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+Project Gutenberg's The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893
+       An Illustrated Monthly
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: April 17, 2008 [EBook #25083]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IDLER MAGAZINE, MARCH 1893 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Victorian/Edwardian Pictorial Magazines,
+Jonathan Ingram, Anne Storer and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcribers Notes: Title and Table of Contents added.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ THE IDLER MAGAZINE.
+ AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY.
+
+ March 1893.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ CONTENTS.
+
+
+ THE LYCEUM REHEARSALS.
+     BY G. B. BURGIN.
+
+ A BLESSING DISGUISED.
+     BY F. W. ROBINSON.
+
+ "LIONS IN THEIR DENS."
+     III.--GEORGE NEWNES AT PUTNEY.
+     BY RAYMOND BLATHWAYT.
+
+ NOVEL NOTES.
+     BY JEROME K. JEROME.
+
+ ON PILGRIMS AND THE PILGRIM SPIRIT.
+     BY A. ADAMS MARTIN.
+
+ A COLLEGE IDYL.
+     BY S. GORDON.
+
+ MY FIRST BOOK.
+     BY F. W. ROBINSON.
+
+ TOLD BY THE COLONEL.
+     XI.
+     HOSKINS'S PETS.
+     BY W. L. ALDEN.
+
+ EXPERIENCES OF A 'VARSITY OAR.
+     BY AN "OLD BLUE."
+     (F. C. DRAKE.)
+
+ THE IDLERS CLUB.
+     IS CHILDHOOD THE HAPPIEST OR THE
+     MOST MISERABLE PERIOD OF ONE'S EXISTENCE?
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: MR. HENRY IRVING WATCHING A REHEARSAL]
+
+
+
+
+_The Lyceum Rehearsals._
+
+BY G. B. BURGIN.
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. BERNARD PARTRIDGE.
+
+(_Photographs by Messrs. Barraud._)
+
+          -----
+
+
+[Illustration: TENNYSON.]
+
+One day a paragraph appears in the papers that a new piece will shortly
+be produced at such and such a theatre. Paterfamilias lays down the
+paper and placidly observes that it may be worth while getting seats.
+Then he goes down to the theatre, books seats, and troubles himself no
+more about the matter until the first night of the play in question. The
+world behind the curtain is one with which he is totally unfamiliar. He
+knows naught of its struggles, its hopes and fears, its arduous work,
+its magnificent prizes and sore disappointments. So many thousands of
+pounds have been spent in preparing the play, so many reputations are at
+stake, so many hearts will be gay and glad to-morrow, or aching with the
+bitter pain of defeat. But to Paterfamilias these are all the joys or
+sorrows of another world. As he watches the smooth, easy performance, in
+which every actor has his place, in which the whole pageant produces
+itself without apparent effort, he fails to imagine the ceaseless work
+involved in its adequate realisation. He does not know that for weeks
+before the production of a new play, say at the Lyceum for instance, Mr.
+Irving and the wonderful company which he has gathered round him labour
+over it often far into the night after the audience has left. The
+general idea of an actor's life is that it is a delightful round of
+social pleasures tempered by a few hours' light, agreeable work in the
+evening; to those who think this, a visit to the Lyceum rehearsals would
+reveal the other side of the shield. Very few men in London labour so
+indefatigably as Mr. Irving. To watch him directing a rehearsal almost
+makes one's head ache at the mere idea of such unceasing labour. Every
+motion, however insignificant, of each individual on the stage, from
+himself down to the newest and rawest "super," has to be thought out and
+planned in Mr. Irving's brain. Like an ideal general, he leaves nothing
+to chance, nothing to subordinates. The turning up or down of every gas
+jet, the movement of every piece of furniture, the effect of every note
+of music, has received his most careful thought. One watches him stand
+hour after hour on the Lyceum stage, without weariness, without
+impatience, guiding the whole of the great production. And though Mr.
+Irving never spares himself, he is very considerate to others. When, for
+instance, a young actor is unable to comprehend the full meaning of an
+explanation, Mr. Irving walks up and down the stage, one arm on his
+shoulder, and explains the whole conception of the part. He is not only
+a great actor, but a great teacher; and his influence pervades and
+dominates every being in the theatre. He does not merely assert, but
+gives full and sufficient reason for every action until every one on the
+stage grasps the exact meaning of the scene as well as he does himself.
+As an instance of this, let us follow the rehearsals of "Becket."
+
+[Illustration: MR. HENRY IRVING.]
+
+[Illustration: MISS TERRY STUDYING HER PART.]
+
+[Illustration: MR. WILLIAM TERRISS.]
+
+The theatre itself is deserted save by some ghostly caretaker who
+glides noiselessly through the shadowy gloom, sliding a brush over the
+upholstery without looking at it, and replacing each covering as she
+goes. On the stage are two gentlemen wearing picturesque soft hats, and
+long coats which reach to within half-a-foot of the ground. The taller
+of the two, Mr. Henry Irving, wears a light drab-coloured coat and dark
+hat; Mr. William Terriss is attired in a light hat and dark coat. In the
+centre of the stage, close to the foot-lights, stands a screen; behind
+the screen is a chair. To the left of the stage (as you look at it from
+the stalls) is placed a small table with a big gilt cross on it. On the
+extreme right there is another small table laden with papers, plans of
+the stage, and letters. At the back of the stage are grouped numerous
+male "supers," clad in ordinary morning costume and wearing the
+inevitable "bowler" hat, which does not harmonise very well with the
+huge spears they carry. It is the scene in the second act of the late
+Poet Laureate's "Becket," "The Meeting of the Kings," and Mr. Irving is
+busily engaged grouping some fifty people who are required to pose as
+barons, French prelates, and retainers. When he has done this, there is
+still something wanted to complete the picture. Two pages are lacking.
+"Where's Johnny?" asks Mr. Irving, and "Johnny" appears. Mr. Irving eyes
+him critically. "I'm afraid you're too big, Johnny," he says, and
+"Johnny" disappointedly makes way for a smaller boy.
+
+Mr. Irving stands well in the centre of the stage, absorbing every
+detail. The French bishops are huddled too near together, and he groups
+them more naturally. _Becket's_ mortal foes, _Fitzurse_, _De Brito_,
+_De Tracy_, and _De Morville_, are moved lower down towards the
+audience, so that they can go "off" with greater effect when jeering at
+_Becket_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The cameo-cut outlines of Mr. Irving's fine serious features are plainly
+visible as he turns to look at the wings. "I don't see any necessity for
+having these 'wings' so forward," he declares, and the wings at once
+slide gently back, moved by some invisible agency. In response to Mr.
+Irving's request for another alteration in the scenery (he speaks with
+an utter absence of effort in a voice which can be heard at the other
+end of the theatre, although it does not appear to be raised above a
+conversational pitch), a middle-aged gentleman, attired in a frock coat,
+his brows carefully swathed in a white pocket handkerchief, comes
+forward, yardstick in hand, and measures the stage with great assiduity.
+When this has been done, Mr. Irving sits down with "Please go on." Then
+he turns to Mr. Terriss: "Shall we go through it first without the
+dialogue?" "Yes," answers Mr. Terriss; and the whole action of the scene
+is gone through. Mr. Irving and Mr. Terriss exchanging their direction
+of the various groups for the assumption of their own parts with an ease
+and rapidity born of long practice, Mr. Irving moving about from group
+to group until he is satisfied with the effect of the whole. Mr. H. T.
+Loveday, the stage manager, being at present ill, Mr. Terriss is kindly
+assisting Mr. Irving with rehearsal. After the entrances and exits have
+been arranged for the twentieth time, _Henry's_ magnificent voice rings
+out as _Louis_ enters:
+
+     "'Brother of France, what shall be done with _Becket_?'"
+
+As this is one of the early rehearsals, the actors are not yet word
+perfect. Each holds his part in one hand, and refreshes his memory as
+he goes on. When _Henry_ and _Louis_ have finished their dialogue, and
+_Becket_ is about to enter, Mr. Irving suddenly pauses. "Make a note
+that before _Becket's_ entrance there should be a slow chant--a
+Gregorian chant--and flourishes. Where are the gentlemen who sing?" "The
+gentlemen who sing" come on, and practise the chant. "Not quite so
+loud." Mr. Irving claps his hands (the stage signal for stopping people)
+and decides to try the effect behind the scenes. "That will do; very
+good," he declares, as the solemn chant steals slowly in, and then,
+merging the manager in the actor, kneels at _Henry's_ feet.
+
+[Illustration: THE STAGE FROM THE DRESS CIRCLE.]
+
+At this juncture, Mr. Irving becomes the stage-manager again, and turns
+to the group of _Henry's_ followers. "You, gentlemen, are to come up
+here. You are rather startled, and listen attentively; that's the spirit
+of it." _King Henry's_ followers move up, and jeer at _Becket_, who
+curses them. Then come the voices of the crowd without:
+
+     "'Blessed be the Lord Archbishop, who hath withstood two kings to
+     their faces for the honour of God.'"
+
+But Mr. Irving is not satisfied with the crowd. "Slower and more
+gravely, please. I want the emphasis on 'the Lord Archbishop.' So! That
+will be very good."
+
+After this, there is an interval, and Mr. Irving and Mr. Terriss
+disappear. Before they return, the stage carpenters begin to prepare
+for the murder scene in the last act. A number of what appear to be
+canvas-covered trunks are brought in and laid down to represent stones
+in the choir of Canterbury Cathedral.
+
+Meantime, some of the gentlemen who represent the monks in this scene
+playfully spar at one another, or lunge with walking-sticks at imaginary
+foes. The carpenters are busy measuring the stage in all directions with
+tapes in accordance with a plan which one of them holds in his hand.
+Before Mr. Irving returns, the "supers" group themselves "left" and
+answer to their names. When he reappears, they look at him expectantly.
+"I am not going to rehearse this scene to-day," he says, "but will just
+arrange it. Those who sing, go over right (left from the audience). You
+sing the vespers. I want six more with you. Then, twelve of the
+shortest. You follow them. All the short ones you have, please. Yes,
+you're short (to a diminutive 'super' who is standing on tiptoe and
+trying to look seven feet high at least). Don't be bashful. You're none
+the worse for being short. Come along"; and with unfailing memory Mr.
+Irving calls each man by name, and indicates his place. When a man fails
+to quite realise what is required of him, Mr. Irving takes him by the
+shoulders, and gently moves him along to the required position, very
+much as if the individual in question were a pawn about to be played in
+a game of chess. As soon as the monks are grouped to his satisfaction,
+he steps back. "That's it. Now, you all come down from the choir. There
+is a loud hammering against the door. I go to open the door, and all of
+you rush right by me." Then Mr. Irving opens the door to his murderers,
+and is borne back by the crowd of terrified monks. Five minutes
+afterwards, he has returned to life, and is rehearsing a scene from
+"King Lear," with Miss Ellen Terry's understudy, in as natural and
+unembarrassed a manner as if he had not been working hard for three
+hours previously.
+
+Especial care is bestowed by Mr. Irving with regard to every detail of
+the murder scene. On another occasion, the scenery is not ready, but a
+flight of steep steps, essential to the action, is placed far back in a
+position to left of the stage. As "Becket" has never been played before,
+there are no traditions whatever to guide actors or scenic artists, and
+each movement, phrase, gesture, and intonation, must be "created." Mr.
+Irving picks up a huge battle-axe and hatchet, and carefully plans the
+details of his own murder. Having decided how to die, he thoughtfully
+surveys the steps up which the frightened monks are supposed to rush.
+"They won't do," says Mr. Irving. "They are too steep; there is no
+hand-rail; and the monks will fall over and hurt themselves. Take off
+four steps. It would be too dangerous if anyone fell down. Now, then,
+_Salisbury_ and _Grim_, I enter, forced along by you. Catch hold of me,
+and put your arms round me this way. That's it. No; I don't like those
+steps."
+
+[Illustration: A CRITICAL MOMENT.]
+
+Mr. Irving again tries the steps personally, and decides what further
+alterations are required. Then he addresses the monks, who stand by the
+steps awaiting instructions. "This is a scene, gentlemen, which requires
+the utmost carefulness and patience, and all the earnestness you can
+throw into it. Now, gentlemen."
+
+The crowd: "Here is the great Archbishop. He lives! he lives!"
+
+"No, I wouldn't do it that way," says Mr. Irving. "'Here is the great
+Archbishop.' You're surprised to see me, you know. Then pause. 'He
+lives! he lives!' in a sort of whisper. Now, go back and chant the
+service, and do it all over again."
+
+[Illustration: MISS GENEVIEVE WARD AND MASTER BYRNE REHEARSING.]
+
+The solemn strains of the organ are heard, as _Rosamond_ goes off,
+the cue for the monks to enter being, "And pass at once perfect to
+Paradise." But the organ is too loud; so is the chant. After several
+attempts, the organ sounds more softly, the monks appear, and _Becket_
+enters, hurried along by his friends. But the monks have not yet caught
+the spirit of the scene. "You are frightened out of your lives. See,"
+says Mr. Irving, and, in a second, he personates a frightened monk. The
+next moment, with bewildering rapidity, he is the Archbishop again.
+"'What do these people fear?' When I say, 'I will go out and meet them,'
+you must murmur as if to stop me. I tell you, 'Why, these are our own
+monks who follow'd us,' and you are reassured. Then I open the door,
+with, 'Come in, my friends, come in.' Yes, that's it. Who leads the
+monks as they come in? Mr. Belmore? Yes, that's right. You rush in,
+followed by monks, crying out as if you were thoroughly frightened:
+
+     "'A score of knights all arm'd with swords and axes.'
+
+"Then pause a moment, and shout, 'To the choir, to the choir.' Some of
+you run half-way up the steps, then come down again as if you had
+changed your minds, and rush right across the other side. You are
+confused, and don't know what to do. You, Mr. Bishop, shout out in your
+tremendous voice, 'To the crypt.'"
+
+This movement is rehearsed some twenty times before it satisfies Mr.
+Irving. At last, the monks disappear, and _Becket_ is left to confront
+his murderers. "I stand here in the transept, and _Fitzurse_ rushes up
+to me. What's he say? Oh, 'I will not only touch but drag thee hence.'
+Then I say, 'Thou art my man, thou art my vassal. Away,' and push him
+off."
+
+_Fitzurse_ falls, and Mr. Irving stops reading from the part. "No,
+_Fitzurse_, you take hold of me, and I fling you off violently. You must
+remember that I am supposed to be a strong man--a man who has been a
+soldier. Like this," and Mr. Irving falls on the stage with an ease born
+of long practice. "You pick yourself up, rush at me with drawn sword
+(it's all one movement), and shout, 'I told thee that I should remember
+thee.' I say, 'Profligate, pander.' You come on with, 'Do you hear that?
+Strike! strike!' I cover my face. 'I do commend my cause to God,' and
+you rush off, drunk with blood, half-horrified at what you've done, and
+yet braving it out, crying, 'King's men! King's men!' to support your
+Dutch courage."
+
+[Illustration: MISS GENEVIEVE WARD. ("ELEANOR")]
+
+The murderers go "off," and Mr. Terriss and Mr. Irving practise a series
+of different attitudes for the death scene until Mr. Irving is finally
+satisfied. He has taken off his coat in order to better rehearse the
+murder scene. Mr. Terriss now helps him on with it again, the monks
+are recalled, and some dozen more painstaking attempts made to get
+everything right. "It's very simple, gentlemen," Mr. Irving assures the
+monks. "Very simple, when you've once caught the spirit of it." This
+rehearsal has lasted for nearly three hours, during the whole of which
+time Mr. Irving has superintended everything, thrown himself into each
+man's part, grouped everyone, created the action, devised suggestions
+for scenery, as if regardless of the fact that in the evening he will
+have to undergo the awful stress and strain of _King Lear_. Any other
+man, with a less intense vitality, would simply collapse under all this
+pressure. Mr. Irving puts up his eyeglass, takes a last look at the
+stage, and walks buoyantly off as if the whole thing were mere child's
+play.
+
+But where is Miss Ellen Terry? The question answers itself as soon as
+asked, for a gliding, graceful feminine presence appears on the stage.
+Miss Ellen Terry is attired in black, with a white fichu at her breast
+to relieve the monotony of this sombre garb. In her hand she carries a
+little black basket, and there is a glimmer of steel at her side as if
+she wore a reticule containing the hundred-and-one trifles which ladies
+like to carry about with them. So much has been written and said about
+Miss Terry that it would seem at first sight utterly impossible to say
+anything new. In five minutes, the difficulty is to say enough. The
+supreme unconsciousness of Art, or Nature, enables her to assume a
+hundred changing attitudes; her voice is heard without effort from one
+end of the theatre to the other; she possesses the most exquisite tact.
+Watch the skill, for instance, with which she induces some young actor
+to realise the true meaning of a passage in the play. She seems to be
+thinking it out to herself as if a new idea had been presented to her.
+"Yes," she says, musingly, "I wonder if that is what Tennyson meant?"
+Or, "Wait a minute," she adds brightly, "How would this do?" Then she
+repeats the passage with the right emphasis, action, and intonation,
+giving the meaning clearly and fully. "Don't you think that must be what
+is meant?" she asks questioningly. "Hum-m," says the actor, looking at
+the lines. "Ah, very likely. Perhaps it is." It is agreed that it shall
+be spoken that way, and the actor gives a delicate and truthful reading
+of the part, which will procure him a pat on the back from the critics
+when the play is produced. In the presence of her intuitive perception,
+the members of the caste instinctively become energetic and animated. At
+one moment she bends over to Mr. Meredith Ball in the orchestra, her
+long black skirt sweeping the stage in graceful folds; at another "moves
+up" to test a portion of the scenery and confer with Mr. Irving, or,
+with chair lightly dragging after, walks towards the wings, sits down,
+and rapidly cons her part. Three minutes after, she has crossed the
+stage, and is writing a letter. Before the letter is finished, something
+else claims her attention. Then she comes back, finishes it, and is
+consulted by Mr. Irving and Mr. Terriss as to how he (Mr. Terriss) is
+to jump over a table without forfeiting his kingly dignity. Mr. Terriss
+has already vaulted over the table some eight times with the agility of
+a deer, but Mr. Irving wants it done differently. "I think you'd
+better," he says, "have something on the table, and pick it up before
+you go over. If you do it this way, it looks rather like Lillie Bridge,
+you know." Miss Ellen Terry reflects a moment, then asks, in mirthful
+tones, suiting the action to the word, "What is that jump that makes you
+go sideways as you fly over hurdles?" Mr. Terriss, like Mr. Winkle's
+horse, goes "sideways." This method, however, still lacks dignity, and
+at last it is decided that he shall place both hands on the table,
+spring over, and so lightly up the steps and exit. Half-way up the steps
+he is recalled by Mr. Irving's warning voice, "Don't go up there; it
+isn't safe yet."
+
+[Illustration: MISS ELLEN TERRY.]
+
+[Illustration: MR. HAWES CRAVEN AT WORK ON A "CLOTH."]
+
+There is one gentleman who plays a very important part in the
+proceedings, yet never appears on the Lyceum stage in public, and that
+is Mr. Hawes Craven, the scenic artist. Frequenters of the theatre have
+for many years past been familiar with Mr. Craven's beautiful scenery,
+but very few of them know the manner of place where it is produced. Down
+many deep steps beneath the stage is a winding passage leading past the
+unornamental bases of what appear to be huge balks of timber, rising
+up into space. These timbers are interspersed with rubber pipes for
+lighting purposes. Leaning against the wall is a dilapidated structure,
+very much like a huge Robinson Crusoe umbrella out of repair, which, on
+closer inspection, proves to be the hovel used in "King Lear." Close
+to it is affixed a placard giving directions how to manipulate the
+celebrated Lyceum thunder. A little beyond is a narrow flight of stone
+steps leading to Mr. Craven's painting room, which is fifty feet long
+and about thirty feet wide. It is lit by a skylight extending the full
+width of the roof. On each side of it are stretched huge canvasses,
+eighteen feet high and forty-seven feet long. These canvasses are
+extended on frames, which can be raised or lowered by means of a winch
+to suit Mr. Craven's convenience. Some idea of the expensiveness of the
+materials for stage scenery may be gathered from the fact that the
+canvas alone costs a shilling a yard, with an additional charge of one
+penny for sewing. It takes Mr. Craven and his two assistants four hours
+to "prime" one cloth ready for painting. In times of emergency, he often
+works fourteen hours at a stretch. The floor of the room is bespattered
+thickly with paint: Mr. Craven's clothes are all the hues of the
+rainbow; so are those of his assistants, one of them unconsciously
+having decorated himself with a blue nose. The centre of the room is
+occupied by huge tables, on which stand earthen pots containing paint by
+the half-gallon, and brushes of all shapes and sizes. Indeed, some of
+the brushes will hold two pounds weight of paint at a single dip, and
+Mr. Craven's implement for sketching in outlines is a thick stick of
+charcoal fastened on a long pole. The artist's method of painting is to
+walk to the centre tables, take a huge dip of paint, and speed back
+again to his canvas, which represents a huge ash tree. Mr. Craven,
+besides sporting as much woad on his person as an ancient Briton, wears
+a white handkerchief round his brows. When he is very much pressed for
+time, he exchanges this handkerchief for a red one, and the joke goes
+round that this means blood. As it is impossible to carry heavy pots of
+paint about all day, Mr. Craven really performs a kind of "sentry-go,"
+painting as he goes. One curious fact is that his colours dry very
+quickly about two shades lighter than when they are wet. After Mr.
+Craven has covered a certain amount of space, he motions to the boy at
+the winch, and the whole vast canvas moves slowly up some two or three
+feet. Mr. Craven, in addition to his artistic knowledge, is a perfect
+ambulatory encyclopædia, his work requiring an intimate acquaintance
+with architecture, botany, history. He is, above all things, an artist,
+with an intimate knowledge of the shapes, the hues, the seasons of
+flowers, the colours and habits of birds, the tints of leaves, their
+varied forms, and the other thousand and one things which he is called
+upon to depict at a moment's notice. The rapidity with which he works is
+simply marvellous. "So sorry I can't talk much," he says; "but I had
+fourteen hours of it yesterday, and my feet are beginning to give out."
+"You ought to join the eight hours' movement, Mr. Craven." Mr. Craven
+makes a semi-circular sweep with a huge brush, the point of which lights
+on a pendulous ash bough. "Eight hours!" he echoes with genial scorn.
+"Why, if I did, my profession would (dab! dab! dab!) cease (dab! dab!
+dab!) to (dab!) exist for me"; and the naked bough is clad in graceful
+foliage with magical rapidity.
+
+[Illustration: MISS TERRY AND MR. TERRISS RUN THROUGH THEIR SCENE.]
+
+One evening, it is announced that for a couple of days Mr. Irving will
+not play. Before he has fully recovered, however, he comes down to
+rehearsal with Mr. Loveday, who is, happily, convalescent. Miss Terry
+and Mr. Terriss spare him all they can, the latter's Jove-like voice
+thundering over the stage when Mr. Irving wishes to convey commands
+to distant groups. But it is evident that Mr. Irving will not be
+restrained. After the rehearsal begins, the force of habit causes him to
+be here, there, and everywhere with unabated energy, as the grouping in
+the third scene of the first act is very difficult. The following rough
+diagram will give some idea of the stage:
+
+[Illustration]
+
+This scene is laid in Northampton Castle. Some fifty people are on the
+stage, bishops, Templars, knights, and John of Oxford, President of the
+Council. Mr. Irving runs his eye over the different groups. "Put one man
+on the steps. Now, a group by the throne. The barons sit round the
+table, and the rest of you occupy the benches."
+
+As the groups arrange themselves in obedience to Mr. Irving's
+directions, his somewhat elderly fox-terrier moves slowly "on," and
+superciliously surveys the general effect. As the barons give vent to
+angry murmurs, the dog howls. Sometimes, when Mr. Irving walks up the
+steps after bidding defiance to the barons, the dog follows stiffly
+after him to lend the weight of his moral support. Satisfied that all is
+well, the dog returns to Miss Terry, and goes to sleep on her dress. Now
+and then he wakes up, stretches himself, and evinces the most profound
+contempt for John of Oxford's speech by yawning in the orator's face.
