writer has said that "I'm Murrican" is the Civis Romanus sum +of the present-day woman's world. The late King of Saxony, did, I +believe, on one occasion make a feeble protest at being asked to +receive the daughter of a retail bootmaker. The young lady, +nonplussed for the moment, telegraphed to her father in Detroit. The +answer came back next morning: "Can't call it selling--practically +giving them away. See Advertisement." The lady was presented as the +daughter of an eminent philanthropist. + +It is due to her to admit that, taking her as a class, the American +girl is a distinct gain to European Society. Her influence is +against convention and in favour of simplicity. One of her greatest +charms, in the eyes of the European man, is that she listens to him. +I cannot say whether it does her any good. Maybe she does not +remember it all, but while you are talking she does give you her +attention. The English woman does not always. She greets you +pleasantly enough: + +"I've so often wanted to meet you," she says, "must you really go?" + +It strikes you as sudden: you had no intention of going for hours. +But the hint is too plain to be ignored. You are preparing to agree +that you really must when, looking round, you gather that the last +remark was not addressed to you, but to another gentleman who is +shaking hands with her: + +"Now, perhaps we shall be able to talk for five minutes," she says. +"I've so often wanted to say that I shall never forgive you. You +have been simply horrid." + +Again you are confused, until you jump to the conclusion that the +latter portion of the speech is probably intended for quite another +party with whom, at the moment, her back towards you, she is engaged +in a whispered conversation. When he is gone she turns again to you. +But the varied expressions that pass across her face while you are +discussing with her the disadvantages of Protection, bewilder you. +When, explaining your own difficulty in arriving at a conclusion, you +remark that Great Britain is an island, she roguishly shakes her +head. It is not that she has forgotten her geography, it is that she +is conducting a conversation by signs with a lady at the other end of +the room. When you observe that the working classes must be fed, she +smiles archly while murmuring: + +"Oh, do you really think so?" + +You are about to say something strong on the subject of dumping. +Apparently she has disappeared. You find that she is reaching round +behind you to tap a new arrival with her fan. + +[She has the Art of Listening.] + +Now, the American girl looks at you, and just listens to you with her +eyes fixed on you all the time. You gather that, as far as she is +concerned, the rest of the company are passing shadows. She wants to +hear what you have to say about Bi-metallism: her trouble is lest +she may miss a word of it. From a talk with an American girl one +comes away with the conviction that one is a brilliant +conversationalist, who can hold a charming woman spell-bound. This +may not be good for one: but while it lasts, the sensation is +pleasant. + +Even the American girl cannot, on all occasions, sweep from her path +the cobwebs of old-world etiquette. Two American ladies told me a +sad tale of things that had happened to them not long ago in Dresden. +An officer of rank and standing invited them to breakfast with him on +the ice. Dames and nobles of the plus haut ton would be there. It +is a social function that occurs every Sunday morning in Dresden +during the skating season. The great lake in the Grosser Garten is +covered with all sorts and conditions of people. Prince and commoner +circle and recircle round one another. But they do not mix. The +girls were pleased. They secured the services of an elderly lady, +the widow of an analytical chemist: unfortunately, she could not +skate. They wrapped her up and put her in a sledge. While they were +in the garde robe putting on their skates, a German gentleman came up +and bowed to them. + +He was a nice young man of prepossessing appearance and amiable +manners. They could not call to mind his name, but remembered having +met him, somewhere, and on more than one occasion. The American girl +is always sociable: they bowed and smiled, and said it was a fine +day. He replied with volubility, and helped them down on to the ice. +He was really most attentive. They saw their friend, the officer of +noble family, and, with the assistance of the German gentleman, +skated towards him. He glided past them. They thought that maybe he +did not know enough to stop, so they turned and skated after him. +They chased him three times round the pond and then, feeling tired, +eased up and took counsel together. + +"I'm sure he must have seen us," said the younger girl. "What does +he mean by it?" + +"Well, I have not come down here to play forfeits," said the other, +"added to which I want my breakfast. You wait here a minute, I'll go +and have it out with him." + +He was standing only a dozen yards away. Alone, though not a good +performer on the ice, she contrived to cover half the distance +dividing them. The officer, perceiving her, came to her assistance +and greeted her with effusion. + +[The Republican Idea in practice.] + +"Oh," said the lady, who was feeling indignant, "I thought maybe you +had left your glasses at home." + +"I am sorry," said the officer, "but it is impossible." + +"What's impossible?" demanded the lady. + +"That I can be seen speaking to you," declared the officer, "while +you are in company with that--that person." + +"What person?" She thought maybe he was alluding to the lady in the +sledge. The chaperon was not showy, but, what is better, she was +good. And, anyhow, it was the best the girls had been able to do. +So far as they were concerned, they had no use for a chaperon. The +idea had been a thoughtful concession to European prejudice. + +"The person in knickerbockers," explained the officer. + +"Oh, THAT," exclaimed the lady, relieved: "he just came up and made +himself agreeable while we were putting on our skates. We have met +him somewhere, but I can't exactly fix him for the moment." + +"You have met him possibly at Wiesman's, in the Pragerstrasse: he is +one of the attendants there," said the officer. + +The American girl is Republican in her ideas, but she draws the line +at hairdressers. In theory it is absurd: the hairdresser is a man +and a brother: but we are none of us logical all the way. It made +her mad, the thought that she had been seen by all Dresden Society +skating with a hairdresser. + +"Well," she said, "I do call that impudence. Why, they wouldn't do +that even in Chicago." + +And she returned to where the hairdresser was illustrating to her +friend the Dutch roll, determined to explain to him, as politely as +possible, that although the free and enlightened Westerner has +abolished social distinctions, he has not yet abolished them to that +extent. + +Had he been a commonplace German hairdresser he would have understood +English, and all might have been easy. But to the "classy" German +hairdresser, English is not so necessary, and the American ladies had +reached, as regards their German, only the "improving" stage. In her +excitement she confused the subjunctive and the imperative, and told +him that he "might" go. He had no wish to go; he assured them--so +they gathered--that his intention was to devote the morning to their +service. He must have been a stupid man, but it is a type +occasionally encountered. Two pretty women had greeted his advances +with apparent delight. They were Americans, and the American girl +was notoriously unconventional. He knew himself to be a good-looking +young fellow. It did not occur to him that in expressing willingness +to dispense with his attendance they could be in earnest. + +There was nothing for it, so it seemed to the girls, but to request +the assistance of the officer, who continued to skate round and round +them at a distance of about ten yards. So again the elder young +lady, seizing her opportunity, made appeal. + +[What the Soldier dared not do.] + +"I cannot," persisted the officer, who, having been looking forward +to a morning with two of the prettiest girls in Dresden, was also +feeling mad. "I dare not be seen speaking to a hairdresser. You +must get rid of him." + +"But we can't," said the girl. "We do not know enough German, and he +can't, or he won't, understand us. For goodness sake come and help +us. We'll be spending the whole morning with him if you don't." + +The German officer said he was desolate. Steps would be taken--later +in the week--the result of which would probably be to render that +young hairdresser prematurely bald. But, meanwhile, beyond skating +round and round them, for which they did not even feel they wanted to +thank him, the German officer could do nothing for them. They tried +being rude to the hairdresser: he mistook it for American chic. +They tried joining hands and running away from him, but they were not +good skaters, and he thought they were trying to show him the cake +walk. They both fell down and hurt themselves, and it is difficult +to be angry with a man, even a hairdresser, when he is doing his best +to pick you up and comfort you. + +The chaperon was worse than useless. She was very old. She had been +promised her breakfast, but saw no signs of it. She could not speak +German; and remembered somewhat late in the day that two young ladies +had no business to accept breakfast at the hands of German officers: +and, if they did, at least they might see that they got it. She +appeared to be willing to talk about decadence of modern manners to +almost any extent, but the subject of the hairdresser, and how to get +rid of him, only bored her. + +Their first stroke of luck occurred when the hairdresser, showing +them the "dropped three," fell down and temporarily stunned himself. +It was not kind of them, but they were desperate. They flew for the +bank just anyhow, and, scrambling over the grass, gained the +restaurant. The officer, overtaking them at the door, led them to +the table that had been reserved for them, then hastened back to hunt +for the chaperon. The girls thought their trouble was over. Had +they glanced behind them their joy would have been shorter-lived than +even was the case. The hairdresser had recovered consciousness in +time to see them waddling over the grass. He thought they were +running to fetch him brandy. When the officer returned with the +chaperon he found the hairdresser sitting opposite to them, +explaining that he really was not hurt, and suggesting that, as they +were there, perhaps they would like something to eat and drink. + +The girls made one last frantic appeal to the man of buckram and +pipeclay, but the etiquette of the Saxon Army was inexorable. It +transpired that he might kill the hairdresser, but nothing else: he +must not speak to him--not even explain to the poor devil why it was +that he was being killed. + +[Her path of Usefulness.] + +It did not seem quite worth it. They had some sandwiches and coffee +at the hairdresser's expense, and went home in a cab: while the +chaperon had breakfast with the officer of noble family. + +The American girl has succeeded in freeing European social +intercourse from many of its hide-bound conventions. There is still +much work for her to do. But I have faith in her. + + + +CHAPTER XV + + + +[Music and the Savage.] + +I never visit a music-hall without reflecting concerning the great +future