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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.12.12.00*END* + + + + + +This etext was produced from the 1905 Hurst and Blackett edition by +David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +IDLE IDEAS IN 1905 + +by Jerome K. Jerome + + + + +Contents: + +Are We As Interesting As We Think We Are? +Should Women Be Beautiful? +When Is The Best Time To Be Merry? +Do We Lie A-Bed Too Late? +Should Married Men Play Golf? +Are Early Marriages A Mistake? +Do Writers Write Too Much? +Should Soldiers Be Polite? +Ought Stories To Be True? +Creatures That One Day Shall Be Men +How To Be Happy Though Little +Should We Say What We Think, Or Think What We Say? +Is The American Husband Made Entirely Of Stained Glass +Does The Young Man Know Everything Worth Knowing? +How Many Charms Hath Music, Would You Say? +The white man's burden! Need it be so heavy? +Why Didn't He Marry The Girl? +What Mrs. Wilkins thought about it +Shall We Be Ruined By Chinese Cheap Labour? +How To Solve The Servant Problem +Why We Hate The Foreigner + + + + +ARE WE AS INTERESTING AS WE THINK WE ARE? + + + +"Charmed. Very hot weather we've been having of late--I mean cold. +Let me see, I did not quite catch your name just now. Thank you so +much. Yes, it is a bit close." And a silence falls, neither of us +being able to think what next to say. + +What has happened is this: My host has met me in the doorway, and +shaken me heartily by the hand. + +"So glad you were able to come," he has said. "Some friends of mine +here, very anxious to meet you." He has bustled me across the room. +"Delightful people. You'll like them--have read all your books." + +He has brought me up to a stately lady, and has presented me. We +have exchanged the customary commonplaces, and she, I feel, is +waiting for me to say something clever, original and tactful. And I +don't know whether she is Presbyterian or Mormon; a Protectionist or +a Free Trader; whether she is engaged to be married or has lately +been divorced! + +A friend of mine adopts the sensible plan of always providing you +with a short history of the person to whom he is about to lead you. + +"I want to introduce you to a Mrs. Jones," he whispers. "Clever +woman. Wrote a book two years ago. Forget the name of it. +Something about twins. Keep away from sausages. Father ran a pork +shop in the Borough. Husband on the Stock Exchange. Keep off coke. +Unpleasantness about a company. You'll get on best by sticking to +the book. Lot in it about platonic friendship. Don't seem to be +looking too closely at her. Has a slight squint she tries to hide." + +By this time we have reached the lady, and he introduces me as a +friend of his who is simply dying to know her. + +"Wants to talk about your book," he explains. "Disagrees with you +entirely on the subject of platonic friendship. Sure you'll be able +to convince him." + +It saves us both a deal of trouble. I start at once on platonic +friendship, and ask her questions about twins, avoiding sausages and +coke. She thinks me an unusually interesting man, and I am less +bored than otherwise I might be. + +I have sometimes thought it would be a serviceable device if, in +Society, we all of us wore a neat card--pinned, say, upon our back-- +setting forth such information as was necessary; our name legibly +written, and how to be pronounced; our age (not necessarily in good +faith, but for purposes of conversation. Once I seriously hurt a +German lady by demanding of her information about the Franco-German +war. She looked to me as if she could not object to being taken for +forty. It turned out she was thirty-seven. Had I not been an +Englishman I might have had to fight a duel); our religious and +political beliefs; together with a list of the subjects we were most +at home upon; and a few facts concerning our career--sufficient to +save the stranger from, what is vulgarly termed "putting his foot in +it." Before making jokes about "Dumping," or discussing the question +of Chinese Cheap Labour, one would glance behind and note whether +one's companion was ticketed "Whole-hogger," or "Pro-Boer." Guests +desirous of agreeable partners--an "agreeable person," according to +the late Lord Beaconsfield's definition, being "a person who agrees +with you"--could make their own selection. + +"Excuse me. Would you mind turning round a minute? Ah, 'Wagnerian +Crank!' I am afraid we should not get on together. I prefer the +Italian school." + +Or, "How delightful. I see you don't believe in vaccination. May I +take you into supper?" + +Those, on the other hand, fond of argument would choose a suitable +opponent. A master of ceremonies might be provided who would stand +in the centre of the room and call for partners: "Lady with strong +views in favour of female franchise wishes to meet gentleman holding +the opinions of St. Paul. With view to argument." + +An American lady, a year or two ago, wrote me a letter that did me +real good: she appreciated my work with so much understanding, +criticised it with such sympathetic interest. She added that, when +in England the summer before, she had been on the point of accepting +an invitation to meet me; but at the last moment she had changed her +mind; she felt so sure--she put it pleasantly, but this is what it +came to--that in my own proper person I should fall short of her +expectations. For my own sake I felt sorry she had cried off; it +would have been worth something to have met so sensible a woman. An +author introduced to people who have read--or who say that they have +read--his books, feels always like a man taken for the first time to +be shown to his future wife's relations. They are very pleasant. +They try to put him at his ease. But he knows instinctively they are +disappointed with him. I remember, when a very young man, attending +a party at which a famous American humorist was the chief guest. I +was standing close behind a lady who was talking to her husband. + +"He doesn't look a bit funny," said the lady. + +"Great Scott!" answered her husband. "How did you expect him to +look? Did you think he would have a red nose and a patch over one +eye?" + +"Oh, well, he might look funnier than that, anyhow," retorted the +lady, highly dissatisfied. "It isn't worth coming for." + +We all know the story of the hostess who, leaning across the table +during the dessert, requested of the funny man that he would kindly +say something amusing soon, because the dear children were waiting to +go to bed. Children, I suppose, have no use for funny people who +don't choose to be funny. I once invited a friend down to my house +for a Saturday to Monday. He is an entertaining man, and before he +came I dilated on his powers of humour--somewhat foolishly perhaps-- +in the presence of a certain youthful person who resides with me, and +who listens when she oughtn't to, and never when she ought. He +happened not to be in a humorous mood that evening. My young +relation, after dinner, climbed upon my knee. For quite five minutes +she sat silent. Then she whispered: + +"Has he said anything funny?" + +"Hush. No, not yet; don't be silly." + +Five minutes later: "Was that funny?" + +"No, of course not." + +"Why not?" + +"Because--can't you hear? We are talking about Old Age Pensions." + +"What's that?" + +"Oh, it's--oh, never mind now. It isn't a subject on which one can +be funny." + +"Then what's he want to talk about it for?" + +She waited for another quarter of an hour. Then, evidently bored, +and much to my relief, suggested herself that she might as well go to +bed. She ran to me the next morning in the garden with an air of +triumph. + +"He said something so funny last night," she told me. + +"Oh, what was it?" I inquired. It seemed to me I must have missed +it. + +"Well, I can't exactly 'member it," she explained, "not just at the +moment. But it was so funny. I dreamed it, you know." + +For folks not Lions, but closely related to Lions, introductions must +be trying ordeals. You tell them that for years you have been +yearning to meet them. You assure them, in a voice trembling with +emotion, that this is indeed a privilege. You go on to add that when +a boy - + +At this point they have to interrupt you to explain that they are not +the Mr. So-and-So, but only his cousin or his grandfather; and all +you can think of to say is: "Oh, I'm so sorry." + +I had a nephew who was once the amateur long-distance bicycle +champion. I have him still, but he is stouter and has come down to a +motor car. In sporting circles I was always introduced as +"Shorland's Uncle." Close-cropped young men would gaze at me with +rapture; and then inquire: "And do you do anything yourself, Mr. +Jerome?" + +But my case was not so bad as that of a friend of mine, a doctor. He +married a leading actress, and was known ever afterwards as "Miss B- +'s husband." + +At public dinners, where one takes one's seat for the evening next to +someone that one possibly has never met before, and is never likely +to meet again, conversation is difficult and dangerous. I remember +talking to a lady at a Vagabond Club dinner. She asked me during the +entree--with a light laugh, as I afterwards recalled--what I thought, +candidly, of the last book of a certain celebrated authoress. I told +her, and a coldness sprang up between us. She happened to be the +certain celebrated authoress; she had changed her place at the last +moment so as to avoid sitting next to another lady novelist, whom she +hated. + +One has to shift oneself, sometimes, on these occasions. A newspaper +man came up to me last Ninth of November at the Mansion House. + +"Would you mind changing seats with me?" he asked. "It's a bit +awkward. They've put me next to my first wife." + +I had a troubled evening myself once long ago. I accompanied a young +widow lady to a musical At Home, given by a lady who had more +acquaintances than she knew. We met the butler at the top of the +stairs. My friend spoke first: + +"Say Mrs. Dash and--" + +The butler did not wait for more--he was a youngish man--but shouted +out: + +"Mr. and Mrs. Dash." + +"My dear! how very quiet you have kept!" cried our hostess delighted. +"Do let me congratulate you." + +The crush was too great and our hostess too distracted at the moment +for any explanations. We were swept away, and both of us spent the +remainder of the evening feebly protesting our singleness. + +If it had happened on the stage it would have taken us the whole play +to get out of it. Stage people are not allowed to put things right +when mistakes are made with their identity. If the light comedian is +expecting a plumber, the first man that comes into the drawing-room +has got to be a plumber. He is not allowed to point out that he +never was a plumber; that he doesn't look like a plumber; that no one +not an idiot would mistake him for a plumber. He has got to be shut +up in the bath-room and have water poured over him, just as if he +were a plumber--a stage plumber, that is. Not till right away at the +end of the last act is he permitted to remark that he happens to be +the new curate. + +I sat out a play once at which most people laughed. It made me sad. +A dear old lady entered towards the end of the first act. We knew +she was the aunt. Nobody can possibly mistake the stage aunt--except +the people on the stage. They, of course, mistook her for a circus +rider, and shut her up in a cupboard. It is what cupboards seem to +be reserved for on the stage. Nothing is ever put in them excepting +the hero's relations. When she wasn't in the cupboard she was in a +clothes basket, or tied up in a curtain. All she need have done was +to hold on to something while remarking to the hero: + +"If you'll stop shouting and jumping about for just ten seconds, and +give me a chance to observe that I am your maiden aunt from +Devonshire, all this tomfoolery can be avoided." + +That would have ended it. As a matter of fact that did end it five +minutes past eleven. It hadn't occurred to her to say it before. + +In real life I never knew but of one case where a man suffered in +silence unpleasantness he could have ended with a word; and that was +the case of the late Corney Grain. He had been engaged to give his +entertainment at a country house. The lady was a nouvelle riche of +snobbish instincts. She left instructions that Corney Grain when he +arrived was to dine with the servants. The butler, who knew better, +apologised; but Corney was a man not easily disconcerted. He dined +well, and after dinner rose and addressed the assembled company. + +"Well, now, my good friends," said Corney, "if we have all finished, +and if you are all agreeable, I shall be pleased to present to you my +little show." + +The servants cheered. The piano was dispensed with. Corney +contrived to amuse his audience very well for half-an-hour without +it. At ten o'clock came down a message: Would Mr. Corney Grain come +up into the drawing-room. Corney went. The company in the drawing- +room were waiting, seated. + +"We are ready, Mr. Grain," remarked the hostess. + +"Ready for what?" demanded Corney. + +"For your entertainment," answered the hostess. + +"But I have given it already," explained Corney; "and my engagement +was for one performance only." + +"Given it! Where? When?" + +"An hour ago, downstairs." + +"But this is nonsense," exclaimed the hostess. + +"It seemed to me somewhat unusual," Corney replied; "but it has +always been my privilege to dine with the company I am asked to +entertain. I took it you had arranged a little treat for the +servants." + +And Corney left to catch his train. + +Another entertainer told me the following story, although a joke +against himself. He and Corney Grain were sharing a cottage on the +river. A man called early one morning to discuss affairs, and was +talking to Corney in the parlour, which was on the ground floor. The +window was open. The other entertainer--the man who told me the +story--was dressing in the room above. Thinking he recognised the +voice of the visitor below, he leant out of his bedroom window to +hear better. He leant too far, and dived head foremost into a bed of +flowers, his bare legs--and only his bare legs--showing through the +open window of the parlour. + +"Good gracious!" exclaimed the visitor, turning at the moment and +seeing a pair of wriggling legs above the window sill; "who's that?" + +Corney fixed his eyeglass and strolled to the window. + +"Oh, it's only What's-his-name," he explained. "Wonderful spirits. +Can be funny in the morning." + + + +SHOULD WOMEN BE BEAUTIFUL? + + + +Pretty women are going to have a hard time of it later on. Hitherto, +they have had things far too much their own way. In the future there +are going to be no pretty girls, for the simple reason there will be +no plain girls against which to contrast them. Of late I have done +some systematic reading of ladies' papers. The plain girl submits to +a course of "treatment." In eighteen months she bursts upon Society +an acknowledged beauty. And it is all done by kindness. One girl +writes: + +"Only a little while ago I used to look at myself in the glass and +cry. Now I look at myself and laugh." + +The letter is accompanied by two photographs of the young lady. I +should have cried myself had I seen her as she was at first. She was +a stumpy, flat-headed, squat-nosed, cross-eyed thing. She did not +even look good. One virtue she appears to have had, however. It was +faith. She believed what the label said, she did what the label told +her. She is now a tall, ravishing young person, her only trouble +being, I should say, to know what to do with her hair--it reaches to +her knees and must be a nuisance to her. She would do better to give +some of it away. Taking this young lady as a text, it means that the +girl who declines to be a dream of loveliness does so out of +obstinacy. What the raw material may be does not appear to matter. +Provided no feature is absolutely missing, the result is one and the +same. + +Arrived at years of discretion, the maiden proceeds to choose the +style of beauty she prefers. Will she be a Juno, a Venus, or a +Helen? Will she have a Grecian nose, or one tip-tilted like the +petal of a rose? Let her try the tip-tilted style first. The +professor has an idea it is going to be fashionable. If afterwards +she does not like it, there will be time to try the Grecian. It is +difficult to decide these points without experiment. + +Would the lady like a high or a low forehead? Some ladies like to +look intelligent. It is purely a matter of taste. With the Grecian +nose, the low broad forehead perhaps goes better. It is more +according to precedent. On the other hand, the high brainy forehead +would be more original. It is for the lady herself to select. + +We come to the question of eyes. The lady fancies a delicate blue, +not too pronounced a colour--one of those useful shades that go with +almost everything. At the same time there should be depth and +passion. The professor understands exactly the sort of eye the lady +means. But it will be expensive. There is a cheap quality; the +professor does not recommend it. True that it passes muster by +gaslight, but the sunlight shows it up. It lacks tenderness, and at +the price you can hardly expect it to contain much hidden meaning. +The professor advises the melting, Oh-George-take-me-in-your-arms- +and-still-my-foolish-fears brand. It costs a little more, but it +pays for itself in the end. + +Perhaps it will be best, now the eye has been fixed upon, to discuss +the question of the hair. The professor opens his book of patterns. +Maybe the lady is of a wilful disposition. She loves to run laughing +through the woods during exceptionally rainy weather; or to gallop +across the downs without a hat, her fair ringlets streaming in the +wind, the old family coachman panting and expostulating in the rear. +If one may trust the popular novel, extremely satisfactory husbands +have often been secured in this way. You naturally look at a girl +who is walking through a wood, laughing heartily apparently for no +other reason than because it is raining--who rides at stretch gallop +without a hat. If you have nothing else to do, you follow her. It +is always on the cards that such a girl may do something really +amusing before she gets home. Thus things begin. + +To a girl of this kind, naturally curly hair is essential. It must +be the sort of hair that looks better when it is soaking wet. The +bottle of stuff that makes this particular hair to grow may be +considered dear, if you think merely of the price. But that is not +the way to look at it. "What is it going to do for me?" That is +what the girl has got to ask herself. It does not do to spoil the +ship for a ha'porth of tar, as the saying is. If you are going to be +a dashing, wilful beauty, you must have the hair for it, or the whole +scheme falls to the ground. + +Eyebrows and eyelashes, the professor assumes, the lady would like to +match the hair. Too much eccentricity the professor does not agree +with. Nature, after all, is the best guide; neatness combined with +taste, that is the ideal to be aimed at. The eyebrows should be +almost straight, the professor thinks; the eyelashes long and silky, +with just the suspicion of a curl. The professor would also suggest +a little less cheekbone. Cheekbones are being worn low this season. + +Will the lady have a dimpled chin, or does she fancy the square-cut +jaw? Maybe the square-cut jaw and the firm, sweet mouth are more +suitable for the married woman. They go well enough with the baby +and the tea-urn, and the strong, proud man in the background. For +the unmarried girl the dimpled chin and the rosebud mouth are, +perhaps, on the whole safer. Some gentlemen are so nervous of that +firm, square jaw. For the present, at all events, let us keep to the +rosebud and the dimple. + +Complexion! Well, there is only one complexion worth considering--a +creamy white, relieved by delicate peach pink. It goes with +everything, and is always effective. Rich olives, striking pallors-- +yes, you hear of these things doing well. The professor's +experience, however, is that for all-round work you will never +improve upon the plain white and pink. It is less liable to get out +of order, and is the easiest at all times to renew. + +For the figure, the professor recommends something lithe and supple. +Five foot four is a good height, but that is a point that should be +discussed first with the dressmaker. For trains, five foot six is, +perhaps, preferable. But for the sporting girl, who has to wear +short frocks, that height would, of course, be impossible. + +The bust and the waist are also points on which the dressmaker should +be consulted. Nothing should be done in a hurry. What is the +fashion going to be for the next two or three seasons? There are +styles demanding that beginning at the neck you should curve out, +like a pouter pigeon. There is apparently no difficulty whatever in +obtaining this result. But if crinolines, for instance, are likely +to come in again! The lady has only to imagine it for herself: the +effect might be grotesque, suggestive of a walking hour-glass. So, +too, with the waist. For some fashions it is better to have it just +a foot from the neck. At other times it is more useful lower down. +The lady will kindly think over these details and let the professor +know. While one is about it, one may as well make a sound job. + +It is all so simple, and, when you come to think of it, really not +expensive. Age, apparently, makes no difference. A woman is as old +as she looks. In future, I take it, there will be no ladies over +five-and-twenty. Wrinkles! Why any lady should still persist in +wearing them is a mystery to me. With a moderate amount of care any +middle-class woman could save enough out of the housekeeping money in +a month to get rid of every one of them. Grey hair! Well, of +course, if you cling to grey hair, there is no more to be said. But +to ladies who would just as soon have rich wavy-brown or a delicate +shade of gold, I would point out that there are one hundred and +forty-seven inexpensive lotions on the market, any one of which, +rubbed gently into the head with a tooth-brush (not too hard) just +before going to bed will, to use a colloquialism, do the trick. + +Are you too stout, or are you too thin? All you have to do is to say +which, and enclose stamps. But do not make a mistake and send for +the wrong recipe. If you are already too thin, you might in +consequence suddenly disappear before you found out your mistake. +One very stout lady I knew worked at herself for eighteen months and +got stouter every day. This discouraged her so much that she gave up +trying. No doubt she had made a muddle and had sent for the wrong +bottle, but she would not listen to further advice. She said she was +tired of the whole thing. + +In future years there will be no need for a young man to look about +him for a wife; he will take the nearest girl, tell her his ideal, +and, if she really care for him, she will go to the shop and have +herself fixed up to his pattern. In certain Eastern countries, I +believe, something of this kind is done. A gentleman desirous of +adding to his family sends round the neighbourhood the weight and +size of his favourite wife, hinting that if another can be found of +the same proportions, there is room for her. Fathers walk round +among their daughters, choose the most likely specimen, and have her +fattened up. That is their brutal Eastern way. Out West we shall be +more delicate. Match-making mothers will probably revive the old +confession book. Eligible bachelors will be invited to fill in a +page: "Your favourite height in women," "Your favourite measurement +round the waist," "Do you like brunettes or blondes?" + +The choice will be left to the girls. + +"I do think Henry William just too sweet for words," the maiden of +the future will murmur to herself. Gently, coyly, she will draw from +him his ideal of what a woman should be. In from six months to a +year she will burst upon him, the perfect She; height, size, weight, +right to a T. He will clasp her in his arms. + +"At last," he will cry, "I have found her, the woman of my dreams." + +And if he does not change his mind, and the bottles do not begin to +lose their effect, there will be every chance that they will be happy +ever afterwards. + +Might not Science go even further? Why rest satisfied with making a +world of merely beautiful women? Cannot Science, while she is about +it, make them all good at the same time. I do not apologise for the +suggestion. I used to think all women beautiful and good. It is +their own papers that have disillusioned me. I used to look at this +lady or at that--shyly, when nobody seemed to be noticing me--and +think how fair she was, how stately. Now I only wonder who is her +chemist. + +They used to tell me, when I was a little boy, that girls were made +of sugar and spice. I know better now. I have read the recipes in +the Answers to Correspondents. + +When I was quite a young man I used to sit in dark corners and +listen, with swelling heart, while people at the piano told me where +little girl babies got their wonderful eyes from, of the things they +did to them in heaven that gave them dimples. Ah me! I wish now I +had never come across those ladies' papers. I know the stuff that +causes those bewitching eyes. I know the shop where they make those +dimples; I have passed it and looked in. I thought they were +produced by angels' kisses, but there was not an angel about the +place, that I could see. Perhaps I have also been deceived as +regards their goodness. Maybe all women are not so perfect as in the +popular short story they appear to be. That is why I suggest that +Science should proceed still further, and make them all as beautiful +in mind as she is now able to make them in body. May we not live to +see in the advertisement columns of the ladies' paper of the future +the portrait of a young girl sulking in a corner--"Before taking the +lotion!" The same girl dancing among her little brothers and +sisters, shedding sunlight through the home--"After the three first +bottles!" May we not have the Caudle Mixture: One tablespoonful at +bed-time guaranteed to make the lady murmur, "Good-night, dear; hope +you'll sleep well," and at once to fall asleep, her lips parted in a +smile? Maybe some specialist of the future will advertise Mind +Massage: "Warranted to remove from the most obstinate subject all +traces of hatred, envy, and malice." + +And, when Science has done everything possible for women, there might +be no harm in her turning her attention to us men. Her idea at +present seems to be that we men are too beautiful, physically and +morally, to need improvement. Personally, there are one or two +points about which I should like to consult her. + + + +WHEN IS THE BEST TIME TO BE MERRY? + + + +There is so much I could do to improve things generally in and about +Europe, if only I had a free hand. I should not propose any great +fundamental changes. These poor people have got used to their own +ways; it would be unwise to reform them all at once. But there are +many little odds and ends that I could do for them, so many of their +mistakes I could correct for them. They do not know this. If they +only knew there was a man living in their midst willing to take them +in hand and arrange things for them, how glad they would be. But the +story is always the same. One reads it in the advertisements of the +matrimonial column: + +"A lady, young, said to be good-looking"--she herself is not sure on +the point; she feels that possibly she may be prejudiced; she puts +before you merely the current gossip of the neighbourhood; people say +she is beautiful; they may be right, they may be wrong: it is not +for her to decide--"well-educated, of affectionate disposition, +possessed of means, desires to meet gentleman with a view to +matrimony." + +Immediately underneath one reads of a gentleman of twenty-eight, +"tall, fair, considered agreeable." Really the modesty of the +matrimonial advertiser teaches to us ordinary mortals quite a +beautiful lesson. I know instinctively that were anybody to ask me +suddenly: + +"Do you call yourself an agreeable man?" I should answer promptly: + +"An agreeable man! Of course I'm an agreeable man. What silly +questions you do ask!" If he persisted in arguing the matter, +saying: + +"But there are people who do not consider you an agreeable man." I +should get angry with him. + +"Oh, they think that, do they?" I should say. "Well, you tell them +from me, with my compliments, that they are a set of blithering +idiots. Not agreeable! You show me the man who says I'm not +agreeable. I'll soon let him know whether I'm agreeable or not." + +These young men seeking a wife are silent on the subject of their own +virtues. Such are for others to discover. The matrimonial +advertiser confines himself to a simple statement of fact: he is +considered agreeable." + +He is domestically inclined, and in receipt of a good income. He is +desirous of meeting a lady of serious disposition, with view to +matrimony. If possessed of means--well, it is a trifle hardly worth +considering one way or the other. He does not insist upon it; on the +other hand he does not exclude ladies of means; the main idea is +matrimony. + +It is sad to reflect upon a young lady, said to be good-looking (let +us say good-looking and be done with it: a neighbourhood does not +rise up and declare a girl good-looking if she is not good-looking, +that is only her modest way of putting it), let us say a young lady, +good-looking, well-educated, of affectionate disposition--it is +undeniably sad to reflect that such an one, matrimonially inclined, +should be compelled to have recourse to the columns of a matrimonial +journal. What are the young men in the neighbourhood thinking of? +What more do they want? Is it Venus come to life again with ten +thousand a year that they are waiting for! It makes me angry with my +own sex reading these advertisements. And when one thinks of the +girls that do get married! + +But life is a mystery. The fact remains: here is the ideal wife +seeking in vain for a husband. And here, immediately underneath--I +will not say the ideal husband, he may have faults; none of us are +perfect, but as men go a decided acquisition to any domestic hearth, +an agreeable gentleman, fond of home life, none of your gad-abouts-- +calls aloud to the four winds for a wife--any sort of a wife, +provided she be of a serious disposition. In his despair, he has +grown indifferent to all other considerations. "Is there in this +world," he has said to himself, "one unmarried woman, willing to +marry me, an agreeable man, in receipt of a good income." Possibly +enough this twain have passed one another in the street, have sat +side by side in the same tram-car, never guessing, each one, that the +other was the very article of which they were in want to make life +beautiful. + +Mistresses in search of a servant, not so much with the idea of +getting work out of her, rather with the object of making her happy, +advertise on one page. On the opposite page, domestic treasures-- +disciples of Carlyle, apparently, with a passionate love of work for +its own sake--are seeking situations, not so much with the desire of +gain as with the hope of finding openings where they may enjoy the +luxury of feeling they are leading useful lives. These philanthropic +mistresses, these toil-loving hand-maidens, have lived side by side +in the same town for years, never knowing one another. + +So it is with these poor European peoples. They pass me in the +street. They do not guess that I am ready and willing to take them +under my care, to teach them common sense with a smattering of +intelligence--to be, as one might say, a father to them. They look +at me. There is nothing about me to tell them that I know what is +good for them better than they do themselves. In the fairy tales the +wise man wore a conical hat and a long robe with twiddly things all +round the edge. You knew he was a clever man. It avoided the +necessity of explanation. Unfortunately, the fashion has gone out. +We wise men have to wear just ordinary clothes. Nobody knows we are +wise men. Even when we tell them so, they don't believe it. This it +is that makes our task the more difficult. + +One of the first things I should take in hand, were European affairs +handed over to my control, would be the rearrangement of the +Carnival. As matters are, the Carnival takes place all over Europe +in February. At Nice, in Spain, or in Italy, it may be occasionally +possible to feel you want to dance about the streets in thin costume +during February. But in more northern countries during Carnival time +I have seen only one sensible masker; he was a man who had got +himself up as a diver. It was in Antwerp. The rain was pouring down +in torrents; a cheery, boisterous John Bull sort of an east wind was +blustering through the streets at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. +Pierrots, with frozen hands, were blowing blue noses. An elderly +Cupid had borrowed an umbrella from a cafe and was waiting for a +tram. A very little devil was crying with the cold, and wiping his +eyes with the end of his own tail. Every doorway was crowded with +shivering maskers. The diver alone walked erect, the water streaming +from him. + +February is not the month for open air masquerading. The "confetti," +which has come to be nothing but coloured paper cut into small discs, +is a sodden mass. When a lump of it strikes you in the eye, your +instinct is not to laugh gaily, but to find out the man who threw it +and to hit him back. This is not the true spirit of Carnival. The +marvel is that, in spite of the almost invariably adverse weather, +these Carnivals still continue. In Belgium, where Romanism still +remains the dominant religion, Carnival maintains itself stronger +than elsewhere in Northern Europe. + +At one small town, Binche, near the French border, it holds +uninterrupted sway for three days and two nights, during which time +the whole of the population, swelled by visitors from twenty miles +round, shouts, romps, eats and drinks and dances. After which the +visitors are packed like sardines into railway trains. They pin +their tickets to their coats and promptly go to sleep. At every +station the railway officials stumble up and down the trains with +lanterns. The last feeble effort of the more wakeful reveller, +before he adds himself to the heap of snoring humanity on the floor +of the railway carriage, is to change the tickets of a couple of his +unconscious companions. In this way gentlemen for the east are +dragged out by the legs at junctions, and packed into trains going +west; while southern fathers are shot out in the chill dawn at lonely +northern stations, to find themselves greeted with enthusiasm by +other people's families. + +At Binche, they say--I have not counted them myself--that thirty +thousand maskers can be seen dancing at the same time. When they are +not dancing they are throwing oranges at one another. The houses +board up their windows. The restaurants take down their mirrors and +hide away the glasses. If I went masquerading at Binche I should go +as a man in armour, period Henry the Seventh. + +"Doesn't it hurt," I asked a lady who had been there, "having oranges +thrown at you? Which sort do they use, speaking generally, those +fine juicy ones--Javas I think you call them--or the little hard +brand with skins like a nutmeg-grater? And if both sorts are used +indiscriminately, which do you personally prefer?" + +"The smart people," she answered, "they are the same everywhere--they +must be extravagant--they use the Java orange. If it hits you in the +back I prefer the Java orange. It is more messy than the other, but +it does not leave you with that curious sensation of having been +temporarily stunned. Most people, of course, make use of the small +hard orange. If you duck in time, and so catch it on the top of your +head, it does not hurt so much as you would think. If, however, it +hits you on a tender place--well, myself, I always find that a little +sal volatile, with old cognac--half and half, you understand--is +about the best thing. But it only happens once a year," she added. + +Nearly every town gives prizes for the best group of maskers. In +some cases the first prize amounts to as much as two hundred pounds. +The butchers, the bakers, the candlestick makers, join together and +compete. They arrive in wagons, each group with its band. Free +trade is encouraged. Each neighbouring town and village "dumps" its +load of picturesque merry-makers. + +It is in these smaller towns that the spirit of King Carnival finds +happiest expression. Almost every third inhabitant takes part in the +fun. In Brussels and the larger towns the thing appears ridiculous. +A few