+Seeing, at last, that the rehearsal will be longer than usual, he
+resigns himself to the inevitable, and goes to sleep again.
+
+[Illustration: THE FIGHT AT NORTHAMPTON.]
+
+After Mr. Irving has grouped the men on the benches, he steps back and
+looks at the table. "We ought to have on it some kind of mace or
+crosier," he says--"a large crosier. Now for the 'make up.' All the
+barons and everyone who has a moustache must wear a small beard. All the
+gentlemen who have no beards remain unshaven. All the priests and
+bishops are unshaven. The mob can have slight beards, but this is
+unimportant. Now, take off your hats, gentlemen, please. Some of you
+must be old, some young. Hair very short;" and he passes from group to
+group selecting the different people. "Now, I think, that is all
+understood pretty well. Where are the sketches for dresses?"
+
+The sketches are brought, and he goes carefully through them. Miss Terry
+and Mr. Terriss also look over the big white sheets of paper. The
+fox-terrier strolls up to the group, gives a glance at them, and walks
+back again to Miss Terry's chair with a slightly cynical look. Then Mr.
+Irving returns to the groups by the benches. "Remember, gentlemen, you
+must be arguing here, laying down the law in this way," suiting the
+action to the word. "Just arrange who is to argue. Don't do it
+promiscuously, but three or four of you together. Try to put a little
+action into it. I want you to show your arms, and not to keep them glued
+to your sides like trussed fowls. No; that isn't half enough action.
+Don't be frightened. Better make too much noise rather than too little,
+but don't stop too suddenly. Start arguing when I ring the first bell.
+As I ring the second bell, you see me enter, and stop." The dog stands
+one bell, but the second annoys him, and he disappears from the stage
+altogether, until the people on the benches have finished their
+discussion.
+
+Mr. Irving next tries the three-cornered stools which are placed around
+the table, but prefers square ones. The dog returns, walks over to the
+orchestra, looks vainly for a rat, and retreats under the table in the
+centre of the stage as if things were getting really too much for him.
+But his resting place is ill-chosen, for presently half-a-dozen angry
+lords jump on the table, and he is driven forth once more. After a
+stormy scene with the lords, Mr. Irving walks up the steps again. "When
+I say 'I depart,' you must let me get up the steps. All this time your
+pent-up anger is waiting to burst out suddenly. Don't go to sleep over
+it." He looks at the table in the centre of the stage, and turns to a
+carpenter. "This table will never do. It has to be jumped on by so many
+people that it must be very strong. They follow me. (To Miss Terry)
+They'd better catch hold of me, up the steps here."
+
+Miss Terry: They must do something. They can't stand holding you like
+that.
+
+Mr. Irving: No. The door opens suddenly at top of steps, and discovers
+the crowd, who shout, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the
+Lord."
+
+The doors open and the crowd shout, but the effect is not good.
+
+Miss Terry: It would be better if it were done at the foot of the steps.
+The people needn't show their faces as they do it, and the effect will
+be so much better.
+
+The effect is tried, and found to answer admirably. Then the carpenters
+carry away the scenery, and the stage is "set" roughly for the Bower
+scene in the second act. Mr. Terriss fetches a screen from the left, and
+places it behind Miss Terry's chair; Mr. Irving sits facing Miss Terry,
+backed by another screen to keep off draughts; Mr. Terriss sits a little
+way back, and the dog goes to sleep in the centre of the group. In the
+background appear three or four costumed specimen monks and retainers
+waiting to be inspected, one frivolous being trying to balance a yard
+measure on the tip of his nose in a manner which ill accords with his
+monkish vestments. The "music cues" are very difficult to get right.
+Nearly an hour is consumed in trying different effects. Miss Terry
+insists that the whole scene entirely depends upon the action, and that
+the music must be subordinated to it. When the music drowns her voice,
+she suddenly stops with a despairing gesture, "We couldn't speak through
+this any more than the dead. Can't it begin loudly, Mr. Ball, then die
+away?" Then she turns to Miss Kate Phillips, who is her maid in the
+play. "Please try your song at the back there, Miss Phillips."
+
+[Illustration: MR. IRVING CONSIDERING THE INCIDENTAL MUSIC.]
+
+Miss Phillips sings a very pretty but sad little song, and Miss Terry
+listens attentively.
+
+"It's an Irish wail," says Mr. Irving. "You don't want an Irish
+wail here, but a merry song. You should have a mirthful, running
+accompaniment," and the song is changed. "That is enough for to-day."
+
+The dog thinks so too. The "Irish wail" has been the last straw. He
+precedes everyone towards the wings with joyous barks which quite belie
+his air of long-suffering cynicism. It is lunch time.
+
+At the first full-dress rehearsal, the Lyceum stage resembles a bee-hive
+with its swarms of busy occupants. Huge pieces of scenery move about,
+propelled by perspiring carpenters in shirt-sleeves; whole skies
+suddenly float up into "the flies"; the prompter converses amicably with
+a mail-clad baron; then, more scenery glides majestically down from the
+roof or springs up suddenly through the stage, which is literally full
+of "traps" for the unwary. The "tum-tum-tum" of the fiddles in the
+orchestra sounds weirdly as the composer of the incidental music,
+Professor Stanford Villiers, leans over from the stalls and chats with
+Mr. Meredith Ball, or makes a mysterious statement to him that "the
+_staccato_ should be a little more _staccato_." Presently, Professor
+Villiers remarks to the orchestra, "Instead of playing two short
+quavers, please play the crotchet in three time." The orchestra respond
+vigorously, but are stopped with a further request to "play the first
+chord in the second bar as a dotted minim instead of a quaver," and the
+Professor wanders about all over the house testing the effect of every
+note.
+
+The prologue goes off as smoothly as if it had been played for a hundred
+nights. Miss Terry, clad in _Rosamond's_ magnificent robes, sits in the
+stalls and watches the effect of the lights upon each group. Sometimes a
+light is too blue, or too yellow, or too white, and in the first act the
+rehearsal is stopped several times on this account. When Miss Terry is
+on the stage, Mr. Irving watches the lights; when Mr. Irving is acting,
+she studies each flash.
+
+On the whole, there are wonderfully few details which require
+modification. In the Bower scene, the light is at first too yellow, and
+has to be altered. Practical experience proves that the bank up which
+the lovers go is too slippery. A portion of it is cut away, thus
+avoiding the probability of an awkward accident. Miss Ward trips on the
+hem of her regal robe, and requests the _costumier_ to "take it up a
+little." Mr. Irving, with unfailing memory, notices that some spearmen
+are without their spears. But there is little to alter; at the second
+full-dress rehearsal there will be less; and on the evening of the first
+performance everything and everybody will have settled down into the
+right place. Mr. Hawes Craven comes on once or twice to look at his
+handiwork, and see that it has been properly "set." Then he walks away
+with a brisk step to his well-earned rest.
+
+Apart from the interest of the Bower scene, it is delightful to watch
+Miss Terry and Master Byrne, who plays _Geoffrey_. When he comes "on" a
+little before he is wanted, Miss Terry throws her arms round him and
+kisses the pretty little fellow tenderly with, "There, run away for a
+moment, darling; we're not quite ready for you." It is this sweet and
+all-pervading womanliness of Miss Terry's which fascinates the onlooker.
+Suddenly, from some dark recess, her voice floats out with an eminently
+practical suggestion, a shrewd idea as to effect, some playful query. It
+comes from every quarter of the theatre, and is marvellously thrilling,
+with all the subtle fascination of what a poet-musician would call its
+"tone-colour." When the curtain draws up for the Bower scene, and she
+playfully chides her royal lover, it is more exquisite still. The
+solitary observer sits and listens to it, the sole representative from
+the outer world. All this gorgeous pageantry is for him alone; all this
+wealth of emotion, this story of love and murder, this work of the great
+poet now passed away--all this is poured into the ears of one man, who
+sits motionless, entranced, until the tale is told, the play done, and
+he walks out into the quiet night, quivering with the terrible pathos of
+_Becket's_ end.
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "SOMEONE TOUCHED ME ON THE ARM."]
+
+_A Blessing Disguised_.
+
+BY F. W. ROBINSON.
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY A. BIRKENRAUTH AND ST. M. FITZGERALD.
+
+          -----
+
+When I came home from my fortnight's holiday, amongst Tom Brisket's
+cows, in Huntingdonshire--once a year, for just fourteen days, do I
+unbend from the cares of business and seek relaxation far away from
+Bermondsey--and let myself in, with my patent latchkey, and walked with
+my usual confidence into my front parlour, you might have knocked me
+down with a feather. Any feather would have done it--a butterfly's,
+say--I was thrown so completely off my guard. I had been so confident. I
+was not in any way prepared for it.
+
+[Illustration: "MY HOUSEKEEPER."]
+
+The house was desolate enough, but that was not it. Mrs. Kibbey had
+failed to put in an appearance at the end of her holiday, although I had
+wired to her only yesterday that I should be home at precisely 8.15
+p.m.; but it was not the unlooked for absence of Mrs. Kibbey--my
+housekeeper--that upset me thoroughly, oh, no. The gas was not lighted,
+and the supper was not likely to come off in the absence of Kibbey,
+certainly, but these were only minor features of a colossal
+surprise--bagatelles, or anything you may like to call them. Golden
+Birch Villa, Streatham, S.E., was simply chaos--that is the mildest
+and easiest way of explaining the matter to begin with. One word
+suffices--Chaos. It will take a great many words to explain why my
+little suburban retreat, on which I had prided myself for so many years
+of my bachelor life, was a mass of conglomerated wreckage. I will be as
+brief as I can. I am not a prolix man; I know the value of time, and of
+other people's time. I should not have had a flourishing business in
+Bermondsey, if I didn't know. Golden Birch Villa, Streatham, then, had
+been _burgled_. Broken into, despoiled and defaced, was my little
+country retreat from the turmoil of town, and it was this which had
+confronted me after fourteen days of pastoral simplicity, during which I
+had got very sick of Tom Brisket, and Tom's wife, and Tom's cows, and
+Tom's children--especially his children--which palled upon one badly and
+became unbearable, and beastly personal. The country soon tells upon me,
+and I am not fond of children--yet a while--because--but this is mere
+babbling of green fields and babies. In describing my return to Golden
+Birch Villa that evening, I still feel a confusion in the brain which
+whirls and whirls gently round with me. It was the greatest surprise of
+my life, the first chapter in a series of surprises, the reader will say
+presently. I shall leave the story in his hands, and a remarkable story
+it is, take it altogether. It illustrates clearly the old axiom, that
+one never knows what is for the best, and that to be robbed--"cleaned
+out"--and one's premises generally done for, should turn out to be a
+blessing in disguise, will not be very clearly apparent to the reader
+until I have explained the whole affair and he has heard my story to the
+end.
+
+[Illustration: "TOM'S CHILDREN."]
+
+At the precise moment of which I write now--8.15--I felt as if utter
+ruin had overtaken me, as if there were no getting over this gigantic
+trouble--this shock, as it were, of a moral earthquake. The usual kind
+of earthquake would have been very much the same kind of article, things
+a little more askew, perhaps, but not half so "messy." I staggered into
+an easy chair--after lighting one of my gas-burners--and took a survey
+of the situation, with my mouth open, my chin on my chest, my knees
+knocking gently together, and my hair slowly rising upon my head. All
+the doors had been locked before the departure of Mrs. Kibbey--my
+housekeeper--and myself on our separate ways of recreation, and all the
+doors were now wrenched open, and the locks hanging, as it were, by bits
+of skin! Everything in the room of any real value had vanished like a
+beautiful dream, and everything "of no value to anyone but the owner"
+had been tilted into the middle of the room for the convenience of a
+hasty analysis before departure. The contents of two desks, of my
+carved oak sideboard ("late the property of a gentleman"), of my
+bookcase (to make sure that nothing had been stowed away behind the
+books), of all the drawers in all the tables, were in one large heap
+upon the carpet; bills, letters, tablecloths, tablecovers, dinner
+knives, decanters, chimney ornaments, books, purses, lead pencils,
+corkscrews, my silver-mounted flute, with all the mounts gone, and the
+cruets minus their silver tops. Also all the silver spoons, the electros
+being turned out upon the heap as "non-negotiables." The piano had been
+split open and gutted--it was an unredeemed Grand--the burglar or
+burglars having been seized with the suspicion that I had secreted
+articles of value in the body of the instrument. And so I had! one
+valuable in particular being a favourite hand or carriage-clock mosaic,
+and a mass of miniature dials, gold-mounted, the dials at one time
+having been capable of giving all kinds of unnecessary information,
+before the death of the manufacturer, who departed this life leaving no
+one skilled enough in the world to undertake the repairs; but it was a
+great curiosity, and I set great store by it. So did the burglars, for
+they had found it and carried it away, along with a large quantity of
+portable property too numerous to mention in the pages of this magazine
+without changing their appearance to a kind of "Catalogue of Sale."
+
+[Illustration: "I STAGGERED TO AN EASY CHAIR."]
+
+Yes--I was robbed. And I had been so very sure that to leave the
+premises to take care of themselves was so exceedingly wise an
+expedient. "Cocksure Kippen" had been my nickname in Bermondsey since I
+had been in the pawnbrokering, just because I had opinions of my own,
+and did not call on other people to let me know _their_ views of a
+question upon which I had made up my mind. What did I want with other
+people's opinions, when I knew my own were ever so much better? But I
+was a little crestfallen on the present occasion--I will say that. And
+it was my own fault for going down to Tom's--I will say that too. What
+did I want with country air? I had not been ailing anything. I had
+always considered a fortnight in Tom Brisket's company a frightful waste
+of time. I was never without an excellent appetite, and I measured
+forty-one inches round the chest, one inch for every year of my life, I
+had said jocosely, only yesterday, before I returned to town, but there
+was no jocosity in me when I was at home again--if this bear-garden
+could be called home, that is, or made to look like home ever any more!
+
+[Illustration: "'IT WAS A CLEAN JOB,' THE POLICEMAN SAID."]
+
+It was a clean job, the policeman said--quite admiringly--when I had
+strength to reach the front door and call him in. Why had I not gone
+round to the station-house, the policeman asked, and told the Inspector
+I was off for a holiday, as other people generally did? Oh, yes, that
+was very likely! Why had not I insured in a Burglary Company? Oh,
+yes--and let no end of people know that there was a furnished house
+at Streatham with nobody inside of it for a fortnight. Did I think I
+could trust my housekeeper? Trust Martha Kibbey, who was my father's
+housekeeper before me--dear, deaf, old, palsy-stricken Kibbey, with a
+sister in the Cookshops Almshouses, Caterham, and with whom she spent
+her holiday invariably. Kibbey, whom the policeman and I found upstairs
+in a fit, in her own bedroom, having it all to herself, like a quiet,
+unobtrusive old soul as she always was. She _had_ come into the house in
+good time, and realising the position, had rushed upstairs to her room,
+first of all, to see what had been taken of those worldly goods of her
+own, in which she was more naturally interested than anybody else.
+And when she discovered that her chest of drawers had been opened
+with an indifferent chisel, and that a silver watch of her
+grandfather's--weighing one pound and a quarter--had disappeared, along
+with an apple-scoop, also of precious metal, belonging to her late
+husband, who was "gummy," Mrs. Kibbey became a physical wreck, fit for
+nothing, and comprehending next to nothing. When she understood that
+I was in the house--safe and sound--she went into hysterics of
+thankfulness of so violent a description that I had to leave her with
+police-constable 906, and run across the road for the doctor.
+
+The police made a great fuss over the robbery. The Inspector called
+later on and entered all the particulars in a notebook, and looked at
+the broken doors and the hole in the breakfast parlour shutters, through
+which admittance had been obtained, and the general turn-out of
+everything in the middle of each room, and then adding his testimony to
+the neatness of the job, took his departure, promising to let me know
+when anything turned up.
+
+"We shall want a complete list of the articles you miss, so that we can
+send round to the pawnbrokers," he had said before leaving me.
+
+"I'm a pawnbroker myself," I replied.
+
+"Ah! then you'll get one."
+
+"Thankee. Perhaps I shall get one of the thieves too."
+
+"Well, you'll know your own property, I expect, sir," he said, with a
+most unbecoming grin, as he took himself off the premises. I did not see
+him again. I hope I never shall, the unsympathetic beast.
+
+Time passed on and brought no tidings of the robbers or the stolen
+property. I was very much distressed over the whole affair, and my
+neighbours tried to comfort me by telling me that I could afford the
+loss, and that it was a good job it had not happened to a poorer man.
+How did they know I could afford the loss, or that I was not utterly
+ruined? I had never posed as a wealthy man--I was not wealthy, in the
+strict sense of the term. I had been only careful, I had spent nothing
+in waste, and I _had_ put by a little money for a rainy day. If people
+in Bermondsey called me a money-grubber, it was no fault of my own; but
+there were a few who did, because I held to the strict letter of the law
+in my contracts. That was praiseworthy, but they could not see it. I
+believe a few of them were actually glad that I had been robbed.
+
+[Illustration: "HE WAS VERY LAME."]
+
+Some six months after the burglary, in the dusk of an early winter's
+afternoon, a tall, sunken-cheeked man, with a huge white moustache and
+a vermilion face, which seemed put on expressly to show it up by, came
+limping into my shop at Bermondsey. He was very lame, or pretended to
+be, I thought, to throw me off my guard. As if I, Edwin Kippen, was
+likely to be off guard in business hours, as if it were possible to be
+off one's guard and get one's living, Bermondsey way.
+
+I told my apprentice, who was behind the counter polishing up a few
+window goods for next Saturday, to light up, though there was quite
+half-an-hour's daylight left in the street. But, somehow--such is
+instinct--I did not like the get-up of this man. I had never seen him
+before; he did not look "made in Bermondsey," and he was seedy, and a
+little nervous, though he talked in strident tones, in a Sir Anthony
+Absolute kind of manner, which made the gas glasses jingle.
+
+"Do you buy articles outright, Mr. Kippen, as well as lend money on
+them?" he asked abruptly as he entered.
+
+"Yes, sir, I do."
+
+"And at a fair price?"
+
+"Certainly. May I ask what----"
+
+But he was an impetuous man, and so full of his own mission, that he did
+not wait for me to conclude my inquiry.
+
+[Illustration: "MY APPRENTICE."]
+
+"Then what will you give me for this article, money down?" he asked,
+producing from his pocket, to my complete astonishment, the identical
+little carriage clock, all dials and complications and internal
+irregularities, which I had hidden in my piano before going down to
+Brisket's farm--the clock that had been stolen from my Streatham villa.
+The same feeling came over me which I had had in that residence on the
+night of my return. I was swimmy for a moment, and saw stars, and then
+thought that a thick fog had broken out in Bermondsey. I recovered
+myself by a mighty effort of will. Here was to be a battle of the wits.
+Here was one item of my lost property within a hand's grasp of me. I
+couldn't keep that hand from trembling as I took the clock from him.
+
+"Don't shake it up like a bottle of medicine," said the old gentleman,
+irritably; "it's a delicate piece of workmanship, and won't stand
+bobbing up and down like that; it upsets the mechanism, and it isn't
+easily set right."
+
+"Is it in working order, then?" I inquired, with suppressed amazement.
+
+"Yes, of course it is."
+
+"Good gracious! is it though?" I said, nearly dropping it in my
+surprise.
+
+"It tells the days of the month, the dates of the month," he went on,
+"the phases of the moon, the month of the year, the year of the century,
+the variations in the weather; it chimes the quarters, halves, and
+three-quarters; it plays a waltz after it strikes the hour; it acts as a
+revolver--I mean as a repeater--and it is mounted in solid gold of 20
+carat, almost pure gold. A timepiece fit for a prince, and belonged
+originally to Louis Seize. What is it worth to you, money down--on the
+nail--as you tradesmen say?"
+
+"I shall want a little time to consider the matter."
+
+"Take your own time, sir, only, for God's sake, look sharp," said the
+old man irreverently, as he removed his hat and wiped his forehead with
+a big, old-fashioned silk bandanna.
+
+"A clock of this description cannot be reckoned up in a hurry," I said.
+"I haven't examined the works yet."
+
+"You'll find them perfect, wonderfully perfect. But don't breathe into
+them if you can help it. It affects the waltz movement particularly."
+
+[Illustration: "A TIMEPIECE FIT FOR A PRINCE."]
+
+"Oh, does it, indeed?" I said, ironically.
+
+I professed to be examining the works with the closest attention, but I
+was only resolving on my plan of future action. I was playing with my
+prey--an angler with his "catch," a cat with a mouse. This was the man
+who had broken into Golden Birch Villa, and walked off with the pick of
+the property. An ingenious burglar, who was an expert in clocks, and--I
+smiled grimly at the joke--who had actually put the article into my own
+hands again in perfect order. I could have imagined that it was a
+duplicate copy of mine, and in better condition altogether, had it not
+been for my private mark, which I was focussing now through a
+single-barrelled magnifier. I could talk to the man better in this
+fashion; had I looked him straight in his brazen chaps, my virtuous
+indignation would have betrayed me. And my policy was to dissemble, like
+the man in a melodrama.
+
+"You have had this a long time in the family, I suppose?" I said
+quietly--very quietly--but tentatively.
+
+"It's not new. Any fool can see that it is a Louis Seize clock, and of
+considerable value."
+
+"It's a valuable thing in its way, no doubt, but it would suit a West
+End house better than my establishment."
+
+"I know that, sir, as well as you do," was the testy reply, "but I
+haven't got the time to run to the other side of the water, and I want
+money in a hurry--in a great hurry, or I should not have come to you,"
+he added bluntly.
+
+"Are you living in this neighbourhood?"
+
+"What business is that of yours?" he cried. "What--yes, I do live in the
+neighbourhood--round the corner in Tan Yard Road--if you want to know.
+No. 239 is my address, if it is likely to do you any good, and my name
+is Youson. I see you have your doubts as to my rightful possession of
+the article; pawnbrokers are all alike, have exactly the same tricks of
+the trade. I know their ways, no one better, and I know what you are
+going to say to me next."
+
+"I really do not think that is possible."
+
+"You'll tell me it is unsaleable--that not one in ten thousand would
+think of buying such a thing--that at the price of the metal it will be
+worth to you--well, what the devil is it worth? You have been staring at
+it long enough to know now."
+
+"I am sorry you are in such a tremendous hurry," I said, nettled a
+little by his unceremonious deportment.
+
+"I _am_ in a hurry. It is a question of life and death to me that I
+should have that money quickly, don't you see? No--you don't see--how
+can you see--how can you know anything about me, save that I want money?
+You see that fast enough. Well, sir, you are welcome to your knowledge,"
+he went on excitedly, "and I am not clever enough to disguise it, though
+I know you'll take advantage of my extremity--a man of business, and in
+your line of business, is sure to do that. But give me a fair price.
+I--I--don't want the money for myself, I don't want a penny of
+it--shan't take a penny of it, by God!"
+
+This was an odd way of trying to get rid of stolen goods, but it was
+ingenious, and there was a refreshing novelty in the style of it. But I
+was not the man to be done. I flattered myself that I was as shrewd as
+this artful and red-faced old fox, and that I held the trump card in my
+hand to play at any moment.
+
+"I have a friend only a few doors off who will know the value of this
+article far better than I," I said; "he is a collector of--of clocks,
+and will give you a better price than I can afford. This is not in my
+line at all; I should never get a bid for it. Ten pounds would be too
+much for me to pay, or even to lend upon it."
+
+"It's worth a hundred pounds, you know that well enough."
+
+"I should not like to say what it is actually worth. I don't buy things
+like these without Bender's opinion; he's a sleeping partner of mine,
+and only just round the corner."
+
+"Ah, is he?"
+
+"Heaven forgive me these dreadful lies," I whispered softly to myself.
+
+"Let us go to him," he said, snatching the clock suddenly from my hands.
+And I had never intended to let the property get out of my possession
+again! This man was adroit; he might be one too many for me after all,
+if I betrayed the slightest doubt of him, or made anything like a scene.