there must be before the human race. + +How young we are, how very young! And think of all we have done! +Man is still a mere boy. He has only just within the last half- +century been put into trousers. Two thousand years ago he wore long +clothes--the Grecian robe, the Roman toga. Then followed the Little +Lord Fauntleroy period, when he went about dressed in a velvet suit +with lace collar and cuffs, and had his hair curled for him. The +late lamented Queen Victoria put him into trousers. What a wonderful +little man he will be when he is grown up! + +A clergyman friend of mine told me of a German Kurhaus to which he +was sent for his sins and his health. It was a resort, for some +reason, specially patronized by the more elderly section of the +higher English middle class. Bishops were there, suffering from +fatty degeneration of the heart caused by too close application to +study; ancient spinsters of good family subject to spasms; gouty +retired generals. Can anybody tell me how many men in the British +Army go to a general? Somebody once assured me it was five thousand, +but that is absurd, on the face of it. The British Army, in that +case, would have to be counted by millions. There are a goodish few +American colonels still knocking about. The American colonel is +still to be met with here and there by the curious traveller, but +compared with the retired British general he is an extinct species. +In Cheltenham and Brighton and other favoured towns there are streets +of nothing but retired British generals--squares of retired British +generals--whole crescents of British generals. Abroad there are +pensions with a special scale of charges for British generals. In +Switzerland there has even been talk of reserving railway +compartments "For British Generals Only." In Germany, when you do +not say distinctly and emphatically on being introduced that you are +not a British general, you are assumed, as a matter of course, to be +a British general. During the Boer War, when I was residing in a +small garrison town on the Rhine, German military men would draw me +aside and ask of me my own private personal views as to the conduct +of the campaign. I would give them my views freely, explain to them +how I would finish the whole thing in a week. + +"But how in the face of the enemy's tactics--" one of them would +begin. + +"Bother the enemy's tactics," I would reply. "Who cares for +tactics?" + +"But surely a British general--" they would persist. "Who's a +British general?" I would retort, "I am talking to you merely as a +plain commonsense man, with a head on my shoulders." + +They would apologize for their mistake. But this is leading me away +from that German Kurhaus. + +[Recreation for the Higher clergy.] + +My clergyman friend found life there dull. The generals and the +spinsters left to themselves might have played cards, but they +thought of the poor bishops who would have had to look on envious. +The bishops and the spinsters might have sung ballads, but the +British general after dinner does not care for ballads, and had +mentioned it. The bishops and the generals might have told each +other stories, but could not before the ladies. My clergyman friend +stood the awful solemnity of three evenings, then cautiously felt his +way towards revelry. He started with an intellectual game called +"Quotations." You write down quotations on a piece of paper, and the +players have to add the author's name. It roped in four old ladies, +and the youngest bishop. One or two generals tried a round, but not +being familiar with quotations voted the game slow. + +The next night my friend tried "Consequences." "Saucy Miss A. met +the gay General B. in"--most unlikely places. "He said." Really it +was fortunate that General B. remained too engrossed in the day +before yesterday's Standard to overhear, or Miss A. could never have +again faced him. "And she replied." The suppressed giggles excited +the curiosity of the non-players. Most of the bishops and half the +generals asked to be allowed to join. The giggles grew into roars. +Those standing out found that they could not read their papers in +comfort. + +From "Consequences" the descent was easy. The tables and chairs were +pushed against the walls, the bishops and the spinsters and the +generals would sit in a ring upon the floor playing hunt the slipper. +Musical chairs made the two hours between bed and dinner the time of +the day they all looked forward to: the steady trot with every nerve +alert, the ear listening for the sudden stoppage of the music, the +eye seeking with artfulness the likeliest chair, the volcanic +silence, the mad scramble. + +The generals felt themselves fighting their battles over again, the +spinsters blushed and preened themselves, the bishops took interest +in proving that even the Church could be prompt of decision and swift +of movement. Before the week was out they were playing Puss-in-the- +corner; ladies feeling young again were archly beckoning to stout +deans, to whom were returning all the sensations of a curate. The +swiftness with which the gouty generals found they could still hobble +surprised even themselves. + +[Why are we so young?] + +But it is in the music-hall, as I have said, that I am most impressed +with the youthfulness of man. How delighted we are when the long man +in the little boy's hat, having asked his short brother a riddle, and +before he can find time to answer it, hits him over the stomach with +an umbrella! How we clap our hands and shout with glee! It isn't +really his stomach: it is a bolster tied round his waist--we know +that; but seeing the long man whack at that bolster with an umbrella +gives us almost as much joy as if the bolster were not there. + +I laugh at the knockabout brothers, I confess, so long as they are on +the stage; but they do not convince me. Reflecting on the +performance afterwards, my dramatic sense revolts against the "plot." +I cannot accept the theory of their being brothers. The difference +in size alone is a strain upon my imagination. It is not probable +that of two children of the same parents one should measure six foot +six, and the other five foot four. Even allowing for a freak of +nature, and accepting the fact that they might be brothers, I do not +believe they would remain so inseparable. The short brother would +have succeeded before now in losing the long brother. Those +continual bangings over the head and stomach would have weakened +whatever affection the short brother might originally have felt +towards his long relation. At least, he would insist upon the +umbrella being left at home. + +"I will go for a walk with you," he might say, "I will stand stock +still with you in Trafalgar Square in the midst of the traffic while +you ask me silly riddles, but not if you persist in bringing with you +that absurd umbrella. You are too handy with it. Put it back in the +rack before we start, or go out by yourself." + +Besides, my sense of justice is outraged. Why should the short +brother be banged and thumped without reason? The Greek dramatist +would have explained to us that the shorter brother had committed a +crime against the gods. Aristophanes would have made the longer +brother the instrument of the Furies. The riddles he asked would +have had bearing upon the shorter brother's sin. In this way the +spectator would have enjoyed amusement combined with the satisfactory +sense that Nemesis is ever present in human affairs. I present the +idea, for what it may be worth, to the concoctors of knockabout +turns. + +[Where Brotherly (and Sisterly) Love reigns supreme] + +The family tie is always strong on the music-hall stage. The +acrobatic troupe is always a "Family": Pa, Ma, eight brothers and +sisters, and the baby. A more affectionate family one rarely sees. +Pa and Ma are a trifle stout, but still active. Baby, dear little +fellow, is full of humour. Ladies do not care to go on the music- +hall stage unless they can take their sister with them. I have seen +a performance given by eleven sisters, all the same size and +apparently all the same age. She must have been a wonderful woman-- +the mother. They all had golden hair, and all wore precisely similar +frocks--a charming but decolletee arrangement--in claret-coloured +velvet over blue silk stockings. So far as I could gather, they all +had the same young man. No doubt he found it difficult amongst them +to make up his mind. + +"Arrange it among yourselves," he no doubt had said, "it is quite +immaterial to me. You are so much alike, it is impossible that a +fellow loving one should not love the lot of you. So long as I marry +into the family I really don't care." + +When a performer appears alone on the music-hall stage it is easy to +understand why. His or her domestic life has been a failure. I +listened one evening to six songs in succession. The first two were +sung by a gentleman. He entered with his clothes hanging upon him in +shreds. He explained that he had just come from an argument with his +wife. He showed us the brick with which she had hit him, and the +bump at the back of his head that had resulted. The funny man's +marriage is never a success. But really this seems to be his own +fault. "She was such a lovely girl," he tells us, "with a face-- +well, you'd hardly call it a face, it was more like a gas explosion. +Then she had those wonderful sort of eyes that you can see two ways +at once with, one of them looks down the street, while the other one +is watching round the corner. Can see you coming any way. And her +mouth!" + +It appears that if she stands anywhere near the curb and smiles, +careless people mistake her for a pillar-box, and drop letters into +her. + +"And such a voice!" We are told it is a perfect imitation of a +motor-car. When she laughs people spring into doorways to escape +being run over. + +If he will marry that sort of woman, what can he expect? The man is +asking for it. + +The lady who followed him also told us a sad story of misplaced +trust. She also was comic--so the programme assured us. The +humorist appears to have no luck. She had lent her lover money to +buy the ring, and the licence, and to furnish the flat. He did buy +the ring, and he furnished the flat, but it was for another lady. +The audience roared. I have heard it so often asked, "What is +humour?" From observation, I should describe it as other people's +troubles. + +A male performer followed her. He came on dressed in a night-shirt, +carrying a baby. His wife, it seemed, had gone out for the evening +with the lodger. That was his joke. It was the most successful song +of the whole six. + +[The one sure Joke.] + +A philosopher has put it on record that he always felt sad when he +reflected on the sorrows of humanity. But when he reflected on its +amusements he felt sadder still. + +Why was it so funny that the baby had the lodger's nose? We laughed +for a full minute by the clock. + +Why do I love to see a flabby-faced man go behind curtains, and, +emerging in a wig and a false beard, say that he is now Bismarck or +Mr. Chamberlain? I have felt resentment against the Lightning +Impersonator ever since the days of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. +During that summer every Lightning Impersonator ended his show by +shouting, while the band played the National Anthem, "Queen +Victoria!" He was not a bit like Queen Victoria. He did not even, +to my thinking, look a lady; but at once I had to stand up in my +place and sing "God save the Queen." It was a time of enthusiastic +loyalty; if you did not spring up quickly some patriotic old fool +from the back would reach across and hit you over the head with the +first thing he could lay his hands upon. + +Other music-hall performers caught at the idea. By ending up with +"God save the Queen" any performer, however poor, could retire in a +whirlwind of applause. Niggers, having bored us with tiresome songs +about coons and honeys and Swanee Rivers, would, as a last resource, +strike up "God save the Queen" on the banjo. The whole house would +have to rise and cheer. Elderly Sisters Trippet, having failed to +arouse our enthusiasm by allowing us a brief glimpse of an ankle, +would put aside all frivolity, and tell us of a hero lover named +George, who had fought somebody somewhere for his Queen and country. +"He fell!"