hundred maskers force their way with difficulty through +thousands of dull-clad spectators, looking like a Spanish river in +the summer time, a feeble stream, dribbling through acres of muddy +bank. At Charleroi, the centre of the Belgian Black Country, the +chief feature of the Carnival is the dancing of the children. A +space is specially roped off for them. + +If by chance the sun is kind enough to shine, the sight is a pretty +one. How they love the dressing up and the acting, these small +mites! One young hussy--she could hardly have been more than ten-- +was gotten up as a haughty young lady. Maybe some elder sister had +served as a model. She wore a tremendous wig of flaxen hair, a hat +that I guarantee would have made its mark even at Ascot on the Cup +Day, a skirt that trailed two yards behind her, a pair of what had +once been white kid gloves, and a blue silk parasol. Dignity! I +have seen the offended barmaid, I have met the chorus girl--not by +appointment, please don't misunderstand me, merely as a spectator--up +the river on Sunday. But never have I witnessed in any human being +so much hauteur to the pound avoir-dupois as was carried through the +streets of Charleroi by that small brat. Companions of other days, +mere vulgar boys and girls, claimed acquaintance with her. She +passed them with a stare of such utter disdain that it sent them +tumbling over one another backwards. By the time they had recovered +themselves sufficiently to think of an old tin kettle lying handy in +the gutter she had turned the corner. + +Two miserably clad urchins, unable to scrape together the few sous +necessary for the hire of a rag or two, had nevertheless determined +not to be altogether out of it. They had managed to borrow a couple +of white blouses--not what you would understand by a white blouse, +dear Madame, a dainty thing of frills and laces, but the coarse white +sack the street sweeper wears over his clothes. They had also +borrowed a couple of brooms. Ridiculous little objects they looked, +the tiny head of each showing above the great white shroud as gravely +they walked, the one behind the other, sweeping the mud into the +gutter. They also were of the Carnival, playing at being scavengers. + +Another quaint sight I witnessed. The "serpentin" is a feature of +the Belgian Carnival. It is a strip of coloured paper, some dozen +yards long, perhaps. You fling it as you would a lassoo, entangling +the head of some passer-by. Naturally, the object most aimed at by +the Belgian youth is the Belgian maiden. And, naturally also, the +maiden who finds herself most entangled is the maiden who--to use +again the language of the matrimonial advertiser--"is considered +good-looking." The serpentin about her head is the "feather in her +cap" of the Belgian maiden on Carnival Day. Coming suddenly round +the corner I almost ran into a girl. Her back was towards me. It +was a quiet street. She had half a dozen of these serpentins. +Hurriedly, with trembling hands, she was twisting them round and +round her own head. I looked at her as I passed. She flushed +scarlet. Poor little snub-nosed pasty-faced woman! I wish she had +not seen me. I could have bought sixpenny-worth, followed her, and +tormented her with them; while she would have pretended indignation-- +sought, discreetly, to escape from me. + +Down South, where the blood flows quicker, King Carnival is, indeed, +a jolly old soul. In Munich he reigns for six weeks, the end coming +with a mad two days revel in the streets. During the whole of the +period, folks in ordinary, every-day costume are regarded as +curiosities; people wonder what they are up to. From the Grafin to +the Dienstmadchen, from the Herr Professor to the "Piccolo," as they +term the small artist that answers to our page boy, the business of +Munich is dancing, somewhere, somehow, in a fancy costume. Every +theatre clears away the stage, every cafe crowds its chairs and +tables into corners, the very streets are cleared for dancing. +Munich goes mad. + +Munich is always a little mad. The maddest ball I ever danced at was +in Munich. I went there with a Harvard University professor. He had +been told what these balls were like. Ever seeking knowledge of all +things, he determined to take the matter up for himself and examine +it. The writer also must ever be learning. I agreed to accompany +him. We had not intended to dance. Our idea was that we could be +indulgent spectators, regarding from some coign of vantage the antics +of the foolish crowd. The professor was clad as became a professor. +Myself, I wore a simply-cut frock-coat, with trousering in French +grey. The doorkeeper explained to us that this was a costume ball; +he was sorry, but gentlemen could only be admitted in evening dress +or in masquerade. + +It was half past one in the morning. We had sat up late on purpose; +we had gone without our dinner; we had walked two miles. The +professor suggested pinning up the tails of his clerically-cut coat +and turning in his waistcoat. The doorkeeper feared it would not be +quite the same thing. Besides, my French grey trousers refused to +adapt themselves. The doorkeeper proposed our hiring a costume--a +little speculation of his own; gentlemen found it simpler sometimes, +especially married gentlemen, to hire a costume in this manner, +changing back into sober garments before returning home. It reduced +the volume of necessary explanation. + +"Have you anything, my good man," said the professor, "anything that +would effect a complete disguise?" + +The doorkeeper had the very thing--a Chinese arrangement, with +combined mask and wig. It fitted neatly over the head, and was +provided with a simple but ingenious piece of mechanism by means of +which much could be done with the pigtail. Myself the doorkeeper hid +from view under the cowl of a Carmelite monk. + +"I do hope nobody recognises us," whispered my friend the professor +as we entered. + +I can only hope sincerely that they did not. I do not wish to talk +about myself. That would be egotism. But the mystery of the +professor troubles me to this day. A grave, earnest gentleman, the +father of a family, I saw him with my own eyes put that ridiculous +pasteboard mask over his head. Later on--a good deal later on--I +found myself walking again with him through silent star-lit streets. +Where he had been in the interval, and who then was the strange +creature under the Chinaman's mask, will always remain to me an +unsolved problem. + + + +DO WE LIE A-BED TOO LATE? + + + +It was in Paris, many years ago, that I fell by chance into this +habit of early rising. My night--by reasons that I need not enter +into--had been a troubled one. Tired of the hot bed that gave no +sleep, I rose and dressed myself, crept down the creaking stairs, +experiencing the sensations of a burglar new to his profession, +unbolted the great door of the hotel, and passed out into an unknown, +silent city, bathed in a mysterious soft light. Since then, this +strange sweet city of the dawn has never ceased to call to me. It +may be in London, in Paris again, in Brussels, Berlin, Vienna, that I +have gone to sleep, but if perchance I wake before the returning tide +of human life has dimmed its glories with the mists and vapours of +the noisy day, I know that beyond my window blind the fairy city, as +I saw it first so many years ago--this city that knows no tears, no +sorrow, through which there creeps no evil thing; this city of quiet +vistas, fading into hope; this city of far-off voices whispering +peace; this city of the dawn that still is young--invites me to talk +with it awhile before the waking hours drive it before them, and with +a sigh it passes whence it came. + +It is the great city's one hour of purity, of dignity. The very rag- +picker, groping with her filthy hands among the ashes, instead of an +object of contempt, moves from door to door an accusing Figure, her +thin soiled garments, her bent body, her scarred face, hideous with +the wounds of poverty, an eloquent indictment of smug Injustice, +sleeping behind its deaf shutters. Yet even into her dim brain has +sunk the peace that fills for this brief hour the city. This, too, +shall have its end, my sister! Men and women were not born to live +on the husks that fill the pails outside the rich man's door. +Courage a little while longer, you and yours. Your rheumy eyes once +were bright, your thin locks once soft and wavy, your poor bent back +once straight; and maybe, as they tell you in their gilded churches, +this bulging sack shall be lifted from your weary shoulders, your +misshapen limbs be straight again. You pass not altogether unheeded +through these empty streets. Not all the eyes of the universe are +sleeping. + +The little seamstress, hurrying to her early work! A little later +she will be one of the foolish crowd, joining in the foolish +laughter, in the coarse jests of the work-room: but as yet the hot +day has not claimed her. The work-room is far beyond, the home of +mean cares and sordid struggles far behind. To her, also, in this +moment are the sweet thoughts of womanhood. She puts down her bag, +rests herself upon a seat. If all the day were dawn, this city of +the morning always with us! A neighbouring clock chimes forth the +hour. She starts up from her dream and hurries on--to the noisy +work-room. + +A pair of lovers cross the park, holding each other's hands. They +will return later in the day, but there will be another expression in +their eyes, another meaning in the pressure of their hands. Now the +purity of the morning is with them. + +Some fat, middle-aged clerk comes puffing into view: his ridiculous +little figure very podgy. He stops to take off his hat and mop his +bald head with his handkerchief: even to him the morning lends +romance. His fleshy face changes almost as one looks at him. One +sees again the lad with his vague hopes, his absurd ambitions. + +There is a statue of Aphrodite in one of the smaller Paris parks. +Twice in the same week, without particularly meaning it, I found +myself early in the morning standing in front of this statue gazing +listlessly at it, as one does when in dreamy mood; and on both +occasions, turning to go, I encountered the same man, also gazing at +it with, apparently, listless eyes. He was an uninteresting looking +man--possibly he thought the same of me. From his dress he might +have been a well-to-do tradesman, a minor Government official, +doctor, or lawyer. Quite ten years later I paid my third visit to +the same statue at about the same hour. This time he was there +before me. I was hidden from him by some bushes. He glanced round +but did not see me; and then he did a curious thing. Placing his +hands on the top of the pedestal, which may have been some seven feet +in height, he drew himself up, and kissed very gently, almost +reverentially, the foot of the statue, begrimed though it was with +the city's dirt. Had he been some long-haired student of the Latin +Quarter one would not have been so astonished. But he was such a +very commonplace, quite respectable looking man. Afterwards he drew +a pipe from his pocket, carefully filled and lighted it, took his +umbrella from the seat where it had been lying, and walked away. + +Had it been their meeting-place long ago? Had he been wont to tell +her, gazing at her with lover's eyes, how like she was to the statue? +The French sculptor has not to consider Mrs. Grundy. Maybe, the +lady, raising her eyes, had been confused; perhaps for a moment +angry--some little milliner or governess, one supposes. In France +the jeune fille of good family does not meet her lover unattended. +What had happened? Or was it but the vagrant fancy of a middle-aged +bourgeois seeking in imagination the romance that reality so rarely +gives us, weaving his love dream round his changeless statue? + +In one of Ibsen's bitter comedies the lovers agree to part while they +are still young, never to see each other in the flesh again. Into +the future each will bear away the image of the other, godlike, +radiant with the glory of youth and love; each will cherish the +memory of a loved one who shall be beautiful always. That their +parting may not appear such wild nonsense as at first it strikes us, +Ibsen shows us other lovers who have married in the orthodox fashion. +She was all that a mistress should be. They speak of her as they +first knew her fifteen years ago, when every man was at her feet. He +then was a young student, burning with fine ideals, with enthusiasm +for all the humanities. + +They enter. + +What did you expect? Fifteen years have passed--fifteen years of +struggle with the grim realities. He is fat and bald. Eleven +children have to be provided for. High ideals will not even pay the +bootmaker. To exist you have to fight for mean ends with mean +weapons. And the sweet girl heroine! Now the worried mother of +eleven brats! One rings down the curtain amid Satanic laughter. + +That is why, for one reason among so many, I love this mystic morning +light. It has a strange power of revealing the beauty that is hidden +from us by the coarser beams of the full day. These worn men and +women, grown so foolish looking, so unromantic; these artisans and +petty clerks plodding to their monotonous day's work; these dull-eyed +women of the people on their way to market to haggle over sous, to +argue and contend over paltry handfuls of food. In this magic +morning light the disguising body becomes transparent. They have +grown beautiful, not ugly, with the years of toil and hardship; these +lives, lived so patiently, are consecrated to the service of the +world. Joy, hope, pleasure--they have done with all such, life for +them is over. Yet they labour, ceaselessly, uncomplainingly. It is +for the children. + +One morning, near Brussels, I encountered a cart of faggots, drawn by +a hound so lean that stroking him might have hurt a dainty hand. I +was shocked--angry, till I noticed his fellow beast of burden pushing +the cart from behind. Such a scarecrow of an old woman! There was +little to choose between them. I walked with them a little way. She +lived near Waterloo. All day she gathered wood in the great forest, +and starting at three o'clock each morning, the two lean creatures +between them dragged the cart nine miles to Brussels, returning when +they had sold their load. With luck she might reckon on a couple of +francs. I asked her if she could not find something else to do. + +Yes, it was possible, but for the little one, her grandchild. Folks +will not employ old women burdened with grandchildren. + +You fair, dainty ladies, who would never know it was morning if +somebody did not enter to pull up the blind and tell you so! You do +well not to venture out in this magic morning light. You would look +so plain--almost ugly, by the side of these beautiful women. + +It is curious the attraction the Church has always possessed for the +marketing classes. Christ drove them from the Temple, but still, in +every continental city, they cluster round its outer walls. It makes +a charming picture on a sunny morning, the great cathedral with its +massive shadow forming the background; splashed about its feet, like +a parterre of gay flowers around the trunk of some old tree, the +women, young girls in their many coloured costumes, sitting before +their piled-up baskets of green vegetables, of shining fruits. + +In Brussels the chief market is held on the Grande Place. The great +gilded houses have looked down upon much the same scene every morning +these four hundred years. In summer time it commences about half- +past four; by five o'clock it is a roaring hive, the great city round +about still sleeping. + +Here comes the thrifty housewife of the poor, to whom the difference +of a tenth of a penny in the price of a cabbage is all-important, and +the much harassed keeper of the petty pension. There are houses in +Brussels where they will feed you, light you, sleep you, wait on you, +for two francs a day. Withered old ladies, ancient governesses, who +will teach you for forty centimes an hour, gather round these +ricketty tables, wolf up the thin soup, grumble at the watery coffee, +help themselves with unladylike greediness to the potato pie. It +must need careful housewifery to keep these poor creatures on two +francs a day and make a profit for yourself. So "Madame," the much- +grumbled-at, who has gone to bed about twelve, rises a little before +five, makes her way down with her basket. Thus a few sous may be +saved upon the day's economies. + +Sometimes it is a mere child who is the little housekeeper. One +thinks that perhaps this early training in the art of haggling may +not be good for her. Already there is a hard expression in the +childish eyes, mean lines about the little mouth. The finer +qualities of humanity are expensive luxuries, not to be afforded by +the poor. + +They overwork their patient dogs, and underfeed them. During the two +hours' market the poor beasts, still fastened to their little +"chariots," rest in the open space about the neighbouring Bourse. +They snatch at what you throw them; they do not even thank you with a +wag of the tail. Gratitude! Politeness! What mean you? We have +not heard of such. We only work. Some of them amid all the din lie +sleeping between their shafts. Some are licking one another's sores. +One would they were better treated; alas! their owners, likewise, are +overworked and underfed, housed in kennels no better. But if the +majority in every society were not overworked and underfed and meanly +housed, why, then the minority could not be underworked and overfed +and housed luxuriously. But this is talk to which no respectable +reader can be expected to listen. + +They are one babel of bargaining, these markets. The purchaser +selects a cauliflower. Fortunately, cauliflowers have no feelings, +or probably it would burst into tears at the expression with which it +is regarded. It is impossible that any lady should desire such a +cauliflower. Still, out of mere curiosity, she would know the price- +-that is, if the owner of the cauliflower is not too much ashamed of +it to name a price. + +The owner of the cauliflower suggests six sous. The thing is too +ridiculous for argument. The purchaser breaks into a laugh. + +The owner of the cauliflower is stung. She points out the beauties +of that cauliflower. Apparently it is the cauliflower out of all her +stock she loves the best; a better cauliflower never lived; if there +were more cauliflowers in the world like this particular cauliflower +things might be different. She gives a sketch of the cauliflower's +career, from its youth upwards. Hard enough it will be for her when +the hour for parting from it comes. If the other lady has not +sufficient knowledge of cauliflowers to appreciate it, will she +kindly not paw it about, but put it down and go away, and never let +the owner of the cauliflower see her again. + +The other lady, more as a friend than as a purchaser, points out the +cauliflower's defects. She wishes well to the owner of the +cauliflower, and would like to teach her something about her +business. A lady who thinks such a cauliflower worth six sous can +never hope to succeed as a cauliflower vendor. Has she really taken +the trouble to examine the cauliflower for herself, or has love made +her blind to its shortcomings? + +The owner of the cauliflower is too indignant to reply. She snatches +it away, appears to be comforting it, replaces it in the basket. The +other lady is grieved at human obstinacy and stupidity in general. +If the owner of the cauliflower had had any sense she would have +asked four sous. Eventually business is done at five. + +It is the custom everywhere abroad--asking the price of a thing is +simply opening conversation. A lady told me that, the first day she +began housekeeping in Florence, she handed over to a poulterer for a +chicken the price he had demanded--with protestations that he was +losing on the transaction, but wanted, for family reasons, +apparently, to get rid of the chicken. He stood for half a minute +staring at her, and then, being an honest sort of man, threw in a +pigeon. + +Foreign housekeepers starting business in London appear hurt when our +tradesmen decline to accept half-a-crown for articles marked three- +and-six. + +"Then why mark it only three-and-sixpence?" is the foreign +housekeeper's argument. + + + +SHOULD MARRIED MEN PLAY GOLF? + + + +That we Englishmen attach too much importance to sport goes without +saying--or, rather, it has been said so often as to have become a +commonplace. One of these days some reforming English novelist will +write a book, showing the evil effects of over-indulgence in sport: +the neglected business, the ruined home, the slow but sure sapping of +the brain--what there may have been of it in the beginning--leading +to semi-imbecility and yearly increasing obesity. + +A young couple, I once heard of, went for their honeymoon to +Scotland. The poor girl did not know he was a golfer (he had wooed +and won her during a period of idleness enforced by a sprained +shoulder), or maybe she would have avoided Scotland. The idea they +started with was that of a tour. The second day the man went out for +a stroll by himself. At dinner-time he observed, with a far-away +look in his eyes, that it seemed a pretty spot they had struck, and +suggested their staying there another day. The next morning after +breakfast he borrowed a club from the hotel porter, and remarked that +he would take a walk while she finished doing her hair. He said it +amused him, swinging a club while he walked. He returned in time for +lunch and seemed moody all the afternoon. He said the air suited +him, and urged that they should linger yet another day. + +She was young and inexperienced, and thought, maybe, it was liver. +She had heard much about liver from her father. The next morning he +borrowed more clubs, and went out, this time before breakfast, +returning to a late and not over sociable dinner. That was the end +of their honeymoon so far as she was concerned. He meant well, but +the thing had gone too far. The vice had entered into his blood, and +the smell of the links drove out all other considerations. + +We are most of us familiar, I take it, with the story of the golfing +parson, who could not keep from swearing when the balls went wrong. + +"Golf and the ministry don't seem to go together," his friend told +him. "Take my advice before it's too late, and give it up, Tammas." + +A few months later Tammas met his friend again. + +"You were right, Jamie," cried the parson cheerily, "they didna run +well in harness; golf and the meenistry, I hae followed your advice: +I hae gi'en it oop." + +"Then what are ye doing with that sack of clubs?" inquired Jamie. + +"What am I doing with them?" repeated the puzzled Tammas. "Why I am +going to play golf with them." A light broke upon him. "Great +Heavens, man!" he continued, "ye didna' think 'twas the golf I'd +gi'en oop?" + +The Englishman does not understand play. He makes a life-long labour +of his sport, and to it sacrifices mind and body. The health resorts +of Europe--to paraphrase a famous saying that nobody appears to have +said--draw half their profits from the playing fields of Eton and +elsewhere. In Swiss and German kurhausen enormously fat men bear +down upon you and explain to you that once they were the champion +sprinters or the high-jump representatives of their university--men +who now hold on to the bannisters and groan as they haul themselves +upstairs. Consumptive men, between paroxysms of coughing, tell you +of the goals they scored when they were half-backs or forwards of +extraordinary ability. Ex-light-weight amateur pugilists, with the +figure now of an American roll-top desk, butt you into a corner of +the billiard-room, and, surprised they cannot get as near you as they +would desire, whisper to you the secret of avoiding the undercut by +the swiftness of the backward leap. Broken-down tennis players, one- +legged skaters, dropsical gentlemen-riders, are to be met with +hobbling on crutches along every highway of the Engadine. + +They are pitiable objects. Never having learnt to read anything but +the sporting papers, books are of no use to them. They never wasted +much of their youth on thought, and, apparently, have lost the knack +of it. They don't care for art, and Nature only suggests to them the +things they can no longer do. The snow-clad mountain reminds them +that once they were daring tobogannists; the undulating common makes +them sad because they can no longer handle a golf-club; by the +riverside they sit down and tell you of the salmon they caught before +they caught rheumatic fever; birds only make them long for guns; +music raises visions of the local cricket-match of long ago, +enlivened by the local band; a picturesque estaminet, with little +tables spread out under the vines, recalls bitter memories of ping- +pong. One is sorry for them, but their conversation is not +exhilarating. The man who has other interests in life beyond sport +is apt to find their reminiscences monotonous; while to one another +they do not care to talk. One gathers that they do not altogether +believe one another. + +The foreigner is taking kindly to our sports; one hopes he will be +forewarned by our example and not overdo the thing. At present, one +is bound to admit, he shows no sign of taking sport too seriously. +Football is gaining favour more and more throughout Europe. But yet +the Frenchman has not got it out of his head that the coup to +practise is kicking the ball high into the air and catching it upon +his head. He would rather catch the ball upon his head than score a +goal. If he can manoeuvre the ball away into a corner, kick it up +into the air twice running, and each time catch it on his head, he +does not seem to care what happens after that. Anybody can have the +ball; he has had his game and is happy. + +They talk of introducing cricket into Belgium; I shall certainly try +to be present at the opening game. I am afraid that, until he learns +from experience, the Belgian fielder will stop cricket balls with his +head. That the head is the proper thing with which to play ball +appears to be in his blood. My head is round, he argues, and hard, +just like the ball itself; what part of the human frame more fit and +proper with which to meet and stop a ball. + +Golf has not yet caught on, but tennis is firmly established from St. +Petersburg to Bordeaux. The German, with the thoroughness +characteristic of him, is working hard. University professors, stout +majors, rising early in the morning, hire boys and practise back- +handers and half-volleys. But to the Frenchman, as yet, it is a +game. He plays it in a happy, merry fashion, that is shocking to +English eyes. + +Your partner's service rather astonishes you. An occasional yard or +so beyond the line happens to anyone, but this man's object appears +to be to break windows. You feel you really must remonstrate, when +the joyous laughter and tumultuous applause of the spectators explain +the puzzle to you. He has not been trying to serve; he has been +trying to hit a man in the next court who is stooping down to tie up +his shoe-lace. With his last ball he has succeeded. He has hit the +man in the small of the back, and has bowled him over. The unanimous +opinion of the surrounding critics is that the ball could not +possibly have been better placed. A Doherty has never won greater +applause from the crowd. Even the man who has been hit appears +pleased; it shows what a Frenchman can do when he does take up a +game. + +But French honour demands revenge. He forgets his shoe, he forgets +his game. He gathers together all the balls that he can find; his +balls, your balls, anybody's balls that happen to be handy. And then +commences the return match. At this point it is best to crouch down +under shelter of the net. Most of the players round about adopt this +plan; the more timid make for the club-house, and, finding themselves +there, order coffee and light up cigarettes. After a while both +players appear to be satisfied. The other players then gather round +to claim their balls. This makes a good game by itself. The object +is to get as many balls as you can, your own and other people's--for +preference other people's--and run off with them round the courts, +followed by whooping claimants. + +In the course of half-an-hour or so, when everybody is dead beat, the +game--the original game--is resumed. You demand the score; your +partner promptly says it is "forty-fifteen." Both your opponents +rush up to the net, and apparently there is going to be a duel. It +is only a friendly altercation; they very much doubt its being +"forty-fifteen." "Fifteen-forty" they could believe; they suggest it +as a compromise. The discussion is concluded by calling it deuce. +As it is rare for a game to proceed without some such incident +occurring in the middle of it, the score generally is deuce. This +avoids heart-burning; nobody wins a set and nobody loses. The one +game generally suffices for the afternoon. + +To the earnest player, it is also confusing to miss your partner +occasionally--to turn round and find that he is talking to a man. +Nobody but yourself takes the slightest objection to his absence. +The other side appear to regard it as a good opportunity to score. +Five minutes later he resumes the game. His friend comes with him, +also the dog of his friend. The dog is welcomed with enthusiasm; all +balls are returned to the dog. Until the dog is tired you do not get +a look in. But all this will no doubt soon be changed. There are +some excellent French and Belgian players; from them their +compatriots will gradually learn higher ideals. The Frenchman is +young in the game. As the right conception of the game grows upon +him, he will also learn to keep the balls lower. + +I suppose it is the continental sky. It is so blue, so beautiful; it +naturally attracts one. Anyhow, the fact remains that most tennis +players on the Continent, whether English or foreign, have a tendency +to aim the ball direct at Heaven. At an English club in Switzerland +there existed in my days a young Englishman who was really a +wonderful player. To get the ball past him was almost an +impossibility. It was his return that was weak. He only had one +stroke; the ball went a hundred feet or so into the air and descended +in his opponent's court. The other man would stand watching it, a +little speck in the Heavens, growing gradually bigger and bigger as +it neared the earth. Newcomers would chatter to him, thinking he had +detected a balloon or an eagle. He would wave them aside, explain to +them that he would talk to them later, after the arrival of the ball. +It would fall with a thud at his feet, rise another twenty yards or +so and again descend. When it was at the proper height he would hit +it back over the net, and the next moment it would be mounting the +sky again. At tournaments I have seen that young man, with tears in +his eyes, pleading to be given an umpire. Every umpire had fled. +They hid behind trees, borrowed silk hats and umbrellas and pretended +they were visitors--any device, however mean, to avoid the task of +umpiring for that young man. Provided his opponent did not go to +sleep or get cramp, one game might last all day. Anyone could return +his balls; but, as I have said, to get a ball past him was almost an +impossibility. He invariably won; the other man, after an hour or +so, would get mad and try to lose. It was his only chance of dinner. + +It is a pretty sight, generally speaking, a tennis ground abroad. +The women pay more attention to their costumes than do our lady +players. The men are usually in spotless white. The ground is often +charmingly situated, the club-house picturesque; there is always +laughter and merriment. The play may not be so good to watch, but +the picture is delightful. I accompanied a man a little while ago to +his club on the outskirts of Brussels. The ground was bordered by a +wood on one side, and surrounded on the other three by petites +fermes--allotments, as we should call them in England, worked by the +peasants themselves. + +It was a glorious spring afternoon. The courts were crowded. The +red earth and the green grass formed a background against which the +women, in their new Parisian toilets, under their bright parasols, +stood out like wondrous bouquets of moving flowers. The whole +atmosphere was a delightful mingling of idle gaiety, flirtation, and +graceful sensuousness. A modern Watteau would have seized upon the +scene with avidity. + +Just beyond--separated by the almost invisible wire fencing--a group +of peasants were working in the field. An old woman and a young +girl, with ropes about their shoulders, were drawing a harrow, guided +by a withered old scarecrow of a man. They paused for a moment at +the wire fencing, and looked through. It was an odd contrast; the +two worlds divided by that wire fencing--so slight, almost invisible. +The girl swept the sweat from her face with her hand; the woman +pushed back her grey locks underneath the handkerchief knotted about +her head; the old man straightened himself with some difficulty. So +they stood, for perhaps a minute, gazing with quiet, passionless +faces through that slight fencing, that a push from their work- +hardened hands might have levelled. + +Was there any thought, I wonder, passing through their brains? The +young girl--she was a handsome creature in spite of her disfiguring +garments. The woman--it was a wonderfully fine face: clear, calm +eyes, deep-set under a square broad brow. The withered old +scarecrow--ever sowing the seed in the spring of the fruit that +others shall eat. + +The old man bent again over the guiding ropes: gave the word. The +team moved forward up the hill. It is Anatole France, I think, who +says: Society is based upon the patience of the poor. + + + +ARE EARLY MARRIAGES A MISTAKE? + + + +I am chary nowadays of offering counsel in connection with subjects +concerning which I am not and cannot be an authority. Long ago I +once took upon myself to write a paper about babies. It did not aim +to be a textbook on the subject. It did not even claim to exhaust +the topic. I was willing that others, coming after me, should +continue the argument--that is if, upon reflection, they were still +of opinion there was anything more to be said. I was pleased with +the article. I went out of my way to obtain an early copy of the +magazine in which it appeared, on purpose to show it to a lady friend +of mine. She was the possessor of one or two babies of her own, +specimens in no way remarkable, though she herself, as was natural +enough, did her best to boom them. I thought it might be helpful to +her: the views and observations, not of a rival fancier, who would +be prejudiced, but of an intelligent amateur. I put the magazine +into her hands, opened at the proper place. + +"Read it through carefully and quietly," I said; "don't let anything +distract you. Have a pencil and a bit of paper ready at your side, +and note down any points upon which you would like further +information. If there is anything you think I have missed out let me +know. It may be that here and there you will be disagreeing with me. +If so, do not hesitate to mention it, I shall not be angry. If a +demand arises I shall very likely issue an enlarged and improved +edition of this paper in the form of a pamphlet, in which case hints +and suggestions that to you may appear almost impertinent will be of +distinct help to me." + +"I haven't got a pencil," she said; "what's it all about?" + +"It's about babies," I explained, and I lent her a pencil. + +That is another thing I have learnt. Never lend a pencil to a woman +if you ever want to see it again. She has three answers to your +request for its return. The first, that she gave it back to you and +that you put it in your pocket, and that it's there now, and that if +it isn't it ought to be. The second, that you never lent it to her. +The third, that she wishes people would not lend her pencils and then +clamour for them back, just when she has something else far more +important to think about. + +"What do you know about babies?" she demanded. + +"If you will read the paper," I replied, "you will see for yourself. +It's all there." + +She flicked over the pages contemptuously. + +"There doesn't seem much of it?" she retorted. + +"It is condensed," I pointed out to her. + +"I am glad it is short. All right, I'll read it," she agreed. + +I thought my presence might disturb her, so went out into the garden. +I wanted her to get the full benefit of it. I crept back now and +again to peep through the open window. She did not seem to be making +many notes. But I heard her making little noises to herself. When I +saw she had reached the last page, I re-entered the room. + +"Well?" I said. + +"Is it meant to