+He was fidgeting with something in the right pocket of his snuffy, old
+greatcoat too--perhaps there was a pistol there--I was almost sure there
+was a pistol!
+
+"Yes, let us go to him, Mr. Youson," I said. "I'm sure he or I will make
+you a handsome offer; he's just the fellow to put down his hundreds.
+Isaac, get me my hat--any hat or cap, anything you can find--only look
+alive. I am going round to Mr. Bender's with this gentleman."
+
+"Where's Ben----" began that stupid ass of a boy, but I checked him with
+a malevolent and meaning glance, and the youth, looking frightened,
+dived into the back parlour in search of my head-gear. He came out with
+a straw hat, with a ticket on it, but I did not notice anything in my
+excitement. I pined to be in the open with this miscreant, who had put
+the clock into his pocket. With a policeman in view, on the far horizon
+at the end of the street, my happiest hour would have arrived.
+
+[Illustration: "PEOPLE WERE STREAMING HOME FROM WORK."]
+
+We sallied forth together, I keeping very close to him, lest he should
+grow suspicious and make up his mind to run. Every minute did I expect
+that he would plunge into the middle of the road and tear madly down the
+street. And it was a trouble to keep by the side of him; the people were
+streaming home from work, were out marketing, looking for something
+cheap for tea or supper to be bought off the barrows which were
+flanking the kerbstones. Side by side, we got jostled occasionally, the
+pavement being narrow and the people thickish, and twice I caught
+surreptitiously at the hem of his garment when I thought that we were
+going to be separated. And, as usual, there was not a policeman on the
+beat anywhere--no sign of official force--nothing but men and women,
+boys and girls, the boys terribly in the way, and after the girls!
+
+"Do you call this a few doors off?" said Youson, snappishly, at last.
+
+"Comparatively--oh, yes."
+
+"It looks like half-a-mile," he grumbled.
+
+"Another minute or two, Mr. Youson. I am sorry you are so pressed for
+time."
+
+"So am I. Not but what I have had about enough of your company, with
+that ridiculous hat of yours over your eyes," he added, ungraciously. "I
+wish I had never come near your infernal shop. You are about the slowest
+tradesman I have ever encountered."
+
+"It does not pay to be too fast in my line of business."
+
+"Oh, I don't blame you, I don't blame you, sir; I only say I
+wish----what are you jumping at? Ain't you well? Are you subject to
+anything?" he asked. "Spasms or twitches?"
+
+I had seen a policeman on the other side of the way, standing under the
+shop-blind of a cheesemonger's shop, talking to the young man with the
+apron who was in charge, grinning from ear to ear with him, and grossly
+neglecting his duty, which was to keep a sharp look out at what was
+going on up and down the street.
+
+"Where are you off to now?" asked Mr. Youson.
+
+"Bender's is over the way."
+
+"What, the butterman's?"
+
+"No, no, but just by there. Come along. Mind this horse and cart; I
+should not like you to get run over with _that_ in your pocket," I said,
+almost incoherently.
+
+Mr. Youson gave a short double-knock sort of a laugh.
+
+"What, you are getting anxious about the clock, after all?"
+
+"I am indeed."
+
+We had reached the other side of the way, and the policeman had turned
+his back upon us--just like him!--and was staring straight into the
+shop. There was a row of egg-boxes full of eggs of all sizes and prices
+and ages in front of the premises. Suddenly, I sprang like a panther
+upon my prey, flung my arms round Youson's neck, and yelled, at the top
+of my lungs, for "Help!" and for the "Police!"
+
+"Damn--confound it, sir--what!"--gurgled forth Youson, in his supreme
+astonishment; then we both staggered, our feet went from under us, and,
+locked in each other's arms, we sat down, all of a heap, in the "28 a
+shilling, not warranted," compartment, and a hideous crackling, as of a
+subdued and squashy landslip, went on beneath our writhing forms.
+
+"Oh, good Lord!" exclaimed the young butterman, throwing up both arms in
+his despair, "here's a go!"
+
+"Here--hullo--what the blazes are you two blokes hup to?" cried the
+policeman, catching us both by the collars of our coats and shaking us;
+"this is a nice place to begin larking, I must say."
+
+"It is not larking," I exclaimed, getting on my feet, a hideous mass of
+egg-shells and indifferent egg-flip; "it's highway robbery! This man is
+in possession of my property--proceeds of a burglary--I'm Kippen, the
+pawnbroker, No. 319; he's got my clock in his pocket now. I--I give him
+in charge, constable, I give him in charge! Why don't you catch hold of
+him?"
+
+[Illustration: "OUR FEET WENT FROM UNDER US."]
+
+"The man's mad!" ejaculated Mr. Youson, "raving mad. Somebody catch hold
+of _him_."
+
+There was a big crowd round us--it doesn't take long to get up a mob in
+Bermondsey--and the proprietor of the cheesemonger's shop, who had
+emerged from his caves of double Gloucester, was wanting to make a case
+of his own out of it all, and run the two of us in. The policeman was
+bewildered, and Mr. Youson was beside himself with ungovernable rage.
+
+"He has got the clock in his pocket," I repeated.
+
+"Yes, I know I have a clock in my pocket," he spluttered, "you--you
+rascal--you unmitigated----"
+
+"It's my clock. I can swear to it," I yelled. "I've plenty of witnesses
+to prove it's mine."
+
+"You'd better both come round to the station-house," said the policeman;
+"do you charge him with taking your clock, sir?" he added to me.
+
+"I do."
+
+"Very well."
+
+We went off to the station-house, Mr. Youson and I, the policeman and
+the cheesemonger, and a grand procession in the rear of about fifteen
+hundred persons with nothing to do. The cheesemonger and I conversed
+amicably _en route_, when he had become thoroughly convinced that I
+was a brother tradesman, resident at the far end of the street. He
+understood the case then--he grasped the situation--but he could not for
+the life of him make out, he said, why we had sat down in the middle of
+his eggs to argue the point. Who was answerable for all the damage, he
+should like to know? I didn't know, I told him, and I was damaged
+materially so far as wearing apparel went, I delicately intimated, by
+the indifferent quality of his eggs. That you cannot get reliable eggs
+for twenty-eight a shilling in the winter season, in Bermondsey, is a
+miserable fact, and discreditable to the reputation of French poultry.
+
+I had never been in such a mess in my life, but I was in a greater mess
+the next day. It's a long story, that of the examination at the police
+station, and I will spare the reader the harassing details. Mr. Youson,
+in his confusion, made a very rambling statement of how he came into
+possession of the clock, prejudiced the Inspector against him, and got
+himself locked up, and I was told to call the next day at the Police
+Court in Blackman Street and explain matters, and bring my witnesses. I
+did so, and brought a neighbour or two who had seen the clock upon my
+mantelpiece at Streatham, and I clinched the argument with Mrs. Kibbey,
+who shed copious tears during the evidence, till the magistrate asked
+her sharply what she was snivelling at, when she fainted dead away under
+the reproof, and had to be carried from the witness-box into the fresh
+air to recover.
+
+[Illustration: "MRS. KIBBEY SHED COPIOUS TEARS."]
+
+It was a clear case, however, against Mr. Youson, everybody considered,
+and he was remanded for a week, without bail, whilst enquiries as to
+his antecedents were to be vigorously made. There was a very grave
+suspicion, the Inspector whispered confidentially into my ear, along
+with some strong puffs of gin and peppermint which impregnated his
+breathing apparatus dreadfully, that Youson was one of a desperate gang
+of Lambeth burglars, for whom the police had been searching for some
+time.
+
+There was a woman's scream in court when Youson was remanded, and the
+magistrate, who was certainly in a bad temper that morning, said that he
+would commit anybody for contempt who made such a noise as that again,
+and then the next case was called, and I was outside in Blackman Street,
+Borough.
+
+I had, with some difficulty and a little pleasure, lodged the hysterical
+Mrs. Kibbey in a Streatham omnibus, and was making my way thoughtfully
+down King Street to my Bermondsey premises, when someone touched me on
+the arm. I looked round, and was considerably surprised to find a pale,
+grave young woman of some thirty years of age, poorly but neatly clad,
+keeping step with me on the narrow pavement.
+
+"I beg pardon, sir, but you are Mr. Kippen, I think?"
+
+"Yes, my name is Kippen."
+
+"I wanted to speak to you. I wanted so much to see you before this case
+came on. My name is Youson, Lucinda Youson," she said, hurriedly.
+
+"God bless me, is it though? You are----"
+
+"Mr. Youson's daughter."
+
+"My good woman, I hope you are not going to bother me," I said,
+imploringly; "the case is out of my hands. I am bound over to prosecute.
+It was a shameful robbery."
+
+"My father did not rob you, Mr. Kippen. Does he look like a thief?"
+
+"I don't know what he looks like."
+
+[Illustration: "MR. YOUSON'S DAUGHTER."]
+
+"You don't know the truth," she said quickly. "Perhaps you don't know
+what kindness is, or charity--some people don't. You would not wait for
+him to explain, and you have nearly killed us with anxiety. We--we did
+not know what had become of him."
+
+"Killed _us_," I repeated, vacantly; "are there many of you?"
+
+"My sister-in-law and her little boy, and myself. And the boy is
+dying--that's the worst of it--oh! poor little chap, that is the worst
+of it! And his grandfather was so fond of him; he was selling the clock
+so that the boy and his mother should go away to Madeira, the only
+chance to save him, sir. The only chance that was left.
+
+[Illustration: "THE BOY IS DYING."]
+
+"And so he thought he would sell something valuable that did not belong
+to him, and go to Madeira at my expense, and----"
+
+"You must not say my father stole it--you dare not!" she cried, and her
+eyes literally flashed fire at me. This young woman was as impulsive as
+her felonious father. Here was another scene likely to spring up in the
+street if I were not particularly careful, and I had had enough of
+demonstrations in the public highway.
+
+"My good woman, what is it that you want with me?"
+
+"I want you to hear how that clock came into my father's possession, and
+then--and then prosecute him if you can. And at your peril, sir--please
+to understand, at your peril, though I utter no threats."
+
+"It strikes me you do."
+
+"No--no--I don't mean that," she cried. "Heaven help me, I am almost
+distracted, I am not myself to-day, and you will listen? It will not
+cost you anything to listen to me, sir, will it?"
+
+She laid her hand upon my arm entreatingly--she had very earnest brown
+eyes, and I was not, as I thought, wholly unsusceptible to the influence
+of brown eyes upon the nervous system. And as she had delicately
+intimated that listening would not cost me anything, why should I object
+to listen to her? We were both going the same way. Of course, I should
+hear a good roundabout story--a second edition of her father's rigmarole
+which had prejudiced the magistrate against him--but I was not bound in
+any way to believe a word that she said.
+
+It sounded uncommonly like truth though, and took me very much aback
+when she said suddenly--
+
+"Yes, that clock was stolen from you. We knew it was stolen--and who
+stole it."
+
+"But you just said----"
+
+"That my father did not steal it. God bless him, no. He did not
+know--did not dream that we knew--did not know anything about it in any
+way--does not to this day. It was his property, he thought--all that was
+left of any value in the world to him; and it had belonged to his
+son--his eldest son, my half-brother, who----"
+
+"Who was the thief. The infernal----"
+
+"Please don't, sir. He is dead."
+
+"Oh! I beg your pardon. I didn't--know," I found myself saying in an
+apologetic manner which really surprised myself.
+
+"Yes, sir, he was the thief," she said, sinking her voice into a whisper
+almost. "He committed suicide two months ago abroad, but we have kept
+the truth back from father. He wasn't to know--it would have broken his
+heart, he was so proud of his son, always. But before my half-brother
+died--he had gone to Canada, to make a home for Kitty and her boy, he
+said--he wrote to Kitty that he was a repentant man, and that, unknown
+to any of us, he had been for years in bad hands, working with them,
+stealing with them. Our poor father thought he was a traveller for a
+Manchester firm, and so did we, until that terrible confession came
+across the sea to us. We were not to tell father--we were to make all
+the restitution that we could presently; he would send full instructions
+what we were to do by the next mail, he wrote, and the next mail only
+told us of his death."
+
+[Illustration: "I WAS ALWAYS HANDY WITH MY FINGERS."]
+
+"And your father?"
+
+"Kitty and I have fought hard to keep the truth from him--the truth
+would have broken his heart. Why the news of his son's death nearly
+did, sir. And he has had so much trouble--so many losses too--and we
+have been for the last six months so very hard driven to live. Of late
+days father wished to sell this clock, but we would not let him--we were
+sure it had been stolen, and we hoped to find the owner some day."
+
+"But not like this, I suppose?"
+
+"Oh! no, not like this. But when little Willie got very ill; when
+residence abroad for a few months might save him, the doctor said--it
+was only yesterday he told us that--father took the clock out of the
+house unknown to us, and--and came at once to you. He is so very
+impetuous, poor father."
+
+"Ah! is he? And who put the clock in working order, may I ask?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"You!"
+
+"I was brought up to the watch-making--I am rather clever at it, they
+say."
+
+[Illustration: "WENT TO MADEIRA WITH KITTY AND THE BOY."]
+
+"Clever. By George, I should think you were! Why, in a business like
+mine you would be invaluable."
+
+"I was always handy with my fingers."
+
+"So was your half-brother--it seems to run in the family."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"I beg pardon," I said, for the second time. "I--I did not mean to say
+that. It slipped out promiscuously."
+
+"Never mind, sir--never mind," she said hurriedly. "What are you going
+to do? Pray tell me what you think of doing when I prove the truth of
+this."
+
+"If it's all true--and I believe it is already, Miss Youson--I--I am
+going to withdraw from the prosecution, and ask your father to bring an
+action against me for illegal detention."
+
+"Oh! he would never think of such a thing."
+
+And he never did. The story was quite true, every word of it, and we
+arranged to keep it from the old man, so far as the peculiar profession
+of his first-born was concerned. He never knew _that_. I got rather
+intimate with the Youson family by degrees, although our acquaintance
+had begun so inauspiciously. Rather intimate, I say--well, very
+intimate, rather! would be a clear expression, if a trifle inelegant.
+
+For I married that girl, and pensioned off Mrs. Kibbey, and I never did
+such a fine stroke of business in all my life. The old man--he was a
+fine old fellow, too--went to Madeira with Kitty and the boy, and I bore
+Lucinda off to Streatham. She is one of the best of wives, and so very
+handy in the business too--saves me a heap of money. It was a lucky day
+for me when that rascal of a half-brother of hers broke burglariously
+into Golden Birch Villa, and took away everything that had an atom's
+worth of precious metal in its composition. It was a blessing very much
+in disguise, but it has answered its purpose thoroughly well. I am as
+happy as the day is long--and so is Lucinda. Everybody tells me that I
+secured a treasure when I took her for better, for worse. Everybody but
+Mrs. Kibbey--past housekeeper, and living with her sister now in the
+Cookshops Almshouses at Caterham--and she says I could have done much
+better for myself, long before, if I had only looked about me in a
+sensible and practical sort of way.
+
+[Illustration: "LIVING WITH HER SISTER NOW."]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: MR. GEORGE NEWNES.]
+
+
+"Lions in Their Dens."
+
+          -----
+
+III.--GEORGE NEWNES AT PUTNEY.
+
+BY RAYMOND BLATHWAYT.
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS BY GEO. HUTCHINSON.
+
+(_Photographs by Messrs. Fradelle & Young._)
+
+          -----
+
+
+[Illustration: MR. NEWNES'S HOUSE AT PUTNEY.]
+
+[Illustration: THE OBELISK IN THE GARDEN.]
+
+As I toiled up the hill which leads to Putney Heath, I met a small boy,
+of whom I asked the way to Mr. George Newnes's house. To my astonishment
+he did not know where it was. I gazed at him more in sorrow than in
+anger. "What! not know where _Tit-Bits_ lives!" a smart lad standing by
+ejaculated, as he pointed out to me the right direction in which to go.
+"George Newnes! 'im wot writes _Tit-Bits_! wy I thought everyone knowed
+w'ere 'ee lived!" I thanked him, and wandered on half-a-mile or so
+until I reached the beautiful house which the "writer" of _Tit-Bits_
+built for himself some years ago. Here I was received by Mr. George
+Newnes with a welcome which left nothing to be desired in the way of
+hearty kindness. Mr. Newnes is a man of middle height, very
+good-looking, with auburn beard, and hair dashed with grey. Though
+exceedingly wealthy, he is not, as somebody has well expressed it,
+"beastly rich." No feeling of the oppression of newly-acquired wealth
+flooded my soul as I walked about the pretty house and grounds in his
+company. He and his surroundings have the good taste not to obtrude
+themselves upon the casual visitor. The man is simplicity itself, and
+the most genial and cordial of hosts. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit, nor
+was it without infinite interest, for George Newnes is a companion
+always amusing, and with always something new and original to say. As we
+wandered through the beautiful grounds, some of which are reclaimed from
+the wild heath which stretches for miles round the house, he pointed out
+to me the curious obelisk, grey and time-worn, which still perpetuates
+the memory of the historic mansion once known as "Fireproof." For it was
+here that George III. and Queen Charlotte once breakfasted in peace in
+the drawing room upstairs, whilst the dining-room below was purposely
+ignited to prove that the house was really fireproof. Upon one side of
+the house stand the stables, just beyond them a beautiful covered
+lawn-tennis court lighted by electricity and heated with hot water, in
+which play can go on by night as well as by day, in winter just as much
+as in summer. "We miss this tennis court dreadfully when we are in
+Devonshire," said Mr. Newnes, as we quitted the beautiful hall for the
+house. "I am myself devoted to tennis and golfing, and, indeed, I
+sometimes think it is that that has helped me to get through so much
+work. Good players generally make good workers," he added, with a laugh.
+"Now will you come and join our party at luncheon?" and as he spoke he
+led the way into a handsome dining-room. At luncheon the conversation
+dealt chiefly with sport and games, to my own great relief be it added,
+for the dweller in the tents of the literary world hears but little of
+the ordinary topics of conversation, and becomes suffocated, if he be
+not to the manner born, with the nauseating cant and self-sufficiency
+which is so typical of the literary world of to-day, and more especially
+typical of its younger members. But at George Newnes's house you hear
+but little shop. We discussed golf and its rapidly increasing
+popularity, the newest "serve" at tennis, and some of the most
+remarkable cricket scores made during the past season.
+
+[Illustration: MR. NEWNES.]
+
+[Illustration: MRS. NEWNES.]
+
+[Illustration: THE BILLIARD-ROOM.]
+
+The host joined eagerly in our talk until interrupted by the servant,
+who brought in a message. Quitting us for a moment, he returned with a
+smiling apology, and told me that in that brief space of time he had
+transacted a piece of business which certainly was not without its
+interest. A gentleman, it appeared--the son of a celebrated
+_littérateur_ of a past day--had called to show some beautiful drawings
+by the celebrated "Dicky" Doyle, a relation of Dr. Conan Doyle. With Mr.
+Newnes--and it is thoroughly characteristic of the man--to close with a
+good bargain is but the work of a moment, and therefore I was not
+surprised, as he placed the dainty pictures before me, to learn that he
+had purchased them for reproduction in his world-famed magazine. After
+luncheon, Mr. Newnes suggested that we should retire to his
+billiard-room, to reach which we had to pass through his own special
+sanctum in which he dictates his letters, &c., to his private
+secretary--energetic Mr. William Plank, who has been with him for five
+hard working years--while he walks up and down the room. "I can always
+think better whilst I walk," he explained to me; "indeed, I have
+recently had the study lengthened to give me more room." By this time
+we were in the billiard-room, wherein stands a large English organ with
+upwards of four hundred pipes. And in this room, prowling round and
+round the billiard-table like a couple of wild beasts--for I also, like
+my host, think best upon my legs--and occasionally cannoning up against
+one another and recoiling with a laugh and a start, George Newnes told
+me the history of his interesting and successful life.
+
+[Illustration: THE CONCEPTION OF "TIT-BITS."]
+
+"My father," he began, "was, at the time of my birth, the minister of
+Glenorchy Chapel, Matlock Bath. He was a very able man, and the best
+informed man you could meet. He kept me at school till I was about
+sixteen. I finished up at the City of London School, and, curiously
+enough, I am going to-night to reply for the House of Commons at a
+banquet given by the John Carpenter Club in honour of the Home
+Secretary, who was a City of London School boy. My father put me into
+a house of business in the City, at which I remained for a number of
+years, and then I went down to Lancashire to open up a branch of the
+business there. I settled in Manchester and married, there. One night,
+in 1880, when I was sitting at home reading the _Manchester Evening
+News_--and, by the way, it has never occurred to me before," added Mr.
+Newnes, as a sudden thought flashed into his mind, "the very people who
+printed that paper were the same people who afterwards printed
+_Tit-Bits_ for ten years--I came across a story, or some interesting
+account, which very much pleased me. I read it to my wife and said,
+'There, that's what I call a real "tit-bit." This paper, but for it, is
+to-day decidedly dull, because there is absolutely no news to put in it.
+Now, why cannot a paper be brought out which should contain nothing but
+"tit-bits" similar to this?'"
+
+"And that really," said I, much interested, as Mr. George Newnes paused
+for a moment in his journey round the billiard-table, and gazed absently
+at me while I lit a cigar and threw myself into an armchair, "and that
+really is how _Tit-Bits_ came to be first thought of?"
+
+[Illustration: THE STUDY.]
+
+"Yes," he replied, as he started off once more, and I rose to follow in
+his track, "that was the _first_ idea of my little green paper. But I
+was a whole year before I was able to carry it out. I was very busy in
+other matters, and had not much time to attend to it. But I never lost
+sight of the idea, and ever and anon the word 'tit-bits' would come to
+me with the force of a warning dream. I worked continually at the idea
+in my mind, and all my leisure thoughts were given up to it. In fact, I
+was constantly afraid--so convinced was I that the idea was a good
+one--that someone would bring it out before I could do so, and every
+Saturday morning, the usual day for new weekly papers, I used to look
+almost with painful anxiety to see whether there was a placard
+announcing that such a paper had appeared. But, however, nothing of the
+sort was brought out. The more I thought of it the more enamoured I
+became of the idea, till, in October, 1881, the first number appeared."
+And as he spoke Mr. Newnes handed me the very first number of the now
+celebrated paper. "As soon as it was fairly started," continued my host,
+"I gave up my other business and devoted myself to the editing and
+publishing of the paper. At first, the chief pieces in it were selected
+from books and periodicals--any sources, in short, that were not
+copyright. I would get an anecdote from one book, and something else
+from another, anything interesting, in fact, from wherever I could pick
+it up; of course, now we have a large list of original contributors, but
+at first that was the way in which it was compiled. In the early days,
+naturally enough, its circulation was confined chiefly to Manchester.
+There it simply 'caught on' immediately, and sold like wildfire. Why,
+the newspaper boys' brigade," continued Mr. Newnes, now fairly excited
+at the memory of that eventful Saturday morning, "sold something like
+5,000 copies in two hours of the first number in Manchester alone. They
+came rushing back to the office, where I sat anxiously awaiting their
+news, full of the wonderful result. _Tit-Bits_ was then, I felt certain,
+an assured success, and the public used to write to me to tell me of its
+popularity. I receive letters to this day, and especially from ministers
+and clergymen, who write to say that they recommend it because of the
+information it contains, and its instructive character, and, above all,
+because of the purity of its contents. Yet there are some clergymen who
+think there is some _double entendre_ in the title _Tit-Bits_, and from
+its title that it is probably a paper they ought to speak against; and
+often, solely on account of its title, I believe they bracket it with
+all kinds of other literature of a low-class type, and in this way I
+suffer from the name."
+
+[Illustration: THE BIRTH OF "TIT-BITS."]