--bang from the big drum and blue limelight. In a +recumbent position he appears to have immediately started singing +"God save the Queen." + +[How Anarchists are made.] + +Sleepy members of the audience would be hastily awakened by their +friends. We would stagger to our feet. The Sisters Trippet, with +eyes fixed on the chandelier, would lead us: to the best of our +ability we would sing "God save the Queen." + +There have been evenings when I have sung "God save the Queen" six +times. Another season of it, and I should have become a Republican. + +The singer of patriotic songs is generally a stout and puffy man. +The perspiration pours from his face as the result of the violent +gesticulations with which he tells us how he stormed the fort. He +must have reached it very hot. + +"There were ten to one agin us, boys." We feel that this was a +miscalculation on the enemy's part. Ten to one "agin" such wildly +gesticulating Britishers was inviting defeat. + +It seems to have been a terrible battle notwithstanding. He shows us +with a real sword how it was done. Nothing could have lived within a +dozen yards of that sword. The conductor of the orchestra looks +nervous. Our fear is lest he will end by cutting off his own head. +His recollections are carrying him away. Then follows "Victory!" + +The gas men and the programme sellers cheer wildly. We conclude with +the inevitable "God save the King." + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + + +[The Ghost and the Blind Children.] + +Ghosts are in the air. It is difficult at this moment to avoid +talking of ghosts. The first question you are asked on being +introduced this season is: + +"Do you believe in ghosts?" + +I would be so glad to believe in ghosts. This world is much too +small for me. Up to a century or two ago the intellectual young man +found it sufficient for his purposes. It still contained the +unknown--the possible--within its boundaries. New continents were +still to be discovered: we dreamt of giants, Liliputians, desert- +fenced Utopias. We set our sail, and Wonderland lay ever just beyond +our horizon. To-day the world is small, the light railway runs +through the desert, the coasting steamer calls at the Islands of the +Blessed, the last mystery has been unveiled, the fairies are dead, +the talking birds are silent. Our baffled curiosity turns for relief +outwards. We call upon the dead to rescue us from our monotony. The +first authentic ghost will be welcomed as the saviour of humanity. + +But he must be a living ghost--a ghost we can respect, a ghost we can +listen to. The poor spiritless addle-headed ghost that has hitherto +haunted our blue chambers is of no use to us. I remember a +thoughtful man once remarking during argument that if he believed in +ghosts--the silly, childish spooks about which we had been telling +anecdotes--death would possess for him an added fear: the idea that +his next dwelling-place would be among such a pack of dismal idiots +would sadden his departing hours. What was he to talk to them about? +Apparently their only interest lay in recalling their earthly +troubles. The ghost of the lady unhappily married who had been +poisoned, or had her throat cut, who every night for the last five +hundred years had visited the chamber where it happened for no other +purpose than to scream about it! what a tiresome person she would be +to meet! All her conversation during the long days would be around +her earthly wrongs. The other ghosts, in all probability, would have +heard about that husband of hers, what he said, and what he did, till +they were sick of the subject. A newcomer would be seized upon with +avidity. + +A lady of repute writes to a magazine that she once occupied for a +season a wainscotted room in an old manor house. On several +occasions she awoke in the night: each time to witness the same +ghostly performance. Four gentlemen sat round a table playing cards. +Suddenly one of them sprang to his feet and plunged a dagger into the +back of his partner. The lady does not say so: one presumes it was +his partner. I have, myself, when playing bridge, seen an expression +on my partner's face that said quite plainly: + +"I would like to murder you." + +I have not the memory for bridge. I forget who it was that, last +trick but seven, played the two of clubs. I thought it was he, my +partner. I thought it meant that I was to take an early opportunity +of forcing trumps. I don't know why I thought so, I try to explain +why I thought so. It sounds a silly argument even to myself; I feel +I have not got it quite right. Added to which it was not my partner +who played the two of clubs, it was Dummy. If I had only remembered +this, and had concluded from it--as I ought to have done--that my +partner had the ace of diamonds--as otherwise why did he pass my +knave?--we might have saved the odd trick. I have not the head for +bridge. It is only an ordinary head--mine. I have no business to +play bridge. + +[Why not, occasionally, a cheerful Ghost.] + +But to return to our ghosts. These four gentlemen must now and +again, during their earthly existence, have sat down to a merry game +of cards. There must have been evenings when nobody was stabbed. +Why choose an unpleasant occasion to harp exclusively upon it? Why +do ghosts never give a cheerful show? The lady who was poisoned! +there must have been other evenings in her life. Why does she not +show us "The first meeting": when he gave her the violets and said +they were like her eyes? He wasn't always poisoning her. There must +have been a period before he ever thought of poisoning her. Cannot +these ghosts do something occasionally in what is termed "the lighter +vein"? If they haunt a forest glade, it is to perform a duel to the +death, or an assassination. Why cannot they, for a change, give us +an old-time picnic, or "The hawking party," which, in Elizabethan +costume, should make a pretty picture? Ghostland would appear to be +obsessed by the spirit of the Scandinavian drama: murders, suicides, +ruined fortunes, and broken hearts are the only material made use of. +Why is not a dead humorist allowed now and then to write the sketch? +There must be plenty of dead comic lovers; why are they never allowed +to give a performance? + +[Where are the dead Humorists?] + +A cheerful person contemplates death with alarm. What is he to do in +this land of ghosts? there is no place for him. Imagine the +commonplace liver of a humdrum existence being received into +ghostland. He enters nervous, shy, feeling again the new boy at +school. The old ghosts gather round him. + +"How do you come here--murdered?" + +"No, at least, I don't think so." + +"Suicide? + +"No--can't remember the name of it now. Began with a chill on the +liver, I think." + +The ghosts are disappointed. But a happy suggestion is made. +Perhaps he was the murderer; that would be even better. Let him +think carefully; can he recollect ever having committed a murder? He +racks his brains in vain, not a single murder comes to his +recollection. He never forged a will. Doesn't even know where +anything is hid. Of what use will he be in ghostland? One pictures +him passing the centuries among a moody crowd of uninteresting +mediocrities, brooding perpetually over their wasted lives. Only the +ghosts of ladies and gentlemen mixed up in crime have any "show" in +ghostland. + +[The Spirit does not shine as a Conversationalist.] + +I feel an equal dissatisfaction with the spirits who are supposed to +return to us and communicate with us through the medium of three- +legged tables. I do not deny the possibility that spirits exist. I +am even willing to allow them their three-legged tables. It must be +confessed it is a clumsy method. One cannot help regretting that +during all the ages they have not evolved a more dignified system. +One feels that the three-legged table must hamper them. One can +imagine an impatient spirit getting tired of spelling out a lengthy +story on a three-legged table. But, as I have said, I am willing to +assume that, for some spiritual reason unfathomable to my mere human +intelligence, that three-legged table is essential. I am willing +also to accept the human medium. She is generally an unprepossessing +lady running somewhat to bulk. If a gentleman, he so often has dirty +finger-nails, and smells of stale beer. I think myself it would be +so much simpler if the spirit would talk to me direct; we could get +on quicker. But there is that about the medium, I am told, which +appeals to a spirit. Well, it is his affair, not mine, and I waive +the argument. My real stumbling-block is the spirit himself--the +sort of conversation that, when he does talk, he indulges in. I +cannot help feeling that his conversation is not worth the +paraphernalia. I can talk better than that myself. + +The late Professor Huxley, who took some trouble over this matter, +attended some half-dozen seances, and then determined to attend no +more. + +"I have," he said, "for my sins to submit occasionally to the society +of live bores. I refuse to go out of my way to spend an evening in +the dark with dead bores." + +The spiritualists themselves admit that their table-rapping spooks +are precious dull dogs; it would be difficult, in face of the +communications recorded, for them to deny it. They explain to us +that they have not yet achieved communication with the higher +spiritual Intelligences. The more intelligent spirits--for some +reason that the spiritualists themselves are unable to explain--do +not want to talk to them, appear to have something else to do. At +present--so I am told, and can believe--it is only the spirits of +lower intelligence that care to turn up on these evenings. The +spiritualists argue that, by continuing, the higher-class spirits +will later on be induced to "come in." I fail to follow the +argument. It seems to me that we are frightening them away. Anyhow, +myself I shall wait awhile. + +When the spirit comes along that can talk sense, that can tell me +something I don't know, I shall be glad to meet him. The class of +spirit that we are getting just at present does not appeal to me. +The thought of him--the reflection that I shall die and spend the +rest of eternity in his company--does not comfort me. + +[She is now a Believer.] + +A lady of my acquaintance tells me it is marvellous how much these +spirits seem to know. On her very first visit, the spirit, through +the voice of the medium--an elderly gentleman residing obscurely in +Clerkenwell--informed her without a moment's hesitation that she +possessed a relative with the Christian name of George. (I am not +making this up--it is real.) This