be funny," she demanded, "or is it intended to be +taken seriously?" + +"There may be flashes of humour here and there--" + +She did not wait for me to finish. + +"Because if it's meant to be funny," she said, "I don't think it is +at all funny. And if it is intended to be serious, there's one thing +very clear, and that is that you are not a mother." + +With the unerring instinct of the born critic she had divined my one +weak point. Other objections raised against me I could have met. +But that one stinging reproach was unanswerable. It has made me, as +I have explained, chary of tendering advice on matters outside my own +department of life. Otherwise, every year, about Valentine's day, +there is much that I should like to say to my good friends the birds. +I want to put it to them seriously. Is not the month of February +just a little too early? Of course, their answer would be the same +as in the case of my motherly friend. + +"Oh, what do you know about it? you are not a bird." + +I know I am not a bird, but that is the very reason why they should +listen to me. I bring a fresh mind to bear upon the subject. I am +not tied down by bird convention. February, my dear friends--in +these northern climes of ours at all events--is much too early. You +have to build in a high wind, and nothing, believe me, tries a lady's +temper more than being blown about. Nature is nature, and womenfolk, +my dear sirs, are the same all the world over, whether they be birds +or whether they be human. I am an older person than most of you, and +I speak with the weight of experience. + +If I were going to build a house with my wife, I should not choose a +season of the year when the bricks and planks and things were liable +to be torn out of her hand, her skirts blown over her head, and she +left clinging for dear life to a scaffolding pole. I know the +feminine biped and, you take it from me, that is not her notion of a +honeymoon. In April or May, the sun shining, the air balmy--when, +after carrying up to her a load or two of bricks, and a hod or two of +mortar, we could knock off work for a few minutes without fear of the +whole house being swept away into the next street--could sit side by +side on the top of a wall, our legs dangling down, and peck and +morsel together; after which I could whistle a bit to her--then +housebuilding might be a pleasure. + +The swallows are wisest; June is their idea, and a very good idea, +too. In a mountain village in the Tyrol, early one summer, I had the +opportunity of watching very closely the building of a swallow's +nest. After coffee, the first morning, I stepped out from the great, +cool, dark passage of the wirtschaft into the blazing sunlight, and, +for no particular reason, pulled-to the massive door behind me. +While filling my pipe, a swallow almost brushed by me, then wheeled +round again, and took up a position on the fence only a few yards +from me. He was carrying what to him was an exceptionally large and +heavy brick. He put it down beside him on the fence, and called out +something which I could not understand. I did not move. He got +quite excited and said some more. It was undoubtable he was +addressing me--nobody else was by. I judged from his tone that he +was getting cross with me. At this point my travelling companion, +his toilet unfinished, put his head out of the window just above me. + +"Such an odd thing," he called down to me. "I never noticed it last +night. A pair of swallows are building a nest here in the hall. +You've got to be careful you don't mistake it for a hat-peg. The old +lady says they have built there regularly for the last three years." + +Then it came to me what it was the gentleman had been saying to me: +"I say, sir, you with the bit of wood in your mouth, you have been +and shut the door and I can't get in." + +Now, with the key in my possession, it was so clear and +understandable, I really forgot for the moment he was only a bird. + +"I beg your pardon," I replied, "I had no idea. Such an +extraordinary place to build a nest." + +I opened the door for him, and, taking up his brick again, he +entered, and I followed him in. There was a deal of talk. + +"He shut the door," I heard him say, "Chap there, sucking the bit of +wood. Thought I was never going to get in." + +"I know," was the answer; "it has been so dark in here, if you'll +believe me, I've hardly been able to see what I've been doing." + +"Fine brick, isn't it? Where will you have it?" + +Observing me sitting there, they lowered their voices. Evidently she +wanted him to put the brick down and leave her to think. She was not +quite sure where she would have it. He, on the other hand, was sure +he had found the right place for it. He pointed it out to her and +explained his views. Other birds quarrel a good deal during nest +building, but swallows are the gentlest of little people. She let +him put it where he wanted to, and he kissed her and ran out. She +cocked her eye after him, watched till he was out of sight, then +deftly and quickly slipped it out and fixed it the other side of the +door. + +"Poor dears" (I could see it in the toss of her head); "they will +think they know best; it is just as well not to argue with them." + +Every summer I suffer much from indignation. I love to watch the +swallows building. They build beneath the eaves outside my study +window. Such cheerful little chatter-boxes they are. Long after +sunset, when all the other birds are sleeping, the swallows still are +chattering softly. It sounds as if they were telling one another +some pretty story, and often I am sure there must be humour in it, +for every now and then one hears a little twittering laugh. I +delight in having them there, so close to me. The fancy comes to me +that one day, when my brain has grown more cunning, I, too, listening +in the twilight, shall hear the stories that they tell. + +One or two phrases already I have come to understand: "Once upon a +time"--"Long, long ago"--"In a strange, far-off land." I hear these +words so constantly, I am sure I have them right. I call it "Swallow +Street," this row of six or seven nests. Two or three, like villas +in their own grounds, stand alone, and others are semi-detached. It +makes me angry that the sparrows will come and steal them. The +sparrows will hang about deliberately waiting for a pair of swallows +to finish their nest, and then, with a brutal laugh that makes my +blood boil, drive the swallows away and take possession of it. And +the swallows are so wonderfully patient. + +"Never mind, old girl," says Tommy Swallow, after the first big cry +is over, to Jenny Swallow, "let's try again." + +And half an hour later, full of fresh plans, they are choosing +another likely site, chattering cheerfully once more. I watched the +building of a particular nest for nearly a fortnight one year; and +when, after two or three days' absence, I returned and found a pair +of sparrows comfortably encsonced therein, I just felt mad. I saw +Mrs. Sparrow looking out. Maybe my anger was working upon my +imagination, but it seemed to me that she nodded to me: + +"Nice little house, ain't it? What I call well built." + +Mr. Sparrow then flew up with a gaudy feather, dyed blue, which +belonged to me. I recognised it. It had come out of the brush with +which the girl breaks the china ornaments in our drawing-room. At +any other time I should have been glad to see him flying off with the +whole thing, handle included. But now I felt the theft of that one +feather as an added injury. Mrs. Sparrow chirped with delight at +sight of the gaudy monstrosity. Having got the house cheap, they +were going to spend their small amount of energy upon internal +decoration. That was their idea clearly, a "Liberty interior." She +looked more like a Cockney sparrow than a country one--had been born +and bred in Regent Street, no doubt. + +"There is not much justice in this world," said I to myself; "but +there's going to be some introduced into this business--that is, if I +can find a ladder." + +I did find a ladder, and fortunately it was long enough. Mr. and +Mrs. Sparrow were out when I arrived, possibly on the hunt for cheap +photo frames and Japanese fans. I did not want to make a mess. I +removed the house neatly into a dust-pan, and wiped the street clear +of every trace of it. I had just put back the ladder when Mrs. +Sparrow returned with a piece of pink cotton-wool in her mouth. That +was her idea of a colour scheme: apple-blossom pink and Reckitt's +blue side by side. She dropped her wool and sat on the waterspout, +and tried to understand things. + +"Number one, number two, number four; where the blazes"--sparrows are +essentially common, and the women are as bad as the men--"is number +three?" + +Mr. Sparrow came up from behind, over the roof. He was carrying a +piece of yellow-fluff, part of a lamp-shade, as far as I could judge. + +"Move yourself," he said, "what's the sense of sitting there in the +rain?" + +"I went out just for a moment," replied Mrs. Sparrow; "I could not +have been gone, no, not a couple of minutes. When I came back--" + +"Oh, get indoors," said Mr. Sparrow, "talk about it there." + +"It's what I'm telling you," continued Mrs. Sparrow, "if you would +only listen. There isn't any door, there isn't any house--" + +"Isn't any--" Mr. Sparrow, holding on to the rim of the spout, turned +himself topsy-turvy and surveyed the street. From where I was +standing behind the laurel bushes I could see nothing but his back. + +He stood up again, looking angry and flushed. + +"What have you done with the house? Can't I turn my back a minute--" + +"I ain't done nothing with it. As I keep on telling you, I had only +just gone--" + +"Oh, bother where you had gone. Where's the darned house gone? +that's what I want to know." + +They looked at one another. If ever astonishment was expressed in +the attitude of a bird it was told by the tails of those two +sparrows. They whispered wickedly together. The idea occurred to +them that by force or cunning they might perhaps obtain possession of +one of the other nests. But all the other nests were occupied, and +even gentle Jenny Swallow, once in her own home with the children +round about her, is not to be trifled with. Mr. Sparrow called at +number two, put his head in at the door, and then returned to the +waterspout. + +"Lady says we don't live there," he explained to Mrs. Sparrow. There +was silence for a while. + +"Not what I call a classy street," commented Mrs. Sparrow. + +"If it were not for that terrible tired feeling of mine," said Mr. +Sparrow, "blame if I wouldn't build a house of my own." + +"Perhaps," said Mrs. Sparrow, "--I have heard it said that a little +bit of work, now and then, does you good." + +"All sorts of wild ideas about in the air nowadays," said Mr. +Sparrow, "it don't do to listen to everybody." + +"And it don't do to sit still and do nothing neither," snapped Mrs. +Sparrow. "I don't want to have to forget I'm a lady, but--well, any +man who was a man would see things for himself." + +"Why did I every marry?" retorted Mr. Sparrow. + +They flew away together, quarrelling. + + + +DO WRITERS WRITE TOO MUCH? + + + +On a newspaper placard, the other day, I saw announced a new novel by +a celebrated author. I bought a copy of the paper, and turned +eagerly to the last page. I was disappointed to find that I had +missed the first six chapters. The story had commenced the previous +Saturday; this was Friday. I say I was disappointed and so I was, at +first. But my disappointment did not last long. The bright and +intelligent sub-editor, according to the custom now in vogue, had +provided me with a short synopsis of those first six chapters, so +that without the trouble of reading them I knew what they were all +about. + +"The first instalment," I learned, "introduces the reader to a +brilliant and distinguished company, assembled in the drawing-room of +Lady Mary's maisonette in Park Street. Much smart talk is indulged +in." + +I know that "smart talk" so well. Had I not been lucky enough to +miss that first chapter I should have had to listen to it once again. +Possibly, here and there, it might have been new to me, but it would +have read, I know, so very like the old. A dear, sweet white-haired +lady of my acquaintance is never surprised at anything that happens. + +"Something very much of the same kind occurred," she will remember, +"one winter when we were staying in Brighton. Only on that occasion +the man's name, I think, was Robinson." + +We do not live new stories--nor write them either. The man's name in +the old story was Robinson, we alter it to Jones. It happened, in +the old forgotten tale, at Brighton, in the winter time; we change it +to Eastbourne, in the spring. It is new and original--to those who +have not heard "something very like it" once before. + +"Much smart talk is indulged in," so the sub-editor has explained. +There is absolutely no need to ask for more than that. There is a +Duchess who says improper things. Once she used to shock me. But I +know her now. She is really a nice woman; she doesn't mean them. +And when the heroine is in trouble, towards the middle of the book, +she is just as amusing on the side of virtue. Then there is a +younger lady whose speciality is proverbs. Apparently whenever she +hears a proverb she writes it down and studies it with the idea of +seeing into how many different forms it can be twisted. It looks +clever; as a matter of fact, it is extremely easy. + +Be virtuous and you will be happy. + +She jots down all the possible variations: Be virtuous and you will +be unhappy. + +"Too simple that one," she tells herself. Be virtuous and your +friends will be happy if you are not. + +"Better, but not wicked enough. Let us think again. Be happy and +people will jump to the conclusion that you are virtuous. + +"That's good, I'll try that one at to-morrow's party." + +She is a painstaking lady. One feels that, better advised, she might +have been of use in the world. + +There is likewise a disgraceful old Peer who tells naughty stories, +but who is good at heart; and one person so very rude that the wonder +is who invited him. + +Occasionally a slangy girl is included, and a clergyman, who takes +the heroine aside and talks sense to her, flavoured with epigram. +All these people chatter a mixture of Lord Chesterfield and Oliver +Wendell Holmes, of Heine, Voltaire, Madame de Stael, and the late +lamented H. J. Byron. "How they do it beats me," as I once overheard +at a music hall a stout lady confess to her friend while witnessing +the performance of a clever troup, styling themselves "The Boneless +Wonders of the Universe." + +The synopsis added that: "Ursula Bart, a charming and +unsophisticated young American girl possessed of an elusive +expression makes her first acquaintance with London society." + +Here you have a week's unnecessary work on the part of the author +boiled down to its essentials. She was young. One hardly expects an +elderly heroine. The "young" might have been dispensed with, +especially seeing it is told us that she was a girl. But maybe this +is carping. There are young girls and old girls. Perhaps it is as +well to have it in black and white; she was young. She was an +American young girl. There is but one American young girl in English +fiction. We know by heart the unconventional things that she will +do, the startlingly original things that she will say, the fresh +illuminating thoughts that will come to her as, clad in a loose robe +of some soft clinging stuff, she sits before the fire, in the +solitude of her own room. + +To complete her she had an "elusive expression." The days when we +used to catalogue the heroine's "points" are past. Formerly it was +possible. A man wrote perhaps some half-a-dozen novels during the +whole course of his career. He could have a dark girl for the first, +a light girl for the second, sketch a merry little wench for the +third, and draw you something stately for the fourth. For the +remaining two he could go abroad. Nowadays, when a man turns out a +novel and six short stories once a year, description has to be +dispensed with. It is not the writer's fault. There is not +sufficient variety in the sex. We used to introduce her thus: + +"Imagine to yourself, dear reader, an exquisite and gracious creature +of five feet three. Her golden hair of that peculiar shade"--here +would follow directions enabling the reader to work it out for +himself. He was to pour some particular wine into some particular +sort of glass, and wave it about before some particular sort of a +light. Or he was to get up at five o'clock on a March morning and go +into a wood. In this way he could satisfy himself as to the +particular shade of gold the heroine's hair might happen to be. If +he were a careless or lazy reader he could save himself time and +trouble by taking the author's word for it. Many of them did. + +"Her eyes!" They were invariably deep and liquid. They had to be +pretty deep to hold all the odds and ends that were hidden in them; +sunlight and shadow, mischief, unsuspected possibilities, assorted +emotions, strange wild yearnings. Anything we didn't know where else +to put we said was hidden in her eyes. + +"Her nose!" You could have made it for yourself out of a pen'orth of +putty after reading our description of it. + +"Her forehead!" It was always "low and broad." I don't know why it +was always low. Maybe because the intellectual heroine was not then +popular. For the matter of that I doubt if she be really popular +now. The brainless doll, one fears, will continue for many years to +come to be man's ideal woman--and woman's ideal of herself for +precisely the same period, one may be sure. + +"Her chin!" A less degree of variety was permissible in her chin. +It had to be at an angle suggestive of piquancy, and it had to +contain at least the suspicion of a dimple. + +To properly understand her complexion you were expected to provide +yourself with a collection of assorted fruits and flowers. There are +seasons in the year when it must have been difficult for the +conscientious reader to have made sure of her complexion. Possibly +it was for this purpose that wax flowers and fruit, carefully kept +from the dust under glass cases, were common objects in former times +upon the tables of the cultured. + +Nowadays we content ourselves--and our readers also, I am inclined to +think--with dashing her off in a few bold strokes. We say that +whenever she entered a room there came to one dreams of an old world +garden, the sound of far-off bells. Or that her presence brought +with it the scent of hollyhocks and thyme. As a matter of fact I +don't think hollyhocks do smell. It is a small point; about such we +do not trouble ourselves. In the case of the homely type of girl I +don't see why we should not borrow Mr. Pickwick's expression, and +define her by saying that in some subtle way she always contrived to +suggest an odour of chops and tomato sauce. + +If we desire to be exact we mention, as this particular author seems +to have done, that she had an "elusive expression," or a penetrating +fragrance. Or we say that she moved, the centre of an indefinable +nuance. + +But it is not policy to bind oneself too closely to detail. A wise +friend of mine, who knows his business, describes his hero invariably +in the vaguest terms. He will not even tell you whether the man is +tall or short, clean shaven or bearded. + +"Make the fellow nice," is his advice. "Let every woman reader +picture him to herself as her particular man. Then everything he +says and does becomes of importance to her. She is careful not to +miss a word." + +For the same reason he sees to it that his heroine has a bit of every +girl in her. Generally speaking, she is a cross between Romola and +Dora Copperfield. His novels command enormous sales. The women say +he draws a man to the life, but does not seem to know much about +women. The men like his women, but think his men stupid. + +Of another famous author no woman of my acquaintance is able to speak +too highly. They tell me his knowledge of their sex is simply +marvellous, his insight, his understanding of them almost uncanny. +Thinking it might prove useful, I made an exhaustive study of his +books. I noticed that his women were without exception brilliant +charming creatures possessed of the wit of a Lady Wortlay Montagu, +combined with the wisdom of a George Eliot. They were not all of +them good women, but all of them were clever and all of them were +fascinating. I came to the conclusion that his lady critics were +correct: he did understand women. But to return to our synopsis. + +The second chapter, it appeared, transported us to Yorkshire where: +"Basil Longleat, a typical young Englishman, lately home from +college, resides with his widowed mother and two sisters. They are a +delightful family." + +What a world of trouble to both writer and to reader is here saved. +"A typical young Englishman!" The author probably wrote five pages, +elaborating. The five words of the sub-editor present him to me more +vividly. I see him positively glistening from the effects of soap +and water. I see his clear blue eye; his fair crisp locks, the +natural curliness of which annoys him personally, though alluring to +everybody else; his frank winning smile. He is "lately home from +college." That tells me that he is a first-class cricketer; a first- +class oar; that as a half-back he is incomparable; that he swims like +Captain Webb; is in the first rank of tennis players; that his half- +volley at ping-pong has never been stopped. It doesn't tell me much +about his brain power. The description of him as a "typical young +Englishman" suggests more information on this particular point. One +assumes that the American girl with the elusive expression is going +to have sufficient for both. + +"They are a delightful family." The sub-editor does not say so, but +I imagine the two sisters are likewise typical young Englishwomen. +They ride and shoot and cook and make their own dresses, have common +sense and love a joke. + +The third chapter is "taken up with the humours of a local cricket +match." + +Thank you, Mr. Sub-editor. I feel I owe you gratitude. + +In the fourth, Ursula Bart (I was beginning to get anxious about her) +turns up again. She is staying at the useful Lady Mary's place in +Yorkshire. She meets Basil by accident one morning while riding +alone. That is the advantage of having an American girl for your +heroine. Like the British army: it goes anywhere and does anything. + +In chapter five Basil and Ursula meet again; this time at a picnic. +The sub-editor does not wish to repeat himself, otherwise he possibly +would have summed up chapter five by saying it was "taken up with the +humours of the usual picnic." + +In chapter six something happens: + +"Basil, returning home in the twilight, comes across Ursula Bart, in +a lonely point of the moor, talking earnestly to a rough-looking +stranger. His approach over the soft turf being unnoticed, he cannot +help overhearing Ursula's parting words to the forbidding-looking +stranger: 'I must see you again! To-morrow night at half-past nine! +In the gateway of the ruined abbey!' Who is he? And why must Ursula +see him again at such an hour, in such a spot?" + +So here, at cost of reading twenty lines, I am landed, so to speak, +at the beginning of the seventh chapter. Why don't I set to work to +read it? The sub-editor has spoiled me. + +"You read it," I want to say to him. "Tell me to-morrow morning what +it is all about. Who was this bounder? Why should Ursula want to +see him again? Why choose a draughty place? Why half-past nine +o'clock at night, which must have been an awkward time for both of +them--likely to lead to talk? Why should I wade though this seventh +chapter of three columns and a half? It's your work. What are you +paid for?" + +My fear is lest this sort of thing shall lead to a demand on the part +of the public for condensed novels. What busy man is going to spend +a week of evenings reading a book when a nice kind sub-editor is +prepared in five minutes to tell him what it is all about! + +Then there will come a day--I feel it--when the business-like Editor +will say to himself: "What in thunder is the sense of my paying one +man to write a story of sixty thousand words and another man to read +it and tell it again in sixteen hundred!" + +We shall be expected to write our novels in chapters not exceeding +twenty words. Our short stories will be reduced to the formula: +"Little boy. Pair of skates. Broken ice, Heaven's gates." Formerly +an author, commissioned to supply a child's tragedy of this genre for +a Christmas number, would have spun it out into five thousand words. +Personally, I should have commenced the previous spring--given the +reader the summer and autumn to get accustomed to the boy. He would +have been a good boy; the sort of boy that makes a bee-line for the +thinnest ice. He would have lived in a cottage. I could have spread +that cottage over two pages; the things that grew in the garden, the +view from the front door. You would have known that boy before I had +done with him--felt you had known him all your life. His quaint +sayings, his childish thoughts, his great longings would have been +impressed upon you. The father might have had a dash of humour in +him, the mother's early girlhood would have lent itself to pretty +writing. For the ice we would have had a mysterious lake in the +wood, said to be haunted. The boy would have loved o' twilights to +stand upon its margin. He would have heard strange voices calling to +him. You would have felt the thing was coming. + +So much might have been done. When I think of that plot wasted in +nine words it makes me positively angry. + +And what is to become of us writers if this is to be the new fashion +in literature? We are paid by the length of our manuscript at rates +from half-a-crown a thousand words, and upwards. In the case of +fellows like Doyle and Kipling I am told it runs into pounds. How +are we to live on novels the serial rights of which to most of us +will work out at four and nine-pence. + +It can't be done. It is no good telling me you can see no reason why +we should live. That is no answer. I'm talking plain business. + +And what about book-rights? Who is going to buy novels of three +pages? They will have to be printed as leaflets and sold at a penny +a dozen. Marie Corelli and Hall Caine--if all I hear about them is +true--will possibly make their ten or twelve shillings a week. But +what about the rest of us? This thing is worrying me. + + + +SHOULD SOLDIERS BE POLITE? + + + +My desire was once to pass a peaceful and pleasant winter in +Brussels, attending to my work, improving my mind. Brussels is a +bright and cheerful town, and I think I could have succeeded had it +not been for the Belgian Army. The Belgian Army would follow me +about and worry me. Judging of it from my own experience, I should +say it was a good army. Napoleon laid it down as an axiom that your +enemy never ought to be permitted to get away from you--never ought +to be allowed to feel, even for a moment, that he had shaken you off. +What tactics the Belgian Army might adopt under other conditions I am +unable to say, but against me personally that was the plan of +campaign it determined upon and carried out with a success that was +astonishing, even to myself. + +I found it utterly impossible to escape from the Belgian Army. I +made a point of choosing the quietest and most unlikely streets, I +chose all hours--early in the morning, in the afternoon, late in the +evening. There were moments of wild exaltation when I imagined I had +given it the slip. I could not see it anywhere, I could not hear it. + +"Now," said I to myself, "now for five minutes' peace and quiet." + +I had been doing it injustice: it had been working round me. +Approaching the next corner, I would hear the tattoo of its drum. +Before I had gone another quarter of a mile it would be in full +pursuit of me. I would jump upon a tram, and travel for miles. +Then, thinking I had shaken it off, I would alight and proceed upon +my walk. Five minutes later another detachment would be upon my +heels. I would slink home, the Belgian Army pursuing me with its +exultant tattoo. Vanquished, shamed, my insular pride for ever +vanished, I would creep up into my room and close the door. The +victorious Belgian Army would then march back to barracks. + +If only it had followed me with a band: I like a band. I can loaf +against a post, listening to a band with anyone. I should not have +minded so much had it come after me with a band. But the Belgian +Army, apparently, doesn't run to a band. It has nothing but this +drum. It has not even a real drum--not what I call a drum. It is a +little boy's drum, the sort of thing I used to play myself at one +time, until people took it away from me, and threatened that if they +heard it once again that day they would break it over my own head. +It is cowardly going up and down, playing a drum of this sort, when +there is nobody to stop you. The man would not dare to do it if his +mother was about. He does not even play it. He walks along tapping +it with a little stick. There's no tune, there's no sense in it. He +does not even keep time. I used to think at first, hearing it in the +distance, that it was the work of some young gamin who ought to be at +school, or making himself useful taking the baby out in the +perambulator: and I would draw back into dark doorways, determined, +as he came by, to dart out and pull his ear for him. To my +astonishment--for the first week--I learnt it was the Belgian Army, +getting itself accustomed, one supposes, to the horrors of war. It +had the effect of making me a peace-at-any-price man. + +They tell me these armies are necessary to preserve the tranquility +of Europe. For myself, I should be willing to run the risk of an +occasional row. Cannot someone tell them they are out of date, with +their bits of feathers and their odds and ends of ironmongery--grown +men that cannot be sent out for a walk unless accompanied by a couple +of nursemen, blowing a tin whistle and tapping a drum out of a toy +shop to keep them in order and prevent their running about: one +might think they were chickens. A herd of soldiers with their pots +and pans and parcels, and all their deadly things tied on to them, +prancing about in time to a tune, makes me think always of the White +Knight that Alice met in Wonderland. I take it that for practical +purposes--to fight for your country, or to fight for somebody else's +country, which is, generally speaking, more popular--the thing +essential is that a certain proportion of the populace should be able +to shoot straight with a gun. How standing in a line and turning out +your toes is going to assist you, under modern conditions of warfare, +is one of the many things my intellect is incapable of grasping. + +In mediaeval days, when men fought hand to hand, there must have been +advantage in combined and precise movement. When armies were mere +iron machines, the simple endeavour of each being to push the other +off the earth, then the striking simultaneously with a thousand arms +was part of the game. Now, when we shoot from behind cover with +smokeless powder, brain not brute force--individual sense not +combined solidity is surely the result to be aimed at. Cannot +somebody, as I have suggested, explain to the military man that the +proper place for the drill sergeant nowadays is under a glass case in +some museum of antiquities? + +I lived once near the Hyde Park barracks, and saw much of the drill +sergeant's method. Generally speaking, he is a stout man with the +walk of an egotistical pigeon. His voice is one of the most +extraordinary things in nature: if you can distinguish it from the +bark of a dog, you are clever. They tell me that the privates, after +a little practice, can--which gives one a higher opinion of their +intelligence than otherwise one might form. But myself I doubt even +this statement. I was the owner of a fine retriever dog about the +time of which I am speaking, and sometimes he and I would amuse +ourselves by watching Mr. Sergeant exercising his squad. One morning +he had been shouting out the usual "Whough, whough, whough!" for +about ten minutes, and all had hitherto gone well. Suddenly, and +evidently to his intense astonishment, the squad turned their backs +upon him and commenced to walk towards the Serpentine. + +"Halt!" yelled the sergeant, the instant his amazed indignation +permitted him to speak, which fortunately happened in time to save +the detachment from a watery grave. + +The squad halted. + +"Who the thunder, and the blazes, and other things told you to do +that?" + +The squad looked bewildered, but said nothing, and were brought back +to the place where they were before. A minute later precisely the +same thing occurred again. I really thought the sergeant would +burst. I was preparing to hasten to the barracks for medical aid. +But the paroxysm passed. Calling upon the combined forces of heaven +and hell to sustain him in his trouble, he requested his squad, as +man to man, to inform him of the reason why to all appearance they +were dispensing with his services and drilling themselves. + +At this moment "Columbus" barked again, and the explanation came to +him. + +"Please go away, sir," he requested me. "How can I exercise my men +with that dog of yours interfering every five minutes?" + +It was not only on that occasion. It happened at other times. The +dog seemed to understand and take a pleasure in it. Sometimes +meeting a soldier, walking with his sweetheart, Columbus, from behind +my legs, would bark suddenly. Immediately the man would let go the +girl and proceed, involuntarily, to perform military tricks. + +The War Office authorities accused me of having trained the dog. I +had not trained him: that was his natural voice. I suggested to the +War Office authorities that instead of quarrelling with my dog for +talking his own language, they should train their sergeants to use +English. + +They would not see it. Unpleasantness was in the air, and, living +where I did at the time, I thought it best to part with Columbus. I +could see what the War Office was driving at, and I did not desire +that responsibility for the inefficiency of the British Army should +be laid at my door. + +Some twenty years ago we, in London, were passing through a riotous +period, and a call was made to law-abiding citizens to enrol +themselves as special constables. I was young, and the hope of +trouble appealed to me more than it does now. In company with some +five or six hundred other more or less respectable citizens, I found +myself one Sunday morning in the drill yard of the Albany Barracks. +It was the opinion of the authorities that we could guard our homes +and protect our wives and children better if first of all we learned +to roll our "eyes right" or left at the given word of command, and to +walk with our thumbs stuck out. Accordingly a drill sergeant was +appointed to instruct us on these points. He came out of the +canteen, wiping his mouth and flicking his leg, according to rule, +with the regulation cane. But, as he approached us, his expression +changed. We were stout, pompous-looking gentlemen, the majority of +us, in frock coats and silk hats. The sergeant was a man with a +sense of the fitness of things. The idea of shouting and swearing at +us fell from him: and that gone there seemed to be no happy medium +left to him. The stiffness departed from his back. He met us with a +defferential attitude, and spoke to us in the language of social +intercourse. + +"Good morning, gentlemen," said the sergeant. + +"Good morning," we replied: and there was a pause. + +The sergeant fidgetted upon his feet. We waited. + +"Well, now, gentlemen," said the sergeant, with a pleasant smile, +"what do you say to falling in?" + +We agreed to fall in. He showed us how to do it. He cast a critical +eye along the back of our rear line. + +"A little further forward, number three, if you don't mind, sir," he +suggested. + +Number three, who was an important-looking gentleman, stepped +forward. + +The sergeant cast his critical eye along the front of the first line. + +"A little further back, if you don't mind, sir," he suggested, +addressing the third gentleman from the end. + +"Can't," explained the third gentleman, "much as I can do to keep +where I am." + +The sergeant cast his critical eye between the lines. + +"Ah," said the sergeant, "a little full-chested, some of us. We will +make the distance another foot, if you please, gentlemen." + +In pleasant manner, like to this, the drill proceeded. + +"Now then, gentlemen, shall we try a little walk? Quick march! +Thank you, gentlemen. Sorry to trouble you, but it may be necessary +to run--forward I mean, of course.. So if you really do not