+
+"And how was it you came to inaugurate your system of insurance against
+railway accidents?" I asked Mr. Newnes, after a brief discussion on the
+ridiculous and narrow-minded behaviour of these worthy clerics. "It was
+in this way," he replied, as he brought himself to an anchor against the
+billiard-table, where he rested for a brief moment. "It was in this way:
+A woman wrote to me saying that her husband had been killed on the
+railway, and as he had a copy of _Tit-Bits_ upon him at the time, she
+asked whether I would make her some allowance of money. At once the idea
+of an insurance system occurred to me, and you know now how widespread
+this system has become."
+
+I smiled as I noted how in each case his wonderful successes are
+owing not more to the flash of a striking idea than to the wonderful
+promptitude which follows on the thought; how remarkable an instance his
+whole career affords of the benefit and wisdom of striking while the
+iron is hot.
+
+"And then after _Tit-Bits_ came the _Review of Reviews_, I suppose?" I
+queried, as my host jotted down some notes in his pocket-book.
+
+[Illustration: HESKETH HOUSE, TORQUAY.]
+
+"Yes," he replied, as he once more took the floor. "That was one of the
+quickest arranged things I have ever heard of. It was all done in a
+month. I was staying down at Torquay, where I have a house for the
+winter, and Mr. Stead wrote to me to say he contemplated leaving the
+_Pall Mall Gazette_, and would like to be associated with me in some
+journalistic scheme. He sent descriptions of three which were passing
+through his mind, asking if I would care to take either of them into
+consideration. I replied by return, saying that I did not care for two
+of them much, but that I was delighted with the third. I then and there
+told him the terms upon which I would work with him. He wrote back,
+saying that he would accept them, and I came to London the following
+week, in order that I might make arrangements, and in thirty days from
+the first proposal of the idea, the _Review of Reviews_ was published.
+At first it was decided to call it _The Sixpenny Monthly_, with a
+sub-title, _A Review of the Reviews_; as such, indeed, it appeared upon
+the cover till the day before going to press, which was a Sunday. I was
+so convinced that the title ought to be reversed, and that it should be
+_The Review of Reviews, a Sixpenny Monthly_, that I went over and
+waylaid Mr. Stead as he was coming with his family out of church. I
+explained my views to him, and in a few minutes he agreed that I was
+right, and the title was altered to that which has now become so
+familiar. Well, when the _Review of Reviews_ went out of my field of
+vision, I had made certain arrangements with people for publishing
+magazine work, and so on, and I wanted something to take its place. Then
+came to me a very old and favourite idea of mine--the idea of a
+_magazine with a picture on every page_! I engaged the services of Mr.
+Greenhough Smith, now my assistant editor on the _Strand Magazine_, who
+had the idea of largely producing translations from foreign authors, and
+as soon as the _Review of Reviews_ had gone, I was at work on the new
+venture."
+
+[Illustration: THE DRAWING-ROOM.]
+
+"And, with regard to its title, Mr. Newnes," said I, "you are great on
+titles, are you not?" "I attach great importance to them, certainly," he
+vigorously replied. "I thoroughly agree with Shakespeare that there is
+much in a name. Why, indeed, should names be valueless? They are as
+great facts as anything else in the constitutions of humanity. And in
+the journalistic world a name is half the battle. _The Strand_ was a
+good title, it appeared to me, short, and at the same time attractive.
+After all, it is through the Strand itself that the tide of life flows
+fullest and strongest and deepest. I felt that with a good picture on
+the cover it would sell well on the book-stalls. The picture was rather
+difficult, and much depended on that picture. At first I did not succeed
+in getting the artist to embody my idea of a picture of a street. Now I
+had here at home an oil painting which I thought would help him." And as
+he spoke, Mr. Newnes led me to the staircase and showed me a very
+charming perspective of some street in an English town. "I showed Mr.
+Haite this picture," he continued, "and I asked him if he could do a
+similar perspective of the Strand."
+
+[Illustration: "I WORK VERY QUICKLY."]
+
+_The Picture Magazine_, which started with this year, is likely to
+be nearly as successful as _The Strand_. After we had discussed the
+position and the prospects of the new paper which Mr. Newnes has started
+to fill the place in the Radical journalistic ranks of the _P.M.G._,
+we drifted into a general conversation on his habits of life, his
+occupations, and the varied qualities which go to the making of a
+successful business man, the future of popular journalism, and the like.
+"How do you manage to keep all your irons hot?" I asked my host; "you
+edit three papers, you are a member of Parliament, you build railways
+up the cliffs of popular watering-places, you play games, you do
+everything. How is it all done, pray, Mr. Newnes? What is the secret
+of your life?" "Well," he slowly replied, and with a certain shy
+hesitation, for though prompt and energetic enough in actual business,
+no more modest man, or one more reluctant to speak of himself and his
+doings walks this earth--"well, though I don't want to boast about it,
+yet the simple fact is, I work very quickly, and I get through my
+business much faster than most men do. I make up my mind, form my plans,
+and arrive at conclusions very rapidly. With regard to my editorial
+work, for instance, all 'copy' for the papers is sifted for me at the
+office, then it is sent up here, where I work three days a week,
+selecting that which I think shall go in, and marking it for press. I
+dictate the 'Answers to Correspondents' page to my private secretary.
+This page always takes up three hours a week. I get through my
+editorial, parliamentary and business work, and manage to get a good
+deal of leisure besides. Golf, tennis and chess take up my leisure. When
+I am in the country I have all my work sent there. The fact is, _I work
+hard and I play hard_, and I believe each is equally necessary for good
+health and real happiness. Curiously enough, I do not believe that
+naturally I am of a very systematic nature, but so much business forces
+me to be so."
+
+[Illustration: THE TENNIS COURT.]
+
+"And as to the future of journalism generally, and of such papers as
+yours in particular, Mr. Newnes?" I queried. "With the spread of
+education and the increase of Board Schools, there is a great change
+coming over the masses, is there not?" "I think this," he replied, "that
+many of the papers of the day are developing too much the gambling and
+lottery spirit, which I regard as a very evil one, and would not for a
+moment countenance. I think, as you say, that the Board Schools have
+immensely increased the number of buyers of papers of this kind, and it
+is a great source of satisfaction to me that I should have inaugurated
+a popular paper which should be taken largely by the masses, and which
+is absolutely pure. When I came out with _Tit-Bits_ there was not a
+single popular paper containing fun or jokes or anything of the
+kind--except the illustrated ones--but what relied more or less upon
+prurient matter to tickle the fancies of prurient minds. Besides, my
+idea is that, just at present, the Board Schools tend to a certain
+hardness and narrowness of character, which is perhaps softened down by
+the development by these papers of the lighter side of human nature.
+_Tit-Bits_, I have reason to know, has in many cases induced the study
+of some science or literature on the part of a man or boy who has read
+some interesting 'tit-bit' on one of these subjects, and has desired,
+naturally enough, to know more about it."
+
+[Illustration: THE CONSERVATORY.]
+
+"Will it ever be possible, Mr. Newnes, do you think, to provide the
+masses with the higher journalism, with a sort of _Saturday Review_, or
+_Nineteenth Century_?" I asked. "I don't think," he slowly replied,
+shaking his head, "I don't think, Radical as I am, and absolute
+believer in the sovereignty of the people, that the masses will ever
+take to any paper which consists mainly of essays or leaders. They want
+things served up with other interesting matter, and with as much of the
+personal element as it is possible to give them. The masses still
+incline entirely to the lighter side of literature. They work hard
+enough in everyday life, their recreation and their literature _must_,
+therefore, be as light as possible."
+
+[Illustration: IN THE BILLIARD-ROOM.]
+
+"And now, Mr. Newnes, for one more question--a good long one," I
+laughingly added. "Having all your life been so successful yourself, as
+you look round London, with the struggle for existence, and the mingling
+of classes which makes that struggle for existence still harder, how do
+you really account for your own wonderful success, and how would you
+recommend others to be successful too, even though only in a small way?"
+"I really don't know how I can answer that question," he replied. "The
+only thing is, I have always been struck with the fact that so many
+people go about with their eyes shut, and do not see the chances which
+may be before them. They have no idea of doing anything beyond what they
+may have seen done before, and what they are told to do. They are
+frightened by originality lest it might be disastrous. I suppose I have
+been inclined to do things differently rather than the same as other
+people, and I have always struck while the iron was hot. That, I think,
+to put it very briefly, is the secret of any success which has attended
+my efforts."
+
+
+
+
+Novel Notes.
+
+BY JEROME K. JEROME.
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS BY HAL HURST AND J. GÜLICH.
+
+          -----
+
+PART XI.
+
+
+[Illustration: "LIGHTING HIS PIPE."]
+
+Said Brown one evening, "There is but one vice, and that is selfishness.
+Selfishness is the seed of all sin."
+
+Jephson was standing before the fire lighting his pipe. He puffed the
+tobacco into a glow, threw the match into the embers, and then said:
+
+"And the seed of all virtue, also. Don't let us forget that."
+
+"Sit down and get on with your work," said MacShaugnassy from the sofa
+where he lay at full length with his heels on a chair; "we're discussing
+the novel, Paradoxes not admitted during business hours."
+
+Jephson, however, was in an argumentative mood. "Selfishness," he
+continued, "is merely another name for Will. Every deed, good or bad,
+that we do is prompted by selfishness. We are charitable to secure
+ourselves a good place in the next world, to make ourselves respected in
+this, to ease our own distress at the knowledge of suffering. One man is
+kind because it gives him pleasure to be kind, just as another is cruel
+because cruelty pleases him. A great man does his duty because to him
+the sense of duty done is a deeper delight than would be the ease
+resulting from avoidance of duty. The religious man is religious because
+he finds a joy in religion; the moral man moral because with his strong
+self-respect, viciousness would mean wretchedness. Self-sacrifice itself
+is only a subtle selfishness: we prefer the mental exaltation gained
+thereby to the sensual gratification which is the alternative reward.
+Man cannot be anything else but selfish. Selfishness is the law of all
+life. Each thing, from the farthest fixed star to the smallest insect
+crawling on the earth, fighting for itself according to its strength;
+and brooding over all, the Eternal, working for _Himself_: that is the
+universe."
+
+(Copyrighted 1892 in the United States of America, by Jerome K. Jerome.)
+
+"Have some whiskey," said MacShaugnassy; "and don't be so complicatedly
+metaphysical. You make my head ache."
+
+"If all action, good and bad, spring from selfishness," replied Brown;
+"then there must be good selfishness and bad selfishness; and your bad
+selfishness is my plain selfishness, without any adjective, so we are
+back where we started. I say selfishness--bad selfishness--is the root
+of all evil, and there you are bound to agree with me."
+
+"Not always," persisted Jephson; "I've known selfishness--selfishness
+according to the ordinarily accepted meaning of the term--to be
+productive of good actions. I can give you an instance, if you like."
+
+"Has it got a moral?" asked MacShaugnassy, drowsily.
+
+Jephson mused a moment. "Yes," he at length said; "a very practical
+moral--and one very useful to young men."
+
+"That's the sort of story we want," said MacShaugnassy, raising himself
+into a sitting position. "You listen to this, Brown."
+
+Jephson seated himself upon a chair, in his favourite attitude, with his
+elbows resting upon the back, and smoked for awhile in silence.
+
+"There are three people in this story," he began; "the wife, the wife's
+husband, and the other man. In most dramas of this type, it is the wife
+who is the chief character. In this case, the interesting person is the
+other man.
+
+"The wife--I saw her once: she was the most beautiful woman I have ever
+seen, and the most wicked-looking; which is saying a good deal for both
+statements. I remember, during a walking tour one year, coming across a
+lovely little cottage. It was the sweetest place imaginable. I need not
+describe it. It was the cottage one sees in pictures, and reads of in
+sentimental poetry. I was leaning over the neatly-cropped hedge,
+drinking in its beauty, when at one of the tiny casements I saw, looking
+out at me, a face. It stayed there only for a moment, but in that moment
+the cottage had become ugly, and I hurried away with a shudder.
+
+"That woman's face reminded me of the incident. It was an angel's face,
+until the woman herself looked out of it: then you were struck by the
+strange incongruity between tenement and tenant.
+
+"That at one time she had loved her husband, I have little doubt.
+Vicious women have few vices, and sordidness is not usually one of them.
+She had probably married him, borne towards him by one of those waves of
+passion upon which the souls of animal natures are continually rising
+and falling. On possession, however, had quickly followed satiety, and
+from satiety had grown the desire for a new sensation.
+
+"They were living at Cairo at the period; her husband held an important
+official position there, and by virtue of this, and of her own beauty
+and tact, her house soon became the centre of the Anglo-Saxon society
+ever drifting in and out of the city. The women disliked her, and copied
+her. The men spoke slightingly of her to their wives, lightly of her to
+each other, and made idiots of themselves when they were alone with her.
+She laughed at them to their faces, and mimicked them behind their
+backs. Their friends said it was cleverly.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE LAUGHED AT THEM."]
+
+"One year there arrived a young English engineer, who had come out to
+superintend some canal works. He brought with him satisfactory letters
+of recommendation, and was at once received by the European residents as
+a welcome addition to their social circle. He was not particularly
+good-looking, he was not remarkably charming, but he possessed the one
+thing that few women can resist in a man, and that is strength. The
+woman looked at the man, and the man looked back at the woman; and the
+drama began.
+
+"Scandal flies swiftly through small communities. Before a month, their
+relationship was the chief topic of conversation throughout the quarter.
+In less than two, it reached the ears of the woman's husband.
+
+"He was either an exceptionally mean or an exceptionally noble
+character, according to how one views the matter. He worshipped his
+wife--as men with big hearts and weak brains often do worship such
+women--with dog-like devotion. His only dread was lest the scandal
+should reach proportions that would compel him to take notice of it, and
+thus bring shame and suffering upon the woman he would have given his
+life to. That a man who saw her should love her seemed natural to him;
+that she should have grown tired of himself, a thing not to be wondered
+at. He was grateful to her for having once loved him, for a little
+while.
+
+"As for 'the other man,' he proved somewhat of an enigma to the
+gossips. He attempted no secrecy; if anything, he rather paraded his
+subjugation--or his conquest, it was difficult to decide which term to
+apply. He rode and drove with her; visited her in public and in private
+(in such privacy as can be hoped for in a house filled with chattering
+servants, and watched by spying eyes); loaded her with expensive
+presents, which she wore openly, and papered his smoking den with her
+photographs. Yet he never allowed himself to appear in the least degree
+ridiculous; never allowed her to come between him and his work. A letter
+from her, he would lay aside unopened until he had finished what he
+evidently regarded as more important business. When boudoir and
+engine-shed became rivals, it was the boudoir that had to wait.
+
+"The woman chafed under his self-control, which stung her like a lash,
+but clung to him the more abjectly.
+
+"'Tell me you love me!' she would cry fiercely, stretching her white
+arms towards him.
+
+"'I have told you so,' he would reply calmly, without moving.
+
+"'I want to hear you tell it me again,' she would plead with a voice
+that trembled on a sob. 'Come close to me and tell it me again, again,
+again!'
+
+"Then, as she lay with half-closed eyes, he would pour forth a flood
+of passionate words sufficient to satisfy even her thirsty ears, and
+afterwards, as the gates clanged behind him, would take up an
+engineering problem at the exact point at which half-an-hour before, on
+her entrance into the room, he had temporarily dismissed it.
+
+"One day, a privileged friend put bluntly to him this question: 'Are you
+playing for love or vanity?'
+
+"To which the man, after long pondering, gave this reply: ''Pon my soul,
+Jack, I couldn't tell you.'
+
+"Now, when a man is in love with a woman who cannot make up her mind
+whether she loves him or not, we call the complication comedy; where it
+is the woman who is in earnest the result is generally tragedy.
+
+"They continued to meet and to make love. They talked--as people in
+their position are prone to talk--of the beautiful life they would lead
+if it only were not for the thing that was; of the earthly paradise--or,
+maybe, 'earthy' would be the more suitable adjective--they would each
+create for the other, if only they had the right which they hadn't.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE LAY WITH HALF-CLOSED EYES."]
+
+"In this work of imagination the man trusted chiefly to his literary
+faculties, which were considerable; the woman to her desires. Thus, his
+scenes possessed a grace and finish which hers lacked, but her pictures
+were the more vivid. Indeed, so realistic did she paint them, that to
+herself they seemed realities, waiting for her. Then she would rise to
+go towards them only to strike herself against the thought of the thing
+that stood between herself and them. At first the woman only hated the
+thing, but after a while there came an ugly look of hope into her eyes.
+
+"The time drew near for the man to return to England. The canal was
+completed, and a day appointed for the letting in of the water. The man
+determined to make the event the occasion of a social gathering. He
+invited a large number of guests, among whom were the woman and her
+husband, to assist at the function. Afterwards the party were to picnic
+at a pleasant wooded spot some three-quarters of a mile from the first
+lock.
+
+"The ceremony of flooding was to be performed by the woman, her
+husband's position entitling her to this distinction. Between the river
+and the head of the cutting had been left a strong bank of earth,
+pierced some distance down by a hole, which hole was kept closed by
+means of a closely-fitting steel plate. The woman drew the lever
+releasing this plate, and the water rushed through and began to press
+against the lock gates. When it had attained a certain depth, the
+sluices were raised and the water poured down into the deep basin of the
+lock.
+
+"It was an exceptionally deep lock. The party gathered round and watched
+the water slowly rising. The woman looked down, and shuddered; the man
+was standing by her side.
+
+"'How deep it is,' she said.
+
+"'Yes,' he replied, 'it holds thirty feet of water, when full.'
+
+"The water crept up inch by inch.
+
+"'Why don't you open the gates, and let it in quickly?' she asked.
+
+"'It would not do for it to come in too quickly,' he explained to her;
+'we shall half fill this lock, and then open the sluices at the other
+end, and so let the water pass through.'
+
+"The woman looked at the smooth stone walls and at the iron-plated
+gates.
+
+"'I wonder what a man would do,' she said, 'if he fell in, and there was
+no one near to help him.'
+
+"The man laughed. 'I think he would stop there,' he answered. 'Come, the
+others are waiting for us.'
+
+"He lingered a moment to give some final instructions to the workmen.
+'You can follow on when you've made all right,' he said, 'and get
+something to eat. There's no need for more than one to stop.' Then they
+joined the rest of the party, and sauntered on, laughing and talking, to
+the picnic ground.
+
+"After lunch the party broke up, as is the custom of picnic parties, and
+wandered away in groups and pairs. The man, whose duty as host had
+hitherto occupied all his attention, looked for the woman, but she was
+gone.
+
+"A friend strolled by, the same that had put the question to him about
+love and vanity.
+
+"'Have you quarrelled?' asked the friend.
+
+"'No,' replied the man.
+
+"'I fancied you had,' said the other. 'I met her just now walking with
+her husband, of all men in the world, and making herself quite agreeable
+to him.'
+
+"The friend strolled on, and the man sat down on a fallen tree, and
+lighted a cigar. He smoked and thought, and the cigar burnt out, but he
+still sat thinking.
+
+"After a while he heard a faint rustling of the branches behind him and
+peering between the interlacing leaves that hid him, saw the crouching
+figure of the woman creeping through the wood.
+
+"His lips were parted to call her name, when she turned her listening
+head in his direction, and his eyes fell full upon her face. Something
+about it, he could not have told what, struck him dumb, and the woman
+crept on.
+
+[Illustration: "'IF A MAN FELL IN, AND THERE WAS NO ONE NEAR TO HELP
+HIM?'"]
+
+"Gradually the nebulous thoughts floating through his brain began to
+solidify into a tangible idea, and the man unconsciously started
+forward. After walking a few steps he broke into a run, for the idea had
+grown clearer. It continued to grow still clearer and clearer, and the
+man ran faster and faster, until at last he found himself racing madly
+towards the lock. As he approached it he looked round for the watchman
+who ought to have been there, but the man was gone from his post. He
+shouted, but if any answer was returned, it was drowned by the roar of
+the rushing water.
+
+[Illustration: "HE BROKE INTO A RUN."]
+
+"He reached the edge and looked down. Fifteen feet below him was the
+reality of the dim vision that had come to him a mile back in the woods:
+the woman's husband swimming round and round like a rat in a pail.
+
+"The river was flowing in and out of the lock at the same rate, so that
+the level of the water remained constant. The first thing the man did
+was to close the lower sluices and then open those in the upper gate to
+their fullest extent. The water inch by inch began to rise.
+
+"'Can you hold out?' he cried.
+
+"The drowning man turned to him a face already contorted by the agony of
+exhaustion, and answered with a feeble 'No.'
+
+"He looked around for something to throw to the man. A plank had lain
+there in the morning, he remembered stumbling over it, and complaining
+of its having been left there; he cursed himself now for his care.
+
+"A hut used by the navvies to keep their tools in stood about two
+hundred yards away; perhaps it had been taken there, perhaps there he
+might even find a rope.
+
+"'Just one minute, old fellow!' he shouted down, 'and I'll be back.'
+
+"But the old fellow did not hear him. The feeble struggles ceased. The
+face fell back upon the water, the eyes half closed as if with weary
+indifference. There was no time for him to do more than kick off his
+riding boots and jump in and clutch the unconscious figure as it sank.
+
+"Down there, in that walled-in trap, he fought a long fight with Death
+for the life that stood between him and the woman. He was not an expert
+swimmer, his clothes hampered him, he was already blown with his long
+race, the burden in his arms dragged him down, the water rose slowly
+enough to make his torture fit for Dantë's hell.
+
+[Illustration: "HE FOUGHT A LONG FIGHT WITH DEATH."]
+
+"At first he could not understand why this was so, but in glancing down
+he saw to his horror that he had not properly closed the lower sluices;
+in each some eight or ten inches remained open, so that the stream was
+passing out nearly half as fast as it came in. It would be another five
+and twenty minutes before the water would be high enough for him to
+grasp the top.
+
+"He noted where the line of wet had reached to on the smooth stone wall,
+then looked again after what he thought must be a lapse of ten minutes,
+and found it had risen half an inch, if that. Once or twice he shouted
+for help, but the effort taxed severely his already failing breath, and
+his voice only came back to him in a hundred echoes from his prison
+walls.
+
+"Inch by inch the line of wet crept up, but the spending of his strength
+went on more swiftly. It seemed to him as if his inside were being
+gripped and torn slowly out: his whole body cried out to him to let it
+sink and lie in rest at the bottom.
+
+"At length his unconscious burden opened its eyes and stared at him
+stupidly, then closed them again with a sigh; a minute later opened them
+once more and looked long and hard at him.
+
+"'Let me go,' he said, 'we shall both drown. You can manage by
+yourself.'
+
+"He made a feeble effort to release himself, but the other held him.
+
+"'Keep still, you fool!' he hissed; 'you're going to get out of this
+with me, or I'm going down with you.'
+
+"So the grim struggle went on in silence, till the man, looking up, saw
+the stone coping just a little way above his head, made one mad leap and
+caught it with his finger-tips, held on an instant, then fell back with
+a 'plump,' and sank; came up and made another dash, helped by the
+impetus of his rise, caught the coping firmly this time with the whole
+of his fingers, hung on till his eyes saw the grass, till they were both
+able to scramble out upon the bank and lie there, their breasts pressed
+close against the ground, and their hands clutching the earth, while the
+overflowing water swirled softly round them.
+
+[Illustration: "CAUGHT IT WITH HIS FINGER-TIPS."]
+
+"After a while, they raised themselves and looked at one another.
+
+"'Tiring work, that sort of thing,' said the other man, with a nod
+towards the lock.
+
+"'Yes,' answered the husband, 'beastly awkward not being a good swimmer.
+How did you know I had fallen in? You met my wife, I suppose?'
+
+"'Yes,' said the other man.
+
+"The husband sat staring at a point in the horizon for some minutes. 'Do
+you know what I was wondering this morning?' said he.
+
+"'No,' said the other man.
+
+"'Whether I should kill you or not.'
+
+"'They told me,' he continued, after a pause, 'a lot of silly gossip
+which I was cad enough to believe. I know now it wasn't true,
+because--well, if it had been, you would not have done what you have
+done.'
+
+"He rose and came across. 'I beg your pardon,' he said, holding out his
+hand.
+
+"'I beg yours,' said the other man, rising and taking it; 'do you mind
+giving me a hand with the sluices?'