gave her at first the idea that +spiritualism was a fraud. She had no relative named George--at +least, so she thought. But a morning or two later her husband +received a letter from Australia. "By Jove!" he exclaimed, as he +glanced at the last page, "I had forgotten all about the poor old +beggar." + +"Whom is it from?" she asked. + +"Oh, nobody you know--haven't seen him myself for twenty years--a +third or fourth cousin of mine--George--" + +She never heard the surname, she was too excited. The spirit had +been right from the beginning; she HAD a relative named George. Her +faith in spiritualism is now as a rock. + +There are thousands of folk who believe in Old Moore's Almanac. My +difficulty would be not to believe in the old gentleman. I see that +for the month of January last he foretold us that the Government +would meet with determined and persistent opposition. He warned us +that there would be much sickness about, and that rheumatism would +discover its old victims. How does he know these things? Is it that +the stars really do communicate with him, or does he "feel it in his +bones," as the saying is up North? + +During February, he mentioned, the weather would be unsettled. He +concluded: + +"The word Taxation will have a terrible significance for both +Government and people this month." + +Really, it is quite uncanny. In March: + +"Theatres will do badly during the month." + +There seems to be no keeping anything from Old Moore. In April "much +dissatisfaction will be expressed among Post Office employees." That +sounds probable, on the face of it. In any event, I will answer for +our local postman. + +In May "a wealthy magnate is going to die." In June there is going +to be a fire. In July "Old Moore has reason to fear there will be +trouble." + +I do hope he may be wrong, and yet somehow I feel a conviction that +he won't be. Anyhow, one is glad it has been put off till July. + +In August "one in high authority will be in danger of demise." In +September "zeal" on the part of persons mentioned "will outstrip +discretion." In October Old Moore is afraid again. He cannot avoid +a haunting suspicion that "Certain people will be victimized by +extensive fraudulent proceedings." + +In November "the public Press will have its columns full of important +news." The weather will be "adverse," and "a death will occur in +high circles." This makes the second in one year. I am glad I do +not belong to the higher circles. + +[How does he do it?] + +In December Old Moore again foresees trouble, just when I was hoping +it was all over. "Frauds will come to light, and death will find its +victims." + +And all this information is given to us for a penny. + +The palmist examines our hand. "You will go a journey," he tells us. +It is marvellous! How could he have known that only the night before +we had been discussing the advisability of taking the children to +Margate for the holidays? + +"There is trouble in store for you," he tells us, regretfully, "but +you will get over it." We feel that the future has no secret hidden +from him. + +We have "presentiments" that people we love, who are climbing +mountains, who are fond of ballooning, are in danger. + +The sister of a friend of mine who went out to the South African War +as a volunteer had three presentiments of his death. He came home +safe and sound, but admitted that on three distinct occasions he had +been in imminent danger. It seemed to the dear lady a proof of +everything she had ever read. + +Another friend of mine was waked in the middle of the night by his +wife, who insisted that he should dress himself and walk three miles +across a moor because she had had a dream that something terrible was +happening to a bosom friend of hers. The bosom friend and her +husband were rather indignant at being waked at two o'clock in the +morning, but their indignation was mild compared with that of the +dreamer on learning that nothing was the matter. From that day +forward a coldness sprang up between the two families. + +I would give much to believe in ghosts. The interest of life would +be multiplied by its own square power could we communicate with the +myriad dead watching us from their mountain summits. Mr. Zangwill, +in a poem that should live, draws for us a pathetic picture of blind +children playing in a garden, laughing, romping. All their lives +they have lived in darkness; they are content. But, the wonder of +it, could their eyes by some miracle be opened! + +[Blind Children playing in a World of Darkness.] + +May not we be but blind children, suggests the poet, living in a +world of darkness--laughing, weeping, loving, dying--knowing nothing +of the wonder round us? + +The ghosts about us, with their god-like faces, it might be good to +look at them. + +But these poor, pale-faced spooks, these dull-witted, table-thumping +spirits: it would be sad to think that of such was the kingdom of +the Dead. + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + + +[Parents and their Teachers.] + +My heart has been much torn of late, reading of the wrongs of +Children. It has lately been discovered that Children are being +hampered and harassed in their career by certain brutal and ignorant +persons called, for want of a better name, parents. The parent is a +selfish wretch who, out of pure devilment, and without consulting the +Child itself upon the subject, lures innocent Children into the +world, apparently for the purpose merely of annoying them. The +parent does not understand the Child when he has got it; he does not +understand anything, not much. The only person who understands the +Child is the young gentleman fresh from College and the elderly +maiden lady, who, between them, produce most of the literature that +explains to us the Child. + +The parent does not even know how to dress the Child. The parent +will persist in dressing the Child in a long and trailing garment +that prevents the Child from kicking. The young gentleman fresh from +College grows almost poetical in his contempt. It appears that the +one thing essential for the health of a young child is that it should +have perfect freedom to kick. Later on the parent dresses the Child +in short clothes, and leaves bits of its leg bare. The elderly +maiden Understander of Children, quoting medical opinion, denounces +us as criminals for leaving any portion of that precious leg +uncovered. It appears that the partially uncovered leg of childhood +is responsible for most of the disease that flesh is heir to. + +Then we put it into boots. We "crush its delicately fashioned feet +into hideous leather instruments of torture." That is the sort of +phrase that is hurled at us! The picture conjured up is that of some +fiend in human shape, calling itself a father, seizing some helpless +cherub by the hair, and, while drowning its pathetic wails for mercy +beneath roars of demon laughter, proceeding to bind about its tender +bones some ancient curiosity dug from the dungeons of the +Inquisition. + +If the young gentleman fresh from College or the maiden lady +Understander could be, if only for a month or two, a father! If only +he or she could guess how gladly the father of limited income would +reply, + +"My dear, you are wrong in saying that the children must have boots. +That is an exploded theory. The children must not have boots. I +refuse to be a party to crushing their delicately fashioned feet into +hideous leather instruments of torture. The young gentleman fresh +from College and the elderly maiden Understander have decided that +the children must not have boots. Do not let me hear again that out- +of-date word--boots." + +If there were only one young gentleman fresh from College, one maiden +lady Understander teaching us our duty, life would be simpler. But +there are so many young gentlemen from College, so many maiden lady +Understanders, on the job--if I may be permitted a vulgarism; and as +yet they are not all agreed. It is distracting for the parent +anxious to do right. We put the little dears into sandals, and then +at once other young gentlemen from College, other maiden lady +Understanders, point to us as would-be murderers. Long clothes are +fatal, short clothes are deadly, boots are instruments of torture, to +allow children to go about with bare feet shows that we regard them +as Incumbrances, and, with low cunning, are seeking to be rid of +them. + +[Their first attempt.] + +I knew a pair of parents. I am convinced, in spite of all that can +be said to the contrary, they were fond of their Child; it was their +first. They were anxious to do the right thing. They read with +avidity all books and articles written on the subject of Children. +They read that a Child should always sleep lying on its back, and +took it in turns to sit awake o' nights to make sure that the Child +was always right side up. + +But another magazine told them that Children allowed to sleep lying +on their backs grew up to be idiots. They were sad they had not read +of this before, and started the Child on its right side. The Child, +on the contrary, appeared to have a predilection for the left, the +result being that neither the parents nor the baby itself for the +next three weeks got any sleep worth speaking of. + +Later on, by good fortune, they came across a treatise that said a +Child should always be allowed to choose its own position while +sleeping, and their friends persuaded them to stop at that--told them +they would never strike a better article if they searched the whole +British Museum Library. It troubled them to find that Child +sometimes sleeping curled up with its toe in its mouth, and sometimes +flat on its stomach with its head underneath the pillow. But its +health and temper were decidedly improved. + +[The Parent can do no right.] + +There is nothing the parent can do right. You would think that now +and then he might, if only by mere accident, blunder into sense. +But, no, there seems to be a law against it. He brings home woolly +rabbits and indiarubber elephants, and expects the Child to be +contented "forsooth" with suchlike aids to its education. As a +matter of fact, the Child is content: it bangs its own head with the +woolly rabbit and does itself no harm; it tries to swallow the +indiarubber elephant; it does not succeed, but continues to hope. +With that woolly rabbit and that indiarubber elephant it would be as +happy as the day is long if only the young gentleman from Cambridge +would leave it alone, and not put new ideas into its head. But the +gentleman from Cambridge and the maiden lady Understander are +convinced that the future of the race depends upon leaving the Child +untrammelled to select its own amusements. A friend of mine, during +his wife's absence once on a visit to her mother, tried the +experiment. + +The Child selected a frying-pan. How it got the frying-pan remains +to this day a mystery. The cook said "frying-pans don't walk +upstairs." The nurse said she should be sorry to call anyone a liar, +but that there was commonsense in everything. The scullery-maid said +that if everybody did their own work other people would not be driven +beyond the limits of human endurance; and the housekeeper said that +she was sick and tired of life. My friend said it did not matter. +The Child clung to the frying-pan with passion. The book my friend +was reading said that was how the human mind was formed: the Child's +instinct prompted it to seize upon objects tending to develop its +brain faculty. What the