mind, we +will now do the double quick. Halt! And if next time you can keep a +little more in line--it has a more imposing appearance, if you +understand me. The breathing comes with practice." + +If the thing must be done at all, why should it not be done in this +way? Why should not the sergeant address the new recruits politely: + +"Now then, you young chaps, are you all ready? Don't hurry +yourselves: no need to make hard work of what should be a pleasure +to all of us. That's right, that's very good indeed--considering you +are only novices. But there is still something to be desired in your +attitude, Private Bully-boy. You will excuse my being personal, but +are you knock-kneed naturally? Or could you, with an effort, do you +think, contrive to give yourself less the appearance of a marionette +whose strings have become loose? Thank you, that is better. These +little things appear trivial, I know, but, after all, we may as well +try and look our best - + +"Don't you like your boots, Private Montmorency? Oh, I beg your +pardon. I thought from the way you were bending down and looking at +them that perhaps their appearance was dissatisfying to you. My +mistake. + +"Are you suffering from indigestion, my poor fellow? Shall I get you +a little brandy? It isn't indigestion. Then what's the matter with +it? Why are you trying to hide it? It's nothing to be ashamed of. +We've all got one. Let it come forward man. Let's see it." + +Having succeeded, with a few such kindly words, in getting his line +into order, he would proceed to recommend healthy exercise. + +"Shoulder arms! Good, gentlemen, very good for a beginning. Yet +still, if I may be critical, not perfect. There is more in this +thing than you might imagine, gentlemen. May I point out to Private +Henry Thompson that a musket carried across the shoulder at right +angles is apt to inconvenience the gentleman behind. Even from the +point of view of his own comfort, I feel sure that Private Thompson +would do better to follow the usual custom in this matter. + +"I would also suggest to Private St. Leonard that we are not here to +practice the art of balancing a heavy musket on the outstretched palm +of the hand. Private St. Leonard's performance with the musket is +decidedly clever. But it is not war. + +"Believe me, gentlemen, this thing has been carefully worked out, and +no improvement is likely to result from individual effort. Let our +idea be uniformity. It is monotonous, but it is safe. Now, then, +gentlemen, once again." + +The drill yard would be converted into a source of innocent delight +to thousands. "Officer and gentleman" would become a phrase of +meaning. I present the idea, for what it may be worth, with my +compliments, to Pall Mall. + +The fault of the military man is that he studies too much, reads too +much history, is over reflective. If, instead, he would look about +him more he would notice that things are changing. Someone has told +the British military man that Waterloo was won upon the playing +fields of Eton. So he goes to Eton and plays. One of these days he +will be called upon to fight another Waterloo: and afterwards--when +it is too late--they will explain to him that it was won not upon the +play field but in the class room. + +From the mound on the old Waterloo plain one can form a notion of +what battles, under former conditions, must have been. The other +battlefields of Europe are rapidly disappearing: useful Dutch +cabbages, as Carlyle would have pointed out with justifiable +satisfaction, hiding the theatre of man's childish folly. You find, +generally speaking, cobblers happily employed in cobbling shoes, +women gossipping cheerfully over the washtub on the spot where a +hundred years ago, according to the guide-book, a thousand men +dressed in blue and a thousand men dressed in red rushed together +like quarrelsome fox-terriers, and worried each other to death. + +But the field of Waterloo is little changed. The guide, whose +grandfather was present at the battle--quite an extraordinary number +of grandfathers must have fought at Waterloo: there must have been +whole regiments composed of grandfathers--can point out to you the +ground across which every charge was delivered, can show you every +ridge, still existing, behind which the infantry crouched. The whole +business was began and finished within a space little larger than a +square mile. One can understand the advantage then to be derived +from the perfect moving of the military machine; the uses of the +echelon, the purposes of the linked battalion, the manipulation of +centre, left wing and right wing. Then it may have been worth while- +-if war be ever worth the while--which grown men of sense are +beginning to doubt--to waste two years of a soldier's training, +teaching him the goose-step. In the twentieth century, teaching +soldiers the evolutions of the Thirty Years' War is about as sensible +as it would be loading our iron-clads with canvas. + +I followed once a company of Volunteers across Blackfriars Bridge on +their way from Southwark to the Temple. At the bottom of Ludgate +Hill the commanding officer, a young but conscientious gentleman, +ordered "Left wheel!" At once the vanguard turned down a narrow +alley--I forget its name--which would have led the troop into the +purlieus of Whitefriars, where, in all probability, they would have +been lost for ever. The whole company had to be halted, right-about- +faced, and retired a hundred yards. Then the order "Quick march!" +was given. The vanguard shot across Ludgate Circus, and were making +for the Meat Market. + +At this point that young commanding officer gave up being a military +man and talked sense. + +"Not that way," he shouted: "up Fleet Street and through Middle +Temple Lane." + +Then without further trouble the army of the future went upon its +way. + + + +OUGHT STORIES TO BE TRUE? + + + +There was once upon a time a charming young lady, possessed of much +taste, who was asked by her anxious parent, the years passing and +family expenditure not decreasing, which of the numerous and eligible +young men then paying court to her she liked the best. She replied, +that was her difficulty; she could not make up her mind which she +liked the best. They were all so nice. She could not possibly +select one to the exclusion of all the others. What she would have +liked would have been to marry the lot; but that, she presumed, was +impracticable. + +I feel I resemble that young lady, not so much in charm and beauty as +in indecision of mind, when the question is that of my favourite +author or my favourite book. It is as if one were asked one's +favourite food. There are times when one fancies an egg with one's +tea. On other occasions one dreams of a kipper. To-day one clamours +for lobsters. To-morrow one feels one never wishes to see a lobster +again. One determines to settle down, for a time, to a diet of bread +and milk and rice pudding. Asked suddenly to say whether I preferred +ices to soup, or beef-steak to caviare, I should be completely +nonplussed. + +There may be readers who care for only one literary diet. I am a +person of gross appetites, requiring many authors to satisfy me. +There are moods when the savage strength of the Bronte sisters is +companionable to me. One rejoices in the unrelieved gloom of +"Wuthering Heights," as in the lowering skies of a stormy autumn. +Perhaps part of the marvel of the book comes from the knowledge that +the authoress was a slight, delicate young girl. One wonders what +her future work would have been, had she lived to gain a wider +experience of life; or was it well for her fame that nature took the +pen so soon from her hand? Her suppressed vehemence may have been +better suited to those tangled Yorkshire byways than to the more +open, cultivated fields of life. + +There is not much similarity between the two books, yet when +recalling Emily Bronte my thoughts always run on to Olive Schreiner. +Here, again, was a young girl with the voice of a strong man. Olive +Schreiner, more fortunate, has lived; but I doubt if she will ever +write a book that will remind us of her first. "The Story of an +African Farm" is not a work to be repeated. We have advanced in +literature of late. I can well remember the storm of indignation +with which the "African Farm" was received by Mrs. Grundy and her +then numerous, but now happily diminishing, school. It was a book +that was to be kept from the hands of every young man and woman. But +the hands of the young men and women stretched out and grasped it, to +their help. It is a curious idea, this of Mrs. Grundy's, that the +young man and woman must never think--that all literature that does +anything more than echo the conventions must be hidden away. + +Then there are times when I love to gallop through history on Sir +Walter's broomstick. At other hours it is pleasant to sit in +converse with wise George Eliot. From her garden terrace I look down +on Loamshire and its commonplace people; while in her quiet, deep +voice she tells me of the hidden hearts that beat and throb beneath +these velveteen jackets and lace falls. + +Who can help loving Thackeray, wittiest, gentlest of men, in spite of +the faint suspicion of snobbishness that clings to him? There is +something pathetic in the good man's horror of this snobbishness, to +which he himself was a victim. May it not have been an affectation, +born unconsciously of self-consciousness? His heroes and heroines +must needs be all fine folk, fit company for lady and gentlemen +readers. To him the livery was too often the man. Under his stuffed +calves even Jeames de la Pluche himself stood upon the legs of a man, +but Thackeray could never see deeper than the silk stockings. +Thackeray lived and died in Clubland. One feels that the world was +bounded for him by Temple Bar on the east and Park Lane on the west; +but what there was good in Clubland he showed us, and for the sake of +the great gentlemen and sweet ladies that his kindly eyes found in +that narrow region, not too overpeopled with great gentlemen and +sweet women, let us honour him. + +"Tom Jones," "Peregrine Pickle," and "Tristram Shandy" are books a +man is the better for reading, if he read them wisely. They teach +him that literature, to be a living force, must deal with all sides +of life, and that little help comes to us from that silly pretence of +ours that we are perfect in all things, leading perfect lives, that +only the villain of the story ever deviates from the path of +rectitude. + +This is a point that needs to be considered by both the makers and +the buyers of stories. If literature is to be regarded solely as the +amusement of an idle hour, then the less relationship it has to life +the better. Looking into a truthful mirror of nature we are +compelled to think; and when thought comes in at the window self- +satisfaction goes out by the door. Should a novel or play call us to +ponder upon the problems of existence, or lure us from the dusty high +road of the world, for a while, into the pleasant meadows of +dreamland? If only the latter, then let our heroes and our heroines +be not what men and women are, but what they should be. Let Angelina +be always spotless and Edwin always true. Let virtue ever triumph +over villainy in the last chapter; and let us assume that the +marriage service answers all the questions of the Sphinx. + +Very pleasant are these fairy tales where the prince is always brave +and handsome; where the princess is always the best and most +beautiful princess that ever lived; where one knows the wicked people +at a glance by their ugliness and ill-temper, mistakes being thus +rendered impossible; where the good fairies are, by nature, more +powerful than the bad; where gloomy paths lead ever to fair palaces; +where the dragon is ever vanquished; and where well-behaved husbands +and wives can rely upon living happily ever afterwards. "The world +is too much with us, late and soon." It is wise to slip away from it +at times to fairyland. But, alas, we cannot live in fairyland, and +knowledge of its geography is of little help to us on our return to +the rugged country of reality. + +Are not both branches of literature needful? By all means let us +dream, on midsummer nights, of fond lovers led through devious paths +to happiness by Puck; of virtuous dukes--one finds such in fairyland; +of fate subdued by faith and gentleness. But may we not also, in our +more serious humours, find satisfaction in thinking with Hamlet or +Coriolanus? May not both Dickens and Zola have their booths in +Vanity Fair? If literature is to be a help to us, as well as a +pastime, it must deal with the ugly as well as with the beautiful; it +must show us ourselves, not as we wish to appear, but as we know +ourselves to be. Man has been described as a animal with aspirations +reaching up to Heaven and instincts rooted--elsewhere. Is literature +to flatter him, or reveal him to himself? + +Of living writers it is not safe, I suppose, to speak except, +perhaps, of those who have been with us so long that we have come to +forget they are not of the past. Has justice ever been done to +Ouida's undoubted genius by our shallow school of criticism, always +very clever in discovering faults as obvious as pimples on a fine +face? Her guardsmen "toy" with their food. Her horses win the Derby +three years running. Her wicked women throw guinea peaches from the +windows of the Star and Garter into the Thames at Richmond. The +distance being about three hundred and fifty yards, it is a good +throw. Well, well, books are not made worth reading by the absence +of absurdities. Ouida possesses strength, tenderness, truth, +passion; and these be qualities in a writer capable of carrying many +more faults than Ouida is burdened with. But that is the method of +our little criticism. It views an artist as Gulliver saw the +Brobdingnag ladies. It is too small to see them in their entirety: +a mole or a wart absorbs all its vision. + +Why was not George Gissing more widely read? If faithfulness to life +were the key to literary success, Gissing's sales would have been +counted by the million instead of by the hundred. + +Have Mark Twain's literary qualities, apart altogether from his +humour, been recognised in literary circles as they ought to have +been? "Huck Finn" would be a great work were there not a laugh in it +from cover to cover. Among the Indians and some other savage tribes +the fact that a member of the community has lost one of his senses +makes greatly to his advantage; he is then regarded as a superior +person. So among a school of Anglo-Saxon readers, it is necessary to +a man, if he would gain literary credit, that he should lack the +sense of humour. One or two curious modern examples occur to me of +literary success secured chiefly by this failing. + +All these authors are my favourites; but such catholic taste is held +nowadays to be no taste. One is told that if one loves Shakespeare, +one must of necessity hate Ibsen; that one cannot appreciate Wagner +and tolerate Beethoven; that if we admit any merit in Dore, we are +incapable of understanding Whistler. How can I say which is my +favourite novel? I can only ask myself which lives clearest in my +memory, which is the book I run to more often than to another in that +pleasant half hour before the dinner-bell, when, with all apologies +to good Mr. Smiles, it is useless to think of work. + +I find, on examination, that my "David Copperfield" is more +dilapidated than any other novel upon my shelves. As I turn its dog- +eared pages, reading the familiar headlines "Mr. Micawber in +difficulties," "Mr. Micawber in prison," "I fall in love with Dora," +"Mr. Barkis goes out with the tide," "My child wife," "Traddles in a +nest of roses"--pages of my own life recur to me; so many of my +sorrows, so many of my joys are woven in my mind with this chapter or +the other. That day--how well I remember it when I read of "David's" +wooing, but Dora's death I was careful to skip. Poor, pretty little +Mrs. Copperfield at the gate, holding up her baby in her arms, is +always associated in my memory with a child's cry, long listened for. +I found the book, face downwards on a chair, weeks afterwards, not +moved from where I had hastily laid it. + +Old friends, all of you, how many times have I not slipped away from +my worries into your pleasant company! Peggotty, you dear soul, the +sight of your kind eyes is so good to me. Our mutual friend, Mr. +Charles Dickens, is prone, we know, just ever so slightly to gush. +Good fellow that he is, he can see no flaw in those he loves, but +you, dear lady, if you will permit me to call you by a name much +abused, he has drawn in true colours. I know you well, with your big +heart, your quick temper, your homely, human ways of thought. You +yourself will never guess your worth--how much the world is better +for such as you! You think of yourself as of a commonplace person, +useful only for the making of pastry, the darning of stockings, and +if a man--not a young man, with only dim half-opened eyes, but a man +whom life had made keen to see the beauty that lies hidden beneath +plain faces--were to kneel and kiss your red, coarse hand, you would +be much astonished. But he would be a wise man, Peggotty, knowing +what things a man should take carelessly, and for what things he +should thank God, who has fashioned fairness in many forms. + +Mr. Wilkins Micawber, and you, most excellent of faithful wives, Mrs. +Emma Micawber, to you I also raise my hat. How often has the example +of your philosophy saved me, when I, likewise, have suffered under +the temporary pressure of pecuniary liabilities; when the sun of my +prosperity, too, has sunk beneath the dark horizon of the world--in +short, when I, also, have found myself in a tight corner. I have +asked myself what would the Micawbers have done in my place. And I +have answered myself. They would have sat down to a dish of lamb's +fry, cooked and breaded by the deft hands of Emma, followed by a brew +of punch, concocted by the beaming Wilkins, and have forgotten all +their troubles, for the time being. Whereupon, seeing first that +sufficient small change was in my pocket, I have entered the nearest +restaurant, and have treated myself to a repast of such sumptuousness +as the aforesaid small change would command, emerging from that +restaurant stronger and more fit for battle. And lo! the sun of my +prosperity has peeped at me from over the clouds with a sly wink, as +if to say "Cheer up; I am only round the corner." + +Cheery, elastic Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, how would half the world face +their fate but by the help of a kindly, shallow nature such as yours? +I love to think that your sorrows can be drowned in nothing more +harmful than a bowl of punch. Here's to you, Emma, and to you, +Wilkins, and to the twins! + +May you and such childlike folk trip lightly over the stones upon +your path! May something ever turn up for you, my dears! May the +rain of life ever fall as April showers upon your simple bald head, +Micawber! + +And you, sweet Dora, let me confess I love you, though sensible +friends deem you foolish. Ah, silly Dora, fashioned by wise Mother +Nature who knows that weakness and helplessness are as a talisman +calling forth strength and tenderness in man, trouble yourself not +unduly about the oysters and the underdone mutton, little woman. +Good plain cooks at twenty pounds a year will see to these things for +us. Your work is to teach us gentleness and kindness. Lay your +foolish curls just here, child. It is from such as you we learn +wisdom. Foolish wise folk sneer at you. Foolish wise folk would +pull up the laughing lilies, the needless roses from the garden, +would plant in their places only useful, wholesome cabbage. But the +gardener, knowing better, plants the silly, short-lived flowers, +foolish wise folk asking for what purpose. + +Gallant Traddles, of the strong heart and the unruly hair; Sophy, +dearest of girls; Betsy Trotwood, with your gentlemanly manners and +your woman's heart, you have come to me in shabby rooms, making the +dismal place seem bright. In dark hours your kindly faces have +looked out at me from the shadows, your kindly voices have cheered +me. + +Little Em'ly and Agnes, it may be my bad taste, but I cannot share my +friend Dickens' enthusiasm for them. Dickens' good women are all too +good for human nature's daily food. Esther Summerson, Florence +Dombey, Little Nell--you have no faults to love you by. + +Scott's women were likewise mere illuminated texts. Scott only drew +one live heroine--Catherine Seton. His other women were merely the +prizes the hero had to win in the end, like the sucking pig or the +leg of mutton for which the yokel climbs the greasy pole. That +Dickens could draw a woman to some likeness he proved by Bella +Wilfer, and Estella in "Great Expectations." But real women have +never been popular in fiction. Men readers prefer the false, and +women readers object to the truth. + +From an artistic point of view, "David Copperfield" is undoubtedly +Dickens' best work. Its humour is less boisterous; its pathos less +highly coloured. + +One of Leech's pictures represents a cab-man calmly sleeping in the +gutter. + +"Oh, poor dear, he's ill," says a tender-hearted lady in the crowd. +"Ill!" retorts a male bystander indignantly, "Ill! 'E's 'ad too much +of what I ain't 'ad enough of." + +Dickens suffered from too little of what some of us have too much of- +-criticism. His work met with too little resistance to call forth +his powers. Too often his pathos sinks to bathos, and this not from +want of skill, but from want of care. It is difficult to believe +that the popular writer who allowed his sentimentality--or rather the +public's sentimentality--to run away with him in such scenes as the +death of Paul Dombey and Little Nell was the artist who painted the +death of Sidney Carton and of Barkis, the willing. The death of +Barkis, next to the passing of Colonel Newcome, is, to my thinking, +one of the most perfect pieces of pathos in English literature. No +very deep emotion is concerned. He is a commonplace old man, +clinging foolishly to a commonplace box. His simple wife and the old +boatmen stand by, waiting calmly for the end. There is no straining +after effect. One feels death enter, dignifying all things; and +touched by that hand, foolish old Barkis grows great. + +In Uriah Heap and Mrs. Gummidge, Dickens draws types rather than +characters. Pecksniff, Podsnap, Dolly Varden, Mr. Bumble, Mrs. Gamp, +Mark Tapley, Turveydrop, Mrs. Jellyby--these are not characters; they +are human characteristics personified. + +We have to go back to Shakespeare to find a writer who, through +fiction, has so enriched the thought of the people. Admit all +Dickens' faults twice over, we still have one of the greatest writers +of modern times. Such people as these creations of Dickens never +lived, says your little critic. Nor was Prometheus, type of the +spirit of man, nor was Niobe, mother of all mothers, a truthful +picture of the citizen one was likely to meet often during a +morning's stroll through Athens. Nor grew there ever a wood like to +the Forest of Arden, though every Rosalind and Orlando knows the path +to glades having much resemblance thereto. + +Steerforth, upon whom Dickens evidently prided himself, I must +confess, never laid hold of me. He is a melodramatic young man. The +worst I could have wished him would have been that he should marry +Rose Dartle and live with his mother. It would have served him right +for being so attractive. Old Peggotty and Ham are, of course, +impossible. One must accept them also as types. These Brothers +Cheeryble, these Kits, Joe Gargeries, Boffins, Garlands, John +Peerybingles, we will accept as types of the goodness that is in men- +-though in real life the amount of virtue that Dickens often wastes +upon a single individual would by more economically minded nature, be +made to serve for fifty. + +To sum up, "David Copperfield" is a plain tale, simply told; and such +are all books that live. Eccentricities of style, artistic trickery, +may please the critic of a day, but literature is a story that +interests us, boys and girls, men and women. It is a sad book; and +that, again, gives it an added charm in these sad later days. +Humanity is nearing its old age, and we have come to love sadness, as +the friend who has been longest with us. In the young days of our +vigour we were merry. With Ulysses' boatmen, we took alike the +sunshine and the thunder with frolic welcome. The red blood flowed +in our veins, and we laughed, and our tales were of strength and +hope. Now we sit like old men, watching faces in the fire; and the +stories that we love are sad stories--like the stories we ourselves +have lived. + + + +CREATURES THAT ONE DAY SHALL BE MEN. + + + +I ought to like Russia better than I do, if only for the sake of the +many good friends I am proud to possess amongst the Russians. A +large square photograph I keep always on my mantel-piece; it helps me +to maintain my head at that degree of distention necessary for the +performance of all literary work. It presents in the centre a +neatly-written address in excellent English that I frankly confess I +am never tired of reading, around which are ranged some hundreds of +names I am quite unable to read, but which, in spite of their strange +lettering, I know to be the names of good Russian men and women to +whom, a year or two ago, occurred the kindly idea of sending me as a +Christmas card this message of encouragement. The individual Russian +is one of the most charming creatures living. If he like you he does +not hesitate to let you know it; not only by every action possible, +but, by what perhaps is just as useful in this grey old world, by +generous, impulsive speech. + +We Anglo-Saxons are apt to pride ourselves upon being +undemonstrative. Max Adeler tells the tale of a boy who was sent out +by his father to fetch wood. The boy took the opportunity of +disappearing and did not show his face again beneath the paternal +roof for over twenty years. Then one evening, a smiling, well- +dressed stranger entered to the old couple, and announced himself as +their long-lost child, returned at last. + +"Well, you haven't hurried yourself," grumbled the old man, "and +blarm me if now you haven't forgotten the wood." + +I was lunching with an Englishman in a London restaurant one day. A +man entered and took his seat at a table near by. Glancing round, +and meeting my friend's eyes, he smiled and nodded. + +"Excuse me a minute," said my friend, "I must just speak to my +brother--haven't seen him for over five years." + +He finished his soup and leisurely wiped his moustache before +strolling across and shaking hands. They talked for a while. Then +my friend returned to me. + +"Never thought to see him again," observed my friend, "he was one of +the garrison of that place in Africa--what's the name of it?--that +the Mahdi attacked. Only three of them escaped. Always was a lucky +beggar, Jim." + +"But wouldn't you like to talk to him some more?" I suggested; "I can +see you any time about this little business of ours." + +"Oh, that's all right," he answered, "we have just fixed it up--shall +be seeing him again to-morrow." + +I thought of this scene one evening while dining with some Russian +friends in a St. Petersburg Hotel. One of the party had not seen his +second cousin, a mining engineer, for nearly eighteen months. They +sat opposite to one another, and a dozen times at least during the +course of the dinner one of them would jump up from his chair, and +run round to embrace the other. They would throw their arms about +one another, kissing one another on both cheeks, and then sit down +again, with moist eyes. Their behaviour among their fellow +countrymen excited no astonishment whatever. + +But the Russians's anger is as quick and vehement as his love. On +another occasion I was supping with friends in one of the chief +restaurants on the Nevsky. Two gentlemen at an adjoining table, who +up till the previous moment had been engaged in amicable +conversation, suddenly sprang to their feet, and "went for" one +another. One man secured the water-bottle, which he promptly broke +over the other's head. His opponent chose for his weapon a heavy +mahogany chair, and leaping back for the purpose of securing a good +swing, lurched against my hostess. + +"Do please be careful," said the lady. + +"A thousand pardons, madame," returned the stranger, from whom blood +and water were streaming in equal copiousness; and taking the utmost +care to avoid interfering with our comfort, he succeeded adroitly in +flooring his antagonist by a well-directed blow. + +A policeman appeared upon the scene. He did not attempt to +interfere, but running out into the street communicated the glad +tidings to another policeman. + +"This is going to cost them a pretty penny," observed my host, who +was calmly continuing his supper; "why couldn't they wait?" + +It did cost them a pretty penny. Some half a dozen policemen were +round about before as many minutes had elapsed, and each one claimed +his bribe. Then they wished both combatants good-night, and trooped +out evidently in great good humour and the two gentlemen, with wet +napkins round their heads, sat down again, and laughter and amicable +conversation flowed freely as before. + +They strike the stranger as a childlike people, but you are possessed +with a haunting sense of ugly traits beneath. The workers--slaves it +would be almost more correct to call them--allow themselves to be +exploited with the uncomplaining patience of intelligent animals. +Yet every educated Russian you talk to on the subject knows that +revolution is coming. + +But he talks to you about it with the door shut, for no man in Russia +can be sure that his own servants are not police spies. I was +discussing politics with a Russian official one evening in his study +when his old housekeeper entered the room--a soft-eyed grey-haired +woman who had been in his service over eight years, and whose +position in the household was almost that of a friend. He stopped +abruptly and changed the conversation. So soon as the door was +closed behind her again, he explained himself. + +"It is better to chat upon such matters when one is quite alone," he +laughed. + +"But surely you can trust her," I said, "She appears to be devoted to +you all." + +"It is safer to trust no one," he answered. And then he continued +from the point where we had been interrupted. + +"It is gathering," he said; "there are times when I almost smell +blood in the air. I am an old man and may escape it, but my children +will have to suffer--suffer as children must for the sins of their +fathers. We have made brute beasts of the people, and as brute +beasts they will come upon us, cruel, and undiscriminating; right and +wrong indifferently going down before them. But it has to be. It is +needed." + +It is a mistake to speak of the Russian classes opposing to all +progress a dead wall of selfishness. The history of Russia will be +the history of the French Revolution over again, but with this +difference: that the educated classes, the thinkers, who are pushing +forward the dumb masses are doing so with their eyes open. There +will be no Maribeau, no Danton to be appalled at a people's +ingratitude. The men who are to-day working for revolution in Russia +number among their ranks statesmen, soldiers, delicately-nurtured +women, rich landowners, prosperous tradesmen, students familiar with +the lessons of history. They have no misconceptions concerning the +blind Monster into which they are breathing life. He will crush +them, they know it; but with them he will crush the injustice and +stupidity they have grown to hate more than they love themselves. + +The Russian peasant, when he rises, will prove more terrible, more +pitiless than were the men of 1790. He is less intelligent, more +brutal. They sing a wild, sad song, these Russian cattle, the while +they work. They sing it in chorus on the quays while hauling the +cargo, they sing it in the factory, they chant on the weary, endless +steppes, reaping the corn they may not eat. It is of the good time +their masters are having, of the feastings and the merrymakings, of +the laughter of the children, of the kisses of the lovers. + +But the last line of every verse is the same. When you ask a Russian +to translate it for you he shrugs his shoulders. + +"Oh, it means," he says, "that their time will also come--some day." + +It is a pathetic, haunting refrain. They sing it in the drawing- +rooms of Moscow and St. Petersburg, and somehow the light talk and +laughter die away, and a hush, like a chill breath, enters by the +closed door and passes through. It is a curious song, like the +wailing of a tired wind, and one day it will sweep over the land +heralding terror. + +A Scotsman I met in Russia told me that when he first came out to act +as manager of a large factory in St. Petersburg, belonging to his +Scottish employers, he unwittingly made a mistake the first week when +paying his workpeople. By a miscalculation of the Russian money he +paid the men, each one, nearly a rouble short. He discovered his +error before the following Saturday, and then put the matter right. +The men accepted his explanation with perfect composure and without +any comment whatever. The thing astonished him. + +"But you must have known I was paying you short," he said to one of +them. "Why didn't you tell me of it?" + +"Oh," answered the man, "we thought you were putting it in your own +pocket and then if we had complained it would have meant dismissal +for us. No one would have taken our word against yours." + +Corruption appears to be so general throughout the whole of Russia +that all classes have come to accept it as part of the established +order of things. A friend gave me a little dog to bring away with +me. It was a valuable animal, and I wished to keep it with me. It +is strictly forbidden to take dogs into railway carriages. The list +of the pains and penalties for doing so frightened me considerably. + +"Oh, that will be all right," my friend assured me; "have a few +roubles loose in your pocket." + +I tipped the station master and I tipped the guard, and started +pleased with myself. But I had not anticipated what was in store for +me. The news that an Englishman with a dog in a basket and roubles +in his pocket was coming must have been telegraphed all down the +line. At almost every stopping-place some enormous official, wearing +generally a sword and a helmet, boarded the train. At first these +fellows terrified me. I took them for field-marshals at least. + +Visions of Siberia crossed my mind. Anxious and trembling, I gave +the first one a gold piece. He shook me warmly by the hand--I +thought he was going to kiss me. If I had offered him my cheek I am +sure he would have done so. With the next one I felt less +apprehensive. For a couple of roubles he blessed me, so I gathered; +and, commending me to the care of the Almighty, departed. Before I +had reached the German frontier, I was giving away the equivalent of +English sixpences to men with the dress and carriage of major- +generals; and to see their faces brighten up and to receive their +heartfelt benediction was well worth the money. + +But to the man without roubles in his pocket, Russian officialdom is +not so gracious. By the expenditure of a few more coins I got my dog +through the Customs without trouble, and had leisure to look about +me. A miserable object was being badgered by half a dozen men in +uniform, and he--his lean face puckered up into a snarl--was +returning them snappish answers; the whole scene suggested some half- +starved mongrel being worried by school-boys. A slight informality +had been discovered in his passport, so a fellow traveller with whom +I had made friends informed me. He had no roubles in his pocket, and +in consequence they were sending him back to St. Petersburg--some +eighteen hours' journey--in a wagon that in England would not be +employed for the transport of oxen. + +It seemed a good joke to Russian officialdom; they would drop in +every now and then, look at him as he sat crouched in a corner of the +waiting-room, and pass out again, laughing. The snarl had died from +his face; a dull, listless indifference had taken its place--the look +one sees on the face of a beaten dog, after the beating is over, when +it is lying very still, its great eyes staring into nothingness, and +one wonders whether it is thinking. + +The Russian worker reads no newspaper, has no club, yet all things +seem to be known to him. There is a prison on the banks of the Neva, +in St. Petersburg. They say such things are done with now, but up +till very recently there existed a small cell therein, below the +level of the ice, and prisoners placed there would