+
+"They set to work to put the lock right.
+
+"'How did you manage to fall in?' asked the other man, who was raising
+one of the lower sluices, without looking round.
+
+"The husband hesitated, as if he found the explanation somewhat
+difficult. 'Oh,' he answered carelessly, 'the wife and I were chaffing,
+and she said she'd often seen you jump it, and'--he laughed a rather
+forced laugh--'she promised me a--a kiss if I cleared it. It was a
+foolish thing to do.'
+
+"'Yes, it was rather,' said the other man.
+
+"A few days afterwards the man and woman met at a reception. He found
+her in a leafy corner of the garden talking to some friends. She
+advanced to meet him, holding out her hand. 'What can I say more than
+thank you,' she murmured in a low voice.
+
+"The others moved away leaving them alone. 'They tell me you risked your
+life to save his?' she said.
+
+"'Yes,' he answered.
+
+"She raised her eyes to his, then struck him across the face with her
+ungloved hand.
+
+[Illustration: "STRUCK HIM ACROSS THE FACE."]
+
+"'You damned fool!' she whispered.
+
+"He seized her by her white arms, and forced her back behind the orange
+trees. 'Do you know why?' he said, speaking slowly and distinctly;
+'because I feared that with him dead you would want me to marry you, and
+that, talked about as we have been, I might find it awkward to avoid
+doing so; because I feared that without him to stand between us you
+might prove an annoyance to me--perhaps come between me and the woman I
+love, the woman I am going back to. Now do you understand?'
+
+"'Yes,' whispered the woman, and he left her.
+
+"But there are only two people," concluded Jephson, "who do not regard
+his saving of the husband's life as a highly noble and unselfish action,
+and they are the man himself and the woman."
+
+We thanked Jephson for his story, and promised to profit by the moral,
+when discovered. Meanwhile, MacShaugnassy said that he knew a story
+dealing with the same theme, namely, the too close attachment of a woman
+to a strange man, which really had a moral, which moral was: don't have
+anything to do with inventions.
+
+Brown, who had patented a safety gun, which he had never yet found a man
+plucky enough to let off, said it was a bad moral. We agreed to hear the
+particulars, and judge for ourselves.
+
+"This story," commenced MacShaugnassy, "comes from Furtwangen, a small
+town in the Black Forest. There lived there a very wonderful old fellow
+named Nicholaus Geibel. His business was the making of mechanical toys,
+at which work he had acquired an almost European reputation. He made
+rabbits that would emerge from the heart of a cabbage, flop their ears,
+smooth their whiskers, and disappear again; cats that would wash their
+faces, and mew so naturally that dogs would mistake them for real cats,
+and fly at them; dolls, with phonographs concealed within them, that
+would raise their hats and say, 'Good morning; how do you do,' and some
+that would even sing a song.
+
+[Illustration: "HE HAD CONTRIVED A MECHANICAL DONKEY."]
+
+"But he was something more than a mere mechanic; he was an artist. His
+work was with him a hobby, almost a passion. His shop was filled with
+all manner of strange things that never would, or could, be sold--things
+he had made for the pure love of making them. He had contrived a
+mechanical donkey that would trot for two hours by means of stored
+electricity, and trot, too, much faster than the live article, and with
+less need for exertion on the part of the driver; a bird that would
+shoot up into the air, fly round and round in a circle, and drop to
+earth at the exact spot from where it started; a skeleton that,
+supported by an upright iron bar, would dance a hornpipe; a life-size
+lady doll that could play the fiddle; and a gentleman with a hollow
+inside who could smoke a pipe and drink more lager beer than any three
+average German students put together, which is saying much.
+
+"Indeed, it was the belief of the town that old Geibel could make a man
+capable of doing everything that a respectable man need want to do. One
+day he made a man who did too much, and it came about in this way.
+
+"Young Doctor Follen had a baby, and the baby had a birthday. Its first
+birthday put Doctor Follen's household into somewhat of a flurry, but on
+the occasion of its second birthday, Mrs. Doctor Follen gave a ball in
+honour of the event. Old Geibel and his daughter Olga were among the
+guests.
+
+"During the afternoon of the next day some three or four of Olga's bosom
+friends, who had also been present at the ball, dropped in to have a
+chat about it. They naturally fell to discussing the men, and to
+criticising their dancing. Old Geibel was in the room, but he appeared
+to be absorbed in his newspaper, and the girls took no notice of him.
+
+"'There seem to be fewer men who can dance at every ball you go to,'
+said one of the girls.
+
+"'Yes, and don't the ones who can give themselves airs,' said another;
+'they make quite a favour of asking you.'
+
+"'And how stupidly they talk,' added a third. 'They always say exactly
+the same things: "How charming you are looking to-night." "Do you often
+go to Vienna? Oh, you should, it's delightful." "What a charming dress
+you have on." "What a warm day it has been." "Do you like Wagner?" I do
+wish they'd think of something new.'
+
+"'Oh, I never mind how they talk,' said a fourth. 'If a man dances well
+he may be a fool for all I care.'
+
+"'He generally is,' slipped in a thin girl, rather spitefully.
+
+"'I go to a ball to dance,' continued the previous speaker, not noticing
+the interruption. 'All I ask of a partner is that he shall hold me
+firmly, take me round steadily, and not get tired before I do.'
+
+"'A clockwork figure would be the thing for you,' said the girl who had
+interrupted.
+
+"'Bravo!' cried one of the others, clapping her hands, 'what a capital
+idea!'
+
+"'What's a capital idea?' they asked.
+
+"'Why, a clockwork dancer, or, better still, one that would go by
+electricity and never run down.'
+
+"The girls took up the idea with enthusiasm.
+
+"'Oh, what a lovely partner he would make,' said one; 'he would never
+kick you, or tread on your toes.'
+
+"'Or tear your dress,' said another.
+
+"'Or get out of step.'
+
+"'Or get giddy and lean on you.'
+
+"'And he would never want to mop his face with his handkerchief. I do
+hate to see a man do that after every dance.'
+
+"'And wouldn't want to spend the whole evening in the supper room.'
+
+"'Why, with a phonograph inside him to grind out all the stock remarks,
+you would not be able to tell him from a real man,' said the girl who
+had first suggested the idea.
+
+"'Oh, yes, you would,' said the thin girl, 'he would be so much nicer.'
+
+"Old Geibel had laid down his paper, and was listening with both his
+ears. On one of the girls glancing in his direction, however, he
+hurriedly hid himself again behind it.
+
+"After the girls were gone, he went into his workshop, where Olga heard
+him walking up and down, and every now and then chuckling to himself;
+and that night he talked to her a good deal about dancing and dancing
+men--asked what they usually said and did--what dances were most
+popular--what steps were gone through, with many other questions bearing
+on the subject.
+
+"Then for a couple of weeks he kept much to his factory, and was very
+thoughtful and busy, though prone at unexpected moments to break into a
+quiet low laugh, as if enjoying a joke that nobody else knew of.
+
+[Illustration: OLGA SHOWING HIM WHAT STEPS WERE GONE THROUGH.]
+
+"A month later another ball took place in Furtwangen. On this occasion
+it was given by old Wenzel, the wealthy timber merchant, to celebrate
+his niece's betrothal, and Geibel and his daughter were again among the
+invited.
+
+"When the hour arrived to set out, Olga sought her father. Not finding
+him in the house, she tapped at the door of his workshop. He appeared in
+his shirt-sleeves, looking hot but radiant.
+
+"'Don't wait for me,' he said, 'you go on, I'll follow you. I've got
+something to finish.'
+
+"As she turned to obey he called after her, 'Tell them I'm going to
+bring a young man with me--such a nice young man, and an excellent
+dancer. All the girls will like him.' Then he laughed and closed the
+door.
+
+"Her father generally kept his doings secret from everybody, but she had
+a pretty shrewd suspicion of what he had been planning, and so, to a
+certain extent, was able to prepare the guests for what was coming.
+Anticipation ran high, and the arrival of the famous mechanist was
+eagerly awaited.
+
+"At length the sound of wheels was heard outside, followed by a great
+commotion in the passage, and old Wenzel himself, his jolly face red
+with excitement and suppressed laughter, burst into the room and
+announced in stentorian tones:
+
+"'Herr Geibel--and a friend.'
+
+"Herr Geibel and his 'friend' entered, greeted with shouts of laughter
+and applause, and advanced to the centre of the room.
+
+"'Allow me, ladies and gentlemen,' said Herr Geibel, 'to introduce you
+to my friend, Lieutenant Fritz. Fritz, my dear fellow, bow to the ladies
+and gentlemen.'
+
+"Geibel placed his hand encouragingly on Fritz's shoulder, and the
+lieutenant bowed low, accompanying the action with a harsh clicking
+noise in his throat, unpleasantly suggestive of a death rattle. But that
+was only a detail.
+
+"'He walks a little stiffly' (old Geibel took his arm and walked him
+forward a few steps. He certainly did walk stiffly), 'but then, walking
+is not his forte. He is essentially a dancing man. I have only been able
+to teach him the waltz as yet, but at that he is faultless. Come, which
+of you ladies may I introduce him to as a partner. He keeps perfect
+time; he never gets tired; he won't kick you or tread on your dress; he
+will hold you as firmly as you like, and go as quickly or as slowly as
+you please; he never gets giddy; and he is full of conversation. Come,
+speak up for yourself, my boy.'
+
+"The old gentleman twisted one of the buttons at the back of his coat,
+and immediately Fritz opened his mouth, and in thin tones that appeared
+to proceed from the back of his head, remarked suddenly, 'May I have the
+pleasure?' and then shut his mouth again with a snap.
+
+"That Lieutenant Fritz had made a strong impression on the company was
+undoubted, yet none of the girls seemed inclined to dance with him. They
+looked askance at his waxen face, with its staring eyes and fixed smile,
+and shuddered. At last old Geibel came to the girl who had conceived the
+idea.
+
+"'It is your own suggestion, carried out to the letter,' said Geibel,
+'an electric dancer. You owe it to the gentleman to give him a trial.'
+
+"She was a bright, saucy little girl, fond of a frolic. Her host added
+his entreaties, and she consented.
+
+"Herr Geibel fixed the figure to her. Its right arm was screwed round
+her waist, and held her firmly; its delicately-jointed left hand was
+made to fasten itself upon her right. The old toymaker showed her how to
+regulate its speed, and how to stop it, and release herself.
+
+"'It will take you round in a complete circle,' he explained; 'be
+careful that no one knocks against you, and alters its course.'
+
+[Illustration: "FOR A COUPLE OF WEEKS HE KEPT TO HIS FACTORY."]
+
+"The music struck up. Old Geibel put the current in motion, and Annette
+and her strange partner began to dance.
+
+"For a while everyone stood watching them. The figure performed its
+purpose admirably. Keeping perfect time and step, and holding its little
+partner tight clasped in an unyielding embrace, it revolved steadily,
+pouring forth at the same time a constant flow of squeaky conversation,
+broken by brief intervals of grinding silence.
+
+"'How charming you are looking to-night,' it remarked in its thin,
+far-away voice. 'What a lovely day it has been. Do you like dancing?
+How well our steps agree. You will give me another, won't you? Oh, don't
+be so cruel. What a charming gown you have on. Isn't waltzing
+delightful? I could go on dancing for ever--with you. Have you had
+supper?'
+
+"As she grew more familiar with the uncanny creature, the girl's
+nervousness wore off, and she entered into the fun of the thing.
+
+"'Oh, he's just lovely,' she cried, laughing, 'I could go on dancing
+with him all my life.'
+
+"Couple after couple now joined them, and soon all the dancers in the
+room were whirling round behind them. Nicholaus Geibel stood looking on,
+beaming with childish delight at his success.
+
+[Illustration: "MY FRIEND, LIEUTENANT FRITZ."]
+
+"Old Wenzel approached him, and whispered something in his ear. Geibel
+laughed, and nodded, and the two worked their way quietly towards the
+door.
+
+"'This is the young people's house to-night,' said Wenzel, so soon as
+they were outside; 'you and I will have a quiet pipe and a glass of
+hock, over in the counting-house.'
+
+"Meanwhile the dancing grew more fast and furious. Little Annette
+loosened the screw regulating her partner's rate of progress, and the
+figure flew round with her swifter and swifter. Couple after couple
+dropped out exhausted, but they only went the faster, till at length
+they remained dancing alone.
+
+"Madder and madder became the waltz. The music lagged behind: the
+musicians, unable to keep pace, ceased, and sat staring. The younger
+guests applauded, but the older faces began to grow anxious.
+
+"'Hadn't you better stop, dear,' said one of the women, 'you'll make
+yourself so tired.'
+
+"But Annette did not answer.
+
+"'I believe she's fainted,' cried out a girl who had caught sight of her
+face as it was swept by.
+
+"One of the men sprang forward and clutched at the figure, but its
+impetus threw him down on to the floor, where its steel-cased feet laid
+bare his cheek. The thing evidently did not intend to part with its
+prize easily.
+
+"Had anyone retained a cool head, the figure, one cannot help thinking,
+might easily have been stopped. Two or three men acting in concert might
+have lifted it bodily off the floor, or have jammed it into a corner.
+But few human heads are capable of remaining cool under excitement.
+Those who are not present think how stupid must have been those who
+were; those who are reflect afterwards how simple it would have been to
+do this, that, or the other, if only they had thought of it at the time.
+
+"The women grew hysterical. The men shouted contradictory directions to
+one another. Two of them made a bungling rush at the figure, which had
+the result of forcing it out of its orbit in the centre of the room, and
+sending it crashing against the walls and furniture. A stream of blood
+showed itself down the girl's white frock, and followed her along the
+floor. The affair was becoming horrible. The women rushed screaming from
+the room. The men followed them.
+
+"One sensible suggestion was made: 'Find Geibel--fetch Geibel.'
+
+"No one had noticed him leave the room, no one knew where he was. A
+party went in search of him. The others, too unnerved to go back into
+the ball-room, crowded outside the door and listened. They could hear
+the steady whir of the wheels upon the polished floor as the thing spun
+round and round; the dull thud as every now and again it dashed itself
+and its burden against some opposing object and ricocheted off in a new
+direction.
+
+"And everlastingly it talked in that thin ghostly voice, repeating over
+and over the same formula: 'How charming you are looking to-night. What
+a lovely day it has been. Oh, don't be so cruel. I could go on dancing
+for ever--with you. Have you had supper?'
+
+"Of course they sought for Geibel everywhere but where he was. They
+looked in every room in the house, then they rushed off in a body to his
+own place, and spent precious minutes in waking up his deaf old
+housekeeper. At last it occurred to one of the party that Wenzel was
+missing also, and then the idea of the counting-house across the yard
+presented itself to them, and there they found him.
+
+"He rose up, very pale, and followed them; and he and old Wenzel forced
+their way through the crowd of guests gathered outside, and entered the
+room, and locked the door behind them.
+
+"From within there came the muffled sound of low voices and quick steps,
+followed by a confused scuffling noise, then silence, then the low
+voices again.
+
+"After a time the door opened, and those near it pressed forward to
+enter, but old Wenzel's broad shoulders barred the way.
+
+"'I want you--and you, Bekler,' he said, addressing a couple of the
+elder men. His voice was calm, but his face was deadly white. 'The rest
+of you, please go--get the women away as quickly as you can.'
+
+"From that day old Nicholaus Geibel confined himself to the making of
+mechanical rabbits and cats that mewed and washed their faces."
+
+       *       *       *
+
+We agreed that the moral of MacShaugnassy's story was a good one.
+
+(_To be continued._)
+
+
+
+
+On Pilgrims and the Pilgrim Spirit
+
+by
+
+A. Adams Martin.
+
+ [Illustration:
+    "Then longe folk to go on pilgrimages,
+    And palmers for to seeke strange strands
+    To ferne hallows couth in sundry lands."]
+
+
+In the good old times, when a man wanted a little change from the bosom
+of his family--in those days a somewhat restricted bosom--he went on a
+crusade, or a pilgrimage.
+
+What if he did spend his time and substance on that which, from a
+worldly standpoint, profited not--absenting himself from home and
+friends for periods of time lengthy enough to afford a modern wife good
+grounds for a divorce--was it not all meritorious? Heaven, he fondly
+believed, would more than pay his travelling expenses by a large cheque
+to his credit on the next world, whilst he had the pleasure of the
+journey in this: an ingenious method of seeing something of both! And so
+he donned his pilgrim weeds, and his "cockle hat and shoon"--as all good
+chroniclers tell us--and hied him off to Canterbury or Cologne, Rome,
+Jerusalem, or Timbuctoo. Mrs. Pilgrim was left at home to play
+"patience," and to keep the house and bairns. She was generally a
+long-suffering creature, but sometimes she _did_ get into mischief. She
+could not _always_ spin yarn, so she occasionally varied her task by
+weaving nets--traps for the unwary who was _not_ a pilgrim.
+
+But if she got into mischief, she paid the penalty; my lord invariably
+cut off her head with his scimitar when he returned home--if she waited
+for that--and there was an end of the matter. There was no Divorce Court
+in the good old days, and a woman's head did not count for much. But
+these slight casualties never diminished the ardour of the pilgrim
+spirit: the pilgrim increased and multiplied, and sought new shrines as
+well as new wives. To slightly vary the words of the poet, "_Shrine_
+after _shrine_ his rising raptures fill. But still he sighs--for
+_shrines_ are wanting still." The law of supply and demand, however,
+worked as surely then as now; and as pilgrims increased to venerate,
+objects increased to be venerated. There is a good story told by the
+Arabs--it was given by Dr. Samuel Jessup in one of his contributions to
+"Picturesque Palestine" some years ago--and it is an apt illustration of
+this supply and demand principle.
+
+[Illustration: "RAN AWAY WITH HIS MASTER'S DONKEY."]
+
+There was a certain Sheik-Mohammed who, once upon a time, was the keeper
+of a "wely" or shrine, supposed by the faithful to be the tomb of an
+eminent Saint, and so largely frequented by them that the Sheik grew
+rich from their costly offerings. His servant Ali, however, receiving
+but a small share of the profits, ran away to the south of the Jordan,
+taking with him his master's donkey. The animal died on the way, and
+Ali, having covered his body with a heap of stones, sat down in despair.
+A passer-by enquired the cause of his sorrow, and Ali replied that he
+had just found the tomb of an eminent Saint; the man kissed the stones,
+gave Ali a present, and passed on his way.
+
+The news of the holy shrine spread throughout the land, and pilgrims
+thronged to visit it: Ali became rich, built a fine "Kubbeh" (Dome), and
+was envied by all the Sheiks.
+
+Mohammed, hearing of the new shrine, and finding his own eclipsed by it,
+made a pilgrimage to it himself, in hopes of finding out the source of
+its great repute. Finding Ali in charge, he asked, in a whisper, if he
+would tell him the name of the Saint whose tomb he kept charge of. "I
+will," replied Ali, "on condition that you tell me the name of your
+Saint." Mohammed consented, and Ali then whispered, "God alone is great!
+This is the tomb of the donkey I stole from you."
+
+"Mashallah!" cried Mohammed, "and my 'wely' is the tomb of that
+donkey's father!" Methinks Palestine has not a monopoly of the
+long-eared and long-suffering race, either living or dead!
+
+But we have changed all that; as we have a good many other things.
+Saints and their shrines are out of fashion. "It is an age of seeing,
+not believing," we say complacently; and we laugh with superior wisdom
+at the follies of our forefathers, and the relics they went so far to
+adore--relics which, like the fabled frog, by trying to swell themselves
+to greater and still greater dimensions, ended in growing a little too
+extensive for their ultimate good. Saints, like sinners, can only have
+two legs apiece, we all know; but the saints of our ancestors, if their
+relics spoke truly, must have been saintly centipedes: of making new
+limbs there was no end, and, as their numbers increased, reverence
+waned, till hey!--the bubble of credulity burst at last, as did the
+frog!
+
+But if the heavenly profitability was cut off by this collapse of
+superstition, or eclipse of faith--call it which you will--the habit of
+pleasurable moving remained; stronger by the force of repeated custom
+throughout all past times: we keep the shell, but we cunningly
+substitute a new kernel in the place of the exploded core of heretofore.
+
+We go a pilgrimage still, but your modern spirit is now the pilgrim of
+Health, Pleasure, Science, Art, and such-like--all high-sounding names
+to conjure by; and the world, that old time-server, ever seeking to
+accommodate itself to the new ways of its inhabitants, is ever supplying
+us with a new Spa, a new "old master," or masterpiece, a newly dug-up
+ruin, or hieroglyph, or Dark Continent, or--for even the humblest
+"tripper" is not forgotten--a new Mudport-on-Sea.
+
+The shrines of our forefathers' worship have crept back into favour by
+hiding themselves in the voluminous draperies of History or Art. Our
+appetite for shows is omnivorous, and we don't object to a shrine if it
+has a Gothic moulding sufficiently "cute," or a Byzantine roof, or some
+other attraction--are we not pilgrims of _Art_?--though if called upon
+to define our roof or moulding many of us might be considerably
+nonplussed, taking refuge in describing one as a "thing with a round
+top," and the other as "a sort of stone trimming, don't you know."
+
+I remember once reading a child's tale--I have forgotten where, for it
+was many years ago--but the drift of the story was too good to forget.
+It was about a small pig who lived with his mother in a stye which
+possessed but a limited front yard. Piggy had the pilgrim spirit, and
+sighed to escape to pastures new, to see what lay beyond his little
+wall. One day his chance came--he escaped somehow, and made a pilgrimage
+round the farmyard, where the strange things he saw either frightened
+him dreadfully, or were utterly unintelligible to his piggish mind. He
+was so frightened by the roaring of a bull that he fled with great
+precipitation home, where he gave a glowing account of his travels to
+his mother.
+
+[Illustration: "PILGRIMS OF ART."]
+
+"Yes," he said, "I have seen the world. It is square, and it has a wall
+all round it, to keep the pigs from falling off, of course. I saw some
+queer white pigs, with only two legs--think of that! They said 'Quack,
+quack'--that is what they say in the world, you know, but, of course,
+_you_ don't understand. Then I saw a great red pig, who cried,
+'Mou-e-e-e!' There is but _one_ such pig in the world, and _I_ have seen
+it. I am content to live quietly now, for I have seen the whole world!"
+
+Who has not seen that smug satisfaction of small souls as reflected by
+piggy?
+
+There is a great deal in _looking_ wise even if you don't feel so. Talk
+always of your "dones," and leave out the "undones."
+
+Most of us have heard of the apocryphal American who "does Europe" in a
+fortnight! I cannot say that I have actually met that gentleman, but I
+have met pilgrims, both English and American, who will tell you grandly
+that they have "done"--say Rome, in two, nay in one day! All the
+antiquities, of _course_, and the Museums; and then comes a string of
+names of churches, and galleries, until you gasp for breath! You go away
+and lean against something to recover your breath, and your gravity, but
+the pilgrimage is an accomplished fact. They have a right to stick to
+the cockle-shell in their cap, so to speak, and go home saying, "Oh,
+yes! We have done Rome, or Italy, or Egypt, _thoroughly_; missed
+nothing!"
+
+If one could take an impression of one of these pilgrim's brains by
+"Kodak," one would get some queer results in chaos, rather like the game
+of family post--the Raphael frescoes transferring themselves to Karnak,
+and the Sphinx hiding in the Catacombs, whilst pictures, statuary, and
+shrines of "cult" executed a Bacchanalian dance on a gigantic scale all
+round.
+
+But results do not alter facts; and in these busy days people are
+generally content to _see_ your tree of knowledge; they have no time to
+climb its branches to look for the fruit of wisdom!
+
+We have changed our pilgrim weeds for an ulster of the latest cut, and
+our Missal for a "Murray" or "Baedeker," but are we really so much wiser
+than our forefathers?
+
+Alas! we have but changed the object, and human nature, gullible ever,
+sees no reason why it should not flock in thousands to drop a visiting
+card into the tomb (so called) of "Juliet" at Verona, with as fond
+credulity as their fathers, when they deposited their candle at the tomb
+of some miracle-working saint; with this difference, however--that the
+latter was deposited for the glory and praise of the saint, and the
+former of the sinner _himself_. Who could say, after that, that he had
+not seen it!