parent had got to do was to stand aside and +watch events. + +The Child proceeded to black everything about the nursery with the +bottom of the frying-pan. It then set to work to lick the frying-pan +clean. The nurse, a woman of narrow ideas, had a presentiment that +later on it would be ill. My friend explained to her the error the +world had hitherto committed: it had imagined that the parent knew a +thing or two that the Child didn't. In future the Children were to +do their bringing up themselves. In the house of the future the +parents would be allotted the attics where they would be out of the +way. They might occasionally be allowed down to dinner, say, on +Sundays. + +The Child, having exhausted all the nourishment the frying-pan +contained, sought to develop its brain faculty by thumping itself +over the head with the flat of the thing. With the selfishness of +the average parent--thinking chiefly of what the Coroner might say, +and indifferent to the future of humanity, my friend insisted upon +changing the game. + +[His foolish talk.] + +The parent does not even know how to talk to his own Child. The +Child is yearning to acquire a correct and dignified mode of +expression. The parent says: "Did ums. Did naughty table hurt +ickle tootsie pootsies? Baby say: ''Oo naughty table. Me no love +'oo.'" + +The Child despairs of ever learning English. What should we think +ourselves were we to join a French class, and were the Instructor to +commence talking to us French of this description? What the Child, +according to the gentleman from Cambridge, says to itself is, + +"Oh for one hour's intelligent conversation with a human being who +can talk the language." + +Will not the young gentleman from Cambridge descend to detail? Will +he not give us a specimen dialogue? + +A celebrated lady writer, who has made herself the mouthpiece of +feminine indignation against male stupidity, took up the cudgels a +little while ago on behalf of Mrs. Caudle. She admitted Mrs. Caudle +appeared to be a somewhat foolish lady. "BUT WHAT HAD CAUDLE EVER +DONE TO IMPROVE MRS. CAUDLE'S MIND?" Had he ever sought, with +intelligent illuminating conversation, to direct her thoughts towards +other topics than lent umbrellas and red-headed minxes? + +It is my complaint against so many of our teachers. They scold us +for what we do, but so rarely tell us what we ought to do. Tell me +how to talk to my baby, and I am willing to try. It is not as if I +took a personal pride in the phrase: "Did ums." I did not even +invent it. I found it, so to speak, when I got here, and my +experience is that it soothes the Child. When he is howling, and I +say "Did ums" with sympathetic intonation, he stops crying. Possibly +enough it is astonishment at the ineptitude of the remark that +silences him. Maybe it is that minor troubles are lost sight of face +to face with the reflection that this is the sort of father with +which fate has provided him. But may not even this be useful to him? +He has got to meet with stupid people in the world. Let him begin by +contemplating me. It will make things easier for him later on. I +put forward the idea in the hope of comforting the young gentleman +from Cambridge. + +We injure the health of the Child by enforcing on it silence. We +have a stupid formula that children should be seen and not heard. We +deny it exercise to its lungs. We discourage its natural and +laudable curiosity by telling it not to worry us--not to ask so many +questions. + +Won't somebody lend the young gentleman from Cambridge a small and +healthy child just for a week or so, and let the bargain be that he +lives with it all the time? The young gentleman from Cambridge +thinks, when we call up the stairs to say that if we hear another +sound from the nursery during the next two hours we will come up and +do things to that Child the mere thought of which should appal it, +that is silencing the Child. It does not occur to him that two +minutes later that Child is yelling again at the top of its voice, +having forgotten all we ever said. + +[The Child of Fiction.] + +I know the sort of Child the weeper over Children's wrongs has in his +mind. It has deep, soulful, yearning eyes. It moves about the house +softly, shedding an atmosphere of patient resignation. It says: +"Yes, dear papa." "No, dear mamma." It has but one ambition--to be +good and useful. It has beautiful thoughts about the stars. You +don't know whether it is in the house or isn't: you find it with its +little face pressed close against the window-pane watching the golden +sunset. Nobody understands it. It blesses the old people and dies. +One of these days the young gentleman from Cambridge will, one hopes, +have a Baby of his own--a real Child: and serve him darn-well right. + +At present he is labouring under a wrong conception of the article. +He says we over-educate it. We clog its wonderful brain with a mass +of uninteresting facts and foolish formulas that we call knowledge. +He does not know that all this time the Child is alive and kicking. +He is under the delusion that the Child is taking all this lying +down. We tell the Child it has got to be quiet, or else we will +wring its neck. The gentleman from Cambridge pictures the Child as +from that moment a silent spirit moving voiceless towards the grave. + +We catch the Child in the morning, and clean it up, and put a little +satchel on its back, and pack it off to school; and the maiden lady +Understander pictures that Child wasting the all too brief period of +youth crowding itself up with knowledge. + +My dear Madam, you take it from me that your tears are being wasted. +You wipe your eyes and cheer up. The dear Child is not going to be +overworked: HE is seeing to that. + +As a matter of the fact, the Child of the present day is having, if +anything, too good a time. I shall be considered a brute for saying +this, but I am thinking of its future, and my opinion is that we are +giving it swelled head. The argument just now in the air is that the +parent exists merely for the Children. The parent doesn't count. It +is as if a gardener were to say, + +"Bother the flowers, let them rot. The sooner they are out of the +way the better. The seed is the only thing that interests me." + +You can't produce respectable seed but from carefully cultivated +flowers. The philosopher, clamouring for improved Children, will +later grasp the fact that the parent is of importance. Then he will +change his tactics, and address the Children, and we shall have our +time. He will impress on them how necessary it is for their own +sakes that they should be careful of us. We shall have books written +about misunderstood fathers who were worried into early graves. + +[The misunderstood Father.] + +Fresh Air Funds will be started for sending parents away to the +seaside on visits to kind bachelors living in detached houses, miles +away from Children. Books will be specially written for us picturing +a world where school fees are never demanded and babies never howl o' +nights. Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Parents will +arise. Little girls who get their hair entangled and mislay all +their clothes just before they are starting for the party--little +boys who kick holes in their best shoes will be spanked at the public +expense. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + + +[Marriage and the Joke of it.] + +Marriages are made in heaven--"but solely," it has been added by a +cynical writer, "for export." There is nothing more remarkable in +human sociology than our attitude towards the institution of +marriage. So it came home to me the other evening as I sat on a cane +chair in the ill-lighted schoolroom of a small country town. The +occasion was a Penny Reading. We had listened to the usual overture +from Zampa, played by the lady professor and the eldest daughter of +the brewer; to "Phil Blood's Leap," recited by the curate; to the +violin solo by the pretty widow about whom gossip is whispered--one +hopes it is not true. Then a pale-faced gentleman, with a drooping +black moustache, walked on to the platform. It was the local tenor. +He sang to us a song of love. Misunderstandings had arisen; bitter +words, regretted as soon as uttered, had pierced the all too +sensitive spirit. Parting had followed. The broken-hearted one had +died believing his affection unrequited. But the angels had since +told him; he knew she loved him now--the accent on the now. + +I glanced around me. We were the usual crowd of mixed humanity-- +tinkers, tailors, soldiers, sailors, with our cousins, and our +sisters, and our wives. So many of our eyes were wet with tears. +Miss Butcher could hardly repress her sobs. Young Mr. Tinker, his +face hidden behind his programme, pretended to be blowing his nose. +Mrs. Apothecary's large bosom heaved with heartfelt sighs. The +retired Colonel sniffed audibly. Sadness rested on our souls. It +might have been so different but for those foolish, hasty words! +There need have been no funeral. Instead, the church might have been +decked with bridal flowers. How sweet she would have looked beneath +her orange wreath! How proudly, gladly, he might have responded "I +will," take her for his wedded wife, to have and to hold from this +day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness +and in health, to love and to cherish, till death did them part. And +thereto he might have plighted his troth. + +In the silence which reigned after the applause had subsided the +beautiful words of the Marriage Service seemed to be stealing through +the room: that they might ever remain in perfect love and peace +together. Thy wife shall be as the fruitful vine. Thy children like +the olive branches round about thy table. Lo! thus shall a man be +blessed. So shall men love their wives as their own bodies, and be +not bitter against them, giving honour unto them as unto the weaker +vessel. Let the wife see that she reverence her husband, wearing the +ornament of a meek and quiet spirit. + +[Love and the Satyr.] + +All the stories sung by the sweet singers of all time were echoing in +our ears--stories of true love that would not run smoothly until the +last chapter; of gallant lovers strong and brave against fate; of +tender sweethearts, waiting, trusting, till love's golden crown was +won; so they married and lived happy ever after. + +Then stepped briskly on the platform a stout, bald-headed man. We +greeted him with enthusiasm--it was the local low comedian. The +piano tinkled saucily. The self-confident man winked and opened wide +his mouth. It was a funny song; how we roared with laughter! The +last line of each verse was the same: + +"And that's what it's like when you're married." + +"Before it was 'duckie,' and 'darling,' and 'dear.' Now it's 'Take +your cold feet away, Brute! can't you hear?' + +"Once they walked hand in hand: 'Me loves ickle 'oo.' Now he +strides on ahead" (imitation with aid of umbrella much appreciated; +the bald-headed man, in his enthusiasm and owing to the smallness of +the platform, sweeping the lady accompanist off her stool), "bawling: +'Come along, do.'" + +The bald-headed man interspersed side-splitting patter. The husband +comes home late; the wife is waiting for him at the top of the stairs +with a broom. He kisses the servant-girl. She retaliates by +discovering a cousin in the Guards. + +The comic man retired to an enthusiastic demand for an encore. I +looked around me at the laughing faces. Miss Butcher had been +compelled to stuff her handkerchief into her mouth. Mr. Tinker was +wiping his eyes; he was not ashamed this time, they were tears of +merriment. Mrs. Apothecary's motherly bosom was shaking like a +jelly. The Colonel was grinning from ear to ear. + +Later on, as I noticed in the programme, the schoolmistress, an +unmarried lady, was down to sing "Darby and Joan." She has a +sympathetic voice. Her "Darby and Joan" is always popular. The +comic man would also again appear in the second part, and would +oblige with (by request) "His Mother-in-Law." + +So the quaint comedy continues: To-night we will enjoy Romeo and +Juliet, for to-morrow we have seats booked for The Pink Domino. + +[What the Gipsy did not mention.] + +"Won't the pretty lady let the poor old gipsy tell her fortune?" +Blushes, giggles, protestations. Gallant gentleman friend insists. +A dark man is in love with pretty lady. Gipsy sees a marriage not so +very far ahead. Pretty lady says "What nonsense!" but looks serious. +Pretty lady's pretty friends must, of course, be teasing. Gallant +gentleman friend, by curious coincidence, happens to be dark. Gipsy +grins and passes on. + +Is that all the gipsy knows of pretty lady's future? The rheumy, +cunning eyes! They were bonny and black many years ago, when the +parchment skin was smooth and fair. They have seen so many a passing +show--do they see in pretty lady's hand nothing further? + +What would the wicked old eyes foresee did it pay them to speak: -- +Pretty lady crying tears into a pillow. Pretty lady growing ugly, +spite and anger spoiling pretty features. Dark young man no longer +loving. Dark young man hurling bitter words at pretty lady--hurling, +maybe, things more heavy. Dark young man and pretty lady listening +approvingly to comic singer, having both discovered: "That's what +it's like when you're married." + +My friend H. G. Wells wrote a book, "The Island of Dr. Moreau." I +read it in MS. one winter evening in a lonely country house upon the +hills, wind screaming to wind in the dark without. The story has +haunted me ever since. I hear the wind's shrill laughter. The +doctor had taken the beasts of the forest, apes, tigers, strange +creatures from the deep, had fashioned them with hideous cruelty into +the shapes of men, had given them souls, had taught to them the law. +In all things else were they human, but their original instincts +their creator's skill had failed to eliminate. All their lives were +one long torture. The Law said, "We are men and women; this we shall +do, this we shall not do." But the ape and tiger still cried aloud +within them. + +Civilization lays her laws upon us; they are the laws of gods--of the +men that one day, perhaps, shall come. But the primeval creature of +the cave still cries within us. + +[A few rules for Married Happiness.] + +The wonder is that not being gods--being mere men and women--marriage +works out as well as it does. We take two creatures with the +instincts of the ape still stirring within them; two creatures +fashioned on the law of selfishness; two self-centred creatures of +opposite appetites, of desires opposed to one another, of differing +moods and fancies; two creatures not yet taught the lesson of self- +control, of self-renunciation, and bind them together for life in an +union so close that one cannot snore o'nights without disturbing the +other's rest; that one cannot, without risk to happiness, have a +single taste unshared by the other; that neither, without danger of +upsetting the whole applecart, so to speak, can have an opinion with +which the other does not heartedly agree. + +Could two angels exist together on such terms without ever +quarrelling? I doubt it. To make marriage the ideal we love to +picture it in romance, the elimination of human nature is the first +essential. Supreme unselfishness, perfect patience, changeless +amiability, we should have to start with, and continue with, until +the end. + +[The real Darby and Joan.] + +I do not believe in the "Darby and Joan" of the song. They belong to +song-land. To accept them I need a piano, a sympathetic contralto +voice, a firelight effect, and that sentimental mood in myself, the +foundation of which is a good dinner well digested. But there are +Darbys and Joans of real flesh and blood to be met with--God bless +them, and send more for our example--wholesome living men and women, +brave, struggling, souls with common-sense. Ah, yes! they have +quarrelled; had their dark house of bitterness, of hate, when he +wished to heaven he had never met her, and told her so. How could he +have guessed those sweet lips could utter such cruel words; those +tender eyes, he loved to kiss, flash with scorn and anger? + +And she, had she known what lay behind; those days when he knelt +before her, swore that his only dream was to save her from all pain. +Passion lies dead; it is a flame that burns out quickly. The most +beautiful face in the world grows indifferent to us when we have sat +opposite it every morning at breakfast, every evening at supper, for +a brief year or two. Passion is the seed. Love grows from it, a +tender sapling, beautiful to look upon, but wondrous frail, easily +broken, easily trampled on during those first years of wedded life. +Only by much nursing, by long caring-for, watered with tears, shall +it grow into a sturdy tree, defiant of the winds, 'neath which Darby +and Joan shall sit sheltered in old age. + +They had commonsense, brave hearts. Darby had expected too much. +Darby had not made allowance for human nature which he ought to have +done, seeing how much he had of it himself. Joan knows he did not +mean it. Joan has a nasty temper; she admits it. Joan will try, +Darby will try. They kiss again with tears. It is a workaday world; +Darby and Joan will take it as it is, will do their best. A little +kindness, a little clasping of the hands before night comes. + +[Many ways of Love] + +Youth deems it heresy, but I sometimes wonder if our English speaking +way is quite the best. I discussed the subject once with an old +French lady. The English reader forms his idea of French life from +the French novel; it leads to mistaken notions. There are French +Darbys, French Joans, many thousands of them. + +"Believe me," said my old French friend, "your English way is wrong; +our way is not perfect, but it is the better, I am sure. You leave +it entirely to the young people. What do they know of life, of +themselves, even. He falls in love with a pretty face. She--he +danced so well! he was so agreeable that day of the picnic! If +marriage were only for a month or so; could be ended without harm +when the passion was burnt out. Ah, yes! then perhaps you would be +right. I loved at eighteen, madly--nearly broke my heart. I meet +him occasionally now. My dear"--her hair was silvery white, and I +was only thirty-five; she always called me "my dear"; it is pleasant +at thirty-five to be talked to as a child. "He was a perfect brute, +handsome he had been, yes, but all that was changed. He was as +stupid as an ox. I never see his poor frightened-looking wife +without shuddering thinking of what I have escaped. They told me all +that, but I looked only at his face, and did not believe them. They +forced me into marriage with the kindest man that ever lived. I did +not love him then, but I loved him for thirty years; was it not +better?" + +"But, my dear friend," I answered; "that poor, frightened-looking +wife of your first love! Her marriage also was, I take it, the +result of parental choosing. The love marriage, I admit, as often as +not turns out sadly. The children choose ill. Parents also choose +ill. I fear there is no sure receipt for the happy marriage." + +"You are arguing from bad examples," answered my silver-haired +friend; "it is the system that I am defending. A young girl is no +judge of character. She is easily deceived, is wishful to be +deceived. As I have said, she does not even know herself. She +imagines the mood of the moment will remain with her. Only those who +have watched over her with loving insight from her infancy know her +real temperament. + +"The young man is blinded by his passion. Nature knows nothing of +marriage, of companionship. She has only one aim. That +accomplished, she is indifferent to the future of those she has +joined together. I would have parents think only of their children's +happiness, giving to worldly considerations their true value, but +nothing beyond, choosing for their children with loving care, with +sense of their great responsibility." + +[Which is it?] + +"I fear our young people would not be contented with our choosing," I +suggested. + +"Are they so contented with their own, the honeymoon over?" she +responded with a smile. + +We agreed it was a difficult problem viewed from any point. + +But I still think it would be better were we to heap less ridicule +upon the institution. Matrimony cannot be "holy" and ridiculous at +the same time. We have been familiar with it long enough to make up +our minds in which light to regard it. + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + + +[Man and his Tailor.] + +What's wrong with the "Made-up Tie"? I gather from the fashionable +novelist that no man can wear a made-up tie and be a gentleman. He +may be a worthy man, clever, well-to-do, eligible from every other +point of view; but She, the refined heroine, can never get over the +fact that he wears a made-up tie. It causes a shudder down her high- +bred spine whenever she thinks of it. There is nothing else to be +said against him. There is nothing worse about him than this--he +wears a made-up tie. It is all sufficient. No true woman could ever +care for him, no really classy society ever open its doors to him. + +I am worried about this thing because, to confess the horrid truth, I +wear a made-up tie myself. On foggy afternoons I steal out of the +house disguised. They ask me where I am going in a hat that comes +down over my ears, and why I am wearing blue spectacles and a false +beard, but I will not tell them. I creep along the wall till I find +a common hosier's shop, and then, in an assumed voice, I tell the man +what it is I want. They come to fourpence halfpenny each; by taking +the half-dozen I get them for a trifle less. They are put on in a +moment, and, to my vulgar eye, look neat and tasteful. + +Of course, I know I am not a gentleman. I have given up hopes of +ever being one. Years ago, when life presented possibilities, I +thought that with pains and intelligence I might become one. I never +succeeded. It all depends on being able to tie a bow. Round the +bed-post, or the neck of the water-jug, I could tie the wretched +thing to perfection. If only the bed-post or the water-jug could +have taken my place and gone to the party instead of me, life would +have been simpler. The bed-post and the water-jug, in its neat white +bow, looked like a gentleman--the fashionable novelist's idea of a +gentleman. Upon myself the result was otherwise, suggesting always a +feeble attempt at suicide by strangulation. I could never understand +how it was done. There were moments when it flashed across me that +the secret lay in being able to turn one's self inside out, coming up +with one's arms and legs the other way round. Standing on one's head +might have surmounted the difficulty; but the higher gymnastics +Nature has denied to me. "The Boneless Wonder" or the "Man Serpent" +could, I felt, be a gentleman so easily. To one to whom has been +given