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diff --git a/25083-8.txt b/25083-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..526e84c --- /dev/null +++ b/25083-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4485 @@ +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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IDLER MAGAZINE, MARCH 1893 *** + +***** This file should be named 25083-8.txt or 25083-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/0/8/25083/ + +Produced by Victorian/Edwardian Pictorial Magazines, +Jonathan Ingram, Anne Storer and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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