+
+I happened, when there, to make some irreverent remarks about that tomb.
+I had walked out to see it on a hot afternoon, and I found it
+inconveniently far. One is accustomed to have these places "grouped,"
+and I was displeased with _Juliet_ for not being buried nearer home--it
+was an oversight--but perhaps it had been arranged for the benefit of
+the carriage-drivers. _Juliet_ was public-spirited, and thought of all
+classes, and their interests. I did not think of all these extenuating
+circumstances then, however, and so I said unbelieving things about her
+tomb.
+
+The _custode_ was deeply pained, as an orthodox _custode_ ought to be.
+He remonstrated with me first, and then he pointed to the wall. "_Ecco,
+Signor! è scritto, è scritto è verissimo!_"
+
+[Illustration: "ECCO, SIGNOR!"]
+
+And there indeed it was written, in good set terms, and in two or three
+languages, for the benefit of all non-literary or unbelieving pilgrims.
+
+I have often thought since how many people there are, like my friend the
+_custode_, to whom the magic "it is written" is sufficient ground for
+their faith, without further consideration as to _when_ and _how_.
+
+Some time ago a friend of mine encountered a portly Western American
+tourist at Kenilworth. He came in a hurry, and asked to be shown the
+part "wrote up" by Scott. He gazed for a few minutes, and then departed
+as quickly as he came. To him Kenilworth was merely a place "wrote up"
+by Scott, and no doubt he had Warwick and Stratford-on-Avon to see that
+same afternoon, before going on to Liverpool.
+
+There are pilgrims who certainly carry a feeling of duty into all
+things. Wherever they go they mean work!
+
+This quality pre-eminently distinguishes the English-speaking world, and
+it always fills our Continental, or Oriental, neighbours with lazy
+wonder. "Oh, these Englishwomen! they have legs and stomachs of bronze!"
+I once heard an Italian say.
+
+We are inclined to overdo it. I think an occasional rest-day is as
+necessary to the tired brain as the photographer's dark room is to the
+development of the negative impression--without it the brain would,
+indeed, record a "_negative impression_."
+
+But I am straying from _Juliet's_ tomb, and the subject of unlimited
+faith. Only make a thing possible, and, _if there is an undercurrent of
+desire to believe it_, the large majority will swallow almost anything
+with what theologians call "simple faith." The "if" is an important
+one--the key to the situation. We believe readily when it is agreeable
+to do so, and all pilgrims have ever sought to heighten the attractions
+of the objects of their interest. It adds to their own enjoyment of
+them, and, after all, is it not a reflex compliment to ourselves? If
+"there is but _one_ such pig in the world," have not _I_ seen it?
+
+[Illustration: "LURED MEN TO DESTRUCTION."]
+
+Have you ever noticed the effect of the expression, "They say?" If we
+say "Tom," or "Dick," or "Harry," says "so and so," "Tom" is no better
+authority than "Dick," nor are both together much better than "Harry."
+But if we say, indefinitely, "_They_ say" "so and so," there is a
+mysterious potency in the unknown quantity which leads, if not to
+universal belief, at least to universal transmission.
+
+"Yes, it is an interesting spot. They say that a princess is buried here
+who was laid under a potent spell by a mighty wizard, long, long ago,"
+etc.; or "They tell of a beauteous maiden who sat on this rock, in the
+far past, and sang, and thus lured men to destruction," etc.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+He or she is always swallowed up by the mists of obscurity--oh, ye mists
+of obscurity, ye have much to answer for!
+
+We do not care to dispute with "They" his superior information--even if
+we could find him; for he seems to reside permanently in the aforesaid
+mists himself; only issuing forth, like a valiant knight, to rescue the
+fair maidens--Fact, or Fiction--from the jaws of the dragon Oblivion!
+What he _is_, we leave to the learned, who could no doubt dispose of him
+suitably in connection with the highly convenient solar myths, as a
+Potent Rescuing Power! As for us, we meddle not with the mists: we
+rather like the delicious glow of their luminous dimness, which
+glorifies the past if it clouds it; and which softens off the hardness
+of our prosaic modern life, as a summer haze our English landscape.
+
+We are delighted to get hold of an ancient legend, whether of headless
+horseman or housekeeper, pixie or wizard. Even in that "happy hunting
+ground" of the Modern Spirit, the United States of America, the old
+legends linger still, if but faintly. The soil of a new country does not
+grow sentiment of this sort readily, but the plant is indigenous to the
+human heart; and its fair flowers have been gathered and wreathed around
+their pages by many an essayist and poet. We cannot do without the
+element of mystery in our life, however we may represent it. It is part
+of the spirit within us, and we find it in everything around us. It is
+the veil of "Isis" which science, her worshipper, is ever trying to
+lift, but cannot. The muse of Inspiration pours forth her melodious
+voice, like the nightingale, in the darkness and the shady covert. We
+listen to her song with entranced ears; a few whose spirits are "finely
+touched," try to repeat it; but who has ever seen her; the soul that
+animates, the spirit that inspires! Our life itself is a mystery--the
+Past and Future--are they not the wings of the Spirit of Time which are
+brooding over our Present? When they are lifted--when the mighty pinions
+are outspread for flight--_then_ the shadows will flee for ever, for the
+great Daybreak of Eternity will have begun!
+
+[Illustration: SCIENCE LIFTING THE VEIL OF ISIS.]
+
+Without the spirit of mystery, the mother of enquiry--of romance, the
+days of pilgrimage would be ended. If it is a mere matter of rest, and
+of oiling the wheels of the machine for a fresh grind, Mudport-on-Sea
+will do well enough; but Mudport-on-Sea can never satisfy the hunger of
+the curious soul for the beautiful; the marvellous; all that is in
+itself lovely, or that has lived in the past, and caught a brighter
+glow from its rainbow reflections. One spot of ground may content the
+naturalist, or the Buddhist sage, for one can find a world of wondrous
+thought in the smallest leaf--a microcosm in a dew-drop; and the other
+can send his soul off on aerial pilgrimages, though his body may be in
+chains! But we are not all either natural or transcendental
+philosophers; our appetite requires not one leaf, but many, for our
+powers of assimilation are not great enough to draw spiritual sustenance
+from one alone; and so, like the caterpillar, when we have finished our
+leaf, we crawl to another.
+
+"But this spirit of curiosity, or unrest, is all owing to lack of
+self-culture," cry some. Perhaps it is--some of it. No doubt the cocoon
+stage of rest and self-development is higher, and nearer to the ultimate
+perfection--the winged creature which soars above where others
+crawl--but until we are fit to be cocoons, and evolve butterflies, we
+must be content with our caterpillar instincts.
+
+People speak scornfully of "mere curiosity," but it is only worthless
+when it bears no fruit. Curiosity, in itself, is a healthy, natural
+instinct, which we see to perfection in the small child. Toddie's speech
+in "Helen's Babies," "Want to shee wheels go wound," is the pilgrim
+spirit epitomised. We hear of the watch, and we want to see it; we see
+it, and then we want to hold it; we hear it tick, and we want to open
+it; and then we would like to "shee wheels go wound" constantly, and if
+we cannot, we kick at the prohibition!
+
+Curiosity may be a worthless element in life when idle, but when
+otherwise, is it not the mainspring of the watch? Think of the manifold
+results of "mere curiosity," when rightly persevered in! But then we
+change the name--it becomes insight--research--it becomes a power which
+can climb the dizziest height, and dive the deepest depths, to bring to
+us their treasures--the star--the pearl!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+A College Idyl.
+
+BY S. GORDON.
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS BY A. H. FISHER.
+
+          -----
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+  Night it was--nay, nearer morning,
+    Snores and nightmares whisked about,
+  And the pallid moon gave warning
+    That her lamp was nearly out.
+  Twain we sat, and ruminated
+    On the world, its joys and ills,
+  What we loved, and what we hated,
+    Woman, wine--exams and bills.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+  Often, too, with short-lived splendour,
+    Flashed the ready epigram,
+      Thoughts we uttered, soft and tender,
+        Ending in a smothered "----";
+          All the truths and lies of ages
+            Compassed we in one short breath,
+              Flouted whims of priests and sages,
+                Lightly toyed with life and death.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+  Men and manners, saints and sinners,
+    All and more we touched upon,
+      How the worst were ever winners,
+        For _we_ yet had never won;
+          And we cursed at superstition,
+            Villain smiles, and sects, and cants,
+              Hurled to ruin and perdition
+                All the tribe of sycophants--
+
+[Illustration]
+
+  Queried, thinking of cold faces,
+    Colder hearts of living stone,
+      Why our lot within such places,
+        Why upon such days was thrown;
+  In our years' maturing crescent
+    Spied we how our fate was fraught,
+      Spanned the future and the present
+        With the flimsy bridge of thought.
+
+  So the morn came, pale and haggard,
+    Lighting up our sunken eyes,
+  And we rose and thither staggered
+    Whence we would but slowly rise;
+  Plain our footsteps, weak and frisky,
+    Told their moral--speak who can--
+  Midnight words and midnight whiskey
+    Play the devil with a man!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: (FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY MESSRS. ELLIOTT AND FRY.)]
+
+
+My First Book.
+
+BY F. W. ROBINSON.
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS BY GEO. HUTCHINSON.
+
+          -----
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: AT TWENTY.]
+
+It is a far cry back to 1853, when dreams of writing a book had almost
+reached the boundary line of "probable events." I was then a pale,
+long-haired, consumptive-looking youth, who had been successful in prize
+poems--for there were prize competitions even in those far-off days--and
+in acrostics, and in the acceptance of one or two short stories, which
+had been actually published in a magazine that did not pay for
+contributions (it was edited by a clergyman of the Church of England,
+too, and the chaplain to a real Duke), and which magazine has gone the
+way of many magazines, and is now as extinct as the Dodo. It was in the
+year 1853, or a month or two earlier, that I wrote my first
+novel--which, upon a moderate computation, I think, would make four or
+five good-sized library volumes, but I have never attempted to "scale"
+the manuscript. It is in my possession still, although I have not seen
+it for many weary years. It is buried with a heap more rubbish in a
+respectable old oak chest, the key of which is even lost to me. And yet
+that MS. was the turning-point of my small literary career. And it is
+the history of that manuscript which leads up to the publication of my
+first novel; my first step, though I did not know it, and hence it is
+part and parcel of the history of my first book--a link in the chain.
+
+[Illustration: ELMORE HOUSE.]
+
+When that manuscript was completed, it was read aloud, night after
+night, to an admiring audience of family members, and pronounced as fit
+for publication as anything of Dickens or Thackeray or Bulwer, who were
+then in the full swing of their mighty capacities. Alas! I was a better
+judge than my partial and amiable critics. I had very grave
+doubts--"qualms," I think they are called--and I had read that it was
+uphill work to get a book published, and swagger through the world as a
+real live being who had actually written a novel. There was a faint
+hope, that was all; and so, with my MS. under my arm, I strolled into
+the palatial premises of Messrs. Hurst and Blackett ("successors to
+Henry Colburn" they proudly designated themselves at that period), laid
+my heavy parcel on the counter, and waited, with fear and trembling, for
+someone to emerge from the galleries of books and rows of desks beyond,
+and enquire the nature of my business. And here ensued my first
+surprise--quite a dramatic coincidence--for the tall, spare, middle-aged
+gentleman who advanced from the shadows towards the counter, proved, to
+my intense astonishment, to be a constant chess antagonist of mine at
+Kling's Chess Rooms, round the corner, in New Oxford Street--rooms which
+have disappeared long ago, along with Horwitz, Harrwitz, Loewenthal,
+Williams, and other great chess lights of those far-away times, who were
+to be seen there, night after night, prepared for all comers. Kling's
+was a great chess house, and I was a chess enthusiast, as well as a
+youth who wanted to get into print. Failing literature, I had made up my
+mind to become a chess champion, if possible, although I knew already,
+by quiet observation of my antagonists, that in that way madness lay,
+sheer uncontrollable, raging madness--for me at any rate. And the grave,
+middle-aged gentleman behind the counter of 13, Great Marlborough
+Street, proved to be the cashier of the firm, and used--being chess-mad
+like the rest of us--to spend his evenings at "Kling's." He was a player
+of my own strength, and for twelve months or so had I skirmished with
+him over the chessboard, and fought innumerable battles with him. He had
+never spoken of his occupation, or I of my restless ambitions--chess
+players never go far beyond the chequered board.
+
+[Illustration: AT THIRTY.]
+
+"Hallo, Robinson!" he exclaimed, in his surprise, "you don't mean to say
+that you----"
+
+And then he stopped and regarded my youthful appearance very critically.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Kenny--it's a novel," I said, modestly; "my first."
+
+"There's plenty of it," he remarked, drily. "I'll send it upstairs at
+once. And I'll wish you luck too; but," he added, kindly, preparing to
+soften the shock of a future refusal, "we have plenty of these come
+in--about seven a day--and most of them go back to their writers again."
+
+"Ye-es, I suppose so," I answered, with a sigh.
+
+For awhile, however, I regarded the meeting as a happy augury--a lucky
+coincidence. I even had the vain, hopeless notion that Mr. Kenny might
+put in a good word for me, ask for special consideration, out of that
+kindly feeling which we had for each other, and which chess antagonists
+have invariably for each other, I am inclined to believe. But though we
+met three or four times a week, from that day forth not one word
+concerning the fate of my manuscript escaped the lips of Mr. Kenny. It
+is probable the incident had passed from his memory; he had nothing to
+do with the novel department itself, and the delivery of MSS. was a very
+common everyday proceeding to him. I was too bashful, perhaps too proud,
+an individual to ask any questions of him; but every evening that I
+encountered him I used to wonder "if he had heard anything," if any news
+of the book's fate had reached him, directly or indirectly; occasionally
+even, as time went on, I was disposed to imagine that he was letting me
+win the game out of kindness--for he was a gentle, kindly soul
+always--in order to soften the shock of a disappointment which he knew
+perfectly well was on its way towards me.
+
+[Illustration: MR. ROBINSON'S LIBRARY.]
+
+[Illustration: THE GARDEN.]
+
+Some months afterwards, the fateful letter came to me from the firm,
+regretting their inability to make use of the MS., and expressing many
+thanks for a perusal of the same--a polite, concise, all-round kind of
+epistle, which a publisher is compelled to keep in stock, and to send
+out when rejected literature pours forth like a waterfall from the dusky
+caverns of a publishing house in a large way of business. It was all
+over, then--I had failed! From that hour I would turn chess player, and
+soften my brain in a quest for silver cups or champion amateur stakes. I
+could play chess better than I could write fiction, I was sure. Still,
+after some days of dead despair, I sent the MS. once more on its
+travels--this time to Smith and Elder's, whose reader, Mr. Williams, had
+leapt into singular prominence since his favourable judgment of
+Charlotte Brontë's book, and to whom most MSS. flowed spontaneously for
+many years afterwards. And in due course of time, Mr. Williams, acting
+for Messrs. Smith and Elder, asked me to call upon him--_for the
+MS._!--at Cornhill, and there I received my first advice, my first
+thrill of exultation. "Presently, and probably, _and with
+perseverance_," he said, "you will succeed in literature, and if you
+will remember now, that to write a good novel is a very considerable
+achievement. Years of short story-writing is the best apprenticeship for
+you. Write and re-write, and spare no pains." I thanked him, and I went
+home with tears in my eyes of gratitude and consolation, though my big
+story had been declined with thanks. But I did not write again. I put
+away my MS., and went on for six or eight hours a day at chess for many
+idle months before I was in the vein for composition, and then, with a
+sudden dash, I began "The House of Elmore." It was half finished when
+another strange incident in its little way occurred. I received one
+morning a letter from Lascelles Wraxall (afterwards Sir Lascelles
+Wraxall, Bart., as the reader may be probably aware), informing me that
+he was one of the readers for Messrs. Hurst and Blackett, and that it
+had been his duty some time ago to decide unfavourably against a story
+which I had submitted to the notice of his firm, but that he had
+intended to write to me a private note urging me to adopt literature as
+a profession. His principal object in writing at that time was to
+suggest my trying the fortunes of the novel which he had already read
+with Messrs. Routledge, and he kindly added a letter of introduction to
+that firm in the Broadway--an introduction which, by the way, never came
+to anything.
+
+[Illustration: THE DRAWING-ROOM.]
+
+Poor Lascelles Wraxall, clever writer and editor, pressman and literary
+adviser, real Bohemian and true friend--indeed, everybody's friend but
+his own--I never think of him but with feelings of deep gratitude. He
+was a rolling stone, and when I met him for the first time in my life,
+years afterwards, he had left Marlborough Street for the Crimea; he had
+been given a commission in the Turkish Contingent at Kertch; he had come
+back anathematising the service, and "chock full" of grievances against
+the Government, and he became once more editor and sub-editor, and
+publisher's hack even at last, until he stepped into his baronetcy--an
+empty title, for he had sold the reversion of the estates for a mere
+song long ago--and became special correspondent in Austria for the
+_Daily Telegraph_. And in Vienna he died, young in years still--not
+forty, I think--closing a life that only wanted one turn more of
+"application," I have often thought, to have achieved very great
+distinction. There are still a few writing men about who remember
+Lascelles Wraxall, but they are "the boys of the old brigade."
+
+It was to Lascelles Wraxall I sent, when finished, "The House of
+Elmore," the reader may very easily guess. Wraxall had stepped so much
+out of his groove--for the busy literary man that he was--to take me by
+the hand, and point the way along "the perilous road"; he had given me
+so many kind words, that I wrote my hardest to complete my new story
+before I should fade wholly from his recollection. The book was finished
+in five weeks, and in hot haste, and for months again I was left
+wondering what the outcome of it all was to be--whether Wraxall was
+reading my story, or whether--oh, horror!--some other reader less kindly
+disposed, and more austere and critical, and hard to please, had been
+told off to sit in judgment upon my second MS.
+
+[Illustration AT FORTY.]
+
+I went back to chess for a distraction till the fate of that book was
+pronounced or sealed--it was always chess in the hours of my distress
+and anxiety--and I once again faced Charles Kenny, and once again
+wondered if he knew, and how much he knew, whilst he was deep in his
+king's gambit or his giuoco-piano; but he was not even aware that I had
+sent in a second story, I learned afterwards. And then at last came the
+judgment--the pleasant, if formal, notice from Marlborough Street that
+the novel had been favourably reported upon by the reader, and that
+Messrs. Hurst and Blackett would be pleased to see me at Marlborough
+Street to talk the matter of its publication over with me. Ah! what a
+letter that was!--what a surprise, after all!--what a good omen!
+
+And some three months afterwards, at the end of the year 1854, my first
+book--but my second novel--was launched into the reading world, and I
+have hardly got over the feeling yet that I had actually a right to dub
+myself a novelist!
+
+[Illustration: MR. ROBINSON AT WORK.]
+
+When the first three notices of the book appeared, wild dreams of a
+brilliant future beset me. They were all favourable notices--too
+favourable; but _John Bull_, _The Press_, and _Bell's Messenger_ (I
+think they were the papers) scattered favourable notices
+indiscriminately at that time. Presently the _Athenæum_ sobered me a
+little, but wound up with a kindly pat on the back, and the _Saturday
+Review_, then in its seventh number, drenched me with vitriolic acid,
+and brought me to a lower level altogether; and finally the _Morning
+Herald_ blew a loud blast to my praise and glory--that last notice, I
+believe, having been written by my old friend Sir Edward Clarke, then a
+very young reviewer on the _Herald_ staff, with no dreams of becoming
+Her Majesty's Solicitor-General just then! And the "House of Elmore"
+actually paid its publishers' expenses, and left a balance, and brought
+me in a little cheque, and thus my writing life began in sober earnest.
+
+
+
+
+Told by the Colonel.
+
+XI.
+
+HOSKINS'S PETS.
+
+BY W. L. ALDEN. ILLUSTRATIONS BY R. JACK.
+
+          -----
+
+
+"Yes!" said the Colonel, reflectively, "I've been almost everywhere in
+my time except in gaol, and I've been in a great deal worse places than
+a first-class American gaol with all the modern improvements. The fact
+is, that philanthropic people have gone so far in improving the
+condition of prisoners, that most of our prisons are rather better than
+most of our hotels. At any rate, they are less expensive, and the guests
+are treated with more respect.
+
+"I never could understand the craze that some people have for prisoners.
+For instance, in New York and Chicago, the young ladies have a society
+for giving flowers to murderers. Whenever a man is convicted of murder
+and sentenced to be hung, the girls begin to heave flowers into his cell
+till he can't turn round without upsetting a vase of roses, or a big
+basin full of pansies, and getting his feet wet. I once knew a murderer
+who told me that if anything could reconcile him to being hung it would
+be getting rid of the floral tributes that the girls lavished on him.
+You see he was one of the leading murderers in that section of country,
+and consequently he received about a cartload of flowers every day.
+
+[Illustration: "HEAVE FLOWERS INTO HIS CELL."]
+
+"I had a neighbour when I lived in New Berlinopolisville who was the
+President of the Society for Ameliorating the Condition of Prisoners,
+and he was the craziest man on the subject that I ever met. His name was
+Hoskins--Colonel Uriah Hoskins--and he was the author of the Hoskins
+Bill that attracted so much attention when it was before the
+Legislature, though it never became a law. The bill provided that every
+prisoner should have a sitting room as well as a sleeping room, and that
+it should be furnished with a piano, a banjo, a library, a typewriter, a
+wine cooler, and a whist table; that the prisoner should be permitted to
+hold two weekly receptions, to which everybody should be allowed to
+come, and that he should be taught any branch of study that he might
+care to take up, books and masters being, of course, supplied free.
+Colonel Hoskins used to insist that the only thing that made a man go
+wrong was the lack of kindness, and that the sure way to reform a
+criminal was to treat him with so much kindness that he would grow
+ashamed of being wicked, and would fall on everybody's neck and devote
+the rest of his life to weeping tears of repentance and singing hymns of
+joy.
+
+[Illustration: "DREW UP A BEAUTIFUL NOTICE."]
+
+"While Colonel Hoskins was fond of all styles of criminals, burglars
+were his particular pets. According to him, a burglar was more deserving
+of kindness than any other man. 'How would you like it,' he used to say,
+'if you had to earn your living by breaking into houses in the middle of
+the night, instead of sleeping peacefully in your bed? Do you think you
+would be full of good thoughts after you had been bitten by the
+watch-dog and fired at by the man of the house, and earned nothing by
+your labour except a bad cold and the prospect of hydrophobia? There is
+nothing more brutal than the way in which society treats the burglar,
+and so long as society refuses to put him in the way of earning an
+easier and less dangerous living, he cannot be blamed if he continues to
+practise his midnight profession.'
+
+"I must say this for Colonel Hoskins. He did not confine himself to
+talk, like many other philanthropists, but he was already trying to
+carry out his principles. He really meant what he said about burglars,
+and there isn't the least doubt that he had more sympathy for them than
+he had for the honest men of his acquaintance. When people asked him
+what he would do if he woke up in the night and found a burglar in his
+house, and whether or not he would shoot at him, he said that he would
+as soon think of shooting at his own wife, and that he would undertake
+to reform that burglar then and there by kindness alone. Once somebody
+said to Hoskins that he ought really to let the burglars know his
+feelings towards them, and Hoskins said that he would do it without
+delay.
+
+"That same day he drew up a beautiful 'Notice to Burglars,' and had it
+printed in big letters and framed and hung up in the dining-room of his
+house. It read in this way: 'Burglars are respectfully informed that the
+silver-ware is all plated, and that the proprietor of this house never
+keeps ready money on hand. Cake and wine will be found in the
+dining-room closet, and burglars are cordially invited to rest and
+refresh themselves. Please wipe your feet on the mat, and close the
+window when leaving the house.'