only the common ordinary joints gentlemanliness is apparently +an impossible ideal. + +It is not only the tie. I never read the fashionable novel without +misgiving. Some hopeless bounder is being described: + +"If you want to know what he is like," says the Peer of the Realm, +throwing himself back in his deep easy-chair, and puffing lazily at +his cigar of delicate aroma, "he is the sort of man that wears three +studs in his shirt." + +[The difficulty of being a Gentleman.] + +Merciful heavens! I myself wear three studs in my shirt. I also am +a hopeless bounder, and I never knew it. It comes upon me like a +thunderbolt. I thought three studs were fashionable. The idiot at +the shop told me three studs were all the rage, and I ordered two +dozen. I can't afford to throw them away. Till these two dozen +shirts are worn out, I shall have to remain a hopeless bounder. + +Why have we not a Minister of the Fine Arts? Why does not a paternal +Government fix notices at the street corners, telling the would-be +gentleman how many studs he ought to wear, what style of necktie now +distinguishes the noble-minded man from the base-hearted? They are +prompt enough with their police regulations, their vaccination +orders--the higher things of life they neglect. + +I select at random another masterpiece of English literature. + +"My dear," says Lady Montresor, with her light aristocratic laugh, +"you surely cannot seriously think of marrying a man who wears socks +with yellow spots?" + +Lady Emmelina sighs. + +"He is very nice," she murmurs, "but I suppose you are right. I +suppose that sort of man does get on your nerves after a time." + +"My dear child," says Lady Montresor, "he is impossible." + +In a cold sweat I rush upstairs into my bedroom. + +I thought so: I am always wrong. All my best socks have yellow +spots. I rather fancied them. They were expensive, too, now I come +to think of it. + +What am I to do? If I sacrifice them and get red spots, then red +spots, for all I know, may be wrong. I have no instinct. The +fashionable novelist never helps one. He tells us what is wrong, but +he does not tell us what is right. It is creative criticism that I +feel the need of. Why does not the Lady Montresor go on? Tell me +what sort of socks the ideal lover ought to wear. There are so many +varieties of socks. What is a would-be-gentleman to do? Would it be +of any use writing to the fashionable novelist:- + +[How we might, all of us, be Gentlemen.] + +"Dear Mr. Fashionable Novelist (or should it be Miss?),--Before going +to my tailor, I venture to write to you on a subject of some +importance. I am fairly well educated, of good family and address, +and, so my friends tell me, of passable appearance. I yearn to +become a gentleman. If it is not troubling you too much, would you +mind telling me how to set about the business? What socks and ties +ought I to wear? Do I wear a flower in my button-hole, or is that a +sign of a coarse mind? How many buttons on a morning coat show a +beautiful nature? Does a stand-up collar with a tennis shirt prove +that you are of noble descent, or, on the contrary, stamp you as a +parvenu? If answering these questions imposes too great a tax on +your time, perhaps you would not mind telling me how you yourself +know these things. Who is your authority, and when is he at home? I +should apologize for writing to you but that I feel you will +sympathize with my appeal. It seems a pity there should be so many +vulgar, ill-bred people in the world when a little knowledge on these +trivial points would enable us all to become gentlemen. Thanking you +in anticipation, I remain . . . " + +Would he or she tell us? Or would the fashionable novelist reply as +I once overheard a harassed mother retort upon one of her inquiring +children. Most of the afternoon she had been rushing out into the +garden, where games were in progress, to tell the children what they +must not do: --"Tommy, you know you must not do that. Haven't you +got any sense at all?" "Johnny, you wicked boy, how dare you do +that; how many more times do you want me to tell you?" "Jane, if you +do that again you will go straight to bed, my girl!" and so on. + +At length the door was opened from without, and a little face peeped +in: "Mother!" + +"Now, what is it? can't I ever get a moment's peace?" + +"Mother, please would you mind telling us something we might do?" + +The lady almost fell back on the floor in her astonishment. The idea +had never occurred to her. + +"What may you do! Don't ask me. I am tired enough of telling you +what not to do." + +[Things a Gentleman should never do.] + +I remember when a young man, wishful to conform to the rules of good +society, I bought a book of etiquette for gentlemen. Its fault was +just this. It told me through many pages what not to do. Beyond +that it seemed to have no idea. I made a list of things it said a +gentleman should NEVER do: it was a lengthy list. + +Determined to do the job completely while I was about it, I bought +other books of etiquette and added on their list of "Nevers." What +one book left out another supplied. There did not seem much left for +a gentleman to do. + +I concluded by the time I had come to the end of my books, that to be +a true gentleman my safest course would be to stop in bed for the +rest of my life. By this means only could I hope to avoid every +possible faux pas, every solecism. I should have lived and died a +gentleman. I could have had it engraved upon my tombstone: + +"He never in his life committed a single act unbecoming to a +gentleman." + +To be a gentleman is not so easy, perhaps, as a fashionable novelist +imagines. One is forced to the conclusion that it is not a question +entirely for the outfitter. My attention was attracted once by a +notice in the window of a West-End emporium, "Gentlemen supplied." + +It is to such like Universal Providers that the fashionable novelist +goes for his gentleman. The gentleman is supplied to him complete in +every detail. If the reader be not satisfied, that is the reader's +fault. He is one of those tiresome, discontented customers who does +not know a good article when he has got it. + +I was told the other day of the writer of a musical farce (or is it +comedy?) who was most desirous that his leading character should be a +perfect gentleman. During the dress rehearsal, the actor +representing the part had to open his cigarette case and request +another perfect gentleman to help himself. The actor drew forth his +case. It caught the critical eye of the author. + +"Good heavens!" he cried, "what do you call that?" + +"A cigarette case," answered the actor. + +"But, my dear boy," exclaimed the author, "surely it is silver?" + +"I know," admitted the actor, "it does perhaps suggest that I am +living beyond my means, but the truth is I picked it up cheap." + +The author turned to the manager. + +"This won't do," he explained, "a real gentleman always carries a +gold cigarette case. He must be a gentleman, or there's no point in +the plot." + +"Don't let us endanger any point the plot may happen to possess, for +goodness sake," agreed the manager, "let him by all means have a gold +cigarette case." + +[How one may know the perfect Gentleman.] + +So, regardless of expense, a gold cigarette case was obtained and put +down to expenses. And yet on the first night of that musical play, +when that leading personage smashed a tray over a waiter's head, and, +after a row with the police, came home drunk to his wife, even that +gold cigarette case failed to convince one that the man was a +gentleman beyond all doubt. + +The old writers appear to have been singularly unaware of the +importance attaching to these socks, and ties, and cigarette-cases. +They told us merely what the man felt and thought. What reliance can +we place upon them? How could they possibly have known what sort of +man he was underneath his clothes? Tweed or broadcloth is not +transparent. Even could they have got rid of his clothes there would +have remained his flesh and bones. It was pure guess-work. They did +not observe. + +The modern writer goes to work scientifically. He tells us that the +creature wore a made-up tie. From that we know he was not a +gentleman; it follows as the night the day. The fashionable novelist +notices the young man's socks. It reveals to us whether the marriage +would have been successful or a failure. It is necessary to convince +us that the hero is a perfect gentleman: the author gives him a gold +cigarette case. + +A well-known dramatist has left it on record that comedy cannot exist +nowadays, for the simple reason that gentlemen have given up taking +snuff and wearing swords. How can one have comedy in company with +frock-coats--without its "Las" and its "Odds Bobs." + +The sword may have been helpful. I have been told that at levees +City men, unaccustomed to the thing, have, with its help, provided +comedy for the rest of the company. + +But I take it this is not the comedy our dramatist had in mind. + +[Why not an Exhibition of Gentlemen?] + +It seems a pity that comedy should disappear from among us. If it +depend entirely on swords and snuff-boxes, would it not be worth the +while of the Society of Authors to keep a few gentlemen specially +trained? Maybe some sympathetic theatrical manager would lend us +costumes of the eighteenth century. We might provide them with +swords and snuff-boxes. They might meet, say, once a week, in a +Queen Anne drawing-room, especially prepared by Gillow, and go +through their tricks. Authors seeking high-class comedy might be +admitted to a gallery. + +Perhaps this explains why old-fashioned readers complain that we do +not give them human nature. How can we? Ladies and gentlemen +nowadays don't wear the proper clothes. Evidently it all depends +upon the clothes. + + + +CHAPTER XX + + + +[Woman and her behaviour.] + +Should women smoke? + +The question, in four-inch letters, exhibited on a placard outside a +small newsvendor's shop, caught recently my eye. The wanderer +through London streets is familiar with such-like appeals to his +decision: "Should short men marry tall wives?" "Ought we to cut our +hair?" "Should second cousins kiss?" Life's problems appear to be +endless. + +Personally, I am not worrying myself whether women should smoke or +not. It seems to me a question for the individual woman to decide +for herself. I like women who smoke; I can see no objection to their +smoking. Smoking soothes the nerves. Women's nerves occasionally +want soothing. The tiresome idiot who argues that smoking is +unwomanly denounces the drinking of tea as unmanly. He is a wooden- +headed person who derives all his ideas from cheap fiction. The +manly man of cheap fiction smokes a pipe and drinks whisky. That is +how we know he is a man. The womanly woman--well, I always feel I +could make a better woman myself out of an old clothes shop and a +hair-dresser's block. + +But, as I have said, the question does not impress me as one +demanding my particular attention. I also like the woman who does +not smoke. I have met in my time some very charming women who do not +smoke. It may be a sign of degeneracy, but I am prepared to abdicate +my position of woman's god, leaving her free to lead her own life. + +[Woman's God.] + +Candidly, the responsibility of feeling myself answerable for all a +woman does or does not do would weigh upon me. There are men who are +willing to take this burden upon themselves, and a large number of +women