be found missing a +day or two afterwards, nothing ever again known of them, except, +perhaps, to the fishes of the Baltic. They talk of such like things +among themselves: the sleigh-drivers round their charcoal fire, the +field-workers going and coming in the grey dawn, the factory workers, +their whispers deadened by the rattle of the looms. + +I was searching for a house in Brussels some winters ago, and there +was one I was sent to in a small street leading out of the Avenue +Louise. It was poorly furnished, but rich in pictures, large and +small. They covered the walls of every room. + +"These pictures," explained to me the landlady, an old, haggard- +looking woman, "will not be left, I am taking them with me to London. +They are all the work of my husband. He is arranging an exhibition." + +The friend who had sent me had told me the woman was a widow, who had +been living in Brussels eking out a precarious existence as a +lodging-house keeper for the last ten years. + +"You have married again?" I questioned her. + +The woman smiled. + +"Not again. I was married eighteen years ago in Russia. My husband +was transported to Siberia a few days after we were married, and I +have never seen him since." + +"I should have followed him," she added, "only every year we thought +he was going to be set free." + +"He is really free now?" I asked. + +"Yes," she answered. "They set him free last week. He will join me +in London. We shall be able to finish our honeymoon." + +She smiled, revealing to me that once she had been a girl. + +I read in the English papers of the exhibition in London. It was +said the artist showed much promise. So possibly a career may at +last be opening out for him. + +Nature has made life hard to Russian rich and poor alike. To the +banks of the Neva, with its ague and influenza-bestowing fogs and +mists, one imagines that the Devil himself must have guided Peter the +Great. + +"Show me in all my dominions the most hopelessly unattractive site on +which to build a city," Peter must have prayed; and the Devil having +discovered the site on which St. Petersburg now stands, must have +returned to his master in high good feather. + +"I think, my dear Peter, I have found you something really unique. +It is a pestilent swamp to which a mighty river brings bitter blasts +and marrow-chilling fogs, while during the brief summer time the wind +will bring you sand. In this way you will combine the disadvantages +of the North Pole with those of the desert of Sahara." + +In the winter time the Russians light their great stoves, and doubly +barricade their doors and windows; and in this atmosphere, like to +that of a greenhouse, many of their women will pass six months, never +venturing out of doors. Even the men only go out at intervals. +Every office, every shop is an oven. Men of forty have white hair +and parchment faces; and the women are old at thirty. The farm +labourers, during the few summer months, work almost entirely without +sleep. They leave that for the winter, when they shut themselves up +like dormice in their hovels, their store of food and vodka buried +underneath the floor. For days together they sleep, then wake and +dig, then sleep again. + +The Russian party lasts all night. In an adjoining room are beds and +couches; half a dozen guests are always sleeping. An hour contents +them, then they rejoin the company, and other guests take their +places. The Russian eats when he feels so disposed; the table is +always spread, the guests come and go. Once a year there is a great +feast in Moscow. The Russian merchant and his friends sit down early +in the day, and a sort of thick, sweet pancake is served up hot. The +feast continues for many hours, and the ambition of the Russian +merchant is to eat more than his neighbour. Fifty or sixty of these +hot cakes a man will consume at a sitting, and a dozen funerals in +Moscow is often the result. + +An uncivilised people, we call them in our lordly way, but they are +young. Russian history is not yet three hundred years old. They +will see us out, I am inclined to think. Their energy, their +intelligence--when these show above the groundwork--are monstrous. I +have known a Russian learn Chinese within six months. English! they +learn it while you are talking to them. The children play at chess +and study the violin for their own amusement. + +The world will be glad of Russia--when she has put her house in +order. + + + +HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH LITTLE. + + + +Folks suffering from Jingoism, Spreadeagleism, Chauvinism--all such +like isms, to whatever country they belong--would be well advised to +take a tour in Holland. It is the idea of the moment that size +spells happiness. The bigger the country the better one is for +living there. The happiest Frenchman cannot possibly be as happy as +the most wretched Britisher, for the reason that Britain owns many +more thousands of square miles than France possesses. The Swiss +peasant, compared with the Russian serf, must, when he looks at the +map of Europe and Asia, feel himself to be a miserable creature. The +reason that everybody in America is happy and good is to be explained +by the fact that America has an area equal to that of the entire +moon. The American citizen who has backed the wrong horse, missed +his train and lost his bag, remembers this and feels bucked up again. + +According to this argument, fishes should be the happiest of mortals, +the sea consisting--at least, so says my atlas: I have not measured +it myself--of a hundred and forty-four millions of square miles. +But, maybe, the sea is also divided in ways we wot not of. Possibly +the sardine who lives near the Brittainy coast is sad and +discontented because the Norwegian sardine is the proud inhabitant of +a larger sea. Perhaps that is why he has left the Brittainy coast. +Ashamed of being a Brittainy sardine, he has emigrated to Norway, has +become a naturalized Norwegian sardine, and is himself again. + +The happy Londoner on foggy days can warm himself with the reflection +that the sun never sets on the British Empire. He does not often see +the sun, but that is a mere detail. He regards himself as the owner +of the sun; the sun begins his little day in the British Empire, ends +his little day in the British Empire: for all practical purposes the +sun is part of the British Empire. Foolish people in other countries +sit underneath it and feel warm, but that is only their ignorance. +They do not know it is a British possession; if they did they would +feel cold. + +My views on this subject are, I know, heretical. I cannot get it +into my unpatriotic head that size is the only thing worth worrying +about. In England, when I venture to express my out-of-date +opinions, I am called a Little Englander. It fretted me at first; I +was becoming a mere shadow. But by now I have got used to it. It +would be the same, I feel, wherever I went. In New York I should be +a Little American; in Constantinople a Little Turk. But I wanted to +talk about Holland. A holiday in Holland serves as a corrective to +exaggerated Imperialistic notions. + +There are no poor in Holland. They may be an unhappy people, knowing +what a little country it is they live in; but, if so, they hide the +fact. To all seeming, the Dutch peasant, smoking his great pipe, is +as much a man as the Whitechapel hawker or the moocher of the Paris +boulevard. I saw a beggar once in Holland--in the townlet of +Enkhuisen. Crowds were hurrying up from the side streets to have a +look at him; the idea at first seemed to be that he was doing it for +a bet. He turned out to be a Portuguese. They offered him work in +the docks--until he could get something better to do--at wages equal +in English money to about ten shillings a day. I inquired about him +on my way back, and was told he had borrowed a couple of forms from +the foreman and had left by the evening train. It is not the country +for the loafer. + +In Holland work is easily found; this takes away the charm of looking +for it. A farm labourer in Holland lives in a brick-built house of +six rooms, which generally belongs to him, with an acre or so of +ground, and only eats meat once a day. The rest of his time he fills +up on eggs and chicken and cheese and beer. But you rarely hear him +grumble. His wife and daughter may be seen on Sundays wearing gold +and silver jewellery worth from fifty to one hundred pounds, and +there is generally enough old delft and pewter in the house to start +a local museum anywhere outside Holland. On high days and holidays, +of which in Holland there are plenty, the average Dutch vrouw would +be well worth running away with. The Dutch peasant girl has no need +of an illustrated journal once a week to tell her what the fashion +is; she has it in the portrait of her mother, or of her grandmother, +hanging over the glittering chimney-piece. + +When the Dutchwoman builds a dress she builds it to last; it descends +from mother to daughter, but it is made of sound material in the +beginning. A lady friend of mine thought the Dutch costume would +serve well for a fancy-dress ball, so set about buying one, but +abandoned the notion on learning what it would cost her. A Dutch +girl in her Sunday clothes must be worth fifty pounds before you come +to ornaments. In certain provinces she wears a close-fitting helmet, +made either of solid silver or of solid gold. The Dutch gallant, +before making himself known, walks on tiptoe a little while behind +the Loved One, and looks at himself in her head-dress just to make +sure that his hat is on straight and his front curl just where it +ought to be. + +In most other European countries national costume is dying out. The +slop-shop is year by year extending its hideous trade. But the +country of Rubens and Rembrandt, of Teniers and Gerard Dow, remains +still true to art. The picture post-card does not exaggerate. The +men in those wondrous baggy knickerbockers, from the pockets of which +you sometimes see a couple of chicken's heads protruding; in gaudy +coloured shirts, in worsted hose and mighty sabots, smoking their +great pipes--the women in their petticoats of many hues, in +gorgeously embroidered vest, in chemisette of dazzling white, crowned +with a halo of many frills, glittering in gold and silver--are not +the creatures of an artist's fancy. You meet them in their thousands +on holiday afternoons, walking gravely arm in arm, flirting with +sober Dutch stolidity. + +On colder days the women wear bright-coloured capes made of fine spun +silk, from underneath the ample folds of which you sometimes hear a +little cry; and sometimes a little hooded head peeps out, regards +with preternatural thoughtfulness the toy-like world without, then +dives back into shelter. As for the children--women in miniature, +the single difference in dress being the gay pinafore--you can only +say of them that they look like Dutch dolls. But such plump, +contented, cheerful little dolls! You remember the hollow-eyed, +pale-faced dolls you see swarming in the great, big and therefore +should be happy countries, and wish that mere land surface were of +less importance to our statesmen and our able editors, and the +happiness and well-being of the mere human items worth a little more +of their thought. + +The Dutch peasant lives surrounded by canals, and reaches his cottage +across a drawbridge. I suppose it is in the blood of the Dutch child +not to tumble into a canal, and the Dutch mother never appears to +anticipate such possibility. One can imagine the average English +mother trying to bring up a family in a house surrounded by canals. +She would never have a minute's peace until the children were in bed. +But then the mere sight of a canal to the English child suggests the +delights of a sudden and unexpected bath. I put it to a Dutchman +once. Did the Dutch child by any chance ever fall into a canal? + +"Yes," he replied, "cases have been known." + +"Don't you do anything for it?" I enquired. + +"Oh, yes," he answered, "we haul them out again." + +"But what I mean is," I explained, "don't you do anything to prevent +their falling in--to save them from falling in again?" + +"Yes," he answered, "we spank 'em." + +There is always a wind in Holland; it comes from over the sea. There +is nothing to stay its progress. It leaps the low dykes and sweeps +with a shriek across the sad, soft dunes, and thinks it is going to +have a good time and play havoc in the land. But the Dutchman laughs +behind his great pipe as it comes to him shouting and roaring. +"Welcome, my hearty, welcome," he chuckles, "come blustering and +bragging; the bigger you are the better I like you." And when it is +once in the land, behind the long, straight dykes, behind the waving +line of sandy dunes, he seizes hold of it, and will not let it go +till it has done its tale of work. + +The wind is the Dutchman's; servant before he lets it loose again it +has turned ten thousand mills, has pumped the water and sawn the +wood, has lighted the town and worked the loom, and forged the iron, +and driven the great, slow, silent wherry, and played with the +children in the garden. It is a sober wind when it gets back to sea, +worn and weary, leaving the Dutchman laughing behind his everlasting +pipe. There are canals in Holland down which you pass as though a +field of wind-blown corn; a soft, low, rustling murmur ever in your +ears. It is the ceaseless whirl of the great mill sails. Far out at +sea the winds are as foolish savages, fighting, shrieking, tearing-- +purposeless. Here, in the street of mills, it is a civilized wind, +crooning softly while it labours. + +What charms one in Holland is the neatness and cleanliness of all +about one. Maybe to the Dutchman there are drawbacks. In a Dutch +household life must be one long spring-cleaning. No milk-pail is +considered fit that cannot just as well be used for a looking-glass. +The great brass pans, hanging under the pent house roof outside the +cottage door, flash like burnished gold. You could eat your dinner +off the red-tiled floor, but that the deal table, scrubbed to the +colour of cream cheese, is more convenient. By each threshold stands +a row of empty sabots, and woe-betide the Dutchman who would dream of +crossing it in anything but his stockinged feet. + +There is a fashion in sabots. Every spring they are freshly painted. +One district fancies an orange yellow, another a red, a third white, +suggesting purity and innocence. Members of the Smart Set indulge in +ornamentation; a frieze in pink, a star upon the toe. Walking in +sabots is not as easy as it looks. Attempting to run in sabots I do +not recommend to the beginner. + +"How do you run in sabots?" I asked a Dutchman once. I had been +experimenting, and had hurt myself. + +"We don't run," answered the Dutchman. + +And observation has proved to me he was right. The Dutch boy, when +he runs, puts them for preference on his hands, and hits other Dutch +boys over the head with them as he passes. + +The roads in Holland, straight and level, and shaded all the way with +trees, look, from the railway-carriage window, as if they would be +good for cycling; but this is a delusion. I crossed in the boat from +Harwich once, with a well-known black and white artist, and an +equally well-known and highly respected humorist. They had their +bicycles with them, intending to tour Holland. I met them a +fortnight later in Delft, or, rather, I met their remains. I was +horrified at first. I thought it was drink. They could not stand +still, they could not sit still, they trembled and shook in every +limb, their teeth chattered when they tried to talk. The humorist +hadn't a joke left in him. The artist could not have drawn his own +salary; he would have dropped it on the way to his pocket. The Dutch +roads are paved their entire length with cobbles--big, round cobbles, +over which your bicycle leaps and springs and plunges. + +If you would see Holland outside the big towns a smattering of Dutch +is necessary. If you know German there is not much difficulty. +Dutch--I speak as an amateur--appears to be very bad German mis- +pronounced. Myself, I find my German goes well in Holland, even +better than in Germany. The Anglo-Saxon should not attempt the Dutch +G. It is hopeless to think of succeeding, and the attempt has been +known to produce internal rupture. The Dutchman appears to keep his +G in his stomach, and to haul it up when wanted. Myself, I find the +ordinary G, preceded by a hiccough and followed by a sob, the nearest +I can get to it. But they tell me it is not quite right, yet. + +One needs to save up beforehand if one desires to spend any length of +time in Holland. One talks of dear old England, but the dearest land +in all the world is little Holland. The florin there is equal to the +franc in France and to the shilling in England. They tell you that +cigars are cheap in Holland. A cheap Dutch cigar will last you a +day. It is not until you have forgotten the taste of it that you +feel you ever want to smoke again. I knew a man who reckoned that he +had saved hundreds of pounds by smoking Dutch cigars for a month +steadily. It was years before he again ventured on tobacco. + +Watching building operations in Holland brings home to you forcibly, +what previously you have regarded as a meaningless formula--namely, +that the country is built upon piles. A dozen feet below the level +of the street one sees the labourers working in fishermen's boots up +to their knees in water, driving the great wooden blocks into the +mud. Many of the older houses slope forward at such an angle that +you almost fear to pass beneath them. I should be as nervous as a +kitten, living in one of the upper storeys. But the Dutchman leans +out of a window that is hanging above the street six feet beyond the +perpendicular, and smokes contentedly. + +They have a merry custom in Holland of keeping the railway time +twenty minutes ahead of the town time--or is it twenty minutes +behind? I never can remember when I'm there, and I am not sure now. +The Dutchman himself never knows. + +"You've plenty of time," he says + +"But the train goes at ten," you say; "the station is a mile away, +and it is now half-past nine." + +"Yes, but that means ten-twenty," he answers, "you have nearly an +hour." + +Five minutes later he taps you on the shoulder. + +"My mistake, it's twenty to ten. I was thinking it was the other way +about." + +Another argues with him that his first idea was right. They work it +out by scientific methods. Meanwhile you have dived into a cab. The +result is always the same: you are either forty minutes too soon, or +you have missed the train by twenty minutes. A Dutch platform is +always crowded with women explaining volubly to their husbands either +that there was not any need to have hurried, or else that the thing +would have been to have started half an hour before they did, the man +in both cases being, of course, to blame. The men walk up and down +and swear. + +The idea has been suggested that the railway time and the town time +should be made to conform. The argument against the idea is that if +it were carried out there would be nothing left to put the Dutchman +out and worry him. + + + +SHOULD WE SAY WHAT WE THINK, OR THINK WHAT WE SAY? + + + +A mad friend of mine will have it that the characteristic of the age +is Make-Believe. He argues that all social intercourse is founded on +make-believe. A servant enters to say that Mr. and Mrs. Bore are in +the drawing-room. + +"Oh, damn!" says the man. + +"Hush!" says the woman. "Shut the door, Susan. How often am I to +tell you never to leave the door open?" + +The man creeps upstairs on tiptoe and shuts himself in his study. +The woman does things before a looking-glass, waits till she feels +she is sufficiently mistress of herself not to show her feelings, and +then enters the drawing-room with outstretched hands and the look of +one welcoming an angel's visit. She says how delighted she is to see +the Bores--how good it was of them to come. Why did they not bring +more Bores with them? Where is naughty Bore junior? Why does he +never come to see her now? She will have to be really angry with +him. And sweet little Flossie Bore? Too young to pay calls! +Nonsense. An "At Home" day is not worth having where all the Bores +are not. + +The Bores, who had hoped that she was out--who have only called +because the etiquette book told them that they must call at least +four times in the season, explain how they have been trying and +trying to come. + +"This afternoon," recounts Mrs. Bore, "we were determined to come. +'John, dear,' I said this morning, 'I shall go and see dear Mrs. +Bounder this afternoon, no matter what happens.'" + +The idea conveyed is that the Prince of Wales, on calling at the +Bores, was told that he could not come in. He might call again in +the evening or come some other day. + +That afternoon the Bores were going to enjoy themselves in their own +way; they were going to see Mrs. Bounder. + +"And how is Mr. Bounder?" demands Mrs. Bore. + +Mrs. Bounder remains mute for a moment, straining her ears. She can +hear him creeping past the door on his way downstairs. She hears the +front door softly opened and closed-to. She wakes, as from a dream. +She has been thinking of the sorrow that will fall on Bounder when he +returns home later and learns what he has missed. + +And thus it is, not only with the Bores and Bounders, but even with +us who are not Bores or Bounders. Society in all ranks is founded on +the make-believe that everybody is charming; that we are delighted to +see everybody; that everybody is delighted to see us; that it is so +good of everybody to come; that we are desolate at the thought that +they really must go now. + +Which would we rather do--stop and finish our cigar or hasten into +the drawing-room to hear Miss Screecher sing? Can you ask us? We +tumble over each other in our hurry. Miss Screecher would really +rather not sing; but if we insist--We do insist. Miss Screecher, +with pretty reluctance, consents. We are careful not to look at one +another. We sit with our eyes fixed on the ceiling. Miss Screecher +finishes, and rises. + +"But it was so short," we say, so soon as we can be heard above the +applause. Is Miss Screecher quite sure that was the whole of it? Or +has she been playing tricks upon us, the naughty lady, defrauding us +of a verse? Miss Screecher assures us that the fault is the +composer's. But she knows another. At this hint, our faces lighten +again with gladness. We clamour for more. + +Our host's wine is always the most extraordinary we have ever tasted. +No, not another glass; we dare not--doctor's orders, very strict. +Our host's cigar! We did not know they made such cigars in this +workaday world. No, we really could not smoke another. Well, if he +will be so pressing, may we put it in our pocket? The truth is, we +are not used to high smoking. Our hostess's coffee! Would she +confide to us her secret? The baby! We hardly trust ourselves to +speak. The usual baby--we have seen it. As a rule, to be candid, we +never could detect much beauty in babies--have always held the usual +gush about them to be insincere. But this baby! We are almost on +the point of asking them where they got it. It is just the kind we +wanted for ourselves. Little Janet's recitation: "A Visit to the +Dentist!" Hitherto the amateur reciter has not appealed to us. But +this is genius, surely. She ought to be trained for the stage. Her +mother does not altogether approve of the stage. We plead for the +stage--that it may not be deprived of such talent. + +Every bride is beautiful. Every bride looks charming in a simple +costume of--for further particulars see local papers. Every marriage +is a cause for universal rejoicing. With our wine-glass in our hand +we picture the ideal life we know to be in store for them. How can +it be otherwise? She, the daughter of her mother. (Cheers.) He-- +well, we all know him. (More cheers.) Also involuntary guffaw from +ill-regulated young man at end of table, promptly suppressed. + +We carry our make-believe even into our religion. We sit in church, +and in voices swelling with pride, mention to the Almighty, at stated +intervals, that we are miserable worms--that there is no good in us. +This sort of thing, we gather, is expected of us; it does us no harm, +and is supposed to please. + +We make-believe that every woman is good, that every man is honest-- +until they insist on forcing us, against our will, to observe that +they are not. Then we become very angry with them, and explain to +them that they, being sinners, are not folk fit to mix with us +perfect people. Our grief, when our rich aunt dies, is hardly to be +borne. Drapers make fortunes, helping us to express feebly our +desolation. Our only consolation is that she has gone to a better +world. + +Everybody goes to a better world when they have got all they can out +of this one. + +We stand around the open grave and tell each other so. The clergyman +is so assured of it that, to save time, they have written out the +formula for him and had it printed in a little book. As a child it +used to surprise me--this fact that everybody went to heaven. +Thinking of all the people that had died, I pictured the place +overcrowded. Almost I felt sorry for the Devil, nobody ever coming +his way, so to speak. I saw him in imagination, a lonely old +gentleman, sitting at his gate day after day, hoping against hope, +muttering to himself maybe that it hardly seemed worth while, from +his point of view, keeping the show open. An old nurse whom I once +took into my confidence was sure, if I continued talking in this sort +of way, that he would get me anyhow. I must have been an evil- +hearted youngster. The thought of how he would welcome me, the only +human being that he had seen for years, had a certain fascination for +me; for once in my existence I should be made a fuss about. + +At every public meeting the chief speaker is always "a jolly good +fellow." The man from Mars, reading our newspapers, would be +convinced that every Member of Parliament was a jovial, kindly, high- +hearted, generous-souled saint, with just sufficient humanity in him +to prevent the angels from carrying him off bodily. Do not the +entire audience, moved by one common impulse, declare him three times +running, and in stentorian voice, to be this "jolly good fellow"? So +say all of them. We have always listened with the most intense +pleasure to the brilliant speech of our friend who has just sat down. +When you thought we were yawning, we were drinking in his eloquence, +open-mouthed. + +The higher one ascends in the social scale, the wider becomes this +necessary base of make-believe. When anything sad happens to a very +big person, the lesser people round about him hardly care to go on +living. Seeing that the world is somewhat overstocked with persons +of importance, and that something or another generally is happening +to them, one wonders sometimes how it is the world continues to +exist. + +Once upon a time there occurred an illness to a certain good and +great man. I read in my daily paper that the whole nation was +plunged in grief. People dining in public restaurants, on being told +the news by the waiter, dropped their heads upon the table and +sobbed. Strangers, meeting in the street, flung their arms about one +another and cried like little children. I was abroad at the time, +but on the point of returning home. I almost felt ashamed to go. I +looked at myself in the glass, and was shocked at my own appearance: +it was that of a man who had not been in trouble for weeks. I felt +that to burst upon this grief-stricken nation with a countenance such +as mine would be to add to their sorrow. It was borne in upon me +that I must have a shallow, egotistical nature. I had had luck with +a play in America, and for the life of me I could not look grief- +stricken. There were moments when, if I was not keeping a watch over +myself, I found myself whistling. + +Had it been possible I would have remained abroad till some stroke of +ill-fortune had rendered me more in tune with my fellow-countrymen. +But business was pressing. The first man I talked to on Dover pier +was a Customs House official. You might have thought sorrow would +have made him indifferent to a mere matter of forty-eight cigars. +Instead of which, he appeared quite pleased when he found them. He +demanded three-and-fourpence, and chuckled when he got it. On Dover +platform a little girl laughed because a lady dropped a handbox on a +dog; but then children are always callous--or, perhaps, she had not +heard the news. + +What astonished me most, however, was to find in the railway carriage +a respectable looking man reading a comic journal. True, he did not +laugh much: he had got decency enough for that; but what was a +grief-stricken citizen doing with a comic journal, anyhow? Before I +had been in London an hour I had come to the conclusion that we +English must be a people of wonderful self-control. The day before, +according to the newspapers, the whole country was in serious danger +of pining away and dying of a broken heart. In one day the nation +had pulled itself together. "We have cried all day," they had said +to themselves, "we have cried all night. It does not seem to have +done much good. Now let us once again take up the burden of life." +Some of them--I noticed it in the hotel dining-room that evening-- +were taking quite kindly to their food again. + +We make believe about quite serious things. In war, each country's +soldiers are always the most courageous in the world. The other +country's soldiers are always treacherous and tricky; that is why +they sometimes win. Literature is the art of make-believe. + +"Now all of you sit round and throw your pennies in the cap," says +the author, "and I will pretend that there lives in Bayswater a young +lady named Angelina, who is the most beautiful young lady that ever +existed. And in Notting Hill, we will pretend, there resides a young +man named Edwin, who is in love with Angelina." + +And then, there being sufficient pennies in the cap, the author +starts away, and pretends that Angelina thought this and said that, +and that Edwin did all sorts of wonderful things. We know he is +making it all up as he goes along. We know he is making up just what +he thinks will please us. He, on the other hand, has to make-believe +that he is doing it because he cannot help it, he being an artist. +But we know well enough that, were we to stop throwing the pennies +into the cap, he would find out precious soon that he could. + +The theatrical manager bangs his drum. + +"Walk up! walk up!" he cries, "we are going to pretend that Mrs. +Johnson is a princess, and old man Johnson is going to pretend to be +a pirate. Walk up, walk up, and be in time!" + +So Mrs. Johnson, pretending to be a princess, comes out of a wobbly +thing that we agree to pretend is a castle; and old man Johnson, +pretending to be a pirate, is pushed up and down on another wobbly +thing that we agree to pretend is the ocean. Mrs. Johnson pretends +to be in love with him, which we know she is not. And Johnson +pretends to be a very terrible person; and Mrs. Johnson pretends, +till eleven o'clock, to believe it. And we pay prices, varying from +a shilling to half-a-sovereign, to sit for two hours and listen to +them. + +But as I explained at the beginning, my friend is a mad sort of +person. + + + +IS THE AMERICAN HUSBAND MADE ENTIRELY OF STAINED GLASS. + + + +I am glad I am not an American husband. At first sight this may +appear a remark uncomplimentary to the American wife. It is nothing +of the sort. It is the other way about. We, in Europe, have plenty +of opportunity of judging the American wife. In America you hear of +the American wife, you are told stories about the American wife, you +see her portrait in the illustrated journals. By searching under the +heading "Foreign Intelligence," you can find out what she is doing. +But here in Europe we know her, meet her face to face, talk to her, +flirt with her. She is charming, delightful. That is why I say I am +glad I am not an American husband. If the American husband only knew +how nice was the American wife, he would sell his business and come +over here, where now and then he could see her. + +Years ago, when I first began to travel about Europe, I argued to +myself that America must be a deadly place to live in. How sad it +is, I thought to myself, to meet thus, wherever one goes, American +widows by the thousand. In one narrow by-street of Dresden I +calculated fourteen American mothers, possessing nine-and-twenty +American children, and not a father among them--not a single husband +among the whole fourteen. I pictured fourteen lonely graves, +scattered over the United States. I saw as in a vision those +fourteen head-stones of best material, hand-carved, recording the +virtues of those fourteen dead and buried husbands. + +Odd, thought I to myself, decidedly odd. These American husbands, +they must be a delicate type of humanity. The wonder is their +mothers ever reared them. They marry fine girls, the majority of +them; two or three sweet children are born to them, and after that +there appears to be no further use for them, as far as this world is +concerned. Can nothing be done to strengthen their constitutions? +Would a tonic be of any help to them? Not the customary tonic, I +don't mean, the sort of tonic merely intended to make gouty old +gentlemen feel they want to buy a hoop, but the sort of tonic for +which it was claimed that three drops poured upon a ham sandwich and +the thing would begin to squeak. + +It struck me as pathetic, the picture of these American widows +leaving their native land, coming over in shiploads to spend the rest +of their blighted lives in exile. The mere thought of America, I +took it, had for ever become to them distasteful. The ground that +once his feet had pressed! The old familiar places once lighted by +his smile! Everything in America would remind them of him. +Snatching their babes to their heaving bosoms they would leave the +country where lay buried all the joy of their lives, seek in the +retirement of Paris, Florence or Vienna, oblivion of the past. + +Also, it struck me as beautiful, the noble resignation with which +they bore their grief, hiding their sorrow from the indifferent +stranger. Some widows make a fuss, go about for weeks looking gloomy +and depressed, making not the slightest effort to be merry. These +fourteen widows--I knew them personally, all of them, I lived in the +same street--what a brave show of cheerfulness they put on! What a +lesson to the common or European widow, the humpy type of widow! One +could spend whole days in their company--I had done it--commencing +quite early in the morning with a sleighing excursion, finishing up +quite late in the evening with a little supper party, followed by an +impromptu dance; and never detect from their outward manner that they +were not thoroughly enjoying themselves. + +From the mothers I turned my admiring eyes towards the children. +This is the secret of American success, said I to myself; this high- +spirited courage, this Spartan contempt for suffering. Look at them! +the gallant little men and women. Who would think that they had lost +a father? Why, I have seen a British child more upset at losing +sixpence. + +Talking to a little girl one day, I enquired of her concerning the +health of her father. The next moment I could have bitten my tongue +out, remembering that there wasn't such a thing as a father--not an +American father--in the whole street. She did not burst into tears +as they do in the story-books. She said: + +"He is quite well, thank you," simply, pathetically, just like that. + +"I am sure of it," I replied with fervour, "well and happy as he +deserves to be, and one day you will find him again; you will go to +him." + +"Ah, yes," she answered, a shining light, it seemed to me, upon her +fair young face. "Momma says she is getting just a bit tired of this +one-horse sort of place. She is quite looking forward to seeing him +again." + +It touched me very deeply: this weary woman, tired of her long +bereavement, actually looking forward to the fearsome passage leading +to where her loved one waited for her in a better land. + +For one bright breezy creature I grew to feel a real regard. All the +months that I had known her, seen her almost daily, never once had I +heard a single cry of pain escape her lips, never once had I heard +her cursing fate. Of the many who called upon her in her charming +flat, not one had ever, to my knowledge, offered her consolation or +condolence. It seemed to me cruel, callous. The over-burdened +heart, finding no outlet for its imprisoned grief, finding no +sympathetic ear into which to pour its tale of woe, breaks, we are +told; anyhow, it isn't good for it. I