+
+"Colonel Hoskins took a good deal of pride in that notice. He showed it
+to everyone who called at the house, and said that if other people would
+follow his example, and treat burglars like Christians and gentlemen,
+there would soon be an end of burglary, for the burglars would be so
+touched by the kindness of their treatment that they would abandon the
+business and become honoured members of society--insurance presidents,
+or bank cashiers, or church treasurers. He didn't say how the reformed
+burglars were to find employment in banks and insurance offices, and
+such, but that was a matter of detail, and he always preferred to devise
+large and noble schemes, and leave the working details of them to other
+men.
+
+"One morning, Colonel Hoskins, who was an early riser, went down to the
+dining-room before breakfast, and was surprised to find that he had had
+a midnight visit from burglars. Two empty wine bottles stood on the
+table, and all the cake was eaten, which showed that the burglars had
+accepted the invitation to refresh themselves. But they did not seem to
+have accepted it in quite the right spirit. All Hoskins's spoons and
+forks lay in a heap in the middle of the floor, and every one was
+twisted or broken so as to be good for nothing. The window had been left
+open, and the rain had ruined the curtains, and on a dirty piece of
+paper the burglars had scrawled with a lead pencil the opinion that 'Old
+Hoskins is the biggest fule, and the gol-darndest skinflint in the
+country. You set out whiskey next time, or we'll serve you out.'
+
+"Hoskins was not in the least cast down by the rudeness of the burglars.
+'Poor fellows,' he said, 'they have been so used to bad treatment that
+they don't altogether appreciate kindness at first. But they will
+learn.' So he laid in some new spoons and forks, and added a bottle of
+whiskey to the wine that he kept in the closet for the burglars, and was
+as confident as ever that the next gang that might break into his house
+would be melted into tears and repentance, and would call him their best
+and dearest friend.
+
+[Illustration: "EVERY ONE WAS TWISTED OR BROKEN."]
+
+"A week or two later Mrs. Hoskins was awakened by a noise in the
+dining-room, and, after waking up her husband, told him that there were
+burglars in the house, and that he must get out of the back window and
+go for the police. He told her that he was sorry to see her manifest
+such an unchristian spirit, and he would show her how burglars ought to
+be treated. There was not the least doubt that there were burglars in
+the house, and they were making a good deal more noise than was strictly
+consistent with the prospect of rising in their profession, for no able
+burglar ever makes any unnecessary noise while engaged in business,
+unless, of course, he falls over a coal-scuttle, and then he naturally
+uses language. St. Paul himself would probably say something pretty
+strong in similar circumstances. Hoskins was sincerely delighted to have
+the opportunity to meet his burglarious friends, and he lost no time in
+dressing and descending to the dining-room.
+
+"He wore his slippers, and the burglars--there were two of them--did not
+hear him until he was fairly in the dining-room. They were seated at the
+table, with their feet on the damask tablecloth, and the bottle of
+whiskey was nearly empty. The Colonel was much pleased to see that they
+had not damaged his silver-ware, and he was just about to thank them
+when they saw him. They started up, and one of them caught him by the
+throat, while the other held a pistol to his head, and promised to blow
+out his brains if he made the slightest noise. Then they tied him hand
+and foot, gagged him, and laid him on the floor, and then sat down to
+finish the whiskey.
+
+[Illustration: "CAUGHT HIM BY THE THROAT."]
+
+"Both the burglars were partly drunk, which accounted for the
+unprofessional noise they had been making. They talked in rather a low
+tone, but Hoskins could hear everything they said, and it was not
+particularly encouraging to a gagged and bound philanthropist. They
+agreed that he was a fool, and a stingy fool, or else he would have kept
+money in the house, and would have set out lemons and sugar as well as
+plain whiskey. They said that any man who treated poor working men in
+that way wasn't fit to live, and that Hoskins would have to be killed,
+even if it was not necessary--as it plainly was in this case--to kill
+him in order to prevent him from appearing at any future time as a
+witness against them. They admitted that the whiskey was not bad of its
+kind, but they were of the opinion that Hoskins had left it in their way
+so that they might get drunk and be caught by the police.
+
+"Colonel Hoskins listened to this conversation with horror, and the
+prospect that the drunken rascals would be as good as their word, and
+kill him before they left the house, was only a little more painful than
+the conviction that his method, appealing to the better nature of
+burglars, had failed for the second time. When the whiskey was exhausted
+the men rose up and looked at Hoskins, and a happy thought struck one of
+them. 'Thishyer idiot,' he said, 'may not have any money in the house,
+but he's bound to have some in the bank, and he's going to write us a
+cheque for a thousand dollars, provided we let him off, and don't kick
+his brains out this time.' The other burglar, who was in that benevolent
+frame of mind that Irish whiskey and conscious virtue sometimes produce,
+agreed to the suggestion, and Hoskins was therefore unbound and seated
+at the table, and told to draw a cheque at once if he had the least
+regard for his life. As he was gagged he could not explain to the
+burglars the kind feelings that he still had towards them, and the fact
+that they could not draw the money on the cheque without being captured
+by the police. So he simply signed the cheque, and groaned to think that
+the poor burglars were so slow to be reformed in the way that he had
+hoped they would be.
+
+[Illustration: "TIED HIM IN A CHAIR."]
+
+"When this business was over, the burglars tied Hoskins's wrists
+together again, and then tied him in a chair. Then they set to work to
+do all the damage they could do without making too much noise. They tore
+the curtains and hacked the piano with knives, and poured a jug of
+golden syrup over the carpet. Then they plastered Colonel Hoskins's face
+with raspberry jam, and emptied a sack of flour over his head, and went
+away, telling him that if he ever again ventured to trifle with the
+feelings of poor but self-respecting men, they would put him to death by
+slow tortures.
+
+[Illustration: "MADE HIM WASH AT THE PUMP."]
+
+"Hoskins sat in the chair for a couple of hours, till his wife timidly
+crept downstairs and released him. It took him a good hour to get the
+jam and the flour out of his hair and whiskers, and as Mrs. Hoskins said
+that he was in no state to enter a decent bedroom, and made him wash at
+the pump in the back yard, he found it a rather cold operation. Perhaps
+it was the remarks that Mrs. Hoskins addressed to him during the
+operation that irritated him, for she intimated very plainly that he was
+no better than a professional idiot, and when a man's hair is stuck
+together with jam remarks of this sort from the wife of his bosom seem
+to be lacking in tenderness. However that may be, Colonel Hoskins had no
+sooner got himself into what his wife condescended to call a state of
+comparative decency, than he took down his 'Notice to Burglars,' and
+tore it into a thousand pieces. That day he had an electric burglar
+alarm put into his house; he bought the savagest dog that he could find,
+and he stopped the payment of the cheque, which, however, was never
+presented. He continued to be the President of the Society for
+Ameliorating the Condition of Prisoners, but he steadily refused to
+ameliorate a single prisoner convicted of burglary, and while he was
+always a lunatic in regard to other criminals, he openly maintained that
+a burglar was the worst of men, and that kindness was utterly thrown
+away upon him. He never had any more burglars in his house, though the
+dog now and then lunched off warm leg when some stranger to that part of
+the country ventured into the Hoskins's premises at night. Hoskins was
+very fond of the animal, which was quite right, but his practice of
+leaving a bottle of whiskey, with an ounce of strychnine in it, on the
+dining-room table every night, in case a burglar should succeed in
+getting into the house, was, in my opinion, going a little too far.
+Antimonial wine would have been much more humane and sufficiently
+effective. But there is no man who is more severe than a philanthropist
+who has been turned sour."
+
+
+
+
+Experiences of a 'Varsity Oar.
+
+BY AN "OLD BLUE."
+
+(F. C. DRAKE.)
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS BY ERNEST PRATER.
+
+          -----
+
+
+Rowing in the University Boat Race is not a thing to be undertaken
+lightly. To begin with, it involves great muscular exertion; but this is
+not unpleasant, and, as I shall presently show, is not dangerous.
+Further, it ties the aspirant to his oar for at least ten weeks, which
+is perhaps its greatest disadvantage; and it involves intense
+application and a pretty good temper under remarks from the "coach" that
+are sometimes almost more than caustic. But against these drawbacks are
+to be set the pleasure of gratified ambition, the healthy life, and,
+best of all, the sensation of the flight of the boat driven by eight
+men, of whom none are really bad oarsmen, and some are uncommonly good.
+Putting these side by side, no one need wonder that an old Blue should
+look on the time he spent at Putney as one of the best in his life.
+
+I will pass over the preliminary work at the University, for it contains
+nothing novel or interesting, and is mainly consumed in settling the
+crew who are finally to row, and in getting the men "hard" by long,
+steady work, to get rid of fat and replace it by muscle. The real
+interest begins when the crew has been settled, and the men have had
+their colours given them, and are looking forward shortly to leaving the
+home waters. By this time they are fairly "fit," and, as they have in
+all cases of doubt had the very best medical opinions, they are not very
+likely to go wrong. There is a good deal of nonsense talked about the
+dangers of this race to health. No man who is not absolutely sound in
+wind and limb is allowed to begin training at all, for the obvious
+reason that the captain does not want one of his men to fail him at the
+last moment. It is about as probable that a man should go tiger shooting
+without looking to see if his rifle is loaded, as that the President of
+a University Boat Club should select an oarsman who is likely to "crock
+up."
+
+It is when the crew leave the home waters that the really enjoyable part
+of the training begins. The Cambridge crew generally, and the Oxford men
+not infrequently, go straight to Putney, but a far more pleasant plan is
+to spend a week or so on the up-river waters before going to the
+Metropolitan course. Everyone knows Cookham in its summer dress, with a
+plentiful crowd of holiday-makers on the water; but in the very early
+spring, before the foliage has begun to appear, and when the
+light-hearted champagne bottle still nestles in its straw, it has also a
+very great charm of its own. The fresh air, and the change to new
+scenes, together with the strong stream caused by winter rains, make the
+men feel like young bullocks, and the boat moves with twice the spring
+it had before. The jolly lounging life in between whiles, diversified
+with songs, saloon-pistols, and the like, the pleasant walk over the
+hills on Sunday, and the total freedom from all thoughts and cares,
+beyond the beating of a record over the course next day, all go to make
+up an Elysian life.
+
+Every now and then the amusement is varied by the rather boisterous
+humour of the elements. Some five years ago the state of the tide at
+Putney rendered it necessary to do most of the work early in the
+morning. It was freezing hard, with occasional showers of snow, and the
+coxswain absolutely was able to stand his coat up when he took it off.
+It had got drenched, and was frozen stiff! I have several times been in
+a boat when we had to land and empty out the water, that had broken over
+the bow oars in such quantities as almost to sink us. Occasionally,
+boats have quite sunk from the same cause, while the men stuck to their
+thwarts, presenting a comic appearance as they rowed away, seated, as it
+seemed, in the water.
+
+[Illustration: "A WORK OF GENIUS."]
+
+A great consideration in estimating the happiness of such a time as this
+is the question, "What did you have to eat?" But the answer to this has
+been given so many times that it would be merely wearisome now to detail
+the various dishes that are or are not "good for training." Enough to
+say that, as everybody knows, the old rigorous system of raw beef and
+beer is a thing of the past--except the beer. Nowadays, it is considered
+sufficient to banish all very unwholesome things from the table, while
+keeping as nearly as possible to each man's ordinary diet. In point of
+quantity there are practically no restrictions, unless the Captain
+considers that any man does not know when he has had enough (which,
+alas! may occur); in which case he may remonstrate with him gently, but
+firmly. I have seen a man eat for breakfast a sole and a half, three
+chops, a poached egg, and some watercress; but I confess that this was
+regarded as a work of genius. The ordinary man in training eats only
+about twice as much as any sane person, or perhaps a little more; and
+as, of course, the system needs recuperating under the great strains
+that are put upon it, this trifling excess has its justification.
+
+However, the result of this wear and tear and repair of the muscular
+tissue is that the activity of the mind decreases in inverse proportion
+to that of the body; and during a hard course of training the rowing man
+is generally rather sleepy and unintellectual. This matters all the less
+that studies are forbidden--not a very difficult rule to enforce--during
+the latter part of the time. But training once over, the strength and
+health accumulated can certainly do no harm either physical or mental,
+and a healthy body is the best guarantee for an active mind (see Latin
+authors and copybooks _passim_).
+
+[Illustration: "LAPPED IN PROFOUNDEST SLEEP."]
+
+About three weeks or less before the race a move is made to Putney,
+where, as a general rule, very comfortable quarters are provided. The
+pleasantest of all that the Oxford crew have had lately has been the
+Lyric Club House; but it is not really a good place for the men's
+health. Lying, as it does, just down by the river, the air is not half
+so bracing as that of the higher ground. Still, it is undoubtedly very
+convenient to have a billiard-table or two to while away the men's time
+in the evening. Without something of the kind time is apt to hang very
+heavily on their hands. Conversation flags, the chairs feel very
+comfortable after the day's work, and Morpheus, drowsy god, steals in
+unawares. Now, this is not only bad hygienically, but is apt to have
+very awkward consequences of a different kind. One man more wakeful than
+the rest casts his eye around, seeking for his prey. He spies an
+unfortunate lapped in profoundest sleep. His hand steals out and
+clutches a book. He hurls it--and in a moment all is confusion. Each
+man, starting from his guilty slumbers, springs up to cast the
+proverbial stone, and in this case usually a book, at his fellow-sinner,
+vowing that he has been watching the nodding of the victim, and only
+waiting for the proper moment to visit him with condign punishment. And
+so, with protestations, objurgations, and such light and cheerful
+pastime, the hours roll away till the happy 10.30 comes, when all
+incontinently roll off to bed.
+
+[Illustration: "'TAKE IT OFF.'"]
+
+But if the men go to bed early, they make up for it by rising early too;
+and if they are sleepy at night, they feel delightfully fresh in the
+morning. A brisk walk over the common sends the human barometer spinning
+upwards; they feel ready for any fun that comes in their way. And, alas!
+did not this same buoyancy of spirit not many years ago involve certain
+respectable oarsmen in a difference with the executive? _Tacenda_,
+indeed! Yet if a rabbit springs up out of the gorse, and the dogs are
+off in full cry, can nature in such a mood be stubborn?
+
+In between whiles the men are left almost entirely to themselves, and
+are free to seek what innocent diversion they please. The choice
+certainly is not very varied. Beyond paying a visit to the opposing
+crew, chatting with friends who have come to see the practices, or
+looking in at the local skittle alley, there is very little to do. But
+if they lack diversion themselves, they do not fail to cause great
+delight to the juvenile population of Barnes and Putney. It must be
+premised, for the benefit of all who are not _habitués_ of Putney, that
+the crews always wear during their training the coat and cap of their
+University Boat Club, and flannel trousers. There are reasons which
+make this a very necessary and laudable practice; but in the juvenile
+mind it gives rise to the most uncompromising scorn, which finds various
+ways of expressing itself. "Take it off" is one of the most popular of
+these, and though it certainly suffers from a lack of originality, it
+appears to give great satisfaction. Another, more recondite, but perhaps
+ironical, is "Put it on." "Where's yer trousers?" "Go it, white legs!"
+"Who's yer hatter?" and many similar cries, all testify to the joyous
+humour of the riverside youth.
+
+Hardly less amusing are the comments of the crowd as the men pass
+through to their boat-house. "That's Nickalls," explains the
+well-informed gentleman as a Cambridge man goes by. Or, as the
+lightweight hurries past, "Don't look as if 'e could do it," remarks a
+bystander, "looks to want a day out at grass for them calves." Or,
+"'Ere, I say, 'e's eat a bit of beef in his day, I know," as the heavy
+man comes in sight. It is a good-humoured crowd, and if the strong
+tobacco is a bit offensive when one's not allowed to smoke oneself,
+things can't be always as we should like them to be.
+
+[Illustration: "'E'S EAT A BIT OF BEEF IN HIS DAY."]
+
+[Illustration: "GETTING RID OF FAT."]
+
+It is the custom for the Oxford crew to use the London Rowing Club
+boat-house, while the Cambridge men are accommodated at the Leander Club
+next door, and there is accordingly a good crowd in front of each at
+practice times, eager to see the men on whose prowess their own modest
+half-crowns are staked. Unfortunately, as some of my readers may have
+experienced, it is not always easy to find out the exact time when the
+crews are going out. In fact, the Captain is an autocrat on these
+occasions, who rules alike over crew, critics, and the general public
+without distinction of persons, and who shows a splendid indifference
+for the latter's convenience. He launches the boat at all kinds of
+wondrous times, not shrinking from starting half-an-hour or more before
+the time he has arranged, and thus disappointing a number of would-be
+spectators. It is even said that he often chooses parts of the river for
+doing the hard work where there are no well-known landmarks, so that no
+clear "line" can be given to the outside public. This may be so. The
+workings of the Presidential mind are dark and mysterious. But I doubt
+if the convenience of the public has sufficient weight with him either
+one way or the other to influence his plans in that manner. And though
+perhaps this indifference may be carried too far, yet the idea which
+underlies it is a perfectly just one. The University Boat Race began as
+a private match, of a more or less impromptu character (those were the
+days when they rowed from Westminster to Putney in a huge Noah's Ark of
+a boat, and stopped for beer and biscuits on the way down, and when, it
+is said, the Speaker of the House of Commons used to leave the chair to
+let the M.P.'s run out and see the start--but we digress). Then, by
+degrees, it attained to its present position of a great festive
+gathering of the many-headed, where only about one in every ten cares to
+glance at the race as it goes by. But, above all things, the race is,
+and has been, a purely sporting event. The British lion may put on his
+holiday suit and gamble to his heart's content on the bank, but the sole
+concern of the Captain of either crew is to bring his men well up to the
+scratch, and have a thoroughly good, honest race. He has nothing to do
+with letting the spectators know the real state of the odds, or helping
+them to win their money.
+
+It must be confessed that, in spite of the many pleasures indicated as
+belonging to this training, one gets very tired of it, just as one might
+tire of living in Arcadia, if, as is probable, there were no Club or
+Italian Opera there. It is with considerable joy, therefore, that one
+hails the approach of the race when it is still a week off; but this
+feeling is apt to be modified as the days draw on after that. "Funk," of
+course, attacks everybody more or less; but its violence differs very
+widely in different men. Many of the most unlikely people are most
+liable to it; and it would probably astonish a good many people were I
+to say who is the "funkiest" oarsman before a race that I know. I mean
+by "funk," not the under-estimating of one's chances--for some of the
+most nervous men have a very shrewd idea of them--but the irrational
+excitement which keeps the brain constantly thinking of the impending
+race, and prevents the sufferer from sitting still or having any
+comfort, or, in the most serious cases, any sleep, for two or three days
+before it. It is a real malady, which is most distressing to those who
+are subject to it, but which, luckily, does not do any harm when once
+the race is begun.
+
+Of the race itself there is very little to say, except one thing, that
+could not be said equally well of a hard game of football or a foot race
+across country. The exertion is, no doubt, considerably greater than is
+involved in either of these, but the physical sensations are very much
+the same, and anyone who has entered for any race at all knows the sort
+of feeling of desperate resolve which is the pleasure that racing gives.
+Except one thing, I said, and it is that thing which puts boat racing,
+in many people's minds, far above any other form of sport. It is this,
+that while in a foot race a man can leave off as soon as he finds the
+exertion more than the prize is worth, and while in football a man may
+recover his breath in the scrimmage or justifiably leave the work for a
+moment to the others, in rowing every man knows that, by a single
+careless stroke, he may throw the whole boat into a confusion from which
+they often cannot recover for many hundred yards. Everyone is expected
+in a boat race, and in a University race as much as anywhere, to row his
+best and hardest every stroke he takes, and never to slack off at all.
+If it is considered desirable to save up for a spurt at the finish, the
+"stroke" will do that by putting in a few less strokes to the minute
+till the time comes. Every man behind him is bound in honesty to the
+rest to shove every stroke through "as if there were no hereafter"; and
+when the "hereafter" comes, as it does about Chiswick Eyot, he will
+have to rely on the thorough condition he is in to pull him through. It
+follows that the whole secret of a good crew is that each man rows hard
+because it would not be fair to his neighbours in the boat if he rowed
+lightly, not entirely because he wants to win the race. I do not want to
+disparage other sports in the least degree; pluck enters into them fully
+as much as into rowing. The difference lies in the incentive.
+
+Boat races, of course, vary very much in the amount of excitement they
+afford; not differing in this from any other sort of contest. Of the
+last five races, that of '91 was the most keenly contested, though the
+'90 race runs it very close. Both of them were ding-dong struggles all
+the way, now one boat and then the other taking the lead, and neither of
+them were really won till the post was passed. Closer finishes have been
+known, though hardly beating these in point of excitement during the
+race itself. The well-known dead heat of '77 is an instance; on which
+occasion legend hath it that the ancient umpire had been regaling
+himself hard by, and arrived on the scene as the boats shot by the post,
+too flustered to take any very accurate observations. However, as both
+crews were pretty confident that they had won, his decision displayed no
+small share of that low cunning that used to make a successful umpire.
+
+But all things have an end. The long training is passed, and you are
+seated in the boat. The race gets finished, one way or the other, and
+you are seated at the festive board. The dinner vanishes from the table,
+and you wake up next morning feeling very glad when you remember you can
+stop an hour longer in bed. And the vision of an editor is at hand to
+hint that these reminiscences must not prove an exception to the general
+rule, but must also come to a conclusion.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE IDLERS CLUB
+
+Is Childhood the Happiest or the most Miserable Period of One's
+Existence?
+
+
+[Sidenote: G. R. Sims says it depends upon the child.]
+
+It depends so much upon the child. As a child, my greatest delight was
+to give swagger dinner parties to my brothers and sisters in the nursery
+on winter afternoons, when we could not go out. The principal delicacy
+in these entertainments was an orange _sorbet_ specially prepared by my
+own hands. Here is the recipe. Squeeze into a small cup the juice of
+half an orange, fill up with snow, scraped from the outside window sill,
+and serve cold. Now, although the preparation of this delightful
+delicacy gave me an immense amount of happiness, I could rarely induce
+any grown-up people to partake of it. Then there was a wine which always
+graced the table at our nursery feasts. We called it currant wine, and
+made it by putting a handful of grocer's currants into a wineglass,
+filling up with cold water, and stirring the mixture up with a piece of
+firewood until the liquid was a rich brown. I have often, in later life,
+paid fifteen shillings for a bottle of champagne, and not felt half so
+happy over it as I used to be over a teaspoonful of our own home-made
+currant wine. In these matters childhood _was_ the happiest period of my
+life. With regard to the enjoyment of "games," I never played many as a
+child, but as a man I have derived the greatest possible pleasure from
+them. I never learned to skip till I was thirty, and at thirty-five my
+greatest delight was a game of battledore and shuttlecock. Now that I am
+turned forty I have given up violent exercise, and taken to playing with
+boxes of bricks and tin soldiers. I am sure that I am far happier with
+them, now, than I was as a child. In my old nursery days I always
+quarrelled with my brothers and sisters about our toys, and we
+generally finished up by throwing them at each other. Now I can sit on
+the floor in the long winter evenings and perform the most wonderful
+architectural feats with my box of bricks, and nobody thinks of
+interfering with me. With my soldiers, too, I am much happier. I can
+place the French and German armies in battle array, and devote my mind
+entirely to complex strategical operations without having to keep one
+eye on the armies and the other on the baby. Our baby was always putting
+my soldiers in his mouth; and, on one occasion, he completely crippled
+the Russian forces by swallowing their only general at a critical
+moment. So far as toys are concerned I am sure that childhood was _not_
+the happiest period of my life. The real charm of childhood, however, is
+its lack of the sense of responsibility. It is the sense of
+responsibility which comes with manhood that destroys the charm of life,
+and makes us think of our irresponsible childhood with regret. A child
+hasn't to trouble about the rent, or the butcher's bill, or of what the
+world will think of it, or of the duties it owes to society, to the
+family, or to itself. At the cost of a few tears or a sustained shriek
+it can get almost anything it wants, and it is waited on hand and foot
+at somebody else's expense. It has absolutely no responsibility beyond
+being occasionally left alone in the nursery with a little brother or
+sister, with instructions to see that baby doesn't fall into the fire.