are still anxious that they should continue to bear it. I +spoke quite seriously to a young lady not long ago on the subject of +tight lacing; undoubtedly she was injuring her health. She admitted +it herself. + +"I know all you can say," she wailed; "I daresay a lot of it is true. +Those awful pictures where one sees--well, all the things one does +not want to think about. If they are correct, it must be bad, +squeezing it all up together." + +"Then why continue to do so?" I argued. + +"Oh, it's easy enough to talk," she explained; "a few old fogies like +you"--I had been speaking very plainly to her, and she was cross with +me--"may pretend you don't like small waists, but the average man +does." + +Poor girl! She was quite prepared to injure herself for life, to +damage her children's future, to be uncomfortable for fifteen hours a +day, all to oblige the average man. + +It is a compliment to our sex. What man would suffer injury and +torture to please the average woman? This frenzied desire of woman +to conform to our ideals is touching. A few daring spirits of late +years have exhibited a tendency to seek for other gods--for ideals of +their own. We call them the unsexed women. The womanly women lift +up their hands in horror of such blasphemy. + +When I was a boy no womanly woman rode a bicycle--tricycles were +permitted. On three wheels you could still be womanly, but on two +you were "a creature"! The womanly woman, seeing her approach, would +draw down the parlour blind with a jerk, lest the children looking +out might catch a glimpse of her, and their young souls be smirched +for all eternity. + +No womanly woman rode inside a hansom or outside a 'bus. I remember +the day my own dear mother climbed outside a 'bus for the first time +in her life. She was excited, and cried a little; but nobody--heaven +be praised!--saw us--that is, nobody of importance. And afterwards +she confessed the air was pleasant. + +"Be not the first by whom the new is tried, Nor yet the last to lay +the old aside," is a safe rule for those who would always retain the +good opinion of that all-powerful, but somewhat unintelligent, +incubus, "the average person," but the pioneer, the guide, is +necessary. That is, if the world is to move forward. + +The freedom-loving girl of to-day, who can enjoy a walk by herself +without losing her reputation, who can ride down the street on her +"bike" without being hooted at, who can play a mixed double at tennis +without being compelled by public opinion to marry her partner, who +can, in short, lead a human creature's life, and not that of a lap- +dog led about at the end of a string, might pause to think what she +owes to the "unsexed creatures" who fought her battle for her fifty +years ago. + +[Those unsexed Creatures] + +Can the working woman of to-day, who may earn her own living, if she +will, without loss of the elementary rights of womanhood, think of +the bachelor girl of a short generation ago without admiration of her +pluck? There were ladies in those day too "unwomanly" to remain +helpless burdens on overworked fathers and mothers, too "unsexed" to +marry the first man that came along for the sake of their bread and +butter. They fought their way into journalism, into the office, into +the shop. The reformer is not always the pleasantest man to invite +to a tea-party. Maybe these women who went forward with the flag +were not the most charming of their sex. The "Dora Copperfield" type +will for some time remain the young man's ideal, the model the young +girl puts before herself. Myself, I think Dora Copperfield charming, +but a world of Dora Copperfields! + +The working woman is a new development in sociology. She has many +lessons to learn, but one has hopes of her. It is said that she is +unfitting herself to be a wife and mother. If the ideal helpmeet for +a man be an animated Dresden china shepherdess--something that looks +pretty on the table, something to be shown round to one's friends, +something that can be locked up safely in a cupboard, that asks no +questions, and, therefore, need be told no lies--then a woman who has +learnt something of the world, who has formed ideas of her own, will +not be the ideal wife. + +[References given--and required.] + +Maybe the average man will not be her ideal husband. Each Michaelmas +at a little town in the Thames Valley with which I am acquainted +there is held a hiring fair. A farmer one year laid his hand on a +lively-looking lad, and asked him if he wanted a job. It was what +the boy was looking for. + +"Got a character?" asked the farmer. The boy replied that he had for +the last two years been working for Mr. Muggs, the ironmonger--felt +sure that Mr. Muggs would give him a good character. + +"Well, go and ask Mr. Muggs to come across and speak to me, I will +wait here," directed the would-be employer. Five minutes went by-- +ten minutes. No Mr. Muggs appeared. Later in the afternoon the +farmer met the boy again. + +"Mr. Muggs never came near me with that character of yours," said the +farmer. + +"No, sir," answered the boy, "I didn't ask him to." + +"Why not?" inquired the farmer. + +"Well, I told him who it was that wanted it"--the boy hesitated. + +"Well?" demanded the farmer, impatiently. + +"Well, then, he told me yours," explained the boy. + +Maybe the working woman, looking for a husband, and not merely a +livelihood, may end by formulating standards of her own. She may end +by demanding the manly man and moving about the world, knowing +something of life, may arrive at the conclusion that something more +is needed than the smoking of pipes and the drinking of whiskies and +sodas. We must be prepared for this. The sheltered woman who learnt +her life from fairy stories is a dream of the past. Woman has +escaped from her "shelter"--she is on the loose. For the future we +men have got to accept the emancipated woman as an accomplished fact. + +[The ideal World.] + +Many of us are worried about her. What is going to become of the +home? I admit there is a more ideal existence where the working +woman would find no place; it is in a world that exists only on the +comic opera stage. There every picturesque village contains an equal +number of ladies and gentlemen nearly all the same height and weight, +to all appearance of the same age. Each Jack has his Jill, and does +not want anybody else's. There are no complications: one presumes +they draw lots and fall in love the moment they unscrew the paper. +They dance for awhile on grass which is never damp, and then into the +conveniently situated ivy-covered church they troop in pairs and are +wedded off hand by a white-haired clergyman, who is a married man +himself. + +Ah, if the world were but a comic opera stage, there would be no need +for working women! As a matter of fact, so far as one can judge from +the front of the house, there are no working men either. + +But outside the opera house in the muddy street Jack goes home to his +third floor back, or his chambers in the Albany, according to his +caste, and wonders when the time will come when he will be able to +support a wife. And Jill climbs on a penny 'bus, or steps into the +family brougham, and dreams with regret of a lost garden, where there +was just one man and just one woman, and clothes grew on a fig tree. + +With the progress of civilization--utterly opposed as it is to all +Nature's intentions--the number of working women will increase. With +some friends the other day I was discussing motor-cars, and one +gentleman with sorrow in his voice--he is the type of Conservative +who would have regretted the passing away of the glacial period-- +opined that motor-cars had come to stay. + +"You mean," said another, "they have come to go." The working woman, +however much we may regret it, has come to go, and she is going it. +We shall have to accept her and see what can be done with her. One +thing is certain, we shall not solve the problem of the twentieth +century by regretting the simple sociology of the Stone Age. + +[A Lover's View.] + +Speaking as a lover, I welcome the openings that are being given to +women to earn their own livelihood. I can conceive of no more +degrading profession for a woman--no profession more calculated to +unfit her for being that wife and mother we talk so much about than +the profession that up to a few years ago was the only one open to +her--the profession of husband-hunting. + +As a man, I object to being regarded as woman's last refuge, her one +and only alternative to the workhouse. I cannot myself see why the +woman who has faced the difficulties of existence, learnt the lesson +of life, should not make as good a wife and mother as the ignorant +girl taken direct, one might almost say, from the nursery, and, +without the slightest preparation, put in a position of +responsibility that to a thinking person must be almost appalling. + +It has been said that the difference between men and women is this: +That the man goes about the world making it ready for the children, +that the woman stops at home making the children ready for the world. +Will not she do it much better for knowing something of the world, +for knowing something of the temptations, the difficulties, her own +children will have to face, for having learnt by her own experience +to sympathize with the struggles, the sordid heart-breaking cares +that man has daily to contend with? + +Civilization is ever undergoing transformation, but human nature +remains. The bachelor girl, in her bed-sitting room, in her studio, +in her flat, will still see in the shadows the vision of the home, +will still hear in the silence the sound of children's voices, will +still dream of the lover's kiss that is to open up new life to her. +She is not quite so unsexed as you may think, my dear womanly madame. +A male friend of mine was telling me of a catastrophe that once +occurred at a station in the East Indies. + +[No time to think of Husbands.] + +A fire broke out at night, and everybody was in terror lest it should +reach the magazine. The women and children were being hurried to the +ships, and two ladies were hastening past my friend. One of them +paused, and, clasping her hands, demanded of him if he knew what had +become of her husband. Her companion was indignant. + +"For goodness' sake, don't dawdle, Maria," she cried; "this is no +time to think of husbands." + +There is no reason to fear that the working woman will ever cease to +think of husbands. Maybe, as I have said, she will demand a better +article than the mere husband-hunter has been able to stand out for. +Maybe she herself will have something more to give; maybe she will +bring to him broader sympathies, higher ideals. The woman who has +herself been down among the people, who has faced life in the open, +will know that the home is but one cell of the vast hive. + +We shall, perhaps, hear less of the woman who "has her own home and +children to think of--really takes no interest in these matters"-- +these matters of right and wrong, these matters that spell the +happiness or misery of millions. + +[The Wife of the Future.] + +Maybe the bridegroom of the future will not say, "I have married a +wife, and therefore I cannot come," but "I have married a wife; we +will both come." + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext The Angel and the Author, by Jerome + diff --git a/old/angau10.zip b/old/angau10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..605c4ca --- /dev/null +++ b/old/angau10.zip |