decided--no one else seeming +keen--that I would supply that sympathetic ear. The very next time I +found myself alone with her I introduced the subject. + +"You have been living here in Dresden a long time, have you not?" I +asked. + +"About five years," she answered, "on and off." + +"And all alone," I commented, with a sigh intended to invite to +confidence. + +"Well, hardly alone," she corrected me, while a look of patient +resignation added dignity to her piquant features. "You see, there +are the dear children always round about me, during the holidays." + +"Besides," she added, "the people here are real kind to me; they +hardly ever let me feel myself alone. We make up little parties, you +know, picnics and excursions. And then, of course, there is the +Opera and the Symphony Concerts, and the subscription dances. The +dear old king has been doing a good deal this winter, too; and I must +say the Embassy folks have been most thoughtful, so far as I am +concerned. No, it would not be right for me to complain of +loneliness, not now that I have got to know a few people, as it +were." + +"But don't you miss your husband?" I suggested. + +A cloud passed over her usually sunny face. "Oh, please don't talk +of him," she said, "it makes me feel real sad, thinking about him." + +But having commenced, I was determined that my sympathy should not be +left to waste. + +"What did he die of?" I asked. + +She gave me a look the pathos of which I shall never forget. + +"Say, young man," she cried, "are you trying to break it to me +gently? Because if so, I'd rather you told me straight out. What +did he die of?" + +"Then isn't he dead?" I asked, "I mean so far as you know." + +"Never heard a word about his being dead till you started the idea," +she retorted. "So far as I know he's alive and well." + +I said that I was sorry. I went on to explain that I did not mean I +was sorry to hear that in all probability he was alive and well. +What I meant was I was sorry I had introduced a painful subject. + +"What's a painful subject?" + +"Why, your husband," I replied. + +"But why should you call him a painful subject?" + +I had an idea she was getting angry with me. She did not say so. I +gathered it. But I had to explain myself somehow. + +"Well," I answered, "I take it, you didn't get on well together, and +I am sure it must have been his fault." + +"Now look here," she said, "don't you breathe a word against my +husband or we shall quarrel. A nicer, dearer fellow never lived." + +"Then what did you divorce him for?" I asked. It was impertinent, it +was unjustifiable. My excuse is that the mystery surrounding the +American husband had been worrying me for months. Here had I +stumbled upon the opportunity of solving it. Instinctively I clung +to my advantage. + +"There hasn't been any divorce," she said. "There isn't going to be +any divorce. You'll make me cross in another minute." + +But I was becoming reckless. "He is not dead. You are not divorced +from him. Where is he?" I demanded with some heat. + +"Where is he?" she replied, astonished. Where should he be? At +home, of course." I looked around the luxuriously-furnished room +with its air of cosy comfort, of substantial restfulness. + +"What home?" I asked. + +"What home! Why, our home, in Detroit." + +"What is he doing there?" I had become so much in earnest that my +voice had assumed unconsciously an authoritative tone. Presumably, +it hypnotised her, for she answered my questions as though she had +been in the witness-box. + +"How do I know? How can I possibly tell you what he is doing? What +do people usually do at home?" + +"Answer the questions, madam, don't ask them. What are you doing +here? Quite truthfully, if you please." My eyes were fixed upon +her. + +"Enjoying myself. He likes me to enjoy myself. Besides, I am +educating the children." + +"You mean they are here at boarding-school while you are gadding +about. What is wrong with American education? When did you see your +husband last?" + +"Last? Let me see. No, last Christmas I was in Berlin. It must +have been the Christmas before, I think." + +"If he is the dear kind fellow you say he is, how is it you haven't +seen him for two years?" + +"Because, as I tell you, he is at home, in Detroit. How can I see +him when I am here in Dresden and he is in Detroit? You do ask +foolish questions. He means to try and come over in the summer, if +he can spare the time, and then, of course - + +"Answer my questions, please. I've spoken to you once about it. Do +you think you are performing your duty as a wife, enjoying yourself +in Dresden and Berlin while your husband is working hard in Detroit?" + +"He was quite willing for me to come. The American husband is a good +fellow who likes his wife to enjoy herself." + +"I am not asking for your views on the American husband. I am asking +your views on the American wife--on yourself. The American husband +appears to be a sort of stained-glass saint, and you American wives +are imposing upon him. It is doing you no good, and it won't go on +for ever. There will come a day when the American husband will wake +up to the fact he is making a fool of himself, and by over- +indulgence, over-devotion, turning the American woman into a +heartless, selfish creature. What sort of a home do you think it is +in Detroit, with you and the children over here? Tell me, is the +American husband made entirely of driven snow, with blood distilled +from moonbeams, or is he composed of the ordinary ingredients? +Because, if the latter, you take my advice and get back home. I take +it that in America, proper, there are millions of real homes where +the woman does her duty and plays the game. But also it is quite +clear there are thousands of homes in America, mere echoing rooms, +where the man walks by himself, his wife and children scattered over +Europe. It isn't going to work, it isn't right that it should work." + +"You take the advice of a sincere friend. Pack up--you and the +children--and get home." + +I left. It was growing late. I felt it was time to leave. Whether +she took my counsel I cannot say. I only know that there still +remain in Europe a goodly number of American wives to whom it is +applicable. + + + +DOES THE YOUNG MAN KNOW EVERYTHING WORTH KNOWING? + + + +I am told that American professors are "mourning the lack of ideals" +at Columbia University--possibly also at other universities scattered +through the United States. If it be any consolation to these +mourning American professors, I can assure them that they do not +mourn alone. I live not far from Oxford, and enjoy the advantage of +occasionally listening to the jeremiads of English University +professors. More than once a German professor has done me the honour +to employ me as an object on which to sharpen his English. He also +has mourned similar lack of ideals at Heidelberg, at Bonn. Youth is +youth all the world over; it has its own ideals; they are not those +of the University professor. The explanation is tolerably simple. +Youth is young, and the University professor, generally speaking, is +middle-aged. + +I can sympathise with the mourning professor. I, in my time, have +suffered like despair. I remember the day so well; it was my twelfth +birthday. I recall the unholy joy with which I reflected that for +the future my unfortunate parents would be called upon to pay for me +full railway fare; it marked a decided step towards manhood. I was +now in my teens. That very afternoon there came to visit us a +relative of ours. She brought with her three small children: a +girl, aged six; a precious, golden-haired thing in a lace collar that +called itself a boy, aged five; and a third still smaller creature, +it might have been male, it might have been female; I could not have +told you at the time, I cannot tell you now. This collection of +atoms was handed over to me. + +"Now, show yourself a man," said my dear mother, "remember you are in +your teens. Take them out for a walk and amuse them; and mind +nothing happens to them." + +To the children themselves their own mother gave instructions that +they were to do everything that I told them, and not to tear their +clothes or make themselves untidy. These directions, even to myself, +at the time, appeared contradictory. But I said nothing. And out +into the wilds the four of us departed. + +I was an only child. My own infancy had passed from my memory. To +me, at twelve, the ideas of six were as incomprehensible as are those +of twenty to the University professor of forty. I wanted to be a +pirate. Round the corner and across the road building operations +were in progress. Planks and poles lay ready to one's hand. Nature, +in the neighbourhood, had placed conveniently a shallow pond. It was +Saturday afternoon. The nearest public-house was a mile away. +Immunity from interference by the British workman was thus assured. +It occurred to me that by placing my three depressed looking +relatives on one raft, attacking them myself from another, taking the +eldest girl's sixpence away from her, disabling their raft, and +leaving them to drift without a rudder, innocent amusement would be +provided for half an hour at least. + +They did not want to play at pirates. At first sight of the pond the +thing that called itself a boy began to cry. The six-year-old lady +said she did not like the smell of it. Not even after I had +explained the game to them were they any the more enthusiastic for +it. + +I proposed Red Indians. They could go to sleep in the unfinished +building upon a sack of lime, I would creep up through the grass, set +fire to the house, and dance round it, whooping and waving my +tomahawk, watching with fiendish delight the frantic but futile +efforts of the palefaces to escape their doom. + +It did not "catch on"--not even that. The precious thing in the lace +collar began to cry again. The creature concerning whom I could not +have told you whether it was male or female made no attempt at +argument, but started to run; it seemed to have taken a dislike to +this particular field. It stumbled over a scaffolding pole, and then +it also began to cry. What could one do to amuse such people? I +left it to them to propose something. They thought they would like +to play at "Mothers"--not in this field, but in some other field. + +The eldest girl would be mother. The other two would represent her +children. They had been taken suddenly ill. "Waterworks," as I had +christened him, was to hold his hands to his middle and groan. His +face brightened up at the suggestion. The nondescript had the +toothache. It took up its part without a moment's hesitation, and +set to work to scream. I could be the doctor and look at their +tongues. + +That was their "ideal" game. As I have said, remembering that +afternoon, I can sympathise with the University professor mourning +the absence of University ideals in youth. Possibly at six my own +ideal game may have been "Mothers." Looking back from the pile of +birthdays upon which I now stand, it occurs to me that very probably +it was. But from the perspective of twelve, the reflection that +there were beings in the world who could find recreation in such +fooling saddened me. + +Eight years later, his father not being able to afford the time, I +conducted Master "Waterworks," now a healthy, uninteresting, gawky +lad, to a school in Switzerland. It was my first Continental trip. +I should have enjoyed it better had he not been with me. He thought +Paris a "beastly hole." He did not share my admiration for the +Frenchwoman; he even thought her badly dressed. + +"Why she's so tied up, she can't walk straight," was the only +impression she left upon him. + +We changed the subject; it irritated me to hear him talk. The +beautiful Juno-like creatures we came across further on in Germany, +he said were too fat. He wanted to see them run. I found him +utterly soulless. + +To expect a boy to love learning and culture is like expecting him to +prefer old vintage claret to gooseberry wine. Culture for the +majority is an acquired taste. Speaking personally, I am entirely in +agreement with the University professor. I find knowledge, prompting +to observation and leading to reflection, the most satisfactory +luggage with which a traveller through life can provide himself. I +would that I had more of it. To be able to enjoy a picture is of +more advantage than to be able to buy it. + +All that the University professor can urge in favour of idealism I am +prepared to endorse. But then I am--let us say, thirty-nine. At +fourteen my candid opinion was that he was talking "rot." I looked +at the old gentleman himself--a narrow-chested, spectacled old +gentleman, who lived up a by street. He did not seem to have much +fun of any sort. It was not my ideal. He told me things had been +written in a language called Greek that I should enjoy reading, but I +had not even read all Captain Marryat. There were tales by Sir +Walter Scott and "Jack Harkaway's Schooldays!" I felt I could wait a +while. There was a chap called Aristophanes who had written +comedies, satirising the political institutions of a country that had +disappeared two thousand years ago. I say, without shame, Drury Lane +pantomime and Barnum's Circus called to me more strongly. + +Wishing to give the old gentleman a chance, I dipped into +translations. Some of these old fellows were not as bad as I had +imagined them. A party named Homer had written some really +interesting stuff. Here and there, maybe, he was a bit long-winded, +but, taking him as a whole, there was "go" in him. There was another +of them--Ovid was his name. He could tell a story, Ovid could. He +had imagination. He was almost as good as "Robinson Crusoe." I +thought it would please my professor, telling him that I was reading +these, his favourite authors. + +"Reading them!" he cried, "but you don't know Greek or Latin." + +"But I know English," I answered; "they have all been translated into +English. You never told me that!" + +It appeared it was not the same thing. There were subtle delicacies +of diction bound to escape even the best translator. These subtle +delicacies of diction I could enjoy only by devoting the next seven +or eight years of my life to the study of Greek and Latin. It will +grieve the University professor to hear it, but the enjoyment of +those subtle delicacies of diction did not appear to me--I was only +fourteen at the time, please remember--to be worth the time and +trouble. + +The boy is materially inclined--the mourning American professor has +discovered it. I did not want to be an idealist living up a back +street. I wanted to live in the biggest house in the best street of +the town. I wanted to ride a horse, wear a fur coat, and have as +much to eat and drink as ever I liked. I wanted to marry the most +beautiful woman in the world, to have my name in the newspaper, and +to know that everybody was envying me. + +Mourn over it, my dear professor, as you will--that is the ideal of +youth; and, so long as human nature remains what it is, will continue +to be so. It is a materialistic ideal--a sordid ideal. Maybe it is +necessary. Maybe the world would not move much if the young men +started thinking too early. They want to be rich, so they fling +themselves frenziedly into the struggle. They build the towns, and +make the railway tracks, hew down the forests, dig the ore out of the +ground. There comes a day when it is borne in upon them that trying +to get rich is a poor sort of game--that there is only one thing more +tiresome than being a millionaire, and that is trying to be a +millionaire. But, meanwhile, the world has got its work done. + +The American professor fears that the artistic development of America +leaves much to be desired. I fear the artistic development of most +countries leaves much to be desired. Why the Athenians themselves +sandwiched their drama between wrestling competitions and boxing +bouts. The plays of Sophocles, or Euripides, were given as "side +shows." The chief items of the fair were the games and races. +Besides, America is still a young man. It has been busy "getting on +in the world." It has not yet quite finished. Yet there are signs +that young America is approaching the thirty-nines. He is finding a +little time, a little money to spare for art. One can almost hear +young America--not quite so young as he was--saying to Mrs. Europe as +he enters and closes the shop door: + +"Well, ma'am, here I am, and maybe you'll be glad to hear I've a +little money to spend. Yes, ma'am, I've fixed things all right +across the water; we shan't starve. So now, ma'am, you and I can +have a chat concerning this art I've been hearing so much about. +Let's have a look at it, ma'am, trot it out, and don't you be afraid +of putting a fair price upon it." + +I am inclined to think that Mrs. Europe has not hesitated to put a +good price upon the art she has sold to Uncle Sam. I am afraid Mrs. +Europe has occasionally "unloaded" on Uncle Sam. I talked to a +certain dealer one afternoon, now many years ago, at the Uwantit +Club. + +"What is the next picture likely to be missing?" I asked him in the +course of general conversation. + +"Thome little thing of Hoppner'th, if it mutht be," he replied with +confidence. + +"Hoppner," I murmured, "I seem to have heard the name." + +"Yeth; you'll hear it a bit oftener during the next eighteen month or +tho. You take care you don't get tired of hearing it, thath all," he +laughed. "Yeth," he continued, thoughtfully, "Reynoldth ith played +out. Nothing much to be made of Gainthborough, either. Dealing in +that lot now, why, it'th like keeping a potht offith. Hoppner'th the +coming man." + +"You've been buying Hoppners up cheap," I suggested. + +"Between uth," he answered, "yeth, I think we've got them all. Maybe +a few more. I don't think we've mithed any." + +"You will sell them for more than you gave for them," I hinted. + +"You're thmart," he answered, regarding me admiringly, "you thee +through everything you do." + +"How do you work it?" I asked him. There is a time in the day when +he is confidential. "Here is this man, Hoppner. I take it that you +have bought him up at an average of a hundred pounds a picture, and +that at that price most owners were fairly glad to sell. Few folks +outside the art schools have ever heard of him. I bet that at the +present moment there isn't one art critic who could spell his name +without reference to a dictionary. In eighteen months you will be +selling him for anything from one thousand to ten thousand pounds. +How is it done?" + +"How ith everything done that'th done well?" he answered. "By +earnetht effort." He hitched his chair nearer to me, "I get a chap-- +one of your thort of chapth--he writ'th an article about Hoppner. I +get another to anthwer him. Before I've done there'll be a hundred +articleth about Hoppner--hith life, hith early thruggie, anecdo'th +about hith wife. Then a Hoppner will be thold at public auchtion for +a thouthand guineath." + +"But how can you be certain it will fetch a thousand guineas?" I +interrupted. + +"I happen to know the man whoth going to buy it." He winked, and I +understood. + +"A fortnight later there will be a thale of half-a-dothen, and the +prithe will be gone up by that time." + +"And after that?" I said. + +"After that," he replied, rising, "the American millionaire! He'll +jutht be waiting on the door-thtep for the thale-room to open." + +"If by any chance I come across a Hoppner?" I said, laughing, as I +turned to go. + +"Don't you hold on to it too long, that'th all," was his advice. + + + +HOW MANY CHARMS HATH MUSIC, WOULD YOU SAY? + + + +The argument of the late Herr Wagner was that grand opera--the music +drama, as he called it--included, and therefore did away with the +necessity for--all other arts. Music in all its branches, of course, +it provides: so much I will concede to the late Herr Wagner. There +are times, I confess, when my musical yearnings might shock the late +Herr Wagner--times when I feel unequal to following three distinct +themes at one and the same instant. + +"Listen," whispers the Wagnerian enthusiast to me, "the cornet has +now the Brunnhilda motive." It seems to me, in my then state of +depravity, as if the cornet had even more than this the matter with +him. + +"The second violins," continues the Wagnerian enthusiast, "are +carrying on the Wotan theme." That they are carrying on goes without +saying: the players' faces are streaming with perspiration. + +"The brass," explains my friend--his object is to cultivate my ear-- +"is accompanying the singers." I should have said drowning them. +There are occasions when I can rave about Wagner with the best of +them. High class moods come to all of us. The difference between +the really high-class man and us commonplace, workaday men is the +difference between, say, the eagle and the barnyard chicken. I am +the barnyard chicken. I have my wings. There are ecstatic moments +when I feel I want to spurn the sordid earth and soar into the realms +of art. I do fly a little, but my body is heavy, and I only get as +far as the fence. After a while I find it lonesome on the fence, and +I hop down again among my fellows. + +Listening to Wagner, during such temporary Philistinic mood, my sense +of fair play is outraged. A lone, lorn woman stands upon the stage +trying to make herself heard. She has to do this sort of thing for +her living; maybe an invalid mother, younger brothers and sisters are +dependent upon her. One hundred and forty men, all armed with +powerful instruments, well-organised, and most of them looking well- +fed, combine to make it impossible for a single note of that poor +woman's voice to be heard above their din. I see her standing there, +opening and shutting her mouth, getting redder and redder in the +face. She is singing, one feels sure of it; one could hear her if +only those one hundred and forty men would ease up for a minute. She +makes one mighty, supreme effort; above the banging of the drums, the +blare of the trumpets, the shrieking of the strings, that last +despairing note is distinctly heard. + +She has won, but the victory has cost her dear. She sinks down +fainting on the stage and is carried off by supers. Chivalrous +indignation has made it difficult for me to keep my seat watching the +unequal contest. My instinct was to leap the barrier, hurl the bald- +headed chief of her enemies from his high chair, and lay about me +with the trombone or the clarionet--whichever might have come the +easier to my snatch. + +"You cowardly lot of bullies," I have wanted to cry, "are you not +ashamed of yourselves? A hundred and forty of you against one, and +that one a still beautiful and, comparatively speaking, young lady. +Be quiet for a minute--can't you? Give the poor girl a chance." + +A lady of my acquaintance says that sitting out a Wagnerian opera +seems to her like listening to a singer accompanied by four +orchestras playing different tunes at the same time. As I have said, +there are times when Wagner carries me along with him, when I exult +in the crash and whirl of his contending harmonies. But, alas! there +are those other moods--those after dinner moods--when my desire is +for something distinctly resembling a tune. Still, there are other +composers of grand opera besides Wagner. I grant to the late Herr +Wagner, that, in so far as music is concerned, opera can supply us +with all we can need. + +But it was also Wagner's argument that grand opera could supply us +with acting, and there I am compelled to disagree with him. Wagner +thought that the arts of acting and singing could be combined. I +have seen artists the great man has trained himself. As singers they +left nothing to be desired, but the acting in grand opera has never +yet impressed me. Wagner never succeeded in avoiding the operatic +convention and nobody else ever will. When the operatic lover meets +his sweetheart he puts her in a corner and, turning his back upon +her, comes down to the footlights and tells the audience how he +adores her. When he has finished, he, in his turn, retires into the +corner, and she comes down and tells the audience that she is simply +mad about him. + +Overcome with joy at finding she really cares for him, he comes down +right and says that this is the happiest moment of his life; and she +stands left, twelve feet away from him, and has the presentiment that +all this sort of thing is much too good to last. They go off +together, backwards, side by side. If there is any love-making, such +as I understand by the term, it is done "off." This is not my idea +of acting. But I do not see how you are going to substitute for it +anything more natural. When you are singing at the top of your +voice, you don't want a heavy woman hanging round your neck. When +you are killing a man and warbling about it at the same time, you +don't want him fooling around you defending himself. You want him to +have a little reasonable patience, and to wait in his proper place +till you have finished, telling him, or rather telling the crowd, how +much you hate and despise him. + +When the proper time comes, and if he is where you expect to find him +while thinking of your upper C, you will hit him lightly on the +shoulder with your sword, and then he can die to his own particular +tune. If you have been severely wounded in battle, or in any other +sort of row, and have got to sing a long ballad before you finally +expire, you don't want to have to think how a man would really behave +who knew he had only got a few minutes to live and was feeling bad +about it. The chances are that he would not want to sing at all. +The woman who really loved him would not encourage him to sing. She +would want him to keep quiet while she moved herself about a bit, in +case there was anything that could be done for him. + +If a mob is climbing the stairs thirsting for your blood, you do not +want to stand upright with your arms stretched out, a good eighteen +inches from the door, while you go over at some length the varied +incidents leading up to the annoyance. If your desire were to act +naturally you would push against that door for all you were worth, +and yell for somebody to bring you a chest of drawers and a bedstead, +and things like that, to pile up against it. If you were a king, and +were giving a party, you would not want your guests to fix you up at +the other end of the room and leave you there, with nobody to talk to +but your own wife, while they turned their backs upon you, and had a +long and complicated dance all to themselves. You would want to be +in it; you would want to let them know that you were king. + +In acting, all these little points have to be considered. In opera, +everything is rightly sacrificed to musical necessity. I have seen +the young, enthusiastic opera-singer who thought that he or she could +act and sing at the same time. The experienced artist takes the +centre of the stage and husbands his resources. Whether he is +supposed to be indignant because somebody has killed his mother, or +cheerful because he is going out to fight his country's foes, who are +only waiting until he has finished singing to attack the town, he +leaves it to the composer to make clear. + +Also it was Herr Wagner's idea that the back cloth would leave the +opera-goer indifferent to the picture gallery. The castle on the +rock, accessible only by balloon, in which every window lights up +simultaneously and instantaneously, one minute after sunset, while +the full moon is rushing up the sky at the pace of a champion comet-- +that wonderful sea that suddenly opens and swallows up the ship-- +those snow-clad mountains, over which the shadow of the hero passes +like a threatening cloud--the grand old chateau, trembling in the +wind--what need, will ask the opera-goer of the future, of your +Turners and your Corots, when, for prices ranging from a shilling +upwards, we can have a dozen pictures such as these rolled up and +down before us every evening? + +But perhaps the most daring hope of all was the dream that came to +Herr Wagner that his opera singers, his grouped choruses, would +eventually satisfy the craving of the public for high class statuary. +I am not quite sure the general public does care for statuary. I do +not know whether the idea has ever occurred to the Anarchist, but, +were I myself organising secret committee meetings for unholy +purposes, I should invite my comrades to meet in that section of the +local museum devoted to statuary. I can conceive of no place where +we should be freer from prying eyes and listening ears. A select +few, however, do appreciate statuary; and such, I am inclined to +think, will not be weaned from their passion by the contemplation of +the opera singer in his or her various quaint costumes. + +And even if the tenor always satisfied our ideal of Apollo, and the +soprano were always as sylph-like as she is described in the +libretto, even then I should doubt the average operatic chorus being +regarded by the connoisseur as a cheap and pleasant substitute for a +bas relief from the Elgin marbles. The great thing required of that +operatic chorus is experience. The young and giddy-pated the chorus +master has no use for. The sober, honest, industrious lady or +gentleman, with a knowledge of music is very properly his ideal. + +What I admire about the chorus chiefly is its unity. The whole +village dresses exactly alike. In wicked, worldly villages there is +rivalry, leading to heartburn and jealously. One lady comes out +suddenly, on, say, a Bank Holiday, in a fetching blue that conquers +every male heart. Next holiday her rival cuts her out with a green +hat. In the operatic village it must be that the girls gather +together beforehand to arrange this thing. There is probably a +meeting called. + +"The dear Count's wedding," announces the chairwoman, "you will all +be pleased to hear, has been fixed for the fourteenth, at eleven +o'clock in the morning. The entire village will be assembled at ten- +thirty to await the return of the bridal cortege from the church, and +offer its felicitations. Married ladies, will, of course, come +accompanied by their husbands. Unmarried ladies must each bring a +male partner as near their own height as possible. Fortunately, in +this village the number of males is exactly equal to that of females, +so that the picture need not be spoiled. The children will organise +themselves into an independent body and will group themselves +picturesquely. It has been thought advisable," continues the +chairwoman, "that the village should meet the dear Count and his +bride at some spot not too far removed from the local alehouse. The +costume to be worn by the ladies will consist of a short pink skirt +terminating at the knees and ornamented with festoons of flowers; +above will be worn a bolero in mauve silk without sleeves and cut +decollete. The shoes should be of yellow satin over flesh-coloured +stockings. Ladies who are 'out' will wear pearl necklaces, and a +simple device in emeralds to decorate the hair. Thank God, we can +all of us afford it, and provided the weather holds up and nothing +unexpected happens--he is not what I call a lucky man, our Count, and +it is always as well to be prepared for possibilities--well, I think +we may look forward to a really pleasant day." + +It cannot be done, Herr Wagner, believe me. You cannot substitute +the music drama for all the arts combined. The object to be aimed at +by the wise composer should be to make us, while listening to his +music, forgetful of all remaining artistic considerations. + + + +THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN! NEED IT BE SO HEAVY? + + + +It is a delightful stroll on a sunny summer morning from the Hague to +the Huis ten Bosch, the little "house in the wood," built for +Princess Amalia, widow of Stadtholter Frederick Henry, under whom +Holland escaped finally from the bondage of her foes and entered into +the promised land of Liberty. Leaving the quiet streets, the tree- +bordered canals, with their creeping barges, you pass through a +pleasant park, where the soft-eyed deer press round you, hurt and +indignant if you have brought nothing in your pocket--not even a +piece of sugar--to offer them. It is not that they are grasping--it +is the want of attention that wounds them. + +"I thought he was a gentleman," they seem to be saying to one +another, if you glance back, "he looked like a gentleman." + +Their mild eyes haunt you; on the next occasion you do not forget. +The Park merges into the forest; you go by winding ways till you +reach the trim Dutch garden, moat-encircled, in the centre of which +stands the prim old-fashioned villa, which, to the simple Dutchman, +appears a palace. The concierge, an old soldier, bows low to you and +introduces you to his wife--a stately, white-haired dame, who talks +most languages a little, so far as relates to all things within and +appertaining to this tiny palace of the wood. To things without, +beyond the wood, her powers of conversation do not extend: +apparently such matters do not interest her. + +She conducts you to the Chinese Room; the sun streams through the +windows, illuminating the wondrous golden dragons standing out in +bold relief from the burnished lacquer work, decorating still further +with light and shade the delicate silk embroideries thin taper hands +have woven with infinite pains. The walls are hung with rice paper, +depicting the conventional scenes of the conventional Chinese life. + +You find your thoughts wandering. These grotesque figures, these +caricatures of humanity! A comical creature, surely, this Chinaman, +the pantaloon of civilization. How useful he has been to us for our +farces, our comic operas! This yellow baby, in his ample pinafore, +who lived thousands of years ago, who has now passed into this +strange second childhood. + +But is he dying--or does the life of a nation wake again, as after +sleep? Is he this droll, harmless thing he here depicts himself? +And if not? Suppose fresh sap be stirring through his three hundred +millions? We thought he was so very dead; we thought the time had +come to cut him up and divide him, the only danger being lest we +should quarrel over his carcase among ourselves. + +Suppose it turns out as the fable of the woodcutter and the bear? +The woodcutter found the bear lying in the forest. At first he was +much frightened, but the bear lay remarkably still. So the woodman +crept nearer, ventured to kick the bear--very gently, ready to run if +need be. Surely the bear was dead! And parts of a bear are good to +eat, and bearskin to poor woodfolk on cold winter nights is grateful. +So the woodman drew his knife and commenced the necessary +preliminaries. But the bear was not dead. + +If the Chinaman be not dead? If the cutting-up process has only +served to waken him? In a little time from now we shall know. + +From the Chinese Room the white-haired dame leads us to the Japanese +Room. Had gentle-looking Princess Amalia some vague foreshadowing of +the future in her mind when she planned these two rooms leading into +one another? The Japanese decorations are more grotesque, the +designs less cheerfully comical than those of cousin Chinaman. These +monstrous, mis-shapen wrestlers, these patient-looking gods, with +their inscrutable eyes! Was it always there, or is it only by the +light of present events that one reads into the fantastic fancies of +the artist working long ago in the doorway of his paper house, a +meaning that has hitherto escaped us? + +But the chief attraction of the Huis ten Bosch is the gorgeous Orange +Saloon, lighted by a cupola, fifty feet above the floor, the walls +one blaze of pictures, chiefly of the gorgeous Jordaen school--"The +Defeat of the Vices," "Time Vanquishing Slander"--mostly allegorical, +in praise of all the virtues, in praise of enlightenment and +progress. Aptly enough in a room so decorated, here was held the +famous Peace Congress that closed the last century. One can hardly +avoid smiling as one thinks of the solemn conclave of grandees +assembled to proclaim the popularity of Peace. + +It was in the autumn of the same year that Europe decided upon the +dividing-up of China, that soldiers were instructed by Christian +monarchs to massacre men, women and children, the idea being to +impress upon the Heathen Chinee the superior civilization of the +white man. The Boer war followed almost immediately. Since when the +white man has been pretty busy all over the world with his +"expeditions" and his "missions." The world is undoubtedly growing +more refined. We do not care for ugly words. Even the burglar +refers airily to the "little job" he has on hand. You would think he +had found work in the country. I should not be surprised to learn +that he says a prayer before starting, telegraphs home to his anxious +wife the next morning that his task has been crowned with blessing. + +Until