+This, bar the bother of having to grab the baby violently by the hair to
+keep it from mischief, is ideal happiness; and I have known some
+children to whom the hair grabbing was a pleasure rather than a duty. It
+is the "responsibility" which comes with age which always causes us to
+compare it unfavourably with childhood. In another matter, manhood
+compares favourably with childhood. A man can be as naughty as he likes,
+and there is nobody to whip him unless he is a garrotter. Childhood is
+_not_ the happiest period for those who like to be naughty, and
+naughtiness is the general idea of happiness. If it were not so
+everybody would try to be good. Up to the time of going to press no
+really popular movement in that direction has been discovered by Reuter
+or Dalziel, or "our own correspondent."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Clo Graves thinks it an unpleasant period.]
+
+The first thing a baby does is to howl. If that child knew that he had
+got a joyous, gamesome time before him, he wouldn't. He would smile. But
+one of the most endearing characteristics of childhood is its candour,
+and the baby knows that croup lies waiting round the corner to seize him
+by the throat, that thrush lurks in the imperfectly-washed
+feeding-bottle, that wind-spasms and teething convulsions only wait
+their opportunity to mark him for their prey, and so he howls:
+
+  "Ah! (_A pant._)
+  Ah-ha! AH! (_A pause to gather forces._)
+  Ah-ha! Ah-ha! Ah-ha!
+  Ah! AH! E'EE!"
+  (_Fortissimo, crescendo_, and _ad libitum_.)
+
+The nurse will be likely to say it is a pin, but it is not. It is
+because the baby guesses what it has got to go through before it grows
+up. If ever it grows up at all. There is a period between childhood and
+maturity of which one doesn't want to write. No man likes to remember
+that he was once a long-legged, red-wristed hobbledehoy, who drowned his
+freckles in blushes when girls, who did not happen to be his sisters,
+looked at him, and shaved surreptitiously with his mother's scissors. No
+woman cares about looking back to the days when she had thick ankles,
+which her skirts were not long enough to cover; when she wore her hair
+in a pigtail, because she was too old to wear it loose upon her
+shoulders, and too young to turn it up; when the front hooks and eyes of
+her frock were always bursting off, and her sister's sweethearts used to
+call her "little girl." A humiliating experience altogether, the period
+of adolescence. But more humiliating still it is to be a mature,
+grown-up person, and know how far off you are from being the wonderful
+creature you intended to be, when you began the world. You did not
+contemplate being exactly beautiful--it is not for everyone to achieve
+that--but you meant to be commanding. You were going to do everything
+well: to succeed gloriously--to be distinguished and brilliant--knock
+lumps off this poor old globe, in fact. And now--well--you haven't! The
+clay you're made of is the ordinary kind: not the blue earth diamonds
+grow in. You might make up for your absolute lack of individuality by a
+brilliant suicide. But you don't. You're too commonplace. You're
+contented to go on being nobody. This may be a calm state, but it is
+certainly not a happy one.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: But there are exceptions.]
+
+And yet there is a childhood which is, maybe, the happiest period of our
+existence. Not the time of the shining morning face--of the curled
+top-knot--for to the excoriating action of the soaped towel was due that
+facial polish, and the twisting of the damped hair around the
+long-tailed ivory brush was attended with the shedding of bitter tears
+of rage and pain. But the second edition of the Book of Infancy, bound
+in shrivelled yellow leather and printed in faded ink. "The world," say
+the slippered pantaloon and the mumbling grandame, "was a fine place
+when we were young." And what is more, they really believe it. He was
+strong, fascinating and handsome--she was clever and beautiful. Both may
+say so as often as they like, and everybody credits them--because they
+are so old. _Comple et amur illam et amemus: plena est voluptatis si
+illâ scias uti_. Come, gentle Dotage! Shade me with thy kindly wing,
+lend me thy rose-coloured horn-glasses! Let me view the Past, not as it
+was, but as I would have had it. So shall the children cluster round my
+knee, and listen, wide-eyed and envying, as I tell them of the golden
+days of _my_ childhood, and the young people sigh, hearing of the brave
+and brilliant, beautiful and noble things that never happened in the
+bygone time when I was young. Only the middle-aged folk look a little
+doubtful, and Death, leaning over the back of my armchair, laughs
+outright, and taps me--as a reproving nurse might--on the withered lips
+with one bony finger-tip. After which I fall asleep, and am carried away
+to bed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Alden philosophises.]
+
+I have not been a child for several years; it is unnecessary to mention
+the precise number, but I have a clear recollection of the period. My
+childhood was certainly happy, so far as I was personally concerned, but
+I will not go so far as to say that it was a source of unmixed happiness
+to others. As to whether childhood is the happiest or the most miserable
+part of our existence, there is so much to be said on both sides that I
+am almost inclined to answer the question in a judicious and
+statesmanlike way, by saying that I yield to no one in my profound
+appreciation of the wide-reaching importance of the question, and that
+the day will certainly come when the awakened conscience of the nation
+will demand its settlement in accordance with right and justice. When
+that time arrives I need hardly say that I shall be found on the side of
+justice, but I am not yet wholly convinced that the time has fully
+arrived. In the meantime, however, I do not hesitate to say that in
+those cases where childhood is happier than mature age there can be but
+little doubt among thinking men of all shades of belief that maturity
+is, in some respects, at least less demonstrably happy than childhood.
+Now that would be eminently judicious, but, on the other hand, it would
+look like an underhanded attempt to introduce politics into the
+_Idler_. It will be better, therefore, to treat the subject in a
+philosophic way. The question which the Editors of the _Idler_ ask is,
+after all, a question as to the relative advantages of Idealism and
+Realism--spelled with the largest kind of capital letters. The small boy
+is ordinarily an Idealist, unless, of course, he belongs to the unhappy
+class of small boys who have to earn their own living when they ought to
+be at play, and who, having no time for dreaming, become Realists of the
+most hardened and painful type. In the former case the small boy is
+happy, for he lives in a world of his own creation, and for the purpose
+of happiness such a world is far better than the actual world. In the
+latter case he is generally more or less unhappy, for he is compelled to
+see the world as it really is, and he finds it not all nice. The
+realistic small boy can have very little true happiness. Fancy M. Zola's
+childhood: assuming, of course, that he was then a Realist, which he
+probably was not, judging from the fact that he is only a Realist
+professionally at the present day. To the childish Zola, life must have
+presented itself as a series of human documents. He saw things as they
+were, not as a small boy should see them. He could have had no genuine
+longings for a life of piracy, for he saw that the pirate, instead of
+being a gorgeously-dressed and nobly-chivalrous hero, was only a brutal
+ruffian travelling on the road to Execution Dock. Tin soldiers could
+have brought him no happiness, for he knew that they were only lifeless
+bits of tin, as incapable of fighting as the army of Monaco. It gave him
+no pleasure to be dressed in a pasteboard helmet and to wear a tin
+sword, for he knew that grown-up people would not mistake him for a
+soldier; and that a blue flannel shirt, and a cap with the name of some
+frigate on a silk ribbon, would not lead foreigners to believe that he
+was a French admiral at the age of seven. He may have found some little
+pleasure in playing marbles--not, of course, for the sake of that silly
+game, but for the reason that marbles are portable property, and that
+the more marbles a boy wins the richer he is--but for all other boyish
+diversions he must have felt a profound contempt.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: And doesn't know.]
+
+Beyond all doubt M. Zola would say that he is happier to-day (with
+"Nana" in its 150th thousand) than he was in his childhood, but that is
+because his childhood was devoid of Idealism. On the other hand, if I
+may be pardoned for mentioning myself in the same paragraph with the
+greatest novelist of all time, my own childhood was happy because I
+lived purely in a world of the imagination. There never was a bolder or
+more truly noble pirate than I was during the hour of the Sunday sermon,
+when I whiled away the good clergyman's discourse by sweeping the seas
+in my piratical schooner, and harrowing the Spanish Main. My tin
+soldiers were flesh and blood heroes, my kites flew nearly to the outer
+limits of the solar system, and I never quite lost the belief that I
+could dig a tunnel to China with the kitchen fire-shovel, had the cook
+only had sufficient scientific zeal to be willing to lend it to me for a
+few hours. I was very happy then, but I am equally happy now. I have
+never got over the Idealism of my childhood, and I make my own political
+and social world to-day quite as irrationally and delightfully as I did
+eighty--well, when I was a child. I do find, I admit, that one cannot be
+an Idealist in financial matters, which is, after all, the main source
+of unhappiness in mature life, but if you ask me whether I was happier
+in childhood than I am now, I should not know how to answer. All of
+which goes to show that I might have done better if I had stuck to the
+safe and judicious in my attempted answer, instead of yielding to the
+temptation to be philosophical.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Florence Marryat thinks it the most miserable.]
+
+If I am to choose one, or the other, extreme, I should say decidedly the
+most miserable, and made so by the folly, ignorance, or neglect of
+parents. Not one-hundredth part of the men and women who marry are fit
+to become fathers and mothers. Who does not pity the wretched little
+mortal whom one meets, dressed up in some fantastic or grotesque
+costume, to gratify the vanity of those who own it, forbidden to run or
+play, for fear of spoiling the velvet tunic, or silken sash--unable to
+be comfortable even, on account of buttoned boots and kid gloves? A
+child is simply a young animal. Give it warmth and food and liberty, and
+it will be happy and hungry and healthy! To dress it up in the fashion,
+and let it be dragged at the heels of an indifferent nursemaid along a
+pavement, is tantamount to confining a puppy by a heavy chain to a
+kennel. I believe the greatest misery of children arises from their
+being so culpably trusted to the care of servants. A fashionable mother
+engages a head-nurse, who is well-mannered, respectful, and experienced,
+and thereupon delivers over her children to her entire jurisdiction,
+perfectly content if they appear before her, at stated periods, clean
+and neat, with smiling faces. She little knows how (in the majority of
+instances) the poor little creatures are coerced, by nursery discipline,
+not to betray their real feelings for the woman who has them under her
+influence day and night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: And gives the reason why.]
+
+At one time, when I walked daily in Hyde Park, I constantly met a nurse
+whose behaviour to the children under her charge excited my greatest
+indignation. If one of the little ones lagged behind with the nursemaid,
+or whimpered, because it was cold or tired, the head-nurse would shake
+it by the arm, or strike it across the head with such violence as to
+upset its equilibrium, and her voice at all times was harsh and
+repellent. I knew it would be useless to speak to her, but one day I
+followed her home to a house in Park Lane, and, sending up my card,
+asked if I could speak to the mistress of it. The flunky informed me she
+was Lady--let us say, "the Lord knows who"--and I was presently admitted
+to her presence. I did not stand on ceremony with "Lady the Lord knows
+who." I told her I made no excuse for disturbing her, because if she
+loved her children she would be very much obliged to me for telling her,
+from my personal observation, that she had (unconsciously no doubt)
+trusted them to the care of a woman who was not fit to take charge of a
+dog. Her ladyship heard me to the end, and then, rising grandly, touched
+the bell for her flunky and said, "Many thanks for the trouble you have
+taken, but I have the utmost confidence in my attendants." And so I was
+bowed out again. How many parents live with the little children they
+have brought into the world? How many teach them, or explain to them,
+all they want to know? It is too much trouble! All that sort of thing is
+delegated to hirelings. How often has one heard an intelligent child
+snubbed for the very questioning which should be encouraged! The bright,
+eager little brain, just opening, as it were, to all the wonders of
+living, is bursting to know the why and wherefore of everything it sees,
+and for answer to its excited enquiries it only gets such rebuffs as
+"Don't worry!" "Hold your tongue!" "If you don't behave yourself I'll
+send you out of the room." Which of us who have brains cannot remember
+the heart-sickening feeling of having in some unconscious manner done
+wrong by asking questions which our elders were probably too ignorant to
+answer? And then followed the intense longing to be "grown-up," and
+independent. Can't we all remember that longing to be "grown-up?" Is it
+not in itself an answer to the question if childhood is not a miserable
+period, except perhaps for a favoured few?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Phillpotts temporises.]
+
+I fail to see how you can assert or deny upon this question. There are
+thousands of happy children in the world, and thousands as miserable as
+any grown-up person. It depends entirely upon those responsible for the
+individual infant; and a babe's environment is really unimportant,
+because, before intelligence sets in, a child wants little more than
+warmth and good food, and general looking after. At that early period
+the human young are on much the same level as cats and dogs. My dog is
+just as happy as the Prince of Wales's Pomeranian, because I satisfy
+him; social distinction has no charm for him; bones and literary society
+are sufficient for a creature devoid of conscious intelligence. In the
+same way an infant may be happy at a workhouse, perhaps even more so
+than in a Park Lane nursery--if there are such things as Park Lane
+nurseries. But it is when intellect dawns, and a child is able himself
+to say whether he is happy or unhappy, that he becomes interesting.
+Then, as before, his measure of joy or sorrow must depend upon those
+fellow-creatures who form his society. Probably the rule that obtains of
+men and women holds good of children also: the less brain power the more
+happiness. Intellect--especially a growing intellect--will give a child
+lightning flashes of joy denied to his more thick-headed brother; but
+much sorrow must also result from his extra intelligence. If he rises
+higher, he will sink far lower, too. The placid, ordinary youth thinks
+less, and digests his food better, and has a pleasanter time, on the
+whole. A sensitive child feels with a keen freshness that only years can
+blunt. To see some fool of a man crushing a clever child is
+heart-rending. By curious, misguided instincts, children always look up
+to their full-grown companions; and the result is, that any adult ass
+can nip in the bud precious childish fancies, or make fatuous and
+crushing replies to childish inquiries, which show in themselves the
+trembling dawn of an intellect far superior to his own.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: And says that clever men loathe childhood.]
+
+As a rule, you will find that clever men look back at their childhood
+with lively loathing, while the average Briton, if Heaven has given him
+enough memory to recall his earliest youth at all, says that it was all
+right as far as he can remember. In my own small case (and, after all,
+personal experience is never uninteresting--to the person), I can say
+that until I went to a day-school at the age of seven, or it may have
+been less, I had a fairly good time. Open air has a great deal to do
+with happiness in a child--open air and plenty of wholesome food, and
+satisfactory parents. Not that the victim cares overmuch for
+rice-puddings or a good mother; but these things leave their mark. As to
+mothers, I should say they have got more men and women into Heaven than
+any bishop, priest, deacon, or professional Churchman whatsoever.
+Personally, I am still here, and should be the last to make sure of
+anything, or count my own chickens before they are hatched, but I have
+the privilege of knowing men and women, to the number of at least five,
+who are undoubtedly bound for Golden Shores; and it was their mothers'
+doing in every case. Fathers, too, have their significance, but it is
+purely temporal, and never much concerns an infant until the child
+reaches that advanced platform of intelligence whereon questions
+concerning pocket-money arise.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Panton thinks it _ought_ to be the happiest.]
+
+There would be no difficulty whatever in replying to the question, if it
+runs, "_Should_ childhood be the happiest or most miserable period of
+our existence?" because, I am sure, we should one and all agree that it
+most certainly should: for we have no cares then, no responsibilities;
+our clean pinafores are worn without the least notice of what they cost
+to wash; our dinners, if unappetising, are regular, and, if they are not
+paid for, do not weigh upon either our minds or our bodies; while we
+neither look forward nor backward, and enjoy our existence from day to
+day with all the freedom from care and anxiety which, we suppose,
+characterises the life of a puppy or a kitten. But all this presupposes
+that we are not in the group of tyrants, either in the nursery,
+schoolroom, or dining-room, and that those who have charge of us
+remember their own days of childhood: recollect all the dreams, threats,
+and fancies which can turn them into a period of absolute torture; and,
+above all, consider that a child is not a sheet of plain blank paper,
+but that it is a composite arrangement of all the ancestors that one can
+remember, and of many that one cannot: for unless this is so, no words
+of mine can describe the misery that can be inflicted on a sensitive,
+dreamy child, who, to a certain extent, is heavily handicapped in the
+race of life by the feeble vitality which, as a rule, accompanies such a
+disposition, and who all too often is made a liar by harsh dealing, and
+an invalid in life by the hardening process, so dear to the hearts of so
+many fathers, mothers, and governesses. If, on the contrary, a child is
+carefully studied--if it be regarded as one by itself and not a sample
+of a batch, which must be just as are its brothers and sisters--I
+maintain that childhood must be the very happiest time that we can have:
+the dreams and happenings, which fill our nights and days, make both
+equally delightful, while if we are tired to death by lessons and the
+daily walk, we soon grow out of this, because we can build our own
+castles in the air out of the driest possible task, and make long and
+elaborate romances for ourselves out of the--most likely very
+commonplace--people we meet on our morning scamper. Then, too, was there
+not the never-to-be-forgotten joy of the yearly visit to the sea, and an
+equally well-loved return to our usual routine in London, to say nothing
+of the fascinations of making up one's mind on the subject of what one
+was going to be, and how one was to benefit and astonish a world that up
+to the present time has not seemed quite to come up to our expectations
+on the subject? Undoubtedly then I say, if the child is in proper hands,
+that childhood is the happiest time we can possibly have.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Barry Pain says childish happiness is a delusion.]
+
+I have never understood the feelings of those who are sorry that they
+are full-grown. To different children there is, of course, a different
+childhood; but, as a rule, the happiness of childhood is a delusion, and
+the peace of the perambulator a myth. I believe that any brave and
+intelligent man can count on the fingers of one hand the things that
+would really hurt him seriously; the longer you live, the more you
+realise how few things are really important. But the troubles of
+childhood are numberless. The agony of terror is alone enough to make
+childhood the most miserable part of one's existence. The dead came out
+of their graves and walked into my nursery by night; I dared not open my
+eyes lest I should see them. There was a waiting figure behind every
+curtain in dim-lit passages. There were pictures in books that haunted
+me; I knew two or three of them well--I knew the page on which they
+came. I opened the book and turned almost up to the dreaded page, and
+then waited; but I had to go on always. I had to see the eyes staring
+into mine, and the lips writhing. Then I shut the book quickly, and went
+away to do something or other that would take my mind away from the
+picture. I am glad that I am grown-up; I should not care to endure such
+maddening terrors again. I was far too much ashamed of them then to
+speak of them; that made them worse. I think that no one who, as a
+child, was afraid of the dark, would look back upon childhood as the
+pleasantest period of his life. And, if a child has more troubles than a
+man, he undoubtedly has fewer pleasures. A child's pleasures are mostly
+due to its love of acquisition, its vanity, or its appetite being
+temporarily satisfied. From its natural affection for its parents or
+friends--if that affection is very strong--it gets far more suffering
+than pleasure. Any man of average intelligence can do better than that;
+he has work that interests him, books, or music, or pictures that mean
+far more to him than any child's pleasure means to the child. It is easy
+to love children; one of the chief reasons is that pity is akin to love.
+And on this question of the unhappiness of childhood, I would sooner
+trust a man's memory than a child's direct statement.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Barr is sorry for the small boy.]
+
+The small boy, poor little chap, lives under the most galling despotism
+that exists on the face of the earth. There is no court of appeal for
+him. His father is at once his judge, his opposing counsel, his public
+prosecutor, as it were, his jailer, and his executioner. Every man is a
+natural tyrant. It has taken centuries of bloodshed and martyrdom on the
+part of the oppressed to obtain even the poor semblance of liberty that
+we flatter ourselves we possess. Kings have been beheaded, thrones have
+been overturned, cities have been given to the flames, and countries
+have suffered pillage and rapine, all to knock it into the head of that
+tyrannical brute, man, that, on the whole, it is better not to force his
+despotism on his fellow-creatures. Yet, human nature has not changed in
+the least, and where man has full sway, he is as much a tyrant to-day as
+he was five hundred years ago. Nations have been emancipated, but the
+kingdom of which the small boy is a subject remains what it always was.
+Nature, who is a well-meaning blunderer, has tried to set things right,
+first by planting some natural affection for his small boy into the
+stony heart of the parent, and, second, by making the small boy himself
+an optimist. Happily, there is always a silver lining to the cloud that
+hovers over the small boy, even when the cane is descending upon him.
+Trifles please the poor little fellow and help him to forget the gloom
+which surrounds him. Coventry Patmore, in that most touching poem, "The
+Toys," tells of a father who struck his motherless son, and sent him
+weeping to bed, and, being tardily remorseful, the father looked at the
+sleeping boy, whose undried tears were still on his cheek, and found
+that before going to sleep the stricken lad had arranged his trivial
+toys, all the cherished possessions of his pocket, so that his eyes
+might rest on them "to comfort his sad heart."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: But the future small boy will have still more trouble.]
+
+The small boy does not gain much when he exchanges the tyranny of the
+home for the tyranny of the school. The schoolmaster is naturally a
+despot, but he is a despot, limited. To make up for any advantages
+accruing from the master's limitations, the urchin has to put up with
+the bullying of the big boy. Possibly there are teachers who have human
+feelings, as far as the small boy is concerned. We read of such persons
+in books like "Tom Brown's Schooldays," but it must not be forgotten
+that these books are works of fiction. The lad who wrote that his master
+was a beast, but a just beast, may not have been exceptionally lucky,
+but it is sad to think that the small boy often comes under the dominion
+of beasts who are not just. But even if masters were all that could be
+desired, think of the amount of perfectly useless knowledge that a small
+boy is expected to acquire. How happy was the small boy of 1065 compared
+with the small boy of 1893. When William the Conqueror, with a man's
+usual heedlessness of the comfort of small boys, came over in 1066 and
+popularised that date, he inaugurated a long succession of useless dates
+that the small boy is compelled to learn. Every monarch has had four
+figures attached to him, like a picture in an exhibition. Yet was there
+ever a man stopped in the streets of London, and suddenly confronted
+with the question, "What year did Henry VIII. come to the throne?"
+Certainly not. A man would be considered insane who expected any
+rational being to burden his mind with such trivialities. Yet the small
+boy is caned if he doesn't know. The only consolation I can offer the
+unfortunate small boy of to-day is that it will be ever so much worse
+for the small boy born 3000 years from now. Every day, objectionable and
+thoughtless men are discovering new things. Then dates will keep
+accumulating just as they have always been in the habit of doing.
+Possibly a new specimen of that detestable type of humanity, Euclid,
+will arise, and perhaps some conscienceless villain may invent a more
+complicated system of mathematics than algebra. You never can tell what
+may happen in 3000 years. So the small boy of 1893 may congratulate
+himself that he is not the small boy of 4893.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Fenwick Miller thinks it depends upon the parents.]
+
+Childhood ought to be the happiest period of humanity's course; for
+children are free from the two great sources of grief and
+wretchedness--the struggle for money and the consciousness of sex. The
+children of the poor know a want of many comforts, but this is not a
+source of unhappiness. Absolute necessities of life, the only true wants
+of childhood, are so few, and all that is really needed by anybody apart
+from custom or imagination is so cheap, that I do not think that more
+than a small minority of children are unhappy from actual want. But we,
+their elders, painfully and acutely want a thousand things because we
+have tasted them, or because we have imaginations developed to fancy
+effectively how we should enjoy them; and then we must needs try to get
+them, and make ourselves wretched in the furious effort after satisfying
+our desires, and more wretched still because we don't fully succeed. If
+we could take life as children in this respect, actively wanting only
+absolute necessaries, and not having to ourselves strive for even the
+money by which that minimum of wants is to be supplied, would not most
+of our troubles of this actual moment vanish? Those that remained, would
+they not nearly all (given health) hang on the tragic fact of sex? Oh,
+that garden of Gethsemane of humanity, with its blighted seedlings and
+its blasted blossoms! How keen are its sorrows of desires ungratified
+and desires satiated--its cruel losses and its yet more cruel relics
+that _will_ remain. Oh, that dreadful fact of sex, with its emotional
+agonies, its moral problems, its intellectual interruptions, its social
+burdens, and only too often its physical pangs--if we were rid, as
+children are, of all that, and of the struggle for means to meet the
+daily material wants, should we not be fairly happy? Then childhood,
+free of all this, must needs be the happiest time of life!
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March
+1893, by Various
+
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