the far-off date of Universal Brotherhood war will continue. +Matters considered unimportant by both parties will--with a mighty +flourish of trumpets--be referred to arbitration. I was talking of a +famous financier a while ago with a man who had been his secretary. +Amongst other anecdotes, he told me of a certain agreement about +which dispute had arisen. The famous financier took the paper into +his own hands and made a few swift calculations. + +"Let it go," he concluded, "it is only a thousand pounds at the +outside. May as well be honest." + +Concerning a dead fisherman or two, concerning boundaries through +unproductive mountain ranges we shall arbitrate and feel virtuous. +For gold mines and good pasture lands, mixed up with a little honour +to give respectability to the business, we shall fight it out, as +previously. War being thus inevitable, the humane man will rejoice +that by one of those brilliant discoveries, so simple when they are +explained, war in the future is going to be rendered equally +satisfactory to victor and to vanquished. + +In by-elections, as a witty writer has pointed out, there are no +defeats--only victories and moral victories. The idea seems to have +caught on. War in the future is evidently going to be conducted on +the same understanding. Once upon a time, from a far-off land, a +certain general telegraphed home congratulating his Government that +the enemy had shown no inclination whatever to prevent his running +away. The whole country rejoiced. + +"Why, they never even tried to stop him," citizens, meeting other +citizens in the street, told each other. "Ah, they've had enough of +him. I bet they are only too glad to get rid of him. Why, they say +he ran for miles without seeing a trace of the foe." + +The enemy's general, on the other hand, also wrote home +congratulating his Government. In this way the same battle can be +mafficked over by both parties. Contentment is the great secret of +happiness. Everything happens for the best, if only you look at it +the right way. That is going to be the argument. The general of the +future will telegraph to headquarters that he is pleased to be able +to inform His Majesty that the enemy, having broken down all +opposition, has succeeded in crossing the frontier and is now well on +his way to His Majesty's capital. + +"I am luring him on," he will add, "as fast as I can. At our present +rate of progress, I am in hopes of bringing him home by the tenth." + +Lest foolish civilian sort of people should wonder whereabouts lies +the cause for rejoicing, the military man will condescend to explain. +The enemy is being enticed farther and farther from his base. The +defeated general--who is not really defeated, who is only artful, and +who appears to be running away, is not really running away at all. +On the contrary, he is running home--bringing, as he explains, the +enemy with him. + +If I remember rightly--it is long since I played it--there is a +parlour game entitled "Puss in the Corner." You beckon another +player to you with your finger. "Puss, puss!" you cry. Thereupon he +has to leave his chair--his "base," as the military man would term +it--and try to get to you without anything happening to him. + +War in the future is going to be Puss in the Corner on a bigger +scale. You lure your enemy away from his base. If all goes well--if +he does not see the trap that is being laid for him--why, then, +almost before he knows it, he finds himself in your capital. That +finishes the game. You find out what it is he really wants. +Provided it is something within reason, and you happen to have it +handy, you give it to him. He goes home crowing, and you, on your +side, laugh when you think how cleverly you succeeded in luring him +away from his base. + +There is a bright side to all things. The gentleman charged with the +defence of a fortress will meet the other gentleman who has captured +it and shake hands with him mid the ruins. + +"So here you are at last!" he will explain. "Why didn't you come +before? We have been waiting for you." + +And he will send off dispatches felicitating his chief on having got +that fortress off their hands, together with all the worry and +expense it has been to them. When prisoners are taken you will +console yourself with the reflection that the cost of feeding them +for the future will have to be borne by the enemy. Captured cannon +you will watch being trailed away with a sigh of relief. + +"Confounded heavy things!" you will say to yourself. "Thank goodness +I've got rid of them. Let him have the fun of dragging them about +these ghastly roads. See how he likes the job!" + +War is a ridiculous method of settling disputes. Anything that can +tend to make its ridiculous aspect more apparent is to be welcomed. +The new school of military dispatch-writers may succeed in turning +even the laughter of the mob against it. + +The present trouble in the East would never have occurred but for the +white man's enthusiasm for bearing other people's burdens. What we +call the yellow danger is the fear that the yellow man may before +long request us, so far as he is concerned, to put his particular +burden down. It may occur to him that, seeing it is his property, he +would just as soon carry it himself. A London policeman told me a +story the other day that struck him as an example of Cockney humour +under trying circumstances. But it may also serve as a fable. From +a lonely street in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden, early one +morning, the constable heard cries of "Stop thief!" shouted in a +childish treble. He arrived on the scene just in time to collar a +young hooligan, who, having snatched a basket of fruit from a small +lad--a greengrocer's errand boy, as it turned out--was, with it, +making tracks. The greengrocer's boy, between panting and tears, +delivered his accusation. The hooligan regarded him with an +expression of amazed indignation. + +"What d'yer mean, stealing it?" exclaimed Mr. Hooligan. "Why, I was +carrying it for yer!" + +The white man has got into the way of "carrying" other people's +burdens, and now it looks as if the yellow man were going to object +to our carrying his any further. Maybe he is going to get nasty, and +insist on carrying it himself. We call this "the yellow danger." + +A friend of mine--he is a man who in the street walks into lamp- +posts, and apologises--sees rising from the East the dawn of a new +day in the world's history. The yellow danger is to him a golden +hope. He sees a race long stagnant, stretching its giant limbs with +the first vague movements of returning life. He is a poor sort of +patriot; he calls himself, I suppose, a white man, yet he shamelessly +confesses he would rather see Asia's millions rise from the ruins of +their ancient civilization to take their part in the future of +humanity, than that half the population of the globe should remain +bound in savagery for the pleasure and the profit of his own +particular species. + +He even goes so far as to think that the white man may have something +to learn. The world has belonged to him now for some thousands of +years. Has he done all with it that could have been done? Are his +ideals the last word? + +Not what the yellow man has absorbed from Europe, but what he is +going to give Europe it is that interests my friend. He is watching +the birth of a new force--an influence as yet unknown. He clings to +the fond belief that new ideas, new formulae, to replace the old worn +shibboleths, may, during these thousands of years, have been +developing in those keen brains that behind the impressive yellow +mask have been working so long in silence and in mystery. + + + +WHY DIDN'T HE MARRY THE GIRL? + + + +What is wrong with marriage, anyhow? I find myself pondering this +question so often, when reading high-class literature. I put it to +myself again the other evening, during a performance of Faust. Why +could not Faust have married the girl? I would not have married her +myself for any consideration whatsoever; but that is not the +argument. Faust, apparently, could not see anything amiss with her. +Both of them were mad about each other. Yet the idea of a quiet, +unostentatious marriage with a week's honeymoon, say, in Vienna, +followed by a neat little cottage orne, not too far from Nurnberg, so +that their friends could have come out to them, never seems to have +occurred to either of them. + +There could have been a garden. Marguerite might have kept chickens +and a cow. That sort of girl, brought up to hard work and by no +means too well educated, is all the better for having something to +do. Later, with the gradual arrival of the family, a good, all-round +woman might have been hired in to assist. Faust, of course, would +have had his study and got to work again; that would have kept him +out of further mischief. The idea that a brainy man, his age, was +going to be happy with nothing to do all day but fool round a +petticoat was ridiculous from the beginning. Valentine--a good +fellow, Valentine, with nice ideas--would have spent his Saturdays to +Monday with them. Over a pipe and a glass of wine, he and Faust +would have discussed the local politics. + +He would have danced the children on his knee, have told them tales +about the war--taught the eldest boy to shoot. Faust, with a +practical man like Valentine to help him, would probably have +invented a new gun. Valentine would have got it taken up. + +Things might have come of it. Sybil, in course of time, would have +married and settled down--perhaps have taken a little house near to +them. He and Marguerite would have joked--when Mrs. Sybil was not +around--about his early infatuation. The old mother would have +toddled over from Nurnberg--not too often, just for the day. + +The picture grows upon one the more one thinks of it. Why did it +never occur to them? There would have been a bit of a bother with +the Old Man. I can imagine Mephistopheles being upset about it, +thinking himself swindled. Of course, if that was the reason--if +Faust said to himself: + +"I should like to marry the girl, but I won't do it; it would not be +fair to the Old Man; he has been to a lot of trouble working this +thing up; in common gratitude I cannot turn round now and behave like +a decent, sensible man; it would not be playing the game"--if this +was the way Faust looked at the matter there is nothing more to be +said. Indeed, it shows him in rather a fine light--noble, if +quixotic. + +If, on the other hand, he looked at the question from the point of +view of himself and the girl, I think the thing might have been +managed. All one had to do in those days when one wanted to get rid +of the Devil was to show him a sword hilt. Faust and Marguerite +could have slipped into a church one morning, and have kept him out +of the way with a sword hilt till the ceremony was through. They +might have hired a small boy: + +"You see the gentleman in red? Well, he wants us and we don't want +him. That is the only difference between us. Now, you take this +sword, and when you see him coming show him the hilt. Don't hurt +him; just show him the sword and shake your head. He will +understand." + +The old gentleman's expression, when subsequently Faust presented him +to Marguerite, would have been interesting: + +"Allow me, my wife. My dear, a--a friend of mine. You may remember +meeting him that night at your aunt's." + +As I have said, there would have been ructions; but I do not myself +see what could have been done. There was nothing in the bond to the +effect that Faust should not marry, so far as we are told. The Old +Man had a sense of humour. My own opinion is that, after getting +over the first annoyance, he himself would have seen the joke. I can +even picture him looking in now and again on Mr. and Mrs. Faust. The +children would be hurried off to bed. There would be, for a while, +an atmosphere of constraint. + +But the Old Man had a way with him. He would have told one or two +stories at which Marguerite would have blushed, at which Faust would +have grinned. I can see the old fellow occasionally joining the +homely social board. The children, awed at first, would have sat +silent, with staring eyes. But, as I have said, the Old Man had a +way with him. Why should he not have reformed? The good woman's +unconsciously exerted influence--the sweet childish prattle! One +hears of such things. Might he not have come to be known as +"Nunkie"? + +Myself--I believe I have already mentioned it--I would not have +married Marguerite. She is not my ideal of a good girl. I never +liked the way she deceived her mother. And that aunt of hers! Well, +a nice girl would not have been friends with such a woman. She did +not behave at all too well to Sybil, either. It is clear to me that +she led the boy on. And what was she doing with that box of jewels, +anyhow? She was not a fool. She could not have gone every day to +that fountain, chatted with those girl friends of hers, and learnt +nothing. She must have known that people don't go leaving twenty +thousand pounds' worth of jewels about on doorsteps as part of a +round game. Her own instinct, if she had been a good girl, would +have told her to leave the thing alone. + +I don't believe in these innocent people who do not know what they +are doing half their time. Ask any London magistrate what he thinks +of the lady who explains that she picked up the diamond brooch:- + +"Not meaning, of course, your Worship, to take it. I would not do +such a thing. It just happened this way, your Worship. I was +standing as you might say here, and not seeing anyone about in the +shop I opened the case and took it out, thinking as perhaps it might +belong to someone; and then this gentleman here, as I had not noticed +before, comes up quite suddenly and says; 'You come along with me,' +he says. 'What for,' I says, 'when I don't even know you?' I says. +'For stealing,' he says. 'Well, that's a hard word to use to a +lady,' I says; 'I don't know what you mean, I'm sure.'" + +And if she had put them all on, not thinking, what would a really +nice girl have done when the gentleman came up and assured her they +were hers? She would have been thirty seconds taking them off and +flinging them back into the box. + +"Thank you," she would have said, "I'll trouble you to leave this +garden as quickly as you entered it and take them with you. I'm not +that sort of girl." + +Marguerite clings to the jewels, and accepts the young man's arm for +a moonlight promenade. And when it does enter into her innocent head +that he and she have walked that shady garden long enough, what does +she do when she has said good-bye and shut the door? She opens the +ground-floor window and begins to sing! + +Maybe I am not poetical, but I do like justice. When other girls do +these sort of things they get called names. I cannot see why this +particular girl should be held up as an ideal. She kills her mother. +According to her own account this was an accident. It is not an +original line of defence, and we are not allowed to hear the evidence +for the prosecution. She also kills her baby. You are not to blame +her for that, because at the time she was feeling poorly. I don't +see why this girl should have a special line of angels to take her up +to heaven. There must have been decent, hard-working women in +Nurnburg more entitled to the ticket. + +Why is it that all these years we have been content to accept +Marguerite as a type of innocence and virtue? The explanation is, I +suppose, that Goethe wrote at a time when it was the convention to +regard all women as good. Anything in petticoats was virtuous. If +she did wrong it was always somebody else's fault. Cherchez la femme +was a later notion. In the days of Goethe it was always Cherchez +l'homme. It was the man's fault. It was the devil's fault. It was +anybody's fault you liked, but not her's. + +The convention has not yet died out. I was reading the other day a +most interesting book by a brilliant American authoress. Seeing I +live far away from the lady's haunts, I venture to mention names. I +am speaking of "Patience Sparhawk," by Gertrude Atherton. I take +this book because it is typical of a large body of fiction. Miss +Sparhawk lives a troubled life: it puzzles her. She asks herself +what is wrong. Her own idea is that it is civilisation. + +If it is not civilisation, then it is the American man or Nature--or +Democracy. Miss Sparhawk marries the wrong man. Later on she gets +engaged to another wrong man. In the end we are left to believe she +is about to be married to the right man. I should be better +satisfied if I could hear Miss Sparhawk talking six months after that +last marriage. But if a mistake has again been made I am confident +that, in Miss Sparhawk's opinion, the fault will not be Miss +Sparhawk's. The argument is always the same: Miss Sparhawk, being a +lady, can do no wrong. + +If Miss Sparhawk cared to listen to me for five minutes, I feel I +could put her right on this point. + +"It is quite true, my dear girl," I should say to her, "something is +wrong--very wrong. But it is not the American man. Never you mind +the American man: you leave him to worry out his own salvation. You +are not the girl to put him right, even where he is wrong. And it is +not civilisation. Civilisation has a deal to answer for, I admit: +don't you load it up with this additional trouble. The thing that is +wrong in this case of yours--if you will forgive my saying so--is +you. You make a fool of yourself; you marry a man who is a mere +animal because he appeals to your animal instincts. Then, like the +lady who cried out 'Alack, I've married a black,' you appeal to +heaven against the injustice of being mated with a clown. You are +not a nice girl, either in your ideas or in your behaviour. I don't +blame you for it; you did not make yourself. But when you set to +work to attract all that is lowest in man, why be so astonished at +your own success? There are plenty of shocking American men, I +agree. One meets the class even outside America. But nice American +girls will tell you that there are also nice American men. There is +an old proverb about birds of a feather. Next time you find yourself +in the company of a shocking American man, you just ask yourself how +he got there, and how it is he seems to be feeling at home. You +learn self-control. Get it out of your head that you are the centre +of the universe, and grasp the idea that a petticoat is not a halo, +and you will find civilisation not half as wrong as you thought it." + +I know what Miss Sparhawk's reply would be. + +"You say all this to me--to me, a lady? Great Heavens! What has +become of chivalry?" + +A Frenchman was once put on trial for murdering his father and +mother. He confessed his guilt, but begged for mercy on the plea +that he was an orphan. Chivalry was founded on the assumption that +woman was worthy to be worshipped. The modern woman's notion is that +when she does wrong she ought to be excused by chivalrous man because +she is a lady. + +I like the naughty heroine; we all of us do. The early Victorian +heroine--the angel in a white frock, was a bore. We knew exactly +what she was going to do--the right thing. We did not even have to +ask ourselves, "What will she think is the right thing to do under +the circumstances?" It was always the conventional right thing. You +could have put it to a Sunday school and have got the answer every +time. The heroine with passions, instincts, emotions, is to be +welcomed. But I want her to grasp the fact that after all she is +only one of us. I should like her better if, instead of demanding: + +"What is wrong in civilisation? What is the world coming to?" and so +forth, she would occasionally say to herself: + +"Guess I've made a fool of myself this time. I do feel that 'shamed +of myself." + +She would not lose by it. We should respect her all the more. + + + +WHAT MRS. WILKINS THOUGHT ABOUT IT. + + + +Last year, travelling on the Underground Railway, I met a man; he was +one of the saddest-looking men I had seen for years. I used to know +him well in the old days when we were journalists together. I asked +him, in a sympathetic tone, how things were going with him. I +expected his response would be a flood of tears, and that in the end +I should have to fork out a fiver. To my astonishment, his answer +was that things were going exceedingly well with him. I did not want +to say to him bluntly: + +"Then what has happened to you to make you look like a mute at a +temperance funeral?" I said: + +"And how are all at home?" + +I thought that if the trouble lay there he would take the +opportunity. It brightened him somewhat, the necessity of replying +to the question. It appeared that his wife was in the best of +health. + +"You remember her," he continued with a smile; "wonderful spirits, +always cheerful, nothing seems to put her out, not even--" + +He ended the sentence abruptly with a sigh. + +His mother-in-law, I learned from further talk with him, had died +since I had last met him, and had left them a comfortable addition to +their income. His eldest daughter was engaged to be married. + +"It is entirely a love match," he explained, "and he is such a dear, +good fellow, that I should not have made any objection even had he +been poor. But, of course, as it is, I am naturally all the more +content." + +His eldest boy, having won the Mottle Scholarship, was going up to +Cambridge in the Autumn. His own health, he told me, had greatly +improved; and a novel he had written in his leisure time promised to +be one of the successes of the season. Then it was that I spoke +plainly. + +"If I am opening a wound too painful to be touched," I said, "tell +me. If, on the contrary, it is an ordinary sort of trouble upon +which the sympathy of a fellow worker may fall as balm, let me hear +it." + +"So far as I am concerned," he replied, "I should be glad to tell +you. Speaking about it does me good, and may lead--so I am always in +hopes--to an idea. But, for your own sake, if you take my advice, +you will not press me." + +"How can it affect me?" I asked, "it is nothing to do with me, is +it?" + +"It need have nothing to do with you," he answered, "if you are +sensible enough to keep out of it. If I tell you: from this time +onward it will be your trouble also. Anyhow, that is what has +happened in four other separate cases. If you like to be the fifth +and complete the half dozen of us, you are welcome. But remember I +have warned you." + +"What has it done to the other five?" I demanded. + +"It has changed them from cheerful, companionable persons into gloomy +one-idead bores," he told me. "They think of but one thing, they +talk of but one thing, they dream of but one thing. Instead of +getting over it, as time goes on, it takes possession of them more +and more. There are men, of course, who would be unaffected by it-- +who could shake it off. I warn you in particular against it, +because, in spite of all that is said, I am convinced you have a +sense of humour; and that being so, it will lay hold of you. It will +plague you night and day. You see what it has made of me! Three +months ago a lady interviewer described me as of a sunny temperament. +If you know your own business you will get out at the next station." + +I wish now I had followed his advice. As it was, I allowed my +curiosity to take possession of me, and begged him to explain. And +he did so. + +"It was just about Christmas time," he said. "We were discussing the +Drury Lane Pantomime--some three or four of us--in the smoking room +of the Devonshire Club, and young Gold said he thought it would prove +a mistake, the introduction of a subject like the Fiscal question +into the story of Humpty Dumpty. The two things, so far as he could +see, had nothing to do with one another. He added that he +entertained a real regard for Mr. Dan Leno, whom he had once met on a +steamboat, but that there were other topics upon which he would +prefer to seek that gentleman's guidance. Nettleship, on the other +hand, declared that he had no sympathy with the argument that artists +should never intrude upon public affairs. The actor was a fellow +citizen with the rest of us. He said that, whether one agreed with +their conclusions or not, one must admit that the nation owed a debt +of gratitude to Mrs. Brown Potter and to Miss Olga Nethersole for +giving to it the benefit of their convictions. He had talked to both +ladies in private on the subject and was convinced they knew as much +about it as did most people. + +"Burnside, who was one of the party, contended that if sides were to +be taken, a pantomime should surely advocate the Free-Food Cause, +seeing it was a form of entertainment supposed to appeal primarily to +the tastes of the Little Englander. Then I came into the discussion. + +"'The Fiscal question,' I said, 'is on everybody's tongue. Such +being the case, it is fit and proper it should be referred to in our +annual pantomime, which has come to be regarded as a review of the +year's doings. But it should not have been dealt with from the +political standpoint. The proper attitude to have assumed towards it +was that of innocent raillery, free from all trace of partisanship.' + +"Old Johnson had strolled up and was standing behind us. + +"'The very thing I have been trying to get hold of for weeks,' he +said--'a bright, amusing resume of the whole problem that should give +offence to neither side. You know our paper,' he continued; 'we +steer clear of politics, but, at the same time, try to be up-to-date; +it is not always easy. The treatment of the subject, on the lines +you suggest, is just what we require. I do wish you would write me +something.' + +"He is a good old sort, Johnson; it seemed an easy thing. I said I +would. Since that time I have been thinking how to do it. As a +matter of fact, I have not thought of much else. Maybe you can +suggest something." + +I was feeling in a good working mood the next morning. + +"Pilson," said I to myself, "shall have the benefit of this. He does +not need anything boisterously funny. A few playfully witty remarks +on the subject will be the ideal." + +I lit a pipe and sat down to think. At half-past twelve, having to +write some letters before going out to lunch, I dismissed the Fiscal +question from my mind. + +But not for long. It worried me all the afternoon. I thought, +maybe, something would come to me in the evening. I wasted all that +evening, and I wasted all the following morning. Everything has its +amusing side, I told myself. One turns out comic stories about +funerals, about weddings. Hardly a misfortune that can happen to +mankind but has produced its comic literature. An American friend of +mine once took a contract from the Editor of an Insurance Journal to +write four humorous stories; one was to deal with an earthquake, the +second with a cyclone, the third with a flood, and the fourth with a +thunderstorm. And more amusing stories I have never read. What is +the matter with the Fiscal question? + +I myself have written lightly on Bime-metallism. Home Rule we used +to be merry over in the eighties. I remember one delightful evening +at the Codgers' Hall. It would have been more delightful still, but +for a raw-boned Irishman, who rose towards eleven o'clock and +requested to be informed if any other speaker was wishful to make any +more jokes on the subject of Ould Ireland; because, if so, the raw- +boned gentleman was prepared to save time by waiting and dealing with +them altogether. But if not, then--so the raw-boned gentleman +announced--his intention was to go for the last speaker and the last +speaker but two at once and without further warning. + +No other humourist rising, the raw-boned gentleman proceeded to make +good his threat, with the result that the fun degenerated somewhat. +Even on the Boer War we used to whisper jokes to one another in quiet +places. In this Fiscal question there must be fun. Where is it? + +For days I thought of little else. My laundress--as we call them in +the Temple--noticed my trouble. + +"Mrs. Wilkins," I confessed, "I am trying to think of something +innocently amusing to say on the Fiscal question." + +"I've 'eard about it," she said, "but I don't 'ave much time to read +the papers. They want to make us pay more for our food, don't they?" + +"For some of it," I explained. "But, then, we shall pay less for +other things, so that really we shan't be paying more at all." + +"There don't seem much in it, either way," was Mrs. Wilkins' opinion. + +"Just so," I agreed, "that is the advantage of the system. It will +cost nobody anything, and will result in everybody being better off." + +"The pity is," said Mrs. Wilkins "that pity nobody ever thought of it +before." + +"The whole trouble hitherto," I explained, "has been the foreigner." + +"Ah," said Mrs. Wilkins, "I never 'eard much good of 'em, though they +do say the Almighty 'as a use for almost everything." + +"These foreigners," I continued, "these Germans and Americans, they +dump things on us, you know." + +"What's that?" demanded Mrs. Wilkins. + +"What's dump? Well, it's dumping, you know. You take things, and +you dump them down." + +"But what things? 'Ow do they do it?" asked Mrs. Wilkins. + +"Why, all sorts of things: pig iron, bacon, door-mats--everything. +They bring them over here--in ships, you understand--and then, if you +please, just dump them down upon our shores." + +"You don't mean surely to tell me that they just throw them out and +leave them there?" queried Mrs. Wilkins. + +"Of course not," I replied; "when I say they dump these things upon +our shores, that is a figure of speech. What I mean is they sell +them to us." + +"But why do we buy them if we don't want them?" asked Mrs. Wilkins; +"we're not bound to buy them, are we?" + +"It is their artfulness," I explained, "these Germans and Americans, +and the others; they are all just as bad as one another--they insist +on selling us these things at less price than they cost to make." + +"It seems a bit silly of them, don't it?" thought Mrs. Wilkins. "I +suppose being foreigners, poor things, they ain't naturally got much +sense." + +"It does seem silly of them, if you look at it that way," I admitted, +"but what we have got to consider is, the injury it is doing us." + +"Don't see 'ow it can do us much 'arm," argued Mrs. Wilkins; "seems a +bit of luck so far as we are concerned. There's a few more things +they'd be welcome to dump round my way." + +"I don't seem to be putting this thing quite in the right light to +you, Mrs. Wilkins," I confessed. "It is a long argument, and you +might not be able to follow it; but you must take it as a fact now +generally admitted that the cheaper you buy things the sooner your +money goes. By allowing the foreigner to sell us all these things at +about half the cost price, he is getting richer every day, and we are +getting poorer. Unless we, as a country, insist on paying at least +twenty per cent. more for everything we want, it is calculated that +in a very few years England won't have a penny left." + +"Sounds a bit topsy turvy," suggested Mrs. Wilkins. + +"It may sound so," I answered, "but I fear there can be no doubt of +it. The Board of Trade Returns would seem to prove it conclusively." + +"Well, God be praised, we've found it out in time," ejaculated Mrs. +Wilkins piously. + +"It is a matter of congratulation," I agreed; "the difficulty is that +a good many other people say that far from being ruined, we are doing +very well indeed, and are growing richer every year." + +"But 'ow can they say that," argued Mrs. Wilkins, "when, as you tell +me, those Trade Returns prove just the opposite?" + +"Well, they say the same, Mrs. Wilkins, that the Board of Trade +Returns prove just the opposite." + +"Well, they can't both be right," said Mrs. Wilkins. + +"You would be surprised, Mrs. Wilkins," I said, "how many things can +be proved from Board of Trade Returns!" + +But I have not yet thought of that article for Pilson. + + + +SHALL WE BE RUINED BY CHINESE CHEAP LABOUR? + + + +"What is all this talk I 'ear about the Chinese?" said Mrs. Wilkins +to me the other morning. We generally indulge in a little chat while +Mrs. Wilkins is laying the breakfast-table. Letters and newspapers +do not arrive in my part of the Temple much before nine. From half- +past eight to nine I am rather glad of Mrs. Wilkins. "They 'ave been +up to some of their tricks again, 'aven't they?" + +"The foreigner, Mrs. Wilkins," I replied, "whether he be Chinee or +any other he, is always up to tricks. Was not England specially +prepared by an all-wise Providence to frustrate these knavish tricks? +Which of such particular tricks may you be referring to at the +moment, Mrs. Wilkins?" + +"Well, 'e's comin' over 'ere--isn't he, sir? to take the work out of +our mouths, as it were." + +"Well, not exactly over here, to England, Mrs. Wilkins," I explained. +"He has been introduced into Africa to work in the mines there." + +"It's a funny thing," said Mrs. Wilkins, "but to 'ear the way some of +them talk in our block, you might run away with the notion--that is, +if you didn't know 'em--that work was their only joy. I said to one +of 'em, the other evening--a man as calls 'isself a brass finisher, +though, Lord knows, the only brass 'e ever finishes is what 'is poor +wife earns and isn't quick enough to 'ide away from 'im--well, +whatever 'appens, I says, it will be clever of 'em if they take away +much work from you. It made them all laugh, that did," added Mrs. +Wilkins, with a touch of pardonable pride. + +"Ah," continued the good lady, "it's surprising 'ow contented they +can be with a little, some of 'em. Give 'em a 'ard-working woman to +look after them, and a day out once a week with a procession of the +unemployed, they don't ask for nothing more. There's that beauty my +poor sister Jane was fool enough to marry. Serves 'er right, as I +used to tell 'er at first, till there didn't seem any more need to +rub it into 'er. She'd 'ad one good 'usband. It wouldn't 'ave been +fair for 'er to 'ave 'ad another, even if there'd been a chance of +it, seeing the few of 'em there is to go round among so many. But +it's always the same with us widows: if we 'appen to 'ave been lucky +the first time, we put it down to our own judgment--think we can't +ever make a mistake; and if we draw a wrong 'un, as the saying is, we +argue as if it was the duty of Providence to make it up to us the +second time. Why, I'd a been making a fool of myself three years ago +if 'e 'adn't been good-natured enough to call one afternoon when I +was out, and 'ook it off with two pounds eight in the best teapot +that I 'ad been soft enough to talk to 'im about: and never let me +set eyes on 'im again. God bless 'im! 'E's one of the born-tireds, +'e is, as poor Jane might 'ave seen for 'erself, if she 'ad only +looked at 'im, instead of listening to 'im. + +"But that's courtship all the world over--old and young alike, so far +as I've been able to see it," was the opinion of Mrs. Wilkins. "The +man's all eyes and the woman all ears. They don't seem to 'ave any +other senses left 'em. I ran against 'im the other night, on my way +'ome, at the corner of Gray's Inn Road. There was the usual crowd +watching a pack of them Italians laying down the asphalt in 'Olborn, +and 'e was among 'em. 'E 'ad secured the only lamp-post, and was +leaning agen it. + +"'Ullo,' I says, 'glad to see you 'aven't lost your job. Nothin' +like stickin' to it, when you've dropped into somethin' that really +suits you.' + +"'What do you mean, Martha?' 'e says. 'E's not one of what I call +your smart sort. It takes a bit of sarcasm to get through 'is 'ead. + +"'Well,' I says, 'you're still on the old track, I see, looking for +work. Take care you don't 'ave an accident one of these days and run +up agen it before you've got time to get out of its way.' + +"'It's these miserable foreigners,' 'e says. 'Look at 'em,' 'e says. + +"'There's enough of you doing that,' I says. 'I've got my room to +put straight and three hours needlework to do before I can get to +bed. But don't let me 'inder you. You might forget what work was +like, if you didn't take an opportunity of watching it now and then.' + +"'They come over 'ere,' 'e says, 'and take the work away from us +chaps.' + +"'Ah,' I says, 'poor things, perhaps they ain't married.' + +"'Lazy devils! 'e says. 'Look at 'em, smoking cigarettes. I could +do that sort of work. There's nothing in it. It don't take 'eathen +foreigners to dab a bit of tar about a road.' + +"'Yes,' I says, 'you always could do anybody else's work but your +own.' + +"'I can't find it, Martha,' 'e says. + +"'No,' I says, 'and you never will in the sort of places you go +looking for it. They don't 'ang it out on lamp-posts, and they don't +leave it about at the street corners. Go 'ome,' I says, 'and turn +the mangle for your poor wife. That's big enough for you to find, +even in the dark.' + +"Looking for work!" snorted Mrs. Wilkins with contempt; "we women +never 'ave much difficulty in finding it, I've noticed. There are +times when I feel I could do with losing it for a day." + +"But what did he reply, Mrs. Wilkins," I asked; "your brass-finishing +friend, who was holding forth on the subject of Chinese cheap +labour." Mrs. Wilkins as a conversationalist is not easily kept to +the point. I was curious to know what the working classes were +thinking on the subject. + +"Oh, that," replied Mrs. Wilkins, "'e did not say nothing. 'E ain't +the sort that's got much to say in an argument. 'E belongs to the +crowd that 'angs about at the back, and does the shouting. But there +was another of 'em, a young fellow as I feels sorry for, with a wife +and three small children, who 'asn't 'ad much luck for the last six +months; and that through no fault of 'is own, I should say, from the +look of 'im. 'I was a fool,' says 'e, 'when I chucked a good +situation and went out to the war. They told me I was going to fight +for equal rights for all white men. I thought they meant that all of +us were going to 'ave a better chance, and it seemed worth making a +bit of sacrifice for, that did. I should be glad if they would give +me a job in their mines that would enable me to feed my wife and +children. That's all I ask them for!'" + +"It is a difficult problem, Mrs. Wilkins," I said. "According to the +mine owners--" + +"Ah," said Mrs. Wilkins. "They don't seem to be exactly what you'd +call popular, them mine owners, do they? Daresay they're not as bad +as they're painted." + +"Some people, Mrs. Wilkins," I said, "paint them very black. There +are those who hold that the South African mine-owner is not a man at +all, but a kind of pantomime demon. You take Goliath, the whale that +swallowed Jonah, a selection from the least respectable citizens of +Sodom and Gomorrah at their worst, Bluebeard, Bloody Queen Mary, Guy +Fawkes, and the sea-serpent--or, rather, you take the most +objectionable attributes of all these various personages, and mix +them up together. The result is the South African mine-owner, a +monster who would willingly promote a company for the putting on the +market of a new meat extract, prepared exclusively from new-born +infants, provided the scheme promised a fair and reasonable +opportunity of fleecing the widow and orphan." + +"I've 'eard they're a bad lot," said Mrs. Wilkins. "But we're most +of us that, if we listen to what other people say about us." + +"Quite so, Mrs. Wilkins," I agreed. "One never arrives at the truth +by listening to one side only. On the other hand, for example, there +are those who stoutly maintain that the South African mine-owner is a +kind of spiritual creature, all heart and sentiment, who, against his +own will, has been, so to speak, dumped down upon this earth as the +result of over-production up above of the higher class of archangel. +The stock of archangels of superior finish exceeds the heavenly +demand; the surplus has been dropped down into South Africa and has +taken to mine owning. It is not that these celestial visitors of +German sounding nomenclature care themselves about the gold. Their +only desire is, during this earthly pilgrimage of theirs, to benefit +the human race. Nothing can be obtained in this world without money- +-" + +"That's true," said Mrs. Wilkins, with a sigh. + +"For gold, everything can be obtained. The aim of the mine-owning +archangel is to provide the world with gold. Why should the world +trouble to grow things and make things? 'Let us,' say these +archangels, temporarily dwelling in South Africa, 'dig up and +distribute to the world plenty of gold, then the world can buy +whatever it wants, and be happy.' + +"There may be a flaw in the argument, Mrs. Wilkins," I allowed. "I +am not presenting it to you as the last word upon the subject. I am +merely quoting the view of the South African mine-owner, feeling +himself a much misunderstood benefactor of mankind." + +"I expect," said Mrs. Wilkins, "they are just the ordinary sort of +Christian, like the rest of us, anxious to do the best they can for +themselves, and not too particular as to doing other people in the +process." + +"I am inclined to think, Mrs. Wilkins," I said, "that you are not +very far from the truth. A friend of mine, a year ago, was very +bitter on this subject of Chinese cheap labour. A little later there +died a distant relative of his who left him twenty thousand South +African mining shares. He thinks now that to object to the Chinese +is narrow-minded, illiberal, and against all religious teaching. He +has bought an abridged edition of Confucius, and tells me that there +is much that is ennobling in Chinese morality. Indeed, I gather from +him that the introduction of the Chinese into South Africa will be +the saving of that country. The noble Chinese will afford an object +lesson to the poor white man, displaying to him the virtues of +sobriety, thrift, and humility. I also gather that it will be of +inestimable benefit to the noble Chinee himself. The Christian +missionary will get hold of him in bulk, so to speak, and imbue him +with the higher theology. It appears to be one of those rare cases +where everybody is benefited at the expense of nobody. It is always +a pity to let these rare opportunities slip by." + +"Well," said Mrs. Wilkins, "I've nothin' to say agen the Chinaman, as +a Chinaman. As to 'is being a 'eathen, well, throwin' stones at a +church, as the sayin' is, don't make a Christian of you. There's +Christians I've met as couldn't do themselves much 'arm by changing +their religion; and as to cleanliness, well, I've never met but one, +and 'e was a washerwoman, and I'd rather 'ave sat next to 'im in a +third-class carriage on a Bank 'Oliday than next to some of 'em. + +"Seems to me," continued Mrs. Wilkins, "we've got into the 'abit of +talkin' a bit too much about other people's dirt. The London +atmosphere ain't nat'rally a dry-cleanin' process in itself, but +there's a goodish few as seem to think it is. One comes across +Freeborn Britons 'ere and there as I'd be sorry to scrub clean for a +shillin' and find my own soap." + +"It is a universal failing, Mrs. Wilkins," I explained. "If you talk +to a travelled Frenchman, he contrasts to his own satisfaction the +Paris ouvrier in his blue blouse with the appearance of the London +labourer." + +"I daresay they're all right according to their lights," said Mrs. +Wilkins, "but it does seem a bit wrong that if our own chaps are +willin' and anxious to work, after all they've done, too, in the way +of getting the mines for us, they shouldn't be allowed the job." + +"Again, Mrs. Wilkins, it is difficult to arrive at a just +conclusion," I said. "The mine-owner, according to his enemies, +hates the British workman with the natural instinct that evil +creatures feel towards the noble and virtuous. He will go to trouble +and expense merely to spite the British workman, to keep him out of +South Africa. According to his friends, the mine-owner sets his face +against the idea of white labour for two reasons. First and +foremost, it is not nice work; the mine-owner hates the thought of +his beloved white brother toiling in the mines. It is not right that +the noble white man should demean himself by such work. Secondly, +white labour is too expensive. If for digging gold men had to be +paid anything like the same prices they are paid for digging coal, +the mines could not be worked. The world would lose the gold that +the mine-owner is anxious to bestow upon it. + +"The mine-owner, following his own inclinations, would take a little +farm, grow potatoes, and live a beautiful life--perhaps write a +little poetry. A slave to sense of duty, he is chained to the +philanthropic work of gold-mining. If we hamper him and worry him +the danger is that he will get angry with us--possibly he will order +his fiery chariot and return to where he came from." + +"Well, 'e can't take the gold with him, wherever 'e goes to?" argued +Mrs. Wilkins. + +"You talk, Mrs. Wilkins," I said, "as if the gold were of more value +to the world than is the mine-owner." + +"Well, isn't it?" demanded Mrs. Wilkins. + +"It's a new idea, Mrs. Wilkins," I answered; "it wants thinking out." + + + +HOW TO SOLVE THE SERVANT PROBLEM. + + + +"I am glad to see, Mrs. Wilkins," I said, "that the Women's Domestic +Guild of America has succeeded in solving the servant girl problem-- +none too soon, one might almost say." + +"Ah," said Mrs. Wilkins, as she took the cover off the bacon and gave +an extra polish to the mustard-pot with her apron, "they are clever +people over there; leastways, so I've always 'eard." + +"This, their latest, Mrs. Wilkins," I said, "I am inclined to regard +as their greatest triumph. My hope is that the Women's Domestic +Guild of America, when it has finished with the United States and +Canada, will, perhaps, see its way to establishing a branch in +England. There are ladies of my acquaintance who would welcome, I +feel sure, any really satisfactory solution of the problem." + +"Well, good luck to it, is all I say," responded Mrs. Wilkins, "and +if it makes all the gals contented with their places, and all the +mistresses satisfied with what they've got and 'appy in their minds, +why, God bless it, say I." + +"The mistake hitherto," I said, "from what I read, appears to have +been that the right servant was not sent to the right place. What +the Women's Domestic Guild of America proposes to do is to find the +right servant for the right place. You see the difference, don't +you, Mrs. Wilkins?" + +"That's the secret," agreed Mrs. Wilkins. They don't anticipate any +difficulty in getting the right sort of gal, I take it?" + +"I gather not, Mrs. Wilkins," I replied. + +Mrs. Wilkins is of a pessimistic turn of mind. + +"I am not so sure about it," she said; "the Almighty don't seem to +'ave made too many of that sort. Unless these American ladies that +you speak of are going to start a factory of their own. I am afraid +there is disappointment in store for them." + +"Don't throw cold water on the idea before it is fairly started, Mrs. +Wilkins," I pleaded. + +"Well, sir," said Mrs. Wilkins, "I 'ave been a gal myself in service; +and in my time I've 'ad a few mistresses of my own, and I've 'eard a +good deal about others. There are ladies and ladies, as you may +know, sir, and some of them, if they aren't exactly angels, are about +as near to it as can be looked for in this climate, and they are not +the ones that do most of the complaining. But, as for the average +mistress--well it ain't a gal she wants, it's a plaster image, +without any natural innards--a sort of thing as ain't 'uman, and +ain't to be found in 'uman nature. And then she'd grumble at it, if +it didn't 'appen to be able to be in two places at once." + +"You fear that the standard for that 'right girl' is likely to be set +a trifle too high Mrs. Wilkins," I suggested. + +"That 'right gal,' according to the notions of some of 'em," retorted +Mrs. Wilkins, "'er place ain't down 'ere among us mere mortals; 'er +place is up in 'eaven with a 'arp and a golden crown. There's my +niece, Emma, I don't say she is a saint, but a better 'earted, 'arder +working gal, at twenty pounds a year, you don't expect to find, +unless maybe you're a natural born fool that can't 'elp yourself. +She wanted a place. She 'ad been 'ome for nearly six months, nursing +'er old father, as 'ad been down all the winter with rheumatic fever; +and 'ard-put to it she was for a few clothes. You 'ear 'em talk +about gals as insists on an hour a day for practising the piano, and +the right to invite their young man to spend the evening with them in +the drawing-room. Perhaps it is meant to be funny; I ain't come +across that type of gal myself, outside the pictures in the comic +papers; and I'll never believe, till I see 'er myself, that anybody +else 'as. They sent 'er from the registry office to a lady at +Clapton. + +"'I 'ope you are good at getting up early in the morning?' says the +lady, 'I like a gal as rises cheerfully to 'er work.' + +"'Well, ma'am,' says Emma, 'I can't say as I've got a passion for it. +But it's one of those things that 'as to be done, and I guess I've +learnt the trick.' + +"'I'm a great believer in early rising,' says my lady; 'in the +morning, one is always fresher for one's work; my 'usband and the +younger children breakfast at 'arf past seven; myself and my eldest +daughter 'ave our breakfest in bed at eight.' + +'That'll be all right, ma'am,' says Emma. + +"'And I 'ope,' says the lady, 'you are of an amiable disposition. +Some gals when you ring the bell come up looking so disagreeable, one +almost wishes one didn't want them.' + +"'Well, it ain't a thing,' explains Emma, 'as makes you want to burst +out laughing, 'earing the bell go off for the twentieth time, and +'aving suddenly to put down your work at, perhaps, a critical moment. +Some ladies don't seem able to reach down their 'at for themselves.' + +"'I 'ope you are not impertinent,' says the lady; 'if there's one +thing that I object to in a servant it is impertinence.' + +"'We none of us like being answered back,' says Emma, 'more +particularly when we are in the wrong. But I know my place ma'am, +and I shan't give you no lip. It always leads to less trouble, I +find, keeping your mouth shut, rather than opening it.' + +"'Are you fond of children,' asks my lady. + +"'It depends upon the children,' says Emma; 'there are some I 'ave +'ad to do with as made the day seem pleasanter, and I've come across +others as I could 'ave parted from at any moment without tears.' + +"'I like a gal,' says the lady, 'who is naturally fond of children, +it shows a good character.' + +"'How many of them are there?' says Emma. + +"'Four of them,' answers my lady, 'but you won't 'ave much to do +except with the two youngest. The great thing with young children is +to surround them with good examples. Are you a Christian?' asks my +lady. + +"'That's what I'm generally called,' says Emma. + +"'Every other Sunday evening out is my rule,' says the lady, 'but of +course I shall expect you to go to church.' + +"'Do you mean in my time, ma'am,' says Emma, 'or in yours.' + +"'I mean on your evening of course,' says my lady. ''Ow else could +you go?' + +"'Well, ma'am,' says Emma, 'I like to see my people now and then.' + +"'There are better things,' says my lady, 'than seeing what you call +your people, and I should not care to take a girl into my 'ouse as +put 'er pleasure before 'er religion. You are not engaged, I 'ope?' + +"'Walking out, ma'am, do you mean?' says Emma. 'No, ma'am, there is +nobody I've got in my mind--not just at present.' + +"'I never will take a gal,' explains my lady, 'who is engaged. I +find it distracts 'er attention from 'er work. And I must insist if +you come to me,' continues my lady, 'that you get yourself another +'at and jacket. If there is one thing I object to in a servant it is +a disposition to cheap finery.' + +"'Er own daughter was sitting there beside 'er with 'alf a dozen +silver bangles on 'er wrist, and a sort of thing 'anging around 'er +neck, as, 'ad it been real, would 'ave been worth perhaps a thousand +pounds. But Emma wanted a job, so she kept 'er thoughts to 'erself. + +"'I can put these things by and get myself something else,' she says, +'if you don't mind, ma'am, advancing me something out of my first +three months' wages. I'm afraid my account at the bank is a bit +overdrawn.' + +"The lady whispered something to 'er daughter. 'I am afraid, on +thinking it over,' she says, 'that you won't suit, after all. You +don't look serious enough. I feel sure, from the way you do your +'air,' says my lady, 'there's a frivolous side to your nature.' + +"So Emma came away, and was not, on the whole, too sorry." + +"But do they get servants to come to them, this type of mistress, do +you think, Mrs. Wilkins?" I asked. + +"They get them all right," said Mrs. Wilkins, "and if it's a decent +gal, it makes a bad gal of 'er, that ever afterwards looks upon every +mistress as 'er enemy, and acts accordingly. And if she ain't a +naturally good gal, it makes 'er worse, and then you 'ear what awful +things gals are. I don't say it's an easy problem," continued Mrs. +Wilkins, "it's just like marriages. The good mistress gets 'old of +the bad servant, and the bad mistress, as often as not is lucky." + +"But how is it," I argued, "that in hotels, for instance, the service +is excellent, and the girls, generally speaking, seem contented? The +work is hard, and the wages not much better, if as good." + +"Ah," said Mrs. Wilkins, "you 'ave 'it the right nail on the 'ead, +there, sir. They go into the 'otels and work like niggers, knowing +that if a single thing goes wrong they will be bully-ragged and sworn +at till they don't know whether they are standing on their 'ead or +their 'eels. But they 'ave their hours; the gal knows when 'er work +is done, and when the clock strikes she is a 'uman being once again. +She 'as got that moment to look forward to all day, and it keeps 'er +going. In private service there's no moment in the day to 'ope for. +If the lady is reasonable she ain't overworked; but no 'ow can she +ever feel she is her own mistress, free to come and go, to wear 'er +bit of finery, to 'ave 'er bit of fun. She works from six in the +morning till eleven or twelve at night, and then she only goes to bed +provided she ain't wanted. She don't belong to 'erself at all; it's +that that irritates them." + +"I see your point, Mrs. Wilkins," I said, "and, of course, in a house +where two or three servants were kept some such plan might easily be +arranged. The girl who commenced work at six o'clock in the morning +might consider herself free at six o'clock in the evening. What she +did with herself, how she dressed herself in her own time, would be +her affair. What church the clerk or the workman belongs to, what +company he keeps, is no concern of the firm. In such matters, +mistresses, I am inclined to think, saddle themselves with a +responsibility for which there is no need. If the girl behaves +herself while in the house, and does her work, there the contract +ends. The mistress who thinks it her duty to combine the roles of +employer and of maiden aunt is naturally resented. The next month +the girl might change her hours from twelve to twelve, and her +fellow-servant could enjoy the six a.m. to six p.m. shift. But how +do you propose to deal, Mrs. Wilkins, with the smaller menage, that +employs only one servant?" + +"Well, sir," said Mrs. Wilkins, "it seems to me simple enough. +Ladies talk pretty about the dignity of labour, and are never tired +of pointing out why gals should prefer domestic service to all other +kinds of work. Suppose they practise what they preach. In the +'ouse, where there's only the master and the mistress, and, say a +couple of small children, let the lady take her turn. After all, +it's only her duty, same as the office or the shop is the man's. +Where, on the other 'and, there are biggish boys and gals about the +place, well it wouldn't do them any 'arm to be taught to play a +little less, and to look after themselves a little more. It's just +arranging things--that's all that's wanted." + +"You remind me of a family I once knew, Mrs. Wilkins," I said; "it +consisted of the usual father and mother, and of five sad, healthy +girls. They kept two servants--or, rather, they never kept any +servants; they lived always looking for servants, breaking their +hearts over servants, packing servants off at a moment's notice, +standing disconsolately looking after servants who had packed +themselves off at a moment's notice, wondering generally what the +world was coming too. It occurred to me at the time, that without +much trouble, they could have lived a peaceful life without servants. +The eldest girl was learning painting--and seemed unable to learn +anything else. It was poor sort of painting; she noticed it herself. +But she seemed to think that, if she talked a lot about it, and +thought of nothing else, that somehow it would all come right. The +second girl played the violin. She played it from early morning till +late evening, and friends fell away from them. There wasn't a spark +of talent in the family, but they all had a notion that a vague +longing to be admired was just the same as genius. + +"Another daughter fancied she would like to be an actress, and +screamed all day in the attic. The fourth wrote poetry on a +typewriter, and wondered why nobody seemed to want it; while the +fifth one suffered from a weird belief that smearing wood with a red- +hot sort of poker was a thing worth doing for its own sake. All of +them seemed willing enough to work, provided only that it was work of +no use to any living soul. With a little sense, and the occasional +assistance of a charwoman, they could have led a merrier life." + +"If I was giving away secrets," said Mrs. Wilkins, "I'd say to the +mistresses: 'Show yourselves able to be independent.' It's because +the gals know that the mistresses can't do without them that they +sometimes gives themselves airs." + + + +WHY WE HATE THE FOREIGNER. + + + +The advantage that the foreigner possesses over the Englishman is +that he is born good. He does not have to try to be good, as we do. +He does not have to start the New Year with the resolution to be +good, and succeed, bar accidents, in being so till the middle of +January. He is just good all the year round. When a foreigner is +told to mount or descend from a tram on the near side, it does not +occur to him that it would be humanly possible to secure egress from +or ingress to that tram from the off side. + +In Brussels once I witnessed a daring attempt by a lawless foreigner +to enter a tram from the wrong side. The gate was open: he was +standing close beside it. A line of traffic was in his way: to have +got round to the right side of that tram would have meant missing it. +He entered when the conductor was not looking, and took his seat. +The astonishment of the conductor on finding him there was immense. +How did he get there? The conductor had been watching the proper +entrance, and the man had not passed him. Later, the true +explanation suggested itself to the conductor, but for a while he +hesitated to accuse a fellow human being of such crime. + +He appealed to the passenger himself. Was his presence to be +accounted for by miracle or by sin? The passenger confessed. It was +more in sorrow than in anger that the conductor requested him at once +to leave. This tram was going to be kept respectable. The passenger +proved refractory, a halt was called, and the gendarmerie appealed +to. After the manner of policemen, they sprang, as it were, from the +ground, and formed up behind an imposing officer, whom I took to be +the sergeant. At first the sergeant could hardly believe the +conductor's statement. Even then, had the passenger asserted that he +had entered by the proper entrance, his word would have been taken. +Much easier to the foreign official mind would it have been to +believe that the conductor had been stricken with temporary +blindness, than that man born of woman would have deliberately done +anything expressly forbidden by a printed notice. + +Myself, in his case, I should have lied and got the trouble over. +But he was a proud man, or had not much sense--one of the two, and so +held fast to the truth. It was pointed out to him that he must +descend immediately and wait for the next tram. Other gendarmes were +arriving from every quarter: resistance in the circumstances seemed +hopeless. He said he would get down. He made to descend this time +by the proper gate, but that was not justice. He had mounted the +wrong side, he must alight on the wrong side. Accordingly, he was +put out amongst the traffic, after which the conductor preached a +sermon from the centre of the tram on the danger of ascents and +descents conducted from the wrong quarter. + +There is a law throughout Germany--an excellent law it is: I would +we had it in England--that nobody may scatter paper about the street. +An English military friend told me that, one day in Dresden, +unacquainted with this rule, he tore a long letter he had been +reading into some fifty fragments and threw them behind him. A +policeman stopped him and explained to him quite politely the law +upon the subject. My military friend agreed that it was a very good +law, thanked the man for his information, and said that for the +future he would bear it in mind. That, as the policeman pointed out, +would make things right enough for the future, but meanwhile it was +necessary to deal with the past--with the fifty or so pieces of paper +lying scattered about the road and pavement. + +My military friend, with a pleasant laugh, confessed he did not see +what was to be done. The policeman, more imaginative, saw a way out. +It was that my military friend should set to work and pick up those +fifty scraps of paper. He is an English General on the Retired List, +and of imposing appearance: his manner on occasion is haughty. He +did not see himself on his hands and knees in the chief street of +Dresden, in the middle of the afternoon, picking up paper. + +The German policeman himself admitted that the situation was awkward. +If the English General could not accept it there happened to be an +alternative. It was that the English General should accompany the +policeman through the streets, followed by the usual crowd, to the +nearest prison, some three miles off. It being now four o'clock in +the afternoon, they would probably find the judge departed. But the +most comfortable thing possible in prison cells should be allotted to +him, and the policeman had little doubt that the General, having paid +his fine of forty marks, would find himself a free man again in time +for lunch the following day. The general suggested hiring a boy to +pick up the paper. The policeman referred to the wording of the law, +and found that this would not be permitted. + +"I thought the matter out," my friend told me, "imagining all the +possible alternatives, including that of knocking the fellow down and +making a bolt, and came to the conclusion that his first suggestion +would, on the whole, result in the least discomfort. But I had no +idea that picking up small scraps of thin paper off greasy stones was +the business that I found it! It took me nearly ten minutes, and +afforded amusement, I calculate, to over a thousand people. But it +is a good law, mind you: all I wish is that I had known it +beforehand." + +On one occasion I accompanied an American lady to a German Opera +House. The taking-off of hats in the German Schausspielhaus is +obligatory, and again I would it were so in England. But the +American lady is accustomed to disregard rules made by mere man. She +explained to the doorkeeper that she was going to wear her hat. He, +on his side, explained to her that she was not: they were both a bit +short with one another. I took the opportunity to turn aside and buy +a programme: the fewer people there are mixed up in an argument, I +always think, the better. + +My companion explained quite frankly to the doorkeeper that it did +not matter what he said, she was not going to take any notice of him. +He did not look a talkative man at any time, and, maybe, this +announcement further discouraged him. In any case, he made no +attempt to answer. All he did was to stand in the centre of the +doorway with a far-away look in his eyes. The doorway was some four +feet wide: he was about three feet six across, and weighed about +twenty stone. As I explained, I was busy buying a programme, and +when I returned my friend had her hat in her hand, and was digging +pins into it: I think she was trying to make believe it was the +heart of the doorkeeper. She did not want to listen to the opera, +she wanted to talk all the time about that doorkeeper, but the people +round us would not even let her do that. + +She has spent three winters in Germany since then. Now when she +feels like passing through a door that is standing wide open just in +front of her, and which leads to just the place she wants to get to, +and an official shakes his head at her, and explains that she must +not, but must go up two flights of stairs and along a corridor and +down another flight of stairs, and so get to her place that way, she +apologises for her error and trots off looking ashamed of herself. + +Continental Governments have trained their citizens to perfection. +Obedience is the Continent's first law. The story that is told of a +Spanish king who was nearly drowned because the particular official +whose duty it was to dive in after Spanish kings when they tumbled +out of boats happened to be dead, and his successor had not yet been +appointed, I can quite believe. On the Continental railways if you +ride second class with a first-class ticket you render yourself +liable to imprisonment. What the penalty is for riding first with a +second-class ticket I cannot say--probably death, though a friend of +mine came very near on one occasion to finding out. + +All would have gone well with him if he had not been so darned +honest. He is one of those men who pride themselves on being honest. +I believe he takes a positive pleasure in being honest. He had +purchased a second-class ticket for a station up a mountain, but +meeting, by chance on the platform, a lady acquaintance, had gone +with her into a first-class apartment. On arriving at the journey's +end he explained to the collector what he had done, and, with his +purse in his hand, demanded to know the difference. They took him +into a room and locked the door. They wrote out his confession and +read it over to him, and made him sign it, and then they sent for a +policeman. + +The policeman cross-examined him for about a quarter of an hour. +They did not believe the story about the lady. Where was the lady? +He did not know. They searched the neighbourhood for her, but could +not find her. He suggested--what turned out to be the truth--that, +tired of loitering about the station, she had gone up the mountain. +An Anarchist outrage had occurred in the neighbouring town some +months before. The policeman suggested searching for bombs. +Fortunately, a Cook's agent, returning with a party of tourists, +arrived upon the scene, and took it upon himself to explain in +delicate language that my friend was a bit of an ass and could not +tell first class from second. It was the red cushions that had +deceived my friend: he thought it was first class, as a matter of +fact it was second class. + +Everybody breathed again. The confession was torn up amid universal +joy: and then the fool of a ticket collector wanted to know about +the lady--who must have travelled in a second-class compartment with +a first-class ticket. It looked as if a bad time were in store for +her on her return to the station. + +But the admirable representative of Cook was again equal to the +occasion. He explained that my friend was also a bit of a liar. +When he said he had travelled with this lady he was merely boasting. +He would like to have travelled with her, that was all he meant, only +his German was shaky. Joy once more entered upon the scene. My +friend's character appeared to be re-established. He was not the +abandoned wretch for whom they had taken him--only, apparently, a +wandering idiot. Such an one the German official could respect. At +the expense of such an one the German official even consented to +drink beer. + +Not only the foreign man, woman and child, but the foreign dog is +born good. In England, if you happen to be the possessor of a dog, +much of your time is taken up dragging him out of fights, quarrelling +with the possessor of the other dog as to which began it, explaining +to irate elderly ladies that he did not kill the cat, that the cat +must have died of heart disease while running across the road, +assuring disbelieving game-keepers that he is not your dog, that you +have not the faintest notion whose dog he is. With the foreign dog, +life is a peaceful proceeding. When the foreign dog sees a row, +tears spring to his eyes: he hastens on and tries to find a +policeman. When the foreign dog sees a cat in a hurry, he stands +aside to allow her to pass. They dress the foreign dog--some of +them--in a little coat, with a pocket for his handkerchief, and put +shoes on his feet. They have not given him a hat--not yet. When +they do, he will contrive by some means or another to raise it +politely when he meets a cat he thinks he knows. + +One morning, in a Continental city, I came across a disturbance--it +might be more correct to say the disturbance came across me: it +swept down upon me, enveloped me before I knew that I was in it. A +fox-terrier it was, belonging to a very young lady--it was when the +disturbance was to a certain extent over that we discovered he +belonged to this young lady. She arrived towards the end of the +disturbance, very much out of breath: she had been running for a +mile, poor girl, and shouting most of the way. When she looked round +and saw all the things that had happened, and had had other things +that she had missed explained to her, she burst into tears. An +English owner of that fox-terrier would have given one look round and +then have jumped upon the nearest tram going anywhere. But, as I +have said, the foreigner is born good. I left her giving her name +and address to seven different people. + +But it was about the dog I wished to speak more particularly. He had +commenced innocently enough, trying to catch a sparrow. Nothing +delights a sparrow more than being chased by a dog. A dozen times he +thought he had the sparrow. Then another dog had got in his way. I +don't know what they call this breed of dog, but abroad it is +popular: it has no tail and looks like a pig--when things are going +well with it. This particular specimen, when I saw him, looked more +like part of a doormat. The fox-terrier had seized it by the scruff +of the neck and had rolled it over into the gutter just in front of a +motor cycle. Its owner, a large lady, had darted out to save it, and +had collided with the motor cyclist. The large lady had been thrown +some half a dozen yards against an Italian boy carrying a tray load +of plaster images. + +I have seen a good deal of trouble in my life, but never one yet that +did not have an Italian image-vendor somehow or other mixed up in it. +Where these boys hide in times of peace is a mystery. The chance of +being upset brings them out as sunshine brings out flies. The motor +cycle had dashed into a little milk-cart and had spread it out neatly +in the middle of the tram lines. The tram traffic looked like being +stopped for a quarter of an hour; but the idea of every approaching +tram driver appeared to be that if he rang his bell with sufficient +vigor this seeming obstruction would fade away and disappear. + +In an English town all this would not have attracted much attention. +Somebody would have explained that a dog was the original cause, and +the whole series of events would have appeared ordinary and natural. +Upon these foreigners the fear descended that the Almighty, for some +reason, was angry with them. A policeman ran to catch the dog. + +The delighted dog rushed backwards, barking furiously, and tried to +throw up paving stones with its hind legs. That frightened a +nursemaid who was wheeling a perambulator, and then it was that I +entered into the proceedings. Seated on the edge of the pavement, +with a perambulator on one side of me and a howling baby on the +other, I told that dog what I thought of him. + +Forgetful that I was in a foreign land--that he might not understand +me--I told it him in English, I told it him at length, I told it very +loud and clear. He stood a yard in front of me, listening to me with +an expression of ecstatic joy I have never before or since seen +equalled on any face, human or canine. He drank it in as though it +had been music from Paradise. + +"Where have I heard that song before?" he seemed to be saying to +himself, "the old familiar language they used to talk to me when I +was young?" + +He approached nearer to me; there were almost tears in his eyes when +I had finished. + +"Say it again!" he seemed to be asking of me. "Oh! say it all over +again, the dear old English oaths and curses that in this God- +forsaken land I never hoped to hear again." + +I learnt from the young lady that he was an English-born fox-terrier. +That explained everything. The foreign dog does not do this sort of +thing. The foreigner is born good: that is why we hate him. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's of Idle Ideas in 1905, by Jerome K. Jerome + diff --git a/old/idlid10.zip b/old/idlid10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2baf585 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/idlid10.zip |